D&D 5E Enemies should only attack when they have advantage (and other quick tips)

[Swarmkeeper]

... he said 1 monster push 1 PC...

The OP did not say that at all

Let me highlight the pertinent bit:

Often this is an effort to get advantage on their next attack, or an ally's attack.

 

[Charlaquin]

My #1 tip is that you should call a battle over once the end result is obvious. When the PCs have defeated the mind flayer and it's two ogre thralls there really isn't much need to play out the rest of the combat with the handful of minions. Switch to non-combat narrative to describe the rest of the battle and move on with the game.

I have mixed feelings about this one. From a dramatic pacing perspective I couldn’t agree more; once the outcome is obvious, don’t belabor the point, just move on to something more interesting. On the other hand, so much of the challenge of D&D comes from resource attrition, and often it may be obvious that the PCs have won, but skipping over those last few turns may save them resources that they would have spent/lost finishing the enemies off. It can be a tricky call to make, and I think depends on the focus of the campaign. If challenge is a major selling point, maybe play combats out to the very end, but if the challenge is only incidental to the narrative, definitely end fights as soon as the outcome becomes obvious.

 

[Celebrim]

I disagree. Turning a 55% chance to hit into a 79.75% chance to hit is a significant boost. Turning a 15% chance to hit into a 27.75% chance to hit is less useful, but it’s better than a +2 to hit, which itself is nothing to sneeze at.

I think we are talking past each other. I was so impressed by the elegance of the advantage/disadvantage mechanic that I have frequently considered the costs of importing the mechanic into my 3e game. And yes, having advantage is a significant advantage over not having advantage so from a player's perspective having advantage is great.

But having advantage is not worth giving up an attack for. Two attacks without advantage are better than one attack with advantage, and I am pretty sure that this is true for all scenarios. So taking an action to gain advantage ironically never advantages you. You could profitably advantage someone more powerful, or you can profitably advantage multiple people but that one to one trade is never worth it.

And when I was talking about how useful the mechanic was, I meant from the perspective of a game designer. Other than maybe making things less fiddly, it turns out to not be very mathematically interesting in that running the numbers doesn't reveal situations that are problems in play that it solves. For example, taking an attack action to get a +4 bonus to hit on the next attack is sometimes mathematically profitable and solves a problem in play (weak creatures normally make boring foes). But as we've just demonstrated from the math, taking an attack action to get advantage is not only less interesting it doesn't do anything profitable. So now I'm less interested in importing advantage/disadvantage than I was before.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You agreed with me that the party facing a lone monster was relatively rare but that the fighter would often fight a single goblin/orc/whatever at a time. I was pointing out that, if the party isn’t facing a lone monster, the fighter can only do this if the other monsters let him.

or... if it was 1 on 1... aka not the whole party vs 1, but 1 on 1.

You’re hyper-focused on one single example

onlyy as long as you are engageing in it... if you drop it so will I just instead of taking and adding put forward a new one...

in fact I will put 3 (1 were it doesn't work, 1 were the advantage could help and one were it is kinda blah)

Example 1 12 kobolds against 4 PCs none of witch have a good AOE. Kobolds already have pact tactics so this is little to no help

Example 2 A Bugbear with some rogue like things thrown on as an "asssassin" and his 5 goblin allies 2 of witch have the rogue cunning action feature. vs 2 high AC (like 18+) PCs and 2 mod to weak AC (like 15-) PCs

Example 3 2 goblins riding worgs vs 3 PC casters with low AC (13-)

now if you wish to discuse any of them I am more then happy if you stop beating the 1 on 1 example

where this rule makes for bad tactics, to the point of disregarding the explicit statement that the rule is “very soft.” Yes, in that specific example, this rule makes for bad tactics.

except it was an example given by the guy selling us on the rule... I was thinking the rule weird and not helpful in BETTER examples, when he said this one it made it WORSE...

That doesn’t make it a bad rule, especially since it is soft enough that you can just… not use that bad tactic if you don’t want to.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The OP did not say that at all

Let me highlight the pertinent bit:

that is NOT the example I responded too... so stop pretending like it is.

Like I said it is fair at best and the example to 'prove to me it works' made it worse not better

 

[Oofta]

I do try to make combat interesting and different, some things I do.

• If the enemy has more than 2 attacks in a round (either that enemy or allies), use one to knock prone.
• Have weaker allies use the help action to grant advantage.
• Small enemies take advantage of small spaces, including things like tunnels where even small creatures need to squeeze.
• Take advantage of the environment in any number of ways such as a monster immune to fire pulling a PC into fire.
• Have enemies grapple and carry off a PC, potentially to other enemies waiting in the wings.

