People just keep trying to find a creative way to circumvent an effect that is spelled out plainly instead of just admitting they were hoping the OA would miss any they want to stay put because it didn't. AKA meta-gaming.
Once thing that I've noticed is that you seem pretty intent on the all-or-nothing aspect of the argument. I'll agree that trying to say that the OA doesn't occur if I change my mind to move the targetted character would be meta gaming. I don't get the feeling that most of us arguing the "Against full damage" side are arguing that at all, and I'm certainly not. While I've presented many different arguments as to why I don't think the movement damage rider should be applied unless the character either has the opportunity to not move from the square or at least has the opportunity to decide to continue moving after getting to that next square, I'm primarily in the camp that sees it as start moving, get popped by the intial damage and decide to turn back to address the situation. Thus, my character drops their guard to move for whatever reason, your character sees the opening and attacks. We know that this has to happen just before my character leaves your reach per the rules of the opportunity attack. I'm not debating that your character should get this opportunity attack, which can be replaced by Booming Blade. That's a given. I'll take the 1d4 to 2d6 damage from the weapon plus the 0 to 3d8 damage from the spell along with the sneak attack damage, or hex damage, or Smite damage or whatever other damage your character has a right by the rules to inflict upon my character (almost all of which will be more clearly defined than the hot steaming mess that this combo is). What I'm arguing is that the OA rules don't say that A) you have to continue moving after taking the OA and they clearly state that the OA happens before you leave the reach of the character performing the OA, which means that either I haven't left the square yet or I'm so close that seconds won't pass before I do. And B) the OA rules don't say that the movement is interrupted. Just that the OA takes place.
As I said before, this is akin to someone throwing a "sucker punch" and that is certainly something that would get most people who would want to be up in your face to turn back to address the assailant. Maybe my character thought that your character was too cowardly to attack or too honorable to do so with his back turned. Maybe he thought that your character wasn't as good looking as the Tabaxi, or wanted to get out of your reach to attack the cleric with a ranged attack. However, your character's show of aggression made him reevaluate those properties. Booming Blade changes none of those reasons but does give an added reason to stay and fight or at least wait 6 seconds and disengage next time. If my character was just too scared to stay and fight and wasn't scared stiff by the loud sheathing that took place after the OA, then he's just going to continue moving and take that damage.
As for the forced movement after the OA, here's the full text for OA:
Opportunity Attacks
In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for a chance to strike an enemy who is fleeing or passing by. Such a strike is called an opportunity attack.
You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.
You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don't provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe's reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.
Two-Weapon Fighting
Included the Two weapon fighting so your not able to accuse me of leaving any off. Highlight the portion that says that I must continue moving after taking the OA. Or the portion that talks about leaving my square. It doesn't. It talks about reach. Some of that is because of theater of the mind, but some of that can be explained by a character not taking up an entire 5 foot square and movement happening within that square. It doesn't even negate the trigger of the OA if I stay in the square unless the attack happens only as I'm leaving the square. If that's the case, I take the damage as I'm leaving and I'm sheathed in the next square because my movement isn't interrupted (unless you've got sentinel and we all seem to agree that sentinel and Booming Blade don't mix). Nothing in Booming Blade says that the sheathing happens simultaneously to the attack, because it wasn't designed to happen as a reaction. We can surmise that it happens after the melee attack because the spell fails without it. Damaging contact has to be made otherwise a shield block would still trigger the sheathing and heavy armor would still incur the sheathing (based on no dex modifier to suggest a dodge). This also suggests after the weapon attack and not simultaneously with it. We know it has to be before the end of the attacking character's turn because it could be the target's turn next turn, but in this case the attack is done on the target's turn. There is some leeway in how that could be interpreted because the language isn't precise enough to not allow that freedom primarily because it wasn't designed with this niche case in mind. Does it make sense that it would be near instantaneous? Sure. But then an entire round is only 6 seconds. The duration of the spell isn't even instantaneous to possibly give credence to the thought that the movement rider could be.
