When did you realize DnD was shit?

more like
>lets be honest about what the game is about
>I CAN'T SOLVE PROBLEMS AS A WIZARD IN 6 SECONDS REEEEEEE

a good dm can make a shit system livable
doesn't mean you should use a shit system

>Being impaled on a giant scorpion's sting and injected with a deadly weapon or being munched on by a purple worm just reduces your vigor will to fight, dude.

DnD would be greatly improved the day it stops being schizophrenic and admits that it is a superhero game where characters can easily take enough physical punishment to kill several normal men.

Characters start being superhuman around level 6 and are completely superhuman by level 20. This is recognized in the logic of the game. 99.99% of people never make it past level 5.

>Being impaled on a giant scorpion's sting and injected with a deadly weapon or being munched on by a purple worm just reduces your vigor will to fight, dude.

If you have enough HP to survive those attacks you obviously don't describe them like attacks that can't be survived.

Are you really this stupid?

I agree with your general point. D&D should really decide what kind of game it wants to be.

I am fine with abstraction though. And in that example, maybe that giant scorpion just smashed the adventurer's shield and threw him off-balance. And maybe the purple worm did get an adventurer's leg in between it's jaws, but the adventurer managed to pull most of it back out in the last possible moment. A little imagination fills these logical holes quite easily.

And OP has no hope of ever finding a good system with methods like rolling for intimidation when the player's are in complete control, making them fight it out with a restrained prisoner they are killing, and managing to lose a fight to a bunch of low level PCs when he can one-shot any of them as a Drow Elite Guard (deals 17 damage and makes 2 attacks, max barb HP is 15). There's such a series of bad choices there that no rules would fix.

>lets be honest about what the game is about

DnD was about solving problems as a wizard in 6 (or other small number of) seconds ever since Mordenkainen and Bibgy debuted as PCs at Gygax' own table.

4E's problem was exactly in the fact that its creators either were dishonest with themselves regarding what DnD is about (a hint: low-powered gritty adventures are better handled by approximately a million of other systems, such as Iron Throne, so most people playing DnD do so because they want to play high fantasy with crazy powers out of the ass), or were mislead by reading CharOp boards and failing to properly parse those.

>if you ignore its rules DnD is as good as the other games (if you also ignore their rules)
A good GM knows what to improvise and adapt rules to the taste of their players and their needs. But this doesn't make DnD a good game.

>describe

Grab and poison are distinct mechanical effects.

4e failed because it felt like playing with nerf swords - even more so than 5e. There is a reason it's fans talk about MM3 math.

Literally retarded mate. If the scorpion has 'grabbed' you with the stinger and it doesn't kill the player, you don't say it's impaled them, you say it's jammed it in their armour

Stop playing shit games m8

"Impaled on a stinger" and "munched", however, are not.

You could have easily said "the scorpion's stinger grazes you, a minor amount of poison entering you through the shallow wound" and "the purple worm tries to bite down on you, but your armor holds/you eke out some space with your weapon"

But no.

You decided you go with the one that upsets you the most. As if you were looking to be offended.

OP here, the person I let roll for intimidation was a half orc proficient in it with advantage, he rolled a 2 and a 3, the rogue got to do 4x damage, the party got a surprise round with all 6 of them plus the 8 combatant prisoners. Once a PC got downed the drow ignored them since he'd have to take a turn to finish them off.

You are being intentionally thick if you can't accept that a giant worm swallowing you whole and digesting you is a trope and you are protected by plot armor.

And as far as a sting poisoning you, it's less dramatic than "implaled" to say you get caught by the stinger and immediately feel the effects of the venom.

>so most people playing DnD do so because they want to play high fantasy with crazy powers out of the ass

So, 4e?

The edition where a thief can literally stole the color from your eyes?

I realized that DnD was shit a few months ago.

>tfw the lowliest peasant with average strenght breaks free of the buff barbarian's headlock because he rolled a little better
>tfw the druid can't track anything in the middle of the woods, with clear sky and perfect weather: all conditions are perfect for following tracks, but she rolled shit so can't find anything
>tfw a peasant with no skill can track better than the guy who is supposed to be specialized in it
>tfw a sailor who rows a boat has a 40% chance of getting beaten by a peasant who never was in a boat before in their life

Well... at least it can still be fun with the right guys.

Yeah, you are bad at DMing, and you should feel bad. Nothing to do with the rules, you made bad choices that detracted from the enioyment of the game.

Next time don't roll when your consequence is "I guess you fight now, but I'm letting you deal bonus damage and I'll take it easy on you."

>follow rules to the letter
>bruh follow the rules, stop making shit decisions

I opened a book, and there were charts for useless shit everywhere.

Well all of those are just cases of "you rolled when clearly you shouldn't have".

This.

You literally didn't follow the rules, you are just so bad at D&D that you have convinced yourself you have followed the rules. Go ahead, quote any source that you should be rolling for every single situation regardless of risk.

>implying there was no risk in the situation
>when there's a meatbag with 71 health that can oneshot people when he gets free

>when he gets free
Did he get free? If not, how did he resist getting his throat cut?

