I'm curious about how the whole "5'-step" came about. It didn't exist in AD&D. I assume it's a 3.xx carry over?
I've been reading the "unbeatable stealth?" thread, and the 5'-step keeps being brought up, and it made me wonder: What is the logic behind it? It's not a move action, yet it is movement. It avoids an AoO, okay - but it also seems to create all sorts of problems and slow combat down.
And the Withdraw action? Still subject to AoO's, so what's the point of it?
OK - I get the idea behind a 5'-step preventing an AoO. I'm only moving slightly, hardly at all, just a minor repositioning, and so my guard is still up and focused on any adjacent enemies, so I prevent AoO's. But, my God, talk about all the mechanics and Feats that have become involved with this simple little non-move movement! It's one of those "grey area" things in PF - not really one thing or another. It just seems like it would be so much simpler to just do away with it.
How many people really use it, both as GM and as Players? Just curious.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe it was created in 3rd edition to allow diversity in what you do during your turn. It opens up the world of tactical movement a great deal. I don't know if its the best solution, but I like it. I use it in every combat - sometimes on most of my turns. I can say the same is more or less true of everyone I have gamed with since 3rd edition.
What's your real question?
I don't think you really care about the origin. I suspect you're really trying to ask whether the 5' Step is a good game mechanic that adds value to the game.
Am I right?
In that case, I say yes. It expands tactical options and makes the combat seem more dynamic. Without it, everyone would just (more or less) stand still and whack each other with their pointy sticks.
I have never found it slowing down our combats much, except maybe when explaining the rule to a new player. But after a session or two he has the idea and it's no longer a problem.
Is it because 3.xx broke time down to a smaller scale?
The introduction of the AoO?
In AD&D, we didn't need to worry so much about: move, then attack; or attack, then move. 5e allows you to split up movement and attacks more intuitively.
@DM_Blake: I'm curious how it evolved to where it became so integral to gameplay.
Well, now I'm interested in the origin as well.
Maybe Sean will stop by and let us know?
The idea was that, in your 5 ft square your character can actually be anywhere in the square. It is almost like a Electron in an atom, it can anywhere within the space at given moment in time. So when you take a 5ft step, it assumes you were at the edge of your box and just moved a little to take you into the next box.
|
Probably. I didn't use that PO that much back in the day, ironically due to the reliance upon miniatures and mapping solutions that really didn't exist until the creation of 3.0. The PO line was more or less a public beta for 3.0, as a lot of the concepts introduced there showed up in 3.0.
I always preferred Skills & Powers for class customization, and used very little of Combat & Tactics outside of the excellent weapon table.
Weren't attacks of opportunity in 3.0 triggered on moving into an opponent's space? Maybe I'm remembering wrong. But it was needed so that you could take advantage of flanking and still do the whole full attack thing without standing still, something they were pushing in 3.X. They also were pushing more use of a game mat and moving more towards miniature stuff, which was an emphasis they carried too far into 4th.
To answer one of your questions, 5-foot step is an important part of combat, and I'd say it gets used (usually) at least once per combatant per combat in my games. It's pretty important to keep options open and prevent Combat Reflexes reach builds from just devouring the battlefield.
First time I recall it in D&D was 3.0. It is very similar in concept to the GURPS step-and-attack, which has been around for a long time.
Yeah - I never used a grid in my AD&D days, and had abandoned the system before 3.0 came out. I never got into GURPS, strangely enough considering how long I'd been playing rpg's.
In part it seems to also be breaking the combat round down from 1 minute to 6 seconds of time. We didn't have to think about "a full-round attack" vs moving and only taking 1 attack because the round encompassed the idea of more things occurring in it. We broke engagement and headed away from combat, or repositioned, and so on, without any "attacks of opportunity". A lot more was simply assumed under AD&D - i.e., you knew how to engage or disengage from meleee without opening yourself to attack.
