Category Archives: D&D fifth edition

My first impression of inspiration proved wrong

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In an earlier post, I leveled criticism toward the inspiration mechanic based on Mike Mearls’s preview in “Roleplaying in D&D Next.” I listed two gripes:

  • Awarding inspiration seemed to put the dungeon master in an uncomfortable role. Mearls wrote about awarding inspiration for “describing your action in an interesting way, acting out your character’s dialogue, or otherwise helping to bring the game to life by adding some panache to your play.” All this made inspiration seem like an award for showmanship. As a DM, I have enough to do without adopting the role of some sort of competition judge who rates players’ panache.
  • Inspiration seemed like a distracting, metagame intrusion. The preview suggested  inspiration would be awarded frequently, and said it faded quickly (no longer true). This painted inspiration as a common distraction. You could spend inspiration, bank for later, or pass on to another player (still true). This painted inspiration as a gamey resource that represented nothing in the game world. Such dissociated mechanics force attention away from the characters’ world and prevent players from making choices while immersed in character.

When I read the actual rules, I realized that the inspiration mechanic revives action points, a mechanic I have enjoyed. My harsh judgements were wrong. The preview mislead me, and the sun got in my eyes.

Inspiration is exactly like action points, except (1) with a different name, (2) with a different purpose, and (3) without points. Perhaps I should explain.

The action point entered the D&D game in the Eberron Campaign Setting as a bit of genre emulation. According to the campaign guide, “The setting combines traditional medieval D&D fantasy with swashbuckling action and dark adventure.

“To help capture the cinematic nature of the swordplay and spellcasting, we’re added action points to the rules mix. This spendable, limited resource allows players to alter the outcome of dramatic situations and have their characters accomplish the seemingly impossible.” (p.9)

Characters in Eberron started with a bank of 5 action point that they could spend to kick d20 rolls with an extra d6. In theory, this meager bonus enables characters to accomplish the impossible. In practice, it adds a resource that forces players out of character.

The fourth-edition designers chose to keep action points, but they no longer needed to emulate Indiana Jones in D&D. In 4E, action points became an incentive aimed at discouraging the 15-minute adventuring day. Presumably, players would look ahead to a fresh action points and decide to press on to their next encounter, rather than resting to regain powers, hit points, and, well, action points. To sweeten the incentive, and to keep “action” in the name, action points now granted an extra action.

While action points failed to quash the 15-minute day, they proved fun for players. The additional action provides a more precious benefit than a mere d6 boost. They remain a gamey resource that you cannot manage while immersed in character. But with a mechanic as innocuous as action points, the drawback seems light enough. You need not step out of character for long.

Many aspects of the fourth edition design brought unintended consequences. For example, the fourth-edition design suffered from the unintended consequence of costing most of its designers and planners their jobs at Wizards of the Coast. (Too soon?)

Fourth-edition action points often turned climactic encounters into one turn of nova attacks followed by slow grinds against crippled enemies. This came because action points allowed characters to double their opening salvos of daily and encounter powers, multiplying the potency of their first turns. By the time a guy like Juiblex, demon lord of slimes and oozes, gets a chance to act, he’s prone, immobilized, dazed, suffering -4 to all attacks, and has his pants around his ankles. (In fourth edition, even oozes are subject to the pants-round-ankles condition.) See “As a player, I enjoy action points, so why do I dislike them as a dungeon master?”

So fifth edition scrapped action points.

Meanwhile, the 5E designers worked to improve the role-playing pillar of D&D. They started by inviting players to flesh out characters with a bond and a flaw. “Your bonds are your character’s ties to the world, people, places, or things that are meaningful to your character in some way,” Mearls previewed. “Your flaws are your character’s weaknesses.”

Neither bonds nor flaws count as new to role playing. In games like Champions (1981) and GURPS (1986), you can give your characters flaws and bonds too. Adopting such disadvantages buys points that you can use to strengthen your character in other ways.

The 5E designers may have considered character-creation rewards for bonds and flaws, but once you reap any character-creation benefits, nothing in play encourages you to hold to your liabilities. So instead of adding incentives to character creation, they added an incentive to bring bonds and flaws into play.

