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Calling for Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-15 00:27:58
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Howdy folks. Regular Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening tomorrow, so submit your (BRIEF, I implore you!) cases on this thread and we will bring you righteous justice.

Regular,

Jake

Comments

LeCurve52

Greetings ye all mighty and honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. Also, hi to Bailiff Jake who I do actually enjoy and respect even though he hasn’t necessarily earned it. I prostrate myself before this hallowed institution in hopes of pleasing your aural senses with my tale of DnD woe that I humbly entitle, “Holy fuck. What the hell just happened?!” Many sessions ago, while raiding the lair of an elder brain dragon, my party discovered a glowing green orb that we deduced was a magical grenade of some kind. In the several sessions that followed that encounter, we kept theorizing how the grenade worked, including several checks of various skills to try to determine more properties about the item, some of which were 20+. At our last session, despite these checks, all we’d managed to learn was that the grenade had a damage output that was “kinda like an 8th level spell” and that it would have a delay of “some amount of time” after we activated it. Our DM would tell us nothing else. At this point, we assumed it was some kind of empowered Fireball. As part of our plan to assassinate the leader of a Vampire mafia, we intended to set off the grenade in her room while she was sleeping in her casket and then take her by surprise. We figured that if we got lucky, she wouldn’t survive the blast. Through stealth and invisibility, we infiltrated the Vampire mafia HQ, a giant tower in the center of a large medieval city, and set off the bomb in the leader’s bedchamber. We were then completely floored by the DM describing how the grenade, now revealed to be a Destruction Orb of Earth, set off an 8th level Earthquake spell with a radius of one mile, centered on the tower. After some math and historical comparisons, our DM concluded that 83,000 innocent civilians died in the blast, with around another 100,000 severely injured. Too top it all off, when we flew down to the remains of the tower, we discovered that the vampires had all survived the blast mostly intact, so the genuine atrocity we incidentally caused had apparently all been for nought. And so I humbly ask the Supreme Crit, is it just me, or is what happened totally fucked? After all, we’d tried on several occasions to learn more about the bomb.

Arwyn Robinson

Forgive me emmisaries of Dice Christ for I have sinned. May Dice Christ have mercy on my soul. I was playing as a druid and our party was faced with an underwater tunnel that some of the party did not have enough constitution to swim through without drowning. I wildshaped into a giant octopus and wrapped them in my tentacles and used my swim speed to get everyone through, much to the DM's delight. Twenty minutes later I realized that the CR of a giant octopus was too high for me to be feasible. I immediately dropped my wild shape so I wouldn't benefit from it any longer , but my sin is that I kept quiet and did not tell the DM because I felt like too much time had passed to undo it. Was I wrong to not confess my mistake to the dm? I humbly await your judgment in the eyes of dice christ.

Fabrizio Moreno

Dear priests and bible camp counselor, I've come today to ask for forgiveness and redemption. A few years ago, right before the pandemic, we were playing a Homebrew version of the Star wars ttrpg with some friends. Because I was the one with more knowledge about Star wars and ttrpg I was the GM, it was my first time ever GMing a campaign and also my first time ever playing, so as you can guess the stakes were high and so were my stress levels. In our first session our wookie Ranger found a couple of jawas trying to steal from her store, she tried to scare them but even with a +9 intimidation and a DC 12 she failed, after that they roll initiative and things went South. Out of the two 10hp jawas, one of them died instantly because our wookie got a Nat 20 and dealt 22 points of damage (1d12 times two) and the other failed his "death saves" after being throw out of the store and getting 15 points of damage. At this point I have two things I want to clarify, the first one is that I tried tod/ deescalate the situation in the middle of the battle (giving her another chance of intimidation, strength checks with disadvantage for being a target too small for a wookie, etc) but nothing work out, and second, and most important, is that THIS TWO JAWAS WERE VERY IMPORTANT TO STORY! They were fugitives from a illegal slave trader ring and supposed to give the party their first mission to rescue their children who were still captives in the slave ring, plus I had a whole backstory for them, their kids and even that she was pregnant, so when other party member got a Nat 20 in the investigation check of the corpses I had to tell them everything, about them, the children, the pregnancy, the slave ring, EVERYTHING. Needless to say, chaos ensued. Some were in shock, some were angry (understandable) and my friend the wookie went through the five step of mourning in 2 minutes. After that they ended up destroying the illegal slave trader ring anyway and the campaign went on, but 'till this day everytime someone mentions the "jaws incident" we all go silent and say "we don't talk about that". Now, here I am wondering: could I have done something different? Or was it all part of the game in the hands of the dice Christ?

The Game Itself back from nowhere

May it please the High Crit, Jubilant Justices Axefard, Tenner, Mop and the Bashful Bailiff Jonk, I present the case of DM vs Self. I am guilty of giving my players to many toys in a campaign where I have given too much gold out, have shops that sell just about any uncommon item and some higher level one, have given out several wishes, and everybody is bound to an elemental entity that gives them Avatar-esque bending powers. It's my first campaign as a DM and we're about a year and a half into it, we all pretty much have fun with it even though it's pretty off the rails however this isn't what I come to you about, this is just preface. We arrive in the desert and my guards who were escorting the players warned them that this is purple worm territory but it makes for a great hiding spot from an enemy faction. After a fairly anti climatic scene where my DM-PC and one of the PC's stalled a purple worm for the rest of the of the party to get into the hideout, one of the other players, Ascendant Dragon monk/Bear Totem barbarian, decided he wanted to fight one. The next day during some downtime activities he decided to go fight one of the worms in another purple worm territory north of their hideout. I quietly decided that a scout who was trying to find the hideout was secretly watching him during his fight with the worm. After some attacks and 3 critical hits that I rolled in front of the board on the tail attack, which does too much damage already, he tried using an ability I gave him that left him shift 5ft without taking opportunity attacks as a bonus action and still attacking, instead of just taking a disengage and running, well worms have 10ft reach and still hit with an opportunity attack and landed the 3rd critical on the tail attack. After the players all realized what happened I was quietly rolling essentially death saving throws to see if the enemy scout could pick up his unconscious body and make it back to town. This ended up escalating into the players going on a rescue mission that night, walking into the enemy castle and getting captured, the paladin challenging the raid boss with his paladin oath on the line, losing, having character death and join the enemy side, and another PC also defecting to the enemy side. Did I go wrong, it was my first time dealing with these kind of situations and I tried improvising to the best of my abilities as I could not have possibly prepared for any of these outcomes. I feel like it was partially my fault for the paladins death and to the monk/barbarians credit, if he didn't get crit on even once and gotten one more round in he would have won as he single handedly got the worm to about 50hp in 3ish rounds. I accept any punishment the High Crits deem worthy.

VoxFantasma

If it please the esteemed court and the delightful Bailiff, I present the case of Kella and the Flinstone flying Car: My party and I were on the Plain of Air with home brewed physics where we willed ourselves to move. We were trying to find a way to transport ourselves safely without my halfling Kella, the lone wizard, using too many spells ahead of potential combat, when I came up with an idea. There were large random rocks floating everywhere, so I suggested using shape stone to effectively create a Flinstone style car to keep us from getting separated. By the logic presented, I figured we could use a psychic powered car to avoid separation and debris. Everyone roasted me and my DM would have no part of my “tomfoolery.” It’s been a year and they still joke me sometimes (all in good fun), but I beseech the court whether this idea made sense and if I should’ve been allowed to roll to make it happen? I prostrate myself before you for judgement, may Dice Christ be with you.

Carson Lee

May it please the all knowing Justices and Jake I present the case of cage match courtesy and disputed sneak attacks. In the campaign I DM, the party is questing to gain entrance to the esteemed tournament of champions, SUMMERSLAM. To get there, they need championship belts to be allowed in. In a fight to acquire the belts that Stone Cold, John Cena and a stone golem replica of The Rock wear, the barbarian requested a cage match vs Stone Cold. Noticing the barbarian was losing the 1v1, the artificer directed his attacks at Stone Cold through the cage. This caused all 3 wrestlers to turn their attacks towards the artificer, which downed his character and is where the cause for the case comes from. John Cena, being a stealth assassin, appareted behind the artificer and made dagger attacks from stealth. The artificer used his steel defender to impose disadvantage on the first attack but I attacked with advantage on second as the defender only affects the first attack. The artificer argued that since the first attack was foiled by the defender, the second wouldn't get advantage. I ruled that since he was busy interrupting the cage match he didn't see the attacks coming, his defender used its whole reaction to block one and couldn't notify him. The resulting sneak attack dropped the artificer and he was upset and felt he was getting singled out. The barbarian was mildly upset that the cage match was not respected but didn't complain after beating Stone Cold and taking his belt. Were my attack rulings correct? And was I right to punish the artificer for not respecting the cage match?

DonutHoo

May it please the court and the bailiff if there's time, I guess, but don't lose sleep over it. I bring you the case of the exploding steam pipe. I was DMing a chase scene as the party chased down a satyr through the city streets. The encounter was built around placing magical roadblocks between the players and the satyr, culminating in the satyr using dimension door to bamf to the rooftops. The only one left able to catch him before his escape was the arcane trickster rogue who asked if there were any pipes built alongside the building. I told him yes, assuming he was planning to shimmy up the pipe using his crazy movement to give chase. This was not his plan. Instead, he pried off a piece of piping, froze one end with his magic ice sword, and proceeded to cast burning hands into the opposite end with a smug tenor in his voice. There were several moments of silence as he no doubt stared at my discord icon expectantly. I began to narrate how the ice on the inside of the pipe melted and he hurt his hands a little bit from the very hot pipe (no actual damage was taken--just flavor). The rogue was flabbergasted--he asked why there hadn't been a resulting explosion from the buildup of steam to rocket him to the roof. I didn't think there would have been enough time or volume for pressure to build up and placing his hands over the hole wasn't exactly airtight. After a back-and-forth, I allowed him to roll an arcana check. He rolled middling, but because we had already spent several minutes on his turn, I had the explosion go off and he took some damage as he impacted into a stone balcony. Did I do the right thing or should I have let him sit on the ground with a hot and wet steel pipe, all his hopes and dreams shattered? I prostrate myself before the court like a certain Toegold as I await your judgement.

tonytheoneandonly

I present my case to the Wise, Dexterous, Intelligent, Charismatic, Constitute and Strong Supreme Crit Justices. hey jake. Many years ago, my brother was DMing a campaign for me and my cousin. I was playing a Minotaur Barbarian named Brick. During an encounter with a pack of Dire Rats I asked my brother if I could roll a CHA check to charm the leader of the Dire Rat pack, since as a part animal, I understand their instincts. Reluctantly he agreed, l then proceeded to roll a nat 20. My brother described the Dire Rat as becoming incredibly enamored by my Minatour nose, as it is roughly the same shape and color as a Rat. On its turn, the Dire Rat lept onto my face and started attempting to make sweet Rat love to my nose. I objected. I argued that as a Minotaur I would be wearing a septum ring, which would block the entryway into my nostril. My brother ruled that cows have notoriously long nostrils so there would be ample clearance for a Rat's little dick. I seceeded, and Brick and the Dire Rat went on a few dates but nothing serious ever came of it, jk Brick killed the Rat. But a decade later and I still believe the Septum Ring Defense would have protected my nose from the Dire Rats advances, was I correct? I lie supine and humbly await the Supreme Crits opinion.

Luke Johnson

May it please the court, but most especially his and her reverences Emily the luminous, Caldwell the fair, and Murphy the just. Hey Jake, catch *throws an ice cold Dr Pepper I am calling upon your guidance as I am not sure if my DM was focusing me unfairly. I had been playing in a online campaign for a few months and my 7th level sorcerer had recently gained access to the spell Armor of Agathys. Our characters were fighting in an arena and in a 1-on-1 against an npc I cast armor of agathys at a 4th level: giving me 20 temp hp and 20 damage to anyone who hits me with a melee attack. The issue then arose when I was hit twice: once for 7 and another for 12. After the second hit, I mentioned that the npc would take 40 damage total as per the spell rules. The dm disagreed, saying that they would take the amount of damage equal to how much temp hp was left, to which I verbally disagreed since it’s not rules as written. He ultimately said that the spell would work the way I said for this round only, after which it would work his way. I contacted him after letting him know my reasoning for disagreeing, just that it was against raw and that I don’t know any 1st level spell that has the potential to only do 1 point of damage bar any resistances. He said that the spell was too op in the situation my character was in, and I just dropped it. After a few months I stopped playing for school but had rejoined for the “finale”. During which, another spellcaster cast armor of agathys and, to my surprise, the dm allowed the use of raw spell mechanics, even applauding the use of the spell. My question is, dear judges, was I being unfairly focused by my dm? Or am I just being a wee babe?

william elder

Most honorable justices, of the high counsel who were selected by man and the heavenly dice christ themself, I bring you the case of the gagged and bound PC. About 5 months ago I attended what was described as a drop in one shot at a local game store. I arrived 30 minutes early to make my character sheet and meet the other players, we were all having a good time that is until we started actually playing. Immediately it became obvious that this was a long running campaign with lots of lore I was not privy to, but I figured I could still play seeing as everyone was seemingly welcoming. We were arriving in a large scale city that many of the other players apparently had personal ties to, and were scheduled to meet with the reigning queen. Seeing as I was "The New Guy" I decided I would make some casual joking comments as we walked around since I couldn't provide anything else to the conversations, and I thought it was being received well. Then out of nowhere, the DM as well as 3 other players at the table narrated grappling me, taking my own "Smelly molding sock" and cramming it my mouth, then tying me up and dragging me for the rest of the session. It felt very bizarre, since we were all laughing and having fun, to go to gagging and binding me, but I assumed this would have no mechanical effects on the game. I was wrong. Every time I tried to speak, both in and out of character, the dm and the other players told me I couldn't talk because I was gagged. Every time I tried to eat at a feast we ended up attending, I was told I couldn't reach for food because I was tied up. It felt very secluding and was honestly an overall bad experience, I have not been back to that game store since. Was I wrong for making casual jokes at the table, or did I deserve to be tied and gagged? I await your judgment, oh humble champions of the faith and law.

Tom

My friend keeps playing as children. May it please the grandiose judges and the beautiful bailiff Jake, My friends have been playing dnd for a couple years now and we often break up our main campaign with one shots every now and then, with everyone still putting in effort into their one shot back story’s and characters, all except one, who has repeatedly played the same type of character, a child who has somehow gotten away from their parents and is now with the party of adult adventures. His characters are usually between the ages of 7-11 and have names like George or Nancy they always are split from the setting of the campaign often him roleplay his them as a 21st century child. Before almost every adventure the other characters have had conversations about whether it is morally ok to bring a child with us on adventures often just having to breeze by it to continue the flow of play but after multiple times it has happened I am sick of having to worry about protecting a child on the battlefield in every one shot. Am I wrong to be annoyed about his character choices or should I just learn to deal with our constant child companion. Ps. His character in our long running campaign is a child entertainer. So yeah...

Ace

Hear me my dear, valiant Bailiff and a quiet howdy to the others, may I present to you: The Case of the Wizard Wanker. My childhood friends and I run a campaign in which we roleplay as ourselves, mysteriously transported into a 5e setting similar to Faerun. We fought together, blood, sweat, and tears to be able to feed ourselves and clawed our way to gain status and save multiple realms in this world. However, time and time again, our wizard has gone off on his own to get up to his nefarious crafts. He’s lost an arm, needing to be saved from a necromancer, makes dealings with his former mentor who has known ties to the bbeg, and continues to jeopardize the party’s wellbeing. There have been times where my character may have laid hands on his character over things he has said and done, i.e. treating the people in this world, our party included, as NPCs. This all came to a boiling point when my adult red dragon companion was dragged into hell and turned against us. We slew him in a huge battle outside our wizard’s keep and after combat, I begged for him to be revived. Our wizard(with some cleric levels) retorted, “He was on my kill list anyway.” Enraged, I downed him, erupting into huge conflict in game and at the table, nobody, party or DM, took sides at the table, but all agreed that his alignment should have shifted long ago and that his repeated actions are a direct conflict for the party. So I humbly ask you oh mighty, massive bailiff—and company—have I repented for my sin of striking a minor(in-game mind you), did he deserve it? I graciously await your ever-noble response.

Theo Englund

May it please the court, and satisfy the bailiff: I bring to you the case of the Frozen Tiefling Girlfriend. A while back I was playing a 5e campaign with my friends. I played a Revenant Cleric named Vigil, and I met a tiefling named Lark while in a town. We had a bit of romance and ended up kissing in front of a fountain, and fell in, just cute, sappy stuff then fade to black. However, one of my friends wanted to freeze the water while we were under it as a “prank.” I didn’t want my character to get too stuck, so I asked our DM if we could do a check to stand up beforehand so at least it would just be our legs stuck. My friend accused me of metagaming and the DM ended up agreeing, and my character almost died. It ended up fine, but after that session three people quit and the DM ended up ending the campaign. My question is was it really metagaming and should I have not spoken up? I humbly await your decision.

Abby Garden

May It please the court and pleasure the bailiff, So I just started a a steam punk gangs of New York style campaign at level ten, because I hadn't realized how inexperienced some of the players are. Should I retcon their level. And make it lower, like one or two, in order to give those players? Please advise

Shane Murphy

May it please the court and Salder Billday. I present the case of the unseen lockpicker. My party found themselves locked in prison cells and the DM made a point of telling us that the bars were too thick for us to slip through and the locks couldn't be picked from the inside. I, the plucky bard/monk cast unseen servant and handed it a lockpick asking the unseen servant to pick the lock... My reasoning was I could talk the unseen servant through it as I had a very high lock picking skill. My DM and I agreed that this was likely outside what the servant could do and only a Nat20 would work. I ended up rolling the Nat20 and quickly let the rest of my party out. My DM revealed after the session that he had a whole escape room style dungeon planned and that's why the session ended two hours early. I feel awful but my DM insists fairs fair... Should I be punished for taking my shenanigans a little too far. I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Guildedfangs

To the Supreme Crit and the critically crucial Baliff Jake, I bring you a case of player vs dm. At the start of the campaign each player was allowed to help shape the world and where their character came from. I played a druid of a nomadic clan from a frozen waste ruled by an Ancient White Dragon who left to gain power to free the land from the Wyrm. My location was the last place we went too and after seeing all the others players locations treated well I find my land no longer a frozen land with nomadic clans but now a bustling city exists in it and is ruled by Silver Dragons. In anger and frustration after asking the DM what had happened and being hold he made it better then what we had discussed, i enlisted my best friend and we derailed the campaign causing him to make it end much sooner then expected. Was I wrong in going this far after seeing everyone else's location being treated as if it was gold or am I bitter about something that should have been a shoulder shrug?

Brenton Cunningham

Honorable judges and beefy bailiff, I present the case of the bubbled wizard. When I was a fledgling DM I was nearing the end of a short campaign that I was running for my friends and I had them enter a castle that immediately flew thousands of feet into the air creating a cool set piece for the final fight against the bbeg wizard. At the beginning of what was supposed to be a multi-staged epic boss fight one of my players tosses a bead of force at the bbeg, trapping them in a giant forcefield bubble. They then causally rolled the bbeg out of a window to fall to his death. To counter this admittedly hilarious move, I had the bbeg cast fly to save themselves, which then led to over an hour of heated back and forth arguing about flying in a forcefield, atmospheric crosswinds and the terminal velocity of a wizard in a bubble. Fed up with the bickering I finally gave in and said that the wizard dies by falling, ending what had been an interesting campaign on a dull note. The players were very unhappy with this outcome even though it was what they had been arguing for over the last hour. Was I wrong for wanting the fight to continue in an interesting way? Should I have not given into my players? I am at your mercy PS: Shortly after I did what Judge Murphy will probably advise and found new friends. They are much better to me as friends and players.

Charlotte

Submitted on behalf of my partner May it [verb] the court and the [adjective] Bailiff Hurwitz: One of my friends, when building characters, has a habit of minmaxing to the detriment of group play. At my table he once rolled two 18 stat scores for a 1st level paladin (one of my other players thinks he fudges his stat rolls), by 5th level this character was impossible to plan encounters around. Months later, our group decided to play in a previous campaign setting again, with their previous characters. I offered everyone the chance to make new characters for this setting if they wanted to, on the condition that they use the standard array. My reasoning was that since these new characters would be starting at 6th level, and would have at least one feat or ASI under their belt, the less ideal stats would be accounted for. My minmaxing friend was the only person who made a new character, and as such the only person to use the standard array, with which he took issue. Justices, I beseech you: was I wrong to make my friend use the standard array when his was the only character to do so? PS: Per Justice Beardsley's request, I am a gemini and my friend is a pisces

Carson Moore

To the highest of priests of our lord and savior Dice Christ, and their altar boy Jake. I present a dice christ confessional. I am a player in a 5e play-by-post campaign. It’s amazing, and our DM is fantastic. However. I have a confession. In a huge battle against a demon swarm, I had taken a level of exhaustion using a magic item that saps your energy. As my character, a halfling Wildfire Druid/Totem Barbarian, was running back towards the fortress that the demons had breached, the DM called for an athletics check to get to her friends within the round. I rolled, and got a nat 20, forgetting that I had disadvantage from exhaustion. My DM then told me I could attack the demon king, and if I hit, I would automatically kill him. I rolled the hit with disadvantage and rolled TWO NAT 20S. I ask you, mouthpieces of our lord and savior, should this incredible triple-twenty threat be discarded because of the forgotten disadvantage? Dice Christ, I beg your forgiveness.

DJY333

Dear beloved bailiff and co. I write to you on this dreary evening to pose a question: Can a rogue/monk multi class deal sneak attack with unarmed strikes? I was building a character that’s primarily an inquisitive rogue. I envisioned him as a washed up, alcoholic ex cop. While deciding how he would fight, I decided that he gets into a lot of bar fights, so unarmed fighting seemed the most appealing. For this, I took a level of monk (so my punches would scale with dex), as well at the fighting initiate feat to get the fighting style. However, I was heartbroken to realize that sneak attack specifically only applies to a weapon with the finesse property. Rules as written, my fisticuffs technically meet neither of these qualifications. However, is it really all that much of a stretch to say my fists have finesse? Especially since I took a whole level of monk and a feat to achieve this? I eagerly await your response. P.S. - Since there isn’t really an opposing faction in this case, you can just punish me no matter the verdict.

Judson Whitfield

Howdy beautiful sensuous justices and also the beautiful bailiff, I was recently gifted a cursed magical item (berserker battle-axe) from my GM and it was included in my backstory as a family heirloom. In a recent encounter I failed my wisdom save and almost force-kod my entire party. Fast forward a bit and they are trying to get rid of the axe in its entirety instead of working together to find a cure to the curse so I can keep my dad's axe. Tell me, oh voluptuous ones, am I wrong to want to cling to this piece of my family's history? Or has the attunement to the axe came to attach to me too?

William Hampton

Dearest Judges and that guy Jake, i’d like to bring up a case of darkness. I have a shadow sorcerer in my campaign, named Moth. During a fight with an assassin character he cast Darkness on his dagger, closed in on the assassin with his hound of Ill Omen. Since the wording of the hound is that he always knows where his target is, I let the hound attack flat instead of with disadvantage. Was that wrong to do or am I ok with the laws that are to be?

Alexis C

O revered judges and my new best friend, Jake, I present to you the case of the changed backstory and erased lesbians. I play in a fantasy/sci-fi campaign where we got to create a unique planet and/or species for our character to be from. I also wrote a bit of lore about my new planet and its religion. My character is a light domain cleric who worships the sun goddess, who is married to the moon goddess, and both created my planet and my species. Well I sent the DM the backstory, there were no follow-up questions and I assumed most of it won’t be relevant. That’s fine, doesn’t really bother me. However, months later, the plot has become us finding out the secrets of my religion, how it’s all been a lie, and the sun goddess might be evil. I was getting so frustrated since we had already been hitting so many dead ends and unsolvable puzzles and now I’m in a religious-crisis, so at the next dead-end and moss covered wall, I preceded to say ‘fuck it, I eat the moss.’ My whole party, myself included, expected an attack. Instead, the moss crawled inside me and proceeded to tell me the “truth” of my religion and the real role of some different moon god my DM made up to fight the sun goddess but also be in a relationship and have a kid with her maybe? Kind of upset, I try to ask what the hell happened to my moon goddess, her wife, and got “oh uh yeah she’s also there, she just came later.” When I responded “she come later and yet she helped make my planet and species out of love for her wife?” I got a very curt “sure” in response. I was basically silent the entire rest of the game. This isn’t the only issue I’ve had with this DM as they’re frequently unprepared, late, or they downright cancel the session last minute in addition to running just terribly boring sessions. I now want to quite the campaign, but it’s a small enough group that without me the campaign will have to stop. I turn now to your judgement. Should my DM be allowed to change my backstory and create new relationships for their plot? Am I being too sensitive and jeopardizing the life of this entire campaign because the goddesses I made are no longer gay and in love? Or did my DM go too far? I also wonder if this was retribution because I divorced my DM’s PC in a different campaign we play together in for being a bad party member. I tearfully await your judgement.

Thundermammal

I have a confession for Dice Christ, I started a campaign with a DM that was new to dnd. Towards the end of an early session we were surrounded and confronted by the BBEG (kind of a meet the person you will eventually have to fight when you're stronger situation). The high level warlock grabbed me and used "Hurl through Hell" for about 60 damage (seemed like it was meant to be a show of force or something). At first I thought he was killing my character but then he described how I "fell unconscious". I corrected him saying how I was "super dead" as I only had about 20 max HP at the time. The damage was well more than double that. The DM looked shocked and horrified before stuttering that it was... Uh... Non lethal damage. I accepted his decision as 1) I got to keep my character and 2) he seemed pretty embarrassed not to have known the rule and I didn't want to make it a thing. We went on to play many more sessions, but I can't help but feel guilty that Dice Christ should have taken a soul that day and my paladin is living a dishonest life. I understand using non-lethal damage in the context of fighting with weapons but how do you hurl something through hell or cast a fireball "non-lethally"? Did I betray dice christ by allowing myself to benefit from this ruling?

Jacob Alexi

To the honorable justices and the sometimes honorable bailiff. I am getting ready to play in a curse of Stradh campaign. The DM told us we can be anyone form anywhere in the world I choice to just be a regular guy that when teleported to Barovia gains magical abilities. I’ve been super excited to play this character as I think it’ll be fun to roleplay someone discovering their powers, however my DM recently informed me that every time I cast a spell I will have to roll for madness. I ask you is this fair that my character will have to roll every time they use their class ability while the fighters and other martial classes have no disadvantage. I await whatever punishment you seem fit.

thomas Sykes

Afternoon all, and praise to thee. Thank you for listening to me. I’m am not here with a confession nor a issue in need of correction. I am here to praise dice Christ and all that follows to say thank you for the idea of grouped initiatives within combat. This has made my tables combat so much more fun! My players are paying attention to each other’s turns and making epic combo attacks. Praise the natty 20s and the just natty 1s.

Chris Yzaguirre

To the mighty and fit bailiff/oathkeeper/justice wrangler jake and the kind but stern justices/cardinals of the holy church of the divine die, I have a confession. when I first began dming, I made a transgression fueled by a bad habit. The bad habit is buying exotic and nonstandard dice. The transgression is that I would use a d30 instead of a d20 to try to make the game more challenging. I've since learned my lesson but it still weighs heavy on my soul.

deldridge42@gmail.com

If it will please the court, I beg for clarity. My friends and I were in at the end of a long campaign, and they were approaching the Big bad dragon. They decided to go through all their inventory, and finally decided to open a disguised bag of devouring, a item they picked up at a den of thieves that was designed to kill trespassers. But at the time they were so busy and had other plans, just pocketed it until now. One of the players decided to trigger the bag’s trap, and he failed all of his saving throws. So I had said he had lost a arm due to the severity of the failed saving throws. However, he demanded that he would have stuck his head in to investigate the bag, so he should have lost his head instead. After several minutes of trying to say his arm, not his head, we finally said he died from lack of head. Now looking back on this, I feel bad, and so should I have changed the whole situation? I beg you for your wise wisdom.

Krispy Buns

May it please the court, honorable supreme crit Justices Murphy Tanner and Axford, and the crispy and frisky bae-liff Hurwitz. I present the case of the Pooping Cleric. I Dm for a group of first time players and recently one of them has decided to incorporate taking a shit into the game, removing themselves from whatever scenario the party is in to “take a big ol dump.” The first time it was brought up I thought it was funny so I allowed it and we even came up with a mechanic to determine how often they needed to poop based on a roll and past poops. However, a situation came up where the PC rolled a critical fail on a poo check (they requested said poo check) and subsequently weren’t present for an ambush encounter, which almost led to a TPK. My question is, has the poop mechanic gone too far or should I embrace the chances of unexpected bowel moments at the risk of having a campaign end because the cleric was taking a shit in the woods?

Whitney Ahn

May it please the Supreme Crit and Crit Fail Jake Horowitz, I bring the case of the Secret Death Save. My DM has decided, unilaterally, without discussing with the players, that they will be rolling ALL death saves behind the screen. I don’t mind rolling in such a way that only they can see, but to roll for me? Absolutely not. I am asking for confirmation that I am right, as I often am, and sanctions against my dm. Toodles!

Louis

To the wisest of all justices and the unmentionable bailiff, may it please the crit: My first time DMing was a one off in high school for a group of friends, all of whom were new to the game. We played a homebrew 2E game (passed down from my dad and brothers). They were primarily interested in rolling and story, so I did all the math. We made the characters, I set the scene, and thus began their first turns. What followed still haunts me. I described a small village with people working in the streets a couple shops, an inn, some homes, and kids playing in the town square. They immediately began questioning me on the kids, believing them to be some sort of trick or trap. They weren't. They were just flavor. Unsatisfied with my reassurance that these were normal kids, they approached, drew weapons, and attacked without saying anything to the kids. I had them roll attacks for a suprise round and they slaughtered the children. I had established the fact that most people were out working, so as soon as this happened the townspeople surrounded the party and attacked with their tools. The 15 townspeople each rolled a d6 for damage, so while only half of them hit, they TPKd these 3 psychopaths in 2 rounds. They weren't happy. Was I too harsh or was this TPK justified? P.S. I did let them restart and they ended up skipping the dungeon (by rolling back to back nat 20s on dice I gave them), going straight to the giant scorpion boss, and killing it, leaving one of them perma dead and the other 2 with less than 3 hp. They defied everything they could until the very end.

