Level Up (A5E) Playtest results using pregen characters

[Legendweaver]

I think there are a lot of great ideas floating around here. I'd be fine with most of these variants as long as they behave well for gang-up situations. I think I like @Stalker0's suggestions in particular, though maybe with a cap based on movement: e.g, maybe "against multiple creatures, up to your base speed / 5"?

I'll also note that I also think advantage is too strong a buff for "Press the Attack" - I think it should be expertise for several reasons:

• Advantage is the biggest situational combat buff out there - it's what you get when you're completely invisible and the attack is unexpected! RAW, you can't add further situational bonuses based on tactics or terrain once you've gained advantage.
• Flanking in LU grants expertise even though you're attacking a foe from "all" directions. PtA should follow this precedence, lest it make flanking irrelevant - which would be sad, since I think flanking is much more useable in LU given the reduced bonus and the "back-to-back rule (side note - should "back-to-back" have an effect on PtA?)
• Advantage specifically enables certain mechanical options, like sneak attack.

@Morrus - I would love to see the wording of the new rules ahead of it landing in the printed books. I'd enthusiastically run the same playtests listed above once that's available!

 

[Anselm]

So question about interactions here. Imagine a one-on-one fight. Character A uses press the attack, giving them advantage. Character B falls back, removing advantage from A. A makes their straight attacks. B now has disadvantage on attacks but characters attack attack A with advantage. If B attacks A, Adv and Disadv cancel out making straight attacks.

Assuming that is all correct. The situation, except for 5 feet of movement, is exactly the same.

If we expand this to a hypothetical 4v4, if nothing else changes, now character B's allies get attacks at Adv against A for free and all of character A's allies attacks are just regular old attacks. Now A's allies could also use press the attack, using up their bonus actions, against B at Adv and there's nothing B can do but get attacked at Adv. However, the B's team gets to attack everyone on A's team with Adv and still has their bonus action to do combat maneuvers, offhand attacks, or use other features. This sounds like a loss for A's team overall in a vacuum.

Things completely change in an in game situation where initiative would matter (if all of A's team went first, downing B with a slew of PtA before B had a turn that would be a huge win) or if one team could limit the Adv attacks via the terrain. However, those reading those situations sound exactly like the kind of strategic improvements we would want something like this to add.

Mostly I'm trying to spell out how I'm confused that using PtA would lead to a bigger advantage to the team using it due to action economy accentuation.

 

[Legendweaver]

So question about interactions here. Imagine a one-on-one fight. Character A uses press the attack, giving them advantage. Character B falls back, removing advantage from A. A makes their straight attacks. B now has disadvantage on attacks but characters attack attack A with advantage. If B attacks A, Adv and Disadv cancel out making straight attacks.

RAW today, B cannot PtA on its turn because you can't PtA when you have disadvantage (which B has as a result of FB). But it's tricky to reason about this since we don't actually have the official wording yet....

However, I don't think the 4v4 case (or in my case, 5v5 case) is as problematic. It was different, but interesting -- because the action economy is mostly balanced between the two sides.

The problems were when once side had more actions than the other - in my case, 1v5 or 5v8. Here, each foe in the smaller team can get pinned down by one combatant from the larger group, and the remainder of the larger team's combatants are free to pile on one foe (as normal), and all do so at advantage (not as normal). It was similar to when I've tried the optional, overly-powerful flanking mechanics from o5e -- but without the need to maneuver around enemies and avoid opportunity attacks (partially because previous FBs moved enemies out of opportunity attack range).

And advantage is such a big buff that no one in my playtest bothered with more complicated maneuvering, such as flanking, anyway...

 

[Legendweaver]

[removed dupe post]

 

[Anselm]

RAW today, B cannot PtA on its turn because you can't PtA when you have disadvantage (which B has as a result of FB). But it's tricky to reason about this since we don't actually have the official wording yet....

Agreed on the final wording that may clear everything up but theory crafting is fun . RAW today, B would not need to use PtA to get advantage against A, because B would have it as a result of A using PtA ("If you do so, until the beginning of your next turn all attacks against you are made with advantage"), canceling out disadvantage of FB to a normal role.

The problems were when once side had more actions than the other - in my case, 1v5 or 5v8. Here, each foe in the smaller team can get pinned down by one combatant from the larger group, and the remainder of the larger team's combatants are free to pile on one foe (as normal), and all do so at advantage (not as normal).

That's definitely a scenario that I wasn't working through my head. 1vX seems rough in this case no matter what you do. Extra advantage there is always just going to make that battle go faster. Thought I wonder if the single creature would just be better suited to not fall back in that case, taking the hits (assuming its got enough HP to get itself a turn) but then getting advantage itself. Probably depends on initiative order. I'm imaging all my players taking PtA against the juvenile kraken fight they have coming up... The Kraken would for sure survive unless it was last in initiative and then have free advantage in return and on legendary actions. I think the players would be in real trouble very quickly...

