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 our 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 melee attacked 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.
Tunnel Fighter is not official content - it has not been fully balanced into the game proper. The way it interacts with Polearm Master is a particularly ridiculous exploit that turns you into an unstoppable whirlwind of glaive destruction (and Sentinel compounds it further). The DM is correct, and well within their rights, to nerf the combo and it sounds like they're doing it in a way that is reasonable.
In think on the Armor of Agathys question, however, you are correct. It is just coincidence that the temporary hitpoints and the damage dealt are the same value. The damage dealt back to them should be full no matter how much damage they dealt to you (or just to the Armor's temp hp).
A valid point! I understand Unearthed Arcana stuff is still in the testing phases but I wanted to see how nuts I could become under the DM's permission since this is homebrew. Thank you very much for the input!
I'm also relatively new to 5E (played 1E from early 80s through 2014 or so), so I can understand wanting to get the rules right.
Re: Armor of Hexes:
Generally, I've found the rules to be pretty consistent when talking about whether something is applicable to all attacks during its duration or just the first attack. For myself, the wording suggests it's applicable to any attack from the cursed target:
At 10th level, if the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse hits you with anattack roll, you can use your reaction to roll a d6.T
The use of the indefinite pronoun "an" here (rather than "the first attack roll from the cursed target" or something similar), for me, leans heavily towards any/all attacks.
That said, it's ultimately the DM's call. (In addition to DMing, I happen to be playing a Hexblade warlock when I'm not running the session, so I can see both sides.) Your DM may decide that having it apply to all attacks from the cursed target is too much.
That said, it's ultimately the DM's call. (In addition to DMing, I happen to be playing a Hexblade warlock when I'm not running the session, so I can see both sides.) Your DM may decide that having it apply to all attacks from the cursed target is too much.
You're right about the wording applying to any attack roll. Armor of Hexes requires a reaction to use though so it's pointless to limit it to one attack.
Armor of Agathys at lvl 2 sends 10 pts of damage to the attacker, no matter how many THP you had left or lost.
The rule says " 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." so as long that you have THP points even if it is 1THP and the creature deals you 15 dmg, the creature takes 10cold dmg.
WHile Armor of Hexes can be used on ANY and ALL attacks, its still limited to one reaction per turn anyways, now if there is an item or a spell that give you multiple reactions( dunno if there are, or if there will be in the future)...
PAM and the ability to AO with its reach is kinda viewed has something evil nowadays, because in 4Th Ed you had some feats/class features that made the same thing, to the point where nearly everyone and their dogs would try to put PAM and the skill needed to Ao on reach, no matter what the class.
It became the symbol of MinMaxxers Cooky-cutter OP Chars Builds all over the net, so yeah i think i see why your Dm isn't too thrilled about seeing it been ressurected...
I mostly agree with other people, but wanted a clarification on 2.
1) It's an overpowered combination of unofficial content so your DM is right to nerf it.
2) It says hits you with an attack roll, so any attack roll could trigger it. Using your reaction is triggered off of that attack roll, so unless you somehow have multiple reactions it can only be used once a round regardless of number of attacks you receive. It says "can" so you could decide to use it on the second attack instead of the first if you wanted (or not use it at all). Opportunity attacks also use your reaction (outside of tunnel fighter), so using armor of hexes would prevent opportunity attacks for the next round (and wouldn't be usable at all if you already made an OA).
3) It should do full damage regardless of the number of temp HP you have (as long as at least 1) or the damage done to you by the enemy.
I mostly agree with other people, but wanted a clarification on 2.
1) It's an overpowered combination of unofficial content so your DM is right to nerf it.
2) It says hits you with an attack roll, so any attack roll could trigger it. Using your reaction is triggered off of that attack roll, so unless you somehow have multiple reactions it can only be used once a round regardless of number of attacks you receive. It says "can" so you could decide to use it on the second attack instead of the first if you wanted (or not use it at all). Opportunity attacks also use your reaction (outside of tunnel fighter), so using armor of hexes would prevent opportunity attacks for the next round (and wouldn't be usable at all if you already made an OA).
3) It should do full damage regardless of the number of temp HP you have (as long as at least 1) or the damage done to you by the enemy.
Just throwing in my support here that I believe Unruly_Cow is completely correct on all points.
I wanted to make a status update concerning my questions from before, since it's been a decent few days since I've made this post asking for all of your advice!
1.) After reading your guy's inputs about it, you all are absolutely right. After some days of letting it sink in Tunnel fighter really is busted considering that I was actually debating on exploiting it's benefits. If I end up cheesing the game with this, it really isn't fun for the other players and the dm himself, so I opted to just avoid using this combination all-together. I will however still go for the PAM+Sentinel feat combo! There's a reason why some skills never left playtesting so they should stay put!
2.) We had come to the agreement of allowing armor of hexes blocking only one attack roll. Sure it's only against one enemy who's been cursed by me but your guys' s inputs about the potential of dodging a straight up natural 20 critical attack roll is very powerful. I'm still learning the game, and I'm very grateful about learning about the proper power-balancing of some things where everyone's at fair grounds with each other.
