My friends and I were chatting about the OneD&D playtests, and we had a thought about Weapon Mastery and the Push property.
Most effects in 5e that push enemies only do so on a failed save. With a feature that gives a guaranteed 10-foot push on hit, will martials end up pressured into Push-focused builds to exploit damaging-terrain spells?
Take for instance, Spike Growth and Cloud of Daggers. Two 2nd-level spells, so they're available very early and for little cost. Spike Growth deals 2d4 damage for every five feet a creature moves within the area, so one hit of Push deals an extra 4d4 damage. Cloud of Daggers deals 4d4 damage once a turn, and the 10-foot push range conveniently pushes the enemy into and then through the affected area so that another party member can push them from the other side. And higher-level spells give even more potential for damage and debilitating effects.
It seems like such a strategy would quickly become a dominant one, and one other players are expected to play along with, as doing so would greatly increase the damage output of the party against tough foes. Is this something that's been discussed in regards to OneD&D, or perhaps an overblown concern?
(Also, isn't it strange that a guaranteed effect on attack pushes an enemy 10 feet, but a shove attempt that requires a saving throw only pushes them back 5 feet? Unless that was also changed and I missed that in the UAs.)
It's the same as Repelling Blast, except arguably worse because Repelling Blast is ranged so you don't really have to worry about your enemy getting further away. Repelling Blast doesn't break the game, so I don't think Push would.
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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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Push/pull was already a char-op meta (look at some of Treantmonk's videos where he's showing actual play), and I don't think the weapon option is going to make it a whole lot more dominant.
The only concern I have with Push is that it makes PAM even better, but ultimately Polearms being dominate is mostly due to other 2-handers being slightly weaker than they should be rather than polearms actually being overpowered, with PAM+Sentinel now being disabled, Polearms are actually around where they should be. right now, most 2-handed weapons only shine once you get 2/3 specific feats by which point most spellcasters have 4th level spells.
Push meta is already a problem, but honestly, it is only a problem because of 2 specific spells: Spike Growth & Spirit Guardians. Spirit Guardians desperately needs a nerf, just look at the mountains upon mountains of optimizer builds designed to exploit it. Spike Growth needs only a small edit : "All forced movement in the area is also affected by the difficult terrain, reducing the distance moved by the target creature by half."
Anything martial that competes with DPS in the meta would be supremely welcome.
DPS builds are already dominated by half-casters, or martial x caster multiclasses. The balance problem is in battlefield control with a lot of spells being very unbalanced.
It's the same as Repelling Blast, except arguably worse because Repelling Blast is ranged so you don't really have to worry about your enemy getting further away. Repelling Blast doesn't break the game, so I don't think Push would.
Repelling Blast is way overpowered and we had to house rule to limit it, largely because of damaging spell terrains.
A high level RAW game with repelling blast, could via quicken or Illusionists bracers do 8 blasts per round, pushing a Gargantuan creature 8x10 = 80 ft. Easily enough to go through a prismatic wall (sphere mode) twice.
I mean, if the issue is a high-tier magic item enabling the combo, just don’t give them the item. The bracers are kinda broken on Warlocks in any case, or at least with EB.
I mean, if the issue is a high-tier magic item enabling the combo, just don’t give them the item. The bracers are kinda broken on Warlocks in any case, or at least with EB.
This is the perpetual problem of EB being a cantrip rather than a class feature. Make EB a class feature that scales exclusively with Warlock levels and all these problems go away.
Spirit Guardians should probably have a duration of 1 minute instead of 10, but there's no good answer to pull/push meta without either changing how push/pull works or changing how damaging zones work (as far as I know it first became a meta back in 4th edition), because the core feature that causes a problem is the ability to double-dip on a damaging zone without of turn movement. Easiest fix is probably something like "If you have taken damage from a zone, you cannot take damage again until the end of your next turn".
Anything martial that competes with DPS in the meta would be supremely welcome.
DPS builds are already dominated by half-casters, or martial x caster multiclasses. The balance problem is in battlefield control with a lot of spells being very unbalanced.
Well, my point is that, for a PC who has already chosen to go "pure" martial, DPS tends to already be a dominant strategy in combat. I think it would be welcome for something like the "the push meta" to compete with that.
