TheNerdQueen
2022-04-20, 04:41 PM
Well, my last post got mixed reviews... at most. However, someone suggested that I write a three-part guide for dnd. I'm rather busy, but I think I can begin to write the first part! So, welcome to Saira's Guide to Game Mastery!
What is Game Mastery?
Good question! Because this is a guide about game mastery, we (or I) need to define it first. For this guide, game mastery is your knowledge of the rules, where to find them, where to apply them, and how they fit together.
But hey, that's a lot of things!
Correct! That is a lot of things! That's why this post will be separated into a few parts.
Before I begin, I'm going to establish a few things.
Levels of mastery
Okay, so I will use the following four-point scale:
0 - No knowledge. You know literally nothing. Most of you are not at this point, so I'll be mostly ignoring this level of knowledge.
1- Beginner. At this point, you have a vague understanding of the rules. For example, this might be your level of comprehension between a sorcerer and a wizard: "A wizard casts spells, and so does a sorcerer? And I think the sorcerer has points it can use to do things." You are mostly reliant on others knowing the rules more than you. Spells mostly confuse you, and you look up each spell more complicated than firebolt.
2 - Proficient. At this point, you have a solid understanding of the rules. You generally know what the classes do, and the difference between them. This also applies to different categories, such as spells and feats. When you look at a character sheet, you know where each item is (mostly) and what it's used for. You still have to look niche rules up most of the time, but you do know where/how to do it. You are also comfortable with a higher level of complexity, and can play wizards without dying! Most dnd players are at this level of mastery.
3 - Master. At this point, you have complete knowledge of the rules. You rarely have to look things up, and when you do it takes around ten seconds. When you look at mechanics you see how they interlock with other mechanics, even the obscure or mostly forgotten ones. Nobody questions your knowledge, and your characters are generally fine-tuned and taken from many sourcebooks, if needed.
NOTE: The above are generalizations. Please don't get mad at me, I'm just trying to show a scale. If you think it needs improvement, I'll do my best to incorporate any suggestions, within reason.
Part 1: RAW Rules knowledge
Pun intended.
This is the simplest part (hypothetically). It's your recall of the rules. Or, in other words, your ability to remember a rule(s) that fit the current situation or to solve a problem.
How do you boost this?
In order to boost RAW knowledge, you have to study. Read the sourcebooks, find stories of other campaigns, and come up with hypotheticals. It's not particularly exciting, but it's practical. An unintentional side effect might be about thirty more characters created than you will ever play. Of course, it's practically impossible to memorize every rule in existence. That's why it's important to know how to
Part 2: Where to find rules and where to apply them
In all seriousness, knowing how (and when) to look up rules is more important than the number of rules you know (within reason). After all, memorizing lots and lots of rules takes a bunch of time that many of us can't spend. In fact, the most valuable things to learn is not what every rule does, but what situations rules cover. For example, you don't have to know the exact amount of falling damage, but you do have to know that it happens when something falls, and where to find that damage. How to find it is often as simple as searching it up online. However, here are a few traps:
1. Make sure it doesn't say "Homebrew" at the top.
I'm not kidding. One time, I was looking up a race or something and I clicked on a dnd wiki. But I thought it looked odd, as it didn't look right. Then, I realized I was on dndwiki, and it was their homebrew section. Please make sure that what you're reading is official.
2. Make sure it is updated
Whatever website or something, sometimes they haven't updated to the latest information. Say it wasn't updated in a few years. Its information was right once, but no longer. Check the date to make sure it's updated if it needs to be.
3. Make sure it's the right rule
Some rules are closely related. For example, a page about a race might have both the new and old versions of a subrace. Often, these look similar, so you have to make sure you're looking at the correct one. There are other examples of situations like this, but this is the general idea. Make sure the rule you're seeing is the rule you actually want.
Now, what about when to look something up? There's a principle called "second-order knowledge", or knowing what you don't know. Basically, you have to know where the gaps in your knowledge. Everyone has them, so don't think that you are somehow immune. Dnd has been out for so long that, as a rule of thumb, if there is a situation, there is probably a rule or a set of rules that covers it. Basically, if (for example) you want to command animals to remove the ogre's eyes because the idiot wizard just had to go into melee you'd have to find the rules to do so. Here they are:
- The spell animal friendship and bribes can get them to do it (possibly)
- Smaller creatures can climb onto the backs of larger ones.
- Eyes are generally unguarded
- Ogres aren't immune/resistant to piercing damage
- DM who sent ogres after a 3rd level wizard and 1st level druid probably feels very guilty (okay, joking for this one).
And who knows? There could be a bunch more!
Now, what about guides?
(NOTE: rules are never final. Everything is up to the DM. They could very well veto any strategy, which would kind of ruin the next section)
Part 3: Putting them together
One of my earlier posts was about something I call "soft broken", where the character isn't broken because of stats, they're broken due to versatility. That is the end result of this part of mastery.