In a Ready, Set, Play seminar, Designer Rodney Thompson explained, “Whenever you allow your flaw or your bond to impact your character negatively, maybe by making a decision that isn’t so great for the party but totally is in keeping with your characters flaw, the dungeon master can award you inspiration. And basically this is a reward that the DM can give you to say, hey, you have roleplayed out your character’s flaw even though it may not have been the best and most optimal decision. Here’s your reward in the form of inspiration.”

Although Mike Mearls may award inspiration for panache, I feel more comfortable for Rodney Thompson’s more objective standard. If following your character’s weaknesses drives you into a worse situation, then you gain inspiration. I can spot those situations and feel good about rewarding them.

Accolade by Edmund Blair Leighton

Inspiration shares a lot with action points. Like the Eberron points, players trade inspiration to boost a die roll. Like the 4E points, inspiration bribes players to do things that improve play. Since inspiration neither supports “swashbuckling action” nor grants additional actions, the “action” had to go.

The term “points” goes too. Unlike action points, inspiration doesn’t come in points. Inspiration works more like a status; your character can have the inspired status or not. Once you spend your inspiration, you have to earn it again. The terminology helps show that your character cannot have more than one inspiration to spend.

As a status, inspiration even gains a gloss of game-world association. Mearls wrote, “By demonstrating that the events in the game are critical to your character’s goals and beliefs, you can allow your character to tap into reserves of energy and determination to carry the day.” By acting true to themselves, characters become inspired without a word from the bard. Mearls even explained how a transfer of inspiration could work in the game world. “In this case, your character’s determination serves as an inspiration for the other party members.”

Only one problem remains. When a character’s flaws drive a player to make suboptimal decisions, the player gains inspiration. But D&D works as a game of teamwork. Often the rest of the party suffers for one character’s bad choice. Sometimes, only the rest of the party suffers. See “Why second-edition Dungeons & Dragons dropped thieves and assassins.”

I’ve seen no end to problems created by players who make choices that cause grief for the other players. “Because that’s what my character would do,” they explain. I hate hearing “that’s what my character would do” as a form of apology. No one explains what their character would do when they don’t screw the party. As a game master, I feel no urge to reward grief with an incentive.

The D&D designers thought of this aspect too. Rodney Thompson explains, “Maybe you did something that the other players at the table weren’t super thrilled about, but you can give them that inspiration as a way of saying sorry.”

The next time I reward inspiration for a choice that caused trouble for the party, I will ask the player to pass the inspiration to another player for a key roll.

As a player, how can you gain the most from inspiration? I suggest saving inspiration for critical saving throws against things like the dragon’s breath or the lich’s disintegrate spell. Also, remember that a single advantage from inspiration can cancel any number of disadvantages, so use inspiration when the odds are stacked against you.

How cover and tool proficiency reveal choices in fifth-edition design

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In order to create a simpler, more elegant, version of Dungeons & Dragons, the designers eliminated most of the situational modifiers that appeared in earlier editions. See “How D&D Next moves toward a simpler core game.” While these modifiers appealed to players who favored simulation, they slowed play and were often forgotten. Besides, simulation has never been D&D’s strength.

Combat modifiers in edition 3.5

Combat modifiers in edition 3.5

In fifth edition, when someone gains an edge, they gain advantage. When someone suffers a handicap, they suffer disadvantage. Most of the rarely-meaningful and frequently-forgotten pluses and minuses disappear.

But as the designers worked to purge situational modifiers, D&D, thieves tools presented a problem. In earlier editions, Rogues used thieves’ tools because they granted a +2 bonus thievery checks. But this new design had no room for that +2 bonus. Still, thieves’ tools have appeared in equipment lists since the early days. I’m certain the designers felt compelled to keep the tools in the game. But without a bonus, why should a rogue bother spending for the toolkit?

The designers arrived at an ingenious solution: tool proficiencies. By making the use of thieves’ tools a proficiency rather a skill, rogues still need to buy the tools to pick locks and disable traps.

When the designers worked so hard to eliminate the +2 for tool use, why did they bother preserving the +2 and +5 bonuses to AC gained by cover? These bonuses stand as virtually the only situational modifiers in the game. Why not just give disadvantage to someone attacking a target behind cover?

