Level Up (A5E) Press the Attack/Fall Back update

[lichmaster]

It actually leads to another interesting thing.... can a creature move without speed?

Manuevers suggest that....yes, you can. For example, the charge manuever allows me to gain extra movement beyond my speed (and has no technical interaction with speed itself, I just move a straight 30 feet regardless of what my speed is normally).

Therefore.....by the book, I could use the charge maneuver to escape a grapple.
Further, a friend of mine could use press the attack against me, granting me 5 foot of movement (even if my speed is 0 or has been fully used in the round) and escape a grapple that way.


Now I think these are very RAW interpretations, not RAI at all.....but technically, it should work.

These are some rule lawyery but otherwise good points.
There should be a proviso in all these mechanics saying that if you're restrained, grappled, paralized, stunned, or your speed is otherwise zero for any reason, you cannot take those actions.
Which would also mean that you cannot use fall back when grappled, so grappling someone would be a good way to give an ally the expertise die on attacks

 

[Satirical Bard]

They'd have to use the Attack action. Nothing about Press the Attack actually mandates whether you use your attacks against the same target or not.

To be honest I think at that point if you're allowing a player to attack someone else, you're making a deliberate choice to ignore the patently obvious intent and purpose of the maneuver, at which point there's not much the designers can do.

 

[lichmaster]

Following these points there's still another thing to consider, to be very picky.
The attacker uses its full movement, then uses PtA.
The defender uses FB and yields ground, 5ft. The attacker could move 5 ft, but is the movement given by FB "extra", or can be taken only if you actually have spare movement left?
Otherwise, if you cannot move more than your normal movement, the defender could skip one entire round worth of melee attacks with a single reaction, assuming the attacker has no particularly long reach

 

[Stalker0]

These are some rule lawyery but otherwise good points.
There should be a proviso in all these mechanics saying that if you're restrained, grappled, paralized, stunned, or your speed is otherwise zero for any reason, you cannot take those actions.

So Paralyzed for example specifically says "you cannot move", so it definitively says things like charge and FB and the like would not work.

Of course we could get rules lawyery again and say "that means they are immune to forced movement as well"....which by the book is technically true, as "forced movement" is not really defined other than to say it doesn't provoke OAs.

So there is only so much we can do here. 5e's language base is not like 3e's, it wasn't meant for true lawyer rules language, it was designed for DM "common sense", so you can find some really silly stuff if you dig in hard.

 

[Stalker0]

The defender uses FB and yields ground, 5ft. The attacker could move 5 ft, but is the movement given by FB "extra", or can be taken only if you actually have spare movement left?

This is how maneuvers that grant movement work, so that seems to be the intent.

 

[lichmaster]

So Paralyzed for example specifically says "you cannot move", so it definitively says things like charge and FB and the like would not work.

Of course we could get rules lawyery again and say "that means they are immune to forced movement as well"....which by the book is technically true, as "forced movement" is not really defined other than to say it doesn't provoke OAs.

Yes, well for me "forced movement" is literally movement that happens with a force that is external to the character: thunderwave for example.

So there is only so much we can do here. 5e's language base is not like 3e's, it wasn't meant for true lawyer rules language, it was designed for DM "common sense", so you can find some really silly stuff if you dig in hard.

On the long term, this is really becoming more of a problem IMO. I loved the more precise definitions we got in 5e wrt 3e.
With a very clear definition of all words and expressions, it's much easier to understand what's going on.
With 5e, rules can be very prone to rule lawyering, although in general they may be a bit easier to adjudicate by less experienced DMs or people that prefere "common sense".
Of course none of this is a problem if your players are not rule lawyers.

 

[MarkB]

To be honest I think at that point if you're allowing a player to attack someone else, you're making a deliberate choice to ignore the patently obvious intent and purpose of the maneuver, at which point there's not much the designers can do.

So, let's say I'm on the edge of a cliff, attacking a flying opponent. They move back 5 feet into empty space, and there is literally no way I can close to melee with them. Can I attack someone else, do I lose my Attack action, or am I obliged to go through with my Attack action and throw my sword at them?

To me it's perfectly reasonable that if the intended target uses Fall Back and the attacker therefore isn't getting any special bonus against them, they can choose to re-prioritise which opponent they should attack.

 

[Satirical Bard]

Why would you press the attack against a flying creature on the edge of a cliff? Talk about edge cases!

 

[MarkB]

Why would you press the attack against a flying creature on the edge of a cliff? Talk about edge cases!

Yeah, I should've seen that coming.

But it was just one of many possible examples. Any time a creature has a movement mode you don't, you may not be able to follow it. There may be something you're not even aware of that can prevent you from following an opponent, like another opponent's special ability. Or maybe you were just banking on them not spending their reaction, and you plain don't want to follow them because it'd be tactically disastrous to move from your current position.

 

[Deset Gled]

So there is only so much we can do here. 5e's language base is not like 3e's, it wasn't meant for true lawyer rules language, it was designed for DM "common sense", so you can find some really silly stuff if you dig in hard.

LU was billed as being much "crunchier" than standard 5e. To me, harder language that's meant for some good old fashioned rules lawyering is something I hope to see as part of that crunch. YMMV.

Why would you press the attack against a flying creature on the edge of a cliff? Talk about edge cases!

The most obvious case you be when you don't know your opponent has a Fly spell cast on them, until it's revealed when you push them off the cliff and they don't fall. I think it looks something like this:


Just imagine Biff has a sword instead of a gun. (BttF2, for those that can't see YouTube)