D&D 5E Point me to the rule please:

[ccooke]

So in your game, you'd want the PCs to be insulting and/or stabbing each other in order to gain combat advantage against their enemies.

... I don't think we're even writing the same language here. I cannot see how you can jump to this conclusion from the text I wrote.
Yes, if I were the DM I would require you to do something offensive if you visibly tried to metagame the system by pretending one of your allies is hostile one moment and then an ally the next.

Yeah... no. If you can't see how ridiculous that is, I can't help you. Better IMO to just rewrite Warcaster. The suggestion up-thread that it "lets you substitute a spell with an attack roll for an opportunity attack" would be reasonably straightforward.

The only ridiculous thing here is the contortion necessary to draw these conclusions. I give up. Go ahead and have the last word - I'm clearly unable to communicate with you

Incidentally, Haste would be an awesome spell to cast on enemies, if you could find an enemy willing to have you cast it on him (due to trickery or whatever). Auto-stunlock for one round, no save, as soon as you end it, which you will do at the worst possible time.

Now, this is true. Charm person or Suggestion would do it, for a cost of two spells for a one round stunlock, with a save. Not really worth it, I think, but it would be a lovely way of betraying another PC/NPC who thought they were your ally.

Actually, I think I need to use that at some point...

 

[Mistwell]

So in your game, you'd want the PCs to be insulting and/or stabbing each other in order to gain combat advantage against their enemies. Yeah... no. If you can't see how ridiculous that is, I can't help you. Better IMO to just rewrite Warcaster.

You'd re-write the feat to address a problem that has never come up in your game, and almost certainly will never come up in your game, on the extremely off chance that a player will try and game it in what you describe as an obviously ridiculous manner?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You'd re-write the feat to address a problem that has never come up in your game, and almost certainly will never come up in your game, on the extremely off chance that a player will try and game it in what you describe as an obviously ridiculous manner?

Yes and no. I did mention that I have not yet altered Warcaster, because introducing house rules has a complexity cost, and it's probably not worth houseruling a feat that no one has yet taken. But if someone did take that feat, or expressed an interest in doing so, I would probably have a discussion with my players first about the ways in which it is broken, and I would argue for fixing the problem at the root. If they didn't want to then I could live with it, but at least the whole table would be aware of the gonzo effects of that feat and would have accepted the consequences for our game.

Remember that I'm coming from a place which says, "If you've prepared sufficiently and have a deep understanding of how your game physics works, running the game is easy." So to me, waiting until problems occur in play is handling them way too late and may require you to retcon things that have already happened, which is unaesthetic. E.g. there is no PC in my campaign who knows Anti-magic Shell or Magic Jar, but I already know how they interact with each other and with True Polymorph/Planar Binding. That makes it easy to improvise/interpolate for situations that I haven't considered in advance.

Warcaster's conditional manipulation of spellcasting tempo is a red flag even though no one has actually used it that way yet at my table, and even though my players probably wouldn't use it that way. As a DM it's my job to know what works and doesn't work, and also to know why.

 

[Mistwell]

Warcaster's conditional manipulation of spellcasting tempo is a red flag even though no one has actually used it that way yet at my table, and even though my players probably wouldn't use it that way. As a DM it's my job to know what works and doesn't work, and also to know why.

Why is something a red flag, if you think it will never come up as a problem?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Why is something a red flag, if you think it will never come up as a problem?

You're using a different definition of "problem" than I am, I think. It may never come up as a problem at the table, but it's already a problem in my world. Fixing it imposes a cost though in the form of a house rule, and so far I haven't bothered to do so because (problem in the world < problem in the world + problem at the table).

 

[Mistwell]

You're using a different definition of "problem" than I am, I think. It may never come up as a problem at the table, but it's already a problem in my world. Fixing it imposes a cost though in the form of a house rule, and so far I haven't bothered to do so because (problem in the world < problem in the world + problem at the table).

Doesn't the world only exist when it actually comes up at the table?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Doesn't the world only exist when it actually comes up at the table?

Maybe in your game. Are you genuinely confused on this point or are you just trying to persuade me to change my game to be more like yours? That's not going to happen.

For an explanation of my game, see post #23 above.

 

[Zinnger]

The amount of twisting and shifting here is so odd and IMO far from what the authors of the game designed. RAW may simply state on OA is available with this feat but what makes sense is that you get it BECAUSE you are wielding this reach weapon. Otherwise, there is no OA. It only makes sense to me that this reach weapon is used to make the attack as it is how you got the OA in the first place. Further proof of the RAI was included in the response by Sage Genesis where the tweet indicates that the feats cannot be combined and this "problem" cannot exist. I mean, the reach weapon grants the OA. Without it there is no OA and therefore no attack to worry about. And this bit about party members being hostile at will sounds like... well, I don't want to be insulting but it would never happen at my table. If a party member is hostile as it runs by the warcaster mage, then that mage can use its reaction to attack that formerly friendly with whatever attack spell it has. Really, what player has EVER cast haste on the hill giant that was attacking them? 5e is about getting rid of the stupid rule lawyer stuff and having simple fun. If a DM fails to do that with this set of rules then that is their failure, not the rules. Go ahead and jump on me - I don't care and will not respond. Your table is your table and mine is mine. But some things are so far out there... wow.

 

[Inchoroi]

Normally, I try to stay out of discussions like this, but the idea that you would actually expect a group of players to say, "Oh, my fellow party member, who I have been facing life and death with, is hostile for just this one second as he runs by!" is, I feel, the ridiculous part, and I am flabbergasted by the idea that this is something that is even a worry.

I mean...really? Is this really an argument that we're making now?

 

[Mistwell]

Maybe in your game. Are you genuinely confused on this point or are you just trying to persuade me to change my game to be more like yours? That's not going to happen.

For an explanation of my game, see post #23 above.

Yes, I am genuinely confused on this point. I am not trying to get you to change your game, I am not understanding how your game functions. Why would you address something that isn't a problem, because in theory there is a tiny little minuscule chance it could become a problem some day? Isn't there some basic threshold where it's not worth addressing at all, and wouldn't that threshold at least include "things which I don't already think are on their face ridiculous"? None of this impacts your world from what I can tell.