Repelling Blast and Mad Max in Hell

In my weekly Descent into Avernus game, my Warlock finally had a chance to unleash the potential of his Eldritch Invocation, Repelling Blast.

Repelling Blast is one of those things that looks sort of innocuous at first - each time you hit with Eldritch Blast, you can choose to push the target back 10 feet. But when you consider the implications, this can be profound.

First off, the pushback does not involve any sort of Strength saving throw. It just happens if you hit the target at or above their armor class. You could be fighting a Kraken and push it back 10 feet (I'd say you could do this to a Tarrasque, but their reflective scales would just bounce the attack back at you.)

Second, this happens every time it hits. Unlike the closest equivalent cantrip, Firebolt, Eldritch Blast is broken up into multiple attacks. In many ways, an EB-wielding Warlock is more akin to a Ranged-combat Fighter, only they get a fourth attack at level 17, not having to wait until 20. That helps in a lot of other ways - using Hex, for instance, gives you an extra d6 of damage on each hit, and if you have Agonizing Blast, you're adding your Charisma modifier to the damage of every strike.

So, by level 5, when you're attacking twice per cast, if you hit both times, you push them back a full 20 feet.

There are many ways that this guaranteed - or at least unresistable - pushback can be a lifesaver.

One use is to save a squishy character. If your Wizard or Sorcerer is stuck in melee with some heavy-hitter and they don't have the action economy to take the disengage action, you can knock these monsters loose to give your ally a chance to run.

Naturally, you can also use this to force creatures into environmental hazards.

The story that inspired me to write about this was in my Descent into Avernus game. After descending from the sort of secondary starting zone to the plains of Avernus itself, we got ourselves an Infernal War Machine - a jury-rigged Mad-Max-style wheeled vehicle. Not long after we started traveling across Avernus, we were attacked by a much bigger War Machine with several lycanthropes. (Our DM did confess she nerfed the fight by removing several enemies given that only three players of a usual seven showed up tonight - it's the holidays.)

The thing is, with a bunch of Wererats clinging to the top of their war machine, I was perfectly positioned while our Barbarian took the wheel to knock these little rat-dudes off their vehicle. While the DM gave them Dex saves to grab back onto the vehicle, I was able to knock one clean off.

What didn't come up (we wanted to keep their vehicle intact so we could steal it, and we did!) was that even if I had hit the vehicle, I could have pushed that entire Huge or Gargantuan monstrosity (ok, technically a construct) up to 20 feet a turn as well. Even with a damage threshold that might have negated some of the damage, Repelling Blast says nothing about having to do damage for it to work (though it probably assumes most things will take damage from a spell that does Force damage.)

Warlocks are, of course, a sort of odd class - working more like a weapon-fighter than a pure caster, despite having access to the highest level spells. But this is one of those great bits of utility that they never run out of that makes the class feel really potent.