Counterspelled Booming Blade

[diplomancer]

I know I'm ruling the two differently. I already gave justifications for that, which you didn't reply to.

Your justifications, however, had no connection to your other argument about spell durations and how spells just go on for their duration unless something in their description says otherwise. And while Blinding Smite has a "discharge effect" to blind the target, it has no such effect in keeping the blindness ongoing, that is the pure magic of it and the spell description. And we KNOW that it is the pure magic of it that keeps it ongoing, and not just the already discharged bright light, because the blindness can be disrupted by attacking the caster's concentration- which would not be the case otherwise (like, for instance, in the case of Synaptic Static, which can't even be dispelled).

There are, in fact, two arguments being made:

argument 1- Tidal Wave does not douse the flames of Wall of Fire, because those flames are protected by the spell, and Tidal Wave explicitly only extinguishes unprotected flames. I find this argument exceedingly odd and almost humpty-dumpty like. But I accept it as a possible and valid interpretation.

argument 2- Tidal Wave does not douse the flames of Wall of Fire, because a spell's effects always lasts for its duration, regardless of what happens to those effects, unless something in the spell's description says otherwise. This is simply false, and not supported by the rules. The single counter example of Blinding Smite proves that it's false. Whether someone rules that the effects of a spell were disrupted somehow will be dealt on a case by case basis by different DMs, but that you CAN extinguish the effects of a spell without referencing the spell directly or anything in the spell's description that says how to disrupt it has been conclusively proven by the Blinding Smite example.

I'm glad we could spend 19 pages aligning around the idea that 5e is based on rulings, not rules

That's our forum for you :)