D&D 5E Minor actions

[Ruin Explorer]

While this is mostly true, the 5E fighter mostly defends by PURE offense now. Do you really want to attack that Rogue standing there with a dagger who only does 1d4+4 points of damage on a non-sneak attack? Or are you going to going to take down the Fighter before he gets another 3 attacks against you for 2d6+4?

You're going to ignore the Fighter and kill the Wizard who can hit you with Save-or-Suck mojo, I imagine, and has no HP or AC to speak of. Especially as the Fighter also has a boatload of HP and AC - he's the primary CC target, more than ever.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That depends. Do I think what I'm carrying will be any use against the fighter's steel armour at all? And I'd honestly rather take down the wizard - who is much more potentially threatening than the fighter, and much squishier.

I tend to play enemies with much less metagaming. People all take 1 sword wound to die whether they are a Wizard for a Fighter(hitpoints being an abstraction that no enemy understands). The Fighter is just better at avoiding my attacks. However, if we leave him alive, he gets to hurt us really badly. Kill him as quickly as possible.

I generally play all my enemies as if they assume that the next attack will be the one that kills a PC.

As for Wizards being potentially more nasty...Sure, they might be. But out of all the Wizards in the world half of them likely don't even prepare any combat spells at all. The rest might know two spells that are fairly low powered and then they are out. It might be nice to get at him, but if that means provoking an AOO from the fighter standing between you and the wizard? Better to take out the fighter first and THEN move to the Wizard.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I tend to play enemies with much less metagaming. People all take 1 sword wound to die whether they are a Wizard for a Fighter(hitpoints being an abstraction that no enemy understands). The Fighter is just better at avoiding my attacks. However, if we leave him alive, he gets to hurt us really badly. Kill him as quickly as possible.'

I seriously disagree that this has anything to do with metagaming. You seem to play your enemies with less knowledge of the clues in front of them. The clue isn't that the fighter is better at avoiding your attacks. The clue is that the fighter is wearingsteel armour from head to toe with very few places where the attack won't simply bounce off. And the wizard is (a) not wearing armour and (b) is casting spells. To not take information like that into account isn't avoiding metagaming, it's playing enemies stupid. If they have eyes they can see what armour the enemy is wearing. If they have any training or experience they should be able to spot spellcasters, and to not know a spellcaster is dangerous is to not know anything about the nature of the world you are playing in.

As for Wizards being potentially more nasty...Sure, they might be. But out of all the Wizards in the world half of them likely don't even prepare any combat spells at all. The rest might know two spells that are fairly low powered and then they are out.

Once more you are playing the monsters stupid if they assume this. You aren't looking at wizards as a baseline. Your baseline should be wizards who work closely with mercenaries or warriors. And those are much more likely to prepare battle magic than the average hedge wizard.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I seriously disagree that this has anything to do with metagaming. You seem to play your enemies with less knowledge of the clues in front of them. The clue isn't that the fighter is better at avoiding your attacks. The clue is that the fighter is wearingsteel armour from head to toe with very few places where the attack won't simply bounce off. And the wizard is (a) not wearing armour and (b) is casting spells. To not take information like that into account isn't avoiding metagaming, it's playing enemies stupid. If they have eyes they can see what armour the enemy is wearing. If they have any training or experience they should be able to spot spellcasters, and to not know a spellcaster is dangerous is to not know anything about the nature of the world you are playing in.

Once more you are playing the monsters stupid if they assume this. You aren't looking at wizards as a baseline. Your baseline should be wizards who work closely with mercenaries or warriors. And those are much more likely to prepare battle magic than the average hedge wizard.

Indeed, and this is all particularly bizarre given the context that the PCs most assuredly are not playing the same way - they may not know exactly how many HP a given enemy has, but they aren't going to blithely assume that the High Priest of Bane is going to go down in one hit, because IRL a human could. Can you even imagine that group? It would be utterly hysterical - "What do you mean he's still alive! I got a CRITICAL HIT with a GREATSWORD!?".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One thing I do like about 5E's action economy - Disengage is your action, not just your Move Action (as shift was). This makes it harder for cautious ranged enemies to get away from melee - unfortunately, due to the "one Reaction only" deal, the moment that Reaction is gone, Disengage is no longer needed.

 

[Li Shenron]

One thing I do like about 5E's action economy - Disengage is your action, not just your Move Action (as shift was). This makes it harder for cautious ranged enemies to get away from melee - unfortunately, due to the "one Reaction only" deal, the moment that Reaction is gone, Disengage is no longer needed.

