Level Up (A5E) Commanding presence incompatible with eldritch blast?

[Valrei]

I was reading the Marshal class and I was very pleased to find that the marshal can use commanding presence to let allies cast cantrips, this lets the ability scale rather nicely and gives possible utility especially since most caster classes don't use their reactions very often. However I came upon the following issue:

RAW it seems it is incompatible with Eldritch blast. Because this is no longer a cantrip and is now a class feature. Most of them are not weapon attacks so it will not allow you to use them as weapon attacks and the one that is a weapon attack (scythe) specifies it needs to be part of an attack action or opportunity attack. Other variants are spell attacks and I assume they are not weapon attacks therefore they do not qualify for the "weapon attack" portion of commanding presence.

Now I can start to read it very creatively and point out it does not say it needs to be part of the warlocks attack action and it is sort of part of the Marshals attack action but this is really stretching things.

My question is is this rules as intended? Is eldritch blast intentionally made incompatible with commanding presence or is this an unintended side effect of making eldritch blast a class feature?

Commanding presence page 213
Eldritch blast page 271

 

[Morrus]

I can confirm you’re reading that correctly.

 

[Xethreau]

I designed the warlock and Despite the changes made to EB for EB's own sake, while I intended EB it was still intended to be compatible with the marshal's Commanding Presence, it . It looks like that was decided against the language of the two wasn't compared in editing

-edit based on further conversation-

 

[Valrei]

Cool, thanks for the clarification, happy to see the intention wasn't to have negative synergy, loving the ruleset (haven't quite started the campaign that runs with it yet, we are still finishing another one, but I really love what I am seeing)
Edit: struck the last comment out to prevent people from taking away the wrong conclusions when they read my reply.

 

[tetrasodium]

Despite the changes made to EB for EB's own sake, it was still intended to be compatible with the marshal's Commanding Presence. It looks like the language of the two wasn't compared in editing.

warlocks still have cantrips, they can use those. saying that warlocks can't use EB with commanding presence is like saying that fighter can't use extra attack with it.

 

[Xethreau]

warlocks still have cantrips, they can use those. saying that warlocks can't use EB with commanding presence is like saying that fighter can't use extra attack with it.

Its funny you should say that. The main difficulties with EB fundamentally have to do with accidentally getting extra attacks when you shouldn't due to using a natural language framework.

 

[Mike Myler]

Chiming in to clarify: I designed the marshal. It does not (and is not intended) to let you make spell attacks with Commanding Presence, including warlock Eldritch Blasts. Cantrips are the only exception (and why the feature explicitly refers to them).
Also since it was brought up: a fighter (or anyone with the feature) gains no benefit from Extra Attack when making an attack from a marshal's Commanding Presence ("make an attack" is not "take the Attack action").

Edit: To further clarify, Commanding Presence is never an attack multiplier, it is an attack substitution.
Edit edit: Reaffirming with the text that cantrips (which can include spell attacks) work with Commanding Presence.

 

[tetrasodium]

For what it's worth I have a marshal & warlock player at my table. There have been a few times the marshal passed commanding presence off to the warlock (who uses firebolt+potent witchcraft I think it is when he does). This is usually done when the fighter & adept PCs are facing off against less desirable targets & the warlock's range is needed I don't think the warlock or marshal feel slighted over it & the only time it came up was a "wow eldritch blast isn't a cantrip?.. ohhhh ok!" moment during one of the first couple games. All PCs are level 3 currently

 

[Valrei]

Chiming in to clarify: I designed the marshal. It does not (and is not intended) to let you make spell attacks with Commanding Presence, including warlock Eldritch Blasts.
Also since it was brought up: a fighter (or anyone with the feature) gains no benefit from Extra Attack when making an attack from a marshal's Commanding Presence ("make an attack" is not "take the Attack action").

Edit: To further clarify, Commanding Presence is never an attack multiplier, it is an attack substitution.

Ah so it does not work with Eldtrich blast, ok, As Tetrasodium says, not the end of the world, warlocks do still get other cantrips. I was wondering about your remark that it is not intended to let you make spell attacks, yet it does state you can let allies cast a cantrip, which often involve spell attacks. I assume these are allowed? Do you mean it is not intended to allow for spell attacks that are not cantrips?

Thanks to all of you who replied, did not expect this level of discussion about this issue, but I am glad we are getting this ironed out and on record for others to find.