If these arguments aren't enough to at least make you consider that the argument against is valid, your not being open minded enough to consider a different view point than your own. I can't vouch for the others making this side of the argument, but I can say that there is at least a valid possibility that damage should be considered to be applied per RAW. The problem is it's not an open and shut case with RAW.
From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
You seem to be misunderstanding something. The target who provokes the AoO does get the spell cast on them, just like how they would be attacked by a normal AoO. It's just that after they've suffered that effect, they are still in control of their movement, which means they don't have to keep moving (technically, "keep moving" is "move at all," since AoOs go back in time to before the triggering movement).
From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
You seem to be misunderstanding something. The target who provokes the AoO does get the spell cast on them, just like how they would be attacked by a normal AoO. It's just that after they've suffered that effect, they are still in control of their movement, which means they don't have to keep moving (technically, "keep moving" is "move at all," since AoOs go back in time to before the triggering movement).
but meta gaming would be why they stop moving unless they know what spell was used and what it does. If that's even possible in the half seconded in time it takes. It's going back on your actions the movement is already happening otherwise there wouldn't have been an attack of op in the first place and that's booming blades trigger. Its like someone declaring what spell they're gonna use then rolls sees that it will hit than decide to use a different spell because they know its already gonna hit. Like setting off a trap DM says roll a dex save then be like naw i decide not to walk on that. Like no it's already happened you decided to move yea you're in control of your movement but you've already chosen to start moving which is what caused the attack of op. So the effects of bb should happen as you're hit since you're currently in movement.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
No one is trying to claim that you can undo an opportunity attack. What we are saying is that an opportunity attack triggers just before you leave threat range at which point you can stop moving. If the trigger for an opportunity attack required the target to already have moved out of reach it would be nonsensical because then you would not be able to hit the target, so you have to read the trigger for an opportunity attack as attempting to move out of reach rather than actually moving out of reach.
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but meta gaming would be why they stop moving unless they know what spell was used and what it does. If that's even possible in the half seconded in time it takes. It's going back on your actions the movement is already happening otherwise there wouldn't have been an attack of op in the first place and that's booming blades trigger. Its like someone declaring what spell they're gonna use then rolls sees that it will hit than decide to use a different spell because they know its already gonna hit. Like setting off a trap DM says roll a dex save then be like naw i decide not to walk on that. Like no it's already happened you decided to move yea you're in control of your movement but you've already chosen to start moving which is what caused the attack of op. So the effects of bb should happen as you're hit since you're currently in movement.
Does anyone else feel like we're rehashing the beginning posts of the thread? Yes, it would be metagaming to immediately know what the spell does, everyone agrees with that. It would take some sort of prior knowledge, like having seen the spell in effect before or a strong knowledge of spells in general, to immediately recognize the spell and know how to respond. That is a separate issue from whether or not one can react to the casting of this spell and react in time to prevent the secondary effect from going off. I posit that yes, mechanically, one can stop themselves from continuing their movement in response to being the target of a Booming Blade, which happens at a point right before one leaves the reach of the caster.
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From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
You seem to be misunderstanding something. The target who provokes the AoO does get the spell cast on them, just like how they would be attacked by a normal AoO. It's just that after they've suffered that effect, they are still in control of their movement, which means they don't have to keep moving (technically, "keep moving" is "move at all," since AoOs go back in time to before the triggering movement).
but meta gaming would be why they stop moving unless they know what spell was used and what it does. If that's even possible in the half seconded in time it takes. It's going back on your actions the movement is already happening otherwise there wouldn't have been an attack of op in the first place and that's booming blades trigger. Its like someone declaring what spell they're gonna use then rolls sees that it will hit than decide to use a different spell because they know its already gonna hit. Like setting off a trap DM says roll a dex save then be like naw i decide not to walk on that. Like no it's already happened you decided to move yea you're in control of your movement but you've already chosen to start moving which is what caused the attack of op. So the effects of bb should happen as you're hit since you're currently in movement.
