Circumstance bonuses

[Elkad]

Anyone use circumstance bonuses for things like area effect spell saves?

For example. The party is audibly discussing where the Wizard should place the Fireball for maximum effect. Thus, everyone who hears and understands that discussion gets a bonus to their Reflex save.

If so, how much of a bonus? +2 seems like the low end. By telling everyone, you effectively did an "Aid Another" on their save. +4 (same as pointing out an illusion) doesn't seem unreasonable either.


This is partially an effort to cut down the table talk among my players and get them to run their own characters and make snap combat decisions.

[r2d2go]

Anyone use circumstance bonuses for things like area effect spell saves?

For example. The party is audibly discussing where the Wizard should place the Fireball for maximum effect. Thus, everyone who hears and understands that discussion gets a bonus to their Reflex save.

If so, how much of a bonus? +2 seems like the low end. By telling everyone, you effectively did an "Aid Another" on their save. +4 (same as pointing out an illusion) doesn't seem unreasonable either.


This is partially an effort to cut down the table talk among my players and get them to run their own characters and make snap combat decisions.

Either seems fine, but as always, TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS. If you sprung this on my group, pretty quickly there would be arguments about "how did those guys know where to move" and "that guy has no line of sight of me, why's he hitting me with the aoe", which would actually slow down combat.

What I have seen to good effect is something like Codenames' timer, which has no mechanical effect but can be turned as a sort of reminder that "hey, you've been talking about your turn for awhile". I think that, plus enforcing "short sentences are free actions, long conversations take time" will get better results than an arbitrary circumstance bonus/penalty in combat.

[Elkad]

Either seems fine, but as always, TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS. If you sprung this on my group, pretty quickly there would be arguments about "how did those guys know where to move" and "that guy has no line of sight of me, why's he hitting me with the aoe", which would actually slow down combat.

New campaign is coming up soon-ish (in a year or so anyway probably). It would be established in the houserules. I'm not going to change boats mid-stream.


What I have seen to good effect is something like Codenames' timer, which has no mechanical effect but can be turned as a sort of reminder that "hey, you've been talking about your turn for awhile". I think that, plus enforcing "short sentences are free actions, long conversations take time" will get better results than an arbitrary circumstance bonus/penalty in combat.

I don't mind a player spending some time planning his turn. Of course I hope he does it while it isn't his turn, but the battlefield changes. He may need to look up a different spell by the time Initiative gets back to him. He may even need to ask how it works.
What I do mind is the players all micro-managing one another's turns.

Most of my players were new when we started. None are really optimizers, which is fine, but the time to pull the training wheels off is here.

My planning notes (which will become a campaign sheet for the players at the appropriate time) will have phrases like "You can expect the paper difficulty of encounters to drop, but they will probably actually be harder, because your enemies will be smarter." and "If you are discussing an action, it is assumed to be in-character and in a mutual language. Enemies who understand you may take advantage of that."
Not the full Tucker's Kobolds, but a step in that direction.

[r2d2go]

Fair enough, but the point still stands - using rulings that require judgement mid-session will typically be less well received than something clear cut.

[Fizban]

The problem with giving foes bonuses on saves because they've heard the PCs calling their attacks, is that the PCs will want the same bonuses. Then they'll want to work the system so that everyone with half a reflex save can just ignore friendly fire thanks to planning bonuses. They'll have the entire party mysteriously already know one (or more) weirdly specific languages so that they'll just always be using so that foes never actually get to overhear them. And even if they're restricted to reasonable languages, telepathy is a thing.

If anything I'd say to make it more broad then. If the Players confer back and forth, foes get a small bonus, which can be avoided by the Players actually planning ahead of time or being good enough at the game that they don't need to ask for help lining up their shots.

[Ashtagon]

Rather than grant bonuses, I'd say that these things take time. "Talking is a free action" as a trope refers not to speech of consequence, but rather to death soliloquies, bombastic ranting, and other acts of role-playing. Use one or more of...


