When danger isn’t: in some cases, Defy Danger will trigger for some classes and not for others. Some characters, not for others. Let’s talk about examples. I’ll start.
When the Fighter and the Wizard are presented with the mind-altering Orb of Zarkan, stolen from the Wizard’s school, the Fighter has to Defy the Danger of being ensorceled. The Wizard, who has previously described themselves having undergone the rites to gaze on the Orb and stay sane, does not.
What else? How else does fictionally positioning yourself help avoid defiance of danger?
When the warden enters the tavern looking for a known felon, the Paladin is going to have a good laugh at the thief’s expense!
The heavily muscled fighter defies danger to lift someone up to their position. The halfling wizard has described themselves as old, frail, and weak. If they even attempt it, they’ll just get pulled right over.
The thief takes off their backpack and weapons, and equipment, ties them all together and throws them to the other side of a gap before making the jump themselves. they make it easily. The Paladin tries the jump in full plate and carrying all their stuff. It…doesn’t go well.
The smooth talking and attractive bard offers a guard who is an old friend a bribe and a favour to let them past. “Anything foy you old friend! see you at the cards game friday night?” The sanctimonious and abrasive cleric tries the same with the guard they punished many times in religious school. “The tides have turned now, Beat it Greyrobe, before I beat you!”
In the adventure where the city fought the forest the Ranger got to Defy his way out of a tavern full of murderous thugs, but the bard with him didn’t, because he was secretly on the side of the thugs and he never was in any particular danger.
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The Paladin is dueling the spectre with his holy sword. The thief is secreted behind the spectre, stabbing it with every poison in his arsenal trying to find something vaguely supernatural that’ll hurt the thing. The Ranger is running along the roof’s beams, calculating. Suddenly the Ranger inverts his crossbow and smashes out a large chunk of the roof’s shale and molded wood, casting sunlight down onto the scene. The spectre explodes in Necrotic energy – Paladin and Thief have a defy danger roll coming, but Ranger doesn’t. Or maybe Paladin is protected by virtue of his Holy nature. Or maybe the Thief was coating crossbow bolts while ducked behind a pew.
In brief – direct exposure to danger (necessitating the rolls) means putting your character’s agency directly into resolving the situation. Unless you exploit a situational way to ‘fight smarter, not harder.’
“I’m jumping in the lake.” “Heck with that! There’s fish in there!” “Okay, the wildfire rages towards you. Bob, tell me how you defy the danger of being burned alive. Alice, you’re already all set.”
(more “fictional positioning” in general rather than class-centric.)
The town has a noted prejudice against magic users. Wizards and bards, describe how you defy the danger of a lynch mob!
tl;dr: Spout Lore trumps Defy Danger.
The fighter snatches a weapon out of the shaking fishwife’s hand; the wizard Defies Danger to do so.
Just about anyone Defies Danger to apply oil of taget to a meal they’re preparing. It’s not dangerous to the thief, so he just does it.
The evil cleric casts a mind-influencing spell. The PC cleric ignores it because he is blessed by his god, the rest of the party Defies Danger.
John Lewis yes!