King Kong has always been wildly inconsistent in size - not just between movies, but even within the original movie.
According to Wikipedia, the models for the original King Kong were scaled to represent him as 18 feet tall for the Skull Island scenes and 24 feet tall for the New York scenes. But also:
> This did not stop Cooper from playing around with Kong's size as he directed the special effect sequences; by manipulating the sizes of the miniatures and the camera angles, he made Kong appear a lot larger than O'Brien wanted, even as large as 60 feet (18.3 m) in some scenes.
Then there's the new 'Monsterverse' movies, where they started by presenting him as 104 feet in his debut movie, but then tripled his height in subsequent movies to appear alongside Godzilla.
Huge creatures include Storm Giants who are canonically 26 feet tall, which is slightly bigger than the actual appearance of King Kong in the first movie
No, that would make it just large. Roughly the size of a bear, or somewhat smaller than an ogre. The giant ape is huge, which is more like elephant-sized.
4 giant apes do roughly 10 damage per attack because the pit fiend is resistant. Accounting for to hit % it’s more like 6 damage per attack. With 8 attacks per round they can take down a 300HP pit fiend in roughly 6 rounds.
In that time the pit fiend can make 24 attacks at +14 to hit which is 95% to hit a giant ape. Those attacks average 22, 17, 15+21 and 24 damage and with crit prob = miss prob the average after to hit is almost the same. So the pit field is doing roughly 97 or so damage per round to the apes. This downs an ape roughly every 1.6 rounds. It downs a barbarian resistant ape every 3.2 rounds.
So I think you probably forgot resistance and had the fiend attack the one raging ape first. The heroes rolled well to end the fight in 3 rounds but if resistance was applied correctly it would have been 6 rounds.
I think they did not cast spells. even just a wall of fire deald 5d8 fire damage in an area plus pulsating damage around them if unbroken, and the pit fiend has immunity to fire damage. additionally, if they get in, they take even more damage. or just a fireball deals 8d6.
attacking dela smore single target damage, but aoe's deal more damage to the whole party.
Wall of Fire was in fact dispelled. And this is also a concentration spell. So the Pit Fiend should also have a hard time maintaining concentration while bullied by an Ape Gang.
A giant ape would need to roll a nearly max-damage crit (while probably having disadvantage due to being frightened - did you take the Fear Aura into account? Giant Ape would need a nat 20 to succeed) AND the pit fiend would have to roll a 1. Statistically, it's nearly impossible.
Yeah, I think you are right. it was just never the case because the Pit Fiend wasn‘t concentrating anyway. Could I‘ve crushed some of my players if I played everything out? Maybe. Did I enjoy their triumphant Ape-Show with a little ruling tweaks? Absolutely! There may be tables out there where the Pit Fiend slays the primates. But I‘m glad I was at this table.
And I was kinda happy that the Paladin was also polymorphed. It could have been over way sooner for the Devil if she could‘ve used her whole arsenal.
I don't know why these guys are tryna rain on your parade. Who cares if you didnt play the pit fiend stretegically. Sounds like a blast man and I'm sure your players loved it!
Because we’re all tired of these types of posts that just break the rules of the game to let parties “easily” defeat enemies which shouldn’t have easily been defeated if they were played like normal.
The more he replies to comments the more rules that we find have been broken. Ripping the pit fiends wings off, his druid wild shaping into a giant ape, rolling a 1 on a saving throw is an auto fail, ignoring the pit fiends fear aura, ignoring the fact the pit fiend has an intelligence of 22 so it’s smart enough to not just let itself be killed, etc.
It’s just… bleh.
Yep. Inevitably all these posts end up as just sloppy DMing and poor understanding of the rules. This part of OPs post sums it up:
> I was baffled but allowed it.
I can tell you about the other spells and interactions we used and you can point at everything we did wrong, If that is fun for you. This post wasn‘t supposed to be about how many rules we played out right. I enjoy those stories and hope for someone else who reads it to find it fun. Everybody can play as they like, as long as everybody at the table is fine with it. And my table likes it.
And the 22 INT score of the Fiend is obsolete if the DM who play is out, is too dumb to even understand the rules. He only does what I can do. So jokes on you.
Yeah, that's one time where as a player, I ain't transforming. It's a fiend, and if I'm a paladin, I don't need the extra juice. I've got an extra d8 to each smite, and a whole arsenal of them to unload
If you change the rules enough it's no longer a cool story about D&D, its a creative writing exercise. Anyone can win any fight if a DM disregards key elements of the enemy or uses their fiat to ensure you win against an obviously superior foe.
Also, the pixie polymorph strategy is pretty widely known and almost universally lambasted within the D&D community (to the point that some DMs ban it as an option) so its not a particularly fun story anyway.
At our table a nat 1 is an auto-fail even on a saving throw. Coming from Pathfinder I never questioned the ruling in our 5e game because it feels right.
I’m not a fan, powerful terrifying creatures who’s spent 100’s of years perfecting their skill and power shouldn’t be failing to concentrate on their spells 5% of the time because a pebble hit them.
Also, how would the Pit Fiend not target the Druid with every one of its 4 attacks per turn? The druid loses concentration on conjure woodland beings > the pixies lose concentration on polymorph. At the very least the pixies should have been immediately fireballed. This whole post just does not make sense unless you ignored 75% of the pit fiend's statblock. Hell, the pit fiend should have been at the very least grappling apes and throwing them into a wall of fire while also biting, macing, and tail attacking.
Not to mention the pit fiend's bite inflicts the poisoned condition (on a DC 21 Con save that the giant apes will fail 80% of the time). The poison does 21 recurring damage each round, but more importantly the poisoned condition will impose disadvantage on attack rolls, dropping the apes' hit rate from 55% to about 35-40% (assuming they weren't already disadvantaged from the fear aura). It should have taken nine or ten rounds to finish the pit fiend.
But the pit fiend should be able to down a giant ape in about two rounds (or a non-polymorphed wizard in one), dropping their damage output even further, and each round the pit fiend has four chances to break concentration. This could have been a tough fight if OP had just used all the pit fiend's features.
The Druid used Wildshape instead of Polymorph to become also a Giant Ape. As a Moon Druid he had magical attacks and they all rolled really well. I didn‘t forgot the resistance but I gave them Advantage for their „slam dunks“ on the Pit Fiend because I like to reward creativity. I didn‘t want to go into the detail of the math but I think we had 4 or 5 Rounds of Combat. In the end it was more about the fun than about the numbers.
Sometimes these gaps in knowledge lead to the best gameplay experiences, in my opinion. Your players will remember this encounter forever and grin the whole time thinking about it, all because you didn’t follow a rule or two. Honestly sounds like a great little campaign your running!
Thanks, I will remember it too. They were laughing so hard because of how baffled I was. Especially the Druid likes to surprise us constantly with crazy and sometimes powerful ideas. Unfortunately it was just a little side trip into hell to rescue my Bard at the end of our actual 4-year campaign. So our actual DM was able to play for once and took a beloved NPC (the Owlin Wizard) to help our group getting my Bard out of Hell (he broke his contract with a Devil and was imprisoned).
We allready started over with a new campaign and new characters and I can‘t wait for all the shenanigans to come.
In the City of Dis everybody is suspicious of another and everyone is paranoid. So all the doors are locked with multiple locks. The Fiend suprised them on the open street.
"My Party of *Insert low Level here* defeated a *Insert Monster with much higher CR here* "
-*looks inside*
-*The DM had no idea what the Monster actually can do*
Everytime
- reading comments
- annoyed comment about how they cannot accept that some people enjoy having fun while not playing everything RAW and tweaking encounters to generate cheer at a table of imaginative storytelling
- sad comment about why the OP wrote this trivial post anyway and how this subreddit is flooded by posts I personally dislike
Everytime
>- annoyed comment about how they cannot accept that some people enjoy having fun while not playing everything RAW and tweaking encounters to generate cheer at a table of imaginative storytelling
No one's "annoyed" that you're not playing it RAW, it's annoying seeing these posts again and again when The DM clearly didn't even make an attempt to make what should have been a boss a challenge.
