How useful is the Dodge action?

[TaranTheWanderer]

For me, Intelligence isn't necessarily a key stat in combat. Experienced creatures whose lives depend on it (pretty much any that have lived long enough to challenge PCs), will fight effectively.

As an aside, a house rule I have also, is that creatures in a fully magical world usually have some rudimentary understanding or sense for it, just as they can guess the shining, sharp end of a spear is probably dangerous.

To be more clear, I was using 'Intelligence' as a general term and not the Stat. Wolves use tactics and wear down prey then surround the prey and take it down. They have an awareness of self-preservation. Depending on how desperate or hungry they are, they might take more chances - like a starving lone wolf might be more reckless.

A zombie, on the other hand, which has the same INT score as a wolf, aren't traditionally or typically known for their superior tactics or self-preservation.

[MENTION=28301]smbakeresq[/MENTION] "I think ability to access a situational would rely more on cunning and awareness, which is related to wisdom IMO. "

If I were to have to pick a stat, I'd agree with this, I think. Most animals, including insect-like creatures have a wisdom around 13 while zombies have a wisdom of 6. But, in general, I don't go by stats.

Comparing the two stats reminds me of how I've heard the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence explained to new players:

Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in fruit salad.

 

[FrogReaver]

While it might be true that Dodge is still useful, this is also about motivating players to use it, which is stronger if they can actually directly see how useful it is.

In fact, my whole point was that the way you DM determines strongly how your players play.

I can’t disagree there but dodge is useful regardless of monster AI is my point.

 

[smbakeresq]

While it might be true that Dodge is still useful, this is also about motivating players to use it, which is stronger if they can actually directly see how useful it is.

In fact, my whole point was that the way you DM determines strongly how your players play.

This is correct. For this reason, as DM, if a player declared they are using the dodge action (as an action) I would ignore that for first attacker against them that round, at least. You have to let the players get their stuff across, and having a creature not attack a PC because they declared the Dodge action to the DM is meta-gaming the players, which the DM shouldn't do either. I would have other creatures attack the PC normally that turn unless they make some sort of check to see that the PC is in an extreme defensive posture.

Some creatures just would ignore it anyway, say a Gelatinous Cube, which just tries to overrun everything in its path, or an Ancient Red Dragon, which is arrogant enough to think "Do what you want it won't matter I will kill you anyway."

 

[Dessert Nomad]

This is correct. For this reason, as DM, if a player declared they are using the dodge action (as an action) I would ignore that for first attacker against them that round, at least. You have to let the players get their stuff across, and having a creature not attack a PC because they declared the Dodge action to the DM is meta-gaming the players, which the DM shouldn't do either. I would have other creatures attack the PC normally that turn unless they make some sort of check to see that the PC is in an extreme defensive posture.

I don't think that it's 'meta gaming' for an opponent to notice that you're not attacking and are just defending yourself. And I don't think really obvious stuff like seeing if someone launched an effective attack or just defended themselves needs a check, and you definitely don't need a check to know that you had disadvantage on your own attack. Seeing and responding to obvious stuff that is happening in the game is pretty much the opposite of metagaming.

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

Dodging is useful if you can do it as a bonus action, or if you can do it as an action while doing something else as a bonus action.

But Dodge + movement (and nothing else) is maybe only good for running away, and it's not the best choice in all cases, yet running away doesn't happen typically that often in RPG. It might also be an interesting choice in some other corner cases that happen even less often.

 

[5ekyu]

I don't think that it's 'meta gaming' for an opponent to notice that you're not attacking and are just defending yourself. And I don't think really obvious stuff like seeing if someone launched an effective attack or just defended themselves needs a check, and you definitely don't need a check to know that you had disadvantage on your own attack. Seeing and responding to obvious stuff that is happening in the game is pretty much the opposite of metagaming.

Yeah, i mean, the basis of 5e is describe what you are doing so i have never had any reason to even conjure the idea that you dont know someone has gone "defensive" aka the dodge action.

Cant recall any game that had its "full defensive" (by any name) be some ninja sneak not seen thing. Guess there could be one out there.

