D&D Players, When was the Rule of Cool Enforced in D&D? 🅿️4

[@destructor3152]

Our barbarian was based on the scotsman from samurai jack . The BBeg called his kilt a skirt . So the barbarian got to use vicious mockery and went on a two hour verbal beat down. The player had no idea what to say so the dm said the party could only understand the occasional insult about the BBeg's mother

[@jessegd6306]

How much damage did the insult deal to BBEG? 2 hours of unending insult had to have been one hell of a thing.

[@Athorment]

Me (Paladin) and the Rogue were on the reds when we got hit by a thunderbolt beam. If any of us failed the Dex save we would instantly die, no questions asked. The rogue somehow failed her roll but mine passed with a Nat 20. "I wanna use my Dex Save to grab the rogue and throw her out of the spell's range to save her". I was pretty much sacrificing my character to save her. We had a dramatic moment where in slow motion she tried to fight off being picked up and thrown, only to make it to safety as i was fried in her stead. Then the DM said: "Paladin, there's a buzz in your head as you can barely see the hag stare at you in disbelief. Your Patron deity holds you from falling forward. He tells you that the fight is not over. You are at 1 HP"

[@darkmage212]

Holy shit!!! A self sacrifice leading to a “your fight is not over yet (inserts warrior class)” will never not be awe inspiring.

[@darkhorse989]

I had my party go find an amulet to control a Shield Guardian, only to find it was in the possession of a Saytre. I had a big fight planned with the Saytre equipped with Storm Giant belt, a wand of lightning bolts, and backed up by two Shambling Mounds. Instead our Cleric convinced the Saytre to wrestle for the amulet. I scrapped the fight and made up a quick wrestling game on the fly and everyone had a blast. And then another party member traded a "Valuable" bit of loot to get the belt. Rolled high on Persuasion to trade. Nat-20 so yeah, they got a Storm Giant belt at level 5.

[@Alex-Rocks]

I loved the summer camp story! That is exactly what DnD and TTRPGs are about! Having fun together while acting out a fantasy!

[@lexsamreeth8724]

One of my earliest characters was a gunslinger who worshipped Calistria in a game based partially on Princess Mononoke. The party came across a camp where the gnoll trackers had betrayed a noble and slaughtered the entire camp, except for the noble's daughter. My gunslinger chose to swear an oath to Calistria to bring vengeance on her behalf. Later on, we found the gnolls, and the necromancer that was leading them. Gunslinger rolled a critical hit, and the DM described that instead of a bullet, a wasp, Calistria's sacred animal, emerged from the barrel, and shot straight through the necromancer's head.

[@justinn8541akaDrPokemon]

When the druid decided to wild shape into a dragon because he was going to land the final blow on the BBEG and it was the end of the campaign.

[@charliejones7512]

Thank you DM, for allowing my Mountain Dwarf Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian to have a Frying Pan as a weapon. So looking forward to using it!

[@Drocksas]

Best rule of cool I've had was sadly in a game I was later kick out of (long story, but I know now that it was for the best). The short version: We were fighting a minor Kuo'toa god manifestation early on. It was a hard fight, and 2 of our party of 5 were knocked unconscious. One had already failed a death save. And the monster attacked with an AOE that would hit both of them. Knowing this would kill one of them, I asked the DM if I could use my reaction to throw myself over the other character and take their damage. DM decided to allow me to attempt it with a Dex save with advantage. As a result, I rolled my first (and currently only) double natural 20's. The DM was so hyped he allowed me not only to block the damage, but to take only the damage I would normally. That alone saved me from going unconscious as well.

[@hanssamuel7356]

When my character, a bunny barbarian druid, asked if I could wrestle a Bulette after it dived bombed me. I not only succeeded, but kept it there, fighting it one on one, and finished it off since a sandstorm was kicked up and I was too far away from the rest of the party to be seen.

