D&D 5th Edition: the fifth edition of the discussion thread

[JoeMac307]

Right now, we have nothing. As a GM it is completely legitimate for me to say when the fighter asks to knock down the goblin warchief "No, you can't do that" or perhaps even worse "Go ahead, you have to land an attack against the goblin at -5 penalty because it's harder to really get close enough for a good push than just landing a hit. Then make a Strength check DC 20."

I just finally had a chance to run the Caves of Chaos play test with four players last night, one who was a veteran player, two who have been playing for a couple of years, and one who never played before.

As the GM, I really liberally interpretted the rule "The only limits to the actions you can take are your imagination and your ability scores."

If it was creative and fun and relatively logical, and it didn't take the challenge out of the game, I let my players try anything.

They went into the goblin cave first, and executed the chieftian right away, and then basically cowed the remaining goblins into being their "army". They then led this army into the kobold cave, and all kinds of chaos ensued, with kobolds pushing goblins into open pits, goblins defecting and running away, and PCs getting swarmed by kobolds. Unfortunately, time ran out at that point and everyone had to go home, but they sure as heck had fun along the way.

When my players wanted to try a new and interesting attack or action, I didn't make it super hard or super easy... what is the fun in that? I just tried to think of an appropriate Ability Check or Contest, and assign a DC in my head, and then run with it and see what happens.

For example, after slaying the goblin chieftian and pronouncing the Cleric of Moradin as the new goblin leader, my players took the time to speak with the goblins before just going to sleep (I assumed one or two goblins spoke Common and/or Dwarf). While talking to the goblins, one of the little monsters voiced some type of complaint, and the (neutral evil hired gun) dwarf fighter lopped his head off with his axe. The player said "I was waiting for one of those goblins to get uppity and say something... I wasn't about to go to sleep without showing them who's boss."

I thought that was funny as hell, and pretty damn smart (I was planning on slaughtering all the PCs in their sleep if possible), so I asked him to roll a Charisma check, with a +3 for his Intimidate skill and a +2 situational modifier (since he just chopped off a head). I assigned a DC 15 in my head, which he beat, so I decided that the goblins wouldn't revolt... at least not yet, and the players could safely sleep through the night. Of course I kept this to myself, but I felt it was a quick, easy and fair way to resolve whether or not the Dwarf Fighter's improvised attempt to scare the hell out of any potential rebels worked (it basically had a 55% chance to succeed, which seemed about right).

I also assigned the full 100 XP for defeating the goblin solely to the Dwarf Fighter, not only because he killed it singlehandedly, but also because it was in character (he was brought along as the nasty, no-nonsense muscle needed by the two more diplomatic-minded, yet desperate, clerics) and because the player used the Fighter to do more than just "hit the monster with the axe, again" (although it did involve murder and axes ).

My point is, if you want to try to knock down a goblin, a GM should be able to easily come up with a fast and simple way to resolve that action. There is no reason a GM should say "No, you can't do that" or give you some ridiculous penalty to hit. Where is the fun in that? How does that reward creativity and role playing? I would just make it a Strength and/or Dexterity Contest, and if you fail, there is a consequence, like the goblin gets a free swing at you or something. Does this really need to be codified?