D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

[Noctem]

I think the devs have made it clear if the spell doesn't say simultaneous, it isn't.

Yep exactly. I think the fact that Arial Black is happy hiding behind others who speak for him (badly I should point out since what they say doesn't even make sense, see up-thread) instead of doing the responsible thing and going to seek proof of his claim is telling enough. He's scared to lose face or to have his claim debunked like he says. There's nothing more to do here until more official input comes either via tweet response / sage advice. gl hf for those who decide to keep beating their heads against the brick wall.

And to reply to Seebs, you can only move in between WEAPON attacks.

 

[seebs]

That's a good point, the "break up your move" specifies "more than one weapon attack".

Which gives us some indication that the eldritch blast attacks are more closely-spaced than weapon attacks. So I think we have several degrees of "how tightly spaced are these attacks":

* Magic missile: Simultaneous. Nothing can happen "between" them.
* Weapon attack: Sequential. You can see the results of each before choosing what to do next. You can use part of your move between them. A reaction triggered by one attack can take effect before the next attack.

Now, there's three things we've established can happen between weapon attacks. There's "re-evaluate situation and make new choice", there's "use part of your move", and there's "reaction triggered by one fires before next". And it sounds like, intuitively, most of the posters here agree that eldritch blast does allow "re-evaluate situation", does not allow "use part of your move", and may or may not allow "a reaction can take place before the next one happens".

So I think one question worth asking would just be each of those as separate questions. Another would be whether those have some kind of innate ordering. For instance, a possible rule (which I don't think I've seen anywhere) would be that basically attacks have a Timing Class, of some sort. Simultaneous is the fastest, and denies all three. Nigh-Simultaneous could allow new choices, but not reactions or moves. Sorta-Fast could allow new choices or reactions, but not moves, and Weapon Speed would allow new choices, reactions, or moves to separate events.

And in this theory, then, anything which allowed moving between events would necessarily allow reactions and new choices, and something which allowed reactions would necessarily allow new choices, but might not allow moving. So they require different amounts of time, but if you have enough time for something, you also necessarily have enough time for anything that's faster.

Until I hear otherwise, though, my ruling will be:

* Anything that has "attacks" allows you to make new choices between "attacks".
* Also, anything that has "attacks" allows reactions to occur between them.
* Only weapon attacks allow movement between attacks.
* Things that do not have "attacks", such as spells where you designate multiple targets and they make saves, are simultaneous unless stated otherwise.
* Magic missile says "simultaneous" because it's enough like attacks that some people are likely to think it counts, even though there's no to-hit roll, and/or because this question used to exist (say, in early 4e) and the devs are being careful to clarify the wording.

 

[psychophipps]

And I just wish to add that I'm a bit disappointed that it snowballed the way it did. Yes, it was all but inevitable what with this being the Internet and all, but it's still disappointing.

 

[Celtavian]

And I just wish to add that I'm a bit disappointed that it snowballed the way it did. Yes, it was all but inevitable what with this being the Internet and all, but it's still disappointing.

But we did get clarification.

 

[Arial Black]

Consider the description of fireball. You cast the spell. The ball streaks towards the specified point. If you are mistaken about your beliefs (such as, if there's an object between you and the point you picked), it detonates early.

So the magic clearly exists for some span of time. Not a long span of time, but a span of time. "Instantaneous" does not seem to me to have any particularly detailed chronological meaning past "once the spell has been resolved, there is no longer magic to be dispelled". It is entirely consistent with that to imagine a spell where you point your finger four times, and each time you point your finger, a beam fires from your finger. Each beam exists only for the barest fraction of a second, but it could take you as much as a second to point your finger... But the "magic" exists only briefly.

In short, it doesn't have to be "so fast that you can't react", only "so fast that you can't complete a significant reaction, like spellcasting, in response to it".

The approach you are taking to resolve this question is the correct one: thinking through the implications of each possibility to find the one that makes most sense.

