Rules Corner: Alternate Reaction

The rules, as written right now, only allow a single attack to be made as a readied action. At first, this really isn't much of a problem. However, as players become more powerful and get more and more abilities (including extra attacks), the “ready an action” option gets less and less useful. For that reason, I hope to provide an alternate system I've seen and personally used.

The New System

Using the “ready an action” action allows the player or creature to take their turn later in the round (for purposes of effects, only the initiative order turn is used). As a result, the option remains useful for the entire length of a campaign.

Problems and Solutions: Keep the Trigger?

The above, as written, doesn't keep the trigger. It allows the player to use their turn as normal. This can cause a wide range of problems, include from stealth attacks. For these cases, I have a few solutions that could work.

First, players attacked successfully from stealth cannot react. This goes for spellcasters too. This is to prevent using the reactions to always attack right before a stealthed creature attacks.

Secondly, the trigger can be kept as normal. The only different is that more conditions and actions can be added (“I pull the lever when someone steps on the trapdoor” can change into “I pull the lever when someone steps on the trapdoor and move back to the rest of the party after doing so”). This is my preferred solution since it keeps it simpler and also makes extra-attack oriented classes keep up with wizards. It does, however, force wizards to keep concentrations to attack and extra-attack oriented characters not too (I deem this to be not too much of a big deal given the often area attack nature of spells allows them to do more damage overall).

Problems and Solutions: Concentration

There are a couple of problems that may be quickly apparent. The first comes for spellcasters. Previously, they had to ready a spell and maintain concentration. The above may let them to do the same thing without concentration. This makes the rule useless except for effects that require concentration to maintain.

If this is fine, you can ignore this section and go as is. However, you can also decide that spellcasters still need to maintain concentration to cast their spells but attacks do not. One will give a distinct disadvantage to spellcasters, but spells are quite powerful already so it might be seen as fine.

Problems and Solutions: Multiple People Delaying Actions

If two people are delaying their actions and then they both want to react, there is a problem with who goes first. In these cases, I say that the person who waited the longest acts first. This is quite straight forward I think, though feel free to point out any issues if you see them.

Rules Corner: Movement Outside Turn

The turn order can cause some weird peculiarities that do not relate very well to real life. In real life, you can choose to move back if you see someone moving towards you. In a turn order though, you can only do this by reading an action (and as a result using an action). For this purpose, I'll go over an alternate system that can be used. Fair warning: this changes combat encounters quite substantially and can make things more complicated depending on the version you use.

The Rule

If you have leftover movement after your turn ends, you can use it before the start of your turn (this does not cost a reaction). If you want to use this movement before someone else, the person who waited longest acts first. The person who is currently acting always can react before the movement completes.

This resolution for who acts first is important. Take the situation that a player just killed a goblin and wants to use their remaining 15 feet to get into the face of another goblin. Does the goblin move back after the player moved (potentially being hit by an opportunity attack) or can it move back first? If the player kills a goblin and a different one had 15 left, can it move up to the player or can the player move back?

Alt: Doing this costs a reaction.

Alt 2: Resolve who goes first by rolling a D20 (no modifiers). Highest roll goes first and reroll ties.

Alt 3: Only players have access to this kind of movement (makes it easier for DM to run combat but gives players an advantage).

Example

2 fighters are in a dungeon. The first fighter kills a goblin in front of him using his action. A goblin who acted earlier and had 10 feet remaining decides to fill the gap and move towards the fighter who just killed a goblin. It's the fighter's turn, so he moves back 5 feet when he sees the goblin move forward 5 feet. The goblin moves forward 5 more and the fighter stays where he was. Now they are 5 feet away.

The second fighter kills a goblin as well. The first fighter, seeing an opening, decides to move up using his leftover distance. The goblin, who acted earlier and has waited longer, moves back first.

Why Bother?

