I don't see the problem with someone stopping if they're hit by Booming Blade. It would make sense for them to think better of it.
And as a player I wouldn't mind that either. If you think about it - them stopping is basically you getting the benefit of the Sentinel feat. If they run you do the damage. It's a win-win.
And that’s exactly the point of the cantrip: to disincentivize further movement. It’s a tank spell.
Just let the spell do what it’s meant to do rather than inventing new forced movement rules out of nowhere.
it's not forced movement.... they already made the choice to move hence why they're getting hit with an attack of op lol
It is absolutely forced movement. Having been hit with AoO (or similar; the spell granted by War Mage isn't actually an AoO) is new information that any rational actor can choose to ignore or not. If you say "no, sorry, you have to ignore this new information and keep moving," you are arbitrarily taking away from the player a choice that the game gives them.
But if you're playing combat out in real time the person wouldn't know what happened in time. The player or monster already made the choice to move and thus grant an AoO. Otherwise the person wouldn't move to begin with and thus wouldn't invoke an AoO. As I said before combat is supposed to take place in a matter of seconds If you decide you're going to move 30ft away from someone you're going to be moving at a pretty hefty pace to get there in 1 or 2 seconds. Yes you the player have the time to sit there and think however, in the scope of it being only a few seconds of battle your character wouldn't know. Because if you eliminate the attack being a spell and just a regular hit whose gonna stop dead in their tracks and be like o man was there a spell used? Better just stand here and not move any further just encase.
By what you are saying, sentinel couldn't stop it either. Besides which, you wouldn't be up to that pace immediately after starting either.
Let me reiterate, there are no rules for momentum. This is a game and not a simulator. The DM adjudicates the rules. There is also nothing that says that the creature has to move their full movement to have them move out of a character's reach.
Finally, characters can move around within their 5 ft square without using any movement and they can do this without triggering the secondary effect of Booming Blade. The attack doesn't happen until the character is about to leave the attacking reach. I would argue that if a DM were going to force the creature to continue to move out of their original square, then the sheathing doesn't happen until the creature is in the next square anyway meaning that the damage wouldn't occur if the creature chose to move to just that square anyway.
In short, if you want your extra damage, choose something that will get your extra damage.
Saga's spot on. They act of preparing to leave triggers the attack, they don't have to physically leave. according to the rule:
The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.
So, by rule, the attack happens /before/ the movement actually happens. At that point, the creature can decide to change its mind, and no longer move out of reach. It's a niche case, because why would you want to change your mind, after you've already been punished? The answer is because if you complete the move, you may take more punishment, in this case a booming blade proc. That doesn't mean the OA never happened because the movement never happened...the opportunity was triggered by an opening created when the creature /started/ to move.
The DM is /not/ required to continue the move and auto-proc the BB.
Nor would a player if the DM had a creature with the same combo. If a player gave me grief about it while we were in session, I'd tell them to pick a new cantrip because they wouldn't have Booming Blade anymore. If a DM told me that I had to move after taking the OA, then I'd move after taking the OA because the DM is adjudicating the rules and that's how it works in their game, but I'd hold them to the same expectation during their game. However, there is literally nothing that says that you have to move after taking any OA. Why would you want to stay after taking the punishment? I've answered that before in this thread, but trying to figure out what is going on is a fine reason to do so. The fact that the creature attacking with the OA just presented themself as an aggressive threat would be another.
Another aspect to consider is why would you not want the creature to stop? Most wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers will be among the squishier characters of the party and aren't likely to be using Booming Blade or to get a chance to use it on an OA since they'll likely be focused down if my creatures get on them. It's much more likely that a creature who can withstand much more damage would be equipped with both Booming Booming Blade and Warcaster while presenting a tougher target that a creature would want to leave. For example, my most recent game had an instance where our party engaged a dragon and my barbarian was wanting to keep the dragon's attention. However, the dragon was getting whittled down and noticed that the party was mostly behind a door attacking it. It moved to the door to use its breath attack which ended up knocking out a player and an NPC from full health and putting another within a solo attack of going down. Only the Warlock and myself were out of range. I happened to be raging and happened to miss my OA (and also don't have either Warcaster or Booming Blade), but if the circumstances were different, I would have much rather had the dragon stop and attack me than unleash that same attack on the party. Would you rather get your extra 1d8 to 4d8 damage and be on the verge of a TPK or have the enemy redirect at you and continue to get their attacks in while you continue to hold its attention?
