Can't stop a spell

[BeefGood]

Correct me if I'm wrong--there's no nonmagical "named" action, ability, feat, whatever that enables a creature to disrupt the casting of a spell. (Set aside casting a spell as a reaction). For example, a grappled or prone spell caster can still cast spells. A prone spellcaster with a half dozen orcs sitting on him can still cast spells. A restrained spellcaster can still cast spells. A bound spellcaster would presumably be unable to perform somatic components or reach his component pouch, but "bound" is not a condition and there are no explicit rules for binding someone beyond a suggestion to make a dexterity check. There's no rule that says a fighter can whack a wizard on the head and knock him out besides the normal method of gradually reducing the wizards hit points.
So it seems to me that in the absence of opposing magic, a spell caster with a good number of hit points can cast spells unimpeded for a few rounds, regardless of any other consideration. Is this correct?

[Drackolus]

That is correct, I think. Spellcasters get away with a lot more, this edition.
On the flip side, the only phb ability to remove a fighter's schtick is to be a battlemaster. It seems reasonable to use this against a casters focus (especially a staff). A thief can try to sleight of hand a component pouch, arguably. The wizard may also have another focus, but the fighter could have another weapon. Also, no fighter should be above punching a guy in the face when necessary.
A dm can always change it up if desired, and even expected to some extent.

[Vogonjeltz]

Correct me if I'm wrong--there's no nonmagical "named" action, ability, feat, whatever that enables a creature to disrupt the casting of a spell. (Set aside casting a spell as a reaction). For example, a grappled or prone spell caster can still cast spells. A prone spellcaster with a half dozen orcs sitting on him can still cast spells. A restrained spellcaster can still cast spells. A bound spellcaster would presumably be unable to perform somatic components or reach his component pouch, but "bound" is not a condition and there are no explicit rules for binding someone beyond a suggestion to make a dexterity check. There's no rule that says a fighter can whack a wizard on the head and knock him out besides the normal method of gradually reducing the wizards hit points.
So it seems to me that in the absence of opposing magic, a spell caster with a good number of hit points can cast spells unimpeded for a few rounds, regardless of any other consideration. Is this correct?

No, they could gag the caster eliminating verbal components, and restrain hands, eliminating somatic and material components.

These would both fall under the Contest category of action.

[Addaran]

Everything that incapacitate also works. So paralysis, petrification, stunned and unconscious.

Easiest of those being stun with a monk. I'm guessing there's some poison that can paralyze or knock unconscious/asleep.

[King539]

Counterspell, Antimagic Field, Dispel Magic.:smallamused:

[Mellack]

The game is designed for simplicity. Just as the caster can still cast spells, a fighter can still use a polearm against a foe who is grappleing, knocked prone and restraining him.

[Dimers]

For spells that require concentration, a readied action that causes damage could disrupt the spell effect due to a failed Con save. Depends on DM ruling about whether concentration begins during the casting process or after a successful casting.

[hymer]

Correct me if I'm wrong--there's no nonmagical "named" action, ability, feat, whatever that enables a creature to disrupt the casting of a spell.

A few things I haven't seen mentioned:

If the casting of the spell takes longer than an action, it takes up the caster's concentration. Break their concentration during the casting, and the spell is lost.
If you ready an action (or have the Mage Slayer feat) you could stop the spell by downing the caster.

[Sans.]

Counterspell, Antimagic Field, Dispel Magic.:smallamused:

Nonmagical.

[StoicLeaf]

there isn't an explicit mechanism to deal with it, no.

But there's no reason you can't have a skill contest to see if an attacker can't seperate the caster from his focus/pouch.
Similarly you could just as easily imagine gagging someone as being a different form of restraint.

[Slayn82]

Blocking the caster's vision at least can be an obstacle for ranged spells. Blindness, Fog, darkness, all may delay casting for a bit.

[Lombra]

Counterspell and Mage Slayer are a thing too.

[Potato_Priest]

If you can hold your hand over their mouth/stuff a rag in it and hold it there, they can't perform vocal components.

[SharkForce]

many spellcasters will be fairly light on the HP end of things.

broadly speaking, reducing their HP to 0 is often an effective method of preventing them from casting spells.

(but seriously, blindness in any form does horrible things to spellcasters, and i highly recommend it. there are a lot of spells that have in the text something along the lines of "target that you can see" in them. naturally, invisibility, stealth, placing obstacles in their path, breaking LOS, and other things work nicely as well).

[FadeAssassin]

I believe the intention is that a restrained (depending on the Nature of the Restraint) Creature should not be able to cast spells, if they have a somatic component. They don't have "a free hand" as per the PHB section on spell casting.

For Example, if a brutish enforcer for the Thieves' Guild Grapples your wizard and then restrains them by putting their arms around their torso, thus restricting the movement of their hands, or decides to tie the wizard's hands, you can presume that the wizard shouldn't be able to cast spells. Now if they were restrain by a net they may be able to cast with somatic components.

A gagged or silenced Creature also cannot cast any spell with a verbal component as per the same section in the PHB.

A spellcaster without a focus could not cast any spells they don't have the material components for. So a disarmed spellcaster cannot cast spells (Essentially)

TL;DR: Depending on the DM certain restrained conditions, lack of ability to speak, or lack of a focus for material components makes a spellcaster into a fairly normal person.

[BeefGood]

These are helpful ideas. I will list them below. I have a question about the physical Contests against the spellcaster, like attempting to bind the caster. Would that be two actions, first a successful grapple or shove prone, and second, the Contest? Or would it be one action, no grapple required, just do the Contest?
Nonmagical ways to stop a spellcaster from casting a single-action spell:
• Monk’s stun ability—incapacitates caster for one round—or even better, Quivering Palm
• Disarm (Battlemaster Manuever & DMG optional combat rule)—take away spellcasting focus
• Contest to bind caster’s hands—inhibits somatic components and perhaps access to material components
• Contest to gag caster—inhibits verbal components
• Contest to pull a hood over caster’s head (maybe)—interferes with spell that requires the caster to see, line of sight, etc.
• Other nonmagical ways of blinding the caster.
• Steal (pickpocket) caster’s spellcasting focus and/or component pouch—inhibits material components
Some comments
• The monk’s ability to one-shot a foe seems to be unique. Maybe counting the monk as nonmagical is questionable; ki seems to be on the road to magic.
• If there’s ever a contest for the ability/spell/feat that most fails to live up to its name, I’m putting my money on the Mage Slayer feat.
• Going by just the name, the Restrained condition should prohibit somatic components, in my opinion. But the condition description doesn't say that. But then in the Sage Advice Compendium, there appears the following, which could be read as saying that Restrained creatures can’t cast spells:
“If a creature is grappled, can it still attack and use its special abilities? The grappled condition limits movement, not attacks, spellcasting, and the like. That said, many grappling abilities, such as a roper’s tendril attack, also deliver effects like the restrained condition.”
So I have no idea whether the Restrained condition prohibits spellcasting.

[baticeer]

Going by just the name, the Restrained condition should prohibit somatic components, in my opinion. But the condition description doesn't say that. But then in the Sage Advice Compendium, there appears the following, which could be read as saying that Restrained creatures can’t cast spells:
“If a creature is grappled, can it still attack and use its special abilities? The grappled condition limits movement, not attacks, spellcasting, and the like. That said, many grappling abilities, such as a roper’s tendril attack, also deliver effects like the restrained condition.”
So I have no idea whether the Restrained condition prohibits spellcasting.


I think the reason restrained is mentioned there is that being restrained imposes disadvantage on attack rolls. So it's saying "being grappled doesn't impede attacking/spellcasting at all, but some monster grappling abilities do, because they have other effects".

IMO if you can attack with a weapon while restrained it'd be silly if you couldn't also perform somatic components, as the amount of movement required would be similar (if not less).

[Vogonjeltz]

These are helpful ideas. I will list them below. I have a question about the physical Contests against the spellcaster, like attempting to bind the caster. Would that be two actions, first a successful grapple or shove prone, and second, the Contest? Or would it be one action, no grapple required, just do the Contest?
Nonmagical ways to stop a spellcaster from casting a single-action spell:
• Monk’s stun ability—incapacitates caster for one round—or even better, Quivering Palm
• Disarm (Battlemaster Manuever & DMG optional combat rule)—take away spellcasting focus
• Contest to bind caster’s hands—inhibits somatic components and perhaps access to material components
• Contest to gag caster—inhibits verbal components
• Contest to pull a hood over caster’s head (maybe)—interferes with spell that requires the caster to see, line of sight, etc.
• Other nonmagical ways of blinding the caster.
• Steal (pickpocket) caster’s spellcasting focus and/or component pouch—inhibits material components
Some comments
• The monk’s ability to one-shot a foe seems to be unique. Maybe counting the monk as nonmagical is questionable; ki seems to be on the road to magic.
• If there’s ever a contest for the ability/spell/feat that most fails to live up to its name, I’m putting my money on the Mage Slayer feat.
• Going by just the name, the Restrained condition should prohibit somatic components, in my opinion. But the condition description doesn't say that. But then in the Sage Advice Compendium, there appears the following, which could be read as saying that Restrained creatures can’t cast spells:
“If a creature is grappled, can it still attack and use its special abilities? The grappled condition limits movement, not attacks, spellcasting, and the like. That said, many grappling abilities, such as a roper’s tendril attack, also deliver effects like the restrained condition.”
So I have no idea whether the Restrained condition prohibits spellcasting.

The actual contest to bind their hands would be initiated by replacing a melee attack from the Attack action, so anyone with Extra Attack could do it faster.

PHB lists the conditions and what they do in the appendix. Grappling is just grabbing an opponent, it reduces their movement to 0, but otherwise doesn't hinder what actions they might take (unless it requires movement of course); similarly restrained doesn't prevent taking actions.

That being said, having ones hands bound isn't covered by the status effects there.

[ChubbyRain]

That is correct, I think. Spellcasters get away with a lot more, this edition.
On the flip side, the only phb ability to remove a fighter's schtick is to be a battlemaster. It seems reasonable to use this against a casters focus (especially a staff). A thief can try to sleight of hand a component pouch, arguably. The wizard may also have another focus, but the fighter could have another weapon. Also, no fighter should be above punching a guy in the face when necessary.
A dm can always change it up if desired, and even expected to some extent.

Hold Person is a very low level spell that takes away the Fighter's schtick.

Bane limits it (low level a d4 can give a lot of enemies an extra turn).

Shield helps to ignore it.

And I can go on... Fighters are vastly easier to reduce their effectiveness in battle than casters.

[tieren]

Force a great helm on their head and hope they don't have heavy armor proficiency

[Potato_Priest]

The unfortunate thing about shoving armor on the wizard is the long putting on time. If a martial class needs to spend 5 minutes putting on a piece of armor to get any benefit out of it, I'd expect that you'd have to spend the same amount of time shoving it on a wizard to shut them down.

[Potato_Priest]

Hold Person is a very low level spell that takes away the Fighter's schtick.

Bane limits it (low level a d4 can give a lot of enemies an extra turn).

Shield helps to ignore it.

And I can go on... Fighters are vastly easier to reduce their effectiveness in battle than casters.

I believe that by schtick the post writer meant the tool that the class uses offensively: AKA the weapon or arcane focus.

The purpose of this thread is not to discuss how easy it is to shut down a fighter, but how best to shut down a caster by physical means.

For that, as I think we have already discussed, the best method lies in taking away one essential spell component, be it material, verbal, or somatic, through brute force or trickery.

[Sigreid]

I imagine any world with wizards would have these evil things.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VM6Ea12S_FQ/S3bq52rKOjI/AAAAAAAAD1w/OVW8hCPddAc/s400/6.jpg

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I imagine any world with wizards would have these evil things.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VM6Ea12S_FQ/S3bq52rKOjI/AAAAAAAAD1w/OVW8hCPddAc/s400/6.jpg

Why yes, my orc "wizard" arcane cleric would love to have some new boozing gloves!

[Tanarii]

AFAIK its not really possible to do it without opposing magic (including a monks stunning strike, which is Ki, so magic), unless it's a concentration spell or it requires a material component.

The restrained condition doesn't stop spell casting, and besides I think the only way to impose it is with the Grappler feat or a Net. Neither of which are exactly common.

