D&D (2024) Monsters of the Multiverse: the death of eldritch blast?

[Marandahir]

@Crimson Longinus changes all of the Pact Boons into Invocations instead. In this way, the Hexblade can be an Invocation too. And a Warlock of any Patron can choose the Hexblade, including a Fey Hexblade that has a more King Arthur vibe (who got his sword Excalibur from the Fey lady of the lake).

That makes somewhat sense. I'd maybe add Invocation chains of a sort for Hexblade's beefier features to be locked behind higher levels and multiple invocation requirements.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, Eldritch Blast is fine? It keeps up with baseline at-will DPR. It’s probably smart for most warlocks to take it as a backup attack. But you get a lot more mileage out of your non-cantrip spells anyway.

The problem with EB is generally that it's pretty much the only good option.

I'm currently playing a bladelock and EB is still my best option.

 

[Marandahir]

Nah dude, Boromir’s player switched to Sméagol. That’s why they were both so disruptive, working against the party, trying to steal Frodo’s ring of invisibility. Faramir was an element of Boromir’s backstory that the DM spun off into an NPC to try and use to force the Frodo/Sam/Sméagol party back onto the rails.

Gandalf has always been the overpowered DMPC.

That's a better take, yeah.

My point wasn't to go one to one with LotR so much as to say that you can have a meaningful character death, and then roll up a new character and join the party again.

Or you can use a meaningful character death as an out when life gets you too busy. Ghim the Dwarf Fighter's heroic sacrifice at the end of Record of Lodoss War: The Grey Witch (the first campaign set in the world; adapted into the first 8 episodes of the OVA) was actually just because Ghim's player said they had to stop playing and they wanted to go out like a badass. Later, you might rejoin - I think Greevus/Grievus the Dwarf Cleric from the 4th campaign (Spark's party) was the same player as Ghim in the first, but he hadn't played in either the Parn & Deedlit in Flaim campaign nor the Orson and Shiris and Parn campaign?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean, Eldritch Blast is fine? It keeps up with baseline at-will DPR. It’s probably smart for most warlocks to take it as a backup attack. But you get a lot more mileage out of your non-cantrip spells anyway.

Sure. But Warlocks have less spells than there are rounds in typical combat. So you want an attack cantrip. And Eldritch Blas is so good, it makes other attack cantrips look like jokes. And as agonising blast is such a good investment, you take it too. That's all you really need. Though Hex is super good with it too.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

D&D games are not novels. Boromir is killed for a narrative purpose, not because the dice were more important than the story.

But that's how RPGs work. The dice create outcomes around which we build a story. If you don't want that, you should just forgo the game aspect and write a story.

 

[Yaarel]

Flavor creates a design dilemma.

On the one hand, flavor is so important for the enjoyment of a mechanical benefit.

But on the other hand, for the same reason, getting stuck with an unwanted flavor can impair the enjoyment of the benefit.

(Here, the question is whether the Hexblade needs to be gloomy.)

A solid solution is offer three vivid flavors, as examples, plus mention the DM might have a different flavor for it (depending on the setting that the DM is running). But then, it duplicates the amount of flavor design necessary for each significant mechanical feature.

Maybe two examples, plus DM choice as the third, is enough as a rule of thumb.



Personally as DM, if a player chooses the Hexblade Invocation, I want the player to cohere it with the overall character concept, in a narrative way.

 

[Yaarel]

Record of Lodoss War

I havent seen that yet, and hope to bingewatch it some day.

 

[Marandahir]

D&D games are not novels. Boromir is killed for a narrative purpose, not because the dice were more important than the story.

Tolkien didn't write the way most other novelists write. Yes, he plotted out rough sketches of where the story was going to take him, but Faramir for example was completely unexpected, emerging from the woods of Ithilien fully formed as he is in the final books.

Boromir wasn't originally planned to die. Tolkien envisioned the Breaking of the Fellowship relatively early on, but Boromir's death doesn't enter the story until literally as Tolkien is writing the Breaking of the Fellowship (which at the time included the Departure of Boromir; a split that only happened once it was decided that the story would be broken up into 3 volumes/6 books). Originally, Trotter (proto-Aragorn), Legolas, and Gimli were planned to head south to the Land of Ondor with Boromir after the split, while Merry and Pippin vanish and Frodo and Sam join up with Gollum on the way to Mordor. This sketch of the story as foreseen from Lothlorien took Frodo and Sam all the way to the Cracks of Doom, but completely dropped the rest of the Fellowship out of the picture upon the Breaking of the Fellowship. Tolkien had no idea that Boromir was going to die, he thought Trotter was going to go help Boromir defend Ondor.

Boromir's death occurs because in the first draft of the fight, Tolkien writes in the margins that this battle is inartistic.

For all intents and purposes, we can call Boromir's death a bad dice roll in Tolkien's brain as he put pen to paper.

 

[Marandahir]

I havent seen that yet, and hope to bingewatch it some day.

Sorry if I spoiled you a bit then! eeech. It's a really good series, probably the best D&D-based cartoon out there (especially the OVA, though I find the TV series and manga and novels to be more politically-intrique-focused in a way that's a lot more Lord of the Rings and a lot less 80s Dungeons & Dragons, by virtue of having a lot more time to explore things).

 

[Leatherhead]

I don't find a Xd10 force attack at 120 ft range to be complicated. Certainly, it's not for wizard analogs. Add it to the actions list and be done.

You aren't supposed to use Eldritch Blast when the Monster has Fireball in it's stat block.
Here is a better video that tells you what they were thinking: