Will aura of vitality be more useful than Prayer of Healing?
Prayer of Healing: Up to 6 targets, 2d8+Casting Mod healing, 10 minute cast time.
With a +5 WIS, a Cleric would do average 14 healing per target, so 84 healing assuming a 6 person party. It's a really useful out of combat heal.
Aura of Vitality: 2d6 as a bonus action.
20d6 healing is 70 total healing on average.
So in combat, Aura of Vitality is obviously the better option, because it can actually be used in combat, and though it takes your concentration, it only uses the bonus action to heal. Out of combat, Prayer of Healing wins out on two fronts, because not only does it get to add casting mod, but it's also only a 2nd level spell, and can be used out of higher slots for even more healing.
If I had to choose one, I'd take Aura of Vitality because it's more flexible. If all I cared about was maximum efficiency healing out of combat, then prayer of healing.
Eh. If the system makes you want to routinely attack your party while they're resting it's a good indication that perhaps you should find a system that isn't designed to make your players hate you.
Or it makes them try way harder to find good places to rest as opposed to in the middle of zombieland.
Because that's the game we all want to be playing "Where can I find a secure corner to cower in?" instead of "Smash monsters with my sword!". I hear it has companion games of "Can I possibly carry enough food to survive on our trip to to place we actually care about?" and "What other pointless random minutia can I throw at players?" that really get them rocking in their seats.
Less snide: This is the thing about traps all over again. If you want your PCs to NOT carefully search every five foot square then you can not use deadly or frequent traps because it's a logical outgrowth of encountering such things. If you want a dashingly heroic game then you also can't hassle them overmuch about resting or provisions without it quite naturally turning into D&D: Excel Sheets edition. I'm not really throwing stones at "types" of games here so much as I'm targeting behavior that encourages a style contrary to what the DM thinks they want.
The point I was trying to raise was that if the game is getting too predictable with what the players are entitled to (like short rests on a routine basis and a long rest on a regular basis) then of course your going to run into problems with how they will find the most optimized way of doing things.
This isn't a problem that is unique to 5th edition.
Also, there's nothing wrong with using random encounters if it suits the type of game you're trying to play. My upcoming 13th Age game starting this week is using random encounters. My players and I want a game that is less "play a story of heroes in a series of adventures," and more "Explore a dangerous world a little bit at a time and explore character-driven motivations to develop the meta-plot" and we all agreed at our session zero part of that was bringing back random encounters, including ones that need to be fled because they are too much for the party at that time. There's a sense of danger and wildness that you aren't going to get without that type of stuff.
@DevoutlyApathetic, your suggestion implies that you have players that don't care about the journey, just the destination. If they only care about the mcguffin they're chasing in the destination you've set out for them, then sure, they're going to find aspects like random encounters to be pointless wastes of time.
But that doesn't apply to everybody. Not everybody wants to play a linear plot style game where it's just point A to B, fast travel past the wilderness, etc. That's the sort of D&D game I just finished DMing, and while we all enjoyed it, we also all want to change gears to a different style of game for the upcoming one. Neither one is wrong, it's all about what the GM and players are trying to do.
Its not a problem with the system, I think. Its a problem with the players working the rules system as written versus role playing in the setting as intended.
I don't think you can call yourself dashingly heroic if you need to run into a closet for 8 hours after every fight with some goblins because your wizard or cleric simply needs to have his/her full complement of spells for every encounter, etc.
Also, D&D's rest system is a silly mess, because it expects the DM to limit the party from stopping for an hour of short rest after every fight, and the balance expects them to fight X number of EXP worth of encounters per day, which means unless you're tailoring every session to include time-sensitive plot contrivances and such, the party will just rest and have full resources and blow through your encounters even if you think they're going to be a good challenge.
It's why I had to use 13A heal-ups in my D&D5 game, because my players like being challenged and the only way to guarantee I could actually do it in a game that relies on attrition is either to have contrived reasons to deny them rest, or just switch to heal-ups, which was an easy choice. And of course we still suffered from certain classes like Monks and Fighters being able to short rest after nearly every fight, but that's at least less of a problem than spell slots.
Its not a problem with the system, I think. Its a problem with the players working the rules system as written versus role playing in the setting as intended.
I don't think you can call yourself dashingly heroic if you need to run into a closet for 8 hours after every fight with some goblins because your wizard or cleric simply needs to have his/her full complement of spells for every encounter, etc.
I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree with the assertion, because the game's rules should work without players having to decide what the creators think the intended way to play is. It's the purpose of the rules. It doesn't make someone not heroic if they stop to rest in the middle of a dungeon. It makes them smart. If there's no in-universe time-sensitive reason for them to stop, then they'd be quite stupid not to. Which goes back to the issue, because then it's just even more work for the GM to contrive reasons to keep them driving on instead of just having rules that work better in the first place.
And it's not hard to get right. See: 13th Age, where you have per encounter abilities instead of per short rest, taking away the fiat about whether you can "short rest," and your daily abilities just come back after roughly 4 combats. I'd mention 4th edition where this idea sort of originated, but 4E still kept the dumb long rest = night's sleep system so fights were naturally easier if the trip to get to them was a few days long as opposed to back to back fights.
I kinda put that last sentence in there for a reason Joshmvii. If that's what the group and DM want and understand how that'll shape player actions then it's all cool. It does make me wonder about how you're handling the healing/flee penalty since 13th Age is sorta built with the opposite assumption regarding random encounters.
The other end of it is that every class is structured in a way that you aren't by default boned without your spellslots; you still have cantrips and some of the channel divinity effects are absolutely devestating.
For the record, its not the Short Rest I have issues with. Sure, you just got stabbed 7 times...if you can manage it for sure Joe Fighter should sit down for a bit and patch himself up. That is common sense.
It's the Long Rest in the middle of the dungeon that gets my goat. What is not common sense is deciding, in the middle of extreme danger and threat all around you, to bust out the tinder box and cook up some sausage and eggs. I sometimes feel like, "Really? C'mon. You guys ate breakfast at the tavern 2 hours ago and have had one encounter on the way to the f'n dungeon. You already want to break out the bedrolls and study your spellbooks?"
As both a player and a DM, it really breaks the flow of the story in my games when this happens. I've accepted it as a player when another party member requests it and I've allowed my players to do it when I there's no good reason not to, sure. And if course I understand the tactical advantage of bringing your A game to every encounter. But every time it happens I shake my head.
For the record, its not the Short Rest I have issues with. Sure, you just got stabbed 7 times...if you can manage it for sure Joe Fighter should sit down for a bit and patch himself up. That is common sense.
It's the Long Rest in the middle of the dungeon that gets my goat. What is not common sense is deciding, in the middle of extreme danger and threat all around you, to bust out the tinder box and cook up some sausage and eggs. I sometimes feel like, "Really? C'mon. You guys ate breakfast at the tavern 2 hours ago and have had one encounter on the way to the f'n dungeon. You already want to break out the bedrolls and study your spellbooks?"
As both a player and a DM, it really breaks the flow of the story in my games when this happens. I've accepted it as a player when another party member requests it and I've allowed my players to do it when I there's no good reason not to, sure. And if course I understand the tactical advantage of bringing your A game to every encounter. But every time it happens I shake my head.
This is why I stopped doing random travel encounters years ago. And anything I throw at them on the road I'm going to throw hard enough that the extended rest feels earned.
I don't have a great answer for what to do inside the dungeon, but for just incidental and relatively uninteresting travel stuff I just don't do it. It's not worth the trouble or time it takes away from the cool thing that I have planned.
For the record, its not the Short Rest I have issues with. Sure, you just got stabbed 7 times...if you can manage it for sure Joe Fighter should sit down for a bit and patch himself up. That is common sense.
It's the Long Rest in the middle of the dungeon that gets my goat. What is not common sense is deciding, in the middle of extreme danger and threat all around you, to bust out the tinder box and cook up some sausage and eggs. I sometimes feel like, "Really? C'mon. You guys ate breakfast at the tavern 2 hours ago and have had one encounter on the way to the f'n dungeon. You already want to break out the bedrolls and study your spellbooks?"
