Before you all rush down to the replies to say no, let me explain :
We were doing some duels and my friend, the day before the event, had asked me if his character had hallucinations ( ghosts flying around him ), and short term memory loss. Knowing him as a crafty rule-bender, I was about to say no, but I wanted to see how it played out, and it wasn’t a campaign anyway so it couldn’t do much. The rules were simple ( lvl 20, few magic items 1 boon ). So we started. Berserker VS Ranger, we laughed, but little did we know, we wouldn’t be laughing in a few minutes. Ranger won initiative and started explaining his diabolical plan. He had taken the Oathbow, ( so an extra 3d6 with the vow, +1d8 from normal longbow ). He showed us in the PHB that he gets a class ability called volley. It reads :
You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target and you must make separate attack rolls for each target.
He went on to tell us that since his character couldn’t differentiate ghosts from actual people, he thinks they are creatures. And will thus shoot all 100 of them with an attack ( that will miss and hit his enemy ). I didn’t know what to say, so we argued for a while about if he could when I decided on a verdict : He could do that, but only hitting a few ghosts ( 8 ) and he could only do this once, this his character would then réalisé his mistake. He smiled and agreed. 8d8 +24d6 +8x5 dmg later, it was the berserkers turn, he got a few solid hits on the ranger, and ended his turn. We thought the ranger was done for until he reminded us of his short term memory loss, he then proceeded to do the same attack, murdering the beserker.
1: The Oathbow works against a single target. One enemy you chose to deal extra damage to. Thus, the barbarian would be the only one taking extra damage (Know this. If your player has an Oathbow, this is very important for balance.)
2: Volley works by using 1 arrow per target. It isn't an area of effect so even if they would "theoretically" use 100 arrows, only one would hit the barbarian, assuming they rolled an attack high enough to hit. Your ranger is playing it wrong.
3: Volley is against real creatures only. It is up to YOU the DM to dictate if the PC sees their spirits or not and if they forget. Your game. Otherwise, the conviniency is in the player's hands. It was up to you to control the game, and you failed. If this player continues this kind of behavior, you will lose control of the table. The player is twisting the rules and roleplay to "outsmart you." Prevent this from happening in the first place.
Haha absolutely not. Your player is bending harder than the Avatar, and I think they know it.
Even if you allow him to attack his imaginary ghosts with Volley (which is already a huge stretch), none of the attacks will hit the barbarian. They simply miss and do nothing.
As Walline pointed out, even if his weaponizing neurological conditions wasn't a 120% ****** Move, the rules do not work the way he posited they do. I would run that combat again, without the ranger getting a million extra attacks he doesn't deserve. Or at least annulling the result. Normally I say "what the DM says, goes", but this particular example of numbers wankery is just explicitly disgusting. Extremely bad form on the ranger's part.
Pantagruel's correct -- if you target A and miss, that doesn't mean you hit target B. Couple other things:
Volley says you need to have ammunition for each target. How much ammo did your ranger have? (Yes, probably at least 8 pieces, but we're listing caveats here)
Volley also wants a separate attack roll for each. All of those beat your Barb's AC? (even though they shouldn't have all hit)
The Oathbow only lets you have one sworn enemy, and if they die you still can't gain a new one until the next dawn. If they pick the Barb, then none of those shots aimed at hallucinatory ghosts count as targeting the sworn enemy.
Rangers are great, and with the right choices still probably could have beaten the Barb, but this scenario is not viable.
Before you all rush down to the replies to say no, let me explain :
We were doing some duels and my friend, the day before the event, had asked me if his character had hallucinations ( ghosts flying around him ), and short term memory loss. Knowing him as a crafty rule-bender, I was about to say no, but I wanted to see how it played out, and it wasn’t a campaign anyway so it couldn’t do much. The rules were simple ( lvl 20, few magic items 1 boon ). So we started. Berserker VS Ranger, we laughed, but little did we know, we wouldn’t be laughing in a few minutes. Ranger won initiative and started explaining his diabolical plan. He had taken the Oathbow, ( so an extra 3d6 with the vow, +1d8 from normal longbow ). He showed us in the PHB that he gets a class ability called volley. It reads :
You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target and you must make separate attack rolls for each target.
He went on to tell us that since his character couldn’t differentiate ghosts from actual people, he thinks they are creatures. And will thus shoot all 100 of them with an attack ( that will miss and hit his enemy ). I didn’t know what to say, so we argued for a while about if he could when I decided on a verdict : He could do that, but only hitting a few ghosts ( 8 ) and he could only do this once, this his character would then réalisé his mistake. He smiled and agreed. 8d8 +24d6 +8x5 dmg later, it was the berserkers turn, he got a few solid hits on the ranger, and ended his turn. We thought the ranger was done for until he reminded us of his short term memory loss, he then proceeded to do the same attack, murdering the beserker.
wha... we didn’t know what to do. Is it allowed?
