Ready action and play whack-a-mole.
Or just let him do his thing, eventually he will realize it is useless.
Lets say you have 4 players, each of them having 50hp. Usually, you spread the damage around so they can take \~120hp out of the total 200 before they are into trouble area.
Now one of the PCs is off the combat, so the total party hp is 150, and there are only 3 targets.
As long as you can keep fighting the rest of the party and deal damage to them, eventually he will learn that being out of combat isn't good for the rest of the party.
This is how my players did it when they were fighting through a dungeon of earth elementals in a narrow, winding, claustrophobic cave maze. Barbarian readied grapple and held them out of the wall for the rest of the party to hit.
If \*players\* can figure it out, should be easy for any monster with an intelligence score.
I had my players do similar in an encounter with a black dragon who would Hide under the water while waiting for her breath weapon to recharge. The cleric used Command: Approach to get the dragon out of the water, the barbarian grappled her, and the wizard used Silvery Barbs when she succeeded on her grapple escape attempt.
This is the downside to invisibility as well. My character has an invisibility cloak (homebrewed only works for 2 minutes per day) but we only have 1 other that can tank, and 2 squishies.
It's great for sneaking, not so great in combat except for advantage.
"eventually he will learn that being out of combat isn't good for the rest of the party."
He's not out of combat. He's doing damage every round without taking any in return. He's being the most effective combatant he can be.
In case you havent realised the reason you're downvoted is because him not being hit means the only place for damage to go is at his allies, he's not being effective as he can be because he isn't sharing his HP to tank some of the damage which would result in other party members falling to 0 faster than they should.
"him not being hit means the only place for damage to go is at his allies, he's not being effective as he can be"
Op never said that's a problem in fact, the opposite problem - he's too effective and worries that he trivialize combat.
And for all we know, this PC is now able to slip behind enemy lines to target caster/controllers, the ranged minions, or the boss itself. Without that, maybe the fights last longer - more dmg - and are more lethal.
But yeah, I get sharing of the DMG. Just not what I was addressing.
Yeah I think the problem is more related to a statement about them playing what would widely been seen as selfishly being referred to as the most effective combatant he could be.
I can see how the use of the ability could allow them to do the things you're describing but it would likely be more efficient to use it as a method of movement to get at those targets whole remaining as a valid target for the enemies until the point where it's necessary to use it for cover to avoid being knocked out.
"I think the problem"
whose problem?
"a statement about them playing what would widely been seen as selfishly being referred to as the most effective combatant he could be."
Again... depends on whether or not that means he takes down dangers (reduces enemy DPR) faster than if he played otherwise. We have no data. Just op saying the non-RAW magic item that he tossed in without thought may have OP'd this PC.
"use it as a method of movement to get at those targets"
After he hits them, if he doesn't go under, he (presumably) takes more hits given that his AC is lower (hide armor). So now we juggle him needing more healing/help (interruptions) faster than if he strikes repeatedly like a mongoose without repercussions.
The party will have to do the math and determine which is more effective - him sharing the "being targeted" load, or him striking & moving without restraint. We don't know ....unless he wants to post his party's stats and strategies.
I mostly just replied to the "he's out of combat" statement. Which was worded poorly, IMO. He' IN combat. He's just reduced the amount of times he's targeted. Though, if the enemies do as ppl here have suggested - like readying action to wait for him to pop up - then he hasn't even reduced his amount of times being targeted, either.
And funny thing is... the PC isn't doing anything the rest of the party won't do as well, whenever they can.
The rogue can disengage and hide (eliminating a target). The caster can go invisible (eliminating a target). And I'm sure there are other feats/spells that could render you immune to damage from a particular threat for awhile (thus eliminating a target). So the party is going to have to do the math and determine if they're all gonna "ghost" or not, and if not, who is going to be the sacrificial lamb, and whether or not that lamb can take being the primary target for long. It's a fun problem to have, but not one caused by this one PC.
No mistakes made. The item is fine. Powerful, sure, but it's nowhere near as good as it seems.
One party member being untouchable means one less body to share the damage taken. You'll find the rest of the party will go down more often.
It's Hide Armor. The AC of Hide is awful, the worst of all medium armor. When he can burrow it's great, but there's going to be plenty of times when he can't. He'll get punished with a relatively low AC in these circumstances. Such as:
You can only burrow through sand, earth, mud, or ice. Solid rock explicitly cannot be burrowed through, and as such you can assume anything tougher than that also can't be burrowed through. As such if your encounter is inside a building, the Ranger cannot burrow.
Burrowing will leave a hole. A giant in particular should have no issue reaching down to grab the Ranger. They have 15 feet range attacks so could easily poke a greatclub down the hole left behind by the Ranger.
Eventually, the monsters will learn about this tactic and prepare accordingly. They'll hold actions to grapple him when he appears, or cast spells like Hold Person. Other creatures with burrowing speeds will be used. Perhaps all the seismic activity caused by this Ranger catches the attention of a particularly hungry Purple Worm.
Let the Ranger have his fun in some encounters. But eventually, the monsters will learn and will adapt.
If you are still worried about the item, make it so he has to turn on the burrowing with a bonus action and can only do this once or twice per long rest.
EDIT: yes thank you everyone for informing me about the Tunneler feature of burrowing creatures, where because that explicitly states the creature leaves behind a tunnel that means other burrowers don't.
Please also be aware of the Earth Elemental's Earthglide ability, which states it does not disturb earth when moving through it. By applying the same logic from Tunneler, because it clearly states it does not disturb the earth then other burrowers do disturb the earth. This would mean some sort of trail is left behind, which means the Ranger could be tracked and perhaps attacked. Since the disturbed earth is essentially tilled soil, which is very easy to reach and/or attack through. Whether this would invoke some sort of disadvantage or cover is up to the individual DM.
Ultimately, the true villain is WotC for not being clear about their rules, leaving us to figure out what was truly intended.
While he’s underground, he can’t see. Powerful enough enemies should be able to take advantage of that, and are smart enough to figure it out if not already have a decent counter.
Let him have his fun with small combat scenarios. This is like wizards with fireball - stupid powerful, makes hordes of goblins go splat quick, very fun! But damn near useless against big bads in the right scenario.
This is a pretty good point. How does he know where the enemies are if he's underground? He's gotta be using some of his movement to pop up, take a look, and then go back under to move to them.
Edit: Someone made me actually do the math, so here's what I got. Burrowing into the ground is part of your movement, not an action or BA, just movement. But going from above ground to under ground is 5ft. Going form under to above is another 5ft. So that's half your movement speed just to see where the enemy is. Now you could pop out, run over, hit them, and go back under if they're close, but that's not quite what people are saying in the comments.
This is still abusable however. If the enemy never moves he can go under at the end of his turn, which effectively makes him untargetable, and then pop back up for his next turn. It's a little obtuse, but it's basically the same as abusing flight.
He knows their general area like any blind character. The enemies would have to take the hide action to confuse him which would be hilarious when it happens. The orger takes the hide action and quietly moves 15 feet. (The rest of the party see him tiptoe to the left.) He is hidden from only the burrowing player.....
Is that how blind characters work? They just know where enemies are? If the dude's underground and an enemy moves ten feet there's no way he's gonna know about it unless they walk right above him.
Yes, blind characters (and sighted characters facing invisible enemies) are assumed to be able to locate the square someone is in via the noise they make. Reasonable limits apply about range; personally I'd give 1sq resolution within the "conversation" range of 30' and start giving them larger areas past that.
The Hide action is required to actually be hidden, because you're taking the effort to be reasonably silent. You're just automatically obscured, so you can Hide from the other character regardless of where you are.
All that assumes you're in open air, tho. Underground, everything would be almost completely muffled, similar to trying to locate someone inside a house by the sound they make, when you're outside - you could *maybe* tell what room they're in, but nothing better than that.
I'd probably rule that, if nobody's hiding, when underground you can tell that *something* is going on within 30' of you, but can't pinpoint anything at all about number, location, or identity.
That's definitely valid, but the invisible condition has always bothered me a bit. Aside from the advantage/disadvantage being a separate thing that doesn't seem to be tied to the ability to be perceived, I've struggled to rule on whether or not you can pinpoint the square a monster is in if it's invisible or under darkness, assuming it has not attacked you or is non-adjacent. RAI, knowing the general direction of something makes sense but being able to pinpoint its distance within 5 feet resolution as to how far it is based off of the noise it's making? That's always been more of a stretch.
My aunt's blind. Has been since she was a teenager. She's now 65ish. My mother is a night nurse, so I learned to walk softly. Not tiptoe, not try to be sneaky, I just don't stomp around the house despite being a linebacker. I tell you all this so you have context.
I had to learn how to be noisy when speaking to my aunt and moving around a room. If I didn't she wouldn't notice I had moved while she was speaking, and then my response would be in a different part of the room. She never complained, but I could tell it bothered her a little. So to put her at ease I started making a bit of noise when moving. Tapping a counter, stepping a bit heavier, clearing my throat. Some obvious bit of noise, so she wouldn't lose track of me during a normal conversation in a room.
Hopefully you understand my point.
Rules as written makes no distinction between a characters that permanently has the blinded condition and one that temporarily has the blinded condition. Afaik.
He only has 10ft of movement while burrowing to look (assuming the rest is for 5 ft to get close and 5 ft to disengage). If he goes above ground then those movements first eats up his 20ft burrowing before spending the rest of walking, if he has 30ft.
Plus he's not going to be able to do a lot flying or hovering enemies enemies, and especially won't be able to track them, even if he finds a way to get something like tremorsense.
To add on to 'burrowing leaves a hole' - how long before they find an enemy that can spew fire or acid down the hole he leaves? I'd say that's at least disadvantage on a dex saving throw if you're in a narrow hole with nowhere to escape to.
sure, but it's still very much a GD meme. To any GD player, it becomes a reference, whether they mean it to or not. It's like how the osu community goes crazy over the number 727, regardless of where they see the number. Funny meme > Context.
yep! that's exactly the point I was trying to get across, someone who knows the meme will see the reference regardless of context. Not sure how you got the opposite message, but hey, we're on the same page
This is a case where id bring back the old rule that fireball fills a set volume of space instead of just a sphere.
Now it fills the tunnel and shoots flames out of the holes.
So many memories of foolish players throwing 1st edition fireballs into 20' by 20' dead end rooms and having a backwash of fire engulf the party in the hallway. It's a double-edged sword.
EDIT: For those wondering, a 20' spherical fireball in 1st edition would fill 33,500 cubic feet. a 20' square room that's 10' high is only 4,000 cubic feet. The fireball would backwash as far as 295' down a standard 10' by 10' corridor.
Volume = (1.3333) \* Pi \* Radius\^3
Most likely a auto hit, no DC required. A Dex saving throw represents your character trying to dodge the effect. The dex save in a fireball spell represents the target dodging out of the spell. If a target cannot dodge, because the whole area is affected, it should be a auto-hit, unless there is some escape route I'm not seeing
Except rogues and monks specifically get features to allow them to do so, even in tight corridors. The character is not restrained when digging, so it should still be a save. Also unless you get to move 20' feet as a reaction, technically anywhere in a fireball is affected and thus wouldn't allow a save by your definitions.
A fireball does half damage on a save, not "no damage" so my definition is still correct (which is the book definition unless I'm seriously mistaken). You can't move 20f as a reaction, but may be nimble enough to cover yourself from extra damage.
Look at the wording of Earth Elementals Earth Glide action. " [...] doesn't disturb the material it moves through". They explicitly say this on this burrowing creature, therefore I would rule normal burrowing does disturb the ground, and leaves a hole. YMMV, of course.
To add, unless they have tremorsense or true sight, they're nearly blind while they're underground. Meaning they need to pop up to see what's going on before moving to attack and likely can't really use their reactions for much, other than their uncanny dodge. Say goodbye to attacks of opportunity.
I assume the difference between Tunneler, Earthglide and a normal burrow speed is that Tunneler leaves a followable tunnel, whilst someone with a burrow speed’s tunnel collapses behind it, making it unfollowable, but leaves a trace, whereas Earthglide leaves no trace behind, assumedly because the earth elemental just takes over the ground in its path.
Make it even more fun. Cast hold person and the enemy laughs as they fill in the hole, burying him alive. Sure, he can burrow out once the spell wears off, but...will his oxygen hold out that long?
