In DnD 5e, War Caster is a feat that grants a bonus to concentration saves and allows spellcasters to cast spells for opportunity attacks. It can make spellcasters much more potent in close combat. Ranged spell attacks made with the War Caster “opportunity attack” are made at disadvantage if the target (or any enemy creature) is within 5 feet of you.
War Caster allows you to cast a spell instead of an opportunity attack, which is made just before the creature leaves your reach. If your reach is 5 feet and you use War Caster to cast a ranged spell attack, yes, the attack is made with disadvantage. Ranged attacks, whether from a spell or weapon, have disadvantage at 5 feet. Melee attacks and spells that cause a saving throw do not.
War Caster is applicable only if the spell attack is a ranged spell attack. However, every beam must target the creature that provoked the attack, and each attack roll is made with a disadvantage because it is a melee attack. The Crossbow Expert feat works for spells, but it does not remove the disadvantage from ranged spell attacks.
There is no such thing as disadvantage with spells attacks at close range. However, you do suffer disadvantage on attack rolls with a ranged attack when someone hostile is within 5 feet of you, and is not incapacitated. The main restriction of having to make an AoE spell attack is that ranged spell attacks such as eldritch blast are at disadvantage as the enemy is within 5 feet of you.
War Caster gives an advantage on concentration checks and allows you to use spells to make attacks of opportunity. However, if you have multiple blasts, each hit roll is done separately, so pushing them will no longer have disadvantage.
In conclusion, War Caster in DnD 5e allows you to cast powerful spells and make spellcasters more potent in close combat. However, it is important to note that all ranged attacks, including melee attacks, are at disadvantage if they are cast within 5 feet of an opponent.
📹 War Caster – Feats in D&D 5e
We’ll break down the rules interactions for this potent feat, and why it’s the favourite pick for almost every spellcaster in Dungeons …
Can I cast Fireball with Warcaster?
The War Caster feature permits the somatic component to be performed while the material component is fulfilled, provided that weapons or shields are in use. However, it does not permit the material component rules to be disregarded or weapons to be employed as a spellcasting focus. JavaScript is either disabled or blocked by browser extensions, and the browser in question does not support cookies.
Can you cast any spell with war caster?
It should be noted that cantrips such as Shocking Grasp, Booming Blade, and Green-Flame Blade necessitate the expenditure of an action to cast, yet may be cast as an opportunity attack with the War Caster feature. It should be noted, however, that certain spells may not be effective when used in conjunction with reach weapons. This is particularly relevant in the case of spells such as Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, which have a range of 5 feet, and may therefore be ineffective when used in conjunction with weapons that have a range of 10 feet or more.
Can I cast Eldritch blast with war caster?
Eldritch Blast may be employed in War Caster opportunity casting, targeting the enemy that initiates the encounter. For those who do not wish to construct a character with this specific purpose in mind, Booming Blade represents the optimal choice.
What is a range disadvantage?
In the event that an enemy is situated in close proximity to the player, the player will automatically be at a disadvantage with regard to any ranged attacks that they may make. To circumvent this disadvantage, it is advisable to select a non-adjacent target within range or to adopt a position that avoids contact with the enemy.
Do ranged spells have disadvantage?
In the event that a ranged attack is made with a weapon or spell, the attacker is at a disadvantage on the Attack roll if they are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see them.
Do ranged spell attacks have disadvantage underwater?
Water attacks are disadvantaged due to the difficulty of forceful clubbing or hitting targets from a distance. Players must roll two d20s and take the lower of the two results, with exceptions like spears, tridents, daggers, javelins, and weapons that work by piercing. Melee weapons have a disadvantage as they are difficult to strike with force due to water resistance. Ranged weapons are also disadvantaged as they are rendered useless outside of their normal range, making them difficult to use. In D and D 5e, a disadvantage means the player must roll two d20s and take the lower of the two results.
Do ranged attacks get advantage from flanking?
Combat should be kept moving, with players not being distracted by tactical discussions. Ranged attackers cannot make flank attacks, and melee attackers must be on opposite sides of a target to gain flanking advantage. Monsters should be fought the way they would, not the way players or players would. Trained and disciplined NPC warriors should close ranks against PCs who might try to flank them, cutting off access to squares or hexes needed for flanking.
Ranged attackers will pick off isolated characters who try to make an end run around the front line. A flanked creature will try to get unflanked, including trampling or eating a flanker. Bad positioning should result in logical consequences. Combat is about objectives, and if the DM loses sight of this, abuse of flanking advantage isn’t the only negative outcome.
Do ranged spells have disadvantage underwater?
Water attacks are disadvantaged due to the difficulty of forceful clubbing or hitting targets from a distance. Players must roll two d20s and take the lower of the two results, with exceptions like spears, tridents, daggers, javelins, and weapons that work by piercing. Melee weapons have a disadvantage as they are difficult to strike with force due to water resistance. Ranged weapons are also disadvantaged as they are rendered useless outside of their normal range, making them difficult to use. In D and D 5e, a disadvantage means the player must roll two d20s and take the lower of the two results.
What feat removes disadvantage on ranged attacks?
Sharpshooter is a powerful tool for ranged weapons that offers several advantages. It eliminates disadvantages for attacking people out of the weapon’s range, allows you to ignore half and three-quarters cover, and increases your damage by ten on each attack. This feat is particularly useful for those with crossbows, as it stops disadvantage when shooting while having an enemy five feet away. For crossbow enthusiasts, the bonus action allows you to fire a hand crossbow, allowing you to fight with both melee and ranged attacks, providing full versatility. Despite the gamble involved, Sharpshooter is a valuable addition to any ranged weapon arsenal.
Can a Warlock cast Hex and Eldritch blast on the same turn?
Eldritch Blast is a cantrip that utilizes the player’s action, enabling the casting of spells that necessitate a bonus action, such as Hex, without constraining the deployment of other spells within the same round.
Does War Caster work with Sentinel?
