Am I the only one who thinks this rule is kinda stupid? Like, if a creature is prone sure its harder to hit from far away, but that only makes an issue to an extent, like if its a smaller creature and they're knocked prone there less area to hit it, if youre attacking from a certain set of angles, if you are above a prone creature and shooting it with a bow the area to hit is the same size as if you were standing across from one another and neither of you were prone. Or if the prone creature is fairly large, the area to hit doesnt really change much between a giant thats standing and a giant thats prone, its still a very large target, so why do you still have disadvantage? The prone giant still has a hit-box thats roughly the size of a standing medium-sized creature, and you dont have disadvantage to hit those creatures. As for the 5 feet ranged disadvantage rule here, if the target is prone, depending on the situation renderring it in that position, the issue that makes creatures hard to hit with ranged attacks at 5 feet is the idea that they can dodge around the sight line or knock the attack out of the way, prone creatures dont usually have the same level of mobility in that sense, so thats also kinda wierd. I dont know, I know RAW is what makes the rules this way, but it just doesnt make sense to me, I guess its worded like that for simplicity, but I feel like large targets shouldnt have the same rules for being prone as smaller targets. A prone giant is arguably easier to hit than a halfling, or even a human, thats standing up.
if you are above a prone creature and shooting it with a bow the area to hit is the same size … if the prone creature is fairly large…
Agreed on those two.
If the attacker is angled above the target then they attack at normal.
If the target is an elephant or a dinosaur then being prone doesn't make much difference. Thinking about it, prone seems like a mechanic that only works for bipedal humanoids.
Clearly you aren't the only one, considering the thread on the exact same topic that was started 15 hours ago. Personally, I don't see the problem with it. It works for 99% of the cases, and there doesn't have to be rules for the remaining 1%; that's what a DM is for. Otherwise you just get cluttered and confusing rules.
If a creature is prone, that generally means a smaller target. Therefore, a ranged attack, during which one must, by definition, aim an attack, will be harder to land due to the target being smaller.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Agree with Quar1on. RAW it's pretty set in stone that ranged attack has disadvantage on a prone creature. A Tarrasque could drop down 10 feet from an elf with a longbow and that elf will be shooting with disadvantage RAW.
They tried to streamline a lot of the rules for 5e so there wasn't a plethora of situations that modified dice rolls depending on some massive if-then-else situation of different scenarios, branching down for an eternity. The storm giant drops prone, just below you, then you roll disadvantage on your long bow and move on.
Naturally, this is where it falls to DMs to interpret, enforce and override the rules as they see fit. If they believe it impacts suspension of belief or enjoyment of the game too much to inflict disadvantage on an archer targeting a zaratan lying down at nearly point-blank range, they can either introduce a house rule or override on the fly.
Agree with Quar1on. RAW it's pretty set in stone that ranged attack has disadvantage on a prone creature. A Tarrasque could drop down 10 feet from an elf with a longbow and that elf will be shooting with disadvantage RAW.
It's worth keeping in mind that in D&D an attack roll isn't merely to hit at all, it's to hit a weak point where damage can occur, so if a tarrasque is somehow knocked prone you may actually be making it harder to aim for those weak points; you can harmlessly pelt its carapace with arrows all you like, but it's not going to care. This holds for pretty much any scale, especially if an opponent is wearing any kind of armour.
On the plus side, if a target is prone, they're no more difficult for you to hit at long range, so you might as well be as far away as possible. 😉
I suppose the obvious alternative would be to ignore the ranged specific bullet point, and instead simply consider a prone target to be in more cover than a non-prone target would be? That would be the simplest house-rule I think, and DMs should be thinking about cover with prone targets anyway.
Personally I'm fine with it as-is; you shouldn't be knocking enemies prone unless you're ready to exploit the advantage that will give you. Meanwhile if a player or an enemy chooses to go prone they're doing so specifically to make themselves harder to hit.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If you don’t like the rule you can change it as you like. It’s that way for simplicity for an average target. And DM’s can make whatever changes fit their game.
But I’m fine with how it is to keep the game moving.
This is why the DM exists; to adjudicate rules and create rulings. The Rules™ are not the be-all and end-all of the game. If the rules make one thing happen, but the DM decides that something else should happen, the DM's word easily outmatches the rule.
From the Player's Handbook: "The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." As the DM you can explicitly impose these at any time for any reason, you're never beholden to just what the RAW says about adv/disadv. (You're never beholden to RAW in general of course, but adjudicating advantage and disadvantage that seem silly to you are explicitly your job.)
From the Player's Handbook: "The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." As the DM you can explicitly impose these at any time for any reason, you're never beholden to just what the RAW says about adv/disadv. (You're never beholden to RAW in general of course, but adjudicating advantage and disadvantage that seem silly to you are explicitly your job.)
Yet another reason why debating what's RAW and what isn't is a pointless pursuit, when the rules explicitly state the DM has authority over them.
