D&D 5E Rogue’s Aim+Mount

[Guest 6801328]

Thanks, man. I appreciate being ascribed motives rather than just thinking I have a different interpretation of the intent of the rules.

Yeah, sorry about that. Read last sentence of subsequent post.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ever ridden a horse?

Ever ridden a rogue?

 

[TwoSix]

Also, if "being moved" (as opposed to voluntarily moving) didn't affect Aim, then if somebody else held their action to either shove or cast gust when the rogue tried to shoot then it wouldn't affect the shot. Not that there's any RAW that says it would, but I would count either of those as positive examples of clever application of the rules, whereas using the mount is (in my opinion) pure exploit.

And, don't get me wrong, I don't think allowing the mount trick is going to break the game. It's not making the rogue too powerful, and there are a thousand ways to neutralize the strategy if the rogue overuses it. For me it's 100% about the spirit of the game.

AND...at the same time I can appreciate that others might find this sort of tinkering with the rules to be part of the fun. That's cool; have at it. It's just not how I like to play.

Yea, that just seems like a stunt attempt to me, a defensive stunt like that I'd generally rule as like Dodge, but only on that target plus additional effects. But that's just pure DM adjudication.

I guess where you see "tinkering", I see an obvious attempt to maximize a feature. It's no more onerous, to my mind, than a character saying "Wow, this heavy armor doesn't slow me down at all as long I have a 15 Strength, I'm totally gonna wear heavy armor on my high Strength fighter and not worry about Dexterity!" But I'm perfectly willing to agree to disagree, so thanks.

Besides, we agree on the most important point, which is that there aren't really balance concerns. I mean, imagine being concerned about rogue balance...lol.

 

[Fenris-77]

The 'being moved' argument doesn't really pass the smell test for me personally. If you're trying to carefully line up a shot and the Half Orc picks you up to put you on his shoulders you aren't aiming any more. It's not a steadi-cam. Same as the horse, you're bouncing up and down, not aiming. With training, or from a stationary mount, sure, no problem. This isn't meant as a criticism of anyone in particular, but I do find the 'being moved' exception kinda gamey. It feel like the opposite of RAI to me, and very much like a cheap RAW exploit. That's my take though, and everyone handles these things differently, and reads the rules differently.

As I said above, unless this was going to come up a lot I'll just allow the action and move on.

 

[TwoSix]

The 'being moved' argument doesn't really pass the smell test for me personally. If you're trying to carefully line up a shot and the Half Orc picks you up to put you on his shoulders you aren't aiming any more. It's not a steadi-cam. Same as the horse, you're bouncing up and down, not aiming. With training, or from a stationary mount, sure, no problem. This isn't meant as a criticism of anyone in particular, but I do find the 'being moved' exception kinda gamey. It feel like the opposite of RAI to me, and very much like a cheap RAW exploit. That's my take though, and everyone handles these things differently, and reads the rules differently.

As I said above, unless this was going to come up a lot I'll just allow the action and move on.

Just to be clear, how would you handle it, mechanics-wise? Remember these are happening on different initiative counts, so the rogue has already fired. Or are you saying you wouldn't allow it if the rogue has been moved during the round prior to their turn?

 

[Fenris-77]

Just to be clear, how would you handle it, mechanics-wise? Remember these are happening on different initiative counts, so the rogue has already fired. Or are you saying you wouldn't allow it if the rogue has been moved during the round prior to their turn?

That's right. If you want to aim, stand still, that's the trade off. If the difference maker is the type of mount, I think the idea has already gone off the rails for me. I don't strenuously disagree with your reasoning or anything, that's just the answer that works for me. Mostly because it makes sense, broadly speaking, and doesn't open itself up to a hundred contingent possibilities. Also, 'being moved' doesn't really meet my standards for not feeling artificial in terms of what the combat round is supposed to represent as an abstraction. I don't see the initiative steps as strictly sequential, no one is acting for six seconds and then standing around watching other people do stuff. That's actually the main reason I'd go with stand still period if you want to aim.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, wait...are we talking about the mount moving on it’s own turn? I’m ok with that.

The turn system breaks simultaneity in a million exploitable ways. I’m not going to draw the line here.

EDIT: The language states clearly that the movement restriction is for the current turn. If it said, “until your next turn” I would reach a different conclusion.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, patch.

Cunning Action: Aim
2nd-level rogue feature (enhances Cunning Action)
You gain an additional way to use your Cunning Action: carefully aiming your next attack. To use this ability, you cannot have moved since the end of your last turn or the start of combat (whichever is more recent). As a bonus action you can reduce your speed, your mount's speed and your vehicle's speed to 0, then your next attack this turn is at advantage. If your vehicle or mount refuses to reduce their speed to 0, you do not gain advantage.

I think that covers the mount/vehicle corner case.

 

[Shiroiken]

While this is playtest material, this is a fine example of the difference between RAW vs RAI. By RAW, this absolutely works, since your mounts speed isn't 0 and you can control you mount as a free action during your turn (unless it's intelligent and/or has its own turn). However, this is quite obviously not the intent of the ability, which is to for the character to remain in place to take aim.

 

[TwoSix]

While this is playtest material, this is a fine example of the difference between RAW vs RAI. By RAW, this absolutely works, since your mounts speed isn't 0 and you can control you mount as a free action during your turn (unless it's intelligent and/or has its own turn). However, this is quite obviously not the intent of the ability, which is to for the character to remain in place to take aim.

Which really just goes to show how important it is to put in some plain English developer sidebars for rules additions; to my mind, it's fairly obvious the intent is to restrict the rogue's current turn of movement, and that's it.