Uncanny Dodge is a rogue ability that allows a character to halve damage from attacks they can see coming. It works against all types of attacks, including spell attacks, but it is not helpful against spells or other effects that deliver damage through a saving throw rather than an attack roll. Uncanny Dodge is a 5th-level Rogue feature that allows a character to use their reaction to automatically halve the damage from a single attack, which applies to melee, ranged, or spell attacks.
At 20th level, a character has an uncanny knack for succeeding when needed, and if their attack misses a target within range, they can turn the miss into a hit. Alternatively, if a character fails an ability check, they can treat the d20 roll as a 20.
Uncanny Dodge works against all sorts of attacks, including spell attacks, but it is not helpful against spells or other effects that deliver damage after a saving throw rather than an attack roll. The Uncanny Dodge Ability of ROGUE and RANGER works against scorching rays, rays of frost, and any other spells that roll. However, it is unclear whether Uncanny Dodge works against spells that involve “spell attacks” or magical hits that do not involve an attack role but are save to avoid.
In summary, Uncanny Dodge is a rogue ability that allows a character to halve damage from attacks they can see. It works against all types of attacks, including spell attacks, but it is not helpful against spells or other effects that deliver damage after a saving throw rather than an attack roll. The ability is only available once for rogues and rangers, and its effectiveness depends on the player’s ability score and the specific situation.
📹 D&D 5E – Uncanny Dodge in a nutshell
Uncanny dodge its an amazing ability, top tier dungeons and dragons 5e skills imo. but if you think about it this way it becomes …
What does Uncanny Dodge work against?
The strategy of uncanny dodge allows an attacker to utilize a reaction to reduce the damage of an attack against the user by half, beginning at the fifth level. This can be advantageous in instances where JavaScript is disabled or blocked by an extension, or when a browser does not support cookies.
How do you beat uncanny dodge?
While the Uncanny Dodge ability is indeed effective, it is important to note that the creature employing it must be either invisible or obscured in order to successfully defeat their opponent. The Melee Weapon Attack inflicts 4 points of damage and 7 points of piercing damage (calculated as 1d10 + 2). The efficacy of the attack is contingent upon the availability of JavaScript, the absence of browser-level extensions, and the browser’s capacity to support cookies.
Does dodge work on spells?
In D and D 5e, PCs can use the dodge action to avoid enemy attacks, imposing disadvantage on all attack rolls against them. This action also gives PCs an advantage on Dexterity saving throws to avoid hostile spells or effects. However, dodging only works if PCs can see the attack coming. In combat, PCs can choose to take the dodge action instead of using an action, casting a spell, or using their abilities.
Attack rolls against them are made with disadvantage, as long as PCs can see the attack coming. Additionally, PCs have an advantage on Dexterity saving throws, which measure their ability to avoid harmful effects and are often forced by hostile spells or enemy abilities.
Can you uncanny dodge traps?
The character in question is able to benefit from a dexterity bonus to their AC, even when they are in a flat-footed or attacked by a creature that is hidden or invisible. This feat bestows a +1 bonus on reflex saving throws made to evade traps, a +2 bonus on reflex saving throws made to evade traps, and a +3 bonus on reflex saving throws.
Does uncanny dodge work with rage?
The effect of rage is multiplicative, whereby the initial damage is multiplied by two before being halved again by uncanny dodge. This results in a final damage of 25 points, with the cost of one reaction point. This only functions on the initial instance of damage, leaving only the capacity for rage resistance.
Does evasion work on spells?
Evading an attack prevents damage and other harmful effects, including status ailments and stun. Only melee and ranged attacks can be evaded, and spells are automatically hit. The chance to evade is based on the defender’s evasion rating compared to the attacker’s accuracy. The chance to evade is limited to 0 to 95. Two modifiers bypass evasion: Cannot Evade enemy Attacks (e. g., Unwavering Stance keystone or Ezomyte Peak Quality), and attacks using Hits cannot be evaded.
Can a Rogue uncanny dodge a fireball?
It should be noted that the maneuver is only applicable to melee weapon damage and not to parry damage from bows or firebolts. Furthermore, a rogue is capable of uncanny dodging any weapon.
