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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 7957149" data-attributes="member: 93670">Those are all reasons why people called casters squishy, the gm didn't need to hit them with a freight train like 5e to scare them because just getting plinked by an arrow & lmaybe losing their spellslot put the fear of god into them.  As a result of that secondary but often more important risk they played up their squishiness & things like ring/bracer/etc of protection mage armor or whatever were super important.  Those things stayed super important to them even if they expected to be staying far from the action since any little plink was enough.  now in 5ethat plink needs to be a readied siege weapon or something.The baddies could just ready an action to thwart a caster all the time possibility falls into a similar bucket of "yes maybe you should not have kicked the gm's dog or whatever" bin as "the monsters could completely ignore the tanks & slaughter the squishies if the gm wills it", but it exposes another thing that is missing in 5e.  Back in 3.5 ranged attackers didn't need to be especially frightening (ie skeletons were common for that).  Because of the low hit chance, a skeleton could have lessened impact by simple things like mage armor, but spell slots were too precious to risk on a maybe so they party needed to juggle the tactical needs of:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> engaging melee types so squishies didn't get flattened</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> deal with those ranged attackers so casters can do their thing if need be</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">do it while trying to avoid getting too beat up by AoOs for moving from one threatened square to another.  Any monster that complicates that by simply existing like a rust monster  or trog can dramatically raise the apparent difficulty without actually doing much to raise the risk</li> </ul>In 5e however those archers are no particular threat & that sort of multilayered priorities in combat just doesn't work.  The archers need to hit like a truck & ready an action to interrup.   Not only that, there is a limit of 1 AoO/round with no meaningful AoO risk for moving around the battlefield.In some ways you are getting hung up on mixing 5e mechanics into 3.5 a example.  I covered it earlier, but the fenemy across the table & the archers don't need to ready an action to pop her if she casts a spell & it doesn't matter if she is casting defensively because...[ATTACH=full]120503[/ATTACH]In short, the fireball does not happen "at the end of her turn".  Regardless of if they act before or after her, they will get a turn before "just before the beginning of [her] turn in the round after [she] began casting the spell."*  That defensive casting check doesn't apply to the frenemy because you can't make an AoO while unarmed (monks & natural weapons aside).  That defensive casting check means that she would not be vulnerable to an AoO simply by casting a spell with a casting time of 1 action or more.  That AoO provoke is why spells that use a swift action  were often worthwhile for not triggering an AoO despite lower damage.  Assuming unchecked math you are right about a 75% chance for alice to not trigger an AoO from a stealthed spearwielder "threatening" her on the battlefield if she casts a spell.  The archer plinking at her with a bow because she started to cast a spell  needs much more than the defensive casting check though at 10+spell level+damage & her combat casting's +4 does not come into play.  the frenemy across the table was never relying on an AoO to throw the wineglass in her face any more than the archer was & she has no reason to defensively cast  that fireball at the frenemy unless she was sitting next to/within 5 feet of someone already armed that was likely to stab her.  In 5e by comparison the frenemy has quite the opportunity cost to ready an action each turn for an interrupt attack if alice starts casting and needs to be capable of hitting her like a freighttrain for more than a dc10 concentration check.  Any caster who planned to take defensive casting would of course pump the appropriate skill, but  had a boatload of useful casterific feats so combat casting over jut being careful with positioning combined with the knowledge of  how vulnerable to melee attacks that "beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell"  made a caster.  As a result combat casting was not always a given.  To add weight to that, I pulled t<a href="https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/3-5-useful-feats-for-low-level-wizards.536749/" target="_blank">his</a> from google about  "useful feats for low level wizards", post4 mentions combat casting then post 5 & 6 trash the idea for various reasons.[USER=82504]@Garthanos[/USER] we do seem to be after a lot of the same types of  "handles" &  frustrated by a lot of the same problems fighting 5e but your comment about fear in 5e having disasterous interactions with meaningful AoOs is a great example of one of those unforseen cascading ripples to putting in meaningful AoOs that I'd never considered before & a great example of why it's not so easy to "just add them" as people frequently suggest.  5e's lack of meaningful positioning rules you note is a huge gripe of mine too.  * [USER=6802951]@Cap'n Kobold[/USER]  hopefully that explains your <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/is-5e-easy-mode.671147/post-7957064" target="_blank">question</a> of why she would need to wait until then  in 3.5? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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