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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8233346" data-attributes="member: 7006">It does occasionally feel a little counter-intuitive when a spell effect doesn't occur at the time of casting, but rather on the creature's turn who had been affected.  Even something like Turn Undead doesn't do any noticeable effect when the cleric uses it... it's not until the creature's turn that it uses its actions to move away.  With D&D spellcasting I think we kind of feel like the undead creature should run away right as soon as the cleric uses Turn Undead on it, but they don't.  Which gives us this weird occurrence where the cleric uses Turn Undead successfully... but the undead creature doesn't do anything and just stands there, possibly taking several more hits from other members of the party in the interim... and then finally runs away when its turn comes up.  That just seems weird.And that is mirrored by the persistent AoE effects.  Where there's this limbo of time when the spell cast been cast but nothing really happens... until the creature's turn comes up when they are affected.  While it definitely is how the rules work and I think we all are able to play those rules with a minimum of issue (they really aren't hard to understand after all)... we just feel like something's wrong.  Because narratively it seems like there's this gap.One thing I think we've never really come to grips with in D&D is the conception of simultaneous action.  Because the game uses initiative and one-person-at-a-time action... we visualize the game as "YOU go, then YOU go, then YOU go, then YOU go" and so forth.  But in truth... with each round taking six seconds, that's EVERYONE on the field actually acting in those EXACT SAME six seconds.  So there really isn't any narrative gap between a caster loosing a Moonbeam and then a creature becoming affected by it on their turn-- the spell goes off and the creature is affected immediately.  But because between those two things we have to spend several minutes experiencing the other two-- three-- six-- eight-- players and monsters taking their simultaneous actions too... it makes the narrative feel like a gap and feel weird.But it's really just us as players needing to realign our experiences to what is actually happening, rather than needing to change the rules in any way.</blockquote>

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