D&D 5E Blade Pact Warlocks and Conventional Wisdom

[Giltonio_Santos]

Booming Blade will fix that, since your enemy won't be able to walk away from you without getting punished.

Then you're better with a pact of the tome and shillelagh.

 

[Lanliss]

Then you're better with a pact of the tome and shillelagh.

You would also be better with a few levels of fighter tacked on. My point is just that the Bladelock build given would work fine, and Booming blade addresses the problem you gave. The fact that other things could address it as well does not affect the actual survivability of the build.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

You would also be better with a few levels of fighter tacked on. My point is just that the Bladelock build given would work fine, and Booming blade addresses the problem you gave. The fact that other things could address it as well does not affect the actual survivability of the build.

The problem is: it doesn't. Booming blade + thirsting blade is a nonbo. While booming blade is a very cool cantrip, if you take that direction, you're intentionally crippling your character by picking the blade as your pact boon, because you can choose a different pact boon without losing anything.

Also, being survivable is not a good criteria, because even a high elf str-based champion can pull her own weight in 5e (which is a great quality of the game, in my opinion). Is any bladelock build based on going into melee as the main combat option actually good, when compared to other options equally available to a non-optimized warlock? None that I've seen.

 

[Warpiglet]

The problem with this build is that your enemies have no real incentive to attack you instead of squishier targets. You're neither a tank with tanking abilities (like the protection fighting style or battlemaster maneuvers) nor a powerful damage dealer. Being able to sustain a lot of punishment when there are better targets around is not a big advantage. Besides, any non-optimized warlock could be attacking twice for 1d10+4 force damage at level 5 and still get the benefits of another boon. It's a really cool concept, I feel bad for the fact that they managed to make it worse than ranger beastmaster... :/

Do enemies "know" who has more hit points? Is being struck with a hexed greatsword twice not good damage? Are we sure this is the nova round for the fighter? If not, I don't know that the target would be avoided and or disregarded. Additionally, do the squishy targets do more or less than this character? And that is disregarding spell use or other abilities on he part of the warlock

 

[Lanliss]

The problem is: it doesn't. Booming blade + thirsting blade is a nonbo. While booming blade is a very cool cantrip, if you take that direction, you're intentionally crippling your character by picking the blade as your pact boon, because you can choose a different pact boon without losing anything.

Also, being survivable is not a good criteria, because even a high elf str-based champion can pull her own weight in 5e (which is a great quality of the game, in my opinion). Is any bladelock build based on going into melee as the main combat option actually good, when compared to other options equally available to a non-optimized warlock? None that I've seen.

The goal stated in the build post was "Build a good blade-lock without multiclassing". The build looks plenty good, and booming blade makes it slightly better. The fact that other things can do it does not affect the stated goal, or whether or not that goal was met. From a light-optimizer point of view, the build looks perfectly fine. It won't be winning any awards for "best X" (Unles X is Competent Bladelock-without-multiclassing), but it certainly hits the stated goal of "Good".

 

[dco]

I will say that this thread has encouraged me to try to build a good Blade-lock without multiclassing, and I do think I succeeded, although you need Feats, and you have to be a Variant Human or Mountain Dwarf to get Heavy Armor by 4th level.
...
INVOCATIONS (3)
Thirsty Blade (Extra Attack)
Fiendish Vigor (Cast False Life at will; +8 HP)
Devil's Sight (120')

I think hex is a bad choice for a bladelock because you are going to be hit more times, more choices to lose the spell, mirror image could help you there but it's better with a Dex setup and you are going to be low on spell slots until lvl 11.With very high defense armor of agathys and dark one's blessing are less interesting because you have far more survivality than the typical bladelock. False life is a bad choice with armor of agathys and dark one's blessing, works better with the archfey and dark one pacts.

 

[Lanliss]

I was just looking through the Invocations, and noticed Thief of Five fates. No one ever talks about it, as far as I have seen, but that Bane looks like it would be nice for a Blade-lock, if they can cast it on the ones they are in melee with. that -1-4 could make a lot of difference in their attacks. Given, it still takes a spell slot, but it will be a more reliable concentration spell than Hex.

