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

[Krachek]

1st part of Mage slayer needs to be general rule and with advantage.

rest can be paired with +1 ASI for half-feat.
also add, when you critically hit a caster with AoO while caster is casting a spell, caster loses a number of spell slot levels equal to your proficiency bonus. Casters choice.

Why not!
I would not play a caster with your house rule, but you are free to try it with your players.

 

[James Gasik]

martials having insufficent ways to protect casters is an entirely different issue but i feel like the rest of that is exactly what should happen in those circumstances, casters should want to get out of dodge if they find themselves in melee, live to cast on another turn, shield, expidicious retreat or misty step might not be dealing direct damage but they benefit the party in that they ensure you're alive to effectively run to the back line so that you can cast your offensive spells in safety.

misty step now and fireball next turn is better than casting nothing now(be that an attempted fireball or just trying to run through) and be bleeding out on the floor next turn.

Are we saying that Misty Step is uninterruptible? I thought the idea was to give martials the ability to counter spells without needing access to Counterspell.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes. Unless you only have always 1 to 2 encounters where the caster can always Nova, Fighters will outdamage wizards except in some rare circumstance.

Ag, so the boring part. The martials get the boring part.

 

[nevin]

martials having insufficent ways to protect casters is an entirely different issue but i feel like the rest of that is exactly what should happen in those circumstances, casters should want to get out of dodge if they find themselves in melee, live to cast on another turn, shield, expidicious retreat or misty step might not be dealing direct damage but they benefit the party in that they ensure you're alive to effectively run to the back line so that you can cast your offensive spells in safety.

misty step now and fireball next turn is better than casting nothing now(be that an attempted fireball or just trying to run through) and be bleeding out on the floor next turn.

As someone who started in 1e, the problem with a game model that requires protecting the casters is this. Getting the party spread out then becomes the DM's most effective strategy every time. You end up with a game where everyone pulls in around the magic user, or they hide the magic user and then instead of being hero's they try to save the magic user till the magic user can nova something. this is the reason that magic users got more hit points and better spells because two generations of martial players got tired of playing shield wall for the mage. Now everyone gets mad because the mage can bounce around the battlefield and wait for the moment the baddies come together and nova them and some martials whine that even though they do more overall damage they wanna kill 6 baddies at once. Each way of playing has equally bad outcomes if the DM makes it thier priority to do the most efficient thing every encounter. 1e arguments on this are the mirror image of 5e arguments and I think they come from the same place. DM's are always playing against multiple people and we tend to forget that our baddies don't know everything we do, so the baddies act like supercomputer AI baddies that know everything. This forces the Players to seek Optimal play style and if the escalation cycle continues long enough in any game you generally end up with one optimal way to handle 98 percent of what the DM throw's at you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As someone who started in 1e, the problem with a game model that requires protecting the casters is this. Getting the party spread out then becomes the DM's most effective strategy every time. You end up with a game where everyone pulls in around the magic user, or they hide the magic user and then instead of being hero's they try to save the magic user till the magic user can nova something. this is the reason that magic users got more hit points and better spells because two generations of martial players got tired of playing shield wall for the mage. Now everyone gets mad because the mage can bounce around the battlefield and wait for the moment the baddies come together and nova them and some martials whine that even though they do more overall damage they wanna kill 6 baddies at once. Each way of playing has equally bad outcomes if the DM makes it thier priority to do the most efficient thing every encounter. 1e arguments on this are the mirror image of 5e arguments and I think they come from the same place. DM's are always playing against multiple people and we tend to forget that our baddies don't know everything we do, so the baddies act like supercomputer AI baddies that know everything. This forces the Players to seek Optimal play style and if the escalation cycle continues long enough in any game you generally end up with one optimal way to handle 98 percent of what the DM throw's at you.

As you say, play the opponents fairly, with the intelligence and knowledge that opponent would have, and hope the players do the same. Mutual respect by all parties for each other and for the setting solves most of these problems, IMO. Assuming bad faith on the part of your table mates never leads to good outcomes.

 

[Shardstone]

Martials should be more efficient in combat! It's their job!

If the non-martials are in melee then something's gone wrong. An ambush certainly qualifies, and cases like that are where the martials get to shine while the non-martials just hope to survive. The flip side is when you can see the enemies coming from far away, and the casters can lay waste to 'em before the martials get their weapons drawn.

This isnt true when almost every class ability and spell do damag, apply conditions, and otherwise are designed specifically for combat.

 

[nevin]

As you say, play the opponents fairly, with the intelligence and knowledge that opponent would have, and hope the players do the same. Mutual respect by all parties for each other and for the setting solves most of these problems, IMO. Assuming bad faith on the part of your table mates never leads to good outcomes.

I dont' even think it's bad faith most of the time. I think DM is under the pressure to create challenging encounters and over time it get's hard and harder to outthink multiple players with higher and higher level abilities and DM starts taking shortcuts and /or just starts reacting based on what they know and where the game is going. I think most of the time that kind of thing happens it's all with the best intentions but it ends up with DM making every decision every bad guy makes as if the bad guy knows everything the DM knows. Of course sometimes those decisions get made when you had to work overtime all week and had no time to put into the game. It can be stressful to try and keep it all going.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I dont' even think it's bad faith most of the time. I think DM is under the pressure to create challenging encounters and over time it get's hard and harder to outthink multiple players with higher and higher level abilities and DM starts taking shortcuts and /or just starts reacting based on what they know and where the game is going. I think most of the time that kind of thing happens it's all with the best intentions but it ends up with DM making every decision every bad guy makes as if the bad guy knows everything the DM knows. Of course sometimes those decisions get made when you had to work overtime all week and had no time to put into the game. It can be stressful to try and keep it all going.

I just see it as a behavior to fight against, not one that needs to be legislated against. Good advice for any game's GM section.

 

[nevin]

I just see it as a behavior to fight against, not one that needs to be legislated against. Good advice for any game's GM section.

I agree. I don't think you can legislate it.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Because enemies like to run up to murder casters. Martials have limited ways to stop this (even if they want to) and what are you going to do? Disengage and Dodge means you're not casting spells. Spells spent for defense are spells that aren't actually helping the party win an encounter.

FWIW, I think a proposed change to casters should come along with some additional redesigns to other systems. Sticky front lines should be one of them.

In the TSR days, you would find as defensible a position as you could and fight in ranks. Or your fighters would move into melee with the enemy. Why can't you use those tactics now? It's like you think your opponents will throw themselves past your front line to get to the casters, every turn. I just don't see that.

Low-level play in TSR era was built with certain assumptions. In particular dungeons with lots of 10' corridors (you could stick a row or two of 3-abreast front-liners between the enemies and the squishies). There also were (depending on specific game) rules about once you hit melee, you could either stay and fight, flee, or retreat, but not work your way around your opponent and rush their rear line. If you could somehow situate yourself to 'flee' from melee into an enemy rear-line (fleeing so you would get in an attack), IIRC each front liner would get their full attack iteration on you. Obviously everyone didn't play like that, but I also remember that as party sizes shrank (from scads of hirelings) and as we left the narrow corridors, we all did institute some kinds of house rules to address this because otherwise outdoor encounters were murder on the magic users and thieves that enemies could just run up to.

Regardless, my point is of course you can still use those tactics now (minus worse sticky front-line rules), but then you are choosing to stick more to the dungeon structure of old. My impression is that that is a non-starter for a lot of play groups.