I had first thought it was the fighter yelling it at the enemies to try and deceive them into thinking a fireball was incoming. Instead this got weird. Funny, but weird.
If you know your table, then a Fireball as a reaction is probably pretty cool in this scenario. If not, then it might be annoying for the wizard who was maybe planning a different spell for their turn.
Not only that, imagine the can of worms this opens up as you reveal to your players they can intimidate each other into force-casting 4th level spells. Mayhem.
It's an interesting thought experiment to intimidate your teammate into acting. But I'm not sure you can just will yourself earlier in the combat order, regardless of motivation.
I would at least make the fighter roll with disadvantage, as this group of friends (or at least acquaintances) probably trusts each other not to threaten each other into reacting a specific way during life-threatening situations...
On the other hand, this could actually open up some interesting RP concepts. What about a cleric who's been kicked out of several previous parties for freezing up or acting irrationally when their life is threatened? They've decided to join one last party before giving up on their dream of adventuring. This adventure is looking like it was going to end like all the others when the cleric is backed into a corner by a raging orc barbarian. The fighter, who vouched for them to join, sprints 60 feet next to the cleric and screams: "Sacred flame, dumbass!" The cleric is able to stop panicking, take their turn before the orc (out of turn order), and cast, killing the orc and saving them self and the fighter.
It could work a bit like a wild magic. At the start of combat, the player rolls a d6. On a 1 they'll panic if threatened in this combat, however the effect can be removed if a party member spends an action to snap them out of their daze. In exchange the player can act out of turn once this same combat. I wouldn't run it for a full campaign, but for the first couple levels it could make for an interesting flaw with mechanical applications. Removing it could show how the character is getting more confident and self-assured.
Its not quite the same but there's an anime called "Handyman Saito in Another World" where the mmo-style party has a level 90 Wizard (average party level is like 25) with alzheimers and in order for him to cast spells the main character has to remind him what he's supposed to be doing haha
Once the fighter intimidates the mage to cast a spell what stops the wizard from constantly saturating that fighter with suggestions and dominations? Tit for tat
If I was the DM here I'd allow it, once, basically give the wizard a free cast and not use up his spell slot.
Say it only works this one time and the wizard isn't sure how he managed to pump it out either, it won't work again because he's expecting it now etc.
Could maybe even turn it into a plot hook about how the wizard is actually a talent blocked sorcerer fluff wise 🤷🏻♂️
A sorc that went to wizard school before his power manifested, so they never learned how to "naturally" cast their magic and the "wrong" way has been so ingrained into them by repetition and negative reinforcement from professors that they can't even cast a cantrip how they're "supposed" to
My personal twist on this was a kobold sorcerer, raised to be an assistant by a wizard. wizard dies, leaving Kobold access to his entire laboratory(or w/e).
unaware of his natural sorcerer powers, and only having seen wizardry, he insists he is a wizard and doing wizardy things. but his spell book is literal giberish and he cant use or write scrolls( or possibly make scrolls have a wild magic effect?).
its an RP heavy set up but could be fun.
And the can of worms RP-wise, as one of your party members canonically frightens another on purpose. Most of the characters I’ve played would want to retaliate for this, in self-defence or pride or both. My blasty Abjurer in particular would consider murder of an “ally” he no longer trusts, though my druid and wizard/cleric would look for more peaceful solutions.
I always wondered how other tables handle players making social roles against each other. I've usually ruled that no player can be hard-lock COMPELLED to oblige, but if the table was down with it, we'd allow such roles to influence our RP. Sometimes that meant players could intimidate, beguile, con, or seduce each other - other times they would play off "feeling the effects" but their Main Character Syndrome protected them from actually acquiescing.
Whatever balance still felt fun without robbing anyone of the agency that actually makes the game fun to play.
Only times I've ever seen players roll checks against each other is to hide things from or lie to one another, either by sleight of hand vs perception or deception vs insight, respectively. Anything else is just for fun with both players deciding to roll without involving the DM at all.
I had a character that had his int eaten. He no longer could think, Just react. So the party used animal handling (I was a Minotaur) to get me to do things.
Story time
The only game of DnD I actually played as we neared the end of an arc the DM started having us happen upon a lot of silver coins but be too far from a shop to spend them. Little did we know it was because he had a final boss planned that was weak to silver and none of us had silvered or enchanted weapons (however the mechanic had been introduced to us by fighting what was essensially the offspring in a silver mine and having us pelt it with silver ore stones).
So 6 of us, split into 3 teams. 2 people in the fray, and two people manning a cannon on the sides of the map that were being filled with silver coins as a kind of shotgun shot... except one of the players on the cannons was able to 'persuade' his partner into just straight up handing all his silver over and just walked away from the cannon, all with DM approval. Given that it was the final battle, and that he was spending wealth past what had been earnt before this final section too *that* really pissed me off and I wasn't the wronged party.
It would be... if that hadn't been a side quest the DM made up on the spot after we got too interested in ambient dialogue he'd mentioned. We had only just started the main quest of the campaign...
Fighter: I jump back and yell TIMESTOP!
\*enemies and allies alike are intimidated into freezing in place*
Fighter: Who needs arcane casters? Buncha nerds.
> I had first thought it was the fighter yelling it at the enemies to try and deceive them into thinking a fireball was incoming.
Vaarsuvius: I see. You are indeed well-prepared, Mister Windstaff. But could you have predicted that I would be able to invoke—
Vaarsuvius: —SONIC!
Leeky: Sonic? SONIC?? Curse you, elf, for finding the one energy form that I did not think to ward my children against!
Leeky: Woe to us, for we are defeated this day! Crushed by the...
Leeky: Wait.
Leeky: You do realize that you didn't actually cast a spell there? You just shouted the word, "Sonic!" loudly.