The War Caster feat enables the caster to cast a spell at a hostile creature when its movement triggers an opportunity attack, with a casting time of 1 action and targeting only that creature.
📹 Warcaster Vs. Resilient: A D&D Feat Comparison
Are you playing a full caster and need to find a way to protect your concentration spells? Maybe you are a half caster who still …
Are you curious about the probability math we discussed in this article? We didn’t want to spend too much time on an in-depth mathematical breakdown, but if you love that kind of detail, check out the Dice Roller at anydice.com. It’s a fantastic tool for quickly looking at the odds of dice math! If you want to see for yourself how taking Warcaster impacts your odds of making a concentration check. type in the following function: output (highest 1 of 2d20)+X (Replace with “x” your Constitution saving throw bonus) Then set the “data” view to “At Least” — that will show you your odds of making a Constitution saving throw against a given DC. If you want to see your odds without Warcaster, use the following function: output 1d20+X (Again, replace “x” with your Constitution saving throw bonus. You could even use this to compare the difference between having the Resilient feat and not having it, for example)
BTW Since you guys said you’d never seen someone use the last bullet of WC before. Scanlan Shorthalt on Critical Role definitely used Bigby’s hand as a reaction with war caster to hold a dragon in place that was trying to escape. I’m pretty sure he used it several other times as well throughout the campaign.
Casting a spell as an opportunity attack is the main reason my level 6 Bladesinger took Warcaster. He almost always fights with shadow blade (2d8 psychic). That means when he hits with Booming Blade as an opportunity attack he deals 2d8 psychic + 1d8 thunder +, if they carry on moving, 2d8 more thunder. So instead of the normal 2d8 he would deal with Shadow Blade, he ends up dealing 5d8 damage with a cantrip! Enemies hate it! It’s also nice to have advantage on top of adding my int modifier to con saving throws for concentration whilst bladesinging! With my +3 con and +5 int, and advantage, I’d love to know the odds on failing the check!
As a warcaster sorceress/battle mistress I’m already on the front lines so if anyone is dumb enough to try to run away they aren’t likely to enjoy the result. Also booming blade was practically made for this. It’s my version of the sentinel feat. That said green flame blade and sword burst won’t function for this since they can hit multiple enemies. Lightning lure can work however. Allowing you to pull the enemy back in while damaging it. But it and sword burst are sadly not melee delivered spells.
One thing I’d like to note, in the phb, page 203, in the material component is that the hand you use for your material component or spellcasting focus can be the same hand as the somatic component, and with cleric and paladins, when they put their holy symbols on their shields, the shield itself becomes the spellcasting focus, which means they can do somatic components with a shield and weapon in their hand because they can do the somatic component through the shield
When a wizard wields a quarter staff as their arcane focus, and they have both the war caster feat and the pole arm master feat, you can cast a spell against any creature that gets within 5 feet of you. Also, if you are a warlock instead of a wizard and you cast eldrich blast with the repelling blast invocation, it blasts that character backwards before they are able to get hits on you.
Notably, the third point of the feat lets you do some amazing things, IF it comes up. Notably, a war cleric, who stands in the front lines with heavy armor and a shield, and if a creature decides to seek an easier target, you can either smack them with a cantrip, or if the situation is ideal, a nastier spell like hold person.
I played a lvl 5 variant human Death Cleric who took warcaster and pole arm master. I found the two worked very well together, allowing me to take advantage of pole arm master by using my action and bonus action to melee attack, while still using my spell slots on things like ray of enfeeblement for my AoO’s.
An alternative way to get the main effect is to take Eldritch Adept and grab the Eldritch Mind invocation. You don’t get the second or third bullet points of War Caster, but it applies whenever you make a concentration check and not just when you take damage. Still mostly inferior to War Caster, but if you think you’ll be facing blizzards and sandstorms more often than you fight with a shield, it could be a useful alternative.
I personally play an Eldritch Knight Variant Human with Polearm Mastery, Sentinel and War Caster as my feats (Level 7 currently), and honestly it’s been a total blast. I play as a lockdown mid-front liner that defends squishy allies such as the wizard and rogue from rushdown melee enemies. It can be extremely powerful or near useless, because EK does not gain access to too many top tier spells, but it definitely has it’s uses when you get options like Blur, Mirror Image, Enlarge/Reduce, Invisiblity, etc. Also yes, I used the spell instead of opportunity attack option once, used it to cast Lightning Lure to drag the fucker over. Just because it looked cool.
For that part about the attacks of opportunity with a spell instead of a weapon, I can also see that when an enemy tries to rush by you while chasing someone else (maybe you just don’t seem physically intimidating enough to be worried about), or if they’re the effect of a fear or other effect that makes them run in a particular direction heedless of your presence.
I played an Aasimar paladin/sorcerer in our Curse of Strahd campaign. I waited the entire campaign to use the opportunity attack from war caster. Never got one to land until the final fight when I ended up landing one on Strahd after he tried to hurl me out a window. I managed a crit with a 4th level smite with booming blade for like a million damage. I can’t start to tell you how good that felt. One thing I figured out playing with war caster is that you can get your saving throw so high, especially with a caster that, that you end up dying to damage before you ever get to make a saving throw.
As this is an older vid I doubt anyone will read this, but this is why I like the idea of tossing a single level of barbarian onto your spell caster and making con your secondary stat. Now the con will buff your hp, increase your armor class (without armor obviously), and let you make use of a shield with the War Caster feat.
Love all the content you guys make, has helped me get into DnD. Was wondering if you guys would ever consider streaming a session or recording one to put up? We always get to hear about your awesome games would be great to see one play out. Keep up the good always look forward to Thursday because of it.
well this is something i don’t recommend doing as a wizard. BUT… an abjuration wizard with high dex, mage armor with the shield master feat makes for a half decent melee combatant with the warcaster feat. with the abjuration bubble to protect you when you cast mage armor then having spells like shocking grasp vs metal coated foes makes for a nasty mage you would not want to stay close to for to long. specially when you start pumping spells like flaming orb, spiritual weapon or another front liner to flank them and start giving yourself advantage maybe?… maybe something to think about and take notes.
