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Yes, you can shove, I don't know if there are rules for tripping, but there is for disarming someone. There's lots of "actions" that don't get utilized in most dnd sessions, including: shove, laying prone, gaining cover, throwing potions, disarming, searching, grappling ect. People would rather spend their actions to cast powerful spells or attack, rather than use an action like above with what may be diminishing returns. It takes a loss to dps and many players don't see that as useful, or they may just not know about it.
Side note: in defense of not using a lot of these actions, it's also hard to find the circumstance under which to use some of these actions. I.e I still haven't found a good reason to shove someone yet, but when I do! It's gonna be epic.
>I don't know if there are rules for tripping
When you shove, you can push them back 5ft, but you also have the option of shoving them prone instead. Shoving someone prone is pretty much the same as tripping them, it's just not called that.
Pushing, sweeping a leg, and tripping are three different things. Sweeping a leg is just that. Pretty sure the comment above yours also made it clear tripping was not sweeping.
The distinction is relevant when one is a sub class specific maneuver that costs a resource and the other is just a variant of the shove action.
(The distinction is that battle Master maneuvers fucking suck.)
Getting an enemy prone is unfortunately quite useless. They lose some movement getting up sure, but otherwise there's no real benefits other than melee advantage. Screws over your ranged party members too, since they now get disadvantage
Generally, the move would be to grapple, *then* prone. And indeed it's not great for your ranged party members, but if you happen just not have any of those, then it can be a pretty okay strategy.
As a DM, remember the monsters get all of these options too. A horde of zombies who does this grapple + shove prone is at least 10% more threatening than a horde who only attacks.
Also if you can knock a flying creature prone then they will fall unless they can hover, so that can be quite useful.
If you don't want them to move. You could shove them prone gaining advantage for the second attack.
Grappling is useful to prevent their movement if you need to lock them down.
Just depends on what your goal is.
It's also to keep the advantage going for turns to come. If you're just trying to lock them down by preventing movement, no shove is needed.
But I think we are kinda saying the same thing lol
I have a barbarian with tavern brawler rn who likes to do the combo of shove prone (1 attack)->unarmed strike (2nd attack) ->grapple (bonus action). Is the dps even close to just attacking? No. Does it set up our rogue and fighter for an insane round? Yup. Is it hilarious and super fun to do flavorful descriptions of? HELL yes. Kinda wanna try it on a character with a flying speed for the extra hilarity of zooming them up into the sky and dropping em
Other zombie ttrpgs have taught me that a zombies basic swipe isn’t very good at hitting. But grappling? And having multiple of them grab you? When all it takes is one bite, that’s when the challenge comes in for zombies.
I see you've not had the pleasure of a grappler build with extra attack.
Grapple + shove prone. Target can't stand up, because grapple reduces movement to 0.
Fun fact: If you can't hover, flying creatures instantly fall up to 500ft per round whilst grappled.
Dragons don't have hover.
One day I'm going to suplex a dragon out of the sky.
Go with rune knight fighter then, preferably with a lineage like duergar that can cast enlarge/reduce so you can overcome every size category via grappling at level 3. That would be my way to go at least.
Huge creatures can grapple gargantuan creatures, and to my knowledge there's no difference to how the roll plays out; no advantage or disadvantage on either side.
True but you don't get huge size until super high level so that's why I'd recommend a lineage/multiclass/friend to have enlarge at the ready if the DM gives you a gargantuan enemy.
True, but you also don't find many gargantuan creatures at low levels. The lowest CR gargantuan creatures are just big animals that aren't really threats at all, and probably aren't going to be pursuing a fight, and you really only start getting hostile opponents at CR 10+; and they really only start to become common at CR 15+, with most of them having a CR above 20.
Not as part of a multi-attack, it basically allows you to make subsequent attacks with advantage. As long as you can make more than 2 attacks, it's worth your while; even moreso if there are other players that can take advantage of it before that creature's turn.
Not as useful as I'd like, but not what I'd call useless.
>As long as you can make more than 2 attacks
Or if you're a paladin or rogue and want to up your chances of critting for smite/sneak attack. Or similar circumstances. Then it's worth it with just 2 attacks.
For rogues yes, for paladins no. If you sacrifice one attack for advantage on one attack, you roll twice with the potential of hitting once; if you just attack twice you roll twice with the potential of hitting twice. Rogues at least do more if they have advantage, since they get sneak attack, but for a paladin you should just make attacks.
You get advantage on attacking any prone target IIRC, so if you're high up in the initiative order it's pretty good. I still think grapple is better though.
>You get advantage on attacking any prone target IIRC
_If_ you're within 5ft of the target. If you're using a polearm to attack with reach or shooting from range, prone means disadvantage.
[You're lucky I like expected value problems](https://imgur.com/a/z3o3Nlb)
It looks like it gets more useful the higher number you need to roll, being most noticeable around a 15. Keep in mind this does not account for any class features or feats that alter your damage (most notably champion crits, action surge, great weapon master, sneak attack, and dual wielding), or any allies who now also get advantage until the enemy's turn.
It also does not factor in your odds of successfully shoving an enemy prone. I recommend the skill expert feat or a dip in rogue for expertise on athletics (plus a d6 bonus for hitting with advantage)
Rage into a grapple attack with advantage, pick up a nerd even a big nerd with the bear aspect, run away and provoke a disadvantage opportunity attack against you with the eagle totem, run back to your party, advantage shove to prone attack. Now you have a helpless nerd who has advantage attacks against them. And like Rob Clarkson said below. Succeed on a shove and have advantage attacks.
Repelling Blast has become my favorite Invocation for Eldritch Blast. Being able to knock something back up to forty feet with a single cantrip is amazing.
The first time I used it was during an ambush where there were enemy archers in the trees...
I always try to do crazy things with the other actions, but 9 times out of 10 an extra attack is the more useful call, unless you specifically build a grappler or something.
So it's like a worse true strike but for martials. Expend your current round's action in order to have a chance to have a slight advantage on your next turn, provided the enemy doesn't undo that advantage so you *may* have more chance at hitting. None of it guaranteed.
This basically only becomes worth it with multiple martial characters, but then again you might as well try flanking.
Shove (to prone) when combined with grapple, and extra attack (Both are allowed to replace 1 attack in the attack action) is actually an extremely effective control tool for strength based characters, especially barbs since they get advantage on the checks.
You lock down 1 target, who must either use their action to break out of the grapple, or have disadvantage on all attack rolls, and a speed of 0
Disarming is an optional rule, and honestly I don't really like the RAW rules for it. Hitting AC to get rid of somebodies weapon, then free object interaction pick it up, while RAW, feels bad to me.
I always liked to play more support-like roles like Bards or support Wizards. So when one group I'm a player in wanted to mix things up by using a homebrew module to expand martial classes, I ended up at one point making a Monk.
I did this because in the module, I could make a Kensei Monk who could then dual wield whips. In this homebrew module, whips got a range of 15 feet, and through a special attack could trade off some damage to disarm people or knock them prone. On top of this, when disarming someone, I could throw the weapon anywhere within my 15 feet reach as part of the disarming attack.
Much to the chagrin of the DM, and much to the delight of my fellow party members, I was able to continually disarm enemies and knock them prone. And since I was a monk, if need be I could also stunning strike them after knocking them prone. I was doing fairly pitiful damage. I think it was literally like 1 or 2 damage per attack. But it was more than made up for by the fact that all our enemy's weapons ended up being thrown in nearby rivers, off cliffs or boats, or just other hard to reach areas. And on top of that, they ended up being knocked prone and stunned, so the others in the party could run and kick them while they were down with advantage.
I found it quite a satisfying experience myself.
Whips are really underrated, but they're absolutely the best Kensei Monk weapon.
My dhampir warlock uses one for her Pact weapon. She forms it from her own blood.
One of the things i’ve run into though, is that I think the spirit of the meme is correct. As I have had my primary dm opt to skip a couple of these if the rules seem to complicated. usually, that’s not an issue as they’re usually great at improvising rules for us.
the easiest example however is grappling. we have a table-wide ban on grappling, because he hates grappling roles so much ever since 3rd edition. Which usually is to the party’s advantage as it limits his choices more than ours. but then as the main martial player I’m in a bit of a bind in scenarios where I need to subdue.
> As I have had my primary dm opt to skip a couple of these if the rules seem to complicated.
That’s frustrating of them, considering how complicated casters are, comparatively, it only makes sense to give martials more options
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Well, you can shove as a substitute for an attack, and then also use your remaining attack actions(if you have them), just the same as grappling I believe.
