D&D 5E Is Xanathars The New UA? AKA A Munchkins Book

[Paul Farquhar]

I've found out of combat healing to be pretty meaningless in 5e. I've found it's very rare for an encounter to begin with the party much below full hp (and when it did, it was because they forgot to use their abilities). And that's without any Healing Spirit. Really the only meaningful healing is in-combat healing.

 

[SkidAce]

And yet, in combat healing is sometimes not as effective as burning down the enemey.

It seems to swing back and forth for us, which is more effective.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

If you use Rope Trick to do a short rest recovery in 'hostile territory' and aren't ambushed as soon as you come out of the extradimensional space:

1) You're in a very low level party whose opponents aren't aware of the trick,
2) Your DM isn't doing her job, or
3) You're playing Adventurers League.

In fact, a lot of the 'multiclassing is optional' and similar defenses of Healing Spirit completely fail to recognize that you need to append "...except in Adventurers League..." to the end of each of those statements.

--
Pauper

I guess my first comment would be, "ambushed?" I would think the last thought before leaving the Rope Trick would be this.

My second comment would be, if the party is unobserved entering the Rope Trick, and pulls the rope in after they've entered, then even if the enemy figures out what happened, you don't just see an invisible extradimensional space. There are ways to find it, but specific tools are needed, like a see invisibility or truesight ability. A fair number of enemies will not have access to some tools.

My final comment would be that the DM's job is to play the enemies appropriately without metagaming. The party should be able to evaluate the enemy. Is the enemy actively pursuing us? Is it reasonable they know what a Rope Trick spell is? How much can they narrow down where we used it? Do they have the means to locate it's exact position? If the answer to all those questions is yes, then having the enemy waiting for you is completely appropriate. If not, then the DM should have a good reason why the enemy happened to be waiting for you there. That's the DM's job.

 

[Mistwell]

If you use Rope Trick to do a short rest recovery in 'hostile territory' and aren't ambushed as soon as you come out of the extradimensional space:

1) You're in a very low level party whose opponents aren't aware of the trick,
2) Your DM isn't doing her job, or
3) You're playing Adventurers League.

In fact, a lot of the 'multiclassing is optional' and similar defenses of Healing Spirit completely fail to recognize that you need to append "...except in Adventurers League..." to the end of each of those statements.

--
Pauper

I disagree. Rope Trick is not a concentration spell. A simple minor illusion prior to the rope trick can fairly easily prevent foes from knowing you're in a rope trick. And if you do the rope trick out of sight of foes around a corner, you might come back into hostile territory but it's not an ambush situation either.

However even if you are popping back out into combat, at least you're fully healed and many of your abilities are back and can even arrive at the battle with a concentration spell already up as well.

 

[Pauper]

I disagree. Rope Trick is not a concentration spell. A simple minor illusion prior to the rope trick can fairly easily prevent foes from knowing you're in a rope trick.

Disagree. As Treantmonk himself points out, there are plenty of tools usable to be able to find a rope trick, if you suspect one is around:

1. Truesight (largely restricted to higher level/CR opponents; this also defeats illusions)
2. See Invisibility (the entrance is "invisible", so the entrance can be identified easily by someone using this spell; it also lasts an hour)

Note: the remaining items/spells depend on the entrance to the Rope Trick being an 'object' by 5e rules, which is not much of a stretch, since the usage of 'object' in the rules is basically synonymous with 'not a creature'.

3. Detect Magic + Faerie Fire (as 2 -- Faerie Fire notes that "[e]ach object in a 20-foot cube within range is outlined in...light" -- but the Detect Magic spell is required to identify the area in which to cast the Faerie Fire spell. Note that Faerie Fire has a range of 60 feet.)
4. Figurine of Wondrous Power - Onyx Dog ("...has darkvision out to a range of 60 feet and can see invisible creatures and objects within that range.")
5. Robe of Eyes ("You can see invisible creatures and objects...out to a range of 120 feet.")

