D&D 5E How the crap do you explain the rogue's Evasion ability?

[Stalker0]

I mean hell we could go one step deeper. Its not just evasion, how does anyone take half damage from a fireball without moving?

 

[dave2008]

I had a rogue in a five foot wide corridor, no exits, no cover, nothing, and a mage dropped an 8th level spell on him, filling the entire corridor with napalm. No damage. Thanks, D&D.

Actually D&D gives you the tool to correct this: a DM. A point of a DM is to handle silly situations like this (unless everyone wants silly of course).

 

[J.Quondam]

For every successful Evasion, there are uncountable unsuccessful Evasions across the parallel universes. Therefore for every live Rogue in the here and now, there are uncountable smoldering Rogue corpses scattered across those same parallel universes.

 

[dave2008]

Just let characters move when they make a successful Dex save. Easy fix.

I have thought about require a reaction to move out of the area of effect to avoid all damage.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean hell we could go one step deeper. Its not just evasion, how does anyone take half damage from a fireball without moving?

It's because canonically, fireballs aren't the awesome explosions of hellfire we all imagine, but a sad, dumb little 'whuf' of flame that lasts less than a second.

 

[Minigiant]

As a fighting game player,

It's invincibility frames.

 

[toucanbuzz]

You can't explain how a fireball harms everyone else but the rogue, without moving an inch, stands unharmed. So, easier to explain that HP is an abstract wherein you aren't actually taking real, potentially lethal damage, to your body. Your luck is running out, you're getting worn down, your arms are tired, whatever. That fireball that exploded over everyone's heads left a safe zone on the floor. You all took cover, but it scorched the air and drained your moisture and you're weakened a bit, except the rogue who through uncanny ways handled it better.

If the fireball drops you to 0 HP, then yeah, you didn't get down in time.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The real issue here is what does damage mean. This is one of these situations that exposes the absurdities relating to hit points.
A fireball is supposed to be set alight unattended objects but anything that hot is likely to kill a human. If only by damage to exposed mucous membranes and eyeballs and such.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Iirc, Frostmaiden has a scroll that makes a comet hit the ground and destroy everything in a 500 foot radius, including buildings and such. A Rogue or Monk can just take no damage from it while standing in the middle of the giant crater.

Prob the most extreme example, but there are situations where they just can't realistically dodge it, so you just gotta handwave it or make up some supernatural explanation. Anyone with enough HP can also survive it without dodging, so you got that inhumane durability angle as well.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I mean hell we could go one step deeper. Its not just evasion, how does anyone take half damage from a fireball without moving?

You could go another step and ask how a high level fighter can get hit by several fireballs and be running around with less penalties than from a forced march (exhaustion). Each of those fireballs would easily kill an entire crowd of peasants, so clearly it isn't because a fireball isn't deadly.

(My answer is because this is an abstraction in a game, and just flavor it however you prefer.)