Mechanics that dont make sense

[Darth Credence]

I don't "pretend" that it doesn't matter, I'm arguing that the threat of a blind counterspell already did it's damage when the actor has to drastically change his tactics and use Bonus Action high level spells which by default are more circumstantial than their Main Action counterparts.

That isn't necessarily a change in tactics. It's casting a spell at 60 ft range that can make two attacks per round, dealing 4d12 damage on a hit, or 12d12 on an 18 or higher roll. And that you can keep active and attacking twice more per round for a full minute, moving 30 feet per round to attempt to keep up with someone who runs away from it. Against a wizard, an 18 or higher roll has a good shot of putting them down in one hit, and warming it up with a firebolt just helps that out. As I said, no juking, no changing things, just a possible strategy that would sure make it nice to know what the spell was.
But, hey, since it isn't a strategy you would use, it clearly isn't one anyone would use, so there is absolutely no case in which it makes sense to know what the spell is. (Would it make a difference to you if the BA spell was draconic transformation, so they could give themselves a breath weapon for the duration? I guess probably not, since you will say that that is changing what the person would normally do and somehow that means counterspell has already done its damage.)

[greenstone]

You can use your reaction to cast counterspell OR identify the spell being cast, but not both. So you always counterspell blind.

What are other mechanics that are counterintuitive or dont make sense that exist?

Almost all the rules I find counterintuitive are like the example you gave - modelling real-time with turn-based game rules.

I also find the idea that you can fight just as effectively at 1 HP as at full HP to be nonsense, but I understand that game rule is there to prevent death spirals, which are no fun at all.

[Gtdead]

That isn't necessarily a change in tactics. It's casting a spell at 60 ft range that can make two attacks per round, dealing 4d12 damage on a hit, or 12d12 on an 18 or higher roll. And that you can keep active and attacking twice more per round for a full minute, moving 30 feet per round to attempt to keep up with someone who runs away from it. Against a wizard, an 18 or higher roll has a good shot of putting them down in one hit, and warming it up with a firebolt just helps that out. As I said, no juking, no changing things, just a possible strategy that would sure make it nice to know what the spell was.
But, hey, since it isn't a strategy you would use, it clearly isn't one anyone would use, so there is absolutely no case in which it makes sense to know what the spell is. (Would it make a difference to you if the BA spell was draconic transformation, so they could give themselves a breath weapon for the duration? I guess probably not, since you will say that that is changing what the person would normally do and somehow that means counterspell has already done its damage.)

I really didn't want to get into PvP but please understand that you gave a dueling scenario. I already said that counterspell doesn't work in dueling and I wouldn't blindly counterspell as the initiative losing Wizard in your scenario, even without knowing your tactic first hand.

Scenarios:

Scenario 1:

T1: Wizard #1, casts spell, Wizard #2 counterspells, Wizard #1 counter counterspells, spell goes through. Wizard #2 suffers the effect.
T2: Wizard #2 casts if allowed by the effect or still alive, spell goes through.

Wizard #2 is forced to suffer the disadvantage of lost initiative.

Scenario 2:

T1: Wizard #1 casts spell, Wizard #2 doesn't react, suffers the effect
T2: Wizard #2 casts if allowed by the effect or still alive, Wizard #1 counterspells, Wizard #2 counter counterspells, spell goes through.

Again, same exact result. There is absolutely no reason to counterspell in the scenario you are proposing. In fact your scenario accentuates a reason to never counterspell first if you lose initiative, because if you do, you can't cast your spell on your turn. You will never find a scenario where losing initiative and counterspelling first of your turn is a smart thing to do unless your enemy doesn't have access to the spell or there is subtle metamagic involved in some asymmetric capacity.

You are arguing for Blade of Disaster over any other level 9 spell as a base tactic. It won't change anything. I won't counterspell in your turn even if I lose initiative because it won't save me anyway. If I counterspell against your tactic I have lost, because now I will either have to mimic your tactic and probably lose due to going second even if I break your concentration (you will break mine in your turn), or you will counterspell my spell since I don't have any reactions left. I will hold on to my counterspell, hope that I will survive your turn through a combination of luck, feats and class features, and then cast Shapechange into a Legendary Resistance form while countering your counterspell, which is the only way to gain an advantage in this scenario.