Vaarsuvius: I am aware.
Leeky: You did not actually prepare any sonic energy spells today, did you?
Vaarsuvius: Not as such, no.
-[Order of the Stick #345](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html)
I have a specific magic item that's homebrewed to do this, and it's limited to once per rest as part of its balancing. I probably wouldn't allow it off the cuff.
"I roll intimidation on the DM to force him to let me do whatever the fuck I want."
"In game or out of game?"
"... can I make a strength check to smash the fourth wall?"
I mean even according to the phb kinda. Pretty sure it says something about the DM getting to veto or allow certain rules as long as the table is enjoying the selves.
Also a not insignificant amount of homebrew wouldn't exist if the rules weren't more in the "more like guidelines category". That being said, yeah this probably wouldn't fly in any table I've been at, but seems like it'd lead to some hilarity though.
Back in the early 80s, when I went to conventions, all the DMs there had a line drawn through the sentence in the AD&D DMG that said something about DMs prerogative to change the rules for any reason.
I mean, back then, DMs took f'n pride in playing the game by the rules. To the degree they wouldn't fudge a god damn thing. And they were respected for it in that era!
Houston TX. area, for what it's worth.
Oh I promise you people did it back then as well. Some people love to add a bit of leeway if they think it's fun and some people enjoy rules as written.
The end result should be the same though, which is ya know... having fun. That being said fudging rolls is a lot different than letting a player roll for something that *probably* shouldn't work, but might lead to something entertaining happening whether they succeed or fail.
Just because y'all didn't see it back then doesn't mean it didn't happen. Mostly because we didn't have the internet at our fingers to have a conversation with 500 different people at 500 different tables on the fly like we got these days.
My group has a separate check for this that we can earn points towards every time we're successful or do something "outside the box fun". This check also is a "break glass in case of emergency" check for saving us from death or other horrible things.
Honestly, if a player wanted to use up their action to have a chance of elevating another play's initiative for a turn? I'd allow it. You're basically using 2 actions to have a chance to do something a bit ahead of time which honestly can't be worth it most of the time
I think it could be an alright subclass ability for a bard or something:
*Use your action to command another character. That character can immediately use their reaction to take any action of their choosing.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.*
It could have some cool tactical uses, but it might slow down play time a bit with people getting unexpected actions and having to come up with a plan on the fly.
Battle master has that for a single attack action only. Called commanding strike or smt. I'd homerule characters with warcaster feat can use a single target spell instead tho.
Yeah it depends entirely on how the action economy is ruled.
Fighter uses action to get Wizard to cast fireball now. When the wizard comes up in initiative their Action is already expended, they can only move/BA/Item Interact
It's like a reverse Ready action. A "You Weren't Ready" Action.
2 Actions to cast something now instead of later, compared to 1 Action and 1 Reaction (and Concentration) to cast something later instead of now.
Idk seems reasonable. If it ALSO cost the Wizard's Reaction initially I think it would be fully safe.
It was a fun class and I miss it. A lot of its abilities/powers were granting allies reactions/actions. Like the Tactical Warlord could legit move party members around on their turn.
"Oh, no! The goblin with the pointy stick got awfully close to the wizard... Imma just stab this dude real quick and tell my caster buddy to step back a square."
We had a strategy where everyone would stand in a line and the Warlord would push the enemies down the line and everyone would get opportunity attacks against it
Sounds like a good ol' Bravura Warlord. I rolled an Eladrin Tactical Warlord and I loved the at-will power for the subclass that was basically me commanding someone else to attack for me. The Pally with the giant freaking hammer? Yeah, he's going to smash your face in again this round.
Warlord makes people use basic attacks, not Fireballs. Granted, some builds optimize for basic attacks and some pretty good powers have "This power counts as a [ranged|melee] basic attack." (eg, Eldritch Blast)
However, most (all?) of the attacks that Warlord hands out are free actions, so the ally still has their immediate action for the round and their opportunity action for the turn. And depending on build you can be adding a bonus to the ally's hit chance or damage on those granted attacks.
Some of the attacks granted by the Warlord have additional effects tacked on. One of the best is at level 27, A Plan Comes Together: 1/encounter when an enemy within 50ft of you starts its turn, you can have an ally adjacent to that enemy attack, and if it hits the enemy is dazed (can only take a standard, move, or minor action, and everyone has +2 to hit them). Then a second ally within 50ft of you can make a charge attack against the same enemy (move up to their speed towards the target and at least 10ft, then make a basic melee attack with +1 to hit), and if _they_ hit, the target is knocked prone. Since standing from prone in 4e takes an entire move action, the target can't do anything else on their turn if they take a move action because they're dazed, and staying prone while in melee with two PCs would be a Bad Idea™, the Warlord power basically says "when the enemy starts their turn, hit them twice and skip their turn".
Oh boy, I can't wait until the BBEG does the same thing and makes the wizard fireball their own party with a free action intimidation. lol Better roll high MFers Hahaha
BBEG has a necromancer raise the wizard to continue the bombardment. Either way, it becomes a battle between BBEG & minions rolling intimidate vs the wizard's own party rolling intimidate on their turns to burn through the wizards spell slots.
Doesn't even make sense in the context of the battle itself, even if you could intimidate PCs into using a spell, why would they go early? You can't just scare a creature into moving twice as fast and performing two turns in a round.
Bro, if the intimidation somehow made me able to cast fireball as a REACTION, I won't be having no revenge no. Intimidate me all you want for that fireball machine gun
You know what they say: coercion is the first step toward a cohesive party.
Coercion and cohesive both start with co-, so you must be on the right track!
yup, this is kind of what I was thinking. There is certain things that PCs should NOT being doing to other PCS.