And opposed checks to bind hands or cover mouths are so unbalanced they shouldn't even be considered by any sane DM. If you can't do it with a grapple check, or even with a Feat with a grapple check, there's no way an opposed check should be able to do that.

Otoh there is one simple solution. Reduce them to 0 hps, knocking them out or killing them.

[BeefGood]

And opposed checks to bind hands or cover mouths are so unbalanced they shouldn't even be considered by any sane DM. If you can't do it with a grapple check, or even with a Feat with a grapple check, there's no way an opposed check should be able to do that.

I don't understand. Will you explain more?

[Tanarii]

I don't understand. Will you explain more? It's like wanting an attack from behind an unaware target with a sap to reduce your opponent to 0 hps & unconsciousness. Or a dagger stabbed in the throat of to instakil your opponent. It's a request for something enormously overpowered, within the assumptions of the current mechanics, in pursuit of simulating your idea of how reality should work.

Note: I used the dagger in throat intentionally, because I've ruled that an instakil before. :smallwink: Although not in 5e yet, iirc

[Talyn]

Because 5e is supposed to trust the DM and players to make decisions for the good of the game, it has eschewed overly mechanistic rules (remember the "rulings not rules"?). So it's really up the DM.

Our table has ruled that Restrained condition prevents spell casting with somatic components. Without the Grappler feat, the only non-magical way to induce that condition is with a net, or by making a successful grapple check on an already grappled foe to pin them.

[Tanarii]

Do you also rule that the restrained condition makes it impossible to attack?

[ChubbyRain]

Do you also rule that the restrained condition makes it impossible to attack?

That's a good idea, except for unarmed attacks if you headbutt, bite, kick, or spitting.

Depending on how you are restrained you could also shove or grapple an enemy. Thtowing your body at a guard or using your shackles to grab a guard arpund the neck seems ok.

[Sigreid]

Do you also rule that the restrained condition makes it impossible to attack?

I think a better comparison based on what he said would be "Do you also rule that the restrained condition makes it impossible to draw a weapon?". The spells with components part says to me that they can't get their component pouch/foci.

[Dalebert]

I think a better comparison based on what he said would be "Do you also rule that the restrained condition makes it impossible to draw a weapon?". The spells with components part says to me that they can't get their component pouch/foci.

I don't really see how it could restrict either if it's not restricting attacks and/or somatic components as well. If you're hand is free to attack, how is it not free to draw a weapon or manipulate a focus? Let's say you decide it's because the specific weapon is being blocked from you and you just can't reach it. Okay, well my swashbuckler pointedly has daggers tucked in every possible space available. Likewise, my casters will have multiple backup foci. They're typically carrying one (usually a magic wand, staff, or rod by tier 2 or so), and have a component pouch, a spare crystal or wand, and probably a necklace. It's just the smart thing to do when you're an adventurer. So I think that's an added complication that doesn't fit well with 5e. Either than can or they can't and just be consistent.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I am of the opinion that a DM can rule that something just is, but should use this prerogative with prudence. If you can't say that a character is tangled up in a spider's web to the point of not being able to swing a focus or grab a potion during combat, then why should you ever be able to say someone is thusly tangled up in a spider's web, which just seems like a strange and useless restriction on what can happen.

Edit to possibly summarify: No one should take the conditions appendix as an exhaustive list of the effective conditions a PC or creature can be subjected to.

[Tanarii]

I am of the opinion that a DM can rule that something just is, but should use this prerogative with prudence. If you can't say that a character is tangled up in a spider's web to the point of not being able to swing a focus or grab a potion during combat, then why should you ever be able to say someone is thusly tangled up in a spider's web, which just seems like a strange and useless restriction on what can happen.

Edit to possibly summarify: No one should take the conditions appendix as an exhaustive list of the effective conditions a PC or creature can be subjected to.
Yes, buts that's not what will happen. What will happen is every non-caster, partial caster, and some casters PC that are capable of passing whatever check you allow to interrupt casting will want to use it every single time they face a caster.

That's something big enough and important enough that if you want it to be possible, it needs to be a carefully thought out rule. either in the book by the designers, or explicitly made a standard-use house rule by the DM, preferably before the campaign begins.

It's not an appropriate 'rulings not rules' subject matter.

[Biggstick]

Snatching the material component would be what I'd suggest as to stopping a spell. This can be done with a Sleight of Hand check by pretty much any Rogue. Although you said no magic, this idea works even better with an Arcane Trickster who can use his/her invisible Mage Hand to Sleight of Hand the component pouch/arcane focus off the enemy spell caster's person.

Other then that, not really adding anything new that hasn't already been said.

To lock down a caster like this though, you gotta sneak your Arcane Trickster in there. Get him/her to Mage Hand away the Material component, then throw up a Silence over the caster, and then have your Barbarian friend grapple the caster in place. Yes, that's using magic, but some pretty low level stuff (only a level 2 spell and a cantrip).

[Tanarii]

This can be done with a Sleight of Hand check by pretty much any Rogue.
From the hand of an actively casting spellcaster? That'd require a pretty lenient DM ruling too.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Yes, buts that's not what will happen. What will happen is every non-caster, partial caster, and some casters PC that are capable of passing whatever check you allow to interrupt casting will want to use it every single time they face a caster.

I didn't say it would be a generic option accessible to players, just something the DM can inject into a situation.


Snatching the material component would be what I'd suggest as to stopping a spell. This can be done with a Sleight of Hand check by pretty much any Rogue.

Wuh? No.

[Biggstick]

From the hand of an actively casting spellcaster? That'd require a pretty lenient DM ruling too.

Says who?

If it's a Holy Symbol in the form of an Emblem on a shield, good luck trying to separate that divine caster from it's shield. (Most likely not possible)

If it's a Holy Symbol in the form of an Amulet or Reliquary, It would definitely be small enough for a Rogue to snatch from the holy caster's person. (Definitely possible)

If it's a Component Pouch, it wouldn't be held in the hand when not casting. The "material" required for casting the spell would be grabbed from the pouch when it's needed and not prior to the casting. This means the Rogue could easily snatch the Component Pouch from the caster's belt. (Definitely possible)

If it's an Arcane Focus and it's a Rod or Staff, I'd say the Material compoenent is too large to Sleight of Hand from the caster who has it in hand. (Most likely not possible)

If it's an Arcane Focus and it's a Crystal, Orb, or Wand, I would say it's small enough that a caster distracted by the action of battle might not notice an invisible hand pulling the focus from it's hand until it's too late. (Definitely possible)

Overall, we're probably not talking about Divine Casters, as no one's brought that up in the slightest. For the Arcane Foci though, I don't think it's a "pretty lenient DM ruling" at all to allow the Rogue to sneakily steal a small spell component from a distracted opponent. I think it's very much in the flavor of a Rogue, and DM's should be encouraging players to be thinking of ways to solve problems in ways their characters would solve problems.

[MasterMercury]

Yes, buts that's not what will happen. What will happen is every non-caster, partial caster, and some casters PC that are capable of passing whatever check you allow to interrupt casting will want to use it every single time they face a caster.




What's wrong with that? Most of these ideas require getting very close to the wizard. Enemy wizards (and even PC ones) often have a layer of meat between them and people who want to hurt them.

This gives a party a great way to strategize, instead of just rolling d20s until things stop moving. Can the rogue gag the wizard and the barbarian get him away while the fighter keeps the orc guards busy?

If DMs don't like this, give the enemy wizard a panic button. Thunderwave, Fly, or a "ring of misty step" can keep the enemy mage in the fight.

[MasterMercury]

Yes, buts that's not what will happen. What will happen is every non-caster, partial caster, and some casters PC that are capable of passing whatever check you allow to interrupt casting will want to use it every single time they face a caster.




What's wrong with that? Most of these ideas require getting very close to the wizard. Enemy wizards (and even PC ones) often have a layer of meat between them and people who want to hurt them.

This gives a party a great way to strategize, instead of just rolling d20s until things stop moving. Can the rogue gag the wizard and the barbarian get him away while the fighter keeps the orc guards busy?

If DMs don't like this, give the enemy wizard a panic button. Thunderwave, Fly, or a "ring of misty step" can keep the enemy mage in the fight.

[Gignere]

Here is the RAW to stop a spell caster for a fighter in melee range:

GWM extra attacks, action surge GWM extra attacks, if one of them crits bonus action GWM given the likely hps of a caster at around your level it is unconscious or dead. Why waste an action trying to stop spell casting? If you can get that close to the caster you can one turn the caster for most melee.

[Potato_Priest]

Here is the RAW to stop a spell caster for a fighter in melee range:

GWM extra attacks, action surge GWM extra attacks, if one of them crits bonus action GWM given the likely hps of a caster at around your level it is unconscious or dead. Why waste an action trying to stop spell casting? If you can get that close to the caster you can one turn the caster for most melee.

A caster of the same level as you, perhaps, but that probably won't work on the BBEG.

[Gignere]

A caster of the same level as you, perhaps, but that probably won't work on the BBEG.

Most caster BBEG can be one rounded by the melee DPR it happened at least 3 times in my games. NPC casters survive by not letting melee DPR get close. If you are saying creatures that has spell casting but not an NPC like a Glabrezu I don't think they use PC or NPC spell casting rules so it doesn't matter.

[Little boy]

Correct me if I'm wrong--there's no nonmagical "named" action, ability, feat, whatever that enables a creature to disrupt the casting of a spell. (Set aside casting a spell as a reaction). For example, a grappled or prone spell caster can still cast spells. A prone spellcaster with a half dozen orcs sitting on him can still cast spells. A restrained spellcaster can still cast spells. A bound spellcaster would presumably be unable to perform somatic components or reach his component pouch, but "bound" is not a condition and there are no explicit rules for binding someone beyond a suggestion to make a dexterity check. There's no rule that says a fighter can whack a wizard on the head and knock him out besides the normal method of gradually reducing the wizards hit points.
So it seems to me that in the absence of opposing magic, a spell caster with a good number of hit points can cast spells unimpeded for a few rounds, regardless of any other consideration. Is this correct?

Ready action is where it is at. When dude X goes to cast a spell, beat him like a red headed stepchild

[Gignere]

Even on a meta level closing against a spell casting BBEG is the hardest thing why would you waste an action to stop spell casting instead of taking large chunks of their HPs? I mean unless whatever home rules you come up with makes it easier to stop spell casting then hitting AC. If that is true this just means you want to nerf spell casting such that the best course of action is to stop targeting AC against spell casters and just shut them down.

[Mellack]

Ready action is where it is at. When dude X goes to cast a spell, beat him like a red headed stepchild

That would still not stop them from casting a spell. Reactions happen after the trigger, so you do not get to swing until the spell takes effect. It can end the concentration if the spell continues, so good for things like spirit guardians or cloud of daggers. On the flip side, hope it wasn't shocking grasp they were casting.

[Squiddish]

That would still not stop them from casting a spell. Reactions happen after the trigger, so you do not get to swing until the spell takes effect. It can end the concentration if the spell continues, so good for things like spirit guardians or cloud of daggers. On the flip side, hope it wasn't shocking grasp they were casting.

Ready action: attack
Trigger: the wizard starts to cast a spell

I'd rule that the wizard would have to make a concentration save to continue.

[Mellack]

Ready action: attack
Trigger: the wizard starts to cast a spell

I'd rule that the wizard would have to make a concentration save to continue.

I don't think casting is listed as taking a discrete amount of time, seperating a start or end. The same way for if you want to attack someone before they attack you, you cannot ready for the start of their attack. This has been covered by Mage Slayer. The Devs have said the attack goes off after the spell. Feel free to rule your own table as you choose.

[Gignere]

Think about it even in that situation your choice is to ready an action to attack, or GWM extra attack, action surge GWM attack, or reckless GWM extra attacks, sneak attack, extra attacks with maximum smites. Why would you ready an attack unless you are out of resources for the day but at that your problem is a lot more than just trying to stop a spell.

[Temperjoke]

One thing to consider, interrupting a spell cast would be nearly impossible, at least without anticipating it, because of time frame. I mean, logically, yes we go in a certain order for clarity's sake, but technically, all the player/npc actions in a turn are taking place within 6 seconds. So either you have to anticipate what spell is going to be cast, so you know how to interfere with it (the rogue takes his action to steal the component pouch, but the enemy didn't need it for the particular spell he was casting), or you have to be able to react to cancel it, which is Counterspell.

