D&D 5E Initiative and Saves

[AmerginLiath]

Both of these have tradeoffs, of course. If the wizard readies, the spell could be disrupted, the orc gets a round of attacks in before the paralysis hits, and the wizard gives up the ability to cast shield for a round. If the fighter and rogue ready, they sacrifice their ability to make OAs for a round. (Overall, I would say it's almost always better to have the fighter and rogue be the ones to ready attacks. However, it can be hard to coordinate that kind of thing.)

One of the things that I'm loving about the 5e ruleset, the more that I look into it, is the tradeoffs. Opportunity cost is BIG in this edition. We see here the idea of risk vs. reward that's hard to fully optimize as one correct answer – either could go right or wrong depending on a number of variables and the default order might prove the least tricky option (less chance of reward, but without the risk of spending the opportunity cost of reactions for nothing if saves are made). The beauty of of bounded accuracy is this specific "swinginess" that makes it all a tactical gamble based as heavily on specific circumstances (the Inspiration rules on Advantage) as anything else...

 

[Celtavian]

Since the save is at the end of the turn, the NPC still loses a round of actions. Even if you readied a spell to cast it, he would still get the save at the end of his turn. Spells in 5E are not meant to last very long. That is by design.

 

[KarinsDad]

Right. In the bigger picture, the Wizard is denied the hyper-optimal choice of tactics because he rolled low for initiative. Having rolled low for initiative, using the better initiative as a comparison point exaggerates the issue. Rolling low on initiative has a natural cost that is intended to shape the decision space of the player. The question what a PC does once s/he is stuck choosing from less than hyper-optimal choices.

Except that you are framing it as rolling low on initiative. It doesn't have to be.

The wizard could roll the best initiative. Followed by the BBEG. Followed by other PCs and NPCs.

Same situation. The wizard gets effectively penalized just as much for rolling the best whereas rolling second best would often be more advantageous.

The roll is irrelevant, it's the overall placement and timing.

 

[KarinsDad]

PCs don't know about initiative as such; but they do understand timing. You're timing your spell to hit the BBEG just as your allies are about to start their counterattacks, so that the BBEG has less time to shake off the effect before they strike. "At the end of the BBEG's turn" is just a shorthand way of expressing that.

"I ready when PC 1 moves" also works.

Yes, but how does one express this within an "in character" framework so that it doesn't feel like the metagaming of "I ready for when the BBEG's turn is over".

 

[KarinsDad]

5E Readying costs you a reaction, which was not the case in 3E, but it doesn't cause a permanent initiative hit. As long as you're confident of not having your concentration disrupted, you can take advantage of this to double-tap a foe; for example, Otto's irresistible dance to impose disadvantage on Dex saves, followed by disintegrate before the target has a chance to break the effect.

As in every edition, mastery of the initiative rules is a powerful thing.

Thanks for the double tap idea. In my advanced stage of age, I probably would have never thought of that on my own. I can see a lot of advantage to that.

 

[KidSnide]

I think it's not so much about the Wizard readying, as that the other party members should ready their attacks to trigger immediately after the Wizard casts Hold Person. Characters don't know about turns, but they can understand "Hold your attacks until I render this foe paralyzed by my mighty magic!" Hold Person had this same issue in 3e.

Let's assume the orc fails its first save and makes its second save. Here's one possible initiative sequence:

Fighter: Attacks the orc normally.
Rogue: Attacks the orc normally.
Wizard: Casts hold person. Orc fails its first save and is paralyzed.
Orc: Loses its action, makes its second save. Orc is no longer paralyzed.
Fighter: [combat continues]

Compare to:

Wizard: Casts hold person. Orc fails its first save and is paralyzed.
Fighter: Attacks the orc with advantage for an automatic crit.
Rogue: Attacks the orc with advantage for an automatic crit, including double Sneak Attack damage.
Orc: Loses its action, makes its second save. Orc is no longer paralyzed, but is probably dead anyhow.
Wizard: [combat continues]

Bganon is correct. If the PCs want to use ready action to coordinate attacks, the sequence goes:

Fighter: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Rogue: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Wizard: Casts hold person. Orc fails its first save and is paralyzed.
Fighter: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit.
Rogue: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit, including double Sneak Attack damage.
Orc: Loses its action, makes its second save. Orc is no longer paralyzed.
Fighter: [combat continues]

Sure - this doesn't produce the exact outcome you would get with a Hold action. In 5e, the Fighter and Rogue have to expend their Reactions in order to make this sequence work and suffer some consequences if the Orc's allies do something while the PCs are concentrating fire. But at the same time, the Fighter and Rogue don't move down in the initiative, which doesn't matter if the Orc is the only enemy, but could make a difference if the Orc has allies.

