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I am have a debate on a feat and want to see how you will rule this, The Shield Master feat, the debate is about the last part of it , with this line of text “, interposing your shield between yourself and the source of the effect.” with a line spell like lightning bolt, if he saves will the shield block the full line of the spell or only protect himself? as well as fire ball spell , the line ” he fire spreads around corners.” will the shield block a play in the space behind him?
Hi…for this we need to look at the full line.
• If you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, interposing your shield between yourself and the source of the effect. PH 170.
The last part of the line that you reference is descriptive text for the GM and player to conceptualize the action. The reaction isnt a block to imobilize the attack from continuing its form. The reaction when paired with the Dex save means that the PC knows where to place the shield to prevent any damage that couldnt be dodged, ducked, dipped, dived, or dodged. A lighting bolt will still continue its line of 100×5 and a fireball will still form its sphere.
Compare with Rogue class ability Evasion on PH 96 that states “you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell.” Although the rogue doesnt actually move as in game terms of using movement while Evading.
Mystic class, Awakened Discipline, Psychic Assault.
The focus reads, “While focused on this discipline, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with psionic TALENTS that deal psychic damage” please could someone clarify this? Work only with one Psionic Talent “Mind Thrust”?
My question would be if I absorbed elements on a spell, would I be able to add the damage to the shocking grasp delivered by my familiar? I would argue yes because:
Absorb Elements:”…The first time you hit with a melee attack on your next turn, the target takes an extra 1d6 damage of the triggering type, and the spell ends.”
Shocking grasp is a melee spell attack with a range of touch.
Find Familiar: “…Finally, when you Cast a Spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell. Your familiar must be within 100 feet of you, and it must use its reaction to *deliver the spell when you cast it*. If the spell requires an Attack roll, you use your Attack modifier for the roll.”
My argument would boil down to I am hitting the target with a melee attack roll, but with an intermediary. I absorb the element, make a melee spell attack satisfying the trigger for the damage, and that damage is delivered to the target with my attack roll.
Further on find familiar: “Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In Combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A familiar can’t Attack, but it can take other actions as normal.”
Which would indicate to me that the attack is not the familiar attacking, therefore the attack it delivers is based on the conditions the PC is under.
Would you allow this?
Each DM has their own methods for determination. I would not allow it. I would allow the absorbed element damage to be added to shocking grasp but not if being casted by a familiar. If the familiar did not use absorb element there is nothing for them to augment shocking grasp. While the familiar is a medium for casting touch spells, it does not confer an ability to use affects active on the PC.
No, and it all boils down to 1 thing, you are not your familiar.
– The absorb Elements spell states “Also, the first time you hit with a melee attack on your next turn”. (specificly the “you” part)
– Find familiar states “Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell.”. (specificly “as if it had cast the spell” )
So when you use shocking grasp (or a similar spell) in game mechanics the familiar cast’s it, since it does not have the absorb elements on it, it does not give the bonus damage, since it only works if you make a melee attack.
sidenote:
The familiar cannot take the attack action (page 192 PHB), it does not mean that your familiar can’t do the concept of attacking, but that it cannot take the action.
This is how how the spells (absorb elements or find familiar) are worded to be used with regard to the question you are asking:
Absorb elements neither uses the term “melee WEAPON attack” or “melee SPELL attack” leaving it open for use in either case.
For all intents when you use your shocking grasp or inflict wounds you must make a melee spell attack.
Imprecise but that’s what I draw from it: it seems the targeting portion of the spell is more focused on preventing it’s use with weapons tagged as ranged or spells that make ranged spell attacks.
I am curious about if there is synergy between Stone Aegis from the UA Stone Sorcerer and a mount summoned by Find Steed. Although it would be nice if we both teleported and got an attack on a reaction – I am more wondering if I decide to use my reaction and teleport – does my mount come with me either as part of my character or via the spell sharing of Find Steed.
Thanks for your insight!
For the pact of the blade warlock invocations released in the UA. The invocations Improved, Superior, and Ultimate Pact weapons, the dm and myself cant find anything stating that the warlock cannot stack these invocations together giving them a +6 weapon with their pact weapon. Does this also work the +3 weapons making it a +9 weapon? Any clarification would be great, thank you.
No.
To begin with, you’re using an old UA, this invocation is removed in the revised class options see “https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/June5UA_RevisedClassOptv1.pdf”.
Assuming you’re still using the old one, still no.
1) it does not work on already magical weapons “This invocation doesn’t affect a magic weapon you transformed into your pact weapon”, so you cannot use it on an existing +3 weapon.
2) the invocation does not say it’s additive, or makes it better, it states that “Any weapon you create using your Pact of the Blade feature is a +x weapon” (where x is the strength). So it turns the weapon into a +x (it does not stack!).
So if you have several of these invocation’s at once, (since it’s not a spell they technically activate the moment you get them or create your pact weapon) only 1 of the invocation’s can apply, in which case (even though it’s not a spell) i’d still argue that the “combining magical effects” part occurs in which only the strongest effects happens. (see PHB 205).
So I am looking at trying to balance the encounters of a party of high level characters. 6 is the party count and the average level is 18.
Now if I looked at the DMG, a “hard” encounter would entail a XP level of 37,800. If I had 4 creatures that’s 9450 per character. That is two CR 12 and two CR 13. That is a prof bonus of +4 and +5. Translated to a NPC Class level….
so, If I am reading this right, My party of 6 Lvl 18th PC’s will have a “Hard” time against 4 Lvl 13th NPC’s!!!
That cannot be right.
Where am I going Sideways here?
I think you should aim for an encounter xp of 360k xp for a hard encounter. Signed never gonna level again, Lloyd the AMAZING.
To reduce time delay of overly long battles (and to prevent every battle having to be against ancient dragon) reinforcements can come along around half strength
There’s a few things you might be overlooking
1) CR and level are 2 different things. CR is meant to indicate when a monster is appropriate to fight, mostly to ensure a player isn’t 1-shoted. Later on when your party can fight against more of these they can still provide a challenge even if 1 of them is no longer considered deadly. (see DMG page 82)
2) You’re party is considered to have several encounters on a adventuring day, think of it as slowly beating them down, at lvl 18, 1 character should see 27k exp in encounter and have 1-2 short rests (see DMG page 84). so while the first time they encounter this setup may be easy, the 4th time they might be a lot lower on resources.
3) i’ll quote from DMG page 82, “When making this calculation, don’t count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter.”. So maybe the monster’s you choose are simply to low CR, and you should get something with higher CR and add a few others for fluff.
I do understand the CR and Level are different. But my issue is more nuanced. A CR 12 creature has the same proficiency as as Lvl 12 PC. This causes an eventual breakdown at higher levels. The PC’s are so powerful at higher levels, that it takes a very high CR creature to present a challenge. The idea of several smaller encounters, to “weaken” a party no longer function as these CR 12 – 15 creatures cannot even hit, or do any spell damage to the party. They just end up being XP candy. My struggle is with the mechanic of proficiency, CR, PC Lvl, and XP. A some point, equivalencies need to be established. You cannot have the big single baddies, High CR NPC get destroyed in one round due to action economy, or conversely higher numbers of smaller CR NPC’s get more slowly destroyed by the party and not even hit the party.
I would propose that at CR 12, the Prof be equivalent to a 12 lvl PC, but scale up from there. at a 2 CR for every Prof Bonus. CR 14 , +5, CR 16 + 6, CR 18 +7. And 1 CR for each prof bonus after CR 18.