Now, this isn't to say that you can't premeditate how to shut down an enemy spellcaster and use your actions appropriately in that first turn. Almost every single spell requires a vocal component, unless they're a sorcerer, that means that if you keep them from speaking, they're stopped from casting almost all spells. A grapple check to clamp a hand over their mouth, for example, could work if you win the check.

Honestly, I wouldn't try it, unless you are terrified of the spells the enemy can use or you need to capture them.

[Tanarii]

Says who?
If it's a Component Pouch, it wouldn't be held in the hand when not casting. The "material" required for casting the spell would be grabbed from the pouch when it's needed and not prior to the casting. This means the Rogue could easily snatch the Component Pouch from the caster's belt. (Definitely possible)

If it's an Arcane Focus and it's a Crystal, Orb, or Wand, I would say it's small enough that a caster distracted by the action of battle might not notice an invisible hand pulling the focus from it's hand until it's too late. (Definitely possible)In combat, while they're actively using the item? Like I said, that's a (fairly) lenient DM that lets a Sleight of hand check in combat happen, especially without some attempt to approach undetected.

(As to says who, says me. It's an opinion based on my knee-jerk reaction I had to your comment. Not some book rule I'm quoting or anything. :smallwink: )

OTOH being disarmed is an optional rule, so it's not like there's not some basis for it. So ... how easy or hard would you think to set the DC?


What's wrong with that?
Nothing is "wrong" with it. But allowing spells to be easily interrupted, either through restraining or snatching away actively used components, that's a fairly major change to the system. IMO if you're going to do that as a DM, put some thought into if you want that to be a regular thing or not. If you're playing with a single group of players, maybe check with the spellcasters if they're okay with their spellcasting being fairly easily disrupted.

[Hawkstar]

Yes, buts that's not what will happen. What will happen is every non-caster, partial caster, and some casters PC that are capable of passing whatever check you allow to interrupt casting will want to use it every single time they face a caster.

Only if they're willing and able to get up close to the caster, and spend their action to Ready an action (Costing them their normal action) to try to counter in this manner.

[SharkForce]

i'd let a rogue swipe something you're holding in your hand without you noticing... but it wouldn't necessarily be easy.

that said, i'm also of the opinion that non-magical classes should be allowed to do stuff that is fantastic in nature, whether they use magic to do it or not. if you're a high level rogue such that you can make DC 25 checks with ease, who am i to tell you that you can't do something that's highly implausible? irl, someone skilled in sleight of hand can take your watch off of your wrist without you noticing. why couldn't a fantasy version be more impressive? it's more plausible than killing a dragon with a sword too small to reach any vital organs in any sort of reasonable time frame, or surviving an attack from a gargantuan creature, or routinely surviving being dropped 40 feet into a bed of spikes.

[Coffee_Dragon]

if you're a high level rogue such that you can make DC 25 checks with ease, who am i to tell you that you can't do something that's highly implausible?

The rogue just walking up to the wizard and slitting his throat for an instakill without him noticing would also be highly implausible.

[Biggstick]

The rogue just walking up to the wizard and slitting his throat for an instakill without him noticing would also be highly implausible.

Get out of here Straw Man. Shark mentioned nothing about slitting a Wizard's throat or getting an instakill.


i'd let a rogue swipe something you're holding in your hand without you noticing... but it wouldn't necessarily be easy.

that said, i'm also of the opinion that non-magical classes should be allowed to do stuff that is fantastic in nature, whether they use magic to do it or not. if you're a high level rogue such that you can make DC 25 checks with ease, who am i to tell you that you can't do something that's highly implausible? irl, someone skilled in sleight of hand can take your watch off of your wrist without you noticing. why couldn't a fantasy version be more impressive? it's more plausible than killing a dragon with a sword too small to reach any vital organs in any sort of reasonable time frame, or surviving an attack from a gargantuan creature, or routinely surviving being dropped 40 feet into a bed of spikes.

In case you missed it in his statement, I bolded the important portion of what Shark said.

And I absolutely agree with what Shark is saying.

[Saeviomage]

In case you missed it in his statement, I bolded the important portion of what Shark said.

And someone with no skill at all can kill you with a single stab of a knife. D&D combat and real life don't really translate too well.

Also the guys stealing watches are not walking up to a random hostile armed stranger in an isolated place/warzone without an accomplice for distraction and attempting to steal the equivalent of their gun.

All that said, I think that a rogue should be able to pinch a spell component pouch outside of combat. I also think that any sensible caster should have backup foci/components.

Finally I also think the battlemaster should have a maneuver that replicates counterspell. I think that making it a basic option for anyone that didn't require an exhaustible resource would drastically alter the balance of combat.

[SharkForce]

And someone with no skill at all can kill you with a single stab of a knife. D&D combat and real life don't really translate too well.

Also the guys stealing watches are not walking up to a random hostile armed stranger in an isolated place/warzone without an accomplice for distraction and attempting to steal the equivalent of their gun.

All that said, I think that a rogue should be able to pinch a spell component pouch outside of combat. I also think that any sensible caster should have backup foci/components.

Finally I also think the battlemaster should have a maneuver that replicates counterspell. I think that making it a basic option for anyone that didn't require an exhaustible resource would drastically alter the balance of combat.

again, you're acting like the rogue swiping this stuff is just some random chump. they aren't. at level 11, they're supposed to be the equal of the guy who can mind control a dozen enemies for 8 hours, no-save lock an adult dragon into a wall of force a few times a day, banish extraplanar beings several times a day, dop a fireball that could instantly destroy the average house in a few seconds several times a day, place spiderwebs that can trap olympic weightlifters several times a day, and flawlessly react to falling people or objects several times a day.

oh, and also he can shoot a ray of fire from his fingers that is three times as deadly as being hit by a glaive, and can do it repeatedly for hours on end, or make it rain acid strong enough to kill 2 normal human beings reliably for hours on end, etc.

obviously, we shouldn't just be letting the rogue pull literally epic level stuff from 3.5, and we probably shouldn't even let the rogue routinely do stuff like literally steal time from enemies, but the stuff a high level non-magic character should be impressive too. less impressive than what the wizard, cleric, druid, bard, etc can do with their highest level spell slots, since that's costing substantial resources while a skill check does not, but still, they should be pretty awesome too.

[Biggstick]

And someone with no skill at all can kill you with a single stab of a knife. D&D combat and real life don't really translate too well.

Sorry to say, but a majority of real life people would qualify as a Commoner. Commoner's have 1d8 hp (4), and a single Dagger strike is enough to kill them. So yes, in this particular aspect, it does translate well.


Also the guys stealing watches are not walking up to a random hostile armed stranger in an isolated place/warzone without an accomplice for distraction and attempting to steal the equivalent of their gun.

You're right. They're (the PC characters in a D&D setting) walking up with the rest of their party. More specifically, the Rogue wouldn't be walking with the party, but stealthed in some way shape or form while the random hostile caster is distracted by the party.


All that said, I think that a rogue should be able to pinch a spell component pouch outside of combat. I also think that any sensible caster should have backup foci/components.

I agree with all of this. I also think Rogues should be able to pinch what I've described in previous posts from a spell caster while they're in combat as well.


Finally I also think the battlemaster should have a maneuver that replicates counterspell. I think that making it a basic option for anyone that didn't require an exhaustible resource would drastically alter the balance of combat.

I think that's a great idea for Battlemasters.

I'm not saying Sleight of Hand is going to work for everyone to steal a Material component from an enemy spell caster. What I'm saying is the level 11+ Rogue with Expertise in Sleight of Hand, 20 Dexterity, and some way to sneak up on a caster should be able to steal most (again, other then the one's I've described in previous posts) Material components from said spell caster the same way they'd pickpocket any other NPC in the game.

[Malifice]

A Strength (athletics) check in place of an attack to;

1) place your hand over the casters mouth, or
2) strip his components/ focus off him

both work.

The 'actions in combat secion' of 5E isnt exhaustive. Swinging from a chandelier, kicking sand in your opponents eyes, disarming his weapon, or clamping your hand around his mouth silencing him are all valid actions.

[Gignere]

A Strength (athletics) check in place of an attack to;

1) place your hand over the casters mouth, or
2) strip his components/ focus off him

both work.

The 'actions in combat secion' of 5E isnt exhaustive. Swinging from a chandelier, kicking sand in your opponents eyes, disarming his weapon, or clamping your hand around his mouth silencing him are all valid actions.

Or how can I screw with spell casters easier than hitting their AC.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Get out of here Straw Man. Shark mentioned nothing about slitting a Wizard's throat or getting an instakill.

The point, in case none of it got past the "straw man" defence, is that if you can walk up to someone in combat and manipulate items in their immediate physical space without them reacting in the slightest way, what seems more expedient: swiping a focus from their hand and giggle because they possibly won't be able to cast any more spells, or just shove a pointy implement in their throat and be done with it? Or is the argument simply that because one of those things would be expedient, that's why you can't do that, but anything not quite so effective is all right?

[RickAllison]

I would point out that stealing a watch off someone's wrist, something that is passive and can be played off using distraction since they won't actively look for it till they check the time, is significantly easier than stealing something that they are actively holding and directly manipulating since they are in combat. This isn't to say that it wouldn't be possible for a high-level Rogue or Bard to try, but it would require far more than "I swipe the focus out of his hands".

Sleight of Hand is about being light-fingered and adept at using distraction to extract objects while they aren't paying attention to it. Any focus in the hands is automatically out of the running for using the skill, though it may be usable for a component pouch or a focus that is worn and that isn't being actively used to cast that round (since if they are actively casting, they have to be interacting with it and that would defeat the entire purpose of Sleight of Hand).

For foci or pouches held in the hands (and not a cleric's shield as that would be nigh-impossible to disarm without, well, dis-arming him with an amputation), we have rules in the DMG where it is a contested check between the attack and the defender's Athletics/Acrobatics check. I personally would amend those rules so that you still have to hit the target's AC as it is harder to hit an object in the hands than the person wielding it. Even with that, odds are that a caster can be disarmed of its focus because they are unlikely to have sky-high bonuses in those categories...

For actively-used foci or pouches on the caster's person (an amulet or holy symbol used for casting that round, a pouch that the caster has to reach into as s/he is casting, etc.), we have no real precedent. Sleight of Hand isn't appropriate, so I would make it an Athletics check like with disarming, but with effectively the benefit of 3/4 cover. This makes it damned difficult to pull off, as it should be, but possible for every warrior.

[BiPolar]

Just remember, whatever neato things you can come up with to disable an enemy caster become fair game for you and your casters as well. If you want to play that type of game, then by all means go for it. But my guess is you'll end up with more people disabling your caster than you will have opportunity to disable an enemy caster. Especially those with innate spell casting. But sure, play loose, see how much you like it when it happens to you :)

[Gignere]

Just remember, whatever neato things you can come up with to disable an enemy caster become fair game for you and your casters as well. If you want to play that type of game, then by all means go for it. But my guess is you'll end up with more people disabling your caster than you will have opportunity to disable an enemy caster. Especially those with innate spell casting. But sure, play loose, see how much you like it when it happens to you :)

Exactly the DM throws a bunch of commoners and they all make athletics check to gag your casters, lol. One of them will succeed right?

[Tanarii]

Exactly the DM throws a bunch of commoners and they all make athletics check to gag your casters, lol. One of them will succeed right?
And that's totally fine if that's the way the DM / group wants spellcasting to work. Even at high levels you'll need to worry about mobs. Of course, I don't think that's how many players will want it to work. :smallbiggrin:

I mean in older editions where casting any spell getting interrupted if you took damage was a thing. And that was fine. Of course, lots of caster players hated the rule and ignored it*, and it's been generally phased out until we ended up with 5e where only concentration spells can be interrupted by damage, and even then you get a save. Because that seems to be around or about how most players want casters ... easy and regular spellcasting that can't be easily interrupted. And doesn't have too many complicated restrictions on it in terms of spell components. Even so, some people still complain about not being able to cast S- or M-component spells with both hands full.

