D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

[Noctem]

I'm glad that you've finally come to your senses and agree with me. You'll be better off for it. A happier and healthier you.

Ah I edited my response a little because I figured that you would try to pull something like this. To be clear: Agree to disagree buddy.

 

[seebs]

Um, no one's yet claimed that the additional eldritch blast bolts are like extra attacks. They are simple spell attacks, made in sequence, one after the other, using the 'make an attack' rules.

I've stated that they are like extra attacks, and seem to be clearly intended to parallel the number of attacks a fighter of the same level would get.

So, there's those, nice and wrapped up. I also had an appeal to authority, where Noctern refused to provide his reasoning and instead deferred to the devs. If that's wrong, explain what's up there, as I'm pretty sure it's not wrong. Substituting a reference to an authority instead of making an argument is exactly what an appeal to authority is.

The term "appeal to authority", as a logical fallacy, refers specifically to using "but someone important said so" as a replacement for an argument. But it's not a fallacy in the case where the authority genuinely has authority to answer the question. If you're not Catholic, you might consider it a fallacious appeal to authority for someone to say "the Pope says..." on a moral issue... But it's not a fallacy to point to what the Pope says when talking about Catholic doctrine. If Jeremy Crawford does indeed make a statement about the intent of the rules, then it's a valid authority to cite to. But as of yet, I've seen nothing from him on the specific questions I think are meaningfully disputed.

Also, thinking more about the AMF thing, it seems to me that "a trap which is described as going off immediately when triggered" is a better way to think about the timing questions of the eldritch blast ways, but useless for discussing readied actions, as traps aren't readied actions.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ah I edited my response a little because I figured that you would try to pull something like this. To be clear: Agree to disagree buddy.

Well, that's certainly not a point in your favor that you construct well reasoned arguments the first time out, is it?

 

[Noctem]

I've stated that they are like extra attacks, and seem to be clearly intended to parallel the number of attacks a fighter of the same level would get.



The term "appeal to authority", as a logical fallacy, refers specifically to using "but someone important said so" as a replacement for an argument. But it's not a fallacy in the case where the authority genuinely has authority to answer the question. If you're not Catholic, you might consider it a fallacious appeal to authority for someone to say "the Pope says..." on a moral issue... But it's not a fallacy to point to what the Pope says when talking about Catholic doctrine. If Jeremy Crawford does indeed make a statement about the intent of the rules, then it's a valid authority to cite to. But as of yet, I've seen nothing from him on the specific questions I think are meaningfully disputed.

Also, thinking more about the AMF thing, it seems to me that "a trap which is described as going off immediately when triggered" is a better way to think about the timing questions of the eldritch blast ways, but useless for discussing readied actions, as traps aren't readied actions.

Thanks, I ended up not bothering to reply to his appeal to authority rant up-thread because of the exact reason you just described. He mistakenly thinks that my response "you should ask a lead designer for 5e your question" is an appeal to authority fallacy. I didn't think responding would be productive. To be clear:

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form: Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S. Person A makes claim C about subject S. Therefore, C is true.


And I'm also glad you realized that traps aren't a good reference point because they aren't readied actions. Another potential issue is that they probably also specify their timing like Shield and OA's do by necessity.

 

[Noctem]

Well, that's certainly not a point in your favor that you construct well reasoned arguments the first time out, is it?

This is 37 pages of back and forth and I've constructed many well reasoned arguments about various subjects in this thread alone, like other people who have contributed. How is that quoted post the first time out? I don't think that makes any sense.

 

[Eric V]

Well, that's certainly not a point in your favor that you construct well reasoned arguments the first time out, is it?

Wow, you're being pedantic here...I'm sure you don't mean to be, but have you looked at your participation in this thread and are you proud of it? With no personal attack at all, I think you may be going to weird places through the way you're choosing to participate in the thread and they may not be where you want to go.

For what it's worth, while I can see how Noctem can come off as a little dismissive, I also think he's shown a lot of patience for people who seem intent on misconstruing things he's taken the time to type out meticulously.

 

[dmnqwk]

Let's be honest.

Just like the Druid and Disintegrate discussion, people are intent on winning instead of having a discourse that offers neutral parties a listing to find their own rulings from. Everything in 5th edition is ambiguous because of the single rule "specific beats generic." I will continue to rule each time the spell hits they are knocked back 10' and each beam is not a hit in it's own right, but part of a single hit made of all beams directed towards that target by the spell. Otherwise, you're just asking for overpowered Warlocks pushing creatures back 40' then moving backwards 30' each round! (and probably you'll find an 17 lock 3 rogue who uses a cunning action each round as well haha!)

Still, it could be worse, people could've devolved into insulting others because they ran out of positive discourse!

 

[Eric V]

Let's be honest.

Just like the Druid and Disintegrate discussion, people are intent on winning instead of having a discourse that offers neutral parties a listing to find their own rulings from. Everything in 5th edition is ambiguous because of the single rule "specific beats generic." I will continue to rule each time the spell hits they are knocked back 10' and each beam is not a hit in it's own right, but part of a single hit made of all beams directed towards that target by the spell. Otherwise, you're just asking for overpowered Warlocks pushing creatures back 40' then moving backwards 30' each round! (and probably you'll find an 17 lock 3 rogue who uses a cunning action each round as well haha!)

Still, it could be worse, people could've devolved into insulting others because they ran out of positive discourse!

And you're fine to do that, right? No one is saying otherwise; but if people are trying to understand the official rules of the game, a lot of the stuff people are saying here is actively interfering in that process. That doesn't seem very helpful or nice.

 

[seebs]

Being pedantic strikes me as the correct approach to a discussion of the formal rules of the system.

I also find the suggestion that "people" are solely intent on winning pretty rude, given that I have been rebutting arguments from both "sides" when I think they're wrong. I don't actually have that strong an opinion on the question, and think it's somewhat ambiguous.

 

[Eric V]

Well, if people were being pedantic about the actual wording of the rules as opposed to some sort of "gotcha!" kind of game, I'd agree with you, yeah.