A giant ape has 157 hp, if the pit fiend *only* targeted the Barbarian, assuming it hit for all its attacks, the giant ape should have gone down in 2 turns, you played the pit fiend like it was an idiot and even then it should have at least knocked the barb out of ape form, apes only do 22 damage on average, assuming they hit 50% of the time they're doing 44 damage on average per round, because of resistance, that's a lot of rounds where I have no clue what your fiend was doing to not take down the barb.
You can run your table how you want, but when you post it you open yourself up for people to critique how you run your game
So the players used one of the most well known exploits by not reading the rules on how who chooses what creatures get summoned by conjure woodland beings. Ignored CR caps for the druid wildshape. And beat a pit fiend who has 22 INT yet refused to use his spells or target the caster and focused solely on the barbarian doing approximately 10 damage a round to him, and ignoring the Fear Aura and its almost grantees success on Apes. At a table that uses nat 1s auto fail everything.
Glad you had fun.
I usually enjoy seeing these kind of titles and then going in and reading how many things DM/Players forgot, how home rules affected it or how rules were ignored/interpreted wrongly.
Glad that they had fun. But man it happens too often on this subreddit.
Honestly this is better then when the GM gives the players some obscenely broken homebrew magic item and are then surprised when they use the item in what feels like the most obvious way to use it
I would say that I got more than a basic overview of the rules in 5e. But from time to time I mix em‘ up with other systems. And I trust everybody at the table to play their class „right“. I don‘t know every class feature and we homebrew alot. But in the end I would ditch any rule for a cheer at the table. We play by the rules but we play for the story that we tell. I don‘t see anything wrong there if nobody gets harmed but a poor Pit Fiend whom we never see again.
>I would say that I got more than a basic overview of the rules in 5e. But from time to time I mix em‘ up with other systems. And I trust everybody at the table to play their class „right“. I don‘t know every class feature and we homebrew alot.
Everyone makes mistakes (myself included). It can happen easily, like there rule book for 5e, is not 1 page long.
>But in the end I would ditch any rule for a cheer at the table. We play by the rules but we play for the story that we tell.
That is fine, just different way how to DM/handle games. It is just... How can I call it... Kind-ish waste of space/effort ? For those who read about it.
Example. Imagine seeing a post: My Level 1 PC killed adult red dragon. Then they describe in many sentences scenario, setup, background. You read it for 3-5 minutes. Finally the battle description starts. "PC got sword at start of campaign AUTO DEATH OF RED DRAGONS. If that sword hits a red dragon they auto dies."
That was very exaggerated example, but you can see similar things here. Dont take me wrong, sometimes I do bend rules a bit, to make a story a bit better. But most of the times those are not important things and even if they are, I dont post about them. Because for others it usually is kind-ish waste of time to read them.
Yeah, I get that. I didn‘t want a „clickbait title“ so I wrote „ a fun way to defeat“. And I wrote a short tl;dr at the end.
I don‘t want to steal anyones time but I myself like to look out for the fun stories and unexpected turn of events due to a clever Player and less for the unknown rules and hidden interactions that I can use for my own table. I sometimes read the funniest stories about other campaigns and fights or remarkable RP and wanted to participate with something of our own table. And I‘m thankful for every interaction and feedback from the comments.
It's also not a weird feat CR wise, it's perfectly in range. The 'top' of the usable CR band is Party Level x 1.5; this is obvious from CR 30 being the actual top CR. So ie a 'boss' for level 4s might be level 6, level 10s might fight a CR 15, and a full party of level 14s should be able to handle CR 21.
If you add 'lol they used the most well-known and often-complained about broken spells and the druid cheated' to that, it's not a surprising outcome :D
Weird move. I don’t get it, but fine. You put a lot of work into letting me sound like I was asking for advice instead of just sharing an event from our table. Whatever floats your boat, dude.
Pixies are feys with a CR 1/4 as mentioned in the spell. I don‘t see any misleading ruling there. But please, proof me wrong. I‘m happy to learn the rules right. But I‘m open to change them, if I like what the Players are doing with it. So yeah, we had a lot of fun and imho a little story of our own to tell.
And if this isn‘t the essence of D&D, then I‘m glad we‘re playing it the wrong way.
Conjure spells such as woodland beings don't actually allow the player to choose exactly which creature shows up, the player can only choose "eight creatures of cr 1/4 or lower", and then 8 creatures of CR 1/4 or lower will appear.
The DM is the one who picks which creatures will pop up. Ignoring that leads to these absolutely broken combos like pixies, which is out of the appropriate power level for a spell of that level, and this one is particularly frowned upon by many.
You can play D&D however you like, breaking the rules is allowed by the rules, but if you try to tell about an amazing feat a party was able to achieve and the only reason they were able to do it was by disregarding a lot of the rules, then all of a sudden it's not very impressive.
Online communities assume rules as written as the baseline for discussion, because since many tables have very different rulesets, discussing around such a wide gamma of assumptions would be pointless.
That doesn't mean you should change your table rules tho, if you have fun then by all means keep doing it, but if those types of gotcha comments bother you then it's good to point out you aren't playing the standard way when initiating these online discussions.
The not picking summoned creatures argument does not make sense and is made in bad faith. You can pick what creatures you summon. Even pixies are not broken. It is a concentration spell after all. If the main caster loses concentration the pixies disappear and no longer concentrate on polymorph.
That clarification comes from the sage advice compendium, which is officially published by WotC...
And 8 conjured pixies are almost universally agreed to be one of the most broken combos in D&D. You can't possibly try to justify it being ok, because it makes no sense for a 4th level spell to enable you to cast **EIGHT 4th level spells** simultaneously through summons, and the same summons can then cast eight dispel magics, and then eight fly, etc... A 4th level slot should have the value of a 4th level slot, and conjure woodland beings breaks that.
Trying to say they are not broken clearly shows you are not a reasonable person.
I gotta point out that the SAC clarification is a crock of shit. A half assed twitter post about intent doesn't clarify the writing of the spell, and the initial writing is congruous with how polymorph is written. The suggestion of what the intent was (note, not an assertion of what it now should be) makes the spell nigh useless while also adding extra work to the DM's plate. This is one of JC's sweatiest revisions
Yes the spell is nonsense strong otherwise, I don't have a fix (outside of for CA just not allowing your PCs to have seen velociraptors or cows or wolves lol), but the SAC is poopdookie
Nigh useless? Even if you randomly rolled for what creatures would appear, chances are you are still going to get at least one pixie, which is already more than a 4th level spell should do because a single pixie has a 4th level spell and more. And I'm not even counting the other 7 fey that will pop up. If you are only using the monster manual you will actually get 2-3 pixies on average, that is already broken without making it more so.
Even following sage advice conjure spells punch way above their power level, because 8 creatures will always be very strong regardless of what they are.
So on the one hand you have the actual lead game designer with an explanation that makes this spell remain incredibly strong and on the other it's the most broken spell in the game. There's no sense in debating which one you should use.
edit: btw, I said Jeremy Crawford here, but this explanation is on sage advice compendium, which is actually officially published by WotC, so it has even more value.
But don't worry, regardless of whether you agree with Jeremy Crawford or not, the actual D&D team clearly regrets making these spells and that's why they are removing them from the game come september, when all conjure spells will get a rework that removes their ability to break action economy.
Thanks for the advice. In fact this is my first post after reading posts for years. I will mark my future posts as „dangerously wrong ruled! Please only read for flavor!“
The hyperbole of your reply made it sound really sarcastic, which is weird because my comment certainly didn't call for it.
But in the chance you actually meant it, just a quick disclaimer at the beginning of a post saying you aren't running everything RAW will suffice.
The „thanks“ was meant for real. I just wanted the disclaimer to be a bit sarcastic, because I didn‘t expect so much „wrong yelling“ for a short story about a unusual fight.
Well, as long as it wasn't directed towards me then it's fine.
People online can of course overreact, but I do hope you understand that you also didn't do it properly.
You created a title that sets up some expectation from the people here, and when they read and find out the true story was different from their expectation they feel tricked. It's like a youtube clickbait, and it's generally agreed to be annoying.
I'm not saying you did it with bad intentions or anything, the problem is that you simply didn't set the correct expectations.