Josh

To the tall honorable justices, and the very very short bailiff. I had never played D&D before but was invited to play with my boyfriends D&D group. They were a high level group (around 13th level) and had a lot of background information in their campaign so it was a lot for a new player to deal with. After a few sessions playing with them, I wasn’t able to make it to a session. The DM gave my boyfriend’s character a note in game from my character saying that I was going to stay in town and not continue adventuring with the party, effectively writing my character out of the campaign. I was not informed about this at all until my boyfriend told me after he came back from his game. Should I be mad at them for writing me out of their campaign?

Andrew Yeager

To the as honorable as judge Judy judges and the you'll never be Petri Hawkins-Byrd bailiff. Jake. I submit to the court the case of the robbed natural 20 initiative. I joined a random campaign that was happening on roll 20 (probably my first mistake). I set up my character sheet so I could toggle between disadvantage, flat and advantage on my own. On a previous roll I was told to roll With advantage so I did. I however forgot to turn that off. When making my next roll for initiative during combat accidentally rolled with advantage. The rolls were a natural 20 and 17. I was told since I had rolled that advantage when not instructed to the role did not count. I argued that the natural 20 should remain since it was the first role not the second role. He said I could either leave or roll again. I rerolled and got a seven. The DM then went on my character sheet and turned off the toggle for me. I was told not to turn it back on or else I would be booted from the game. Was it fair for the DM to rob me of my natural 20? Or should I have made sure I rolled flat. Also was it a power trip for the DM to edit my character sheet like that? I humbly await your opinion.

PuppetAnalingus

To the remarkably pristine yet sensual judges, and Jill’s au pair, I present: The case of emotional rail roading. I run a game for a group of friends and recently we had someone join our group. They’re great engaging with the story and the other PCs. But there was a snag as I narrated a scene exposing their backstory. While narrating it I talked about how they felt when they were younger, comparing it to how they felt now with the party facing challenges. They became kinda withdrawn from the rest of the session and when I asked them what was up they said I took their player agency away. I was flummoxed. They said by voicing their PCs thoughts and feelings I was forcing the character to make decisions to suit whatever story I wanted to tell. I talk to my players after sessions all the time. Deep personal discussions about their character’s, their motivations, where they want the story to go. Am I being sensitive? Is it wrong to assume I know about my players and their characters and how they would think and feel? I lay myself at the mercy of the court, where I presume the bailiff sleeps.

Luke Polito

May it please the court and squeeze the balif. I come to you hat in hand. I used to run a campaign in a world I built for some friends of mine early in the pandemic and it was great! I spent a lot of time building out the corners of the world we were finding ourselves, created some fun villains and scenarios, even reunited an amnesiac warforged with his long lost scientist mother. Here's the rub: we haven't played in over a year (schedules got busy, it happens). There doesn't seem to be much possibility that it'll pick back up anytime soon despite a few efforts. Would it be wrong of me to try to reboot the world with a different group? I don't want to wipe away everything from the first time but it feels a shame to lose all the worldbuilding to a game nobody is playing anymore.

Mariah McGregor

May it please the Supreme Crit and the homely bailiff Jake, I bring a case of travel woes. I was recently returning from a trip to visit my fiancee in Toronto, I flew out Saturday morning only to have my connection cancelled. I wouldn't be able to make it home on time for my online D&D game that evening. I notified my group, like a decent player, and apologized for missing a game. One of my fellow players said I should just play from the airport/plane and pay for wifi if need be. I pushed back, as that seemed like it would be a bit disturbing to my fellow passengers. The DM said he was fine either way and I did not play that session. Was my fellow player right? Could I have played from the airport without being rude or was I right in being considerate to my fellow travelers? I am at your mercy.

Luke Avritt

To the ever so HANDSOME bailiff and the other guys I guess, I lay my case bare before you. I was a player in a one shot a couple of weeks ago, in which we were exploring a magical mansion using fantastical magic to connect the rooms across the planes. After a particularly difficult room, my character, a pact of the undead, sensed that the next few rooms were going to be the most dangerous. In preparation, I used my spirit projection ability (were level 14) to separate my soul from my body and become much stronger. I had my party members hold my body as my soul went through the door, at which point my dm asked me to roll an intelligence saving throw. I fail, perceive the veil of the universe, and take 50 points of damage and get thrown back through the door. I get returned to my body and My ability, which I only get on long rests, is used up. The DM explains that since it was only my soul traveling through the multidimensional door that designed for a body, I basically almost killed myself. I argued that it was unfair for my ability to get used up and that I deserved to have a little more fore warning if I was getting into a dangerous situation like that. Was I wrong in getting steamed, or was my DM being fair?

Michael

May it please the honorable justices, and the bailiff, who, I’m sure, is very worthy of whatever honorific is popular on this episode. In a 4e campaign that was not a comedy-podcast level of wacky, but was still irreverent and anti-min/max, I played an Eladrin Wizard who did not understand mortal society and acted in detrimental ways to achieve goals. I was funny about it, even earning the moniker of The Blue Devil of Achtung for burning a town to the ground when the mayor would not pay us the 15gp bounty. This was fully endorsed by all players and the DM in and out of combat. When we met the BBEG and were close to defeating it, we had many paths we could take to the win, but I was high in the initiative order, so, in line with my well-accepted (to this point) character style, I dropped an AoE on BBEG which also included (and therefore permanently killed) a downed member of our party. My devotion to character consistency was, quite suddenly, much less popular. Did I let the party down? (P.S. I’m not a murder hobo who misunderstood the situation, I always play support or sacrificial scout characters in other campaigns, and always try to work toward the DM’s story — and that was appreciated for this character too, until it wasn’t)

Ciaran Hodges

To the honourable justices and bailiff Trent? I present the case of the bag of random monsters. So we're mid campaign been through many a fight and In need of retooling. We enter a normal looking shop run by a mad gnome who's version of haggling was to ask for 60 platinum and then squeak deal at any counter offer. One of the strange items we obtained from them (including walking luggage discworld style and a rain stick that actually made it rain.... Blood but it made it rain) was named the bag of random monsters. We were told it would upon opening and then yeeting cleanly into an open space. Summon a random monster into the area. It's dumb it's fun we loved it. Cut to 6 or so sessions later. There's a group of paladins waiting to ambush us in a room. We decide the best course of action here is to open the door deposit the Monster bag and peace the duck out. While we were waiting for the sounds of blood curdling screams and fighting the DM instead suddenly narrates a hush silence followed by a loud "Barry!" Being yelled. Upon opening the door again we found not a crazy fight but instead a group of paladins including a "domesticated gelatinous cube called Barry" that had apparently been "tragically missing for 10 years" now we ended up getting through the fight alive. But I think to this day our DM was embarrassed to be owned by our leet plays and so took the easy way out and didn't roll jack for our fun stupid item. I rest my case

Elana

Most benevolent of judges and simple normal guy jake, I bring to you the case of the unapproved BBEG. I'm normally the DM in my group but finally got a chance to play. I should have suspected something when the DM was encouraging me to make whatever broken PC I wanted, but I was too excited to finally be a player. I ended up with a Yuan-ti paladin and the game went on as normal..come to find out almost a year later that the DM had planned all along that she was going to have people blackmail my character into being the BBEG fight, not once was this brought up to me to see if I was ok with it (I was not, my paladin was a sweet boy inspired by Beverly.) But am I wrong for being put off by this or should I accept that this was just the twist ending to a campaign. I humbly await your judgment and may Jake get some extra scraps of food tonight

Keanu DRAMAFACE

Avast yee scallywag Justices, Seahag Emily, Tsunami Murphy, and Caldwell of the Dragon turtle. Along with Poopdeck Hurwitz, the illustrious bailiff. I bring not a case but A TOXIC TALE FROM THE TABLE. I had a DM who allowed a level one player to be half devil half angel. He had access to third level spells, and he had his own pocket dimension that could store anything. But he mostly used it to store the heads of his various enemies, decapitating them AFTER the battle was over. I was playing a normal Viking barbarian who this player knew had a respect for the dead. I had to roleplay that my barbarian was so stupid that he never noticed the heads go missing in battle. Eventually this situation boiled over 11 sessions later. Fighting a horned devil in the woods, the player asks “hey since I’m half devil can I just control this guy” to my utter surprise the DM said Yes. I yelled “why the fuck can he do that? Can he control angels too?” And a heated srguement commenced that ended with me being asked to leave. I know I was wronged, but the situation was fucked….do you punish people for this? love, ya boi

Cid Gil

Dear Honorable bailiff and Lowely justices, this case has been going on for years now. My friends and I played a 1-20 campaign. In Campaign that my buddy Zac was running we were in an infamous dungeon named The Doom Vault. I was playing an Illusion wizard named Vrynn who gave me a great sense of joy because I’m a shithead and high level illusionist are super fun. I missed one session with my wife while we were out of town on an emergency and the rest of the group played. No problems, the show must go on. However the party got sent into an encounter. The part I have a problem with is that the Fighter (the DMs best friend) threw me over an fire wall to take care of the enemies after the Druid had made the wall to make space for us. Because my character was killed by a Wight he was immediately turned into an undead. No resurrection possible. I’m still pissed off to this day. So I ask you was it okay to kill my character while I wasn’t there? And am I still okay at being mad about ? I await your judgment.

BadgerAmongMen

Raccoonicorn Update! After talking with my players, I explained that I wasn't forbidding them from getting a raccoonicorn, but rather getting one using a shortcut. Knowing this, getting a raccoonicorn quickly became their primary focus. They ended up going on a big game hunt in the celestial planes, where they successfully hunted a unicorn. The majestic, innocent creature was then unceremoniously turned into chili and fed to a raccoon who absorbed the unicorn's power to become a raccoonicorn. The party named him Scraggles. Soon after, they learned they would have to eventually face the wrath of a god for killing one of his favorite creatures.

Gabriel Felix

Incredible Justices and Surley Baileff may it please the court. I bring you the case of the Pc speaking dm. First and foremost I want to start this by saying I love the group and dm I play with. I play a Winter Ehladrin Bard of Creation in a world where we're enlisted in a Magic Acadamy. This has replicated somewhat of a College/Hogwarts experience which is alot of fun. My problem is that my dm tends to improvise by talking as if he's our character. Usually its pretty harmless. However I missed a session once, where we celebrating winning a Magic tournament by having a party. The dm portrayed my character getting drunk, and gave away some of my backstory that I wished to have kept secret a bit longer. Wonderous Judges, am I wrong to feel upset about this, that the dm shouldn't speak on behalf of our pcs or should I loosen up and go with the flow? Ps, they also roll played me going to bed with an npc, though they said nothing happened.

Isaiah J Donovan

Hello All Mighty Justices and also a winner of the hit Headgum segment Gash Cab, Today I ask you to decide upon the Case of the DM who Hates the Disabled. I have played for two years in a campaign with longtime friends as a Warlock Ranger Multiclass, but like many players, always love planning my next character. My idea would be my current characters son, created as an Eldritch Knight. The son is canonically blind, and I argue that with a use of Tasha’s blind-fighting fighting style, the alert feat and the observant feat, I should be able to be a fully functional, Daredevil-style character. The Alert feat removes the penalty from being attacked while blind, the blind fighting style removes the penalty for attacking while blind (while within ten feet of an enemy), and the observant feat would raise my passive perception (which includes hearing). My DM says I wouldn’t be able to function on an adventure if I was blind, but I say in a world where a wizard can shift dimensions and a barbarian can survive a fall from space I should be able to run around fine without being able to see. Please grant me your wisdom oh great ones.

Max Piper

Dear clergy of Dice Christ, I come with a tale of a player’s flaws bleeding into their character. My character’s name is Hugo. In my current campaign, my party has set up home base in a town, and before we went on a mission, Hugo asked the head of the miner’s guild on a date to the local tavern for blueberry pancakes. She seemed interested, and agreed to go the next night. The next day, after some more scouting around the village, the party headed off for a short series of missions. That night, after a long days travel, my DM regretfully informed me that I had accidentally stood her up on our date night. Hugo and I were shattered, and it haunts my mind several sessions later. I feel like I let Hugo down, because he’s not forgetful like I am, and it’s my frailty as a human that led to this horrible offense against the NPC. If Dice Christ will forgive a mere PC for a slight against their character, I lay on my knees and beg for Dice Christ’s forgiveness.

Skillful Ferret

If it would please the judges on high, will the bailiff down low please recount the tale of the Torn Tabaxi, While playing my last session (though only the 3rd session) due to leaving for a deployment the other characters in the party decided to plan to betray our mission and become an evil party so they role played a distraction for my character who was a lawful good Paladin. I had offered to play a Lawful Evil Cleric as well, but the other players told me to play the Paladin. Thus, I had to spend the entire session pretending to be alone in another room. Then at the very end, to roleplay my character out of the session I took the artifact from our NPC priest to complete the mission without putting the others in danger. Which I thought would let the party have an excuse to quit the mission since they wanted to switch to being an evil party. I found out that during the next session they caught up to my character who had sacrificed himself using the artifact to revive a village that was destroyed (dm choice) which I thought was cool, but the remaining players decided to mutilate my character’s corpse to remove the artifact that I had apparently swallowed, in order to sell it. Am I right to be bothered by that despite being out of the game? Note the DM quit the campaign ~10 sessions later due losing interest in the character’s antics.

ronald.

Hello beautiful justices and the semi-honorable vice principal hurwitz, I come not with a case, but with an update to the case of Wrestling VS Rolling. I did it. I won. I had challenged my player who plays the goliath wrestler to once more pin me, this time either till I could escape or for the length of one Sting song (Waters of Tyne, run time 2 minutes 10 seconds) To say it was romantic would be an understatement. Though I don't have a 6'4 step-brother who can step in for me, I can try my best, and my best worked. About 1 minute into the song I found a break in my opponents defense via him laughing about the song and overall circumstance. I broke free of his grapple and it was a wonderful time had by all. But of recent I had our actor-rogue do an in character monologue for us in place of a performance roll... I think the problem might be entirely mine.

Leopard

May it please the court and moderately satisfy that guy who reads the cases: It was my first session in a campaign that was already running. One of the players in this group was an Arcane Trickster Rogue and wanted to pick a lock with her Mage Hand. The DM allowed it but said "So you just roll a d20 and add your proficiency modifier." I asked out loud "Shouldn't get to add her Dexterity modifier to this as well?" And the DM, along with a couple other players, "No, because that's not how tools work." Judges, the question I ask is this, is that not exactly how tools work? PS: He also tried to tell me my Wildfire Druid Spirit does *not* have a teleport.

Fia (but not Boginya)

To the honourable Supreme Crit Justices, as well as Jake who is either cool, or can go suck eggs depending on how Murph is feeling, I present to you the case of the Unkillable PC. I recently ran a pirate themed one shot for some friends, with the story being the party trying to find a magic portal before an evil pirate King did. However I had a bit of an issue when one of the players said that I wasn't allowed to kill their character, because they use the same character in other games. I told them while I didn't intend on killing their character, I also wouldn't promise that their character wouldn't die, because then there would be no stakes. They again said that that would impact their other games, but I don't think what happens in someone else's games should matter to me. The player then went silent, and it seemed like they were angry at me for not making my one shot a part of someone else's continutlity. To the Court I ask, should I have promised not kill their character no matter what, or was I right to keep the stakes up?

SilverhawkPX45

Not a case, but I'd like to pitch you a different kind of recurring segment since you're reading these? A show where your viewers give you a short summary of their worlds or cool landmarks/cities/any kind of standout worldbuilding (heck, it could even be in-universe songs or poetry) and y'all can give your thoughts on it. You could call it "campaign cartographers" or "campaign tourists" or even frame it as postcards from other worlds?

Casey Alexander

Greetings humble Dungeon Court and Bailiff Jake I come with an issue that has risen during our session zero. As we plan out characters together I decided I want to play some unearthed arcana stuff (astral elf which I’ll swap over when spelljammer comes out and the circle of primeval Druid). My friend decided that if I was doing something different then she would too. However she has found the most broken character race I’ve ever seen and I turned created a horrifying beast character she has named Barnaby. Barnaby is a 70 year old man cursed to be a bee cleric. Like an actual bee. Which is fine but the character feels as if it’s there to only cause trouble. Like im about to set of with a honey goblin of steroids. And I really and hesitant to play now because I have a feeling it won’t end well. Even my dm was hesitant to let this go ahead. Should I nicely tell them that I think the giant cursed bee is a bit much or should I let them have their fun.

Randy

I present my case to the 3 Supreme bear judges and Goldilocks bailiff During a Tomb of annihilation campaign years ago we came across a ravine full of zombies. We had to get from one side to the other w/o falling into the ocean of zombies. I presented an idea to Magic Circle so that no zombies could enter the circle and we could simply stand inside and dispatch them all, then be on our way safely. The dm said their were hundred of these zombies and he didn’t want to run that combat encounter. I replied that it could simply be montaged and time pass since the zombies couldn’t reach us. He refused and we did make it across after 90 minutes of bumbling across vines and casting spells to keep those who fell from dying. The dm was frustrated that it took us so long to cross by the end. I ask you, should we have been allowed the zombie massacre montage? Or was my porridge of an idea too cold?

Dave 3D Art

I submit a confession to the church of Dice Christ. 20 years ago during a game at my friend's birthday party, I (a gnome thief/illusionist) took and drank a health potion for myself when I was already at full hit points. My friend had real life jars of juice represent the potions, and I was thirsty. Multiple characters died before the adventure ended, and I always wondered would some of them have survived if I wasn't thirsty. Please forgive me Dice Church, I was but a boy of 9 years old.

Sorrell Oberon

Your DM should definitely introspect on their ableism!! It's fantasy!! Come on!! Your idea is smart and sick and cool.

Ashley Wilson

Most honorable judges and great value Baliff, I’ve had something eating at me for years, and it’s finally time I receive your sound ruling and finally have some closure. I present the case of the Christmas Oneshot. My best friend decides to run a heist one shot where we played a bunch of wintery-christmassy themed scoundrels planning a heist on Santa’s workshop in the fantasy version of the North Pole. It was a lot of nonsense. A bunch of holiday puns were made, and the tone was generally very aloof. We eventually reached a room guarded by some animated toy soldiers,that packed a wallop. Thinking that they were animated by the holly jolly magic of Santa, I cast Dispel Magic on the toy solider. I was made to roll for the Dispel Magic, and ended up rolling an 18. Instead of the spell working, my DM ruled that there actually wasn’t any magic animating the toy soldier and that I wasted the spell slot. When I challenged this ruling by bringing up the roll, she said that she just wanted to “see what I would get” I was salty about this for a minute but eventually moved on. Later on in the one shot, another character was about to cast a Dispel Magic, but the DM stopped him to ask for an arcana check. When I asked why I couldn’t have an arcana check to try and save my expensive spell slot, I was ignored. The inconsistent behavior made me think that the DM didn’t prepare for a dispel magic to take out her guards, and instead of riding out the DM sweat, she made a snap decision that ended up screwing me over… then later rewarded another player for the same action. Was I wrong to assume that Christmas magic was animating the toy soldier? Was I robbed of a reward for outsmarting my friend the dm? I eagerly await your judgement.

Thom van Tijn

To the Most Benevolent Guardians of Justice and their perfectly cromulent Bailiff, I bring to you my case. I'm playing in a Homebrew campaign with a group of friends. My issue begins with my first character in this campaign a Pact of the Chain warlock named Calista. As the campaign began to progress it became clear that the DM didn't like my character, especially my familiar. I talked with him out of game and offered to create a new character or choose a new subclass but he declined. Flash forward several sessions and were fighting a wizard in his tower. My character manages to counterspelll a Reverse Gravity spell, but is then quickly knocked down to zero. After being taken down to zero she was attacked for 2 death saves and had a healing word counterspellled, and I rolled an 8 on my final save. My issue is that since then anytime a battle looks like it'll be fatal our DM will back off and have the enemies retreat. We've had 1 further pc die, but they were able to be resurrected. Am I wrong to feel unfairly targeted in the killing of my pc and expect the same for the rest of the party? ----------------Further Information------------------ My character's have was originally going to be Calista Flockhart because I've always insisted that it sounds more like a D&D character than an actual person, but my DM vetoed it saying it was lazy. I also used The Decemberists song Mariners Revenge as a base for my backstory, but in my defense it's a great backstory and there was little to no information given about the world we'd be inhabiting. Our backstories have never really come up in any meaningful way either. I also want to assure you an that this was not a joke character.

Sciz

Hello the most honorable Judges and the one dude that usually reads this out. I'm in a little bit of a frustrating pickle as I bring to you the Space Game Disparity. I'm currently in a homebrew space campaign using the Dark Matter supplement (very good btw), think of it as SW5e without the labels and none of the reflavoring as it can all most of 5e can fit in the setting. I am playing the homebrew class that comes with the supplement called a gadgeteer, think artificer but without spells basically. And my DM is way too hesitant to give me anything magic item wise and I'm starting to fall behind in power due to him too afraid to mess with a class he is not familiar with. The big problem is that he himself is very much a power gamer and reflects that as every campaign we have done is very high fantasy, with the level 8 characters we are being as strong as level 12 characters.. As such every other player has had given to them extremely strong items and i have been given very little in use. The Bladesinger is given multiple above power homebrew spells that all make him nigh untouchable and dealing more damage than the paladin, the rogue has a gun that is equivalent to an artifact as its a +3 with extra bells and whissles to make him crit and hit a lot more, and the paladin has his extra smite damage work on a pretty much everything that isn't a humanoid which really adds up. While i am stuck with a shoulder canon that deals less than my main weapon and reaction stoneskin on a stick, which would be nice if the space weapons in this campaign didnt deal necrotic/force/radiant instead of the usual bludgeoning/piercing/slashing. I have already spoken to him about this and he does say he has plans for me, but the more and more other things people get I'm just sitting there patiently waiting, as demanding a magic item just feels wrong. Any advice almighty judges?

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.

Andrew Criteser

To the highly honorable Crit justices and Tucker’s roommate, I bring to you the case of the Railroading Disney Adult. My friend who I dm for decided to runs a campaign set in a world modeled after Disney world which I thought was a cool idea at first. However, earlier on in the campaign he ran a session based on the ride the jungle cruise. Some of us were excited because it has potential to be very fun, but this quickly turned sour because he actually described the boat ride to be on a set of tracks going at a slow ish pace. He proceeded to have more than 10 rounds of an encounter that dealt steady damage to us without a way to prevent it. Each round was a different thing, i.e. a tiger jumping at us, people falling off the boat, etc. we couldn’t fight the things because he said they were too far away due to the boy moving. And at the end of the round the skipper would do a pun and deal 3d4 damage to us, a party of 4 lvl 3’s. When I cast silence on the skipper he proceeded to write his pun and deal damage to us. So for 10 rounds of combat, we took damage and healed each other with nothing else to do. This happened almost two years ago, I’m still a bit peeved. Am I wrong to be peeved still? I Humbly await your decision.

M. Scott Owitz

Crit judges and bailiff Jake, the scenario matters not, we, the players, were headed on one direction with play, and the DM put a hard stop to that by sending some mercenaries to essentially beat us senseless and drag us back. Who decides the adventure? DM or players? I understand it needed to be done, to meet the adventure planned, but it felt very heavy handed. How do you handle redirection of wayward adventuring? A former dm turned player.

The Jeff of Hearts ♥️🃏

May it please the Court, the bailiff, and any potential guest judges past, present, and future throughout the universe; a while back my brother and I were playing in a forgotten realms campaign where we played gnome half-siblings. I’m a bit ashamed of some of the actions I took in character, things I did under the classic guise of “it’s what my character wants,” my character being a widowed warlock with a great old one patron who wanted to become a lich and bring her husband back from the dead. I ended up fucking up royally because my character betrayed my brother’s without my brother’s out of character knowledge beforehand. His character was technically fine but he still felt (rightfully) betrayed. Our DM at the time had, by his own account, been playing the game since the 80s and so I followed his lead assuming it was okay (it was my first campign and he’s about 20 years my senior). My brother is cool with me now but it’s still a sore subject that I avoid at all costs.How should I make it up to my brother in our new Eberron campaign, if that’s even a possibility?

Brett Ramsay

To The Jake Hurwitz Experience and his lowly but lovely assistants. Hi.

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I was DMing a campaign for 6 of my best friends in college, and going into a certain session I made sure to remind my players that DnD is not a video game and there are real consequences to the things they do and say, as I felt like in previous sessions many jokes were made about what their characters did or said and I had to ask them “Are you sure you want to do that?” far too many times. Later in this same session, upon discovering that the home they were staying in during their travels was occupied by a friendly vampire, my real life best friend and most problematic player decided his character Hektor would petition the vampire for his assistance in a personal endeavor he was undertaking. The vampire, having no stakes in this ordeal, promptly told Hektor he would not be involving himself in the matter, and retreated back into his coffin. Hektor’s next words have lived in infamy ever since: “I light his coffin on fire.” As I had grown quite fond of my friend’s character despite his tomfoolery, I decided to spare Hektor by having the vampire mark him as his servant and informing Hektor that he would be forced to return to the vampire’s service should he ever call upon him. Most lawful court, was I too lenient in dealing with this action that (in my opinion) was obviously done with the intent to challenge my authority?

Libby Nugent

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. I was running a one shot for my friends since our Forever DM is having a bit of DM burnout and through my inexperience and oversight, it turned PvP very quickly. The Forever DM was playing a very strong, mechanically optimized fighter and was for sure going to kill the rest of the PCs. I could tell my other friends, who do not know DnD nearly as well as our Forever DM does, were not having fun so I fudged a crucial roll in favor of the other PCs. The one shot ended up turning out okay and everyone said they had fun but the next week when we went back to our regular campaign, I rolled 2 Nat 1 death saving throws for my beloved monk. I don’t regret what I did for my friends but I regret that my monk paid the price. I ask for forgiveness from You Who Are Most High and hope that my new character may be cleansed from my sin.

The Great Zarquon

May it please the illustrious Bailiff Jake and those other guys I guess: I bring before you the Case of the Invisible Goliath. I'm playing a level 5 Goliath Champion Fighter in a long running campaign. We were going up a tower and our druid cast Invisibility on me so I could go scout. I passed my stealth check and successfully snuck into a room full of kobolds, but the DM ruled that even though I was invisible, the noise made by my armour alerted the kobolds and my Goliath suffered an untimely demise at the hands of a dozen kobolds. Did our DM cheat me and kill off my character, or should I have remained hidden and survived? I await the Supreme Crit's decision.

Taylor B (The vengeful, one-winged angel)

To the protectors of the innocent, and that guy who makes Trevor breakfast, may it please the court. I play a level 9 Wizard in a party that was finishing a long encounter with the BBEG. After draining most of our spells and abilities, we turned the tables and instead of a TPK we had him within one or two strikes of falling. Sensing his imminent loss, our DM used their action to blow a horn and instantly summoned 12 knights, grouped together, to the fight, putting us in a “flee or die” situation. With my final spell slot I cast Wall of Force, placing it horizontally 6 inches off the ground, pinning all 12 knights in place flat on their stomachs because per the spells wording, I can choose what side of the wall a creature is shoved to when cast. The knights with no extra space to crawl out from under the wall, were essentially out of commission, allowing us to continue the fight with the BBEG. Our DM argued that while the knights were pushed to the ground, they could still shuffle out from under the wall and continue the fight on their next turn. This led to a polite argument, with him claiming that the spell was not intended to be used in such a way while I claimed that he was simply upset that we outsmarted his plan with a creative spell usage. We eventually let the DM have their way because they obviously didn’t want their evil character to die just yet, but I cannot help but still feel slighted at being told my 5th level spell was then wasted. I humbly await your judgement.

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)

Druids Rock

May it please the High Crit Justices, especially Emily, and the semi-decent baliff who picks the cases. May I present to you the case of the Warlock and metagaming buddy vs the crying wife. I started a campaign within the last year consisting of a group of friends that includes my wife, my sister in law, a friend from college, and another couple. Things had been going pretty well until one of the friends (previously a paladin, now a warlock) brought in a friend of theirs who had been DMing for about 10 years more than I have. He's a pretty decent person but recently there have been more issues cropping up. My wife loves to play spellcasters and oftentimes is the one who brings new players into roleplaying and really loves to flesh out her characters. She plays a bard in our current campaign and meshed well with the other players and their characters. However, we have done 3 sessions with the new player and the guy who brought him in. The new friend helped build him a new character, a hexblade warlock. Recently, he's convinced the warlock he should be doing most of the talking for all the NPC's, despite the fact the bard has high deception and persuasion as well, as well as the spell friends and various charms from her college. Now, the bard barely gets a word in edgewise. The spell casters are still pretty squishy and the bard is the ONLY healer in the party and has basically felt relegated to casting healing spells. She's tried to diversify but the new person has basically told them not to multiclass (as they get cooler stuff through their subclass), not to take any ranged weapons and only use spells, and gets upset at me (the DM) when I tweak monsters so they don't know the weaknesses automatically. I brushed most off it off, but my wife was so upset that her character's unique feats have basically been overtaken and all she really does is heal that she ended up crying for an hour after everyone left. I ask you justices, do we need an intervention? Or should I be throwing more things at my players to feature their unique strengths? For context: we also have 2 rogues with differing subclasses who have no issues and enjoy working in tandem for kills.

