D&D Meta Thread

[Wofl]

Yes, a 1 would have been a singular elderly goblin grandmother with a baby, but trust me, they're up to no good! A 20 would have been 1d4 ancient dragons and a hoard of orcs trying to get their treasure but you are in the way. Of course in that case, you'd just wait for them all to pass the same dragon one by one getting slaughtered by the dragon's infinite opportunity attacks. He'd likely miss a few of them, but on the way out he'd get a 2nd chance.

Oh and the archdemon of course.

[Τamamo]

Guess we were lucky then!

So which ballista did the cave troll take? N or S? That's sort of important.
And what DEX do the others have to shoot a wasp out of the sky? She's size class tiny!

Cat isn't fond of great strategies and would just storm in through the gate. But let's be reasonable and decimate them first. If they come outside we hide and strike them.

Uhm, so we're in an encounter now but still off the map except Alice. What do we even have to do to enter the map? Can we follow Alice through the tunnel? Or can we reach the trees? How far would we get?

[Wofl]

The north one.

AC is all that matters, the wasps have low AC probably because they're weak and they don't zip around fast. They would be like hitting something the size of the palm of your hand.

If need be I will extend the map but it's not difficult to picture you're all behind some trees just north of the map.

[Kashtan]

lol Yulya instantly regretted her cant it be monsters instead rant. no idea how we deal with this thing. oh yeah lets play whack-an-Alice with it. hide under the snow pop out and shoot with arrows. if Alice maneges to wound that thing Yulya will cast Toll the Dead and Cat and Ashleys summons will attack simultaneously. for now Alice has to be the bait to lure it to us.

[Wofl]

inb4 she's skewered by a ballista bolt and one-shotted.

[Joy] They will have a fair bit of damage potential.

[Alice]

Can a troll even operate a ballista? Did he take arrows with him as well or is this a one-shot?
inb4 it's maagic

Also he can't hit me if he can't see me in his turn.
pop up-shoot-hide-burrow-pop up somewhere else next turn

[Wofl]

Because turns happen simultaneously in the same 6 seconds, if you fire at him, even if you say pop up, fire, hide, there is a window where he can fire at you on his turn. Otherwise everyone would just carry a tower shield and be perfectly immune all the time from arrows while firing "on their turn."

This rarely comes up but this is a rule of superposition. The only strange bit is if you kill someone or knock them out, who could have shot at you on their turn, but your turn is first, then they can't fire at you as they're dying.

[Τamamo]

I don't agree on this. D&D is a turn based game. You're not supposed to do anything on your enemy's turn except you have an abiliy like a reaction attack or if the enemy moves out of your striking range without disengage. The troll would have to withhold his action on his turn and state he will fire at Alice when she pops out in her turn. But otherwise classes like Monk have an extreme disadvantage to the point pf being unplayable. They live from hit and run and not being hit themselves because they're weak. Move from cover, strike, disengage, move out and hide behind cover. If I can just normally hit such an enemy on my turn what's the point? I could just stay out in the open. Alice is not a fighter who can tank damage. The rules are also explicitly made that she can't use a shield.

Picture the following. A goblin hides behind cover. Cat can't see him, doesn't even know where he is or even that he exists. Like we can't see the troll now.
On his turn the goblin runs out, fires an arrow at Cat and hides behind the corner again. Cat could not have fired at him on her previous turn because she did not even know about the goblin. What was she supposed to post? Only if she expects such an attack she can say 'I lay in wait and if an enemy shows up I fire at him.' This costs an action but must be stated beforehand. Otherwise there is a huge discrepancy between the DM and the players because you know the position of all characters and we do not.

Yes, such hit and run can be extremely annoying but it only works as surprise. At the 3rd attempt the enemy will lay in wait and snipe Alice if she always does the same. But at the first attach he'll be completely taken off-guard.

[Wofl]

I found two things that seem to sway closer to your reasoning but not fully. If you popped out from behind a tree to fire and pop back, similarly to a shield, you would get 3/4 cover on that turn, whereas if you did nothing but look, I would argue you could keep your full cover. If you fully emerge and fire then duck back in and move, you would have to roll stealth to rehide and regain full cover. This covers the superposition I spoke about just like invisibility.

Next I will address this:



In my mind the 6 seconds everyone's shared in parallel not serial. The example again with the hoard of orcs passing the dragon, if 100 orcs race past a dragon, would they each have 1/100th of a second to race past? This is as physically impossible as the dragon having 100 opportunity attacks, so to prevent cheesing I chose what I thought is less cheesy but that's also wrong as Alice would agree. However unless there's some compelling reason to change my mind, that's how I called it, rules or not.

So first of all, snow is visual cover, not solid enough to stop an arrow, if they have line of sight to Alice when she pops up I wouldn't even give her 3/4 cover because it's not physical cover, instead I would roll stealth as she runs off in her tunnel, she would have to move, as since the snow was soft and it's also crunchy under foot, she would need to roll stealth against them detecting her, there's a chance they can perceive her motion and aim true or run after her. I would give them disadvantage because of the weather.

