D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[Tony Vargas]

, you can totally see the guy raise his hand and shout “lightning bolt!”

Or, if it's a wand, "Watt and Ampere, Volt and Ohm! Let this discharge find its home!"

Or...
"Pact of Kiss upon the altar, blood of spirits, do not falter, Rain down the lightning!
TESLA!!!!"
...but that's anime, and D&D never gets that silly.

 

[Charlaquin]

Its realistically possible to doge all 3. Why? Because the prijectile itself isnt what you are realistically basing your doge on. What you are actually reflexingly reacting to is the associated movement moments prior.

Musket=finger twitch
Arrow=same
Lightning bolt=same

I’m with you on musket and arrow, but the idea of dodging lightning doesn’t work because that’s not how electricity works. An electrical charge builds up between two points (such as the wizard’s wand and your chest), and a spark occurs when the two charges meet. I’m oversimplifying a bit, but the point is, lightning doesn’t just shoot out from a point of origin like musket balls or arrows do, it arcs between two points of origin.

Honestly, I think lightning damage effects should be Con saves instead of Dex, but I can accept that lightning damage effects in D&D are just magical projectiles rather than actual arcs of electricity.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I’m with you on musket and arrow, but the idea of dodging lightning doesn’t work because that’s not how electricity works. An electrical charge builds up between two points (such as the wizard’s wand and your chest), and a spark occurs when the two charges meet. I’m oversimplifying a bit, but the point is, lightning doesn’t just shoot out from a point of origin like musket balls or arrows do, it arcs between two points of origin.

Honestly, I think lightning damage effects should be Con saves instead of Dex, but I can accept that lightning damage effects in D&D are just magical projectiles rather than actual arcs of electricity.

Nonono. What i said was correct. You missed what im saying. You arent taking your reflex que to dodge FROM the lightning. Your are taking it FROM the movements of the caster immediately prior. Its this way for all three. You cannot realistically dodge any of those three without doing this. You are essentially dodging the projecting on the basis of events prior. In other words you are already not there by the time the shot of any of the three is fired. Any interpretation other than this is wrong. Even in the case of the arrow. Arrows actually fly VERY fast. Almost everyone is going to base the dodge upon prior movements and you are essentially timing it so that you move too quickly to give the caster bowman or shootet any chance to correct their aim or notive you moved on time to not fire a miss.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I’m with you on musket and arrow, but the idea of dodging lightning doesn’t work because that’s not how electricity works. An electrical charge builds up between two points (such as the wizard’s wand and your chest), and a spark occurs when the two charges meet. I’m oversimplifying a bit, but the point is, lightning doesn’t just shoot out from a point of origin like musket balls or arrows do, it arcs between two points of origin.

Honestly, I think lightning damage effects should be Con saves instead of Dex, but I can accept that lightning damage effects in D&D are just magical projectiles rather than actual arcs of electricity.

The speed of the lightning bolt being as fast as it is is no more relevant than the speed of the arrow. No more. No less. Whats relevant is "can you extrapolate the path the projectile exists right before its even in flight using the hand movements and dodge in the last moment prior to firing?" This is literally the only possible correct interpretation which maintains realism. All other options that work only work if you cast realism and physics aside. If you look at my other comment that you responded to you can see this is clearly what im talking about.

 

[Oofta]

Who says lightning bots travel at the speed of electricity? They could be literal bolts/javelins of electricity that get thrown. After all, they aren't traveling from ground to the clouds. They don't follow any other rules of lightning. It's magic that takes the form of electricity.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I don't have immersion breakers as I'm fully cognizant the whole time that I'm playing a game.

I do, however, have rules I don't like or don't model things the way I'd like.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nonono. What i said was correct. You missed what im saying. You arent taking your reflex que to dodge FROM the lightning. Your are taking it FROM the movements of the caster immediately prior. Its this way for all three. You cannot realistically dodge any of those three without doing this. You are essentially dodging the projecting on the basis of events prior. In other words you are already not there by the time the shot of any of the three is fired. Any interpretation other than this is wrong. Even in the case of the arrow. Arrows actually fly VERY fast. Almost everyone is going to base the dodge upon prior movements and you are essentially timing it so that you move too quickly to give the caster bowman or shootet any chance to correct their aim or notive you moved on time to not fire a miss.

The speed of the lightning bolt being as fast as it is is no more relevant than the speed of the arrow. No more. No less. Whats relevant is "can you extrapolate the path the projectile exists right before its even in flight using the hand movements and dodge in the last moment prior to firing?" This is literally the only possible correct interpretation which maintains realism. All other options that work only work if you cast realism and physics aside. If you look at my other comment that you responded to you can see this is clearly what im talking about.

No, I understand exactly what you’re saying and I agree with you in the case of arrows and musket balls. What I’m saying is, lightning does not travel the same way that arrows and musket balls do. It’s not a matter of lightning traveling too fast to dodge (arrows and musket balls travel too fast to dodge too, what you’re dodging is the marksman’s aim.) The issue is that lightning is not a projectile that travels from A to point B, it is an electrostatic discharge that happens when positively charged electrons from point A and negatively charged electrons from point B meet. If you are point B, lightning physically cannot miss you, any more than it can miss point A, because points A and B are both origins of the lightning.

The only way a lightning attack missing makes any sense is if the lightning fails to occur at all (in which case it should do no damage on a miss/successful save) or if “lightning damage” is not actually lightning but a projectile of some kind of magical energy that electrocutes the attacker on contact. And in the latter case, yes, you’d be dodging the caster’s aim rather than the projectile.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The whole lightning-as-electricity thing is a pretty profound anachronism, anyway, the kind of thing that makes a mockery of "immersion" unless your campaign is essentially Quag Keep (inspired byD&D) or Dragon & the George (among the specific inspiration for D&D) style storytelling with the PCs being modern persons or consciousnesses displaced into a fantasy world...
but...

. If you are point B, lightning physically cannot miss you, any more than it can miss point A, because points A and B are both origins of the lightning ...

Couldn't whatever outside agency that was attempting to designate you as point B miss in some sense?

 

[Garthanos]

Lightning was a spear that had been charged by some divine source (Hephaestus or Others depending on the Mythology sometimes the one casting the spear) ... Perhaps the nastiest of which was Lugh Lamhfada's, whose spear would dash from enemy to enemy screaming with its hunger... and burning them as it went eventually returning to his hand.

This being D&D the anachronism holds more water

 

[Garthanos]

Couldn't whatever outside agency thar wa attempting to designate you as point B miss in some sense?

Can you feel the tingling as the atmosphere changes around you and point B moves into place... it seems like good story to me.