D&D 5E Minor actions

[Sadrik]

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!

I think Disengage action works very well as an action and that would be how I would define it, if I were writing it.

I do agree that moving should not be defined as as an action and just be: you take an action each turn and you might react and you move. Your mode of movement is variable though. Crawling, sneaking, jumping swimming, climbing, flying, burrowing and also running.

So the hustle action is how you run? For some reason we have not encountered this question before in our limited playtest. This is probably why it is hustle... I think there should be a double move action (hustle) and running is just a mode of movement. A charge might be, run at least 10' and then attack.

 

[Li Shenron]

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?

You are right in fact, to tell the whole truth, I would have probably gone as far as not having OA at all in Basic And that's what I suggested during the playtests, but OA are such a staple of the last 15 years that people aren't even thinking about removing them.

But instead they probably should, in the basic game, because literally every casual gamer I've played with balked at OA rules in 3e. Keeping track of exactly how far you step from a foe (or far you move around it to avoid getting too close) is a level of details a lot of casual gamers aren't interested in. The explicit purpose (Mearls confessed it) of OA is to avoid running away from combat with no penalty, or moving past enemies to get the mcguffin at the back. Ad-hoc rules would serve the purpose better.

Then for non-casual gamers i.e. gamers of the standard game, the current OA rules are fine. Alhough for my personal taste, they are still more fiddly than they need to be, as I mentioned previously. The problem is that in this (and a couple of other) instance, the designers haven't thought long enough about the possibility of decreasing the starting complexity even more. They just thought "this has been fine for all 3e and 4e players, it'll be fine for 5e players" and forgot that newcomers and casual players are supposed to set the requirements for the basic game.

 

[Sadrik]

Li shenron I agree with your sentiment about the basic game. Strip out everything that serves Asa complication. Make it as "basic" as possible AOs can go in this. In a standard game they could be added and in a miniature madness, skirmish game, these rules can be even more enhanced/complicated. There are several other actions that could go in the basic game too, help, hinder (iirc), and others I am sure.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You are right in fact, to tell the whole truth, I would have probably gone as far as not having OA at all in Basic And that's what I suggested during the playtests, but OA are such a staple of the last 15 years that people aren't even thinking about removing them.

But instead they probably should, in the basic game, because literally every casual gamer I've played with balked at OA rules in 3e. Keeping track of exactly how far you step from a foe (or far you move around it to avoid getting too close) is a level of details a lot of casual gamers aren't interested in. The explicit purpose (Mearls confessed it) of OA is to avoid running away from combat with no penalty, or moving past enemies to get the mcguffin at the back. Ad-hoc rules would serve the purpose better.

Then for non-casual gamers i.e. gamers of the standard game, the current OA rules are fine. Alhough for my personal taste, they are still more fiddly than they need to be, as I mentioned previously. The problem is that in this (and a couple of other) instance, the designers haven't thought long enough about the possibility of decreasing the starting complexity even more. They just thought "this has been fine for all 3e and 4e players, it'll be fine for 5e players" and forgot that newcomers and casual players are supposed to set the requirements for the basic game.

I feel this, it's reasonable, but if you do that you need kind of specialized class design specifically avoiding calling out effects like OAs and so on, and I guess they weren't up for that.

That said, I've introduced two non-gamers and two (or more) casual gamers to D&D with 4E and OA and Minor/Move/Standard were absolutely not things that they had problems with. Basic Attack vs At-Wills? Holy heck that broke brains, when it used different stats. Adding all the damn bonuses? Ouch. You can't auto-kill an unconscious enemy or murderize an unaware sentry? That sort of stuff caused confused.

 

[Li Shenron]

I feel this, it's reasonable, but if you do that you need kind of specialized class design specifically avoiding calling out effects like OAs and so on, and I guess they weren't up for that.

Yes, I agree.

Actually I just checked and there are a few cases of class abilities interacting with the OA rules, two of which for the Battlemaster, and one each for Barbarian, Ranger and Paladin. Otherwise nothing in the 4 basic classes, any of the races, and spells, mentions OA.