Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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I would generally agree with this statement, but the flip side is that in 5E it is very easy to make a wizard that can survive being bumrushed, or even make a wizard that will thrive in melee.
If they bumrush a Bladesinger they are doing exactly what the party wants them to do, and just about any wizard with shield, mage armor and misty step is going to do ok getting bumrushed and having enemies waste actions and take AOOs to get to the wizard is going to be favorable to the party in such a situation.
You can build a truly frail wizard in 5E, but that is a player choice more than anything else.
As far as grapple, I like the 5E rules and do not like the ONE rules. I would be ok with adding a rider to shield that gives a +5 to athletics or acrobatics to avoid a grapple or shove.
What would be the absolute worst mechanic though would be going to some kind of 3E design where you have a different AC for weapon attacks and touch attacks (like grappling).
It is possible to build a tougher wizard but usually its a bit resource expensive outside maybe the bladesinger. Like sure, yes shield, mage armor etc, but a wizard can quickly burn through all their 1st and 2nd level spells when being pressured at most the levels people play at. Which is sort of where the discussion started, not so much that wizards will die but that they may be needing to cast shield a lot. Some saying they rarely have to as they just hang back. It is very table focused, I suspect generally the tables where wizards find a way to optimize defense so they can survive or thrive a bumrush are also the tables where they probably need to.
AC doesn’t represent just armor. It also represents your ability to dodge and evade. It also can be improved via magic. A force field around you like shield, or shield of faith. What gave you the idea that AC was actually just physical armor. That doesn’t make sense at all if it was. Dexterity wouldn’t be the AC stat if it was just physical Armor. Come on people!!!
But in the case of heavy armor it just is the armor which is why using Ac feels weird for a grapple and again how touch AC came to be in 3e, it just makes much more sense. Its also adds a layer of mechanical complexity and the only gain is a bit of verisimilitude so whether that is worth it is debatable. A save vs str is both easy and makes more sense.
I know the conversation may have somewhat moved on, but let me say another thing about Shield; Shield is not necessarily more effective with more, harder combats. Shield is more effective against more powerful attacks. In short, numerous times, you can spend a level 1 spell slot to save yourself 30 damage from one high-powered attack. If you don't think the trade-off is worth it, you don't have to use Shield.
Shield may be somewhat of a "slot grabber," but overall, it is a great spell. How much you use it can depend on the combat, so using it 3 times in one combat is actually not that absurd, depending on the situation. Every spell has its trade-offs, and Shield's trade-off is that it takes a slot. But Shield is only a problem if you use it an absurd amount of times. Every spell costs spell slots, and that doesn't mean the spell is bad, it just means you shouldn't use the spell every 5 seconds.
Should I start saying Wish is underpowered because it uses a 9th level spell slot? No, every spell has a cost and you can't blame the spell for a player wasting their uses of it. Every spell costs something to use, and Shield is no exception to that rule. You can take Shield and not use it once until the clutch time where it saves you from the BBEG's super-mega gazzilion damage dealing recharge attack. You can use Shield as much or as little as you want, and sometimes you may need to use 3 times in a combat, and in others you may need to use it 0.
But Shield is a great option to have, whether or not you use it. And honestly, anyone who thinks there will be cover or some other way for the bad guys not to run up and smack you in the combat, save the DM's mercy, is someone who is overly reliant on DM's spending hours of their free time to insert survival mechanisms into every single situation. Shield can be your cover though. Every time. Quite frankly, Shield should be a 2nd level spell minimum.
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HERE.Technically what’s weird is that they got rid of things like touch AC, but it was done for simplicity. Also armor could make you harder to grab, and so could a physical shield. A strength save doesn’t make more sense it’s just another simplified option that doesn’t cover all possibilities. What if you never touch the person you are trying to grapple? How is that a Str save? Maybe it’s a Dex save. As an real life folk style wrestler with some training in BJJ and military CQC I could make a strong argument it should be a Wis save. I won’t make that argument. Any one of them is fine, but over simplified. I think AC is the simplest and allows the player to roll.
probably or it could be weakened. + Ac vs first attack like the various parry moves, +ac equal to proficiency bonus, +2AC +1AC per spell level etc.
edit to add or maybe go war mage and add the rider that in your next action you can only cast a cantrip if casting a spell as an action.
Well the combat in question was a 13-round combat and I burned 9 spell slots in it plus 2 once a day castings. So yeah, shiled was like a quarter of my castings.
I said save vs strength as its what sets the Dc is strength.
Id say use dex or strength for making the save victims choice.
And AC may be the simplest but it makes less sense than a save imo, and its not that much simpler if any than someone making a save. Like I've said in play testing I've pulled in some really weird feeling results with the target AC method. It may not feel weird to you, but for me it really felt off and I don't think it works very well. Some of the easiest targets to grapple and well shove since it uses the same mechanic were ones it made the least sense for. Can I come up with excuses for why it works, sure but you always know you are just coming up with excuses for something that feels off.
