Cases! Please!
Added 2026-01-28 16:03:30 +0000 UTCComments
To the Honorable and Just judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as the baffling, bumbling baliff jake (not the one from from animorphs) hurwitz, I bring to you a case of the Semantics of Opportunity Attacks. This story stretches back to high school, (Im now post-grad), but my friend and I still occasionally bring this up as a running bit. During our old campaign, I played a naïve Warforged Circle of Spores Druid (that was a sentient fungus inhabiting a discarded warforged), and my friend a Vengeance Paladin. His character frankly hated mine. He played an edgy traumatized paladin who kept to himself, which I thought my kind-natured, simple druid was a fun foil to, and would try to stick with him. We would frequently get into spats in game, disagreeing on almost everything, which I thought was in good in-character. This culminated in a full on PVP duel when his character was infuriated when I created a Spore Zombie out of a dead civilian, where he revealed that he had taken the “Mage Slayer” feat, which he paired with the “Sentinel” feat. He argued that Mage Slayer, which let’s you attack a caster as a reaction each time they cast a spell, worked with Sentinel, which changes enemy movement to 0 with opportunity attacks. This allowed his Paladin to utterly destroy my druid, who could not get away and got hit with an extra Divine Smite each time I tried casting anything. I lost, badly, and he only let my character live after I begged him to. Later, I noticed Mage Slayer states that you are able to attack a caster as a reaction, but does not name this an “Opportunity Attack”, so I should have been able to get away without Sentinel triggering after he used his reaction to hit me from Mage Slayer. My DM disagreed, much to my friend’s chagrin, that it was still an opportunity to attack me, so it should still count for Sentinel. I still think the books say I am right, but I understand my DM’s decision; even though he was wrong. Can you please help settle this debate from nearing a decade ago? I need to take my friend down a peg.
Ryan Newbert
2026-02-19 16:54:12 +0000 UTCTo the "bow chicka wow wow" judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the lowly "sad trombone noises" bailiff Joop, I bring for your consideration a case of stolen childhood. My party ran our campaign for almost two years before it finished. I was happy to have a terrible relationship with my in-game mother, which ran the entire course of the story. It was perfect almost the whole time: the party didn't know that my mother was the famous Taylor Swifty (one of our main rivals/enemies in the early game), and the reveal was one of the best highlights of the whole adventure. Over time, I told the Gang my backstory of how I grew up with my dad, a copper dragon, and only saw my Mom when she wanted to teach some cruel lesson. My character loved his cool dragon dad, and despised his snobby mom. Fast forward to the very end of the campaign. Our group was helping headline a charity concert, which more than anything was a front to smear my mom's reputation. We prepped for in-real-life weeks. As the event ended, my DM announced that Taylor Swifty was "really cool and nice, and that she was actually a good mom all along". I protested, citing previously established cruel things she'd done throughout my life. My DM countered by saying "oh, yeah, that was just like a butler you all had. Your mom polymorphed him into a dragon whenever you wanted your dad. You've probably never even met your real dad because he didn't like you or something". I was floored. Was I robbed of the childhood I created? Should my DM have created a backstory that I, as a player, couldn't relate to? I await your wise benevolence.
BLT Boy
2026-02-17 19:08:14 +0000 UTCTo the allegedly honorable judges and the allegedly lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly bailiff, I come to you humbly asking for forgiveness. In a recent game, another player and I tied for initiative. When it came to our turn in the initiative, I immediately rolled to attack and missed. However, no one noticed that I'd rolled because the other player had begun narrating his turn. I let him take his turn, and then when he was finished, I re-rolled my missed attack roll to start my turn and hit. Did the intervening turn justify my re-roll or must I perform penance to avoid an eternity of nat 1s?