The modifiers remain because they combine with disadvantage. Multiple instances of disadvantage do not stack. If you suffer disadvantage from two sources you still only have one disadvantage. So if an archer suffered disadvantage because she targeted someone behind cover, and if she also suffered disadvantage from long range, she would still only suffer one disadvantage. The fifth-edition designers favored simplicity over simulation, but they weren’t ready to make hitting someone behind cover at long range exactly as hard as hitting someone just at long range.

Dungeon masters: Why your players might not love theater of the mind as much as you do

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Before the introduction of third edition Dungeons & Dragons in 2000, virtually everyone played the game in the theater of the mind—without battle maps, miniatures, or other markers. In an effort to focus on imagination and roleplay, the fifth-edition designers created a new game that welcomes that old style of play.

an overcorrection?

An overcorrection

In the run-up to Gen Con, in the group where  judges discussed the upcoming event, many of the judges touted how their masterly use of the theater of the mind eliminated their need for battle maps. When performed by a skilled dungeon master, theater of the mind apparently allows a DM to speed play and work without the burden of tokens and battle maps. Players can exercise their imagination and enjoy a game unencumbered by counting squares.

Perhaps.

Shadows Over the Moonsea at Gen Con 2014

Shadows Over the Moonsea at Gen Con 2014

Theater of the mind is a tool just like a battle map. Even though I strongly prefer running fights on battle maps, if the players just want to eliminate a sentry, I run theater of the mind. But if you boast that you’re so awesome at running theater of the mind that you never need a map, I think of a carpenter boasting that he doesn’t need a saw because he is so awesome at hammering.

After the convention, in reviewing the players’ feedback forms, judge coordinator Dave Christ surmised that some judges who favored theater of the mind may have suffered lower feedback scores because they ran games for players who dislike the technique.

In short, some judges favored theater of the mind, but overestimated how much their players shared their affection for the technique.

So why do some dungeon masters love theater of the mind?

The preference begins with an urge for easy preparation and fast play. The dungeon master doesn’t need to prepare maps or gather miniatures. For a DM, less preparation leads to more flexibility. Unlike the drudge working with tiles and minis, theater-of-the-mind dungeon masters have no stake in where players go because they paint entirely with words. And then when a fight starts, theater of the mind avoids pausing to set up. You don’t have to draw or lay out a map or place figures. In an elementary fight, players can operate faster too. No one needs to count squares of move figures.

Also, theater of the mind grants the dungeon master an extra measure of control over the game. I’m sure this urge to control comes from a good place. Theater-of-the-mind DMs want to tell stories. They want to say yes. On the battle map, everyone can see that a jump from the balcony to the dragon’s back spans 50 feet, but in the theater of the mind, only the DM knows. “Well sure, that’s a cool stunt. You jump to the dragon’s back.” These dungeon masters don’t want their creative wings clipped by the mundane battle map. It’s all about telling stories, right?

Plus, theater of the mind makes writing adventures easier. Often an adventure’s author can avoid drawing maps and let the dungeon master improvise. Where fourth-edition adventures included maps of encounter areas, fifth-edition adventures often just include a list of creatures.

So why might your players love theater of the mind less than you do?

Wait, what? I know you explain every scene so vividly that no one misunderstands, but in some games—not yours—players struggle to grasp every nuance of the DM’s mental picture. In these games, the fighter charges to engage the beholder, and then the DM explains, again, that the creature floats 20 feet above the battlefield, on the far side of a deep crevasse. Now the frustrated player must rethink her turn.

What’s happening again? I know your players pay rapt attention every moment, even during the other players turns, but in some games—not yours—players may let their attention lapse. In public play, I’m lucky if the players can hear everything. And the battlefield situation changes with each turn, so dungeon masters wind up explaining the situation over and over.

Mother may I? Players enjoy feeling like they have direct and complete control over their characters. They want their available actions revealed before them. They want the potential outcomes of their actions to be predictable, something I call resolution transparency.

Some players even have less interest in seeing their characters featured in the DM’s story than in tackling the challenges of the game world. If a story happens to emerge, all the better.

These players want to play D&D, not some version of Mother May I where they have to ask if their proposed actions match up with a map locked in the DM’s head. “If I use my lightning bolt, how many gnolls can I hit?” “How far do I have to jump to cross the crevasse?” “Can I reach the cultist without provoking?”

