D&D General I hate five-foot passages!

[MerricB]

The Slaadi are "large", right? That should give them enough reach to be able to attack from a mostly-hidden position, and any PC wishing to attack in return has to step right in.

And sure, the PCs might see bits of the Slaadi poking around the corner, but it would still count as good to great cover vs missile fire and the only PCs that can melee-attack are those one or two who can fit in, and thus be attacked in return.

Five-foot reach. The slaad must be adjacent to strike.

Cover is a +2 or +5 bonus, and with the right feat, no cover at all (I think the Sharpshooter feat is very, very poorly created).
For melee purposes, it's a +2 bonus to AC.

The rogue is rolling with advantage and +9 to hit against a AC 21 with superior cover. That's not enough to protect the slaad very well.

Just to illustrate, the rogue can see about half the Slaad from his sniping position here. It might be a little less, but that's still a LOT of the slaad he can see. That's half cover, or a +2 AC bonus. (The slaad needs three quarters blocked to get the +5 bonus to AC).

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Five-foot reach. The slaad must be adjacent to strike.

Cover is a +2 or +5 bonus, and with the right feat, no cover at all (I think the Sharpshooter feat is very, very poorly created).
For melee purposes, it's a +2 bonus to AC.

The rogue is rolling with advantage and +9 to hit against a AC 21 with superior cover. That's not enough to protect the slaad very well.

Just to illustrate, the rogue can see about half the Slaad from his sniping position here. It might be a little less, but that's still a LOT of the slaad he can see. That's half cover, or a +2 AC bonus. (The slaad needs three quarters blocked to get the +5 bonus to AC).

View attachment 348520

i mean, you can see the outline of the rogue's POV, and it doesn't look like he can see too much of the slaad to me...

 

[Hussar]

i mean, you can see the outline of the rogue's POV, and it doesn't look like he can see too much of the slaad to me...

Huh? That's exactly what half cover looks like. His sight line crosses through two faces of the square. But, still missing the point. Even at superior cover, that's still only a +5 to AC and the rogue is hitting (presumably taking aim for advantage as well) on a 12 or better.

I love how everyone is laser beam focusing on this specific example and not the larger point. This sort of thing happens all the bloody time in adventures. Choke point after choke point. And the problem isn't that you're dealing with the monster. That's no biggie. The monster is going to die eventually (99% of the time anyway) so, that's fine.

No the problem is the other three players get to sit around with their thumbs up their bums for the next hour while this combat gets resolved. It's mind numbingly boring. And, really, there's absolutely no need for it. There's no problem having 10 foot wide corridors. We played two entire editions with 10 foot squares. Where every dungeon/building had 10 foot wide corridors and it works fine. Is it "realistic"? Probably not. But who cares? It's not like these maps make any actual sense anyway.

Fun wins. Fun should always win. Forcing several players to warm the pines on the altar of verisimilitude is the bane of D&D.

 

[tetrasodium]

The Slaadi don't need to get into the doorway, however. They can stand just inside the room and thus have all the space they need. It's the PCs who are confined such that only one or two of them can be the front line.

My reference to their squeezing was to explain that it was in fact possible for the Slaadi to have got to that room through the halls and door.

Reach has already been covered in post 101, it's not like the old editions where size large meant automatic longer reach. Problems don't end there thigh because those PCs are not at all "confined", that's why it's such a disaster. Now in 5e it's not like prior editionsin any way. Anyone can move through an ally's space by treating it as difficult terrain, and they can't willingly end any part of your movement in another creature's space. Odds are good that the slaad can't even make an opportunity attack because it's so easy for players to get an ability to cut them off for free whenever they attack something and if the gm meaningfully inconveniences them from door sniping with opportunity attacks there is a 100% change one or more party members will have that soon. No part of the tactical rules are sound in their design, it's rot upon rot upon rot.


Coupled with the freedom of a system that allows move attack move null action object interaction move the PCs just need to not end their turns in front of the door and can trivially ensure that the slaad is pretty much incapable of attacking the same person round after round if they are at all meaningfully injured. Given 5e monster math capabilities to PCs it's extremely unlikely that the slaad is going to get the kind of back to back high damage rolls crits it would need.

 

[Rabulias]

Foundry's gold star is in its automation and modularity, I'm also not sure if it has a trial.

Foundry has a website set up where you can try it out. You can join as a GM or a player.
D&D 5e Demo: DnD 5th Edition Demo
PF 2e Demo: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Demo

 

[Quickleaf]

Five-foot reach. The slaad must be adjacent to strike.

Cover is a +2 or +5 bonus, and with the right feat, no cover at all (I think the Sharpshooter feat is very, very poorly created).
For melee purposes, it's a +2 bonus to AC.

The rogue is rolling with advantage and +9 to hit against a AC 21 with superior cover. That's not enough to protect the slaad very well.