Does evasion dodge spells?
It should be noted that evasion does not affect spells. Additionally, the term “ranged attacks” is used to describe bow attacks and potentially wand attacks. In the event of a one-versus-one encounter with a low-level boss and subsequent Ice Lance attack resulting in the character’s demise, it is not advisable to utilize this ability, as it will have no effect.
Does Uncanny Dodge half poison damage?
The ability to halve poison damage from an attack is an inherent quality of the Uncanny Dodge ability. Nevertheless, this action is only possible if JavaScript is disabled or blocked by an extension and if your browser does not support cookies.
Does uncanny dodge work with spells?
The tool is effective against a variety of attacks, including those of a magical nature. However, it is not effective against spells or effects such as fireballs that inflict damage after a saving throw. It is possible that the tool may be disabled or blocked by third-party extensions, such as those designed to block advertisements, or by browser settings that do not allow cookies.
Does protego only work on spells?
The Shield Charm (Protego) was a magic charm that protected the caster with an invisible shield that reflected spells and blocked physical entities. It was part of the Defence Against the Dark Arts curriculum and taught to sixth-year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The shield, usually conjured, created a protective barrier between the caster and their attacker, blocking and reflecting various spells and physical forces. Exceptionally powerful Shield Charms could knock people off their feet. However, the shield was not completely impenetrable, as it could not block Unforgivable Curses.
📹 D&D 5E Dodge action!
This video was part of a Collab with a ton of other youtubers! I highly recommend watching the original video! Its got tons of other …
Now I wanna see the Shield Master equivalent of this. Just have a spell caster throw, like, a level 9 fire ball at the Fighter/Paladin and watch it do ZERO damage because they have this tiny little shield taped onto their arm that normally wouldn’t protect them from ANYTHING. But since they have Shield Master they avoid taking all damage from spells that require making dex saves. (Assuming they make the dex save of course.)
This reminds me of the greatest thing to ever happen in my party. We were fighting a dragon and everyone was getting super low, except the rogue. And this ensues: DM: The dragon is going to use its breath weapon and- Rogue: Can I jump in the way and block the dragon’s fire? DM: Sure, I guess. That’s pretty heroic of you. Make a dex save? Rogue: 25? DM: Yeah, you pass. So you take half of- Rogue: Actually, I’ll use my evasion so I don’t take any damage. DM: *trying to to laugh * So let me get this right. You try to jump into the way to block the dragon’s fire… Rogue: ..yeah? DM: ..and you just jumped out of the way. So, *to the rest of the party * make a dex save.
Was a revenge paladin that was lawful good with a chaotic neutral rogue. The rogue would steal stuff, trick people and basically would take 0 damage in fights, but he never tried stuff on me despite me never noticing him do stuff (because of his absurdly high stealth rolls) because he knew it wouldn’t take much to anger my character and even with his abilities he wouldn’t survive my onslaught (and my absurdly high attack and damage rolls). We were fairly high level so I had multiple attacks, teleportation, and some spells that would make it easy to find a hidden enemy.
Not that it matters, but the middle finger gesture actually comes from a time when archers used to use their middle fingers to draw their string. During one particular war, I forget which, the opposing army had a habit of cutting the middle fingers off of archers and then releasing them back to their camp as a demoralization thing. Showing off one’s middle finger was a way of saying “I can kill you”. So, I find it grammatically incorrect that the guy who just got killed by an archer, is flipping the archer off.
One of my favorite strategies is a bladesinger Wizard with Animate Dead. Turn one use Mirror Image and control your undead with a Bonus action. Turn two Dodge and start your bladesong, or vice versa. Now you are dealing damage, super tough to hit, and have one of the most flavorful characters ever; you’re dancing madly while skeletons twang arrows into the enemies that can’t touch you and are about to join your army.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Action Surge can do so much more than attacking. Action surging to dodge as part of another larger action (sprinting, grappling, attacking, and so much more), can really flip an encounter on its head. Also, remember that some abilities (like sneak attack) can’t activate if an enemy has disadvantage on hitting you. Just dodging against a rogue is one of the most overpowered moves possible.