"Why stop moving unless you know what spell was used and what it does" is a reasonable point that no one has disputed. Where you're incorrect, however, is that when the AoO is made or when the War Caster spell is cast, the target hasn't moved yet. This is why AoOs are so weird. The target was going to move, but then they took an AoO or had a spell cast on them, which is new information that they absolutely have a chance to react to, and a very reasonable way to react is to say "well I guess I'll stay here."
The upshot is that this is now an in-character decision that the character gets to make: do they know what will happen if they still decide to move? How motivated are they to get away? Were they previously engaged in melee with the caster, or are they just passing though their reach coincidentally? There are lots of reasons that the character may want to keep moving. There are also lots of reasons that they may want to stay put. The decision is theirs, and it's up to the DM to make sure the decision makes sense.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
No one is trying to claim that you can undo an opportunity attack. What we are saying is that an opportunity attack triggers just before you leave threat range at which point you can stop moving. If the trigger for an opportunity attack required the target to already have moved out of reach it would be nonsensical because then you would not be able to hit the target, so you have to read the trigger for an opportunity attack as attempting to move out of reach rather than actually moving out of reach.
yea but you're currently moving when you're hit with an attack of op. who just moves 5ft away so they get attack of op against them? Not many people would just move the 5ft and wait to see whats used against them because that's meta gaming. Play it out as it would on the table I'm gonna move over here ok they're gonna get an attack of op on you. oo ok that's fine i move over here. Ok they hit with booming blade. O they used booming blade never mind not moving there now. They wouldn't know what they were using until it was too late if going by how time flows in game combat. But you hit them while they're moving out of your reach so i feel BB should trigger it's after effect as soon as you hit someone with it because they're already moving which is the spells trigger to go off. Otherwise it should say a creature hit by this spell has all movement stopped and if it wants to make a willing movement it has to take the damage. It already made a willing movement in the attack of OP which is why it should go off as soon as they're hit.
From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
You seem to be misunderstanding something. The target who provokes the AoO does get the spell cast on them, just like how they would be attacked by a normal AoO. It's just that after they've suffered that effect, they are still in control of their movement, which means they don't have to keep moving (technically, "keep moving" is "move at all," since AoOs go back in time to before the triggering movement).
but meta gaming would be why they stop moving unless they know what spell was used and what it does. If that's even possible in the half seconded in time it takes. It's going back on your actions the movement is already happening otherwise there wouldn't have been an attack of op in the first place and that's booming blades trigger. Its like someone declaring what spell they're gonna use then rolls sees that it will hit than decide to use a different spell because they know its already gonna hit. Like setting off a trap DM says roll a dex save then be like naw i decide not to walk on that. Like no it's already happened you decided to move yea you're in control of your movement but you've already chosen to start moving which is what caused the attack of op. So the effects of bb should happen as you're hit since you're currently in movement.
"Why stop moving unless you know what spell was used and what it does" is a reasonable point that no one has disputed. Where you're incorrect, however, is that when the AoO is made or when the War Caster spell is cast, the target hasn't moved yet. This is why AoOs are so weird. The target was going to move, but then they took an AoO or had a spell cast on them, which is new information that they absolutely have a chance to react to, and a very reasonable way to react is to say "well I guess I'll stay here."
The upshot is that this is now an in-character decision that the character gets to make: do they know what will happen if they still decide to move? How motivated are they to get away? Were they previously engaged in melee with the caster, or are they just passing though their reach coincidentally? There are lots of reasons that the character may want to keep moving. There are also lots of reasons that they may want to stay put. The decision is theirs, and it's up to the DM to make sure the decision makes sense.
but by that logic if you're watching it in a movie the two people are staring at each other and the one gets a free hit on him because somehow he knows in his mind that hes gonna turn his back and run from him or move away lol. The target moving away is what triggers the attack. So them moving around you or turning their back to you to move away. Makes no sense that the target would just stand there and take a hit with nothing else happening because you someone know his guard is dropped and you can hit him lol
yea but you're currently moving when you're hit with an attack of op. who just moves 5ft away so they get attack of op against them? Not many people would just move the 5ft and wait to see whats used against them because that's meta gaming. Play it out as it would on the table I'm gonna move over here ok they're gonna get an attack of op on you. oo ok that's fine i move over here. Ok they hit with booming blade. O they used booming blade never mind not moving there now. They wouldn't know what they were using until it was too late if going by how time flows in game combat. But you hit them while they're moving out of your reach so i feel BB should trigger it's after effect as soon as you hit someone with it because they're already moving which is the spells trigger to go off. Otherwise it should say a creature hit by this spell has all movement stopped and if it wants to make a willing movement it has to take the damage. It already made a willing movement in the attack of OP which is why it should go off as soon as they're hit.