Why would his short-term memory loss matter? To anything? I re-read your post twice and I still don't understand what possible way it could matter what he did or did not remember, except that he'd be surprised he had fewer arrows than he thought he did. The only context in which memory loss might be a buff is if you let him "forget" madness, and you didn't even describe any madness effects here.
Why would his short-term memory loss matter? To anything? I re-read your post twice and I still don't understand what possible way it could matter what he did or did not remember, except that he'd be surprised he had fewer arrows than he thought he did. The only context in which memory loss might be a buff is if you let him "forget" madness, and you didn't even describe any madness effects here.
I think that the 'idea' was that in order for the volley to work, the ranger had to believe that the phantoms were actual creatures. The DM ruled that, after seeing the volley had no effect, the Ranger would no longer have any reason to target the phantoms with the volley.
Short term memory loss made the Ranger conveniently forget that his phantoms were fake in order to justify using volley on the phantoms every turn.
Yeah... I probably should have restricted certain weapons.
I'd really recommend you reread the responses if that's what you're taking away from this. It's like a barbarian saying he has a twitchy arm so every time he attacks his arm spasms to make him attack 8 times. Oops!
This went off the rails because your player is making up like 10 houserules and you're allowing all of them. And setting aside the objections to weaponizing mental illness (which are substantial and really shouldn't be set aside), what he's describing would be absolutely debilitating if he were truly roleplaying it. He'd be permanently frightened at the least, probably permanently under the effects of Enemies Abound, and a total of zero of his missed shots should somehow manage to hit someone he wasn't even aiming at.
Before you all rush down to the replies to say no, let me explain :
We were doing some duels and my friend, the day before the event, had asked me if his character had hallucinations ( ghosts flying around him ), and short term memory loss. Knowing him as a crafty rule-bender, I was about to say no, but I wanted to see how it played out, and it wasn’t a campaign anyway so it couldn’t do much. The rules were simple ( lvl 20, few magic items 1 boon ). So we started. Berserker VS Ranger, we laughed, but little did we know, we wouldn’t be laughing in a few minutes. Ranger won initiative and started explaining his diabolical plan. He had taken the Oathbow, ( so an extra 3d6 with the vow, +1d8 from normal longbow ). He showed us in the PHB that he gets a class ability called volley. It reads :
You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target and you must make separate attack rolls for each target.
He went on to tell us that since his character couldn’t differentiate ghosts from actual people, he thinks they are creatures. And will thus shoot all 100 of them with an attack ( that will miss and hit his enemy ). I didn’t know what to say, so we argued for a while about if he could when I decided on a verdict : He could do that, but only hitting a few ghosts ( 8 ) and he could only do this once, this his character would then réalisé his mistake. He smiled and agreed. 8d8 +24d6 +8x5 dmg later, it was the berserkers turn, he got a few solid hits on the ranger, and ended his turn. We thought the ranger was done for until he reminded us of his short term memory loss, he then proceeded to do the same attack, murdering the beserker.
wha... we didn’t know what to do. Is it allowed?
Why didn't your Barbarian just say he had a forcefield? Also as the Ranger is suffering from short term memory loss as in he can't remember something for more than round (6 seconds) than I'd rule at the end of the round he forgets exactly what he's doing and why, also woulda helped if he remembered that Oathbow but whoops short term memory loss but hey he's got 100 arrows in his hands! wait those are trout! DURR SHORT TERM MEMEROY LOSS N HALLUCIATIONS! Wait you can't fly silly ranger take 200d6 as you throw yourself off a cliff hallucinating and forgeting stuff every 6 seconds
If you happen to for some dumb reason wish to entertain the player as other said he can fire all the arrows he wants only the shot at the Barb is gonna matter, than I'd give the Barb advantage on all his attacks against the ranger as his hallucinations make him to off-guard for the barbs attacks.
If on the rangers second turn he tries to attack the barbarian again I'd make him roll a d20 before attacking and only let him attack the barb on a 20, since ya know he thinks everything is real and just forgot he attacked fake ghosts and thinks hes being swarmed. Any other roll than a 20 means he fires at a ghost
Before you all rush down to the replies to say no, let me explain :
We were doing some duels and my friend, the day before the event, had asked me if his character had hallucinations ( ghosts flying around him ), and short term memory loss. Knowing him as a crafty rule-bender, I was about to say no, but I wanted to see how it played out, and it wasn’t a campaign anyway so it couldn’t do much. The rules were simple ( lvl 20, few magic items 1 boon ). So we started. Berserker VS Ranger, we laughed, but little did we know, we wouldn’t be laughing in a few minutes. Ranger won initiative and started explaining his diabolical plan. He had taken the Oathbow, ( so an extra 3d6 with the vow, +1d8 from normal longbow ). He showed us in the PHB that he gets a class ability called volley. It reads :
You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target and you must make separate attack rolls for each target.
