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Post by DMC on Mar 6, 2015 18:54:32 GMT
Opinions wanted! Barbarian and Glabrezu are engaged in a Grapple in a 10' wide hallway, with a Prismatic Wall spell at the Barbarian's back. Question is...can the Barbarian grapple & move the glabrezu around him so their positions are exchanged, and thereby possibly shoving the demon into the Wall? How would you rule in such a confined space? Grappling is super-easy in 5E (unlike the 3E nightmare). GrapplingWhen you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one o f them. The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach.
Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check, a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you succeed, you subject the target to the grappled condition (see appendix A). The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no action required).
Escaping a Grapple. A grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check.
Moving a Grappled Creature. When you move, you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you.
Shoving a CreatureUsing the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them. The target of your shove must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. You make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics)check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.Moving Around Other Creatures You can move through a non-hostile creature’s space. In contrast, you can move through a hostile creature's space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Remember that another creature’s space is difficult terrain for you.
Whether a creature is a friend or an enemy, you can’t willingly end your move in its space.
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Post by friartook on Mar 6, 2015 19:51:52 GMT
I would rule that yes, the barbarian may attempt to toss the enemy into the wall. Despite the fact that the monster's icon takes up the entire passage, his actual form would not. He is a bipedal creature with arms, legs wings, etc. In the same way a person can turn themselves sideways to squeeze through a narrow opening, the barbarian can attempt to shove the creature and his own body sideways, then do so again.
However, I would make this a very difficult thing to do. I would likely give the barbarian disadvantage on his "shove" roll and the monster advantage on his, both because of the narrowness of the passage and the difference in size.
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Post by DMC on Mar 6, 2015 20:59:44 GMT
Right. The PHB even states that the area you control is just that.
Space A creature's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions. A typical Medium creature isn't 5 feet wide, for example, but it does control a space that wide. If a Medium hobgoblin stands in a 5-foot-wide doorway, other creatures can’t get through unless the hobgoblin lets them.
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Post by joatmoniac on Mar 6, 2015 21:19:10 GMT
The way I see the rules is that if the Barbarian and Glaberzu were in their positions, but not yet grappled the Barbarian could complete the proposed shove into the Prismatic Wall within one round if they had multiple attacks. I assume that said Barbarian would have multiple attacks given that they are in a grapple situation with a Glaberzu.
Step 1: "a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use)" which would use one attack action. On a success - Step 2: using their move action "When you move, you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved" even halved and being strict on space moved I assume this would work for the barbarian. Step 3: using a second Attack action "a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you."
I think that this helps encompass the difficulty aspect that friartook noted in his response. It also only allows for something this impressive to be done by higher level characters. Just my thoughts on the matter. Is this currently a topic that is still standing for debate in one of your games, or was it resolved in some way (if so how so) and you wanted some outside opinions on the matter?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2015 6:12:23 GMT
Under Moving a Grappled Creature. "...drag or carry the grappled creature."
It seems like common sense that you must occupy the same space to carry something. There's no specific line in the PHB to support this, unfortunately. From occupying the same space, you can move to the other side of the creature you are carrying, no additional rolls required. You'd still need to shove him next round to hit the prismatic wall.
Think I'll post this question on another forum to get others' ideas, will report back here if anything interesting comes up.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2015 22:34:20 GMT
By the rules in the PHB alone, it sounds like Kanati (and allies) would have to shove/drag the Glabrezu out of the hallway before Kanati can get to the other side, then shove the enemy back into the prismatic wall.
However, the DMG provides for the Overrun and Tumble action which can allow Kanati to move through a hostile creature's space.
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Post by joatmoniac on Mar 7, 2015 23:45:18 GMT
I assume it is stated somewhere, but the rules for attacking into a grapple would likely help in terms of movement. In 3.5 it was that the two grapplers occupied the same space, and Pthfinder they didnt (I don't know about 4e.) I would think that if they do occupy the same space in 5e you could likely rotate in the grapple. However, if the two grapplers continue to occupy their own space then you would probably need to utilize something fancier like Overrun or Tumble etc.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2015 4:55:22 GMT
Funnily enough, I posed the question over on the WotC forum, not realizing that's where the situation was originally posted.
