D&D Court Submissions!

That’s insane! How are you supposed to know they are casting something before they say it?

MkA7L

If it please the court, the most holy and divine high priests of dice christ past and present, and the excommunicated former baliff Jake who (in absentia) remains still unworthy. Forgive me mother (Bailiff Emily), for I have sinned. I wish to prostrate myself at the holy feet of Dice Christ. In the most recent session of my home game I was doing a contested grapple check with the other player (there's only two of us and we play over zoom) but I only rolled a 6. I had been rolling shit all night and had just decided to use a new dice for this roll and it nearly landed on a 16 before landing on the 6 so I just decided to take the 16 to make sure I won. I immedietly felt bad though so I made the other player say what they got first and even with a 6 I still would have beaten him because i have a +7 to athletics. Because of this I uncheated and just went with the 6 but I still felt bad because I was going to cheat. I turned my dice over to have the 16 up and everything. I should have just trusted dice christ. I continued rolling bad the rest of the night so I think she was punishing me. I lay my (potential) sins at the feet of the court and await absolution.

Merryn C

If it pleases the court, would present the case of the contemplated warlock-napping to Justices Iyengar, Murphy and Tanner, and Bailiff-Justice Axford. I am DMing a campaign of Tomb of Annihilation for a party that came together online from a D20 Fan Group. As the party formed, one player wanted to play a Reborn character, and we collaborated about how I could use his amnesia to tie in plot hooks, and it would be pretty engaging. A few sessions in, we lost a player due to life circumstances, and filled the slot with a friend (A) of another player(B). Great, all good so far. Now "B" asks if it's ok if they re-roll a new character, they aren't enjoying the first one they built. Sure, it's a game and games should be fun, we're not that far in anyway. I asked ahead of time that the PCs give me enough backstory to help give them a good tie in to the story, but nothing crazy long because, well, Annihilation is in the name of the campaign. Unfortunately these two came up with quite similar backstories, "I got into trouble, an evil thing helped me and then I fled and ended up here. Fast forward many sessions, and I'm weaving my Reborn players backstory in, and have tied in some lore to "A" and "B"s warlock patronage (yes they both multi-classed into warlock) and if they participate it will be an amazing story. But in the last session they missed calls for ability checks, and were not paying attention to the skill check puzzle the other players had already completed, instead needing the entire thing to be re-explained. The reborn player participates constantly and helps drive the story despite the characters lack of back story, and player 4 participates a ton as well -- so I know my DMing can't be too horrendous. Am I wrong for considering an "annihilation" of one or both of these distracted warlocks? It would be pretty easy to have a flying dinosaur person just come take them very, very far away. I await your judgement, and hope that you are not adversely swayed by my inconsistency with using letters, numbers, and race to identify my PCs.

May it please the whole juicy court This wasn't an issue at my table but it does demand resolution. I was discussing with another player the possibility of riding the Artificer - Atillerist's Eldritch Cannon, NOT mounting it, as that comes with its own rules, merely standing on an object that is capable of moving, and this other player was disputing that it shouldn't be possible. Unless your weight overcomes its strength score (the rules say treat it as tho it has a 10 in each score for checks, provides no details about carrying capacity) surely it should still be capable of movement as you stand on it, which would be awesome and tantamount to riding your gun like it was a skateboard. The only benefit this would provide would be potentially increasing your movement speed by 15 on some rounds, which hardly seems gamebreaking. I eagerly await your wise and fair verdict, the skeleton is in the mail from your last one