Now that we are past that, and coming back to the usual 3-5 man party PvE, which is the only discussion that matters in a vacuum, Meteor Swarm destroys Blade of Disaster in damage done, Upcasted ranged Tasha's Summons offer similar damage with the added benefit of being ranged and not getting 100% countered by a PC with ANY mobility boosting ability. The enemy Wizard can cast these spells without problems because he can just counterspell your counterspell (unless of course there are numerous counterspellers in the party, which is always a good strategy). Casting BoD is either an RP choice or a "going easy on the party" one. In your scenario, casting BoD while getting counterspelled on Firebolt allows him to cast Shield when focused by the party martials, but he literally traded 420-700 damage depending on party size for 50-60 dpr.

[Tanarii]

Is that actually a rule?

Yes, speaking on turn is an actual rule. PHB 190: "You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn."

[JackPhoenix]

But the mage in front of you who studied magic 2+ years had the brilliant idea to pull simultaneously bat guano and a small leather strap so that you could not know whenever he was casting fireball or freedom of movement.

Or worse, waves a staff around instead, so you can't even tell if he's a wizard, sorcerer, warlock or druid. Now what? Or a dagger with the Ruby of the War Mage attached, so he can be anything.

Again, same exact result. There is absolutely no reason to counterspell in the scenario you are proposing. In fact your scenario accentuates a reason to never counterspell first if you lose initiative, because if you do, you can't cast your spell on your turn. You will never find a scenario where losing initiative and counterspelling first of your turn is a smart thing to do unless your enemy doesn't have access to the spell or there is subtle metamagic involved in some asymmetric capacity.

The bolded part is false. Well, the entire conclusion is false, but the bolded part stands out.

Countering the Counterspell means you don't have a reaction to stop whatever the other wizard decides to cast on his turn, so you'd better be sure the spell you make go through is a big deal. It's also not guaranteed to work if the other wizard decides to use higher level slot for CS and you don't, or, if you do, you risk wasting more of your limited resources disproportionately. It's a gamble, not automatic win.

If you lose initiative and use CS, you're taking a risk. If you don't, you're taking more of a risk, because whatever spell is being cast may prevent you from acting on your turn anyway. It's pretty much always better to at least try to stop the enemy from doing whatever he's doing than just letting him act unopposed and hope you'll be still able to retaliate afterwards.

[Kane0]

Mechanic that doesnt make sense to me? Taking a reaction during your own turn.

[EggKookoo]

Mechanic that doesnt make sense to me? Taking a reaction during your own turn.

A reaction is just... reacting to something that's happening. If that thing that's happening happens on your own turn, why wouldn't you be able to react to it?

It's my turn. I move away from you. You OA me. I use my reaction to cast shield. Where's the problem?

[Tanarii]

Mechanic that doesnt make sense to me? Taking a reaction during your own turn.

Yeah it threw me the first few times I saw it referenced, specifically in regards to countering a counterspell. It feels a little to ... MtG, I guess.

[RSP]

Yeah it threw me the first few times I saw it referenced, specifically in regards to countering a counterspell. It feels a little to ... MtG, I guess.

To me, Counterspelling a Counterspell doesn’t make sense RAW.

Casting Counterspell “take[s] a fraction of a second to bring about”, RAW. In the game world, the casting of Counterspell is completed before anyone would have the chance to realize its being cast, much less decide to, and complete, the movements necessary to cast one’s own Counterspell.

[EggKookoo]

I see that as two different issues. Counterspelling counterspell is one thing -- it's casting a second spell while in the process of casting another one (or at the tail end of it). I don't have a problem with it but I get why people do.

But simply using your reaction on you own turn is different.

[noob]

I now imagine someone casting shield in reaction to an opportunity attack then someone else casting counter spell but being in front of someone who readied an action to hit him with a sword to attempt to interrupt the casting but someone else at that moment uses silvery barbs to try to prevent that sword from hitting but yet another person casts counter spell against the silvery barb thus allowing the opportunity attack to finally hit.