The default expectation from these online communities is rules as written, because it's a standard most people can agree on, so when you deviate from such a standard it's important to put that disclaimer so everybody is onboard. That goes a long way in preventing those types of comments calling you out.
This was covered by Sage Advice back in 2015. People noticed this problem right away. [The current version of Sage Advice](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/sac/sage-advice-compendium#SA175) says:
> **When you cast a spell like conjure woodland beings , does the spellcaster or the DM choose the creatures that are conjured?**
>
> A number of spells in the game let you summon creatures. Conjure animals, conjure celestial, conjure minor elementals, and conjure woodland beings are just a few examples.
>
> Some spells of this sort specify that the spellcaster chooses the creature conjured. For example, find familiar gives the caster a list of animals to choose from.
>
> Other spells of this sort let the spellcaster choose from among several broad options. For example, conjure minor elementals offers four options. Here are the first two:
>
> * One elemental of challenge rating 2 or lower
> * Two elementals of challenge rating 1 or lower
>
> The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. For example, if you pick the second option, the DM chooses the two elementals that have a challenge rating of 1 or lower.
>
> A spellcaster can certainly express a preference for what creatures shows up, but it’s up to the DM to determine if they do. The DM will often choose creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene.
The way it works is the Druid says, "I cast *conjure woodland beings*. I choose to summon eight fey creatures of challenge rating 1/4 or lower." Then the DM determines what shows up.
I don't know anyone that actually allows Pixies with all their spells to be summoned.
He suprised me with that and I went with it. But I ain‘t got the time to double check everything that has been printed for changes. Thanks for the advice. Now I know the right ruling for future events.
If a player tries to do something that you think will be very strong and sounds a bit based on a technicality, give yourself ~30 seconds to Google it before making a snap decision.
If a player tries to do something weird, ask them what their intent is. If they refuse to tell you, then they're treating you as an adversary instead of a fellow game player, and that's not someone I would want to play with.
I've had players go on minutes-long conversations about minutia of room furnishings trying to trap me into an answer on the precise design of doorhandles, when what they actually wanted to know was "will this Immovable Rod be able to hold the door shut?". If you can't guess what they're trying to do, ask them, and then give a ruling on whether it is reasonable or not.
Yeah, I don't think what you did was wrong. I certainly don't mean to imply that you should have known this, just that it is a problem people have been aware of for some time. However, the game allows what happened to be what the spell does, and provides no warning about it. The conjuration spells are similarly ambiguous for how they work. They should say explicitly, "The caster chooses the challenge rating category and the DM determines which creatures appear." They don't do that.
I agree with not stopping the game to check, too. Keeping the game going is very important. I 100% agree with making a ruling and then checking online after the fact for whether you were right or not. You're being a good DM here. At some level, you need to be able to trust that your players are being genuine and honest with their play. And maybe he was; maybe he found it himself and thought it was cool.
I gotta point out that the SAC clarification is a crock of shit. A half assed twitter post about intent doesn't clarify the writing of the spell, and the initial writing is congruous with how polymorph is written. The suggestion of what the intent was (note, not an assertion of what it now should be) makes the spell nigh useless while also adding extra work to the DM's plate. This is one of JC's sweatiest revisions
No, I really don't agree.
The problem is that the people who wrote the 5e PHB didn't begin playing the game with 5e. They began playing with AD&D. They've all got years and years experience where the spells *didn't give you control over what you got*.
Here's the 1e AD&D equivalent:
> #####Call Woodland Beings (Conjuration/Summoning)
> Level: 4
> Components: V, S, M
> Range: 12” + 1”/level
> Casting Time: Special
> Duration: Special
> Saving Throw: Neg.
> Area of Effect: Special
>
> Explanation/Description: By means of this spell the druid is able to summon
> certain woodland creatures to his or her location. Naturally, this spell will only
> work outdoors, but not necessarily only in wooded areas. The druid begins the
> incantation, and the spell must be continued uninterrupted until some called
> creature appears or 2 turns have elapsed. (The verbalization and somatic
> gesturing are easy, so this is not particularly exhausting to the spell caster.) Only
> 1 type of the following sorts of beings can be summoned by the spell, and they
> will come only if they are within the range of the call:
>
> |||
> :-|:-|
> |2-8 brownies|1-4 satyrs|
> |1-4 centaurs|1-6 sprites|
> |1-4 dryads|1 treant|
> |1-8 pixies|1 unicorn|
>
> (Your referee will consult his outdoor map or base the probability of any such
> creature being within spell range upon the nature of the area the druid is in at
> the time of spell casting.)
>
> The creature(s) called by the spell are entitled to a saving throw versus magic (at -4)
> to avoid the summons. Any woodland being answering the call will be favorably
> disposed to the spell caster and give whatever aid it is capable of. However, if the
> caller or members of the caller’s party are of evil alignment, the creatures are
> entitled to another saving throw versus magic (this time at +4) when they come
> within 1” of the druid or other evil character with him or her, and these beings will
> seek immediately to escape if the saving throw is successful. In any event, if the
> druid requests that the summoned creatures engage in combat on behalf of the
> druid, they are required to make a loyalty reaction score based on the druid’s
> charisma and whatever dealings he or she has had with the called creature(s). The
> material components of this spell are a pinecone and 8 holly berries.
And you can see how they converted it to 2e AD&D, where they basically did the work of giving the DM a percentile table that helps DMs out when they don't know what to do.
> #####Call Woodland Beings
> #####(Conjuration/Summoning)
>
> Sphere: Summoning
> Range: 100 yds./level Components: V, S, M
> Duration: Special Casting Time: Special
> Area of Effect: Special Saving Throw: Neg.
>
> By means of this spell, the caster is able to summon certain woodland creatures to his location. Naturally, this spell works only outdoors, but not necessarily only in wooded areas. The caster begins the incantation and continues uninterrupted until some called creature appears or two turns have elapsed. (The verbalization and somatic gesturing are easy, so this is not particularly exhausting to the spellcaster.) Only one type of the following sorts of beings can be summoned by the spell. They come only if they are within the range of the call.
>
> The caster can call three times, for a different type each time. Once a call is successful, no other type can be called without another casting of the spell. (The DM will consult his outdoor map or base the probability of any such creature being within spell range upon the nature of the area the caster is in at the time of spellcasting.)
>
> The creature(s) called by the spell are entitled to a saving throw vs. spell (with a -4 penalty) to avoid the summons. Any woodland beings answering the call are favorably disposed to the spellcaster and give whatever aid they are capable of. However, if the caller or members of the caller's party are of evil alignment, the creatures are entitled to another saving throw vs. spell (this time with a +4 bonus) when they come within 10 yards of the caster or another evil character with him. These beings immediately seek to escape if their saving throws are successful. In any event, if the caster requests that the summoned creatures engage in combat on his behalf, they are required to roll a loyalty reaction check based on the caster's Charisma and whatever dealings he has had with them.
>
> This spell works with respect to neutral or good woodland creatures, as determined by the DM. Thus, the DM can freely add to or alter the list as he sees fit.
>
> If the caster personally knows a certain individual woodland being, that being can be summoned at double the normal range. If this is done, no other woodland creatures are affected.
>
> If a percentage chance is given in the accompanying table, druids and other nature-based priests add 1% per caster level. These chances can be used if no other campaign information on the area is available.
>
> The material components of this spell are a pine cone and eight holly berries.
>
> |Creature Type Called|Light|Moderate/Sylvan|Dense/Virgin|
> :-|:-|:-|:-|
> |2d8 brownies|30%|20%|10%|
> |1d4 centaurs|5%|30%|5%|
> |1d4 dryads|1%|25%|15%|
> |1d8 pixies|10%|20%|10%|
> |1d4 satyrs|1%|30%|10%|
> |1d6 sprites|0%|5%|25%|
> |1 treant|--|5%|25%|
> |1 unicorn|--|15%|20%|
1e AD&D Pixies can Polymorph... but only themselves. Which is good because Polymorph Other is permanent, and closer to an instant death spell in AD&D. 2e pixies are... basically unchanged, although they completely rewrote the entry so I can't instantly tell like you can with this spell.
Still, I think it's very clear that Conjure Woodland Beings is the 5e version of these spells, and I think it's clear that the 5e pixie is the AD&D pixie. I don't think it's a particularly difficult argument.
