Thoughts on Warlock Invocation - Eldritch Glaive

[Greenfield]

We have a Warlock in our party, and his favorite tool in combat, aside from the blast itself, is the Eldritch Glaive.

Several people at our table were recently surprised by some of the things this character was doing with it, so they tried to look it up, just so they knew the rules. To their surprise it wasn't in Complete Arcane, where the Warlock class comes from. We had to look for it, and it's in Dragon Magic.

From what we can tell, it's a 2nd level equivalent Blast Shape invocation.

It lasts one round, and for that round is effectively a reach weapon in the Warlock's hands. It does the same damage as the Eldritch Blast, based on a touch attack roll. Using it is a full round action, so if the Warlock attacks with it, they get no move action that round.

So questions: As an Invocation, and apparently a spell-like effect of 2nd level, does invoking it provoke an Attack of Opportunity?

Being an energy form, it's essentially weightless. Is it considered a light weapon?

Since it's taking the form of a melee weapon, does he get to add Strength bonus to damage?

On Invocations in general: Do they provoke AoO? How do you handle an attempt to invoke one while grappled?

Does Eldritch Blast, being a range attack, provoke AoO?

We have a feeling that this player has been playing a bit fast and loose with the rules. I'm looking for either confirmation or refutation.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

The unfortunate truth is that many of the questions you're asking aren't actually covered in the rules (or if they are it might still be ambiguous), but I'll go over my knowledge of each in turn.


AoO: Yes, it provokes an AoO. However, since it is a reach weapon it usually won't provoke an AoO from the target being attacked.

Weapon type: I recommend looking at Rich Baker's warlock FAQ to start, and then Shinken's guide to melee warlocks. That will hopefully cover things well enough. If you want something quick and dirty, the weapon-like spells rules in Complete Arcane pages 72 and 73 could cover you. Probably treat EG effectively as a melee touch attack, which is called out on page 73 as being able to benefit from Weapon Finesse. Note that touch spells are treated like a light weapon, which most would infer means it's not actually a light weapon and can't be treated as such for any other purpose.

Strength to damage: It's a spell effect, which defaults to no str to damage despite it being shaped like a weapon.

Provoking AoO: Invocations generally provoke AoOs just like regular SLAs. However, due to warlock invocations requiring somatic components, it is impossible to cast one in a grapple. Eldritch Blast could sort of be used in a grapple through the Grappling Blast feat from Dragon Magazine.

Eldritch Blast AoO: EB is an SLA, meaning it provokes an AoO. It being a ranged attack doesn't matter in this specific case. The only warlock invocation that doesn't provoke an AoO is Hideous Blow, if you're taking the word of the class's creator, Rich Baker, over the word of Sage Advice (which I recommend you do because it's bats*** crazy to have HB provoke since it's a direct melee attack).

 

[Scorpio616]

As an Invocation, and apparently a spell-like effect of 2nd level, does invoking it provoke an Attack of Opportunity?

Yes

Being an energy form, it's essentially weightless. Is it considered a light weapon?

Since it's taking the form of a melee weapon, does he get to add Strength bonus to damage?

No. it is not a weapon

We have a feeling that this player has been playing a bit fast and loose with the rules. I'm looking for either confirmation or refutation.

They have been F&L, but understandably so since the wording could reasonably trick someone who doesn't grock 3E is basically written in computer coding disguised as language.

 

[Greenfield]

In terms of "Fast and loose": A Petal (tiny Fey) Warlock was grappled by a Dragon.

Player laughed, and announced that his Eldritch Glaive was a "light weapon" and could be used while grappled. Since none of us had the Dragon Magic book that it comes from readily available, we took his word for it, though there was some grumbling.

Petal then proceeds to kill the Dragon.

As far as I can see, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that it's a light weapon. As a blast shape Invocation in the form of a weapon, it's in a gray area between being a spell effect and a weapon. But no matter how creatively you read it, the phrase "light weapon" doesn't appear anywhere in the description.

The battle happened right at the end of our last session, and I am very *VERY* tempted to turn back time and replay those last few rounds.

But that's bad form all around.

 

[Empirate]

Well, you screwed up there, but no biggie. Mistakes happen, just be sure to keep in mind that:

a) Invocations always have somatic components, so no using them in a grapple,

b) a Concentration check is still called for even if you somehow get your invocations to not have somatic components. Since Concentration is hard to raise high for a Warlock, this might be problematic for your Petal (cheesy race btw...),

c) SR still applies to Eldritch Glaive, just as with the regular Eldritch Blast,

d) your dragon really ought to pin first, before proceeding to eat...

