But the fact that they had to make the attack and the outcome was determined ("it hits") Means that the creature is now no longer hidden and thus now applicable for the spell.
The attack has neither hit nor missed until all reactions have fired.
I assume you're distinguishing between a "success" on a d20 and an actual "hit" there
Yes. If it was a hit, the target would take damage, because that's what happens when an attack hits. It's impressive how bad 5e is at writing rules, though -- in 4e there was a clear distinction:
Immediate Interrupt: occurs before the trigger is resolved. Can change the the results of the trigger.
Immediate Reaction: occurs after the trigger is resolved. Cannot change the results of the trigger (though a reaction to being hit could affect damage, as that has not yet been resolved).
Most but not all reactions in 5e are actually interrupts.
I used to play MtG when Interrupts were still a thing and I don't understand how they ever thought dropping those were going to make things easier. I figure they had the same person responsible for that snafu write the interrupt rules for 5th. What's wrong with first in last out, anyway?
Is it powercreepy? yes. Is it broken? No. There are a lot of other things that have been added recently that are far worse for game balance than silvery barbs. This is a very strong spell, but I don't think it significantly alters the balance of an encounter.
Broken is a word that gets used far too much when it should not be. Something being a strong choice, or even the best choice isn't necessarily broken.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
" which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw"
Yeah, that's incompetent rules. It should be would succeed, because unless the spell is supposed to result in time travel, once success has happened it's too late to do anything about it. In any case, I resolve all side effects of hitting (such as breaking stealth) at the same time as damage.
" which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw"
Yeah, that's incompetent rules. It should be would succeed, because unless the spell is supposed to result in time travel, once success has happened it's too late to do anything about it. In any case, I resolve all side effects of hitting (such as breaking stealth) at the same time as damage.
Well, no. It did succeed, and then that success became a failure. There is "time travel" of a sort (in the sense of altering game events that have already happened), but that "time travel" is entirely metagame, which is fine. Your position that "once success has happened it's too late to do anything" is simply fundamentally incorrect within the rules of 5e.
Well, no. It did succeed, and then that success became a failure. There is "time travel" of a sort (in the sense of altering game events that have already happened), but that "time travel" is entirely metagame, which is fine. Your position that "once success has happened it's too late to do anything" is simply fundamentally incorrect within the rules of 5e.
A reaction is a character action, and should thus be based on character information. And no, my position is entirely consistent with 5e as long as you realize that most reactions are actually interrupts.
Well, no. It did succeed, and then that success became a failure. There is "time travel" of a sort (in the sense of altering game events that have already happened), but that "time travel" is entirely metagame, which is fine. Your position that "once success has happened it's too late to do anything" is simply fundamentally incorrect within the rules of 5e.
A reaction is a character action, and should thus be based on character information. And no, my position is entirely consistent with 5e as long as you realize that most reactions are actually interrupts.
Your position is at odds with the text. Interrupts are absolutely still a thing, but the actual rules apply them retroactively. Your position requires that they work in a way that they simply do not in 5e. Consider the text for the soul knife's psi-bolstered knack:
"Psi-Bolstered Knack.When your nonpsionic training fails you, your psionic power can help: if you fail an ability check using a skill or tool with which you have proficiency, you can roll one Psionic Energy die and add the number rolled to the check, potentially turning failure into success. You expend the die only if the roll succeeds."
The actual rules are extremely clear: the failure happens (or in the case of silvery barbs, the success), and then it's changed. It's not difficult to understand, and isn't really any kind of rules failure? It's totally fine, I don't see the problem.
The actual rules are extremely clear: the failure happens (or in the case of silvery barbs, the success), and then it's changed. It's not difficult to understand, and isn't really any kind of rules failure? It's totally fine, I don't see the problem.
The rules failure is that the failure (of the roll) doesn't happen. A roll which would have failed, but is a success because you spent psionic energy, did not fail. A roll that would normally succeeded, but turned into a failure because of silvery barbs, did not succeed.