In theater of the mind, these players cannot plan their turns in advance because so many options require the DM’s consultation and approval. The dungeon master’s attention becomes a bigger bottleneck. As the dungeon master keeps describing the evolving battlefield and answering questions about what players can do, playing a round of combat without a map takes longer.  In an angry rant on theater of the mind, the Angry DM gives some advice on running without a map. “Be repetitive, repeat yourself, and use repetition.” Good advice, but the repetition shrinks the time saved by skipping the map. Eventually, time saved in setup gets lost. Fights over a certain size take longer to resolve in theater of the mind.

Of course, not all players enjoy the details of combat. To make theater of the mind work, Angry DM advises, “Don’t force the players to be too specific about the targets they are firing at and don’t keep too much track of which target has how many hit points. Just keep a vague idea of things. Then, apply attacks and damage to the places that make the most logical sense for the combatants.” This advice plays well if your gaming group cares little for detail because they see combat encounters as a means to reveal character or advance the story, rather than as a tactical challenge.

Theater of the mind could be the perfect match for your group, but DMs must avoid assuming your players share your love.

Way back in “Battle maps take over Dungeons & Dragons,” I describe how the introduction of third edition brought a quick and overwhelming switch from theater of the mind to battle maps. The third edition rules continued to support theater of the mind, but they now supported maps better than past editions. For most players, the introduction of combat on maps provided a revelation. For all but the simplest encounters, maps provide a better play experience.

Revisiting three corners of the new D&D rules

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In two posts, I answered some common rules questions about fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons from dungeon masters and players. I added some extra comments on the answers because that’s what I do here.

Reaching 0 hit points, as shown in my DM screen

Rules for reaching 0 hit points, as shown on my DM screen

Since posting my answers, more game play has sparked some new observations.

What spells can I cast? As I introduced players to the game, the what-spells-can-I-cast question was asked a lot. I struggled to find a concise explanation until I arrived at this metaphor: The spells you prepare become the menu of spells that you can order from through the day. Your spell slots tell how many items you can order from the menu. If you really like Magic Missile, and you have it on your menu of prepared spells, order as many as you like until you reach your limit of slots.

How do opportunity attacks work? You only provoke opportunity attacks when you move out of an enemy’s melee reach. This change seems minor, but it alters tactics.  Your front line becomes less sticky than in earlier editions. Concentrating attacks becomes easier as characters in a party’s middle ranks grow more vulnerable. An attacker can circle your tank and potentially attack the wizard in the next row without provoking any opportunity attacks.

Can I delay? No. Back in my year-old post of D&D next questions and answers, I commented on the lack of a delay action in the rules. I even asked Mike Mearls about the absence and he thought the lack might even be an oversight—the product of playtest rules in flux. I predicted that the delay action would return to the final rules. I was wrong; delay is gone. For a while, I puzzled over the omission, but then a player at my table got paralyzed by a Hold Person spell, and the designers’ motives became obvious.

Delay may seem trivial, but the ability to delay forces the game to add rules for how delay interacts with effects that end during a player’s turn. On several occasions, I’ve seen fourth-edition players try to salvage their turn by asking if they can delay until, say, a stunned condition lifts. Fourth prohibited such shenanigans by including rules for how delay interacts with conditions that continue to end of turn.

Fifth edition potentially added another layer of complexity by adding concentration. For example, Hold Person requires concentration. This means that someone held can potentially delay, saving their turn and hoping that their allies can break the caster’s concentration. By removing delay, 5E prevents such tricks and eliminates some complicated rules.

Two D&D questions I could have answered if I had known where to look

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In “Five ways to create more usable game books,” I piled a heap of criticism on the usability of Wizards of the Coast game books. I singled out the index in the fourth-edition Player’s Handbook for particular scorn.

Lost Mine of Phandelver

Lost Mine of Phandelver

The fifth-edition Player’s Handbook’s index takes 4 pages, 1.6% of the book’s total page count, way more than the 0.3% the last edition devoted to an index. Plus, the index crams a lot of entries into 5-columns of microscopic type. The index qualifies as best to ever appear in a Player’s Handbook. By a real-world measure, it rates as decent.

I have used the new index and have found most of the information I sought, but not everything.

This brings me to two questions that I could have answered if I had known where to look in the rules.