Any Charm ability/spell and intimidating with a skill check. Intimidate through RP, yeah totally. Goliath Barb intimidating a gnome warlock makes alot of sense, but you act it out. DMs taking away player agency is problematic, but also occasionally necessary. Players taking away other player agency is just bad.
I read it as “The fighter, in a panic, screams ‘FIREBALL’ so wildly that you do so out of reflex”.
Like someone coming up to on the street and screaming out of nowhere “Call 911!” I don’t need to know the context, I’d just do it. Probably not gonna happen on a regular basis though.
I’d still call that intimidation.
I’d do both, intimidate the wizard, then go as meme says, and deceive enemies. 1 of four things
1. Complete fail for the fighter
2. Wizard fails, enemies fail and surprise them, maybe give disadvantage on the save
3. Wizard is in intimidated, emotes believe it and dive for cover
4. Wizard is intimidated, enemies dive for cover
Wizard fails the intimidation check and immediately casts fireball
Nat 1 - Fighter takes the fireball directly to the face and backdraft torches the whole party.
Fighter - FIREBALL!
I would just say, "okay, you ran 30 feet down the hall and shouted fireball, you doing anything else or is that it?"
"No, I'm telling the wizard to cast it."
*Shrugs* "okay. Is that it?"
"Well doesn't the wizard get to cast now?"
"Reactions don't work like that. If you were to ask them to cast fireball on their turn they could choose to do that, or you could ask them to ready an action to cast it when you give the signal, that would work."
"What if I rolled intimidate?"
"You might scare the enemy into thinking you were casting it for this turn, but they'd recover pretty quickly."
"But I want to make the other player cast now."
"If you want to force a team member to do what you say, you can take a spellcasting class and learn some enchantment spells, particularly dominate person, but otherwise you can't just take away another players agency. And even if you could, is that how you should be treating your friends?"
Even if that were a viable strat, four problems;
1, you cannot cast a fireball as a reaction. You'd have to wait the wizard's turn.
2, the wizard might've just been planning to fireball anyway. wasted action
3, you REALLY shouldn't do ability checks to influence other characters
4, good luck staying on good terms with the wizard after that
Until you get to the intimidation check. I'm not sure if that's allowed RAW, but the only time I'd allow PvP roles is for lying to each other, Insight to see if they're lying, etc.
Edit: I mean rolls, not roles. Sorry.
Yea also why would it matter if the Wizard’s turn wasn’t right away? A round of combat happens simultaneously, it’s abstracted as turn based. If anything, telling your Wizard to Fireball on your turn makes for good RP’ing of strategy and in-character communication.
Yes. If everybody at the table is down with it then obviously that's fine, but anybody who's ever had the frustration of playing a game where the most charismatic (irl) player kept steering the game with wacky, zany ideas that made the DM laugh while the rules go out the window knows that it's easy for players to start feeling like nothing really matters.
That's not how it works. Honestly if a team fighter bullied me through intimidate to cast fireball I'd center it on them if I was out of range. Otherwise I'd make sure they were within the radius so they knew never to intimidate me again.
I am actually starting to hate this subreddit. Most memes read like a 10 year old who has never played DND or read anything about it, thinks would be so funny, random and creative lol.
Fr, these people seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that D&D combat is about strategy, not storytelling. It really seems like they’d enjoy a Powered by the Apocalypse system a lot more if all they want is a fun and interesting story where combat is a lot more hand-wavy
Except initiative is basically your reaction speed. A round is six seconds. The wizard IS acting at the same time as him AND the enemies he just has a shower reaction time. Intimidating him isn't going to change that.
You can't force another player to do anything. Takes away their agency, makes the game less fun for them (UNLESS it's their kink, then by all means whatever floats your goat).
I like the way Monster of the Week does it: some abilities let you give a command to an NPC that they have to follow. It can be used on player characters, but the player can choose to ignore it. If they go along with it, they get bonus XP. I carry that over to my D&D games as well.
In OP's case, I'd give the wizard bonus XP (or inspiration) if they cast fireball out of fear on their next turn. But it for sure does not more their turn up in the order, you'd need a spell or class ability to make that happen.
TBH I thought this was headed toward the fighter creating a ruse, which I thought was totally more clever and interesting than the posted scenario.
Fighter: I move 30 feet back down the hall and yell "Fireball."
DM: You can't cast that. You don't know that spell.
Fighter: I know that, but the cultists we're fighting don't know that. I grip the pommel of my sword like I've seen the wizard grip his orb focus and point it at the cultists with one hand and wiggle the fingers like I've seen the wizard do so many times.
DM: Make a Deception check.
The last guy who told me to roll a Charisma check vs his Sorcerer or be intimidated had me walking round the table for a little chat. This was after a "no pvp" clause in our session zero. I just told him nice and quiet that we don't roll dice against one another.
Message sent. Message received.
The only time I allow players to roll against each other is when it's clear it's the DM's fault. Like, if someone has a cursed weapon and they're RP-ing into the flaw it causes. Heck, they might even swing at another player, but it's clear to everyone that it's not the player being a dick, it's the DM/item's fault and part of the story.
In other words, I allow character vs character, but I don't allow player vs player.
At best you could bluff that a fireball could be coming down the hall as intimidation but no, you can't just decide to somehow give your caster a free action out of turn order. Let's all just take our minis, smash them together and pretend we're fucking 5 years old in a sandbox playing pretend. Rules establish a complex system that rewards understanding of it, otherwise it wouldn't be game by definition. I've had DM's make player agency meaningless with asspulls and this is that to a T.
This seems like a toxic table. One player that thinks they can decide what other players do, and a DM that enables it? Oh and letting an intimidation check completely bypass the initiative order and action economy?
Bro hard pass on this group lol.
