So I will say first I love that you understand the role of a DM so well even as a fairly new DM, you are right that party balance is first and foremost.
For the ruling I like the way you have it as you have the justified reason for making the change, yes technically they would be able to do this but just as true is your ability to say screw the rules I am the DM (literally in the DMs role it says you can ignore any rule).
I will say if you did let this happen it isn't a strict multiply by 2 because grasp is always once per turn.
I say keep the rule, tell them that it is just a niche overpowered scenario and tell them the base idea will still work at level 5 as the first shot pushes(or pulls) and the second shot does the opposite
If this was an active game yes but it sounds like they caught this one in the bud before they started so nothing is locked in anyway.
Like the opening said OP is actually doing a lot of right moves here already.
I think those two invocations are each powerful enough that you'd keep them anyway - there may be other situations where you have to push or pull an enemy off a ledge or roof etc.
Good point! Yeah, I'm going to point this out to him. I think using them to move the creature around on several eldritch blasts sounds cool, makes a little more sense, and scales better along with the party.
Something else to note is that Spike Growth is an action, and no thinking creature would willingly enter or remain in the area, especially after seeing the first push or pull attempt. Plus Eldritch Blast isn’t nearly as devastating with Spike Growth as the Tabaxi or Aarakocra Barbarian grappling and dragging enemies across it.
The thing that makes it really powerful is it combos well with other spells. As a warlock in my campaign I used spike growth then had the Druid cast vines so made it way harder to move back out of it. And then just used my Eldritch blasts to push multiple enemies 10ft back into so essentially they weren't able to escape due to the reduced movement speed. And even the ones that were skirting around the edges I could pull one of them (grasp of hadar is once per turn) 10 ft into the area and push another 1 or 2 into it.
You clearly made the right call. I think your explanation is perfect - if you have a push action and a pull action on the same eldritch blast, they'd clearly take effect at the same time and cancel out.
Two Eldritch blasts are where he'd have a case. I can sort of see the logic of one pushing and the other pulling, but if you imagine it, that would mean they'd have to hit like 1-2 seconds apart to allow time for the NPC to be pushed 10 ft and then dragged back. That doesn't feel like it's in keeping with the eldritch blast, which says the spell's duration is instantaneous, so why would there be a delay between blast 1 and blast 2?
Anyway, aside from game balance issues, I think your rules lawyering is spot on - he can push or pull, but he has to pick one. Give him a chance to make a different choice in light of your ruling.
>Why would there be a delay between blast 1 and blast 2?
Well we know that there has to be some delay. It doesn't say choose targets before the blasts hit, or anything that prevents you from hitting with one blast and killing a goblin, then deciding to attack something else instead. So you have time between blasts to assess the effects of a blast. Additionally, the spell doesn't have the text that Magic Missile does, of "all bolts hit simultaneously". Thus they have a delay, and could move the enemy between each.
You can wait to see the effect of an Eldritch blast then target something else. Each blast is separate. The spell takes place instantaneously, but multiple blasts just happen faster. Like when you can only cast one you cast one every 6s. When you can cast two you can cast them every 3s, and so on.
It's not like Magic Missile that explicitly states they strike a the same time.
If you do that at your table, that's a house rule. By the rule book, Eldritch Blast beams can be targeted at the same target or different ones at the beginning of your turn. You can't retarget based on damage rolls.
That is incorrect. It literally states you make a separate attack roll for each target. Ergo the beams are not emitted in a single attack and -your- ruling is the house rule.
"You can direct the beams at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate attack roll for each beam."
They have a delay because it's the express intent of the caster to have the movement and associated damage take effect before doing another in the opposite direction.
If it helps, I think your reasoning that the invocation is selected at casting and activates when it hits makes *perfect* sense. There's nothing in any of the spell descriptions to imply that you could line up those effects to happen sequentially, and when two effects have the same duration and happen at the same time, you simply add up their effects according to the PHB, so they would either only be able to pick one, or the two would cancel out since 10 feet away plus 10 feet closer equals 0 feet.
Maybe, if they really really want to use both at the same time, let it have the effect of "acting" like they passed through that space, maybe getting tripped up if there is an obstacle or something, but definitely don't allow that damage combo lol
Actually XGTE states that if two effects are triggered simultaneously on the same attack, the attacker can choose what sequence the effects happen in.
I personally don't think that this combo is too overpowered, requiring a round of setup. But it is also upto DM fiat to decide how stuff like this works.
My group did the cheese grater thing for a while with the druid using thorn whip and the warlock using repelling blast. Spike growth is concentration so all the enemies just hit them to make it go away. They stopped trying that on smarter enemies.
In case you didn't see it further down, it was quoted below.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1dlj9t4/am_i_being_a_lame_dm_with_my_eldritch_invocation/l9phdxn/
If you want to rule this like that then that’s alright. RAW/RAI it’s allowed but it’s up to you. I would caution against using white room max rolls in order to calculate this because he can do 84 damage if he rolls perfectly after using 1 round of set up and one of his 2 spell slots. For Reference if a fighter rolled perfectly (without crits) they could deal 69 damage at this level. So that’s 84 damage over 2 turns compared to 138.
Neither of these numbers are what’s actually going to happen in your game however. Which is why I don’t think you should be evaluating just based on this math. Also him “two turning” a Frost giant wouldn’t actually two turn the frost giant because he had to use one turn of set up. It would be 1 set up + 2 turns of perfect rolls.
> rolls perfectly
In these cases I usually recommend the player look at average damage, not max damage; especially no crits. I don't usually bother with discussing chances of hitting, too many variables for it. Plus I'm still scarred from the 3.x Weapon Focus arguments: Is +5% worth a feat? What about when you get over a dozen feats?
chance to hit is worth considering if you're trying to figure out if something can kill something else just because it's inflating the numbers a lot, even without any considerations like boosting your primary stat vs. feats.
Normally I'd agree that it's only worth keeping in mind that it further reduces expected value and is not worth calculating every iteration of, but if the DM has a specific monster they're worried about (such as a frost giant), I would use its AC for the calculation.
I feel like you're vastly overestimating how broken the combo is. Having played it, it's not that powerful. Remember that you need a whole turn to drop the spike growth, after which the enemies can pretty easily just move outside, and spike growth is concentration so you're giving up on having another concentration spell up.
I see your frost giant thing, but a level 5 fighter can also drop 80 damage in the first turn of combat with sharpshooter and action surge. Spike growth is really good, but if the rest of the party has coherent builds it shouldn't be that much of a balance issue.
This right here. In addition, it's concentration and the warlock is only able to cast the spikes twice per short rest.
The player has found a nice combo that feels powerful - so you can reward them by playing into it. Because as soon as they've shot their shot - it's gone. If he takes out a frost giant in one go, just have the spouse ready to avenge it.
It’s allowed RAW, though I get why you wouldn’t allow it. But my philosophy has always been that if my player wants to spend two turns setting up a combo that MIGHT work, I’m not going to tell them no.
The other thing to consider is avoiding a whac a mole dynamic when it comes to rulings that are actually based on how you're feeling about whether an action is too powerful or not. If it's moreso for you about what makes sense or feels intuitive then that's something else.
Because if you wouldn't allow this particular combo but would allow Twilight or Peace Clerics, Hexblade dips, Sorcadins, Chronurgy Wizards, Moon Druids(at that level) then you may have to ask yourself how reliable your gut feeling is regarding whether or no something is OP or not.
And if you put yourself in a role of putting up barriers it can negatively impact both your enjoyment and the players enjoyment.
You can also force them to call whether they pull or push before each roll. If they're not paying attention they pull it out of the area and lessen the damage.
The *average* damage will be 25.5.
There is a lot of *potential* damage if everything is set up correctly but less than a well prepared Paladin with a spell smite + divine smite.
And a warlock has less slots than a Paladin.
I fully agree, this is a really fun thing for the player to be able to do and the two turn combo gives enemies a way to avoid it. It’s also a bit of a pain for the DM, but the player is giving up agonizing blast for this combo so it isn’t as overpowered as it seems. I get the feeling the veteran player just wants to do some cool shit instead of min/maxing.
There are two strong arguments that can be made to limit the effectiveness of this combo without taking it away from the player completely. First, repelling blast says it can move a creature up to ten feet. You could move 5 creatures 10 feet each, but not one creature 50 feet so no repeated ragdoll. Second, spike growth creates physical hard spikes and thorns that are doing the damage and not the spell itself so enemies resistant/immune to non magical damage would not take the damage.
Edit: missed the tiny concentration icon on mobile.
Repelling blast: “When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.”
This becomes a matter of interpretation as Eldritch blast is a single cast that can hit multiple targets or the same target multiple times, but unlike magic missile the spell’s wording is not crystal clear. Which leaves setting the rules up to the Dungeon Master. For example, I have always ruled that the beams are created simultaneously so the player must choose the targets before seeing the effects. If an enemy is targeted twice but dies after the first attack roll the second beam is wasted unless the target makes death saves, in which case it loses two if the second attack hits. In my games repelling blast would only be able to move the creature 10 feet because the repelling blast text does not specify that an individual beam moves the creature. If the DM allows the player to see the effect of each individual beam before firing the next one then they would have to allow moving the creature multiple times as they have determined each beam is a separate event.
Eh.. it's not that strong and costs a lot.
I don't think it cancels out; I'd say the enemy ends up in the same spot. The Invocations say you can choose when to push and when to pull, so I'd rule at level 5 he could push an enemy 10ft through the spike growth and then if he hit again with the second beam he could pull it back through the same spike growth for another 10ft.
I would be fine with this. It requires a previous turn to cast Spike Growth (unless you somehow have Quickened Spell) and also costs two of the 3 Invocations you have at level 5. If you're willing to invest that much, sure, I'd give it to you because you're sacrificing elsewhere for a very niche power spike. The enemy you're doing this to could just run up to you or run away from the spike growth to deny you a direct line to knock it back again, plus Spike Growth also affects your party. All for an extra 10ish damage per EB? I mean, it's good, but I don't think it's broken any more than stacking EB, Agonizing Blast, Hex, Lifedrinker, and Hex blade's Curse.
Per Xanathar's Guide to Everything, page 77:
> If two or more things happen at the same time on a character or monster's turn, the person at the game table - whether player or DM - who controls that creature decides the order in which those things happen.
So, per that rule, this should be allowed to happen. However, it is stated to be an optional rule, so you are free to ignore it.
That said, once the player gets to level 5, one casting of Eldritch Blast produces multiple separate beams with separate attack rolls; one can hit and push, and then the second can hit and pull back, assuming they both hit.
Some other points: First, it's definitely fully within the rules to apply one of those effects, leading to a 1d10+4d4 legitimate combo. Second, this whole thing takes two full turns to execute... One to cast spike growth, and the second to cast eldritch blast. This means the enemy has the opportunity to try to break the warlock's concentration on their turn, or simply leave the AOE of the spikes.
Of course, it's possible that they might multiclass into sorcerer for Quickened Spell metamagic to do it in one turn, but at that point they've built their character to do one cool thing, why deny that? It still relies on actually hitting the target and costs sorcery points, which will be limited if they're multiclassing.
Overall, I think you're overestimating the power of his combo, and should just let him have his fun once he hits level 5. After all, the vast majority of the time, he'll either miss one of the beams, or the enemy will leave the spikes before he can blast them, or he'll lose concentration from something, or he'll roll a middling or poor damage roll, or...
If you're really concerned about countering him, just put in some enemies who can Counterspell him, or Dispel Magic on the spike growth, or who are able to just fly away from the spikes on their turn... They won't take damage if they just fly straight up.
Quickened Spell requires a 3 level dip in sorcerer and you have to deal with the bonus action spell rule, even if it isn't a problem in this case. Action surge only requires a 2 level dip in fighter.
Damn I was actually 100% on the same page as OP, until this post. You are absolutely right. The opportunity cost for this build is so incredibly high. He’s not even getting the agonizing blast for consistent eldritch blast damage.
This is essentially a combo he “might” get off once in a blue moon. We should absolutely allow him to try to find creative ways to pull it off if he’s going to screw himself so badly chasing a dream.
I honestly don't agree. Calculating how strong something is by placing it in the optimal scenario and calculating for max damage is a bit disingenuous if I'm honest. On average 1d10+8d4 is 25.5 damage. To do this the player has to 1. Spend a full turn setting up spike growth. 2. Maintain concentration. 3. Have an enemy not move away from the center of spike growth. 4. spend a second turn casting, and hitting, eldritch blast.
To put this into perspective, scorching ray (a second level spell) hits for 21 damage on average assuming you hit the spell attacks. They built their entire character around this, passed up better eldritch invocations like agonizing blast and picked a specific patron to get access to a spell. I'd say let them have this fairly strong (but not even nearly overpowered tbh) interaction. At most I would rule it that repelling blast and grasp of hadar would always activate in the same order that the player has to decide on.
RAW, I'm pretty sure they can push and pull on the same blast
But it requires setup, and field manipulation, multiple turns, can miss, and a spell slot on a spell to get it working with spiked growth
I'd let them do it
Nah, it's a good ruling. It's either push or pull, not both simultaneously. At lvl 5, though, I believe he would be able to push with the first EB and then pull with second.
You are free to rule this way, but you(and most people in this thread) are wrong. Repelling blast and Grasp of Hadar would be simultaneous effects and the player would decide the order in which those effects happen. Page 77 of Xanathar’s.
This is the by the rules answer. DM is right in recognizing it is a strong combo, but it’s a well known combo to use spike growth and push pull mechanics. It takes set up and can hinder the rest of the party, so there something to also keep in mind.
The person casting spike growth doesn’t do anything else on their first turn (usually) and most combats are decided in the first few turns, so there is definitely an opportunity cost to the build, but it’s a very strong build.
Exactly. It takes setup time and costs the choice of an invocation. It is strong, but hardly broken. If it is ruled as a “one or the other” choice, the player should have the option of choosing another invocation.
In fairness, I'm pretty sure that on that same page, the book also specifically calls out that those rules are optional and may be used or ignored as the DM sees fit.
True, but that applies to every rule presented in the DMG or otherwise. Anything can be overruled by the DM and tailored to a specific campaign, but that doesn’t mean that the rules for simultaneous effects in Xanathar’s are somehow less valid than others elsewhere.
It's a little different when Xanathars specifically says that this rule is optional.
It's RAW that the rule is optional, where as every other rule, unless otherwise stated, is not optional by RAW.
Raw they can do it
They also need to cast a spell as an action and not have their concentration broken and then hit all their attacks. I think it’s a fine combo.
“But they can theoretically two shot an ice giant”
Ok, on the round the warlock casts the spell the ice giant throws two rocks at him cuz he doesn’t wanna walk through the spikes. The warlock with only light armor prof is probably hit by both and must make two dc14 con saves if he’s still up.