Barpo Goodbarrel Bard-Barian

May it please the court, honorable justices and the sturdy bailiff. I bring you the case of the relic hunter vs the pushy DM. I had been playing in a campaign set 50 years after our last campaign in the ruins of the war torn world. I had been playing as a monk on a mission to find the relics of a former PC who had become a saint. Though my character never found any relics during play, as any attempts to ask locals or investigate religious places just led to random unrelated dungeon crawls. During one session I missed, all of our characters were given a wish spell by a god. While I was not there the DM decided that my character wished to have all the relics physically on his person. I felt very hurt at this decision being made without me. I argued that this robbed my character of his whole mission and me of the arc and adventure I wanted to play. My DM argued that it allowed me to finish my quest. I ask the court am I wrong for feeling robbed of a cool arc or did my DM give me a launching of point for something new?

Stephen Charbonneau

To the most honorable judges and the bailiff whose personality can best be described as “long time Sports AM radio caller who can never actually get on the air”. My wife and I started playing D&D over the pandemic, she was one of the players while I was the DM. We played over zoom like so many others. I did my all my prep/notes on my desktop, thinking she would use her laptop in a different room in our house to stream in. This however was not the case, she said we should sit next to one another and use one screen. When I pointed out all my notes/prep work would be on the screen with the zoom call I was told “it’s fine I just won’t look, you can trust me.” I acquiesced and that is how we ran the campaign, but I was suspicious every step of the way and there were a few puzzles she solved rather quickly. Was I wrong to not trust my wife and ask to play on separate screens, or was I justified in my actions? I await your humble opinion.

Lisa H

Dearest Supreme Crit (and bailiff), Our party is in the middle of a prison break in which we're reluctant allies with an old enemy, one of our PC's dad. The player of that character wanted some insight on what schemes her father was planning, so she cast Bestow Curse on his INT, followed by Detect Thoughts so that he would fail the save. Since both of these are concentration spells, the curse shouldn't have stayed in place for his Detect Thoughts save, but it got past the DM. He rolled for the dad with disadvantage and failed the roll, allowing his daughter to peer into his mind. I messaged her privately to let her know that I didn't think that was technically permissable (she disagreed), but promised I would not ruin the moment in session and we left it at that. Should I have brought it up at the table to the DM, or is narcing on a party member in a big roleplay moment the more unforgivable sin? Thanks!

Draxen01

May it please the court and the illustrious bailiff, I present the case of the Lost Roc Run. I run a Greek inspired minor homebrew campaign. My players recently arrived back to a burning town they had grown attached to, trying to save it and in the background I was rolling for a Roc to approach the the town and scoop an important enemy NPC away that they were currently fighting. Upon arriving, one player used charmed monster being from the Cult of Dionysus, to make the Roc fight for them. I explained after an arcana check that this Roc was already under a high level deepend Mind Control spell and it would be nearly impossible to take away the control of a powerful creature under a higher level spell. I compromised to let the Roc roll at advantage and lower the DC and rolled two 1's. The party was happy but my NPC was then trapped and would later take away from a good player moment. I think I did the right thing giving them a chance but should I have put my foot down and said that the Roc would not have been able to be charmed under mind control? I await your thoughts and punishment wherever it may take you.

Muqtadaa Miandara

Honored justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner, any potential guest justices, and our estimable Bailiff Hurwitz who's honestly having a bit of a Hot Boy Summer moment and we're here for it, I present the case of the Stupidly Stumped Lich. My players are in a race to collect the lost shards of divine hearts (a concept inspired by Bahumia and Murph) as a fallen goddess seeks the same artifacts to reclaim her divinity and remake the world without magic, starting everything over with her chosen few (long story about magic being the reason she suffered). My players have worked with the newly minted Winter Queen that they helped put on the throne to uncover the lost tomb of the ancient Eladrin god, Corellon. The made their way through a goblin quarry that led to underground to the god's mausoleum, faced his Tomb Guardian of Whimsy, and answered the puzzle of the Door of Purpose (which asks the players what they seek, and the answer to unlock the door is, of course, that they seek to enter/open the door). Ultimately they ended up in a pocket of the Astral Plane housing the entombed corpse of Corellon. The players were confronted by an undead lich floating down to greet them who had set up shop on this outcrop, and told them they would have little to no luck unsealing the god's sarcophagus, as he'd been attempting the very same for nearly 2000 years. Instead he engaged them in a game-show style trivia competition I had setup to get the players back into the groove of the campaign (we haven't played in a while bc of life so I wanted to have them actively remember lore and backstory) and the players ended up winning some loot and the lich got bored and bid them good luck exploring the tomb. The players found the sarcophagus and investigated, and were quick to discover (with incredibly high investigation and perception checks) the presence of a pressure plate that, when stepped on, unsealed the casket. The players did so, retrieved the shard of a divine heart, and were confronted by the infuriated lich, who demanded to know how they'd retrieved his long sought-after prize. It turned out the lich had been floating over the pressure plate for 2 millennia and had never even come close to unlocking the tomb because he never deigned to walk. This of course turned into a fight where the lich was banished, and my players afterwards asked how it could be possible that the lich never investigated the floor like they had. In all honesty, I didn't have a mechanic for why the lich hadn't stolen the heart, I just wanted to run a game show and improvised the rest around that once I had the players in the setting and interacting with things. My players think it's a stretch, but what do you all think? Do I need to more carefully craft layers of intrigue and puzzle to explain why their enemies are stymied where they succeed? Am I in danger of copyright infringement if I start a show called Yet Another D&D Vodcast? Will Jill and Tucker ever tell Jake about their third, Emil? As I look forward to these answers, I also humbly await the judgement of this esteemed crit.

Dylan C

To the mighty and esteemed judges and the bailiff who is the true hero of the court. I bring you all a case if character gender identity and player agency. I am in a game where I play as an air genasi worlock warrior in a game that the dm describes as "a fuck around game." One day we were talking to a university professor and I touch an incomplete item in the room that changed my gender with no save whatsoever. On top of that the dm told me to just "interpret that how you will" which is a loaded statement because there are so many ways to decide what happened. I was extremely miffed because I made my character the way that made me comfortable and exited to play and I try to stay away from playing as some other groups of people because I don't want to accidentally fall into stereotypes. I eventually decided on saying that my character Zahid is a warrior first and wouldn't care about what their gender is so I could avoid any arguments that I didn't want to have. I ask, was player agency take from me or should I have ran with this potential character development in a silly game. To be fair I would have been less miffed with more defined rules and a charisma save. I pray for your swift judgment.

Sam Holly Merlin & Cusita

May it please the Honorable justices of the Supreme Crit and the [REDACTED] . I got my first taste of playing D&D in 2021 with a short-lived campaign with a small group of friends. Our appetites for the game were voracious however our adventures came to a halt understandably when our DM and our blue eyes white Dragonborn Monk had a baby. We've all assured her that there is no pressure for her to start again but my question is would it be rude of me to try to take over as DM? I worry that by asking I would be stepping on her toes and I am also concerned about a significant drop in game quality as being a DM falls squarely in my most notable artistic weaknesses (and straight up learning disabilities) that may cause my fellow players to sour on the game itself.

Kyle Conrad

I come to confess my sins against Dice Christ: I am a newer DM, running an arena style campaign setting for 4 lvl 15 PCs. I have been struggling to bring balance to my encounters (or my players are just rolling REALLY well) and last session was no different. I squared them up against an Ancient Brass Dragon, and the match seemed pretty even - except I kept fudging the rolls on saving throws, almost always seeming to succeed while in reality I had failed the roll. Combat still ended in favor of the party - having taken no losses but some serious damage to a few players - but I am wracked with guilt over the fudging of rolls. I beg mercy from Dice Christ and His Die-ciples.

William Darrell

Dear most esteemed and honourable justices and whoever your friend is.  May it please the court, I present to you the Blowjob Murderer. This had occurred in my very first dnd session which I had decided to DM.  I gathered a few friends who were willing to try it and had them all create characters.  On our first session I introduced each character seperately with their own little reason for being there and my one player, Cumsnatch, was a hermit druid who had to come to town to get supplies.  After being told he had to pay a fee to get in which was strictly RP, my player said he would just leave since he did not want to.apend money and just go back home, only after 20 minutes of talking did I convince him to go into town (red flag) but as soon as he did, he instantly started looking for a brothel.  I told him there was not one but he was insistant so I gave in but told him it was closes becauze it was a Sunday.  More arguing ensued with him telling me that it did not make sense and ended up in me giving ij since I was really worried about the rest of the party staying interested.  He then went in and to avoid any awkward RP I told him he got a blowjob but then he described how he murdered this woman via "finishing" and suffocating her.  This ordeal took over an gate and I did not invite him back again after that. To this day he still asks me if I can bring him back in the game but I do not want a repeat but knowing him jt will happen no matter what he says beforehand and it will ruin the experience for the others. Dear esteemed justices, should I take the risk and let him in or tell him if he wants to find he ahould find another group?  I prostrate myself and await your judgement.

Declan Konesky

I would like to confess to a crime to the Court in front of Dice Christ. I believe the statute of limitations is up on this but never the less... Many moons ago when I first came into DnD through 3.5 we would creat our characters and roll on our own. Most of my friends were used to rolling high level PCs for our campaigns. I was hooked very easily and wanted to bring my brother into our campaign. I had help rolling up my first PC and thought I would help my brother. Not necessarily knowing any better I bumped up his stats so that he would at least start w an 18 despite not rolling one and then giving him max HP at all 10 levels. Besides being an affront to the Chaos Lord of Dice he did not get the DnD bug and instead turned to Magic...the Gathering. I beg for forgiveness as I now DM who refuses point buy and sticks to rolling stats. Ps I am a prideful Leo. Also. I highly respect regular Jake unless this isn't that kind of episode and then maybe you should just switch to magic the gathering bc tucker probably can teach you a thing or two

Jackie

To the honorable, convivial, and Insouciant justices of the supreme kit, as well as Bailiff Jack I guess, I bring to you a case which caused my father to never play dnd again. My father and his friends played first edition many decades ago and the party was around level 13 or 14. The party was running down a volcano, being pursued by lava flow. They would perform dex checks periodically in order to jump over lava streams and other obstacles. Unfortunately, my dad’s character rolled a nat 1 and was overtaken by the lava. The DM said my dad’s character was killed instantly and because the lava would burn the body, there was no possible way to resurrect them. My dad argued that he should have a chance to escape the lava since lava doesn’t almost ever kill someone instantly, but the DM was firm in his ruling. My dad left the group, swearing to never play again, and soon after the group stopped playing altogether. So, I ask was the DM right in his judgement or is my dad right to feel angry over losing a character he had played for a long time?

Anthony Murphy

Hello honerable supreme crit justices and delightful bailiff. It's ya boi Anthony here. I'm just here for a punishment please.

UrBoyDakota

Hello and good tidings to our most honorable judges and the one who reads the questions. I come to you with the case of the Witch’s Ambush. My players were recently hunting a blood witch, who they’ve been interacting with for quite some time. The witch on multiple occasions showed her power to control people like a puppet from a very large distance and turning allies against each other. While making a second raid on her mansion (after previously breaking in to rescue captured party members) they were injured and decided to short rest within the mansion itself. While they were preparing I sprung a trap I had planned for the main combat encounter, 3 npcs they helped escape during their previous break in attacked the party members and the party was swarmed by little gremlin monsters that the witch kept around. The party opted to kill the gremlins along with the 3 npcs, although it was a tough battle and now they were even more hurt before facing the witch. After the session, one of my players messaged me saying that he felt the ambush was unfair as they should’ve been made aware of her abilities during their exploration of the mansion or that the witch should’ve been making rolls to deceive the party during their time with the npcs. I countered that I had displayed her abilities in previous sessions and that this should’ve been no surprise. Also the witch WAS in fact making rolls against their passive insight as up to this point the party blindly trusted the npcs who were trapped in the basement of a blood witch for gods know how long. My player was very upset and told me he shouldn’t be expected to remember every minor detail I place in front of them, he then missed the next month of sessions before we talked and squashed our beef, but it’s still a sore spot for both of us. Was I wrong for not giving extra hints to my party for a betrayal that I thought they should’ve seen coming? I humbly await your verdict.

Kyle Conrad

If you have a story that you think you can tell, I would absolutely reach out to your DM. See if you can't try on the DM hat for a session or two of your own creation (or run a module!) to bring the group back together again.

Grimma Lynx

May it please the illustrious supreme crit justices, and also that other guy that reads the cases. I have been DMing a post-apocalyptic homebrew campaign for several months now, and a few sessions ago we invited the friend of a player to join us. We just completed a major story arc that culmimated with a city-wide revolt, during which this player insisted on trying to sus out HP totals and armor classes of each enemy the party faced, even going so far as trying to tell other players what they should do with their turns based on these assumptions. This came to a head during the final fight against a magic user and a guy in a tank. The player started counting spell slots that the magic user was casting, and at one point even insisted that he couldnt have any more third level spell slots "because you cant have more than 3" referencing monster manual stats of other magic using creatures. It was at this point that I asked him to stop metagaming, as I believed that information on how many spell slots are listed in monster stat blocks was well beyond the scope of what a character would know. The player became immediately defensive, and said that he was only counting, and not metagaming. Justices of the supreme crit, was I right to call out these actions as metagaming? Or was my player justified in looking at the stats of other monsters and making combat decisions based on that info?

Julia Austin

Most honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the underwhelming bailiff Jack: I present the case of Minos the Mudering Minotaur. In my last campaign I had a player who's character, Minos the Minotaur, had just found religion. They connected with the God Mogis from the world of Theros because he too was a Minotaur. The only issue was that Mogis is a notoriously evil diety with a specific taste for murder and bloodshed. I warned Minos that the other players may not be too thrilled with him choosing such an evil God as they were a fairly good party. He disregarded my warning and pledged himself to Mogis anyways. He then started to sidetrack the campaign with solo quests to join a cult of Mogis, attempting to murder an innocent cat salesman, and burning down a forest for fun which the rest of the party narrowly escaped from. Every session from then on became an intervention for Minos to change his ways and my players were very upset. I spoke with Minos about everyone's frustrations and he decided that if nobody liked Minos then he would kill them off and create a new character. I offered other alternatives, but the player had his mind set. Despite killing Minos and creating a new character, the player left our party for good a few weeks later. Justices, was there a better way to handle our bloodthirsty brother or should he have listened to my warning in the beginning of the campaign? I await your decision.

Wolfgang

I am here today to prostrate myself before dice christ. I was dming a campaign and one day a few of the players were going to be absent. I decided to run a one-shot style prelude to establish some of the lore that happened before the start of the campaign (sort of a flashback/ vision episode). When it came toward the end of the session I had paced it poorly and needed to pack up to leave. I had planned on the final fight to be a two part after the party members were killed. Their npc companion was going to bring them all back with a mass resurrection spell and be down for the count. The party would then continue the fight from full health to defeat the boss. Because I had to leave I just had the resurrection be a surge of pure arcana that vaporized the boss. I have explained this to the group and they understand. But I feel I took away from their fun of the fight. That I should have delayed the second half for another session. In hopes of returning to DC's graces I accept any retribution of my sins.

Jason Richter

I have a Dice Christ confession, I am a fairly new player and was playing our third session of our campaign. We have our first encounter of the night our DM says roll initiative, I rolled a 9, she proceeds to say take a break so she can set up the map for the encounter. After the break our DM says if you didn't roll before the break go ahead and roll your initiative, as a new player I wanted to do better than the 9 I rolled so I rolled again and proceeded to get a Nat 1! The only thing that went through my head was Dice Christ has spoken, I hung my head low and honored my Nat 1 and played the encounter. That night I became a true believer of Dice Christ!

Patrick

May it please the justices, bring ruin to the bailiff, and gently caress Lou Wilson, wherever he may be. Me and an ally were interrogating a shady npc, we had zone of truth up and they refused to answer simple questions. It was a precarious spot and I didn't want this npc running away, so I stated that I was going to swing on this guy to subdue him. We all rolled initiative, but when I asked if I still get the initial attack the dm said things were pretty tense so it's not a surprise for combat to kick off. My initiative sucked, so I wound up getting my turn after everyone else attacked. I can see how it might be mechanically correct, but logically it felt so wrong. Plus the npc wound up being fairly inconsequential, so the whole thing was really just annoying

Nicolas P.

To the illustrious, perfect, and effervescent judges of the supreme crit and Jayke Hurwhits. I submit the case of conflicting information. I was playing an echo knight in a one-shot recently and wanted to use my action surge. I also wanted to use a bonus action and when looking at my players handbook, I read that when fighters action surge, they do get another bonus action. So I said I wanted to do this, but my DM said no, I don’t get another bonus action. I told him that I looked it up and it said I do, but he said that he looked it up and his book said I didn’t. I didn’t get my bonus action but I’ve looked this up and found many different answers across the internet and the books. What is the answer? Was I wronged? I implore the justices and no one else to help me.

Connor Tuftin

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

Ellie

To the noble and brilliant crit justices and the lovely bailiff James, I submit to you the case of the goat in the woods. During a recent session, my party was exploring a town we had recently arrived in. Myself and our wizard were off to see if we could buy some food when we met a shopkeeper with an outrageous character voice. The wizard joked and said we would go to another store keeper and our DM proceeded to tell us that there no other stores in town. We tried to make it work for a bit, but it got to the point where the shopkeeper refused to serve us and we resigned ourselves to go hunting. By now it is worth noting the vibes of the zoom call are on the verge of rancid. We begin hunting and our DM has us both roll a perception check. Our wizard rolls a natural 20 and our DM tells us there is a goat behind a bush. He casts a fire spell at the goat and after it hits the DM reveals it is not a goat but a satyr who proceeds to start freaking out. The satyr passes out and our DM starts giving us a hard time since we almost murdered a guy. I can't help but feel an injustice was done here - was our wizard robbed a nat 20 because our DM was mad we made a joke about a silly voice?

Yashuntafun

Dear Most Honorable and Wise Justices and the respectable, workmanlike Bailiff: May it please the court, I would present the case of the Double-Dragon Drag. In a campaign I ran for some friends, I had one player who chose the Dragonborn species and the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer subclass. One of the features of the Dragonborn *species* is resistance to damage of the type associated with your ancestry - in the players' case, they gained fire resistance. However, when they hit level 6, we discovered that the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer *subclass* gives you the ability to spend a sorcery point to gain the same kind of resistance for 1 hour. We agreed that this was an oversight of the books, but couldn't come to an agreement on how to resolve it. The player believed they should get the ability to gain *immunity* to fire damage, but as a new DM, I was afraid that would be too strong. (The players didn't know, but a trip inside a volcano was on the horizon.) The player wasn't interested in resistance to another element, or any other metamagic features. We ended up buffing their familiar's abilities as a compromise, but the player wasn't happy, and still sometimes brings up how I short-changed them for going all-in on draconic features. So I ask the court - who is in the wrong here? The player, for asking for too much? Me, for being scared of giving them fire immunity? Or the RAW, for giving them a redundant ability? I prostrate myself before the court to see which way the the dragon scales of justice tip.

Boomclaw the Twice-Dead Kobold

Greetings to the illustrious chief justices of the Supreme Crit and Jake too, I guess. I come before you with a dilemma regarding if and when to use the massive damage rule. I am a new DM running a campaign where about half the players are brand new to D&D. One of these new players, a Monk, split the party but then saw someone stalking the rest of the party from a distance. Rather than try to tail the stalker, she chased them down. The stalker, a drow gunslinger, first tried to run away, but couldn't outrun her and after she started pummeling him, he responded by drawing and firing a pistol loaded with poisoned bullets. And he critted. The crit dealt 6d10+4 damage, averaging to 34 damage and I knew the Monk's max HP was 15 hit points. That meant according to the massive damage rule, an average damage roll or above should have killed her instantly. I rolled damage in secret but after seeing too many big numbers, I decided against counting it all up and said simply "you take well over 15 damage and are unconscious." I had the stalker flee and let the other characters hear the shot and roll checks to locate their unconscious friend while she made death saves. They rolled well enough to find her pretty quickly and save her. Was I too lenient in this case? Was this a "suffer and learn" situation or was the chance of death from death saves punishment enough? Does the fact that the player was new matter? Does the fact that I'm playing a more lighthearted campaign matter? I await your judgment and any discussions my case may prompt.

Natural 20 Self-crit

DM was dumb, there's a reason roll20 specifies which die was rolled first, and it's to mediate this exact situation

Jack Blair

PRAISE BE TO DICE CHRIST I kneel before the alter, a humble DM looking for wisdom from the holy priests of the Dice. I have traveled far to inquire if part of my regular DMing practice is blasphemous and I will maybe potentially think about changing my ways. I’ve been DMing for a 2 year long campaign and don’t have much experience or time to prep. Focusing more on the fun ideas or encounters, I find I almost always give my bosses not enough health. I hate to get 2 rounds into a dramatic, built up fight and see my boss at deaths door having dealt hardly any damage and I will secretly refill their HP. I do admit sometimes I just fake take away health after a players successful attack, but really the bad guys total remains. Ive never killed a player because of this, merely extended a fight to make it more fun for everyone. I’ve never told my players so to them it’s just been perfectly balanced. I am curious if any of you have done something similar, or is the predetermined HP of an NPC doctrine and cannot be adjusted? Even for the good of the table? Oh wise priests, have mercy on my soul

David Moore

For the highest of courts and lowest of bailiffs, I hope this submission appeases you (or at the very least gets a chuckle). I was DMing for one of the first times. My party consisted of a circle of spores druid, a monk, and a rogue. I was running them through the lost mines of Phandell campaign and it was going very well. Until they met the store keeper. The druid IRL new a lot about explosives and asked me if gun powder would be a thing in this world. I thought about it for a moment and said yes because I planned on having things like pistols or small explosives in the future. He then asked if this merchant had barrels of gunpowder. I should have said no. But I was naive. What followed was an almost hour and a half long argument between me, the druid, and the monk about whether a barrel of gunpowder could be used to blow up the door of a house in which the local gang was using as a hide out. While at first I was pretty impressed by the ingenuity, I didn't want them to feel punished since all the thugs were hiding in the cellar beneath the house. So I subtly dropped a hint that it wouldn't be a good idea. This is what caused the argument as the monk and druid discussed the real life implications of blowing up a real life barrel of gunpowder. Down to the real life explosion size, real life weight of the barrel and whether or not they would be able to carry it, and the real life damage it should be able to do to a wooden building. The rogue in the party felt left out and ended up scrolling through Pinterest for most of this time while I sat there getting angrier. After a while someone opened the door and realized no one was inside and they eventually used the barrel of gunpowder to blow up a different door. So, faithful judges. Was I in the wrong for allowing this argument to go on for so long and not just letting them blow up the door? I await your fair judgement.

lawless-crows

Ego Cleric vs New Dm The highest of honors and lowest of bows to the Supreme Crit Judges Animated Axford, Merciful Murphy, Tenacious Tanner, and beloved/estranged (choose one depending on courts favor) Mr. Jerry Hedgehogawitz Last summer a group of friends and I wanted to play DnD for the first time together. We played Curse of Straud, but one of the players wanted to try a one-shot while Dming, we played an Oops: All Clerics campaign at 12th level (our regular campaign was only at 7th). My friend played a character named Red, who essentially ran a sweatshop with child labor. He played cleric in our regular sessions and spent the entire one shot being snobby about knowing all the mechanics already, and playing his character rudely and as if he was above the rest of us. At the end of the session he tried to kill the rest of the party, and we in return attack him, killing his character. Red then has this whole “aha!” moment, saying that his child servant has strict instructions that if he didn’t return, to in the future set on a quest to kill the rest of the party. The rest of the table was unhappy, and the dm even shut it down saying that this fail safe hadn’t been cleared with the dm before hand. A full argument ensued between Red and the dm, which ended on a tense “okay” moment and Red leaving quickly and the dm being unsure and concerned about the session overall as well. Was the dm right in shutting Red down, or should he have just let him have fun, since it was just a one shot?

Morgan Polenske

Dearest, most respected Supreme Crit Justices and the so low he would lose to a piece of paper in a limbo contest. I implore you to see the case of the Tidal Wave Grudge. I was playing as a Firbolg Druid with a deep sense of life and death being sacred. Thus, necromancy was abhorant to my character. Another PC played as a necromancer. During one of first sessions trying to hit multiple enemy targets, my character casted Tidal Wave and it's AOE washed away the necromancer's four skeleton soldiers/minions. This deeply angered the other player. I attempted to justify the decision because my character would detest the idea of bringing something like a skeleton back to life. The other player argued that healing from 0 HP is the same thing and my character should detest that as well. This irritation and rift between our characters (and it felt like ourselves) kept up for the rest of the campaign, an entire year more of time. Was the other player right in getting angry with me, or was I right in playing my character true to herself? For more context, we haven't spoken more than three times since the end of that campaign two years ago. Thank you for your time and consideration.

emikoooOOoooo

To the beautifully appointed judges Axford, Murphy, Tanner and that guy who got his dick sucked by a milkman, Jack something, I've placed a pillow on the floor to get down on my knees to ask you for your advise! I'm in a new campaign with a bunch of queer femme ex-theater kids who are either first time players or who haven't played much before. Even though I am the most experienced player at the table, because of our backgrounds we are well suited to work together and have a lot of fun. Our problem however, is with our DM. He wants it to be this political intrigue story, full of angst and whatnot which would be fine if he had not said multiple times things like "I can't wait to inflict pain on you", killed off a PC's father figure in the first session and wants to specifically kill off a PC that he doesn't like for an unknown reason. We all have fun PC's who have their quirks, but he is dead set on killing her PC specifically. I've given him a little leeway bc this is his first time dm-ing in a world that took him 3-4 yrs to create, so I understand it's his baby, but his attitude is not one of fostering a friendship forward environment like I'm used to. I started playing because of Dimension 20 and NADDPOD, so maybe I'm spoiled and biased by those worlds and their relationships, but how can we talk to him in a way that will help him understand that while his plot points are fine and dandy, it is not a him vs us mentality? I shall wait on my pillow till you answer, your humble servant with knee issues, Emiko Ps, if you'll indulge me in bragging for a moment, this PC he wants to kill was made by my best friend (who is also one of HIS best friends), her character is a dwarven mom of 5 who read a book called "eat pray adventure" and is now out to find her sons spouses while also finding herself.

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

Greetings and salutations Brian the awoken Rat, Emily the Cat, Caldwell the Frog and Jake I think. I bring to you the case of the Tortle troublemakers. During 3 arcs of my friends campaign we had players swap out to play Tortle characters (for various reasons like lost character sheets). The first was Dungle. Dungle was a storm sorcerer that would kidnap small animals and stuff them in his shell to stay warm constantly causing us trouble. He died after attacking a Roc when the player thought the DM meant a literal rock after nearly getting us killed in a Kenku village. The second was Precious. A senile old torle that would steal valuables from powerful mages as well as walking head first into what was clearly danger. She died after stealing a relic that shocked her to death or something. Finally we had Girth from the most recent. Girth triggered a bomb that we needed to stop a dragon from reforming or something like that. We were told each click was one minute to get our job done. He clicked it once and proceeded to almost immediately fail our campaigns climactic fight. We currently don't have any tortles in our party but I am weary that one will emerge from it's slimy shell to spew it's horrible agenda on the rest of the table eventually. I'm seeking 200k in damages at the table and a one time meeting with Tucker to settle.

Fuzzboxx

Hello Honorable Justices and Jack Hurvitz. I bring you the case of the deadbeat dad. I run a campaign for a few friends and family. My cousin joined the campaign a while back and essentially his backstory was "my 6 year old son was kidnapped, I wish to save him". I thought this was great as it was really easy to blend into my world, and as he is a dad in real life I thought it would push him into action. 6 months into joining the campaign my cousin finally told the group that he was looking to save his son. The group was baffled that this was not mentioned previously or why it wasn't a high priority. I was the only person beside my cousin who knew his backstory up until this point. My cousin's response was "we will get to it when we get to it" There was not more pressing matters. After a year and a half of adventuring they finally found where his son was captured and saved him. He showed no happiness or excitement once the boy was free, the boy I decided would be important to the main plotline. Immediately my cousin's character showed disinterest for the small child and wished to pawn him off at an orphanage, a random person in any town, or a even a wizard school, literally anything so he didn't have to take care of him. I have made it so that many answers to great mysteries in the campaign can be resolved if my cousin's character will just show the small boy a modicum of affection. This has yet to occur in 6 months since his saving. I need advice on how to get my cousin's character (who he chose to make a dad) to actually be a dad in game, am I burdening the entire group because of my cousin's deadbeat dad character? I await your decision.

TK Pitts

May it please the court, the honorable justices, and regular-ass bailiff Jake. This week, while playing a one-shot, one of my fellow PCs, a wizard, tried to look in the bag of a fallen enemy she had just slain (this is in initiative, still in combat). Another enemy, a sorcerer, had the next turn in initiative and the DM announced the sorcerer would have advantage on the ranged spell attack against the PC wizard because she was not paying attention. This caused the rest of us to get spicy in her defense. We felt it unfair to impose advantage against her since it feels impossible to pay attention to everyone on the battlefield all the times. Do we need to now be asking who is paying attention to what before each attack? She tried to look in the bag because the DM specifically pointed out that he was carrying a bag of loot. After we got spicy, the DM did not allow us to find any loot. We were looking for healing potions, and later 2 out of 3 of us died because we had no way to heal. Noble Justices, was our DM unfair to us? Should DMs be held to a code of fairness? Or is dnd just unfair sometimes?

