Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 qixaqyx Apr 01, 2011 2:25:42	I have a friend who I roleplay with weekly, sometimes he DMs sometimes not, we alternate games. These are a few of the problems that have come up regarding this friend. On wands:  This person believes that since in the DMG under activating a magic wand it says you activate the wand by waving it at the targeted area and speaking a command word that any range can be applied to the spell the wand is casting.  The specific example of this is a wand of cure critical wounds. The player believes that he can be any distance from his target, wave the wand at it and the cure critical wounds spell will affect the target.  I've pointed out that below the activation instructions is the Wand Descriptions and that wands have no special characteristics and just hold spells, and that all relevant information is to be obtained from the PHB (or whatever book the spell is in) for all details regarding the spell (effect, distance, saves, etc).  Is this a correct interpretation of how using a wand works? Can I really cast cure critical wounds on someone that is hundreds of feet away? On Taking 10: This one is just irritating. Constant confusion that you cannot take 10 when there is a penalty for failure.  Will not allow taking 10 on knowledge checks, spot checks, climb checks (you are stressed that you could fall), perform checks, basically anything that could ever possibly have a negative result is believed that you can't take 10. Is there any way I can explain to him that taking 10 and allowing players to take 10 isn't going to ruin his game? On Taking 20: This one is amusing.  When he is the DM he uses the house rule nat 1 on skill checks are critical failures, and nat 20 is critical success, no problems there.  He has also house ruled that if someone takes 20 on a search, that they won't find everything they could find.. but someone say.. rolling a 2 with a +18 bonus would find more than the character taking 20 with no bonus.  I can't even begin to understand the logic he used for this one so I just kinda laughed. On taking 10 and 20: He has stated that he is not going to allow players to take 10 or 20 on skill checks ever in his next campaign. He seems to REALLY like his dice rolls. On taking a 5 foot step:  The best example here would be moving in to attack a large creature that threatens 10 feet around it in all directions.  He believes you can have your character move in to the first square the creature threatens, then make a 5 foot step to avoid the attack of opportunity from leaving a threatened square, and make an attack on the creature. The same gets applied when leaving a threatened square to move and attack a different target. I know a 5 foot step can be taken when you have used your move action to do something other than move. Is a 5 foot step a move action? Does it replace a move action? Can you make a move action, take a 5 foot step and then attack? These are the 4 most prevalent problems I have with this player/DM, there are more, and I will bring them up eventually in different threads. Oh, one more thing, is there a way to handle a player that starts an arguement every time something is "illogical" such as "Why can't Warlock be used to gain access to a prestige class that requires spontaneous arcane spellcasting?"
#2 LordOfWeasels Apr 01, 2011 11:39:16	I have a friend who I roleplay with weekly, sometimes he DMs sometimes not, we alternate games. These are a few of the problems that have come up regarding this friend. On wands:  This person believes that since in the DMG under activating a magic wand it says you activate the wand by waving it at the targeted area and speaking a command word that any range can be applied to the spell the wand is casting.  The specific example of this is a wand of cure critical wounds. The player believes that he can be any distance from his target, wave the wand at it and the cure critical wounds spell will affect the target.  I've pointed out that below the activation instructions is the Wand Descriptions and that wands have no special characteristics and just hold spells, and that all relevant information is to be obtained from the PHB (or whatever book the spell is in) for all details regarding the spell (effect, distance, saves, etc).  Is this a correct interpretation of how using a wand works? Can I really cast cure critical wounds on someone that is hundreds of feet away? On Taking 10: This one is just irritating. Constant confusion that you cannot take 10 when there is a penalty for failure.  Will not allow taking 10 on knowledge checks, spot checks, climb checks (you are stressed that you could fall), perform checks, basically anything that could ever possibly have a negative result is believed that you can't take 10. Is there any way I can explain to him that taking 10 and allowing players to take 10 isn't going to ruin his game? On Taking 20: This one is amusing.  When he is the DM he uses the house rule nat 1 on skill checks are critical failures, and nat 20 is critical success, no problems there.  He has also house ruled that if someone takes 20 on a search, that they won't find everything they could find.. but someone say.. rolling a 2 with a +18 bonus would find more than the character taking 20 with no bonus.  I can't even begin to understand the logic he used for this one so I just kinda laughed. On taking 10 and 20: He has stated that he is not going to allow players to take 10 or 20 on skill checks ever in his next campaign. He seems to REALLY like his dice rolls. On taking a 5 foot step:  The best example here would be moving in to attack a large creature that threatens 10 feet around it in all directions.  