D&D 5E Sage Advice August 17th

[fba827]

I see several people commenting on the reasoning for lack of delay action option.
In my personal gaming experience the reasons cited actually ring very true - I have a few players who always play spell casters and when they cast any 'till end of turn effects they always ask if they can delay in order to extend the effect. Likewise there is a 'certain subset of players' I occasionally game with where they do take a quarter of their turn every round talking out the possibility 'if I delay , then ...'
So not having the delay as a default option is a good thing for my gaming circle.

 

[Remathilis]

How is this possible? Even if you rolled natural 18s for STR and CHA, you only get one feat by level 5, which was used on Heavy Armor Mastery.

Variant human?

 

[Kobold Stew]

Crawford has stated the stacking rule only applies to spells. Go look at a fairly recent Sage ruling where he says the two auras not stacking would be a house rule.

Still not seeing it. Can you give me the precise quote, please?

I hope he doesn't multiclass to get shield. At the moment he doesn't have it. It's theoretical that he could.

Ah -- I thought you were describing a real situation.

Vengeance Paladin can cast haste.

But he can't cast both it and Shield of Faith, since both require concentration. Only one of these will ever be applicable at a time.

So? So do a lot of spells. If you don't get hit, you don't make concentration rolls.

A character can only maintain concentration on one spell at a time.

The AC caps out at 24, using a spell (and so also reducing smite opportunities).

Not every creature has spells. Why this assumption all the time?

It was an example: many low-challenge-level opponents can easily bypass armour with attacks that need saves; not all such attacks are magical, as you know.

 

[Celtavian]

I think you do need to close that AC gap a bit. I think you maybe jumped the gun on magic platemail and combined with the party's tactics basically be to buff the paladin's AC and have him act as a wall, it's creating an issue.

Close that AC gap a bit, definitely. Also, giants? Hell they should be able to grapple the paladin pretty well...which would then grant advantage on attacks targeting him while he is grappled. So if one giant grabs him, the others should then be able to do some damage to him and force his next action to be escaping.

A giant has a +5 to 9 strength score and generally doesn't get athletics. The paladin has a 20 strength and Athletics. So he resists grapples with a +8 to his score. Which at the moment does a good job resisting grapples. Grapple doesn't provide advantage on attacks, restrained does. Restrained is not normally something a giant can do in a fight. Grapple is weaker in this edition. All it does is reduce speed to zero until you break the grapple, which does prevent him from dodging.

And, finally, as others have said, I don't think it's wrong to have the other party members attacked by dangerous foes. Maybe they should be buffing their own AC instead of solely the paladin's? Have the Giants lpb stones over the paladin's head to hit the casters, forcing concentration checks to maintain his AC buffs.

They are getting attacked. They get wasted by attacks the paladin barely feels.

Throw in a giant shaman or an ogre mage who can dispel the effects or otherwise counteract them. ogre mages can fly and turn into gaseous form...they can get right by the paladin to threaten the rest of the party.

If that's dangerous for them, then too bad. They shouldn't be putting all their eggs in one basket.

They didn't put all their eggs in one basket. One 1st level spell, a common fighting style, and +1 armor isn't even close to all eggs in one basket. I'll be tossing someone giant spellcasters in.

If the paladin had to work for that AC, it would be easier to deal with. He didn't. It was easy to obtain without spending much in resources.

 

[Celtavian]

Still not seeing it. Can you give me the precise quote, please?

Identical spells don't stack (PH, 205), but nothing stops the auras from stacking. Could always house rule it.

It's on the current Sage Advice listing taken from Twitter with "Do Paladin Protection Auras Stack?" Mearls says no. But Crawford says yes. Mearls has stated Crawford if the rules guy.

But he can't cast both it and Shield of Faith, since both require concentration. Only one of these will ever be applicable at a time.

No. The plan seems to be the Sorcerer Favored Soul will cast haste on both of them using Twinned Spell while the paladin casts shield of faith or the cleric casts SoF and the paladin casts haste.

The AC caps out at 24, using a spell (and so also reducing smite opportunities).

One 1st level spell doesn't take away too many smites.

It was an example: many low-challenge-level opponents can easily bypass armour with attacks that need saves; not all such attacks are magical, as you know.

There will be times when I can use such tactics. His saves are good too with Aura of Protection.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The biggest problem with the proposed solutions is they don't take into account a party. They focus on how to handle the individual paladin player. If the enemies waste actions on the paladin, that is a win for the party. If the creatures ignore the paladin and go after the other PCs, the paladin attacks them with impunity. He doesn't do weak damage. If the PCs decide to spread out too far enabling solo attacking, they get ripped apart because Bounded Accuracy is built with the idea that doing more hit point damage is the balancing factor over AC. So you get higher CR creatures doing a lot of damage that rip apart the easily hit PCs, while having no incentive to fight hard to hit PCs like the paladin or other heavy armor users.