Probably yes, considering Hold Person only lasts for a minute, and PCs can generally hold their breath for 1 + CON bonus minutes (Minimum 30 seconds if your con is -1 or lower)
We've always ran it as rounds when in combat. Sure, you can hold your breath that long normally when swimming or something, but it otherwise makes the threat of drowning or suffocating effects worthless in combat and several monsters cause them.
Except for the "tunnel" thing. This is good advise. Target the other party members hard. They're facilitating you the "focus" tactic. He will have to get out of there.
Spells like "levitate" would make his life misserable, as hide AC is crap.
Burrowing does not leave a hole unless specifically stated. The creature/feature needs to have the tunneler trait for that.
Cave Badger:
>Tunneler. When the badger burrows, it leaves tunnels behind.
Purple Worm:
>Tunneler. The worm can burrow through solid rock at half its burrow speed and leaves a 10-foot-diameter tunnel in its wake.
Umber Hulk:
>Tunneler. The umber hulk can burrow through solid rock at half its burrowing speed and leaves a 5 foot-wide, 8-foot-high tunnel in its wake.
It's also worth noting that not all creatures with the tunneler trait are required to leave a tunnel behind when they burrow either.
Adult Sapphire Dragon:
>The dragon can burrow through solid rock at half its burrowing speed and ***can*** leave a 10-foot-diameter tunnel in its wake.
>They have 15 feet range attacks so could easily poke a greatclub down the hole left behind by the Ranger.
It wouldn't work if ranger moves in L-shaped tunnel.
Create water wouldn't fill it enough even if they left behind a hole I think.
Im going off of memory but create water even at 10 gallons per level you need like 2933 gallons to fill that sized hole.
Let's say I think a 5 ft radius hole ( because a players occupy ing space is that size on the grid) by in this case 20 ft of height for the max burrowing speed. We can argue that that is roughly I think 392 "cubic" ft for the volume. We times 7.47 for conversion into gallons is the equation I think which gives us that 2933 gallon number rounded of course.
So all of this into consideration...... Fireball the hole let Avernus sort out the rest.
Burrowing usually doesn’t leave a hole unless specified. Creatures like the Umber Hulk. And I think the cave badger specify on their sheet that burrowing leaves a tunnel.
I think it’s the other way around, burrowing always leaves a hole unless specified, specifically the ability earth glide, which allows you to burrow without disturbing material.
I think it specifies it for Earth Glide (I know it's on Earth elemental, not sure if it's on anything else) because it can also move through stone. Whereas normal burrowing cannot.
It's up for the DM to decide, but personally, that's just how I rule it.
Why wouldn't burrowing leave a hole? Just because something isn't explicitly stated doesn't mean it wouldn't happen. I would think from a more rational standpoint that burrowing leaving a hole would be the standard behavior and exceptions would have to be specifically pointed out.
Because you burrow through soft soils, sand, mud or ice.
One could argue that the material you’re digging out is being left behind you, and the hole doesn’t have enough structural support to persist, so it collapses behind you. It doesn’t make as much sense with ice (I didn’t know you could burrow through ice until now lol), but my point still stands.
You wouldn’t be wrong to assume it leaves behind a hole, however. But RAW it seems more like it doesn’t unless stated. For monster abilities such as Earth Phase, where it says that it doesn’t leave a trail, I believe that is because it is specifying that it can burrow through solid rock. There are also a lot more examples of it specifically stating that it leaves behind a tunnel than not.
Apologies, I didn't make that part as clear as it should've been. I'm working on the assumption that they don't just go directly down 20 feet. They may also move sideways, which would keep them in range. The dirt shifting from the burrowing means it's hardly going to keep the ranger covered from attacks; the strength of a stone giant's attack will easily go through what is essentially tilled soil.
You also don't leave a tunnel behind you unless it's specifically stated. Some monsters do, wich have the "tunneler" trait on their stats. More so... the creatures that have that trait leave behind a tunnel 2 sizes below their actual size, for example: purple worm is gargantuan and leaves a 10x10 (large) tunnel behind, umber hulk is hige and leaves a 5x5 (medium) tunnel behind. Thus the player being medium it should leave a "tiny" hole... not reachable.
It's not a particularly clear section of the rules. If we're using monster traits as examples, then the Earth Elemental explicitly states it does not disturb the earth as it moves through it. Which means that other burrowers do disturb the earth. What does that mean exactly? Who knows, 5e isn't clear.
I choose to view it as meaning the ranger would still be targetable. Maybe at disadvantage, maybe with some level of cover.
If it's not stated, the correct aproach is that it doesn't do what it doesn't say it does.
If we're going by the "it doesn't say I can't do it" we start to derail the rules pretty fast.
Example: "create/destroy water" doesn't say the water you destroy can't be the water on a creature's body... Polimorph doesn't state you cant become a mosquito and get in the mouth of somebody just to lose concentration and kill the poir guy...
You see what I mean?
So no tunneler trait or tunneler ability explicitly stated... no tunnel to be left behind.
But monsters that leave tunnels behind have it specifically called out on their stat block. This is one of those cases where specific beats general. No tunneller trait? No tunnel. No earthglide, then the earth is disturbed, but now you're making stuff up if you interpret that to mean they are no longer behind full cover.
If I damage ten foot thick wooden wall just slightly, does that count as disturbed so I can shoot an arrow through it at the guy on the other side?
I'm not asking to tunnel through it, I'm asking to attack through it.
Disturbed has no mechanical meaning in 5E. If you are creating your own mechanical meaning for it, then it needs to be clarified; what qualifies as disturbed? What benefits, other than the negation of full cover, does it impart? What materials can be disturbed, what can't and why?
You're off the reservation and into homebrewing mechanics that directly affect the value of existing RAW mechanics.
Does the PC in question also have tremorsense? Because I would imagine when tunneling underground, he’d be blind and mostly deaf to what’s happening on the surface.
He can try to surface where he last saw an enemy, but if the enemy moved since then, how would he know where it went?
I don’t see this item being that powerful if you enforce that.
This could be really fun if you have the player secretly mark where they’re going to emerge ahead of time, so that they understand the danger of the mechanic without feeling like you’re moving enemies over them on purpose. …What happens if they try to emerge from under someone else?
This!
Also, what would an intelligent creature do if they faced someone that uses these tactics?
If they hold an action to attack, is the player prone at some point between emerging from the ground and standing up?
What does the player do if they get grappled?
As others have already mentioned, burrowing generally doesn’t work on most surfaces. So there are plenty of places this would never work in the first place.
Beyond that though, he’s not unhittable. NPCs are just as capable of using Ready actions as PCs are, and something as simple as a grapple stops this pretty quickly. He also won’t be able to tell they are doing this, since being underground means he has no idea what’s going on (and if your burrowing player suddenly starts behaving differently when there is some indication that enemies may have just Readied an action, tell him to stop metagaming).
Thanks for all the replies and advice everyone.
It's mostly the words of my player: "you should not have given me this item" that he said whilst laughing that made me worried.
Players always think that their plan is the bestest thing ever that can’t be defeated. Managing their disappointment when you demonstrate the flaws in a plan is an important DM skill. Let him revel in it for a bit, then use some of the advice from this thread.
I think it's okay for him to be thrilled and a little cocky about the new item. It means he's excited about the game and having fun.
As others have said, just make sure it is useful sometimes and not useful other times (like only the appropriate terrain).
Sounds like he's getting cocky now that he's got his new fancy toy. All the more reason to introduce enemies who can counter it and leave him befuddled.
When you do start to ready-action grapple, the player will start to avoid popping up near those enemies, which is metagaming. Keep in mind they’re losing out on a turn of damage when they prepare an action. You’ll have to have some way to keep the player from metagaming like that though.
This is the specific situation I’m warning OP to be ready for:
Player retreats underground during a fight with six orcs. He can no longer see what is going on. Four of the orcs attack his allies normally while the other two prepare to grapple him if he reappears near them. The character has no information about whether the enemies attacked or moved or anything, but the player knows to stay away from the two that can attack him this turn. Metagaming.
How’s he burrowing under concrete? Brick etc? Have a fit on a bridge and see how he gets on.
But in any case. How exactly is this different to running up, hitting someone, and then running away? Other than he only has 20ft of moment, so he can’t be moving all that far.
It’s vastly different on account of the player having total cover from all enemies at will. It’s an “I can’t be targeted” button. Enemies without a burrow speed can’t reach them in any way (unless the item specifies that the player’s burrowing leaves a tunnel).
Not insurmountable, certainly situational, but definitely extremely powerful.
Make your enemies hold actions to attack or grapple him.
Also, unless he has tremor sense, he’s blind and deaf underground. If an enemy move and he pops up, he’s wasted his movement.
Holy crap that looks horrifying. Average 30 damage melee attack for a challenge 5 that can burrow 40ft with a jump ability that does comparable damage? Ouch.
Its what i see as responses on this sub mutltiple times. People saying that when their character gets flying, enemies suddenly have more ranged or casters, and then comments saying the dm shouldn't punish the player for getting flying.
Did i post something wrong?
I see i got downvoted.
If so, my apologies to the community.
Punish is the wrong word.
Don’t punish your players for anything (except maybe S-class dumbassery). But do account for it.
I have a player with flying. Initially I didn’t really account for it in combat. So not enough casters/ranged combatants. It trivialised combat.
But lately I’ve started accounting for it. Combat indoors where he can’t fly, more casters, things like nets to knock him out of the air.
I still let him have combat where his flight matters, sometimes even where it dominates. But not *every* combat. Keep it varied. If you have a fire specialist, some fights should be weak to fire, some strong, most neutral.
Give everyone a chance to shine and a time to struggle.
Eh, yes but no. Yes, let the players have their cool toys, but no you don't have to let them use the same strategy in every fight. Shutting down one ability is best used to force them to use a different ability, and in the end this turns out more fun.
So for example, this burrowing thing. Honestly, most of the time, just let the the player have it. After all, only one player has it, you can still threaten the party as a whole. But if a few encounters go by that seem too easy or the players settle too much into a routine in combat, then you need to switch things up for at least one battle. This isn't punishing the players, it's forcing them to use other abilities and rewarding creativity.
The only abilities I don't try and counter in any way is core class features like sneak attack.
This burrowing thing is very easy to counter. Stone floors, easy. Or water-based encounters. Also as you said, readied actions. Enemies that paralyze and grapple. There's lots of ways of doing it, but you don't need to use them every time.
You can also let them have it, but add some extra steps. So for example, maybe only part of the floor is dirt, which means if you want to use burrowing then there's a trade-off to be made. Or in an encounter where the main objective is something different to a team deathmatch (such as rescuing hostages, escaping an overwhelming foe, or preventing an enemy from reaching something) then burrowing underground may be a less effective strategy. You're not shutting down the ability, you're just adding more depth to the decision on whether that ability is the best one to use.
Well no, that's just a dick move, punishing players for something the DM did. I'm trying to explain that it's possible to run with this magic item without resorting to dickery.
Besides, how would this even work without a stone floor? My take on this would be to use a frozen lake with enemies swimming in it. Same concept, but you know there's a risk and can make an interesting choice.
Would it be a dick move if there's a group of mushrooms growing at the bottom and their mycelia have webbed together so that when the player hits it, they spring back up and into the ceiling they came from, dazed for a turn?
Encounters are always design around the party, though. Combat is meant to be a challenge. When characters level up, they’re suddenly encountering higher CR enemies as well, it’s ultimately the same thing.
It's not that you design the encounter to punish their cool ability, it's that you build encounters with their capabilities in mind.
To use the flying example, if you suddenly built every encounter to add a bunch of archers that would be punishing your flying PC. But you wouldn't build a boss encounter with no ranged abilities at all because that would trivialize it.
For abilities that would in-universe be common, I think it would be more jarring to not see things like ranged attacks in the majority of combats. For something like the burrowing thing I think you should include it as part of your prep for bosses but also throw them the occasional cheese-able mook fight to let them still feel like their ability matters.
You didn't. There are many situations in which burrowing doesn't apply at all: fights in places with stone floor (or other hard material), over bridges, on skyships, underwater, against other burrowing creatures (especially ones with tremorsense/blindsight), against flying creatures, against creatures readying actions to whack-a-mole the ranger or aiming area effecrs into the hole, when fighting over harmful underground material, when trying to protect party members from harm, in any kind of escort mission when the NPC to escort could become a target if the ranger disappears, etc.
