I think you vastly overestimate how many people will look at the spell and think “I want to use that on my martial character”; it’s been an option for Monks for a decade already and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone float it as an option.
Also, this is a great argument for why keeping the casting stat tied to the spell list on Magic Initiate is mechanically helpful as well as thematically on point.
There are two reasons why Monks currently don't use it (1) It will never affect their unarmed strikes which are 1/3-1/2 of their damage per turn, (2) it would cost them an ASI which they really want to boost their DEX/WIS.
The new Magic Initiate is so broken. I expect at least 50% of characters to be taking it as their 1st level feat. Everyone who doesn't have Shield on their spell list will take it to get Shield (and probably pick up True Strike at the same time), and everyone who doesn't have Healing Word on their spell list will take it to get Healing Word (and probably pick up Shillelagh & either Guidance or Resistance at the same time).
I disagree because Lucky, alert, and getting medium armor and a shield are all options as well.
Medium arbor and a shield is a possible enticement for the casters that already get Shield and have multiple other party members with Healing Word. (Which is also broken - they had better nerf Shield in the 2024 books!). But Lucky's really not that powerful IME, and Alert is only good if you have a large number of short combats in an adventuring day which IME isn't the current preferred play style.
Medium arbor and a shield is a possible enticement for the casters that already get Shield and have multiple other party members with Healing Word. (Which is also broken - they had better nerf Shield in the 2024 books!). But Lucky's really not that powerful IME, and Alert is only good if you have a large number of short combats in an adventuring day which IME isn't the current preferred play style.
Yeah I grabbed Lucky on a character I've been playing for a while now and my experience has been that it's not nearly as strong as people complain about; it's only 3 uses per day which is not that many at all (even in this campaign which is very easy going with rests, I still burn through the uses quickly), and it's no guarantee of success. In fact, more often than not, I've rolled Lucky and ended up with a worse result than the one I was trying to change (and I usually rolled that one with inspiration already) which was what led me to start toying around with ideas for an Unlucky feat instead. 😂
Really the feat's strength depends on how open your DM is with enemy rolls; if played the way I think you're supposed to do it you shouldn't really know how likely a re-roll is to trigger a miss, i.e- you should only really know you were hit, not that the enemy did that on a 4 because it's got +13 to hit or whatever. If you do know that sort of information then you can save it for forcing enemy re-rolls, but even that's not that strong as you're otherwise saving it for attacks that you really don't want to miss (e.g- an upcast inflict wounds or whatever) but if Lucky works it hasn't made the attack stronger, it just stopped you wasting it, so it's no more powerful than if you had just rolled higher the first time.
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More reasons why agonizing blast doesn't really need to be a first level thing. True strike works with bows. A warlock can just use a crossbow and true strike if it wants to do damage that way. Or a decent dex and just a crossbow does fine as well.
Even with AB being a level 5 feature I do think warlock needs more than just EB to be enticing to higher levels (that isn't the blade lock, I feel blade lock is sufficiently enticed....).
I completely disagree. I think the not adding your casting stat to cantrips is outright stupid. They give that ability at level seven as though casters are actually still casting cantrips usually at level 7. The fact is, people make spell casters to cast spells. They should not be made to feel like shooting a crossbow is a better use of their action than casting that spell. While agree that something needs to be done about the martial/caster divide, turning casters into quasi martials for the first couple of levels isn't it.
EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
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.
More reasons why agonizing blast doesn't really need to be a first level thing. True strike works with bows. A warlock can just use a crossbow and true strike if it wants to do damage that way. Or a decent dex and just a crossbow does fine as well.
Even with AB being a level 5 feature I do think warlock needs more than just EB to be enticing to higher levels (that isn't the blade lock, I feel blade lock is sufficiently enticed....).
I completely disagree. I think the not adding your casting stat to cantrips is outright stupid. They give that ability at level seven as though casters are actually still casting cantrips usually at level 7. The fact is, people make spell casters to cast spells. They should not be made to feel like shooting a crossbow is a better use of their action than casting that spell. While agree that something needs to be done about the martial/caster divide, turning casters into quasi martials for the first couple of levels isn't it.
EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
Agonizing blast being later is a way to make eldritch blast scale with warlock levels. By moving it you solve the eldritch blast scaling issue. Eldritch blast scaling isn't an issue without agonizing blast being added to it. And eldritch blast + Agonizing blast is supposed to be the warlocks compensation for not being a full caster.
EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
It's a problem at level 1 if it means that multi-classing allows any other class to be just as good at blasting as a full Warlock, which is the problem that needs to be solved.
Scaling eldritch blast on Warlock levels, scaling Agonizing Blast by Warlock level, or delaying it until a later Warlock level, are all proposals to do essentially the same thing; they limit the effectiveness of eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast for multi-classing. We don't need all of these, any one of them should do it.
Clearly I'm in favour of Agonizing Blast being a once per turn bonus that is scaled to Warlock level, because that both solves the problem, but also has the side benefit of making Agonizing Blast usable with other cantrips, rather than being eldritch blast only.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
It's a problem at level 1 if it means that multi-classing allows any other class to be just as good at blasting a full Warlock, which is the problem that needs to be solved.
Scaling eldritch blast on Warlock levels, scaling Agonizing Blast by Warlock level, or delaying it until a later Warlock level, are all proposals to do essentially the same thing; they limit the effectiveness of eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast for multi-classing. We don't need all of these, any one of them should do it.
Clearly I'm in favour of Agonizing Blast being a once per turn bonus that is scaled to Warlock level, because that both solves the problem, but also has the side benefit of making Agonizing Blast usable with other cantrips, rather than being eldritch blast only.
I like this solution as well. And it is slightly better with EB because of the multiple chances to hit with only 1 needing to land. I don't think they are going to limit EB to warlock level scaling because no other cantrip works like that. But changing AB to function more with warlock levels is a viable solution.
EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
It's a problem at level 1 if it means that multi-classing allows any other class to be just as good at blasting a full Warlock, which is the problem that needs to be solved.
Scaling eldritch blast on Warlock levels, scaling Agonizing Blast by Warlock level, or delaying it until a later Warlock level, are all proposals to do essentially the same thing; they limit the effectiveness of eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast for multi-classing. We don't need all of these, any one of them should do it.
Clearly I'm in favour of Agonizing Blast being a once per turn bonus that is scaled to Warlock level, because that both solves the problem, but also has the side benefit of making Agonizing Blast usable with other cantrips, rather than being eldritch blast only.
It's a problem at level 1 because Eldritch Blast is not like other cantrips. The fix needs to be an eldritch blast change, not a change that makes warlocks reliant on a buff (hex) which is also reliant on spell slots that are at a premium. EB does not function like a cantrip so make it into a class feature like it was in 4e. Changing agonizing blast completely guts a warlock because it's RELIANT on that extra damage to stay in the same realm as the martials that it emulates. It is designed to work like martials and needs to continue to do so.
EDIT: AB already is useable with other warlock spells as of the last playtest IIRC. The difference is significant though. Say I put AB on ray of frost (another ranged attack cantrip). At level 1, ROF is d8+mod (4.5+3=7.5 dpr). EB is d10+mod (5.5+3=8.5). When things scale, ROF turns into 4.5+4.5+4=13 dpr. EB is now 5.5+4+5.5+4=19 dpr. With your proposal this would drop to 5.5+4+5.5=15 dpr. This is significantly less. And you're trying to force me to use a spell slot AND my concentration to make up the difference with hex. Just so that Agonizing blast doesn't work the way it's intended to work. The problem is eldritch blast scaling, not agonizing blast scaling. They need to fix the problem. The simple, straight forward solution is to change EB scaling. Warlocks won't care about that. They will absolutely care about AB being gutted.
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.
EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
It's a problem at level 1 if it means that multi-classing allows any other class to be just as good at blasting a full Warlock, which is the problem that needs to be solved.
Scaling eldritch blast on Warlock levels, scaling Agonizing Blast by Warlock level, or delaying it until a later Warlock level, are all proposals to do essentially the same thing; they limit the effectiveness of eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast for multi-classing. We don't need all of these, any one of them should do it.
Clearly I'm in favour of Agonizing Blast being a once per turn bonus that is scaled to Warlock level, because that both solves the problem, but also has the side benefit of making Agonizing Blast usable with other cantrips, rather than being eldritch blast only.
I like this solution as well. And it is slightly better with EB because of the multiple chances to hit with only 1 needing to land. I don't think they are going to limit EB to warlock level scaling because no other cantrip works like that. But changing AB to function more with warlock levels is a viable solution.