As both a player and a DM, it really breaks the flow of the story in my games when this happens. I've accepted it as a player when another party member requests it and I've allowed my players to do it when I there's no good reason not to, sure. And if course I understand the tactical advantage of bringing your A game to every encounter. But every time it happens I shake my head.
You know a short rest in 5e defaults to an hour, right?
Narrative that's my issue with it. I agree a bit of a break, just kinda poking around for 5 minutes or so after a strenuous fight for your life is totally reasonable. The "Lunch Hour" thing is just weird, especially with most dungeons only being a few hundreds of feet.
Yeah, but setting up for a campfire in the middle of a dungeon should be dangerous as hell, and come with nearly guaranteed interruption. I was more talking about PCs who decide to straight leave the dungeon and come back after they've rested. Doing that is perfectly logical if they have reason to believe they'll be coming back to the same half-cleared dungeon they're leaving. It then becomes up to the DM to figure out why that isn't the case.
But again, I hate having resources coming back tied to arbitrary resting, so it's not like I'm advocating for it. Just pointing out why PCs will do what makes the best sense for them.
I kinda put that last sentence in there for a reason Joshmvii. If that's what the group and DM want and understand how that'll shape player actions then it's all cool. It does make me wonder about how you're handling the healing/flee penalty since 13th Age is sorta built with the opposite assumption regarding random encounters.
That's a good question about fleeing. I agree that 13A is not designed assuming you'll use random encounters. It's very much built as a big damn heroes high adventure game. It just happens to have the combat engine and customization that we want, and we're willing to tweak it to fit what we want, as I think most experienced tables do with nearly every game.
I don't see forced heal-ups and fleeing as necessarily a penalty so much as an interesting development though. 13th Age thinks you might use a forced heal-up or flee to get out of dodge when things go sideways, and by doing so the hostage you're trying to save now gets killed, or the bad guy gets away, etc. That's all cool.
So when deciding how to apply that to a random encounter framework where I know that 2.7% of the time that they see a random encounter, it's going to be an unwinnably hard fight that is obvious to them, I had to figure out how I'd handle that. After all, it wouldn't be fair to punish them for fleeing a fight they never had a chance to win.
That's part of the fun of it though. If that comes up, they know I'm not going to kill them, they will be able to flee. And for my part, fleeing from a random encounter will not come with the same kind of "campaign loss." It'll come with a development. So if I roll that 2.7% chance, and I decide that what happened was a way too hard for them to kill dragon flew overhead and attacked them and they fled, then what I'm going to do is plug that dragon in to the area and create fronts surrounding it. So now there's a tough ass dragon they know is out there, and it starts causing trouble, and they want to stop it but they know they're not ready yet. Now we get to see what kind of gameplay emerges out of that. Maybe they let the dragon run around wrecking the country side until they level up a couple times and decide to go tackle it. Maybe they drop everything and go beg the Dwarves or whomever to send an army after it. Who knows. But that kind of "play to see what happens" gameplay is exactly what we want.
As for heal-ups, I see them are purely a mechanical attrition mechanic. Using random encounters means that my party may get a heal-up in the middle of a dungeon or whatever because they fought a couple times on the way there. I don't care about that at all. They're purely there to keep balance in check.
I found that out somewhat recently, actually. I'm still new to 5e.
I can buy an hour, though. Narratively, I can imagine using sewing needles and wrapping wounds and hammering out dents in your armor and whatever else needs to happen would take more than 5 minutes.
The group I'm GM-ing rolled up characters! They'll be leading a party consisting of:
A human Monk, a former hired killer from his monastic order who is now attempting to turn over a new leaf through honest work after a long stint in prison.
A human Fighter, previously a member of a City Watch before beginning a occupational rotation with other governmental agencies.
A dwarven Barbarian who is also somehow a metallurgist, searching for a craftsman skilled enough to work with a strange new alloy he has discovered.
A half-elf Wild Sorcerer, laying low after being experimented on by a hidden cabal of mages (which is how he got his powers), taking odd jobs to provide for his family.
And a dwarven Cleric, a pilgrim far from home who is lending his aid in order to pay back the massive debts incurred by going to seminary school (we created a fun coin-based religion/culture for him).
GNU Terry Pratchett
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Eh. If the system makes you want to routinely attack your party while they're resting it's a good indication that perhaps you should find a system that isn't designed to mdestiny onto their handsake your players hate you.
possible use of the matt colville method.
make the players roll a d12. on an 11 you throw out a hard encounter, on a 12 you throw them a deadly encounter.
only in places of civilization do you get to rest easy.
adjust numbers as needed, but they are taking their hands.
The group I'm GM-ing rolled up characters! They'll be leading a party consisting of:
A human Monk, a former hired killer from his monastic order who is now attempting to turn over a new leaf through honest work after a long stint in prison.
A human Fighter, previously a member of a City Watch before beginning a occupational rotation with other governmental agencies.
A dwarven Barbarian who is also somehow a metallurgist, searching for a craftsman skilled enough to work with a strange new alloy he has discovered.
A half-elf Wild Sorcerer, laying low after being experimented on by a hidden cabal of mages (which is how he got his powers), taking odd jobs to provide for his family. And a dwarven Cleric, a pilgrim far from home who is lending his aid in order to pay back the massive debts incurred by going to seminary school (we created a fun coin-based religion/culture for him).
Scientology?
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
My group rolls for HP on level up, but we have the rule that at worst, you get half hit die + con, so no matter what your at least average with your HP, and possibly better. It seems to work because we seem to be a bit more durable than normal, but not crazy over powered or anything.
I still like 4e/13th age healing and rest mechanics more though.
The group I'm GM-ing rolled up characters! They'll be leading a party consisting of:
A human Monk, a former hired killer from his monastic order who is now attempting to turn over a new leaf through honest work after a long stint in prison.
A human Fighter, previously a member of a City Watch before beginning a occupational rotation with other governmental agencies.
A dwarven Barbarian who is also somehow a metallurgist, searching for a craftsman skilled enough to work with a strange new alloy he has discovered.
A half-elf Wild Sorcerer, laying low after being experimented on by a hidden cabal of mages (which is how he got his powers), taking odd jobs to provide for his family. And a dwarven Cleric, a pilgrim far from home who is lending his aid in order to pay back the massive debts incurred by going to seminary school (we created a fun coin-based religion/culture for him).
Scientology?
Bursar did say "Fun coin based religion".
Pretty sure the fun part rules out scientology.
As for the breaking for nap-time mid dungeon, could go the video game route (well, old console JRPG route). The players try to set up camp in the middle of a dungeon they get a warning that they hear the sounds of nearby monsters (evil laughter, claws on stone, leathery flaps of wings, the sizzle of acid hitting stone...whatever your players have learned to fear...), enough so that they get the picture that bedding down for a nap here would be a bad idea. Maybe a few rooms or encounters later they come to a warded chamber that they can rest in (I don't want to say "Save Point" but "Save Point"), the downside is that the ward is only good for a single use before it has to recharge (takes 24-48+ hours to do that) so they can't just keep returning to the camp. Maybe after resting the rooms that they cleared aren't so clear anymore, could be a fun surprise for them on the way out of the dungeon to discover a giant spider has taken up residence in the room they cleared of goblins a few hours ago.
Drop one or two of these warded chambers in a dungeon (depending on size) so the players can start feeling confident that they'll find them, but not so many that they're able to rest after every moderately challenging encounter. I think that might be sufficient to tip your players off that they don't get to take a nap whenever they want to while not railroading them along the dungeon, since it is their choice when to rest just not where.
D&D's rules definitely tend to encourage players taking as many rests as they can crap into a session to keep their long term resources up. I'm personally not really a fan of doing "punishy" things to the players to fix issues of narrative pacing/dissonance.
If it were me I'd probably say something along the lines of "the monsters that reside in these dungeons, abandoned fortresses, etc. are smart. If you decide to stand still for an extended time, like during the hour it takes to take a short rest, it's very likely that some of the monsters will make off with a portion of the treasure. Basically, the longer you spend resting in these dungeons, the less treasure you'll get at the end."
