D&D 5E Pact of the Blade / Bladelock, looking for thoughts

[Minsc]

I'm starting to realize this class might not be that great, mechanically.

If I were to be restricted to playing one single classed, I'd almost definitely make him a mountain dwarf (armor) or variant human, taking the medium armor feat.

But where this class fails mechanically, it is really cool. When you're high enough level to attack with STR + CHA, look out.

Building one by the rules isn't a total gimp character, and the coolness factor makes it a viable option.

BTW, I think the best route would be Fiend patron, so you gain HP every time you drop a baddie. There's also the invocation to make your attacker suffer the same damage they do to you. Combine these two abilities makes for a fun character.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

I think I'm missing an Invocation! Which one is that?


Also, the Polearm Master feat is a good "equalizer" for STR/CHA BladeLocks. At 5th level, you've got 3 attacks per round, and your STR adds to damage on the bonus action attack. (it's official) Plus, you can get another attack on your reaction if an enemy comes into reach.

 

[Ashrym]

This statement interests me. Can you expand on your claims? Are you pointing out that you can't always fight at range (totally true, especially since many DMs don't seem to know how big 20' is in real life)? Or are you making a stronger claim?

Most of the time when I see a ranged guy get into trouble in 5E, it's because 1.) he boxed himself in somehow, 2.) he's facing a mob so big that he can't kill them faster than they can close the distance by Dashing, 3.) the party is on offense in close quarters, and he got surprised. #1 and #3 are usually related. #2 usually means the encounter is way beyond Deadly.

A 20 ft room doesn't require dashes, for example, and smart opponents can box ranged character in without him boxing himself in.

The problem with dashing is it takes your action to do it so it isn't an escape system that allows damage and the mobs closing in can close the distance faster than they can be killed OR move and ranged attack back on their actions. This has nothing to do with it being a deadly encounter because monster hit points in higher CR's have some pretty hefty scaling. A group of 5th level adventurers facing 2 ogres would take eldritch blasts for 4 rounds to drop one of them and if one those ogres attacks the warlock he'll get there before dropping.

Fortunately it's a team game and the ogre may or may not be going after the warlock based on the circumstances and DM, but it's either those circumstances or DM, or another character, who is preventing that attack and not the range. Status effects are the best approach, in my experience and that's more typical of protection.

1/2 CR orcs with the aggressive trait eat up range like candy, and both ogres and orcs are examples of monsters that can simply return fire. Enemy spell casters, creatures with ranged attacks, creatures with fast movements, stealth attacks; or simply going with the dash and being within melee range so that eldritch blast attacks with disadvantage (or the warlock moves away and loses an action to dash / disengage while taking an opportunity attack) or forces a feat early as well.

Range definitely has it's advantages and having a ranged option is pretty much a requirement but the typical dungeon crawl space and movement options cramps it instead of the nice open wilderness.

That's what I mean by range isn't as strong a protection as some think. It's pretty easy to close range while dashing and often using cover in between movements for further protection while closing if the range is very large. That's also why the push invocation is handy and often part of the investment agonizing blasters are using. In the meantime, weapons still do more damage and if we're at range the blade warlock can use eldritch blast instead of weapons, or cast a spell that hits the range. If his hypnotic pattern only catches 5/8 instead of 6/8 he's still not really suffering by 1 lower DC or whatnot.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ashrym,

Thanks for the discussion. You don't have to respond to the below unless you want to, but for the sake of argument I wanted to show some worked examples of ranged tactics.

A 20 ft room doesn't require dashes, for example, and smart opponents can box ranged character in without him boxing himself in.

Stipulated that ranged attacks don't work well when you're locked inside a 20' room. Everything I write below assumes that you have a secure line of retreat.

The problem with dashing is it takes your action to do it so it isn't an escape system that allows damage and the mobs closing in can close the distance faster than they can be killed OR move and ranged attack back on their actions. This has nothing to do with it being a deadly encounter because monster hit points in higher CR's have some pretty hefty scaling. A group of 5th level adventurers facing 2 ogres would take eldritch blasts for 4 rounds to drop one of them and if one those ogres attacks the warlock he'll get there before dropping.

The thing is that if you are a ranged party, you can plan not to be very vulnerable to enemies Dashing to close with you. You want to do this because not only does keeping the range above 200' make you less vulnerable to melee attacks, it also makes you less vulnerable to Medusa gazes, poisoned drow crossbows, Fireballs, Counterspells, and breath weapons.

