D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

[Ovinomancer]

No I'm talking about his posts, arguments, position he's forwarding and so on. I'm sorry you don't understand this but there's a difference between making personal attacks and making statements in regards to the arguments someone is presenting. Saying someone is an idiot is different than saying someone's argument is idiotic. Anyway I don't think derailing the thread further is going to help. Please stop making personal attacks against me just because you don't like the arguments I present. Talk about those instead of me personally.

You didn't list his arguments, you said that Ariel is in an echo chamber, Ariel is incapable of accepting evidence. Those aren't regarding Ariel's arguments, they're regarding Ariel. You can tell because of Ariel's name in there and no mention of any of his specific arguments.

But, fine, I'll talk about your arguments instead of you:

Keep in mind, I came to this thinking it was pretty obvious that the blasts would proc separately, and that hitting someone with four blasts would knock them back 40'. I have a negative attitude towards Noctem's arguments because every argument I've seen from him in this thread has been at best totally counterproductive, and often full of errors, misrepresentations, and personal attacks.



There's history of these arguments before these threads. Noctem's arguments have a long history of being snide and rude about other people "not reading the rules" when they actually just make stuff up.. His arguments have not stopped making stuff up and attacking people over it.

There, all about your arguments, not you. I'm sure you'll agree that these are no longer personal attacks? No?

 

[Umbran]

Folks,

A few of you, on both sides at this point, are making this discussion personal. Please stop. Address the logic of the post, not the person of the poster. It is really simple.

If someone has been making arguments you no longer want to listen to, your best move from here on is to *stop responding* to those arguments. Your worst move (at least, from the point of view of having to have orange text pointed at you, or worse) is to become disrespectful of other posters.

Thanks, all.

 

[Arial Black]

AB, I think you might find it enlightening to distinguish between "the effects of this spell can't be dispelled" and "the spell itself cannot be interrupted in any way".

That's two theoretically different claims, and you're not considering the possibility that the rule on instantaneous magic might be intended to state one but not the other. I think it's quite possible that the intent was closer to "both" rather than just one of them, but you aren't even acknowledging that the claims are different.

If I understand you correctly, then you wish to distinguish between spells that cannot be dispelled:-

* because the energy of the spell is somehow immune to being dispelled, even if the spell energy can exists as it is being targeted by dispel magic

...and...

* because they magic of the spell exists only for an instant, and so no longer exists by the time a dispeller can target it with a dispel

I acknowledge the difference, but the reason I haven't addressed this before (neither has anyone else BTW) is because while the second case is part of the rules in 5E, the first case is not!

There is no part of the rules that has a general quality of 'this magic is a type of magic that cannot be dispelled', and has a keyword like 'undispellable' in its stat block. There are spells which cannot be dispelled by dispel magic. Wall of force is such a spell. The wall is made of force(!), and this is the kind of 'magic' it is made of. That 'magic', that 'effect', has a duration of up to 10 minutes, during which time anyone could cast dispel magic on it. Usually, this would end the spell effect, the wall itself in this case, but the spell description says, "It is immune to all damage and can't be dispelled by dispel magic. A disintegrate spell destroys the wall instantly, however".

(BTW, I don't care how much some people scour their dictionaries, 'destroyed instantly' means 'destroyed straight away', not 'destroyed over the period of a turn, allowing people to do stuff after it is disintegrated but before it is destroyed'!)

So this spell's magic is indeed immune to dispel magic, specifically. It is not immune to all spells though, and it is only immune to dispel magic because it says so. It needs to say so, because otherwise there is no reason for the magic of the spell to be immune to being dispelled.

'Instantaneous' spells on the other hand, are definitely of the second type. Type two here includes the quote of 'instantaneous' itself. These spells are only 'undispellable' because the magic only exists for an instant.

There is nothing in the description of eldritch blast that makes its 'magic' immune to being dispelled (as with wall of force). The only reason it cannot be dispelled is because it's 'instantaneous', and the only reason instantaneous spells cannot be dispelled is because, and I quote, "the magic exists only for an instant".

 

[seebs]

If I understand you correctly, then you wish to distinguish between spells that cannot be dispelled:-

* because the energy of the spell is somehow immune to being dispelled, even if the spell energy can exists as it is being targeted by dispel magic

...and...

* because they magic of the spell exists only for an instant, and so no longer exists by the time a dispeller can target it with a dispel

I acknowledge the difference, but the reason I haven't addressed this before (neither has anyone else BTW) is because while the second case is part of the rules in 5E, the first case is not!

No, that's not the distinction I'm talking about at all.

5e is not a rigidly written ruleset intended to be understood as precisely literally accurate in every way at all times. Often, the explanations of how things work are a little approximate.

My interpretation of the "can't be dispelled" claim is that it's actually a little imprecise and handwaving, but it is literally true in nearly every circumstance.

So, interpretations:

#1. If a spell is tagged as "instantaneous", there is no non-point interval of time during which the magic is actually present; you go directly from "magic not present yet" to "magic already came and went".
#2. If a spell is tagged as "instantaneous", the effects of that spell take place so quickly that there is no point at which they are present, but you can dispel them; by the time they are present, any reaction will happen only after the magic is gone, leaving only the non-magical and undispellable results.

I have been tending towards the second interpretation, which may seem surprising, but I think it provides a usable model, and it is almost always indistinguishable from the first model.

