Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
Glimpse of Temporal Flood from the Precognitive Mage says
Glimpse the Temporal Flood . The mage targets one creature within 120 feet of it that it can see. The target takes 18 psychic damage, and it must succeed on a DC 14 Intelligence saving throw or be stunned until the end of its next turn.
Stunned prevents a creature from taking reactions.
However Orros Mark of Fate states
Which has priority?
Mage casts Flood - Sorcerer fails, does the stunned take effect before they can react or does it activate Mark of Fate first?
Thanks in advance.
The Reaction takes effect immediately when the saving throw is failed, turning it into a success before any of the effects of failure are applied. That's the whole point.
pronouns: he/she/they
There's basically two stages to checking if a roll passes or fails- the first one involves applying modifiers that are applied "when you make an attack/skill check/save", then the result of the roll as it stands is given and there's a window to use reactions with triggers like "on a fail" or "on a hit/miss".
In terms of RAI, it's likely as described in the above responses.
In terms of RAW, it gets a little weird. The general rule for a Reaction is that it is "an instant response to a trigger" but "in terms of timing, the Reaction is taken immediately after the trigger".
So when a feature says "it must succeed on a saving throw or be stunned", it doesn't seem like reacting "immediately after" or "in response to" this is possible. At best we might be looking at Simultaneous Effects which also would not work out in favor of the one making the Saving Throw in most cases.
If you could actually get to the text which reads that "something else happens instead" then it's as if the original consequences never happened, but RAW I'm not sure how you get there in this case.
The general idea we went with is, for the Mark of Fate to trigger, the save must be failed, which applies the stunned condition, preventing the use of a reaction.
With Orros Mark of Fate you succeed instead of failing the saving throw so you're actually never stunned by Glimpse of the Temporal Flood.
That's certainly what the effect of that spell does. The question / problem is whether or not you are ever actually able to cast that spell. The casting of the spell occurs either after or simultaneous to the failing of a saving throw which has its own effect associated with it. In both cases, if the result of failing the saving throw is that you are dead, Unconscious, Stunned, Petrified, Paralyzed, Incapacitated or otherwise unable to cast the spell (unable to speak, for example), then you aren't actually able to cast the spell in order to benefit from the effect of the spell.
Look at it this way- do you stop to check if you’ll take lethal damage before you use Absorb Elements? It’s the same principle- you’ve taken the damage, and yet you’re able to give yourself resistance before it’s actually subtracted from your HP.
Right, but if the spell's reaction doesn't preempt the effect of the failed saving throw, there isn't much point to the spell existing at all. This is one of those cases where if an interpretation of a rule/spell/ability/etc. leads to that thing not being possible to actually use or being incapable of achieving its intended purpose, that probably isn't the correct interpretation.
pronouns: he/she/they
I've seen you make this argument before in other threads, but it does not apply here. There are still tons of situations where this spell will work as intended. For example, if the result of the failed Saving Throw causes you to become Poisoned, or Prone, or to take some non-lethal damage among a great many other things, then you can go ahead and cast this spell at which point the effect of the spell proceeds as written in the spell description.
In my opinion, this is just one of those rules that pretty much everyone breaks without even realizing it. Group think causes people to adjudicate Reactions the way everyone else does it precisely because that's how everyone else does it.
However, as written, a Reaction is something that is done "in reaction to" something happening, hence the term "Reaction". It's NOT "preempting" something from happening -- that's just not the mechanic. The rules regarding the timing of when and how a Reaction is taken have been previously quoted.
In this case, in order to achieve the effect of something being preempted, one must actually cast the spell, which occurs "in reaction to" that thing happening because the casting time of that spell is 1 Reaction. From the spell description, the effect is: "you may choose to succeed instead" but the casting time that is required to cast this spell in the first place is: "1 reaction, which you take in response to failing a saving throw".
In practice, people don't do this. But by rule, yes, you should. The casting time for Absorb Elements is: "1 Reaction, which you take when you take acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage". So, if taking this damage causes you to fall unconscious you would be unable to take that Reaction to cast that spell. What makes Absorb Elements even more poorly written is that, as written, you don't even benefit from this newly gained resistance against the damage that you are reacting to because reacting to something happens "immediately after" that thing happens and the spell effect doesn't take effect until after the spell has been cast. For it to work that way, this spell would have had to add language that is similar to what we see in the Shield spell -- something like "including against the triggering damage".
Which brings us to another common example -- the Shield spell. The casting time for the Shield spell is: "1 Reaction, which you take when you are hit by an attack roll".
There is a general rule which says: "Resolve the Attack. Make the attack roll, as detailed earlier in this chapter. On a hit, you roll damage . . ." and the procedure for rolling damage is given as: "You roll the damage dice, add any modifiers, and deal the damage to your target." From this, there is a relatively sound interpretation that as an effect of being hit, you are dealt damage. If that's true, then this effect occurs simultaneously to the moment when you take your Reaction ("when you are hit") that is needed to cast the Shield spell. Unless you are casting Shield on your own turn, which is unusual, then you'll lose this tiebreaker and you are actually dealt this damage before casting the spell. At that point, it becomes necessary to evaluate whether or not being dealt that damage causes you to be unable to take this Reaction and/or unable to cast this spell. Such as if this damage knocks you unconscious. Once it is determined that you are still capable of casting this spell, and you choose to do so, and the resulting change in AC is enough to cause that triggering hit to actually miss, then you would have to undo that damage since the original attack actually missed instead of hit. The reason why you would do that is because the effect given by the spell description (after the spell has actually been cast) explicitly states that the new AC applies to the triggering attack: "Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack . . ."
