Looking at Prone

[EggKookoo]

A number of features allow you to knock an enemy prone. While melee attacks against the prone creature have advantage, and the prone creature can either move at half speed or use half of its speed to stand up, there's really not a huge benefit to knocking someone prone. Has anyone had any success homebrewing a way to increase its value?

Some thoughts:

• Being knocked prone invites an opportunity attack.
• Getting up from prone invites an opportunity attack ("stay down!").
• Getting up from prone while within the reach of a hostile creature requires a check of some kind (Athletics or Acrobatics).
• Being prone increases the chances of a critical hit (perhaps doubling the crit range of melee attacks?).

I get that being knocked prone shouldn't be as bad as, say, being stunned, but it feels like it should carry a heavier penalty than it does.

[stoutstien]

Advantage isn't enough? That alone is usually worth the action cost. If not adding in DT or movement restrictions can make it very easy to produce Crowd control.

[x3n0n]

I think many on this board will reject the premise.

Given a party with 2 melee combatants with 2 attacks each, a well-timed shove is generally trading one attack for advantage on 3 attacks. (Battle Masters can use Trip Attack, not even needing to pass up an attack.)

The other main combo to remember is grappling: once they're prone and grappled, they cannot spend any movement to get up. Attempting to break the grapple in the normal manner takes their whole action.

It also combos exceptionally well with PAM: shove, attack with advantage (including bonus action), retreat just outside polearm reach (they can attempt OA at disadvantage), threatening OA on closing.

In tier 1, there may not be enough attacks to reap as much benefit, but it's really quite strong once your party gets Extra Attack (or lots of allies).

[JackPhoenix]

Being prone DOES increase the chance of being critted, from 5% to 9.75%. As does any other source of advantage.

[Frogreaver]

A number of features allow you to knock an enemy prone. While melee attacks against the prone creature have advantage, and the prone creature can either move at half speed or use half of its speed to stand up, there's really not a huge benefit to knocking someone prone. Has anyone had any success homebrewing a way to increase its value?

Some thoughts:

• Being knocked prone invites an opportunity attack.
• Getting up from prone invites an opportunity attack ("stay down!").
• Getting up from prone while within the reach of a hostile creature requires a check of some kind (Athletics or Acrobatics).
• Being prone increases the chances of a critical hit (perhaps doubling the crit range of melee attacks?).

I get that being knocked prone shouldn't be as bad as, say, being stunned, but it feels like it should carry a heavier penalty than it does.

Prone is one of the most valuable conditions in the game. Advantage is that huge. That said, it's value is primarily for melee allies. If you don't have many melee allies it will not seem nearly as useful.

For example:
A single melee ally generating prone after he's attacked - not useful
2 melee allies with prone generated mid attack sequence of 1 of those PC's - starting to get much more useful.
3 melee allies with the wizard generating prone via grease - super useful!

It seems like the complaint may be more that using an attack to shove an enemy prone isn't very useful. That I agree with! But making prone stronger, while maybe fixing that, will break it in other instances.

Maybe the solution you are looking for is when you use an attack to shove an enemy prone you get to make a non-shove attack when successful.

[LudicSavant]

A number of features allow you to knock an enemy prone. While melee attacks against the prone creature have advantage, and the prone creature can either move at half speed or use half of its speed to stand up, there's really not a huge benefit to knocking someone prone. Has anyone had any success homebrewing a way to increase its value?

Some thoughts:

• Being knocked prone invites an opportunity attack.
• Getting up from prone invites an opportunity attack ("stay down!").
• Getting up from prone while within the reach of a hostile creature requires a check of some kind (Athletics or Acrobatics).
• Being prone increases the chances of a critical hit (perhaps doubling the crit range of melee attacks?).

I get that being knocked prone shouldn't be as bad as, say, being stunned, but it feels like it should carry a heavier penalty than it does.

Prone is worth plenty already.

[EggKookoo]

The problem I'm running into is my party is made up of a mix of ranged and melee builds. The Moon Druid uses Dire Wolf to knock the target prone, but she has Pack Tactics so that does nothing for her if another melee ally is nearby (and one almost always is). So the her melee allies get advantage on the prone target but now all the ranged PCs get disadvantage.

The party is actually more effective if the target makes its save and remains standing.

[KorvinStarmast]

Prone is worth plenty already.

thank you for reading my mind.

[MaxWilson]

The problem I'm running into is my party is made up of a mix of ranged and melee builds. The Moon Druid uses Dire Wolf to knock the target prone, but she has Pack Tactics so that does nothing for her if another melee ally is nearby (and one almost always is). So the her melee allies get advantage on the prone target but now all the ranged PCs get disadvantage.

