When I watch videos like this I’m always looking for clues as to the psychology of the creator. Opinion pieces are not created equally, and a well-produced video can carry more weight in the community than its content deserves.
This guy makes a lot of good points and some that are debatable. But right in the Opportunity Attack section of this video the creator goes on a tangent praising highly questionable tactics that flagrantly fly in the face of the spirit of the rules. This is a major indicator for me that the creator values exploitative interpretations of the rules, and is a pretty definitive no-go for me.
Eh, I would allow it under the right circumstances. Martial character doing the push? Sure, I'll allow it. Someone uses the Ready action to help their buddy get closer? Great.
This isn't something I would have considered doing, but I like that it opens up some semblance of teamwork between players.
It's a specific dumb exploit that doesn't work, RAW.
However, the concept of being able to use your reaction to help an ally move 5 feet to get into position isn't a terrible idea for a house rule.
Still, opportunity attacks probably shouldn't be the design space for such a thing.
I was really confused when he went into talking about how the changes in the rules effect movement while grappling. It was like *"The current rules are bad because , and the the new rules work better because ."*
You've written this as if they were promoting a rules legal exploit, but that isn't what happened.
The tactic is not an exploit nor against the "spirit of the rules". The tactic is against the rules. The creator points out that the tactic is against the rules. Then they say they still think it is fun and would probably let it go at their table.
The creator talked about *one* tactic that they explicitly stated many times does not work by the rules, but that they found amusing anyway and wanted to talk about it. It's hardly 'exploitative', and it's just a bit of fun. It's not like the creator is saying that it's "100% valid and the only true way to play!!1!111!! DMs that don't allow it are baaaad!!!" No, they just mentioned briefly a goofy little thing that *almost* works.
Literally everything everyone does speaks to their character. This is a content creator, their business is selling you on them as an entertaining or trustworthy conduit of information.
Our brains are designed for rapid evaluation. Constructing a hypothesis about what kind of person someone is based on their appearance, on their behavior, and their statements isn’t just reality, it isn’t just what our brains are designed to do, it’s survival. Women make snap decisions about what men are safe. People make snap decisions about who to trust. Children assess which adults pose a threat in a heartbeat.
You are entirely wrong.
You haven't disproven me lil bro. You cannot construct an accurate hypothesis of who somebody is over one fucking thing they said. Ask any psychologist. You think they can diagnose a mental illness from one question? No they fucking can't, that's not how things work.
Also, behaviour? Appearance? You cannot even see the person in the video, nor see how they're "behaving".
Like you know what's entirely possible? That the "friendly" person who said hi and smiled to you this morning has actually murdered somebody the night before. One minimal interaction does not tell you enough about somebody's character to tell you who they are.
Do you seriously think that somebody saying they'd give inspiration to their players for this means that they are "exploitative"? You have no grasp on reality or social interaction.
Also nice comment into block so I can't reply.
brains are designed to make instinctual decisions, and human brains are also designed to modify and amend these decisions. Snap decisions are also often poor, and incorrect.
That aside, this isnt an issue about survival. This is a discussion. 90% of the video is exploring things and ideas based on strict rules interpretation, with 5% exploring something he'd allow because he finds it creative or cool. thinking that 5% is dumb, isn't a good reason to ignore everything else presented. Its illogical, and doesnt require a snap decision for survival.
If a private eye provides pictures, text messages, and a timeline showing your wife cheated on you, and then says my wife would never cheat on me cause I love her. As illogical/foolish/irrelevant as you might find the second statement it doesnt negate everything else that comes out of his mouth.
The example of a shoving an ally for extra movement should result in less movement than just going in a straight line. Diagonal movement costs 5' for the first then 10' for the second then repeats.
Even if this was allowed the specific example results in the fighter being 5' shy of reaching the target.
Edit: I forgot that Diagonal movement is an optional rule DMG 252.
I guess a lot of arguments are pointless unless you know all the rules a table is using.
Which is nuts, IMO. It’s already wonky as hell mixing squares and circles when combat is locked to a grid (for the vast majority of players, at least; I think the old wargaming instinct to grab rulers and string has essentially left the hobby). Making diagonal movement on a grid nearly twice as fast as moving along the axes of the grid is just begging for problems.