If she's trying to remain stealthy that's still 1/2 speed even on not difficult terrain but if she sends me a tunnel map I will give her 1/2 speed instead of 1/4 speed for that.

>The troll would have to withhold his action on his turn and state he will fire at Alice when she pops out in her turn.

This is correct, he would have to have initiative and allow Alice to go first and that's exactly what could happen after the first time she did that. So it's still very grey as to the order and ability.

>Monk unplayable

Let me think about this more and get back to you.

>Goblin duck-fire-duck

The rules would give him 3/4 cover from attacks. I would argue even if he ran off down a hall you don't have sight of unless he left the map. Otherwise that's a slippery sloap of cheese that could give goblins with their disengage and hide bonus action very difficult to beat. They don't to that because they would have at best 3/4 cover (+5 AC) and have to roll stealth to get full cover.

>hit and run only works as surprise

I would grant her that surprise each turn as long as she passes stealth. I can't give her 3/4 cover under soft snow. I would like to hear from her and get her point of view.

Let's get Alice's opinion and try to compromise here.

Note: "Off-guard" here would translate as advantage on her strikes. If she pops out from hiding, she would get that.

[Alice]

>Joy turning D&D into a real-time strategy game
I understand your intention and I'm always for making the game more realistic and interesting but in this case - just no! It's not gonna work out.

We can't throw turn-based game mechanics completely out of the window like that because it will result in a lot of unresolvable problems and unbalance things. Yet we sort of have to, because we're not sitting on a table but post independently and out of order on the internet so you have to work out an order.  I'm the last to carve out cheesy advantages for me, I play Monk not because it is easy but because it is hard. But there's a line between hard and impossible.

Tamamo said it, the Monk relies on not being hit. Not having a lower chance of being hit or striking first, but to not being able to be targeted by most enemies at all as long as cover is available. I'm Ashley-tier weak, cannot use a shield and even average enemies can one-shot me. I can't afford getting struck, neither ranged, nor in melee. My character is already one of the hardest classes to play and relies on a well-balanced game and careful planning of every step I make so I don't end up in a position where I can get hit. If every enemy can just shoot or strike me in my own turn while I race by, we can call it quits. Then I'm just a very bad melee class / clay pigeon.

So let's look at Vanilla rules, OK?
There's the 'Ready' action for that. You can ready an attack in your turn and release it in ours upon a trigger. But that needs to be declared beforehand on your turn. Also per the rules, a creature can only Ready an attack if it is aware of the trigger (me). You cannot just run around and then shoot at anyone that pops up on their turn. According to Vanilla Rules, No, you cannot attack a monk that pops up, strikes you ranged and hides behind cover again. You also cannot hit back if I enter close combat, strike you, disengage and move away. Monk attacks work by slowly chipping away HP from a far stronger enemy without taking damage. Per your rules this doesn't work because even if I attack first I will just get rekt by the inevitable counterattack. That is why I have the bonus actions and high movement speed to counter for my weak attacks and abysmal AC. Otherwise my survivability in combat is near-zero. I'm not a fighter or Barbarian who can tank damage.

So according to Vanilla, the troll can't shoot me if I pop up from the snow, shoot or strike him, dive back into the snow, burrow away or stay in place and hide as a bonus action (Stealth check). Because he doesn't know where I am in his turn. To do this, you have to make it clear he has readied an attack before it's my turn and he can't attack in his turn.

Regardless of cover, I'm under the snow and should count as Hidden because the enemy doesn't know I'm there or where I am.  Hidden means:  “Your opponent either doesn’t know that you are there, doesn’t pay any attention to you, or doesn’t know where exactly you are located” I should also have Surprise when I pop up the first time. So no trolls shooting me with fucking ballistas on sight.

And again Tamamo's right, such a hit and run strategy only saves you first time and from very dumb enemies. Then they can ready an attack and get you on your turn. But that must be stated beforehand. A hidden enemy also can't ready an attack. He has Surprise instead. I spent an hour looking into the rules and in's clearly stated that both players and the DM must make a Ready action clear beforehand and state what exactly triggers the action.

It's annoyingly complicated, I agree the Troll could anticipate or hear where I am burrowing and shoot me through the snow in his turn but there must be some heavy penalty because he can't see me and has to guess my location. I'd say that requires high WIS.
I don't really agree on the whole cover and stealth thing. The two things should be independent.
Hard cover is hard cover. Whether the enemy knows exactly where you are or not. I would also simplify shields in this regard.

Stealth and hiding provides cover where there are no physical barriers like the snow. You shoot from darkness, the enemy knows where you are. You have to move and re-hide or you lose the hidden condition. I've read that popping up and shooting an enemy should not give you advantage though, this applies if you sneak up an unexpecting enemy from behind. If the enemy sees you pop up, no advantage.

I have no idea how to reconcile all this with 'everything happens simultaneously' without completely redesigning the game. Realism is one thing but D&D isn't realistic. Under realistic conditions, 'heroes' no matter how strong would easily be overwhelmed by hordes of monsters.

I'm generally not happy with constantly learning what parts of your game completely differ from Vanilla. It makes planning ahead very hard. But we'll work it out. No need to rush things. Let's take a step back and clarify rules before we enter combat and things end in total confusion.