It's an unusual situation I'm dealing with in a campaign focused on giants. Giants do heavy damage with a high hit roll. The AC disparity really stands out as does the damage differences. If the giants attack the paladin, he survives quite well with shield of faith and dodging to let the other PCs kill the giants.

Wait, you're in a campaign with giants and you're worried about how to mitigate dodging? A stone giant has +12 to Athletics! And a Fire Giant has +11. Each of them gets two attacks, so... one stone giant grapples the paladin at +12, stopping dodging, and then pushes him prone, granting advantage. The other two giants beat him unconscious, attacking four times at +9 with advantage for 19 points of damage per hit. Problem solved, PCs thwarted.

I still don't get why you think fighting the party as a unit (bypassing the paladin) constitutes "not taking into account the party." That is precisely what those tactics are doing: attacking the party's weak points. But okay, whatever. At least you know now how to take down the paladin with giants.

Vengeance Paladin can cast haste.

Yes, but he can't cast Haste and Shield of Faith at the same time. In order to stack both buffs you need a second PC caster involved. Plus, Haste is pretty bad as a self-buff anyway, since you lose a round of attacks casting it and then losing concentration (e.g. to a Stone Giant's club) will then cost you your action for yet another round.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

How is this possible? Even if you rolled natural 18s for STR and CHA, you only get one feat by level 5, which was used on Heavy Armor Mastery.

Roll natural 18s for STR/CHA, take Variant Human for Heavy Armor Master, add +1 to STR/CHA. At level 4 add another +1 = 20.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Identical spells don't stack (PH, 205), but nothing stops the auras from stacking. Could always house rule it.

It's on the current Sage Advice listing taken from Twitter with "Do Paladin Protection Auras Stack?" Mearls says no. But Crawford says yes. Mearls has stated Crawford if the rules guy.

Common sense does, ad the DM is allowed to insist on common sense. Nowhere else do identical effects stack like this (or do they?). Why should this be the case?

You are making problems for yourself by holding on to every tweet -- this hasn't even been promoted to an official Sage Advice yet. The source you are citing is just a compilation of tweets -- a medium that is designed to be ephemeral.

No. The plan seems to be the Sorcerer Favored Soul will cast haste on both of them using Twinned Spell while the paladin casts shield of faith or the cleric casts SoF and the paladin casts haste.

Why did you mention the Vengeance paladin? Your argument keeps dodging and weaving. If the players are choosing to pool their resources so that the paladin is unhittable, that's just bad tactics. Don't make problems for yourself.

One 1st level spell doesn't take away too many smites.

Expectedly, it takes away one.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

How is this possible? Even if you rolled natural 18s for STR and CHA, you only get one feat by level 5, which was used on Heavy Armor Mastery.

Half elf gets +2 Cha (so he started with a 20) and +1 to any 2, one of which was Str (so 19 starting), HA mastery adds +1 Str or Con (he picked Str, so had 20 at level 4). Compounding matters, they also gave them a feat as a reward for a quest and a year of downtime, which he took as Lucky, so he can force 3 re-rolls a day on the rare chances something gets a crit.

Some of the issues are letting them roll for stats and the extra perk, but even still, all that does is slightly adjust the trouble spot forward a few levels max. I already count them as +1 character for encounter purposes (there's just 3 of them normally) and they have generally just stomped all over everything.

 

[hawkeyefan]

A giant has a +5 to 9 strength score and generally doesn't get athletics. The paladin has a 20 strength and Athletics. So he resists grapples with a +8 to his score. Which at the moment does a good job resisting grapples. Grapple doesn't provide advantage on attacks, restrained does. Restrained is not normally something a giant can do in a fight. Grapple is weaker in this edition. All it does is reduce speed to zero until you break the grapple, which does prevent him from dodging.

They are getting attacked. They get wasted by attacks the paladin barely feels.

They didn't put all their eggs in one basket. One 1st level spell, a common fighting style, and +1 armor isn't even close to all eggs in one basket. I'll be tossing someone giant spellcasters in.

If the paladin had to work for that AC, it would be easier to deal with. He didn't. It was easy to obtain without spending much in resources.

I think Hemlock pointed out that the Giants can pin him, which is what I was goin for. Grapple to remove dodge, then pin to grant advantage.

As for his AoO....doesn't he only get one per round? I would think that a fight with more than one opponent would mean that he couldn't contain them all. Plus a AoO from a paladin shouldn't be all that devastating to a giant.

My group has a paladin in it and although he is a defensive beast, he's not a great damage dealer. So I'm picturing this scenario for my group, and I don't know if I would have the same concerns. But the paladin in my group doesn't have a huge AC, and the other characters are only a few AC points lower.

So I think as you said, narrowing that AC gap is probably your first step. Then, if you still notice a problem, you can try some of the other tactics folks have mentioned and then see if that helps or of the problem persists.