I would then proceed to not do this, and just always give the players whatever I planned to. But the players will have it in their minds that resting costs them so they're more likely to be strategic about it. If they ask you to clarify then be cryptic but definitely hint that the loss of treasure per rest is significant, and that if only they'd powered through in one go they'd have found it worth their while.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Or, right now the monsters are in disarray, they weren't planning on a group of adventures bum rushing the cave. However, if you stop and take a long/short rest, it will give them time to reinforce points.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
D&D's rules definitely tend to encourage players taking as many rests as they can crap into a session to keep their long term resources up. I'm personally not really a fan of doing "punishy" things to the players to fix issues of narrative pacing/dissonance.
If it were me I'd probably say something along the lines of "the monsters that reside in these dungeons, abandoned fortresses, etc. are smart. If you decide to stand still for an extended time, like during the hour it takes to take a short rest, it's very likely that some of the monsters will make off with a portion of the treasure. Basically, the longer you spend resting in these dungeons, the less treasure you'll get at the end."
I would then proceed to not do this, and just always give the players whatever I planned to. But the players will have it in their minds that resting costs them so they're more likely to be strategic about it. If they ask you to clarify then be cryptic but definitely hint that the loss of treasure per rest is significant, and that if only they'd powered through in one go they'd have found it worth their while.
I like it, but it would seem that telling the players that they could have gotten more treasure would have the same effect as actually reducing what they got.
Unless you showed them the loot tables and assured them that nothing was actually gone from their treasure piles, and that kind of pulls any teeth of that threat.
D&D's rules definitely tend to encourage players taking as many rests as they can crap into a session to keep their long term resources up. I'm personally not really a fan of doing "punishy" things to the players to fix issues of narrative pacing/dissonance.
If it were me I'd probably say something along the lines of "the monsters that reside in these dungeons, abandoned fortresses, etc. are smart. If you decide to stand still for an extended time, like during the hour it takes to take a short rest, it's very likely that some of the monsters will make off with a portion of the treasure. Basically, the longer you spend resting in these dungeons, the less treasure you'll get at the end."
I would then proceed to not do this, and just always give the players whatever I planned to. But the players will have it in their minds that resting costs them so they're more likely to be strategic about it. If they ask you to clarify then be cryptic but definitely hint that the loss of treasure per rest is significant, and that if only they'd powered through in one go they'd have found it worth their while.
I like it, but it would seem that telling the players that they could have gotten more treasure would have the same effect as actually reducing what they got.
Unless you showed them the loot tables and assured them that nothing was actually gone from their treasure piles, and that kind of pulls any teeth of that threat.
The difference in this case between telling the placers their treasure will be reduced and actually doing it is that you don't need to actually do any work as the DM if you don't change the treasure you dole out.
My guess is that if you say that to them, then they'll believe you without asking for proof. Even if they say something like "what would we have gotten if we hadn't rested?" you can easily be cryptic and say "Well, maybe you'll find out next dungeon. Or maybe it's gone, we'll see."
It's not probably a ton of work to ACTUALLY reduce the treasure you give the party when they rest but actually doing it puts a bad taste in my mouth. I do like the idea of using the players' game-playing nature to accomplish the goal of fewer rests overall though.
Rend on
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The issue still remains though. If the dungeon is tough, and long, you are going to have to blow through your resources before you complete it, necessitating a rest, and thematically running out of steam half way through a dungeon is a little bleghh.
We had that issue with the house that was trying to kill us in the Curse of Strahd campaign. We ended up barricading up a room at one point, and it worked, but it felt silly. It's like either we're heroic adventures so give us enough resources to kick ass and take names, or provide a better mechanic to reclaim those resources that isn't sleeping for 8 hours in the middle of a dungeon.
Maybe you take levels of fatigue that slowly start affecting you, but you can push on then rest a few days in town afterwards, or like in 13th age after every few encounters you recharge since you're such epic bad asses. Maybe you get rid of the idea of single use or limited use abilities all together, and the challenge comes from enemy abilities and setting, not just DPS.
Something. It's my biggest gripe with most editions of D&D/Pathfinder. At least Pathfinder had cheesy wand spam.
Or, right now the monsters are in disarray, they weren't planning on a group of adventures bum rushing the cave. However, if you stop and take a long/short rest, it will give them time to reinforce points.
This one is my favorite response to use once interrupting their rest gets tedious.
If players are going to hole up somewhere they really shouldn't, then they should make preparations and take care not to get killed in their sleep. Wards, barricades, stealth. Something. Something needs to be done other than "we take a long rest here to get our spells back." Likewise, the bad guys have that much more time to prepare as well. And now they know that the pesky adventurers are coming. Buffs are in place at the start of the encounters. Guard posts are doubled. Sleeping guards are wide awake and alert and that sort of thing. If the players want to have their full resources, then give them plenty of opportunity to use those resources.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Or, right now the monsters are in disarray, they weren't planning on a group of adventures bum rushing the cave. However, if you stop and take a long/short rest, it will give them time to reinforce points.
This one is my favorite response to use once interrupting their rest gets tedious.
If players are going to hole up somewhere they really shouldn't, then they should make preparations and take care not to get killed in their sleep. Wards, barricades, stealth. Something. Something needs to be done other than "we take a long rest here to get our spells back." Likewise, the bad guys have that much more time to prepare as well. And now they know that the pesky adventurers are coming. Buffs are in place at the start of the encounters. Guard posts are doubled. Sleeping guards are wide awake and alert and that sort of thing. If the players want to have their full resources, then give them plenty of opportunity to use those resources.
I feel like this is the best part. Just make it more EPIC. You want to long rest frequently? Fine, you better be prepared to fight through back to back deadly encounters.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
If your session objective is not time sensitive, you can't expect your party to not play the game to their advantage.
"Hey We'surd, how many spells you got left in ya'?"
"Three or four."
"Any good ones?"
"Ehh." We'surd oscillates his hand left to right slightly, a common Elvish mannerism meaning 'not really'.
"Guess we'll set camp early then. Lord Doomsev Rewon of the Guild of Deadly Encounters isn't going to smite himself."
"I concur with your course of action, Ser Chekzhis Frendsheets. It appears that last combatant manged to beat you precisely half to death.
If your group takes a nap in a dumb place, punish them. If they take a nap in a risky place, roll to see what happens. If they're smart about the way they do it, reward them with a good rest. If your group is taking a stupid number of long/short rests, then that feels like an encounter problem.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited September 2016
D&D rules clarification!
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
The issue still remains though. If the dungeon is tough, and long, you are going to have to blow through your resources before you complete it, necessitating a rest, and thematically running out of steam half way through a dungeon is a little bleghh.
We had that issue with the house that was trying to kill us in the Curse of Strahd campaign. We ended up barricading up a room at one point, and it worked, but it felt silly. It's like either we're heroic adventures so give us enough resources to kick ass and take names, or provide a better mechanic to reclaim those resources that isn't sleeping for 8 hours in the middle of a dungeon.
Maybe you take levels of fatigue that slowly start affecting you, but you can push on then rest a few days in town afterwards, or like in 13th age after every few encounters you recharge since you're such epic bad asses. Maybe you get rid of the idea of single use or limited use abilities all together, and the challenge comes from enemy abilities and setting, not just DPS.
Something. It's my biggest gripe with most editions of D&D/Pathfinder. At least Pathfinder had cheesy wand spam.
See, taking the time to barricade yourself into an area is actually something I like as a mechanic, since it shows a level of initiative and creativeness that you simply don't get from
Party: "We long rest"
GM: KK
Like hell: one of my favorite bits in CoS was on day two of the store campaign the party had to decide how to deal with their mangled asses after having been forced to flee from dire wolves; do they camp out in the middle of the road at night or do they keep going and hope to find some place that can offer better shelter? What is the safer choice?
Further, Ravenloft is intended as the "You won't be needing your balls anymore" setting.
