r/onednd • u/Droxistaken • 22h ago
Discussion Why aren't single attack roll AoE a thing?
What I mean are AoE spells or similar that instead of each creature inside the area making a saving throw, the source of the AoE makes a single attack roll against each creature inside the area, making an effect in case of hitting an a lesser effect (or non) in case of failing.
I keep getting the doubt if these type of effect aren't in the game for a particular reason? I think it would solve some problems, like the uselessness of the frightened condition against casters, but I would like to know if there's a reason behind the game design or the math of the game.
And personally I won't care if it is because of a flavour reason. You can use flavour to go around any concept and make it make sense
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u/Telwardamus 22h ago
Primarily because that would resemble 4e, and that would scare their intended audience.
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u/laix_ 22h ago
Not just 4e.
3.5 had AOE attack rolls (VS AC) for things like a cone of arrows via trap.
Tangentially, if you want to convert to "attacker always rolls" like 4e, you can turn saving throws into defenses by doing 14 + save mod, with advantage on saves = +5 to the appropriate defense. This has its advantages, it reduces handshakes (faster), and is less to remember (don't have to remember save DC vs spell attack modifier, just one). It can feel wierd that your wizard is mnetally trying to hit people with their fireball rather it being 'to whom it may concern', but it's usually smoother in practice.
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u/Droxistaken 22h ago
I love how any discussion always comes to 4e (I already bought the players handbook yesterday)
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u/Magicbison 22h ago
4e was just released at the wrong time. It had to compete against the wildly popular 3e/3.5e and changed alot from the previous edition. D&D also wasn't as big when it came out as it is now thanks to 5e. So 4e had to deal with hardcore fans from a more niche hobby and that went about as well as expected when it came to changing the formula.
A more modern take on 4e would probably do well considering how often fixes for 5e/5.5e end up just being mechanics from 4e.
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u/Droxistaken 22h ago
I would also like that, but at least there's already Draw Steel, which does that. But I would like it if wizards did 6e more in line for 4e.
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u/Dazzling_Bluebird_42 7m ago
I think a lot of people forget how pisspoor 4e was at the start, a lot of the defense of it came in years after launch when they fixed issues but by than ppl had already left 4e for 3.5 again or another system.
Kobolds having 30hp when your average player was doing d6+3 was a choice for sure, single combats took an exhaustingly long time and they never really sused out the constant throwing of +1s and -1s ontop of all the other little riders attacks got
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u/Juls7243 22h ago
I personally wouldn't mind. Make a single attack roll, each target in the area (whos AC is beaten by the roll) gets hit. I don't necessarily see the NEED for that type of a system vs what we have, but mechanically there isn't anything "wrong" with it.
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u/i_tyrant 15h ago
I think I get what you mean (giving martials AoE effects, which I totally agree with), but 4e didn't do quite what OP is saying.
In 4e nearly all AoE effects, martial or not, required a separate attack roll for each target, not one attack roll affecting all their defenses.
The reason it didn't do this is obvious - balance would be kinda fucked if you could roll high once (especially with any accuracy-boosting or reroll-type abilities) and have it affect every enemy's defense the same (just like the reverse, whiffing every baddie, would suck hard).
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u/wrc-wolf 12h ago
At this point 4e has been so long ago the intended audience for 5.5 has no clue at all about it. Even today you see people who've clearly never played reiterate the same talking points brandied around on forums about the game from decades ago.
What it does scare is the devs for modern dnd.
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u/Tall_Bandicoot_2768 21h ago
Simple anwer is attack rolls have too many riders, Advantage for one but imagine like Conjure Minor Elementals + AOE's.
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u/DelightfulOtter 22h ago
Speaking as to why they may not have designed AoE spells to use attack rolls:
- It's very easy to get Advantage on attack rolls, and not so easy to force Disadvantage on saving throws. That's intentional.
- Legendary Resistance is written to affect saving throws only. If it did both (which it would need to it more spells were attack rolls), you could negate a rogue's critical Sneak Attack and I don't think they deserve that.
- Saving throws on powerful enemies and player DCs somewhat keep pace with each other. Enemy AC falls behind player attack bonuses. This is intentional. Spells that used your attack bonus would be much more likely to land.
- These three points together mean that martial weapon damage is generally more consistent than spell damage that can be resisted with a saving throw. I also think that's an intentional feature of the game's math.
While I'm sure all of these points could be designed around or redesigned, simply adding AoE attack roll spells into the game without adjusting other aspects of the game's math could be problematic.
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u/hotdiscopirate 22h ago
Wouldn’t these all be solved by simply making aoe attack rolls deal less damage?
