Extreme self-preservation

[Coroc]

Well in my latest session as a player one of the other players tried to stay out of combat, though for RP related justified reasons. It was no use to her, another player pushed her character into the line of fire, thereby shouting "for the group!" It was hilarious

 

[Ymdar]

I would probably not play in these games. As a DM I would give no XP for characters always running away from combat.

Or create dungeons where retreating is not an option; maybe rooms they have cleared disappears somehow. Perhaps the opening the door to the next room crashes the ceiling of the previous room or it turns out that the whole dungeon is suspended above some lava lake and whenever they open a door the previous room falls down into the pool. Or a huge sinking magic ship where the characters need to escape upward or risk drowning? A flying castle bombarded by another castle and slowly falling apart. I would DM dungeons like that.

 

[Tobold]

As far as shooting breaking hiding it does if the monster has a line of sight to you. The whole point of a rogue getting to use bonus action to hide is to move, attack, move to a place with where they can’t see you, and then use the bonus action to hide.

It’s not up to discretion IMO, it’s the rule. You are not hidden until you take the hide action when a visibility condition grants you a chance to do so, like behind an object, heavily obscured, etc.

I think you group is confusing being out of line of sight with being hidden. If you duck behind a post, the enemy still knows where you are they just can’t see you. Hidden is a specific condition from taking the hide action.

Otherwise you waste a primary rogue ability.

I think I didn’t explain it well enough. The hiding part was completely within the rules: Player moves away, around a corner to break line of sight, the uses a bonus action to hide. The question is about what happens next round, when he pops his head around that same corner again and uses a ranged weapon to fire into combat. What the players think is that they were effectively hiding, and thus they get advantage on their attack roll, for attacking while hidden. And they believe they can repeat that every round.

My take is that yes, they are hidden while out of sight around the corner. But unless they have a way to fire through walls or around corners, they have to move into line of sight again to fire into combat. Even if they were well hidden before, moving into line of sight breaks the hidden status, and thus the attack has no advantage. Note that I might allow for advantage if the player is hidden around the corner before the monster arrives, and thus the monster doesn’t expect an attack from around the corner. But once the monster has seen the player moving out of sight, it will still be wary of him coming back, and thus not be unprepared for such an attack.

 

[Scary]

I am playing at a role-playing club, where we are currently running a long event which is basically a series of dungeon crawls with many players and multiple DMs. Only rule, players need to be back at base by the end of the session. Then the next session can be a different mix of players with a different DM. The format doesn't exactly inspire loyalty and team spirit, but lately I've been more and more running into extreme cases of self-preservation being players biggest concern. e.g. player A moves away from the monster and moves behind player B's character, hoping that the monster is attacking B rather than A; then B does basically the same thing, moving behind A, and player A starts shouting at player B. Today I was a player, playing a barbarian, we got into a fight, and at the end of the first round I found myself alone in the room with all the monsters, every other player in the group had moved out of the room and was hiding behind a corner or something.

Okay, not very nice, but as a player I can still live with that. However I'm going to be DM in that campaign too, and I was wondering how I should handle it as a DM. Should I have the monsters pursue the fleeing characters, as to the monster they sure look weaker than the tank guy in front? Should I have other monsters sneak up from behind? Should I rule differently than my fellow DMs on rogues attacking with advantage from hiding (the rule says it's DM's discretion whether shooting around a corner breaks hiding or not, and I'l inclined to break hiding if the monster knows somebody is behind that corner). How do you handle players that play their characters as extreme cowards rather than heroes? I mean, one player like that could be a fun running gag, but if they all do it, it gets kind of annoying fast.

Simple, state, if you are not active in combat and participate in the fighting, you do not get any experience points. In fact I would go as far as anyone who does not role play their PC properly and if you cannot play as a group (Party), your conduct will be graded as so and XP will be reduced.

 

[5ekyu]

Honestly, for this case, the players are reacting to the odd rules of play of the game setup. Its not so much a role playing game as a board game when rules like this "musical chairs" healthy rule are applied.

My view on these when presented is to make a choice - is this game AS IT IS one i want to play in, to commit to?

If so, i join in and play how I want, maybe following the herd, maybe not.

But joining a game and then looking to change it as soon as you GM seems to me to be at best misleading and at worst deliberately deceptive. Its putting your preferences over the others who are playing the game and that is not something a fair GM does lightly.

 

[Scary]

Does not sound at all like a normal "fun" D&D game.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=24254]Ymdar[/MENTION] This!

It is not terrible hard to construct dungeons in a way that if players stick to the rear they might at some encounter chose the difficult group of foes. Let the front assault be something hard but doable, but "scary" enough to cause that (imho absolutely calling out for alignment check) coward behavior. As soon as everybody is in position the rear side gets attacked by invisible medusas and beholders. This time if the brave front row routes, they will be covered by the petrified cowards blocking their pursuers.

Rinse and repeat if necessary, at some point the players will get it. Tbh this is ridiculous behavior which is only justified if there is some heavy roleplaying reason to do this. Someone simply being a coward will of course not get the best magic items. Do not allow group item distribution in such a case. The fighter in the front row e.g.finds a shiny magic sword and as soon as he touches it is attuned to him.

