Re-examining the 5' step

[justanobody]

I see the 5' step as something akin to lunging with a rapier. My stride is a little under 5', but quite a bit, and makes sense that a bit of movement would be involved when in combat as your shoes would not "always" be glued to the floor.

So it really hasn't been something I have given much thought.

I guess maybe the speed at which people see things getting done during turn-based combat becomes the problem. I liked the old turn segments that showed just how quickly combat went and how little movement could really mean and what an advantage it could be when your opponent is literally caught off balanced from a misplaced step and the thief is behind him ready with his dagger.

It really added to the speed of combat, but removing it for casters does seem to make sense.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

...I can see the movement as being reasonable, but not that the opponent would not press the attack and deprive me of the safe moment to cast the spell.

The only way to represent this is by the defender taking a readied action to move adjacent to the spell caster when they begin casting a spell (which can be rather nasty if the caster's not casting it on the defensive - and which if no one is adjacent when they start casting, they most likely wouldn't be). To me, this is a reasonable situation - and if anything, can be very nasty for the caster. It means though that pressing the caster is the primary objective of the defender, rather than attacking something else and just keeping an eye on the caster - in which case, to me the 5 foot step seems reasonable with the caster most likely doing one of the below but being automatically successful at it:

*) Taking a quick step back (via an initiative check), allowing the movement and action before the opponent can react.

*) Feinting the opponent (via a bluff check), fooling the opponent into thinking that you are moving to a different location.

*) Threatening the opponent (via an intimidate check), getting them on guard while you step back.

As for the problems with cyclic initiative, that's most probably worthy of a thread on it's own.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Celebrim]

I played 1st edition for about 12 years, and after playing 3rd edition for a while I often considered adopting a more 1st editiony solution to the problem being described here.

Don't resolve a person's movement and a person's action at the same time.

Instead, resolve each person's movement in turn, then after all movement has taken place, resolve each person's action.

Consider the case of the spellcaster. Resolving both his movement and his action in the same phase results in exagerrating the turn based nature of the game to the point that it becomes difficult to imagine events cinematically. Everyone else is motionless as each character completes there action.

AoO's were designed to deal with this problem, but they don't completely do the job because it is too easy to evade a AoO simply by taking a 5' step. So long as I take my 5' step first, I can drop my gaurd and do any sort of thing that would leave me defenceless secure in knowing that my eager murderous frenzied pursuer will stand there motionless watching me root in my backpack, quafe potions, prepare delicate spells or otherwise do anything other than fend off the murderous rain of blows he's supposedly unleashing.

As a general rule, we'd like a creature pressing an attack to continue to do so in a dynamic and analog fashion, rather than living in a world of flashing digital starts and stops. But 'steps of oppurtunity' are complicated in the same sort of fashion as 'attacks of oppurtunity'.

Lanefan's comments sort of sum up why I dislike the notion of RPG as simply a complex tactical wargame. Strict rules become a straightjacket on play if the DM has no expected leeway to rule on the edge cases. However, if you really must have an RPG be a tactical wargame, then I think you ultimately end up either playing something fundamentally as abstract as chess or else end up with phases and complexities like every other wargame out there that attempts to simulate something.

 

[mmadsen]

I played 1st edition for about 12 years, and after playing 3rd edition for a while I often considered adopting a more 1st editiony solution to the problem being described here.

Don't resolve a person's movement and a person's action at the same time.

Is that "first-editiony"? I don't know if the overly complex initiative rules played out like that; I just know how we played 1E, which was probably much closer to Original D&D or Basic D&D.

As I said earlier, if you just take away the 5' step's immunity to Attacks of Opportunity, you get a game where disengaging from melee costs you a free attack, which is how we played 1E.

This fixes a problem while making the game simpler.

 

[hornedturtle]

I thought moving out of a threatened space always caused an attack of opportunity unless it was the withdraw action or the character made a tumble check.

 

[Lanefan]

I thought moving out of a threatened space always caused an attack of opportunity unless it was the withdraw action or the character made a tumble check.

Except in 3e that's trumped by the rule that says a 5' step never provokes, period.

Lanefan

 

[roguerouge]

So, why is reserving an action to attack the caster if he steps out of melee range or casts a spell not a viable tactic that resolves this conundrum?

 

[Hussar]

So, why is reserving an action to attack the caster if he steps out of melee range or casts a spell not a viable tactic that resolves this conundrum?

For several reasons. (Assuming this is in 3e)

1. If the mage does not, in fact, step out of melee range or cast a spell, you get to take no actions this turn. The mage could simply stand there and you lose all your actions this turn.

2. Readied actions are only standard actions which means you only get one attack, rather than your full attack.

3. You have to have a higher initiative in the first place for this to work.

 

[malraux]

4. You can only ready a single action, but I'm pretty sure by RAW you cannot ready a 5' step and attack. So you can either hit the mage when he moves or move with him, but not move with him and hit him.

 

[tomBitonti]

Hi,

Thanks all for the insightful responses.

Working backwards:

So, why is reserving an action to attack the caster if he steps out of melee range or casts a spell not a viable tactic that resolves this conundrum?

That never seems to work very well. My group, which likes to mix it up in large and tactically involved combats, only occasionally uses readies actions. That said, I think a part of the problem is that its too hard for most folks to know when to ready an action. One needs to understand initiative and various mechanics very well in order to avoid wasting an action.

Don't resolve a person's movement and a person's action at the same time.

Instead, resolve each person's movement in turn, then after all movement has taken place, resolve each person's action.

...

Lanefan's comments sort of sum up why I dislike the notion of RPG as simply a complex tactical wargame. Strict rules become a straightjacket on play if the DM has no expected leeway to rule on the edge cases. However, if you really must have an RPG be a tactical wargame, then I think you ultimately end up either playing something fundamentally as abstract as chess or else end up with phases and complexities like every other wargame out there that attempts to simulate something.

That is interesting. I'm taken back to my 1E and Rolemaster GM'ing style, where I would poll players for their actions, then resolve them simultaneously. More and more, I am missing this style of resolution.

Harsh interpretation of the turn-based initiative system leads to many wacko things. For example (and this came up once in a game I was in) a battle breaks out 50' away. Two of us want to charge in *together* so we could keep track of each other's whereabouts in the fog...the higher-init. guy (me) even holds up to wait for the slower guy's initiative to arrive...but we still aren't allowed to move together, as by the book all of one character's actions (including movement) must resolve before another's can start. End result: I charged in, and the other guy got lost in the fog. Bloody ridiculous.

Another one, hypothetical this time: a Giant stands across a field. How can the party charge it en masse? Under the turn-based initiative system, they move one at a time...so when the Giant's initiative comes up only some of the party are there to be hit *despite* the stated intention to all arrive at once.

The game has to make some allowance for simultaneous actions, and for fluidity in combat.

That reflects my views of the problem pretty well. I have my own set of examples:

My players were one facing a large group of Taer, who were crossing a chamber near the party. By initiative ordering, they crossed one at a time, although they were all on the same initiative. One of the players wanted to put a fireball on the whole group as they crossed, but, RAW, there is no point in time when the fireball can be launched that will catch more than one.

In another case, as a PC and party leader, I wanted each player to have a buddy and to stick with their buddy. Turned out to very very hard using the initiative system.

We've also tried to have coordinated charges, and have run into problems with that.

I'm tending to place the problem with turn based initiative (which ties very strongly to AOO's and the 5' step; these are a unified mechanic).

(As an aside: Which makes my distaste for 4E in part because of this lingering distaste for 3E which was not, IMO, adequately "fixed" by 4E.)

I still have to digest the rest of the notes ... more later.