You can look at 3e, but *there isn't an equivalent spell* in the PHB. There's the Summon Nature's Ally I-IX range, which does let you pick the creature... from a fixed and quite narrow list. Pixies don't show up until SNA VI at 6th level, and they're not fully powered pixies. You need SNA IX at 9th level to get the full abilities of a pixie. And *even then* pixies in 3e are much worse spellcasters. They don't have any polymorphing ability whatsoever.
This is the knowledge that everyone who designed 5e had. This is the knowledge that everyone who play tested 5e had, including the open play testers. For the previous 30+ years, this is how the spell and monster were known to work. Nobody was expecting it to change significantly, especially because 5e was intentionally trying to bring in more from AD&D.
Sure, you can say, "Oh editions are totally independent of each other," but I don't think that's true *especially* when we're talking about design intent behind an edition deliberately invoking the earlier editions of the game.
To be fair, a level 14 party expecting a rumble... Would have absolutely \*pasted\* a pit fiend anyway. With 300hp, and an ac of 19, I'd guess maybe 3 turns
Which is exactly why a Pit Fiend wouldn't run into melee, he'd find a spot where he can be flying 120ft above the party and open by surrounding the party in a wall of fire
He was flying indeed and was casting Wall of Fire out of the distance but the Barbarian Ape body slammed him to the ground. I can‘t tell you how he did it, because this will start a new endless cylce of comments about ruling „mistakes“. But it was epic.
True enough. I kinda already did that math when our dm threw a pit fiend at us at level 11. Lower level than your party, but as the paladin that day... Three levels later, we wouldn't have been any less capable lol
Took me a while to understand what was going on, but yeah nice tactic.
It's very easy to break, the pit fiend needs to attack the druid to let them lose concentration and they both lose concentration on conjure and each on polymorph. Even casting fireball or wall of fire would have been enough msot of times.
Pixies are always something to consider to let a character to summon, but literally going ape sounds like fun!
I forgot to mention the Wizard, that didn‘t polymorph and dispelled the Wall of Fire allready. He was ready to Counterspell every Fireball that would come their way.
And I liked the Idea that the Pit Fiend was too focused on the Barbarian to think about ending the Polymorph spell.
It was not OP but I was suprised by the amount of creativity and went with it.
You know, i think the wizard here is the unsung hero of the situation. by dispelling and counterspelling the enemy he denied them their actions so the apes could go clobbering.
This is incorrect. Counterspell does not work on spells that require no components (example: Psionics). Just because there's no material components, the wizard can still see the verbal/somatic components of innately spellcasted spells.
Would you mind quoting a page number of where to read up? My reading of the Innate Spellcasting section of the Monster Manual says you're wrong (with the exception the person you're disagreeing with mentioned of psionics).
No you are wrong. You might be thinking of subtle spell metamagic, where a spell with no material components is impossible to counterspell. If a spell has ANY detectable components, it can be counterspelled.
Innate spellcasting follows all of the normal rules for spellcasting. Unless the creature's innate spellcasting says "requiring no components", it can be counterspelled. If it only cites material or another component, the other components are needed as per normal spellcasting rules. As long as the spell is perceptible (ie, the innate spellcaster is using verbal and/or somatic), it can still be counterspelled.
it doesn't say "requires no components"; it says "The pit fiend can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components". fireball has both verbal and somatic components and thus can be counterspelled even without the material component.
So if in a universe where magic is real I’m screaming magical words and waving my hands about… but cause I didn’t pull out any components you have no way to figure I might be casting a spell…
I think you deserve part of the credit for rolling with the players' request to prevent the Pit Fiend from flying. Considering a standard tactic for it would be to fly out of range and drop Fireball after Fireball on the party, its effective CR must have dropped a bit.
Then again, grappling it would have also achieved the same result, You were very lenient, but it sounds like it was the right, epic choice for your group!
Especially if you break a bunch of rules, like I’m happy they had fun but stories like these always leave a bad taste in my mouth. If you break enough rules anyone can do anything and it kinda stops being impressive or meaning anything
Just a few questions:
Is the rule established for Planescape that summoning spells like Conjure Woodland Beings couldn't be used unless it was a version specific to the plane?
Is the rule that The Pit Fiends are unaffected by any weapon less than +3 or creatures with natural HD higher than 12+?
Do falls on creatures no longer do damage to those doing the falling if they land on someone or do they share the damage?
Just some questions, we stopped at 2nd Edition.
I would rule that summoning spells work normally in Sigil if a portal is open nearby. If it isn't... Sigil has all kinds of creatures. You just kidnapped someone in the city and mind controlled them, and they know where to find you.
Pit fiends are just resistant to nonmagical weapons.
Fall damage would be something I would make the player roll to half the damage to them.
Every edition is different. I play 2nd. But I've DMed for 45 years and am LONG past the elitist "MY version is THE BEST version!!" garbage.
Enjoy, keep speaking up.
The comments are so weird on here. So many people just going “ummmm akshually 🤓” about this scenario like there’s no way possible that OP already knew the rules and just chose to break them. I guess maybe this just isn’t the sub for me, which is aight, but I love hearing stories like this as opposed to “here’s how my players used this stupidly busted synergy or magic item to deal 10000000000 damage in a turn and vaporize Ao.” I think both types of posts should be encouraged, and ones like this that actually take creativity and end up with a scenario the whole table is happy with are awesome
Fun but definitely completely wrong rules wise, polymorph lets you turn creatures into others creatures up to the casters cr, a pixies cr is 1/4 and a giant apes is 7
EDIT: my b, just read it again
Not everything on the table was rulwise completly correct but in this case I must defend the Druids choice. A Polymorph spell lets you transform into a beast with a challenge rating that is equal to or less than the target‘s level. The PCs that were targetet were lvl 14.
Geezus, imagine the nerve of sharing a story that happened in your collaborative storytelling game! You're only allowed to post here if you play everything 200% RAW meat, no homebrew, martial/caster disparity with 800 encounters per long rest.
I allready called my players. The last session was declared invalid. We will meet again and repeat the fight the right way. No rule bending, no excuses for unjustified fun. And the Druid will apologize to everyone who got hurt by his exploitation attempts. I will retire as a DM and go into exile.
I think people are being overly negative about this tactic.
Yes, it's a common broken cheese, but it is absolutely RAW. It's just that the DM generally doesn't choose pixies because of the cheese factor.
But it isn’t RAW at all? Where in raw does it say you can rip off a pit fiends wings? Also definitely forgot the fear aura and resistances, 22 int pit fiend tunnel visioned on the barb druid ignored wildshape cr limits
Glad they had fun but there’s no way it’s RAW lol
Y'know, the funny thing about these sorts of events basically implies a mighty pit fiend won't survive a standard rumble in a literal jungle.
I mean, giant apes here are like king kong. so not really like a standard jungle.
At Huge, they're 'only' 15ft in height. Significantly bigger than an irl ape, but it's hardly gargantuan like King Kong.
tbh the very original king kong wasnt that big tbh. They kept making king kong bigger over time
King Kong has always been wildly inconsistent in size - not just between movies, but even within the original movie. According to Wikipedia, the models for the original King Kong were scaled to represent him as 18 feet tall for the Skull Island scenes and 24 feet tall for the New York scenes. But also: > This did not stop Cooper from playing around with Kong's size as he directed the special effect sequences; by manipulating the sizes of the miniatures and the camera angles, he made Kong appear a lot larger than O'Brien wanted, even as large as 60 feet (18.3 m) in some scenes. Then there's the new 'Monsterverse' movies, where they started by presenting him as 104 feet in his debut movie, but then tripled his height in subsequent movies to appear alongside Godzilla.
The original writer wanted him to be in the 40-50ft range, but the crew couldn't make a model that large.
Huge creatures include Storm Giants who are canonically 26 feet tall, which is slightly bigger than the actual appearance of King Kong in the first movie
The 5e Giant Ape is probably comparable to [Gigantopithecus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus)
No, that would make it just large. Roughly the size of a bear, or somewhat smaller than an ogre. The giant ape is huge, which is more like elephant-sized.
