We're opening today with a close look at some rules which I think get overlooked at many tables, my own included. Those are the rules for concealment and for cover in 5th edition D&D. Nearly every modern action film features a gunfight with people ducking around corners, behind cars, and dropping flat to avoid gunfire. Similarly, there's no reason a knight shouldn't duck around a corner to avoid those scorching rays. Your druid could easily lay down a fog cloud to cover the barbarian's charge towards the enemy archers. Every dungeon corner is cover, and every hedge is concealment. You just need to use it.
Cover
Cover is some solid surface standing between you and the person attacking. It could be a wall, a pillar, or even a creature. This is important, because while 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons doesn't include a penalty for firing a weapon into melee combat, it does specify that creatures can provide cover, which can amount to the nearly same thing. The players handbook defines cover as follows:
There are three degrees of cover. If a target is behind multiple sources of cover, only the most protective degree of cover applies; the degrees aren't added together. For example, if a target is behind a creature that gives half cover and a tree trunk that gives three-quarters cover, the target has three-quarters cover.
Half Cover
A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.
Three-Quarters Cover
A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three-quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a portcullis, an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk.
Total Cover
A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.
Cover can be a game-changer. Every forest has trees to hide behind, every dungeon has corners. There is nearly always some kind of cover, and if your mage isn't hiding when he's casting those firebolts, then you're giving up an advantage.
Back in 3rd edition, there was a feat called Shot on the Run. It had many prerequisites, but I always wanted to play a character with that feat, because I thought it was overpowered bordering on broken. What did that feat allow you to do?
When using the attack action with a ranged weapon, the character can move both before and after the attack, provided that the character's total distance moved is not greater than the character's speed.
This meant that you could begin your turn in total cover, completely untargetable by enemies, move out, take your shots, and then return to total cover, never giving your opponents any chance to return fire. And while they could certainly ready attacks and wait for you to appear, you'd generally have made a number of attacks before they figured out that they needed to do that. Well, guess what? In 5th edition D&D, everyone can do that without taking any kind of feat. You can bet that I'm going to have the NPCs I run in my game session this weekend doing this to PCs.
Firing into Melee
As I alluded above, 5th edition doesn't have specific rules for firing into melee, but the situation is neatly handled by the rules for cover. Creatures can provide cover, and it doesn't matter if they're friends or enemies. If you're firing into melee, then you look at the positions of the relevant combatants and determine whether your target has half cover. It's only a +2 to armor class, but that can sometimes make a difference.
It would be a house rule, but a DM could determine that there's a chance you accidentally hit the creature providing cover. Even a slight chance that you may accidentally hit your barbarian with that disintegration ray might make you think twice. My suggestion for a house rule would be that if the ranged attack missed the intended target, you roll again with disadvantage to hit the target providing cover. This takes the target's armor class into account, and the disadvantage makes it more forgiving than a straight hit roll.
Prone
According to the players handbook, an attack roll against a prone creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage. This means that if you don't think your enemy can get into melee with you before you can stand up, it might make sense to drop flat. However, since you have disadvantage to all attacks while prone, you'll probably want to spend half your movement getting back up before making another ranged attack.
Range
Of course, a big part of the reason these rules never come up is range. When you find yourself fifteen feet away when you're rolling initiative, taking cover doesn't often make as much sense. But if you're able to see the enemies from max bow range, then it's a different story. I once had a first level party take down a charging ettin (just) before it got into melee simply because the ettin was stupid and the players started at the longest possible range, giving them multiple rounds of attacks.
Concealment
Cover is relatively straightforward, providing armor class and save bonuses. Concealment is a bit stickier. Lighting in 5th edition is separated into three categories: bright light, dim light, and darkness. Bright light allows for normal sight, and all daytime conditions, even if overcast, are considered bright light. Dim light such as twilight, shadows, or bright moonlight creates a lightly obscured area. Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. This happens underground and at night, even on most moonlit nights.
Previous editions of D&D defined infravision, low-light vision, and even ultravision. Those are all gone in 5th edition, so forget about your elf seeing heat signatures. 5th edition includes Darkvision, which allows a creature to see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, and in dim light as if it were bright light, but the range of darkvision is generally limited. So if your dwarf has darkvision out to 60 feet, then that demon standing 70 feet away might as well be invisible.
Blindsight allows a creature to perceive its surroundings without relying on sight at all, which means if a creature with blindsight is inside a fog cloud or in magical darkness, it can effectively "see" just fine. Truesight allows a creature to see in normal and magical darkness, and it can also see through invisibility and illusion magic. A creature with truesight can even see into the ethereal plane and can perceive the original form of a polymorphed creature.
So what does all this mean? All these different types of vision and lighting conditions distills down to one thing: how obscured is something from your perception? If something is lightly obscured, then you have disadvantage on perception checks in regards to it. If it's heavily obscured, then vision is blocked entirely. This means that if you're in a fog cloud, you're effectively blind. And if you're firing your bow at a target who's inside a fog cloud, you have disadvantage because you're effectively blind as to where it is.
There are only three different situations which would play out here. First, when both the attacker and the target are inside the cloud: The attacker has disadvantage because he's blind, but the defender has disadvantage for the same reason. So the attack roll is made normally, as the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other.
The second situation occurs when the attacker is inside the cloud, attacking a target outside the cloud. The attacker is blind, since he's inside the cloud. It's true that he's effectively invisible to his enemy, but for purposes of this attack, he has disadvantage.
The third situation is the most interesting: when an attacker is outside the cloud, attacking a target who's inside the cloud. The target is in a heavily obscured area, and is effectively invisible, so the attack is at disadvantage. But additionally, the attacker doesn't necessarily know where inside the cloud the target actually is. The rules for dealing with the situation here are vague, but as a DM, I rule that the attacked needs to choose a 5 foot square to target. If the target is in that square, then the attack with disadvantage can be made normally. Since any target in the cloud might still make noise, I allow a contest between the target's stealth and the attacker's perception - this check doesn't cost either of them an action. If the perception check wins, then the attacker hears something and knows which square the target is in. Otherwise, he's got to guess.
In my mind, the best tactic for anyone trying to use a cloud effectively in combat is to pop out, make attacks, then pop back into the cloud. While this may result in attacks of opportunity, it still works well in many situations, and it works best for rogues, who can disengage as a bonus action.If you use cover and concealment against your players, they'll get the idea real quick.
No comments:
Post a Comment