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D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

Bolares

Hero
Right. But what happens if you are hit by a dispel between blasts, if that's possible? I have no idea. You're not stopping the casting. At least one blast goes off.

Nothing because the effect of each blast is instantaneous. The effect of the spell is dealing damage (and pushing), once a blast hits, it resolves and disapears. In my opinion what you're proposing is casting dispell between one blast hist and the other is cast, so no, you cant dispell the casting of the second blast. Is that what you ment?
 

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Noctem

Explorer
Nothing because the effect of each blast is instantaneous. The effect of the spell is dealing damage (and pushing), once a blast hits, it resolves and disapears. In my opinion what you're proposing is casting dispell between one blast hist and the other is cast, so no, you cant dispell the casting of the second blast. Is that what you ment?

Correct, you can't use dispel on instantaneous spells, regardless of if you're attempting to ready dispel to go off a trigger or whatever else. Instantaneous spells CANNOT be dispelled.
 

seebs

Adventurer
Nothing because the effect of each blast is instantaneous. The effect of the spell is dealing damage (and pushing), once a blast hits, it resolves and disapears. In my opinion what you're proposing is casting dispell between one blast hist and the other is cast, so no, you cant dispell the casting of the second blast. Is that what you ment?

That is the question, but the instantaneousness of the effects is irrelevant.

If you ready an attack for "if the warlock hits me with a spell", and the warlock casts eldritch blast, you get hit by beam #1, then the trigger ("hit with a spell") has resolved so the readied action goes. If you kill the warlock, the rest of the spell never happens.

The spell itself is in some way present during that interval. If instead of attacking, your readied action was a dispel targeted at The Spell, I would probably let the third level spell cancel the cantrip. It wouldn't undo the previous blast, because that's an instantaneous effect and has already taken effect, so there's no magic to dispel, but I wouldn't let you continue throwing beams.

Okay, better example, since the dispel wording is weird (and strictly speaking, as written, the spell has no effect at all on any magical effect that is not "a spell" on a thing, so there's no reason for the "magical effect" to be listed as a targetable thing). Let's look at antimagic field. "I ready an action, to cast antimagic field if the warlock hits anyone with a spell." I'm standing next to the warlock. He hits someone with eldritch blast. I now cast my antimagic field. What happens? It seems to me that the other blasts can't happen; magic is suppressed inside the field.

Basically, I think you're reading too much into "cannot be dispelled" here; I think the point of that is just to articulate that you can't use dispel magic to remove the fire created by a fireball. It's not to handle the exceedingly weird special case of getting to have an action between parts of the resolution of an "instantaneous" spell.
 

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
Nothing because the effect of each blast is instantaneous. The effect of the spell is dealing damage (and pushing), once a blast hits, it resolves and disapears. In my opinion what you're proposing is casting dispell between one blast hist and the other is cast, so no, you cant dispell the casting of the second blast. Is that what you ment?
Eldritch blast isn't cast every time you launch a beam. It's cast once, and the effect is x beams. So dispelling after the first beam goes isn't interrupting a casting, its targeting the remaining effects.
 

seebs

Adventurer
Eldritch blast isn't cast every time you launch a beam. It's cast once, and the effect is x beams. So dispelling after the first beam goes isn't interrupting a casting, its targeting the remaining effects.

Which is interesting, because those effects don't actually exist yet.

I theorize that there is an actual non-instantaneous thing happening, which is not the actual spell effect, but the impending-blasts. Maybe.

And now I wonder whether the correct ruling is "you must specify which magical effect you are targeting", so you can pick one of the remaining blasts to target, because it is a magical effect. (Nevermind that dispel can't actually do anything to magical effects, as written.)
 

Bolares

Hero
That is the question, but the instantaneousness of the effects is irrelevant.

If you ready an attack for "if the warlock hits me with a spell", and the warlock casts eldritch blast, you get hit by beam #1, then the trigger ("hit with a spell") has resolved so the readied action goes. If you kill the warlock, the rest of the spell never happens.

I can agree with you here, I see no problem at an attack doing that.


The spell itself is in some way present during that interval. If instead of attacking, your readied action was a dispel targeted at The Spell, I would probably let the third level spell cancel the cantrip. It wouldn't undo the previous blast, because that's an instantaneous effect and has already taken effect, so there's no magic to dispel, but I wouldn't let you continue throwing beams.

I'm not sure I really get what you've said here, but reading the dispell spell (haha, i love the sound of this two words together) again its clear to me it only ends the direct effect of a spell and my interpretation of the EB cantrip is that the effect of that spell is the damage, and that is instantaneous, so it can't be dispelled, 'cause there is no time to do that.

Okay, better example, since the dispel wording is weird (and strictly speaking, as written, the spell has no effect at all on any magical effect that is not "a spell" on a thing, so there's no reason for the "magical effect" to be listed as a targetable thing). Let's look at antimagic field. "I ready an action, to cast antimagic field if the warlock hits anyone with a spell." I'm standing next to the warlock. He hits someone with eldritch blast. I now cast my antimagic field. What happens? It seems to me that the other blasts can't happen; magic is suppressed inside the field.

I can't consider this a good example because antimagic field is whay less stric than dispell, in my games if you ready Antimagic Field for that I'd allow it, because that spell nulifies both the effects and the casting of spells

Basically, I think you're reading too much into "cannot be dispelled" here; I think the point of that is just to articulate that you can't use dispel magic to remove the fire created by a fireball. It's not to handle the exceedingly weird special case of getting to have an action between parts of the resolution of an "instantaneous" spell.

Sorry, couldn't get any of your argumentations for this last part.

But in the end I can't say none of us has a wrong answer to this, because we are way past the rules, and are entering the realm of rulings, and that is very interpretative and personal, so I tend to say we are all right on this.
 

Bolares

Hero
Eldritch blast isn't cast every time you launch a beam. It's cast once, and the effect is x beams. So dispelling after the first beam goes isn't interrupting a casting, its targeting the remaining effects.

I see your point, but we can only agree to disegree on this one.
 

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
I see your point, but we can only agree to disegree on this one.

Hey, no prob, I don't even agree with this one, I'm just pointing out where there's room for discussion. As I've said, i don't think EB or other, similar spells should be able to be dispelled, but if a player wanted to take that very marginal tactic, I'd probably let it fly. In fact, I think this is so much of a corner case, I have zero plans to bring it up with the group and just introduce confusion.
 

Bolares

Hero
Hey, no prob, I don't even agree with this one, I'm just pointing out where there's room for discussion. As I've said, i don't think EB or other, similar spells should be able to be dispelled, but if a player wanted to take that very marginal tactic, I'd probably let it fly. In fact, I think this is so much of a corner case, I have zero plans to bring it up with the group and just introduce confusion.

That's the beauty of 5e, there is room left for interpretation. But if one of my players tried to do that I would advise them that the effective spell for that is counterspell
 


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