The contested strength check to do a suplex and switch positions mentioned there is a good enough ruling. It got me thinking about what it means to grapple, though... In my mind's eye, you are sharing the same space, whatever the mechanics say. I would still allow for movement (at half speed) through an opponent you have grappled, as long as you don't end your turn in the same space.
This is irrelevant for the situation as described on the WotC forum, as the demon and barbarian are both grappling one another, and therefore both have 0 speed.
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Post by friartook on Mar 8, 2015 16:31:54 GMT
I get tired of all the mechanical stuff. That is exactly the kind of thing that groups get bogged down in when using a grid. I can respect that some groups really like to play like that, and bully for them! I'll always say: if you're having fun, you're doing it right! Parsing rules is not fun for me. When I answered, I didn't know the rules for grappling in 3.5 or 5e or any edition. Never bothered with them. I only skimmed DMC's rules quotes. I just pictured the scene in my mind and asked myself, "Could someone do this if it were real?" The answer I came up with was, "Yes, but it would be really hard." Hence, opposed disadvantage and advantage. This is the stuff I think 5e got so, so right. They cut the pork out of the rules and made it all "optional." Then added a very simple mechanic to allow a DM to, literally, grant advantage or disadvantage to an attempted action. When I am in a session, I don't want to have to look up any rules. I don't even want to have to think about them for more than 30 seconds. I want to imagine a scene and make a call based on what I think would really happen. If I think something is not possible, but a player does, I always hit them with, "Sell it to me." If they can sell it, either through logic, drama, or straight vehemence, I'll usually allow it. Also (and here's my main, most important point), if a player wants to do something cool, I'm going to do what I can as a DM to encourage that. I will bend technicalities of the rules to allow players to do creative, crazy, and/or cool moves in or out of combat. I don't want my D&D session to be a bunch lawyers trying to game the rules. I want my guys to be HEROS who come up with creative and insane solutions to the problems they face. In the specific situation we are talking about here, trying to grapple your enemy (a giant effin' DEMON) and toss them behind you into a prismatic wall is an out of the box solution and a cool maneuver. This is like The Rock trying to body slam Satan. It's daring, crazy, risky and awesome! It represents the way I want my players thinking. So, even if the rules stated it was impossible, I would rule it possible...just really really hard. And, because I'm evil, if they fail, they are going to be hurtin' for certain.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2015 19:44:58 GMT
I'm with you 100% friartook, with one provision. I love parsing the rules outside of a game session, and then almost exclusively on forums. It's extremely rare that my rulings are questioned, since most of my players are new to this genre of games. When it does happen, I resolve it with something along the lines of, "This is how it works now. We can look at it later." I think in-depth discussions of the game language and how to interpret it are valuable for acquiring system mastery. However, those discussions have a time and a place, and it's generally not in the middle of a session.
I had another veteran DM question my call at a recent Expeditions session. He had been through every iteration of the D&D Next play tests. He was certain targets do not gain half-cover (+2 AC) when a PC makes a ranged attack through a friendly creature (an artifact from the tests). I was certain they do. I asked him to make his attack roll, which succeeded by more than 2 points anyway, and thus the cover rule was irrelevant. However, I suggested he look up the rules on cover while he awaited his next turn. Had he been within +/- 2 of the target AC, I would've stuck with my ruling until the rule was confirmed, and retroactively applied the result if he proved me wrong. This was a quick and easy case to adjudicate, since it's spelled out explicitly in the PHB.
For more complicated stuff, it's purely resolved after the session. Another recent example was chase mechanics. There's not much in the PHB for resolving chases, but the DMG has a decent system. However, we didn't have a copy on hand during that session. I was a player, and suggested to the DM that he handle it with contested athletics checks, the first person with three success wins. The pursuer was a raging barbarian against a human cultist NPC, so you can probably guess who won. It wasn't until after the session that I found the chase mechanics in the DMG, and brought them to the attention of the DM. Moving forward, we'll be using that sub-system, but the improvised method worked out fine, and was fun.
