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

[ad_hoc]

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.

I don't understand your point.

 

[5ekyu]

I don't understand your point.

I dont get how they quickened a cantrip with 1 sp myself.

 

[clearstream]

As for what I think you are referring to as the Xanathar's wording - that there exist other invocations that have a once per turn limit - I don't think much of them.

"Once on each of your turns" language is directly aimed at stacking. It's a hard limit on that. So a creature can be brought 10' closer (with grasp) and slowed 10' (with lance) only once even if hit by more than one of your beams. For the sake of argument, say that I think pushing 0-30' (the range for the most played character levels) is well balanced. Then what is the reason that I also think pulling 0-30' would not be balanced? What is my motive, as a designer, for creating that difference?

Grasp of Hadar
Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can move that creature in a straight line 10 feet closer to you.

Lance of Lethargy
Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can reduce that creature's speed by 10 feet until the end of your next turn.

Repelling Blast
When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.

Which gets back to talking through all the stages with the players...
Is there a problem?
What is the problem?
What are possible fixes?
Which do we want?
I mean, it would be less than optimal to list the moving tanker out of the way as an example then point to a Xanathar's reference to other invocations limiting to once per turn and leaving that issue still in play, right?

That issue is not in play, with "once on each of your turns" forestalling stacking. That change solves the problem.

 

[Salthorae]

I don't understand your point.

I dont get how they quickened a cantrip with 1 sp myself.

I feel like you are both trolling with those responses.

@delph is pretty obviously saying, regardless if they put the correct # of sorcery points required, that SorLock mutliclass builds with Repelling Blast and Quicken Spell present a compounding issue on Repelling Blast's effect on combats. At 5th level you have 4 bolts per round for a couple of rounds. At 11th you have up to 6/round, etc.

It's not a 100% compounding as they'll run out of Sorcery Points, but it does exacerbate the issue for sure.

 

[5ekyu]

"Once on each of your turns" language is directly aimed at stacking. It's a hard limit on that. So a creature can be brought 10' closer (with grasp) and slowed 10' (with lance) only once even if hit by more than one of your beams. For the sake of argument, say that I think pushing 0-30' (the range for the most played character levels) is well balanced. Then what is the reason that I also think pulling 0-30' would not be balanced? What is my motive, as a designer, for creating that difference?

Grasp of Hadar
Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can move that creature in a straight line 10 feet closer to you.

Lance of Lethargy
Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can reduce that creature's speed by 10 feet until the end of your next turn.

Repelling Blast
When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.


That issue is not in play, with "once on each of your turns" forestalling stacking. That change solves the problem.

Which I believe, in the post you edited after quoting sections, I said would be dandy if you chose to use that as a motivation for the change at your table.

But... it still stands, if you are one of the folks who sees pushing a tanky screen out of the way exposing their non-tanky ranged guys to savvy melee types, well, then, not saying you are one who would claim that as an example... but if you were then a 10' push or a 10' draw still leaves that case available, right?

Why make a change that leaves a problem case still in play?

 

[5ekyu]

I feel like you are both trolling with those responses.

@delph is pretty obviously saying, regardless if they put the correct # of sorcery points required, that SorLock mutliclass builds with Repelling Blast and Quicken Spell present a compounding issue on Repelling Blast's effect on combats. At 5th level you have 4 bolts per round for a couple of rounds. At 11th you have up to 6/round, etc.

It's not a 100% compounding as they'll run out of Sorcery Points, but it does exacerbate the issue for sure.

Ok, so the difference in sorcerer points is whether at5th you have it for five rounds or two - which seems a significant difference. That is why I mentioned it as a point I was wondering about - given all these house rules being thrown about.

Note however, a proposal I think being claimed to fix these problems "10' per turn" would allow the bonus action 10' whammy, then in this case, ready the follow-up for a sign of next turn, easy to describe in a scene, and then you get back to 20' movenrnt.

 

[delph]

I feel like you are both trolling with those responses.

@delph is pretty obviously saying, regardless if they put the correct # of sorcery points required, that SorLock mutliclass builds with Repelling Blast and Quicken Spell present a compounding issue on Repelling Blast's effect on combats. At 5th level you have 4 bolts per round for a couple of rounds. At 11th you have up to 6/round, etc.

It's not a 100% compounding as they'll run out of Sorcery Points, but it does exacerbate the issue for sure.

One mistake - quickened spell cost 2 SP, Twined cantrip cost 1 SP. Together It's like 2nd Spellslot. But with hex, big CHA, Agonizing blast, you can deal really big dmg to 1 person and a half one to second (by twined) + pushing them away...

 

[clearstream]

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.

I was thinking about this point (and a few others like it in other posts). For me it is answered by how things go in play. Say a DM makes it "once in each of your turns". At tier-1 this has no consequence: they only had one beam anyway. At tier-2+, against foes with high ACs the expectation is a 10' shove: once again, usually, no consequence.

Either one hit is expected in which case the change isn't a nerf, or multiple hits are expected in which case the change is - for groups that find 20' or more push problematic - justified. The import of this, for me, is that it is not an effective refutation to say that the warlock won't always hit with all beams.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I agree with that. Earlier I raised that the experience at a given table is in truth pretty limited, compared to all the possible ways to play. I mean, in my campaign even over two years we only saw just over a dozen different characters getting substantial play. So I'm very conscious of the finite scope of my experience. That is what I want to draw to your attention.

I think you may lack experience of how groups without warlocks are just as effective at completely neutralising some encounters.

And, relatedly, I feel like you and Paul appear to say that my table is playing the game wrong, should we have a problem with this cantrip. You keep taking pains to point out how we're doing it wrong... what we should be doing instead.

It's hard to say without seeing how the game actually goes down, but if you view your warlocks as guys with machine guns it's quite easy to envision what tactics would be used against them

 

[Paul Farquhar]

for groups that find 20' or more push problematic - justified.

Why would it be a problem though? A crossbow has a longer range than eldritch blast, a crossbowman might be quite happy to be shoved back 20 feet. But the situation where there is actually 20 feet of clear space behind the enemy for them to be pushed into seems like quite an unusual one to me.