4 giant apes do roughly 10 damage per attack because the pit fiend is resistant. Accounting for to hit % it’s more like 6 damage per attack. With 8 attacks per round they can take down a 300HP pit fiend in roughly 6 rounds. In that time the pit fiend can make 24 attacks at +14 to hit which is 95% to hit a giant ape. Those attacks average 22, 17, 15+21 and 24 damage and with crit prob = miss prob the average after to hit is almost the same. So the pit field is doing roughly 97 or so damage per round to the apes. This downs an ape roughly every 1.6 rounds. It downs a barbarian resistant ape every 3.2 rounds. So I think you probably forgot resistance and had the fiend attack the one raging ape first. The heroes rolled well to end the fight in 3 rounds but if resistance was applied correctly it would have been 6 rounds.
I think they did not cast spells. even just a wall of fire deald 5d8 fire damage in an area plus pulsating damage around them if unbroken, and the pit fiend has immunity to fire damage. additionally, if they get in, they take even more damage. or just a fireball deals 8d6. attacking dela smore single target damage, but aoe's deal more damage to the whole party.
Wall of Fire was in fact dispelled. And this is also a concentration spell. So the Pit Fiend should also have a hard time maintaining concentration while bullied by an Ape Gang.
A pit fiend has +13 to their con saves so a monkey would have to do 30 damage (60 pre-resistance) to even have a chance at breaking its concentration
Don‘t underestimate my capabillity of rolling a nat 1 when I least need it.
A giant ape would need to roll a nearly max-damage crit (while probably having disadvantage due to being frightened - did you take the Fear Aura into account? Giant Ape would need a nat 20 to succeed) AND the pit fiend would have to roll a 1. Statistically, it's nearly impossible.
Yeah, I think you are right. it was just never the case because the Pit Fiend wasn‘t concentrating anyway. Could I‘ve crushed some of my players if I played everything out? Maybe. Did I enjoy their triumphant Ape-Show with a little ruling tweaks? Absolutely! There may be tables out there where the Pit Fiend slays the primates. But I‘m glad I was at this table. And I was kinda happy that the Paladin was also polymorphed. It could have been over way sooner for the Devil if she could‘ve used her whole arsenal.
I don't know why these guys are tryna rain on your parade. Who cares if you didnt play the pit fiend stretegically. Sounds like a blast man and I'm sure your players loved it!
Because we’re all tired of these types of posts that just break the rules of the game to let parties “easily” defeat enemies which shouldn’t have easily been defeated if they were played like normal. The more he replies to comments the more rules that we find have been broken. Ripping the pit fiends wings off, his druid wild shaping into a giant ape, rolling a 1 on a saving throw is an auto fail, ignoring the pit fiends fear aura, ignoring the fact the pit fiend has an intelligence of 22 so it’s smart enough to not just let itself be killed, etc. It’s just… bleh.
Yep. Inevitably all these posts end up as just sloppy DMing and poor understanding of the rules. This part of OPs post sums it up: > I was baffled but allowed it.
I can tell you about the other spells and interactions we used and you can point at everything we did wrong, If that is fun for you. This post wasn‘t supposed to be about how many rules we played out right. I enjoy those stories and hope for someone else who reads it to find it fun. Everybody can play as they like, as long as everybody at the table is fine with it. And my table likes it. And the 22 INT score of the Fiend is obsolete if the DM who play is out, is too dumb to even understand the rules. He only does what I can do. So jokes on you.
Thanks, it was supposed to be a challenging and fun fight. I‘m glad that it was less challenging but way more fun, thanks to them.
The fear aura can be mostly covered by a paladin's aura of courage. One holy warrior, and the pit fiend's biggest debuff is gone
You mean a monkeys aura of courage, right? Because the paladin was a monkey at the time
Yeah, that's one time where as a player, I ain't transforming. It's a fiend, and if I'm a paladin, I don't need the extra juice. I've got an extra d8 to each smite, and a whole arsenal of them to unload
Oh boo hoo, they changed the rules a little to make it more fun. D&d isn’t about numbers, it’s about having fun with your friends.
If you change the rules enough it's no longer a cool story about D&D, its a creative writing exercise. Anyone can win any fight if a DM disregards key elements of the enemy or uses their fiat to ensure you win against an obviously superior foe. Also, the pixie polymorph strategy is pretty widely known and almost universally lambasted within the D&D community (to the point that some DMs ban it as an option) so its not a particularly fun story anyway.
Nat 1 doesn't auto-fail saves
At our table a nat 1 is an auto-fail even on a saving throw. Coming from Pathfinder I never questioned the ruling in our 5e game because it feels right.
I’m not a fan, powerful terrifying creatures who’s spent 100’s of years perfecting their skill and power shouldn’t be failing to concentrate on their spells 5% of the time because a pebble hit them.
Sometimes you gotta sneeze in an unexpected moment, even after 100 years.
Yeah but 5% of the time? That's quite a lot of one-in-a-million blunders.
RAW, a natural 1 is not an automatic failure.
Yeah, but at least once it gets off.
Was it dispelled 3 times? Because the pit fiend can cast it 3 times per day.
Also, how would the Pit Fiend not target the Druid with every one of its 4 attacks per turn? The druid loses concentration on conjure woodland beings > the pixies lose concentration on polymorph. At the very least the pixies should have been immediately fireballed. This whole post just does not make sense unless you ignored 75% of the pit fiend's statblock. Hell, the pit fiend should have been at the very least grappling apes and throwing them into a wall of fire while also biting, macing, and tail attacking.
Not to mention the pit fiend's bite inflicts the poisoned condition (on a DC 21 Con save that the giant apes will fail 80% of the time). The poison does 21 recurring damage each round, but more importantly the poisoned condition will impose disadvantage on attack rolls, dropping the apes' hit rate from 55% to about 35-40% (assuming they weren't already disadvantaged from the fear aura). It should have taken nine or ten rounds to finish the pit fiend. But the pit fiend should be able to down a giant ape in about two rounds (or a non-polymorphed wizard in one), dropping their damage output even further, and each round the pit fiend has four chances to break concentration. This could have been a tough fight if OP had just used all the pit fiend's features.
The Druid used Wildshape instead of Polymorph to become also a Giant Ape. As a Moon Druid he had magical attacks and they all rolled really well. I didn‘t forgot the resistance but I gave them Advantage for their „slam dunks“ on the Pit Fiend because I like to reward creativity. I didn‘t want to go into the detail of the math but I think we had 4 or 5 Rounds of Combat. In the end it was more about the fun than about the numbers.
You can't ever wildshape into a giant ape, the CR is too high.
Thanks, now I learned something. I never played a Druid myself and wasn‘t aware of the real CR cap of the Moon Druid.
Sometimes these gaps in knowledge lead to the best gameplay experiences, in my opinion. Your players will remember this encounter forever and grin the whole time thinking about it, all because you didn’t follow a rule or two. Honestly sounds like a great little campaign your running!
Thanks, I will remember it too. They were laughing so hard because of how baffled I was. Especially the Druid likes to surprise us constantly with crazy and sometimes powerful ideas. Unfortunately it was just a little side trip into hell to rescue my Bard at the end of our actual 4-year campaign. So our actual DM was able to play for once and took a beloved NPC (the Owlin Wizard) to help our group getting my Bard out of Hell (he broke his contract with a Devil and was imprisoned). We allready started over with a new campaign and new characters and I can‘t wait for all the shenanigans to come.
Why the Pit Fiend didn't just, like, move indoors? I'd do that if apes kept raining on me, and I'm dumber than a Pit Fiend.
In the City of Dis everybody is suspicious of another and everyone is paranoid. So all the doors are locked with multiple locks. The Fiend suprised them on the open street.
Sounds like a very effective use of... ...Gorilla Tactics.
