A fighter held a grappled warlock over an oil fire, doing 5 points of damage. The warlock cast a Hellish Rebuke spell on the fighter. This led to the following dispute.
The fighter argued that damage by an oil fire cannot trigger a Hellish Rebuke (PHB 250), which is cast "in response to being damaged by a creature" and targets "the creature that damaged you", since an oil fire is not a creature.
The warlock argued that such a ruling would mean Hellish Rebuke only works with unarmed strike damage, since an arrow, dagger, or spell, not the creature that uses it, is what actually does the damage.
The fighter argued that damage by an independent effect, like a trap or lava, is not damage by a creature wielding a weapon or magic. He used examples like luring an orc underwater to drown, restraining a vampire in sunlight, or using illusions to make an elf walk off a cliff. In all such cases, a creature exploits a damaging environment, but no damage is done by the creature itself.
Is there a technically right or wrong answer for how this works? Please either explain your ruling with a RAW approach or Sage Advice, or confirm that no such support exists in the rules, leaving it entirely up to the DM. Thank you.
Best Answer
The hellish rebuke spell says:
The basic rules provide introductory examples of damage:
The rules do not get into the sophistry whether it was the fighter or the oil fire that caused the damage. This is something that the DM will need to adjudicate.
I don't think there is much to adjudicate here; the fighter is "the creature that damaged" the warlock. If you drop a glass, do you say, "oh, I dropped a glass and the floor broke it"? No, you say, "I dropped the glass and broke it."
Also, the fighter is actually holding the warlock over the fire. I just don't see how the fighter is not "the creature that damaged [the warlock]".
If I hold someone's arm over a fire, I am damaging them.
To argue differently is to go down a slippery slope, "was it the fighter that damaged the monster, or the sword?"
The DM is perfectly justified in making a ruling and moving on.
My ruling would be that the fighter is rebuked, being the creature that harmed the warlock. If the fighter objected, I would note that in this case there's no question that the fighter was actively seeking to cause harm to the warlock, and in fact caused it, by restraining the warlock over a fire.
I would answer the player's question about the hypotheticals by saying that hypotheticals are just that, hypotheticals, and when we get to such a situation, I will make the ruling then.
If the player still wanted to argue I would ask them to consider to themselves whether they would want to earn experience points for their hypotheticals, and then discuss it with me later.
If the player still wanted to argue further I would state that I have made my ruling and I'd be happy to discuss it later, but for now, the game should continue.