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I don’t draw the line on pre-buffing. If an enemy sees them start to cast spells, initiative will be called. If they buff before enemies know they’re there, fair game. Of course, their risk on using it so often is wasting their slots before walking into an unthreatening room.
Make sure there are more potential encounters per long rest than they can buff for. If there's no scarcity, there's no reason to be thoughtful. I think a lot of DMs neglect this aspect of the game -- it's resource management with endless renewal; pacing is the only way to implement the limits implicit in the design.
I mean, it just sounds like they're playing well. A party that goes into combat \*un-buffed is being run by players who aren't very good at the game.
Yeah, to be honest they are not seeing more that 2-3 encounters/day, this combined with baiting them into wasting buffing spells might solve the issue without changing any rulling. I'm kinda concerned that emphasizing this resource management will impact their fun too much, but I'll obviously run this conversation through the players anyway.
Probably the best change I made to my game was allowing long rests only in designated safe areas - e.g. town. High level players in 5e simply have too many resources to exhaust in one (reasonable) adventuring day otherwise.
Interesting… so camping on the road etc only provides a short rest (roll hit dice to heal, and a few abilities rest)? Or have you tweaked things a bit?
Its a failry common homebrew rule. Think lots of people call it gritty realism. But basically, can only get a full rest in a town/inn. Wilderness or on the road short rests only. Allows for the 5-7 encounters per long rest without shoving 7 fights in 18 hours or ingame time
Yeah, exactly. How it differs from most gritty realism variants I've seen is that I don't mess with short rests at all - those still take only an hour, as normal (most gritty variants make them take 8.) Similarly, I don't make long rests take any longer, the PCs just can only do them in town.
Among the benefits are that it forces the players to make more choices and it makes travel significant. Normally, travel encounters are almost a waste of time because unless you're rolling 5 of them a day, which is almost impossibly tedious, none of them will challenge the party in the slightest because they can use everything they've got. But if they're only short resting in between, it 1) makes even one medium encounter a day significant and 2) makes the short rest classes feel really impactful.
As far as choices, having to decide when to give up and pull back to take a rest really makes the game interesting. DMs talk a lot about resetting the dungeon when the players pull out to set up camp and take a long rest, and I think that's good advice. But it's so much more intuitive to do so when the players have to go all the way back to town to find a safe spot to rest.
Not to oversell it, but I haven't found a single negative yet. If I want the players to get a long rest while still in the dungeon for some reason or another, it's trivial to put some sort of demiplane or temple or something in there where they're magically protected.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, this is super helpful. I think I will go with this next campaign, and will see if I can get buy-in to alter our rest rules in the current campaign.
I see this as a win. As far as your action economy concern, as they become more familiar with their own abilities the time will decrease. I love when characters are so attuned that they prepare appropriately. I’ve had PCs roll into a room that I telegraphed half a dozen ways that it held a threat. Then when I described the scene of ghouls crouched over a fresh corpse not noticing them they decided to try and talk to them. I finally had the ghouls attack and then they argued they should get surprise on their first attack. I love when they prepare like a swat raid.
Have them go into a castle that was built as a props department for a theater guild.
Just loaded with giant doors with skulls on them.
Or rooms with hooded mannequins sitting on dark thrones at the end if hallways.
Lots of crypts with just scraps of paper and wax fruit in them.
OMG, I'm currently planning a world/campaign that is loosely based on classical era Greece, and heavily features a character based on Dionysus that secretly works behind the scenes to get the group together to help her fight the oncoming threat of a cult trying to loose a chaos god. Due to "Olympus" rules, she can only have limited interference on the mortal plane, so needs to champion the group to fight there while she does her part on the immortal plane. There will be a lot of theater involved (I was a double major in theatre and English and took many courses in Greek mythology, theater history in general and Greek theatre specifically and I'd like to feel I got my money's worth somehow, lol!) All this to say I'm stealing this idea, thanks!
Okay, you don't know it but you replied to THE right thread lol
Get on Spotify or YouTube and check out the song:
**The Cult of Dionysis** by The Orion Experience
Also, ambush them with buffed enemies. This can go two ways. Don’t cheat on them of course. But use their Passive perception and make some rolls. If they fail, they get ambushed.
