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Soliciting Court Cases (Patreon)

Published:
2022-03-28 17:56:25
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hear ye, hear ye! Bailiff Jake here. Crit is soon to be in session. Please submit your (BRIEF, 1-2 paragraphs!) injustices here on this thread and we will try your case.

May Justice Be Soon Served,

Jake

Comments

emilythecoffeewench

To the righteous Crit Justices and the venerable Bailiff, I present my a case with my beloved DM's permission. At 5th level, we battled some tweens and one of them crit on my vampire party member with guiding bolt. She dropped, no death saves, taking double because it was radiant. She was also our cleric so no one could bring her back. She was eventually brought back through Frankenstein fuckery though. However! During another battle, my dm tried to kill a beloved npc but had the insta-kill rules slightly wrong. He thought you needed negative half their max HP instead of negative their total max HP. I spoke up, but my dm and the player behind the vampire disagreed. I did not think I was wrong so I looked it up, spoke up again, and sent a quote explaining the rule. It was awkward as we realized that our vampire shouldn't have died all those months ago. The npc lives on, but I feel bad correcting my dm. Should I have done that or accepted my dm's different death rules? I await your judgement.

Jackie

To my dear, lovely Supreme Court Justices and the radical, tubular, and all around solid bailiff, I have a confession/accusation/question for dice Christ. Me and my friends have two games, one where I DM and one where my buddy is the DM. In the last session of game in which I DM, the party (known as the Adventure Gang) was fighting the BBEG of the arc. I rolled 4 nat 20s in the span of 5 combat turns, almost resulting in a TPK (3 out of 5 players down) but with a clutch nat 20 from our Druid, they managed to defeat Tiamat at the cost of the pirate captain who the party felt bad for. The very next day, with the same dice, in my buddy’s campaign (known as the Adventure Mafia), I rolled 3 nat 1’s in a row in combat, almost killing my player at his meek level 2 status. I would like to apologize to dice christ for almost taking out the Adventure Gang however my players also claimed that it was the best session yet, so I would also like to ask, what gives? May it please the mighty interpreters of DC’s benevolent will to determine what action is required for more peaceful rolls in the future.

Eugene

Here ye here ye May it please the honorable justices and the more than less but not great bailiff. I have a DM versus player problem. So I have something that happened to my group and I a while ago but I just found out about the dungeons and dragons court. So my character had got killed by werewolves we are still a little bit triggered by them by the way. Before that my other player and I had used the marriage ritual to get the plus to AC and other benefits it gives. We discovered that when one person dies that is part of the ritual you can preform it again………… We just happened to have 3-4 scrolls of revivify and had a thought. We asked our dm if he would allow us to slit each other’s throats and die so we could always have the marriage ritual. I think we almost made our DM sick af he wasn’t a happy camper. Is it really that fucked up? Is it even more fucked up my friend and I had the idea at the same time. Sounds like true friendship to me.

Will Taylor

Dearest and beloved justices and jake who i like. I come to you with the case of "The forgotten reach." I am playing with a group who alternates between 2 dms all who are apart of the same group( 2 different campains respectively). While in a battle to save a baby owlbear and the parents. My charecter ( a wood elf battle master that fights with a rapier) ran around a enemy giving myself a wide birth as to not provoke a opportunity attack. As I am making my run the other dm( now player ) chimes in and says that they bad guy has reach. Causing me to take damage.  We saved the owlbear cub but couldnt save the parents. I am still salty that he called out a fellow player. Is there not some loyalty among the players ? I await your judment.

Your Good Buddy Brandon

I present the case of Re-specs, Resentment, and Zombie Healthcare. *relevant spells asterisked for carity* My first time DMing I asked my players to be sure of their choices when leveling up as I wanted to avoid a problem in previous campaigns. One player, we'll call him Beau, had a habit of changing his mind and several times asked our previous DM to "re-spec" his character, much to the chagrin of myself and our DM. Fast forward to a few months into my turn behind the screen and Beau asks me to allow some edits to take a level of rogue. After a while I acquiesced but informed him that in story he would die and be resurected with his new skills following payment at a shrine. He agreed, and was struck down the following session by and honest-to-Dice Christ nat 20. Here's the issue, the party's trigger happy Necromancer zombified Beau's corpse before the NPC Cleric I sent along could *Gentle Repose* him to prevent this, so now the healing guild's 1,000gp *Ressurection* spell won't work as it can't bring back undead. The only options are *Reincarnate* for 1,000gp (which Beau is against as it would almost certainly change his race) or *True Ressurection* for 25,000gp. Upon hearing this Beau became upset, stomped outside to hit his vape a few times and fumed silently for the remainder of the session while the rest of the party ended up giving all the money they had to cover the spell -- but he DID resurrect with his remade character. Was I too harsh? Should I have just let him remake his character? I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.

Conjure Woodland Creations

To the esteemed justices and also the bailiff, I bring to you the case of the Falling Monk. I play a multiclass Monk/Barbarian. Our party needed to traverse down a 200 ft cliffside. The party’s sorcerer could feather fall most of the party except for 1 of us down the cliff to safety. I believed that if I raged right before landing, my rage plus my negated 40 damage (monk level x 5) from Slow Fall would let me do this without taking any damage. The group wanted to watch me jump from below, so we agreed that they would land, then I would jump. At the last second, the sorcerer said that when the group lands, he turns around and also cast Feather Fall on me, while I fall. The group all jumped to say “just let her have this” and he reluctantly agreed to retcon it and not cast the spell, but still insisted that I would take damage because of the “resistances” section on page 197 of the PHB. I only ended up taking 12 points of damage (20d6 of falling was 65. 65 minus 40 from Slow Fall = 25. 25 halved from rage = 12 pts). I am still a little bit salty that the DM ended up siding with the sorcerer, and I think Rule of Cool should have prevailed in this low-stakes scenario since I still used up 1 of my 2 daily rages. I humbly await your verdict and thank you for your consideration concerning monk shenanigans.

Johnny_Johnster

I want to submit a case, but all my campaign issues have been resolved by communication and compromise between adults... #firstworlddiceproblems

Maximilien Bianchi

To the honorable justices of the crit and noble dungeon bailiff Jake. I am here to tell you the story of Nub, the pigeon Kenku, wild magic sorceror and her untimely demise. The party were negotiating with an arcanoloth who was squeezing them for magic items as a bribe to let them get passed in a dungeon. Of course, the party refused, fireballs happened and a nat 1 on a death saving throw killed our poor pigeon sorceror. My problem is, our artificer forgot she had an extra spell she could have prepared and didn't stock revivify. I ruled that Nub was dead and there was no going back. Am I a cruel DM? Should I have assumed that the artificer would have stocked revivify if she had noticed she had the option to? I feel extremely guilty. I submit myself to your ruling.

Kierstin Turnock

May it please the court and specifically Baliff Jake, I present the case of the voided portent roll. I play a divination wizard in a longtime Acquisitions Incorporated campaign. We had finally reached level 11 and I took “disintegrate” with the plan to use low portent rolls to force enemies to fail their saving throws since the spell does nothing on a success. Well, in the next boss battle, dice Christ smiled down on me and gave me a NAT ONE portent roll. I eagerly awaited my turn in the battle and finally got to use my ONLY sixth level spell slot to cast disintegrate and force the big bad to fail his saving throw using my NAT ONE portent roll. However, the DM said that the BBG rolled saving throws with advantage and that my portent roll would replace ONE of the two rolls. I argued that the party wouldn’t know that the BBG rolled with advantage and would only know the final roll and thus my portent roll should replace the final roll. My DM disagreed and said the wording of portent was confusing and proceeded to roll with advantage and took the higher roll which subsequently passed my spell save DC. I was so dejected because the DM completely nerfed my wizard’s portent ability and took away what I thought would have been a really cool move in a very difficult battle. So I ask the court, was my DM right? Do portent rolls only replace one roll of the die or do they replace the final roll? I anxiously await your judgement.

AnonymousDM

I must confess to Dice Christ. I have terminal-stage Murph disease and roll like absolute dogshit against my players so incredibly consistently that combat gets boring. So, if my god of thunder with +15 to attack rolls two ones and a two, on two back to back turns — I fudge a couple! Bc they should have hit by then! It ruins the ambiance if powerful guys never hit, and I can’t exclusively attack via saving throw. I await absolution but also? I’m right

Jake Murray

May it please the benevolent crit justices and the bologna boy bailiff, I present the case of a player with perception check trust issues. I DM a game for 4 of my friends and was running them through a bank that had been overrun but plants. In the lobby of this multi level bank the players rolled perception checks and the sorcerer roll a nat20. I had placed a tree-ant in the lobby growing out of a fountain and their stat block states they are indistinguishable from a normal tree when still. I did not mention the tree-and in the perception check. They defeated it without much issue but the sorcerer never trusts perception checks anymore. Was I too strict?

clevername

To the Benevolent Church of Dice Christ and altar boy Jake. In a recent session, me and another player both rolled a nat 20 (in our game crits are always a success) on the same check, but they are newer to the game and I didn't want to take that joy from them, so I instead treated the roll like a 19. Later that session, during a potentially deadly combat, I rolled a 19 for an attack and said I got a nat 20. Was I in the wrong? I accept any punishment that the church wishes to deliver.

Frank

To the supreme court justices and the bailiff guy. A quick one for yah. During a live show, one of the PCs rolled a perception check to find an enemy we'll call Psy. After succeeding and attacking, the other PCs were then told that they ALSO needed to roll a perception check to find Psy by the DM. Was this fair, was the DM, we'll call him, Ryan Urphy, correct in making the PCs roll perception checks after Psy was already found? He also told the first PC that he needed to WAIT to point out Psy even though he literally attacked him in the small car everyone was in. I humbly await your response. Respectfully, me and my two step.

Keanu DRAMAFACE

To the down to earth, home style Justices Murph, Emily, and Caldwell And that lil berries and cream sweet guy bailiff Jake. Do a lil skateboard trick! I present the case of Carriage of Death My PCs are in a city that has been taken over and corrupted by a gang of halfling mafia types. I’m hoping to have some Godfather/Goodfellas moments. My PCs went insane, not trying to be subtle and attacking anything in their way. In true mafia style, a carriage bomb killed their favorite NPC and a PC. Everyone was mad they couldn’t fight back. How say you honorable justices?

Eva Dellow

May it please the court, the Honorable Crit Justices and the consistently inconsistent bailiff. I present the case of hiding from Shia LaBeouf. I was invited to play in a seemingly normal Curse of Strahd inspired one-shot. Our kenku monk had been captured by an unknown assailant and we were attempting to rescue them. We found a cottage in the forest where the monster was hiding and initiated combat. I, a halfling rouge, attempted to hide after my turn, but was told that there was nowhere to hide. I fought my case but the DM refused. After rescuing the monk and we confronted the monster, who was revealed to be the 'actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf'. The pieces fell together, and the whole one shot was revealed to be an elaborate bit. However, being the killjoy I am, I felt cheated! While I understand why the DM didn't want me to use my character as I had designed her, was railroading our combat to fit the lyrics of the song justified? I humbly await your judgement.

Paul Westmore

Raddest Ladds of Naddpod, I would love to hear y'all take on the case of the people vs. Murph's home brewed spell list gift. And maybe talk about the inclusion of homebrew in games, supposed "broken" items, spells, additions to the game, and why Emily 100% should be able to play with any mechanics that she that the DM has given the okay to. And how overly aggressive rule lawyering can lead to more harm than good...

Timothy L

To the honorable judges and the other guy. My DM doesn't like when players roll their own death saves, not wanting the party to "metagame" knowing how close to death a downed player is. I pushed back pretty hard on this, not wanting to be robbed of a chance to roll my dice and wanting to be able to plan around saving myself and other players from death. He eventually relented, but continues to be unhappy about it. Was I in the wrong here for wanting this? I leave my death saves in your capable hands..

Kaylee B.

Honorable Justices and Bailiff Turkwitz, may it please the Court: I present the case of the Great Backstory Debate. I have been a firm believer that players do not have to share their entire character's backstory with the rest of the party before the campaign starts. I always talk about my backstory with the DM before I write it to make sure that what I want to do is allowed, won't break the world, and makes sense in their story. I am about to start a new campaign, and, of course, the DM knows everything, but some of the players thought it was weird that I have so far said nothing about my character's backstory (other than race, class, and a few other crunchy things) to the players. I said it wouldn't matter either way, because our characters don't know each other before the campaign starts, so even if I tell the players my entire character's backstory, the characters in the game still won't know anything. Plus, maybe I have some secrets in my backstory that I want to reveal to the players during the game. The DM agrees with me and has been telling the other players that I don't have to reveal my backstory if I don't want to, but now I feel bad because I was essentially told that it's really hard to play with me when I keep secrets like this. I ask the court, is it wrong to keep your backstory secret from the players before the campaign starts? I humbly await your judgment.

David V

To the honorable Justices and their Beef of the Week bailiff; I present to you the case of the double power word kill. For context: I’ve been playing in a campaign with my friends for over two years now. We’re at a very high level, and as such our DM has thrown harder and harder challenges at us as we’ve progressed. Included in these challenges is prolific use of the spell Power Word Kill. Personally, I’m not a fan of the spell. Especially since my DM always ONLY used it on my character. I play a sorcerer, and am by far the most frail of our party. Even at level 19, I only have 98 total HP, meaning Power Word Kill can always be used on me no matter what. He knew this, and took advantage of it every single fight. There were at least three fights where my character got killed the very first turn, before I could even do anything at all, and I had to just sit there and do nothing the rest of the fight until someone could revive me, which often wasn’t possible until after the fight was over. Eventually I got fed up with this happening and stocked counterspell to deal with these power word kills. Fast forward a few sessions, we just finished fighting a tough boss fight. I used most of my spell slots, but made sure to hold onto my 9th level specifically to counterspell power word kills. Randomly, out of nowhere after the fight, two wizard NPCs show up and give some speech about how the bad guy we just killed was just a decoy or something, and their lord was the true evil, etc etc. Then, without even being in initiative, my DM narrates that one of the wizards casts Power Word Kill on– who else, but my character. BUT! I prepared for this. Ninth level counterspell! He says “Okay. Now the other wizard casts it on you.” Having no reaction left to use, I am helpless but to die yet again. When I yelled in exasperation at how even when I prepare for the situation, I still can’t win, he rubbed it in my face further, claiming that he just outsmarted me. My question for you all: was this bullshit? Do I have a right to be pissed off at him? I humbly await your judgement.

Ben McKechnie

*** Bourne Identity Campaign *** May it please The Court and honourable bailiff/instrument of Dice Christ, I don't have a case but rather a report of how it went DMing a Bourne Identity themed campaign inspired by Emily's character idea for campaign 3! It was a lot of work at the start as I created 5 balanced characters at level 4 (so that they were badass enough to feel like Bourne). I made them all "city rangers" with different subclasses of ranger and the urban environment as their area of expertise. Between subclasses, character traits, spells, and feats I managed to craft 5 quite different characters. This actually worked really well as the players' prior dnd experience ranged from nothing to a short campaign several years ago. They were each provided with a character sheet with all of their traits and special features, but no stat modifiers. Every time they tried to use a skill they were told their modifier for that specific skill after rolling. This has led to some really funny moments where they have tried to sweet talk a guard only to find out they have -1 to charisma. They also have a few level 1 spells which are hidden in envelopes with a vague description until the first time they are used. For example, the envelope containing the Jump spell just says "something to make you more mobile". So far they have woken up with no memory on the outskirts of a city, and successfully retrieved their own identity papers from a booby trapped safety deposit box. They are now fighting hand to hand through the halls of an embassy against redactodryls - big lizards that eat secrets and spit ink - to try and discover intel on the state sponsored black ops operation they have been working for, and take it down. It's been a time consuming but incredibly fun way to introduce my friends to dnd so thank you Emily for the inspiration.

Abdeali Poonawala

Dear honorable justices and satisfactory bailiff Jake: I present the case of the sneaky monk: I play a way of shadow monk named Ray. I used two key points to cast pass without trace, which is concentration up to an hour. A few minutes into the concentration, we encountered a baby bone dragon. In the encounter, I didn't take any damage. I dealt the final blow by jumping off a roof and stabbing into the dragon, it was very cool. The issue is this: after that, my DM said that pass without trace was gone, since I attacked and was no longer concentrating. I disagreed, because I didn't take any damage and thus hadn't had to make any concentration checks. It wasn't crucial, so I didn't argue. But the question remains - should pass without trace have been maintained? I humbly accept your judgement.

Tyler Jackson

Dear honorable justices and Bailiff who really doesn’t get enough credit, I request your ruling on a matter that has not come in game yet but I would like your interpretation on the subject for future reference/conflicts. Someone online recently brought up a point about Rogues and Sneak Attack Per the language of the ability it can be used “once per turn”. It does not specify it has to be your turn, and it does not say it can only happen once per round of combat. Meaning if a rogue were able to use its reaction to make an attack on someone else’s turn and the other conditions for sneak attack were met, they could (per this persons interpretation) get multiple sneak attacks in one round of combat. I might just be late to the party but I always thought it was once per round. What is the honorable justices’ and equally honorable bailiff’s take on this matter?

Nathaniel Boyett

May it please the court and yeah I guess the Bailiff too, I present to you the case of "the Crit that bit back". I play a rogue in a high level campaign that my friends and I started a couple months back. A few weeks ago, after being confronted by a harbor master about the docking fee for our ship, I rolled a sleight of hand check to steal from him and then pay the fee with his own money. I crit, which, with modifiers and the gloves of thievery, became a 40. The DM interrupted me and then described how I not only stole the money, but completely undressed him without him noticing. This was funny at the time, so I went along with it. Last session, when we went back to our ship, we were confronted by a new harbor master with an armed guard who explained that we needed to still pay the docking fee because they knew that I had stolen the money from the last harbor master because I had undressed him in front of everyone. I ask, should I have been punished for a 40 on a sleight of hand roll because of how the DM described me doing it or was he just trying to find a way for us to not avoid paying again.

Justin

Beautiful, respectable, stoic Justices. Bailiff. I beseech your kind wisdom. There has not yet been an injustice yet I fear I may commit one myself. I am currently in a new campaign with a few coworkers, the simple issue is I am very bored for most of the sessions. I enjoy the people I play with but it does not feel worth staying up until 2am on a week night being that I find myself wanting to go home by 10pm out of lack of interest. Please offer me your kind wisdom as to whether or not I can righteously stop attending our biweekly sessions or if I will hurt those I play with. (The main reason for the boredom is lack of story direction, simple one shot monster hunting campaign with little dm intervention)

Dave 3D Art

May it please the court, and compliment the bailiff. I've been having a discussion with other DMs in regards to a quirk of the Soulknife Rogue subclass. Would a Soulknife being used for "Psychic Teleportation" be able to go through glass without smashing it? I am in the camp that it would not break the glass, and the teleport would go through. Glass being immune to psychic damage of course. But a DM I've been discussing it with says that by virtue of the glass being immune to psychic damage the glass would stop the knife. Just curious as to your thoughts on the matter seeing thay our humble bailiff has played a Souldknife. Thank you for your time.

Gudni Lindal

To the honorable justices and (ew) Jake. I come to you with the case of the Broken Homebrew DM. I write this on behalf of a friend who’s found himself playing with a DM who keeps creating broken homebrewed monsters that they can’t kill. Last week marked the party’s third month traveling through a frozen wasteland. Neither the DM nor the players could remember why they were there in the first place, but regardless, they were ambushed by several frost spiders - homebrewed of course. They were immune to ANY physical damage except bludgeoning - which wasn’t great, as everyone was playing a caster. Furthermore, these spiders had 150 HP each and an INFINITE amount of Counterspells, which they could use at will. During the fight, the DM seemed to realise he’d done goofed on his design and had his super spiders disengage and flee for no reason - which made it even more frustrating for the party, because they didn’t even get to finish the fight. I humbly ask, should the DM have stuck to his frozen spider-guns and wiped out the party, learning a lesson along the way? What’s the best way to tell your DM his homebrewes are always broken? I await your judgement.

Bryan Holt

Humble justices and Nobel Balif I present to you the case of the perloined potions. I a simple Feylock to the Baba Yaga approached the DM with an idea for a magic item. Animate Object grenades. I would spend the spell slots and gold as if Scroll crafting to hand other players potion bottles that could be hucked on things to animate them during fights or for fun. These were DM approved but saw a few sessions before use. In a pitched battle with a Half Black Dragon they proved clutch to turn the action economy our way and with a crit the foe fell fast. However, after the fight the DM cried fowl saying that he could not have known how effective extra fighters would be, he took not only my potions but my XP for the fight. Judges, was I tricksy trickster or was the DM unfairly perloining my potions? I await your wise judgement.

Alex Ferri

*Quick man-splaining table tattler update* I no longer play with that group anymore, but I made my husband listen to this ruling and I think he was more relieved than I was. After the correct assumption of Justice Axford about a man having issues with a woman being good at D&D, I will now be DMing a group of brand new all female players! I want more women to feel comfortable and not afraid to learn how to play D&D. Thanks again to the Crit Justices/Dice Disciples (and Jake) for their ruling. Hope Dice Christ gives you all a great roll soon!

GurberBurger

Dear judgers, I am pleased to submit my case to the lot of you. I call this case: The Sneaky little players pull a fast one. I DM for four folks, a Necromancer, Paladin of the Ancients, Assassin Rouge and a Transmuter. We love playing with each other. But once, I could not make the session. The rest of the party met in Discord, I assumed just to chat or play a little encounter. Turns out, the Necromancer took this as an opportunity to gift their follow party members and themselves with cool, powerful weapons and items. The party accepted this as cannon and continued to use these items until I caught on several sessions later. In addition, the players will occasionally mention this clandestine session with great fondness, invoking pangs of jealousy within me. Judgers, is it okay for players to continue on without their loving and benevolent DM? Or have I been swindled and dishonored with their unforgivable selfishness. I await your wise, wise judging. - Bag

SelfAware

To the honorable justices and totally rad bailiff, I bring you the case of the God goof murder. I was DMing a mini-campaign taking place in the feywild that was basically bloodsport battle of the bands. In the end, the party gained an audience with the arch-fey, who I described as basically a god and absolutely massive (large enough that they were eating a bowl of full-sized deer and wolves like popcorn). I made it very clear that the arch-fey was vain and while they liked jokes they would be quick to anger. Despite all this, one of my players decided to start making fun of the arch-fey to their face. I gave this player several chances to back down, including telling him above table that if he kept going this very well might get his character killed. He refused to stop, and ultimately the arch-fey had enough of it and crushed the character, killing him instantly. The player got upset with me, saying I should have just knocked him out and that it was messed up for me to kill his character like that when he was just joking around. I said that I warned him and it was just the logical consequence of making fun of a god. Should I have been more lenient with him or was it right to stick to my guns? I humbly await your verdict.

LARGELinCHARGEL

To the honorable Justices and to the brochacho Bailiff, I present to you Cleric Shield vs. Champion's Heated Breastplate. I'm a DM and one of my players is a Warforged Cleric named Shield. She casted Heat Metal against a bad guy's armor. Since it was a Champion stat block he added +6 to his Constitution Saving Throw and he hit the cleric's Spell Save DC. My Cleric (and a few of the other players) argued against my ruling that since he saved against the affect, he would still take the Fire Damage but he would not get disadvantage for saving against the spell. This was worse than saying their mother should be put to the stake. An intense shouting match blew up and after we simmered down with a quick beverage break, we decided that since it was the armor and the phrasing of the spell is unusual, I ceded my case and allowed the Champion to gain disadvantage, which threw a fight already in their favor into a sure win. I am wondering if I made the wrong call, or if it was good to cede to just let the game keep going? I humbly await your judgement.

Anya Saunders

May it please the most honorable judges/priests of dice Christ, and also Jake I guess, I present the case of pigeon resuscitation. About a year ago I was playing as a wizard named Jo Jandlebars with a pigeon familiar/support animal named Bubbles. Jo really pissed off another wizard during a big fight, causing the wizard to heavily target Jo, eventually separating them from the party and dropping them to death saves. Without anyone else nearby who could help me, I asked if Bubbles could give me the help action on my death saves. The DM ruled no, saying that I couldnt give Bubbles instructions since I was unconscious, and that a pigeon couldn’t help me with death saves anyways. I think that my familiar is able to take actions on its own and would want to help its master, and that an emotional support familiar would be able to help with death saves somehow, if only by giving motivation to stay alive. The DM held fast and I ended up rolling 2 nat 1s in a row and dying. My party gave Jo an awesome fireball cremation, the warlock took on Bubbles as his familiar in Jos honor, and I introed a fun new character in the next session, so I’m not too peeved about it, but I still think Bubbles should have been able to help my poor dying wizard in some way. I humbly await your judgement.

Jack Bradley

Dear Supreme Court Justices and the juicy Baliff, I have a simple question. Should a DM know the depth of every body of water that the party go near? I’m running Curse of Strahd for my party, and we approached the lake north of Vallaki in search for the Mad Mage. As we approached and I did some lovely word painting for my players, a simple question came “how deep is the lake?” Little did I know the chaos that this little question would cause, as my uncertain answer led to a half an hour inquisition of my knowledge of geography, geology and fluid mechanics. In my hurried desire to get on with the game, I exasperatedly answered “I don't know, like 50 fathoms?!” which led to an even longer razzing of the implausibility of a fissure of such depth inland. To this day whenever my friends in game or in real life find me near a body of water I am asked how many fathoms deep I think it is. In all - I have a simple question - should I have prepared the depth of water? Your humble servant JB

Yakov Medyanikov

Dear esteemed justices and beautiful bailiff, I come to you with the case of the murdered bard. I, of course did the murdering. But on accident. My character, the pebble, was a halfling barbarian and the bard, artichokelis m. Father, were fighting some mimics, one of which was a rug shaped bastard. We'll the rug mimic wrapped himself around artichoke and me, being stupid, attacked with full rage and strength. I guess a rug doesn't make a great shield because I ended up cutting through the mimic and killing the bard as well. I was devastated and pleaded with the DM to reverse this decision, stating that we weren't doing cleave rules and I should have only killed the rug. Please help me find peace for my murder and absolve me of my crime. Thank you.

Anthony Abreu

To the wonderful judges atop the Supreme crit and the bright bailiff, I present to you my case: In my first campaign as a DM, a player was going for a multiclass build focused on getting the highest persuasion checks they could. They started out eloquence bard to ensure they can't roll below a 10 on persuasion or deception; they jumped into warlock to get the pact of the talisman (add a d4 to an ability check) and then at a later level add a d10 to an ability check from the fiendish warlock subclass. The first time the player displayed a majority of these skills was, after the party received some inspiration from an NPC bard they saved, the satyr bard warlock, who was trying to hide the warlock class from his allies, decided to go full pvp without telling me, rolled all of his added dice and an intimidation check in an attempt to intimidate the monk of the party. After a long pause of him explaining the mechanics and then doing the roll (all unasked for), the bardlock asked me "is he intimidated" to which I paused the session and shut him down. He fought me saying he wouldn't have made all the decisions he did if he knew he couldn't intimidate teammates and I fell back on repeating what I said in session 0 which is that I really don't want pvp in our campaign. What are the judges' thoughts on PvP and more specifically on rolls for intimidation or deception vs insight between players?

Sara Tarnow

Honorable super cool Justices and poopy butthole Bailiff, may your crits be plentiful and well-timed. If it pleases the court/church I present a case of AITA. In a 3-person campaign session 0, one player wanted to create a Mindflayer "biomancer" pc. DM agreed on the condition that the character was severed from the collective. The other player took on the role of healer which left me to tank. I had to step away early to work. When I returned, the chat was full of jokes about the mindflayer turning my firbolg into a "meat puppet," without her consent or knowledge. I said under no circumstances would this be allowed and if jokes like this continued I would leave the campaign. The other two apologized and the mindflayer re-classed as a bard. During session 1 myself and the healer made a formal alliance with a contract assuring no violence between us, even splits on treasure etc. We recruited the mindflayer and he signed the contract with the healer but inexplicably refused to sign with me. After trying to understand why and getting nowhere, and after several warnings, I attacked him. This of course led to fighting in and out of game where I reiterated that I warned I would not stand for his creepy shit, and he said I was basing my assessment of him on his previous class and it was unfair to attack his bard. The campaign never recovered and we were not able to play together again. Do I deserve punishment for attacking a fellow PC, for metagaming, creating a hostile environment, or any other reason? Or was I right to feel threatened and react the way I did? I humbly prostrate myself before dice christ and the court.