I always tell my players when an npc goes dodgey - either explicitly or by description - unless something prevents the perception.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Yeah, i mean, the basis of 5e is describe what you are doing so i have never had any reason to even conjure the idea that you dont know someone has gone "defensive" aka the dodge action.

That too, avoiding what some people are calling "meta gaming" actually requires that you avoid treating player's description of their actions as something that happens in the game world! Also, the suggestions in this thread along the lines of 'roll to determine if the enemy can see really obvious stuff that's right in front of their face' or 'roll to see if the enemy is smart enough to do the kind of thing that animals manage to do routinely' would REALLY slow play to a crawl. Even if you did think that going defensive instead of attacking is so subtle that someone locked in a life or death struggle with you wouldn't notice it or that it's not much harder for them to land attacks on you, adding a roll or two to every combatant to handle 'could they tell you're hard to hit' would make combat crawl.

 

[5ekyu]

That too, avoiding what some people are calling "meta gaming" actually requires that you avoid treating player's description of their actions as something that happens in the game world! Also, the suggestions in this thread along the lines of 'roll to determine if the enemy can see really obvious stuff that's right in front of their face' or 'roll to see if the enemy is smart enough to do the kind of thing that animals manage to do routinely' would REALLY slow play to a crawl. Even if you did think that going defensive instead of attacking is so subtle that someone locked in a life or death struggle with you wouldn't notice it or that it's not much harder for them to land attacks on you, adding a roll or two to every combatant to handle 'could they tell you're hard to hit' would make combat crawl.

And imo "to what end"?

I find the game much,more fun when its about what characters do, what choices they maje etc and that usually is better when those are informed decisions.

So i spend a lot less time on ehether or not they know or see or can choose to blah blah and instead go with more or less "its known unless hidden" as a general rule.

That tends to follow the way encounters start - no surprise unless someone is actively hiding as well as fit my general model of "say yes unless its compelling reason to say no".

I would rather spend time on how the deal with dodgey types than how long it takes them to know its a dodgey type.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

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.

Late to the party here, but this is a good point - dodging and using a bonus action is a nice strategy at times. Be careful, though: You cannot use a bonus action for an off-hand attack unless you take the Attack action. If you take the Dodge action, no off-hand attack for you!

Here's the pertinent section from the PHB Chapter 9, Combat :

Two-Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand.

While it might be true that Dodge is still useful, this is also about motivating players to use it, which is stronger if they can actually directly see how useful it is.

In fact, my whole point was that the way you DM determines strongly how your players play.

Yes. This point could probably be an entire thread unto itself!

 

[Dessert Nomad]

I find the game much,more fun when its about what characters do, what choices they maje etc and that usually is better when those are informed decisions.

I think it's also better when the players and DM are cooperating to have a fun game instead of being adversarial in the meta game. If players are trying to set up a detailed set of rules for what the DM is allowed to do with monsters, and then get frustrated and say 'that's meta gaming, you're awful' if the DM doesn't follow the set of rules that the DM didn't agree to or even know about, it's going to make the game unpleasant all around. DMs should have broad discretion on how game effects interact with the world when they're running, but some arguments here seem to claim that there are effects that have a specific right answer that the DM is not allowed to use their own judgement on, like 'can enemies tell that you're using the dodge action instead of attacking'. I don't think this leads to a better game for anyone, and it's also a very passive-aggressive play style.

Also you have to give other people at the table the benefit of the doubt - two of the situations here where the DM decided to have enemies target someone else could actually be motivated by the DM saying 'oh, it looks like Player really doesn't want to get hit, I'll go ahead and give that to him instead of having the enemies try to break past his defense' and not 'haha, Player has taken a defensive action, now I will negate his choice by having the enemies attack someone else'. I don't think it's bad for a DM to occasionally let what a player is trying work even if they think it's not quite RAW, either because it is more interesting or they think the player is getting annoyed, and they're not always going to be 100% on 'what the player wants'. In general if you come in looking to get pissed off, it's pretty easy to find something to take offense at.