[PhantomSoul]

I see that as two different issues. Counterspelling counterspell is one thing -- it's casting a second spell while in the process of casting another one (or at the tail end of it). I don't have a problem with it but I get why people do.

But simply using your reaction on you own turn is different.

And counterspelling the counterspell against your own spell is a third!

[EggKookoo]

And counterspelling the counterspell against your own spell is a third!

You can't counterspell a counterspell against your own counterspell. You're out of reactions.

[PhantomSoul]

You can't counterspell a counterspell against your own counterspell. You're out of reactions.

Your own (action) spell, not your own counterspell :)

[ProsecutorGodot]

A reaction is just... reacting to something that's happening. If that thing that's happening happens on your own turn, why wouldn't you be able to react to it?

It's my turn. I move away from you. You OA me. I use my reaction to cast shield. Where's the problem?

Probably more "unintuitive" than nonsensical. It's fairly uncommon for a reactions trigger to happen on your turn so it's easy to forget that Reactions do explicitly say they can happen on your turn or someone else's.

This goes hand in hand with the idea that tends to go forgotten - combat being done in 6 second rounds is a mechanics abstraction, all turns are happening simultaneously in that 6 second period as far as the narrative is concerned. There's no narrative difference between using a reaction on your own turn or someone else's, it's the same 6 seconds regardless.

[stoutstien]

Honestly you could put a lot of reactions in the category of don't make sense. The shield spell can prevent the trigger from occuring and all that.

[Gtdead]

The bolded part is false. Well, the entire conclusion is false, but the bolded part stands out.

Countering the Counterspell means you don't have a reaction to stop whatever the other wizard decides to cast on his turn, so you'd better be sure the spell you make go through is a big deal. It's also not guaranteed to work if the other wizard decides to use higher level slot for CS and you don't, or, if you do, you risk wasting more of your limited resources disproportionately. It's a gamble, not automatic win.

If you lose initiative and use CS, you're taking a risk. If you don't, you're taking more of a risk, because whatever spell is being cast may prevent you from acting on your turn anyway. It's pretty much always better to at least try to stop the enemy from doing whatever he's doing than just letting him act unopposed and hope you'll be still able to retaliate afterwards.

You do you, if you want to counterspell in your first turn, by all means do so. Whatever chance you have of succeeding with your counterspell, is the same chance that the enemy will have when countering yours unless you want to upcast it to level 9. If you think that it's a good tactic to trade your level 9 slot for a sub 50% chance to counter the Wizard #1 spell, I can't say I understand it, but I won't try to persuade you otherwise.

As for the rest of your comments, you haven't proven anything wrong about my position. So I'll just say that you are wrong and let you explain why I'm mistaken. Talking vaguely about things without providing math that at least prove that your actions would be advantageous is pointless. It's the same fallacy as the "if the ubercharger wins initiative" arguments in PvP, when we all know that this has less than 10% chance of happening in an optimized pvp duel. If an action has the same percentage to succeed for both actors then it cancels out. You only need to prove that your actions as Wizard #2 will generate an advantage, even if it's just 1% better.

[EggKookoo]

Honestly you could put a lot of reactions in the category of don't make sense. The shield spell can prevent the trigger from occuring and all that.

Yeah, but a lot of that could be due to an attempt to make the phrasing more efficient. Take shield -- it says you can use this spell when hit by an attack, which gives you +5 to your AC against the attack that just hit you, and you'd (probably) only do it if you know the +5 would turn the hit into a miss. If the attack becomes a miss, it's not a hit, which means you weren't hit by an attack, so you can't cast the spell, etc...

The RAI is that you can use it when subject to an attack that would have hit you if you hadn't used it, but you're not limited only to ones that are negated by its use (you do enjoy the +5 until your next turn, after all). So it might be worth it to use it when +5 isn't enough to stop the trigger, because you might still benefit from it. But that's a complicated thing to get across, so the RAW just says "hit by an attack" and leaves it there.

