D&D (2024) D&D 2024 Rules Oddities (Kibbles’ Collected Complaints)

[mellored]

Well, not until now...

Still don't see it changing that much.

Again, this was available and more powerful in 2014.

Whatever you did, or didn't do, to solve the problem 10 years ago will still solve the problem today.

 

[Eric V]

I know it isn’t repeated dragging a grappled creature back and forth over spike stones.

But if that's a thought that comes about from a natural reading of the rules...

I dunno. I expect people coming to play to try to be creative, and it doesn't really seem like a huge stretch to come up with the dragging thing.

 

[Daztur]

I have no issues with monks actually being better at something than other people.

Also Vortex Warp is can still go a lot further.
Not to mention Banishment or Maze.

There's being better than something than other people and then there's the kind of cheesegrater tactics now possible in 5.5e. They can do truly ludicrous amounts of damage now in a way that breaks the game if you allow them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

no, that is not what I am trying to tell you

given the result, maybe they should have been, that is what I am trying to tell you

Okay, maybe they should have put them in one of the playtests. Hindsight is 20/20 after all. But I don't think that would have necessarily been obvious to them at the time.

sounds like that would have been true for the public playtest just as much

Sure, but which version would we have seen? If they were releasing new versions of these spells or rules every two weeks, would we have seen this version in the month long playtest we did? We didn't even see any spells for the longest time, and we only ever saw the spells specifically tied to classes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sentinel is a good feat (a very good one in D&D 2024), but not all that similar in practice. It being one swing, conditional, and melee changes things up a lot. Plus a lot of current monsters of that caliber (what we are using to test 2024 mostly currently due to necessity) can move as a Legendary Action, which works vs. Sentinel (since its to the end of the turn, not the whole round; you can only stop them once per round and they can try to move twice), so that makes it much less of a problem in testing. Maybe it will be different with 2024 monsters.

I'm not sure I get the "one swing" limitation, Giant Insect only gets one attack per insect, right? Do you get more than one spider? And the conditional part has changed fairly considerably, as it activates if an ally is hit, if the enemy moves away, or if they take the disengage action. The biggest difference is melee, but I will also point out that the Giant Spider has less hp that a PC, and costs a 4th level spell, compared to the sentinel feat being at-will when in melee.

I don't know what Glimmering Smite is; if its in the book, I haven't seen it yet; could have missed it, but taking a quick look now I don't see it; should be right next to Glibness if my alphabeting is good (which it isn't), and I don't see it there.

Ah, that name change is going to continue to haunt me. Shining smite, faerie fire effect on no save.

I see your response to DrJawa, and I am curious why "crowd control" is something you are more concerned with. Shining smite removes invisibility, prevents hiding, and grants advantage to every single attack against the enemy. That can be pretty devastating.

Ray of Sickness is indeed on my list for a similar reason, though it only really begins the same degree of problem when combined with Summon Undead to Paralyze without a save. Harder to set up than Giant Insect, but in many cases even more problematic.

That's a fair point! I did misread that; still puts a huge dent in the offensive CR and strips it off its most dangerous ability. If spells of much higher level than 4th cannot do that, it seems weird a 4th level spell can. Since we already know they made one typo in Giant Insect, it seems fair to call into question, but your mileage obviously may vary.

And I think it is fair to question it, my concern is this is being considered a mistake automatically. Clearly an effect on hit, bypassing saving throws, is a design direction they have gone into. And while this is bad for Legendary Resistance purposes.... it isn't for anything else. And this is where I think the designers had to make a decision.

Do they slow down and weaken Giant Insect against everything else, just to prevent it from bypassing legendary resistance? We aren't going to say this is bad to have happen to a troll, or to an opposing adventurer party. This is only bad for legendary monsters, who do not have specific abilities to counter it. And if the spell was "make an attack for small damage, then make a save" it might have felt bad for those times when it was used against non-legendary monsters.

My point is that how the monster works isn't a good argument for how the player ability should work, and I'm not sure why it ever would be. Monster abilities have always worked different than PC abilities.

Sure, but when players can summon or turn into monsters, monster abilities become player abilities. If we see Giant Spiders in the MM with this exact same ability, then we can figure what happened was they just copied the stat block and when the Giant Spider was made to fight PCs, they didn't consider legendary resistance.

