this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Surely "grab tile and eat it" is a standard action, right? Letting that be a free action seems like a weird call by the DM...
It also involves lowering your guard, so should trigger AOps.
Meh, if it's a one off and not an important fight? Doing it for the sake of a gag I've got no problem with. Just don't want it to be a consistent thing.
What if that’s the core fault of my character? Can only eat tiles so eats it whenever it’s available
That character must make some exquisite mosaic poos.
Eh, +2 on the next hit after you miss, if you do enough damage to only some kinds of floor and if you pass an intimidation check is almost nothing. The problem I have is that it'd get old, so the player has to come up with new material.
Thought: A barbarian subclass that has a version of cutting words, but instead of insults it's shit like this
Path of the Weird Flex.
Easy, make the player deal with the consequences of eating a handful of gravel.
For the next 12 hours, every hour roll a constitution check against 1d4 of gastrointestinal damage.
Loosely, you get a "use object interaction" every turn that isn't given a lot of emphasis but is in the rules as "other activity on your turn" (pg 190, PHB 2014). It includes something like talking, opening an unlocked door during your movement, picking up something within reach from a table, or unsheathing your sword as part of your attack action. It says it should require an action only if it needs special care or presents an unusual obstacle. I'd agree that grabbing a handful of dust and putting it in your mouth could be a free action.
They used their free object interaction to pick up the tile. They'd need another action to eat it. Though going by that logic, they could just eat it at the beginning of their next turn with the same result.
This is the type of shit I dislike about DnD.
In any system I write and run, you simply get 2 actions per turn. Action types are a complication that add nothing to the game.
But then you have to give up one of your attacks to move or do anything else that takes an action. On the other hand, when you have different types of actions, it feels like a waste when you have one you haven't used but there's nothing even slightly useful you can do with it.
Pathfinder deals with it by giving you three actions, but the second attack is at a -5 penalty and the third is at -10, so you're not giving up much by using one of your actions to move. It is a complication, but I think it's useful. Though I think I'd prefer something a bit lighter on the rules.
Yes. That's generally how it is. If you first have to run to your opponent to hit them, you can't hit them as often as if you were already there.
If you shoot while moving, you will have a lower effective rate of fire.
But my actual point is: turn-based combat is always an abstraction. I like to abstract it a bit more than DnD does, simply to avoid wasting any game time on arguing about action types.
It honestly just comes down to your DM style. An interaction like this is fun and has no mechanical benefit. If a player then wanted to pick up a potion and drink it as part of a free action, the DM would have to explain this to the players explicitly. But I've always been on the side of permissive rulings, because it allows the players to express themselves more freely. It takes more improvisation though.
But it did have a mechanical benefit!
In this instance I wouldn't have given the intimidation, no. I'd have allowed them to put the debris in their mouth but the npc was distracted by the attack and didn't see. To intimidate them would take an action, and a success would give them the frightened condition.
If they had two attacks, I'd probably allow eating dirt as a substitute for a second attack.
Aww. It's such a quirky and funny thought, imagine eating the rubble as an intimidation attempt, like, the guy just missed but is trying to turn it into a "that was intentional, I wanted you to know what I'm going to do to your BRAIN after I cave in your skull!"
This is the kind of stuff that makes a game memorable IMO. As a DM, even if you don't want to allow it for some reason, just go along with it. Fake a roll and have the opponent yell back "Bahahah I haven't even hit you yet and you're already getting ready to start shitting bricks?!"
Reminder that by RAW in 5e (2014 at least) skill checks are a standard action.
This is handwaved 90% of the time (except for Maze in my experience) but still.
Eating dirt could be an object interaction, which I recall is similar to sheathing or unsheathing a weapon and you get one of those free per round.
This is still true with 2024, and in this specific instance is even more codified in the rules with the addition of the Influence action (basically making any kind of Charisma check to influence another creature)