[3.5] Hideous Blow and Eldritch Glaive

[Darg]

Asking for clarification on how these can work.


As a standard action, you can make a single melee attack. If you hit, the target is affected as if struck by your eldritch blast (including any eldritch essence applied to the blast). This damage is in addition to any weapon damage that you deal with your attack, although you need not deal damage with this attack to trigger the eldritch blast effect.

Your eldritch blast takes on physical substance, appearing similar to a glaive. As a full-round action, you can make a single melee touch attack as if wielding a reach weapon. If you hit, your target is affected as if struck by your eldritch blast (including any eldritch essence applied to the blast). Unlike hideous blow, you cannot combine your eldritch glaive with damage from a held weapon. Furthermore, until the start of your next turn, you also threaten nearby squares as if wielding a reach weapon, and you can make attacks of opportunity with your eldritch glaive. These are melee touch attacks. If your base attack bonus is +6 or higher, you can (as part of the full-round action) make as many attacks with your eldritch glaive as your base attack bonus allows. For example, a 12th-level warlock could attack twice, once with a base attack bonus of+6, and again with a base attack bonus of +1.

It was pointed out to me that the creator didn't intend that HB would cause an AoO in a quote that I can't seem to find with my google searches. This makes sense as they are the only abilities/spells that I know of that specifically point out that they take a certain action to perform. If read as RAW, it would seem to imply that you cast them as a standard action which then gives you a bonus action as stated in the description. Thanks to the quote that I can't find, RAI would imply that they aren't cast but simply actions performed as specified.

Do you think there would be any balance issues for allowing the RAI interpretation other than the lack of AoOs?

[Troacctid]

Sorry. They're both blast shapes, which means you use them as part of the same action used to invoke eldritch blast. Using eldritch blast provokes an attack of opportunity just like any other SLA. There's a feat that you can take that specifically negates the AoO provoked by hideous blow. There's no wiggle room in the rules here. Try using a reach weapon, that usually helps.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You can use Concentration to cast defensively when using a spell-like ability. The Concentration check is laughably easy to make.

[Troacctid]

Plus, it's not as if there aren't already a million melee touch spells with the same problem.

[Darg]

That makes sense. So was my interpretation of the order of events caused by how I read the RAW correct? With HB it modifies EB. EB is already a standard action, so is the "as a standard action" redundant to the point that its removal wouldnt change the invocation or actually a function of the invocation whereby giving you a bonus action that you resolve immediately? The ramification of this is that eldritch glaive wouldn't actually be cast as a full round action.

The structure of the description of Eldritch Glaive seems to support this interpretation as it tells you what the invocation does first: gives your EB physical substance in the appearance of a glaive. It then goes on to tell you that you "can" make a single melee touch attack as a full round action. As written, this would imply the the full round action is mutually exclusive with the formation of the "glaive" and not a touch spell-like ability. If read in order, casting EB is a standard action that forms the glaive and then let's you make melee touch attacks as a full round action. If they aren't mutually exclusive that would imply that making the touch attack is part of the casting and therefore unable to be cast to only take advantage of AoOs.

Edit: RAW the only duration EG ever mentions is for simply being threatening. If it is cast as a whole action, the glaive wouldn't disappear and you wouldn't need to continue casting unless you wanted AoOs.

[Maat Mons]

When I did my homebrew melee invoker, I made all the invocations of this sort Swift actions, because Swift action spells/spell-like abilities never provoke attacks of opportunity.

I didn't give attacks as part of casting either. The invocation just charged your weapon up with magic that boosted all your attacks with that weapon until the start of your next turn. (Or some of them would only boost the next successful attack, but would still dissipate at the start of your next turn even if you made no successful attacks.)

You could then just make an attack. Or make a full attack. Or make attacks of opportunity. Or initiate a strike maneuver. Or use some other ability that involved making one or more attacks, but which was an action unto itself.

Not to toot my own horn, but I feel it was a simpler and more versatile approach. Plus, there were no weird interactions with Quicken Spell-Like Ability.

[Clementx]

When I did my homebrew melee invoker, I made all the invocations of this sort Swift actions, because Swift action spells/spell-like abilities never provoke attacks of opportunity.

I didn't give attacks as part of casting either. The invocation just charged your weapon up with magic that boosted all your attacks with that weapon until the start of your next turn. (Or some of them would only boost the next successful attack, but would still dissipate at the start of your next turn even if you made no successful attacks.)

You could then just make an attack. Or make a full attack. Or make attacks of opportunity. Or initiate a strike maneuver. Or use some other ability that involved making one or more attacks, but which was an action unto itself.

Not to toot my own horn, but I feel it was a simpler and more versatile approach. Plus, there were no weird interactions with Quicken Spell-Like Ability.

