On the Dodge Action

[FrogReaver]

Nope, it's totally uninteresting. I don't care what the odds of rolling exactly 11 are, I would care what the odds of rolling 11 or more are (or 11 or less for disadvantage). Knowing the odds of rolling an 11 is pointless. Finding the odds of rolling exactly 11, then exactly 12, then exactly 13 and so on just to sum the odds when I can do a simple formula instead that delivers the interesting information is an unnecessary amount of work that has, as a middle point, useless information.

Hopefully, this post will not double post. Strange occurrences lately.

Don't get me wrong, your solution is more elegant, but we are not talking about which is the better method to get the desired result, just if the method is accurate. For the life of me, besides your method being easier, I can't figure out your problem with the other method. Everything we have said about it has been true. You have confused the issue and said it was wrong or showing something that wasn't claimed when that wasn't the case. Then instead of saying OOPS, you dig in and start attacking the ease of the method as opposed to the accuracy.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Don't get me wrong, your solution is more elegant, but we are not talking about which is the better method to get the desired result, just if the method is accurate. For the life of me, besides your method being easier, I can't figure out your problem with the other method. Everything we have said about it has been true. You have confused the issue and said it was wrong or showing something that wasn't claimed when that wasn't the case. Then instead of saying OOPS, you dig in and start attacking the ease of the method as opposed to the accuracy.

Lol. Physician, heal thyself.

 

[TwoSix]

Don't get me wrong, your solution is more elegant, but we are not talking about which is the better method to get the desired result, just if the method is accurate. For the life of me, besides your method being easier, I can't figure out your problem with the other method. Everything we have said about it has been true. You have confused the issue and said it was wrong or showing something that wasn't claimed when that wasn't the case. Then instead of saying OOPS, you dig in and start attacking the ease of the method as opposed to the accuracy.

If you're asking an ENGINEER why he's attacking a method that's accurate but impractical, you must not know many engineers.

 

[Harzel]

If you're asking an ENGINEER why he's attacking a method that's accurate but impractical, you must not know many engineers.

Just to get it out of the way, I'm an engineer.

As to the question at hand, "impractical" seems to me an inapt assessment of the method proposed. It might be subjectively judged inelegant, and it might be somewhat inefficient (depending on how you measure efficiency). But I see nothing about it that would justify calling it impractical.

 

[Harzel]

I agree that Dodge is only conditionally good, but I think its effect under appropriate conditions is a bit underestimated by the OP. Just to amplify a bit what some others have already said or alluded to, if you are assuming, as the OP does, that your opponent's chance to hit is 50%, then giving the opponent disadvantage takes that down to 25% (assuming that the opponent does not change tactics and, for instance, ignore you entirely). That means that on average you will take 1/2 the damage you would otherwise. Looked at a different way, you have effectively doubled your HP. If on average you would have lasted 3 rounds, now you can expect to last 6 rounds. Say what you will about the % of time the outcome would change, that sounds like a pretty good benefit to me.

If the opponent would hit you 40% of the time, with disadvantage that becomes 16%, a 2.5x improvement. And if you're at 30% with a straight roll, you get a >3x improvement.

So if you are a tank getting targeted by attacks requiring attack rolls, Dodge can be a pretty good way to soak attacks. OTOH if you are a squishy that's going to get hit 75% of the time, getting that down to 56% buys you, relatively, a lot less, and, perhaps counterintuitively, it might be better to just try to kill whatever is after you (if you can't get away entirely).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think players simply don't use the dodge action because it's boring. It's much more fun to try and smack something in the face even when tactically dodging would be a much wiser cause of action.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think players simply don't use the dodge action because it's boring. It's much more fun to try and smack something in the face even when tactically dodging would be a much wiser cause of action.

Maybe. That’s for sure a factor. Another factor here is everyone stating it’s better to attack and focus fire than dodge. When you believe it’s both less fun and less effective you simply won’t ever do it.

 

[smbakeresq]

That goes back to your interpretation of how you correlate actions in the game to actions within the narrative. It can be hard to reach consensus on what, exactly, is observable to characters in the world; and which information, if acted upon, would be meta-gaming.

I've heard too many horror stories about GMs who wouldn't let a player know how many HP their own character had left, under the theory that HP are meta-game information, for me to risk making the same kind of mistake. In the name of clear communication between DM and players, and in giving characters the benefit of the doubt about what they can observe about the world they actually live in, I assume that everything in the game mechanics correlates to some manner of phenomenon that is directly observable to the characters. So in my games, if someone is so incredibly focused on dodging that they actually get some mechanical effect out of it, then that is in-narrative information which is observable to everyone nearby.

Obviously, if that's not the case at your table, then the Dodge action would be less useful as a deterrent.

I get what you are saying, but I want to make sure the PCs get their stuff in. IME players don't mind failing as long as they had a chance, but wasting an action is a let down.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I get what you are saying, but I want to make sure the PCs get their stuff in. IME players don't mind failing as long as they had a chance, but wasting an action is a let down.

I guess that depends on what the player expects to get out of the action. Personally, when I take the Dodge action, my expectation is that enemies may choose to not attack me. If the player is expecting to still be attacked, and looking forward to imposing Disadvantage on the attack roll, then I could see why they might feel disappointed.

A similar situation happened in my first 5E campaign. At level 14, the barbarian gained a class feature which automatically imposed Disadvantage on all attack rolls made by adjacent enemies against anyone other than the barbarian. For some reason, the player expected that enemies would continue to attack the other PCs, even though they had Disadvantage. Instead, it just guaranteed that all adjacent enemies would always target the barbarian (even more than they already were); which I'm pretty sure was the intent of the feature.

 

[Dausuul]

I used the Dodge action in combat last Saturday. We were fighting two rocs, and I had used phantasmal force to blind one of them, while the second had taken down one of my fellow PCs. I decided that rather than tossing out a measly cantrip's worth of damage, it would make far more sense to distract the second roc, while hanging onto my concentration to keep the first one blind.

So I sent my familiar to feed a healing potion to the downed PC, moved as far as I could, waved my arms at the second roc, and Dodged. Worked pretty well, even if we did have to pause briefly to look up the Dodge rules.

Based on this, I can certainly imagine a character for whom Dodge would be a go-to option. Let's say you are a spellcaster relying heavily on concentration spells, and you tend to face long adventuring days with many encounters. In this scenario, your small contribution to the party's damage output is less valuable than keeping your buffs/debuffs going, and you cannot afford to waste slots re-casting spells that were lost to disruption. After casting your spell for the encounter, Dodge would be your standard tactic; you'd only do something else if you were confident you wouldn't be attacked.