D&D 5E So it looks as if the mountain dwarf will still make the best overall wizard.

[KarinsDad]

It really depends on how the DM designs the encounters. If they design things where monsters come from all directions, then AC is very important. If things are more straight on, then there are several strategies that can be used to limit the amount of danger the spellcaster (or archer) is ever in.

This is the crux of the matter. WotC for decades has been designing adventurers and PC abilities so that it is easy for some PCs to have low AC (or other low defenses) and not be as much in harm's way.

Smart NPCs should have extremely good defensive locations. Barricades, high points for missile attacks, all types of defenses. It's their home turf. Instead, the vast majority of WotC adventure sites are "open door, kill monsters, open next door, kill monsters".

Why are these monsters so stupid? One thing they could do is open up every single door in the place. They could have choke points where one guard is designated to run back and get EVERYONE else while the guards at the main entrance slow up the PCs.

AC should be near the top of every player's list in importance because intelligent NPCs should be run intelligently.

The starter set adventure took some baby steps in this direction, but not quite enough (there are still two significant "open door, kill monsters, open next door, kill monsters" adventure site designs in it).

 

[Emerikol]

If players do what you suggest (which is not a terrible suggestion), then the high AC guys up front also give cover to all of the NPCs from the archers and spell casters.

Not always. Spells in fact could be cast without question but you'd need some ceiling height to do an arrow yes.

At least in the Starter Set adventure, there are several encounters (mostly outdoors) where the enemies can come from multiple directions.

I think an outdoor adventure is very risky for 1st level characters. If I'm the wizard I'm bringing out the big gun immediately if the group is surrounded from all sides.

The concept of rooms with closed doors between every single encounter and few escape routes, or ambush sites, or ways to surround enemies has been annoying for a long time. Why would anyone do that?

I don't play the monsters dumb and I don't have them ignore noise from the next room. If though you have a world with underground dungeons then you'd have rooms and hallways and doors.

Or adventurers where the few guards are easily accessible instead of high up on perches or behind barricades. Huh?

Just like PCs should use cover-like tactics like you suggest, NPCs should have good tactics and have the best defensive positions initially. It's the NPCs home turf after all.

Let me tell you. My players are laughing their asses off at you. I play the monsters very hard. A typical group on these forums wouldn't last an encounter. My players are highly skilled. The reason my group survives is they use smart real world combat tactics. That was my point.

 

[KarinsDad]

Wizard in my campaign has 102 hit points at level 10. On top of that, he is an enchanter, so all melee attacks have disadvantage against him. It's nuts. I really hope Mearls wasn't wrong when he said he was pretty sure they had nerfed that ability.

Does he have CON 18 and got 6 hit points from the die each level? Even that would only give him 100 hit points.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wait...what? There were no opportunity attacks at all in 1e or 2e. You couldn't act outside of your own turn. When it wasn't your turn, you'd watch the enemies run right past you without doing anything to stop them. There was a whole debate about how you wouldn't even turn around if the enemy ran around behind you so you'd just let them stab you in the back.

In fact, that was the reason 3e introduced Opportunity Attacks as a thing. A lot of people writing into Dragon Magazine and TSR saying "D&D doesn't feel real time. It feels like you get to acts for your turn and then you sit there ignoring everything until your next turn." That's also the reason the Immediate Actions became a thing. Also, the reason facing was removed.

Before 3e came out, we spent a lot of time arguing about making a house rule where you might be able to stop people from running past you somehow.

You were looking for the withdrawing from combat/breaking off from melee rules - or even the falling back ones

AD&D 1e DMG p70
"if characters or similar intelligent creatures are able to single out an opponent or opponents, then the concerned figures will remain locked in melee until one side is dead or opts to attempt to break out of combat."

That's pretty clear by the standards of AD&D. You literally can't leave threatened areas without using one of the rules to attempt to break out of combat. Of which there are two in the rules: Falling Back and Fleeing.

