Hellish Rebuke: A Scathing Comeback
Usable By: Warlock
Spell Level: 1
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V, S
You point your finger, and the creature that damaged you is momentarily surrounded by hellish flames. The creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. It takes 2d10 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d10 for each slot level above 1st.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Moonlight drapes a pale glow over a tense duel; the righteous knight brings down their great sword, hacking into the arm of the tiefling wielding a twisted blade with a living eye fixed to the hilt. As blood sprays out from the wound, tiefling sliding back, their head turns, eyes burning red out from the darkness. Blood was the price they pay. Flames erupt around the knight, coating their armor in brilliant light, the human noble yelling out as the fire consumes them. Pain brings retribution.
Hellish Rebuke on any other class would be a top tier spell. It's a reaction spell you take when damaged that deals a decent chunk of fire damage. If you’ve got slots to burn, this is an easy place to put them. Warlocks, unfortunately, don’t have slots to burn.
Pact Magic makes it so you’ve only got a handful of spells you can cast each short rest. This pushes you towards high impact or long duration effects. Hellish Rebuke is neither.
Outside of multi-classing, you aren’t going to be getting cheap slots to use your rebuke on. As you scale in the warlock class, your slots all go up in level, meaning you have to upcast this if you want to cast it at all. Here’s a little secret for you: there is almost always a better spell at the up-cast level to use over up-casting a damaging spell.
Still, I can’t entirely write of Hellish Rebuke simply because it's one of the only reaction options warlocks get access to. If you’re running a lot of short rests and finding you’ve got a spare slot now and then, having a reaction prepared to nug somebody for 4-6d10 bonus fire damage is fine. You won’t use it often, and will nearly always have something better to spend the slot on, but when you have no other reaction options, Hellish Rebuke can sneakily find a cast here and there. Not exceptional, by any stretch, but acceptable.
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