[@41217beingbored]

Ever since I started playing 5e I realized that I was terrible at combat but good at creative uses of spells and mechanics. So the rule of cool became my best friend. These are three of my favorite examples (and sorry for any bad sentence structure): -Yeniar, my Half-Drow Totem Barbarian, was put on a rescue mission to save a captured giant and I had to figure out how to open the lock. I convinced the DM to let me use the 6th level Bear totem ability (gain advantage on strength checks to push, lift, and "break" objects) to try and break the lock despite it being 3 times my size. He okayed it but told me it was a disadvantage roll due to its sheer weight so I had an even one chance roll. Proceeded to roll a Nat 20. DM described it from the giant's perspective as it sees a tiny elf squeeze into the ring of the lock and struggles to push against it. The giant tries to put a hand out to prevent me from falling but recoils as the metal ring suddenly breaks from the lock. -Ildri, my human bronze draconic sorcerer, was sneaking into an underground cult's lair beneath a magic school. We ended up not only fighting guards but wizards employing liberal uses of Counterspell and Silvery Barbs. When my turn arrived, every wizard had used up a reaction except for one and I was going just before our own wizard. So I hopped around the corner and quicken cast Prestidigitation to create lightning sparks in an attempt to goad the wizard into using Counterspell on me. The spell has no saving throw but the DM liked the idea so much that he had the wizard roll an intelligence save against my DC. Rolled a Nat 1. So in the haste of battle, the wizard thought I was casting lightning bolt and react countered. To which I smirked and actually cast lightning bolt on him and the two wizards behind him. -And finally Nakhem the Hell Knight, a Custom Lineage Light Cleric/ Conquest Paladin for an gestalt campaign, was in a village getting supplies to take on a spider infestation. He discovered a local blacksmith that works with a magic ore that could be forged into any type of magic weapon or armor. I instead convinced the blacksmith to create three orbs that had a modified use of spell storing ring on all of them. If it gets hit by a spell and is empty, using my reaction, it could absorb the spell doing no damage to it. Then, upon a command word, could release that spell. It took some high rolls but the DM liked it enough to let me have it, though he didn't know what my idea with it was. Once we faced the spider queen, who ambushed us, I had the rest of the party step back and used object interaction to chuck the three balls at its legs. Then, with my recent immunity to fire acquired, I ran up to the creature and cast 8th level fireball on top of us. Simple enough and the spider took a good amount of damage. Turn over, right? Nope. I used my reaction to have the orbs absorb the fireball, then used another free action to say the orbs' activation word: Fire! So now all three orbs each individually launched an 8th level fireball on top of the spider queen. The DM, after being shaken out of his stunned silence, ruled that all three launched one fireball collectively instead of three individual fireballs (because they all absorbed from one spell), but even with that and some high damage rolls, the spider queen ended up super bloodied.

[@creedoflies]

I played in a campaign with some HS friends. One of the guys was in the military and getting deployed soon. His last session lined up PERFECTLY with a dragon boss fight. So here we are fighting this adult black dragon getting our asses handed to us, almost a TPK. The military guy looks at the DM and asks "what would happen if I drank all of the remaining doses of the mutagenic potion". Now for context, earlier in the campaign we happened upon a camp of kobolds that were brewing and taking this potion in order to get stronger, with mixed results. This player thought the stuff was cool and filled as many bottles as he could carry after we curb stomped the camp. The stuff had gotten us in trouble a couple times, but the randomness of the mutations really added to the game (and werent too hard to get rid of with lesser restoration). DM said he could have the power to defeat the dragon, but his character would die as a result. Cue player becoming a Mr. Manhattan like being of pure golden light choke slaming the dragon into the moon and exploding in golden fire. Also the moon broke (made some fun Lycanthrpopy themed adventures afterwards). Honestly the most memorable part of that campaign.

[@samzilla1281]

Not my game, but I heard the story from friends. The party was fighting an undead dragon of some kind. Their cleric cast bless on a decanter of endless water. They used the Geyser function to use it like a fire hose. Destroyed the undead dragon in one round.

[@TheStickCollector]

The holy rain, brought to you by Moses

[@AjiraCtelin1993]

I'm reminded of Xibalba Amassa, Intimidator of Cake. Granted, less Rule of *Cool,* and more Rule of *Funny,* but still...

[@Diaphat]

I love the orc builder that intimidated a pile of wood to build itself into something. Was it a bridge or a crow's nest? I forget.