"Aim for xxxx" consumes the speaking character's next swift action. "Aim for xxxx because that will stop them from doing yyyy" consumes the speaker's next standard action.
If any PC offers the character advice out of turn on how to do his next action, the acting character automatically delays their action until the speaking character's next action.
Allow DC 15 (or whatever you feel appropriate appropriate) Intelligence (or Wisdom) checks to avoid the lost/delayed actions.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm going to say that this is a bad idea overall.

D&D is a group game and combat tactics should be a group discussion. And sometimes it takes a whole group to be as smart as the literal genius Wizard, who'd actually be able to figure out the best placement of his fireball without help even if the player cannot.

If you follow the basic assumption that the PCs regularly discuss stuff like their abilities and various combat strategies during their downtime, then a lot of discussions about character movement or the placement of area effects can be attributed to theoretical discussions the PCs had earlier.

For example, if the Wizard is about to cast a grease spell under a monster and the Fighter reminds him to leave the spot in front of it clear so he can charge on his turn, that's probably something they've already discussed and not being said out loud in-character.

[heavyfuel]

I do.

For pretty much everything the players discuss in a language opponents can understand, the opponents are granted circumstance bonuses. Refx & Will saves but not Fort saves.

However, it's really common for me to have an NPC commander shout orders around the battlefield, and these also grant circumstance bonuses to the players. If the Elf Commander yells "Blast them to bits!!!", all players who speak elvish get a +2 to their Refx save.

As for talking to your players, yeah, do it if you want, but remember that you, the DM, is well within your right to apply circumstance bonuses/penalties WHENEVER you think is appropriate.

[Blue Jay]

I'm going to say that this is a bad idea overall.

D&D is a group game and combat tactics should be a group discussion. And sometimes it takes a whole group to be as smart as the literal genius Wizard, who'd actually be able to figure out the best placement of his fireball without help even if the player cannot.

If you follow the basic assumption that the PCs regularly discuss stuff like their abilities and various combat strategies during their downtime, then a lot of discussions about character movement or the placement of area effects can be attributed to theoretical discussions the PCs had earlier.

For example, if the Wizard is about to cast a grease spell under a monster and the Fighter reminds him to leave the spot in front of it clear so he can charge on his turn, that's probably something they've already discussed and not being said out loud in-character.

I'm going to second this. I've only ever DMed online, so I don't have any experience with this particular issue. But, I've always enjoyed a casual, lighthearted game, and I prefer being permissive with my players. I don't like investing a lot of effort into finding ways to penalize my players, so I would prefer to implement a gentleman's agreement that we try not to hold up the flow of the game with table talk, rather than finding mechanical ways to enforce and punish my own brand of immersion on my players.

[Deophaun]

I'm going to say that this is a bad idea overall.
Yup.

Especially as all of the DM's monsters have an innate telepathic bond, being capable of working in perfect harmony without a word being shared between them, simply because they all come from the same head. How many times have you had the enemy misunderstand its allies? How many times have you had a monster be surprised by the actions of its comrades and ruin a setup?

Keep in mind also that the Players only get together for a few hours a week to play, while the PCs spend months or even years together non-stop. The PCs know the other PCs better than the Players know the other PCs. The PCs have had far, far more time with each other to discuss tactics and work on strategies than the Players. Some of these PCs will even have Intelligence scores far higher than any human could ever hope to achieve, let alone the individual players at your table. The Players need to talk to each other so that they can know what the PCs already know, and that is how the others fight.

[Ashtagon]

Yup.

Especially as all of the DM's monsters have an innate telepathic bond, being capable of working in perfect harmony without a word being shared between them, simply because they all come from the same head. How many times have you had the enemy misunderstand its allies? How many times have you had a monster be surprised by the actions of its comrades and ruin a setup?

Sounds like someone had a bad DM. Monsters should be played to their intelligence, not to win.

