D&D 5E What, if anything, bothers you about certain casters/spells at your table?

[GrimCo]

Being hit proof for one round is half the fight normally.

I'd say the issue is they are disproportionately good at upper levels compared to most other 1st level spells AND they allow for more nova potential in a low encounter days due to being off-turn actions. A 1st level Burning Hands is dog poop at 10th level, Silvery Barbs or Shield aren't.

Depending on how you or your DM designs encounters.

They are OKish at higher levels mostly cause you can't upcast them to gain benefit from those more powerfull slots, so they need to be viable at later levels. Burning hands on the other hand (pun not intended) can be upcast for more damage.

Since 5ed doesn't include magic items as mandatory, you'r tin can meat shield caps with his AC early on and it's what, 21 (full plate, shield, fighting style). Your eldricht knight can shield himself for AC26 for one round 3/4 times a day, depending on the level, reducing chance to get hit to 5% (and that one will hurt since it's crit).

At level 10, with AC21, monsters have around +8/+9 to hit. So they hit on 12-13, which is around 40-45% chance to get hit. Shield reduces it to 15-20% chance for 1 round. Silvery barbs is more useless, since DM rerolls and again it has 40-45% to hit you.

If you are not optimized for max AC, it gets worse, since chance to get hit rises up, so if monster hits you on 9-10 (55-50% chance to hit), Silvery barb isn't that good and Shield is better since it reduces chance to get hit by flat 25%. One thing that makes Silvery barbs better situationaly is if monster rolled nat 20 (aka crited you). Then it can turn crit into regular hit or maybe miss.

 

[Zardnaar]

Depending on how you or your DM designs encounters.

They are OKish at higher levels mostly cause you can't upcast them to gain benefit from those more powerfull slots, so they need to be viable at later levels. Burning hands on the other hand (pun not intended) can be upcast for more damage.

Since 5ed doesn't include magic items as mandatory, you'r tin can meat shield caps with his AC early on and it's what, 21 (full plate, shield, fighting style). Your eldricht knight can shield himself for AC26 for one round 3/4 times a day, depending on the level, reducing chance to get hit to 5% (and that one will hurt since it's crit).

At level 10, with AC21, monsters have around +8/+9 to hit. So they hit on 12-13, which is around 40-45% chance to get hit. Shield reduces it to 15-20% chance for 1 round. Silvery barbs is more useless, since DM rerolls and again it has 40-45% to hit you.

If you are not optimized for max AC, it gets worse, since chance to get hit rises up, so if monster hits you on 9-10 (55-50% chance to hit), Silvery barb isn't that good and Shield is better since it reduces chance to get hit by flat 25%. One thing that makes Silvery barbs better situationaly is if monster rolled nat 20 (aka crited you). Then it can turn crit into regular hit or maybe miss.

Dirtiest trick I pulled with silvery barbs was negating a DMs critical hit with an order cleric feeding it to a rogue who then critted the opponent with a sneak attack.

Made deathhouse and the wind mill comparatively easy.

Favorite weapon in CoS is the Rogue occasionally I cast a cure spell, cantrip or hit something with a mace of smiting.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But, that's not the same. You didn't roll the attack, and then the fighter interrupted. You rolled the interrupt before the attack was made. As soon as the DM declared the attack, the interrupt occurred. Resolve the interrupt and then make the attack. Which is not the same as what I was talking about where the DM makes the roll, then the interrupt occurs, but before the DM can state the result of the triggering roll. Which means that the DM constantly has to pause after each potentially triggering roll to give the players time to interupt.

Additionally, the players have to pause after each of their rolls because monsters can potentially do the same thing. Now this tends to not be as much of an issue because the player always has to wait on the DM declaring success or failure. But, it can be tricky to time.

So, at the table, you say "I attack" and then wait for a response? Or do you roll the dice and say "I attack, here's the AC I hit and the damage I do if I hit"?

Tables I've been at declare attacks with dice rolls. The interrupt means "wait, maybe not" or "wait, maybe roll something else." FWIW, I do this as a player, and it's something I encourage in my players, too (I don't want the monk to declare 5 times what they rolled, I want them to do the rolls and tell me what happens!)

You could easily also say "I cast a spell" and then wait for a response, no?

But, at any rate, I do totally agree that 4e went WAYYYY overboard on interrupt mechanics. No argument from me there. The interrupt chains could get utterly ridiculous as effect after effect started getting nested inside streams of interruptions.

All that aside though, I was specifically talking about mechanics where the DM is required to stop between making the roll and declaring the results to give the players time to potentially interrupt. As I said, I don't recall that being a thing in 4e, but, it's been more than a minute, so, it's quite possible it was.

Yeah, I'm talking about that, too. What's curious to me is that there's apparently a difference in how you make an attack roll (where you pause for a response) and how you cast a spell (where a pause would interrupt)?

I mean, it's legit that interrupts can be annoying, I'm just curious about what hits that threshold and what doesn't and why. Cuz we're not talking just about spells anymore, we're talking about game mechanics, and that has much more interesting ramifications to me...

 

[Baron Opal II]

My problem with Shield is that it is most useful for classes that already wear armor.

That's one of my main points of confusion with 5e at the beginning. "What do you mean people in armor can cast spells! That's absurd!" Then I was walked through the rules and noticed that was a thing, now.

 

[ezo]

Can't say I'm not having fun fixing it, but I would like to focus on playing. WotC have people being paid to do it, have a great community telling them what to do, have experience, knows what went wrong and what worked out. They should do it and stop saying it's not broken because the DM can houserule (fix) it.

Yeah. One of my DM's has been changing 5E since I've known him (for 5 years). If I added up all the changes, house-rules, and homebrew, he has got to have at least 250-300 pages.

