April Rules FAQ: Great Weapon Fighting, Pact of the Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Booming Blade, Moonbea

The latest rules D&D 5E rules FAQ from WotC's Jeremy Crawford looks at class features and spells. More specifically, it discusses whether Great Weapon Fighting offers retools with features like Divine Smite (no), If Pact of the Blade's bond has to be with a melee weapon (no), if green-flame blade and similar spells work with extra, opportunity, and Sneak attacks (yes and no) and how moonbeam works.

The Sage Advice Compendium now has these updates incorporated. Read this month's answers here.

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[Giant2005]

Actually he did also clarify getting pushed in only hurts once per round. I like it. It's stupid that getting pushed into a fire pulled out then pushed in again would hurt more than being pushed in and stuck there for the round. It's basically a hey don't meta game the rules decision.

It is just as stupid that getting pushed into a fire hurts but having that fire pushed onto them (somehow) doesn't.
Whichever aspect of the confrontation is the one doing the moving should be irrelevant.

 

[RulesJD]

Actually he did also clarify getting pushed in only hurts once per round. I like it. It's stupid that getting pushed into a fire pulled out then pushed in again would hurt more than being pushed in and stuck there for the round. It's basically a hey don't meta game the rules decision.

No, he didn't. Stop saying that he did because you're wrong and perpetuating that information is literally why the Sage Advice was released in the first place.

What JC said is:
"Keep in mind, however, that a creature is subjected to such an area of effect only the first time it enters the area on a turn. You can’t move a creature in and out of it to damage it over and over again on the same turn."

Turn, not Round. BIIIG difference. Until you understand the difference between a Round and a Turn, you won't be able to grasp what this ruling means. What I described is exactly how it works. Yes a target can be damaged multiple times a Round, not multiply times a Turn.

 

[AngryTiger]

How i see it, if i cast moonbeam 10ft behind a target, then a teammate uses thunderwave to knock said target to the moonbeam, they take damage from the moonbeam for entering it's area, since the article says it can occur on involuntary movement. Then on the target's turn they take damage again for starting they'r turn in the area. So you can get damaged by moonbeam twice per round, just not more than once per turn, and casting moonbeam on top of someone doesn't count as moving into it.

 

[Ahglock]

No, he didn't. Stop saying that he did because you're wrong and perpetuating that information is literally why the Sage Advice was released in the first place.

What JC said is:
"Keep in mind, however, that a creature is subjected to such an area of effect only the first time it enters the area on a turn. You can’t move a creature in and out of it to damage it over and over again on the same turn."

Turn, not Round. BIIIG difference. Until you understand the difference between a Round and a Turn, you won't be able to grasp what this ruling means. What I described is exactly how it works. Yes a target can be damaged multiple times a Round, not multiply times a Turn.

Oops you are right I misread it.

I'll say I will never allow it more than twice a round. It's not clever play. It may have been clever 8 years ago when 4e first came out, now it's just a chessy gimmick. I mean it would be funny as hell to let it in. Since enemies usually outnumber the pcs I'd tpk them the first fight with a dangerous hazard. How someone would do it more than once in a turn so this needed clarification I'm not sure. I guess grapple and holding them in and out but was anyone actually trying that?

 

[RulesJD]

Oops you are right I misread it.

I'll say I will never allow it more than twice a round. It's not clever play. It may have been clever 8 years ago when 4e first came out, now it's just a chessy gimmick. I mean it would be funny as hell to let it in. Since enemies usually outnumber the pcs I'd tpk them the first fight with a dangerous hazard. How someone would do it more than once in a turn so this needed clarification I'm not sure. I guess grapple and holding them in and out but was anyone actually trying that?

Ultimately that's kind of the point. On occasion, it will be worth the player's turn to smack a target in and out of an AoE. A recent fight against Werewolves where only the Druid's Moonbeam could really do any damage is one example.

More often than not though, the players will be better off just doing the damage they would do otherwise, and yay if it happens to cause extra AoE damage.

 

[Ahglock]

Ultimately that's kind of the point. On occasion, it will be worth the player's turn to smack a target in and out of an AoE. A recent fight against Werewolves where only the Druid's Moonbeam could really do any damage is one example.

More often than not though, the players will be better off just doing the damage they would do otherwise, and yay if it happens to cause extra AoE damage.

Given how much damage a lot of these spells do it will almost always be better to move them in and out of the area than attack, assuming you don't have a build that makes it improbable.

 

[Greg Benage]

The boost of e.g. Booming Blade for rogues (I assume that is what we are discussing) is not as large when it costs a second chance at sneak attack. For a Swashbuckler it could be very neat to use booming blade. On a hit the rogue can deal a lot of damage and then run away to force the enemy to either not do anything useful (if it has no ranged option) or take even more damage. On a miss there is no second chance to deal sneak attack damage, so two-weapon fighting might still cause more damage overall.

Unless you've got an owl. That'll give you two chances to land Sneak Attack. A rogue with booming blade, owl for advantage on the attack, and Cunning Action does pretty mean at-will damage. The mage hand distraction thingy for AT is okay, as well, but it uses the bonus action you'd want to use to Disengage IIRC. Take Mobile, I guess.

 

[jaelis]

Nm I'm too slow

 

[Saeviomagy]

The GWF one makes GWF pretty poor. Basically each extra die gets ~0.4 extra damage. Compare it with duellist which is giving 2 extra damage. In other words, up until you are rolling ~5 dice, duellist is giving a bigger benefit.

Also - if the consideration is "rerolling dice is tedious", why did they make that the mechanic in the first place?

 

[Greg Benage]

The GWF one makes GWF pretty poor. Basically each extra die gets ~0.4 extra damage. Compare it with duellist which is giving 2 extra damage. In other words, up until you are rolling ~5 dice, duellist is giving a bigger benefit.

Depends on the die, obviously. It's +0.5 on a d4, +0.67 on a d6, +0.8 on a d10. A greatsword with GWF style does 28% more average damage than a longsword with Dueling, as opposed to 55.5% more without a fighting style on either. So you're certainly right that Dueling is giving a bigger benefit. Players who use two-handed weapons and want to maximize their damage are still going to take GWFing, it's just not so obviously the best choice. (My PAM paladin took Defense.)