[Deophaun]

Sounds like someone had a bad DM.
So far, I've been fortunate to avoid the "everything the players say is IC" type of DM.

[Ashtagon]

So far, I've been fortunate to avoid the "everything the players say is IC" type of DM.

I wouldn't say everything should be IC. But the stuff that is said that affects the game itself, including tactical advice, should be.

[Elkad]

I wouldn't say everything should be IC. But the stuff that is said that affects the game itself, including tactical advice, should be.

And I've got no intention of doing everything IC. (Thanks to the comments here I realize I worded it poorly above in my draft notes and need to fix that).

It's the excessive stuff. The backseat driving.
PlayerA: "I move here to attack"
PlayerB: "No, you should go here so I can flank with you."
A adjusts his piece.
PlayerC: "That's my charge lane, how about you two go here and here instead"
A adjusts his piece again.
PlayerD: "Then they'll block the lightning bolt I'm going to cast"
A pulls his piece back to his starting square, and they all start drawing lines on the map for 10 minutes - resulting in...
PlayerB: "If A and I hold our action, C can charge, then we can split to these two squares, then the lightning bolt can pass harmlessly between us and still hit 3 targets."

Somewhere in there I'd like to be able to say "As you shuffle your positions and C readies his lance, the guys in the charge lane shift the grip on their spears and brace their feet. And those lined up guys look nervous and start eyeing nearby cover."


If the party wants to work up code words and such, great. But it needs to be quick.
One that already exists. For obscure reasons I won't go into, charging involves yelling "BACON!" as a battle cry. Table Joke from an earlier campaign. So simply saying "dude, I'm bacon" when another player is moving reminds them to leave you a charge lane. That's fine. You hinted to the other player your intent, and a random 3rd party would have no idea what you meant. Even saying "leave me a charge lane" openly would be OK.
Correcting his move because he didn't stand precisely what you wanted is not.

[Deophaun]

It's the excessive stuff. The backseat driving.
While it's backseat driving, none of that is excessive. That is all stuff that people who have fought and bled next to each other should know as a matter of course, which makes it ridiculous to punish the PCs for.

As I said, I've been blessed not to have a DM who has done as such.

Excessive stuff is the PCs gaining information from OOC conversations that they couldn't possibly know about, such as only one of them noticing the dangerous but otherwise unassuming artifact one of the enemies is wielding and the whole party targeting that enemy without a word being said IC.

[Elkad]

While it's backseat driving, none of that is excessive. That is all stuff that people who have fought and bled next to each other should know as a matter of course, which makes it ridiculous to punish the PCs for.

Not when it takes several minutes. And especially not when I suspect PlayerA in my example is getting frustrated (not that he'd ever say anything, he's too passive - plus one of the tacticians is his father) because people won't let him just play.
Advice is OK, IF you ask for it. Unsolicited Advice is the problem.

I don't want to ban the practice. I do want to encourage them to not have everything be a committee decision. Giving minor bonuses is the first thing I came up with.

Or I could have a pre-game meeting and jump on people for it, but that has the potential to break the group if they take it the wrong way - and I dumpstatted Charisma and didn't train Diplomacy, so I'm likely to screw it up.


Look at it from a non-combat perspective.
If I tell you "watch out crossing that bridge, there is a slippery spot in the middle", should you get a bonus to your Balance check compared to someone who stumbled onto it blindly? I think so.
If it's a chase and you yell that to your friend before he crosses, should the enemy chasing him get the same bonus? Again, yes. (assuming the enemy understands you)

[Deophaun]

Not when it takes several minutes. And especially not when I suspect PlayerA in my example is getting frustrated (not that he'd ever say anything, he's too passive - plus one of the tacticians is his father) because people won't let him just play.
Then you tell your players to knock it off. Don't be passive agressive about it through the game.