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
Let's get a little rules-lawyery on you here, because there's nothing if not a long pedigree of technicalities and specific wordings going on in this game. I'm going to use a lot of capital letters for extra pedantry, but also to make sure I'm being clear between what's an Attack action and carrying out an attack.
On a turn, you can:
Perform an Action
Move
Bonus Action, if applicable
The Extra Attack feature does not provide a Bonus Action. Instead, what it does is allow you to make two attacks when you perform the Attack action.
Some characters do make attacks as their Bonus Action (example: Monks using Unarmed Strike). But this is not what you are doing! Action Surge (the Fighter ability) is not a Bonus Action! It's an additional action, meaning you can take any standard Action. So if you pick Attack again, you'll get the Extra Attack, but it's not a Bonus Action.
So, yes, if you Attack (with an Extra Attack), then use Action Surge and choose to Attack (with an Extra Attack), you'll have performed four attacks - but your Bonus Action is still available, for use by any ability that might be able to take advantage of your Bonus. A character who is Fighter 5 / Monk 1, for instance, when attacking unarmed or with a monk weapon will be able to Attack (attacking twice), Action Surge for another Attack (attacking twice), and then use his Bonus Action to attack once more (with an unarmed attack) for a total of five attack rolls on their turn.
And now I've typed the word "attack" so much that it's lost all meaning to me and is just a funny shape.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The issue still remains though. If the dungeon is tough, and long, you are going to have to blow through your resources before you complete it, necessitating a rest, and thematically running out of steam half way through a dungeon is a little bleghh.
We had that issue with the house that was trying to kill us in the Curse of Strahd campaign. We ended up barricading up a room at one point, and it worked, but it felt silly. It's like either we're heroic adventures so give us enough resources to kick ass and take names, or provide a better mechanic to reclaim those resources that isn't sleeping for 8 hours in the middle of a dungeon.
Maybe you take levels of fatigue that slowly start affecting you, but you can push on then rest a few days in town afterwards, or like in 13th age after every few encounters you recharge since you're such epic bad asses. Maybe you get rid of the idea of single use or limited use abilities all together, and the challenge comes from enemy abilities and setting, not just DPS.
Something. It's my biggest gripe with most editions of D&D/Pathfinder. At least Pathfinder had cheesy wand spam.
See, taking the time to barricade yourself into an area is actually something I like as a mechanic, since it shows a level of initiative and creativeness that you simply don't get from
Party: "We long rest"
GM: KK
Like hell: one of my favorite bits in CoS was on day two of the store campaign the party had to decide how to deal with their mangled asses after having been forced to flee from dire wolves; do they camp out in the middle of the road at night or do they keep going and hope to find some place that can offer better shelter? What is the safer choice?
Further, Ravenloft is intended as the "You won't be needing your balls anymore" setting.
I think the issue I have though is it isn't a mechanic, it is 100% DM fiat how they want to handle it, I just used the ravenloft encounter as an example, it could be any dungeon.
I agree that players shouldn't be able to get away with a long rest whenever/wherever. I just have an issue with the logic of barricading ones group in hostile territory. It just doesn't make sense thematically unless the dungeon is full of unintelligent creatures. If there are intelligent creatures then they should be able to get into wherever you barricade, and if they can't they should be waiting, traps and weapons ready, for when you exit.
So then you leave the dungeon and go camp somewhere, and that leads to the same thing that if there is a decent force of intelligent creatures left in the dungeon, they would probably hunt your ass down, and it just feels weird fantasy RPG wise to leave a dungeon halfway through or something to go rest.
I guess my beef is the idea that a long rest is the mechanic that restores players, and not something else.
When I really think about it players should have the resources to delve hardcore into a D&D style dungeon and have something like 6 or 8 potentially really hard encounters, not just 2 or 3. That or you get rid of the mook fights and combat is a cinematic thing, and the players only play it out when it really matters.
Again this all boils down to personal opinions on the games I like to play. I'm a big fan of big, important encounters, I really dislike the random encounter mechanics of a lot of games. Fights should be a for a reason besides just wearing down the player resources.
If your session objective is not time sensitive, you can't expect your party to not play the game to their advantage.
"Hey We'surd, how many spells you got left in ya'?"
"Three or four."
"Any good ones?"
"Ehh." We'surd oscillates his hand left to right slightly, a common Elvish mannerism meaning 'not really'.
"Guess we'll set camp early then. Lord Doomsev Rewon of the Guild of Deadly Encounters isn't going to smite himself."
"I concur with your course of action, Ser Chekzhis Frendsheets. It appears that last combatant manged to beat you precisely half to death.
If your group takes a nap in a dumb place, punish them. If they take a nap in a risky place, roll to see what happens. If they're smart about the way they do it, reward them with a good rest. If your group is taking a stupid number of long/short rests, then that feels like an encounter problem.
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
Let's get a little rules-lawyery on you here, because there's nothing if not a long pedigree of technicalities and specific wordings going on in this game. I'm going to use a lot of capital letters for extra pedantry, but also to make sure I'm being clear between what's an Attack action and carrying out an attack.
On a turn, you can:
Perform an Action
Move
Bonus Action, if applicable
The Extra Attack feature does not provide a Bonus Action. Instead, what it does is allow you to make two attacks when you perform the Attack action.
Some characters do make attacks as their Bonus Action (example: Monks using Unarmed Strike). But this is not what you are doing! Action Surge (the Fighter ability) is not a Bonus Action! It's an additional action, meaning you can take any standard Action. So if you pick Attack again, you'll get the Extra Attack, but it's not a Bonus Action.
So, yes, if you Attack (with an Extra Attack), then use Action Surge and choose to Attack (with an Extra Attack), you'll have performed four attacks - but your Bonus Action is still available, for use by any ability that might be able to take advantage of your Bonus. A character who is Fighter 5 / Monk 1, for instance, when attacking unarmed or with a monk weapon will be able to Attack (attacking twice), Action Surge for another Attack (attacking twice), and then use his Bonus Action to attack once more (with an unarmed attack) for a total of five attack rolls on their turn.
And now I've typed the word "attack" so much that it's lost all meaning to me and is just a funny shape.
@webguy20, everything he said is right. Action Surge does not require an action at all, and it lets you take another action. The attack action as a level 5 Fighter lets you attack twice. Your bonus action is not affected by any of this.
So at level 5 with a heavy weapon(which you're clearly using if you have the great weapon master feat, your turn looks like this:
Movement (Probably 30 feet)
Action
Bonus action (if you have a feature that grants one)
Your attack action is 2 attacks. If you action surge (does not require any action), you can take another attack action and make 2 more attacks, for a total of 4.
If you crit or down an enemy, you can use your bonus action to make another attack because the feat grants it, or you could use your bonus action to second wind, or even for a battlemaster maneuver that requires it such as commander's strike.
If you have a rogue in your party, commander's strike (use your bonus action plus give up one of your attacks) is often worth it because you can let the rogue get a 2nd sneak attack off in a single round.
As for the flabbergasting, a battlemaster fighter with precision attack and power attack (or sharpshooter if they're the ranged version) will pretty much be the highest consistent DPR in a party, especially if you get short rests regularly, which most groups do because it only takes an hour.
Around level 5 is a big power spike for that kind of build because of the 2nd attack, and because at that level range, there aren't a lot of enemies with very high AC. Not to mention a Fighter's level 6 extra ASI/Feat means that a Fighter might hit 20 STR by level 6, making it even easier to hit.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
Let's get a little rules-lawyery on you here, because there's nothing if not a long pedigree of technicalities and specific wordings going on in this game. I'm going to use a lot of capital letters for extra pedantry, but also to make sure I'm being clear between what's an Attack action and carrying out an attack.
On a turn, you can:
Perform an Action
Move
Bonus Action, if applicable
The Extra Attack feature does not provide a Bonus Action. Instead, what it does is allow you to make two attacks when you perform the Attack action.
Some characters do make attacks as their Bonus Action (example: Monks using Unarmed Strike). But this is not what you are doing! Action Surge (the Fighter ability) is not a Bonus Action! It's an additional action, meaning you can take any standard Action. So if you pick Attack again, you'll get the Extra Attack, but it's not a Bonus Action.