The actual rules are extremely clear: the failure happens (or in the case of silvery barbs, the success), and then it's changed. It's not difficult to understand, and isn't really any kind of rules failure? It's totally fine, I don't see the problem.
The rules failure is that the failure (of the roll) doesn't happen. A roll which would have failed, but is a success because you spent psionic energy, did not fail. A roll that would normally succeeded, but turned into a failure because of silvery barbs, did not succeed.
But it had to even cast the spell is the issue...
It's weird and odd because most don't need the roll to finalize but this one does.
The actual rules are extremely clear: the failure happens (or in the case of silvery barbs, the success), and then it's changed. It's not difficult to understand, and isn't really any kind of rules failure? It's totally fine, I don't see the problem.
The rules failure is that the failure (of the roll) doesn't happen. A roll which would have failed, but is a success because you spent psionic energy, did not fail. A roll that would normally succeeded, but turned into a failure because of silvery barbs, did not succeed.
I very sincerely do not understand where the mental block is for you. The roll did fail, and then, after that, it became a success. That is literally what the rules say, in black and white. It both failed and succeeded, but the success happened later, so that's the one whose effects carry forward. There's no rules failure; that's just how the rules work. The rules do not require that a failure remain a failure forever, so why do you?
It's a necessary artefact of how the rules are written. A trigger of "When an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is about to succeed" (i.e. what actually happens in the game world) is ambiguous and prone to confusion and argument. "How do I know if it's about to succeed?" "When do other things that might make it succeed work? Do you add Bardic Inspiration before or after?" So on and so forth. Writing "when it succeeds" provides a concrete point for the spell to interact with/trigger on, and is consistent with other such abilities. How it works in the game world is, in this case, up to the DM, though I posit that nothing really makes sense other than "you stop the success in the nick of time with a pinch of probability magic".
It's a necessary artefact of how the rules are written. A trigger of "When an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is about to succeed" (i.e. what actually happens in the game world) is ambiguous and prone to confusion and argument. "How do I know if it's about to succeed?" "When do other things that might make it succeed work? Do you add Bardic Inspiration before or after?" So on and so forth. Writing "when it succeeds" provides a concrete point for the spell to interact with/trigger on, and is consistent with other such abilities. How it works in the game world is, in this case, up to the DM, though I posit that nothing really makes sense other than "you stop the success in the nick of time with a pinch of probability magic".
I have a player that flavors Silvery Barbs as "time magic", when he casts the spell his character is attempting to alter events, resulting in a change of a single moment of time that then causes a "ripple" effect than effects another target (the advantage). It has not really done much yet, but the concept is fun and he is having a good time with it anyway.
It probably says something about me that I just imagine it as profuse swearing.
Every time you swear at and kick a piece of machinery and it turns on you actually cast Silvery Barbs? Totally checks out for me lol.
I mean that's what happens in Hollywood films every time - and Hollywood would never lie to us right?
It's called percussive maintenance, and it is a very real phenomenon.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
A misbehaving electronic device sometimes gets that way because connections have become flaky or jiggered themselves into a place where they're not quite solid, or dust has gotten into something it shouldn't. A good swat can get the connections re-established or dislodge dust, though it's a stopgap measure at best. If a good swat fixes your machine, the machine is probably in need of a cleaning as well. Note: a swat. Do not People's Elbow your electronics, if a decent little tap doesn't clear it then dropkicking it's not gonna do crap either, and the more modern and integrated a device is the less likely tapping/swatting it will accomplish jack-monkey squat.
Mechanical equipment can sometimes be fixed by punching it back into alignment if something jiggled out of place, but that's an At Your Own Risk dealie. Do not fist heavy equipment. Or android girls, for that matter.
