D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

[psychophipps]

Stand off, everyone's hurt and near dead. A parley has broken out, but the players don't trust the other guys. Players declare readied actions to take out the enemy caster if they attack. Enemy caster says 'screw it' and EBs. Does he get the opportunity to maybe take out a few very wounded PCs because they have to wait for all of his bolts, or can they, at least, get a chance to get him before he gets more than one off?

Cool story, and a very similar thing actually happened once in my game. Sure, it's a corner case, but, you know, some people like exploring corner cases.

I see your point, but in all of the D&D rules, and your own gaming experience, you can't think of a single way to handle this situation except to try to build a rules interpretation that allows a character to squeeze an interrupting action in between Eldrich Blasts? Let's get serious here, bro...

 

[psychophipps]

I've played D&D games constantly since 1984. I've yet to be in a single situation where a non-counterspell mid-spell interruptive action was either discussed to this depth or was a pivotal moment in the story. If a player is honking about something like this, it's 100% about winning, not about the story.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I see your point, but in all of the D&D rules, and your own gaming experience, you can't think of a single way to handle this situation except to try to build a rules interpretation that allows a character to squeeze an interrupting action in between Eldrich Blasts? Let's get serious here, bro...

Why shouldn't I? I don't follow why I shouldn't other than you wouldn't.

I've played D&D games constantly since 1984. I've yet to be in a single situation where a mid-spell interruptive action was either discussed to this depth or was a pivotal moment in the story. If a player is honking about something like this, it's 100% about winning, not about the story.

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. /Dude

 

[psychophipps]

Why shouldn't I? I don't follow why I shouldn't other than you wouldn't.


Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. /Dude

Best test? Just say, "It doesn't work that way. Let's carry on" and see what happens.

 

[seebs]

I see your point, but in all of the D&D rules, and your own gaming experience, you can't think of a single way to handle this situation except to try to build a rules interpretation that allows a character to squeeze an interrupting action in between Eldrich Blasts? Let's get serious here, bro...

The question was "why would this question ever matter", not "is there any other possible resolution".

Anyway, I get it. You think rules discussions are boring, and don't want other people to have a conversation you wouldn't find interesting, which is why you are spending time telling us that our conversation does not interest you. Thank you for the information, I will try to remember not to force you to read rules arcana debates in the future.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Best test? Just say, "It doesn't work that way. Let's carry on" and see what happens.

Agree to disagree. If the default option is to say, "no," then that's not fitting the way I want to do things. The better option, to me (not necessarily for you to be sure), is, "yes, but." So, to the question, "can I ready to hit him before he has a chance to kill us all with his EB?" my answer will be, "Yes, but he'll get at least one shot off first." Because, if I answer, "nope," my players will likely take the safer option of just going ahead and preempting the whole deal.

 

[psychophipps]

Agree to disagree. If the default option is to say, "no," then that's not fitting the way I want to do things. The better option, to me (not necessarily for you to be sure), is, "yes, but." So, to the question, "can I ready to hit him before he has a chance to kill us all with his EB?" my answer will be, "Yes, but he'll get at least one shot off first." Because, if I answer, "nope," my players will likely take the safer option of just going ahead and preempting the whole deal.

I would do the same but make it a simple "held" initiative roll rather than trying to make some random exception that will only serve to bite me in the butt later when they all suddenly want to hold their actions for similar actionae interruptus later on. Once you set the precedent for such things the Genie is really dang hard to put back into the bottle.

Why simple initiative, you ask? 1) It gives everyone in the party a chance to start scouring their sheets and thinking about how they might stop the Warlock from punking the wounded party members instead of assuming as the DM that only the magicians have the potential answer. 2) It keeps the process random where the players roll their own dice and wonder among themselves if they rolled well enough to get the job done and coming up with interesting ways to add an edge in favor of the party. 3) It also means that the "bad guy" Warlock isn't the only issue at hand if there are more enemy combatants as nobody but me knows the actual targets for the Warlock and the order of battle and 4) once again, I'm not tossing anything new into the mix that could very well turn into endless inane held actions and/or other random pains in my hindparts later.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I would do the same but make it a simple "held" initiative roll rather than trying to make some random exception that will only serve to bite me in the butt later when they all suddenly want to hold their actions for similar actionae interruptus later on. Once you set the precedent for such things the Genie is really dang hard to put back into the bottle.

Why simple initiative, you ask? 1) It gives everyone in the party a chance to start scouring their sheets and thinking about how they might stop the Warlock from punking the wounded party members instead of assuming as the DM that only the magicians have the potential answer. 2) It keeps the process random where the players roll their own dice and wonder among themselves if they rolled well enough to get the job done and coming up with interesting ways to add an edge in favor of the party. 3) It also means that the "bad guy" Warlock isn't the only issue at hand if there are more enemy combatants as nobody but me knows the actual targets for the Warlock and the order of battle and 4) once again, I'm not tossing anything new into the mix that could very well turn into endless inane held actions and/or other random pains in my hindparts later.

Well, 1) you holding your action doesn't exist in 5e.

2) making it an initiative roll doesn't solve the problem of wanting to only react if the bad guy breaks the truce.

3) I have no idea why you think that only the magicians have the answer -- I certainly wasn't limiting anything to magicians.

And 4) there's no can of worms to open here -- the ruling allowing RAs to go in between EB blasts (or other multi ray, sequential targeting spells) is the same ruling that allows you to react with an RA between weapon attacks. It doesn't add anything gamebreaking, and, in fact, follows along with existing rules instead of treating EB as something special.

 

[Arial Black]

There's no duration shorter than "a round", though, so I think they'd still call it "instantaneous" even if it's not really instantaneous.

1 turn?

Which we already know it isn't. Think about how fireball works. It streaks through the air. Which means that there is movement over time. It's a very very small amount of time, too small to do anything about, but it is taking time to move.

Well, I agree that the term 'instantaneous' is not used literally, but practically. If a spell is described as 'instantaneous', this doesn't mean that the fireball spark is literally simultaneous with the ball of fire, one precedes the other. But even though the spark thing is just fluff, the spell is practically instantaneous because creatures in the frame of reference used in the game (combat rounds) cannot do anything during that duration; if they could, then they couldn't describe it as 'instantaneous'.

In order to be even 'practically' instantaneous, the beams (even if in sequence) would have to shoot so rapidly that no-one, not even the warlock, could react to one before the others had also been shot. Like a single squeeze of the machine gun trigger firing four bullets in less than half a second; although definitely sequential, the firer cannot wait to see what the first bullet does before deciding who to aim at next. If he does, then he has to take his finger off the trigger after the first shot, and squeeze the trigger again for the next, making it two squeezes not one. Two 'instances', not one.

Eldritch blast has a single instantaneous duration, not four instantaneous durations over the course of a turn.

 

[seebs]

And yet, we've been explicitly told that it does in fact have enough duration that the warlock can choose targets after seeing the effects of previous blasts.

So there we have it. It isn't that fast. It's been answered. "Instantaneous" does not mean what you think it means, according to Crawford.