Spirit Guardians should probably have a duration of 1 minute instead of 10, but there's no good answer to pull/push meta without either changing how push/pull works or changing how damaging zones work (as far as I know it first became a meta back in 4th edition), because the core feature that causes a problem is the ability to double-dip on a damaging zone without of turn movement. Easiest fix is probably something like "If you have taken damage from a zone, you cannot take damage again until the end of your next turn".
The problem isn't with damaging zones. Spells like Wall of Fire, Moonbeam, Sleetstorm (ok not damaging but still a persistent area), or Sickening Radiance aren't problematic. There are two key features of Spirit Guardians that make it OP:
You can move it essentially for free
It only affects enemies
No other damaging area has both of these properties. Prismatic Wall only affects enemies but you can't move it, same for Guardian of Faith. Moonbeam requires a full Action to move and affect allies as well as enemies. Wall of Fire and Sickening Radiance can't be moved and affect allies as well as enemies.
These are the various ways one could nerf Spirit Guardians to bring it inline with other damage areas:
A) Spirit Guardians lasts for 10 minutes, and affects a 15 ft radius sphere centered at a point within 30 ft of you, it damages everyone that enters it / starts within it and you can move it up to 30 ft as an action on your turn.
B) Spirit Guardians lasts 10 minutes, and affects a 10 ft radius around yourself and moves with you. It creates difficult terrain in the area that only hampers your enemies. As bonus action on your turn, you can cause it to deal damage to one creature of your choice within the radius.
C) Spirit Guardians affects a 20ft radius sphere centered at a point within 120 ft of you, it damages everyone that enters it / starts within it. It lasts for 1 minute and cannot be moved.
D) Spirit Guardians affects a 10ft radius sphere centered at a point within 60 ft of you, it only affects enemies and lasts for 1 minute. You can move it up to 60 ft as an action, and it no longer creates difficult terrain.
Personally, I like B&D the most as the "only hurting allies" idea seems very thematic with cleric.
I would be tempted by having the trigger for taking damage being the creature taking an offensive action against the cleric or an ally, making it an actual guardian (it would be nice if 5e had a clearer way of defining a hostile action).
In my experience enemies just dash to get away from the terrain threat once they know excessive pushing is on the table. Which still means they lose a round so its not terrible for the spike growth, walls of fire etc. The main issue is spiritual guardians as its a mobile death field so dashing may not help much. People frequently claim fireball is over tuned, and spiritual guardians is far far more powerful. There will be certain fights where the fixed terrain threats remain viable like if you are fighting along a long bridge, narrow cliff path etc where getting away from the threat is not viable. But a gimmick getting to shine here and there is a good thing.
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My friends and I were chatting about the OneD&D playtests, and we had a thought about Weapon Mastery and the Push property.
Most effects in 5e that push enemies only do so on a failed save. With a feature that gives a guaranteed 10-foot push on hit, will martials end up pressured into Push-focused builds to exploit damaging-terrain spells?
Take for instance, Spike Growth and Cloud of Daggers. Two 2nd-level spells, so they're available very early and for little cost. Spike Growth deals 2d4 damage for every five feet a creature moves within the area, so one hit of Push deals an extra 4d4 damage. Cloud of Daggers deals 4d4 damage once a turn, and the 10-foot push range conveniently pushes the enemy into and then through the affected area so that another party member can push them from the other side. And higher-level spells give even more potential for damage and debilitating effects.
It seems like such a strategy would quickly become a dominant one, and one other players are expected to play along with, as doing so would greatly increase the damage output of the party against tough foes. Is this something that's been discussed in regards to OneD&D, or perhaps an overblown concern?
(Also, isn't it strange that a guaranteed effect on attack pushes an enemy 10 feet, but a shove attempt that requires a saving throw only pushes them back 5 feet? Unless that was also changed and I missed that in the UAs.)
It's the same as Repelling Blast, except arguably worse because Repelling Blast is ranged so you don't really have to worry about your enemy getting further away. Repelling Blast doesn't break the game, so I don't think Push would.
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)
Plus there’s a lot of enemies who can avoid terrain or are too big to be pushed.
Anything martial that competes with DPS in the meta would be supremely welcome.
Push/pull was already a char-op meta (look at some of Treantmonk's videos where he's showing actual play), and I don't think the weapon option is going to make it a whole lot more dominant.
