D&D 5E Dex to AC when unconscious?

[BryonD]

This is true of every edition of every roleplaying game that has ever existed. The rules of the game, no matter how light or complex the system, prevent or discourage some action the DMs or PCs want to accomplish somewhere along the way. Such is life.

But not in equal measures

 

[Lalato]

But not in equal measures

Actually, I would say in equal measures. It only seems unequal when the things one likes aren't possible.

 

[Shiroiken]

I get the whole "simplify the rules" bit, but this is more or less throwing the baby out with the bath water.

That's the great thing about 5E. You can easily change it in your game, while others can keep the simplified setup.

 

[Celtavian]

Disarm and Sunder.

Yes, a battle master fighter can disarm monsters, but monsters cannot disarm PCs.

This is not true. The monsters can still grapple, sunder, pin, and anything else you can think of. The difference there is not a section telling you exactly how to do it. You are encouraged to make it a simple opposed check. I've been having dragons grab weapons from players like I did before opposed by an athletics or acrobatics check.

The high level PC wizard cannot have his uber staff taken away or broken, the high level PC uber damage archer cannot have his bow taken away or broken. There might be a rare monster here or there (e.g. rust monster) that has a special power, but hindering PCs by targeting their tools or armor does not exist for the most part.

Yes, it does. I do it.

You are not yet accepting that 5E allows for anything in previous editions. The only difference is the method of resolution being up to the DM and usually involving very simple checks.

I want you to find where it states in the rules I cannot do any of it. Omission does not mean unable in 5E.

 

[Celtavian]

You'd be surprised. I had a couple of NPCs beating on an unconscious PC for multiple rounds, unable to quite finish him off. Mostly luck but still kind of disconcerting.

(PC really, really offended them.)

5E has been extremely clear that if something doesn't make sense, the DM is free to do otherwise. Nowhere does it state you have to have the monsters roll over and over again to finish off a PC laying on the ground. If they are free of impediment, you are can say they hit you.

I think some of you are so accustomed to 3E and the legalistic nature of that game, you are missing that rule 0 is how 5E runs. That means if something doesn't make sense to you as a DM and even the players can see it, you can alter it immediately.

If two orcs standing over a fallen adventure are intent on killing the adventurer and they're somehow missing, you can say, "This is stupid. You're dead. They hack you up. No way they can miss at that range." The game supports that ruling. Stop feeling shackled by the rules. They're not there to shackle you. They're there to enable you in this edition.

 

[BryonD]

Actually, I would say in equal measures. It only seems unequal when the things one likes aren't possible.

But we have already been talking about the difference between constant AC vs. shifting DEX bonus, touch AC, etc. That is what I am talking about.
The measures are quite different.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I am willing to do following:

When you are unconscious, you DEX bonus is -5 (dexterity 0), and you are attacked with advantage. But only if both attacks hit (or one is a 20), it is considered an auto crit.
This will give heavy armor, strength based chars a little edge over dexterity based chars, as their AC is not affected by Dex, which is something I am willing to accept.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is not true. The monsters can still grapple, sunder, pin, and anything else you can think of. The difference there is not a section telling you exactly how to do it. You are encouraged to make it a simple opposed check. I've been having dragons grab weapons from players like I did before opposed by an athletics or acrobatics check.



Yes, it does. I do it.

You are not yet accepting that 5E allows for anything in previous editions. The only difference is the method of resolution being up to the DM and usually involving very simple checks.

I want you to find where it states in the rules I cannot do any of it. Omission does not mean unable in 5E.

Yes. Understood.

Without there being a explicit rule, though, it basically opens up Pandora's Box of issues. One DM does not allow it at all or might start thumbing through the DMG when a player asks how to do it, another makes it too easy, another too difficult. Obviously, you might not see that as an issue at all. You might even seen it as a strength of the system, but I view it as a weakness. Whenever a very common combat action is not spelled out in the rules, there will be balance issues at some tables. One group of players will spam sunder or disarm whereas another group will want to do it, but it's not worth the effort at all. Some groups will find uber combos with it because the game designers never took it into account.

And yes, before someone posts the tired old cliche that a DM can adjust it if it gets too powerful, yada, yada, yada, a) not every DM goes to forums to ask opinions on how to fix something, b) not every DM is creative when it comes to house rule design, c) not every table will think to try disarm or sunder, and d) one promise of 5E was to have plugins for earlier editions of the game system and I happen to think that this is one that should be there.

This is like the first cut of Battlerager in 4E. It was the game designers themselves that created the game mechanic and they forgot about minions and screwed it up. For something as potentially potent as disarm (let alone sunder), I think it is critically important for the game designers to minimally have a well designed optional rule in the DMG. It's a major omission IMO.

The game designers put in a mechanism to disrupt spell casters (i.e. concentration) without dispel magic, but they did not put in the basic ones for martial PCs (disarm and sunder). They have grapple, and grapple combined with Silence is an uber combo versus spell casters (ditto with grapple plus shove/prone), but that's the point. On the surface, grapple looks like weaksauce and many players might ignore it. Stop movement. Big deal. But in reality, especially at higher levels, grapple becomes strong. The PC fighter moves in and grabs the Mind Flayer and then knocks the Mind Flayer prone with a shove, all in the same round. Now, the entire group has melee advantage against the Mind Flayer and the Mind Flayer has disadvantage.

Just like DMs and players might not see the potential of grapple/shove, I think that DMs and players might not see the options (or make them too uber if houseruled) of disarm / sunder (and in some cases, not even think to try it since it is not in the list of actions).

Sorry, I just see this entire aspect of the game to be TOO nebulous and undefined. I do expect someone like yourself who goes to the forums and is heavily into D&D to have a good solution for your table. In fact, you "do it", so you have already addressed it for your table. It's preferable, IMO, that the game designers (who should know the game inside and out) would have handled this though.

 

[Fanaelialae]

This is an interesting point.

One thing I noticed recently is the "5E at high level lets me create an uber group that solo monsters cannot handle" posts. I thought about that and I realized that the reason groups can be so uber is that they can control a lot of game elements (advantage, disadvantage, terrain, spells, etc.) that even many of the MM solo monsters cannot. I thought of some ways to counter that, and then I realized that the easiest counters do not exist in the game system.

Disarm and Sunder.

DMG 271 has rules for Disarm. They are DM's option, but I think that's fair since not every DM wants to deal with constant disarmament. You could probably extrapolate rules for Sundering from the rules on attacking and destroying objects, but you are correct, there are no rules specifically for Sundering.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Am I correct that dex still counts toward AC even when bound, unconscious, etc?

Sees a bit daft, but sticks with the "only one AC" thing that 5e seems to like.

If it's your home game then you do what you feel makes sense the most. In my games you lose your dex. That way, it simulates people in heavier armour would be a little harder to damage than those in light armour.

It works just fine and breaks nothing.