[@AjiraCtelin1993]

@@Diaphat I recall it was Krod building a crow's nest.

[@Diaphat]

@@AjiraCtelin1993 That's right. What a legend!

[@llamaboioflusatia]

Got one shot from full hp by a boss far too strong for us during a side quest (long story). The DM let me get up using second wind despite being unconscious saying I used it before I passed out, then I ended up critting the boss for a good amount of damage. The boss laughed it off, said I was worthy of a reward for my effort, and I woke up later with some Mithral armour and a spear enchanted with electricity.

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@threadscore]

Not the DM, but early in the RotRL AP I was in, our party was exploring some ancient ruins located under an abandoned sanitarium. This is where my charater was introduced. After figuring out the puzzle to the place, it began to collapse around us. All were making good headway toward the newly uncovered exit, save one; our cleric. His armor was just heavy enough to slow him so that he likely wouldn't make it. Part of the exit, however, included a pair of stairways forming a "V." This is when the cleric pipes in, "Hey, DM. Could I possibly Legolas my way down these steps on my shield?" "...Roll acrobatics and hope it's high." He rolls, and it's a unmodded 19. Everyone whoops as the DM describes our eldery cleric surfing down the stairs as the ruins are falling apart around us. He botched the landing, but my character, dwarf barbarian, was more than strong enough to carry him out on her shoulders.

[@fishwithlegs8117]

Been listing for the last few days thanks for all the great vids getting me through the work day.

[@---ze8tc]

Once with a vampire I had a domination that took 2 of a 5 people group, as the vampire what busy fighting the other 3, he ask his minions "attack your comrades". They manage to fight each other with the least effective weapons, without attacking clear minded characters.

[@thestormofwar]

Love these DMs that adapt to the Rule of Cool on the fly because it's all about the experience. ❤

[@agenttwenty-six6133]

I one time played a kobold monk while my group was trying to infiltrate a very large and complicated bandit fortress. At the front of the fortress was a tower where a bandit had perfect line of sight to anyone who got too close. However, thanks to some really good rolls we were able to get just close enough not to get noticed, at the edge of the forest line. I looked to our party's paladin and like Gimli to Aragorn, I said "Can you throw me?" The Paladin said "What?", to which I repeated, "Toss me, up there to the top of the tower." The both of us looked at the DM, who said, you know what, go for it, make an athletics check for the throw and an acrobatics check to see if you can actually reach it. We both rolled a Nat 20. As my kobold flies in the air screaming, the rest of the party looks on, following the kobold as he soared through the sky like a dragon with on player saying "I love that kobold". As a reward for the double Nat 20, I was able to get off all of my attacks at the justifyingly startled bandit guard before the real fighting commenced.

[@searunner4308]

So in a recent session I was in(I was a player not the DM), we were playing Death House (we were/are starting Curse of Strahd) and we were at the part where we beat the boss and need to escape the house as it collapses. Being a halfling I wasn’t entirely sure if I could make it on my own, so I decided to jump on a blink dog we befriended, and the DM was really nice and allowed me to teleport with/ride on the blink dog.

[@GingerMafia48]

I ran a oneshot at a family reunion one year, with preset characters for the younger cousins to play. I ended up miss-reading the rules for Create Water, mistaking gallons for cubic meters (IDK why). One of the cousins, trying to slow down the bandits chasing the cousins up a run-down tower's stair, cast the spell to make their footing slip. Having misread/misremembered the spell, I described how the 5 cubic meters of water swept all the bandits down the stairs to take fall damage and bludgeoning damage from the water, effectively removing the bandits as a threat... and leaving their leader without backup at the top of the stairs. An older cousin called out the mistake, but all the younger cousins were having so much fun, and with it being a one shot and all, I decided to roll with it because it was A) fun as heck and B) I really didn't want to go back and start the encounter all over again.