[Kane0]

A reaction is just... reacting to something that's happening. If that thing that's happening happens on your own turn, why wouldn't you be able to react to it?

It's my turn. I move away from you. You OA me. I use my reaction to cast shield. Where's the problem?

Yeah its a game design thing for me, a flaw produced by breaking realtime into turns. Your turn is where you act and others react to you, other peoples turns are where they act and you react. If you react while you are acting, the one thing you are supposed to be able to do for the rest of the round is used up, at the time you have been allocated everything else to do.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Yeah its a game design thing for me, a flaw produced by breaking realtime into turns. Your turn is where you act and others react to you, other peoples turns are where they act and you react. If you react while you are acting, the one thing you are supposed to be able to do for the rest of the round is used up, at the time you have been allocated everything else to do.

It says specifically that you can react on your own turn. I don't see the issue here. To repeat myself, it's the same 6 seconds regardless of whether you're reacting on your own turn or someone else's. Things aren't actually happening sequentially, it's just the easiest way for the mechanics to be resolved.

It can't be a mechanics problem, there are no mechanics contradicting themselves here. If the reason you think it doesn't make sense is narrative then I don't really get that either as a round of combat is all simultaneous action, someone isn't attacking and then standing still for the remainder of the turn waiting to react.

[False God]

Yeah it threw me the first few times I saw it referenced, specifically in regards to countering a counterspell. It feels a little to ... MtG, I guess.

"First one in, last one out." Would be a great MTG rule to port over.
BBEG Turn: Fireball
Reaction: Counterspell
BBEG reaction: Counterspell.
-anyone else? No? Turn concludes.
BBEG counterspells your counterspell so he can then successfully cast Fireball.

Of course, I'm also of the opinion that Reactions and Bonus Actions should be eliminated entirely, and everyone should just be given two Actions that can be used at any time in the Round.

[Spiritchaser]

100% agree, provided you consider the 'normal' flow to be that person announces and begins resolving, and at any point before resolution is all wrapped up someone can shout out "counterspell!" And for what it's worth, that's exactly how I actually DM it at the table, just because I can't help but blurt out what spells my creatures are casting.

This is pretty much how I do it.

Added benefit, after 7 hours of play, at two am, you don’t have to worry about getting sloppy and accidentally blurting out “Fireball!!!” That’s just how it’s supposed to go

[ProsecutorGodot]

"First one in, last one out." Would be a great MTG rule to port over.
BBEG Turn: Fireball
Reaction: Counterspell
BBEG reaction: Counterspell.
-anyone else? No? Turn concludes.
BBEG counterspells your counterspell so he can then successfully cast Fireball.

Of course, I'm also of the opinion that Reactions and Bonus Actions should be eliminated entirely, and everyone should just be given two Actions that can be used at any time in the Round.

Chains resolve backwards - a rule from Yugioh. It's a common rule in several card games that have counter or reaction mechanics.

Not that it really needs to be a specific rule for DND, it's how it would resolve intuitively. Your counterspell is successfully countered, the fireball obviously goes off without issue. Then again, there's always a benefit in calling out specifics even if they're redundant.

[EggKookoo]

It says specifically that you can react on your own turn. I don't see the issue here. To repeat myself, it's the same 6 seconds regardless of whether you're reacting on your own turn or someone else's. Things aren't actually happening sequentially, it's just the easiest way for the mechanics to be resolved.

Really, so many things make so much more sense if you internalize that the mechanics are almost completely divorced from the narrative. Almost as much as in chess, where the knight has its two-over-one-diagonal move, but real-world cavalry didn't do anything like that. It's a system designed for playability, variety, and balance.

[sithlordnergal]

Again, same exact result. There is absolutely no reason to counterspell in the scenario you are proposing. In fact your scenario accentuates a reason to never counterspell first if you lose initiative, because if you do, you can't cast your spell on your turn. You will never find a scenario where losing initiative and counterspelling first of your turn is a smart thing to do unless your enemy doesn't have access to the spell or there is subtle metamagic involved in some asymmetric capacity.