  • A character can make a DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check to stabilize a dying ally. While the Medicine skill (p.178) lists this possible action, the actual DC appears in the combat action for stabilizing a creature (p.197). If you spend a measly 5 gp on a Healer’s Kit, you can stabilize 10 creatures without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check, which makes the guy who chose proficiency in Medicine feel like a chump.
  • Drinking or administering a potion requires an action. This appears in the equipment listing for the healing potion (p.153) rather than in any of the descriptions of actions in combat.

Thanks to Tom and Rodney for telling me (politely) to RTFM, because the answers really were in there. (Kids, RTFM stands for read the friendly manual.)

9 more fifth-edition D&D rules questions answered by the designers

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Just like at last year’s Gen Con, two Dungeons & Dragons designers came to the dungeon masters’ meeting and spent a few minutes answering rules questions from the gathered DMs. Later in the convention, I intercepted designer Rodney Thompson and got answers more questions.

Dungeons & Dragons at Gen Con 2014This list collects the designers’ answers.

  • The fighter’s dueling style, which grants a +2 to damage, works with a shield in the off hand.
  • A divine focus can be emblazoned on a cleric’s shield, enabling the cleric to wield a weapon in the other hand and still cast spells. A wizard can hold an arcane focus in one hand and a weapon in another and still cast spells. A druid must hold mistletoe as an arcane focus, so druids must either stash their shield or their weapon to cast.
  • Moving through the space of an ally, even a prone ally, counts as difficult terrain.

    As a simulation, making an ally’s space count as difficult terrain makes sense, but this rule did not exist in earlier editions. The fifth-edition designers aimed to make the game streamlined, so why introduce this new complication? The designers made allies count as difficult terrain to deal with the side effects of allowing characters to move, attack, and then use their remaining movement. The rule limits the implausible situation where characters move to the front of a line of allies to make an attack, and then move to the back of the line, all in the same turn.

    We all understand that turns serve as an abstraction to make the game playable, and in the game world, most of the action in a round all occurs simultaneously. Allowing each member of the party to squeeze up, make an attack, then retreat to the back, leaving the tank in front to face the enemy’s attack, exposes a certain absurdity in the abstraction.

    Apparently, an enemy’s single opportunity attack fails to do enough to discourage the batter-up attack queue.

  • You cannot hide from a creature that can see you. Aside from that limitation, the DM must rule on when a creature can hide and sneak based on what makes sense in the game world. See “D&D next re-empowers DMs; players stay empowered.” The designers tried to write broad rules for stealth, but found that the number of possibilities made the rules too cumbersome for the elegant game they aimed to create.
  • Initiative rolls count as a Dexterity check, so anything that boosts Dexterity checks improves initiative.
  • Multi-classed characters only gain ability score increases when they reach the benefit levels in one of their classes. Although classes gain an ability score increase at fourth level, a character multi-classed to level 2 in two classes does not gain an ability score increase.
  • The missiles in a Magic Missile strike simultaneously. This means the strikes count as a single source of damage for things like resistance and that 3 magic missiles striking a character at 0 HP does not count as 3 failed death saves. Your wizard must decide which missiles will hit which targets before you start tallying damage.
  • If an opportunity attack or other reaction drops you prone as you move, you can still use your remaining movement to crawl or stand. The usual movement costs apply.
  • Spells that include an attack roll can score a critical hit.

    At one of my Gen Con tables, a cultist scored a critical hit with an Inflict Wounds spell, dealing 6d10 damage on an unlucky first-level character. The target dropped dead. Although my reading of the rules led me to think that spells can score criticals, I failed to find any clear confirmation. After the session, I asked another judge if spells with attack rolls can crit, and he told me that they could not. I felt awful that my misreading of the rules might have led to a character’s death, so I sought out a designer and managed to corner Rodney Thompson. His answer: spells with attack rolls can crit. What a relief. As I wrote in “Rolling in a box,” I want any character deaths to come from foolish characters and crit-rolling dice, not from my failure to apply the rules.

    The moral: Do not get close to spellcasting cultists. Even without a critical hit, the 3d10 damage from Inflict Wounds puts the spell in line with the damage potential of other first-level spells, although the concentration of damage on a single target makes it particularly deadly.

