D&D 5E If you use thunderstep but teleport less than 10 feet do you take damage?

[Lyxen]

Probably it is better to accept that the stop motion initiative of 5e does not really make sense from a cinematic point of view.

The thing is that there is no "stop motion initiative". The initiative does not stop the motions, they just indicate when the resolution is done. During a fight, a fighter does many swings, parries, lunges, etc., obviously, the initiative and attack roll just tell when one of them has a chance to connect.

Certain actions/trigger create a suspension of disbelieve.

They might if you describe them in a silly way, like insisting that you crawl at a slow speed as a reaction to avoid the boom of a Thunder Step. If, however, you describe it like I did in a previous post, as a desperate scrabble to get away, then it becomes cinematic enough for all the players I've encountered.

Here the DM as adjucator of rules comes into play.

That, obviously, is fundamental.

 

[Lyxen]

Setting aside that I personally feel trying to simulate “real life” is a futile effort in D&D, I do get what you are saying. I seek to achieve that same natural flow by sticking to the game loop as best possible regardless of what pillar (or combo of pillars) we are in.

Indeed, and just a precision, I'm not really trying to simulate "real life", for genre books/movies are not real life and neither are LARPs, what I'm trying to simulate is the natural flow from pillar to pillar.

Just because initiative is rolled to determine the order in which PCs/NPCs act in combat does not mean it needs to be a “reset” of the action.

For me, it's a reset in terms of preparation only, which is why the simple fix of allowing ready actions patches that "reset".

If you think about it, the very same thing is going on in exploration and social interaction - with the DM deciding who goes “next” rather than formally rolling initiative/turn order.

Sort of, although in that kind of case, it's way more flexible as the DM adjudicates purely based on declarations, not a formal order decided by dices.

As a point of clarification: Do you not use initiative in your games to determine turns in combat? What then determines turn order?

We use initiative, although we also use every trick of the book (in the section "ignoring dice" in particular) to have initiative conform to what happened when combat started. If someone obviously starts the combat from certain positions (in particular with surprise and preparedness coming into effect), then we sometimes decide to give advantage on the roll or even to put something at the top or bottom of the order (auto success / failure). But in general, we are also happy to let the dice decide, as long as the system does not forget that someone was, for example, watching the door...

 

[Lyxen]

Yes. You are always in one place or the other. You move, then after that there is a thunderous boom.

This is not what the spell says.

Because the movement is instantaneous, it becomes the case that any words describing this movement (disappear, reappear, teleport, move) all describe the exact same moment in time, something which we have no experiential reference for.

It's your interpretation, but it's not specifically supported by the way the spell is described. The alternative "disappear, boom, reappear" is also supported, and actually (at least for me MORE supported), since the spell says : "Immediately after you disappear, a thunderous boom sounds..."

So, once more, not only does it disconnect the disapperance from the reappearance, but the boom is IMMEDIATELY after the disappearance, indicating that the reappearance is not, and is later in the sequence.

But that's what makes it magic.

But the other interpretation does not make it less magical...

 

[Lyxen]

I still disagree with the notion that hard mechanics favor players over DM's. What DM on the planet has never made house rulings on how things work for their games? The advantage of hard mechanics is, you can point to an answer. It may not be the answer you like, but it is an answer. If you want to discuss the game with other people on a forum (like here!) it's easier to find the common ground of what the game is written to say, and then make the ruling from there.

Hard (and complex) mechanics make it way easier for nitpicking ruleslawyers to argue and sometimes put the DM in difficulty over his interpretations, something that I saw way too often with 3e.

It's not inherent to hard systems, but it's a failure when a player knows the rules way better than a DM because they are complex and intricate.

The idea that players feel entitled to hard rules to protect them from the "big bad DM" is patently silly

I agree, but if you look at forums, some people even in here argue that they have encountered bad DMs (not in the sense that their games were poor, but that they were ill-intentioned) and that the rules were there to protect them. I must add that the relatively recent intrusion of "player agency" in the debate has made things even worse, for example look at the way @Maxperson reacted to my descriptions of what happened to a character after the description from the DM.

I have see (way too many) forum posts about this unfortunately.