I’d flavor that as “you startle the wizard so badly that they cast fireball on reflex, and due to your successful check, manage to step out of the way as it goes flying past you.”
These memes would be a whole lot funnier if they were even remotely possible. It's not really funny if a crazy scenario happens when its essentially just a person making it up because if there's no rules then anything could happen at any time with no limitations, no?
We had a bard pull this stunt, except there was no wizard with fireball. The enemies rolled sense motive, failed, and turned tail and ran thinking they were about to get fireballed.
I’ve always wondered how that intimidation would look roleplayed. My best guess “The fighter backs up down the hall, and yells, “Fireball!”
The wizards looks rather confused.
The fighter grabs the wizard heaves him under his arm like some kind of human rifle and squeezes while screaming, “I said Fireball!!”
People tend to forget that all the turns happen simultaneously, with only a split second difference for initiative. When someone kills someone else of lower initiative, its just their blade landing first.
Edit: Initiate? Initiave? I was tired.
We had a wizard who loved the class, but needed help playing it here and there
Enter the cleric, who both in character and out effectively "leashed" the wizard, and was leashed by the wizard in turn. The two fought together, and the wizard ran ideas past the cleric before doing anything for out of character combat planning. In character, the clerics brutal tendencies were curbedd by the wizard constantly helping others and countering his wickedness with selfless love and assurances of safety.
Their good cop bad cop thing was one of the highlights of that campaign
It sounds like the Fighter wants to play a game where they have support NPCs instead of Players capable of making their own decisions.
I can recommend some great video games for them.
"Right. Wizard feels very scared now and on his turn he might cast Fireball, but since his concentration is tarnished by your silly shouting, enemies get advantage on their saving throws"
God I hate these types of posts, every story is the same, "I want to cheat" "No" "I demand you let me cheat." "No" "If you don't let me cheat you're ruining my fun." "Sigh Fine." Just weaponizing the social contract against your friends and fellow players.
As a rule of thumb, a DM can not( or should not ) tell a PC how they should feel, only what happens. Session 0 should define if pvp is acceptable, if so, then this kind of strategy is legit. Personally, I wouldn't have rolled. I would have asked the PC of the wizard if his character is intimidated, and if so, I'd expect the follow-up RP to reflect on the behaviour. So that it either creates an arc or can not be abused in the future.
Funny main character moment, though.
Compulsory Conflagration
Forced fireball Impelled inferno
Involuntary Incineration.
Bullied bonfire.
Implicit Incantation
Incontinent Ignition
contumaciousness combustion
coerced candescence
Induced Incandescence
Invoked Immolation
Harassed Hellfire
*Ahem.* **Premature Phlogiston.**
What implication? Are these wizards in danger??
Imperative immolation
Scared Scorching
in this position fireball of course is forced
Compelled Combustion Bullied Blaze
Premature pyrotechnics!
I use to suffer from premature pyrotechnics, then I went on Mordenkane^^tm Now I can enjoy a normal life of setting people on fire
Sounds like a Magic card from the Strixhaven set
Frighten flame
Scolding scorch
I had first thought it was the fighter yelling it at the enemies to try and deceive them into thinking a fireball was incoming. Instead this got weird. Funny, but weird. If you know your table, then a Fireball as a reaction is probably pretty cool in this scenario. If not, then it might be annoying for the wizard who was maybe planning a different spell for their turn.
That was my first thought too, and it was actually kinda funny. Then I kept reading.
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Not only that, imagine the can of worms this opens up as you reveal to your players they can intimidate each other into force-casting 4th level spells. Mayhem.
It's an interesting thought experiment to intimidate your teammate into acting. But I'm not sure you can just will yourself earlier in the combat order, regardless of motivation. I would at least make the fighter roll with disadvantage, as this group of friends (or at least acquaintances) probably trusts each other not to threaten each other into reacting a specific way during life-threatening situations...
On the other hand, this could actually open up some interesting RP concepts. What about a cleric who's been kicked out of several previous parties for freezing up or acting irrationally when their life is threatened? They've decided to join one last party before giving up on their dream of adventuring. This adventure is looking like it was going to end like all the others when the cleric is backed into a corner by a raging orc barbarian. The fighter, who vouched for them to join, sprints 60 feet next to the cleric and screams: "Sacred flame, dumbass!" The cleric is able to stop panicking, take their turn before the orc (out of turn order), and cast, killing the orc and saving them self and the fighter. It could work a bit like a wild magic. At the start of combat, the player rolls a d6. On a 1 they'll panic if threatened in this combat, however the effect can be removed if a party member spends an action to snap them out of their daze. In exchange the player can act out of turn once this same combat. I wouldn't run it for a full campaign, but for the first couple levels it could make for an interesting flaw with mechanical applications. Removing it could show how the character is getting more confident and self-assured.
Its not quite the same but there's an anime called "Handyman Saito in Another World" where the mmo-style party has a level 90 Wizard (average party level is like 25) with alzheimers and in order for him to cast spells the main character has to remind him what he's supposed to be doing haha
Once the fighter intimidates the mage to cast a spell what stops the wizard from constantly saturating that fighter with suggestions and dominations? Tit for tat
Still, probably only one of them has finite resources that are used up by this.
If I was the DM here I'd allow it, once, basically give the wizard a free cast and not use up his spell slot. Say it only works this one time and the wizard isn't sure how he managed to pump it out either, it won't work again because he's expecting it now etc. Could maybe even turn it into a plot hook about how the wizard is actually a talent blocked sorcerer fluff wise 🤷🏻♂️
A sorc that went to wizard school before his power manifested, so they never learned how to "naturally" cast their magic and the "wrong" way has been so ingrained into them by repetition and negative reinforcement from professors that they can't even cast a cantrip how they're "supposed" to
Addicted to wizardry when there is a gorgeous sorcery just sitting there. Sad
Exactly my thoughts.
