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2021-11-11, 11:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: What Mechanical Effects Cause Action Economy
Yeah, I'm not entirely clear what response OP was attempting to get. I'm assuming not just a definition of action economy.
My best guess is 'why is action economy such a hot topic on discussion boards and what action economy issues instigate such teeth-gnashing?' To which I'd say your scenarios are a big factor. Also several D&D-specific issues like:
"my 3e divine-metamagic-plus-nightsticks CoDzilla build effectively has 3-30 combat buffs cast before the scenario even starts,"
"my 5 polearm master build always has a use of their main action, bonus action, and often reaction actions each round, while your barbarian usually just has something in their main action,"
"My ranged build always has an action which changes hp of the opposition while your melee-only build spends many rounds running up to thing or not even being able to reach them,"
"because of the 5/15-minute workday, my full-caster can fill all 6 rounds of combat we expect to have each day with a (or even more than one) high-powered spell response while your martial character has a slow-and-steady action output that would overtake the caster in effectiveness in a long, drawn-out slog of a day scenario that we don't actually end up doing."
And so forth.
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2021-11-11, 02:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2005
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- 61.2° N, 149.9° W
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Re: What Mechanical Effects Cause Action Economy
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2021-11-12, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2019
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Re: What Mechanical Effects Cause Action Economy
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2021-11-12, 02:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
Re: What Mechanical Effects Cause Action Economy
The comparison should be 5 enemies at 16% of total hps left each vs 1 enemy at 96% of total hps for an AoE. Which makes picking off the enemies with single target damage at 16% of total damage required much easier to knock out 20% of their outgoing damage much easier, instead of needing to do 96% to reduce it all the way to 0. On top of the fact that the single AoE did 20% of total damage required instead of only 4%.
Simple example would be 5* 100hp instead of 1*500 hp, with a 20pt AoE. That leaves you with 5*80hp vs 1*480hp.
(Hit points don't actually scale that way of course, since they're counterbalanced by other action economy factors.)Last edited by Tanarii; 2021-11-12 at 02:11 PM.
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2021-11-12, 08:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2019
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Re: What Mechanical Effects Cause Action Economy
No yeah, I just mean that you can't both deal your aoe damage to all the enemies, and reduce their action economy by taking some of them out early. I guess in practice you'd probably take out the wizard before you take out the fighter but still, I thought it was kind of interesting.
Also, if we're comparing fighting 1 enemy to fighting 5, I think creatures typically have a single-target attack that deals more damage than their AoE, although, admittedly not typically five times stronger.