So, yes, if you Attack (with an Extra Attack), then use Action Surge and choose to Attack (with an Extra Attack), you'll have performed four attacks - but your Bonus Action is still available, for use by any ability that might be able to take advantage of your Bonus. A character who is Fighter 5 / Monk 1, for instance, when attacking unarmed or with a monk weapon will be able to Attack (attacking twice), Action Surge for another Attack (attacking twice), and then use his Bonus Action to attack once more (with an unarmed attack) for a total of five attack rolls on their turn.
And now I've typed the word "attack" so much that it's lost all meaning to me and is just a funny shape.
@webguy20, everything he said is right. Action Surge does not require an action at all, and it lets you take another action. The attack action as a level 5 Fighter lets you attack twice. Your bonus action is not affected by any of this.
So at level 5 with a heavy weapon(which you're clearly using if you have the great weapon master feat, your turn looks like this:
Movement (Probably 30 feet)
Action
Bonus action (if you have a feature that grants one)
Your attack action is 2 attacks. If you action surge (does not require any action), you can take another attack action and make 2 more attacks, for a total of 4.
If you crit or down an enemy, you can use your bonus action to make another attack because the feat grants it, or you could use your bonus action to second wind, or even for a battlemaster maneuver that requires it such as commander's strike.
If you have a rogue in your party, commander's strike (use your bonus action plus give up one of your attacks) is often worth it because you can let the rogue get a 2nd sneak attack off in a single round.
As for the flabbergasting, a battlemaster fighter with precision attack and power attack (or sharpshooter if they're the ranged version) will pretty much be the highest consistent DPR in a party, especially if you get short rests regularly, which most groups do because it only takes an hour.
Around level 5 is a big power spike for that kind of build because of the 2nd attack, and because at that level range, there aren't a lot of enemies with very high CR. Not to mention a Fighter's level 6 extra ASI/Feat means that a Fighter might hit 20 STR by level 6, making it even easier to hit.
Yea, we roll our character abilities, and our DM is generous, so I ended up at first level after race bonuses at 18 str, 14dex, 18 con, 8 int, 6 wis and 14 char. Level 4 I bumped up to 20 str, and we actually just got our 6th level, so I picked up polearm master, so now I can use a bonus action to make another attack. So I can possibly attack up to 6 times a round, 2 with my standard, 1 with the bonus If I hit with either, then 2 more with my Action Surge, and 1 more after that with the bonus action it grants as well. It will be insane. I think at level 8 I'm going to take lucky, because anything that gives me more chances to hit with power attack really seems like a good buy.
Damn if I'm hasted I could do up to 8 attacks per round at level 6.
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
Let's get a little rules-lawyery on you here, because there's nothing if not a long pedigree of technicalities and specific wordings going on in this game. I'm going to use a lot of capital letters for extra pedantry, but also to make sure I'm being clear between what's an Attack action and carrying out an attack.
On a turn, you can:
Perform an Action
Move
Bonus Action, if applicable
The Extra Attack feature does not provide a Bonus Action. Instead, what it does is allow you to make two attacks when you perform the Attack action.
Some characters do make attacks as their Bonus Action (example: Monks using Unarmed Strike). But this is not what you are doing! Action Surge (the Fighter ability) is not a Bonus Action! It's an additional action, meaning you can take any standard Action. So if you pick Attack again, you'll get the Extra Attack, but it's not a Bonus Action.
So, yes, if you Attack (with an Extra Attack), then use Action Surge and choose to Attack (with an Extra Attack), you'll have performed four attacks - but your Bonus Action is still available, for use by any ability that might be able to take advantage of your Bonus. A character who is Fighter 5 / Monk 1, for instance, when attacking unarmed or with a monk weapon will be able to Attack (attacking twice), Action Surge for another Attack (attacking twice), and then use his Bonus Action to attack once more (with an unarmed attack) for a total of five attack rolls on their turn.
And now I've typed the word "attack" so much that it's lost all meaning to me and is just a funny shape.
@webguy20, everything he said is right. Action Surge does not require an action at all, and it lets you take another action. The attack action as a level 5 Fighter lets you attack twice. Your bonus action is not affected by any of this.
So at level 5 with a heavy weapon(which you're clearly using if you have the great weapon master feat, your turn looks like this:
Movement (Probably 30 feet)
Action
Bonus action (if you have a feature that grants one)
Your attack action is 2 attacks. If you action surge (does not require any action), you can take another attack action and make 2 more attacks, for a total of 4.
If you crit or down an enemy, you can use your bonus action to make another attack because the feat grants it, or you could use your bonus action to second wind, or even for a battlemaster maneuver that requires it such as commander's strike.
If you have a rogue in your party, commander's strike (use your bonus action plus give up one of your attacks) is often worth it because you can let the rogue get a 2nd sneak attack off in a single round.
As for the flabbergasting, a battlemaster fighter with precision attack and power attack (or sharpshooter if they're the ranged version) will pretty much be the highest consistent DPR in a party, especially if you get short rests regularly, which most groups do because it only takes an hour.
Around level 5 is a big power spike for that kind of build because of the 2nd attack, and because at that level range, there aren't a lot of enemies with very high CR. Not to mention a Fighter's level 6 extra ASI/Feat means that a Fighter might hit 20 STR by level 6, making it even easier to hit.
Yea, we roll our character abilities, and our DM is generous, so I ended up at first level after race bonuses at 18 str, 14dex, 18 con, 8 int, 6 wis and 14 char. Level 4 I bumped up to 20 str, and we actually just got our 6th level, so I picked up polearm master, so now I can use a bonus action to make another attack. So I can possibly attack up to 6 times a round, 2 with my standard, 1 with the bonus If I hit with either, then 2 more with my Action Surge, and 1 more after that with the bonus action it grants as well. It will be insane. I think at level 8 I'm going to take lucky, because anything that gives me more chances to hit with power attack really seems like a good buy.
Damn if I'm hasted I could do up to 8 attacks per round at level 6.
I'm pretty sure you only get one Bonus action per round.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited September 2016
Probably, the action surge wording is a bit weird
"Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action"
But between you and some other 5ed forums the consensus is the wording is their to state you don't have to use a bonus action if you don't want to.
Still, up to 7 attacks for an alpha strike if I'm hasted is pretty good. If I hit with all 7 my flat damage modifier (15 per attack) come out to 105 damage. Then add dice on top of that which average out to about 35 total dice damage. not too bad. I hope I can have this situation play out at least once. I'd love to lay down 140 damage in a single turn.
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
Let's get a little rules-lawyery on you here, because there's nothing if not a long pedigree of technicalities and specific wordings going on in this game. I'm going to use a lot of capital letters for extra pedantry, but also to make sure I'm being clear between what's an Attack action and carrying out an attack.
On a turn, you can:
Perform an Action
Move
Bonus Action, if applicable
The Extra Attack feature does not provide a Bonus Action. Instead, what it does is allow you to make two attacks when you perform the Attack action.
Some characters do make attacks as their Bonus Action (example: Monks using Unarmed Strike). But this is not what you are doing! Action Surge (the Fighter ability) is not a Bonus Action! It's an additional action, meaning you can take any standard Action. So if you pick Attack again, you'll get the Extra Attack, but it's not a Bonus Action.
So, yes, if you Attack (with an Extra Attack), then use Action Surge and choose to Attack (with an Extra Attack), you'll have performed four attacks - but your Bonus Action is still available, for use by any ability that might be able to take advantage of your Bonus. A character who is Fighter 5 / Monk 1, for instance, when attacking unarmed or with a monk weapon will be able to Attack (attacking twice), Action Surge for another Attack (attacking twice), and then use his Bonus Action to attack once more (with an unarmed attack) for a total of five attack rolls on their turn.
And now I've typed the word "attack" so much that it's lost all meaning to me and is just a funny shape.
@webguy20, everything he said is right. Action Surge does not require an action at all, and it lets you take another action. The attack action as a level 5 Fighter lets you attack twice. Your bonus action is not affected by any of this.