5v8 I'd be curious about though and I would guess it would still come down to turn order (unless all the 8 were on the same initiative) because team 5 would still be able to pick off everyone who took PtA with advantage on them as well. In that case it would even accentuate the opposite direction, giving team 5 more advantage than they would have if they themselves each took PtA (being able to use bonus action for something combat-y, offhand attack, or extra damage rather than just using the BA to gain advantage).

The flip side of this is that you have played through it and I have not so my brain is just not fully wrapping around the problem just yet.

 

[Legendweaver]

@Anselm - Ah, yes - I didn't read your scenario closely enough. I thought you were saying B would get advantage on A (full stop), rather than advantage + disadvantage would make a straight role. Your reading for 1v1 matches my reading, then!

In my playtest, initiative order actually didn't matter for 1vX, because a creature that takes PtA only starts granting advantage to their foes after they've made their attack with advantage, so they've always got a one-round lead on the defender. I touched on this in passing, but it probably deserves its own description. In the 1vX scenarios we play tested, my players quickly learned to avoid PtA until the solo monster had taken its first action - thus avoiding granting advantage to its first-round attack. Immediately after the monster took its attacks, though, all the players are always in a single block, and so they started PtA one right after the other - creating a block of five actions all making attacks with advantage. Even if the monster survived that first round, it takes a ton of punishment - and this is true on every subsequent round. In contrast, if the solo monster PtA, they don't actually get advantage because the one PC they attack can FB out of the fight -- and then the rest of the PCs get advantage for free.

5v8 played differently because the advantage doesn't usually stack up in a neat block, but like I noted, the only PC who took FB seriously regretted it - he opened up a hole in their line of battle that allowed the goblins to stream through and wail on the weaker PCs in the back - and he couldn't even counterattack the next round because all his attacks were at disadvantage!

 

[Rant]

I was hoping they would simply remove press the attack and fall back since these are neither balanced or easy to use. It adds headaches, and meta-game guessing games, not a layer of tactical consideration. The number of fixes to make them work suggests an easier option: Remove press the attack and fall back. These are not a good fit for the game.

I'm also very curious about this. I'm still in the process of reading the classes, so it will take a bit more before I go into the more general (and important IMO) aspects of the game.
Reading the other posts regarding Press the Attack and Fall Back I also have some doubts they work as intended very often: I understand and applaud the goal of making combat more dynamic, but as many noticed the rules as written can be quite messy and may be off the mark. I know the rules we have are an older version, and hope the next iteration will be much more robust and polished.

I like your standard scenario approach. Having a relatively varied but standard set of combats scenarios seems a very good idea: you can test several synergies in many different situations and see where they work and where they don't in systematic approach.

I'm curious about what approach did the devs have for playtesting.

I have a lot of questions myself on exactly how the playtesting worked but there seems to be a lot of resistance to that line of inquiry. We are supposed to be satisfied that everything was “thoroughly playtested” and leave it at that.

 

[Anselm]

5v8 played differently because the advantage doesn't usually stack up in a neat block, but like I noted, the only PC who took FB seriously regretted it - he opened up a hole in their line of battle that allowed the goblins to stream through and wail on the weaker PCs in the back - and he couldn't even counterattack the next round because all his attacks were at disadvantage!

Yeah that seems like a very important conversation. Don't just Fall Back because someone PtA. Again, I'm theory crafting but it seems like PtA needs consideration whether to use and the potential reaction of Fall Back isn't automatic either. Again, all that in theory sounds great. I'm very eager to see the final rules and actuality use them!

if the solo monster PtA, they don't actually get advantage because the one PC they attack can FB out of the fight -- and then the rest of the PCs get advantage for free.

That's an interesting scenario too though. If the first PC Falls Back, the solo monster can just go after another one instead of moving the 5 feet after them. hypothetically, they can do that to every PC, and then each PC has disadvantage on their turn and can't press the attack back. That at least makes things interesting and the solo monster can force the PCs to use up their reactions and freely position however they want.

 

[Anselm]

hypothetically, they can do that to every PC, and then each PC has disadvantage on their turn and can't press the attack back

I guess rereading it, that's not how it works. "Whenever a creature within your reach takes the Press the Attack action, you can use your reaction to yield ground." They can only fall back if PtA was taken when within their reach. So if the attacker takes PtA out of their reach, moves into melee, and attacks, then no option to Fall Back and attacker gets advantage.

 

[Stalker0]

I guess rereading it, that's not how it works. "Whenever a creature within your reach takes the Press the Attack action, you can use your reaction to yield ground." They can only fall back if PtA was taken when within their reach. So if the attacker takes PtA out of their reach, moves into melee, and attacks, then no option to Fall Back and attacker gets advantage.

Technically true. I actually just found another issue with the text based on another conversion that was had earlier.

You cannot mix action and bonus actions by the book. That means that technically Press the Attack doesn't actually do anything, because the bonus action would occur after your attacks are over.

So Press the Attack should actually say: "You can take a bonus action to give advantage to all your attacks. Attacks against you are made with advantage. These effects last until the beginning of your next turn"

I will add it to the bug log.