How useful is the Dodge action?

A couple of other common Dodge uses at our table include Patient Defense (aka Monk tanking) and combining with Spirit Guardians (cast and then subsequently dodge while moving forward to just let the spell melt everything).

TaranTheWanderer said:

Correct. That is using 'in-character' knowledge to make tactical choices. Which is fine. Some enemies might not make that same assumptions.

And Heavily armored guys who cast spells are not he only people who can do the dodge action, though. That said, being all 'dodgey' is probably pretty obvious and if your DM is always going to avoid the dodging PC then it's the best tactic to avoid getting hit, but not your best tactic as a tank. So then it comes down to how well your players can read their DM.

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You keep on ignoring that Spreading damage around is useful in itself.

All your arguments are against dodging preventing damage. It’s not always good at preventing damaging. But it is either good at preventing damage or spreading damage around. Both of which are team wins.

TaranTheWanderer said:

I'm not confused on how sanctuary works. If an enemy uses all its movement to approach and attack and then, consequently fails its save, and has no-one else to attack, it loses its action because it has no more movement and no-one else to attack.

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If the Ankheg started off 30 feet away from you, how did you know that you were its target to begin with? Since your objection is that the GM switched to a different target, not that he just picked the wizard to begin with, you had to have knowledge of who he was targeting. I don't see how your character would know that unless you were using some (unmentioned) mind reading ability, which means your decision to use sanctuary was based on OOC knowledge. Complaining that it's unreasonable for the DM to use OOC knowledge because it ruined a plan that you made that relied on OOC knowledge that you had is a bit hypocritical - if you're making plans that rely on OOC targeting knowledge, having the DM respond based on similar knowledge doesn't really seem objectionable.

In addition to dodging while holding a choke point, I find characters that can dodge and attack in the same turn can get a lot out of Dodging. Monks, Somebody with a reliable Reaction attack like Sentinel, or even the oft forgotten Frenzying Berserker.

I personally don't use Dodge a lot since I play a lot of Barbarians, and unless you are a Frenzying Berserker, its a fairly sure way to end a Rage prematurely.

[MENTION=6976536]OverlordOcelot[/MENTION]
I think you're making this out to be a big deal when it isn't.

When I dm, I play the opponents in a way that would be logical to their motives and their intelligence and their tactical and arcane knowledge guides the kind of decisions I make for them. I, personally, don’t change an action based on what a player does unless I feel it makes sense to change the action. Smarter opponents with knowledge of PCs abilities will change tactics more often to adapt while stupid enemies might keep slugging away.

I don’t change tactics based on ooc info. If I can help it. You are free to do it any way you like.


[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]“You keep on ignoring that Spreading damage around is useful in itself. ”

Actually, I’m not arguing for or against this. I didn’t touch on that point at all. But it’s probably true that it can be useful, especially if a DM uses dodge as a guide to attack someone other than the person dodging. (I assume that’s what you mean by spreading the damage, unless I’m misunderstanding. An enemy sees someone is hard to hit so they choose to attack someone else thus spreading the damage around.)

TaranTheWanderer said:

I don’t change tactics based on ooc info. If I can help it. You are free to do it any way you like.

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To me, if I cast sanctuary and the enemy avoids attacking me and attacks our wiZard instead, I’ve just wasted a spell slot. I should have just cast it on the wizard.

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You say that, but in your example of displeasure how did you know who the Ankheg was going to target? If you didn't have an in-character reason to be sure the Ankheg was going to target you, you had no reason to expect it to move 30' to attack you and then waste its attack if you cast sanctuary on yourself. And in your other objection (the second quote above), how would you know that the enemy was going to move 30' and attack the wizard instead of you so that you could cast sanctuary on him instead of you to force it to waste its action? When you spread your party out at least 15' from each other and all 30' away from the enemy and cast sanctuary to force the enemy to waste its attack if it charges a particular party member, you're either gambling or need to know who it's targeting in order to sanctuary the right person.

You're saying that you don't use OOC info to make your decisions, but your examples rely heavily on you using OOC info to make decisions as far as I can discern. If your party really does keep up mind reading abilities on giant insects then that's pretty unusual and kind of impressive, but if not then you don't have any way to get IC knowledge of who the enemy is going to target, so your sanctuary use actually does rely on OOC information.

Edit since it might not be clear what I'm getting at: Your objection to the sanctuary situation is that the DM used OOC knowledge to change the target of the Ankheg, which you feel made you waste your spell because your plan was for the Ankheg to come to you, attack, and (on a failed save) waste it's action. But the plan that was 'ruined' also relies on what appears to be OOC knowledge , so objecting that the DM used OOC knowledge to derail a plan that only works based on your OOC knowledge is rather hypocritical, and undermines your claim that you don't use OOC information yourself.