It makes fighting quite a bit more dynamic. It also lets you reasonably use movement as a reaction to an enemy without using a ready action. If you prefer the use of a ready action for this instead (making this kind of movement more expensive in terms of action economy), you don't need this rule. However, it does mean that combat becomes more complicated, particularly for the Dungeon Master. 

Rules Corner: Layers of Protection

Every now and then a situation comes up that is quite specific but points out some interesting parts of a rule system. I hope to talk about one such situation that came up for one of my groups a long time ago. This situation in particular has to do with armour types and some of the details that result from the way they are generally handled. In particular, I will focus on D&D 5^th edition but the general issues also occur in other systems I've seen (especially D&D inspired systems). I will also state the solution rule that worked for this group (thinking of suits of armour as layers of protection and creating rules to partially wear armour).

The Situation

The party found themselves in the desert. The Dungeon Master ruled that medium and heavy armour had disadvantage because of the extreme heat but light armour was fine. The fighter wore heavy armour and used a glaive. Naturally, he wanted to wear light armour in that situation.

Expense vs Effectiveness

In D&D 5^th edition and just about every other system I can think of off the top of my head, heavy armour is the most expensive. That seems to make logical sense when you think about it. It's expensive because it has the best protection. Except that in D&D 5^th edition, that is only true for plate armour. Given a sufficient DEX score, the AC (armour class) of a character wearing light armour can equal the armour class of plate but have to use their DEX score (usually these feed into other parts of the character like stealth). DEX is useful for other combat related things such as saving against quite a few spells and stealth. There are other penalties with medium and heavy armour compared to light armour. Travelling in extremely hot climates and being stealthy are both harder in medium and heavy armour.

The Player's Solution

The fighter, being a fairly smart guy, asked if he could wear the under padding as light armour. The Dungeon Master allowed it (same stats as studded leather) and he went happily along on his way. However, I want to stress how powerful that feature is. Being able to switch from heavy armour to light armour for no additional cost gave heavy and medium armour versatility for the characters who wore it. Since it cost more as well, it worked just fine. At that point the fighter could have easy bought some light armour but never even thought about until that point. However, you could argue that the price of heavy and medium armour is already high enough to consider it a non-issue from a balance perspective. I'd also argue it generally makes sense since light armour still has to be quite thick to provide protection.

Later with the same group, he was able to successfully argue into being allowed to wear his full plate like half plate. It wasn't such a problem from an AC (armour class) perspective because it actually lowered the character's AC. He was, however, able to put on partial armour faster than the full suit. For this reason, everyone agreed it was fair.

Other Solutions

In these kinds of cases, making any armour provide penalties in extremely hot climates would work out well. If it bothered the Dungeon Master that both armours would provide the same AC, they could just give different players different AC's.

Layers of Protection Rule

Consider allowed medium and heavy armour to be thought of as layers of protection. Light armour padding (AC 12 + DEX) is present under all medium armour except hide. Some more expensive suits can be worn partially to decrease the time to don them but for lower AC (splint gets AC 14 + max DEX +2 and plate can be worn as half plate).   

Dungeon Master: Wounds

Even when not facing dragons and undead on a daily basis, everyone gets hurt. Of course, the chances of getting hurt are much higher when sharp pointy swords and powerful spells are involved. Just recently I had a situation where my players damaged a character with a crossbow bolt, failed to kill him and instead wounded him. For this reason I would like to put forth optional combat rules for handling an NPC character that was wounded. The exact values and terms used will match up with D&D 5^th edition but can be converted to other systems as well.

When to Use It

I'd recommend using this kind of system mainly for non-playable characters. However, if desired it could also be used for players. It also allows the players the ability to fight someone usually out of their level range depending on the penalty that the wounded character receives.

Types of Wounds

There are a large variety of different kinds of ways characters can be damaged over the course of a campaign and likewise there are many ways for them to get wounded. In the example I mentioned, the character took a crossbow bolt to the chest. Depending on the situation, the type of wound has to be handled on a case by case basis.