Think of putting rules together like a puzzle, except you don't know when pieces will appear. This is where guides can come in handy. As it turns out, there are many other people whose jobs are to present rules. These guides are helpful because they give a starting point, a way to narrow down many choices into just a few. Guides also present the options in simple terms, allowing you to just look at them quickly, rather than staring at some complicated text for five minutes, or getting caught off guard when something is far more complicated when it looks like because you didn't realize what it meant, unlike a guide which had to. Here are some examples (feel free to add more in the comments. If I really like any of them I will add them here with the username of the person who posted it, with permission) Keep in mind: spell combos are a more obvious form of this, which is why I'm including my favorite combos.
- Forcecage + sickening radiance is god. If someone casts forcecage on a group of things and another casts sickening radiance then they die very soon because of the exhaustion effects.
- The Coffeelock. This is a classic example because of how theoretically broken it is. Personally, I find it rather boring and more of a one trick pony. However, having a bajillion spell slots is undeniably effective if the DM will let you get away with it.
- The Aberrant Mind sorcerer can get any divination or enchantment spell on the wizard spell list. Geas is one of those spells. Sorcerers can force disadvantage on saving throws using Heightened Spell. Geas only has one saving throw. If the target fails, then they basically become your slave for a month at a minimum (if you're clever). Geas doesn't require concentration. End result: Aberrant mind gets to force a whole bunch of people to become their slaves, one minute at a time. WARNING: A sane DM will either not allow this or will allow it exactly once. (Note: although this is an example, it could ruin the fun if not discussed beforehand. Don't be an *******).
Now, combining rules with real-life common sense or situations that happen (for example, there are no rules for poisoning your enemies with wood alcohol, but if you can do it. Wood alcohol is extremely deadly). Is often just as, if not more effective. But this isn't about that, so you'll have to come up with that on your own.
Conclusion
To gain mastery, you have to study. You have to look at rules and guides. You'll probably have to play a lot to get a feel for when rules actually come into play. But guess what? In the end, that doesn't really matter. You don't need to know every rule to have fun. You don't need the most broken character at the table, and you certainly don't need to have a list of races and classes banned. And don't forget that your DM might not allow shenanigans like this. I've always been lucky to have relatively leniant DMs (sometimes too lenaint.) in order to get away with all of these shenanigans. But if you don't, or if you don't want to, that's okay! In the end, play however you want, and have fun doing it.
Afterword:
Yes, I am describing academic study a bit. That's partially intentional, but I do want to mention that one of the best ways to learn this stuff is to play. After all, that way you get to try new stuff out and have a lot of fun at the same time.
What do you guys think? Constructive feedback is always welcome, and I'll update this guide according to your responses and as time permits.
What is Game Mastery?
Good question! Because this is a guide about game mastery, we (or I) need to define it first. For this guide, game mastery is your knowledge of the rules, where to find them, where to apply them, and how they fit together.
But hey, that's a lot of things!
Correct! That is a lot of things! That's why this post will be separated into a few parts.
Before I begin, I'm going to establish a few things.
Levels of mastery
Okay, so I will use the following four-point scale:
0 - No knowledge. You know literally nothing. Most of you are not at this point, so I'll be mostly ignoring this level of knowledge.
1- Beginner. At this point, you have a vague understanding of the rules. For example, this might be your level of comprehension between a sorcerer and a wizard: "A wizard casts spells, and so does a sorcerer? And I think the sorcerer has points it can use to do things." You are mostly reliant on others knowing the rules more than you. Spells mostly confuse you, and you look up each spell more complicated than firebolt.
2 - Proficient. At this point, you have a solid understanding of the rules. You generally know what the classes do, and the difference between them. This also applies to different categories, such as spells and feats. When you look at a character sheet, you know where each item is (mostly) and what it's used for. You still have to look niche rules up most of the time, but you do know where/how to do it. You are also comfortable with a higher level of complexity, and can play wizards without dying! Most dnd players are at this level of mastery.
3 - Master. At this point, you have complete knowledge of the rules. You rarely have to look things up, and when you do it takes around ten seconds. When you look at mechanics you see how they interlock with other mechanics, even the obscure or mostly forgotten ones. Nobody questions your knowledge, and your characters are generally fine-tuned and taken from many sourcebooks, if needed.
NOTE: The above are generalizations. Please don't get mad at me, I'm just trying to show a scale. If you think it needs improvement, I'll do my best to incorporate any suggestions, within reason.
Part 1: RAW Rules knowledge
Pun intended.
This is the simplest part (hypothetically). It's your recall of the rules. Or, in other words, your ability to remember a rule(s) that fit the current situation or to solve a problem.
How do you boost this?
