D&D 5E Game jargon causing unwanted consequences

[MarkB]

Fleeing combat is a very relevant possibility for a game which includes combat as a major pillar. Dancing around an opponent <snip> is not

Mobility whilst in melee is a factor in real-world combat, and has been important in most previous editions of D&D to a greater or lesser extent.

In earlier editions, it could get you behind a target to deliver a backstab. In later editions, it could achieve a flanking position or help dictate the direction of forced movement.

Even in 5e, it can allow characters to close ranks with each other, or move aside from an incoming area effect.

 

[Jester David]

Similarly, the Barbarian cannot take reactions while raging. Therefore now a raging Barbarian cannot ready actions. Is this really a wanted feature again? I'm not saying it shouldn't be, perhaps it makes a lot of sense that during a rage, you cannot stop and wait for a trigger, I'm just highly doubtful that the designers who changed the mechanics of Ready properly remembered that Rage was linked to the jargon term "reactions".

Sounds fine to me.
The limiting factor on barbarian rage is being able to attack someone every turn. It'd be a little cheap if you could just position yourself well and ready for someone to come to you, it takes the sting out of your rage failing or having to put yourself into a bad position.

 

[Stormonu]

I would say that it is irrelevant rather than unintended.

The reason for that rule was explicitly said to be to prevent fleeing combat (or at least getting away from one of the enemies) without repercussions.

Fleeing combat is a very relevant possibility for a game which includes combat as a major pillar. Dancing around an opponent or lowering your trousers and take a dump in front of it is not. I think if you want to do such unorthodox things in a RPG, a "good" rules system just tells you to deal directly with your DM, which can rule something on the fly. The game shouldn't waste book space or complicate the game for everybody else because one theoretical (because I don't think someone so stupid exists, that he would do this just to challenge the rules system) player wants to do something completely out of line...

But Otto's irresistable Dance (or any charm/dominate/confuse spell or ability) could end up with someone "dancing" around the battlefield, so it's not quite so corner case, or silly PC stunts.

 

[Li Shenron]

Mobility whilst in melee is a factor in real-world combat, and has been important in most previous editions of D&D to a greater or lesser extent.

In earlier editions, it could get you behind a target to deliver a backstab. In later editions, it could achieve a flanking position or help dictate the direction of forced movement.

Even in 5e, it can allow characters to close ranks with each other, or move aside from an incoming area effect.

And you want to prevent these tactics or make them more difficult? You can do that in other ways, without adding mechanics.

 

[Li Shenron]

But Otto's irresistable Dance (or any charm/dominate/confuse spell or ability) could end up with someone "dancing" around the battlefield, so it's not quite so corner case, or silly PC stunts.

You just design specific penalties for such spells, or let the DM adjudicate what happens when a dominated PC goes in front of a foe and shouts "hit me, hit me!".

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You just design specific penalties for such spells, or let the DM adjudicate what happens when a dominated PC goes in front of a foe and shouts "hit me, hit me!".

I think you're pointing out an advantage in jargon here. Instead of needing to write a new rule per spell, you can just have the target grant combat advantage, or lose Dex bonus to AC, or whatever other jargon you care to use. Once a player (or DM) has memorized that rule, it's easy to remember which spells and situations it applies to. Otherwise, you get the problem where you need to look up the spell every time it's cast.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think you're pointing out an advantage in jargon here. Instead of needing to write a new rule per spell, you can just have the target grant combat advantage, or lose Dex bonus to AC, or whatever other jargon you care to use. Once a player (or DM) has memorized that rule, it's easy to remember which spells and situations it applies to. Otherwise, you get the problem where you need to look up the spell every time it's cast.

If it's limited, then it can be a good thing, for streamlining and have some solid common ground. The problem is when you have to look up multiple places or remember multiple rules. Looking up the spell every time it's cast or looking up multiple rules, what is worse? It depends of course... My original post was about the risk of putting too many keywords that interact with e.g. class special abilities and spells.

This is why I made the Barbarian example (but the critique, once again, is not about the resulting limitation on Rage, I don't care about that): because it's a kind of cross-interacting case between three parts of the rules, (1) the definition of reactions, (2) the combat action "Ready" and (3) a class special feature "Rage". The (2) and (3) are apparently disconnected since there's nothing in Ready saying you can't do it during a Rage, and nothing in Rage saying you can't Ready an action, but (1) links them together. I can totally picture my gaming group playing many sessions before realizing the incompatibility between Rage and Ready. And this is just an example of one linking keyword, but the more jargon, the more intricated cases can appear in the game without even the designers noticing.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

If it's limited, then it can be a good thing, for streamlining and have some solid common ground. The problem is when you have to look up multiple places or remember multiple rules. Looking up the spell every time it's cast or looking up multiple rules, what is worse?

The former, because the latter doesn't happen.

I have literally never been in a group where everyone owns the game book. With 4e though, I noticed nearly everyone uses the Character Builder, so at least they've all got the stuff on their screen. Still, they have all read the PH and know the jargon.

With Pathfinder, that's just not going to happen. To me, making people look things up is an actual time cost; you can have four or five players all wanting to look up the one Pathfinder book there, or maybe just checking things on the SRD, slowing us all down. Fortunately, this doesn't happen much in Pathfinder. Even if players have to look up their spells, they don't need to look up the jargon too. (Well, not too much, and not for basic stuff like actions.)