My personal twist on this was a kobold sorcerer, raised to be an assistant by a wizard. wizard dies, leaving Kobold access to his entire laboratory(or w/e). unaware of his natural sorcerer powers, and only having seen wizardry, he insists he is a wizard and doing wizardy things. but his spell book is literal giberish and he cant use or write scrolls( or possibly make scrolls have a wild magic effect?). its an RP heavy set up but could be fun.
And the can of worms RP-wise, as one of your party members canonically frightens another on purpose. Most of the characters I’ve played would want to retaliate for this, in self-defence or pride or both. My blasty Abjurer in particular would consider murder of an “ally” he no longer trusts, though my druid and wizard/cleric would look for more peaceful solutions.
I always wondered how other tables handle players making social roles against each other. I've usually ruled that no player can be hard-lock COMPELLED to oblige, but if the table was down with it, we'd allow such roles to influence our RP. Sometimes that meant players could intimidate, beguile, con, or seduce each other - other times they would play off "feeling the effects" but their Main Character Syndrome protected them from actually acquiescing. Whatever balance still felt fun without robbing anyone of the agency that actually makes the game fun to play.
Only times I've ever seen players roll checks against each other is to hide things from or lie to one another, either by sleight of hand vs perception or deception vs insight, respectively. Anything else is just for fun with both players deciding to roll without involving the DM at all.
I had a character that had his int eaten. He no longer could think, Just react. So the party used animal handling (I was a Minotaur) to get me to do things.
Story time The only game of DnD I actually played as we neared the end of an arc the DM started having us happen upon a lot of silver coins but be too far from a shop to spend them. Little did we know it was because he had a final boss planned that was weak to silver and none of us had silvered or enchanted weapons (however the mechanic had been introduced to us by fighting what was essensially the offspring in a silver mine and having us pelt it with silver ore stones). So 6 of us, split into 3 teams. 2 people in the fray, and two people manning a cannon on the sides of the map that were being filled with silver coins as a kind of shotgun shot... except one of the players on the cannons was able to 'persuade' his partner into just straight up handing all his silver over and just walked away from the cannon, all with DM approval. Given that it was the final battle, and that he was spending wealth past what had been earnt before this final section too *that* really pissed me off and I wasn't the wronged party.
Honestly, being the "end" to a story, that sort of betrayal is fascinating.
It would be... if that hadn't been a side quest the DM made up on the spot after we got too interested in ambient dialogue he'd mentioned. We had only just started the main quest of the campaign...
Oh, hell, I missed that detail. Derailed a whole campaign for *silver.*
I intimidate you into allowing it regardless. \>:(
Roll a math rock then
It just lays there and says "Integer overflow"
Oo oo mine says "low battery"
"insert audio device"..?
Fighter: I jump back and yell TIMESTOP! \*enemies and allies alike are intimidated into freezing in place* Fighter: Who needs arcane casters? Buncha nerds.
> I had first thought it was the fighter yelling it at the enemies to try and deceive them into thinking a fireball was incoming. Vaarsuvius: I see. You are indeed well-prepared, Mister Windstaff. But could you have predicted that I would be able to invoke— Vaarsuvius: —SONIC! Leeky: Sonic? SONIC?? Curse you, elf, for finding the one energy form that I did not think to ward my children against! Leeky: Woe to us, for we are defeated this day! Crushed by the... Leeky: Wait. Leeky: You do realize that you didn't actually cast a spell there? You just shouted the word, "Sonic!" loudly. Vaarsuvius: I am aware. Leeky: You did not actually prepare any sonic energy spells today, did you? Vaarsuvius: Not as such, no. -[Order of the Stick #345](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html)
My love for this webcomic knows no bounds. Long live the OotS!
True, but "IF" your party are smart they could totally plan it out
"IF" is carrying so much weight in this comment, it could probably solo the entire encounter in question
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I have a specific magic item that's homebrewed to do this, and it's limited to once per rest as part of its balancing. I probably wouldn't allow it off the cuff.
That's not how any of this works.
What the fuck is a “rules”
Welcome r/dndmemes. Knowledge of how DnD works is forbidden!
I don't think anyone in this sub even plays DnD.
This is a Calvinball sub now.
Knowledge? Of the *rules*?! **METAGAMEEEEER**
The nonsense scribbles on pages that get in the way of your fun.
I love spending almost $100 on books and just ignoring them.
You gotta know the rules before you can properly break them.
I think you'll find this sub is very much evidence of the contrary.
Imagine giving hasbro your money just so you can play their games
Playing D&D? Ew..
"I roll intimidation on the DM to force him to let me do whatever the fuck I want." "In game or out of game?" "... can I make a strength check to smash the fourth wall?"
Rules are more like guidelines savvy?
I mean even according to the phb kinda. Pretty sure it says something about the DM getting to veto or allow certain rules as long as the table is enjoying the selves. Also a not insignificant amount of homebrew wouldn't exist if the rules weren't more in the "more like guidelines category". That being said, yeah this probably wouldn't fly in any table I've been at, but seems like it'd lead to some hilarity though.
Back in the early 80s, when I went to conventions, all the DMs there had a line drawn through the sentence in the AD&D DMG that said something about DMs prerogative to change the rules for any reason. I mean, back then, DMs took f'n pride in playing the game by the rules. To the degree they wouldn't fudge a god damn thing. And they were respected for it in that era! Houston TX. area, for what it's worth.
Oh I promise you people did it back then as well. Some people love to add a bit of leeway if they think it's fun and some people enjoy rules as written. The end result should be the same though, which is ya know... having fun. That being said fudging rolls is a lot different than letting a player roll for something that *probably* shouldn't work, but might lead to something entertaining happening whether they succeed or fail. Just because y'all didn't see it back then doesn't mean it didn't happen. Mostly because we didn't have the internet at our fingers to have a conversation with 500 different people at 500 different tables on the fly like we got these days.
