Dealing with spellcasters as a martial

[The Crimson Binome]

It is in the Xanathar's Guide to Everything, the "first official expansion" of the game. You don't need to be a gish. And offer a Save is how the spells usually work.

Supplemental expansions are not a reflection of the base game. Anything that exists in a supplement is irrelevant unless you are specifically talking about that supplement.

See that there are 22 spells without Verbal components for wizard only. I wouldn't call it exactly "powerless" or without options. There are plenty of options. Further, those spells advantage fall into meaninglessness if you suddenly ignore the Verbal components althogeter

There are not many useful spells that lack a Verbal component, and of the ones which do, they trend toward not being useful in combat. Both friends and hypnotic pattern are on that list.

It falls under the Interact with an object. You are perfectly able to retrieve, grab, kick or otherwise interact with the weapon in the floor. And it doesn't take an action at all. Heck, you could even step on it, if you're concerned with timing. Feel free to look at the rules.

If your DM rules that kicking a weapon away from someone counts as a free object interaction, then that's on them. It very well may depend on the terrain, or other factors. And again, if anyone abuses that ruling, expect weapon chains to be implemented in short order.

It seems sensible enough. It isn't exactly my cup of tea, though,as it seems very restrictive. But, then, as it is the same as pulling a dagger in it's neck, then I'll have to make an attack.

The important part of the comparison is that you can't kill someone by simply slitting their throat. Not in combat, at least. (Or, arguably, ever.) All you can do is whittle away their HP, slowly. Likewise, if you want to choke someone in combat, you need to get through their HP before you can possibly do so.

Then, if I want to disable casting with material components, then I only have to disarm the wizard, without disadvantage, and as a part of an attack if I'm a Battlemaster and interact with an object to kick or stomp into the caster staff, rod, crystal or whatever without further checks. Goodbye fireballs and lightning bolts.

And then they pull out their backup wand. Seriously, those things are cheap.

Again, entirely RAW.

Only in that it relies on a generous interpretation from the DM, and the rules don't explicitly prohibit the DM from doing so. None of it is RAW in the sense that you could expect it to work without previously knowing anything about the DM.

More likely, if you insist on trying to break the game, the DM just has your character die and you aren't invited back. Then everyone else can play the game in peace.

 

[Erechel]

Disarm in the DMG is an optional addition. It will depend on your DM/table.

How do you disarm a wizard when their components are kept in pockets inside their robes? Do you strip them naked? Can you do that with a grapple check too?

I had to laugh when you said the other readers were too ‘rules lawery’.

Of the 22 most are cantrips dealing a small amount of damage the rest are unhelpful.

You seem obsessed with a quick one round take down of a spellcaster of any level. It’s really odd. Maybe don’t show your DM this thread, it probably won’t convince him any more than it’s convinced me.

You are right about the pouches. It is one of the reasons why I usually pick them instead of an Arcane Focus. And Disarm is a maneuver of the Battlemaster. Feel free to see the rules. And, read again, I've said fake rules lawyering. Because it is actually not: you are ignoring rules, and at the same time, saying that I'm ignoring them, when I'm not. Improvised actions. Disarm maneuver. Contests. Interacting with an object. Disarm of the DMG. Spell components. you are throwing everything on behalf of one rule, and one rule only: hit points. You have to go through hit points. You can't debuff, hinder, or otherwise force anyone to think tactically without spells. You are even ignoring a core fighter maneuver.

As I've said countless times now, you are denying one of the bases of 5e: the player decides what to do, the DM says how. You are saying "No". The fun thing is, as a fighter, I am able to surpass in damage and thougness to any wizard. The thing that really bothers me is that the same fireball that I pass, kills my bard and warlock companion, my warhorse, the ranger's pet and the wizards' familiar. Furthermore, I'm not trying to one-shot the wizard, quite the opposite, in fact. I have more probabilities to one shot them via multiple attacks, action surge and maneuvers. It is only the damage the wizard could do to my companions that draws me to disable their most destructive spells, and compel them to focus on myself with suboptimal attacks.

I could win the long contest, but my companions don't, and I'm eager to go into the frail, grant the wizard minions opportunity attacks and everything else if that way I protect my companions.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As I've said countless times now, you are denying one of the bases of 5e: the player decides what to do, the DM says how. You are saying "No".

Go back and read the rules which you quoted. The Player decides what they want to do; the DM then says whether or not it is possible, and whether or not there's some sort of check required. It is perfectly reasonable and expected for the DM to say "No" to any request.

 

[Erechel]

Go back and read the rules which you quoted. The Player decides what they want to do; the DM then says whether or not it is possible, and whether or not there's some sort of check required. It is perfectly reasonable and expected for the DM to say "No" to any request.

That's why I explicitly called Disarm maneuvers, [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION], and Interact with an Object. And Material and Verbal components. And the fact that the spellcasters have plenty of options to avoid being in melee in the first place.

