The help action is not broken, but Working together is

CapnZapp · Jan 22, 2019

Reynard said:
I don't normally worry too much about rules. If the game is fun I tend to accept it, warts included. But in my regular campaign a player has exposed something I did not see before: the help action seems really over powered. The character is a wizard with a familiar. The familiar basically uses the Help action all the time, granting the wizard Advantage on most actions. In combat, the familiar grants one of the main combatants Advantage.

Help does not require a roll. There are no prerequisites for Helping on any given action. For the low low cost of a find familiar spell, the wizard is able to bypass the series of choices that make Advantage possible.

Thoughts?

Outside of combat, Working Together ~~the Help action~~ is definitely broken. It makes it trivial to gain advantage on most every action, whether social, exploratory or investigative.

The cause here is that there's no cost. The helping character would otherwise have done nothing.

Help outside of combat absolutely needs to be removed. The other alternative, constructing challenges so that every character always has something worthwhile to do is an example of making the DM do work to cover up deficiencies in the rules, and why would anyone ever want to do that? Much easier to just remove OOC help.

Inside combat, or at any other time where the cost (spending your own action) is significant, help is not broken. It is almost never worth abstaining your own attack or spell just to make sure your ally succeeds. The best tactic is for the ally to simply try again and again, and eventually succeed on his or her own.

As for the familiar issue: just have your monsters ruthlessly kill off the familiar in each and every combat until the player stops trying to get cheesily cheap advantage, and there's no problem.

So the main issue is out of combat. Just don't allow characters working together to gain advantage except in very special circumstances.

Shiroiken · Jan 22, 2019

Outside of combat you don't have the Help Action; you have the Working Together rules instead. Both grant advantage, but Working Together allows some restriction by the DM.

Olrox17 · Jan 22, 2019

In my games, I only allow the pcs to get advantage if the helping character is proficient in the check. This rule has worked out nicely for us so far.

Rya.Reisender · Jan 22, 2019

I think the DC already considers having advantage on pretty much every check. That's why "medium challenge" translates to a DC of 15 rather than 10.

It's not broken, but instead a particularly smart implementation: Your players will be happy because their smart approach to solve the problem gave them advantage. Also, most of the time succeeding at something outside combat is more enjoyable than failing. And if fails happen less frequently you have it easier make failure interesting.

AkaKageWarrior · Jan 22, 2019

Not broken.
Just handle it with common sense.
Which is encouraged in 5e anyway.

Sadras · Jan 22, 2019

CapnZapp said:
Outside of combat, the Help action is definitely broken. It makes it trivial to gain advantage on most every action, whether social, exploratory or investigative.

Since the DM is the one that decides on whether a roll (whether with Advantage or not) is required, I'd say this is a non-issue and therefore it definitely misleading to state the Help action is definitely broken.

jasper · Jan 22, 2019

Sadras said:
Since the DM is the one that decides on whether a roll (whether with Advantage or not) is required, I'd say this is a non-issue and therefore it definitely misleading to state the Help action is definitely broken.

DITTO! DMS DON'T LET PLAYERS TELL YOU WHEN THEY GOING TO ROLL. You get to decide that.

dave2008 · Jan 22, 2019

CapnZapp said:
Outside of combat, the Help action is definitely broken. It makes it trivial to gain advantage on most every action, whether social, exploratory or investigative.

Just re-read the rules to be sure, but Help is specifically an "Actions in Combat" action. It is not something, by RAW, that you can do outside of combat. Not that I really care about RAW, just pointing it out.

Rod Staffwand · Jan 22, 2019

Shiroiken has it right.

There's a whole section on this: Working Together, p. 175.

If a second character can meaningfully contribute (in the DM's estimation), then advantage. Otherwise no.

CapnZapp · Jan 22, 2019

Shiroiken said:
Outside of combat you don't have the Help Action; you have the Working Together rules instead. Both grant advantage, but Working Together allows some restriction by the DM.

dave2008 said:
Just re-read the rules to be sure, but Help is specifically an "Actions in Combat" action. It is not something, by RAW, that you can do outside of combat. Not that I really care about RAW, just pointing it out.

Thanks.

Original post edited. Title edited.

The help action is not broken, but Working together is

CapnZapp

Legend

Shiroiken

Legend

Olrox17

Hero

Rya.Reisender

Explorer

AkaKageWarrior

Explorer

Sadras

Legend

jasper

Rotten DM

dave2008

Legend

Rod Staffwand

aka Ermlaspur Flormbator

CapnZapp

Legend

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