D&D 5E Changes from the playtest: Combat

[MerricB]

I've started my first article on what has changed since the last of the public playtest documents - more properly the Interim Rules that were distributed with Dead in Thay and the other two PDF Next adventures.

Here's the full article on my website: http://merricb.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/basic-dungeons-dragons-combat-changes/

And here's a summary of the changes. (I've left out changes to conditions, etc. I'll get to those soon!)

Surprise: It has been clarified that you can’t take reactions until after your first turn comes up – which you’ll then skip. Note this also means that characters can take reactions from the start of combat if they’re not surprised.

Initiative: Although there are no changes here, it’s worth noting how ties are resolved: players decide amongst themselves for their own tied initiative, as does the DM for the monsters. In the case of a monster and a player character, the DM can choose the order – or optionally roll d20s as tie-breakers.

Bonus Actions: This is a new type of action (analogous to the swift action of 3E or the minor action of 4E) and you are limited to one bonus action on each of your turns.

Movement and Attacks: It is clarified that you can move between multiple attacks.

Dropping Prone and Standing Up: Dropping prone now doesn’t take any of your speed, whilst standing up takes half your movement instead of all of it.

Flying and Falling: There are now various triggers for a flying creature falling from the sky: being knocked prone or being immobilized are two.

Creature Size: Although the space taken up by creatures of different sizes hasn’t changed, the “surround” and “fills” numbers are gone.

Dash: This is what was called Hustle.

No Charging: the Charge action is gone.

No Coup de Grace: the Coup de Grace action is gone.

Dodge: You now lose the benefit if you become incapacitated, rather than if you can’t move or take actions.

Grappling: the Grapple action is gone, but it has been rolled into the Attack action. The grapple attempt replaces one of your attacks. Instead of straight Strength or Dexterity checks, Athletics and Acrobatics are used instead. There is now no option to restrain a grappled creature.

Shoving a Creature: This section replaces the action of knocking someone prone, and also allows you to move the creature 5 feet away. Once again, the bare ability checks have been replaced with skill checks; it is also now part of the Attack action, replacing a single attack.

Help: This now specifies that only the first attack against the creature gains advantage.

No Hinder: the Hinder action is gone.

Ready: Now specifies what happens when you ready a spell, which also requires concentration.

Search: Now specifies that Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) can be used, depending on circumstances.

Unseen Attackers and Targets: Now specifies you must know the location of the target.

Ranged Attacks: You have disadvantage on ranged attacks if you’re within 5 feet of the target. This includes with spells!

Hit Points: This isn’t new, but is worth emphasising: there is no such things as negative hit points. Once they reach 0, they can’t fall any further.

Critical Hits: On a critical hit, you now roll twice the normal damage dice (rather than maximising the damage and rolling one of the damage dice again). Non-dice modifiers are not doubled.

Monsters and Death: The DM has the option of having creatures die immediately at 0 hit points or just letting them fall unconscious.

Mounts and Underwater Combats: These sections are new.

Cheers!

 

[Nikosandros]

Some of the things that are missing, might simply have been cut from Basic instead of having being dropped entirely from the game.

 

[Sonny]

Some of the things that are missing, might simply have been cut from Basic instead of having being dropped entirely from the game.

Yeah, it looks like the Equipment Chapter is the only one that is taken from the PH in it's entirety. http://www.wizards.com/DND/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140630

So some combat options missing doesn't surprise me.

 

[Teataine]

I had not noticed it, but the lack of a Hinder action makes me sad. I think I know why they removed it (to protect the utility of various spells and class abilities that may provide disadvantage to monsters), but still. I wanted to see my archer shoot an orc in his flailing arm and protect my comrade from getting hacked to bits.

If it's in the PHB however, that's cool I guess.

 

[Nebulous]

Critical Hits: On a critical hit, you now roll twice the normal damage dice (rather than maximising the damage and rolling one of the damage dice again). Non-dice modifiers are not doubled..

Cheers!

I never understood this rationality with Critical Hits....what is the point of this approach if you can STILL roll low, and inflict less damage than you might normally? I think it is much better just doing automatic full damage.

 

[Li Shenron]

Bonus Actions: This is a new type of action (analogous to the swift action of 3E or the minor action of 4E) and you are limited to one bonus action on each of your turns.

IIUC bonus actions are always used by specific abilities, and the only general rule is that you can't get more than one bonus action in the same round. This sounds at first sight like a solid rule to me.

OTOH I might have to re-read these rules again, but I got a feeling that the Fighter can use its Action Surge to take any combat action as a Bonus action, including the Attack action; then at the same time, Extra Attacks refer to apply to the Attack action; there is no specific mention of max 1 attack when taking th Attack action as a Bonus action thanks to Action Surge -> IOW the Action Surge grants a regular Attack action that doesn't work differently from the Attack action you can take every round. This to me sounds like Action Surge + Extra Attacks = 8 attacks at 20th level.

This is much more powerful than 2WF, however you can use it only once or twice per combat, while you can use 2WF once per round.

What do you think?

No Charging: the Charge action is gone.

No Coup de Grace: the Coup de Grace action is gone.

Grappling: the Grapple action is gone, but it has been rolled into the Attack action. The grapple attempt replaces one of your attacks. Instead of straight Strength or Dexterity checks, Athletics and Acrobatics are used instead. There is now no option to restrain a grappled creature.

