D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[FormerlyHemlock]

Smart casters won't get anywhere near combat or will build a caster class with a high AC. Who cares how smart your creatures are. Combats last 2 or 3 rounds. How soon do they figure out who the caster is and then how to take them out while the martials are hammering on them?

I keep this hearing this rubbish. You seem to think the martials stand there watching the humanoids run by them hammering the casters doing nothing and that the casters stand where they can be easily gotten to casting spells. Smart casters get nowhere near battle, nor let on that they're the casters until the martials are engaged. The battle is almost over by the time they're casting mop up spells or cantrips to finish off mobs that have been beaten down.

What kind of group do you play in? Groups where the casters run up first and start launching spells? I don't play in those kind of groups. Casters if the win initiative, usually defer their actions and hang back until the martials are clearly engaged and obstructing the path. Then they start casting spells as needed to make sure we win. They may not cast more than a few cantrips for most battles letting the martials hammer.

Also, in campaigns in which all monsters predictably engage in in "kill the guy wearing robes first," well, that's what Seeming is for. Now the monsters are actually preferentially attacking the tanks because they look like squishies. And if they don't, and they keep attacking the spellcasters even before they cast spells and even though they look like big armored knights--in that case, your DM is a metagaming jerk who isn't roleplaying the monsters correctly.

 

[Imaro]

As the DM with the gnolls, I can tell you what the specifics were, so you don't have to guess (and especially not make guesses meant to strengthen your own discussion points).

The encounter was meant to trial the mob rules of the DMG, where the DM makes a single melee attack roll for, say, half a dozen enemies. The purpose was to see if characters approaching the end of tier II (I can't remember their exact level) are sturdy enough to withstand weak enemies numerous enough to justify the mob rules. Hence, I used regular Gnolls with their bites and spears but no longbows. Feel free to disagree with this, but please don't use it to make assumptions on the overall issue.

What mob rules were you using... the one's in the DMG don't require you roll for anything...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As the DM with the gnolls, I can tell you what the specifics were, so you don't have to guess (and especially not make guesses meant to strengthen your own discussion points).

The encounter was meant to trial the mob rules of the DMG, where the DM makes a single melee attack roll for, say, half a dozen enemies. The purpose was to see if characters approaching the end of tier II (I can't remember their exact level) are sturdy enough to withstand weak enemies numerous enough to justify the mob rules. Hence, I used regular Gnolls with their bites and spears but no longbows. Feel free to disagree with this, but please don't use it to make assumptions on the overall issue.

But... if they don't have longbows, then they're not "regular gnolls."

Gnoll
Medium humanoid (gnoll), chaotic evil

Armor Class 15 (hide armor, shield)
Hit Points 22 (5d8)
Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
14 (+2) 12 (+1) 11 (+0) 6 (-2) 10 (+0) 7 (-2)
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages Gnoll
Challenge 1/2 (100 XP)

Special Traits
Rampage: When the gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, the gnoll can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.
Actions
Bite: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.
Spear: Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage, or 6 (1d8 + 2) piercing damage if used with two hands to make a melee attack.
Longbow: Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) piercing damage.

Longbows are kind of fundamental to the 5E gnoll's tactical identity. They're not as mobile as orcs (no Aggressive), and not as heavily-armored as hobgoblins. Gnolls are the "quickly-reproducing versatile horde attacker with low AC and high HP" creature.

I'm baffled why, if you're trying to test out the rules for mob attacks, you'd purposefully take away the thing that allows them all to make mob attacks. I can only conjecture from your words above that you somehow didn't know that 5E gnolls come with longbows.

Edit: It's also kind of weird that you take a spell which calls for the appearance of demonic or angelic protectors and rule that it's visually just a "slight shimmer". The spell text says, "They flit around you to a distance of 15 feet for the duration. If you are good or neutral, their spectral form appears angelic or fey (your choice). If you are evil, they appear fiendish." But fine, okay, you modified Spirit Guardians for your campaign, whatever.

Hordes of well-played range-equipped creatures are murder on Tier II/III PCs who aren't specifically prepared to counter them. The experiment you ran led you to a conclusion diametrically opposite the truth.