Kelley40k

May it please the glorious and all knowing court as well as ....... the balif I humbly present to you the case of the "Warforge Turtle Lich" I was playing a evil campaign in which our characters were working to bring back an evil god who was offering power. Which we would then battle in Campaign 2 as heroes. I decided to play a turtle wizard (Necromancer) / Artficer (Battle Smith) named Grom. My characters end goal was to become a Lich but not just any lich he wanted to combine necromancy and technology. Using his knowledge of the steel defender he wanted to forge a warforge body. Then using his Necromancer magic craft a phylactory. Combining the two vision and the mind stone style. Cut to the end of the campaign the DM says that i can either build one or the other. I ended up going Lich but I felt like this was a bit of a let down. Especially because i had collected special metals like Mithril and even a small chunk of adamantine for my body. But perhaps i was asking for to much and he would of been too powerful in campaign 2. I ask the court to pass judgment and deliver their divine justice. Oh P.S i ended up putting those metals in my steel defender a golaith sized robo crab named Shiny (and before i draw Justice Murphy ire for having a Goliath sized crab, rules as written S.D. can be medium sized)

Ted Orbach

I would like to bear my sins and prostrate myself before the High Council of Dice Christ. I am a DM running a homebrew campaign centered around the acquisition of seven relics that, when combined can form the most powerful magical item in existence, in the form of a book. My players have taken great interest in the pieces and it has become the central goal of the campaign. Attuning to a piece of the book causes the one trying to attune to take an insane amount of damage, while also making a DC30 Charisma save. A player tried to attune to the book and failed taking all the damage. Being a sorcerer with no Con investment, the damage i rolled was theoretically enough to kill them. However, I fudged my roll and said that it was only a couple points away from completely killing them. I just felt that their character dying like this wasn't conducive to a good story. Was I wrong to deny the Dice their chosen Fate? Once again, I throw myself at the mercy of the Dice Christ's judgment.

Dustin Colwell

The case of “Even Hitler Had a Wife” Dearly beloved Baliff and gathered judges, I was DMing a campaign and one of my players changed alignments to evil through magical means. (The book of vile darkness) This player took it to an extreme, murdering every townsperson bartender and child they saw, to the horror of the party. I argued with them that even Hitler or Darth Vader could TALK to people sometimes without murdering them. The player insisted this is what evil meant, and had no choice but to “get ‘em”. So later when the entire party was arrested for the evil player’s actions. I denied the evil player a cool escape scene they attempted and made the rest of the party come rescue them while their character waited alone. They were since cured of their evil curse but I still wonder if I was too harsh. I submit myself to your judgements.

Jade Finch

Grand bailiff Hurtwitz and all-knowing judges, I present the case of self-destructive PC Our campaign has been going for 3 years and we’re all best friends, one of the players though, has consistently ruined his characters. His first character went off and became a warlock without telling any of the other characters, selling his soul, he then killed himself while playing a filler character, and was then upset that nobody went to save his character’s soul. His last character was just ruined by himself by making a secret deal with an evil archfey and enslaving a whole town to make a circus, then trying to pretend it was fine, the party kicked the character out, so I had to rewrite the next arc in order to bring back his FIRST character because he was so upset about ruining his new character. He also threw a fit when the characters tried to get his magic items because he would no longer be a part of the group, and he thought he deserved them even though the character is now gone. What do I do about this player? I await your judgment with open arms and mind.

CarpeLiam

May it please the court and award a golden mic to the bailiff, I present the case of the Shadowfell Paladin V the Comedy Steed. I (the player) made a Dragonborn Paladin / Warlock multiclass that is both sworn and indebted to the same Deity. Null (the dragon god that lives in shadowfell )has two personalities: one benevolent, and one evil. My Paladin worships the good side but owes a debt to the evil side. Herein lies my problem. When I cast the signature Paladin spell “find steed”, the DM always gives me a goofy giant animal from the feywild instead of a more traditional, thematic companion. Thus far, the steeds that I have summoned have arrived as a giant snail, a pink, glowing seahorse, a Saint Bernard with a New York accent, and a Duarger driving a prehistoric car Fred Flinstone style. Being a usual DM myself, I never protested. The other players always enjoy the silliness , and it’s become something of a running joke. For the sake of the game, I always played into it, but I longed for a cooler beast of burden. I’ve asked the DM out of character why my steeds are always so silly, and if I could ever get a more traditional one. He responded that since my character was aligned to a deity that is neither good nor evil, the steed that showed up would be of neutral alignment, and since the options for steeds in the spell are either celestials, fiends, or Fey, I was stuck with the whimsical beasts of the feywild. I ask the court: should I have pressed harder for a regular horse, or am I resigned to a campaign where my signature spell is a punchline?

Tim S.

May it please the deific Crit Justices and the beatific Bailiff, I must know if my party and DM should face justice for unknowingly feeding our rogue to a gelatinous cube. Our party was pretending to bring our rogue to an evil warlord and had him in chains he could break out of (Chewbacca precedent). Our plan was to let him do some reconnaissance while we distracted the warlord with pleasantries. Our barbarian was allowed to take the rogue to the dungeon while the rest of us talked with the warlord, and each prison cell was a shallow pit. Both barbarian and rogue failed their Perception checks at this point, and the barbarian unknowingly threw the rogue into the cell with a Gelatinous Ooze before returning to the audience chamber with us. Our rogue was quickly engulfed by the ooze and could not call for help. Since our plan was to wait for a signal from the rogue, all we as players could do was helplessly make small talk with the warlord while the rogue slowly died from acid damage. The DM tried to give the rogue outs but the dice were not in his favor at all. I as a Cleric even asked if I could receive some divine inspiration to check on the rogue, but I failed my religion check. The rogue died unceremoniously, alone over multiple rounds. Is there anything we could have done differently? This was years ago and we are all more experienced now, but the player is still rightfully salty about it to this day. Adding insult to injury for the rogue, the warlord was actually making some really good points, and we eventually were convinced to join him.

Fandom Encounters

To the honorable justices and simple Bailiff. I bring you the case of Musical Multiclassing. I'm the DM for a Percy Jackson themed campaign and my players have all multiclassed some have three classes as they are level 17 now. 10 levels ago one player was unhappy with his Arcane Archer/Cleric build and asked to swap levels. I agreed and flavor-wise said a god helped him (Kronos the god of time). He became a Cleric/Ranger. Every level since he has talked about how he maybe wants to swap some levels around betweent he cleric and Ranger levels, maybe trading some for monk levels, etc. Was it wrong to let him swap levels around initially? I feel like it set the precedent that he can just do it whenever and it feels unfair to everyone else at the table.

Pearl of a Girl Nursery

Tess from Virginia Beach (shoutout to belly chains) May it please the court and the other guy, but mostly our sovereign queen of roleplay Emily Axford: I’m in a weird position with one of my D&D groups. I was brought on by the DM specifically to provide more roleplay, but I feel like my roleplay is creating a rift between me and one of the other PCs. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling where I feel like he doesn’t like my roleplay choices and as a result, has made it obvious he doesn’t enjoy my participation as a player. I feel like I’ve spent several sessions trying to get on his good side, but ultimately my character Villie, a 15-year-old sorcerer, has settled into the idea that his character doesn’t like her. That’s the best I can do, and the best response I can give when he asks why I don’t use my buffs or anything on him unless it’s an emergency - Villie doesn’t think his character likes her, so she keeps her distance. I was hoping it would prompt him to try to make nice because I felt like I’d already tried that myself, but no luck. I feel like I’ve done everything I can on my end here, but now I’m wondering if maybe it was a mistake for the DM to involve me in this campaign. The best roleplay requires a lot of trust with your other players, but I think there’s an element of consent that’s hard to ignore, too. This guy clearly doesn’t consent to roleplay, as he can’t even distinguish my choices from my character’s. And I don’t want to force him to roleplay either, but D&D means nothing to me without it. Can two people like this even coexist in a campaign? As much as I don’t think he’s a very understanding person, I also can’t totally fault him for having his own way to play the game.

Zacharythefish

To the illustrious supreme crit justices, and the sensual sexy bailiff Jake. May it please the court. I bring the case of the dying campaign. I run a campaign for my fiancé and two of our friends. At first it was just two players but we added in the 3rd player so I didn’t need to play a dmnpc. However now we’re never able to meet because our schedules keep clashing and I am the only one who ever try’s to schedule another session. I’m really excited for the future of this campaign so I don’t want to leave it behind. And despite how my fiancé said she can make her character Chub “fit in any of my plot holes” I really like the adventure in front of him. Should I keep trying to make this work? Remove one of both of the problem players? Or give up on this campaign entirely?

Bradley Smith

I have a confession to dice Christ, oh holiest crit justices/ministers. I recently made a new character as my previous character had a fulfilling story arc and i thought it was best for him to leave and return to the summer camp he helped create. I went through the normal process of rolling stats for my new Tempest Cleric (Coral Lakewood (props to yall as Lakewood is a suburb of Denver)). When my character was first introduced, my electronic character sheet had deleted all values and i had to come up with new character stats on the fly for that session. It took two more sessions for me to remember that i had to reroll stats with my DM and i finally fessed up after three sessions of winging it. I await the prayers that may come with my punishment, oh great leaders of the church.

Ross Bloedorn

To the all powerful crit justices and the barely keeping it together bailiff. May it please the court to speak freely! I am starting a new Champaign with one player being rather new to dnd. She’s super excited which is always great to see. HOWEVER!!! Her backstory is absolutely bonkers. She is a warlock with a home brew patron who is a sex worker who kills her clients and is “the greatest magic user of all time”. I didn’t want to shit on all her ideas, but it just didn’t fit in the world I made at all and I was uncomfortable with the idea of role playing sex work clients. When I asked her if we could workshop a bit of her story to make it fit the world, she was very put out and seemed upset it was only her character getting changed. Did I dishonor my table by not rolling with the punches, or did I have every right to stand my ground in my home brew?

Eden Hunter

Dear exalted Judges and all-round incredible fella Jake, If it may please the queen and court, I present the case of the player who wanted to fit a 4 day process into a 6 second turn. I was running a non-canon pvp game for my players main campaign characters and one of my players (Human Sorcerer) turned invisible after taking quite a bit of damage. He then messaged me privately asking if he could use the herbalism kit that his Character had to brew a healing potion so he could regain some HP. I was foggy on brewing rules and so looked it up to find that it takes 4 days to brew a health potion. Now, as you will know, a turn in D&D combat takes about 6 seconds, so it might be a bit of a squeeze. But as this was a non-canon session and rule of cool etc I said I would let him roll a medicine check for it, setting the DC so that he would be able to do it if he roled a 19/20 and that he would have to drop concentration on his Invisibility to focus on this endeavor. He then started to argue back that it wouldn't make him lose his concentration, at which point I reminded him that I shouldn't be letting him perform a 4 day process in 6 seconds in the first place. He then got grumpy and distant. Did I make the right call? Love, Eden x

Sam A.

Noble justices & helpful Dungeon Bailiff, I present the case of "Shadowy Leniency" - may it please the court. I am DMing a short arc inspired by Fantasy High. The 4 PCs are freshmen, so they are quite young & foolish. Last session, they had to venture down a dark staircase to a sub-basement, and got in a nasty fight with 4 Shadows and a cultist hiding in the darkness. Over the course of the fight, the Shadows KO'd the 2 wizards using their Strength Drain ability, which explicitly states that a target dies if its STR is reduced to 0. Instead of instant death, I allowed them to roll death saving throws, and one of them rolled a failure and then a nat 1, so I asked them to narrate their final moments. They cast an AOE healing spell targeting their friends, which I allowed because it was sweet, but the other wizard opted not to take their portion of the HP and asked to give it back to the dying wizard. Ultimately all 4 survived, but I feel as if I may have been too lenient with these rulings, as one of them surely should have perished. I await your judgment with bated breath.

Adam Johnson

To the benevolent Crit Justices and the humble Bailiff, I present this case the case of the player who refused to build a character themselves. We were doing a one-shot at lvl3with the possibility of starting a future campaign if we wanted to continue. Every one had talked with the DM about their characters beforehand and then brought their paper sheet with them and just rolled stats when we arrived at the session except for one player. This player had a premade life cleric that they were using off of their phone. This was weird to me but our DM allowed it. We soon realized something was horribly wrong when we found out this player had an AC of 12 wearing leather armor and a negative -1 spellcasting modifier as a cleric. They and the DM acted like it was totally fine and continued playing. We usually roll 4d6 drop lowest for stats so even having a negative modifier is usually uncommon though I do enjoy the storytelling aspect of having weakness. Was the DM right to allow this player to continue playing with such a backwards character?

Ravioko

To the most honorable of court justices and I guess also whatever we're calling the baliff this session, I present the case of the unkillable villain A little while ago in my groups Tyranny of Dragons campaign, the party was fighting a major villain at the end of a dungeon. Seeing as my character was dead at the time, I watched the rest of my party fight the boss encounter in an impressively cooperative way, doing a great job of working as a unit. However, our DM refused to let any of the players kill the boss, as they were needed for a story beat later. To ensure this, their favorite, multi-campaign DMPC leapt in and "killed" the boss himself by teleporting her away, followed by his curse affecting him so he leapt of a cliff and died (long story.) Meanwhile, in a campaign I'm running for the same group, the party fought a major villain who needed to stay alive awhile longer. I simply ruled it behind the screen that if she got below a certain HP threshold she'd use magic to get away while the rest of her crew would put their lives on the line, but if they reduced her HP to 0 they'd get more of a reward for it (though she still got away.) Am I just as bas as the Tyranny DM? Am I worse? What is our opinion on villain getaways? I await your judgement,

Kyle Corbett

To the honorable justices and the very junior bailiff who always seems to be doing their best and yet… I present the case of the flip flopping DM. I’m playing a satyr Druid/Cleric multiclass In a friend’s campaign. One of the reasons I picked Satyr Is because it’s one of the few playable races where you are not considered “a humanoid” you are “Fey”. I ran this by my dungeon master initially and they said they were fine with it. Now, almost a year into the campaign my DM seems a bit perturbed and is changing game mechanics. I would admit I have been a little bit of a stinker but my dungeon master is rewording all the spells that only target humanoids and stating because there are fey races, then the very few spells and abilities that only target humanoids should be modified to include Fey. RAW, says spells like hold person shouldn’t work on a fey creature (Me) but DM claims ROC can apply to his NPC s and they could alter spells that only target humanoids to include humanoid like Fey. Is this a violation of my Fey liberties. I lay myself at the mercy of your court!

Bridge Squitire

Is there any precedent in the court for the presenting of another player for punishment? I ask the honorable justices and the doubly honorable bailiff for something unusual - the punishment of another player. I was witness to this heinous act as another player at the table, and I want justice on behalf of my beloved DM friend. We were playing in a pretty run of the mill 5e oneshot that was level 3. The DM was new to DMing and in a fatal error, he allowed us carte blanche permission to use homebrews we found. Another player, an experienced player who the DM fatally decided to trust, played the infamous Unearthed Arcana Mystic, with an animal companion that he somehow managed to justify that was an Allosaurus. At level 3, this player was virtually unkillable, with an animal companion that had 51 hit points and +6 to hit. Needless to say, no one else had fun that night. Inexplicably, we continued to play in a campaign with this guy for a few years after this, in which he would constantly min max and abuse the DM's moments of misspeaking or misinterpreting of rules to his advantage, taking every inch he was given to its furthest mile. I present him to you, justices and bailiff, at the mercy of the court, awaiting your judgment.

Jaydedragon

Highly regarded supreme crit justices and typically well received Bailiff. I come to you humbly, seeking judgement upon a character who was constantly attempting to invade other players minds and derailing the campaign to read the players thoughts. This was a home brew game that my friends and I had played a few years ago. Basically the idea was that the gods had been shattered, leaving only artifacts. Players or NPCs who found parts of these artifacts could slowly assume their powers and (eventually) make them into gods. I was playing a monk of the cobalt soul, and I had spent a lot of time creating my backstory and investing in the character both emotionally and time-wise. When we started playing though, one of the characters announced that they could use detect thoughts at will. What then ensued was one of the most annoying continued conversations I’ve ever had in the game. Constantly, this player would interrupt the DM and other players to say “what are you thinking right now? You have to tell me.” At first I and the other players tried to play along, but it seemed every time there was any slight hint of backstory, this player demanded we spill the beans. Like, obsessively spill the beans. This really dragged down the story and the other players experiences. We didn’t feel like anything could be secret or that anything new could be revealed in the plot because this character was constantly sucking the secrets out of everyone. The other players and I ended up leaving the group later. While the DM tried to quell things, this players actions and continuous prying made the whole thing not very fun. I’ve been holding onto this for a few years now. Was I overreacting and should I have just kept going with it? Should this player have even had this power to begin with? I throw myself into the fetal position at the base of the bench and await judgement.

Nathan J. Marcisz

To the esteemed Crit Justices and also Jake, I present the case of the rat-juicing party. In a recent session, I, the DM, had set-up what I thought was a fitting conclusion for my party's dungeon delve. For eight sessions, they had been hunting in the Underdark for the prison of a shadow demon that they were sworn to slay. When the party reached the door to the prison, I described an ancient lock with runes on it stating that the door could only be unlocked by way of a blood sacrifice. My intention was for the party to shed their own blood, which would cut down on their HP and make the fight that much more dire. I made sure to put no enemies close to the lock, so the party wouldn't be tempted to use their blood instead. However, the party wizard produced his hat of vermin, a joke magic item I had given him 20 sessions prior, and proceeded to summon 3 rats which he promptly caught and juiced onto the lock. He then looked at me expectantly as the rest of the party cheered. I allowed this to open the lock, fearing my players' wrath, but I found that the party then whomped the final encounter in an easy and anticlimactic fight. Was I wrong to let the wizard circumvent the lock with his rat gushers? I humbly await your verdict.

Rachel Simurda

To the great and mighty supreme crit judges of the court and also to Baliff Jake, who I honestly think is just trying his best, I bring to you the great Pickpocketing a God Debate. I play with my best friends in a super fun homebrew campaign run by my very talented Dungeon Master. She has created her own pantheon that includes many traditional dnd gods and goddesses, but she has also created beings called “divines” that are children of the gods and deities in their own right. I play a wild magic sorcerer pirate who caries around a compass, which is her most prized possession. My friend plays a rogue who is an incredibly prolific pickpocket. Early in the campaign he claimed that he could pickpocket anyone, even a god. I called bullshit, and we made a friendly bet of 10 gold. Later, we came across a divine and during combat with it, it possessed my body and spoke through my mouth. My friend took this opportunity to pickpocket my compass while I was out and then claimed to have pickpocketed a god. The table lost it, we were laughing so much. My DM let it happen and we moved on. It created a wonderful narrative moment of connection between my character and the rouge, so I’m not too upset, but to this day we have friendly debates about wether or not I truly lost the bet. I maintain that because it was still my body, he did not pickpocket a god. When ghosts possess you in-game you do not yourself become a ghost so how could I have become a god in that moment of possession? Please, great and powerful justices, lend us your wisdom and insights and bring an end to this uncertainty.

Haley Anne

Most honorable Supreme crit Judges: I present the case of the disrespectful dragon born. I was playing at a table with a dragon born fighter with a self proclaimed attitude problem. It was all fun and games until he took to misgendering my character. I was playing a non binary changeling sorcerer. I introduced my character and my pronouns (they/them) and he immediately began acting annoyed. Finally after I recommended a different course of action in a tunnel system we were exploring (following a high perception roll) he threw a fit and called my character a bossy princess. After the session I talked to the DM and decided I no longer felt safe at the table. She apologized but ultimately understood. I found out after that my exit led to the game ending because the party was so small and they couldn't fill my spot. The guy (who is a friend of my spouse) reached out to me privately afterwards apologizing and hoping there were no hard feelings because he was just "playing true to his character". I was honestly stunned by his non-apology and gave a non-answer. I think he was hoping I would forgive him and return to the game. But I can't imagine doing so. Was quitting too rash of a decision? Should I have handled it any differently? Thank you! -H (they/them)

Josh

Dear the revered or feared Supreme Crit justices and of course the sunshiny bailiff Jake. In a fairly late game campaign our party was faced with a wizard and some slimes The wizard casts Tensers Transformation on one of the slimes which buffs it up. The fighter in the party wields a sword and swings at the slime- which is when our Dm revealed this was an Ochre Jelly which splits in 2 when hit with slashing damage. Our Dm then narrates how the two new baby slimes both absorb the magic of the Tensers transformation- essentially doubling the effect of the spell I ask the Supreme Court if this seems like a fair reading of the rules of the ochre jelly, or was our fighter wrongly punked on by two buff slimes?

Andrew D.

I come humbly before the Court seeking the judgement of most Munificent Justices and the Merciful Bailiff. I am currently playing in a homebrew campaign where the DM has incorporated some Sci-Fi elements including but not limited to spacecraft, energy weapons and power armor. During an encounter, we attempted to subdue an alien that was wearing a device that masked their appearance. I attempted to use Dispel Magic to remove the masking effect arguing that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Therefore Dispel Magic should also Dispel Science. However, after some consideration the DM ruled that it would not work. Was my DM correct or should Dispel Magic also eliminate Science in the right circumstances? I bow my head before the court and will gracefully accept your judgement.

Samuel Allsop

Dear great and honourable justices, I prostrate myself before thee just as I assume the dishonourable balif does who is not fit to luck the heel of your boots. I have found myself DMing an evil campaign. It was not meant to be an evil campaign and there was some turmoil in the transition but things started to get better. I started creating encounters with pure good hero's allowing the players to revil in the evil they had become. Everyone was having fun until recently when a heroic noble fighter from the barbarians home town was a little too good. I had jokingly made many references to how great this fighter was and how he had looked after the barbarians sickly mother out of the goodness of his heart. It was meant to be a fun bit about how sinister the group was at this point. However, the barbarian was moved by this and refused to kill the fighter. This reluctance lead to a a near death in the party. When they won the encounter and the rogue murdered the fighter this escalated further and lead to a in party conflict in which the barbarian was killed. I feel guilty as my bit lead to a player death and now there's a bit of tension with our little group. I leave myself at the mercy of the court.

Bob C

Most Honorable Justices, and most Okayest of Bailiffs, may it please the court, I would like a ruling on a possible punishment for a nat20. I am running a Strixhaven game and one of the pcs is an Owlin with bad people skills. They got their party kicked out of a tavern with their abrasiveness after just having saved said tavern and, when they were directed to a fellow student, a Bullywog Alchemist, for aid in an investigation, the player decided they wanted to stealth into the lab room the bullywog was in and sneak up on them to see what they were doing. They, of course, rolled a nat 20 so when she began talking to him, she scared him horribly and then failed subsequent persuasion check to smooth things over, and he kicked her out of his lab, refusing to do any business with her, and only giving help after the whole party worked to fix the issue. As a skittish guy myself, if I had someone poof into existence behind me, I would have browned my pants, and this being a big owl and a big frog, I think it would be even more terrifying, but I am worried that I punished my player for rolling well, so I want to bring it before the court: Was I right to punish the nat20, given the situation, or was I just overthinking the matter? Thank you.

Mara Steiner

To the loveliest of bailiffs and the gracious justices. I seek your advice on an event that has plagued me for quite some time. Many months ago, I was playing the second session of a new campaign with old friends (we've been playing together for 4 years). We play on Roll20 and my DM makes great maps. As we progressed through the dungeon, I noticed that there was this particular plant included on the map-- it looked special so my character touched it. I immediately took significant damage, failed my con save and became incapacitated for THE REST OF THE SESSION! The party was then attacked and on my initiative turn, I had to reroll my con save, failing each time. At one point, my character was attacked during combat and I fell to 0 HP, and started to roll death saves -- all while being incapacitated the whole time. My question, honourable and all-knowing justices, is: was this fair? I was pretty much excluded from most of the session as all my character could do was make saving throws. Even though I am okay with the brutal gritty world that we agreed to play in, it wasn't really very fun. I am being a big baby about it or should my DM have done something differently in that scenario? As a DM myself, I seek the answer to this question. I await your judgement with bated breath.

Daniel Kirsh

Dear Justices, and the Jake that's not from state farm, I would like to present the case of people minding their own fucking business. The Cali Finale was fucking lit. That is all. Also, if you are a fan of multiclassing, look up Gestalt rules, it's an older form of the game where you level up in two classes at the same time. So a lvl 5 character could have the abilities of a lvl 5 bard, and fighter, but just the HP and proficiency of a level 5 character. Super fun, super hard to balance.

Caroline

May it please the honorable beautiful respectable Supreme Crit Justices (and also that other guy), I lay my question before you. It's a simple question, but I think it might be relatable for a lot of players and listeners. My friend Amy and I are both players in our first-ever campaign, Descent into Avernus. We play in-person once a month. We have now been playing for almost a full year, and every single time it's Amy's turn in combat, she asks what she should do, where everyone is on the battlefield (my benevolent DM bought a battle map for her sake), and usually also asks for clarification about how her sorcerer's spells work. It really slows down combat, as her turns end up taking about three times longer than anyone else's. The DM is my boyfriend, and he told me in private that he's very bothered by this. I did a little reading and listened to some dnd podcasts (including yours; best decision of my life) to learn the game better, and it's paid off for me. She and I started playing dnd at the same time, but I'm now able to keep up with the other players at the table, and she is not. My question is: Is it normal to expect that one or two players at a table will always need a lot of help and a lot of extra time? Or is this a situation where it's acceptable for me or the DM to speak to her, politely, away from the table? I humbly await your decision.

Zoe Jones

Greetings justices and humble bailiff, I am currently running curse of strahd, and am over half way done with a really fun party made up of a mix of veteran and baby players. However, after a three or four week break one of my central players decided that she has lost interest in d&d and no longer wants to play. For now, I had the players leave her character behind, writing her off... for now. Seeing as though I wrote her character into the world with a very important backstory, what do I do? Do I kill her character in front of the party, making her a sacrifice to further the plot? Do I have her reappear as a strahd vampire spawn during the BBEG fight? Or, do I leave her behind, never to be seen again? Thank you, Zoe J

Joseph

To the esteemed, level headed high crit justices and the bailiff who, let’s be honest, is trying his best. I bring you the case of the erupting ceiling. I was dm-ing a session for my family who are all relatively new to D&D and had a final boss of a dungeon be a wizard, along with several other minions, that was wearing boots of spider climb. They were fighting in a temple that had been carved deep into a mountain. The wizard was on the ceiling and had cast darkness, so they could pop out of the magical darkness, shoot a spell down, then pop back in the darkness for cover, all while the minions were on the ground. Part of the challenge of this encounter was figuring out how to actually hit the wizard. The party Druid decided to cast “erupting earth” at the darkness, since it has the exact same area of effect. Erupting earth states it must be cast at a point on the ground. My player (also my wife) argued that because they were in a cave, the ceiling also should count as ground. I wasn’t sure if I agreed with that, but I really liked the creativity so I allowed it. She then proceeds to roll max damage and, with a failed dex save, the body of the wizard fell 40 feet and splatted on the ground. I ask you, humble justices, was this interpretation of the rules correct? I don’t regret my ruling, my players loved it and it was super memorable, but the fight did get cut short. Does the ceiling in a cave technically count as ground? I await your judgment.

Savannah Carlsen

To the mighty justices of the court (and Jake, I guess) I present a case of metagaming and eggs. Our DM set up a night fair in Waterdeep for us. My character talked to a sketchy seller at a booth who revealed his secret stash of mystery eggs. My character was intrigued but declined the eggs, knowing that traveling around while trying to care for eggs that need incubating would not be that fun and require a lot of responsibility. Since I encountered this NPC by myself I made a point NOT to mention it to the rest of the PCs knowing that our gnome druid would want the eggs but not consider the consequences. Nevertheless, the druid, who I purposefully didn't tell, still talked to the seller even though his character had no reason to do so in game. He hinted to the seller about the mystery wares even though his character didn't know about my interaction. He bought 2 eggs and spent all of his 70gp in doing so. The rest of the group refuses to help him care for the eggs. He is now traveling with 2 eggs in baby björns, one on his chest and one on his back. We still do not know what creatures will possibly hatch from these eggs. Does role-playing true to his reckless, druid character outweigh the metagaming he performed? Is he already being punished enough in game by the rest of the party refusing to help? Please advise, I await your decision.

Abby Garden

May it please the most honorable justices, at the behest of the benevolent bailiff. I DM for a mid-level homebrew wizard school campaign in a world where most landmasses are islands, and sailing is the primary mode of travel. The party has met many a sea monster, such as dragon turtles and krakens, but managed to avoid actually fighting them. Last session, one of the players noted this, and mentioned that they've been absolutely dominating the other wizard school students in the fight pit that exists on the school (where combatants get auto-resurrected, and can test their newly-learned spells in combat). In y'all's opinion, is my campaign unbalanced? I do have a plan for a leviathan fight they won't be able to talk their way out of, the leviathan in question being the Shark King.

FlyingKnee

To the venerated Reverends of Dice Christ, I beseech you for your guidance. A player at my table is a known powergamer and min/maxer. His lvl 3 character had "rolled scores" with the lowest being a 14 in his "dump stat". He constantly uses the generosity of lenient DMs to his advantage. Chosing to ignore clearly written rules that exist to keep the realm of Dice Christ in harmony (game balance). But alas the rest of my table doesn't seem to mind when he foils the hours of work a DM puts in by being as OP as possible and essentially outright cheating. He seems to play to win and after the last dm quit (other reasons) I volunteered to run a hard adventure. I'm hoping that as the most experienced dm I can bring the table to the light of Dice Christ by making a challenging adventure. so now I kneel before you begging for Dice Christ's guidance on how to deal with this aside from throwing the book at them and making a super R.A.W. wargame of an adventure.

