D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[smbakeresq]

What I see in this thread is characters being played as if they all went to tactical training school together even though they never met and the DM's having intelligent creatures in their lair not taking any defensive measures whatsoever.

Recon is fine, but understand your invisible, stealth PC still interacts with the environment, and intelligent creatures will notice the footprints on the path or the disturbance in the air. The DM's creatures also have seen invisibility before, in fact they might have invisible, stealthed guardians also. I am old but I do remember the iron golems in the ethereal plane that phase in as soon as anything touches the floor or as soon as the command is given. The simple addition of a floor covered in dust defeats most stealth checks. The spell golddust did wonders but it is gone. However, a similar effect would reveal an invisible stealthy PC, how about just a breeze constantly blowing coal ash, the ash wouldn't turn invisible when it stuck to you.

In addition, the recon that has been described to me would take so long you would just trigger so many wandering monster checks or encounter a patrol, that would escalate and then just draw others. Once the alarm is raised every creature would be actively searching for the PC's, active Perception checks or Investigation checks by multiple creatures, some of which will search by scent or other means will beat the PC's checks eventually. If the guard dog starts barking there is no reason why the handlers wouldn't figure out where you are or blind fire your location, if they cant see you they would just start spreading colored dust everywhere until it clings to you.

 

[Flamestrike]

My impression is that if someone tried that in your game it would turn out to be futile, and the party would often find itself ambushed at close range by monsters anyway. From what you've described previously about yourself I think this is because your players expect a Combat As Sport experience: lots of fights, all tilted in the PCs' favor, supplied by the DM.

Generally yes, because that's the assumption of DND. Fights are heavily tilted in the PC favor, and supplied by the Dungeon Master with precisely this in mind.

Monsters are designed to die in one fight. Player characters are designed to survive (and overcome) hundreds of them. If every given fight has even a 5% chance of a TPK your player characters will be dead before they hit fifth level.

The difficulty numbers in the encounter building section of the dungeon Masters guide reflect this fact. Even a 'hard' encounter should only have a slim chance that one or more characters might die, with only weaker characters expected to possibly get taken out of the fight, and they only reflect a portion of the adventuring days encounters. Many encounters are expected to be 'medium', where the expectation is the players emerge victorious with no casualties but 'one or two of them might need to use some healing resources'.

Now maybe you prefer a more 'fantasy underground Vietnam' style of DMing, where there is a sizeable chance of a TPK every battle, players don't even bother naming their characters until they hit third level due to the high casualty rate, and deaths are a dime a dozen. There is plenty of literature online why this is probably a bad idea, and why role-playing games in general have steered away from high lethality and 'death as a penalty for failure' mechanics. Is it suits your group however go for it, and I'm certainly not going to tell you how you should or should not be having fun.

My next campaign for sh*ts and giggles I intend to run with exploding 'acing' damage dice for all damage, and a return to 'death at -10 hit points' to capture an old school feel. I expect we'll go through quite a few player characters. It'll be fun, but not the kind of thing that you want base an epic adventure with in-depth character development around.

 

[Yunru]

Generally yes, because that's the assumption of DND. Fights are heavily tilted in the PC favor, and supplied by the Dungeon Master with precisely this in mind.

Monsters are designed to die in one fight. Player characters are designed to survive (and overcome) hundreds of them. If every given fight has even a 5% chance of a TPK your player characters will be dead before they hit fifth level.

The difficulty numbers in the encounter building section of the dungeon Masters guide reflect this fact. Even a 'hard' encounter should only have a slim chance that one or more characters might die, with only weaker characters expected to possibly get taken out of the fight, and they only reflect a portion of the adventuring days encounters. Many encounters are expected to be 'medium', where the expectation is the players emerge victorious with no casualties but 'one or two of them might need to use some healing resources'.

Now maybe you prefer a more 'fantasy underground Vietnam' style of DMing, where there is a sizeable chance of a TPK every battle, players don't even bother naming their characters until they hit third level due to the high casualty rate, and deaths are a dime a dozen. There is plenty of literature online why this is probably a bad idea, and why role-playing games in general have steered away from high lethality and 'death as a penalty for failure' mechanics. Is it suits your group however go for it, and I'm certainly not going to tell you how you should or should not be having fun.

