D&D (2024) D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?

[doctorbadwolf]

I think you hit the nail on the head there.

I try to play the monsters as I expect them to act, and with an appropriate amount of intelligence for their intelligence score. A mindless golem might attack players at random. But predatory creatures will try to isolate the weakest party member, disable him/her, and drag that prey away. Smart, trained soldiers like Hobgoblins know that healing spells can bring creatures back up, so they will try to finish downed opponents when it is easy to do. Chaotic evil death cultists don't go easy on characters just to be nice; they flay them alive and use their skins as jewelry. So I prefer a game that is better balanced, so I don't have to break immersion and try to devise some rational reason why the cave bear doesn't want to eat that nice, juicy, unconscious halfling lying at his feet.

I agree with your end goal, that is the desire for a well balanced game, but I’d tangentially challenge the notion that CDG mid-combat is better tactics or more realistic for predators.

In general, predators stuck in a fight for food (very few predators want to be in that position at all) will very rarely try to slink off with the food while a creature is attacking them. They are most vulnerable while carrying or dragging something away. Immediate survival pretty much always trumps long term survival, for non-sapient animals. They’ll either keep attacking dangerous animals to try to secure the food and drive off what they can’t secure, or flee if they’re overwhelmed, or circle around and look for an opportunity to take down another creature quickly. A bleeding out creature is just fresher food when they’re done.

As for tactical creatures, only the cruel or those who are already winning, or who can’t reasonably simply harm the cleric should see CDG as better than putting the hurt on the cleric. IDK about you, but I don’t fill fights with creatures that can’t hurt the party’s back line. A CDG doesn’t even guarantee a death unless they can do it twice, and the same hobs know that some casters can just revivify. The smart hob tries to kill the still standing enemies before wasting actions on the ones that are already down.

 

[Guest 6801328]

That doesn’t happen. IF it does it’s not a rules issue it’s a table issue.

How is it a table issue if the rules allow it?

 

[5ekyu]

How is it a table issue if the rules allow it?

Well, the rules allow a lot of things.

For some tables those things may be seen as issues. For others, not.

Those are what makes them "table issues."

At my table for instance, the idea of letting folks drop thrn curing them from 0 as a tactic is a risk and a trade-off that in some circumstances may work out but in others it can be a really bad idea and it's not always clear which is which.

There are a lot of that kinda thing in 5e and at actual tables too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How is it a table issue if the rules allow it?

The rules allow PvP, but that doesn’t make I any less a table issue if someone engages in PvP when the rest of the table isn’t into that.

 

[S'mon]

As for tactical creatures, only the cruel or those who are already winning, or who can’t reasonably simply harm the cleric should see CDG as better than putting the hurt on the cleric. IDK about you, but I don’t fill fights with creatures that can’t hurt the party’s back line. A CDG doesn’t even guarantee a death unless they can do it twice, and the same hobs know that some casters can just revivify. The smart hob tries to kill the still standing enemies before wasting actions on the ones that are already down.

My game yesterday, the Red Hand of Doom hobs in the Old Rhest bell tower put a good deal of effort into putting down the Cleric and CDGing her while she was down - one CDG missed though so they only got her to 2 failed death saves before she got healed.

She spends a lot of time at 0 hp, but previously it had mostly been due to dragon strafing where other PCs could put a potion in her before she died.

I find the 5e system works well; if it wasn't easy to bring her back from 0 hp she would have already been killed two or three times and the player would have had to make a new PC. As it stands the battles are tough and tense but no one has lost a PC yet.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The rules allow PvP, but that doesn’t make I any less a table issue if someone engages in PvP when the rest of the table isn’t into that.

That's kind of a lame answer. You're basically saying that anybody who uses the rules as written is...a douche?

Maybe.

But that doesn't change the fact that there's this really weird hole in the rules.

Well, the rules allow a lot of things.

For some tables those things may be seen as issues. For others, not.

Those are what makes them "table issues."

At my table for instance, the idea of letting folks drop thrn curing them from 0 as a tactic is a risk and a trade-off that in some circumstances may work out but in others it can be a really bad idea and it's not always clear which is which.

There are a lot of that kinda thing in 5e and at actual tables too.

Ok, so one way to prevent the players from exploiting a gaping hole in the rules is to punish them with CDG. Sure. That "fixes" the rules. Sorta. Depends on initiative order, though, in this case.

But that's not really an argument that there's not a weird design...dare I say "flaw"?...in the rules.

 

[5ekyu]

That's kind of a lame answer. You're basically saying that anybody who uses the rules as written is...a douche?

Maybe.

But that doesn't change the fact that there's this really weird hole in the rules.




Ok, so one way to prevent the players from exploiting a gaping hole in the rules is to punish them with CDG. Sure. That "fixes" the rules. Sorta. Depends on initiative order, though, in this case.

But that's not really an argument that there's not a weird design...dare I say "flaw"?...in the rules.

Exploit, gaping, punish players, blah, blah...

If my sorcerer throws a quick fireball then follows right there with his twinned chill touch on the two who seemed very hurt by it, it creates a serious tactical issue for that other side. That is even more true if the target was one who "dropped".

I am sure from one table to the next, this can be given lots of names.

 

[S'mon]

That's kind of a lame answer. You're basically saying that anybody who uses the rules as written is...a douche?...

...Ok, so one way to prevent the players from exploiting a gaping hole in the rules is to punish them with CDG...

Are you saying a DM who uses the CDG rules on PCs is ...a douche?

 

[Undrave]

I was thinking, I would like for 6th edition to finally admit that animal companions never work.

Like, I get the appeal from a fluff perspective, but they always either end up too powerful or too weak. They mess with the action economy in annoying ways too.

I think the easiest fix would just be to treat animal companions as their own PCs. Either controlled by another player or by the player who wants it. Get their own progression and features and gets to be considered a full extra combattant when the DM is designing encounters.

Either that or jsut admit they're a pain and drop them entirely

 

[Guest 6801328]

Are you saying a DM who uses the CDG rules on PCs is ...a douche?

Uhhhh....no. ??? I was attempting to paraphrase the argument that compared players who exploit the healed-from-zero rules to players who pvp without consent.