I'm throwing an Oni at a level 6 group. This is the first flier above the "couple good whacks and down it goes" grade I've DM'd in 5e so I'd like some clarifications of some interactions.
1. The party has a Giant Slayer Handaxe. If the oni takes a hit from it in midair and fails the Strength saving throw, (which knocks it prone) it falls to the ground and takes falling damage. correct?
2. The Bugbear Barbarian is 7 feet tall and has Strength 16. By my math, he can make a grapple attack at a flyer up to 20 feet in the air with a 10 foot running start or 17 without it. (3 feet+ 3 Strength+10.5 vertical reach+3.5 for Long Arms) So a potential round would be:
a) Barbarian jumps, make his grapple check. If successful, the oni has his movement reduced to 0 and falls to the ground, taking fall damage if it's over 10 feet in the air.
b) assuming the Barb needed the reach from Long Arms to make the grapple, he would lose his grip after the fall and would need to use residual movement to close and grapple again with his second attack. Otherwise the oni can simply take flight again on his turn.
3. None of the characters have Sharpshooter, so attacks with the Slayer Handaxe will probably be frequently made at disadvantage. The Battlesmith's Homunculus Servant or Steel Defender could, on their turns, retrieve the SLayer Handaxe and bring it to or towards another character. Since picking up a loose weapon is a free action, if the weapon is only lying on the ground, they would be able to do so with no input from the Battlesmith. If the weapon is needs to be dislodged, the Battlesmith would have to use his bonus action to preform this.
I think I have a handle on everything else. What did I get right, what did I miss?
Handaxes only have a throwing range of 20 feet. Since none of the PCs have Sharpshooter, as long as the monster stays at least 20 feet in the air, these attacks will almost always be at long range.
I'm throwing an Oni at a level 6 group. This is the first flier above the "couple good whacks and down it goes" grade I've DM'd in 5e so I'd like some clarifications of some interactions.
1. The party has a Giant Slayer Handaxe. If the oni takes a hit from it in midair and fails the Strength saving throw, (which knocks it prone) it falls to the ground and takes falling damage. correct?
Correct, but as others have noted, range of the handaxe might be a deciding factor in this.
2. The Bugbear Barbarian is 7 feet tall and has Strength 16. By my math, he can make a grapple attack at a flyer up to 20 feet in the air with a 10 foot running start or 17 without it. (3 feet+ 3 Strength+10.5 vertical reach+3.5 for Long Arms) So a potential round would be:
a) Barbarian jumps, make his grapple check. If successful, the oni has his movement reduced to 0 and falls to the ground, taking fall damage if it's over 10 feet in the air.
Both creatures that fall take damage. If you use the optional rules from Tasha's to simulate one landing on the other that can be found here.
b) assuming the Barb needed the reach from Long Arms to make the grapple, he would lose his grip after the fall and would need to use residual movement to close and grapple again with his second attack. Otherwise the oni can simply take flight again on his turn.
Nothing in RAW says the Barb would loose it's grip except the Barb releasing it, or the Oni escaping it. If you rule that another check can be made to maintain that grip, that's cool too. The grapple stays in place until escaped or released.
3. None of the characters have Sharpshooter, so attacks with the Slayer Handaxe will probably be frequently made at disadvantage. The Battlesmith's Homunculus Servant or Steel Defender could, on their turns, retrieve the SLayer Handaxe and bring it to or towards another character. Since picking up a loose weapon is a free action, if the weapon is only lying on the ground, they would be able to do so with no input from the Battlesmith. If the weapon is needs to be dislodged, the Battlesmith would have to use his bonus action to preform this.
The range on a thrown or ranged weapon is the distance that you can strike effectively, not the distance the projectile will stop at. There is no RAW on this, so this will be a pure allowance on your part, as the DM. The handaxe will more than likely wind up further than 20 - 40 ft away on a miss. Proficiency with the use of a handaxe, while likely, might be something you be mindful of. Every +3 counts.
I think I have a handle on everything else. What did I get right, what did I miss?
I would expect the Oni to run combat with invisibility and darkness to hinder ranged attacks, focus down a spellcaster or two that are left out on the flanks, circle the party to try to bunch them - then cone of cold for max effect. The hit-and-run tactics used would try to maximize it's reach and flight capabilities. Invisibility and gaseous form for escapes when half hitpoints or lower. The party would do well to try to move the fight inside to limit the movement capability of the Oni if they want to encircle and kill it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
RE: 2B, That's a Bugbear thing. Long Arms doubles their reach when taking an action, but only for the duration of the action. (Their arms aren't 10 feet long) While he can use his extra reach to make a grapple (and this is a good example of why he might want to) it won't stay that way. It hasn't come up yet, but I'm willing to let him use his second Attack to make another opposed Athletics Check as a sort of reverse-Shove to bring the target close enough to maintain the grapple, but that's something for later.
The PCs for the record, are:
A Rock Gnome Level 6 Battle Smith Artificer
A Bugbear level 5 Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/Level 1 Druid
A Human level 3 College of Eloquence Bard/Level 3 Swashbuckler Rogue
A Mountain Dwarf Level 6 Cleric of the Forge
A Tortle Level 6 Horizon Walker Ranger
A Lightfoot Halfling Level 6 Order of Scribes Wizard
So it should be a challenging but not impossible battle for them, depending on how much backup I give the oni
Moving a grappled target simply uses movement speed. Nothing about the length of the PCs arms will break the grapple, except them choosing to or a lost contest by the PC. The PC's speed is halved when dragging a grappled creature. With movement speed left, they can pull the target to them.
