D&D 5E Playing Next without a Grid - Fighting Style: Protection

[Sadras]

For those that are using 'theatre of mind' rather than a battle grid in Next, how do you deal with the Fighter Class's: Fighting Style - Protection. Is it merely hand waived by most of you?
I have a Paladin and a Fighter-Cleric in my group and of course 'Protection' is often utilised by both of them to defend their allies as it should, but I find without a grid this can be easily abused since everything/one is really 'floating' per se in 'theatre of mind'

I have decided, for my own piece of mind, to utilise a battle grid for the important encounters (story-pushing) and rather hand waive it in the resource-draining encounters.
Just wondered what the majority of groups have decided about this.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Usually a character focused on protection will declare that they're staying close to another party member to protect them. Otherwise, I just tell them to interrupt me if they want to use that ability and they think they're close enough to do it. Finally, if I have to make a ruling, ambiguity usually but not always works in favor of the PCs.

 

[Teataine]

I personally don't have a problem with tracking everyone's relative position in my head. 99% of the time abstracts to adjecent/nearby/far, which some systems actually codify in the rules. So if you're adjecent you can use it, otherwise you don't. You don't need a battlemat for that, just say if you get close to someone or away from someone when your PC moves.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I find its easier to go gridless if individual initiative is abandoned. You can say " I'm staying close to the fighter" but if the fighter acts on 17 and moves and you don't get an action until 10, and something happens to you between the 17 and 10 count, its hard to argue that you were next to the fighter.

Group initiative and gridless play are like peas & carrots. If you are going to use one, then adopt the other.

 

[Sadras]

Thanks all for your input.

 

[Blackwarder]

I find its easier to go gridless if individual initiative is abandoned. You can say " I'm staying close to the fighter" but if the fighter acts on 17 and moves and you don't get an action until 10, and something happens to you between the 17 and 10 count, its hard to argue that you were next to the fighter.

Group initiative and gridless play are like peas & carrots. If you are going to use one, then adopt the other.

Do you guys roll initiative once per combat or once per round?

Warder

 

[ExploderWizard]

Do you guys roll initiative once per combat or once per round?

Warder

Initiative is a simple d6 roll rolled each round with spell declarations announced before the roll. The players take turns rolling initiative for thier side and can coordinate actions with thier men-at-arms to formulate plans that will help them support each other. Everyone stays focused on the action and expresses a team mentality.

I found that combats with individual cyclical initiative got predictable. Everyone knows the batting order and exactly when enemy X gets to do something. I would never do round by round init. rolls individually. The simple group rolls go fast and the uncertainty of not knowing exactly when you get to act in the coming round or if your spell will go off adds a fun tension to the combat.

 

[Blackwarder]

Initiative is a simple d6 roll rolled each round with spell declarations announced before the roll. The players take turns rolling initiative for thier side and can coordinate actions with thier men-at-arms to formulate plans that will help them support each other. Everyone stays focused on the action and expresses a team mentality.

I found that combats with individual cyclical initiative got predictable. Everyone knows the batting order and exactly when enemy X gets to do something. I would never do round by round init. rolls individually. The simple group rolls go fast and the uncertainty of not knowing exactly when you get to act in the coming round or if your spell will go off adds a fun tension to the combat.

You did this in dndnext?

Warder

 

[Johnny Champion]

Every Round, Every PC

Sorry to jump in...but we changed the Next Initiative to Segment based (d6 where 1=1st sec, 6=6th sec). We do this EVERY round and for EVERY PC. My players enjoy the variety of an INIT roll each round. As the DM, I still roll INIT for groups of monsters (like a bunch of orcs) but their leader will get a separate d6. After declaring their action for the round, they all roll a d6 and keep it visible. We have 4 round system that allows dexterity modifiers to reduce the die roll by 1. Ties amount to simultaneous actions so all PCs and monsters get their chance. The players/monsters remove their d6 from the table when their action is complete. I initially used INIT once per combat but players insisted otherwise. Since all spell casters MUST declare if they are casting spells before INIT is rolled, we re-introduced spell interuption if a spell caster takes damage before his/her segment is called.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You did this in dndnext?

Warder

No. I run OD&D.

I only ran one Next playtest and used the RAW method (because the point of a playtest is to test ) When the game is released I will give the default method a try if I run it at all. If it doesn't work for us then I will implement something similar to our OD&D method.