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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 7075136" data-attributes="member: 30022">I've never felt that pact blade is suffering in comparison to other classes. Only the fighter gets three (or four) attacks per round with a melee weapon. Pact blade attacks are not directly comparable to eldritch blast. Let me give you an example, using the existing rules:1) Warlock #1 (Wlk 12) throws three eldritch blasts. He has invested in agonizing blast, and has max Cha. He gets three shots at +9 attack, 1d10+5 damage each. Average damage against an AC 19 opponent is 15.75 points (31.5 x 50% hit chance), not counting crits.2) Warlock #2 (Ftr 1 / Wlk 11) attacks twice with her bonded +2 greatsword (you run a low-magic campaign? ...no worries, the party wizard simply casts Magic Weapon for 1 hour). She has max Str, and uses non-attack / non-save spells like Armor of Agathys (her Cha is her secondary stat, at only 14). In addition to her plate-armored AC 18 (or higher), she's swinging at +11 attack, 2d6+7 damage (reroll 1's and 2's thanks to weapon style). Average damage against an AC 19 opponent is 18 points (approx. 30 x 60% hit chance). More damage, much higher AC. And, unlike Eldritch Blast, she has access to feats that can massively improve this situation: Great Weapon Master gives additional attack as bonus action on crit or drop, plus the borderline-broken power attack.Unless you're removing the ability to bond a magic weapon or apply any fighting styles or combat maneuvers or feats or class abilities to the pact blade, opening it up to three attacks per round is likely going to result in massive imbalance. If, by contrast, you ARE preventing any of those things from applying to the pact blade... then you're simply creating a melee version of eldritch blast. And I think the warlock loses something from that. There's a lot of fun to be gained by bonding a magical weapon, or taking some feats (defensive duelist with a bonded finesse blade! polearm master with a bonded halberd!), or multiclassing (the raging barbarian/warlock!).In summary: pact blade is only underpowered if you're taking in complete isolation to magic weapons (or even just the Magic Weapon spell), feats and multi-classing.</blockquote>

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