Playing 5e with a 3.5e? DM

[Foolwise]

Tonight's session had our first real combat. And I learned that we will be playing under some very different rules than 5e.

DM declared that opportunity attacks occur whenever you enter the reach of a hostile opponent. I told him that they only occur when a creature runs away, reading out the specific text in the PHB. He claimed the part that said when a creature passes by means entering. I then reread the sentence that specifically said "leaves your reach". Even mentioning how someone in combat approaching hostiles would be guarded from any attacks from those hostiles. He then pointed to the splash box on the same page about different rules for grapples and shoves... ??? Then laid down the "I'm the DM, these are my rules" hammer.

Later he declared that you can move 5ft and only 5ft away from an opponent without incurring an AoO. No disengage needed. I guess the reverse also applies- that you can move 5ft closer to an opponent without triggering an AoO but it didn't come up.

But if you cast a spell with somatic components that triggers an AoO from a nearby foe. Like, I took Booming Blade... will my Booming Blade attack trigger an enemy atrack on me every time I cast it?

And you can't swap out weapons and move in the same turn... or attack. But I think the cleric did swap weapons and move in a later turn, so I don't know.


This is the only game in town for me, so beggars can't be choosers. Even still it sucks not to be able to anticipate certain aspects of the game. I stayed quiet with each of these new non-5e rulings. May even change my build now. I was going to be melee focused, but might switch to full caster as I feel going melee is just asking to be killed.

Upon taking a long rest, our Lv. 2 party was attacked by three waves of six goblins each. In the first wave, a single crossbow hit that my Shield spell could not stop dropped me to half my hit points. I spent the rest of the night staying at long range taking EB pot shots. The Moon druid burned through both wild shapes with a crit knocking him out of it the 2nd time. He benefited from the DM ruling he had a short rest after first watch completed, allowing him to wild shape again for the 3rd wave. The barbarian burned through both rages, nearly dying anyway. Without any rages, he only survived the 3rd wave thanks to being allowed to roll hit dice mid-long rest (he rolled 11&12) plus the DM's dice went cold during the 3rd wave. The cleric skirmished, but wasn't hit much thanks to his 18 AC.

[kazaryu]

Tonight's session had our first real combat. And I learned that we will be playing under some very different rules than 5e.

DM declared that opportunity attacks occur whenever you enter the reach of a hostile opponent. I told him that they only occur when a creature runs away, reading out the specific text in the PHB. He claimed the part that said when a creature passes by means entering. I then reread the sentence that specifically said "leaves your reach". Even mentioning how someone in combat approaching hostiles would be guarded from any attacks from those hostiles. He then pointed to the splash box on the same page about different rules for grapples and shoves... ??? Then laid down the "I'm the DM, these are my rules" hammer.

Later he declared that you can move 5ft and only 5ft away from an opponent without incurring an AoO. No disengage needed. I guess the reverse also applies- that you can move 5ft closer to an opponent without triggering an AoO but it didn't come up.

But if you cast a spell with somatic components that triggers an AoO from a nearby foe. Like, I took Booming Blade... will my Booming Blade attack trigger an enemy atrack on me every time I cast it?

And you can't swap out weapons and move in the same turn... or attack. But I think the cleric did swap weapons and move in a later turn, so I don't know.


This is the only game in town for me, so beggars can't be choosers. Even still it sucks not to be able to anticipate certain aspects of the game. I stayed quiet with each of these new non-5e rulings. May even change my build now. I was going to be melee focused, but might switch to full caster as I feel going melee is just asking to be killed.

Upon taking a long rest, our Lv. 2 party was attacked by three waves of six goblins each. In the first wave, a single crossbow hit that my Shield spell could not stop dropped me to half my hit points. I spent the rest of the night staying at long range taking EB pot shots. The Moon druid burned through both wild shapes with a crit knocking him out of it the 2nd time. He benefited from the DM ruling he had a short rest after first watch completed, allowing him to wild shape again for the 3rd wave. The barbarian burned through both rages, nearly dying anyway. Without any rages, he only survived the 3rd wave thanks to being allowed to roll hit dice mid-long rest (he rolled 11&12) plus the DM's dice went cold during the 3rd wave. The cleric skirmished, but wasn't hit much thanks to his 18 AC.