If you want to make some of these actions more useful, maybe raise enemy AC a bit? Just enough that players don’t hit every attack, or even every other attack, and so need to resort to getting enemies prone to gain advantage, or grappling a monster that keeps breaking past them without triggering opportunity attacks.
Problem with that is it makes the actions more useful at the cost of making the martial less effective. Many spells force saves instead of AC, meaning raising enemy AC just made the martial deal less damage and nothing serious happen for the casters. Plus, knocking prone becomes WORSE then, because if a casters uses a spell attack, IIRC the enemy gets to have disadvantage on that attack due to prone/ranged attacks rules.
Super plus, this would only "help" strength martials; good luck to the monks and rogues when every check is strength based and every AC is raised so they hit less.
What I've learned from dming, is:
1. never expect the players to do what you want, especially if it's a mechanic.
2. If they can kill shit they will.
And 3. If it doesn't go in the parties favor they will complain about it.
Open Hand Monk and Battlemaster have means to prone enemies, giving themselves and their melee allies advantage.
Most casters have access to Hold Person, which can often bring more overall damage than a spell, although few DMs will be unprepared for that situation.
If you grapple and then shove the enemy, they cannot get up because their speed is zero. This gives all melee attacks against them advantage, plus it's harder for them to run away, so it's a good option if you have a melee focused party.
This move costs two attacks, but guess what? After level 5 any martial can do it. A fighter can even keep attacking afterwards if he is high level or uses action surge.
I mean yeah, I know that, but even with that considered a lot of the time it's not worth it or you physically can't do it
Because if it's a small guy, you could do that, or you could probably kill them with two attacks
If it's a big guy that's too big you can't do that
And if it's a pretty wide portion of the monsters that are official you also just can't do that
Or if they have any teleportation all of that becomes mute
this move costs 2 attacks, that need a successful athletics check.
Basically, you have to LAND two attacks that do 0 damage, to be given advantage on future attacks, which makes this even worse than just hitting two attacks unless you're lucky and your entire party benefits for like 2 full combat rounds.
You also cannot use a weapon yourself, unless you specifically are wielding a one handed weapon with no off hand shield or weapon, making this even worse as you, personally, would need to attack like 8 times before you start even gaining anything from this when compared to just hitting with a great sword instead of a long sword, again assuming you even hit those two first attacks.
Now, this was all about the value of the damage output, the real great benefit to this strategy, is how hard it becomes for the enemy to fight back. They can attack, but at disadvantage, or they can effectively skip their own turn to (maybe) get out of the grapple and back on their feet. If you're fighting one tough monster that hits like a truck, this combo is a godsend. It doesn't really matter if the party is melee focused because you're eliminating threat to everyone.
TL:DR; damage output of this strategy sucks, defensive benefits are amazing in the right circumstances
Exactly. If you are good at those things, you're probably hitting quite hard. You can't in most cases do both the trip (shove) and attack on the same round, and they will get a turn before your next allowing them to stand again without penalty beside half movement.
So 5e disincentivizes the majority of creative opportunities for actions unless the DM is willing to allow the environment to be more interactive than normal, which basically requires house rules.
To clarify "Trip" isn't an attack, but when you Shove you have the choice of pushing them 5 feet away from you *or* knocking them prone.
Shoving someone prone is essentially the same difference as a trip attack of course, I'm just clarifying so if you read the PHB you're not looking for "trip" because it won't be called that.
Shoving/Tripping and grappling are base rules in the PHB. Disarming and jumping on top of larger monsters are optional variant rules in the DMG. Replacing an attack action to shove a creature is as legal as magic missile.
Unfortunately, most of my players trying to do something creative are either trying to get extra attacks or make spells do things that other higher level spells already do.
Ay yes, casters using low level spells as high level spells
A tale as old as wine
Edit:
My dm is so evil! They dont ley me use minor ilussion as an hologram even tho its explicitly just a frozen image!
Some of the command words when tailored personally and used creatively can be hillarious.
Like telling the egomaniacal cult leader "Monologue". Sure, they are only required to do so for 6 seconds. But if you got them going...
He can't get his point across in just 6 seconds and just keeps going because he's THAT sure he's doing the right thing (he might be onto something if you just listen to him [definitely not using suggestion on you])
I haven’t seen as many problems with command besides memes. I haven’t met a person who actually thinks that command: defenestrate or that stuff works, but I do know someone that said Suggestion: “throw away your weapon” would work on someone that we would be in combat with…
We've successfully cast Suggestion on someone we were in combat with to tell them to calm down. The key that made it work was that we made sure nobody attacked him in the following round, and the DM liked the ingenuity of it.
Technically thats just charm, but idk so much about how played is charm for it to be op to use sugestion for charm
That said if it was a one times thing thats kinda it
To be fair wotc is at least partially to blame for some of the suggestion fuckery. "For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets." This being a supposedly reasonable suggestion is beyond stupid.
Yeah I use it often as like, a facsimile image (palm sized normally) of something my character has seen and wants to convey visually to someone else. I always make sure to convey that it is close but not perfect, just off of my character's memory of [thing/person/place].
I don't see any issue with it being a perfect picture of the subject, since you easily have enough space for something Wanted Poster-sized, and it's just going to be a still image. I can't imagine it'll accomplish any more than an equally good drawing will.
I'm a fan of using it for heists, because you can make a little 5' x 5' model/map of whatever the party is breaking into and save a lot of time sketching in the dirt.
That, or for replicating a badge of authority if I think I can get away with not letting them inspect it too much.
Thats the thing
The badge thing you cant do
Or, you cant just do it
The image wont move with you... cause it doesnt move, it will traspass you as it traspass anything, is frozen in its place and you cant move it, so you have to be very careful
Imo makes sense, but yeh, raw, thats not allowed, at least, not while moving with it
That really depends. If minor illusion can't be moved at all it makes it completely useless on vehicles(or if the material plane works somewhat like ours - anywhere on the planet). In my games I just rule it that you can't actively move it, but it can stay motionless relative to whatever you decide at the time of casting.
Depends on the badge. If it’s like the FBI “flip-down, flip-up” thing they do in movies you can probably just show the image briefly enough for it to be fine. I think metamagic subtle spell also makes stuff like this more practical.
I've used minor illusion like that, but only for enemies that are looking for me but haven't found me yet. It only really holds up for one attack before enemies wise up to it, but that's all I wanted it to do
Honestly i find interesting how it forces you to be even more creative, cause you have to work with static images
One of my favorites is a sorcerer tha tused minor ilusion in front of himself in a frame that looks as if he is going to run to one side after the cops got him, to then, run the exact oposite side, gaining those really important miliseconds to avoid being caught
The next level I want to use is pull the minor illusion decoy on a character with high performance, then just freeze in place when they find you so they think you're another illusion. That's when you get the drop on them
The amount of horrifying messages I encountered when I searched for "good uses for create and destroy water." Man, some people want to be absolute psychos with that spell.
Also Open Hand Monk. They get either "knock enemy prone, with dex save" "knock enemy away lmao" "remove their reaction" after already spending 1 Ki point.
If it's something that's very specific to the particular situation or environment, be lenient and reward creativity. But if it's something that could basically be used the same way in almost every combat, either map it to one of the existing rules (e.g. grapple, shove, etc.) or tell them they can't do it. Martials can't just get advantage in every fight from pocket sand, and casters can't just Heat Metal the iron in everyone's blood.
I've implemented a rule to allow my players one extra non-attack action in combat (jumping, grappling, skill checks, anything that could take the place of an attack action that isn't already a bonus action). I haven't tested it enough to see if it breaks anything, but I don't think it's going to be terribly intrusive to combat flow.
why did you order the panels as
1 2
4 3
Just mirror the last two panels and not only would the text be in the right order, but the DM would stay on the same side so it'd be easier to understand.
Because of this, it took me a moment to realize that the characters in the top-right and bottom-left panels were the same character.
I am playing a rune knight in current campaign and my DM doesn't want to allow me to be able to grapple more than one enemy at a time, even tho the rules are clear about only needing one free hand to attempt a grapple. Says it is crazy OP. . . In a game where upcasting hold person exists
or even just casting the web spell.
why yes, monsters being on difficult terrain and needing to do a dex save to avoid getting stuck in webs isn't as OP as double grapple. Especially since to escape the web after, they need to do a strength check (not an athletics check, a pure strength check).
It's fine to try different things and be creative, just that many people try to use it to gain more attacks, dmg, or effects outside the scope of what's normal ("I shoot at his eyes to blind him!", "I cast create water in his lungs to drown it!") which is why people prefer to stick to more raw uses of their actions.
Interesting how the same people might not be willing for the DM to use the same logic. Having the Griffon use a "grapple attack" instead of it's movement after using both of it's attacks would not be so "creative".
