D&D 5E Bouncing heroes and healing tweaks

[Tony Vargas]

TL;DR In 5E, under reasonably plausible circumstances, walking around is actually more hazardous to your health than being paralyzed is! That is deeply messed up.

OK, so it's not the rationale, it's the implementation. I agree, for instance, that it's bizarre that casting or using a bow in melee doesn't provoke.

2nd edition rules (non-C&T) fit pretty well with reality: you could withdraw at 1/3 speed at no penalty, or turn your back and flee at full speed, and the enemy is allowed a free attack keeping your guard up made you move slower but it was up to you. That's how real life works too.

That's prettymuch the Dash-or-Withdraw choice 5e presents you with. It's just there's a lot of other things besides Dashing you could do with your action, and thus cause your Move that round to provoke...

There's no 5' step, or 'shifting,' though, so no 'fighting retreat,' which is obviously unrealistic (not that realism is a very valid bar for a game as far from reality as D&D, even before you take the magic & dragons into account).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

OK, so it's not the rationale, it's the implementation. I agree, for instance, that it's bizarre that casting or using a bow in melee doesn't provoke.

Maybe I should have written "rationalization" instead of "rationale." Regardless, the rules don't fit the fictional narrative.

I have at times contemplated house rules such as "anyone may make an opportunity attack at any time, at the cost of provoking opportunity attacks in response from anyone with a weapon in hand." (This would neatly allow you to opportunity-attack paralyzed (N)PCs at no risk as long as they're alone, since they can't make opportunity attacks. It would also allow you to punish wizards with spell focuses out instead of weapons, etc.) It never quite gelled though.

 

[Valetudo]

I have been thinking up a wound system for 5e, if a player gets dropped, they get either head, body, arms, or legs wounded. Which ever body part is wounded gives a penalty of some sort. Head=disatvange on attack rolls and perception, body=one level of exaustion, arms=Half damage for physical attacks or concentration checks(DC15) for spellcasting, and legs=half movement. Now this is just theorycraft right now and I havent decide how recovering from wounds should work yet(maybe restoration spells).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Replying to the edit:

That's prettymuch the Dash-or-Withdraw choice 5e presents you with.

No it isn't. If Withdraw was a form of movement instead of an action, it would be.

You can house rule it otherwise of course, and I have.

 

[Valetudo]

I also find the ease of using range weapons and spells with little consequence a poor design chouce that once again makes dex the uber stat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If Withdraw was a form of movement instead of an action, it would be.

Dash is an action and a form of movement, you want to move full speed, you Dash. So, Move-Dash vs Withdraw-Move is the same as retreat at half speed vs run away at full speed.
It's just there's a lot more to it, as well, since there are many more actions possible...

(This would neatly allow you to opportunity-attack paralyzed (N)PCs at no risk as long as they're alone, since they can't make opportunity attacks. It would also allow you to punish wizards with spell focuses out instead of weapons, etc.) It never quite gelled though.

In at least one of the eds you skipped, there was a Coup de Grace action that let you finish a helpless foe - but it provoked.

 

[mflayermonk]

On the other hand, I could just assume their tactics as they are, and throw in encounters accordingly. I am not sure how to achieve that, though. I mean, what exactly should I adjust in the encounters to take into account that the party in general refuses to back down to defend or heal, even though they have invested classes, levels, spell selection, etc., to have all the resources for that?

Monsters with aura damage, such as the fire elemental.
You could also customize monsters to add aura damage of various types. Quick way to do this is to remove one of the attacks from a multiattack, cut the damage to 25%-50% of normal (salt to taste here) and then make that damage auto aura based damage.

Certain monsters such as the Giant Spider and Giant Wasp will force a downed PC to make a Con save or be out of the combat for 1 minute. No death, but still incentives having a PC not go down.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

First you wrote:

That's prettymuch the Dash-or-Withdraw choice 5e presents you with.

Then me:

If Withdraw was a form of movement instead of an action, it would be.

Then you wrote:

Dash is an action and a form of movement, you want to move full speed, you Dash. So, Move-Dash vs Withdraw-Move is the same as retreat at half speed vs run away at full speed.