I'll just quote myself again because you are retarded:
>Next time don't roll when your consequence is "I guess you fight now, but I'm letting you deal bonus damage and I'll take it easy on you."

You chose to DM poorly, and then blame the game for your faults. A different, better system is not going to fix your inability to make an enjoyable campaign.

When the rogue tried to cut his throat she rolled somewhere around 10 damage, which wasn't nearly enough, so I described it drawing blood but not cutting the jugular, rolled acrobatics to get out of the grapple, told them to roll initiative

>they try to interrogate him while the rogue has a shortsword to his throat and botch the rolls, so he won't tell them anything
>they decide to kill him
>10 rounds later he's dead

They had a sword to his unprotected throat, and you still made them roll attacks and damage round-by-round?

Just put the books and the dice down, user. You're clearly not cut out for this.

>but... but... I have the rogue 4x damage and he rolled 10 total!

Okay, so the rogue slipped with the knife because the guy struggled. He got free and they fought, with their opponent at a 10 hp disadvantage. I fail to see the problem.

Idk man, I run 4e and it works pretty much as intended.

What's even worse is that he fought to the death and didn't have the guard raise the alarm. Now that's a consequence for a series of poor dice rolls.

The book even sets the stage for the party to dive out of this fortress into spider webs below to escape, so this fight with the guard is just about the least interesting option of any possible outcome.

My problem is that the only real reason it was a """hard""" encounter was because he had inflated health and high damage, he couldn't run cause he was surrounded, the pcs all had shortswords and daggers so they're just sitting there plinking away at this dude.

He couldn't raise the alarm since noone else was close enough to hear him (or the fighting) since there's a loud ass waterfall and preoccupied with the vrocks or whatever the fuck it was

There is this strange action available in 5e called "Disengage." Try reading the actions available to creatures, the game is designed with rules to help you be less shit at running a game.

Well yeah, combat in 5e is an issue. People keep saying that 5e combat is actually really engaging but I just don't see it. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

I'm just saying the system is not inherently broken, as it can easily be used to represent any situation that may arise with sufficient accuracy.

>he's surrounded by 14 enemies
>DISENGAGE MAN

Yeah I'm with you, OP is a horrible DM that puts the blame on the system and not himself.
If this is how he is going to act on everything then he will be a shit GM in almost whatever system unless it's a rule light one such as Apocalypse World or fate.

Pretty sure it works by RAW.

Also, doesn't he have racial sphere of darkness? If they are all gangbanging him, he could have just cast it centered on himself and walk out.

>I didn't do anything wrong, uh... I just chose there to be a vrock invasion... and I... uh... made it impossible for the drow to hear anything in their tiny fortress because all of the... uh... waterfall noises!
Some people know the game and the module you are running. We all know how shit you are at running it. It's OK, you can just admit it and improve for next time.

>Surrounded by 14 enemies
>Yeah sure let's follow the rules to the letter and roll attacks for fifteen combatants until the one guy in the middle runs out of HP.

If the fight isn't engaging or fun, just skip to the obvious outcome. 13 guys pile on the enemy and pin him down while guy 14 stabs him in the brain.

He can't walk through occupied squares

He'd be waaay more terrible in those.

A bad GM with PbtAs is a fucking death sentence to fun.

I can imagine him going "but the rules say I HAVE to put someone on the spot! So an Ogre materializes out of thin air and punches you in the face for failing the knowledge roll!"

After the fight I told the group
"Yeah sorry for that, I'm going to stop running this and look for something else. Session cancelled. Hey buddy, next week you DM while I look for a different system."
paraphrasing but that's the gist of it

Nah, since he doesn't read rules he would be even worse at a game like Apocalypse World. OP would probably make Dread characters pull a block to tie their shoes. His only hope is to turn their RPG night into a board game night or get better at GMing.

>fight points
>meat points
So what's the difference? In both cases you just fit on until the points are gone and then you're dead (will soon be dead at least).

Are you really dumb enough to use HP as "you literally need to stab this person 17 times before they die" instead of an abstract value of survivability?

>one of the suggested chances of escape are the demons flying in
>one of the first entries is that there's a waterfall making constant noise
>OP you're making shit up

If you're this inflexible about running your games, another system isn't going to help you.

I mean, an enemy can be made challenging in other ways than having high HP. Dude can be hard to hit and/or have great offensive powers.

So you literally arranged a battlemap with 14 people in a square around the guy, and are defending this?

There are a few differences:

1) 0 hp means incapacitated. It does not have to mean dead, but it does mean unable to fight on.
2) If someone has been unable to fight from the get got (as in this example) the entire hp mechanic does not apply.
3) Fluff differences. For example half hp does not necessarily mean half dead, but more likely battered and bruised.

If he is tough enough that 14 people can't immediately put him down, why can't he push through these chucklefucks and just walk out of there?

I'm saying D&D is shit for encouraging shit like this, it was retarded and it ain't happening again

The rules say that grapple checks are opposed checks, you know

>what is the overrun action?
>what is bullrush?
>what is a set up that only holds water in 2 of 6 editions of D&D?
And thus we show the only retard is user.

Yes and?

We have this thread, and variations of it, every single day you maniacs.

