D&D 5E Blade Pact Warlocks and Conventional Wisdom

[Warpiglet]

I'm just going to disagree. You're making a huge assumption about design intent with zero evidence, and then stating it as a fact. And you assumption contradicts what limited empirical information we do have, i.e. EB just does work a lot better than not EB and the original warlock was built around EB spam.

I am not sure what it was built around but EB does make things easier. I plan to take it with blade pact without invocations.

If you take great weapon master and blade pact and armor up, you do lots of damage relatively. I guess at level 12 you would be 2-12 twice, probably with lifedrinker and thirsting blade. There is always a possibility for a third attack with great weapon master as well as occasional +10 damage with big swings or advantage and hopefully magic weapons.

Granted you would have three EB at that time, but each would do less damage that the above scenario.

I do think EB is optional if you are in a lot of combat without being protected (e.g. small party) and you take the alternate blade pact. Without another means of damage and defense, it would make no sense to NOT take EB. However, I think there are a couple of viable paths.

You could also be way suboptimal and do some other things with Tome as others have mentioned.

Or the same person could take EB with crossbow expert for up closeness. There are options...either would work.

Since this thread was primarily aimed at viability of blade pacts, I will say I do think you can go blade pact without EB. I do not, but you could. Your ranged options would not be choice of course.

 

[yakuba]

I am not sure what it was built around but EB does make things easier. I plan to take it with blade pact without invocations.

If you take great weapon master and blade pact and armor up, you do lots of damage relatively. I guess at level 12 you would be 2-12 twice, probably with lifedrinker and thirsting blade. There is always a possibility for a third attack with great weapon master as well as occasional +10 damage with big swings or advantage and hopefully magic weapons.

Granted you would have three EB at that time, but each would do less damage that the above scenario.

I do think EB is optional if you are in a lot of combat without being protected (e.g. small party) and you take the alternate blade pact. Without another means of damage and defense, it would make no sense to NOT take EB. However, I think there are a couple of viable paths.

You could also be way suboptimal and do some other things with Tome as others have mentioned.

Or the same person could take EB with crossbow expert for up closeness. There are options...either would work.

Since this thread was primarily aimed at viability of blade pacts, I will say I do think you can go blade pact without EB. I do not, but you could. Your ranged options would not be choice of course.

When I said original warlock I meant 3.x.

I agree with you, EB is not NEEDED for viability, but it's the pretty clear path of least resistance.

 

[Corwin]

Take EB. Don't take EB. Take it with invocation(s). Take it vanilla and use your invocations for other things. All options are viable, playable character choices. AFAIC, if one way was the designed expectations, it would have been a fixed class feature and not an option.

 

[Warpiglet]

Take EB. Don't take EB. Take it with invocation(s). Take it vanilla and use your invocations for other things. All options are viable, playable character choices. AFAIC, if one way was the designed expectations, it would have been a fixed class feature and not an option.

I tell you I have honed in on this perspective overall. I like to play strategy games a lot. i like war of the ring, and used to play axis and allies. I like Combat commander though haven't played a ton. In those games, it is all about advantage. Total number crunching advantage and I like the gambles risks etc.

With D and D, I started slipping into expectations. Whether reading a forum like this or otherwise, I started to get sucked into the hype about imperatives.

Don't get me wrong, the min maxers and optimizer continue to teach me a great deal. Certain things end up sounding cool and like a neat trick. For example, I like the idea of using Friends and Disguise Self or whatever. I learn a lot from others.

But it is my new D and D goal to unshackle myself from expectations. I am not going to play a fighter with no strength or dex bonus who only uses a blow gun mind you. But I am going to evaluate the recommendations of others with fresh eyes and allow myself (as I think I am doing in this thread) to doubt what I am told and just do something cool that is fun to imagine!

So now, as I write this, I am thinking about the unthinkable. What if I take a tome pact warlock, armor up and then take weapon master at 4th? Crazy right? Terrible! Heresy! Its a bad feat!

But I might have fun playing a warlock with a flaming green longsword who can also find familiar and use Thaumaturgy to creep people out with his latent power...

I dunno...its not optimal but it might "work."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Totally. I think 5e might actually be the first edition of D&D to accomplish this to such a noteworthy extent.


Agreed. I have a few friends that still try to play 5e like its 3.x or 4e. I'm hoping someday that wears off and they can enjoy this edition for what it is.

I see statements like that, and I wonder if I played a completely different game when I thought I was playing 4e, or if others did. IME, 4e did that just as well as 5e does, if not better. We literally just made the concept, and played it how we wanted, and it worked out fine and was fun. Every time.

 

[Caliban]

I see statements like that, and I wonder if I played a completely different game when I thought I was playing 4e, or if others did. IME, 4e did that just as well as 5e does, if not better. We literally just made the concept, and played it how we wanted, and it worked out fine and was fun. Every time.

For many people who played 3e or 2e, 4e just didn't "feel" like D&D anymore. It felt like an attempt at a table-top version of WoW or some other MMO.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with the 4e system itself (although I also didn't get a "Dungeons & Dragons" vibe from it) - but rather the way it was run by the RPGA at the time. It just became an exercise in min-maxing and re-running the same adventures over and over again to level up your new characters with the best gear after the newest book came out with a new class that made your previous characters look weak.

 

[rbstr]

So, like, I'm a fan of fighter1/WarlockX since I like stabbing to be my primary thing. But I honestly don't find the blade pact to be bad on its own unless you're trying to make the bladelock be an arcane half-caster. It isn't a half-caster. It's a full caster and far more comparable to bladesinger or valor bard (but with the important caveat that the blade boon is not an archetype).

