D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Mort]

Does the reverse work too? As in when you want to CS the wizard's spells.

Yes, of course.

I have him say "I'm casting a spell..." and IF there is a counterspell I'll say so and resolve. Otherwise it's something like "go ahead" he names the spell and off we go. Other casters do the same. Works pretty smoothly.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm in a game now that uses lingering injuries if you drop to 0 hit points. I was highly skeptical at first, but decided to just lean into it and it's been very fun. My character is a fighter/warlock and after sustaining a lost foot and a festering wound, he kind of went crazy with fever and his many wounds and scars began talking to him, so now his patron is a manifestation of his pain and suffering.

I also use lingering injuries in my home games and we really like them. They give combat more stakes, and add to the story. My players like roleplaying around having to deal with the consequences.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes. This is what I've been trying to say: it's fine to have preferences, and those preferences are valid. But it's both pointless and quixotic to fight the realism fight, so why go down that road?

So unless the argument is rooted in gamism, it's "pointless and quixotic"?

Now that's an opinion!

 

[Clint_L]

For the most part, I agree- the rules are overly harsh.

But as to counterspell interaction - I do rule that you can either identify the spell (usually no check unless it's some odd or unique spell) OR counterspell it, no time to do both.

I just rule that the character recognizes the spell if they are the same class and can cast it themselves, or make an arcana check. Same for knowing the spell's level to know if they should upcast CS. My players are fine with roleplaying what their character would know rather than what they as players know - it's all part of the fun of roleplaying.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So unless the argument is rooted in gamism, it's "pointless and quixotic"?

Now that's an opinion!

No.

0% score on comprehension.

I just wrote out a long paragraph trying again to explain, then deleted it. $#%$# it. Believe whatever you want.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

No.

0% score on comprehension.

I just wrote out a long paragraph trying again to explain, then deleted it. $#%$# it. Believe whatever you want.

It always helps me to think of it as both myself and my neighbor have an item we call D&D but those items only share one trait, what we call it.

This enlightenment happed for me in a thread about halflings where I was told halflings can't grow black pepper as a seasoning.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This enlightenment happed for me in a thread about halflings where I was told halflings can't grow black pepper as a seasoning.

That’s not obvious to you?

Not coriander either, by the way.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm unsure if you're talking about the characters here or the GM.

If you're talking about the characters and their ability to track multiple factors in a hectic environment such as combat, I would agree that it is incredibly difficult. But it's also something humans have always done and continue to do.

I'm unsure how you could be uncertain of who was being discussed

Spoiler: here

The answer to that bolded bit is the same reason why you can't learn to safely text & drive a thousand plus pound vehicle moving at potentially deadly speeds. Humans are bad at multitasking. We need to go through full context switching rather than a lower overhead multithreaded conscious thought. It's not a thing our brains evolved to be capable of doing. Taking that to the question of why forcing the GM to engage in context switching is problematic you just need to factor in that most GMs are human. but 5e is designed in a way that simply shrugs it off.

I think that should make things more clear.

If instead you're tlking about the GM, I don't think it's too much to ask a GM to allow reactions. I handle them fine when I GM, and every other GM I've seen handles them fine. If a particular GM actually struggled with them for some cognitive reason, then sure, he should limit or ban them. But I don't think that the rules need to be changed to meet that specific GM's needs.

5e shovels a ton of stuff onto the GM in order to avoid creating rules to carry that load so it can present a crunchy system as a flexible rules light thing to players. Sure individual bits offloaded from the rules to the gm might not be too big of a load on their own but they all add up to excess

Spoiler: There's a saying about straws & camels

 

[Lanefan]

After years of D&D forums, I have absolutely no doubts that people just straight up think gamism is bad. For this game.

Yep. When one is trying to present the fictional world as a place where the characters actually live and breathe, gamist concerns all too often get in the way. Sure, there's places where those concerns are valid and can't be avoided; but there's many instances where there's a clear choice between the gamist option and the realistic option, and I try to take the realistic option where possible.

 

[Lanefan]

Again, you're ignoring the part where I am saying that the order of events does not have to be the same for the characters as the players. Your view is far too strict regarding the turn structure and the designation of the action as a "reaction".

Part of reaction often is being ready for something. Anticipating or expecting it and then responding once it happens. This is what I've been saying.

"Responding once it happens" is the key phrase here; when trying to respond to something that's already happening at reaction speed, by the time your response takes place the reaction you're trying to respond to has already occurred.

If you simply don't enforce the turn structure onto the characters in the fiction, then it all can flow perfectly fine in the fiction, and perfectly fine at the table.

OK, then, how do you make it so the last person to act (i.e. in the metagame, the last player to declare their reaction) doesn't always win?

It's this perceived need to have them match that causes the issue. That desire to have them match is not a need, but rather a preference.

When initative rules don't apply (as is the case with chain reactions) the choice is that one can rule things happen in FIFO or LIFO order. LIFO gives too much advantage to the last player to speak up, and FIFO also makes more logical sense in the fiction.