D&D 5E Warlock and Repelling Blast

[Noctem]

The language to resolve this is in the general making attacks and casting spells sections folks. "A spell is... a single shaping of the magical energies that suffuse the multiverse." Page 201
Flip back a few more and we find the lovely phrase "Whether you're (using weapons or) making an attack roll as part of a spell," Page 193, and we know that the attack action and the cast a spell action are distinct actions, Page 192, so all of the verbage treats your extra attack style cantrip growth as if these are single castings of spells, but with amplified effects. In most cases these are larger globs of -whatever- but with eldritch blast it's a larger number of lasers. They all come from a single cast spell with verbal and somatic components, so the Warlock in question is stuck in place chanting and waving their hands around, just the duration of this is less than a full turn. Also, notice that we lack any language telling us that the way cantrips grow is the same thing as extra attacks; we can look at the numbers and deduce that the damaging cantrips grow like this to match the basic melee attack options, but they aren't an extra attack class feature because they are never called out with that language.

That clause about dispel not being able to affect instantaneous spells is pretty simple too: dispel magic is not counter spell. It's for removing lasting effects, not halting a spell that is currently being cast. If you want to be petulant and complain that some wizard has a reaction time quick enough to do their similar chanting and hand waving fast enough to catch a beam of light mid flight (or a firebolt, since you all of this trigger talk could just as easily specify when the other spell caster was x words away from completing their chanting and organizing flailing such that your 1 action involved spell concluding right in sync with their 1 action spell going off,) then you're kind of missing the point of what dispel magic is written to accomplish, but hey, if you can find a DM willing to attach some skill roll for the magical equivalent of "I shoot their crossbow bolt out of the sky with my arrow" then more power to you.

Rules as written, and with the specific beats general clause, Eldritch blast is several laser attacks in one spell cast action that go off in quick succession, and repelling blast applies to each hit.
Rules as intended appear to be the same damn thing. Homebrew if you don't like it.


You're kind of bad at fallacies mate. You've read the definitions sure but you're kind of trigger happy about flinging them about without the important "oops, the grammar seems to work but the logic broke somewhere along the way" condition having been met. Moreover we're not in debate club here so try using normal language to explain problems; any time to pull the finger gun trigger on some fallacy and the other person doesn't immediately agree with you there's obviously some disagreement about what the fallacy means, so you wield zero power when you bandy about those labels and there's no agreed upon judge present to arbitrate disagreements... or rather, the only power that gives you is the power to -poop- up the place by getting a bunch of people to take sides on definitions where they probably don't have any special expertise.

*high five* couldn't have said it better myself

 

[Zorku]

1. Yes, they follow the same rules for making attacks. No, they don't follow the same rules for making melee weapon attacks. Spell Attack, Melee Weapon Attack. Distinct names.

2.

I agree that you cannot dispel an eldritch blast in between attacks

One of those options has clearly been discussed.

3. Antimagic fields aren't counter spells and are not silence. The Warlock can still go through the whole casting a spell action. This is completely different as antimagic field doesn't have any language pertaining to instantaneous effects, aside from the more broad negation of any magic within or entering that area.

Ex: This was just the most recent example. If I wasn't posting that from work maybe I'd have done a deep enough dive to round up a few people in quotes, but probably not. Quoting everyone that said or did a thing hasn't ever worked well for me.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The language to resolve this is in the general making attacks and casting spells sections folks. "A spell is... a single shaping of the magical energies that suffuse the multiverse." Page 201
Flip back a few more and we find the lovely phrase "Whether you're (using weapons or) making an attack roll as part of a spell," Page 193, and we know that the attack action and the cast a spell action are distinct actions, Page 192, so all of the verbage treats your extra attack style cantrip growth as if these are single castings of spells, but with amplified effects.

Huh? You quote the section on casting a spell, okay, good. Then you quote the section on making an attack, okay, still good. Then you say that the attack action and the spell action are different, cool, onboard. Then you say something very weird. Does that mean something?

In most cases these are larger globs of -whatever- but with eldritch blast it's a larger number of lasers. They all come from a single cast spell with verbal and somatic components, so the Warlock in question is stuck in place chanting and waving their hands around, just the duration of this is less than a full turn. Also, notice that we lack any language telling us that the way cantrips grow is the same thing as extra attacks; we can look at the numbers and deduce that the damaging cantrips grow like this to match the basic melee attack options, but they aren't an extra attack class feature because they are never called out with that language.

Um, no one's yet claimed that the additional eldritch blast bolts are like extra attacks. They are simple spell attacks, made in sequence, one after the other, using the 'make an attack' rules.

The question is, if they are separate and subsequent attacks, and you ready an action to do something if attacked, then your readied action, by the wording in the RA section, means that you react immediately upon the resolution of your trigger but before anything else happens. Normally, for other attacks, that would mean that you get to react between attacks. For the eldritch blast, it's a bit trickier, and there's no clear explanation if the attacks are separate effects of the cast a spell action or if they are inseparable and integral to it.