Emily Gorden

Today, O Solemn and Sovereign Judges and Jake too, I would like to present to you a case that occurred with my past dnd group (we no longer play together). I played a gnome bard Cercis Mulch who was frequently having a Bad Time TM. This was a self-insert so thinly veiled that it may as well have been a clear shower curtain and that included being openly queer. OOC I had mentioned a few times that I found the art of hobgoblins in the monster manual to be weirdly attractive so OF COURSE when our party encountered a group of hostile bandit hobgoblins…. I asked if the lady hobgoblin seemed interested! One high roll later, I flirted my way into the heart and loyalties of one Malondra. This was genuinely the first time that anything had gone right for my character and I even had more fun roleplaying to impress and woo my lovely lady. I was so excited to have a way to express my irl complicated experiences with attraction in game but for some reason our rogue continuously insisted that Malondra was a bad guy even when the DM confirmed that she wouldn’t hurt the party bc it would hurt me. Cut to post-defeat of BBEG, instead of getting to play in a carnival celebration in the town, our cleric and TWO ROGUES engaged in an absolute massacre of a brawl in the middle of the street. I’d cast tiny hut around my wonderful gf and when she told me that she was going to fight back after the rogues kept berating her, I told her that I supported her and that she could always come back with me and be protected. Unfortunately those were my last words to her because SOMEHOW she got killed TWICE in the fight. Our entire party got expelled from the town but I was allowed to stay long enough for her memorial (I had fought to get her allowed to fight with the town guard) and my character went back to her hut in the woods to live alone and mourn. My DM then explained that my section of the epilogue was going to explain that Malondra and Cercis spent their lives together exploring and discovering magical artifacts together. Malondra was even going to propose on a mountain peak at sunset. After this session, I drove around at midnight and cried. I later left the group bc I was sick of some offensive comments being made but I honestly considered leaving when they broke my queer heart that day. None of them ever even admitted they did something bad (even with our Druid and DM on my side). Am I wrong to have held onto that resentment even when we started a new campaign?

Chris Martin

ATTITUDE ERA WRESTLING QUESTION FOR MURPH AT THE BOTTOM. I present to the mighty and honourable crit, may it be so pleased - and I guess that guy who sounds kinda like H. John Benjamin sometimes can be entertained by it as well if he is so inclined, the case/story of the great and terrible Boris the Lovehammer. I’ll keep it brief but he was/is my first and most beloved character, a giant of a man who was a bear clan skinwalker and the most ridiculous glass cannon monk I’ve ever seen. The crux of this case, and something I’ve been curious about for a long time, is a question concerning alignment. See, Boris had a gimmick. Every time he needed to make a decision I’d flip the Boris coin I had and he’d respond to the situation accordingly. This meant that I was never fully in control of him and he ended up doing some really stupid (and entertaining) shit. Like the time he had enlarge person cast on him multiple times and fist-fought a tower full of traps - and won - to help the party bypass the whole damn thing. We all loved him. I digress. My DM and I once had a conversation concerning whether Boris was technically able to be a monk according to RAW as monks needed to be lawful but Boris was quite often chaotic neutral. I made an argument however that due to the coin flip and me being a stickler for obeying it even when it was detrimental to me and the party that I was actually playing him as lawful neutral. It didn’t really matter as we played with a lot of home brew rules but I was always curious about it. This was also in pathfinder so I’m unsure if the alignment conditions are the same in 5E. I know it’s a dumb question but I’ve been trying to think of a way to get Boris a mention on the podcast as he’s a huge fan and I’ve also been burning to ask Murph 2 very specific questions. If you could role play as any wrestler from the attitude era who would it be? What would be the best way to roleplay a pro wrestler class? I’m thinking barbarian with some bard thrown in but I’m curious about what you think. Thank

anniemurphs

I would like to confess my dice sins to the ever gracious Dice Christ: About a year ago I was playing a level 15 swashbuckler rogue, who at 11th level got Reliable Talent. This ability makes it so you cannot roll below a 10 on certain ability scores. I was relatively new at dnd when playing this character, and didn't fully remember that really, you could only use this sweet feature on ability checks that you also add your proficiency bonus to. I started to get suspicious that this was too good to be true, but didn't doublecheck because I was enjoying not rolling below a 10 and figured that ignorance was bliss. We sorted it all out eventually, and (unrelated) this campaign is no longer being played, but my heart is still heavy with guilt. I await the judgement, and hope for the forgiveness, of the all rolling Dice Christ and ever loyal Dice-iples.

Jor Elare

Greetings, Justices of the court, and a less than cordial nod to the bailiff. I bring to you a case of a nat 20 that my players and I argue was not handled properly. I DM a campaign set in a typical fantasy setting with hints that there is perhaps highly advanced modern technology in the world. One of my NPCs knows of the "old ones" who built an empire almost entirely without magic using technology that threatened the gods, thus it is forbidden to speak of. This NPC approached the party and my barbarian rolled a nat 20 insight after a while speaking to him..minus 1. I said that he seems like he's hiding something and doesn't trust the party enough to share it. The party then rolled poorly to investigate him and eventually pissed him off and fought he and his pals, killing all of them. Afterwards they discovered his journal and found out he was sort of on their side, and the party grew upset with me for not handing that info over via the nat 20. I argued that there's no way they could glean that specific of knowledge and they interpreted what I said poorly. Was I right to be stingy? Or should I be punished for robbing my -1 WIS barbarian

James Hoebbel

Greetings to the illustrious Balliff Hurwitz, and I guess I couple other important people. I present to you, the falsely dead grampa. Some time ago, we had a campaign in which I played an elderly druid whose only goal was to find a meaningful way to die. After joining the party, he decided that would be by protecting his newly adopted younguns, as well as a Phoenix egg he had also adopted. After a year in the campaign, we were traveling with a deck of many things. After I decided to draw a card, I got Skull, which would summon an avatar of death. Much to my surprise, I was doing well! The fight was grossly in my favor, but we were forced to stop the session due to the host feeling ill. The DM and I agreed we would simply record the remainder of the fight another night as opposed to the rest of the party simply waiting. When the night came, however, my DM instead asked if I could take a dive and allow my druid to die so that another of his friends could join the party for a while, and I take a few month hiatus! I foolishly accepted, as he also promised a semi-solo campaign of my druid in the underworld. However, after 6 months, his friend never joined (as he forgot to invite them,) and I was reinvited to play a lovely artificer. Also, the second campaign I was promised was cancelled before it even began. I enjoy playing the artificer, but still harbor some uneasiness about my druid taking a dive like a baby back bitch. I ask of you, am I right to feel this upsetti spaghetti, or am I simply the fool for agreeing to this plot? I leave my judgement in your supple hands

Joseph Grow

Your honorable and illustrious Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, as well as esteemed bailiff Jacque, I present to you the case of the blinded elves. I'm actively playing in a campaign with a few friends and coworkers, and during a recent session, our party was ambushed by a group of elvish assassins who were after an artifact we had previously "acquired". During combat, my character (a half-elven hexblade warlock) failed a con save and as a result was blinded for one minute. As fate would have it, our party ranger responded in kind, blinding the leader of the assassins with his own ability. When my turn came, I moved to attack said leader and was informed by our DM that as I was blinded, my attacks had to be made with disadvantage. I pointed out that I should have advantage for attacking a blind character, meaning my attack should ultimately be rolled flat. The DM said it didn't make sense that you get advantage, as you still can't see where the enemy is and them being blind doesn't change that fact. Ultimately we won the fight, but I respectfully leave the question to you; should two blind combatants swinging at one another do so with disadvantage or flat rolls?

Tristan Lestavel-Entwistle

To the Right Honourable Justices Axford, Murphy & Tanner, and recurring Bailif Jack. I present the case of the imprecise misty step. I recently had the pleasure to play in my very first game as a PC (I've been a forever DM for a decade). In our very first encounter, my level 1 cleric with the Fey Touched feat, attempted to pursue a fleeing mystery thief out of a 30th story window in a wizardry professor's tower. My quarry was using some kind of non-magical glider to escape, and on the next initiative count, I took a running jump out the window, and used misty step to close the remaining distance, choosing the "unoccupied space" immediately above him, hoping to crash on top of him. My DM ruled that I had to roll a dexterity check with quote: "so much disadvantage" to teleport on top of him, and on a 16, I failed, missing my target entirely before feather falling to safety. Justices, I ask. Was I robbed of a cool move by a sweaty DM who didn't want their NPC caught? Or is rolling with disadvantage justified, even though misty step requires no roll to succeed?

Savannah Myers-Gaines

Salutations and good tidings to ye judges and bespoke bailiff. Today I present to you Kizmet Quig v. Mimic, a wrongful death suit. I represent the gnome cleric Kizmet and her wall climbing gecko mount. Our party was searching a collapsing wizards tower after an explosion inside. The plaintiff chose to use her mount’s wall climbing abilities to ascend to the second level where she dismounted and went to look out a window to see if anyone fled the scene while the rest of the party explored the bottom floor. The party took turns investigating, percepting, and arcana checking to find out what happened. When Kizmet’s turn came back around she went to rejoin the party, but the DM retconned that when she went to look out the window she had climbed onto a chest in order to look out due to her gnomish shortness (this was not determined at the time of action), and upon moving away triggered the chest mimic to unveil itself, where she was given disadvantage on a dex save to get away on account of standing on it. Isolated from the party, throat deep in a mimic, she proceeded to be chomped alive one turn at a time, unable to land a hit due to restraint. The party was unaware of the situation and continued exploring while their healer was devoured a floor above. The prosecution argues that Kizmet should have been offered a choice whether or not to stand on the chest, rather than having it added post-resolution of her action. What say you? Was Kizmet a victim of height-based persecution or rightly punished for failing her dex save?

Jason Rodriguez

To all members of the Supreme Crit, Daddy Murphy, Duncle Caldwell, Benevolent bailiff Jake, and Mangia's Mamma Emily. May it please the court. As the DM i don't like to kill my players outright. In fact, I gave my players the opportunity to find a creature known as a Barometz [pg. 38 in Tome of Beasts II] as they level up in preparation to fight a green dragon. Slaying and eating this creature gives them the benefits of a heroes feast. This would be very helpful to them, but the druid "my girlfriend" had an Emily Apifiny (or Axpifiny). Her character has a Necklace of Prayerbeads, that once a day can cast Planar Ally, which can summon a fey instead of a celestial. Her idea, was to learn the creatures name before killing it, so that once a day, she could summon this ally and defeat it to get a heroes feast every day. Being a Murph leaning DM i shut down that work around knowing it would be game breaking, but was I right to do so? I await your judgment.

Jace Robinson

May it please the honorable crit justices and Jack, I present the case of the Horny monk versus the controlling paladin. A few monthes ago I started DMing a campaign for some of my friends, all with little to no dnd experience. My monk PC wanted his backstory to be that he was castrated at a young age but has a small vial of his last remaining sperm. His goal was to travel the world to find a humanoid he could inseminate his sperm into and carry on his legacy. The Paladin took a different approach to character creation and made a pretty straight forward knight who had amnesia. A couple sessions in we had brief encounter where the party fended off cloaked figures who were attacking a temple of moridan. After the encounter city guards ran up and asked what had happened, to which my monk started insisting the guard to put his in between the monks thighs. The rest of the party besides the paladin joined in on this request and kept on egging on this random guard. Quickly,out of character, the paladin PC started telling the monk PC that monks don’t act like that and his character should be more peaceful and less horny. The monk PC argued and said that this is his character and he shouldn’t be told “how to be a monk”. They both turned to me and I was bit stumped, on one hand it’s ridiculous to tell someone to put their head between someone else’s thighs, but on the other I really didn’t like any PC trying to police other PCs character decisions. So I told the paladin PC that each character can do what they want and I role played the guards being taken aback and offended and left the party to do their own things and I could tell this upset the paladin. After the session the paladin PC left quickly and he has not joined a session since. My question is, was I wrong to go along with groups shenanigans? Should I have said anything to the paladin once the session was over? How horny can I allow my PCs to be? I await whatever the court decides.

Bunnie

I'm hoping that Dice Christ will speak through his disciple's and forgive me for the greatest of sins: allowing my player to throw a cat as a ranged attack. My player was a level 2 tortle way of mercy monk who was sleeping in the park and as a joke, I said he woke up with a bunch of stray cats on him to which his response was to feed them. Later on the party went to investigate a butcher shop and during role play the butcher was upset at him for bringing animals into the shop in the form of the cats following him around on his shell for food. Shortly after combat started and he was unable to reach any foes with his movement and had no ranged weapons, and instead of ending his turn said "Can I throw a cat?". He proceeded to pass a con save on a cat trying to scratch him but missed the ranged roll to actually have it land on the guard. It landed safely on the table of butchered fish behind the guard and they proceeded to tell the player what a monster he was for cat throwing. He has now started trying to train cats to be small furry missiles, and I find this highly entertaining and wish to see where the player goes with this but I ask you: would Dice Christ forgive cat throwing just because I'm entertained with Turlldan Brightshell the Cat Tamer? I've already started having him roll d4s at the start of each day for how many stray cats slept on him the night prior.

Jay Warner

May it please the high born justices, and bring solace to the overworked, yet underpaid, bailiff. I come to you with perhaps not a case, but a plea for advice. I’m a begineer DM with only a few one shots and week long campaigns to my name. I’m planning a campaign now with 6 players, 1 of my players has ADHD and can’t give more then 3 hours of attention to one task. I don’t want to force him into 8 hour long session but I also don’t want to play only 3 hour sessions where not much gets done. I ask of you, how do I work his schedule into the story? Perhaps a deity takes the character for his own purposes, removing the character from the party for a bit? . Thank you for your time, and thank you bailiff, for the cases you bring forth for justice.

Beav

The Case of BEING PRONE WHILE FLYING Great and Honorable Justices and Above Average Bailiff (unless we’re razzing Jake this week, in which case fuck you Bailiff!), I bring to the court yet another case involving a bird race PC. I DM for a party with an Aarakocra PC that often whomps me with their ability to fly off whenever things get dicey. Fighting some cultist mages, the birdman gets low on HP and takes flight. A foe cast Taseous Hideous Laughter which, on a fail, knocks a creature prone. The feathered pc failed, so the question becomes, “what does prone while mid-flight mean?” Reading the 5e definition for the “prone“ condition, I ruled that the birdman fell out of the sky. They took enough falling damage to hit 0 hp, then expired after 2 death saves (a 7 then a nat 1). The PC argues that prone while flying would not have caused any falling damage, and their feathered PC would have glided safely to the ground, but I stand my decision. What say you? (slips $5 to bailiff)

Michael W

May it please the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and cause some slight discomfort in the bailiff’s chair. I present the case of new players vs wererat lycanthropy. I DM a game for mostly new players, and they were headed to a mine they needed to clear out that was occupied by a gang of wererats(the Whiskered Gang). Most everything in the battle went well for them, but one of the new players rolled a nat 1 on their Constitution saving throw to contract the curse of wererat lycanthropy. Next session, I described the PC feeling aggressive after looking at the nearly full moon the following night. The bitten PC seemed pretty excited about becoming a wererat. The players went back to town where a helpful cleric offered to cure the curse. When I described the mechanical benefits of lycanthropy to the bitten PC, I think I may have overstepped in my description. I panicked because I already have had a player make a character with a lawful evil alignment without telling me, and I've had to really adjust a lot to that loner character on the fly. I told the bitten PC that he would mostly lose his sense of self and become evil aligned(the Monster Manual has a blurb about lycanthropy I referenced) if he embraced the curse instead of getting it cured. The player decided to get cured after the cleric explained the situation, and the campaign has gone on, but did I do the wrong thing? Did I misinterpret the book and influence a PC's choice too much? Or did I do the right thing for party unity? I humbly await your judgment.

Alejandro

To the Three Stooge justices: Hurwitz, Tanner, and Murphy. And the all-knowing and powerful justice Axford, I bring you the case of “The Nearly Obliterated player character” We were playing a mostly homebrew campaign with my friends over Roll20 to use a virtual table and move our pc tokens on our own for encounters and overall exploration through our adventure. During one of our missions, we were exploring a temple and had to search for clues of what happened in the temple. Due to unfortunate and personal circumstances, I had to miss out on one of the sessions, but I gave the others permission to continue without me, and to just bring my character along as they explored. I wasn’t informed of anything important happening in the session During the next session, I, a human sorcerer, brought my token into one particular room, and upon moving my token in one tile, my DM stopped me, and asked “wait, you stepped on that tile?” Me, wanting to be truthful and more confused than anything, responded yes, and my DM then described how I had stepped on a type of tile trap, and how I burst into fire and took a very big amount of damage (almost enough to instantly kill my character). The other people in the party soon realized and explained how they had encountered the room previously and knew about the traps but forgot to let me know. After trying to explain to my DM that even though *I* didn’t know about the trap, *my character* would know about the trap, seeing as they were brought along with the rest of the party, he denied, and I had to wait for another person in the party to heal me and bring me back up. And we later had to fight an undead dragon in which I was at low health for the entire encounter, nearly dying a few times in the fight. My question is this: am I right to still be a little salty/angry at this? Was my dm and/or party wrong for forcing me to take a load of damage and be a hinderance in the ensuing battle, just for my out of character self not knowing about the trap? Should I be penalized for not knowing what my character knows?

Natural 20 Self-crit

Your attack rulings were not correct technically but you were correct to make them, respect the cage

joe ventre

Your Hoborable crit justices and smalltown baliff jake in our previous campaign I played a tiefling who happened to be pink. Late into the campaign I tried to intimidate an npc, which I hadn’t done all campaign because I primarily used persuasion, but before I could start with my best imitation of intimidation. The dm said I couldn’t. He said that because I was a bubblegum punk tiefling I could not possibly be intimidating. Even though I had expertise in intimidation with a +19 to the roll (all above the board with help from magical items). Is it fair that my dm ruled this based on the flavor appearance of my character, regardless of the actual mechanics of my character?

Jack H

May my case please the illustrious court and may the bailiff have a pretty cool sticker to keep his attention. I bring the case of the creative riddle solution. 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: Take Note. 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. It satisfied every line of the riddle. 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. I eagerly await your ruling on if a DM should accept a creative answer to a riddle.

Riko H

Hello omniscient judges and multiveral level bailiff, i implore the case of the self reloading laser weapon. In a 5th edition game I've been playing in ( I played a fighter/monk ) and we went against a foe that ambushed us with a powerful weapon similar to a railgun i believe, in one use of it, our ranger had taken more than double max health (ruled as non lethal so they didnt die) and the very next turn used this powerful weapon again to insta kill an npc we were trying to escort and then the enemy went invisible and ran away. Later i checked the base stats for the weapon (my amazing dm redid the weapons so that none would feel bad and its really good) and that weapon required a reload action, i pointed this out and he said enemy weapons work different which i understand, but i still feel like it was kind of a cop out and especially for a weapon that strong to reload instantly, so i ask you, was my dm right in letting this enemy ignore the reload mechanic on the weapon he designed so an npc would die? Sidenote: I know that npc was probably meant to die but it felt as though no matter what we tried before the encounter and during it, that the npc just would always die.

Sarah

To my esteemed and honourable judges and bailiff of equal standing, I present to you the case of the copycat rogue. My partner and I recently started playing in a campaign with my cousin and her two housemates. My partner is new to DND and was excited to get the opportunity to play for the first time. He was immediately drawn to the Rogue class, and I messaged our other players to see what they were planning to play to make sure we'd be a balanced team. One of the housemates was keen to play a wizard, and my cousin was excited to try out a Fairy Druid character, so I picked a fighter to be the go-to punching bag. Voila, a balanced team, I reckon. We started playing and my partner was absolutely loving his Rogue character. On the other hand, it became pretty apparent that my cousin had built a very weak Fairy Druid that she was not enjoying. As she was unable to do much in a fight, she often took to running away and hiding in combat. I should also mention that she was the only one of us with any healing and she very rarely would put that to use - this was part of the reason my character ended up dying, as hers was trying to run out of the room while I defended our wizard. It came out that in all her previous games, someone had made all her characters for her. The DM and I offered to help her adjust her character build and her spells to make them more playable, but she declined. At our 5th session, I would be properly introducing my new character which I had decided to make a Mark of Healing Halfling Paladin, as the fight where my previous character had died had almost been a total party kill. This ended up being a very necessary move, because when we showed up to play my cousin announced that she would no longer be playing her Druid character. She had found a website that auto-generates characters for you and she had generated a new Rogue character, as that was her old favourite class to play. The DM and I both advised her against it - we again offered to help her adjust her Fairy Druid, and the DM suggested some other classes like Gloom-stalker Ranger to look at, but she said she just didn't vibe with it. My partner was gutted, but tried to laugh it off and make the best of it. However, once we started playing it became clear that anytime he would make a move, my cousin would copy it. She even started copying some of his gags from previous sessions and tried to claim that the way they were different was that he was "more of an evil, bad rogue" and that she "is really good and really cares about people". This was baffling because at pretty much every session we had made reference to his character being a Robin Hood type. He reached out to my cousin after the session to tell her that he was hurt by what she had done; not only making a character the same class as him without thinking to talk to him first, but then to copy him the whole session and make him feel like whatever he decided to do wasn't worth it anymore. She responded that she just couldn't connect to her Fairy Druid character, and that she could try another class but said if she couldn't connect to it either she would just quit. Confusing, as the character she was saying she connected to had been auto-generated a half hour before the last session started. They talked it out some more and she eventually agreed to look at creating a Hunter Ranger character, and said she would be working with the DM to make sure it was well built so she didn't miss anything. While everything is all resolved now and she's excited about this new character because of ways she's thought of to integrate it into the story, I can't help but wonder if we should have just let her play the second Rogue and asked her to adjust her gameplay. We're only a party of four so double ups feels like something we should avoid, but in all the campaigns my cousin has played in it's been in groups of 6-10 where they would never coordinate their character creation beforehand. Is this just a case of different DND backgrounds or were me and my partner right to ark up? I humbly await your verdict. PS please tour in Australia, I am begging you.

OceanTorrent

Dearest high caliber supreme crit justices, and regular caliber bailiff, I present to you the case of the "railroaded Paladin". So my sister is a long time DnD player and was starting a campaign where she'd be doing a first DM attempt. This campaign was less put together so the intro/start was more forced, but we'd already known it would be from session 0. First session all of our characters were tasked with finding and purifying a source of corruption that the world's guardian could sense. It took us about 4 sessions to locate the source and as far as I had known, everyone was having a good time. This was until we got to the final boss of the arc and the party paladin ended up dying in combat. Very moving story moment, the party all felt it, group seemed happy. That is until the paladin sent my sister a novel length of texts basically informing her that he hated how "railroaded" the campaign was, that his paladin had actually committed suicide as a fuck you to destiny/fate and that she needed to fix her campaign so that this wouldn't be a problem for future characters. He literally sent links on "how to build a fun campaign". His messages got so bad and emotional over this that my sister ended up kicking him from the campaign entirely. Was my sister wrong for not having a full open world before having us play and then kicking out the only player who didn't agree with her story choices or did the paladin take the game way too far? I humbly await your judgement.

Chris Martin

You Justices for your service to the community. And, uh, good job I guess to Archer. sincerely, one of your fans in the Arctic.

Drew Fitzpatrick

Most honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the regular leveled of honor Bailiff, I present the Bruised Bard vs the Dragonic DM. A dragon was attacking a village from the air, and our brave bard Elodie cast Dimension Door to transport herself and our cleric into the back of the dragon. Said dragon was trying to shake off the riders and using its legendary actions to tail whip at the bard. Elodie argued the dragon shouldn't be able to reach the small of its back, where they landed. Our cleric blasted the dragon to draw its attention away from our bruised Bard, but was our DM wrong to rule that a dragon could use its tail to smash up unwanted adventurers?

Perseus Rebelo

May it please the court and blast the pants off the bailiff: I present to you the case of the DM double standard. I play in a game with a usually-great DM. However, I think the way he makes us do certain checks is wack. He only allows one party member to do an investigation check on any given room/area, his explanation being "if one person investigates the room and says there's nothing there, it would be wild for another party member to not believe them and check themselves". I don't agree with this, but I could be down with it if he didn't make us all do individual stealth checks. Any time we roll stealth, if even one party member fails the check, we fail as a group (we're a party of five). It seems weird to me to do group investigation but individual stealth. Tell me justices: is this aboveboard, or is my DM making it needlessly hard for us to succeed in these checks?

Marcus Heer

May it please the three spellbindingly fragrant judges. I present the case of the open door genocide. After suffering as a forever DM for a couple years a friend of a friend invited me to play in his first campaign he was starting. I passionately agreed. The world he created was a steampunk world with a faction war of vampires vs werewolves. Our party aligned ourselves with the werewolves and hid in their secret underground society. We had a very wholesome roleplay heavy session where we had a camp out under the stars and all bathed together. Upon returning to the underground society we had found that it had been ambushed by the vampires. The DM’s reasoning for this ambush was that we never explicitly said we closed the entrance behind us when we left. The DM then proceeded to commit mass genocide on these werewolves with only a single wolf surviving. The party then pointed fingers at my character as I was the last one through the entrance so I should have closed it. I, already a little frustrated, rebutted by reminding the party that my character was only 15 years old and they left a 15 year old in charge of protecting the secrecy of an entire civilization. The party continued to blame me in further sessions and eventually the campaign fell apart, never to be finished. To be frank I’m quite glad it fell apart. Was I wrongfully razzed? Was it just to kill off an entire civilization because the players didn’t explicitly say they were closing a door? Or am I just a bitch who should have closed a damn door? I await your judgement. Oh and also Jake, clean it up dude

Bron McMillan

To the honorable and succulent justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. oh and most flatulent bailiff Jake. I present to you the case of Burned Up PC of Sessions Past. My group of friends and I were playing a 5e campaign set in the same world as our previous game. My character Bumbledore Fondlebeard, a Halfling rouge raised by cultist, was thriving in a campaign filled with evil relics that he began to collect and use, two of which being Vecnas Hand and Eye. Vecna being the BBEG, because of Bumbledore possessing Vecna’s relics he was going to try to use my character as a god avatar for his resurrection The DM knowing this was a possibility, brought in our old PCs from the previous campaign. Letting us play 2 characters for our BBEG fight. This was a very fun idea that allowed our characters to do combo moves and all around give a more cool combat. But. During the fight my previous PC was teleported to another plane after failing a save. This reinforced our resolve allowing us to triumphantly beat Vecna once and for all. Post session, my DM told me that my previous PC had been teleported to the plane of fire and burnt up. Killing my old character “off screen” I enjoyed the callback and the mechanics of our combat, but I’m still a little miffed about my old characters off screen death. Was it right for my old character to be unceremoniously burnt up on another plane while we celebrated our campaign coming to a close? I humbly await the courts omnipotent judgement.

JWunder

May it please the honourable justices and keep the bailiff off his phone. I present you the case of “up is a side”. The party was treading though a flooded dungeon when two water elementals came out of the floor. The water elemental were beating our party of 2 casters and an artificer quite bad, so to buy us some time my lvl 10 wizard cast wall of force. I specified it as a sphere, cutting through a elemental’s lower half, as the spell says I decide what side of the wall creatures get pushed to, trying to move the elemental into the sphere. The dm said that’s not how this works and “a side of the wall” should be horizontal to the side of the sphere and not vertical into the sphere (an inch up). He said I would need to use a hemisphere, and the elemental could then pass through the floor. The party argued with the dm for 20 minutes till he let the elemental get encapsulated. The party was willing to resign to a house rule, but the dm insisted we misunderstood the spell and we were just wrong. Judges, I pose you, can wall of force be used to bubble up an elemental, bandit, or bailiff, or is my party reading this spell incorrectly and will terrestrial creatures always get a pass? My spell slots are in your hand.

Daniel Barnes

Dice Christ confession: I live in Australia where we use the metric system: metres, kilograms etc. Fifth edition uses the imperial system: feet, pounds etc. My beast master ranger got access to a broom of flying which has a carrying capacity of 400 pounds. I read that at as 400kg which is roughly 880 pounds, more than doubling its carrying capacity. With this miscalculation I got my part out of many sticky situations by carrying them all on my broom at times. It has been 3 years and I still think about this. Will dice Christ forgive me for accidentally doubling the power of my flying broom due to a downunder metric/imperial mix up. May the lord have mercy on my soul.

Matthew.bamford.king@gmail.com

Oh wise and honorable Justices of the Crit, and Nate Jerwitz, I present to you pure drama. A few years ago I played D&D with flatmates (a flat destined to implode), it was my first campeign, and I was in awe of the effort my DM was putting in. I had not listened to the whimsical and comical tangents of NADDPOD, since corrected, and wished to honour the DMs work by following the quest he had put together relatively regularly. Meanwhile, the other two party members were intent on going completely off the rails, going so far as to commit suicide off a floating city above the sea for a gag. This annoyed me, it wasn't the first time they had nearly killed themselves over a gag, and I asked if the players would stop. I don't think they understood why I was annoyed, and this offended one of them to the point that they quit the campaign simply because I actually wanted to actually pay attention to the storyline a little bit instead of constant side-track. Bare in mind the other players (actually the DMs partner) seemed intent on annoying the DM by intentionally doing the exact opposite of tidbits he laid out, which frustrated me a lot. Who has the right of it? A tricky one for the court. Thank you for your time benevolent Crits and Bait Burblitz.

Mike Johnson

Dear highest of honor supreme crit justices. And of course he how happens to be the bailiff. I present to you the case of new dm vs cheating pcs So I'm a brand new dm. As in I have only ever played one campaign and I have decided to dm for me friends. The story is coming along I'm start talking to me players about the setting and their classes. That's when I find out two of my three players have decided separately to break their characters. One decided he wanted to play a broken homebrew paladin class, oath of the shadows if you're curious, and the other player has refused to roll his stats I'm front of people. Just gave us his ability scores. The broken paladin has since changed his class and is playing a better class. But the stats changer is still refusing to reroll his stuff and is trying to make a broken magnificent Manson item for himself, "I'll have wish scrolls and vorpal swords on the wall" Am I in the wrong for wanting to start session one with forcing his to reroll or even forcefully nerfing him? Or should I let them break my world. I await your ruling most esteemed judges.