And if you'd rather have the enemy leave because you can't take the hits, then the entire discussion is probably moot because that soft caster meat is tasty to my dragon looking to take your spoils and snack on your body so you won't get the chance to make the OA regardless or if you do, the movement will happen because there is something that has presented itself as a better target. And that target is likely to get munched in a bad way.
In the case I argue isn't for one of those its for the Eldritch Knight. An EK with booming blade and war caster can help take down a lot of foes who try to get away from it. If something is moving away and thus invoking the AoO then it's already made the decision to move. Changing its mind in a split second because it got hit doesn't make any sense. Like urg u got me I guess I'll just stand here while you got a free hit. Taking the spell out of it what pc or creature is going to leave your reach knowing its going to get hit just to allow its self to get hit then stop. Why bother moving in the first place then unless you hope they miss with their attack. And since they landed the attack you decide well now I'm not moving cuz I'll take more damage. Which If your character doesn't know the spell they wouldn't know to stand still and not move so you're then meta gaming to avoid the extra damage.
Like I said, why wouldn't you want the creature to stay if you are an EK? You've probably got more AC than your squishy friends and almost certainly have more HP. Congrats, your insistence of getting your max 32 more damage (18 average, maybe more if you crit) just got the rest of your party killed because you insisted that the creature continue to move and it therefore decided to munch your friends. But you have your damage and are about to be the sole target of massive multiattacks.
If Booming Blade weren't in the equation, I'd still reserve the right to move or not move as I saw fit for the character which is actually the reason why I argue for it to be the same for Booming Blade. To be clear, I wouldn't do it everytime but there are times when it makes sense for the character. Saying that the movement has to take place takes that freedom away.
Saga's spot on. They act of preparing to leave triggers the attack, they don't have to physically leave. according to the rule:
The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.
So, by rule, the attack happens /before/ the movement actually happens. At that point, the creature can decide to change its mind, and no longer move out of reach. It's a niche case, because why would you want to change your mind, after you've already been punished? The answer is because if you complete the move, you may take more punishment, in this case a booming blade proc. That doesn't mean the OA never happened because the movement never happened...the opportunity was triggered by an opening created when the creature /started/ to move.
The DM is /not/ required to continue the move and auto-proc the BB.
Nor would a player if the DM had a creature with the same combo. If a player gave me grief about it while we were in session, I'd tell them to pick a new cantrip because they wouldn't have Booming Blade anymore. If a DM told me that I had to move after taking the OA, then I'd move after taking the OA because the DM is adjudicating the rules and that's how it works in their game, but I'd hold them to the same expectation during their game. However, there is literally nothing that says that you have to move after taking any OA. Why would you want to stay after taking the punishment? I've answered that before in this thread, but trying to figure out what is going on is a fine reason to do so. The fact that the creature attacking with the OA just presented themself as an aggressive threat would be another.
Another aspect to consider is why would you not want the creature to stop? Most wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers will be among the squishier characters of the party and aren't likely to be using Booming Blade or to get a chance to use it on an OA since they'll likely be focused down if my creatures get on them. It's much more likely that a creature who can withstand much more damage would be equipped with both Booming Booming Blade and Warcaster while presenting a tougher target that a creature would want to leave. For example, my most recent game had an instance where our party engaged a dragon and my barbarian was wanting to keep the dragon's attention. However, the dragon was getting whittled down and noticed that the party was mostly behind a door attacking it. It moved to the door to use its breath attack which ended up knocking out a player and an NPC from full health and putting another within a solo attack of going down. Only the Warlock and myself were out of range. I happened to be raging and happened to miss my OA (and also don't have either Warcaster or Booming Blade), but if the circumstances were different, I would have much rather had the dragon stop and attack me than unleash that same attack on the party. Would you rather get your extra 1d8 to 4d8 damage and be on the verge of a TPK or have the enemy redirect at you and continue to get their attacks in while you continue to hold its attention?