Samuel DeWilde Muthiah
2026-01-29 22:14:25 +0000 UTCTo the benevolent judges and "AHHH!!!".....Oh Jake! I didn't see you there. I bring you the PC Custody Battle. I was approached by my forever DM and he asked if I could run the next campaign so he could play. I was nervous cause I've never DM'd before, but with his encouragement I gathered the group and we set off. The game was going well for months until my DM approached me. My DM asked if he could make a new character claiming, "I'm bored, I feel I have taken his story to their end." I was worried cause I still had so much planned for him and even offered to workshop, but he was firm. So I narrated his PC leaving and introduced his new character: a swashbuckler rogue pirate captain. Everyone loved the new character, so I thought we were all good. Untill one session later, my DM approached me again saying quote, " Im going to leave the game. I'm finding myself bored and uninvested." Once again I offered to workshop, but he was firm so we bid him farewell and we continued forward. But I had a problem. I was left with his Captain and crew of his NPCs that was taxing for a new DM to organize. So in the next encounter, I decided to introduce my BBEG and as a way to show off the bad guys power, I would have the Captain sacrifice himself so his crew and the players could escape. When I told my DM this, he was upset. Saying that it was his character and he should get to decide what his ending was. I argued that since he left the game, they were now a NPC and as DM their fate was in my hands. Well suffice to say this soured the group and the campaigned fizzled out. So I ask, who owns a character once a player leaves the table? Should I have let his 2nd PC sail into the sunset? Or was I allowed to give him a heroic death? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.
SeriousC
2026-01-29 21:05:31 +0000 UTCOur esteemed Rebbeyim of the Spellcraft Synagogue: I have broken a Mitzvah by a perpetuating falsehood. About our 6th session in, we came across a planar scouting party that was looking to enslave the local populace. We tracked their damage airship to a cliffside, anchored halfway up. Our party snuck up to the top. As a group we decided to push a boulder over the edge. My druid wildshaped into an ox to get a better strength score. My DM liked the idea of it and gave me advatage. The first roll was a 3, the second was a Nat 20. With the success, the group assigned me to roll the damage, my DM asked for 20 d10. Not wanting to math that much, I decided to use the dnd beyond digital dice for the first time. The roll shocked me, 199. I kinda froze for a second because it seemed unreal. My friend next to me very excitedly called out the damage from my tablet. Huge uproar, everyone is cheering and our DM decides that with that amount it breaks the airship breaks in half. The rest of the session goes great. When we finished, I went through to mark a long rest and pull up the roll history and my heart sinks. In my rush to figure out how to use the digital dice, I had selected 1 d100 along with the 20 d10s. I said nothing out loud, marked my long rest and closed my tablet. I've told no one in my group. How do I explain to everyone that our first time of whomping our DM was due to my rushed fatfingers? Please dear Ravs, how do I overcome this?
Alia Silverwater
2026-01-29 18:40:39 +0000 UTCTo the honorable, faultless judges and the bailiff doing kickflips in the parking lot as his car gets towed, I present to you: The Phandalin Fiasco. I am a fresh-out-the-womb DM running The Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure for a party of four new D&D players. They are level two and have made it to the town of Phandalin where a corrupt gang, known as the Redbrands, is hustling businesses and murdering anyone who stands up to them. My players, during their first night in Phandalin, decided they should go straight to the Redbrands' favorite bar, pretend to be one of them, and maybe kill everyone. Knowing they could never fool anyone because the party is composed of a tiefling, an orc, a tabaxi, and a half-elf who wears a deer skull and refuses to take it off, I had them have a run-in with a few patrolling Redbrands (the word 'patrolling' is very important). They dispatched them quickly, leaving one alive for questioning very briefly before burning him alive (naturally). From the interrogation, they learned the location of the Redbrands' hideout. They also had asked him several times "how many people are in your gang??", to which I, finding no answer in the module, responded, "I don't know...about 25?" Their response to this information? Go to the Redbrands' favorite bar *in the morning* and kill every patrolling Redbrand who showed up so they could "thin the gang's numbers" since there were only about 25 of them. I, taking a moment, looked at my sweet little level two players and lovingly asked, "...What?" The module has no map for the bar, let alone going inside, and I don't think a gang would just let its numbers be thinned. Also, why does killing 25 people feel achievable?? I asked them if they were SURE and even had an NPC disagree with their plan, but they were adamant. Judges, my panic was high and my rinky toes were TENSED. I hastily drew a bar map and gave them four Redbrands to fight. After the fight, I told my players straight up that they had to go to the hideout to defeat the Redbrands. They're infiltrating it now but I have to confess, I feel dejected. Was I not describing the situation well enough? Should I know how many members are in a gang? Were my players too bloodthirsty to see clearly? Were you all wrong to inspire me to DM? I lay myself at the court's feet for justice and so the bailiff may ollie over me.