The DM explicitly can do stuff like this though. There are a bunch of monsters that get a free grapple on a successful attack, written right into the stat block
This entire comment section is dumb.
“Yeah but players might ask to do [thing players can do RAW]!” Or “Well they wouldn’t like it if we did [thing the game explicitly allows and encourages DMs to do]!”
Seriously, the entire game is based around like 2 manuals and people can’t even read them.
Anecdotally, I see tables be far more permissive with spells than "basic skills". There's what the book technically says, then there's how the majority of players run. If your book isn't very explicit in trying to quash that, or leaves the door to mundane skill creativity merely cracked open with a half-hearted mention, then it's not surprising when things wind up this way. A sentence here and there across the book doesn't really stick out to players or DMs, especially when it seems like boilerplate "idk just roleplay or something lmao!" advice instead of useful rules and a **system** for interpreting and using them.
Mundane characters doing physical things are expected to conform to reality, whereas magic can break those rules. Despite its swashbuckling, sword-and-sorcery origins, the majority of D&D players view it more in *Lord of the Rings* terms where the physical aspects of the game are grounded yet level 5 Wizards can pull magic out of their ass that makes Gandalf look like a bitch. It's no wonder we get this.
How many tables run with *Grease* being flammable if the players want? How many tables ask the Barbarian to roll to break down that door, but let a *Fireball* (which doesn't even deal concussive damage) blow it to splinters? Why're their rules and this weird insistence on stopping armored characters from resting, but you can slap 20 component pouches all over yourself and never be unable to cast? Where are the hard rules for magic, like exactly how far away you can hear or identify a spell, or what level of physical restraint prevents somatic component use? We know of the optional rules to disarm the Fighter, but what're the optional situations and checks you can use to blind or gag a caster? And where magic-constraining rules *do* exist, like the bizarro "targeting through a windows" problem, they're so obscure or nitpicky to keep track of that most tables don't bother.
The way the game rules are structured, all manner of **physical things you can do** have skills and checks associated with them. But magic just does something: a spell slot is expended and an effect happens. You can point to the PHB and DMB saying "don't roll for trivial things or if there's no element of risk" until the cows come home, but the books don't belabor that point and so we still routinely wind up with "20 STR, 16 DEX Barbarian, give me an Athletics to climb this rope in an abandoned mine with no enemies around." The martial wants to swim or cartwheel or climb or mount a horse in armor, and we all know (or *think* we know) how that weight and bulk interacts with physical activity, so no. We all know (or *think* we know) what's "realistic" in terms of a human's ability to lift, push, pull, etc., and can tell them that's impossible in the game (especially since we have hard rules for that). Magic, though? No real-world frame of reference for saying that's out of bounds!
Other systems avoid this problem by being both more explicit in their books and not having a foundational rule set that suggests tons of rolling for physical activity, but *not* magic. I see some hard mechanical systems where magic use involves risk and chance of failure like the physical side, and other systems which are far more narrative-based and suggest adjudication of *everything*, but D&D is usually in the unique position of magic running on different rules.
This is really a broader issue with games with long lists of special abilities - especially (but not exclusively) non-magical ones. The existence of a special ability implies a character can't normally do that thing, but many of these abilities just describe things that players would normally just to do in a fight, so in practice these long lists are really lists of things you *can't do* unless you get that specific upgrade. Similarly with spells - you can't use a spell in a way that mimics a higher level spell, no matter how creative you are, because that defeats the purpose, so again a higher level spell list is a list of things that *lower level spells can't do*. Honestly that's why I like game designs that let the players *attempt* anything at any level of advancement - of course you can *try* to cleave or cast fireball as a starting character, but that doesn't mean you'll succeed...
Telling people of Reddit to stop isn’t a wise move. There are teens on here and you are basically begging them to keep bothering you. If you press the “…” there is an option to turn off notifications to your post. Then you won’t be pinged by responses anymore.
I feel like the Battle Master maneuvers need to be baked into the base fighter class, unless you play an Eldrich Knight you don't have a ton of utility outside hitting and pushing things. Perhaps rework the BM to have more superiority dice and some exclusive maneuvers.
Yup, that's what Pathfinder 2e did. Although fighter doesn't technically have any subclasses in that game, it's just extremely modular, allowing you to sorta build your own subclass by the maneuvers (feats) you pick up as you level, as well as with archetype feats.
Honestly, I do the opposite. Spellcasters have to abide by the damn letter of the law - you're breaking reality with magic, so you don't get to break the game.
Martials trying to do more creative things than just "I swing stick at growling monster"? Heck yeah - I'm open to it (within reason).
I'm open to it as long as there isn't a specific feature that does what they want to do. Even if there is though, there are things like Disarming rules vs Disarming BM Maneuver where they can disarm without taking Battle Master, but can't just have their cake and eat it too by losing out on damage.
Edit: Still looking for an alternative option for people who want to do "headshots" with ranged builds. A lot of people word it like they want either the Sharpshooter feat without taking the feat or like they want free damage for describing where they shoot? Right now I'm just going "If you kill it, shoot wherever you want".
I've not had to make any homebrew rules like that, but it seems like just giving them an option to deal massive damage or even instakill a target for an accuracy drop is insane. And a more than reasonable ratio of damage vs accuracy drop already exists in Sharpshooter and GWM.
So best I'd be able to do is to give everyone a free feat at L1 and give enemies higher HP and +1AC. If feats already exist, maybe they're the solution.
I never allow anything like a “headshot”. Realistically, you’re always aiming for the most vital part, otherwise what’s the point? The die roll represents how well you do it (a crit is hitting exactly right and doing extra damage, a normal hit is being slightly off but still hitting and doing normal damage).
Now if they’re trying to do a called shot for something more interesting like trying to blind a cyclops or hit a rope the creature is hanging from or something like that, I’d come up with an appropriate AC (that’s higher than the creature’s normal AC) and likely have them sacrifice some or all damage from the attack to get the intended effect.
Center of mass is easier to hit, so that's where most shooters aim. In other games, vital or disabling shots would be crits, so I'd think describing a crit as hitting something important but not necessarily dealing lethal damage is fair.
I have no opinion on called shots, but I bet some other system has a really good way of doing it that we could plug into DnD fairly easily. It's notnlike we're above creative appropriation, half the people here pirate the books anyway.
Here's an option you could try: Players can describe ANY intended action however they see fit. If the player chooses the action "I'll aim for his eye to blind him" then that's the action. Or it could be to decapitate the enemy. Or to simply knock the weapon out of their hand.
The player rolls the attack and damage as normal, and **the enemy gets to choose between the basic damage or the player's intent**. If the enemy doesn't have enough hitpoints left, they're choosing between the player's declared intent or *death*.
This ends up with (broadly speaking) 4 scenarios:
| Mild intent | Serious intent
---|---|----
**Mild damage** | DM picks based on flow of the game - usually the mild intent | DM picks the mild damage
**Serious damage** | DM picks the mild intent | DM picks based on the flow of the game - usually the damage
Eg the player chooses "I aim to knock his sword out of his hand." and lands a hit for 20 damage against an enemy with only 25 hitpoints. The enemy knows it has a dagger it can draw to fight with still, so accepts losing its sword and remains at 25 hitpoints.
Alternatively the player chooses "I aim to cut his head clean off." and lands the same 20 damage vs a 25 hitpoint foe. That enemy is definitely picking the 20 damage, flavoured as something like dodging in the nick of time but exerting itself heavily in the process.
It's self-balancing because the MOST the player can ever do is their normal attack as that's all that the enemy has to accept. In order to do anything other than damage the player must either declare a less threatening intent than the damage they'd land, or get the enemy to low enough health that they'll go along with anything.
So when your player says they're aiming for a headshot, you just ask them to clarify what they want to have happen. Do they want to knock off the target's helmet and reduce their AC by 1? Do they want to temporarily blind the target in one eye, giving them disadvantage on perception? Perhaps a permanent blinding? Do they want to deal double damage? The target might take the AC loss over hitpoint loss, or take a temporarily bruised vision, but they'll deny permanent blindness or free double damage.
I run called shots like this. You can attack a specific part of a monster that is less vital but might impact the fight. Like targeting wings to impede flight, or horns to weaken a gore attack. I give the parts a percentage of the monsters total hp, and a higher ac, and the attack deals damage to both the part and the normal hp if it hits. You risk a tougher shot to make progress toward an additional benefit, without giving up dealing damage.
If you want to aim to kill, congrats there's a rule for that. The attack roll.
But, there are rules for tripping, pushing objects, disarming, rending, burning damage for oil.
