@Axoren Wait why is the DM handling adoptions now :P

@DavidCoffron Thta's always an option - but does anyone know designer reasons for dwarf only?

@ErosRising Too tall to fit in the Spike Ball, but you could probably get custom-fitted Spike Pillar armor

@NautArch Because in Forgotten Realms the Battleragers (as well as spiked armor) were a Dwarvish invention. That's all

@NautArch I know: Salvatore made them only dwarves in his novels...

@DavidCoffron fair enough :) Is that a similar reasonfor elf only bladesingers?

Same thing. As well as the naming of the Purple Dragon Knight

If you ever gave a Porcupine class levels, they'd pick Dwarf as a starting race.

@NautArch Same reason they didn't let us keep a country of non-savage non-evil Orcs. Salvatore needed them to be evil so his little do-gooder tanned-too-much elf could kill them without remorse

But polearm master with Battlerager could be an interesting combo.

@NautArch Meh. You alreayd get a bonus attack from PM. Seems a little redundant

@Helwar have you watched Bright?

@NautArch Doesn't Polearm Master give you a Bonus Action extra attack?

Completely defeating the purpose?

@NautArch not YET. Enfasis on the yet

5e was so set on not making Bonus Actions a big deal that they ended up oversaturating that action slot.

"You get actions and moves. That's it."

"You get a bonus action, too. I guess."

"Also, you get a free interaction, that seems far."

@Axoren that's one option, but you still get the OA when something comes into your reach and then have option to use your battle rager bonus attack OR go for the grapple + dmg.

@ErosRising Summarizing all of our statements: "Use a glaive/halberd or lance at range". "After your grapple you can 'punch' people with your Battlerager armor (if you go battlerager) as a bonus action". "Or reskin a dagger, but you won't be able to do double grapples"

It's a shame Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade don't work for reach weapons

@NautArch add tunnel fighter (as broken as it is) and you have a great build :)

Just remember you only get one bonus action in a turn

@Helwar Ew not tunnel fighter

@Helwar yeah, no tunnel fighter :)

@Helwar Just do note that Tunnel Fighter is UA playtest material.

Tunnel Fighter is actually fairly balanced, imo.

You just need to make it Ranger only.

that fighting style is bonkers

@NautArch It's a fighting style

@NautArch And really doesn't fit with the how the rules for any other feature are written.

@Axoren or make it only active in spaces that folks can't get around you. Using "tunnel Fighter" in an open space makes zero sense.

Omg, I never knew it was so hated haha, I used it once thinking it would be kinda bad... Our DM had made only corridors, and I had the feat that reduces speed of enemies to 0 if you OA them...

@NautArch Looks like someone doesn't know how to "be the tunnel"

@Axoren there is no spoon

Can I use the Ready action to ready dropping my Glaive and pick up a quarterstaff when the enemy gets within 10 feet so that my reach changes and then get two Opportunity attacks with my polearm master when they get within 5 feet

@NautArch Tunnel fighter is fine in an open field because the idea is that you're limiting movement in a "through you" direction. So yeah, you ARE the tunnel and you're closed.

@Helwar I don't hate it... I think it is really powerful though. I just think it is weird the way it is written and there is a reason it hasn't been published in the 3 years (I think?) since it was published in UA

@DavidCoffron I don' tknow if you can include free interactions with a ready action - But my gut say sno.

(assuming something else gives me two reactions)

@Rubiksmoose Then again the other fighting styles in that UA are more balanced and they haven't been released either

@DavidCoffron Free reactions are per turn, and you can do them as part of the action you're doing on that turn.

@DavidCoffron A fair and very valid point. Have none of them really been published?

@Rubiksmoose No new fighting styles at all

Much to my fighter loving shegrin

@Axoren RIght, but readying an action is just readying either your action or your Movement (you don't get both, and I'd rule you don't get free interactions for the same reason)

@DavidCoffron oh yeah. Interesting.

t"You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack."

@NautArch So you can't ready an action to open a door and cast Magic Missiles?

@Axoren I would say no.

No Surprise Attacks Allowed.

Because this isn't your turn.

I can draw a weapon as part of the same one used to attack (in this case my Readied action) no?

But by the same token as a result of that you have to kick a door open and then wait 6 seconds before casting a spell through it.

