I think I may be scarred from my 3.5 days with Flanking. I don't like to use it in my games. I also find that combat is so weighted towards the PCs anyway that it is an unnecessary buff.
That speed factor rule is basically how it worked in AD&D and AD&D 2nd ed (if I am remembering correctly) and you are exactly right on all the ways it can go badly
I think it's wild how many codified rules 5e actually has, but people just don't know about them either because they've never read the DMG, or because they've not found them within the DMG because it's layout is a trainwreck. I won't be surprised if the upcoming books fix the layout issues people will start claiming the game got "better" and there's all these new rules in the game that have actually been here since 2014 but no one noticed them in the first DMG because of how poorly it's organized 🤣 About the only ranking from your list I didn't agree with was Flanking, just because there are so many other opportunities to get ADV, and so many abilities key off it, I find giving ADV for flanking to be too strong (especially if you run a more high magic game with a decent chunk of magic items). I've had a lot of fun with climbing onto bigger creatures in the past though, a lot of my players like playing small characters so they love getting up on the huge monsters.
I've always said that 5e is a game that still didn't know what it wanted to be when it released, WotC sort of just threw a bunch of ideas at the wall and waited to see what stuck. Which... _sort of_ worked? It's directly responsible for this whole culture of "not only is D&D 5e the One True Game, it's also any game you want it to be".
@@colbyboucher6391 it was a very reactionary system, made in response to 4e's dropping sales, and they definitely assumed most of their customers at launch would be existing players, which is evident by how much assumed knowledge the text seems to want the reader to have. It's especially bad for GM materials, which is why so much is left to GM fiat, because they expected all the GMs to be 3rd and 4th edition vets who already knew how to do it. I'm really excited to see what an intentional tightening of the text will give us later this year because they've got no excuse not to nail it.
It is poorly organized, like I couldn't even find a listing of where in the book all the optional rules are as some are a bit scattered. I get putting them in the relevant chapters, but would love some kind of table that lists all of them and where they are. Really hoping the next edition has better organization
@@Roll4Initiative It's bonkers because the 4e DMGs were so well laid out; they remain some of the best guides out there for GMs of any system IMO, so why they didn't keep that general structure I'll never understand 😅
We tried these out, and I agree with your take on most of these. Most of them didn't really stick but still occasionally came up. The one we now avoid is flanking, as every attack turned into flanking and felt stifling. If there is a sincere effort to flank - or any formation is made, a bonus or advantage of some kind may occur.
Flanking is good, but I agree with an old taking 20 video that giving advantage steps on too many unique abilities since it is soo easy to flank (i.e. the barbarian reckless attack becomes useless). Our group uses a +1 for flanking in our 5e games. Nice video!
I haven't played a lot of melee classes so I hadn't really thought of all the abilities that offer advantage. I do like +1 for flanking. Doesn't negate those abilities but still provides some bonus!
initiative is a bumpy subject in most ttrpgs, we use 1D6, 1-3 the pc gets to attack, 4-6 the pc has to defend, can be done with each player individually or as a group. this is because our combat system is a wee bit different but works for our game.
I use side initiative when I don't have VTT support and just have the players act first unless they were caught by surprise. It is specially helpful when you have that one indecisive player that takes several minutes to decide on their action.
@@Roll4Initiative I would say it's split between the party coordinating more and having more time to go through their options while we resolve other players' actions.
Disagree on speed factor. If I was speedy and someone was winding up a punch, I wouldn't just stand there and let him hit me, I would use my speed to move out of the way. The defender uses his turn to take avoiding action & yes, the attacker's move is foiled. Makes perfect sense to me. But then there are many mechanics / setting / presentation reasons why I don't play D&D so I'm not the person this vid is aimed at :)
Winding up a punch, yeah, but good luck "dodging" someone attempting to stab you. It really doesn't work. I do like what Mythras does, where weapon ranges essentially mean that someone who can reach farther than you will just naturally be able to attack first.
Its funny, because to me the flanking rule removes a lot of creativity in setting up ways to get advantage, and so I don't like playing with it. Cleaving through creatures has a place, but I'd rather give that as a bonus from something else. Speed Factor kinda has a, you should feel like things become unavailable in combat, kinda feel to it. I think it has a place in some styles of games, but it doesn't work HOW I want it to work, so I agree with it being low. Side Initiative is kinda what my game gets to at high level, so I'm at a point in the campaign that I wouldn't mind swapping to this, so that way I might have a chance at having the monsters go first.