My next campaign for sh*ts and giggles I intend to run with exploding 'acing' damage dice for all damage, and a return to 'death at -10 hit points' to capture an old school feel. I expect we'll go through quite a few player characters. It'll be fun, but not the kind of thing that you want base an epic adventure with in-depth character development around.

As long as you up the XP reward you should just get the Xcom effect. Get good or get dead.

 

[Ashkelon]

Is it just me or did Yunru say to start combats at realistic distances but then proceeds to say any combat that starts at 50 feet takes place in an infinite flat white plane?

lol.

I guess all combats only take place within 30 feet of enemies and nobody ever notices enemies at the full range of their dark vision (60 ft). Or ranged enemies only decide to attack when the party is within 30 feet because the monsters are being played like idiots without any strategy or tactics at all.

I think yunru also mention that all classes should use their class abilities that increase their ability to get into melee range like the paladin's...?, barbarian's...? or the fighter's...?

Sure monks and rogues can get into melee well, that was never the issue. The problem is that melee warriors like the fighter, paladin, and barbarian lack the ability to get to melee right away which can cost them one or more rounds of damage output. The ranged warriors suffer no such hinderance.

 

[Flamestrike]

How do doors invalidate recon? It's fairly simple for the scout to open a door. Are you saying all the doors are trapped with magical traps or something and need the rest of the party to dispel them?

It's one thing if the door is a one-way teleportation device, but a regular door shouldn't block recon at all.

Recon is still useful in planning a close-quarters combat. It's useful to know, for example, where and how many potential combatants are within a building/cave/structure and where to scatter caltrops to inconvenience them and where the best chokepoints are. As has been pointed out several times, ranged PCs are more useful than melee PCs for holding a chokepoint.



A (MM) Balor who teleports directly into melee must necessarily have been within 120' before his teleport occurred. It's one thing for the DM to rule that the Balor wasn't detected because the PCs didn't have detection measures in place; it's another thing for the DM to just fiat the Balor into existence in melee range because his battlegrid is only 30 squares wide and he likes melee combat.

Of course, if the Balor has already been re-statted to be more impressive (Teleport Without Error at will, more HP, better attacks, some nifty spells, maybe some scrying capability, etc.) then the 120' limitation ceases to be a factor. If the Balor knows what he's doing, he will ideally Teleport on top of the party not merely in melee range of the party as a whole, but in melee range of the party wizard at the end of the day when his Mage Armor has expired and he has no Foresight up and he's alone because he's going to the bathroom. (The wizard may or may not have his arcane focus on hand depending on what it is and how paranoid he is.)

Dude, Demons expressly travel through planar gates. This guy is a Balor. He just plane shifted in. A wizard next to him did it, he's capable of casting at once a day, he used a scroll or a gate in his lair/ Demonic realm or some other MacGuffin.

I don't need to add the plane shift spell to his stack block to make this happen. I can just fluff it, and give him a reason for doing it (A vendetta against the player characters for a past insult or slight, a bound service to the BBEG, or whatever)

You know... just be a DM. Use your imagination, design your encounters appropriately, challenge the player characters... that kind of thing.

You're looking for a mathematical solution to an artistic problem.

 

[Yunru]

I think yunru also mention that all classes should use their class abilities that increase their ability to get into melee range like the paladin's...?, barbarian's...? or the fighter's...?

Nice try with the..? Except I listed all the abilities of the classes you mention except the Barbarian (who's feature should be obvious given the name). So rather than deminish my point, you just make yourself appear to either a jerk or unable to read.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What I see in this thread is characters being played as if they all went to tactical training school together even though they never met and the DM's having intelligent creatures in their lair not taking any defensive measures whatsoever.