If one knows how the Booming Blade spell works, in character, then I think it's totally reasonable for one to respond to its casting in combat time. The way movement works according to the rules is that the moving character can use as much or as little of it as they want, not just in 5ft increments, and Jeremy Crawford clarified that movement direction can be changed mid-move in response to things happening on the battlefield. You could rule that there is some sort of momentum where people cannot change or stop their movement, but it would be a houserule.
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but by that logic if you're watching it in a movie the two people are staring at each other and the one gets a free hit on him because somehow he knows in his mind that hes gonna turn his back and run from him or move away lol. The target moving away is what triggers the attack. So them moving around you or turning their back to you to move away. Makes no sense that the target would just stand there and take a hit with nothing else happening because you someone know his guard is dropped and you can hit him lol
No, the target attempting to move out of range is the trigger for an opportunity attack. Within a 5ft square there is actually a lot of room for a person to move around without technically leaving D&D's concept of "reach."
There's a lot of room to move in that square and you can absolutely start moving to retreat away from someone and take multiple steps without leaving their reach because reach and combat space is something of an abstraction.
So what happens when someone triggers an opportunity attack is they start to move away and just as they are about to exit reach, they suffer the opportunity attack, at which point, assuming they recognize what just happened to them, they can stop moving. They do not get hit just for thinking about moving, they get hit for actually attempting to move out of reach, but before they are actually out of reach. This means they probably end up at the far end of that square, but not outside of it yet, or maybe they've stepped one foot in the next square, but that's not enough for them to count as being in the next square yet.
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That's the issue. Opportunity Attacks are a simultanous thing in a ruleset that doesn't do simultaneous things.
Using a grid, they are also break the discrete nature of movement, in that they happen part-way though moving from one square/hex to another, something that is normally atomic.
I think that after reading things here, I'm changing my interpretation. Opportunity attacks happen during movement, and whatever the result of the opportunioty attack, the movement is completed, leaving the character the destination square. If Sentinel set their speed to zero, they are now unmoving. If booming blade hit them then they can now make the decision whether to move further and take the extra damage, or not. In both cases, they are two squares away from the attacker.
Opportunity attacks happen during movement, and whatever the result of the opportunioty attack, the movement is completed, leaving the character the destination square. If Sentinel set their speed to zero, they are now unmoving. If booming blade hit them then they can now make the decision whether to move further and take the extra damage, or not. In both cases, they are two squares away from the attacker.
Except that directly contradicts the rules as written, which state that Opportunity Attacks happen before movement, not during, and that Sentinel leaves them in the original, within-reach square, not "unmoving [in the just-out-reach square]".
Edit: to be clear, I have no problem with you deciding to run it that way in your games, nor would I have a problem with my DM deciding to run it that way. It would just be a house rule, and not Rules-as-Written.
Man this thread is mind-blowing. If I were a DM in this scenario, I would probably just rule that the initial movement out of reach doesn't count as a trigger for booming blade's thunder damage and move on with the game. Not RAW, but it just makes more sense.
Except that directly contradicts the rules as written, which state that Opportunity Attacks happen before movement, not during, and that Sentinel leaves them in the original, within-reach square, not "unmoving [in the just-out-reach square]".
No, the rules say the attack happens right before the creature leaves your reach. Assuming you had moved as close as possible to them, that means they've already moved 4, 4.999999... or 5 feet depending on how you think the game's rules account for fractional movement and whether a target exactly 5 feet away is within reach. Either way, they've definitely moved unless they were already standing exactly at the edge of your reach.
