I do my gaming on roll20 with grid maps for all encounters, the 10' aura is not that big of a deal. With the way combat spreads out and people place themselves to not be grouped up for AoE effects it is usually just one other person benefiting from it. Do remember the nice benefit that some forget, it is a bonus to all saves including death saves.
D&D 5E Are Aura's burdensome?
The Myopic Sniper
Hero
I can see where the DM is coming from if you are doing Theater of the Mind combats. It really is the type of thing that is designed to work with a grid and battlemaps. I just tend to give players the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are within the aura unless they are off doing their own thing (the Barbarian is halfway up the mountain dropping boulders or the thief is in the other room stealing the relic while the party keeps the guards occupied in the courtyard). My ruling would be a nerf to the expanded aura feature, but it isn't that big of deal if your campaign never gets to that level.
Motorskills
Explorer
I hand out poker chips to my beneficiaries, helps to remind them (and me).
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
If all the party are within 10' of the paladin to get the bonus, then they will all get hit by every AOE AND the squishy classes are within 20 feet of the front combat lines (unless you've got some weird ranged paladin). I think the net result of that will be negative.
If you're running theatre of the mind, then it should be pretty trivial to decide whether someone is close to the paladin or not - if you're in melee, you're probably within the aura. Otherwise you're not unless you specifically said you wanted to be.
In short - the DM is being a whiner.
If you're running theatre of the mind, then it should be pretty trivial to decide whether someone is close to the paladin or not - if you're in melee, you're probably within the aura. Otherwise you're not unless you specifically said you wanted to be.
In short - the DM is being a whiner.
n0nym
Explorer
It is indeed a problem when players are not completely dumb, as it wrecks bounded accuracy.
In my group there is a paladin, a rogue, a ranger and a barbarian. As you've probably noticed, they're almost all melee (some can fight at range but they prefer melee). Most of them have a way to negate all damage (or close) on Dexterity saves (Shield master, Evasion or Resistance). Against mental saves, it's almost always better for them to stay close to the paladin.
Auras are one of those things that make building challenging encounters a nightmare (along with GWM, SS, Polearm master, etc...). In our next game, I'll probably just remove them by making them "paladin only" or give the paladin's allies a reduced bonus (+1 to all saves for Aura of Protection, Advantage vs Fear / Charm for Aura of Courage and Devotion, etc...).
They also make magic items redundant. You just can't give a Cloak or Ring of Resistance to your players if there's a paladin in the group, because it makes things even worse. :/
I don't think it is being "a whiner" to prioritize story, intrigues or even detailling battlegrounds over encounter building. I paid 40 bucks to buy a Monster Manual, I don't want to spend hours modifying monsters to make them challenging, I have more interesting things to do, thank you.
In my group there is a paladin, a rogue, a ranger and a barbarian. As you've probably noticed, they're almost all melee (some can fight at range but they prefer melee). Most of them have a way to negate all damage (or close) on Dexterity saves (Shield master, Evasion or Resistance). Against mental saves, it's almost always better for them to stay close to the paladin.
Auras are one of those things that make building challenging encounters a nightmare (along with GWM, SS, Polearm master, etc...). In our next game, I'll probably just remove them by making them "paladin only" or give the paladin's allies a reduced bonus (+1 to all saves for Aura of Protection, Advantage vs Fear / Charm for Aura of Courage and Devotion, etc...).
They also make magic items redundant. You just can't give a Cloak or Ring of Resistance to your players if there's a paladin in the group, because it makes things even worse. :/
I don't think it is being "a whiner" to prioritize story, intrigues or even detailling battlegrounds over encounter building. I paid 40 bucks to buy a Monster Manual, I don't want to spend hours modifying monsters to make them challenging, I have more interesting things to do, thank you.
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I DM a 1 character game where the PC is a Paladin. It is extremely hard to balance encounters when any save effect is unlikely to land at all. I have played in a game with two paladins in it too, an ancients and a devotion one. They split up to cover the whole party in their auras. Given that we were fighting lots of underdark creatures like ithillid, it did make it very hard on the DM to make challenging encounters. Especially with the eventual immunity to fear and charm effects from the devotion guy and the half spell damage from the ancients guy.
<edit> That being said, DM is whining.
<edit> That being said, DM is whining.
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There are plenty of encounters where the save doesn't count. Worst case scenario, *occasionally* the party has an easier fight, how is that terrible? Every fight should not be balanced perfectly to equally kick the parties ass. If a saving throw is the do or die to the balance of your entire encounter and the GM's fun, there is a more fundamental problem in the game.
Yaarel
He Mage
Heh, a Paladin who tends to make team members ‘immune’ to fear, seems to be working as intended.
Anyway, for me, the aura itself as a mechanic is a central archetype. Everything from the heat of a volcano monster to the halo of divine providence refers to some kind of aura.
I get how auras take effect on some other persons actions, so might seem like a ‘burden’ to remember in addition to other actions. But it is important to express the concept of an aura somehow.
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