D&D 5E Letting the enemy have even a single attack is the result of a strategic failure.

[Lehrbuch]

The same could be said from the perspective of your enemies. If your goal is to avoid a back-and-forth open combat, and just crush your enemies outright, then you need to expect that the same thing will happen to the PCs sooner or later. If the party goes around collapsing the bad guy's lair to avoid having a fight, then eventually the PCs will be murdered in their sleep without even needing to roll dice, because apparently that's how the world works.

Except that, because D&D is played as a game, that will happen only to the extent that the DM thinks it is fun and interesting for herself (and possibly for the players) for that to happen.

There's a reason why PCs normally tend to encounter "balanced" opponents, and it isn't "because the PCs don't fight dirty".

 

[Fanaelialae]

I'd say that a system that uses inflating HP isn't well suited to that kind of philosophy. It's feasible via instant death attacks or DM-fiat, but more likely to be the exception than the rule.

A character might certainly strive towards that as an ideal, it's just unlikely to be realistically attainable, at least in D&D

 

[Nagol]

"If we're fighting we're that much closer to defeat. Better to complete the goal without being discovered." was the motto of one of my favourite 1e characters.

It worked best in that edition since later editions place the emphasis for xp acquisition in combat.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I love the idea of this statement. It reminds me for several really cool literary characters from novels and I would love to have a player in my game with this attitude(or even play one if I ever get another chance to play!".

In my experience with D&D though, it really isn't possible. While I have seen a few tricks in my time that really went over well those are very few and far between. Maybe this is my fault as the DM though?

I mean several times the group found out way ahead of time that the monster was a vampire or Dragon or some such and developed tactics to aid them. Most of the time it was hit or miss if it would work or not though. Trying a rope around the Dragons leg and the other end around the pummel of his saddle just didn't pan out like he wanted.

All that said though do you guys have experiences that differ from mine? Do your players ever manage to pull this off?

Is it possible to pull off long term?

I one had a group build moveable walls with copper coating on the outside and they would use them to block off sections of the dungeon and narrow entry down hallways to give them advantage. It worked well till a set of pit traps and after that they just forgot about it.

One obvious way to accomplish this is to simply not be in range. Between 5E's low movement rates and the Sharpshooter/Spell Sniper feats, and the fact that most non-humanoid monsters have very few attacks with a range over 60', this is very achievable in any area larger than a broom closet.*

Mobile feat can play a similar role, especially for monks.

When I play, I don't impose quite so high a standard. If the enemy gets a swing at the party tank, that's not a strategic failure for the party. If the enemy gets a swing at somebody besides the party tank, though, or forces the target to expend a 1st level spell slot to avoid it, the other PCs view that as a bit of a failure and plan to mitigate it next time. I should mention that I view HP loss as injury, so taking 7 HP of damage from a Chuul is still an unpleasant experience even if you have 93 other HP to go with it and are not in danger of death.


* Especially if you keep proper dispersion between the elements of your party. E.g. set the sniper up on overwatch in a wide-open area while the Shadow Monk scouts ahead; if contact is made, and the monk cannot simply kill or disable the enemy by himself, he will retreat back to the defensive hardpoint where the sniper is waiting. In this scenario, it does not count as a strategic failure if an enemy launches a ranged attack which the monk can simply snatch out of the air, because a single arrow is never a threat to the monk.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

One obvious way to accomplish this is to simply not be in range. Between 5E's low movement rates and the Sharpshooter/Spell Sniper feats, and the fact that most non-humanoid monsters have very few attacks with a range over 60', this is very achievable in any area larger than a broom closet.*

The problem here is that it requires you to see your target more than 100 feet away and recognize it as something you want to kill. This makes long-distance engagement much more difficult than it might otherwise be. I couldn't find rules anywhere for encounter distance by terrain type.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

It's a matter of resources.

HP is resource the party brings for the express purpose of sacrificing it-the very reason it exists is so that characters can get hit, but somehow not die.

However, given the failure state that comes from using up all of said HP, other resources, particularly cheap resources, such as basic equipment, time and NPCs, are preferable for sacrifices made to achieve strategic goals. However, these aren't always available, and as such allowing enemies to hit you isn't always a strategic failure, but just another tool in the adventurers kit.

Albeit one they never really plan on running out of.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The problem here is that it requires you to see your target more than 100 feet away and recognize it as something you want to kill. This makes long-distance engagement much more difficult than it might otherwise be. I couldn't find rules anywhere for encounter distance by terrain type.

Fortunately I live on a planet which provides lots of examples of various terrain types and makes it easy to estimate how big 100' is.

2000' is a long-distance engagement; that's several city blocks away, and when I walk to the bus stop in the morning there is only one stretch of road where I can see for a full 4800' feet ahead of me unobstructed. Seeing 300' or 500' ahead of me is possible almost everywhere though (there are three corners too sharp to do so easily), and with the way 5E combat works, 300' of range is more than enough against most foes.

In a fantasy version of my neighborhood, I'd get from my house to the bus stop by setting the sniper up on overwatch in a tree (with climbing spurs maybe), while the monk (in company with the Lore Bard) sweeps the sides of the road and around corners looking for hostiles, and flushes them out with her own missile fire.

At the table this kind of thing almost never happens though because winning is boring. I don't like playing through SOP in detail; I like to skip ahead to the disasters and the times when the Lore Bard turns the corner and runs smack dab into a chain worm, who stuns him before he can blink (it has blindsight so ignores stealth), and now everybody has to kick into overdrive to rescue the bard before he can get eaten. So, I'd rather skip over the successes and jump straight to the strategic failures. This is true both as a player and as a DM.

However, I wouldn't like it if a DM wanted to pretend that the successes didn't exist, just because we didn't play them out in detail.

 

[crashtestdummy]

The combat encounter is tactical. However, when, where, and whether the combat occurs and who is present and how prepared the PCs and opponents are for fighting are all strategic matters that the PCs/players may have some agency over. The extent that the PCs/players can make strategic decisions obviously depends on the nature of the adventure and the way that the DM is running things, of course.

Even using that argument, the original statement is still incorrect. From a strategic point of view, being seen as the victim, of not having struck the first blow, can have it's own strategic benefits. Seeking allies after being attacked may allow you to obtain allies that wouldn't join you if you were the first to attack. Self-defense is also a strong justification if the party is brought up before the law as a result of a fight, but that only works if the other person gets in an attack...

So, no, the original statement is not true. It may often be true, but there will always be exceptions.

 

[Eltab]

"Letting the enemy have even a single attack is a strategic failure"

Nah, that's hyperbole.

Only Assassins could ever win.
If you cannot absorb an enemy attack - even his Alpha Strike - while destroying it, you are setting yourself up for future failure.

 

[Lehrbuch]

From a strategic point of view, being seen as the victim, of not having struck the first blow, can have it's own strategic benefits...

Sure, that's a perfectly valid strategy. But it seems like a different strategy to the one that aims to exclude the possibility of the enemy striking back.

Of course, in some circumstances one strategy might be more effective than the other, but that doesn't mean the other strategy isn't valid too.