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Post by joatmoniac on Mar 8, 2015 19:48:43 GMT
Firstly, I had scrolled to the very end of your post Friartook and that made me very happy to start reading with that. At its core though, I couldn't agree more with your point. If it's a fun out of the box idea I feel that we are tasked as DMs to try and facilitate allowing our players to attempt it. "Yes, but/and" is always better than "No." There has always been a part of me though that has to know what is "right" after the fact, and always open to being wrong in that process. I would never say that I made the wrong choice in game, but would be willing to adjucate thing differently going forward in a game. I also enjoy putting notable consequences on things that could be awesome.
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Post by DMC on Mar 9, 2015 16:30:19 GMT
friartook, that's exactly my sentiment as well, and what our DM did. There was no bogging down. It was just a "I want to ______" and a "Sure, but..." reply.
I'm a firm believer in "Yes, and..."
Nevvur, I to do the exact same thing. ESPECIALLY in a new edition. There've been MANY times someone has said "Are you sure...?" and I just said on the fly "Here's how I'm ruling it now. After combat, when it's free actions to do whatever, feel free to look it up and let us know what it says." Bogging down actions with rules look-up is annoying. It has to happen sometimes, but for the most part I rule pretty fast and loose. ADV/DISADV is a HUGE bonus in 5E for this. Forget all the rules, and just use that if need be to keep things flowing and come back to the mechanics later.
The "Rule of Cool" is prominent in my game. If my PCs are in a location and one says "I jump up and grab the chandelier and swing across to slam my feet into the bad guy's face!"....well who cares if I described the room with a chandelier or not. LOL If it makes sense a room would have one, then have at it! If it's the leather armored Rogue, I wouldn't even ask for a check. A Paladin in full plate? Yeah I'd probably ask for a DEX (Acrobatics) check DC10, maybe with Disadv., and let that Paladin know that the rope looks sketchy. He can try it, but a failure of 5 or more and you're pretty sure that thing'll snap from your weight, and let the player decide if they want to risk it or not, or do something else.
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Post by DMC on Mar 9, 2015 16:40:25 GMT
PS - I hope you all know what I mean when I said "forget all the rules". Heh heh heh. Didn't mean that literally.
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Post by friartook on Mar 9, 2015 16:58:17 GMT
I have definitely made calls at the table which, in retrospect, were wrong according to the rules. I'll usually look those kinds of things up after a session. For example, my rogue, in one of our first 5e sessions, wanted to attack with his two daggers. I ruled he couldn't, mostly because I didn't know how 5e handled dual wielding. After the session, I looked it up, and corrected myself at our next session. I'm never afraid to admit when I'm wrong. That being said, if I thought my ruling was cooler, or more realistic, I'd likely stick to my guns and call it a "house rule."
I'm glad people are invested in parsing out the rules, both at the table and on forums. Wizards did a great job using player feedback for this edition, but that would have been impossible without people dissecting the rules and finding the bugs in them.
As to the rogue on the chandelier: I always make them roll a check, even if its just to see if they botch. I want my players to do cool stuff, and I will reward cool moves with Inspiration and/or amazing after-effects. However, I also want to make sure there are consequences on the flip side. The barbarian tossing the demon into a prismatic wall is cool, but its even cooler if the player does it knowing there could be horrible consequences on a failure.
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Post by joatmoniac on Mar 9, 2015 16:59:02 GMT
I really enjoy the dis/advantage system because it can be liberally applied as you play. From a numeric stand point the old school +2 is a little bit better, and here is some fun math about that www.gnomestew.com/specific-rpgs/disadvantage-vs-2/ but the only thing I don't like, and house rule out, is that one disadvantage can cancel out any number of advantages. I haven't come into contact with a ton of scenarios where competing advantages and disadvantages have happened, but I still like giving the roll to which there are more of. How do you guys usually administer out the advantages and disadvantages?
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