…couldn’t you just close and brace the door? If you have decent strength the odds are you could hold the door against the goblins, then your allies ready actions and next turn you open the door, dramatically lean your head to the side so they can shoot/cast, and you go in to clean up the mess afterward
The only problem with this tactic comes from the DMG, Chapter 9, Action Options: Overrun, Shove Aside, and Tumble actions. Overrun: When a creature tries to move through a hostile creature’s space, the mover can try to force its way through by overrunning the hostile creature. As an action or a bonus action, the mover makes a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the hostile creature’s Strength (Athletics) check. The creature attempting the overrun has advantage on this check if it is larger than the hostile creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller. If the mover wins the contest, it can move through the hostile creature’s space once this turn. Shove Aside: With this option, a creature uses the special shove attack from the Player’s Handbook to force a target to the side, rather than away. The attacker has disadvantage on its Strength (Athletics) check when it does so. If that check is successful, the attacker moves the target 5 feet to a different space within its reach. Tumble: A creature can try to tumble through a hostile creature’s space, ducking and weaving past the opponent. As an action or a bonus action, the tumbler makes a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the hostile creature’s Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the tumbler wins the contest, it can move through the hostile creature’s space once this turn. A bunch of goblins tumbling past a heavily armored fighter (who most likely dumped Dex and doesn’t have proficiency in Acrobatics) is going to be easy business, and a way better use of just their bonus action, meaning they can still attack that round.
My Player has a Dwarven Champion who will spend entire encounters just using Dodge to tie up enemies. If they dry to get around him either they are using disengage which allows him to protect the other player, or they provide him attacks of opportunity. Either way he has slowed or even stopped enemies from reaching his Sorcerer, Scout, or Warlock party members.
I love the dodge action. I play as a arcane trickster rogue so a lot of times I would Dodge action and then bonus action dash through a mob. Making them all burn up there reactions . They get angry and would try and swarm me and attack making them wasting there normal actions. If one did end up hitting me, I would cast shield for a +5 ac.
What would you as DM do if a PC blocks the only door of the house? Mindless beasts might charge forward, while the cunning goblins would use action to throw torch or fire arrow to set the house on fire, and then run into covers using bonus action to hide behind their traps. Once the house is set fire, everyone inside may need to make Dex save to dodge the falling objects, or Con save for the smoke if not holding breath. Man, a good DM will roleplay the enemy well, and not every mobs are mindless beasts. By lore, goblins are cunning with ambush tactics and deadly traps. Even if the building cannot set fire, they would probably retreat and prepare more traps and the next ambush.
My party learnt how powerful the dodge action is when the last enemy in an encounter used it, ran past them all, dodging every single opportunity attack along the way and got to the next room to call for reinforcements. I sent them info on every action they could take in combat, they knew the dodge action existed, but they completely forgot about it because they never took it. That NPC is now legendary as ‘the dodge guy’ and is always referenced when someone takes the dodge action.
If was the dm i wouldn’t send all the goblins in like that. I mean, c’mon. Goblins have an intelligence of 10, they are cunning creatures and accustomed to work with pack tactics to overwhelm/outmaneuver bigger opponents. Sending them in like that really does a disservice to the immersion of the game, even if it’s just to prove a point.
I’m a bit late to the party, but there is a counter to this. First of all, creatures 2 sizes smaller or larger than the blocking creature can simply walk through that creature’s space, into the backline. The door blocker gets, at most, one opportunity attack, and those smaller or larger creatures flood the backline. In the article’s example, the goblins could grapple and move the blocker out of the way, shove them out of the way, tumble through their space, shove them aside, and etc. Since there are so many of them, they could each run into one another’s space and attempt this, as long as they can end their turn without being on another creature’s space. In addition, these goblins can fire arrows or hurl rocks over the blocker. If the players are waiting behind cover, they can ready their attacks to fire when those characters leave cover. Both the goblins and the PCs will suffer half cover penalties to hit, unless they have sharpshooter or spell sniper. If your job is being the primary door blocker, you need to have an excellent athletics (and/or acrobatics) score to make sure other creatures don’t grapple you or move you out of the way. Consider getting expertise, bardic inspiration, or anything else that can help you avoid grapples and shoves. Medium-sized creatures are the best blockers for small-large sized creatures, and small-sized creatures are the best blockers for tiny-medium sized creatures – you should consider having 2 different door blockers for this reason, with the remaining party having spell sniper and sharpshooter (or using spells which require non-dexterity saving throws) to maximize effectiveness.