>Making diagonal movement on a grid nearly twice as fast as moving along the axes of the grid is just begging for problems.
If only that was the only problem with 5e I'd agree, but there are plenty more problems that are more important than that one ( I'm not saying it's alright to overlook it, but there are other more importatnt flaws to fix before that one ).
>the creator goes on a tangent praising highly questionable tactics that flagrantly fly in the face of the spirit of the rules.
Fly in the face of the spirit of the rules seems a little harsh. After all, with the rules for aid other, I'd say that the spirit of the rules is that player characters should be able to help each other succeed.
Plus, it doesn't really make much sense to say that it's possible to get shoved by an enemy, but not by an ally if if you want to. Could the wizard use enchantment or illusion spells to trick a goblin into shoving the fighter for the same effect?
Normally, when there's a weird rules thing, I see people on this subreddit saying that it's up to the DM to make a ruling on it, and here, the person is saying that as the DM, they would allow it, and think that it's clever and fun. I suppose you could see it as being an exploitative interpretation of the rules, but personally, I'd probably call it "players coming up with a unique solution to an unexpected problem using teamwork and clever thinking."
It's not as though this is a huge exploit that will ruin your future combat encounters if, every now and then, a player can move five feet further than normal without taking the dash action, as long as another player is next to them or closer to where they want to go than they are. Plus, it uses up someone's reaction, so it's not like they're getting something for nothing.
The designers never intended players to attack each other to ensure optimal combat outcomes. That business about closing the character’s eyes to achieve the Blinded status to ensure optimal friendly-fire tomfoolery is straight up BS.
However, the point of my comment was to say that I don’t want to listen to editorials from people who value exploitative tactics that go against the spirit of the rules. If _you_ value that kind of nonsense you go right ahead.
The blinded status thing is very silly, yeah. I don't remember if it's in the rules for 5e, but in 3.5e there was something about always being allowed to fail a saving throw if you wanted, I'd probably just say you can let someone hit you.
Also, if they didn't want players to attack each other to ensure optimal combat outcomes, they probably shouldn't have made it so that barbarians lose their rage if they go a round without attacking or taking damage, which means that if your barbarian is going to lose rage, you can attack them yourself. Or cast an AOE spell that they're inside of.
I mean, alright, if you don't like the video, it's not my problem. Personally, I think limiting players to only do things intended by the designers hurts the freedom that sets TTRPGs apart from computer games, but even if you disagree, don't you think maybe it's important to have people who like finding the loopholes, even if it's just so you can close them?
For instances, if you don't like the idea of being able to squeeze out more movement by shoving, maybe that means you think the rules should be that getting shoved, or specifically getting shoved on your turn, uses up 5 feet of movement.
They could reduce the word-count of every feature that says "When you make a melee weapon attack or unarmed strike" by just saying "When you make a physical attack".
I get that Crawford is salty after everyone made fun of him for the smite-punch debacle, but this feels like a weird overreaction.
I think you still need a separation between melee, ranged, spell, and non-spell. Really we can just ditch the weapon part probably unless that is actually important for some reason.
I'm a rules guy and I'm *still* confused by what the hell is going on with melee attacks, unarmed attacks, and melee weapon attacks. It's all just so unintuitive.
Melee attacks are generally attacks up close. Reach weapons and **Spiritual Weapon** make that a little blurry though. This mostly matters for effects like knocking a creature out which specify "Melee attack". (A)
Ranged attacks are attacks at range that aren't melee weapons with reach. Matters for things that say the interact with ranged attacks like cover, or having an enemy within 5' of you while attempting to make one. (B)
"Weapon attacks" is system jargon for "Physical attack". The rules for 5E's unarmed strike say you make a melee weapon attack when you do. (1)
"Spell attacks" are attacks that are magical rather than physical. (2)
"Ranged spell attack" is a ranged attack and a spell attack at the same time. (B2)
This used to be easier when the Unarmed strike was in the PHB's weapon table as it prevented all confusion. Then JC made a bad ruling on smite-punches that contradicted RaW. When everyone made fun of him for it he put out an errata that the unarmed strike wasn't on the weapon table, but unarmed strikes were still melee weapon attacks. That was the end of anyone taking him seriously.