OverlordOcelot said:

You say that, but in your example of displeasure how did you know who the Ankheg was going to target? If you didn't have an in-character reason to be sure the Ankheg was going to target you, you had no reason to expect it to move 30' to attack you and then waste its attack if you cast sanctuary on yourself. And in your other objection (the second quote above), how would you know that the enemy was going to move 30' and attack the wizard instead of you so that you could cast sanctuary on him instead of you to force it to waste its action? When you spread your party out at least 15' from each other and all 30' away from the enemy and cast sanctuary to force the enemy to waste its attack if it charges a particular party member, you're either gambling or need to know who it's targeting in order to sanctuary the right person.

You're saying that you don't use OOC info to make your decisions, but your examples rely heavily on you using OOC info to make decisions as far as I can discern. If your party really does keep up mind reading abilities on giant insects then that's pretty unusual and kind of impressive, but if not then you don't have any way to get IC knowledge of who the enemy is going to target, so your sanctuary use actually does rely on OOC information.

Edit since it might not be clear what I'm getting at: Your objection to the sanctuary situation is that the DM used OOC knowledge to change the target of the Ankheg, which you feel made you waste your spell because your plan was for the Ankheg to come to you, attack, and (on a failed save) waste it's action. But the plan that was 'ruined' also relies on what appears to be OOC knowledge , so objecting that the DM used OOC knowledge to derail a plan that only works based on your OOC knowledge is rather hypocritical, and undermines your claim that you don't use OOC information yourself.

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You going on huge tangent. Is there a reason? You are taking a totally random example I used to make a judgement on how I play the game and calling me a hypocrite. Is there a reason why you are making personal attacks instead of talking about the ‘usefulness of the dodge action?’

TaranTheWanderer said:

You going on huge tangent. Is there a reason? You are taking a totally random example I used to make a judgement on how I play the game and calling me a hypocrite. Is there a reason why you are making personal attacks instead of talking about the ‘usefulness of the dodge action?’

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Now now Taran, you started this tangent by noting frustration with DMs who ignore dodging and spells like sanctuary. Overlord is basically saying turnaround is fair play, that as much as DMs may use in game knowledge to make their monsters more tactical, players can do it too.

Which is a personal choice. I try not to do it myself I when I run a game.

So back to my point, which is on topic: I was simply saying that dodging will vary depending on how the DM uses ooc knowledge and how true to character they play the opposition. I’m not sure how it came across as frustration but that happens with text.

TaranTheWanderer said:

You going on huge tangent. Is there a reason? You are taking a totally random example I used to make a judgement on how I play the game and calling me a hypocrite. Is there a reason why you are making personal attacks instead of talking about the ‘usefulness of the dodge action?’

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If it's a tangent, it's your tangent; the example you gave was initially confusing and didn't support what you said it did, then the further example contradicted what you were apparently trying to say. Also, I have deliberately and consciously avoided making personal attacks. I have discussed your statements in this thread and how your actions in your example conflict with your claim not to us OOC knowledge, but have not said anything aimed at you personally, only at your statements.

I'm discussing the example because you're being unfair to the DM in the example. You say he's using OOC knowledge to ruin a plan of yours, when your plan relied on OOC knowledge in the first place. In general, "We can use OOC knowledge but the DM is bad if she does" is unfair. In general, a DM who does things like 'oh, sanctuary, I'll just save an extra move-roll sequence and let it work automatically to save time' is making a completely reasonable decision to speed up combat resolution and (in normal circumstances) giving you a small buff. If there was actually an IC reason for the character to believe that the Ankheg was targeting him from a distance and no other characters were nearby, and you pointed out that his decision broke a plan, and he stuck with it just because, then it would be reasonable to question his behavior. But it doesn't sound like that's what happened, if the example was even a real event and not just a hypothetical.

Also I'll note that, 'Sanctuary makes opponents hesitate when they even think about attacking you' is not some grossly unfair nerf of the spell, it's an IMO reasonable 'this is how the spell interacts with the game world outside of rolls' decision based on the fact that the spell will affect a spell sniper sorc/warlock blasting you from 1200 feet away. It clearly does something to minds at a distance, and "lets try to fit what happens into the world instead of just treating it as a video game style effect" is the kind of behavior I actually want from a DM.

This is relevant to the thread because I don't think that DMs taking reasonable shortcuts during combat or giving spells a 'real world' effect that differs slightly from the literal game effect actually discourages the use of maneuvers like dodge. There may be some highly specific edge cases (like knowing who an enemy wants to hit and having everyone move away from them while you cast sanctuary on them) that suffer, but most of the time treating spells and effects more organically encourages more world interaction over simple rolls. And thus leads to more frequent uses of the dodge action than otherwise.