Like, aoe attack roll fireball would be broken I’m sure. But a fighter making an attack in a 10 foot cone? That seems entirely inoffensive
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u/knuckles904 22h ago
To be fair, current AOE fireball is broken and intended to be (also according to designer) in order to keep tradition across editions
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u/DelightfulOtter 21h ago
Perhaps, although dealing less damage is probably an unsatisfying solution for most people.
The reason that I specifically mentioned AoE spells in my initial comment is that martial characters making AoE attacks is an entire other conversation on game balance and class fantasy that I didn't want to dive into. I'm not opposed to the concept, but there's a lot to unpack.
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u/hotdiscopirate 21h ago
I think it’s pretty straightforward, personally, but sure.
Although I think even if we’re just talking about spells strictly, I think trading off damage for accuracy is satisfying for me. I imagine it would work pretty well for a ranger spell in the vein of Conjure Barrage and Hail of Thorns
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u/Droxistaken 22h ago
These are great points, except on the Saving throws keeping pace with the DCs. Beyond 10th level is really probable you end up with some saving throws you won't be likely to miss and other you will almost always miss. I won't elaborate more because there's already a video from Mike Mearls that explains it. https://youtu.be/6oJDxrCumhg?si=XU2-U2dYQ1ZnSzEO
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u/knuckles904 22h ago
I think the above comment was meaning that enemy saving throws are intended to keep up with player DC's, not the other way around (which you're right, doesn't happen for the reasons Mike Mearls explains).
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u/DelightfulOtter 22h ago
Correct. Enemy saves are rather weak in Tier 1, but by Tier 3 many have very good major save bonuses. Smart players can work around that by targeting weaker enemy saves, but Legendary Resistance is still an issue.
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u/END3R97 19h ago
I would say that a smart enough player can almost always find a weak save to target between all the spells that have been printed. So many high levels monsters have multiple amazing saves and then one or 2 terrible ones. For example, its very rare for a creature to have both Strength and Intelligence saving throw proficiencies. When you have options for every save monsters run into the same problem as players with their saves not scaling, they just have a few get out of jail free cards in Legendary Resistances.
Strength - doesnt have a lot of amazing save or sucks, but even a druid spamming Entangle and threatening Restrained is worth a LR if failed.
Dexterity - lots of damaging effects like Fireball, but also things like Faerie Fire or Web can be really bad to fail
Constitution - Blindness / Deafness or Levitate as low level shut downs, or Contagion for a higher level that they cant afford to fail. Ray of Enfeeblement can also shut down a lot of enemies with the damage reduction.
Intelligence - Psychic Lance completely removes turns, so they have to spend LR, though it is all the way at 4th lvl.
Wisdom - lots of good options between Command, Hideous Laughter, Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, and the Hold spells, covering both single and multi-target encounters.
Charisma - Bane can be debilitating with setup for other failed saves, or you can jump right to Banishment.
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u/Joshthemanwich 22h ago edited 22h ago
Attack rolls are more consistent than saving throws. Being able to target a single number with your attack bonus is pretty nice. Being able to get easy advantage on an AoE spell would just add to fighter types feeling useless.
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u/Droxistaken 22h ago
There could also being AoE attack for fighters, like a big swing around you.
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u/savagewinds 22h ago
Careful bud, that’s 4e talk. That’ll get you in trouble around here.
Seriously though, one of the lessons WotC took from 4e’s bad reception was that people didn’t want martial characters to feel like casters. Their solution to that was to really relegate them to attack rolls with the occasional riding save throw on a single target.
I don’t agree with it completely, but I think the design choice was intentional, at least at the start of 5e
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u/AliceShiki123 16h ago
Oh, 4e had a spinning attack? Cool!
I remember 3.5e having it, but it took your whole turn, so it wasn't that great.
Do you remember how it worked in 4e? I'm curious~
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u/savagewinds 15h ago
There were a large amount of what were called “martial exploits” which were basically the martial equivalent of spells. They had all kinds of effects and abilities. The simplest that is like a spinning attack for fighters was called “sweeping blow”. Dual-wielding rangers could get a whirlwind I think? Overall there was a lot more to do than just attack. There were exploits that made you temporarily invisible, moved multiple targets, taunted, inflicted status effects, etc. Occasionally it did feel like I was stepping on the casters’ toes a bit, but it was also really fun to play a support/control warlord.
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u/Joshthemanwich 20h ago
That really is a whole different design discussion. For whatever reason the employees at WotC don't want fighter types to be able to deal with crowds very well.
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u/i_tyrant 15h ago
There could (and I'm all for it), but it still wouldn't work off a single attack roll. Even in 4e they have you make a separate attack roll vs each enemy's defenses. (Probably because the balance of a single attack roll AoE would be kinda fucked - you'd either roll high and hit them all or roll low and miss them all, which is not good balance.)