A misbehaving electronic device sometimes gets that way because connections have become flaky or jiggered themselves into a place where they're not quite solid, or dust has gotten into something it shouldn't. A good swat can get the connections re-established or dislodge dust, though it's a stopgap measure at best. If a good swat fixes your machine, the machine is probably in need of a cleaning as well. Note: a swat. Do not People's Elbow your electronics, if a decent little tap doesn't clear it then dropkicking it's not gonna do crap either, and the more modern and integrated a device is the less likely tapping/swatting it will accomplish jack-monkey squat.
Mechanical equipment can sometimes be fixed by punching it back into alignment if something jiggled out of place, but that's an At Your Own Risk dealie. Do not fist heavy equipment. Or android girls, for that matter.
So... a tombstone piledriver or bellyback suplex won't help either? Asking for a friend.
Or the critter could fail the first Polymorph save and arrive at the same point, with nobody complaining about it. Or the critter could, indeed, nail five different attempts to muck with its save against Polymorph, and man - what a table tale that would be.
I suppose that's the thing - I'm seeing a lot of people venting spleen about how Silvery Barbs is an automatic win switch that guarantees somebody will change the course of history forever when it's just...not that powerful? Excellent yes, but not so earthshaking as to merit the hooplah. Everyone's hollering that it's way too good for first level. So, okay - what level should it be? Legit curious - what level do folks think would be More Fair for Silvery Barbs, if first is too low a cost?
I disagree with Optimus, as at third level we get fireball.
Does that make sense? Pray, let me explain.
ON FIREBALLS AND SILVERED BARBS
Our discussion here is about the spell silvery barbs, a new spell from the book Strixhaven: a Curriculum of Chaos. It offers one lot of advantage and disadvantage. Going by the rules suggested in the Player's Handbook, advantage counts as a +5 bonus to passive checks (Player's Handbook Chapter 7) , so we will examine silvery barbs at it's most potent passive. This effectively means a +5 bonus to one check, and a -5 penalty to another. Only the penalty's check can be chosen by the caster.
Comparing this first against the spell bless, a cleric staple from the Player's Handbook, generally considered powerful but not broken. This spell grants on average a +2 bonus, on all ability checks and saving throws, for a minute (assuming concentration), on up to three creatures. Assuming this spell only lasts one single round of combat, and assuming each creature makes only one ability check or saving throw in this entire round, that's effectively a +6 bonus, spread across more creatures. And this is significantly downplaying the spell's effects, as this can last multiple turns, with a maximum bonus (assuming each creature targeted only makes one check or save per round) of a whopping +120 spread across a single minute. Now, this maximum is unrealistic, at best, but so too is the spell only lasting a single round of combat, as clerics won't be getting in melee range unless they have specific feats (Player's Handbook Chapter 6).
This effectively means that, while silvery barbs is the faster spell, bless outclasses it in almost every single other way. Even more specifically, when not using passive bonuses, silvery barbs can do nothing to aid your allies at all, while bless is always guaranteed to grant at least a +3 bonus over one round of combat. What's more, bless works outside of combat too, while silvery barbs cannot, meaning bless is more potent, more effective, more predictable, and more versatile than silvery barbs ever will be.
Turning to the second comparison, shield. This spell grants a +5 bonus to AC until the start of your next turn as a reaction. This means shield is roughly equivalent to our silvery barbs, both granting +5 bonuses when used in passive. Assuming that only one attack is made against the caster with shield, silvery barbs is by far the superior. However, a second attack makes both spells roughly equal in power level - no considerable difference. Again, this is using a gross passive version of silvery barbs, which provides a +5 bonus to a check - something that won't happen on a roll of 15 or higher, and more likely than not will not increase the initial roll at all. This just goes to show that silvery barbs and shield are not truly comparable as they both do widely different things.
Turning to the third, second to last comparison, fortune's favor. This spell stinks. Silvery barbs beats it, hands down.
Turning to our promised comparison, fireball. These two spells are nothing alike. One deals damage, and one provides a nerf and boon. How are they comparable?