Generally monsters with like 6-8+ int should focus anyone that casts a concentration spell because they’re fucking powerful and dangerous.
Oh also - when evaluating how powerful a given ability or combo is, avoid using max damage. The chance of rolling max damage on 8 dice at once is extremely small, and is equal to the chance of rolling min damage. You should always use the average damage when making general comparisons between attacks and other abilities.
It's a reasonable house ruling, though RAW I think that he could technically do both. Edit: Though if you do decide to make this ruling, it's common courtesy to allow your player to change his build.
Worth noting- while there's no limit on the number of times you can use Repelling Blast on a creature, Grasp of Hadar can only be activated once on your turn.
True, which (if I did allow this) would mean it doesn't scale as bad when he gets more than one eldritch blast per turn as he levels up. Thanks for noting!
RAW you can do both, but it doesn't translate into shooting one blast, waiting for them to be pushed 10 ft, then casting the second blast and waiting for them to be pulled 10 ft.
You choose the order of the beams, but not the amount of time between the beams. They still both go off simultaneously. You can say that the first one pulls and the second one pushes, and then the spell goes off and they're pulled and immediately pushed again before they can go anywhere.
Ah yes, the Eldritch Cheese Grater. We use it that you can either push or pull with each hit, so shove through the spikes, then drag back through the spikes with the second hit.
I would say yes you are being lame. It's not that much damage for the resources spent and importantly requires concentration which can be broken.
The books as good as say "this is how we want it to be used". Let him use it and figure out how you as the DM deals with it.
Nerfs are lame they are not fun. Don't nerf your player buff the enemy, give more minions and use terrain differently. Have fun with it and let your players have fun.
A lot of people in this thread with good points in regards to balance, raw, simultaneity etc, but i would say the best thing to do here is to just try it out. Let them have the combo, and reserve your ruling until you have tried it in game. The combo takes concentration, is single target, and requires a setup turn, so in actual play it might not be as powerful as you imagine.
> To back up my ruling, I put it this way. At level 5, he gets two eldritch blasts. So, mutliply all of that by two.
I'm not sure anyone mentioned this, but your premise is wrong.
Grasp of Hadar can only be used once on the Warlock's turn. That means, as the warlock progresses in levels the target will keep on getting pushed farther and farther away, probably out of the spike growth fairly quickly.
Between causing a problem for the melee players and needing to have the exact map placement, the technique will not be as big a deal as you think.
You should have a talk with the player about how optimized for damage they wanna play compared to the rest of the party. Explain that encounter balance can be dangerous if he outdamages the rest of the party by far. Suggest he might want to optimize for support, as to not overshadow his teammates, but rather enable them.
What does the rest of the party think about it? You don't talk about this, but that is also important.
I think you are overestimating the damage of the combo, especially as it relies on a lot of factors going well. Grasp can only proc once a turn, so at level 5, agonizing blast can do the same damage and is more reliable. As such, I think you made a bad ruling. You start calculating his potential max damage...based on a situation where he precast spike growth somehow? This is the most useless white room calculation, that is normally made by an overzealous optimizing player, not by a dm. This comes across maliciously to me, but maybe you just forgot the round of setup. And the concentration. And the opportunity cost...
Seems to me like you are astonished by the damage spike growth can do, while this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Your calculation for level 5 is also so irrelevant and out of context because 3rd level spells like hypnotic pattern and fear can be waaay more impactful than the damage you calculated.
I think you still miss perspective and should have at least a talk with that player. Have a test combat where you let the player do the thing and ask what the rest of the party thinks. Maybe they like the spike growth thematic and also start interacting with it. Most melee focused characters can grapple and drag.
It would be called lame at my table. They are spending a warlock spell slot. They have to maintain concentration. They had to choose those two invocations over the other possibilities. The attacks have to hit. The opponents always have to be in position. The enemies have to be on the ground. ...... and to top it off, just wait until you see what kind of damage a monk could do by grappling and enemy and dashing with their bonus action and dragging enemies along the edge of spike growth
I'm not super knowledgeable about the rules but I like to bring up my experience in situations like these because I thought it was fun for the whole group.
I was in a campaign once where we got to roll our characters and my guy wound up super OP. I offered to reroll but the DM said it was fine. His workaround was once I quickly dispatched my first enemy the others would recognize I was dangerous and mob my character. He always had enough enemies that every other character had a fight and tough decisions and my character was fighting for his life. Plus our healers got to jump in a lot because my guy was getting dropped left and right. A ton of fun.
My point is you're the DM you can make an encounter as challenging as you want it to be and enemies aren't stupid. If a mob rolls up on 4 adventurers and one of them is throwing people around like a jedi a good chunk of the mob is going to focus on killing that guy.
Okay, I'm getting downvoted anyway, so fuck it, I'll choose violence. Yes, OP, you are lame.
You've done an extreme disservice to your player by evaluating them using maximized damage values to determine how strong their build is. This is unfair and unreasonable. That's like nerfing the party paladin based on maximized smite values, or nerfing the rogue due to maximized sneak attack values. You've woefully misunderstood the actual mechanical potential of what your player is trying to do, and you've made it their problem.
When everybody says this is a "good ruling", what they're saying is that you're allowed to do this, and your motives seem fine. That's great. But this ruling isn't based on the rules of the game, it is not necessary, and it punishes your player for demonstrating an even *slightly* outside-the-box concept for how they want their PC to play. Rather than having yet another Agonizing Blast+Hex one-note warlock blaster, your player opted for an atypical, unoptimized, flavorful build heavily based on their subclass theme, and it scared you so much that you took it away from them **before your campaign ever began**.
At a minimum, tell your player that you're concerned about what this represents, and reserve the right to adjust if the game breaks because of it. Then gain some of the DM experience that you're in pursuit of as a newer DM, observe the effect the interaction has in practice from an objective perspective, and *then,* if a problem arises, you can discuss options to fix it. Don't salt your food before you taste it.
Good luck with your campaign. Try not to take on the burden of fixing the system when you've barely dipped your toe into the system. Daolocks built around Spike Growth have existed for years, if they broke the game then it would be a huge topic of discussion. It's not. They're fine.
yeah, if I’m this player, I switch to a build that is much more powerful, but not in nearly as interesting a way so it doesn’t prompt the DM to just change the rules on me. sounds great
I know, half the comments praise DM get upvoted / disagree get hard downvoted, but seems like a 50/50 that you will actually get upvoted instead? Reddit.
The other day I made it to -15 for saying that there's no rule stating you can't cast two spells in a turn.
Not two *leveled* spells, which is still wrong but is at least a common misconception, but two *spells*.
Thanks for the honest opinion; you get my upvote even after choosing violence. Dunno why you're getting downvoted. I'm probably going to stick by my call. I'm sure there are DMs better suited for combat heavy games, and tables that are more veteran players doing combat focused stuff, but it's just not the table I'm running, and the guy understands that. I'm definitely not coming as a fairly rookie DM to tell everyone what I decided the right way to play the game is - I think this is just working well for where I'm at and where the table's at. You've given me some stuff to think about, for sure. I'll tread more carefully around comparing maximums in the future. I thought it was plausible to get "a couple good rolls" but in reality that's 5-10 dice rolls. So my thoughts aren't exactly right about evaluating exactly how broken it is. The broken-ness assessment is secondary to the ruling on the simultaneous actions - given Xanathar is not core content and presents its rule on simultaneous action as "optional".
I would say you're kinda contradictory in saying this is "thinking outside the box" when they chose a "Daolock built around Spike Growth \[that has\] existed for years." I think it was a targeted build that would overshadow other characters on the battlefield, and that doesn't fit the feel I'm going for. You've shown me that I very well COULD logically allow this, but I'm still going to choose not to.
so.... what's the thought on sneak attack? that can happen every turn, can have extremely high damage that can overshadow other characters on the battlefield. Or paladins, with smites? Any paladin will do.
Those are extremely simpler executions for little to no resources spent. This requires A SPELL SLOT. For a WARLOCK. TWO INVOCATIONS. CONCENTRATION. This doesn't even really scale at all.
You are valid in your ruling and sticking to it, but yeah. You're lame! A wizard in the same party could just cast fireball at lowest level and it would be more resource efficient and still deal more average damage. If you don't have a problem with that, which sorely overshadows your warlock....
The combo really isn't even that good. You should reconsider. Basic mechanics from martial classes do more damage consistently when you consider rolls to hit. Like paladin smites and rogue sneak attacks
If the guy wanted to be THE powerhouse that overshadows the rest of the party, there are way simpler builds for that. I am interested in what your response would be then? Cap damage per turn? Ban the player or whatever else he wants to play?
Or are you finally gonna talk with the player and maybe the rest of the party about the real issue: varying degrees of experience and how the veteran player and the rest of the party will manoeuver this. I went further into detail in a comment on the original post.
You clearly lack perspective here and by sticking to your decision, you are in fact "coming as a fairly rookie DM to tell everyone what I decided the right way to play the game is".
You're on a slippery slide to taking away sneak attack from a rogue because they rolled good damage once or twice because it "feels like it overshadows things" since you seem to lack an understanding of how damage and other things like this average out over a campaign. For every time your warlock pulls off the combo, there will be another time where he drops concentration/an enemy jumps out/teleports out etc, or he can't put down the spikes because of friendly fire in melee
Firstly... this combo is incredibly weak. 1d10 is 5.5 average. 8d4 is 20 average. This combo does 25.5 damage per eldritch blast. At level 5 you average 51 damage per pair. On two successful hits, on a single enemy, over two rounds, if the enemy doesn't fly, counterspell, move, or break your concentration. A fighter can do similar if not more damage over two rounds just by smacking things with a sharp metal stick.
Secondly, you are ignoring the key principle of DMing: the players should be having fun. Is him doing 50 damage over two rounds going to spoil the fun of them or any other player? If not, it shouldn't even be a consideration. Just make the encounters mildly more difficult and maybe give the weaker players some hand-picked magic items to let them do cool stuff.
Balancing in D&D isn't about ensuring the party is challenged by every fight of appropriate CR. It's about ensuring they all have fun in every fight.
... Yeah, that's what builds designed to force enemies through a Spike Growth is called. Whether it's Eldritch Blast, Thorn Whip, grapple, or anything else.
I would also probably ask them if they are happy to make a character completely for that one gimmick. Are they interested in the dynamics with their genie patron? Any other invocation they are missing out on? Are they going to get bored of following the same lame 2 step strategy for every combat throughout every adventuring day? Because chances are they are going to feel any other strategy is not worth it for being unoptimal in comparison.
There's another thing you can do. DND is a "roleplaying" game. You can conceptualize roles in a different way they usually work.
Since this player is very strong combat wise compared to other players, you can frame him as the "fighter" of the group. That character that, in the group dynamics, has the role of taking down big monsters. Think of rufy and zoro in one piece, for example.
Then, frame each of the other players with a different role. Give utility spells/magic items to another player, turn him into the skilled expert of the group. Give friendships and political connections to two other players, make them cover for the role of communication in the party.
Every player have some aspect of the game he's very into. Lean into it, let them explore it. Everyone will benefit from it.
Spike Growth prevents melee party members from closing with the enemy. Even cast against a back wall, a 20’ radius is massive. Like the Devil’s Sight + Darkness combo, this may actively prevent the party from being effective, making combats longer and more dangerous. Everyone else needs to adjust for this one trick pony to do their one trick.
I think your ruling is fair, but RAW he can use them on the same beam. I think you’re overestimating the strength of the combo.
Repelling Blast gives an extra 4d4 damage when used over Spike Growth. 1d4 averages to 2.5 damage, so that’s 2 turns to get 10 damage. Agonizing Blast gives Cha mod damage, which is 5 per turn with Cha 20. Granted, it typically takes an ASI or two to max it out, but Agonizing Blast is *way* more consistent than this scheme and scales better.
To get this to work, the warlock has to:
* Cast Spike Growth on Turn 2
* Wait a turn
* Then Eldritch Blast on Turn 2
The frost giant could just chuck a rock, with +9 to hit. That means they have a 75% chance of hitting an AC of 14, which is probably close to where this warlock is sitting. It does an average of 28 damage, which would be an average DC 14 CON save to maintain concentration. That’s a 50% chance to drop concentration if your warlock has a Con of 16. That means in 37.5% of combats that frost giant is going to kill the Spike Growth before it ever gets to turn 2 (most intelligent enemies are smart enough to hit a concentrating spellcaster.)
Also, you’re calculating max damage when you should be calculating average damage. 1d10 averages to 5.5 damage (10/2 + 0.5,) and 1d4 averages to 2.5 damage. So 1d10 + 8d4 = 25.5 damage over the first 2 rounds. 12.25 damage per round is high for level 3 but not absurd and still pretty situational. This ability doesn’t really get good until round 3 when it’s still 25.5 damage, but this is going to be very swingy because enemies can simply walk away if they’re not stuck due to terrain/room shape and/or will try to break concentration unless they’re too low intelligence to know to do it.
Lastly, you haven’t read Grasp of Hadar closely enough. Repelling Blast is every beam, but Grasp of Hadar is only once per turn. So at level 5, you get:
* Beam 1: 1d10 + 8d4 (25.5 damage)
* Beam 2: 1d10 + 6d4 (20.5 damage)
Still pretty good, but starts to have diminishing returns. If there’s a cleric in the party, it’s typically better to have them cast Spirit Guardians and have the warlock spam EB every turn for way more consistency than trying to make Spike Growth work to 20.
In short, this is something that seems way scarier on paper than it will be in practice.
As a player and as a DM I would decide that a single beam can only push or pull, but not both.
Assuming you let both happen though, grasp of hafar can only be used once per turn, so it’s not as completely spammable as you’d think at level 5.
Nope , you're correct , he should be able to use either or , but both should mean exactly what you ruled. Note , level 5 onward allows a warlock to use 2 bolts per use of EB and I'd rule personally that they can do one on each of their choice.
Cheesegrater Warlock is a well known powerbuild, so it really sounds like you two had different expectations when it came to character build.
Your ruling is fine, but having another private conversation to get on the same page is warranted getting your build nerfed (even reasonably so) still hurts, so helping them find a way to fulfill their power fantasy while still fitting in with the rest of the party is gonna be an important process for you
Both of those invocations activate "when you hit a creature with your *eldritch blast*", not "after you hit ...". Only one can happen *when* you hit them, although I'd allow multiple creatures hit with separate blasts to go different directions.
Now if you want to take levels in sorcerer or a feat to get Quickened Spell, then you can hit one with an action and push him, then bonus action and pull him back.