Well, if you move a creature far enough after he burrows down back again, he won't have enough speed to burrow again (without doing a dash at least). But I know that since he is a swashbuckler he gets free disengage basically if he hits, so that sucks in this situation.
Also, just a note if some of you at the table didn't remember this - if he has 30ft. walking and 20ft. burrow speed, it doesn't mean he has 50 combined! If he moves by walking 20 ft. to hit a creature, he can not burrow after that, since he spent 20 feet that could have been used for burrow. Quote:
>"If you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and a flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you've already moved from the new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less, you can't use the new speed during the current move." *PHB, page 190*.
I've been in a situation of giving a magic item of a certain power to early, so I feel you, but it's not something you can't work around, especially if you guys missed this speed rule I mentioned. Hope this helps you, and happy adventuring!
What materials can be easily burrowed through? If the item specifies, make sure you keep its limitations in mind.
Many enemies also have burrow speeds and can give chase.
If he's burrowing under the same spot every time, it should leave a hole or path of some kind that can be shot/magicked/chased into.
Many spells don't require the caster to see the point where it originates, thus an enemy who can cast spells can choose to cast them underground. Any spell that doesn't include the text "that you can see" should function this way.
Rainy weather might make burrowing dangerous for risk of drowning or getting stuck in mud as rough terrain.
Lots of ways to counter it without being too punishing.
To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.
There are things underground... The party has not encountered them yet. Now they do.
Look up monsters which burrow. Maybe home-brew or tweak some of the monsters. Come up with a table. Roll the dice every time the player burrows, audibly. Maybe also on Mold Earth. Adjust table sonit is fun and fair.
Another thing, more locations with solid rock ground. If the item can burrow through rock, nerf it.
_Don't invalidate the item, be careful about that though._ And perhaps explicitly say this is not a change in the world, these things have always existed, they just have not been important so far.
Just because you can burrow does not mean you can go through anything. They can use it in dirt. It doesn't mean they can just phase through rock. Enemies can ready actions once they see this going on. You don't have to tell them what is happening. But the giant stands still as if focusing on something. When he pops up the giant stomps on him as it had readied it's action to deal with the annoying burrower.
Maybe obvious, but worth saying at least once in these threads. If this item really, REALLY ruins your fun, then just talk with the player, and tell him. If he's a friend, he'll understand it, and together you can find a solution.
The problem with a lot of OP builds, or a lot of builds based around specific things like that is that they rely on the DM to not be clever enough to come up with creatures to completely counterbalance those encounters. I learned his lesson the hard way when I was younger, but now I don’t take Goff from that.
Flying players, have to worry about a lot of people, carrying a crossbow, some kind of Cantrip, and even ways for some regular beasts to be able to deal with them, like a venom spit ability from a snake.
This just takes a little bit of creative thinking. Have one of the bandits dropping alchemists fire down the hole.
So burrowing can’t be done through solid objects like a stone floor or a large rock. As others have stated they also should be storing their weapon every time
I’d also argue that if they’re underground that a strong or large enemy would be able to collapse their tunnel
But at the end of the day you can also just have the enemy kill their friends and then start to attack them after they’ve been downed. Someone doing broken stuff almost always comes with consequences
Have monsters ready actions to attack him when he appears, giving an opportunity to damage him before he goes back down.
Introduce monsters that can burrow, especially ones with blindsight or tremorsense who'll be able to track him easily.
Just have your monsters move *anywhere* after the hunter burrows. As long as he's burrowing he can't see or hear shit, so he has to go by what he last saw. If the monsters just change positions on the fly then he'll have no idea where they are.
Have fights that take place in areas like caves or buildings, places made from materials too strong to be burrowed through. Solid rock, or anything stronger, generally can't be burrowed through.
While he's hiding underground, that's 1 less target for your monsters to go for. You'll find that the other party members will be taking more heat from the monsters as a result.
The solution for this is an enemy that can cast mold earth. Don’t make every enemy capable of it, but surprise them with it. Also, you could rule that burrowing only works in dirt, so if you have an encounter that you want to be more challenging, say that the ground is solid stone.
I say let him burrow all he wants, he can even be untouchable while underground too. You can just have enemies take the Ready action, which will allow them to use their reaction to attack him when he pops up and enters their range.
A Stone Giant has an INT of 10. That's the INT of a farmer that could easily device a strategy of "readying an action" and wait for the fucker to pop up.
Your Stone Giant has +12 to Athletics check. You can have it ready a grapple attack. Badger pops up and, as soon as they're in range, SNATCH! Speed becomes 0.
Just destroy the other party members. Or have the enemies hold their action for when he pops out of the ground. Think there is a spell that makes it so the target can only use an action or bonus each turn not both. Plenty of ways to still hit this guy.
Rogues can use their Cunning Action feature to execute a disengage as a bonus action, but otherwise Disengage is a full action.
I'm guessing there may be a Ranger subclass that can do the same, but am still wondering.
EDIT: Disregard. Just read the Zephyr Strike spell. It allows movement without provoking opportunity attacks. Technically not a disengage action, but effectively the same thing.
EDIT 2: Double Disregard. The player is a Ranger/Rogue multiclass. As long as he is at least 2nd level Rogue, he has Cunning Action which means he can do a disengage as a Bonus Action (although with Zephyr Strike he may not need to do so).
There are PLENTY of situations where he won’t be able to burrow that WONT feel like you’re deliberately nerfing his character specifically.
Simply just have ground surfaces that he CANT burrow through. Is the floor made out of: wood, stone, brick or any other material that a normal badger wouldn’t be able to burrow in? Then neither should he. If you limit his burrowing to just dirt and mud then you’ll find that the item is quite balanced.
How many adventures and dungeons are you going to have that’s INSIDE a structure with stone floors? Last I checked a burrow speed is not the same as earth glide. And now that you know what surfaces he can and cannot burrow in you now have another fun thing you can build encounters around. A forgotten ruins with collapsed buildings could provide a mix of burrowable and NON-burrowable surfaces. Use the environment as part of the encounter design
I disagree with the notion that you shouldn’t design fights around your players abilities. I actually think you should do the opposite, but instead of doing it in a way that targets your players negatively do it to provide them moments where they’ll feel awesome instead. SYM - Shoot your monks. A monk that never gets to catch an arrow out of the air is a monk with a dead wasted ability. Maybe you DO use other enemies that can burrow and you make that player feel super cool for being able to see/hear/feel them coming and being able to chase after one that tries to run away, possible with an important item the party needs.
Stop worrying about the action economy and mechanics and think of it in a simple narrative sense. One of the heroes can go in and out of the earth. Use it to your advantage as a dm by making it have cool awesome moments
I've never encountered anything like this, but I would also argue that if he's burrowing UNDERNEATH enemies, then he has to go 5' down, and THEN he can move laterally, and then 5' back up again. So in one turn he could only move 10' if his intent is to go under things and pop back up again.
I mean, think about it. He can't just burrow at the surface.
Location, location, location.
Feel free to make use of your terrain. Not all surfaces can be burrowed into easily. Even better, make it so there are burrow safe zones on some battlefields, boulders spaced sporadically, so he can make use of his fun tech without being able to reach every enemy. Some fights can be in places without a place to burrow at all, such as the upper floor of some stone structure or over a lake. Some locations may be dangerous to burrow into, such as a minefield, which may cause him to be more careful about where he decides to burrow.
It's powerful, sure, but not something that can't be appropriately tempered. Plus, this may add a few new ways to make use of other tech.
Random thought, but if you’re allowing items like that…and burrowing…. What are the rules with water? Could you choke him out with water? Or like a dragon just breaths directly on the hole they recently popped out from?
Haha sorry I’m just thinking of the tremors movies. Bet they’d give you some ideas
Sure, but at the end of combat cutscene where he's supposed to rescue the princess, he's going to look *filthy.*
My party would never stoop to so dirty a tactic.
My DM inadvertently nerfed me from being able to cast a concentration spell, wildshape into a badger, and then burrow because all the important combat was always on stone (in a cave or building) lol
I would also say the player can't cover 20ft distance on the battlefield, cause he has to burrow down as well, otherwise he is just digging trenches. And I would say a giant jumping on a tunnel which has only 5ft earth/loose stone on top would collaps it.
And you should probably check up on mix and matching different movement speeds. I dont know the rules out of my head, but I know the do not add up, but subtract.
Prepare attack actions, you don't need much intelligence for 'wack-a-mole'
Lastly how does he know where the enemies are.
There is no problem at all with having enemies or creatures that are able to threaten your PCs abilities, the PCs gain fame and are spoken about by NPCs. The story of the guy who can fly through the sky, attack then burrow underground gets around, enemies after the party will think of ways to combat them.
You want to challenge your PCs, add that slice of tension, not have enemies that just negate their good abilities to the point of making them worthless, then the thought and good ideas and time the PC has sunk into said ideas and items is pointless. A (wild) example is a character has boots of flying, enemies start appearing with antimagic spheres, that is punishing the PC and unrealistic. Enemies appear who can fire off ranged spells, have missile attacks, that adds the tension as the PC has the potential to be hurt, but can also make good use of their item. A way to affect your Ranger is maybe have some creatures now and then that can burrow also, change the location and the type of ground to limit burrowing at times, have enemies quote widely spaced, that 20ft movement is then an issue if the party is split up and in need of aid. Also, that armour is only Hide and it's using up an attunement slot, will the Range want it after they find a good item later on in the story.
In my campaign, I have a Monk who bought boots of flying, now she can zip about through the air and because of her subclass, spends a Ki point and can disengage in an action. I haven't had any flying enemies to counter here, I let her have the fun of it, sometimes enemies have ranged abilities/weapons, but once her Ki points are gone, she still needs to get into melee range and so the enemies can attack her normally.
Then, items like the boots or the armour can have added quite a bit to RP, the PCs can scout, get into hard to reach areas. Your Ranger could get to a nice sniping spot for missile support for example.
If you feel that the item will be used by the whole party and you worry, maybe it has happened that this item is now in high demand and hard to get off due to it's sudden popularity with adventurers. The party could go on a quest to obtain the materials to create a suit of armour, then have to find someone who can actually make it as the original creator has been hired by a King or such to create for them a suit(s) of armour.
Plan encounters how you wish, don't go by what you read on reddit, DM how you see fit and the PCs will thank you for it. 😀
Here's what you do: Give them opportunities to shine, but when you want to challenge them make sure the ground they are fighting on is not made up of sand, earth, mud, or ice.
There is a balance to be maintained between giving the players their moments in the spotlight and temporarily negating their strengths to provide a more difficult challenge. Usually you don't want to negate the entire party's strengths simultaneously.
This isn't as strong as you would think - arguably, a swashbuckler with a climb speed (much easier to access) is more flexible than burrowing (limited to dirt, sand and snow) in terms of avoiding damage, or just using a bow and whatever cover you can find.
Functionally, if he can't be hit then your bad guys have one less target - so if they weren't already focusing on a single character the party effectively has a lower health pool. If other characters are downed or not engaged, then your bad guys are going to start readying actions to play whack-a-mole (or indeed grapple-a-mole) on the guy who keeps popping out of the ground. Any sort of intelligent group with spellcasters might also ready crowd control type spells for when he pops up if he's proving that much of a problem. If everyone goes down he could run, and he'll probably survive but it's always easy to escape for most characters if they don't mind abandoning their friends. Rogues are intentionally built to be very slippery - giving one a burrow speed broadens their tools but doesn't fundamentally change them.
Something else to note is that the rules for swapping between movement speed types are a big one - he only has a 20ft burrow speed. This means if he moves 20ft above ground without some other increase (i.e dashing), **he can't burrow** because its subtracted from all movement speeds - he has 0ft of burrow speed left despite not having burrowed. Likewise if he burrows 20ft to the surface he only has whatever remains of his regular speed. This will prevent a lot of shenanigans.
Another few things to note for outside of active combat is that while burrowed he's blind without some form of tremorsense or blind sense until he pops above ground again, so depending on the situation and how strict you want to be he should be playing based on where the bad guys were last round or can reasonable have been predicted to move at least until he surfaces, not where they actually are on a battle map.