 

[hawkeyefan]

As the DM with the gnolls, I can tell you what the specifics were, so you don't have to guess (and especially not make guesses meant to strengthen your own discussion points).

The part of the discussion on the gnolls was of course limited by what you had shared. We only had what you said to go off of, and while it certainly seemed to be an incomplete picture, it was enough for people to notice it and discuss.

The encounter was meant to trial the mob rules of the DMG, where the DM makes a single melee attack roll for, say, half a dozen enemies. The purpose was to see if characters approaching the end of tier II (I can't remember their exact level) are sturdy enough to withstand weak enemies numerous enough to justify the mob rules. Hence, I used regular Gnolls with their bites and spears but no longbows. Feel free to disagree with this, but please don't use it to make assumptions on the overall issue.

So would you say that your desire to test the mob rules was paramount? Or were you actually trying to challenge the players? Or both?

Another choice of mine was that any Gnoll that witnessed the death of an ally through the Spirit Guardian area would attempt to avoid entering it. But that these Gnolls would otherwise not know the aura's exact purpose. If they could attack somebody without a magical shimmer, they would.

Well, I'd say the fact that it hurts is obvious, and we seem to agree on that. The slowing effect would be more subtle, so I could see a DM going either way if it was noticed by the gnolls. I'd probably assume some noticed and some didn't.

However, the "magical shimmer" seems off. An aura of angelic spirits is a bit different from a magical shimmer. I guess that doesn't matter all that much because the gnolls would avoid the aura anyway.

Now, in order to get within their spear's short range, they must come awfully close to the area. This enables the Cleric to catch plenty of them by simply moving forward ten feet or so. So it's no surprise many were caught, either by charging into the field or by being too close.

Those who charged was slowed down by the spell's other effect, ensuring almost no gnoll survived to make melee attacks at all (since they need to survive two helpings of damage; an not inconsiderable amount of damage given that the Cleric cast the spell at his highest spell level; level 4 I believe)

Were the cleric's allies within the aura? The gnolls could survive long enough to attack other party members within the aura.

And limiting them to the spear rather than a longbow certainly affects the encounter. I know that you had your reasons for the encounter, but I think it's clear that this may have played differently if they had longbows.

At least one round there were probably two dozen ranged attacks at the Cleric. It wouldn't surprise me if he took 40 attacks in total. But with outstanding AC and actively dodging, very few were hits. And with optimized Concentration checks (proficiency and advantage) none came even close to disrupting his Spirit Guardians.

That's a lot of attacks to make it all the way through without losing concentration. Dodging of course has a huge impact.

Had the Spirit Guardians failed, he could not have withstood all the incoming attacks himself. If he was super-unlucky the first Gnoll breaks his concentration; but more likely he would survive to bring back up the spell again. Of course, this would be noticeably weaker, since it would probably be cast at a lower level, and there would be no time to dodge. In all these cases, the rest of the party would have had to move in to help out.

As for the caster's position, this fight took place in semi-narrow underdark tunnels. (Either wide corridors or narrow rooms; the width and height varied mostly between 10 and 20 ft). Of course, I didn't have all Gnolls attack from a single direction, that would have made it too easy to stop them - I had placed four approach tunnels one of which came out in the chamber's ceiling.

The party had heard the gnolls yapping for a while, so they were not surprised. The Warlock felt it necessary to expend a Wall of Fire to stop the first squad of Gnolls, thereby giving everyone else a round to position.

The Cleric positioned himself so that no (or few) Gnolls could pass him by, if we include the 15 ft radius from the spell. He did so by moving right underneath the opening in the ceiling - making it rain dead and dying Gnolls all over the place.

Gotcha. I suppose it depends on how frequently Spirit Guardians comes into play for your party....mine tends to use it quite a lot, so when I design encounters, I always have it in mind.....but it sounds to me like you designed the encounter to funnel all the gnolls into the spell. Limiting their range, having all approach points terminate within the spell's radius....that kind of setting things up to work out exactly as they did, no?

In this case, I freely admit that given other terrain and effective ranged weapons, Spirit Guardians would have played a much diminished role.

But it certainly is an anti-test-the-mob-rules spell!