Chrys

Dear judges of highest regard and weird friend but still at least the bailiff Jake. My table and their party have a modified fleet of ships in a level 20 adventure. They’re very possessive of their ships and have a Halfling Artificer NPC to cast Mending or let me throw crazy Treasure Planet style missions through the planes by tinkering on ships. Are there certain NPC’s/items that logically fall into the Plot Armor for the campaign or do I still engage plotlines by having any NPC/ transportation killable/turn into a traitor/ships break even for a years long adventure? I will accept any judgement in my DM-ing or in the party’s fatal attachment to certain powerful people.

Charles

To the wise and mighty justices and whoever they've seen fit to replace Jake with. I've been running a West Marches style campaign for a few months. Since some of my players have wanted to try out some multiclasses and higher level play we decided to start at level 9. It's been great and a really fun time but I've been running into one problem. My one friend started playing a 3rd level Storm Herald Barbarian multiclassed with a 6th level Tempest Cleric. Basically every turn in combat he can blast an enemy back 10 feet with his Storm Aura combined with his Thunderous Strike. He'll then run up to them and engage them, keeping the baddie from being able to move without fear of opportunity attacks. This basically continues every turn until the bad guy is dead, a lot of the time without much challenge. Normally I'd spice it up and lessen this advantage by having alot of different opponents but these combats sometimes have 5-6 PCs so anything beyond one big enemy gets really clunky and takes forever. Now the possible crime I have committed has been to completely negate his play style by having them fight Huge or bigger enemies since Thunderous Strike only works on Large or smaller creatures. The last 4 sessions they haven't fought anything smaller than a hydra and the player hasn't been able to use the mechanic he basically built this character around. He hasn't called me out or anything but I can tell it's bumming him out a bit. Oh all knowing, all seeing justices, have I wronged my player who made an admittedly cool build? I throw myself at the mercy of the court and only ask how I might run these large table battles better in the future.

tanner ravenscroft

To the honorable Justices and the cool Bailiff I present you the case of the slow broom. I play as a wizard and I purchased a flying broom to avoid getting hit in combat. First combat I attempt to use the dash action while riding the broom and my DM would not allow me to use the dash action saying that it wouldn’t be realistic for a magic item to be able to dash. I have listened to the DMs ruling in this matter but I am curious how the Supreme Crit would rule.

zack proudfoot

To the mighty, powerful, and benevolent I offer a "hey sweetie" and to jack, tucker told me to tell you rents due. I'm was a kobold champ fighter in a campaign that ran to level 20, during a session I was unfortunately knocked out and teleported away before the party could help. The next session I was narrated to awake in a coliseum with none of my equipment just pants and my familiar toast the lizard. I was offered one magic item of my choice and if I beat the challenge I was permitted freedom. I choose wave as my weapon and my challenge was a tarrasque, i won initiative and due to some lucky crits I killed it on my second attack. The DM the described a second new tarrasque walking in and effectively replacing the first, after more crits and I managed to kill it aswell before a third walked it. After 3 rounds of initiative more crits then I've ever had in my life and 7 tarrasque dead I was killed along side toast. My question is am I allowed to be bothered that I was in a no win situation or should I just accept that I was already dead the moment I was teleported away.

Mackenzie Fresquez

The Case of the Postponed Level Up Honorable Judged and bailiff I just can’t bring myself to be mean to, I seek your expert judgement. May it please the court: My husband is running an XP-based campaign for me and our best friend. We had just finished fighting some scarecrows and in doing so earned enough XP to level up! We were on our way to a dungeon when we encountered the scarecrows, and it was night time, so I suggested we take a long rest so we could level up before entering the dungeon. But my husband said we were not allowed to level up until next session! I argued because we took a long rest we should be able to level up, and that I wanted to be stronger against whatever we encountered in the dungeon. Plus, with this level up I got an extra attack! He refused and we continued on with the session. The dungeon ended up being kind of boring and I have my suspicions that he took out some encounters on purpose to make sure we didn’t struggle too hard at our current level. Was I meta gaming when I took the long rest just to be able to level up? Did he have any grounds for postponing our level up? I humbly request your judgement.

Devyn N

To the honorable Justices Murphy Axford and Tanner, and the overwhelmingly adequate bailiff Jake, I present the case of The Garbage Returns as well as a small update on Percy and John the horse. I dm for a group that originally included a ridiculously broken but technically RAW Goblin named Squib, an artificer with AC of 24 who’s armor was made fully of scavenged garbage. Squibs player was very attached to him and he made for a lot of chaotic fun in the party but about 6 months in they found a deck of many things and Squib pulled the void card. His body remained and was shoved into a used tube sock he had previously converted into a bag of holding, he made a new character and things kept rolling but after a few sessions he wasn’t having as much fun so he tried a new character concept he thought would be more interesting. In a dragons dungeon I designed a fight in which the party fought cursed visages of themselves and because squib was with the party in body if not spirit he joined the fight and his player complained about how much he missed Squib so in the next session I revealed his soul hidden in the dragon’s hoard and they retrieved him. Now though he’s upset that his newest character didn’t get time to shine and wants to play both at the same time. Did I mess up by bringing squib back? Should I force him to drop his new character? I await your righteous judgement. P.S. Johns replacement was named “Not John the Normal Horse” and ironically after Johns death Percy never had his horse die in combat again and because Jake and Emily liked my original horses name so much last court session if you say what colors you guys want I’ll make both of you a set of dice and send them to you

Trevor Ayala

This is in the RAW. Basic rules page 74. "Flying movement" Flying creatures enjoy many benefits of mobility, but they must also deal with the danger of falling. If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the creature falls, unless it has the ability to hover or it is being held aloft by magic, such as by the fly spell. And no, being able to stay in the same spot while flying doesn't count as "hovering". That's in the RAW too. Hovering has it's own specific definition.

Drucilla Saxton-Wallace

Salutations beloved Justices and most indispensable bailiff, I present to y'all the case of: My husband's best friend's wife is amazing at the table, but my husband's best friend is...not We have been playing a homebrew 5e campaign for almost 2 years, and in that time our bard "Panda the Floozy" has given bardic inspiration one time. He does not engage with role play, preferring combat and "dealing massive hits" whenever he can, and makes wild uncomfortable erotic jokes but then tunes out completely whenever any NPCs try to meet him on that level. After discussion about what he actually wants from the game, I determined rogue would be a better fit for him, but remembered precedent set by this court re: customizing a class to do what the player actually wants to do without changing the name. This has had no effect, any after recent censure from the party for telling a flirtatious inn keep that he "just has to pull a cork out of my ass real quick," Panda decided to leave the party and attempt to burn down the inn with all of them inside. How do I either engage this bad actor in the noble game of D&D, or get him to leave without taking his wife (who is objectively great) with him? Am I just a bad DM? Everyone else seems to be having fun. I submit myself humbly to your wisdom and will eagerly accept advice or punishment.

Kevin nguyen

May it please the Supreme Crit and the esteemed bailiff Jake I present the case of not killing my drunk friend’s PC. My character braxus is a fallen planetar that lost his wife and memories centuries ago, after finally finding her we left the city before having a proper talk. My 2 party members wanted to go after a god instead. Teleporting to a town we saw a cart leaving and after talking with the owner we were stopped by soldiers. Refusing to go with the halfling told me to open the chest in the back, a crysis nano suit bonded to me and we killed the soldiers and fled. We went back later got TPKed and captured. I escaped because the suit couldn’t be peeled off me and I broke my wrist to slip my restraints and used my cubic gate. After a successful rescue, Preston’s cursed armor’s hidden detrimental property is revealed, an avatar of death offers an artifact for the soul inside his armor. I wanted the guy wearing the armor to make the decision but an argument broke out amongst our dm Brian and me and Cody. Preston had 204 hp and the armor took half to make a shadow clone. I killed the clone in the first turn of combat to prove a point. We got transported into the realm of death. After Preston said I didn’t care about my wife I stabbed him for 26 damage. When he went to claim the scythe we were promised. He failed the save for an effect akin to power word kill, if he had more than 100 hp he would drop to 1 and if he had below he was dead. He did not heal himself. But he was drunkand we all could tell, I messaged him saying he should be dead with 76 hp, but didn’t say anything to Brian. Brian definitely knew as we play on roll20 and has his sheet. Should I have spoken up and killed his character? I await your decision your honors

demifriend

May it please the esteemed court and a bailiff. I present to you The Case of The Forced Stereotypical Paladin. Many years ago, I joined my second ever campaign while in high school, playing a paladin named Ilios. Originally, Ilios’s backstory was that he inherited a cursed amulet that contained a mysterious deity, and that deity is where Ilios gained his powers. When I presented the character to my DM, the DM shot down the cursed amulet idea, saying that it wasn’t “what a paladin is”. I ended up having to play a pretty generic sun/light paladin. Upon starting the first session, which opened in a seaside town, Ilios went out and starting socializing with the townsfolk, with some of those interactions getting flirty. Shortly after hitting on someone, Ilios received a vision from his god, saying that he was very close to breaking his oath because of his flirting, and he needed to behave. Me and the DM did not previously arrange a vow of chastity or anything similar for Ilios, but Ilios stopped flirting regardless in fear of losing his powers. Later on during the same first session, Ilios took a long rest, during which the party rogue snuck up and stole ALL of Ilios’s stuff, and then the rogue ran away. Needless to say, there was no second session. Honorable justices, was I too far out of line as a player? Or did the DM just have it out for me? I await your ruling, great justices.

Emily E Morris

Oh, esteemed vessels and catalysts of the holy and gracious Dice Christ, I come before you with what I think is a confession. In our reoccurring sessions we have a problematic player that often uses black dice with dark numbers so it’s hard to see what he gets and he sits next to the dm screen so as to roll directly at its base. I sit next to him, however, and can read his rolls. This paladin player also tells the dm he gets crits when he does not. My dm has started to look to me while this player rolls damage to confirm the rolls. More often than not, they are false. We were fighting a mage with a bone golem and a fleet of undead soldiers and he said he rolled a crit. It was in fact a 2. I contemplated telling the dm that it was a crit, but couldn’t bring myself to lie. The dm then did what he always did. Took whatever damage the paladin player rolled and added that to the monster’s hit points. The fight ended with a npc death and the death of our beloved Bard-lock, Jimothias. I ask, humbly, if I should have confirmed the false roll as a crit and spared the lives of our party or was I right? Should I have see the 2 as an opportunity from Dice Christ, or have I acted as his agent. I feel very responsible for the deaths as I was the one silently deciding their fates.

Polliwog

I come to the most honorable supreme crit justices (and the often mistreated but never mistfit bailiff) with my DMing wizard hat in hand, seeking guidance. one of my players is a teenage dragonborn paladin sworn to the service of tiamat named Lou, who could best be described as a horny boyscout with an intense enthusiasm for blood and growing his “dragon’s hoard”. his in-character antics have resulted in some funny (and cringey) moments backed by genuinely solid dice rolls, but have drawn the ire of his other party members. They are now plotting (in secret) to foil his plans to become Tiamat’s #1 follower and ultimately free her from hell, going so far as to elaborately plan different situations in which they could cause his permanent character death. some examples of Lou’s antics: - made it his goal to begin every npc encounter by introducing himself and attempting to convert them to following the cult of Tiamat. anyone and everyone. - the player has described Lou as an intense car-fetishist, and has made attempts to engage in lewd behavior with a wagon - describes his worship to Tiamat as “worshipping himself if ya know what i mean” - has started combat encounters with dangerous NPCs with the interest of getting their gold, whether it puts the entire party in danger or not - has killed key npcs with knee-jerk reactions and critical attacks (seriously this guy is blessed by dice christ in all the wrong ways) i’ve encouraged the other party members to talk to him instead of plotting in secret, but they maintain that this plan is easier and better narratively. i don’t know whether or not i should tell Lou about this privately so as to help him not lose his character, or bring it up to the entire table and risk losing the trust of some of my close friends. any advice or solutions from the judges and bailiff would be very much appreciated.

Connor Schmid

May it please the esteemed Supreme Crit and the at times under appreciated bailiff(not sure if you’re being nice to Jake or not), I bring before you the case of the absorb elements spell and the out of control fire. In our campaign which deals with trying to find the right side between different imperialistic empires we were rescuing our bugbear fighter in an observatory that turned out to be the hideout of a demonic cult. In a totally unavoidable series of events our party triggered a trap that started a fire in the room we were in which contained some vital information on the bookshelves. After our first plan to stop the fire (eldritch blasting it) didn’t work my bladesinging wizard attempted to one of the first unselfish things in his life by trying to use absorb elements to suck in enough of the fire that it would be manageable. Knowing it wasn’t fully true to the language of absorb elements I asked my dm if I could take the full damage instead of half. He declined, the room burned, and we missed the information we needed. I didn’t press the issue because my dm is great and it’s the most enjoyable campaign I’ve been a part of but not getting the option to roll or take more damage to change the spell stuck with me. How malleable are spells and when is it ok to bend what they can do? I humbly await your judgement. (Quick P.S. thank you to Emily for introducing me to the tiny servant spell, just incredibly fun for no reason).

Lorelei G.

To the noble and ever-just members of the Supreme Crit and also to Jake Hurwitz, I present to you the tale of a goblin's death and a druid's guilt. Our party of four level 3 characters was tasked with clearing a castle of goblinoids and rescuing an NPC. We managed to infiltrate the castle and make a clean escape with the NPC, but after we returned to town, we decided to go back and clear the castle after all, for the reward and the sweet, sweet XP. The assault ended up going badly after the sorceress's player decided it would be a good idea to have his character go off on her own to tame an owlbear using only standard adventuring kit rations and my druid followed after to help her not get mauled, and we were forced into a fighting retreat. Pursued into the woods, we made a stand from within a cloud created by the Darkness spell. we were holding our own, but it wasn't going very well, since none of us could see through the cloud except for the sorceress, a fact which her player repeatedly reminded people of. Down to my last spell slot, I tried to cast Faerie Fire, to illuminate our enemies and help give everyone advantage against them, until the sorceress's player said that Darkness trumped Faerie Fire and so it wouldn't work. Frustrated, both by the long slog of the failed attack and also by this player's rules lawyer-ness, I decided to cast Ice Knife and blindly stab around with it as a melee attack. The DM had me roll a d6 to see who I hit, friend or enemy, which everyone thought was funny. Until it turned out that I had stabbed Droop, our orphaned goblin companion, who the fighter had personally taken under his wing and trained to protect himself. Dread filling me, I asked how Droop looked (to which the sorceress's player gleefully yelled, "You can't see him!"), and my heart sank even further when the DM replied, "Well, you know how NPCs have a maximum amount of damage that they can take before they permanently die?" Horrified at what I had done, I sat with a thousand yard stare for the next few minutes, until the session ended a few minutes later, since it was getting late. A funeral for Droop was held in the forest in the next session, but I couldn't come as I was traveling. I felt a huge amount of guilt, and I still somewhat feel like a monster. So, in conclusion, my questions are, is this the stupid prize that I win for playing stupid games, or was it unnecessarily cruel for the DM to not allow healing or death saving throws, or even to include the party's designated Little Buddy in my dice roll in the first place? Was this a case of involuntary goblinslaughter, or murder? Was the sorceress's player an annoying dick even though he didn't necessarily do anything wrong? I await your judgement, and will double any punishments dealt to me for the atrocity that I have committed.

Justin Loveless

May I please each Supreme Crit member individually while #1 Soy Boy Baliff Jake watches. I present my case. I was playing a half orc barbarian named Vrool, level 7, and at one point in the adventure our party was given horses. I turned down a horse, and instead insisted that my athletic as fuck Barbarian could keep up with the horses himself as we were only traveling a relatively short distance, about 8 hours. Even if the horses were galloping (they weren't), I insisted that my endurance would exceed that of the horses and I would have no problem keeping pace. I was not even given the opportunity to roll, and the DM just described my character as struggling to keep up but eventually making it with the party out of breath just to move the session along. He reasoned that it was illogical any person could keep up with a horse. Even though I faced no real consequences in the game, I felt cheated as my attempt to display Vrool's bad ass barbarian nature just fell flat. Was Vrool robbed of a potential big dick moment, or was my DM in the right and Vrool is just not that special? I await your judgement.

yumehop (no. 1 ol' cobb fan)

Honourable judges and Jake the beloved bailiff, I bring to you the case of the death dais. I am playing in a Curse of Strahd game with some homebrew sprinkled in. We were in an underground abandoned mindflayer city, and were trying to find a way out. We found a room with a bunch of skeletons, a dais, and a large water tank. After spending about 1 and a half sessions trying to figure out this room, we were at a loss for what to do. I decided, with the encouragement of the party barbarian, that we should hold hands and jump on this dais at the center of the room together. We got very excited about trying this plan, and convinced the remaining 3 party members to also hold hands and jump on the dais with us. We kept joking about how this could end in a TPK, so the DM eventually said "well, I didn't plan for it, but it could be a TPK right now". He made us roll some saves, and if we failed 2/3, we disintegrated. The problem comes where two of the party members didn't really know what was going on, and one person returned to the voice call while we were mid-jump and so he went along with our plan without knowing what was happening and lost his character. Only 2/5 people survived, and there was no chance of resurrection or reincarnation. Should we have waited longer to explore a room we had already spent weeks irl in? And was it unfair for the DM to make it so that the party druid couldn't even reincarnate us? I await your judgement.

Mitch (Sigg43)

Ark up! Knew you were Aussie before you wrote P.S Australian tour, though ditto! :) Come to Australia Naddpod!

Mason N.

To the Grand Court of Crit and f*ck you Jake, I am in a 10 person campaign and am playing the party's healer, a Life Domain Cleric named Coach Hawke Barski. As part of his backstory, he was always bullied during school and thus became a coach to put an end to bullying. While the party was sneaking past a group of guards, Coach Barski noticed a group of teens bullying a kid. He went over to confront the group and ended up getting punched in the nuts and getting table topped by the teens. For flair, the DM put him into a flash back of that exact thing happening to a young Hawke, and in the flashback I retaliated by punching the bully in the face. But in reality, he chose to be doing a 1st level Inflict Wounds uppercut to the teen bully in charge. It immediately killed the teen (who had commoner stats), and as a result, another party member, a Zealot Barbarian, did a reckless attack on me and downed me. Once the tension settled, and I was brought back up, I used all of my money and some of the other PC's money to do a Revivify on the teen. I get razzed about it from time to time, but I need to ask the court, am I in the wrong for playing along with the DM's flashback scenario and getting triggered by the trauma? Or should I have taken the high road and not retaliated? I await the court's decision in shame.

SwagDog85

To the inspiring Justices of the Crit; who can create unique and interesting 3-Dimensional characters, and the bailiff who is basically the equivalent of a human fighter with negative modifiers. I killed a PC and don’t feel bad about it at all. I purposefully targeted this player and made a BBEG make a suboptimal play to brutally kill this PC. The crime for why this PC needed to die as they were unoriginal and crude. We play at the local comic store and when I was chosen to be the DM, this player showed me a character who was an elven barbarian named “Moonshine.” When we started to play, the first thing out of this player's mouth was about the legendary dragon parts debate which we all remember during the halcyon days of the podcast. This was a table meant for families but I am a closeted NADPOD I didn’t want to kick them out so I asked for them to tone it down for the other players as I could see the fathers of the kids playing not wanting this to be a part of the game. We played for about 9 sessions before I killed them and during this time I offered different story beats to the original plot but they refused to take any hints and stuck on the path of becoming the OG Moonshine even multiclassing into circle of spores. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and in one of their fights with the BBEG Justin Time, a timelord/wizard (at least I admitted I wasn’t creative), he killed the player at the cost of his best minion Justin Case. The next week this player came to the table with Balnor, what do I do? I’m a Virgo. I have offered this player a seat at my home game. I have not told them I listen to NADPOD yet.

Elijah Green

To the most reverent and angelic justices and also Justin. I’ve been listening to your show for a few years now and felt I had gleaned enough info to be capable of DMing for a few of my close friends. After spending several days writing a campaign that I felt would be fun to play, I quickly realized my players didn’t share the same attitude. One player, a dwarf barbarian, insisted his character should be ‘racist’ towards elves because of a major war between the races in the past while the other player, an elven rogue, tried to make the most basic character imaginable by being average in every skill possible while not giving his character any personality. After a few sessions I decided to call it quits because I felt my efforts into crafting this world was wasted on these two. Should I have tried harder to make this work? I humbly await your absolute decision.

James W

May it please the beloved bailiff Jake, but NOT his court: I present to you the case of the overzealous dm. For the past few months, I have been a pc in a nearly-perfect campaign that is now on hiatus due to scheduling issues. Another pc offered to dm a casual, silly campaign in the meantime. Let the court take notice that we are of a BUSY and SILLY nature. In less than 24 hours, he produced a ten page overview of his imperialism-themed world, complete with centuries of gritty geopolitics and the promise of more to come. The next day, he sent us info on 50+ original deities, a list of “acceptable races,” and some fundamental changes to 5e rules. As his tirade continues, I fear he is growing upset with me for not immersing myself in his creation. In his defense, I have had low motivation to create a character after he has rejected my last two ideas due to “lack of forest” in which a ranger or nature cleric could survive. It has been less than a week and I am already feeling exhausted, and not even slightly silly. Honorable bailiff, am I right to think that this is insane?

Jack Francis West

Your Yass Slay Excellences and Quirked Up Bailiff, if it may please the court; I present the case of Crimes Against Goofmanity. In my first ever campaign, my best friend Jordan was playing a paladin named Godfre the Perfect. We were all newbies so the vibe was goofy and chill. Then the DM introduced a new player, a veteran, who was playing a min/maxed Half-Giant storm barbarian. The game began to be quickly de-goofified as this player introduced heavy giant lore and also punched my character in the face! 😠 (I was playing a 19 year old disgraced beauty pageant queen). In protest, Godfre killed a random prisoner (in order to liven things up) and was sent to jail, forcing Jordan to roll an elaborate series of new characters: - 3 sisters, appearing consecutively after the former would die in a random landslide for being annoying. - and my favourite, Sharee the Body Percussionist (rhythmic slapping underscored serious scenes). Jordan was kicked from the group that had originally supported his comedic tone and I soon followed. It became a huge source of trauma around DND for him. What the duck happened??? We lay our goofs before the court. ❤️

John Wiest

DICE CHRIST CONFESSIONAL: Holy Murph, Mother of Dice please forgive me for I have sinned. High Priests of Dice Christ I come to ask forgiveness for my CURSED D6's. I'm DMing for 4 (currently level 7) PC's for a few sessions now. It's a 3.5 module converted to 5e where a hobgoblin army is invading the land with the help of fiends and dragons with an end goal of summoning Tiamat. Most of the sessions have been hard fought battles, the party likes to try to do goofy things occasionally and they make the battle harder by splitting up. This last session they were infiltrating an abandoned city that had been sinking into the middle of a lake with the knowledge that there was a war camp with a dragon, a wrymlord, and some hobgoblins and lizard folk camped around and in some of the buildings. After a botched stealth mission with the gnome wild shaping into a lizard and separating herself to investigate the bell tower ahead of everyone else. She was momentarily caught while the rest of the party took a turn to close the 90ft of distance from the gnome. The fighting started with just the hobgoblins and lizard folks attacking the pc's. The bell rang from the tower for 3 straight rounds until the fourth round with most of the party was still outside of the bell tower fighting a large force of hobgoblins and lizard folk minions the young black dragon appeared with a Goblin Wrymlord on his back. Immediately released a breath attack early bringing down both the cleric and the druid. This is where the curse all began. I enjoy rolling in front of the table to see if the dragon gets its breath attack back. High Priests, 4 consecutive times the dragon received its breath attack back in front of the board and my PC's nearly died. The cleric dropped 3 times after being brought up each time just to drop again amongst some others but he spent most of the combat in between death saves and being prone trying to play dead.. Although my PC's came away victorious and no one died, the cleric told me after the game that my encounters are too hard and left me feeling kinda bad. I hope with your blessing Dice Christ will forgive me and will lift the curse laid upon my D6.

Kevin nguyen

Extra extra We had a 5 PC arena with our 2 new members, where he used the scythe to down me and chose to waste the amulet of life warding I gave him after rescuing him. We had a rather proud and powerful scene together to make up as we out at sea, only to be ambushed by space void pirates and him captured. I had to abandon their ship and my attempt of rescuing my friend I had literally just reconciled with after their captain threatened our ship with a Dead Star spell. Was this dice Christ claiming his soul?

Moon Question Guy

To the extremely honorable and attractive judges and the Small calved Probably flee ridden Milk drinking Porridge spilling Dumb faced Egg laying Banana peal slipping Dooftastic Mold licking Banana peal slipping again Addlepated stinky butt man Jake Hurwitz. That's all, I don't have a case or anything. I hope everyone but Jake has a good day.

Asher Mendelsohn

To the very honourable Justices Axeford, Tanner, and Brian...... and the pitiful bailiff. I present to you the case of the circumvented Frogbox. One of the players in my regular dnd group wanted to try DMing for the first time, he's been running Locathah Rising, an Underwater combat-heavy 5ish-shot with our PCs currently at level 10. My friend (our regular DM) is playing as Gring the Grung, a cavalier fighter with the polearm master and sentinel feats. This allows him to opportunity attack any creature that enters, moves within, or leaves a 10ft radius square centered around Gring and reduce that creature's speed to 0. AKA the Frogbox. Somehow, through the mysterious gift of all-knowingness, every enemy we've faced is aware of the frogbox and actively avoids it. The DM has done everything in their power to prevent Gring from using his 2 feats and class features. To date, Gring has never even gotten the chance to roll for an opportunity attack. After 2 sessions of this (and other bad DM choices I won't get into), we were annoyed to say the least. But the 3rd session, oh lordy the 3rd session, was the straw that broke the frog's back. We got into combat against 2 kraken priests. A few rounds in, they called for backup from a Young Kraken, which the DM said was inside a sunken ship. Important note: Frogbox was covering the only entrnace/exit of that ship. The DM thought the Young Kraken could squeeze past the 2.5ft area of the entrance that wasn't in the frogbox. Seriously dude? After we asked for clarification, the DM said the Kraken was Huge; this meant they could not exit the ship without activating Frogbox. We erupted in cheer as we chanted FROGBOX FROGBOX FROGBOX. That was the best part of the night. The DM then ruled that the Kraken would actually break through the wall of the ship and fully avoid Frogbox. Not only that, but the Kraken broke through the wall without using an action, without affecting their movement, without using an ability, nothing. Just freely got to swim through the wall and have a full turn. I nearly blurted how BS that was and my Gring friend, in real life, just left to go paint some minis. After our session, the DM asked why my friend "shut down". Please Justices, I beg of you, who is in the wrong? Our DM who refuses to lose at the cost of ruining the night, or Gring the Grung who was foolish enough to take 2 feats that allows for a super awesome reaction they can only use once per round?

Drumlined00d

May it please the court, The chaotic justice Axford, the Iron fist justice Murphy, and the always smiling justice Caldwell. (I guess the animal "loving" bailiff Jake.) I have an assassinrogue In my game. One of his abilities let's him get a critical hit on any hit as long as certain conditions are met. He met those conditions and rolled a natural 20. In the heat of the moment. I decided that, if any hit is supposed to be a critical, then a natural 20 should do quadruple damage. I fear that since I ha e said that, I can not take it back. Have a made a mistake allowing the assassin ability to quadruple damage if a natural 20 is rolled?

Thunderous Turtle

To the fair and just supreme court justices, presumably spoken through a bailiff who may or may not be known to you. I'm bringing forth the case of the silenced character. My first time ever playing D&D and met some people through a local group who wanted new members. We played a one shot with myself (Air Genasi Fighter) and two other new players to the group who have played before. The DM and another two others knew each and have played before hand. We played a one shot on an evening with a soft end time of 11pm due to work the next day. The two players who knew each other played characters who both did not want to take initiative or move the story forward (presumably to allow us to). We get to the final section around halfpast midnight. Ominous crypt up ahead and then a few small ones on the side. The two passive players suddenly start beelining to the crypt. I follow. The other two new players head to the smaller ones and there is a riddle in each one. The ranger struggles... both the character and player. After lots of attempts, a skeleton and proding they succeed. Then they move to the next small crypt. Meanwhile the three of us are waiting at the stairs. Another struggle and my character walks back to check on them, about the time they make the third small crypt. They explain the process and the riddle appears. My character goes, oh so you mean it wants something like 'insert answer'. The ranger makes noise and before the DM speaks goes 'oh i slapped my hand over his mouth so none of what he said came out'. My character then leans against the wall and watches. They struggle and at one point the DM asks if I would attempt again, my character would not. I head back after they solve and we fight and defeat the ghosts. I did not come back. Was I being petty and should have let it go and see how the group developed or was it weird and messed up what the Ranger did? I await the harshest of judgment. P.S - With a new group and we my wheat farmer Oath of Vengeance Paladin helped killed a Beholder.

Phil E

To the regal justices and the erinaceous bailiff Jerome, I present the case of the nat 20 fiancé fiasco. I was playing a severely ill and bitter tortle when our party saw a halfling proposing. A machine cast Tasha’s hideous laughter derailing the proposal. The halfling ran off and, once we found him, I rolled a nat 20 persuasion roll to convince him that he was better off without her. I knew full well the laughter was due to a magical effect but resented their happy relationship. The DM allowed it and the halfling seemed consoled but immediately reconciled after seeing his sweetie second later. I argued that my nat 20 should have ruined their engagement. The DM said there may be long term seeds of doubt planted but I think I should have at least gotten to see a fight where the tiefling comically blurts out something that forever changes the way his partner sees him (think hardwon telling tris he actually enjoys reading). So I ask, should a nat 20 be capable of destroying a marriage? Is that how Jill met tucker? I humbly await your verdict.