Honestly, just leave grids and squares out of the discussion. The rules are written in terms of feet, not squares. Using squares just confounds the issue because now you've dragged an extra layer of rules, abstractions and expectations into the picture.
Except that directly contradicts the rules as written, which state that Opportunity Attacks happen before movement, not during, and that Sentinel leaves them in the original, within-reach square, not "unmoving [in the just-out-reach square]".
No, the rules say the attack happens right before the creature leaves your reach. Assuming you had moved as close as possible to them, that means they've already moved 4, 4.999999... or 5 feet depending on how you think the game's rules account for fractional movement and whether a target exactly 5 feet away is within reach. Either way, they've definitely moved unless they were already standing exactly at the edge of your reach.
Honestly, just leave grids and squares out of the discussion. The rules are written in terms of feet, not squares. Using squares just confounds the issue because now you've dragged an extra layer of rules, abstractions and expectations into the picture.
This. This is why I say that the creature should be able to remain in the square that they started in if they decide to stay. They probably shouldn't stay all the time, at least not any more than they would with a normal OA, until they've had some experience with Booming Blade. That experience could include a teammate using the spell, and DMs shouldn't be using that excuse a bunch to start and probably only ramping the usage up slowly overall.
If you're going to get the square's involved and rule that the character must move (which isn't RAW), then the sheathing should happen as they enter the adjacent square. The same caveats should be in effect for when the character should stop and should not stop as were detailed in the previous paragraph.
Just because a character can stop after taking the OA doesn't mean that the character should stop.
Taking squares out of it I would say that the rules are that an opportunity attack happens while the target is still within reach and that they can stop at that point if they choose to, meaning they don't automatically trigger effects from moving and that they are still within reach. Whether they choose to stop or not depends on whether they, in character, recognize what's happened to them. I think this is both coherent and squares with the rules.
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Taking squares out of it I would say that the rules are that an opportunity attack happens while the target is still within reach and that they can stop at that point if they choose to, meaning they don't automatically trigger effects from moving and that they are still within reach. Whether they choose to stop or not depends on whether they, in character, recognize what's happened to them. I think this is both coherent and squares with the rules.
They don't need to understand what's happened to them as far as Booming Blade to face up to the attacker. I'd be more invested in facing back up to someone who attacked me when I turned my back to them and I don't have to worry about Booming Blade. This is where the metagaming aspect can come in, though. As a DM ruling on this, I'd probably allow this to pass for one of my players if they almost always did it regardless of the OA. I'd be more lenient if a party member had Booming Blade and had been using it in combat.
As a DM adjudicating on the NPCs, I'd probably roll a d10. On a 8 or greater, they wheel back on the attacker regardless of the nature of the OA. I'd roll with disadvantage if they were a -3 or so on Intelligence (or maybe wisdom) and with advantage if they were a +3 or otherwise had experience with it or warning. A d6 roll of a 6 would indicate that they had experience. Or maybe I'd just set it as a DC 15 perception or investigation check with a required DC 10 passive to even roll.
Once thing that I've noticed is that you seem pretty intent on the all-or-nothing aspect of the argument. I'll agree that trying to say that the OA doesn't occur if I change my mind to move the targetted character would be meta gaming. I don't get the feeling that most of us arguing the "Against full damage" side are arguing that at all, and I'm certainly not. While I've presented many different arguments as to why I don't think the movement damage rider should be applied unless the character either has the opportunity to not move from the square or at least has the opportunity to decide to continue moving after getting to that next square, I'm primarily in the camp that sees it as start moving, get popped by the intial damage and decide to turn back to address the situation. Thus, my character drops their guard to move for whatever reason, your character sees the opening and attacks. We know that this has to happen just before my character leaves your reach per the rules of the opportunity attack. I'm not debating that your character should get this opportunity attack, which can be replaced by Booming Blade. That's a given. I'll take the 1d4 to 2d6 damage from the weapon plus the 0 to 3d8 damage from the spell along with the sneak attack damage, or hex damage, or Smite damage or whatever other damage your character has a right by the rules to inflict upon my character (almost all of which will be more clearly defined than the hot steaming mess that this combo is). What I'm arguing is that the OA rules don't say that A) you have to continue moving after taking the OA and they clearly state that the OA happens before you leave the reach of the character performing the OA, which means that either I haven't left the square yet or I'm so close that seconds won't pass before I do. And B) the OA rules don't say that the movement is interrupted. Just that the OA takes place.