You are readying your action or your move and that's it. But That's a good stack question :)

@Axoren This would actually be an interesting mainsite question.

I'll post it.

I would suggest asking it.

:)

That is a really good question, but I dread bringin up Ready action again bc of what it caused last time xD

@DavidCoffron I usually hate ready action questions, but this one at least is not asking about triggering or timing so it is actually quite refreshing lol

"Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it. "

Does this count as using "your action" or just an activity that you use during the reaction?

Any recommended edits?

Looks fine, I just don't know any answer lol

There is a third case, you can open the door using your free interaction during movement and then ready magic missles with the door open

@Axoren Is the readied action being taken On Your Turn or as a reaction? The answer is no unless the readied action is being executed On Your Turn. Your free interaction happens on your turn.

@KorvinStarmast Do you have a rule where it says that?

Nevermind

It is under "Other Activity on Your Turn"

Basic Rules page 70

"other Activity On Your Turn"

The rule itself doesn't say it, but the section does.

While the title indicates "On Your Turn", all the rulings simply state as part of your action.

@Axoren According to Jeremy Crawford, the heading matters (implicitly)

(although I, too, used to argue against that)

@DavidCoffron He is talking about other adjacent sentences there. But yes, context does matter.

Now we need rules on how to read the rules?

@Rubiksmoose That's why I put "implicitly". The headings provide the framework for the rules usage. Free interaction belongs under "...On Your Turn"

I reserve that since Readying comes later on in the book, and it's such a poorly thought out implementation of the mechanic, they probably didn't realize the ramifications of naming a section "Things you can do in this surprisingly niche situation."

A majority of the game does not take place on your turn.

@Axoren but they've consistently ruled about what you can do on your turn and not on your turn (see my extra attack link)

Where is the rule that you can only make one action if you ready the Attack Action?

Just realized I don't see it.

Ahh, it's as part of the Extra Attack rule.

@Axoren detailed here, but it's the idea extra attack stipulates "when you take the attack action on your turn"

Rather than being part of the ready rule.

@Axoren It's in the PHB. The "on your turn" bit is PHB 189 or 190, IIRC,

I wish sections were better indexed for all the things associated with them

@Axoren that's where reading the rule books and becoming familiar with them is (IMO) so important for any DM. I got down voted for telling a new DM that they need to know the rules; one of the most bizarre interactions I've had on this site, and the cause of a load of grief from a number of members.

While you're not wrong, there's an unnecessarily large amount of overhead even with this simpler system.

The only reason 3.5e was bearable was because we put up with it for over a decade.

@KorvinStarmast Was probably a response to your tone, but I don't know. Reading the rules is important but there are nice ways to advise new players

@David Actually, it was the comments where the problem started, not with the new member, but let's not go there.

@Axoren I'm gonna agree with @KorvinStarmast here. Reading and knowing the rules is incredibly important for both following the rules AND making decisions to not follow them.

@Axoren There isn't THAT much overhead. Especially when one of the first rules is "listen to the DM if you don't know the rule on the spot"

:44730061 True Sorry @Korvin

@DavidCoffron We had to settle whether or not the title of a section counted as rules text by crosschecking with the social network page of a designer.

@DavidCoffron No reason to appologize. I just find that when we start talking about an issue that is not well-defined, things often go off rails in poor ways. I deleted my comment since @Korvin had already said not to go there anyways.

That indicates to me that the rule is not as simple as it looks and requires out-of-book context to have fully understood

@DavidCoffron No worries; this answer was good advice, in particular as I read the question as the DM being a newbie and the other players taking advantage of them; but that may not have been the case. And Dale's answer was a lot better anyway.

@Axoren After reading the section over I actually feel like the heading here does matter.

@Axoren Well in this case I would say the rule is too simple and the heading is necessary for it to be usable, but I get your point

@Rubiksmoose I'm still on the fence about it. It's an inductive rule, where it tells you all the things you CAN do on your turn, but doesn't disqualify things you can't do on not your turn.

My biggest gripe with headings as rules had to do with Improvised Weapons (which are equally poorly defined)

@Axoren And I'm honestly not sure why people keep citing that tweet... JC was just making a very obvious statement about how sentences often explain the ones coming before it.

@Rubiksmoose I tend to agree that it won't, most of the time, break anything, but since the action economy is what it is (for all that bonus actions have some notable quirks) it is simplest to go with the economy as presented.