And if you'd rather have the enemy leave because you can't take the hits, then the entire discussion is probably moot because that soft caster meat is tasty to my dragon looking to take your spoils and snack on your body so you won't get the chance to make the OA regardless or if you do, the movement will happen because there is something that has presented itself as a better target. And that target is likely to get munched in a bad way.
In the case I argue isn't for one of those its for the Eldritch Knight. An EK with booming blade and war caster can help take down a lot of foes who try to get away from it. If something is moving away and thus invoking the AoO then it's already made the decision to move. Changing its mind in a split second because it got hit doesn't make any sense. Like urg u got me I guess I'll just stand here while you got a free hit. Taking the spell out of it what pc or creature is going to leave your reach knowing its going to get hit just to allow its self to get hit then stop. Why bother moving in the first place then unless you hope they miss with their attack. And since they landed the attack you decide well now I'm not moving cuz I'll take more damage. Which If your character doesn't know the spell they wouldn't know to stand still and not move so you're then meta gaming to avoid the extra damage.
It's like starting to take a step, and feeling your leg brush up against a tripwire. You have new information and you react accordingly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Saga's spot on. They act of preparing to leave triggers the attack, they don't have to physically leave. according to the rule:
The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.
So, by rule, the attack happens /before/ the movement actually happens. At that point, the creature can decide to change its mind, and no longer move out of reach. It's a niche case, because why would you want to change your mind, after you've already been punished? The answer is because if you complete the move, you may take more punishment, in this case a booming blade proc. That doesn't mean the OA never happened because the movement never happened...the opportunity was triggered by an opening created when the creature /started/ to move.
The DM is /not/ required to continue the move and auto-proc the BB.
Nor would a player if the DM had a creature with the same combo. If a player gave me grief about it while we were in session, I'd tell them to pick a new cantrip because they wouldn't have Booming Blade anymore. If a DM told me that I had to move after taking the OA, then I'd move after taking the OA because the DM is adjudicating the rules and that's how it works in their game, but I'd hold them to the same expectation during their game. However, there is literally nothing that says that you have to move after taking any OA. Why would you want to stay after taking the punishment? I've answered that before in this thread, but trying to figure out what is going on is a fine reason to do so. The fact that the creature attacking with the OA just presented themself as an aggressive threat would be another.
Another aspect to consider is why would you not want the creature to stop? Most wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers will be among the squishier characters of the party and aren't likely to be using Booming Blade or to get a chance to use it on an OA since they'll likely be focused down if my creatures get on them. It's much more likely that a creature who can withstand much more damage would be equipped with both Booming Booming Blade and Warcaster while presenting a tougher target that a creature would want to leave. For example, my most recent game had an instance where our party engaged a dragon and my barbarian was wanting to keep the dragon's attention. However, the dragon was getting whittled down and noticed that the party was mostly behind a door attacking it. It moved to the door to use its breath attack which ended up knocking out a player and an NPC from full health and putting another within a solo attack of going down. Only the Warlock and myself were out of range. I happened to be raging and happened to miss my OA (and also don't have either Warcaster or Booming Blade), but if the circumstances were different, I would have much rather had the dragon stop and attack me than unleash that same attack on the party. Would you rather get your extra 1d8 to 4d8 damage and be on the verge of a TPK or have the enemy redirect at you and continue to get their attacks in while you continue to hold its attention?
And if you'd rather have the enemy leave because you can't take the hits, then the entire discussion is probably moot because that soft caster meat is tasty to my dragon looking to take your spoils and snack on your body so you won't get the chance to make the OA regardless or if you do, the movement will happen because there is something that has presented itself as a better target. And that target is likely to get munched in a bad way.
In the case I argue isn't for one of those its for the Eldritch Knight. An EK with booming blade and war caster can help take down a lot of foes who try to get away from it. If something is moving away and thus invoking the AoO then it's already made the decision to move. Changing its mind in a split second because it got hit doesn't make any sense. Like urg u got me I guess I'll just stand here while you got a free hit. Taking the spell out of it what pc or creature is going to leave your reach knowing its going to get hit just to allow its self to get hit then stop. Why bother moving in the first place then unless you hope they miss with their attack. And since they landed the attack you decide well now I'm not moving cuz I'll take more damage. Which If your character doesn't know the spell they wouldn't know to stand still and not move so you're then meta gaming to avoid the extra damage.