As I said before, this is akin to someone throwing a "sucker punch" and that is certainly something that would get most people who would want to be up in your face to turn back to address the assailant. Maybe my character thought that your character was too cowardly to attack or too honorable to do so with his back turned. Maybe he thought that your character wasn't as good looking as the Tabaxi, or wanted to get out of your reach to attack the cleric with a ranged attack. However, your character's show of aggression made him reevaluate those properties. Booming Blade changes none of those reasons but does give an added reason to stay and fight or at least wait 6 seconds and disengage next time. If my character was just too scared to stay and fight and wasn't scared stiff by the loud sheathing that took place after the OA, then he's just going to continue moving and take that damage.
As for the forced movement after the OA, here's the full text for OA:
Opportunity Attacks
In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for a chance to strike an enemy who is fleeing or passing by. Such a strike is called an opportunity attack.
You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.
You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don't provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe's reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.
Two-Weapon Fighting
Included the Two weapon fighting so your not able to accuse me of leaving any off. Highlight the portion that says that I must continue moving after taking the OA. Or the portion that talks about leaving my square. It doesn't. It talks about reach. Some of that is because of theater of the mind, but some of that can be explained by a character not taking up an entire 5 foot square and movement happening within that square. It doesn't even negate the trigger of the OA if I stay in the square unless the attack happens only as I'm leaving the square. If that's the case, I take the damage as I'm leaving and I'm sheathed in the next square because my movement isn't interrupted (unless you've got sentinel and we all seem to agree that sentinel and Booming Blade don't mix). Nothing in Booming Blade says that the sheathing happens simultaneously to the attack, because it wasn't designed to happen as a reaction. We can surmise that it happens after the melee attack because the spell fails without it. Damaging contact has to be made otherwise a shield block would still trigger the sheathing and heavy armor would still incur the sheathing (based on no dex modifier to suggest a dodge). This also suggests after the weapon attack and not simultaneously with it. We know it has to be before the end of the attacking character's turn because it could be the target's turn next turn, but in this case the attack is done on the target's turn. There is some leeway in how that could be interpreted because the language isn't precise enough to not allow that freedom primarily because it wasn't designed with this niche case in mind. Does it make sense that it would be near instantaneous? Sure. But then an entire round is only 6 seconds. The duration of the spell isn't even instantaneous to possibly give credence to the thought that the movement rider could be.
If these arguments aren't enough to at least make you consider that the argument against is valid, your not being open minded enough to consider a different view point than your own. I can't vouch for the others making this side of the argument, but I can say that there is at least a valid possibility that damage should be considered to be applied per RAW. The problem is it's not an open and shut case with RAW.
Jeremy Crawford, Lead Rules Designer of D&D 5e, has already clarified this.
Yes, I realize Jeremy Crawford's tweets aren't considered "RAW" anymore, but they were at the time this was tweeted.
It is discussed a bit more here.
From here on, you can argue you disagree with the actual rules, and suggest house rules to fix the perceived problem, but the actual rules should be clear at this point.
To me that's meta gaming. Because if you hit someone roll and do damage but they can change their mind after the fact and then don't provoke the attack of OP. This is why the DM says moving will invoke an attack of OP and the player or enemy decides then weather or not they're going to go ahead with their move. They can't change that after they find out what they're gonna be hit with.
