"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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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.
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
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You have made your animus toward me clear. You now have several options. You can continue to reflexively throw snark at me.
What I'm doing is suggesting, quite politely, that if the subject of Opportunity Attacks means so much to you, you would be better off starting a new thread about it, because people aren't going to go looking for that topic in a thread about teleporting features
You might even find folks who agree with you if you do that
Anything else you're reading into my posts is just that -- you reading something into them that isn't there
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I've noticed that basically everything in the new rules can teleport. Moon druids teleport, Soul knives teleport, Archfey warlocks do nothing except teleport, the Moon bards can teleport, World Tree barbs teleport, Fey Wanderers teleport, the UA Conjurers teleport, Noble Genies teleport, Cartographers teleport. It's very boring and excessive.
This list doesn't even include older things that can teleport, like the Circle of Wildfire, Fathomless warlock, Wild Magic barbs (sometimes), Shadow Monks, and Shadow Sorcerers.
Obviously, teleportation is fun and flavorful, but I think it's getting a bit extreme.
I THINK OP is wanting more unique options especially due to the influx of so many teleportation options in Heroes of Faerun in particular.
Exactly. Teleportation is cool if you want a mobility-based subclass, but when Archfeys lose ALMOST ALL of their fun features just to cast Misty Step a bunch, it gets really boring. Conjurers are really suffering from the teleportation issue. Creating objects fits the theme much better than teleportation, even if teleport spells are Conjuration.
I've always thought teleportation spells being in Conjuration felt weird. I don't think any of the other existing schools is really a better fit, but I think teleportation (and other movement stuff like Longstrider and maybe even Haste) deserve to have their own school and their own Wizard subclass separate from Conjuration.
That would be really cool. Someone needs to come up with a name for that school.
Transposition. All about getting from one point to another, in place, order, or possibly even time. (And in the case of bards, pitch)
Spells that teleport self/others, spells that move self/others, spells that move or teleport objects. Telekinesis would fit right at home there too.
Teleportation has always been fairly common place in 5th edition, it's not new to the 2024 rules. Imo it's neither boring (teleportation encourages interesting movement) nor excessive
?? No, it hasn't. It has progressively become more common. It's just lazy game design at this point.
I dont understand why teleportation is being singled out. Magic is easily accessible to every player character through the magic initiate origijn feat through a background. And If that pc's spellcasting ability is important, theb at level 4, a high-value feat is FeyTouched, adding a +1 to a mental.score and giving mistystep and a level 1 spell, voth of which can be cast for free once per ling rest, as well as with a slot.
The rules describe a "magic is everywhere" (at least for the players) kind of world.
Furthermore, if the most common way nonmagical pc's get misty step is fey touched, then they can only ever cast it once per long rest. And most importantly, its a utility spell, does no damage, only teleports the caster, and only teleports 30 feet or less.
Nothing about this checks any "this is overpowered" box.
I dont understand why teleportation is being singled out. Magic is easily accessible to every player character through the magic initiate origijn feat through a background. And If that pc's spellcasting ability is important, theb at level 4, a high-value feat is FeyTouched, adding a +1 to a mental.score and giving mistystep and a level 1 spell, voth of which can be cast for free once per ling rest, as well as with a slot.
The rules describe a "magic is everywhere" (at least for the players) kind of world.
Furthermore, if the most common way nonmagical pc's get misty step is fey touched, then they can only ever cast it once per long rest. And most importantly, its a utility spell, does no damage, only teleports the caster, and only teleports 30 feet or less.
Nothing about this checks any "this is overpowered" box.
This is why I focused on teleportation: If you do a quick count of all of the features that say something along the lines of "you always have Misty Step prepared, and you can cast it without a slot X times", or "as a bonus action, you can teleport 30 feet and get all of these other fun buffs", you'll see that there are A LOT, but how often does a subclass say "you always have [Insert random spell] like Burning Hands, Longstrider, or Mage Armor, and you can cast it without a slot X times.
Just because magic is everywhere doesn't mean teleportation should be everywhere.
