D&D 5E Warlock Pact Weapon and Sentient Weapons

Rocksome · Sep 3, 2014

Ok, so I don't want to copy and paste the text from the rule book as that's probably copyrighted but I wanted a clarification on the Pact of the Blade Warlock making a magical weapon their pact weapon. Specifically an intelligent weapon.

I've got two interpretations of that text.

1) A warlock cannot make a sentient or artifact weapon his pact weapon

OR

2) A warlock can make a sentient or artifact weapon his pact weapon but is unable to dismiss a sentient or artifact weapon to the extra-dimensional space.

My confusion comes from the fact that the sentence "A warlock cannot affect an artifact or sentient weapon this way" comes directly after the sentence on banishing the weapon to an extra-dimensional space. The sentence on bonding to a pact weapon has no such restrictions.

Thoughts?

The Shadow · Sep 3, 2014

It seems pretty clear to me that the warlock can't make the artifact or intelligent weapon his pact weapon at all.

I mean, if it meant he couldn't put it in the extradimensional space, what would he be getting out of it? Just proficiency - it's already magical.

Rocksome · Sep 3, 2014

Well, I think proficiency is the important part.

For a melee build warlock like the Pact of the Blade Warlock, it pretty much rules out the shiniest of shinies for your melee character. It seems a little unfair that they'd essentially not be able to use any sentient martial weapon.

Ithink you might be right though. I figured it might be there to stop a PC from banishing powerful artifacts with a basic class feature, so not being able to use the feature might be restricted to the banishment to prevent abuse.

Raith5 · Sep 3, 2014

I dont think you can RAW. We dont really know what artifacts look like or do, do we? Might it be that artifacts impose costs on the PC that dismissal of said artifact could avoid? Just thinking about:

Dausuul · Sep 3, 2014

Rocksome said:
1) A warlock cannot make a sentient or artifact weapon his pact weapon

OR

2) A warlock can make a sentient or artifact weapon his pact weapon but is unable to dismiss a sentient or artifact weapon to the extra-dimensional space.

I interpret it as #2. You can have a sentient or artifact weapon as a pact weapon, but such weapons have their own agendas which aren't necessarily in sync with yours, and you have to deal with that. When you find yourselves at cross purposes, you can't just make Stormbringer sit in the corner.

Even if it turns out the official intent is #1, I'm going to house rule it to #2, because it's so much more fun that way. (I might even say you can banish the pact weapon, but only if it lets itself be banished, and it can come back and appear in your hand any time it wants to.)

The Shadow said:
I mean, if it meant he couldn't put it in the extradimensional space, what would he be getting out of it? Just proficiency - it's already magical.

Proficiency is a pretty big deal by itself; +2 to +6 to hit depending on level*. But even if you've got proficiency from some other source--a fighter dip, say--the Thirsting Blade and Lifedrinker invocations both key off your pact weapon. Those are must-have for a bladelock, the equivalent of Extra Attack for a fighter.

It's really not practical for a bladelock to fight with a non-pact weapon.

[SIZE=-2]*And if you've got your hands on a sentient or artifact weapon, it's probably closer to +6 than +2.[/SIZE]

jadrax · Sep 3, 2014

The Shadow said:
It seems pretty clear to me that the warlock can't make the artifact or intelligent weapon his pact weapon at all.

I disagree tbh.

You have a paragraph about making pact weapons.

You then have a second paragraph about moving pact weapons into extra dimensional spaces. The mention of Artifact and Intelligent weapons is in this latter paragraph. So by the normal rules of grammar, you would expect it to be talking about the rules for dimensional spaces, not pact weapons in general.

Rocksome · Sep 3, 2014

jadrax said:
I disagree tbh.

You have a paragraph about making pact weapons.

You then have a second paragraph about moving pact weapons into extra dimensional spaces. The mention of Artifact and Intelligent weapons is in this latter paragraph. So by the normal rules of grammar, you would expect it to be talking about the rules for dimensional spaces, not pact weapons in general.

That's pretty much how I saw it. As well of the fairness of Bladelocks getting shafted in the sentient weapon department.

Mirtek · Sep 3, 2014

Who wants to burden themselves with an artifact/sentient weapon anyway? Thank you, but I'll just hold on to my +2 weapon (or even a mere +1 for that matter) instead of the +3 weapon I have to argue/fight against as much as my enemies

Tormyr · Sep 3, 2014

Um, dumb question as I have not read up on this section. Please tell me ifI missed the boat, and I will just watch.

As a separate note, an artifact weapon probably requires attunement. I think if you dismissed the artifact weapon (if you could) you would lose the attunement to the weapon because it would be too far away from you.

Seether · Sep 3, 2014

I am definitely house ruling about the weapon needing to agree to be put into the dimensional space. It just seems too arbitrary to me to keep them out of the hands of a class otherwise.