He believes you can have your character move in to the first square the creature threatens, then make a 5 foot step to avoid the attack of opportunity from leaving a threatened square, and make an attack on the creature. The same gets applied when leaving a threatened square to move and attack a different target. I know a 5 foot step can be taken when you have used your move action to do something other than move. Is a 5 foot step a move action? Does it replace a move action? Can you make a move action, take a 5 foot step and then attack? These are the 4 most prevalent problems I have with this player/DM, there are more, and I will bring them up eventually in different threads. Oh, one more thing, is there a way to handle a player that starts an arguement every time something is "illogical" such as "Why can't Warlock be used to gain access to a prestige class that requires spontaneous arcane spellcasting?" Try the D20 Rules Questions forum, lower in the list.  You're likely to find better answers from a larger pool of people there than here - this forum is mostly D&D players, who either haven't played D20 in years or never played it at all. (As someone who hasn't played D20 in years, I don't have any other answers for your questions except that last one, which is "Because Warlocks don't get Spontaneous Arcane Spellcasting.  Seriously, dude, that's how the rules WORK.")
#3 salla Apr 01, 2011 12:34:20	I have a friend who I roleplay with weekly, sometimes he DMs sometimes not, we alternate games. These are a few of the problems that have come up regarding this friend. On wands:  This person believes that since in the DMG under activating a magic wand it says you activate the wand by waving it at the targeted area and speaking a command word that any range can be applied to the spell the wand is casting.  The specific example of this is a wand of cure critical wounds. The player believes that he can be any distance from his target, wave the wand at it and the cure critical wounds spell will affect the target.  I've pointed out that below the activation instructions is the Wand Descriptions and that wands have no special characteristics and just hold spells, and that all relevant information is to be obtained from the PHB (or whatever book the spell is in) for all details regarding the spell (effect, distance, saves, etc).  Is this a correct interpretation of how using a wand works? Can I really cast cure critical wounds on someone that is hundreds of feet away? No.  The spell cast out of the wand works exactly like the spell as written in the book.  Cure Critical Wounds has a range of Touch, so you must touch the target with the wand. On Taking 10: This one is just irritating. Constant confusion that you cannot take 10 when there is a penalty for failure.  Will not allow taking 10 on knowledge checks, spot checks, climb checks (you are stressed that you could fall), perform checks, basically anything that could ever possibly have a negative result is believed that you can't take 10. Is there any way I can explain to him that taking 10 and allowing players to take 10 isn't going to ruin his game? Probably not. On Taking 20: This one is amusing.  When he is the DM he uses the house rule nat 1 on skill checks are critical failures, and nat 20 is critical success, no problems there.  He has also house ruled that if someone takes 20 on a search, that they won't find everything they could find.. but someone say.. rolling a 2 with a +18 bonus would find more than the character taking 20 with no bonus.  I can't even begin to understand the logic he used for this one so I just kinda laughed. On taking 10 and 20: He has stated that he is not going to allow players to take 10 or 20 on skill checks ever in his next campaign. He seems to REALLY like his dice rolls. Make it a point to sit and roll until you get a natural 20 every time you perform a repeatable skill or ability check, like opening locks or listening at doors. On taking a 5 foot step:  The best example here would be moving in to attack a large creature that threatens 10 feet around it in all directions.  He believes you can have your character move in to the first square the creature threatens, then make a 5 foot step to avoid the attack of opportunity from leaving a threatened square, and make an attack on the creature. The same gets applied when leaving a threatened square to move and attack a different target. I know a 5 foot step can be taken when you have used your move action to do something other than move. Is a 5 foot step a move action? Does it replace a move action? Can you make a move action, take a 5 foot step and then attack? The five foot step is not a move action, but you cannot perform the 5' step if you've done any other kind of movement during the turn.  This page: www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInComba... of the SRD gives more information.  It's about 3/4 of the way down. These are the 4 most prevalent problems I have with this player/DM, there are more, and I will bring them up eventually in different threads. Oh, one more thing, is there a way to handle a player that starts an arguement every time something is "illogical" such as "Why can't Warlock be used to gain access to a prestige class that requires spontaneous arcane spellcasting?" Warlocks don't have spontaneous arcane casting (because they don't have spells at all), so logically, the warlock should not be able to access that class.
