D&D 5E Hypnotic Pattern

Psikerlord# · Jun 23, 2015

1) Isnt it a concentration spell? Have the remaining opponents attack the wizard/bard and break concentration.

2) Just add more monsters. I love it when the party gets fireball, hypnotic pattern etc. I can really go to town on them then.

Coredump · Jun 23, 2015

It likely gets a bit over half of those in the area; which means on turn 1, the 'awake' half can just wake up the hypnotized half. the net effect is you deny them one round of actions. This is cool, but not quite an 'I win" button.
And if the bad guys are not neatly arranged in a 30x30 area, you have to deal with those also.

Lancelot · Jun 23, 2015

keterys said:
4) It's easy for those not affected to then wake up those who were affected, making it an effective 1 round stun instead of anything stronger

This is the one that I most identify with. Sometimes, for thematic reasons, you can't just shake up the types of creatures in the adventure. There may not be a logical opportunity to add a wizard with counterspell, or some undead, or whatever.

However, even humble bandits or goblins can get around it pretty easily with this approach (which also works for sleep, of course). Simply have the half of the group that wasn't caught by the spell spend their round "waking" the other. Yeah, they all lose a round... but given the alternative is they all take a 28 point fireball (or some other spell, in place of the pattern), it's a pretty fair trade.

Of course, if the wizard is catching nearly everyone within the pattern every time it's cast, you need to do something about tactical positioning. No halfway-intelligent group should be bunching up when there's a dude/dudess wearing funny robes and a pointy hat on the battlefield.

keterys · Jun 24, 2015

Coredump said:
It likely gets a bit over half of those in the area; which means on turn 1, the 'awake' half can just wake up the hypnotized half. the net effect is you deny them one round of actions.

Depending on initiatives, it might only take the action of a single monster. He wakes up the next guy in initiative, that guy wakes the next in line, etc. Meanwhilst everyone else can still take their turns.

jgsugden · Jun 24, 2015

keterys said:
Depending on initiatives, it might only take the action of a single monster. He wakes up the next guy in initiative, that guy wakes the next in line, etc. Meanwhilst everyone else can still take their turns.

Not quite - If half the group is caught, it takes the other half to wake them up ... if less than half are caught, then a portion of the uncaught ones get to act normally - and if more than half are caught, it'll take over a round to wake them all up. Whether it is done serially or randomly, the number of actions required does not change.

Uller · Jun 25, 2015

jgsugden said:
Not quite - If half the group is caught, it takes the other half to wake them up ... if less than half are caught, then a portion of the uncaught ones get to act normally - and if more than half are caught, it'll take over a round to wake them all up. Whether it is done serially or randomly, the number of actions required does not change.

I think you are missing his point. He is saying of the monsters that aren't hypnotized, only one has to give up an action to wake the others if the initiative order works out (or the DM manipulates the order in which they act if they act as a group).

Monsters A,B,C,D,E,and F. A,B,C fail their saves. On their turn, D wakes up A who wakes up B who wakes up C (who attacks?). But E and F still attack. As a DM I wouldn't do it because that's a bit cheesy, but pretty much legit rules wise.

miniaturehoarder · Jun 25, 2015

SpiderMonkey said:
Then they merely tie up who's left.

Is this legal by the rules? At a cursory glance, it appears to be: it requires an attack or an action to get someone out of it.

You just need to explain to them that "Incapacitated" doesn't mean what they think it does.

The incapacitated condition just prevents the target from taking actions and reactions, they still have all other defences, no bonuses are granted to attack them and so there is no reason they should be any easier to tie up than other combatants. Indeed I'd say the rough handling to put them into a position to tie them up definitely counts as the action it would take to snap the victim out of the spell.

keterys · Jun 25, 2015

Uller said:
I think you are missing his point. He is saying of the monsters that aren't hypnotized, only one has to give up an action to wake the others if the initiative order works out (or the DM manipulates the order in which they act if they act as a group).

Eh, I don't think the DM should manipulate the initiative order; the system doesn't support that. If a DM is having every monster act on the same initiative, though, he's got other problems to reconcile, so beats me how that works.

Monsters A,B,C,D,E,and F. A,B,C fail their saves. On their turn, D wakes up A who wakes up B who wakes up C (who attacks?). But E and F still attack. As a DM I wouldn't do it because that's a bit cheesy, but pretty much legit rules wise.

Would your players not do the same thing?

Whether it's being used against PCs or monsters, if we assume combatants 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 who are in initiative order 1-8:

1,3,5,7 are hypnotized: 1 definitely loses his action. 2 should try to get to 3 to wake him up. 3 can then get to 5 to wake him up. Any of 4-6 can wake up 7 and the other 2 attack. You lost 6 of 8 turns to the spell total.

2,4,6,8 are hypnotized: 1 wakes up 2 who wakes up 4 etc - You lost 5 of 8 turns to the spell total.

And for higher level tactics...
2,4,6,8 are hypnotized: 1 attacks multiple of them (eldritch blast, punches, burning hands, scorching ray, etc) - You lost 1 of 8 turns to the spell total.

Uller · Jun 25, 2015

keterys said:
Eh, I don't think the DM should manipulate the initiative order; the system doesn't support that. If a DM is having every monster act on the same initiative, though, he's got other problems to reconcile, so beats me how that works.

Would your players not do the same thing?

Whether it's being used against PCs or monsters, if we assume combatants 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 who are in initiative order 1-8:

1,3,5,7 are hypnotized: 1 definitely loses his action. 2 should try to get to 3 to wake him up. 3 can then get to 5 to wake him up. Any of 4-6 can wake up 7 and the other 2 attack. You lost 6 of 8 turns to the spell total.

2,4,6,8 are hypnotized: 1 wakes up 2 who wakes up 4 etc - You lost 5 of 8 turns to the spell total.

And for higher level tactics...
2,4,6,8 are hypnotized: 1 attacks multiple of them (eldritch blast, punches, burning hands, scorching ray, etc) - You lost 1 of 8 turns to the spell total.

Oh I'm not advocating this approach. Just pointing out how it's possible. My group uses the roll initiative every rou d variant. If at the start of the round you are unable to act you don't even roll init. So these sort of shenanigans dont happen for PCs or monsters.

keterys · Jun 25, 2015

Uller said:
Oh I'm not advocating this approach. Just pointing out how it's possible. My group uses the roll initiative every rou d variant. If at the start of the round you are unable to act you don't even roll init. So these sort of shenanigans dont happen for PCs or monsters.

So in your group, you hope that at least one person who makes their save has a lower initiative than the caster, so they can wake people up before the end of the round. That's pretty different, too.

I think I highly disapprove of not rolling for initiative if you can't act. You need to know when to make a save often enough, when to trigger certain effects, and someone can always help you out.

D&D 5E Hypnotic Pattern

Psikerlord#

Explorer

Coredump

Explorer

Lancelot

Adventurer

keterys

First Post

jgsugden

Legend

Uller

Adventurer

miniaturehoarder

First Post

keterys

First Post

Uller

Adventurer

keterys

First Post

Similar Threads