I'm relatively new to the entire DnD scenario over a month ago, but i'm honestly kicking my ass over the fact that I didn't join sooner years ago because it's such a blast and fufilling a big niche that i've been craving but never quite knew what it was until I watched Critical Role and The Adventure Zone.
I'm playing with a new group of players with a mixture of 5e and some segments of the other editions. Currently we have a DM who has a bit of experience DM'ing with his siblings but he is also learning about the finer details of the game as we play, so his opinion may change on some answers on these forums.
Currently I'm a Hexblade Warlock/4 with the PAM feat with plans to take Sentinel at lvl 8, who's also looking to multiclass into a fighter/3 down the line in the campaign to get that sweet, tasty Action Surge and becoming a Battle Master to gain the Tunnel Fighter style since this is essentially a homebrew game collected from other books.
QUESTION 1:
Tunnel Fighter:
Tunnel Fighter (Unearthed Arcana):You excel at defending narrow passages, doorways, and other tight spaces. As a bonus action, you can enter a defensive stance that lasts until the start of your next turn. While in your defensive stance, you can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction, and you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature that moves more than 5 feet while within your reach.
So from what I understand, is that with Pole-Arm Mastery you gain an Attack of opportunity from when enemies walk within your pole-arm's range of 10 ft., Also when they leave that 10 ft. Also if you miss the first attack, and they skirt around in your range / try to leave wouldn't that provoke another attack of opportunity in exchange for actually using your reaction?
Our DM is arguing that if you take the defensive stance from Tunnel Fighter that it cancels out the PAM benefits and that the range is reduced to 5 feet, which is confusing to me because the Glaive that i'm using is already a reach weapon by itself without the feat. Shouldn't the feats and defensive stance synergize with each other rather than cancel each other out and reduce the range, or am I missing something and just take the DM's word for it since his word is god's law in our game unless we jokingly provide a thesis paper proving why our argument is valid (lol)
QUESTION 2:
ARMOR OF HEXES:
At 10th level, if the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse hits you with an attack roll, you can use your reaction to roll a d6. On a 4 or higher, the attack instead misses you, regardless of its roll.'
Again, i'll have to repeat i'm relatively new to the DnD scene so this might be plainly obvious since it says "an" attack so I might be wrong on this. My DM had ruled that if an cursed enemy by me were to do a multi-hit attack on me alone, that the armor of hexes only gives you that reaction for just ONE of the hits, not all of them, which is rubbing me in the wrong way because it's a lvl 10 class ability so I expected a bit more oomph from it. Is it really just one hit from a multi-attack ,or is it all attack rolls against you?
QUESTION 3:
ARMOR OF AGATHYS:
You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have them, the creature takes 5 cold damage.
At Higher Levels: Both the temporary hit points and damage increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st.
During a battle against a possessed suit of armor at a haunted manor it did a melee attack at me with an armor of agathys spell applied at lvl 2 on myself, giving me 10 temp hp. luckily he rolled low and only did 6 dmg, leaving me with 4 temp hp. I stated to the DM to give the knight 10 cold damage, but then he told me that both the dmg and the health were sharing the same pool, so if he did only 6 dmg, the armor only dishes out 6 dmg in return. Not the 10 dmg every time he attacks me while I still have that temporary health up. This one I'm doubting myself for questioning it because it makes sense, but the way the spell is worded out is really confusing me so of course it's gonna make me question it.
I might get punished for questioning our lord DM's final call (haha) but I'm really trying to learn the proper rules of the game so that I might end up DM'ing for our group of friends so that our current DM can catch a break and play the game himself one day.
First off, the DM has final say on rules matters, regardless of what the book says. It's rarely worth arguing.
That said, if going by the book, you are correct on questions 1 and 3. Your DM is correct on question 2. The reaction is to the attack *roll*; if there are multiple attack rolls, you only get to react to one.
(Also, as a fellow PAM/Sentinel hexblade player... kudos on the Tunnel Fighter combo, that is insanely awesome. I enjoy high-level spells too much to MC out of warlock, but damn, am I tempted...)
first, thanks for providing a quick answer! It really does clear up some things and I plan on showing my DM tomorrow to see if anything changes! if not, that's fine too and I'll just keep note of this info in case I ever DM later.
(also, yeah originally I just wanted the action surge from the fighter lvl 2. But then, when I looked a bit further down at the lvl 3 benefits of the fighting styles I thought "....wow...that sounds busted as heck to my DM's plans....I WANT IT!"
So here's the relevant points as to WHY you're correct on 1 and 3, in case it makes a difference:
1) You can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction, and you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature that moves more than 5' while inside your reach. Polearm Master: "other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter your reach". No part of Tunnel Fighter modifies what your opportunity attacks ARE. It just lets you use them without using your reaction. Polearm Master specifically lets you make an opportunity attack when they enter your reach, *as well as* when they leave your reach like normal. Either condition would trigger the opportunity attack, which would be done without using your reaction. The only part of Tunnel Fighter, in fact, which specifies 5' at all, is not talking about range, but about the amount of movement needed to trigger the chance to use your reaction to make an attack. Note that the attack granted by someone moving within your reach is *not* an opportunity attack. As such, it *does* use your reaction, does not trigger the effects of Sentinel, if you have it, and so forth.
