5e tactical module draft

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malak
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5e tactical module draft

Post by malak »

So everyone in my group wants to play 5e. I miss the tactical options of 3.5, so I wrote an attempt at the promised but missing 5e tactical module. A battle-mat is assumed.

Please focus on problems in my tactical rule changes, and not on flaming 5e itself.

How can I improve these?
What other interesting tactical elements did I forget?
Should tactical advantage stack?

Tactical Module
Rules with a cost of 'your move action' use up all your movement. You cannot combine these with other types of movement, and you cannot use the rule if you already spent part of your movement.


Tactical Advantage and Disadvantage
Additional rule:There is a modifier called tactical advantage or tactical disadvantage. Tactical advantage / disadvantage on an attack modifies an attack roll by +2/-2. Tactical advantage and disadvantage does not interact with normal advantage and disadvantage, and only applies in the following situations:
- Flanking
- Charging
- Safely standing up from prone
- Grappling


Opportunity attack
Changed rule, p. 195: You make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see leaves a square that is threatened by you.


Charging
Changed rule, 165: The feat 'Charger' is removed.
Additional rule: You move up to two times your speed and make an melee attack with tactical advantage. You can only charge in a straight line, and the minimal distance to charge is 10ft. The cost for this maneuver is your complete movement, your action and your bonus action.
- You provoke opportunity attacks as usual (i.e. when you leave a threatened square)


Shifting
Additional rule: You can spend your move action to carefully move 5 ft. without provoking opportunity attacks.
- Shifting is not possible on difficult terrain or if your speed is reduced to less than 10ft for other reasons.
- Shifting cannot be combined with other forms of movement and will always use up your all of your movement for the turn.


Flanking
Additional rule: Flanking a creature gives tactical advantage on attacks. A creature is flanked if a defender is threatened by two attackers such that the shortest line connecting the attackers intersects with two opposite sides of a square that the defender occupies.


Standing up from prone
Changed rule, p. 191: Standing up from prone uses up half of your movement, and provokes an opportunity attack.
Additional rule: Safely standing up from prone uses up your complete movement, and applies tactical disadvantage to the first attack in the same turn.


Grappling
Changed rule, p. 195: An attacker has tactical advantage when attacking a defender that is currently grappling another creature.
Last edited by malak on Sun Jan 04, 2015 1:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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DrPraetor
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Post by DrPraetor »

The width of the progression in 5E is very small; so if you want to emphasize tactical advantages, make tactical advantages stack and people will care about them a lot. Do not call them tactical advantages, however - call it a tactics bonus or something, because if you use the term advantage people are never going to stop being confused.

Keep in mind, however, that a Planetar already has trouble beating "a bunch of guys", so if those guys can grapple, trip and flank the solar, and then get stacking bonuses from all that, the Planetar is going to be kidney-stabbed until he stops moving.

Just from memory of 3E - there are trip rules in 5E but they are very restrictive, and there don't seem to be any sunder rules. Not sure if you'd want them.

Called shots? Didn't have them in 3E.

The lack of Coup de Grace rules (you get an automatic critical hit instead - which is deeply not the same thing) may also be an issue.
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Scrivener
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Post by Scrivener »

I'm not sure how this suite of rules provides tactical options. Maybe I'm just hung up on the meaning of words here, but I have a hard time seeing this as improving or even providing new choices.

My predictions- due to the range of ACs every fight turns into a daisy chain of ally-enemy-ally-enemy, there is no meaningful movement once flanking is attained aside from the slow 5' step crawl everyone who played 3rd ed is familiar with. Oh, and expect every big bad to get tripped and the party to kick them while they are down.

If you want more tactical options, make more options, not ways to add +2. If you remove attacks of opportunity and add a "guard" or "overwatch" option, you then allow unfettered movement and make defending a point an actual decision.

If you want battle lines to form, break and reform, give disadvantage to anyone attacking a shield wall. This mechanically supports the tactic of "form a line!"

If what you are looking for is a more codified rule set for combat in 5e a good place to start would be to bring back standard, move and possibly minor actions and be clear about what you can do with each.

I get the idea of "let's make this as close to 3e as I can," but there are things that slow down combat, and result in silly configurations in 3e, and you seem to feel they are the best.
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malak
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Post by malak »

Hmm, good points, thanks.

I mainly went back to 3e for inspiration because the free, unhampered movement and lack of flanking and OA made our combat much more boring, but I am happy to hear other ideas.
"guard" or "overwatch" option, you then allow unfettered movement and make defending a point an actual decision.
Can you elaborate on how that would look?
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

I'd make flanking grant advantage, it's situational and interesting enough to be worth a reroll. You might even consider changing what grants advantage/disadvantage to a short, finite list like this:
OgreBattle wrote: Advantage
Bonus earned through stunts or temporary effects.
+Positional advantage: Target is flanked/prone/restrained/flat footed
+Cognitive advantage: Target is unable to see you, target is surprised

Disadvantage
Penalties from temporary effects
-Cognitive: sensory overload, darkness, illusions, super distractions
-Physical: entangling vines, webs, getting grappled, beetles crawling all over you

Double Down (advantage to attackers, disadvantage to attack
-Stunned/Nauseated (electrocuting a water elemental, getting clobbered hard on the head)
as for 'overwatch', It would be something like opportunity attacks activated by going into a 'stance' that involves giving up movement, either all of it or 1/2.
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