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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[Tony Vargas]

The Moonbeam answer is exactly what was finally hammered out after a few rounds of 'updates' for similar spells (zones, mostly) in 4e. It's logical enough, and not too open to abuse. Of course, it doesn't keep DMs from ruling differently depending upon the circumstances...

 

[mach1.9pants]

My original post seems to have been lost as multiple threads have come together (?), so I'll repeat one point:

I'm disappointed with the rationale given for the GWF ruling -- it seems particularly weak to pin it on "the tedium of excessive rerolls" rather than an actual reading of the text. That makes it subjective (if a table doesn't find re-rolling tedious, does the ruling still hold?), and it also seems only potentially relevant to face-to-face or realtime play; ; is there rerolling tedium in an online game?

It feels, to me, a very mealy answer to what could be a straightforward ruling.

Whereas I posted in another thread Morrus started I like this,' here is the reasoning behind the decision, it's the default answer ( for adventures league games for example) but ignore this ruling if your table doesn't mind the re rolling, as it's not game breaking'. This is exactly what I want from The Sage so I can decide if to apply the same.

 

[RulesJD]

Honestly, I'm okay with the GWF ruling as well, because frankly it would turn Smites into significantly more powerful hits for 2-handed users than other Paladins. I like the idea of Smites from a Shortsword having the same impact as from a Greatsword. The divine radiant damage shouldn't depend on the weapon it's coming from.

It also makes far more sense giving the rough power increases you see from other Fighting Styles. Permitting re-rolls on Hex/Smites/et al from GWF would give it a significant leg up over other fighting styles.

 

[Granville]

I still don't get it; Does Shillelagh + Booming Blade + Warcaster still work?

How about Booming Blade + Warcaster?

I kind of like how GWF+Extra damage from stuff like Smite no longer works, it was a bit too much even if RAW

 

[GrumpyGamer]

I believe that Warcaster was the special feature Crawford is referring that would allow Booming Blade to be used as an opportunity attack.

 

[Faenor]

Ok. I 're-read. The max possible would be 2/round. Hurled in and then if they are still there at the start of their turn. So hurled all the way through is damage once. Moved ontobis damage once (because it will be over them at the start of their turn). I guess legendary actions or reactions could get them out of it before the start of their turn.

 

[Pauln6]

On the other hand.... Rouge's just got a really, really, fun new use of magic initiate!

So is this balanced at all? Initially, I thought that it was balanced because the fire damage would carry over to the ally helping you get sneak attack if no other enemy was present, so the sneak attack option could potentially harm your allies and it becomes a tactical choice but I recall some comments at the time that the caster does not have to inflict the extra damage if they don't want to.

I might still keep that limitation and see how it plays out in practice but even then, some rogue subclasses can now sneak attack in melee without an ally (inquisitive) albeit that it eats into your bonus actions.

Still, without the risk of harming allies, it looks like a bit much of an at will boost for rogues?

 

[RulesJD]

Ok. I 're-read. The max possible would be 2/round. Hurled in and then if they are still there at the start of their turn. So hurled all the way through is damage once. Moved ontobis damage once (because it will be over them at the start of their turn). I guess legendary actions or reactions could get them out of it before the start of their turn.

That is wrong.

There is not "limit" as to how many times a target can be hit by an AoE spell worded like Moonbeam/Spirit Guardians. You HAVE to figure out the difference between once per round and once per turn.

But none of this really matters short of a party basically optimizing for push/pull mechanics. What the Sage Advice clarified is that the target does NOT take damage when the caster initially casts the spell nor when the caster moves the spell around on their turn.

 

[Al2O3]

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.

 

[Ahglock]

That is wrong.

There is not "limit" as to how many times a target can be hit by an AoE spell worded like Moonbeam/Spirit Guardians. You HAVE to figure out the difference between once per round and once per turn.

But none of this really matters short of a party basically optimizing for push/pull mechanics. What the Sage Advice clarified is that the target does NOT take damage when the caster initially casts the spell nor when the caster moves the spell around on their turn.

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.