How useful is the Dodge action?

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.

I find that killing the monsters faster lessens the damage to be spread around. This is why PCs tend to gang up on monsters to allow less attacks each round that come at them. If all the PCs are fighting one monster than each will weaken and die roughly the same, but by ganging up, there is generally one less monster each round. The math of 5 attacks each round vs. 5 then 4 then 3. .. means less damage.

I see Dodge being used only a few times. It is mostly when a PC is near dead and has to hold off a monster or block a few allowing the others behind him to cast or shoot. This can be effective, when you have a 5ft wide hall and the fighter blocks it taking hardly and damage and allowing the others behind him to cast and shoot. My group mostly likes to attack and roll dice. They hardly Dodge.

Whether or not Dodging is useful is something that's likely to vary, depending on things like party composition and the abundance of short rests.

I can say that I made significant use of the Dodge action while I was playing a low-level Eldritch Knight, because I was the tank, and we spent a lot of time in narrow corridors. Various design decisions in 5E mean that AC is unreliable, unless you have some way to also impose Disadvantage on the attack roll.

aco175 said:

I find that killing the monsters faster lessens the damage to be spread around.

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Yep. Focus fire is still a good strategy. It's even good with party members occaionly dodging.

This is why PCs tend to gang up on monsters to allow less attacks each round that come at them.

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I totally agree. That is the crux of my analysis that even though dodging in the worst case causes the party to take more damage that the damage being able to be spread out if much more significant to party success than the increased amount of damage they take from killing enemies a little slower.

If all the PCs are fighting one monster than each will weaken and die roughly the same, but by ganging up, there is generally one less monster each round. The math of 5 attacks each round vs. 5 then 4 then 3. .. means less damage.

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This same effect will happen even with an ally dodging. The difference will be that the first turn no enemies die. The second turn 1 dies, the third 1 dies, the 4th 1 dies, the 5th 1 dies, the 6th 1 dies. So instead of taking 5+4+3+2+1 attack you instead take 5+5+4+3+2+1 attack = 15 vs 20 attacks. That's a 33% increase in party damage taken. However it should be spread out over the party much more evenly. (Again this is only looking at the worst possible case for dodge, when no attacks are aimed at the dodging character).

My point is that the party taking more or less damage doesn't equate to failure or success on it's own. A huge portion of that is how the damage is distributed upon the party. If all those attacks are consolidated on a single ally then that ally is toast. If they are spread around over the whole party then the party will be more successful.

I see Dodge being used only a few times.

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Yep. My contention is that the strategy is undervalued by players and so rarely used.

It is mostly when a PC is near dead and has to hold off a monster or block a few allowing the others behind him to cast or shoot.

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If it can be a viable strategy when near dead then why can't it be a viable strategy at half hp? Or at full hp when you charge into the group of enemies on your first turn?

This can be effective, when you have a 5ft wide hall and the fighter blocks it taking hardly and damage and allowing the others behind him to cast and shoot.

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It's a very effective strategy in hallways and doors.

My group mostly likes to attack and roll dice. They hardly Dodge.

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#1 I'm not advocating dodging all the time, nor even half the time.
#2 I am advocating that dodging more often than is currently done is a more effective strategy than is commonly believed.

Saelorn said:

Whether or not Dodging is useful is something that's likely to vary, depending on things like party composition and the abundance of short rests.

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I can't think of a party composition it's not going to be useful for.

I can say that I made significant use of the Dodge action while I was playing a low-level Eldritch Knight, because I was the tank, and we spent a lot of time in narrow corridors. Various design decisions in 5E mean that AC is unreliable, unless you have some way to also impose Disadvantage on the attack roll.

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Yep, that's one of the most effective places for dodge, tight corridors and doorways. But dodge is still useful, even in a wide open field.

Sometimes it's useful to Dodge then provoke OAs so other allies can get away safely without spending an action to Disengage. The cleric and my character (a bard) were separated from the party and nearly surrounded, so we were trying to pull back to the rest of the group who were also engaged in a fight. I cast longstrider on her earlier, so she could get to the party and cast a spell if she didn't have to Disengage. On my turn, I dodged, moved in such a way as to provoke from the 3 monsters threatening her. On her turn, she was able to slip away.

I've seen a fair amount of heavily-armored PCs with shields dodging if the PCs took a choke point in a dungeon and have strong ranged PCs in the back ranks. Sometimes they have sanctuary cast on them as well.

Great action.
Helpful while trying to start negociation or in doubt of enemy plans.
It render very well a defensive stance.
Very useful.

FrogReaver said:

I can't think of a party composition it's not going to be useful for.

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Based on what I've heard around these boards, I can't imagine that spreading the damage around would be something that you want to incentivize, if you have a lot of Healing Words available and only rarely have short rests in which to spend your hit dice. If you can't take advantage of free healing from hit dice, then you might still want the enemies to attack a tank that's low on HP, because higher AC and overflow negation will reduce the amount of healing magic required in the long run.

The same would be true if you're using a combination of healing variants which reduce the rate of natural healing, such as to mimic the effects of earlier editions.

As a tank, I dodge fairly often. I play a paladin and, if I only have a few low level spells left, instead of smiting, I'll use my bonus action to cast sanctuary on the closest ally, (making me the next best target) and then dodge to hold the line while the rest of my allies pepper the enemy with ranged fire. I also took a few levels of sorcerer so I can do a quickened Green Flame Blade (with a smite) as a bonus action.

It's important to remember that you can still do a bonus action when you dodge, so if you have an off-hand attack or quickened spell, you can still dodge.

I've seen dodge quite a bit in Adventurer's League play. In Tier 1 (level 1-4) modules you often have several L1s running with L3s and L4. If an level 1 character isn't tanky, their best play is often to sit back and plink with a cantrip or ranged weapon, and if an enemy comes up to them start dodging so that enemy is mostly wasting its time. The higher level characters will generally be dishing out much more damage and the if the level 1 goes down, someone is going to have to burn actions or spells to stop them from dying. The 'standard' thinking is that everyone is about the same level, but that's not true in my experience with T1 AL.

Clerics especially love dodge - in a Cleric with spiritual weapon has decent damage output using only bonus actions, so wading in and dodging is not always a bad idea. Once they hit level 5, spirit guardians combined with dodge is downright abusive to the system, and can still add spiritual weapon as icing on the cake. I'm pretty sure that dealing 3d8 damage (save for half) to everything within 15 feet plus a d8+4 on an attack roll to a target every single round while sporting AC 19 (21 with sanctuary) and disadvantage on enemy rolls is not exactly wasting actions. Going for the extra D12 with save or D6+2 attack roll or whatever but risking more concentration saves by attacking/casting instead of dodging doesn't seem like a good tradeoff.