The second doesn't happen though. People aren't going to look up jargon in play. I think in this case it came up because it's a new rule, causing memory interference with a slightly older one. By the time D&DN actually comes out, this won't be an issue, once the player has looked up the actions and combat section.

Here's an example of how a lack of jargon (so different rules per rule) can hurt the game.

The scenario involves the PCs walking through a dungeon. They know there's a good chance they could be attacked at any moment.

They peek through a keyhole, but there's no light on that side. They quietly pick the lock, but when they open the door there's a bunch of undead (who were silent to that point) looking right at them. Neither side checks for surprise, just roll initiative and either fight or flee.

The group fights. The cleric says he'll turn undead.

3.x: The table groans. The cleric player needs to look up how to Turn Undead in the PH. He asks the DM how many Hit Dice they have. The DM hems and haws, because he's not sure he wants to give out that number. Meanwhile the cleric says he'll just roll, but he doesn't know how many d20s and d6s he's supposed to roll, so he starts fumbling with the dice...

Pathfinder: The player already knows the AoE of Channel Positive Energy. It's standardized. The other details (save DC, damage dice, and number of times per day) are written in short form on his character sheet. He announces the save DC and rolls the d6s of damage. That's it! Standardized jargon really speeds up play, and makes it possible to include relevant details on your character sheet.

Similarly, I can write these details for Fireball on my sheet, assuming I'm very new to the game: 1d6 fire damage per level (max 10d6), spread 40 feet, range Long (since memorizing what "long" means takes no real effort), save DC [listed] for half. That's it. No need to look up the rules. That's why I like jargon.

This is why I made the Barbarian example (but the critique, once again, is not about the resulting limitation on Rage, I don't care about that): because it's a kind of cross-interacting case between three parts of the rules, (1) the definition of reactions, (2) the combat action "Ready" and (3) a class special feature "Rage". The (2) and (3) are apparently disconnected since there's nothing in Ready saying you can't do it during a Rage, and nothing in Rage saying you can't Ready an action, but (1) links them together. I can totally picture my gaming group playing many sessions before realizing the incompatibility between Rage and Ready. And this is just an example of one linking keyword, but the more jargon, the more intricated cases can appear in the game without even the designers noticing.

I can't see your group having a problem with that. The rule is easy to remember.

Player: My raging barbarian wants to ready an action to [something]
DM: You can't take reactions while raging.
Player: Oh.

Even if they get it "wrong", they'll probably be consistent (most likely, by readying actions while raging, because they'll forget that readying an action takes a reaction*; this is hardly game-shattering), which I still think is better than expecting the DM to judge every corner case, and then remember all their judgements so they can remain consistent with them.

*I don't think readying an action takes a reaction even makes sense, which is sure going to make the rule a bit harder to memorize. WotC probably made the change because lots of groups hate shuffling initiative orders.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I would say that it is irrelevant rather than unintended.

The reason for that rule was explicitly said to be to prevent fleeing combat (or at least getting away from one of the enemies) without repercussions.

Fleeing combat is a very relevant possibility for a game which includes combat as a major pillar. Dancing around an opponent or lowering your trousers and take a dump in front of it is not. I think if you want to do such unorthodox things in a RPG, a "good" rules system just tells you to deal directly with your DM, which can rule something on the fly. The game shouldn't waste book space or complicate the game for everybody else because one theoretical (because I don't think someone so stupid exists, that he would do this just to challenge the rules system) player wants to do something completely out of line...

But it does mean you can get from directly in front of a fighter to directly behind him, and attack the wizard with impunity. To be safe, the wizard has to be a minimum of 15 feet away from the fighter, which doesn't really make sense.

 

[Li Shenron]

3.x: The table groans. The cleric player needs to look up how to Turn Undead in the PH. He asks the DM how many Hit Dice they have. The DM hems and haws, because he's not sure he wants to give out that number. Meanwhile the cleric says he'll just roll, but he doesn't know how many d20s and d6s he's supposed to roll, so he starts fumbling with the dice...

Pathfinder: The player already knows the AoE of Channel Positive Energy. It's standardized. The other details (save DC, damage dice, and number of times per day) are written in short form on his character sheet. He announces the save DC and rolls the d6s of damage. That's it! Standardized jargon really speeds up play, and makes it possible to include relevant details on your character sheet.

Similarly, I can write these details for Fireball on my sheet, assuming I'm very new to the game: 1d6 fire damage per level (max 10d6), spread 40 feet, range Long (since memorizing what "long" means takes no real effort), save DC [listed] for half. That's it. No need to look up the rules. That's why I like jargon.

I don't think this example is related to the jargon I'm talking about. The only keyword here is the "Long" range, but it's a minor jargon, a placeholder for a value or formula. It doesn't really interact with other rules much. But now imagine if that game also had somewhere a rule saying that "Long" ranged spells require "Focus", then somewhere else that while Focused you have Disadvantage to attacks... it's not so nice to have such chain of rules lead back to your "Long" spell having disadvantage on the attack roll (if the spell has one) when the spell description could have said so directly.

*I don't think readying an action takes a reaction even makes sense, which is sure going to make the rule a bit harder to memorize. WotC probably made the change because lots of groups hate shuffling initiative orders.

Could be a good reason after all (btw, readying takes one "action", it's the readied action that takes one "reaction").