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

[Vaalingrade]

so you want a game where wizards are only able to do basic damage and there are no save or utility spells?

I'm looking at my post you quoted that is in favor of save ends effects and wondering how in any universe that translates into me not wanting save effects.

 

[James Gasik]

I guess it's more fair to say that WotC doesn't prescribe any particular class or party composition. The only thing I've found in the PHB is a line about how the party has to work together and that other characters can cover for your weaknesses, but I haven't found a line saying "thou must bring a Bard, Cleric, or Druid".

While there's a lot of "play the class you want" sentiment found online, I don't see anything official, so maybe that's just something the fandom made up? My brain keeps telling me I have heard this from a WotC source, but as I get older, my memory is less reliable and prone to Mandela effects.

I guess I'll have to change my party line from "WotC says you can play what you want" to "WotC never says you have to play anything in particular".

 

[Gammadoodler]

I guess it's more fair to say that WotC doesn't prescribe any particular class or party composition. The only thing I've found in the PHB is a line about how the party has to work together and that other characters can cover for your weaknesses, but I haven't found a line saying "thou must bring a Bard, Cleric, or Druid".

While there's a lot of "play the class you want" sentiment found online, I don't see anything official, so maybe that's just something the fandom made up? My brain keeps telling me I have heard this from a WotC source, but as I get older, my memory is less reliable and prone to Mandela effects.

I guess I'll have to change my party line from "WotC says you can play what you want" to "WotC never says you have to play anything in particular".

There is this in the introduction "wonders of magic" section..

"For adventurers, though, magic is key to their survival. Without the healing magic of clerics and paladins, adventurers would quickly succumb to their wounds. Without the uplifting magical support of bards and clerics, warriors might be overwhelmed by powerful foes. Without the sheer magical power and versatility of wizards and druids, every threat would be magnified tenfold."

 

[ezo]

Yes, but these are things the Fighter has to opt in and build for. Sentinel has a serious cost, that of an ASI (sure Fighters get more, but the first doesn't show up to level 6, and it competes with other things players want to do). And Cavalier is not a popular subclass.

If they plan on playing a fighter who is going to Dodge every turn, then they are already opting in for the build.

Players mostly want their Fighters to be damage machines, and aren't terribly concerned with protecting other players. That's why 5e is designed to be a "everyone must tend to their own defense" game. If you want to change that paradigm, you have to fully change it, not just one part of the equation.

And yet there are quite a few sublcasses and features which deal with protecting or mitigating damage from others.

So, there is really nothing to change in this sense, it is already part of the game.

So maybe you've never seen this damned thing in play, but it's pretty much the poster child for my point, and it's far from unique. It hits you, you're just grappled. No check required. It can have two melee characters in it's grip at the same time, and while they're likely to have Con save proficiency, being poisoned for one minute and paralyzed is pretty much a death sentence.

While the chuul can be a good opponent, it's only an issue if your party consists of just the two melee PCs who got grappled, and even then doesn't seem it should be as big an issue as you're making it, since they get repeated saves to end the poison effect (this ending paralysis) and can escape the grapple.

Maybe you've just seen it when players are consistently rolling badly?

 

[James Gasik]

There is this in the introduction "wonders of magic" section..

"For adventurers, though, magic is key to their survival. Without the healing magic of clerics and paladins, adventurers would quickly succumb to their wounds. Without the uplifting magical support of bards and clerics, warriors might be overwhelmed by powerful foes. Without the sheer magical power and versatility of wizards and druids, every threat would be magnified tenfold."

Ah thank you, that's not the place I was looking for something like that. You'd think that would be found before the actual classes, lol.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Ah thank you, that's not the place I was looking for something like that. You'd think that would be found before the actual classes, lol.

Sure thing. Only knew where to look for it since it'd come up before somewhere.

 

[James Gasik]

And yet there are quite a few sublcasses and features which deal with protecting or mitigating damage from others.

Let's take a look. Well you can choose a Fighting Style that uses your reaction each turn, but it competes with a lot of other fighting styles. There's the Cavalier, who gets their ability to protect starting at level 3.