Assuming an initial range of 100' (favorable to the ogres), and a not-very-optimized party of one Spell Sniper warlock, a wizard, a Mobile monk, and a paladin:
Prep: Wizard casts Longstrider on everybody (2 2nd level spells).
Procedure: Every round, the ogres close to 20' by Dashing, adventurers open it back up to 100' by Dashing. Wizard and Warlock both Expeditious Retreat so they can Eldritch Blast/Fire Bolt every round in addition to Dashing, inflicting 26.6 points of damage per round between the two of them (ogres have 59 HP). The monk could exploit standard cyclic initiative to get free melee attacks every round (that's one reason I prefer Speed Factor initiative where the exploit doesn't work reliably), but instead he'll Dash every third round and fire the other 2/3 of the time, inflicting 10.2 damage per round on average. The paladin doesn't do anything interesting in this combat and can be ignored. (He's insurance for the times when holding the range open doesn't work.) Total party damage: 36.8 per round.

Time to kill ogres: 24 seconds (four rounds). Distance consumed: 320', just under a Seattle city block length (364 feet).

When I mentioned deadly difficulties, I wasn't referring to chumps like ogres but rather to cases like "6d6 giant worker ants and 3d6 soldier ants and 1d6 bomber ants, every ten minutes" (total of 1291 angry HP of ant on average) from Quests of Doom II. The party will do less damage per turn against the ants due to better AC, so call it 30 DPR, which means that it takes 43 rounds and 3400 feet of ant tunnel to kill the whole ant group--that's starting to push the bounds of believability that there would be so much tunnel available behind you.

If the ogres chuck javelins instead they will do it from long range (60') and only get to do it twice; after that the party is at 180' which is out of javelin range.

1/2 CR orcs with the aggressive trait eat up range like candy, and both ogres and orcs are examples of monsters that can simply return fire. Enemy spell casters, creatures with ranged attacks, creatures with fast movements, stealth attacks; or simply going with the dash and being within melee range so that eldritch blast attacks with disadvantage (or the warlock moves away and loses an action to dash / disengage while taking an opportunity attack) or forces a feat early as well.

Orcs aren't that much better than the ogres in this case: they close 90' per round instead of 80', which basically means you can kill 2 free orcs per 10' of distance over 90' that you start the combat at. (100' initial distance = 2 free orc kills, 200' initial distance = 22 free orc kills, etc.) Every 2 kills will also consume 80' of retreat distance.

I absolutely agree that enemy ranged attacks and spell casters, creatures with fast movement like dragons and rocs, and stealth attacks are all the bane of ranged characters. They're the bane of melee characters too but at least the melee guys are planning and expecting to get attacked, so they tend to have better AC.

However, I didn't follow what you meant by "the warlock moves away and loses an action to dash / disengage while taking an opportunity attack". If the warlock disengages, why is he taking an opportunity attack? Conversely, if he simply moves away and eats an opportunity attack, why is he losing an action? He should get his normal attack at no disadvantage.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. It was fun.

 

[Ashrym]

The warlock would lose an action to disengage/dash on a melee opponent by disengaging or dashing without expeditious retreat on an opponent that is within 5 ft or else be forced to attack with disadvantage for a penalty.

Longstrider and expeditious retreat isn't sustainable because longstrider is burning through 6 spell slots already at 2 per hour with 2 short rests and expeditious retreat is generally once per encounter while using concentration. Either ground or damage is also lost the first round in casting expeditious retreat because the bonus action is already gone for expeditious retreat so the action is used for dashing or attacking but not both. The initial range of 100 ft is also questionable because it depends on visibility that's impacted by nightfall, weather, terrain, and not typical in dungeons at almost any time. One of the issue with kiting we run into is there needs to be a place to run to and that's often problematic, hence my comment about dungeons versus open wilderness.

You've turned your wizard into a rather poor kiter at that level and that's all the warlock would be doing at that level.


Similar topics seem to be cropping up so I'll repost from another forum that includes and example and some additional commentary.

"The blade warlock letting hex drop for another spell isn't any different than an agonizing blaster letting hex drop for another spell. Another spell doesn't have to be a concentration spell. He also has the option of "encounter ending" spells and using sleep from your example, would cast a more powerful version of sleep more often than the wizard because it's in a higher level slot and can be done once or twice per short rest. Sleep is available to fey patron. Command is pretty good for fiend but fireball is also there and that's more likely to be taken for the defensive components, hurl through hell, and more temp hp opportunities early. Or any warlock can cast hypnotic pattern for their encounter ending ability.