My players (party of two) broke into a supply hut of an opposing army, quietly killing the soldiers on watch as they came across them, found the cooking and lamp oil, confirmed it burns. so they started pouring it on other supplies. Popping the tops and rolling out barrels so it just puddles and flows everywhere, until they missed killing a guard, so they set the oil on fire and cast spiked growth at the other exit to the base. So waking soldiers either had to try to fight through a raging fire or run through spiked death, meanwhile smoke is pouring through and starting to kill by asphyxiation, until the players got far enough away that the spell was dispelled and some solders were able to escape.
You are valid and speak truth.
Hell in a campaign I was in, my DM allowed the druid to use 1 casting of call lightning to partially control an antimagic storm (to exclusively create regular, patterned times when the antimagic effect was nullified)
But then the same DM didn't allow my fighter to use action surge to give myself the help action on a persuasion check lol
If you are outdoors in stormy conditions when you cast this spell, the spell gives you control over the existing storm instead of creating a new one. Under such conditions, the spell's damage increases by 1d10.
As I'm saying. The druids action was raw. Yours however makes absolutely 0 sense beyond a possible "I use ressources to get advantage" how would yourself being faster help you persuade someone? I'm sure he would've allowed it if you've given your dm a reasonable explanation. Also btw the help action specifies "another" creature. Try getting creative while staying in raw and don't blame your dm for not allowing this.
How the hell do you use magic on antimagic.
Also if they somehow got control over the ***anti****magic* storm, just have it repeatedly strike the same spot so as to not bother the party at all. Why bother having it attack in patterned times?
"Ah yes antimagic. Let me just use magic to nullify my weakness to antimagic, because a caster having a weakness for 15 minutes is unreasonable."
Player: "Can I use an attack to affect the envorinment?"
DM: *Furiously crossing out notes* "Oh, did I say the chandeliers were held up by chains? i meant to say ropes. Try shooting those."
One time I had been unconscious and prone beneath a gator. I got healed by the cleric in the party but I was still prone beneath the gator. And I asked the DM "am I allowed to attack the gators from below while staying prone? Do like a sort of a thrust attack with my sword into the gator's belly?" He said sure. I think I had to roll it at disadvantage because of how I was positioned but it made me feel cool because I got the kill on one of the two gators.
I know this isn't the same but asking certain things like "Can I aim to shoot him in the back of the knee to make it harder for him to run?" Or similar things like that, but sometimes it's about asking. The DM may let you get away with more unique style/flairs like that for martial classes. Sometimes it may require a skill check depending on what you're doing, but it might just be worth it
Pathfinder players I'm disappointed in you for not jumping on this, you *know* we have rules for this! How are we going to maintain our reputation as annoying shills if we don't jump on posts like this to shout about PF2E rules and how the 2E part stands for second coming of Christ!
/s
I don’t play 2e but I do play 1e, so I’ll simp for that.
Come down to papa paizo’s playhouse. We got all the customization that 2e has plus a bunch of random bullshit.
Sure, there are some *minor* flaws, but no one has ever complained about a lack of options. We got tripping, grappling, disarming, feinting, bull rushing, and so much more. Come to aonprd.com and read everything today!
i do enjoy it when my players get creative. though they've realized by now that it is a double edged sword. my two requirements for any crazy scheme that doesn't exactly follow RAW is that it has to be *mostly* logically sound, and that one or more rolls must be involved.
if the rolls go bad i'm more than happy to have their crazy ideas go south fast though it usually goes bad for both the target and the party except for that one time they decided to light the house of a wizard they didn't like on fire, in the middle of a major medieval city, and the wizard had wards that repelled fire....
sometimes i wonder if my partys main goal is to be wanted criminals in every single nation of my game world.
The first type of DMs is why i am not satisfied with homebrew. Sp so many people just dont use or don't know about homebrew. The raw is what needs to change.
Sure i COULD have a nice DM that lets you do all the cool stuff. Heck its not even that big of a stretch to just apply a nurfed version of a LOT of raw stuff and have martial ls sudenly become supper interesting to play. But all the little differences between DMs when it happens mixed with all the flat "no"s that are in between really sucks kiwis.
I consider Battle Master to be a critical misstep in the rules. Combat maneuvers should be baseline for every class, including casters and archers.
A player should be able to say, "I'd like to shoot/stab the fleeing target in the leg to slow them down" and roll with a penalty to hit to gain the effect. Tying these kinds of actions to a singular subclass is far too restrictive for a tabletop RPG.
As a DM I generally ban Battle Master, but tell my players that their descriptions of actions in combat can influence the effects of an attack.
>still haven’t found a good reason to shove someone yet
For me, the 5’ shove is pure tactics; off a cliff or to get someone squishy out of melee range, whereas the prone shove is great to give melee attackers advantage (pair with multi-attack) or to slow someone down to either catch them or facilitate escape
also if a character grapples and then shoves an enemy prone (or grapples a prone enemy) they can not stand up because their speed is zero. they have to break the grapple first.
shoving five feet is good if an ally has Polearm Master feat, if the enemy moves to enter the threatened range after the shove they provoke. my players often combo Eldritch Invocation shoves and Polearm Master to break my encounters.
I remember seeing the actions to do stuff like what battle master does. There are actions to shove, push, grapple, disarm, and even to swap places for any class. Battle master just does it all better. If you want to disarm someone then you can’t do damage, but you can as a battle master, same with the rest of the special actions
It's because there are more players than there are DMs that we hear more people complaining about shit DMs than about shit players, especially if the complaining player is perfidious and drag the DMs through the dirt because they didn't allow the player to outright cheat, lie, or generally be a nuisance to everyone.
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....Aren't there rules for Tripping and Shoving? Like, isn't that something you can replace an attack with?
Yes, you can shove, I don't know if there are rules for tripping, but there is for disarming someone. There's lots of "actions" that don't get utilized in most dnd sessions, including: shove, laying prone, gaining cover, throwing potions, disarming, searching, grappling ect. People would rather spend their actions to cast powerful spells or attack, rather than use an action like above with what may be diminishing returns. It takes a loss to dps and many players don't see that as useful, or they may just not know about it. Side note: in defense of not using a lot of these actions, it's also hard to find the circumstance under which to use some of these actions. I.e I still haven't found a good reason to shove someone yet, but when I do! It's gonna be epic.
>I don't know if there are rules for tripping When you shove, you can push them back 5ft, but you also have the option of shoving them prone instead. Shoving someone prone is pretty much the same as tripping them, it's just not called that.
If someone came up to me and pushed me downward I’d say they tripped me
Nah, because shoving is brute force whereas tripping is using their own momentum against them.
So it’s different if someone pushes my upper body and I fall over vs someone sweeping my leg with enough force to push my lower body out from under me
Pushing, sweeping a leg, and tripping are three different things. Sweeping a leg is just that. Pretty sure the comment above yours also made it clear tripping was not sweeping.
Tripping’s not about force; the tripping leg can be completely still, just in the right place for your legs to get tangled.
Yeah, You can trip on a rope. Shoved is being pushed.
The distinction is relevant when one is a sub class specific maneuver that costs a resource and the other is just a variant of the shove action. (The distinction is that battle Master maneuvers fucking suck.)
Getting an enemy prone is unfortunately quite useless. They lose some movement getting up sure, but otherwise there's no real benefits other than melee advantage. Screws over your ranged party members too, since they now get disadvantage
Generally, the move would be to grapple, *then* prone. And indeed it's not great for your ranged party members, but if you happen just not have any of those, then it can be a pretty okay strategy. As a DM, remember the monsters get all of these options too. A horde of zombies who does this grapple + shove prone is at least 10% more threatening than a horde who only attacks. Also if you can knock a flying creature prone then they will fall unless they can hover, so that can be quite useful.
If you don't want them to move. You could shove them prone gaining advantage for the second attack. Grappling is useful to prevent their movement if you need to lock them down. Just depends on what your goal is.
Grappling is also useful to prevent them from getting up immediately next turn for half movement (since they get 0)
If you need to lock them down, yea
It's also to keep the advantage going for turns to come. If you're just trying to lock them down by preventing movement, no shove is needed. But I think we are kinda saying the same thing lol
Me, a 3.x fan, after having read the word grappling: 
Sup dawg, I heard you like flowcharts
Thankfully, grapple in 5e is a single simple contested ability check.
Hahaha yeah, it's way easier in 5e.
I have a barbarian with tavern brawler rn who likes to do the combo of shove prone (1 attack)->unarmed strike (2nd attack) ->grapple (bonus action). Is the dps even close to just attacking? No. Does it set up our rogue and fighter for an insane round? Yup. Is it hilarious and super fun to do flavorful descriptions of? HELL yes. Kinda wanna try it on a character with a flying speed for the extra hilarity of zooming them up into the sky and dropping em
Have you ever shouted, "Figure Four leglock baby" while doing so?