But then you have stuff like:

Bear. While you're raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that's hostile to you has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you or another character with this feature. An enemy is immune to this effect if it can't see or hear you or if it can't be frightened.

Hey that's a great defender feature! Too bad you get it at 14th level!

The issue I have isn't that there's no way to do it. It's that at each and every step, you have to opt into it, and most players don't, preferring to take options that boost their combat effectiveness. After all, the best status condition is dead, or so I keep hearing.

If you want a game where melee protects weak squishy casters, you can't say "well, as an option you can worry about the pointy hat, but it'll cost you something that'll make you more effective at murdering things", since not many players want to do that.

And if you make it so where they have to do that, and they don't want to, they might go and find another game to play. I don't like it, but that's just how a lot of people play the game.

I realize as I type this that I'm mostly (and a bit foolishly) arguing from a position of "this could be problematic for the game as it exists". It occurs to me though that as an optional approach to the game, something that individual tables can employ, as long as your players are on board, there's no real issue. Those of you who want this for your games- have at it, and I hope you have fun with it.

I'll stop tilting at windmills now.

 

[ezo]

Let's take a look. Well you can choose a Fighting Style that uses your reaction each turn, but it competes with a lot of other fighting styles. There's the Cavalier, who gets their ability to protect starting at level 3.

If your goal is to make a PC who tanks and takes the hits from others, the protection style isn't really competing with others.

But then you have stuff like:

Bear. While you're raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that's hostile to you has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you or another character with this feature. An enemy is immune to this effect if it can't see or hear you or if it can't be frightened.

Hey that's a great defender feature! Too bad you get it at 14th level!

You also have things like Ancentral Guardians barbarian subclass if you wanted to play a barbarian focused on protecting others.

The issue I have isn't that there's no way to do it. It's that at each and every step, you have to opt into it, and most players don't, preferring to take options that boost their combat effectiveness. After all, the best status condition is dead, or so I keep hearing.

If you want a game where melee protects weak squishy casters, you can't say "well, as an option you can worry about the pointy hat, but it'll cost you something that'll make you more effective at murdering things", since not many players want to do that.

And if you make it so where they have to do that, and they don't want to, they might go and find another game to play. I don't like it, but that's just how a lot of people play the game.

The premise is, of course, that the player wants to play a protective role focusing on the defense of others, not the offense of the team. While such PCs might not be as effective at offense, they still can and will be effective nonetheless.

I realize as I type this that I'm mostly (and a bit foolishly) arguing from a position of "this could be problematic for the game as it exists". It occurs to me though that as an optional approach to the game, something that individual tables can employ, as long as your players are on board, there's no real issue. Those of you who want this for your games- have at it, and I hope you have fun with it.

I'll stop tilting at windmills now.

Which was my point. It's already there for people who want it, of course, and a fighter (or any martial) who focuses on taking the Dodge action as a target to prevent attackers from going after casters can do it.

Even if they only keep the attacker from the caster for a single turn, in a game where battles are often 3 rounds or less, it helps and can be an effective option.

 

[CreamCloud0]

As an aside, shouldn't we also be discussing having ranged attacks be interruptible?

maybe when ranged attacks are doing 8d6 damage to every target in a 20ft radius of a point, half damage on a miss as a single action but as it is making a ranged attack while in melee range of a hostile creature already gets disadvantage IIRC so i think they're good for the moment.

 

[Gammadoodler]

maybe when ranged attacks are doing 8d6 damage to every target in a 20ft radius of a point, half damage on a miss as a single action but as it is making a ranged attack while in melee range of a hostile creature already gets disadvantage IIRC so i think they're good for the moment.

Yeah. From an effects perspective, it's unlikely for an individual ranged attack to have as significant an impact on a battle..and thematically (imo) it's a little easier to justify ranged warriors having enough experience in battle to avoid being interrupted.

With that said, having ranged characters potentially take damage from reaction attacks might be a nice way to bridge some of the ranged/melee gap, but that's some significant topic drift.