Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[Sacrosanct]

my earlier post points out why I think the warlock is out-of-bounds.
To address the fighting style, I like the idea but it combines with sentinel and polearm master to create a scenario where you very likely NEVER get within 5' of the fighter, much less are allowed to pass within 10' of him. Making such a fighter able to easily hold a 25' area of the board while, with kiting, taking very little if any damage.

Have you actually seen in it play though? Because I don't think it will work out in play like you describe.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

There is no PC combo that can't be overcome by a competent DM. Instead of declaring the combo OP, make sure that your encounters are designed such that the combo only shines when the DM allows it.

How do you curtail TF cheese? High AC ranged units and creatures with teleportation abilities or combats in wide open areas.

How do you limit QCF? Make sure that all of your ranged combat takes place at mid-to-long range.

Undying Light? Throw lots of creatures with radiant and fire resistance.

As you can see, there's a counter that pairs with every cheese. It seems like every other UA article spawns a cheese & whine party...

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Counter it? Why would a DM want to invalidate a player's choices. If a player takes TF (but this applies to anything, really), a DM should go out of his way to make sure he gets to have fun using it. That's part of your job.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There is no PC combo that can't be overcome by a competent DM. Instead of declaring the combo OP, make sure that your encounters are designed such that the combo only shines when the DM allows it.

How do you curtail TF cheese? High AC ranged units and creatures with teleportation abilities or combats in wide open areas.

How do you limit QCF? Make sure that all of your ranged combat takes place at mid-to-long range.

Undying Light? Throw lots of creatures with radiant and fire resistance.

As you can see, there's a counter that pairs with every cheese. It seems like every other UA article spawns a cheese & whine party...

I'm not a fan of DMs customizing challenges in such a way as to nerf PC abilities. What's the point of taking the ability if you aren't going to get anything out of it? If the DM just adjusts the challenges to counter whatever you happened to take, then choosing to be good at something doesn't make you good at it, it only makes you standard at it. In such a situation, you might even do better choosing other tactics that you aren't focused on but the DM didn't take into account. Until the DM catches on and knocks you back down to the effectiveness level he wants you at again.

Sure, as a DM you want your party to be properly challenged to an enjoyable level (at least in some fights). It's no fun to plow over everything that comes at you. But as far as the things you choose to focus on, those should be things you are especially good at, and the DM (IMO) owes it to you not to nerf your ability to use them. Picking certain options is picking what situations you want to be awesome in. The best way for that work out is for the DM not to worry so much about customizing to the characters, but just give encounters designed for a party of about their level of power, and let whoever shines in which encounters be dictated by player choices.

 

[bganon]

Well, the article's been out for what, three days? I'm not sure there's much actual play experience yet . I'd love to try it out, though.

My take is, yes the TF+PM+Sentinel combo is nasty. But two points: 1) Variant human can't do this until level 4, normal PCs level 6 at the earliest. And that's giving up your early ASIs, which is rather painful. 2) It's still not "stop everything", it's "stop everything you hit with the OA triggered by coming into reach".

There's still an attack roll, and it's an attack roll the fighter is making at -2 compared to the build that didn't blow those ASIs for this combo. And the "step back and stop everyone again" trick ends the first time a monster makes their grapple check. If they have decent AC and Strength, 4-5 attackers mobbing the Fighter can with high probability shut this down in one round.

And that's assuming a swarm of melee-only monsters, never mind about ranged weapons. In settings I run, I give kobolds spears as their weapon of choice specifically because they're dual-use, and a good orc never leaves home without a backup handaxe or two. That leaves things like wolves or mindless undead, and I'm pretty OK with the fighter being awesome against those if that's the build they really want.

 

[JohnLynch]

Polemaster and Sentinel were clearly balanced around the idea of 1 AoO per round. Tunnel Fighter breaks that balance and so all three options need to be reevaluated. I don't see any harm in any discrete mechanic. But the combo (as is always the case) does allow for much more powerful options than the alternatives. Given Polemaster and Sentinel are already in the game the burden is on Tunnel Fighter to make sure that it doesn't allow for this overpowered combo to be created. The burden is not on DMs to specifically nullify a PCs choices and abilities to only work when the DM feels they've had enough time of being punished and can briefly be allowed to actually use the ability they spent resources on.

After all, how often do you throw around antimagic/dead magic zones on the poor spellcaster? Or is there never a need to nullify a spellcaster's abilities, only fighter's abilities?

 

[Uchawi]

Frequency of use it the biggest issue with martial classes in comparison to spells. So as long as there is a tradeoff with Tunnel Fighter versus other abilities, then the developers are going in the right direction. Level of a class should always be a consideration for frequency of use or lowering the cost to use a given ability, spell, etc.

 

[JohnLynch]

So the tradeoff pre-Tunnel Fighter was that you sacrificed 2 feats and could only use PM+Sentinel once a round. In order to get to use this ability as many times as you want, you simply have to give up +1 to AC. -1 AC for the ability to have unlimited AoOs that can force someone to cease movement whenever someone moves towards you (as opposed to once a round) seems like a no brainer to me.

 

[Serpine]

Given Polemaster and Sentinel are already in the game the burden is on Tunnel Fighter to make sure that it doesn't allow for this overpowered combo to be created.

Yeah I think the text "make opportunity attacks without using your reaction" should be expanded to specify "make opportunity attacks without using your reaction against creatures within 5 feet that attempt to move out of your reach". This recodes those standard op attack requirements as a separate feat level prerequisite (so other feats can't override it) and emphasizes that it is for tight quarters only.

This is how I'll be interpreting it in my home games for the time being.

 

[JohnLynch]

Here's an alternate fighting style that doen't synergize so well with PM+Sentinel and has a less cooky name.

Defender. When you hit a creature with a melee attack, the target becomes marked. Until the end of your next turn you have advantage when making an opportunity attack against a target you have marked and you don't use your reaction.

If you want to use the PM+Sentinel exploit you'll have to move 10 feet away from the creature (thus provoking an opportunity attack again you).