if you're asking for confirmation, then yes, a lot of those are 3.5e/pathfinder rules. (only reason i mention pathfinder is that im more familiar with it. and it bears a lot of resemblance to 3.5e in its core structure).

if you're looking for advice, it might be beneficial to speak with the DM, see if he's willing to come up with a semi-comprehensive list of the houserules he uses/rules he's ported over from 3.5.

and, while that combat sounds brutal, it doesn't sound excessive. i mean, y'all won it, you just had to spend all your resources to do so. lvl 1-2 are pretty lethal, and super swingy almost regardless of who the chosen enemies are. but the ultimate goal for a balanced combat is to have the PC's win while expending most, if not all, of their replenishable resources. and i'd say its not even homebrew to have let the barb roll hit dice or the druid get their wild shape back. an hour into a long rest you should easily meet the requirements for a short rest, which is when both of those things occur. long rest just completely refills your HP and half your Hit dice.


but yes, if he's going to rule that casting a spell provokes OA's then you're probably better off changing your build, even if he does offer to port over the the combat casting rules from 3.5 the way concentration works in 5e is probably too different to be worth it. overall though, this is definitely something thats better addressed outside the game, where there's less pressure on the DM to keep things rolling.

[Mastikator]

This DM desperately needs to read the PHB and the DMG before DMing again.

[Kane0]

Seconding 'chat to the DM out of game', but yeah those are some specific 3.X-isms

Edit: for reference something I like to leave those transferring from 3e to 5e


- Proficiency bonus is used for skill/ability checks, attacks and saving throws instead of BAB, save progressions and skill points. It's all based off Stat + Proficiency, and the numbers are lower and scale slower. HP and abilities/options are the primary differentiation between low and high levels.
- Due to reduced scaling of basic numbers (skills, attacks, damage, AC) it is expected that low CR creatures remain a threat to higher level parties in significant numbers. This is intended.

- You have a saving throw type for each attribute.
- You can't have a stat higher than 20 by normal means, nor a stat higher than 30 by any means.
- Movement is not an action, and actions can happen between movement. Bonus actions are like swifts, reactions are like immediates. No action can be traded for another type. You can also make one interaction (grab a weapon, open a door, etc) per turn for free.
- Attacking does not impede your ability to move (ie ‘Full Attack’) and you can in fact move between attacks if you have multiple.
- Attacks are classified oddly but they mostly boil down to a combination of [melee or ranged] and [weapon or spell]
- You cannot delay, only ready an action.
- By default only one thing provokes an AoO: Moving out of a creatures reach.
- Learn the advantage / disadvantage mechanic, it replaces 90% of fiddly +1s and -2s.
- Dying works differently. You only die outright when you take damage equal to your max HP in one hit after reaching 0. When reduced to 0 you make saving throws, three successes stabilizes you and 3 failures you die. Taking damage while making death saves counts as one failure.
- Damage resistance, reduction and vulnerability is simplified. It's half damage, doesn't exist (as such) and double damage respectively.

- There are two kinds of rest: short and long. There is expected to be two short rests for every long on average, which is important to maintain balance short rest classes (monk, warlock) against long rest classes (paladin, sorcerer).
- Everybody can heal via hit die, which are spent during short rests.

- Concentration is a thing casters should learn well. Most buff, debuff and control spells need concentration, and you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. You have a chance to lose concentration each time you take damage.
- There are relatively few permanent or near-permanent bonuses/buffs
- All casting is 'spontaneous', as in you don’t put individual spells into slots, you just have a collection of spells available to you and spell slots to fuel them with. Your spells will either be prepared or known based on class.
- High casting stat doesn’t give you additional spell slots, but does affect your spell attack bonus and spell DC (which is the same across all spell levels).
- Spells scale by spell slot rather than by caster level, which makes multiclassing considerably more friendly for casters
- Cantrips are notable now, offering viable damage output based on PC level not caster level
- There is a rule that restricts how many levelled spells you can cast on your turn, but it’s… complicated.

