Agonizing Blast

Quote from GerryTheMusicMan >>

2 years later still not fixed. wtf

 Pop some popcorn, uncork a chilled bottle of Cherry Pepsi and join the Agonizing Blast chorus.

Please forgive me if I seem flippant or uncaring but this issue has gone on, and on, and on and it is occasionally hard to remain upbeat about the process. I am a retired software developer (1975 to 2010) and I have had to deal with information systems that had been expanded to the point of being extremely brittle and fragile. Software developers are not perfect, we occasionally make mistakes even though we seldom admit that in public.

Be patient, ask Gond (the patron deity of artisans and crafts people in the Forgotten Realms) to send divine guidance to the software team, or ask the spirits of Alan Turing and Grace Hopper to send blessings to the team as well.

Paraphrasing Athanar90's comment for the newbies that stumble onto this thread:

Agonizing Blast not working correctly on the (current) Character Sheet will continue to be an issue until they finish the character builder overhaul later this year. It's on the Roadmap. The current system can't handle the change.

That's a bit overly optimistic. Agonizing Blast may be fixed in the character sheet update that may be released at some unspecified point in the future. It is possible that it'll work by the end of the year, but I certainly wouldn't make any assumptions about that being the case.

Quote from Frachese >>

That's a bit overly optimistic. Agonizing Blast may be fixed in the character sheet update that may be released at some unspecified point in the future. It is possible that it'll work by the end of the year, but I certainly wouldn't make any assumptions about that being the case.

 Yeah, they've put out more information recently. It looks like a low-levels version will be out later this year, with the full set of features being added over the end of 2026 through 2027. But the way it's being designed looks promising, at least.

To add to my earlier post, here's the full quote from a Reddit AMA (24th Feb 2026) which shows the the awareness of the issue. Annoyingly Google isn't finding where the timeframe was mentioned, but I do recall reading somewhere that the backend rebuild was going to take the better part of a year to fix.

the news about the big backend rebuild is, to me, the most exciting. i'm curious to know what features were difficult or even an impossibility to implement before that we can expect to work seamlessly through the new character builder. can you name some specific pain points you want to eliminate?

WOTC_BrianPerry: 

I asked the team to give me a list of their top pain points and got quite the list back. Here are just a few things that are near impossible to implement today that will be possible with the rebuild.

• Monsters or Stat Blocks that scale with your character level (for example, the Draconic Spirit from the Summon Dragon spell, or sidekicks from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)
• Using Hit Dice as an expendable resource (like with the Durable feat)
• Giving Magic Items actions. For example, today, you can't roll the additional Fire damage for a Flame Tongue weapon
• Having conditions work in the character sheet
• A lot of UX-based things, such as being able to expend a spell slot to recharge a feature
• The Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul's level 1 feature from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
• Charms/Blessings
• Content that meaningfully deviate from the D&D 5E core rules in a non-trivial way
• Minimum dice values (like with a Rogue's Reliable Talent feature)
• Wider Eldritch Invocation support (like being able to target spells that aren't Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast*)*

The list goes on. I’m stopping here to keep it from becoming a novel.

Quote from Lamoon01 >>

To add to my earlier post, here's the full quote from a Reddit AMA (24th Feb 2026) which shows the the awareness of the issue. Annoyingly Google isn't finding where the timeframe was mentioned, but I do recall reading somewhere that the backend rebuild was going to take the better part of a year to fix.

the news about the big backend rebuild is, to me, the most exciting. i'm curious to know what features were difficult or even an impossibility to implement before that we can expect to work seamlessly through the new character builder. can you name some specific pain points you want to eliminate?

WOTC_BrianPerry: 

I asked the team to give me a list of their top pain points and got quite the list back. Here are just a few things that are near impossible to implement today that will be possible with the rebuild.

• Monsters or Stat Blocks that scale with your character level (for example, the Draconic Spirit from the Summon Dragon spell, or sidekicks from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)
• Using Hit Dice as an expendable resource (like with the Durable feat)
• Giving Magic Items actions. For example, today, you can't roll the additional Fire damage for a Flame Tongue weapon
• Having conditions work in the character sheet
• A lot of UX-based things, such as being able to expend a spell slot to recharge a feature
• The Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul's level 1 feature from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
• Charms/Blessings
• Content that meaningfully deviate from the D&D 5E core rules in a non-trivial way
• Minimum dice values (like with a Rogue's Reliable Talent feature)
• Wider Eldritch Invocation support (like being able to target spells that aren't Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast*)*

The list goes on. I’m stopping here to keep it from becoming a novel.

 On the topic of Blessings by a deity........

Yes, that "little" thing can be tricky to do; essentially, you have to go into Home Brew and create a Non-Attuned Wondrous Item that adds a +1 to your Armor Class, a +1 to your Charisma saving throw, a +1 to your Constitution saving throw, a +1 to your Dexterity saving throw, a +1 to your Intelligence saving throw, a +1 to your Strength saving throw, and a +1 to your Wisdom saving throw

It is a laborious process, fraught with misused key strokes and other mishaps

I have done it; it is a pain, it is time consuming, it is error prone and I hope to not have to do it again.

Quote from GeijerFeyLock >>

 On the topic of Blessings by a deity........

Yes, that "little" thing can be tricky to do; essentially, you have to go into Home Brew and create a Non-Attuned Wondrous Item that adds a +1 to your Armor Class, a +1 to your Charisma saving throw, a +1 to your Constitution saving throw, a +1 to your Dexterity saving throw, a +1 to your Intelligence saving throw, a +1 to your Strength saving throw, and a +1 to your Wisdom saving throw

It is a laborious process, fraught with misused key strokes and other mishaps

I have done it; it is a pain, it is time consuming, it is error prone and I hope to not have to do it again.

For the record, if you want +1 to all saving throws you can just use the "Bonus - Saving Throws" modifier rather than doing each one individually. This is how the Cloak of Protection works, for instance.