Current Events > First time playing and being the DM in D&D 5e (A few questions)

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1) There was a part where they were trying to climb up statue to get to an eye, but they would fail the DC (15). What happens when this happens? Should I have done fall damage or something?

2) I can't remember how to tell if a weapon is based on Strength or Dexterity. Bows and Daggers are Dex, Broadswords are Stg. But some can be either, right? How do I find out?

3) If they're trying to leap over a pit, they do an Athletics check, right? It says under Athletics it says Jumping, but when you look at the Jumping Movement it says, "Your Strength determines how far you can jump. Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength Score if you move at least 10ft on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the dump cost a foot of movement"

So do I no to an Athletics Check, and it's just a base stat?

4) Any advice what happens when they Critical Fail/Succeed. I saw this one DM using cards to draw what happens. For example, they get a Critical Fail, so they draw from that deck and you hurt your arm, attack with disadvantage for the next 10mins or something like that. But I don't have those cards or any other better, so I just had them either hit themselves or drop their weapon.
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Never played it
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1) depends on how far they fell

2)Depends on class. The brutes/tanks use strength, rouges use dex, battlemages use intelligence or wisdom, etc...

3) you can use athletics or acrobatics for jumps. player rolls a D20+Athletics or Acrobatics.

4)For Crit fails, up to DM. You can make a weapon break, hit a friendly, nothing, whatever; just have to be consistent. Crit Success if in battle, the book covers extra damage, if something outside battle, up to DM how much they learn,see, perform, etc... just needs to be better than what they would have gotten for less than a nat20
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BillyKidd posted...

3) you can use athletics or acrobatics for jumps. player rolls a D20+Athletics or Acrobatics.

That's what I thought, but that's the description for Jumping. It doesn't say anything about that. Just what your Strength score is -

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/5e_SRD:Jumping

It's so confusing sometimes. I was using the wrong damn Crossbow for them, not seeing that there are three different ones in the PHB, lol

The two people I was taking through the dungeon were terrible at rolling die, and missed almost every god damn attack they made, which make the combat super slow and dangerous.
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1) I would do fall damage

2) Check PHB under equipment. They explain under weapon type/traits what stat. Rannged is dex, anything without finesse is straight, and finesse can choose either.

3) Yeah they can just do it like movement. If they want to do something else during it like grab a rope I'd rule athletics check.

4) All up to you. I'm actually trying to figure this out myself. I'd make them more thematic flavor, or grant inspiration. Maybe a different effect like a crit temporary dating someone to give another player advantage.

And I'm glad to see ya getting to play. Are you doing a hardcover or homebrew?
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Bad_Mojo posted...

1) There was a part where they were trying to climb up statue to get to an eye, but they would fail the DC (15). What happens when this happens? Should I have done fall damage or something?

Whatever makes sense in context. There are no hard and fast rules for stuff like that. Go with your gut.

Bad_Mojo posted...

2) I can't remember how to tell if a weapon is based on Strength or Dexterity. Bows and Daggers are Dex, Broadswords are Stg. But some can be either, right? How do I find out?

There is a chart of weapons in the manual.

Bad_Mojo posted...

3) If they're trying to leap over a pit, they do an Athletics check, right? It says under Athletics it says Jumping, but when you look at the Jumping Movement it says, "Your Strength determines how far you can jump. Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength Score if you move at least 10ft on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the dump cost a foot of movement"

So do I no to an Athletics Check, and it's just a base stat?

Generally, but it depends entirely on what they choose to do. If they can figure out a way to use one of their other abilities to do it that would be fine too. For example, if they wanted to use a rope to swing over, they might argue they are using their dexterity or something like that. Again, just be flexible and do what is the most fun.

Bad_Mojo posted...

4) Any advice what happens when they Critical Fail/Succeed. I saw this one DM using cards to draw what happens. For example, they get a Critical Fail, so they draw from that deck and you hurt your arm, attack with disadvantage for the next 10mins or something like that. But I don't have those cards or any other better, so I just had them either hit themselves or drop their weapon.

Up to you. You can invent your own system, or you can ignore them. I know a lot of DMs don't use critical fails because they aren't very fun, but critical hits can be as simple as an automatic success/max damage attack.

Thank you, everyone

Blue_Dream87 posted...

And I'm glad to see ya getting to play. Are you doing a hardcover or homebrew?

This is what I did -

http://www.dmsguild.com/product/238921/Death-Pit-of-Moloch
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Ill bump this once
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1) Depends on how you're running things. If you're running with Natural 1 rules then they fall and go splat, everyone laughs. If they just missed the DC perhaps you give them a Dexterity Saving Throw to grab another part of the statue as they slip.

2) It's been covered. Most melee weapons and weapons with the 'thrown' tag use Strength, while melee weapons tagged with 'finesse' is up to the player, ranged weapons tend to use Dexterity.

3) Generally speaking, Athletics is used for things that involve running, jumping, climbing or swimming. Think of it as the go to check for things that look like they belong in an action movie. But, you can house rule things to allow Rogues or other characters to substitute Acrobatics for a check. It's the difference between imagining Schwarzenegger doing something and Jackie Chan doing it. Both can scale a wall, for instance, but they'll take different approaches.

4) Critical fails are up to you. Personally, if it were me, I'd go light on the penalty at first, but ramp things up if multiple 1's show up in an encounter. E.g. after multiple 1's a barbarian might get his axe stuck in some stonework while swinging at enemies and have to make a Strength check as an Action to retrieve it. This gives the Barbarian a chance to use some of their starting Throwing Axes if they have them, or just do something else. If you've done multiple sessions with a group you should get a feel for how serious the penalties can get while still allowing people to have fun.
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DuneMan posted...

3) Generally speaking, Athletics is used for things that involve running, jumping, climbing or swimming. Think of it as the go to check for things that look like they belong in an action movie. But, you can house rule things to allow Rogues or other characters to substitute Acrobatics for a check. It's the difference between imagining Schwarzenegger doing something and Jackie Chan doing it. Both can scale a wall, for instance, but they'll take different approaches.

Here, I'll tell you the situation and you tell me what you would have done as the DM.

They pulled a lever on the wall and it opened up a spike trap on the other side of the room, but was blocking the exit. The spike trap was 15ft wide, but the party member with the highest strength only had a stg of 13, which would only cover 13ft of jumping.

I found it hard to believe, at least from what I saw in the PHB, that they couldn't try to make an Athletics check.

But thinking about it now, maybe I could have done it like he just almost make it across, and then make a check to see if they could hold on to the side of the edge, and then pull themselves up like you explained in the first questions.

Thank you
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Yeah, grabbing the other side could have worked.

Were there walls on either side of the spike trap? A Monk or Rogue might have tried to run along the wall to cover most of the distance if that was an option.

If there was a door frame on the far side the party could also have tried to use a grappling hook(most characters have 50 feet of rope by default). Maybe they nail down some hooks from their climbing gear as an anchor on their side and try to shimmy across the rope.

If they're a low level party let them experiment and try stuff. It's usually fun to see people work out ways to solve basic puzzles.
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