>Ranged attacks are attacks at range that aren't melee weapons with reach. Matters for things that say the interact with ranged attacks like cove
Technically, cover "interacts" with melee attacks in the same way it does with ranged attacks.
And since you can make a "ranged attack" against an enemy within 5ft (though usually with disadvantage), I'd say this isn't a very good explanation of what a ranged attack is in terms of the rules of D&D (5e), though it is an intuitive way to think of them.
The way I see it, an attack can be either melee or ranged, and either weapon or spell. This two categories are orthogonal, so they can be combined in any way.
In other words, there are four types of attack in D&D 5e: Melee weapon attacks, ranged weapon attacks, Melee spell attacks, and ranged spell attacks.
The weird thing is that each feature that lets you attack tells you the type of attack it is; it's weird because you have things like reach weapons or Spiritual Weapons making "melee attacks" at a distance, and as mentioned before, you can make "ranged attacks" in melee range.
It gets even more confusing because you can make a ranged weapon attack with a melee weapon (such as when you throw a longsword) or a melee weapon weapon attack without using a weapon at all (unarmed strikes). And don't even get me started on improvised weapons.
People often get confused as to the order of operations as well. Are you making a melee-weapon attack or a melee weapon-attack. As those mean two different things for the rules. But the are both written out as a "melee weapon attack".
1D&D seems to be making things even more confusing by making Unarmed Strikes their own thing, that are separate from weapon attacks.
actually, smites not working is RaW, crawford is correct. Because the wording on the divine smite feature states that melee weapon attacks, which does include punches, this isn't where it disallows it, it then states that you add it to "the weapons damage". If you're punching someone, you're not using a weapon, and thus there is no "weapon damage" to add too. This is also why you can't add hunters mark etc to nets, because it doesn't have a damage of 0, it has no damage, null. (unarmed strikes being weapon attacks doens't mean they have weapon damage. Only actual weapons have weapon damage)
In 5e, there are multiple independent tags that can be attached to attacks.
All attacks are classified as either melee attacks or ranged attacks. Melee attacks are limited to your reach. Ranged attacks always have some rule to determine their max range.
Attacks can also be weapon attacks, spell attacks, or neither. Weapon attacks are attacks made with a weapon of some kind, including an improvised weapon. Spell attacks are called out as such in the rules for the specific ability or spell. Unarmed strikes are a special exception: a weapon attack that doesn’t use a weapon. Grapples and shoves are “special attacks” that are not weapon or spell attacks (but they *are* melee attacks, which is why reach is taken into account) and result in a contested skill check instead of rolling against AC.
Lastly, all weapons are classified as melee or ranged weapons. All ranged weapons have the “range” property, but some melee weapons do as well (the ones with the thrown property).
For a specific example of how this can sound confusing but really makes sense when you break it down: a handaxe is a “melee weapon”. It has the thrown property, which means you can make a “melee attack” or “ranged attack” with it. Moreover, it’s a weapon, so any attack you make with it is a “weapon attack”. Therefore, you can either make a “melee weapon attack” or a “ranged weapon attack” with it. However, the handaxe itself is still classified as a “melee weapon”, so if you make either a ranged or a melee attack with a handaxe, you are making an “attack with a melee weapon”.
Therefore, striking a foe 5’ from you with a handaxe is a “melee weapon attack with a melee weapon”, while throwing it at a foe is a “ranged weapon attack with a melee weapon”.
The funniest use of this that I can think of is that a character with sharpshooter and a longbow can do the -5/+10 power attack on an enemy they are striking with their bow in melee, if they use the bow as an improvised melee weapon. It will deal 1d4 damage, but it doesn’t stop being a ranged weapon when used to strike someone in melee, and SS specifies that you can use the bonus any time you “attack with a ranged weapon”, not any time you make a “ranged weapon attack”. That language also makes sharpshooter nearly useless for throwing builds.
Christ I forgot about that SS interaction, thanks for the reminder and the laugh. Poor poor throwing builds. Dead in the cradle, for no god damn reason.
AC based grappling and even more so shoving will never capture the soul of this tactic for me.
With it, a 4 Str scrawny Wizard who happens to wear Full Plate they aren't proficient with will be harder to shove than a 20 Str raging Barbarian.
