Just started playing my first Artificer and was looking at the Snare spell when I realized a serious design flaw: The saves are designed for combat-play but the casting is designed for out of combat-play. I recognize this is old news, but do any of you homebrew Snare to work as intended? If so, what do you change?
Snare Spell (tl;dr Casting time is 1 minute[out-of-combat], but the saves are at the end of each of its turns [in-combat])
The duration is 8 hours, it is designed for setting up an ambush, you go into the bad guys base while they are out set up this snare and hide, when he comes back if all works well he is caught in the trap and you either commence combat or persuade him to surrender.
Ya. That last bit is where I see the problem. Triggering a trap doesn't equate to rolling initiative, unless it's a seriously complex trap which becomes an encounter with a series of actions. Instead this to me reeks of roleplay, something initiative and combat were not designed for. You set a trap, snare a lone guard on patrol, then start roleplaying. Are you literally going to count up to 6 over and over, rolling a save while they improv and roleplay with you? I don't think that's RAI at all.
So what would you do in that scenario, where the players have caught that lone guard with the snare spell? They would understandably be confused and possibly upset if you suddenly declare "Alright, roll initiative!" It's kind of like when the players have that one last monster or NPC on the ropes and they tie them down. Naturally combat ends and the roleplay begins.
The principles of action economy can be applied outside of initiative, not just in the snare spell. You can also have initiative outside of combat
The Dex save if the snared person has allies who would want to free him while the caster and allies would want to prevent them Then roll initiative. If he was on his own his "turn" ends on the Dec save with disadvantage so I would give the ambushes a chance to carry out actions to prevent escape if the dm thinks it would take more than a round he can give the trapped creature another chance to escape. If they instead ask him questions without trying to prevent him escaping I would give him a chance to escape after each question (a short question and answer could take about 6 seconds)
What bothers me about the snare spell is I am wondering if an equally good trap could simply be constructed by a player with a high intelligence or wisdom score. I know there is no "Use Rope" skill in 5e, but I wonder if a Ranger making a Survival check could make a snare trap just as well in a minute's time without expending a spell slot.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
What bothers me about the snare spell is I am wondering if an equally good trap could simply be constructed by a player with a high intelligence or wisdom score. I know there is no "Use Rope" skill in 5e, but I wonder if a Ranger making a Survival check could make a snare trap just as well in a minute's time without expending a spell slot.
A great many spells can be replicated in similar fashion. It’s a 1st-level spell. It doesn’t need to be something that absolutely requires magic.
It's challenging, dangerous, noisy, difficult to conceal, and dependent on terrain to create a noose trap with a bent sapling or something. Or, you can just cast a first level spell and do it with magic and a bit of rope! Sounds like good magic to me, and Snare just so happens to be one of my favorite spells on Rnagers- although, it does sadden me that it allows an initial save, since a Ranger isn't supposed to be chasing spell DC as a primary focus, so all too often the spell fails entirely. I think it would still be well balanced if it didn't have an initial Dexterity save, and simply allowed you to attempt escape as an action on subsequent rounds against the DC. Eliminating either the chance to spot it or the initial save to avoid would still leave the spell balanced by its one minute casting time, and costly spell component (only 1 gp, but 10 lbs of carrying capacity to haul ropes around!)
Snare is a brilliant ambush-combat spell. Can it easily fail - sure. But that's because the effect of restraining them upside down in the air (and one can argue that when the effect ends they may land prone being dropped on their head an' all). But, it's a 1st level spell. It's not supposed to be powerful. If you want to restrain the target better consider Hold spells or the Earthen Grasp spell which are both 2nd level.
In the earlier days we made a potentially deadly fight much easier by getting decent information on the target, learning the route, and setting up some snares (we had 2 people who could cast it). So the enemies failed and got restrained, the melee-peeps hacked with advantage while the wizard kept up a nice Create Bonfire to cook one while blasting the others. By the time they got free we'd more than halved their health while the melee peeps took very few hits (restrained imposed disadvantage to attacks, so most of their attacks against the party missed).
It's not super powerful, but for a 1st level spell: absolutely excellent for ambushing your prey. Good for hunting too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Snare also does not use a turn during combat. You ambush the baddies and then attack from range, expecting the melee guy to run towards you , if he does so he gets restrained without the party using an action. (Which hold person would)
Well first of all "reeks of roleplay" is a ridiculous choice of words considering we are talking about DnD.
I'm confused. Do you not roleplay when you play Dungeons and Dragons? Talking in character, describing actions, acting out your decisions?
Secondly, you do realise that just because you trapped that one person it doesn't prevent you from fighting, right? One enemy less to defend against while you deal with the rest can change the whole encounter. You could also put the snare where you think backup might come from or where you think an enemy might pass through when fleeing to prevent a situation from escalating in case things don't go just as planned.
Well, sure. But to me you aren't trapping them to fight them. Far from it. You trap them to interrogate them and progress the story, the plot, learn their secrets, etc. I can see it has some pre-combat potential, but to me that is the ridiculous use of a spell slot. It's far better suited for RP opportunities rather than tactical combat. There are better uses for spell slots and for crowd control in combat, such as: Command, Color Spray, Entangle, Sleep, Hold Person, Levitate, etc.
You can also have initiative outside of combat
That would be a terrible idea. It's well known and agreed upon by many that combat grinds the story and session to a screeching halt. No matter how you slice it, initiative run RAW undoubtedly is an unnecessary time sink. Hell, even the people working on DND 6e agree and are playtesting new systems for running combat and initiative. You can look at other gaming systems that have done away with it such as LaTorra and Koebel's Dungeon World. But I digress.