Slippery Pete

May it please the infallible court and the totally fine, practical puppet, bailiff, Hurwitz: The case of a Greedy Wish. Long story short: A monk PC in a game I run got a wish at the end of a session and used it at the very start of the next session. Encouraged by the party to be greedy (aware there’d be consequences), his wish was: ‘Without prejudice, here and now, I want myself and my party members to have one ability score increased to 20, and for us to have advantage on saving throws and ability checks with that ability.’ Initiate DM sweat. Excluding the monk there was a total requested increase of 36 ability points between 4 party members. I granted the increases as per the wish but took away 36 ability points from the monk dropping his str, int, wis, and cha to 6,and con to 10 while preserving his dex score of 20. His AC went down by 5. The monk player rolled with it, but we have yet to do combat since and I’m worried about party balance. Court, please judge me! Was this a cruel way to punish a greedy wish and is the party now imbalanced? How would you, in your benevolent wisdom, have ruled such a wish on the spot?

InkTank

Dearest high Crit elder justices, and the young and fresh-faced bailiff, I need your help. While exploring a dungeon my rouge found a room with a safe in it. Using proficiency & expertise in thieves tools, guidance, inspiration AND advantage, I still managed to only roll a 9, painfully not enough to open it. The rest of the party said I should keep trying until I unlocked it, but I sided with my DM, and stated that my character would likely assume the lock is unpick-able after all that effort. They all got upset that I (as the only proficient lock picker) wouldn’t keep rolling until success. Was I In the wrong to only give 1 attempt? Or should I play the statistics game?

Bleepers

May it Please the court, the Honorable Crit Justices and the ever humble baliff I present the case of Electro-Not Our friends and I have been playing a campaign where we uncoverd a Mafia crime ring in my character’s home town. After following the leads we found the warehouse where they have been smuggling exotic animals, familars, constructs etc. Once inside we learned that they have bribed a lot of villagers to help carry out the animals in crates. Long story short we got caught and the mob boss who was a Leon told them that hed pay them an extra sum for capturing or killing us. So i as a lawfull good Echo Knight fighter ( a werewolf a la Jeckl and Hyde) told my party a Warforged druid and our Tabaxi Bard to not hurt them and do non lethal damage. Our druid decided to cast thunder wave and said it was non lethal. Our DM claimed that this would kill them sinced getting shocked is fatal. We argured that people get tased and they end up fine. This confilct wasnt resolved and our Druid ended up killing a lot of these people since they had commoner stats. Justices is it possible to do non lethal spell damage and where we robbed of trying to do things in a safe way P.S We ended up playing out the scenario but it has always been a very what if as this incident sent us down a very interesting path plot wise

Noah

Amazing judges and Bailiff Jake, glad you’re here I present to you the case of the story death While playing in a game with a barbarian a druid a ranger and me a warlock we were onset by enemies during the night watch it was too dark for most of us to see (only one of us had darkvision) and we were ambushed one of our characters the barbarian was killed on the first round of combat. We continued for the next less than 10 rounds to follow the enemies and kill them, finding the dismembered body of our barbarian such that we could not revive (revivify) them. The DM changed the stats of the monsters mid combat so the rest of us wouldn’t die as our barbarian had around twice as much hp as the rest of us. I later found out that this death was staged to change the barbarians character to a ‘reborn’ as opposed to a goliath am I justified in being upset that we weren't told this before the combat happened so the dm wouldn’t have had to change the combat so much such as having us chase the enemies and cause me distress in the moment with thinking that someone’s character that they liked playing was gone. What are your thoughts on story death and how they should be presented to the players out of game or should they be hidden like my dm did. I humbly await your response or punishment

RPM

To the esteemed Supreme Crit Justices and the delightful Bailiff, I present The Case of the Elastic Bugbear. I am currently playing a bugbear fighter who uses a glaive as her primary weapon. I recently joined this campaign at level 11. As such, I was able to take the polearm master feat while creating my character, which allows me to take opportunity attacks when a creature enters my reach. Glaives add an additional 5 feet of reach to melee attacks and Bugbears have the racial feature long-limbed. Rules as written, long-limbed states that when you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal, making my range for melee attacks 15 feet. In a recent battle, a creature entered my 15 foot range so I declared my attempt to make an attack opportunity. However, my DM ruled that I couldn’t reach as it was not an attack action on my turn. I disagreed, stating that my limbs would not shrink just because this it was the enemy creature’s turn, and, though not the letter of the law, the intention of the feature is to give that extra reach. The DM stuck by his ruling and I opted not to delay the game by arguing further. The question I bring to you, honorable justices, is this: should I have been able to take my opportunity attack from 15 feet away or was my DM right to deny me?

Josh M

I seek absolution from Dice Christ, holy ministers and adjudicators of the Elysian Dice Fields: I have been the DM of a virtual campaign for my library aimed at adults since the pandemic started. At our latest session, we only had two people show up. I gave them 2 NPC buddies and pitted them in a fight with a ghost dragon. The PCs were still standing, but just barely (the NPCs fell a round earlier). It came around to the top of the order to the dragon. Now we get to my sin: I rolled to get the breath weapon back and got a 6. It was certain death for my players. It was so much damage, and I had gotten the breath weapon back 3 times prior to this in the fight. So, I lied and said that the dragon didn't get his breath weapon back. I then had the dragon multi-attack on the druid because she was the only viable target. I switched to my bad clear teal dice for this, the dice that have done nothing but betray me as a PC. I rolled a 2 on the bite, then 18 on the die for the claws, and then...a nat 20. So I lied again. I said that the dragon rolled a 2, a success, and a critical fail. The next round the ranger took out the dragon and our session ended. I have justifications for this decision, and guilt that I have not done enough to help the ranger learn how to play his character, but I fear retribution from Dice Christ in the future for my wanton and numerous lies. Please absolve me of my sins so that Dice Christ's abs made out of d12 and horrible claws made of d4s haunt me no longer.

Liesl Eidson

Honorable judges and Jake, I recently talked a friend into trying DnD with my husband and a few other friends and decided to DM a session or two from an area in a home brew campaign. I had them walk into a town with a public bath where my friend asked me to "find her a romance" and rolled a nat 20. Wanting to kinda teach her the mechanics and that actions have consequences, the party ended up charmed and as the potential sacrifices at a blood orgy after some terrible perception rolls and wisdom saves. Here is where the conflict lies. As part of the escape, I told the party that the orgy which surrounded them would be considered difficult terrain. My husband said that his druid could shape-shift into a rat to get full movement, but I argued and said the oily moving bodies and suprise of a mouse would still make it difficult terrain. Ultimately the party escaped but my husband is still salty saying he could have escaped unnoticed, and I was being unnecessary with how hard I was being on them for my friends nat 20. Was a wrong in my ruling?

Brandalf The Bae

I fear for the eternal soul of my DM and seek the guidance from the Church of Dice Christ. We are currently level 2 and have been trudging through the frozen tundra for about 20 in-game days (4 hours) surviving off rations, survival checks, and disadvantaged perception checks. So we were getting pretty bored. We closed in on our destination, a temple that jutted out of the ice in the distance but felt rumbling beneath our feet as a young remorhaz bursted out from the ice. It dove back into the ice moving toward its victim. After little deliberation, we broke for the temple. Unfortunately, the remorhaz had a held action to ambush anything that treaded over its space as it traveled under the ice. Unfortunately, our monk landed on the exact spot of the remorhaz and was dealt 33 damage total. The monk's HP max is 16. Needless to say, this WOULD have outright killed him, but the DM felt bad as the player of the monk is his son and we had gone through so much monotony to just get rewarded with an instant PC death. For RP, I had my cleric cast healing word on the monk to show how desperate she was to try and do something for the situation. The DM ruled that since death saves start on a character's next turn, this would actually have brought the monk back up. We gave a reasonable amount of pushback referencing the rule for outright killing a character and we all came to an agreement that just this once we would let it play out this way. Of course, I am happy that my friend gets to keep his character, but the dice made their decision. Rolls for encounters were made periodically and thus a remorhaz was the chosen ambusher for the journey. We have also been playing D&D for about 2 to 6 years a person. Has my DM committed a grievous act of heresy? Should he have sacrificed his son for the good of the campaign? I humbly await. Dice Christ be praised. Amen.

garett144

May it please the court and especially Caldwell because this is some Looney Toons shenanigans. I present the case of the joker golem. I was playing a rune knight with carving proficiency, my cousin joined as a guest for one session but instead of rolling a character he used a clay golem stat block. During a boss fight an attack did something screwy to him and caused the golem to attack all of us. Upon a 22 insight check all the DM gave me was "he just looks angry" what it was was an enrage mechanic in the golem player. Kinda miffed that thats what a 22 got me. I decided to hold down the golem and carve his face into a smile to see if that stopped him from "looking angry" It didn't. Was I being salty at the DM, or was my interpretation of "he just looks angry" fair? In the end we all had a laugh at this so there are no hard feelings.

Raymond Roup

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. I was the guest character for a friend's campaign where an eldritch being was coming to destroy the world. As we tried to prepare for the final BBEG eldritch encounter the DM ignored most of our ideas and proceeded to push us into the fight. We spent the two hours of the session listening to the DM narrate how this being descended from the sky and decimated wave after wave of NPCS as we sat there and watched. We tried to explain what we'd like to do but was met with unwinnable saving throws as we were too scared to fight this being. Three hours into the session the DM introduced their NPC to save the day and began a ritual to seal this being away. Still our characters were too scared to help in this ritual. I realized we couldn't do anything and I fudged my next saving throw and my character was disintegrated by this monster. I then proceeded to take a nap while the rest of the players "played" an additional 3 hours as they listened to the DMNPC save the day. I offer penance of 10 nat one's for my next saving throws as I purposefully killed my character then naped because I wasn't interested in listening to the DMs narration of a final encounter.

Andrew Whitford

Forgive me Dice Christ, for I have sinned. Last week, I had scrambled to put together a session for my players and decided to just throw some simple combat encounters towards them. For context, the party is currently on a pirate ship, sailing to a portal to Shadowfell. For the first encounter, my level 9 Druid cast tidal wave and completely killed an entire enemy pirate crew of 60 wienies in one fell swoop before they could even attack. I was a little shook and decided to ramp up my next encounter’s difficultly to make up for it - instead of one banshee and four sea hags, they now face three banshees and six sea hags. After everyone managed to survive one banshee wail, almost everyone rolled like shit on the second, leading to most of my players dropping from full health to 0 HP. The mood of the zoom call immediately got sour due to this complete and utter bull cocky move. They still had two banshees and six sea hags to kill and the party was now mostly knocked out. Ultimately it was getting late and we called it a night at this cliff hanger, to be continued next week. I feel awful for not planning good encounters for this session. It took six months and a lot of effort to get to this point, and it may end with me accidentally TPK’ing my party. I feel as though I’ve ruined the campaign over being underprepared for one session. I await your judgement, your priestdoms, just please don’t send me to hell. I wouldn’t do well there.

InkTank

Rogue* goddamnit

William James

Hello Honorable Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the bailiff, whose name I think is Jack or something, I am a DM, presenting this case on behalf of our group's Paladin against our group's Bard. During some downtime in a city, the Paladin went out shopping with our Monk and Rogue, and they encountered one of the Monk's frenemies, a young Elven woman surrounded by her entourage of Eladrin. After a quick bout of insults between the frenemy and the Paladin, the frenemy cast Feeblemind against the level 7 Paladin. It went through, and was a huge surprise to everyone in the party that the frenemy could do this. After the party reconvenes to try and fix this (Feeblemind can only be cured by Greater Restoration, Heal, or Wish, none of which anyone in the party could cast), the Bard boldly said the Paladin "got what was coming to her", and "should've known what the consequences could have been." I took the Paladin's side, saying that Feeblemind (an 8th level spell) is definitely an overreaction to getting read on the street, but a few other party members sided with the Bard, saying that you have to be careful in a world with magic like that. Was the Bard correct in saying the Paladin should've been more careful, or was the Paladin fine to have thrown shade? I look forward to your judgment, provided the judgment isn't against me.

Philip Enders

Most Esteemed Supreme Crit Justices and their Bailiff Buddy, I come to you with the case of "Suggestion Cut Short?". This is a case of player vs DM, where I was the DM in question. It all begins with a Yuan-Ti Pure Blood casting suggestion on a character. I had her indicate that a member of the party should attack their companion who had only recently joined the group. They made the attack but then argued that because I made the suggestion effectively "Attack that character", that once the attack took place, they should no longer be under the effect of the spell since I didn't make them suggest "Kill that character". I relented, as I thought that was a clever argument and possibly the way the rules worked regardless. Later that same session, our party's bard cast suggestion on an enemy yuan- ti pureblood: "Attack the yuan-ti malison next to you!" They failed the saving throw and made an attack on their next turn. I then said that the suggestion had ended, per our previous discussion and they said that because the yuan-ti malison was still "next to" the target of suggestion that the suggestion spell wouldn't end. I calmly restated that the suggestion was to "attack" and we'd already established that when attack is used as the suggestion it's only good for the one turn. I lay myself at the mercy of the court - was I wrong to "cut short" my player's suggestion spell effect?

Adam Baker

Case: The Dire Jackalope : Food Truck Street Racer May it please the court of the high crit. I come to you with the case of ‘The Dire Jackalope Food Truck Racer’ I DM a game for my wife and a few of her gal pals who are mostly new players. Their crew were asked by a friend to help them in a food truck street race, a competition for the best parking spots for a festival the following morning. Their wagon was drawn by a nervous but speedy Dire Jackalope named Cinnamon. The Druid (lvl 3) decided to give the cart a boost by shifting into a Dire Jackalope herself. The player said that she should make the cart substantially faster by adding Jackalope Power (Jp). I decided no because it would have messed with the race pretty quickly if all the other racers were left in the dust. I resolved to giving the players advantage on soothing Cinnamon because now she had a friend, this was important because Cinnamon could be hurt and would risk the party loosing control of the food truck. The player was clearly disappointed and confused on why it didn’t increase a their speed but was agreeable and did not fight me on it for more than a minute. Did I make the right call? Or did I ruin my new players cool move? I await your judgement

Tyler Jackson

May it please the court, the honorable judges, and that one dude off to the side, I present the case of the Competing Croaks. My party was traveling through a magical forest and had to follow a set of ambiguous tasks, written out on an invitation in rhyme, to reach a witches’s solstice party. One of the instructions had the party perform with a chorus of giant croaking toads to earn passage. However when they reached the pond, before the rogue with expertise could bust out his best ribbit, another player attempted croaking first and rolled a 2, enraging the giant toads to attack (the rogue rolled a 24 afterwards). While the other characters rolled performances to soothe the toads and earn passage, the player who rolled a 2 stabbed his toad to death as it tried to eat him. An attempt to reanimate the toad body and have it try to croak was met with stern disapproval from the surviving toads, who nonetheless let them pass. The party maintains that the rogue should have been the one to roll, while the toadstabber claims Toad Karaoke is any man’s game. Was I right to have the toads attack, or should I have let the rogue’s crooning croak smooth things over?

Tara Boyle

To the honorable Justices and the lily-livered Bailiff, I present the case of the nat 1 weapon break. My dnd group is playing Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus and are currently level 6 and in hell. Our DM has ruled that after a nat one on an attack roll, your weapon will start to crack and with a second nat 1, unless your weapon is magical, your weapon will break and be unusable. Only 2/4 melee characters have magic weapons so far. I didn’t put up too much of a fight, but this campaign is very fight heavy with us often having 4-8 encounters/day. I argued that should average to at least 1 weapon break/day as we’re continuously rolling attacks and we’re in hell where there’s not a ton of sword shops around. So far only our barbarian has had to surrender his great axe, and resort to a measly mace but I fear our paladin will soon join him and have to take up her spare javelin. Ultimately, it’s up to the DM and I don’t think it will have that great of an effect on us other than looting absolutely every corpse we can find for weapons but I ask the court, should 2 nat ones result in a weapon breaking? I await your wise judgement.

James Langdon

This is a dice Christ confession. Forgive me high priests Murphy,Axford and Tanner, and also the other guy, for I have sinned. I was playing my high elf paladin named…. Binky Fiasco. We were in an endless forest and our party were all separated when I came across a banshee. Being a cocky bitch I tried to fight it solo, but was hit with a once a day spell which made me unconscious. While rolling my death saves I was using a particular d20, when I got to 1 pass and 2 fails. In a moment of weakness and panick I swapped my d20 before immediately rolling another fail, killing Binky. While sitting there afterwards, I rolled again with the d20 I was using, which is got 2 successes, meaning I would’ve lived. My life hasn’t been the same since and I miss Binky everyday, please forgive me

Brittany Behr

Brittany from the Bay Area (So cool to see y'all at the San Francisco show!). To the illustrious judges and the magnanimous bailiff, may it please the court, I present the case of explosive DM. When I was still fairly new to DND, my partner and I joined an online campaign with one of his friends. The player characters were all adopted children of a nobleman whose castle was attacked as the call to adventure. The situation I wanted to bring to the court is this. In session three, while the group was adventuring we discovered a goblin who was kidnapping children, and as heroes we set off to save the children and defeat the goblin. We tracked him to a cave and started doing battle. However, during the battle the goblin lit the fuse of an explosive and threw it deeper into the cave, which we later found was where the children were being kept, slaughtering all of them. We the players were horrified and pushed back against that choice. The DM argued that our pursuit pushed the goblin into a corner where he was forced to make that decision. The group never played another game. Was the DM justified in his decision to have the goblin murder the abducted children or were we right to be uncomfortable with this choice? I leave myself to the mercy of the court. May justice prevail.

Colton Rader

Most Praiseworthy Supreme crit Judges and Jake. I give to you the Goliath Fighter and his massive dong. I am running an off the rails homebrew mixed with a module of Waterdeep. He is a brand new player and he got into a fight with people at the tavern. I asked him what he wanted to hit them with, thinking it would be his great sword.. but no he wanted to swing his dong out and me not wanting to say no cause it was funny said sure it would be a 1d6 damage standard club. Now he won’t use his great sword at all only his dong. Was I wrong to give him such ability to Kill somebody with such appendage? I await your swift and just judgement. Colton.

Agents of DAMNED

Most benevolent judges, and also Jake I guess. I present to you the case of the astral hole and the dragon's asshole. In a campaign that I DM, my players were fighting against an ancient dragon. During the fight, one of my players wanted to crawl inside the dragon from the "back door", for reasons that had not yet been made clear. I said the dragon would get an opportunity attack with its tail, which was met with opposition from that player, but ultimately was allowed to happen. After he successfully got inside, the player wanted to put his bag of holding inside a portable hole, ripping open a portal to the astral plane from the inside, bisecting the dragon. I ruled that while the portal would certainly happen, it would not cleave it in two, and instead send both the dragon and himself to the astral plane. The player seemed dejected by this, saying that if it didn't kill him, then there was no point, even though it would have ended the encounter and trapped the 2 of them. We instead turned back the clock and pretended the whole thing never happened. Was I too harsh in my ruling by denying him this epic kill, or did I offer a fair compromise that wasn't well recieved? I leave my fate in your most knowledgeable hands. - Hoshi from AoD

Andrew Hurst

To the esteemable judges of DnD Court, plus the other guy, I give you the case of Werewolf Pigeon. During a fight against a Loup-Garou, one of my players polymorphed himself into a pigeon (Giant Eagle stats). He received a bite, then failed the constitution save for lycanthropy. He said that as this had happened to his pigeon form, the pigeon is the one that would have been infected and therefore once the spell ended there would be no lycanthropy. I stated that he was still the same being, just in a different form. After some back and forth I relented qnd allowed him to remain werewolf free. Was this the right move? Should I have stuck by my guns? Or should I have ruled that there is now a half pigeon, half wolf hybrid running around each full moon? I await your decision. P.S. Shrek is canon

UrBoyDakota

To our most honorable justices and blessed priests of Dice Christ and the bailiff/altar boy Jake, I am writing to you with the case of the Flexing Barbarian. I am a relatively new dm, finding my DMing style and can be quite flexible with some rules to help my players succeed. One such rule bending is allowing players to use different ability modifiers for certain skill checks (if it seems logical) such as allowing the bard to make a History check using Charisma when recalling information about magical music, allowing the wizard to use intelligence to make a Medicine check when stabilizing an ally while using a “Medicine for Dummies” book, or (in the case I’m writing to you about) allowing the Barbarian to use Strength to roll Intimidation while flexing to show off his ripped body. This has come up a couple of times throughout the game, to intimidate a city guard, a local thieves guild leader, and when interrogating a captured enemy but recently the party was in a rough and tumble town of outlaws and he wanted to roll a Strength Intimidation check to get information out of the bar keeper. I told him that this bar keep deals with big scary guys all the time and they wouldn’t be intimidated by your muscles, so you’ll need to have a stronger force of presence to get what you want (asking for a normal Intimidate check). He argued that with his +5 strength, he’d be WAY more intimidating than than your average outlaw and that if he flexed hard enough that the bar keep should be more than scared of his awesome might. We had a 20 minute, slightly heated debate where I was out numbered 3 votes to 2 but I pulled the “dm’s law” card and still required the charisma roll. Needless to say he failed with -2 charisma. It’s still a bit of a sore spot for him so I ask you this justices. Was I wrong to force my player to roll with a worse stat because I didn’t think his impeccable bod wasn’t enough to scare a bar keep in a bad part of town? I humbly await your judgment and hope you have a pleasant day!

Canadian Schubert the Mushroom 🍄

May it please the court and maybe Baliff Jake, depending on how feisty/deserving of our respect he's feeling. Am I one of them "contemptible min-maxxers"? All my character builds are real specific and super fun. Not just a Ranger, but a sorcerer ranger who catches and changes elements to infuse into his arrows. Not just an Echo Knight, but a Sentinel to stop enemy movement from multiple spots. But it's reached a point recently with my Mounted Combatant Artificer astride his Enlarged robo-dog Fido, that a few of my DMs refuse my builds because they're "too min-maxxy". I don't see it at all as stat-focused trying to win, I just want something specific and flavorful to play in. Am I wrong to be placed in this box, or should I make peace with the box and maybe put up some specific and flavorful decorations?

Moon Eyes

May it please the pretty rad court and the extremely rad Bailiff. May I present you the case of the uncooperative player. We have a group who plays dnd every week, in two campaigns. It’s the same people, except I run a game and my boyfriend runs the other one. I enjoy playing with everyone and we are all very close. However, within one of the games there is a problem. One of our players is playing a stoic Eren Jeagar like paladin in my boyfriends game, and is very quiet. We try and talk to the character, but often there isn’t much of a response from him. So we end up talking more to eachother than the character, and they don’t jump in at all. Mind you they’ve been playing with us for several years, and with other character the player jumps in often. The paladin player often complains that no one talks to her character, but when we ask for her to speak up more she says no because “that’s what her character would do”. And she relies on us to make her character do basically anything. It’s gotten us all frustrated because it’s a cycle of us trying to get the character more involved, the character not responding, us talking to eachother more, and then the player complaining that no one interacts with them. What should we do? Are we in the wrong? Please, guide our table to an answer of ample peace and justice. I await your wise and competent judgement. Thank you

EsteemedTurd

May it please and titillate the Crit Court and the hot sweet tan Bailiff Jake. I bring you the case of paranoid player versus the high roller. A few months ago one of my buds brought his wife to our table at level 9 of a long campaign. Her and I both play monks, which doesn’t really upset anything because our characters are so different. I started to notice that she rolls extremely high, especially on to-hit and damage rolls. Which is tight! But it was so consistently close to maxing out what should be possible for a monk. Then the party went to a casino and her and I faced off in a bare knuckle match. I’m astral self and she’s open hand, and she roundly womped me. But! During that sparring round she didn’t miss my 19 ac almost at all and was doing so much damage it would’ve been the same as my character doing max damage almost every time. I started paying very close attention to her rolls and now I’m worried I’m being a paranoid Pete or worse, a negative Steven. Am I being a sourpus because I lost the spar? Should I bring it up with DM? Even if she is cheating should I care? Can’t see her rolls to verify as we’re virtual. Thx babes

Clever Innuendo

If it pleases the majestic judges and the masochistic bailiff, I present the case of the Warlock Levels Gamble. My character had been captured by the bad guys, and the rest of the team were planning on how to get me out. For the past few months, our Rogue had been taking some Warlock levels, so he asked his Patron to help them out. She agreed, but at the cost that the whole group then does a specific errand for her. If he failed to or refused to after saving my character, however, she would forever pull her support. Not as in "He's just a Rogue again", but that he'd become a level 9 character in our level 12 game. What complicates things is that the errand she asked us to do was an action two other party members, including myself, would be pissed off about doing in-character. We politely voiced our concerns that we felt obligated to take the mission, however, because we know the Meta-consequences for our other player. The DM insists 'we'd know he'd be losing powers, it's not Meta', but we feel there's a huge difference between losing your multiclass and simply being many stages of power behind now. Besides, we play Milestone, and I don't even know what characters being different levels even means in that situation. We ended up finding ways for our characters to justify the choices and did the mission, and the drama of the team possibly turning on each other so late in the game ended up being fun, but were we right to feel we were strong-armed into this situation? I await your clever punishment, even if I have to receive it.

John Boudreaux

To the most honorable justices and their most beard-ful bailiff, I present the case of the shoe-tying rogue. I was running the Lost Mines of Phandelver for some friends. Within combat, the halfling rogue of the party attacked and then asked if he could tie together a hobgolbin's shoelaces to try to trip him up with a bonus action/object interaction. We play things pretty loose, but I said even that was too much for me and there's no way you could attack AND untie AND tie shoes together all in the approx. 6 seconds per combat turn. The player pushed back and said his character, a level 3 rogue, was a professional rogue and this would absolutely be feasible. I asked him to show me how fast he could tie a shoe and if it were under 3 seconds then we could let it fly. After some more back and forth and heated shoe tying session, we ultimately moved on without the extra tripping attempt. I humbly ask: was I too harsh to not allow the shoe tying?

Artemae

To the Supreme Justices and Humble Bailiff. May this please you. I play an Aarakocra Druid/Wizard. Earlier in our campaign we journeyed into some underground tunnels. One of which was flooded. Our gnome barbarian decided to go into the water to see if there was anything worth while below. He was able to find something but during the trip was attacked by some water creatures. He was at a disadvantage. Luckily I knew to send in help as I used message to communicate with him. However I explained my character cannot swim (and couldn't wildshape into animals with a swim speed yet) and also would not swim as I preferred the sky over water. The others went in and all was fine but my party was angry with me for my decision. I am also the only healer. Which I used when they surfaced. Am I in the wrong to have played my character as such and not help in the fight? I await your merciful decision. - 'Asyila (character name)

Claire Messier

To the honorable Supreme crit justices and I guess to Jake too, may it please the court: In a fairly new campaign, my gm has decided to use group initiative rather than individual initiative to make combat quicker. This is fine, however he ruled everyone rolls, and the larger group takes the lowest roll while the smaller group takes the highest. He says this is because smaller groups need less time to coordinate. Our party of 3 got attacked by a bird, we all rolled initiative, and we effectively had triple disadvantage. I made a comment about this, but we continued. He later asked me why I disagreed with the ruling, claiming we would have a huge advantage when fighting a large group. I said that if we were walking down the street and a bird swooped out of nowhere we wouldn't be coordinating, we'd be reacting. He said his ruling stands. So judges I ask, should we be coordinating when a bird swoops out of the sky, or is triple too much disadvantage?

Owen Rath

To the most honorable crits, critters, and cricks of the Court, I present to you the case of the misread backstory: Before I started my last campaign, I asked each player to send me a one-page backstory for their level-1 characters (you know, good DM stuff). Instead of being an inexperienced adventurer like the rest, one player wanted to play a 800 year-old-half-elf general who was trying to get back into the game. The player insisted that because his character lived longer, he should be able to write a longer backstory. Before I could say anything, he sent me a 4 page document. Admittedly, I should’ve read the whole thing, but I skimmed through it instead and told him it was fine, as I didn’t see anything campaign-breaking in it. Little did I know, there was a small detail thrown in that his character made a deal with a god that he could only die in battle, not of natural causes. This has started to cause problems, but every time I mention how game-breaking it is, he reminds me that I approved it. Technically he’s right so I feel bad retconning a major character detail but it’s also insufferable having a character that won’t die of natural causes. I understand my fault in the manner too, so judge however you see fit.

