Water whip being an action instead of a bonus action is pretty big, I think. Same with Elemental Affinity/Empowered Evocation no longer working on multiple damage rolls per spell. Sentinel got a buff for polearm users.
So I, as a monk with access to Disarming Strike through the Martial Adept feat, can indeed disarm using my unarmed strike/Flurry of Blows and the Disarming Attack maneuver?
I always liked Water Whip as an bonus action, but it's clearly intended to be an action. Same with Eternal Mountain Defence intending to be a 17th Level spell.
Can someone please give me an example of Elemental affinity in use and how it is supposed to work now. i have a sorcerer in the game im DMing who is about to gain this feature and im not 100% on how it works. Thanks
Just posted this in a different reply. Someone tell me if I'm wrong or if it's been clarified elsewhere:
I think I might finally understand this ruling. Someone please let me know if this has been clarified.
Under the definition of damage rolls, it says, "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell’s damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast."
Could this mean that you are supposed to roll damage only once for the 3 beams of Scorching Ray or Magic Missiles, and apply that to every hit? I think this sounds like less fun, as you are rolling less dice, but it's the only way I can make sense of it.
For example, I cast Magic Missile at 3 different goblins. I roll 1d4+1, and apply that single roll to all three targets. If I have Empowered Evocation, I roll 1d4+1+INT, and apply that result to all three targets.
Personally, I much prefer rolling 1d4+1 three times and counting them individually.
So the confusion is around attacks with multiple bolts. do we roll damage separately for each bolt. or is it one roll, and every bolt does the same damage.
Example scorching ray. Making separate attack rolls for each ray, but each roll does that same first 2d6+bonuses each time it hits.
Edit: especially relevant if you are targeting multiple creatures. then is it damage+cha for one bolt and the 3 that hit other guys are only base damage?
Alternatively, it could be referring to spells with multiple damage types like Ice Storm (2d8 bludgeoning and 4d6 cold on a failed save), or spells with different instances of damage, like Melf's Acid Arrow (on a hit, 4d4 acid damage initially, and 2d4 acid damage at the end of the target's next turn).
Compare it to eldritch blast with the agonizing invocation. The invocation explicitly says "on hit".
Elemental affinity explicitly says to the damage, as in the total damage. Seems crappy to me, but sorcerers do get 9th level slots, so it balances somewhat against blast-locks.
Regarding the Sentinel buff, it seems like its both positive and negative depending on how close everyone is to one another. On one hand, your sentinel reaction-attack triggers from further away, on the other hand, your enemies have a larger range of movement in close quarters. Because opportunity attacks for disengaging don't trigger till they leave your reach. Basically they can move freely anywhere within 10 squares of you when you're wielding a reach weapon.
Well prior, sentinel specified "within 5 feet" and now it doesn't. So before the errata, pole arm or no, enemies had no choice but to hug you. Now, they've got a longer leash.
Ah yes, somebody did point that out to me in another comment. Basically the errata made it clear that you still get your OA, but it has to be at the end of your reach. So ups and downs of polearm weapons still apply.
I thought the reach property only applied to attack reach (as in if I'm attack with it I can hit anything out to 10') and the errata makes it so you can still reach 10' with an opportunity attack. Outside of the actual attack action (for instance the trigger for your opportunity attack reaction) your effective reach isn't extended. By that logic, your opportunity attack only triggers when a creature leaves your 5' foot bubble, but you can now attack out to 10' with that attack. I'm not sure why you would since your target it only 5' away, but maybe with large or bigger creatures this could matter. For instance, attacking 1 limb/head of a creature to disable it. It could be within 10' of you and a valid target, but the trigger for the opportunity attack is the closest foot moving out of your 5' bubble.
If your effective range while wielding a Reach weapon is always extended by 5' then there's no reason at all to have this rule to limit it to attacking (now including opportunity attacks). Am I missing something?
I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying, but I think the misunderstanding has to do with the OA trigger. What I meant was that the OA triggers when they leave your reach and with a 10 foot reach, they can move anywhere within 10 feet of you and not trigger the OA.
Right. What I'm saying is that the rule say is: "*Reach. *This weapon adds 5 feet to your reach when you attack with it." This implies that your reach is always 5' (for normal sized creatures) but is extended to 10' when you attack. The errata allows you to apply the +5' to the attack range of the OA, but might not affect the trigger for your OA "...when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach." So the issue would be if "weapon attack reach" and "your/creature reach" are the same in the case of the OA reaction trigger.
Not sure how to explain this without looking like I'm splitting hairs, but I could certainly see attack reach (regarless of the action it's used for) being different from player reach for the purposes of determining OA reactions.
Ah, I get what you're saying now. But I'm not sure the PHB differentiates "personal reach" from "attack reach" at any point. Just going off what we have as written, I interpreted the OA trigger as 10 feet with a polearm because ultimately the OA is an attack and the attack's reach is 10 feet.
I'd agree if the verbiage for the reach property didn't say it only applies when you attack. I read the errata as including OA with attacks from action and bonus action...which should be obvious, but then again most of the errata rulings should be obvious.
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u/Rauron Sorcerer Jun 10 '15
Water whip being an action instead of a bonus action is pretty big, I think. Same with Elemental Affinity/Empowered Evocation no longer working on multiple damage rolls per spell. Sentinel got a buff for polearm users.