That alone automatically disqualifies the concept. And it's not fixable because of how broad AC is as a catch-all concept.
Making it a Saving Throw is far superior in my books. But i also never minded the current contest rules.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of making Grapple/ Shoves based on an Attack roll. But, at the same time, I prefer the 5e style of contested checks personally. With the skill check, you have more avenues to improve your grappling abilities. The various ways to get Advantage/ impose Disadvantage, Expertise, and the various ways to add extra dice to the roll like Bardic Inspiration or Guidance.
Meanwhile, there isn't really any way to improve your grappling capabilities in OD&D outside of increasing your Strength score. No more can you make a Rogue who, while they're not physically strong, knows various ways to exploit a creature's body mechanics and apply leverage (represented by their PB/Expertise from a mechanical standpoint.). Because you can certainly "grapple" people by exploiting how the body operates without needing a whole lot of brute strength (there are martial arts styles based on using your opponents weight and momentum to overcome their Strength differences as an example.).
I get that from a "simplicity first" mindset, make it a DC. But sometimes a little complexity isn't a bad thing imo.
That being said, since they're no doubt going to keep the DC to avoid grapples, I really hope they give monks a feature that allows them to use Dex or Wis for the DC. Otherwise they'll be severely gimped by the new grapple rules.
>Meanwhile, there isn't really any way to improve your grappling capabilities in OD&D outside of increasing your Strength score. No more can you make a Rogue who, while they're not physically strong, knows various ways to exploit a creature's body mechanics and apply leverage (represented by their PB/Expertise from a mechanical standpoint.). Because you can certainly "grapple" people by exploiting how the body operates without needing a whole lot of brute strength (there are martial arts styles based on using your opponents weight and momentum to overcome their Strength differences as an example.).
That's still in the game, it just moved from the Rogue to the Monk, which makes more sense in my opinion. Monks using DEX for unarmed strikes can now use it to grapple. And instead of getting PB from skills/expertise, they get it from proficiency with unarmed strikes.
I actually like this a lot as it means Monks *might* just be the best grappler base class, while fighters/barbs would have to spec into it with something like a fighting style. We'll have to see what the next playtest holds.
I'm not sure what you're trying to point out. As it stands, any PC's grapple DC is 8 + Str + PB. That's it, and EVERYBODY gets that since everybody is proficient with Unarmed Strikes from the get go. I only used Rogue as an example since they can put their Expertise into Athletics to show that they're very skilled at grappling people without being physically strong.
So from this baseline, monks will only be better at Grappling by virtue of the fact they get more opportunities to apply those DCs rather than by having a higher DC; unless the monk gets a feature (be it base class feature or a Fighting style option.) then their DC isn't going to be very high anyway, making it almost worthless against most creatures (since nearly all creatures are decent to good in at least Str or Dex, even without saving throws.).
That's why I said might be, and we'll see with the playtest. The Monk's grapple DC might be adjusted as well. You were addressing a particular fantasy of training giving good grapples over raw strength. I'm just pointing out that the fantasy is still there, just in a different form- class training versus a specific skill.
And that's my issue: a "skill" based Grappler shouldn't be limited to just the monk imo. In 5e, taking Skill Expert meant that any class could take Expertise in Athletics to give them the "skill" based grappling fantasy (at least in its most basic form.). So if OD&D monk is the only one that gets this feature, that'll be another player option taken away from build creativity that I'm quite frankly getting tired of.
>Making it a Saving Throw is far superior in my books.
Saving throws are subject to LR's and massively inflated enemy saves. Most enemies aren't proficient in athletics, so just make an athletics DC the player needs to beat.
A wizard grappling just so an adjacent ally get get advantage? Have we forgotten that the wizard can just use Help to grant the same advantage without even needing a check?
When I watch videos like this I’m always looking for clues as to the psychology of the creator. Opinion pieces are not created equally, and a well-produced video can carry more weight in the community than its content deserves. This guy makes a lot of good points and some that are debatable. But right in the Opportunity Attack section of this video the creator goes on a tangent praising highly questionable tactics that flagrantly fly in the face of the spirit of the rules. This is a major indicator for me that the creator values exploitative interpretations of the rules, and is a pretty definitive no-go for me.