The warlock doesn't need to be low on CON. For example, standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 and mountain dwarf is an option. +2 STR and +2 CON works for the subclass and we can go with STR 16, DEX 10, CON 15, INT 8, WIS 12, CHA 15 at 1st level. 5 ASI's / feats gives us heavy armor (already proficient in medium) and polearm mastery. 1 ASI gos to CON and CHA for three 16's and CON can remain there. This gives us the option for 18 STR and 18 CHA or 20 STR and 16 CHA (what I would do with a dwarf). 16 CHA was a sacrifice for AC on the build but the choice to cast spells is a difference of DC 17 vs DC 19. If, for example, I choose to cast hypnotic pattern on 20 targets without save proficiencies (which is normal) and WIS 10 (for simplicity in the average) then the average is 16 targets who fail instead of 18 targets who fail. That's a minor concession for the melee ability and why the dwarf would still be as much a caster as an agonizing blaster, and the dwarf could cast that same spell 16 times in a day with short rests plus 4 arcana. A wizard could cast it 14 times in a day after having used arcane recovery if he still wants to keep 4 top level spell slots to match the arcana.

If the warlock uses hex twice in the day, they are reasonably similar with such an encounter ending spell. Hex is just casting a spell using a spell slot which is what spellcasters do. They are also similar in that the wizard has 2 at will spells from spell mastery (my favorite wizard feature, by far) while the blade warlock has a choice of several at will spells of higher levels than the wizard can select with spell mastery. Alter self, silent image, levitate, and arcane eye are nice options in that list. What has been termed a non-spell caster still has the option for true polymorph so from what I can see the similarities are pretty darn close enough to go with a full spell caster. Moreso than a war cleric, for example, who is in much of a similar situation but was also listed as a full caster simply based on a spell progression chart instead of what the mechanics between the 2 separate systems provide. Spellcasters have their own differences in their classes and warlocks fit the mold.

Regarding the lost attacks for moving hex -- they only matter if hex is moved and can be made up by opportunity attacks. That would cost the agonizing blaster another feat and require close proximity.


For convenience, damage on the dwarf example. Sans hex or foresight and at 75% accuracy +2 polearm (d10):

5% crit*2 -- 2d10+5+3+2 = 2.1
5% crit*1 -- 2d4+5+3+2 = 0.75
70% norm*2 -- 1d10+5+3+2 = 21.7
70% norm*1 -- 1d4+5+3+2 = 8.75
damage = 33.3

Versus agonizing blast *4 with 75% accuracy using +2 rod of the pact keeper (adds accuracy and DC's, not damage)

5% crit*4 -- 2d10+5 = 3.2
70% norm*4 -- 1d10+5 = 29.4
damage = 32.6

And keeping on track, an eldritch knight with 75% accuracy using pole arm mastery and a +2 pole arm

5% crit*4 -- 2d10+5+2 = 3.6
5% crit*1 -- 2d4+5+2 = 0.6
70% norm*4 -- 1d10+5+2 = 35
70% norm*1 -- 1d4+5+2 = 6.65
damage = 45.85 (-1 attack below 20th level is 36.2)


So the warlock is still casting spells on par with other full casters (melee full casters like bards and cleric), still doing better damage than eldritch blasts, and the fighter isn't struggling but the earlier suggestion (don't recall by whom) to give blade pact warlocks a 3rd attack would shoot up to 45.2 and step on the fighter's toes significantly. This is just on a standard, non-optimized build trying to mix melee with a lot of offensive magical options."

 

[Klaus]

Well, Pact of the Blade effectively grants proficiency with Martial melee weapons, and you get a magical weapon too, which may take any form you chose, and cannot be stolen. (If that happens, you just summon it back.) Are you not impressed?

Not really, no. In order to be useful, that +0 martial weapon requires you to increase your Str (Dex-based martial melee weapons can't really compare), in addition to the Cha, Con and possibly Dex you already need. "Any form you choose" means, at most, 2d6 damage. Cannot be stolen is a -- to use a term from the designers -- a "ribbon" (pretties it up, but doesn't influence in balance). And to have two attacks with it, you need to invest in an invocation.