It doesn't work like any other cantrip anyways, and they should stop trying to regulate it as though it does. They HAD this fixed in the play test then removed it for inexplicable reasons. You can make an argument about half/caster/pact magic, not going to go down that rabbit hole as it's irrelevant. But there was literally no good reason to revert Eldritch Blast. Hex is also arguable because the change was a DPS loss (that I'm happy to pay) but EB 100% needs to not scale on warlock level.
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.
EDIT: AB already is useable with other warlock spells as of the last playtest IIRC.
Except it's not really, because other cantrips only add the damage once with no scaling so from 5th-level onwards there's simply no reason to have the invocation if you don't intend to use it with eldritch blast. This makes the UA7 change to allow other cantrips basically pointless.
With your proposal this would drop to 5.5+4+5.5=15 dpr. This is significantly less. And you're trying to force me to use a spell slot AND my concentration to make up the difference with hex. Just so that Agonizing blast doesn't work the way it's intended to work. The problem is eldritch blast scaling, not agonizing blast scaling. They need to fix the problem. The simple, straight forward solution is to change EB scaling. Warlocks won't care about that. They will absolutely care about AB being gutted.
Dude, please read my actual posts. I have literally said the words scaling damage in EVERY SINGLE ONE. I am NOT proposing that Agonizing Blast only add your Charisma modifier once with no form of scaling whatsoever. Why do you keep assuming something I haven't said after Ispecifically addressed an entire post to you about it already?
Please don't shit-post about other people's proposals without taking the time to understand them first. 😝
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Haravick is completley right. There are honestly many solutions they could do. One would be to have agonizing blast damage scale with warlock levels instead of being based on ability score, one would be to make eldritch blast a warlock feature instead of a cantrip that scales with warlock levels and other is just delaying agonizing blast to later levels. It honestly doesn't matter to me, but if eldritch blast + agonizing blast is supposed to be the reason to play warlock over another full caster than it needs to be walled off from other casters better.
I’ve had an idea bouncing around my head that kind of dovetails on that subject.
1- make True Strike (as written in 1DD play test: radiant damage) a Cleric cantrip (given to Paladins instead of the Divine Smite spell) scale with the sum of Cleric and Paladin levels.
2- make Magic Missile a cantrip that scales its number of bolts the same as EB, but it scales only with the sum of Wizard and Sorcerer levels (and 1/3 EK levels). They still auto hit, and they still do 1d4+1, and are blocked by a shield spell.
3- Have EB scale only with Warlock levels. Make Agonizing Blast be an automatic class feature that you get at 8th or so level, and it works 1/turn for any Warlock Cantrip (not just one that you can change each level).
4- make a version of True Strike that does a choice of (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder) damage… but is d4s instead of d6s, and scales with the sum of Druid and Ranger levels (and 1/3 elemental monk levels). Its a Druid cantrip, and Rangers get it for free at 2nd or 3rd level. Elemental Monks get it at 3rd or 6th level (in addition to Elementalism).
It gives all of the caster classes (except Artificer, who has a different trademark schtick) a cantrip that they can do all day long, that fits them in some specific way… and isn’t that useful outside of a limited set of multi class combinations, so it’s somewhat niche to them.
(I would probably add that Paladins and Rangers would be able to cast their special cantrip instead of making one of their Attack action attacks).
4- make a version of True Strike that does a choice of (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder) damage… but is d4s instead of d6s, and scales with the sum of Druid and Ranger levels (and 1/3 elemental monk levels). Its a Druid cantrip, and Rangers get it for free at 2nd or 3rd level. Elemental Monks get it at 3rd or 6th level (in addition to Elementalism).
Why do Druids & Rangers get a WORSE damage type and WORSE damage and WORSE scaling than Clerics and Paladin?
4- make a version of True Strike that does a choice of (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder) damage… but is d4s instead of d6s, and scales with the sum of Druid and Ranger levels (and 1/3 elemental monk levels). Its a Druid cantrip, and Rangers get it for free at 2nd or 3rd level. Elemental Monks get it at 3rd or 6th level (in addition to Elementalism).
Why do Druids & Rangers get a WORSE damage type and WORSE damage and WORSE scaling than Clerics and Paladin?