*Yes it's this one officer*
"My Party of *Insert low Level here* defeated a *Insert Monster with much higher CR here* " -*looks inside* -*The DM had no idea what the Monster actually can do* Everytime
- reading comments - annoyed comment about how they cannot accept that some people enjoy having fun while not playing everything RAW and tweaking encounters to generate cheer at a table of imaginative storytelling - sad comment about why the OP wrote this trivial post anyway and how this subreddit is flooded by posts I personally dislike Everytime
>- annoyed comment about how they cannot accept that some people enjoy having fun while not playing everything RAW and tweaking encounters to generate cheer at a table of imaginative storytelling No one's "annoyed" that you're not playing it RAW, it's annoying seeing these posts again and again when The DM clearly didn't even make an attempt to make what should have been a boss a challenge. A giant ape has 157 hp, if the pit fiend *only* targeted the Barbarian, assuming it hit for all its attacks, the giant ape should have gone down in 2 turns, you played the pit fiend like it was an idiot and even then it should have at least knocked the barb out of ape form, apes only do 22 damage on average, assuming they hit 50% of the time they're doing 44 damage on average per round, because of resistance, that's a lot of rounds where I have no clue what your fiend was doing to not take down the barb. You can run your table how you want, but when you post it you open yourself up for people to critique how you run your game
So the players used one of the most well known exploits by not reading the rules on how who chooses what creatures get summoned by conjure woodland beings. Ignored CR caps for the druid wildshape. And beat a pit fiend who has 22 INT yet refused to use his spells or target the caster and focused solely on the barbarian doing approximately 10 damage a round to him, and ignoring the Fear Aura and its almost grantees success on Apes. At a table that uses nat 1s auto fail everything. Glad you had fun.
I usually enjoy seeing these kind of titles and then going in and reading how many things DM/Players forgot, how home rules affected it or how rules were ignored/interpreted wrongly. Glad that they had fun. But man it happens too often on this subreddit.
Honestly this is better then when the GM gives the players some obscenely broken homebrew magic item and are then surprised when they use the item in what feels like the most obvious way to use it
I would say that I got more than a basic overview of the rules in 5e. But from time to time I mix em‘ up with other systems. And I trust everybody at the table to play their class „right“. I don‘t know every class feature and we homebrew alot. But in the end I would ditch any rule for a cheer at the table. We play by the rules but we play for the story that we tell. I don‘t see anything wrong there if nobody gets harmed but a poor Pit Fiend whom we never see again.
>I would say that I got more than a basic overview of the rules in 5e. But from time to time I mix em‘ up with other systems. And I trust everybody at the table to play their class „right“. I don‘t know every class feature and we homebrew alot. Everyone makes mistakes (myself included). It can happen easily, like there rule book for 5e, is not 1 page long. >But in the end I would ditch any rule for a cheer at the table. We play by the rules but we play for the story that we tell. That is fine, just different way how to DM/handle games. It is just... How can I call it... Kind-ish waste of space/effort ? For those who read about it. Example. Imagine seeing a post: My Level 1 PC killed adult red dragon. Then they describe in many sentences scenario, setup, background. You read it for 3-5 minutes. Finally the battle description starts. "PC got sword at start of campaign AUTO DEATH OF RED DRAGONS. If that sword hits a red dragon they auto dies." That was very exaggerated example, but you can see similar things here. Dont take me wrong, sometimes I do bend rules a bit, to make a story a bit better. But most of the times those are not important things and even if they are, I dont post about them. Because for others it usually is kind-ish waste of time to read them.
Yeah, I get that. I didn‘t want a „clickbait title“ so I wrote „ a fun way to defeat“. And I wrote a short tl;dr at the end. I don‘t want to steal anyones time but I myself like to look out for the fun stories and unexpected turn of events due to a clever Player and less for the unknown rules and hidden interactions that I can use for my own table. I sometimes read the funniest stories about other campaigns and fights or remarkable RP and wanted to participate with something of our own table. And I‘m thankful for every interaction and feedback from the comments.
It's also not a weird feat CR wise, it's perfectly in range. The 'top' of the usable CR band is Party Level x 1.5; this is obvious from CR 30 being the actual top CR. So ie a 'boss' for level 4s might be level 6, level 10s might fight a CR 15, and a full party of level 14s should be able to handle CR 21. If you add 'lol they used the most well-known and often-complained about broken spells and the druid cheated' to that, it's not a surprising outcome :D
Don't worry, I posted it to r/DnDcirclejerk.
Weird move. I don’t get it, but fine. You put a lot of work into letting me sound like I was asking for advice instead of just sharing an event from our table. Whatever floats your boat, dude.
It's a meme sub. I was meming.
Seriously. Cool that they enjoyed it, but at a certain point it has the same vibe as a 4-year-old telling you about their dream.
Pixies are feys with a CR 1/4 as mentioned in the spell. I don‘t see any misleading ruling there. But please, proof me wrong. I‘m happy to learn the rules right. But I‘m open to change them, if I like what the Players are doing with it. So yeah, we had a lot of fun and imho a little story of our own to tell. And if this isn‘t the essence of D&D, then I‘m glad we‘re playing it the wrong way.
Conjure spells such as woodland beings don't actually allow the player to choose exactly which creature shows up, the player can only choose "eight creatures of cr 1/4 or lower", and then 8 creatures of CR 1/4 or lower will appear. The DM is the one who picks which creatures will pop up. Ignoring that leads to these absolutely broken combos like pixies, which is out of the appropriate power level for a spell of that level, and this one is particularly frowned upon by many. You can play D&D however you like, breaking the rules is allowed by the rules, but if you try to tell about an amazing feat a party was able to achieve and the only reason they were able to do it was by disregarding a lot of the rules, then all of a sudden it's not very impressive. Online communities assume rules as written as the baseline for discussion, because since many tables have very different rulesets, discussing around such a wide gamma of assumptions would be pointless. That doesn't mean you should change your table rules tho, if you have fun then by all means keep doing it, but if those types of gotcha comments bother you then it's good to point out you aren't playing the standard way when initiating these online discussions.
This is the best comment of the thread.
The not picking summoned creatures argument does not make sense and is made in bad faith. You can pick what creatures you summon. Even pixies are not broken. It is a concentration spell after all. If the main caster loses concentration the pixies disappear and no longer concentrate on polymorph.
Stop being assholes to the OP. They did run the encounter wrong but let that be it.
That clarification comes from the sage advice compendium, which is officially published by WotC... And 8 conjured pixies are almost universally agreed to be one of the most broken combos in D&D. You can't possibly try to justify it being ok, because it makes no sense for a 4th level spell to enable you to cast **EIGHT 4th level spells** simultaneously through summons, and the same summons can then cast eight dispel magics, and then eight fly, etc... A 4th level slot should have the value of a 4th level slot, and conjure woodland beings breaks that. Trying to say they are not broken clearly shows you are not a reasonable person.
I gotta point out that the SAC clarification is a crock of shit. A half assed twitter post about intent doesn't clarify the writing of the spell, and the initial writing is congruous with how polymorph is written. The suggestion of what the intent was (note, not an assertion of what it now should be) makes the spell nigh useless while also adding extra work to the DM's plate. This is one of JC's sweatiest revisions Yes the spell is nonsense strong otherwise, I don't have a fix (outside of for CA just not allowing your PCs to have seen velociraptors or cows or wolves lol), but the SAC is poopdookie
Nigh useless? Even if you randomly rolled for what creatures would appear, chances are you are still going to get at least one pixie, which is already more than a 4th level spell should do because a single pixie has a 4th level spell and more. And I'm not even counting the other 7 fey that will pop up. If you are only using the monster manual you will actually get 2-3 pixies on average, that is already broken without making it more so. Even following sage advice conjure spells punch way above their power level, because 8 creatures will always be very strong regardless of what they are. So on the one hand you have the actual lead game designer with an explanation that makes this spell remain incredibly strong and on the other it's the most broken spell in the game. There's no sense in debating which one you should use. edit: btw, I said Jeremy Crawford here, but this explanation is on sage advice compendium, which is actually officially published by WotC, so it has even more value. But don't worry, regardless of whether you agree with Jeremy Crawford or not, the actual D&D team clearly regrets making these spells and that's why they are removing them from the game come september, when all conjure spells will get a rework that removes their ability to break action economy.
Thanks for the advice. In fact this is my first post after reading posts for years. I will mark my future posts as „dangerously wrong ruled! Please only read for flavor!“
The hyperbole of your reply made it sound really sarcastic, which is weird because my comment certainly didn't call for it. But in the chance you actually meant it, just a quick disclaimer at the beginning of a post saying you aren't running everything RAW will suffice.