Might already have been mentioned, but here it is anyway. Though you still have to be mindful of the “one spell per turn no matter what” general rule (action surge aside), there are always cantrips. Example: 5th level wizard or cleric with Warcaster now gets to haul out a 2d10 Fire Bolt or 2d12 Toll the Dead instead of a wimpy 1d4+2 dagger or 1d6+1 mace. Huge difference!
I’m playing a Human Wizard (Necromancer) and Warcaster has been pretty good for me. I have a buckler equipped which is a small shield that gives me +1 ac and a dagger of quickening. (Allows me to draw and make a dagger attack as a bonus action after casting a spell.) My dm has allowed a ruling since I wont animate humanoids (We had a paladin of kelemvor, an acolyte of kelemvor and a druid that worshipped life. It was our agreement for letting my necromancy pass in a way that doesn’t disrupt the party too much, but still allows the playstyle. Paladin is now an oathbreaker who is gearing up to get into necromancy to show our characters friendship. Acolyte was brought into Kelemvor’s temple by Paladin, so he’s starting to not care as deeply as well.) that I can animate animals, so I have a few badgers that ride on my character. So I move up to an opponent, cast a spell at an enemy further away then dagger the guy in front of me. My badgers make their attacks (We have mooks take place during our turn to speed up combat.), then end turn. Lately we’ve been fighting less intelligent enemies that are easily taunted and will try to run to attack the Paladin or the Druid, so I hit them with a chill touch as they run so that they can’t heal. But shield as a reaction to boost my ac to 21 is still my go to for the majority of fights. It’s a neat combo when it works, but it relies heavily on unintelligent enemies. A bard or something that can make enemies frightened of you would probably be better?
Booming blade as an opportunity attack. Arcana cleric, mace, booming blade, war caster. Allowed me to hold creatures in a spirit guardian bubble with a spiritual weapon. So using booming blade to keep a creature in the AOE then again as a reaction to keep another there as well. As an interesting note the RAW means the secondary effect of booming blade will automatically go off when used as an opportunity attack.
I’ve played an inquisitive rogue/war wizard and took polearm master with war caster. Using a staff in conjunction with a main hand shadow blade opens you up to ridiculous stuff like hold person/monster on something bearing down on you. I’ll drop disintegration on someone when I get the spell level. Theoretically, it should work for power words as well, right?
Your points on Sleet Storm made me realise that the weather in the game world during a session CAN and SHOULD make a difference – just make sleet rain use the same rules as Sleet Storm, make foggy weather use Fog Cloud: “You create a 20-foot-radius sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured.” It’s frankly insane that most D&D campaigns typically just take place during a clear day or at night. “A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. A heavily obscured area–such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage–blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.”
I have a caster who doesn’t have this feat mainly for roleplay reasons, she’s not a fighter, she’s never even killed anyone yet (she joined late-game and we’ve not fought any humanoids since then), she as a person is not a war caster. She does, however, have a homebrew feat which gives her advantage on concentration saves and rolls to resist fear and torture, mainly for the latter effect, since she spent a long time being tortured, so she’s hard to break
I have a fun pairing that you guys didn’t mention. As a warlock, the starting eldritch blast is usually what people go for. Human Warlock, get the War Caster, then second level, get a level or even 2 in Fighter (for action surge), you can have a shield and a martial weapon, and still cast spells, letting you be a strong level 2/3 character. I’ve set it up so that by the time i reach my second feat, i have a level 2 fighter, and level 6 warlock, who is a hexblade patron and can summon magical weapons as my arcane focus. Second feat would be duel wielding, so that way, i can attack with a real warpick, then a magical warpick and still be ready to whip a bitch with an eldritch blast.
The 1 action reaction spell I can see is Eldritch Blast being absolutely devastating! Sure you’d be only be able to target that fleeing creature but if your 11th or 17th level, that reaction is 3 or 4D10 damage! If that monster had been previously attacked, your reaction could kill that monster. If you are a warlock and you have the Eldritch Invocations, agonizing blast adds your charisma modifier to your damage, Grasp of Hadar pulls your foe 10 feet closer to you, & Lance of Lethargy slows their movement by 10ft. EB is very versatile!
Advantage gives a +2.7 to your average roll. Where it’s really good is when you take into account the chance to crit fail/save. However rules as written you cannot crit a saving throw, that is technically a variant rule. So for maintaining concentration “resilient: constitution” is better from level 5. I haven’t run the numbers for when crits are in play
Im playing in a 20th level game with a paladin 6/sorcerer 14 multiclass. I picked up resilient and warcaster and have a +5 Cha, +2 Con. With all these modifiers I’ve got +13 to constitution saves. If I take 29 damage or less I’m guaranteed to succeed on the save, and I need to take 54 damage to have about a 50% chance of failing the save. Being able to keep concentration on that 9th level casting of spirit guardians even as an archdevil was bearing down on my character was a definite game changer in our last session. None of the minions were a significant threat as long as I kept that spell going, and it did a significant amount of damage to the archdevil as well. I’ve not had the opportunity to make an opportunity attack with warcaster yet, though I do have some great debuff spells like banishment and hold person I could use. With this build I’m better off doing a weapon attack and a divine smite if I want to just do damage.
