I've recently uncovered a potent combination. You start off with a variant human and take the Polearm Master feat which will allow you to make an Opportunity Attack as a reaction when an enemy enters your reach. Then at LvL 3 you take Pact of the Blade (to allow a Hex Glaive/Halberd) with Improved Pact Weapon and Grasp of Hadar as your Eldritch Invocations.
Now you're using charisma to hit and damage, not to mention the +1/+1 improved weapon bonus. You can make a 1d8 regular attack and 1d4 bonus attack on every turn but that's not even the best part. If you position yourself 15-20 ft from the enemy when you hit them with Eldritch Blast you can choose to pull them 10 ft toward you, which will engage the polearm opportunity attack, and allow you to expend a bonus action to attack with the other end. Reposition and do it all over again.
Assuming you have +3 in charisma and land every blow, that guarantees 8 damage before you even roll the dice. With two D10 and a D4 you get a potential range of 11-24 points of damage per round and an average of about 17. This doesn't even take into account the bonuses you could gain from attacking a Hexed target.
The only downside I see is from a role-playing perspective. It's less fun to worship an evil Halberd instead of a stylish sword or brutal axe.
I'm pretty sure that the rules for Opportunity Attack mean the combo doesn't work though, sadly, even with the Sentinel feat.
You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don't provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe's reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.
The opportunity attack is only triggered if the creature uses its own movement to move into your reach. If your spell forcibly moves the creature, that doesn't create an opportunity attack.
Thanks for calling out the rule breakage! That's half the reason I made this thread.
I just assumed since the wording of the Polearm Master Feat states "other creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach" that meant the ways typically used to avoid provoking basic opportunity attacks were nullified. Since you shouldn't be able to both provoke an attack and avoid one at the same time. It can be confusing which rules supersede which!
What Invocation and/or cantrip do you guys think would work best to pair with the basic Polearm combo then? I'm thinking something that keeps you just out of range to improve the odds that the enemy will choose to move within your reach on their turn.
What Invocation and/or cantrip do you guys think would work best to pair with the basic Polearm combo then? I'm thinking something that keeps you just out of range to improve the odds that the enemy will choose to move within your reach on their turn.
In my opinion, the best combinations with Polearm master are:
Sentinel: When you hit an enemy with an opportunity attack, it's speed is reduced to 0. On your turn you attack and use your bonus attack. Re-position and repeat. T
his combo is available at level 8 or level 4 with a variant human.
Eldritch Smite: Invocation available at level 5. Use a spell slot to do 3d8 damage and knock a huge or smaller target prone.
You will also likely want the Invocations: Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade taking all of your invocations
If you are building for damage, this is a good use of a spell slot. If you need to be able to take hits then Blur / Mirror Image and Armor of Agathys are better spells.
It's worth noting that combining Eldritch SMite and Sentinel can produce a very scary defender. Eldritch Smite does not invoke a saving throw - a creature that falls within the allowable size category is just prone. Donezo, onyobutt. Sentinel, when you successfully AoO an enemy, reduces their speed to 0. A creature with 0 speed cannot use half its movement to stand back up.
What this ends up doing is allowing the polearm-using warlock to knock an enemy prone and force it to stay that way until its next turn. Given that the creature can only trigger an AoO on its own turn, with its own movement, that's one entire free round to beat on the prone thing that the critter can't do a damn thing about.
It's hella resource-intensive, given that you need to burn a Pact slot to do it, but if you can bludgeon your party into actually taking short rests, the combination can be pretty fierce for disabling a charging melee monstrosity and giving your team a round to clobber it senseless before it proceeds to start eating your faces.
I currently play with a halhorc hexblade using glaive it's a lot of fun. I use devil's sight as an invocation. Mage casts darkness and I have advantage on attacks use booming blade and green flame blade as well. Extra damage. The varient human would have been better but didn't fit campaign. Have great weapon master. I will take the extra +10 damage over the 1d4. At 5th take the extra attack. Then will dip to fighter cavalier for a few levels.