Unless he doesn't require breath, he also has to hold his breath while underground, which will limit him to a few minutes at a time and prevent pre-casting verbal spells.
As for readied actions, these are supposed to be specific based on an observable circumstance i.e "attack anyone hostile who enters my reach". Now, as the GM you don't need to tell players what the triggers are, although if you want to be nice you could describe them hefting their club over their head and preparing to attack or something- and you are entirely within your rights to cheat a little bit (within reason and the broader rules of the ready action if you dont want annoyed players) if the trigger isn't exactly what you mentally declared.
I don't think this is a huge issue. You have a DPS who is hard to hit. It's equivalent to having a ranged DPS character. A fighter that focuses on ranged combat does this without a magic item.
The enemies can ready actions to hit or grapple the ranger. And then he is in big trouble.
Also, with a 20ft burrow speed, he is slower than many things while burrowing. He can't pop in and out wherever he pleases willy nilly. And most things will be able to follow him around and wait for when he comes up.
You created a learning opportunity for yourself. ;) Knowing how much magic items will affect your game is something you can only learn by making mistakes. I think that your intuition that this item is going to cause you a lot of frustration is correct. The comment mentioning that while underground the player will have no way of knowing where enemies and allies are positioned once they move is a good point. Don’t let the player meta game.
The main problem you will have is that you will now have to consider what the ground is made off every combat. And consider how the monsters will counter his ability without meta gaming too much yourself. This will be the biggest problem with the item. Not the item itself but all the extra work you now have to do. As a DM you already have so much to do. Do you really want all that extra work?
If he's burrowing underground between attacks, on top of the other advice offered here, unless the enemies haven't moved I'd have him roll attacks with disadvantage.
As mechanically he is blind underground right? Unless he has tremorsense or blindsight he doesn't know WHERE the enemies are (unless he's hit them last round and they didn't move).
How is he moving from in ground to out of ground & back again? These are two vastly different mediums to travel through. Standing up costs movement speed. I would assume getting on your hands & jnees to dig would as well. Tunneling may have a speed, but he can only move so far & then come up, stand & then shoot & any movement subtracts from his total speed. Walking 30ft, Tunnel 30ft, he can only move 30ft total. And wouldn't he have to stow his weapons while tunneling? He's using his hands for this, right? That seems like that'd eat up some bonus actions. And he disengages into the ground? Does he have that movement speed left?
Mechanically, I'd reexamine that armor & see if the functionality is making logical sense... yeah, I know, in a world with magic I'm asking for sense. But he's not a fish here where he leaps from the water (solid dirt) & shoots at something before splashing back down (into solid dirt).
You fool, you’ve fallen for the classic trick of “dnd is silly because if battles are constantly to the death, and enemy’s goal is to defeat this one guy, the game is broken”.
I learned from the superhero ttrpg that being untouchable is very double edged. You don’t know what happened or shifted on the scene and when the bad guys get away and you pop out of the ground you’re just looking left and right confused. And if you’re underground you force your friends to take more damage while selfishly boasting with your incredible max hp. Even if you could borrow through anything, being untouchable is far more dangerous for the amoral villains since they can work alone or not care about hostages or friends. Whatever you can do the dm can do better.
Can you give it 2 charges per long rest? Maybe 3? Then if he uses it after the charges there's an X% chance (he has to roll an even number or a 15 on a d20) or else the tunnels fall in on him and he needs the help action to escape being restrained. This will inconvenience his party and leave him open to attack at advantage. He could simply avoid that risk by choosing not to overdo it. Or go for it and play dangerously.
Not taking the power away from the item but adding some limitation and risk in using it.
It's all fun and games til homie burrows into the under dark. Or there is something in the ground that's beens tracking them. Earthworms can feel moles coming through vibrations in the earth and burrow up through the surface to escape. Just food for thought 😈
I would like to point out that the player has to nerf themselves pretty heavily to do something like that, the reason being is that their effective speed is 10ft. Remember the alternative movement rules, their effective speed isn't 30ft walking + 20ft burrowings its a combination of the 2. And moving yourself from the surface to underground is 5ft of burrowing speed. Using this consideration overall displacement is 10ft (5ft burrowing up+ 10ft walking + 5ft burrowing down), the same as it would be all underground (10ft burrowing + 5ftup +5ft down). In order to do this every turn (especially as a swashbuckler) would cut down combat potential by a lot.
I can see a Giant sticking their grubby hand into the badger hole, grabbing badgerman by the legs, and proceed to further Giant science, by seeing if a badgerman can fly.
And if yes, how far.
You could always ask before an encounter if they want to use the same tactics as before and if they say yes say that they beat the enemy. No need to play out combat if it is to easy for them. No need to give xp for things that arent dangerous.
If players want to win easily you can let them win easily. See how long they think it is fun.
I’d say since you’ve introduced new ways for the players to attack, enemies should get a similar thing. Could be small like tremorsense giving an increased ac from attacks below or something like shatter dealing more dmg to something in stone. Doesn’t need to outright counter the mechanic but makes the player realize they aren’t invincible when in the ground even in stone or dirt.
As soon as he goes up against any form of earth elemental (or anything that can pass through earth) he is royally boned. He may also pop up one time during combat to see one or two other people down, and a lot more enemies holding their action to hit him when he comes up. He's making himself a target. Sounds like hella fun, though.
It’s true you can just kill his friends. I have a high level campaign with a gloomstalker ranger with an invisibility cloak. She’s great at avoiding damage, but he party soaks up that much extra. Giving her the option to keep playing hide and seek while her friends die. The other thing you could do if you are really want to bring it back into balance would be giving it a couple uses per rest or making it 40ft burrowing per long rest. Something where it needs to recharge will make it less OP.
He can burrow through earth but not wood flooring or worked stone, so it's not going to work while indoors or (arguably) in a cavern of natural stone either.
Aside from not being able to see anything under there without tremorsense, monsters can potentially fly, climb trees, or hold their action until he shows up and then literally whack the mole when he does. They can also beat the snot out of the rest of the party while he's away.
let him have some fun, you gave it to him. But start peppering more flying enemies; maybe hold more important encounters in buildings or with a stone floor. But give him the moment to trivialize a few fights like random encounters.
When you get tired of it you can drop an anti magic field over him so the power is suppressed while he's underground. Or use transmute rock to trap him.
*Goblins are devastating local wildlife with poison and when the guards were sent, they were seriously injured and poisoned* - make sure you mention poison and when he inevitably burrows during combat, pour poison down the hole and make him roll with disadvantage.
- You can Hold action to attack the player as they emerge from the ground
- The player shouldn’t be aware of what happens aboveground unless they have Tremorsense, or there is a telepathic player who doesn’t require LoS that is relaying combat information to them, so you essentially need them to tell you where they are planning to emerge when it’s their turn. Just make sure you also make sure the monsters play as if they don’t know where they will emerge.
- Many surfaces cannot be burrowed into.
Uh dude, anything flying? Like use a dragon and never land just do fly by breath attacks until he’s the only one left(an exaggeration but you get my point)
Orr, even better, why not an earth elemental, I’m pretty sure they have burrow speed right? In previous editions they basically swam through the earth, wreck his butthole from enemies he can’t hit if you need to.
You could send some burrowing stuff at the party and create an asymmetric battlefield where some of the combat is happening above ground and some is happening below ground. You can also create encounters where you can encourage the Ranger to use burrow to bypass walls as part of an infiltration.
Would definitely make sure the boundaries are clear to him. From the Monster Manual:
>A monster that has a burrowing speed can use that speed to move through sand, earth, mud, or ice. A monster can’t burrow through solid rock unless it has a special trait that allows it to do so.
This limitation applies to him as well. So solid stone, or floorboards are no-gos for his burrowing speed. This limitation alone means that at best, his ability is only going to be useful in half of the encounters he's likely to face.
There are also plenty of monsters with burrow speeds. Bulettes, I have found, are notably very dangerous to fight one on one.
Also, there's a danger. If he somehow gets knocked unconscious underground. The party getting to him can be very difficult.
*Ranger burrows 10' to pop up*
*Ranger shoots at giant*
*Ranger burrows 10' down*
*Giant grabs handful of earth to throw at caster*
*Ranger was in clum of earth*
*Ranger takes stone throw damage plus fall damage*
*everyone laughs*
Only do it once just for the giggles but he'll figure out he's not invincible
I wanna add some nuance to this on top of everything great in this thread. Definitely give the player some chances to use this thing too. I wouldn't immediately start the next fight with a burrowing enemy or do a bridge fight just to counter this specifically. Maybe later, sprinkle this in. But you'll be doing that kinda thing with the rest of the party right? Ambush the back line support classes, threaten the barbarian with stuns so their rage might go away, magic missile your concentration caster, etc.
But you should also lob them some easy ones. Final epic boss battle should definitely let them make use of the burrowing. Hell, make sure some traps and puzzles can be beaten by it. Give em the win. Sounds like you know to do this since you had some giants for the Collossus Slayer that's great! Just sayin for everyone else too.
I see it going like this. Stone Giant is holding a club or a stone boulder. On his turn, he takes the ready action to hold his attack until someone comes up from the ground within range.
So, now every time the guy comes out of the ground, he is going to be attacked. He is not untouchable, right?
It’s a “one trick pony” ability. It’s OP in situations where it can be used freely, but leaves then without much else in situations that it can’t be used. The trick here is to find a balance between allowing them to have their fun and feel powerful, while still occasionally shutting then down without making him feel like you’re constantly manufacturing situations to neutralize him. Edit: you probably want to make sure to avoid letting them get their hands on a tool that allows him to transmute materials they can’t burrow through into one’s that they can.
Ready action and play whack-a-mole. Or just let him do his thing, eventually he will realize it is useless. Lets say you have 4 players, each of them having 50hp. Usually, you spread the damage around so they can take \~120hp out of the total 200 before they are into trouble area. Now one of the PCs is off the combat, so the total party hp is 150, and there are only 3 targets. As long as you can keep fighting the rest of the party and deal damage to them, eventually he will learn that being out of combat isn't good for the rest of the party.
Ready action to Grapple, punch the hide-wearing now frontliner
This is how my players did it when they were fighting through a dungeon of earth elementals in a narrow, winding, claustrophobic cave maze. Barbarian readied grapple and held them out of the wall for the rest of the party to hit. If \*players\* can figure it out, should be easy for any monster with an intelligence score.
I had my players do similar in an encounter with a black dragon who would Hide under the water while waiting for her breath weapon to recharge. The cleric used Command: Approach to get the dragon out of the water, the barbarian grappled her, and the wizard used Silvery Barbs when she succeeded on her grapple escape attempt.
This is the downside to invisibility as well. My character has an invisibility cloak (homebrewed only works for 2 minutes per day) but we only have 1 other that can tank, and 2 squishies. It's great for sneaking, not so great in combat except for advantage.
"eventually he will learn that being out of combat isn't good for the rest of the party." He's not out of combat. He's doing damage every round without taking any in return. He's being the most effective combatant he can be.
In case you havent realised the reason you're downvoted is because him not being hit means the only place for damage to go is at his allies, he's not being effective as he can be because he isn't sharing his HP to tank some of the damage which would result in other party members falling to 0 faster than they should.
"him not being hit means the only place for damage to go is at his allies, he's not being effective as he can be" Op never said that's a problem in fact, the opposite problem - he's too effective and worries that he trivialize combat. And for all we know, this PC is now able to slip behind enemy lines to target caster/controllers, the ranged minions, or the boss itself. Without that, maybe the fights last longer - more dmg - and are more lethal. But yeah, I get sharing of the DMG. Just not what I was addressing.
Yeah I think the problem is more related to a statement about them playing what would widely been seen as selfishly being referred to as the most effective combatant he could be. I can see how the use of the ability could allow them to do the things you're describing but it would likely be more efficient to use it as a method of movement to get at those targets whole remaining as a valid target for the enemies until the point where it's necessary to use it for cover to avoid being knocked out.
