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

[Salthorae]

I've asked if this has happened to anyone. Are you saying this is a routine thing to happen in your games? Which, mysteriously, hasn't come up much in the 5 years the game has been out, that foes are spending entire combats trying and failing to close with a party because of repelling blast? Shall we take a poll, or could you maybe be exaggerating for effect?

So far it's ONE guy reporting it was in his game, and even he is saying he just needed to consider it and it was not a burden he could not overcome. And he admitted some of his rhetoric was hyperbole too.

While the pixie v. Great Wyrm may be hyperbolic, it is not outside the realm of possibility in a D&D game. Replace the pixie with a Reduced Halfling Warlock and it's the same scenario, which is what frustrates me about the ability. If you have Eldritch Spear and Repelling Blast your little itty bitty is blasting Dragons from a range they can't hope to close from and other than flying away, there is little to do about it.

Obviously it's not a burden that I can't overcome because I continue to DM games. if I couldn't overcome it, I would have quit DM'ing.

But because I dislike having to plan every encounter around the ability, I changed the way Repelling Blast works for my game. Now, no issues at my table because of it and I don't need to give it a second thought if it's on a PC's sheet when I'm planning encounters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you have Eldritch Spear and Repelling Blast your little itty bitty is blasting Dragons from a range they can't hope to close from and other than flying away, there is little to do about it.

Err, dragons have a fly speed of 80 feet per round. If it takes the dash action it can close 160 feet. The most a 20th level warlock could push them back would be 40 feet, and that's assuming they hit every time against the dragon's very high AC. Assuming the dragon starts at 300 feet, it will still be in breath weapon range in 2 rounds. Allowing for the warlock running away with no obstacles, that increases to 4 rounds.

As for the size of the warlock, Yoda would tell you "size matters not".

 

[Volund]

I play in two groups (I'm the only overlap between them) and eldritch blast is always in use by somebody in both groups. Each group uses EB the same way: all the beams fire off simultaneously (not RAW, we know, but has Mike Mearls support). You name your targets and roll your attack and damage dice all at once - a matching d20, d10 (and d6 for Hex) for each beam. Sometimes an extra beam on a target is wasted since the first would have killed it, but nobody worries about it because we keep the game moving. For repelling blast the impact of simultaneous attacks is that there's only one "when" in "when you hit a creature with eldritch blast". If one or more targets get hit, they each move back 10'. Over several years playing 5e with different players and rotating DMs nobody has had a problem or even questioned this.

Even though it's not how we play, I can't see how combining beams to push a creature back more than 10' would break anything. Every once in awhile RB will do something cool - knock a few pirates into the water as they cross a gangplank to board your ship - but in our games pushing wouldn't help all that often. I can't think of very many encounters where it would have been possible to use RB to trigger falling damage. There are so many other player shenanigans that can blow up an encounter - repelling blast doesn't seem to rate that high.

 

[Coroc]

Thanks to the discussion I now got two clues:

I am glad no one yet had this combo at my table yet, because it I see it as an balance issue is it is 3 beams for 30 feet of forced movements with unlimited resources and independent of what the target creature is.

If ruled like that, it may lead to abuse without end. I give you following scenarios:

A single foe can be kited endlessly if he does not have a dash action or a speed less than 30 feet unless the lock fails to hit, but since 120 range gives him a few rounds and most single mobs are down in less than 4 rounds this trivializes every encounter like that.

Assume some obstacle in the way of the group which has to be moved. No matter the weight of it. Just find some chains or ropes which can handle the weight of it. Attach a mob to it and hit it with repelling blast.

What about gargantuan monsters? Let us say a floating island turtle or Bahamut the half mile long platinum dragon god. Whack boom bam there they get shoved around by the warlock. Ok, he might need some bless spell from some comrade still to assure the to hit.

So the spell clearly needs some refinement in the form of what weight it can move at maximum, or at least give some ruling that large creatures cannot be moved, or the range needs to be reduced, or the three moves in a row must be limited to 1 move, or make it auto hit but alter the thing, to target a str save instead or some or all of these alterations.

With its most free definition aka 30 ft move on 3 (lucky?) hits (depending on target AC which additionally makes the thing strange) this spell will not make it to my table, which is sad because I have made very, very few standard houserules in 5e for my game, and really liked that I did not have to.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A single foe can be kited endlessly if he does not have a dash action or a speed less than 30 feet unless the lock fails to hit, but since 120 range gives him a few rounds and most single mobs are down in less than 4 rounds this trivializes every encounter like that.

And how many foes fall in that category (and don't have ranged attacks, can't use cover and can't take a dodge action)? Well, you have gelatinous cubes. But they can be kited by anyone with a ranged attack.

Assume some obstacle in the way of the group which has to be moved. No matter the weight of it. Just find some chains or ropes which can handle the weight of it. Attach a mob to it and hit it with repelling blast.

Repelling bast moves the target if it can be moved. It cannot move the target if it is blocked or attached to something.

What about gargantuan monsters? Let us say a floating island turtle or Bahamut the half mile long platinum dragon god. Whack boom bam there they get shoved around by the warlock. Ok, he might need some bless spell from some comrade still to assure the to hit.

