Let's Talk Tactics - Outside the Box
In the last Tactics article, we spoke about using cover and how we never use it. It got me thinking about other “outside the box” tactics that we can use on our turn. A while back, we talked about standard alternative actions to use rather than just hitting a creature over and over. Everyone loves hitting things in hopes of landing the killing blow and describing to the table how they removed the head from the rest of its body, then holding it aloft in victory. However, like everything else in life, stabbing and slashing over and over again gets boring, but it is a necessary evil when fighting a BBEG. I started looking through the texts, went down the rabbit hole that is the internet, and talked with various community members to find new and exciting actions and/or tactics.
While I wasn’t shocked to find a slew of ideas, it was fun and educational to read about all the goofy, deadly, forgotten about, and just plain weird ideas that people came up with. Some have instant effects, while others require another action or party member to have the desired result. The problem with many of the actions/tactics listed below is we as players have a hard time not thinking about them as a wasted action. It has been drilled into us from older players that you aren't doing it right if you aren’t hitting the bad guy. In the 5th edition, nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s only natural to feel like you are giving up your chance to hit and perhaps land the killing blow on a creature for no good reason, but this is a team game. At the start of combat against a powerful creature, you will not be killing it with a single blow, so using an action that will allow the rest of the party to attack with benefits makes complete sense. Your perceived sacrifice could be the difference between surviving to find a horde of treasure and the death of one of a teammate… or you.
Ready an Action
To Ready an action, you are required to use both your action and your reaction. It is a basic “if/then” statement. You make a conditional statement (the “if” part) that is a hypothesis of what may happen, followed by a conclusion of the hypothesis (the “then” part). In D&D terms, the action part of the equation is when you declare a trigger for a specific event that may happen - your “if” statement. The reaction is you acting on the specific event - the “then” part. That may seem like a lot, but it is a great use of your action economy when used properly.
Let’s walk through an example. The first step is to use your action to declare a trigger. Your ranger has advanced their maximum movement but is still 30 feet away from the kobold, hiding behind a rock, and has total cover from you. Your trusty bow is ready, and you decide to ready an action with your trigger being, “If the kobold moves, I will fire my arrow at it.” Since you cannot use your action on this turn, as the target has total cover, this makes sense. It would be a poor use of your action if you could complete your trigger on the action itself.
On the kobold’s turn, it has decided to stop being hit on the head by the fighter’s mace, so it disengages and starts to run away. Your trigger has now happened, so you use your reaction to fire off the arrow you had set to go. (Make sure on your turn you have moved into a position where no matter where it runs, it won’t have total cover from you! It shouldn’t be that hard given cover rules).
If the trigger does not happen by the end of the kobold’s turn, then you may not use your reaction, and the ability to shoot that arrow is lost. It’s crucial to pick a reasonable trigger, one that has a decent chance of occurring. If the trigger does not happen, you have wasted both your action and reaction in most cases. It is a gamble worth taking that requires planning, situational awareness, and communication with other party members to be of any value.
Before we move on, I’d be remiss if we didn’t cover a few additional items involved with the Ready action.
You can use any regular action as a Ready action.
The trigger must be an action, not a bonus action.
You may always decide to forgo your readied action if you want. Plans may change before the trigger occurs, so having the option to not follow through with your reaction is a nice option and keeps your reaction handy.
When your trigger involves making a weapon attack, you can only make one attack, regardless of whether you can make multiple attacks.
If you decide to hold any spell that requires concentration, it starts when you state the trigger. You have to keep concentration until the action is triggered. You lose the readied spell's slot if it is not triggered before starting your next turn.
Eldritch Blast DOES allow you to make multiple attacks as a triggered action. Counterspell used against you must be used when you declare you are readying the spell as your action, not when the spell is cast on your reaction. You may have wasted your action, but at least you’ve still got your reaction!
Disarm
The disarm action is defined as follows:
A creature can use a weapon attack to knock a weapon or another item from a target’s grasp. The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item.
The attacker has disadvantage on its attack roll if the target is holding the item with two or more hands. The target has advantage on its ability check if it is larger than the attacking creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller.