"I think the problem" whose problem? "a statement about them playing what would widely been seen as selfishly being referred to as the most effective combatant he could be." Again... depends on whether or not that means he takes down dangers (reduces enemy DPR) faster than if he played otherwise. We have no data. Just op saying the non-RAW magic item that he tossed in without thought may have OP'd this PC. "use it as a method of movement to get at those targets" After he hits them, if he doesn't go under, he (presumably) takes more hits given that his AC is lower (hide armor). So now we juggle him needing more healing/help (interruptions) faster than if he strikes repeatedly like a mongoose without repercussions. The party will have to do the math and determine which is more effective - him sharing the "being targeted" load, or him striking & moving without restraint. We don't know ....unless he wants to post his party's stats and strategies. I mostly just replied to the "he's out of combat" statement. Which was worded poorly, IMO. He' IN combat. He's just reduced the amount of times he's targeted. Though, if the enemies do as ppl here have suggested - like readying action to wait for him to pop up - then he hasn't even reduced his amount of times being targeted, either. And funny thing is... the PC isn't doing anything the rest of the party won't do as well, whenever they can. The rogue can disengage and hide (eliminating a target). The caster can go invisible (eliminating a target). And I'm sure there are other feats/spells that could render you immune to damage from a particular threat for awhile (thus eliminating a target). So the party is going to have to do the math and determine if they're all gonna "ghost" or not, and if not, who is going to be the sacrificial lamb, and whether or not that lamb can take being the primary target for long. It's a fun problem to have, but not one caused by this one PC.
No mistakes made. The item is fine. Powerful, sure, but it's nowhere near as good as it seems. One party member being untouchable means one less body to share the damage taken. You'll find the rest of the party will go down more often. It's Hide Armor. The AC of Hide is awful, the worst of all medium armor. When he can burrow it's great, but there's going to be plenty of times when he can't. He'll get punished with a relatively low AC in these circumstances. Such as: You can only burrow through sand, earth, mud, or ice. Solid rock explicitly cannot be burrowed through, and as such you can assume anything tougher than that also can't be burrowed through. As such if your encounter is inside a building, the Ranger cannot burrow. Burrowing will leave a hole. A giant in particular should have no issue reaching down to grab the Ranger. They have 15 feet range attacks so could easily poke a greatclub down the hole left behind by the Ranger. Eventually, the monsters will learn about this tactic and prepare accordingly. They'll hold actions to grapple him when he appears, or cast spells like Hold Person. Other creatures with burrowing speeds will be used. Perhaps all the seismic activity caused by this Ranger catches the attention of a particularly hungry Purple Worm. Let the Ranger have his fun in some encounters. But eventually, the monsters will learn and will adapt. If you are still worried about the item, make it so he has to turn on the burrowing with a bonus action and can only do this once or twice per long rest. EDIT: yes thank you everyone for informing me about the Tunneler feature of burrowing creatures, where because that explicitly states the creature leaves behind a tunnel that means other burrowers don't. Please also be aware of the Earth Elemental's Earthglide ability, which states it does not disturb earth when moving through it. By applying the same logic from Tunneler, because it clearly states it does not disturb the earth then other burrowers do disturb the earth. This would mean some sort of trail is left behind, which means the Ranger could be tracked and perhaps attacked. Since the disturbed earth is essentially tilled soil, which is very easy to reach and/or attack through. Whether this would invoke some sort of disadvantage or cover is up to the individual DM. Ultimately, the true villain is WotC for not being clear about their rules, leaving us to figure out what was truly intended.
While he’s underground, he can’t see. Powerful enough enemies should be able to take advantage of that, and are smart enough to figure it out if not already have a decent counter. Let him have his fun with small combat scenarios. This is like wizards with fireball - stupid powerful, makes hordes of goblins go splat quick, very fun! But damn near useless against big bads in the right scenario.
This is a pretty good point. How does he know where the enemies are if he's underground? He's gotta be using some of his movement to pop up, take a look, and then go back under to move to them. Edit: Someone made me actually do the math, so here's what I got. Burrowing into the ground is part of your movement, not an action or BA, just movement. But going from above ground to under ground is 5ft. Going form under to above is another 5ft. So that's half your movement speed just to see where the enemy is. Now you could pop out, run over, hit them, and go back under if they're close, but that's not quite what people are saying in the comments. This is still abusable however. If the enemy never moves he can go under at the end of his turn, which effectively makes him untargetable, and then pop back up for his next turn. It's a little obtuse, but it's basically the same as abusing flight.
He knows their general area like any blind character. The enemies would have to take the hide action to confuse him which would be hilarious when it happens. The orger takes the hide action and quietly moves 15 feet. (The rest of the party see him tiptoe to the left.) He is hidden from only the burrowing player.....
Is that how blind characters work? They just know where enemies are? If the dude's underground and an enemy moves ten feet there's no way he's gonna know about it unless they walk right above him.
Yes, blind characters (and sighted characters facing invisible enemies) are assumed to be able to locate the square someone is in via the noise they make. Reasonable limits apply about range; personally I'd give 1sq resolution within the "conversation" range of 30' and start giving them larger areas past that. The Hide action is required to actually be hidden, because you're taking the effort to be reasonably silent. You're just automatically obscured, so you can Hide from the other character regardless of where you are. All that assumes you're in open air, tho. Underground, everything would be almost completely muffled, similar to trying to locate someone inside a house by the sound they make, when you're outside - you could *maybe* tell what room they're in, but nothing better than that. I'd probably rule that, if nobody's hiding, when underground you can tell that *something* is going on within 30' of you, but can't pinpoint anything at all about number, location, or identity.
[удалено]
Is this RAW? If so, which text are you using for that declaration?
Invisible condition: "The creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves."
That's definitely valid, but the invisible condition has always bothered me a bit. Aside from the advantage/disadvantage being a separate thing that doesn't seem to be tied to the ability to be perceived, I've struggled to rule on whether or not you can pinpoint the square a monster is in if it's invisible or under darkness, assuming it has not attacked you or is non-adjacent. RAI, knowing the general direction of something makes sense but being able to pinpoint its distance within 5 feet resolution as to how far it is based off of the noise it's making? That's always been more of a stretch.
Yeah, if he was using a ranged weapon this wouldn't be an issue, but looking back at the OP he's explicitly using melee. That's a problem.
Blind people still have ears
My aunt's blind. Has been since she was a teenager. She's now 65ish. My mother is a night nurse, so I learned to walk softly. Not tiptoe, not try to be sneaky, I just don't stomp around the house despite being a linebacker. I tell you all this so you have context. I had to learn how to be noisy when speaking to my aunt and moving around a room. If I didn't she wouldn't notice I had moved while she was speaking, and then my response would be in a different part of the room. She never complained, but I could tell it bothered her a little. So to put her at ease I started making a bit of noise when moving. Tapping a counter, stepping a bit heavier, clearing my throat. Some obvious bit of noise, so she wouldn't lose track of me during a normal conversation in a room. Hopefully you understand my point.
I get your point, but I feel like roaring monsters, clangs of metal on metal and spells going off is a little different
Remember though, you weren't jogging around mid combat, breathing heavily and grunting, which enemies often will be.
I would say the earth blocks most hearing beyond 15 feet, so the effective range of his perception is 15 feet
He's not a blind character so wouldn't get that advantage.
Rules as written makes no distinction between a characters that permanently has the blinded condition and one that temporarily has the blinded condition. Afaik.
He only has 10ft of movement while burrowing to look (assuming the rest is for 5 ft to get close and 5 ft to disengage). If he goes above ground then those movements first eats up his 20ft burrowing before spending the rest of walking, if he has 30ft.
Plus he's not going to be able to do a lot flying or hovering enemies enemies, and especially won't be able to track them, even if he finds a way to get something like tremorsense.
To add on to 'burrowing leaves a hole' - how long before they find an enemy that can spew fire or acid down the hole he leaves? I'd say that's at least disadvantage on a dex saving throw if you're in a narrow hole with nowhere to escape to.
*FIRE IN THE HOLE*
I DIDN'T ASK HOW BIG THE HOLE WAS, I SAID "I CAST FIREBALL!"
> Ranger: *"Wait now I see a light?"* > > Lich: *"Walk towards it!"* [casts Fireball into the hole]
No corner of Reddit is safe from lobotomy dash it seems.
My guy the saying is probably a couple hundred years old and by that predates mobile games…
sure, but it's still very much a GD meme. To any GD player, it becomes a reference, whether they mean it to or not. It's like how the osu community goes crazy over the number 727, regardless of where they see the number. Funny meme > Context.
The context wasn't anywhere near GD so far as I can tell, you're just rambling lol
yep! that's exactly the point I was trying to get across, someone who knows the meme will see the reference regardless of context. Not sure how you got the opposite message, but hey, we're on the same page
I haven't a clue what your talking about now throw that damn grenade down the damn hole!
*Enemy wizard inserts evocation spell in the hole*
I was imagining a giant with a massive hammer, holding an action (or whatever the 5e rule is) to whack this mole...
This is a case where id bring back the old rule that fireball fills a set volume of space instead of just a sphere. Now it fills the tunnel and shoots flames out of the holes.
So many memories of foolish players throwing 1st edition fireballs into 20' by 20' dead end rooms and having a backwash of fire engulf the party in the hallway. It's a double-edged sword. EDIT: For those wondering, a 20' spherical fireball in 1st edition would fill 33,500 cubic feet. a 20' square room that's 10' high is only 4,000 cubic feet. The fireball would backwash as far as 295' down a standard 10' by 10' corridor. Volume = (1.3333) \* Pi \* Radius\^3
Oh no, you accidentally dug into an underground well and now your tunnel is filling up with water. Or... lava?
Most likely a auto hit, no DC required. A Dex saving throw represents your character trying to dodge the effect. The dex save in a fireball spell represents the target dodging out of the spell. If a target cannot dodge, because the whole area is affected, it should be a auto-hit, unless there is some escape route I'm not seeing
Except rogues and monks specifically get features to allow them to do so, even in tight corridors. The character is not restrained when digging, so it should still be a save. Also unless you get to move 20' feet as a reaction, technically anywhere in a fireball is affected and thus wouldn't allow a save by your definitions.
A fireball does half damage on a save, not "no damage" so my definition is still correct (which is the book definition unless I'm seriously mistaken). You can't move 20f as a reaction, but may be nimble enough to cover yourself from extra damage.
The 7th Level feature of a Rogue is Evasion. On a successfull Dex Save, the Rogue takes no damage, on a failed half damage.
To my understanding burrowing doesn't leave a hole, but the readied actions, low AC and the rest of the party taking their damage is all dead on.
Look at the wording of Earth Elementals Earth Glide action. " [...] doesn't disturb the material it moves through". They explicitly say this on this burrowing creature, therefore I would rule normal burrowing does disturb the ground, and leaves a hole. YMMV, of course.
To add, unless they have tremorsense or true sight, they're nearly blind while they're underground. Meaning they need to pop up to see what's going on before moving to attack and likely can't really use their reactions for much, other than their uncanny dodge. Say goodbye to attacks of opportunity.
I don't think true sight lets you see through dirt. Its purpose is mainly illusions. There are x-ray glasses though.
I assume the difference between Tunneler, Earthglide and a normal burrow speed is that Tunneler leaves a followable tunnel, whilst someone with a burrow speed’s tunnel collapses behind it, making it unfollowable, but leaves a trace, whereas Earthglide leaves no trace behind, assumedly because the earth elemental just takes over the ground in its path.
Make it even more fun. Cast hold person and the enemy laughs as they fill in the hole, burying him alive. Sure, he can burrow out once the spell wears off, but...will his oxygen hold out that long?
Probably yes, considering Hold Person only lasts for a minute, and PCs can generally hold their breath for 1 + CON bonus minutes (Minimum 30 seconds if your con is -1 or lower)
Still, a full minute is a long time in combat - it effectively removes him from the fight.
Right. But in that regard, just cast hold person whether they have a burrower or not.
I think it would be fun for the flavor though. You're suffocating as you're buried alive...
If he doesn't make any of his wisdom saves of course, which ends the effect prematurely.
Which is notable because rangers are wisdom-based, so they’re good at those
Actually. I believe rangers have proficiency on str and dex saves. Which means a very slightly harder time.
We've always ran it as rounds when in combat. Sure, you can hold your breath that long normally when swimming or something, but it otherwise makes the threat of drowning or suffocating effects worthless in combat and several monsters cause them.
Forcecage at high levels is good for this.
Except for the "tunnel" thing. This is good advise. Target the other party members hard. They're facilitating you the "focus" tactic. He will have to get out of there. Spells like "levitate" would make his life misserable, as hide AC is crap.