Why cavalier? I just spent a good bit of time looking at either Samuari which you can just choose to have Advantage 3 times per long rest, just because. Or that I decided on Battlemaster because the maneuvers I picked, Disarm, Trip(so awesome, just a lesser version of Eldritch Smite until I can get that) and Precision attack to make sure my GWM still hit hits with the -5. And everything comes back on a short rest, but that is why I like it.
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I've recently uncovered a potent combination. You start off with a variant human and take the Polearm Master feat which will allow you to make an Opportunity Attack as a reaction when an enemy enters your reach. Then at LvL 3 you take Pact of the Blade (to allow a Hex Glaive/Halberd) with
Improved Pact Weapon and Grasp of Hadar as your Eldritch Invocations.
Now you're using charisma to hit and damage, not to mention the +1/+1 improved weapon bonus. You can make a 1d8 regular attack and 1d4 bonus attack on every turn but that's not even the best part. If you position yourself 15-20 ft from the enemy when you hit them with Eldritch Blast you can choose to pull them 10 ft toward you, which will engage the polearm opportunity attack, and allow you to expend a bonus action to attack with the other end. Reposition and do it all over again.
Assuming you have +3 in charisma and land every blow, that guarantees 8 damage before you even roll the dice. With two D10 and a D4 you get a potential range of 11-24 points of damage per round and an average of about 17. This doesn't even take into account the bonuses you could gain from attacking a Hexed target.
The only downside I see is from a role-playing perspective. It's less fun to worship an evil Halberd instead of a stylish sword or brutal axe.
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D&D Beyond FoundersHi there, that sounds like a fun character!
I'm pretty sure that the rules for Opportunity Attack mean the combo doesn't work though, sadly, even with the Sentinel feat.
The opportunity attack is only triggered if the creature uses its own movement to move into your reach. If your spell forcibly moves the creature, that doesn't create an opportunity attack.
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Thanks for calling out the rule breakage! That's half the reason I made this thread.
I just assumed since the wording of the Polearm Master Feat states "other creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach" that meant the ways typically used to avoid provoking basic opportunity attacks were nullified. Since you shouldn't be able to both provoke an attack and avoid one at the same time. It can be confusing which rules supersede which!
What Invocation and/or cantrip do you guys think would work best to pair with the basic Polearm combo then? I'm thinking something that keeps you just out of range to improve the odds that the enemy will choose to move within your reach on their turn.
In my opinion, the best combinations with Polearm master are:
It's worth noting that combining Eldritch SMite and Sentinel can produce a very scary defender. Eldritch Smite does not invoke a saving throw - a creature that falls within the allowable size category is just prone. Donezo, onyobutt. Sentinel, when you successfully AoO an enemy, reduces their speed to 0. A creature with 0 speed cannot use half its movement to stand back up.
What this ends up doing is allowing the polearm-using warlock to knock an enemy prone and force it to stay that way until its next turn. Given that the creature can only trigger an AoO on its own turn, with its own movement, that's one entire free round to beat on the prone thing that the critter can't do a damn thing about.
It's hella resource-intensive, given that you need to burn a Pact slot to do it, but if you can bludgeon your party into actually taking short rests, the combination can be pretty fierce for disabling a charging melee monstrosity and giving your team a round to clobber it senseless before it proceeds to start eating your faces.
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Why not just go war caster at lvl 4 and cast Eldritch Blast as opportunity attack ?
Because if you are using a pole arm you will want great weapon master as soon as possible.
I currently play with a halhorc hexblade using glaive it's a lot of fun. I use devil's sight as an invocation. Mage casts darkness and I have advantage on attacks use booming blade and green flame blade as well. Extra damage. The varient human would have been better but didn't fit campaign. Have great weapon master. I will take the extra +10 damage over the 1d4. At 5th take the extra attack. Then will dip to fighter cavalier for a few levels.
Why cavalier? I just spent a good bit of time looking at either Samuari which you can just choose to have Advantage 3 times per long rest, just because. Or that I decided on Battlemaster because the maneuvers I picked, Disarm, Trip(so awesome, just a lesser version of Eldritch Smite until I can get that) and Precision attack to make sure my GWM still hit hits with the -5. And everything comes back on a short rest, but that is why I like it.