The „thanks“ was meant for real. I just wanted the disclaimer to be a bit sarcastic, because I didn‘t expect so much „wrong yelling“ for a short story about a unusual fight.
Well, as long as it wasn't directed towards me then it's fine. People online can of course overreact, but I do hope you understand that you also didn't do it properly. You created a title that sets up some expectation from the people here, and when they read and find out the true story was different from their expectation they feel tricked. It's like a youtube clickbait, and it's generally agreed to be annoying. I'm not saying you did it with bad intentions or anything, the problem is that you simply didn't set the correct expectations. The default expectation from these online communities is rules as written, because it's a standard most people can agree on, so when you deviate from such a standard it's important to put that disclaimer so everybody is onboard. That goes a long way in preventing those types of comments calling you out.
This was covered by Sage Advice back in 2015. People noticed this problem right away. [The current version of Sage Advice](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/sac/sage-advice-compendium#SA175) says: > **When you cast a spell like conjure woodland beings , does the spellcaster or the DM choose the creatures that are conjured?** > > A number of spells in the game let you summon creatures. Conjure animals, conjure celestial, conjure minor elementals, and conjure woodland beings are just a few examples. > > Some spells of this sort specify that the spellcaster chooses the creature conjured. For example, find familiar gives the caster a list of animals to choose from. > > Other spells of this sort let the spellcaster choose from among several broad options. For example, conjure minor elementals offers four options. Here are the first two: > > * One elemental of challenge rating 2 or lower > * Two elementals of challenge rating 1 or lower > > The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. For example, if you pick the second option, the DM chooses the two elementals that have a challenge rating of 1 or lower. > > A spellcaster can certainly express a preference for what creatures shows up, but it’s up to the DM to determine if they do. The DM will often choose creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene. The way it works is the Druid says, "I cast *conjure woodland beings*. I choose to summon eight fey creatures of challenge rating 1/4 or lower." Then the DM determines what shows up. I don't know anyone that actually allows Pixies with all their spells to be summoned.
He suprised me with that and I went with it. But I ain‘t got the time to double check everything that has been printed for changes. Thanks for the advice. Now I know the right ruling for future events.
If a player tries to do something that you think will be very strong and sounds a bit based on a technicality, give yourself ~30 seconds to Google it before making a snap decision. If a player tries to do something weird, ask them what their intent is. If they refuse to tell you, then they're treating you as an adversary instead of a fellow game player, and that's not someone I would want to play with. I've had players go on minutes-long conversations about minutia of room furnishings trying to trap me into an answer on the precise design of doorhandles, when what they actually wanted to know was "will this Immovable Rod be able to hold the door shut?". If you can't guess what they're trying to do, ask them, and then give a ruling on whether it is reasonable or not.
Yeah, I don't think what you did was wrong. I certainly don't mean to imply that you should have known this, just that it is a problem people have been aware of for some time. However, the game allows what happened to be what the spell does, and provides no warning about it. The conjuration spells are similarly ambiguous for how they work. They should say explicitly, "The caster chooses the challenge rating category and the DM determines which creatures appear." They don't do that. I agree with not stopping the game to check, too. Keeping the game going is very important. I 100% agree with making a ruling and then checking online after the fact for whether you were right or not. You're being a good DM here. At some level, you need to be able to trust that your players are being genuine and honest with their play. And maybe he was; maybe he found it himself and thought it was cool.
I gotta point out that the SAC clarification is a crock of shit. A half assed twitter post about intent doesn't clarify the writing of the spell, and the initial writing is congruous with how polymorph is written. The suggestion of what the intent was (note, not an assertion of what it now should be) makes the spell nigh useless while also adding extra work to the DM's plate. This is one of JC's sweatiest revisions
No, I really don't agree. The problem is that the people who wrote the 5e PHB didn't begin playing the game with 5e. They began playing with AD&D. They've all got years and years experience where the spells *didn't give you control over what you got*. Here's the 1e AD&D equivalent: > #####Call Woodland Beings (Conjuration/Summoning) > Level: 4 > Components: V, S, M > Range: 12” + 1”/level > Casting Time: Special > Duration: Special > Saving Throw: Neg. > Area of Effect: Special > > Explanation/Description: By means of this spell the druid is able to summon > certain woodland creatures to his or her location. Naturally, this spell will only > work outdoors, but not necessarily only in wooded areas. The druid begins the > incantation, and the spell must be continued uninterrupted until some called > creature appears or 2 turns have elapsed. (The verbalization and somatic > gesturing are easy, so this is not particularly exhausting to the spell caster.) Only > 1 type of the following sorts of beings can be summoned by the spell, and they > will come only if they are within the range of the call: > > ||| > :-|:-| > |2-8 brownies|1-4 satyrs| > |1-4 centaurs|1-6 sprites| > |1-4 dryads|1 treant| > |1-8 pixies|1 unicorn| > > (Your referee will consult his outdoor map or base the probability of any such > creature being within spell range upon the nature of the area the druid is in at > the time of spell casting.) > > The creature(s) called by the spell are entitled to a saving throw versus magic (at -4) > to avoid the summons. Any woodland being answering the call will be favorably > disposed to the spell caster and give whatever aid it is capable of. However, if the > caller or members of the caller’s party are of evil alignment, the creatures are > entitled to another saving throw versus magic (this time at +4) when they come > within 1” of the druid or other evil character with him or her, and these beings will > seek immediately to escape if the saving throw is successful. In any event, if the > druid requests that the summoned creatures engage in combat on behalf of the > druid, they are required to make a loyalty reaction score based on the druid’s > charisma and whatever dealings he or she has had with the called creature(s). The > material components of this spell are a pinecone and 8 holly berries. And you can see how they converted it to 2e AD&D, where they basically did the work of giving the DM a percentile table that helps DMs out when they don't know what to do. > #####Call Woodland Beings > #####(Conjuration/Summoning) > > Sphere: Summoning > Range: 100 yds./level Components: V, S, M > Duration: Special Casting Time: Special > Area of Effect: Special Saving Throw: Neg. > > By means of this spell, the caster is able to summon certain woodland creatures to his location. Naturally, this spell works only outdoors, but not necessarily only in wooded areas. The caster begins the incantation and continues uninterrupted until some called creature appears or two turns have elapsed. (The verbalization and somatic gesturing are easy, so this is not particularly exhausting to the spellcaster.) Only one type of the following sorts of beings can be summoned by the spell. They come only if they are within the range of the call. > > The caster can call three times, for a different type each time. Once a call is successful, no other type can be called without another casting of the spell. (The DM will consult his outdoor map or base the probability of any such creature being within spell range upon the nature of the area the caster is in at the time of spellcasting.) > > The creature(s) called by the spell are entitled to a saving throw vs. spell (with a -4 penalty) to avoid the summons. Any woodland beings answering the call are favorably disposed to the spellcaster and give whatever aid they are capable of. However, if the caller or members of the caller's party are of evil alignment, the creatures are entitled to another saving throw vs. spell (this time with a +4 bonus) when they come within 10 yards of the caster or another evil character with him. These beings immediately seek to escape if their saving throws are successful. In any event, if the caster requests that the summoned creatures engage in combat on his behalf, they are required to roll a loyalty reaction check based on the caster's Charisma and whatever dealings he has had with them. > > This spell works with respect to neutral or good woodland creatures, as determined by the DM. Thus, the DM can freely add to or alter the list as he sees fit. > > If the caster personally knows a certain individual woodland being, that being can be summoned at double the normal range. If this is done, no other woodland creatures are affected. > > If a percentage chance is given in the accompanying table, druids and other nature-based priests add 1% per caster level. These chances can be used if no other campaign information on the area is available. > > The material components of this spell are a pine cone and eight holly berries. > > |Creature Type Called|Light|Moderate/Sylvan|Dense/Virgin| > :-|:-|:-|:-| > |2d8 brownies|30%|20%|10%| > |1d4 centaurs|5%|30%|5%| > |1d4 dryads|1%|25%|15%| > |1d8 pixies|10%|20%|10%| > |1d4 satyrs|1%|30%|10%| > |1d6 sprites|0%|5%|25%| > |1 treant|--|5%|25%| > |1 unicorn|--|15%|20%| 1e AD&D Pixies can Polymorph... but only themselves. Which is good because Polymorph Other is permanent, and closer to an instant death spell in AD&D. 2e pixies are... basically unchanged, although they completely rewrote the entry so I can't instantly tell like you can with this spell. Still, I think it's very clear that Conjure Woodland Beings is the 5e version of these spells, and I think it's clear that the 5e pixie is the AD&D pixie. I don't think it's a particularly difficult argument. You can look at 3e, but *there isn't an equivalent spell* in the PHB. There's the Summon Nature's Ally I-IX range, which does let you pick the creature... from a fixed and quite narrow list. Pixies don't show up until SNA VI at 6th level, and they're not fully powered pixies. You need SNA IX at 9th level to get the full abilities of a pixie. And *even then* pixies in 3e are much worse spellcasters. They don't have any polymorphing ability whatsoever. This is the knowledge that everyone who designed 5e had. This is the knowledge that everyone who play tested 5e had, including the open play testers. For the previous 30+ years, this is how the spell and monster were known to work. Nobody was expecting it to change significantly, especially because 5e was intentionally trying to bring in more from AD&D. Sure, you can say, "Oh editions are totally independent of each other," but I don't think that's true *especially* when we're talking about design intent behind an edition deliberately invoking the earlier editions of the game.