Exactly what I do with those invocations. HB is awkward to use, EG is overly specific. Swift action to add your blast damage to any melee weapon until your next turn is simpler, and isnt usually the best choice for the d6HD light armored guy with low physical stats.

[Troacctid]

That makes sense. So was my interpretation of the order of events caused by how I read the RAW correct? With HB it modifies EB. EB is already a standard action, so is the "as a standard action" redundant to the point that its removal wouldnt change the invocation or actually a function of the invocation whereby giving you a bonus action that you resolve immediately? The ramification of this is that eldritch glaive wouldn't actually be cast as a full round action.

The structure of the description of Eldritch Glaive seems to support this interpretation as it tells you what the invocation does first: gives your EB physical substance in the appearance of a glaive. It then goes on to tell you that you "can" make a single melee touch attack as a full round action. As written, this would imply the the full round action is mutually exclusive with the formation of the "glaive" and not a touch spell-like ability. If read in order, casting EB is a standard action that forms the glaive and then let's you make melee touch attacks as a full round action. If they aren't mutually exclusive that would imply that making the touch attack is part of the casting and therefore unable to be cast to only take advantage of AoOs.

Edit: RAW the only duration EG ever mentions is for simply being threatening. If it is cast as a whole action, the glaive wouldn't disappear and you wouldn't need to continue casting unless you wanted AoOs.
EG is cast as a full-round action. It disappears afterwards because, again, still a form of EB, still works like EB unless otherwise noted.

[Yogibear41]

By the rules Hideous Blow provokes an attack of opportunity.

However, you are correct that the creator of the invocation said in a Q+A that he did not intend for it to provoke an AOO, but this was never officially printed. It would be VERY reasonable to have Hideous blow not provoke.

Ask your DM.

[Darg]

EG is cast as a full-round action.

There is nothing that says it is though. With a strict reading of the invocation, the modification of the EB is right there in the first sentence: giving substance and a weapon-like shape. Like all other blast shape invocations EB must be cast before the shape takes effect. Unlike any other blast shape, this one does not have a duration of instantaneous. The only duration mentioned within the description directly pertains to the ability to threaten with the glaive. If I want to be strict grammatically thanks to the comma before the "and" in the sentence, it makes the complete statement that comes right after separate from the statement before. This includes the conditional. The full round action is you simply wielding the glaive as it tells you how to wield it. If the invocation lead with "as a full round action" it could be said to work in a similar fashion to HB, but it doesn't. Every other blast shape tells you exactly what it does in the very first sentence.


It disappears afterwards because, again, still a form of EB, still works like EB unless otherwise noted.

It does work like EB. EB is shaped to be a weapon-like spell-like ability. I should point out that it wouldn't be the only invocation to have a duration of infinite either. EG is completely unique when compared to any other blast shape.

[Darg]

By the rules Hideous Blow provokes an attack of opportunity.

However, you are correct that the creator of the invocation said in a Q+A that he did not intend for it to provoke an AOO, but this was never officially printed. It would be VERY reasonable to have Hideous blow not provoke.

Ask your DM.

It's worded exactly as a feat would be. Shapes and essences are invocations. Invocations have a cast time, but the shapes and essences are exceptions to that rule. It isn't even a leap to say that HB modifies EB to be a standard action (it's in the description) and not cast as a spell-like ability with a cast time of one standard action. Casting a spell is an action that costs other actions and not inherently an action type by itself. It's not like faqs can't be incorrect and sources based on those faqs aren't made. Heck, in the strictest reading of the shape and the rules for invocations and EB you cast EB modified by HB and you have to wait for the next available standard action to even use it.


Does hideous blow provoke an attack of opportunity?
Yes. As a spell-like ability, using hideous blow provokes
attacks of opportunity just as any other spell-like ability would.
A warlock who relies on this invocation should consider
investing ranks in the Concentration skill so that he can use it
defensively.

The wording of the faq is questionable in and of itself. The structure makes it sound like Hideous Blow itself is what is causing the AoO as it is an invocation instead of it being a modification to Eldritch Blast.


Does a warlock’s hideous blow invocation (Complete
Arcane, page 134) require one standard action to use the
hideous blow and another round to strike with a melee
weapon, or can the hideous blow and the melee weapon
attack be done as a single standard action?
Making an attack with hideous blow is considered part of
the same standard action as using the hideous blow invocation
(much like the casting of a touch spell allows an attack to be
made as part of the spell’s casting).

Emphasis mine. They really like saying that it is an invocation with all it's implications. Examples in the CArc even tell you how to name a modified Eldritch Blast. So when specifying the shape as an invocation, it should have the connotation of the invocation itself and not the modified blast. Makes it sound like the one in charge of the faq wasn't really paying attention.