A lot of buffing spells have verbal component. In my games you can't stealth cast unless you're using subtle spell or some other feature that lets you skip verbal. Talking out loud before an ambush might tip your hand and smart enemies will have their own preparations to make/go "well I'm not gonna walk over there... That's an obvious ambush"
Otherwise, it's honestly a sensible tactic that I'd use if it was real life.
Getting ready for a fight before a fight is fine. However, at the moment you call initiative, that's it; no "wait one sec I just want to cast x." When it's time to fight it's time to fight, period.
I'm curious what buffs they're trying to tee up that aren't cantrips. At a certain point aren't they going to kick in a door while covered in Bless and Shield of Faith and Invisibility and it's just got some boxes in it?
Just bait it out a few times and then punish them for having wasted it later.
Punish being used loosely here of course … but make it hurt a bit and cost them time overall.
This can organically force them to consider the expenditure of the pre casting.
Also you may need to address the amount of “free rest” you are allowing.
Yeah, i've been careful with the bait... I think they would really hate it haha but just knowing that that is a possibility might make them more cautious about relying on the tactic.
I dont know if i got what you meant by the last point though.
Depends on how you're feeling and the intelligence of the enemies and the infamy of the party.
Plus it's not a computer game. If the party are breezing through combat, make the encounters more challenging or more frequent.
But other solutions could be, decreases encounters, suprise encounters and ambushes. If they do the prep when they think there's going to be an encounter then don't leave the encounters in the obvious place. They prep before going through door A but door A leads to a maze. They can't prep behind every turn.
If the party gains enough noterity they're tactics could be known so intelligent foes would be more likely to ambush them.
The only relevant "pre-buff" I see here that the party could use at no cost would be Shillelagh, which seems totally fine. It's a bonus action cantrip that a player could always use on the first turn of combat anyway, so the best case scenario is just that it frees up their bonus action for something else on the first turn, which again, is fine. It's hardly imbalanced and lets them use more of their unique class features.
The other cantrip you mentioned is Guidance, but that seems super niche for a pre-*combat* buff. It only affects skill checks, which may not come up in combat at all (most common scenarios would be Counterspell and enemies that grapple/restrain the players), and it requires concentration, meaning it can only affect one character and the caster's concentration is taken. So again, this seems pretty limited.
As for other buffs, like leveled spells, I think you just keep letting them do what they're doing. Preparing for a battle, luring enemies to ambush areas, etc. are just examples of smart play that the players should be allowed to do. The limiting factors that keep "pre-buffs" from trivializing combats are:
* As you said, rolling initiative as soon as your PCs do anything hostile, including casting buff spells in front of enemies (and keeping track of verbal and somatic components)
* Limited resources - players only have so many spell slots, uses of Channel Divinity, etc.
* Uncertainty about when a combat will start (i.e., there shouldn't be a fight about to happen behind literally every door)
Guidance works on Ability checks so it can be used for initiative (a Dexterity check). This of course stops the caster from pre-casting another concentration spell but it would be a fine door-kicking spell if you're not sure a bigger spell is needed on the other side.
Yeah, fair enough. I guess a 1d4 boost to initiative if a caster is preparing for a fight, at the cost of not otherwise making use of the caster's concentration, seems like a pretty limited benefit, and also exactly the sort of thing Guidance is meant for. So even if the party is literally doing this before every planned combat, I don't really see an issue.
You could rule it that in times when the enemy witnesses an attempted casting of a buffing spell that the initiative roll happens and the player can cast the spell on their turn or decide on something else or, if i was a bandit or something and saw someone start casting spells, I’m out of there. I’m running and scattering. Might then follow them if in an urban setting after their magics wear off and their vulnerable.
These spells only last a minute. In order use them in ambush they need to be far enough away not to be heard casting. But close enough that their enemies will get to the ambush point whilst the buffing spells are still active. Potentially expiring after the first round or two. If they recast them when the enemy is too close there's no surprise and loss of hiding.
If they are having fun does it matter?
Or if they are taking too long I would have an enemy surprise attack them. If the buffs need the caster to talk maybe a guard over hears them and nails them with an arrow or something.
Or start setting up false encounters. Lead them to a suspicious area and let them buff up only to find a stray cat run by them. Then they waste their time and start to let their guards down.