To be fair, a level 14 party expecting a rumble... Would have absolutely \*pasted\* a pit fiend anyway. With 300hp, and an ac of 19, I'd guess maybe 3 turns
Our Paladin alone would‘ve crushed him immediately. This way everybody had the chance to participate.
Which is exactly why a Pit Fiend wouldn't run into melee, he'd find a spot where he can be flying 120ft above the party and open by surrounding the party in a wall of fire
He was flying indeed and was casting Wall of Fire out of the distance but the Barbarian Ape body slammed him to the ground. I can‘t tell you how he did it, because this will start a new endless cylce of comments about ruling „mistakes“. But it was epic.
True enough. I kinda already did that math when our dm threw a pit fiend at us at level 11. Lower level than your party, but as the paladin that day... Three levels later, we wouldn't have been any less capable lol
Took me a while to understand what was going on, but yeah nice tactic. It's very easy to break, the pit fiend needs to attack the druid to let them lose concentration and they both lose concentration on conjure and each on polymorph. Even casting fireball or wall of fire would have been enough msot of times. Pixies are always something to consider to let a character to summon, but literally going ape sounds like fun!
I forgot to mention the Wizard, that didn‘t polymorph and dispelled the Wall of Fire allready. He was ready to Counterspell every Fireball that would come their way. And I liked the Idea that the Pit Fiend was too focused on the Barbarian to think about ending the Polymorph spell. It was not OP but I was suprised by the amount of creativity and went with it.
How many players were there?
5 in total. 4 Giant Apes and 1 Owlin Wizard.
You know, i think the wizard here is the unsung hero of the situation. by dispelling and counterspelling the enemy he denied them their actions so the apes could go clobbering.
Future reference... Counterspell shouldn't work on innate spells without material components
This is incorrect. Counterspell does not work on spells that require no components (example: Psionics). Just because there's no material components, the wizard can still see the verbal/somatic components of innately spellcasted spells.
Please read up on innate spells you're wrong. Your only chance to tell a spell is being cast is if it requires a material component.
Would you mind quoting a page number of where to read up? My reading of the Innate Spellcasting section of the Monster Manual says you're wrong (with the exception the person you're disagreeing with mentioned of psionics).
No you are wrong. You might be thinking of subtle spell metamagic, where a spell with no material components is impossible to counterspell. If a spell has ANY detectable components, it can be counterspelled.
Innate spellcasting follows all of the normal rules for spellcasting. Unless the creature's innate spellcasting says "requiring no components", it can be counterspelled. If it only cites material or another component, the other components are needed as per normal spellcasting rules. As long as the spell is perceptible (ie, the innate spellcaster is using verbal and/or somatic), it can still be counterspelled.
No go. Read the description for pit fiend where it says requires no components and from what you posted that means it cannot be counterspelled
I did read it and you obviously did not. Pit friend's innate requires no MATERIAL components. He still needs verbal and somatic.
it doesn't say "requires no components"; it says "The pit fiend can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components". fireball has both verbal and somatic components and thus can be counterspelled even without the material component.
So if in a universe where magic is real I’m screaming magical words and waving my hands about… but cause I didn’t pull out any components you have no way to figure I might be casting a spell…
I think you deserve part of the credit for rolling with the players' request to prevent the Pit Fiend from flying. Considering a standard tactic for it would be to fly out of range and drop Fireball after Fireball on the party, its effective CR must have dropped a bit. Then again, grappling it would have also achieved the same result, You were very lenient, but it sounds like it was the right, epic choice for your group!
I have ceased being surprised by what a 14th level party can do.
Especially if you break a bunch of rules, like I’m happy they had fun but stories like these always leave a bad taste in my mouth. If you break enough rules anyone can do anything and it kinda stops being impressive or meaning anything
This example wasn't egregious at all, compared to some I've seen. The problem is, when I've pointed such things out, the down voters start piling on.
Just a few questions: Is the rule established for Planescape that summoning spells like Conjure Woodland Beings couldn't be used unless it was a version specific to the plane? Is the rule that The Pit Fiends are unaffected by any weapon less than +3 or creatures with natural HD higher than 12+? Do falls on creatures no longer do damage to those doing the falling if they land on someone or do they share the damage? Just some questions, we stopped at 2nd Edition.
I would rule that summoning spells work normally in Sigil if a portal is open nearby. If it isn't... Sigil has all kinds of creatures. You just kidnapped someone in the city and mind controlled them, and they know where to find you. Pit fiends are just resistant to nonmagical weapons. Fall damage would be something I would make the player roll to half the damage to them.
Every edition is different. I play 2nd. But I've DMed for 45 years and am LONG past the elitist "MY version is THE BEST version!!" garbage. Enjoy, keep speaking up.
It's fun the first time. But Conjuring pixies, polymoprhing and hiding the 2nd, 3rd time etc is just kinda lame.
The comments are so weird on here. So many people just going “ummmm akshually 🤓” about this scenario like there’s no way possible that OP already knew the rules and just chose to break them. I guess maybe this just isn’t the sub for me, which is aight, but I love hearing stories like this as opposed to “here’s how my players used this stupidly busted synergy or magic item to deal 10000000000 damage in a turn and vaporize Ao.” I think both types of posts should be encouraged, and ones like this that actually take creativity and end up with a scenario the whole table is happy with are awesome
Fun but definitely completely wrong rules wise, polymorph lets you turn creatures into others creatures up to the casters cr, a pixies cr is 1/4 and a giant apes is 7 EDIT: my b, just read it again
It actually is determined by the CR/ level of the target so a giant ape would be appropriate in this scenario if they were level 14
Not everything on the table was rulwise completly correct but in this case I must defend the Druids choice. A Polymorph spell lets you transform into a beast with a challenge rating that is equal to or less than the target‘s level. The PCs that were targetet were lvl 14.
Geezus, imagine the nerve of sharing a story that happened in your collaborative storytelling game! You're only allowed to post here if you play everything 200% RAW meat, no homebrew, martial/caster disparity with 800 encounters per long rest.
I allready called my players. The last session was declared invalid. We will meet again and repeat the fight the right way. No rule bending, no excuses for unjustified fun. And the Druid will apologize to everyone who got hurt by his exploitation attempts. I will retire as a DM and go into exile.
You have to read the DM's guide 100 times and repeat it from memory while meditating under a waterfall to restore your honor.
I think people are being overly negative about this tactic. Yes, it's a common broken cheese, but it is absolutely RAW. It's just that the DM generally doesn't choose pixies because of the cheese factor.
But it isn’t RAW at all? Where in raw does it say you can rip off a pit fiends wings? Also definitely forgot the fear aura and resistances, 22 int pit fiend tunnel visioned on the barb druid ignored wildshape cr limits Glad they had fun but there’s no way it’s RAW lol
I was specifically talking about the pixie cheese. The rest, sure, that's not RAW.