[@pavelshleparev9376]

English is not my native language, so there may be syntax or other errors. It was a long time ago, during my first major campaign (D&D 5e system) as a player. Our group hadn't even heard of the *rule of cool* back then, we were such newbies. We were fighting in a graveyard of ships: a large cluster of fully functional ships, floating on the water at some distance from each other. At that point, the group had reached level seventeen. It was night. My friend, playing a rogue, was fighting a lone bandit leader on deck. My character is a sorcerer. In the middle of the battle, a brilliant idea came to me. Using the "Misty step" spell, the range of which I had increased thanks to "Sorcerer points", I teleported to a neighboring ship. I went down to the lower deck, animated ten cannonballs lying in a pile with the "Animate objects" spell, ordered each ball to stand behind a cannon and aim straight at the pirate. Then I ordered them to load into the cannons. As soon as they did, I cast "Time stop", lit the fuses of all the cannons, running past them with a torch, and then, when the spell dissipated, the cannons all fired at the bandit leader simultaneously! The DM decided not to calculate damage and hits. He simply said that nothing remained of the enemy except his hat and his sword.

[@SuperTux20]

In a custom system a friend of mine made, "GX moves" are super-powerful abilities akin to final smashes that can usually only be used once per battle I got to use two GX moves in one battle for the sake of a glory kill, feeling like an absolute badass in the process

[@tazman2253]

a 3.5 game I was in the party took shelter in a cave about half a days travel from our starting town. The Dm intended this cave to be something that would come up much later on if not in another game entirely. The cave was full of vampires, we were level 1 my character the wizard came up with a great plan prestidigitation to create a mirrored sphere that would reflect the daylight from the entrance of the cave around the rest of it. Thats right coffins start opening and I create a disco ball to kill a cave full of vampires AT LEVEL 1

[@reapingangel1652]

I'm a half orc barbarian with a party of dragon born pirate and tiefling druid. We was doing an escort mission of a woman disguised as Tiamat through the ocean. At one point we was encountered with a ship with fish people. Now before we set we ended up getting a large crew and I have my own "wreckers" (as they are dubbed) that are the security of the ship. So they were helping fight these fish people with the dragon born on the other ship fighting a fish wizard, but was losing badly. So I jumped over and got in the fight so the dragon born to get away. So I had the wizard and two other fish on either of my sides. When it was my turn to attack I managed to get half the health down of the fish wizard. One of the fish man tried to attack, caught the weapon, and proceeded to use said fish man to beat the second one. But when the wizard used eldrich blast on me it only did two points but I was raging and that's where the rule of cool came in as we discussed that eldritch blast is really just a type of force damage (bludging damage) so it really only did one hit pont and I took the wizard down in the second attack. Dm got salty about it

[@Zeandico]

While my character was technically a warlock, they were the only character that wasn't evil in that campaign, and had ended up as both the leader and moral compass of the group. Due to a missed session, I came back to a complete betrayal from the rest fo the party, leading my character on a crusade. My elaborate plan for revenge almost went completely FUBAR due to a Homebrew spell, where the DM allowed the utter abuse of a spell, due to the out of box thinking and the homebrew flavortext made by the DM. It was a cool moment, fair enough... Only, the DM allowed it to repeat. EVERY. SINGLE. TURN. Not much you can do when your opponent can summon a projectile that travels from the moon to your location in a single action. For free. Only way to avoid, was a roll of 19 or greater. I made the first check. Not the rest. Downed in one hit. Since I was flying, about 60 feet up in the air, being downed meant taking fall damage after. Which killed my character. Still salty, especially since the DM later agreed, he should only have allowed the first use of the spell to deal damage. It wasn't a damage spell. It was a reflavored weapon summoning spell. To summon a regular weapon. Not a magical one either. I think it is something for Forge Clerics in 5E.

[@Arkios64]

The DMG actually has a table for "improvised damage" for cases like this, which not a lot of people even know about; most instances of the Rule of Cool can be handled with that as a guideline, that's what it's for. If you're not sure how strong an action should be in terms of damage, stick to that, or take a spell of the same level. And any "clever interpretation" should only ever work in that circumstance, or not at all. Especially when the exact thing that is being described is already a feature of another class or spell at higher level.

