D&D 5E Eldritch Blast and Repelling Blast - One time or Each Hit?

[delph]

I am betting somewhere along the way Eldritch Blast was changed to having multiple attacks while the invocation's wording remained unchanged.

They are strong because of it but an invocation is a huge cost. There are lots of other great things a Warlock can get besides making a cantrip better.

In practical use the chance to apply it to multiple hits isn't as strong as it appears.

Level 1-4 it doesn't apply.
Level 5-10 you only get 2 shots and both aren't going to hit most of the time.

Levels 11+ the tier jump makes cantrips even worse than before. The Warlock gets a lot more spell slots. Most of their effectiveness is going to come from casting many 5th level spells to take on the big threats of the higher tiers.

Cantrips get worse as levels increase. They're at their strongest at levels 1 and 5. Every level above 5 they get worse. For example, at level 10 they're just as good as at level 5 but the threats have increased and the other resources the characters have, have also increased. At level 11 when cantrips get a boost spellcasters start having enough spells where they won't be using cantrips often.

An invocation to buff a cantrip at these levels better do something good.

Cantrips are worse, but still "slot free" and warlock with invocations and sorcerer with metamagic (guickened cantrip by 1 SP) are still on table when you think how to deal with 1 enemy.

 

[clearstream]

...by the time the warlock is blasting 4 EBs at level 17 any other caster has more than enough low level spell slots to last to the next long rest. It's rare for them not to have some left over.

A 17th level druid could summon 120 pixies, each one of who can cast polymorph once.

As I only have direct experience of play up to 15th level, I would not like to make any claims about what happens at 17th level. It could be that repelling blast is well-balanced against other warlock options at that point. For 5e, I would say that many tables will be most concerned about play between 4th and 12th level.

 

[delph]

Aarakocra.

But it's a pointless distinction. by the time the warlock is blasting 4 EBs at level 17 any other caster has more than enough low level spell slots to last to the next long rest. It's rare for them not to have some left over.

A 17th level druid could summon 120 pixies, each one of who can cast polymorph once.

can. can if GM allow it. Summon spell if I remember it well doesn't summon anything you want, but what GM say. In ours game it was something common in those area. Once our druid summon sheep.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As I only have direct experience of play up to 15th level, I would not like to make any claims about what happens at 17th level. It could be that repelling blast is well-balanced against other warlock options at that point. For 5e, I would say that many tables will be most concerned about play between 4th and 12th level.

You can only knock back 10 feet at most at 4th level. Meh.

At 11th level when warlocks get three uses of Eldritch Blast other casters have at least 16 spell slots per long rest - more than enough to cast a spell every round and last through the whole adventuring day. The druid can have 56 polymorphing pixies.

And the Aarakorca has unlimited flying from level one. If you design your adventures on the assumption that there might be a party of aarakocra player characters I'm sure you won't have any trouble with repelling blast!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

can. can if GM allow it. Summon spell if I remember it well doesn't summon anything you want, but what GM say. In ours game it was something common in those area. Once our druid summon sheep.

There aren't a lot of CR 1/4 fey to choose from. It's either 8 pixies or 8 sprites, who will turn invisible and put your big bad to sleep with their arrows.

 

[delph]

There aren't a lot of CR 1/4 fey to choose from. It's either 8 pixies or 8 sprites, who will turn invisible and put your big bad to sleep with their arrows.

But spell "conjure animals" summon fey spirits that take the form of beasts, not feys. So you can't summon Pixies with it. And use Conjure Fey 6th lvl spell summon 6 CR Fey (or lower) an use it for summon 1 pixie isn't good deal.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But spell "conjure animals" summon fey spirits that take the form of beasts, not feys. So you can't summon Pixies with it. And use Conjure Fey 6th lvl spell summon 6 CR Fey (or lower) an use it for summon 1 pixie isn't good deal.

I'm not talking about Conjure Animals or Conjure Fey. I'm talking about Conjure Woodland Beings (level 4). 8 pixies per pop. 16 at level 8 or 24 at level 8.

 

[delph]

I'm not talking about Conjure Animals or Conjure Fey. I'm talking about Conjure Woodland Beings (level 4). 8 pixies per pop. 16 at level 8 or 24 at level 8.

Ok, that's little bit overpowerd spell. I don't know it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ok, that's little bit overpowerd spell. I don't know it.

I would say it's more like pixies are under CRed. I would usually use sprites, although even they can trivialise some things (they can fly for a start).

But we are talking about what could happen. The fact that Eldritch Blast can (and often does) miss seems to be conveniently forgotten by some people.

 

[clearstream]

You can only knock back 10 feet at most at 4th level. Meh.

At 11th level when warlocks get three uses of Eldritch Blast other casters have at least 16 spell slots per long rest - more than enough to cast a spell every round and last through the whole adventuring day. The druid can have 56 polymorphing pixies.

And the Aarakorca has unlimited flying from level one. If you design your adventures on the assumption that there might be a party of aarakocra player characters I'm sure you won't have any trouble with repelling blast!

It just occurred to me that I might have mistaken your argument. Do you mean that because other things are more problematic, one should make no attempt to fix things that are problematic?

I'd agree in the sense of prioritising fixes. As I was alluding to earlier. In my first campaign, with two warlocks, it turned out to be a priority to rebalance repelling blast. I think if someone had another kind of caster who was abusing something else - healing spirit say - one might prioritise tweaking that. Of the two, I am carrying my healing spirit tweak forward into my second campaign, and not worrying about repelling blast. No one has chosen to play a warlock, so what would be the need?

Yet as a matter of where the system balance should be, were I for example designing for 6ed, then I would bring repelling blast into line with the similar Xanathar's invocations. I have not forgotten the attack roll, but I have DM'd extensively with repelling blast at the table, and the no save push creates an issue. My players were ingenious in abusing it. It strikes me that we were also using 4d6k3 and I think that exacerbates this kind of power, because attack bonuses are that point or two higher: likely with points-buy it balances much better.