I agree with the OP that teleportation has become too widely available. It does seem that every single character can now just teleport out of any dangerous situation. Get grappled, teleport. About to be swallowed whole, nope, just teleport. Need to climb, nope, just teleport. Need to move out of the enemy's range, just teleport. Find a trap, teleport past it. Get arrested, teleport out of the restraints and onto the nearest rooftop. Need to infiltrate a fortress, just teleport in through any opening large enough to see thru. Why talk your way past anyone, just teleport.
If you really think about it, if teleportation really was that common, the world would look much different. Castles wouldn't use arrow slits, because it becomes an easy way for attackers to just teleport in. Buildings would stop having windows, for the same reason. As for those that might say, "well, only PCs are special no one else gets that", I would point out that's a really poor design. Even if just 1 in a 100 of the population could do it (a town of a thousand would mean 10), that would still be enough to cause major changes in the design of structures. Just one teleporting thief or murderer would cause major changes in how cities/towns/villages do things.
Although not how the conversation started, I will also point out that a lot of people don't like how the game is turning every character into a spellcaster. I understand there's a population that likes the idea of a gish, but that's just a small subset of the whole player base - yet the designers definitely seem to have taken the entire game into that direction.
There are way too many players with characters who can now wear full plate + shield and can toss a shield spell and even a blur on top of those to make them nearly invulnerable. It is becoming a plague within the game.
I agree with the OP that teleportation has become too widely available. It does seem that every single character can now just teleport out of any dangerous situation. Get grappled, teleport. About to be swallowed whole, nope, just teleport. Need to climb, nope, just teleport. Need to move out of the enemy's range, just teleport. Find a trap, teleport past it. Get arrested, teleport out of the restraints and onto the nearest rooftop. Need to infiltrate a fortress, just teleport in through any opening large enough to see thru. Why talk your way past anyone, just teleport.
The thing is, if you take one of the new bamfing subclasses like Archfey warlock, that's basically all you get out of that subclass -- the ability to short-range teleport, with some extra buffs attached to the teleport
It's "widely available" in the sense that more classes have subclass options based around teleporting, but that doesn't mean everyone in the party's going to take one of those subclasses, or have the ability to teleport. I doubt the actual percentage of 5e24 characters who can do misty step-like things will go up significantly from 5e14 -- if you wanted that kind of character, you could already make it before. You just have more (and better) ways to do it now
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I agree with the OP that teleportation has become too widely available. It does seem that every single character can now just teleport out of any dangerous situation. Get grappled, teleport. About to be swallowed whole, nope, just teleport. Need to climb, nope, just teleport. Need to move out of the enemy's range, just teleport. Find a trap, teleport past it. Get arrested, teleport out of the restraints and onto the nearest rooftop. Need to infiltrate a fortress, just teleport in through any opening large enough to see thru. Why talk your way past anyone, just teleport.
The thing is, if you take one of the new bamfing subclasses like Archfey warlock, that's basically all you get out of that subclass -- the ability to short-range teleport, with some extra buffs attached to the teleport
It's "widely available" in the sense that more classes have subclass options based around teleporting, but that doesn't mean everyone in the party's going to take one of those subclasses, or have the ability to teleport. I doubt the actual percentage of 5e24 characters who can do misty step-like things will go up significantly from 5e14 -- if you wanted that kind of character, you could already make it before. You just have more (and better) ways to do it now
Let's not forget that certain species got teleportation as well.
I am playing in a campaign now, that at one point, 3 out of the 5 characters could misty step (or equivalent).
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Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
From a level design perspective, this is a non-issue. A distance you can chuck a rock across is not supposed to be a major obstacle across all tiers of play, and most subclasses with a basic teleport trick don’t get it until they’re into second or even third tier. Plus, the teleports are nearly always self only, so unless everyone in the party has one- and I have yet to be in one where that’s the case- the group still needs to work out how others are getting around the obstacle.
its a utility spell, does no damage, only teleports the caster, and only teleports 30 feet or less.
Nothing about this checks any "this is overpowered" box.
If you do a quick count of all of the features that say something along the lines of "you always have Misty Step prepared, and you can cast it without a slot X times"
Did you do a count? Not sure how many classes allow, say, 3 or more slot-free castings of Misty-Step per long rest. But it doesn't feel like that many.