Power, my dear Watson. According to the Dungeon Master's Guide(Dungeon Master's Guide Chapter 9), a spell of fireball's level should deal 6d6 damage. This means fireball deals 2d6 damage greater than it should. In fact, it's the equivalent, according to the table, of adding in an extra spell slot of 1st level. It's cast one spell, get one free! However, with silvery barbs's closest comparisons, shield and bless, our spell deals very little extra benefits at the best of times - by no means an extra spell slot's worth of value. Hence, silvery barbs is less ban-worthy than fireball and bless, widely considered among the best spells in Dungeons and Dragons.
Will you remove fireball? Or will you accept silvery barbs is not your overpowered, potent enemy you seem to insist it is? I will let you decide.
The same can be said about Bane. It is pound for pound better than barbs which can also be picked up with faye touched, and can be up cast. Negate one crit or negate half the attack rolls up to 3 creatures for 10 rounds. Also it is a charisma save.
Or the critter could fail the first Polymorph save and arrive at the same point, with nobody complaining about it. Or the critter could, indeed, nail five different attempts to muck with its save against Polymorph, and man - what a table tale that would be.
I suppose that's the thing - I'm seeing a lot of people venting spleen about how Silvery Barbs is an automatic win switch that guarantees somebody will change the course of history forever when it's just...not that powerful? Excellent yes, but not so earthshaking as to merit the hooplah. Everyone's hollering that it's way too good for first level. So, okay - what level should it be? Legit curious - what level do folks think would be More Fair for Silvery Barbs, if first is too low a cost?
I disagree with Optimus, as at third level we get fireball.
Does that make sense? Pray, let me explain.
ON FIREBALLS AND SILVERED BARBS
Our discussion here is about the spell silvery barbs, a new spell from the book Strixhaven: a Curriculum of Chaos. It offers one lot of advantage and disadvantage. Going by the rules suggested in the Player's Handbook, advantage counts as a +5 bonus to passive checks (Player's Handbook Chapter 7) , so we will examine silvery barbs at it's most potent passive. This effectively means a +5 bonus to one check, and a -5 penalty to another. Only the penalty's check can be chosen by the caster.
Comparing this first against the spell bless, a cleric staple from the Player's Handbook, generally considered powerful but not broken. This spell grants on average a +2 bonus, on all ability checks and saving throws, for a minute (assuming concentration), on up to three creatures. Assuming this spell only lasts one single round of combat, and assuming each creature makes only one ability check or saving throw in this entire round, that's effectively a +6 bonus, spread across more creatures. And this is significantly downplaying the spell's effects, as this can last multiple turns, with a maximum bonus (assuming each creature targeted only makes one check or save per round) of a whopping +120 spread across a single minute. Now, this maximum is unrealistic, at best, but so too is the spell only lasting a single round of combat, as clerics won't be getting in melee range unless they have specific feats (Player's Handbook Chapter 6).
This effectively means that, while silvery barbs is the faster spell, bless outclasses it in almost every single other way. Even more specifically, when not using passive bonuses, silvery barbs can do nothing to aid your allies at all, while bless is always guaranteed to grant at least a +3 bonus over one round of combat. What's more, bless works outside of combat too, while silvery barbs cannot, meaning bless is more potent, more effective, more predictable, and more versatile than silvery barbs ever will be.
Turning to the second comparison, shield. This spell grants a +5 bonus to AC until the start of your next turn as a reaction. This means shield is roughly equivalent to our silvery barbs, both granting +5 bonuses when used in passive. Assuming that only one attack is made against the caster with shield, silvery barbs is by far the superior. However, a second attack makes both spells roughly equal in power level - no considerable difference. Again, this is using a gross passive version of silvery barbs, which provides a +5 bonus to a check - something that won't happen on a roll of 15 or higher, and more likely than not will not increase the initial roll at all. This just goes to show that silvery barbs and shield are not truly comparable as they both do widely different things.