You are triviallizing many rules because you can't conceive that the spellcaster could be limited in any way. Furthermore, you are triviallizing interesting options. You aren't even consider the tactical intricacies that such options allow. That part of "You disarmed the spellcaster. In his turn, he draws another arcane focus" is actually a great thing: you do something, then the caster does something else because of what you did it in the first place. The fighter could insist, or not, and in the meantime, both are alive, both have options. Other spells come into relevance, the wizard has to go away from melee with a Misty Step, or Levitate, or Fly. Ot it has to use a sub-optimal cantrip. The fighter isn't restricted to "I attack", the dynamics fly and you use all the rules in the book, instead of only to hit. How boring it is, how repetitive for a fighter, he can't think or attempt anything, even his own maneuvers, because the only measure of tactic is DPR, even if he always win.

 

[TheSword]

You are right about the pouches. It is one of the reasons why I usually pick them instead of an Arcane Focus. And Disarm is a maneuver of the Battlemaster. Feel free to see the rules. And, read again, I've said fake rules lawyering.

...

As I've said countless times now, you are denying one of the bases of 5e: the player decides what to do, the DM says how. You are saying "No"

Less of the fake news - I said the ‘disarm option in the DMG’ was at the DMs discretion not the battle masters. If you want to take the battlemaster archetype fill your boots and disarm away.

Sealorn has already pointed out the line you quoted saying that the DM decides if something is possible. Even IF I decide it is possible as DM I can say the difficulty requires you to beat the defendants grapple by 10 or state that it has some lesser effect.

You declare what you’re doing... not how as a DM I should mechanically interpret that outcome. In essence you’re gonna need a pretty forgiving DM to pull these kinds of tricks. It certainly is a ruling not a rule. My advice is pitch a little lower with the effect you’re aiming for and it’s more likely to be accepted. Your mistake is saying “I want to stop spellcasters casting spells with verbal/material components” rather than saying I want to make it harder to cast spells. You’ve come up with the answer you want and now you’re working backwards to engineer a solution.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's why I explicitly called Disarm maneuvers, Saelorn, and Interact with an Object. And Material and Verbal components. And the fact that the spellcasters have plenty of options to avoid being in melee in the first place.

Player: Can I use my free object interaction to kick away his sword, so he can't just grab it again?
DM: No, you're standing in grass. It won't go anywhere.

You are triviallizing many rules because you can't conceive that the spellcaster could be limited in any way.

I perceive that the spellcaster is already limited in many ways, such that further limitations would be egregious. The primary limitations are that their spells frequently do nothing (because a successful saving throw negates), or they are inferior anyway (because they deal significantly less damage than the fighter swinging a sword).

Furthermore, you are triviallizing interesting options. You aren't even consider the tactical intricacies that such options allow.

The game is already plenty interesting when the fighter has their sword and the wizard has their spells. That is the baseline level of interesting which the game advertises. By taking away the majority of the spells from the wizard, the resulting game is less interesting because of it. If this was still third edition, and spells actually were more useful than swords, then the ability for a fighter to shut off ninety-percent of the wizard's spell list would have made the game more interesting. Or you could go back to AD&D, when fighters really could shut down wizards from casting spells, and that was also fine.

It's only fifth edition, with spell DCs and spell damage nerfed into the ground, where giving the fighter an ability to shut down a wizard would be bad design. (Or fourth edition, I suppose. From what I recall, you also didn't see nearly as many anti-magic zones in 4E as you did in earlier editions.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

In essence you’re gonna need a pretty forgiving DM to pull these kinds of tricks. It certainly is a ruling not a rule.

So much of the game does turn on rulings rather than hard rules, afterall, so that's a given.

Really, if you want to accomplish anything more interesting than ablating hps like some Gauntlet sprite, you either cast a spell, or you come up with & declare a creative action - and hope your DM is 'pretty forgiving.'

 

[TheSword]

So much of the game does turn on rulings rather than hard rules, afterall, so that's a given.

Really, if you want to accomplish anything more interesting than ablating hps like some Gauntlet sprite, you either cast a spell, or you come up with & declare a creative action - and hope your DM is 'pretty forgiving.'

You are right of course. There are lots of adjudications the DM makes.

Push someone out of a window? Shove action with a Strength contest and a reflex save to catch the edge of the windowsill with your fingers.

Cut off the hobgoblin leader’s head and run screaming at the rest of the tribe? Intimidate check, with advantage because
of the severed head. He raised a 22 so it caused the hobgoblins to have disadvantage on attacks against the party on the first round of combat.

Hook a worgs jowl with a bill hook? Grapple check with disadvantage that will do 1d4 damage and leave worg and fighter grappled. Worg attacks the fighter to the exclusion of everyone else until it’s removed. The fighter can drop the billhook to break the grapple.

Those were all from my last session. I have no problem adjudicating special actions. I just expect the outcomes to be proportional. I encourage the player to tell me what they want to do, and I assign an appropriate difficulty and a proportional mechanical result.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I would allow a player to try to gag a caster with a chain of grapple checks, but I'd also allow a caster to use Magic Mouth as a ritual on an item he wears with the Vocal components of spells that would get him out of trouble in such situations (Misty Step comes to mind). That would be a win-win situation.

 

[5ekyu]

"You are triviallizing many rules because you can't conceive that the spellcaster could be limited in any way."

The oft used dismissal... Its not that others have reasoned disagreements, they are just so inferior they cannot conceive of how this works.