You think liches are bad?
View attachment 77861
Oh yeah, I'm aware of how insanely brutal Orcus could be. But, as a named, iconic enemy no one is surprised by that. But the perception of Liches is that high level parties just go and kill a lich and destroy his phylactery. They are kind of like dragons, everyone expects you can take them out easily because they are usually under-played.
But, if I ever wanted to TPK a party, I'd set them at odds with a Lich in his domain, because I straight up don't see how you could survive that with all of the insanity that a Lich could bring to bear upon them, especially if he had been a long-time observer via scrying.
Except speed does not take damage and is not recovered with healing magic, hit dice, or a long rest. The closest analog is ability score damage, and that is extremely rare and spelled out wherever it pops up. In this case, the damage and effect are separate, and the effect has a fixed duration.
Because the pushback happens and is done on a per hit basis. Each beam occurs and is evaluated separately. The first beam from eldritch blast with Repelling Blast can push the target out of range of the rest of the beams. While Repelling Blast can also be read as a maximum of 10 feet per creature hit by a casting of eldritch blast, that does not fit with the guidance that the first beam can knock back a creature out of range of the rest of the beams.
In the end, my assessment is that each beam can knock the target back 10 feet because each beam is resolved separately and the effect resolves immediately between beams. There is no ongoing effect to stack. The speed reduction effect from ray of frost continues until the caster's next turn.
First, by necessity it must have a fixed duration, or a single use of that cantrip would cripple a low-level adventurer for way too long.
Secondly, unlike ability score damage, movement is something you are constantly spending and refilling. To my way of looking at the various pieces, that's why you can't dash after an effect has reduced your speed to zero for the turn. Your pool of movement ability is zero, and dash just lets you refill your pool, which is zero. Otherwise, dashing would let you move after something like Sentinel.
You may completely disagree with it, but that is how I see movement working in 5th edition, so, it is a recoverable resource like regenerating health.
So, each seperate ray resolves seperately, removing 10 ft from the target's movement pool until the casters next turn, which it has to say or after being hit 3 times an adventurer would never be allowed to move every again. The ability to hit someone multiple times with this effect is highly unusual.
Also [MENTION=61529]seebs[/MENTION]... that is a terrible comparison with Eldritch Blast. Part of the reason it isn't worded as an effect with a duration is because that makes no sense as an effect. What would it even mean? "for the next turn, you are treated as ten feet further west than you actually are" So, I act like I got pushed off the cliff, but since I didn't actually get pushed off the cliff I don't act like I got pushed off the cliff and instead have tea with Schrodinger's Cat?
I get what you were trying to say, but it would also be possible (if not as Tormyr points out the ability of Eldritch Blast to push you out of its own range) to read the ability as getting hit 3 times, but only getting pushed 10 ft total, because effects do not stack.
Honestly, this comes down to a playstyle difference, and even then, doesn't truly matter that much because I think we can all agree the Lich has better uses for his Legendary action in most fights, if he's stupid or unlucky enough to be forced into an actual fight.