- Levels 1-3 are supposed to go by very quickly, and 4-5 fairly quickly. The majority of PC time is angled to be spent in the level 6-11 range.
- Encounter design and challenge rating is also different. A CR 6 enemy is an easy (little resource expenditure & low chance of falling) challenge for a level 6 party of 4, not an easy challenge for a single level 6 character. You are expected to deal with half a dozen or so medium encounters during an adventuring day, not one or two hard ones.
- Don't use any optional rules to start with. This includes multiclassing and feats.
- The core math of the game does not expect you to get magic items by default. You can play through levels 1 to 20 without seeing a magic item at all, anything you get/give is a bonus.

Golden Rule: Thou shalt not assume to know that which shares a name
Sneak attack works differently. Protection from Evil works differently. Critical hits work differently. Do not skim over things that look familiar because they are almost all different in subtle ways that become very apparent in play.

[Unoriginal]

A DM who modify the rules like that should have made it clear before the start of the game. Even if the players are fine playing with those rules, forewarning is important for both having the informed choice of playing said campaign and for character creation.

If the DM is unaware they're modifying the 5e rules, then it's a different problem

[DigoDragon]

The GM of my Saturday group usually comes up with a few house rules. A good GM should be up front with their house rules, but good players ask questions to be sure they understand those rules. Like others have said, just talk with your GM about them so you are both on the same page.

I write down those rules for my own memory benefit, and to take into account when I come up with battle plan during combat.

[KorvinStarmast]

Tonight's session had our first real combat. And I learned that we will be playing under some very different rules than 5e.

DM declared that opportunity attacks occur whenever you enter the reach of a hostile opponent. I told him that they only occur when a creature runs away, reading out the specific text in the PHB. He claimed the part that said when a creature passes by means entering. I then reread the sentence that specifically said "leaves your reach". Even mentioning how someone in combat approaching hostiles would be guarded from any attacks from those hostiles. He then pointed to the splash box on the same page about different rules for grapples and shoves... ??? Then laid down the "I'm the DM, these are my rules" hammer.
If it weren't for my brother being my brother, I'd not have kept playing his heavily 3.x'd 5e game after about three sessions. It took a year of slow and sure mentoring to get him to drop, one by one, his frustrating 3.5isms. He still rolls a lot of stuff for the lulz, but that can't be blamed on 3.x. That's an old thing.
I think it helped a lot that I would DM, in his world, when he needed (1) some time for prep and (2) a DM break. He usually played my cleric but sometimes played another character.

We now have a second group that I run in a different part of the world, and he's got his own player.

If this guy is gonna run a 5e game, lack of knowing the basic game engine (chapters 7, 8, 9) is gonna be an obstacle.

Your other choice is to embrace these house rules. That's how we did it before there were so darned many rules. (Original game). Just embrace them, and ask him to tell you the differences up front.

[kaoskonfety]

When we first switched from 3rd to 5th (and from 2nd to 3rd) we kept making these "errors", more out of habit then any deliberate efforts. After some light debate we flipped over fairly completely, but the rogue keeps trying to make flanking work the way they want it to, switching it edition wise on the fly: annoying, but I've made it clear what my ruling is and them playing fast and loose has hosed them a few times.

The issue you are going to run, and why we stepped back from 3rd ed house-ruling all over the place, into is the adjacent rules are going to need tweaking all over the place, you've highlighted a few of them right out of the box. Does the 5 ft step they seem to have semi-included trigger sentinel? As you highlight, there was a chart in 3rd for things triggering opportunity attacks, but alot of the game rules conflict with this now, rendering a pile of stuff garbage, or alternatively, too good not to take, suddenly destroying a pile of other play.

Can it be done, sure. Is it alot of work they are making for everyone including themselves, also sure.

I'd suggest to any DM making an edition transition, do it as clean as you can, and then house ruling stuff *back in* after you know how its supposed to work, not the other way around of clinging to the old system and picking and choosing what from the new system to take on. It will break much less of the structure, and be closer to everyone's expectations.

It also means buying and (in theory) reading the new books wasn't just a huge waste of time and money.

[skyth]

I'm a 3.x GM running my first 5E game - I questioned the rules a bit but I also let my players know that this is my first 5E game and went with what my players were saying the rules were then looked them up later.

This has been running smoothly.

[KorvinStarmast]

I have a player who spent a lot of years in AD&D and in 3.x, who has been playing 5e for about 5-6 years, and she still gets all frustrated that OAs don't happen as enemies enter your adjacent space / reach, and that spell casters in melee don't automatically subject to an OA just for casting a spell.

