"Combat in 5e already drags on too long for my taste."
My experience is that the biggest thing that slows down combat is a player who doesnt pay attention during combat until its their turn, and when its their turn, they finally look up from their phone and ask everyone at the table: ok, what happened since i last moved? The next biggest time sink is the player who wants the perfect turn and they collapse into analysys paralysis.
When i am a player, i try to finish my turn in a minute or so. When i dm, i can run though a dozen npc actions in a minute or so. And when as a DM, i tell Alice its their turn, i turn to Bob and say "you are up next" making clear i want them to start planning now.
When a player kills an npc i generally dont ask "how do you want to do it?" Because the players already cheered their victory. And a dozen npcs or monsters dont need their death narated. Maybe thr bbeg, but only maybe.
An oppoetunity attack should take the dm maybe 10 seconds to resolve? Roll a d20 and use fixed damage (dont roll npc/monster damage) And if there are multiple monsters doing an OA on a pc, the second and third one should get quicker cause you have been reminded of the players AC, so they dont have to look on their sheet.
"I see the pervasiveness of teleportation as a bandage to fix the drag caused by opportunity attacks. Perhaps you do not feel this way. That's fine."
I do not feel that way. OAs maybe take 1% of my current combat time.
In the games ive been in, teleport is a limited resource, so its usually used by low STR pcs to get out of the rare grapple, especially a grapple from something really bad like a mind flayer. It grapples on one turn, and kills you dead the next turn. I generally build my charactets to have access to at least one cast of misty step because of these monsters. Or i build with high str or dex and proficiency in athletics or acrobatics to escape these monsters.
I dont think ive seen anyone play a character with enougb teleports that they can melee an npc and teleport out of range of being counter attacked, as their long term strategy. Misty step is a level 2 spell, and there are better thingd to do with a level 2 slot than do some wonky melee/teleport combo when they could just use a range attack and stay away from most OA's.
If youre a warlock, play a dhampir for spider walk, then get yourself devils sight, and climb up a wall and eldritch blast from a location you likely wont be tsrgeted without some effort. Cast darkness to attavk with advantage and be attacked with disadvantage. Use spider climb to get out of the area your party is fighting so darkness doesnt mess then up.
Or look at other clases or feats that have features that allow you to move with any opportunity attack to be at disadvantage, or movement not triggering oa at all.
The speedy feat make all opportunity attacks against you to be rolled with disadvantage. The dance bard level 6 inspiring movement allows you and an ally to move in certsin situations without triggering opportunity attack.
My experience is that the biggest thing that slows down combat is a player who doesnt pay attention during combat until its their turn, and when its their turn, they finally look up from their phone and ask everyone at the table: ok, what happened since i last moved? The next biggest time sink is the player who wants the perfect turn and they collapse into analysys paralysis.
I agree. There are many things that slow down combat. OAs are not the main one. I never said they were!
I do not feel that way. OAs maybe take 1% of my current combat time.
What I was saying in my post above is that the "drag" imposed by OAs is not just the time it takes to resolve. It's also the way it affects behavior in combat. Especially when there are multiple monsters, a melee PC may want to move but choose not to because of the risk of triggering OAs, and if they choose to move, the OA resolution is a boring drag. I think that there are interesting choices that can be made by players. That is not one of them.
Or look at other clases or feats that have features that allow you to move with any opportunity attack to be at disadvantage, or movement not triggering oa at all.
The speedy feat make all opportunity attacks against you to be rolled with disadvantage. The dance bard level 6 inspiring movement allows you and an ally to move in certsin situations without triggering opportunity attack.
Yeah, these options exist but I think they make me sad. I believe that ubiquitous OAs are not a good mechanic, so it's also pretty lame to have to waste a feat to get around them. It's asking a player to give up a scarce resource to avoid a mechanic that I don't think should even be in the game. Of course, I also think that rogues and other character builds should be given more interesting features instead.