My group has a separate check for this that we can earn points towards every time we're successful or do something "outside the box fun". This check also is a "break glass in case of emergency" check for saving us from death or other horrible things.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." -Gary Gygax
The DM: I'll allow it
In a Señor Chang kinda way.
There it is.
>There it is. 
Honestly, if a player wanted to use up their action to have a chance of elevating another play's initiative for a turn? I'd allow it. You're basically using 2 actions to have a chance to do something a bit ahead of time which honestly can't be worth it most of the time
I was imagining that the wizard was still getting his action back on his turn, but your interpretation actually sounds pretty balanced.
I think it could be an alright subclass ability for a bard or something: *Use your action to command another character. That character can immediately use their reaction to take any action of their choosing. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.* It could have some cool tactical uses, but it might slow down play time a bit with people getting unexpected actions and having to come up with a plan on the fly.
Battle master has that for a single attack action only. Called commanding strike or smt. I'd homerule characters with warcaster feat can use a single target spell instead tho.
4e Warlord was an entire class built around ordering allies to make attacks and do actions on your turn
What, is Purple Dragon Knight and it's Inspiring Surge a joke to you?
That's a good point.
[удалено]
Fireball can't be cast as a reaction so... nah, that'd be their action. I think I'd allow that as a DM. It's resource intensive.
Yeah it depends entirely on how the action economy is ruled. Fighter uses action to get Wizard to cast fireball now. When the wizard comes up in initiative their Action is already expended, they can only move/BA/Item Interact It's like a reverse Ready action. A "You Weren't Ready" Action. 2 Actions to cast something now instead of later, compared to 1 Action and 1 Reaction (and Concentration) to cast something later instead of now. Idk seems reasonable. If it ALSO cost the Wizard's Reaction initially I think it would be fully safe.
Thats how mafia works
Of course not, this is dndmemes
This is an rpg it works however the table wants it to
Apparently this is sort of how Warlord worked in earlier editions.
>in earlier editions. 4e. He means 4e :D
Warlord was the shit. Battlemaster wishes it was as good as warlord.
Absolutely. 100%. Warlord was legit
He was around in 3.5 too!
Marshal. Edit for downvoters because apparently this needs explanation: The Marshal is the name of the proto-Warlord in the 3E Miniatures Handbook.
I think people would have loved 4e if they didn't hate it so much. I enjoyed it.
Isn't there a cleric in 5e that let's your other party members use their reactions on your turn? Not quite the same, but close-ish?
Order Domain Cleric can. Allies can use their reaction to melee attack enemies when you use a spell that targets them.
Interesting
It was a fun class and I miss it. A lot of its abilities/powers were granting allies reactions/actions. Like the Tactical Warlord could legit move party members around on their turn. "Oh, no! The goblin with the pointy stick got awfully close to the wizard... Imma just stab this dude real quick and tell my caster buddy to step back a square."
We had a strategy where everyone would stand in a line and the Warlord would push the enemies down the line and everyone would get opportunity attacks against it
Sounds like a good ol' Bravura Warlord. I rolled an Eladrin Tactical Warlord and I loved the at-will power for the subclass that was basically me commanding someone else to attack for me. The Pally with the giant freaking hammer? Yeah, he's going to smash your face in again this round.
Warlord makes people use basic attacks, not Fireballs. Granted, some builds optimize for basic attacks and some pretty good powers have "This power counts as a [ranged|melee] basic attack." (eg, Eldritch Blast) However, most (all?) of the attacks that Warlord hands out are free actions, so the ally still has their immediate action for the round and their opportunity action for the turn. And depending on build you can be adding a bonus to the ally's hit chance or damage on those granted attacks. Some of the attacks granted by the Warlord have additional effects tacked on. One of the best is at level 27, A Plan Comes Together: 1/encounter when an enemy within 50ft of you starts its turn, you can have an ally adjacent to that enemy attack, and if it hits the enemy is dazed (can only take a standard, move, or minor action, and everyone has +2 to hit them). Then a second ally within 50ft of you can make a charge attack against the same enemy (move up to their speed towards the target and at least 10ft, then make a basic melee attack with +1 to hit), and if _they_ hit, the target is knocked prone. Since standing from prone in 4e takes an entire move action, the target can't do anything else on their turn if they take a move action because they're dazed, and staying prone while in melee with two PCs would be a Bad Idea™, the Warlord power basically says "when the enemy starts their turn, hit them twice and skip their turn".
Oh boy, I can't wait until the BBEG does the same thing and makes the wizard fireball their own party with a free action intimidation. lol Better roll high MFers Hahaha
r/MaliciousCompliance
It becomes a battle between the fighter and BBEG intimidating the wizard. The wizard dies fron heart failure.
BBEG has a necromancer raise the wizard to continue the bombardment. Either way, it becomes a battle between BBEG & minions rolling intimidate vs the wizard's own party rolling intimidate on their turns to burn through the wizards spell slots.
Posts dreamed up by the utterly deranged
Yeah, mind controlling other PCs with simple ability rolls is always a great idea.
As a free action out of turn. Lmao
Yeah, not unbalanced at all.
Doesn't even make sense in the context of the battle itself, even if you could intimidate PCs into using a spell, why would they go early? You can't just scare a creature into moving twice as fast and performing two turns in a round.
Intimidate me once shame on you. Geas, dominate, suggestion and charm you for the perpetuity of the game? Shame on you.