You've already got a plan for this, so good luck. Hope to hear how all this works out.
Edit: Needing to move the Oni closer is a moot point as at the point where it's grappled it will fall. So will the Bugbearian. One will figuratively be on top of the other.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Q: Hey Jeremy, how does Bugbear's extra reach and grappling work, would the grapple break at the end of the turn if 10ft away?
A: Look at the grappled condition (PH, 290) for how it interacts with reach. Hint: a grapple ends when you escape its reach. #DnD
The Bugbear's reach is only 10ft for the attack as per "When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it". If the creature is outside of the Bugbear's 5ft reach after the grapple is made, it is no longer grappled. This is why shoving a grappling creature 5ft away breaks the grapple unless the grappler has a longer reach with which to maintain it.
I'm throwing an Oni at a level 6 group. This is the first flier above the "couple good whacks and down it goes" grade I've DM'd in 5e so I'd like some clarifications of some interactions.
1. The party has a Giant Slayer Handaxe. If the oni takes a hit from it in midair and fails the Strength saving throw, (which knocks it prone) it falls to the ground and takes falling damage. correct?
2. The Bugbear Barbarian is 7 feet tall and has Strength 16. By my math, he can make a grapple attack at a flyer up to 20 feet in the air with a 10 foot running start or 17 without it. (3 feet+ 3 Strength+10.5 vertical reach+3.5 for Long Arms) So a potential round would be:
a) Barbarian jumps, make his grapple check. If successful, the oni has his movement reduced to 0 and falls to the ground, taking fall damage if it's over 10 feet in the air.
b) assuming the Barb needed the reach from Long Arms to make the grapple, he would lose his grip after the fall and would need to use residual movement to close and grapple again with his second attack. Otherwise the oni can simply take flight again on his turn.
3. None of the characters have Sharpshooter, so attacks with the Slayer Handaxe will probably be frequently made at disadvantage. The Battlesmith's Homunculus Servant or Steel Defender could, on their turns, retrieve the SLayer Handaxe and bring it to or towards another character. Since picking up a loose weapon is a free action, if the weapon is only lying on the ground, they would be able to do so with no input from the Battlesmith. If the weapon is needs to be dislodged, the Battlesmith would have to use his bonus action to preform this.
I think I have a handle on everything else. What did I get right, what did I miss?
I wouldn't let the monster be low enough for anybody to grapple.
But if said grapple happened, both attacker and target would fall as the attacker has no flight.
Not sure why the axe attacks would be at disadvantage?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Handaxes only have a throwing range of 20 feet. Since none of the PCs have Sharpshooter, as long as the monster stays at least 20 feet in the air, these attacks will almost always be at long range.
Correct, but as others have noted, range of the handaxe might be a deciding factor in this.
Both creatures that fall take damage. If you use the optional rules from Tasha's to simulate one landing on the other that can be found here.
Nothing in RAW says the Barb would loose it's grip except the Barb releasing it, or the Oni escaping it. If you rule that another check can be made to maintain that grip, that's cool too. The grapple stays in place until escaped or released.
The range on a thrown or ranged weapon is the distance that you can strike effectively, not the distance the projectile will stop at. There is no RAW on this, so this will be a pure allowance on your part, as the DM. The handaxe will more than likely wind up further than 20 - 40 ft away on a miss. Proficiency with the use of a handaxe, while likely, might be something you be mindful of. Every +3 counts.
I would expect the Oni to run combat with invisibility and darkness to hinder ranged attacks, focus down a spellcaster or two that are left out on the flanks, circle the party to try to bunch them - then cone of cold for max effect. The hit-and-run tactics used would try to maximize it's reach and flight capabilities. Invisibility and gaseous form for escapes when half hitpoints or lower. The party would do well to try to move the fight inside to limit the movement capability of the Oni if they want to encircle and kill it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
RE: 2B, That's a Bugbear thing. Long Arms doubles their reach when taking an action, but only for the duration of the action. (Their arms aren't 10 feet long) While he can use his extra reach to make a grapple (and this is a good example of why he might want to) it won't stay that way. It hasn't come up yet, but I'm willing to let him use his second Attack to make another opposed Athletics Check as a sort of reverse-Shove to bring the target close enough to maintain the grapple, but that's something for later.
The PCs for the record, are:
A Rock Gnome Level 6 Battle Smith Artificer
A Bugbear level 5 Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/Level 1 Druid
A Human level 3 College of Eloquence Bard/Level 3 Swashbuckler Rogue
A Mountain Dwarf Level 6 Cleric of the Forge
A Tortle Level 6 Horizon Walker Ranger
A Lightfoot Halfling Level 6 Order of Scribes Wizard
So it should be a challenging but not impossible battle for them, depending on how much backup I give the oni
Moving a grappled target simply uses movement speed. Nothing about the length of the PCs arms will break the grapple, except them choosing to or a lost contest by the PC. The PC's speed is halved when dragging a grappled creature. With movement speed left, they can pull the target to them.
You've already got a plan for this, so good luck. Hope to hear how all this works out.
Edit: Needing to move the Oni closer is a moot point as at the point where it's grappled it will fall. So will the Bugbearian. One will figuratively be on top of the other.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
https://www.sageadvice.eu/how-does-bugbears-extra-reach-and-grappling-works/
The Bugbear's reach is only 10ft for the attack as per "When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it". If the creature is outside of the Bugbear's 5ft reach after the grapple is made, it is no longer grappled. This is why shoving a grappling creature 5ft away breaks the grapple unless the grappler has a longer reach with which to maintain it.