Polearm Master Question PHB 2024

Quote from Recondo42 >>

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from Recondo42 >>

Hey everybody. What's your opinion on if this should work.

I have my polearm ready with 5 foot reach and I close the distance to an enemy remaining 10 feet away. Thorn Whip cantrip on hit pull them 10 feet toward me. Use my reaction to strike them with the polearm. If that hits use BA for Pole Strike.

I believe this works RAW but may be afoul of RAI because I'm pretty sure Pole Strike is intended to follow an attack made with your action on your turn not your reaction.

That said this could be extra spicy after laying down some Spike Growth.

It does not work under the RAW, since Pole Strike says it triggers "Immediately after you take the Attack action..." and in your example you are not taking the Attack action at any point. You are taking the Magic to cast Thorn Whip and then using a Reaction to use Polearm Master's Reactive Strike, neither of which is the Attack action.

 

Thanks for that. It felt wrong when I was suggesting it, however I'll walk you through how I was mislead.

Strangely when I was double checking the way it was written I looked at the summary on my D&DB character sheet under Features & Traits and this is how it's worded there under Polearm Master, emphasis mine:

"Pole Strike. Immediately after you attack with a Quarterstaff, a Spear, or a weapon with the Heavy and Reach properties, you can use a Bonus Action to make a melee attack. This deals 1d4 Bludgeoning damage." 

This appears to be in error. When you click on that section the popup on the right has the full and correct text from the PHB.

Is this a known error that the descriptions on the character sheet can differ from the PHB?

The "snippets" that appear on the character sheet like that are almost always abridged, rather than being direct quotes from the rules, just for space reasons. With this particular one it seems like whoever abridged it unwittingly removed a somewhat important detail.

Quote from R3sistance >>

Quote from Recondo42 >>

Hey everybody. What's your opinion on if this should work.

I have my polearm ready with 5 foot reach and I close the distance to an enemy remaining 10 feet away. Thorn Whip cantrip on hit pull them 10 feet toward me. Use my reaction to strike them with the polearm. If that hits use BA for Pole Strike.

I believe this works RAW but may be afoul of RAI because I'm pretty sure Pole Strike is intended to follow an attack made with your action on your turn not your reaction.

That said this could be extra spicy after laying down some Spike Growth.

 I think you maybe right on this one.

Opportunity Attack prerequisites that a creature moves via it's own action/bonus action/movement/reaction but polearm master does not specify any such restrictions and so forced movement such as the case in Thorn Whip should technically work.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/phb-2024/rules-glossary#OpportunityAttacks

https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/1789177-polearm-master

But I don't know how many builds it would be viable on...  mostly would just be for druid with quarterstaff I guess, personally I wouldn't build around that for a druid tho.

I'm currently playing a level 11 Moon Druid who found a Staff of Frost which as a melee weapon is functionally a quarterstaff. Shillelagh can make it a viable option when I'm not convinced the encounter requires spending resources. So it's part of my build but definitely not the emphasis of it.

That said my DM is allowing me to wildshape into a standard ape wielding the staff and a shield which isn't too shabby if I have an ongoing concentration spell. Notable that I wouldn't have access to casting Thorn Whip in that state.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from Recondo42 >>

Hey everybody. What's your opinion on if this should work.

I have my polearm ready with 5 foot reach and I close the distance to an enemy remaining 10 feet away. Thorn Whip cantrip on hit pull them 10 feet toward me. Use my reaction to strike them with the polearm. If that hits use BA for Pole Strike.

I believe this works RAW but may be afoul of RAI because I'm pretty sure Pole Strike is intended to follow an attack made with your action on your turn not your reaction.

That said this could be extra spicy after laying down some Spike Growth.

It does not work under the RAW, since Pole Strike says it triggers "Immediately after you take the Attack action..." and in your example you are not taking the Attack action at any point. You are taking the Magic to cast Thorn Whip and then using a Reaction to use Polearm Master's Reactive Strike, neither of which is the Attack action.

 At least the Reactive Strike part should work, as R3sistance explained or other people clarified previously on page#2.

Quote from kenclary >>

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

It does not work under the RAW, since Pole Strike says it triggers "Immediately after you take the Attack action..." and in your example you are not taking the Attack action at any point. You are taking the Magic to cast Thorn Whip and then using a Reaction to use Polearm Master's Reactive Strike, neither of which is the Attack action.

I suppose it would work if you were an Eldritch Knight or Bladesinger casting Thorn Whip as one of your attacks in the Attack action...

By a very strict reading of the rules, this does not work, because the feature that lets Eldritch Knights and Bladesingers do this says it only works with a Wizard cantrip. Thorn Whip isn't on the Wizard list and I can't immediately think of a way these classes could get it that would let it "count as a Wizard spell for you".

But plenty of DMs, including me, would probably be happy to ignore this restriction. Also, Valor Bards have a very similar feature that actually doesn't have a class list restriction in it, so it would work fine for them either way.