One of my many points was that the Warlock familiar's attacks do get smaller compared to the monsters you will be fighting as you level up. Though the attacks might not be the best their usefulness in battle is immense. For instance let's take the imp as an example, in battle, if you are light enough, it could fly you around, keeping you safe from melee attacks, maybe even finding you cover. Also the imp could turn itself and you invisible at the same time. That is just freaking awesome! All the while you can also use it to spam the help action boosting your attacks. So, yeah, they are also very powerful in combat, not as fighters, but as helpers.
i just quickly made a halfling wizard with starting equipment and looking at the character sheet they are at 63 pounds. You would have to get rid of quite a bit to get to the 45 weight limit. Not impossible but you’re not carrying much. And I think that’s just carrying weight not including the halfling
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
I just borrowed Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and learned that Pact of the Chain can become even more powerful than before! Investment of the Chain Master (An Eldritch Invocation): When you cast Find Familiar, you infuse the summoned familiar with a measure of your eldritch power, granting the creature the following benefits:
The familiar gains either a flying speed or a swimming speed (Your Choice) of 40 feet.
As a bonus action you can command the familiar to take the Attack action.
The familiar's attacks are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks.
If the familiar forces a creature to make a saving throw, it uses your spell save DC.
When the familiar takes damage, you can use your reaction to grant it resistance against that damage.
So now the familiar is super powered! Holy crap I need to use this!
1) Seriously it is invisible. How come invisible monsters or villains in movies aren't just as easy to defeat as other creatures? I know it's a rule in D&D, but still you'd have to have amazing hearing or smell to sense them.
.
True, yes Raw you need to hide. But yes its just a really really really dumb rule. You can be blind, deaf, incapable of smell, have no special senses and unerringly point out the location of everyone in the room as long as they didn't actively take the hide check. Its so bad, it hurts to even consider running it that way.
one correction, the Imp has a STR of 6 so Carrying weight for a medium size creature of that strength is 90, but Tiny creatures (like your Imp or other familiars) it is halved, so only 45 pounds, which is still a lot.
Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature's carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.
And yet another reason why Familiars are totally broken. Or better, why carrying capacities are so broken. A Tiny creature, with a Str of 6, should never be able to carry, let alone fly, with 4 times its own weight. How many clever players aka powergamers have their Familiar carry them around if the char is a Halfling or Gnome (same players conveniently forget to add their equipment).
That's why they should play a Grung (30 pounds) or a kobold (25-30 pounds) and yes I add two levels of articifer to get a bag of holding. And you can barely squeeze it into the weight limit.
The new invocation in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (Investment of the Chain Master), makes the Pact of the Chain a lot better, especially if you chose the pseudodragon, sprite, or any familiar that has a saving throw it its stat block as your familiar. The Book of Ancient Secrets boon allows you to cast find familiar if you choose it as one of your rituals (I usually pick speak with animals and Find Familiar for my rituals). I love the Pact of the Blade (but I'm biased, because I love warrior/spellcasting types). Pact of the Blade has some cool exclusive Eldritch Invocations, but if your not a hexblade, is isn't that powerful. Pact of the Tome is a good way to get extra cantrips early on in the game. You could pick of some really cool ones like toll the dead, and guidance. Put pact of the chain is one of the best overall, because of all of the useful things your familiar can do.
The best warlock pact is whichever one you enjoy the most.
This is the truth. I think all three pacts are great, and have interesting ways that they can be applied, even the much maligned pact of the blade.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
1) invisibility doesn’t equal hidden. Invisible creatures can still be detected and attacked by anyone nearby. Granting it any better status than that can be a slippery slope.
2) It’s 10gp and an Hour to recast familiar each time. So it’s not so easy to replace.
3) When they die they I don’t think they leave a corpse or food behind. They’re spirits, not the actual animals they represent.
4) If you use Help with a familiar, make sure you consider that bad guys will also target your familiar more often as well so you might not be able to use it as often as want.
Hiding the familiar under your clothes works here. Grant them total cover.
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
Bring it!
And then the bladelock said "I summon my pact weapon as a longbow..."
Though on a more serious note. I'm also of the mentality that all three have their strengths and weaknesses and no one is better than the others. Each have their niche and their style that is different from the others and that niche is further enhanced or altered depending on what Patron they have. All of them can be served in different ways by the different Patrons.
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
Bring it!
And then the bladelock said "I summon my pact weapon as a longbow..."
Exactly, then eldritch smites. Blade pact isn't nearly as bad as folks make it out to be, it just requires a bit of creativity.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
Bring it!
And then the bladelock said "I summon my pact weapon as a longbow..."
Though on a more serious note. I'm also of the mentality that all three have their strengths and weaknesses and no one is better than the others. Each have their niche and their style that is different from the others and that niche is further enhanced or altered depending on what Patron they have. All of them can be served in different ways by the different Patrons.
