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

[yakuba]

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."

I can't speak for others' experiences, but that perception wasn't a problem for me. I've never felt that the Warlock was anything but essentially an arcane rogue. Unlike, say, the monk, I never felt is was sold otherwise in the text. I think the optimized builds maxing the melee damage may have given people the wrong idea, but (combat) optimization is what it is, it doesn't always result in what is truly the ultimate expression of a class.

Even with the spells, you certainly don't have a lot of combat spells to throw around, but invocations allow you to cast leveled spells all the day long. Of course this only impacts combat optimization in small ways but when looking at the class perhaps people miss that this is where a lot of the strength of the class lies.

Getting off topic here, though.

 

[Minigiant]

I just don't see the problem.

Tomelocks get 3 cantrips and rituals. Since edritch Blas's is the best combat cantrip in the game, you aren't picking combat cantrips in your time.

Chainlock get a telepathetic noncombat pet and a limited at will hold person.

Bladelocks get a magic weapon free. If you have a ritualist in the party, Bladelocks are straight up the best.

The question isn't if the bladelock is weak. That's silly.

The question is if you can utilize the subclass to its full potential at good value. I think the Str polarm bladelock and Dex rapier bladelock are both decent.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

RE: the quote from elsewhere about warlocks not needing to be low on Con and letting Hex drop and giving warlocks a third attack. There's so much context missing that I don't see what relevance that quote has to do with ranged attacks, so I will restrict myself to the first part of Ashrym's reply.

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.

First of all, on the round you cast Expeditious Retreat, you get the effect of a Dash, so there is no lost round in there.

Second, outside of dungeons (because I agree, range isn't a great defense in dungeons), 100' is an absurdly close range to begin an encounter at. That's why I said it favors the ogres. 200' to 2000' would be a more typical range. A city block is usually between 300' and 600' feet long (900' in Manhattan)--when was the last time you had trouble seeing someone standing at the other end of the block? The DMG gives standard outdoor encounter range as 2 miles, down to 1 mile in rain or 100' to 300' feet in fog. Unless you're on the Demiplane of Dread, constant fog isn't likely to be an issue in most settings. If it is foggy, just wait for the fog to evaporate before beginning your day. DMG also says visibility can be up to 40 miles from a mountain on a clear day; last night my PCs had an encounter at 500,000 miles, which looked like only 15 miles due to spelljamming effects. (They chose to bypass it instead of engaging, but they could have engaged if they'd wanted to.)

Third point: "Longstrider and expeditious retreat isn't sustainable" on a fifth-level party. You mean you can't keep it up 24 hours a day? I agree. If the ogres jump out of the trees when you're picking your way through the forest on your way to meet someone else entirely, Expeditious Retreat may come into play but probably not Longstrider; what's going to happen is that the paladin will activate (remember the guy who didn't do anything but is "insurance" for when range can't help?) and the ranged guys will support him while he melees. Note that longstrider is optional: if you start at 200' instead of 100', you can kill the ogres by sacrificing 80' of distance instead of 2 spell slots, which is a good deal in open terrain unless you're facing a whole ton of ogres. Longstrider is more something that you use in relatively close terrain when you have general intelligence on a threat, "theres's a fort full of orcs and ogres", or when you are already fleeing in panic from 15 ogres who just jumped your whole party from the bushes and the stupid paladin keeps falling behind and getting opportunity attacked.

One reason I prefer Mobile to Longstrider in the general case is precisely because keeping Longstrider up all the time is a real pain, plus Mobile lets you melee kite. Using Mobile, even the wizard could kill the ogres solo, with or without cantrips.

 

[jgsugden]

The Bladelock suffers from some key design flaws - you can't really use blades that well for two levels. You really want to raise both dex and charisma - and perhaps strength as well, leaving it as a class that is difficult to support with attribute raises in a point buy scenario. If you start with high rolled stats it can be viable... but it just isn't worth the investment when an Eldritch Blade fighter covers the area pretty darn well without the difficulties.

 

[Mephista]

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.

Ummm.... I hate to break it to you, but it DOES turn the warlock into a front line melee warrior.

The Pact of the Blade is based on the 4e design of including the Hexblade and Binder as variations of the Warlock. And, in both 3e and 4e, the hexblade is a front line melee warrior. Or skirmisher, or whatever you want to call it. Its meant to be fighting on the front lines. It has in the past, and it should now.

So, I'm going to disagree, and "think you are exactly wrong."

 

[yakuba]

The Bladelock suffers from some key design flaws - you can't really use blades that well for two levels. You really want to raise both dex and charisma - and perhaps strength as well, leaving it as a class that is difficult to support with attribute raises in a point buy scenario. If you start with high rolled stats it can be viable... but it just isn't worth the investment when an Eldritch Blade fighter covers the area pretty darn well without the difficulties.