So the 5'-step came about when AoO's were introduced into the system, and the combat round was shrunk to 6 seconds. At least, based on what I can find and what people have shared.
It has to do with Planck's Constant.
Well, for me the very concept is quite irritating to visualize in my mind.
Even I can move 9 meters (approximately 30 ft.) in 6 seconds with my sickly body while swinging my golf club more than 4 times; yet superhuman fighters in a fantasy world can't do such a thing.
They should have let any character move freely up to their speed anytime...
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think you're starting the question from the wrong end. The question should be: where did the AoO come from? Because the 5ft step is an integral part of those rules.
IMO the AoO was invented as a way to stop enemies just walking past the PCs (or vice versa) as if they weren't there. AoOs don't happen a lot, but basically they're the "punishment" for doing something that "you shouldn't".
You're just going to walk past a well-armed knight to get to his nerdy wizard friend in the back? That knight isn't going to let it happen, and he's going to hit you over the head. That's the way he stops you from just walking past him.
You're just going to try to punch someone in the face who's wielding a sword? He's gonna cut your hands off - AoO. Well, unless you've got some kind of special martial arts training.
.
So, there you have the AoO as a mechanic intended to give martial PCs and monsters some way of saying "no, you're not getting past me THAT easy". But if you're trying to edge around them carefully, keeping up your defenses, sacrificing speed for security - that's the 5ft step.
I think you're starting the question from the wrong end. The question should be: where did the AoO come from? Because the 5ft step is an integral part of those rules.
Yes - the two mechanics arose together, so that is the second half of the question.
And I like your explanation of the "why". That helps!
For me, I still experience it as one of those assumed things that now you need to specify.
Player: Okay, I cast Color Spray, starting with the guy in front of me and trying to catch most of those behind him.
GM: He takes a swing at you as an AoO...
Player: No - wait! I take a 5'-step back, of course, and then cast Color Spray.
GM: Well, you didn't say that...
Player: Sorry - but, of course I do that. It's SOP!
GM: (grumbles) I'll let it go this time. But you need to state it from now on.
Eventually, yeah - you learn to do it automatically, unless you're prevented somehow. But when it becomes something you do automatically, why not just assume it as part of the ongoing action, in which case you seldom ever need to state "I take my 5'-step and then..."? And then we're back to more AD&D style play where it is assumed you're being careful and aware of what's going on around you and can respond appropriately.
Well, for me the very concept is quite irritating to visualize in my mind.
Even I can move 9 meters (approximately 30 ft.) in 6 seconds with my sickly body while swinging my golf club more than 4 times; yet superhuman fighters in a fantasy world can't do such a thing.
They should have let any character move freely up to their speed anytime...
Well, sure - anyone can run and swing a club wildly like an utter moron, but moving and swinging with any real intent is a different matter entirely.
5-foot steps are simple shifts in footing; watch a Kendo match to see that I mean by that.
What would be a fine rule is to allow players to take 5-foot steps in-between each attack iteration in a Full Round Attack up to their Base Speed, in addition to the free 5-ft step; that's more tactically advantageous and better simulates real combat as well.
I think you're starting the question from the wrong end. The question should be: where did the AoO come from? Because the 5ft step is an integral part of those rules.
IMO the AoO was invented as a way to stop enemies just walking past the PCs (or vice versa) as if they weren't there. AoOs don't happen a lot, but basically they're the "punishment" for doing something that "you shouldn't".
I don't know the philosophy behind AoOs, but the mechanics, like many/most of the those in 3rd edition, arose in proto-form from the "Player's Options" rules that came out in the twilight years of 2nd Edition.
Actually, the "Moving out of Combat Provokes AoOs" thing is as old as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
Breaking off from Melee
At such time as any creature decides, it can break off the engagement and flee the melee, TO do so, however, allows the opponent a free attack or attack routine. This is calculated as if it were a rear attack upon a stunned opponent. When this attack is completed, the retiring/fleeing party may move away at a full movement rate, and unless the opponent pursues and is able to move at a higher rate of speed, the melee is ended and the situation becomes one of encounter avoidance.