You seem to be misunderstanding something. The target who provokes the AoO does get the spell cast on them, just like how they would be attacked by a normal AoO. It's just that after they've suffered that effect, they are still in control of their movement, which means they don't have to keep moving (technically, "keep moving" is "move at all," since AoOs go back in time to before the triggering movement).
but meta gaming would be why they stop moving unless they know what spell was used and what it does. If that's even possible in the half seconded in time it takes. It's going back on your actions the movement is already happening otherwise there wouldn't have been an attack of op in the first place and that's booming blades trigger. Its like someone declaring what spell they're gonna use then rolls sees that it will hit than decide to use a different spell because they know its already gonna hit. Like setting off a trap DM says roll a dex save then be like naw i decide not to walk on that. Like no it's already happened you decided to move yea you're in control of your movement but you've already chosen to start moving which is what caused the attack of op. So the effects of bb should happen as you're hit since you're currently in movement.
No one is trying to claim that you can undo an opportunity attack. What we are saying is that an opportunity attack triggers just before you leave threat range at which point you can stop moving. If the trigger for an opportunity attack required the target to already have moved out of reach it would be nonsensical because then you would not be able to hit the target, so you have to read the trigger for an opportunity attack as attempting to move out of reach rather than actually moving out of reach.
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Does anyone else feel like we're rehashing the beginning posts of the thread? Yes, it would be metagaming to immediately know what the spell does, everyone agrees with that. It would take some sort of prior knowledge, like having seen the spell in effect before or a strong knowledge of spells in general, to immediately recognize the spell and know how to respond. That is a separate issue from whether or not one can react to the casting of this spell and react in time to prevent the secondary effect from going off. I posit that yes, mechanically, one can stop themselves from continuing their movement in response to being the target of a Booming Blade, which happens at a point right before one leaves the reach of the caster.
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"Why stop moving unless you know what spell was used and what it does" is a reasonable point that no one has disputed. Where you're incorrect, however, is that when the AoO is made or when the War Caster spell is cast, the target hasn't moved yet. This is why AoOs are so weird. The target was going to move, but then they took an AoO or had a spell cast on them, which is new information that they absolutely have a chance to react to, and a very reasonable way to react is to say "well I guess I'll stay here."
The upshot is that this is now an in-character decision that the character gets to make: do they know what will happen if they still decide to move? How motivated are they to get away? Were they previously engaged in melee with the caster, or are they just passing though their reach coincidentally? There are lots of reasons that the character may want to keep moving. There are also lots of reasons that they may want to stay put. The decision is theirs, and it's up to the DM to make sure the decision makes sense.
yea but you're currently moving when you're hit with an attack of op. who just moves 5ft away so they get attack of op against them? Not many people would just move the 5ft and wait to see whats used against them because that's meta gaming. Play it out as it would on the table I'm gonna move over here ok they're gonna get an attack of op on you. oo ok that's fine i move over here. Ok they hit with booming blade. O they used booming blade never mind not moving there now. They wouldn't know what they were using until it was too late if going by how time flows in game combat. But you hit them while they're moving out of your reach so i feel BB should trigger it's after effect as soon as you hit someone with it because they're already moving which is the spells trigger to go off. Otherwise it should say a creature hit by this spell has all movement stopped and if it wants to make a willing movement it has to take the damage. It already made a willing movement in the attack of OP which is why it should go off as soon as they're hit.
but by that logic if you're watching it in a movie the two people are staring at each other and the one gets a free hit on him because somehow he knows in his mind that hes gonna turn his back and run from him or move away lol. The target moving away is what triggers the attack. So them moving around you or turning their back to you to move away. Makes no sense that the target would just stand there and take a hit with nothing else happening because you someone know his guard is dropped and you can hit him lol
If one knows how the Booming Blade spell works, in character, then I think it's totally reasonable for one to respond to its casting in combat time. The way movement works according to the rules is that the moving character can use as much or as little of it as they want, not just in 5ft increments, and Jeremy Crawford clarified that movement direction can be changed mid-move in response to things happening on the battlefield. You could rule that there is some sort of momentum where people cannot change or stop their movement, but it would be a houserule.
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No, the target attempting to move out of range is the trigger for an opportunity attack. Within a 5ft square there is actually a lot of room for a person to move around without technically leaving D&D's concept of "reach."
There's a lot of room to move in that square and you can absolutely start moving to retreat away from someone and take multiple steps without leaving their reach because reach and combat space is something of an abstraction.