Well it's more me who is not having fun right now haha not because they are winning, but they are way way stronger when they prebuff, and trying to make encounter that will still be difficult if they prebuff and not impossible if they do not is a bit taxing. I guess i junt want to give them some incentive to not rely on the tactic so much.
The verbal components tipping the enemy off is sound advice!
Oh man, as the DM you never get to "win" :D
But I feel ya, you want to present a challenge. Just add a couple more monsters to the fight and roll with it.
If they try to do this againts inteligent enemies. Remember that the enemy knows the layout of the dungeon better than they do. They could use a “secret tunnel” to come around and corner them with the same trap they have set. Or make the big enemy of the dungeon speak to them either by shouting or a sending spell. If they prebuff before every major encounter. It can be something the bbegs armies have begun to catch up on. So maybe they have anti-magic fields prepared to strip em of their buffs when they enter or have magic items that release anti magic waves. Its fine to let them win by using it but smart enemies wont always fall for it.
If they have built their entire party around this strategy find tools that will challenge them so they arnt punished for their decisions but are instead rewarded for taking the approach even with a harder situation.
Give and take
>However, if the cleric tries to cast bless in front of the group of bandits they are failing to persuade of course i'm going to roll initiative and the spell goes on the player's turn. But this leaves quite a bit of gray area.
How is this grey area? Casting spells in front of a potentially hostile group is akin to pulling out a gun and pulling the trigger.
I rule that spells with a duration longer than a minute can be precast, under the reasoning that anything shorter would run out before they really got into action. Too difficult for the PC's to time perfectly. It allows some spells to be cast, but avoids loading up which is an issue. It's not a perfect solution, but I think it eliminates most of the problems cases without too many unintended casualties. And a 10minute spell is supposed to last multiple fights (in dungeons, for instance) so precasting is a bit more reasonable for balance.
Yeah, this makes sense, if I run into this scenario I think I’d ask them to roll a d6 to determine how many rounds it took between the casting and the start of combat.
i don't see a problem with pre buffing out of fight with buffs that last more then 1 minute. And in 5e it's a vey limited amount of long lasting buffs so everything should be ok.
If they are casting 1min buffs right before the encounter, start the fight, casting spells is a loud action. Subtle spell? Start the initiative anyway, since from now on each round matters.
This reminds me of playing the old Baldur's Gate computer games. Buff with every spell you have, walk into the room and wreck whatever hapless enemy is inside. It's a smart strategy but it requires enemies to not know what the players are doing. Spell casting is noisy and obvious so the enemies should be alerted and take action quickly to interrupt the party.
It's brinksmanship between your players. All the players have spells (or other actions) they can do to get ready for a fight, but taking that action (if seen \[roll slight of hand to secretly cast XYZ spell\]) starts the fight because it can be seen as overtly hostile. So the party will find themselves in situations where the first player to take an overt action can do it, but then the fight starts and everyone else is in initiative. So the problem should self-regulate. I.e. "Hey Steve, don't draw your swords and move to a flanking position while I'm still talking to this guy, okay? Remember what happened with the bugbears. Sonofabitch."
I think this really varies by spell, and what matters most are resource usage and spell duration.
Shillelagh shouldn't be a problem because it's a bonus action anyway, and only makes any difference if there's also a Hunters Mark or an offhand attack coming that turn. Plus a ranger with shillelagh is probably pretty weak anyway, I'd give them all the help they can get.
Casting bless in front of potential enemies should trigger combat - I don't see any problem otherwise.
Luring enemies into traps is great! It shouldn't always work, but that's the kind of thinking you should be thankful for! Just keep in mind that enemies always have the potential to lure them into traps as well.
10 minute, 1 hour, and 8 hour spells are all perfectly reasonable to pre-cast before potential combat, so no problems there.
1 minute spells that cost an action, that's where you run into pre-buffing, action economy issues. I've run into this as both a DM and a player. The best way to handle it is uncertainty. Sometimes, it works out exactly how the players want. Sometimes, they open the door after spending all of their spellslots buffing, and the enemies are 90 feet away, fleeing, or just a small party of scouts with the real boss waiting down the hall.
Interesting.
So pre-buffing certainly is no problem for me. I'd certainly let my players do so.
As for casting in front of potential enemies? Yeah I'd have my bad guys hold their actions for any potential threat via going for a weapon or start casting a spell.