So at level 5 with a heavy weapon(which you're clearly using if you have the great weapon master feat, your turn looks like this:
Movement (Probably 30 feet)
Action
Bonus action (if you have a feature that grants one)
Your attack action is 2 attacks. If you action surge (does not require any action), you can take another attack action and make 2 more attacks, for a total of 4.
If you crit or down an enemy, you can use your bonus action to make another attack because the feat grants it, or you could use your bonus action to second wind, or even for a battlemaster maneuver that requires it such as commander's strike.
If you have a rogue in your party, commander's strike (use your bonus action plus give up one of your attacks) is often worth it because you can let the rogue get a 2nd sneak attack off in a single round.
As for the flabbergasting, a battlemaster fighter with precision attack and power attack (or sharpshooter if they're the ranged version) will pretty much be the highest consistent DPR in a party, especially if you get short rests regularly, which most groups do because it only takes an hour.
Around level 5 is a big power spike for that kind of build because of the 2nd attack, and because at that level range, there aren't a lot of enemies with very high CR. Not to mention a Fighter's level 6 extra ASI/Feat means that a Fighter might hit 20 STR by level 6, making it even easier to hit.
Yea, we roll our character abilities, and our DM is generous, so I ended up at first level after race bonuses at 18 str, 14dex, 18 con, 8 int, 6 wis and 14 char. Level 4 I bumped up to 20 str, and we actually just got our 6th level, so I picked up polearm master, so now I can use a bonus action to make another attack. So I can possibly attack up to 6 times a round, 2 with my standard, 1 with the bonus If I hit with either, then 2 more with my Action Surge, and 1 more after that with the bonus action it grants as well. It will be insane. I think at level 8 I'm going to take lucky, because anything that gives me more chances to hit with power attack really seems like a good buy.
Damn if I'm hasted I could do up to 8 attacks per round at level 6.
I'm pretty sure you only get one Bonus action per round.
Yes, Brody is correct, action surge does not grant a second bonus action. I can't speak to playtest material, but there is no published material that breaks the rule of "one bonus action per turn."
The wording on action surge is kind of bad, it says something like "You can take another action, in addition to a possible bonus action."
What it means is that when you action surge, you can take an additional action, on top of your normal action and your regular possible bonus action.
On your turn, based on the build you've described, this is what you can do for attacking:
Attack action - 2 attacks.
Action surge (if available) - 2 more attacks from an extra attack action.
Bonus action - butt end of polearm attack for 1d4+5 damage(though you can also power attack on this one)
No 2nd bonus action regardless of whether you action surge though.
And of course you also get one reaction per round which can be used to attack someone who enters your reach with polearm master.
The head rules guy for 5E has clarified the action surge thing, so it's not just a fiat thing, there is an official ruling. It's really poor wording by them in the first place. I think the reason they worded it that way funny enough was there to clarify that you can't use the action surge to gain an extra bonus action, just a regular action. Because 5E doesn't allow downscaling actions to bonus actions and such, it's a bit fiddly for people to get at first.
Yeah, Polearm Master just gives you an option for how to spend the one "bonus action" you get per round. I really preferred 4E's "minor action" nomenclature, don't know why they went away from it.
Note that Haste gives you an entire extra action every turn, BUT it specifies that if you use it to Attack, you only get to attack a single time (even if you normally would get more, such as for being a 5th level fighter). So your limit is probably
This is the point where I jump in with my 4E pedantry and harp on 5E for getting rid of Standard Action, Move Action, and Minor Action, even though that's exactly what they still have and discarding the standardized language has only made the game more confusing.
Posts
Prayer of Healing: Up to 6 targets, 2d8+Casting Mod healing, 10 minute cast time.
With a +5 WIS, a Cleric would do average 14 healing per target, so 84 healing assuming a 6 person party. It's a really useful out of combat heal.
Aura of Vitality: 2d6 as a bonus action.
20d6 healing is 70 total healing on average.
So in combat, Aura of Vitality is obviously the better option, because it can actually be used in combat, and though it takes your concentration, it only uses the bonus action to heal. Out of combat, Prayer of Healing wins out on two fronts, because not only does it get to add casting mod, but it's also only a 2nd level spell, and can be used out of higher slots for even more healing.
If I had to choose one, I'd take Aura of Vitality because it's more flexible. If all I cared about was maximum efficiency healing out of combat, then prayer of healing.
The point I was trying to raise was that if the game is getting too predictable with what the players are entitled to (like short rests on a routine basis and a long rest on a regular basis) then of course your going to run into problems with how they will find the most optimized way of doing things.
This isn't a problem that is unique to 5th edition.
@DevoutlyApathetic, your suggestion implies that you have players that don't care about the journey, just the destination. If they only care about the mcguffin they're chasing in the destination you've set out for them, then sure, they're going to find aspects like random encounters to be pointless wastes of time.
But that doesn't apply to everybody. Not everybody wants to play a linear plot style game where it's just point A to B, fast travel past the wilderness, etc. That's the sort of D&D game I just finished DMing, and while we all enjoyed it, we also all want to change gears to a different style of game for the upcoming one. Neither one is wrong, it's all about what the GM and players are trying to do.
I don't think you can call yourself dashingly heroic if you need to run into a closet for 8 hours after every fight with some goblins because your wizard or cleric simply needs to have his/her full complement of spells for every encounter, etc.
It's why I had to use 13A heal-ups in my D&D5 game, because my players like being challenged and the only way to guarantee I could actually do it in a game that relies on attrition is either to have contrived reasons to deny them rest, or just switch to heal-ups, which was an easy choice. And of course we still suffered from certain classes like Monks and Fighters being able to short rest after nearly every fight, but that's at least less of a problem than spell slots.
I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree with the assertion, because the game's rules should work without players having to decide what the creators think the intended way to play is. It's the purpose of the rules. It doesn't make someone not heroic if they stop to rest in the middle of a dungeon. It makes them smart. If there's no in-universe time-sensitive reason for them to stop, then they'd be quite stupid not to. Which goes back to the issue, because then it's just even more work for the GM to contrive reasons to keep them driving on instead of just having rules that work better in the first place.
And it's not hard to get right. See: 13th Age, where you have per encounter abilities instead of per short rest, taking away the fiat about whether you can "short rest," and your daily abilities just come back after roughly 4 combats. I'd mention 4th edition where this idea sort of originated, but 4E still kept the dumb long rest = night's sleep system so fights were naturally easier if the trip to get to them was a few days long as opposed to back to back fights.
It's the Long Rest in the middle of the dungeon that gets my goat. What is not common sense is deciding, in the middle of extreme danger and threat all around you, to bust out the tinder box and cook up some sausage and eggs. I sometimes feel like, "Really? C'mon. You guys ate breakfast at the tavern 2 hours ago and have had one encounter on the way to the f'n dungeon. You already want to break out the bedrolls and study your spellbooks?"
As both a player and a DM, it really breaks the flow of the story in my games when this happens. I've accepted it as a player when another party member requests it and I've allowed my players to do it when I there's no good reason not to, sure. And if course I understand the tactical advantage of bringing your A game to every encounter. But every time it happens I shake my head.
This is why I stopped doing random travel encounters years ago. And anything I throw at them on the road I'm going to throw hard enough that the extended rest feels earned.
I don't have a great answer for what to do inside the dungeon, but for just incidental and relatively uninteresting travel stuff I just don't do it. It's not worth the trouble or time it takes away from the cool thing that I have planned.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You know a short rest in 5e defaults to an hour, right?
Narrative that's my issue with it. I agree a bit of a break, just kinda poking around for 5 minutes or so after a strenuous fight for your life is totally reasonable. The "Lunch Hour" thing is just weird, especially with most dungeons only being a few hundreds of feet.
But again, I hate having resources coming back tied to arbitrary resting, so it's not like I'm advocating for it. Just pointing out why PCs will do what makes the best sense for them.
That's a good question about fleeing. I agree that 13A is not designed assuming you'll use random encounters. It's very much built as a big damn heroes high adventure game. It just happens to have the combat engine and customization that we want, and we're willing to tweak it to fit what we want, as I think most experienced tables do with nearly every game.