Here's the thing. If you don't have that "instantaneous" language, someone will try to cast dispel magic on a person who has been set on fire by a fireball, because "the fire came from magic and should be able to be dispelled". Even though the spell's over, the fire's still there.

But in the one or two cases where an instantaneous spell's effects imply some kind of time sequencing, it becomes conceivable to imagine a thing happening between them. Think about a trap which activates an antimagic field "if anything hits the idol". You cast something like Scorching Ray, or Eldritch Blast. You attack the idol. The antimagic field goes up. You now have additional attacks to make... But there's an antimagic field around the idol.

And that contradicts the apparent sense of the "instantaneous" language, but so do the official rulings we've gotten on how repelling blast works, or whether you can choose new targets after seeing what the first attacks do. And that leads me to suspect that the intent is more like the second case... in which case, during the attack sequence, it's possible that you really could interrupt, or dispel, Eldritch Blast, because the rule saying you can't is a general discussion of the intended semantics of instantaneous effects ("after the effect has taken place, it's not magical, it's just the way things are"), and not really an absolute and incontrovertible statement about all game timing rules ever.

 

[psychophipps]

The part that I'm still trying to figure out is why all of this minutia is so dang important. If your player is that worried about being able to squeeze Effect X in between Eldrich Blast bolts, I can't help but point out that they very likely are just a teeny-tiny bit more worried about winning than in telling a good story. Can any of the principal commentators honestly tell me that your game would be so enormously enhanced/degraded with the ruling in either main direction of intent that the game simply would cease to be fun if it was determined to be one of the other options?

23 pages with a net gain of "zero extra fun in my game" is a pretty steep price to pay for something that most folks don't see the issue with...

 

[Ovinomancer]

The part that I'm still trying to figure out is why all of this minutia is so dang important. If your player is that worried about being able to squeeze Effect X in between Eldrich Blast bolts, I can't help but point out that they very likely are just a teeny-tiny bit more worried about winning than in telling a good story. Can any of the principal commentators honestly tell me that your game would be so enormously enhanced/degraded with the ruling in either main direction of intent that the game simply would cease to be fun if it was determined to be one of the other options?

23 pages with a net gain of "zero extra fun in my game" is a pretty steep price to pay for something that most folks don't see the issue with...

Stand off, everyone's hurt and near dead. A parley has broken out, but the players don't trust the other guys. Players declare readied actions to take out the enemy caster if they attack. Enemy caster says 'screw it' and EBs. Does he get the opportunity to maybe take out a few very wounded PCs because they have to wait for all of his bolts, or can they, at least, get a chance to get him before he gets more than one off?

Cool story, and a very similar thing actually happened once in my game. Sure, it's a corner case, but, you know, some people like exploring corner cases.

 

[seebs]

Some of us enjoy thinking about rules, and I find that when rules questions come up in play, I'm often much happier if I've thought about that question beforehand, or similar questions.

 

[Arial Black]

No, that's not the distinction I'm talking about at all.

Ah, okay.

I have to admit that I had to read your two interpretations below a couple of times to understand the difference, but I think I've got it now.

So, interpretations:

#1. If a spell is tagged as "instantaneous", there is no non-point interval of time during which the magic is actually present; you go directly from "magic not present yet" to "magic already came and went".
#2. If a spell is tagged as "instantaneous", the effects of that spell take place so quickly that there is no point at which they are present, but you can dispel them; by the time they are present, any reaction will happen only after the magic is gone, leaving only the non-magical and undispellable results.

Well, it won't come as any surprise that #1 is correct (or, for the purposes of debate, the one that I support).

As I understand #2, this is a spell with a 'non-point duration', during which, multiple 'point duration' beams can be shot. I don't think this is the case, and here's why: there are already spells that work like this (call lightning), and they have a non-instantaneous duration. Call lightning, for example, has a duration of up to 10 minutes, during which you can call down instantaneous bolts.

If eldritch blast or scorching ray worked like that, then the spell itself would not have an instantaneous duration, even if each beam or ray could itself be described as instantaneous.

 

[Arial Black]

Some of us enjoy thinking about rules, and I find that when rules questions come up in play, I'm often much happier if I've thought about that question beforehand, or similar questions.

Yeah, I'm much happier if the rules make sense. I'd be unhappy if a length of time was enough for one guy to 'shoot, look, decide, shoot, look, decide, shoot, look, decide, shoot', while not being long enough for the other guy to 'see shot, react'.

 

[seebs]

Ah, okay.

I have to admit that I had to read your two interpretations below a couple of times to understand the difference, but I think I've got it now.



Well, it won't come as any surprise that #1 is correct (or, for the purposes of debate, the one that I support).

As I understand #2, this is a spell with a 'non-point duration', during which, multiple 'point duration' beams can be shot. I don't think this is the case, and here's why: there are already spells that work like this (call lightning), and they have a non-instantaneous duration. Call lightning, for example, has a duration of up to 10 minutes, during which you can call down instantaneous bolts.

If eldritch blast or scorching ray worked like that, then the spell itself would not have an instantaneous duration, even if each beam or ray could itself be described as instantaneous.

There's no duration shorter than "a round", though, so I think they'd still call it "instantaneous" even if it's not really instantaneous. Which we already know it isn't. Think about how fireball works. It streaks through the air. Which means that there is movement over time. It's a very very small amount of time, too small to do anything about, but it is taking time to move.