So...I've read your thing a couple of times...why wouldn't Wizard 2 be able to cast their chosen spell on their turn if they Counterspell on Turn 1? Not only that, but Reactions come back at the start of their turn, so they could Counterspell on turn 1, then on their turn tart casting their spell and counter the Counterspell that Wizard 1 might cast to stop them.

I suspect you may be mixing the rules for Bonus Action spells. If you cast a Reaction spell, you're still allowed to cast a leveled spell that round, where as if you cast a Bonus Action spell you can only use Cantrips.

[False God]

Chains resolve backwards - a rule from Yugioh. It's a common rule in several card games that have counter or reaction mechanics.

Not that it really needs to be a specific rule for DND, it's how it would resolve intuitively. Your counterspell is successfully countered, the fireball obviously goes off without issue. Then again, there's always a benefit in calling out specifics even if they're redundant.

Right, that's more my point, codify certain gameplay elements to provide clarity.

On the whole, I'm generally sadded by the "single reaction" design choice of 5E. I find the game becomes much more engaging, and choices become much more meaningful, when you can't "card count" who can react to you. It makes the game feel very stop-and-go, a lot like a turn-based JRPG where each character gets to take their turn free and clear.

[Gtdead]

So...I've read your thing a couple of times...why wouldn't Wizard 2 be able to cast their chosen spell on their turn if they Counterspell on Turn 1? Not only that, but Reactions come back at the start of their turn, so they could Counterspell on turn 1, then on their turn tart casting their spell and counter the Counterspell that Wizard 1 might cast to stop them.

I suspect you may be mixing the rules for Bonus Action spells. If you cast a Reaction spell, you're still allowed to cast a leveled spell that round, where as if you cast a Bonus Action spell you can only use Cantrips.

Because they don't have any reactions to counterspell the counterspell since they used it on the Firebolt. Wizard #1 never counterspelled so he has a free reaction. To illustrate:

Turn 1: Wizard #1 casts Firebolt, Wizard #2 counterspells. Wizard #1 casts Bonus Action Blade of Disaster.
Turn 2: Wizard #2 casts whatever, Wizard #1 counterspells.

Wizard #2 has no answer here because he wasted his counterspell blindly on the firebolt and Wizard #1 didn't care about it.

My argument is that the discussion about PvE use of counterspell doesn't apply to duels, and I go on to explain why I don't see any reason to counterspell as Wizard #2 in this situation, even if I advocate for blind counterspell in general.

Edit: Oh wait, you assumed that the reaction will come back at the start of their turn, but I'm not sure about this. The text says "When you take a Reaction, you can’t take another one until the start of your next turn." You haven't had a first turn yet, so the word "next" here creates a conflict. I've never seen it played that way because it essentially allows the one who lost initiative to act more times, but perhaps I'm wrong about this or at the very least, perhaps other people play it as you suggest.

[Kane0]

It says specifically that you can react on your own turn. I don't see the issue here. To repeat myself, it's the same 6 seconds regardless of whether you're reacting on your own turn or someone else's. Things aren't actually happening sequentially, it's just the easiest way for the mechanics to be resolved.

It can't be a mechanics problem, there are no mechanics contradicting themselves here. If the reason you think it doesn't make sense is narrative then I don't really get that either as a round of combat is all simultaneous action, someone isn't attacking and then standing still for the remainder of the turn waiting to react.

To my mind, it doesnt make sense. I didnt say it was an actual gameplay problem.

[Evaar]

Here’s a classic one, from Beast Master Ranger:

If you don't issue a command, the beast takes the Dodge action.

You know, like animals in fights do.

[ProsecutorGodot]

To my mind, it doesnt make sense. I didnt say it was an actual gameplay problem.

In what way exactly does it not make sense if it isn't a mechanical problem? Do you believe it's a narrative issue? What makes using a reaction on your own turn so functionally different, or to phrase this differently, why would it make more sense for a character not to be allowed to react to things on their own turn?

That's what I would find doesn't make sense, that for whatever reason the fact that I'm being attacked on my own turn means I can't use shield if I would otherwise be able to, that would be terribly nonsensical.