"Especially when there are multiple monsters, a melee PC may want to move but choose not to because of the risk of triggering OAs,"
Well, no, not normally. the idea of "focus fire" says that you are MUCH better off having everyone focus fire on one enemy until its dead and removed from teh initiative list. Because if everyone attacks a different enemy, then at the end of the first turn, its more likely that none of the enemies have been killed. If everyone attacks the same enemy, you might kill it, and reduce the number of enemy attacks that occur on the monsters initiative in the first round fo combat. So, for most combats, you should pick one target and wail on it until its dead.
Even if you took away OA's, you're still dealing with grapples. and a lot of monsters grapple.
MistyStep/FeyTouch helps with both OA's and grapples.
"OAs are not a good mechanic, so it's also pretty lame to have to waste a feat to get around them."
Well, most of these feats have multiple functions. Speedy increases your speed by 10 feet, which means you can move farther away from enemies, or engage them more quickly. If there's a chase, you're faster than everyone. And if you stack this with monk or barbarian speed increases, you'll be untouchable. FeyTouched helps with grapples, and also comes in handy for a LOT of exploration stuff. I think most feats that help with opportunity attacks, help with a LOT of different things, and OA's are just one of them.
Well, no, not normally. the idea of "focus fire" says that you are MUCH better off having everyone focus fire on one enemy until its dead and removed from teh initiative list. Because if everyone attacks a different enemy, then at the end of the first turn, its more likely that none of the enemies have been killed. If everyone attacks the same enemy, you might kill it, and reduce the number of enemy attacks that occur on the monsters initiative in the first round fo combat. So, for most combats, you should pick one target and wail on it until its dead.
Apologies. I know that focusing fire is a valuable strategy in general. Perhaps because it is very late, I don't see how that relates to our discussion. I'm disussing movement, not the choice of who to attack.
Even if you took away OA's, you're still dealing with grapples. and a lot of monsters grapple.
MistyStep/FeyTouch helps with both OA's and grapples.
I don't have a problem with grapples at all. Grapples inhibit movement, but I'm not against monsters being able to inhibit movement as a general principle. What makes grapples more reasonable is that monsters generally have to expend some of their action economy to engage in a grapple. Unless they're specifically granted an attack that allows them to grapple as part of an attack, they generally have to sacrifice their entire action to do so. This is also generally a bad strategy unless the monster has a really good reason to prevent a character from moving, as a monster will typically only have a couple of actions to throw around before being defeated.
OAs are different. Most monsters do not have any reactions options beyond OAs, meaning that while they may want to be judicious about when to use their OA, they really never have a good reason to forgo making an OA for a given round. And unlike grapples, which can only usually be done as an action or as part of an action on a monster's turn, several OAs may be provoked by the same action, all potentially outside of the attackers' turn.
Well, most of these feats have multiple functions. Speedy increases your speed by 10 feet, which means you can move farther away from enemies, or engage them more quickly. If there's a chase, you're faster than everyone. And if you stack this with monk or barbarian speed increases, you'll be untouchable. FeyTouched helps with grapples, and also comes in handy for a LOT of exploration stuff. I think most feats that help with opportunity attacks, help with a LOT of different things, and OA's are just one of them.
Well sure, but what you're saying, to my ears, is that the Speedy feat is functional despite the fact that half of the feat is used to deal with a lousy mechanic. I'd rather just change the lousy mechanic up front.
Consider this admittedly absurd example. Suppose 5e core had the following rule:
Every time a player rolls a 1 on a d20, they are punched in the groin and their character is instantly, irrevocably, and embarrasingly killed.
This rule sucks. Now suppose 5e also made available the following feat:
Avoid Instakill
You gain a +1 bonus to your hp.
Instead of being instantly killed, your character loses 1d6 hp permanently each time you roll a 1 on a d20.
Yes, this feat is quite useful in the context of my bizarro 5e variant. But that's because it allows you to circumvent a rule that seriously sucks. Sure you always get that +1 hp. But if the dumb rule didn't suck so bad, you'd probably pick another feat. Would it not be better just to amend or remove the dumb rule rather than make people take a feat to avoid it?
