Dealing with spellcasters as a martial

[Immoralkickass]

As a player, there is the Mage Slayer feat for martials. But generally, its really a fight fire with fire case. Silence, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Globe of Invulnerability are your best friends. Also, having high saves would help a lot.

As a DM, just make some rocks fall on the caster. Giant, unavoidable rocks. Or use lightning out of nowhere. Works like a charm.

 

[Erechel]

Have you consider your DM using your tactics against a Pc wizards?

Of course. And as a DM, I also do that. But he someway thinks is best to overrun us with many foes and do about 30/40 damage per round. As the frontliner of my group, it is usually me who protect my casters to be stomped. The monk also does some frontline job.

Nope there is not. Matter of fact there are plenty of rules about how they can.

There also are not rules saying you cannot do any of the following:
Shoot a pea with a straw down the throat of the fight causing him to choke out.
Protect onself from sneak attack damage using trolls blood poltices.
Cause a fight to have to win a charisma vs wisdom face off as an action in combat or be convinced to drop all his weapons and take off armor.

No rules forbidding any of those things.

All the attempted serious "counterpoints" like stab with dagger or rely on non-verbal spells just point to the agenda...

If you feel this will work for your games and make them more fun... Great... You dont need us internet yahoos to agree or sanction you.

But in my small amount of experience, a rule like this seems counter to the general rule structure of 5e and not needed and even harmful to set as a precedent in many games i have seen or experienced.

I'm not using you to validate me. I'm consulting which way you have, specifically, to fight a caster, both as a player and as a DM. A thing that you never answered. In my not as small amount of experience as a DM and player of D&D, even by te book, you can improvise actions, and attempt things with various degrees of success. If not, you are playing the "hard rules" mode, in which anything not codified by a rule is forbidden. 5e operates just in the opposite way. You can try to do anything that comes into your mind. That doesn't mean that it is going to work. The more fantastic an approach, the less likely to succeed. It is called Difficulty Class. Preventing to use verbal, somatic or material components for a round or two isn't something crazy or unlikely to succeed, as shooting peas to the throat: A thing which I would allow, at an extraordinary DC (30 or similar), and with an extraordinarily easy capability to avoid (Constitution save 10 or less).

The funny part? Troll blood poultices were components I've required for a regeneration potion a druid wanted to make, to restore the arm of one allied NPC when I DMed AD&D. It was a bloody good adventure to chase down that trolls during a siege. Only going out of the walls was a challenge by itself. And the weapons and armor part? It actually happened to the same group of AD&D, they gambled with some orcs, while the rogue stealed their weapons and armor. It doesn't happened in a round, of course. There are rules to don and doff armor, and takes at least one minute.

"And if some monster wants to grab my caster friend throat, I will kick it in the mouth first." Sorry, was there an OA provoked by this choke? Otherwise, you are waiting your turn **or** otherwise ready action but that goes **after trigger** not before, right?

Right. But this is a metaphore of "I will protect my friend". This is me saying, if someone tries to attack the casters, it will have to pass before me. But you aren't actually reading what I'm saying, right? There are many, many consequences for an action like this. If you are using your main hand, you can't attack with your main weapon. You can't attack with a two handed weapon also. You can't move more than half your speed (it is a grapple, after all). If the choke succeeds, it isn't an autokill: it is disabling casting for as long you maintain your grapple. And you have disadvantage on the check. You don't shut down rules, you play by the rules: many spells have verbal components, you are disabling them, for as long as you maintain the grapple. You can still be attacked my the wizard friends. You can still be attacked by the wizard. And if it is a cleric or a paladin you are choking, it isn't going to be a measly dagger: it is going to be a mace, warhammer, or sword. You aren't granting the caster disadvantage on their attacks, unless you succeed in another opposed check. There are many, many assumptions you are making that just aren't true, just because the spellcasters need verbal components and somewhat bothers you that someone takes advantage of it.

Furthermore, I'm sharing something I do that could be useful. You may not like what I share, for a variety of reasons. It's fine! No one compels you to prove me wrong.

Just don't pretend to claim that it is somewhat unbalanced. It isn't. I've made my point, for why I don't believe it isn't: it is an action you hope to succeed, and it has its cost (at best, you will never be able to do it with advantage, unlike many other things), and DC: the opposed check. It doesn't counter the rules, also. Not a single one. Nor it is unscapable, or unavoidable (why a wizard would be in melee with fighter if something hasn't gone horribly wrong?). But it is useful. If it weren't, why even bother? And yes, it goes in both ways: monsters could attempt it also.

Based on what you are arguing, I think you dislike it on principle. You dislike that a caster could be somewhat shut down by a martial, in any way, even in a way that actually don't impede them to take actions, but only their best options, when the other way around is always there: a spell can shut down EVERY action a martial could possibly attempt (charm, dominate, entangle, fear, forcecage, hold person, hold monster, polimorph. suggestion, etc), with the same (or less) possibility to escape.