3) This one is pretty simple. Just have him read it. "If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have them, the creature takes 5 cold damage." 5 hits dealing 1 hp each result in 5 points of damage being dealt in return per attack, or 25 total damage. It's not "takes as many points of damage as they dealt" or anything like that, it's a set amount, which raises per level. At level 5, for example, it's 25 points of cold damage per attack against you. Though I actually prefer this spell on an Abjuration Wizard as it keeps it up longer. Arcane Ward, not only does it grant an effect which stacks with temp HP and keeps them around, it can be refreshed continually to extend that Armor of Agathys effect to its full 1 hr duration. Cast things like Flame Shield to extend the ward, which stacks with the effects of everything, also doesn't use concentration, and means you can be dealing absurd amounts of damage to creatures which are daring to strike you, and at some point, intelligent foes will just stop attacking you. Regardless, even without going "all in" on the spell it's a great spell and its effect is exactly as powerful as you think it is.
Note of course the DM is free to say things work however he wants, I mean he's allowing UA content, if he doesn't want it to work as written that's fine. Just make sure he knows that this is how it works as written, and if he doesn't like that, no harm, no foul.
Tunnel Fighter + Polearm Master do indeed synergize, to the point of being broken (free opportunity attacks against any number of enemies approaching you.) For that reason, if I were your DM, I wouldn't allow that particular interaction between the two.
Unearthed Arcana is playtest content and tends to be more powerful than official options; sometimes it's outright broken. Anything published before Xanathar's Guide to Everything (i.e. anything that's not currently on DDB) should be viewed with additional skepticism, because that means there's a high chance most players rejected the content (either it had problems, or the concept didn't resonate.) The only exceptions I know of are the Sorcerer subclasses, which didn't make it into XGtE purely because of time constraints.
The rules are written in everyday conversational English. Rules of the form "If X, then Y" apply any time X happens. Armor of Hexes applies any time the cursed target hits you with an attack roll. However, you only have one reaction to spend between turns, so it's only ever going to help you against 1 attack anyways. Being able to force a miss once per round on an attack that would've hit you - even a critical hit! - without expending a spell slot is really strong.
Armor of Agathys is straightforward. If you're hit while you have the spell's temporary hit points, the enemy takes X damage. There's nothing in the spell that implies the damage is equal to the remaining temp HP; the two numbers just happen to start out the same. I would politely ask your DM to reconsider on this one. Any enemy can simply choose to stop hitting you after the first time they take damage, and damaging you with a ranged attack or saving throw won't trigger the damage.
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Hey guys!
I'm relatively new to the entire DnD scenario over a month ago, but i'm honestly kicking my ass over the fact that I didn't join sooner years ago because it's such a blast and fufilling a big niche that i've been craving but never quite knew what it was until I watched Critical Role and The Adventure Zone.
I'm playing with a new group of players with a mixture of 5e and some segments of the other editions. Currently we have a DM who has a bit of experience DM'ing with his siblings but he is also learning about the finer details of the game as we play, so his opinion may change on some answers on these forums.
Currently I'm a Hexblade Warlock/4 with the PAM feat with plans to take Sentinel at lvl 8, who's also looking to multiclass into a fighter/3 down the line in the campaign to get that sweet, tasty Action Surge and becoming a Battle Master to gain the Tunnel Fighter style since this is essentially a homebrew game collected from other books.
QUESTION 1:
Tunnel Fighter:
So from what I understand, is that with Pole-Arm Mastery you gain an Attack of opportunity from when enemies walk within your pole-arm's range of 10 ft., Also when they leave that 10 ft. Also if you miss the first attack, and they skirt around in your range / try to leave wouldn't that provoke another attack of opportunity in exchange for actually using your reaction?
Our DM is arguing that if you take the defensive stance from Tunnel Fighter that it cancels out the PAM benefits and that the range is reduced to 5 feet, which is confusing to me because the Glaive that i'm using is already a reach weapon by itself without the feat. Shouldn't the feats and defensive stance synergize with each other rather than cancel each other out and reduce the range, or am I missing something and just take the DM's word for it since his word is god's law in our game unless we jokingly provide a thesis paper proving why our argument is valid (lol)
QUESTION 2:
ARMOR OF HEXES:
At 10th level, if the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse hits you with an attack roll, you can use your reaction to roll a d6. On a 4 or higher, the attack instead misses you, regardless of its roll.'
Again, i'll have to repeat i'm relatively new to the DnD scene so this might be plainly obvious since it says "an" attack so I might be wrong on this. My DM had ruled that if an cursed enemy by me were to do a multi-hit attack on me alone, that the armor of hexes only gives you that reaction for just ONE of the hits, not all of them, which is rubbing me in the wrong way because it's a lvl 10 class ability so I expected a bit more oomph from it. Is it really just one hit from a multi-attack ,or is it all attack rolls against you?
QUESTION 3:
ARMOR OF AGATHYS:
You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have them, the creature takes 5 cold damage.