The Eldritch Knight(EK) and and Blade Pact Warlock are opposite ends of the gish scale. The EK can fight in melee from jump, but can't cast spells until 3rd level and for the rest of their career, they are nothing special as spell casters. The Blade Pact Warlock is a spell caster with a side of melee competency, and in contravention like the EK they are nothing special in combat.

Nobody ever expects the EK to be a good enough spell caster to go toe to toe as a caster with a Wizard or a Cleric. Why then is there an expectation that the Blade Pact Warlock should be as good in combat as the EK, or a Paladin or a Barbarian? What would be the tradeoff in that design?

As far as stats for a Dex/Cha build. Boosting Dex before Cha has not hampered any of the Blade Pact warlocks I've made. I do think it's harder to make a strength build work unless you go variant human or mountain dwarf, because you really need at least medium armor so you can spare Dexterity.

 

[procproc]

Nobody ever expects the EK to be a good enough spell caster to go toe to toe as a caster with a Wizard or a Cleric. Why then is there an expectation that the Blade Pact Warlock should be as good in combat as the EK, or a Paladin or a Barbarian? What would be the tradeoff in that design?

The Warlock isn't a good enough spellcaster to compare toe to toe with a Wizard or Cleric. It has much more in common with a ranged martial character (say, an EK Fighter with a focus in Archery) than it does with a primary caster.

Ummm.... I hate to break it to you, but it DOES turn the warlock into a front line melee warrior.

You guys can argue over whether that was the design intent until you're blue in the face, but I think we can agree on the following:

1. Blade Pact does not turn the Warlock into an EFFECTIVE, PRIMARY front line melee warrior; and
2. A significant number of players perceive that the intent of Blade Pact is to turn the Warlock into an effective, front line melee warrior.

Personally, I think the Dex-based Bladelock works reasonably well mechanically in that role. But a lot of people see the melee abilities and the demonic pact and want to play a demon-charged, Str-based warrior, and the mechanics don't work quite so well for that.

Another piece of the problem is, as someone mentioned earlier, that you don't choose a Pact feature until 3rd level. That's fine in the abstract, but when you want to start adding in core abilities (such as the ability to wear armor for a frontline fighter) those are really things you want as class features from level 1. Even if everyone could agree on certain changes that were desirable for Blade Pact, such as proficiency in Medium Armor, it works sort of poorly for a character to be unable to fulfill his/her desired function for a few levels.

 

[yakuba]

Ummm.... I hate to break it to you, but it DOES turn the warlock into a front line melee warrior.

In the parlance you cited's the Blade Pact Warlock is a skirmisher, and a skirmisher is not a front line warrior.

I get (and like) the hex blade concept. I played both Eldritch Strike Warlocks and Hexblades in 4e, but this ain't that any more than the 5e Fighter is some kind of a great defender by default.

You've built a tautology that says that d8 Hit Die, Light Armor wearing, Cha wanting, Blade Pact Warlock is a front line melee combatant and therefore it sucks because it isn't a front line melee combatant. They've gone in a different direction for whatever reasons they chose, but it is pretty clear that they did not even attempt to make the Blade Pact Warlock a front line warrior.

 

[yakuba]

But a lot of people see the melee abilities and the demonic pact and want to play a demon-charged, Str-based warrior, and the mechanics don't work quite so well for that.

This is pretty true.

Another piece of the problem is, as someone mentioned earlier, that you don't choose a Pact feature until 3rd level. That's fine in the abstract, but when you want to start adding in core abilities (such as the ability to wear armor for a frontline fighter) those are really things you want as class features from level 1. Even if everyone could agree on certain changes that were desirable for Blade Pact, such as proficiency in Medium Armor, it works sort of poorly for a character to be unable to fulfill his/her desired function for a few levels.

I think connects directly to your previous point. The progression doesn't work very well if what you want is that front line Str + Armor melee combatant

 

[Ashrym]

The action / bonus action is gone because the warlock or wizard was required to us one or the other to cast expeditious retreat.

He doesn't have that action or bonus action to use again that round. Expeditious retreat allows for dash as a bonus action on subsequent rounds at the additional cost of concentration. So no hex, for example.

The reason it's not sustainable is because the wizard does have the slots to accommodate 6 spells of 2nd-level and 6-8 1st-level spells for expeditious retreat over a standard daughter at that level, let alone do anything more than weak damage. The warlock certainly can't do it without the additional help.

The rest of the information was argument against the need for offensive ability added because the blade lock can do more damage than the agonizing blaster and shouldn't approach the fighter because of the stronger magical ability the blade warlock also possesses. It included an example that has heavy armor, 16 CON, 20 STR, and 16 CHA for decent casting ability that did more damage than agonizing blast for similar investment.

Blade pact warlocks require a better understanding of the system more than any actual mechanical improvements.