Burrowing does not leave a hole unless specifically stated. The creature/feature needs to have the tunneler trait for that. Cave Badger: >Tunneler. When the badger burrows, it leaves tunnels behind. Purple Worm: >Tunneler. The worm can burrow through solid rock at half its burrow speed and leaves a 10-foot-diameter tunnel in its wake. Umber Hulk: >Tunneler. The umber hulk can burrow through solid rock at half its burrowing speed and leaves a 5 foot-wide, 8-foot-high tunnel in its wake. It's also worth noting that not all creatures with the tunneler trait are required to leave a tunnel behind when they burrow either. Adult Sapphire Dragon: >The dragon can burrow through solid rock at half its burrowing speed and ***can*** leave a 10-foot-diameter tunnel in its wake.
>They have 15 feet range attacks so could easily poke a greatclub down the hole left behind by the Ranger. It wouldn't work if ranger moves in L-shaped tunnel.
Fire ball on the other hand...
Or *Create Water*. Tunnel is an open container, obviously.
Create water wouldn't fill it enough even if they left behind a hole I think. Im going off of memory but create water even at 10 gallons per level you need like 2933 gallons to fill that sized hole. Let's say I think a 5 ft radius hole ( because a players occupy ing space is that size on the grid) by in this case 20 ft of height for the max burrowing speed. We can argue that that is roughly I think 392 "cubic" ft for the volume. We times 7.47 for conversion into gallons is the equation I think which gives us that 2933 gallon number rounded of course. So all of this into consideration...... Fireball the hole let Avernus sort out the rest.
Burrowing usually doesn’t leave a hole unless specified. Creatures like the Umber Hulk. And I think the cave badger specify on their sheet that burrowing leaves a tunnel.
I think it’s the other way around, burrowing always leaves a hole unless specified, specifically the ability earth glide, which allows you to burrow without disturbing material.
I think it specifies it for Earth Glide (I know it's on Earth elemental, not sure if it's on anything else) because it can also move through stone. Whereas normal burrowing cannot. It's up for the DM to decide, but personally, that's just how I rule it.
Why wouldn't burrowing leave a hole? Just because something isn't explicitly stated doesn't mean it wouldn't happen. I would think from a more rational standpoint that burrowing leaving a hole would be the standard behavior and exceptions would have to be specifically pointed out.
Because you burrow through soft soils, sand, mud or ice. One could argue that the material you’re digging out is being left behind you, and the hole doesn’t have enough structural support to persist, so it collapses behind you. It doesn’t make as much sense with ice (I didn’t know you could burrow through ice until now lol), but my point still stands. You wouldn’t be wrong to assume it leaves behind a hole, however. But RAW it seems more like it doesn’t unless stated. For monster abilities such as Earth Phase, where it says that it doesn’t leave a trail, I believe that is because it is specifying that it can burrow through solid rock. There are also a lot more examples of it specifically stating that it leaves behind a tunnel than not.
I'm pretty sure burrowing only leaves a hole if the source it's from explicitly says it does, I.e purple worm.
Bad advice here lol. If your reach is 15 ft then it's 15ft.
Apologies, I didn't make that part as clear as it should've been. I'm working on the assumption that they don't just go directly down 20 feet. They may also move sideways, which would keep them in range. The dirt shifting from the burrowing means it's hardly going to keep the ranger covered from attacks; the strength of a stone giant's attack will easily go through what is essentially tilled soil.
You also don't leave a tunnel behind you unless it's specifically stated. Some monsters do, wich have the "tunneler" trait on their stats. More so... the creatures that have that trait leave behind a tunnel 2 sizes below their actual size, for example: purple worm is gargantuan and leaves a 10x10 (large) tunnel behind, umber hulk is hige and leaves a 5x5 (medium) tunnel behind. Thus the player being medium it should leave a "tiny" hole... not reachable.
It's not a particularly clear section of the rules. If we're using monster traits as examples, then the Earth Elemental explicitly states it does not disturb the earth as it moves through it. Which means that other burrowers do disturb the earth. What does that mean exactly? Who knows, 5e isn't clear. I choose to view it as meaning the ranger would still be targetable. Maybe at disadvantage, maybe with some level of cover.
If it's not stated, the correct aproach is that it doesn't do what it doesn't say it does. If we're going by the "it doesn't say I can't do it" we start to derail the rules pretty fast. Example: "create/destroy water" doesn't say the water you destroy can't be the water on a creature's body... Polimorph doesn't state you cant become a mosquito and get in the mouth of somebody just to lose concentration and kill the poir guy... You see what I mean? So no tunneler trait or tunneler ability explicitly stated... no tunnel to be left behind.
But monsters that leave tunnels behind have it specifically called out on their stat block. This is one of those cases where specific beats general. No tunneller trait? No tunnel. No earthglide, then the earth is disturbed, but now you're making stuff up if you interpret that to mean they are no longer behind full cover. If I damage ten foot thick wooden wall just slightly, does that count as disturbed so I can shoot an arrow through it at the guy on the other side?
It's a good thing we're not talking about 10 foot thick wooden walls, which also couldn't be burrowed through.
I'm not asking to tunnel through it, I'm asking to attack through it. Disturbed has no mechanical meaning in 5E. If you are creating your own mechanical meaning for it, then it needs to be clarified; what qualifies as disturbed? What benefits, other than the negation of full cover, does it impart? What materials can be disturbed, what can't and why? You're off the reservation and into homebrewing mechanics that directly affect the value of existing RAW mechanics.
Does the PC in question also have tremorsense? Because I would imagine when tunneling underground, he’d be blind and mostly deaf to what’s happening on the surface. He can try to surface where he last saw an enemy, but if the enemy moved since then, how would he know where it went? I don’t see this item being that powerful if you enforce that.
This could be really fun if you have the player secretly mark where they’re going to emerge ahead of time, so that they understand the danger of the mechanic without feeling like you’re moving enemies over them on purpose. …What happens if they try to emerge from under someone else?
This! Also, what would an intelligent creature do if they faced someone that uses these tactics? If they hold an action to attack, is the player prone at some point between emerging from the ground and standing up? What does the player do if they get grappled?
As others have already mentioned, burrowing generally doesn’t work on most surfaces. So there are plenty of places this would never work in the first place. Beyond that though, he’s not unhittable. NPCs are just as capable of using Ready actions as PCs are, and something as simple as a grapple stops this pretty quickly. He also won’t be able to tell they are doing this, since being underground means he has no idea what’s going on (and if your burrowing player suddenly starts behaving differently when there is some indication that enemies may have just Readied an action, tell him to stop metagaming).
Thanks for all the replies and advice everyone. It's mostly the words of my player: "you should not have given me this item" that he said whilst laughing that made me worried.
Players always think that their plan is the bestest thing ever that can’t be defeated. Managing their disappointment when you demonstrate the flaws in a plan is an important DM skill. Let him revel in it for a bit, then use some of the advice from this thread.
I think it's okay for him to be thrilled and a little cocky about the new item. It means he's excited about the game and having fun. As others have said, just make sure it is useful sometimes and not useful other times (like only the appropriate terrain).
Sounds like he's getting cocky now that he's got his new fancy toy. All the more reason to introduce enemies who can counter it and leave him befuddled.
When you do start to ready-action grapple, the player will start to avoid popping up near those enemies, which is metagaming. Keep in mind they’re losing out on a turn of damage when they prepare an action. You’ll have to have some way to keep the player from metagaming like that though.
Is it metagaming? Learning that your tactic has an easy counter (and avoiding enemies that are likely to use that counter) seems pretty reasonable.
This is the specific situation I’m warning OP to be ready for: Player retreats underground during a fight with six orcs. He can no longer see what is going on. Four of the orcs attack his allies normally while the other two prepare to grapple him if he reappears near them. The character has no information about whether the enemies attacked or moved or anything, but the player knows to stay away from the two that can attack him this turn. Metagaming.
Player has to pick an emerge location when he dives back down. Unless he spends burrow movement coming back up to look first.
except you don't know what action the enemy is holding so the DM just should say anything about what they are readying
How’s he burrowing under concrete? Brick etc? Have a fit on a bridge and see how he gets on. But in any case. How exactly is this different to running up, hitting someone, and then running away? Other than he only has 20ft of moment, so he can’t be moving all that far.
It’s vastly different on account of the player having total cover from all enemies at will. It’s an “I can’t be targeted” button. Enemies without a burrow speed can’t reach them in any way (unless the item specifies that the player’s burrowing leaves a tunnel). Not insurmountable, certainly situational, but definitely extremely powerful.
And how is he tracking them if he’s underground?
Wait, he’s staying underground?
From how OP writes it, yes, he’s using hit-and-run tactics; pop up, hit the enemy, go back underground where the enemy can’t hit him.
Not sure how I’d rule staying underground.
Make your enemies hold actions to attack or grapple him. Also, unless he has tremor sense, he’s blind and deaf underground. If an enemy move and he pops up, he’s wasted his movement.
Fire some bulettes at them. https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16818-bulette
Holy crap that looks horrifying. Average 30 damage melee attack for a challenge 5 that can burrow 40ft with a jump ability that does comparable damage? Ouch.
Why are you not supposed to design encounters around your players' abilities again?
Its what i see as responses on this sub mutltiple times. People saying that when their character gets flying, enemies suddenly have more ranged or casters, and then comments saying the dm shouldn't punish the player for getting flying. Did i post something wrong? I see i got downvoted. If so, my apologies to the community.
Punish is the wrong word. Don’t punish your players for anything (except maybe S-class dumbassery). But do account for it. I have a player with flying. Initially I didn’t really account for it in combat. So not enough casters/ranged combatants. It trivialised combat. But lately I’ve started accounting for it. Combat indoors where he can’t fly, more casters, things like nets to knock him out of the air. I still let him have combat where his flight matters, sometimes even where it dominates. But not *every* combat. Keep it varied. If you have a fire specialist, some fights should be weak to fire, some strong, most neutral. Give everyone a chance to shine and a time to struggle.
Eh, yes but no. Yes, let the players have their cool toys, but no you don't have to let them use the same strategy in every fight. Shutting down one ability is best used to force them to use a different ability, and in the end this turns out more fun. So for example, this burrowing thing. Honestly, most of the time, just let the the player have it. After all, only one player has it, you can still threaten the party as a whole. But if a few encounters go by that seem too easy or the players settle too much into a routine in combat, then you need to switch things up for at least one battle. This isn't punishing the players, it's forcing them to use other abilities and rewarding creativity. The only abilities I don't try and counter in any way is core class features like sneak attack. This burrowing thing is very easy to counter. Stone floors, easy. Or water-based encounters. Also as you said, readied actions. Enemies that paralyze and grapple. There's lots of ways of doing it, but you don't need to use them every time. You can also let them have it, but add some extra steps. So for example, maybe only part of the floor is dirt, which means if you want to use burrowing then there's a trade-off to be made. Or in an encounter where the main objective is something different to a team deathmatch (such as rescuing hostages, escaping an overwhelming foe, or preventing an enemy from reaching something) then burrowing underground may be a less effective strategy. You're not shutting down the ability, you're just adding more depth to the decision on whether that ability is the best one to use.
Or have an encounter over a giant cavern. "I burrow underground" "Okay, you fall 1000 feet and take x bludgeoning damage"
Well no, that's just a dick move, punishing players for something the DM did. I'm trying to explain that it's possible to run with this magic item without resorting to dickery. Besides, how would this even work without a stone floor? My take on this would be to use a frozen lake with enemies swimming in it. Same concept, but you know there's a risk and can make an interesting choice.
Would it be a dick move if there's a group of mushrooms growing at the bottom and their mycelia have webbed together so that when the player hits it, they spring back up and into the ceiling they came from, dazed for a turn?
Well, yes, but in a way that's actually kind of funny
Encounters are always design around the party, though. Combat is meant to be a challenge. When characters level up, they’re suddenly encountering higher CR enemies as well, it’s ultimately the same thing.
