Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Ok, so I've been looking at 2 separate builds.
The first one is a Celestial Warlock which uses True Strike + Agonizing Blast + Radiant Soul (the level 6 feature from Celestial Patron) to stack their CHA modifier 3 times on the same casting of True Strike, for a whopping +15 at 20 CHA.
The other one is a Path of The Giant Barbarian, for which I'm being told that Giant’s Havoc: Crushing Throw (which adds your Rage damage to thrown attacks) is utterly useless in 2024 because you already add your Rage damage on all attacks with melee weapons (which wasn't the case in 2014), and you can't stack it so the feature has literally no effect.
Am I the only one feeling that the caster is getting some really unfair favoritism, here?
Even though Path of the Giant was released before 2024, that double-standard makes no sense to me.
Just note that's only if you assume the damage from True Strike comes from the cantrip, or more generally, if you or your DM think True Strike and Agonizing Blast synergize at some point. In my opinion, Agonizing Blast does not interact with True Strike before level 5.
I asked a similar question using Fire Bolt, but True Strike was also mentioned in the conversation: Agonizing Blast + Radiant Soul
For fairness, other threads with different or similar opinions:
I don't think there is anything anywhere in the rules that says your Rage Damage Bonus can't be added twice to the same damage roll by two different features.
pronouns: he/she/they
The argument was the SAC about effects stacking only if they have a different name, claiming that "Rage Damage" is a named feature, but "Charisma modifier" isn't...
I've seen that SAC answer before, and all I can say is that it is not consistent with the actual rules, which do not say anything anywhere about effects only stacking if they have a different name.
pronouns: he/she/they
Yeah that SAC was clearly about clarifying intent rather than the wording of the rules themselves, but really even that argument doesn't hold. The effect's name isn't "Rage Damage". Rage Damage is a modifier in the same regard as your Charisma mod. The feature names are "Rage" and "Crushing Throw", and they're different.
Sage Advice does indeed say this:
However, unless I'm just not finding it right now for some reason, this restriction actually does not appear anywhere in the rules. There are limitations on imposing the same condition, and there are limitations regarding effects from the same spell, but nothing about "effects" more generally.
But even if we assumed that this restriction exists in the rules, it does not apply here. You would be applying one feature called "Rage Damage" from the "Rage" class feature and also another feature called "Crushing Throw" from the "Giant's Havoc" subclass feature. Certain circumstances allow for both of these features to be triggered and when that happens they both apply.
The issue with True Strike is that all of its damage comes from the weapon itself, not the spell - it's a weapon buff, not a damaging spell. So you can't add spell damage modifiers like Agonizing Blast and Radiant Soul.
Giant's Throw is more problematic because you're combining old and new rules. I'd probably rule that Crushing Throw doesn't do anything since you're already adding your Rage Damage Bonus to thrown weapons - the 2024 version of Barbarian simply subsumes the older ability.
This is significantly disputed.
2024 rules are meant to be compatible with 5e expanded rules. The intent of Crushing Throw (and Path of the Giant in general) is to have a Barbarian subclass that is better at throwing than the other subclasses, and ruling that Crushing Throw does nothing betrays that intent, and the idea of retrocompatibility.
It's not like the XGtE Hexblade Warlock, which says that "you can use your Charisma modifier", and doesn't stack with the 2024 Pact of the Blade Invocation, because neither of these features were intended to be a damage buff, unlike Crushing Throw.
As jl8e said, this is disputed, so I think it should be agreed upon at your table.
I have my own ruling and reasons, but I can't say that other people's interpretations aren't valid too.
The best thing for me would be to have some clarification in the books or a SAC entry, but I'm not sure if that's ever going to happen.
That's not a full explanation though. It was meant to be able to use thrown weapons effectively and to do so it needed to have that feature that allowed for rage to be used (which it normally didn't). The new rules simply allow all barbs to use rage with thrown weapons effectively.
It has made all other barbs stronger (when using thrown weapons) but it hasn't made Path of the Giant barbs any weaker versus opponents. And they still have better functionality due to returning weapons so it isn't even as they have lost their shtick in 5.5E. Giving them double rage bonus to make up for a non-existing loss seems like a bad idea to me, I'd advice against it.