The only concern I have with Push is that it makes PAM even better, but ultimately Polearms being dominate is mostly due to other 2-handers being slightly weaker than they should be rather than polearms actually being overpowered, with PAM+Sentinel now being disabled, Polearms are actually around where they should be. right now, most 2-handed weapons only shine once you get 2/3 specific feats by which point most spellcasters have 4th level spells.
Push meta is already a problem, but honestly, it is only a problem because of 2 specific spells: Spike Growth & Spirit Guardians. Spirit Guardians desperately needs a nerf, just look at the mountains upon mountains of optimizer builds designed to exploit it. Spike Growth needs only a small edit : "All forced movement in the area is also affected by the difficult terrain, reducing the distance moved by the target creature by half."
DPS builds are already dominated by half-casters, or martial x caster multiclasses. The balance problem is in battlefield control with a lot of spells being very unbalanced.
Repelling Blast is way overpowered and we had to house rule to limit it, largely because of damaging spell terrains.
A high level RAW game with repelling blast, could via quicken or Illusionists bracers do 8 blasts per round, pushing a Gargantuan creature 8x10 = 80 ft. Easily enough to go through a prismatic wall (sphere mode) twice.
I mean, if the issue is a high-tier magic item enabling the combo, just don’t give them the item. The bracers are kinda broken on Warlocks in any case, or at least with EB.
This is the perpetual problem of EB being a cantrip rather than a class feature. Make EB a class feature that scales exclusively with Warlock levels and all these problems go away.
Spirit Guardians should probably have a duration of 1 minute instead of 10, but there's no good answer to pull/push meta without either changing how push/pull works or changing how damaging zones work (as far as I know it first became a meta back in 4th edition), because the core feature that causes a problem is the ability to double-dip on a damaging zone without of turn movement. Easiest fix is probably something like "If you have taken damage from a zone, you cannot take damage again until the end of your next turn".
Well, my point is that, for a PC who has already chosen to go "pure" martial, DPS tends to already be a dominant strategy in combat. I think it would be welcome for something like the "the push meta" to compete with that.
The problem isn't with damaging zones. Spells like Wall of Fire, Moonbeam, Sleetstorm (ok not damaging but still a persistent area), or Sickening Radiance aren't problematic. There are two key features of Spirit Guardians that make it OP:
No other damaging area has both of these properties. Prismatic Wall only affects enemies but you can't move it, same for Guardian of Faith. Moonbeam requires a full Action to move and affect allies as well as enemies. Wall of Fire and Sickening Radiance can't be moved and affect allies as well as enemies.
These are the various ways one could nerf Spirit Guardians to bring it inline with other damage areas:
A) Spirit Guardians lasts for 10 minutes, and affects a 15 ft radius sphere centered at a point within 30 ft of you, it damages everyone that enters it / starts within it and you can move it up to 30 ft as an action on your turn.
B) Spirit Guardians lasts 10 minutes, and affects a 10 ft radius around yourself and moves with you. It creates difficult terrain in the area that only hampers your enemies. As bonus action on your turn, you can cause it to deal damage to one creature of your choice within the radius.
C) Spirit Guardians affects a 20ft radius sphere centered at a point within 120 ft of you, it damages everyone that enters it / starts within it. It lasts for 1 minute and cannot be moved.
D) Spirit Guardians affects a 10ft radius sphere centered at a point within 60 ft of you, it only affects enemies and lasts for 1 minute. You can move it up to 60 ft as an action, and it no longer creates difficult terrain.
Personally, I like B&D the most as the "only hurting allies" idea seems very thematic with cleric.
I would be tempted by having the trigger for taking damage being the creature taking an offensive action against the cleric or an ally, making it an actual guardian (it would be nice if 5e had a clearer way of defining a hostile action).
In my experience enemies just dash to get away from the terrain threat once they know excessive pushing is on the table. Which still means they lose a round so its not terrible for the spike growth, walls of fire etc. The main issue is spiritual guardians as its a mobile death field so dashing may not help much. People frequently claim fireball is over tuned, and spiritual guardians is far far more powerful. There will be certain fights where the fixed terrain threats remain viable like if you are fighting along a long bridge, narrow cliff path etc where getting away from the threat is not viable. But a gimmick getting to shine here and there is a good thing.