At Higher Levels: Both the temporary hit points and damage increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st.
During a battle against a possessed suit of armor at a haunted manor it did a melee attack at me with an armor of agathys spell applied at lvl 2 on myself, giving me 10 temp hp. luckily he rolled low and only did 6 dmg, leaving me with 4 temp hp. I stated to the DM to give the knight 10 cold damage, but then he told me that both the dmg and the health were sharing the same pool, so if he did only 6 dmg, the armor only dishes out 6 dmg in return. Not the 10 dmg every time he attacks me while I still have that temporary health up. This one I'm doubting myself for questioning it because it makes sense, but the way the spell is worded out is really confusing me so of course it's gonna make me question it.
I might get punished for questioning our lord DM's final call (haha) but I'm really trying to learn the proper rules of the game so that I might end up DM'ing for our group of friends so that our current DM can catch a break and play the game himself one day.
Thank you all very much!
First off, the DM has final say on rules matters, regardless of what the book says. It's rarely worth arguing.
That said, if going by the book, you are correct on questions 1 and 3. Your DM is correct on question 2. The reaction is to the attack *roll*; if there are multiple attack rolls, you only get to react to one.
(Also, as a fellow PAM/Sentinel hexblade player... kudos on the Tunnel Fighter combo, that is insanely awesome. I enjoy high-level spells too much to MC out of warlock, but damn, am I tempted...)
first, thanks for providing a quick answer! It really does clear up some things and I plan on showing my DM tomorrow to see if anything changes! if not, that's fine too and I'll just keep note of this info in case I ever DM later.
(also, yeah originally I just wanted the action surge from the fighter lvl 2. But then, when I looked a bit further down at the lvl 3 benefits of the fighting styles I thought "....wow...that sounds busted as heck to my DM's plans....I WANT IT!"
So here's the relevant points as to WHY you're correct on 1 and 3, in case it makes a difference:
1) You can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction, and you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature that moves more than 5' while inside your reach. Polearm Master: "other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter your reach". No part of Tunnel Fighter modifies what your opportunity attacks ARE. It just lets you use them without using your reaction. Polearm Master specifically lets you make an opportunity attack when they enter your reach, *as well as* when they leave your reach like normal. Either condition would trigger the opportunity attack, which would be done without using your reaction. The only part of Tunnel Fighter, in fact, which specifies 5' at all, is not talking about range, but about the amount of movement needed to trigger the chance to use your reaction to make an attack. Note that the attack granted by someone moving within your reach is *not* an opportunity attack. As such, it *does* use your reaction, does not trigger the effects of Sentinel, if you have it, and so forth.
3) This one is pretty simple. Just have him read it. "If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have them, the creature takes 5 cold damage." 5 hits dealing 1 hp each result in 5 points of damage being dealt in return per attack, or 25 total damage. It's not "takes as many points of damage as they dealt" or anything like that, it's a set amount, which raises per level. At level 5, for example, it's 25 points of cold damage per attack against you. Though I actually prefer this spell on an Abjuration Wizard as it keeps it up longer. Arcane Ward, not only does it grant an effect which stacks with temp HP and keeps them around, it can be refreshed continually to extend that Armor of Agathys effect to its full 1 hr duration. Cast things like Flame Shield to extend the ward, which stacks with the effects of everything, also doesn't use concentration, and means you can be dealing absurd amounts of damage to creatures which are daring to strike you, and at some point, intelligent foes will just stop attacking you. Regardless, even without going "all in" on the spell it's a great spell and its effect is exactly as powerful as you think it is.
Note of course the DM is free to say things work however he wants, I mean he's allowing UA content, if he doesn't want it to work as written that's fine. Just make sure he knows that this is how it works as written, and if he doesn't like that, no harm, no foul.
Tunnel Fighter + Polearm Master do indeed synergize, to the point of being broken (free opportunity attacks against any number of enemies approaching you.) For that reason, if I were your DM, I wouldn't allow that particular interaction between the two.
Unearthed Arcana is playtest content and tends to be more powerful than official options; sometimes it's outright broken. Anything published before Xanathar's Guide to Everything (i.e. anything that's not currently on DDB) should be viewed with additional skepticism, because that means there's a high chance most players rejected the content (either it had problems, or the concept didn't resonate.) The only exceptions I know of are the Sorcerer subclasses, which didn't make it into XGtE purely because of time constraints.
The rules are written in everyday conversational English. Rules of the form "If X, then Y" apply any time X happens. Armor of Hexes applies any time the cursed target hits you with an attack roll. However, you only have one reaction to spend between turns, so it's only ever going to help you against 1 attack anyways. Being able to force a miss once per round on an attack that would've hit you - even a critical hit! - without expending a spell slot is really strong.
Armor of Agathys is straightforward. If you're hit while you have the spell's temporary hit points, the enemy takes X damage. There's nothing in the spell that implies the damage is equal to the remaining temp HP; the two numbers just happen to start out the same. I would politely ask your DM to reconsider on this one. Any enemy can simply choose to stop hitting you after the first time they take damage, and damaging you with a ranged attack or saving throw won't trigger the damage.
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