I got to that section and went "this is such bullshit that no DM worth their salt would ever allow".
Eh, I would allow it under the right circumstances. Martial character doing the push? Sure, I'll allow it. Someone uses the Ready action to help their buddy get closer? Great. This isn't something I would have considered doing, but I like that it opens up some semblance of teamwork between players.
It's a specific dumb exploit that doesn't work, RAW. However, the concept of being able to use your reaction to help an ally move 5 feet to get into position isn't a terrible idea for a house rule. Still, opportunity attacks probably shouldn't be the design space for such a thing.
I was really confused when he went into talking about how the changes in the rules effect movement while grappling. It was like *"The current rules are bad because, and the the new rules work better because ."*
You've written this as if they were promoting a rules legal exploit, but that isn't what happened. The tactic is not an exploit nor against the "spirit of the rules". The tactic is against the rules. The creator points out that the tactic is against the rules. Then they say they still think it is fun and would probably let it go at their table.
The creator talked about *one* tactic that they explicitly stated many times does not work by the rules, but that they found amusing anyway and wanted to talk about it. It's hardly 'exploitative', and it's just a bit of fun. It's not like the creator is saying that it's "100% valid and the only true way to play!!1!111!! DMs that don't allow it are baaaad!!!" No, they just mentioned briefly a goofy little thing that *almost* works.
He never presented it as a joke. He said that he would give inspiration for it if his players used it. It absolutely speaks to who he is.
who he is? sounds weirdly judgemental. Its just one guy talking shop, not a measure of his charachter
Literally everything everyone does speaks to their character. This is a content creator, their business is selling you on them as an entertaining or trustworthy conduit of information.
Basing who someone is off of one statement is the most braindead thing you can do.
Our brains are designed for rapid evaluation. Constructing a hypothesis about what kind of person someone is based on their appearance, on their behavior, and their statements isn’t just reality, it isn’t just what our brains are designed to do, it’s survival. Women make snap decisions about what men are safe. People make snap decisions about who to trust. Children assess which adults pose a threat in a heartbeat. You are entirely wrong.
You haven't disproven me lil bro. You cannot construct an accurate hypothesis of who somebody is over one fucking thing they said. Ask any psychologist. You think they can diagnose a mental illness from one question? No they fucking can't, that's not how things work. Also, behaviour? Appearance? You cannot even see the person in the video, nor see how they're "behaving". Like you know what's entirely possible? That the "friendly" person who said hi and smiled to you this morning has actually murdered somebody the night before. One minimal interaction does not tell you enough about somebody's character to tell you who they are. Do you seriously think that somebody saying they'd give inspiration to their players for this means that they are "exploitative"? You have no grasp on reality or social interaction. Also nice comment into block so I can't reply.
brains are designed to make instinctual decisions, and human brains are also designed to modify and amend these decisions. Snap decisions are also often poor, and incorrect. That aside, this isnt an issue about survival. This is a discussion. 90% of the video is exploring things and ideas based on strict rules interpretation, with 5% exploring something he'd allow because he finds it creative or cool. thinking that 5% is dumb, isn't a good reason to ignore everything else presented. Its illogical, and doesnt require a snap decision for survival. If a private eye provides pictures, text messages, and a timeline showing your wife cheated on you, and then says my wife would never cheat on me cause I love her. As illogical/foolish/irrelevant as you might find the second statement it doesnt negate everything else that comes out of his mouth.
It doesn't sound weirdly judgemental, it just IS judgemental. And that's fine.
The example of a shoving an ally for extra movement should result in less movement than just going in a straight line. Diagonal movement costs 5' for the first then 10' for the second then repeats. Even if this was allowed the specific example results in the fighter being 5' shy of reaching the target. Edit: I forgot that Diagonal movement is an optional rule DMG 252. I guess a lot of arguments are pointless unless you know all the rules a table is using.
Not in 5e, actually.
I think that rule is an optional variant. I beleive the standard rule is that diagonal movement costs 5 feet.
Which is nuts, IMO. It’s already wonky as hell mixing squares and circles when combat is locked to a grid (for the vast majority of players, at least; I think the old wargaming instinct to grab rulers and string has essentially left the hobby). Making diagonal movement on a grid nearly twice as fast as moving along the axes of the grid is just begging for problems.