The party is actually more effective if the target makes its save and remains standing.

If another melee ally is nearby, knocking prone can give that ally advantage (unless initiative order gets in the way).

If no melee allies are nearby, knocking prone gives the enemy disadvantage on any opportunity attacks it makes against you and also consumes half its movement (to stand), enabling the classic wolf hit-and-run tactics.

[Frogreaver]

The problem I'm running into is my party is made up of a mix of ranged and melee builds. The Moon Druid uses Dire Wolf to knock the target prone, but she has Pack Tactics so that does nothing for her if another melee ally is nearby (and one almost always is). So the her melee allies get advantage on the prone target but now all the ranged PCs get disadvantage.

The party is actually more effective if the target makes its save and remains standing.

You should have started with this

A few thoughts.
1. Moon Druid can use something else other than a wolf.
2. Don't force the prone part of the attack to happen if the druid doesn't want it to. (ie enemy is next to barbarian)
3. The moon druid can go off and engage an enemy not near the barbarian (then prone doesn't hurt anything)
4. reflavor another beasts stat block to be a wolf (one that doesn't use prone)
5. prone isn't very good when there's a single target and a mix of ranged and melee attacks all being directed at it. Have the ranged characters attack something else.
6. multiple sources of advantage are redundant. Prone isn't that useful if enemy has advantage from another source. Such is the way with the advantage system. One common houserule is to have them roll a d20 for each source of advantage. So melee characters would be rolling 3 d20's and taking the highest when the enemy is prone and the barbarian near them.

[EggKookoo]

The prone creature can get right back up without penalty (aside from movement), so in practice they never suffer the disadvantage on their attacks. Meanwhile any ranged attacks against it are suffering. I mean frequently it's like:

PC 1 and 2 are in melee with the target. PCs 3 and 4 are at a distance using range (spells or weapons).

PC 1 attacks the standing target -- straight roll.
PC 2 attacks the target and knocks it prone (in my case, this is usually the druid with Pack Tactics so she has advantage for this hit).
PC 3 attacks at range with disadvantage.
Target gets back up from prone, attacks without disadvantage
PC 4 attack at range with a straight roll

Had the target made its save against being knocked prone, the only difference would be that it would have ~15 feet of movement that it likely wouldn't have taken due to OAs, and PC 3 would have not had disadvantage. Sure, initiative order matters, and of course there are usually other creatures to fight and the thing is more complex, but the druid's attack to that has a chance to knock the target prone is usually a liability or at least a wash.

It feels like there should be some kind of distinction between going prone voluntarily and involuntarily.

reflavor another beasts stat block to be a wolf (one that doesn't use prone)

I'll probably end up doing something like this. Or retooling the Dire Wolf itself. Remove the feature and replace it with something else that doesn't alter its CR.

[Mellack]

The prone creature can get right back up without penalty (aside from movement), so in practice they never suffer the disadvantage on their attacks. Meanwhile any ranged attacks against it are suffering. I mean frequently it's like:

PC 1 and 2 are in melee with the target. PCs 3 and 4 are at a distance using range (spells or weapons).

PC 1 attacks the standing target -- straight roll.
PC 2 attacks the target and knocks it prone (in my case, this is usually the druid with Pack Tactics so she has advantage for this hit).
PC 3 attacks at range with disadvantage.
Target gets back up from prone, attacks without disadvantage
PC 4 attack at range with a straight roll

Had the target made its save against being knocked prone, the only difference would be that it would have ~15 feet of movement that it likely wouldn't have taken due to OAs, and PC 3 would have not had disadvantage. Sure, initiative order matters, and of course there are usually other creatures to fight and the thing is more complex, but the druid's attack to that has a chance to knock the target prone is usually a liability or at least a wash.

It feels like there should be some kind of distinction between going prone voluntarily and involuntarily.



I'll probably end up doing something like this. Or retooling the Dire Wolf itself. Remove the feature and replace it with something else that doesn't alter its CR.

My recommendation is to spend a session or two and actually count how many times it is advantage given vs disadvantage. This might be more of a perception thing than an actual problem.
I played in a group which contained an animal companion wolf and we loved it when it took something prone. Advantage to the attack was enough to make the melee folks focus on the downed target. There is almost always another viable target to shoot at ranged instead.

[Segev]

Grappling a prone target makes it impossible for the target to get up. With zero movement, he can’t spend any to become unprone. This doesn’t help much for the guys who want him upright to avoid disadvantage, admittedly.

[MrStabby]

I think prone doesn't really need a boost.