Late to the game but just started D&D and saw this article. My next character is a variant human hexblade warlock with the warcaster feat, booming blade, lightning lure. In my mind I will be using the “opportunity cast?” Part alot, punishing or preventing escape (respectively) from those who attack me and then think they will get away. May also take fear stuff to encourage running away and thus proc ing my “opportunity cast”….patent pending. Lol
I’m a tank wizard, so main benefit is to cast spells with my hands full. I don’t care for concentration, because my AC is way too high to care about beign hit, and con prof is way better, since it works on all con saves, not just 1 subtype. I never casted a spell instead of opportunity attack, because I tend to use my reactions for shields 😀
I have a Paladin/Celestial Warlock in a campaign I’m running right now and he took Sentinel, War Caster, and Polearm Master because he specifically wanted to throw out Eldritch blasts to stop enemies closing in on the squad. I let it happen, since it’s only one enemy per round and he wanted to play the character that way. Is that RAW? I don’t really see why not, given the wording on the feats.
The best use of I’ve seen actually done was when a bard caused an enemy to run away and triggered not only their own War Caster feat but two that were also standing there. The three then shot the fleeing opponent in the back with cantrips. Edit : One of my current characters is a low casting skill, dual wielding druid. I took War Caster less for the concentration and more for the opportunity attacks. Not that I get to use them very often… since I have low Dex, I also tend to act towards the end of the initiative order. I don’t even shape shift in combat… I think I did it once.
9:52 Tell that to my DM, played a Variant Human Whispers Bard and I had Magic Initiate for Booming Blade (Hex and Eldritch Blast as well) then took War Caster at 4th level, and just Dissonant Whispers, Oppurtunity Attack with Booming Blade, Psychic Blade combo’d enemies all the time, I felt like a legit DPS… other than the fact that if they succeed the Saving Throw, I only get 3d6 halved damage and miss out on the Opp Attack.
my half orc collage of swords bard just hit level 8 and i am going to take collage of swords and i think at level 10 i will get boom blade great spell to use with warcaster but so far he is pretty bad ass status effects and slashes of his scimitars he dances around the battlefield definitely time to take warcaster
Some of the people I play with argue that with this feat enemies can provoke off you within whatever the largest range of your furthest spell is… I find that to be ludicrous myself but I’ve had GMs which allow it. We sometimes use fumble rules and there’s been instances where an enemy may fumble 100 feet away from the caster and as a reaction that caster now has the chance to cast firebolt at the one who fumbled seeing as the enemy is technically in range. I’ve argued that the enemy did not provoke off you but these alternate fumble rules say hell to that anyone in range gets an opportunity attack. I think some of my GMs believe if they allow these rules in their games than they get to use them in other games which just isn’t the case, I’d never allow this.
Played my favorite: Divination Wizard Got into combat with BBEG and I was busy keeping his minions busy / controlling them – my team busy dealing with his lieutenant BBEG decided to melee me because, well I was using my actions to keep the others busy what my DM didn’t know I prepared disintegrate for sh*ts and giggles just this once (I never did before, I spend my time only controlling)… I used my reaction to cast it at BBEG (upcasted it as much as I can) and made him fail his safe with a sh*tty Portentroll I had saved up. Campaign ended with my my wizard pissed of shouting at BBEG to “wait his goddamn turn!” before turning him to dust.
I actually was able to negotiate with a lenient DM about the use of my holy symbol. It was a gauntlet for a deity associated with paladins in the forgotten realm. I wore the gauntlet on my hand that I had my shield attached to so I asked about still casting with the somatic gestures with my when not attacking though I got the war caster feat at the next level up anyway so it didn’t stay an issue
2 things to note: 1. The requirement of being able to cast at least one spell to take warcaster comes up for variant humans who pick classes that don’t start with spellcasting, like paladins and rangers, or characters who plan to go EK or AT. 2. If you have warcaster and pole arm master and want to use the 10 ft OA with the weapon and use a spell (like booming blade or green-flame blade), those have a range of only 5 ft so would not normally work. However, you could also take spell sniper or distant spell (sorcerer metamagic) to make it work. Probably not worth it though. It’s 3 feats, or 2 feats and a metamagic choice.
8:15 You’re actually wrong about part of this. A holy symbol can be used as a spell focus, and you can use the hand holding a spell focus for somatic components: Therefore, if you’re a Cleric with his holy symbol painted on his shield, you can sometimes use that shield for somatic spell components even without War Caster. It’s actually one of the main differences between holy symbols and arcane foci. The really clunky part of this is that you still need a hand free for spells that have a somatic component, but no material component, because you’re not using the symbol as a focus unless you need a material component. In short, without War Caster and while sword-and-boarding it up, you can: Use a verbal component Use a material component Use a somatic component IF there’s also a material component.
I’m setting up to play my first D&D session, but I’ve been mapping out the general flow of my character, and the first things I looked at were being a Dragonborn EK of bronze ancestry that multiclasses 8 levels into Sorcerer, picking up draconic lineage from the class, and taking Polearm Master, Sentinel, Elemental Adept and War Caster. Using a glaive, I don’t have to discard my weapon to use either Somatic (pre-war caster) or material spells, I’ve given him the lore-based limitation of that he may only use Lightning (and Thunder) spells, so picking up Shocking Grasp, Lightning Lure and the like, I’m keen to see what kind of shenanigans I can do. Opportunity attack/spell upon approach, melee fighting, and on the off chance of a flee or disengage, I could use Lightning lure to pull them back. Actually, I’m not sure how that works. Do they get 30ft of movement after being pulled? Can I wait until he’s moved 15ft to pull him back again? Better yet, can I wait till he moves 30ft, then use a sorcery point to double my range/give 30ft of range to Shocking Grasp, and hit him with that, all of an opportunity attack? I’d be interested what other people think
My Eldritch Knight is picking up a +2 to his Int at 4th, to bring it to 14, so his spells aren’t horribly hard to hit with. For the 6th level ASI, I’m pondering boosting it by +2 again and bring it in line with his Strength.. Take Ritual Caster to conserve on his spell slots out of combat.. Or grab Warcaster and whack things with Booming Blade as they try to run away from him. Currently leaning towards Ritual Caster, mostly for flavor reasons. Which should be the main reason to pick something, I suppose.