Of course, I also think that rogues and other character builds should be given more interesting features instead.
I really wonder what "more interesting features" you think would replace an entire playing style, because your proposals would make specialized kiting builds pointless
Anyway, much as you keep trying to tie this to a discussion of the increase in teleporting features in 5e24, it's really a separate subject that you may want to think about taking to a new thread
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Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I agree. There are many things that slow down combat. OAs are not the main one. I never said they were!
What I was saying in my post above is that the "drag" imposed by OAs is not just the time it takes to resolve. It's also the way it affects behavior in combat. Especially when there are multiple monsters, a melee PC may want to move but choose not to because of the risk of triggering OAs, and if they choose to move, the OA resolution is a boring drag. I think that there are interesting choices that can be made by players. That is not one of them
I find the time it takes for opportunity attacks including the decision making process to be so small it is not worth worrying about as its such a incredibly small % of the combat its virtually non existent. And when it does come up, it is an actual interesting choice, should I move and risk this attack, should I withdraw and give up my attack, just stay here and finish them. All of these choices have positive and negative results. Choices with consequences.
Not saying they are perfect like It think the withdraw should include movement but in difficult terrain, and I think the opportunity attack should be at advantage for example.
Of course, I also think that rogues and other character builds should be given more interesting features instead.
I really wonder what "more interesting features" you think would replace an entire playing style, because your proposals would make specialized kiting builds pointless
Anyway, much as you keep trying to tie this to a discussion of the increase in teleporting features in 5e24, it's really a separate subject that you may want to think about taking to a new thread
As you made an argument, I think it's fair that I respond. Simply, if you believe that your entire play style would be made obsolete if a lousy rule were removed, then perhaps the rules were never designed to properly realize that play style.
My whole conversation here is related to the OP as it addresses why I feel the way I do about the proliferation of teleportation in 2024. The OP themself has also participated in this discussion.
Folks, through this whole thread I've been trying to be as civil as possible. I've been talking about my personal opinions and not bashing your game or playstyle. And I've been trying to take all of your arguments in good faith, and address them. Is there a reason this is making people so upset?
My whole conversation here is related to the OP as it addresses why I feel the way I do about the proliferation of teleportation in 2024
And you've already made that point, repeatedly
If you want to discuss the evils of Opportunity Attacks further, I will again suggest you would be better off starting a fresh thread for it
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
My whole conversation here is related to the OP as it addresses why I feel the way I do about the proliferation of teleportation in 2024
And you've already made that point, repeatedly
If you want to discuss the evils of Opportunity Attacks further, I will again suggest you would be better off starting a fresh thread for it
You have made your animus toward me clear. You now have several options. You can continue to reflexively throw snark at me. You can engage with my points. You can be silent. You can ignore me. You can block me. You can tell your friends and family that some guy on the internet had a lousy opinion. You can report my posts and try to argue that I'm doing something wrong. If I have offended you, it was not my intention.
Every post I've made is to clarify my feelings on the matter in response to (mostly) good-faith discussion. I am not repeating myself for fun or to spam anybody. I'm trying to persuade and be persuaded with, among other things, the goal of working out whether and how people have adjusted their games to make them more fun. If I seem defensive, it's because I have spent most of this discussion genunely trying to communicate ideas while being hit with a disproportionate amount of sarcasm and snark. In fact, Anton, your first reply to me in this thread was sarcastic and rude, but I tried to look past it.
Now, in this instance, I agree that the discussion is off the rails. But it was not because I had the audacity to say that I don't like a mechanic in 5e. You are welcome to post something that brings the discussion back around to teleportation narrowly.
"Combat in 5e already drags on too long for my taste."
My experience is that the biggest thing that slows down combat is a player who doesnt pay attention during combat until its their turn, and when its their turn, they finally look up from their phone and ask everyone at the table: ok, what happened since i last moved? The next biggest time sink is the player who wants the perfect turn and they collapse into analysys paralysis.