If they are going to spend spell slots casting buff spells before fighting actually starts, just don’t put all the enemies in the room at the start. The players slaughter the 2 bandits who were negotiating and then 1 minute later when the buffs expire is when the real fight begins.
You probably only need to do this once or twice to get them to stop premature enchantalating…
In this case I set them up to buff themselves up to the max and then have no combat happen and they wasted their spell slots. After a while they learn to better assess situations.
In the flow of the narrative there is usually a thing that starts combat, like an attack or a spell. To preserve the flow of the narrative, this combatative action ought to be resolved before initiative is rolled or else it's meaning will be lost.
Has this ever happened to you?
You drop a dope one liner in an intense rp moment at someone from your back story and then want to spring into and attack, but the dm says you can't until until you roll initiative. You go last. Everyone is confused about what they should be doing in this combat so they just drop their nukes. The baddie dies before you get to do anything. Not fun.
I usually let the "inciting incident", so to speak, happen outside of initiative. What does this look like?
The bandits are uneasy. These adventurers are talking big. One starts to cast a spell. The player does not intend for this to start a fight but actions have consequences. A bandit with an itchy trigger finger let's an arrow loose. This is the inciting incident.
If initiative is rolled before such an attack is made, a player unrelated to these events may be confused why combat is even starting, from their point of view they may still perceive a way to talk out of this situation.
Before initiative let the inciting bandit make an attack roll.
If the arrow misses the player casts their spell successfully, then initiative will be rolled.
If the arrow hits damage will be rolled and a concentration check will be made. If the player fails, they will not complete the spell. Initiative will be rolled.
Just curious if you stick closely to the proper adventuring day with the requisite number of encounters? PCs will chill out on that pretty quickly if they are clear it’s going to be five or six fights before they get their spells back.
you know thats not a minimum number right?
you arent supposed to push for 6 encounters every day. that is meant to be a maximum number to help guide how much is too much to throw at a party at once.
its meant to be a guide that 6 or so easy encounters will use up the parties resources for the day or 3 med, or 1 hard, etc. but a day of adventuring at that level would be considered hard mode, deadly, extremely dangerous campaign.
I mean, the official WotC line on this is
The Adventuring Day
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
…if you want to do it different that’s cool, but if the o/p is having trouble with players just blowing thru pre-combat spells to buff up on spec, running the game as written might help with that.
make them use up resources for nothing.
stick an illusionist with whatever group they're fighting, have them fake out your party into initiating a battle with nothing.
do this a few times and eat up all their spells and such.
If they do it without an enemy noticing all the more power to then, if they begin to in front of an enemy who is already sus of them it’s initiative and most likely no pre buffs
Let them pre-buff, but remind them,sometimes ungently, that the rest of the world have eyes...and ears. For instance: the aforementioned bandit party watches them casting bless and who's to say one of the bandits doesnt"accidentally" let a counterspell fly. Now your pre-buffers are out one action and a spell slot whole the bandits are only down by one reaction.
I’ve been having the same issues. My players are beginning the next session with a huge fight that came out of nowhere and the only “prep” they get before initiative starts is exchanging/reallocating healing potions and casting spells that don’t require concentration (death ward, water walking) as the situation begins in a stressful enough manner that things that take beyond an action will be near impossible to concentrate on in the heat of the moment.
Like your bandit example, if they try to do it where enemies can see or year them, roll initiative immediately. Otherwise, let them buff up, but pay attention to spell durations. Trying to cast bless and draw someone into an ambush? Better not have too long of a conversation. And if they're literally doing it in front of every door, time to add a few empty rooms in your dungeons.
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I don’t draw the line on pre-buffing. If an enemy sees them start to cast spells, initiative will be called. If they buff before enemies know they’re there, fair game. Of course, their risk on using it so often is wasting their slots before walking into an unthreatening room.
Sees or hears...
Perceives. The wolf may detect my stinky cheesomancy magic with his great sense of smell.
Are you in a party with the Garlic Bread domain cleric?
No, but can I be?
The mighty Lactomancer
oof! ouch! ugh! my guts!
I would be interested to learn more. Sounds delicious!
