D&D 5E Help Action? Most underrated rule?

[Sacrosanct]

I admit the help action was one of those things I never really paid that much attention to. Yeah, I understood how it worked, but I never really thought abuot just how powerful this rule is until this past weekend.

I was playing a wizard (necromancer) and we were in a battle where not only was I out of spells, but my cantrips were not effective against the target (which was immune to necrotic and poison damage). So I basically waded in and used the help action. It made almost more of a difference than if I were casting my actual spells because the advantage granted resulted in success that wouldn't normally have been there.

Yeah, it's not exciting, but sometimes when you're out of resources, you still have to do what you need to do, and it had a tremendous affect to party success. Gone are the days of "I can't do anything" for sure*





*although I've never really been one who believed that, since I tend to resort to thrown flasks of burning oil, etc after spells are used up anyway.

 

[Astrosicebear]

Thats the perfect example of why its there... to prevent "Well im totally useless!"

 

[Blue]

I was playing a wizard (necromancer) and we were in a battle where not only was I out of spells, but my cantrips were not effective against the target (which was immune to necrotic and poison damage). So I basically waded in and used the help action. It made almost more of a difference than if I were casting my actual spells because the advantage granted resulted in success that wouldn't normally have been there.

You found a good use for it. Normally, if two PCs are both relatively equally effective, it's better to do your normal action. Two PCs attacking vs. one PC attacking with advantage - both are two rolls and two chances to crit, but the advantage can land only one hit vs. two from two PCs. More upside.

But in cases like you have where one PCs is much less effective, it's great. It also can be good if one PC is much more effective - going to blow a limited use ability, get bonuses from advantage and can't get it any other way, etc. Or if your party has PCs of mixed levels.

It's not an automatic go-to, but for it's niche cases it can be a good fit.

 

[iserith]

Help is fun. So was Hinder from the playtest, but it got taken out I guess. I wonder why?

 

[Sacrosanct]

You found a good use for it. Normally, if two PCs are both relatively equally effective, it's better to do your normal action. Two PCs attacking vs. one PC attacking with advantage - both are two rolls and two chances to crit, but the advantage can land only one hit vs. two from two PCs. More upside.

But in cases like you have where one PCs is much less effective, it's great. It also can be good if one PC is much more effective - going to blow a limited use ability, get bonuses from advantage and can't get it any other way, etc. Or if your party has PCs of mixed levels.

It's not an automatic go-to, but for it's niche cases it can be a good fit.

It's definitely situational. In this case, helping the dual wielding fighter who had magical weapons was far more effective than most of my magic which it was immune to anyway.

 

[Paraxis]

It is wonderful for low CR minions to help out the tough boss monsters too.

 

[aramis erak]

You found a good use for it. Normally, if two PCs are both relatively equally effective, it's better to do your normal action. Two PCs attacking vs. one PC attacking with advantage - both are two rolls and two chances to crit, but the advantage can land only one hit vs. two from two PCs. More upside.

But in cases like you have where one PCs is much less effective, it's great. It also can be good if one PC is much more effective - going to blow a limited use ability, get bonuses from advantage and can't get it any other way, etc. Or if your party has PCs of mixed levels.

It's not an automatic go-to, but for it's niche cases it can be a good fit.

Most of the time, it's no better unless there are effects of failure. So, two PC's working to disarm a trap is better as help, because it reduces the chance of taking damage, but two PC's searching for hidden doors, it makes no difference, and two PC's attacking, help is disadvantageous because it reduces the average damage (due to not allowing 2 hits).

 

[seebs]

One of our custom class builds had "On each of your turns, you can take the help action as a bonus action" intended to be somewhat parallel to the rogue Cunning Action.

We had to nerf it. It was far too good.

 

[seebs]

Most of the time, it's no better unless there are effects of failure. So, two PC's working to disarm a trap is better as help, because it reduces the chance of taking damage, but two PC's searching for hidden doors, it makes no difference, and two PC's attacking, help is disadvantageous because it reduces the average damage (due to not allowing 2 hits).

That varies a lot. If I hit for d6+3 and someone else hits for d10+4, helping them is almost certainly a better choice. Furthermore, the chance of success might be significantly variable, too. If someone has a 50% chance to hit, help gives them a 75% chance to hit, so if I would be at least 25% likely to hit, I might be better off attacking. If someone has a 25% chance of hitting, advantage gives them a nearly-43% chance of hitting, which is a pretty noticeable improvement. It's a little under 20%, so if my damage is comparable, help won't be as good as just attacking. But if their damage is much better than mine, or my chance of hitting isn't even 25%? Yeah, help.

Also, can be worth it on things where there's a resource in the attack. Like, if someone's rolling to-hit with a non-cantrip spell, and I am in melee range of their target and can use help, then there's a significant cost for missing, and the help may well be very much worth it.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Help is fun. So was Hinder from the playtest, but it got taken out I guess. I wonder why?

I would wager because it made weenie enemy swarms take even longer. A mob of 12 goblins/kobolds surrounds the PC's. It makes sense for the goblins to use Hinder to grant disadvantage, but that can make fights potentially grindy. Its also why you don't see a lot of enemy healers.

I liked the addition, but it required more DM discretion to prevent pacing issues.