Jor Elare

I stand before you with a confession of my 20 sided sins. During a near fatal encounter, the party I DM for was being attacked from range by a group of demons flinging highly damaging spells (about 25 points a turn) but was unable to deal with them as much beefier enemies were up close. Using a very clutch turn, two of my PCs did a dimension door fireball combo that killed nearly all of these fragile but deadly enemies and the party was saved. The catch? 3 of the 4 remaining enemies crit on their next turn, which I opted to roll as regular attacks because they would certainly have killed the 2 hero pcs I must know if my decision to fudge the roll for plot armor purposes can be forgiven, I humbly await my penance

Tyler Cheek

Honorable justices and handsome bailiff, I submit to you a case of a well-meaning player trying to play god. I am running a campaign with two friends from college and a cousin with whom I am good friends. Recently I got back in touch with a friend from high school (for anonymity, let's call this person Jeff). Jeff is a big nerd just like us, but he doesn't have many close friends (all of us moved away after graduating), so I asked if he would be willing to play DnD with us, given we play over Skype anyway. He agreed, and set about making his character. My problem is this. He made his character, a Dragonborn monk, and even came up with a cool backstory with a unique premise. I was excited by these and approved the backstory. Two weeks later, I receive a message, "Just dropped the doc in your email". I open the email to find an 8 page lore manual explaining the history of the Dragonborn, their religious beliefs and traditions, the history of the specific church he belongs to, and a detailed map and dungeon guide to the church (as he and I had discussed bringing him into the campaign with a quest to save the church). I had planned a lot of this already, and none of it matched what I had planned, but when I brought this up to him he got defensive, saying he liked his idea and didn't know why we should use mine over his. I argued given that I am the DM, the rest of the world matches what I made, but he argues that a good DM should be able to make anything work. Who is in the wrong? I submit myself for judgment.

David Moelker

May the esteemed Judges always be under the gleeming grace and light of Dice Christ's father, the everlasting DM, Dice God. And may the Bailiff see fit too give my case a hearing in his benevolent love. I present the case of Cop vs D&D Me and a group of three friends were having a road trip across the US across California and decided to play some D&D on the way. I was driving and playing a character while a friend in the back DMed a one shot for us from Candlekeep mysteries. On the drive we got pulled over for 'speeding' and the cop found out what we were doing. Unbelievably he said he played D&D as well and gave me a warning for 'distracted driving' as well as a speeding ticket. I thought that a little D&D wasn't too distracting, but he said from experience that it's more distracting than a phone. So I ask the Judges, is it ever too dangerous to be playing D&D, or is the officer needing to feel the long arm of the Crit.

Ben Okin

To the most honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the handsome but unpopular Bailiff, I come to you with the case of the Sloppy Streamer My local game store put out a call for “serious hardcore roleplayers” to play in a publicly streaming game of the Out of the Abyss module. I applied and was pumped to join up because I am always the DM, never the player. I didn’t know anyone else playing but met the experience with an open mind and eager smile. To my chagrin, one of the players (referred to henceforth by his character name ‘Trent’), was a nightmare in and out of the game. Trent would arrive late or not show, with excuses and without. One day his zoom screen showed him in an office and when asked about it, he said he was “at work” and not to worry because he’s “probably going to get fired anyway.” In character he never recognized the consequences of his actions, the most egregious example being stabbing our little mushroom-person sidekick NPC named Stool, so he could maintain his rage and then being mad when we turned on him and knocked him out. I tried talking to Trent directly, but he didn’t seem to get it, and no one was willing to back me up in our post game debriefs. I appeal to the court not to punish Trent (although you can if you like) but to ask if my absolute rat snitch behavior in complaining to the DM after almost every session was appropriate and if his refusal to eject Trent from the game for months was as unacceptable as it feels. I accept my penance as a snitch should the sword fall upon my head. I await your judgement.

nick brown

I have a Dice Christ Confessional. During our last game session my PCs were attempting to save an NPC (a sister to one of the PCs) from a Giant Iron Man Esq suit that was rigged to explode with her in it. We ran it as a skill challenge instead of combat allowing the players to come up with some super creative ideas associated with skills they were good at. At one point, a PC rolled sleight of hand super well and I narrated one of the arms of the robot falling off as the PC figured out a way to detach it. Another PC wanted to use the detached arm to pierce the robot (Ala Incredibles Style). I thought this was super creative and fun so I allowed for a check. The PC rolled a Nat 20, but it wasn't on the table. It landed on her notebook on the floor. In the beginning of the campaign we discussed that anything not rolled on the table does not count. You must reroll. So I made her reroll. She got a nat 1, and used her inspiration to roll again. Getting a 2. I feel horrible about this because it turned an amazing character moment into a failure. I await the verdict of Dice Christ. Nick Brown

Braeden Harris

I come before the Supreme Crit today with a potentially unjust player death. I am running Curse of Strand as a first time DM. My players found themselves in a late game dungeon before they were ready and realized they were in danger. Upon deciding to leave they had to cross a large open room with a hostile spell caster. All the players used abilities or natural speed to get across the room and out of range of the spell caster except one. Seeing my only chance to do some damage I looked at their level 7 spells and cast finger of death. The character failed the saving throw and thus was dealt the full 7d8+30 necrotic damage The player was at full health but this damage exceeded their max health and thus died and was turned into a DM controlled zombie. The players then drew the zombie out of danger and attempted several different methods of returning them to their original elven state. As far as I could tell there was no way to do this because the only way to recoup necrotic damage is by long rest. Neither a zombie or corpse can rest so I ruled the PC was dead and without a resurrection spell or something to bring back the dead they would have to re roll. If the damage had not been necrotic they would have rolled death saves and/or been able to be healed by an ally. Was there something they could do to heal necrotic damage? Can a zombie long rest? If you kill a zombie and then heal them do they become the PC again? According to my own googling I could not find a definitive answer so I await your judgement.

A Spicy Lad of the Shadowkeep

To the esteemed judges and a most bodacious bailiff; I come to you as a DM who loves his players, but is feeling worn down by multiple campaigns. I'm wrapping up my horror-themed campaign right now, with a handful of sessions and an in-person finale being planned, which is leaving me creatively drained when trying to work on other campaigns. The other day, I had to call a hiatus on a new campaign that my players said they had almost instantly fallen in love with, and I don't think I have the strength to pick it up again. I ask you, am I a sinner in Dice Christ's eyes for wishing to abandon one campaign to allow another to live? I humbly await your gracious verdicts.

Jon Gravina

Honorable Justices (and Jake) - Hypothetical situation that came up in casual conversation: How would you adjudicate a Wizard casting Magic Missile against a target that already has Mirror Image active? Could the Wizard declare each dart goes after a different copy in an attempt to snuff out the actual target in one shot? Or would all darts have to target the caster who then gets to roll to see if the one of the copies takes the damage in his or her stead? One of my groupmates and I love bullshitting all these crazy hypotheticals on our long haul commutes. The DM in me would tend to side with the target, as countering a second-level spell with a first-level spell seems overpowered. The player in me sides with the Wizard, though, because I love thinking outside the box for interesting ways to resolve combat.

Lydian Lewis

Dear the upmost honorable judges to have ever graced any court room, I humbly present my case and will gleefully take any ruling the court sees fit. (Oh and btw jake ur cool 😎) Okay so I’ve been playing in this dnd campaign for about 6 months weekly now and it’s the best game I’ve played in the past five years. The characters are interesting, the players RP is on point, and the DMs world building is to die for (Roses all around). However that changed about two months ago when one of our players had to leave because of scheduling conflicts. No biggie it happens, life moves on. Well without checking in with the party, our DM invited his childhood friend to the table. It was a little frustrating to find out we had a new player DAY OF at the table, but whatever. The issue comes in when we learn that the guy has never played any table top RP game before, like ever. Never had listened to a podcast, never watched the game, didn’t even know that you had to roll dice. Generally I love introducing players to dnd, I literally have it on my dating bio “please let me teach you how to play dnd” but this- was a level 10 campaign!! AND HE WAS PLAYING A WIZARD. So many spells to teach, so many mechanics to learn. Last session I almost died because he forgot he had a greater pot of healing because he wrote it as GPH and forgot what it meant. He’s god awful at RP and flirts with every girl we come across. It also doesn’t help he gives me incel vibes. Now that I’m so involved in the situation I can’t tell if I’m being too bitchy, should I just remind myself it’s a game and move on? Should I talk to the DM? I feel like it’s too late at this point, and what would I say? “Get better at the game?” I feel like that’s not very constructive. I guess I’m looking for some advice along side a bomb ass ruling, if your most honorable could spare the time 💕 thank you

Trevor Wurtsmith

Here ye here ye May it please the honorable crit justices and the morally ambiguous baliff. I am a DM who just ran a low level boss fight in my campaign, and my players feel wronged. Much earlier in the campaign I gave them 2 rods of holding, which they forgot about... Until the session right before, when they had time to get ready for the fight and I reminded them to "do inventory before the fight". The prep session ended and I planned the next one to start with the fight. My players devised a plan to fight the boss before they came back. Which was awesome and I was excited to hear it, but they wanted to keep it a secret... Ok, Cool. Fast forward to next session where they mention the artificer had been working on something over night in secret. I asked again, they said it was their secret plan again but it's all within the rules. So I rolled with it hesitantly. They popped out on each side of the boss, rolled initiative ahead of the boss, and "shot him with crossbows that shoot rods of holding". They said he should be stuck in place for the rest of the fight. I said yes, but the rods worked by pressing buttons and to activate it you'd have to do a melee attack with the rods. They argued that as an artificer they would be able to tinker this magical-artifact-slinging-crossbow into existence. So I ask the honorable court, was I wrong to veto the literal secret weapon from my players? If so, I will take my punishment as gracefully as I can.

Dani Sharkey

To the glowing justices and also Jake who's cool too I guess, I present to you my case: A few weeks ago, a session I was in ran long, and I unfortunately had to leave early. We decided the rest of the party would "just go shopping" while my gnome kept watch over the camp. The next day I asked my friends how the shopping trip went, but all of them were acting dodgy. I admittedly got a little annoyed, and after some light interrogating, I found out that in my absence, the party murdered a group of gaurds. This especially hurt as one of the gaurds they killed was an NPC with a very important (and slightly romantic 😳) connection to my character. When the next session rolled around, the rest of the party in game refused to tell my character what happened. I became very frustrated in real life knowing what they were keeping from me, and it stung to watch the group try to move on from the whole event without any reprocussions. I am still incredibly satly at this unresolved, secret conflict, but I fear forcing them in-game to give me information that wouldn't come up otherwise would harm the vibes of our campaign. So honorable justices: do I deserve justice for the way my friends toyed with my trust, or am I at fault for not cooperating with any roleplay or long term plans my DM has in store?

Ryan Sullivan

Dear dice christ I ask for your forgiveness because I am unable to forgive myself. In my early days of D&D I was destined to be a forever DM in order to ever play with my friends. This was not a big deal but the anxiety of playing the game correctly and making sure everyone had a good time was a daunting task for a freshmen in college. This is my confession. In the early levels of our very first campaign(my first time DMing and everyone else's first time playing), I killed my entire party! This was not due to any malicious intent but simply because I was rolling to well and my players unfortunately were not and I felt the need to play RAW to give my players an authentic experience even if I rolled a nat 20 and knocked someone out. After the game and the burning of the sheets I drove everyone home and despite feeling like I had let everyone down they all assured me that they still had a great time role-playing their characters last moments, however I knew that if I had just fudged my own rolls I knew everyone (or at least a few of them) would still be alive. So, almighty dice christ I ask for your forgiveness and a bit of guidance because I have been holding on to this weight for 7 years and have held myself back from DMing because of it. Should I have acted against my own convictions and lied to my players or would I have been robbing my players of a genuine experience and chance to role-play their final moments?

Tim C

May it please the court and the hardworking, yet baseborn bailiff. A giant worm swallowed my group's ranger putting everyone on edge. To save the ranger, our wizard cast banishment on the worm. The party argued that since the spell's target is one creature, the ranger would not be banished with the worm, and that they would instead appear alive and well where the worm had been. I pointed out that any food in the worm's stomach would be banished with it, and the ranger was it's lunch at this point. I left it up to Dice Christ, and the wizard rolled a Nat 20, making the decision easy. We banished the worm and saved the ranger. While all were thrilled with this resolution, for future precedent, I'm curious if the court would allow this, and if so, should it be possible without a Nat 20?

David Heintz

May it please the Sea Captains, Which spell takes precedence, Heat Metal or Sanctuary? During combat, the DM's Pyromancer sorceror cast Heat Metal on my cleric's scale mail. However, I had cast Sanctuary on myself, and I Amiably Argued that "Heat Metal" was a 'harmful spell' that should be deflected. My DM Cordially Countered that because "Heat Metal" targets an object, not a creature, that my armor was the target and thus Sanctuary could not deflect the spell. I Goodheartedly Groused that surely, even if Heat Metal wasn't technically targeting me as a creature, it was cast on MY armor, and was clearly intended to be harmful, which would make sanctuary work. We agreed to settle it with a roll: Odds, Heat Metal worked; Evens, Sanctuary worked and Heat Metal was deflected. My DM rolled a 15 in front of the table and I took 11 fire damage in the first round, and was later fully killed by a wall of fire. Although this situation was settled amicably, I urge you to consult the sacred texts and come to a fair, just ruling. And if a fair ruling doesn't come naturally, can l swing an axe at my friends head and say "I wasn't attacking YOU, I was attacking your HELMET"? I leave it to the crits to decide.

Travis Butcher

May it please no one in the court but hopefully the clergy. I, AM, an insane DM. I don't let many rules slide but do have a habit of messing with monsters to make them more powerful or weaker depending on how much addition or subtraction I feel like doing that day. I just place minis and roll dice. This has led a few times to nearly TPKing the party on more than one occasion, as well as players coming to me saying I didn't roll the right dice for combat. I bring this absolutiont and/or guidance as should I be playing monsters RAW for the sake of the party or continue my reign of terror and keep em guessing.

BassToad

I sit in the confession box of the church of Dice Christ, seeking forgiveness for past sins. Several years ago I ran a one shot for my friends that ended very poorly because my plans did not go as I intended. It was my first attempt at DMing and I ran a Murder Mystery where the host of a fancy party faked his own death in order to distract everyone from his evil plot. The party followed the clues and learned that the mansion the party was being held at was actually a demiplane being held open by a magical orb. One player decided they wanted to shoot the orb. I had not anticipated this possibility, and in a moment of panic I rolled a d20 to determine it's Hit points and AC. I rolled a very badly on both. Upon the destruction of the orb the entire demiplane collapsed, killing everyone inside except the party that managed to escape. I was extremely upset about it, to the point that my poor reaction towards the orb shooter made them feel so bad that they never wanted to play D&D ever again. I've learned a lot about DMing since then and I understand how badly I messed up, but I still feel very guilty for my behavior. I throw myself at the mercy of Dice Christ.

Kelley

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the stalwart Bailiff Jake, may it please the court: I recently DM’d my first ever game with three of my nieces and their moms, all first time players. They played as gummy bear adventurers (using Halfling stats) in a candy world, and their final battle was against a young vegetable dragon with a ranch dressing breath weapon. For the first three rounds of combat, my nine year old niece missed every shot she took, but she was being a really good sport about it. On her fourth shot she hit! But then her damage AND her smite dice both rolled 1’s. Her face was so sad that I just quickly told her to re-roll the damage. Her mom (also playing) was surprised and asked if the Halfling Lucky trait also applied to damage rolls. I said “not usually, but I’m the DM!” and the game moved on, they killed the dragon and got the treasure. The other kids didn’t even notice I let her re-roll the damage because they were too busy eating all the candy we were using for minis, only my one sister noticed, but I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since. Should I have just told my niece to deal with the low damage roll? Did I let my soft aunt heart sully the honor of the game? I humbly await your judgment (but also thank you because the only reason I felt brave enough to try DMing a game in the first place is because of NADDPOD)!

Noel Raley

To the honorable Crit Justices and most despicable Bailiff, my friends and I have been trying to play a consistent campaign for years. For a multitude of reasons we've had at least 4 different campaigns fizzle out. One of my friends has a job that makes scheduling sessions very difficult, and I told him that we were going to start a separate campaign without him so that we could play consistently. He lost his shit and yelled about how the rest of us weren't really trying to work around his schedule and since then we've been attempting to make a new campaign work around his schedule. My case is: Am I the asshole for telling him we were going to play without him? Would it be wrong to start a secret second campaign?

Stanarchy

To the honorably esteemed justices and the semi-okay bailiff I guess. I bring before the crit the case of the explosive anal beads. During a session from Dragon of Icespire Peak, my HIGH elf druid, Mah-ri Wahnah, found a necklace of fireballs. I rolled a d6+3 to determine how many beads were on the necklace. I rolled a 6. That's 9 fireball spells to use as I please. A maximum of 72d6 damage. At the next session our party encountered a group of cultists attempting to summon a thunder boar god. Our bard/rogue had the idea to attempt to seduce the god and, while in the throes of divine coitus, insert a number of beads into the holy boars sphincter and detonate them with an arrow. The seduction failed and our cleric cast darkness on the boar god's nose in combination with a crown of madness spell from the Bard. Failing both checks caused the boar God to fall prone allowing our rogue Bard friend to slip the explosive anal bead in and detonate them. This was the highlight of my dnd career. Then came the final fight against the dragon for which the module is named. The rogue Bard wanted to try the same strategy again. I conceeded my explosives because I didn't want to seem like I wasn't a team player. By some stroke of luck he succeeded his stealth and slight of hand checks to do the dirty deed. The damage was enough to kill the bbeg in one hit and ended the session and the campaign in less than 5 minutes. The dm then packed up her stuff and left to drive 45 minutes to her home that is two counties away from where the game was hosted. She then backed out of running the module she had picked out next and the group slowly dissolved over time. Who is in the wrong here? Should I have held onto my nukelace (my name for the necklace of firballs) to use as a final strike as I had planned? Should the Bard have decided to not use the same strategy against the final boss? Should the DM have improvised something to keep the session going? These questions haunt my soul to this very day.

Danny C

To the Exquisite Justice Axford, Humble Justice Murph, Playful Justice Caldwell, and Bailiff Jake. I bring you, the case of the Put Upon Paladin: I am playing a paladin and some time ago our party became engaged in a battle that involved goatlings. The goatlings attacked first and I proceeded to cut a few of them down. After the session my DM messaged me and said several party members expressed their dismay that I had attacked "goat children." They also didnt think that a Paladin would indiscriminately kill children. My DM shared their views. I pointed out that the DM put the goatlings in the story and that if he didnt want goatlings to be killed he shouldn't have had them attack the party. Recently, my party came across a village of bullywugs who they suspected of human sacrifice. No questions asked they slaughtered the entire village while I hung back and tried to use Command on the bullywug leaders to diffuse the situation. I then got the impression that my party was upset that I hadnt helped them during a fight. I pointed out that as a paladin, I wouldnt indiscriminately participate in a mass killing, and asked how this was different than killing goatlings? Is my party trying to get me to quit or am I destined to forever walk on eggshells with these people.

Phill Pearson

Highly Exalted Crit justices and Stalwart Yet lowly Baliff I bring to you the case of the Standing Daddy. In an epic superhero-inspired Dnd Campaign, my character's Dad (the BBEG) was knocked prone and then hit by a grasping arrow and a booming blade. Which cause damage if the creature moves more than 1 foot and five feet respectively. On my Dads turn the Dm tried to have him stand up (which as the tomes say, spends fifteen 15 of movement). The DM (my best friend) said that my dad would not take damage because he isn’t moving 15 feet. I argued that standing up definitely would use more than 1 foot of movement and showed this by laying on the ground and then standing up, showing the movement that it takes. The dm said that, standing up only “spends” 15 feet but doesn't actually mean they move 15 feet. Arguing that "using movement" is not the same as moving. Much like moving through difficult terrain spends double movement. We continued to argue back and forth, he saying that with my logic using somatic spells would trigger the effect as well, which I thought was ridiculous. We ended up yelling at each other, acting out different spells and getting up and down from prone eventually settling it with a roll. However, I still think that standing up the vines would definitely cause my daddy damage. Which one of us do you think is correct and who should be punished?

Lee Ann Tuohy

May it please the court, but may it also bother you as it has me. Our party was facing off against Rahadin, Strahd's loyal and powerful servant. Our Druid cast Heat Metal at a 5th level on the Scimitar Rahadin was wielding. Rahadin takes the 5d8 fire damage, but makes his saving throw so he keeps holding the weapon. Sounds okay so far, right? Only, on Rahadin's next turn he multiattacks the bard three times with the heated scimitar, and the DM claims that since Heat Metal is still active, the bard takes the normal scimitar damage and the fire damage from heat metal, each strike, dealing A TOTAL OF 115 DAMAGE IN ONE TURN! I asked the DM, if such a ruling seemed fair and he simply said "It goes both ways."??? The cleric dispelled heat metal and the fight continued, ending with our victory, but the situation left a sour taste in my mouth. No one else in the party seemed to care, not even the druid who I felt had their 5th level spell turned against them. It came as a huge shock to the group when I told them I wasn't paying $15 a week for bullshit like this and was told I was over-reacting to one small ruling. I ask the court to cast judgement. Am I overreacting by throwing away my character mid-campaign or was the DM truly not worth my time and money?

SquishyBish

Esteemed Bailiff Jake of the supreme crit, et al. May it please the crit and the Chief Justice in Absentia, Dice Christ. I bring to you the case of Snuffleupagus the Otyugh. I am actually presenting this case against myself, the first-time DM of a custom campaign. Through shenanigans encountered in my reskinned Midden of the Flayed, the party added a DMPC Otyugh to the group. They then came across a shadow gnome and a Deck of Many Things. The luck on this was insane. Generally poor outcomes were experienced by all three party members, but the Otyugh was also granted the ability to play after passing an intelligence check. Card after card was drawn. Intelligence of the Otyugh is now 20, he has 3 wish spells available, was granted 25,000 gp of gems, and is now the lord of a small keep. We took a hiatus from playing, and while I prep, I am concerned about how to set up future encounters. The party really gets a lot of enjoyment from Snuff, as they call him, but I think I have to kill him offscreen or nerf him somehow. I am seeking an injunction against myself before I do something I'll regret and an advisory opinion... The party comprises my wife, her sister, and her sister's wife, so I'm really treading on thin ice, but I'm not sure how to keep stakes high with a superbeing in their party.

Melon Bread

While you’re definitely right rules as written, the half-max HP rule is a popular house rule, used to keep things more deadly. You’re DM should have definitely communicated it to you in advance however. This sounds like a difference in expectations as to what kind of campaign you were going to have.

Bappy

I'd like to confess my sins to Dice Christ and the clergy; the first time I played DnD 5e when I was in high school, I wanted to play a hard ass character who was rough on the outside, but ultimately cared for their party. One of the other players tamed a wolf, and under the reason of, 'it's a wild animal and could hurt the party' I killed the wolf. Upon backlash I said it was just what my character would do. I think I was lashing out at the other player because they kind of bullied me in high school (they'd take my backpack and steal my snacks), but that doesn’t make it right to be a dick in-game. I've moved on from interacting with this person, but I still feel bad for being an ass and using the, "it's what my character would've done" excuse. In the last decade I've worked to become a better person and player, but I ask for your forgiveness supreme council of popes.

Matt

Honorable and attractive Judges Tanner, Murphy and Axford; and Honest and attractive Bailiff Jake Last of his name. May it pleasure the court; I need a post game ruling on if Something was meta-gaming. I had a player use their OOC knowledge of the dice roll to affect their Role-play and decisions. For example once he rolled a nat one on a Sense motive check and when told “you think he’s friendly” he attacked and told the party he crit failed so they must of been evil (he was, but still) The Player thinks his character knowing if they passed or failed a check isn’t Meta knowledge and got furious when I said I would roll a perception check he asked for. Others agreed with him and did the same so I stopped the game. Does The Court and Dice Christ Support this?

Michael Kessler

Forgive me, Dice Christ, for I have sinned: I tricked my fellow players into killing my character without consulting the DM. Harper was a high level warlock in possession of the Hand of Vecna, a powerful artifact that was making him do increasingly evil acts. In an attempt to save him, the wizard dominated him and asked the fighter to chop the hand off. I said nothing until the DM ruled that the deed was done, and then I politely asked if I could narrate Harper's death, to the stunned silence of the rest of the table. You see, I knew a little trick of the Hand of Vecna: once attuned, if it's ever removed, you die. No one else knew this. The DM didn't even know this, he had to look it up after the fact. I would have said something before it was too late, but here is my sin: I thought it would be funny. And it was. I am now happily playing a Witcher-esque blood hunter styled after my boy Cody Walsh. But should I humble myself before Dice Christ with an offering of some sort, or were my actions lawful and sactioned in the eyes of our lord?

Kaylie Elise

To the dope justices and rad Jake, I present the case of the comendired backstory. I was playing in a campaign as a half orc druid sailor. I'd discussed my backstory briefly with my DM beforehand. I was role-playing with another character and was telling them how I was raised on a ship by my mother and first mate, who was a bullywug druid (this was improvised). The player rolled an insight check on me and crit. Before I could tell them it was the truth my DM replied that I was lying. When I asked the DM after why he did that he replied that we hadn't talked about it before hand so assumed my character was lying. I ask; did my DM do anything wrong by stating what I was implying to be true was false, or did he have the right to change my story because we hadn't discussed it before?

Ryan Budde

Hey there centaurs. I used to be in a campaign where I was a paladin and another player was a multi class with 1 level of paladin and the rest bard. The problem occurred around level 12 when the bard got 6th level spell slots and started smiting with them. A 6th level smite is up to 8d8. With booming blade and flourishes the bard regularly got over 100 (20d8+2d10) damage on a crit, and far out damaged and out healed my character. However, smite's language says the damage is capped at 5d8 (presumably 10d8 for a crit). I never corrected the other player and just let it slide, even though it made my character feel less impactful in comparison. Was I wrong to let this error go uncorrected?

EggBilly

Dearest Grand judges and Jake, I bring to you the case of the no-rule-of-cool DM. A friend of mine found her very first campaign to join. She was so excited and hounded me with questions as I have played and DM multiple times. I delightfully helped her and all was going well for her. One day, she asked if I was willing to join her party, as one of the members bowed out. I said sure, and sent the DM my character sheet, which he approved (a Mercer 5th level gunslinger with 3 levels of rogue, Brennan style). We met 15 minutes before the session via zoom to go over some house rules. He then tells me that I need to choose a new character, as mine is going to cause some issues. He then sends me a character he has created for me to play instead. I told him I don't want to play this character, I don't know this character. He said that this is not ( and I kid you not) naddpod and such op characters are not allowed. I told him I don't think this group is for me then, and bowed out. Monday rolls around and I ask my previously chipper coworker how her session went, to which she replied, "I was killed within 15 minutes of the session, then told not to worry about rolling a new character as the campaign would be ending soon." I felt so bad because I was afraid the DM squashed her dreams of playing DnD because I wouldn't play along. Is this my fault or should I just admit the DM was hogwash and just DM a campaign with her and some friends to give her a better experience? I await your harsh, but divine judgement.

Cara McKinley

To the honorable judges and the bailiff, tall, strong but kinda smelly? Like... Right? I am the DM of a high fantasy campaign. All the magic in the world comes from "the one tree" a tree that the god who created the world, wove herself into so that magic could be gifted to the people. Which was great... Until my players decided to use the tree as the stage for an epic battle against a fire elimental. As much as I tried to get them to fight literally anywhere else, they were in love with the idea of swinging from branch to branch to get cover, sneak attacks and just generally cool finishers, so I let it happen. During the fight I kept describing the damage being done to the tree and once the fight was over I ruled that since the tree had been badly scorched in this fight, the magic in the world was now faltering and was unstable. They say that this is too harsh and that I'm just being a butt because they dinged up my cool tree. I ask you, if you goof a god, even in tree form, shouldn't you be punished? I and my players, humbly await your judgment

Joseph M McDevitt

Honorable justices and Jake, I guess, I submit not a case but rather a request for summary judgment. My group hasn’t played in a while and I really want to play again. I ask that you use your wisdom to punish them for their lack of commitment. I am the DM and a lenient one at that. All they have to do is come play!

Alex Moore

May it please the court, I present the case of the Botched Plot Twist: I run a campaign where two societies are at war because one can harness magic and the other cannot. When my party (a group of spellcasters) visited the territory of the non-magic users, I built up over several sessions that the guards there were in possession of weapons meant to counteract magic users, even color coding them to indicate danger. The intent was, if those weapons dropped you to zero, your magic would be “stilled” until a cure was found, but I never explicitly stated this to the party. Cut to the climax of the arc. Our wizard gets a little too cocky and is taken down by one of these weapons. I expect that once they’re stabilized, they’ll try to cast spells, at which point I would say their magic is gone. But they never do. We make it to the end of the session and pack up our things, at which point I awkwardly mention to the wizard “Oh, your magic is gone by the way”. They were cool with it, as they were excited to reclass for a little while, but I have to ask: was it fair to make such a huge reveal outside of the game, even if all signs were pointing to the reveal happening and I never had the chance to say it in-game? My fate is in your hands.