Example

Body Wound

The character took a crossbow bolt roughly a week ago (any kind of piercing or slashing wound would also work). As a direct result, scabbing and healing has started but may be torn open from too much strain (three actions taken in three turns or less). If the character does put themselves under too much strain (three actions in a row), they must make a saving throw (DC15) right after taking the third action and on a failure have the wound torn open.

When the wound is torn open, the character takes damage at the end of every turn (2D6) including the turn that the wound was torn open on. The character may use one hand to reduce the damage (by 1D6) or both hands and an action to completely stop the bleeding. They will need to apply pressure on the wound for a short rest before they stop taking damage.

Notes

Severity of the wound can be changed by changing the DC, the damage taken (both with pressure applied and without), the number of turns that determines if the character is under strain as well as the length of time needed before the damage stops being taken. Certain actions can also be chosen not to count to the 3 in a row limit (if a level 1 party is facing a level 5 fighter, you may rule that the wound is bad enough to be under strain after 2 actions). Alternatively, saving throws can be made again after taking damage. On a success, the character stops taking damage. You can also force the character to roll a save if they are damaged in a way that may tear open the wound.  

Dungeon Master: When Armies Clash Examination

Just recently I wrote a little article about adding in mass combat rules into the newest edition of D&D (5^th). Well, recently there was an article on the Wizards of the Coast website doing the same. Since I'm always looking for new rules to add to my games, took a look at the rules and even gave them a quick run, I felt it right to comment on the rules posted in the article “Unearthed Arcana: When Armies Clash”. I suggest a quick read of the article (click the blue text) since it's posted for free on the Wizards of the Coast website (big thanks).

What It Has/What Is Good

These rules in general touch on a lot of nice things for mass combat rules. A morale rule is included. Rules for terrain are included. They generally use mechanics from the main game where they can as well as providing general ways to translate abilities from the main game to the mass combat rules. They also have a concept of isolated groups, meaning that a line and formation has to be maintained or penalties are applied (there needs to be at least one other stand, the smallest bunch of people used in the rules, within a certain range to avoid isolation). They also have provisions for individual “solo” creatures that can also act as commanders. All of this is put into just over 8 pages, making it pretty light as far as mass combat rules go.

What Is Missing

• If you liked the penalties for casualties I had in my optional rule system earlier, this system doesn't have that. Now, it is easy enough to graft those rules onto the system provided by Wizards of the Coast, but it will come at the cost of more things to track (I'm not for or against either choice, but this needs to be noted). Instead of using the members of the unit, just use overall hit points.
• The other interesting thing is that while some quick translations are provided for spell effects, the rules do not allow movement diagonally and don't mention how to handle casting cones on diagonals (or if this is valid).
• The rules also say that you get one square for every 20 feet, but they does not mention what happens if the range is less than that (such as burning hands with 15 feet). It is easy enough to extrapolate, but I feel it should be clearly stated the same way as for ranged attacks.

What Is Wrong

• I really don't like the no diagonally movement rule and would prefer the optional rules from the Dungeon Master's guide instead for diagonal movement (though you would still not be allowed to attack diagonally). There is a similar rule in 3^rd edition.
• Area of effect spells do double damage when cast by a stand of spell casters. I can see why they did this (a solo, such as a player character, does spell damage as normal) but it still doesn't make sense when looking at the melee system. A general at the same level as a stand would do the same amount of damage as a stand of fighters at the same level. In my view, the double damage would need to apply to both mundane weapons and magic to prevent this anomaly with solos.
• Skirmisher units just seem better. The only advantage I could see to a regiment is that they can configure themselves but even that takes a full action (you want to go into a defensive posture while you close the distance to the archers? Once you get there, it will take an action to get out of defend configuration. That is assuming you can close the distance moving at half speed.)
• Units take an action as one, meaning that every stand (the smallest bunch of people used in the rules) that can cast a spell has to cast a spell when taking the cast action (or at least that is how I read it). It also means that the entire regiment unit has to have every stand in the same formation. This means you need to break down your unit into multiple ones for the flanks etc.
• I don't really like the Victory Point idea very much at the time I am writing this. Largely, it is because I feel it should be the role of the players and the characters to decide who won and who lost (unless you are playing these rules as a quick mass battle game). If the players just wish to destroy a single bridge to delay the advance of an army and they get there, destroy it and run away without even coming into contact with the enemy army, is that a total victory, causing units to be eliminated from the advancing army? I like the idea of the survivors fleeing based on a die roll, but I know for sure I'd prefer to decide which units roll and when. The good news is that anyone who feels like I do can just ignore that entire section.