@Axoren that's thin-ice logic. The idea of "it doesn't say I can't, so I can" is problematic.

And it does say you can do it on your turn, if they meant you could do it not on your turn, it'd say that. Things do what they say in 5e.

@Axoren the book would be a thousand pages long if for all of the text they have to add "but you can't do this" for all edge cases. Not gonna be easy to sell a book that big.

@Rubiksmoose I think the tweet is cited because of the discussion we're having now :)

@NautArch @KorvinStarmast I'm not using it as an indication that I can cast Meteor Swarm or something ridiculous

@Rubiksmoose I quote that line because it reinforces the principle of plain reading (a more hyper-literal reading would ignore anything not directly tied to the specific rule)

However, there is a glimmer of intent that Interactions aren't supposed to be this major aspect of Action Economy

@NautArch In fact, a compelling case just in this very section is bit on reactions in the "On Your Turn" section.

And that they're supposed to be part of actions

@Axoren As a general rule: any site that is engaging in mass copyright infringement (as dndtools once did, its sole purpose being to circumvent any need to buy the books) should never be linked to anywhere. Any other site is fair game to link to.

@Axoren Agreed, part of actions... on your turn

@doppelgreener Thanks for the heads up.

@Axoren Which is why I, and I'm sure most DMs, would allow it anyway (just like I allow switching weapons and drawing two weapons at a time)

@DavidCoffron we don't allow that, but I can see why it's not a big deal, either.

@Axoren I understand; I am a fan of the KISS principle. I did not understand the action economy at all the first time we played; I had to interact with the rules a bit to get a feel for how it worked. I hadn't played much 3.5, so it took a while to go in the books and try to piece together a framework to understand action economy.

Even though reactions are described in the section on things you can do on your turn it explicitly says "on your turn or on someone else's"

@NautArch Part of actions /or/ movement (but that's just a nitpick)

@KorvinStarmast KISS principle?

@Rubiksmoose Hence my answer. If the situation sets up the reaction to happen on your turn, then it works.

@DavidCoffron true, but you've still got the same requiremetn of turn

@Helwar Keep It Simple Stupid

@Helwar Keep It Simple Sir. :)

Keep it simple, simpleton.

Lol haha, great :)

@KorvinStarmast Yup. I think I am in agreement with you all.

@Keep It Simple Simon ... vary the last term for the appropriate audience. ;)

In my group of friends, we call it the KISR principle, but we're a lot more vulgar in Boston :P

KISG: Keep it simple gnomes!

As you may have noticed by my fluent french.

@Axoren Well, at least your Celtics are doing OK, so ya got that going ... :)

Keep It Silly, Simpleton

KISP: Keep It Simple, People! :)

Kill It Slowly... Softly...

@DavidCoffron Hmm, sounds like a Bard of Whispers motto .... evil variety

Literally the most fun subclass to make NPCs with

The interacting with objects around you section is somewhat disjoint from the "On your turn" section

Can my bard choose stark silence and stern stares as his medium for arcane magic

@Axoren (the examples are, but the rule is within it)

@Axoren Not in the basic rules. It's in the text of the paragraph, with the table called out in green for easy reference.

I've always wanted to be a Performance Painter bard that painted his somatic components in mid-air at people.

@KorvinStarmast Same with the PHB.

Man, I love this site. Got a link to this page that explains difference between RPG and board games. Lovely illustration.

@Axoren Kensei Monk multiclass?

It really does seem to be that they don't want people to Ready actions much.

I really disagree with using that JC tweet as support for using section titles as context.

@Rubiksmoose I'll ask him for that question specifically then

Woo Hoo, I reached the daily vote limit with a vote for @NautArch. As we used to say on the firing range: Rounds Complete!

@KorvinStarmast ermergerd, there's a daily vote limit?

Whenever I tweet at Jeremy Crawford, he never responds. Is there like a day of the month where he just does a Q&A that I'm always missing?

If he actually ever said that, then it would be relevant. But he hasn't. And be careful about making out that he did because there are plenty of places in the rules under plain bad headers that can lead to wacky rulings. See mounts, barding.

@Axoren Unfortunately no. I've gotten a couple answers, but mostly he missed them. Many people tweet him and he doesn't have infinite time

@Axoren i've tried shouting "tweet tweet" before at him, but he never responds to that, either.

