First, because fighters are easy to work with -- so much so that they 'feel' like a base class; and because they are the quintessential martial archetype, which makes them a natural go-to when trying to weave martial capabilities into an existing class. Second, because of the oddities inherent in considering a warlock a 'full caster'. Warlocks can cast two spells per short rest (pre T3), and that's extremely limited compared to actual full-spellcasters. They rely much more heavily on at-will abilities than a full-caster does. Don't forget that in play, the average warlock's spellcasting comes up as 'hex' and then 'hex after concentration broke' (table variance can of course apply).
D&D 5E Blade Pact Warlocks and Conventional Wisdom
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First, because fighters are easy to work with -- so much so that they 'feel' like a base class; and because they are the quintessential martial archetype, which makes them a natural go-to when trying to weave martial capabilities into an existing class. Second, because of the oddities inherent in considering a warlock a 'full caster'. Warlocks can cast two spells per short rest (pre T3), and that's extremely limited compared to actual full-spellcasters. They rely much more heavily on at-will abilities than a full-caster does. Don't forget that in play, the average warlock's spellcasting comes up as 'hex' and then 'hex after concentration broke' (table variance can of course apply).
They are still a Full caster though, meaning that their Limited casting should, if they need a change, be balanced off by slightly greater Melee capabilities, not melee capabilities equal to the Fighter. I could maybe see giving them a free Extra attack at 5th, then an Invocation (Bladelock Prerequisite) at 11th for a third attack, which would put them solidly in the middle ground. Though, that might be a bit much still.
As it stands, the Valor bard has the best support capabilities, and healing, so they should swing lower on damage and tankiness than the other two. Bladesinger gets massive staying power, so that should get brought down, or they should lose a bit on damage since they get all the blasty and utility spells of the Wizard anyway. That leaves Bladelock with the least Spellcasting flexibility, so giving them higher melee abilities than the other two makes sense, IMO.
The complaints about Blade'locks are not that they are not as good as a fighter, but not as good as other 'locks. They are 'less survivable by strapping some melee option on them' by virtue that they are now expected to mix it up in melee more than your average lock. And it requires quite a bit of system mastery (Choose the right race and/or optional feats, choose fiend patron for temp HP, make Dex a priority b/c your AC is poor--you thought Armor of Shadows would do the trick--or the ever popular 'take your first level in fighter') to 'realize' the vision offered by the sub-class.
I've constantly heard in defense of Blade'locks that they aren't supposed to be front line bruisers, and they need to be mobile skirmishers that only engage in melee when the opportunity it right, or when forced to, etc. Okay, fair enough, but at that point, why not just play another 'lock that has more synergy with class abilities and could do at least some of that for far less investment? Why don't they have any features (beyond the two invocations) that synergize well with the gish role? Yes, they have spells, but even the Valor Bard gets Battle Magic, and the Eldritch Knight has the War Magic features in addition to spell casting. I would posit that the recent UA Sword Patron is at least a partial do over for the blade'lock. While admittedly not fine tuned (Not to mention a kind of silly patron), look at all the gish-enhancing abilities it gets right off the bat to help it fulfill that role.
Except, no, they're not. Not even *close*. They're a pact spellcaster, and you can't really compare them directly against full casters. At level 5, a full caster has 2 third level, 3 second, and 4 first level slots; a warlock has only 2 third. Yes, he regains them on a short rest, but overall he gets far fewer spell slots to spend than the full caster does.
I think the hexblade patron pretty much shows the basic issue here. Would you ever take it and not be a blade pact warlock? No! It makes no sense! The pact is supposed to be a minor twist on the base archetypes, but one of the three pacts is something that needs to be an archetype itself. The problem is, that makes no sense as long as your archetypes are based on patrons instead. The 'weight' of your archetype choice is your patron. Then we go and contradict that with something that's almost a ribbon. In fact, you could easily made a blastlock who happened to be a blade pact.
I'd actually posit that either Pact of the Blade was a mistake from day one, or the overall design for warlocks got messed up and needs re-addressing. Too much weight is on the patron, and not nearly enough is on the pacts.
If I were going to do a rebuild, I'd probably split the class clean in twain.
Level 1, Choose your archetype.
Level 3, Choose your pact.
Level 6, Pact feature.
Level 10, Patron feature.
Level 14, Pact feature.
As far as pact goes, well, blade warlocks would obviously gain multiattack at 6 and lifedrinker at 14. Chain warlocks could gain their improved pet at 6, and at-will hold monster at 14. Those work out great. The only pact that would be an issue is Tome, it would get ritual casting at 6 and... something at 14. Maybe the ability to fuel those rituals with a warlock spell slot if they prefer?
The underlying archetypes might need some re-working -- losing create thrall and hurl through hell are some major losses for the fiend and GOO pacts, with major flavor loss -- but I think with time and effort that could have gotten buffed out.
Unfortunately, it's far too late for that to be put into the book, and I'm still feeling my way into homebrewing and no where near ready to try and do that major a rebuild!
I look at full casters based on the level of spell they are limited to. In general, going to 9th level spells takes a lot of "Slots" allotted to a class. The "issue" with Warlock, in this context, is that they technically have spells to 9th level, but not a large selection of them. They get power, but not enough to really justify the lack of melee capability they have.
Are we at least in agreement that they have too much magic to be reasonably compared to Fighter? Not because of the Martial/Caster divide, but because they do get spellcasting, however little that may be, and it tilts their power considerably.
Fair enough; they compare as well to fighters as they do to what I'd call a full-caster.
Honestly, they're probably closer to a half-caster like Paladin or Ranger, but... trying to do that comparison is just a headache, even if it does fit a lot better. (I mean, lifedrinker compares favorably to Paladin's improved divine smite!)
Giltonio_Santos
Hero
I believe the designer intention was for players to focus on patrons and look at the pacts just as another cool bonus, but what happened appears to be the opposite: players see pacts as quite central to character building, and see the different patrons as an afterthought. The lack of better support for blade warlocks is probably related to that.
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After the Warlock UA, I wonder if all of the "Patron" Abilities should be Invocations, and the Pacts should act as the Subclasses. That might be an interesting thing for me to try at some point.
The thing is, I can actually dig that, I can agree with it... in theory. The problem is, in practice the blade pact just about screams 'make me a gish!' -- and then can't quite support itself in that role. It's got a lot of the tools, just... it's too much weight for something so small to carry, and it has to divest it off into other places, cascading outward in a way that doesn't quite add up. Honestly, just letting the pact weapon itself use charisma bonus as your stat modifier would get you a long way there.
That might actually work, except I don't think the pacts themselves have enough weight to be turned into full archetypes. Honestly, the real 'man out' here is blade pact, it's the only one that screams out 'archetype' to me, while the others really are just minor variations. But I could be wrong, and I'd love to see what you turn out.
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