Or I could have a pre-game meeting and jump on people for it, but that has the potential to break the group if they take it the wrong way - and I dumpstatted Charisma and didn't train Diplomacy, so I'm likely to screw it up.
"Guys, leave him alone. Let him play his character."

That's a pre-game meeting? That's going to break up your group? Your group has a lot more problems, then.

Look at it from a non-combat perspective.
If I tell you "watch out crossing that bridge, there is a slippery spot in the middle", should you get a bonus to your Balance check compared to someone who stumbled onto it blindly? I think so.
If it's a chase and you yell that to your friend before he crosses, should the enemy chasing him get the same bonus? Again, yes. (assuming the enemy understands you)
How many times do you have the enemies talking about charge paths and flanking and coordinating their attacks in front of the PCs?

[KillianHawkeye]

Look at it from a non-combat perspective.
If I tell you "watch out crossing that bridge, there is a slippery spot in the middle", should you get a bonus to your Balance check compared to someone who stumbled onto it blindly? I think so.
If it's a chase and you yell that to your friend before he crosses, should the enemy chasing him get the same bonus? Again, yes. (assuming the enemy understands you)

That's fine when it's in-character dialogue. You need to learn the difference between an in-character conversation and an out-of-character discussion between players. And even if you think something that's said at the table is in-character, the proper response is to say "are you sure you want to say that in front of the enemy?" rather than assuming they did and giving the enemies bonuses for it.

Also, please remember that this is just a game and that we're all just trying to have fun here.

[Twurps]

Not when it takes several minutes. And especially not when I suspect PlayerA in my example is getting frustrated (not that he'd ever say anything, he's too passive - plus one of the tacticians is his father) because people won't let him just play.
Advice is OK, IF you ask for it. Unsolicited Advice is the problem.
......


OOC problems should be solved OOC. simple as that.

[King of Nowhere]

I do.

For pretty much everything the players discuss in a language opponents can understand, the opponents are granted circumstance bonuses. Refx & Will saves but not Fort saves.

However, it's really common for me to have an NPC commander shout orders around the battlefield, and these also grant circumstance bonuses to the players. If the Elf Commander yells "Blast them to bits!!!", all players who speak elvish get a +2 to their Refx save.

As for talking to your players, yeah, do it if you want, but remember that you, the DM, is well within your right to apply circumstance bonuses/penalties WHENEVER you think is appropriate.



I'm going to say that this is a bad idea overall.

D&D is a group game and combat tactics should be a group discussion. And sometimes it takes a whole group to be as smart as the literal genius Wizard, who'd actually be able to figure out the best placement of his fireball without help even if the player cannot.

If you follow the basic assumption that the PCs regularly discuss stuff like their abilities and various combat strategies during their downtime, then a lot of discussions about character movement or the placement of area effects can be attributed to theoretical discussions the PCs had earlier.

For example, if the Wizard is about to cast a grease spell under a monster and the Fighter reminds him to leave the spot in front of it clear so he can charge on his turn, that's probably something they've already discussed and not being said out loud in-character.


I think those are the best answers, and they ouutline two opposite approaches. In one, you assume that the characters trained together a lot, and so they'd know tactics without need to discuss them. Sport teams do it. Another is that tactics are discussed during the battle, but the enemies are doing the same, so everybody get the same bonuses.
Both approaches are fine, because they are consistent. If you were to give bonuses to npc for overhearing the pcs talk, but not the opposite, then the players would rightly cry foul.

Also, from the thread title I was thinking circumstance bonuses were more like "there's a table in the middle of the room and you could roll underneath it to take cover from a fireball, so you get a +4 to reflexes as long as you stay adjacent to the table (and maybe you can make a DC 10 tumble)" kind of circumstance bonus.

[Ghen]

People feel strongly in different ways about this, so as with most things of this nature the correct answer is "whatever policy you and your players agree upon". Whatever solution you choose should apply to PCs and NPCs equally. Just for comparison's sake though, here's how we do it at our table.

