D&D 5E (2014) Battlemaster and Superiority Dice are causing martials to suffer.

[Garthanos]

Commanding Presence

Giving you that one maybe... its very open ended..

 

[ECMO3]

Advantage is significantly less than 1 attack every turn... but more than 1 attack every other combat,

I know but it is 1 attack to end it for the entire fight and it can't be brought back into the fight with healing word.

If there is a PC that is downed or nearly downed and I can finish him off I will attack him instead, but that is rare.

Usually attacking the familiar is the best and quickest way to improve your odds with 1 attack.

I wasnt saying you didnt make the characters sigh

Then what are you saying? You clearly think I am not being truthful about something.

unlesss they are launching a pc caliber attack or yes healing spells which are even more useful when used

They are enhancing a PC attack specifically if you are using them for this and not in an insignificant way.

You are spending telling me elsewhere this is more powerful than a battlemaster maneuver. You can't have it both ways, either it is powerful or it isn't powerful.

and which simultaneously undo the effect of an enemy attack (often entirely) AND also keep the other PC doing their offence ..

See this is the problem. An enemy attack usually does NOTHING to a PC, there is no effect. You say the "effect of an enemy attack". One attack, at any level higher than 3, usually has no effect by itself at all. Attacking the familiar actually makes the attack have an immediate and irrevocable affect.

Unless you can down an opponent, all an attack does is drain the hit point pool, there is usually no effect othert than that. Sure if you can attack the Wizard (not always easy), it MIGHT cause him to lose concentration. Even if you can down a PC, unless you actually kill them about half the time they will still get their action on their turn.

On the other hand killing a familiar kills a familiar dead. It puts a stop to its actions in that fight. Then you concentrate on the next weakest ally until his is dead, then the next weakest .......

From a statical point of view, if a balanced and fully healed party is fighting a hard or more difficult encounter at level 5+ you will be hard pressed to come up with an enemy that attacks for damage where using your first attack on a familiar if easily doable, does not give you the best chance of winning the encounter. This assumes the familiar is being used in combat.

The other thing you should do is concentrate on PCs until they are dead. If you have 3 attacks and you down a PC on the first attack, statistically you should attack that PC twice more. Then the guy standing next to you should attack him to get that third failed death save before he moves on to the fully healed guy.

That may be mean but it gives you the best chance of winning the fight.

 

[Garthanos]

That may be mean but it gives you the best chance of winning the fight.

So do most NPC get healed off the ground all the time so this is a known thing? is the monsters and NPC going to know that is a possiblity?
I just saw a meme the other day that said attacking downed PCs is a DM metagaming unless that is a common phenomena

 

[Garthanos]

You are spending telling me elsewhere this is more powerful than a battlemaster maneuver.

the battle master maneuver that grants advantage uses a resource so that it is ahem once every 2 fights (and never soaks an attack for you) .... every round is more powerful than once every two fights ummm right? Oh right not if you always have archers to shoot the Owl out speaking of boring and changing your battle design to fit the caster which is in the abstract more evidence of the power of casters.

You can't have it both ways, either it is powerful or it isn't powerful.


See this is the problem. An enemy attack usually does NOTHING to a PC

it is still hit point loss which will not happen much the same as a heal spell but premptive. So even when you end the spell it still accomplished something just defensive instead of offensive.

 

[Garthanos]

I am now picturing every battle having archers (ignoring that the majority of the monster manual are melee only) not to knock out those concentration spells or reduce pc hit points ... just for the damn familiar. LOL

 

[Garthanos]

Speaking of metagaming I wonder do NPCs even know they have to hit a pc many times to take them out is this normal? Or are they surprised.

 

[ECMO3]

it is still hit point loss which will not happen much the same as a heal spell but premptive. So even when you end the spell it still accomplished something just defensive instead of offensive.

A hit point loss has no affect on the fight unless it is enough to down him.

Look at it this way - killing the familiar is the same as imposing disadvantage on one attack for the entire rest of the fight. That is what it is equivalent to.

That is far more powerful than jusr causing a PC to lose a few hit points and this is objectively more powerful if used in the first round as opposed to the last. In terms of combat effects that is generally better than downing a PC even (because the downed PC will usually be back up before his turn).

 

[ECMO3]

Speaking of metagaming I wonder do NPCs even know they have to hit a pc many times to take them out is this normal? Or are they surprised.

Usually I don't metagame to where I know how many hit points they have. Hit one and keep hitting that one until he is down, then keep hitting him until he stops breathing.

Enemies do know the Owl is pretty frail though - it is an Owl.

 

[ECMO3]

I am now picturing every battle having archers (ignoring that the majority of the monster manual are melee only) not to knock out those concentration spells or reduce pc hit points ... just for the damn familiar. LOL

It is usually only one attack to kill a familiar ...so it would not be archers, it would be archer-singular and it is only part of his attacks and if you have missiles, usually only on the first turn after the familiar is used.

As I mentioned earlier this can be hard in some situations to do to an Owl familiar due to flyby and allies, but often it is easy to do as well. An Owl has a 60 foot fly, so whetever he uses before help he can't use after it. If he moves 40 foot in and helps and then moves 20 foot away he will be close enough to engage in melee a lot.

 

[Garthanos]

They are enhancing a PC attack specifically if you are using them for this and not in an insignificant way.

The context was threat: they arent doing the equivalent of a pc making an attack that would mean they were doubling it (which advantage does not do) and since you originally said you were using the "biggest threat" as how the enemy was attacking well no they absolutely are the lowest threat(even if easiest to remove), In fact the advantage may never even be needed and in effect taking them out just wasted one of your strangely ubiquitous archers attacks... its pretty swingy in a sense.... only 1 in 3 rounds of a given combat even when you can do it every round is it actually likely to help in any way whatsoever.

A hit point loss has no affect on the fight unless it is enough to down him.

poppycock... then healing spells have no effect and neither does any attack

Look at it this way - killing the familiar is the same as imposing disadvantage on one attack for the entire rest of the fight. That is what it is equivalent to.

3 round fights on average ... your archer very likely wasted one or maybe more (the hit isnt guaranteed) and if he did he spent that one stopping that effect instead of the wizards concentration effect and taking out hit points of the guy who may have the lowest otherwise.