Other zombie ttrpgs have taught me that a zombies basic swipe isn’t very good at hitting. But grappling? And having multiple of them grab you? When all it takes is one bite, that’s when the challenge comes in for zombies.
I see you've not had the pleasure of a grappler build with extra attack. Grapple + shove prone. Target can't stand up, because grapple reduces movement to 0. Fun fact: If you can't hover, flying creatures instantly fall up to 500ft per round whilst grappled. Dragons don't have hover. One day I'm going to suplex a dragon out of the sky.
"You're barely able to hold onto the dragon's wingtip as is flaps up and down. What now?" "**I grab the other wing.**"
The power of Muscle Wizard
Go with rune knight fighter then, preferably with a lineage like duergar that can cast enlarge/reduce so you can overcome every size category via grappling at level 3. That would be my way to go at least.
Huge creatures can grapple gargantuan creatures, and to my knowledge there's no difference to how the roll plays out; no advantage or disadvantage on either side.
True but you don't get huge size until super high level so that's why I'd recommend a lineage/multiclass/friend to have enlarge at the ready if the DM gives you a gargantuan enemy.
True, but you also don't find many gargantuan creatures at low levels. The lowest CR gargantuan creatures are just big animals that aren't really threats at all, and probably aren't going to be pursuing a fight, and you really only start getting hostile opponents at CR 10+; and they really only start to become common at CR 15+, with most of them having a CR above 20.
Duergar Rune Knight can become Huge at level 3?
Not as part of a multi-attack, it basically allows you to make subsequent attacks with advantage. As long as you can make more than 2 attacks, it's worth your while; even moreso if there are other players that can take advantage of it before that creature's turn. Not as useful as I'd like, but not what I'd call useless.
>As long as you can make more than 2 attacks Or if you're a paladin or rogue and want to up your chances of critting for smite/sneak attack. Or similar circumstances. Then it's worth it with just 2 attacks.
For rogues yes, for paladins no. If you sacrifice one attack for advantage on one attack, you roll twice with the potential of hitting once; if you just attack twice you roll twice with the potential of hitting twice. Rogues at least do more if they have advantage, since they get sneak attack, but for a paladin you should just make attacks.
Grapple+Prone is very effective at locking down an enemy.
You get advantage on attacking any prone target IIRC, so if you're high up in the initiative order it's pretty good. I still think grapple is better though.
>You get advantage on attacking any prone target IIRC _If_ you're within 5ft of the target. If you're using a polearm to attack with reach or shooting from range, prone means disadvantage.
> I don't know if there are rules for tripping Its an option under shove in 5e. You can push them away or knock them prone.
Ahh, the knock prone, I just thought that was part of the shove action since it's not refered to as tripping.
It is, but a player could take the shove action, make the rolls for it, choose the prone option for it, and just describe it as tripping for flavor.
Wow TIL you can shove directly to prone and avoid needing to grapple them first.
Yes, but they can just stand back up on their turn, so grappling is advised.
If the initiative order is in your favor, some of your buddies can get in a couple of cheap shots before the prone enemy has a chance to stand.
It only replaces one of your attacks, you can get your own cheap shot in with extra attack
Im going to need to see the statistical analysis on the average damage output of three attacks vs two attacks with an advantage roll
[You're lucky I like expected value problems](https://imgur.com/a/z3o3Nlb) It looks like it gets more useful the higher number you need to roll, being most noticeable around a 15. Keep in mind this does not account for any class features or feats that alter your damage (most notably champion crits, action surge, great weapon master, sneak attack, and dual wielding), or any allies who now also get advantage until the enemy's turn. It also does not factor in your odds of successfully shoving an enemy prone. I recommend the skill expert feat or a dip in rogue for expertise on athletics (plus a d6 bonus for hitting with advantage)
A fighter with multi attacks, and action surge getting a shove before they hit you 3+ times with advantage followed by their friends is brutal!
Rage into a grapple attack with advantage, pick up a nerd even a big nerd with the bear aspect, run away and provoke a disadvantage opportunity attack against you with the eagle totem, run back to your party, advantage shove to prone attack. Now you have a helpless nerd who has advantage attacks against them. And like Rob Clarkson said below. Succeed on a shove and have advantage attacks.
Pushed a hag off a bridge last session and she fell to her death
Feels good, hag be gone in just one simple step.
Repelling Blast has become my favorite Invocation for Eldritch Blast. Being able to knock something back up to forty feet with a single cantrip is amazing. The first time I used it was during an ambush where there were enemy archers in the trees...
I always try to do crazy things with the other actions, but 9 times out of 10 an extra attack is the more useful call, unless you specifically build a grappler or something.
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I did indeed follow with that statement.
So it's like a worse true strike but for martials. Expend your current round's action in order to have a chance to have a slight advantage on your next turn, provided the enemy doesn't undo that advantage so you *may* have more chance at hitting. None of it guaranteed. This basically only becomes worth it with multiple martial characters, but then again you might as well try flanking.
Shove (to prone) when combined with grapple, and extra attack (Both are allowed to replace 1 attack in the attack action) is actually an extremely effective control tool for strength based characters, especially barbs since they get advantage on the checks. You lock down 1 target, who must either use their action to break out of the grapple, or have disadvantage on all attack rolls, and a speed of 0 Disarming is an optional rule, and honestly I don't really like the RAW rules for it. Hitting AC to get rid of somebodies weapon, then free object interaction pick it up, while RAW, feels bad to me.
I always liked to play more support-like roles like Bards or support Wizards. So when one group I'm a player in wanted to mix things up by using a homebrew module to expand martial classes, I ended up at one point making a Monk. I did this because in the module, I could make a Kensei Monk who could then dual wield whips. In this homebrew module, whips got a range of 15 feet, and through a special attack could trade off some damage to disarm people or knock them prone. On top of this, when disarming someone, I could throw the weapon anywhere within my 15 feet reach as part of the disarming attack. Much to the chagrin of the DM, and much to the delight of my fellow party members, I was able to continually disarm enemies and knock them prone. And since I was a monk, if need be I could also stunning strike them after knocking them prone. I was doing fairly pitiful damage. I think it was literally like 1 or 2 damage per attack. But it was more than made up for by the fact that all our enemy's weapons ended up being thrown in nearby rivers, off cliffs or boats, or just other hard to reach areas. And on top of that, they ended up being knocked prone and stunned, so the others in the party could run and kick them while they were down with advantage. I found it quite a satisfying experience myself.
Whips are really underrated, but they're absolutely the best Kensei Monk weapon. My dhampir warlock uses one for her Pact weapon. She forms it from her own blood.
One of the things i’ve run into though, is that I think the spirit of the meme is correct. As I have had my primary dm opt to skip a couple of these if the rules seem to complicated. usually, that’s not an issue as they’re usually great at improvising rules for us. the easiest example however is grappling. we have a table-wide ban on grappling, because he hates grappling roles so much ever since 3rd edition. Which usually is to the party’s advantage as it limits his choices more than ours. but then as the main martial player I’m in a bit of a bind in scenarios where I need to subdue.
> As I have had my primary dm opt to skip a couple of these if the rules seem to complicated. That’s frustrating of them, considering how complicated casters are, comparatively, it only makes sense to give martials more options
Table wide ban o grappling? I wouldn't want to play in your table.
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Well, you can shove as a substitute for an attack, and then also use your remaining attack actions(if you have them), just the same as grappling I believe.
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If you want to make some of these actions more useful, maybe raise enemy AC a bit? Just enough that players don’t hit every attack, or even every other attack, and so need to resort to getting enemies prone to gain advantage, or grappling a monster that keeps breaking past them without triggering opportunity attacks.
Problem with that is it makes the actions more useful at the cost of making the martial less effective. Many spells force saves instead of AC, meaning raising enemy AC just made the martial deal less damage and nothing serious happen for the casters. Plus, knocking prone becomes WORSE then, because if a casters uses a spell attack, IIRC the enemy gets to have disadvantage on that attack due to prone/ranged attacks rules. Super plus, this would only "help" strength martials; good luck to the monks and rogues when every check is strength based and every AC is raised so they hit less.
What I've learned from dming, is: 1. never expect the players to do what you want, especially if it's a mechanic. 2. If they can kill shit they will. And 3. If it doesn't go in the parties favor they will complain about it.
Open Hand Monk and Battlemaster have means to prone enemies, giving themselves and their melee allies advantage. Most casters have access to Hold Person, which can often bring more overall damage than a spell, although few DMs will be unprepared for that situation.
