D&D 5E Surprisingly Lethal Side Effect of Multiattack

[Jer]

And yet, somehow I and my players are able to use this procedure successfully. Amazing!

I don't know if Flamestrike is suggesting this specifically, but the order of the hits matter. If you'd rolled 5 attacks serially and gotten Hit, Hit, Hit, Miss, Miss that's different from Miss, Miss, Hit, Hit, Hit. If the PC was dropped after 3 hits in the first case the last two misses would have advantage and be rerolled but in the second case they would not. So rolling them all together could be biased against your players unless your procedure includes an ordering of the dice as Oofta suggests above. But if you have a dice ordering then rolling them all at once should be exactly the same as rolling serially.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Consider also the gnoll's Rampage ability, which seems ideal for exactly what the OP describes: bonus action bite attack when a creature is reduced to zero hp. It doesn't have to be vs. the fallen creature, but it obviously can be.

Gnolls are hungry, and they want to eat you.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't know if Flamestrike is suggesting this specifically, but the order of the hits matter. If you'd rolled 5 attacks serially and gotten Hit, Hit, Hit, Miss, Miss that's different from Miss, Miss, Hit, Hit, Hit. If the PC was dropped after 3 hits in the first case the last two misses would have advantage and be rerolled but in the second case they would not. So rolling them all together could be biased against your players unless your procedure includes an ordering of the dice as Oofta suggests above. But if you have a dice ordering then rolling them all at once should be exactly the same as rolling serially.

Precisely. All you need is a total ordering on die rolls, which could be color-oriented like Oofta's or spatial (e.g. left-to-right, top-to-bottom like reading). And the fact that I referred to hits "before" and "after" the one that drops the PC shows that I both have a total ordering and assume other DMs' ability to impose a total ordering of their choice.

Assuming that a DM is competent to roll dice and figure out a reasonable ordering seems like a fairly reasonable thing to expect.

 

[Satyrn]

Laughing counts as XP as far as Enworld is concerned.

Aye. I know.

I was trying to say that his post included a reason to click laugh and a reason for me to click XP.

 

[Jer]

Assuming that a DM is competent to roll dice and figure out a reasonable ordering seems like a fairly reasonable thing to expect.

I teach math, and I've gamed with a wide variety of DMs at cons, so I will never be able to assume that people know how probability works. Even gamers. It's just in my nature.

(I actually assumed that you probably were ordering your dice Hemlock, but I wanted to make it explicit in the conversation before either some giant fight started because that piece wasn't made obvious or someone took the wrong idea away and got beat up by their players because they didn't realize that piece is actually very important).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I teach math, and I've gamed with a wide variety of DMs at cons, so I will never be able to assume that people know how probability works. Even gamers. It's just in my nature.

Heh. Fair enough. I tend to overestimate people's abilities I suppose, because I'm very wary of insulting anyone by talking to them them like an idiot (do they call that "mansplaining" nowadays?), since being told things I already know is one of my pet peeves. But your approach is sound and sensible also.

 

[Oofta]

... do they call that "mansplaining" nowadays? ...

Nah. That's "gamersplaining". It's much, much worse and can drone on for what seems like forever.

 

[Caliban]

(do they call that "mansplaining" nowadays?).

"Mansplaining" is specifically when a man explains something a woman already knows to the woman in a condescending manner.

Strangely, even if they don't already know the definition, women seem to get very irritated when I explain this to them.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In any case, my personal preference is to assume that everyone knows everything I know (talk to them as peers) and then straightforwardly answer whatever questions get asked. ("Why do you say that ranged combat is dominant in the 5E ruleset?")

 

[ScaleyBob]

Consider also the gnoll's Rampage ability, which seems ideal for exactly what the OP describes: bonus action bite attack when a creature is reduced to zero hp. It doesn't have to be vs. the fallen creature, but it obviously can be.

Gnolls are hungry, and they want to eat you.

Oddly enough, I'd noticed that effect of Rampage - it's very nasty, and fits Gnolls well. I suspect the reason they can move as part of Rampage is so there's a way that they don't target a downed PC.

I also found that as an ability it didn't really come up very much - it was rare for gnolls to reduce someone to 0 HP, so to trigger it. I ended up playing around with Gnolls quite a lot and making them more like the 4E ones - Rampage triggers whenever they bloody an enemy so it gets used a bit more often. I also bumped their speed to 40ft, and gave them +2 damage while bloodied, so to make them feel a bit more different from the other humanoid races. (And, yes I know 'bloodied' isn't a thing in 5E, but it's bloody useful as an ingame term.)