I don't see forced heal-ups and fleeing as necessarily a penalty so much as an interesting development though. 13th Age thinks you might use a forced heal-up or flee to get out of dodge when things go sideways, and by doing so the hostage you're trying to save now gets killed, or the bad guy gets away, etc. That's all cool.
So when deciding how to apply that to a random encounter framework where I know that 2.7% of the time that they see a random encounter, it's going to be an unwinnably hard fight that is obvious to them, I had to figure out how I'd handle that. After all, it wouldn't be fair to punish them for fleeing a fight they never had a chance to win.
That's part of the fun of it though. If that comes up, they know I'm not going to kill them, they will be able to flee. And for my part, fleeing from a random encounter will not come with the same kind of "campaign loss." It'll come with a development. So if I roll that 2.7% chance, and I decide that what happened was a way too hard for them to kill dragon flew overhead and attacked them and they fled, then what I'm going to do is plug that dragon in to the area and create fronts surrounding it. So now there's a tough ass dragon they know is out there, and it starts causing trouble, and they want to stop it but they know they're not ready yet. Now we get to see what kind of gameplay emerges out of that. Maybe they let the dragon run around wrecking the country side until they level up a couple times and decide to go tackle it. Maybe they drop everything and go beg the Dwarves or whomever to send an army after it. Who knows. But that kind of "play to see what happens" gameplay is exactly what we want.
As for heal-ups, I see them are purely a mechanical attrition mechanic. Using random encounters means that my party may get a heal-up in the middle of a dungeon or whatever because they fought a couple times on the way there. I don't care about that at all. They're purely there to keep balance in check.
I can buy an hour, though. Narratively, I can imagine using sewing needles and wrapping wounds and hammering out dents in your armor and whatever else needs to happen would take more than 5 minutes.
A human Monk, a former hired killer from his monastic order who is now attempting to turn over a new leaf through honest work after a long stint in prison.
A human Fighter, previously a member of a City Watch before beginning a occupational rotation with other governmental agencies.
A dwarven Barbarian who is also somehow a metallurgist, searching for a craftsman skilled enough to work with a strange new alloy he has discovered.
A half-elf Wild Sorcerer, laying low after being experimented on by a hidden cabal of mages (which is how he got his powers), taking odd jobs to provide for his family.
And a dwarven Cleric, a pilgrim far from home who is lending his aid in order to pay back the massive debts incurred by going to seminary school (we created a fun coin-based religion/culture for him).
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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possible use of the matt colville method.
make the players roll a d12. on an 11 you throw out a hard encounter, on a 12 you throw them a deadly encounter.
only in places of civilization do you get to rest easy.
adjust numbers as needed, but they are taking their hands.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
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Scientology?
I still like 4e/13th age healing and rest mechanics more though.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Bursar did say "Fun coin based religion".
Pretty sure the fun part rules out scientology.
As for the breaking for nap-time mid dungeon, could go the video game route (well, old console JRPG route). The players try to set up camp in the middle of a dungeon they get a warning that they hear the sounds of nearby monsters (evil laughter, claws on stone, leathery flaps of wings, the sizzle of acid hitting stone...whatever your players have learned to fear...), enough so that they get the picture that bedding down for a nap here would be a bad idea. Maybe a few rooms or encounters later they come to a warded chamber that they can rest in (I don't want to say "Save Point" but "Save Point"), the downside is that the ward is only good for a single use before it has to recharge (takes 24-48+ hours to do that) so they can't just keep returning to the camp. Maybe after resting the rooms that they cleared aren't so clear anymore, could be a fun surprise for them on the way out of the dungeon to discover a giant spider has taken up residence in the room they cleared of goblins a few hours ago.
Drop one or two of these warded chambers in a dungeon (depending on size) so the players can start feeling confident that they'll find them, but not so many that they're able to rest after every moderately challenging encounter. I think that might be sufficient to tip your players off that they don't get to take a nap whenever they want to while not railroading them along the dungeon, since it is their choice when to rest just not where.
If it were me I'd probably say something along the lines of "the monsters that reside in these dungeons, abandoned fortresses, etc. are smart. If you decide to stand still for an extended time, like during the hour it takes to take a short rest, it's very likely that some of the monsters will make off with a portion of the treasure. Basically, the longer you spend resting in these dungeons, the less treasure you'll get at the end."
I would then proceed to not do this, and just always give the players whatever I planned to. But the players will have it in their minds that resting costs them so they're more likely to be strategic about it. If they ask you to clarify then be cryptic but definitely hint that the loss of treasure per rest is significant, and that if only they'd powered through in one go they'd have found it worth their while.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I like it, but it would seem that telling the players that they could have gotten more treasure would have the same effect as actually reducing what they got.
Unless you showed them the loot tables and assured them that nothing was actually gone from their treasure piles, and that kind of pulls any teeth of that threat.
The difference in this case between telling the placers their treasure will be reduced and actually doing it is that you don't need to actually do any work as the DM if you don't change the treasure you dole out.
My guess is that if you say that to them, then they'll believe you without asking for proof. Even if they say something like "what would we have gotten if we hadn't rested?" you can easily be cryptic and say "Well, maybe you'll find out next dungeon. Or maybe it's gone, we'll see."
It's not probably a ton of work to ACTUALLY reduce the treasure you give the party when they rest but actually doing it puts a bad taste in my mouth. I do like the idea of using the players' game-playing nature to accomplish the goal of fewer rests overall though.
We had that issue with the house that was trying to kill us in the Curse of Strahd campaign. We ended up barricading up a room at one point, and it worked, but it felt silly. It's like either we're heroic adventures so give us enough resources to kick ass and take names, or provide a better mechanic to reclaim those resources that isn't sleeping for 8 hours in the middle of a dungeon.
Maybe you take levels of fatigue that slowly start affecting you, but you can push on then rest a few days in town afterwards, or like in 13th age after every few encounters you recharge since you're such epic bad asses. Maybe you get rid of the idea of single use or limited use abilities all together, and the challenge comes from enemy abilities and setting, not just DPS.
Something. It's my biggest gripe with most editions of D&D/Pathfinder. At least Pathfinder had cheesy wand spam.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
This one is my favorite response to use once interrupting their rest gets tedious.
If players are going to hole up somewhere they really shouldn't, then they should make preparations and take care not to get killed in their sleep. Wards, barricades, stealth. Something. Something needs to be done other than "we take a long rest here to get our spells back." Likewise, the bad guys have that much more time to prepare as well. And now they know that the pesky adventurers are coming. Buffs are in place at the start of the encounters. Guard posts are doubled. Sleeping guards are wide awake and alert and that sort of thing. If the players want to have their full resources, then give them plenty of opportunity to use those resources.
I feel like this is the best part. Just make it more EPIC. You want to long rest frequently? Fine, you better be prepared to fight through back to back deadly encounters.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
"Hey We'surd, how many spells you got left in ya'?"
"Three or four."
"Any good ones?"
"Ehh." We'surd oscillates his hand left to right slightly, a common Elvish mannerism meaning 'not really'.
"Guess we'll set camp early then. Lord Doomsev Rewon of the Guild of Deadly Encounters isn't going to smite himself."
"I concur with your course of action, Ser Chekzhis Frendsheets. It appears that last combatant manged to beat you precisely half to death.
If your group takes a nap in a dumb place, punish them. If they take a nap in a risky place, roll to see what happens. If they're smart about the way they do it, reward them with a good rest. If your group is taking a stupid number of long/short rests, then that feels like an encounter problem.
I'm a fighter, specifically I'm a battle master, but that doesn't really affect it. I just cleared 5th level, so i get a 2nd attack. The wording is "At 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when taking an attack action."
So I'm reading that to mean that I take an action to attack, and do two attack rolls. I also assume that to mean that when I use my bonus action class feature which grants me another standard action, If I take another attack action I can attack twice again. This would also apply to if I'm hasted as well. It would NOT apply to opportunity attacks, as they specify a single melee attack.