Shoving a Creature: This section replaces the action of knocking someone prone, and also allows you to move the creature 5 feet away. Once again, the bare ability checks have been replaced with skill checks; it is also now part of the Attack action, replacing a single attack.

I'm sad about Charge, but honestly I'd rather have no special Charge action rather than have a badly design Charge action. The narrative of charging isn't removed, so it's ok for me to say that charging is nothing but moving towards the enemy and strike at the end. If they add Charge later, I hope they do a really good design about it (some mechanics for both charging and readying against it).

CdG removed is a positive thing for me. I never liked CdG, it only adds little tactically and it always carries problems.

I like Grappling simplified even further, and also I like the simplicity of Shoving.

One more thing I noticed is that they removed the 10ft limit for Disengage. I actually tweeted Mearls about this a few months ago, so it was my hope they'd do it. That 10ft limit was an unnecessary complication/fiddly bit to remember.

 

[MerricB]

OTOH I might have to re-read these rules again, but I got a feeling that the Fighter can use its Action Surge to take any combat action as a Bonus action,

In fact, Action Surge allows the fighter to get an extra action, on top of a potential bonus action, so a high-level fighter can, in fact, get 8 attacks twice per rest.

This seems fine to me.

Cheers!

 

[Li Shenron]

In fact, Action Surge allows the fighter to get an extra action, on top of a potential bonus action, so a high-level fighter can, in fact, get 8 attacks twice per rest.

This seems fine to me.

Cheers!

Aha, so not a bonus but an extra, so she can still also get 1 more attack from 2WF!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No Charging: the Charge action is gone.

No Coup de Grace: the Coup de Grace action is gone.

I really hope these are just hanging out in the PHB. D&D with no Charge seems... wrong. CdG solved a lot of problems, and there needs to be some kind of "if the enemy cannot act, you can kill them" rule (beyond "common sense", because in a lot of this situations, the DM may feel "common sense" is different to the players, and it's usually going to be a combat issue).

Grappling: the Grapple action is gone, but it has been rolled into the Attack action. The grapple attempt replaces one of your attacks. Instead of straight Strength or Dexterity checks, Athletics and Acrobatics are used instead. There is now no option to restrain a grappled creature.

I'm not really happy with the grappling rules, but I can't honestly point to significantly better ones in any edition of D&D. So I'm a little vexed. I mean, a human can grapple a size L creature, and if they do so, they reduce that creature to 0 move, unless that creature takes an action to break it. Which seems a bit, like, whoa. I kind of like that it only takes one of your attacks, though, and it would mean you could use this to quite effectively lock down single S/M/L enemies if you had multiple attacks, because you could grab them and then continue hitting them.

I hope the PHB has some rules for restraining grappled people - it doesn't have to be easy but it's too important to be a fiat issue.

Shoving a Creature: This section replaces the action of knocking someone prone, and also allows you to move the creature 5 feet away. Once again, the bare ability checks have been replaced with skill checks; it is also now part of the Attack action, replacing a single attack.

Yeah, this is really good, and pretty simple. It does put an awful lot of mechanical weight on the Athletics skill, though. Far more than it should bear, I feel - it makes this seem like a last-minute decision (it's not terrible, because most characters who have the STR to do this reliably WILL have Athletics, but it's a bit weird).

No Hinder: the Hinder action is gone.

I really dislike this. Hope it's in the PHB. All the class-specific stuff that imposed Disadvantage on enemies seemed to be better than it, too (using a Reaction, for example, instead of your Action, or hitting multiple enemies, or lasting for a long time), so I can't see "balance" as a reason, particularly. Unless they have a lot of enemies who rely on Advantage to be able to do anything good. Even then, though - if you're forcing a PC to blow an entire action every round to lock an enemy down, that seems like a fair trade-off.

Ready: Now specifies what happens when you ready a spell, which also requires concentration.

The stuff with the spell seemed like some real "rules for rules sake" to me. It's fiddly, and I don't think it enhances the game. It's really weird to see something like that in Basic, but not Charge.

Ranged Attacks: You have disadvantage on ranged attacks if you’re within 5 feet of the target. This includes with spells!

Interesting. Does it still provoke an OA?

Hit Points: This isn’t new, but is worth emphasising: there is no such things as negative hit points. Once they reach 0, they can’t fall any further.

That is worth emphasizing, I hadn't quite processed it as working like that. Good stuff.

Critical Hits: On a critical hit, you now roll twice the normal damage dice (rather than maximising the damage and rolling one of the damage dice again). Non-dice modifiers are not doubled.

I really really do not like this. Not only does it mean extra time and extra rolling (assuming your PCs normally roll damage at the same time as attack, rather than after, which I think is common), it means you can get old-fashioned worthless "criticals" which do less than normal max or even average damage, and it's not even really that unlikely with single-die weapons. Bleh. Even simple "double damage" is better, because that way you'd double the mods, which would pretty much guarantee above-average or above-normal damage.

Interesting side-effect of changing most spells back to saves, I didn't think about this, but it means most spells cannot crit, whereas crit'ing with spells was like, a standard thing, in 4E.

 

[MerricB]

Interesting. Does it still provoke an OA?

No. To be fair, in both 3E and 4E, feats, skills and items meant that spell-casting rarely provoked OAs.

Cheers!