Conclusion

It is nice to have some mass combat rules in D&D. That way, even if there are other rule sets, there is at least some system to fall back on if you have no other. However, as written, I am not really a big fan of them. This is largely because of what I see as the disparity between skirmisher and regiment units and the same mundane damage being done by a stand as well as a solo (assuming a fighter stand and a fighter player of the same level). I don't quite know how I feel about the entire unit taking one action idea, which makes me think there is something I don't like but I can't quite put my finger on what. The diagonal movement and casting is easy enough for an experienced Dungeon Master to house rule and fix, so I don't view those as too much of a concern. Should those 3 issues I mentioned previously be fixed (either in the rules or by house rules), I'd have liked it more. The rules are playable but could use more tweaking (but hey, that is why it is in draft form) to rise above alright. 

Rules Corner: Ability Bonuses

One of the problems I've had with games that use D&D style ability bonuses (and ability scores) is that odd numbered ability scores generally don't contribute anything to your character. It doesn't change your modifier and as such is mostly useless. What I started doing as a house rule (and someone else probably has as well) was to allow players to add a +1 to their roll if their ability score was odd and they succeeded on second a roll. If they beat the beat the 50% point, they get a +1 on that action. Naturally, if you are the kind of Game Master that describes near misses differently (like when you are off by one), you can speed the game up a little by only requiring a roll then. Overall though, it wasn't too difficult to roll both a d20 and a d6 (or d4) at the same time for my group and as such this rule worked.

Note: I would allow the roll to add a +1 to attack rolls and damage rolls in this way. This way, they would be 50% likely to be as effective on an attack as a natural modifier (and the more checks or attacks you do, the more pronounced the difference becomes. This is because to have 2 attacks equal between a +3 1/2 modifier and a +4 modifier would mean succeeding twice on a flip/roll, which has a 25% chance of happening). An alternate rule they would need to make one roll for the attack, and one roll for the damage. That way, they would have a 1/4 chance to be as effective as a natural modifier in combat (for one attack) and 1/2 outside of combat. Personally however, I just allow my players to make one such roll for the +1 modifier to attack and damage so that combat centered characters may also have an incentive to take an odd ability score.

Alt Version: Select a reasonable number. Allow odd number characters to add a +1 to that ability check or attack the selected number of times per day or per gaming session. This requires less rolling but more tracking from your characters.

The advantage of using this kind of solution is that no tables have to be modified (and all the implications of doing so). However, the disadvantage is that it does add a little complexity to the mix. If you do the roll every time or only when they are one off, I found the added complexity barely noticeable.

If anyone notices an improvement that can be made please feel free to let me know about it.


Examples:

Way 1:
Attack Roll = 16 + 4 (bonus)
I have odd STR meaning I roll a dice (let's say d6) - 3 (no bonus since it is in lower half)


Way 2:
Attack Roll = 16 + 4 (bonus)
Game Master: Do you have odd strength?
Player: Yes (rolls d6 and gets 4)
Game Master: Despite the creature's reaction to your attack, your berdiche catches it's head as it attempts to duck out of the way (roll damage)

Note: This style works best if your the kind of Game Master that tells players when they come close to hitting or succeeding (close being off by one) and as such your not giving away any additional information. Technically this would still work with a bigger range but will result in more rolling (still less than for ever action though).


Way 3:
Attack Roll = 16 + 4 (bonus)
Player: I choose to add +1 for a total of 21 (and possibly +1 to damage)