*because clearly casters needed a buff in early editions of D&D

[Vogonjeltz]

It's like wanting an attack from behind an unaware target with a sap to reduce your opponent to 0 hps & unconsciousness. Or a dagger stabbed in the throat of to instakil your opponent. It's a request for something enormously overpowered, within the assumptions of the current mechanics, in pursuit of simulating your idea of how reality should work.

Note: I used the dagger in throat intentionally, because I've ruled that an instakil before. :smallwink: Although not in 5e yet, iirc

Grapple is explicitly a model for other kinds of contests, the binding of an opponent is assuredly one.

[Vogonjeltz]

Exactly the DM throws a bunch of commoners and they all make athletics check to gag your casters, lol. One of them will succeed right?

If they are physically stronger (10) than your wizard (8) than, yes. That being said, there are plenty of spells that don't rely on somatic components to cast and which a wizard would be wise to have in their repertoire for such an eventuality.

[EvilAnagram]

If they are physically stronger (10) than your wizard (8) than, yes. That being said, there are plenty of spells that don't rely on somatic components to cast and which a wizard would be wise to have in their repertoire for such an eventuality.

He said, "gag," which means they will cover his mouth and prevent verbal components, too. Wizards need at least one of those to cast.

[Gignere]

He said, "gag," which means they will cover his mouth and prevent verbal components, too. Wizards need at least one of those to cast.

Maybe the DM will create a spell for the wizard that requires no vocal or somatic components.

I find a lot of these can I stop casters without expending any resources threads to really be nerf the bejesus out of casters thread.

[Tanarii]

Grapple is explicitly a model for other kinds of contests, the binding of an opponent is assuredly one.Grapple doesn't allow you to prevent taking actions, or even restrain you without a feat. Let alone blind you, silence you, or prevent you from moving your arms and hands completely (which is akin to preventing attacking).

So no, it's not a model for these kinds of things.

[Saeviomage]

Also one point here:
We keep saying "a rogue can steal the pouch" or "a fighter can grapple". Don't forget that if you make rules for this stuff, there's nothing stopping a wizard from picking up sleight of hand or athletics and doing it too. And possibly having some magical way that does it better.

[EvilAnagram]

Maybe the DM will create a spell for the wizard that requires no vocal or somatic components.

I find a lot of these can I stop casters without expending any resources threads to really be nerf the bejesus out of casters thread.

A componentless spell to nerf martials? If your DM feels that's necessary, he's a bit odd.

[Cespenar]

Eh. There are middle grounds. Why not make it hard but possible, like this:

-Against an opponent you're already grappling, if you succeed at another opposed grapple check at a disadvantage, you can either stop their verbal or somatic components for 1 round.

Or, make it depend exclusively on the caster for a more forgiving scenario:

-If you're grappled, make a Con check with advantage to see if you can perform the somatic component of a spell.
-If you're restrained, make a Con check (normal) to see if you can perform the somatic component of a spell.

[EvilAnagram]

Why not just make it an athletics check opposed by an acrobatics or athletics check? I see no reason to give casters a leg up on this since it's a purely physical contest. It's relatively easy to hold someone's mouth shut, so I can't justify giving disadvantage. It already takes two free hands and two checks to both grapple someone and hold their mouth shut or grab their hands, and that means no weapons or shield can be equipped. It only takes one successful attempt to break the grab to free a caster enough for a spell, so unless multiple warriors collaborate to completely shut a caster down, it's unlikely to happen. And if they do plan ahead and work together, I don't see any compelling reason not to reward them.

[Tanarii]

Why not just make it an athletics check opposed by an acrobatics or athletics check? I see no reason to give casters a leg up on this since it's a purely physical contest. It's relatively easy to hold someone's mouth shut, so I can't justify giving disadvantage. It already takes two free hands and two checks to both grapple someone and hold their mouth shut or grab their hands, and that means no weapons or shield can be equipped. It only takes one successful attempt to break the grab to free a caster enough for a spell, so unless multiple warriors collaborate to completely shut a caster down, it's unlikely to happen. And if they do plan ahead and work together, I don't see any compelling reason not to reward them.
As long as you're fine with introducing an "instawin against any physically weaker character with 2 checks" rule to the game, it's not a problem.

However, I don't want that. It's a sufficiently compelling reason not to allow it for me.

[BiPolar]

Why not just make it an athletics check opposed by an acrobatics or athletics check? I see no reason to give casters a leg up on this since it's a purely physical contest. It's relatively easy to hold someone's mouth shut, so I can't justify giving disadvantage. It already takes two free hands and two checks to both grapple someone and hold their mouth shut or grab their hands, and that means no weapons or shield can be equipped. It only takes one successful attempt to break the grab to free a caster enough for a spell, so unless multiple warriors collaborate to completely shut a caster down, it's unlikely to happen. And if they do plan ahead and work together, I don't see any compelling reason not to reward them.

Unless you have the Grappler feat, you can't restrain. You can only give the Grappled condition. If you can restrain, then that comes with all the bells and whistles of that condition. If you do want to add in houserules to allow shutting down of casters via standard grappling, it does open it up to enemies doing that action on your casters as well. And I'm willing to bet you'll see more of them doing that than your DM giving you casters to battle (mainly because there are many more monsters besides casters, but if you have a caster they're always there.)

[jitzul]

Best way to stop a spell. Monk with alert and mageslayer.

[Tanarii]

Honestly, I think that's what it really comes down to. Why creatures usually don't have Athletics skill, and why grappling is relatively innocuous, and doesn't allow for restrained, or even completely locking down a target. It's not about PC balance. It's because the PCs would get creamed if it wasn't set up that way. Not just spellcasting PCs either.

[EvilAnagram]

As long as you're fine with introducing an "instawin against any physically weaker character with 2 checks" rule to the game, it's not a problem.

However, I don't want that. It's a sufficiently compelling reason not to allow it for me.
Well, it's not an instawin.

The character can break free with a check or use spells that don't require the inhibited component.

The creatures grappling the caster are also leaving themselves completely unarmed open to the allies of the caster, so it's not like there isn't a cost to doing this.

[EvilAnagram]

Unless you have the Grappler feat, you can't restrain. You can only give the Grappled condition. If you can restrain, then that comes with all the bells and whistles of that condition. If you do want to add in houserules to allow shutting down of casters via standard grappling, it does open it up to enemies doing that action on your casters as well. And I'm willing to bet you'll see more of them doing that than your DM giving you casters to battle (mainly because there are many more monsters besides casters, but if you have a caster they're always there.)

I'm the DM, and I allow this to happen, and you better believe that I'm going to be using it against them as well.

[BiPolar]

I'm the DM, and I allow this to happen, and you better believe that I'm going to be using it against them as well.

Hehe, as long as everyone is on board with it, then it definitely adds a twist to encounters :) Methinks once it starts happening more regularly to your PCs they may regret having asked for it. Monster intelligence becomes a real thing with this, definitely makes protecting that caster an even bigger must.

edit: One thing I'd like to bring up is the idea of why this wasn't discussed in the rules as an option. It seems like a fairly obvious thing to do, and even the Restrained condition isn't the Incapacitated condition. They really made it quite clear that grappling doesn't stop someone from doing something, it only makes it more difficult. Would giving them 'disadvantage' on spellcasting be an option (disadvantage on spell attacks, creatures get advantage on saves) work better and fall more within the rules? Otherwise, this kind of makes counterspell less useful when physical action can do the same thing at less resource cost. Although as I type that, the resource cost to physically stop it is big, so maybe it doesn't? I don't know. It just seems like the rules go out of their way to prevent physical incapacitation and limit it to Restraining even for those who dip the feat. By allowing multiple checks of increased severity, the Grapple action becomes a significantly stronger option. WOuld you also allow grapple checks to incapacitate a martial? Seems like what's good for the goose is good for the gander and a Bard with double proficiency and cutting words could shut down pretty much anyone in 2 rounds.

[Asmotherion]

That is correct. The only things one can do to prevent spellcasting indirectly is mess with the spell's components.

For verbal components, this could mean silencing the caster by, for example using an improvised graple action to shut his mouts.

For somatic components, the restrained action might do it.

For material components, disarming the caster of his Arcane Focus or Component Pouch either by stealing it or snatching it away will work.

Thus, the safest caster is one whose Arcane Focus can not be snatched easily (for example, a ring with a crystal AF) and be a Sorcerer with Subtle Spell.

[BiPolar]

That is correct. The only things one can do to prevent spellcasting indirectly is mess with the spell's components.

For verbal components, this could mean silencing the caster by, for example using an improvised graple action to shut his mouts.

For somatic components, the restrained action might do it.

For material components, disarming the caster of his Arcane Focus or Component Pouch either by stealing it or snatching it away will work.

Thus, the safest caster is one whose Arcane Focus can not be snatched easily (for example, a ring with a crystal AF) and be a Sorcerer with Subtle Spell.

In order to allow these things, it does seem like there are houserules required (which are fine if everyone is on board with them at the beginning of a campaign.) Improvised grapple action to silence gives the grapple move significantly more capability than it currently has. Saying restrained prevents somatic turns the restrained condition into something more like incapacitated (if you can swing a sword with disadvantage while restrained, why can't you use somatic components?), material components I'd consider, but that would be a disarm move which I believe on Battlmasters can do?

[Demonslayer666]

It seems to me that imposing a DC 10 Concentration check while restrained is a good solution. Completely restraining them (gagging and tying them up to prevent both verbal and somatic) should be difficult for one person, maybe imposing an addition grapple check with disadvantage.

Outside of combat, fully restraining a caster already restrained should be automatic for the party.

[BiPolar]

It seems to me that imposing a DC 10 Concentration check while restrained is a good solution. Completely restraining them (gagging and tying them up to prevent both verbal and somatic) should be difficult for one person, maybe imposing an addition grapple check with disadvantage.

Outside of combat, fully restraining a caster already restrained should be automatic for the party.

To clarify, only those with the Grappling Feat can apply the restrained condition. Standard grappling does not.

[Tanarii]

In order to allow these things, it does seem like there are houserules required (which are fine if everyone is on board with them at the beginning of a campaign.)I agree everyone should be on board at the beginning of the campaign, but technically improvised opposed checks aren't house-ruling anything. They're there for, like, anything the DM decides they can be for. The system is flexible like that. OTOH I feel this is a big enough impact on how spellcasting works, and potential bleedover onto non-spellcasters and ease of victory, that it's important to be precise in what you're doing and make sure everyone is onboard.

For example:

Well, it's not an instawin.

The character can break free with a check or use spells that don't require the inhibited component.

The creatures grappling the caster are also leaving themselves completely unarmed open to the allies of the caster, so it's not like there isn't a cost to doing this. I originally read your suggested method as "second check and they're confined so they can't attack or do anything except possibly struggle" for preventing S-components. That'd be instanwin on two checks vs a single opponent. That's because you didn't use game terminology, but rather general descriptions of what's going on in game. It appears you specifically mean "second check and you've prevented either a V-component casting, or S-component casting, or M-component casting. Choose one."

Are there bleed over effects? If you prevent V-component casting, can they still talk? If you prevent S-component casting, can they still attack with something already in hand (or with their hand)? If you prevent accessing M-components, can they still draw a weapon?

[BiPolar]

I agree everyone should be on board at the beginning of the campaign, but technically improvised opposed checks aren't house-ruling anything. They're there for, like, anything the DM decides they can be for. The system is flexible like that. OTOH I feel this is a big enough impact on how spellcasting works, and potential bleedover onto non-spellcasters and ease of victory, that it's important to be precise in what you're doing and make sure everyone is onboard.

Absolutely, improvisation is the name of the game with 5e, but as you say something like this has a huge impact on the way spellcasting and grappling works. It can be included and those rules updated, but understanding the implications of those changes and everyone agreeing on them must happen.

As a player, I love the idea of being able to do this (especially with my bard example above), but the odds are much higher that this tactic will be used against a party caster more than they'll have a chance to use it against an enemy.


Are there bleed over effects? If you prevent V-component casting, can they still talk? If you prevent S-component casting, can they still attack with something already in hand (or with their hand)? If you prevent accessing M-components, can they still draw a weapon?

And as I said above as well, can you disarm or do similar things to martials? If so, then those battlemaster maneuvers lose some interest if everyone can do them via 2 grapple checks.