And it kind of nailed down my belief that there is an urgent need of humanoid stat blocks in the 30-50 hp range.

Gotcha. I think the important thing about this encounter is that you had a reason other than just a story element....you wanted to test the mob rules. I think that seems to have really had an impact on the encounter, which probably doesn't make it the most useful example in a discussion of either ranged efficacy or of sound monster tactics.

My other "swarm" encounter (that came soon after the Gnoll fight) worked much better, if by "better" we mean the characters were severely challenged and the players had to pull out every trick in their book to survive. Or in other words, the kind of encounter that make the game worth playing

It notably featured homemade Grimlocks where I blatantly ignore the impractical idea of bounded accuracy and instead make it work.

But instead of me guesstimating the CR of these monsters, how about I show the encounter to you, and you can judge for yourself

1 Fomorian (MM136, but large, not huge) riding on an Umber Hulk mount (MM292) crashing out from a wall while the party descends a vertical shaft (one with lots of cracks and passages). Behind it, a dozen Elite Grimlocks (MM175 plus below) spend their "surprise round" action to swarm out and down to make area spells difficult. The only actual attack on the first (surprise) round would be the Umber Hulk's gaze, IIRC.

Elite Grimlocks (three varieties, four each):
Grimlock Cannibal: 25 hp, Speed 40 ft; Bone Club +5 for 1d6+3 dmg, Grisly totem (+5 AC single-use; like a Shield spell); Blood Frenzy: bonus attack against wounded foe
Grimlock Brute: 40 hp, Two-handed Spiked Bone Greatclub +6 for 1d8+4 blunt dmg, on ⚃-⚅: nasty gash for 1d8+4 extra slashing dmg; Bloodied Fury: bonus attack when bloodied
Grimlock Warrior: 30 hp, dual-wielding two Spiked Bone Clubs: two attacks at +5 for 1d6+3 dmg, on ⚄-⚅: nasty gash for 1d6+3 slashing dmg

This is my kind of interesting monster variety. You'll note the terms "wounded" and "bloodied" - they mean "at less than max hp" and "at less than half max hp" respectively. All three varieties have their own way of generating twice as much damage (Cannibals making a second attack if foe is wounded; Brutes making a second attack when bloodied themselves; and Warriors always doing two attacks). Also, there's the use of variable damage (for the spiked clubs) to further increase the players' excitement.

And don't forget the "evil" synergy between how the master and his steed both having gaze attacks, and his servants all being blind and thus immune! Let me tell you, these stats combined with the fact the monsters achieved total surprise, made for a fight that was as memorable as it was difficult! The players were visibly shaken once they had vanquished their last foe. If I remember, three out of five characters were down to single-digit hp! Even better, it was reasonably fast - it didn't drag out into a stalemate or something. Just a desperate and very grisly deathmatch

All of these mechanics are shamelessly lifted from 4E, whose Monster Manual in my opinion is a vastly more interesting and useful D&D supplement than the 5E MM.

Now, what CR would you peg something like the Grimlock Cannibal...?

That's a cool encounter. I think it is the exact kind of example of how terrain and tactics can have a huge impact. Let me ask....in this encounter, were the party's ranged attacks overwhelmingly more effective?

I'd probably put the grimlock cannibal at a CR comparable to that of gnolls, which I think is 1/2. Maybe they'd be a full CR 1 due to the fact that they will often get bonus attacks? But even then, I don't really see them being so much more effective than a gnoll, in a one for one comparison.

Of these two encounters, it's definitely a case of the tactics and environment being the major factor. If you replace the elite grimlocks with gnolls straight from the MM, I don't even think that the difficulty would change all that much, except that the gnolls would be at risk for the gazes.

 

[happyhermit]

As the DM with the gnolls, I can tell you what the specifics were, so you don't have to guess (and especially not make guesses meant to strengthen your own discussion points).

The encounter was meant to trial the mob rules of the DMG, where the DM makes a single melee attack roll for, say, half a dozen enemies.

The mob rules in the DMG apply to ranged or melee attacks.