If the time span between each beam is 'so fast you can't react', then it must be too fast for you to look to see what the first beam did before choosing where to aim the next beam. If you pause that long, your enemy can use the time that you're assessing the result of your first beam to use his readied attack on you (which may kill you and the extra beams are lost) or use his readied dispel magic on the (still existing) eldritch blast.

This would also mean that this 'instantaneous' spell can be dispelled because its magic didn't exist only for an 'instant'; it clearly lasted long enough to target with a dispel.

If the beams are consecutive, but the time between each beam is so fast that it's impossible to react to one beam before the next is aimed and shot, then it's also too fast for you to see what the result of the first beam was before you choose the target of the next beam. It's like a single squeeze of the trigger shooting four bullets in a fraction of a second, practically instantaneous even though they are sequential.

It is not possible for the time span between each beam to be too fast for your opponent to react to the very fact that a beam was shot (without needing to see the results of that beam), while at the same time being long enough for you to not only see the beam hit but also see the results of that beam, assess the new situation, and then re-target, three times between four beams!

 

[spectacle]

Is this still going on even after Crawfords clarification? Endless walls of text arguing a point that has been proven wrong?

 

[Uchawi]

5E is all about DM rulings, so it does not discriminate. It is all opinion once a rule is written, unless it is changed officially through errata.

 

[seebs]

The approach you are taking to resolve this question is the correct one: thinking through the implications of each possibility to find the one that makes most sense.

If the time span between each beam is 'so fast you can't react', then it must be too fast for you to look to see what the first beam did before choosing where to aim the next beam. If you pause that long, your enemy can use the time that you're assessing the result of your first beam to use his readied attack on you (which may kill you and the extra beams are lost) or use his readied dispel magic on the (still existing) eldritch blast.

This is an interesting theory, but there's nothing in the rules saying that there is such an ordering of amounts of time. It could be that the game world allows you to make multiple targeting decisions faster than enemies can react to you Just Because.

Also, I don't think it matters whether or not you are still in the process of delivering your eldritch blasts; dispel magic says it can't dispel instantaneous effects, period. So it may be that, while you are making your targeting decisions, there's no actual spell-to-dispel, even though you're in the process of casting it.

This would also mean that this 'instantaneous' spell can be dispelled because its magic didn't exist only for an 'instant'; it clearly lasted long enough to target with a dispel.

Maybe! The point of the text about them being undispellable is that, once the spell has affected a creature, the effect is not itself magical, it's just the way the world is. When you cast a spell with a non-instantaneous duration on a creature, there is magic affecting the creature imposing the continuing effect on it. You can't dispel the burns from a fireball or the damage from an eldritch blast.

Because reactions now happen after their triggers, in general, you can't interrupt spellcasting. But I'd certainly agree that it could make sense to let a readied dispel interrupt an eldritch blast after the first beam. I'm not sure that's how it works, but it seems plausible.

If the beams are consecutive, but the time between each beam is so fast that it's impossible to react to one beam before the next is aimed and shot, then it's also too fast for you to see what the result of the first beam was before you choose the target of the next beam. It's like a single squeeze of the trigger shooting four bullets in a fraction of a second, practically instantaneous even though they are sequential.

You're assuming a much more rigid timing than the game world seems to have.

It is not possible for the time span between each beam to be too fast for your opponent to react to the very fact that a beam was shot (without needing to see the results of that beam), while at the same time being long enough for you to not only see the beam hit but also see the results of that beam, assess the new situation, and then re-target, three times between four beams!

Sure it is. This is a game. The rules can be anything that the writers think is playable and fun.

 

[Celtavian]

5E is all about DM rulings, so it does not discriminate. It is all opinion once a rule is written, unless it is changed officially through errata.

Yep. it's all about DM and player agreement.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Is this still going on even after Crawfords clarification? Endless walls of text arguing a point that has been proven wrong?

If you read the points of contention, you'd see that it's not quite that simple.