 

[Daztur]

The is not coming up with good tactics. It’s coming up with tactics to do something against logic and common sense because of a loophole in those rules.

The most basic manner does not include hunting out a specific low level spell and abusing a confluence of rules and special abilities to have it deal an unrealistic amount of damage.

Now you can play that way if you and your DM/players like that kind of thing. It’s not for me stop you doing that. But you really surely complain that your janky rules abuse is now too good. Or that anyone else is making you play that way. Or pretend that it’s somehow typical table play.

5.5e had added several new ways for players to force monsters to move. Increasing the scope of forced movement is one of the most consistent themes of 5.5e.

I presume they want people to use those features they just added to the game, otherwise why add them.

The problem is that there's a bunch of features that allow people to move monsters a few squares...and then there's monks grappling people and then yanking them all over the map like a chihuahua with a chew toy.

That's a problem if you apply even the most basic tactics.

 

[Chaosmancer]

5.5e had added several new ways for players to force monsters to move. Increasing the scope of forced movement is one of the most consistent themes of 5.5e.

I presume they want people to use those features they just added to the game, otherwise why add them.

The problem is that there's a bunch of features that allow people to move monsters a few squares...and then there's monks grappling people and then yanking them all over the map like a chihuahua with a chew toy.

That's a problem if you apply even the most basic tactics.

But as people keep saying the grapple and grater strategy was ALREADY in the game. Spike growth is a 2nd level spell, so let's say lv 3.

Play a Rogue with expertise in athletics. Grab enemy that the spike growth was cast around, double dash even with half speed is 30 or 35 (depending on species choice) and that is an average of 30-35 damage. Make that Rogue a Tabaxi and it is an average of 60 damage. Have a caster at 5th level cast haste on them and that is 120 damage.

Sure, now a monk at 4th level with a specific feat is going to deal 80 damage... IF THE ENEMY FAILS THE SAVE. Which is a HUGE change, because the enemy used to have no realistic chance of defending against this.

And on the high end... as someone mentioned, in 5e with no realistic chance to defend, a Bard with expertise, Find Greater Steed, and Haste on the stead can deal 360 damage. Which the 5.5 monk... can't really copy. They max out at 240 with haste.

It has ALWAYS been the same problem, and while it sucks it wasn't addressed... it kind of was since the monsters actually stand a chance to resist a grapple now.

 

[KibblesTasty]

I'm not sure I get the "one swing" limitation, Giant Insect only gets one attack per insect, right?

No, it gets 2 attacks and scales up from there, just like all summons.

Honestly, regarding the rest, I just don't think we'll make much headway until you try it out for yourself. This isn't me trying to dismiss concerns, but everyone I know that has tested it so far has found it problematic, and I would hope they didn't intend for people to have as many problems as I'm seeing it cause. You might or might not experience that or share that opinion once you try it out, but I'm just flagging the concerns I and others have, not trying to convince folks.

This is part of why I strongly dislike the way WotC is rolling out D&D 2024, where most people don't the actual rules in front of them, so are relying on a telephone game of creators and influencers. It leads to a lot these conversations just revolving about what the actual rules are.

 

[mellored]

There's being better than something than other people and then there's the kind of cheesegrater tactics now possible in 5.5e. They can do truly ludicrous amounts of damage now in a way that breaks the game if you allow them.

Less damage than before.

2024 level 20 Monk speed is 75 max, including Goliath and a feat.

2014 level 10 Bard could get Find greater steed could give you a pegasus speed is 90, have spiked growth themselves, and have +8 to the grapple check.

This isn't new. It's nerfed.

 

[Daztur]

Less damage than before.

2024 level 20 Monk speed is 75 max, including Goliath and a feat.

2014 level 10 Bard could get Find greater steed could give you a pegasus speed is 90, have spiked growth themselves, and have +8 to the grapple check.

This isn't new. It's nerfed.

I think what you and @Chaosmancer upthread are missing is that dragging people while grappling has been significantly buffed in that you used to only be able to move at half speed while dragging grappled people around. This is no longer the case. This doubles how are you can drag people and causes an already powerful tactic to become broken.