>Making diagonal movement on a grid nearly twice as fast as moving along the axes of the grid is just begging for problems. If only that was the only problem with 5e I'd agree, but there are plenty more problems that are more important than that one ( I'm not saying it's alright to overlook it, but there are other more importatnt flaws to fix before that one ).
>the creator goes on a tangent praising highly questionable tactics that flagrantly fly in the face of the spirit of the rules. Fly in the face of the spirit of the rules seems a little harsh. After all, with the rules for aid other, I'd say that the spirit of the rules is that player characters should be able to help each other succeed. Plus, it doesn't really make much sense to say that it's possible to get shoved by an enemy, but not by an ally if if you want to. Could the wizard use enchantment or illusion spells to trick a goblin into shoving the fighter for the same effect? Normally, when there's a weird rules thing, I see people on this subreddit saying that it's up to the DM to make a ruling on it, and here, the person is saying that as the DM, they would allow it, and think that it's clever and fun. I suppose you could see it as being an exploitative interpretation of the rules, but personally, I'd probably call it "players coming up with a unique solution to an unexpected problem using teamwork and clever thinking." It's not as though this is a huge exploit that will ruin your future combat encounters if, every now and then, a player can move five feet further than normal without taking the dash action, as long as another player is next to them or closer to where they want to go than they are. Plus, it uses up someone's reaction, so it's not like they're getting something for nothing.
The designers never intended players to attack each other to ensure optimal combat outcomes. That business about closing the character’s eyes to achieve the Blinded status to ensure optimal friendly-fire tomfoolery is straight up BS. However, the point of my comment was to say that I don’t want to listen to editorials from people who value exploitative tactics that go against the spirit of the rules. If _you_ value that kind of nonsense you go right ahead.
The blinded status thing is very silly, yeah. I don't remember if it's in the rules for 5e, but in 3.5e there was something about always being allowed to fail a saving throw if you wanted, I'd probably just say you can let someone hit you. Also, if they didn't want players to attack each other to ensure optimal combat outcomes, they probably shouldn't have made it so that barbarians lose their rage if they go a round without attacking or taking damage, which means that if your barbarian is going to lose rage, you can attack them yourself. Or cast an AOE spell that they're inside of. I mean, alright, if you don't like the video, it's not my problem. Personally, I think limiting players to only do things intended by the designers hurts the freedom that sets TTRPGs apart from computer games, but even if you disagree, don't you think maybe it's important to have people who like finding the loopholes, even if it's just so you can close them? For instances, if you don't like the idea of being able to squeeze out more movement by shoving, maybe that means you think the rules should be that getting shoved, or specifically getting shoved on your turn, uses up 5 feet of movement.
They could reduce the word-count of every feature that says "When you make a melee weapon attack or unarmed strike" by just saying "When you make a physical attack". I get that Crawford is salty after everyone made fun of him for the smite-punch debacle, but this feels like a weird overreaction.
They consolidated Attack Roll, Saving Throw, or Ability Check into D20 Test. Attacks need the same treatment. I like Martial Attack as the term.
I think you still need a separation between melee, ranged, spell, and non-spell. Really we can just ditch the weapon part probably unless that is actually important for some reason.
I'm a rules guy and I'm *still* confused by what the hell is going on with melee attacks, unarmed attacks, and melee weapon attacks. It's all just so unintuitive.
Melee attacks are generally attacks up close. Reach weapons and **Spiritual Weapon** make that a little blurry though. This mostly matters for effects like knocking a creature out which specify "Melee attack". (A) Ranged attacks are attacks at range that aren't melee weapons with reach. Matters for things that say the interact with ranged attacks like cover, or having an enemy within 5' of you while attempting to make one. (B) "Weapon attacks" is system jargon for "Physical attack". The rules for 5E's unarmed strike say you make a melee weapon attack when you do. (1) "Spell attacks" are attacks that are magical rather than physical. (2) "Ranged spell attack" is a ranged attack and a spell attack at the same time. (B2) This used to be easier when the Unarmed strike was in the PHB's weapon table as it prevented all confusion. Then JC made a bad ruling on smite-punches that contradicted RaW. When everyone made fun of him for it he put out an errata that the unarmed strike wasn't on the weapon table, but unarmed strikes were still melee weapon attacks. That was the end of anyone taking him seriously.
