D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[hawkeyefan]

Counterspell, much like turn order, is inherently unsatisfying to me. It breaks the fiction, but there really is no better way to do it. Combat is not simultaneous in a turn order system. It can't be. It's an area where I just hold my nose and ignore it so that the game will function in a decent manner.

Next campaign counterspell won't be an issue for me since it will be banned.

That's fine, that's your choice. But so is the idea that it "breaks the game".

Works perfectly fine with my group!

 

[Maxperson]

That's fine, that's your choice. But so is the idea that it "breaks the game".

Works perfectly fine with my group!

Only if you ignore what happens in the fiction. No matter how you try to spin it, D&D combat is not occurring simultaneously with a turn based system. You can try to imagine that it is, but your imagination is wrong if you do that. In simultaneous combat everyone would be moving and reacting to one another in the same moments. You'd have to be able to adjust where you are going, what you are doing, and who you are attacking based on how everyone else is moving and making decisions. That kinds of simultaneous action is not happening with turn based combat no matter how you try to imagine it.

 

[tetrasodium]

The DMG says that it is designed and mapped to a party of 3-5.

DMG page 83: "The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers."

Saying it & sticking to it are different things. 5e has too many areas where the math is lowballed in the PC's favor for it to hold up in actual play. Magic items, feats, basic rudimentary charop like plonking a 15 in your primary stat, yoyohealing in case there's nobody who can heal, too many classes that can heal so nobody needs to plat a small pool of classes to bring healing to the group, bounded accuracy plus expertise, etc. More than two PCs is where cracks start forming

 

[hawkeyefan]

Only if you ignore what happens in the fiction. No matter how you try to spin it, D&D combat is not occurring simultaneously with a turn based system. You can try to imagine that it is, but your imagination is wrong if you do that. In simultaneous combat everyone would be moving and reacting to one another in the same moments. You'd have to be able to adjust where you are going, what you are doing, and who you are attacking based on how everyone else is moving and making decisions. That kinds of simultaneous action is not happening with turn based combat no matter how you try to imagine it.

Ha you just said my imagination is wrong! That is amazing.

ETA: Sorry, in my amazement I posted too quickly. I meant to ask you for the spell-counterspell-counterspell example to work, what in the fiction must be ignored?

 

[Maxperson]

Ha you just said my imagination is wrong! That is amazing.

If you imagined that the moon crashed into the Earth today, would your imagination be right or would it be wrong?

 

[hawkeyefan]

If you imagined that the moon crashed into the Earth today, would your imagination be right or would it be wrong?

What?!?!

Is your D&D game depicting real events? By this standard you're trying to set... this "logic" you're trying to apply... everyone's D&D game is always "wrong".

Let's please abandon this lunacy and instead I'll reiterate the question I wanted to ask before posting my last comment.

For the spell-counterspell-counterspell example to work, what in the fiction must be ignored?

 

[Clint_L]

What is it with folks claiming that counterspell breaks the fiction? You yourself write that "everyone would be moving and reacting to one another in the same moments." Exactly. Counterspell is literally a reaction. It is not remotely fiction-breaking for me. In fact, one combatant reacting to and foiling the actions of another is about the most common thing that you see in any kind of action entertainment. Or in real combat sports, for that matter!

Why on earth is it unrealistic with counterspell? Just because magic is involved? You do you, but claiming that it this is a problem inherent in counterspell, rather than a problem in inherent in how you see counterspell, is flat wrong. Here's a short video on wizard's duels in film.

 

[Clint_L]

This argument literally is coming down to some folks saying that the way they imagine magic is right, and everyone else is therefore wrong. Time to move on, yeah?

 

[Maxperson]

What?!?!

It's simple. It's impossible for a turn based combat system like 5e's to be simultaneous no matter how you imagine it. You can imagine it, sure, but you are twisting it into a pretzel that it really isn't in order to imagine it that way.

For the spell-counterspell-counterspell example to work, what in the fiction must be ignored?

The reason counterspell can counter a spell is because it's an instantaneous reaction. There isn't enough time in the fiction for the second counterspell to interrupt the first, because the spells are equally long. The first counterspell can stop the fireball since the fireball takes long enough to cast that the reaction can interrupt it and keep it from being successful. By the time the second counterspell is done and can interrupt a spell, the first finished and triggers just before that.

You have to start twisting the fiction where casters are simultaneously faster and slower than each other with the same spell or something equally absurd in the fiction in order to allow one to counter the other. For my current campaign I'm just ignoring the fictional flaw and the spell will be gone in the next one.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Turn order rules that forbid two or more things happening at the same time in the fiction (expressed in mechanical-rules terms as simultaneous initiatives not being allowed) where in real combat simultaneous actions would be a common occurrence.

It's a conceit necessary to make 5e Combat work.

PHB p 189: A typical combat encounter is a clash between two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork, and spellcasting. The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative. Once everyone has taken a turn, the fight continues to the next round if neither side has defeated the other.

Could you explain how simultaneous combat actions work in your game? It has been decades since I played 1e.
Do players declare what they are doing up front, DM declares what the NPCs/monsters are doing, and then the DM resolves everything at once?


Incidentally, spells like shield and counterspell do allow for "two or more things happening at the same time in the fiction", as you put it. Yet you don't seem to like those. Why?