I sometimes just have to remind her "this is 5e, it doesn't work like that"

[ad_hoc]

No gaming is better than bad gaming.

[Elves]

DM declared that opportunity attacks occur whenever you enter the reach of a hostile opponent
That's not how it works in 3.5 either. In 3.5 you trigger only by leaving a space in oppo's reach, not by entering one. And even if you leave multiple spaces it only gets 1 opportunity attack. Basically the same as 5e.

[firelistener]

As some others mentioned above, offering to DM might help if you're stuck with this game. That's what I did when I first started, and now I'm basically the forever-DM. The original DM just didn't react well when challenged on the spot, but he later told me he was glad I took over. After I ran things for a while, another group member tried DMing and I got to play some. He did a great job since they had all learned the rules for 5e by then (mostly).

[Eriol]

I'm glad I was already enthusiastic about D&D before my first session, because this happened almost exactly to me as well. Different exact monsters, but basically the DM was really familiar with 3.x, and was the experienced DM, and then proceeded to apply as many 3.x-isms as possible to the game. And other stuff. Ultimately, the game lasted about 4 sessions because it wasn't fun playing with him! He was always changing stuff away from the 5th rules that he thought were "stupid" in some way. Ultimately we moved, found Adventure's League, and I've had great adventures there and in home games since (larger place to live). But if it was him or nothing? I would have chosen nothing!

IMO: either they change, or you run. I know you said it's the only thing in town. But if he wants to run 3.5, then run 3.5! Don't do a bastardization. It's worse than either edition by a mile.

[Hytheter]

That's not how it works in 3.5 either. In 3.5 you trigger only by leaving a space in oppo's reach, not by entering one. And even if you leave multiple spaces it only gets 1 opportunity attack. Basically the same as 5e.

More accurately, in 3.5 you trigger AoO by leaving a threatened space, which can happen without actually leaving their reach eg when trying to circle an adjacent opponent. But yeah, insisting that you provoke by entering reach is just wrong in every edition. edit: I misread your post and that is actually what you said, my bad!

OP: Ask your DM what he thinks Polearm Master is supposed to do if entering somebody's reach already triggers an opportunity attack.

[b4ndito]

95 percent of posts on this forum are about a DM's personality disorders

[KorvinStarmast]

95 percent of posts on this forum are about a DM's personality disorders75% of all statistics are made up, but your post did get a grin out of me. :smallsmile:

[Foolwise]

I will probably offer to DM. Half of the group is new to D&D so I am a little worried that they'll learn the game wrong, but not much I can do about that. The DM is pretty obstinate and I don't want to kill this game before it starts.

Little sad I won't be playing the melee build I had in mind, but it is probably for the best. The group is composed of a barbarian, Moon druid, cleric/fighter, and I was going to be a Swords bard. But the group really needs a backline caster, so I'll switch to Lore or Glamour. Glamour is a better fit to my adjusted theme, but Lore is so good with the early Secrets and Cutting Words. But I have time to decide as I started as a 2nd level Hexblade.

[Bjarkmundur]

Isn't it usually a part of session 0 to review all upcoming Houserules and negotiate the terms of the game?

Whenever I think of something new and cool I still send a group message so my players can approve it...

[Kane0]

Isn't it usually a part of session 0 to review all upcoming Houserules and negotiate the terms of the game?

Whenever I think of something new and cool I still send a group message so my players can approve it...

In an ideal world yeah

[MoiMagnus]

Isn't it usually a part of session 0 to review all upcoming Houserules and negotiate the terms of the game?


That requires the GM to be aware of the number of Houserules he is using. Those kind of GMs have internalise the 3.X ruleset so much that they don't really aware of the amount of rules they like so much that anything else will feel "wrong" to them.

This GM was probably going for "I will continue to apply the rules that feels intuitive to me, except that the PCs and monsters are using 5e stat blocks instead of 3.5e so I might sometimes need to make rulings on-the-fly to adapt to them. But that shouldn't be that annoying for the players as 3.5e and 5e looks similar enough from what I read, so I will just talk about it through the first few sessions, it's not worth a prior warning." (And the GM is obviously wrong on that, but I'd put this on ignorance rather than malice)