Hey guys! first post here, so feel free to let me know there is anything wrong in the way/place i posted this. thanks!
I've encountered a bit of an issue with how the bloodhunter's skills mesh with some spells in the other books. So I've decided to defer to the knowledge of the hivemind to help me out in dealing with this issue. I'll include a quick description of the spells/skills i'll be referring to in the bottom of my post just for quick reading, and so people who don't have access to those specific books can see them as well.
Here's the situation: I'm DMing for a party of 6, and one of which is a lvl 13 bloodhunter (Profane soul). In our last session, they ended up fighting a pit fiend in the final combat encounter of the day. During the fight, our bloodhunter whipped out her new combo that she figured out. While firing her arrows, she used her "Demonic Channel" to cast the spell "Life Drain" (Elminster's, pg. 83) at range through her weapon. which in turn paralyzed the s*** out of the PF over and over. I didn't want to have a whole time-wasting discussion about it in the middle of the game, so i let it slide for now, and told her I'd revisit it later on and get back to her. As you may have guessed, from a pretty challenging encounter, became so much easier just by that one pretty OP move. and now I'm rethinking any single combat encounter that involves solo creatures vs the party. I very much reward my players for ingenuity and creativity when playing, but this semi-breaks the game to a certain standpoint. So i'm wondering how you all would see how it works together, and whether or not Life Drain can be cast this way, or if it's fine the way she did it.
I'm still super confused by it, but how i see it is that since Life Drain is a concentration spell and the last line of the Demonic Channel specifically says if it requires an action to activate and already active concentration spell, she has to cast it once normally, before using her Demonic Channeling to "reactivate" the spell though her bow/arrows, at range, to attack the same target and use the spell again still within concentration. all within the spell duration of course. So basically she would need to get into melee, cast LD, then move away, and use DC to reactivate it through her weapon at range, as long as she maintains concentration.
What do you all think? should this be the case? Should she be able to use this at all? Am i reading it wrong? or is there a more "fair" way to go about using/not using it? also, is there any other spells i should watch out for that could be just as bad?
For reference:
Life Drain:
3rd-level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V
Range: Touch
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You heal your wounds by draining vital energies from a foe you touch. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, the target takes 1d8 necrotic damage and it is paralyzed until the end of your next turn, and you or an ally within 5 feet regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt. Until the spell ends, you can make the attack again on each of your turns as an action, but only against the same target.
Diabolic Channel
At 11th level, you can temporarily infuse your rite with the seed of a powerful spell. As an action, you can imbue your rite-enhanced weapon with one warlock spell you can cast or is already active, then make a single attack with that weapon. The spell must be using a warlock or profane soul spell slot. If that attack hits, all spell attack rolls for the imbued spell hit the target automatically and are considered part of the single weapon attack. The target takes weapon damage, and is subject to the effects of the spell, expending a spell slot accordingly. If the attack has advantage, the target’s initial saving throw against the spell has disadvantage. If the attack misses, the spell has no effect. Area spells originate from the target’s space. The spell must be of 1st level or higher, have a casting time of 1 action, or require an action to activate an already active concentration spell.
I'm not seeing where Paralysis comes into play with this combo. Unless you were using the word paralyze as exaggeration for what was going on instead of the status effect
EDIT: Apparently I can't read. Yeah that seems like a pretty strong combo. It seems like your interpretation is correct, that the PC would have to *already* have the spell on the Pit Fiend before being able to use the Channel feature.
"As an action, you can imbue your rite-enhanced weapon with one warlock spell you can cast or is already active, then make a single attack with that weapon."
So Life Drain is a warlock spell that can be cast (first part of the or)
"The spell must be of 1st level or higher, have a casting time of 1 action, or require an action to activate an already active concentration spell."
Since it's an OR condition, the spell satisfies the first 2 conditions, the 3rd is not required.. For subsequent rounds, the 3rd condition is active.
It's a pretty nasty combo.. but not much worse that Monk's Stunning Strike or similar. What I've found is that any single target creature can be ganged up on. In this case, the damage is negligible to the Pit Fiend (10d8 over 10 rounds), and the blood hunter can't do anything else. It's the rest of the party that brings the pain. So, I've learned that in any encounter, the key is to have multiple creature to engage all of the party. Or the creature has to have a big enough HP pool to soak up tons of damage.
Either way, this is one reason why Homebrew classes will be disallowed at some tables. Granted, I don't see how this is different from Life Drain being delivered through a Familiar, so this combo could be a common occurrence.
The rules for the Bloodhunter's Diabolic Channel don't *specifically* state that they override the spell's normal range limitations (they also don't say it doesn't override range, so this remains open for debate). One might argue that this spell cast through a ranged weapon would not work. Diabolic Channel says that "all spell attack rolls for the imbued spell hit the target automatically", but the description of Life Drain says "make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach". That attack roll might succeed automatically, but I would argue you can't even make that attack roll because it needs to target a creature in reach.
