Would you allow this as a Eldritch Blast substitute?

[Ogun]

Eldritch Knife
LEVEL
Cantrip
CASTING TIME
1 Bonus Action
RANGE/AREA
Touch
COMPONENTS
S
DURATION
1 Minute
SCHOOL
Transmutation
ATTACK/SAVE
Ranged
DAMAGE/EFFECT
Piercing
You touch a dagger or knife and imbue it with magic. You can make a ranged spell attack, it is yeeted with magical force.
It has a range of 60 feet. On a hit, the target takes piercing damage equal to 1d4 + weapon damage modifiers +your spellcasting ability modifier. Hit or miss, the spell then ends on the blade.
The spell yeets more than one blade when you reach higher levels: two blades at 5th Level, three blades at 11th level, and four blades at 17th level. You can direct the blades at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate Attack roll for each blade.

A mash up of Magic Stone and Eldritch Blast, it also requires you use a dagger , which can be a on or a bane.

[heavyfuel]

On a hit, the target takes piercing damage equal to 1d4 + weapon damage modifiers +your spellcasting ability modifier.


The spell yeets more than one blade when you reach higher levels: two blades at 5th Level, three blades at 11th level, and four blades at 17th level. You can direct the blades at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate Attack roll for each blade.


So, would the target take 1d4 + Dex + Cha? Or is the "weapon damage modifiers" things that unique to the weapon, so a +1 dagger would deal 1d4 + 1 + Cha?

Also, why a Bonus Action? It makes sense for Magic Stone because it's only a bonus action to make stones magical, you still need to use your action to attack with them. But this spell is worded in a way that it seems the attack is part of the spell, which would make it way too strong for a Cantrip.

Edit: Also, would the damage be considered magical for purposes of damage resistance/immunity?

[Kane0]

Eldritch Knife
Transmutation Cantrip
Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action
Range: Touch (60 feet)
Components: S
Duration: 1 minute

You touch a dagger or knife and imbue it with magic. When you cast this spell or as a Bonus Action on your turn you can make a ranged weapon attack using your casting ability for the attack and damage rolls. Hit or miss, the spell then ends.
This spell can enchant additional blades when you reach higher levels: two blades at 5th Level, three blades at 11th level, and four blades at 17th level. You can direct the blades at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate Attack roll for each blade.


Cleaned that up for you, swapping it from spell attack to weapon attack (eldritch blast is already a ranged spell attack).

Seems OK. It's a Bonus Action spell and you can add weapon attack damage bonuses which is pretty good but the range is halved and it's a weapon attack that isn't considered magical by default. May have to playtest but to my eyeball doesn't break anything catastrophically.

[Theodoxus]

Would I allow it? Sure.

Would I ever use it over EB? Nope

Even with Kane0's reformatting, there is no incentive to use it instead. The damage is less than half, the range is half, it requires a material component that is now somewhere 60' away from me that I'm going to have to jog over to retrieve to cast again...

If it was actually replacing EB in a homebrew, I'd probably go Hexblade if I was going to play a Warlock and not worry about it.

Just curious, why?

[8wGremlin]

Because it’s a ranged attack with a weapon.
Which opens it up to sneak attack etc.

[Galithar]

I wouldn't allow it. It's a bonus action by default attack cantrip. If you allowed the EB invocations to stack on this as I would assume with a replacement for the spell it is way too much. Default spellcasting modifier without invocation investment and still able to cast a firebolt?

I can deal 2d4+8+2d10 for no resource cost at level 5? Why wouldn't I take this? (Assuming +4 mod) (This spell on bonus action and Firebolt as action.)

This just gets even worse if you start giving access to magic daggers. Which a player with this spell is going to want.

This honestly gives the appearance of trying to sneak some extra power past a DM by saying "but it does less damage than Eldritch Blast!". When in fact it increases your average damage per round output significantly.

[Kane0]

Fair enough. Just make it a bonus action to enchant the daggers with the spell but still require your action to throw them.

Like a knife throwing shillelagh.

[Magicspook]

I wouldn't allow it out of hand. I'd first have a serious talk with this player about why he thinks this spell is necessary in the first place.

If the player is a known minmaxer or munchkin, I wouldn't allow it at all.

[diplomancer]

There are no Bonus Action cantrips that do damage, they enchant weapons (club, staff, stone) but you still need your action to use the enchanted weapons.

So, no.

Edit: quick back of the envelope calculation; compare a level 6 Fighter, 16Str, that took PAM and GWM, with a Celestial Warlock with this cantrip that raised his Cha to 18 at level 4, Dex at 16 (notice we are comparing 2 powerful damage feats with the cantrip). Warlock is using Sacred Flame as his Action, Eldritch Knife as his bonus action; Fighter is attacking both with his Action and Bonus Action.

Assuming a 60% hit rate for the Warlock, that'd be either a 55% hit rate or a 30% hit rate to the Fighter, depending on whether he chose the -5,+10 or not, as he hasn't increased his Str yet.

Warlock does 2d4+14, 2d8+4= 32*0.6=19.2
Fighter does 2d10+26, d4+13,= 52.5*0.3=15.75, or 2d10+6, d4+3=22.5*0.55=12.375}.
If Fighter had chosen PAM and Str ASI, his DPR would be 15.3.

It's true that there are many other possible variables; if Fighter had chosen great weapn fighting style he'd increase his DPR slightly; crits work in the Fighter's favour, and I haven't computed them. A reliable source of advantage would be very good for the GWM Fighter, not so much for the Warlock. But still, the very fact that you have one cantrip and one subclass feature against two powerful feats, and these two powerful feats are outclassed, shows that the cantrip is way overpowered.

