D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

[seebs]

Well, what's a valid trigger is still a DM's call, but that tweet does lend strong support to the idea that an attack is a valid RAI trigger.

I'd say that, since there's no "this is the way I run it" (contrast with the "I let people hold readied spells longer" thing), it seems that he feels it's sufficiently obvious that if you specify "if X attacks" as your trigger, you can go after their attack, and if they have multiple attacks, their later attacks have to wait for your readied action. And since I thought that was pretty clear from the examples given, I'm comfortable with considering this RAW.

 

[Noctem]

Oh, hey, thanks ryan92084! I had checked Twitter to look for a response, but not seen that I got one, because apparently I don't know how to use Twitter.

That does indeed tell us unambiguously that readied actions can in fact interrupt someone else's action. So, it's not a GM judgment call, except in the sense that the GM can overrule any rule.

Agreed.

 

[ryan92084]

Well, what's a valid trigger is still a DM's call, but that tweet does lend strong support to the idea that an attack is a valid RAI trigger.

Agreed, I've found its generally better not to try to infer more than is explicitly stated in his tweets but it can definitely be taken to mean that he does support all single attacks (even multi attack spells) to be a valid trigger. Whether the trigger you chose is "specific" and "perceivable" enough for you/your DM only you/they can decide.

Hey at least Mearls sort of agrees with my take on it for what little that's worth http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/10/11/mage-slayer-ready/

Out of curiosity for those that would allow the mid blasts ready trigger will you allow features like stunning strike to work a semi counterspell?

 

[seebs]

I suspect Mearls was thinking of a readied action against "cast the spell" rather than against a single attack. Which is a really odd state in the rules, I think.

EDIT: To answer the other question... I'm not sure. I think the obvious question is, if you are killed by a reaction to part of your action, what happens? Well, you're dead. You obviously can't keep taking your action. So I'd probably rule the same way for stunning strike, etcetera. It's not a counterspell, it's just removing your ability to take actions of any kind.

 

[ryan92084]

I suspect Mearls was thinking of a readied action against "cast the spell" rather than against a single attack. Which is a really odd state in the rules, I think.

Yep, could certainly go either way. Not that he's the rule guy anyway just thought it was interesting.

To expand on my curiosity question from my previous post what about being knocked prone, shoved, blocked line of sight (blindness etc), or the target gaining full cover? Granted this only matters for multiattack spells and is unlikely to come up often/ever.

EDIT: in response to your edit. Being killed mid multi attack spell isn't something that would normally occur. There is some precedent in eldritch blast pushing the target out of range and leaving no valid target for the rest of the beams but that is caused by the actions of the caster not the enemy.

 

[seebs]

Well, I agree that it's not something that would normally occur, but if you can attack between someone's attacks, it's certainly possible. Someone readies an action to attack if the warlock attacks, the warlock casts eldritch blast, rolls to-hit for first beam, hits, he's now attacked, that's the trigger, readied action takes effect. If warlock is low on hit points, warlock could go down.

Unless, of course, the multiple attacks granted by spells don't allow attacks between them. We've seen nothing explicit on that. I asked about attacking between multiple attacks in general just to nail down the "can a readied action interrupt another action", so we'd have a nice unambiguous "yes" on that.

 

[Noctem]

Out of curiosity for those that would allow the mid blasts ready trigger will you allow features like stunning strike to work a semi counterspell?

That's an interesting question.

If you consider the spell to be cast successfully, and you're simply resolving the effects of having successfully cast the spell, it doesn't automatically mean that by incapacitating the caster you stop the spell's effects from finishing to resolve. You can't counterspell once you start making creatures do saving throws vs Fireball. By that time the caster is no longer casting the spell, it has been cast and is resolving its effects. So for that same reasoning, if you stun a caster in between 2 attacks of eldritch blast, the caster is stunned but has already successfully cast the spell. Does it stop? If so why? The problem I see is that targets are picked when you make an attack. Can you still pick targets once you get stunned? Obviously this a question specifically in regards to spells though and not the Attack Action + Extra Attack. The only reason it's a question is because successfully casting the spell is a requirement for resolving the effects of a spell as a whole, vs the Attack Action has no such requirement. Each attack is it's own thing.

If you ready an action to trigger off casting a spell, and that spell is fireball. Do you get to make your attack before the fireball's effects are resolved? These aren't attacks after all. And if you do get to make your attack first, before the saving throws and damage, which kills the caster: Do you then nullify the entire spell even though it was successfully cast? (ignoring Mage Slayer being a thing here for a moment) or does the fireball still fly but the caster is dead?

I'm not sure right now where I land on this. Stunning Palm is a limited resource, from a specific class, with a saving throw attached, which requires a hit (IIRC) and is restricted to melee attacks. That's a bunch of hoops to jump through already. My inclination is to allow the stunning to nullify a spell by stunning the caster. As for death, I'm not as sure.

 

[ryan92084]

Now that I think about it if you were to allow ready actions to trigger between multiattack spells I suppose hellish rebuke would to so death would have already been possible? Interesting, I just defaulted to waiting for the spell to finish doing its thing before allowing the reaction. Or does the EB finish faster than the HR is cast? But that brings us into the old mage slayer "how fast is a reaction really?" territory and travel time of movement/attacks etc etc which I'd prefer not to.

It was just something that popped into my head while writing that post. I think I'll stick with how I've been doing it for now and just say individual beams of a spell are too specific of a timing if it gets questioned.

 

[seebs]

I would say that, as-written, Hellish Rebuke clearly lets you fire it in response to being damaged, so whether or not you allow ready actions to trigger between attacks, Hellish Rebuke clearly ought to.

Neat example!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I would say that, as-written, Hellish Rebuke clearly lets you fire it in response to being damaged, so whether or not you allow ready actions to trigger between attacks, Hellish Rebuke clearly ought to.

Neat example!

Honestly, if you would allow it to happen between attacks of an attack action (with extra attack), then it should also be allowed to happen inter-beams.