Dungeon’s Master Guide, pg. 271
Note - This is an optional rule, so discuss with your DM. Now let’s be honest - you’ve never done this. In fairness, it is a situational action that isn’t an option for many of the creatures you end up in combat with. There’s no weapon to knock out of the hands of that Red Dragon trying to turn you into a charcoal briquette, so there is no use for the action in this scenario. That, however, does not mean it is not a very useful action in all circumstances.
Here’s an example. You’ve finally reached the showdown with Halaster Blackcoat, the Mad Mage of Undermountain. You manage to get up close and personal, and your first instinct is to hit him with everything you’ve got - three or four attacks, assassinate, action surge, smites - whatever you may have in your arsenal. What you really should be doing is trying to disarm him. Now the DM is not a fool and will contest with a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, but should you be successful in your attempt, you will knock the blast scepter he is holding out of his hand. In doing this, you have eliminated the threat of its thunderwave, which is nice. If he’s using the scepter as his arcane focus, that means no symbol, chain lightning, globe of invulnerability, programmed illusion, wall of force, or fireball spells, and those are just the ones I looked up. You have effectively crippled old Halaster. Now you, or another party member, can pick up the scepter, hit him as hard as you can at your next opportunity, or back away and let your party’s wizard use their fireball since you’ve also taken away his resistance to fire (and lightning). All this just by taking the simple action of disarming him.
Shove
The shove action is defined as follows:
Using 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 must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you succeed, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.
Player’s Handbook pg. 195
I talked about the shove action here, but it’s worth mentioning again. Let’s talk about pushing someone back 5 feet first. Your standing at the edge of a beautiful seaside cliff, watching the sunset, and a troll comes up and demands you pay a toll. Confused since there is no bridge anywhere in sight, you refuse. Instead of trying to hit you, the troll shoves you, watching you plummet to your death. The same concept works if you're standing near a pit, ravine, or on top of a volcano. Shove someone if you’re on top of a hill and watch them tumble down. It may not cause any damage, but they will be out of the fight for a round or two. Along the same lines, you can shove someone using these feats:
Charger - 5 feet is for the weak, especially if that troll is standing 10 feet some the edge of the cliff.
Shield Master - Add insult to injury by using your action to make your target bleed and then use your bonus action to knock them off the cliff.
The second and more commonly used part of this shove action is the ability to knock someone prone. It seems like everyone likes to kick someone when they’re down, and doing it with advantage makes it even better. But why stop there? One person knocks the target prone, a couple of other people kick the poor soul since that’s what we do. Now before our target struggles to their feet, one of the party members, preferably one with a high Strength, grapples the target as they lay on the ground. This unfortunate individual is prone and has no chance to get up, with everyone rolling two of those beautiful d20’s every time they attack.
Climb a Tree
Here’s where we start with the ‘non-traditional’ tactics. If you are fighting in the forest, climbing a tree is something to consider. When climbing, each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot if you don’t have a climb speed, so if you’re standing next to a tree at the start of your turn, you can climb up 15 feet.
For most of this, you will need to talk to your DM, as many of the actions listed below are at their discretion. Find a comfy branch to sit on and throw daggers or fire arrows to your heart’s content. The same goes for casting a spell. If you can’t sit, maybe you can hold onto a branch with one hand and hold your arcane focus in the other. If you are willing to suffer a bit of fall damage, you can jump from the tree, shortswords at the ready, and attempt to plunge them into the creature below. If that’s not an option, you can at least try to knock them prone by landing on them.
Defensively, climbing a tree has its benefits. When you’re tired of getting stabbed by those annoying melee attacks, climb up high enough to get out of the creature’s melee range. You can move to a location on the tree to provide you with cover to avoid those pesky arrows. Leaves are wonderful things, as you can use the foliage to be lightly or even heavily obscured. Overall, climbing a tree may seem a little strange at first blush, but it is definitely something to consider.
A Rogue and their Horse
We discussed mounts here and here. Those spoke more about types of mounts that are or could be available to you, but not how to use them. Mounts are woefully underused in the 5th edition, but it is well worth the cost in this case. One of the more effective uses for a horse or any other type of mount occurs when you are a rogue.