It's like starting to take a step, and feeling your leg brush up against a tripwire. You have new information and you react accordingly.
so while in the heat of battle and running away or passed an enemy you'd be checking for traps? lol
I have a question about if this whole thing works in general. As a DM I do allow the Booming Blade & War Caster combo, however in RAW, I don't believe it even qualifies. The last line of War Caster states; "The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature." Booming Blade has a target of self. Has good ol' JC addressed this at all?
I have a question about if this whole thing works in general. As a DM I do allow the Booming Blade & War Caster combo, however in RAW, I don't believe it even qualifies. The last line of War Caster states; "The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature." Booming Blade has a target of self. Has good ol' JC addressed this at all?
It's range was only errata'd to self in TCoE. Before that it uses to just be 5 ft.
I have a question about if this whole thing works in general. As a DM I do allow the Booming Blade & War Caster combo, however in RAW, I don't believe it even qualifies. The last line of War Caster states; "The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature." Booming Blade has a target of self. Has good ol' JC addressed this at all?
The first tweet agrees with the RAW, as you correctly point out, but the second tweet is after Tasha's was published, so presumably he was trying to defend his poorly chosen changes to the spell.
I believe the RAI vs RAW is as follows:
Distant Spell and Spell Sniper are intended not to work on BB, and don't.
As a corollary, BB ignores the reach property on a weapon, and that's unfixable.
Twinned Spell is intended not to work on BB, and doesn't.
War Caster is intended to work on BB, and doesn't.
Share Spells from Beast Masters is intended not to work on BB, and does.
What exactly happens when you do this is anyone's guess, because BB has you interact with its M component, which for any range Self spell is quite odd. Augury has the same confusion, so assuming Augury works with Share Spells like the rules say it must, I guess your companion just makes the listed melee swing? I dunno.
I have a question about if this whole thing works in general. As a DM I do allow the Booming Blade & War Caster combo, however in RAW, I don't believe it even qualifies. The last line of War Caster states; "The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature." Booming Blade has a target of self. Has good ol' JC addressed this at all?
At the time the last post was made (September 8, 2020) the discussion was current and correct. The errata to the spell has come out since then. This is always a risk when bumping old threads.
I have a question about if this whole thing works in general. As a DM I do allow the Booming Blade & War Caster combo, however in RAW, I don't believe it even qualifies. The last line of War Caster states; "The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature." Booming Blade has a target of self. Has good ol' JC addressed this at all?
The first tweet agrees with the RAW, as you correctly point out, but the second tweet is after Tasha's was published, so presumably he was trying to defend his poorly chosen changes to the spell.
I believe the RAI vs RAW is as follows:
Distant Spell and Spell Sniper are intended not to work on BB, and don't.
As a corollary, BB ignores the reach property on a weapon, and that's unfixable.
Twinned Spell is intended not to work on BB, and doesn't.
War Caster is intended to work on BB, and doesn't.
Share Spells from Beast Masters is intended not to work on BB, and does.
What exactly happens when you do this is anyone's guess, because BB has you interact with its M component, which for any range Self spell is quite odd. Augury has the same confusion, so assuming Augury works with Share Spells like the rules say it must, I guess your companion just makes the listed melee swing? I dunno.
This is all hinging on the assumption that all spells with a range of self must always be considered to be "targeting" the caster, or that the caster is always "a target" of such a spell. If that is not in fact true, then the various discrepancies between your RAW and RAI mostly fade away.
The wording used around targeting and being a target of something in these books is pretty abysmally unclear (and sometimes downright self-contradictory), but one could interpret target/targeting to mean both any *chosen* point/creature/object and any affected point/creature/object. Under that definition, with a self range spell (that doesn't affect the caster) you find that the caster has not been targeted because there was no choosing that happened to target themselves as a point of origin - it just happened.
Now this is a very clumsy interpretation of a very messy concept, and I'm not proposing that this is *the one true RAW*. But I have found that this is a fair, easyish way to identify what is a target, and it tends to align with the SAC on the apparent intended working of many situations.
So when i need to know what is the target, I ask myself: was it chosen? was it affected?