Cody Bose

May it please the court. A few friends and I were on a trip to KC to celebrate my buddy's bachelor party. Before we left, we had the idea of doing a one-shot campaign as part of the pregame ahead of the night on the town. The DM specifically said that everyone was going to be pretty overpowered and we could basically do whatever we want, and to create level 10 characters. Since it was a group of close friends and we were basically given the OK on shenanigans, I built a character that was secretly two gnomes in a trench coat and I dual classed as cleric/fighter (one gnome was the cleric, one was the fighter). I created two separate character sheets and basically played as two level 5's instead of one level 10. Fast-forward to actually playing. When I introduced my character I made sure to note that I was always seen wearing a trench coat, and throughout the encounters I specifically asked the DM where my character was being hit with damage so I could apply the damage to the correct gnome. Everything was going great until one battle that saw my top half get knocked out, and the big reveal happened. I tried to describe the whole situation in a really fun way, and the plan was to use the lower half gnome to heal the top half gnome. When I did this, everyone thought it was funny except for the DM. He insisted that I should have told him my character's secret before the campaign started, and proceeded to punish me by saying I was only allowed to play one character and that my top half was fully dead without any rolls or anything. I explained that I didn't want to ruin the surprise and that I had been keeping track of everything on separate character sheets but he wouldn't change his mind. Was I wrong for assuming that this bachelor party one-shot where the DM said we could "do whatever we want" would allow some fun shenanigans, or should I have told the DM before hand and ruined the surprise?

Rebecca Gentzel

To the honorable judges of the court and the equally present bailiff, I bring the case of the Witch, I was a player in a Pathfinder campaign. My previous character died, and I eagerly made a new one. She was a friendly fortune teller who used a deck of Tarot cards as her spellcasting focus and could even throw the cards to deliver the spells for her. I told this to the DM and he said he'd handle the character introduction to the party. The next session, the party met the mayor and the DM described how my character was in shackles in the room after having been arrested for being a witch. It is true that my character's main class was Witch, but I pointed out how she didn't seem stereotypically 'witchy' and why she'd be arrested when other magic users weren't. The DM doubled down that it was because she was a witch. The paladin of the party latched onto this and would just refer to my character as 'witch' with disgust. My question is is it reasonable that characters would be able to know and judge PCs based on their class levels? For context, the DM previously would refer to our party's rogue as a thief (to her constant disagreements that she wasn't a thief).

Andrew Coskey

Dear Bailiff Jake and the Supreme Crits (which is a good band name btw), I would like to present the case of the meteoric mortar. My players recently fought and defeated the Baba Yaga which resulted in them getting access to her legendary Mortar and Pestle. Among the various magical properties that are granted with these items is the ability to travel at an absolutely ridiculous speed when in the mortar. This quickly turned into a conversation with the group about how they could solve a lot of their problems by just flying the mortar through any roadblock that presented itself and a lot of time that session was used in discussing how much damage it would cause if they used the mortar in an orbital strike against the BBEG. I laughed along with them and tried to act nonchalant but I was sweating that at one point they will actually use this pocket nuke that they acquired from beating up an old woman and I was constantly thinking about how I can mitigate this from happening. The next time it came up I mentioned that there would be consequences along the same magnitude of a meteor striking the Earth and while they accepted that, there was still some grumbling about how it should be allowed. Should I have been more encouraging of their out of the box antics or is the equivalent of a pocket nuke too game breaking to be used in regular play? I eagerly await your potential judgements.

Cody W

To the high honored crit justices and Mr Hurwitz, I bring to the court the case of the terrible ex PC turned dm PC. I've been running a campaign for friends for about 2 years at this point, with large flux of players ranging from 3 to 8 at some points. The party is level 6 currently, and down to maybe 4 consistent players. One Player was a lot in a person, moving into my basement and trashing it with actual dirt and garbage to say the least. His character, my own homebrew monk subclass, which he asked me to design, Way of the Substance Sage, spending ki for magical drug effects, due to his general shittiness, he has been kicked from my life and as a PC. The issue as follows is: I wish to turn his PC into a dmPC, and have written an explanation of his character is one of many sent from a divine archive, and would be switched out with another one but keep the stats. My players seem genuinely discouraged at any mention of the real life player and one going so far as to threaten to finish his character off. I made important story breadcrumbs to this plot his character is related to and its own subclass, but don't want to discourage my players by holding on to any vibes from this guy. I thank all high honor sweeties of the court for consideration of my case A tired Dm Cody

Charlie Fitzgerald

May it please the esteemed justices and diligent baliff: My friends invited me to join a campaign that they had already been playing for a few months. The DM gave me the option of either creating a new character to introduce or taking control of one of the recurring NPCs and making them a full-time party member. I chose to take over one of the NPCs, as he was a cool class and I loved his backstory. The DM said he was my character now, but if I wasn't sure how he would react in a situation, I could ask the DM for his input. There have been a few times, however, where, without me asking, he has made certain decisions for the character that I don't really agree with. For example, the party was recently in the Feywild trying to secure the aid of Melora in one of their quests. She agreed to help on one condition: she got to spend one night alone with my character. I felt that my character would refuse, as he is of a noble knight background, not to mention part of his backstory is that he is secretly in love with another member of the party. The DM said that my character would agree to the terms and "didn't have a choice anyway," and proceeded to say that they spent the night together before skipping to the next morning. This is the most extreme case of him doing this, but there have been a few other times where I feel like he has made decisions for the character I didn't agree with. I ask the court: should I be able to have full control of the character I'm playing, or is this simply the price I pay for joining late and using a character that was already in the story? I humbly await your verdict.

Scottee

May it please the court, tease the bailiff, and ultimately bring pleasure to all: I present a case of MURDER. I'm a newish DM in a homebrew campaign. Recently, we had a guest player that another player invited- Smashton the Barbarian. I'd been told he had player and DM experience, so I decided to let him join in on a session to see how he fit. Guest decided to try to make a Deception check to convince a guardsman to leave his post. In principal, that's fine- the issue I have is that he really didn't actually say anything aside from "I want to make a Deception check to make the guard leave." I asked him to elaborate- for example, was he pretending to be a senior officer, was he convincing the guard there was an emergency elsewhere? Guest refused, said he didn't want to bother with that, and that he felt it was BS that he had to come up with that stuff when DMs would never require players to do anything IRL to justify an Athletics check, for example. I explained that that was kinda the RP part of the RPG and that the game would get extremely boring for me if players just said stuff like "I want to Persuasion check the cultists to stop" or "I want to make an Intelligence check to figure out the best plan." More charismatic or tactical players have an advantage, but reducing the game to pure numbers kinda sucks, right? I finally got the player to at least narrate his actions but I ask you, judges. Should I have just... Rolled with it? (PUN!)

Tino Bambino

May it please the honorable court and the fantastically honorable baliff Jake. This isn’t a case from in-game but rather a case about common sense and integrity. Me and my friends were passing the time by building character sheets for celebrities. I argued, that Barack Obama had at least an 18 in charisma with proficiency in public speaking. After a long drawn out argument we comprised on 16 charisma and moved on. Then, we began making character sheets for one another and they agreed our friend Tommy a 10 in wisdom. I disagreed vehemently, as Tommy has choked out one of our friends in an Alleyway because he “couldn’t tell who he was” and “was coming right for him”. I said if Barack Obama the president of the united states for 8 years can’t have an 18 in charisma Tommy should have a negative modifier and that’s the end of it. Am I in the wrong? I leave our judgement in your hands. With love, Tino Bambino

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

Greeting my sexy peers and Jake the golden archon of the Table. I have a Dice confession I feel I must unburden myself with the stress it's brought over the years. Towards the end of my DM's campaign arch my main PC died (I was playing 2 at the time like another player to make up for lack of bodies) or at least she would have if my DM had checked saves on falling in lava at level 6. The damage was about 60 something and I wasnt allowed any of my base devil resistances at the time so I would have fully died. Instead I lied and passed only by a 1 or 2 difference. However she is still being played to this day as a main role in Both my campaign and his still, being that she's the only living PC that knows the original campaign. After her "original death" she later actually died following an ally into a trapped room trying to save him. My DM had a fail safe allowing us to resurrect her but I still feel bad. I know dice Christ has already punished my but I seek the true punishment of the court. She currently is helping my parties second PC's since their mains are in the underdark and she's helping them with levels, feats and tactical training while setting up an Avengers Civil War scenario where I expect the other DMs rival PC will attempt to fight her for "dominance". I await my trial and will keep helping my players till then. God speed

Melon Bread

Yes, it really is that fucked up; your DM is a player too and you should consider their feelings. Also this definitely is not rules as intended; Ceremony says “a creature can benefit from this spell again only it widowed.”. Since both of you would be dead and then immediately revved, none of you would experience the legal state of being a widow.

Titus D. Blaze

To the highest honorable justices and the middling bailiff jake, I give you the case of pregame drama: I am a first-time DM and I'm trying to put together a campaign for my girlfriend and our roommates. In the process of coming up with ideas for the campaign, I asked for their characters' backstories to help guide the campaign making but they said it's all on me to make the motivations and goals for the characters. So I pass it to the court: Is it the DM's job to tell the players their character's motivation, or is it on the players to find the motivation? -Sincerely the nervous new DM

ap.cleric

I have not a case but a confession to Dice Christ. In a battle royale with friends, my closest friend was placed on the opposite team as me and decided that I was his enemy that absolutely HAD to be defeated (he made it so because he wanted to take me out in friendly competition because I had more experience as a player). He was taking himself up so much while I quietly sat and took it in. When it came time for me to roll an attack against him with Inflict Wounds, I rolled one off from his AC. We were playing through discord, so I fudged the number to make it even with his AC. Was I wrong to take him down a peg or two in the ego department? I await the judgment of Him.

Samson

May it please the fair and secular Court, the honorable Justices Axford and Tanner, the multi-talented bailiff Hurwitz, and Animorph Murphy. I must make a confession before Dice Christ that I have held in for too long. About two years ago, one of the players in my old group volunteered to DM a campaign. He showed us some of his notes and the map he made, each country having a rich history and culture. We, being the sinful, out-of-control players we were, decided that our entire party would be composed of former WWE-style wrestlers who lost their wrestling gigs and decided to take on odd jobs as adventurers. Soon after, the serious campaign that our DM crafted, descended into absurdist, slapstick humor in which we wiped out some kobold raiders and proceeded to grift from a poor farming village with staged wrestling matches and tomfoolery. Our DM never complained about our appropriation of his world, but I had the feeling that he was disappointed that he wasn't able to tell his story. As fun as that campaign was, I still feel bad a year later that we took our friend's dream and stuffed it with tights and luchador masks, and I wish to repent. I ask the court, in all it's divine wisdom, to enlighten us about what punishment we deserve for trampling on our friend's vision. I humbly await your divine decree.

Kristen Miano

Hi Jake, Bless me justices, for I have sinned. I took part in a DND tournament at a gaming convention before the pandemic. A party dungeon crawls through levels (easy, medium, hard) before getting to the boss fight–a battle against the Xanthar itself. Your party competed against other parties in the convention hall to see who could get to and kill Xanthar first. This was a massive convention, so my party was given pre-made character sheets with prechoosen spells and abilities, and I, having played one before, picked the Life cleric. Despite being on a mission to kill the beholder, I hadn’t read his Guide to Everything and was unfamiliar with the cleric spell, “Toll the Dead.” Based on a quick study of the spell description, I was immediately enamored by a cantrip dealing 1d12 damage and dove right in. These levels were TOUGH, but I had signed up with a group of people I had played with for over a year, so we fell into a good rhythm the Stranger-DM managing our table seemed to appreciate. And maybe the DM was psyched we were doing so well, or maybe the flurry of dice rolls and the anguished cries of the other tables dying around us got to him too…but it is the responsibility of the player to read and understand their spells, and that’s why this is a confession. The first monster I targeted with “Toll the Dead” made its Wisdom saving throw, so I asked the DM “I roll a D8 instead of a D12 for damage since it saved, right?” And he said “Yes.” Justices, this is WRONG. I encourage you to read the spell’s language to see just how WRONG this is, but I started rolling a d12 for damage any time a creature failed its saving throw against Toll the Dead…and a d8 anytime it saved. The madness ended when I needed to leave the event early to go to a convention panel elsewhere, but my table ended up killing Xanathar and winning the tournament. The prize was a cool, indie-printed players’ guide to leveling characters beyond level 20, and despite my absence from the victory itself, my table was kind enough to bring me a copy. After all, they couldn’t have gotten as far as they did without my little Life cleric and her massive “Toll the Dead” dongs. I hope dice Christ can find it in his heart to forgive me for this transgression. I still have the book and it’s pretty rad, so it would be nice to be able to use it without the crippling guilt I’ve come to associate with it. I eagerly await your blessing.

Melon Bread

Trying to tie respecking a character into something as dramatic as death is always a bad idea. That said, you should have put your foot down when the necromancer wanted to do the zombie thing.

Justin Lang

As a self appointed member of the Grand Dun-jury, I cast my vote for an Indictment on behalf of the player. As per the documents subpoenaed from Rob Cantor (the YouTube video of the aforementioned song), the protagonist is able to both sneak up on AND dispatch the bloodthirsty cannibal, all while injured by a beartrap. An injustice was done here, and I think my fellow jurors will agree that this case must be put to a public trial.

Highlanderri

May it please the honorable, unhinged judges and the Bailiff who is ultimately at fault. I was playing in a West Marches game where our group was facing a den of giant spiders. Our Echo Knight fighter (who was a warforged and flavored himself as 3-d printing clones for his echoes) was about to have his echo bit in half by the spiderqueen, so I (a Battlesmith Artificer) used my Steel Defender to impose disadvantage on the attack (it has a reaction that does this). My thoughts were to while the echo is expendable, it would be nice to keep it around and maybe take another hit. The player immediately interrupt and told me I cannot do that. I was confused, maybe he didnt want me to waste the reaction, until he starting going on how an "echo" is considered an object, not a creature and I could not deflect the attack against it. This devolved into an explanation of how this makes his echo immune to all damage spells in the game. The DM ruled with me that I could help, but the entire situation was bizarre with the other player arguing himself out of having me do anything to help; this ended with a demand of the entire server to write rules for all DMs to follow with his character. Is this player maybe a little to hung up on RAW, or was I wrong for thinking I could deflect an attack with Deflect Attack. It does say a creature who makes an attack on another creature...but come on.

Emilie Rayner

Please oh holy ones, A Dice Christ exorcism is needed. I run a DnD club for grade 3-4s with lovely character names like: Dark Dorito, Shadow Power, Dr. Sun Shadow, Frog Eater and Jimmy John Jr. During a session each of the five students rolled a nat 1 in a row. They now believe we are cursed. They have asked me for new dice due to this curse but i can not buy more dice on a teacher salary. Please dice Christ, free my young kids from this curse!

Thundermammal

To the omnipotent judges and impotent bailiff, may it please the court, In a recent game we were presented with a “puzzle” that involved breaking a frozen pond. I told the DM that I began swinging my axe at the ice to cut a hole. The DM asked me to make an attack roll against the ice. This seemed weird for a trivial task but I obliged. Rolling average, the DM told me that I swung down and DENTED the ice but it didn’t seem to have much effect. I have chopped a number of holes in 3 or more feet of ice (live in Canada) and it is an easy task that can be accomplished in minutes. Moreover, ice splinters and cracks under force, it doesn’t dent. In character, I turned to the party and effectively said this. That the ice must be magical because of the strange way it was reacting to my axe. I hoped that the DM, listening, would retcon if this wasn’t their intention. The DM said nothing which I took as confirmation. We eventually broke the ice after lighting it on fire with oil and a warlock casting a dozen eldritch blasts at the surface. At the end of the session I was curious so I asked what was going on with the ice because it was never explained and the DM said it was just normal ice. I asked why they hadn’t said anything earlier and they said that they didn’t want us to break the ice that easily and that I was metagaming for trying to give everyone that information during the game. Was I wrong for questioning basic, non-magical physics? Was it ok for me to use my character to clarify knowledge to the table? Should my DM have adjusted what had happened after the fact?

Victoria Shotts

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices, and the ever humble Baliff Jake. I implore, does the size of the die determine the size of the punishment? The Brief: We play a 10 person campaign, with my husband's whole family. The youngest bro-in-law (14 yr old) PC Gus ended up dieing....using his DM given inspiration to escape being swallowed by a tree. The details: At our table, inspiration isn't an extra d6, we use a 30 sided die instead because it's more "fun". Gus had rolled a Nat 1 using the d30 on his first strength check attempt to break free of the tree attempting to swallow him. Our DM (the step brother) ruled that because he "critically failed" on this specific die, it was considered EVEN worse than a normal 1 and therefore he would instantly be swallowed, with no possible hope for saving. This literally almost made the kid cry, as he didn't even get to roll death saving throws for his character and we couldn't recover the body to bring back later. The DM revealed later that normally one would have been slowly consumed over multiple rounds. I personally argued that using to KILL a PC with no chance of saving OR even recovering the body, just based on the die in play, was in no way fair. I even made a motion to abolish such negative consequences of this die roll in the future, as this was not something we had even previously discussed...but I was overlooked as a too involved "mom" of a sister in law. Justices, I beg for justice to be served on behalf of my little brother. Does the size of the die determine the size of the punishment? Or am I only trying to spare the youngest hurt because of my nurturing instincts? I wait for your decision.

Maddy Cancro

Most honourable Justices and pretty cool Bailiff, this is not a case so much as a suggestion my partner has for character creation that I’m submitting on his behalf. He, like all of you, is very party-focused, and does not understand how people can choose to play chaotic evil characters that are anti-party and disruptive. So he suggested, instead of the usual alignment chart, to decide if your character is selfish vs selfless. His idea being that even a selfish party member will more easily find ways to be part of the party than someone who is tied to the idea of being chaotic evil. From many of your past cases, it has sounded like players have argued that they should be allowed to behave badly because of their alignment, and my partner believes that a selfish vs selfless sliding scale would mitigate some of these arguments. What do you think?

chronicsunshine

May it please the court, the illustrious & venerable judges, & the beautiful baby Bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of the “Shut the fuck up” stick. I’m currently a PC in an intimate home game with some friends. We’re having a grand ole time as a whole, but our one friend, playing a Goblin Bard named Bimbo sometimes sidetracks us with too many shenanigans, poorly timed jokes and tomfoolery. It’s funny sometimes, but mostly it just gets in the way of exposition and impedes on our progress. As a solution, our DM introduced a new mechanic, called the “shut the fuck up” stick which is essentially a wooden stick that we can beat Bimbo over the head with (causing him to have to roll a DC15 CON saving throw to not be concussed and be able to speak for the duration of the convo.) so he stops talking through important dialogue. Of course this irks Bimbo, who argues that our DM isn’t allowing him to have fun, but the rest of the players and the DM agree this stick is our saving grace. So, who’s to be punished here? Should we stop beating our friend over the head with a wooden stick? I humbly await your judgement.

JVLN

May it please the honorable justices and the lowly but kinda hot bailiff: I'm a child psychologist, and I DM a D&D social skills therapy group, designed to encourage collaboration, emotion regulation, and social problem-solving among 4 middle schoolers. I had a monster lined up for them to fight where they could only damage it if one character took the help action, sacrificing their own attack to assist a party member. The player first to act was a barbarian, who crit on the monster. I told the player that their attack did no damage, but I felt very bad. As the fight went on, they began to figure out how to damage the monster, and eventually killed it. The barbarian got another turn, during which they did get to successfully damage the monster, but they did not crit. I prostrate myself before the court - was I wrong in not letting the player have their crit? Sometimes during this group, I need to bend or ignore rules in favor of the therapy, which is something I explained to the players at the beginning of our group. If I am not convicted, I still fear the wrath of Dice Christ, for I feel I ignored their divine will by ignoring my player's natural 20. My fate is in your hands, Z

Kenzie

Dear Honorable Justices and Brave bailiff, heros of table justice. I give you the case of Barbarian B.O. I am playing a second edition Barbarian. During roleplay we encountered an NPC with questionable rashes employed as a barkeep. The description of the NPC was written to kind of gross you out that this person is washing plates, serving food to our player characters when he has some sort of oozing staph infection. One of the players made a joke that the NPCs smell was just like my Barbarian's and I know it's silly but I felt a bit offended. I admit I took it to heart as a comment about me and not my Minnesota accented Barbarian from the frigid north. Looking at the second edition manual PDF it mentioned that the class was based off of indigenous societies around the world. My argument is: if we are adventurers living in a midevil place. Fighting in armor all day, everyone in the game must stink. I read a book "Lies my teacher told me" where a historian corrected a narrative that native persons in the USA were not "filthy" but indigenous cultures typically bathed more than European ones. I brought this up at the next game and the player that made a joke about my barbarian blew it off as (not true). We continued playing, and the vibe of the game was nice. My guess is the situation was an attempted razz, that showed I do not have the thick skin that Emily, Jake and Murph do. I know the fellow player was not trying to be mean and that I was being over reactive. But I am wondering what an official stance would be. In a game that never mentions body order or the party specifically taking time to bathe during long rests while traveling would various classes like Barbarians just naturally smell worse than others. I await your judgement even if it means I have to clean up after the Bird burlesque show. -Kenzie

The Chaos and Artist

May it please the court, the ever so wise judges specifically the incredibly sexy judge tanner. I have a simple case to humbly present to you. It happened so fast and my fellow players haven’t recovered from this truly traumatic chain of events. This all began when my boyfriend wanted to dm a campaign for his roommate my sister and me. We decided to do a epic pirate campaign. My background and story made me the pirate captain (a epic human storm herald barbarian) so the adventure started with the three of us and a crew of maybe 30 people. It was great until the dm brutally killed the entire crew. No rolls no nothing. He just had the ship crash and we lost everything. We recovered after a while gained a new crew of homeless men and woman and a couple hired beefy boys. It took several sessions but we finally got back to a good crew and continued our fun pirate campaign. Until the dm killed our crew again but worse this time. It started with a bunch of boats surrounding us out of nowhere. Then the stormed our boats and overwhelmed us with these magic collars that emptied our spell slots and made it so we couldn’t fight back. This was the only thing we had the chance to roll for. I as a barbarian failed a strength save while raging. Following this the dm dumped all of the potions that we spent all of our gold on and killed the crew brutally. The entire party was pissed because we were railroaded and lost everything we worked so hard on. Are we over reacting. Was this an epic story that we just overlooked due to our rage. Any insight helps. Thank you crit justices for you ruling in advance

Caroline O

If the Court will allow it, I have a confession for Dice Christ. In a session I was DMing, my players were fighting a BBEG seer-type monster who had a cool backstory reveal for each character. Through a combo of stunning her (and therefore stopping her from taking turns) and doing a ton of damage, they technically hurt her enough to kill her before she had a chance to reveal the backstory moment I had written for each player. I fudged her HP so she stayed alive long enough to do her reveals, then let them kill her. Dice Christ, did I sin? I also admit that I felt so much power after that encounter that I fudged the HP of the next monster they fought so the battle lasted a tidy four rounds instead of dragging on way too long. I find balancing encounters and tracking HP tedious. To me, this is a great solution as long as I find ways to reward big damage or cool moments. But I do feel DM guilt every time I do it. I am sorry for my sins and I await penance.

DnDiplomacy

Honourable justices, diligent bailiff, and representatives of our lord and saviour Dice Christ. I have a confession. When I DMd for the first time Dice Christ truly blessed me. Crit after crit. The final one came during the big bad, a mind flayer. One of the PCs was stunned and grappled despite rolling many times to break free. I crit to munch their brain. In this moment, I doubted the wisdom of Dice Christ and fudged the roll. I knew the PC had low HP and would have died outright. Can I be forgiven for straying from the light? Will I ever be able to atone? Was Dice Christ working in mysterious ways? This still haunts me.

Yeeha532

Dice Christ, forgive me for an accidental slip of the tongue. It was during the jail break of a party member that was 3 or 4 sessions in the planning preparation and acquisition of various required items and had already seen one PC die trying to affect this rescue plan. Right at the vital moment, my character had to roll an opposed strength check against the PC who we were saving. She was freaking out because myself and anthother PC (the new PC she hadn't met yet) had just teleported into her cell in disguise, dumped an unconscious decoy on the floor (including her severed tounge so she couldn't speak) and where struggling holding onto her. We had until 30 seconds where up then everyone i was holding onto would be teleported back out. I was playing via cam as I was away that week and so my dice rolls were un verified. None of us cheat, so it's not an issue.... until now. I rolled the opposed check. I looked and saw 14, i said 14, and we cheered; it was just enough to remain holding on and complete the teleport out. However , the DM was describing the resultant teleport. I looked again and saw my 14 ..... was a 4. I kept quiet, and now our party member is returned instead of being executed. Forgive me? Or shall I await the long drop? Adam

Renee Wild

I don't have a case, but I do have a confession for the almighty Dice Christ! Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned, I am a fairly new DM running a game for my parents, it is their first time playing ever. We are about 8 sessions in and having so much fun, but every single session I fudge at least a couple of rolls. It is always for their benefit, either for an attack to miss or the bad guy to fail a saving throw. I don't want to whomp them too badly, and I want them to feel good about themselves, but I know I am interfering with the will of Dice Christ anyways, and I humbly beg forgiveness.

Taylor Wingfield

To the elevated high crit justices in their highchairs, and the bailiff far below in the conversation pit. If it may please the court, I bring to you the case of the Harpoon Flinger vs the Stone Tower. I am a DM running Descent into Avernus, and recently my players were trying to figure out how to cross the River Styx. I had an NPC describe that there are watch towers staffed with many guards stationed along the Styx and that in order to cross near one, they would likely need to do something about the guards to enable them to cross without being seen/attacked (they were also told of a skiff nearby, as well as a dock farther away as other ways of crossing). Being the break-down-the-door crew that they are, they decided to storm the tower using their war machine. During the "siege" they ended up trying to keep a comfy distance of about 100 feet away from the tower. To do this, they wanted to use the Harpoon Flinger on their war machine to try and breakdown the walls of the tower. I said that harpoons, basically being like long arrows, were not likely to make good headway against stone tower, but they could try and fling them through the small tower windows. My players then tried to angle to use the Harpoon flingers with enlarged rocks and even a PC's familiar instead of harpoons, to which I also said the flingers are not built for that and it likely wouldn't work well. They argued that the flingers should basically work like a catapult and could therefore be used with anything. Eventually they backed down, ended up getting whomped at the tower, (which I felt bad for, but ended up making for some good character and story development in the next session) and they fled back to their camp to regroup. Was I wrong to crush their dreams of flinging a PC's familiar at this tower? I humbly, await your firm but fair judgement. (PS Hi from ATX! Two party members and myself will be at the ATX live show and we cannot wait!)

Steven Hoffart

Honourable justices, who rule on high, and the bailiff who judges from below. May it please the court. I come to you with the case of the swallowed magic item. I played as a Yuanti with a snake body and snake head. We were facing an enemy who was wearing a magical bracelet that gave her power to turn her attacks into psychic damage and absorb psychic damage. My character was able to remove this from the boss and proceeded to swallow the bracelet. The DM says now that I will not be able to use the magic of the item as I am not wearing it. However, there’s nothing in the rules that I can find that says an item needs to be worn properly to function. Should my snake be able to access the magic in their stomach or are they doomed to let nature pass before accessing this item?

Tyler L

Dear Honorable and beloved Crit Justices and the psychically vulnerable bailiff Jake, I come to you with a player on player crime. In my campaign we had a Javelin of Lightning that we had for most of our 2+ year campaign. Our rogue, who felt like they no longer needed a ranged attack after getting a wand that allowed her to use Eldritch Blast, decided to give the Javelin of Lightning to our Paladin. In the same session that the Item transfer happened, LESS THAN A HOUR LATER, we had a underwater fight with a morkoth. Our Paladin, unable to get close to the creature and against the party's advice, decided to throw the Javelin of Lightning at it. We argued that if he missed it would likely be lost forever in the ocean and if he hit the javelin would be stuck in the creature and it could swim away and we would lose the Javelin. He rolled a natural one on his attack and we lost our very first magic item to the void of the ocean below. After getting back to town he tried to find a replacement but was only able to find a Knock off, Imposter, magical spear. It cost him most of his gold to buy this weapon. This is where the crime comes in: He told the rogue to split the cost with him on the new weapon. His argument was that it would help out the two non-ranged players and the party in the long run and didn’t see an issue in splitting the costs. The rogue, feeling bad about the Javelin, agreed to split the cost. My question to the Justices, was it wrong for the paladin to split the cost after losing a beloved item that we had most of our campaign or should he have sucked it up and paid in full for his poor choices? PS: In remembrance of the hoglidays the Javelin was also used by the rogue in a one shot we played to kill Santa. THE DM OF THE ONE SHOT WAS THE PALADIN.