When D&D art put concerned parents ahead of players

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In an interview for Mary Sue, Dungeons & Dragons lead designer Mike Mearls spoke about broadening the appeal of the game beyond its traditionally male audience through graphic design and art direction. “Very early on, we decided that we were going to avoid bare midriffs, cleavage, and other common gaming tropes. We only use those if a specific character would actually dress that way.” Illustrations in the Starter Set feature nearly equal numbers of male and female adventurers. (I cannot be certain of the dragon’s gender.) I hope the art inspires a wider variety of folks play D&D. Although I fall in the game’s old demographic, when I page through the D&D Starter Set, the pictures make me want to play D&D.

2014: For any fan of fantasy

2014 Starter Set: Art for any fan of fantasy

Back in 1989, TSR hobbies also introduced a new edition of the game. Then the art designers faced a different set of problems and got less-favorable results.

1989: nothing to concern mom

1989 Player’s Handbook: Nothing to concern mom

I remember paging through my new copy of the 1989, second-edition Players Handbook and seeing no pictures that made me want to play D&D. Quite the opposite, for the first time, D&D didn’t look like much fun. Instead of fearsome dragons, I saw adventurers posing beside a dead dragon barely larger than a turkey. Instead of dungeons, I saw no dungeons. The pictures featured

  • people laughing in taverns over cups that must have contained cold milk or cider
  • good-natured magicians who look like the sort whose spells always go comically awry
  • potential Disney princesses, but wearing less taffeta
  • gnomes from grandma’s garden

Much of the art looked like clipart swiped from a century-old history text now in the public domain. The art seemed calculated to feel safe and familiar to God-fearing folks whose experience with fantasy ended with Fantasyland and an anglicized version of the Arabian nights. While the art showed great technical proficiency, it seemed dull and uninspired. This was the opposite of Erol Otus. I felt ready to beg for a tentacled beast or three-headed, three-armed hermaphrodite.

1980: for wargamers only

1980 Dragon magazine: For adult, male wargamers only

So how did did second edition come to feature such uninspiring art? The edition came in the wake of controversy over whether the game lead players to witchcraft, Satanism, suicide, and even murder. Remember that this is also the edition that replaced demons and devils with the less-threatening tanar’ri and baatezu. I suspect that the art in those second-edition core books was commissioned less to inspire potential players, and more to calm parents, teachers, and ministers. So rather than art that drew inspiration from Moorcock, Lovecraft, and Howard, we got art that drew from from Disney, the Arabian Nights, and Camelot.

Top 3 rules questions from Dungeons & Dragons fifth-edition dungeon masters

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Just under a year ago, I posted the Top 3 rules questions from Dungeons & Dragons Next dungeon masters based on questions dungeon masters at Gen Con asked a panel of designers about the Dungeon & Dragons Next rules. With Next now available as the official fifth-edition rules, some of the answers change. This post re-answers the top 3 questions DMs asked.

escape from the demon

1. What happens when a character is reduced to 0 hit points?

“When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.”

Notice that this rule avoids any talk of negative numbers. In fifth edition, negative hit points no longer exist.

Once you reach 0 hit points, you fall unconscious and must spend your turns making death saving throws. Unlike in the playtest, this is not a Constitution check, but a flat d20 roll. If you roll 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise you fail.

  • If you fail three saves, you die.
  • If you succeed at three saves, you stabilize at 0 hit points and stop making saves.
  • The saves do not offset each other, so if you have two successes and two failures, you lie poised between life and death.
  • Anything that damages you while you have 0 hit points counts as a failed death save and, if you were stable, destabilizes you, restarting once-a-turn death saves from 0 successes and the 1 new failure. If the damage comes from a critical hit, you suffer two failures. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you die.
  • A natural 20 on a save lifts you to 1 hit point.
  • A natural 1 on a save counts as two failed saves.

Fifth edition skips rules for a coupe de grace. If you want to finish an unconscious creature, you gain advantage and attacks from within 5 feet count as criticals when they hit, all as part of the Unconscious condition.

This system dispenses with the complexity of running totals of negative hit points and lets characters heal from 0, as in fourth edition. Short of massive damage, this makes characters hard to kill.

2. Can players delay?

No. Unlike earlier editions, the initiative order remains constant through a battle. If you want to hold your action, you must ready it.