Falling back:
AD&D 1e PHB p104-105
"Falling back is a retrograde move facing the opponent(s) and can be used in conjunction with a parry, and opponent creatures are able to follow if not otherwise engaged."

Note it's explicitly falling back and retrograde (i.e. backwards) - you can't use it to go forward past someone. It also doesn't work terribly well unless you have allies who are marking the enemy.

If you want to break off from combat without falling back then it's DMG p70 I believe which "allows the opponent a free attack or attack routine." In other words and opportunity attack by another name.

From Holmes Basic (I'm working on a websearch throughout)

"A character may withdraw from combat if there is space beside or behind him to withdraw into. His opponent gets a free swing at him as he does so with an attacker bonus of +2 on the die roll, and shields do not count as protection when withdrawing."
​

Again, that looks like an opportunity attack to me. And you can't go forward through combat - just back or to the side.

It confused me too, but remember, opportunity attacks (possibly under a different name) actually started in Combat & Tactics for 2e.

Nope. It was just expressed differently. Combat and Tactics was just where it started to be expressed as an ability used by the attacker rather than part of the withdrawing from combat rules.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I believe what Neon is referring to is the fact that if an enemy got within melee range of you, then tried to leave, in 1E/2E, you got a free swing at them. That long predates C&T. I know a lot of DMs ignored this rule, or were really inconsistent about enforcing it (like only remember it when PCs tried to flee or the like!), but it was there.

This became way less powerful in 2E, because huge movement ranges combined with outdoor settings meant enemies could run AROUND you, instead of having to go past you, as Neon points out.

Alright, I just looked up the 2e PHB since I don't remember this rule at all. There is a retreat rule that says if you flee from combat that your enemy gets a full round of attacks against you. I don't remember playing that way at all. However, I can definitely see that the way it is worded is kind of ambiguous. It says flee from "combat" not flee from melee. I can definitely see either our DMs ignoring this or someone deciding that charging past the front line to the Wizard didn't count as "fleeing from combat" and saying the rule didn't apply.

Either way, the bigger problem was, as you say, people running AROUND the front line rather than running through it. It was fairly easy to convince most DMs that weapons were only about 2-3 feet long and if there was 7 feet between the 2 people in front that was enough room to pass through the middle without either of them being able to hit you. I've even seen some people successfully argue it for 2 feet because "their weapon is facing forward and not sideways where I'm running through".

 

[KarinsDad]

Not always. Spells in fact could be cast without question but you'd need some ceiling height to do an arrow yes.

You made the scenario. PCs head for a doorway, high AC PCs up front. In 5E, ranged attacks past that doorway from both groups would get the cover bonus from the high AC PCs standing in it. Unless of course they are not standing in it, but are standing at the sides in the next room away from the enemies, then no cover bonus applies. But in that case, the PCs in the back should be off to the sides.

Also, arrows fired at short range needing to be arched significantly is a fallacy. Long range, sure.

I think an outdoor adventure is very risky for 1st level characters. If I'm the wizard I'm bringing out the big gun immediately if the group is surrounded from all sides.

I think that all nearly all adventures should be risky for 1st level characters.

I don't play the monsters dumb and I don't have them ignore noise from the next room. If though you have a world with underground dungeons then you'd have rooms and hallways and doors.

Interestingly, some WotC adventures are in cavern complexes. And sure enough, you'll find carved out rooms and doors in them. Err, what? They brought some carpenter down to craft a door and masons to carve out a room? Into a cave complex? If they want privacy, they could use a large hide over a small entrance. If they wanted protection and needed a door, it would be thick and locked, and they'd have other protections.

Let me tell you. My players are laughing their asses off at you. I play the monsters very hard. A typical group on these forums wouldn't last an encounter. My players are highly skilled. The reason my group survives is they use smart real world combat tactics. That was my point.