Craig

May it please the Court, the Magnanimous judges, and the little cringing bailiff I present to you the case of stolen glory! In our current game I play the son of a dead tribal king who was sacrificed to an evil deity by his mother as a child. Through the intervention of a kindly passing druid he was saved and raised by a normal family to adulthood. The character is optimized for grappling and unarmed combat and with feats and fighting styles he is very good at it. Cut to months later in our game when we have the grand confrontation between mother and son. It was perfect, a 1 on 1 as I had always imagined, everything set for an epic duel to the death.. To say I got whomped would be an understatement. She had more attacks per turn, much more health, higher stats in the few areas I had carefully cultivated, and some ability that took all the things I would have had advantage on and made them roll flat. It was over very shortly and my character's corpse was tossed into the sea as he had been as a child. After the session my DM said they thought it was balanced for 1 on 1. I have no problem losing or dying, but I ask you, was a robbed of a fair and glorious battle to regain the honor of my family? Or am I just salty post whomping?

A Mason Jar Full of Bees

May it please the court, the wondrous justices and the rambunctious bailiff. I preset the case of the mind control murder. My character was mind controlled by a cursed item I had wrestled away from an evil wizard we were fighting and after downing a friend while I was under its influence I hit him again setting him to one failed death save in an attempt to raise the drama. He immediately rolled a nat one and died on his turn. The player seems fine with it but it feels like it’s becoming a pattern with us because in the last year that he has been playing he has lost 7 characters of which like 5 I feel as a player or gm morality responsible for. I plead to the justices how do we break this cycle?

CommodoreGalaxy

If it may please the illustrious court and the zaddy bailiff; this is the case of the high rolling DM. I am currently dming an Icewind Dale game wherein two of the three players are casters. I, very luckily, have been blessed by Dice-Christ and usually roll really well, regardless of the dice game I'm playing. The point is that since I roll well so often that one of my casters looked me in my face and said "I have given up on spells that require a saving throw because I don't like wasting my turn doing nothing". That feels rough. I want them to have fun, but I want to honor the dice. Should I be fudging more rolls in the name of fun, or should I simply wait for them to level and increase they're save DC? I leave myself in your capable hands. Thank you for your time.

Bat-Fran

Justices and whatever the eunnig vibe towards Jake is today: I come to you seeking advice on my case. 2 years ago I joined a campaign for the first time. While building my multiclassing level 6 bard-barian, my DM (he's been playing ttrpgs for 20+ years) told me it was fine to just take all the proficiencies and saving throws from both classes. I knew this was a little broken, but assumed he'd just make the same rules for other players if they multiclassed. Cut to 2 years later another player is now multiclassing but they did not get the same rule... So far I haven't completely broken the game.... Except the other week the party went off and got themselves all killed while I wasn't in a session. My character was looking after the horses and now he's the only one survivor to carry on their original mission. Suddenly I'm the one responsible for completing their 4 year mission while the DM is being very creative about how to maybe bring them back .... But they are all building new characters in the meantime.... Do I come clean, remind him? Or has he built his own bed by letting me do this? My main concern is he's playing favourites with me 🙈 I patiantly await your judgement

Nebadger

I beseech the unknowable judges and the much more knowable bailiff of the court to answer my case. In my weekly DnD game my character had a bag full of all sorts of adventuring goodies including some vials of acid. I got caught in an explosion and my DM had me roll to see what in my bag and of my equipment was destroyed or degraded by the acid. My issue isn't with this, if acid works like this in their game that's fine. My argument is if acid can damage our items and equipment on contact then the same should be true of enemies items and equipment. I call upon thee to create fairness in our world so that all acid may be treated equal.

Jarod W

May it please the court, Supreme Justices and I guess the Bailiff. Me and my party recently got into a debate with our DM over the Burning Hands spell. Our wizard tried to use it on some enemies against a wall, but our DM made the flames come back and damage us as well. We tried to argue that since the spell specified that it produces a thin sheet of flame, that the flame would spread out along the wall instead of bouncing back perfectly and hitting us. Our DM refused to budge on this ruling. I understand for instance Fireball making sure there is adequate room for the AOE, but since the spell specified a thin sheet I don't think the same theory should apply. Was our DM being too harsh or should we not try to roast enemies who are backed against a wall. Thank you.

Mallory Sutton

May it please the PRIESTS and priestess of Dice Christ, I must confess to a sin. My husband, two of his coworkers and I began a D&D campaign a few months ago. Everything was going well, but we took a break for mine and my husbands wedding and honeymoon. We returned and were getting ready to restart our campaign, until I found out the girl of the group had said I looked bad in my wedding dress and was running around their work telling people that. I was going to continue with our campaign, but I fully intended on killing her character in revenge. There was a confrontation and we are no longer friends with those individuals anymore, and thus don’t have that campaign, but I had multiple plot points during the next session planned where I could murder her character in cold blood. Please may dice Christ absolve me of my murderous in game plotting. By the way, I looked hot as fuck in that dress.

philibuster

Dear magnificent and illustrious court of justices and the low but still magnificent bailiff I bring the case of too much rp. As a dm I've always wanted indulge my players in some wacky rp scenarios but I feel I might have cross the line. Typically as a house rule if the party decides to split for a moment and go do separate things, I like to have the Pcs waiting, act as NPCs for the other group. However I did not expect them to immediately go the bar and try and pick up as many NPCs as possible. One player got mad when her IRL friend wouldn't receprecate feelings... things got real awkward and I still blame myself for allowing it to go that far. I humbly await your decision.

Eman

Follow up pup. Cannibalism 2: the resurrection Dear honourable judges, and Jills First Husband, You recently ruled in my favour in a case of involuntary cannibalism but I come to you with what happens next After I was mislead into drinking human child soup, I retrieved the intact hand of a baby from the cauldron with the intention to reincarnate it as I felt honour bound. The exact wording of the reincarnation spell is ‘You touch a dead Humanoid or a piece of a dead Humanoid. Provided that the creature has been dead no longer than 10 days, the spell forms a new ADULT body for it and then calls the soul to enter that body.’ I assumed that wording was to remove any confusion about rebirth and the child would reincarnate into an appropriately aged body, however my DM read it literally and was firm that the baby would be reincarnated as a fully grown adult physically, despite having the mental capacities of a toddler. This made the morality of the decision much more difficult to determine and my character and I are at an impass deciding what to do with the baby’s hand. How would you interpret wording of the spell? Is is literal, or do people reincarnate at the age that they die I await your judgement and any insight

Nick D'Angelo

Dear honorable justices and Jake who is reading this. My players are currently playing a cowboy themed campaign that I run when people have free time on the weekends and drinks very welcome. The players have been being put through a number of cowboy themed challenges to prove how good they are at being one. We got to cowboy math, a challenge where the players solve a problem and roll a d20 to signal they were done, the higher number would break the tie. The player in question who is known chronically try and “win” every single thing their character does and wanted to know what to add to the D20 and was told nothing, just roll it. She responded that she was a rogue and had like +9 to some rolls (at level 3) and wanted to check her character sheet. Was the entire group right to completely clown on her in a attempt to try and reign this win chasing aspect of her play style, even in such a low stakes campaign? We eagerly await judgement

BeanRatWasInnocent

Greetings magnanimous magistrates and borderline boring bailiff. Today I tell you about a story about shatter. I was DMing for some friends, one of whom really liked the spell shatter. He would sling it around as his primary offensive spell as a Warlock(Minus Eldritch Blast). He has used it to break open doors, as the spell is prone to do, and he cast it in a room with chests, some of which were mimics, which they weren't sure existed, and contained some non-magical items. I had him roll a luck check to see if he hit the mimics or the item chests, he rolled poorly, but I said he hit one mimic and the items, destroying the mundane items and hurting the mimic. I accounted for item health when determining what was broken, but was I wrong to destroy the items when that is part of what the spell does, or should I have let it slide?

okiedokeTM

May it please the court (and I guess Bailiff Jake if you still keep him around): I run a campaign that’s been ongoing for 2 years. Recently, a player’s long-time character left the party for morality differences (no problems with that - everyone loved the drama and she’ll come back later). In the meantime, the player made a new character. During her third session, the party got stranded in a cultish commune whose mayor is secretly a legendary necromancer feeding on the villagers. They cornered him alone, so he kicked their asses and then leveled with them, saying he could easily kill them unless they agreed to join his commune and not interfere with his leadership (I wanted them to explore and get some victimized villagers on their side to help with his boss fight). This new PC was easily offended, and in a very in-character move, took a pot shot at him. He retaliated with a Disintegrate that the party tried and failed to Counterspell… and it killed her. I felt awful. I spoke with the player alone after and she seemed a bit sad but said it was ok. We made a new character together that she now loves, and there’s no hard feelings. I still feel HORRIBLY guilty, though. I didn’t want them to keep fighting him, but was killing her new temp character too far? I humbly await your judgement.

Jack H

May it please the kangaroo court of misfit justices and the sniveling bailiff who enables their corruption. Our party was at a magical tree that required us to solve a riddle to advance to the boss fight. The riddle went as follows: I cast a spell that affects the masses I am the whisper you hear among the branches When with many, I face scrutiny. But when alone, I’ve been mastered. I realized that the perfect answer to the riddle was a fart. A fart is, in fact, a whisper that affects the masses and is scrutinized among others. Everyone knows a fart is mastered when alone. However, our DM did not accept this answer and eventually gave us a hint which led to the real answer, A Song. This brought the party into a frenzy as we felt that fart was a more appropriate solution than a song. My question to you is, should a DM accept a creative answer to a riddle?

Delmar watkins

May it please the wise and impartial supreme crit justices and noble bailiff. I have a case that has been bothering me for a few years now. I was playing as an investigative character in a Curse of Strahd campaign. My character was basically Sherlock Gnome, with maxed out perception and investigation and the Observant feat. I had a passive perception of 24. The campaign was being run by a good friend of mine who I still play with, and is in every other situation a great DM and player. The party I was with had 3 other players, a barbarian who was literally Chaotic Evil and was trying to kill Strahd to take his place. Their spouse was playing as a a lawful good paladin and their beste friend played a lawful good sorcerer. We were staying in a crumbling tower but had the animal companion (a sabertooth tiger) of one of my mentor and one of Barovia's few Good NPCs in a circus cart outside. I had my character sleep with his feet on the front door, about 15 feet away from the tiger's cart. In the middle of the night, the Barbarian somehow snuck out of the tower and killed the sabretooth tiger Just Because. All of this without my character hearing, despite my proximity and 24 passive perception. In the morning when we found the dead tiger and the barbarian casually admitted to killing it. I tried to get the CE barbarian's character kicked from the party, but the LG paladin and sorcerer sided with them because of their out of character relationships. I took that as a sign they really didn't want me to play in the campaign, so I soon quit. But I am still angry at my friend the DM, but can't say anything to them because it would seem petty and stupid. Crit justices, please confirm that this was a BS situation and that I have a right to have a beef.

Thistle

May it please the magnificent crit justices and the illustrious bailiff I present you the case of the monkey’s paw wish spell In one of the games i am currently running the party is composed of mostly spellcasters with only 1 martial class character a barbarian they are around level 14 right now and have been a fantastic group the reason I mention the fact that the party is mostly spellcasters is because during one of the more recent encounters I had them roll on a treasure table for spell scrolls the question was brought up what would happen if they got a level 9 spell scroll not wanting to invalidate a high roll I perhaps hastily decided if they got a level 9 spell it would take multiple of the spellcasters turns to cast thinking in the heat of battle it would be a fun sacrifice for a more powerful spell they rolled on the table and to my surprise the roll came up on the table as a wish spell scroll not wanting to contradict myself I let them cast it and as their wish they collectively decided to make the one barbarian in the group the strongest being in existence. After a while thinking I decided rather than have the players roll again or choose a different effect for the spell I would let them do it however I explained that having a being more powerful than the Gods would likely anger them and they would probably hunt down the barbarian and the party to make sure the gods were still the most powerful I offered that they could either roll again on the scroll table or take this wish and fight the gods this new information caused an argument between players the cleric and warlock not wanting to anger they’re patrons and the sorcerer and Wizard wanting to fight the gods and take the chance this argument escalated for a while with different sides yelling at each other and nearly devolved into pvp so justices of the crit should I have vetoed the wish spell altogether and made my players pick some other effect or reroll on the table or was I right for essentially monkey’s pawing the wish spell

H-Train

dear honored justices and most scintillating bailiff, I come bearing a confession to dice christ. I am a dnd noob who’s just started playing. my character’s whole deal is unimportant, except for the fact that he has a slavic accent and his stats are kinda shitty. not only are his stats milquetoast at best, but i am a very hit or miss roller in our last session, my party was (unfairly mind you) imprisoned and sentenced to death for possession of a fancy bag. during our daring escape zdenko (my guy) rolled so shittily that there was no way he was gonna escape nor survive. i was upset, believing myself forsaken by dice christ. however at the sight of my despair the DM (who is also my big sister) took pity on me and had an NPC swoop in and save zdenko’s life. i do not think this was earned and in penance i am planning on retiring the character and making a new one (also, i kinda just don’t like playing the spellcaster as it turns out). have i done enough to sate the mess-dieah (like die? one dice? get it?), or should i also do a few hail-20’s as well? i await your response, amen

Maxwell Keiles

May it please the court and the ever illustrious bailiff. I bring to you the case of the anti-tomb raider. My party was traveling from one destination to another and my DM rolled a d100 for a random encounter for the journey. in our game, the higher number meant a better event, and this time we rolled fairly high. The DM described us coming across an ancient temple, with the obvious implication that we should explore it and find fun treasures inside. My character refused, however, because he was opposed to the idea of grave robbing. The DM said that that was not a concern in this universe but I still refused because of the icky real-world implications. As this was a random encounter, I knew it wouldn't be super plot-important so I wasn't screwing over the campaign. For all, we knew it was just a regular temple that we were about to enter with the express purpose of pillaging it. Judges was I being a spoilsport or is it ok to bring real-world morality into this fantasy game. I humbally await your judgement.

CrickCamper

May it please the court, the ever-fair Supreme Justices, and the handsome but oily Bailiff. I play in a weekly game with some friends from college that we have been playing for 6 years now (we’re on our second campaign) I really enjoy playing with them, we get up to some crazy stuff. It’s important to note that the DM and one of the PCs have been dating for a while — and just recently some of the things that I normally brush off has been getting wild. For example, the PC plays a Vampire Angel Princess who is immune to sunlight, admits to regularly fudging dice rolls and “points and laughs” at other PCs when they fail or get embarrassed. Recently I started playing a gunslinger, (shout-out Deadeye) we got into a combat we rolled initiative I roll really high, and since gunslingers can add their Proficiency to initiative, I went first which has never happened before. Cut to next week and the princess has gotten a new homebrew feat which gives them a bonus to initiative so she can go first again. I’m kind of at a loss justices, I love how long this table has gone on and I love hanging with them outside of Dnd, but it just feels like I’m this side character. I humbly await your judgement.

Evan Spears

Supreme Crit Justices, honorable and handsome Bailiff Jake, may it please the court to hear my one and only D&D story. I'll keep submitting it until I have my day in court, your Honors. I've only played D&D once, for one session, nearly 15 years ago. I rolled my charafter. I drew his portrait. His name was HEAVY, and he wielded a big-ass hammer. When we got started, the rest of the party spent literally two hours IRL getting drunk in a tavern, and I was impatient and wanted to kill some monsters and roll some dice, so HEAVY went out on his own. I encountered a river. DM asked if I wanted to cross it or go try to find a way around. I said I wanted to cross. He asked me to roll to see if I could swim. I rolled a 9. DM said "you can't swim. You drown and die." DM wouldn't let me play unless I roll a new character. So I left and haven't played since.  That experience turned me off on the game for years. Shows like NADDPOD and D20 have changed that, but now I'm too busy to actually play. I only made one roll in the game and a lousy DM soured everything for me. It is a dark stain on my very soul. I know in my heart of hearts that the DM was a jerk, but I need official validation so that I can move on and live a fulfilling life. Can the court please rule on whether or not that DM was a total knob? Thank you. 

Shannon V

My most esteemed crit justices and the bailiff; My player has reinvented her back story. When she created the character she said she was an orphan who was unliked because she was a tiefling and then became a pirate. Short and sweet, we’ve been playing for a few years and I’ve incorporated aspects of her pirate life into the story. However we recently ended up in hell and she suddenly claimed she grew up in an orphanage in hell. Not wanting to be a wet blanket I didn’t really say much. Recently though she’s been calling for history and insight checks on things, because she would have knowledge of hell, having grown up there. Should I allow her to continue to claim this, or tell the player she isn’t from hell?

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

I might as well double down with my confession. I'd like to thank the valiant judges and huge cocked baliff For having me here today. I'd like the present the case of the Girthy Asshole. My party in "act 3" of our campaign was supposed to plant a series of front bombs we'd set to destroy a manifesting White dragon some cultists were replicating. My drunken monk was toying with a bomb as the maker explained how it worked saying "a simple twist will set it" where upon finishing that sentence the party tortle Girth walked up and twisted it once then let go. The DM said the bomb was set but I handnt let go, I wasn't allowed to roll or interject in anyway we simply had to run with 10 rounds to destroy some pillars protected by golems. Being the only one with enough movement to actually ascend the stairs to see any of this I quickly realized we couldn't do it and simply helped an npc with our escape before the bomb went off. The DM didn't plan for us to fail so we ended the session and that arc on a failure. Please make them 96 after a series of bean based meals so they can smell their bad farts and sharts. thank you for your time

Mike Aquino

Esteemed Justices and Bountiful Bailiff, I present my case with humility and curiosity. After returning to our adventuring party’s home base, we received a gift from an unknown recipient that was actually a trap filled with a Death Butterfly Swarm. Although our party was almost out of spells/actions for the day, we all rushed to save our NPC companions from a poisonous death. During the encounter, I asked the DM if the creatures are flying close enough together such that my monk could take some swings. He said yes and I decided to use my last ki point to make a stunning strike on the swarm upon contact. The DM said that a couple of the butterflies were stunned but the overall swarm was unharmed (minus the HP taken from the hit). I argued that unless the creature is immune to stuns, it would affect them all, not just a couple, especially since i asked if i could punch a swarm of butterflies and got approval (as ridiculous as that sounds). He said that the stun would not work on the swarm and we moved on to succeed with no casualties. Although i appreciate the flavor of letting me stun a couple despite the stun not working on the swarm and respect a DM’s decision on most matters, getting approval to hit a cloud like creature and sort of get a stun off, but get none of the “stunned creature” benefits for my turn of the encounter seems inconsistent. I present this to you as a learning opportunity for myself and anxiously await you decision.

Bat-Fran

God this killed me to even just write because I know how wrong it is and how stupidly over stacked my character is despite me still having some minus skills and saves...

Cameron O'Connell

For the most illustrious bailiff Hurwitz, and lionized crit justices Axford, Tanner and Murphy. I come before you with the case of the Railroaded Boss Fight. Halfway through my (now 3 year long) homebrew adventure I run weekly, half of my players became unavailable for the night we usually play. I asked the party if they would be approve of splitting the party into two sub-campaigns, which would be run fortnightly on alternating weeks. They agreed. Being myself, I aimed to split the party in the most dramatic way I could, and also destroy an over-powered magic item at the same time. The party (while still whole) arrived at the lair of a sub-Boss, who then rolled last for initiative. The party eviscerated my boss before I could enact my plan to grapple the Ranger and "accidentally" break her Amulet of the Planes, which would split the party on an interplanar scale. Rather than let the boss die, I let the party struggle through an unwinnable round to enact my scenic split. Ultimately, the party sniffed my lies out, and because the split resulted in the death of that same ranger only one session later, I have been filled with blame and regret regarding how I handled the boss fight. Tell me, crit-justices, what could I have done better here to have achieved the same ends without such bereft? Would I have been better to allow the party a victory over the boss and a less-impressive party-split? I await your sound judgement.

riley chalk

May it please the all knowing dice Christ blessed justices and the youth pastor bailiff, I ask that I be put at the mercy of the high court and the high lord. I dm a campaign for all new player, myself included, but I'd like to think I have a decent handle on the rules. My party of 3 level 6 PCs were fighting a Naga, a cr 8 creature. Because of a combination of homebrew items and classes, I'm used to getting whomped, so I don't pull my punches in fights. The Naga used dominate person on our duel welding fighter movarius, in which they failed their saving throw. telling him to attack our dwarf battlemage topaz, the closest target, he proceeded to crit on his second attack, and took her to 0 hp on his offhand attack. This led to a wonderful roleplay moment, and everyone survived the battle, but after the session I began questioning myself. I ask you this, dominate person says the target can be controlled with a full action, or you may suggest a course of action, would the use of an offhand attack have needed full control, or was I in the right for having them use all their attacks, while the Naga attacked aswell? I await whatever punishment you may prescribe, and if you rulled in favor of me, punish movarius for always having crazy dice rolls.

Jesse

May it please the court, I must present to the esteemed justices and the middling bailiff the case of three extremely trusting and lovable players who are on my last nerve. I’m DMing a sandbox style campaign for three friends, one of whom is new and two of whom are very experienced. Since there isn’t much combat, a lot of the campaign hinges around the three of them getting information from various NPCs. They specifically requested a diplomacy-heavy story. Here’s the problem: they take everything at face value. I’ve tried having NPCs act as shady as humanly possible. I’ve had them slip up and admit portions of their plans. I’ve had them tell glaringly obvious lies. No matter what, my gullible flower children will not push back; they immediately give up when faced with any resistance and go ask someone else. Most of the time it doesn’t even get far enough for me to ask them to roll. It’s gotten to the point where I had to add a frat boy barkeep named Chad who is “too stupid to lie” so that I can get the most important plot points across to them. How do I tell my innocent babies that they might have to lie, sneak, cheat, and instigate conflict to get the answers they seek?

Milk Teeth

Greetings to the attractive and irreverent judges (and Jake) A few weeks ago we were in a game in which I play a wizard. During the session we infiltrated a dilapidated tower. When we reached the top floor of the tower we were greeted by a glass golem. During the fight I cast command on the golem with the command to flee, my DM said, “the spell does not work.” His reasoning was that Command needs the creature to speak the same language as the command given and the glass golem only speaks the language of its creator. The creator was an elf and only spoke elvish. After a couple rounds the DM let me roll an arcana check which I succeeded, the DM let the command work and the Glass Golem Fled the area. Should my DM have stuck with his initial decision or was I right to push back on his ruling to the point he changed his mind Ps we are both patrons of the pod and humbly await your verdict

Henry Beissel

May it please the court, To the most esteemed judges and the barely adequate bailiff, I was a player in an online campaign last year which was mostly made up of new players, and I was one of the only people who had player DnD before, besides the DM. It was also the DMs first time DMing, and he wasn't super confident at making decisions at the table. One of the new players had chosen to play a character he named Soup Can, which was kinda funny at the time but got more annoying as we went on. During character creation, the DM had said we would all start at lvl 1, but Soup Can was a multiclass Monk/Paladin, meaning he was 2nd level. When the DM asked him to change, he refused, and so the DM told everyone else in the party to start at 2nd level instead. During our 3rd session of play, Soup Can had convinced the other players to murder the town official we were trying to assist in the current mission, and the DM couldn't really do anything to stop it. Later on, when we were exploring a cave, we came across a large stockpile of explosives, and Soup Can convinced the other new players to detonate it, which ended up killing the children we were trying to rescue from the cave. When we came back to the town, the DM had the townspeople mob and kill Soup Can, which he didn't get to roll to escape. Following this, Soup Can refused to make a new character or play, and convinced the other players to leave with him. He also stopped answering any messages from me or the DM. This was during lockdown, and most of us legitimately have not talked to him since. Was the DM within his right to brutally kill Soup Can, or should he have handled it a different way? I await your judgement with quivering anticipation. P.S. Love y'all but the Honourable Justice Murphy's Australian accent was so bad that I legitimately stopped listening to Eldermourne for months

Ren

Good day wonderfull judges and the poor baylift. Today I present the case of the DM who will not let me play spell casters anymore. We were starting a new campaign and as allways we did a talk session with my DM they said that under no surcumstances was I allowed to play a spellcaster after they explicityly started no spells what so ever (inclyding magic initiate) I have continue to play with them as a purple maylay character. But that is not fun for me what do I say to them. Best wishes Ren

Chad Buckel

Dice Christ Confession Oh illuminated ones, interpreters of the divine will of the dice, and whatever Jake is. I humbly seek forgiveness for convincing the straight edge human fighter in my party to join my half-elf bard in an orgy. In the first time I ever played D&D I played the stereotypic bard who tried to suduced everything. In one situation involving barmaids I rolled a nat 20 to the fighters nat 1 to join in. The joke was that we had to roll performance and dexterity saves. We both had a great time, until the fighter failed his dexterity save to pull out. He now has a bastard son roaming his kingdom that is hellbent on claiming the throne for himself over the legitimate younger son. It’s a reoccurring joke but I am overwhelmed with regret at my bards actions. We’re going to play a legacy campaign set 50 years or so in the future, please tell me what I must do to go into my new character with a clean conscience. I await your divine judgment.

lawless-crows

Piss Kettle v Bard To the most lovely and righteous Supreme Crit Justices and the quaint and somewhat-likeable Bailiff. In a first time campaign, our cleric decided to relieve himself in a kettle when the bathroom had no toilet, and jokingly took it with him. As punishment, the DM would not let him drop it or use it as a weapon until the player rolled a nat 1 on certain checks or saves. The more long and short rests we took, the more dice damage the explosion would cause. During a large combat encounter where everyone else was dropped except for my Bard, Ren, the Cleric rolled a nat 1 on his death save, releasing the toxic piss and killing 6 guardsmen, only a luck check saving the other party members from being covered in the 7+ day old piss. My bard became traumatized of piss and kettles, but the Cleric reflavored to be a Piss Cleric instead of a Life Cleric. Anytime we were healed, we had a contested roll to not smell like piss. Any spiritual weapon and spirit guardians were reflavored as well to be the kettle of piss. My bard would roleplay a scared reaction (the cleric continually moving the spiritual weapon purposefully towards me, me moving my character away even if taking opportunity attacks), and my cleric got so annoyed he tried throwing my character down the stairs. Another contested roll, he got a nat 1, I, a nat 20. He took a good amount of damage, as we were in a very tall castle trying to find the final boss. For the rest of the evening the cleric was annoyed (shall I say, pissy), and we still argue lightly about this scuffle Was it right for the cleric to be upset with my bard? Can we lay this petty argument to rest? I humbly await the crit court judgement - Lee (they/them) (apologies that this is a reupload, the first one seemed to vanish lol)

Sinclair Abbott

To the great Crit Justices, first of their kind, and the necessary Bailiff Jake, I present the case of Forgetful Player vs. The Note Police DM: In my first ever campaign, my party found itself in an antique shop, attempting to obtain information from the shopkeeper. Our DM ended the session by informing us that a squadron of guards, who had been hunting us, were approaching the shop’s door. At the start of the next session, I attempted to role-play asking the shopkeeper if he had a back door that we could use to escape. I asked the DM to remind me of the shopkeeper’s name. My DM said I should have taken better notes. He made me role to remember the name. Upon rolling a low number, the DM said the shopkeeper was indignant that we couldn’t remember his name and wouldn’t help. We ended up having to fight the guards. While I feel that the DM was being unfair, I do take much better notes now, so the lesson was effective. I ask the most noble court: was my DM being a Note Police or was he right to punish me for my lazy note taking?

Tristan Lestavel-Entwistle

Most high and honourable Supreme Justices, and... Jake. I present the case of Dragon V Rod. In the climactic battle of a 2 year campaign, my players faced off against an ancient white dragon. The party's fighter, a 3 foot gnome called Blade, aided by a potion of flying, attempted to take the dragon out in the very first round by flying into its mouth, allowing himself to be swallowed, and placing an immovable rod in it's throat. After I made the potentially deadly consequences of his plan clear, he insisted on proceeding, and following a number of checks, managed to place the rod, but lost his grip and was swallowed. I improvised and used purple worm stats to represent the dragon's belly, and when the session ended two rounds later, Blade had failed to trigger the dragon's gag reflex, and his fate appeared all but sealed. Meanwhile, my big bad boss dragon is grappled by the immovable rod in its throat, which requires a DC 30 strength check to move just 10 feet. Believe it or not, the dragon is incapable of achieving this with its +8 strength, so I'm instead allowing it to use its action to attempt a DC 30 dexterity saving throw to snake its throat off the rod (to which it adds +14). Justices, I ask you. Is this sufficient reward for this brave but foolish gnome's ill-advised sacrifice, or has he thoroughly earned the consequences of his shenanigans? - Tristan (he/him) PS. We're taking a hiatus on this cliffhanger, as Blade's IRL first daughter was born two days after this session!