Or it could be polymorphed into a hamster by a wizard.

So what? Circumstances can arrise that trivialise any encounter with any ability. It happens*, get over it.



*but nothing like as often as theory-crafters think it does.

 

[Coroc]

And how many foes fall in that category (and don't have ranged attacks, can't use cover and can't take a dodge action)? Well, you have gelatinous cubes. But they can be kited by anyone with a ranged attack.


Repelling bast moves the target if it can be moved. It cannot move the target if it is blocked or attached to something.



Or it could be polymorphed into a hamster by a wizard.

So what? Circumstances can arrise that trivialise any encounter with any ability. It happens*, get over it.



*but nothing like as often as theory-crafters think it does.

Well if I stand firmly with good shoe soles on any ground not slick then I am attached by adhesive friction and cannot be moved without a certain amount of force.


Nope, the further I think about that I will use following houserule on my table:

If you hit something with repelling blast then you autohit, but the target gets a strength save to avoid the movement.
The movement is limited to 10 ft per target, means more than one beam hitting a target occur simultaneous and only cause the movement once, so only 1 save for the movement, no matter how many rays.

The save versus the attack roll asures that there is still only 1 roll required.
But now it differenciates between targets being more likely to be moved.
Plus it uses a rarely used save.
Plus I can use legendary resistance and other mechanics as a DM if I need to.


The polymorphed gargantuan turtle gave me a good laugh, just imagining every other being on that island suddenly floating in the ocean...
but a Giant turtle polymorphed is also funny only one time, not every time.

 

[clearstream]

And how many foes fall in that category (and don't have ranged attacks, can't use cover and can't take a dodge action)? Well, you have gelatinous cubes. But they can be kited by anyone with a ranged attack.

What I found in play was that I could set up encounters where there wasn't enough room for characters to kite, or where the foes used ranged attacks so kiting them didn't matter. That is what I mean by warping play around the feature. Where I did not do that, the ability for a warlock to push back 20' or so (a couple of bolts hitting) and also move themselves, trivialised the combat in that long-winded way that kiting strategies do.

As you point out, foes could Dash in and I would have them do that. Yet it used up their action to do it, and that would be over multiple rounds. And the warlock could step away or whatever. To understand how these encounters play (if you haven't run one), you have to factor in not just the EB/RP multiple shoves, but the character movement on top of it and any special movement they have.

*but nothing like as often as theory-crafters think it does.

I base my thoughts on live play at my table: 75 sessions (I tracked them) and over a hundred encounters (I have a partial track of those in FG). As you say, the impact of repelling depends on the movement rates of the foes... and again this is the warping problem. I wanted to be able to use foes with all kinds of movement rates, and the amount of movement needed to negate repelling is more than it looks on paper.

Of course, different tables have different ways of playing, which matters. Between the two warlocks at my table, one was super crunch-focused and abused the heck out of his invocations, and the other was more relaxed about them. If I had only had the second player in my game, I doubt I would have noticed a problem.

I listed before a number of principles. One more is cost and risk of the fix. Sometimes a fix is "expensive" to implement (jarring to players is one example of a cost) or risky (hard to predict how it will play out). For my table, the cost of ruling once per target, was pretty much zero. My crunch-focused player was worried about repelling being imba. And the risk was also nearly zero (I'd need to explain the rule to a new player). So it felt worth making the change. At my table we tried first using a saving throw, but our warlocks said that it felt bad having to make the hit roll and then still beat a save. And of course it can impose a lot of saves every turn... one per bolt!

I think if one had a different view of the cost and risk, then one might not want to try it. Otherwise I would recommend changing it to one push per target, for tables who are deeply into encounter tactics and have warlock PCs.

 

[Coroc]

Let us not forget opportunity attacks while a mob moves in and out....

Repellant sounds to me more like a insect repellant which works by a "free willed" action of the insect disgusted by a smell. The way it is represented I t should rather be called pushing /shoving blast or anti life blast, oh noes it works on undead too. Stil lmake it 1 strength save per creature hit and limit the movement and I think it is fine and balanced. Give it autohit llike magic missile as a compensation for the warlock.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well if I stand firmly with good shoe soles on any ground not slick then I am attached by adhesive friction and cannot be moved without a certain amount of force.

Magic does not obey the laws of physics. If the target is capable of moving itself, it is repelled. If the target cannot move (e.g. Entangle Spell) then it is not repelled.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What I found in play was that I could set up encounters where there wasn't enough room for characters to kite, or where the foes used ranged attacks so kiting them didn't matter.

I find the vast majority of dungeon fights don't have enough room to kite. That's how Gelatinous Cubes remain a threat.

I base my thoughts on live play at my table: 75 sessions (I tracked them) and over a hundred encounters (I have a partial track of those in FG).

And based on my experience the number of times it has happened at my table is zero. The number of times a tough fight has been trivialised by a Polymorph spell is twice. And two for Animate Objects, about three for Wall of Thorns, once for Wall of Force....