Level Up (A5E) Warlock Pact Weapon + Wand of the Warmage

[Glororhan]

So the Warlock Pact of the Blade let's you spend an hour transforming a magic weapon into a pact weapon, which let's you apply the attack and damage bonuses of a ranged weapon to Eldritch Ray. Does anyone know of those bonuses stack with the spell attack bonus and ability to ignore half cover from a wand of the war mage?

Since Eldritch Ray is a spell attack, I can't really think of a reason the bonuses wouldn't stack beyond the fact that it feels weird and like double dipping.

As far as I can tell, one you perform the ritual you could, say, get a +3 to attack and damage from a magic longbow to Eldritch Ray (without even having the longbow equipped?) and then hold a wand of war mage +3 for a total +6 bonus to hit and +3 bonus to damage on your attacks from both items (and ignoring half cover)!

But let me if I missed something.

 

[Sepulchre]

RAW is stacks.

Haven’t seen it in play, but I doubt it’d be a big problem. There are way more ways to increase to-hit in A5e, and I doubt this is out of line with the others.

 

[lichmaster]

I'd say maybe, but it's a stretch, for a couple of reasons

You are proficient with it while you wield your pact weapon, and you can use your spellcasting ability for attack and damage rolls with it.

Note the "while you wield your pact weapon". It seems that you'd lose proficiency and also you wouldn't be able to use your spellcasting ability if you're not wielding it. The second part comes from the "with it", so you'd need to use the weapon somehow.

Your pact weapon disappears if it is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more.

The weapon has to be very close to you. If you don't hold it, say you leave it to the ground, someone may either kick it away, or push you away from it, and it would disappear.

So, with a stretch, you could just "wield" the bow in one hand and wield the wand with the other hand, in order to stack the two bonuses.

Personally I'd rule that you have to actually use the weapon to get the benefit, and thus you wouldn't be able to use the wand simultaneously. Situationally it could be more beneficial to use the pact weapon (since you'd also use your spellcasting bonus and all other powers the weapon has), or the wand (if you need to ignore cover).

 

[Sepulchre]

Nothing in Pact of the Blade says the bonus to eldritch ray or eldritch scythe from a magic weapon requires you to wield your pact weapon. Once you make the magic weapon your pact weapon, you get the bonuses to eldritch ray and eldritch scythe, full stop.

 

[lichmaster]

Nothing in Pact of the Blade says the bonus to eldritch ray or eldritch scythe from a magic weapon requires you to wield your pact weapon. Once you make the magic weapon your pact weapon, you get the bonuses to eldritch ray and eldritch scythe, full stop.

You're right, I was focusing on the weapon attack part, not on the Eldritch blast part (which is the main point of the OP).

I sincerely dislike this kind of stacking and all kinds of flat modifiers to attack rolls not coming from the use of magic items like this, especially the ranger's class features that do this.

 

[Sepulchre]

Yeah, wand of the war mage doesn’t benefit regular pact weapon weapon attacks at all.

There’s a lot of stacking like this in A5e. I personally enjoy finding things like this, and IMO it’s not too much because it’s not any different from the archery fighting style, the ranger’s various abilities, or the fantastic zealous stance.

And it requires DM cooperation at some level, although I think a DM would deny a wand of the war mage is not one I would want to play with.

EDIT: For grammar.