 

[5ekyu]

"Based on what you are arguing, I think you dislike it on principle. You dislike that a caster could be somewhat shut down by a martial, in any way, .."

Wow, there you go, you got me, right then and there you nailed it...

its not that i have reasoned objections... its not that i believe the penalties imposed aren't anywhere close to the outcome, its not that i can see dozens of abuses of this possible... its that i just have this internal rejection of it.

cuz you know wizzies must rule or something...

yup...

I think we have now gone thru the "work around tri-fecta"...

1 - its against the rules to say no to improving...
2 - no rule says i can't...
3 - just objecting on principle...

Thats practically the checklist for this kind of thing... in my ever so teensy weensy amount of experience.

 

[Erechel]

"Based on what you are arguing, I think you dislike it on principle. You dislike that a caster could be somewhat shut down by a martial, in any way, .."

Wow, there you go, you got me, right then and there you nailed it...

its not that i have reasoned objections... its not that i believe the penalties imposed aren't anywhere close to the outcome, its not that i can see dozens of abuses of this possible... its that i just have this internal rejection of it.

cuz you know wizzies must rule or something...

yup...

I think we have now gone thru the "work around tri-fecta"...

1 - its against the rules to say no to improving...
2 - no rule says i can't...
3 - just objecting on principle...

Thats practically the checklist for this kind of thing... in my ever so teensy weensy amount of experience.

Reasoned objections? Which ones? You haven't addressed not even one of my counter-arguments. You only keep the attack, reducing my arguments to only deflections, and making absurd claims as to be te same to one hitting monsters and such.

-You said "But in my small amount of experience, a rule like this seems counter to the general rule structure of 5e" It doesn't. I've adressed that. You don't even said why it counters the general rule structure. Furthermore, it isn't a rule, is a ruling, an improvised action (not so much at this point, but it is based on improvised actions such as disarm, that "goes against what a fighter could do best"). It uses disadvantage (for balancing purposes, as a disarm against a two handed weapon). It uses the grappled condition. It has a DC (opposed check) and a resolution (target can't speak). It has several ways to escape (Acrobatics, Athletics, stabbing the grappler to death, help from a friend, being a druid and shapeshifting into a Black Bear). It has a few drawbacks (halved speed, melee distance, one busy hand that you may be using in many other ways, like attacking).
-"and not needed" If it were not needed, I've never would come with such a tactic. In many cases, you need to prevent casters to cast. That's why there even are spells that do something like that, like Silence, that act in an area. But you, as a martial won't always have a cleric or bard to back you up. Or they are busy doing something else. Sometimes, you don't have to kill them but disable them to cast.
-"and even harmful to set as a precedent in many games i have seen or experienced." Harmful how? Any improvised action can be subject to the very same arguments you've made. "Do you want to throw sand in the eyes of the enemies to blind them and cause them to not cast spells that require sight? And what impedes you to make troll blood poultices to..." Improvised actions are RAW, PHB 193, and RAI. They are expected in the game. They aren't deviations from it. The game can't cover every possibility with small rules, but grants tools to improvise them. IT IS against the rules to say no to improvising (not improving), unless a specific rule has that area covered, such as trying to kill the wizard to prevent it to cast (the most absurd example of abuse you've made). And, of course, as a DM you will always dictate the check AND the DC AND the action type needed (reaction? Bonus action? Action? Several actions? This case scenario, there is an example of a contest, as per PHB 195). That's the way it is balanced. It is more harmful to require a specific rule to attempt something. You just stifle any creativity, and condemn the martials to "I attack. I attack. I attack".
-You are objecting on principle. You aren't objecting anything specific of my ruling, and derail the example to abuses not nearly linked to what I've proposed. You don't really address nothing from my arguments, only the fact that I'm saying that I've experience with this particular way of playing, and that you ridicule my arguments without addressing them, toting absurd improvisation abuses without examples of DC, drawbacks, effects or resolutions. But I've addressed them, and said how I would manage them (by assigning a check and a difficulty; absurdly high if it were something fantastic, somehow low if it weren't). This is one way to work around silencing a caster without spells. Most DMs toss antimagic fields like they were no biggie, or just throw monsters. Martial PCs are just ed, because they can be hold up, deprived to act and even countered in their stronger points with things like a simple disarm. How do you would resolve that? Illuminate me. If you say how would you manage depriving a caster to speak without spells nor kill, I would recognize that you aren't ojecting in principle, and apologize.

 

[5ekyu]

"Martial PCs are just ed, because they can be hold up, deprived to act and even countered in their stronger points with things like a simple disarm."