[Ogun]

Thank you for the interests and replies!
Ok, the intent is flavor more than anything.
I've always preferred the flavor of Magic Stone to that EB, its more like "Elf Shot".
It also can shoot out lanterns, etc.

For this spellcasting character, knives are thematically important, so I'm trying to make them viable.
The bonus action is legacy of Magic Stone, I never intended a bonus action attack, that needs to be rewritten to avoid potential stacking.
That daggers are a required and the resulting expense/inconvenience is intentional.
The ability to add sneak attack, use magic daggers,etc, is intentional the required investments seem balance enough.
Avoiding the need for an Invocation is intentional, the need for Agonizing Blast is removed, but so are all the potential benefits of other invocations.
Hexblade gives Charisma to a single individual weapon , not all weapons of that type, so not all daggers, but one dagger.
This doesn't help if you are throwing away your weapon.

[diplomancer]

Thank you for the interests and replies!
Ok, the intent is flavor more than anything.
I've always preferred the flavor of Magic Stone to that EB, its more like "Elf Shot".
It also can shoot out lanterns, etc.

For this spellcasting character, knives are thematically important, so I'm trying to make them viable.
The bonus action is legacy of Magic Stone, I never intended a bonus action attack, that needs to be rewritten to avoid potential stacking.
That daggers are a required and the resulting expense/inconvenience is intentional.
The ability to add sneak attack, use magic daggers,etc, is intentional the required investments seem balance enough.
Avoiding the need for an Invocation is intentional, the need for Agonizing Blast is removed, but so are all the potential benefits of other invocations.
Hexblade gives Charisma to a single individual weapon , not all weapons of that type, so not all daggers, but one dagger.
This doesn't help if you are throwing away your weapon.

So, first thing is to make the cantrip an action. You enchant a number of daggers and throw them as part of the same action. Could you clarify, please: when you've said 1d4+spellcasting ability modifer+weapon modifier whether you meant, by weapon modifier, any bonuses from magic weapons, or those magic bonuses in addition to dex or str ability modifier (i.e, is it 1d4+Cha+Dex+x, or just 1d4+Cha+x)?

I'd say that IF you can add the Dex AND it counts as magical weapons, it's still too good. Just counting as a magic weapon but not adding Dex could be balanced, though; you are basically giving up an average of 3 damage per dagger to save an invocation and have some other interesting interactions. Not counting as magic weapons and not adding dex, I wouldn't take it after around level 6. I notice that the spell does not have a V component; that might make it worthwhile for a stealthy character even then.

(I'd find keeping track of the daggers a terrible bore though, but that's a personal thing which I assume does not apply to you).

One final balance point; make it so this is a Warlock exclusive; at the very least, have it, exceptionally, scale with Warlock levels, not character level. You don't want a rogue 17 having 4 chances for sneak attack with this one cantrip. If he has Elven Accuracy and get some source of advantage you are talking about a crit almost every round. A Warlock 17/Rogue 3 adding 2d6 should be fine, though.

[Ogun]

Count as magical weapon?
Yes, to keep it viable.
Definitely wouldn't want it to add Dex or Strength bonus to the 1d4, the idea is to add the casting stat to attack and damage.
The warlock /rogue multip attack issue hadn't occurred to me, I doubt it would come up at our table, but its worth avoiding.

[Segev]

I suggest either letting his eldritch blasts be shaped like knives or just changing magic stone so that the material component is a set if throwing knives that do slashing instead of stones that do bludgeoning. Drop the sling part and use the rest of the mechanics as provided.

[BoutsofInsanity]

I would do the following to keep it clean.

Eldritch Knife
Transmutation Cantrip
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: Touch or thrown up to 60 feet
Components: S
Duration: Instantaneous

When casting this spell the caster creates a magical throwing Knife in hand. The caster may as part of the action make either a melee spell attack or a ranged spell attack against a target.

On hit the knife does 2d4 force damage. The number of knives and attacks increases by 1 at levels 5, 11, and 17th level totaling 4.

Eldritch Knife Invocation

When taking this invocation the caster of Eldritch knife may now add their charisma modifier to damage for each knife attack. See addendum below.

- Special -

If the caster wishes too, they may replace one of their knife attacks with an actual physical knife. The knife will fly back to their hand at start of their next turn. The attacks replaced with the knife will use the Knife's statistics in place of the special damage from the spell. IE: A poisoned dagger at level 17 would replace all four melee strikes with it's poisoned dagger damage and effects. But only 1 of the ranged attacks as the dagger wouldn't return till the start of the next turn. The dagger wouldn't do 2d4 unless it specifically says it can.


Intention

The intention here is to add the feel of being a knife fighter without stepping on E.B.'s toes. In this instance we trade the higher damage and range of EB for the versatility of having a melee option. We keep the 2d4 to represent the knife damage feel. It should be 1d8 or 1d6 for balance reasons. But the thematic feeling of daggers being 1d4 feels better. The invocation comes in to represent agonizing blast and adding the much lauded charisma to damage. Finally the addedum is added to make it feel really cool if you get a magical dagger and being able to add it to your repertoire even though you sacrifice potential damage to do it.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I suggest either letting his eldritch blasts be shaped like knives or just changing magic stone so that the material component is a set if throwing knives that do slashing instead of stones that do bludgeoning. Drop the sling part and use the rest of the mechanics as provided.

This right here seems like the simplest way of dealing with this situation.

5e, mostly, runs on off the ideology of KISS (keep it simple, stupid)