D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Maxperson]

You may not realize he's yelling NO but you realize he's reacting and can counter that.

The reaction is "no." There's nothing else to react to. It's all over and done in an instant. He's not going to do a 6 second jiggy dance before yelling no just so that you can react.

This is from spellcasting.

"REACTIONS
Some spells can be cast as reactions. These spells take a fraction of a second to bring about and are cast in response to some event. If a spell can be cast as a reaction, the spell description tells you exactly when you can do so."

There's no time to realize something is happening in a fraction of a second and then react with your own spell.

I like the fencing example (my so also fences). They react to disengages, ripostes, feints and parries constantly and it happens very, very fast.

Fencing is apples to counterspell's oranges. 1) Fencing uses an extremely light weapon that can be moved very quickly, 2) they aren't using enough force to really hurt much. It's not a real combat weapon. 3) the person is right there and READY for attacks and counters.

If a spellcaster wanted to give up his round to ready an action to counter a specific individual if he counterspells, that would make sense and by possibly the way it happens with fencing. In the middle combat when you aren't expecting a counterspell to even happen and aren't ready for it, you simply won't have time to recognize it is happening and respond. Not in the narrative anyway. The narrative has to twist itself to accommodate the rules.

I will say, what counterspelling during a spell DOES require is the recognition that you can interrupt your own spell, with another spell, and then finish it. That might rub some the wrong way.

This, too. Though this is a rulings thing as the rules are vague on the following.

"A spell's components are the physical requirements you must meet in order to cast it. Each spell's description indicates whether it requires verbal (V), somatic (S), or material (M) components. If you can't provide one or more of a spell's components, you are unable to cast the spell."

Does interrupting your own spell count as being unable to provide the components since you stopped providing them to cast a different spell? The rules do not say one way or the other.

 

[Maxperson]

I believe that @Sabathius42 was assuming that all combat participants use the same 6 seconds.

Why, except in a stop-motion world, would people just be running up to one another and "swinging" without some sort of back-and-forth, attempts to parry and block, etc?

That's how D&D combat is played. If they were all using the same 6 seconds, it would not be possible without comically twisting the fiction to stop a fighter who is aware of the danger 20 goblins pose and who is a mere 10 feet from the door, to fail to move those 10 feet before all 20 goblins can move a full 60 feet and cut him off.

You'd have to narrate some bumbling and slipping or general incompetence on the part of the fighter who lost initiative to the group of goblins.

Even if it was all in the same 6 seconds, you still wouldn't have time to recognize a counterspell being cast in time to counter it. It literally is over and done with from reaction to finished casting in a fraction of a second, per RAW.

 

[Mort]

"REACTIONS
Some spells can be cast as reactions. These spells take a fraction of a second to bring about and are cast in response to some event. If a spell can be cast as a reaction, the spell description tells you exactly when you can do so."

There's no time to realize something is happening in a fraction of a second and then react with your own spell.

Says who? a lunge happens in a fraction of a second - are you saying it's impossible to parry? Or better yet a riposte (more appropriate here) is a VERY short quick move, is that impossible to parry? A fraction of a second is up to a second (and, frankly, considering the use of natural flowery language it could actually be any time at all - but up to a second fits the shortened requirement). That's long enough to still be reacted to.

If a caster knows what a reaction spell is, they will look for the signs and know to react to them.

I can certainly understand many of the reasons to ban counterspell, or ban counterspelling counterspell. But the timing issue doesn't bother me.

 

[Digdude]

Just for funnsies, If I magic missle my target and he throws up shield can I counterspell his shield? Can one of the targets buddies counterspell my counterspell?

 

[pemerton]

That's how D&D combat is played. If they were all using the same 6 seconds, it would not be possible without comically twisting the fiction to stop a fighter who is aware of the danger 20 goblins pose and who is a mere 10 feet from the door, to fail to move those 10 feet before all 20 goblins can move a full 60 feet and cut him off.

You'd have to narrate some bumbling and slipping or general incompetence on the part of the fighter who lost initiative to the group of goblins.

This thing you say would not be possible is in fact possible, in my experience, because I've done it (GMing 4e D&D), and there needn't be "bumbling or slipping".

Even if it was all in the same 6 seconds, you still wouldn't have time to recognize a counterspell being cast in time to counter it. It literally is over and done with from reaction to finished casting in a fraction of a second, per RAW.

@Mort gave a reply to this that I agree with.

 

[pemerton]

And on the issue of self-interruption so as to cast a Counterspell, I'm going to make just this one point - and all you detractors, you'll just have to hold off until I've made it! - and that point is that interrupting oneself to delay or counter others is perfectly fine and able to be parsed in written English. Why would the language and/or gestures of magic be any different?

 

[Maxperson]

@Mort gave a reply to this that I agree with.

His reply relies on it taking longer than the fraction of a second that RAW says it takes. He relied on recognizing that a reaction was happening before it happened, which isn't possible if you aren't fully ready for it the way fencers are. The entire reaction from start to finish takes a fraction of a second.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If a spellcaster wanted to give up his round to ready an action to counter a specific individual if he counterspells, that would make sense and by possibly the way it happens with fencing.

So here you're saying there's a way that counterspelling a counterspell could work, in the fiction?

In the middle combat when you aren't expecting a counterspell to even happen and aren't ready for it, you simply won't have time to recognize it is happening and respond. Not in the narrative anyway. The narrative has to twist itself to accommodate the rules.

No, that's you interpreting things in only one way... which in and of itself is fine, that's your interpretation and you're allowed to have it... the problem is that you think your interpretation is the only one that's accurate and therefore anyone else's interpretation is somehow "twisting the fiction".

Which is bizarre for a few reasons. First, we're talking about magic... which can work however we want it to work. There's no real life correlary. Second, we're all making the fiction match what's happening in the game in some way. That's what has to happen. You're just predisposed to making the fiction not satisfy your preferences. Which seems odd to me.

You lamented out of fiction elements influencing the fiction... yet you seem compelled to force all of the fiction to fit into the turn order.

 

[Maxperson]

And on the issue of self-interruption so as to cast a Counterspell, I'm going to make just this one point - and all you detractors, you'll just have to hold off until I've made it! - and that point is that interrupting oneself to delay or counter others is perfectly fine and able to be parsed in written English. Why would the language and/or gestures of magic be any different?

Because magic relies on those things being precisely done. The verbal requires particular combinations of sounds with specific and pitches of sound. At the same time as you are doing that, you have to gesture in a specific way, and at the same time as that you have to provide a material component. Excepting spells that lack one or more of those.

If you interrupt the spell, you are breaking those specific things which would spoil the spell.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This thing you say would not be possible is in fact possible, in my experience, because I've done it (GMing 4e D&D), and there needn't be "bumbling or slipping".

Or literally at least any of the last 3 editions because that's how it explicitly works.

As usual, the real enemy were simulationism and 'verisimilitude' all along.