And again, more importantly, if it was overpowered, everyone would be playing these subclasses.
I don't think I've ever see the same character cast misty step more than once in a single combat.
The new Cartographer subclass of Artificers has a lot of teleport stuff. but they also do NOT have much in the way of damage infliction. They are a support class. I can't imagine a scenario where cartographer breaks the game.
Have you seen something where teleportation causes problems in game balance?
most subclasses with a basic teleport trick don’t get it until they’re into second or even third tier.
Archfey warlock and Cartographer artificer both get it right from the jump (cough) at level 3
If we were only talking about level 6 or level 10 features, this thread wouldn't exist
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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)
From a level design perspective, this is a non-issue. A distance you can chuck a rock across is not supposed to be a major obstacle across all tiers of play, and most subclasses with a basic teleport trick don’t get it until they’re into second or even third tier. Plus, the teleports are nearly always self only, so unless everyone in the party has one- and I have yet to be in one where that’s the case- the group still needs to work out how others are getting around the obstacle.
its a utility spell, does no damage, only teleports the caster, and only teleports 30 feet or less.
Nothing about this checks any "this is overpowered" box.
If you do a quick count of all of the features that say something along the lines of "you always have Misty Step prepared, and you can cast it without a slot X times"
Did you do a count? Not sure how many classes allow, say, 3 or more slot-free castings of Misty-Step per long rest. But it doesn't feel like that many.
And again, more importantly, if it was overpowered, everyone would be playing these subclasses.
I don't think I've ever see the same character cast misty step more than once in a single combat.
The new Cartographer subclass of Artificers has a lot of teleport stuff. but they also do NOT have much in the way of damage infliction. They are a support class. I can't imagine a scenario where cartographer breaks the game.
Have you seen something where teleportation causes problems in game balance?
I don't care about causing issues with game balance or trivializing encounters, it's just not fun when EVERYTHING teleports. In my post, I have a rather large list of all of the things that teleport, which I will copy here:
Moon druids teleport, Soul knives teleport, Archfey warlocks do nothing except teleport, the Moon bards can teleport, World Tree barbs teleport, Fey Wanderers teleport, the UA Conjurers teleport (more and earlier than 2014), Noble Genies teleport, Cartographers teleport, Circle of Wildfire, Fathomless warlock, Wild Magic barbs (sometimes), Shadow Monks, and Shadow Sorcerers, Psi Warpers, and CLOUD GOLIATHS (I understand that cloud giants have Misty Step, but they could have gone with something FUN, like Feather fall).
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"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.
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)
What I'm doing is suggesting, quite politely, that if the subject of Opportunity Attacks means so much to you, you would be better off starting a new thread about it, because people aren't going to go looking for that topic in a thread about teleporting features
You might even find folks who agree with you if you do that
Anything else you're reading into my posts is just that -- you reading something into them that isn't there
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 forgot Shadow Monk, who can also teleport.
Transposition. All about getting from one point to another, in place, order, or possibly even time. (And in the case of bards, pitch)
Spells that teleport self/others, spells that move self/others, spells that move or teleport objects. Telekinesis would fit right at home there too.
?? No, it hasn't. It has progressively become more common. It's just lazy game design at this point.
I dont understand why teleportation is being singled out. Magic is easily accessible to every player character through the magic initiate origijn feat through a background. And If that pc's spellcasting ability is important, theb at level 4, a high-value feat is FeyTouched, adding a +1 to a mental.score and giving mistystep and a level 1 spell, voth of which can be cast for free once per ling rest, as well as with a slot.
The rules describe a "magic is everywhere" (at least for the players) kind of world.
Furthermore, if the most common way nonmagical pc's get misty step is fey touched, then they can only ever cast it once per long rest. And most importantly, its a utility spell, does no damage, only teleports the caster, and only teleports 30 feet or less.
Nothing about this checks any "this is overpowered" box.