If you are playing a rogue and you are riding a horse, or for that matter any mount, you have sneak attack every around. Even if you dismount, as long as your horse is within five feet of you, you’ll be able to sneak attack. Since your mount counts as an ally, this works. This is not specifically stated in any of the textbooks, but the consensus is that yes, a mount is an ally.
Based on this tweet from Jeremy Crawford…
A rider and a controlled mount have separate turns, but they have the same initiative, which means you decide which one goes first.
Jeremy Crawford via Twitter, April 26, 2017
…I can do the following if I'm playing a rogue. I’m on my horse, and a creature runs up next to me. On my turn, I decide to go first. Since a horse is an ally, I can sneak attack. The horse goes next. It uses the disengage action and moves away, preventing us from a potential melee attack next turn. Even better, because your horse uses the disengage action, there is no attack of opportunity on the horse and no opportunity attack on you since you are not using your movement.
Here’s another option if the distance between you and the target works. You go first and Ready an action. The trigger is “when my horse gets within 5 ft of the creature, I make a melee attack”. Your horse goes next with its 60 ft of movement. It rides up to the target, your trigger is met, and you make your sneak attack. Your horse then uses its action to disengage and uses the rest of its movement to move away. It’s not very effective if you cannot move far enough away from the target to prevent it from moving and attacking you on its turn, but it works under RAW. That said, go arcane trickster, and at 13th level, you can cast haste on the horse, doubling its speed. It can also Dash and Disengage in the same turn!
I don’t know about you, but next time I’m playing a rogue, I’m seriously thinking about purchasing myself a steed.
Spell Tactics
There are countless spell combinations along with non-traditional but useful things you can do with spells. While there are too many go into them all, here are a few that I found interesting, useful, and deadly.
Animate objects & Crusader’s Mantle. You’re a mighty paladin. In the next town, buy 10 toy soldiers. Better yet, commission a local artisan to make you 10 little wooden tarrasques, and give them to your party’s wizard as a gift. Before combat, have the wizard cast animate objects on them. They will each have an armor class of 18, +8 to hit, and do 1d4+4 damage. It gets even better since 4 of these creatures can fit in a single 5 ft. space, meaning they can attack as a single creature at one time. I love the imagery of 10 mini tarrasques attacking the ankles of one very pissed off creature.
Now you cast Crusader’s Mantle. A 30 ft radius circle is huge, so most likely, all 10 of the toy tarrasques will be inside it. Your spell provides an extra 1d4 radiant damage on a hit. In a perfect world, the wizard would be doing 20d4+40. Rolling 20 dice in itself is rare, but 20d4’s? That’s awesome.
Animate Undead. Cast with a 4th level spell slot, and you have two new friends who can act as your meat shield. They may not be mighty, but if you’re a wizard, it’s better to have a zombie suffer a second death than to get hit by an approaching owlbear.
Misty Step. This spell is a player’s best friend. It’s a bonus action, so you can cast a cantrip along with it. Make a melee attack, misty step, and then use your movement to get out the target’s range so it can’t run up and retaliate. Without incurring an attack of opportunity when cast, there is nothing to not like about this spell.
Polymorph & Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere. You’ll need two spellcasters for this one, but it works, and I find it funny. Wizard 1 polymorphs a creature into a hamster. Wizard 2 casts Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the hamster. You now have a hamster in a ball for a minute. That’s 8 rounds of screwing with the creature/hamster before you decide how to kill it.
Black Hole
We will end this article with a “screw it, let’s see what happens” idea we’ve all thought about doing at one time or another. Open your portable hole, place it on the ground, and back up 20 feet. On your next turn, throw your bag of holding into it. Rules state you can throw an improvised weapon 20 feet, and since you are throwing the bag at another object, it’s considered an improvised weapon. I recommend throwing an empty bag of holding, but you do you. As we all know, this instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. If the BBEG is within 10 feet of the gate, they are sucked into it, end up on the Astral Plane, and the gate closes, stranding your foe. You’ve essentially created a short-term miniature black hole.
Thanks to everyone that contributed to this article. I enjoyed hearing everyone's ideas, even if I didn’t include them. You can be sure that I will drive Stephen crazy, trying them throughout our campaign. As always, share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
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