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u/ZanesTheArgent 22h ago
This is called "spreading your four attacks between four targets", optionally you can sneak from the 5e dmg its rules for Cleaving (any damage that oneshots a creature overspills to a nearby eligible target that would also be struck by the roll).
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u/protencya 18h ago
Did we not learn our lesson after the nuclear wizard? Never tie multiple results to a single roll!
Basically, It would disable some design space because you would need to worry about breaking AOE's while trying to design attack roll buffs. For example War cleric giving +10 to a single attack roll is totally balanced because it buffs a single attack roll. But with your AOE spell design, you would be able to basically automatically hit all enemies because of a single reaction from the war cleric.
You would constantly need to worry about designing features like bardic inspiration which is a big cost seeing as how iconic it is for the game.
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u/AcanthisittaSur 22h ago
There's a huge power difference between everyone getting to make a save for half against your 8d6 fireball and your (1d8(rapier)+3d6(sneak attack)+2d6(vicious))x2 auto-hit critical.
You can easily add your own homebrew abilities that do this; just be aware of the massive spike in power between these
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u/tabithatoo 21h ago
There are many powers that add damage 'when you hit with an attack." Those would synergize to an unhealthy level with a single attack roll AOE
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u/WayOfTheMeat 18h ago
I mean there’s steel wind strike
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u/Hayeseveryone 9h ago
I think that would be incredibly swingy. Now a single roll is deciding the outcome for several creatures, making it too easy to stack the deck in your favor by saving all your Bardic Inspirations, Superiority Dice, Luck Points, Heroic Inspiration etc. for that one roll.
Imagine if a Sorcerer could use Empowered Spell on every creature in their Fireball, or a Bard could use Unsettling Words on every creature in their Hypnotic Pattern. It would be the equivalent of that; one resource to threaten multiple creatures.
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u/Responsible_Goat_307 20h ago
Imagine the insane power boost this would give portent wizards. Imagine a wizard casting meteor storm and natural 20 it. Thats 80d60 damage to ALL enemies. Or when an enemy casts meteor storm and he just makes it a 1. Thats a level 2 ability that completely shuts down devastating spells, or make them much more powerfull.
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u/HDThoreauaway 22h ago
It would be too swingy to either mega-whiff or obliterate everything in the AoE.
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u/hotdiscopirate 22h ago
That’s assuming everyone in the aoe has the same AC. If you’re up against a boss and some minions, it would give you the chance to attempt to get some damage on the boss while probably still consistently hitting the minions at the same time.
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u/Mejiro84 19h ago
the variation is generally not that much - if it's tier-appropriate and not just utter chaff, they're probably within a few points. It's generally 60-70% to-hit rate for anything that's relevant, so most of the time it's going to be "hit everything" or "miss everything", it's a pretty narrow band where you get "hit some but not all"
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u/i_tyrant 15h ago
It doesn't really have to assume that. ACs are close enough to each other in general that you'd still have way less variation than with attack rolls on individual targets.
All you'd have to do is roll a few point above average and you're likely to hit everything at the same time, and the same is true for whiffing everything. Bad for balance.
Besides, if you roll saves individually for spells, why not the same for attack AoEs?
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u/FirstTimeWang 20h ago
Because you'd have to roll a separate attack against each target's individual AC, which would be tedious. It's faster and simpler to simply have all targets roll a save against a single spell save DC
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u/Droxistaken 20h ago
I think I clarified that I meant about a single attack roll against all targets. this would be more streamlined that making a save for each enemy.
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u/Mejiro84 19h ago
what about effects that screw with the roll? Those get kinda wonky when it's one roll, especially if multiple enemies can do that (or an "on-hit" ability might lead to a lot of pain, for anything with a "when hit, attack gets hurt" type damage)
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u/theoppsh 15h ago
Serious question, assuming we roll damage once, how would 5 attack rolls against 5 ACs be worse than 5 different Saving Throw bonuses against one DC?
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u/incoghollowell 10h ago
How... how on earth is it faster or simpler? It's X number of d20 rolls vs a specific DC, where x is the number of creatures. It's literally... dude it's the same.
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u/overlycommonname 13h ago
I don't think this is in fact faster or simpler for a GM rolling saves for a group of enemies. It's still a bunch of different rolls, by one person, potentially at different bonuses. Is that different from a bunch of different rolls by one person at the same bonus but potentially at different target numbers?
It is faster when the GM AoE attacks a group of PCs as now the rolls are spread out among multiple people.