Dean Barr

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. I beg you as representatives of Dice Christ's holiness to bestow your judgement on me. As a DM I fudged hp, forgive me but I fudged it. It was the last combat of the session and it was the new player's first session of D&D ever. The night was drawing to a close and would end after the current combat. In one turn she killed one enemy and then crit on the last enemy with a bonus action. It had one hp left, only one! I wanted to so desperately spread the joy of Dice Christ through ttrpgs and recruit a new player into the D&D fold that I took fate into my own hands. I decided the will-o-wisp was dead, I asked the new player how she finished the fight. My intentions were good but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I know I have done wrong, the dice should command all. Please, how may I redeem myself? Your faithful servant. Dean

Aly

Oh honorable and greatly messy justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and...... John. I bring to you the case of some fucky health potions. Our party of 4 has no healers and as such, our benevolent DM has often gifted us potions. They're a homebrewed style that administer a full 10-20 hp depending on the potion, but take a full action to do so. The trouble comes when our barbarian goes down to negative 9 hit points. I rush over and give her our last potion to which my dm announces that she pops back up at 1 hp. We don't say anything in the moment to avoid drama because the fight is already tough and we kinda wanna be done, but my eyes lock with the barbarian's and we know that doesn't feel right. Ultimately, we did win the fight, but the barbarian (at 1 hp) became a huge liability that we all had to keep alive without any other forms of healing. So I ask, justices, should I have kept my mouth shut to keep the peace between DM and table or should I have asked why our potions were so weirdly made to factor in negative hit points? I await your judgment.

Nina K

To the sultry Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and to the stately bailiff Joke Hurwitz: I present the case of the hopeless Hide action. In a recent session, our party found ourselves fighting a group of city guards in a warehouse filled with crates. Our party's rogue attempted to use Cunning Action to hide as a bonus action on his turn. The DM said that there wasn't anywhere to hide, so the rogue couldn't use the hide action. The rogue then suggested that he use his movement to go behind a pile of crates drawn on the battlemap and hide there, but our DM said that even though the crates were stacked taller than the rogue and were lined up in order to effectively create a wall, the rogue couldn't really hide there, as the enemy "would still know he was behind there." I gently pointed out that in movie gunfights, people duck around corners and hide behind piles of stuff, but when pressed, I absolutely blanked and could not name a single movie. Our DM said the rogue would have full cover, but wouldn't be able to hide behind the crates. Nobody thought it was that big a deal, and anyway hide action is ultimately up the the DM's discretion, so we moved on. However, I still maintain that a person can totally hide behind a stack of crates in a fight. Am I right to believe that this is a thing that has happened in movies even if I can't name any and searching "fight in warehouse movie boxes and guns" does not offer any results, or is my DM right that the enemy would know the rogue's location behind the crates with enough specificity that the hide action would be useless?

PG Lusk

To justices Murph, Axford, Tanner, Oyama, Wilson, Iyengar, Lepetite, Yaffe, Beardsley, Cobb, and anyone else I may have missed, I am so so sorry, please forgive me. I'm currently in a bi-weekly Curse of Strahd campaign (playing a Samurai Fighter with a musket), and last session, I realized it's been a while since we've done any combat. It's mostly been social encounters and mystery solving, which I love, but I still like to roll fat dice. I checked the logs, and found we haven't rolled for initiative since OCTOBER 2021. I brought this up to my DM, and while the amount of combat has increased marginally, he will now sometimes end sessions with combat encounters that he explicitly says "are for me as a treat", which makes everyone laugh and me feel a little patronized. Am I right to feel this way? Or was I bringing this upon myself by opening my big fat stupid mouth?

Quinn Campagna

To the most esteemed justices and the bureaucratically necessary bailiff, I give you the case of Ranger and Druid vs. the DM. My ranger and druid players wanted to tag team and cast Beast Sense on the Wild Shaped druid. I argued that the creature type of a druid doesn't fully change when using wild shape, on the grounds that the druid keeps their mental stats. They disagreed, so we mutually agreed to submit to the arbitration of the Supreme Crit. Am I right to not allow this, or do rules as written allow Beast Sense to be used in this way? P.S.- In the meantime, I have allowed them to do essentially the same plan with a Polymorphed party member.

Tim The Enchanter

May it please the court, the captivating but equitable justices and the alluring but banal bailiff. May I present the case of the Butt-Stealing Bird. About seven years ago, I was playing in my first real D&D campaign. We had a party of six, and almost all of us were new to the game…all but one. And let me tell you, he was a rules lawyer. He would argue with almost every ruling the DM made, even when all the rest of us just said to go with the DM and move on. Now we jump into the scenario at hand. Our DM arguer is playing an Aarakocra Monk. We had just obtained a small relic that we were tasked with finding, and one of my party members, a Half-Orc Rogue, wanted to be funny. With the DM’s allowance and a high roll, the rogue hid the relic up his butt. Now, the rest of the party didn’t object to this (it wasn’t the first time this character hid valuables in his butt), so we moved on. Except, apparently the DM Arguer DID object, which he didn’t let anyone know until the next combat we got into. During the fight, on his first turn, he proceeded to try and roll Sleight of Hand to remove the relic from the butt of the unwilling rogue. This of course angers the rogue, and they proceed to 1v1 while the rest of us fight a brutal battle against lizard-folk. At the conclusion of the battle, the monk manages to knock out the rogue, which definitely spurs the party to question what happened. The monk (and more importantly, the player) refused to acknowledge that what he was doing was causing strife. After I (a Paladin) had healed the rogue, he immediately turned to the monk and knocked him unconscious. The talk continued out of character to get the DM Arguer to see that no one liked what he was doing. He still didn’t yield. At this point, one of the other party members, a Bear Sorcerer, looked at the DM, mimed placing his bear paw on the monk’s head and then pushing down. With that, the monk died. The DM arguer stood up, ripped his character sheet and threw it down, and walked out the door. Justices, was our party in the wrong for what happened? Should we have not let the character be fully killed? Was there any saving grace for this character/player? I await your decision, and should our party be found guilty of any crimes, I offer myself as tribute to bare alone the full weight of the Court’s punishment. Thank you.

Heyyitsphil

To the esteemed J&J (Justices & Jake): I've been running an on-and-off game for six of my friends for about a year and a half. When I had them send me their character sheets before the campaign began, I discovered that one of my friends (who wasn't a super experienced player) had created a warlock with a -2 to Charisma. I explained to him that Charisma was the most important stat for a Warlock and that this choice would severely weaken his character, but he insisted on keeping her stats as is, which I allowed. When his character unsurprisingly ended up being the heel of the party in combat (which I didn't see as a huge issue since it's a roleplay-heavy game), he recently asked if he could increase her Charisma to an 18. I refused, saying that I had given him a chance before the game began and wouldn't allow a completely arbitrary stat increase. To compensate, I helped him change her build to include spells like Hex and Armor of Agathys that don't use your Charisma stat, and am currently having the party trek through the Abyss to free his character from her patron (which would end with her receiving a new patron and a Charisma reroll). Judges, I ask: am I being overly harsh by making my friend wait a few more sessions to "earn" a stat boost, or am I right to make him sleep in the bed he's made a little bit longer? (in case pronouns are confusing: player uses he/they, character uses she/her)

Trevgar Beardbrook

May it please the needy justices, and the bodaciously confident Bailiff Jake. I present: Is a Bard a Preformer in its Essence? My borther does not think so. He insists that simply having a magically tuned instrument on his person, his character would simply be able to draw magic from it. I think that defeats the purpose of the bard as a class, unless character development eventually leads to the Bard playing the instrument. But my brother disagrees, saying his Bard should not need to be a preformer in any way; "no other class requires a personality type." He claims the magic should just flow without prefermance or musical ritual of any kind. I put our fate in your hands. Yours truly, Justin Beiber

Kris White

To the honorable justices and to the lower seated but just as honorable,bailiff Jake, I invite you to hear the case of “Shiny Toys” or as I like to call it, the greed of a child. I am a long time listener from first release of episode one and finally after all this time have taken my calling DM my first campaign. Deciding to use the D&D starting kit “Dragon of Icespire Peak” and just finished our third quest. On this quest however, I found that my players have been having a hard time playing nice and sharing loot with the rouge, on brand, trying to take it all first. I will say that I though the rouge would be different having a backstory involving being in the military but quickly found out that this was not the case. Full disclosure, this campaign consist of my wife, sister(adult) and parents; who all but my sister( rouge) have never played before.I suspect that the blame may fall to me so I ask for your punishment to be fair and may you help correct my ways for the future games to come. -Kristopher W

Nick

May it please the court, and provide the bailiff with whatever emotional lift he needs for the day. This is a case about momentum; narrative, and physical. My crew had just plane jumped to Avernus and we found ourselves precariously positioned at the top of a colossal cliff, our cart ready to careen and crash toward chaos. The butterfly wings of destiny - and fun storytelling - flapped, and our balance tipped us over and down toward the hellish chasm below. Our wonderful DM challenged us to figure our ways to safety in a matter of just three lightning-fast rounds, a portentous portal to the perils of hell that lay ahead. I, the affable (and sometimes cocksure) paladin, waited until my final turn and then cast "misty step" when I was just 35 feet above the ground so that I would appear just 5 feet in the air, supposedly not taking any falling damage. Much to my surprise, my DM then asked me to roll the full falling damage for the entire height of the cliff. He said that misty step had only sped up my descent as I kept my momentum from the fall and landed with the full accelerated speed when I re-appeared 5 feet above the ground. I didn't contest too much as I trusted I would survive - and did survive - but most importantly, I felt the momentum of the story was kept alive by playing along with the fun of the fall. But, auspicious judges and bailiff, should the "momentum" rule of misty step and other such teleportation type spells apply in all cases?

Jen

Hello justices, popes, d20 dice pool, and that guy that can read (maybe). I have not a dice Christ confession, but a submission for sainthood for my party. They aren’t dead. Idk how y’all do things around here, but thought I’d ask. My party was formed during Covid, everyone had no idea how to play, and we created a magic NYC campaign because we lived around there. And I love showtunes. I ask for sainthood for Whiskars, Safrina, Valxora, and Barth. A rouge, a sorcerer, a wizard, and a ranger. A criminal, an entertainer, a librarian, and a bus driver. These people made my dream come true of playing Dnd for the first time, but this isn’t about me. During their casual time travel back to the Revolution to help Hamilton fight for New York, the encountered a chrono magic dragon. They decided the best course of defeating this dragon at level 15 was by shovel. Whisker went first. Nat 20. Barth next. Nat 20. Passed the shovel to Val. Nat 20. Safrina was the last to go. At this point, they’ve done well over 100 damage. “Hit another Nat 20 and I’ll triple this shovels stats.” Of course she did because why not. The shovel became golden and magically carved with their adventures, like a Grecian vase. Before that, time and time again this party hit crit after crit for the most satisfying narrative beats. Immorality? Nat 20? Meeting a unicorn in NYC subway? Nat 20. Stitching an octopus arm onto the fallen ranger in the middle of combat? Nat 20. I’m getting married in October and they are all coming. I would love to give them this gift. Or like, idk, a minor blessing. Thank you. Amen. Peace be with two. -Bramblepelt, 45 year old tabaxi cleric the size of a house cat.

DC47

If I may be so bold as to address the omniscient Justices, and the always benevolent bailiff Jake Horowitz, and present my case. In a recent session we were battling 3 water based creatures, including a young kraken. Early in the fight my character was swallowed by the kraken, and effectively removed from combat. When my turn came around I asked a few questions like, am in still in it's mouth, and can I see out at all? The answers were no, your in its throat and restrained and blinded. So, since I was stuck I figured I may as well just activate my immovable rod, which should at least cause some discomfort, or mobility issues for the beast. My DM just replied that the immovable rod is now part of the krakens' treasure and had no effect. Despite surviving the battle in the end, I still feel pretty salty and believe that something should have happened, and my DM screwed me out of being any help in the fight? Ever had a fish bone stuck in your throat? It may not kill you, but definitely messes up your dinner. I await your perfect judgment! See you all in Vancouver, DC

Harry B

Dear Supreme Crit Justices and the bale lifter. I’ve been DMing for a few months and I’ve got a bit of a meme player. This time they wanted to attempt the “Peasant Railgun” a ridiculous meme involving ready actions, the fact that a turn is 6 seconds, and the fact that a peasant (or soldier in this case) takes up 5ft space to instantly pass an object along a line of people to “accelerate it to insane speeds”. I told them it wouldn’t work. They insisted it would. I let them know that if they wanted to attempt it they could waste time and money on it but I advised against it. After a surprisingly good charisma check to convince the soldiers in their army to line up and attempt it I ruled that the final soldier in the chain was basically throwing the pole like a javelin and because it was long distance the soldier threw with disadvantage and missed the castle. The player yelled bullshit, it should be travelling at over 450 km/h and blow the castle wall up. I disagreed. They spent the rest of the session having a sook. Was I wrong to shut down this bullshittery? Ps bring Naddpod to Australia

Hoid's Friend

To the honorable justices and the generous bailiff Jake, I present my case: I'm playing a divine soul sorcerer with very poor strength (4) in a campaign with friends from high school. One of them is a fighter with 20 strength and through backstory + a very fun magic item, they get +11 to all athletics checks. In our most recent session, we were on the run after a heist went sideways and decided to jump over a low wall to lose some guards. Our DM asked us to roll athletics checks in order to make it over the wall without having to use an action so we could dash, noting it was a DC of 10 as it was only about 6 feet high. I rolled a 2 (shout out!), resulting in a negative 1 athletics check, to which the DM allowed me to narrate my character comically unable to scale the wall and (mechanically) having to use my action to get over the wall rather than dash. Our fighter, however, rolled a nat 1, and our DM ruled they fully lost their turn, not allowing the option to use their action to get over the wall. I argued that since the fighter's athletics was way better than my sorcerer's and their athletics score was a 12 after adding their bonus, they technically beat the DC, so they should have at the very least been able to use their action to get over the wall like my character did. The DM argued that a nat 1 always results in failure. I agree that it's fun for nat 1s to have consequences, but shouldn't the fighter have failed in the same way as my sorcerer by being able to use their action to get over the wall? Honorable Justices and Generous Bailiff, I await your judgement and will honor your response. (two points of clarification - 1. nat 1s in our campaign are almost always failures and only sometimes are punished further than a normal failure. I would say its about 80% of the time normal failure, 20% of the time extra special failure, which is usually very fun. 2. As a result of the fighter being stuck behind the wall, they ended up losing half their hit points as they got caught by some guards and had to burn a couple spells and abilities to stay alive until the party was able to run back to their aid)

Ollie

To the most high and holy of crit justices Murphy, Tanner, and Axford, and I guess bailiff Jake if he must be there. I bring to you the case of the abandoned wife and son, and I ask for your ruling on who caused our campaign to end. I was playing a half-elf paladin, alongside a human rogue, and a badger-folk wizard. Our campaign took place in a post apocalyptic world, dominated by ash covered wastelands known as the great pale. The main campaign storyline involved us finding out what caused the great pale, but the current mission we were following and were heavily invested in was tracking down the rouge’s missing wife and son. We finally found the son (now a were-badger) in a region where the worship of a god named The Scavenger was common. We fell into some well executed traps laid by the DM and found the party split. The rouge completely surrounded by scavenger worshipers, myself - the paladin - riding to his aid on the back of a giant hyena, and the wizard about to Witness a summoning of The Scavenger God himself. Mouth-watering stuff. This is when the dm narrated us all being portalled away, completely taking us out of the situation. We were placed hundreds of miles north and set back to the ‘main quest’ by an NPC that our characters were not fond of. Myself and the rogue refused, deciding we were not done with finding his wife and son who were now abandoned. And so we immediately rode back south. We offered to make stand-in characters to go with the wizard while our main characters traveled back south, but the campaign never continued and the DM has ever since accused us of derailing the campaign. I put to the court it was the dm who derailed the campaign by portalling us away and am saddened to insist you punish him.

Ryan Johnson

Almighty Supreme Crit Justices and the sanctified bailiff Jake from Statefarm(copyright) I am a player in a Disney focused campaign where every PC is a descendent or indirectly associated with a character from a Disney film/ fairy tale. I am worried I was selfish against my fellow PCs. My DM is very liberal with powerful magic items and artifacts. My PC Kush, was a Tortle Circle of the Moon druid Barbarian multiclass descended from Crush in Finding Nemo. My DM allowed the party to loot a very powerful Artifact called Wave. A sentient weapon that was forged to kill King Triton. The party gave it to my PC because it fit thematically with me. I side-barred with the DM out at lunch one day about maybe killing Kush off so I could play as a badass Paladin/Warlock from Wonderland. We ended up colluding and hatching a plan to turn Kush evil and corrupted by Wave. We had a lack luster reveal and Kush teleported away to kill King Triton. Leaving the other players confused. I handed my character sheet to the DM and shrugged. But I felt bad for feeling like I was making Kush more important than their PCs. My new character is super subservient and a real bro who supports the party’s ambitions because of this and I absolutely love RPing as him. but was I wrong in colluding with the DM instead of just killing Kush off in a blaze of glory?

Postmodern Prometheus

To the wise and benevolent judges, and the second-best bailiff in the room. May it please the court! A couple of years ago we were playing a one shot where my DM said homebrew content would be allowed. I was playing a gnome ranger so invented a sort of shotgun-crossbow as she was a bit of a tinkerer. The weapon would do 3d4 damage in a 10 foot cone (so you still had to be pretty close to the enemy to use it and there was a chance of doing damage to other party members in melee with the enemy). I ran this by my DM before the session and he said the weapon sounded fair and balanced. In my first round of combat I moved close enough to the enemy to use the weapon only for the DM to decide it was overpowered and he said I couldn’t use it. He took this away from me and when I asked if I could choose another weapon from the Player’s Handbook he said, ‘No, you’ll have to find a weapon in the world’. I then went to cast fog cloud to help me escape from what was essentially melee range on my next turn only for my DM to say ‘That’s not how fog cloud works.’ I spent the rest of the session weaponless as my DM said all of the weapons the enemies were using were too big for a gnome to use and he used the same argument when my fellow party members offered me their spare weapons. For the rest of the one-shot, I was handing out goodberries to injured party members - a noble pursuit, however I wasn’t playing Cousin Cooter. Was my DM right? Was my weapon overpowered or should the previously agreed homebrew have been allowed? My fate rests in your hands.

Steven Hamonic

Great Justices, and Bailiff Jonk Honkowitz I come to you with the case of Accused Railroading. My players are in a tournament arc, where they've teamed up in pairs to fight other NPC teams of 2. I told them the fights would be hard and they'd need to strategize to win. They all won their first rounds, but I badly injured the Rogue when he climbed a pillar and the Rune Knight Centaur opponent toppled it with his massive strength. The second round, the Rogue's team lost because they didn't strategize at all and got beaten up by a raging barbarian that they decided to get into a blow-for-blow fight with. I activated a plan I'd had which allowed them to be called up to continue in the tournament by having one of the NPC teams get disqualified. This caused the Rogue to complain "I don't like being railroaded, if us winning or losing doesn't matter- we just get to keep playing?" Am I wrong to have had a plan to let one team continue in the tournament? Or should I have let them fail and get 8th place? I await your judgement. NPC hotness update: the NPCs in the tournament are all hot. I have heard no complaints.

Kevin Seery

Dear Esteemed and Wise Justices, and the lowly, craven, guest of man known as Jeremiah. I have been running a 5e campaign for several months, and recently a player has asked to run a concurrent campaign based on the Spelljammer source books set in space, where different worlds are essentially different planets. The PCs would essentially get to travel from world to world on arcane spaceships and have adventures. He asked could he add my campaign world as a planet, and I agreed assuming it wouldn't come up until a few sessions down the line. Unfortunately I was wrong, first session the new PCs landed their spaceship on my campaign world, right in the centre of my largest major city, and long story short, despite me trying to stop them, they murdered several of my key NPCs. I tried to laugh it off as non canon, but my player turned DM insisted that since this is his campaign he can decide if it is canon or not, and that if I didn't respect that in my campaign going forward, I was basically saying he was a bad DM. The worst part is the other players agreed! I now have the choice of whether to insist this is all non-canon and piss off my players, or try and salvage my ruined campaign and hope they don't choose to alter it further. So I ask you learned judges, am I wrong to feel hard done by my players here?

Dr. Bearkele

Your GM sounds like a douchebag who wanted to defeat you as players and needs to read about why we play DnD...

Ghostlylamp

To the honorable justices of the court and there emotionally drained baliff who puts up with to much. I humbly ask your forgiveness and dice christ peace for my actions. I was playing as a beast barbarian 6th level in a urban fantasy 5e game set in sanfrancisco. My barbarian had just been hit with the spell wall of thorns by a witch and he had survived it but the wall was still up. He then proceeded on his turn to use his movement and use his action to shove the witch he was fighting into the wall of thorns she had created dealing the 7d6 damage to her. I later found out she was meant survived the encouter we had for story purposes but i had rolled high in my attempt to catch her and throw against the wall. I feel bad that i killed a possible future way bigger bad in there beginnings and feel bad i took away one of my dms main villians to early. How can dice christ forgive me? How can i forgive myself?

Tom Oxnam

Distinguished panel of judges and Tinguished Bailiff Jake, I play in a game where we recently had a miniboss combat against a centuries old mage who "eats" magic. Before the fight started the DM asked for a list of every single magical item we had on us (including potions, family heirlooms, weapons etc) and whenever we got hit in combat and failed a saving throw a random item would get "eaten. By the end of the combat we'd lost easily 1/4 of the magical items we'd collected over the 3 years of playing including important items needed to destroy the BBEG. We found no evidence of our items and upon asking one of our patron gods we discovered that they were destroyed entirely and there was no possible way to get any of it back. Were we as players right to feel a little salty at losing so many items that we spent so long amassing or was the DM justified in stealing our gear to create a unique boss fight? The energy at the table was a little gloomy after but we've all moved past it now, thank Dice-Christ.

Lizard Breath

Honorable Justices and Bailiff Jake, Howdy! I hope y'all are having a good summer. I ask for your judgment on a first-time DM changing my backstory. Before the campaign started, we met and created my character’s backstory. I pitched Roxane, an eladrin ranger who’s a loser jock in a toxic long-distance relationship. In Roxane’s backstory, the DM and I established that her girlfriend Agnes (a noble) was the one who sent her out traveling to begin with, asking Roxane (not a noble) to find an heirloom that didn’t exist to prove herself worthy. The real reason she wanted Roxane gone was so she could marry someone “suitable” without having to awkwardly break up. That was set 4 years before the start of the campaign, with them mailing letters to each other since then. In a recent session, the DM and I role-played a sending stone call between Agnes and Roxane. The DM said Agnes broke down crying on the call, saying she thought Roxane was dead after she disappeared 4 years ago. It turns out that Agnes’ mom had used magic to disguise herself as Agnes to send Roxane on this wild goose chase so she could force Agnes to get married (I guess her mother was also the one responding to Roxane’s letters?). Agnes revealed that she was now trapped in a loveless marriage, had a toddler, and she had truly loved Roxane all along. She said she was now going to leave her husband, take her kid, and find Roxane! I was shocked. The DM messaged me after the session, asking how I felt and saying we could do some creative work if I didn’t like it. I’m going to be honest, I have been smelling the DM sweat a lot in this campaign and I didn’t want to embarrass him by making him go back and try again in front of the party, so I said it was fine. I love a good surprise, but I liked my shithead elf’s original backstory, and I am pretty annoyed he did this. Honorable Justices and Bailiff, was that not a batshit move to pull on me? Should I have set him straight right there, regardless of potential embarrassment? I await your judgment.

Frankie C.

To the Honorable Bailiff Jake, and his coworkers I guess, I present to you “The Case of the Banished Manager”. 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 at 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 immediately to rescue my employee, and our DM described that I saw a Yeti swallowing him. 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. Our DM argued that Jerry was swallowed, and so he would get banished with the yeti, but I countered that our DM specifically described Jerry as “halfway down the gullet of the Yeti”, not completely swallowed. Thus, Jerry should be grappled and not banished. 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 you rule Jake? I humbly await your decision and accept the possible consequences.

The Witchin' Lounge

To the illustrious and pious triumvirate Murph Murphy, Emily Axford, and CalderWell Tanner and the exalted yet Hurwitz archdeacon Jake Humble, I have a confession for Dice Christ. I have a wonderful blessing of having those in my circle who find themselves called to play D&D, yet with all the polyhedral dice that grace my domicile, I have yet to properly answer the call to DM. The one time I tried was a mid-tier experience that my brain only paints as a calamitous failure. Please assign me some penance to cure this affliction of being a Scaredy-cat DM.

David Moelker

Great Justices who give our lives hope and meaning in our meager arguments with each other. Bailiff I hope you have been enlightened by another chance to be gazed upon by the judges faces. I present the case of the Nat 1 leading to downing myself. I was playing a Rune Knight Githyanki in Baldur's gate and we got in a fight with some guards. It was going decently with most of them going down but then I got hit by a crit and was brought down to 2 HP. I then made my own attack and rolled a nat 1 which wasn't great, but then My DM said to roll for damage, Excited thinking I Broke the floor or something I rolled max damage including my giant's strength die, and dealt 21 damage. My DM then says, I take that. Which, since I had rolled poorly and had low max HP, instantly killed me. My DM found this hysterical and to this day loves to say he made a character 'commit suicide'. My DM had never made nat 1's hit ourselves before for any of us or the enemy and only started at this exact moment. I loved my character and would have preferred this not to be his end. Am I the crazy one? Are nat 1's supposed to be this bad? I pray The court hears my plea and sees my plight.

Collins

To the most honorable of justices who bring true justice upon our land and the most pathetic blorgo jake, I started my first online campaign with people i did not know personally or very well just a desperate desire to play dnd. I had played before with friends who only played for a few sessions before growing bored but I remained wildly obsessed. I love making characters and backstories and made a circle of stars druid tiefling character who had a very academic based back story (cloistered scholar background) and when i finally got to use this character in a campaign(the campaign in question being the online campaign), in the session zero our fighter consistently made comments on how my build was bad and how they were ready to potentially go into pvp against me bc their character didnt care for magic users when the rest of our party WERE use magic users but they only brought up their hatred for magic users when my character got to make an attack. And we ended up fighting a lot of undead which circle of stars actually are wildly OP with and the fighter was insanely made that I ended up doing the most damage and having the most kills. I tried to engage thme in roleplay constantly and create some sort of rapport. Wventually they did try to fight another magic user in the party. Should I have pushed the issue early on as the first person they had an issue with and also the first person to experiment with their boundaries. Or should i have just let them try to kill our arkane trickster rogue for stealing with magic

Bee H

To the wise and all-knowing Supreme Crit Justices and the street smart Bailiff Hurwitz, I present "The Case of the Murdered Matriarch and Ruined Revivify". I'm a Halfling Druid in a homebrew game with some friends from University. A few sessions ago while in my character's hometown, our Cleric told us he had seen an NPC that had previously murdered someone right in the middle of the street. After I used Locate Object and a wild shape to hunt this man, the party found my character's grandmother lying bloodied in her very own classroom, and the murderer escaped. The Cleric cast Revivify, with my character and the Halfling Monk of our party assisting to lower the DC. Now here comes the crux of the problem: our Monk rolled a Nat 1 on her check, and the DM did not let her reroll it, saying that "this is not a normal ability check". We Halflings protested, but the DM would not relent, and thus the Nat 1 remained. I was allowed to roll the deciding Revivify roll, and did not meet the DC, leaving my character's grandmother dead. I ask the Court; were we wronged? Or does Halfling luck only go so far? I humbly await your judgement.

Mich Blackie

Hail to the most honourable justices and the awesome bailiff (love you Micah!) I present the case of the dumb intellectual. During a recent session zero I presented what I thought was an uncontroversial build: Bubble, a sea elf divination wizard with an excitable and curious personality. My DM asked a few standard questions, got my stats and asked about how Bubble would act in certain situations. One was “would she be likely to fall for a con-man?” I laughed and said “yeah, I think she’s a bit of a dumbass.” At this point another player piped up and said, “I thought you said she had an intelligence of 18?” I said she did, but she has low wisdom and I think its fun to be kinda gullible and naive. He said that didn’t make sense, and if I was going to have high intelligence I needed to RP like it. I was pretty annoyed by this and said I could RP however I liked. At this point the DM cut in and said the other player was right!? That there were disadvantages to playing high intelligence characters, and I should consider changing how I was planning to play Bubble. I was shocked into silence, and the rest of the session zero continued. Afterwards I spoke to my DM to ask if I really had to play my character super straight, and he said yes. Part of being a wizard was being the brains of the party. I said I could still do that and be a goof. He said that he would prefer I didn’t so there was a “straight man” in the party. Justices, is this the complete nonsense I think it is? Or should I accept the role my DM wants me to take in the party? I humbly await your verdict.

Tucker Collins

From: Sloth-a-mancer Esteemed Clergyfolk of Dice Christ, I am an eternal DM and have had just a couple opportunities to play as a player. During the first time as a player, in a one shot run by one of my regular players, the boss was a lich. During the combat, fearing that my lvl 8 wizard would be an easy target, I polymorphed myself into a mammoth. I then made a breach of action economy and attacked the same turn, dealing a substantial amount of damage. On my next turn I disengaged to run away, so that in the third round I could charge again. When that turn came, I crit on the charge, and crit on the bonus action stomp attack afterward, dealing around 100 points of damage. I don't remember if this was the final blow against the lich or not but it was over very quick, even though we were only level 8. Having never run a lich, I looked it up after the game and realized they are immune to nonmagical damage. While it was an exciting combat, my memory is sullied knowing that the damage never should have happened, and that I had taken two actions in the first turn. Dice Christ forgive me.

