Brilliant energy & question regarding turns

[theboss]

Hello there playground, I'm going to need your assistance and advices on 2 topics:
1. Brilliant energy enchantment. Does it pass wall of force. Let's say I want to attack a foe surrounded by ball of force with my brilliant blade weapon, does it ignore the force?
2. How much time do you give your PC's to take their turn? There are 3 casters on my group that one of them take about 7 minutes(sometimes even 15 minutes (!) ) to take their turn, now I'm a melee character who make his turn in 2 minutes tops. And it comes to a part where that PC take a big part of the session to "what I'm doing now", "let's check this spell" and even sometimes argue with the DM how this spell works. And it just takes too much time, this bothers me a little cause it takes an important part of the session which we don't have very often (once in 2 weeks).
So how do you handle that?

Thanks all

Btw if any of my team mates or DM is reading this, know that I love you and I'm doing this because I care .

[flappeercraft]

Hello there playground, I'm going to need your assistance and advices on 2 topics:
1. Brilliant energy enchantment. Does it pass wall of force. Let's say I want to attack a foe surrounded by ball of force with my brilliant blade weapon, does it ignore the force?
2. How much time do you give your PC's to take their turn? There are 3 casters on my group that one of them take about 7 minutes to take their turn, now I'm a melee character who make his turn in 2 minutes tops. And it comes to a part where that PC take a big part of the session to "what I'm doing now", "let's check this spell" and even sometimes argue with the DM how this spell works. And it just takes too much time, this bothers me a little cause it takes an important part of the session which we don't have very often (once in 2 weeks).
So how do you handle that?

Thanks all

1. By RAW it bypasses all that is non-living so yes it does
2. Depends on the game. On a tabletop I would say 5 minutes at most unless it's a game where book-keeping in large amounts is present such as a high level wizard, summoners, etc.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

Well I don't use brilliant energy enough to give a concrete answer on the first one.

But the second one sounds like an issue you need to bring up with your DM. The duration of a person's turn isn't a race, but I understand when one person takes a rediculous long turn. To help alleviate this sort of situation, my group figures out what they are going to do next "before" their turn comes up. It doesn't always work, cause some issues/can't decide things do come up.

[PacMan2247]

1. Brilliant energy effects bypass non-living matter, but it says nothing about spell effects. Wall of Force is described as "immune to damage of all kinds, and is unaffected by most spells" before going on to list which spells have an effect on the wall, and what those spells do to it. Since a wall of force is not composed of matter and does block spell effects, it would block a brilliant energy weapon.

2. This is a problem that most groups face at some point or another. If it's a problem during sessions (and it sounds like it's a problem for you, at least), an out-of-character conversation is probably in order. Sometimes one character's turn can seriously disrupt what a character somewhere down the initiative order was planning, but it shouldn't be happening often enough to bog down a session. Drawn-out disagreements between a DM and a player about how something functions sometimes indicate that at least one of them is working with an unfamiliar mechanic. The DM has plenty to keep track of and is the final arbiter of the game; provided he or she is consistent with the mechanic in question, that's the end of the story (barring persuasion, which should be an out-of-session endeavor). A player needs to know the mechanics his or her character is using. That said, there's still a lot of room for difficulties, and I hope your group is able to successfully manage them.

[heavyfuel]

1 - Yes. Force isn't living matter

2 - One minute tops to announce what you're doing (rolling and math take up additional time). If you can't figure out what you want to do in 60 seconds it's probably because you weren't paying attention. You should think about your turn while the other 6+ turns go by (DM and other players).

Once I played a game where the DM gave us 30 seconds to announce and it was plenty.

D&D combat takes forever IRL. Allowing for players to take minutes during their turn is a big part of the problem.

[Kelb_Panthera]

1 doesn't have a clear answer. It's not clear if force effects are matter (though non-living is pretty clear-cut). I'd -probably- rule that it is, given the existence of riverine (stormwrack), and that the business end of the weapon can pass through. The force still offers cover since your hand and the weapon's hilt/ haft can't pass through it though.

2 is an issue. 2 minutes for a melee? Really? Y'all got to organize and think ahead during one another's turns. I'm playing a caster/ incarnum theurge and I barely take a minute if I have to manage minions. Know your abilities, pay attention, think ahead. When your turn comes up it should take only a moment to decide what to do and a minute or so to resolve the actions.

[Mordaedil]

We give everyone six seconds to decide and then allow them to spend the time necessary to accomodate their choice afterwards. So counting of dice and such are fine.

But once they declare a spell cast, they can't change it mid-way.

[Bronk]

I'm going to go with the brilliant energy part of a brilliant energy weapon being able to go through a force wall, because it's not a spell, the business part of the weapon is 'transformed into light', and force walls are transparent.

I agree with the others: It's just good table etiquette to have your actions ready when it's your turn. They should have been going through their spell lists and figuring out their actions ahead of time, and if they have commonly used actions that take too long even after deciding to use them, they should do their best to speed that up too (things like multiple summons, prestatting their characters for if they use shapechange effects, etc.).

[PacMan2247]

1 doesn't have a clear answer. It's not clear if force effects are matter (though non-living is pretty clear-cut). I'd -probably- rule that it is, given the existence of riverine (stormwrack), and that the business end of the weapon can pass through. The force still offers cover since your hand and the weapon's hilt/ haft can't pass through it though.

Hmm. If force effects are matter, then they aren't *just* matter; they can interact with incorporeal and ethereal things in ways that matter can't unless it's enchanted, and even then it's usually not a sure bet. I'm not clear on what point you're driving at with riverine- it's described as water sandwiched between fields of magical force.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hmm. If force effects are matter, then they aren't *just* matter; they can interact with incorporeal and ethereal things in ways that matter can't unless it's enchanted, and even then it's usually not a sure bet. I'm not clear on what point you're driving at with riverine- it's described as water sandwiched between fields of magical force.

Matter on the ethereal interacts with ethereal creatures just as it does with material creatures on that plane. You -might- have something with incorporeal creatures except serren wood (BoED) and ghostly ectoplasm (ghostwalk) are things. Certain special materials that are plainly non-magical can interact with incorporeal creatures so the fact that force effects can doesn't necessarily mean it isn't ordinary-enough matter.

I brought up riverine because it's an example of a non-magical force object.

Though, again, there's no clear-cut definitive answer here, just interpretation. I'm giving you mine but you or your DM could see things differently.

[PacMan2247]

Matter on the ethereal interacts with ethereal creatures just as it does with material creatures on that plane. You -might- have something with incorporeal creatures except serren wood (BoED) and ghostly ectoplasm (ghostwalk) are things. Certain special materials that are plainly non-magical can interact with incorporeal creatures so the fact that force effects can doesn't necessarily mean it isn't ordinary-enough matter.

I brought up riverine because it's an example of a non-magical force object.

Though, again, there's no clear-cut definitive answer here, just interpretation. I'm giving you mine but you or your DM could see things differently.

Have to concede the point on serren, since the ghost touch ability provided by it is specifically called out as nonmagical (unrelated tangent: am I the only one who thinks the 'vessel for nature spirits' there is reminiscent of magic jar or trap the soul?), but ectoplasm is the result of a supernatural ability; like riverine, it's explicitly magical.

[Kelb_Panthera]

(unrelated tangent: am I the only one who thinks the 'vessel for nature spirits' there is reminiscent of magic jar or trap the soul?)

Nah. Just a bit of animism.