Some combat house rules to peruse or ignore

S'mon · Mar 19, 2019

The idea of all these is to work off the existing system to give some additional options, and a nod to versimilitude, without affecting regular gameplay. I'm pretty confident of all of them except maybe the Grappled Casting rule, which is designed more for lower-magic settings.

Campaign House Rules - Combat

The following incur opportunity attacks if done within enemy reach:
Shooting a bow, except a crossbow
Reloading a bow, gun or similar weapon
Standing from prone
Picking up an object (such as a dropped weapon) from the floor and standing back up

The following use up half a character's movement:
Standing from prone (as per RAW)
Picking up an object from the floor and standing back up
Mounting or dismounting a mount.

Grappled Casting: A character who attempts to cast a spell while Grappled must make a CON save at DC 10 or else lose the spell. If Restrained or Grappled & Prone, the save is with Disadvantage.

Mobbing: When multiple attackers of the same size category surround their opponent (ie are within 5'), the 5th+ attackers that round have Advantage on their attacks.

Disarming: Attack is with Disadvantage (& can't attempt a disarm if already at disadvantage); if it hits then target takes damage & makes a STR or CON save (defender's choice) at higher of DC 10 or half the damage dealt to not drop object. Save is with Advantage if using both hands.

DND_Reborn · Mar 19, 2019

S'mon said:
The idea of all these is to work off the existing system to give some additional options, and a nod to versimilitude, without affecting regular gameplay. I'm pretty confident of all of them except maybe the Grappled Casting rule, which is designed more for lower-magic settings.

Campaign House Rules - Combat

The following incur opportunity attacks if done within enemy reach:
Shooting a bow, except a crossbow
Reloading a bow, gun or similar weapon
Standing from prone
Picking up an object (such as a dropped weapon) from the floor and standing back up

The following use up half a character's movement:
Standing from prone (as per RAW)
Picking up an object from the floor and standing back up
Mounting or dismounting a mount.

Grappled Casting: A character who attempts to cast a spell while Grappled must make a CON save at DC 10 or else lose the spell. If Restrained or Grappled & Prone, the save is with Disadvantage.

Mobbing: When multiple attackers of the same size category surround their opponent (ie are within 5'), the 5th+ attackers that round have Advantage on their attacks.

Disarming: Attack is with Disadvantage (& can't attempt a disarm if already at disadvantage); if it hits then target takes damage & makes a STR or CON save (defender's choice) at higher of DC 10 or half the damage dealt to not drop object. Save is with Advantage if using both hands.

Some balance suggestions IMO:

If you remove the disadvantage from using a ranged attack while in melee, allowing an OA is fine. I would not impose both, however.
I would also allow movement (standing/picking up an item) to not allow OA if the target uses all their movement to do so.

Grappled Casting is fine but others might not like it as it does hinder casters potentially quite a bit.

Mobbing: our group sort of uses facing still, and this is pretty close to variant flanking rules anyway. If 8 attackers surround (boxing in the target), our DM would have the three rear attackers have advantage on the attack because they are basically unseen.

Disarming is fine, I would have the save DC equal 8 + Proficiency bonus + Str (or Dex for finesse weapon types). The defender should either resist with Str or Dex, but I wouldn't use Con personally. Also, we play disarm is a normal attack, but does no damage. Since you are dealing damage, having the attack at disadvantage is fine.

Hope this helps.

5ekyu · Mar 19, 2019

Ao for prone stand-up - did this, worked fine.
Ao for pick-ups - nah. my rule is that it counts as an action, not an interaction, if its threatened by enemy within reach to strike. no Ao but "obstacle" makes it take an action, per the option under "interaction."
Ao for bows, nah, too much on top of the disad.

Casting grapple Spell save - nah - unless you start also applying checks for the same case for throwing weapons, shooting bows and in general attacking because the same jostling unable to do right logic applies. if you do those too, you really empower grappling which is really pretty easy to do - because it doesn't do much. (My response to folks who want a graplle-fu guy do more - then you have to work at it, take the feat, get to restrained cuz spell casting restrained is not gonna happen if you have somantic gestures needed.) Also, are you including even verbals only spells? It seems so and thats even further off the chart IMO.