[@Zeandico]

@@Arkios64 With the context of the video, I want to clarify that this was a Rule of Cool Instance. This was just one of the first that occurred in my DnD group, so our DM decided to allow it, and after that, decide that it could be repeated, because he had already allowed it, and that he should stick to his ruling. He later retracted this, but the moment was never rolled back, and that campaign ended after that session anyways. To reiterate, we were all fairly new to DnD at the time, so this was the first time this really came up for us. If I recall, the damage dealt was calculated using fall damage rules, reasoning that an object falling from a height onto a character, would deal as much damage to said character as falling from said height would. For simplicity. I don't believe this would repeat with our group if this happened again in some way.

[@Arkios64]

@@Zeandico The fact that it worked AT ALL is what the Rule of Cool is actually intended for. It just isn't really that Cool the second time, so the Rule doesn't work. As you've explained, with the slightest bit of experience comes the understanding that the Rule of Cool works only once, and should only ever do massive "flavor" damage, not actual damage. And damage that isn't pre-defined has that table in the DMG I mentioned, exactly for instances like this. Double it for extra spice, and have it one-shot obliterate the target if the damage gets close enough, but baking it in is not in the spirit of the Rule of Cool. Also, if the ruling is that the summoned weapon falls at terminal velocity every time, it HAS to do that every time, including when the character actually wants to use it... which they now can't, because not only would it kill them, too, but the fall damage alone would destroy the weapon.

[@bepisaxe4464]

Got a nat 1, DM (who was also my University Tutor for my 2nd year) said, AND I QUOTE, "Nat 1? We don't do nat 1s" 2nd roll? Nat 20, THEN I hit highest damage (Cannot for the life of me remember the class I was playing, It was more of a one-shot)

[@VI_VA.]

So we had a small campaign (one shot turned into four-shots 😂) about a vampire stealing souls to create a ritual to become mortal again (at the time we didn't know this or the reason why) our characters' souls would be stolen in a week if we didn't do anything about it. So we travel to this town where several things happen and meet the Mayor, who our wizard finds out it was the vampire's old lover before they split off because, well, the vampire wasn't a good guy, and the Mayor gives us weapons (including a Sun Blade, a necklace of Fireball and a Wand of Entaglement). We are fighting this guy and it turns a bit rough at some point (my rogue aasimar is charmed and her NPC friend is killed by the vampire's bite) and the wizard then casts Minor Illusion to make a figure of the Mayor being all like "ooh please stop fighting, my love, oooh". The vampire rolls poorly in perception and flies to him, and says how all the souls he is been collecting was for the Mayor. So he could be normal and be together again. He reaches for the Mayor and the Illusion dessipates, and that's whem we hit him with all of the Fireballs the necklace had. We later found out the Minor Illusion wouldn't actually be able to create a full body image of a person, but the DM loved it so much that he allowed it to happen.

[@GingerMafia48]

Today I Learned: "Chary" is a word! Looked it up bc I thought it was a typo....

[@Key-jc8kw]

If it made sense, go for it.

[@DragonSilverlight]

I’ve got a chill DM. He’s agreed to let me use a curse. I play as a Dragonborn ranger and plan to use this cures if someone is… nasty to my character. It’s nothing to bad but they will never be able to cook bacon again.

[@UruruIsDelulu]

Omg I'm early for once 🎉 I enforce rule of cool if my players are very creative and are thinking outside of the box. I like to promote that is it makes for some very fun moments :)

[@daftzeta3671]

A dragon and an army of fiends, orcs, and goblins was attacking a city. My barbarian, having quickly scaled the walls of Daggerford, and a demigod born from Hercules, used his father's ring to compel duel the dragon. Nat 20. I then flee off the wall jumping into the river below. I then run full sprint through the army, the dragon slaughtering the whole army. I go under an ogre commander as it becomes a snack for the dragon, and come face to face with the demon Famine. After a brief tussle and I'm on the brink of death, I pull out the tip of his spear, the dragons horn, and yank it off the spear. I then offer it back to the dragon if he eats Famine. I then witness a greater demon become a buffet for a dragon. He went down swinging, but I laughed all the way.

[@daftzeta3671]

I then later on, having surprised the DM with my creative method to kill an army, and a greater demon, was awarded 2 levels, vs everyone else's 1.

[@OfficialDomPhighting]

Approved.

[@CadenHayter]

First comment goes brrrr😂