So I am playing in a short 3 level campaign and a combo I had thought would be fun to play is having a Human Hexblade Warlock with pact of the Blade with the Dual Wielder feat cast Shadow Blade for their off hand weapon. Would that be ok with the rules? Just trying to see what people's thoughts are on this or if anyone has tried it before.
It would take a turn to set up but by the second round of combat you could be attacking with a magic weapon to over come resistances doing 1d8+ modifier on main and 2d8 psychic damage with your off hand, which for a warlock at 3nd level I think is pretty good. And if you had a round to prep you could cast mirror image to lessen your chances of getting hit. I think it would be really fun thematically having a melee fighter walking around with no weapons but then suddenly just having to pop into existing.
As fun as going from being completely unarmed to fully armed in a turn, that's a whole round of concentration checks to keep your Shadow Blade up without having swung or shot anything. Ideally, I'd open a combat encounter with both out, but mechanically I'd at least keep the pact weapon on my belt if possible for easy drawing. Rules-wise, this is fine with any one-handed melee pact weapon, as you create the off-hand SB leading you to TWF. This then activates Dual Wielder's +1 AC.
I have a similar setup, but with a fiend patron. I can tell you that over the course of a 3-round combat encounter, SB's expected 18 (4d8) beats out Hex's 17.5 (5d6) in damage for a TWF bladelock at level 3. However, the catch is that your SB's hit bonus scales with either strength or dexterity, not charisma. It also grants you a ranged option if you chose not to take Eldritch Blast, but EB would likely be better for a Hexblade build for SADness.
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
This. It's a ridiculous limitation to require an action to summon it. No other weapon requires this as all other weapons can be drawn as a free action. Yes I know you are getting the benefit of not being able to be disarmed but thats the whole point of the class feature- a weapon is always at hand, always with you. You trade 3 additional at will spells or vast scouting abilities & at will help action in order to have this special weapon. Summoning as a free action only makes sense for this to be as powerful as the other two pact benefits.
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
This. It's a ridiculous limitation to require an action to summon it. No other weapon requires this as all other weapons can be drawn as a free action. Yes I know you are getting the benefit of not being able to be disarmed but thats the whole point of the class feature- a weapon is always at hand, always with you. You trade 3 additional at will spells or vast scouting abilities & at will help action in order to have this special weapon. Summoning as a free action only makes sense for this to be as powerful as the other two pact benefits.
In some campaigns, you might have combat starting in social situations or other times when you can't start combat with any weapons (in which case you're way ahead of the classes that are going to have to do combat unarmed because they can't carry a weapon with them), but most of the time you can carry around your pact weapon with you instead of needing to summon it. It's not much of a limitation that an action is required to summon the weapon. You can still draw a pact weapon as a free action if it has already been summoned and is at your side (or you can walk around the dungeon carrying your weapon in your hand).
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
This. It's a ridiculous limitation to require an action to summon it. No other weapon requires this as all other weapons can be drawn as a free action. Yes I know you are getting the benefit of not being able to be disarmed but thats the whole point of the class feature- a weapon is always at hand, always with you. You trade 3 additional at will spells or vast scouting abilities & at will help action in order to have this special weapon. Summoning as a free action only makes sense for this to be as powerful as the other two pact benefits.
In some campaigns, you might have combat starting in social situations or other times when you can't start combat with any weapons (in which case you're way ahead of the classes that are going to have to do combat unarmed because they can't carry a weapon with them), but most of the time you can carry around your pact weapon with you instead of needing to summon it. It's not much of a limitation that an action is required to summon the weapon. You can still draw a pact weapon as a free action if it has already been summoned and is at your side (or you can walk around the dungeon carrying your weapon in your hand).
I'll admit there is a slight class imbalance in this sort of feature. Eldritch Knights can summon their bonded weapons so long as they're on the same plane of existance using a bonus action, and they can have more than one such weapon bonded at once. Drawback here is that they must be already existing weapons, and mundane gear is still mundane. Bladelocks can only have one, and it requires an action to create or summon, but it's always magical and it can potentially take on many different forms.
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
This. It's a ridiculous limitation to require an action to summon it. No other weapon requires this as all other weapons can be drawn as a free action. Yes I know you are getting the benefit of not being able to be disarmed but thats the whole point of the class feature- a weapon is always at hand, always with you. You trade 3 additional at will spells or vast scouting abilities & at will help action in order to have this special weapon. Summoning as a free action only makes sense for this to be as powerful as the other two pact benefits.
In some campaigns, you might have combat starting in social situations or other times when you can't start combat with any weapons (in which case you're way ahead of the classes that are going to have to do combat unarmed because they can't carry a weapon with them), but most of the time you can carry around your pact weapon with you instead of needing to summon it. It's not much of a limitation that an action is required to summon the weapon. You can still draw a pact weapon as a free action if it has already been summoned and is at your side (or you can walk around the dungeon carrying your weapon in your hand).