Turning to the third, second to last comparison, fortune's favor. This spell stinks. Silvery barbs beats it, hands down.
Turning to our promised comparison, fireball. These two spells are nothing alike. One deals damage, and one provides a nerf and boon. How are they comparable?
Power, my dear Watson. According to the Dungeon Master's Guide(Dungeon Master's Guide Chapter 9), a spell of fireball's level should deal 6d6 damage. This means fireball deals 2d6 damage greater than it should. In fact, it's the equivalent, according to the table, of adding in an extra spell slot of 1st level. It's cast one spell, get one free! However, with silvery barbs's closest comparisons, shield and bless, our spell deals very little extra benefits at the best of times - by no means an extra spell slot's worth of value. Hence, silvery barbs is less ban-worthy than fireball and bless, widely considered among the best spells in Dungeons and Dragons.
Will you remove fireball? Or will you accept silvery barbs is not your overpowered, potent enemy you seem to insist it is? I will let you decide.
The same can be said about Bane. It is pound for pound better than barbs which can also be picked up with faye touched, and can be up cast. Negate one crit or negate half the attack rolls up to 3 creatures for 10 rounds. Also it is a charisma save.
It's not better than Barbs as it requires an initial check, your full action to cast, and has less of a bonus (d4 < DIS)
Also you don't have to use barbs unless they succeed.
Also Barbs isn't concentration so you can have all the great concentration spells up and use it.
Sorry it's really not a good comparison at all.
You also missed my reply when I agreed fireball punches too high and likely should be brought back down to their suggested damage for the level it is at. They have stated its over tuned for nostalgia sake and honestly I think its a bit much. If I had my druthers I would move it back to 6d6 and make it more in line with a 3rd level spell.
I would also do the same for barbs as I have said repeatedly that I do not think banning the spell is the way to go....just make it a 2nd level spell.
I have yet to hear a compelling argument why this would be an issue for the spells balance? Other than outright fixing 99% of the issues most people have with it.
I used to play MtG when Interrupts were still a thing and I don't understand how they ever thought dropping those were going to make things easier. I figure they had the same person responsible for that snafu write the interrupt rules for 5th. What's wrong with first in last out, anyway?
No success literally has to be determined for you to use the spell....
" which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw"
Is it powercreepy? yes. Is it broken? No. There are a lot of other things that have been added recently that are far worse for game balance than silvery barbs. This is a very strong spell, but I don't think it significantly alters the balance of an encounter.
Broken is a word that gets used far too much when it should not be. Something being a strong choice, or even the best choice isn't necessarily broken.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Yeah, that's incompetent rules. It should be would succeed, because unless the spell is supposed to result in time travel, once success has happened it's too late to do anything about it. In any case, I resolve all side effects of hitting (such as breaking stealth) at the same time as damage.
I don't disagree.... It's one of the small things I don't like about the spell because it fuddles with that.
Well, no. It did succeed, and then that success became a failure. There is "time travel" of a sort (in the sense of altering game events that have already happened), but that "time travel" is entirely metagame, which is fine. Your position that "once success has happened it's too late to do anything" is simply fundamentally incorrect within the rules of 5e.
A reaction is a character action, and should thus be based on character information. And no, my position is entirely consistent with 5e as long as you realize that most reactions are actually interrupts.
Your position is at odds with the text. Interrupts are absolutely still a thing, but the actual rules apply them retroactively. Your position requires that they work in a way that they simply do not in 5e. Consider the text for the soul knife's psi-bolstered knack:
"Psi-Bolstered Knack. When your nonpsionic training fails you, your psionic power can help: if you fail an ability check using a skill or tool with which you have proficiency, you can roll one Psionic Energy die and add the number rolled to the check, potentially turning failure into success. You expend the die only if the roll succeeds."