But overall, I think it's a fine result: the PCs can effectively reorder their actions if they are fighting a single opponent, but this doesn't force the DM to futz with the initiative order and there may be some consequences if the PCs try to do this in a more complicated fight (or the BBG has a legendary action it can take between when the PC readies an action and when the PC carries it out). I can see how some groups will houserule a Hold action back into the game, but overall this seems like a good tradeoff. Simplifying initiative-related actions by by consolidating Hold and Ready, certainly makes combat options easier to explain.

-KS

 

[Cannyjiggit]

Bganon is correct. If the PCs want to use ready action to coordinate attacks, the sequence goes:

Fighter: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Rogue: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Wizard: Casts hold person. Orc fails its first save and is paralyzed.
Fighter: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit.
Rogue: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit, including double Sneak Attack damage.
Orc: Loses its action, makes its second save. Orc is no longer paralyzed.
Fighter: [combat continues]

Sure - this doesn't produce the exact outcome you would get with a Hold action. In 5e, the Fighter and Rogue have to expend their Reactions in order to make this sequence work and suffer some consequences if the Orc's allies do something while the PCs are concentrating fire. But at the same time, the Fighter and Rogue don't move down in the initiative, which doesn't matter if the Orc is the only enemy, but could make a difference if the Orc has allies.

But overall, I think it's a fine result: the PCs can effectively reorder their actions if they are fighting a single opponent, but this doesn't force the DM to futz with the initiative order and there may be some consequences if the PCs try to do this in a more complicated fight (or the BBG has a legendary action it can take between when the PC readies an action and when the PC carries it out). I can see how some groups will houserule a Hold action back into the game, but overall this seems like a good tradeoff. Simplifying initiative-related actions by by consolidating Hold and Ready, certainly makes combat options easier to explain.

-KS

I quite like this approach and works with realistic mechanics as well (compared to the often seen "well it's not against the rules" line). "Jump him after I cast my spell!"
My personal fear is that we always play to 'if the players can do it then so can the monsters' so a well organised and drilled group concentrating fire on just one of our players like this could be just as devastating. The fortunate side is that we are all primarily roleplayers (including the DM) so this would have to be a particularly well drilled and co-operative group.
It wouldn't work so well with our current characters because the personalities wouldn't allow it, if the dwarf has something to hit, she's going to hit it no matter how many times you ask her not to. Its been hard enough work to get her to stick near the paladin and make a 'line' with him to help Area effect placements as it is.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The roll is irrelevant, it's the overall placement and timing.

That placement and timing can matter is the very purpose for which we bother to roll initiative at all. The relevant question is whether 5e would be improved by the addition of Delay to the initiative rules.

I do not feel strongly either way at this point. It is different. As you noted, Double Tap is potentially very powerful.

 

[KarinsDad]

Since the save is at the end of the turn, the NPC still loses a round of actions. Even if you readied a spell to cast it, he would still get the save at the end of his turn. Spells in 5E are not meant to last very long. That is by design.

While what you say is technically true, I suspect that most players will think that the spell is worthwhile as an action denial plus multi-player advantage plus multi-player melee auto-crit effect, but not quite that good of a spell for merely action denial.

 

[KarinsDad]

Bganon is correct. If the PCs want to use ready action to coordinate attacks, the sequence goes:

Fighter: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Rogue: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Wizard: Casts hold person. Orc fails its first save and is paralyzed.
Fighter: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit.
Rogue: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit, including double Sneak Attack damage.
Orc: Loses its action, makes its second save. Orc is no longer paralyzed.
Fighter: [combat continues]

Sure - this doesn't produce the exact outcome you would get with a Hold action. In 5e, the Fighter and Rogue have to expend their Reactions in order to make this sequence work and suffer some consequences if the Orc's allies do something while the PCs are concentrating fire. But at the same time, the Fighter and Rogue don't move down in the initiative, which doesn't matter if the Orc is the only enemy, but could make a difference if the Orc has allies.

But overall, I think it's a fine result: the PCs can effectively reorder their actions if they are fighting a single opponent, but this doesn't force the DM to futz with the initiative order and there may be some consequences if the PCs try to do this in a more complicated fight (or the BBG has a legendary action it can take between when the PC readies an action and when the PC carries it out). I can see how some groups will houserule a Hold action back into the game, but overall this seems like a good tradeoff. Simplifying initiative-related actions by by consolidating Hold and Ready, certainly makes combat options easier to explain.

-KS

The problem with this approach is that if the Orc makes his first save, then the Readied actions of multiple PCs could be totally disrupted. Much better to possibly disrupte the single Readied action of the caster than it is to disrupt multiple PC actions. A simple way to do this if the fighter and rogue are in melee with the Orc is for the Orc to disengage. PCs lost three actions, NPCs lost one action. The overall result of this particular PC tactic is to get an action economy loss. Sounds like a subpar tactic.

The problem (table depending) on having the spell caster ready an action is that the Orc gets an action first, and it might be difficult to declare a valid condition that will occur immediately after the Orc's turn. If the DM does not mind if the player readies an action for when the Orc's turn is over, then this difficulty does not exist.