3. How does readying an action work?

You can still set aside an action to trigger in response to an event, but many details work differently.

  • You take your readied action after the trigger occurs.
  • You remain at the same place in the initiative order.
  • The readied action replaces the one reaction you can use per turn. After you ready an action, you can still choose to use your reaction to do something like take an opportunity attack instead, but you may no longer take your readied action. Also, once you use your readied action, you no longer have a reaction available for things like opportunity attacks.
  • When you hold a spell ready, you must cast the spell and then concentrate on holding its effects.

Holding a spell leads to some additional complications:

  • When you choose to ready a spell, you cast it, so you spend the spell slot whether you wind up finishing the spell or letting its energy dissipate.
  • Because you can only concentrate on one spell at a time, you cannot ready a spell and maintain another.
  • While you hold a spell as a readied action, anything that can break concentration can foil your readied spell. For example, if you take damage, you must make a Constitution saving throw to keep the spell ready. The DC equals 10 or half the damage suffered, whichever is higher.
  • Presumably, you could cast a spell and hold it ready across multiple rounds, for as long as you take no other actions and can maintain concentration

The fifth edition lacks rules for disrupting spell casters, so don’t bother readying an attack to interrupt a casting.

Update: A spellcaster can hold a ready spell across multiple turns. If my ruling alone seems insufficient, look to designer Jeremy Crawford.holding a spell as a ready actio

Top 5 rules questions from new Dungeons & Dragons fifth-edition players

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Just under a year ago, I posted a Q&A based on questions players at Gen Con asked about the Dungeon & Dragons Next rules. With Next now available as the official fifth-edition rules, some of the answers change. This post re-answers the top 4 questions players asked about the D&D fifth-edition rules, and then adds a bonus answer.

Murder In Baldur’s Gate launch at Gen Con 2013

Murder In Baldur’s Gate launch at Gen Con 2013

1. Are there opportunity attacks?

Yes, but you only provoke opportunity attacks when you leave a creature’s melee reach. This means you can circle an enemy without provoking so long as you stay within the enemy’s reach. If a creature’s reach exceeds 5 feet, then you can even move 5 feet away without provoking.

If you want to leave a enemy’s reach without provoking, use the disengage action. The disengage action does not include any movement, so it does nothing by itself, but after you disengage, you can move without provoking opportunity attacks for the rest of your turn. Because disengaging takes your action, you cannot disengage and also attack or cast a spell.

You only get one reaction per round, so you only get one opportunity attack per round. Due to this limit, and because disengage allows you to move past multiple enemies without provoking, 5E makes fleeing combat less murderous than earlier editions. I love this change. If players find themselves overmatched by a fight, they can run without a gantlet of attacks. Monsters can also run, so monsters can rout and the game can move on without a ritual of endless opportunity attacks.

You can freely cast spells and use ranged weapons without provoking. However, if you make a ranged attack with a weapon or spell while a hostile creature stands next to you, you suffer disadvantage on the attack roll. If you cast a spell that does not include an attack roll—even one that forces saving throws—you can cast without any handicap.

2. Is there flanking?

No, but rogues can Sneak Attack when an ally stands next to their target. A rogue using Sneak Attack this way does not gain advantage, just the extra damage on a hit.

D&D tzar Mike Mearls explained that some players find flanking difficult to grasp—not so much with figures that occupy a single square, but with large figures where flanking positions aren’t completely obvious. We may see flanking, and possibly facing, in tactical combat rules.

3. What spells can I cast?

In the basic rules, wizards and clerics share similar rules for preparing and casting spells. Eventually, other classes may follow different procedures.

Both wizards and clerics know a certain number of 0-level spells, also known as cantrips. They can cast their cantrips at-will, as often as they like.

Level 1 and higher spells require preparation. Wizards and clerics prepare a certain number of spells for their day. The number of spells you can prepare equals your spellcasting ability modifier plus your level.

spells you can prepare = spellcasting ability modifier + level

Within this limit, you choose the number of spells you prepare at each level. For example, your high-level caster could opt not to prepare any level 2 spells.  Wizards prepare spells from their spellbook; clerics may prepare any spell from their cleric spell list.

Wizards and clerics both get a certain number of spell slots at each level. You can expend a spell slot to cast any prepared spell of the same level or lower.