From the Player's Handbook: "The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." As the DM you can explicitly impose these at any time for any reason, you're never beholden to just what the RAW says about adv/disadv. (You're never beholden to RAW in general of course, but adjudicating advantage and disadvantage that seem silly to you are explicitly your job.)
Yet another reason why debating what's RAW and what isn't is a pointless pursuit, when the rules explicitly state the DM has authority over them.
This thread isn't about debating what's RAW and what isn't.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
From the Player's Handbook: "The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." As the DM you can explicitly impose these at any time for any reason, you're never beholden to just what the RAW says about adv/disadv. (You're never beholden to RAW in general of course, but adjudicating advantage and disadvantage that seem silly to you are explicitly your job.)
Yet another reason why debating what's RAW and what isn't is a pointless pursuit, when the rules explicitly state the DM has authority over them.
This thread isn't about debating what's RAW and what isn't.
1) The mods literally put it in the rules forum 🤔
2) The point is to reinforce to the OP that they aren't supposed to blindly go with the "prone = disadvantage" rule for every single case.
From the Player's Handbook: "The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." As the DM you can explicitly impose these at any time for any reason, you're never beholden to just what the RAW says about adv/disadv. (You're never beholden to RAW in general of course, but adjudicating advantage and disadvantage that seem silly to you are explicitly your job.)
Yet another reason why debating what's RAW and what isn't is a pointless pursuit, when the rules explicitly state the DM has authority over them.
This thread isn't about debating what's RAW and what isn't.
1) The mods literally put it in the rules forum 🤔
2) The point is to reinforce to the OP that they aren't supposed to blindly go with the "prone = disadvantage" rule for every single case.
True. However, it is always the DMs decision to make, not the players, and a DM can easily and justifiably say that in their game, even attacks from height will have disadvantage when taken at range against a creature that is prone.
Alternatively, a DM could introduce some house rules that include how wide and how tall creatures are in determining the chance to hit from various angles. A giant is huge but they are relatively tall and skinny - so if a normal attack is from the front then from above, attacks will clearly have disadvantage since the target is so much smaller. Way too much complexity for a game I am running but as soon as you get into blanket statements like "attacks from above shouldn't have disadvantage against prone targets" it opens up the question of what angles of attack should have advantage and/or disadvantage against different sizes and shapes of creatures.
Also, keep in mind that the entire to hit process is abstract and represents not only the chance to hit a creature but the chance to harm the creature. If the underside or legs of a creature have the vulnerable spots then a creature that crouches down, goes prone, hiding its vulnerable areas, might well be more difficult to damage from any angle when prone.
e.g. A giant ape is a huge beast with AC12, A cat is a tiny beast with an AC12 - the chance to hit either of these creatures is exactly the same. The ape is likely easy to hit but harder to effectively damage while the rat is very small and much harder to hit but easy to do damage resulting in the same chance of an effective attack. The hit points are a representation of how many effective attacks are required to defeat the creature.
Since the AC of a prone creature doesn't change, the rules impose disadvantage against ranged attacks, perhaps because it becomes more difficult to strike vulnerable areas as much or even more than the lower profile since there are a lot of creatures for whom the prone position doesn't really represent much of a change in profile. e.g. You could knock a Remorhaz prone but I'm not sure you'd see that much of a difference in profile from any angle - so maybe the effects of the prone condition aren't exclusively due to some change in angle of attack.
True. However, it is always the DMs decision to make, not the players, and a DM can easily and justifiably say that in their game, even attacks from height will have disadvantage when taken at range against a creature that is prone.
In which case the the DM is fine with it and there's no issue. Well, the player might have an issue, and then presumably they'll have to talk it out like adults etc.
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Am I the only one who thinks this rule is kinda stupid? Like, if a creature is prone sure its harder to hit from far away, but that only makes an issue to an extent, like if its a smaller creature and they're knocked prone there less area to hit it, if youre attacking from a certain set of angles, if you are above a prone creature and shooting it with a bow the area to hit is the same size as if you were standing across from one another and neither of you were prone. Or if the prone creature is fairly large, the area to hit doesnt really change much between a giant thats standing and a giant thats prone, its still a very large target, so why do you still have disadvantage? The prone giant still has a hit-box thats roughly the size of a standing medium-sized creature, and you dont have disadvantage to hit those creatures. As for the 5 feet ranged disadvantage rule here, if the target is prone, depending on the situation renderring it in that position, the issue that makes creatures hard to hit with ranged attacks at 5 feet is the idea that they can dodge around the sight line or knock the attack out of the way, prone creatures dont usually have the same level of mobility in that sense, so thats also kinda wierd. I dont know, I know RAW is what makes the rules this way, but it just doesnt make sense to me, I guess its worded like that for simplicity, but I feel like large targets shouldnt have the same rules for being prone as smaller targets. A prone giant is arguably easier to hit than a halfling, or even a human, thats standing up.
Agreed on those two.
If the attacker is angled above the target then they attack at normal.
If the target is an elephant or a dinosaur then being prone doesn't make much difference. Thinking about it, prone seems like a mechanic that only works for bipedal humanoids.