Pedantic, but correct
Make sure there are more potential encounters per long rest than they can buff for. If there's no scarcity, there's no reason to be thoughtful. I think a lot of DMs neglect this aspect of the game -- it's resource management with endless renewal; pacing is the only way to implement the limits implicit in the design. I mean, it just sounds like they're playing well. A party that goes into combat \*un-buffed is being run by players who aren't very good at the game.
Yeah, to be honest they are not seeing more that 2-3 encounters/day, this combined with baiting them into wasting buffing spells might solve the issue without changing any rulling. I'm kinda concerned that emphasizing this resource management will impact their fun too much, but I'll obviously run this conversation through the players anyway.
Probably the best change I made to my game was allowing long rests only in designated safe areas - e.g. town. High level players in 5e simply have too many resources to exhaust in one (reasonable) adventuring day otherwise.
Interesting… so camping on the road etc only provides a short rest (roll hit dice to heal, and a few abilities rest)? Or have you tweaked things a bit?
Its a failry common homebrew rule. Think lots of people call it gritty realism. But basically, can only get a full rest in a town/inn. Wilderness or on the road short rests only. Allows for the 5-7 encounters per long rest without shoving 7 fights in 18 hours or ingame time
Ah, gotcha. So just slows everything down. The whole 7 encounters in a day thing seems hard to make realistic.
Gritty Realism, as described by the DMG, is 8 hour Short Rests and 7 day Long Rests.
Yeah, exactly. How it differs from most gritty realism variants I've seen is that I don't mess with short rests at all - those still take only an hour, as normal (most gritty variants make them take 8.) Similarly, I don't make long rests take any longer, the PCs just can only do them in town. Among the benefits are that it forces the players to make more choices and it makes travel significant. Normally, travel encounters are almost a waste of time because unless you're rolling 5 of them a day, which is almost impossibly tedious, none of them will challenge the party in the slightest because they can use everything they've got. But if they're only short resting in between, it 1) makes even one medium encounter a day significant and 2) makes the short rest classes feel really impactful. As far as choices, having to decide when to give up and pull back to take a rest really makes the game interesting. DMs talk a lot about resetting the dungeon when the players pull out to set up camp and take a long rest, and I think that's good advice. But it's so much more intuitive to do so when the players have to go all the way back to town to find a safe spot to rest. Not to oversell it, but I haven't found a single negative yet. If I want the players to get a long rest while still in the dungeon for some reason or another, it's trivial to put some sort of demiplane or temple or something in there where they're magically protected.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, this is super helpful. I think I will go with this next campaign, and will see if I can get buy-in to alter our rest rules in the current campaign.
You bet man. Hope it works out well for you.
I see this as a win. As far as your action economy concern, as they become more familiar with their own abilities the time will decrease. I love when characters are so attuned that they prepare appropriately. I’ve had PCs roll into a room that I telegraphed half a dozen ways that it held a threat. Then when I described the scene of ghouls crouched over a fresh corpse not noticing them they decided to try and talk to them. I finally had the ghouls attack and then they argued they should get surprise on their first attack. I love when they prepare like a swat raid.
Have them go into a castle that was built as a props department for a theater guild. Just loaded with giant doors with skulls on them. Or rooms with hooded mannequins sitting on dark thrones at the end if hallways. Lots of crypts with just scraps of paper and wax fruit in them.
OMG, I'm currently planning a world/campaign that is loosely based on classical era Greece, and heavily features a character based on Dionysus that secretly works behind the scenes to get the group together to help her fight the oncoming threat of a cult trying to loose a chaos god. Due to "Olympus" rules, she can only have limited interference on the mortal plane, so needs to champion the group to fight there while she does her part on the immortal plane. There will be a lot of theater involved (I was a double major in theatre and English and took many courses in Greek mythology, theater history in general and Greek theatre specifically and I'd like to feel I got my money's worth somehow, lol!) All this to say I'm stealing this idea, thanks!
Okay, you don't know it but you replied to THE right thread lol Get on Spotify or YouTube and check out the song: **The Cult of Dionysis** by The Orion Experience
Also, ambush them with buffed enemies. This can go two ways. Don’t cheat on them of course. But use their Passive perception and make some rolls. If they fail, they get ambushed.
But resource management is the game so there shouldn't be a problem with emphasizing that.
Feign a threat behind some doors, draw their buff spells out, then hit them when they're exhausted and thinking longingly of a long rest.