This doesn't establish the equivalence you claimed. Under AD&D rules, you can take a step backward while drinking a potion, or after making an attack, or almost anything else except casting a spell; you suffer no free attacks while doing so, because withdrawing is a form of movement, not an action: it is orthogonal to most actions.

In 5E rules, withdrawal is an action, and is not compatible with drinking a potion, or making an attack, or pretty much anything else, unless you are a Rogue or Goblin and can therefore Withdraw with your bonus action.

Not equivalent at all.

It's just there's a lot more to it, as well, since there are many more actions possible...

It's not the number N of other actions that makes it complicated--it's the fact that withdrawal doesn't belong in the action economy at all, and only is equivalent to an action in the special case of Dashing. If Dashing and Disengaging were the only types of actions 5E allowed, then the 5E choice would look superficially similar to the AD&D choice, not because they are actually similar but because you're examining a pathological case.

It's cleaner to just eliminate Disengage from the game, and say that opportunity attacks don't happen if you're moving at half speed or below. Incidentally this also removes the "newbie trap" wherein the new player says, "Okay, I don't want to fight, I'll go over here and talk to the chained captive" and a poor DM says, "Aha! the drow hits you for 7 points of damage, because you didn't say 'I disengage'". (True story.) A good DM would say, "I assume you want to Disengage, right?" but without Disengage you wouldn't even need to ask that question, you'd just measure the distance.

 

[Tony Vargas]

withdrawal ... is equivalent to an action in the special case of Dashing. If Dashing and Disengaging were the only types of actions 5E allowed, then the 5E choice would look superficially similar to the AD&D choice, not because they are actually similar but because you're examining a pathological case.

Examining D&D, so yeah. ;P Seriously, though, that was the point. In AD&D, you could do a 'fighting retreat' or could run and grant a parting shot. 2e, you could, apparently, take a reduced move or a full move & grant the parting shot. C&T, IIRC, formalized that into AOs, that 3e elaborated on and 4e de-elaborated a bit, 5e quite a bit more.

It's been a long, strange, circumambulation, but the upshot is, then, you could run away as fast as you could and suffer the parting shot then, and, now, you can Dash away as fast as you could and suffer the parting shot. And, yeah, that's pretty similar, as far as it goes, especially considering how very different the initiative and action rules are.

It's cleaner to just eliminate Disengage from the game, and say that opportunity attacks don't happen if you're moving at half speed or below.

Like 5' step in 3e or shifting in 4e, sure. It'd be workable. It'd mean probably adding other things that provoke besides movement, like casting in melee, and it'd open up different issues than disengage does (if you're more than twice as fast as a melee mook you could casually hit him and saunter away ever round, for instance).

Incidentally this also removes the "newbie trap" wherein the new player says, "Okay, I don't want to fight, I'll go over here and talk to the chained captive" and a poor DM says, "Aha! the drow hits you for 7 points of damage, because you didn't say 'I disengage'". (True story.) A good DM would say, "I assume you want to Disengage, right?" but without Disengage you wouldn't even need to ask that question, you'd just measure the distance.

Meh, a 5e player is supposed to state actions, ruling he Disengaged is just part of the 5e DM's job. ;P

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Examining D&D, so yeah. ;P Seriously, though, that was the point. In AD&D, you could do a 'fighting retreat' or could run and grant a parting shot. 2e, you could, apparently, take a reduced move or a full move & grant the parting shot. C&T, IIRC, formalized that into AOs, that 3e elaborated on and 4e de-elaborated a bit, 5e quite a bit more.

It's been a long, strange, circumambulation, but the upshot is, then, you could run away as fast as you could and suffer the parting shot then, and, now, you can Dash away as fast as you could and suffer the parting shot. And, yeah, that's pretty similar, as far as it goes, especially considering how very different the initiative and action rules are.

It isn't very similar though. In AD&D, you can withdraw and attack somebody else. In real life, you can do the same. In 5E, you can't.

Like 5' step in 3e or shifting in 4e, sure. It'd be workable. It'd mean probably adding other things that provoke besides movement, like casting in melee, and it'd open up different issues than disengage does (if you're more than twice as fast as a melee mook you could casually hit him and saunter away ever round, for instance).

That's not a new issue. You can already do this in 5E--you just have to use reach weapons or ranged weapons.