Mobbing - meh - hope that works out. But seen too many cases in fiction and genere where multiple attackers more get in the way against superior foe than are able to sync up. Easier for the skilled defender to use them against themselves - so its a matter of what style of fighting is being used - to me.

Disarm - meh - in a fantasy game where "magic weapons" are a genre staple, convenient disarms run counter to the genre in most cases. its hard to imagine how one of the first properties added to most any magic item would not be "cannot be disarmed" or else why in the world enchant items that your enemies will just take away as soon as the power is revealed? Why spend so much time and magic and life's work on an enchanted sword to see it disarmed... instead of say a pair of gauntlets that do as much or more when you wield a weapon. mechanics and "reality" must fit the style and genere. So, common disarm == fewer if any magic weapons worth anything IMO. (Disarm is usually sought for two reasons - taking magic weapons out of play or exploiting the frequent shorthand list of monsters that list only one weapon in a lot of cases - as if that means they only carry one when disarm is easy or frequent. In such a world, most would carry backup weapons, not just the one. inj such a world, the gauntlets would be enchanted, not the weapons or the magic weapons would be "not disarmable" as a magic property. has to make sense.)

S'mon · Mar 19, 2019

dnd4vr said:
I would also allow movement (standing/picking up an item) to not allow OA if the target uses all their movement to do so.

Well you can always take a Disengage action if you don't want to eat the Opp Att!

S'mon · Mar 19, 2019

5ekyu said:
Ao for bows, nah, too much on top of the disad.

Disarm - meh - in a fantasy game where "magic weapons" are a genre staple, convenient disarms run counter to the genre in most cases.

Bows - I really don't want them used in melee, I quite liked RC's "-20 to hit" rule so I'm not worried about 'too much'. If the archer is a Rogue they can bonus action disengage, otherwise they ought to have a backup melee weapon.

Disarming - it's not supposed to be easy; disad to hit + STR/CON save vs typically DC 10 - do you think I made it too easy?

S'mon · Mar 19, 2019

5ekyu said:
Ao for prone stand-up - did this, worked fine.
Ao for pick-ups - nah. my rule is that it counts as an action, not an interaction, if its threatened by enemy within reach to strike. no Ao but "obstacle" makes it take an action, per the option under "interaction."
Ao for bows, nah, too much on top of the disad.

Casting grapple Spell save - nah - unless you start also applying checks for the same case for throwing weapons, shooting bows and in general attacking because the same jostling unable to do right logic applies.

On reflection I think it should not apply to cantrips, since they only take as much effort as shooting a bow.

5ekyu · Mar 19, 2019

S'mon said:
Bows - I really don't want them used in melee, I quite liked RC's "-20 to hit" rule so I'm not worried about 'too much'. If the archer is a Rogue they can bonus action disengage, otherwise they ought to have a backup melee weapon.

Disarming - it's not supposed to be easy; disad to hit + STR/CON save vs typically DC 10 - do you think I made it too easy?

As stated, I think frequent disarms are a big disconnect to a genre where special weapons are a thing and where certain write-ups imply fewer weapons in use. I think it pushes too much towards the stack if weapons with legs modrl.

As for easy, csnnot figureboutbif you haven't thought this thru or are leaving it out on purpose to make the disarm look harder than it is.

Its relatively easy to get advantage on attack rolls and not all that hard to hit that many foes. So, you are really talking using disarm ***not when it makes you roll with disadvantage *** but using disarm when it means you roll normal instead of advantage and a hit is still likely

So that is illusion of hard number one gone.

Second, you allow damage too, do you give up nothing. The disarm chsnce is heavy, bonus, extra cheese on your pizza with a side of garlic knots and a cannoli.

So that's that.

Third, strength and Con saves are specific to certain builds but leave out quite a bit. Pretty much a lot of Dex blade builds wont hsbpve anything in those, maybe a +1 or +2. So now we are looking at about a 1 in 3 fail chance. Adding in the two-handed bit, seems like you are maybe skewing this to disarm the dex guys since you exclude dex from the save type.

So, this seems only "hard" at all against a subset of foes snd pretty much gravy and cheese on top for the times it will bevtried.

