I'm working on a Paladin/Warlock combination, based off of Pureferret and Miniman's work, and as part of this, I noticed Miniman's remark that Repelling Blast won't be that useful, because as a Paladin, you want people up close and personal when you're in a combat situation, not further away.
However, as a Paladin, your creed sometimes leads you to not want to engage in full-blown combat with a potential adversary -- you may want to drive them off or incapacitate/capture them instead. With this, I wonder: can Repelling Blast, or other spells and spell-likes (such as invocations), be made to do non-lethal damage? If so, I'm thinking that it'd be useful in exactly that sort of situation -- halting someone/pushing them away without having to wade into a melee with them or blow them to smithereens.