And these are just the ones I can easily find in the SRD -- I'm sure there are other potential counter-measures available. Just end an adventure with a team of NPC assassins hiding in a Rope Trick somewhere in your PCs' stronghold, and I'm sure they'll come up with more options by the next session.

Frankly, I'm not sure if I'd have the monsters dispel the Rope Trick before the duration (and the short rest) ends, or if I'd rather surround it with a Wall of Force that contains a couple of high CR swarms.

And if you do the rope trick out of sight of foes around a corner, you might come back into hostile territory but it's not an ambush situation either.

If you're just talking about 'the wilderness', then sure, nobody's going to necessarily be doing guard sweeps and the like through the woods. But an evil temple, monster lair, or similar location? You've got some pretty chill monsters if they become aware that their home/base/etc. has been invaded by adventurers but decide to just passively sit around until the adventurers show up to murder them. There are always going to be exceptions (Castle Ravenloft, for example), but most places are probably not going to sit back and relax while a party of murderous PCs rests up in a side corridor, especially not if the resources required to find that party are fairly minimal.

--
Pauper

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

Pity its not in the actual book, doesn't change RAW. How many players do you think have all of Crawfords twitter suggestions conveniently available. I'm not even sure if 5E has an errata sheet anywhere lol.

I was under the impression that there is no RAW in 5e. That under the "rulings not rules" aegis, a DM can hand-waive or change anything they deem problematic for their game.

 

[Mistwell]

Disagree. As Treantmonk himself points out, there are plenty of tools usable to be able to find a rope trick, if you suspect one is around:

Right. You might want to re-read what I wrote. You DON'T suspect one is around in what I said. That was in fact the entire point. What did you think the minor illusion was for?

You throw up something like this near a corner:

The rope trick is behind it. Each PC "enters" the illusion of the foggy portal, climbs up the rope trick, keep doing that until the last one is up. Pull the rope up, and then dismiss the illusion.

It looks like the PCs used a magic portal of some kind to teleport out of the dungeon.

And that's one of the more complicated ones. A fog cloud, a wall, an illusion of a wall, maybe a darkness spell, there are many ways to block the vision of your foes from seeing what's going on with the rope trick. The point is, you do it in a way that foes don't see it so they don't think there is a rope trick around to begin with but assume you left.

 

[jgsugden]

INTRODUCTION
The Dungeons & Dragons ROLEPLAYING game...

Seriously. Check it out. They put that one word in all caps. There is no reason to do it except one: To SCREAM IT AT YOU. D&D is an RPG. A Role Playing Game. Characters play a role in a story.

If you're building a combo to get great abilities rather than to tell a great story, you're not playing D&D ... because you're not playing an RPG. You're playing a video game with pencils and paper. Play the RPG and all of this goes away.

 

[Parmandur]

Right. You might want to re-read what I wrote. You DON'T suspect one is around in what I said. That was in fact the entire point. What did you think the minor illusion was for?

You throw up something like this near a corner:

The rope trick is behind it. Each PC "enters" the illusion of the foggy portal, climbs up the rope trick, keep doing that until the last one is up. Pull the rope up, and then dismiss the illusion.

It looks like the PCs used a magic portal of some kind to teleport out of the dungeon.

And that's one of the more complicated ones. A fog cloud, a wall, an illusion of a wall, maybe a darkness spell, there are many ways to block the vision of your foes from seeing what's going on with the rope trick. The point is, you do it in a way that foes don't see it so they don't think there is a rope trick around to begin with but assume you left.

Mind...blown.

 

[Dausuul]

Seriously. Check it out. They put that one word in all caps. There is no reason to do it except one: To SCREAM IT AT YOU. D&D is an RPG. A Role Playing Game. Characters play a role in a story.

If you're building a combo to get great abilities rather than to tell a great story, you're not playing D&D ... because you're not playing an RPG. You're playing a video game with pencils and paper. Play the RPG and all of this goes away.

Yes, yes, badwrongfun, we know.