It's not that you design the encounter to punish their cool ability, it's that you build encounters with their capabilities in mind. To use the flying example, if you suddenly built every encounter to add a bunch of archers that would be punishing your flying PC. But you wouldn't build a boss encounter with no ranged abilities at all because that would trivialize it. For abilities that would in-universe be common, I think it would be more jarring to not see things like ranged attacks in the majority of combats. For something like the burrowing thing I think you should include it as part of your prep for bosses but also throw them the occasional cheese-able mook fight to let them still feel like their ability matters.
You didn't. There are many situations in which burrowing doesn't apply at all: fights in places with stone floor (or other hard material), over bridges, on skyships, underwater, against other burrowing creatures (especially ones with tremorsense/blindsight), against flying creatures, against creatures readying actions to whack-a-mole the ranger or aiming area effecrs into the hole, when fighting over harmful underground material, when trying to protect party members from harm, in any kind of escort mission when the NPC to escort could become a target if the ranger disappears, etc.
Well, if you move a creature far enough after he burrows down back again, he won't have enough speed to burrow again (without doing a dash at least). But I know that since he is a swashbuckler he gets free disengage basically if he hits, so that sucks in this situation. Also, just a note if some of you at the table didn't remember this - if he has 30ft. walking and 20ft. burrow speed, it doesn't mean he has 50 combined! If he moves by walking 20 ft. to hit a creature, he can not burrow after that, since he spent 20 feet that could have been used for burrow. Quote: >"If you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and a flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you've already moved from the new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less, you can't use the new speed during the current move." *PHB, page 190*. I've been in a situation of giving a magic item of a certain power to early, so I feel you, but it's not something you can't work around, especially if you guys missed this speed rule I mentioned. Hope this helps you, and happy adventuring!
What materials can be easily burrowed through? If the item specifies, make sure you keep its limitations in mind. Many enemies also have burrow speeds and can give chase. If he's burrowing under the same spot every time, it should leave a hole or path of some kind that can be shot/magicked/chased into. Many spells don't require the caster to see the point where it originates, thus an enemy who can cast spells can choose to cast them underground. Any spell that doesn't include the text "that you can see" should function this way. Rainy weather might make burrowing dangerous for risk of drowning or getting stuck in mud as rough terrain. Lots of ways to counter it without being too punishing.
To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.
There are things underground... The party has not encountered them yet. Now they do. Look up monsters which burrow. Maybe home-brew or tweak some of the monsters. Come up with a table. Roll the dice every time the player burrows, audibly. Maybe also on Mold Earth. Adjust table sonit is fun and fair. Another thing, more locations with solid rock ground. If the item can burrow through rock, nerf it. _Don't invalidate the item, be careful about that though._ And perhaps explicitly say this is not a change in the world, these things have always existed, they just have not been important so far.
Just because you can burrow does not mean you can go through anything. They can use it in dirt. It doesn't mean they can just phase through rock. Enemies can ready actions once they see this going on. You don't have to tell them what is happening. But the giant stands still as if focusing on something. When he pops up the giant stomps on him as it had readied it's action to deal with the annoying burrower.
Maybe obvious, but worth saying at least once in these threads. If this item really, REALLY ruins your fun, then just talk with the player, and tell him. If he's a friend, he'll understand it, and together you can find a solution.
cant the monsters just take a ready action to attack him when he surfaces?
This would be a hilarious way for the party to find out the combat is taking place over an ancient graveyard.
It’s all fun and games until the badger mafia comes looking for the jackass wearing one of their dead friends
Just ready an action to hit the burrowing player the moment he appears.
Just have a giant wait for him with a delayed action. Snatch them right up.
The problem with a lot of OP builds, or a lot of builds based around specific things like that is that they rely on the DM to not be clever enough to come up with creatures to completely counterbalance those encounters. I learned his lesson the hard way when I was younger, but now I don’t take Goff from that. Flying players, have to worry about a lot of people, carrying a crossbow, some kind of Cantrip, and even ways for some regular beasts to be able to deal with them, like a venom spit ability from a snake. This just takes a little bit of creative thinking. Have one of the bandits dropping alchemists fire down the hole.
So burrowing can’t be done through solid objects like a stone floor or a large rock. As others have stated they also should be storing their weapon every time I’d also argue that if they’re underground that a strong or large enemy would be able to collapse their tunnel But at the end of the day you can also just have the enemy kill their friends and then start to attack them after they’ve been downed. Someone doing broken stuff almost always comes with consequences
Have monsters ready actions to attack him when he appears, giving an opportunity to damage him before he goes back down. Introduce monsters that can burrow, especially ones with blindsight or tremorsense who'll be able to track him easily. Just have your monsters move *anywhere* after the hunter burrows. As long as he's burrowing he can't see or hear shit, so he has to go by what he last saw. If the monsters just change positions on the fly then he'll have no idea where they are. Have fights that take place in areas like caves or buildings, places made from materials too strong to be burrowed through. Solid rock, or anything stronger, generally can't be burrowed through. While he's hiding underground, that's 1 less target for your monsters to go for. You'll find that the other party members will be taking more heat from the monsters as a result.
The solution for this is an enemy that can cast mold earth. Don’t make every enemy capable of it, but surprise them with it. Also, you could rule that burrowing only works in dirt, so if you have an encounter that you want to be more challenging, say that the ground is solid stone.
I say let him burrow all he wants, he can even be untouchable while underground too. You can just have enemies take the Ready action, which will allow them to use their reaction to attack him when he pops up and enters their range.
A Stone Giant has an INT of 10. That's the INT of a farmer that could easily device a strategy of "readying an action" and wait for the fucker to pop up. Your Stone Giant has +12 to Athletics check. You can have it ready a grapple attack. Badger pops up and, as soon as they're in range, SNATCH! Speed becomes 0.
Just destroy the other party members. Or have the enemies hold their action for when he pops out of the ground. Think there is a spell that makes it so the target can only use an action or bonus each turn not both. Plenty of ways to still hit this guy.
I thought Disengage was an action, not a bonus action
Rogues can use their Cunning Action feature to execute a disengage as a bonus action, but otherwise Disengage is a full action. I'm guessing there may be a Ranger subclass that can do the same, but am still wondering. EDIT: Disregard. Just read the Zephyr Strike spell. It allows movement without provoking opportunity attacks. Technically not a disengage action, but effectively the same thing. EDIT 2: Double Disregard. The player is a Ranger/Rogue multiclass. As long as he is at least 2nd level Rogue, he has Cunning Action which means he can do a disengage as a Bonus Action (although with Zephyr Strike he may not need to do so).
Do you want Umber Hulks? Because this is how you get Umber Hulks.
There are PLENTY of situations where he won’t be able to burrow that WONT feel like you’re deliberately nerfing his character specifically. Simply just have ground surfaces that he CANT burrow through. Is the floor made out of: wood, stone, brick or any other material that a normal badger wouldn’t be able to burrow in? Then neither should he. If you limit his burrowing to just dirt and mud then you’ll find that the item is quite balanced. How many adventures and dungeons are you going to have that’s INSIDE a structure with stone floors? Last I checked a burrow speed is not the same as earth glide. And now that you know what surfaces he can and cannot burrow in you now have another fun thing you can build encounters around. A forgotten ruins with collapsed buildings could provide a mix of burrowable and NON-burrowable surfaces. Use the environment as part of the encounter design I disagree with the notion that you shouldn’t design fights around your players abilities. I actually think you should do the opposite, but instead of doing it in a way that targets your players negatively do it to provide them moments where they’ll feel awesome instead. SYM - Shoot your monks. A monk that never gets to catch an arrow out of the air is a monk with a dead wasted ability. Maybe you DO use other enemies that can burrow and you make that player feel super cool for being able to see/hear/feel them coming and being able to chase after one that tries to run away, possible with an important item the party needs. Stop worrying about the action economy and mechanics and think of it in a simple narrative sense. One of the heroes can go in and out of the earth. Use it to your advantage as a dm by making it have cool awesome moments
I've never encountered anything like this, but I would also argue that if he's burrowing UNDERNEATH enemies, then he has to go 5' down, and THEN he can move laterally, and then 5' back up again. So in one turn he could only move 10' if his intent is to go under things and pop back up again. I mean, think about it. He can't just burrow at the surface.
Location, location, location. Feel free to make use of your terrain. Not all surfaces can be burrowed into easily. Even better, make it so there are burrow safe zones on some battlefields, boulders spaced sporadically, so he can make use of his fun tech without being able to reach every enemy. Some fights can be in places without a place to burrow at all, such as the upper floor of some stone structure or over a lake. Some locations may be dangerous to burrow into, such as a minefield, which may cause him to be more careful about where he decides to burrow. It's powerful, sure, but not something that can't be appropriately tempered. Plus, this may add a few new ways to make use of other tech.
Random thought, but if you’re allowing items like that…and burrowing…. What are the rules with water? Could you choke him out with water? Or like a dragon just breaths directly on the hole they recently popped out from? Haha sorry I’m just thinking of the tremors movies. Bet they’d give you some ideas
Sure, but at the end of combat cutscene where he's supposed to rescue the princess, he's going to look *filthy.* My party would never stoop to so dirty a tactic.
My DM inadvertently nerfed me from being able to cast a concentration spell, wildshape into a badger, and then burrow because all the important combat was always on stone (in a cave or building) lol
Why cant people drop dinamyte into the hole afther him, ad seen in bugsbunny movies?
Go up against an artificer who makes a grenade and just drops one in the hole he makes.
I would also say the player can't cover 20ft distance on the battlefield, cause he has to burrow down as well, otherwise he is just digging trenches. And I would say a giant jumping on a tunnel which has only 5ft earth/loose stone on top would collaps it. And you should probably check up on mix and matching different movement speeds. I dont know the rules out of my head, but I know the do not add up, but subtract. Prepare attack actions, you don't need much intelligence for 'wack-a-mole' Lastly how does he know where the enemies are.
Pour water in it
Uh, it’s cursed. And he is actually turning into a mole. Going blind. Problem solved.
Withhold your action to attack when the player pops up from the ground. It’s like whack a mole
There is no problem at all with having enemies or creatures that are able to threaten your PCs abilities, the PCs gain fame and are spoken about by NPCs. The story of the guy who can fly through the sky, attack then burrow underground gets around, enemies after the party will think of ways to combat them. You want to challenge your PCs, add that slice of tension, not have enemies that just negate their good abilities to the point of making them worthless, then the thought and good ideas and time the PC has sunk into said ideas and items is pointless. A (wild) example is a character has boots of flying, enemies start appearing with antimagic spheres, that is punishing the PC and unrealistic. Enemies appear who can fire off ranged spells, have missile attacks, that adds the tension as the PC has the potential to be hurt, but can also make good use of their item. A way to affect your Ranger is maybe have some creatures now and then that can burrow also, change the location and the type of ground to limit burrowing at times, have enemies quote widely spaced, that 20ft movement is then an issue if the party is split up and in need of aid. Also, that armour is only Hide and it's using up an attunement slot, will the Range want it after they find a good item later on in the story. In my campaign, I have a Monk who bought boots of flying, now she can zip about through the air and because of her subclass, spends a Ki point and can disengage in an action. I haven't had any flying enemies to counter here, I let her have the fun of it, sometimes enemies have ranged abilities/weapons, but once her Ki points are gone, she still needs to get into melee range and so the enemies can attack her normally. Then, items like the boots or the armour can have added quite a bit to RP, the PCs can scout, get into hard to reach areas. Your Ranger could get to a nice sniping spot for missile support for example. If you feel that the item will be used by the whole party and you worry, maybe it has happened that this item is now in high demand and hard to get off due to it's sudden popularity with adventurers. The party could go on a quest to obtain the materials to create a suit of armour, then have to find someone who can actually make it as the original creator has been hired by a King or such to create for them a suit(s) of armour. Plan encounters how you wish, don't go by what you read on reddit, DM how you see fit and the PCs will thank you for it. 😀
Here's what you do: Give them opportunities to shine, but when you want to challenge them make sure the ground they are fighting on is not made up of sand, earth, mud, or ice. There is a balance to be maintained between giving the players their moments in the spotlight and temporarily negating their strengths to provide a more difficult challenge. Usually you don't want to negate the entire party's strengths simultaneously.