- the player feels entitled to a game that is fun. Here's the thing about games. Some people like the challenge of something a little unfair (Dark Souls comes to mind). Some people like playing games that are very fair. Some people like playing games in easy mode. Some people feel like playing early Nintendo games with pixel perfect platforming and enemies that infinitely spawn while a timer ticks down.

I agree, but the problems occur when there is a difference between expectations. For example a player expecting an extremely fair game and playing in a game with a "Dark Souls" DMs (I'm playing Elden Ring these days, and I think it's a bit easy mode compared to Dark Souls or Sekiro ).

If someone doesn't like your game, that's not a personal affront, that's simply them saying "this isn't fun for me, I'm out". Dithering with the rules in order to make your game more fun for everyone involved is fine. Doing so in a way that makes the game less fun is not fine.

While I agree in principle, this highlights the need for a proper session 0, with everyone of good faith. But with an inexperienced DM, it makes me even more furious when experienced players hit on him for not respecting their sacrosanct "player agency", while at the same time not respecting the work done by the DM in preparing the game and helping him. And this is from players on this forum, showing a level of entitlement when they become players that I find way more insufferable than what any DM has ever done to me in 42+ years of playing the game.

A complete game with well defined rules vs. an somewhat messier game where you're told "hey, just do what feels right" isn't favoring one participant over another. In both cases, the DM has to work hard to make sure whatever he fiddles with isn't going to break.

In this, I agree with you, it's just not a perfect world. I suspect that there is a middle ground which is the best for inexperienced DMs, with not too many clear rules that they don't get confused or bullied by ruleslawyers, but enough rules that the players don't feel that he is making too many things up, not necessarily in an equitable manner.

5e certainly is not that, the ruleset is not that light, but it is purposefully fuzzy for an open game. 4e was better in terms of having a very clear ruleset, but it was also formal and way more complex (some of the complexity is compensated by the clarity, but still)...

The hard rules just give you the advantage that you have guidance to tell you what the developers think about it before having go on Twitter and having to hope Crawford has the time to give you his opinion.

On this I agree, 5e is not the best. That being said, the problems above only occur for me when there are players with strong personalities. If you are just playing along with friends with no major expectations of "playing by RAW", "respecting player agency", etc. it's much easier for the DM to run a convivial game even if he is a beginner. If the players are beginners as well, they will have fewer expectations and they will feel less entitled.

Which, by the way, even with hard rules, people did this sort of thing ALL THE TIME anyways, lol. So I really don't see how one approach is "superior". It's all in the mind.

See above, when I'm a player, I'm always extremely forgiving and helpful towards my DM, even if he is inexperienced, makes mistakes, etc. The DM is always right is something which is very strong for me. Even if sometimes I feel railroaded or my character a bit abused, I don't mind, I've never met a DM who did that on purpose to annoy me or asser anything, it was always honest mistakes or more simply a DM not really realising what he was doing or not knowing how to behave so that the game completely slips out of his hands (or just feeling that way).

What I really can't abide is experienced players criticising that kind of DMs, coming to the table with high expectations, a high level of entitlement and not the slightest hint of compassion or helpfulness in their heart for the DM running a game FOR THEM.

 

[chaochou]

This is not what the spell says.

I don't know why you are spamming the thread insisting that you are correct. Nearly 100 posts in a 17 page thread insisting that you know better. Strange.

But anyway. Yes the spell says exactly that - it says you move from one place to another instantaneously.

You are at A. Then you are at B. No time separates A from B. An explosion happens after you leave A. You must therefore be at B when it happens.

It's really very simple and only made complicated by people trying to rules lawyer in a time delay into teleportation, by exploiting the fact that the rules conversationally talk about 'disappearing', as that's what an observer would see.

What's being disguised by trying to exploit that language is that it isn't what the caster experiences. They don't disappear, they move from A to B instantly.

 

[James Gasik]

Hard (and complex) mechanics make it way easier for nitpicking ruleslawyers to argue and sometimes put the DM in difficulty over his interpretations, something that I saw way too often with 3e.

It's not inherent to hard systems, but it's a failure when a player knows the rules way better than a DM because they are complex and intricate.



I agree, but if you look at forums, some people even in here argue that they have encountered bad DMs (not in the sense that their games were poor, but that they were ill-intentioned) and that the rules were there to protect them. I must add that the relatively recent intrusion of "player agency" in the debate has made things even worse, for example look at the way @Maxperson reacted to my descriptions of what happened to a character after the description from the DM.