[EvilAnagram]

Are there bleed over effects? If you prevent V-component casting, can they still talk? If you prevent S-component casting, can they still attack with something already in hand (or with their hand)? If you prevent accessing M-components, can they still draw a weapon?

There are definitely bleed-overs. If someone's mouth is covered, speaking is inhibited as well as vocal casting. With hands grabbed, something as intricate as casting is impossible, but it seems like a held item would still pose a danger, but with disadvantage. If you grab a focus or component pouch, however, you're only inhibiting their ability to use that specific item.

[SharkForce]

Well, it's not an instawin.

The character can break free with a check or use spells that don't require the inhibited component.

The creatures grappling the caster are also leaving themselves completely unarmed open to the allies of the caster, so it's not like there isn't a cost to doing this.

eh, it pretty much is. if I can gag you so that you can't say anything at all indefinitely, why couldn't I likewise put you in an arm lock and completely prevent you from using your weapon? if I just get to pick an entire category of abilities to tell you that you can't use them, and it's an extremely easy condition to apply, you are creating an instawin scenario.

furthermore, breaking free is an action. being forced into spending several actions to break free so that you can use your basic abilities is ridiculous. if you can apply that on any target, it pretty much is an instawin.

grappling doesn't leave things unarmed. for many monsters, grappling doesn't even require an opposed ability check, merely that they have hit you, and they can continue to grapple. furthermore, this merely means that the side with more people gets a ludicrously huge advantage; one of the sides can trade their actions at a 1:1 ratio (or better) for the other side's, which is ridiculously strong.

oh, and also... I don't remember if it's in this thread or another, but there was someone who worked with people who regularly need restraining, and as I recall the conclusion was that no, it *isn't* easy to just gag someone simply because you're grappling them. it's quite hard, and almost never lasts for more than a couple of seconds. now, granted, we're dealing with a much more powerful person doing the grappling... but we're also dealing with a much more powerful person resisting the grappling.

something as absurdly easy as an opposed athletics check is way too easy to pull off.

[EvilAnagram]

eh, it pretty much is. if I can gag you so that you can't say anything at all indefinitely, why couldn't I likewise put you in an arm lock and completely prevent you from using your weapon? if I just get to pick an entire category of abilities to tell you that you can't use them, and it's an extremely easy condition to apply, you are creating an instawin scenario.
Mechanically? Because you need a free hand to keep someone in the grappled condition. If you use one hand to gag them and one to grab their arm, you're not holding them still so they can just move away. If someone has Grappler as a feat (representing the skill needed to completely restrain someone with a grapple check) then it's a different story, and they have invested resources into being able to accomplish this.


furthermore, breaking free is an action. being forced into spending several actions to break free so that you can use your basic abilities is ridiculous. if you can apply that on any target, it pretty much is an instawin.
Except you still have one to two characters unarmed and open to attacks from the caster's allies, including a simple push to break the grapple.


grappling doesn't leave things unarmed. for many monsters, grappling doesn't even require an opposed ability check, merely that they have hit you, and they can continue to grapple. furthermore, this merely means that the side with more people gets a ludicrously huge advantage; one of the sides can trade their actions at a 1:1 ratio (or better) for the other side's, which is ridiculously strong.
First, grappling requires a free hand, and in the case I provided you need another free hand to gag someone or lock down their hand. That is, locking down one casting component requires two free hands, which means you have to be unarmed.

Second, they can't trade their actions at a 1:1 ration to lock down the others, they can trade them at a 2:1 ratio to possibly partially lock down the other side. And if one side is partially successful in doing so, the other side can continue to attack that round with minor inconvenience and accomplish quite a bit more that the first side did.

Also, the monsters that grapple on a hit are largely non-sapient and therefore incapable of understanding how a wizard is casting magic.



oh, and also... I don't remember if it's in this thread or another, but there was someone who worked with people who regularly need restraining, and as I recall the conclusion was that no, it *isn't* easy to just gag someone simply because you're grappling them. it's quite hard, and almost never lasts for more than a couple of seconds. now, granted, we're dealing with a much more powerful person doing the grappling... but we're also dealing with a much more powerful person resisting the grappling.

And it's unlikely to continue to succeed for more than a couple rounds. In a game I ran, even with an untrained wizard's acrobatics check, a paladin and fighter were only able to keep a wizard locked down for one round, and that's after ambushing him with a gag ready. It's not terribly difficult to escape, and there are enough useful bonus action spells to make it risky at best. And god forbid you try to grab the casting arm of a wizard with Misty Step, or ever try this on a Subtle sorcerer or a caster with Warlock buddies. There are far more ways to break out than ways to succeed.

[Vogonjeltz]

He said, "gag," which means they will cover his mouth and prevent verbal components, too. Wizards need at least one of those to cast.

Whoops, you're right, I was thinking of them all grabbing and binding the casters arms.

Still, even if the Wizard gets totally surrounded the Peasants would have to bind his hands (to prevent somatic) gag them. It's unlikely a Wizard would be going last, so if they really do get into that position it's probably their own fault.


Grapple doesn't allow you to prevent taking actions, or even restrain you without a feat. Let alone blind you, silence you, or prevent you from moving your arms and hands completely (which is akin to preventing attacking).

So no, it's not a model for these kinds of things.

No, I meant it's explicitly a model for contests in combat. (PHB 195)

If the character wants to gag the Wizard, that's pretty clearly an opposed Athletics contest, as is Disarming the Wizard of their arcane focus. For binding their arms (hog-tying) I'd probably require the character to first grapple them.


Unless you have the Grappler feat, you can't restrain.

No, the Grappler feat merely provides a specific method for restraining, it doesn't rule out the ability to restrain in other ways.

For a non-grappler, I'd require them to use rope, for example.

The grappler feats second feature just seems poorly thought out.

[Addaran]

And as I said above as well, can you disarm or do similar things to martials? If so, then those battlemaster maneuvers lose some interest if everyone can do them via 2 grapple checks.

There's the rules for that in the DMG. Even if anyone can disarms, BM does have great advantage just like with Trip.

1) Normally someone use one of his attacks to do it. BM just add the check to any attack that hit, free of action economy.
2) In addition to the action economy benefit, the superiority dice is added to the damage the attack did.
3) Normaly those are athletic str checks. The BM is always considered proficient no matter his skills and he gets to choose between Str and Dex.

The fact that you don't roll and just have 8 automatically...seems like you get reliability at the cost of a penalty.

So i don't think it would make the BM less interesting to let martials (and anyone) disarms, since it takes more for less.

[Demonslayer666]

To clarify, only those with the Grappling Feat can apply the restrained condition. Standard grappling does not.

"The only limits to the actions you can attempt are your imagination and your character’s ability scores."

The feat does not forbid standard grappling from performing a combat maneuver to restrain. It also doesn't forbid it under the description of grappling. That makes it a DM's call.

So, you may very well rule that way at your table and say that is not allowed, but IMO that's pretty ridiculous. The feat allows you to do it with advantage, so a normal check or one with disadvantage seems quite reasonable.

[BiPolar]

No, the Grappler feat merely provides a specific method for restraining, it doesn't rule out the ability to restrain in other ways.
.

I'm using restrain as in the condition, not the movement. And grappling feayt at most, gives you the restrained condition. And that condition does not remove the ability to act.

[Erys]

"The only limits to the actions you can attempt are your imagination and your character’s ability scores."

The feat does not forbid ....

Trying to use the Air Bud Clause is bad form.

Be better.

[Saeviomage]

I would have to say that stopping someone from speaking for 6 seconds is going to be way more difficult than stopping them from attacking with a sword.
Similarly removing the use of both of someone's hands is going to be a lot more difficult than just removing the use of the hand that holds their weapon.

[ApplePen]

I don't see why "reduce the wizard to 0 HP" isn't acceptable.

Wizards have ****ty AC, not great HP and if you're making them cast Shield over and over you are eating a spell slot every time.

To Contrast, a level 8 fighter should be dealing 25-30 damage per swing. A level 8 wizard only has about 50 HP. You kill him with two successive hits. Even assuming they begin with Mage Armor already up, you kill them easily in the first round. Action surge all but guarantees it.

If you are a champion fighter, you can even remarkable athlete your initiative to go even firster. If a battlemaster, your superiority dice means you can take -5 for +10 without fear.
The arcane fighter has magic, so there's that.

Later on, the wizard gets better spells, but the fighter gets more attacks and additional damage.

From my math
(We'll assume they both have 16 in their attack stat, 14 dex and 15 con)

Lv 1, fighter downs wizard with a single shot, roughly 50% of the time. If the wizard casts Shield to go with his mage armor, he is now out of spells.
Lv 2, fighter gets action surge and can still one round the wizard 50% of the time.
Lv 3 the fighter STILL one rounds the wizard.
Lv 4 the wizard's chance to survive a round goes up, but he's still squashable.
Looks like the fighter keeps one rounding the wizard 50% of the time or greater until about level 11.
The only way the wizard gets to cast anything is if he burns a Shield, and even that won't guarantee he survives the round post lv 5.
As an aside, the fighter always has a higher AC because he can wear medium/heavy armor. If he uses a shield his damage drops, but the likelihood of being hit drops as well.

The wizard's primary advantage is range, but if you have a Bow fighter it gets even sillier.

By the time the wizard can safely call "I have enough HP to cast regardless" he's in the mid teens.

Sorcerers get a bit of an easier time, and Clerics are harder to deal with, but for the most part a fighter can actually stop a spell by just killing the caster.

Unless he's on another floor/behind a window/other things... But that's situational.

[Gignere]

I don't see why "reduce the wizard to 0 HP" isn't acceptable.

Wizards have ****ty AC, not great HP and if you're making them cast Shield over and over you are eating a spell slot every time.

To Contrast, a level 8 fighter should be dealing 25-30 damage per swing. A level 8 wizard only has about 50 HP. You kill him with two successive hits. Even assuming they begin with Mage Armor already up, you kill them easily in the first round. Action surge all but guarantees it.

If you are a champion fighter, you can even remarkable athlete your initiative to go even firster. If a battlemaster, your superiority dice means you can take -5 for +10 without fear.
The arcane fighter has magic, so there's that.

Later on, the wizard gets better spells, but the fighter gets more attacks and additional damage.

From my math
(We'll assume they both have 16 in their attack stat, 14 dex and 15 con)

Lv 1, fighter downs wizard with a single shot, roughly 50% of the time. If the wizard casts Shield to go with his mage armor, he is now out of spells.
Lv 2, fighter gets action surge and can still one round the wizard 50% of the time.
Lv 3 the fighter STILL one rounds the wizard.
Lv 4 the wizard's chance to survive a round goes up, but he's still squashable.
Looks like the fighter keeps one rounding the wizard 50% of the time or greater until about level 11.
The only way the wizard gets to cast anything is if he burns a Shield, and even that won't guarantee he survives the round post lv 5.
As an aside, the fighter always has a higher AC because he can wear medium/heavy armor. If he uses a shield his damage drops, but the likelihood of being hit drops as well.

The wizard's primary advantage is range, but if you have a Bow fighter it gets even sillier.

By the time the wizard can safely call "I have enough HP to cast regardless" he's in the mid teens.

Sorcerers get a bit of an easier time, and Clerics are harder to deal with, but for the most part a fighter can actually stop a spell by just killing the caster.

Unless he's on another floor/behind a window/other things... But that's situational.

Some people aren't happy until commoners have a decent chance of shutting down a wizard completely. Until that happens they scream casters are op op op op!

[jas61292]

I don't see why "reduce the wizard to 0 HP" isn't acceptable.

Wizards have ****ty AC, not great HP and if you're making them cast Shield over and over you are eating a spell slot every time.

To Contrast, a level 8 fighter should be dealing 25-30 damage per swing. A level 8 wizard only has about 50 HP. You kill him with two successive hits. Even assuming they begin with Mage Armor already up, you kill them easily in the first round. Action surge all but guarantees it.

If you are a champion fighter, you can even remarkable athlete your initiative to go even firster. If a battlemaster, your superiority dice means you can take -5 for +10 without fear.
The arcane fighter has magic, so there's that.

Later on, the wizard gets better spells, but the fighter gets more attacks and additional damage.