I'm okay with it not being a skill check as it might make experts the best wrestlers instead of warriors, but the attack roll just didn't sit right. I initially was for it, but the more we play tested it the weirder it felt.
This may be the difference on how people view attack rolls. SPECIFICALLY it is an unarmed attack roll. I personally never see an attack roll as a single attack was made, I see it as a series of attacks and in that series of attacks and parries they saw ONE moment (or in the case of extra attack 2 moments) that had a real chance of getting past the opponents guard. Unarmed strikes and grappling is no different for me. they find that one moment to get the opponent in a hold that the person now needs to save against to get out of.
So then it’s a contest or are you saying a save against a flat dc set by the attackers strength. If its a flat DC set by the attackers STR that weird because it means that every time someone goes for the grapple they are at their peak. Grappling becomes like spell casting. I cast grapple you have to save against DC 15. I don’t like it. I prefer as a DM for players to roll and as a player I like to roll.
I'd be tempted by 'AC becomes at least 18, +1 per spell level above 1'. That's still perfectly solid for a low level wizard who might well be starting at AC 12, but it's no longer the thing to stack onto tank builds and it loses power at high level, like other first level spells.
Which should be easier to put in a submission hold and drag around the dungeon? A Goblin or an Ogre?
Apparently it's the Ogre now. By a long shot. AC 11 vs 15.
Most Large monsters have low AC but high Strength. It's easier to wrestle a warhorse than it is the guard riding it with these rules. I'm sorry it just didn't make sense any way you look at it.
Why not do that for spells as well? Plenty of non-spell things in the game are save negates already, including extremely grapple-like effects such as entangle.
Yup, that is basically what I bumped into, upthread i pointed out that our wizard grappled and drug a ogre while on horseback. Whether a horse should be able to or not, who knows but by the rules the 8 strength wizard could grapple and drag the 800 lb ogre i just let the horse increase that slowed movement rate a bit. It felt bonkers, he would have a reasonable chance to shove a ogre off a cliff even. And like I actually wouldn't have much of a problem with this at level 20, but this was a level 4 play test. And even if I could accept shoving and grappling the ogre it is harder to grapple a goblin, a commoner in studded leather would be harder to shove or grapple, it just feels weird.
Now maybe once monster and AC design comes out it will look cleaner, but with the materials we have and what I play tested it felt off and not a little off.
Personally I'd prefer a DC based on a attack roll result, but it seems they apparently don't want opposed rolls so a flat DC is what I was suggesting. Unified mechanics are easier or whatever. I'm fine with more complex systems, I think simple is over rated. As long as its clearly described how it works I don't mind different rules for different attacks. But, I get that is not what they are shooting for, and the results now just kind of suck. 5e wasn't great here as well since almost no monsters are designed with proficiency in mind so opposed checks were weirdly skewed. But at least it felt a bit more intuitive in that it was harder to grapple and shove large strong creatures than small weak ones.
And now compare their weight to your character's lift/drag/carry weight. Yes, it's easy to grab an ogre. Not that the ogre is that dodgy. So you grabbed it, then what? It's much heavier than you. You will just cling to ogre's leg like a koala.
Probably a good stepping stone for a mounting mechanic, though. Grab a creature bigger than yourself, climb on top of it to stab it into its vulnerable spot while it tries to shake you off.
I hadn't even thought of the full implications until you mentioned that. It's unbelievable! We tried grappling exactly one time in the game we played, over the course of about 6 combats, and hated the result. But you got me thinking about the monster design philosophy as a whole. The entire monster manual was written with the idea that large monsters are generally easier to hit, but have more HP. Every big beast is like this until you get up into dragons and things with high natural armor. It's how they intended it to work, and now it makes no sense at all.
Maybe they will redesign all the monsters with this in mind, but why? To avoid one single extra roll? (And forget backwards compatibility with adventure) The lack of proficiency is a good point. If they really must change monsters for grappling, just give them proficiency in the skills that make sense. Sure, Ogres could have some Athletics too.
Kamchatmonk also makes another good point about weight limits. I hadn't considered that because the rules don't mention it as a factor at all. They are written like any forced movement ability. Repelling Blast doesn't mention weight or even size.
It makes a lot of sense to consider weight, but brings up even more problems. What does an Ogre weigh? We'd have to have a weight listed on every monster entry. A draft horse weighs up to 2000 lbs (900kg)! If all Large monsters are gong to weigh in at those numbers, then we shouldn't be able to move them at all. No PC can drag that much without magic. A STR of 20 has a max drag weight of 600 lbs. Double that for the few races with Powerful Build. They still can't drag a horse.
There are a lot of weird interactions that come up using the UA grappling rules. They are badly written and poorly thought out. I don't really like the current grappling rules, but they work much better than the UA rules. I can see what they are trying to do, but this version is just broken.