Zach Oelze

May it please the benevolent court and that bailiff guy. I present the case of DM “physics”. Two of our party members found ourselves on top of a city wall as a dragon was swooping in through the front gates. As we watched the dragon fly below us, we decided to jump down to the ground (the same level the rest of our party was). We rolled initiative and our DM placed our mini’s (we use a battle map) and the DM placed my player and another’s in front of the dragon. We argued that, since we jumped as we watched the dragon fly underneath us, we wouldn’t have jumped in front of the dragon (also that doesn’t sound like a smart idea anyways). He argued that‘s how we would have fallen. We argued some more and relented (although the other player wasn’t too happy about it). The DM then announced that the dragon spewed its icy breath on us, and since we were all in front of it, we would all get hit by it. We again tried to convince our DM that we really should have been behind the dragon, and thus outside of the icy breath, but he wouldn’t give, and we were both not too happy about it. Were we wrong to be so persistent about how we should have actually fallen, citing what makes most sense in terms of physics and what our characters would actually do (jumping front of a dragon would be rather silly). I await your judgement.

Lobbying for another Atlanta Live Show - Mr. Adams

I submit my plea to the great supreme crit justices and the dope-ass bailiff. I am a relatively new DM. Last week, a player was knocked prone during battle. On his next turn, he made a melee attack from prone by rolling the die before I could say he would have disadvantage. I told him he would have disadvantage after he and the party erupted in joy. The player proceeded to try to argue with me that being prone would not hinder his fighter from swinging his sword at its target’s feet. The rest of the party joined in (obviously excited by the crit). I, not wanting to harsh everyone’s buzz, gave in, and allowed the crit to stand. Dear justices and amazing bailiff, should I have stood my ground on disadvantage? I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.

Steven Hamonic

Justices of the Dice Tray, and the foam insert of a Bailiff: I bring the case of the stolen Glory Moment Our group is in the end of our campaign. We're going through the city we've been protecting taking out or apprehending the Big Bads of each enemy faction. The last few fights went as expected- the same bad guy, but with stronger minions and cool new attacks or legendary actions. We've fought this one Fiend Drug Lord a few times, we know his True Name, his powers, and mostly know what to expect for the Final Fight. The Incident in question: Our group sneaks into his base (a grand ritual chamber filled with minions). We roll amazingly, spend spells, and inspiration to not get seen. We set up a Magic Circle to repel Fiends, we drop invisibility and call him out by his True Name. I roll a nat 20 for initiative, the Fiend Boss splashes up out of his ritual pit. I attack: ANOTHER NAT 20! Now, the whole table is excited- my DM asks for damage and I burn my last remaining spell slot for an eldritch smite and roll almost maximum damage (52 force damage and 39 piercing damage). The boss -it turns out- is immune to everything *except* radiant damage. And he is immune to the prone condition- we tried to argue that Invoking the Fiend's True Name, while standing in a magic circle, and getting a crit with a magic weapon should do *something* but my DM said "no, your spear just passes through him". We called the session there, and the tone of the call was a little sour afterwards. Was I robbed? Thanks

JessMayWin

May it please the court and the criminally underrated bailiff. In a game a few years ago we were tasked with kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy merchant to get information about the location of a valuable artifact - the only problem was, according to the DM, 'she never leaves her mansion and has at least 2 guards with her at all times and if they are alerted or attacked her father and his entire guard force will be mobilised immediately and you will all be imprisoned and later killed'. We spent over 4 sessions trying to solve this issue in a variety of ways, which the DM continued to shoot down (ok can we infiltrate the merchant's militia and try and get on her guard shift? No. Can we pose as merchants and try to get an audience with her? No. Start a fire at her estate to smoke her out? You get the idea). In desperation I suggested that our bard polymorph into a fly and try to sneak through a crack in the window while she was on the loo and then dimension door out of the manion, as I reasoned that surely she would have to be alone while doing her business. The DM flat out refused, saying the guards would also accompany her to the toilet. The whole thing left us feeling pretty.... crap.... to be honest. I humbly ask the court - would someone being guarded at all times expect their guards to be with them when they are on the can, or was my idea, as gross as it was, a viable one? How would you work around a DM who seems to have one particular way they want you to solve a problem, and who doesn’t seem to allow for any deviation from their plan? p.s. after this same in game day continued with no further success for another 3 SESSIONS i dumped that group and have found new people to play with - they really are the shit! lol

Omar

May it please the honorable justices and the enigmatic bailiff, I come not asking for justice, but for advice on if I should become a table tattler I'm currently playing in a Pathfinder 2e game where multiple attacks on the same turn suffer a penalty to their to-hit. This is part of the balance of the system. One of my party members has not been taking this multiple-attack penalty on their turns, and hits much more often as a result. Normally, I wouldn't mind because if everyone does well, thats great! However, this player has recently begun bragging both in and out of character about how much better he is at combat and how much stronger and more dps he puts out than the rest of us - should I finally quietly tell the DM that he should be more strict with that players multiple-attack penalty, or just let sleeping dogs lie? I appreciate any advice

Hannah T

i don’t have a case, but i want all y’all to know it’s a delight to scroll through these

Caje Johnson

May it please the court, to the moderate judges and above average bailiff, I present to you the case of "The nat 20 phenomenon" I've been playing I'm a group for alittle over a year now, and I've been over the moon with how well we all bounce off one another. Weve had very impactful moments that were sparked by a nat 20, and those moments are some of my favorites, but as of recently it feels like everyone rolls atleast two or three nat 20s per session, whilst I can barely get myself over a 15 at times. It also doesn't help that when i take over the dm mantle, some of these players seem to get nat 20s WAY more than usual, and often on attacks, and with him being a gunslinger, can be pretty lethal. Is this something I should maybe bring up to my group and get a general feel for what's going on, or has dice christ simply blessed my friends, forever laughing at my bewilderment and dismay? I thank you for your judgment.

Not Another D&D Podcast

Curious. Jack, how did you phrase your uncertain answer that led to such a razzing? - Jake

Kae

May it please the court, I have a confession of table tattling, and the culprit is me. I was at a table with a new DM and a fellow player cast a second level shatter spell on a castle. The DM described the castle crumbling down and without thinking I said “there is no way a second level spell would destroy an entire building!” The DM amended and the session went on but I need to know— when something is narrated well beyond the scope of the spell and the DM (even new) is fine with it, do I just need to shut my mouth? I humbly await punishment and/ or suggestions for how to not be an utter asshole when I think people are being ridiculous

Melon Bread

On one hand this player sounds like a doush (also...DPS isn't the only way to be effective in combat.) Are you playing some system that's not 5e though? I can't think of this rule being balanced except in that case.

Omar

@Melon Bread yep, playing Pathfinder 2e but I didn't want to get too technical for the sake of brevity

LovelyLorelei

Hello bailiff and anyone else who happens to be there I guess, I present to you the case of the Retcon Reincarnation. In this campaign I was playing a Grave cleric with a strict adherence to the rules of life and death, namely she would under no circumstances raise the dead. This came to a head when my character found a scroll of resurrection and my partner’s ranger character wanted to use it on their murdered father. Even with the rest of the party bearing down on me in character and my DM out of character my cleric refused, staying true to her code. We did compromise that I would hold onto the scroll so we could sell it at the next opportunity and split the profit between the party. The trouble came when I had to leave the game a few weeks later because of a new job. My partner remained in the game and told me that after passing out my cleric had a vision that she was the reincarnation of a long dead queen and that her views on life and death were wrong, used the scroll to raise the ranger’s father and switched domains to life cleric. When we both confronted the DM they said that when I left the game I gave up control of my character and these changes would be best to move the story forward and be easier for him to manage as he didn’t want to leave the party without a healer. Was my DM wrong to drastically change my character in such a way after I left, or is my frustration simply from being to attached? I humbly await judgement. Lovely Lorelei

Melon Bread

You should name the system at least--otherwise the 2Crew might get very confused as to why anyone would do that in 5e lol. I'm totally on the side of tattling though--if one person is feeling more effective in combat and it's a damper on the mood of the game it's very fair to point out that they aren't playing by the rules.

Axel Andrade

May it please the court, the Honorable Crit Justices and the strongest bailiff. I present the case of DM gaslighting me My friends and I were inside catacombs exploring looking for a portal to Skyrim, our DM said there was a huge circular door with Dwarven scripture. My friend and I did not speak Dwarven or had any spell to help us. So out of pure act of passing time while the smart people figure things out I took out my harmonica and played a song my DM looks at me and says that I figured out the solution, however my DM did not like that I figured it out without thinking or putting any effort. After we played that campaign we talked about our favorite moments and I was telling my favorite moment, my DM was denying that the moment even happen my friends that I thought were going to back me up agreed with him. I thought I was loosing my mind, did it really not happened? Turns out that he did not like that moment and told everyone else that it was not part of the story. After that and other issues I lost contact with and I enjoy DND without playing.

Jesus

Gracious justices and the hardworking bailiff I bring you the case of The worst ruling in history. My dm was running a combat against a wizard who was the prophet of a god so they got some high level warlock abilities. The ability in question your honors is “Hurl through Hell”. During the combat our super kick ass Barbarian/paladin/fighter flew right at this fucking guy and used one of our parties group magic items. She was able to cast antimagic field then Action Surge to grapple and basically put this dude in a magical and psychical triangle hold. However, the wizard hit our tank with an attack and used hurl through hell to send her and the anti magic field away. We argued for a bit saying the anti-magic field should have stopped this ability but our dm said “the ability isn’t magical so it would work in the field”. We countered saying “so she was sent to hell non magically?”. He firmly said it happened and that was that. We ended up killing the dude but it was pretty lame to have this kick ass move kinda get shut down! She was mind messed with by wizards for years before this and so she is designed to shut them down now! So justices I ask would the wizard have been able to use hurl through Hell against our tank or should the anti magic field have prevented the travel? I humbly await your answer and hope I get to serve my dm hot crow at our next session.

Argent

I’m about to run my first campaign and now I can’t wait to be able to participate in this.

SoupLightning

May it please the court and thoroughly satisfy Baliff Jake so much so that he doesn't think about his divorce with Jill, I am taking pebblepot DM Brian Murphy to court!  On episode 28 of Eldermourne. Jake rolled a nat 20 in order to find his old jean jacket and had in mind his own ideas of the jean jacket, but instead of honoring the nat 20 and giving the player his dream jacket he gave him a sad ill fitting jean jacket. I think Jake was slighted by Murph and should have recieved the jean jacket he desired and not a bizarre version of Murph's creation. Murph awaits your just and sensible sentencing judges.

Amanda W.

May it please the court, the honorable justices and the acceptable bailiff, I present the case of the dire wolf debate. I’m in a relatively new campaign with a few of my friends, two of whom are brand new D&D players. One of those new players is a circle of the moon druid. She came over to my house after we hit level two to go over all her druid stuff, specifically her wild shapes. Since she’s circle of the moon she can wild shape into creatures with a challenge rating of 1 or lower as long as they cannot fly and don’t have a swim speed. One of the creatures she chose was a dire wolf. She went home and was talking to her fiancée, who is our DM, and he was not happy about this. At first he tried to say she was incorrect about the challenge rating rule and once she showed him the PHB he conceded but said she was not allowed to have a dire wolf wild shape. His justification was that she “would not have seen one” Her background is having lived in the wilderness of both the Feywild and the material plane (she’s an autumn eladrin) & the only info we can find on the habitats of dire wolves is that they live in the woods. Please honorable justices, settle this debate. Would this woman have seen a dire wolf before?

Mr.Bopps (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 May it please the court, honorable justices, and dashing bailiff. We are in a campaign that I would best describe as Lord of the rings meets Reno-911 with a dash of treasure island aesthetic (in my head) and in a recent session the players were tasked with security detail for a speech being given by the leader of the defense force of the realm. As they are high ranking/skilled agents. In the inevitable assassination attempt that took place during the speech, one of the players was having a rather Die hard-esque 1v1 fight with an assassin on the roof of what had been established as a 15 story office building. When the assassin managed to wrestle the arcane rifle (crossbow flavored to work as a musket powered by a modified gust spell) The assassin jumped off the building. The player being a special agent to whose knowledge only 4 of these rifles exist jumped off after them. After a couple rounds of them plummeting and wrestling the PC got his rifle back and the assassin dimension doored away. The PC was now plummeting by himself toward the ground, and to get out of this situation used misty step to teleport himself in the building sideways. In the moment I ruled that he would carry his momentum and end up crashing at that speed through the office building I.e. cubicles and desks. He ended up taking a hefty amount of bludgeoning damage and I ruled he had a broken arm and broken leg. My question to you Honorable court in your vast experience and wisdom, When misty stepping should momentum carry? Or can it stop entirely? Did I screw my player by causing damage they didn’t rightfully incur or am I justified in the ruling that momentum should carry through misty step. I humbly await your ruling and any punishment I may incur for wrongful treatment of my players.
2022-03-29 03:28

Beav

A MODIFIED DICE DILEMMA Forgive me justices, for i may have sinned. I know there is no separation of church and state in this court, so i lay before you a potential transgression. I am conflicted regarding a bbeg I’ve designed for a homebrew campaign that takes place in a magical New York City in the 1920’s. The ultimate villain is a mastermind halfling gangster by the name of “Lucky La Flora” who has trapped the god of luck in a gem and constantly siphons their power. In addition to several other feats and abilities, I had originally decided to represent this aspect of “godlike luck” by making all of his rolls with a modified d20. It is not weighted but does not contain a 1 or a 2 and instead has two 19’s and two 20’s on it. However, my conscious is beginning to eat at me as my players draw closer to the final battle. So your Honors, i ask you: Am i spitting in the face of dice christ if i chose to roll with this powerful d20 or is this, in fact, a rad mechanic? Please guide me in this moral quandary.

Desk Plant

May it please the court and mighty bailiff. I present the case of “The holy Balloon”. I am currently running the module “The Wild Beyond the Witchlight” in which players are tasked to go to this carnival and figure out the secrets of the strange happenings in the carnival. The players had just met the carnival owners for being, for the most part, pleasing and uplifting for the carnival. They had a brief discussion and we’re going to go on their way. One of the owners allowed the players to each get a fun balloon toy from a clown as a gift of good nature to the players for being so nice. The paladin of the group asked for a sword which the clown made for him. The player then asked if he could use this balloon sword to use smites. I said no because the balloon sword itself isn’t a weapon, but a toy. The paladin argued that he could imbue the sword with a smite and still hit with the smite damage at least. Eventually I caved and allowed this smite incident on the caveat that it would pop the sword. The player had not used this sword for two in game days so when he tried to use it in combat as a surprise attack I said that the balloon was deflated and not useful. I was then called out for this because I was upset about the sword shenanigans. Should I have allowed the sword to be holy in the first place and was I wrong for saying the balloon would have deflated since it wasn’t used?

Hardwons Left Quad

May it please the court, and the bailiff I would not stop to scrape off the bottom of my shoe, I would simply throw the pair away. I run a home game for some friends and we're a little more lax when it comes to the application of spells. I usually allow some spells to be used in creative ways within some limits. I presented my party with a challenge. They had to cross a lake via row boat under a time limit. They could go around but I explained to them that the target they were following would be long gone by then if they took that route. The party agreed they would cross the lake, then the parties wizard, let's call him Kevin because that's his name, asked if he could use frost bolt to freeze the lake. I told him the body of water was too large for something small like a cantrip, but he persisted. I tried to move the session along but then he kept asking questions about the salt content and currents of the lake, the depth, etc to try and justify why it should be easy to freeze. I told him if he wanted to use real world science to justify the results in a world of MAGIC I would allow him to freeze the lake on the condition that he uses real world science to justify how every single spell or cantrip he casts for the rest of the session is possible. If he was unable to give me a legitimite scientific real world explanation, then he would lose his action. I didn't expect him to, but he agreed. So I let him freeze the lake and they cause up to their prey in no time. When they did, a battle ensued and right away the wizard tried to cast polymorph. I told the wizard his spell would fail unless he could explain the science behind how this human is turning into a chicken. Obviously he failed to explain it using real world science so per our deal, his spell was forfeit. I continued to hold him to the deal for the rest of the session, for obvious reasons he couldn't cast any other spells. Here is my ask. Should I have held him to it like I did for the remainder of the session? Should I have only let the ploymorph fail to prove a point and then dropped it? I felt like I might have been petty holding him to the deal like I said because he did seem to be a little bummed by the end of the session but at the same time, salt content? Really? I humbly await the decision of the crit and I guess the bailiff can weigh in on this if the crit allows (love you jake)

Robin W.

May it please the esteemed court and, most of all, the magnanimous Bailiff Jake. I play an Oath of the Open Sea Paladin who is built around their various positional abilities in combat. Recently, my character forewent their fifth Paladin level to multiclass into Warlock, and I took Booming Blade as one of my cantrips. Oath of the Open Sea has a Channel Divinity feature called Fury of the Tides, which allows my Paladin to push a creature 10 feet away when they hit them with a weapon attack. In theory, this combines really nicely with Booming Blade, a spell that punishes the target for taking willing movement, since I can push enemies out of melee range or into other hazards and encourage them to stay put. However, my DM and I have had some disagreements about whether Booming Blade is a weapon attack or a spell attack, and they’re not sure they wanna let me use them together. For the sake of my poor Hexadin and epic spell synergy, please pass down your wise judgement on this case.

Malt!

To the humble bailiff and supreme crit justices I submit a case i am tentatively calling: THE RULE OF COOL: MUST THE DM BE A FOOL? In our most recent session our party was facing off against a powerful Yuan-Ti necromancer who was giving us no shortage of trouble. Our battle took place on the rickety remains of shipwrecks, with the ocean below churning violently. As the necromancer was downing party members left and right, our half-orc cavalier decided to make a hero play: running through the field, taking opportunity attack after opportunity attack, grappling the necromancer and plunging into the ocean below, potentially drowning them both. The cavalier was wearing heavy armour and thus sunk like a half-orc wearing heavy armour; that is to say - quickly. The necromancer's turn rolls around and it teleports back to safety, an anti-climatic end. According to the DM RAW allows the necromancer to cast V/S spells while underwater despite being grappled and effectively unable to talk. So I ask: should the DM respect the rule of cool, and be a fool or should the players say 'sure' to RAW?

Josh Meier

DICE CHRIST CONFENSSIONAL: (Josh M writes) To the Supreme Crit Justices and 532nd golden mic winning bailiff. I prostrate myself before the court with a grave sin. In my first year of DMing I had a battle between my 4 players vs a shambling mound. 2 of my players used their turns to set up a sick combo. The Aasimir eldritch knight flew high above the creature and used their action to dive and pierce the mound through its skull rolling a nat 20. Our Tabaxi Bard held their action to cast the heat metal spell at 3rd level to engulf the blade in flames mid dive. This is where I transgress: Me wanting to play "by the book" looked up shambling mound stats. It said they are resistant to fire. I then described how the creature was unaffected by the flames and no fire damage or effect occurred, only piercing damage. They were dissapointed but moved on. Later that night as I lay smuggly and proud in my bed it donned on me... Resistance does not mean immunity! The Shambling mound should have taken damage! Instead of playing the rule of cool. I played the foolish tool. I also never told my players of this and I hid my mistake from them. I beg thee oh court, give me a swift but fair punishment. I await your judgment...

Jack Bradley

I believe I just suddenly burst out "I don't know, 50 fathoms?!" which of course led to a further mocking of my brain, DM skills and general suitability to be a human being. Have edited my response above to include it. Thanks for reaching out! Love everything you guys do and can't wait to see you in London!

Ben Kullerd

May it please the court and the smokin’ hot and sorely underappreciated Bailiff: I come to you humbly seeking bardic inspiration in the Case of the PC Breakup. Two of my players are going through a rough breakup IRL, wherein she evicted him with zero notice and is keeping his cat hostage, and we’ve taken an extended break until my buddy has found a new place to live. She will no longer be playing with us, and I’m struggling with how to explain her sudden disappearance from the game in a way that is narratively and vindictively satisfying. Am I wrong to want to get rid of her PC in the cruelest way possible, or should I just have her banished and leave it at that? (Some campaign context: the party just infiltrated the archdevil BBEG’s mega-church lair, and the now-ex-girlfriend’s character was about to interrogate him while the rest of the party sneaks around.)

Uber Aemos

If it may please the Crit; I would bring up a case set in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, where there is only war. Having just landed on a planet with the newly granted authority of an Inquisitorial rosette just itching to burn the heretics and purge the unclean, the group decided to do what would become one of the most dangerous things we could do in any given session. Go shopping. There was some minor haggling but eventually we stumbled across an Ecclesiarchal armory. I'm not sure how much the esteemed Court knows about Warhammer 40k but to make it brief, there isn't much separation of church and state when your supreme leader is also god. My character, a Cleric, found this too good of an opportunity to pass up. A few excellent rolls later and we've requisitioned ourselves some fancy new gear. We also decide to set up for a bit at the Armory to figure out our next move. Now I can't remember if the kill squad coming after us was the Church being mad at us for taking all this stuff or just your run of the mill cultists, but this is where we get to the crux of the case I'm presenting today. This was a game run over VOIP, and as we all know combat can take some time. So I had a hockey game running in the background. In my defense, it was the first time my team had made the playoffs in a long time. I certainly could have been paying more attention, but it was a 6 player group and listening to people stumble through math is hardly engaging, as I'm sure Justice Murphy would agree. Some things were missed, questions were asked, tempers were raised. Eventually my DM kicked me from the voice channel, and fair enough. Where I accuse my DM of going to far is what happened in the channel after I was gone. My DM took control of my character and had him peek only his head down from a floor above through a ladder door. He then had the NPCs take shots, which of course took my character down into critical damage. When I came back the next session, I was told to mark down on my sheet that my charisma was effectively 0 and that I was blind. To quote the rulebook "In a gruesome display, the flesh is burned from the target's head, exposing charred bone and muscle underneath. The Target is blinded permanently." Now, this eventually led to some really fun roleplay stuff and nobody held any grudge about it. My character now has a brass sculpted head in the image of a saint and some various cyber parts. But I ask you this Judges, did my DM go too far? Or did he fairly and justly punish an inattentive player? I leave it to you to decide. (For reference the system was Dark Heresy 1st edition)

Two Deers Beep

To the honorable and all knowing justices and the bailiff of the under dark I present the case of the horny bard. We recently started our second campaign in our group after finishing a 1-20 campaign. Everybody was very excited to make new character and exciting backgrounds except one member. He make mcstagger the goblin bard and is living up to every single bard trope imaginable with a back story that basically is he slept with the captains wife and got kicked off the ship. Should I pu ish this horny bard behavior it’s honestly upset annoying and mostly just leads to eye rolls and awkward silences. My wife insists that he will figure out that none of us find it funny and there’s no need to make him feel bad but all I want to do is tell him that he doesn’t need to make a sexual innuendo or comment at every available moment. Our games are generally very light and joke forward but I feel like he is ruining the fun. We’re only on session 3 so maybe he does just need more time and there is no need for an awkward conversation.

Viktor Stein

To the honorable crit justices whose judgement I shall take with all the grace I can muster, and the Pretty Cool Guy™, bailiff Jake, I present the case of the 2 year long campaign of which we've had like 10 sessions and the 5 hr sessions that actually end up being 3.5 hours of play time. We started this campaign over quarantine and our DM has only played 3.5 before and never DMed before this campaign. Nothing wrong with that obviously, but since we're playing 5e and I'm the only one that's played 5e before, with the rest of the players being new to DnD as a whole, I've taken kinda taken up the mantle of rules reminder and such. Which is fine! I like helping out the other players, and our DM doesn't mind (I check in with him about it). However we never really get to play much, and I'm usually the one trying to organize the sessions. The thing is, when we do get together for a session, like an hour minimum of it is taken up trying to get everyone on the vid chat and getting everyone set up, and I find it really frustrating as I'm the one doing the reminding and I'm always set up and ready to go at our chosen time. I haven't really said much about it to them, but especially considering we find it hard to get together in the first place, it seems like a waste to have so much time taken up with things that we do every session and the other players shouldn't have to be hand held through, like signing into fantasy grounds and pulling up character sheets and notes and such. I honestly have no idea how this takes so long, it's truly baffling to me. We'll be pretty much all set up and then someone will decide to make coffee, and then someone will go for a smoke break, and next thing you know we've been on the call for an hour and no one has so much as opened fantasy grounds. Our DM doesn't really help with this tbh, we once played while he had a lady friend over and he sucked her toes on the vid call, but that's another matter entirely and doesn't really have to do with this except to illustrate his lax attitude towards all this. Am I in the wrong for feeling frustrated, or am I just taking this too seriously? Is it unreasonable to expect people to be set up in advance and not suck toes on screen? Should I bring this up in advance of next session? I'm already reminding people of rules all the time, and while no one seems to mind, I don't want to be overbearing. Thank you, and I shall accept my punishment if that is the decision of the court.

keysi ellle

Honorable Bailif reading these cases. Hang in there. You can do it. Dice christ guide you.

Diff

To the most esteemed and beneficent justices (and the humble yet wise bailiff), I present the case of the sickly paladin. In my first-ever 5e campaign our party frequently encountered pestilential, zombified monsters, and whenever one died within melee range of us we had to make CON saves to see whether we got infected. I initially thought that my dragonborn Oath of the Watchers paladin was on easy street, as she had acquired the class feature Divine Health at level 3, which rendered her “immune to disease” and could also expend 5 points from her Lay on Hands pool to cure a target of any disease. I invite the court to imagine my surprise when I was required to make these CON saves. When I asked the DM (who is also my brother-in-law) why Divine Health didn’t exempt me, he replied that it was “a magic disease” that was different from normal ones. I was also disallowed from using Lay on Hands to cure it for the same reason. The disease didn’t resolve after resting either, and it turned out that the only way to cure it was to drink a potent poison that caused a PERMANENT PENALTY to the afflicted character’s health. As a protection style fighter, my paladin was frequently up in the mix, and a truly abysmal series of CON saves on my part led to her developing the disease no less than 3 times over the course of the game. By the end of the campaign she had the same number of hit points as our warlock, and I maintain that she was done dirty. Was my DM-in-law out of line for denying me my class features? Should I have adjusted my character build to compensate? I await your infallible judgement.

Turner Tush

May it please the court and ultimately displease the lowly bailiff. I present to you, a cantrip case. I was playing a one shot with my EMT coworkers over zoom. It was slapped together last minute when someone canceled so we were all playing pre made characters. I was playing a Goliath Druid. The session was wrapping up and it had been good fun! I ended up being the last person standing, facing off against the boss (a large creature, a bug bear I think?). We were facing each other with a chasm between us. I calculated my long jump and found that I could jump into open air, thorn whip this guy, and bring us both plummeting to the darkness below. I did this and I hit but instead of pulling the bbg, the dm ruled that since I wasn’t standing on solid ground, I instead swung across the chasm with my thorn whip, slamming into the wall of the cliff, and then falling presumably to my death. Should my plan have worked or did the dm make the right decision? I haven’t played with this dm since then.

Justin Lang

I'm sorry, what? THE DM WAS SUCKING ON SOMEONE'S TOES DURING THE SESSION?!?! HOW IS THAT NOT YOUR MAIN CONCERN? Also, you're a saint to be taking on so much of the workload to get your friends(?) together, it sounds like herding cats at a rave.

Kelsey K

May it please the court/clergy and the humble, under-appreciated bailiff/altar boy: I come to you with a confession before Dice Christ. I am DMing my first campaign with four players, three of whom have never played before. I had the party (all at level 2) encounter an awakened tree with loot in a hollow branch, thinking it would be a fun challenge to earn some magic items. My tree decimated them. At one point, it rolled enough damage to outright kill our wizard, so I fudged the damage roll to keep him alive but unconscious. On its next turn, the tree crit on our bard, so I gave it disadvantage to give my party a fighting chance. It crit again, and then I rolled a third and fourth time until it rolled low enough to miss. After that, I fudged a few more attack and damage rolls from the tree to quickly wrap up what I thought would be a minor travel encounter. Was I wrong to prevent the TPK that Dice Christ so clearly wanted? Or was this merely a test of faith, a la Abraham and Isaac? I humbly accept my punishment from both the clergy and the law under Dice Christ’s totalitarian theocracy.

Adam Kagi

May it please the court and the honourable bailiff, Jake. I was in a game that spanned approximately 18 months. It culminated in one of the players teaming up with the DM without any of the other players knowing to ultimately betray the party. The party insisted that he back down, but the player became more determined that he was just playing his character. The results of his actions were that at least two player characters died - including mine - and I, out of character, in real life, did not sleep at all that night. (It was not fun). Was it right for the DM to screw the party like that? I humbly await your verdict.

