Sudden Onset Blindness
As a gamer, I really cut my teeth on Pathfinder. It wasn’t my first love, but it was the system where I first learned to optimize. The redoubtable Treantmonk was my guru, and Zenith Games’ Comprehensive Pathfinder Guides Guide was my secret kung fu manual. Even a cursory read-through of those guides will tell you that, when it comes to picking PC races, human is almost always a top-tier choice. The bonus feat is exceptionally good, your racial stats go exactly where you want, and the “skilled” trait means you’ve always got a few extra points to throw around to flesh out your character. All things considered, that sounds like the ideal flexible adventurer. All upside, no downside. At least, that’s what I thought when I played my first wizard. I was destined for a rude reminder.
DM: “You push aside the false tomb revealing a yawning pit beneath. A cold wind rises from the hidden passage. What do you do?”
Me: “I leap down into the hole.”
DM: “Ha! You fall through blackness, and—”
Me: “Tut-tut, my good man! I cast feather fall as I go, assuring a soft landing.”
DM: “Ok then. You land safely in pitch blackness. You can hear the sounds of shuffling footsteps all around you. Roll initiative.”
And thus it was that my overpowered god-wizard spent his first round of combat casting the light spell and getting dog-piled by ghouls. Lesson learned. Just because I can see the miniatures as a player, it doesn’t mean that my character has the same luxury. The physical representation on the table is just a visual aid. The real game is going on in Imagination Land, and that strange country is chronically poorly lit.
How about you guys? Is there any game rule that you have a hard time remembering? Perhaps some situational modifier that you always seem to overlook? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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Light was definitely one of them, until my Roll20 group2 started using Dynamic Lighting. Now we all care about sight range. Dim Light is still under-represented.
I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has properly used cover. Its so easy (and practically a free action) to kick over a shelf or table and get some extra defense out of it, and yet we never remember.
It’s practically free in 5e, but in 3.X spending that all-important Move action means you can’t get your full attacks. So… hang on a minute though. Casters only need their standard actions half the time.
…
WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE!?
I’ll second that cover almost never actually seems to come up in games I’m a part of.
Not even when melee stands in front of the ranged dudes?
Especially then. I’d forgot that was even a real mechanic up until about two weeks ago.
Light rules frequently go overlooked at our table.
I actually used some Hirst Arts blocks to make a torch token that could fit around one of my party’s human PCs, slotting around the miniature’s base. Like the light/darkness rules themselves, that was quickly forgotten and discarded. :/
Light Rules can be kind of annoying if only one player has darkvision, or only one doesn’t have darkvision. Then the GM either forgets that the one guy can see in the dark, ruining any “emerging from darkness/shrouded in darkness” narration, and if only one doesn’t have darkvision then you kind of just forget they can’t see at least 30ft in the dark.
Exactly my issue. Any clever solutions for these problems?
In our Curse of Strahd game we just disallowed PC races with darkvision. It’s working great.
That a really interesting idea. I wonder if you could replace darkvision with something else so that you could keep your options open? Pathfinder Dwarves, for example, can elect to take the following:
Point Blank Shot
Nothing hurts quite as much as remembering later that the shot you fired, missing by one (as revealed by someone else hitting at a roll of one higher than you) was lacking that vital +1 to hit at less than 30′ away.
This kind of thing is why I don’t use digital character sheets. The only way I find to even kind of stay on top of conditional modifiers is to turn them on manually rather than toggling an option on a program.
Yeah but I’m a sucker for automation. So I love the spreadsheets and formulas.
Recently I sat down with some friends and made a ship building template for Ships of Skyborne, to simplify ship building for a space campaign.
That was fun to me.
But yeah, when it comes to remembering to add those little points to it…
Automation can only do so much for me.
Favored class. Luckily, pretty much every DM I’ve played with just ignored that.
That and if I had a dollar for every time I’ve said the line “Oh yeah, my warlock has DR”… *sigh*
Did your warlock multiclass into Barbarian or something?
Nah, warlocks have DR/cold iron. At least in 3.5e.
I have to pay reeeeally close attention to Bard Song when it’s up and running, otherwise it’s easy to forget…
Unless I’m the bard, in which case I basically spend every PC’s turn reminding them to add Bard Song because I know I’d forget if it were me. Same thing with wizards and Haste, everyone remembers the extra attack and movement, no one remembers the +1 to hit, AC, and reflex.
The fundamental pleasure of playing a bard is asking your buddies, “Did you remember to add the +1? Well that’s a hit then. And also, that counts as my damage. You’re welcome.” Then you bow with a flourish and disappear in a puff of smug.
“Bonuses of the same kind rarely stack, but instead use the biggest modifier of that type” is one I’m constantly forgetting exists. It’s easier to remember to add the numbers to a stat and just forget where it actually comes from, after all. I remembered the time i actually read that little blurb, and was panicked for a moment, making myself double check the sources that i was gaining my stupidly high stealth bonuses from just to make sure they were either stackible, or completely different.
