D&D General Pact of the Blade Warlocks - How often do you change your weapon?

[jmartkdr2]

Might need to have an Artificer Battle Smith in the party to get custom magical weapons ;

I am hoping that my son experiments a bit and gets a feeling for the benefits of push, vex, cleave, slow, etc...

It does make it difficult to pick feats...

For a brand new player, switching weapons every day can be fun even if it’s not optimized. He can play around with the system, try out the different masteries and find out which are the most fun.

After a while he’ll probably settle in on a favorite and stop switching most of the time, but trying the sampler platter first is a good idea.

 

[Tessarael]

For a brand new player, switching weapons every day can be fun even if it’s not optimized. He can play around with the system, try out the different masteries and find out which are the most fun.

After a while he’ll probably settle in on a favorite and stop switching most of the time, but trying the sampler platter first is a good idea.

Sure, but in that case don't invest a feat until you are ready. This is one of the motivations to start characters at level 1, to give players, particularly new players, time to figure out how they want to play the character and where they want to focus.

 

[BigMac75]

Sure, but in that case don't invest a feat until you are ready. This is one of the motivations to start characters at level 1, to give players, particularly new players, time to figure out how they want to play the character and where they want to focus.

For sure. Yeah, he is just starting out and is still learning what the different weapons are. He has an anti-dragon thing in his origin story (he is Dragonborn) so big weapons of some type - either greatsword/greataxe or polearms - make sense (and his Warlock cannot use a shield).

He does not get Pact of the Blade till Lvl 2 so will use True Strike with his Light Crossbow at Lvl 1. I am going to recommend that he put Repelling Blast on True Strike at Level 2 so he can at least play around with pushing things around (he can use True Strike with either the crossbow or the Pact Weapon and that is pretty optimal setup till Lvl 4 when he gets a feat).

If he wants to play it safe he could wait till Lvl 3 (till he gets Fiend's temporary HP from kills) to really get into Melee w/ his Pact Weapons but only time will tell what playstyle he prefers.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I wanted to play a warlock in a really low-level game whose Blade Pact was an evil butterknife. When play starts they've just managed to trade up to a letter opener.

 

[Stormonu]

2014 rules, but I played a hexblade warlock and never did change the weapon I was using. Went the Polearm master route, and with the math to calculate combo tricks & damage using hex & other spells, switching around weapons wasn't something I wanted to bother with. Played to at least 14th level with the character, possibly higher - but the endgame came around so quickly I forget exactly what level we played to.

 

[ECMO3]

My son just started playing his Warlock and I was hoping to get some perspectives from more experienced players.

How often you all switch out and use different weapons - like conjuring a thrown weapon if you need range, using a halberd for combat against multiple creatures in an open area, switching to Greatsword or Greataxe if you are fighting a big bad, etc...?

I am trying to learn about feats so I can give him some advice when he gets to level 4. Thinking about Polearm Master but also thought about him getting a Weapon Mastery. However, you can only change the weapon once per day (so not quite as dynamic as the Pact capability).

Very often. Sometimes 3 times in one battle with the 2024 rules. I would (and do) multiclass for weapon masteries. If you go Paladin or Ranger it gives you some first level spell slots too, which are always good for things like Hex, some of your subclass spells and pact of the tome spells.

Usually I am switching between a Sap weapon (like a Longsword) or a Topple weapon (like a Trident) or a Ranged weapon (like a Magic Longbow).

I am playing two Bladelocks right now. One is a n Eldritch Knight 9/Warlock 5 with Pact of Blade and Shillelagh from Pact of Tome and she changes all the time going from dual wielding a shillelagh club +2 and pact scimitar +2 to wielding a magic pact Longbow +1 or a Magic Trident +2.

The second one is a Fey Wanderer 5/Celestial Warlock 3. She has a Defender Longsword and is sword and shield, so she switches less often, but she will switch to one of her Javelins of Lightning or to her Trident +2 on occasion, usually to throw it at someone, although just as often she will not switch and use Truestrike for that instead.

 

[BigMac75]

Very often. Sometimes 3 times in one battle with the 2024 rules. I would (and do) multiclass for weapon masteries. If you go Paladin or Ranger it gives you some first level spell slots too, which are always good for things like Hex, some of your subclass spells and pact of the tome spells.

Usually I am switching between a Sap weapon (like a Longsword) or a Topple weapon (like a Trident) or a Ranged weapon (like a Magic Longbow).

I am playing two Bladelocks right now. One is a n Eldritch Knight 9/Warlock 5 with Pact of Blade and Shillelagh from Pact of Tome and she changes all the time going from dual wielding a shillelagh club +2 and pact scimitar +2 to wielding a magic pact Longbow +1 or a Magic Trident +2.

The second one is a Fey Wanderer 5/Celestial Warlock 3. She has a Defender Longsword and is sword and shield, so she switches less often, but she will switch to one of her Javelins of Lightning or to her Trident +2 on occasion, usually to throw it at someone, although just as often she will not switch and use Truestrike for that instead.

Cool. Good to hear you are using at trident. I was definitely thinking about scenarios in which I might create a trident pact weapon to throw and take down a flying opponent and then switch Pact weapon to Greatsword or Halberd.

Just sample building a Warlock with a 1-level starting dip in Fighter to get the Weapon Masteries. Sadly most of the best Backgrounds / Origin Feats from a combat standpoint don't let you pump Charisma. Guess human is a good choice to get Savage Attacker as the extra Origin Feat (and a couple get you Lucky).

Considering taking Heavy Crossbow mastery (for Push) and using True Strike (w/ Repelling Blast) so would not need Crossbow to be a Pact Weapon. Guess it makes sense to swap Repelling Blast to Eldrtich Blast at a higher level but 20' push could work well enough at lower levels.