 

[Jackinthegreen]

I hope the player didn't try to pass off the petal as a regular LA +2? It specifically has a (cohort) entry next to it, meaning it's not suitable for players to play, but as a cohort through Leadership and the like the game says it's fine.

 

[Greenfield]

Well, you screwed up there, but no biggie. Mistakes happen, just be sure to keep in mind that:

a) Invocations always have somatic components, so no using them in a grapple,

b) a Concentration check is still called for even if you somehow get your invocations to not have somatic components. Since Concentration is hard to raise high for a Warlock, this might be problematic for your Petal (cheesy race btw...),

c) SR still applies to Eldritch Glaive, just as with the regular Eldritch Blast,

d) your dragon really ought to pin first, before proceeding to eat...

I've been looking through Complete Arcane's section on Warlocks and their Invocations.

Contrary to the author's commentary, cited earlier, Eldritch Blast clearly says that it's not an Invocation.

And I was unable to find any mention of somatic components for Invocations. Or Eldritch Blast.

So I'm either going blind, or stupid, or something.

Can anyone direct me to the place in the rules where it mentions this? (Emphasis: In the rules, as opposed to notes or opinions expressed elsewhere).

Also, while I've heard people discuss that Eldritch Glaive is (or isn't) a light weapon, I can't find anything to suggest that. Can someone from the "is a light weapon" camp point me to a rules reference anywhere to support it?

I'm kind of expecting an argument, and I like to be prepared.

Regarding the Petal: Yes, we knew that it was marked as a Cohort. We allowed it in anyway.

Regarding the Dragon v Petal slug fest: There's a table in the MM for Dragon melee damage and, to be blunt, they're wimps. A Huge/Old Dragon does 2 d8 claw damage and 2 D6 bite damage, and no Strength applied?

The Petal had DR5/Cold Iron, plus the Warlock DR on top of that, totaling 8 in this case. 2 D8 averages 9 points, so the Petal/Warlock is all but immune to the creature's average melee damage.

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong there, by the way.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Somatic components are found under the "weapons and armor proficiency" heading for warlocks on page 7 in Complete Arcane. The specific wording is:
"Because the somatic components required for warlock invocations are relatively simple, a warlock can use any of his invocations while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance."

Regarding EB being an invocation, the errata for Complete Arcane specifically changed it. The wording is:
"Page 8: Invocations and Eldritch Blast
Change this section as follows:
Invocations and Eldritch Blast: Eldritch blast is an invocation. Other invocations provide a warlock with the ability to modify his eldritch blast or add new eldritch attacks."

Errata can be downloaded from http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a as usual.

Pretty sure those rules citations should work for you, yes?

As far as what kind of weapon eldritch glaive is or isn't: It is an invocation (as the errata corrects), not actually a weapon in the sense of a manufactured one used to smack stuff. Regular EB is a ray, since the definition of a ray is a ranged spell attack (take a look at the SRD here under Effects for Ray rules.) Using EG changes EB to a melee touch attack, but it does not change the fact that it's still a spell-like ability and thus not actually weapon. The logical conclusion from this is it cannot be counted as a light weapon because it is not an actual weapon in the first place. It still being a spell effect is a fundamental part of spells in general, and spells will specifically call out if they behave like weapons such as the Ice Axe spell from Spell Compendium.

The part where it -might- be called a light weapon in any sense is through the weapon-like spell rules in Complete Arcane, pages 72 and 73. The issue there is it specifically says spells with a range of touch can benefit from Weapon Finesse, but since EG is a melee touch attack, which is different from a touch range spell, it doesn't actually benefit from that.


Regarding the dragon's weapons: You've messed up on the dragon not getting strength to damage on those attacks. Primary natural weapons get 1x strength to damage, while secondary ones get 1/2x str to damage usually. In the case of true dragons, page 68 of the Monster Manual says that bites add 1x strength to damage, claws get 1/2 strength and are secondary attacks, wings get 1/2 strength and are also secondary, and tail slaps get 1.5x strength to damage, but are still secondary attacks. Lack of an indication on its bite shows that a dragon's bite is its primary natural attack.

 

[Greenfield]

Thanks for that.

I'm not going to invoke the errata, since none of us had seen it, including him. We generally play rules-on-paper more than web sources.

I was looking in the section on Invocations to see about components. Never occurred to me to look under Armor and Weapon Proficiency. Silly me.

 

[Greenfield]

Oh, as a note, the Downdraft spell just ruins a Dragon's day. If he flies, he crashes almost at once.

I should have had this one take to the air, take the hit from the spell, then take off again. The Druid can only have it prepped so many times.