But since WotC errata'd BB and GFB from their correct ranges of "single target 5 feet" to "AOE point of origin self 5 feet radius" they must want them to be treated as AOEs... that only damage 1 creature.
All of these spells have a description that makes it clear what they do by themselves, but not how it interacts with rules that specify range.
So far we've been playing it as OA BB = creature can choose to keep moving or not. Creature familiar with BB or a good insight might just stop in its tracks, otherwise wouldn't know what's going on (or care) and continue triggering the secondary BB damage.
Now, if said character grabbed the polearm mastery feat and could now give opportunity attacks to creatures entering its range, what would happen (we're using a 5ft reach weapon here)? Our initial thought is to use the same as above, the creature (or part of it) is just at the cusp of range gets hit with BB. If it wants to continue into melee range triggers the secondary, if it wants to stay out of range (ie 5ft away, just outside melee) it does not. (Same rules about creature awareness/caring of this new energy surrounding it)
This seems like it follows the same logic although happy to hear what you guys/gals think about this interpretation.
So far we've been playing it as OA BB = creature can choose to keep moving or not. Creature familiar with BB or a good insight might just stop in its tracks, otherwise wouldn't know what's going on (or care) and continue triggering the secondary BB damage.
Now, if said character grabbed the polearm mastery feat and could now give opportunity attacks to creatures entering its range, what would happen (we're using a 5ft reach weapon here)? Our initial thought is to use the same as above, the creature (or part of it) is just at the cusp of range gets hit with BB. If it wants to continue into melee range triggers the secondary, if it wants to stay out of range (ie 5ft away, just outside melee) it does not. (Same rules about creature awareness/caring of this new energy surrounding it)
This seems like it follows the same logic although happy to hear what you guys/gals think about this interpretation.
The RAW reading, and the one that I imagine most groups play with without thinking, is that if the Polearm Master AoO were to occur before the creature entered your reach, you wouldn't be able to make it, because they'd be outside your reach. The rules here are that since Polearm Master doesn't specify that its AoO occurs before the creature enters your reach (the way the standard AoO rules do specify that that attack occurs before the creature leaves your reach), we default to the general rules on reaction timing, which is that the reaction occurs after the trigger. What that means for your question is that you don't get to cast Booming Blade on a creature until they're already within your reach (and you're already within theirs). There's no "continuing" into melee range, because they're already in melee range when you cast the spell.
One of the reasons a normal OA happens just before the target leaves your reach is that if it happened after, how would you be able to reach them with your attack? I would say the same is true for an OA happening as someone enters your reach.
Thanks Saga and Texas for the replies. I guess the limitations of the game system play into this vs how we picture it.
With a weapon like this, you would use it's reach and basically attack the enemy just as they enter your range (or take a step towards them to close the gap and extend), the intent being to make them hurt if they want to get close and to keep them at bay (and so they would need to keep moving in to engage). However with 5ft increments it kind of means all or nothing, a dagger has the same melee range as a sword or quarterstaff so how we picture it vs how the system works not quite the same!
Thanks Saga and Texas for the replies. I guess the limitations of the game system play into this vs how we picture it.
With a weapon like this, you would use it's reach and basically attack the enemy just as they enter your range (or take a step towards them to close the gap and extend), the intent being to make them hurt if they want to get close and to keep them at bay (and so they would need to keep moving in to engage). However with 5ft increments it kind of means all or nothing, a dagger has the same melee range as a sword or quarterstaff so how we picture it vs how the system works not quite the same!
Thanks again for your thoughts!
I would think it would only matter with halberds, glaives, or pikes. I would also suspect that most people would probably have enough desire to continue to close distance to make the attack if they were already planning on doing it, limiting the number of characters that would be willing to stop.
So, do you provoke an attack if you teleport into range of someone with Polearm Master feat? Asking for a friend.
Because, if you do, certainly that wouldn't happen before you teleported. Ie it certainly can't happen before they enter your reach when they transport into range this way. How we picture it, dagger v sword v quarterstaff I think all can agree it matters not what weapon you're fighting with you're not going to hit them before the teleport from some 30, 60, or 600 etc ft away or whatever.
And, if they don't provoke, then teleporting doesn't qualify as "entering" your reach. Which has a lot of game implications.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
So, do you provoke an attack if you teleport into range of someone with Polearm Master feat? Asking for a friend.