Clearly you aren't the only one, considering the thread on the exact same topic that was started 15 hours ago. Personally, I don't see the problem with it. It works for 99% of the cases, and there doesn't have to be rules for the remaining 1%; that's what a DM is for. Otherwise you just get cluttered and confusing rules.
If a creature is prone, that generally means a smaller target. Therefore, a ranged attack, during which one must, by definition, aim an attack, will be harder to land due to the target being smaller.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Agree with Quar1on. RAW it's pretty set in stone that ranged attack has disadvantage on a prone creature. A Tarrasque could drop down 10 feet from an elf with a longbow and that elf will be shooting with disadvantage RAW.
They tried to streamline a lot of the rules for 5e so there wasn't a plethora of situations that modified dice rolls depending on some massive if-then-else situation of different scenarios, branching down for an eternity. The storm giant drops prone, just below you, then you roll disadvantage on your long bow and move on.
Naturally, this is where it falls to DMs to interpret, enforce and override the rules as they see fit. If they believe it impacts suspension of belief or enjoyment of the game too much to inflict disadvantage on an archer targeting a zaratan lying down at nearly point-blank range, they can either introduce a house rule or override on the fly.
It's worth keeping in mind that in D&D an attack roll isn't merely to hit at all, it's to hit a weak point where damage can occur, so if a tarrasque is somehow knocked prone you may actually be making it harder to aim for those weak points; you can harmlessly pelt its carapace with arrows all you like, but it's not going to care. This holds for pretty much any scale, especially if an opponent is wearing any kind of armour.
On the plus side, if a target is prone, they're no more difficult for you to hit at long range, so you might as well be as far away as possible. 😉
I suppose the obvious alternative would be to ignore the ranged specific bullet point, and instead simply consider a prone target to be in more cover than a non-prone target would be? That would be the simplest house-rule I think, and DMs should be thinking about cover with prone targets anyway.
Personally I'm fine with it as-is; you shouldn't be knocking enemies prone unless you're ready to exploit the advantage that will give you. Meanwhile if a player or an enemy chooses to go prone they're doing so specifically to make themselves harder to hit.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If you don’t like the rule you can change it as you like. It’s that way for simplicity for an average target. And DM’s can make whatever changes fit their game.
But I’m fine with how it is to keep the game moving.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
This is why the DM exists; to adjudicate rules and create rulings. The Rules™ are not the be-all and end-all of the game. If the rules make one thing happen, but the DM decides that something else should happen, the DM's word easily outmatches the rule.
[REDACTED]
From the Player's Handbook: "The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." As the DM you can explicitly impose these at any time for any reason, you're never beholden to just what the RAW says about adv/disadv. (You're never beholden to RAW in general of course, but adjudicating advantage and disadvantage that seem silly to you are explicitly your job.)
Yet another reason why debating what's RAW and what isn't is a pointless pursuit, when the rules explicitly state the DM has authority over them.
[REDACTED]
This thread isn't about debating what's RAW and what isn't.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
1) The mods literally put it in the rules forum 🤔
2) The point is to reinforce to the OP that they aren't supposed to blindly go with the "prone = disadvantage" rule for every single case.
True. However, it is always the DMs decision to make, not the players, and a DM can easily and justifiably say that in their game, even attacks from height will have disadvantage when taken at range against a creature that is prone.
Alternatively, a DM could introduce some house rules that include how wide and how tall creatures are in determining the chance to hit from various angles. A giant is huge but they are relatively tall and skinny - so if a normal attack is from the front then from above, attacks will clearly have disadvantage since the target is so much smaller. Way too much complexity for a game I am running but as soon as you get into blanket statements like "attacks from above shouldn't have disadvantage against prone targets" it opens up the question of what angles of attack should have advantage and/or disadvantage against different sizes and shapes of creatures.
Also, keep in mind that the entire to hit process is abstract and represents not only the chance to hit a creature but the chance to harm the creature. If the underside or legs of a creature have the vulnerable spots then a creature that crouches down, goes prone, hiding its vulnerable areas, might well be more difficult to damage from any angle when prone.
e.g. A giant ape is a huge beast with AC12, A cat is a tiny beast with an AC12 - the chance to hit either of these creatures is exactly the same. The ape is likely easy to hit but harder to effectively damage while the rat is very small and much harder to hit but easy to do damage resulting in the same chance of an effective attack. The hit points are a representation of how many effective attacks are required to defeat the creature.
Since the AC of a prone creature doesn't change, the rules impose disadvantage against ranged attacks, perhaps because it becomes more difficult to strike vulnerable areas as much or even more than the lower profile since there are a lot of creatures for whom the prone position doesn't really represent much of a change in profile. e.g. You could knock a Remorhaz prone but I'm not sure you'd see that much of a difference in profile from any angle - so maybe the effects of the prone condition aren't exclusively due to some change in angle of attack.
In which case the the DM is fine with it and there's no issue. Well, the player might have an issue, and then presumably they'll have to talk it out like adults etc.