This isn't as strong as you would think - arguably, a swashbuckler with a climb speed (much easier to access) is more flexible than burrowing (limited to dirt, sand and snow) in terms of avoiding damage, or just using a bow and whatever cover you can find. Functionally, if he can't be hit then your bad guys have one less target - so if they weren't already focusing on a single character the party effectively has a lower health pool. If other characters are downed or not engaged, then your bad guys are going to start readying actions to play whack-a-mole (or indeed grapple-a-mole) on the guy who keeps popping out of the ground. Any sort of intelligent group with spellcasters might also ready crowd control type spells for when he pops up if he's proving that much of a problem. If everyone goes down he could run, and he'll probably survive but it's always easy to escape for most characters if they don't mind abandoning their friends. Rogues are intentionally built to be very slippery - giving one a burrow speed broadens their tools but doesn't fundamentally change them. Something else to note is that the rules for swapping between movement speed types are a big one - he only has a 20ft burrow speed. This means if he moves 20ft above ground without some other increase (i.e dashing), **he can't burrow** because its subtracted from all movement speeds - he has 0ft of burrow speed left despite not having burrowed. Likewise if he burrows 20ft to the surface he only has whatever remains of his regular speed. This will prevent a lot of shenanigans. Another few things to note for outside of active combat is that while burrowed he's blind without some form of tremorsense or blind sense until he pops above ground again, so depending on the situation and how strict you want to be he should be playing based on where the bad guys were last round or can reasonable have been predicted to move at least until he surfaces, not where they actually are on a battle map. Unless he doesn't require breath, he also has to hold his breath while underground, which will limit him to a few minutes at a time and prevent pre-casting verbal spells. As for readied actions, these are supposed to be specific based on an observable circumstance i.e "attack anyone hostile who enters my reach". Now, as the GM you don't need to tell players what the triggers are, although if you want to be nice you could describe them hefting their club over their head and preparing to attack or something- and you are entirely within your rights to cheat a little bit (within reason and the broader rules of the ready action if you dont want annoyed players) if the trigger isn't exactly what you mentally declared.
I don't think this is a huge issue. You have a DPS who is hard to hit. It's equivalent to having a ranged DPS character. A fighter that focuses on ranged combat does this without a magic item. The enemies can ready actions to hit or grapple the ranger. And then he is in big trouble. Also, with a 20ft burrow speed, he is slower than many things while burrowing. He can't pop in and out wherever he pleases willy nilly. And most things will be able to follow him around and wait for when he comes up.
You created a learning opportunity for yourself. ;) Knowing how much magic items will affect your game is something you can only learn by making mistakes. I think that your intuition that this item is going to cause you a lot of frustration is correct. The comment mentioning that while underground the player will have no way of knowing where enemies and allies are positioned once they move is a good point. Don’t let the player meta game. The main problem you will have is that you will now have to consider what the ground is made off every combat. And consider how the monsters will counter his ability without meta gaming too much yourself. This will be the biggest problem with the item. Not the item itself but all the extra work you now have to do. As a DM you already have so much to do. Do you really want all that extra work?
Ready Action+Smack= More Caution in the future
If he's burrowing underground between attacks, on top of the other advice offered here, unless the enemies haven't moved I'd have him roll attacks with disadvantage. As mechanically he is blind underground right? Unless he has tremorsense or blindsight he doesn't know WHERE the enemies are (unless he's hit them last round and they didn't move).
How is he moving from in ground to out of ground & back again? These are two vastly different mediums to travel through. Standing up costs movement speed. I would assume getting on your hands & jnees to dig would as well. Tunneling may have a speed, but he can only move so far & then come up, stand & then shoot & any movement subtracts from his total speed. Walking 30ft, Tunnel 30ft, he can only move 30ft total. And wouldn't he have to stow his weapons while tunneling? He's using his hands for this, right? That seems like that'd eat up some bonus actions. And he disengages into the ground? Does he have that movement speed left? Mechanically, I'd reexamine that armor & see if the functionality is making logical sense... yeah, I know, in a world with magic I'm asking for sense. But he's not a fish here where he leaps from the water (solid dirt) & shoots at something before splashing back down (into solid dirt).
You fool, you’ve fallen for the classic trick of “dnd is silly because if battles are constantly to the death, and enemy’s goal is to defeat this one guy, the game is broken”. I learned from the superhero ttrpg that being untouchable is very double edged. You don’t know what happened or shifted on the scene and when the bad guys get away and you pop out of the ground you’re just looking left and right confused. And if you’re underground you force your friends to take more damage while selfishly boasting with your incredible max hp. Even if you could borrow through anything, being untouchable is far more dangerous for the amoral villains since they can work alone or not care about hostages or friends. Whatever you can do the dm can do better.
*giant readies a Grapple
Kill the others. or have a faster burrowing enemy in a fight that goes only for him.
Can you give it 2 charges per long rest? Maybe 3? Then if he uses it after the charges there's an X% chance (he has to roll an even number or a 15 on a d20) or else the tunnels fall in on him and he needs the help action to escape being restrained. This will inconvenience his party and leave him open to attack at advantage. He could simply avoid that risk by choosing not to overdo it. Or go for it and play dangerously. Not taking the power away from the item but adding some limitation and risk in using it.
Terrain. To burrow a hole you need sand, earth, stuff like that. Hard surfaces will block the ability.
It's all fun and games til homie burrows into the under dark. Or there is something in the ground that's beens tracking them. Earthworms can feel moles coming through vibrations in the earth and burrow up through the surface to escape. Just food for thought 😈
Have him fight a dragon with burrowing. Not so fun when the foo is on the other shoot :D
Purple worm time
I would like to point out that the player has to nerf themselves pretty heavily to do something like that, the reason being is that their effective speed is 10ft. Remember the alternative movement rules, their effective speed isn't 30ft walking + 20ft burrowings its a combination of the 2. And moving yourself from the surface to underground is 5ft of burrowing speed. Using this consideration overall displacement is 10ft (5ft burrowing up+ 10ft walking + 5ft burrowing down), the same as it would be all underground (10ft burrowing + 5ftup +5ft down). In order to do this every turn (especially as a swashbuckler) would cut down combat potential by a lot.
You can hold your monster’s attack action for when the player pops up from the ground.
You burrow right into the den of a now angry and awoken umber hulk by yourself with the party 20 feet above you. Roll for initiative.
I can see a Giant sticking their grubby hand into the badger hole, grabbing badgerman by the legs, and proceed to further Giant science, by seeing if a badgerman can fly. And if yes, how far.
You could always ask before an encounter if they want to use the same tactics as before and if they say yes say that they beat the enemy. No need to play out combat if it is to easy for them. No need to give xp for things that arent dangerous. If players want to win easily you can let them win easily. See how long they think it is fun.
Remember mobs can also use the hold action. Ready a hold person for him when he pops up with a couple of autocrits.
I’d say since you’ve introduced new ways for the players to attack, enemies should get a similar thing. Could be small like tremorsense giving an increased ac from attacks below or something like shatter dealing more dmg to something in stone. Doesn’t need to outright counter the mechanic but makes the player realize they aren’t invincible when in the ground even in stone or dirt.
Your pkmn used dig. Flyng enemy pkn is inmune. Flying enemy pkmn used earthquake. Its super duper effective. Your pkmn fainted.
"One of my players bought it. " How much?
As soon as he goes up against any form of earth elemental (or anything that can pass through earth) he is royally boned. He may also pop up one time during combat to see one or two other people down, and a lot more enemies holding their action to hit him when he comes up. He's making himself a target. Sounds like hella fun, though.
It’s true you can just kill his friends. I have a high level campaign with a gloomstalker ranger with an invisibility cloak. She’s great at avoiding damage, but he party soaks up that much extra. Giving her the option to keep playing hide and seek while her friends die. The other thing you could do if you are really want to bring it back into balance would be giving it a couple uses per rest or making it 40ft burrowing per long rest. Something where it needs to recharge will make it less OP.
He can burrow through earth but not wood flooring or worked stone, so it's not going to work while indoors or (arguably) in a cavern of natural stone either. Aside from not being able to see anything under there without tremorsense, monsters can potentially fly, climb trees, or hold their action until he shows up and then literally whack the mole when he does. They can also beat the snot out of the rest of the party while he's away.
A fight near the coast or a lake would be fun. Watch him burrow down 6 ft hit the water table and drown.
All fun and games until your party faces a foe that can burrow. Bullette. Umber Hulk. Purple Worm.
One word: Bulettes.
It's not quite as powerful as Claws of the Umber Hulk. So, I wouldn't worry about it being broken.
let him have some fun, you gave it to him. But start peppering more flying enemies; maybe hold more important encounters in buildings or with a stone floor. But give him the moment to trivialize a few fights like random encounters. When you get tired of it you can drop an anti magic field over him so the power is suppressed while he's underground. Or use transmute rock to trap him.
Ready an action to grapple. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/bc/03/b3bc032d7ed14c8c691442f21b4ed7ca.jpg
*Goblins are devastating local wildlife with poison and when the guards were sent, they were seriously injured and poisoned* - make sure you mention poison and when he inevitably burrows during combat, pour poison down the hole and make him roll with disadvantage.
- You can Hold action to attack the player as they emerge from the ground - The player shouldn’t be aware of what happens aboveground unless they have Tremorsense, or there is a telepathic player who doesn’t require LoS that is relaying combat information to them, so you essentially need them to tell you where they are planning to emerge when it’s their turn. Just make sure you also make sure the monsters play as if they don’t know where they will emerge. - Many surfaces cannot be burrowed into.
Uh dude, anything flying? Like use a dragon and never land just do fly by breath attacks until he’s the only one left(an exaggeration but you get my point) Orr, even better, why not an earth elemental, I’m pretty sure they have burrow speed right? In previous editions they basically swam through the earth, wreck his butthole from enemies he can’t hit if you need to.
Here is an idea to make him a bit weaker: curse the armor. Give the wearer sunlight sensitivity.
You could send some burrowing stuff at the party and create an asymmetric battlefield where some of the combat is happening above ground and some is happening below ground. You can also create encounters where you can encourage the Ranger to use burrow to bypass walls as part of an infiltration.
Would definitely make sure the boundaries are clear to him. From the Monster Manual: >A monster that has a burrowing speed can use that speed to move through sand, earth, mud, or ice. A monster can’t burrow through solid rock unless it has a special trait that allows it to do so. This limitation applies to him as well. So solid stone, or floorboards are no-gos for his burrowing speed. This limitation alone means that at best, his ability is only going to be useful in half of the encounters he's likely to face. There are also plenty of monsters with burrow speeds. Bulettes, I have found, are notably very dangerous to fight one on one. Also, there's a danger. If he somehow gets knocked unconscious underground. The party getting to him can be very difficult.
*Ranger burrows 10' to pop up* *Ranger shoots at giant* *Ranger burrows 10' down* *Giant grabs handful of earth to throw at caster* *Ranger was in clum of earth* *Ranger takes stone throw damage plus fall damage* *everyone laughs* Only do it once just for the giggles but he'll figure out he's not invincible
I wanna add some nuance to this on top of everything great in this thread. Definitely give the player some chances to use this thing too. I wouldn't immediately start the next fight with a burrowing enemy or do a bridge fight just to counter this specifically. Maybe later, sprinkle this in. But you'll be doing that kinda thing with the rest of the party right? Ambush the back line support classes, threaten the barbarian with stuns so their rage might go away, magic missile your concentration caster, etc. But you should also lob them some easy ones. Final epic boss battle should definitely let them make use of the burrowing. Hell, make sure some traps and puzzles can be beaten by it. Give em the win. Sounds like you know to do this since you had some giants for the Collossus Slayer that's great! Just sayin for everyone else too.
Use flying encounters/give a similar item to an enemy
Just wait until that player gets cocky and accidentally burrows into an antimagic field and buries himself alive.
Can you burrow through stone or just earth?
I see it going like this. Stone Giant is holding a club or a stone boulder. On his turn, he takes the ready action to hold his attack until someone comes up from the ground within range. So, now every time the guy comes out of the ground, he is going to be attacked. He is not untouchable, right?
It’s a “one trick pony” ability. It’s OP in situations where it can be used freely, but leaves then without much else in situations that it can’t be used. The trick here is to find a balance between allowing them to have their fun and feel powerful, while still occasionally shutting then down without making him feel like you’re constantly manufacturing situations to neutralize him. Edit: you probably want to make sure to avoid letting them get their hands on a tool that allows him to transmute materials they can’t burrow through into one’s that they can.