The purpose was to see if characters approaching the end of tier II (I can't remember their exact level) are sturdy enough to withstand weak enemies numerous enough to justify the mob rules. Hence, I used regular Gnolls with their bites and spears but no longbows. Feel free to disagree with this, but please don't use it to make assumptions on the overall issue.

Well, if that was the purpose, then taking away their longbows was a mistake. The Gnolls should have done fine with just spears, but taking away their longbows in a "test" is not a good idea.

Another choice of mine was that any Gnoll that witnessed the death of an ally through the Spirit Guardian area would attempt to avoid entering it. But that these Gnolls would otherwise not know the aura's exact purpose. If they could attack somebody without a magical shimmer, they would.

Well, there are spirits flitting around in a defined radius, killing their allies. It doesn't look good.

Now, in order to get within their spear's short range, they must come awfully close to the area. This enables the Cleric to catch plenty of them by simply moving forward ten feet or so. So it's no surprise many were caught, either by charging into the field or by being too close.

As they charged up, how could all of the Gnolls avoid attacking when they first got into range. 70 medium humanoids take up a lot of room, and many will end their charges in range, it is hard to imagine how none of them attacked before 30'.

Also, how many spear throwing Gnolls would need to die before they took a step back from the slaughter and tossed them from a safer place.

Those who charged was slowed down by the spell's other effect, ensuring almost no gnoll survived to make melee attacks at all (since they need to survive two helpings of damage; an not inconsiderable amount of damage given that the Cleric cast the spell at his highest spell level; level 4 I believe)

Well, no. The spells radius is 15', so if the Cleric moved to catch Gnolls inside of it then even at half speed they could attack them in one round (only taking damage once, at the start of their turn). Also, the Cleric is the only PC outside of the Gnolls reach because they are at the center. Unless everybody else is standing on their head then they are within the Gnolls half speed.

In this case, I freely admit that given other terrain and effective ranged weapons, Spirit Guardians would have played a much diminished role.

But it certainly is an anti-test-the-mob-rules spell!

It really isn't, the mob rules apply to ranged attacks as well, and they would have worked very well in this situation.

And it kind of nailed down my belief that there is an urgent need of humanoid stat blocks in the 30-50 hp range.

Fair enough, but if you are actually approaching things with an open mind and "testing", maybe try a similar scenario without taking away a monster's best ranged option. Not all of them have to have them, but large intelligent groups (humanoids) almost always have "back row" options, especially against a smaller force, because there just isn't enough room otherwise. If that is not an option at least try using their short ranged weapons at a longer distance.

 

[smbakeresq]

This is what I said:
I said this:




I didn't even say anything about fighting, yet you seemed to leap to the conclusion that I wanted nothing but fighting.

I said nothing about videogames, yet you seemed to leap to the conclusion I want my D&D to be like a videogame.

The only way I can see that you came to your judgement of me is by interpreting "doing Hero stuff" as "fighting fighting fighting."



(Oh wait, there is some implied combat in my posts - Xena had to fight that fish!)

The point is if it was positive for your PC it wouldn't be burden or too bothersome to track. But if it's any chance it's a negative for your PC it's too much trouble to bother with.


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[smbakeresq]

Also, in campaigns in which all monsters predictably engage in in "kill the guy wearing robes first," well, that's what Seeming is for. Now the monsters are actually preferentially attacking the tanks because they look like squishies. And if they don't, and they keep attacking the spellcasters even before they cast spells and even though they look like big armored knights--in that case, your DM is a metagaming jerk who isn't roleplaying the monsters correctly.

So you skip right to the levels where you get Seeming or do you start at level 1?


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[Tony Vargas]

So you skip right to the levels where you get Seeming or do you start at level 1?

So: mountain Dwarf wizard in heavy armor & war cleric for casters disguised as tanks, and a finesse fighter and monk for the melee types looking squishy?

Not that the deception would last long in either case...
...nor that you need it to in the era of fast combat.

 

[smbakeresq]

So: mountain Dwarf wizard in heavy armor & war cleric for casters disguised as tanks, and a finesse fighter and monk for the melee types looking squishy?

Not that the deception would last long in either case...
...nor that you need it to in the era of fast combat.

True and true[emoji106]


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[Corwin]

"Magical glimmer"? Heh. No wonder.