When you use a higher-level spell slot for a lower-level spell, the spell typically gains power. For example, Magic Missile shoots 3 darts when cast using a level-1 slot, and 4 darts when cast using a level-2 slot. Unlike in earlier editions, spells do not gain power just because a higher-level character casts them.

Unlike the classic, Vancian system, you can cast a prepared spell more than once as long as you can spend another casting of the proper level or higher. This system grants casters an extra measure of flexibility, while avoiding the risk of preparing a roster of spells that proves useless, resulting in a bad day in the dungeon. There should be no bad days in the dungeon.

4. Does a diagonal move cost one square or one and a half?

When played on a grid, D&D’s basic rules opts for the simple method of counting 1 square for a diagonal move. “The Dungeon Master’s Guide provides guidance on using a more realistic approach.”

5. Can I disrupt a spellcaster?

The rules offer no way to foil spells by interrupting spellcasters as they cast.

However, if a spell requires concentration, you can stop the spell’s effects by breaking the caster’s concentration. “Some spells require you to maintain concentration to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends.” The concentration system limits casters to maintaining a single spell with concentration at once. When casters maintaining concentration take damage, they must make a Constitution saving throw to keep their spell going. The DC equals 10 or half the damage suffered, whichever is higher.

Organized play versus random ability scores

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Legacy of the Green RegentWhen fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons arrived, many players saw an attempt to bring the play style of computer role-playing to the tabletop. That may be true, but I saw an effort to create a game that delivered a consistent public-play experience. By the end of third edition, Living Greyhawk, Legacy of the Green Regent, and similar organized-play campaigns dominated the game to the extent that third-party books of character options no longer sold because their options were not legal in organized play.

Unlike, say, a Magic the Gathering tournament, the players’ enjoyment of a public D&D game hinges on the quality of the DM.

Perhaps aiming to deliver a consistent, fun organized play experience, the fourth-edition designers created a game that minimized a dungeon master’s influence on the game. When you sat at a Living Forgotten Realms table, players could count on the same experience no matter who took the dungeon master’s chair, at least in theory. Potentially, a 4E DM’s duties could be limited to reading the box text, running the monsters, and announcing the skills that apply to the skill challenge. Fourth edition defines combat powers as tightly as Magic cards, so the DM never needs to decide if, for example, you can take ongoing damage from cold and fire at the same time. For actions outside of combat, 4E presents the skill challenge, where the DM only has to decide if a skill helps the players—but only when the skill challenge fails to list the skill in advance. For more, see “D&D Next empowers DMs; players stay empowered.”

A focus on organized play extends to character creation too. Fourth edition became the first D&D edition that presented a point-buy system as the standard method of rolling—make that creating—a character’s ability scores. For the first time, the standard characters worked for public play.

So nothing about the fifth edition surprises me as much as the return to rolling ability scores as the standard method. This reversal shows the designers aiming to bring the game back to its roots, to create a game for the kitchen table first, and then offering public play as an alternative.

Too bad the game does random abilities scores wrong.

In fifth edition D&D, players generate abilities scores by rolling 4d6 and add the three highest dice to generate each of 6 scores, and then they assign these 6 scores to the 6 abilities in any order.

Plenty of history backs this method. It first appeared as the first recommended method in the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide. The method carries through second and third editions.

The best quality of random character generation comes from the interesting but not quite optimal characters created. Random ability scores can create characters that feel organic—that break the optimal recipes of good ability scores and dump stats. For example, your randomly-generated fighter might have a high intelligence and a weaker constitution. These unusual combinations can fuel both role-playing and play strategy.

Allowing players to assign scores to any ability keeps the worst part of rolling characters—uneven character power. Then the method throws out the best part of rolling—interesting and organic characters.

I get the method’s purpose: Players can assign rolls to suit their chosen class. While some old-schoolers may find this decadent, the game should allow enough latitude to choose a class. Even in original D&D, where the referee rolled the characters, players could choose from a pool of candidates.

Rather than allowing players to shuffle rolled ability scores into any order, I suggest players roll scores in order, and then swap two scores. This system keeps characters organic and interesting, while giving players flexibility to choose a class. Plus, new players only have one decision to make. If you want to compensate for the less-flexible scores, allow players to reroll one bad score. That’s decadent enough.