D&D 5E Variant Eldritch Blast and Pact of The Blade

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, most fixes for Eldritch Blast and Pact of The Blade are too fiddly for my taste. I think the two can be fixed with essentially one thing

Class feature, part of Pact Magic, level 1.

Eldritch Blast. When you take the attack action on your turn, you can choose to make a ranged spell attack with your Eldritch Blast. The range for this attack is 120ft, and the damage is 1d10 force damage, and does not add your ability modifier to the damage. When you reach level 5 in this class, you can make this attack twice when you take the attack action, and can do so 3 times at level 11, [etc].
(this allows the EB invocations to work, ties scaling to warlock levels, and allows the second part to function)

Pact of The Blade: add the following text. "When you use the Eldritch Blast class feature, you can choose to make a melee spell attack instead. If you are weilding a pact weapon when you do, the attack has the properties of that weapon, except that it's damage is 1d10 force damage, you can add charisma to attack, and you do not add your ability modifier to damage. "

Now, this needs more precise language, etc, but that isn't something I care about right now. Right now is for the concept, not the details.

What this does is it allows for Pact of The Blade to just work, rather than requiring further invocations to work, and lets the same invocations a blaster warlock would take work with Pact of The Blade. Agonizing Blast adds Cha to damage with EB, regardless of whether it's a ranged or melee attack.

It also allows more freedom, and leaves more room for fun and interesting invocations. The obvious one is a Blade invocation that allows you to treat your EB attacks as weapon attacks, and/or one that gives you medium or even heavy armor, or maybe easy scaling temp HP instead.

It also allows you to use EB and have your Pact of The Chain familiar attack, if you go that way instead.

Thoughts? Would you use this, if it were an option?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe something like this:

''...Your pact weapon can be used as an arcane focus (see p. XX) for the purpose of the your pact magic feature. Furthermore, when casting a cantrip which requires an attack roll or using your Eldritch blast feature through your paqct weapon, you can make a melee spell attack instead of the usual ranged spell attack, with the same range as the pact weapon your are holding. ''

This is what I uses in my game (added the eldritch blast distinction since yours is not a cantrip).

So Agonizing blast would affect both, and the (IHMO) weak pact of the blade would get the small benefit of being able to use EB and other cantrips with a melee spell attack. No taxes, no drawback, and it fits what people want of a gish archetypes.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, I think this would be a great fix. I hope we see something along these lines in the 50th anniversary revisions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe something like this:

''...Your pact weapon can be used as an arcane focus (see p. XX) for the purpose of the your pact magic feature. Furthermore, when casting a cantrip which requires an attack roll or using your Eldritch blast feature through your paqct weapon, you can make a melee spell attack instead of the usual ranged spell attack, with the same range as the pact weapon your are holding. ''

This is what I uses in my game (added the eldritch blast distinction since yours is not a cantrip).

So Agonizing blast would affect both, and the (IHMO) weak pact of the blade would get the small benefit of being able to use EB and other cantrips with a melee spell attack. No taxes, no drawback, and it fits what people want of a gish archetypes.

I think we are moving in the same direction, for sure. I think your wording for pact of the blade may be a little clearer than mine. I’ll review and iterate!

Yes, I think this would be a great fix. I hope we see something along these lines in the 50th anniversary revisions.

Thanks! I’m not sure whether I want to even put a strong gish in my binder class, outside of the guy who binds monstrous power into themselves to become a monster, but I really want to have a solid option for gish warlocks that doesn’t need a subclass to work well.

 

[Fenris-77]

This really makes me want to write up a Stephen King style Gunslinger using Warlock template. Not useful for the convo at hand, but that's where I'm at.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Wow, bizarre. I just spent a couple of days rewriting the basic warlock class with this issue specifically addressed - an invocation that allows eldritch blast to be used as a melee spell attack, and which then forms the basis for a bunch of hexblade-themed invocations. Really, the class chassis only needs a few tweaks to make it a reasonable class to take as a single-classed character, with options for both a magic-focussed spellcaster that keeps up with other primary spellcasters, and also to have a true hexblade option. PM me if you'd like a copy of my prototype.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[AtomicPope]

Something that never sat right with me was the fact that you could make a Hexblade that didn't have Pact of the Blade, and it was clearly a trap. All of the best weapon invocations are limited to Pact of the Blade, which means you're missing out (especially of a multi-attack feature) if you don't go Pact of the Blade. There are some kewl things you can do with Hexblade and the other two Pact features but really you're missing out if you don't take it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Something that never sat right with me was the fact that you could make a Hexblade that didn't have Pact of the Blade, and it was clearly a trap. All of the best weapon invocations are limited to Pact of the Blade, which means you're missing out (especially of a multi-attack feature) if you don't go Pact of the Blade. There are some kewl things you can do with Hexblade and the other two Pact features but really you're missing out if you don't take it.

Yeah that is a big weakness of the Hexblade, at least as a melee combatant that isn’t multiclassed fighter or paladin or rogue. Hex-Tome is a great mid/mixed-range blaster with great versatility, and Hex-Chain can really go well with a swashbuckler rogue.

But neither Blade pact nor Hexblade should require an invocation to get extra attack.

 

[AtomicPope]

Yeah that is a big weakness of the Hexblade, at least as a melee combatant that isn’t multiclassed fighter or paladin or rogue. Hex-Tome is a great mid/mixed-range blaster with great versatility, and Hex-Chain can really go well with a swashbuckler rogue.

But neither Blade pact nor Hexblade should require an invocation to get extra attack.

I made a really kewl Peter Pan Warlock using Hexblade and Pact of the Chain with Pixie familiar. However, even though there were a lot of tricks I felt it hit hard when I was 5th level. When I first made the choice the DM was surprised that I wasn't Pact of the Blade. He didn't even know you could do that. In a way I'm glad it was a short campaign because I'd hate to commit to that long term.

 

[Charlaquin]

But neither Blade pact nor Hexblade should require an invocation to get extra attack.

I definitely think this is the biggest problem with the pact of the blade. While I think your fix is better because it ties EB scaling to Warlock level (curtailing the 1-3 level warlock dip), a simple hack for those who want to keep their homebrew footprint to a minimum would be to add to the blade pact “If you know the Eldritch Blast cantrip, you can channel the beam of force through your pact weapon when you cast it. If you do, make a melee spell attack against a creature within the reach of your pact weapon instead of a ranged spell attack. If the spell would create more than one beam, you can make up to one melee spell attack for each beam. You must be holding your pact weapon to use this feature.”

Or something along those lines.