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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 6867519" data-attributes="member: 16814">Of course it doesn't.  No one's claimed otherwise.  In fact, for your assertion to take place, you'd have the narration of the mechanical results occur immediately after any partial resolution, which isn't how I've ever seen it done.  I suppose you can posit that someone out there starts narration in the middle of a mechanical resolution, and so would have this problem, but it's not a problem for anyone I've seen post here.No, if the attack is successful, the mechanic says that a hit has occurred.  You may not narrate that hit until you finish the other parts of the mechanical resolution, such as reactions to the hit that may modify it like shield, but the hit occurs.  If it does not yet occur, you cannot react to it mechanically.  You're confusing the narration of the in-game events with the mechanical resolution -- they're not the same thing.  The narration serves the mechanical outcome, the mechanics are not beholden to the narration.So, as you note, in the case of shield, a hit must occur.  "Must" because you cannot react otherwise.  The you choose to react, if able. And, if that reaction is shield, and it successfully negates the hit, then the narration follows that the hit didn't occur, because that's the result in the game fiction.  Mechanically, though, the hit did occur but was negated by the shield reaction.  That's the beauty of the mechanics/narration divide -- the mechanics don't need to make narrative sense during resolution, only their final outcome needs to provide narrative sense.  The shield outcome provides narrative sense, but the resolution process does not.  This is true for any shield spell usage -- it doesn't make narrative sense to narrate the resolution process, it only makes sense to narrate the outcome of the resolution process.  We don't need a nice story that walks alongside the mechanics, just mechanics that provide as outcome a nice story. So, with shield and shocking grasp (or any other reaction to a hit and shocking grasp), the mechanical effects are that the hit occurs.  On a hit, shocking grasp negates reactions and does some damage. 5e doesn't have an order of operations that separates these effects -- the effects of a hit don't have a wait delay for an reaction before applying their effects.  So the effects of the shocking grasp, including the prohibition on reactions, are in place before a reaction can be declared.Yes, so is damage.  Sense we don't need the resolution process to make narrative sense, this is fine.  You can have the full damage dealt, but then have Uncanny Dodge modify that damage before it's applied, because only the outcome needs to make narrative sense.  Uncanny Dodge makes perfect narrative sense when use to narrate the end result of the resolution process -- you take half of the damage.  But if you're hit with Shocking Grasp, that full damage and the prohibition against reactions are in place before the reaction can be declared -- they're fully attendant to the hit.  So you can't react to a successful Shocking Grasp spell because the hit removes your ability to react.  It would also remove your ability to cast the Shield spell as a reaction.  Both make full narrative sense in their results.</blockquote>

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