I have see (way too many) forum posts about this unfortunately.



I agree, but the problems occur when there is a difference between expectations. For example a player expecting an extremely fair game and playing in a game with a "Dark Souls" DMs (I'm playing Elden Ring these days, and I think it's a bit easy mode compared to Dark Souls or Sekiro ).



While I agree in principle, this highlights the need for a proper session 0, with everyone of good faith. But with an inexperienced DM, it makes me even more furious when experienced players hit on him for not respecting their sacrosanct "player agency", while at the same time not respecting the work done by the DM in preparing the game and helping him. And this is from players on this forum, showing a level of entitlement when they become players that I find way more insufferable than what any DM has ever done to me in 42+ years of playing the game.



In this, I agree with you, it's just not a perfect world. I suspect that there is a middle ground which is the best for inexperienced DMs, with not too many clear rules that they don't get confused or bullied by ruleslawyers, but enough rules that the players don't feel that he is making too many things up, not necessarily in an equitable manner.

5e certainly is not that, the ruleset is not that light, but it is purposefully fuzzy for an open game. 4e was better in terms of having a very clear ruleset, but it was also formal and way more complex (some of the complexity is compensated by the clarity, but still)...



On this I agree, 5e is not the best. That being said, the problems above only occur for me when there are players with strong personalities. If you are just playing along with friends with no major expectations of "playing by RAW", "respecting player agency", etc. it's much easier for the DM to run a convivial game even if he is a beginner. If the players are beginners as well, they will have fewer expectations and they will feel less entitled.



See above, when I'm a player, I'm always extremely forgiving and helpful towards my DM, even if he is inexperienced, makes mistakes, etc. The DM is always right is something which is very strong for me. Even if sometimes I feel railroaded or my character a bit abused, I don't mind, I've never met a DM who did that on purpose to annoy me or asser anything, it was always honest mistakes or more simply a DM not really realising what he was doing or not knowing how to behave so that the game completely slips out of his hands (or just feeling that way).

What I really can't abide is experienced players criticising that kind of DMs, coming to the table with high expectations, a high level of entitlement and not the slightest hint of compassion or helpfulness in their heart for the DM running a game FOR THEM.

But see that's my issue. Bad players are going to be bad players (and bad DM's, bad DM's). That has been true for every edition. I was introduced to 5e through Adventure League games, and let me tell you, the lack of hard rules has been the source of many, many, many debates. Never did I feel like I had freedom to make rulings, because the players would gripe to the event supervisors and come to me with endless Sage advice tweets to the point where I felt that maybe all of this clarification should have just been in the rulebooks in the first place.

That's where 5e breaks down for me. In a home game, it's perfectly fine (even though I'm still annoyed when I have to do WotC's work for them). But in any kind of community play?

Forget it.

 

[chaochou]

Repeat

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't know why you are spamming the thread insisting that you are correct. It's really tedious.

But anyway. Yes the spell says exactly that - it says you move from one place to another instantaneously.

You are at A. Then you are at B. No time separates A from B. An explosion happens after you leave A. You must therefore be at B when it happens.

It is totally inappropriate to tell him his reading is wrong and yours is correct. There is nothing in the text that says you instantly reappear.
The following text makes the distinction between disappearing an else, so his interpretation is totally correct. That does not make your interpretation less correct. I'd say, both readings are well within RAW.

For your convenience, here is the text from the spell:
"You teleport yourself to an unoccupied space you can see within range. Immediately after you disappear, [...]"

 

[James Gasik]

Now back to the topic at hand, the issue comes down to when the spell deals damage. Is the caster present when the spell blasts people or not? Does the caster vanish, kaboom, and reappear? Does the caster vanish, reappear, and then the spell does damage?

Saying this all happens simultaneously turns the caster into a literal Schrodinger's Wizard.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It's really very simple and only made complicated by people trying to rules lawyer in a time delay into teleportation, by exploiting the fact that the rules conversationally talk about 'disappearing', as that's what an observer would see.

What's being disguised by trying to exploit that language is that it isn't what the caster experiences. They don't disappear, they move from A to B instantly.

This is also very insulting. The question is who is rules lawyering... I think it is a matter of perspective.