The actual rules are extremely clear: the failure happens (or in the case of silvery barbs, the success), and then it's changed. It's not difficult to understand, and isn't really any kind of rules failure? It's totally fine, I don't see the problem.
The rules failure is that the failure (of the roll) doesn't happen. A roll which would have failed, but is a success because you spent psionic energy, did not fail. A roll that would normally succeeded, but turned into a failure because of silvery barbs, did not succeed.
But it had to even cast the spell is the issue...
It's weird and odd because most don't need the roll to finalize but this one does.
I very sincerely do not understand where the mental block is for you. The roll did fail, and then, after that, it became a success. That is literally what the rules say, in black and white. It both failed and succeeded, but the success happened later, so that's the one whose effects carry forward. There's no rules failure; that's just how the rules work. The rules do not require that a failure remain a failure forever, so why do you?
It's a necessary artefact of how the rules are written. A trigger of "When an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is about to succeed" (i.e. what actually happens in the game world) is ambiguous and prone to confusion and argument. "How do I know if it's about to succeed?" "When do other things that might make it succeed work? Do you add Bardic Inspiration before or after?" So on and so forth. Writing "when it succeeds" provides a concrete point for the spell to interact with/trigger on, and is consistent with other such abilities. How it works in the game world is, in this case, up to the DM, though I posit that nothing really makes sense other than "you stop the success in the nick of time with a pinch of probability magic".
Please do not contact or message me.
I have a player that flavors Silvery Barbs as "time magic", when he casts the spell his character is attempting to alter events, resulting in a change of a single moment of time that then causes a "ripple" effect than effects another target (the advantage). It has not really done much yet, but the concept is fun and he is having a good time with it anyway.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
It probably says something about me that I just imagine it as profuse swearing.
Every time you swear at and kick a piece of machinery and it turns on you actually cast Silvery Barbs? Totally checks out for me lol.
I mean that's what happens in Hollywood films every time - and Hollywood would never lie to us right?
#OpenDnD
It's called percussive maintenance, and it is a very real phenomenon.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
A misbehaving electronic device sometimes gets that way because connections have become flaky or jiggered themselves into a place where they're not quite solid, or dust has gotten into something it shouldn't. A good swat can get the connections re-established or dislodge dust, though it's a stopgap measure at best. If a good swat fixes your machine, the machine is probably in need of a cleaning as well. Note: a swat. Do not People's Elbow your electronics, if a decent little tap doesn't clear it then dropkicking it's not gonna do crap either, and the more modern and integrated a device is the less likely tapping/swatting it will accomplish jack-monkey squat.
Mechanical equipment can sometimes be fixed by punching it back into alignment if something jiggled out of place, but that's an At Your Own Risk dealie. Do not fist heavy equipment. Or android girls, for that matter.
Please do not contact or message me.
So... a tombstone piledriver or bellyback suplex won't help either? Asking for a friend.
A good book and a cup of tea.
Homebrew| Bard: College of Composition
Feedback Appreciated!
The same can be said about Bane. It is pound for pound better than barbs which can also be picked up with faye touched, and can be up cast. Negate one crit or negate half the attack rolls up to 3 creatures for 10 rounds. Also it is a charisma save.
It's not better than Barbs as it requires an initial check, your full action to cast, and has less of a bonus (d4 < DIS)
Also you don't have to use barbs unless they succeed.
Also Barbs isn't concentration so you can have all the great concentration spells up and use it.
Sorry it's really not a good comparison at all.
You also missed my reply when I agreed fireball punches too high and likely should be brought back down to their suggested damage for the level it is at. They have stated its over tuned for nostalgia sake and honestly I think its a bit much. If I had my druthers I would move it back to 6d6 and make it more in line with a 3rd level spell.
I would also do the same for barbs as I have said repeatedly that I do not think banning the spell is the way to go....just make it a 2nd level spell.
I have yet to hear a compelling argument why this would be an issue for the spells balance? Other than outright fixing 99% of the issues most people have with it.