D&D 5E Lightning Lure with Distant Spell metamagic

[trentonjoe]

Lightning Lure
A spell from Sword Coast Adventure's Guide
Evocation
Level: Cantrip
Casting time: 1 Action
Range: 15 feet
Components: V
Duration: Instantaneous

You create a lash of lightning energy that strikes at one creature of your choice that you can see within range.
The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pulled up to 10 feet in a straight line toward you and then take 1d8 lightning damage if it is within 5 feet of you.

Distant Spell
When you Cast a Spell that has a range of 5 feet or greater, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double the range of the spell.


Ok, so if you Distant"ize" Lightning Lure the caster can target a creature 30' away but still only pull him 10'. The spell also doesn't do damage unless the target ends next to the caster.

Is that right?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Sounds pretty right to me and I can't think of any other way to interpret it by RAW. Distant spell does not affect the distances other than range. If they are more than 15 feet away than ten feet of movement will almost certainly not make them end up 5 feet from you, though as DM if they were on a very slick surface or something I would probably allow a "slide into you and take the damage" scenario.

 

[Salthorae]

Is that right?

Seems right to me.

So if you used Distant on it, it would basically just become a method to pull someone closer who's out of normal range for the spell. Pretty situational, but could be useful some times, especially in an RP/thematic way since it doesn't deal damage unless they end up within 5', you can use it to do fun things IC that a spell like thorn whip or eldritch blast with grasp of hadar invocation, because they always do damage on top of their movement rider.

Distant lightning lure would give you a bit more freedom to play around with pulling NPCs around for show or in RP situations where actually hurting them might be a very bad thing.

 

[trentonjoe]

You could pull them off a ledge or into a fire or something like that right?

 

[Salthorae]

You could pull them off a ledge or into a fire or something like that right?

If the situation is right for something like that, sure!

So long as that hazard is 10' from where they are and within a 30' line of where your caster is at the time, and they fail their Str save, you just pull them 10'. If there happen to be other hazards when they get to that 10' that is completely separate from the spell itself.

So long as line of effect or sight isn't blocked, as well. You have to see your target to target them and the spell has to reach them to pull them.