D&D 5E Casters should go back to being interruptable like they used to be.

[Micah Sweet]

Players should not be allowed to make plans mid battle. A round is 6 seconds. I am not saying partys should not coordinate, but complex, complicated plans involving multiple players are unrealistic and story breaking.

Correct. Plans come first.

 

[James Gasik]

By having an enemy focus on the Fighter instead of someone else in the party---like the caster?

But why would they? If you can't hit your opponent, go beat up someone you can!

 

[W'rkncacnter]

But why would they? If you can't hit your opponent, go beat up someone you can!

the only case i can think of is if the fighter is body-blocking an entranceway.

 

[James Gasik]

the only case i can think of is if the fighter is body-blocking an entranceway.

Which if you're in a dungeon or other setting with doors and corridors is certainly a possibility. But D&D busted out of the dungeon a long time ago, so odds are you're fighting on an open street, in a forest clearing, or in a large natural cavern as opposed to a labyrinth or ruins.

 

[M_Natas]

What if he doesn't? Plenty of fights are party vs. Big monster, and just deciding that your monster is immune to stun is asking for a table flip.

The DM has all the power. If he wants to always play tonthe strength of the group and has one big monster that gets chain stunned ...

You can't speak for the community though. None of us can. All you can say is that you find it to be unfun game design, and are happy that it has largely been removed from modern versions of the official game.

For future reference, unless otherwise specified like "studies show" just imagine a "In my experience", "I think", "I find" in front of everyone's texts .
And in this case: it is my experience at the table that players start to disengage when their characters turns gets nullified (Except if the PC gets killed). But this is also something I ser other DMs bring up, too: I f you regularly take away players turns it kills the game and even if you could, doing the same overpowered things to the PCs that the PCs are doing to monsters will kill the enjoyment of the game pretty quickly.

You think that's bad, try playing in an all martial party where the DM likes to use walls, wide pits, hordes and such.

A DM always can create scenarios in which any party no matter party composition will not be able to do anything. That is bad DMing in general.

And Walls? Really? Wide Pits? Don't they have ropes and climbing gear? Is that an all Fighter Champion Party without feats?

Even against hordes ... yes, a champion fighter Will be less effective than a fireball, but he will not be uneffective.

 

[Gammadoodler]

A DM always can create scenarios in which any party no matter party composition will not be able to do anything. That is bad DMing in general.

And Walls? Really? Wide Pits? Don't they have ropes and climbing gear? Is that an all Fighter Champion Party without feats?

Even against hordes ... yes, a champion fighter Will be less effective than a fireball, but he will not be uneffective.

In exactly the same way that interruptible spellcasters would be less effective but not uneffective.

 

[Hell0W0rld]

If a GM can create a game in which martials are functional even though they don't have magic, then a GM can also create a game where casters can function even if they can potentially be interrupted.

 

[Lanefan]

Ok consider this.

If a guy plays a Fighter, and all they do is Dodge every turn, how are they helping the party?

Wrong analogy.

A better one is if a guy plays a Fighter and sometimes all he does is watch while the Wizard takes care of the enemies with ranged blast spells before anyone gets anywhere near melee. The Fighter ain't helping, here.

Our intrepid Wizard here is in the reverse situation, except instead of just watching he has to defend himself (and maybe even get a lucky hit or twon in, you never know) until someone else can bail him out...or, if there's no-one else, he can find a way to hightail it out of there.

This is exactly the position you're saying the Wizard should be in. Unable to do anything but focus on their survival, using up their valuable resources to do so.

In that particular combat, yes. They got ambushed and swarmed, which is always bad news for the backliners and even worse news for this particular party who are, it seems, all backliners.

 

[Lanefan]

Which is a very real possibility in a lot of battles. So if saying "all battles" is hyperbole, I'll amend this to "most battles".

Only if the party consistently decline to use terrain and surroundings to their advantage (e.g. by setting up their defensive line at a chokepoint such as a door, a gap between trees, a cave mouth, etc.) and instead repeatedly let themselves get attacked from all sides.

That, and if the combats are mostly open-field one would hope the Wizard has some reliable means of getting clear of melee e.g. flight, levitate, invisibility-and-run, and so forth. I'm just thinking of how the mage in my current game does it (it's perhaps worth noting he's the only member of that party who hasn't died at least once along the way), and of how I do it when playing my currently-active mage. If either finds itself in melee its first thought is usually "How do I get clear of this mess so I can start casting?".

 

[Lanefan]

Players should not be allowed to make plans mid battle. A round is 6 seconds. I am not saying partys should not coordinate, but complex, complicated plans involving multiple players are unrealistic and story breaking.

I don't mind 'em yelling stuff to each other in-character as long as it's short, like:

"Go left! I've got the right!"
"Lanefan's getting caved! Ecmo, go bail him out!"
"They've got a caster back by the pillar - there's yer target, Joe Di-Mage-io!"
"Four more incoming on the right! Could use some help over here!"
"Left side, fall back, incoming!" (this a pre-set code meaning the mage is about to drop a blast right there so GTFO now!)
"Medic!!!"