I realize this was a review of actual written rules, but I've found all variants of initiative to be troublesome in some way. So fo initiative, I use a hybrid (homebrew) system of side initiative for enemies and individual initiative for players. Also, I don't use Flanking. I was surprised to see it ranked S tier. If gaining advantage wasn't already dead easy to achieve, then maybe I'd implement it. The problem with Flanking is that it requires a substantial change to Monster stat blocks. As a DM you have to decide whether it can be flanked or not as that info isn't given. In 3.x, flanking was almost always possible...so if it is nearly a constant effect, why even have it? I think that was the reasoning behind making it optional in 5e.
That seems like a fair homebrew initiative system. If I've got lots of enemies, I'll have them go as a group. Mainly so I can keep track of them easier
Those are listed under a different category in the DMG. I originally thought of ranking ALL the optional rules, but then realized that was going to be like an hour long video 😂
@@Roll4Initiative I mean, as you pointed out, most of the ones listed were things you intuited as a basic rule instead of a variant. Not criticizing, but things like gritty realism or hero points actually change the game a lot and they are meaningful changes, versus cleave that might be useful in an isolated situation to get through an easy encounter slightly faster but will not affect the outcome of the fight when it comes up. I would think you would want to talk about the more fundamental rule variants (honor stat, insanity...) or some of the fun stuff, like the rules for making your own spells, classes, and sub classes. You kind of ended the video inferring you went through all official variants, which there are a lot more as there are variants in phb, Tasha's, Zanathar's, and a few campaign books.
I was hoping to see Grid Combat, on a technicality so that people who think it is a default rule could be laughed at. Hahahahahahaha. Jk.... I actually used Injuries as a chance to occur if someone comes back with failed death saving throws, to make the healers not play as if healing someone at 0 hit points is an okay thing to wait for and allow people to pogo stick up and down.
I think I may be scarred from my 3.5 days with Flanking. I don't like to use it in my games. I also find that combat is so weighted towards the PCs anyway that it is an unnecessary buff.
That speed factor rule is basically how it worked in AD&D and AD&D 2nd ed (if I am remembering correctly) and you are exactly right on all the ways it can go badly
First video I’ve seen where someone took the time to pull all of these together. Immediate subscribe.
I think it's wild how many codified rules 5e actually has, but people just don't know about them either because they've never read the DMG, or because they've not found them within the DMG because it's layout is a trainwreck.
I won't be surprised if the upcoming books fix the layout issues people will start claiming the game got "better" and there's all these new rules in the game that have actually been here since 2014 but no one noticed them in the first DMG because of how poorly it's organized 🤣
About the only ranking from your list I didn't agree with was Flanking, just because there are so many other opportunities to get ADV, and so many abilities key off it, I find giving ADV for flanking to be too strong (especially if you run a more high magic game with a decent chunk of magic items).
I've had a lot of fun with climbing onto bigger creatures in the past though, a lot of my players like playing small characters so they love getting up on the huge monsters.
I've always said that 5e is a game that still didn't know what it wanted to be when it released, WotC sort of just threw a bunch of ideas at the wall and waited to see what stuck. Which... _sort of_ worked? It's directly responsible for this whole culture of "not only is D&D 5e the One True Game, it's also any game you want it to be".
@@colbyboucher6391 it was a very reactionary system, made in response to 4e's dropping sales, and they definitely assumed most of their customers at launch would be existing players, which is evident by how much assumed knowledge the text seems to want the reader to have. It's especially bad for GM materials, which is why so much is left to GM fiat, because they expected all the GMs to be 3rd and 4th edition vets who already knew how to do it.
I'm really excited to see what an intentional tightening of the text will give us later this year because they've got no excuse not to nail it.
It is poorly organized, like I couldn't even find a listing of where in the book all the optional rules are as some are a bit scattered. I get putting them in the relevant chapters, but would love some kind of table that lists all of them and where they are. Really hoping the next edition has better organization
@@Roll4Initiative It's bonkers because the 4e DMGs were so well laid out; they remain some of the best guides out there for GMs of any system IMO, so why they didn't keep that general structure I'll never understand 😅
We tried these out, and I agree with your take on most of these. Most of them didn't really stick but still occasionally came up.
The one we now avoid is flanking, as every attack turned into flanking and felt stifling. If there is a sincere effort to flank - or any formation is made, a bonus or advantage of some kind may occur.