Dench Judy

May it please the court. To the Dutiful and Beautiful Crit Judges and the Silly, Sexy Bailiff jAKE. hURWITTZ. I present to you the case of the Problem Bard of Eloquence. I am DMing my second campaign for a group of friends and they are level 3. One of my PC’s is a Tiefling Bard of Eloquence which is a subclass that can’t roll below a 10 on persuasion and deception checks. He gets crazy numbers and he’s most recently tried to convince an Oni who has backstory ties with another PC, that he was a hostage, by running around and shouting in a silly German accent “ooh help me I’m a little hostage ooh no please don’t hurt me” I made him roll deception with disadvantage and he got a 23. He then ran in and out of the Oni’s combat range and when he got opportunity attacked he got annoyed, saying he played a convincing hostage. I said the Oni saw you come in with the party, not restrained, and the whole encounter was a zombie attack on the village that he had orchestrated to take a child so why would an outside party be taking hostages. Am I in the wrong? How do I deal with a character that is so stupidly good at persuading npcs of basically anything? I humbly await your judgment. Ps. His plan was to get to the child and get him to safety by pretending to be a hostage so he could get past easily.

Dylan Flowers

To the supreme justices oh so high and magical and to the mighty bailiff I present to you the case of the spike pit. Me and my crew were running a small adventure that would last a few days. I was playing a human champion fighter that was beloved to all and had proved his worth in the arena that we started in. Even so far as to jump out of a 2 story burning building carrying two party members and a child with an amazing nat 20 that is still talked about to this day. We were in a cave shortly after leaving the town we started in and there was a short narrow tunnel that lead the way to the rest of the cave. My character who at this point was the unspoken leader decided to go first to face the challenge head on. Only to find a spike pit in the tunnel, with a failed decision save I was told my character was dead and no way of revival (too low level at this time) I implore you oh sweet justices and tantalizing bailiff, was I wronged by being given a perma death with just a spike pit? I had to play the rest of the adventure as 2 separate characters one hated by the party because he was the annoying NPC (I loved it bc he was a real live by the blade dweeb) that I was allowed to take over then once he died (also to a spike pit and a nat 1 from a sorcerer that lead to his demise) and then a dwarf cleric. I await your judgement and will respect the courts decision.

Henrik Olofsson

I'm sorry guys. I love the dnd-court, but lately it seems to have suffered by the same inflation as everything else. It makes the campain suffer, which is actually what I subscribe for. Can you at least publish some live shows intead, once in a while. Anyway, thanks for a great podcast and keep up the good work (with less interruptions in the campain).

Beef

Shhhhh

Fandom Encounters

May it please the court I present the case of the chronic re-gifter. Im the DM for my players in a world based on the Greek Gods. I have a player who erratically changes his characters motivation, priorities, and begs me to change classes. He’s been an Arcane Archer, Life Domain Cleric, I’ve made up a Time Domain Cleric for him based on Kronos. I have given him items throughout the campaign based on whatever his focus was at the time, but he constantly gives them away to npcs the party barely knows. We are in the final push up mount olympus to kill zeus and he just swapped all of his levels for Horizon Walker Ranger. The rest of the party has been more focused and has collected tools/weapons over our campaign that supports the characters they’ve created. He’s started complaining that he doesn’t have magic hand crossbows and that his helmet that he was given by a paramore doesn’t have any magical properties as if he’s been ignored the whole time. Should I give him a new arsenal of items every time he changes his mind? Or is being under equipped the cost of being indecisive? (In total he’s given away a charm that lets him cast Unseen Servant, a bunch of ordinary weapons, a +1 longbow with a nat 1 reroll bowstring given by his mother who passed away in our campaign, Apollos Gloves of Healing, a +2 longbow with magical charges gifted by Aurora the goddess of the Dawn, and Hand-Me-Down plate armor from Hades’ lietenant)

Patrick

One week off the campaign per month helps with preparation, editing and all manner of things that go on behind the scenes that we don't even think of.

Zoe Jones

Hello, I am here to beg forgiveness to the godly, priestly, (not at all lowly) Supreme crit justices (and jake will be there too i guess....) and messengers of our savior, Dice Christ. I am a fairly new DM, I've got one full campaign under my belt and have just started another that is notorious for TPKs (in case you were curious, Tomb of Annihilation set in Chult/Forgotten Realms). Sounds fun, right? Well, the thing is that my dad is playing with us too. He is old school - been playing since second edition - so it's been fun watching him learn 5e in excitement for playing his favorite game with his daughter that now herself become a forever DM. HOWEVER. My dad spent the entire first session being irritated at the city/market/shopping role-playing. He plays a NE noble that is being forced into the mission. I explained that the party needs survival gear if they want to survive, as I'm doing meat grinder rules while in the jungle. He finally convinced the party of level 1 adventurers to set off on a suicide mission that involved escorting someone to a base not far from the city. I ask dice christ for forgiveness because I used my powers for evil. I rolled a D20 to see if thered be an encounter and rolled a nat 1, indicating no random encounter. However. I felt like he was calling my bluff about the meat grinder rules, so their very first "random" encounter was a troll that was blundering through the jungle. Thankfully they hired a wilderness guide that was strong enough to help the party, so it was not a TPK. I now feel kind of guilty because I think dice christ was showing me the path of forgiveness and I strayed. Thank you

Kevin Smith

Most honourable Judges and Justice Tucker. I bring you the case of the mid session rule changes. I play a chrono wizard after being inspired listening to Emily play one. It should be also noted that I roll worse than Jake in Vegas. With that in mind I also took the lucky feat. With a 14AC I also have the shield spell sticker. After being told I can’t take Silvery Barbs (that’s fine it’s fairly OP), the DM has decided in the last month to stop telling me what number he’s rolled to hit just if he hits or not (making casting shield potentially a wasted spell slot, and no longer being able to save an ally from taking a critical hit). Keep in mind this campaign has been playing once a week for 2 years. Am I being unfairly nerfed? Is this fair of the DM? I humbly await your judgement

Sam Gilson

To the justices on high and the bailiffs on low, I present the case of the Mirror Hag v. My Fiancé. I DM a long running campaign with my fiancé and some of our friends in which our adventurers fight off against an evil mega corporation a lá Mothership. After drinking a hallucinogenic witch’s brew, our party was whisked away to a memory of a grand feast in the Spring Court a millennia ago when the elves first used arcane magic to rebel against the archfey. Long story short everyone was separated and a bar-brawl inspired fey court showdown ensued in which my aforementioned fiancé was targeted by a Mirror Hag, who used her “Reconfiguring Curse” to cause 1d6 Charisma damage to her elven druid Rumina. She already had a 6 Cha, so I flavored the curse to make her character uglier. She was later able to Greater Restoration and cleanse the effect, but she seemed genuinely hurt that I targeted her with the attack. How should I approach this sort of scenario in the future? (P.S. getting married in 20 days! You’re invited!)

Choc DISCO

May it Please the Court, I present the case of the Ancient Tortle While running a campaign, I had decided to give one of the players an “ability” or type of “feature” for their character so they may enjoy playing a little more. In the midst of their travels, they had went to this tortle bards home country where a spirit of one of their ancestors appeared before them, granting them a gift. All they had to do was accept it. The tortle bard didn’t seem to care continued to live his life dishonoring his family and left the home country without any goodbye to their siblings and mother. Later on, when the player asked about when they would get their ability, I stated that they never accepted it, and dishonored their bloodline, watching their own brothers get murdered in battle and not batting an eye. Was I wrong to keep this ability from them, or was it just that the ancestor refused to pass this gift onto them? I await your swift justice.

The Witch of the Well-Struck Flint

To the equally exalted judges and bailiff, I present to you the case of Destroying my DM's joy. I play a paladin in a homebrew campaign where we spent several sessions gearing up for an intense fight. We were being pursued by a small army and knew they would catch up soon. We fortified a crossroads and the fight took place while NPC wizards completed a teleportation circle to get us out of there, which was supposed to take several rounds. 2 rounds in, units of heavy artillery turned up, the DM letting us know that each 'unit' counted as 1 enemy in terms of dealing and taking damage. My paladin charged in on their war goat Steve (Warhorse stats) and did 60 damage to a unit in one round between myself and Steve. I was rolling very hot this fight and neither my paladin or Steve had missed a single attack. My DM went quiet googling whether my 60 damage was legit- it was, I'd done some higher level smites- and immediately said that the teleportation circle was ready and we needed to leave. He seemed a bit put out, but ended the session cheerfully and the campaign has continued fine. Was I wrong for unloading so heavily at the scary artillery that we'd spent three sessions preparing to fight? I feel like the DM wanted a longer, high stakes combat but I ate his joy by going too hard too quickly. I await your judgement.

Chris Coppel

To the viperous justices of the Supreme Crit and the poor cuckolded bailiff, today I do not bring a case from my own table, but an accusation against the Court itself. Inspired by the decision to once again take up the cause of reading video game books, I resolved myself to listen to the full catalogue of 8 Bit Book Club. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself thus far, though regrettably, I have become noticeably dumber in the process. However, my joyful decent into stupidity was brought to a sudden halt recently when I reached the episode, “The Angry Birds Movie: The Junior Novel” and discovered evidence of a truly heinous conspiracy. I have transcribed an exchange between the justices below. It begins at 25:05 and I ask that it be entered into the court records: Justice Murphy: Emily and I have a 14-year-old boy’s taste in media. Justice Axford: I thought you were going to say we had a 14-year-old boy… We have a 14-year-old-boy. Justice Tanner: When are you going to have Tucker on the show? Justice Murphy: We had children when we were 16. Justice Tanner: When is Tucker Axford-Murphy going to come on the show? Justice Murphy: I don’t know, he’s getting ready for college now so he’s a little busy. Justice Tanner: So smart, your boy. Justice Axford: We have a 14-year-old boy, so we do have a child to support. Justice Murphy: We have a child to support. Justice Axford: He plays hockey, which is the most expensive of sports, so it’s been really taxing. We’re going to start a Patreon to pay for his college. Tucker. Jill’s Tucker? It must be. This episode was released on 2/21/17 and based on the evidence that he was already preparing for college, I can only assume that a short few years later headed off and eventually met Jill. I ask the Court, does the Bailiff know that his wife/comedy partner was stolen by the Justices’ own son? Is NADDPOD simply a front to pay for his college/hockey expenses? Is he a senior now? How did his last season go? Should my accusations be false, I will accept any punishment, but if they are true, I demand justice for Jake. P.S. – Justice Tanner later makes a claim in the same episode that he also has a son named Tucker, but I took this to be in jest… I hope

Thomas McComb

To the fickle and chaotic justices and the steadfast and overall back bone of the courtroom Baliff Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz, I wrote to you today to actually appeal to your chaotic natures. I’m in a Curse of Strahd campaign that’s been going on for almost a year now. I play a path of the zealot barbarian half orc named Kodek Kelamir, who wields a scythe that looks exactly like Hidan’s from Naruto, THIS IS PERTINENT I promise. We were fighting a swamp witch who was standing on a floating dragon skull. I asked if I could use the chain on Hidan’s scythe to jump up and try to wrap the chain around a wrist or ankle to pull her off the skull to which my DM said it would be a DC20 dexterity check to get the chain around her. I rolled a dirty 20 to the joy of the table and Kodek who was yelling several taunts to the witch.. However, the DM then said I had to succeed in a contested strength check with the witch to pull her off which I lost, the DM saying she used magic to get out the chain. I argued that I shouldn’t have to make the contested strength check because I would have gravity on my side as I jumped before hand. My DM said I should’ve argued before the roll and that was that. Justices and the iron willed bailiff I ask you, was I robbed of a totally bad ass moment because my DM only had the witch hovering 30 feet off the ground and got caught flat footed? I would also like to cite the “Rule of Cool”. The defense rests and I humbly await your judgment.

Robert Wake

To the honorable Justices and the Bailiff of variable esteem, I present the case of Forgetful DM V. The Players. I’ve been DMing for my fiancé and my sister-in-law-to-be for more than 2 years now. The campaign is going swimmingly, but I often forget to take notes, and then, when I sit down to plan out the next session, I struggle to recall details. I fill in many gaps in my memory with best-guesses and blatant untruths. My players don’t usually notice, but occasionally they’ll spot something and I’ll argue vehemently that their recollection is incorrect (even though I know I’m wrong). I’m only trying to maintain a certain level of continuity and stability in the world, but I worry gaslighting my players/family may be a crime in the courts eyes. Am I to be punished for deceiving my players, or are they to be punished for poking holes in my delicate, paper thin world? SPECIFIC EXAMPLES IF DESIRED Ex. 1 Them: “Wasn’t that guy name named Gilfbert Swampley last week?” Me: “No he’s for sure always been called Lord Chestnut, I can show you my notes if you want” Ex 2. Them: “Wait weren’t there two moons before? I distinctly remember you saying there were two moons.” Me: “Nope, always been one moon. You’re probably thinking of Tatooine”

Michael W

I think you were in the right here. In most monster stat blocks, WOTC lists a number of hit dice plus a number for HP along with a total. It's a balancing tool for encounters(imo). You gave your PC an awesome moment that they're sure to remember.

Kara

To the honourable and esteemed Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and what’s his face…John, maybe. I present to you the case of homebrewed disadvantage. It was my first time playing DnD. My character was a 5th level variant human divination wizard, with a fire-bellied newt familiar named Cyn. I was ready to get magically creative, and maybe fuck the DM’s shit up oppa Axford style. However, I became increasingly frustrated by the DM’s homebrew rule. The rule was that if you do not have proficiency in a skill, you had to role every check with disadvantage. I found myself very hesitant to try things outside of my proficiencies, and found it frustrating to take disadvantage on skills where I already had a (-) score. Am I being a bitter lizard wizard about this homebrew? Or was I in the right to be wildly frustrated by what felt like limitations in trying new things? I humbly await your fair judgement. Ps. My partner and I ended up leaving the group after half of the group quit because the DM kept getting into awkward/heated arguments with other players at the table about rulings.

Joe Moore

Honourable judges and the however-we're-treating-him-this-week bailiff Jake; I bring to you the case of the ignored passive checks. I play an armorer artificer, and my party recently fought in a tournament. In our first round we went up against a band of goblins, and as the DM set the scene, I reminded them that I had a passive perception of 22 and passive investigation of 23, and asked if there was anything we should be aware of. He said that the goblins all looked pretty normal, except one who wore a barrel with suspenders. I asked if he looked any different to the others, and he said "No - it just looks like he has an unusual taste in fashion". Fast forward a while, and I end up attacking this goblin; I crit. As I do so, the DM giggles to himself and asks me to roll a dexterity save; the goblin explodes. He says that I was foolish to simply attack him without questioning the barrel, and if I had done I would have seen "TNT" written in big letters across the front and sticks of dynamite hanging out of the barrel itself. I ask if the passive checks I made at the start of combat weren't high enough to spot the big red letters, but he told me that he finds passive checks cheap and didn't want to give me anything for free. The thing is, they're not free: I spent my level 4 ASI getting the Observant feat, because it suits my character's intelligent fighting style. Ignoring my stats does not. I don't mind taking the damage - I'm pretty much the party tank - but making it out like it was my fault still sticks in my craw. It feels like he just wanted to blow up his players regardless of any steps we might have taken to defuse the situation. What say you judges?

Ben Pelegano

To the honorable justices and the pinch. I present to you the case of the naughty newbie. I am running a campaign for six coworkers who have all never played D&D before. This is also my first time every DM'ing. For the first session I wanted them to get into a bareknuckle bar fight to just learn how combat works and to get their feet under them. I had the bartender tell the party three times and very very explicitly that whatever happens they should not draw their weapons in the bar or else the town guard will respond with force. They are provoked and immediately the barbarian in the group draws his weapon and starts to slaughter the unarmed thugs. Everyone in the group reluctantly draws their weapons and joins in. Ok, I can work with this. The next session is the town guard showing up and arresting the barbarian since he was the first to draw. Fun! Prison-escape session. I tell them group the town guard is very powerful and they should be wary about full on attacking them. Outside the barbarian's cell, the rest of the group comes up with super creative and fun ways to break him out. However, things go sideways when the barbarian convinces someone in the group to slip him a dagger. Despite another DM warning, he calls the guard in and tries to attack him. His cellmate, an NPC, tries to narratively intercept this plan and also tries to convince the barbarian not to attack. No dice. The barbarian attacks and with some very lucky rolls beats the guard. I didn't want to outright kill him for being brazen because he's a new player but I felt like I let him off too easy. I also don't want to steamroll people but this barbarian's brash actions tend to disrupt the positive momentum of the group and centers the story around one character. On one hand, it creates fun narratives, on the other, is's a bit annoying. Other party members came up afterwards asking why the barbarian keeps going rogue. Should I let the barbarian rage on or should I find a way to punish him harder than I did.

Jack Campau

I write not to the justices but rather to the holy church of dice christ with a confession. I play in a campaign where I am a chronomancy wizard named Eon Yesteryear. I have the fortune's favor spell as well as the lucky feat. This combined with the chronomancer’s chronal shift makes it very easy to get many attempts on a role. I try not to abuse this power and only use it on superficial rolls, but at times I cannot help but give into the temptation of the time devil and dip into my pool of extra rolls. I figure that it makes sense that a wizard that is able to manipulate time should be able to make things go their way more often than other PC options, but I ask the church whether or not all these attempts are above board or if I am abusing my power by taking the decision out of dice christ’s hands and giving it to the time devil to play with? I will accept any punishment the church deems fair so that I may repent.

Runcible Shaw

Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and [insert how we're feeling about Jake this week] Bailiff; May it please the court. I was playing a level 20 PVP battle royale one shot. It was a lot of fun. My partner and I started by summoning 38 horses and then wild shaped into identical horses. However, later in the battle one of the teams began flying several hundred feet over the battlefield (outside the long range of any ranged weapon) and starting dropping javelins. They argued that because they were dropping them from so high up, the javelins (plural) should do extra damage. I argued that this just isn't how ranged weapons work in D&D. The DM decided to leave it up to chance and told the other team that if they rolled high on a d100 then the javelins would be able to hit and do extra damage. The other team rolled 100. *Each* javelin did 10d6 damage. It didn't end up killing our characters, but I continued to argue that this just shouldn't have worked. I'm still salty about it (obviously). Your Honors, was I in the wrong in the first place? Even if I was, should I have relented once the DM made their decision? I await your Solomon-like wisdom in this matter. Sincerely, Devastating Drop Damage in DC

Lucas Bryant

May it please the Crit and that bailiff, whose beauty stems from his simplicity, not unlike a common wildflower placed into a handmade vase: I have garnered a bit of a reputation at my table for always running headlong into danger and having to be rescued. I've also heard the critique that all of my characters are immature and reckless, and the flak I'm catching for all of this is starting to weigh on me. I have tried explaining to the other players that the only reason I have started playing characters like this is because if left to their own devices they would bicker endlessly for the whole session over minutia and not actually DO anything. I don't enjoy pigeon-holeing myself to characters like this, but I've had to because the only thing that can get them to stop talking in circles over each other is to start some kind of encounter. The DM seems to understand but hasn't made much effort to stop this. Am I in the wrong for having my characters literally just walk off in a random direction anytime the arguing starts to snap them out of it? I prostrate myself before the Crit and its wisdom.

Renee Wild

Dice Christ Confessional: I come to you with a story of redemption and rewarded faith. I recently started running a game for my parents, who are new to Dnd. My mom is a half-eld druid and my dad is a tabaxi monk. We are 13 sessions in, and every session I have fudged at least one roll of my own in order to help my parents or prevent damage to them. I have felt guilty under the watchful eye of Dice Christ every time, but I wanted them to be successful and have fun. However, this most recent session, I tried to kill them with an assassin and I didn't fudge any roll. I let the dice fall where they may, unafraid of the consequences, and we had one of the best sessions with close calls, a lot of nat 20s, and a huge character moment. I can't help but think that by putting all of my faith in Dice Christ, they blessed our session with poetic rolls and a beautiful story. I will never doubt the power and sanctity of Dice Christ again. So shall it be.

Lance Minnis

Honorable Justices Murphy, Axford,Tanner, and the loyal bailiff Jake, I humbly beseech your adjudication. During the pandemic, I was running several games on Discord as DM. One of the games was set in Salt marsh. I had a player, who had already convinced me to let him reskin and or reroll new characters three times for this campaign, convinced me to let him roll a different character again because he wasn’t happy with any of the previous ones. As part of the backstory, he made it so that this character had had his arm cut off, and never restored. He then insisted on badgering me every game session to let him purchase a prosthetic in the regular marketplace. Because he made such a big deal, and been such a pain in the ass about this arm, which he chose, I wanted to make him work for it. I offered him several paths, including going to the temple of Procan to pay A priest to cast greater restoration on him. He insisted he had already done so and been refused, as part of his backstory NOT gameplay, even when one of his fellow PCs who was a worshiper of Procan assured him all he had to do was show up at the temple and ask. Instead, I made him search out some rare ingredients and a Mastercraftsperson to craft him an arm, that ended up having enhanced functionality. He still wasn’t happy and ended up quashing this character too.Should I have just let this guy have a stupid arm at the beginning?

Starship X

Deepest and Humblest Regards to the right and the honorable, the lords and justice Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and like, i guess okay enough regards to the bailiff. I come to you today in this most holy of places where we combined both church and state in penance for committing dice sins. I once found myself in a game with a number of squishy wizards/druids/bards who all had very low AC. Playing a paladin, I took it as my sacred duty to protect the soft boys in my party and focus on dealing damage to the baddie. However, my dice were rolling like a huge pile of crap. Imagine in the dinosaur shit in the first Jurassic Park that Laura Dern stuck her arm into. That much crap. So, I fudged a few rolls in order to hit the baddies, since my party was either down or healing. I never fudged on damage rolls, just on attack rolls after missing on the previous 3 or so rounds. My best friend won't let me live it down, since they bore witness to one of the times it happened. I promised them I would do better and confess my sins and put my punishment in the hands of our savior, Dice Christ. In Dice-Jesus's (and Emily's) name Amen

Scout S

May it please the court and tickle the bailiff, I present the case of the druid's rule-breaking revivify. In my current group I happen to be the player who has the most D&D experience, and I often notice when my fellow players make mistakes. I'm a rules gal, but don't want to spend all session ruining people's fun, so I decided to only correct people when the correction is positive-- I'll remind our paladin that he gets to double his smite damage on a crit, but won't call out our bard who cast Hold Person on a non-humanoid. However, I sometimes feel guilty when my silence personally benefits me. Once when my warlock character was downed and unconscious, the robot that was attacking us threatened to kill her unless the party backed down. They kept fighting because our druid, played by my brother and at the time wildshaped into a giant spider, said he could bring my warlock back. So the robot held to his promise and cut my head off, and my brother dutifully revived me. Beneficent court, I should have stayed dead. My brother used Revivify which he shouldn't have as a moon druid, the spell doesn't restore a severed head, my brother shouldn't have been able to cast it while he was a spider, and he didnt have the 300gp diamond that it needs as a component. I feel guilty about my continued survival, since I know how the rules were broken. Should I have said something? Maybe I should start calling out all rule breaks-- but I don't want to spend all session saying "actually, you can't do that."

Brogan

May it please the court, the beyond honourable and borderline godlike justices, and the human equivalent of a kitten falling into its bowl of milk, bailiff Jake. I bring you the case of rowdy players. I am a one shot DM veteran and recently started an actual campaign. I’ve spent over a year planning for it and finally got to do my first session. My players and I are all close friends, which can cause us to get a little rowdy with one another. In my first session, I spent most of it being yelled at by two players. Near the beginning of the session, the players were kidnapped. Once they woke up, their captures apologized profusely and tried to explain everything. Two of my PCs could not let the kidnapping go. Their characters were extremely hostile to every NPC, to the point of not believing them when they were setting up the main plot of the campaign. They yelled almost any time an NPC spoke, and fought back against everything I put out in front of them. It got to the point where I had to railroad the session more than I wanted to and even had to use the defence “because I said so” due to them refusing any reasoning that the NPCs gave them (no matter how sound the argument was or how trustworthy the characters were) I felt very uncomfortable and could feel the other players getting annoyed. I tried to put them in line by reminding them other people might like to talk/have their character speak but once again they would yell over us in character. I’ve been very excited for this game but I’m scared to continue it due to this behaviour. Justices I ask for your advice, what should I do with my problem players?

Tyler Jackson

May it please the court, the lowly bailiff, and a little place called Manja’s, I present the case of the anime tournament arc *gone wrong*. My DM, to have the party prove their strength and earn the respect of a powerful tribe of orcs, had us enter a classic, anime style bracketed fighting tournament - However, we had to all enter as individuals, and sure enough the first round of the tournament pitted the party’s martial forge cleric against the party’s way more optimized aasimar celestial warlock. As soon as the fight started, the warlock used their aasimar flight to fly above the arena (since only touching the ground disqualified you) cast darkness on the cleric, and proceeded to absolutely melt them with eldritch blasts from above, counterspelling the one AoE spell the cleric tried to cast. The mood at the table quickly soured, and the cleric was almost silent the rest of the session. The players all quickly became divided over who was to blame - the player for being so merciless, or the DM for putting us into PVP when some players were clearly more optimized than others. I leave it to the court to decide their fate.

Pagos, Self-Proclaimed Fae King, Now with Real Musical Improv Action

Short version: my dm wanted to limit cantrips per day on our party, was I wrong to argue against this? Fancier version: The case of 0-Lvl spell slots. May it please the [proper adjective] court, and the [opposite adjective] bailiff. In my first campaign I played, in the first session, my dm took us to cave to fight some baddies. Simple stuff. At some point the baddies walked themselves up in a room. The puzzle was get in to the room. While the fighter and I tried one door using line of sight and mage hand to lift a bar, because these doors did have holes I could see through, the warlock and everyone else tried brute force on the other door. Primarily the warlock spamming everyone’s favorite warlock cantrip, Eldritch blast. At the end of the session the dm brought it up that he didn’t like the way the warlock dealt with the locked door and wanted to implement a rule limiting cantrips. I immediately went into overdrive defending the player( final act movie lawyer defense is normal for me) but the dm didn’t want to budge. The game ended up not lasting because peoples a few of us suddenly had work schedules changed, but friends still bring it up just to watch the dm and I go at it I. A comical fashion. Was I wrong to defend unlimited cantrips?

Hannah Speidel

May it please the court and occasionally esteemed but generally stinky bailiff - I present the case of the no-roll 2/3rds party kill. During downtown shenanigans while playing the Dungeons of the Mad Mage module, myself and another party member decided to join a tavern fight tournament. Quick background: the entire party was extremely chaotic and generally evil-aligned, except the straight man cleric. I played Tiefling Wizard Necromancer, Pumpkin, who was extremely greedy and impulsive. So, predictably, when she lost the tournament pretty handily, the natural next move was to convince my partymate to help me assassinate the winner. They, being a chaotic evil warlock, naturally agreed. But it turns out that a level 5 Wizard and warlock are no match for the townsguard that suddenly showed up. DM decided that rather than sending us to jail for prisonbreak antics, we would be knocked out and sent straight to the BBEG (we were, for reference, in the 3rd level of the dungeon) at the start of the next session. We were given the chance to roleplay to convince the BBEG to let us go, and the BBEG tried to convince us to join him, but when I asked what check to roll, the DM stated that there would be no checks because we were doomed, and proceeded to have our characters mind-wiped and turned into mindless minions that were then cryogenically frozen. The cleric also didn’t get a chance to try and rescue us. DM was annoyed that I didn’t have a backup character at the ready as I “should have known that this would be the consequence of the last session.” My question is this: was my DM in the right to nuke our characters for our chaotic criminal behavior? I await your swift and merciless judgement.

copperdragon

To the most likely honorable justices and merely existent bailiff Jacob, I present the case of the harvest razz. I was 12 or 13 and out camping with my family when my dad suggested we play dnd (this was my second time playing). In the middle of a session, after our characters had started moving towards a town being raided, I asked if there were any crops like wheat or apples I could harvest and bring in the cart we had. It had been established that we were in a farm area, and I wanted to provide food for the villagers, but I can see how it was weird and out of the blue. All the adults immediately shot it down and I wasn’t allowed to roll perception. They spent the remainder of the week long trip teasing me about it, asking if I wanted to go into the woods to look for dinner and other stuff like that. I didn’t want to play again for a while, but kept building characters and designing encounters by myself. I ask, was this a rightful razzing or was I wronged? Thank you for your consideration and eventual judgement.

Andy Ritchie

I hope they tackle this but if they don’t, your friend sucks and is manipulative.

Plums

To the justices, bailiff and her most divine followers of the Dice I come to you not with a court case or a confession but for some advice. I am a new DM, my first session will start this week. I’m usually a player who focuses on team synergy and of course having some dramatic fun but Im nervous and scared as a DM! Im running a short campaign like an appetizer to a main campaign both set in the same world. All my pc have decided to have a complicated relationships with their families, notably a first time pc who’s playing an absentee father meeting his daughters is particularly making me very worried. I have talked to my players, really asking what they want, is this ok? Etc but my ass is still sweating. My question to you is when DMing a campaign that has more relationship complexity to it how do you work with it? I worry about making my player feel like a bad person especially since it’s their first game but with a character they made I feel like it’s gonna be a hard turn around and maybe not a super happy ending? I know not all pc are classic heroes but idk! I want them to have a good time! Thank you for all the wisdom you may share with me, sincerely a newbie DM

Polina Milashevskaya

If you are close friends, can you talk to them? You clearly have 2 different views of “fun” and what’s appropriate. That’s what I would do, I would probably even talk to them during the sessions. Or for sure right after. Most of DnD parties are chaotic. In my new campaign, my players also like to check every NPC for trustworthiness and sometimes still choose not to believe them ;) one of the characters is literally a conspiracy theory hippie so he doubts everything. But it’s all done with respect and they sort of follow the main story while I let them do lots of shenanigans.

Henrik Olofsson

I'm aware of that and they do a great job, don't get me wrong. It's just that it has been a lot of court recent months. I do enjoy it, but am curious of the live shows :-)

Brogan

I’m definitely planning on having a talk with them before the session about having fun but respecting others around you. I do love that they’re enthusiastic about their characters and how they act, but simply yelling and refusing any information that is given to you did take me out of the fun a bit

Polina Milashevskaya

Is it also all the same players as PCs? I can only think of 2 reasons. They are either super assholes or they are just trying to end your campaign earlier by wrecking the shit out of it. But then again, why not talk to you?

