D&D 5E 12th Level monk with a speed of 50' had to use half her movement to stand up from prone!

[ccs]

As a DM, i felt bad for my wife who plays a 12th level monk with a speed of 50'.

She was prone. To stand up from prone requires half your movement?

Does this seem legit?

I want to help her with this, but dont want to screw with the rules too much. So i come to you...

You are the DM. Screw with the rules as you see fit. The game will not break.
And if you find that your 1st solution doesn't satisfy? Scrap it & try something else.... Repeat until happy.

That said? Standing up should cost 1 set amount of movement no matter who you are.
In my own game this = 12.5 ft - the amount it costs a 1/2ling.

 

[Satyrn]

You are the DM. Screw with the rules as you see fit. The game will not break.
And if you find that your 1st solution doesn't satisfy? Scrap it & try something else.... Repeat until happy.

That said? Standing up should cost 1 set amount of movement no matter who you are.
In my own game this = 12.5 ft - the amount it costs a 1/2ling.

Is that an African 1/2ling, or European?

 

[hejtmane]

On the one hand it does seem a bit weird that one character could lose 25 feet worth of movement standing up while someone else might only lose 10 (if they had a speed of 20'). But then again... if we take away the knowledge of how much a PC should be moving... two characters stand up from prone and one only gets to move 10 additional feet, while the other is moving 25! That's a huge difference.

And there's not really a way to "fix" it, because even if you were to change it from losing half your speed to losing a set amount of feet, you end up with the same problem but reversed... this time in terms of proportion. If you were to say that standing up from prone requires 10 feet of movement... the PC that moves 20 feet per round loses 50% of their movement just by standing up... whereas the person who moves 50 feet only loses 20%. And thus you then have to ask why does a faster walking person stand up so much quicker than one who doesn't?

On top of that... you then also have the issue that by making standing up only a certain number of feet, you are making it much less of a punishment for a faster character. A monk who moves 50 feet a round loses very little (proportionally) from having to stand up. Being knocked prone is no longer much of a punishment. The monk is still going to get to move 40 feet, which is still faster than almost every other character out there. By taking away a full 50% of every PCs movement... being knocked prone is an equal hindrance (proportionally) to every character. Yes, the faster character still gets move movement left over after they stand up... but they aren't proportionally even faster than a slower PC.

So while it seems counter-intuitive that a monk should "lose" so much speed just from standing up... in truth their walking speed is just so fast that even this "punishment" can be overcome. Your wife still gets to move 25 feet after standing up... while her platemail-wearing party member is possibly only going to get to move 10'.

Said it better than I could. Nail Hammer contact

 

[Horwath]

There is a feat for that. Athlete. So you spend only 5ft of movement.

But, you can add this to athletics, DC 20 to stand up for only 5ft of movemet, otherwise half movement. Also if you roll below 15, you spend whole move to get up. Gamble away.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I think it should always take half the movement. Standing up takes 3 seconds if you are not athletic. It doesn't actually take "more movement", it just always takes the same time from your turn.

Of course you can houserule whatever you want, but I personally wouldn't. Knocking someone prone already doesn't have all that much benefits unless you are attacking with a large amount of enemies. The half movement benefit is already pretty minor, but at least can make the difference between making the enemy be able to reach you next turn or not. If movement was reduced from 50ft only to 35ft, you couldn't even outrun your enemy with the default speed of 30ft.

So I don't recommend houseruling this.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

1) As a house rule, I don't see why it is a problem to change the rules. Just about any Kung fu film will show the martial arts master spring up from prone in less than a second, so I don't see why it would be unreasonable in the game.

Its not unreasonable, but it IS providing one class with an unfair advantage. Why is the Monk so much better at getting up when a Fighter has probably spent more time being knocked on his butt, and figured out a quicker way to stand up? And yes, while the Kung Fu movies will show the fighter get knocked down and spring back up, they typically aren't then running full speed...unless its a chase sequence, in which case they fall behind and have to use a more creative and acrobatic way to catch up.

2) So? I have little interest in feats to begin with, and honestly care even less about devaluing one that my players were not going to use anyway.

Fair enough.

3) If falling prone is really so rare, why is it a problem for those rare times to be over faster?

Because its rare is the exact reason it shouldn't be trivialized. It would be akin to removing the Incapacitated status because, although it rarely affects the players, its mildly annoying to someone. Of course, you can house rule anything you want.

All of that being said, I do agree with you on the level thing, and was already trying to figure out what level I would put it at. 3 seems reasonable, since that is technically the first point where you can call yourself a true Practitioner of Martial Arts, and adding such a small thing on the same level as your Way is not too much, IMO.

While certainly within your power to allow in your games, I feel this is an unfair advantage to the Monk when other martial classes should be well versed with knocking over their opponents, being knocked down, and knowing how to efficiently get back up. And unless the Monk has come from a Grappling-Based school, his combat experience would be no different than that of the Soldier training with Spear and Shield. Since his attacks are strike-based it makes no sense how he would have the ability to stand from prone with greater skill than anyone else.

If you are set on making the standing from prone action cost less movement, I would suggest more graceful option would be to allow an Atheltics/Acrobatics check with a DC of your choosing to reduce the amount of movement cost (maybe -5ft movement cost / 5 points on the roll). That would be an option that is fair to all players and not just Monks.

 

[jayoungr]

Just about any Kung fu film will show the martial arts master spring up from prone in less than a second

And being that sort of martial arts master is represented by the "Athletic" feat. Makes sense to me.

 

[cooperjer]

While I agree that prone doesn't come up too often ...

Doesn't this change make the athlete feat, which is already ... not overly desirable ... even less so? I mean, that's one of the core benefits of taking it. If you have a character that has high movement + athlete, then that's pretty cool. This turns it into ... even more meh.

(Edit- and while you and the table have agreed that monks are nimble on their feet, I would note that this is 1) already accounted for in the RAW by giving them added movement (so they have additional movement even when getting up while prone), and 2) there is already a feat to handle this, so that the game designers could have, if they had chosen to, given monks this ability as a class ability. If I were to change the rule and houserule it, which I wouldn't, I would make it a 9th level unarmored movement feature in addition to the "move over vertical surfaces and across liquids").

I don't recall what the Athletic feat has for text. However, I do recall, that I did add a feature to that Monk level 9 feature. I believe I lowered the number of feet a monk needs to stand from prone to 5-ft.

Again, this never came up because I never tried to knock the PCs prone. The impressive part of monk movement was when it chased down a large raven that was 100-ft in the air and knocked it prone.

 

[Motorskills]

I think a monk should be able to get up from prone very quickly, simply charge an extra 5' or something. You could also make it that attacking a prone monk does not give Advantage. Introduce those at (say) 6th and 12th level.

Both of those would be very Hollywood.

 

[posineg]

OK, now for some Rules "Cheese".

How about the Monk cannot "fall" prone, ever unless they do not have a reaction.

Per rules:

Fallings:
... At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6.
The creature lands prone, unless it avoids taking damage from the fall.

Slowfall:
... use your reaction when you fall to reduce any falling damage you take by an amount equal to five times your monk level.

So, being knocked Prone in a attack/action the Monk will fall 0ft Prone, therefore 0 damage, note prone?

Again, Cheese but maybe?