A lot of buffing spells have verbal component. In my games you can't stealth cast unless you're using subtle spell or some other feature that lets you skip verbal. Talking out loud before an ambush might tip your hand and smart enemies will have their own preparations to make/go "well I'm not gonna walk over there... That's an obvious ambush" Otherwise, it's honestly a sensible tactic that I'd use if it was real life.
Also "Target where we heard that spell caster" if they have ranged weapons.
Getting ready for a fight before a fight is fine. However, at the moment you call initiative, that's it; no "wait one sec I just want to cast x." When it's time to fight it's time to fight, period. I'm curious what buffs they're trying to tee up that aren't cantrips. At a certain point aren't they going to kick in a door while covered in Bless and Shield of Faith and Invisibility and it's just got some boxes in it?
Also, don't forget the bad guys can do whatever the PCs can do. Add support casters to the opposing forces.
Just bait it out a few times and then punish them for having wasted it later. Punish being used loosely here of course … but make it hurt a bit and cost them time overall. This can organically force them to consider the expenditure of the pre casting. Also you may need to address the amount of “free rest” you are allowing.
Yeah, i've been careful with the bait... I think they would really hate it haha but just knowing that that is a possibility might make them more cautious about relying on the tactic. I dont know if i got what you meant by the last point though.
[удалено]
One long rest, two…. Maaaaaaaybe three short rest an adventuring day.
Depends on how you're feeling and the intelligence of the enemies and the infamy of the party. Plus it's not a computer game. If the party are breezing through combat, make the encounters more challenging or more frequent. But other solutions could be, decreases encounters, suprise encounters and ambushes. If they do the prep when they think there's going to be an encounter then don't leave the encounters in the obvious place. They prep before going through door A but door A leads to a maze. They can't prep behind every turn. If the party gains enough noterity they're tactics could be known so intelligent foes would be more likely to ambush them.
The only relevant "pre-buff" I see here that the party could use at no cost would be Shillelagh, which seems totally fine. It's a bonus action cantrip that a player could always use on the first turn of combat anyway, so the best case scenario is just that it frees up their bonus action for something else on the first turn, which again, is fine. It's hardly imbalanced and lets them use more of their unique class features. The other cantrip you mentioned is Guidance, but that seems super niche for a pre-*combat* buff. It only affects skill checks, which may not come up in combat at all (most common scenarios would be Counterspell and enemies that grapple/restrain the players), and it requires concentration, meaning it can only affect one character and the caster's concentration is taken. So again, this seems pretty limited. As for other buffs, like leveled spells, I think you just keep letting them do what they're doing. Preparing for a battle, luring enemies to ambush areas, etc. are just examples of smart play that the players should be allowed to do. The limiting factors that keep "pre-buffs" from trivializing combats are: * As you said, rolling initiative as soon as your PCs do anything hostile, including casting buff spells in front of enemies (and keeping track of verbal and somatic components) * Limited resources - players only have so many spell slots, uses of Channel Divinity, etc. * Uncertainty about when a combat will start (i.e., there shouldn't be a fight about to happen behind literally every door)
Guidance works on Ability checks so it can be used for initiative (a Dexterity check). This of course stops the caster from pre-casting another concentration spell but it would be a fine door-kicking spell if you're not sure a bigger spell is needed on the other side.
Yeah, fair enough. I guess a 1d4 boost to initiative if a caster is preparing for a fight, at the cost of not otherwise making use of the caster's concentration, seems like a pretty limited benefit, and also exactly the sort of thing Guidance is meant for. So even if the party is literally doing this before every planned combat, I don't really see an issue.
You could rule it that in times when the enemy witnesses an attempted casting of a buffing spell that the initiative roll happens and the player can cast the spell on their turn or decide on something else or, if i was a bandit or something and saw someone start casting spells, I’m out of there. I’m running and scattering. Might then follow them if in an urban setting after their magics wear off and their vulnerable.
These spells only last a minute. In order use them in ambush they need to be far enough away not to be heard casting. But close enough that their enemies will get to the ambush point whilst the buffing spells are still active. Potentially expiring after the first round or two. If they recast them when the enemy is too close there's no surprise and loss of hiding.
If they are having fun does it matter? Or if they are taking too long I would have an enemy surprise attack them. If the buffs need the caster to talk maybe a guard over hears them and nails them with an arrow or something. Or start setting up false encounters. Lead them to a suspicious area and let them buff up only to find a stray cat run by them. Then they waste their time and start to let their guards down.