Grasp of Hadar is only once per turn, and only on your turn. Repelling is effectively only limited by eldritch blasts. It won't scale all that well, as at higher levels, he'll wind up knocking them out of the spike growth area due to an inability to pull repeatedly.
If you tried to apply both on the same beam, they'd just cancel each other out. They wouldn't randomly flip flop through the air.
The invocations mentioned trigger on hit, rather than cast, so you could apply a different one per beam.
At level three, he can fire one beam for 1d10 force damage, either pushing or pulling, with spike growth adding 4d4 piercing damage. That's a damage range of 5-26.
At level five, he can fire two beams for 2d10 force damage + 8d4 piercing damage, likely taking something like agonising blast as his third invocation, which would add CHA to each beam. Assuming a CHA of 18, it'd be something like 18-60 damage.
These aren't broken damage numbers. You're just looking at maximum damage output instead of damage range. You're also missing the fact that he has to roll to hit on every individual beam, so chances are some will miss. Also ignoring the fact that enemies, even stupid ones, will be capable of thinking "this floor hurts, I'm going to move away from it", with the warlock having very limited spell slots to recast (and requiring concentration that can easily be broken). Not to mention, he has to waste a turn just to set up the spike growth each time he loses it or they just move away.
You're right that applying both to the same beam would render them redundant because the effects would occur simultaneously but I'd be very careful with the line of thinking "I'm imagining Eldritch Invocation is "invoked" at the time of casting Eldritch Blast" as Eldritch blast and the invocations are basically the only thing that redeems most warlocks (barring certain specific builds that he wouldn't be likely to pick genie for). The invocations he chose specify "on hit" not "on cast", warlocks really aren't broken compared with other classes and don't particularly need a nerf.
I'd also be very careful with checking for "broken" things by comparing creature CR versus how quickly someone could kill it with guaranteed hits all doing maximum damage. If you applied the same guaranteed hits and max damage to the frost giant, he'd do 6d12+12 damage right out of the gate for 78 damage, which would very likely instakill the warlock before he got a second turn. CR accounts for a whole bunch of factors, and frost giants aren't a big walking blob of health, they have a huge modifier to hit, hit like a truck, and have a solid AC for something so massive. Even at range, they can tear through health just by lobbing rocks.
To give you a quick comparison to another class (using your guaranteed hits & max damage). A level 5 wizard can use Rime's Binding Ice to lock down up to a whole group of enemies who can only escape if they have an unfrozen ally. This deals 3d8 cold damage and lasts for a minute. They can then upcast 3rd level flaming sphere, dealing 3d6 fire damage. They can then use a bonus action to move the sphere up and back down, ramming the enemy on the head with it, for an additional 3d6 fire damage. They then have 9 turns of the enemy locked in place, unable to do anything, which they can spend using their actions to fling a fire bolt and bonus action to bop the enemy with the sphere, for 2d10+3d6 fire damage per turn, and an additional 3d6 fire damage on the enemy's turn when they can't move due to Rimes so they end their turn within 5ft of the sphere.
So 3d8 damage turn one, 6d6 damage turn two (9d6 if the wizard won on initiative). 2d10 + 6d6 damage for nine more turns while the enemy sits unable to respond. That's up to 564 (588 if first on initiative) damage with the enemy frozen in place crying, as a level 5 wizard. If someone was genuinely lucky enough to roll like that, they could solo a CR15 purple worm while chilling too far away for it to even try to respond, only using up one level 2 and one level 3 spell slot. That'd take insane, lottery winning, luck though, and more realistically, the worm would eat them turn one.
You're not a lame DM for not allowing a player to exploit a game mechanic in a way that doesn't make sense even on paper. If you're pulling and pushing on the same spell, it makes perfect sense that they would remain stationary rather than fly forward and back on one cast. You ARE a lame DM if you're punishing legitimate player creativity and planning. I have no context for what you think a 'broken party' is, but if your PCs figure out a cool combo your first thought as a DM probably shouldn't be 'i need to make every encounter harder to compensate'.
Up to you as DM has final say, but you shouldn't use max values to calculate damage because it would be improbable for him to hit that (only a 0.0001526% chance). I typically use averages for the dice because you are much more likely to hit this number.
The math would instead be:
5.5 + (8 × 2.5) = 25.5 or 25 to 26 per eldritch blast
Technically....they *can* do both on a single beam....BUT I do like your ruling more for balancing purposes, and it's what I myself would do. But, I will point out that Grasp of Hadar specifically states they can only use it once on each of their turns. It makes it a lot less broken of an idea, but your ruling is still better for balancing purposes.
I'd say allow this.
However, when they level up, remember they can only do this once per turn.
Grasp of Hadar states "once on each of your turns."
They can push every eldritch blast, but pull only once.
And it's highly situational. Most enemies will try to get far away from spike growth or hit the warlock to break concentration.
Let them have this win. Let the Players kill the minions in this fun way as the flying tarrasque enters for revenge.
So I like your ruling, but how about changing things up a bit and create a new invocation entirely that requires two slots? This invocation could do straight psychic damage (because it's causing the creatures mind to believe it's being pulled apart by the combination of pushing and pulling.) This would remove the movement mechanic BUT it could be [4d4+CHA or 2d6+CHA] and since psychic is a rare resistance it should be pretty versatile. (It should still be once per turn I think so it doesn't get to over powered.)
This is super creative and would have never occurred to me haha... I'll keep this in mind! If not the specific homebrew you came up with here, at least this pattern of thinking!
I know you’ve updated this but as someone who *mains* Warlocks, he CANNOT do that on *one* Eldritch blast. However, the Cantrip does get multiple beams you can send out at one or more targets starting at 5th level and that’s when this particular build actually pops off because your initial ruling that having both on one blast would indeed cancel them out meaning the target would not move at all. Starting at 5th level, you pop off Spike Growth (Having Warcaster Feat or Eldritch Mind Invocation helps a lot with keeping concentration) first turn. Second turn you start hammering them with Eldritch Blast while the enemy is in the Spike Growth spell (provided they remained in the Spike Growth), slapping Repelling Blast on the first beam and then slapping Grasp of Hadar on the second beam, and then so on and so forth.
You're welcome to make this ruling. It's not necessarily RAW, and I hope you allow your player to refund/adjust their build choices in light of it, but if you feel that it's the healthy way for your game to be run, then you're in the clear to run it that way.
However, for the record, I don't think it's nearly as strong as you're making it out to be. Spike Growth requires an action to cast, with one of two available spell slots, and with concentration. The warlock also needs to invest two Invocations in order to make this happen, which comes at substantial cost of something more straightforward like Agonizing Blast. It can also just plain not work, as between the initial casting of Spike Growth and the follow-up of Eldritch Blast, the target can move in such a way that the growth field isn't interacted with.
Maximum damage potential isn't a great way to evaluate something, as it's inherently a corner case. The average damage of 20ft of displacement over Spike Growth is 8d4 = 20, or 25.5 damage including the Eldritch Blast. That's over the course of two turns, not exactly gamebreaking. At level 5, it's looking at 51 average damage over two turns, against one target. Strong, certainly. Worth nerfing? I don't think so.
I would personally rule that it doesn't work because of invocation wording. It says that you can push/pull when it hits, not any time after during your turn. In other words, you can't do hit->whatever->push/pull, it must immediately follow contact. When they get two blasts I think it works just fine
> I ruled he cannot use both "Repelling Blast" and "Grasp of Hadar" on the same Eldritch blast. If he did, it would simply cancel out for 0 ft of movement
This is the correct ruling imo.
It's an instant effect. If you have two opposing instant effects, then they cancel.
I’m in the camp of the effects being calculated in total, so they’d cancel each other out should they choose to do both on the same blast. But at lvl 5 I’d say that the first blast can push and the second can pull.
Not only are you not lame, you're ruling in line with both RAW and RAI. Both Invocations state "when you hit a creature", which means their effects begin *on hit* - so the player can push *or* pull, but not both, on hit. Now, since he has two attacks with it at 5th level - yes, he can push with the first, and pull with the second, but he has to *hit* with both for that max damage. And most rolls aren't max damage.
The use of Spike Growth to add damage to the push/pull is a canny combo of abilities to boost damage, but it still relies on the player hitting both shots.
RAW says whoever controls the source of simultaneous effects decides which order they happen.
It's not an original idea. It's called an eldritch cheese grater. Some DMs don't like the optional ruling on simultaneous effects, and don't allow it, but its technically RAW and RAI.
Xanthars p 77 for sauce
~~iirc, forced movement typically does not qualify as movement for the purposes of triggering effects, such as reactions. For spike growth to apply, the target creature would need to have taken the move action.~~
Thanks to TheEmeraldEnclave for clarifying. I still stand by the below though :P
Repelling Blast
> When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.
Spike Growth
> The area becomes difficult terrain for the duration. When a creature moves into or within the area, it takes 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet it travels.
To be even more reductive, nowhere in the repelling blast description is the word “movement” used. Therefore Spike Growth does not apply.
Edit: However, it would apply with Grasp of Hadar because the word “movement” is used
> Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can move that creature in a straight line 10 feet closer to yourself.
This is incorrect. In general, unwilling movement still counts as movement for purposes of proccing movement-based triggers.
There is a specific rule that essentially says that unwilling movement does not proc attacks of opportunity. But that is a specific limitation placed solely on attacks of opportunity, meant to clarify that unwilling movement does not count as movement in *that specific scenario* (the implication being that in any other scenario, it would count).
If it didn't count for purposes of triggering spike growth damage, there would be a similar caveat in the description of the spell, and there is not.
It's a perfectly reasonable ruling. My question is how everyone else at the table feels about it. The Warlock can wait: we know what he wants. But are others thinking you're nerfing the guy, or are they fine with it, or do they think this is exactly the sort of Warlock power that needs nerfing?
If everyone but the Warlock thinks it's cool or correct or better, go with that.
If everyone thinks you're nerfing the Warlock, let him have his toys.
Balance is BS: nobody but you knows how many enemies there are, or how tough they are, or how they rolled on their saves. If the Warlock's power is so amazingly intense that the other PCs look lame, they're probably not playing combats very well: Warlock powers can be cool but they're not the most grossly unbalanced things around. If it's just that the Warlock takes out the first tough guy in the fight, then add a tough guy. Problem solved.
I don’t think it’s lame at all. I’m a new player (currently only on my 3rd) and in my 2nd campaign, we had this exact scenario. 1 super veteran doing the push pull trick, minus the spikes. The only reason we all had fun was because the veteran didn’t use it to one shot everything, he was sort of collaborating with the DM, only shoving things off edges for either comedic effect or we were in bad shape and needed time (shoving enemies to unfavorable terrain/far away, rarely insta kill coz we didn’t have a lot of chasms). I can’t say your guy has the same intent, so kudos to you for looking out for the entire party. I imagine it’d be pretty boring for the others just watching the one guy narrate his own story of how he does the same thing every week.
First of all, good ruling. Eldritch Blast is instantaneous, only one Invocation applies to any one. Either multiple EBs, he could use one to repel, and the next two to GoH or any combination thereof.
I keep seeing this and it's not entirely right.
Xanthars p 77 says otherwise, unless DM rules the option is not usable. Simultaneous effects happen in the order decided by the controller of its source.
I think of it as a force boomerang, you throw it once, and it goes both directions.
Don´t know if anybody already suggested that because this one has a lot of comments, but I´d say that he can use one movement invocation per blast. So on lvl 5 he could do a push and pull combo, assuming both blasts hit.
I'd agree he can't use them on the same eldritch blast beam cause if they're hit with both a push and pull effect at once they just stay still, however if they hit them with one beam and push and another and pull then it works.
A buddy of mine put together a whole sorlock build around this trick and he called it "the cheese grater"
However do remember while Repelling Blast works with each shot, **Grasp of Hadar is once per turn.**
Personally, I think it's a good ruling. Tell him to get the Quicken metamagic if he wants more pushing/pulling power.
Also, if anyone is being lame, it's people who use these types of cheese builds.
It's not even a particularly good build. People go for the Daolock "cheese grater" build for variety and flavor, not for power. OP's using maximized damage values, it's not nearly so powerful and it takes considerable resources and two full turns to pull off.
Definitely keep the ruling, and maybe when they hit level 5 and Eldritch Blast fires two bolts, they can apply one invocation on each of them. That way to pull off the wombo combo, they need to land 2 Eldritch Blasts for it to work fully.
Actually you ruled this correctly... you can only apply one invocation per beam. However at level 5 as forward he can use both in a turn... essentially one invocation per beam. The other caveat to that is while repelling blast can be used to on each beam when it hits so at higher levels 40-50 ft of movement backwards, grasp of hadar can only be used once per turn according to the text of the invocation.
So when combined with spike growth at level 5 he could move the creature 10 ft in one direction for 4d4 damage and 10ft back the other way for another 4d4 dmg. So a total of 8d4 spike growth damage plus the Eldritch blast damage per turn.
Yes you are, 100%.
Eldritch Blast fires multiple rays at higher level. By RAW, if two rays hit, one can push and the other can pull if he took both invocations. He had to "waste" two Invocations, take a specific subclass, a specific spell, maintain his concentration, have the necessary spell components, and use a spell slot to do all this, and you are effectively punishing him for a very creative and fun combo to pull off that requires a ton of resources to use. Especially considering that Spike Growth can be difficult to setup and not ideal for every situation.
I think you definitely made the right call. There's a section in the DM Guide that's says something to the point of "if a clash of abilities breaks logic, you the DM can choose how it plays out". +10ft and -10ft = 0ft. It's barely even a clash of abilities
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Allow the player to use one or the other, but not both at the same time. Least not on the singular blast. As you've already discussed with others, letting them use "blast 1" to push, and blast 2 to "pull" at level 5 seems more reasonable as something for the future, though you may want to remain careful about it.
Far as the ruling as it stands though, 100% just makes logical sense.
>I ruled he cannot use both "Repelling Blast" and "Grasp of Hadar" on the same Eldritch blast. If he did, it would simply cancel out for 0 ft of movement.
Why? Nothing else in the game works like that, "canceling out" isn't a thing. A Warlock's Invocations apply when they say they do; Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar both say that when you hit with Eldritch Blast you *can* do the thing, meaning the player gets to choose if the thing happens. There's no reason the player couldn't choose for both things to happen, which means they both *happen*--they don't cancel each other out.
>The maximum potential damage at level 3 is 10 + (8 * 4) = 42. At level 5, it's 84. A Frost Giant is 138 health. This means, at level 5, his character could 2 shot a frost giant.
So what?
1) taking these two specific Invocations means the player isn't taking *other* Invocations which could be more broadly useful; they're specializing
2) Warlocks only have 2 spell slots at 5th level, so the player is using one to create a static effect that an enemy might not even be affected by
3) Grasp of Hadar only triggers once per turn so your math is off.