Summer Tribe

May it please court, the wondrous guest judge, Aabria and the bailiff of chaos, Emily: I’m in a heavy rp campaign with five players plus the dm that’s been going on regularly for the last 2 years. myself (she/her) and three of the other players are very into rping and seeking out each other for scenes. one player (he/him) who plays the rogue says that he’s more into combat, which would be perfectly valid, except that he doesn’t pay attention to anyone else’s turn in combat and takes forever on his turn deciding what to do. In general, whenever the scene isn’t about him alone he’s on his phone and only gives the other players short, non-committal replies when they try to interact with him. the dm does his best to include the rogue. this last session we were beat up from battle and taking refuge in a magic school that’s been abandoned for a thousand years in the middle of a desert. after a long rest the rogue went searching for food but given our location, there isn’t any. we don’t play gritty realism so we don’t even need to think about food. so four of the five players are all sitting in silence staring at each other as the rogue goes to different rooms and the dm has him roll investigation checks in a place where nothing has been edible for over a millennium. after several minutes of this not going anywhere, i finally speak up out-of-character and say, “can you just let him find something or not?” the other players agreed and wanted to move on since our plan was to investigate a vault the warlock found, then teleport, and go shopping so the rogue could just get food then. the dm quickly wrapped things up and moved on. the rogue went back to his phone the rest of the session. this is not the first time he’s gone off and done something completely off topic and away from the party and avoided interacting with the plot/group. I feel bad for cutting off the rogue rping, I’m afraid i’m guilty of yucking his yum, but the table was with me and had plot related things we wanted to do together as a party. Am i guilty for insisting that we move on? is the rogue guilty of not being a team player?

Rae Leo

May it please the court and the new and improved bailiff, I present the case of the Rakshasa vs Conjure Animals. I was DM-ing a party that was fighting a Rakshasa, a monster whos' main thing is that it is immune to all spells 6th level or lower. My druid had cast a third level Conjure Animals to get 2 giant eagles to carry them to the fight, and was still holding concentration so sent them to attack. I initially said that the eagles would not effect the Rakshasa as they were coming from a concentration spell, so would therefore count as a "spell". My druid made the point that the spell was just summoning them, and that the eagles themselves weren't actually the spell being concentrated on, he was just concentrating on keeping them there. In the moment I decided that was fair enough and let the eagles in on the fight. I got absolutely whomped in the fight and would have even if the eagles weren't there, but in the following years I have thought this over and still think that I was right the first time. This caused absolutely no conflict between me and my friend and has absolutely no stakes, however I am curious to hear what the court has to say on this.

May it please the justices of the court and titillate the bailiff, I have a case of Pack O’Derm, the Loxodon Grave Cleric, voiced as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. His demeanor only changed when he found a broom of flying, and his only word he could say while flying was just WHEEEEEEEE! He was the party’s only healer, as a DM controlled PC, but my wife took over as DM and I moved to this PC full time. His 24 AC and high dex frustrated my wife, until one day she critted on a high level spell and took him down. The party finished the battle and ignored my character and the death saving throws that eventually killed him (they claimed they didn’t know I was making death throws). My wife DM looked at the party and said, “what do you want to do?” And their replies were “nothing” and “loot the bodies”, after which I rolled a 1 (we were in a mystical woods, far from healers, but the sorcerer had 12 potions of healing). The sorcerer later stole my broom of flying and burned my body. I returned as Shaggy from Scooby Doo as a bard and proceeded to just play music and run away (which led to clearing a tower of baddies meant to take a month in an hour in a sort of musical montage). Now I’ve had to retire Shaggy and resume as DM, but was my cleric robbed?

My Just Justice's and Baffling Baliff, our group just finished the "Curse of Strahd" campaign. It was a great but there's one dm ruling I just can't get past. Another player (sorcerer) and I (warlock) both took took counter spell as soon as we could. Our dm shut us down every time we tried to use it. Example " the enemy casts vaporize" "Counter spell" "They already cast it you can't counter spell" No dex save or dice had been rolled. The dms reason was you have to cast counter spell before the spell is cast and you can see the caster beginning the spell. The dm never said opponents were starting to cast spells only said once they had been cast thus making counter spell unable to use. Did our dm just refuse us our counter spells or am I in the wrong?