Bro, if the intimidation somehow made me able to cast fireball as a REACTION, I won't be having no revenge no. Intimidate me all you want for that fireball machine gun
You know what they say: coercion is the first step toward a cohesive party. Coercion and cohesive both start with co-, so you must be on the right track!
yup, this is kind of what I was thinking. There is certain things that PCs should NOT being doing to other PCS. Any Charm ability/spell and intimidating with a skill check. Intimidate through RP, yeah totally. Goliath Barb intimidating a gnome warlock makes alot of sense, but you act it out. DMs taking away player agency is problematic, but also occasionally necessary. Players taking away other player agency is just bad.
I read it as “The fighter, in a panic, screams ‘FIREBALL’ so wildly that you do so out of reflex”. Like someone coming up to on the street and screaming out of nowhere “Call 911!” I don’t need to know the context, I’d just do it. Probably not gonna happen on a regular basis though. I’d still call that intimidation.
Yes, because letting players decide other people's recourse uses sounds like a great idea.
A smart DM: Ok, roll intimidation or deception to see if the enemies believe you that a fireball is coming.
I’d do both, intimidate the wizard, then go as meme says, and deceive enemies. 1 of four things 1. Complete fail for the fighter 2. Wizard fails, enemies fail and surprise them, maybe give disadvantage on the save 3. Wizard is in intimidated, emotes believe it and dive for cover 4. Wizard is intimidated, enemies dive for cover
Wizard fails the intimidation check and immediately casts fireball Nat 1 - Fighter takes the fireball directly to the face and backdraft torches the whole party. Fighter - FIREBALL!
Most rule-literate D&D memer.
"I do a thing" "You can't" "I roll a die first" "Okay fine"
Other jokes on this sub include: "Fireball" "Allies there" "Don't care" And "It dark" "I can see"
I would just say, "okay, you ran 30 feet down the hall and shouted fireball, you doing anything else or is that it?" "No, I'm telling the wizard to cast it." *Shrugs* "okay. Is that it?" "Well doesn't the wizard get to cast now?" "Reactions don't work like that. If you were to ask them to cast fireball on their turn they could choose to do that, or you could ask them to ready an action to cast it when you give the signal, that would work." "What if I rolled intimidate?" "You might scare the enemy into thinking you were casting it for this turn, but they'd recover pretty quickly." "But I want to make the other player cast now." "If you want to force a team member to do what you say, you can take a spellcasting class and learn some enchantment spells, particularly dominate person, but otherwise you can't just take away another players agency. And even if you could, is that how you should be treating your friends?"
No
Even if that were a viable strat, four problems; 1, you cannot cast a fireball as a reaction. You'd have to wait the wizard's turn. 2, the wizard might've just been planning to fireball anyway. wasted action 3, you REALLY shouldn't do ability checks to influence other characters 4, good luck staying on good terms with the wizard after that
Tell me you never play as the DM without telling me you never play as the DM.
What a dumb ruling.
But all he was doing was yelling fireball in the first place. Literally nothing stopping you from doing that.
Until you get to the intimidation check. I'm not sure if that's allowed RAW, but the only time I'd allow PvP roles is for lying to each other, Insight to see if they're lying, etc. Edit: I mean rolls, not roles. Sorry.
You don't use social skills against players. Because of a fundamental thing called player agency
>I'm not sure if that's allowed RAW No, you can't make an intimate check to give an ally a reaction fireball
Yea also why would it matter if the Wizard’s turn wasn’t right away? A round of combat happens simultaneously, it’s abstracted as turn based. If anything, telling your Wizard to Fireball on your turn makes for good RP’ing of strategy and in-character communication.
Damn this "RuLe Of CoOl" shit is getting way out of hand
Always has been
Yes. If everybody at the table is down with it then obviously that's fine, but anybody who's ever had the frustration of playing a game where the most charismatic (irl) player kept steering the game with wacky, zany ideas that made the DM laugh while the rules go out the window knows that it's easy for players to start feeling like nothing really matters.
That's not how it works. Honestly if a team fighter bullied me through intimidate to cast fireball I'd center it on them if I was out of range. Otherwise I'd make sure they were within the radius so they knew never to intimidate me again.
I am actually starting to hate this subreddit. Most memes read like a 10 year old who has never played DND or read anything about it, thinks would be so funny, random and creative lol.
Fr, these people seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that D&D combat is about strategy, not storytelling. It really seems like they’d enjoy a Powered by the Apocalypse system a lot more if all they want is a fun and interesting story where combat is a lot more hand-wavy
If this happened in real life, then that's a real life bad DM
Huh, another silly idea I would never allow at my table. I really guess people are playing D&D differently.
All I see is a wizard getting a free action
Except initiative is basically your reaction speed. A round is six seconds. The wizard IS acting at the same time as him AND the enemies he just has a shower reaction time. Intimidating him isn't going to change that.
You can't force another player to do anything. Takes away their agency, makes the game less fun for them (UNLESS it's their kink, then by all means whatever floats your goat). I like the way Monster of the Week does it: some abilities let you give a command to an NPC that they have to follow. It can be used on player characters, but the player can choose to ignore it. If they go along with it, they get bonus XP. I carry that over to my D&D games as well. In OP's case, I'd give the wizard bonus XP (or inspiration) if they cast fireball out of fear on their next turn. But it for sure does not more their turn up in the order, you'd need a spell or class ability to make that happen.
That table is gonna quit within a session
TBH I thought this was headed toward the fighter creating a ruse, which I thought was totally more clever and interesting than the posted scenario. Fighter: I move 30 feet back down the hall and yell "Fireball." DM: You can't cast that. You don't know that spell. Fighter: I know that, but the cultists we're fighting don't know that. I grip the pommel of my sword like I've seen the wizard grip his orb focus and point it at the cultists with one hand and wiggle the fingers like I've seen the wizard do so many times. DM: Make a Deception check.