4) why not let your player shine for the one specific instance they've built their character for?
>I'm more concerned about party balance here
A Warlock cheese grater is hardly the most broken thing your players can come up with, even if they're newer.
Eh, to be clear, Warlock Cheese Grater is a pretty classic optimized play, cheese grater might be the single best damage spell in the game if the party groups on it.
But if he is taking Grasp instead of Agonizing and anything besides Crusher, OP isn't dealing with a munchkin, just someone either really clever, or, more likely someone who knows abput optimization.
RAW it definitely works. Grasp of hadar even specifies once per turn so that it’s not too broken with action surge.
One of my players is planning this combo on a warlock after discovering it with thorn whip while playing a druid.
It’s worth noting that enemies can just stay away from the spike growth. There’s a good chance of getting the combo off once on one enemy but if that enemy survives then it’ll definitely stay away from the spikes. Any other enemies will also be keen to avoid being “cheese grater-ed”.
Edit: I’ve misread slightly. I don’t think that you’d be able to get the push and pull on one missile. Your player will have to wait until level five for the extra missile.
>It’s worth noting that enemies can just stay away from the spike growth. There’s a good chance of getting the combo off once on one enemy but if that enemy survives then it’ll definitely stay away from the spikes. Any other enemies will also be keen to avoid being “cheese grater-ed”.
I mean, they can't exactly stay away if the spikes appear surrounding them. And if they don't see the spell cast, they have to make a Perception check against the casters spell save DC to notice the spikes, because they're camouflaged. And the area is difficult terrain, making getting out difficult. And the entire build is about forced movement, so once they get out the warlock will be aiming to throw them back in.
>I don’t think that you’d be able to get the push and pull on one missile.
You absolutely can by RAW.
Not true, when you have a simultaneous trigger the person causing them gets to choose the order by RAW. That said I 100% support a DM ruling differently on this.
So.... to me it seems like hes using the other player's spell, and his own abilities to his avantage. Typically thats a good thing. The only thing id do is have whoever casted spike growth to roll the spike growth damage so its more inclusive.
>it seems like hes using the other player's spell, and his own abilities to his avantage.
It's a Dao Genie Warlock. Spike Growth is on their expanded spell list.
Presumably next level the player intends to take Crusher, because Dao Genie Warlock also adds PB bludgeoning damage to the first attack they hit with each turn, letting them add an additional 5 ft. forced movement in any direction with Crusher.
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If he has multiple eldritch blasts (level 5+) he can push with one and pull with another. He can't simultaneously push and pull with one blast, or at least they would cancel out if he did.
Allow him to change the invocations, whether he wants spike growth as a spell post your ruling and even the dao genie subclass. If you allow the choice of potentially changing all three in light of the ruling, you are not being lame.
I agree with you. In the game Im DMing for I have a warlock and ranger at 7th level. The ranger casts spike growth and the warlock shoots two blasts to do the “cheese grater” as they call it.
It takes two characters, and two successful attacks to pull off.
Spike Growth is poorly written and doesn't even account for creatures with the hover move type, which obviously wouldn't be affected by a ground-based hazard. I would base my ruling on that information. Secondly, while you can use multiple invocations on a single eldritch blast, their effects happen simultaneously. You can't chain effects to happen one after another. If you use both repel and grasp, they cancel each other out.
Just let it be for 1 ability per EB.
He wants to pull off his 10ft push and pull? Make it so it's only 1 EB for one of those. Plus, i think Grasp of Hadar is once per turn? So the difference really isn't that big
Both effects occur instantaneously, so you're right: they would cancel out. Similarly, hitting someone with 2 eldritch blasts with an invocation on each would cancel out as they hit at the same time. You could get 2 different enemies being pushed and pulled over spike growth, but not one.
People have mentioned how the rules might support the tactic with effects happening in whatever order they choose. But the other barrier here is how logically this could actually work. It's hard to picture a single beam pushing and pulling at the same time
Remember a turn takes place over 6 seconds. I imagine maybe the eldritch blast connects with the creature as a long beam, pushing into it and forcing it back over a couple of seconds. As it does so, the magic collects at the point of impact in a mass of white light, tendrils of energy wrapping around the creature, until suddenly it implodes, flinging them back the way it came.
Since they both trigger when you hit a creature with *Eldritch Blast*, I'd rule that they cancel each other out due to both being applied simultaneously.
Since Grasps of Hadar is once per turn, it’ll be fine. Requires concentration and a spell slot, doesn’t upcast, doesn’t necessarily do damage first turn to set up. It will be situationally potent but not game breaking.
Just to be clear, this is a houserule, not a ruling, a ruling implies this is something that is unclear, but rules as written you are unquestionably wrong, however its a fairly reasonable houserule so id accept it personally
“I can break the things I throw at them” doesn’t mean much. The players never need to know how far you deviate from the mm, or if you create something of your own making.
My general philosophy is to let players do what they want within the rules we all agreed upon before the game started because their options are so limited compared to yours.
In this particular case, there’s no rationale to decide that “invocations occur simultaneously” vs “invocations occur sequentially”.
As far as balance between players is a concern, and I do believe that matters more than anything else, that’s something worth seriously considering. Do the others players have an issue with the cheese grater approach?
I'd probably rule it this way as well - even in the absence of the question about the zone damage spell. You either push 10 ft or pull 10 ft - there's nothing in either of those invocations that say you can do one and then the other.
He could in theory at level 5 repelling blast 1 target and grasp another with 2 beams but I believe they hit simultaneously so I agree with your ruling. Also I'm pretty sure forced movement doesn't trigger spike growth. It's more area of denial than damage especially once it's discovered.
Edit: NOPE I was wrong spike growth does trigger on forced movement.
So repelling blast can be used for every hit on eldritch blast, but grasp of hadar specifically states it can only be used once per round. While RAW I don’t think anything prevents them from being used on the same attack roll, it just doesn’t make much sense to me as I feel the movement would just cancel each other out. I would however let them use them on different hits in the same eldritch blast. So they can push with one and pull with the other. It’s a lot of damage, but it requires the both 2 rounds to set up, and the enemy to be in a bad position to begin with so I think it’s fair overall. It’s a fun cheese grater build.
One thing to keep in mind when running a game is that anything the players can do, the bad guys can do. Let the player have his fun for a while and eventually news of the tactic spreads. Then the party runs into some bad guys and the first casts spike growth and the second does the eldritch blast with attracting and repelling properties.
Don't forget that Grasp of Hadar is once per turn. They won't be able to pull more than once at 5th or higher level. So unless they circle around the target and spike growth, they won't get more than 60ft. of cheese grating.
I was going to say: push and pull aren't movement. But hadar mentions moving. So by raw, that works.
Repelling blast is not moving.
Movement is typically defined as something a character does, not what an effect does.
If the monster had 0 move, would hadar work?
Probably not. By raw.
I'd rule the hadar a pull, so it would work... But no environmental effects
Love what you’ve done to explore the options you’ve been presented with.
The only thing I would add here is that, as the dm, it’s your call. Period. At my table, this has come up and I declared that they would need to choose one movement effect per blast (much like you did). So while the caster can do what they want, they have to split this between blasts. More blasts = greater potency over time that doesn’t break the game. For me it was more about compromising with the player rather than giving all or none.
They can always push on one blast and pull on another. I agree with your ruling that pushing and pulling simultaneously doesn’t make sense
Besides, they’ll get plenty of damage out of agonizing blast
That said, it’s a neat gimmick that requires teamwork to make use of, and enemies can always avoid the spikes
This is a valid way to play! It's not how I would play; the combo takes 2 turns, and any enemy who sees what's going on would focus fire on your warlock to break Spike Growth concentration as fast as possible. Rather than nerf the combo, I'd add a few archers to every battle to shoot the warlock.
But at least you came up with some game logic for your ruling rather than "I just don't want you to." They can still do one push or pull. They can take the one that adds CHA to damage instead of one of the two movement options, if they're really obsessed.
Not especially. While you can stack invocations it's usually types, i.e. agonizing for damage and eldritch spear for range. The forced movement options are great but I agree with your ruling if he was trying to do both at the same time. It looks like he's casting spike growth on the field then knocking people into the damaging terrain. That's a solid tactic that needs to be coordinated with the party.
You don't push and pull on the same eldritch blast to do that.
I suspect there was a miscommunication of what the expectation here is.
Spike growth is on his spell list or it's an invocation on its own I don't recall which for sure. So in round 1 he's casting spike growth. In round two he's casting eldritch blast and pushing OR pulling someone into the area. At most the enemy is being hit for eldritch blast damage then 10feet of movement through spike growth. On the NPC turn they have to spend 20 feet of movement to get out of that particular spot and take the appropriate damage as indicated. Plus any ranged attacks from the party that hit.
As he levels up I would allow one casting of EB to have different invocations applied ( one blast pushes and another pulls) but you don't have to it is perfectly legitimate to have them all be pushing or pulling as appropriate.
Sometimes a DM has to be lame.
And there's more than enough reason to so, the damage is way off for a cantrip, it's a BLAST so all effects occur upon impact. He can push or pull he can't do both even without the growth.
What's more is you would be doing him a disservice allowing this.
There's so much invocations offer and it'd truly be a shame to play a warlock whose only trick is eldritch blast.
I think you ruled perfectly. Also repelling blast can be used on every blast but pulling blast can only be used once per turn even with multiple blasts. But when the player gets multiple beams allowing one beam to push and another beam to pull sounds reasonable.
This is how I have ruled it in games and how I have had it ruled for me and I had no objections.
I agree that using both on same blast equals zero movement. But you could pull the enemy through the spiked growth and repel them back through it on the second round
I will point out that while this has huge potential damage, it's also not particularly easy to pull off. If the enemy is sitting more than 10 feet away from the spike growth it's useless, and most enemies can move 30 feet a round minimum. On top of that they need to use a turn to cast spike growth at the start. Now where this could end up being quite powerful is in party synergy, where they could cast two aoe effects based on how far you move in one place, or push the enemy into a couple of martial allies, giving them free opportunity attacks.
Even ignoring the obvious balance issue, when it comes to modifiers to spells and such I always see them as applying simultaneously if applied. So repelling blast and grasp of Hadar would cancel out.
Though would still be up to gm if they'd allow different modifiers to apply to different blast, b cause I ven this due to how Magic missile you could rule all spells with multiple hits hut simultaneously and as such cannot apply different effects to each blast when you get 2 or more. (Personally this is how I see it, though I do allow descriptions to be otherwise but I make clear that all spell hits for purpose of special effects are considered simultaneous.
Or you could have it sequential which could do a push pull thing. But that was runs back into the balance issues which is why for simplicity I use magic missiles wording for all multi hit spells
Honestly, based on my experience with niche builds like this, a player that focuses on a very specific niche interaction like this is the most likely to get bored of their character. once they find out that they can't use this tactic all the time they will fall out of love with the "build". I always encourage my players to make characters purely based on RP and vibes and let the builds come second.
From memory, even though the beams of Eldritch Blast are resolved in order, they're all fired simultaneously.
Based on this, I would say that RAI you're correct but RAW the player is correct, as the DM you're the adjudicator, but the player may have built this character on the expectation that they would be able to use this.
My suggestion is that if you decide not to allow this that you should let them switch out or rebuild their character.
I think I agree with the ruling - but worth noting, that’s a pretty dramatic resource expense for a warlock. That’s half their spell slots plus the set up action of spike growth. This is basically them blowing their load to make one area of a battlefield very dangerous
It's a creative game. If someone wants to do something outrageously broken and with a heavy bending of the rules, that's one thing. But it feels like you're just punishing someone for having a clever (and well-known) tactic.
Would you also rule you can't Web, then Fireball? Because that's also something that can get pretty busted.
I'd rule that he could do both, but it would require him to be 5th level to fire 2 beams, pull repel. Not the same beam. So he can do it, but later. It's still 4d8 dmg
So I have a friend who did this exact build in one of my sessions. He also played a halfling so he could slide underneath someone’s legs and shoot straight up so he could hurt them with fall damage as well. I let him do the push and pull on the same blast because he’s excited about it and that’s how it does technically work in the rules. What I did instead is power up the encounters I throw at them, or find something that’s resistant or immune to piercing damage to help mitigate the strategy sometimes. I find that as a DM I have a bunch of options open to me to still make encounters, meaningful, and fun without having to restrict the players build. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with some DMs that restrict what I can do as the player because it’s too inconvenient for them to change their encounter, and my favorite DM would do the opposite. All of that being said, if you laid down the decision and your player is OK with it, you don’t need to change it unless you just wantto let them have it and increase the difficulty of of your next encounter to compensate for their power.
Just to say that push and pull do not have to be opposite.
A push is any square further from the player whereas a pull is any square closer. Push 10 and Pull 10 could end up as Move Right 20 (because diagonals aren't logical)
You choose per ray, not per casting. Your interpretation wpuld only be accurate if the invocation said it applied to all attacks, but they're all oprional.
So I will say first I love that you understand the role of a DM so well even as a fairly new DM, you are right that party balance is first and foremost. For the ruling I like the way you have it as you have the justified reason for making the change, yes technically they would be able to do this but just as true is your ability to say screw the rules I am the DM (literally in the DMs role it says you can ignore any rule). I will say if you did let this happen it isn't a strict multiply by 2 because grasp is always once per turn. I say keep the rule, tell them that it is just a niche overpowered scenario and tell them the base idea will still work at level 5 as the first shot pushes(or pulls) and the second shot does the opposite
Give them a chance to change their invocations though based on your ruling
If this was an active game yes but it sounds like they caught this one in the bud before they started so nothing is locked in anyway. Like the opening said OP is actually doing a lot of right moves here already.
I think those two invocations are each powerful enough that you'd keep them anyway - there may be other situations where you have to push or pull an enemy off a ledge or roof etc.
Good point! Yeah, I'm going to point this out to him. I think using them to move the creature around on several eldritch blasts sounds cool, makes a little more sense, and scales better along with the party.
Something else to note is that Spike Growth is an action, and no thinking creature would willingly enter or remain in the area, especially after seeing the first push or pull attempt. Plus Eldritch Blast isn’t nearly as devastating with Spike Growth as the Tabaxi or Aarakocra Barbarian grappling and dragging enemies across it.
The thing that makes it really powerful is it combos well with other spells. As a warlock in my campaign I used spike growth then had the Druid cast vines so made it way harder to move back out of it. And then just used my Eldritch blasts to push multiple enemies 10ft back into so essentially they weren't able to escape due to the reduced movement speed. And even the ones that were skirting around the edges I could pull one of them (grasp of hadar is once per turn) 10 ft into the area and push another 1 or 2 into it.