However, there are potential issues with improvised attacks. Let's say I have an enemy put a bucket on the PC's head. Cool. PC is temporarily blinded. Except ... I've now established that a bucket can blind enemies. Since it's not a special ability, what NPCs and monsters can do, PCs can also do. So suddenly the fighter is carrying around a sack of buckets and putting them on enemy's heads so that the rogue gets advantage. That ... would feel too silly for me.

I'm not saying we shouldn't allow improvised actions in combat, we should and I do. Just be careful what you allow. Unless of course you want fights where everyone looks like this:

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I do try to make combat interesting and different, some things I do.

• If the enemy has more than 2 attacks in a round (either that enemy or allies), use one to knock prone.
• Have weaker allies use the help action to grant advantage.
• Small enemies take advantage of small spaces, including things like tunnels where even small creatures need to squeeze.
• Take advantage of the environment in any number of ways such as a monster immune to fire pulling a PC into fire.
• Have enemies grapple and carry off a PC, potentially to other enemies waiting in the wings.

sounds great... but maybe teetering near 'tucker's kobolds'

However, there are potential issues with improvised attacks. Let's say I have an enemy put a bucket on the PC's head. Cool. PC is temporarily blinded. Except ... I've now established that a bucket can blind enemies.

this is a reason our group has instigated that all tricks have diminishing returns...

 

[Charlaquin]

I think we are talking past each other. I was so impressed by the elegance of the advantage/disadvantage mechanic that I have frequently considered the costs of importing the mechanic into my 3e game. And yes, having advantage is a significant advantage over not having advantage so from a player's perspective having advantage is great.

But having advantage is not worth giving up an attack for. Two attacks without advantage are better than one attack with advantage, and I am pretty sure that this is true for all scenarios. So taking an action to gain advantage ironically never advantages you. You could profitably advantage someone more powerful, or you can profitably multiple people but that one to one trade is never worth it.

And when I was talking about how useful the mechanic was, I meant from the perspective of a game designer. Other than maybe making things less fiddly, it turns out to not be very mathematically interesting in that running the numbers doesn't reveal situations that are problems in play that it solves. For example, taking an attack action to get a +4 bonus to hit on the next attack is sometimes mathematically profitable and solves a problem in play (weak creatures normally make boring foes). But as we've just demonstrated from the math, taking an attack action to get advantage is not only less interesting it doesn't do anything profitable. So now I'm less interested in importing advantage/disadvantage than I was before.

Ah, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, from that perspective I would say advantage’s primary value is in cleaning up the fiddly math of bonuses.

From a character’s perspective, using an action to grant yourself advantage on one attack is never worth it. You either need a way to give yourself advantage as a bonus action (such as a rogue’s cunning action), or you need to be able to use your action to grant yourself advantage on more than one attack (such as a fighter with Extra Attack, Shield Master, and Action Surge). But I think the more generally useful way to leverage advantage is by granting it to someone else, either someone who hits harder than you, someone who can make multiple attacks that will benefit from the advantage, or multiple other characters.

 

[Charlaquin]

I do try to make combat interesting and different, some things I do.

• If the enemy has more than 2 attacks in a round (either that enemy or allies), use one to knock prone.
• Have weaker allies use the help action to grant advantage.
• Small enemies take advantage of small spaces, including things like tunnels where even small creatures need to squeeze.
• Take advantage of the environment in any number of ways such as a monster immune to fire pulling a PC into fire.
• Have enemies grapple and carry off a PC, potentially to other enemies waiting in the wings.

However, there are potential issues with improvised attacks. Let's say I have an enemy put a bucket on the PC's head. Cool. PC is temporarily blinded. Except ... I've now established that a bucket can blind enemies. Since it's not a special ability, what NPCs and monsters can do, PCs can also do. So suddenly the fighter is carrying around a sack of buckets and putting them on enemy's heads so that the rogue gets advantage. That ... would feel too silly for me.

I'm not saying we shouldn't allow improvised actions in combat, we should and I do. Just be careful what you allow. Unless of course you want fights where everyone looks like this:
View attachment 252989

Bucket on the head to blind a target is a pretty silly idea, yeah.

 

[Charlaquin]

sounds great... but maybe teetering near 'tucker's kobolds'

Weren’t Tucker’s kobolds meant as a positive example?