32
... if the Earth Elemental is burrowed, weapon attacks have no way to attack it
Correct.
... because of the Earth Glide move, it makes sense that the PCs would lose track of the Earth Elemental
Incorrect. Unless the Earth Elemental takes the hide action, its location is known. The fact that it can move through the earth without disturbing it doesn't mean ...
28
I don't see any reason for it to not work, on the other hand, I don't see how it is broken either.
First off: yes, fighting an Earth Elemental in a completely earthy terrain with no worked structures gives it a good advantage. So does fighting a Water elemental (or even better example: a Water Weird) underwater. And yes, some creatures are a pain to defeat ...
26
As a Readied Action
One of the problems that melee combatants face once they get Extra Attack is that Extra Attack is only usable on your turn. As such you cannot use Extra Attack as a readied action. What you can do, however, is ready Booming Blade and take advantage of the extra attack damage at higher levels.
To encourage the enemy to deal with you
If ...
22
Rule 0
On one hand, the DM can do whatever they want; they are the DM. But, by the actual rules in the book...
No, this is not how the rules work as written
The description of Initiative states:
At the beginning of every combat, you roll initiative by making a Dexterity check.
When the creatures are "readying an attack", this is already part of ...
18
Strictly RAW, using the optional flanking rules from the DMG, this would not qualify for flanking.
The flanking rules read:
When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, they flank that enemy [...]
When in doubt about whether two creatures flank an enemy on a grid, trace an ...
16
A combat is just a way of draining resources
While most of the rulebook concentrates on how many combats you can manage in a single day the reality is that each combat is simply a way that the game gets the player characters to expend a certain amount of resource.
The idea is that at the end of each day they have used up those resources, and need to rest to ...
15
Many enemies do not want to be in melee
There are a lot of enemies who are fragile, magic casters, sneaky, or ranged fighters. They would love to run and hide if you get into combat. Booming Blade deals extra damage if these targets run, so it can help you control the fight by forcing them to take extra damage, or stay in an unfavourable situation.
...
14
A natural 1 on the confirmation roll automatically fails to confirm the critical hit
On Critical Hits, in part, says, "To find out if [a threat is] a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to 'confirm' the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit ...
11
The game isn't just about combat, and infiltration/assassination aren't just about avoiding it
It mostly is, by rulebook focus, and the idea of the "adventuring day" is a part of that-- it is defined by how many resources the party is expected to have expended to make sure that they feel challenged. Depending on your group's preferences, you can ...
7
This would work in both scenarios
The Ready action states:
[...] First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger [...]
You can choose any perceivable circumstance so this would include something such as "When my ally makes an attack", note also that the ...
7
Yes to scenario 1
The Help action says
Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in some other way team up to make your ally’s Attack more effective. If your ally attacks the target before your next turn, the first Attack roll is made with advantage.
The Ready action ...
6
Adjudication seems straightforward to me: Determine the results of all actions before applying the results of any actions. Or fake it by remembering each participant's status at the beginning of the round and using that status during all action resolutions. e.g., Even if someone has already been determined to receive a debilitating or fatal hit, they're ...
6
You cannot guarantee the extra damage (there are no guarantees in life). It's a risk like everything else.
So why use it?
Because it potential extra damage
This spell is the domain of Sorcerers, Warlocks, Wizards. These classes do not have a natural Extra Attack in a round 1. Meaning that when they attack with a weapon, they only get one shot. So adding a ...
6
The Mobile Feat
This is a perfect use-case for picking up the Mobile feat. It has three attributes to it, but the primary one we care about here is the third one:
When you make a melee attack against a creature, you don't provoke opportunity attacks from that creature for the rest of the turn, whether you hit or not.
This is similar to the Fancy ...
6
A note on Ability Checks:
For every ability check, the GM decides which of the six abilities is
relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task.
So first and foremost the decision is up to the DM.
If your DM allows it, the skill involved would definitely be Sleight of Hand
The description for ** Sleight of hand says**
Sleight of Hand. Whenever ...
5
What would be the most optimal way for a Pact of the Chain warlock to make use of a Sprite familiar?
There are a number of ways to make use of a sprite familiar. Here are some of them:
Get them a healer's kit and potions to help take care of downed party
members without costing a PC an action
Give them caltrops to help control the terrain
Have them "Help" every round. This is commonly used by regular familiars but Warlock familiars are especially ...
5
Booming Blade is not a cantrip for full casters; if you are in melee range you are probably trying to get out of melee range, not do a bit of extra damage. It's also not a great choice for Arcane Knights at higher levels, since you'll be forsaking extra attacks in order to do an extra few d8s of damage, maybe. However, a few situations where Booming Blade ...
5
From Paizo:
"The Rules Reference Cards are correct. As an exception to the way that diagonals normally work, a creature with 10 feet of reach threatens the second diagonal. These changes will be reflected in the next errata."
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat/space-reach-threatened-area-templates/
4
Make harder encounters.
If players get to pick their battles and rest between encounters without consequence, you can adjust the difficulty of encounters. By making things harder each fight, you maintain the challenge for players and emphasize the importance of sneaking around and cleverly picking their battles.
I wouldn't do this for all encounters, though. ...
3
The General Case
So, most answers here already cover the general ideas, but I will go over them as well.
The idea of the adventuring day as stated is to try and fairly balance the different classes, some which depend on short rests, some which depend on long rests. As noted in this question, changing the adventuring day to a shorter version, which is what ...
2
What I've done in Dragon Eye is to use the dice themselves as tools.
Combat (or any complex conflict resolution) uses the same approach as yours: All actions are assumed to be resolved at the same time, with a few exceptions (special actions intended to interrupt someone).
To do that, everyone announces their basic action (fight, cast, run away, etc.) which ...
1
It depends on your playstyle
Here's what I would do if you tried to do that in an Adventurer's League game I was GMing:
"I grab his sword from its sheath and attack him with it", you say.
"Are you a battle master or something? Do you have a feature that lets you do that?", I reply.
"No I was just thinking he's close so I should be ...
1
If you get an ability once per turn, you get it once per turn
If you get an ability that you can use a maximum of one time per turn and you use it once then want to use it again before a new turn has started, you can't. There's no special interaction when multiple creatures share a turn; there's no text that indicates such an interaction should occur.
1
If there is a place your party wants to infiltrate, then this place should be serious business. A place like this wouldn't have 2 stupid guards napping at the door and one poor lock to break to get into.
It would have multiple security instances. Glyph of Wardings, Magic Mouths, Alarms, maybe even anti-magic fields, multiple guards patrolling in ...
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