Pact of the Blade specifically says your pact weapon must be melee. Unless you find a magical longbow, then you can spend an hour of your time turning it into your pact weapon.
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
Bring it!
And then the bladelock said "I summon my pact weapon as a longbow..."
Though on a more serious note. I'm also of the mentality that all three have their strengths and weaknesses and no one is better than the others. Each have their niche and their style that is different from the others and that niche is further enhanced or altered depending on what Patron they have. All of them can be served in different ways by the different Patrons.
Pact of the Blade specifically says your pact weapon must be melee. Unless you find a magical longbow, then you can spend an hour of your time turning it into your pact weapon.
Improved Pact Weapon, an invocation in Xanathar's. +1 to attack and damage rolls (unless it already has a bonus) and it can be a ranged weapon.
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
Bring it!
And then the bladelock said "I summon my pact weapon as a longbow..."
Though on a more serious note. I'm also of the mentality that all three have their strengths and weaknesses and no one is better than the others. Each have their niche and their style that is different from the others and that niche is further enhanced or altered depending on what Patron they have. All of them can be served in different ways by the different Patrons.
Pact of the Blade specifically says your pact weapon must be melee. Unless you find a magical longbow, then you can spend an hour of your time turning it into your pact weapon.
Improved Pact Weapon. One of those 7 invocations you mocked to make a bladelock work. Probably the first one they'd take leveling up. I'll be nice and quote it here for you.
You can use any weapon you summon with your Pact of the Blade feature as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells.
In addition, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to its attack and damage rolls, unless it is a magic weapon that already has a bonus to those rolls.
As you can see it allows you to not only have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls but it also allows you to conjure ranged weapons. Eldritch Smite and Thirsting Blade can stack on top of it and they are both minimum level 5... which would be your three invocations for that level if you wanted to go that far... Life Drinker can be added on at level 12. Pact of the blade can actually make quite the powerful archer between a Potential mix of Patron, Invocations and Feats. And none of the Invocations have melee limitations.
Still uses up your invocations (Though if I was a bladelock I would probably choose those invocations) and the point of this thread is not a who would win between warlocks (If that happened though it would totally be pact of the chain).
Still uses up your invocations (Though if I was a bladelock I would probably choose those invocations) and the point of this thread is not a who would win between warlocks (If that happened though it would totally be pact of the chain).
Not really any more than powering up Eldritch Blast Does. There is give and take in the invocation system everywhere. No setup is superior despite the effort by some to make things such. They are designed to be mixed and matched and changed as you go through your levels.
The problem with pact of the blade is outside of the hexblade it requires a substantial stat investment to be good with it. Doesn't make it bad, but it unlike the other 2 require a build to function effectively. You can plug chain or tome into any build and it will work fine. If you do build towards it, it can be pretty impressive. Hexblade just makes it easy.
Hexblade was created to make Pact of the Blade work. Outside of Hexblade it's difficult to make a good Blade Pact character. Hexblade saves you from having to split your ASIs between Charisma and Strength/Dexterity for melee, and having to invest in Dexterity above 14 for armour. That said, I really like Hexblade.
I would say Fiend patron works well with Pact of the Tome. Fiend Warlock is one of the best magic blasters in the game in my opinion. I'd also take Book of Ancient Shadows at level 3 in order to make the Tome a genuine ritual book. The Tielfing Fiend Tomelock is a classic, of course.
It’s not difficult at all to make a great blade lock outside hexblade. Players often don’t want to make those choices though. Melee clerics and paladins specifically face the same issues and arguably have it even worse. Blade locks are quite capable even if you ignore pumping charisma, they just take the easy way out and go hexblade.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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Why would you want to make it weaker?
The trick with small Wizards is to cast Reduce on yourself first. With Reduce even your Mage Hand has a chance to carry you around :D
My fiendlock with his trusty imp sees your bladelock and says you have no chance. 1st, you'll never catch either of us, while we're spamming EB from 90 ft or more out, cause OBVIOUSLY 1st round before you get anywhere near us, we get Daddy going with an Expeditious retreat, allowing us to kite around you staying ever so slightly further away than your silly little sword or your pretty little hex. Baby will continuously cast Vicous Mockery (he doesn't know the spell, but it doesn't stop him from trying) and tell you how silly you look chasing someone three times your speed, who casts levitate at will, allowing both Daddy and Baby to consistently be 20 feet in the air, and out of your reach if we decide to slow ourselves down, unless you burn a precious spell slot we dont need.... throw in a quickened Blight from our metamagic feat, and keep spamming EB, and before you know it all those special invokes you wasted on being a smite king are rendered completely useless... if you do start throwing decent range, we switch our tactics and counterspell your nonsense... and to just mess with you, baby will position himelf right next to you for one round just to deliver some poison damage, let you hit him, and boom, if you do, the damage is resisted through the one invoke we need to be viable, as oppossed to required 7 you need.
