Hello, thanks for reading.
I know there has been A LOT ( can that be emphasized enough ) talk on the Bladelock. While I would prefer not to have this talk devolve as they tend to do, I would like to hear some constructive feedback. So I started out not by thinking of damage but instead what were the things that seemed off by the sub-class. They ended up being these:
- For a melee combatant access to armor can be important, only being able to have light armor with no investment really hurts.
- From the above i got, in order to have a particular concept it may require a significant feat/invocation/multiclass tax.
- And finally (as you knew was coming) why should i swing/thrust/cut something when I can simply blast it with the best cantrip in the game, while only investing in one or two Invocations
So after a significant amount of reading I came to the some possibilities that i may implement.
- Allow Pact of the Blade access to Medium Armor and Shields; the hope is to alleviate some of the burden of the first two bullet points, without giving two much to her.
- Removal of Thristing Blade; instead give the Pact an extra attack at 5th lvl.
- Introduce a new invocation; something like Apollyon's Carapace, Requirement: Pact of the Blade, Gain Heavy Armor Proficiency.
- Well you can't give them something without taking something away. Decrease the damage of Eldritch Blast to 1d8 per Beam.
- Agonizing Blast can not be taken either make it have a pact requirement of Tome/Chain or force a change upon taking pact of the blade. This one I am iffy about, it seems very harsh.
- And finally one that I am toying with to reduce MAD. Pact Weapon, when rolling to hit and damage your pact weapon use either your Str modifier( or Dex modifier if normally capable) OR your Chr modifier. (Change wording on Lifedrinker to read now apply both your Str(or Dex ...) and Chr when calculating damage). Now this is very dramatic but I dont think it changes the numbers all that much, but i have not done the math on this.
So those are my thoughts. Thanks for reading.
~mu
Bullets:
* Variant human uses a feat for it; mountain dwarf; or multiclass cleric, fighter, or paladin; or just take the hit on opportunity cost because that happens no matter which class a person plays. Or possibly a DEX based but that gets more complicated to build, imo, and still be competitive.
* It's not as significant as a person might think. Polearm master grants that extra attack and allows STR (and CHA eventually) on the extra attack to leave agonizing blast far behind. Eldritch blast would be best used with crossbow master because of the disadvantage on attacks with hostiles within 5 ft. It's really only 1 more invocation with the potential for more combat feats. Polearm master and thirsting blade together puts weapon use ahead of eldritch blast without difficulty and is pretty good adding CHA later as well. 3d10+15 isn't as much as 2d10+1d4+15+6 with only a +2 CHA bonus, for example.
* The best damage cantrip in the game still doesn't keep up to weapon damage with feats. That's why. This is particularly true at lower levels because of extra attacks from class features, feats, or TWF. The cantrips won't be competitive until 17th level.
I would keep that in mind with any house rule changes and the thing to really watch out for is unexpected synergy with other aspects of the game. I can already take 1 level of fighter to start with for armor, CON save proficiency, and a fighting style. Giving medium armor and shield proficiency isn't a big deal if it's easy to acquire for little downside anyway. It does marginalize the proficiency bonus a person might get by taking dwarf as a race because the armor, STR, and CON all work for the subclass anyway.
1. This is minor but doesn't have much flavor. I don't actually see it as necessary because it's not difficult to acquire.
2. The reason this isn't done is because that's the level 3rd-level spells become available. Subclasses and classes are structured with paced abilities in their levels and you'll notice class progression is blank as 3rd level spells open up. What you intend is to break that pattern by giving a strong ability to one subclass for free and not other subclasses. 3rd level spells is pretty strong when you cast all your spells in that slot multiple times and why it's part of the invocations with a cost.
3. All you've done is add an invocation requirement after trying to remove invocation requirements. Heavy armor proficiency is very limited in the game. You would be better off making medium armor the invocation, IMO.
4. There's no point using eldritch blast if a person has invested in weapon ability scores and feats. Eldritch blast does less damage. There's no point in taking agonizing blast unless a person wants a ranged option but CHA is likely lacking behind as secondary to the main attack ability score.
5. There's no point, again. Eldritch blast does not do more damage than weapons.
6. MAD happens to all hybrid caster / melee. Just let the combat or the magic be more important and take a small hit. A 17 or 18 spell DC instead of a 19 on a melee build will still be okay and give a good damage bonus from lifedrinker. I think MAD is preferable in many cases because classes with access to high levels of magic (including blade warlocks) shouldn't also have access to great armor, high damage, etc without some cost or tradeoff. It's too easy to marginalize other classes that don't have such access to the magic and already focus on combat.
I do think there is room for more invocations to increase specialization and that would be the route to go. I wouldn't remove thirsting blade and give it for free. I would leave it as is. I would also consider medium armor and shield as an invocation and heavy armor as another invocation requiring the first one.
I wouldn't do anything to give more damage; consider what you can already do with 2 or 3 attacks plus all the available bonuses plus magical bonuses via weapon or other magic plus the fact you might harvest or find a way to purchase poisons. Serpent venom is fairly affordable early and half damage on a save is still a bonus to damage not available on eldritch blast, even with the lowish save on it.
Hope the feedback helps. It's not meant to be argumentative but I understand how it can appear on the internet.