Just to illustrate, the rogue can see about half the Slaad from his sniping position here. It might be a little less, but that's still a LOT of the slaad he can see. That's half cover, or a +2 AC bonus. (The slaad needs three quarters blocked to get the +5 bonus to AC).

I know it's off-topic, but I 100% agree with you on Sharpshooter. My current experimental house rule for it is that a player can benefit from one bulletpoint of Sharpshooter on any given shot, not all three (i.e. bonus damage OR ignore half and 3/4 cover OR ignore long range penalty).

 

[Zaukrie]

Huh? That's exactly what half cover looks like. His sight line crosses through two faces of the square. But, still missing the point. Even at superior cover, that's still only a +5 to AC and the rogue is hitting (presumably taking aim for advantage as well) on a 12 or better.

I love how everyone is laser beam focusing on this specific example and not the larger point. This sort of thing happens all the bloody time in adventures. Choke point after choke point. And the problem isn't that you're dealing with the monster. That's no biggie. The monster is going to die eventually (99% of the time anyway) so, that's fine.

No the problem is the other three players get to sit around with their thumbs up their bums for the next hour while this combat gets resolved. It's mind numbingly boring. And, really, there's absolutely no need for it. There's no problem having 10 foot wide corridors. We played two entire editions with 10 foot squares. Where every dungeon/building had 10 foot wide corridors and it works fine. Is it "realistic"? Probably not. But who cares? It's not like these maps make any actual sense anyway.

Fun wins. Fun should always win. Forcing several players to warm the pines on the altar of verisimilitude is the bane of D&D.

This.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Huh? That's exactly what half cover looks like.

i mean, not in any game i've played, but ok.

His sight line crosses through two faces of the square.

where are you getting this definition of "half cover" from? i don't see it anywhere in the PHB.

But, still missing the point.

dude, i get the point. i've been following the thread. i was just saying it doesn't seem like the rogue can see much of the slaad (and i guess, by extension, that i think three-quarters cover would've been more appropriate).

Even at superior cover, that's still only a +5 to AC and the rogue is hitting (presumably taking aim for advantage as well) on a 12 or better.

ok?

I love how everyone is laser beam focusing on this specific example and not the larger point. This sort of thing happens all the bloody time in adventures. Choke point after choke point. And the problem isn't that you're dealing with the monster. That's no biggie. The monster is going to die eventually (99% of the time anyway) so, that's fine.

No the problem is the other three players get to sit around with their thumbs up their bums for the next hour while this combat gets resolved. It's mind numbingly boring. And, really, there's absolutely no need for it. There's no problem having 10 foot wide corridors. We played two entire editions with 10 foot squares. Where every dungeon/building had 10 foot wide corridors and it works fine. Is it "realistic"? Probably not. But who cares? It's not like these maps make any actual sense anyway.

why are you telling me this?

Fun wins. Fun should always win. Forcing several players to warm the pines on the altar of verisimilitude is the bane of D&D.

"fun" is overly nebulous imo, but i get what you're getting at. i still don't know why you're saying it to me, though.

 

[Lanefan]

Five-foot reach. The slaad must be adjacent to strike.

Cover is a +2 or +5 bonus, and with the right feat, no cover at all (I think the Sharpshooter feat is very, very poorly created).
For melee purposes, it's a +2 bonus to AC.

The rogue is rolling with advantage and +9 to hit against a AC 21 with superior cover. That's not enough to protect the slaad very well.

Just to illustrate, the rogue can see about half the Slaad from his sniping position here. It might be a little less, but that's still a LOT of the slaad he can see. That's half cover, or a +2 AC bonus. (The slaad needs three quarters blocked to get the +5 bonus to AC).

View attachment 348520

So the Slaad can't get right up against the wall, it always sticks out 10 feet into the room? Looks to me like a game-based flaw caused by forcing everything to fill squares on the grid.

I mean, realistically, most if not all of the creature should probably be able to fit inside the triangle created by the upper blue line and the corner of the room, forcing the archer to move to the door to get a decent shot...and potentially get attacked in return.

And here I thought 5e had done away with stuff like this, after many years of putting up with it during 3e and 4e, and made combat more realistic. Silly me.

Also note that the door itself isn't the full five feet wide, but that's a minor concern.

 

[el-remmen]

I mean, realistically, most if not all of the creature should probably be able to fit inside the triangle created by the upper blue line and the corner of the room,

Reminds me of what someone once wrote regarding minis and gridded combat in D&D:

Remember, even though minis and tokens look static, combat is not just two or more people standing still and chopping at each other. The position of a mini or a token is a representation of a position, not a description of their actions. In other words, two or more opponents may be squatting down, jumping up, lunging left or right, circling each other, and so on.

Oh, and that someone was me.