If in your awesomly huge ecperience 5e martial types are so f'd as you describe, i fail to see how choke out rules fix that issue.

In my tiny micro experience, martial types do quite well, being consistent damage producers and quite tough. Somehow they do find themselves paralyzed at the drop of a hat, disarmed by stiff breezes and so on.

All without me needing to improv quick and easy choke out rules for them.

But if those things make your games AWESOME then by all means, go for it.

Just not that convincing an argument with your oh god disad thingy there.

 

[Erechel]

"Martial PCs are just ed, because they can be hold up, deprived to act and even countered in their stronger points with things like a simple disarm."

If in your awesomly huge ecperience 5e martial types are so f'd as you describe, i fail to see how choke out rules fix that issue.

In my tiny micro experience, martial types do quite well, being consistent damage producers and quite tough. Somehow they do find themselves paralyzed at the drop of a hat, disarmed by stiff breezes and so on.

All without me needing to improv quick and easy choke out rules for them.

But if those things make your games AWESOME then by all means, go for it.

Just not that convincing an argument with your oh god disad thingy there.

Improved actions as a whole improve the game, and you didn't address anything I've said. You also didn't provide any example of how to shut down a caster without killing it. And yes, they are fantastic dealing damage and being resilient. But then, if everything they do is dealing damage, it is in fact only one action: "I attack". And receiving it isn't even that, you are completely passive. Power wise, they are great. They have great stats, great number of attacks, great resilience. But if anything they do is attack, they may be drones for what I care.

You tried to say that I'm somewhat breaking the rules with improvisation. I'm not. I've quoted the rules for that.

You tried to say that this rule is prone to harm the players, and I've said that it isn't. Smart players will be aware of these possible tactics, and will take precautions to not being subject to them. Or they will just cope with it.

You tried to say that choking someone barehanded is akin to negate rogues Sneak Attack by troll poultices, axing the head of the wizard to prevent casting, and throwing a bean to the throat to asphyxiate, looking ridiculous ways to "demonstrate" the unbalancedness of my tactic. I've talked about DCs and DMs assigning appropriate checks, according to the approach difficulty. Near impossible things have a DC of 30, easy ones 10. Choking is a contest, based on a grapple, and not a difficult one if you are strong enough and fight against a weakling.

You never tried to say why it is unbalanced. Because you can't prove it. Yes,it may disable a caster momentarily, but also negates many possible actions for the grappler, such as the most powerful attacks (two handed ones), and it has a fair chance of fail, and a fair chance to escape,and doesn't render the caster useless, only suboptimal (in the same way that a disarmed martial). It doesn't trigger a Concentration check, so any ongoing effect keeps running.

You tried to mock me and say that I'm deflecting your legit complains with ad hominem. I'm not, I've counter argumented everything you said, and you can't reply to that*, so you try to mock me and derail the conversation yourself.

And then I've come to say that you object on principle, because you don't provide yourself anything "more balanced" to the same result. This is to say that you don't want ANYTHING near close that attempt, thus objecting on principle, or just that you can't adjudicate actions, and thus you don't know how to fulfill your role as a DM. I choose to believe that it is a conscious decision, because the other result doesn't makes you any favor.


*Disadvantage math proves that actually you have 80% chance to roll lower than 10, a 50% chance to roll 6 or less, and a 10% chance to roll a 1. So it is a big deal, specially in a contest. Also, advantage grants the same proportion but above 10.

 

[Erechel]

Also, If you even read what I've said, you should know that what I've said about disarm isn't the best tactic for a wizard against a fighter, but for a cleric against a fighter or rogue: command: drop. Or merely a contest between a T Rex and a fighter (Druids are spellcasters too). And paralyze enemies is done by spells also, spells for which fighter and rogues are vulnerable

 

[5ekyu]

Hey i think you should stick with how the wizard should be stabbing the fighter to death with the dagger... that will convince many especially when mentioned with your BIG experience.

But Ok lets do a little bit of more productive engagement.

You start from a broken premise... an underlying assumption that there is a problem defined as "one on one a martial cannot stop a wizard from casting **and ** one on one a wizard can stop a martial from fighting." (we can replace wizard with mage to cover the broader range of caster, as i think for instance i have seen more hold persons thrown by clerics in my day than by wizards.

But see, I could also say there is a "problem" that a wizard gets a d6 hit dice and a fighter gets a d10.

Picking one isolated element of combat, narrowing it down to basically a one-on-one and using that to support adding in a new imrpov go-around-rules thingy that **will ** be used in group battles is a flawed foundation, at its core a bad approach to balance decisions.

After all, isn't the next step how does the warrior solo off and stop the subtle sorcerer? ot the flying wizard who is out of range of the grab or the hundreds of different scenarios that show the new idea you are propping up as the sort of one-on-one thungy to let a martial drop a speller fails... given a circumstance of certain choices.