The principles of action economy can be applied outside of initiative, not just in the snare spell.....The Dex save if the snared person has allies who would want to free him while the caster and allies would want to prevent them - then roll initiative. If he was on his own his "turn" ends on the Dex save with disadvantage so I would give the ambushes a chance to carry out actions to prevent escape if the dm thinks it would take more than a round he can give the trapped creature another chance to escape. If they instead ask him questions without trying to prevent him escaping I would give him a chance to escape after each question (a short question and answer could take about 6 seconds)
Thank you! That's what I was looking for. How would you run the spell if not in combat? Anyone else have opinions on how they would rule it if not in combat?
Just started playing my first Artificer and was looking at the Snare spell when I realized a serious design flaw: The saves are designed for combat-play but the casting is designed for out of combat-play. I recognize this is old news, but do any of you homebrew Snare to work as intended? If so, what do you change?
Snare Spell (tl;dr Casting time is 1 minute [out-of-combat], but the saves are at the end of each of its turns [in-combat])
The duration is 8 hours, it is designed for setting up an ambush, you go into the bad guys base while they are out set up this snare and hide, when he comes back if all works well he is caught in the trap and you either commence combat or persuade him to surrender.
Ya. That last bit is where I see the problem. Triggering a trap doesn't equate to rolling initiative, unless it's a seriously complex trap which becomes an encounter with a series of actions. Instead this to me reeks of roleplay, something initiative and combat were not designed for. You set a trap, snare a lone guard on patrol, then start roleplaying. Are you literally going to count up to 6 over and over, rolling a save while they improv and roleplay with you? I don't think that's RAI at all.
So what would you do in that scenario, where the players have caught that lone guard with the snare spell? They would understandably be confused and possibly upset if you suddenly declare "Alright, roll initiative!" It's kind of like when the players have that one last monster or NPC on the ropes and they tie them down. Naturally combat ends and the roleplay begins.
"reeks of roleplay"
"Not all those who wander are lost"
The principles of action economy can be applied outside of initiative, not just in the snare spell. You can also have initiative outside of combat
The Dex save if the snared person has allies who would want to free him while the caster and allies would want to prevent them Then roll initiative. If he was on his own his "turn" ends on the Dec save with disadvantage so I would give the ambushes a chance to carry out actions to prevent escape if the dm thinks it would take more than a round he can give the trapped creature another chance to escape. If they instead ask him questions without trying to prevent him escaping I would give him a chance to escape after each question (a short question and answer could take about 6 seconds)
What bothers me about the snare spell is I am wondering if an equally good trap could simply be constructed by a player with a high intelligence or wisdom score. I know there is no "Use Rope" skill in 5e, but I wonder if a Ranger making a Survival check could make a snare trap just as well in a minute's time without expending a spell slot.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
A great many spells can be replicated in similar fashion. It’s a 1st-level spell. It doesn’t need to be something that absolutely requires magic.
It's challenging, dangerous, noisy, difficult to conceal, and dependent on terrain to create a noose trap with a bent sapling or something. Or, you can just cast a first level spell and do it with magic and a bit of rope! Sounds like good magic to me, and Snare just so happens to be one of my favorite spells on Rnagers- although, it does sadden me that it allows an initial save, since a Ranger isn't supposed to be chasing spell DC as a primary focus, so all too often the spell fails entirely. I think it would still be well balanced if it didn't have an initial Dexterity save, and simply allowed you to attempt escape as an action on subsequent rounds against the DC. Eliminating either the chance to spot it or the initial save to avoid would still leave the spell balanced by its one minute casting time, and costly spell component (only 1 gp, but 10 lbs of carrying capacity to haul ropes around!)
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Snare is a brilliant ambush-combat spell. Can it easily fail - sure. But that's because the effect of restraining them upside down in the air (and one can argue that when the effect ends they may land prone being dropped on their head an' all). But, it's a 1st level spell. It's not supposed to be powerful. If you want to restrain the target better consider Hold spells or the Earthen Grasp spell which are both 2nd level.
In the earlier days we made a potentially deadly fight much easier by getting decent information on the target, learning the route, and setting up some snares (we had 2 people who could cast it). So the enemies failed and got restrained, the melee-peeps hacked with advantage while the wizard kept up a nice Create Bonfire to cook one while blasting the others. By the time they got free we'd more than halved their health while the melee peeps took very few hits (restrained imposed disadvantage to attacks, so most of their attacks against the party missed).
It's not super powerful, but for a 1st level spell: absolutely excellent for ambushing your prey. Good for hunting too.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Snare also does not use a turn during combat. You ambush the baddies and then attack from range, expecting the melee guy to run towards you , if he does so he gets restrained without the party using an action. (Which hold person would)
I'm confused. Do you not roleplay when you play Dungeons and Dragons? Talking in character, describing actions, acting out your decisions?
Well, sure. But to me you aren't trapping them to fight them. Far from it. You trap them to interrogate them and progress the story, the plot, learn their secrets, etc. I can see it has some pre-combat potential, but to me that is the ridiculous use of a spell slot. It's far better suited for RP opportunities rather than tactical combat. There are better uses for spell slots and for crowd control in combat, such as: Command, Color Spray, Entangle, Sleep, Hold Person, Levitate, etc.
That would be a terrible idea. It's well known and agreed upon by many that combat grinds the story and session to a screeching halt. No matter how you slice it, initiative run RAW undoubtedly is an unnecessary time sink. Hell, even the people working on DND 6e agree and are playtesting new systems for running combat and initiative. You can look at other gaming systems that have done away with it such as LaTorra and Koebel's Dungeon World. But I digress.
Thank you! That's what I was looking for. How would you run the spell if not in combat? Anyone else have opinions on how they would rule it if not in combat?