Justin Atols

To the powerful judges and insert bailiff name here, I bring to you the case of the invisible cleric. I am a level 4 firbolg cleric. Last session our party encountered a troll, and through an unfortunate turn of events, I was left unconscious while my other party members fled. I succeeded my three death saves and awoke to find two goblins pointing their weapons at me. On my turn, I turned invisible using my bonus action (racial feature) and use my action to disengage and move my 30 ft away from the two goblins. However, my DM claimed that disengaging only applies to one enemy and the other goblin still had an attack of opportunity against me, even though I was invisible. They managed to hit me, dropping me back down to zero hit points where the DM ended the session. I beseech you, lay your judgment upon me. Was my DM right in attacking an invisible creature? Or am I in the wrong for not understanding how reactions work?

To the great and wise justices and the best bailiff next to bailiff John I bring you the case prepared spell that never came. I play a circle of stars druid in my brother's friend's campaign. Last week, in our campaign of Call to the Netherdeep. We were sneaking I to the camp of another group of adventurers . I decided to stay back and got ready from the camp 60 ft away. When initiative kicks off our warlock casts darkness and started running away from the camp towards me. I held my action to cast entangle if I saw any of the adventurers following him. By the warlocks next turn I get covered in his darkness since it was casted on an item he was holding and I have become blinded. The party of adventurers start to come out of the camp and chase after him. When it comes around to my turn the dm says that I needed to mark off a spell slot for entangle even though I couldn't cast it because my held action wasn't triggered. I asked if I had to because I never actually casted the spell since I didn't see anyone coming but he said it was rules as written that a prepared spell still uses a spell slot. After minor protest in the interest of moving things a long I mark off the spell slot but still feel like I wasted my spell slot since I never actually casted the spell. Was I cheated out of a spell slot even though our party was fine afterwards and the spell never actually went off? Or am I being a bit of a grump for thinking that my dm wanted to make my resources less damaging to give his npc's the upper hand? I await your verdict and will submit to whatever punishment awaits.

Your honourable Justices and Bailiff Amy....? I present to you the case of The Dragon Stepfather In my first dnd campaign I played as a Halfing Bard named Finnion Tosscoble who was raised on a farm, but raised in the stable with the pigs. Finnion had an affinity for animals and later in the campaign a baby Bronze Dragon named Banoot was brought into the party by Finnion. Banoot became beloved to the party and like a son to Finnion. He was with us for the majority of the campaign untill the end game when we were preparing to fight the BBEG. We found a group of ancient dragon priests who offered to take in Banoot and keep him safe. Ultimately the choice fell onto Finnion and I thought it would be safest to send Banoot with them to be taught the proper ways of his kind and wouldn't have to fight the BBEG. I have been roasted about this for almost 7 years of playing D&D by my group and Banoot even made an appearance in later campaigns obviously scorned by the choice I made as an elder dragon. I ask justices was I right in sending Banoot to be safe and with his own kind or should I be punished to the fullest extent for betraying the trust of my dragon son?

The return of Bailiff Ellie Saxlord..!?

George Rawlinson

If it would please the court and the illustrious bailiff. My partner and I are going to be starting a new campaign soon. She will be DMing and I’ll be a player. I’ve decided to play a half-giant rune knight/bard, sort of a big charismatic himbo wife that both cheerleads the party and crushes foes into paste. As a rune knight, my pc will be able to become large a number of times equal to her proficiency bonus, per long rest. When making my character sheet, I asked my dm how much a non-magic large weapon would cost. I figured it wouldn’t be too powerful considering I could only use it a few times per day. She told me that large weapons are only for monsters, and even if I do find one, I would not be able to wield it. Yes, the rules for large weapons are in the “making a monster” section of the DMG. But it just says that they are weapons intended to be wielded by larger *creatures,* not just npc monsters. (Mechanically they function as normal weapons with an extra damage dice per size above medium) As a rune knight, I can be a large creature a few times per day. I just thought it would be a fun way to bring rune knights up to the damage output of other fighters My partner is worried that the extra damage while using giants might will make my pc too powerful. We bring this case to you very capable judges. Should the big lady get to use a big sword, or is that illegal. We await out terrible punishment/minor rules ruling.