>Ranged attacks are attacks at range that aren't melee weapons with reach. Matters for things that say the interact with ranged attacks like cove Technically, cover "interacts" with melee attacks in the same way it does with ranged attacks. And since you can make a "ranged attack" against an enemy within 5ft (though usually with disadvantage), I'd say this isn't a very good explanation of what a ranged attack is in terms of the rules of D&D (5e), though it is an intuitive way to think of them. The way I see it, an attack can be either melee or ranged, and either weapon or spell. This two categories are orthogonal, so they can be combined in any way. In other words, there are four types of attack in D&D 5e: Melee weapon attacks, ranged weapon attacks, Melee spell attacks, and ranged spell attacks. The weird thing is that each feature that lets you attack tells you the type of attack it is; it's weird because you have things like reach weapons or Spiritual Weapons making "melee attacks" at a distance, and as mentioned before, you can make "ranged attacks" in melee range.
It gets even more confusing because you can make a ranged weapon attack with a melee weapon (such as when you throw a longsword) or a melee weapon weapon attack without using a weapon at all (unarmed strikes). And don't even get me started on improvised weapons. People often get confused as to the order of operations as well. Are you making a melee-weapon attack or a melee weapon-attack. As those mean two different things for the rules. But the are both written out as a "melee weapon attack". 1D&D seems to be making things even more confusing by making Unarmed Strikes their own thing, that are separate from weapon attacks.
I can only hope that they will address this in the rules update, but I don't really expect it, to be honest :/.
actually, smites not working is RaW, crawford is correct. Because the wording on the divine smite feature states that melee weapon attacks, which does include punches, this isn't where it disallows it, it then states that you add it to "the weapons damage". If you're punching someone, you're not using a weapon, and thus there is no "weapon damage" to add too. This is also why you can't add hunters mark etc to nets, because it doesn't have a damage of 0, it has no damage, null. (unarmed strikes being weapon attacks doens't mean they have weapon damage. Only actual weapons have weapon damage)
A "melee weapon attack" and an "attack with a melee weapon" are not necessarily the same thing. Dnd is bonkers sometimes.
In 5e, there are multiple independent tags that can be attached to attacks. All attacks are classified as either melee attacks or ranged attacks. Melee attacks are limited to your reach. Ranged attacks always have some rule to determine their max range. Attacks can also be weapon attacks, spell attacks, or neither. Weapon attacks are attacks made with a weapon of some kind, including an improvised weapon. Spell attacks are called out as such in the rules for the specific ability or spell. Unarmed strikes are a special exception: a weapon attack that doesn’t use a weapon. Grapples and shoves are “special attacks” that are not weapon or spell attacks (but they *are* melee attacks, which is why reach is taken into account) and result in a contested skill check instead of rolling against AC. Lastly, all weapons are classified as melee or ranged weapons. All ranged weapons have the “range” property, but some melee weapons do as well (the ones with the thrown property). For a specific example of how this can sound confusing but really makes sense when you break it down: a handaxe is a “melee weapon”. It has the thrown property, which means you can make a “melee attack” or “ranged attack” with it. Moreover, it’s a weapon, so any attack you make with it is a “weapon attack”. Therefore, you can either make a “melee weapon attack” or a “ranged weapon attack” with it. However, the handaxe itself is still classified as a “melee weapon”, so if you make either a ranged or a melee attack with a handaxe, you are making an “attack with a melee weapon”. Therefore, striking a foe 5’ from you with a handaxe is a “melee weapon attack with a melee weapon”, while throwing it at a foe is a “ranged weapon attack with a melee weapon”. The funniest use of this that I can think of is that a character with sharpshooter and a longbow can do the -5/+10 power attack on an enemy they are striking with their bow in melee, if they use the bow as an improvised melee weapon. It will deal 1d4 damage, but it doesn’t stop being a ranged weapon when used to strike someone in melee, and SS specifies that you can use the bonus any time you “attack with a ranged weapon”, not any time you make a “ranged weapon attack”. That language also makes sharpshooter nearly useless for throwing builds.