One thing coming to my mind reading the OPS though: Is it that the goal to get back to base camp alive after each session is causing the players to behave like that, or is it they just are egoistic?

What would happen if the players do not make it back in time? TPK?

 

[BluejayJunior]

I think I didn’t explain it well enough. The hiding part was completely within the rules: Player moves away, around a corner to break line of sight, the uses a bonus action to hide. The question is about what happens next round, when he pops his head around that same corner again and uses a ranged weapon to fire into combat. What the players think is that they were effectively hiding, and thus they get advantage on their attack roll, for attacking while hidden. And they believe they can repeat that every round.

My take is that yes, they are hidden while out of sight around the corner. But unless they have a way to fire through walls or around corners, they have to move into line of sight again to fire into combat. Even if they were well hidden before, moving into line of sight breaks the hidden status, and thus the attack has no advantage. Note that I might allow for advantage if the player is hidden around the corner before the monster arrives, and thus the monster doesn’t expect an attack from around the corner. But once the monster has seen the player moving out of sight, it will still be wary of him coming back, and thus not be unprepared for such an attack.

They could maybe do this once per battle. But after that, the enemy is not going keep falling for it. You can't really just stay in one place and keeping hiding and attacking. Everyone knows where you are.

It sounds like you are playing a West Marches style game. (If you're unsure about the term, google it. Matt Colville has a good video explaining it). I've thought those could be a lot of fun, but everyone still needs to be on the same page. In your case, everyone only cares about their characters survival, not getting loot. I think one of the interesting things of a WM game is the threat level. And since they usually involve less roleplaying, you don't have to feel as attached to your character. I think the best thing to do is, like others said, talk to other DMs and see if they have the same problem. Then talk to the organizers and see if you/they can post something reminding players that the best way to survive and succeed is to work together.
This is mean, but if things don't change, I would probably have new monsters attack characters that were selfish. A big party wipe due to lack of obvious lack of teamwork might get word around and cause people to rethink their actions.

 

[Dausuul]

I think I didn’t explain it well enough. The hiding part was completely within the rules: Player moves away, around a corner to break line of sight, the uses a bonus action to hide. The question is about what happens next round, when he pops his head around that same corner again and uses a ranged weapon to fire into combat. What the players think is that they were effectively hiding, and thus they get advantage on their attack roll, for attacking while hidden. And they believe they can repeat that every round.

My take is that yes, they are hidden while out of sight around the corner. But unless they have a way to fire through walls or around corners, they have to move into line of sight again to fire into combat. Even if they were well hidden before, moving into line of sight breaks the hidden status, and thus the attack has no advantage. Note that I might allow for advantage if the player is hidden around the corner before the monster arrives, and thus the monster doesn’t expect an attack from around the corner. But once the monster has seen the player moving out of sight, it will still be wary of him coming back, and thus not be unprepared for such an attack.

I see it a little differently. Combat is fast-paced and chaotic. Combatants have a low-level sense of where their opponents are, but it's not like they have beholder eyes simultaneously tracking each enemy at all times. It's more of a gestalt awareness thing--as you dance sideways to dodge the fighter's sword coming at your head, you catch a glimpse of the monk circling behind you in your peripheral vision, and your brain puts "monk, behind me" on its mental map for the next few seconds.

If you don't see somebody for a little bit, however, your map goes stale. You can't keep staring at the place where they went out of sight, waiting for them to re-emerge; you're busy trying to not get killed by their friends! (Or you would be, if the friends weren't trying to hide behind each other.) When they pop out again, they get a momentary advantage. That's what the Hide action represents: You get behind cover and you wait a few seconds for the enemy to be distracted.

The rogue's special talent is to time this move when the enemy is already distracted. They have a knack for evading that gestalt awareness, which is why they don't have to burn an entire round hiding.

 

[Oofta]

I see it a little differently. Combat is fast-paced and chaotic. Combatants have a low-level sense of where their opponents are, but it's not like they have beholder eyes simultaneously tracking each enemy at all times. It's more of a gestalt awareness thing--as you dance sideways to dodge the fighter's sword coming at your head, you catch a glimpse of the monk circling behind you in your peripheral vision, and your brain puts "monk, behind me" on its mental map for the next few seconds.

If you don't see somebody for a little bit, however, your map goes stale. You can't keep staring at the place where they went out of sight, waiting for them to re-emerge; you're busy trying to not get killed by their friends! (Or you would be, if the friends weren't trying to hide behind each other.) When they pop out again, they get a momentary advantage. That's what the Hide action represents: You get behind cover and you wait a few seconds for the enemy to be distracted.

The rogue's special talent is to time this move when the enemy is already distracted. They have a knack for evading that gestalt awareness, which is why they don't have to burn an entire round hiding.

I don't disagree (and I don't think there is one answer) but how is the rogue going to know the enemy is distracted if they can't see the enemy? It's one thing if they're sneaking around to flank and attack from an unexpected direction but that's far different from moving around a corner and then popping back out a few seconds later.

I give rogues plenty of chance to hide, but it's not going to work in every combat. It's not like it's needed for getting in sneak attack damage any more so putting some reasonable restrictions doesn't really hurt them all that much.