Recon is fine, but understand your invisible, stealth PC still interacts with the environment, and intelligent creatures will notice the footprints on the path or the disturbance in the air. The DM's creatures also have seen invisibility before, in fact they might have invisible, stealthed guardians also. I am old but I do remember the iron golems in the ethereal plane that phase in as soon as anything touches the floor or as soon as the command is given. The simple addition of a floor covered in dust defeats most stealth checks. The spell golddust did wonders but it is gone. However, a similar effect would reveal an invisible stealthy PC, how about just a breeze constantly blowing coal ash, the ash wouldn't turn invisible when it stuck to you.

It's ironic that you're saying this in response to an example which prominently mentioned shadow monks and invisible sprites, neither of which leaves footprints because of Pass Without Trace and flight respectively.

Yes, your objection could apply to some scouts (Rogues, Bladesingers, Fighters). I just find it ironic that you're deploying this objection at the worst possible time--in response to an example which pre-refutes it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think yunru also mention that all classes should use their class abilities that increase their ability to get into melee range like the paladin's...?, barbarian's...? or the fighter's...?

Barbarian: increased movement speed. Paladin: magical warhorse-on-demand that can carry him 120' per round. Fighter: action surge and/or sometimes spells (e.g. Expeditious Retreat).

Some of these things are also really good at keeping you out of melee range, which is great for e.g. Paladin/Sorcerers flinging Fire Bolts.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Dude, Demons expressly travel through planar gates. This guy is a Balor. He just plane shifted in. A wizard next to him did it, he's capable of casting at once a day, he used a scroll or a gate in his lair/ Demonic realm or some other MacGuffin.

I don't need to add the plane shift spell to his stack block to make this happen. I can just fluff it, and give him a reason for doing it (A vendetta against the player characters for a past insult or slight, a bound service to the BBEG, or whatever)

You know... just be a DM. Use your imagination, design your encounters appropriately, challenge the player characters... that kind of thing.

That's exactly what I meant by "it's another thing for the DM to just fiat the Balor into existence in melee range." I get it, you love to use your DM's Fiat to provide hack-and-slash fodder so that your players have lots of casual murder several times a day to give them "deep character development."

I'm not going to tell you not to, but I will point out exactly what it is.

If an enemy wizard really did it to get revenge on the party, he'd do it more effectively by catching the party wizard at a bad time when the wizard is alone and going to the bathroom. No, you're just handwaving because you don't care why things happen as long as the party gets to make attack rolls. It's not necessarily a bad way to play, but it's not a universally-desired play experience either.

 

[Flamestrike]

It's ironic that you're saying this in response to an example which prominently mentioned shadow monks and invisible sprites, neither of which leaves footprints because of Pass Without Trace and flight respectively.

Yes, your objection could apply to some scouts (Rogues, Bladesingers, Fighters). I just find it ironic that you're deploying this objection at the worst possible time--in response to an example which pre-refutes it.

With relation to your hobgoblin and invisible monk opening the door, firstly Id have the monk rolling stealth reasonably frequently, and he'd better hope he rolls above the passive perception of all the monsters he encounters. Secondly I would have those monsters investigate any disturbances (Such as doors opening) by walking over and taking the search action. You'd better hope those monsters don't roll higher on their perception check than the monks stealth score. Thirdly I'd ensure at least one encounter every few adventuring days has something like blindsight, truesight or detect invisibility, just to keep the monk on his toes.

Finally, if it's good enough for the player characters (and such an effective tactic as to be self-evident to a monk with Intelligence score of 8) it's good enough for the monsters. They ensure they also have an invisible and stealthy ally of their own who also uses the same tactics, or some kind of viable countermeasure. Our hobgoblins likely have a hobgoblin devastator. Our BBEG is likely a caster of some kind.

I can't think of too many reasons why he wouldn't have access to the alarm spell castable as a ritual, that lasts for eight hours.

Eventually our good friend the monk is going to be caught all on his lonesome fighting a much more dangerous encounter without the party there to back him up. Alternatively the monsters are going to cotton on to the fact something is going on and go onto high alert warning everyone else in the dungeon, including the BBEG who may very well decide to speed up the sacrifice, or remove the Mcguffin, and reinforce all of his guards.