In order to boost RAW knowledge, you have to study. Read the sourcebooks, find stories of other campaigns, and come up with hypotheticals. It's not particularly exciting, but it's practical. An unintentional side effect might be about thirty more characters created than you will ever play. Of course, it's practically impossible to memorize every rule in existence. That's why it's important to know how to
Part 2: Where to find rules and where to apply them
In all seriousness, knowing how (and when) to look up rules is more important than the number of rules you know (within reason). After all, memorizing lots and lots of rules takes a bunch of time that many of us can't spend. In fact, the most valuable things to learn is not what every rule does, but what situations rules cover. For example, you don't have to know the exact amount of falling damage, but you do have to know that it happens when something falls, and where to find that damage. How to find it is often as simple as searching it up online. However, here are a few traps:
1. Make sure it doesn't say "Homebrew" at the top.
I'm not kidding. One time, I was looking up a race or something and I clicked on a dnd wiki. But I thought it looked odd, as it didn't look right. Then, I realized I was on dndwiki, and it was their homebrew section. Please make sure that what you're reading is official.
2. Make sure it is updated
Whatever website or something, sometimes they haven't updated to the latest information. Say it wasn't updated in a few years. Its information was right once, but no longer. Check the date to make sure it's updated if it needs to be.
3. Make sure it's the right rule
Some rules are closely related. For example, a page about a race might have both the new and old versions of a subrace. Often, these look similar, so you have to make sure you're looking at the correct one. There are other examples of situations like this, but this is the general idea. Make sure the rule you're seeing is the rule you actually want.
Now, what about when to look something up? There's a principle called "second-order knowledge", or knowing what you don't know. Basically, you have to know where the gaps in your knowledge. Everyone has them, so don't think that you are somehow immune. Dnd has been out for so long that, as a rule of thumb, if there is a situation, there is probably a rule or a set of rules that covers it. Basically, if (for example) you want to command animals to remove the ogre's eyes because the idiot wizard just had to go into melee you'd have to find the rules to do so. Here they are:
- The spell animal friendship and bribes can get them to do it (possibly)
- Smaller creatures can climb onto the backs of larger ones.
- Eyes are generally unguarded
- Ogres aren't immune/resistant to piercing damage
- DM who sent ogres after a 3rd level wizard and 1st level druid probably feels very guilty (okay, joking for this one).
And who knows? There could be a bunch more!
Now, what about guides?
(NOTE: rules are never final. Everything is up to the DM. They could very well veto any strategy, which would kind of ruin the next section)
Part 3: Putting them together
One of my earlier posts was about something I call "soft broken", where the character isn't broken because of stats, they're broken due to versatility. That is the end result of this part of mastery.
Think of putting rules together like a puzzle, except you don't know when pieces will appear. This is where guides can come in handy. As it turns out, there are many other people whose jobs are to present rules. These guides are helpful because they give a starting point, a way to narrow down many choices into just a few. Guides also present the options in simple terms, allowing you to just look at them quickly, rather than staring at some complicated text for five minutes, or getting caught off guard when something is far more complicated when it looks like because you didn't realize what it meant, unlike a guide which had to. Here are some examples (feel free to add more in the comments. If I really like any of them I will add them here with the username of the person who posted it, with permission) Keep in mind: spell combos are a more obvious form of this, which is why I'm including my favorite combos.
- Forcecage + sickening radiance is god. If someone casts forcecage on a group of things and another casts sickening radiance then they die very soon because of the exhaustion effects.
- The Coffeelock. This is a classic example because of how theoretically broken it is. Personally, I find it rather boring and more of a one trick pony. However, having a bajillion spell slots is undeniably effective if the DM will let you get away with it.
- The Aberrant Mind sorcerer can get any divination or enchantment spell on the wizard spell list. Geas is one of those spells. Sorcerers can force disadvantage on saving throws using Heightened Spell. Geas only has one saving throw. If the target fails, then they basically become your slave for a month at a minimum (if you're clever). Geas doesn't require concentration. End result: Aberrant mind gets to force a whole bunch of people to become their slaves, one minute at a time. WARNING: A sane DM will either not allow this or will allow it exactly once. (Note: although this is an example, it could ruin the fun if not discussed beforehand. Don't be an *******).
Now, combining rules with real-life common sense or situations that happen (for example, there are no rules for poisoning your enemies with wood alcohol, but if you can do it. Wood alcohol is extremely deadly). Is often just as, if not more effective. But this isn't about that, so you'll have to come up with that on your own.
Conclusion
To gain mastery, you have to study. You have to look at rules and guides. You'll probably have to play a lot to get a feel for when rules actually come into play. But guess what? In the end, that doesn't really matter. You don't need to know every rule to have fun. You don't need the most broken character at the table, and you certainly don't need to have a list of races and classes banned. And don't forget that your DM might not allow shenanigans like this. I've always been lucky to have relatively leniant DMs (sometimes too lenaint.) in order to get away with all of these shenanigans. But if you don't, or if you don't want to, that's okay! In the end, play however you want, and have fun doing it.
Afterword:
Yes, I am describing academic study a bit. That's partially intentional, but I do want to mention that one of the best ways to learn this stuff is to play. After all, that way you get to try new stuff out and have a lot of fun at the same time.
What do you guys think? Constructive feedback is always welcome, and I'll update this guide according to your responses and as time permits.