I am still not fully convinced disengage and OA have been designed well.

Recently, I've been wondering how combat would work if "move" was not described as a separate action but rather as something you can do at the same time as your round's action. Given how you can freely "split" your move in 5e, there shouldn't be much difference, but then I wonder if this alternative presentation would simplify other things...

For instance "disengage" could then simply be an action, without an additional 10ft movement, but then you'd be protected from OAs for the whole move distance. I think this would be simpler!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am still not fully convinced disengage and OA have been designed well.

Recently, I've been wondering how combat would work if "move" was not described as a separate action but rather as something you can do at the same time as your round's action. Given how you can freely "split" your move in 5e, there shouldn't be much difference, but then I wonder if this alternative presentation would simplify other things...

For instance "disengage" could then simply be an action, without an additional 10ft movement, but then you'd be protected from OAs for the whole move distance. I think this would be simpler!

It would be simpler, definitely, but it'd be a great deal more powerful, because you could saunter past a large number of creatures, pretty much ignoring positioning, rather than the more limited number "half your move" allows you to move past. It wouldn't be so much "Disengage" as "Tumble".

Personally I'd do the opposite, and say that if you are using the Disengage action, you can only move up to half your move during the turn.

 

[Li Shenron]

It would be simpler, definitely, but it'd be a great deal more powerful, because you could saunter past a large number of creatures, pretty much ignoring positioning, rather than the more limited number "half your move" allows you to move past. It wouldn't be so much "Disengage" as "Tumble".

That would be ok for me. If I don't want the subject to go through a wall of creatures, I pack those creatures closer (in the basic combat rules, you can't move past a square occupied by a hostile creature).

My general opinion is that "ignoring positioning" (at least precise positioning) resonates well with my idea of basic combat rules.

Instead, the current disengage action allows you to move IIRC 10ft without provoking OA, plus 30ft (your regular move) provoking OA, and you can split those 30ft before and after the 10ft, but you can't split the 10ft in two... then you can have creatures with different reach on the battlefield.

These give a lot of flexibility in different cases, but are not good in the context of simple, low-tactics combat. This is stuff that belongs to a tactical combat module IMHO.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That would be ok for me. If I don't want the subject to go through a wall of creatures, I pack those creatures closer (in the basic combat rules, you can't move past a square occupied by a hostile creature).

My general opinion is that "ignoring positioning" (at least precise positioning) resonates well with my idea of basic combat rules.

Instead, the current disengage action allows you to move IIRC 10ft without provoking OA, plus 30ft (your regular move) provoking OA, and you can split those 30ft before and after the 10ft, but you can't split the 10ft in two... then you can have creatures with different reach on the battlefield.

These give a lot of flexibility in different cases, but are not good in the context of simple, low-tactics combat. This is stuff that belongs to a tactical combat module IMHO.

October has it giving "half your move", not 10ft, but yeah, it's fiddly as heck because of the "before or after your action" re: the rest of your move.

I don't agree with "ignoring positioning", being fine, though - if we're going that far, why bother with OAs and the like at all in the basic edition? That's opinion, of course. So I favour half-move with OA ignoring (and yes, no fiddly "only this counts as Disengage!").

 

[Dausuul]

Indeed, and this is all particularly bizarre given the context that the PCs most assuredly are not playing the same way - they may not know exactly how many HP a given enemy has, but they aren't going to blithely assume that the High Priest of Bane is going to go down in one hit, because IRL a human could. Can you even imagine that group? It would be utterly hysterical - "What do you mean he's still alive! I got a CRITICAL HIT with a GREATSWORD!?".

Indeed.

I disagree that the wizard is always the biggest threat or the best target. Having played a wizard extensively in the public playtest, I can say that a) save-or-suck has been massively nerfed from 3E days and b) the wizard's ability to focus fire on a single enemy is underwhelming. For a solo enemy, the fighter is scarier than the wizard. And while wizards are squishy targets, they can also be very evasive ones if they're willing to burn a few spell slots. Chasing down a wizard who really doesn't want to get caught is maddening for DMs.

However, when the monsters include a large number of mooks, the wizard is absolutely the number one target, and I don't regard this as metagaming in the slightest. In a world where magic is known, everyone ought to know that wizards are death to armies, so if you've got an army (or at least a squad) and you see a guy on the other side pulling bat guano out of a bag, you take that guy down hard.