War caster says the spell must target only that creature, not that it has to be capable of targetting only that creature (like twinned spell), so you can use magic missile and only target that creature, or say, a fully ramped up eldritch blast with repelling blast…..all bolts hit that target, multiple knockbacks.
I am playing a war cleric in a party were we don’t have a melee oriented class, so I am usually on the front line. Even with a STR score of 14, I always prefer to use a WIS based attack – my score is 18 – so I always use spells for opportunity attacks – guidind bolt and sacred flame, for example, although I will use guidind bolt only when I have a inspiration slot to avoid the disadvantage.
I need a article with all the FEATS that allow you to access a 2nd or Higher level spell. Fey touched gives you the Misty Step spell, There’s a Wood Elf background that allows you access to Pass Without Trace. I need this because there is a lot of good stuff that is just out of reach of Magic Initiate.
Sentinel still triggers the attack of opportunity… you just don’t get the 0 speed drop if you use warcaster to change that Attack of opportunity into a spell. This matters because Sentinel also triggers against disengage. This is why when I play a bladesinger I always play variant human… take warcaster at level 1 and Sentinel at 4.
A note on constitution save proficiency, remember that Transmutation wizards kinda have it, assuming they use their transmuter’s stone for that, however, it’s enough to make resilient not worth for them. About the forcing to make many checks, against casters that do not have shield, is magic missiles, every single missle is a check, yes it’s just 10 but it’s a lot of checks. It sucks for clerics mainly, also warlocks because not many of them waste one known spell for spells that do not scale.
So currently running a storm sorc tortle and been thinking about picking up war caster. I plan to be in the neck of things as a off tank of sorts. Anyway, i was thinking about using war caster to help me use Booming Blade on Attacks of Opportunity. The only question i have is, does using a spell on my reaction mean i have the restrictions on my action and bonus action.
A bit late, but in the errata it says: “Two-Handed (p. 147). This property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it.” So yes, two handed weapons don’t prevent you from casting somatic spells as you only use both hands while attacking. Booming blade + war caster is fun, if someone tries running away from you or past you then they instantly trigger booming blade after being hit by your weapon. Tried that as a Human Hexblade Warlock, took war caster at level 1, our bard constantly taunted enemies to bait them into going after him, pulling them past me. Hexblade warlock, long sword + shield in scale mail. 18 ac and dealing between 6 and 20 damage at level 1 on reactions (2d8+4) You could go risky and take a great sword instead of sword+shield and bump it up to between 7 and 24 damage on reactions but at that point you’re over killing a bit especially on level 1, unless maybe against zombies, doing big numbers really helps if you have no way of dealing radiant damage.
So quick question most of the people I have talked to have the same answer as what I thought but might as well try some wisdom from this group. If a Sorcerer decided to take this feat does it over ride the shield proficiency as stated in the PHB? It clearly states if you do not have shield proficiency you can not cast spells.
Just a square you guys away holding in arcane focus or divine focus Does not interfere with the semantic Components of the spell So War caster is not necessary for Clerics or paladins With their holy symbol adorned on their armor or weapon still not a bad choice tho. And you only need one hand to be open or holding a focus but Aside from that what do you think of a build 10 levels fighter Eldridge night 10 levels wizard arcane practice of war Found in xanathar’s guide
Making a variant human wizard with the pole arm master feat at level 1 for use with your staff and then taking war caster at 4th (or swapping those two around) would be very cool. You could cast something like thunder wave and blast an opponent away from you when they approach (I justify using an aoe spell so long as it only targets one creature because the errata explicitly states for the sorcerer twin spell meta magic that it can only be CAPABLE of targeting one target, but war caster does not have any such explicit statement of that rule, so I don’t think it applies to war caster)
If you have a heater shield (the triangular shield that buckles to your arm), you can pass your one handed sword to the same hand your shield is in. This does not work with round shields, because they most oven use a center grip and are not buckled to your arm. Source: I spent years fighting in the SCA and would do this in combat to pick up and throw axes, or climb a later.
My first 5e character was s multi class Warlock/Paladin that had Polearm Master, Warcaster, and Sentinel. Also with Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast. Using primarily Glaives. The Polearm Master/Warcaster interaction does work accord to a rules clarification at that time from I BELIEVE it was Mike Mearls? So when an enemy would try to move past me or from 10 ft> 5 ft I could either swing with the Glaive and on hit trigger sentinel or instead blast 1-3 Eldritch Blast bolts knocking them back 10-30 feet depending.
You guys said that sentinel and war caster cannot work together because the wording of war caster says casting a spell replaces the opportunity attack. Which is incorrect, it says “You can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack to cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action and targets only that creature.” Sentinel says “When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, the creature’s speed becomes 0 for the rest of the turn.” They absolutely work together.
Question: the attack of oppertunity, is that ONLY targeted to enemies or does it work of anyone leaving your range? Let say that you play a cleric and your damaged tank goes of, leaving your 5feet range, do they trigger the attack of oppertunity letting the cleric, with the war caster feat, cast a cure wounds on him, would that be within the rules?
I was playing a female Wood Elf lore bard with War Caster, and we were going up against the big bad of our campaign(a female necromancer). She was in melee with me, because I can’t remember why, and she decided to step out of my melee range, to get closer to our cleric that was gonna cast Mass Heal, and Disentegrate them. I pulled a Scanlan and cast Lightning bolt, but at like, 7th level to get 12d8’s worth of damage on her, since, according to DM, she was ‘looking rough’. DM gets a nat 1 for dex save. House rule is a failed save against a spell doubles damage taken by spell. Roll 12d8’s. Get a total of 60. Doubles to 120. DM: ‘How do you wanna do this?’ Table erupts in happiness. Me: I say, ‘Hey (Big bad who’s name I can’t remember), I’ve got a song for you real quick. ‘Have a seat in the foyer, take a number. I was Lightning before the thunder!’ plays chorus of Thunder by Imagine Dragons And my lightning bolt hits her in the stomach, making her burst from the inside out as the electric energy rips it’s way out of her. DM: proceeds to describe gruesome death of big bad. Table: listens with glee DM: after session BTW’s guys, on that last hit, she had like, 20 HP left.