THANK YOU. The doge action is the most underrated options in D&D. My eyes were opened to the Truth during a one-shot I was DMing for family. It was a heist on a local casino, the Gold Goblin. The dastardly establishment owners were using charm magic to scam their clients out of everything, the town guards were bribed and the place had unmatched security; An ogre, 5 guards, a spellcasting barkeep, and a bouncer roughly as powerful as 7th level Fighter… and that was just the 1st floor. The party? 4 3rd level characters, not nearly enough to stand a chance in a fair fight. The point of the one-shot is to find ways to circumvent fighting or stack the odds before things kicked-off. The party made a bold play, the rouge would go solo to steal the keys to the basement while the sorcerer made a distraction on the 2nd floor. Things were going great, until the rogue snuck up on the owner of the establishment and went for a backstab. The attack landed and she rolled damage, but… It didn’t do it, the damage rolls were astonishingly low and left the owner with 2 hp. He turned around and cast Shatter (turns out he was a wizard). The Barbarian and the Fighter (Bengino) were the only ones on the 1st floor, and they were seriously outnumbered and outgunned. Despite this, the Barbarian decided the jig was up, and immediately swung at the barkeep. Starting combat. Within 2 rounds, the combat looked hopeless. The Barbarian took out the Barkeep in his rage, but he has knocked out soon after. Bengino, with only a few hit points left, was left alone against an ogre, 5 guards, and the Bouncer.
Got into a situation like this a few weeks back where we got surrounded by 3 Manticores, the rest of the party all went after 1 manticore but in this campaign I am playing a Goblin War Cleric and headed to between the other two Manticores and used dodge, being a war cleric, I used my spiritual weapon as my bonus action so was able to still attack while dodging between two Manticores and distracting them while the rest of the party engaged just 1.
I mean, this is why Mob Combat rules are in the DMG, they are going to hit you every turn doing around 10 damage depending how your DM runs mob combat calculation with the dodge action( personally i count it as halving the creatures used to calculate, so those 12 goblins only count for 6). Meaning you kill 0. best case scenario each of your friends kill 1 goblin each a round. so thats 4 rounds to kill them all. in which you take 15 damage. maybe more depending on missed rolls, when your DM converts back to normal rolled attacks based on how many goblins etc
Dodge is absolutely amazing, which is why for the sake of sanity I make it a rule that “actions in combat” can’t be used outside of combat, with case-by-case exceptions. Otherwise, RAW Dodge spammed throughout dungeon traversal is just free advantage on all DEX saves until initiative starts and action economy kicks in.
Would it ever be a good idea to fall prone ? If your a spell caster that’s in the back line concentrating on a spell you could fall prone as a free action and enemy’s would have disadvantage on ranged attacks against you and you could possibly take advantage of more cover. At the start of your turn you could use your movement to stand up use your action and then fall prone again, as long as your party prevent enemy’s from getting into melee your pretty safe, is the risk of melee attackers getting through too high or could this be a viable strategy ?
In one encounter I DM’d, the party decided “you know what, let’s not really worry about that telepathic scout we notified of our existence in an organized hideout of enemies”. Fortunately, the party’s Fighter understood that letting the monster go meant the ENTIRE AREA would come down on them. Letting them know that they had a round or two to prep, he rushed to the bridge and plopped himself down. He initially caught some flak for not “doing damage”… then they saw that his positioning basically meant he could only be attacked by 3 enemies at a time, which thanks to his AC and Dodge meant he face-tanked EVERYTHING. Considering one of those enemies could send the warlock into half-health with one hit from a previous encounter… they wisely shut up and appreciated Dodge a little bit more.
