D&D 5E Boy, that escalated quickly...

[Staffan]

How do you "slam them prone" without some significant investment? Knocking people prone isn't something you can do without a feat, a special effect (e.g. wild shape), or a spell, as far as I was aware.

You can shove someone no more than one size larger than you as an attack, and roll your Strength (Athletics) vs their Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics). If you win, you either knock the target prone or 5 ft away from you. PHB page 195-196.

Battlemasters and various monsters get special attacks that let them deal damage and knock opponents prone, but anyone can shove.

Edit: and regarding stats, there are very few monsters with Strength bonuses of more than +5 (particularly ones that would be likely to run off and get help), and almost no monsters with Athletics proficiency. High Dexterity and/or Acrobatics proficiency is even more rare. A mid-level fighter can easily have an Athletics bonus of +7 to +9 - or a rogue or lore bard could have something similar via Expertise without focusing unduly much on Strength. That gives you pretty good odds of success. Bounded accuracy is definitely working in the PCs' favor here (unlike 3e where using combat maneuvers on non-humanoid foes were pretty much doomed to failure because of size, Strength, and possibly extra legs and stuff).

 

[Vicaring]

it is not your job as a DM...

...I would make it perfectly clear...

...And even then, it is entirely up to them...

Sweet. Thanks for taking the time to so coherently explicate your assumptious condescension. +1

 

[Staffan]

Just for the fun of it, I went through the MM to find which monsters were hard, but not impossible (because of size Huge+ or outright immunity to the prone condition) to shove, as defined by Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) of +6 or better. This is the full list:

Planetar +7
Solar +8
Centaur +6
Horned Devil +6
Pit fiend +8
Young red dragon +6
Young gold dragon +6
Young silver dragon +6
Dao +6
Efreeti +6
Marid +6
Iron golem +7
Stone golem +6
Androsphinx +6
Assassin +7 (Acrobatics)
Gladiator +10

The Solar and the Assassin are the only ones with Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks at +6 or more, and the Solar is stronger than he is agile.

 

[Quickleaf]

All my personal opinion, of course...

With regards to the kobold 'gotcha' moment - wouldn't this be a deterrent to said players for trying diplomacy at all? As a DM, it's hilarious, but as a player, it reeks of "might as well have killed them all and been done with it."

The background you're missing is...

The players in that game asked for a classic D&D dungeon crawl, so I pitched Dragon Mountain and they were all on board. In case you don't know, Dragon Mountain is basically THE "Tucker's Kobolds" module.

Also, they had more successful negotiations with other kobold clans of the mountain.

With regards to 'waste of time' monsters - if your players are primarily arse-kickers, killing monsters is never a waste of time; it's where their kind of fun happens to be.

You misunderstood. I didn't mean a waste of the player's time. I meant a waste of the character's time...as in "dealing with these kobolds is costing us XY...how much XY are we willing to lose before we stop killing them and look for other methods to deal with the REAL problem/quest/threat?"

 

[Rhenny]

Do your players not have access to the internet?

[video=youtube;waa2ucfgVgQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ[/video]

Great find. Very funny.

Just for the record, as DM, I encourage my players to split the party when it makes sense (for covering more ground to find clues, for sneaking and recon, etc.). Even though it puts them at more risk, it makes the adventure more interesting and tense. Some of the best times in my games have come when one or more player are caught in a situation without the rest of the party and they have to figure out how to get out of it (or the rest of the party has to come to save them!).

 

[Boneguard]

I mostly play 1st and 2nd ed and yeah reinforcement is pretty much the norm (thus why we always keep an eye open for that little bugger and try to shoot him down if possible...not always in melee). That bring us to use a lot of hit and run tactics: Hit them hard, hit them fast, then leave as quickly.

 

[Al2O3]

I am currently running Lost Mines of Phandelver, and something I've noticed is that the adventure often states that monsters can't hear fighting or has a reason to ignore fighting in the adjacent room. If you want to simply change the "monster runs for reinforcement" think you could do a similar thing and give a reason for why reinforcements won't come. Maybe the monster runs away to provide early warning so others set up an ambush. Maybe the monsters being warned will stay at their post because there are other ways to get to the post and THEY won't split the party in case there is an ambush from a different direction. This would make sense if they are guarding the entrance to the BBEG personal quarters or similar.

Another thing you might already be doing is giving a delay for when reinforcements arrive. Last session the adventure mentioned a monster running off with a warning, returning two rounds later. The party made short work of his companion and pursued him before he could return, but the idea could be useful to give the PCs a short time to take care of the original threat. Maybe have the runner come back leading the reinforcements, telling the players "the goblin you recognise ran away now returns, a group of hobgoblins close behind".

 

[the Jester]

One of the things I'm REALLY fond of in 5e is that it has much less of an "encounter" focus than 3e or 4e.

One of the things this makes viable is NPC's running to get reinforcements.

This has always been a thing, depending on the DM. Personally, when I write up a dungeon, I often insert a "Reinforcements" line if another room(s) is/are close enough for the sound of battle to draw reinforcements.

 

[I'm A Banana]

How do you "slam them prone" without some significant investment? Knocking people prone isn't something you can do without a feat, a special effect (e.g. wild shape), or a spell, as far as I was aware. Even with that taken care of, both of those things are contested vs. the target's choice of Dex(Acro) or Str(Athl)--unless every character is proficient with Athletics and pumping Str, they're not going to be able to keep up with monster stats (since most monsters have a good score in *at least* one of those once you get to mid/high level).

Naaah, in play, there's a significant use of the Shove action and, given bounded accuracy, it's pretty rare for a STR-based fighter (even one without training in Athletics - thanks Remarkable Athlete) to not have a very good chance to make most enemies taste dust.

...and for those it DOESN'T work on, "hitting them in the face 'till they stop moving" is a remarkably quick way to stop their escape!

I am currently running Lost Mines of Phandelver, and something I've noticed is that the adventure often states that monsters can't hear fighting or has a reason to ignore fighting in the adjacent room. If you want to simply change the "monster runs for reinforcement" think you could do a similar thing and give a reason for why reinforcements won't come.

Thinking back to this party playing through LMoP, it happened there, too - though the goblins wanted to flee rather than fight, the whole cave got alerted after the first encounter. This was where the power of Sentinel as a feat was first unveiled by the low-level fighter: the goblins tried to run away, the Fighter stood in in the middle corridor and played whack-a-gobbie with 'em. They ended up having the NPC they were rescuing die in the rescue attempt as a consequence (and this ended up escalating the Zhentarim agent in Phandalin to a pretty significant NPC).

Thinking about it, it may have only started being a problem now (toward the end of HotDQ) is that the last few dungeons have all basically responded the same way, because they've all been places of fanatical cultists. Fighting to the death is like, The Thing Cultists Do.

Though these might also be interested in converts....hmmm....there's a possible wrinkle.

 

[Lidgar]

Agree it has more to do with how the DM runs things and adventure design versus which edition it is. Although to be fair, many 3e/4e official adventures were designed with set encounters.

For home-brews, I think that goes out the window. For example, we had one "encounter" in a 3e home-brew where the party must have battled 5 waves of reinforcements at the front steps of the dungeon.

It is fondly remembered as the Battle of the Stoop.