D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast
- Thread starter Otterscrubber
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Noctem
Explorer
Your claim that I haven't doesn't make it so. Your personal refusal to accept my response, supported by rules text and Jeremy Crawford's quoted twitter response just now, doesn't make it so... Can you show me rules text that actually says there's something called a "look phase", time tracking between attacks, that you can interrupt actions of others using the ready action (you can't because it actually specifies the opposite) and so on? I mean you're making claims but you're not showing any supporting evidence... I'm sorry you don't like my answers but I did actually answer you regardless of what you seem to think..
I try not to overthink it. The multiple eldritch blasts to me come off as quick "pew pew pew" not multiple rays shooting from one origin at the same time. If an enemy falls over dead after resolving one roll, I'm not going to ruin the player's fun by telling him tough s***, he should have told me before if he wanted to aim at that other guy over there at the beginning if he wanted to split the targets. Then every time his turn comes around it becomes a round of bargaining over how he's going to split his attacks up instead of just enjoying what his character is doing.
[edit] Though I MIGHT houserule he can only blow a guy back 10 ft per casting of the cantrip if my players break the game with it. Easy enough.
[edit] Though I MIGHT houserule he can only blow a guy back 10 ft per casting of the cantrip if my players break the game with it. Easy enough.
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100% this.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Don't care how long it is, just that it exists. I'm not sure how many times I have to say that before people read it, but apparently, as always, the answer is 'at least once more.'
But, fine, drop it, it was an attempt to illustrate the point that there's a break between one attack and the next, in which a readied action can occur.
You're entirely hung up on the wrong thing, which I've said a few times already. My point was that if you go with resolving multiple attacks subsequently, then it also means that you must allow things like readied actions to occur between attacks if the readied action's trigger is the attack. That's the logical outcome of that ruling.
The part where you're incorrect is in asserting that a readied actions cannot interrupt an action. It can, if the trigger is such that it occurs entirely within the action, but before the action is complete. Such triggers could be "when I am attacked," which will trigger immediately after an attack, but before another attack in the same action. Or, "when the [target] moves next to me," which will trigger when the target moves next to you, but before it moves anywhere else. Or, "When I see the target," which will trigger when you can first see the target, such as after it makes an attack from hiding or first moves out of cover/concealment such that it is visible. You cannot interrupt the trigger, unless the reaction says otherwise, so those triggers have to fully resolve before you can use your readied actions, meaning the attack occurs, or the movement next to you occurs, or the hidden creature attacks, etc., but as soon as the trigger is completed, you get to react. There's no 'you have to wait until the whole action that contained the trigger is finished.' That's not in the rules.
If you doubt, read the examples of readied actions given in the Ready section of the combat rules on PHB 193. Both clearly interrupt actions.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
I'd argue Eldritch blast is also where the warlock gets a large part of their power. It's why its flat out stronger than other cantrips, and agonizing blast is so good. As it stands, warlocks make a great dip before scooting to bard or sorcerer. If you had a player do that, I can see limiting them to once per cast. But it's been my experience that the warlock needs more help competing in how the game plays, rather than the suggested ivory tower "baseline" model where you have 8 MMO trash fights with conveniently placed hour long naps. In a dungeon, they cast their two spells and then spam eldritch blast. So it may as well be awesome.
5E is lax (or sloppy if you are uncharitable) with its wordings, and generally eschews keywords for a more conversational approach, so trying to divine some meaning in why agonizing blast is "on a hit" and repelling blast is "when you hit" or some anal retentive literal definition of "when" is pointless.
Shadowdweller00
Hero
You....haven't seen the same thing done with Expeditious Retreat, Cunning Action, or any number of battlefield control spells already? Repelling Blast takes very considerably longer to develop than many other methods of accomplishing this. Like, say, even something as simple as mounts.
Mounts don't work in dungeons or underground caverns very well and are very easy to kill and hard to find again in the middle of an adventure. Cunning Action doesn't do damage and takes a bonus action as does Expeditious Retreat. What battlefield control spells are better than a no save-no ability check knockback that does damage and can be used an unlimited number of times?
I'll tell you exactly what I'm seeing in my games by min-maxers.
1. Paladin and Bard players dipping warlock to get eldritch blast and a few high value invocations like Agonizing Blast and Devilsight to ensure they have advantages in combat that make many fights trivial.
2. Ftr 1/Warlock to gain Heavy Plate Armor AC in combination with Devilsight darkness and repelling blast to ensure the enemy never touches them. They move around a bit to avoid ranged attacks and use Repelling Blast to keep the enemy away from them. Sometimes they get a 2nd level of Action Surge to to allow them to cast the Cantrip twice to knock them back twice as far. It's one of the reasons I limited it.
3. The above combinations are used in conjunction with a group of ranged attackers. The ftr/warlock or devilsight paladin will engage the targets in melee moving the darkness in a tactical manner to allow ranged strikers to hit visible targets.
It's a very vicious combination against a lot of stuff, probably in the 80% plus range of what they fight. It's nearly unbeatable when it is working. A two or three level dip in warlock for a paladin or bard (haven't seen enough sorcerers played to see them dip much) is usually more beneficial than quickly gaining a feat at lvl 4.
That's what I'm currently seeing from my min-max group. Gaining advantage using darkness and devilsight as well as gaining a potent ranged cantrip like eldritch blast is becoming increasingly common. Very few creatures have resistance to force damage and adding Charisma to damage per hit is very attractive for paladins and bards wanting a potent ranged attack to go along with the other things they do. Now I can see Repelling Blast blast becoming another exploitable tactic allowing for very powerful kiting against just about anything doing damage while pushing them around the battlefield allowing the PCs to avoid melee engagement minimizing risk and destroying the opponent with ranged attacks. I can and will counter such tactics with encounter design, but I can only justify building encounters specifically to counter these extremely effective tactics occasionally. The vast majority of the time, I'll have to let them slaughter with the tactics they're using because the rule guys at WotC are crappy tacticians that don't get how players use the abilities they're handing out. These are the same guys that handed out a wand of viscid globs that works against demon lords with no save, so I guess it should not surprise me that they overlook things like Repelling Blast knocking back 10 feet per hit or Devilsight and darkness working together to trivialize encounters.
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