Touch range spells are almost always more powerful, and I'm not sure this class feature was meant to override that general situation. But then again, maybe that was the intention. If this were an official class we might expect clearer rules on this situation.
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Hey guys! first post here, so feel free to let me know there is anything wrong in the way/place i posted this. thanks!
I've encountered a bit of an issue with how the bloodhunter's skills mesh with some spells in the other books. So I've decided to defer to the knowledge of the hivemind to help me out in dealing with this issue. I'll include a quick description of the spells/skills i'll be referring to in the bottom of my post just for quick reading, and so people who don't have access to those specific books can see them as well.
Here's the situation: I'm DMing for a party of 6, and one of which is a lvl 13 bloodhunter (Profane soul). In our last session, they ended up fighting a pit fiend in the final combat encounter of the day. During the fight, our bloodhunter whipped out her new combo that she figured out. While firing her arrows, she used her "Demonic Channel" to cast the spell "Life Drain" (Elminster's, pg. 83) at range through her weapon. which in turn paralyzed the s*** out of the PF over and over. I didn't want to have a whole time-wasting discussion about it in the middle of the game, so i let it slide for now, and told her I'd revisit it later on and get back to her. As you may have guessed, from a pretty challenging encounter, became so much easier just by that one pretty OP move. and now I'm rethinking any single combat encounter that involves solo creatures vs the party. I very much reward my players for ingenuity and creativity when playing, but this semi-breaks the game to a certain standpoint. So i'm wondering how you all would see how it works together, and whether or not Life Drain can be cast this way, or if it's fine the way she did it.
I'm still super confused by it, but how i see it is that since Life Drain is a concentration spell and the last line of the Demonic Channel specifically says if it requires an action to activate and already active concentration spell, she has to cast it once normally, before using her Demonic Channeling to "reactivate" the spell though her bow/arrows, at range, to attack the same target and use the spell again still within concentration. all within the spell duration of course. So basically she would need to get into melee, cast LD, then move away, and use DC to reactivate it through her weapon at range, as long as she maintains concentration.
What do you all think? should this be the case? Should she be able to use this at all? Am i reading it wrong? or is there a more "fair" way to go about using/not using it? also, is there any other spells i should watch out for that could be just as bad?
For reference:
Life Drain:
At 11th level, you can temporarily infuse your rite with the seed of a powerful spell. As an action, you can imbue your rite-enhanced weapon with one warlock spell you can cast or is already active, then make a single attack with that weapon. The spell must be using a warlock or profane soul spell slot. If that attack hits, all spell attack rolls for the imbued spell hit the target automatically and are considered part of the single weapon attack. The target takes weapon damage, and is subject to the effects of the spell, expending a spell slot accordingly. If the attack has advantage, the target’s initial saving throw against the spell has disadvantage. If the attack misses, the spell has no effect. Area spells originate from the target’s space. The spell must be of 1st level or higher, have a casting time of 1 action, or require an action to activate an already active concentration spell.
-= My +3 Cold Axe helps me shut people up and get calm... I call it my CHILLAXE. =-
I'm not seeing where Paralysis comes into play with this combo. Unless you were using the word paralyze as exaggeration for what was going on instead of the status effect
EDIT: Apparently I can't read. Yeah that seems like a pretty strong combo. It seems like your interpretation is correct, that the PC would have to *already* have the spell on the Pit Fiend before being able to use the Channel feature.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Not sure I agree here:
"As an action, you can imbue your rite-enhanced weapon with one warlock spell you can cast or is already active, then make a single attack with that weapon."
So Life Drain is a warlock spell that can be cast (first part of the or)
"The spell must be of 1st level or higher, have a casting time of 1 action, or require an action to activate an already active concentration spell."
Since it's an OR condition, the spell satisfies the first 2 conditions, the 3rd is not required.. For subsequent rounds, the 3rd condition is active.
It's a pretty nasty combo.. but not much worse that Monk's Stunning Strike or similar. What I've found is that any single target creature can be ganged up on. In this case, the damage is negligible to the Pit Fiend (10d8 over 10 rounds), and the blood hunter can't do anything else. It's the rest of the party that brings the pain. So, I've learned that in any encounter, the key is to have multiple creature to engage all of the party. Or the creature has to have a big enough HP pool to soak up tons of damage.
Either way, this is one reason why Homebrew classes will be disallowed at some tables. Granted, I don't see how this is different from Life Drain being delivered through a Familiar, so this combo could be a common occurrence.
The rules for the Bloodhunter's Diabolic Channel don't *specifically* state that they override the spell's normal range limitations (they also don't say it doesn't override range, so this remains open for debate). One might argue that this spell cast through a ranged weapon would not work. Diabolic Channel says that "all spell attack rolls for the imbued spell hit the target automatically", but the description of Life Drain says "make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach". That attack roll might succeed automatically, but I would argue you can't even make that attack roll because it needs to target a creature in reach.
Touch range spells are almost always more powerful, and I'm not sure this class feature was meant to override that general situation. But then again, maybe that was the intention. If this were an official class we might expect clearer rules on this situation.