How many times do people need to bitch about the same structured imagination game in their online echo chamber before they feel like they got their point across? At least pick something else to belly ache about for variety's sake

>make a dex user try to overrun/bullrush the strength users
okay

>The rules made me do it
I have lost all respect for you.

Hmm you have a point there with the middle thing. Incapacitated or bound or unable to fight and especially when vulnerable to a coup de grace = essentially 0 (or 1) hit point.

>In 2 of 6 editions of D&D
>he forgot you can use tumble/acrobatics to move thru people's squares
Again, user, you are a retard, and your hypothetical situation is a fucking lie that only someone who has never played D&D would believe.
Also

>you rolled when clearly you shouldn't have
Is not correct.

>I put my blade to his throat
>I get a coup de grace now, right?
How do you stop the Rogue from doing this in every combat encounter?

>It says use a demon attack as a distraction to allow the party to jump into the spider webs below, but yet your players pinned a random elite guard not dealing with the demons down isolated from the rest.
>the book literally says it provides enough white noise to prevent sound from echoing through the caves, but all checks to hear are done like normal
>and I said, "OP you suck at DMing" not that you made terrain features up. But thanks for confirming you only kinda read the manuals but pretend you know the rules and the module.

Why the bibbity bobbity FUCK are you perfectly able to recognize that the rules for overrun and bull rush won't be functional in this particular scene, but completely unable to recognize that the same applies to the entire fucking fight?

14 dudes had him surrounded and at their mercy.

>Lol let's make the rogue roll to see if he manages to kill him in one go
>He didn't, so now I guess 13 other guys just look on in slackjawed awe as the guy wriggles free
>Now it's a fight!

Grapple being an opposed check does not mean you have to roll for grapple every time you want to pick up a cup or a piece of firewood or a defenseless peasant.

Well let's see.
>I put my blade to his throat
Roll initiative and begin combat, then. He's not gonna stand there and let you do that.

This guy clearly did not begin combat when hostilities begun, therefore he was not putting up an adequate defense.

Didn't think tumble was a thing in 5e
The more you know
Figured that when you're playing an official adventure it becomes easy or as unintended when you don't follow rules, I guess I was wrong

It's not very practical unless the target is at your mercy. Solidly pinned, unconscious or otherwise not resisting.

The only thing you have proven is that you *don't* know the rules. Not even the "spirit" of the rules.

not him but i don't wanna have to do with this bending over backwards in order to shoehorn the gamist mechanics into a plausible combat narrative.

At least read the DMG.

>Pretty sure it works by RAW.
pretty sure it's retarded

and these, ladies and gentlemen, are the kind of debates that D&D inspires

Right. I know that, but since it was an official adventure I made the wrong assumption that the rules should be in play as much as possible.

That segment should really be on page one of every RPG book ever. It's so obvious but gets missed so often.

At least now you're admitting that your assumption was the issue here. Now pick the game back up, don't make the same mistake again and entertain your friends.

sure. but having a ruleset with mechanics that are plausible circumvents the regular resort to GM fiat

>there's no way to escape, he's surrounded!
>there's a rule for it in the book
>that's retarded!

>the party was forced to slowly deal damage to a meat sack for 17 rounds!
>didn't you say they had a sword to his throat? Why not coup de grace him and move on?
>the rules said I couldn't!

>Grapple being an opposed check does not mean you have to roll for grapple every time
This.
If Fezig the Giant wants to arm wrestle a little girl, you don't bother rolling.

There could not be a less true statement about a TTRPG. There are no miraculous rules out there that solve DM fiat, in fact the rules you would suggest probably encourage it more than D&D.

This. That's why I'm going to try other systems. They might all be shit, but I'm damn sure gonna pick the shit that stinks the least.

>tfw the lowliest peasant with average strenght breaks free of the buff barbarian's headlock because he rolled a little better
His muscles dare I say it. Were too big restricting his movement allowing the pencil thin peasant the slip out.
>tfw the druid can't track anything in the middle of the woods, with clear sky and perfect weather: all conditions are perfect for following tracks, but she rolled shit so can't find anything
At that point surely the take X mechanic would prevent the need for a roll
>tfw a peasant with no skill can track better than the guy who is supposed to be specialized in it
Something that happens in any system that uses any form of random resolution mechanics
>tfw a sailor who rows a boat has a 40% chance of getting beaten by a peasant who never was in a boat before in their life
Going to need some citation there, but at that point why not bring up the wizard x house cat fight after all this is d&d you should have realized it was shit a few editions ago

It's not a debate, OP literally is saying the rules for disengaging should be ignored but the rules for a fight should be followed to the letter. That's why this thread is 90% shitting on the OP, they are retarded.

He couldn't disengage cause he was surrounded, and I didn't know tumble existed before this thread

See

There's no such thing as a workable ruleset that will efficiently and plausibly handle any situation you can find yourself in.

So the DM eyeballs things and makes executive decisions to keep the game and the story flowing.

If you're looking for an RPG that won't require a DM to ever do anything besides applying the rules as written, you need to stop right now.

Pick up a board game instead.

>gonna pick the shit that stinks the least