With the Warcaster feat, my archfey warlock/ whisper bard’s optimal spell rotation to one-shot mini-bosses in a given round is Dissonant Whispers (forcing AoO) + Booming Blade + melee attack with precast upcast Shadow Blade + Psychic Blades for a glorious nova burst of 74 points (average) psychic destruction. (Inspired by Colby from d4 Deep Dive!)
the campaign I’m DMing right now doesn’t have a single melee player, so there are a lot of creatures getting in close on a lot of casters. the players use the reaction spells constantly. not every combat, but at least every other. guiding bolt (divine sorc) is popular which sets our ranger up for sharpshooter. our other sorc loves shocking grasp, it’s a roleplaying thing for her, so she just loves the idea of slapping anyone moving away with lightning. and I have an NPC monk of the open hand that pops in once in a while when I know they really need a sorta-tank, so when that toon knocks someone back with a flurry of blows that someone gets bombarded with a lot of opportunity spells, which is simply some of the most fun character synergy we have.
Currently playing a Valor Bard with War Caster and Sentinel – my read is like yours where Sentinel and War Caster don’t really interact. War Caster is super useful for staying on the front line while keeping concentration on Hold Person, Bestow Curse, and (eventually once I can plunder the Paladin list) Circle of Power. Hold Person is a great War Caster replacement for an opportunity attack, especially as my party-mates are heavy on melee DPS and most can take super advantage of the paralysis.
Late to the game here. Long time 3.5 player and just picked up 5E. Thanks for the guides Dudes, I’ve been perusal a lot of them this week! Regarding the final effect of War Caster, would Eldritch Blast//Repelling Blast followed by another Eldritch Blast fit the criteria? Seems like a simple but effective combo, especially if you don’t mind moving your Warlock into melee. Thanks!
65% going up to 87.75% is slightly better than gaining another +4 on the roll on average. That is really good in most situations. Now, if you are a frail mage with an 8 Con (-2 modifier) that is a 45% chance, which sucks, but with advantage that jumps to 69.8%, which is just shy of gaining a +5 and puts you just above a naturally sturdier mage who doesn’t have this feat, but, um, don’t let your frail mages take damage, they don’t have many HP and even with this feat their chances of maintaining concentration are not that good. What about a really STRONK mage with a 20 Con (+5 mod)? Still gets most of the benefits of this feat as well with their 80% chance raising to 96% (just better than +3). You’d have to get to an astonishing 26 Con (+7, and it’s not even a casting stat) before this feat wasn’t providing at least the equivalent of +1 to each of these rolls, and by the time that’s even possible the enemies are probably dealing more than 20 damage, so you aren’t rolling against the default 10 anymore and it’s back to being an epic benefit again. Note: For all of this I’ve been assuming you don’t have Proficiency, so you could get to a total of +7 to the roll well below 26 Con.
Eldritch Knight Polearm Master + Warcaster + Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade + UA Tunnel Fighter (if allowed, also extra but basically free for this build and super helpful). You can now Booming Blade with your Polearm as an opportunity attack (for free and not use your reaction if Tunnel Fighter). And if the enemy continues to try and move forward/away they take even more damage. You can of course combine this with GWM+Sentinel as well (because Polearms, why not) for even more power. This player alone can shut down an encounter. You can whack some enemies, BB/GFB the one that’s bulkiest, and take a step back and they have to reenter your range and take another series of BB/GFBs. I can already imagine the scenario where the enemies are attempting to advance and you’re just killing them as they come. The obvious downside is that you’re really feat-heavy early on. I actually think Sentinel is extra for this build and you can get a much needed ASI instead or pick up GWM for some big damage potential. Sentinel puts in a lot more work if you’re using GFB though instead of BB; as BB and Sentinel actually have anti-synergy due to Sentinel reducing their speed to 0, and the ‘proc’ of BB requires they move after being hit.
I play a Paladin(Oath of Vengeance)/Warlock(Fiend/Tome) with Warcaster and Polearm Master specifically to take advantage of the “Cast a spell on an opp attack” feature. In this case, he’s using a quarterstaff so his reach is only 5′, and he get’s the opp attack when someone closes with him. Then he uses Booming Blade to hit them with the quarterstaff and move up to 15′ away (7th level paladin oath of vengeance ability), forcing them to either stop or take more damage if they keep moving. Between Booming Blade, DIvine Smite, and Improved Divine Smite he often does 30-50 points of damage on the opp attack.
Just with the comparison of Resilient(Con) vs War Caster: the CON+1 from Resilient could mean +1HP/Level and the proficiency bonus applies to any CON save (poison etc) and non-damage Concentration Saves. So, I think the mileage may vary on the comparison discussed by the dudes. Also, WC’s non-concentration advantages don’t apply to every character, e.g. a Wizard with a dagger and an AoE focus gets less from WC.
The opportunity attack thingy is really good though, depending on your class. It’ll be more useful for Clerics, Warlocks and Druids, who have AC that is decent enough that they can afford to fight on the front lines. For example, my Circle of the Land Druid has good AC due to having Dragon Scale Mail armor. Between that and the fact that magic items and race/class features give him immunity to poison, resistance to fire and necrotic damage, and advantage and saving throws against spells, there are a lot of situations where he actually fights on the front lines. Now this situation hasn’t come up yet because I only recently took the feat, but . . . Contagion? Can you imagine? Someone is trying to run away from my Druid, I make a melee spell attack against them and inflict them with a debilitating disease that lasts for 7 DAYS? That’s pretty awesome. Even if the Big Baddy gets away, they are TOTALLY DEBILITATED for the next 7 days. That’s pretty alright.