TL;DR
Every day we stray further from God Vanilla Rules

[Kashtan]

oof i cant say more than pls keep things simple

Yulya just noted she can cast SHIELD OF FAITH on Alice to boost her AC from 13 to 15. for WARDING BOND we gotta buy the 100gp rings before we engage that dragon.
im not sure if Alice is the right target right now if she can evade. Cat will take all the damage so maybe she should cast shield on Cat?

[Wofl]

>You can ready an attack in your turn and release it in ours upon a trigger.

>but that must be stated beforehand

An enemy then just needs to either give up initiative or one turn exposed to target you. Then we're back to how I was already handling it.

If you have no target, then you aren't going to do anything but ready your attack to anything that you see.

Granted if something pops up that you didn't expect, then you can be caught off guard. I would argue however that if something pops up right in front of you in plain sight then you take the shot too (assuming you were already looking for a target. For melee this is a parry action. It's once again simultaneous in essence because like the sentinal feat you can attack as a reaction to something, and even if they attack, since you were ready for it, and you had initiative then you can fire first even. In this case I would have to wonder who fires first but unless one of you is near death then it wouldn't matter.

Furthermore you trade either initiative or your last turn to do this and you're now in sync or lag step so from that point forward you are always going to be ready to strike something that's otherwise hiding if it pops up in your field of view. Of course if you pop up behind them or somewhere out of their field of view you regain advantage and they potentially didn't get their reaction. I am not sure if they would at this point.

I argue we're not gaining anything because instead of that formality I'd give you surprise on your turn if you are coming out of hiding regardless if it's in plain sight.

>No, you cannot attack a monk that pops up, strikes you ranged and hides behind cover again. 

I would give this to you if you pass stealth in the hide action. Though even an enemy who's blind has a chance to find you. They would have disadvantage on attack and may "guess incorrectly" and attacking an empty spot would autofail.

>vanilla

I defer in most cases to this but I may take obvious shortcuts. I think based on your statement and Tamamuwu that you will have surprise and you must pass stealth check to avoid being immediately targeted the first time and if the enemy does hold off on their turn to wait for targets then you will be vulnerable on popping up but I'd give them disadvantage if they don't correctly anticipate where and they wouldn't react if you pop up where they're not looking.

I will not necessarily count soft snow as equivalent to hard cover.

So your strategy will be effective if you successfully hide and marginally advantageous otherwise. In the cases where you don't successfully hide then standing with 3/4 cover behind a tree is much better.

The realism helps ground the gameplay, I respect and admire the vanilla rules unless they're just silly.

So before we continue, please let me know if I understood this correctly.

As far as explicitly stating intent to fire, that's not going to happen, but they will follow the mechanic of either giving up their initiative or holding off until "after" your turn and of course that would be counted as a reaction trigger which is effectively superimposed.

What you all gained from this conversation is guaranteed initiative IFF they're not doing the same exact game.

Now take into consideration if they all duck behind the palisades and you duck behind trees, other than Yulya's spell which ignores cover, you are both on equal footing again, trying to pot shot each other equally, this is effectively 3/4 cover for each of you assuming none of you hide. The advantage then for what you're doing is hiding and moving in your tunnels.

This is a better understanding than I had before but it's effectively equivalent to what I was already thinking. If the troll tramples out in the open, he would not get cover.

I'll think a little more about if snow can be counted as 3/4 cover, I was strictly against it earlier but now I am seriously considering it as you will effectively be dodging out of sight.

I'll think on this more after your response. I would once again always defer to rule #1, the game must be fun. So I will wait for this negotiation to come to an agreement.

What I want is: am I on the same page yet or is there something more you want?

[Wofl]

Because turns happen simultaneously in the same 6 seconds, if you fire at him, even if you say pop up, fire, hide, there is a window where he can fire at you on his turn. Otherwise everyone would just carry a tower shield and be perfectly immune all the time from arrows while firing "on their turn."

This rarely comes up but this is a rule of superposition. The only strange bit is if you kill someone or knock them out, who could have shot at you on their turn, but your turn is first, then they can't fire at you as they're dying.

I feel like I need to revise this with our new understanding.

All turns happen in 6 seconds. I don't want to say you have less than that split between all enemies and you. It's not absolutely serial.

If you manage to hide, then no, they will not be able to target you effectively, though you can still be shot at. You need to know or guess at their location and have disadvantage, so enemies typically won't unless they don't have anything to lose.

Shields and cover count as 3/4 (+5AC) unless you are hidden.

If you successfully hide and run away, their chances of guessing where you are is zero. I will give them a roll within 1 square of where you last were so effectively they won't hit you. (I want to say there's always a chance but I'm biting Bear's tongue hard.)

Reactions occur after the action, so you would get first hit if you popped up, potentially downing them before they can attack unless otherwise specified.

Is there anything else I'm missing?

[Alice]

I'll think about this tomorrow, gotta sleep now. It'll work out somehow.

[Wofl]

Some people like to save a boss battle for the end, but I say, why wait?