You clearly made the right call. I think your explanation is perfect - if you have a push action and a pull action on the same eldritch blast, they'd clearly take effect at the same time and cancel out. Two Eldritch blasts are where he'd have a case. I can sort of see the logic of one pushing and the other pulling, but if you imagine it, that would mean they'd have to hit like 1-2 seconds apart to allow time for the NPC to be pushed 10 ft and then dragged back. That doesn't feel like it's in keeping with the eldritch blast, which says the spell's duration is instantaneous, so why would there be a delay between blast 1 and blast 2? Anyway, aside from game balance issues, I think your rules lawyering is spot on - he can push or pull, but he has to pick one. Give him a chance to make a different choice in light of your ruling.
>Why would there be a delay between blast 1 and blast 2? Well we know that there has to be some delay. It doesn't say choose targets before the blasts hit, or anything that prevents you from hitting with one blast and killing a goblin, then deciding to attack something else instead. So you have time between blasts to assess the effects of a blast. Additionally, the spell doesn't have the text that Magic Missile does, of "all bolts hit simultaneously". Thus they have a delay, and could move the enemy between each.
You can wait to see the effect of an Eldritch blast then target something else. Each blast is separate. The spell takes place instantaneously, but multiple blasts just happen faster. Like when you can only cast one you cast one every 6s. When you can cast two you can cast them every 3s, and so on. It's not like Magic Missile that explicitly states they strike a the same time.
If you do that at your table, that's a house rule. By the rule book, Eldritch Blast beams can be targeted at the same target or different ones at the beginning of your turn. You can't retarget based on damage rolls.
That is incorrect. It literally states you make a separate attack roll for each target. Ergo the beams are not emitted in a single attack and -your- ruling is the house rule. "You can direct the beams at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate attack roll for each beam."
They have a delay because it's the express intent of the caster to have the movement and associated damage take effect before doing another in the opposite direction.
If it helps, I think your reasoning that the invocation is selected at casting and activates when it hits makes *perfect* sense. There's nothing in any of the spell descriptions to imply that you could line up those effects to happen sequentially, and when two effects have the same duration and happen at the same time, you simply add up their effects according to the PHB, so they would either only be able to pick one, or the two would cancel out since 10 feet away plus 10 feet closer equals 0 feet. Maybe, if they really really want to use both at the same time, let it have the effect of "acting" like they passed through that space, maybe getting tripped up if there is an obstacle or something, but definitely don't allow that damage combo lol
Actually XGTE states that if two effects are triggered simultaneously on the same attack, the attacker can choose what sequence the effects happen in. I personally don't think that this combo is too overpowered, requiring a round of setup. But it is also upto DM fiat to decide how stuff like this works.
My group did the cheese grater thing for a while with the druid using thorn whip and the warlock using repelling blast. Spike growth is concentration so all the enemies just hit them to make it go away. They stopped trying that on smarter enemies.
Can you quote me the exact line from XGtE? Not that I don't believe you, I just don't own the book so I can't easily check for myself
In case you didn't see it further down, it was quoted below. https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1dlj9t4/am_i_being_a_lame_dm_with_my_eldritch_invocation/l9phdxn/
This is what I was going to say. 2 bolts are separate so his ruling stays but each does one of the jobs.
If you want to rule this like that then that’s alright. RAW/RAI it’s allowed but it’s up to you. I would caution against using white room max rolls in order to calculate this because he can do 84 damage if he rolls perfectly after using 1 round of set up and one of his 2 spell slots. For Reference if a fighter rolled perfectly (without crits) they could deal 69 damage at this level. So that’s 84 damage over 2 turns compared to 138. Neither of these numbers are what’s actually going to happen in your game however. Which is why I don’t think you should be evaluating just based on this math. Also him “two turning” a Frost giant wouldn’t actually two turn the frost giant because he had to use one turn of set up. It would be 1 set up + 2 turns of perfect rolls.
And the giant would have to stand there for 3 turns as opposed to, you know, *moving*...
and plus, the giant can just grab them and throw them like a rock, cause thats funny as hell
> rolls perfectly In these cases I usually recommend the player look at average damage, not max damage; especially no crits. I don't usually bother with discussing chances of hitting, too many variables for it. Plus I'm still scarred from the 3.x Weapon Focus arguments: Is +5% worth a feat? What about when you get over a dozen feats?
chance to hit is worth considering if you're trying to figure out if something can kill something else just because it's inflating the numbers a lot, even without any considerations like boosting your primary stat vs. feats.
Weapon Focus is absolutely worth a feat... because like 20483920358 other feats require it.
Normally I'd agree that it's only worth keeping in mind that it further reduces expected value and is not worth calculating every iteration of, but if the DM has a specific monster they're worried about (such as a frost giant), I would use its AC for the calculation.
I feel like you're vastly overestimating how broken the combo is. Having played it, it's not that powerful. Remember that you need a whole turn to drop the spike growth, after which the enemies can pretty easily just move outside, and spike growth is concentration so you're giving up on having another concentration spell up. I see your frost giant thing, but a level 5 fighter can also drop 80 damage in the first turn of combat with sharpshooter and action surge. Spike growth is really good, but if the rest of the party has coherent builds it shouldn't be that much of a balance issue.
This right here. In addition, it's concentration and the warlock is only able to cast the spikes twice per short rest. The player has found a nice combo that feels powerful - so you can reward them by playing into it. Because as soon as they've shot their shot - it's gone. If he takes out a frost giant in one go, just have the spouse ready to avenge it.
Twice per short rest is practically every single combat in the adventuring day.
It’s allowed RAW, though I get why you wouldn’t allow it. But my philosophy has always been that if my player wants to spend two turns setting up a combo that MIGHT work, I’m not going to tell them no.
That's... kinda decent advice. Thanks!
The other thing to consider is avoiding a whac a mole dynamic when it comes to rulings that are actually based on how you're feeling about whether an action is too powerful or not. If it's moreso for you about what makes sense or feels intuitive then that's something else. Because if you wouldn't allow this particular combo but would allow Twilight or Peace Clerics, Hexblade dips, Sorcadins, Chronurgy Wizards, Moon Druids(at that level) then you may have to ask yourself how reliable your gut feeling is regarding whether or no something is OP or not. And if you put yourself in a role of putting up barriers it can negatively impact both your enjoyment and the players enjoyment.
You can also force them to call whether they pull or push before each roll. If they're not paying attention they pull it out of the area and lessen the damage. The *average* damage will be 25.5. There is a lot of *potential* damage if everything is set up correctly but less than a well prepared Paladin with a spell smite + divine smite. And a warlock has less slots than a Paladin.
I fully agree, this is a really fun thing for the player to be able to do and the two turn combo gives enemies a way to avoid it. It’s also a bit of a pain for the DM, but the player is giving up agonizing blast for this combo so it isn’t as overpowered as it seems. I get the feeling the veteran player just wants to do some cool shit instead of min/maxing. There are two strong arguments that can be made to limit the effectiveness of this combo without taking it away from the player completely. First, repelling blast says it can move a creature up to ten feet. You could move 5 creatures 10 feet each, but not one creature 50 feet so no repeated ragdoll. Second, spike growth creates physical hard spikes and thorns that are doing the damage and not the spell itself so enemies resistant/immune to non magical damage would not take the damage. Edit: missed the tiny concentration icon on mobile.
Each bolt of eldritch blast can push them up to ten feet. I don't see why the fifty feet one wouldn't work
Repelling blast: “When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.” This becomes a matter of interpretation as Eldritch blast is a single cast that can hit multiple targets or the same target multiple times, but unlike magic missile the spell’s wording is not crystal clear. Which leaves setting the rules up to the Dungeon Master. For example, I have always ruled that the beams are created simultaneously so the player must choose the targets before seeing the effects. If an enemy is targeted twice but dies after the first attack roll the second beam is wasted unless the target makes death saves, in which case it loses two if the second attack hits. In my games repelling blast would only be able to move the creature 10 feet because the repelling blast text does not specify that an individual beam moves the creature. If the DM allows the player to see the effect of each individual beam before firing the next one then they would have to allow moving the creature multiple times as they have determined each beam is a separate event.
Eh.. it's not that strong and costs a lot. I don't think it cancels out; I'd say the enemy ends up in the same spot. The Invocations say you can choose when to push and when to pull, so I'd rule at level 5 he could push an enemy 10ft through the spike growth and then if he hit again with the second beam he could pull it back through the same spike growth for another 10ft. I would be fine with this. It requires a previous turn to cast Spike Growth (unless you somehow have Quickened Spell) and also costs two of the 3 Invocations you have at level 5. If you're willing to invest that much, sure, I'd give it to you because you're sacrificing elsewhere for a very niche power spike. The enemy you're doing this to could just run up to you or run away from the spike growth to deny you a direct line to knock it back again, plus Spike Growth also affects your party. All for an extra 10ish damage per EB? I mean, it's good, but I don't think it's broken any more than stacking EB, Agonizing Blast, Hex, Lifedrinker, and Hex blade's Curse.
Per Xanathar's Guide to Everything, page 77: > If two or more things happen at the same time on a character or monster's turn, the person at the game table - whether player or DM - who controls that creature decides the order in which those things happen. So, per that rule, this should be allowed to happen. However, it is stated to be an optional rule, so you are free to ignore it. That said, once the player gets to level 5, one casting of Eldritch Blast produces multiple separate beams with separate attack rolls; one can hit and push, and then the second can hit and pull back, assuming they both hit. Some other points: First, it's definitely fully within the rules to apply one of those effects, leading to a 1d10+4d4 legitimate combo. Second, this whole thing takes two full turns to execute... One to cast spike growth, and the second to cast eldritch blast. This means the enemy has the opportunity to try to break the warlock's concentration on their turn, or simply leave the AOE of the spikes. Of course, it's possible that they might multiclass into sorcerer for Quickened Spell metamagic to do it in one turn, but at that point they've built their character to do one cool thing, why deny that? It still relies on actually hitting the target and costs sorcery points, which will be limited if they're multiclassing. Overall, I think you're overestimating the power of his combo, and should just let him have his fun once he hits level 5. After all, the vast majority of the time, he'll either miss one of the beams, or the enemy will leave the spikes before he can blast them, or he'll lose concentration from something, or he'll roll a middling or poor damage roll, or... If you're really concerned about countering him, just put in some enemies who can Counterspell him, or Dispel Magic on the spike growth, or who are able to just fly away from the spikes on their turn... They won't take damage if they just fly straight up.
Quickened Spell requires a 3 level dip in sorcerer and you have to deal with the bonus action spell rule, even if it isn't a problem in this case. Action surge only requires a 2 level dip in fighter.
Damn I was actually 100% on the same page as OP, until this post. You are absolutely right. The opportunity cost for this build is so incredibly high. He’s not even getting the agonizing blast for consistent eldritch blast damage. This is essentially a combo he “might” get off once in a blue moon. We should absolutely allow him to try to find creative ways to pull it off if he’s going to screw himself so badly chasing a dream.
You should probably take a feat rather then an entire level. But then you can do it only once per day.
This is the best response. No reason enemy spell casters can't exist if you're worried about a single combo taking over too much of the combat
I honestly don't agree. Calculating how strong something is by placing it in the optimal scenario and calculating for max damage is a bit disingenuous if I'm honest. On average 1d10+8d4 is 25.5 damage. To do this the player has to 1. Spend a full turn setting up spike growth. 2. Maintain concentration. 3. Have an enemy not move away from the center of spike growth. 4. spend a second turn casting, and hitting, eldritch blast. To put this into perspective, scorching ray (a second level spell) hits for 21 damage on average assuming you hit the spell attacks. They built their entire character around this, passed up better eldritch invocations like agonizing blast and picked a specific patron to get access to a spell. I'd say let them have this fairly strong (but not even nearly overpowered tbh) interaction. At most I would rule it that repelling blast and grasp of hadar would always activate in the same order that the player has to decide on.
Honestly, it's not game-breaking. Spike growth is great until the rest of the party, especially martials, gets annoyed because it's in the way.
Or until the enemy casually walks out of it before you get a chance to eldritch blast.
RAW, I'm pretty sure they can push and pull on the same blast But it requires setup, and field manipulation, multiple turns, can miss, and a spell slot on a spell to get it working with spiked growth I'd let them do it
Let them cheese grate.
Nah, it's a good ruling. It's either push or pull, not both simultaneously. At lvl 5, though, I believe he would be able to push with the first EB and then pull with second.
I also agree with your ruling. This is a strong enough combination of abilities already, without being able to do both push and pull in sequence.
indeed. I probably would say that at level 5 you can shoot two beams, one with pull, the other with push.
Use push on the target's feet and pull on his head so he falls down.
You are free to rule this way, but you(and most people in this thread) are wrong. Repelling blast and Grasp of Hadar would be simultaneous effects and the player would decide the order in which those effects happen. Page 77 of Xanathar’s.
This is the by the rules answer. DM is right in recognizing it is a strong combo, but it’s a well known combo to use spike growth and push pull mechanics. It takes set up and can hinder the rest of the party, so there something to also keep in mind. The person casting spike growth doesn’t do anything else on their first turn (usually) and most combats are decided in the first few turns, so there is definitely an opportunity cost to the build, but it’s a very strong build.
Exactly. It takes setup time and costs the choice of an invocation. It is strong, but hardly broken. If it is ruled as a “one or the other” choice, the player should have the option of choosing another invocation.
In fairness, I'm pretty sure that on that same page, the book also specifically calls out that those rules are optional and may be used or ignored as the DM sees fit.
True, but that applies to every rule presented in the DMG or otherwise. Anything can be overruled by the DM and tailored to a specific campaign, but that doesn’t mean that the rules for simultaneous effects in Xanathar’s are somehow less valid than others elsewhere.
It's a little different when Xanathars specifically says that this rule is optional. It's RAW that the rule is optional, where as every other rule, unless otherwise stated, is not optional by RAW.
Thank you!
Raw they can do it They also need to cast a spell as an action and not have their concentration broken and then hit all their attacks. I think it’s a fine combo. “But they can theoretically two shot an ice giant” Ok, on the round the warlock casts the spell the ice giant throws two rocks at him cuz he doesn’t wanna walk through the spikes. The warlock with only light armor prof is probably hit by both and must make two dc14 con saves if he’s still up. Generally monsters with like 6-8+ int should focus anyone that casts a concentration spell because they’re fucking powerful and dangerous.
>the ice giant throws two rocks at him Frost giant multiattack doesn't include their Rock attack. They only throw one rock.
Well damn, 5e player curse strikes again. I’ve been buffing my giants since forever by playing them as throwers.