But again, maybe you didn't think this thru before posturing as if it's hard, or maybe you did and still sold it that way anyway

So, basically, no, I dont buy the "hard bit" or the bridge in jersey.

As for your grapple, you ok with rogues being grappled and still being able to do the precise targeting and timing to get sneak damage? What about the timing of an AO - that at all impacted by the ongoing jostles?

TaranTheWanderer · Mar 19, 2019

S'mon said:
Campaign House Rules - Combat

The following incur opportunity attacks if done within enemy reach:
Shooting a bow, except a crossbow
Reloading a bow, gun or similar weapon
Standing from prone
Picking up an object (such as a dropped weapon) from the floor and standing back up

This was all standard in 3e. I like it. A feat that removes disadvantage should also remove the AoO. So crossbow expert would allow you to shoot in melee without an AoO.

dnd4vr said:
I would also allow movement (standing/picking up an item) to not allow OA if the target uses all their movement to do so.

I'm tossed on this idea. While I like it, Why would you take a disengage action if you can just use up all your movement to pick it up and attack? If someone is close enough to AoO, then you don't need the extra movement anyways.

The other option is to do as [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] said and have it use up an action.

S'mon said:
The following use up half a character's movement:
Standing from prone (as per RAW)
Picking up an object from the floor and standing back up
Mounting or dismounting a mount.

This sounds good to me. Doesn't mounting already take up movement anyways?

S'mon said:
Grappled Casting: A character who attempts to cast a spell while Grappled must make a CON save at DC 10 or else lose the spell. If Restrained or Grappled & Prone, the save is with Disadvantage.

I would still allow verbal spells. I think it's important to acknowledge WHY a wizard can't cast a spell in a grapple. For the same reason that, maybe, you shouldn't be able to swing a great sword or use a bow. As was pointed out, you can't pick on casters only. If I were to implement this, I'd only allow light weapons to be used in a grapple. Anything bigger might require a check, similar to the wizard's concentration. But this would apply to both the grappler and the grappled person. You just can't effectively swing big swords or cast somatic spells while grappled.

S'mon said:
Mobbing: When multiple attackers of the same size category surround their opponent (ie are within 5'), the 5th+ attackers that round have Advantage on their attacks.

I have no opinion here. I've never used mobs...there's a rule in the DMG. People seem to like it?

S'mon said:
Disarming: Attack is with Disadvantage (& can't attempt a disarm if already at disadvantage); if it hits then target takes damage & makes a STR or CON save (defender's choice) at higher of DC 10 or half the damage dealt to not drop object. Save is with Advantage if using both hands.

[/quote]

Disarming is a common trope in fantasy and action films and stories. How many times does a gun get knocked out of someone's hand and both are grappling to gain possession of the weapon? Or a duel where one person disarms the other, the sword flies up in to the air and now the villain has two swords.

In this fight, Inigo Montoya gets disarmed 3 times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDlZ_SXx5gA

It just just shouldn't be super easy to do. In 3e it was difficult and required a feat to make it useful.

I like the idea that it's a saving throw but I feel that steps on the toes of Battlemasters because I think they can disarm..?

Since we are house-ruling, I suggest a bit of complexity: It should just use up an attack action and, Instead of disadvantage, it should probably provoke an attack of opportunity. If the AoO succeeds, the attempt auto-fails. Resist with appropriate stat/skill. Maybe athletics(to hold the weapon firm) or acrobatics(to dodge the disarm) or just your combat proficiency at 8+prof+str or dex.
[/QUOTE]

S'mon · Mar 19, 2019

5ekyu said:
But again, maybe you didn't think this thru before posturing as if it's hard, or maybe you did and still sold it that way anyway

So, basically, no, I dont buy the "hard bit" or the bridge in jersey.

Wow you're obnoxious! :-O

S'mon · Mar 19, 2019

TaranTheWanderer said:
This was all standard in 3e. I like it. A feat that removes disadvantage should also remove the AoO. So crossbow expert would allow you to shoot in melee without an AoO.

Well the way I have it written, you can already shoot a crossbow without provoking an OA - you just can't load a crossbow without provoking an OA.