 

[Caliban]

I think hex is a bad choice for a bladelock because you are going to be hit more times, more choices to lose the spell, mirror image could help you there but it's better with a Dex setup and you are going to be low on spell slots until lvl 11.With very high defense armor of agathys and dark one's blessing are less interesting because you have far more survivality than the typical bladelock. False life is a bad choice with armor of agathys and dark one's blessing, works better with the archfey and dark one pacts.

Hex is just so useful, but at lower levels you are probably better off casting Armor of Agathys instead of Hex. At higher levels, when your Con save is high enough to make a DC 10 check automatically (or nearly automatically), and you get two attacks, and Hex can be maintain for 8+ hours - at that point Hex becomes a better choice.

Fiendish Vigor/False life is a good choice for the early levels, it really helps supplement Armor of Agathys - either giving you time to cast it in combat, or and additional source of temps after it goes down. Or just because you have a lot of combats between rests and you can't keep Armor of Agathys up all the time.

But you will want to trade it out eventually (probably around 5th or 6th level, when you get the invocation that gives you two attacks with your pact weapon).

 

[Lanliss]

Alright, I have 2 versions of Arthur. One is feylock at 3rd level, and another is the same person at 5th level.

Arthur Pendragon
V. Human Soldier Archfey Warlock 3 (Blade pact)
STR 16(+3)
DEX 14(+2)
CON 15(+2)
INT 8(-1)<-Dump stat, since this is a semi-optimized character
WIS 10(0)
CHA 12(+1)

Feat:Moderately Armored

Invocations
Armor of Shadows (Reflavored as a Shining suit of Armor)
Beguiling Influence

HP:3d8+6= 21
AC:17 (19 w/shield), because he stole some half-plate from the armory.

Attacks
Excalibur (+5 bonus), 1d8+3/s
V. Excalibur (+5 Bonus), 1d10+3/s

Cantrips
Booming Blade (1d8 on move)


Arthur Pendragon
V. Human Soldier Archfey Warlock 5 (Blade pact)
STR 16(+3)
DEX 14(+2)
CON 16(+3)
INT 8(-1)<-Dump stat, since this is a semi-optimized character
WIS 10(0)
CHA 12(+1)

Feat:Moderately Armored, Resilient (con)

Invocations
Thirsting Blade
Green Lord's Gift (UA)
Improved Pact Weapon (UA)

HP: 5d8+15=45
AC:17 (19 w/shield) Same half-plate, he stole it might as well use it. Probably payed it off by this point though.

Attacks
Excalibur (+7 bonus) 1d8+4/s X2
V. Excalibur (+7 bonus) 1d10+4/s X2

Cantrips
Booming Blade (1d8, +2d8 on a move)

You could also probably do a good one with Hexblade patron, have not done the work on writing that out yet.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Then you're better with a pact of the tome and shillelagh.

I thought of that, and not really. Yes it's keyed to Charisma which is nice but damage dice is capped at d8 and you cannot take the Blade Pact Invocations like Thirsty Blade or Lifedrinker. Shillelagh really isn't a great choice for Warlocks because without Blade Pact you can't get the Invocations that make being in melee worthwhile.

You would also be better with a few levels of fighter tacked on.

Actually I'm not sure that's true. Say you went with Fighter 2/Warlock 3 to be at equivalent level. What do you pick up and what do you lose?

GAIN
-Heavy armor and shields for free. 2 Feats. But you're not 4th level in either class yet, so you lose a Feat too. On net it's only +1.
-Fighting style
-Action Surge
-Second Wind

That's it. You also get different Saves and Skills but I'd say those are net zero benefit.

LOSE
-1 Feat (not 4th level yet)
-1 Cantrip
-2 spells known
-1 Invocation
-Extra Attack Invocation. Ouch.
-2 HP per DO Blessing
-3rd level spells.

The last one is a big deal because all your spells are less effective. Your loss of 5 HP from AoA and loss of 2 HP/DOB more than offsets the Second Wind. The loss of Extra Attack doesn't make Action Surge worth it. Loss of Vampiric Touch or Fireball. The list goes on. Sure you get these things eventually, but always being two levels behind on magic just for Fighting Style, Action Surge and Feat doesn't seem worth it.

I'm actually coming around to the OP's point of view. The Bladelock might be a bit sub-par but multiclassing doesn't help much.