Between spells like conjure animals and animate objects casters have plenty to take advantage of this. Melee obviously benefits massively. Most melee characters get two attacks pretty quickly and in a game with feats a lot make 3 attacks per turn as well.

The movement isn't to be dismissed lightly either. One big trick to shoving as a tactic is working out how to use it to make enemies waste a turn on a dash action rather than an attack. If you trade an attack for thier action, it is a pretty favourable trade.

The thing is... most proning comes without a resource cost. Sure there are a couple of spells but most of the time I see it coming from sacrificed attacks or from the shield master feat.

The disadvantage on ranged attacks isn't a big deal unless there are no other targets for them - sure it isn't ideal but if you can shoot someone else then you are still being productive. And if you have whittled the encounter down to one remaining enemy... then you probably have it won already.

[Cheesegear]

The problem I'm running into is my party is made up of a mix of ranged and melee builds. The Moon Druid uses Dire Wolf to knock the target prone, but she has Pack Tactics so that does nothing for her if another melee ally is nearby (and one almost always is). So the her melee allies get advantage on the prone target but now all the ranged PCs get disadvantage.

Sounds like a party that doesn't particularly work well together.
If your Moon Druid is picking a form that has Pack Tactics, but gains nothing from it. She should have Advantage to knock the target Prone in the first place, which then gives the rest of the party Advantage. She is either playing wrong, or the party is. Choose a new form.
If your Moon Druid is knocking targets Prone, and ****ing up the rest of the party's attacks. She is either playing wrong, or the party is. Choose a new form.

Prone has a lot of value.
You're just using it wrong.

[MaxWilson]

The prone creature can get right back up without penalty (aside from movement), so in practice they never suffer the disadvantage on their attacks.

That isn't accurate. If you knock an enemy prone, attack it a few times at advantage, then back away 20' or so, it gets an opportunity attack against you at disadvantage, but then it doesn't have enough movement to get up and Multiattack you standing up. All it got was the disadvantaged opportunity attack.

Not to mention what happens if someone grapples it or throws a net on it or both.

[LudicSavant]

thank you for reading my mind.

I prepared Detect Thoughts today.

[Keravath]

The prone creature can get right back up without penalty (aside from movement), so in practice they never suffer the disadvantage on their attacks. Meanwhile any ranged attacks against it are suffering. I mean frequently it's like:

PC 1 and 2 are in melee with the target. PCs 3 and 4 are at a distance using range (spells or weapons).

PC 1 attacks the standing target -- straight roll.
PC 2 attacks the target and knocks it prone (in my case, this is usually the druid with Pack Tactics so she has advantage for this hit).
PC 3 attacks at range with disadvantage.
Target gets back up from prone, attacks without disadvantage
PC 4 attack at range with a straight roll

Had the target made its save against being knocked prone, the only difference would be that it would have ~15 feet of movement that it likely wouldn't have taken due to OAs, and PC 3 would have not had disadvantage. Sure, initiative order matters, and of course there are usually other creatures to fight and the thing is more complex, but the druid's attack to that has a chance to knock the target prone is usually a liability or at least a wash.

It feels like there should be some kind of distinction between going prone voluntarily and involuntarily.



I'll probably end up doing something like this. Or retooling the Dire Wolf itself. Remove the feature and replace it with something else that doesn't alter its CR.

This is a problem with bad party tactics ... not with the prone condition. If a party does better with the creature not being prone because they have several ranged attackers then the simple answer is don't knock it prone.

The problem would appear to be the moon druid choice of animal form. It is a bit surprising the druid would make this choice since the brown bear is probably the best CR1 form in this case since it has multi-attack and doesn't have this issue with knocking targets prone.

Finally, if the issue is the dire wolf knocking the target prone with its attack then the simple solution is to let the druid choose whether they are attempting to knock the creature prone or not. The only reason the MM is written as the attack always requiring a roll is because that is what a wolf would do ... there is nothing special about their teeth that would require anything it bites to try not to be knocked over. On the other hand, a moon druid in that form should be able to decide whether to use that special attack or not if they want to insist on using a dire wolf form. I would not add or replace the dire wolf feature since there may be times in the future when a dire wolf knocking a creature prone would be useful and it would be awkward to change it back ... so just let the druid choose whether to use it or not if they insist on picking a dire wolf wild shape.

[Sharur]

My group has (or had; we played at work, and have been working at home for the last 6+ months now) a similar rule in place to point #2, which seemed to work okay.

Though it should be said, we started with Pathfinder, and ported a good deal of that system's opportunity attack triggers when moving to 5E (except for ranged/unarmed attacks, and spell casting which has its own trigger conditions, triggering on a spell without an attack roll, that requires material or somatic components, and has a casting time of 1 action or more). So...grain of salt; we did that more for the movement triggers more than anything else.