That clause about dispel not being able to affect instantaneous spells is pretty simple too: dispel magic is not counter spell. It's for removing lasting effects, not halting a spell that is currently being cast. If you want to be petulant and complain that some wizard has a reaction time quick enough to do their similar chanting and hand waving fast enough to catch a beam of light mid flight (or a firebolt, since you all of this trigger talk could just as easily specify when the other spell caster was x words away from completing their chanting and organizing flailing such that your 1 action involved spell concluding right in sync with their 1 action spell going off,) then you're kind of missing the point of what dispel magic is written to accomplish, but hey, if you can find a DM willing to attach some skill roll for the magical equivalent of "I shoot their crossbow bolt out of the sky with my arrow" then more power to you.

Cool, most of use stopped arguing about dispel magic many pages ago. We all agreed that you can't dispel in the middle of the spell. We can add you to the 'agree on this bit' list, then?

Rules as written, and with the specific beats general clause, Eldritch blast is several laser attacks in one spell cast action that go off in quick succession, and repelling blast applies to each hit.
Rules as intended appear to be the same damn thing. Homebrew if you don't like it.

Um, yeah, I don't think anyone has argued otherwise for some time. Certainly not at this point of the conversation. Everyone currently involved has said this exact thing multiple times. Thanks for the recap?

You're kind of bad at fallacies mate. You've read the definitions sure but you're kind of trigger happy about flinging them about without the important "oops, the grammar seems to work but the logic broke somewhere along the way" condition having been met. Moreover we're not in debate club here so try using normal language to explain problems; any time to pull the finger gun trigger on some fallacy and the other person doesn't immediately agree with you there's obviously some disagreement about what the fallacy means, so you wield zero power when you bandy about those labels and there's no agreed upon judge present to arbitrate disagreements... or rather, the only power that gives you is the power to -poop- up the place by getting a bunch of people to take sides on definitions where they probably don't have any special expertise.

I pointed out, what, three strawmen that were clearly strawmen, as no one had advanced the arguments he was arguing against. So, there's those, nice and wrapped up. I also had an appeal to authority, where Noctern refused to provide his reasoning and instead deferred to the devs. If that's wrong, explain what's up there, as I'm pretty sure it's not wrong. Substituting a reference to an authority instead of making an argument is exactly what an appeal to authority is. Are you sure you're as skilled here as you think you are? Also, do you know Noctern? I find it exceptionally odd that you'd take time to call out my less than a handful of fallacy calls where I also provided exactly why I thought they were fallacies as somehow egregious when Nocty has been spamming bad macros of fallacies, often entirely without any merit, yet you fail to mention them at all? Heck, he did it in the post immediately before I used fallacies. That's just weird.

1. Yes, they follow the same rules for making attacks. No, they don't follow the same rules for making melee weapon attacks. Spell Attack, Melee Weapon Attack. Distinct names.

What?! Who's saying this? Who are you rebutting?

2.

One of those options has clearly been discussed.

What? Why did you quote me, here. Are you saying that we talked about this, earlier? Yeah, okay, great, what's your point?

3. Antimagic fields aren't counter spells and are not silence. The Warlock can still go through the whole casting a spell action. This is completely different as antimagic field doesn't have any language pertaining to instantaneous effects, aside from the more broad negation of any magic within or entering that area.

You're right, AMF doesn't have any language pertaining to instantaneous effects. It does have language that affects all spells, including instantaneous ones, though. So you couldn't AMF off the slow from a ray of frost by wandering through because it's the nondispellable effect of an instantaneous spell, but the only way it wouldn't stop the remaining bolts from an eldritch blast (if it could indeed go up in the middle of them, which is debateable) is if the casting of the spell is already done and the lazorz are just the effect remaining. Given the effect is described as a magical bolt of energy, though, I'd be hard pressed to say that it could exist at all in an AMF for any reason, like, ever.

Ex: This was just the most recent example. If I wasn't posting that from work maybe I'd have done a deep enough dive to round up a few people in quotes, but probably not. Quoting everyone that said or did a thing hasn't ever worked well for me.

Most recent example of what? Man, a bunch of your stuff seems to be missing important information that would make it make sense. Instead of working on quoting more people, you should work on fully forming your statements so the things you do quote and the points you're trying to make come across. Cause I've gotta say, I'm not getting the point of why you're saying what your saying. I figure there is a point, but it's missing from your posts. Looking forward to a more clear statement of intent from you. Cheers!

 

[spectacle]

I just want to point out that reactions like Shield and Opportunity attack are special in that they retroactively happen before the trigger, potentially preventing it from actually occurring the first place. So you can't infer from their existence that Readied actions necessarily happen after rather than in the middle of the triggering action.

 

[Noctem]

I just want to point out that reactions like Shield and Opportunity attack are special in that they retroactively happen before the trigger, potentially preventing it from actually occurring the first place. So you can't infer from their existence that Readied actions necessarily happen after rather than in the middle of the triggering action.