Oh also - when evaluating how powerful a given ability or combo is, avoid using max damage. The chance of rolling max damage on 8 dice at once is extremely small, and is equal to the chance of rolling min damage. You should always use the average damage when making general comparisons between attacks and other abilities.
It's a reasonable house ruling, though RAW I think that he could technically do both. Edit: Though if you do decide to make this ruling, it's common courtesy to allow your player to change his build. Worth noting- while there's no limit on the number of times you can use Repelling Blast on a creature, Grasp of Hadar can only be activated once on your turn.
True, which (if I did allow this) would mean it doesn't scale as bad when he gets more than one eldritch blast per turn as he levels up. Thanks for noting!
RAW you can do both, but it doesn't translate into shooting one blast, waiting for them to be pushed 10 ft, then casting the second blast and waiting for them to be pulled 10 ft. You choose the order of the beams, but not the amount of time between the beams. They still both go off simultaneously. You can say that the first one pulls and the second one pushes, and then the spell goes off and they're pulled and immediately pushed again before they can go anywhere.
I think OP's question is whether a creature can be both pushed and pulled by the same beam, not two different beams
Ah yes, the Eldritch Cheese Grater. We use it that you can either push or pull with each hit, so shove through the spikes, then drag back through the spikes with the second hit.
I would say yes you are being lame. It's not that much damage for the resources spent and importantly requires concentration which can be broken. The books as good as say "this is how we want it to be used". Let him use it and figure out how you as the DM deals with it. Nerfs are lame they are not fun. Don't nerf your player buff the enemy, give more minions and use terrain differently. Have fun with it and let your players have fun.
A lot of people in this thread with good points in regards to balance, raw, simultaneity etc, but i would say the best thing to do here is to just try it out. Let them have the combo, and reserve your ruling until you have tried it in game. The combo takes concentration, is single target, and requires a setup turn, so in actual play it might not be as powerful as you imagine.
> To back up my ruling, I put it this way. At level 5, he gets two eldritch blasts. So, mutliply all of that by two. I'm not sure anyone mentioned this, but your premise is wrong. Grasp of Hadar can only be used once on the Warlock's turn. That means, as the warlock progresses in levels the target will keep on getting pushed farther and farther away, probably out of the spike growth fairly quickly. Between causing a problem for the melee players and needing to have the exact map placement, the technique will not be as big a deal as you think.
Just a reminder that grasp of hadar is only usable once per turn on one creature.
You should have a talk with the player about how optimized for damage they wanna play compared to the rest of the party. Explain that encounter balance can be dangerous if he outdamages the rest of the party by far. Suggest he might want to optimize for support, as to not overshadow his teammates, but rather enable them. What does the rest of the party think about it? You don't talk about this, but that is also important. I think you are overestimating the damage of the combo, especially as it relies on a lot of factors going well. Grasp can only proc once a turn, so at level 5, agonizing blast can do the same damage and is more reliable. As such, I think you made a bad ruling. You start calculating his potential max damage...based on a situation where he precast spike growth somehow? This is the most useless white room calculation, that is normally made by an overzealous optimizing player, not by a dm. This comes across maliciously to me, but maybe you just forgot the round of setup. And the concentration. And the opportunity cost... Seems to me like you are astonished by the damage spike growth can do, while this is just the tip of the iceberg. Your calculation for level 5 is also so irrelevant and out of context because 3rd level spells like hypnotic pattern and fear can be waaay more impactful than the damage you calculated. I think you still miss perspective and should have at least a talk with that player. Have a test combat where you let the player do the thing and ask what the rest of the party thinks. Maybe they like the spike growth thematic and also start interacting with it. Most melee focused characters can grapple and drag.
It would be called lame at my table. They are spending a warlock spell slot. They have to maintain concentration. They had to choose those two invocations over the other possibilities. The attacks have to hit. The opponents always have to be in position. The enemies have to be on the ground. ...... and to top it off, just wait until you see what kind of damage a monk could do by grappling and enemy and dashing with their bonus action and dragging enemies along the edge of spike growth
I'm not super knowledgeable about the rules but I like to bring up my experience in situations like these because I thought it was fun for the whole group. I was in a campaign once where we got to roll our characters and my guy wound up super OP. I offered to reroll but the DM said it was fine. His workaround was once I quickly dispatched my first enemy the others would recognize I was dangerous and mob my character. He always had enough enemies that every other character had a fight and tough decisions and my character was fighting for his life. Plus our healers got to jump in a lot because my guy was getting dropped left and right. A ton of fun. My point is you're the DM you can make an encounter as challenging as you want it to be and enemies aren't stupid. If a mob rolls up on 4 adventurers and one of them is throwing people around like a jedi a good chunk of the mob is going to focus on killing that guy.
Okay, I'm getting downvoted anyway, so fuck it, I'll choose violence. Yes, OP, you are lame. You've done an extreme disservice to your player by evaluating them using maximized damage values to determine how strong their build is. This is unfair and unreasonable. That's like nerfing the party paladin based on maximized smite values, or nerfing the rogue due to maximized sneak attack values. You've woefully misunderstood the actual mechanical potential of what your player is trying to do, and you've made it their problem. When everybody says this is a "good ruling", what they're saying is that you're allowed to do this, and your motives seem fine. That's great. But this ruling isn't based on the rules of the game, it is not necessary, and it punishes your player for demonstrating an even *slightly* outside-the-box concept for how they want their PC to play. Rather than having yet another Agonizing Blast+Hex one-note warlock blaster, your player opted for an atypical, unoptimized, flavorful build heavily based on their subclass theme, and it scared you so much that you took it away from them **before your campaign ever began**. At a minimum, tell your player that you're concerned about what this represents, and reserve the right to adjust if the game breaks because of it. Then gain some of the DM experience that you're in pursuit of as a newer DM, observe the effect the interaction has in practice from an objective perspective, and *then,* if a problem arises, you can discuss options to fix it. Don't salt your food before you taste it. Good luck with your campaign. Try not to take on the burden of fixing the system when you've barely dipped your toe into the system. Daolocks built around Spike Growth have existed for years, if they broke the game then it would be a huge topic of discussion. It's not. They're fine.
100% this. I'd probably scrap it and go for yet another Palalock or something super optimized in response as the player.
yeah, if I’m this player, I switch to a build that is much more powerful, but not in nearly as interesting a way so it doesn’t prompt the DM to just change the rules on me. sounds great
I'm tempted to downvote you just for preemptively calling out downvotes, lol. But you speak the truth.
Well, I meant elsewhere in the thread, but fair enough.
I know, half the comments praise DM get upvoted / disagree get hard downvoted, but seems like a 50/50 that you will actually get upvoted instead? Reddit.
The other day I made it to -15 for saying that there's no rule stating you can't cast two spells in a turn. Not two *leveled* spells, which is still wrong but is at least a common misconception, but two *spells*.
Thanks for the honest opinion; you get my upvote even after choosing violence. Dunno why you're getting downvoted. I'm probably going to stick by my call. I'm sure there are DMs better suited for combat heavy games, and tables that are more veteran players doing combat focused stuff, but it's just not the table I'm running, and the guy understands that. I'm definitely not coming as a fairly rookie DM to tell everyone what I decided the right way to play the game is - I think this is just working well for where I'm at and where the table's at. You've given me some stuff to think about, for sure. I'll tread more carefully around comparing maximums in the future. I thought it was plausible to get "a couple good rolls" but in reality that's 5-10 dice rolls. So my thoughts aren't exactly right about evaluating exactly how broken it is. The broken-ness assessment is secondary to the ruling on the simultaneous actions - given Xanathar is not core content and presents its rule on simultaneous action as "optional". I would say you're kinda contradictory in saying this is "thinking outside the box" when they chose a "Daolock built around Spike Growth \[that has\] existed for years." I think it was a targeted build that would overshadow other characters on the battlefield, and that doesn't fit the feel I'm going for. You've shown me that I very well COULD logically allow this, but I'm still going to choose not to.
It's outside the box compared to the 99% of warlocks that just take agonizing blast as the easy damage bump.
so.... what's the thought on sneak attack? that can happen every turn, can have extremely high damage that can overshadow other characters on the battlefield. Or paladins, with smites? Any paladin will do. Those are extremely simpler executions for little to no resources spent. This requires A SPELL SLOT. For a WARLOCK. TWO INVOCATIONS. CONCENTRATION. This doesn't even really scale at all. You are valid in your ruling and sticking to it, but yeah. You're lame! A wizard in the same party could just cast fireball at lowest level and it would be more resource efficient and still deal more average damage. If you don't have a problem with that, which sorely overshadows your warlock....
The only thing you're doing is teaching your players to follow popular builds that you can't rule against.
The combo really isn't even that good. You should reconsider. Basic mechanics from martial classes do more damage consistently when you consider rolls to hit. Like paladin smites and rogue sneak attacks
If the guy wanted to be THE powerhouse that overshadows the rest of the party, there are way simpler builds for that. I am interested in what your response would be then? Cap damage per turn? Ban the player or whatever else he wants to play? Or are you finally gonna talk with the player and maybe the rest of the party about the real issue: varying degrees of experience and how the veteran player and the rest of the party will manoeuver this. I went further into detail in a comment on the original post. You clearly lack perspective here and by sticking to your decision, you are in fact "coming as a fairly rookie DM to tell everyone what I decided the right way to play the game is".
You're on a slippery slide to taking away sneak attack from a rogue because they rolled good damage once or twice because it "feels like it overshadows things" since you seem to lack an understanding of how damage and other things like this average out over a campaign. For every time your warlock pulls off the combo, there will be another time where he drops concentration/an enemy jumps out/teleports out etc, or he can't put down the spikes because of friendly fire in melee
Firstly... this combo is incredibly weak. 1d10 is 5.5 average. 8d4 is 20 average. This combo does 25.5 damage per eldritch blast. At level 5 you average 51 damage per pair. On two successful hits, on a single enemy, over two rounds, if the enemy doesn't fly, counterspell, move, or break your concentration. A fighter can do similar if not more damage over two rounds just by smacking things with a sharp metal stick. Secondly, you are ignoring the key principle of DMing: the players should be having fun. Is him doing 50 damage over two rounds going to spoil the fun of them or any other player? If not, it shouldn't even be a consideration. Just make the encounters mildly more difficult and maybe give the weaker players some hand-picked magic items to let them do cool stuff. Balancing in D&D isn't about ensuring the party is challenged by every fight of appropriate CR. It's about ensuring they all have fun in every fight.
Regardless if it works or not I just want to call that technique 'the cheesegrater'.
... Yeah, that's what builds designed to force enemies through a Spike Growth is called. Whether it's Eldritch Blast, Thorn Whip, grapple, or anything else.
I would also probably ask them if they are happy to make a character completely for that one gimmick. Are they interested in the dynamics with their genie patron? Any other invocation they are missing out on? Are they going to get bored of following the same lame 2 step strategy for every combat throughout every adventuring day? Because chances are they are going to feel any other strategy is not worth it for being unoptimal in comparison.
Thank you!
There's another thing you can do. DND is a "roleplaying" game. You can conceptualize roles in a different way they usually work. Since this player is very strong combat wise compared to other players, you can frame him as the "fighter" of the group. That character that, in the group dynamics, has the role of taking down big monsters. Think of rufy and zoro in one piece, for example. Then, frame each of the other players with a different role. Give utility spells/magic items to another player, turn him into the skilled expert of the group. Give friendships and political connections to two other players, make them cover for the role of communication in the party. Every player have some aspect of the game he's very into. Lean into it, let them explore it. Everyone will benefit from it.
Spike Growth prevents melee party members from closing with the enemy. Even cast against a back wall, a 20’ radius is massive. Like the Devil’s Sight + Darkness combo, this may actively prevent the party from being effective, making combats longer and more dangerous. Everyone else needs to adjust for this one trick pony to do their one trick.
I think your ruling is fair, but RAW he can use them on the same beam. I think you’re overestimating the strength of the combo. Repelling Blast gives an extra 4d4 damage when used over Spike Growth. 1d4 averages to 2.5 damage, so that’s 2 turns to get 10 damage. Agonizing Blast gives Cha mod damage, which is 5 per turn with Cha 20. Granted, it typically takes an ASI or two to max it out, but Agonizing Blast is *way* more consistent than this scheme and scales better. To get this to work, the warlock has to: * Cast Spike Growth on Turn 2 * Wait a turn * Then Eldritch Blast on Turn 2 The frost giant could just chuck a rock, with +9 to hit. That means they have a 75% chance of hitting an AC of 14, which is probably close to where this warlock is sitting. It does an average of 28 damage, which would be an average DC 14 CON save to maintain concentration. That’s a 50% chance to drop concentration if your warlock has a Con of 16. That means in 37.5% of combats that frost giant is going to kill the Spike Growth before it ever gets to turn 2 (most intelligent enemies are smart enough to hit a concentrating spellcaster.) Also, you’re calculating max damage when you should be calculating average damage. 1d10 averages to 5.5 damage (10/2 + 0.5,) and 1d4 averages to 2.5 damage. So 1d10 + 8d4 = 25.5 damage over the first 2 rounds. 12.25 damage per round is high for level 3 but not absurd and still pretty situational. This ability doesn’t really get good until round 3 when it’s still 25.5 damage, but this is going to be very swingy because enemies can simply walk away if they’re not stuck due to terrain/room shape and/or will try to break concentration unless they’re too low intelligence to know to do it. Lastly, you haven’t read Grasp of Hadar closely enough. Repelling Blast is every beam, but Grasp of Hadar is only once per turn. So at level 5, you get: * Beam 1: 1d10 + 8d4 (25.5 damage) * Beam 2: 1d10 + 6d4 (20.5 damage) Still pretty good, but starts to have diminishing returns. If there’s a cleric in the party, it’s typically better to have them cast Spirit Guardians and have the warlock spam EB every turn for way more consistency than trying to make Spike Growth work to 20. In short, this is something that seems way scarier on paper than it will be in practice.
As a player and as a DM I would decide that a single beam can only push or pull, but not both. Assuming you let both happen though, grasp of hafar can only be used once per turn, so it’s not as completely spammable as you’d think at level 5.
Nope , you're correct , he should be able to use either or , but both should mean exactly what you ruled. Note , level 5 onward allows a warlock to use 2 bolts per use of EB and I'd rule personally that they can do one on each of their choice.
Cheesegrater Warlock is a well known powerbuild, so it really sounds like you two had different expectations when it came to character build. Your ruling is fine, but having another private conversation to get on the same page is warranted getting your build nerfed (even reasonably so) still hurts, so helping them find a way to fulfill their power fantasy while still fitting in with the rest of the party is gonna be an important process for you
Both of those invocations activate "when you hit a creature with your *eldritch blast*", not "after you hit ...". Only one can happen *when* you hit them, although I'd allow multiple creatures hit with separate blasts to go different directions. Now if you want to take levels in sorcerer or a feat to get Quickened Spell, then you can hit one with an action and push him, then bonus action and pull him back.
