D&D 5E Attacking a Creature Engulfing A PC (or in a Grapple, I suppose)

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

Howdy folks!

I've flipped through the core books a few times in search of an answer, but can't seem to find any guidance, so I'm wondering how everyone else is ruling it at the table.

Take a look at a monster like the Darkmantle (which I'm using as a base for the delightfully creepy Skin Kite from 4e). It can attach to a creature and start crushing it. Since it's basically wrapping itself around a PC's head, my thought is it would be pretty easy to accidentally hit your ally if you were trying to damage the thing while it was attached.

While it didn't come up during my last game (jerk PCs had some incredible rolls, and I don't think I rolled above a 10 the entire night ), my "table ruling" was that if the creature was attached, anyone attacking it was also attacking the creature--so damage would be split evenly between them.

1. Am I missing something obvious in the RAW about this?
2. Any feedback on my current table ruling? Should I just allow full damage to both creatures? Give the creature being smothered a chance to avoid the damage?
3. Would you handle grappling and this sort of scenario differently, or the same way?

 

[Sunseeker]

My current game has "friendly fire". And yes, if you're stabbing something that is wrapped around a person, you do risk stabbing the person as well, but you have to beat both ACs.

There's some level of logic that breaks when you do this though. Something is wrapped around Joe's leg, well in slicing it off I injure Joe, but even if I cut Joe's leg completely off, it wouldn't necessarily kill him, but if Joe lost enough HP to it, he would "die". On the flip side, something is wrapped around Joe's head and I stab it....well in this situation only a few points of damage could completely kill Joe.

It's sort of an odd deal I think, because the amount of damage Joe takes is more related to what part of Joe's body is being attacked, so you might do 8 damage to the creature on Joe's head, but then do 40 damage to Joe.

 

[Kalshane]

My current game has "friendly fire". And yes, if you're stabbing something that is wrapped around a person, you do risk stabbing the person as well, but you have to beat both ACs.

There's some level of logic that breaks when you do this though. Something is wrapped around Joe's leg, well in slicing it off I injure Joe, but even if I cut Joe's leg completely off, it wouldn't necessarily kill him, but if Joe lost enough HP to it, he would "die". On the flip side, something is wrapped around Joe's head and I stab it....well in this situation only a few points of damage could completely kill Joe.

It's sort of an odd deal I think, because the amount of damage Joe takes is more related to what part of Joe's body is being attacked, so you might do 8 damage to the creature on Joe's head, but then do 40 damage to Joe.

Losing a leg can be pretty deadly between the shock and the blood loss.

I would say it isn't unreasonable to allow the PC being enveloped to take damage and/or be hit instead. I would say if the PC's AC is lower than the enveloping creature, then an attack that hits their AC but not the creature hits them instead. Or you could have the PC take half the damage taken by the creature. (I probably wouldn't do both, because it could get out of hand really quickly.)

You could throw a twist into it by saying you can take Disadvantage on the attack roll (to represent the attacker trying to be careful) to avoid possibly hitting your friend and to not cause damage to them if you do hit the creature.

 

[Roger]

1. Am I missing something obvious in the RAW about this?

You might consider how the Animated Object -- Rug of Smothering's ability of Damage Transfer works, for the RAW implementation of this concept.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[iserith]

Howdy folks!

I've flipped through the core books a few times in search of an answer, but can't seem to find any guidance, so I'm wondering how everyone else is ruling it at the table.

Take a look at a monster like the Darkmantle (which I'm using as a base for the delightfully creepy Skin Kite from 4e). It can attach to a creature and start crushing it. Since it's basically wrapping itself around a PC's head, my thought is it would be pretty easy to accidentally hit your ally if you were trying to damage the thing while it was attached.

While it didn't come up during my last game (jerk PCs had some incredible rolls, and I don't think I rolled above a 10 the entire night ), my "table ruling" was that if the creature was attached, anyone attacking it was also attacking the creature--so damage would be split evenly between them.

1. Am I missing something obvious in the RAW about this?
2. Any feedback on my current table ruling? Should I just allow full damage to both creatures? Give the creature being smothered a chance to avoid the damage?
3. Would you handle grappling and this sort of scenario differently, or the same way?

1. I don't believe so.

2. I think it'd prefer to keep it simple and just say that attacks against the attached creature have disadvantage. A hit is a hit, a miss is a miss, with no additional risk of hitting and applying damage to a fellow PC. This keeps things simple and encourages the use of teamwork or creativity to cancel out disadvantage (such as through the Help action).

3. I wouldn't apply the same adjudication to a creature that is grappling another.

 

[Kikuras]

Perhaps a less perfect suggestion would be to maybe apply some cover bonuses to the creature. If we're talking a full enveloping, then yeah there's logically a chance of hitting your friend, especially with piercing damage, where bludgeoning and slashing might be little more than blows glancing off of armor from the perspective of the endangered character. Anyway, the "defeat both ACs" might work well in that scenario. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the mass of the creature is going to absorb the greater part of the damage, as any cutting attack would need to go through the creature entirely before it gets to the PC, though bludgeoning might be an issue? I don't know, I'm just spit-balling thoughts here.

 

[Nebulous]

I seem to remember something about "half damage to monster, half the damage to the PC".

 

[jrowland]

Full Damage, Half Damage, No Damage, it's all table taste, really.

I would likely allow
1) PC to take disadvantage on the roll to grant resistance to the grappled/engulfed PC (ie take Dis for 1/2 damage to PC, full damage to creature)
2) PC to take advantage for full damage to PC and critical damage to creature
3) Nothing special for full damage to both

 

[Paraxis]

You might consider how the Animated Object -- Rug of Smothering's ability of Damage Transfer works, for the RAW implementation of this concept.



Cheers,
Roger

This.

The rug of smothering and cloaker both have the damage transfer ability and are both large creatures, I think darkmantle doesn't have this ability because it is a small creature.

 

[Sunseeker]

Losing a leg can be pretty deadly between the shock and the blood loss.

True, but the main point is still the difficulty in the representation of two different parts of the body being able to take the same hit and suffer more or less damage respectively. I'm reminded of the body-charts from Deadlands (or any other RPG with a body-target chart) wherein certain parts of the body take increasing damage and can potentially one-shot your character when their damage is maximized. If you're not familiar, in Deadlands each body section has a fixed amount of HP and your die-roll represents which body part takes damage. Maxing the damage to the leg or arm can result in a "dead leg" situation, damaged beyond repair but still attached or completely severed, depending. But if the gut, head or chest take maximum damage, you're DEAD, boom right there dropped DEAD.

Shock and blood-loss are well-represented by the SSSoD system of death saving throws already.