D&D 5E Some warlock house rules (sorry)

[TallIan]

So with the hexblade available for some time, the endless discussions about the blade 'lock has gone quiet. So I'm a little sorry to bring it back up.

I don't really have a problem with the hexbalde, but I prefer the fluff of pact of the blade somewhat. I find it falls a little short in dps and survivability and offers very little compared to Pact of the Chain or Tome.

So I wanted to add a little something to the pact, centered around the blade part of the pact.

War Fiend/Fey/whatever
Essentially give the blade lock the Warpriest Feature keyed off CHA. This gives the warlock a slight dps boost.

Pact guard
As a reaction you can use your pact weapon to guard against an enemy's melee attacks. Until the start of your next turn you may ad your CHA modifier to your AC. Once you use this feature you may not use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

 

[jmartkdr]

I'd just attach the Hex Warrior feature form Hexblade to anyone who takes Pact of the Blade, regardless of patron. You get medium armor and shields, which solves most of the defense issues, and CHA to attack which makes you almost a single-ability class (you still need decent dex and con, but +2 is plenty.)

 

[ad_hoc]

While Blade Pact is the weakest of the pacts, the pacts are all fairly minor abilities. Blade Pact gives you a melee option. That's what it is for. That's it. Turning it into a full subclass' worth of stuff swings the balance too far.

I'd just attach the Hex Warrior feature form Hexblade to anyone who takes Pact of the Blade, regardless of patron. You get medium armor and shields, which solves most of the defense issues, and CHA to attack which makes you almost a single-ability class (you still need decent dex and con, but +2 is plenty.)

You just made Blade Pact the best choice for all Warlocks. And it's not even close. This is also why the Hexblade is grossly overpowered. It is by far the best patron for every Warlock.

 

[5ekyu]

Part of the pact boons inckudes the invocatiins they unlock.

 

[jmartkdr]

While Blade Pact is the weakest of the pacts, the pacts are all fairly minor abilities. Blade Pact gives you a melee option. That's what it is for. That's it. Turning it into a full subclass' worth of stuff swings the balance too far.

The problem I have with Pact of the Blade as-is is: it provides you with a useless melee option, since you can't realistically get close enough to use it without getting smeared. And if you use a spell slot to defend yourself, you're not hitting hard enough to make the attack worth doing. So it's a false option.

 

[Yunru]

My advice would just be to merge the Hexblade into the Pact of the Blade.
Some bits become pact features, others become invocations.

 

[ad_hoc]

The problem I have with Pact of the Blade as-is is: it provides you with a useless melee option, since you can't realistically get close enough to use it without getting smeared. And if you use a spell slot to defend yourself, you're not hitting hard enough to make the attack worth doing. So it's a false option.

It is to be used when the enemy gets to you. It's really not hard for enemy creatures to approach PCs in 5e. So this gives Warlocks a good melee option. You don't want to have disadvantage on your Eldritch Blast. You could take a different attack cantrip but a weapon attack will deal more damage.

So it's about versatility. It can't be a full package like the Valour Bard. That's what the Hexblade was supposed to be. The Warlock essentially has 2 subclasses. A major one and a minor one. The pacts are minor, only people want the Blade Pact to be a major benefit. So enter Hexblade only they both over did it and the theme of it is horrendous.

 

[TallIan]

I'd just attach the Hex Warrior feature form Hexblade to anyone who takes Pact of the Blade, regardless of patron. You get medium armor and shields, which solves most of the defense issues, and CHA to attack which makes you almost a single-ability class (you still need decent dex and con, but +2 is plenty.)

This makes blade pact hexblades redundant and makes the PotB somewhat overpowered. Adding medium armour to the PotB as a fix was thrown around a lot before the hexblade patron came out and falls over when someone takes PotB, Agonising Blast, Repelling blast and runs screaming at the first sight of melee.

Part of the pact boons inckudes the invocatiins they unlock.

It does, but I find that PotB has to spend all their available invocations just to be ok, while the other pacts don't have to make such a big investment in their chosen pact.

While Blade Pact is the weakest of the pacts, the pacts are all fairly minor abilities. Blade Pact gives you a melee option. That's what it is for. That's it. Turning it into a full subclass' worth of stuff swings the balance too far.

They are supposed to be minor, but the other pact options are considerably better.

Pact of the Tome, offer three cantrips, basically a feat. Magic Initiate it two cantrips and a level 1 spell. If Feat of the Tome were an option I would definitely take it any time I would consider MI.

Pact of the Chain is not quite so close to MI, as it effectively gives you a level 1 spell with some extra cool stuff. If there was a Feat of the Chain, I would likely not take it over MI but spending a feat for a familiar is something I would consider IF there was no other way to get one.

PotB, which basically gives you weapon proficiency in what ever you want, compares to Weapon Master. But the way 5e works weapon proficiencies, this really isn't much. I've never heard anyone say Weapon Maser is a good feat. If anything it's got to be one of the worst.

So my thinking in adding some extra stuff is that Warpriest compares to Martial Adept. Warpriest gives you 3 to 5 extra attacks per LR, while MA gives you 3d6 extra damage (spread over the day) and a cool effect. So I was looking to add a feat that isn't great (Martial Adept) to a feat that is outright bad (Weapon Master) to make a class feature that was slightly improved.

 

[ad_hoc]

Magic Initiate is much better than 3 cantrips. MI is also not great on a full caster such as the Warlock.

There are diminishing returns. The 3rd cantrip (in the Warlock case, the 6th) is not as powerful as the previous 2.

The level 1 spell can be very good. It can give a non-caster a familiar for example.

At most you can have cha to atk/dmg with the pact weapon. Anything more than that swings the balance too far.

Chain pact is the best of them but Tome has the best invocation unlock so it's about even.

The pacts are each worth around a half feat.

 

[TallIan]

Magic Initiate is much better than 3 cantrips. MI is also not great on a full caster such as the Warlock.

There are diminishing returns. The 3rd cantrip (in the Warlock case, the 6th) is not as powerful as the previous 2.

The level 1 spell can be very good. It can give a non-caster a familiar for example.

At most you can have cha to atk/dmg with the pact weapon. Anything more than that swings the balance too far.

Chain pact is the best of them but Tome has the best invocation unlock so it's about even.

The pacts are each worth around a half feat.

I'll accept that they aren't worth a full feat, but we seem to be in agreement that PotB is the weakest. I don't think I've seen anyone take weapon master, and I don't think I would ever consider for any serious character.

Do you really think that +3 to +5 damage on every attack is less powerful that 3 to 5 extra attacks per LR?

Lifedrinker comes into play at level 12, so I was trying to avoid duplicate effects. What I would like to get is the base damage of your "blade" to be somewhere near to EB, so that you then have a choice of enhancing EB or you melee attacks. Keeping the normal attack and damage bonus to choosing STR or DEX I think helps to balance this approach as you can't get 20 in DEX,STR and CHA. This means that you have to choose a primary, secondary and tertiary stat; STR if you want big damage; DEX if you want great AC or CHA if you want to still be an EB spammer with a burst of weak melee if you get stuck.