D&D 5E Move Attack Move: Issues with The New Standard for Combat

For D&D Next, you can break up your move, using part before your attack, and part after.

I recently found this rather effective for monsters. Indeed, it changed how the entire battle went.

I rolled initiative for a whole large group of Duerger, all one initiative. Now, perhaps that was a mistake, as it changed how things went.

There was a tight passageway, and one fighter held the front of the passageway, while the Duerger were in a room on one end of the passageway, and the rest of the players in another room on the other end (picture sort of a barbell map).

Normally in most prior editions of the game, the Duerger would have to use missile weapons in this situation, and maybe one would run in at the end and attack. Not so with D&D Next however.

Instead, one Duerger would move in, attack the fighter, and then move back out again. The first time this happened the fighter got an opportunity attack - but you only get one reaction per round, so all the subsequent attacks involved no opportunity attacks.

Then each of the other Duerger also ran in, attacked, and ran back out. The last one didn't have the move to get completely out of the passageway, but far enough back, and the rest got fully back to their room.

The party had the opportunity to do the same, but unless they readied ranged attacks, they had no target for ranged attacks on their turn.

It definitely changed the tenor of the encounter, relative to prior rules for D&D.

Has anyone found this rule changes how combats tend to run? Any positive or negative experiences with it?

This is an issue with the flow of time in a combat round, not the move-attack-move pattern. It's weird, but all turn-based combat systems will generate weird situations like that. It just happens that in 3E you'll need a bunch of duergars with the "spring attack" feat to create the same tactic. I hope we get a rules module with phases, ticks, or any other kind of abstraction that doesn't make D&D combat look like Final Fantasy Tactics.

In 4e we ruled that if all the monsters go on the same initiative, each one still counts as having his own turn, so the fighter would get the OA against each one. I would probably treat 5e the same way.

I think it would be more problematic if they all had ranged weapons and go all shoot down the hall, then move out of the way so the next guy could move in and shoot down the hall.

PS

Storminator said:

In 4e we ruled that if all the monsters go on the same initiative, each one still counts as having his own turn, so the fighter would get the OA against each one. I would probably treat 5e the same way.

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It's the fighter who only gets one reaction. He still gets only one, even if they all go on different init counts. I think you only get your reaction back once your own turn comes back around, and not on each initiative count.

I think it would be more problematic if they all had ranged weapons and go all shoot down the hall, then move out of the way so the next guy could move in and shoot down the hall.

PS

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It would have been the same thing, but if they have multi-attack with melee weapons (which many creatures do) it would be worse for the party this way. As it was, they had 1 javelin each, so fire and done with those. Running in, attacking with a war pick, and running back was better for the monsters.

in my group we haven't really made use of that rule yet because we don't use any kind of grid/visuals so a lot of details get skipped over. However as a GM I wouldn't do that or let the players perform that manuever. It seems to me that the whole point of the split move rule is to allow a character to make an attack while moving, not to allow them to move and then attack and then move again. it makes sense that someone can be running towards an objective and make an attack on someone else while running. it doesn't really make sense to me to have someone run up to someone else and stop , make an attack and then begin to move again. one situation is simply performing an action while moving, while the other is starting to move and then stopping and then starting to move again. I would consider the first move their entire move action, not just half of it. the move action must be a complete single move, not two discrete separate moves at different times in different directions.

As a DM, I simply wouldn't do that. If a group of monsters are all attacking, then have them behave as a group of attacking monsters would. Either they hang back and attack at range, or they charge as a group.

Mistwell said:

I rolled initiative for a whole large group of Duerger, all one initiative. Now, perhaps that was a mistake, as it changed how things went.
...
Instead, one Duerger would move in, attack the fighter, and then move back out again. The first time this happened the fighter got an opportunity attack - but you only get one reaction per round, so all the subsequent attacks involved no opportunity attacks.

Then each of the other Duerger also ran in, attacked, and ran back out. The last one didn't have the move to get completely out of the passageway, but far enough back, and the rest got fully back to their room.

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And I think that may be your problem right there.

You rolled one initiative, but then gave each individual *separate* movement actions. Now, I don't know Next perfectly but... I'm going to guess that there's the usual - "allied creatures can move through each other's locations, but cannot *stop* there" structure. To attack they need to stop and swing. So, essentially, you allowed them to be all in the same place at the same time! If they all moved on the same initiative, they should have moved *as a group*, not sequentially as individuals, and that would have meant that they couldn't all reach the fighter in the entryway.

Hmmm...good point. It hadn't occurred to me that with only one opportunity attack things like that are likely.

Here is what I'll do in those sorts of situations:

1. First, you have to have an opponent willing to take one for the team. If you don't have a leader with a whip, I have a hard time seeing most intelligent evil humanoids wanting to be the volunteer for the opportunity attack. So all things being equal, I'd probably have the first person hold position after his attack.
2. To avoid just that sort of thing, I'd probably split the monsters up into a couple of groups for initiative in that sort of situation. Yeah, it's just making a random judgement call, but it should help.

#1 isn't very effective for strategic players, however splitting up the opponents should reduce the effectiveness of players pulling that maneuver.

Yeah, that is way too group-thinky, if you ask me. Even if you don't assume that an initiative count is a single moment in time, how and why would a group of creatures coordinate an attack like that? If you imagine it, it's a bit bizarre.

Personally, I prefer to run monsters as to how I think they'd act, rather try and find a rules loophole for them to exploit. On the other hand, some may prefer to run it the other way, in which case, I'm not sure there's a problem, as long as the PCs can do the same thing.

I've seen this pop up most often with ranged attacks and attackers who are too fast for their melee counterparts.

Hide behind cover, move - shoot - move back into cover and away from your target. ...repeat until target is dead.