Because, if you do, certainly that wouldn't happen before you teleported. Ie it certainly can't happen before they enter your reach when they transport into range this way. How we picture it, dagger v sword v quarterstaff I think all can agree it matters not what weapon you're fighting with you're not going to hit them before the teleport from some 30, 60, or 600 etc ft away or whatever.
And, if they don't provoke, then teleporting doesn't qualify as "entering" your reach. Which has a lot of game implications.
No, you don't because "You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction."
A normal OA triggers just before you leave reach. A Polearm Master OA triggers just after you enter that reach. Neither triggers at all when teleporting is involved.
Please don't start the teleportation is/isn't movement or is/isn't entering argument again here.
Under the new rules, you might because PAM doesn't trigger on an OA, but rather when someone enters the reach of the weapon. But in 5e, you do not.
Yep, that's exactly why it is on my mind, the new PAM says:
Reactive Strike.While youare holding a Weapon that has the Heavy and Reach properties,you can use your Reaction to make one Melee Attack against a creature that enters the Reach you have with that Weapon.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
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By what you are saying, sentinel couldn't stop it either. Besides which, you wouldn't be up to that pace immediately after starting either.
Let me reiterate, there are no rules for momentum. This is a game and not a simulator. The DM adjudicates the rules. There is also nothing that says that the creature has to move their full movement to have them move out of a character's reach.
Finally, characters can move around within their 5 ft square without using any movement and they can do this without triggering the secondary effect of Booming Blade. The attack doesn't happen until the character is about to leave the attacking reach. I would argue that if a DM were going to force the creature to continue to move out of their original square, then the sheathing doesn't happen until the creature is in the next square anyway meaning that the damage wouldn't occur if the creature chose to move to just that square anyway.
In short, if you want your extra damage, choose something that will get your extra damage.
Like I said, why wouldn't you want the creature to stay if you are an EK? You've probably got more AC than your squishy friends and almost certainly have more HP. Congrats, your insistence of getting your max 32 more damage (18 average, maybe more if you crit) just got the rest of your party killed because you insisted that the creature continue to move and it therefore decided to munch your friends. But you have your damage and are about to be the sole target of massive multiattacks.
If Booming Blade weren't in the equation, I'd still reserve the right to move or not move as I saw fit for the character which is actually the reason why I argue for it to be the same for Booming Blade. To be clear, I wouldn't do it everytime but there are times when it makes sense for the character. Saying that the movement has to take place takes that freedom away.
It's like starting to take a step, and feeling your leg brush up against a tripwire. You have new information and you react accordingly.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
so while in the heat of battle and running away or passed an enemy you'd be checking for traps? lol
I have a question about if this whole thing works in general. As a DM I do allow the Booming Blade & War Caster combo, however in RAW, I don't believe it even qualifies. The last line of War Caster states; "The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature." Booming Blade has a target of self. Has good ol' JC addressed this at all?
It's range was only errata'd to self in TCoE. Before that it uses to just be 5 ft.
Yes.
Here is a JC tweet alleging he would not let the current Booming Blade work with War Caster: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/897558230745976833
Here is a JC tweet 3 years later contradicting the above tweet, this time alleging he does let them work together: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1329578061549826049
The first tweet agrees with the RAW, as you correctly point out, but the second tweet is after Tasha's was published, so presumably he was trying to defend his poorly chosen changes to the spell.
I believe the RAI vs RAW is as follows:
At the time the last post was made (September 8, 2020) the discussion was current and correct. The errata to the spell has come out since then. This is always a risk when bumping old threads.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Crazy. Thanks everyone. :)
This is all hinging on the assumption that all spells with a range of self must always be considered to be "targeting" the caster, or that the caster is always "a target" of such a spell. If that is not in fact true, then the various discrepancies between your RAW and RAI mostly fade away.
The wording used around targeting and being a target of something in these books is pretty abysmally unclear (and sometimes downright self-contradictory), but one could interpret target/targeting to mean both any *chosen* point/creature/object and any affected point/creature/object. Under that definition, with a self range spell (that doesn't affect the caster) you find that the caster has not been targeted because there was no choosing that happened to target themselves as a point of origin - it just happened.
