D&D 5E Moonbeam, Am I reading it right?

[keterys]

There is absolutely nothing in the spell that lets you sweep it. It's not a death laser. It's a particular cylinder area that you can put on a different point. You don't etch a sketch kill everything between point A and B when you do. It'd need a _ton_ more text to have it work like that.

And, as noted, it'd be very against dnd precedent to state that anyone enters the beams area when that area forms around them. The druid likely can't make anyone take that damage on the druid's own turn; it has to wait for the target to start their turn or someone to move them into it.

Perhaps with some animal forms that include a knockback or drag effect? Not aware of any and can't look them up easily now, but I'd not be surprised by one existing. Then you can cast moonbeam, shapeshift, trample about while concentrating.

 

[PnPgamer]

There is absolutely nothing in the spell that lets you sweep it. It's not a death laser. It's a particular cylinder area that you can put on a different point. You don't etch a sketch kill everything between point A and B when you do. It'd need a _ton_ more text to have it work like that.

And, as noted, it'd be very against dnd precedent to state that anyone enters the beams area when that area forms around them. The druid likely can't make anyone take that damage on the druid's own turn; it has to wait for the target to start their turn or someone to move them into it.

Perhaps with some animal forms that include a knockback or drag effect? Not aware of any and can't look them up easily now, but I'd not be surprised by one existing. Then you can cast moonbeam, shapeshift, trample about while concentrating.

You can use a cantrip called thorn whip. Grappling is also a good method.

 

[Mephistopheles]

The thing is that what happens is both. When the area is moved onto the creature, the creature then has entered the area. That the area is the one doing the moving doesn't matter -- you can enter a thing while remaining sedentary if it comes to envelop you. A critter that swallows you whole as it moves into your space is certainly something you "entered." If a gelatinous cube falls on your head from orbit, you have definitely "entered" it, even though you're not moving.

I think justifying that interpretation is getting into the realm of semantic gymnastics when a simpler interpretation suggests itself.

It may be more productive to compare Moonbeam with the damage-on-move interpretation to similar 2nd-level spells and see how it would compare over the course of the duration. Flaming Sphere is a pretty obvious spell to compare it against, as some others have already done. I'll just highlight the differences between them.

Range: FS 60 feet; M 120 feet.
Components: FS V; M V, S, M (no cost)
Area: FS effectively 15-foot-diameter (5-foot-diameter but affects adjacent squares); M 10-foot-diameter
Damage: FS 2d6 fire at end of creature's turn if it remains adjacent (limited number of creatures could end their turn adjacent, 56 damage (2d6 * 8) if we say medium creatures pack in around it for some reason); M 2d10 radiant when a creature moves into (once per turn) or starts its turn in the area (44 damage (2d10 * 4) if we say its area is filled with medium creatures, possibly more if creatures choose to congo line through it on their turns for some reason)
Movement: FS 30 feet as a bonus action, can ram a creature to inflict 7 (2d6) damage; M 60 feet as an action, every creature it moves over takes damage (potential 264 (2d10 * 24) if it sweeps horizontally over an area jam packed with medium creatures, such as an army formation, even if it only sweeps over 2 creatures that is still 22 (2d10 * 2) damage, creatures aren't able to avoid this damage by moving away).
Other: FS has some limits to where it can move due to terrain, M is less restricted; M is a cylinder, doesn't seem to be ground based so potentially has greater utility against fliers; M has additional utility against shapeshifters.

Situational considerations aside, looking at this comparison I don't see many reasons to use Flaming Sphere instead of a damage-on-move Moonbeam - I don't see many reasons to use Flaming Sphere against Moonbeam as I interpret it, for that matter. The only drawback would be that you'd need to be careful about moving the Moonbeam over allies, but Flaming Sphere has limitations of its own in that regard. There is also the point raised above by Shadowdweller00, that the 3rd-level Call Lightning seems to be marginalised by Moonbeam, even without the move-on-damage interpretation.

 

[PnPgamer]

Moonbeam is pretty much druid only spell as no other class gets it. If you are a wizard, youre dtuck with flaming sphere. Or not as wizards have plenty of spells to choose from.
You can keep on casting cantrips or spells and attack with flaming sphere at the same time.

Call lighting can last up to 10 minutes, or 100 rounds. Ive been on battles plenty of times in which minute long buffs are expended. As a druid you can do the classical storm bird maneuver.

Dont get me wrong i think too that moonbeam is better.

 

[Tormyr]

Moonbeam is pretty much druid only spell as no other class gets it. If you are a wizard, youre dtuck with flaming sphere. Or not as wizards have plenty of spells to choose from.
You can keep on casting cantrips or spells and attack with flaming sphere at the same time.

Call lighting can last up to 10 minutes, or 100 rounds. Ive been on battles plenty of times in which minute long buffs are expended. As a druid you can do the classical storm bird maneuver.