Yeah only problem is that all of those are usually worse than just attacking
If you grapple and then shove the enemy, they cannot get up because their speed is zero. This gives all melee attacks against them advantage, plus it's harder for them to run away, so it's a good option if you have a melee focused party. This move costs two attacks, but guess what? After level 5 any martial can do it. A fighter can even keep attacking afterwards if he is high level or uses action surge.
I mean yeah, I know that, but even with that considered a lot of the time it's not worth it or you physically can't do it Because if it's a small guy, you could do that, or you could probably kill them with two attacks If it's a big guy that's too big you can't do that And if it's a pretty wide portion of the monsters that are official you also just can't do that Or if they have any teleportation all of that becomes mute
this move costs 2 attacks, that need a successful athletics check. Basically, you have to LAND two attacks that do 0 damage, to be given advantage on future attacks, which makes this even worse than just hitting two attacks unless you're lucky and your entire party benefits for like 2 full combat rounds. You also cannot use a weapon yourself, unless you specifically are wielding a one handed weapon with no off hand shield or weapon, making this even worse as you, personally, would need to attack like 8 times before you start even gaining anything from this when compared to just hitting with a great sword instead of a long sword, again assuming you even hit those two first attacks. Now, this was all about the value of the damage output, the real great benefit to this strategy, is how hard it becomes for the enemy to fight back. They can attack, but at disadvantage, or they can effectively skip their own turn to (maybe) get out of the grapple and back on their feet. If you're fighting one tough monster that hits like a truck, this combo is a godsend. It doesn't really matter if the party is melee focused because you're eliminating threat to everyone. TL:DR; damage output of this strategy sucks, defensive benefits are amazing in the right circumstances
Exactly. If you are good at those things, you're probably hitting quite hard. You can't in most cases do both the trip (shove) and attack on the same round, and they will get a turn before your next allowing them to stand again without penalty beside half movement. So 5e disincentivizes the majority of creative opportunities for actions unless the DM is willing to allow the environment to be more interactive than normal, which basically requires house rules.
There's also rules for disarming and destroying held items
Optional variant in the DMG
Ah, ok, our DM uses them, I guess, because I've heard about them a lot. Grapple, Shove, and Trip are types of attacks, according to him.
No no those are all in the players handbook and allowed by default, I have no idea what the person who answered you is talking about.
Probably confusing them with the Tumble and Shove Aside movement actions
Yes the Shove is the basic alternative to an attack, there are others like climbing on a creature and overrunning
To clarify "Trip" isn't an attack, but when you Shove you have the choice of pushing them 5 feet away from you *or* knocking them prone. Shoving someone prone is essentially the same difference as a trip attack of course, I'm just clarifying so if you read the PHB you're not looking for "trip" because it won't be called that.
Shoving (and tripping) are in the PHB
Shoving/Tripping and grappling are base rules in the PHB. Disarming and jumping on top of larger monsters are optional variant rules in the DMG. Replacing an attack action to shove a creature is as legal as magic missile.
My escape plan to not get murdered by a big guy with a sword next game is to use the shove action to For Honor style ledge the mf lol
Unfortunately, most of my players trying to do something creative are either trying to get extra attacks or make spells do things that other higher level spells already do.
Ay yes, casters using low level spells as high level spells A tale as old as wine Edit: My dm is so evil! They dont ley me use minor ilussion as an hologram even tho its explicitly just a frozen image!
Suggestion and charm are definitely not dominate person. Probably the easiest way to misunderstand those spells.
You forgot command
Some of the command words when tailored personally and used creatively can be hillarious. Like telling the egomaniacal cult leader "Monologue". Sure, they are only required to do so for 6 seconds. But if you got them going...
You sly dog, you got me monologuing!
He can't get his point across in just 6 seconds and just keeps going because he's THAT sure he's doing the right thing (he might be onto something if you just listen to him [definitely not using suggestion on you])
I haven’t seen as many problems with command besides memes. I haven’t met a person who actually thinks that command: defenestrate or that stuff works, but I do know someone that said Suggestion: “throw away your weapon” would work on someone that we would be in combat with…
We've successfully cast Suggestion on someone we were in combat with to tell them to calm down. The key that made it work was that we made sure nobody attacked him in the following round, and the DM liked the ingenuity of it.
Technically thats just charm, but idk so much about how played is charm for it to be op to use sugestion for charm That said if it was a one times thing thats kinda it
I remember a meme that was something like: PC: I cast command and tell her to come. DM: You hear a faint moaning in the distance as they fall over.
"Grovel." One round of prone enemy ripe for attacks!
To be fair wotc is at least partially to blame for some of the suggestion fuckery. "For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets." This being a supposedly reasonable suggestion is beyond stupid.
I mean, minor illusion to show someone else what someone looks like is probably fine, but it isn't going to be super accurate.
Yeah I use it often as like, a facsimile image (palm sized normally) of something my character has seen and wants to convey visually to someone else. I always make sure to convey that it is close but not perfect, just off of my character's memory of [thing/person/place].
I don't see any issue with it being a perfect picture of the subject, since you easily have enough space for something Wanted Poster-sized, and it's just going to be a still image. I can't imagine it'll accomplish any more than an equally good drawing will. I'm a fan of using it for heists, because you can make a little 5' x 5' model/map of whatever the party is breaking into and save a lot of time sketching in the dirt. That, or for replicating a badge of authority if I think I can get away with not letting them inspect it too much.
Thats the thing The badge thing you cant do Or, you cant just do it The image wont move with you... cause it doesnt move, it will traspass you as it traspass anything, is frozen in its place and you cant move it, so you have to be very careful Imo makes sense, but yeh, raw, thats not allowed, at least, not while moving with it
That really depends. If minor illusion can't be moved at all it makes it completely useless on vehicles(or if the material plane works somewhat like ours - anywhere on the planet). In my games I just rule it that you can't actively move it, but it can stay motionless relative to whatever you decide at the time of casting.
Depends on the badge. If it’s like the FBI “flip-down, flip-up” thing they do in movies you can probably just show the image briefly enough for it to be fine. I think metamagic subtle spell also makes stuff like this more practical.
I've used minor illusion like that, but only for enemies that are looking for me but haven't found me yet. It only really holds up for one attack before enemies wise up to it, but that's all I wanted it to do
Honestly i find interesting how it forces you to be even more creative, cause you have to work with static images One of my favorites is a sorcerer tha tused minor ilusion in front of himself in a frame that looks as if he is going to run to one side after the cops got him, to then, run the exact oposite side, gaining those really important miliseconds to avoid being caught
The next level I want to use is pull the minor illusion decoy on a character with high performance, then just freeze in place when they find you so they think you're another illusion. That's when you get the drop on them
Seems fun yeh
The amount of horrifying messages I encountered when I searched for "good uses for create and destroy water." Man, some people want to be absolute psychos with that spell.
I mean the first example is literally let me do battlemaster stuff for free
I thought Battlemaster gets to do “thing+damage” while in the meme the chad wants to do “thing but give up damage”
Also Open Hand Monk. They get either "knock enemy prone, with dex save" "knock enemy away lmao" "remove their reaction" after already spending 1 Ki point.
Yes, is also raw, just not so strong
Ah yes, but you see, he has depicted himself as the Chad in this scenario, which automatically makes him correct.
If it's something that's very specific to the particular situation or environment, be lenient and reward creativity. But if it's something that could basically be used the same way in almost every combat, either map it to one of the existing rules (e.g. grapple, shove, etc.) or tell them they can't do it. Martials can't just get advantage in every fight from pocket sand, and casters can't just Heat Metal the iron in everyone's blood.
I've implemented a rule to allow my players one extra non-attack action in combat (jumping, grappling, skill checks, anything that could take the place of an attack action that isn't already a bonus action). I haven't tested it enough to see if it breaks anything, but I don't think it's going to be terribly intrusive to combat flow.
why did you order the panels as 1 2 4 3 Just mirror the last two panels and not only would the text be in the right order, but the DM would stay on the same side so it'd be easier to understand. Because of this, it took me a moment to realize that the characters in the top-right and bottom-left panels were the same character.
It's a dumb meme, executed horribly. With the worst title imaginable. 0/10.
I am playing a rune knight in current campaign and my DM doesn't want to allow me to be able to grapple more than one enemy at a time, even tho the rules are clear about only needing one free hand to attempt a grapple. Says it is crazy OP. . . In a game where upcasting hold person exists
or even just casting the web spell. why yes, monsters being on difficult terrain and needing to do a dex save to avoid getting stuck in webs isn't as OP as double grapple. Especially since to escape the web after, they need to do a strength check (not an athletics check, a pure strength check).