Mostly this came about because we were attacking some un-armored dudes, and I did my basic attack twice with power attack (whatever its called in 5th ed) and using my bonus action for another attack, ended up hitting all 3 and rolling max damage on two of them. I think I ended up doing 68 damage on my turn.
This was when another play chimed in "Hey, I think on your bonus action when you attacked you should have attacked twice, not once" and after combat we dug into the rules a bit. The DM seemed a bit flabbergasted at my potential damage output, but I figure low levels is when the fighter shines, and I did have to expend a couple expertise dice to make all the hits happen.
I pretty much rolled this character up to be a damage dealer/tank (I also rolled good enough to end up the persuasion face as well). My character is just dumb as a box of rocks. A fair trade I figure.
Edit: WE also just hit level 6, so I'm taking polearm master (I'm already strength 20). As I was reading through the feats I was reading lucky. That feat sounds AMAZING. Especially for a battle master with precision attack. Any chance to roll a better attack roll is something I'm going to take advantage of. I figure my feat for level 8 will be lucky. Should come in realllll handy.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
See, taking the time to barricade yourself into an area is actually something I like as a mechanic, since it shows a level of initiative and creativeness that you simply don't get from
Party: "We long rest"
GM: KK
Like hell: one of my favorite bits in CoS was on day two of the store campaign the party had to decide how to deal with their mangled asses after having been forced to flee from dire wolves; do they camp out in the middle of the road at night or do they keep going and hope to find some place that can offer better shelter? What is the safer choice?
Further, Ravenloft is intended as the "You won't be needing your balls anymore" setting.
Let's get a little rules-lawyery on you here, because there's nothing if not a long pedigree of technicalities and specific wordings going on in this game. I'm going to use a lot of capital letters for extra pedantry, but also to make sure I'm being clear between what's an Attack action and carrying out an attack.
On a turn, you can:
Perform an Action
Move
Bonus Action, if applicable
The Extra Attack feature does not provide a Bonus Action. Instead, what it does is allow you to make two attacks when you perform the Attack action.
Some characters do make attacks as their Bonus Action (example: Monks using Unarmed Strike). But this is not what you are doing! Action Surge (the Fighter ability) is not a Bonus Action! It's an additional action, meaning you can take any standard Action. So if you pick Attack again, you'll get the Extra Attack, but it's not a Bonus Action.
So, yes, if you Attack (with an Extra Attack), then use Action Surge and choose to Attack (with an Extra Attack), you'll have performed four attacks - but your Bonus Action is still available, for use by any ability that might be able to take advantage of your Bonus. A character who is Fighter 5 / Monk 1, for instance, when attacking unarmed or with a monk weapon will be able to Attack (attacking twice), Action Surge for another Attack (attacking twice), and then use his Bonus Action to attack once more (with an unarmed attack) for a total of five attack rolls on their turn.
And now I've typed the word "attack" so much that it's lost all meaning to me and is just a funny shape.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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I think the issue I have though is it isn't a mechanic, it is 100% DM fiat how they want to handle it, I just used the ravenloft encounter as an example, it could be any dungeon.
I agree that players shouldn't be able to get away with a long rest whenever/wherever. I just have an issue with the logic of barricading ones group in hostile territory. It just doesn't make sense thematically unless the dungeon is full of unintelligent creatures. If there are intelligent creatures then they should be able to get into wherever you barricade, and if they can't they should be waiting, traps and weapons ready, for when you exit.
So then you leave the dungeon and go camp somewhere, and that leads to the same thing that if there is a decent force of intelligent creatures left in the dungeon, they would probably hunt your ass down, and it just feels weird fantasy RPG wise to leave a dungeon halfway through or something to go rest.
I guess my beef is the idea that a long rest is the mechanic that restores players, and not something else.
When I really think about it players should have the resources to delve hardcore into a D&D style dungeon and have something like 6 or 8 potentially really hard encounters, not just 2 or 3. That or you get rid of the mook fights and combat is a cinematic thing, and the players only play it out when it really matters.
Again this all boils down to personal opinions on the games I like to play. I'm a big fan of big, important encounters, I really dislike the random encounter mechanics of a lot of games. Fights should be a for a reason besides just wearing down the player resources.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Great names, man
@webguy20, everything he said is right. Action Surge does not require an action at all, and it lets you take another action. The attack action as a level 5 Fighter lets you attack twice. Your bonus action is not affected by any of this.
So at level 5 with a heavy weapon(which you're clearly using if you have the great weapon master feat, your turn looks like this:
Movement (Probably 30 feet)
Action
Bonus action (if you have a feature that grants one)
Your attack action is 2 attacks. If you action surge (does not require any action), you can take another attack action and make 2 more attacks, for a total of 4.
If you crit or down an enemy, you can use your bonus action to make another attack because the feat grants it, or you could use your bonus action to second wind, or even for a battlemaster maneuver that requires it such as commander's strike.
If you have a rogue in your party, commander's strike (use your bonus action plus give up one of your attacks) is often worth it because you can let the rogue get a 2nd sneak attack off in a single round.
As for the flabbergasting, a battlemaster fighter with precision attack and power attack (or sharpshooter if they're the ranged version) will pretty much be the highest consistent DPR in a party, especially if you get short rests regularly, which most groups do because it only takes an hour.
Around level 5 is a big power spike for that kind of build because of the 2nd attack, and because at that level range, there aren't a lot of enemies with very high AC. Not to mention a Fighter's level 6 extra ASI/Feat means that a Fighter might hit 20 STR by level 6, making it even easier to hit.
Yea, we roll our character abilities, and our DM is generous, so I ended up at first level after race bonuses at 18 str, 14dex, 18 con, 8 int, 6 wis and 14 char. Level 4 I bumped up to 20 str, and we actually just got our 6th level, so I picked up polearm master, so now I can use a bonus action to make another attack. So I can possibly attack up to 6 times a round, 2 with my standard, 1 with the bonus If I hit with either, then 2 more with my Action Surge, and 1 more after that with the bonus action it grants as well. It will be insane. I think at level 8 I'm going to take lucky, because anything that gives me more chances to hit with power attack really seems like a good buy.
Damn if I'm hasted I could do up to 8 attacks per round at level 6.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I'm pretty sure you only get one Bonus action per round.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
"Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action"
But between you and some other 5ed forums the consensus is the wording is their to state you don't have to use a bonus action if you don't want to.
Still, up to 7 attacks for an alpha strike if I'm hasted is pretty good. If I hit with all 7 my flat damage modifier (15 per attack) come out to 105 damage. Then add dice on top of that which average out to about 35 total dice damage. not too bad. I hope I can have this situation play out at least once. I'd love to lay down 140 damage in a single turn.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Yup.
The wording on action surge is kind of bad, it says something like "You can take another action, in addition to a possible bonus action."
What it means is that when you action surge, you can take an additional action, on top of your normal action and your regular possible bonus action.
On your turn, based on the build you've described, this is what you can do for attacking:
Attack action - 2 attacks.
Action surge (if available) - 2 more attacks from an extra attack action.
Bonus action - butt end of polearm attack for 1d4+5 damage(though you can also power attack on this one)
No 2nd bonus action regardless of whether you action surge though.
And of course you also get one reaction per round which can be used to attack someone who enters your reach with polearm master.
The head rules guy for 5E has clarified the action surge thing, so it's not just a fiat thing, there is an official ruling. It's really poor wording by them in the first place. I think the reason they worded it that way funny enough was there to clarify that you can't use the action surge to gain an extra bonus action, just a regular action. Because 5E doesn't allow downscaling actions to bonus actions and such, it's a bit fiddly for people to get at first.
Note that Haste gives you an entire extra action every turn, BUT it specifies that if you use it to Attack, you only get to attack a single time (even if you normally would get more, such as for being a 5th level fighter). So your limit is probably
2 (action, Attack) + 2 (Action Surge, Attack) + 1 (bonus action, use Polearm Master etc) + 1 (Haste, Attack) = 6
which is still a shit-ton of attacks.
Okay I'm done now.