Oath of ancients Paladin also gets it.

 

[PnPgamer]

Oath of ancients Paladin also gets it.

Question is, is it sensible for paladin to use it? Would you, a frontliner, risk on losing the spell constantly by being hit?

 

[Pickles JG]

Moonbeam is a good spell that does marginalise Call Lightning (which as I recall was slightly stronger in the last playtest).
Call Lightning is better is stormy conditions or if you expect more than one encounter in rapid succession. A druid can swap in the one he thinks will be most useful or take both though if he needs to.

My player's druid uses Moonbeam quite effectively, especially the time I stacked 4 spiders in a small corridor cleverly using their wall crawling to get lots of attacks.
He has blocked corridors with it, thorn whipped things into it & had other PCs Thunderwave critters through it. Occasionally he can put it somewhere where a creature has to get an AO to move out of it (though this is better with Flaming Sphere as it turns that ropey spell on). It works nicely with Healing Word to get people on their feet as the action to move it is not casting a spell.

The sweeping death beam interpretation fails miserably at the sniff test - the spell is a good level 2 spell with the other interpretation, making it a sweeping death ray obviously makes it far too good.

 

[BryonD]

The thing is that what happens is both. When the area is moved onto the creature, the creature then has entered the area. That the area is the one doing the moving doesn't matter -- you can enter a thing while remaining sedentary if it comes to envelop you. A critter that swallows you whole as it moves into your space is certainly something you "entered." If a gelatinous cube falls on your head from orbit, you have definitely "entered" it, even though you're not moving.

"The creature needs to be the one moving" is reasonable, but the alternate interpretation isn't unreasonable, either (and isn't even necessarily overpowered...it's pretty situational). It actually even makes more logical sense than the alternative. If the spell is summoning a beam of damaging radiant energy, it doesn't suddenly not do damage just because you're moving it around. It's still a beam of damaging radiant energy, after all. If it was a pillar of fire, it wouldn't stop burning just because the initiative order said it wasn't time for it to burn yet.

It could've also been fixed with a slight re-wording of the spell (something like, "you can cause the moonbeam to wink out and appear again at a new location within range"), but the beam explicitly is moved over the area, staying "on" the whole time.

There's a lot of assumptions and suppositions that go into any one of the possible interpretations.

The first thing to keep in mind is that WotC has historically stated some things very poorly and also stated some things "clearly" and then said that was not what they mean. So any answer remains in play.

But, I think your alternative requires more assumption than the default. Even in your language you have clearly changed the active subject from the target to the spell area.
There is nothing to suggest that the damage actually triggers other than the start of a victim's turn or the motion of the victim. so moving the spell would do no damage during that motion.

I get that you could say "orc is on square A. I have moved the area, so square A is now in it, therefore orc takes damage." But what if the orc just moved to square A? The started his turn requirement would only apply to creatures who were stationary the round before. It gets really silly.

 

[KarinsDad]

Moonbeam is a spell that I have a lot of experience with since our DM gave the group a magic dagger that allows it to be cast three times per day. Big mistake on the DM's part as it made some encounters considerably less deadly.

We have not run the Moonbeam as being a "move it through multiple foes and damage them". As powerful as Moonbeam is, that would make it really broken.

But, Moonbeam is potent regardless.

Pros:

1) Used on a horse and rider, it damages both of them.
2) It damages regardless of whether the save is made or not.
3) 60% of the time it does 11 average points of damage and 40% of the time it does 5 average damage. That's 8.6 DPR round in and round out as long as the caster uses it (striker level of average damage).
4) If you have a PC who can move targets into it, that's icing on the cake. An additional benefit of having a PC move an NPC into it is that depending on init, this might free up the PC using it to do another action the following round (i.e. for a foe going after the Druid in init is already in the beam, so no reason to move it, use the Druid's action for something else and still do start of round damage that round).

Cons:

1) Concentration spell. This is not much of a con. In about 8 or 10 uses of the spell in our game so far, it has never been disrupted. It could happen, but there is no reason for the PC using it to just make himself a target.
2) It takes an action to move the spell. Again, not much of a con. Granted, it is probably less damage than a shape changing Druid, but even so, it can be used when the Druid doesn't want to melee.

 

[Pauper]

I think that's the kicker for me -- if moonbeam wasn't intended to allow for damage to occur when it is moved on the caster's turn, then there's no reason for the spell to require the caster's action to be able to move it. Contrast with flaming sphere, which allows the caster to move the sphere as a bonus action.

If moonbeam doesn't damage enemies when the caster moves it on top of them, then you're saying that on the caster's turn after casting the spell, he's basically just messing with his opponents' next turns. A legendary monster could easily defeat this spell, at any level, by simply readying an action to move when the caster parks the beam over them and relying on its legendary actions to defeat the party.