How Should Taunting Work?

Krachek said:

An example.
A wizard ask its rat familiar to taunt a iron golem, and he succeed.

Some table and DM may be completely ashamed of this non sense behavior.
Some table and DM may find the situation hilarious, the Dm describe in detail how the golem notice and smash the familiar. Two weeks later they are still laughing at it.

Taunt is a matter of taste, play style and fun. It should remain DM controlled.

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Are Iron Golems susceptible to charm and fear? If not, I wouldn't allow an Iron Golem to be taunted, either. In fact, I'd probably write up the houserule (since I only instituted house rules that I'm comfortable being active in most campaigns, and write them up as a rough draft actual game rule) with a clause that creatures that are immune to charm or fear effects cannot be taunted.

doctorbadwolf said:

Are Iron Golems susceptible to charm and fear? If not, I wouldn't allow an Iron Golem to be taunted, either. In fact, I'd probably write up the houserule (since I only instituted house rules that I'm comfortable being active in most campaigns, and write them up as a rough draft actual game rule) with a clause that creatures that are immune to charm or fear effects cannot be taunted.

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You avoid my comment,
Maybe I should use lawyer terms. In place of iron golem, I should have use
« A huge monster of high CR targetable by taunting effect »!

Krachek said:

You avoid my comment,
Maybe I should use lawyer terms. In place of iron golem, I should have use
« A huge monster of high CR targetable by taunting effect »!

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I’m not obligated to engage with every single part of every comment made in the thread, bud.

I responded to what I found to be an interesting aspect of the discussion.

Edit: to your comment, since you’re being insistent, it isn’t always clear what you’re saying, but if I understand correctly, then the only distinction between the example and the same rat using the Help Action is that Help is already explicitly part of the game. In terms of narrative, it’s the same.

[MENTION=6704184]doctorbadwolf[/MENTION] - I think the point he was trying to make is that you shouldn't get too hung up on the specifics of the example. Iron Golem may have been a bad choice, but the point still remains, is allowing this sort of things to be put in the hands of the player good for the table?

At my table? Yup, no worries. Other DM's are far more controlling than I am though, so, they wouldn't like the idea that you could "force" them to do anything.

The inconsistency here is, as you point out, we can already do most of a "taunt" with something a heck of a lot smaller than a wolf. Granting advantage every round with a tiny familiar is perfectly fine. Because, apparently, if it's in the rules, then it makes it ok. However, a 150 pound angry wolf drawing aggro is apparently totally unbelievable.

Some folks are really, REALLY against anything like a house rule, particularly anything like a house rule proposed by a player. And you will never convince these folks otherwise.

doctorbadwolf said:

It’s weird to see you quote me from several posts,

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Um, there's one post between the one I quoted and this one, and you're talking about disadvantage in that one, which is not a topic I broach, so... huh?

lecture on balance of one of the two options I suggested as if it were my entire suggestion, and then present a thing along the same lines that I’ve been discussing with other posters as if it’s a new idea.

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I was not aware that I had to provide only new to you ideas in my posts instead of my reasonings and suggestions. Yes, I lectured, but that's because that option is very badly balanced and has serious issues. Again, why am I required to discuss all of your options? Too be frank, I was viewing via app, which does not show poll options, and your OP does not discuss the other

I’m confused. Genuinely.

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You're confused by my post, or confused because I didn't engage the other option and quoted the last post you made that wasn't about disadvantage on the check (not imposing disadvantage).

But your final sentence reveals that you made an assumption about my motivation here, and then constructed a response based primarily on that false assumption.

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Only if you think that it should incur OAs and BB secondaries. If you don't, then, no, no motivation necessarily assumed.

However, in your OP, you pretty clearly wanted the Ettin to suffer OAs and BB effects from the taunt attempt, so why you'd be upset I made the assumption you want the forced movement to incur OAs and BB effect is very, very weird. You clearly stated that was your intent in game.

Edit: also, that is absurdly clunky, weirdly constructed, and far more limited than effects almost ever are. Much simpler to just not say anything about movement, and also just impose disadvantage on attacks that don’t include you.

Like Ive already suggested in this thread.