Now this is a very clumsy interpretation of a very messy concept, and I'm not proposing that this is *the one true RAW*. But I have found that this is a fair, easyish way to identify what is a target, and it tends to align with the SAC on the apparent intended working of many situations.
So when i need to know what is the target, I ask myself: was it chosen? was it affected?
It is all very confusing, inconsistent with other spells, and doesn't follow the rules in the spellcasting chapter.
booming blade, green-flame blade, and sword burst all have the same ranges (in the book) written as an AOE with Point of origin self. But sword burst works exactly like word of radiance and similar to thunderclap with the latter 2 not being written as an AOE with Point of origin self.
But since WotC errata'd BB and GFB from their correct ranges of "single target 5 feet" to "AOE point of origin self 5 feet radius" they must want them to be treated as AOEs... that only damage 1 creature.
All of these spells have a description that makes it clear what they do by themselves, but not how it interacts with rules that specify range.
Ok new bump!
So far we've been playing it as OA BB = creature can choose to keep moving or not. Creature familiar with BB or a good insight might just stop in its tracks, otherwise wouldn't know what's going on (or care) and continue triggering the secondary BB damage.
Now, if said character grabbed the polearm mastery feat and could now give opportunity attacks to creatures entering its range, what would happen (we're using a 5ft reach weapon here)? Our initial thought is to use the same as above, the creature (or part of it) is just at the cusp of range gets hit with BB. If it wants to continue into melee range triggers the secondary, if it wants to stay out of range (ie 5ft away, just outside melee) it does not. (Same rules about creature awareness/caring of this new energy surrounding it)
This seems like it follows the same logic although happy to hear what you guys/gals think about this interpretation.
The RAW reading, and the one that I imagine most groups play with without thinking, is that if the Polearm Master AoO were to occur before the creature entered your reach, you wouldn't be able to make it, because they'd be outside your reach. The rules here are that since Polearm Master doesn't specify that its AoO occurs before the creature enters your reach (the way the standard AoO rules do specify that that attack occurs before the creature leaves your reach), we default to the general rules on reaction timing, which is that the reaction occurs after the trigger. What that means for your question is that you don't get to cast Booming Blade on a creature until they're already within your reach (and you're already within theirs). There's no "continuing" into melee range, because they're already in melee range when you cast the spell.
One of the reasons a normal OA happens just before the target leaves your reach is that if it happened after, how would you be able to reach them with your attack? I would say the same is true for an OA happening as someone enters your reach.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Thanks Saga and Texas for the replies. I guess the limitations of the game system play into this vs how we picture it.
With a weapon like this, you would use it's reach and basically attack the enemy just as they enter your range (or take a step towards them to close the gap and extend), the intent being to make them hurt if they want to get close and to keep them at bay (and so they would need to keep moving in to engage). However with 5ft increments it kind of means all or nothing, a dagger has the same melee range as a sword or quarterstaff so how we picture it vs how the system works not quite the same!
Thanks again for your thoughts!
I would think it would only matter with halberds, glaives, or pikes. I would also suspect that most people would probably have enough desire to continue to close distance to make the attack if they were already planning on doing it, limiting the number of characters that would be willing to stop.
So, do you provoke an attack if you teleport into range of someone with Polearm Master feat? Asking for a friend.
Because, if you do, certainly that wouldn't happen before you teleported. Ie it certainly can't happen before they enter your reach when they transport into range this way. How we picture it, dagger v sword v quarterstaff I think all can agree it matters not what weapon you're fighting with you're not going to hit them before the teleport from some 30, 60, or 600 etc ft away or whatever.
And, if they don't provoke, then teleporting doesn't qualify as "entering" your reach. Which has a lot of game implications.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
No, you don't because "You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction."
A normal OA triggers just before you leave reach. A Polearm Master OA triggers just after you enter that reach. Neither triggers at all when teleporting is involved.
Please don't start the teleportation is/isn't movement or is/isn't entering argument again here.
Whether teleportation is movement or not is beside the point here because:
Under the new rules, you might because PAM doesn't trigger on an OA, but rather when someone enters the reach of the weapon. But in 5e, you do not.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Yep, that's exactly why it is on my mind, the new PAM says:
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.