D&D 5E Warcaster, polearm master and learning to love the optimizing?

[PnPgamer]

Nobody else sees the problem i see... Lets try again.
If the guy wields polearm he provokes on 10ft.
If the character cannot activate spell aoo from warcaster feat on the initial reach weapon trigger, he can NEVER trigger it, as the polearm causes enemy to already be within reach of the character. Thus i am asking if a character can forfeit his reach aoo trigger and get spell aoo on 5ft?

 

[Paraxis]

Nobody else sees the problem i see... Lets try again.
If the guy wields polearm he provokes on 10ft.
If the character cannot activate spell aoo from warcaster feat on the initial reach weapon trigger, he can NEVER trigger it, as the polearm causes enemy to already be within reach of the character. Thus i am asking if a character can forfeit his reach aoo trigger and get spell aoo on 5ft?

I think I understand what you are saying.

If the polearm mastery feat doesn't trigger a spell, because of what Mike said in sage advice, then logically leaving the 10' reach of the polearm wouldn't trigger either. Therefore while using a reach weapon a warcaster could never be able to use a spell in place of an AoO.
Seems right to me, if you go with Mike's sage advice ruling.
Now assuming that is the case could the warcaster forgo his reach with the polearm and just use the normal 5' reach so as to trigger a spell. I would say no, because I don't think you get two zones of reach as a PC, maybe if you had monk unarmed strikes or if the DM allowed you to make use of an improvised weapon or the sentinel feat stuff. But that opens up a whole can of worms and everyone PC or monster with reach could claim the same thing and people would provoke AoO a lot more often.

I think for my table I will just ignore Mikes sage advice, and allow the polearm master/warcaster to cast a spell triggered by moving within the reach of the polearm.

Did I get what you were saying or screw it up, it is late for me and I should be in bed. So apologize in advance if any of that is nonsense.

 

[Celtavian]

He's more of a glass cannon. With the feat investment he has taken he's not going to have the staying power in combat like a Paladin or Fighter, and they will do comparable damage in melee.

Also he's going to find melee pretty ineffective later on in all but tight quarters, dropping his DPR. Lots of stuff can fly, teleport, cast spells, and has reach.

Doesn't much matter if he is a glass cannon. How a class interacts with the group is always the problem. A DM can kill any combination, even some of the sick stuff in 3E. If a character is doing a great deal more damage than other characters in the group, overshadowing others and creating a balance problem for the DM, that isn't fun for the group. One player's fun shouldn't ruin the enjoyment of the DM or other players.

 

[PnPgamer]

I think I understand what you are saying.

If the polearm mastery feat doesn't trigger a spell, because of what Mike said in sage advice, then logically leaving the 10' reach of the polearm wouldn't trigger either. Therefore while using a reach weapon a warcaster could never be able to use a spell in place of an AoO.
Seems right to me, if you go with Mike's sage advice ruling.
Now assuming that is the case could the warcaster forgo his reach with the polearm and just use the normal 5' reach so as to trigger a spell. I would say no, because I don't think you get two zones of reach as a PC, maybe if you had monk unarmed strikes or if the DM allowed you to make use of an improvised weapon or the sentinel feat stuff. But that opens up a whole can of worms and everyone PC or monster with reach could claim the same thing and people would provoke AoO a lot more often.

I think for my table I will just ignore Mikes sage advice, and allow the polearm master/warcaster to cast a spell triggered by moving within the reach of the polearm.

Did I get what you were saying or screw it up, it is late for me and I should be in bed. So apologize in advance if any of that is nonsense.

Youre on the right track.

Solution for this could be that at the end of his turn, a player says if he does or does not use his polearm for aoo. If he doesnt, he has 5 reach and can use unarmed or a spell for aoo. If he does, he uses polearm and its relevant feat.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Another think to remember: With a polearm in hand, your reach "boundary" is 10ft. A foe can move around as much as they want *inside* that that 10 feet range and they will not trigger any attacks of opportunity. Once a foe is inside the reach of the polearm, the foe is free to move past the polearm person and attack someone else (as long as they are within reach).

Also, a couple of posters here have said something about "two AoOs"? This polearm wielding mage will only get one AoO per turn. This means that one way to deal with the character is to rush them. For example, four bugbears approach, one of them presumably gets hit with an eldritch blast (and possibly shoved backwards) but the other three are now in melee range (causing the character disadvantage on all ranged attack rolls) and attacking. The character has used their reaction, so they won't be doing anything special to defend against those attacks. Sure, on the character's next turn they can move back 10 feet, but unless they spend their action disengaging, they are going eat three attacks of opportunity. The bugbears can then move forward again, repeating the process for as many rounds as they want to stop the character acting effectively.

 

[DaveDash]

Doesn't much matter if he is a glass cannon. How a class interacts with the group is always the problem. A DM can kill any combination, even some of the sick stuff in 3E. If a character is doing a great deal more damage than other characters in the group, overshadowing others and creating a balance problem for the DM, that isn't fun for the group. One player's fun shouldn't ruin the enjoyment of the DM or other players.

An 11th level Fighter with a greatsword and great weapon fighting style will be doing 39 DPR to his 43ish. This is base, without hex, manouver dice, etc. Meanwhile the Fighter WILL have better AC, hitpoints, and melee staying power (much better second wind, and so forth). The Ftr/Lock only has one ability boost (so 18 cha) so either his STR or CON will be bad. He will pull ahead a little further around level 14 but the difference is only another 2 damage per round.
The lock can attack better at range, but the Fighter doesnt have to worry about disadvantage in melee. Also the fighter can be Mountain Dwarf or whatever which makes him even more durable than variant human in melee.

Throw in Great Weapon Master for the Fighter and he is now a considerably better damage dealer and melee combatant overall, and hasnt slowed down his level progression to do it. Add in more feats (polearm master as well) and he completely eclipses the lock in melee combat.

Think of it this way, which guy are you more likely to cast fly on to go fight the Dragon?

If this guy wanted to do damage cheese through Eldritch Blast he probably should have gone for a SorcLock instead. His build is too MAD.

 

[Mallus]

Le'ts make this more interesting: a (blade pact) warlock with Polearm Mastery, Warcaster, and the Repelling Blast invocation. Depending on the situation, this PC has the opportunity to prevent a single melee opponent from closing (move in, attack, move back, knock foe back when they attempt to close).

I still don't think it's overpowered. Said warlock doesn't have a good AC, yet their shtick is melee-based. The shtick costs 2 Feats. It offers no defense against opponents with ranged weapons. At best, it's good for 1 or 2 rounds, until the opponents stop trying to close and try something else. If this shtick *does* result in a lot of damage done, it makes the sorta-squishy warlock a big fat target.

As combat tricks go, it's costly and pretty self-limiting. High risk, high reward. Meaning it's not overpowered, it's fine.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

An interesting, but not game breaking combo. As others have indicated, there are counters to this and he has paid a substantial character-build price for one specific capability. Opponents might be surprised at first it, but would adapt as others have said, by using ranged attacks, using Disengage to approach en masse or using reach weapons of their own to attack him.

 

[Herschel]

The other thing to keep in mind is if he's countering your tendencies. If you're a common practitioner of Tag the Squishy this is a counter, albeit rather expensive for my tastes.

 

[Jaelommiss]

With both hands on his halberd/glaive/pike he's going to have a hard time using material components. Eldritch blast is going to be fine, but something like Hold Person would not. AoO on approach in exchange for being unable to cast a sizable portion of your spells is a fair trade in my mind. If he tries taking a hand off his weapon, then he's no longer wielding it, and loses his AoO (I'd let the player know this ahead of time).