Just a quick note that compatibility means it functions, not that every feature is 100% as effective/efficient as it was at the time of printing. Backwards compatibility isn't a valid argument here.
As for the features, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to stack, RAW.
You're not "giving" it to them. You're refraining from taking it away... Subclasses are balanced around their progression and what they get as they progress. Declaring that a feature does nothing and taking away a buff that they should get when they progress to its level because the base class has been improved while other subclasses don't have anything redundant is just unfair.
If Path of the Giant was meant to have a damage buff at that moment in their progression, they should still have it, no matter what changes were made in the base class. Monsters have been buffed too.
So, looking at the first build, which I think works straight up. (You can change the damage to radiant, so the spell is clearly involved in dealing the damage). But is it really worth it? I mean, I guess you don't have to take Pact of the Blade if you're always true striking, but... that means just one attack per round (that's all you can add the Radiant Soul to, anyway).
I guess my question is, is it better than an EB Warlock. Because without any subclass, at level 5 the EB + Agonizing Blast warlock is dealing 1d10+4+1d6(hex) x 2 = 26. You're dealing at best 2d6+8+1d6(TS)+1d6(hex) = 22. At 6th level you catch up. Assuming both take +2 Cha at 8th, you pull ahead by 1. But then at 11th, the EB is up to (1d10+5+1d6) x3 = 42, and you've got 2d6+15+2d6+1d6 = 32.5, almost 10 points behind. Sure, if you take War Caster and can get your opportunity attack with TS, you're doing pretty well, but why would enemies try to walk around you?
Or consider: a Pact of the Blade Warlock can get two and then 3 attacks per round. 2d6+4+1d6(hex) x2 = 29, even better at level 5. And at level 12 (rather than 11... shrug), 2d6+5+1d6 x3 = 47. And this warlock can also take War Caster for the possible opportunity attack.
Is there something clever we can do with a multiclass? Devotion Paladin 3 gives you +Cha to hit off your channel divinity, making you much more reliable. But it's 3 levels. (admittedly, neither the EB warlock nor the Pact of the Blade focused Warlock can make that multiclass easily. (Needs a weapon, so no EB. 3 levels when the Pact of the Blade warlock needs 12 warlock levels is rough.)
I mean, it's neat, but it's kind of limited.
I know that this probably isn't the best thread to go into the weeds on this, but I honestly don't understand why this is disputed at all. It should be pretty clear what happens when a spell description with a Range of Self declares that the effect is "you make one attack with the weapon". It's very consistent design that when the spell effect itself IS an attack then the spell description would use the phrase "spell attack" at some point.
But you are assuming subclasses from 2014 are balanced to 2024 and that's just not true. That was Athanar's point. Things that haven't been reprinted can work*, but you can't assume they remain balanced under the rewritten rules, or that they work the same way.
*some need a bit of DM help to actually function, but those are few and far between.
Even if you assume that agonizing blast works with true strike, this isn't really that big a deal, because warlocks don't have anything that let them mix a cantrip with a regular attack.
If you don't take pact of the blade, you're limited to simple weapons, so you're doing 1d8+15 (19.5), where as eldritch blast at level 6 would be 2d10+10 (21). Hex increases those values to 23 and 28.
If you take pact of the blade, you can beat basic eldritch blast by using a 2d6 weapon, giving you damage 2d6+15 (22), but after hex eldritch blast still pulls ahead, and if you were to take thirsting blade instead of agonizing blast, you would be doing 4d6+10 (24).
I do make an assumption, but not this one. My assumption is that 5e Expanded Rules Barbarian subclasses are balanced between each other. Path of Wild Magic, Ancestral Guardian, Storm Herald, Battlerager, Beast, Giant... I assume none of these were designed to have an edge over the others, and I believe that it's a fair assumption to make.
Now, all of these subclasses are meant to be compatible with 2024 rules, and all of them benefit from that Rage damage improvement to the Barbarian main class. So if you make an exception for Path of the Giant just because they already had a similar bonus, it will inevitably fall behind all of the others in that list.
Okay, so your assumption has at least 2 flaws.
-Subclasses aren't perfectly balanced against each other, some will inevitably have an edge over others.
-If a bonus such as that for the Giant Barbarian is made redundant and the rules, as written, don't allow it to stack, it doesn't stack regardless of original intent without DM permission fixing the issue for you.