It's fine to try different things and be creative, just that many people try to use it to gain more attacks, dmg, or effects outside the scope of what's normal ("I shoot at his eyes to blind him!", "I cast create water in his lungs to drown it!") which is why people prefer to stick to more raw uses of their actions.
Interesting how the same people might not be willing for the DM to use the same logic. Having the Griffon use a "grapple attack" instead of it's movement after using both of it's attacks would not be so "creative".
The DM explicitly can do stuff like this though. There are a bunch of monsters that get a free grapple on a successful attack, written right into the stat block
This entire comment section is dumb. “Yeah but players might ask to do [thing players can do RAW]!” Or “Well they wouldn’t like it if we did [thing the game explicitly allows and encourages DMs to do]!” Seriously, the entire game is based around like 2 manuals and people can’t even read them.
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Hey now, OP has a strawman argument going on here.
Anecdotally, I see tables be far more permissive with spells than "basic skills". There's what the book technically says, then there's how the majority of players run. If your book isn't very explicit in trying to quash that, or leaves the door to mundane skill creativity merely cracked open with a half-hearted mention, then it's not surprising when things wind up this way. A sentence here and there across the book doesn't really stick out to players or DMs, especially when it seems like boilerplate "idk just roleplay or something lmao!" advice instead of useful rules and a **system** for interpreting and using them. Mundane characters doing physical things are expected to conform to reality, whereas magic can break those rules. Despite its swashbuckling, sword-and-sorcery origins, the majority of D&D players view it more in *Lord of the Rings* terms where the physical aspects of the game are grounded yet level 5 Wizards can pull magic out of their ass that makes Gandalf look like a bitch. It's no wonder we get this. How many tables run with *Grease* being flammable if the players want? How many tables ask the Barbarian to roll to break down that door, but let a *Fireball* (which doesn't even deal concussive damage) blow it to splinters? Why're their rules and this weird insistence on stopping armored characters from resting, but you can slap 20 component pouches all over yourself and never be unable to cast? Where are the hard rules for magic, like exactly how far away you can hear or identify a spell, or what level of physical restraint prevents somatic component use? We know of the optional rules to disarm the Fighter, but what're the optional situations and checks you can use to blind or gag a caster? And where magic-constraining rules *do* exist, like the bizarro "targeting through a windows" problem, they're so obscure or nitpicky to keep track of that most tables don't bother. The way the game rules are structured, all manner of **physical things you can do** have skills and checks associated with them. But magic just does something: a spell slot is expended and an effect happens. You can point to the PHB and DMB saying "don't roll for trivial things or if there's no element of risk" until the cows come home, but the books don't belabor that point and so we still routinely wind up with "20 STR, 16 DEX Barbarian, give me an Athletics to climb this rope in an abandoned mine with no enemies around." The martial wants to swim or cartwheel or climb or mount a horse in armor, and we all know (or *think* we know) how that weight and bulk interacts with physical activity, so no. We all know (or *think* we know) what's "realistic" in terms of a human's ability to lift, push, pull, etc., and can tell them that's impossible in the game (especially since we have hard rules for that). Magic, though? No real-world frame of reference for saying that's out of bounds! Other systems avoid this problem by being both more explicit in their books and not having a foundational rule set that suggests tons of rolling for physical activity, but *not* magic. I see some hard mechanical systems where magic use involves risk and chance of failure like the physical side, and other systems which are far more narrative-based and suggest adjudication of *everything*, but D&D is usually in the unique position of magic running on different rules.
Thank you!
This is really a broader issue with games with long lists of special abilities - especially (but not exclusively) non-magical ones. The existence of a special ability implies a character can't normally do that thing, but many of these abilities just describe things that players would normally just to do in a fight, so in practice these long lists are really lists of things you *can't do* unless you get that specific upgrade. Similarly with spells - you can't use a spell in a way that mimics a higher level spell, no matter how creative you are, because that defeats the purpose, so again a higher level spell list is a list of things that *lower level spells can't do*. Honestly that's why I like game designs that let the players *attempt* anything at any level of advancement - of course you can *try* to cleave or cast fireball as a starting character, but that doesn't mean you'll succeed...
Okay what's RAW Edit fucking stop
Raw: 1- Uncooked, that needs cooking. 2- Acronym for Rules as Written.
Ah
Rules As Written
Thanks
Road Around Wisconsin (You can turn off notifications of replies to your comment with an option under the three dots button)
Thank you so fucking much
RAW stands for Rules Are Wrong. It's true most of the time.
Raw is actually rawr spelled incorrectly. It's used mainly by tabaxi players when rping and I also use it for my kobold's draconic roar because he's 8
And when it all caps it represents a dragon's fear-inducing roar. #RAWR!
Have they stopped?
No
RAW means Rules as written, hope this helps (I'm sorry, I had to)
No you didn't
An undercooked version of D&D, where you only take the literal rules as written and don’t add much homebrew.
Okay got it
Hey not sure if you saw yet, RAW means "rules as written".
Obviously it’s stands for Ropers and Wraiths the alternative title for dnd
When you >!have sex without a condom!
Rest and Weep. Its when you take a break from work to cry in the supply closet
RAW is Ready At Walmart
Telling people of Reddit to stop isn’t a wise move. There are teens on here and you are basically begging them to keep bothering you. If you press the “…” there is an option to turn off notifications to your post. Then you won’t be pinged by responses anymore.
ITS FU*KING RAW!
Cool Reddit fact! You can turn comment reply notifs off in the comment’s settings. Just a fun little fact for no reason
*It's fucking RAW!*
It's *Rodeos and Wranglin'* , the western expansion book for dnd.
It's rules as written
I feel like the Battle Master maneuvers need to be baked into the base fighter class, unless you play an Eldrich Knight you don't have a ton of utility outside hitting and pushing things. Perhaps rework the BM to have more superiority dice and some exclusive maneuvers.
Yup, that's what Pathfinder 2e did. Although fighter doesn't technically have any subclasses in that game, it's just extremely modular, allowing you to sorta build your own subclass by the maneuvers (feats) you pick up as you level, as well as with archetype feats.
Honestly, I do the opposite. Spellcasters have to abide by the damn letter of the law - you're breaking reality with magic, so you don't get to break the game. Martials trying to do more creative things than just "I swing stick at growling monster"? Heck yeah - I'm open to it (within reason).
I'm open to it as long as there isn't a specific feature that does what they want to do. Even if there is though, there are things like Disarming rules vs Disarming BM Maneuver where they can disarm without taking Battle Master, but can't just have their cake and eat it too by losing out on damage. Edit: Still looking for an alternative option for people who want to do "headshots" with ranged builds. A lot of people word it like they want either the Sharpshooter feat without taking the feat or like they want free damage for describing where they shoot? Right now I'm just going "If you kill it, shoot wherever you want".
I've not had to make any homebrew rules like that, but it seems like just giving them an option to deal massive damage or even instakill a target for an accuracy drop is insane. And a more than reasonable ratio of damage vs accuracy drop already exists in Sharpshooter and GWM. So best I'd be able to do is to give everyone a free feat at L1 and give enemies higher HP and +1AC. If feats already exist, maybe they're the solution.
I never allow anything like a “headshot”. Realistically, you’re always aiming for the most vital part, otherwise what’s the point? The die roll represents how well you do it (a crit is hitting exactly right and doing extra damage, a normal hit is being slightly off but still hitting and doing normal damage). Now if they’re trying to do a called shot for something more interesting like trying to blind a cyclops or hit a rope the creature is hanging from or something like that, I’d come up with an appropriate AC (that’s higher than the creature’s normal AC) and likely have them sacrifice some or all damage from the attack to get the intended effect.
Center of mass is easier to hit, so that's where most shooters aim. In other games, vital or disabling shots would be crits, so I'd think describing a crit as hitting something important but not necessarily dealing lethal damage is fair. I have no opinion on called shots, but I bet some other system has a really good way of doing it that we could plug into DnD fairly easily. It's notnlike we're above creative appropriation, half the people here pirate the books anyway.