Having it be based on Cha gives the bladelock a top-accuracy melee attack (on par with the martial classes), and makes the extra attack invocation particularly interesting (again, allowing the bladelock to keep up with some martial classes in the damage department for a longer while). Sure, the bladelock won't have the multitude of attacks of a Fighter, or the smite damage of a Paladin, or the multiple benefits of a hunter Ranger, and that's okay. The bladelock will make up for it with his spells. But if the player wants to have a competent "fighter/mage" character, a Cha-based bladelock would offer a great alternative to the Eldritch Knight, Paladin or Ranger.

 

[Mephista]

Well, Pact of the Blade effectively grants proficiency with Martial melee weapons, and you get a magical weapon too, which may take any form you chose, and cannot be stolen. (If that happens, you just summon it back.) Are you not impressed?

Generally speaking? No, not really. "Cannot be stolen" isn't a big deal in the vast majority of games. Once you bind a magical weapon that grants any kind of bonuses, you lose your effective martial proficency for just that one specific weapon, and without taking feats or multi-classing, you're effectively limited to finesse weapons. Since PotB doesn't really support TWF or a dagger-throwing style, that's really limiting you to a whip or rapier with the base class. And I find that the only time the "magic weapon" part comes in handy is if you're in a game without magic items and no one else access to magic weapons but you. Then its big, but that's a very small minority of games.

The issue is which ability score the Warlock gets to use for attacks/damage when wielding the pact blade. Changing it to CHA would reduce dependency on other ability scores (STR/DEX), and make the subclass more viable overall. My position is that this is big enough benefit that it shouldn't be granted "for free" and it's worth a minor investment.

Its not that strong of a benefit, however. It is, in fact, a very minor one - most subclasses that grant martial proficency in weapons also include other things. Valor bard includes other ways to use Inspiring Word, for instance. Favored Soul grants extra spells.

This is actually the barest minimum to fill the hexblade shoes here, the equivalent to running a business with an overworked skeleton crew. One reason Tome of the Book is so good is that it adds more things onto the base class - more spellcasting for a spellcaster class. Blade attempts to take the class into a completely different direction.

Make no mistake, it is fun. I enjoy playing it. But fun != well designed mechanically.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Make no mistake, it is fun. I enjoy playing it. But fun != well designed mechanically.

But, but...you can't exist, Mephista. You like 5th edition. How can you be saying it contains a class with poor mechanical design? Only people who dislike 5e think that!

</sarcasm>

More seriously, I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. The Warlock has a lot of neat tricks. It's not a design I care for, but it's got its place. The Blade pact, however, seems to...I guess "go too far." It tries to "re-write" the class rather than amplify it, and it ends up failing to do either.

 

[yakuba]

The Blade pact, however, seems to...I guess "go too far." It tries to "re-write" the class rather than amplify it, and it ends up failing to do either.

I think you are exactly wrong. The Blade Pact adds some versatility to basic Warlock class, just as the other two pacts do. It's different in that it is combat versatility rather than the increased out of combat versatility given by the other two pacts. The issues raised in this thread are mainly centered around the fact that the Blade Pact does not "re-write" the class. Specifically it does not turn a Warlock into a front-line melee warrior, which is the "problem" that almost every suggestion in this thread is trying to "fix". This also shows in that for the most part the Pact Blade warlock specifically discussed in this thread is the Strength-based Black pact warlock with a Fiendish patron.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think you are exactly wrong. The Blade Pact adds some versatility to basic Warlock class, just as the other two pacts do. It's different in that it is combat versatility rather than the increased out of combat versatility given by the other two pacts. The issues raised in this thread are mainly centered around the fact that the Blade Pact does not "re-write" the class. Specifically it does not turn a Warlock into a front-line melee warrior, which is the "problem" that almost every suggestion in this thread is trying to "fix". This also shows in that for the most part the Pact Blade warlock specifically discussed in this thread is the Strength-based Black pact warlock with a Fiendish patron.

I think I communicated poorly here. It sounds like you are responding with exactly what I was thinking. Perhaps I should have added the word "tries" in there. That is: The Blade Pact tries to achieve this, and fails--or, at the very least, it gives players the impression that that's what it does.

In general, I feel the Warlock gives lots of wrong impressions, e.g. the expectation "Oh, my spells recharge on a short rest--I'll have lots of them to fling around!" vs. the reality "Warlock spells are precious commodities that should only be used when they're needed."