I'll admit there is a slight class imbalance in this sort of feature. Eldritch Knights can summon their bonded weapons so long as they're on the same plane of existance using a bonus action, and they can have more than one such weapon bonded at once. Drawback here is that they must be already existing weapons, and mundane gear is still mundane. Bladelocks can only have one, and it requires an action to create or summon, but it's always magical and it can potentially take on many different forms.
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
This. It's a ridiculous limitation to require an action to summon it. No other weapon requires this as all other weapons can be drawn as a free action. Yes I know you are getting the benefit of not being able to be disarmed but thats the whole point of the class feature- a weapon is always at hand, always with you. You trade 3 additional at will spells or vast scouting abilities & at will help action in order to have this special weapon. Summoning as a free action only makes sense for this to be as powerful as the other two pact benefits.
In some campaigns, you might have combat starting in social situations or other times when you can't start combat with any weapons (in which case you're way ahead of the classes that are going to have to do combat unarmed because they can't carry a weapon with them), but most of the time you can carry around your pact weapon with you instead of needing to summon it. It's not much of a limitation that an action is required to summon the weapon. You can still draw a pact weapon as a free action if it has already been summoned and is at your side (or you can walk around the dungeon carrying your weapon in your hand).
I'll admit there is a slight class imbalance in this sort of feature. Eldritch Knights can summon their bonded weapons so long as they're on the same plane of existance using a bonus action, and they can have more than one such weapon bonded at once. Drawback here is that they must be already existing weapons, and mundane gear is still mundane. Bladelocks can only have one, and it requires an action to create or summon, but it's always magical and it can potentially take on many different forms.
My group homebrewed that it takes an action to change the form of the weapon but not to summon it in it's existing form. Seems to provide the right balance for us.
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So I am playing in a short 3 level campaign and a combo I had thought would be fun to play is having a Human Hexblade Warlock with pact of the Blade with the Dual Wielder feat cast Shadow Blade for their off hand weapon. Would that be ok with the rules? Just trying to see what people's thoughts are on this or if anyone has tried it before.
It would take a turn to set up but by the second round of combat you could be attacking with a magic weapon to over come resistances doing 1d8+ modifier on main and 2d8 psychic damage with your off hand, which for a warlock at 3nd level I think is pretty good. And if you had a round to prep you could cast mirror image to lessen your chances of getting hit. I think it would be really fun thematically having a melee fighter walking around with no weapons but then suddenly just having to pop into existing.
As fun as going from being completely unarmed to fully armed in a turn, that's a whole round of concentration checks to keep your Shadow Blade up without having swung or shot anything. Ideally, I'd open a combat encounter with both out, but mechanically I'd at least keep the pact weapon on my belt if possible for easy drawing. Rules-wise, this is fine with any one-handed melee pact weapon, as you create the off-hand SB leading you to TWF. This then activates Dual Wielder's +1 AC.
I have a similar setup, but with a fiend patron. I can tell you that over the course of a 3-round combat encounter, SB's expected 18 (4d8) beats out Hex's 17.5 (5d6) in damage for a TWF bladelock at level 3. However, the catch is that your SB's hit bonus scales with either strength or dexterity, not charisma. It also grants you a ranged option if you chose not to take Eldritch Blast, but EB would likely be better for a Hexblade build for SADness.
My DM is nice and allows me to have summon my pact weapon as a free action so thats not to much of a issue for being unable to attack during the first round.
This. It's a ridiculous limitation to require an action to summon it. No other weapon requires this as all other weapons can be drawn as a free action. Yes I know you are getting the benefit of not being able to be disarmed but thats the whole point of the class feature- a weapon is always at hand, always with you. You trade 3 additional at will spells or vast scouting abilities & at will help action in order to have this special weapon. Summoning as a free action only makes sense for this to be as powerful as the other two pact benefits.
In some campaigns, you might have combat starting in social situations or other times when you can't start combat with any weapons (in which case you're way ahead of the classes that are going to have to do combat unarmed because they can't carry a weapon with them), but most of the time you can carry around your pact weapon with you instead of needing to summon it. It's not much of a limitation that an action is required to summon the weapon. You can still draw a pact weapon as a free action if it has already been summoned and is at your side (or you can walk around the dungeon carrying your weapon in your hand).
I'll admit there is a slight class imbalance in this sort of feature. Eldritch Knights can summon their bonded weapons so long as they're on the same plane of existance using a bonus action, and they can have more than one such weapon bonded at once. Drawback here is that they must be already existing weapons, and mundane gear is still mundane. Bladelocks can only have one, and it requires an action to create or summon, but it's always magical and it can potentially take on many different forms.
My group homebrewed that it takes an action to change the form of the weapon but not to summon it in it's existing form. Seems to provide the right balance for us.