From my math
(We'll assume they both have 16 in their attack stat, 14 dex and 15 con)

Lv 1, fighter downs wizard with a single shot, roughly 50% of the time. If the wizard casts Shield to go with his mage armor, he is now out of spells.
Lv 2, fighter gets action surge and can still one round the wizard 50% of the time.
Lv 3 the fighter STILL one rounds the wizard.
Lv 4 the wizard's chance to survive a round goes up, but he's still squashable.
Looks like the fighter keeps one rounding the wizard 50% of the time or greater until about level 11.
The only way the wizard gets to cast anything is if he burns a Shield, and even that won't guarantee he survives the round post lv 5.
As an aside, the fighter always has a higher AC because he can wear medium/heavy armor. If he uses a shield his damage drops, but the likelihood of being hit drops as well.

The wizard's primary advantage is range, but if you have a Bow fighter it gets even sillier.

By the time the wizard can safely call "I have enough HP to cast regardless" he's in the mid teens.

Sorcerers get a bit of an easier time, and Clerics are harder to deal with, but for the most part a fighter can actually stop a spell by just killing the caster.

Unless he's on another floor/behind a window/other things... But that's situational.

First off... maybe I'm missing something, but how does a fighter do 25-30 damage per attack at level 8? With GWF a Greatsword is 8.33 on average, plus up to 5 Str. That's 13.333 damage per attack. Even if you use GWM, which is a terrible idea against something that can use shield, that is 23.33 on average. Am I missing something or are you giving them some bonuses I don't know about? And of course, this only even comes close with the GWF using GWM (ignoring that GWM would be bad to do). The sword and board fighter is not even coming close to that damage.

But more importantly, your anaysis falls apart because D&D is not PvP. In my experience, you are very rarely actually fighting spellcasters that are your level. Going by the DMG guidelines for example, a group of 4 level 6 PCs could face an enemy party made up of the NPCs Mage, Knight, and Bandit Captain, and that would be a medium encounter. But the Mage NPC is not the equivalent of a level 6 caster. It is a level 9 caster. And lets not even get into the situations at slightly higher levels where I can reasonably send an 18th level casting Archmage with minions at the party.

The fact that a level 6 fighter could kill a level 6 wizard is completely irrelevant when that is never what he will be facing.

[Addaran]

I don't see why "reduce the wizard to 0 HP" isn't acceptable.

Wizards have ****ty AC, not great HP and if you're making them cast Shield over and over you are eating a spell slot every time.



Sometime the "wizard" is a Lich, a huge demon or actually have great AC cause they can wear awesome armor (NPCs can have whatever abilities the DM want). So they don't always have ****ty AC/HP like a player (or have to pay opportunity cost to plug the hole like a player would do).

[Mellack]

Even humanoid spellcaster does not equal wizard. You could be facing a cleric in plate with a shield. They can still cast and have a great AC as well.

[Vogonjeltz]

Trying to use the Air Bud Clause is bad form.

Be better.

The rules explicitly allow you to attempt to do anything you can imagine the character trying to do.

In this case, restraining an enemies hands.

[Mellack]

What would be the check to stab a person through the eye into the brain, instantly killing them, regardless of their HP?

[Vogonjeltz]

What would be the check to stab a person through the eye into the brain, instantly killing them, regardless of their HP?

That would be an attack roll, and you'd need to deal massive damage.

Unless it's not combat and they're totally helpless of course.

[BiPolar]

The rules explicitly allow you to attempt to do anything you can imagine the character trying to do.

In this case, restraining an enemies hands.

THe problem with this is that the word "restraining" has a condition meaning in 5e. Why can't I say when I go to hit someone with my maul, "I am going to hit them in their back and paralyze them."

5e doesn't have called shots, and calling non-shots and giving conditions that even someone who took a feat to get better at something can't do seems too much. If it's not for you and your table, that's fine, but it's a slippery slope.

edit: I see a similar question from Mellack, but the difference between mine and his is that I'm not trying to kill. I'm just hoping to hit to provide a condition (paralyzed).

[Tanarii]

That would be an attack roll, and you'd need to deal massive damage.

Unless it's not combat and they're totally helpless of course.
So why can you use an opposed check to one or two shot eliminate an opponent from combat in the one case, and need to make an attack roll(s) and damage to do it in the other?

Edit: and why would players ever choose to make attack rolls, when there's a much easier and faster way to eliminate opponents?

[Demonslayer666]

Trying to use the Air Bud Clause is bad form.

Be better.

I don't get the reference to Air Bud, but I love obscure movie references.

My quote is directly from the Player's Handbook on Improvising an Action. :smallcool:

[BiPolar]

I don't get the reference to Air Bud, but I love obscure movie references.

My quote is directly from the Player's Handbook on Improvising an Action. :smallcool:

Yes, but improvising an action to do something that is very overpowered is not what that means. As my suggestion earlier to improvise an attack to break someone's back. I'm not trying to kill them, subdue or anything else. I'm just trying to paralyze them (and therefore give them the Paralyzed Condition). That seem legit?

[jas61292]

The difference here is that binding hands or what not does not have existing mechanics. If a player wants to do that, the rules explicitly empower the DM to allow that by use of skull contests. On the other hand, there are existing rules for killing things in a combat setting. Asking if they can throat stab and instakill someone is asking for the DM to ignore the existing rules, not asking them to adjudicate a non-existent resolution method on the fly.

That said, combat rules are an abstraction. Outside of combat, these existing rules don't apply, meaning a DM certainly could, for example, allow a player to instakill someone by slitting their throat while they sleep, without violating RAW. HP is an abstraction of combat durability, not literal ability to take hits from weapons. When not in combat, if something would bypass this combat durability, or any other combat specific rule, there is no reason it shouldn't.

[BiPolar]

The difference here is that binding hands or what not does not have existing mechanics. If a player wants to do that, the rules explicitly empower the DM to allow that by use of skull contests. On the other hand, there are existing rules for killing things in a combat setting. Asking if they can throat stab and instakill someone is asking for the DM to ignore the existing rules, not asking them to adjudicate a non-existent resolution method on the fly.

That said, combat rules are an abstraction. Outside of combat, these existing rules don't apply, meaning a DM certainly could, for example, allow a player to instakill someone by slitting their throat while they sleep, without violating RAW. HP is an abstraction of combat durability, not literal ability to take hits from weapons. When not in combat, if something would bypass this combat durability, or any other combat specific rule, there is no reason it shouldn't.

My idea wasn't an insta-kill, it was to do something that involves an existing mechanical condition of Paralyzed. Just grappling to "bind" to give them the Incapacitated condition (can't take their action to cast a spell.)

Allowing grappling to go well beyond the provided maximum condition of Restrained would make it incredibly powerful. If you can shut down enemies by grappling and removing their ability to take a melee attack or cast a spell (effectively removing their action, which is Incapacitated), with an ability check that is much more powerful than Grapple currently is.

It's not that you can't improvise, it's that you shouldn't be able to improvise and do things that are much greater than what is allowed. Parallel improvisation, not greater improvisation.

Maybe it's just random that WoTC limited non-feat grappling to just stopping movement, and Feat-grappling to the Restrained condition, but I'd bet that the thought direction was to not have it be used in the manner we're debating.

[jas61292]

My idea wasn't an insta-kill, it was to do something that involves an existing mechanical condition of Paralyzed. Just grappling to "bind" to give them the Incapacitated condition (can't take their action to cast a spell.)

Allowing grappling to go well beyond the provided maximum condition of Restrained would make it incredibly powerful. If you can shut down enemies by grappling and removing their ability to take a melee attack or cast a spell (effectively removing their action, which is Incapacitated), with an ability check that is much more powerful than Grapple currently is.

It's not that you can't improvise, it's that you shouldn't be able to improvise and do things that are much greater than what is allowed. Parallel improvisation, not greater improvisation.

Maybe it's just random that WoTC limited non-feat grappling to just stopping movement, and Feat-grappling to the Restrained condition, but I'd bet that the thought direction was to not have it be used in the manner we're debating.

My point was less about what you should and should not allow, and more about what the rules are for, and what they are not for. They are designed to allow a DM to use checks or contests to resolve situations not explicitly covered in the rules. They are not designed to let players use checks or contests to do things that are already covered by other rules. However just because a situation lacks explicit rules does not mean a DM should allows a check or contest. It just means that they could allow it to be resolved that way, without violating the intent of the rules.

In my personal opinion, I would be fine allowing one to attempt to bind hands or gag someone, but it sure as hell would not be as easy as simply winning a second grapple attempt, and I would likely require the player to use thier action every round to maintain it.

[BiPolar]

My point was less about what you should and should not allow, and more about what the rules are for, and what they are not for. They are designed to allow a DM to use checks or contests to resolve situations not explicitly covered in the rules. They are not designed to let players use checks or contests to do things that are already covered by other rules. However just because a situation lacks explicit rules does not mean a DM should allows a check or contest. It just means that they could allow it to be resolved that way, without violating the intent of the rules.

In my personal opinion, I would be fine allowing one to attempt to bind hands or gag someone, but it sure as hell would not be as easy as simply winning a second grapple attempt, and I would likely require the player to use thier action every round to maintain it.

Again, that's totally to fine to run that at your table, but it gives Grappling an immense advantage over almost any other action someone could take. Especially in larger parties. Having your bard walk up to someone and lock them down is effectively a Hold Person that could be nearly impossible to break (double proficiency, cutting words.) And if any intelligent enemy knows about a party with a caster, they'd line someone up to do the same. Not fun for that caster.

This isn't just an idea for an improvised action, it's an improvised action that delivers a very powerful effect, but uses the same rules. It also minimizes other anti-spellcaster things like Counterspell and Dispel Magic. One could look at using Illusions to do the same thing (phantasmal force as a gag), but that has limitations such as them moving out of the effect of the spell.

Offering grappling to provide equivalent conditions to Paralyzed and Incapacitated isn't improvising, it's changing how grappling works.

[jas61292]

Again, that's totally to fine to run that at your table, but it gives Grappling an immense advantage over almost any other action someone could take. Especially in larger parties. Having your bard walk up to someone and lock them down is effectively a Hold Person that could be nearly impossible to break (double proficiency, cutting words.) And if any intelligent enemy knows about a party with a caster, they'd line someone up to do the same. Not fun for that caster.

This isn't just an idea for an improvised action, it's an improvised action that delivers a very powerful effect, but uses the same rules. It also minimizes other anti-spellcaster things like Counterspell and Dispel Magic. One could look at using Illusions to do the same thing (phantasmal force as a gag), but that has limitations such as them moving out of the effect of the spell.

Offering grappling to provide equivalent conditions to Paralyzed and Incapacitated isn't improvising, it's changing how grappling works.

I think we have very different in interpretations of how this would work. You are comparing it to paralysis, while I'm thinking of it as simply being unable to use hands or unable to talk (not both at once, as those would require different actions by the player) in addition to having movement be 0. They still get actions, and can still cat spells without the component they are being restricted from using. They still have normal AC. And this is at the cost of one player dedicating all thier actions towards shutting this caster down. Depending on the situation, this might be a good use of your turn, but it very well might not be.

There are certainly ways a DM could implement this that would be exceptionally powerful, but I don't think our is inherently so. And as a DM I prefer to encourage people to think about what they want to do add a character, rather than force them to act only with the few predetermined things the rules explicitly covet.

[BiPolar]

I think we have very different in interpretations of how this would work. You are comparing it to paralysis, while I'm thinking of it as simply being unable to use hands or unable to talk (not both at once, as those would require different actions by the player) in addition to having movement be 0. They still get actions, and can still cat spells without the component they are being restricted from using. They still have normal AC. And this is at the cost of one player dedicating all thier actions towards shutting this caster down. Depending on the situation, this might be a good use of your turn, but it very well might not be.

There are certainly ways a DM could implement this that would be exceptionally powerful, but I don't think our is inherently so. And as a DM I prefer to encourage people to think about what they want to do add a character, rather than force them to act only with the few predetermined things the rules explicitly covet.