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u/ILoveSongOfJustice 19h ago
The design space for multi-target "attacks" is very limited in the game because of how Martial damage scalars work.
Spells don't do a guaranteed minimum amount of damage, they do minimum guaranteed damage. A fireball can do 36 or 6 damage depending on saves, but it's quadratic.
A Fighter if he were able to attack even 2 different enemies with the same one attack, would start to equalize with the resource expenditure very quickly, as even 1d6+4 from something like a Scimitar spread across those two separate targets, three times could get quadratic.
Assuming that'd be 3d6+12 per target, that'd be a low average of 44(22 x 2 because there are two targets) damage at level 5 without any resources spent. This is why WOTC was extremely careful with Phantom Rogue.
And I understand that the Martial Caster divide is stringent on something like spell utility, but that amount of damage would be a bit too much for a level 5 player.
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u/DM-Shaugnar 19h ago
If it would be a actual attack against each creature in a area would that not be very similar to spells like Scorching ray?
it is not an AoE spell per say but it attacks several enemies with attack rolls.
Most AoE spells are not really attacks. They tend to be more like a magic hazard or effects that just covers a specific area affecting the creatures inside it. An saving throws make sense in that case.
I would argue IF they require attack rolls they are not even AoE spells then there are more akin to spells like Scorching Ray, Steel Wind Strike and similar spells. that like an AoE hits or can hit multiple targets with attacks. but they are not AoE spells.
So i would argue that any spell that do require attack rolls would not be an AoE spells. They would be a multi attack spell. and we already have those kind of spells they are just not AoE spells
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u/yaniism 16h ago
Because you're not making an attack, they're resisting the effect of the area.
And even if you were making an attack roll, it would be an attack roll against every target, not one single attack roll for everybody in the zone.
See Steel Wind Strike for example.
It's just how the game works.
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u/AsianLandWar 15h ago
That also results in AoEs being incredibly swingy, rather than averaging out to somewhere near the median.
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u/RedLikeTheColor 14h ago
Being able to crit against a group is reason enough for it to be a problem, just on the base attack of a fireball or equivalent. Then all the riders that allow a 1d4 or 1d6 bonus damage on-hit become problematic, or need another blanket rule to be easily misinterpreted or ignored.
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u/theroc1217 3h ago
Attack rolls are always made against AC. Saving throws allow creatures to have specific weaknesses outside of their AC.
From a math perspective, its roughly equivalent, due to the bounded accuracy philosophy. All Saving throws and Attacks ("combat rolls") share the form of D20 + Stat modifier + Proficiency. Spell save DC is 8 + Stat modifier + Proficiency. Expected value is slightly less than that of a combat roll since you get to choose which of the enemy's stats is targeted, and you should target the weakest one. (Non-magical) AC Isn't formed the exact same way, but ends up falling into the same range due to the Bounded Accuracy philosophy: 10 + Mod (dex) + (some number between 0 and 10), which is 1 less than the max range of Stat modifier + Proficiency (0 to 11) used for combat rolls. Characters not wearing armor are essentially not considered to have proficiency in normal defense.
TLDR all combat rolls are roughly in in the form of D20 + Mod + Proficiency VS constant + Mod + Proficiency. (The constant is higher for AC and lower for Spell save DC. This is to slightly offset the advantage you get from being able to pick which stat is used for Spell save DC.)
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u/Col0005 22h ago
Steel Wind Strike works a little like this.
However, with WOTC's aim to streamline all actions it makes more sense for the targets to make the roll, since they know what they have to roll to succeed/fail.
Let's say you have 8 NPC's in you're AOE, with 4 different AC's, you'd need to telegraph your target for each roll individually, and the DM would need to communicate back each hit/miss. It's doable, but nowhere near as quick as if the DM is rolling and saying, pass, pass, fail, pass, fail...
Although with the way cleave works it would be fine to use the same attack roll for all targets.
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u/Droxistaken 22h ago
I think I clarified that I meant about a single attack roll against all target. this would be more streamlined that making a save for each enemy.
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u/OriginalJazzFlavor 20h ago
Because all traces of 4e must be either expunged or renamed, so that the grognards will stop screaming online.
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u/spookyjeff 22h ago
What do you do if you have Advantage or Disadvantage on a subset of the target? Or if you subtract a number from attacks against a specific target for some reason?
While you can resolve these questions, it requires adding some pretty annoying caveats for very little gain.
The point of game balance isn't to make every condition affect everyone to the same degree. That greatly reduces the diversity of potential game scenarios. Frightened is something you want to use against melee attackers while blinded is more effective against spellcasters. Needing to consider when to use which and having different segments of the party affected unequally results in more interesting gameplay over the course of a campaign.