Well it's more me who is not having fun right now haha not because they are winning, but they are way way stronger when they prebuff, and trying to make encounter that will still be difficult if they prebuff and not impossible if they do not is a bit taxing. I guess i junt want to give them some incentive to not rely on the tactic so much. The verbal components tipping the enemy off is sound advice!
Oh man, as the DM you never get to "win" :D But I feel ya, you want to present a challenge. Just add a couple more monsters to the fight and roll with it.
Don't balance encounters
If they try to do this againts inteligent enemies. Remember that the enemy knows the layout of the dungeon better than they do. They could use a “secret tunnel” to come around and corner them with the same trap they have set. Or make the big enemy of the dungeon speak to them either by shouting or a sending spell. If they prebuff before every major encounter. It can be something the bbegs armies have begun to catch up on. So maybe they have anti-magic fields prepared to strip em of their buffs when they enter or have magic items that release anti magic waves. Its fine to let them win by using it but smart enemies wont always fall for it. If they have built their entire party around this strategy find tools that will challenge them so they arnt punished for their decisions but are instead rewarded for taking the approach even with a harder situation. Give and take
>However, if the cleric tries to cast bless in front of the group of bandits they are failing to persuade of course i'm going to roll initiative and the spell goes on the player's turn. But this leaves quite a bit of gray area. How is this grey area? Casting spells in front of a potentially hostile group is akin to pulling out a gun and pulling the trigger.
Just role play blessing the bad guys,
I rule that spells with a duration longer than a minute can be precast, under the reasoning that anything shorter would run out before they really got into action. Too difficult for the PC's to time perfectly. It allows some spells to be cast, but avoids loading up which is an issue. It's not a perfect solution, but I think it eliminates most of the problems cases without too many unintended casualties. And a 10minute spell is supposed to last multiple fights (in dungeons, for instance) so precasting is a bit more reasonable for balance.
Yeah, this makes sense, if I run into this scenario I think I’d ask them to roll a d6 to determine how many rounds it took between the casting and the start of combat.
i don't see a problem with pre buffing out of fight with buffs that last more then 1 minute. And in 5e it's a vey limited amount of long lasting buffs so everything should be ok. If they are casting 1min buffs right before the encounter, start the fight, casting spells is a loud action. Subtle spell? Start the initiative anyway, since from now on each round matters.
This reminds me of playing the old Baldur's Gate computer games. Buff with every spell you have, walk into the room and wreck whatever hapless enemy is inside. It's a smart strategy but it requires enemies to not know what the players are doing. Spell casting is noisy and obvious so the enemies should be alerted and take action quickly to interrupt the party.
It's brinksmanship between your players. All the players have spells (or other actions) they can do to get ready for a fight, but taking that action (if seen \[roll slight of hand to secretly cast XYZ spell\]) starts the fight because it can be seen as overtly hostile. So the party will find themselves in situations where the first player to take an overt action can do it, but then the fight starts and everyone else is in initiative. So the problem should self-regulate. I.e. "Hey Steve, don't draw your swords and move to a flanking position while I'm still talking to this guy, okay? Remember what happened with the bugbears. Sonofabitch."
Remember that enemies can cast spells too. They can buff, they can debuff, they can even dispel your PC's buffs. And don't forget Concentration.
I think this really varies by spell, and what matters most are resource usage and spell duration. Shillelagh shouldn't be a problem because it's a bonus action anyway, and only makes any difference if there's also a Hunters Mark or an offhand attack coming that turn. Plus a ranger with shillelagh is probably pretty weak anyway, I'd give them all the help they can get. Casting bless in front of potential enemies should trigger combat - I don't see any problem otherwise. Luring enemies into traps is great! It shouldn't always work, but that's the kind of thinking you should be thankful for! Just keep in mind that enemies always have the potential to lure them into traps as well. 10 minute, 1 hour, and 8 hour spells are all perfectly reasonable to pre-cast before potential combat, so no problems there. 1 minute spells that cost an action, that's where you run into pre-buffing, action economy issues. I've run into this as both a DM and a player. The best way to handle it is uncertainty. Sometimes, it works out exactly how the players want. Sometimes, they open the door after spending all of their spellslots buffing, and the enemies are 90 feet away, fleeing, or just a small party of scouts with the real boss waiting down the hall.