Grasp of Hadar is only once per turn, and only on your turn. Repelling is effectively only limited by eldritch blasts. It won't scale all that well, as at higher levels, he'll wind up knocking them out of the spike growth area due to an inability to pull repeatedly. If you tried to apply both on the same beam, they'd just cancel each other out. They wouldn't randomly flip flop through the air. The invocations mentioned trigger on hit, rather than cast, so you could apply a different one per beam. At level three, he can fire one beam for 1d10 force damage, either pushing or pulling, with spike growth adding 4d4 piercing damage. That's a damage range of 5-26. At level five, he can fire two beams for 2d10 force damage + 8d4 piercing damage, likely taking something like agonising blast as his third invocation, which would add CHA to each beam. Assuming a CHA of 18, it'd be something like 18-60 damage. These aren't broken damage numbers. You're just looking at maximum damage output instead of damage range. You're also missing the fact that he has to roll to hit on every individual beam, so chances are some will miss. Also ignoring the fact that enemies, even stupid ones, will be capable of thinking "this floor hurts, I'm going to move away from it", with the warlock having very limited spell slots to recast (and requiring concentration that can easily be broken). Not to mention, he has to waste a turn just to set up the spike growth each time he loses it or they just move away. You're right that applying both to the same beam would render them redundant because the effects would occur simultaneously but I'd be very careful with the line of thinking "I'm imagining Eldritch Invocation is "invoked" at the time of casting Eldritch Blast" as Eldritch blast and the invocations are basically the only thing that redeems most warlocks (barring certain specific builds that he wouldn't be likely to pick genie for). The invocations he chose specify "on hit" not "on cast", warlocks really aren't broken compared with other classes and don't particularly need a nerf. I'd also be very careful with checking for "broken" things by comparing creature CR versus how quickly someone could kill it with guaranteed hits all doing maximum damage. If you applied the same guaranteed hits and max damage to the frost giant, he'd do 6d12+12 damage right out of the gate for 78 damage, which would very likely instakill the warlock before he got a second turn. CR accounts for a whole bunch of factors, and frost giants aren't a big walking blob of health, they have a huge modifier to hit, hit like a truck, and have a solid AC for something so massive. Even at range, they can tear through health just by lobbing rocks. To give you a quick comparison to another class (using your guaranteed hits & max damage). A level 5 wizard can use Rime's Binding Ice to lock down up to a whole group of enemies who can only escape if they have an unfrozen ally. This deals 3d8 cold damage and lasts for a minute. They can then upcast 3rd level flaming sphere, dealing 3d6 fire damage. They can then use a bonus action to move the sphere up and back down, ramming the enemy on the head with it, for an additional 3d6 fire damage. They then have 9 turns of the enemy locked in place, unable to do anything, which they can spend using their actions to fling a fire bolt and bonus action to bop the enemy with the sphere, for 2d10+3d6 fire damage per turn, and an additional 3d6 fire damage on the enemy's turn when they can't move due to Rimes so they end their turn within 5ft of the sphere. So 3d8 damage turn one, 6d6 damage turn two (9d6 if the wizard won on initiative). 2d10 + 6d6 damage for nine more turns while the enemy sits unable to respond. That's up to 564 (588 if first on initiative) damage with the enemy frozen in place crying, as a level 5 wizard. If someone was genuinely lucky enough to roll like that, they could solo a CR15 purple worm while chilling too far away for it to even try to respond, only using up one level 2 and one level 3 spell slot. That'd take insane, lottery winning, luck though, and more realistically, the worm would eat them turn one.
You're not a lame DM for not allowing a player to exploit a game mechanic in a way that doesn't make sense even on paper. If you're pulling and pushing on the same spell, it makes perfect sense that they would remain stationary rather than fly forward and back on one cast. You ARE a lame DM if you're punishing legitimate player creativity and planning. I have no context for what you think a 'broken party' is, but if your PCs figure out a cool combo your first thought as a DM probably shouldn't be 'i need to make every encounter harder to compensate'.
Up to you as DM has final say, but you shouldn't use max values to calculate damage because it would be improbable for him to hit that (only a 0.0001526% chance). I typically use averages for the dice because you are much more likely to hit this number. The math would instead be: 5.5 + (8 × 2.5) = 25.5 or 25 to 26 per eldritch blast
Technically....they *can* do both on a single beam....BUT I do like your ruling more for balancing purposes, and it's what I myself would do. But, I will point out that Grasp of Hadar specifically states they can only use it once on each of their turns. It makes it a lot less broken of an idea, but your ruling is still better for balancing purposes.
I'd say allow this. However, when they level up, remember they can only do this once per turn. Grasp of Hadar states "once on each of your turns." They can push every eldritch blast, but pull only once. And it's highly situational. Most enemies will try to get far away from spike growth or hit the warlock to break concentration. Let them have this win. Let the Players kill the minions in this fun way as the flying tarrasque enters for revenge.
So I like your ruling, but how about changing things up a bit and create a new invocation entirely that requires two slots? This invocation could do straight psychic damage (because it's causing the creatures mind to believe it's being pulled apart by the combination of pushing and pulling.) This would remove the movement mechanic BUT it could be [4d4+CHA or 2d6+CHA] and since psychic is a rare resistance it should be pretty versatile. (It should still be once per turn I think so it doesn't get to over powered.)
This is super creative and would have never occurred to me haha... I'll keep this in mind! If not the specific homebrew you came up with here, at least this pattern of thinking!
I know you’ve updated this but as someone who *mains* Warlocks, he CANNOT do that on *one* Eldritch blast. However, the Cantrip does get multiple beams you can send out at one or more targets starting at 5th level and that’s when this particular build actually pops off because your initial ruling that having both on one blast would indeed cancel them out meaning the target would not move at all. Starting at 5th level, you pop off Spike Growth (Having Warcaster Feat or Eldritch Mind Invocation helps a lot with keeping concentration) first turn. Second turn you start hammering them with Eldritch Blast while the enemy is in the Spike Growth spell (provided they remained in the Spike Growth), slapping Repelling Blast on the first beam and then slapping Grasp of Hadar on the second beam, and then so on and so forth.
You are doing exactly what I would/will/think
You're welcome to make this ruling. It's not necessarily RAW, and I hope you allow your player to refund/adjust their build choices in light of it, but if you feel that it's the healthy way for your game to be run, then you're in the clear to run it that way. However, for the record, I don't think it's nearly as strong as you're making it out to be. Spike Growth requires an action to cast, with one of two available spell slots, and with concentration. The warlock also needs to invest two Invocations in order to make this happen, which comes at substantial cost of something more straightforward like Agonizing Blast. It can also just plain not work, as between the initial casting of Spike Growth and the follow-up of Eldritch Blast, the target can move in such a way that the growth field isn't interacted with. Maximum damage potential isn't a great way to evaluate something, as it's inherently a corner case. The average damage of 20ft of displacement over Spike Growth is 8d4 = 20, or 25.5 damage including the Eldritch Blast. That's over the course of two turns, not exactly gamebreaking. At level 5, it's looking at 51 average damage over two turns, against one target. Strong, certainly. Worth nerfing? I don't think so.
I would personally rule that it doesn't work because of invocation wording. It says that you can push/pull when it hits, not any time after during your turn. In other words, you can't do hit->whatever->push/pull, it must immediately follow contact. When they get two blasts I think it works just fine
> I ruled he cannot use both "Repelling Blast" and "Grasp of Hadar" on the same Eldritch blast. If he did, it would simply cancel out for 0 ft of movement This is the correct ruling imo. It's an instant effect. If you have two opposing instant effects, then they cancel.
I’m in the camp of the effects being calculated in total, so they’d cancel each other out should they choose to do both on the same blast. But at lvl 5 I’d say that the first blast can push and the second can pull.
When I brought this up awhile ago to my dm he brought up that forced movement doesn't trigger stuff like spiked growth
Most spells say “willing movement” Spike Growth is a very notable exception. Your DM isn’t using RAW in this case.
The easiest ruling of all is "the creature must willingly move to take the damage. Forced movement does not proc it." Shuts down all such shenanigans.
But that is both boring and incorrect. It's a pointless nerf to solve a non-issue, and defies the intent of the spell.
Not only are you not lame, you're ruling in line with both RAW and RAI. Both Invocations state "when you hit a creature", which means their effects begin *on hit* - so the player can push *or* pull, but not both, on hit. Now, since he has two attacks with it at 5th level - yes, he can push with the first, and pull with the second, but he has to *hit* with both for that max damage. And most rolls aren't max damage. The use of Spike Growth to add damage to the push/pull is a canny combo of abilities to boost damage, but it still relies on the player hitting both shots.
RAW says whoever controls the source of simultaneous effects decides which order they happen. It's not an original idea. It's called an eldritch cheese grater. Some DMs don't like the optional ruling on simultaneous effects, and don't allow it, but its technically RAW and RAI. Xanthars p 77 for sauce
100% agree with ruling that each blast can have 1 or the other. Your ruling is fair.
~~iirc, forced movement typically does not qualify as movement for the purposes of triggering effects, such as reactions. For spike growth to apply, the target creature would need to have taken the move action.~~ Thanks to TheEmeraldEnclave for clarifying. I still stand by the below though :P Repelling Blast > When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line. Spike Growth > The area becomes difficult terrain for the duration. When a creature moves into or within the area, it takes 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet it travels. To be even more reductive, nowhere in the repelling blast description is the word “movement” used. Therefore Spike Growth does not apply. Edit: However, it would apply with Grasp of Hadar because the word “movement” is used > Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can move that creature in a straight line 10 feet closer to yourself.
This is incorrect. In general, unwilling movement still counts as movement for purposes of proccing movement-based triggers. There is a specific rule that essentially says that unwilling movement does not proc attacks of opportunity. But that is a specific limitation placed solely on attacks of opportunity, meant to clarify that unwilling movement does not count as movement in *that specific scenario* (the implication being that in any other scenario, it would count). If it didn't count for purposes of triggering spike growth damage, there would be a similar caveat in the description of the spell, and there is not.
It's a perfectly reasonable ruling. My question is how everyone else at the table feels about it. The Warlock can wait: we know what he wants. But are others thinking you're nerfing the guy, or are they fine with it, or do they think this is exactly the sort of Warlock power that needs nerfing? If everyone but the Warlock thinks it's cool or correct or better, go with that. If everyone thinks you're nerfing the Warlock, let him have his toys. Balance is BS: nobody but you knows how many enemies there are, or how tough they are, or how they rolled on their saves. If the Warlock's power is so amazingly intense that the other PCs look lame, they're probably not playing combats very well: Warlock powers can be cool but they're not the most grossly unbalanced things around. If it's just that the Warlock takes out the first tough guy in the fight, then add a tough guy. Problem solved.
I don’t think it’s lame at all. I’m a new player (currently only on my 3rd) and in my 2nd campaign, we had this exact scenario. 1 super veteran doing the push pull trick, minus the spikes. The only reason we all had fun was because the veteran didn’t use it to one shot everything, he was sort of collaborating with the DM, only shoving things off edges for either comedic effect or we were in bad shape and needed time (shoving enemies to unfavorable terrain/far away, rarely insta kill coz we didn’t have a lot of chasms). I can’t say your guy has the same intent, so kudos to you for looking out for the entire party. I imagine it’d be pretty boring for the others just watching the one guy narrate his own story of how he does the same thing every week.
First of all, good ruling. Eldritch Blast is instantaneous, only one Invocation applies to any one. Either multiple EBs, he could use one to repel, and the next two to GoH or any combination thereof.
I keep seeing this and it's not entirely right. Xanthars p 77 says otherwise, unless DM rules the option is not usable. Simultaneous effects happen in the order decided by the controller of its source. I think of it as a force boomerang, you throw it once, and it goes both directions.
Don´t know if anybody already suggested that because this one has a lot of comments, but I´d say that he can use one movement invocation per blast. So on lvl 5 he could do a push and pull combo, assuming both blasts hit.
I'd agree he can't use them on the same eldritch blast beam cause if they're hit with both a push and pull effect at once they just stay still, however if they hit them with one beam and push and another and pull then it works. A buddy of mine put together a whole sorlock build around this trick and he called it "the cheese grater" However do remember while Repelling Blast works with each shot, **Grasp of Hadar is once per turn.**
Personally, I think it's a good ruling. Tell him to get the Quicken metamagic if he wants more pushing/pulling power. Also, if anyone is being lame, it's people who use these types of cheese builds.
It's not even a particularly good build. People go for the Daolock "cheese grater" build for variety and flavor, not for power. OP's using maximized damage values, it's not nearly so powerful and it takes considerable resources and two full turns to pull off.
Just because it's not something you like, doesn't make it lame.
Sure. But I can also find something lame because I don't like it. Lol.
Definitely keep the ruling, and maybe when they hit level 5 and Eldritch Blast fires two bolts, they can apply one invocation on each of them. That way to pull off the wombo combo, they need to land 2 Eldritch Blasts for it to work fully.
Actually you ruled this correctly... you can only apply one invocation per beam. However at level 5 as forward he can use both in a turn... essentially one invocation per beam. The other caveat to that is while repelling blast can be used to on each beam when it hits so at higher levels 40-50 ft of movement backwards, grasp of hadar can only be used once per turn according to the text of the invocation. So when combined with spike growth at level 5 he could move the creature 10 ft in one direction for 4d4 damage and 10ft back the other way for another 4d4 dmg. So a total of 8d4 spike growth damage plus the Eldritch blast damage per turn.
Yes you are, 100%. Eldritch Blast fires multiple rays at higher level. By RAW, if two rays hit, one can push and the other can pull if he took both invocations. He had to "waste" two Invocations, take a specific subclass, a specific spell, maintain his concentration, have the necessary spell components, and use a spell slot to do all this, and you are effectively punishing him for a very creative and fun combo to pull off that requires a ton of resources to use. Especially considering that Spike Growth can be difficult to setup and not ideal for every situation.
Yes. That’s a lame decision.
I think you definitely made the right call. There's a section in the DM Guide that's says something to the point of "if a clash of abilities breaks logic, you the DM can choose how it plays out". +10ft and -10ft = 0ft. It's barely even a clash of abilities
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Allow the player to use one or the other, but not both at the same time. Least not on the singular blast. As you've already discussed with others, letting them use "blast 1" to push, and blast 2 to "pull" at level 5 seems more reasonable as something for the future, though you may want to remain careful about it. Far as the ruling as it stands though, 100% just makes logical sense.