Michael Coggins

This feels like it may be a stretch, I know I'm not in the wrong but the situation sucked regardless. Here ye here ye, may it please the Fine Dandy Gentle-people of the Court, and the slap-stick degenerate Jester Bailiff. My first ever D&D campaign, I wasn't allowed to pick a race, or a class or a name, I had to use a pregenerated character from his world, I wasn't allowed to play how I wanted or do what I wanted, it was all pretty rail-roady and that was sucky, but it was my first D&D game ever so I still enjoyed it. We voted to keep the campaign going because for the most part we were all having fun beyond the beginning mini campaign he had planned. At the final moment of his little premade campaign, I critically hit this evil necromantic orb and as a paladin ofcourse I smote it, destroying it completely. The DM ruled that doing so corrupted my warhammer in very insidious ways (At first I thought that sounded really interesting and cool. Without any discussion with me beforehand or any warning at all, the first time I went to 0 hp, the Warhammer corrupted my entire being and I became an undead zombie... A homebrew undead playable race that was really really bad (and undead were considered wholly and unarguably evil in our world) and so it ruined my character. I couldn't go into towns anymore, I couldn't use my paladin spells anymore, my allies almost bludgeoned me to death the moment they realised I was no longer a living breathing dwarf. This went on for months, probably a dozen sessions total. Eventually I got fed up with how the campaign felt and so I left. A month later the DM sent me a literally 2000 word essay on how I was an asshole for leaving, and the undead thing was going to sort itself out eventually and so on and so forth. So may the court decide, was I an asshole? I feel like I took so much crap from him from literally minute 1 of the campaign and he has the audacity to claim I was the asshole? Much love to you all, thanks for reading, if you do!

Foster’s Bewildered Veterinarian

Salutations most fantastical justices and _____ (blank) Bailiff whose descriptor will be chosen by Murph right now. In a campaign I played in college we had an almost all orc party in the process of integrating into society. My character was essentially an Orc Jehovah’s Witness for Kord who loved handing out pamphlets which of course were written in orcish and unreadable to most. During a fight one of the party members was surrounded by several enemies and dropped to zero. On my turn I asked the DM if the party member would have fallen prone, and the DM said yes, so I asked if I could cast Shatter on a point above the group so the 10 foot radius would hit all the standing enemies but not my downed friend. After some lighthearted back and forth, the DM said she would allow it this time because it was a cool idea, but going forward the spell wouldn’t work with that kind of precision and would hit a downed character in a similar situation. I humbly ask the court, did I use the spell correctly, and should I have been allowed to keep creative freedom with my rad radiuses, or was my DM correct and I was indeed committing geometric grievances?

Willow H.

To the esteemed church of dice Christ, I have a confession to make. A few weeks ago I was DMing a one shot for some of my friends. I was really excited because my best friend (who I share basically everything but my love for dnd and fantasy with) had finally agreed to play for the first time. She was playing a spellcaster with a low AC, and I didn't want her to not have a good time, so I kept fudging the dice rolls so she would'nt get hit, because I know that would've frustrated her, and I've felt bad ever since. Did I do the right thing by cheating so my best friend of nearly fifteen years would have a good time? I'll accept any judgment. P.d.- In case it counts, she told me she had had a great time playing and would like to try again (in which case I wouldn't do it again, of course)

Natural 20 Self-crit

Dm sounds like a weird dork trying to Game of Thrones his campaign with cheap emotional plays. Why would the goblin kidnap them in the first place if he's going to kill them the second someone comes looking for them? Did he try to ransom them? Why stop fighting for your life to murder a bunch of children? What would he gain from that even if he did survive the encounter?

Brendan R Colquitt

May it please the court and whomever is the lowly baliff this week. I am a player in a game where we went back in time and met new pcs. We were crossing a broken bridge and the new player failed his jump and fell into the water and was being carried away. The warlock shaped water to make a barrier to stop him from going further. The dm said he wouldn't allow it. I (the strength based Paladin) made my jump and used a rope to save him. After the ame the warlock asked why it wasn't allowed and the dm said that shape water is a broken cantrip because a 5 by 5 cube of water could kill anyone in real life. We argued that 1. That has nothing to do with what happened, 2. The spell itself says you cannot damage with it, 3. If he didn't like the spell she should have said so before the warlock took it and 4. This isn't real life. The dm went on to say all cantrips are broken and he was moving to make a house rule where all cantrips are leveled spells. He abandoned that when we unanimously shot that down. In our opinion if your monsters can't handle a cantrip you may want to be a player from now on. Am I right to say he needs dice christ?

Natural 20 Self-crit

Counterspelling a counterspell is not illegal, you can counter any spell with components that you can perceive being cast. I don't know what forums were consulted but it's not really controversial, there is one correct answer.

Natural 20 Self-crit

Your dm is a psychopath for allowing a cr11 creature to hunt level 2 players. Its minimum damage is 16.

Natural 20 Self-crit

The Thunder damage type is not electricity, it's concussive. Lightning damage is electricity. That being said, rules as written don't support nonlethal spell damage, but I would allow it personally unless there were some lore reason your character didn't have basic control of their magic

Aslee Graves

May it please the court and our oft aggrieved bailiff, I present this case of retroactive bullying. In one of my first campaigns, I joined a group with my little brother at a local card shop. I was the only girl at the table, but as I was a little older than some of the other players and the DM's dad was also playing, I felt comfortable. This might have been a mistake. The DM introduced a concept called reaction dice, where you rolled 4d6 to see how your character was feeling about an event they were in. I had never heard of this concept before, and have never experienced them in a game since then, but the DM seemed insistent I use them since I was "new" to role-playing. Looking back, I see how weird that was, considering my own brother had significantly less experience than me, but at the time I was just happy to playing. I ended up quitting eventually because I was bored of not being able to choose how my character felt about things happening to her, and went back to text role-playing on Percy Jackson forum boards, but I assumed it was part of the game until I tried again as an adult. Justices, I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations is out on this one, but I beg of you to answer the question that haunts me: is this a rightfully abandoned part of 3e culture, or was I being bullied by a 15 year old boy?

Christopher Smith

Oh esteemed panel of Judges and wise court bailiff, I bring to you today a case that may have gone past the statute of limitations but I would still like to bring it to you. This case goes back 13 years. My group and I were playing a home brewed Resident Evil campaign and we were reaching the very end. The twist has been revealed and the villian (A player character who had been with us since day one, thinking them to be on our side) was getting away. Their last ditch play was to toss a grenade at us. Trying to save my characters best friend, I say that I leap on the grenade. I roll and get a middling roll. Not even bad just not great. Like a 9, which the dm describes as me leaping down next to the grenade taking the full blast, dying fully but not protecting anyone. Everyone else survives anyway making my death totally pointless. My argument is.. how high did I need to roll to fall on a grenade at my feet? How could he take my cool moment away? Or am I just sore at nothing? I leave my past pain in your judging hands.

Kamardikan

May it please the court, the honorable justices and all-round swell bailiff. I present a case of the stolen 0.1% crit. In a campaign during the lockdown, in which I was playing a tiefling druid, we've defeated a mad scientist and when living his laboratory I jokingly asked my DM if I could create a clone of myself. He said that he would allow it if I crit on a d1000. Lo and behold, the nat 1000 showed up on the screen (we were using roll20). He than said to do it with disadvantage and I obviously didn't do it. Even though it was all done in a joke I still feel I should have been somewhat rewarded for beating these odds, even if not with a pet clone. Should he be sent to dice hell? I await your judgement.

Brandalf The Bae

Apologies, I forgot to mention that it was a young remorhaz

GJ Squared

Dear disciples of the dice Christ, I come to present before you my penance. I retired a character in my long running campaign because she was decisively more evil than the group at large, and homebrewed with my dm a new Paladin, based on the unearthed arcana hexblood, (he was the son of the hag they had been fighting turned lawful good). I got in my head this idea of a warlock turned Paladin without warlock spells, as such we workshopped a weapon that he manifests magically (everyone is level 11 and he has nothing except this sweet weapon). I talked my dm into it being 3d4 cold damage and at intermittent levels it levels to 3d6 and then 3d8 at level 15. I knew it’d be over powered but as a great weapon fighter with smites I’m consistently rolling 3d6 (weapon) 1d8 (hex) and however many d8s of smite… and god forbid i crit! We fought my characters mom (the hag) in his debut and I crit and rolled 6d4, 9d6 and refilled 1s and 2s. Should I confess to my dm and scale down my ludicrous situation? Please dice Christ, help me and my guilty conscious

Anthony

I throw myself on the mercy of Dice Christ and ask forgiveness for my transgressions.. My players were rolling abysmally on some insight/investigation on a plot-important magic item, so I had an NPC roll... but she got a 3. I lied and told them it was a high number so I could explain the item's magic and how it would fit into the upcoming boss fight. I feel bad for fudging the rolls, but it would've felt wrong to juat leave them without any explanation for this item. How should I atone for this sin?

Frankie C.

To the Honorable Judges and even more so honorable Bailiff, Our party was called on to help a mountain town who had sent out a distress beacon. As we were preparing, me and my business partner (another PC) decided we should bring Jerry, an assistant manager NPC for one of the restaurants we owned, in case we found an opportunity for expansion. On the trek we ran into some Yetis and sent Jerry off to hide. During the battle, a Yeti sniffed out Jerry and darted to the cave where he was hiding. I rushed over ASAP to rescue my employee, and our DM described that I saw a Yeti eating him, half of his body down the Yeti’s throat, the other half hanging out of his mouth. I cast Banishment on the Yeti, looking to quickly separate the two. My DM ruled that Jerry was banished with the Yeti, and by the time I could release concentration, Jerry’s body was ripped in half and a revivify spell could not bring him back. I argued that Jerry shouldn’t have been banished with the Yeti, as the spell only targets one creature. Our DM counter argued that Jerry was swallowed, and so he should get banished. I re-countered that our DM specifically described Jerry as “halfway down the gullet of the Yeti”, not completely swallowed. Thus, Jerry was grappled and not banished. Our DM re-re-countered that Jerry was dead and could be treated as an object, and carried objects are banished. I re-re-re countered with “Oh Jerry is just an object to you!? You never wanted us to bring him on this adventure in the first place!” After a few minutes of arguing our DM allowed us to roll a luck check for Jerry’s fate, and Dice Christ was on our side. But how would the highest Crit in the land rule? I humbly await your decision and accept the possible consequences.

Jack Lenox

To the agreeable bailiff and illustrious arch crit bishops, I come bearing a Dice Christ confessional. During the first campaign I played in, I would often lie about my bad rolls. I fear it may have cursed me forever and damned me to a life in campaign purgatory where I can always find people interested in playing but can never quite get over the hump of having a consistent group to play with. Is Dice Christ punishing me for fudging rolls, or do I somehow give off a dice-cheater stink? Perhaps it is former catholic guilt, but I am not proud of my sin, but it is one I have bore shamefully in silence. This was the first time I was graced by thyne holy dice, and I disgraced thee. I ask you Arch crit bishops, do you have any advice for my retribution, and also how to get long-term games running? I have tried DM’ing, but I feel like I did a pretty poor job because the group fell apart after two sessions. I also don’t really have the attention span necessary to read the books and prep the sessions, so playing is more fun for me.

Jordan

To the bishops of dice christ, I come asking for forgiveness, for I have sinned. I am running the Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, set in Icewind Dale. For one session, my group was traversing a gem mine that had been taken over by kobolds. Little did they know, the kobolds were only part of their troubles: a grell (think a flying brain with a beak and tentacles) had wandered up from the underdark and had been hunting humanoids within the shaft. The book states that the grell would not attack, preferring to wait and hunt members of the party who wander alone. Here's where I intentionally sinned. According to the module, "A character who has a passive wisdom (perception) score of 16 or higher notices the grell." I knew that the druid of the party, Aurelia, had 16 in passive perception. However, when the party ventured into the grell's lair, I didn't tell the druid that she saw the grell, as I wanted to scare them. In a feat of poetic injustice, it just so happened the druid herself was the one to wander from the party. Since she didn't ask for a perception check, I had the grell descend on Aurelia, paralyzing her with a tentacle attack, followed by scraping her head with its beak, trying to eat her brain. She ended up surviving with the help of her friends, but not without a scar on her head. My party said the session was really fun and the grell was super spooky, yet I know what I have done. Please judge me accordingly, so I can lay my guilt to rest or atone for what I've done.

Jessie Kelly

To the highly esteemed justices and bailiff of the court: I humbly ask for your opinion on a matter that has been a bother to me for a few sessions now. We were starting a new campaign and I got the dates mixed up in my calendar around week 3 and double booked myself with an out-of-state trip. I let my dm know a full week ahead of time (we play every other week) and she said that it was fine but it would mean something interesting for my character since the party would be playing without me. I love the role playing aspect of the game so I was excited. When I returned 2 weeks later, my character had been kidnapped by the big bad while doing something my character wouldn’t have done. I also did not level up with the rest of my party because I wasn’t there which I understand (I’m level 3 and they’re level 4 now). And since I had a piece of the party’s treasure on me, I was asked to either give it up or have it taken by force. I managed to escape the BBEG in the end but without the treasure, as I hurled it into the ocean to give myself time to get away. All of this is fine to me, but since then any time the incident is brought up the dm will make a comment like “well, you did have the treasure but *somebody* threw it in the ocean” or something to imply that it’s entirely my fault the treasure is missing and not something that was at least partially worked into the story by the dm. The other players seem to be fine with my decision but it kind of bums me out when the dm makes those remarks. Am I being a sore loser or is it unfair to punish me so harshly for missing a session?

Jessie Kelly

I had to read that twice because it was so unbelievable to me. It’s very unfair to have a drastic change to your character made without your consent like that. I’m sorry

Annika

May it please the supreme crit and any esteemed critters within earshot (including the hedgehog-esque bailiff Jake 🦔 ), I present the case of Lyra and the magic beans: My gloomstalker ranger (with +9 to initiative) was trying to get out of a secret basement chamber with no doors having freed 2 NPCs who were about to be sacrificed in there. After failing to escape at first, I planted one of my magic beans (from the bag of beans item) to potentially creatively use a random result to escape. I rolled 95 on a d100 and it caused a 60 foot base PYRAMID to erupt from the ground and through the building. My DM said that the two NPCs got immediately crushed against the wall by the pyramid rising, and didn’t allow me to roll initiative against the rising building. I wanted to feed them the last two bites of my gaseous form apple so they could escape through the cracks formed by the apex of the pyramid. Was the DM unfair to not allow me to try to save them, or should I just mourn silently for my friends that I inadvertently killed?

Jon Snider

May it please the court, the noble and poetic justices and the mild mannered lukewarm bailiff: I am dming Curse of Strahd for a party of 3. I had a player join mid campaign at level 9 because one PC had to drop out to focus on her studies. Upon reaching level 10, the newest PC (an echo knight fighter/undead patron warlock multiclass) wanted to take a level of warlock which would give him an eldritch invocation. He had planned to take Thirsting Blade which as stated, allows you to attack with your pact weapon twice when using the attack action. Mind you, he has 5 levels in fighter giving him multi-attack already. He brought up this invocation and asked if it would allow him to take an extra strike with his pact weapon outside of the aforementioned fighter multiattack, giving him a total of 4 attacks at level 10. (2 from fighter multiattack, one off hand from dual wielding, and an extra swing from Thirsting Blade) When he brought this up, I answered with the obvious, "Absolutely not" as this would essentially give him 20th level fighter abilities. To my knowledge, Thirsting Blade is more so to even out action economy with a melee focused warlock such as a hexblade. He accepted my ruling but stated this was the build he had in mind all along when creating the character. Given that it is a party of 3 in an already brutal campaign, should I allow my player to live out his whirlwind of blades fantasy? Was i too quick to say no to this build or should I keep the lid on this box of bees shut? I humbly prostrate myself at the foot of the court and await judgement.

JDubz

I prostrate myself before the most high judges, the true-and-loyal Baliff, the rolls of Dice Christ, the blessings of Bahamut and the Chicken Legs of Baba Yaga, seeking advice and correction. I play D&D with my teenage twins. My daughter is very much a role player, happy to avoid battle entirely as long as there is a good story. She loves mysteries, discoveries, and relationships. My son on the other hand is a super crunchy, min-maxin’, rules-lawyerin’ Battle Master. They are both excellent players. At the end of a recent campaign, my daughter came across a Wand of Smiles. The Wand is pretty benign: the player can target a humanoid and on a failed Charisma saving throw the target is forced to smile for 1 minute. Suspecting what it was and trying to identify it, she pointed it at her brother’s character. He rolled a 16, but in order to demonstrate what the item did, I ruled that he failed, and his character smiled. The player DID NOT. He was very put out that I made him fail the save despite his high roll. Was I wrong to force a failure for the player for the sake of storytelling, at a moment when it had absolutely no ramifications for the targeted player or the campaign? Yours humbly, Dad-geon Master

Natural 20 Self-crit

You're right, DM is wrong. If they think it's a balance issue and won't let you use it that's fine, DM is the law after all, but Booming Blade is very specific with "the target suffers the weapon attack's normal effects and then becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn." By using your channel divinity, you are making "you can choose to push the target 10 feet away from you" your attack's normal effect for the duration. They absolutely stack

Re

I humbly submit my tardy judgement to the bishops of the dice Christ. I started a new campaign with some friends and decided for the first time to use Dnd Beyond to roll my character. I rolled a Teifling sorcerer, but flavored him as a 7 foot tall humanoid with a head that looks like a house fly. My first 3 rolls of the campaign (all rolled via Dnd Beyond) were nat 1s. Also note they were all perception checks. On the 3rd my DM let me reroll with physical dice and I got a 15 which led to a hilarious scene anyways. I was continuously haunted and started rolling perception checks on Dnd Beyond sporadically for almost 2 weeks. Since then I have only rolled one additional nat 1. Have I sinned? Should I have accepted the dice Christ's 3rd nat 1? I prostrate myself before the Lord that is dice Christ, ready for conviction.

Some Guy Named Mason

Most honorable justices and bailiff trying his best, I write to you with the case of the Too Tight Tarrasque. May it please the court, My group recently completed a level 20 “Pit of 100 Trials” mini campaign where the final level had a magically enhanced tarrasque. The fight started off really well, until our Barbarian (who was a sexy mini-centaur) went down and got swallowed. My Moon Druid was wildshaped into an Air Elemental, which has an ability called Air Form which says I could stop in an enemy’s space and pass through spaces as small as 1” wide without squeezing. I told my DM I wanted to use that to fly down the tarrasque’s throat into its stomach so I could bring our barbarian back. My DM said no and didn’t elaborate as to why it didn’t work when I asked, and while I didn’t waste everyone’s time by continuing to argue about it after that, I still think my DM was in the wrong, or could’ve let me try to make some ability check or something (or could’ve at least come up with some funny bullshit like it was allergic to elementals and sneezed me out when I tried). Should I have been allowed to fly down there and try to save My Little Angry Pony? I humbly await the judgement of the court. Respectfully yours, Air-er of Grievances

Cncrave

Dear bailiff Hurwitz of the honourable crit, may you find my case worthy and present it to the fine judges overseeing this court table. Recently in a campaign I play in, I had my first character death in my 7 year DND career. The party was split across a room when I sprung a trap of 4 shambling mounds and became engulfed. Previously damaged, I quickly went down. When the others arrived they asked if they could see me to heal. The dm said no you cannot see him. So they focus fired a different shambling mound instead of the one I was in. With 4 party members who could heal, I took engulf damage and failed death saves to my death. My new character was introduced, the dm brought me in at level 8, while the party was leveling up to 11. I asked for a reason, and it was stated that there needs to be a risk for playing recklessly, and it gives you a chance to build up your character to fit the story as pre building high tier characters can be game breaking. I voiced my frustration how I didn't feel I was playing recklessly, and that I felt my party let me down. I was told to remember that some of the players are inexperienced and likely didn't think the dm would kill someone. I then asked for an insert so we may buy or loot revivify components, but was told he's not going to baby the level 10+ party. I ask you today, was I playing recklessly and deserve this second chance to build up my new character, or is the dm forcing me to let the party learn on their own at my expense? Thank you. Rip Zoneti.

Magnoliidae

The multiclassing rules specifically don't allow it https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/customization-options#ExtraAttack "Extra Attack If you gain the Extra Attack class feature from more than one class, the features don't add together. You can't make more than two attacks with this feature unless it says you do (as the fighter's version of Extra Attack does). Similarly, the warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade doesn't give you additional attacks if you also have Extra Attack."

The d20 Syndicate

Dearest acolytes of Dice Christ, I submit to the Honored Courts the Curious Case of the Creative Cantrip Cube of Drowning. Speaking as a player in a group infamous for creative uses for spells that extend beyond the bounds of what one would consider Rules as Written or Intended, I submit the following: Recently, my adventuring party was up to our ankles in swamp water and sick-nasty Gith foes. They had us on the ropes, but we were beginning to turn the tide due to a well-placed use of Entangle spell. One of these Gith unfortunately found himself knocked prone in the area of effect, and was struggling under about a foot of putrid, wet goop water as the battle raged on around him. Enter our Druid (one of our most "innovative" players), who decided it was a good time to cast Shape Water, and form a 5-foot cube of flowing water over his face. As the battle continued on, the poor Gith essentially drowned after a couple of rounds, because he had water sitting on his face and his limbs were tied up in vines. At the moment, I wanted to object, as Shape Water is a utility Cantrip, and can't really be used to kill something that way, but my DM opted for rule of cool and allowed it because he thought it was a clever (albeit HORRIBLE) way to dispatch of an enemy amid a long and grueling combat. I wouldn't care about it nearly as much if we weren't also on a podcast, but since our absurdities are out there in public for ridicule, I wanted to reach out to the experts and ask how you would rule this scenario in the heat of the moment. Does the Druid get a pass, or am I overreacting? Thank You, and keep up the Dice Lord's good work! Tomas, The d20 Syndicate

InaMegalli

May it please the court (and the honestly overworked and under appreciated bailiff): I am currently running a campaign based on the 1999 movie Elmo in Grouchland. Set in Grouchland, we have been able to play around with some fun lore (asking for help is illegal in Grouchland) as my players attempt to solve a mystery to locate their stolen favorite objects. Here is my issue. A player of mine (a level 3 Sorcerer) is playing as a sort of Lovecraftian snufalufagus named Ferg. Early in the campaign, as flavor, Ferg’s killing blow involved eating his victim, which I allowed, because I thought it was a funny little one off. I was wrong, and Ferg has continued to attempt to eat the evidence after every fight. To be honest, it’s getting a little gross. Would I be wrong to tell my player they are no longer allowed to eat people? When I have tried to push back they have insisted that it is a strategic move to clean up evidence of a fight, but a) the villain of this arc is an all-seeing warden who is constantly surveilling the city through CCTV and b) if it’s strategy I feel like it should require a check. I humbly await your judgement.

Kristen Coates

May it please the holy trinity of justices and the devout bailiff as they spread both spiritual and legislative justice on us mortals, the scenario I present is simple. My Druid Bex and her owlbear cub (Clementine) familiar were riding a horse (named Chester) and fighting Wintersplinter (Curse of Strahd). We rode up so Chester could take a hooves melee attack on his turn, and then Bex wanted to cast Thunderwave. My DM made the save for the tree, and then told me that Chester and Clem had to make the save as well. Since, in a previous incident other members of my party had had to roll the save, I specifically said that I only cast this spell since no one other than the tree was within the cube originating from my location, and he said that Chester and Clem counted since they weren’t me, and I argued that they shouldn’t count since I was astride Chester and Clem was on my back holding onto my shoulders. We didn’t agree, but he did let me change and cast a different spell, and we moved along. I ask: who was correct? Blessings to you in dice Christ, -Kristen

SoPHisTiCatED-Ox

May it please the amazing justice's, and possibly as amazing bailiff. Im currently running homebrew campaign with my wife, cousin, and a co-worker that's heavily Dragon themed. The situation was the party facing their first Adult dragon with an accompaniedHuman gunslinger rider mounted on him. Jasper, our Warlock uses Inquisitors of Winds to gain a flying speed to level with the Dragon but he wants to take a stealth approach so he uses his first 2 turns in combat to fly around the dragon trying to hide in the thick storm surrounding them. His turn comes back and he wants to attack the Rider, i say okay cool, he Crits.. He Eldrich Smited on the crit.. 95 total damage in one hit.. Now my question follows, after the damage behing almost half his HP i had him make a strength saving throw to not fall off the dragon.. I set the DC in my head at 15. Rolled a overall 14, so i sided with the rider staying on. What followed was the Rider making some pretty lethal shots at Jasper. I try to follow Rule of Cool.. I ask the court , was i uncool... I await all judgment patiently :))

SoPHisTiCatED-Ox

**Rolled a 14 on the dice so with his strength he succeeded**

James

May it please the gorgeous justices, and the smokin hot Bailiff, Jake. I’m Jake also, I dm’d/played my first ever game over the last weekend. I planned a small one shot for my friends for my 30th birthday cause I wanted to play. I listen to a bunch of dnd podcasts and I finally wanted to nerd out and an play. My friends showed up to play and I got them all a special set of dice, and 3d printed dnd mini that I painted and a foldable rolling tray as a gift for playing. I planned a small thing that they had to gather a lucky clover for a local criminal to up his luck and stuff. Mostly home brew stuff. I ended up deleting a whole goblin encounter and most of the ending where they may or may not give the clover back to the dude because they wanted to go drinking. I had drawn maps and minis ready for everything, but they wanted to go, do I basically acted like we were done. I just want to know if I messed up by giving in. I wanted them to have fun, but I also wanted to actually play and hangout. I’ve always wanted to play but never had anyone to play with, and this kinda sucked a bit, but I get it If ya side with them. Thanks y’all. Appreciate it.

Summer Tribe

kinda reads like you circumvented the rules to play favourites with your kids, and twins no less

RickDaddy

May it please the court, and the venerable Bailiff, and hopefully entertain everyone’s favorite table top tyrant, Justice Murphy. I recently ran a high-magic, high-powered, level 20 one shot for one of my Player’s birthdays. I had them fighting a “family” of blue dragons, split into 2 encounters. In the first one, the bard, whose birthday it was, casts polymorph on one of the young dragons attacking their airship. The dragon failed the save and he says “cool, he’s a chicken now.” I said okay, but since chickens can fly, he won’t outright die, but he definitely can’t keep up with the ship, so as long as you maintain concentration for long enough for him to hit the ground(I ruled 5 rounds), he’ll still be out of initiative.” This caused an argument about the flight capabilities of chickens, and ended with him saying “well fuck it, then I’ll just rip off Emily entirely, he’s a dolphin instead.” Then later when fighting the Blue Greatwyrm, the party had burned all its legendary resistances, he casts polymorph on it again, turns it into *another* chicken. Then tells the party’s archer to take it out. The archer does so and hits and deals 11 damage on the first attack. This drops the chicken(2hp) to 0, but since it was polymorphed, I ruled that it reverted back to a dragon. He argued that since the attack dealt more than twice the creatures HP, that it was just insta-dead, similar to power word kill on a polymorphed creature. In the moment I changed my ruling because it was his birthday, and he had expressed that he wasn’t really enjoying the character he built for the one-shot. So, honorable Justice’s and most esteemed bailiff, was I wrong in either of my rulings? And should I rule differently in the future should this come up in a full on campaign? ****extra info if needed**** In the first encounter there were 2 young blue dragons and 1 adult, most players were focusing on the adult and ignoring the young-ins. In the second fight there was a blue Greatwyrm and an Ancient Blue Dragon, by the time the bard polymorphed the Greatwyrm, they had dealt over 1300 total damage to the two dragons, and the ancient dragon had fled, causing the sandstone cave they were in to begin to fill with sand. The Greatwyrm still had around ~150 HP before it hit 0, at which point it would have entered a second phase and regained 2/3 of its health. This is why I ruled that it died from the archer attack, as the player whose birthday it was, was no longer having fun, and didn’t want to have 2-3 more hours of playing his character.

Phil E

May it please the esteemed court and the solid bailiff, I present the case of the nat 20 fiancé fiasco. I am playing a terminally ill peace domain cleric tortle named Raphael who is struggling to come to grips with his mortality, has a severe penalty homebrew mechanic that I designed, and whose journey involves acceptance of his fate with the occasional bad day. Our party was at a carnival where we saw a male halfling propose to his girlfriend, a female halfling. At the same time a machine cast Tasha’s Hideous laughter on the female halfling and the male halfling ran off in tears. Our party followed him and found him alone. Initially, the party tried to explain what happened but raphael, bitter that the couple would have a future of bliss and companionship that is out of his reach due to his illness, rolled a persuasion check to get the male halfling to leave his girlfriend and realize he is better off without her. I rolled a nat 20. The male halfling seemed to respond but as soon as he saw his girlfriend they immediately reconciled. I think a nat 20 should mean something and is capable of destroying an engagement or at least having one of them blurt out something that would forever tarnish the relationship (eg if murph told Emily he didn’t like cats or hardwon told tris he enjoyed reading). After months of complaining, the dm said that it is possibly my roll had some long term implications and doomed them without me getting to see; I think he is backtracking. I ask the court, can a relationship survive a nat 20? And I ask the bailiff, did tucker roll a nat 20 to steal Jill away?