At this point he's working on his own game, really, just loosely based on 5E. He's always expressed that WotC's rulings over rules mentality is really just lazy game design.

 

[Hussar]

So, at the table, you say "I attack" and then wait for a response? Or do you roll the dice and say "I attack, here's the AC I hit and the damage I do if I hit"?

Tables I've been at declare attacks with dice rolls. The interrupt means "wait, maybe not" or "wait, maybe roll something else." FWIW, I do this as a player, and it's something I encourage in my players, too (I don't want the monk to declare 5 times what they rolled, I want them to do the rolls and tell me what happens!)

You could easily also say "I cast a spell" and then wait for a response, no?




Yeah, I'm talking about that, too. What's curious to me is that there's apparently a difference in how you make an attack roll (where you pause for a response) and how you cast a spell (where a pause would interrupt)?

I mean, it's legit that interrupts can be annoying, I'm just curious about what hits that threshold and what doesn't and why. Cuz we're not talking just about spells anymore, we're talking about game mechanics, and that has much more interesting ramifications to me...

I'm a little confused.

Don't your players announce their actions before they roll? So, they declare, "I move here and attack. (pick up dice)" at which point the DM can interrupt with, "The creature does X when you move". Sure, it interrupts that action, but, since nothing has been actually resolved yet, there's no problem IMO.

OTOH, "I move here. I attack. I roll X. and I do Y damage" makes these reroll mechanics quite a bit more powerful. And they'Re not really supposed to be reroll mechanics. You're not supposed to know if they will work before you use them. Shield occurs when you are targeted, not when you know how much you've been hit by. Being able to only use Shield when it works, makes it quite a bit more powerful. And, it's never wasted - after all, you should cast Shield even if the attack misses. Meaning you should be wasting spell slots fairly often.

That's the difference. Most of the interrupt powers are on the player side anyway. It's a fairly rare monster that has them. Not impossible, but not common. But with most of these powers, you're not supposed to be able to use them only when you know when they are needed. It's just like the Defense Style fighter. YOu are supposed to declare that Disadvantage on an attack before the dice are rolled.

But, it's really hard to actually do that in play. Like you say, everything gets declared at the same time. Which makes all these interrupts a lot more powerful than they are meant to be because the mechancis are very clunky.

 

[ezo]

But the new MCDM game they are making actually has removed the attack roll altogether for precisely the reason you say-- it "feels better" in their opinion to feel like you haven't wasted your turn. So every attack hits and its the damage roll that determines just how potent or impotent you were.

I remember this came up here a while ago with someone starting a topic about removing the attack roll from 5E because you hit so often the attack roll becomes all but pointless. Made sense to me, so I'm not surprised MCDM is trying it out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm a little confused.

Don't your players announce their actions before they roll? So, they declare, "I move here and attack. (pick up dice)" at which point the DM can interrupt with, "The creature does X when you move". Sure, it interrupts that action, but, since nothing has been actually resolved yet, there's no problem IMO.

OTOH, "I move here. I attack. I roll X. and I do Y damage" makes these reroll mechanics quite a bit more powerful. And they'Re not really supposed to be reroll mechanics. You're not supposed to know if they will work before you use them. Shield occurs when you are targeted, not when you know how much you've been hit by. Being able to only use Shield when it works, makes it quite a bit more powerful. And, it's never wasted - after all, you should cast Shield even if the attack misses. Meaning you should be wasting spell slots fairly often.

That's the difference. Most of the interrupt powers are on the player side anyway. It's a fairly rare monster that has them. Not impossible, but not common. But with most of these powers, you're not supposed to be able to use them only when you know when they are needed. It's just like the Defense Style fighter. YOu are supposed to declare that Disadvantage on an attack before the dice are rolled.

But, it's really hard to actually do that in play. Like you say, everything gets declared at the same time. Which makes all these interrupts a lot more powerful than they are meant to be because the mechancis are very clunky.

I would add whiny players who don't want to expend a resource to no effect are also contributing to the "interrupts always work" playstyle.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So, at the table, you say "I attack" and then wait for a response? Or do you roll the dice and say "I attack, here's the AC I hit and the damage I do if I hit"?

Tables I've been at declare attacks with dice rolls. The interrupt means "wait, maybe not" or "wait, maybe roll something else." FWIW, I do this as a player, and it's something I encourage in my players, too (I don't want the monk to declare 5 times what they rolled, I want them to do the rolls and tell me what happens!)

You could easily also say "I cast a spell" and then wait for a response, no?




Yeah, I'm talking about that, too. What's curious to me is that there's apparently a difference in how you make an attack roll (where you pause for a response) and how you cast a spell (where a pause would interrupt)?

I mean, it's legit that interrupts can be annoying, I'm just curious about what hits that threshold and what doesn't and why. Cuz we're not talking just about spells anymore, we're talking about game mechanics, and that has much more interesting ramifications to me...

I think the real issue is: interrupts happen at different points during the process. So you'd need to pause after declaring the start of the move, the approach, the fact that they will attack, the roll (number on the die, or that there is a number on the die if you're rolling behind the screen), the result after mods, and then the damage (broken down by type.

For every attack, if you don't know what reactions the players have. Spells have a different (if similiar-ish) process.

That's obviously a bit much.

 

[Hussar]

I think the real issue is: interrupts happen at different points during the process. So you'd need to pause after declaring the start of the move, the approach, the fact that they will attack, the roll (number on the die, or that there is a number on the die if you're rolling behind the screen), the result after mods, and then the damage (broken down by type.

For every attack, if you don't know what reactions the players have. Spells have a different (if similiar-ish) process.

That's obviously a bit much.

Thank you for explaining that better than me.