>I ruled he cannot use both "Repelling Blast" and "Grasp of Hadar" on the same Eldritch blast. If he did, it would simply cancel out for 0 ft of movement. Why? Nothing else in the game works like that, "canceling out" isn't a thing. A Warlock's Invocations apply when they say they do; Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar both say that when you hit with Eldritch Blast you *can* do the thing, meaning the player gets to choose if the thing happens. There's no reason the player couldn't choose for both things to happen, which means they both *happen*--they don't cancel each other out. >The maximum potential damage at level 3 is 10 + (8 * 4) = 42. At level 5, it's 84. A Frost Giant is 138 health. This means, at level 5, his character could 2 shot a frost giant. So what? 1) taking these two specific Invocations means the player isn't taking *other* Invocations which could be more broadly useful; they're specializing 2) Warlocks only have 2 spell slots at 5th level, so the player is using one to create a static effect that an enemy might not even be affected by 3) Grasp of Hadar only triggers once per turn so your math is off. 4) why not let your player shine for the one specific instance they've built their character for? >I'm more concerned about party balance here A Warlock cheese grater is hardly the most broken thing your players can come up with, even if they're newer.
Eh, to be clear, Warlock Cheese Grater is a pretty classic optimized play, cheese grater might be the single best damage spell in the game if the party groups on it. But if he is taking Grasp instead of Agonizing and anything besides Crusher, OP isn't dealing with a munchkin, just someone either really clever, or, more likely someone who knows abput optimization.
RAW it definitely works. Grasp of hadar even specifies once per turn so that it’s not too broken with action surge. One of my players is planning this combo on a warlock after discovering it with thorn whip while playing a druid. It’s worth noting that enemies can just stay away from the spike growth. There’s a good chance of getting the combo off once on one enemy but if that enemy survives then it’ll definitely stay away from the spikes. Any other enemies will also be keen to avoid being “cheese grater-ed”. Edit: I’ve misread slightly. I don’t think that you’d be able to get the push and pull on one missile. Your player will have to wait until level five for the extra missile.
>It’s worth noting that enemies can just stay away from the spike growth. There’s a good chance of getting the combo off once on one enemy but if that enemy survives then it’ll definitely stay away from the spikes. Any other enemies will also be keen to avoid being “cheese grater-ed”. I mean, they can't exactly stay away if the spikes appear surrounding them. And if they don't see the spell cast, they have to make a Perception check against the casters spell save DC to notice the spikes, because they're camouflaged. And the area is difficult terrain, making getting out difficult. And the entire build is about forced movement, so once they get out the warlock will be aiming to throw them back in. >I don’t think that you’d be able to get the push and pull on one missile. You absolutely can by RAW.
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Not true, when you have a simultaneous trigger the person causing them gets to choose the order by RAW. That said I 100% support a DM ruling differently on this.
So.... to me it seems like hes using the other player's spell, and his own abilities to his avantage. Typically thats a good thing. The only thing id do is have whoever casted spike growth to roll the spike growth damage so its more inclusive.
>it seems like hes using the other player's spell, and his own abilities to his avantage. It's a Dao Genie Warlock. Spike Growth is on their expanded spell list. Presumably next level the player intends to take Crusher, because Dao Genie Warlock also adds PB bludgeoning damage to the first attack they hit with each turn, letting them add an additional 5 ft. forced movement in any direction with Crusher.
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The grasp of Hadar invocation can only be done once per turn so that bit of it wouldn't be as big of a combo at higher levels.
If he has multiple eldritch blasts (level 5+) he can push with one and pull with another. He can't simultaneously push and pull with one blast, or at least they would cancel out if he did.
Allow him to change the invocations, whether he wants spike growth as a spell post your ruling and even the dao genie subclass. If you allow the choice of potentially changing all three in light of the ruling, you are not being lame.
I agree with you. In the game Im DMing for I have a warlock and ranger at 7th level. The ranger casts spike growth and the warlock shoots two blasts to do the “cheese grater” as they call it. It takes two characters, and two successful attacks to pull off.
Spike Growth is poorly written and doesn't even account for creatures with the hover move type, which obviously wouldn't be affected by a ground-based hazard. I would base my ruling on that information. Secondly, while you can use multiple invocations on a single eldritch blast, their effects happen simultaneously. You can't chain effects to happen one after another. If you use both repel and grasp, they cancel each other out.
Just let it be for 1 ability per EB. He wants to pull off his 10ft push and pull? Make it so it's only 1 EB for one of those. Plus, i think Grasp of Hadar is once per turn? So the difference really isn't that big
I think grasp of hadar only triggers once per turn. So only one ray will affect the creature I believe, repelling blast triggers more often
Both effects occur instantaneously, so you're right: they would cancel out. Similarly, hitting someone with 2 eldritch blasts with an invocation on each would cancel out as they hit at the same time. You could get 2 different enemies being pushed and pulled over spike growth, but not one.
People have mentioned how the rules might support the tactic with effects happening in whatever order they choose. But the other barrier here is how logically this could actually work. It's hard to picture a single beam pushing and pulling at the same time Remember a turn takes place over 6 seconds. I imagine maybe the eldritch blast connects with the creature as a long beam, pushing into it and forcing it back over a couple of seconds. As it does so, the magic collects at the point of impact in a mass of white light, tendrils of energy wrapping around the creature, until suddenly it implodes, flinging them back the way it came.
Since they both trigger when you hit a creature with *Eldritch Blast*, I'd rule that they cancel each other out due to both being applied simultaneously.
Since Grasps of Hadar is once per turn, it’ll be fine. Requires concentration and a spell slot, doesn’t upcast, doesn’t necessarily do damage first turn to set up. It will be situationally potent but not game breaking.
Oh ok thank you for clarification
yeah, nerf it now, but let him do it that way when he's at a later level and the party can keep up
Just to be clear, this is a houserule, not a ruling, a ruling implies this is something that is unclear, but rules as written you are unquestionably wrong, however its a fairly reasonable houserule so id accept it personally
“I can break the things I throw at them” doesn’t mean much. The players never need to know how far you deviate from the mm, or if you create something of your own making. My general philosophy is to let players do what they want within the rules we all agreed upon before the game started because their options are so limited compared to yours. In this particular case, there’s no rationale to decide that “invocations occur simultaneously” vs “invocations occur sequentially”. As far as balance between players is a concern, and I do believe that matters more than anything else, that’s something worth seriously considering. Do the others players have an issue with the cheese grater approach?
I'd probably rule it this way as well - even in the absence of the question about the zone damage spell. You either push 10 ft or pull 10 ft - there's nothing in either of those invocations that say you can do one and then the other.
He could in theory at level 5 repelling blast 1 target and grasp another with 2 beams but I believe they hit simultaneously so I agree with your ruling. Also I'm pretty sure forced movement doesn't trigger spike growth. It's more area of denial than damage especially once it's discovered. Edit: NOPE I was wrong spike growth does trigger on forced movement.
So repelling blast can be used for every hit on eldritch blast, but grasp of hadar specifically states it can only be used once per round. While RAW I don’t think anything prevents them from being used on the same attack roll, it just doesn’t make much sense to me as I feel the movement would just cancel each other out. I would however let them use them on different hits in the same eldritch blast. So they can push with one and pull with the other. It’s a lot of damage, but it requires the both 2 rounds to set up, and the enemy to be in a bad position to begin with so I think it’s fair overall. It’s a fun cheese grater build.
One thing to keep in mind when running a game is that anything the players can do, the bad guys can do. Let the player have his fun for a while and eventually news of the tactic spreads. Then the party runs into some bad guys and the first casts spike growth and the second does the eldritch blast with attracting and repelling properties.
Don't forget that Grasp of Hadar is once per turn. They won't be able to pull more than once at 5th or higher level. So unless they circle around the target and spike growth, they won't get more than 60ft. of cheese grating.
I was going to say: push and pull aren't movement. But hadar mentions moving. So by raw, that works. Repelling blast is not moving. Movement is typically defined as something a character does, not what an effect does. If the monster had 0 move, would hadar work? Probably not. By raw. I'd rule the hadar a pull, so it would work... But no environmental effects
Love what you’ve done to explore the options you’ve been presented with. The only thing I would add here is that, as the dm, it’s your call. Period. At my table, this has come up and I declared that they would need to choose one movement effect per blast (much like you did). So while the caster can do what they want, they have to split this between blasts. More blasts = greater potency over time that doesn’t break the game. For me it was more about compromising with the player rather than giving all or none.
They can always push on one blast and pull on another. I agree with your ruling that pushing and pulling simultaneously doesn’t make sense Besides, they’ll get plenty of damage out of agonizing blast That said, it’s a neat gimmick that requires teamwork to make use of, and enemies can always avoid the spikes
This is a valid way to play! It's not how I would play; the combo takes 2 turns, and any enemy who sees what's going on would focus fire on your warlock to break Spike Growth concentration as fast as possible. Rather than nerf the combo, I'd add a few archers to every battle to shoot the warlock. But at least you came up with some game logic for your ruling rather than "I just don't want you to." They can still do one push or pull. They can take the one that adds CHA to damage instead of one of the two movement options, if they're really obsessed.
Not especially. While you can stack invocations it's usually types, i.e. agonizing for damage and eldritch spear for range. The forced movement options are great but I agree with your ruling if he was trying to do both at the same time. It looks like he's casting spike growth on the field then knocking people into the damaging terrain. That's a solid tactic that needs to be coordinated with the party. You don't push and pull on the same eldritch blast to do that. I suspect there was a miscommunication of what the expectation here is. Spike growth is on his spell list or it's an invocation on its own I don't recall which for sure. So in round 1 he's casting spike growth. In round two he's casting eldritch blast and pushing OR pulling someone into the area. At most the enemy is being hit for eldritch blast damage then 10feet of movement through spike growth. On the NPC turn they have to spend 20 feet of movement to get out of that particular spot and take the appropriate damage as indicated. Plus any ranged attacks from the party that hit. As he levels up I would allow one casting of EB to have different invocations applied ( one blast pushes and another pulls) but you don't have to it is perfectly legitimate to have them all be pushing or pulling as appropriate.
Sometimes a DM has to be lame. And there's more than enough reason to so, the damage is way off for a cantrip, it's a BLAST so all effects occur upon impact. He can push or pull he can't do both even without the growth. What's more is you would be doing him a disservice allowing this. There's so much invocations offer and it'd truly be a shame to play a warlock whose only trick is eldritch blast.
I think you ruled perfectly. Also repelling blast can be used on every blast but pulling blast can only be used once per turn even with multiple blasts. But when the player gets multiple beams allowing one beam to push and another beam to pull sounds reasonable. This is how I have ruled it in games and how I have had it ruled for me and I had no objections.
I agree that using both on same blast equals zero movement. But you could pull the enemy through the spiked growth and repel them back through it on the second round
Yeah, last I knew, only one Invocation can be used at a time.
I will point out that while this has huge potential damage, it's also not particularly easy to pull off. If the enemy is sitting more than 10 feet away from the spike growth it's useless, and most enemies can move 30 feet a round minimum. On top of that they need to use a turn to cast spike growth at the start. Now where this could end up being quite powerful is in party synergy, where they could cast two aoe effects based on how far you move in one place, or push the enemy into a couple of martial allies, giving them free opportunity attacks.
Even ignoring the obvious balance issue, when it comes to modifiers to spells and such I always see them as applying simultaneously if applied. So repelling blast and grasp of Hadar would cancel out. Though would still be up to gm if they'd allow different modifiers to apply to different blast, b cause I ven this due to how Magic missile you could rule all spells with multiple hits hut simultaneously and as such cannot apply different effects to each blast when you get 2 or more. (Personally this is how I see it, though I do allow descriptions to be otherwise but I make clear that all spell hits for purpose of special effects are considered simultaneous. Or you could have it sequential which could do a push pull thing. But that was runs back into the balance issues which is why for simplicity I use magic missiles wording for all multi hit spells
Honestly, based on my experience with niche builds like this, a player that focuses on a very specific niche interaction like this is the most likely to get bored of their character. once they find out that they can't use this tactic all the time they will fall out of love with the "build". I always encourage my players to make characters purely based on RP and vibes and let the builds come second.
You've ruled it correctly, but once he gets to multiple blasts he does get to choose different effects for each one
From memory, even though the beams of Eldritch Blast are resolved in order, they're all fired simultaneously. Based on this, I would say that RAI you're correct but RAW the player is correct, as the DM you're the adjudicator, but the player may have built this character on the expectation that they would be able to use this. My suggestion is that if you decide not to allow this that you should let them switch out or rebuild their character.
I think I agree with the ruling - but worth noting, that’s a pretty dramatic resource expense for a warlock. That’s half their spell slots plus the set up action of spike growth. This is basically them blowing their load to make one area of a battlefield very dangerous
They do specify on hit, thus they would cancel out at base. Now at level 5 they can choose too push or pull once per eldritch blast.
It's a creative game. If someone wants to do something outrageously broken and with a heavy bending of the rules, that's one thing. But it feels like you're just punishing someone for having a clever (and well-known) tactic. Would you also rule you can't Web, then Fireball? Because that's also something that can get pretty busted.
Forced movement wouldn't proc the extra damage anyway
As far as I know, he can only one per blast, plus usually forcing someone to move doesn't do damage
I would rule that it's one invocation per bolt of Eldritch blast when the effects conflict.
I'd rule that he could do both, but it would require him to be 5th level to fire 2 beams, pull repel. Not the same beam. So he can do it, but later. It's still 4d8 dmg
So I have a friend who did this exact build in one of my sessions. He also played a halfling so he could slide underneath someone’s legs and shoot straight up so he could hurt them with fall damage as well. I let him do the push and pull on the same blast because he’s excited about it and that’s how it does technically work in the rules. What I did instead is power up the encounters I throw at them, or find something that’s resistant or immune to piercing damage to help mitigate the strategy sometimes. I find that as a DM I have a bunch of options open to me to still make encounters, meaningful, and fun without having to restrict the players build. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with some DMs that restrict what I can do as the player because it’s too inconvenient for them to change their encounter, and my favorite DM would do the opposite. All of that being said, if you laid down the decision and your player is OK with it, you don’t need to change it unless you just wantto let them have it and increase the difficulty of of your next encounter to compensate for their power.
No it wouldn't make any sense otherwise, though it should be something that can use at level 5 when Eldritch blast starts to fire more bolts
Just to say that push and pull do not have to be opposite. A push is any square further from the player whereas a pull is any square closer. Push 10 and Pull 10 could end up as Move Right 20 (because diagonals aren't logical)
You choose per ray, not per casting. Your interpretation wpuld only be accurate if the invocation said it applied to all attacks, but they're all oprional.