Bring it!
I just borrowed Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and learned that Pact of the Chain can become even more powerful than before! Investment of the Chain Master (An Eldritch Invocation): When you cast Find Familiar, you infuse the summoned familiar with a measure of your eldritch power, granting the creature the following benefits:
The familiar gains either a flying speed or a swimming speed (Your Choice) of 40 feet.
As a bonus action you can command the familiar to take the Attack action.
The familiar's attacks are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks.
If the familiar forces a creature to make a saving throw, it uses your spell save DC.
When the familiar takes damage, you can use your reaction to grant it resistance against that damage.
So now the familiar is super powered! Holy crap I need to use this!
True, yes Raw you need to hide. But yes its just a really really really dumb rule. You can be blind, deaf, incapable of smell, have no special senses and unerringly point out the location of everyone in the room as long as they didn't actively take the hide check. Its so bad, it hurts to even consider running it that way.
When I said that, I meant magically invisible, but yeah that's another dumb rule.
That's why they should play a Grung (30 pounds) or a kobold (25-30 pounds) and yes I add two levels of articifer to get a bag of holding. And you can barely squeeze it into the weight limit.
The new invocation in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (Investment of the Chain Master), makes the Pact of the Chain a lot better, especially if you chose the pseudodragon, sprite, or any familiar that has a saving throw it its stat block as your familiar. The Book of Ancient Secrets boon allows you to cast find familiar if you choose it as one of your rituals (I usually pick speak with animals and Find Familiar for my rituals). I love the Pact of the Blade (but I'm biased, because I love warrior/spellcasting types). Pact of the Blade has some cool exclusive Eldritch Invocations, but if your not a hexblade, is isn't that powerful. Pact of the Tome is a good way to get extra cantrips early on in the game. You could pick of some really cool ones like toll the dead, and guidance. Put pact of the chain is one of the best overall, because of all of the useful things your familiar can do.
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This is the truth. I think all three pacts are great, and have interesting ways that they can be applied, even the much maligned pact of the blade.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Hiding the familiar under your clothes works here. Grant them total cover.
Chilling kinda vibe.
And then the bladelock said "I summon my pact weapon as a longbow..."
Though on a more serious note. I'm also of the mentality that all three have their strengths and weaknesses and no one is better than the others. Each have their niche and their style that is different from the others and that niche is further enhanced or altered depending on what Patron they have. All of them can be served in different ways by the different Patrons.
Exactly, then eldritch smites. Blade pact isn't nearly as bad as folks make it out to be, it just requires a bit of creativity.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Pact of the Blade specifically says your pact weapon must be melee. Unless you find a magical longbow, then you can spend an hour of your time turning it into your pact weapon.
Improved Pact Weapon, an invocation in Xanathar's. +1 to attack and damage rolls (unless it already has a bonus) and it can be a ranged weapon.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Improved Pact Weapon. One of those 7 invocations you mocked to make a bladelock work. Probably the first one they'd take leveling up. I'll be nice and quote it here for you.
As you can see it allows you to not only have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls but it also allows you to conjure ranged weapons. Eldritch Smite and Thirsting Blade can stack on top of it and they are both minimum level 5... which would be your three invocations for that level if you wanted to go that far... Life Drinker can be added on at level 12. Pact of the blade can actually make quite the powerful archer between a Potential mix of Patron, Invocations and Feats. And none of the Invocations have melee limitations.
Still uses up your invocations (Though if I was a bladelock I would probably choose those invocations) and the point of this thread is not a who would win between warlocks (If that happened though it would totally be pact of the chain).
Not really any more than powering up Eldritch Blast Does. There is give and take in the invocation system everywhere. No setup is superior despite the effort by some to make things such. They are designed to be mixed and matched and changed as you go through your levels.
The problem with pact of the blade is outside of the hexblade it requires a substantial stat investment to be good with it. Doesn't make it bad, but it unlike the other 2 require a build to function effectively. You can plug chain or tome into any build and it will work fine. If you do build towards it, it can be pretty impressive. Hexblade just makes it easy.
Hexblade was created to make Pact of the Blade work. Outside of Hexblade it's difficult to make a good Blade Pact character. Hexblade saves you from having to split your ASIs between Charisma and Strength/Dexterity for melee, and having to invest in Dexterity above 14 for armour. That said, I really like Hexblade.
I would say Fiend patron works well with Pact of the Tome. Fiend Warlock is one of the best magic blasters in the game in my opinion. I'd also take Book of Ancient Shadows at level 3 in order to make the Tome a genuine ritual book. The Tielfing Fiend Tomelock is a classic, of course.
It’s not difficult at all to make a great blade lock outside hexblade. Players often don’t want to make those choices though. Melee clerics and paladins specifically face the same issues and arguably have it even worse. Blade locks are quite capable even if you ignore pumping charisma, they just take the easy way out and go hexblade.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha