House Rules, Rulings, and Sage Advice

[Zalabim]

That's a case where I disagree with them. They're treating helping with attacks different from how they treat helping with anything else. And that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's another 5e inconsistency.

The text can be interpreted either way. The sages picked one.

I don't know how to break this to you, but it sounds like you have a personal problem with the rules. You don't know them. At this point, that's something that's on you to solve.

the PHB is poorly organized such that it's easy to miss things, and has a ton of variant rules that should have gone in the DMG. All these years later, some people still don't know about the Variant: Skills with Different Abilities in the PHB. This is a DM call, and so many people missed it that we recently had a whole thread proposing the concept. Meanwhile, things that should be in the PHB, like the timing of reactions, are only in the DMG.

Obviously some of this is because the book isn't constructed well, physically. But many rules are there, and it reflects a bit on you as well if you're going to complain about the rules without knowing what they are after this many years. There are some things that are left to interpretation and table variation, but you're mixing in things that are just your own misunderstandings and making the issue look worse than it really is.

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I think the main point of contention is whether a ruling that contradicts RAI is a house rule, or more accurately a house ruling. Calling it that implies that it isn't the normal ruling, which in turn implies that RAI is the normal ruling.

But this also hinges on people knowing the RAI. In cases where RAI isn't stated, I think a lot of us tend to assume we know more than we do about WotC's intent.

This can absolutely be true, but there's actually a lot of questions that come up where we do have RAI answers.

It's pragmatic. As we all know, keeping up with errata is difficult by itself. Keeping your book updated with errata (choose your method) is more difficult. Keeping up with sage advice is more difficult still. Keeping your book updated with errata and sage advice...well, I'm not sure that there's even one person out there who does this. I think you would need a binder.

It's more convenient to adopt a RAW-only mindset, or RAW + errata. We either have the book in its original form, or we have some modifications but nothing too crazy. That's doable. Convenience is no minor thing.

It is not impossible to read the book, a few pages of errata in total, and the officially published Sage Advice. More importantly, if you come across something that's unclear or have a corner-case question, it's perfectly reasonable to check Sage Advice for an answer before you come to the GitP forum to complain about it, internet being internet and all.

This is why I brought up pragmatism in regards to sage advice. We might expect players to keep up with errata, but it is beyond optimistic to expect them to keep up with sage advice. If this was true in previous editions, it is more so now due to the sheer volume of tweets and SA articles.

It's not a matter of what is best, but what people will actually do. If RAI becomes the gold standard, and sage advice is RAI, then players will end up playing different versions of the game. No two players, let alone tables, will have the exact same understanding of sage advice.

Which, again, is why I wish 5e's rules had been more consistent and clear in the first place.

Same as above, really. All I'd ask is for a player to know the rules for their own character.

The most common example I've seen given: can a familiar Help with the attack action and provide advantage? Try asking a few AL DMs. I've heard yes, yes but a creature will just kill the familiar if it does, and no (which is think is the correct answer for non chain-locks, because familiars can't attack).

Familiars can take the Help action. That much is obvious. The section that starts "Alternately" and applies to "attack rolls" does not reference the earlier section in using ability checks and working together for advantage on "ability checks." Ability checks and attack rolls are different.

This is a good spot to say that most of the rules are more self-contained. For any interaction between two abilities, the answer can usually be derived by reading just those two abilities, like Help and Find Familiar. There's some exceptions, but it's usually this simple.

In 5e, no one knows how the rules work because they depend on the DM. Additionally, players have to remember what's an opportunity attack vs a reaction attack, what's reach vs 5 feet, whether X bonus action can be taken only after Y action, which spells have concentration, and the specific rules on every ability they use. Nothing is written using consistent language. As shown time and again, every ability in 5e has to be analyzed on its own.

In my experience, that makes questions easier to answer.

For proof, just look at the RAW thread. Hundreds of posts in, and it isn't even our first one. People don't agree on or fully understand the rules. I don't think that's an opinion; at this point, it's as close to fact as it can be.

It's true, but the solution is to spread knowledge, not just throw up my hands and call it impossible.

Similarly, players may take actions on their turn and reactions outside their turn. That's very clear. Some reactions occur during the trigger (protection fighting style, opportunity attacks provoked by movement) and others occur after. That isn't clear at all, because the reactions themselves don't directly say. Most of 5e's mechanics fall in the latter camp.

Reactions can take place on your own turn. Each reaction that occurs before the trigger or interrupts the triggering event says so. All reactions that can take place after the trigger do (as the word reaction implies and the DMG says outright.)

One more example: recently, I informed another poster that athletics only covers climbing, jumping, swimming, and grappling / pushing. The rules say that, but don't make it clear. He and countless other players didn't even realize it.

In the incident I recall, the poster simply didn't realize that the rules said that about athletics, but thought it was perfectly clear after reading the rule (to an irritating degree even). The problem was players not reading the rule in the first place.

That's a case where I disagree with them. They're treating helping with attacks different from how they treat helping with anything else. And that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's another 5e inconsistency.

The text can be interpreted either way. The sages picked one.

They're treating them differently because they are different. It's not a different interpretation. Working Together applies to ability checks. Working together in combat requires taking the Help action. Alternatively, you can use the Help action to give someone advantage on an attack roll. Again, just read the ability to see how it works. It isn't necessary to read the entire book to understand how Helping someone attack works.

Another one just popped up in a different thread about dominate person vs planar binding. The wording of the latter, "strives to twist your words," confused some people as to how the former works, making them think that all dominate effects produce a knowing and unwilling victim.

No, you were the only one confused there. They'd already said Dominate wouldn't be limited by that, but Planar Binding would.

Relearn the rules is not much of an exaggeration. I'm sure we can all think of a few mechanics per class with multiple rulings. Illusions, stealth (skills in general), valid uses of suggestion, great weapon fighting style and smites, assassinate and weapon cantrips,

I'm not sure I want to know what people have a problem with here.