But we can say that based on the fact that those reactions specifically have to call out their timing, that the general rule for reactions is that they don't interrupt and negate their own triggers by default. There's rules text which was quoted before that also explains this.

 

[spectacle]

Yes, but we can't say that you can't interrupt an action by choosing a trigger that occurs and finishes in the middle of an action, because the rules are not explicit on the matter either way.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes, but we can't say that you can't interrupt an action by choosing a trigger that occurs and finishes in the middle of an action, because the rules are not explicit on the matter either way.

They are explicit. They don't mention that you can't do this because the normal meaning of the word 'immediately' and the two given examples clearly show that you can, in fact, interrupt actions if the trigger occurs within them.

The issue, as far as I'm concerned, is whether or not the attacks granted by eldritch blast are valid choices for a trigger. They might be, or they might be considered an integral part of the spell casting meaning that they are adjudicated by the make an attack rules for ease of play buy are not considered to be discrete events like attack action attacks. The fact that you cannot move between them would lend credence to this ruling.

 

[Noctem]

Yes, but we can't say that you can't interrupt an action by choosing a trigger that occurs and finishes in the middle of an action, because the rules are not explicit on the matter either way.

That's also true, which I've tried to explain multiple times now. Which is why I think until we get a response from the tweet Seebs sent out, the discussion won't move forward.

 

[Arial Black]

You're right that the biggest assumption is that there's a time lapse between the attacks. They've used this invented claim to justify a bunch of other things during the discussion. "Because there's time between attacks, I can cast dispel on an instantaneous spell" is just one example.

If there is no time between beams, then that is true for both warlock and his enemy with a readied action whose trigger is 'when the warlock shoots a beam'. If the readier has no time to do that because the beams are shot too close together to react to the first beam, then they are also too fast for the warlock to react to the result of his first beam. The warlock cannot wait for the result of his first beam before deciding who to target with the next, without also giving time for the readier to react to the trigger.

Either there is time between beams, in which case the warlock can wait to see the result of one beam before choosing the target for the next AND the readier can use the first beam as a trigger...

OR

...there is no time between beams for EITHER the readier to trigger off a single beam before the rest of the beams are shot OR the warlock to see the result of one beam before using that information to decide who to target with the next.

Anyway, what you have to remember is that Eldritch Blast lets you make attacks as part of its effect for casting the spell.

Yes.

Because it let's you make attacks, it follows the Making an Attack section of the PHB.

Yes.

Because it follows those 3 steps, you have to make one attack after the other since in order to make an attack you have to do each step in order. So first pick a target, figure out modifiers, then resolve the attack (IE, make the attack roll, roll damage, apply damage, apply other effects, etc..) and only then can you move to the next attack you can make.

NO!!!

Those three steps must be taken, in order, for every single attack. But there is NO suggestion, at all, that multiple attacks must be consecutive and cannot be simultaneous!

If I shot 20 beams at 20 targets, every single one of those beams must take the three steps in order, but there is nothing in the rules that prevents all 20 beams doing step 1 at the same time, then step 2 at the same time, then step 3 at the same time.

You erroneously imagine that the rule that tells us how to make each attack somehow adjudicates how to arrange more than one attack; it doesn't! Nor should we expect it to, because it isn't even attempting to do so.

You are hinging your argument (that the beams must be consecutive and cannot be simultaneous) on a 'rule' which doesn't exist (how to arrange multiple attacks) by quoting a rule which does exist and no-one disputes (how every individual attack is resolved!

Targeting the same person 3 times with one casting of Eldritch Blast has no importance for how each attack is resolved. They all follow the Making an Attack rules and the first step of each attack is to pick a target. The effect of hitting a target with each beam is to push 10 feet. Each attack can hit or miss. The feature says when you hit with the spell you do x. No limit of how many times per casting of the spell you can push I should also note. Each time you hit with the spell you get to push. If you hit 3 times you get to push 3 times. You are not correct about it being a single conditional trigger. There's no such restriction on the feature or spell and I'm sorry but you're also incorrect about how these sort of features work. When a game element says do x when you do y, you get to do x every time you do y unless a restriction is in play. There is no such restriction here.

First, Repelling Blast certainly does not say that it pushes the target by 10 feet for each beam that hits. It says that the target gets pushed back when it is hit by 'the spell' (eldritch blast). There is only one spell, one eldritch blast. A 17th level warlock using eldritch blast shoots four beams, but is only casting one spell. He is not casting four spells!

Next, eldritch blast is one 'attack' which uses (up to) four 'attack rolls'. If you think this is strange, see the ranger's Multiattack special ability, which the devs have confirmed is indeed a single attack resolved with multiple attack rolls, so the concept does exist.

 

[Noctem]

Hey [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION], did you post that question on twitter yet? I'm sure it would help you learn designer intent and then you could share what you've learned here with us afterwards! It's a great opportunity, you should take it!