#4 qixaqyx Apr 01, 2011 12:49:34	Thank you so  much Salla.  With the exception of the wand thing those are fantastic ideas on how to handle this person.  As for the wand conundrum, is there somewhere written in the rules that shows this?  He will not accept the SRD I have already tried pointing that out to him.  But because nowhere that I can find in the rules does it say that a spell cast from a wand functions exactly like the spell would function normally if cast by a caster, he will not believe me and insists that he can cast touch spells at range via a wand.  He also claims it's a DM call, which if a DM houserules that then I can't do anything about it, but then when I point out the obvious flaw in his logic (oh so I can cure anyone I can see with this wand no matter the distance like... 2000 feet) he says no that's taking it too far. I point out that since wands don't have a range on them they get them from the spells he just says "Show me where it says that" and I point him to the wand descriptions paragraph in the DMG and he completely ignores it.  TL DR: Where in one of the WotC approved books can I find conclusive proof that spells cast from wands function exactly like they were cast by a character?
#5 LordOfWeasels Apr 01, 2011 13:04:24	Thank you so  much Salla.  With the exception of the wand thing those are fantastic ideas on how to handle this person.  As for the wand conundrum, is there somewhere written in the rules that shows this?  He will not accept the SRD I have already tried pointing that out to him.  But because nowhere that I can find in the rules does it say that a spell cast from a wand functions exactly like the spell would function normally if cast by a caster, he will not believe me and insists that he can cast touch spells at range via a wand.  He also claims it's a DM call, which if a DM houserules that then I can't do anything about it, but then when I point out the obvious flaw in his logic (oh so I can cure anyone I can see with this wand no matter the distance like... 2000 feet) he says no that's taking it too far. I point out that since wands don't have a range on them they get them from the spells he just says "Show me where it says that" and I point him to the wand descriptions paragraph in the DMG and he completely ignores it.  TL DR: Where in one of the WotC approved books can I find conclusive proof that spells cast from wands function exactly like they were cast by a character? You've already pointed him at the bit that says wand-spells get their range, duration, effect, etc from the spell description.  That IS the place in the WotC-approved book where you find conclusive proof that spells cast from wands function exactly like they were cast by a character. If you've already pointed him at the bit that says wand-spells get their range, duration, effect, etc from the spell description and he's ignoring it, say okay, buy yourself a Wand Of Magic Missile, and have it fire off 500 missiles in a single use from a single charge.  Why?  Because if the spell doesn't take it's properties from the spell in the book, who's to say it *can't* do that?
#6 salla Apr 01, 2011 13:10:31	From the SRD: Wand Descriptions All wands are simply storage devices for spells and thus have no special descriptions. Refer to the spell descriptions for all pertinent details.   It also bears mentioning that wands are typically created at the minimum caster level for the spell they contain, thus the wand will cure 4d8+7 HP of damage, regardless of the level of the character using it.