I understand why the feat only grants ADV on SAV when damaged, some of the DM induced SAVs don’t deal damage(DC 10). You don’t need that ADV to beat such a low DC(unless the Dice Gods hate you). I would look at this as a story, taking resilient first then warcaster as a natural evolution of one’s training.
I rolled up a Dragonborn paladin that’s cross-classsed fighter. He’s a two weapon fighting style…. I’ve already got my CHA to 18 and I’ve got the dual Weser feat…. I’m lvl 11(2 fighter-9 Pali) oath of vengeance. Am debating defensive dualist or war caster…. after this article I’m leaning to war caster but still not 100% sure yet
I have a Tempest Cleric/Warlock who was able to use Warcaster in conjunction with Booming Blade and the website Divinity feature to cause a lot of damage to BBEGs that tried to move away from me about 2 or 3 times throughout his career. It is a hard combo to pull off, but when you manage to do so the results are glorious.
Warlock with Polearm Master, Glaive, Repelling Blast and Warcaster. An enemy tries to engage you on their turn. They enter your reach. You get an oppotunity attack with your Glaive(Polearm master), but choose to cast Eldritch Blast instead. The approaching enemy takes 1D10 Force damage and is pushed back 10 feet for each hit.
Ok so what do you guys think: An EK, with a glaive or halberd, using polearm master+great Weapon master+great weapon fighting style+war caster. When a enemy comes at you, you do your booing blade. Or if we change, GWM with Sentinel, the enemy comes at you, you do the attack with Green Flame Blade, and stuck it in the place. Hecks, maybe even BB it, so he stop, then thrown it 10f back. It would be some alsome damage.
As a diviner wizard, I took 2 levels of fighter because the thief in out party took the spell book in the party treasure because he could sell it for cash. So, I hmmmmed a bit, then took the rapier flame tongue as my pick of party treasure. The thief yelled and protested that I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t proficient with the rapier. I turned to the DM and asked if we had gone up a level. He said we had. So I marked on my character sheet 1 level of fighter to my 8 diviner wizard. You should have seen the thief’s face fall. He was planning on taking the rapier as his second round pick. I later picked up war caster and green flame blade. I now deal Rapier 1d8+2 + Flame Tongue +2d6 + green flame blade (+1d8 fire to target, second creature within 5 ft. 1d8 + 5 fire) . Ouch!
One of my favorite combos with War caster(though it’s end game) is to go 18 levels cavalier and 2 levels warlock. You go polearm master, Sentinel, and war caster and you get the eldritch blast invocation that let’s you push one hit. The combination of all of this put together makes the ultimate door holder.
9:15 Free fingers is not a requirement for casting spells, even handicap creatures can cast spells. All you need is for the limb/appendages to be free to move and trace the spells. I like how they did in Dr. Strange, very inclusive. ALSO also, Fun Fact: Polearm Master does not specify that you need to be proficient with the weapon, just Wielding it. (don’t remember if they made this point tbh)
I use the War Caster and Polearm Master combo with my Eldritch Knight wielding a halberd to blast enemies with cantrips once they’re within 10ft. At level 12 this means the cantrip damage will exceed any single melée attack damage, especially if they don’t have resistance to it like Poison Spray (3d12).
Lets take an arcane trickster for example: lvl 7, has activated spell “Shadow blade” (2d8+dex.m.) and stays in dim light (so he has advantage on attack), the enemy provokes an opp.attack. The trickster uses the “booming blade” cantrip (1d8+2d8 if target runs) = Shdw.b. (2d8) + Boom.b. (3d8) + Sneak attack (4k6) Result: Around 9-64 dmg from one strike and the surprised faces of all the participants! 😀
Playing a Human (var) Warlock Hexblade atm using the feats: Polearm master Warcaster Spell Sniper This lets me use the PM/Warcaster combo plus spell sniper increasing the range of Booming Blade/Green-Flame Blade to 10 feet which is the reach of glaives and halberds. This makes skipping Sentinel less painfull as the enemy has to stop (usually out of reach) or roll the extra d8s from Booming Blade. Picking Spell sniper is pretty decent allround for those situations where you got no spell slots left to be safe in melee (also 600 feet range eldritch blast :p). Planning to round it off with something like Resilient: Constitution and Great Weapon Fighting
12:30We actually tried designing a lvl 5 Warlock around the War Caster feat. We started him off as a Variant Human with one level in Fighter and took the Tunnel Fighter fighting style(UA, I know) and then gave him a halberd and 4 levels in Warlock. The second feat was the War Caster Feat, and the two Invocations we needed were Repelling Blast and Agonizing Blast. With this setup, the Warlock can infinitely attack anything that enters a 10 feet range with two Eldritch Blast beams, which each push back the target 10 feet, meaning that if they enter it again, it is another AoO. We quickly decided that it was too OP and then decided to ban Tunnel Fighter from the game.
Looked at War Caster vs Magic Initiate for my new mage. I’m going Magi initiate, Warlock, to add Hellish Rebuke and Eldrich Blast to a Mage-Necromancer. It may not be the ideal build but its sticking to the theme. Also, I wont be doing many concentration spells. Blast and summon…. Let the bone shields deal with acting as my battlefield control.
Great articles Dudes, I watched your Palidin article last night now this so I have a cool idea for you. Crown Palidin with War Caster and possibly shield mastery(depends if you went human varient or half orc IMO) then use your compelled duel anytime a monster decides you’re not worth hitting and that fireball throwing mage looks tastier. Hope you like the idea and look forward to more of the articles.
Later today my grp is starting a Curse of Strahd campaign, and I’ll be playing a Human Arcana Domain Cleric with War Caster. I took booming blade as one of my lvl 1 cantrip options from the wizard spell list, and I intend to take mage slayer later on. I think you get the idea, but basically I intend to utilize warcaster reactions to dump bonus booming blade damage as often as possible. When this is combined with Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon, enemies will take lots of damage when they run, OR when they stay and fight. It’s a fun Loose Loose synergy of class/feats/skills.
