D&D 5E Pact of The Chain Change Ideas

[ManBagel]

Pact of The Chain doesn’t really give you any benefits after level 3 expect for a really bad version of hold monster. So I was thinking what about you could gain more familiar options as they level up? Like the current 4 at 3rd level and then a new one at 5th level. I find it a bit strange where The Tome gives three cantrips from any class, and Pact Weapon is magical so immunity and resistance isn’t a problem. So would it be balanced to get rid of the gold cost, or reduce the cast time? The main reason why I say that is that Tome can get it and there is very little difference besides new familiars. I think we also need more invocations for later levels. Then the Chains of Calmari.

 

[Coroc]

Pact of The Chain doesn’t really give you any benefits after level 3 expect for a really bad version of hold monster. So I was thinking what about you could gain more familiar options as they level up? Like the current 4 at 3rd level and then a new one at 5th level. I find it a bit strange where The Time gives three cantrips from any class, and Pact Weapon is magical so immunity and resistance isn’t a problem. So would it be balanced to get rid of the gold cost, or reduce the cast time? The main reason why I say that is that Tome can get it and there is very little difference besides new familiars. I think we also need more invocations for later levels. Then the Chains of Calmari.

Tea time? nah lol the tome of course.

 

[Weiley31]

Well, Kobold Press's Midgard setting has a Pact of The Chain Eldritch Invocation option for the Hunter in Darkness Patron where your Chain Familiar is a Wolf/Hound. Said Invocation ALLOWS it to become a Dire Wolf at 7th level, a Winter Wolf at 12th level, and after leveling up a bit to the 18th level, it becomes a Hound of The Night. Each form has its appropriate stat blocks and skills. A bonus action triggers said transformation, lasts for one minute, and recharges on a short or long rest.

So there's a good framework right there in that concept.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah honestly I’d just allow scaling of the familiar even without an invocation, but with an invocation? Yeah, boost that thing.

 

[Jester David]

None of the other pacts grant a bonus at higher levels, why should the Pact of the Chain?

That said, it'd be easy to add some more invocations with that pact as a prerequisite, possibly giving some additional familiar options and/or reducing the cost. Or increasing the hit points and damage of the familiar.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

None of the other pacts grant a bonus at higher levels, why should the Pact of the Chain?

That said, it'd be easy to add some more invocations with that pact as a prerequisite, possibly giving some additional familiar options and/or reducing the cost. Or increasing the hit points and damage of the familiar.

Same reason the beast master pet should scale HP by character level. A creature-as-feature loses power if it's HP doesn't scale. Everything else just stays at the same power level, which is fine, but the chain benefit loses power. It goes from something that has achance to survive incidental damage and weak attacks (either attacks from weak enemies of just low-roll attacks), to something that simply cannot ever survive any incoming damage from anything at the party's level. That makes it the only warlock pact boon that gets less and less useful every couple of levels.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

None of the other pacts grant a bonus at higher levels, why should the Pact of the Chain?

That said, it'd be easy to add some more invocations with that pact as a prerequisite, possibly giving some additional familiar options and/or reducing the cost. Or increasing the hit points and damage of the familiar.

Also, the pact of the Tome does scale with level, because it grants cantrips.

The blade is pretty weak, as it is, so building extra attack into it would have helped. Well, I'd have built it to simply be "You gain the Eldritch Blast cantrip, if you do not have it already. When you cast it, you can choose to replace the attacks made as part of casting the spell with melee weapon attacks. You use your spellcasting modifier for these attacks, and any invocation that affects Eldritch Blast still affects the spell when cast in this way."

 

[Jester David]

Same reason the beast master pet should scale HP by character level. A creature-as-feature loses power if it's HP doesn't scale. Everything else just stays at the same power level, which is fine, but the chain benefit loses power. It goes from something that has achance to survive incidental damage and weak attacks (either attacks from weak enemies of just low-roll attacks), to something that simply cannot ever survive any incoming damage from anything at the party's level. That makes it the only warlock pact boon that gets less and less useful every couple of levels.

Even at low levels, it's barely going to survive incidental damage. Familiars might only have a couple hit points. It's not really something that should be going into combat. Even your 7hp "advanced familiar" pseudodragon.

It's a utility/ spying feature.

Also, the pact of the Tome does scale with level, because it grants cantrips.

Which assumes you're picking a combat cantrip and using that instead of eldritch blast...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Even at low levels, it's barely going to survive incidental damage. Familiars might only have a couple hit points. It's not really something that should be going into combat. Even your 7hp "advanced familiar" pseudodragon.

It's a utility/ spying feature.

Find Familiar is kindof mostly a utility feature. Pact of the Chain gives a beefier pet that can be used in combat more readily.
But even Find Familiar has plenty of combat usage. Just being able to cast touch spells through the pet can be huge in combat, not to mention the help action.

But even if we ignore all of that, and we shouldn't, it is still a utility feature that gets less useful as you level up. Damage is the primary means of scaling difficulty in 5e. A pet that never gains more HP is taken out of exploration scenes much more often than one with HP scaled by level.

Which assumes you're picking a combat cantrip and using that instead of eldritch blast...

You get 3. I've seen hundreds of warlocks take tome. IME, it is by far the most popular boon. I've seen maybe 1 that didn't take a second damage cantrip.


EDIT: and please don't tell you really genuinely don't see any difference between "barely survive incidental damage" and "literally will never survive incidental damage"?

How you can reasonably use the familiar changes dramatically from tier 1 to tier 3. That is bad design.

 

[Jester David]

Pact of the Chain gives a beefier pet that can be used in combat more readily.

Yes. 7hp instead of 2hp. Soooo much beefier.

The imp is the beefiest at 10hp and resistance to nonmagical damage. So, a good cantrip or a couple hits. It can take a blow, but it's not tanking any time soon.

That aside, what's your proposed change? How have you houseruled and homebrewed the Pact of the Chain working?

You get 3. I've seen hundreds of warlocks take tome. IME, it is by far the most popular boon. I've seen maybe 1 that didn't take a second damage cantrip.

Really.
You've seen hundreds of warlocks who just took tome? Given <10% of players pick warlock you've seen thousands of player characters and can remember all their character choices?

How you can reasonably use the familiar changes dramatically from tier 1 to tier 3. That is bad design.

No, it's non-static design. That's not bad, it's just a change.
How you use 1st level spell slots changes dramatically from tier 1 to to tier 3. That doesn't make the spellcasting system bad.

The cost also becomes significantly less impactful at higher levels allowing you to sacrafice a familiar practically at-will at tier 2. Should the cost also go up proportunate to the increased hp/ damage? Match the same impact to wealth by level as it does at level 3.