@Rubiksmoose See mounted combat, at all, for a 5e hot mess that seems to be almost intractable. (Without the feat?)

@Rubiksmoose (yeah.... I was in that discussion too)

@NautArch That's because he's worried you have brain damage.

:P

@DavidCoffron yup :) as was @NautArch. The original comment was directed more at Naut anyways since they cited it in their answer

I still don't understand how you're supposed to be expected to ride a horse down a 5-ft wide staircase, make two 90-degree turns at the bottom to go down the reverse direction staircase, and then avoid triggering traps or collapsing bridges.

Like, what do you do when half of your class features are made useless because of where you have to go?

@NautArch Yeah, I've been going through some older q/a and cropped up, so I have been expending a lot of rounds ... uh ... votes

That was my same issue with Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain in past editions (and this one)

@Axoren What issue is that?

twitter.com/dcoffron/status/998576969091571712 Asked

@DavidCoffron You shotgunned him with a bunch of questions. Really making use of the extended character limit :P

@KorvinStarmast Scroll up?

Literally the last thing I said before that one

@Axoren Meh in 5e favored enemy and terrain are very small aspects of Ranger (not half of features)

A cavalier doesn't make sense in a dungeon crawl

Ah. Well, if the adventure never takes you to woods or deserts (or the Land Druids various favored terrain) then so be it.

@Axoren I disagree. He's a sticky tank.

@Axoren And the new Cavalier in XGtE is only partly mount focused and has a lot of things going for him (like extra opportunity attacks)

I mean original editions.

5e's better about it

If you spend all 20 levels on dungeon crawl .. well, that's different. But it's a form of fun.

In 5e, archtypes and classes are Base Package + Goodies

@KorvinStarmast Ok. Land Druids are so annoying to play. Baby rant over

Cavailer in 1e UA was ... let's not go there, that whole book was a bit of a stew ...

@DavidCoffron Why is that?

Whereas in previous editions of 3.5e and 3.75e/PF, you ended up with a specialist character that would be really good at LITERALLY ONE COMBAT EVER

Be a hobbit riding on a badger or something

But ho' damn, you'd be the star of that combat.

@Axoren A star that burns twice as bright burns half as long

@Axoren It really, really depends on the campaign, and on the DM, how often the mounted combat thing comes up. Or be a hobbit riding a badger. :)

So dominating that one single combat just means it lasts 1 round and then you have to retire the character

@DavidCoffron in a new game I'm starting up, a player has chosen to be wood elf ranger with Humanoids as their favored enemy. Seems kind of cold to choose that :)

self hating humanoid.

"Alright, guys. Cover me for 3 turns while I apply my buffs."

@NautArch Why self-hating?

"Alright, someone tell me what the phase of the moon is because I can't see further than 60 ft. while I'm in this stance."

@SPavel elf=humanoid. Enemies are humanoids.

Honestly, it's way more likely that he'd have to fight humanoids than dragons or whatever

@NautArch My previous Ranger, Hunter, was a bounty hunter background. Of course his favored enemy was humanoids. That was how he made his living.

"Alright, now can someone grab my ankle so that I get an extra attack?"

There are LOADS of humanoids

In Pathfinder, you had to pick which type of Humanoids, iirc

@KorvinStarmast yeah, i'm going to have him explore what he means by that (is that an okay thing to do as a dM?)

I even have a story about him, I can send to you ... it's different from Hal's back story by a lot.

@KorvinStarmast because it combines my three least favorite non-feat features (out-of-game handling wise): arcane/natural recovery, full list of preparable spells, and subclass specific spells

@NautArch heck yeah; background IMO is best done collaboratively between DM and player. That helps you both get a feel for the character and who he/she is.

@Axoren Yeah, PF and 3e you have to pick subtype

Which is dumb

In 1e and before, after our first dungeon crawl, we all tended to make back stories for our characters ...

I mean, if you're going to trudge the underdark, Orc and Drow are good picks.

Drow is elf type

@Axoren @NautArch in 5e you only get two types of Humanoids to choose

@SPavel Elf is a humanoid...

"good" and "bad"?

I personally like the "Hey, you guys are a team right now. Always have been. You're doing the first session like this."

And then you backfill the backstory.