So what happens when someone triggers an opportunity attack is they start to move away and just as they are about to exit reach, they suffer the opportunity attack, at which point, assuming they recognize what just happened to them, they can stop moving. They do not get hit just for thinking about moving, they get hit for actually attempting to move out of reach, but before they are actually out of reach. This means they probably end up at the far end of that square, but not outside of it yet, or maybe they've stepped one foot in the next square, but that's not enough for them to count as being in the next square yet.
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That's the issue. Opportunity Attacks are a simultanous thing in a ruleset that doesn't do simultaneous things.
Using a grid, they are also break the discrete nature of movement, in that they happen part-way though moving from one square/hex to another, something that is normally atomic.
I think that after reading things here, I'm changing my interpretation. Opportunity attacks happen during movement, and whatever the result of the opportunioty attack, the movement is completed, leaving the character the destination square. If Sentinel set their speed to zero, they are now unmoving. If booming blade hit them then they can now make the decision whether to move further and take the extra damage, or not. In both cases, they are two squares away from the attacker.
Except that directly contradicts the rules as written, which state that Opportunity Attacks happen before movement, not during, and that Sentinel leaves them in the original, within-reach square, not "unmoving [in the just-out-reach square]".
Edit: to be clear, I have no problem with you deciding to run it that way in your games, nor would I have a problem with my DM deciding to run it that way. It would just be a house rule, and not Rules-as-Written.
Man this thread is mind-blowing. If I were a DM in this scenario, I would probably just rule that the initial movement out of reach doesn't count as a trigger for booming blade's thunder damage and move on with the game. Not RAW, but it just makes more sense.
No, the rules say the attack happens right before the creature leaves your reach. Assuming you had moved as close as possible to them, that means they've already moved 4, 4.999999... or 5 feet depending on how you think the game's rules account for fractional movement and whether a target exactly 5 feet away is within reach. Either way, they've definitely moved unless they were already standing exactly at the edge of your reach.
Honestly, just leave grids and squares out of the discussion. The rules are written in terms of feet, not squares. Using squares just confounds the issue because now you've dragged an extra layer of rules, abstractions and expectations into the picture.
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This. This is why I say that the creature should be able to remain in the square that they started in if they decide to stay. They probably shouldn't stay all the time, at least not any more than they would with a normal OA, until they've had some experience with Booming Blade. That experience could include a teammate using the spell, and DMs shouldn't be using that excuse a bunch to start and probably only ramping the usage up slowly overall.
If you're going to get the square's involved and rule that the character must move (which isn't RAW), then the sheathing should happen as they enter the adjacent square. The same caveats should be in effect for when the character should stop and should not stop as were detailed in the previous paragraph.
Just because a character can stop after taking the OA doesn't mean that the character should stop.
Taking squares out of it I would say that the rules are that an opportunity attack happens while the target is still within reach and that they can stop at that point if they choose to, meaning they don't automatically trigger effects from moving and that they are still within reach. Whether they choose to stop or not depends on whether they, in character, recognize what's happened to them. I think this is both coherent and squares with the rules.
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I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
They don't need to understand what's happened to them as far as Booming Blade to face up to the attacker. I'd be more invested in facing back up to someone who attacked me when I turned my back to them and I don't have to worry about Booming Blade. This is where the metagaming aspect can come in, though. As a DM ruling on this, I'd probably allow this to pass for one of my players if they almost always did it regardless of the OA. I'd be more lenient if a party member had Booming Blade and had been using it in combat.
As a DM adjudicating on the NPCs, I'd probably roll a d10. On a 8 or greater, they wheel back on the attacker regardless of the nature of the OA. I'd roll with disadvantage if they were a -3 or so on Intelligence (or maybe wisdom) and with advantage if they were a +3 or otherwise had experience with it or warning. A d6 roll of a 6 would indicate that they had experience. Or maybe I'd just set it as a DC 15 perception or investigation check with a required DC 10 passive to even roll.
Fair enough. Whether they stop or not depends on their mindset, then, in regards to the opportunity attack and the information they know.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!