Atlas
2026-01-29 18:24:37 +0000 UTCDear honorable judges and Jackalope Fartsniffer Over the pandemic I played in a game where I built a character whose backstory was being from a family of oppressive Elf Wizards, who rejected their puritanical ways and became a sex educator, named Nero. Nero had ideal stats for a wizard but refused to use magic and was classed as a fighter with high intelligence but low strength and con. While on a journey with their teenage half elf daughter to figure out what her other half was (Nero had slept with a huge number of sapient creatures so it was really not clear), Nero fell into some sewer water. My DM asked that I roll a Con save. I rolled a natural 1 and Nero contracted Giardia. After many, many failed con saves due to Nero’s less than ideal build I attempted to collect mold from a cave and use an alchemy kit to derive penicillin so I could stop having constant intestinal issues. My DM stated that the knowledge of how derive penicillin from mold would have been beyond Nero, despite his Intelligence being 19, and wouldn’t let me roll for the attempt stating that it wasn’t a big deal because Nero just had to beat a con save of 10 to recover. Nero however had a -2 to con and never managed to make that save resulting in his infection becoming far worse and dying in battle due to the penalties from intestinal issues. Judges, was it fair for my DM to deny me even the chance of making medicine to cure my character’s infection, or was their gross and untimely demise in front of their daughter justified?
Ryz
2026-01-29 17:52:03 +0000 UTCDont have a case to submit this time but I wanted to make the justices and beautiful bailiff aware of this guy on Instagram who is "horsemaxxing" by eating 25 pounds of oats in one week and biking hundreds of miles
G S
2026-01-29 16:23:51 +0000 UTCTo the honorable justices and bailiff, I was in a campaign years ago that was set in a homebrew domain of dread. We were fairly early on in the game, I think maybe level 5. This story mostly involves our DM, me (playing a hexblood vengeance paladin), and another player who was playing a dark elf genie warlock. We had a quest to collect sap from a cursed tree but when we got near, it revealed itself to be a treant. At the beginning of the encounter the treant awakened two trees near it to fight us. The DM narrated this by describing the roots of the main treant stretching underground to then wake up the two additional enemies in that wink wink way DMs sometimes do. I took this to mean the additional enemies would die if we killed the main treant. I went first in initiative and attacked the original treant. The treant and other trees went next and each of the two minions attacked the other people in the party while the main tree attacked me. The warlock immediately became upset with me. He said he had a great plan if only I had tanked but now he has disadvantage so he can’t do what he needs to do. He said I needed to keep enemies off of him so he could do his job of killing things. I said “Can’t you just throw a fireball at the main tree?” He seemed irritated and just moved away from the minion and cast darkness on the main treant. I used my turn to run over and start attacking the treant that was hitting him. I smited both times so I did a decent amount of damage but I couldn’t kill it. The treant minion ignored me and followed him instead. This went on for a few turns. Eventually he managed to get a turn where he wasn’t within melee of an enemy so he could finally cast scorching ray. Because he had cast darkness on the treant and had devil’s sight he attacked with advantage and because he had the elven accuracy feat he could roll three d20s with each ray. He crit twice and dealt a truly ridiculous amount of damage because treants are vulnerable to fire damage. It died immediately and the other two treants became normal trees again. The fight was over and the warlock said something about how I should have just tanked. I argued that there aren’t that many ways to get enemy attention in DND and he could have just cast two fireballs and the treant would have died anyway. I got the vibe that the table was all on his side after he basically killed the boss in one hit with the scorching rays trick so I just took the L. Was I wrong to not run interference on the minions?
rc47
2026-01-29 15:51:59 +0000 UTCi love how there's always so many cases. let no one ever tell you nerds have no drama!
Camilla Jefferson
2026-01-29 15:45:39 +0000 UTCBrothers and sister of Dice Christ, I am reaching out my hands to take the stole from your shoulders and rest it upon my own. Us members of the church must share in our burdens. Are you weighed down by any sins which you would like to confess?
KestertheJackal
2026-01-29 14:33:48 +0000 UTC