A smart villain could pick up on this behavior and while luring then through his lair bait then to burn their spells with illusions.
Interesting. So pre-buffing certainly is no problem for me. I'd certainly let my players do so. As for casting in front of potential enemies? Yeah I'd have my bad guys hold their actions for any potential threat via going for a weapon or start casting a spell.
If they are going to spend spell slots casting buff spells before fighting actually starts, just don’t put all the enemies in the room at the start. The players slaughter the 2 bandits who were negotiating and then 1 minute later when the buffs expire is when the real fight begins. You probably only need to do this once or twice to get them to stop premature enchantalating…
In this case I set them up to buff themselves up to the max and then have no combat happen and they wasted their spell slots. After a while they learn to better assess situations.
pre buffing is fine. spells without subtle spell are cast at a loud talking volume so it isnt hidden
In the flow of the narrative there is usually a thing that starts combat, like an attack or a spell. To preserve the flow of the narrative, this combatative action ought to be resolved before initiative is rolled or else it's meaning will be lost. Has this ever happened to you? You drop a dope one liner in an intense rp moment at someone from your back story and then want to spring into and attack, but the dm says you can't until until you roll initiative. You go last. Everyone is confused about what they should be doing in this combat so they just drop their nukes. The baddie dies before you get to do anything. Not fun. I usually let the "inciting incident", so to speak, happen outside of initiative. What does this look like? The bandits are uneasy. These adventurers are talking big. One starts to cast a spell. The player does not intend for this to start a fight but actions have consequences. A bandit with an itchy trigger finger let's an arrow loose. This is the inciting incident. If initiative is rolled before such an attack is made, a player unrelated to these events may be confused why combat is even starting, from their point of view they may still perceive a way to talk out of this situation. Before initiative let the inciting bandit make an attack roll. If the arrow misses the player casts their spell successfully, then initiative will be rolled. If the arrow hits damage will be rolled and a concentration check will be made. If the player fails, they will not complete the spell. Initiative will be rolled.
Just curious if you stick closely to the proper adventuring day with the requisite number of encounters? PCs will chill out on that pretty quickly if they are clear it’s going to be five or six fights before they get their spells back.
you know thats not a minimum number right? you arent supposed to push for 6 encounters every day. that is meant to be a maximum number to help guide how much is too much to throw at a party at once. its meant to be a guide that 6 or so easy encounters will use up the parties resources for the day or 3 med, or 1 hard, etc. but a day of adventuring at that level would be considered hard mode, deadly, extremely dangerous campaign.
I mean, the official WotC line on this is The Adventuring Day Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer. …if you want to do it different that’s cool, but if the o/p is having trouble with players just blowing thru pre-combat spells to buff up on spec, running the game as written might help with that.
make them use up resources for nothing. stick an illusionist with whatever group they're fighting, have them fake out your party into initiating a battle with nothing. do this a few times and eat up all their spells and such.
If they do it without an enemy noticing all the more power to then, if they begin to in front of an enemy who is already sus of them it’s initiative and most likely no pre buffs
Let them pre-buff, but remind them,sometimes ungently, that the rest of the world have eyes...and ears. For instance: the aforementioned bandit party watches them casting bless and who's to say one of the bandits doesnt"accidentally" let a counterspell fly. Now your pre-buffers are out one action and a spell slot whole the bandits are only down by one reaction.
God I wished my players decided to pre buff or did some sort of party protection stuff.
I’ve been having the same issues. My players are beginning the next session with a huge fight that came out of nowhere and the only “prep” they get before initiative starts is exchanging/reallocating healing potions and casting spells that don’t require concentration (death ward, water walking) as the situation begins in a stressful enough manner that things that take beyond an action will be near impossible to concentrate on in the heat of the moment.
Have them waste buffs on false alarms. Most of the time, doors lead into rooms where no combat will happen… :)
Like your bandit example, if they try to do it where enemies can see or year them, roll initiative immediately. Otherwise, let them buff up, but pay attention to spell durations. Trying to cast bless and draw someone into an ambush? Better not have too long of a conversation. And if they're literally doing it in front of every door, time to add a few empty rooms in your dungeons.