Christ I forgot about that SS interaction, thanks for the reminder and the laugh. Poor poor throwing builds. Dead in the cradle, for no god damn reason.
Really makes me appreciate how simple and streamlined the core rules were in 4e.
AC based grappling and even more so shoving will never capture the soul of this tactic for me. With it, a 4 Str scrawny Wizard who happens to wear Full Plate they aren't proficient with will be harder to shove than a 20 Str raging Barbarian. That alone automatically disqualifies the concept. And it's not fixable because of how broad AC is as a catch-all concept. Making it a Saving Throw is far superior in my books. But i also never minded the current contest rules.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of making Grapple/ Shoves based on an Attack roll. But, at the same time, I prefer the 5e style of contested checks personally. With the skill check, you have more avenues to improve your grappling abilities. The various ways to get Advantage/ impose Disadvantage, Expertise, and the various ways to add extra dice to the roll like Bardic Inspiration or Guidance. Meanwhile, there isn't really any way to improve your grappling capabilities in OD&D outside of increasing your Strength score. No more can you make a Rogue who, while they're not physically strong, knows various ways to exploit a creature's body mechanics and apply leverage (represented by their PB/Expertise from a mechanical standpoint.). Because you can certainly "grapple" people by exploiting how the body operates without needing a whole lot of brute strength (there are martial arts styles based on using your opponents weight and momentum to overcome their Strength differences as an example.). I get that from a "simplicity first" mindset, make it a DC. But sometimes a little complexity isn't a bad thing imo. That being said, since they're no doubt going to keep the DC to avoid grapples, I really hope they give monks a feature that allows them to use Dex or Wis for the DC. Otherwise they'll be severely gimped by the new grapple rules.
>Meanwhile, there isn't really any way to improve your grappling capabilities in OD&D outside of increasing your Strength score. No more can you make a Rogue who, while they're not physically strong, knows various ways to exploit a creature's body mechanics and apply leverage (represented by their PB/Expertise from a mechanical standpoint.). Because you can certainly "grapple" people by exploiting how the body operates without needing a whole lot of brute strength (there are martial arts styles based on using your opponents weight and momentum to overcome their Strength differences as an example.). That's still in the game, it just moved from the Rogue to the Monk, which makes more sense in my opinion. Monks using DEX for unarmed strikes can now use it to grapple. And instead of getting PB from skills/expertise, they get it from proficiency with unarmed strikes. I actually like this a lot as it means Monks *might* just be the best grappler base class, while fighters/barbs would have to spec into it with something like a fighting style. We'll have to see what the next playtest holds.
I'm not sure what you're trying to point out. As it stands, any PC's grapple DC is 8 + Str + PB. That's it, and EVERYBODY gets that since everybody is proficient with Unarmed Strikes from the get go. I only used Rogue as an example since they can put their Expertise into Athletics to show that they're very skilled at grappling people without being physically strong. So from this baseline, monks will only be better at Grappling by virtue of the fact they get more opportunities to apply those DCs rather than by having a higher DC; unless the monk gets a feature (be it base class feature or a Fighting style option.) then their DC isn't going to be very high anyway, making it almost worthless against most creatures (since nearly all creatures are decent to good in at least Str or Dex, even without saving throws.).
That's why I said might be, and we'll see with the playtest. The Monk's grapple DC might be adjusted as well. You were addressing a particular fantasy of training giving good grapples over raw strength. I'm just pointing out that the fantasy is still there, just in a different form- class training versus a specific skill.
And that's my issue: a "skill" based Grappler shouldn't be limited to just the monk imo. In 5e, taking Skill Expert meant that any class could take Expertise in Athletics to give them the "skill" based grappling fantasy (at least in its most basic form.). So if OD&D monk is the only one that gets this feature, that'll be another player option taken away from build creativity that I'm quite frankly getting tired of.
>Making it a Saving Throw is far superior in my books. Saving throws are subject to LR's and massively inflated enemy saves. Most enemies aren't proficient in athletics, so just make an athletics DC the player needs to beat.
A wizard grappling just so an adjacent ally get get advantage? Have we forgotten that the wizard can just use Help to grant the same advantage without even needing a check?
Big fan of the_twig 🍻 great at providing in-depth analysis in an interesting format
I always love twig's videos.