#7 Fireclave Apr 01, 2011 13:51:40	On wands:  This person believes that since in the DMG under activating a magic wand it says you activate the wand by waving it at the targeted area and speaking a command word that any range can be applied to the spell the wand is casting.  The specific example of this is a wand of cure critical wounds. ...Is this a correct interpretation of how using a wand works? Can I really cast cure critical wounds on someone that is hundreds of feet away? Your player is wrong.  Casting a spell from a wand is just like casting a spell normally except for those differences due to using the Spell Trigger activation method; Namely, you don't require somatic nor verbal components, but must know and say the command word.  Otherwise the spell functions exactly as it normally would, including range. Using a spell from a wand, scroll, or other magic item does not change any property of the spell unless the item explicitly stats an exception. On Taking 10: This one is just irritating. Constant confusion that you cannot take 10 when there is a penalty for failure.  Will not allow taking 10 on knowledge checks, spot checks, climb checks (you are stressed that you could fall), perform checks, basically anything that could ever possibly have a negative result is believed that you can't take 10. Is there any way I can explain to him that taking 10 and allowing players to take 10 isn't going to ruin his game? Your friend seems to be confusing aspects of Taking 10 and Taking 20. You can Take 10 when there is a chance of failure.  However, you cannot Take 10 when you are distracted or threatened.  Otherwise, Take 10 is no different from a normal check. For example, you can Take 10 to climb a wall.  If your result is not high enough to allow you to climb the wall, you simply fail as if you had rolled and failed.  You can try again as normal, and either attempt to roll or use some method to increase your Climb modifier so that you succeed when you attempt to Take 10.  You could not even attempt to Take 10 to climb a wall if being shot at by kobold archers since such a situation is distracting and threatening. The "negative result is believed that you can't take 10" is probably a misunderstandin of how Take 20 works.  When you Take 20, you can't perform a skill that carries penalties for failure.  That's because Take 20 "assumes that you fail many times before succeeding."  Or in other words, if failing would prevent you from succeeding, you cannot Take 20. For example, you can't Take 20 to Appraise a gem since you would have automatically failed at doing so and, as per the skill, cannot try the check again.  You can Take 20 to search because no matter how many times you fail at searching, your failures do not prevent you from trying again and succeeding. Sometimes determining whether you can Take 20 may require some adjuration from the DM.  Taking 20 to climb a short wall shouldn't be much of an issue since the price of failure is nothing more than a bruised ego.  Taking 20 to scale a cliff-face, however, has potentially life-threatening consequences for failure. On Taking 20: This one is amusing.  When he is the DM he uses the house rule nat 1 on skill checks are critical failures, and nat 20 is critical success, no problems there.  He has also house ruled that if someone takes 20 on a search, that they won't find everything they could find.. but someone say.. rolling a 2 with a +18 bonus would find more than the character taking 20 with no bonus.  I can't even begin to understand the logic he used for this one so I just kinda laughed. I don't have much to comment on your DM's houserule other than that I wouldn't want to play under them. On taking 10 and 20: He has stated that he is not going to allow players to take 10 or 20 on skill checks ever in his next campaign. He seems to REALLY like his dice rolls. Removing the ability to Take 10 will make some tasks harder than intended since its presence is already assumed in the game's mechanics.  Perhaps you DM can't figure out how to properly include mundane tasks, so instead has decided to houserule in this nerf? That said, there is no gain at all for removing Take 20.  Taking 20 is a time-saving device.  If you are in a situation with no penalty for failure and no distractions, you will eventually roll a twenty and there is nothing to gain from constantly rolling until you do unless you really love the sound of a d20 clacking against the table.  Take 20 is the skill equivalent saying "The Next Day" when the group decides to sleep. On taking a 5 foot step:...Is a 5 foot step a move action? Does it replace a move action? Can you make a move action, take a 5 foot step and then attack? You can take a 5 foot step in addition to your other actions.  It essentially takes no action to do.  However, and this is important, "you can’t take a 5-foot step in the same round when you move any distance."  And to answer your questions in order: 1) It is not a move action.  2) It does not replace a move action because it isn't an action at all, let alone a move action.  However, since you normally cannot 5-foot step and move in the same round, your 5-foot step may be the only movement you character performs in that round.  If so, you would still have your move action to do other move-action equivalent things if you have access to such options.  3) However, no, you cannot move, 5-foot step, and attack in the same round since you cannot take a 5-foot step in the same round you move. Oh, one more thing, is there a way to handle a player that starts an arguement every time something is "illogical" such as "Why can't Warlock be used to gain access to a prestige class that requires spontaneous arcane spellcasting?" In this particular case the answer is straightforward.  The warlock simply doesn't meet the prerequisites.  This might be because the prestige class was crafted and balanced with certain classes in mind, of which the Warlock was not one of.  Or perhaps because the prestige class, that would have otherwise been a great fit for the Warlock, was written before the relatively new Warlock premiered. Of course, the DM may always allow it anyway as a houserule.  And unless there is some some potential for abuse, there would be little to lose, if anything, from allowing it.  Especially if it makes the game for fun for the Warlock's player.  Though the DM isn't obligated to allow the option. In general when resolving issues of "logic" (which is a loaded word) in D&D, its important to keep in mind that D&D is not a simulator; Its is a game system full of abstractions to facilitate fun.  And push comes to shove, "logic" takes a backseat to fun.  YMMV.