You presume quite a bit. Re-read what I wrote. I said "Why would anyone do this?". I did not say that I do this. Do you think that you are the first DM who challenges his players?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Why are these monsters so stupid? One thing they could do is open up every single door in the place. They could have choke points where one guard is designated to run back and get EVERYONE else while the guards at the main entrance slow up the PCs.

I guess I just don't consider the average enemy to be that tactically competent. Most assume no one even knows where their home is. Even if people stumble across their home, they assume the vast majority of them are travelers with no combat skill and likely no weapons. Even if protections are put into place, they are likely forgotten about or lax because after years of no one showing up at their home they seem unneeded.

In the same way that I don't plan escape routes or organize plans with my family about what happens when someone invades my home, most of the monsters in my games don't either. Half of them have really low intelligence and wouldn't come up with a good plan even if they wanted to. Most of the others are too lax or simply untrained in tactics to come up with a decent plan.

Even monsters trained in combat aren't necessarily trained to properly secure their homes in the event that a special ops team of commandos (the PCs) storm their home. I assume that most enemies say "We put 2 guards at the front gate...nothing should get past them" and be done with it.

Engineering their entire home to be a deathtrap to all those who enter is extremely advanced and is reserved only for the most fortified, paranoid, and organized groups of enemies.

 

[KarinsDad]

I guess I just don't consider the average enemy to be that tactically competent. Most assume no one even knows where their home is. Even if people stumble across their home, they assume the vast majority of them are travelers with no combat skill and likely no weapons.

Depends on the scenario. Wouldn't the local Duke send bands of armed men out led by a local tracker, looking for bandits?

Even if protections are put into place, they are likely forgotten about or lax because after years of no one showing up at their home they seem unneeded.

No doubt.

In the same way that I don't plan escape routes or organize plans with my family about what happens when someone invades my home, most of the monsters in my games don't either.

But if your wife is screaming bloody murder in your kitchen, every other awake (and possibly asleep) member of your family hears it in every other room, regardless of doors.

Half of them have really low intelligence and wouldn't come up with a good plan even if they wanted to. Most of the others are too lax or simply untrained in tactics to come up with a decent plan.

Even monsters trained in combat aren't necessarily trained to properly secure their homes in the event that a special ops team of commandos (the PCs) storm their home. I assume that most enemies say "We put 2 guards at the front gate...nothing should get past them" and be done with it.

Engineering their entire home to be a deathtrap to all those who enter is extremely advanced and is reserved only for the most fortified, paranoid, and organized groups of enemies.

True. I agree.

I'm not really talking about that though. I'm talking about modules where nearly every single door in the place being closed every single time. I'm talking about doors being these thick barriers like from a medieval castle so that little sound gets through, but the door is unlocked. I'm talking about broken down buildings where nobody seems to hear the noise in the next building or two over.

In the real world, crack houses have really thick fortified outer doors and shuttered windows for when the special ops team of commandos come knocking.


I think that adventure modules should be more plausible. Open doors. A lookout high above who can sound a large gong or bell.

It's more a mentality in module design that has been around since the beginning. Segregating out encounters is needed or the PCs die. Hence, adventure designers create individual encounter bubbles.

When special ops go into many places, there are 1 to 3 foes per area and they are taken out in seconds, not 5 or 6 that take 30 seconds to take out and are just waiting for PCs to come knocking.


I agree with you that many monsters should not set up defenses and many NPCs would be lax in any they set up. But modules rarely have scenarios where once a few enemies are alerted, the entire place is alerted. That should be a bit more common.

 

[Jack99]

Does he have CON 18 and got 6 hit points from the die each level? Even that would only give him 100 hit points.

18 con, 6 hp at first, 4 hp per level afterwards and toughness.

 

[KarinsDad]

18 con, 6 hp at first, 4 hp per level afterwards and toughness.

Toughness = 2 hit points per level? That's fairly potent. It jumps average Wizard HP up to Fighter HP and bypasses average Cleric HP.