Well, taking a caster and removing their ability to use either V,S or M with a grapple is a pretty big deal. Limiting their options as to what spell they can cast does, for the most part, stop them from casting, which is what they do. However, if you allow the same sort of thing to happen to a martial (hold an arm and prevent them from taking an attack) then it starts to balance a little more. But again, the party will have enemies doing the same to them and as a DM you have to start tracking an alternate mechanic that will likely be used a lot because of it's inherent power.

Using condition terms like Paralyzed and Incapacitated is where I was going because while the action doesn't give the full condition, it gives the primary aspect of taking away their ability to actually do things, which Grappling does not inherently do. Improvisation aside, giving opportunity to do more things that are more powerful can be fun and rewarding, but it can also represent a pretty big change to the mechanics.

[Demonslayer666]

Yes, but improvising an action to do something that is very overpowered is not what that means. As my suggestion earlier to improvise an attack to break someone's back. I'm not trying to kill them, subdue or anything else. I'm just trying to paralyze them (and therefore give them the Paralyzed Condition). That seem legit?

That's exactly what it means, and it is up to the DM to determine if it's allowed, not you.

It's not overpowered to take a grappled person and restrain them without the Grappler feat. The feat allows it with advantage. A normal or disadvantage check seems very appropriate from my DM standpoint and not overpowered at all.

No, your proposed action does not seem anywhere close to legit mid-combat. You need something that will give you the equivalent of the Hold Person/Monster spell. Actually, you'd need something more powerful, since those are temporary.

[BiPolar]

That's exactly what it means, and it is up to the DM to determine if it's allowed, not you.

It's not overpowered to take a grappled person and restrain them without the Grappler feat. The feat allows it with advantage. A normal or disadvantage check seems very appropriate from my DM standpoint and not overpowered at all.

No, your proposed action does not seem anywhere close to legit mid-combat. You need something that will give you the equivalent of the Hold Person/Monster spell. Actually, you'd need something more powerful, since those are temporary.

I understand it's not up to me, that's why we're talking about. I can see how my action is beyond the pale, but it was an over the top idea - much in the way that I happen to think that allowing a Grappler to do something beyond the Restrained condition would be overpowered.

If you don't think it's that way at your table, and your players are cool with it being done to them as well (and again, more likely to happen to them than to enemies because their caster is always there and an enemy caster may not be), then go for it.

I'm just trying to argue that allowing it may be more problematic than it seems and if used against players, they'd get pretty pissed off.

I'm also not arguing against the Restrained condition. That's something the Feat (which you have to get) allows for. It does not allow a non-Grappler feat PC to do this. If you want to give away that part of the feat for free, that's also up to you and your table. If you want to give away even greater power to a grappler without a cost, that's also up to your table.

[SharkForce]

I don't get the reference to Air Bud, but I love obscure movie references.

My quote is directly from the Player's Handbook on Improvising an Action. :smallcool:

the idea is that the basic premise of most of the air bud movies is something along the lines of "the rules don't say a dog can't play <sport name here>" and using that as a basis to conclude that since the rules don't explicitly forbid it, it must be allowed.


I think we have very different in interpretations of how this would work. You are comparing it to paralysis, while I'm thinking of it as simply being unable to use hands or unable to talk (not both at once, as those would require different actions by the player) in addition to having movement be 0. They still get actions, and can still cat spells without the component they are being restricted from using. They still have normal AC. And this is at the cost of one player dedicating all thier actions towards shutting this caster down. Depending on the situation, this might be a good use of your turn, but it very well might not be.

There are certainly ways a DM could implement this that would be exceptionally powerful, but I don't think our is inherently so. And as a DM I prefer to encourage people to think about what they want to do add a character, rather than force them to act only with the few predetermined things the rules explicitly covet.

if it's something as simple and reliable as a grapple check to put in place, it honestly isn't that much lighter of a condition than paralysis. you have essentially made someone completely useless with that action. i mean, sure, technically they get to use their action, but they don't get to use their action to contribute in any meaningful way. it's like arguing that polymorphing someone into a fish should be nearly impossible to defend against because the target still gets their action.

something as easy and reliable to pull off as grappling should not be so devastating, unless it is intended to be the basis of the system. i mean, if the whole objective is to create a world where people think you're an idiot for waging wars without the majority of your army being highly skilled grapplers, by all means introduce a rule where you can quickly and easily and reliably disable someone in the way people seem to want here.

[BeefGood]

Away from book but I'm pretty sure that PHB says that DM might require a dexterity check to bind someone. So I think that binding a caster is within the existing rules, at least the intent of the rules, and it also seems reasonable that a bound caster would not be able to perform somatic components. First grappling the caster so he can't run away from being bound also seems reasonable.
Looking at the other side of it: what's the rule that says a caster can't be bound, or can still perform somatic components while bound? I can't think of such a rule.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Away from book but I'm pretty sure that PHB says that DM might require a dexterity check to bind someone.

When they're at your mercy. A lot more stuff is plausible then.

[Tanarii]

Away from book but I'm pretty sure that PHB says that DM might require a dexterity check to bind someone.

Securely tie up a prisoner

[Vogonjeltz]

The fact that you don't roll and just have 8 automatically...seems like you get reliability at the cost of a penalty.

So i don't think it would make the BM less interesting to let martials (and anyone) disarms, since it takes more for less.

On top of which most monsters have a worse saving throw than have proficiency in Athletics or Acrobatics.


THe problem with this is that the word "restraining" has a condition meaning in 5e. Why can't I say when I go to hit someone with my maul, "I am going to hit them in their back and paralyze them."

5e doesn't have called shots, and calling non-shots and giving conditions that even someone who took a feat to get better at something can't do seems too much. If it's not for you and your table, that's fine, but it's a slippery slope.

edit: I see a similar question from Mellack, but the difference between mine and his is that I'm not trying to kill. I'm just hoping to hit to provide a condition (paralyzed).

How is that a problem? Restraining has an obvious literal meaning, you'd be grabbing their arms in order to hold them. Not just grab onto them (grapple) but specifically hold both their limbs. It's even demonstrated in a picture in the Appendix.

Unlike the strawman you've presented of paralysis, we know exactly how anyone could restrain anyone else.


So why can you use an opposed check to one or two shot eliminate an opponent from combat in the one case, and need to make an attack roll(s) and damage to do it in the other?

Edit: and why would players ever choose to make attack rolls, when there's a much easier and faster way to eliminate opponents?

Grappling and Restraining don't eliminate opponents, and they require active participation by the players to maintain, and the opponent has their turn to undo anything the players are doing. i.e. Only characters with multiple attacks, or the efforts of multiple characters with a single attack each, are likely to restrain an opponent long enough to tie them up without knocking them out first.

The point is, attacking is probably faster and easier for dispatching an opponent as most of the time grappling/restraining/disarming and so forth are more about hindering an opponent and gaining a tactical advantage for a party. It just so happens that, if you wanted to capture a Wizard without trying to harm them much, it would require alot of opposed checks, and since Wizards typically have low str and typically don't have proficiency in athletics or acrobatics, those checks are more likely to succeed.


I don't get the reference to Air Bud, but I love obscure movie references.

My quote is directly from the Player's Handbook on Improvising an Action.

It's from the point in the movie where they hang a lampshade on the question of a Dog playing in a professional basketball league game, the Ref is like: Well the rules don't say dogs can't play....so I guess that means they can.

That being said, the rules in the PHB specifically allow improvised actions, so BiPolar's lampooning is misguided.


Yes, but improvising an action to do something that is very overpowered is not what that means. As my suggestion earlier to improvise an attack to break someone's back. I'm not trying to kill them, subdue or anything else. I'm just trying to paralyze them (and therefore give them the Paralyzed Condition). That seem legit?

Well, if you were able to reduce them to zero hit points with the attack, I'd allow it using the Lingering Injuries table in the DMG (DMG 272) as a model. Probably working off the Internal Injury injury, the character would have to attempt a DC 15 constitution saving throw to do anything, and is healed by magical healing or ten days of rest.

Of course, since it's an NPC, probably not something that's going to matter...ever.

[ApplePen]

Taking a -5 for a +10 is a great idea against an opponent who can cast Shield, because shield eats their reaction and you have more than one attack.

And action surge. And if you have GWM you get a bonus attack if you Crit. Etc.

I'm basing that 25-30 on a battlemaster fighter with GWF, a +1 greatsword and using a superiority dice. Probably to trip, so he can have advantage against the wizard. You're looking at 2d6 and a D8 plus 5 (STR), +1 (weapon), +10 (GWM), so 25-30 is pretty reasonable.

[Tanarii]

Taking a -5 for a +10 is a great idea against an opponent who can cast Shield, because shield eats their reaction and you have more than one attack.Shield works against more than one attack. So unless you could already only hit their shielded AC on a 20, it's ... probably subpar. Depends on what the shielded AC is, what your bonus to hit is, and what your total damage is before the +10.

[BeefGood]

Securely tie up a prisoner

Thanks for correction, I see it now, "The DM might call for a Dexterity check when you try to...securely tie up a prisoner". The hazards of posting while away from book.
Anyway, it's just a momentary setback, all it means is we have to look up the Prisoner condition...no Prisoner condition...we just have to look up the Take Prisoner action...no Take Prisoner action...this is hopeless.

[Tanarii]

Anyway, it's just a momentary setback, all it means is we have to look up the Prisoner condition...no Prisoner condition...we just have to look up the Take Prisoner action...no Take Prisoner action...this is hopeless.
Lol we're ALL DOOMED! How can we ever hope to play this game?!? :smallbiggrin:

[StoicLeaf]

seriously why not just modify the restrained condition a bit. Provided the player grabbing the wizard has the grappler feat:
instead of grabbing 2 arms you're grabbing one arm and the wizards mouth.

[SharkForce]

seriously why not just modify the restrained condition a bit. Provided the player grabbing the wizard has the grappler feat:
instead of grabbing 2 arms you're grabbing one arm and the wizards mouth.

because there is a rather substantial difference between having a resourceless and reliable method of making it harder for someone to do something vs having a resourceless and reliable method of making it impossible for someone to do something.

the restrained condition makes it hard to do certain things; attack, avoid being hit, and make dex saving throws, as i recall, but only makes one thing impossible (sort of... it actually reduces your movement to zero, i believe, but technically if you have some way to move without having movement, i suppose you could arguably just walk away, RAW).

making that degree of lockdown so readily achievable is simply far too much. you could maybe get away with tying it to a saving throw, but even then, notice that there are very few cantrips that offer anything even remotely resembling hard CC. you've got some stuff that can slow people down a bit, and ways to make it harder to hit or damage someone, but they made a point of not giving hard CC to cantrips for a reason, and that's without being able to get anywhere near as much reliability as you can get with grappling.

[StoicLeaf]

because there is a rather substantial difference between having a resourceless and reliable method of making it harder for someone to do something vs having a resourceless and reliable method of making it impossible for someone to do something.

the restrained condition makes it hard to do certain things; attack, avoid being hit, and make dex saving throws, as i recall, but only makes one thing impossible (sort of... it actually reduces your movement to zero, i believe, but technically if you have some way to move without having movement, i suppose you could arguably just walk away, RAW).

making that degree of lockdown so readily achievable is simply far too much. you could maybe get away with tying it to a saving throw, but even then, notice that there are very few cantrips that offer anything even remotely resembling hard CC. you've got some stuff that can slow people down a bit, and ways to make it harder to hit or damage someone, but they made a point of not giving hard CC to cantrips for a reason, and that's without being able to get anywhere near as much reliability as you can get with grappling.

..What?
I don't agree with your assessment of the situation.
You'd be required to take a feat. For an abillity that you might not get much use out of. A smart wizard will fly. Or have mirror images up. SOMETHING to prevent being ran at and taken out of commission.

Mechanically, there's no difference between gagging a wizard and the very same wizard casting hold person on the offending warrior. Both parties have to save against an effect that targets their (likely) dump stat.
The resource cost of taking out a wizard that way is the fighter has lost the ability to fight. You need a free hand to grapple someone, I'd argue that restraining an arm and a mouth will require the use of both your arms.

edit:
hell, the wizard can even keep casting after CCing someone. The warrior gagging the wizard can't.

[Tanarii]

Mechanically, there's no difference between gagging a wizard and the very same wizard casting hold person on the offending warrior.Yes there is. A Wizard (or any other caster) must expend a resource. A grappler with your buffed up rule doesn't. That's actually a great example to demonstrate why this approach is broken. It is a proposal for at-will Hold Person.

