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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 9478326" data-attributes="member: 87792">Just to ask a simple question: is English your first language? Because although your English is generally pretty good you are reasoning like someone who has learned English from books and as a second language rather than a native English speaker who actually uses the language. Or you are reasoning like one of the Victorian prescriptivists who thought that Latin was a superior language and wanted to make English more like Latin, therefore came up with and followed rules like not splitting infinitives.[ATTACH=full]382153[/ATTACH]You know what they call a verb that the normal rules do not apply to? An irregular verb. And guess what? "Cast" is an irregular verb. The "rules" of English do not control how English is used. They describe how it is normally used. And as an irregular verb "cast" does not follow the normal guidelines. So your attempt to say that things would be different if Cast was a regular verb are irrelevant because cast is an irregular verb that follows its own rules because the past and present.In specific cast can refer to the simple present tense or the simple past tense. Therefore in any sentence using the word 'cast' that takes no other measure to distinguish the possible tenses it applies to all possibilities or combinations of possibilities of present and past tense.This is actually untrue (but irrelevant). Once you have cast Guardian of Faith it remains until it's exhausted. You have cast it and it can still do damage on the current turn.That (or to be accurate where "the action continues into the present") is not when you would use the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/present-perfect" target="_blank">present perfect tense</a>. You use a perfect tense for completed actions (that's what's perfect about them; they are done and unchangeable) but the consequences continue into the present. "The BBEG has set off the self destruct sequence which is why we need to run".If you want to talk about actions that continue into the present with a regular verb you don't want the present perfect. You want the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/The-Perfect-Progressive-Tenses" target="_blank">perfect progressive</a> ("I have been correcting your grammar all day").The construction you're looking for for something ongoing is not "Have cast"; on its own that is the perfect tense and is completed. You're looking for "Have been casting". Of course this gets a little blurred with D&D basically using stop motion animation rather than continuous time.Nope. If they had not intended for the damage to be applied on subsequent terms they would have specified that. By writing something like "when you cast a spell". Oh wait, they did that. And then deliberately changed it.3/10. Could do better.You're not the teacher in this lesson. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />No you don't. You said you weren't continuing - and you were as incorrect about that as you are about grammar.Nope. Because we need to go to much more basic grammar than perfect progressive tenses and present perfect tenses as applied to an actively irregular verb to see what agrees with what. You're failing to identify the subject of the sentence.2014: and when [you] [cast] [a spell that deals radiant or fire damage], you addIn the 2014 version you are the subject doing the action and the action being checked for is casting.2024: when [a spell you cast] deals Radiant or Fire damageIn the 2024 version the spell is the subject. And the action being checked for is dealing damage.Oh, I bet you see what you consider to be incorrect grammar all the time and sometimes you might even be right. But even when you think you are English grammar is descriptive not prescriptive.[ATTACH=full]382157[/ATTACH]Which is, depending on which monster manual you check, either the least common or the second least common damage type (the bottom two are thunder and radiant, with the order varying).Which damage spells are you actually bumping the damage of? Because you sure aren't gaining any power out of bumping the power of cantrips when you have Eldritch Blast (even if True Strike now probably is intended to provide a slightly inferior alternative). Which means that before level 11 unless you're going for a weird multiclass (or just normal coffeelock) you aren't using it more than twice per short rest other than as a "because I can avoid Eldritch Blast without losing too much round by round damage".Adding insult to injury I think (I may be wrong) the only non-cantrip tier 1 or 2 warlock spells it applies to in the 2024 PHB are Hellish Rebuke (which is of course anti-thematic for celestial warlocks as well as not being great as an upcast), and Jallarzi's Storm of Radiance. Oh, and from the Celestial list Guiding Bolt (why are you upcasting that into a L3+ slot?) and Wall of Fire (and Guardian of Faith and Summon Celestial - but they don't do damage when you cast them).This is why the 2014 version of the ability is awful. It doesn't synergise at all with the warlock package. If you were to give it to a cleric it would be pretty strong of course.But you claim that tier 2 abilities are generally weak. So let's look at comparable ones; the other level 6 warlock abilities and other tier 2 damage abilities (and some damage-adjacent abilities). From the Warlock as what the ability should be competing with:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Archfey: Misty Escape - you can Misty Step as a reaction - and you can either turn invisible or do AoE damage when you teleport. Not that weak.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fiend: Dark One's Own Luck: Add 1d10 to a saving throw (or ability check) after rolling as a free action Charisma modifier times per day. Not at all weak.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">GOOlock: Clairvoyant Combatant to force a saving throw or perma-advantage/disadvantage as a bonus action 1/short rest. Not at all weak for a weapon wielder or eldritch blaster.</li> </ul>Meanwhile we can instead compare it to level 6 extra damage abilities:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Draconic Sorcerer L6: "and when you cast a spell that deals damage of that type, you can add your charisma modifier to one damage roll of that spell". This is massively superior to the 2014 warlock ability in two ways. The first is that if you use it on an AoE spell like fireball it adds to the damage against all targets. The second is that sorcerers do elemental damage with their cantrips and can pick from a wide range of elemental spells, meaning they can use this almost every turn in combat.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Soulknife L9: Homing Strikes. Use psionic energy damage to turn a miss into a hit. Which can get a full sneak attack from a miss. This is big.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Eldritch Knight L7: War Magic. Replace an attack with a cantrip. Pretty big as you can do it every turn.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Stars Druid L10: An extra d8 on archer form. Again almost every turn. At least when you're interested in damage (and you can form-shift)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">War Cleric L6: Non concentration Spiritual Weapon with Channel Divinity. Is this really better than Guided Strike? Depends what your martials are hitting with.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Valour Bard L6: Extra Attack. Do I really need to point out how much better this is?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Berserker Barbarian L10: Retaliation. A reaction attack when someone next to you damages you. (You don't even have to be raging).</li> </ul>With the arguable exception of the war cleric every one of those is actually pretty good.And just to emphasise a point the 2024 Draconic sorcerer uses wording that is almost identical to the old celestial warlock wording. The change therefore was a motivated one and wasn't done for consistency or reducing word count or they would have done the same with the sorcerer. It was a clearly intentional change. And to those of us with an actually correct understanding of English grammar the meaning is clear.There's only one plausible one. Only one that's simultaneously based on a correct understanding of the grammar involved, synergises with the celestial warlock abilities, and makes sense of the changes made.</blockquote>

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