Level Up (A5E) Pact of the Blade past level 5

[Verall]

Sorry, I updated my post while you were replying. Please read my post again.

I believe eldritch scythe is worded as such so that it can trigger as a melee attack would, you typically can’t take an attack of opportunity with a spell.

To be clear, it doesn’t require a melee attack it emulates one.

 

[Anonymous3]

Thanks for helping me out.

So here we go again...
For clarity, a level 17 melee warlock using Thirsting Blade and Eldritch Scythe gets to decide that they either use:

1. An Eldritch Scythe + Extra blast combo (four attacks); OR
2. Thirsting Blade + two off-hand attacks (four attacks, this is achievable at 5th level); OR
3. Combination of these.

Additionally, Eldritch Scythe attacks requires no weapon.

Is this correct?

 

[Steampunkette]

Thanks for helping me out.

So here we go again...
For clarity, a level 17 melee warlock using Thirsting Blade and Eldritch Scythe gets to decide that they either use:

1. An Eldritch Scythe + Extra blast combo (four attacks); OR
2. Thirsting Blade + two off-hand attacks (four attacks, this is achievable at 5th level); OR
3. Combination of these.

Additionally, Eldritch Scythe attacks requires no weapon.

Is this correct?

Eldritch Scythe requires a "Melee Weapon Attack" to replace. But the sidebar on 309 explains that Unarmed Attacks and Natural Attacks also count as melee weapon attacks.

So not only do you not need a weapon, you could play a Cervid character with the "Regal Antlers" gift to use your head to Eldritch Scythe.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeeeeah... about that.
View attachment 380351
Light or heavy one-handed firearm, or light or heavy two-handed firearm. But it must have a revolving/repeating function (Like a Winchester 30-30 lever action). But it can only have 6 rounds at a time.

Scope is an attachment that turns it into a sniper rifle with the "Precision" trait (Roll damage twice, take the higher value).

Stop making me re-write my custom equipment chapter! I'm still in the middle of doing it for Voidrunner's.

 

[Steampunkette]

Stop making me re-write my custom equipment chapter! I'm still in the middle of doing it for Voidrunner's.

But I'm just gonna rewrite it -for- you, see?

 

[lichmaster]

1. Combination of these.

Additionally, Eldritch Scythe attacks requires no weapon.

Is this correct?

Yes, with the provision that there is only one combination: 1 scythe and the rest is normal attacks.
See, the scythe substitutes a melee attack for an attack with the scythe. The Eldritch Scythe feature says you can do so once per turn, so it transforms your (only, at level 1) attack into a scythe. It doesn't prevent you from making more melee attacks.
Extra blast however says that when you use the Scythe you can make more than 1 attack with the scythe as long as you didn't make weapon attacks.
So if you make a melee weapon attack you can only use the scythe once that round (assuming you have another melee attack to turn into the scythe).
So with Thirsting Blade you either go all in with the scythe (no weapon attacks), or 1 scythe and 1+ melee attacks (depending whether you're dual wielding or not), or full melee. You can't do 2 scythes and 1 melee attack for example.
Hope this clarifies

 

[Anonymous3]

Appreciate all your help guys.
I never really looked into warlock and now that I have gone this process I really like some of the design choices. I enjoy features that encourage players to invest in the single class and making multiclassing out of it a hard choice - warlocks do this well.

 

[lichmaster]

Appreciate all your help guys.
I never really looked into warlock and now that I have gone this process I really like some of the design choices. I enjoy features that encourage players to invest in the single class and making multiclassing out of it a hard choice - warlocks do this well.

In general I'm not particularly fond of the warlock, but LU's version is a significant improvement over o5e.
Yet the wording of these features could be clearer if they just decided that Eldritch Blast was its own action. This way there's no confusion, you either use it and it scales, or you use melee attacks. I think the occasions where it would make sense to use one blast and then some melee attacks are so vanishingly rare that it would be just better to rule it out by making EB it's own action, no mix and match.

 

[JerichoPenumbra]

In general I'm not particularly fond of the warlock, but LU's version is a significant improvement over o5e.
Yet the wording of these features could be clearer if they just decided that Eldritch Blast was its own action. This way there's no confusion, you either use it and it scales, or you use melee attacks. I think the occasions where it would make sense to use one blast and then some melee attacks are so vanishingly rare that it would be just better to rule it out by making EB it's own action, no mix and match.

My take would have actually been to go in the opposite reaction and have better wording to mix and match better, or have extra wording to allow mix and match with pact-bound weapons.

Or alternatively not have had the change to make Eldritch Blast a class feature and keep it as a cantrip but have wording so the scalability tied exclusively to the class.

 

[lichmaster]

My take would have actually been to go in the opposite reaction and have better wording to mix and match better, or have extra wording to allow mix and match with pact-bound weapons.

I guess it was done this way to have control on the number of blasts you can have in a round: if you could turn any melee attack into an EB, you may have situations where thanks to multiclassing and maneuvers you could end up with way more than 4 EBs (eg with Heightened Reflexes one could theoretically have 8).
Similarly, if the only way to have an EB was to convert a melee attack, the only way to have more than 1 EB with a non multiclassed warlock would be to dual wield and/or take Pact of the Blade and Thirsting Blade. Quite funnely for what should be a class feature, IMO

Or alternatively not have had the change to make Eldritch Blast a class feature and keep it as a cantrip but have wording so the scalability tied exclusively to the class.

Personally I prefer it this way, I really dislike 5.5e's approach of making everything a spell.
With the same rationale otherwise also the herald's smites would be just another spell, etc etc. Instead of having generic spells with ad hoc synergies with the class casting them (not good for future portability), I think it's better to roll them into core class features