Catrina Negut

May it please the honorable Supreme Crit justices and Tucker’s placeholder Jake? I played a campaign with a couple of friends and we were having our first session. Our DM led us into a town and we had to figure out why all the animals were fleeing. One of the characters named Borg had speak with animals stocked, however his alignment was Chaotic Neutral. As we were walking through the forest we found 3 horses, and as Borg approached the horses he said that he was going to talk with them to see what was going on. However, instead he decided he wanted to roll the break all their hooves. While the rest of the party protested this, the DM let him roll and he got a nat 20. Borg proceeded to gruesomely break all the hooves of all 3 horses and they would no longer talk to us. The session ended pretty quick after that and we never played again. Was the DM wrong to allow this to happen, or were we too hard on Borg. I await your deliberation and righteous order.

Walker Schmidt

To the most honorable High Crit and the incredibly Regular Bailiff, I come to you today with a case involving myself, the DM, and my girlfriend, an Oath of Vengeance Paladin. The party had been attacked by werewolves while they slept in a hunter’s tower. Some of the party was on the ground level fighting, others, including my wonderfully chaotic girlfriend, were on the top floor. Rather than take the elevator down, my girlfriend made the incredible decision to instead jump out from her vantage point at the top of the tower to join the fray. I warned her that she would take falling damage, so my girlfriend said she wanted to cast Misty Step during the fall. However, when I asked where she wanted to teleport, she insisted on teleporting horizontally away from the tower, not vertically to get to the ground. What’s more, she insisted on waiting until the last possible second before she hit the ground to teleport. As I had already agreed to the spell, asked if she was “sure?” and shared a knowing look with our cat, I played out her teleportation as requested, narrating how she fell hard and rolled falling damage. At that point, my girlfriend objected, saying that because she teleported, she should not take any falling damage. I told her that while she did teleport, she still fell the full 80 ft., and only teleported horizontally so she still fell all the way to the ground. The falling damage wasn’t enough to kill her character, and the fight was still very fun. However, I worry that I’ve soured my girlfriends taste for towers. Honorable counsel, was I wrong to make my girlfriend take falling damage, or does Misty Step negate gravity’s firm hand? I worry that this damage may be why our cat still tries to kill me, so I await your decisive judgement.

ronald.

Note: all of my players and I are college students studying acting, the actor-rogue is both an actor out of game, and an actor in game! Changeling rogues are wonderful.

BigBoodyDaddy

May it please the court and the feeble ankled Bailiff, I come to you with the case of changing monster stats mid battle. My friends and I have been in a campaign for about 8 months now. The dm is known for not preparing super well and heavily relies on not great improve. In our most recent combat he tried to make the combat harder because we usually steamroll him monsters. During the whole combat his homebrew monsters only failed three or four saves. The combat lasted two sessions and many times during the combat we asked how his monsters were able to pass some much. When it became obvious that he was fudging all of his rolls we all became very dejected. We told him of our concerns after the combat and he didn’t see a problem with his dm style. I ask you, were we wronged in this combat or was the dm right to fudge his rolls for a hard battle?

Paul D

Esteemed Crit Justices and humble bailiff, I present the case of the Dejected Diva. I'm DMing a game in which the party was investigating a series of unusual raids on towns across the land. No valuables were stolen and casualties were minimal, but the kobold raiders had made off with various talented citizens: renowned blacksmiths, beloved actors, respected philosophers, etc. The party correctly guessed where the next raid would be, and fought the kobolds when they struck. After a run of bad luck, the entire party was knocked out by the kobolds. When they awoke, they were all still in town, with their items intact. The Bard was furious. In and out of character he claimed that the kobolds should have kidnapped him as he was ten times more interesting and talented than any NPC that had been taken. Apparently, it was was an affront to him as an artist that he was left behind. I ask you, should I have kidnapped the bard in order to flatter their ego? How should I resolve this situation when the party confronts the Brass Dragon who is collecting artists?

Nicholas Bassett

To the honourable Sumpreme Crit and the lovely Jake Herwits, I bring you the case of the Blood-Lusting 5 Year Old. My 5 year old loves hearing my D&D adventures and I decided to DM some highly simplified one-shots for him, much to his delight. We painted some figurines and he chose his character, an orc named Fire. Problem is, I asked what Fire cares about/wants to do, and he stared at me and growed "KILL PEOPLE". Nothing I said changed his mind. Our first encounter was meeting a friend of Fire's (named Bullseye) to get a quest, but my 5 year old decided his first action would be to attack Bullseye and scream "I hate you!". From here, he's proceeded to kill everything he's encountered, good or bad. Should I just chuckle and allow him to do what he wants? Or is D&D a bad influence that needs to be removed from him until he can understand killing is not ideal in all circumstances? I await your parenting/D&D advice 😐

Troy Laborde

To the honorable and Benevolent Brian, Exalted Emily, Clandestine Caldwell, and…is it Jacob? I bring you the case of the Irrational Ape. I’m a cleric multiclassed with hex blade warlock. We’re fighting on a pirate ship. My rouges evil brother is here and stabs him in the back. He gets polymorphic into a giant ape. We’ve had bad habits of not killing npcs in the past and it coming back to haunt us, so I go in for the kill. Apparently he wanted to talk to his brother, but because he is in ape form and can’t talk, he decides the best course of action is to yeet myself and our sorcerer who joined in the murder off the ship knowing I’m in chainmail. Unbeknownst to him I just picked up misty step so it was ok, but the player just laughed saying “I’m just doing what my character would do”. Am I right to be upset that he could of done a million other things to equate the point? Or should I just let it go since we all lived. I await your noble judgement

chocopaiboy

Good morning/afternoon/evening beloved justices and bailiff, I present to you the case of the flaunted death. I have been playing a campaign in which the main focus is that our choices matter and that the world will not change to accommodate our experiences - it is what it is. My character, in a session, made a selfless decision to help our party and it resulted in their death. I was at peace with it, it was my decision, we moved on. Throughout the next few months of sessions, our DM would occasionally craft encounters with a specific component or two that could mostly only be completed by my (now dead) character. This has happened with another dead character before, and everyone was fine with it. For some reason, however, the DM is now ramping up the number of encounters in which only with the help of my dead character, would have been made a lot easier. When I asked her about this she simply cited the “actions have consequences,” but me and a few other players feel she’s being too unfair about all this. Should I accept it as it is, or ask the DM to change some aspects of the encounters?

Sigmund G

I ask that the brawny bailiff Josh delivers this case to your Honors Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. I am playing with a group of five other beginners in a run of Dragon of Icespire Peak. . We camped for the night and on a random encounter check were attacked by six goblins riding wolves. The attackers immediately focused their surprise attacks on our person keeping watch since he failed his passive perception. He went down and didn’t have time to warn us. We were outnumbered 12 to 3. They took all our money in exchange for our lives. Long story short we tracked them down after a long rest. In their lair, every time we defeated a group of goblins, one would run off and once pursued more would join in, getting surprise attacks in. Eventually, a group of “surprise” goblins that we couldn’t reach with our movement speeds destroyed a damn and flooded the cave. All but one party member avoided the tsunami of water. He was washed away. The rest of us were still in combat. The defeated/retreating eventually lead to the big boss. The rest of our group stayed in combat as it never actually ended due to goblins retreating to reveal larger groups of goblins. Somehow we defeated the boss and found our washed-away companion, no worse for wear, at the edge of the map after things had calmed down. Our DM chastised the party after the game for not going to check on the washed-away member, but they were unconscious and the party would not have known what had happened to them. Were we right to continue engaging the goblins since combat kept flowing from one battle to the next or were we wrong for not disengaging to check up on our water-logged friend?

Jan F.

Greetings justices Murphy, Tanner , Axford and the guest bailiff. I’m about to run a campaign for a couple new players. I rolled characters with them individually and rolled their ability scores. I started with 3 and they were happy with what they were dealt. We ran a quick pvp session to get a grip on the system and while I was flipping through the character sheets on Discord my wizard saw the rogues modifiers and rolled abilities. The rogue had rolled multiple double digit abilities and my wizards single highest stat was a 16. My wizard has approached me privately and has discussed his concern with the rogue being the main character. I told him to look at the rogues other modifiers and not to worry since not every check will be in the rogues favour. To no avail my wizard seems a little dejected and suggests everyone roll new characters. Justices am I a bad DM for going with Dice Christ? Should I reroll the characters before the campaign starts?

L_D

May it please the court and put a bee in the bonnet of the bailiff. When I was but a humble beginner DM, I once created an encounter for my players built around a magic ball that would suck anyone who touched it inside and could only be released by a magic pass-phrase. During the encounter, my party’s Mage decided to pick up the ball with mage hand and chuck it at the mini-boss I had painstakingly written for them, ending the fight before it even began as he got sucked up into the ball. I accepted my whomping and allowed it to happen. My question arises from the following; the party’s barbarian then suggested the mage use mage-hand again to put the ball in a satchel so they could release the mini-boss as a weapon of sorts in their next encounter. I allowed this, but when they released the mini-boss in the next encounter as they planned to I simply had him attack them almost immediately, absolutely clattering the healer in the process and nearly causing a TPK. My players argued that he would have been confused and attacked the new enemy that they were fighting, but I argued that trapping him in a ball would only have made him more mad at the party. Was I in the right? Or have I just condemned myself to being trapped in a ball? Many thanks.

panpolypuff

I love everything about this situation, and I am screenshotting it to use in my own campaign!

Trent Dowling

Hail and well met honorable justices and also honorable but less so bailiff jake. I bring forth the tale of Space, the player who refused to level up. I run a campaign in the Ravnica setting where a fungal dragon has been released and intends to mulch the entire plane. We are reaching the end of the story and I wanted to throw so beefier monsters at the party so I made up a “super serum” of sorts that will jump the players from level 13 to 15. For dramatic effect I told them the drug was experimental and psychedelic because it used the dragons spores that Space themselves brought to the lab. All the players were going to experience a unique vision from their characters memory, make a few low DC saves and then level up twice. When presented with the drug all the players jumped at the chance to level up but Space was hesitant and while the other players took the super serum they swiped theirs off the table. They then burned luck points until they got a high enough roll to not be seen. When the head of the lab noticed the drug was missing they called Space on it as they were the only one in the room besides them. They then burned ANOTHER luck point on a deception check and got a nat 20 prompting the lab director to put everyone in lockdown fearing a spy for the dragon got in. In response to this Space casted plane shift and asked to go to the 9 hells, but this is Ravnica and the hells do not exist so I had them roll on a list Magic the Gathering planes and they landed on an inhospitable maelstrom. They then shoved a portable hole into their bag of holding to escape and had to roll again dropping them into another random plane. The session ended shortly after with everyone bitter as this ate up the last half hour of game time and everyone wanted to test out their new powers. My question is, did I handle this correctly or was I too harsh on poor Space

Jeff_Plagues

May it please the court and tantalite the bailiff. I present to you the case the fire mage Ezekiel. Several years ago I was playing a evocation wizard focusing only on fire named Ezekiel. We were playing a campaign in which we were fighting giants and ended up in a Volcano against fire giants. This part of the campaign was supposed to last a few sessions but ended up lasting 12+ 5 hour sessions. Everything we were fighting was fire proof or resistance so I was useless. I understood it was a chance for the DM to nerf me but after a month and a half of IRL time (7 sessions) of being useless I decide to kill my character off and build a new one. The party agreed the DM dragged out this part of the campaign for to long, however the DM said it was my fault for being OP for to long. Was I wrong for building then killing off my character or was the DM wrong for extending this part of the campaign on purpose. I humbly await by your response.

Summer Tribe

as per the DMG it only takes a short rest to determine what a magic item does. I don't blame your DM for changing that because it's a boring rule but yeah it sounds like your DM is intentionally fucking with you. Surely somebody had identify on your team?

LeCurve52

Alas, our party consists of a Rune Knight fighter (moi), a Path of the Beast Barbarian, and an Arcane Trickster Rogue. Unfortunately, since he’s our only spellcaster and he has a serious limit on non-enchantment/illusion spells he can take, the Rogue couldn’t pick up Identify

Robin McCulloch

May it please the court and tickle the Bailiff's fancy. I present to you a case on behalf of a friend of mine. She is part of a long-time campaign with her roommates. Her and one other player had characters from an old campaign that they grandfathered into this new one: a pair of pirates, captain Indigo (played by my friend) and her first mate (played by the roommate). During their most recent game, my friend's character went down in a tense battle. While recovering in her quarters, her first mate came in and killed her in her sleep. The DM not only allowed this, but revealed after the game had ended that the roommate had only agreed to play the game if he got to kill my friend's character. At no point was any of this, the plan or the possibility of pvp, discussed with the party as a whole. Now my friend is considering leaving the campaign entirely. I ask the court: is my friend in the right to be so upset about this occurance? Is leaving the campaign the right move?

John Wiest

Y'all need the box of doom. Make that paladin roll in front of everyone.

Junto

May it please the extremely hot Bailiff, and those judges too. I present the case of Bard left to die. During my first ever in-person campaign, our party found themselves taking a job to clear out some nearby bandits. In a lapse of judgment and mistake on the part of a few new players, we decided to go in without doing any investigation. This led to us getting into a pretty difficult fight for no reason which resulted in my bard going down, now being the only healer this seemed pretty dire but luckily we had a paladin who hadn't used their healing hands yet! But instead of bringing my pc back, he was on 2 death save fails, they instead opted to use his entire pool on himself. I was quite sad to see my character die but didn't press them about how they could have healed my character, after this they proceeded to never talk about this again and if it was ever brought up they would pretend it didn't happen. I ask the court: Were they right in healing themselves in an effort to beat the fight or should I of asked for him to heal me instead? I await your judgment. (P.S. This Paladin was not in any danger of being killed.)

Andy H

May it please the court, and displease the bailiff. I present the case of the human high jump. Just earlier today we were in the middle of an encounter where a witch was in a floating skull turned upside down, forty feet into the air. She has come down from the skull and our entire party wailed on her and she hastily retreated back up to the skull. Right now I am playing an echo knight, and the max range to summon the echo is 30 feet. I remembered from when I read through the players handbook, there was a place with alternate movements, or something along those lines. In that section there is “high jump” which would allow a player to jump 3 + their STR modifier upwards. I argued that if a part of my body was within 30 feet of the floor of the skull, I could summon my echo in the skull. My pc is 6’ and jumping the 6’ with high jump would put me at 28 feet away. My dm replied with “No you can’t, I would like to see you jump six feet into the air.” I then pointed out the section in the players handbook and he refused. I ask the court: Am I in the wrong for trying to use all the rules at my disposal, or is my dm in the wrong for trying to give a more realistic experience. I await your response with humility, regardless of the decision.

Summer Tribe

omg what is your player's background IRL? tenuous grasp of physics aside I wonder why they even thought to do this

Summer Tribe

every part of this is based on insane dream logic on your part, it's kind of charming and I hope they cover it one day

Summer Tribe

your DM is a goon, if they're going to change how the spell works they gotta let you rechoose what spell you've prepped and rechoose how your action went. if they think AoA is "OP" then they're just not prepared to DM adequately for that situation

Aidan Lopez

If it may please the ever studious high crit justices and the ever smelly and down-trodden bailiff, I present to you, the PC who was stolen by the party. I am currently playing a 5e Wild Magic Warforged in a pre-spell plague world. My character does not have memory of where they came from or why they were created, and the wild magic surges manifest as glitches in his programming. My issue comes from a place of frustration as I feel my character is being taken from me by my party. I came up with a fun backstory and even worked on a voice for my character but anytime I try to speak for my character or have a moment of trying to find out more about my character's backstory, my party seems to talk in their best impressions of my characters voice and speak for me. Other members of the party tell my character what spells he should take because, "it fits the character more" even though I enjoy the spells I pick myself. Whenever the DM asks me/my character a personal decision of any kind at least 2 different people give an answer for me and it feels like I don't have any agency within my own actions. What do I do? I feel like relinquishing the character and giving him to the DM so people can just do what they want with him...I leave the decision up to you oh mighty judges.

Summer Tribe

Unarmed gets a raw deal in 5e. You're already MCing two bad classes into an even worse mix, your DM may as well allow you to use your unarmed strike for sneak attack damage.

Summer Tribe

you have three feats supporting your build. Your DM could just rule you fail sight based checks, but it wouldn't matter much to you because you can't be surprised anyway. Seems odd to just say "you can't function"

Summer Tribe

Tool checks are ability checks, adding an ability mod is exactly how they work, tho it's the DM's choice what ability is relevant. given your post script statement I'm not confident your DM can read

Nico

If it may please the magnanimous justices — and if I may extend my greeting to the illustrious Jill, the wonderful Sarah, the delightful Sydney, and the dashing Tucker… I present to you a case of possible DM favoritism and request your counsel. My DM invited his girlfriend to play with us around the start of this year, joining a campaign that we’d been playing for almost 2.5 years. We were at level 11, so naturally my DM started her character at level 11 as well. However, her character was also the apprentice of an extremely powerful NPC and possessed several magic items, when the party had accumulated only a handful over the course of 2.5 years and came from humble beginnings. She didn't know how to play D&D, which we were understanding of, but my DM would shush the entire table when explaining combat to her, even side conversations at the far end of the table. She also gets tired easily and will put her head down to nap or completely zone out for long periods during sessions and often has no idea what we’re doing. She does have ADHD so we don’t mind, but we’ve had other players with ADHD who’d use their phones or chat when their focus dipped, and the DM has called them out on it. She has been playing with us for over half a year now and hasn’t quite grasped the rules or what to roll and he will repeatedly explain that she needs to roll a d20, whereas he’s gotten impatient with other newer players who didn’t know all their character abilities. She's really sweet, but I can’t help but feel a little irritated that my DM allows what would be seen as poor player etiquette as long as it’s his girlfriend, especially when he has called out said behavior in other players. I come before you all to ask: am I right for thinking that he lets too much slide with his girlfriend, or am I just drinking the koolaid? If so, is there a good way to bring it up, if at all? What would you do in this situation? I await your great wisdom.

Summer Tribe

wow your DM has to catch up with the concepts of these spells. If wall of force weren't intended to split enemies up, what does your DM think it's supposed to do?

Summer Tribe

how many times are we going to see "somebody made a decision for my character while I wasn't around, is that okay?"

Summer Tribe

at level 15 I can't even imagine how an ancient brass dragon would be that difficult to deal with. Are your players rolling exceptionally bad? does the dragon have lair actions? is the party lacking access to flight?

Kyle Conrad

Did you see the part where I said that I'm a newer DM and struggling to balance encounters? According to the DMG, for 4 lvl 15 players a Deadly encounter is 25,600 EXP. An Ancient Brass Dragon is 25,000 EXP and I figured a 600 EXP difference wasn't the worst thing - basically put it on the edge of Deadly. So I took a chance, and they would have absolutely slaughtered me in way fewer rounds had I not fudged my saving throws as the dragon.

Summer Tribe

please god use some line breaks

UrBoyDakota

No I’m fine, but thanks for the input for the comment I typed up in 10 min at work. Next time I’ll make sure it’s written using college essay standards

Summer Tribe

building a character is inherently metagaming, you gotta not use that term like it's a negative IT'S POLARIZING. But yeah your players probably shouldn't be deciding what's possible for the monsters they're fighting. I mean people play for a lot of reasons (see MDA framework) but outright speaking for the DM is just fucking weird and creates tension at the table

Summer Tribe

healing from 0 is not the same thing at all what are they on? that said y'all should've had a session 0 to confirm that your characters could at least get along, I mean it's sorta on you for deciding to play a character who outright despises other character options

Morgan Polenske

In attempting to be brief, I had to leave quite a bit out. I do agree a session zero would have helped so much! And there were many instances where I attempted to apologize both in character and have a cool conversation about life and death and make it a character building moment, but the other player was not having it. At this point, I'm just trying to understand the other players logic and rationalization of the healing from 0HP argument and his holding this against me. 🤷‍♀️

Summer Tribe

bardbarian is godawful, you don't have to force a bad multiclass just for RP, tho I don't even know how RPing a character who fakes fist fights would fit into a world where they could just cast magic anyway. also there's no hard rules about how a character acts actually effecting their class mechanically (outside of Druids won't wear metal), references to that stuff is all goofy legacy stuff they're moving away from and it needlessly punishes some classes while others just aren't held to that standard.

Kay

I had to find your case after watching the Court Cases. I run a CoS campaign and one of my players is also playing a commoner-to-magical character. However, I excluded Madness because of how brutal RAW it can be. It really is unfortunate to be singled out for this type of mechanical imbalance in an already super, super deadly world. If the 2Crew is correct in their thought process, that your DM is looking to add narrative flavor to your suddenly magical PC, I would suggest a Wild Magic table as an alternative. There are resources out there for homebrewed Wild Magic tables for EVERY class, not just Wild Magic Sorcerers, and also for Ravenloft settings specifically. I have a Wild Magic Sorcerer / Lycanthrope Barbarian in my campaign (obvi some HB was applied for narrative flavor) and I created a specialized Wild Magic table for them from these sources. Wild Magic only hits on 1st-level or higher spells, so my Sorcerer is incredibly hesitant to use anything but cantrips, adding a level of (fun)stress to their gameplay. The Wild Magic options are not super punishing but enough so that my payer seeks to avoid it when possible (some options are neutral and some are beneficial...an even spread). It also builds, meaning that if they avoided the Nat 1 role, the next time the Surge hits on 1 or 2, and the next time 1, 2, or 3, etc. until it hits and resets (Brennan Lee Mulligan did this and it is great) which ups the ante and (fun)stress each time, feeling more and more unpredictable. This could help you keep your burgeoning magic feel while preventing you from having levels of Madness ALL the time. That's my 2 cents, I hope it helps in some way to your discussions with your DM and you get to play CoS in a dynamic way and not a disheartening way! Good Luck!

Jacob Alexi

Thanks for the wild magic suggestion!

Summer Tribe

ah yeah trying to keep it brief compromises a lot of stories. It does sound a lot like the other player has no interest in playing along or even discussing it, that's disappointing. Good luck with future campaigns

Summer Tribe

naw you aint fine, just hit shift+enter, it makes it a lot more readable (and therefor more likely to be picked up by the bailiff I'm assuming). general readability standards aren't worth mocking

Summer Tribe

I 100% misread what you wrote somehow, totally got it backwards and thought you were fudging rolls for the players, MB. yeah balancing encounters is difficult but quick tip: don't throw just one enemy at the party. That advice doesn't always works but it's pretty generally applicable in my experience, even with 3 uses of legendary resistance it's too easy to steamroll a single opponent. Treatmonk did a decent video on how easy it is for two poorly made fighters to wipe the floor with Vecna and Vecna is ostensibly CR 26. CR is just not a good measurement tool unfortunately

Summer Tribe

sending you a wikipedia page with only one replacement is so gloriously shitty that I have to believe Chaz is intentionally being an asshole, what an incredibly funny thing to do

Summer Tribe

epiphany* or axpiphany*. That sounds like a clever use of the necklace, I don't understand your reasoning for disallowing it, but it's pretty easy to point at "When the creature appears, it is under no Compulsion to behave in any particular way. You can ask the creature to perform a service in exchange for payment, but it isn't obliged to do so." and come up with an in universe reason for shutting it down

Summer Tribe

how tf does the paladin know how that monk was raised? monk is just class anyway, you're not forced to roleplay some sexless loser. ffs the inspiration for DnD monks was action movies

Summer Tribe

god I wish people would a) read the rules and b) understand that DnD doesn't function on natural language. What's next, are you going to wear two pieces of armor at once? Insists chill touch does cold damage? Insist sneak attacks don't work because you're not sneaking?

Summer Tribe

no it's obviously not fair it's just stupid

Summer Tribe

you've been pushing this for so long lol. A song isn't even a good answer for that riddle damn it

Summer Tribe

"Climb Onto a Bigger Creature If one creatures wants to jump onto another creature, it can do so by grappling. A Small or Medium creature has little chance of making a successful grapple against a Huge or Gargantuan creature, however, unless magic has granted the grappler supernatural might. As an alternative, a suitably large opponent can be treated as terrain for the purpose of jumping onto its back or clinging to a limb. After making any ability checks necessary to get into position and onto the larger creature, the smaller creatures uses its action to make a Strength(Athletics) or Dexterity(Acrobatics) check contested by the target's Dexterity(Acrobatics) check. If it wins the contest, the smaller creature successfully moves into the target creature's space and clings to its body. While in the target's space, the smaller creature moves with the target and has advantage on attack rolls against it. The smaller creature can move around within the larger creature's space, treating the space as difficult terrain. The larger creature's ability to attack the smaller creature depends on the smaller creature's location, and is left to your (DM) discretion. The larger creature can dislodge the smaller creature as an action--knocking it off, scraping it against a wall, or grabbing and throwing it--by making a Strength(Athletics) check contested by the smaller creature's Strength(Athletics) or Dexterity(Acrobatics) check. The smaller creature chooses which ability to use." Why wouldn't a dragon be able to get at their back with their tail? what is "the small" of a dragon's back?

Summer Tribe

they covered a very similar case in previous dungeon courts, presumably their position would be similar now no?

Summer Tribe

this is the second case from this lot that involved a DM not understanding wall of force

Summer Tribe

I mean you already know the answer to this, your player is being a shithead fuckwit. https://www.dndunleashed.com/home/the-oath-of-shadows-paladin is this the oath of shadows you're talking about? this isn't broken, it's good, but it certainly isn't broken. most paladin subclasses just aren't very good (watcher being the only real standout one)

Summer Tribe

you've wronged your player and you know it. quit being lazy and start putting multiple enemies in combat, your player's build isn't even strong enough to be mid OP, you shouldn't be struggling with them doing their thing. if your combats are taking too long then maybe you should work on streamlining them, idk if your players are taking up too much time or if you're just unprepared for leading a group but you should be designing them with a plan and a flowchart

Summer Tribe

as per the wording of the broom "It then hovers beneath you and can be ridden in the air. It has a flying speed of 50 feet." You're using the broom's movement, not your own, and the broom isn't a creature, it can't take the dash action. You could take the dash action while on top of the broom, fall many feet, get up from prone and then continue moving tho!

Summer Tribe

you're not a bad DM just cause a dude doesn't wanna play the game (you might be a bad DM tho, I dunno). good lucky tryna score your husband's best friend's wife

Summer Tribe

Your DM is being a dick. I hate this stupid mentality that certain classes are forced into certain roleplay, that's so needlessly punishing, it serves no purpose.

Summer Tribe

if he's truly blessed by dice christ see how he does in combat against the players. let them enact their plan, dice christ will choose the victors

Summer Tribe

the DMG suggests letting spells do things that they don't outright describe doing in a couple places (such as the advantage and disadvantage part of the using ability scores section describing ringing ears from thunderwave as a source of disadvantage) but most tables don't like that (fairly so, full spellcasters are already the strongest without additional sneaky powers). RAW spells are as malleable as the DM allows, you don't really get to assume they do anything that it doesn't outright say they do, but given that DnD is ostensibly "written in natural language" (it's not), you could argue a lot of things based on a lot of spell blocks

Summer Tribe

this is longer than most cases and difficult to read what with the lack of line breaks (shift+enter) however I would love to hear Jake read this story out some beautiful day

tanner ravenscroft

Damn you sound like my DM😂 I appreciate the comment

Summer Tribe

in what sense do you view disintegrate as unfair? you're playing a notoriously death filled campaign and you willfully jumped onto a magic altar without knowing what it does

Summer Tribe

" The crime for why this PC needed to die as they were unoriginal and crude. " heads up this sentence needs some editing to make sense

Summer Tribe

What's wrong with the dwarf? None of that information sounds necessarily like a problem at the table, is there a particular story related to the dwarf that makes this an issue?

Summer Tribe

wtf does "lack of forest" mean in regards to either of those jeepers

Summer Tribe

You did outright say your friend was being annoying enough to get 3 characters killed in a row in the same fashion, maybe that's what happened?

Summer Tribe

you shouldn't feel bad about high rolls, it happens sometimes BFD.

Summer Tribe

why is your DM so adversarial? yes they're obviously in the wrong

Summer Tribe

your brother* is correct, RP isn't intended to be a hard enforceable rule (says so right in the first chapter of the PHB) and it pointlessly makes the game less fun for people who want to play around with ideas. Speaking of corrections please god work on your spelling

Summer Tribe

you should point out that the peasant railgun would destroy the hands of the peasants before it would be usable. also point out that your player is being a stupid dickhead who is going out of their way to not play the game that everybody else is trying to play

Summer Tribe

regardless of the balance of your weapon WTF is up with the DM punishing you mid session for a decision they gave the greenlight earlier? that's some stupid bullshit. also what does "that's not how fog cloud works" mean? were you just disallowed from casting it?

Summer Tribe

revivify doesn't even use a roll what. why would you even be rerolling? we need more context

Summer Tribe

why do people keep putting an apostrophe in PCs when they don't need it? also your pronoun usage makes it hard to tell when you're swapping from talking about the player to the character. If you don't want them to succeed on a check, don't ask for the check, it's as simple as that.

Dench Judy

Because Monkey Brain’s 🦧’s

Summer Tribe

paramour*. anyway clap this disrespectful punk

Summer Tribe

GM gaslighting the players is hilarious, keep it up so long as you post more stories of it. I wanna hear how your lies unfold

Summer Tribe

this is something y'all should've gone over in session 0. passive checks aren't a great part of the game (presumably the DM knows what your checks are, so DCs against them may as well be GM fiat a large % of the time), but not honoring that your character was built with them in mind is a bullshit move, you should at least get a respec

Summer Tribe

this case comes up thrice every request for cases

Summer Tribe

healing people who are still up during a fight is pretty suboptimal and in this case needlessly selfish, what an odd play. is it supposed to be part of their character's RP that they're a dick?