This is why I focused on teleportation: If you do a quick count of all of the features that say something along the lines of "you always have Misty Step prepared, and you can cast it without a slot X times", or "as a bonus action, you can teleport 30 feet and get all of these other fun buffs", you'll see that there are A LOT, but how often does a subclass say "you always have [Insert random spell] like Burning Hands, Longstrider, or Mage Armor, and you can cast it without a slot X times.
Just because magic is everywhere doesn't mean teleportation should be everywhere.
I agree with the OP that teleportation has become too widely available. It does seem that every single character can now just teleport out of any dangerous situation. Get grappled, teleport. About to be swallowed whole, nope, just teleport. Need to climb, nope, just teleport. Need to move out of the enemy's range, just teleport. Find a trap, teleport past it. Get arrested, teleport out of the restraints and onto the nearest rooftop. Need to infiltrate a fortress, just teleport in through any opening large enough to see thru. Why talk your way past anyone, just teleport.
If you really think about it, if teleportation really was that common, the world would look much different. Castles wouldn't use arrow slits, because it becomes an easy way for attackers to just teleport in. Buildings would stop having windows, for the same reason. As for those that might say, "well, only PCs are special no one else gets that", I would point out that's a really poor design. Even if just 1 in a 100 of the population could do it (a town of a thousand would mean 10), that would still be enough to cause major changes in the design of structures. Just one teleporting thief or murderer would cause major changes in how cities/towns/villages do things.
Although not how the conversation started, I will also point out that a lot of people don't like how the game is turning every character into a spellcaster. I understand there's a population that likes the idea of a gish, but that's just a small subset of the whole player base - yet the designers definitely seem to have taken the entire game into that direction.
There are way too many players with characters who can now wear full plate + shield and can toss a shield spell and even a blur on top of those to make them nearly invulnerable. It is becoming a plague within the game.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
The thing is, if you take one of the new bamfing subclasses like Archfey warlock, that's basically all you get out of that subclass -- the ability to short-range teleport, with some extra buffs attached to the teleport
It's "widely available" in the sense that more classes have subclass options based around teleporting, but that doesn't mean everyone in the party's going to take one of those subclasses, or have the ability to teleport. I doubt the actual percentage of 5e24 characters who can do misty step-like things will go up significantly from 5e14 -- if you wanted that kind of character, you could already make it before. You just have more (and better) ways to do it now
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)
Let's not forget that certain species got teleportation as well.
I am playing in a campaign now, that at one point, 3 out of the 5 characters could misty step (or equivalent).
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
From a level design perspective, this is a non-issue. A distance you can chuck a rock across is not supposed to be a major obstacle across all tiers of play, and most subclasses with a basic teleport trick don’t get it until they’re into second or even third tier. Plus, the teleports are nearly always self only, so unless everyone in the party has one- and I have yet to be in one where that’s the case- the group still needs to work out how others are getting around the obstacle.
Did you do a count? Not sure how many classes allow, say, 3 or more slot-free castings of Misty-Step per long rest. But it doesn't feel like that many.
And again, more importantly, if it was overpowered, everyone would be playing these subclasses.
I don't think I've ever see the same character cast misty step more than once in a single combat.
The new Cartographer subclass of Artificers has a lot of teleport stuff. but they also do NOT have much in the way of damage infliction. They are a support class. I can't imagine a scenario where cartographer breaks the game.
Have you seen something where teleportation causes problems in game balance?
Archfey warlock and Cartographer artificer both get it right from the jump (cough) at level 3
If we were only talking about level 6 or level 10 features, this thread wouldn't exist
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 don't care about causing issues with game balance or trivializing encounters, it's just not fun when EVERYTHING teleports. In my post, I have a rather large list of all of the things that teleport, which I will copy here:
Moon druids teleport, Soul knives teleport, Archfey warlocks do nothing except teleport, the Moon bards can teleport, World Tree barbs teleport, Fey Wanderers teleport, the UA Conjurers teleport (more and earlier than 2014), Noble Genies teleport, Cartographers teleport, Circle of Wildfire, Fathomless warlock, Wild Magic barbs (sometimes), Shadow Monks, and Shadow Sorcerers, Psi Warpers, and CLOUD GOLIATHS (I understand that cloud giants have Misty Step, but they could have gone with something FUN, like Feather fall).