They’re getting the same scaling (both are based on the same version of True Strike, both class pairs are getting full levels). Lower die type due to more damage type choices. I don’t agree that it’s a worse type, they can pick their type from that set with every hit, picking one the target is vulnerable to, and avoiding one the target is resistant or immune to… and it’s only a problem if the target is immune to all of them. That’s arguably better than being limited to Radiant, where a creature might actually be immune to it (there are some) and then you’re kind of screwed if they’re also resistant or immune to B/P/S.
Monks get worse scaling… but it’s the same scaling as an EK.
4- make a version of True Strike that does a choice of (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder) damage… but is d4s instead of d6s, and scales with the sum of Druid and Ranger levels (and 1/3 elemental monk levels). Its a Druid cantrip, and Rangers get it for free at 2nd or 3rd level. Elemental Monks get it at 3rd or 6th level (in addition to Elementalism).
Why do Druids & Rangers get a WORSE damage type and WORSE damage and WORSE scaling than Clerics and Paladin?
They’re getting the same scaling (both are based on the same version of True Strike, both class pairs are getting full levels). Lower die type due to more damage type choices. I don’t agree that it’s a worse type, they can pick their type from that set with every hit, picking one the target is vulnerable to, and avoiding one the target is resistant or immune to… and it’s only a problem if the target is immune to all of them. That’s arguably better than being limited to Radiant, where a creature might actually be immune to it (there are some) and then you’re kind of screwed if they’re also resistant or immune to B/P/S.
Monks get worse scaling… but it’s the same scaling as an EK.
That assumes your players are meta-gaming munchkins who have memorized the MM, so know every creature resistance & vulnerability. If that's not the case then you have to guess & trial & error your way through damage types hoping to come across one they aren't resistant to which is wasting valuable turns not doing full damage. Very few creatures are resistant / immune to radiant damage so simply through not needing to waste actions learning what damage type the enemies aren't resistant too they are dealing more damage. The scaling is not the same, Cleric & Paladin increases by 1d6 each step, while Ranger/Druid increases by 1d4 each step - which means at level 11, Ranger/Druid is dealing 3 less damage on average than Cleric & Paladin and it much more likely to use a damage type that is resisted.
Eh, burning a full round to boost your next round's damage by less than your average DPR is pretty inefficient, and while I don't feel everyone needs to be running only optimized builds, I think this kind of effect would be pretty widely recognized as just slowing down play and making characters deal less damage in most circumstances. Plus there's already Graze for guaranteeing a portion of damage, I doubt they want to make that too accessible when the point is to give martials their own bag of tricks.
Eh, burning a full round to boost your next round's damage by less than your average DPR is pretty inefficient, and while I don't feel everyone needs to be running only optimized builds, I think this kind of effect would be pretty widely recognized as just slowing down play and making characters deal less damage in most circumstances. Plus there's already Graze for guaranteeing a portion of damage, I doubt they want to make that too accessible when the point is to give martials their own bag of tricks.
They could easily make True Strike a Graze or Vex equivalent - though I'd make a BA in that case, since most WMs are just the riders from cantrips anyway. Cleave = GFB, Slow = Ray of Frost, Push = Warlock's EB / Thorn Whip, Topple = Sapping Sting, Sap = Vicious Mockery / Frostbite.
I did read your posts. Perhaps I misunderstood them.
You want to make agonizing blast 1/turn. To make up the damage difference, you want to double down on hex instead with more damage and features to improve it, yes?
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.
Tasha
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Medium arbor and a shield is a possible enticement for the casters that already get Shield and have multiple other party members with Healing Word. (Which is also broken - they had better nerf Shield in the 2024 books!). But Lucky's really not that powerful IME, and Alert is only good if you have a large number of short combats in an adventuring day which IME isn't the current preferred play style.
Yeah I grabbed Lucky on a character I've been playing for a while now and my experience has been that it's not nearly as strong as people complain about; it's only 3 uses per day which is not that many at all (even in this campaign which is very easy going with rests, I still burn through the uses quickly), and it's no guarantee of success. In fact, more often than not, I've rolled Lucky and ended up with a worse result than the one I was trying to change (and I usually rolled that one with inspiration already) which was what led me to start toying around with ideas for an Unlucky feat instead. 😂
Really the feat's strength depends on how open your DM is with enemy rolls; if played the way I think you're supposed to do it you shouldn't really know how likely a re-roll is to trigger a miss, i.e- you should only really know you were hit, not that the enemy did that on a 4 because it's got +13 to hit or whatever. If you do know that sort of information then you can save it for forcing enemy re-rolls, but even that's not that strong as you're otherwise saving it for attacks that you really don't want to miss (e.g- an upcast inflict wounds or whatever) but if Lucky works it hasn't made the attack stronger, it just stopped you wasting it, so it's no more powerful than if you had just rolled higher the first time.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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I completely disagree. I think the not adding your casting stat to cantrips is outright stupid. They give that ability at level seven as though casters are actually still casting cantrips usually at level 7. The fact is, people make spell casters to cast spells. They should not be made to feel like shooting a crossbow is a better use of their action than casting that spell. While agree that something needs to be done about the martial/caster divide, turning casters into quasi martials for the first couple of levels isn't it.
