Stand-up from prone is a joke

[Li Shenron]

Does anybody else think that the 5e playtest rule for standing up is outrageously forgiving?

IIRC (please correct me if wrong) standing up from prone is:

in 3.0 a move-equivalent action that doesn't provoke AoO
in 3.5 a move-equivalent action that provokes AoO
in 4e a move action that doesn't provoke AoO
in 5e it costs 5ft of your movement action

As [MENTION=12306]Kraydak[/MENTION] pointed out in another thread, tripping someone prone has been at best a 1-round effect, although how good actually depends on the penalties than the prone character gets. Lots of penalties make being prone bad enough so that you might want to grant the prone character the option to stand up easily in the next round, and IMHO the 3.5 version with its AoO has always been too harsh and allowed for tripping monkeys.

OTOH the 5e version is really minimally costly... you still have pretty much all your round's worth of actions after standing up.

What would be the pitfalls, if instead of having lots of penalties with easiness of standing up, the rules went a bit easy on the penalties but instead required you e.g. to use your main action to stand up? IOW, shifting part of the overall penalties from the condition itself to the cost of getting out of it.

At least, that 5ft cost seems really small to me... it's practically free.

 

[Stormonu]

It's like 5E gave everyone the ability to do a kip-up, just like they gave everyone spring attack.

I like neither and I think it takes away from the game in both cases.

I'm thinking perhaps 1/2 your movement rate to get up, but the opponent gets a free swing. An attempt to quickly get back on your feet, but risking the opponent hitting you as you get back up.

Or you could give up you action (or just all movement?) for the round and safely stand up - basically waiting until your opponent(s) take a swing at you and either parrying, dodging or rolling away and getting back up while your opponent is momentarily out of position.

 

[Grydan]

In every 4E campaign I've ever participated in, melee-based characters have sought out Acrobat Boots (stand from prone as a minor).

The gain in action economy is significant enough that nobody even looks at other foot slot items, unless they have some particular synergy with some other aspect of their build.

It's essentially a feet tax.


(sorry)


Switching (in 5th) from having it be -5 ft. of movement to having it use your action would likely lead to combat being fought between people crawling around on their bellies.

Particularly if at the same time you are doing so, you are reducing the penalties for actually being prone in the first place. If something doesn't inconvenience you all that much, and negating it means giving up your attack for a round, then (usually) you're better off just attacking.

I'm rather fond of 5th's rather elegant system of sacrificing movement. I could see increasing the penalty to 10 ft for standing up, though. Maybe even 15 ft, but that might be pushing things.

1/2 movement is a bit less elegant, and leads to nonsensical results: faster people spend more effort getting up than slower people.

As a 4E player, I tend to prefer that system's far less trigger-happy OA system to 3E's AoO system, so free attacks against people standing up don't... sit well with me. The poor sucker's already being penalized for being on the floor, and has to pay to get up, and you want to kick him while he does it as well?

 

[Steely_Dan]

just like they gave everyone spring attack.

I like neither and I think it takes away from the game in both cases.

That's one of our favourite aspects, and the lack of clunky OAs (in our experience/play-tests so far).

 

[GX.Sigma]

IIRC (please correct me if wrong) standing up from prone is:

in 3.0 a move-equivalent action that doesn't provoke AoO
in 3.5 a move-equivalent action that provokes AoO
in 4e a move action that doesn't provoke AoO
in 5e it costs 5ft of your movement action

Anybody know what it is in AD&D? Just curious.

 

[Nagol]

Anybody know what it is in AD&D? Just curious.

The penalties for being prone are stated (opponents get +4 to hit and ignore shield, DMG p.70) and there are ways to knock opponents prone (overbear and grappling, DMG p.72-73).

Getting up from the prone position is not codified so it varies from table to table. I can't remember a table I've been at where the penalty was greater than your movement for the round and typically it was a fraction of that.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

With the simple action economy put in place, I think it's reasonable. Maybe it could be something like "halves your movement" or cost a few feet more.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

It might be worth examining how hard it is to get an enemy prone and what it means to combatants to be prone or to be attacking a prone opponent.

I don't have the play test booklet at hand, so what does prone mean in dndnext? granting advantage, I imagine?

--Z

 

[DogBackward]

My "fix" for standing from prone:

If you are prone, you can use up 5ft of your movement in a round to stand up from prone. For each adjacent enemy that would be able to make attacks against you, it takes an additional 5ft of movement to stand up.

It's simple, easy to track, and it works well; the more bad-guys surrounding you, the easier it's going to be for them to keep pushing you down. And honestly, it's not that hard to stand up quickly if you're free and clear, away from the thick of battle. But if you have a 30ft speed and you're surrounded by 6 enemies, you're going to have to spend your action to stand up, in addition to your normal movement.

 

[Iosue]

Anybody know what it is in AD&D? Just curious.

With 1 minute rounds, combat in AD&D is highly abstract. So there are no rules because it's assumed that within one minute you could get up and do a bunch of other actions. At worst, the DM might impose a slight initiative penalty on you.