D&D (2024) Emanation damage point and linked exploits:

[FrogReaver]

I was sure the owl got 60ft flight speed.

It does but If you don’t move back to the barbarian he can’t grapple you and move his speed on his turn.

 

[tetrasodium]

You missed my point: We are NOT building boeings here. We are also not flying in boeings. These are abberant exploits of the system. You say these are significant problems that are unacceptable, but that is bollocks. They happen rarely and IF they happen, there are not 200 dead passengers, but one annoyed DM who can easily stop this exploit by their ruling. Playtesting should focus on the gameflow that happens commonly and at every table.

No I did not miss the point, you chose a poor example that undercut the point you were attempting to make.... So obvious and glaring so that more than one of the posts linked down in that spoiler'd signature of mine talks about the poor design of grapple rules listed in multiple playtest packets even( without having ever seen§ a playtest emanation using the current wording

§i don't think we did and it doesn't change the point if we did

 

[Ancalagon]

Doesn't work with conjure animals. Needs to be conjure woodland beings at level 4. So we are talking this coming online at level 7 by the earliest.

I got the names wrong, my bad.

It's not a dash, it's a regular move, but sure.

If we are going to be sticklers about rules... unless this changed in 5.5, I don't think you can ready action a move. "move" is not an action. Thus, you have to ready a dash.
(edit: I got this wrong, sorry)

How is the Barbarian picking up the Druid? Grapple? That's an action. So no reaction move by the Barbarian.

Grappling takes an action because the foe is unwilling. A willing friend who knows it's coming is no harder to pick up than picking up a sack of potatoes (especially with a little gnome druid and a big strong barbarian). Or the owl druid lands on the barbarian's shoulders, if this really bothers you.

54 damage per round for 2 level 7+ characters is not high. And it's something achievable by 2 Druids in this case.

If this was single target damage, sure. But 1: you're 5d8 short and more importantly 2: this is AOE damage, every round, hitting every foe (unless they are very spread out, of course)

 

[Nefermandias]

If we are going to be sticklers about rules... unless this changed in 5.5, I don't think you can ready action a move. "move" is not an action. Thus, you have to ready a dash.

That's not correct at all. All that the Dash action does is increase your speed by an amount equal to your own speed for this current turn. Thus, readying a Dash action doesn't do anything really.

You can absolutely use your Ready action to "move up to your speed" under both the 2014 and 2024 rules.

 

[Ancalagon]

That's not correct at all. All that the Dash action does is increase your speed by an amount equal to your own speed for this current turn. Thus, readying a Dash action doesn't do anything really.

You can absolutely use your Ready action to "move up to your speed" under both the 2014 and 2024 rules.

I stand corrected. I am a bit amused that we've been doing it this way in multiple gaming groups for a while.

That being said, there is not effective mechanical differences in how we played and how the rules are, so at least that!

 

[mellored]

The DM can use any strategy the players come up with.

 

[CM]

In my group(s) it's a close vote between houseruling these spells to only deal damage on the enemy's turn (when they start in or move into the areas) or only on the caster's turn (when they start or move the zone over new enemies). Either way, no more than one instance of damage per round rather than turn.

I have never been a fan of the "per turn" vs. per round events.

 

[Ancalagon]

The DM can use any strategy the players come up with.

indeed... but that can lead to a confrontational style of DMing, which many people do not like.

 

[tetrasodium]

Any TTRPG design paradigm that relies on the GM to begin an adversarial arms race against the PC is doomed to be met with the same race to the bottom. It wasn't called Mutually Assured Destruction for nothing & the associated "sponge theory" is no better.

The solution is to properly tune monster math to avoid the escalating arms race itself.

 

[FrogReaver]

indeed... but that can lead to a confrontational style of DMing, which many people do not like.

Yep, dm can also have you encounter 1000 ancient dragons. Doesn’t mean he should.