EDIT: Agonizing blast isn't a problem at level 1. Eldritch blast not scaling on warlock levels is the problem.
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
Agonizing blast being later is a way to make eldritch blast scale with warlock levels. By moving it you solve the eldritch blast scaling issue. Eldritch blast scaling isn't an issue without agonizing blast being added to it. And eldritch blast + Agonizing blast is supposed to be the warlocks compensation for not being a full caster.
It's a problem at level 1 if it means that multi-classing allows any other class to be just as good at blasting as a full Warlock, which is the problem that needs to be solved.
Scaling eldritch blast on Warlock levels, scaling Agonizing Blast by Warlock level, or delaying it until a later Warlock level, are all proposals to do essentially the same thing; they limit the effectiveness of eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast for multi-classing. We don't need all of these, any one of them should do it.
Clearly I'm in favour of Agonizing Blast being a once per turn bonus that is scaled to Warlock level, because that both solves the problem, but also has the side benefit of making Agonizing Blast usable with other cantrips, rather than being eldritch blast only.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I like this solution as well. And it is slightly better with EB because of the multiple chances to hit with only 1 needing to land. I don't think they are going to limit EB to warlock level scaling because no other cantrip works like that. But changing AB to function more with warlock levels is a viable solution.
Radical idea: EB gets promoted from cantrip to class feature.
It's a problem at level 1 because Eldritch Blast is not like other cantrips. The fix needs to be an eldritch blast change, not a change that makes warlocks reliant on a buff (hex) which is also reliant on spell slots that are at a premium. EB does not function like a cantrip so make it into a class feature like it was in 4e. Changing agonizing blast completely guts a warlock because it's RELIANT on that extra damage to stay in the same realm as the martials that it emulates. It is designed to work like martials and needs to continue to do so.
EDIT: AB already is useable with other warlock spells as of the last playtest IIRC. The difference is significant though. Say I put AB on ray of frost (another ranged attack cantrip). At level 1, ROF is d8+mod (4.5+3=7.5 dpr). EB is d10+mod (5.5+3=8.5). When things scale, ROF turns into 4.5+4.5+4=13 dpr. EB is now 5.5+4+5.5+4=19 dpr. With your proposal this would drop to 5.5+4+5.5=15 dpr. This is significantly less. And you're trying to force me to use a spell slot AND my concentration to make up the difference with hex. Just so that Agonizing blast doesn't work the way it's intended to work. The problem is eldritch blast scaling, not agonizing blast scaling. They need to fix the problem. The simple, straight forward solution is to change EB scaling. Warlocks won't care about that. They will absolutely care about AB being gutted.
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
It doesn't work like any other cantrip anyways, and they should stop trying to regulate it as though it does. They HAD this fixed in the play test then removed it for inexplicable reasons. You can make an argument about half/caster/pact magic, not going to go down that rabbit hole as it's irrelevant. But there was literally no good reason to revert Eldritch Blast. Hex is also arguable because the change was a DPS loss (that I'm happy to pay) but EB 100% needs to not scale on warlock level.
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
As of UA7, Agonizing Blast does work on other cantrips. It doesn't need to say "once per turn" because all the other cantrips are already 1/turn.
If we can get the new Acid Splash as a Warlock cantrip that would be a pretty nice backup to EB.
Except it's not really, because other cantrips only add the damage once with no scaling so from 5th-level onwards there's simply no reason to have the invocation if you don't intend to use it with eldritch blast. This makes the UA7 change to allow other cantrips basically pointless.