[Reynaert]

The big problem I see with prone is that it really makes the turn order important. But the turn order is an abstraction, so it makes things feel really awkward.

Suppose we have players A,B and enemy E

If the turn order is A,B,E (or E,A,B or B,E,A) then if A has a knock-prone option it's quite useful because B gets advantage every time.
But if it's A,E,B (or E,B,A or B,A,E) then it's not very useful because E gets up every time and B doesn't get advantage.

So something that should be an abstraction suddenly becomes a very important tactical consideration. Which just feels a bit wrong.

[sophontteks]

- Prone gives advantage to melee.
- Gives disadvantage to the target's melee (inc reactions.)
- Halves their movement on their turn.
- Target can't get back up if grappled.

Sounds pretty good for a condition very easy to apply to the enemy. Even with bad tactics, it's still making it very difficult for the enemy to engage the ranged characters.

If an enemy engaged a ranged character, the druid could knock that enemy down and that character can now move away. The enemy's reaction would be at disadvantage, which is great. And their movement would be too low to re-engage that character. Add a grapple and that enemy is now stuck prone, forced to waste their actions escaping.

[clash]

I agree with what other have been saying and just wanted to add that not every condition is useful in every circumstance. That's where choices and tactics come in. Prone is good for what it does. If it is not working for your party then you need to change tactics.

Also as a note, one cool thing about prone is it can be used defensively. If you are up against a bunch of ranged enemies you can drop prone at the end of your turn after using your own ranged tactics, or even better spells with saving throws that dont require ranged attack rolls.

[Segev]

The big problem I see with prone is that it really makes the turn order important. But the turn order is an abstraction, so it makes things feel really awkward.

Suppose we have players A,B and enemy E

If the turn order is A,B,E (or E,A,B or B,E,A) then if A has a knock-prone option it's quite useful because B gets advantage every time.
But if it's A,E,B (or E,B,A or B,A,E) then it's not very useful because E gets up every time and B doesn't get advantage.

So something that should be an abstraction suddenly becomes a very important tactical consideration. Which just feels a bit wrong.

Turn order isn't a total abstraction. The abstraction is in the notion that everybody "waits their turn." A lot is happening simultaneously. But there is time where somebody shoved to the ground is on the ground, but that time may or may not be when others can take advantage of it.

There are also ways to manipulate this. The simplest is for A to grapple E first, THEN knock him prone. It takes two attack actions, but means E can't get back up again without breaking the grapple. Another is for A to ready his attack for when E attacks. His action will go off--hrm, no. Because it's a reaction, it happens on E's turn, so E could still just stand back up.

I don't get why 5e doesn't permit delaying one's turn.

[EggKookoo]

Also as a note, one cool thing about prone is it can be used defensively. If you are up against a bunch of ranged enemies you can drop prone at the end of your turn after using your own ranged tactics, or even better spells with saving throws that dont require ranged attack rolls.

This is one thing that's weird about it for me. There's a big difference between making the decision to drop to the ground because it offers some protection and being knocked to the ground against your will. At the very least, the latter is subject to a unprepared but distinct change in vantage, and might need a moment to reorient.

I'm tempted to homebrew that if you're rendered prone unwillingly (i.e. through someone else's actions), you don't gain the benefit against ranged attacks until your next turn. At that point, if you remain prone, you're doing so willingly and/or have had time to account for it.

[MaxWilson]

I agree with what other have been saying and just wanted to add that not every condition is useful in every circumstance. That's where choices and tactics come in. Prone is good for what it does. If it is not working for your party then you need to change tactics.

Also as a note, one cool thing about prone is it can be used defensively. If you are up against a bunch of ranged enemies you can drop prone at the end of your turn after using your own ranged tactics, or even better spells with saving throws that dont require ranged attack rolls.

Ditto against monsters with reach attacks, if you can prevent them from getting within 5' somehow (e.g. have another character block their movement).

[Segev]

Ditto against monsters with reach attacks, if you can prevent them from getting within 5' somehow (e.g. have another character block their movement).

Prone gives Disadvantage on attacks based on distance, not based on melee/ranged?

[x3n0n]

Prone gives Disadvantage on attacks based on distance, not based on melee/ranged?

Correct. Crossbow experts shoot point-blank downed enemies with advantage.

"An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage."

[MaxWilson]

Prone gives Disadvantage on attacks based on distance, not based on melee/ranged?

Correct. Same for autocrits vs. paralyzed creatures.