Given that, extra attack as an invocation is in some ways a benefit compared to both Bladesinger and Valor Bard. The bladelock gives up less to get extra attack (and get it at a level earlier) than those other two: Warlocks still get their level 6 patron feature. They still get all of their patron features since the Pact Boon isn't an archetype! That's why the melee option for warlocks gets a bit less in the way of archetype-specific support: it isn't an archetype. It's a far more minor option than the archetype choice.

Looking at each Boon option and invocation (or two) you're basically trading casting versatility (tome - not a lot of combat impact IMO) or familiar shenanigans (decent general combat impact...though free hold monster is pretty great sometimes) for being decent at stabbing people. These options don't really even have that much to do with the basic functionality of the class!
Thinking the blade pact transforms the warlock into a half-martial is kinda like thinking the chain pact makes you into a beast master.

The real mistake in all this is that they didn't have a Warlock archetype that was actually melee-centric. Thus you have the hexblade UA now.

Even then, though, I don't find pure Bladelock of any current patron to be bad if you want to mostly stab stuff. Plenty of non-concentration magic to be done (mirror image, armor of agathys ect.), plenty of THPs, and, as long as you're not playing against type with strength weapons, their AC is fine in light or mage armor. With DEX they're no more MAD than any half-caster out there.

 

[Warpiglet]

So, like, I'm a fan of fighter1/WarlockX since I like stabbing to be my primary thing. But I honestly don't find the blade pact to be bad on its own unless you're trying to make the bladelock be an arcane half-caster. It isn't a half-caster. It's a full caster and far more comparable to bladesinger or valor bard (but with the important caveat that the blade boon is not an archetype).

Given that, extra attack as an invocation is in some ways a benefit compared to both Bladesinger and Valor Bard. The bladelock gives up less to get extra attack (and get it at a level earlier) than those other two: Warlocks still get their level 6 patron feature. They still get all of their patron features since the Pact Boon isn't an archetype! That's why the melee option for warlocks gets a bit less in the way of archetype-specific support: it isn't an archetype. It's a far more minor option than the archetype choice.

Looking at each Boon option and invocation (or two) you're basically trading casting versatility (tome - not a lot of combat impact IMO) or familiar shenanigans (decent general combat impact...though free hold monster is pretty great sometimes) for being decent at stabbing people. These options don't really even have that much to do with the basic functionality of the class!
Thinking the blade pact transforms the warlock into a half-martial is kinda like thinking the chain pact makes you into a beast master.

The real mistake in all this is that they didn't have a Warlock archetype that was actually melee-centric. Thus you have the hexblade UA now.

You are spot on. If you go tome, you will use and invocation to get rituals. If you go chain, you probably want to go with telepathy with Impy pal. You can take blade pact and do it all the same with a few minor substititions.

With everything I have said, I look forward to hexblade. However, I would not tell someone their pure blade pact is a poor choice anymore than I would tell someone a certain race is a poor choice. Its a choice.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

AFAIC, if one way was the designed expectations, it would have been a fixed class feature and not an option.

5e is full of "options" that would work better as permanent features (think about ranger and hunter's mark, for example). Looking at the warlock design, I find it hard to believe that the designers expected it to be level with other primary damage dealers in the game without eldritch blast.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For many people who played 3e or 2e, 4e just didn't "feel" like D&D anymore. It felt like an attempt at a table-top version of WoW or some other MMO.

I remember, yeah. I was pretty active on the wotc DnD forums from about '09 till they nuked it. Even so, I never could get a handle on how people could come to that conclusion after having actually played the game.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with the 4e system itself (although I also didn't get a "Dungeons & Dragons" vibe from it) - but rather the way it was run by the RPGA at the time. It just became an exercise in min-maxing and re-running the same adventures over and over again to level up your new characters with the best gear after the newest book came out with a new class that made your previous characters look weak.

Taste is a weird beast. For me, 4e was more DnD than 3.5, which felt inherently like a video game, to me. It was like they made an edition that would translate more easily for the next neverwinter or baldur's gate game. And it translates great! I love DDO, and it actually still uses a lot of 3.5 as it's mechanical basis. Whereas 4e had to be hacked to bits to fit into the MMO space, and Neverwinter Online literally feels nothing like it. At all. It's a solid MMO, but it ain't a 4e game, no matter what it names things.

Anyway, I avoided organized play when I was first into 4e, and mostly DMd once I got into Encounters, which means my preferences were what the table played. That may account for part of it.

But on the topic of why 4e was brought up, we found that having a system we knew was pretty well balance, without the field of hidden traps that marked 3.5, we just had a concept and ran with it. No one worried about picking the "right" race for a class, because dwarves and kenku and minotaurs and gnomes could all be the same class, without any noticeable disadvantage. We've had 1 character with a maxed main stat, the whole time I've played 4e with this group, and it was my weirdly generic half-elf Bard, and everyone at the table was kinda confused at first by such a generic character concept. And then they saw he was a melee Int Bard, and had the linguist feat, and other non charop choices.

Idk, it just works, and so it is easy to do what we want with it.

There are definatley things I want to fix about 4e, though. I will at some point make a "5.4e" that combines 4e's unified structure with 5e's bounded accuracy and the idea of subclasses, with themes and a 4e style overhaul of the monster system and more Eberron style magic item economy. Because both systems have a lot of great points, and some major flaws.