The best strategy is to run. Goblin one will grapple, and fail, and run away offering an attack of opportunity. After this they will have 12 more attempts to grapple and drag the fighter surrounding him on all sides and overwhelming him with action economy. Eventually the fighter will roll a 1, and the goblin won’t. But if you can’t run grapple at least slows down the almost guaranteed slaughter in this situation.
While I agree that the dodge action is pretty amazing, its almost strictly situational. The only reason here it was proven good was because the fighter stood in the way and dodged. Lets take the same situation but make the goblins smarter and the party all level 5. The party opens the door, they make their perception checks and know something is off but to what end they are unaware, they enter the room and boom! 12 goblins with pokey sticks come at you and surround you. What do you do? 10/10 times I would see someone attacking. why? Because dodging is completely useless in this situation. It wastes an action. Ok, that is a particular set of events, so lets say the party is traveling down a road, then are jumped by bandits? they all are in front of you. Well, once again you’re out in the open, and dodge isn’t going to be a very justifiable action unless they are so far away you cant do anything else. So here its more of a “I will save myself and hopefully someone else and move closer” sure that is useful, but in reality thats only ever going to be used by melee strict characters, when now days literally everyone has some kind of ranged ability nullifying the usefulness. 9 times out of 10 the enemies never run out of ammo. So unless your dm runs them with ammo capacity I don’t see a reason to dodge. Only 2 classes really ever get to do dodge as a bonus action, but it costs them a precious resource. Sure it can regenerate, but that’s too long most of the time if you are in a dudgeon or on a time crunch in game.
The problem comes if you are facing smarter human mercenaries or enemies with higher strength. Dodge does not help you avoid Shoves or Grapples. Enemies can use the Help action to grant advantage on their athletics rolls to knock you prone, push you back, or grapple you. In the third case after a successful grapple, an enemy can drag you away at half speed. The help action isn’t particularly necessary here either. Sometimes it may turn out that a large enough group of enemies just need to keep trying to push your grapple you until the plate-clad fighter topples.
I came back to this article because on the new “flametongue vs hand crossbow” one he said melee needs to worry about cover, and I don’t get it, I said so in the comments and somebody said you can get cover from standing on a doorway, but this article doesn’t mention it. Also can’t the goblins just try and make an athletics check to move past you? Sure their chances might be low, but likely higher than they killing you
Heh. My GM would throw this example sort of scenario at our starting party routinely. But he would do it in a dungeon map with corridors and doors. However he knew me well from other games, and knew full well that my weapon and shield fighter would know to block a door with his squishier friends behind him. This tactic has never failed when the terrain permits it.
Once saw a Sorcerer player use quickened spell to attack on a turn and then use his action to dodge, he had Mage Armor on and knew the Shield spell, with that simple combo he managed to kill the enemie about to get the Cleric and tanked the brunt of the enemy onslaught by having an AC of 20 and giving them all disadvanage to hit him.
Having played Solasta, a article game based on the 5th edition SRD, I have quickly seen how strong is that action. Sometimes my fighter does nothing but dodge for 5 rounds but by doing so he impedes the enemy from going to my backline where the damage is and becomes a critical actor to the success of my party. I think that in PnP many players don’t want to do something that they would consider boring but it’s definitely an underated action, especially if you in a place involving chokepoints.
Yeah I think former dm was not exactly a fan of the dodge action and I basically the only one using it. It made me question if my former party was thinking I was somehow cheating or something which I know its an action you can cause its in the book (not trying to rules lawyer) and not required to have a feat or whatever like in 3.5 which I forgot that dodge was orignally a feat after repaying nwn2 again after so many years. Its a smart action to take since its available to all classes.
Probably not the right article to ask this, but i was wondering how you would role this. So you can ready your action to move, right? What if a monster use fireball and you already knew his attack patern so as soon he start casting the magic you start sprinting out of the way? Is the player able to doge since the monster have to choose the area of effect before hand? Or the spell still hits him because he wasnt fast enough? Would you give him at least advantage for trying? What are your thoughs on it?
Dodge action helped the party kill a bandit chief. This was low levels and I was playing a bladesinger I caused the chief to use AoO and his mutiattack focused on me with the use of taunts and he nat one. The Dm has a homerule where if someone nat ones on an attack enemies within 5ft get to use AoO. The Barbarian/rouge muticlass was able to finish him off with a reaction and still use his turn after that.