3.) After some debate about armor of agathys, and with my dm looking at some of these posts, he relented and allowed the full brunt force of the damage to go through if i maintain the appropriate temporary hit points. He imagined that with each blow with armor of agathys still on me that the spell would gradually get weaker the lower temp hit points I had left. Which, don't get me wrong I actually agreed with considering from a narrative standpoint in-game, but I reluctantly agreed on considering that it's a potential of a LOT of damage if the enemy hits low enough on me for them. But, then again they could always blast that health away with a ranged attack anytime.
Thank you all for your input guys, and for clearing up my confusion!
You excel at defending narrow passages, doorways, and other tight spaces.
I would also comment that tunnel fighting is aimed at narrow tunnels, not big caverns ... so a polearm would logically be unable to be used in such close quarters.
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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 our 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 melee attacked 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!
Tunnel Fighter is not official content - it has not been fully balanced into the game proper. The way it interacts with Polearm Master is a particularly ridiculous exploit that turns you into an unstoppable whirlwind of glaive destruction (and Sentinel compounds it further). The DM is correct, and well within their rights, to nerf the combo and it sounds like they're doing it in a way that is reasonable.
In think on the Armor of Agathys question, however, you are correct. It is just coincidence that the temporary hitpoints and the damage dealt are the same value. The damage dealt back to them should be full no matter how much damage they dealt to you (or just to the Armor's temp hp).
A valid point! I understand Unearthed Arcana stuff is still in the testing phases but I wanted to see how nuts I could become under the DM's permission since this is homebrew. Thank you very much for the input!
I'm also relatively new to 5E (played 1E from early 80s through 2014 or so), so I can understand wanting to get the rules right.
Re: Armor of Hexes:
Generally, I've found the rules to be pretty consistent when talking about whether something is applicable to all attacks during its duration or just the first attack. For myself, the wording suggests it's applicable to any attack from the cursed target:
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.T
The use of the indefinite pronoun "an" here (rather than "the first attack roll from the cursed target" or something similar), for me, leans heavily towards any/all attacks.
That said, it's ultimately the DM's call. (In addition to DMing, I happen to be playing a Hexblade warlock when I'm not running the session, so I can see both sides.) Your DM may decide that having it apply to all attacks from the cursed target is too much.
Armor of Agathys at lvl 2 sends 10 pts of damage to the attacker, no matter how many THP you had left or lost.
The rule says " 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." so as long that you have THP points even if it is 1THP and the creature deals you 15 dmg, the creature takes 10cold dmg.
WHile Armor of Hexes can be used on ANY and ALL attacks, its still limited to one reaction per turn anyways, now if there is an item or a spell that give you multiple reactions( dunno if there are, or if there will be in the future)...
PAM and the ability to AO with its reach is kinda viewed has something evil nowadays, because in 4Th Ed you had some feats/class features that made the same thing, to the point where nearly everyone and their dogs would try to put PAM and the skill needed to Ao on reach, no matter what the class.
It became the symbol of MinMaxxers Cooky-cutter OP Chars Builds all over the net, so yeah i think i see why your Dm isn't too thrilled about seeing it been ressurected...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
I mostly agree with other people, but wanted a clarification on 2.
1) It's an overpowered combination of unofficial content so your DM is right to nerf it.
2) It says hits you with an attack roll, so any attack roll could trigger it. Using your reaction is triggered off of that attack roll, so unless you somehow have multiple reactions it can only be used once a round regardless of number of attacks you receive. It says "can" so you could decide to use it on the second attack instead of the first if you wanted (or not use it at all). Opportunity attacks also use your reaction (outside of tunnel fighter), so using armor of hexes would prevent opportunity attacks for the next round (and wouldn't be usable at all if you already made an OA).
3) It should do full damage regardless of the number of temp HP you have (as long as at least 1) or the damage done to you by the enemy.
I wanted to make a status update concerning my questions from before, since it's been a decent few days since I've made this post asking for all of your advice!
1.) After reading your guy's inputs about it, you all are absolutely right. After some days of letting it sink in Tunnel fighter really is busted considering that I was actually debating on exploiting it's benefits. If I end up cheesing the game with this, it really isn't fun for the other players and the dm himself, so I opted to just avoid using this combination all-together. I will however still go for the PAM+Sentinel feat combo! There's a reason why some skills never left playtesting so they should stay put!
2.) We had come to the agreement of allowing armor of hexes blocking only one attack roll. Sure it's only against one enemy who's been cursed by me but your guys' s inputs about the potential of dodging a straight up natural 20 critical attack roll is very powerful. I'm still learning the game, and I'm very grateful about learning about the proper power-balancing of some things where everyone's at fair grounds with each other.
3.) After some debate about armor of agathys, and with my dm looking at some of these posts, he relented and allowed the full brunt force of the damage to go through if i maintain the appropriate temporary hit points. He imagined that with each blow with armor of agathys still on me that the spell would gradually get weaker the lower temp hit points I had left. Which, don't get me wrong I actually agreed with considering from a narrative standpoint in-game, but I reluctantly agreed on considering that it's a potential of a LOT of damage if the enemy hits low enough on me for them. But, then again they could always blast that health away with a ranged attack anytime.
Thank you all for your input guys, and for clearing up my confusion!
I would also comment that tunnel fighting is aimed at narrow tunnels, not big caverns ... so a polearm would logically be unable to be used in such close quarters.
Life's hard - get a helmet!