Eldritch Blast

Eldritch Blast is a cantrip (Evocation). The cantrip allows the spellcaster to shoot out an energy beam that deals Force damage, and that can be upgraded with Warlock abilities.

Description

Conjure a beam of crackling energy. Deals 1d10Force damage to a target.

Properties

Cost

Action

Damage

1d10 (1~10) Force

Details

Attack roll

 Range: 18 m / 60 ft

At higher levels

Unlike other cantrips whose damage increases at certain character levels, Eldritch Blast, instead, creates multiple beams at higher levels:

1d10 (1~10) Force per ray

• 2 beams at character level 5
• 3 beams at character level 10

You can either target a single creature or multiple creatures with the beams. Each beam rolls a separate Attack roll and is affected by the selected Eldritch Invocations (see notes for further details).

How to learn

Classes:

• Class Level 1: Warlock

• Class Level 6: College of Lore (via Magical Secrets)

• Class Level 10: Bard (via Magical Secrets)

Feats:

•  Magic Initiate: Warlock
•  Spell Sniper

Notes

• The benefits of Potent Robe, various effects like Lightning Charges, and Eldritch Invocations, such as  Agonising Blast or  Repelling Blast, are applied to each beam.
  • While  Repelling Blast applies to each beam, it can only knock back a creature once per cast.
• A target afflicted by  Hex will take additional 1d6Necrotic damage from each beam.
• Can be subject to Counterspell.
• When interacting with effects like  Death Ward and dealing multiple attacks to the same creature, assuming the 1st attack was sufficient to  down the target the 2nd attack appears to apply before the  Death Ward activates, which means that after 2 attacks the target would lose the  Death Ward but remain with 1HP. If the initial attack would have 3 applications then the target would be  downed on 1st attack and again on 3rd attack. In case of Avatars it means that, whilst having a  Death Ward applied, they would need to receive 6 attack applications to fully die: 2 to break down the ward, 1 to get downed and 3 more to fail 3 Death Saves. This effect seems to apply to all multi-application attacks, like  Magic Missile and  Scorching Ray (as of 4.1.1.3669438).
• The incantation for Eldritch Blast is Dolor, Latin for "pain/anguish".

External Links

• Eldritch blast on the Forgotten Realms Wiki