Circumstance bonuses for overhearing conversation are a thing, but it rarely comes up when the rules for speaking are enforced (which we do). In combat, speaking can only be accomplished on the players turn in the round in the form of a free action. If you're not using your free action, you don't speak.

That solves most everything, in my experience. Enemies still do shout orders to eachother on occasion, and players are free to specify that they are speaking in some obscure language, no problem. I don't buy into the whole thing about how the PC's would have "already discussed this" beforehand. We live in a society where I can E-mail somebody on the other side of the world instantly, whenever the notion hits me. If the players want to talk strategy, they can do it in between games (and they often do) even more effectively than their PCs would have been able to, anyway.

[bean illus]

Players are allowed to metagame, just not on their turn.

It is the players responsibility to know their place in initiative, and be ready. Once the last turn is ended the next turn MUST announce their move promptly (they have usually had 5-10 minutes, which is PLENTY of time to decide what to do with 6 seconds).

And the first thing they say is what happens.

[KillianHawkeye]

Players are allowed to metagame, just not on their turn.

It is the players responsibility to know their place in initiative, and be ready. Once the last turn is ended the next turn MUST announce their move promptly (they have usually had 5-10 minutes, which is PLENTY of time to decide what to do with 6 seconds).

And the first thing they say is what happens.

Yeah, except for when the things that just finished happening right before your turn starts totally change what your character would do. This happens more often than you seem to imagine.

[Deophaun]

I don't buy into the whole thing about how the PC's would have "already discussed this" beforehand.
It's really simple: do you have monsters yelling out about charge paths and flanking durring combat? I'm not talking about "get him" or "kill the mage," I'm talking about your DM-controlled monsters talking about individual actions they are going to take. If not, then you have already conceded that groups can coordinate these actions without speech. Full stop.

We live in a society where...
...people have jobs and lives outside of a single campaign in a TTRPG, unlike the PCs, who will spend days, weeks, or months together with nothing else to do over the span of a single IRL minute.

You do understand the distinction between players and PCs, right?

[bean illus]

Yeah, except for when the things that just finished happening right before your turn starts totally change what your character would do. This happens more often than you seem to imagine.
Of course i know that. We all know that.

Nor do i throw lemonade across the table if it's not always that prompt.

But i assume that such things as plans that execute imperfectly would happen in 'real' battle also.

To the OP, sure, such circumstance bonus is fine. But be judicious. A little goes a long way.

[Ghen]

It's really simple: do you have monsters yelling out about charge paths and flanking durring combat? I'm not talking about "get him" or "kill the mage," I'm talking about your DM-controlled monsters talking about individual actions they are going to take. If not, then you have already conceded that groups can coordinate these actions without speech. Full stop.[/QOTE]

The fact that the DM controlled critters don't discuss coordinating their actions in terms of held actions or charge paths doesn't concede that groups coordinate those actions without speech. If I have a DM controlled fighter charge a group that the DM controlled wizard was about to fireball, then they probably haven't discussed the scenario beforehand. If he does, then they probably have. If PC's had spied on them or scried on them during this time, then they would have overheard this discussion and would have had the opportunity to prepare for it.

[QUOTE=Deophaun;23391382]You do understand the distinction between players and PCs, right?

Yes... What gives you cause to think that I don't?

[Deophaun]

The fact that the DM controlled critters don't discuss coordinating their actions in terms of held actions or charge paths doesn't concede that groups coordinate those actions without speech.
Yes, it does.

Your critters don't have to talk because they all occupy the same head. The PCs occupy different heads. Therefore, the players need to talk.

Yes... What gives you cause to think that I don't?
This:

I don't buy into the whole thing about how the PC's would have "already discussed this" beforehand. We live in a society where I can E-mail somebody on the other side of the world instantly, whenever the notion hits me. If the players want to talk strategy, they can do it in between games (and they often do) even more effectively than their PCs would have been able to, anyway.