Modern Attacks of Opportunity vs Spellcasters also calls back to the 1st and 2nd Ed rules of Initiative and Init Modifiers - that being that a Spellcasters started casting a spell at Init X, and then finished casting the spell at Init X-Y. If at any time during that spellcasting, they were hit with an Attack, the spell fizzled.
---
The modern Combat Round is at once both more broken-down and more streamlined than previous editions: AoOs, rather than being a wide and complicated category of effects that can happen in Combat are simply "these actions provoke an Attacks of Opportunity from each player who can make one"; on the other hand, Combat has returned to the mindset of O/BD&D, where a Round is a representation of combat on a Seconds-based level (10 seconds in OD&D, 6 in 3rd ed AD&D), and every swing is a 1-to-1 representation of swings, rather than being a very-abstract extrapolation of all swings under the Minute-based Combat Round rule in 1st and 2nd Edition.
Well, it is reflecting time shrunk down into a smaller increment. But they built mechanics to support it, and I have to just accept that - in this regard - PF is more a tabletop wargame than a rpg.
It's like playing aboard game where you simply abide by the structure of that game. "My pawn can only advance 1 square, or 2 on its first move, and can only attack foes that are on the diagonal squares in front of it."
I struggle with remembering to state these actions because I am used to them being assumed. As far as "for or against" them, that's not the purpose of my post. I learn better contextually, and the background about how/why it developed helps.
(And why the "Unbeatable Stealth?" thread prompted my curiosity. I'd likely be trying to stealth like the Shadowdancer in that thread, forgetting to specify obvious things like "I take a 5'-step and then...".)
I would also suggest that the 5' step has roots in the game even earlier than Player's Option. In 1e, a PC normally had to move to engage as their action if beyond a 1" range (10 ft indoors, 10 yards outdoors because of differences in indoor and outdoor scaling). Once within that 1" range, they could engage their enemy. That 1" is a bit like a 10 ft/yard step because as long as there's an enemy in range, you could shift over to him to attack without losing any attacks or having to spend your turn moving. It's a bit different in that it's not clearly usable to slowly, round by round, maneuver around your opponent. AD&D just wasn't down to that degree of tactical detail.
Well, it is reflecting time shrunk down into a smaller increment. But they built mechanics to support it, and I have to just accept that - in this regard - PF is more a tabletop wargame than a rpg.
For Combat, sure; but tabletop Wargames have always been better at simulating combat than no-minis RPGs have.
And since D&D COMES from a Wargame and players have used minis since Day 1, it helps tremendously to make combat more tactics-based.
RPing and tactical combat aren't mutually exclusive; it's like a corollary to the Stormwind Fallacy.
You also have, of course, dungeon diving and skills stuff which make the game sometimes act more like straight roleplaying and other times like a Board Game (which, admittedly, have seen less love than the Combat, Magic, and RP aspects of the game until the announcement of Ultimate Intrigue).
I'd say PF has gone out of its way big-time to NOT be purely a minis wargame, with things like Downtime, Chases, Kingdom Building, etc. all being parts of the game.
For Combat, sure; but tabletop Wargames have always been better at simulating combat than no-minis RPGs have.
And since D&D COMES from a Wargame and players have used minis since Day 1, it helps tremendously to make combat more tactics-based.
I remember that D&D and AD&D had distances in inches, with each 1" = 10'. And yet, strangely, I never used minis when I started playing D&D back in 197-something. Only on occasion would we break out chess pieces and lay down an idea of who was where. Otherwise, it was all "theatre of the mind" really.
^It got worse than that, at least in AD&D 1.x: 1" = 10' indoors, but 1" = 30' outdoors. A couple of magic items (for example, the Bowl of Watery Death) had in their text that they shrunk their target (which in these cases happened to be the user) to "1/12 foot" in size.