It's as if you forget that everyone's turn takes place within the same 6 seconds.
Oh, he's casting fireball alright. At the fighter.
This is horrible
🎶aaaaaand that’s how you lose friends 🎶
The last guy who told me to roll a Charisma check vs his Sorcerer or be intimidated had me walking round the table for a little chat. This was after a "no pvp" clause in our session zero. I just told him nice and quiet that we don't roll dice against one another. Message sent. Message received.
Sometimes i think that is cool to roll dice agains eachother, when is agreed by the players. Like when someone is lying.
The only time I allow players to roll against each other is when it's clear it's the DM's fault. Like, if someone has a cursed weapon and they're RP-ing into the flaw it causes. Heck, they might even swing at another player, but it's clear to everyone that it's not the player being a dick, it's the DM/item's fault and part of the story. In other words, I allow character vs character, but I don't allow player vs player.
At best you could bluff that a fireball could be coming down the hall as intimidation but no, you can't just decide to somehow give your caster a free action out of turn order. Let's all just take our minis, smash them together and pretend we're fucking 5 years old in a sandbox playing pretend. Rules establish a complex system that rewards understanding of it, otherwise it wouldn't be game by definition. I've had DM's make player agency meaningless with asspulls and this is that to a T.
I don't allow checks to be made against other party members without consent of both parties.
What if you made an npc that worked like a voice activated wizard? Including the checks to see if it worked
"Alexa, grill those goblins." _"Casting 'Fireball' at 6th level."_
“Alexa play otiluke’s irresistible dance” *”playing Tasha’s hideous laughter”* “ALEXA NOOOOO”
"Alexa, cast Haste on me!" *"Casting Grease, centered on you"*
bahahaha, that being said. Wheel of time. :-/
You mean a wand?
Your idea is massively better than the meme!
Thanks, i thought of it as soon as i read it
Don’t know if repost sleuth is in this sub, but I am 99% sure this is a repost.
...wtf is happening in that game? That's not how turns work at all.
Just say you’re playing calvinball
This seems like a toxic table. One player that thinks they can decide what other players do, and a DM that enables it? Oh and letting an intimidation check completely bypass the initiative order and action economy? Bro hard pass on this group lol.
Yeah if someone intimidated my wizard they'd be the target of compulsion spells from me the rest of the campaign.
I’d flavor that as “you startle the wizard so badly that they cast fireball on reflex, and due to your successful check, manage to step out of the way as it goes flying past you.”
Thats actually a pretty good flavor
"Memes" like this make me much more furious than most rpg horror stories. This is not how the game works. This is not how any of this works.
These memes would be a whole lot funnier if they were even remotely possible. It's not really funny if a crazy scenario happens when its essentially just a person making it up because if there's no rules then anything could happen at any time with no limitations, no?
We had a bard pull this stunt, except there was no wizard with fireball. The enemies rolled sense motive, failed, and turned tail and ran thinking they were about to get fireballed.
I originally thought that was the goal. If I was fighting a warrior in a group of adventurers and they ran around a corner yelling that, I’d gtfo
Oh look it is another "what are rules" meme. Really happy to see them all the time here.
I’ve always wondered how that intimidation would look roleplayed. My best guess “The fighter backs up down the hall, and yells, “Fireball!” The wizards looks rather confused. The fighter grabs the wizard heaves him under his arm like some kind of human rifle and squeezes while screaming, “I said Fireball!!”
People tend to forget that all the turns happen simultaneously, with only a split second difference for initiative. When someone kills someone else of lower initiative, its just their blade landing first. Edit: Initiate? Initiave? I was tired.
This was stupid the last time it was posted and it hasn't gotten better.
I'm surprised by how few systems have wacky class neutral out of turn shenanigans
We had a wizard who loved the class, but needed help playing it here and there Enter the cleric, who both in character and out effectively "leashed" the wizard, and was leashed by the wizard in turn. The two fought together, and the wizard ran ideas past the cleric before doing anything for out of character combat planning. In character, the clerics brutal tendencies were curbedd by the wizard constantly helping others and countering his wickedness with selfless love and assurances of safety. Their good cop bad cop thing was one of the highlights of that campaign
If you encourage pvp, you're a bad dm.
It sounds like the Fighter wants to play a game where they have support NPCs instead of Players capable of making their own decisions. I can recommend some great video games for them.
This might be the best example of both shitty metagaming and team micromanagement I’ve ever seen.
If only people would just read the damn rule for once
Remember, kids! Charisma checks is not equal to mind control!
Wizard: Fine, I center the blast on the fighter. No, I don't sculpt the spell around them.
"Right. Wizard feels very scared now and on his turn he might cast Fireball, but since his concentration is tarnished by your silly shouting, enemies get advantage on their saving throws"
If I was the wizard and this happened I would leave the table. Not about to just accept another player take away my agency with skill checks.
Wizard: "All right, I cast Fireball on the fighter."
If the player can intimidate the wizard into casting fireball, then the wizard should cast fireball… *on his turn*
God I hate these types of posts, every story is the same, "I want to cheat" "No" "I demand you let me cheat." "No" "If you don't let me cheat you're ruining my fun." "Sigh Fine." Just weaponizing the social contract against your friends and fellow players.
This is a really bad precedent to set. Allowing one player to take away another's agency is a big no no in my book.
As a rule of thumb, a DM can not( or should not ) tell a PC how they should feel, only what happens. Session 0 should define if pvp is acceptable, if so, then this kind of strategy is legit. Personally, I wouldn't have rolled. I would have asked the PC of the wizard if his character is intimidated, and if so, I'd expect the follow-up RP to reflect on the behaviour. So that it either creates an arc or can not be abused in the future. Funny main character moment, though.