Bards and barbarians. Is it competence? Is it morale? I CAN’T REMEMBER!!
On light: Running a party of all Dwarves through the Giantslayer Adventure Path campaign. Who needs light?! On the other hand, being able to throw an item with light on it or a torch more than 60 feet does help out on occasion since the limit of racial standard Darkvision is only 60 feet.
Also on light: Higher level parties and their magical light sources. A party delving into a dungeon encounter a trap – Antimagic field. All of a sudden their light sources are useless and they’re plunged into total darkness, and no spell or magic item will help them. How many of them thought to keep a torch or Sunrod in their inventories? Oh yeah, there was also a Fiendish Gray Render in there with them.
I like the way you GM!
Should have cast fly before casting light. 😛
Whenever the DM says “You hear noises, roll for initiative” as a wizard, your first goal should be “Flee then See”. lol
WHERE YOU WITH YOU FANCY ADVICE WHEN I NEEDED YOU!?
First rule of adventuring: Be able to see in the dark.
If you don’t follow the first rule of adventuring you’re going to get pin cushioned by archers you can’t see as you stand in a glowing ring that gives your position away for miles.
No humans?
Get a 2E AD&D Owl for a familiar (see in darkness as in light). Or a bat (sonar/echolocation/whatever-you-want-to-call-it out to 150′ or so). Or carry a bunch of small (throwable) stones with Continual Light cast on them (kept in a pouch) so you can ring your foes in light! Or you can drop them down dark holes before going down yourself. Share them with your party members so everyone can throw light!
Or get a Helm of Infravision/Darkvision/Whatever_Vision.
I always liked the “summon a bat” option.
“What is it, boy? An invisible stalker threw Timmy down a well?”
As a GM, I don’t generally worry about it, since one of the regular players, my nephew actually, always buys a Torch Ioun stone, just for that purpose.
Well sure, but that means the drow archers can snipe you while you can’t snipe them. It doesn’t come up every time, but when it does….
Darkvision is nice — but that inability to distinguish colour can be a problem if it means you’re missing important information… whether that’s the amusing graffiti on the wall, or the “Danger” sign warning about the dragon.
I’ve always wanted to do a “drink the blue potion” puzzle featuring dark vision. Haven’t had the opportunity though.
So there’s me, a newbie, playing D&D 5e with some friends. Choosing a Human Monk. The only one in the party without nightvision. Thinking that’s OK, he has torches. First the party suddenly decides to search a dark warehouse. Tagging along confusedly, without a torch as to not alert city guards or anyone that we’re maybe robbing someone (yes we are, but they are bad people? Monk no understand, Monk in the dark both literally and figuratively). Still OK, the wizard sets some boxes on fire when battle starts.
Then our quest leads us underground. Still OK, brandishing a torch. The DM kindly warns me that it counts as a weapon and undermines most of my neat Monk abilities. Never even thought about it. But OK, learning to juggle lightsourses (that means throw them away it the right moment and do something before the light goes away. Maybe I’ll try literally juggling one day). Being lucky that the main battle is in a lit-enough room. At the end getting a magic short sword of glowing in the dark when held by its owner, problem solved.
And then we venture underground even more. And piss off high-level NPC dudes. And have a boat chase on the underground river, and my Monk has to row when other people have more beneficial things to do, and to row he needs what? Both hands free! Yay juggling lightsourses again!
We never escaped the underground. Mostly because the adventure’s still ongoing, and it was a cool phrase to use, but it would be a fitting conclusion to a story about desperately grasping for light in these dark times.
lol. Cool to see the light/dark rules actually being enforced rather than handwaved.
I’m confused about the torch-is-a-weapon issue though. If I’m reading this right…
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Torch#content
…The torch is adventuring gear. I get that, under improvised weapons, it says that, “At the GM’s option, a character proficient with a weapon can use a similar object as if it were that weapon and use his or her proficiency bonus.” But when you’re actively not using it as a weapon but as a tool, it seems pretty harsh to declare that you lose your bonuses.
In any case, casting Light on a headband is a pretty good option for hands-free lighting. I suggest begging the local Bard/Cleric/Sorcerer/Wizard to pick up that cantrip.
Well, this seems to be a slightly controversial issue based on how you interpret Martial Arts being usable only if the chacter is unarmed or wielding monk weapons. I guess our DM joined the clan of “holding a torch makes you not unarmed even if you attack with a kick”. And maybe there’s one true ruling out there by some authority, I just didn’t find it.
Thanks for the tip anyways, I’ll try it!
Fair enough. It’s DM discretion after all. 🙂
Darkvision is handy; it explains how creatures can live and build elaborate societies in the everdark cavernous underworld, while also handwaving light issues. But it gets a little silly when basically everyone in the dungeon except the token human has darkvision; at that point, why not just go for that omnipresent glowing fungus?