The game system is not built around some solo duel, because most of the time, most of the game play is not solo duel.

The game is not balanced for every fight being a loaded wiz vs a a seemingly unprepared warrior.

The game does not need gizmo trickery improvs to invent new mechanics to "solve" the "problem" you imagine.

because it is not a problem in actual play for many games.

not saying it isn't for none, after all, maybe your games do have a lot of solo duels.

But the balance of power between the wiz and the warrior in 5e is the warrior has ongoing constant output of damage and a lot of toughness between multiple engagements - short rest recovery for many of his key abilities - plus he gets a lot of ASi/feats that can be used for quite a few things including if he wants specific mage hunting tricks and even a lot of favored saves.

They were built to provide different things to the party... for an ongoing series of engagements... but you want the fighter to also be able to grapple down a mage and choke them until the mage needs to dagger the fighter down... and you want to use the improv to do it.

translate that maneuver into a larger fight, one with say a number of creatures on the adversary side - and now you have more adversaries than you have PCs and now some get thru and now the mage is being taken down by choke outs from strength based enemies who can bypass his mage armor and such with grapple checks that work against skills that are far from his best.

This move will empower the "mob of brutes" in group battles against mages more than it will let your PC fighter one-on-one a loaded mage.

How well does this wizard vs warrior thing go when its late in the day and the wiz has very few slots left but the warrior can still swing away?

But at its core, you started from a very old tried and true misdirection technique and followed thru the playlist of all the slip it by tricks... take one element, isolate it, portray it as a major issue, the propose a fix using the "other options" to create not just the "maneuver" but the resolution mechanic under that guise.

Each class, each archtype, each character concept in the game brings its own "package" to the table - picking one element out of that, into a specific type of challenge and using that to try and establish a broader problem to get in a much broader fix...

So, you see, i am not diving into the set-piece trap of your framing... because the game is bigger than that and so is the "in game reality" of many many many fights waged in many many many games.

But again, it may well be true that **in your games** this has become a problem and that **in your games the way they are ran** this would be a smashingly fine solution...

but you have not done the basic groundwork to setup a strong position here for why this is a problem that you think others should be swayed by your BIG experience to adopt.

or has your big experience not taught you that the game balance thingy is more than an isolation scenario problem?

 

[TheSword]

There are very few spells that don’t have a verbal component. Getting to shut them down with a martial having a single opposed strength check at the cost of one of their many attacks is just too good. It’s the equivalent of casting a silence spell on a wizard but it uses their lowest save and the DC is a random number between and 8 and 27 (based on lvl 5 for, Str 18.) the wizard stands a good chance of failing even if the fighter rolls a 1. If the fighter rolls a 13 then my Str 8 wizard can’t avoid even he rolls a 20! It’s just too good.

I like the principal of being able to improvise, so have the situation count as a distracting event and have it risk breaking concentration. If the fighter does very well on the opposed check let it give disadvantage on the concentration check. That feels proportional.

As has been said already the fighters disadvantage is easily overcome.

I don’t think you realize how hard it is for a wizard to break a grapple (Dex 14 wiz, non proficient with acrobatics) needs to roll a minimum of 7 even if the fighter rolls a 1. If the fighter rolls a 15 the wizard can’t at all. It’s a less than 25% chance. This is fine to stop someone running away sure, but shutting them down completely. Naaah.

If I used this trick on my PCs the player in question would feel very unfair. I know this because I remember being grappled by a red dragon which the DM said flew away with me. I think my characters stats and the maths meant I had about a 1 in 10 chance of success. I tried for three rounds and then the dragon threw me at a mountain dealing 20d6 falling damage. No feather fall for me. I was 8th level IIRC (that was under pathfinder). Trust me that was not a fun encounter, and I still use it as an example of a DM choosing to kill a character.

 

[CapnZapp]

Oh, for God's sake! The GRAPPLE has disadvantage to succeed, it is MORE DIFFICULT to make a grapple to choke than a simple grapple.

I'd say it's not too overpowered IF you require a feat so not all Fighters can do it, and that the Wizard is already Grappled*.

Even with disadvantage a grappler build is far superior to a regular low-strength/Dex build. There's a reason the rules don't allow you to shut down casters this easily.

Of course, since you could always just chop the Wizard to bits using regular attacks, it can't be that overpowered.

The moment where the Wizard lost was when he failed to keep the fighter at bay - not when he failed a choke or grapple check.

This illustrates how supremely powerful abilities like Misty Step are, that can save you from being restrained.

*) this is why. If you first need to grapple, then choke, there's a much larger chance the Fighter won't disable the Wizard on the initial turn, thus allowing at least action from the Wizard to save himself.