He went on to tell us that since his character couldn’t differentiate ghosts from actual people, he thinks they are creatures. And will thus shoot all 100 of them with an attack ( that will miss and hit his enemy ). I didn’t know what to say, so we argued for a while about if he could when I decided on a verdict : He could do that, but only hitting a few ghosts ( 8 ) and he could only do this once, this his character would then réalisé his mistake. He smiled and agreed. 8d8 +24d6 +8x5 dmg later, it was the berserkers turn, he got a few solid hits on the ranger, and ended his turn. We thought the ranger was done for until he reminded us of his short term memory loss, he then proceeded to do the same attack, murdering the beserker.
wha... we didn’t know what to do. Is it allowed?
No. He is allowed to attack as many phantasms as he wants, but missing doesn't mean he hits any other target.
No. There are many things wrong here.
1: The Oathbow works against a single target. One enemy you chose to deal extra damage to. Thus, the barbarian would be the only one taking extra damage (Know this. If your player has an Oathbow, this is very important for balance.)
2: Volley works by using 1 arrow per target. It isn't an area of effect so even if they would "theoretically" use 100 arrows, only one would hit the barbarian, assuming they rolled an attack high enough to hit. Your ranger is playing it wrong.
3: Volley is against real creatures only. It is up to YOU the DM to dictate if the PC sees their spirits or not and if they forget. Your game. Otherwise, the conviniency is in the player's hands. It was up to you to control the game, and you failed. If this player continues this kind of behavior, you will lose control of the table. The player is twisting the rules and roleplay to "outsmart you." Prevent this from happening in the first place.
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Haha absolutely not. Your player is bending harder than the Avatar, and I think they know it.
Even if you allow him to attack his imaginary ghosts with Volley (which is already a huge stretch), none of the attacks will hit the barbarian. They simply miss and do nothing.
Your ranger is a slimeball.
As Walline pointed out, even if his weaponizing neurological conditions wasn't a 120% ****** Move, the rules do not work the way he posited they do. I would run that combat again, without the ranger getting a million extra attacks he doesn't deserve. Or at least annulling the result. Normally I say "what the DM says, goes", but this particular example of numbers wankery is just explicitly disgusting. Extremely bad form on the ranger's part.
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Pantagruel's correct -- if you target A and miss, that doesn't mean you hit target B. Couple other things:
Rangers are great, and with the right choices still probably could have beaten the Barb, but this scenario is not viable.
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Why would his short-term memory loss matter? To anything? I re-read your post twice and I still don't understand what possible way it could matter what he did or did not remember, except that he'd be surprised he had fewer arrows than he thought he did. The only context in which memory loss might be a buff is if you let him "forget" madness, and you didn't even describe any madness effects here.
Yeah... I probably should have restricted certain weapons.
but thanks for all the advice though!
Imagined phantasms are not creatures. Only creatures count.
Also, as was pointed out, a miss of target A does not hit target B. You don't even get a roll against B. A miss against A, is just a miss, period.
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I think that the 'idea' was that in order for the volley to work, the ranger had to believe that the phantoms were actual creatures. The DM ruled that, after seeing the volley had no effect, the Ranger would no longer have any reason to target the phantoms with the volley.
Short term memory loss made the Ranger conveniently forget that his phantoms were fake in order to justify using volley on the phantoms every turn.
Maybe, but the oathbow isn't really a problem here I'd say.
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I'd really recommend you reread the responses if that's what you're taking away from this. It's like a barbarian saying he has a twitchy arm so every time he attacks his arm spasms to make him attack 8 times. Oops!
This went off the rails because your player is making up like 10 houserules and you're allowing all of them. And setting aside the objections to weaponizing mental illness (which are substantial and really shouldn't be set aside), what he's describing would be absolutely debilitating if he were truly roleplaying it. He'd be permanently frightened at the least, probably permanently under the effects of Enemies Abound, and a total of zero of his missed shots should somehow manage to hit someone he wasn't even aiming at.
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
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Why didn't your Barbarian just say he had a forcefield? Also as the Ranger is suffering from short term memory loss as in he can't remember something for more than round (6 seconds) than I'd rule at the end of the round he forgets exactly what he's doing and why, also woulda helped if he remembered that Oathbow but whoops short term memory loss but hey he's got 100 arrows in his hands! wait those are trout! DURR SHORT TERM MEMEROY LOSS N HALLUCIATIONS! Wait you can't fly silly ranger take 200d6 as you throw yourself off a cliff hallucinating and forgeting stuff every 6 seconds
If you happen to for some dumb reason wish to entertain the player as other said he can fire all the arrows he wants only the shot at the Barb is gonna matter, than I'd give the Barb advantage on all his attacks against the ranger as his hallucinations make him to off-guard for the barbs attacks.
If on the rangers second turn he tries to attack the barbarian again I'd make him roll a d20 before attacking and only let him attack the barb on a 20, since ya know he thinks everything is real and just forgot he attacked fake ghosts and thinks hes being swarmed. Any other roll than a 20 means he fires at a ghost
This is so bad that it is hilarious. Tell the ranger to go sling his hook and play at someone else's game.