When i am a player, i try to finish my turn in a minute or so. When i dm, i can run though a dozen npc actions in a minute or so. And when as a DM, i tell Alice its their turn, i turn to Bob and say "you are up next" making clear i want them to start planning now.
When a player kills an npc i generally dont ask "how do you want to do it?" Because the players already cheered their victory. And a dozen npcs or monsters dont need their death narated. Maybe thr bbeg, but only maybe.
An oppoetunity attack should take the dm maybe 10 seconds to resolve? Roll a d20 and use fixed damage (dont roll npc/monster damage) And if there are multiple monsters doing an OA on a pc, the second and third one should get quicker cause you have been reminded of the players AC, so they dont have to look on their sheet.
"I see the pervasiveness of teleportation as a bandage to fix the drag caused by opportunity attacks. Perhaps you do not feel this way. That's fine."
I do not feel that way. OAs maybe take 1% of my current combat time.
In the games ive been in, teleport is a limited resource, so its usually used by low STR pcs to get out of the rare grapple, especially a grapple from something really bad like a mind flayer. It grapples on one turn, and kills you dead the next turn. I generally build my charactets to have access to at least one cast of misty step because of these monsters. Or i build with high str or dex and proficiency in athletics or acrobatics to escape these monsters.
I dont think ive seen anyone play a character with enougb teleports that they can melee an npc and teleport out of range of being counter attacked, as their long term strategy. Misty step is a level 2 spell, and there are better thingd to do with a level 2 slot than do some wonky melee/teleport combo when they could just use a range attack and stay away from most OA's.
If youre a warlock, play a dhampir for spider walk, then get yourself devils sight, and climb up a wall and eldritch blast from a location you likely wont be tsrgeted without some effort. Cast darkness to attavk with advantage and be attacked with disadvantage. Use spider climb to get out of the area your party is fighting so darkness doesnt mess then up.
Or look at other clases or feats that have features that allow you to move with any opportunity attack to be at disadvantage, or movement not triggering oa at all.
The speedy feat make all opportunity attacks against you to be rolled with disadvantage. The dance bard level 6 inspiring movement allows you and an ally to move in certsin situations without triggering opportunity attack.
I agree. There are many things that slow down combat. OAs are not the main one. I never said they were!
What I was saying in my post above is that the "drag" imposed by OAs is not just the time it takes to resolve. It's also the way it affects behavior in combat. Especially when there are multiple monsters, a melee PC may want to move but choose not to because of the risk of triggering OAs, and if they choose to move, the OA resolution is a boring drag. I think that there are interesting choices that can be made by players. That is not one of them.
Yeah, these options exist but I think they make me sad. I believe that ubiquitous OAs are not a good mechanic, so it's also pretty lame to have to waste a feat to get around them. It's asking a player to give up a scarce resource to avoid a mechanic that I don't think should even be in the game. Of course, I also think that rogues and other character builds should be given more interesting features instead.
"Especially when there are multiple monsters, a melee PC may want to move but choose not to because of the risk of triggering OAs,"
Well, no, not normally. the idea of "focus fire" says that you are MUCH better off having everyone focus fire on one enemy until its dead and removed from teh initiative list. Because if everyone attacks a different enemy, then at the end of the first turn, its more likely that none of the enemies have been killed. If everyone attacks the same enemy, you might kill it, and reduce the number of enemy attacks that occur on the monsters initiative in the first round fo combat. So, for most combats, you should pick one target and wail on it until its dead.
Even if you took away OA's, you're still dealing with grapples. and a lot of monsters grapple.
MistyStep/FeyTouch helps with both OA's and grapples.
"OAs are not a good mechanic, so it's also pretty lame to have to waste a feat to get around them."
Well, most of these feats have multiple functions. Speedy increases your speed by 10 feet, which means you can move farther away from enemies, or engage them more quickly. If there's a chase, you're faster than everyone. And if you stack this with monk or barbarian speed increases, you'll be untouchable. FeyTouched helps with grapples, and also comes in handy for a LOT of exploration stuff. I think most feats that help with opportunity attacks, help with a LOT of different things, and OA's are just one of them.