#8 qixaqyx Apr 01, 2011 21:40:48	The line from the DMG that he keeps quoting to say that it's basically only a DM call as to how wands work is: "To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area." Which is why I need something more definitive than the description text because he keeps referencing the activation rules.  Like this has come up every game session since he started having things use wands incorrectly. Everyone else in the group but one person is convinced the DM doesn't know what he's doing.  It's starting to cause more than a little friction in the group.
#9 salla Apr 01, 2011 21:47:37	The line from the DMG that he keeps quoting to say that it's basically only a DM call as to how wands work is: "To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area." Which is why I need something more definitive than the description text because he keeps referencing the activation rules.  Like this has come up every game session since he started having things use wands incorrectly. Everyone else in the group but one person is convinced the DM doesn't know what he's doing.  It's starting to cause more than a little friction in the group. We've provided all the information there is.  If your DM chooses to willfully misinterpret it, there's nothing else to be done about it.
#10 qixaqyx Apr 01, 2011 22:19:42	Awesome.  Thank you for all the help
#11 Man_in_the_Funny_Hat Apr 02, 2011 11:40:29	On wands:  This person believes that since in the DMG under activating a magic wand it says you activate the wand by waving it at the targeted area and speaking a command word that any range can be applied to the spell the wand is casting. ... I've pointed out that below the activation instructions is the Wand Descriptions and that wands have no special characteristics and just hold spells, and that all relevant information is to be obtained from the PHB (or whatever book the spell is in) for all details regarding the spell (effect, distance, saves, etc).  Is this a correct interpretation of how using a wand works? Well, there it is on p245 of the DMG.  If he simply refuses to believe it, or abide by it then he's being willfully obtuse.  If he honestly doesn't WANT it to work that way in his campaign for some unfathomable reason then it shouldn't be a matter of quoting the SRD and citing page numbers in the books - HE should be able to adequately explain his motivations and convince his players why he wants it to work so differently than the way it is PLAINLY stated in the rules and they should be willing to agree with such a radical departure.  And ignoring range limitations with a wand would be to your OVERWHELMING advantage as a player.  Yeah, he's really a fool if he doesn't see how silly his ruling is on this.   On taking 10 and 20: He has stated that he is not going to allow players to take 10 or 20 on skill checks ever in his next campaign. He seems to REALLY like his dice rolls. Well then at least his other... peculiar notions about taking 10 and taking 20 will be irrelevant.  As an Old School gamer whose preferred edition is actually houseruled 1E, even I understand that there are plenty of things about ANY version of D&D that it's just silly to mess with.  There's just no reason to alter, much less obliterate the taking 10/20 rules.  They were designed well.  They work well within the sytem they were designed for.  He should let it stand and put his personal "game re-design" efforts to areas where it actually  IMPROVES the game not just change for the sake of change.    On taking a 5 foot step:  The best example here would be moving in to attack a large creature that threatens 10 feet around it in all directions.  He believes you can have your character move in to the first square the creature threatens, then make a 5 foot step to avoid the attack of opportunity from leaving a threatened square, and make an attack on the creature. The same gets applied when leaving a threatened square to move and attack a different target. While rules on 5-foot steps weren't written well to be easy to understand there are enough places around the internet where this really very simple process in the rules is explained with as much clarity as you could possibly want.  It's not an issue that he's got these rules messed up (so many people have) but that he refuses to alter his clearly mistaken assumptions when it's explained to him.