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Good, you've abandoned the forced movement ideas -- those were terrible. I also like using social skills to impose disadvantage on the next attack not including the taunter. That can much more easily be used on PCs as well without engendering player anger for taking control of their characters. This is a much more well rounded idea, and balanced for and against PCs. Against, really, though, as PCs are rarely awesome at WIS and it's trivial to have lots of minion bad guys spamming this at PCs. Although, that might mean they'll be a stealth stat tax and skill tax, as Insight becomes pretty important if it's used to defend against taunts.

Probably better to not have taunting be a general skill use thing. Go with your idea of making it a feat.

Hussar said:

[MENTION=6704184]doctorbadwolf[/MENTION] - I think the point he was trying to make is that you shouldn't get too hung up on the specifics of the example. Iron Golem may have been a bad choice, but the point still remains, is allowing this sort of things to be put in the hands of the player good for the table?

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Right. I’m was just replying to an issue raised by his example, bc I found it interesting, and realized that any sub ability shouldn’t work on creature immune to charm or fear.

As for the concern over such an ability working on large, dangerous, creatures, I don’t really see an issue. If you want Legendary critters to be able to auto-ignore it (a bummer. If I’m playing Tasslehoff, the *point* is to be able to taunt ancient dragons and godlike entities), make it a save for the target, so they can use Legendary Resistence. Otherwise, a DM is always free o adjust DCs and apply adv/disadv, or even say the target is immune, for things like “duergar are notoriously unflappable” and “bulletes can’t even feel a wolf’s nip” and “the target is already enraged, and thus immune to such effects”, etc.

At my table? Yup, no worries. Other DM's are far more controlling than I am though, so, they wouldn't like the idea that you could "force" them to do anything.

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and I actually have come around to preferring the disadvantage option. Partly bc it makes it analogous to Trip/Disarm/Shove vs the Battle Master’s maneuvers. It takes an action, and all you do is that effect, where the specialist can do it as part of an attack, and gets an extra damage boost.

The inconsistency here is, as you point out, we can already do most of a "taunt" with something a heck of a lot smaller than a wolf. Granting advantage every round with a tiny familiar is perfectly fine. Because, apparently, if it's in the rules, then it makes it ok. However, a 150 pound angry wolf drawing aggro is apparently totally unbelievable.

Some folks are really, REALLY against anything like a house rule, particularly anything like a house rule proposed by a player. And you will never convince these folks otherwise.

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Yep, and honestly I don’t expect my buddy to accept any more house rules than we already have in that game. I’m more interested in seeing what folks think of the two main ways I saw to run it in my own games. I’ll run the ideas folks posited here by him, but if he doesn’t go for it, it’s no big deal.

Hussar said:

The inconsistency here is, as you point out, we can already do most of a "taunt" with something a heck of a lot smaller than a wolf. Granting advantage every round with a tiny familiar is perfectly fine. Because, apparently, if it's in the rules, then it makes it ok. However, a 150 pound angry wolf drawing aggro is apparently totally unbelievable.

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Seems to me the best solution is to let the wolf take the Help action and call it a taunt that distracts the target. If the player is trying to do this at-range (so the wolf can't get squashed), then a check seems appropriate - CHA (Deception) vs WIS (Insight) seems balanced to me.

Hussar said:

But, apparently a 150 pound wolf cannot possibly draw aggro from an opponent because that would be unbalancing and totally unbelievable.

People really set very strange bars to their belief.

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What would this "drawing aggro" look like?

Cap'n Kobold said:

What would this "drawing aggro" look like?

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Really?

Wolf jumps toward and snaps at the target, then drops back. Pretty much classic animal behavior. Ever see a dog go forward and back on something? Seems pretty simple to me, to be honest.

I mean, what does a house cat do to grant advantage to that fighter? What does that look like?

Hussar said:

I mean, what does a house cat do to grant advantage to that fighter? What does that look like?

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I think in 5e that's up to the player to describe what the familiar does to Help - if there is no conceivable way to Help, it doesn't happen. This is a big difference from 4e where the mechanics are defined and the fluff is 'just flavour text'. In 5e you start with the in-world reality and work forward to a mechanical resolution. In 4e you start with the mechanics and then describe what they look like in-world.

IMO, YMMV etc.