I played a duelist style fighter one time with only squishies as the rest of my team members. We had a fight at level 2 where we fought against 12 or so goblins that had ended up as a big brawl except only I was at the center of it. The entire rest of the party was sitting back and just attacking round after round and the only reason I died as late as I did was the fact that I just dodged every single turn. Ended up making a barbarian b/c that’s what I default to in times of “Oh fuck my character just died”.
A few times I’ve run into a situation where I’m low on health and need to be somewhere else. I always debate between disengage, so I don’t provoke Opportunity attacks; or Dodge, so that Opportunity attacks are at disadvantage and any attacks between now and my next turn are at disadvantage. Thoughts?
You may or may not be wrong, but this scenario is a bit of a strawman. On top of being pretty terrible encounter design on the dm’s part, this also assumes that the goblins in the back have no other way to get to the room, have no range, and the dm is just going to have them stand there and wait for their turn to die. In practice this only works for maybe one round before the dm changes tactics, at least against any dm worth their salt.
problem creatures can go through you shove you or a few other things like squeez on each others tile a pack of savage wolves will climb over eachother and you to eat same with undead high int huminiods may not climb over eachother cause its impolite and may cause more harm than good… so theyll just push you
One of my characters is a half-orc psi warrior fighter and one of the reason I don’t dodge more often is actually just to keep enemy aggro, I don’t want them to ignore me because I’m too hard to hit and dealing damage can sometimes get an enemy’s attention. Dodging can be a good option if you know you can keep aggro (like in the example), the enemy is immune to your damage or you don’t want to trigger an effect that triggers from hitting with an enemy with attack or targeting it with a spell.
If I am the DM, this wouldn’t work as well as described. Goblins have a ranged attack and are reasonably intelligent to see that they don’t do much to a target and would probably switch targets. If you try to only stand in the doorway on your turn (so that the goblins can’t see you on their turn), they will start readying attack actions to attack you when you step in their line of sight. Alternatively, (for example if you play with the rule that allies standing in your way give cover) the goblins can retreat to another point and ambush you there. That said, this tactic is still quite useful, even with how I would run the goblins.
Paradoxically flanking makes 5E less tactical. Without it characters have to weigh risk, opportunity cost and the like. Is it worth your action and concentration for **Faerie Fire**? Do you give up one of your attacks to knock an enemy prone? Do you leave yourself open through **Reckless Attack**? Do you waste your action with a **True Strike**? With it characters can gain advantage too easily. Since advantage is binary, once you have it you have no reason to seek other sources. In 4E opportunity attacks worked differently. If you moved out of a space within a creature’s reach it gave an OA. This means that you couldn’t circle around them to get into flanking position. 5E OAs are only when the opponent leaves your reach entirely. This was done to be easier for theater of mind combat, but it does not mesh well with flanking. The other dumb thing is the “Conga line”. If you are flanking you already have an enemy on one side of you. Then a second enemy can get into position to flank you, and we’ve got a really awkward conga-line.
Actually, dodging is pretty much always a bad idea, including in this scenario. While it’s true that the goblins have little chance of hitting you, they have an extremely high chance of grappling you. Dodging grants no benefits to the contest roll (not a saving throw) when trying to resist a grapple, and your dodge benefits drop as soon as your grappled. With that many goblins you’re guaranteed to roll low at least once, somebody will be lucky. Once you’re grappled, the remaining goblins will shut and bar the door, possibly by dropping something heavy in front of it, or by sticking door jams underneath the door to make it complicated to open. The following round, multiple grapples will make it impossible to escape the goblins (the escape action only lets you escape one grapple), so if you don’t have magic the goblins get to keep you. Plus, once you’re locked in place they can pretty easily prone you, enforcing disadvantage on your attacks and gaining advantage on theirs, meaning that your AC will crumble under the weight of statistics and you’re health pool will drop extremely fast. The encounter will become a race between the party and the goblins to get that door open and to rescue you before the goblins drag you away to die. DON’T DODGE.