D&D 5E Splitting your Move - The Move-Attack-Move Dynamic

[Manbearcat]

Hey now, don't tell me what the job of the fighter is. This isn't 4e, man. Roles are out. 4e is still available if you want to play it.

!

Yes, you're right - I was looking at the general OA rules, not the Polearm Master feat. You do indeed get a Trip Monkey Dojo.

That said, while the Trip Monkey Dojo is a nasty combination, I don't think split-move contributes much to it. The basic dynamic of "whack the enemy from reach, then trip them when they try to close with you" works whether you have split-move or not. Split-move just gives you a bit more versatility in how you implement it.

Here is what I'm concieving:

1) Move within 10 > Attack + Prone Rider > Move away to set up 2.

2) On next turn if the enemy can somehow find a way to get within 10 feet of you (which won't be easy), they trigger an OA for moving into melee range (assuming standard reach) and potentially another Prone Rider (assuming superiority dice are available). Bare minimum you're an OA factory due to the split-move feature.

2a) Conversely, you can couple this with the Defender Feat (obviously couldn't get till level 8), it would be great melee control. If you can't ensure a 10 foot zone of control (thus bottlenecking them into your Trip Monkey Dojo), instead of moving further away (for outright action denial), you can just stay in melee range and keep up the catch-22 pressure of the target (3 control effects > Mark + OA factory + potential prone rider).

Its a great build by itself. If 5e goes live with large creatures with threatening reach (and/or prone rider) then it may turn into an escalating arms race where you really need to have a reach build to deal with that combo.

 

[Mistwell]

!


Here is what I'm concieving:

1) Move within 10 > Attack + Prone Rider > Move away to set up 2.

Just to foster communication, when you say "rider", and particular when you capitalize it, I am looking for an ability in the book balled Prone Rider. Because you're making it a named ability, and not a description. That, and I imagine this:

 

[Manbearcat]

Just to foster communication, when you say "rider", and particular when you capitalize it, I am looking for an ability in the book balled Prone Rider. Because you're making it a named ability, and not a description. That, and I imagine this:

Lol. Well played.

Yeah, unfortunately in my message board shorthand, I often have a bad habit of turning common nouns into proper nouns solely to draw the eye to the words (indicating they are the most relevant bits). Sort of an embedded TLDR. I guess it doesn't work sometimes.

 

[Greenfield]

I saw this in play in the first play-test I was involved in, at a convention.

I started calling it the "Conga-Line of Doom" . We'd form a battle line, with melee types in front and casters in the backfield.

If there was any spot where an opponent could slip through, they did. All of them. Each one would dash in, hit a squishy type, then retreat the same way. Then the next opponent would do the same. The way Initiative works allowed each opponent to perform their complete action before another, acting on the same Initiative, got to start, so each could take an optimum path, be in, out and gone before the next acted.

I questioned whether the conga-line was legal, and I was assured that it was not only legal, but intended to operate exactly as we were seeing it.

It was so bad it made me walk away. I don't do that casually.

Since then I've been told that this was not the intent, and that the rules had changed to prevent this abuse.

So if the announcement is that the abuse has been re-licensed then I think my walk-away will remain in effect, permanently.

It's not the specific maneuver, it's the mind set of the designers that it illustrates.

So let the conga-line proceed without me.

 

[Mistwell]

I saw this in play in the first play-test I was involved in, at a convention.

I started calling it the "Conga-Line of Doom" . We'd form a battle line, with melee types in front and casters in the backfield.

If there was any spot where an opponent could slip through, they did. All of them. Each one would dash in, hit a squishy type, then retreat the same way. Then the next opponent would do the same. The way Initiative works allowed each opponent to perform their complete action before another, acting on the same Initiative, got to start, so each could take an optimum path, be in, out and gone before the next acted.

I questioned whether the conga-line was legal, and I was assured that it was not only legal, but intended to operate exactly as we were seeing it.

It was so bad it made me walk away. I don't do that casually.

Since then I've been told that this was not the intent, and that the rules had changed to prevent this abuse.

So if the announcement is that the abuse has been re-licensed then I think my walk-away will remain in effect, permanently.

It's not the specific maneuver, it's the mind set of the designers that it illustrates.

So let the conga-line proceed without me.

There's no announcement. I was just reading the latest public playtest, talking about how it played out in our games, and asking how it played out in others.

In this instance, the foe would draw attacks of opportunity for that stunt. I think multiple opportunity attacks in fact.

 

[MerricB]

Since then I've been told that this was not the intent, and that the rules had changed to prevent this abuse.

At the time of that playtest, movement wasn't provoking opportunity attacks. It is in the most recent playtest rules.

It's a good thing to be concerned with - allowing everyone to do that doesn't really give a great play experience!

Cheers!

 

[dmgorgon]

Breaking Up A Move and the ability to move between multiattacks is one of my favorite feature of D&D Next. My friends also loved it immensely as soon as we first playtested it. It makes combat more dynamic and make movement more fluid and fun in general i think. You can move, open a door and resume your movement contrary to other editions for exemple. This enables you to do things more naturally and also makes multiattacking with Extra Attacks and Two-weapon fighting more flexible too. #PureGold

I totally agree, lets not nerf the martial classes like 3e did. It's already hard enough to give them nice things.

 

[Plaguescarred]

How has this changed your games, or if you have not had a chance to playtest much, how do you think it will change your games?

It increaased mobility drastically and has made combat more fluid IMO. Now you can move, open a door (or take any other action) and continue moving for exemple, which has never been possible before. Its one of my favorite feature of D&D Next!

And for DMs, are you finding monsters you send up against the party are using this new "feature" a lot? Or is it taking a while to get used to it?

No not alot as it require proper numbers (2+), location (large room proximity to 5' corridor), positioning (lone creature in corridor) and timing (all one side winning initiative). It happened to me before, but not all enemies went in before PCs started to act, thus breaking up the pattern.

Being within 25 feet or less of enemy (assuming a speed of 30 feet) means they can move up to you, attack and retreat but it only becomes a position of disadvantage if you are stuck with the rest of your party not able to do the same. But terrain and tactics do that, giving an advantage and often the best way to not expose yourself to it is to retreat further back to regroup.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Move-Attack-Move is one of those innovative design that i think will influences future RPGs to adopt similar rules.

 

[delericho]

Move-Attack-Move definitely sounds like a good thing, and much more the way things 'should' be.

It does sound like there's a problem with reach weapons, and especially polearms, though - at the very least, approaching a polearm wielder should grant an AoO. Though, really, use of a polearm or similar should grant a chance to prevent that opponent from closing the distance at all. That is, after all, the reason why such weapons even exist.