Eldritch Blast

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

Description

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

Properties

Cost

 Action

Damage: 1~10

1d10Force

Details

Attack roll

 Range: 18 m / 60 ft

Pushes: 4.5 m / 15 ft (with  Repelling Blast)

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).

Technical details

UID

Projectile_EldritchBlast

Spell flags

AddFallDamageOnLand, DisplayDamageModifiers, HasHighGroundRangeExtension, HasSomaticComponent, HasVerbalComponent, IsHarmful, IsSpell, RangeIgnoreVerticalThreshold

How to learn

Classes:

• Class level 1: Warlock
• Class level 6: College of Lore (via Magical Secrets)
• Class level 10: Bard (via Magical Secrets)

Granted by features:

•  Magic Initiate: Warlock
•  Spell Sniper

Other ways to learn:

• There are no scrolls available for wizards to scribe to their spellbooks.

Notes

• The benefits of Potent Robe, as well as 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 takes additional 1d6Necrotic damage from each beam.
• Can be subject to  Counterspell.
• When interacting with effects like  Death Ward and dealing multiple beam attacks to the same creature, assuming the 1st attack is sufficient to  down the creature with Death Ward active, the 2nd attack appears to apply before Death Ward activates. This means that after 2 beam attacks the creature loses Death Ward but remains with 1HP:
  • If the initial attack has 3 beams the creature is downed on the 2nd attack and again for an actual kill on the 3rd attack.
  • In the case of party members with Death Ward applied, they would need to receive 6 (beam) attacks to actually die: 2 to break down the ward, 1 to get downed and 3 more to fail 3 Death Saving Throws. This effect appears to apply to all multi-application attacks such  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