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Guest 6801328
Guest
I think Steeldragons has a good argument, but the insistence that it must be the only answer strikes me as a little much. There are good arguments on both sides.
D&D 5E Reactions
- Thread starter Delazar
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Fanaelialae
Legend
IMO, this is clearly not the case. By this logic, Shield would not be able to negate the attack that triggers it. However, I believe it is fairly well established that Shield can deflect the attack that triggers it if the attack fails to hit the newly enhanced AC. You see that you are about to be hit and quickly throw up a Shield to deflect the attack. Doesn't matter if it is a longsword or taser cantrip.
There is absolutely no reason that Shocking Grasp would ignore Shield. You try to Shocking Grasp me. I throw a force field between us. You never touch me. So how exactly is my reaction negated when I wasn't tasered? It's an electric effect, not temporal.
Uncanny dodge has an identical trigger as Shield. As such, it is triggered before the Shocking Grasp effect is applied. You see that the attacker is about to hit and have a chance to interrupt it with your reaction. Then, if not negated, the effects of the hit are applied.
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Guest 6801328
Guest
Yeah...although the wording says "when the Rogue is hit" I think the implication is that the rogue reacts to the impending attack, not the pain of the successful hit.
Uller
Adventurer
Nonsense. UD specifically says that it halves the damage of the triggering attack. SG says that it prevents reactions in general. You have your generals and specifics backwards.
Otherwise, shield cannot be used to prevent a ghoul from hitting you if the hit paralyzes you because (by your logic) the paralyze condition specifically says it inhibits reactions. So you have to make a save against the paralyze effect before you can cast shield to stop the attack from hitting at all...makes no sense. Both Shield and UD specifically say they apply to the triggering attack.
In both cases: On a hit, damage + effect becomes On a hit, reaction, then damage and effect.
No more than being knocked unconscious does. The spell doesn't say "and cannot take reactions until its next turn, not even reactions that occur before the effects of this spell are resolved". That would be specific.
There is explicit wording in shield that it can prevent the attack from hitting at all. Uncanny dodge doesn't say that. On the other hand, it makes no sense to apply it only after applying the effects of the attack, because that would be a healing power.
Fanaelialae
Legend
No it doesn't. It says "you have + 5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack". But the trigger is a hit, so it shouldn't matter, right? Who cares what my new AC is against the triggering attack if it already hit me. It already hit me, so an increase in AC shouldn't matter, right? It says nothing specifically about being able to negate the attack that triggered it after all.
IMO that interpretation is evidently wrong.
Hit occurs.
Check for reactions to hit.
Apply effects of hit, modified by any previous reactions.
Check for reactions to applying effects (typically damage).
As far as I'm concerned, that's the simplest and most sensible way to adjudicate it.
Li Shenron
Legend
It sounds like a conflict between two exceptions, or specific rules. "Specific trumps general", but we have no official rule on how to resolve two specifics. Is a class ability more specific / stronger exception than a spell or viceversa? It's quite obvious that this debate can go on forever and not solve the problem.
Most importantly, I would stay away from trying to imply general rules from this specific conflict. It's useless if not even detrimental to the game, since it can spell more debates and more unwanted consequences somewhere else. Just choose what you like for your game, and be humble in accepting that it ain't the universal truth.
For what it's worth, I'd be more inclined in letting the Shocking Grasp win if it comes up, just because.
Most importantly, I would stay away from trying to imply general rules from this specific conflict. It's useless if not even detrimental to the game, since it can spell more debates and more unwanted consequences somewhere else. Just choose what you like for your game, and be humble in accepting that it ain't the universal truth.
For what it's worth, I'd be more inclined in letting the Shocking Grasp win if it comes up, just because.
Arial Black
Adventurer
It's actually very common in 5E for an ability to negate its own trigger.
Shield is triggered on being hit, but then changes the hit to a miss, so shield was never triggered, so you did get hit after all, so then it did trigger....!
The trigger here is not that the character was actually hit in the game world, but that the DM rolled a successful attack roll. These are different things!
Relentless Rage triggers when you drop to 0 hit points. If you make the save, you drop to 1 hit point instead. So you never dropped to 0 and the ability was never triggered, so you did drop to 0, so it was triggered...!
Same thing: the barbarian in the game world never fell unconscious, it was the hit point total on the character sheet in our world which reached 0.
Half-orcs get Relentless Endurance which does much the same thing: it triggers when something happens, but then the trigger never actually happens.
Uncanny Dodge must work the same way! It must retroactively change what has happened so that it never actually happened! It must work in such a way that you never took that, say, 30 damage at all, and that you always took only 15. Otherwise, it would by Uncanny Healing rather than Uncanny Dodging.
Shocking Grasp has two effects on a hit: damage, and reaction-denial. Those two effects happen simultaneously. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that the reaction-denial happens before the Uncanny Dodge while the damage comes after, and we know that the damage comes after because otherwise Uncanny Dodge would be healing damage already taken instead of partially dodging the hit in the first place and never taking that part of the damage.
Shield doesn't work in an unusual way for 5E (by negating its own trigger), this is a very common 5E mechanic.
Shield is triggered on being hit, but then changes the hit to a miss, so shield was never triggered, so you did get hit after all, so then it did trigger....!
The trigger here is not that the character was actually hit in the game world, but that the DM rolled a successful attack roll. These are different things!
Relentless Rage triggers when you drop to 0 hit points. If you make the save, you drop to 1 hit point instead. So you never dropped to 0 and the ability was never triggered, so you did drop to 0, so it was triggered...!
Same thing: the barbarian in the game world never fell unconscious, it was the hit point total on the character sheet in our world which reached 0.
Half-orcs get Relentless Endurance which does much the same thing: it triggers when something happens, but then the trigger never actually happens.
Uncanny Dodge must work the same way! It must retroactively change what has happened so that it never actually happened! It must work in such a way that you never took that, say, 30 damage at all, and that you always took only 15. Otherwise, it would by Uncanny Healing rather than Uncanny Dodging.
Shocking Grasp has two effects on a hit: damage, and reaction-denial. Those two effects happen simultaneously. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that the reaction-denial happens before the Uncanny Dodge while the damage comes after, and we know that the damage comes after because otherwise Uncanny Dodge would be healing damage already taken instead of partially dodging the hit in the first place and never taking that part of the damage.
Shield doesn't work in an unusual way for 5E (by negating its own trigger), this is a very common 5E mechanic.
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