D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[pemerton]

Maybe not, but to me it really makes a lot more if it did.

It hardly shows that 5e has an incoherent fiction that its consistent fiction isn't what you'd prefer.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You said that imaginin g things happening sequentially would cause you to dislike retcons, or something similar; my reply was an attempt to point out that if things can happen non-sequentially in the fiction (i.e. time flows more than one way and retcons are a thing) there's bigger problems.

Simultaneously instead of sequentially. Parallel instead of serial.

Not randomly ordered instead of sequentially.

 

[aco175]

There seems to be 20something layers of counters going on in the last several pages of this thread and none of them are working. I do not see anyone landing an attack at this point.

Side note, maybe counterspell backs up time for like half a second. This would allow for a counter to be seen and then countered. The spell descriptions are rather vague.

 

[Voadam]

Parry does not have an instantaneous spell duration.

But as you point out mechanically in 5e "A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on your turn or on someone else's. The opportunity attack, described later in this chapter, is the most common type of reaction."

In 3e where there were more things that provoke attacks of opportunity the chain of physical interrupts could be quite long. A Move out of a threatened square provokes an attack from B who uses a grapple attempt which provokes from A so A strikes unarmed which provokes, B has combat reflexes so B interrupt counters with a trip attempt which provokes ...

 

[Mort]

I'm not sure what lifo is, but...

"A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on your turn or on someone else's. The opportunity attack, described later in this chapter, is the most common type of reaction."

"INSTANTANEOUS Many spells are instantaneous. The spell harms, heals, creates, or alters a creature or an object in a way that can't be dispelled, because its magic exists only for an instant."

So the initial counterspell is instantly reacting with magic that only exists for an instant. Basically the guy casting fireball gets countered by a guy yelling NO! Could you realize he was yelling no in time to interrupt it with a no of your own? I strongly doubt it.

As written the magic of the counterspell does not stick around until the fireball is done or almost done.

You may not realize he's yelling NO but you realize he's reacting and can counter that.

Thing is, he may not be casting counterspell. He may be casting endure elements or shield - so the mage casting the spell knows SOMETHING is being cast as a reaction but not what - really the DM should say "X is using a reaction..." not "X is countering."

I like the fencing example (my so also fences). They react to disengages, ripostes, feints and parries constantly and it happens very, very fast.

I will say, what counterspelling during a spell DOES require is the recognition that you can interrupt your own spell, with another spell, and then finish it. That might rub some the wrong way.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I will say, what counterspelling during a spell DOES require is the recognition that you can interrupt your own spell, with another spell, and then finish it. That might rub some the wrong way.

Yeah I'm not crazy about that. If I decide to ban it, though, I won't feel the need to justify it with a realism argument.

 

[Maxperson]

Reaction is a game rule representing things that can be done by a character outside their turn in initiative. It's not an indication of the amount of time it takes to resolve an action.

If a round takes 6 seconds and there are 100 characters 8n combat each character is not taking a .06 second slice of time to perform their actions.

It has to. Not only does it say under reaction that they react instantly, but if they didn't they couldn't have that reaction at all. There's no way the acting creature would just sit there and wait 6 seconds for you to do your reaction. Not being an instantaneous thing just makes combat even less simultaneous and screws up the narrative even more.

Everything a character does from the start of their turn in combat until the start of their next turn in combat just has to fit in a 6 second window to match the narrative expectations of the game.

This is wrong. If my PC runs up to you and begins to swing and your character decides to interrupt me performing a reaction, it cannot possibly take you longer than an instant to do it. My swing isn't going to pause and wait 6 seconds for you to finish and then continue on.

 

[pemerton]

If my PC runs up to you and begins to swing and your character decides to interrupt me performing a reaction, it cannot possibly take you longer than an instant to do it. My swing isn't going to pause and wait 6 seconds for you to finish and then continue on.

I believe that @Sabathius42 was assuming that all combat participants use the same 6 seconds.

Why, except in a stop-motion world, would people just be running up to one another and "swinging" without some sort of back-and-forth, attempts to parry and block, etc?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I'm not crazy about that. If I decide to ban it, though, I won't feel the need to justify it with a realism argument.

Maybe not, but a gamist argument isn't any better or any worse than a realism one.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe not, but a gamist argument isn't any better or any worse than a realism one.

To me it seems like it is: the question of whether or not a certain approach to game play is disruptive, or unbalanced, or otherwise unsatisfactory is a meaningful question about something that is occurring in the real world.

Whereas a "realism" argument about whether or not someone casting a magical spell Dr Strange-style can interrupt it to cast a Counterspell is a contradiction in terms - the answer is entirely made up, either directly or as part of some extrapolation or building on some prior conception of how the magic works which was entirely made up. There are no constraints, and where there are no constraints I don't see how their can be argument at all.