D&D 5E noob questions: sneak attack, firing into melee and opportunity attacks

[GreenTengu]

I got to be honest-- the shooting into melee thing doesn't quite sit right with me.

Even if the rules state there is an absolute 0% chance that the projectile could hit me, someone firing arrows or magical bolts from behind me over my shoulder into a target less than 5' in front of me would make me extraordinarily uncomfortable and you can be certain that any character I am playing is going to comment on that. It should be considered rather bad etiquette to fire into melee from that whole 135% arc centered on the back of a PC regardless of whether the designers actually bothered to put enough thought into it to write proper rules in regards to doing something that reckless.

This edition did strip out quite a lot of rules regarding causing friendly fire. A lot of the spells for instance that in previous editions were very likely to hit your own allies if used have been altered so that it becomes a non-issue and I can understand why they did this... But it doesn't feel as though the characters in-game should be aware of their total immunity to friendly fire and if something would seem reckless in real life, it should be treated as such in game too.

Now, if you are shooting the enemy from behind or if you are at least on either side of the combat so you can see both people fully, that is a far more reasonable thing to do.

 

[BoldItalic]

Is shooting the wrong person fun?

 

[Ancalagon]

Is shooting the wrong person fun?

It certainly is memorable

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Is shooting the wrong person fun?

...er... do you really want an honest answer to that?

In my group, it may not be something anyone specifically does during a game, but when it does happen, we all usually get a good laugh out of it (especially if it's the character who has fashioned himself as a 'nimble, highly-adroit archer' or whatnot).

Most memorable moment: a while ago...like, 29 or 30 years ago...I was running a Basic D&D campaign. New PC's were being played, and they found themselves in the dungeon under the Palace of the Silver Princess. We had the "1 = hit a friend" rule going. Yeah, you can see where this is heading... My friend, Hunter (that's his name) was playing an 18 Dex Elf. The party finds themselves in a room when suddenly a statue comes to life! The fighter rushes in, the Elf shoots...a 1. P'TOING! Right in the tusshy! A point or two of damage. Another statue animates. Another shot next round from the elf..another 1. P'TOING! Right in the other side of the tusshy! (point of damage or so). Next round...another shot...another 1...another few points of damage. Fighter yells back Stop trying to kill me, elf! One more shot...another 1. More damage. At that instant, the elf looks at his bow, shakes his head, breaks it over his knee, and mutters under his breath Nope. I'm done with that!...draws his sword and wades into battle. I don't think he picked up a bow for multiple levels after that, and nobody would trust him to shoot someone they were fighting.

Ahhh...dice...such fickle things...and such wonderful story tellers on occasion!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[GreenTengu]

Is shooting the wrong person fun?

Fun?... Hmmm.. I'm not sure, I guess it depends on whether you find challenge fun or not. If there is a chance of hitting your own team because, realistically, what the characters are doing is going to put their own allies in as much danger as the enemies (i.e. engulfing the whole battle in front of the caster in flames), then it creates a level of challenge-- that may be a potent weapon, but it would be best not to use that in this particular situation, instead choose another strategy.

In fact, that should encourage players to make sure they build their characters in a way that different strategies are an option rather than maximizing their ability to do one trick and one trick only because the more you pour your character build into performing that one trick, the more that one trick is likely to be an instant-win strategy when used. If the counter-balance of 'you won't always be able to use that trick' exists, it fixes that.

And that counter-balance DOES exist for melee characters-- inherently so. If a target is too fast for the melee character to catch or can fly or otherwise put themselves outside of range with the melee character having no way to close that range either by dashing or jumping, the melee character is forced to sit there completely helpless even if they can do 200 damage a turn to any single target in melee range and noting has more than 110 hit points.

So if that challenge exists for some classes, it doesn't inherently seem wrong that there should be situations where a ranged character can be told "yes, you could kill all the baddies if you could do that, but if you do that you are just as likely to kill your friend so you can't do that right now."

EXCEPT, of course, for the poor sap being hit by the attacks by their own team. It isn't fun for them. Because you have a different person controlling each character as opposed to one player controlling the entire team, it is a different person who receives the consequences of the person choosing to take the action that can result in friendly fire. Which is what leads to arguments and groups breaking up as people tend to feel the person killing the other characters in the party is being quite inconsiderate all for personal glory of dealing the most damage while the person who has the powerful ability they can never use because by the time their initiative comes around, the rest of the party has moved into unfavorable positions for them to use it and so they feel endlessly frustrated until they decide "aw, what the hell-- it is sure to do more damage to the enemies anyway" and decides to use it.

Now, some people don't mind when their characters die because the wizard threw a lightning bolt that bounced off the wall and shocked the whole party who were already down on hit points or the Ranger's powerful volley hits them in the back just as they were about to take down the storm giant... but, generally speaking, those players likely don't put much effort into making up their characters at all-- just a bunch of stats and a name that is likely a pun or something taken from pop culture or not even sensible for their race in the world and an alignment that never really comes into play anyway.

But... you know... within the world itself, the characters cannot possibly know that the physics of the world are designed in such a way that a party member's arrow or acid cloud cannot possibly harm them no matter what, that they have a special invulnerability to such things, so if from the character's perspective it SEEMS like what is being done is recklessly disregarding their safety, the character should react as though their safety is being recklessly disregarded.

 

[Agamon]

It certainly is memorable

There's something to be said for this. Anecdotally, one of the memories often brought up in our game group from our first campaign playing 3e, the ranger's pet mountain lion got shot in the butt by wizard and his crossbow.

That said, I prefer the cover penalty rule. Combat is swingy enough without the party accidentally killing each other. But the cool thing about 5e is you can play it with hit-able cover, if you choose.

 

[BoldItalic]

.
...er... do you really want an honest answer to that?
.

Not really, it was meant as a rhetorical question. And three four good answers ain't bad

If the players around the table accept the idea of friendly fire, try to avoid it but take it in good sport if it happens to them, then it's okay for that table to use ranged attack mechanics that allow for it happening if the dice roll badly. It's fun for everyone, so that's good.

If, on the other hand, there are some players around the table who would feel bad about it happening to them, then such rules should not be used because making players feel bad is not fun.

The way for the DM to decide whether or not to incorporate the rule into his game, is to ask every player around the table the question and take heed of the answers.