Anyone got advice for a Dwarf knowledge Cleric that’s forced to play tank? Our Fighter keeps getting taken down pretty easily (mostly his fault but still) and I have to act as tank/close line fighting most of the time so the heavily armored feat was a necessity. Now I don’t really have enough time to get Wis&Cons to 20&18 and also take war caster (though I would really like to). Any ideas how to make that work?
The spell cast element of war caster was used all the time when I used it. Add together some levels in fighter (or pally) with warlock and add together War Caster, Polearm Master, (and if your DM uses Unearthed Arcana, the Tunnel Fighter fighting style) with Eldritch Blast and Repelling Blast, and you have a kiting strategy reminiscent of the 3ed Spiked Chain Trip shenanigans. Critter gets in range, you fire off a blast (or two or three) and blow them back out of range. Tunnel Fighter just makes it ludicrous.
The discussion about the lack of opportunity attacks proves my theory that characters just stand toe to toe and fight. It makes for boring combat. That is why I extended the combat zone 5 feet beyond the reach of a melee weapon. It allows for more movement in combat. But if someone leaves that extended combat zone, then they get an opportunity attack, yes. But at least there was more movement in the combat to make it more strategically interesting.
War Caster + Polearm Master could be great for my caster Druid in my new group when i get up to that second feat. I’m so far the only real melee capable (19 AC at level 1, Shilleleigh on quarterstaff) member of my group and anticipate having to play the “tank” role on occasion. If a baddie steps to me and I really don’t want to get bopped, I can sacrifice the damage of an opportunity (Polearm Master) Shilleleigh whap and instead (War Caster) hit them with the Frost Bite cantrip, doing a bit of damage and causing them to have disadvantage on their attack against me. Then on my turn I can whap them with my Shilleleigh and use Polearm Master to get a special second attack with the damage modifier included unlike with two weapon fighting (I’m using a shield and quarterstaff, and yes PM works like that with one handed quarterstaff).
More great content this week guys. I would say sentinel could be a fun way to stack with the war caster ability, but as a DM, generally if a caster is up front in melee range, that’s usually too tempting a target to run away with. My philosophy tends to be that if the enemy is not simply a rampaging beast, they’re targeting magic users as a priority from a tactical standpoint. That being said, Kelly I like your point about leaning forward as a caster since it’s kind of unexpected. I have a gnome knowledge cleric and a halfling bard in the game I’m running who wind up in a cluster that begs for AOE on their squishy selves more often than not.
I’m new to D&D, I’d like to have a battle mage like character with the flavor of Dragon Age II (I LOVE that sword staff in the trailer). Midrange, spell focused but can also reach out and strike enemies that get too close as well and it would also allow me to lead the charge when I want. I really prefer the utility spells when I’ve played spell casters in other games, I main Silencer in Dota II and I love playing the midgame carry and ruining teams plans by silencing an important spell caster, turning a massive brute into a sheep, or catching a devastating damage dealer in a whirlwind for a few seconds allowing my team to finish off the weaker enemies and then pile on when they come down. However my favorite weapon/tool is the Force Staff, its helped me escape, chase, ambush, and save my friends that have been caught out as well (sadly I don’t think D&D has such an equivalent). Your articles are especially helpful and I’m enjoying the Drakkenheim campaigns!
I haven’t played D&D for more than 25 years, so now I’m leaping directly from 1st to 5th edition and I’ll be playing a Stone Sorcerer Warforged in an Eberon campaign. I’ll have a lot of frontline staying power and with an initial Constitution of 18 and proficiency on Con saves I’ll have a minimal return on the advantage, but I’ll still take Warcaster first for the somatic element.
I took this feat for my wild shape build Druid in my brothers Curse of Strahd campaign. seems to be working really well, though unless he’s rolling the checks secretly I think he might not even be bothering doing checks most of the time since I took the feat. Really loving wild shape druid, i always see comments whenever it’s brought up that it’s not of much use but so far i’ve been pretty essential in every battle we’ve had, and ever since I started to usually cast that healing spirit spell before I shift into animal form I often do the most healing as well as high damage, grappling, and tanking. most fun i’ve had in DnD so far.
People will have gone over this already but just in case. An Opportunity Attack is one 1 hit, so if you use Booming Blade the extra Thunder Damage on hit from level 5 onward just makes it more damage than a regular Opportunity Attack with the same bonus to hit. So whenever someone does provoke an OA there is no real reason not to just Booming Blade.
Funnily enough, I play a character that took all these feats… Lol cleric of the Forge fighter battle master. My gm looked at the wording &,made the ruling. I use command a Lot to great effect, leiu of using my tripping attack to get advantage. Sentinel doesn’t work super well. Joys of playing a variant human, lol
I use it for a cheeky build for my hexblade. It’s a campaign that is guaranteed to reach 20 and we will have other ways to get stat increases which frees up asi’s for max feats. But I use a glaive as a hexblade pact of the blade. Then I use the darkness concentration spell. My class is a half elf so I can use elven accuracy. I use warcaster to keep my darkness up for advantage as well as resilience. And I use the opportunity attack for booming blade or GFB (depending on if they are alone or not) and I use it with cheese with polearm master and GWM for max damage output. 2 attacks, 1 bonus attack, and 1 reaction attack all at double advantage.
I play a sorcerer fighter (6,2), and this is my bread and butter in combat. For an example, I hast myself (usually twinning to get some else too), slash at my opponent with green flame blade, then a slash with booming blade, then quicken spell lightning bolt. Then if they move, they take thunder damage and I get an opportunity attack on them, in which I use booming blade again to stop them in their tracks, or they take even more damage for moving any further. This along with the boosted AC from being able to wear a shield allows me to be an “up in your face” sorcerer. And if I wanted to get even crazier, I could also add my action serge from the 2 lvl fighter dip to add even more magical hacks and slashes, or to strike them down even further with a hard hitting spell.