How useful is the Dodge action?

FrogReaver said:

So let's have a discussion about the dodge action. How useful do you think it is? Do you think most players undervalue it? I do.

The dodge action typically causes one of 2 outcomes. It can greatly reduces the damage the dodging PC takes from attacks. It can cause damage to be spread out to other party members.

Why can these be better outcomes as opposed to just trying to kill enemies faster? Let's first talk about the notion of team success. I consider team success to be when no party member dies. If someone died the team ultimately failed even though the game goes on.

So with the mindset of team success it's fine for the team to take a bit more total damage as long as that damage is distributed more evenly over the whole team. More evenly distributed damage on the PC team tends to lead to fewer deaths even when higher amounts of total damage are dealt with.

Assuming dodge's worst case is spreading damage around while also causing the party to take more damage as opposed to preventing damage, then let's analyze. As long as the extra damage it forces upon the party is being spread around between more and more PC's then dodging is still useful in a single fight context as long as the extra damage it places upon the party doesn't reach a level where all the party members all start being at significant risk of death.

The party taking more damage can sometimes place a greater drain on healing resources, except 5e is set up so that the group is typically more capable of restoring 8 hp on 5 characters than 25 on a single one. (Typically more efficienct group healing spells and hit dice for every PC). I don't forsee healing resources being an issue in this sense.

My conclusion is that PC's should make use of the dodge action just to spread damage around as this improves the chances for the teams success while not typically causing any additional resource drain due to enemies staying alive longer.

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Rya.Reisender said:

I think as DM you have quite some control over this.

Dodge is useful when players know who is going to get attacked.

So what if PC A, who is the tank, shouts out a provocation and then uses the Dodge action? If you as DM would make all the monsters attack PC A, then it's very useful and players will make more use of it. If you instead make your monsters attack all PCs except PC A because he took the Dodge action and it would be strategically better to attack the others, then your players will stop using Dodge except for very rare occasions where PC A would be at risk of immediate death if hit.

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An efficiency advantage can be gained [from Dodge], however.

Say some opponents expect to deal 10 damage a turn, to a party HP pool of 100. While the party deals 10 damage a turn, to those opponent's HP pool of 100. Initiative will decide the outcome in this case, in the tenth turn.

If through one member dodging, the party reduces their damage by 3, while reducing their opponent's damage by 4? Those opponents will now take 17 turns to deplete the party HP pool. The party will take 15 turns to deplete their opponent's pool.

The numbers above are not representative, but the principle is: an efficiency gain can be achieved by dodging, that leads to a more likely victory. Additionally, any healing benefits from the same sort of efficiency, thereby freeing up resources for other things.

Some analysts, in ignoring defences, fail to appreciate the idea of efficiency, but that could be down to differences in how the game is run at their table. Key sensitivities are combat length and adventuring day: if a group's days are one encounter long, and their encounters are usually shorter than five rounds, all-out attack may be better.

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clearstream said:

Repeated from the thread this thread originated with...

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Rya.Reisender said:

I think as DM you have quite some control over this.

Dodge is useful when players know who is going to get attacked.

So what if PC A, who is the tank, shouts out a provocation and then uses the Dodge action? If you as DM would make all the monsters attack PC A, then it's very useful and players will make more use of it. If you instead make your monsters attack all PCs except PC A because he took the Dodge action and it would be strategically better to attack the others, then your players will stop using Dodge except for very rare occassions where PC A would be at risk of immediate death if hit.

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clearstream said:

It can get a bit problematic, especially around feats like Sentinel. One approach is to let the dice decide. For example, in the case where a character wants to implicitly shape the behaviour of hostile creatures, I might rule that they need to make a Charisma (Deception) check, against those creatures' passive Wisdom (Insight) scores. Likely with disadvantage as I assume that creatures experienced in battle, whose lives depend on it, and that are hostile to characters, will be unreceptive to attempts to change their behaviour.

Of course, failure in such a Contest means that the situation stays as it was, putting the problem back onto me to decide who a foe should attack. A heuristic that has emerged for me is something like -

1. Each side wants to remove the gravest threats from combat first
2. Experienced foes know that Barbarian ragers, and heavily armored fighters, are hard to take down, especially when they are dodging
3. Any foe can guess that the arcanist in a dress is easier to hit than the Eldritch Knight
4. Foes aren't psychic: they don't automatically know a character's abilities, but they do have eyes...
5. Experienced foes have heard of and even encountered things like Bladesong, Shield spell, rager resistance, the stance of a Sentinel...
6. Creatures in a world with spells, knows what it entails when a caster is concentrating, unless there is something stopping that like the spell was shaped by Sorcerer metamagic

The priority targets are usually the casters. They're often easiest to hit, and almost always pose grave danger. Occasionally it goes wrong, and foes end up dog-piling the fighter. I put weight on a foe's experience, and assume the world is violent enough that any creatures who survived at all, did so because they are wily.

Sometimes I roll a die to decide. Other times, a foe faced with a dancing opponent and no good target, will just retreat. One DM we had would have them shut doors behind them in the dungeon: that was confounding.

Does this make dodge bad? I don't think so: I firmly disagree, based on my experience in play, with any humphing and saying it is pointless dodging because the DM will just have the foe attack someone else. The point of dodging is to shape the fight. In turn one, a dodge is very often a good idea, if one cannot close in one move. A caster with a clutch buff darned well should be dodging.

I think if the huge armored tank is dodging, then they should expect creatures not to attack them. That does not stop dodge being useful, just because the DM chose to never have foes break themselves on the bastion of the dodging Eldritch Knight. I guess I am saying that consistency - even consistency in refusing to attack the dodging tank - is information players can use to shape the fight.

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Rya.Reisender said:

So what if PC A, who is the tank, shouts out a provocation and then uses the Dodge action? If you as DM would make all the monsters attack PC A, then it's very useful and players will make more use of it. If you instead make your monsters attack all PCs except PC A because he took the Dodge action and it would be strategically better to attack the others, then your players will stop using Dodge except for very rare occassions where PC A would be at risk of immediate death if hit.

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