Apologies. I know that focusing fire is a valuable strategy in general. Perhaps because it is very late, I don't see how that relates to our discussion. I'm disussing movement, not the choice of who to attack.
I don't have a problem with grapples at all. Grapples inhibit movement, but I'm not against monsters being able to inhibit movement as a general principle. What makes grapples more reasonable is that monsters generally have to expend some of their action economy to engage in a grapple. Unless they're specifically granted an attack that allows them to grapple as part of an attack, they generally have to sacrifice their entire action to do so. This is also generally a bad strategy unless the monster has a really good reason to prevent a character from moving, as a monster will typically only have a couple of actions to throw around before being defeated.
OAs are different. Most monsters do not have any reactions options beyond OAs, meaning that while they may want to be judicious about when to use their OA, they really never have a good reason to forgo making an OA for a given round. And unlike grapples, which can only usually be done as an action or as part of an action on a monster's turn, several OAs may be provoked by the same action, all potentially outside of the attackers' turn.
Well sure, but what you're saying, to my ears, is that the Speedy feat is functional despite the fact that half of the feat is used to deal with a lousy mechanic. I'd rather just change the lousy mechanic up front.
Consider this admittedly absurd example. Suppose 5e core had the following rule:
This rule sucks. Now suppose 5e also made available the following feat:
Yes, this feat is quite useful in the context of my bizarro 5e variant. But that's because it allows you to circumvent a rule that seriously sucks. Sure you always get that +1 hp. But if the dumb rule didn't suck so bad, you'd probably pick another feat. Would it not be better just to amend or remove the dumb rule rather than make people take a feat to avoid it?
I really wonder what "more interesting features" you think would replace an entire playing style, because your proposals would make specialized kiting builds pointless
Anyway, much as you keep trying to tie this to a discussion of the increase in teleporting features in 5e24, it's really a separate subject that you may want to think about taking to a new thread
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I find the time it takes for opportunity attacks including the decision making process to be so small it is not worth worrying about as its such a incredibly small % of the combat its virtually non existent. And when it does come up, it is an actual interesting choice, should I move and risk this attack, should I withdraw and give up my attack, just stay here and finish them. All of these choices have positive and negative results. Choices with consequences.
Not saying they are perfect like It think the withdraw should include movement but in difficult terrain, and I think the opportunity attack should be at advantage for example.
As you made an argument, I think it's fair that I respond. Simply, if you believe that your entire play style would be made obsolete if a lousy rule were removed, then perhaps the rules were never designed to properly realize that play style.
My whole conversation here is related to the OP as it addresses why I feel the way I do about the proliferation of teleportation in 2024. The OP themself has also participated in this discussion.
Folks, through this whole thread I've been trying to be as civil as possible. I've been talking about my personal opinions and not bashing your game or playstyle. And I've been trying to take all of your arguments in good faith, and address them. Is there a reason this is making people so upset?
And you've already made that point, repeatedly
If you want to discuss the evils of Opportunity Attacks further, I will again suggest you would be better off starting a fresh thread for it
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You have made your animus toward me clear. You now have several options. You can continue to reflexively throw snark at me. You can engage with my points. You can be silent. You can ignore me. You can block me. You can tell your friends and family that some guy on the internet had a lousy opinion. You can report my posts and try to argue that I'm doing something wrong. If I have offended you, it was not my intention.
Every post I've made is to clarify my feelings on the matter in response to (mostly) good-faith discussion. I am not repeating myself for fun or to spam anybody. I'm trying to persuade and be persuaded with, among other things, the goal of working out whether and how people have adjusted their games to make them more fun. If I seem defensive, it's because I have spent most of this discussion genunely trying to communicate ideas while being hit with a disproportionate amount of sarcasm and snark. In fact, Anton, your first reply to me in this thread was sarcastic and rude, but I tried to look past it.
Now, in this instance, I agree that the discussion is off the rails. But it was not because I had the audacity to say that I don't like a mechanic in 5e. You are welcome to post something that brings the discussion back around to teleportation narrowly.