[StoicLeaf]

Yes there is. A Wizard (or any other caster) must expend a resource. A grappler with your buffed up rule doesn't. That's actually a great example to demonstrate why this approach is broken. It is a proposal for at-will Hold Person.

You obviously didn't read the rest.
being able to fight and spend actions *is* a resource. the warrior gagging the mage cannot do anything else.

[Tanarii]

You obviously didn't read the rest.
being able to fight and spend actions *is* a resource. the warrior gagging the mage cannot do anything else.
I read it. You're acting like this isn't a party game. At-will "you're useless" abilities are completely overpowered, even if they remove the person doing it from the equation.

[StoicLeaf]

I read it. You're acting like this isn't a party game. At-will "you're useless" abilities are completely overpowered, even if they remove the person doing it from the equation.

seriously you make it sound like it's the end of the world.
get the mage to wear a hockey mask.
problem solved.
each to their own, I guess!

[Demonslayer666]

I understand it's not up to me, that's why we're talking about. I can see how my action is beyond the pale, but it was an over the top idea - much in the way that I happen to think that allowing a Grappler to do something beyond the Restrained condition would be overpowered.

If you don't think it's that way at your table, and your players are cool with it being done to them as well (and again, more likely to happen to them than to enemies because their caster is always there and an enemy caster may not be), then go for it.

I'm just trying to argue that allowing it may be more problematic than it seems and if used against players, they'd get pretty pissed off.

I'm also not arguing against the Restrained condition. That's something the Feat (which you have to get) allows for. It does not allow a non-Grappler feat PC to do this. If you want to give away that part of the feat for free, that's also up to you and your table. If you want to give away even greater power to a grappler without a cost, that's also up to your table.

Breaking someone's back and pinning them are on two very different power levels. Yours takes one attack and requires nothing else of you, where mine would require four consecutive opposed checks (grapple, Restrain, gag, and tie them up). I would also rule that in combat, gagging and tying them up would be rather difficult and would impose disadvantage (requiring help) and would require two free hands.

Combats simply don't last long enough for that to happen to a PC. By the time he was trying to gag the PC caster, the rest of the party would be standing around him with their hands on their hips.

[BiPolar]

Breaking someone's back and pinning them are on two very different power levels. Yours takes one attack and requires nothing else of you, where mine would require four consecutive opposed checks (grapple, Restrain, gag, and tie them up). I would also rule that in combat, gagging and tying them up would be rather difficult and would impose disadvantage (requiring help) and would require two free hands.

Combats simply don't last long enough for that to happen to a PC. By the time he was trying to gag the PC caster, the rest of the party would be standing around him with their hands on their hips.

And that is why I said to ignore that "paralaysis" example and focus more on the increase of the Restrained condition and what that does to balance (as Tanarii and SharkForce have done.) That was the point of where I was going wasn't on the use of language, but on the conditions and restrictions delivered.

[Tanarii]

seriously you make it sound like it's the end of the world.
get the mage to wear a hockey mask.
problem solved.
each to their own, I guess!No, I'm acting like it's overpowered. That does not mean the end of the world. It means more powerful than other balanced options.

Sure, each unto their own. If you want overpowered options in your game, and accept that players will likely use them regularly and it will be used against the players regularly, then that's fine. Sometimes I'm okay with that, other times I'm not. Totally depends on what the option specifically is doing, what changes it makes to the game.

In this case it's introducing a rule that allows whichever side has the relative action economy advantage to increase that relative action economy in a fairly easy at-will manner, by trading off one action on their side for one action on the opponents. And of course not all actions are of equal value either, an orc trading off their action to stop your wizard or cleric from doing anything is a great tradeoff past a certain point.

Edit: As a side note, I totally dig some games in which casting is really hard. Which, as I think I may have already mentioned in this thread, absolutely includes some versions of D&D. In some of the earlier versions casting in melee was tantamount to throwing your spell away. My concern is more along the lines that in trying to move towards that, people are introducing a rule that basically boils down to "any creature can be removed from combat easily" Even when the tradeoff is another creature removing itself from combat, that's often an overly strong option ... and often one that's overly strong against the PCs.

[StoicLeaf]

Eh, I still think you're being too rigid.

Your action economy gets just as broken when the enemy mage CCs your fighter. Worse, the mage can still disintegrate people. Then you say "oh but it's resourceless!", people then present arguments to show that that isn't as bad, at which point it's back to banging on about action economy.

[Tanarii]

Eh, I still think you're being too rigid.No, I'm just concerned about breaking the game in ways I don't like. Insta-win at-will is one of them. (Edit: to be clear, I want to make sure that something that *seems* like instawin at will either actually isn't, or is sufficiently hard or has other limitations to make it balanced. If that's even possible ... sometimes instawin at-will is still broken in ways I don't like even if it's very hard to set up.)


Your action economy gets just as broken when the enemy mage CCs your fighter. Worse, the mage can still disintegrate people. Then you say "oh but it's resourceless!", people then present arguments to show that that isn't as bad, at which point it's back to banging on about action economy.
Your argument is circular.

[StoicLeaf]

That's exactly my point. YOU'RE going round in circles.

But ok, there's something new, how would this change break the game?

[SharkForce]

first off, i'm not sure i've even seen a fighter guide that did not plan for resilient wisdom specifically so that the fighter is *not* super vulnerable to wisdom saves.

that aside, it is FAR easier to get a higher athletics check than it is to create a difficult wisdom save. checks are drastically easier to modify specifically because they typically have lower impacts. it isn't only about resourceless hard CC (although that is already more powerful than anything that currently exists in the game, as i've noted; the classes that are considered to be the masters of CC do not have at-will hard CC available to them). it's also about how hard it is to apply. until you get to the very highest levels (the ones where most warriors will have picked up some sort of defense against wisdom saves most likely, and where most enemies have at least a moderate bonus to wisdom saves), it is nearly impossible to get a really high chance of success. at level 13, an enemy with a mere +2 to wisdom saves will make their save nearly one quarter of the time. meanwhile, a fighter with a level of rogue splashed in at the same level can have +15 to their athletics checks. oh, and can make 3 athletics checks per action. and can action surge if it is somehow needed, for an additional 3 attempts. a similar barbarian will have advantage on the check, and cannot roll lower than 20, while raging, iirc. a valour grapple bard can also have advantage (enhance ability) and can lower an enemy's check easily if needed.

this degree of reliability just is not available with spells, even the ones that cost resources, barring some rather powerful and rare magic items. it is not comparable to hold person, which costs concentration, plus a resource cost, plus does not require an action to be spent to have even a chance of escaping, you just get a free save every single round, and those saves are probably easier than the opposed check to avoid or escape from a grapple.

[StoicLeaf]

first off, i'm not sure i've even seen a fighter guide that did not plan for resilient wisdom specifically so that the fighter is *not* super vulnerable to wisdom saves.

that aside, it is FAR easier to get a higher athletics check than it is to create a difficult wisdom save. checks are drastically easier to modify specifically because they typically have lower impacts. it isn't only about resourceless hard CC (although that is already more powerful than anything that currently exists in the game, as i've noted; the classes that are considered to be the masters of CC do not have at-will hard CC available to them). it's also about how hard it is to apply. until you get to the very highest levels (the ones where most warriors will have picked up some sort of defense against wisdom saves most likely, and where most enemies have at least a moderate bonus to wisdom saves), it is nearly impossible to get a really high chance of success. at level 13, an enemy with a mere +2 to wisdom saves will make their save nearly one quarter of the time. meanwhile, a fighter with a level of rogue splashed in at the same level can have +15 to their athletics checks. oh, and can make 3 athletics checks per action. and can action surge if it is somehow needed, for an additional 3 attempts. a similar barbarian will have advantage on the check, and cannot roll lower than 20, while raging, iirc. a valour grapple bard can also have advantage (enhance ability) and can lower an enemy's check easily if needed.

this degree of reliability just is not available with spells, even the ones that cost resources, barring some rather powerful and rare magic items. it is not comparable to hold person, which costs concentration, plus a resource cost, plus does not require an action to be spent to have even a chance of escaping, you just get a free save every single round, and those saves are probably easier than the opposed check to avoid or escape from a grapple.

Ok, I get what you're driving at now.
On the one hand, I understand your mechanical concerns, on the other ..
seriously, a hockey mask/any mouth guard renders the gagging attempt ineffective.

This makes me sad. There's an inbuilt impasse in the game..

[Gignere]

Ok, I get what you're driving at now.
On the one hand, I understand your mechanical concerns, on the other ..
seriously, a hockey mask/any mouth guard renders the gagging attempt ineffective.

This makes me sad. There's an inbuilt impasse in the game..

See this is the kind of rules elevation that will break the game. DM introduces home brew to gag casters, later casters convinces DM to introduce hockey mask to prevent gagging. Now martials will convince DM that ripping said hockey mask off face is an item interaction.......repeat ad nauseam and you basically have a group arguing over home-brew rules instead of playing.

[BeefGood]

What is "CC" ?

[Gignere]

What is "CC" ?

Crowd Control it means abilities that control the movement and/or actions of others, either restrict, deny, and/or modify certain movements and/or actions.

[Coffee_Dragon]

What is "CC" ?

Closed captioning. In some localizations of the game, mages noticed it didn't matter what they were saying because they'd be dubbed to the local language anyway, so they started lip synching nonsense phrases like "banana bulldozer spellfire" or even not giving a damn about verbal components. This was considered OP and subtitling was enforced in place of overdubs. Some still try to get around this by wearing "hockey masks" and claim no one can see their lips so how do you know they're the ones making the sounds anyway.

[BeefGood]

CC= Crowd Control, thank you.
But the Closed Captioning possibility is cool. A caster could still perform verbal components while gagged or in a Silence spell.

[Hawkstar]

I personally would amend those rules so that you still have to hit the target's AC as it is harder to hit an object in the hands than the person wielding it.

It's easier to take an object out of someone's hands than to punch through steel plate.

[RickAllison]

It's easier to take an object out of someone's hands than to punch through steel plate.

Yes, but punching someone isn't necessarily punching through steel plate. Since punching someone is only 1+Str damage, it would be more like giving someone a ringer. And if they are armored, they should be better able to struggle for control of the item anyway since they don't have to actively move as much for defense. But mainly, I suggest AC as it streamlines the system by using a stat that is in common use rather than having to keep track of armorless AC in addition to normal conditions.

Plus, removing an item from someone's hands is incredibly difficult if they are actively struggling against you, which is exactly what a caster who depends on the item in question would be doing. In such a case, it would actually be much easier to punch the person than it is to grab it from them. And in fact, many of the examples you find of people effectively disarming another is because of associated attacks that cause the person to loosen their group a la the Battlemaster. In media and in reality, disarming someone as you suggest is specifically to show how much a person is a badass compared to the shmuck that is being disarmed. It is an incredibly difficult thing to do and trying to do it against someone who is prepared either leads to not grabbing it at all or the two people going into a prolonged fight for control of the weapon. If you would like to capture that fight for control of the weapon, here is a quick homebrew that may work, and addresses the concerns about other "options" being essentially ability-checks-or-suck and at-will:

A character can use a Strength (Athletics) check contested by either Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) in place of an attack while using the Attack action to grab onto an object held by another character provided that it is reasonable to do so. When a hold of a character is contested like this, moving is treated like the user is dragging the other. An action can be taken to wrench the object out of the other person's hands. This is an Athletics check contested by either the Athletics or Acrobatics of the defender. Attempting this with only one hand on the object gives a -5 modifier, while a defender using both hands receives a +5 modifier. If a holder suffers damage, the other may spend a reaction to wrench the object using an Athletics check with a DC equal to 10+Athletics or Acrobatics modifier.

This system would make neutralizing a character (and let's be honest, this discussion is about effectively neutralizing casters) an involved process that favors the person who is actually using the object, those are devoting both hands to the task, and makes it difficult to move while struggling with the other person. And yes, someone who is really good at Athletics like a high-level Fighter will make it extremely difficult for the caster to get the object back. I haven't yet figured out how to handle being pushed away from the object. I am thinking that a DC 10 check to hold on, and then both holders are pushed in that direction by half the amount.