Once again, I am quite aware that no one plays this way. But in order for the RAW to match up with how everyone plays, there would need to be some errata.
If a Reaction trigger on a D20 Test failure and the effect change the roll result to a success instead, you never failed said saving throw.
YMMV but to me it's both RAW, RAI & RAF!
In terms of timing, a Reaction takes place immediately after its trigger unless the Reaction’s description says otherwise.
To me such description say otherwise when it directly alter a D20 Test outcome.
When I read "instead" in the rules, I interpret it as meaning that the future event is cancelled and, alternatively, that the new path occurs retroactively, changing what would have happened.
For example:
- Orros Mark of Fate: "If you fail a saving throw, you may choose to succeed instead ..."
- Relentless Endurance: "When you are reduced to 0 Hit Points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 Hit Point instead..."
- Relentless Rage: "If you succeed, your Hit Points instead change to a number equal to twice your Barbarian level."
- Mirror Image: "... If any of the d6s rolls a 3 or higher, one of the duplicates is hit instead of you ..."
- Level 14: Leading Evasion
EDIT: oh, I didn't see the last posts from Plague, but I agree with him.
Yes, that certainly would be the effect of such a spell, I agree!
I disagree.
Yes, I agree with this also. That certainly is the effect of such a rule.
The problem is -- how do you get there? it's an issue of timing. For example, in the case of a spell, in order to actually be able to read and execute the statements within the effect block of the spell description that spell must actually be successfully cast. When such a spell has a casting time of 1 Reaction, you must actually take that Reaction as part of the spellcasting process before such a spell effect is born into existence. That Reaction will typically specify a trigger. By rule, the Reaction is taken "immediately after its trigger".
If that trigger also causes you to be unable to take a Reaction and/or unable to cast the spell, then at best these things are happening simultaneously:
Once you are somehow able to actually cast the spell, then the effect of that spell is that certain things never happened. But this effect cannot occur until and unless the spell has been cast.
__________
If I really am wrong about what the rules say about this subject, then it would certainly be helpful for me to know that. If someone could please directly quote some rules text that disproves my interpretation and supports some other interpretation that would be quite helpful.
__________
Let me also throw in another example that will hopefully clarify what I am saying:
Suppose I am in a fight with a goblin and that goblin is hiding behind a brick wall and currently enjoys Total Cover. On my turn, I decide to take the Ready action: "When the goblin exits from Total Cover I attack it". This mechanic works by taking a Reaction immediately after a predefined trigger occurs. However, unbeknownst to me, this particular goblin is wearing a homebrewed magical amulet. The description for that amulet states: "While wearing this amulet, when you exit from Total Cover you cannot be targeted by any attacks until the start of your next turn." So, the goblin pops out from behind the brick wall such that he exits from Total Cover. In this case, this event does not cause me to lose the ability to take Reactions per se, but how does the timing of when I am able to take this Reaction help me at all in this situation? At best I can take my Reaction at a moment that is simultaneous to the effect which causes the goblin to be untargetable, and since it's the goblin's turn he can choose to be untargetable before I can take my Reaction. Again, there is nothing "preemptive" about this mechanic. If I could preemptively take my Reaction before the goblin even popped out then I wouldn't be able to attack it anyway since it would still be behind Total Cover. Instead, the mechanic is generally useful here because my Reaction is taken after the goblin exits from Total Cover. But in this special case, the timing of the mechanic does not work out well for me.
__________
In general, I think that the authors could have done a better job of writing many of the features which interact with the Reaction mechanic in order to make sure that the RAW matches up with the RAI.
This is the process as I understand the rules:
Option A) The target succeeds on an Intelligence saving throw -> stunned condition avoided
Option B) The target fails that Intelligence saving throw -> target's Reaction takes place immediately -> the target succeeds instead -> stunned condition avoided -> target a creature you can see within 30 feet to suffer the effects of your failed saving throw
Of course you disagree you argue that the result of the D20 Test occur before the Reaction meant to affect it, meaning any effect that reroll it or change the result would never work as intended based on your reasoning.
The Orros Mark of Fate Reaction doesn't takes place immediately after its trigger because the Reaction’s description says otherwise by saying you succeed instead.
Further proof that the effect of the failed saving throw hasn't occured yet is that you can then target a creature you can see within 30 feet to suffer the effects of your failed saving throw to be stunned until the end of its next turn.
But you will probably disagree with that as well so what else can we say?
Such text cannot be produced, because the problem is that you don't believe that reactions can interrupt other effects at the level that they do, and you would rather construct a scheme where effects are imposed and rolled back.
This would be easier if we had 4e's explicit differentiation between interrupts and responses, but we don't; they are both folded into "Reaction", and we have to figure it out from context.
Fortunately, it's still easy. Reactions that prevent things from happening react to the determination that the thing will happen, and not to the thing actually happening.