Dude, please read my actual posts. I have literally said the words scaling damage in EVERY SINGLE ONE. I am NOT proposing that Agonizing Blast only add your Charisma modifier once with no form of scaling whatsoever. Why do you keep assuming something I haven't said after I specifically addressed an entire post to you about it already?
Please don't shit-post about other people's proposals without taking the time to understand them first. 😝
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Haravick is completley right. There are honestly many solutions they could do. One would be to have agonizing blast damage scale with warlock levels instead of being based on ability score, one would be to make eldritch blast a warlock feature instead of a cantrip that scales with warlock levels and other is just delaying agonizing blast to later levels. It honestly doesn't matter to me, but if eldritch blast + agonizing blast is supposed to be the reason to play warlock over another full caster than it needs to be walled off from other casters better.
I’ve had an idea bouncing around my head that kind of dovetails on that subject.
1- make True Strike (as written in 1DD play test: radiant damage) a Cleric cantrip (given to Paladins instead of the Divine Smite spell) scale with the sum of Cleric and Paladin levels.
2- make Magic Missile a cantrip that scales its number of bolts the same as EB, but it scales only with the sum of Wizard and Sorcerer levels (and 1/3 EK levels). They still auto hit, and they still do 1d4+1, and are blocked by a shield spell.
3- Have EB scale only with Warlock levels. Make Agonizing Blast be an automatic class feature that you get at 8th or so level, and it works 1/turn for any Warlock Cantrip (not just one that you can change each level).
4- make a version of True Strike that does a choice of (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder) damage… but is d4s instead of d6s, and scales with the sum of Druid and Ranger levels (and 1/3 elemental monk levels). Its a Druid cantrip, and Rangers get it for free at 2nd or 3rd level. Elemental Monks get it at 3rd or 6th level (in addition to Elementalism).
It gives all of the caster classes (except Artificer, who has a different trademark schtick) a cantrip that they can do all day long, that fits them in some specific way… and isn’t that useful outside of a limited set of multi class combinations, so it’s somewhat niche to them.
(I would probably add that Paladins and Rangers would be able to cast their special cantrip instead of making one of their Attack action attacks).
Why do Druids & Rangers get a WORSE damage type and WORSE damage and WORSE scaling than Clerics and Paladin?
They’re getting the same scaling (both are based on the same version of True Strike, both class pairs are getting full levels). Lower die type due to more damage type choices. I don’t agree that it’s a worse type, they can pick their type from that set with every hit, picking one the target is vulnerable to, and avoiding one the target is resistant or immune to… and it’s only a problem if the target is immune to all of them. That’s arguably better than being limited to Radiant, where a creature might actually be immune to it (there are some) and then you’re kind of screwed if they’re also resistant or immune to B/P/S.
Monks get worse scaling… but it’s the same scaling as an EK.
That assumes your players are meta-gaming munchkins who have memorized the MM, so know every creature resistance & vulnerability. If that's not the case then you have to guess & trial & error your way through damage types hoping to come across one they aren't resistant to which is wasting valuable turns not doing full damage. Very few creatures are resistant / immune to radiant damage so simply through not needing to waste actions learning what damage type the enemies aren't resistant too they are dealing more damage. The scaling is not the same, Cleric & Paladin increases by 1d6 each step, while Ranger/Druid increases by 1d4 each step - which means at level 11, Ranger/Druid is dealing 3 less damage on average than Cleric & Paladin and it much more likely to use a damage type that is resisted.
Personally I think they went the wrong direction with truestrike.
I would rather it bump accuracy or make a portion of your next attacks damage guaranteed. In line with action cost of a cantrip.
Eh, burning a full round to boost your next round's damage by less than your average DPR is pretty inefficient, and while I don't feel everyone needs to be running only optimized builds, I think this kind of effect would be pretty widely recognized as just slowing down play and making characters deal less damage in most circumstances. Plus there's already Graze for guaranteeing a portion of damage, I doubt they want to make that too accessible when the point is to give martials their own bag of tricks.
They could easily make True Strike a Graze or Vex equivalent - though I'd make a BA in that case, since most WMs are just the riders from cantrips anyway. Cleave = GFB, Slow = Ray of Frost, Push = Warlock's EB / Thorn Whip, Topple = Sapping Sting, Sap = Vicious Mockery / Frostbite.
I did read your posts. Perhaps I misunderstood them.
You want to make agonizing blast 1/turn. To make up the damage difference, you want to double down on hex instead with more damage and features to improve it, yes?
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