Flanking is good, but I agree with an old taking 20 video that giving advantage steps on too many unique abilities since it is soo easy to flank (i.e. the barbarian reckless attack becomes useless). Our group uses a +1 for flanking in our 5e games. Nice video!
I haven't played a lot of melee classes so I hadn't really thought of all the abilities that offer advantage. I do like +1 for flanking. Doesn't negate those abilities but still provides some bonus!
Nice video
I’ve seen or used most of these rules but not necessarily in 5e, some carry over from 1e
initiative is a bumpy subject in most ttrpgs, we use 1D6, 1-3 the pc gets to attack, 4-6 the pc has to defend, can be done with each player individually or as a group. this is because our combat system is a wee bit different but works for our game.
I use side initiative when I don't have VTT support and just have the players act first unless they were caught by surprise. It is specially helpful when you have that one indecisive player that takes several minutes to decide on their action.
Oh, so do the other players help with making group decisions and push the indecisive player to act?
@@Roll4Initiative I would say it's split between the party coordinating more and having more time to go through their options while we resolve other players' actions.
Mark would be a cool feature on an magic melee weapon 😮
Side Initiative is okay for speed bump encounters. Those lone 3 goblins vs 6 Tier 2 PCs.
Disagree on speed factor. If I was speedy and someone was winding up a punch, I wouldn't just stand there and let him hit me, I would use my speed to move out of the way. The defender uses his turn to take avoiding action & yes, the attacker's move is foiled. Makes perfect sense to me.
But then there are many mechanics / setting / presentation reasons why I don't play D&D so I'm not the person this vid is aimed at :)
Winding up a punch, yeah, but good luck "dodging" someone attempting to stab you. It really doesn't work. I do like what Mythras does, where weapon ranges essentially mean that someone who can reach farther than you will just naturally be able to attack first.
Its funny, because to me the flanking rule removes a lot of creativity in setting up ways to get advantage, and so I don't like playing with it.
Cleaving through creatures has a place, but I'd rather give that as a bonus from something else.
Speed Factor kinda has a, you should feel like things become unavailable in combat, kinda feel to it. I think it has a place in some styles of games, but it doesn't work HOW I want it to work, so I agree with it being low. Side Initiative is kinda what my game gets to at high level, so I'm at a point in the campaign that I wouldn't mind swapping to this, so that way I might have a chance at having the monsters go first.
I realize this was a review of actual written rules, but I've found all variants of initiative to be troublesome in some way. So fo initiative, I use a hybrid (homebrew) system of side initiative for enemies and individual initiative for players.
Also, I don't use Flanking. I was surprised to see it ranked S tier. If gaining advantage wasn't already dead easy to achieve, then maybe I'd implement it. The problem with Flanking is that it requires a substantial change to Monster stat blocks. As a DM you have to decide whether it can be flanked or not as that info isn't given. In 3.x, flanking was almost always possible...so if it is nearly a constant effect, why even have it? I think that was the reasoning behind making it optional in 5e.
That seems like a fair homebrew initiative system. If I've got lots of enemies, I'll have them go as a group. Mainly so I can keep track of them easier
You didn't do Spell Points?
You did not cover most of the fun optional rules: mana points, gritty healing rates, hero points...
Those are listed under a different category in the DMG. I originally thought of ranking ALL the optional rules, but then realized that was going to be like an hour long video 😂
@@Roll4Initiative I mean, as you pointed out, most of the ones listed were things you intuited as a basic rule instead of a variant. Not criticizing, but things like gritty realism or hero points actually change the game a lot and they are meaningful changes, versus cleave that might be useful in an isolated situation to get through an easy encounter slightly faster but will not affect the outcome of the fight when it comes up. I would think you would want to talk about the more fundamental rule variants (honor stat, insanity...) or some of the fun stuff, like the rules for making your own spells, classes, and sub classes.
You kind of ended the video inferring you went through all official variants, which there are a lot more as there are variants in phb, Tasha's, Zanathar's, and a few campaign books.
I was hoping to see Grid Combat, on a technicality so that people who think it is a default rule could be laughed at. Hahahahahahaha. Jk.... I actually used Injuries as a chance to occur if someone comes back with failed death saving throws, to make the healers not play as if healing someone at 0 hit points is an okay thing to wait for and allow people to pogo stick up and down.
Injuries as failed death save does make falling unconscious more significant
We've got a new edition that will be out in 3 months and were discussing option rules in the current edition?
All of these rules will still be valid options.
These rules make D&D sound cringe as hell