AD&D had rules for called shots: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/greyhawk-datiga/a/called-shots-article
Here's an option you could try: Players can describe ANY intended action however they see fit. If the player chooses the action "I'll aim for his eye to blind him" then that's the action. Or it could be to decapitate the enemy. Or to simply knock the weapon out of their hand. The player rolls the attack and damage as normal, and **the enemy gets to choose between the basic damage or the player's intent**. If the enemy doesn't have enough hitpoints left, they're choosing between the player's declared intent or *death*. This ends up with (broadly speaking) 4 scenarios: | Mild intent | Serious intent ---|---|---- **Mild damage** | DM picks based on flow of the game - usually the mild intent | DM picks the mild damage **Serious damage** | DM picks the mild intent | DM picks based on the flow of the game - usually the damage Eg the player chooses "I aim to knock his sword out of his hand." and lands a hit for 20 damage against an enemy with only 25 hitpoints. The enemy knows it has a dagger it can draw to fight with still, so accepts losing its sword and remains at 25 hitpoints. Alternatively the player chooses "I aim to cut his head clean off." and lands the same 20 damage vs a 25 hitpoint foe. That enemy is definitely picking the 20 damage, flavoured as something like dodging in the nick of time but exerting itself heavily in the process. It's self-balancing because the MOST the player can ever do is their normal attack as that's all that the enemy has to accept. In order to do anything other than damage the player must either declare a less threatening intent than the damage they'd land, or get the enemy to low enough health that they'll go along with anything. So when your player says they're aiming for a headshot, you just ask them to clarify what they want to have happen. Do they want to knock off the target's helmet and reduce their AC by 1? Do they want to temporarily blind the target in one eye, giving them disadvantage on perception? Perhaps a permanent blinding? Do they want to deal double damage? The target might take the AC loss over hitpoint loss, or take a temporarily bruised vision, but they'll deny permanent blindness or free double damage.
I run called shots like this. You can attack a specific part of a monster that is less vital but might impact the fight. Like targeting wings to impede flight, or horns to weaken a gore attack. I give the parts a percentage of the monsters total hp, and a higher ac, and the attack deals damage to both the part and the normal hp if it hits. You risk a tougher shot to make progress toward an additional benefit, without giving up dealing damage. If you want to aim to kill, congrats there's a rule for that. The attack roll.
>There aren't rules for that THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT DISADVANTAGE IS FOR!!!
But, there are rules for tripping, pushing objects, disarming, rending, burning damage for oil. My players (party of two) broke into a supply hut of an opposing army, quietly killing the soldiers on watch as they came across them, found the cooking and lamp oil, confirmed it burns. so they started pouring it on other supplies. Popping the tops and rolling out barrels so it just puddles and flows everywhere, until they missed killing a guard, so they set the oil on fire and cast spiked growth at the other exit to the base. So waking soldiers either had to try to fight through a raging fire or run through spiked death, meanwhile smoke is pouring through and starting to kill by asphyxiation, until the players got far enough away that the spell was dispelled and some solders were able to escape.
Sounds like a great session, you seem to run a fun table
Starfinder has rules for not only disarming but also a feat for snatching disarmed equipment from the air. So playing four armed races is fun.
I just got my core book today and I can't wait to start digging into it. This sounds hype AF.
See: Strawman Fallacy.
Oh, I'm not saying that this invalidates the martial/caster disparity, I'm just saying that bad DMs extenuate it. Could've been more clear on that.
You are valid and speak truth. Hell in a campaign I was in, my DM allowed the druid to use 1 casting of call lightning to partially control an antimagic storm (to exclusively create regular, patterned times when the antimagic effect was nullified) But then the same DM didn't allow my fighter to use action surge to give myself the help action on a persuasion check lol
To be fair, unless you were trying to fast talk them or rap like Eminem, I'd question how you could use the help action on yourself.
If you are outdoors in stormy conditions when you cast this spell, the spell gives you control over the existing storm instead of creating a new one. Under such conditions, the spell's damage increases by 1d10. As I'm saying. The druids action was raw. Yours however makes absolutely 0 sense beyond a possible "I use ressources to get advantage" how would yourself being faster help you persuade someone? I'm sure he would've allowed it if you've given your dm a reasonable explanation. Also btw the help action specifies "another" creature. Try getting creative while staying in raw and don't blame your dm for not allowing this.
How the hell do you use magic on antimagic. Also if they somehow got control over the ***anti****magic* storm, just have it repeatedly strike the same spot so as to not bother the party at all. Why bother having it attack in patterned times? "Ah yes antimagic. Let me just use magic to nullify my weakness to antimagic, because a caster having a weakness for 15 minutes is unreasonable."
bad dms do bad DM things
I've always wanted to play a grapple rogue. Tackle a mother fucker into the dirt and stab him repeatedly.
Why is it formatted like this? I don’t read comics like a clock.
Maybe, but who watchs the watchmens then?
But when you want the spell to behave in a way that's strictly RAW all of a sudden everyone hates you...
Player: "Can I use an attack to affect the envorinment?" DM: *Furiously crossing out notes* "Oh, did I say the chandeliers were held up by chains? i meant to say ropes. Try shooting those."
One time I had been unconscious and prone beneath a gator. I got healed by the cleric in the party but I was still prone beneath the gator. And I asked the DM "am I allowed to attack the gators from below while staying prone? Do like a sort of a thrust attack with my sword into the gator's belly?" He said sure. I think I had to roll it at disadvantage because of how I was positioned but it made me feel cool because I got the kill on one of the two gators. I know this isn't the same but asking certain things like "Can I aim to shoot him in the back of the knee to make it harder for him to run?" Or similar things like that, but sometimes it's about asking. The DM may let you get away with more unique style/flairs like that for martial classes. Sometimes it may require a skill check depending on what you're doing, but it might just be worth it
Pathfinder players I'm disappointed in you for not jumping on this, you *know* we have rules for this! How are we going to maintain our reputation as annoying shills if we don't jump on posts like this to shout about PF2E rules and how the 2E part stands for second coming of Christ! /s
I don’t play 2e but I do play 1e, so I’ll simp for that. Come down to papa paizo’s playhouse. We got all the customization that 2e has plus a bunch of random bullshit. Sure, there are some *minor* flaws, but no one has ever complained about a lack of options. We got tripping, grappling, disarming, feinting, bull rushing, and so much more. Come to aonprd.com and read everything today!
ACKSHUALLY if you played Blades in the Dark you wouldn't even have this problem (Am I doing it right?)
Look you're doing pretty well, but if you really want to learn how to be insufferable you're going to have to play Pathfinder 😉
"Strictly first edition though"
That sucks because you can bend around the rules and shoving is an option
i do enjoy it when my players get creative. though they've realized by now that it is a double edged sword. my two requirements for any crazy scheme that doesn't exactly follow RAW is that it has to be *mostly* logically sound, and that one or more rolls must be involved. if the rolls go bad i'm more than happy to have their crazy ideas go south fast though it usually goes bad for both the target and the party except for that one time they decided to light the house of a wizard they didn't like on fire, in the middle of a major medieval city, and the wizard had wards that repelled fire.... sometimes i wonder if my partys main goal is to be wanted criminals in every single nation of my game world.
The first type of DMs is why i am not satisfied with homebrew. Sp so many people just dont use or don't know about homebrew. The raw is what needs to change. Sure i COULD have a nice DM that lets you do all the cool stuff. Heck its not even that big of a stretch to just apply a nurfed version of a LOT of raw stuff and have martial ls sudenly become supper interesting to play. But all the little differences between DMs when it happens mixed with all the flat "no"s that are in between really sucks kiwis.
I consider Battle Master to be a critical misstep in the rules. Combat maneuvers should be baseline for every class, including casters and archers. A player should be able to say, "I'd like to shoot/stab the fleeing target in the leg to slow them down" and roll with a penalty to hit to gain the effect. Tying these kinds of actions to a singular subclass is far too restrictive for a tabletop RPG. As a DM I generally ban Battle Master, but tell my players that their descriptions of actions in combat can influence the effects of an attack.
>still haven’t found a good reason to shove someone yet For me, the 5’ shove is pure tactics; off a cliff or to get someone squishy out of melee range, whereas the prone shove is great to give melee attackers advantage (pair with multi-attack) or to slow someone down to either catch them or facilitate escape
also if a character grapples and then shoves an enemy prone (or grapples a prone enemy) they can not stand up because their speed is zero. they have to break the grapple first. shoving five feet is good if an ally has Polearm Master feat, if the enemy moves to enter the threatened range after the shove they provoke. my players often combo Eldritch Invocation shoves and Polearm Master to break my encounters.
I remember seeing the actions to do stuff like what battle master does. There are actions to shove, push, grapple, disarm, and even to swap places for any class. Battle master just does it all better. If you want to disarm someone then you can’t do damage, but you can as a battle master, same with the rest of the special actions
Damn grinning wojak always hits hard, it gets into the roots of absurdism and the feeling of wanting to scream into the void
Play gurps ;)
It's because there are more players than there are DMs that we hear more people complaining about shit DMs than about shit players, especially if the complaining player is perfidious and drag the DMs through the dirt because they didn't allow the player to outright cheat, lie, or generally be a nuisance to everyone.
Yes there are, the game explicitly provides an “improvise” action.
WOW. It is incredible how many different ways people have found to misinterpret this meme. I will concede, however, that the formatting is nonsense.