While admittedly not strictly defined in the PHB, I would consider "worth" on an object to be an abstraction based "What would an average person who wants the object, in full knowledge of its capabilities and properties, but is not in immediate pressing need of the object, be willing to pay for it?" and consider the prices in the PHB and the DMG to be set on that basis.
It's certainly possible to acquire the items for more than that amount, or less than that amount, or even free in play, but that doesn't change the "worth." A diamond you got from robbing a caravan is still worth 300gp even if you didn't buy it, as long as it is a perfectly good, perfectly real, normal diamond. Similarly, just because I'm willing to give you 10,000 gp right now to get a tiny diamond stud off you right now because I need to cast the Revivify spell on the Archduke, that doesn't automatically make that tiny diamond a valid spell component.
And in that light, I would not consider a Pact-conjured weapon to be worth even 1SP, because unlike the weapon you might buy at Laylee's Quarterstaff Club, if I give you that Pact-conjured club, it will disappear in one minute if you take it more than five feet away from me. And a normal person who knew that, wouldn't pay 1SP for that.
The problem is, there is no rules that at all says it works this way, the rules say you conjure the weapon and we know that the base weapon has a value, the pact weapon does too. So the RAW here is pretty simple, now you can say that you do not follow that and homebrew your own system for value and that is fine, I am just going over what the rules actually contain, which is not always inline with common sense.
However, another way I would say that pact weapons in fact do have value, let's imagine you sold something extremely expensive like a Holy Avenger to a King and let's say you sold it for 100,000G. The king misses a very small mark on this sword, after all it's not exactly a common weapon to be coming across. Well a day later you smash a sapphire, why? Because you used that Sapphire to cast Drawmij's Instant Summons on the Holy Avenger previously. Don't worry about the why of this, the simple question is, does the Holy Avenger have no value? It's going to disappear later. Well this is the same as a pact weapon, except a pact weapon has even less signs that it is going to disappear. Ultimately the pact weapon will disappear after 1 minute of you moving more than 5 foot away from it but until that point, it appears just the same as the weapon you conjured, so if you conjured a greatsword, it is a greatsword and a merchant buying it would purchase it for the same amount of money as a greatsword...
does every merchant know about these tricks? Probably not, A king would probably have a diviner or some other type of court magician look at the Holy Avenger given the value in question and they might detect the deception however the average merchant is not going to be dealing with warlocks so often that merchandise disappears well, and it would be obvious who did it, so unless you have disguise self up, you'll be on wanted posters everywhere. Perhaps one or two warlocks here or there might have done it but really it's not the type of petty crime that Warlocks would get into normally.
This is precisely why I provided examples to divest "what it's worth" from "how much I can acquire it for," and included the bolded "full knowledge of its capabilities and properties" A Holy Avenger that can disappear at any time is definitely not worth as much as one that will stay in the vault until needed, even if nobody in the kingdom knows this. How much the King actually paid for it (and whether or not he was swindled) is related, but not really relevant.
I also never said that the Pact-conjured club is worthless. It's still a club that you can use to bonk people for a limited period of time. I said that it's not worth more than one 1 SP; it is not the same as, nor can it fulfill every expectation a normal Club enthusiast would have of a normal club, because a normal club does not requires you to be followed around by some weirdo Warlock to keep it from disappearing.
Would a Holy Avenger +3 that could disappear at any time be worth more than 1 SP? I'd lean towards probably. I would probably adjucate on a case-by-case basis, leaning towards making conjured PHB weapons not qualified, but also not allowing a single casting of True Strike to determine whether or not an item is trapped, cursed, or otherwise adversely affected or modified unless I deliberately wanted to make that a plot point.
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🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
While admittedly not strictly defined in the PHB, I would consider "worth" on an object to be an abstraction based "What would an average person who wants the object, in full knowledge of its capabilities and properties, but is not in immediate pressing need of the object, be willing to pay for it?" and consider the prices in the PHB and the DMG to be set on that basis.
It's certainly possible to acquire the items for more than that amount, or less than that amount, or even free in play, but that doesn't change the "worth." A diamond you got from robbing a caravan is still worth 300gp even if you didn't buy it, as long as it is a perfectly good, perfectly real, normal diamond. Similarly, just because I'm willing to give you 10,000 gp right now to get a tiny diamond stud off you right now because I need to cast the Revivify spell on the Archduke, that doesn't automatically make that tiny diamond a valid spell component.
And in that light, I would not consider a Pact-conjured weapon to be worth even 1SP, because unlike the weapon you might buy at Laylee's Quarterstaff Club, if I give you that Pact-conjured club, it will disappear in one minute if you take it more than five feet away from me. And a normal person who knew that, wouldn't pay 1SP for that.
The problem is, there is no rules that at all says it works this way, the rules say you conjure the weapon and we know that the base weapon has a value, the pact weapon does too. So the RAW here is pretty simple, now you can say that you do not follow that and homebrew your own system for value and that is fine, I am just going over what the rules actually contain, which is not always inline with common sense.
However, another way I would say that pact weapons in fact do have value, let's imagine you sold something extremely expensive like a Holy Avenger to a King and let's say you sold it for 100,000G. The king misses a very small mark on this sword, after all it's not exactly a common weapon to be coming across. Well a day later you smash a sapphire, why? Because you used that Sapphire to cast Drawmij's Instant Summons on the Holy Avenger previously. Don't worry about the why of this, the simple question is, does the Holy Avenger have no value? It's going to disappear later. Well this is the same as a pact weapon, except a pact weapon has even less signs that it is going to disappear. Ultimately the pact weapon will disappear after 1 minute of you moving more than 5 foot away from it but until that point, it appears just the same as the weapon you conjured, so if you conjured a greatsword, it is a greatsword and a merchant buying it would purchase it for the same amount of money as a greatsword...
does every merchant know about these tricks? Probably not, A king would probably have a diviner or some other type of court magician look at the Holy Avenger given the value in question and they might detect the deception however the average merchant is not going to be dealing with warlocks so often that merchandise disappears well, and it would be obvious who did it, so unless you have disguise self up, you'll be on wanted posters everywhere. Perhaps one or two warlocks here or there might have done it but really it's not the type of petty crime that Warlocks would get into normally.
This is precisely why I provided examples to divest "what it's worth" from "how much I can acquire it for," and included the bolded "full knowledge of its capabilities and properties" A Holy Avenger that can disappear at any time is definitely not worth as much as one that will stay in the vault until needed, even if nobody in the kingdom knows this. How much the King actually paid for it (and whether or not he was swindled) is related, but not really relevant.
I also never said that the Pact-conjured club is worthless. It's still a club that you can use to bonk people for a limited period of time. I said that it's not worth more than one 1 SP; it is not the same as, nor can it fulfill every expectation a normal Club enthusiast would have of a normal club, because a normal club does not requires you to be followed around by some weirdo Warlock to keep it from disappearing.
Would a Holy Avenger +3 that could disappear at any time be worth more than 1 SP? I'd lean towards probably. I would probably adjucate on a case-by-case basis, leaning towards making conjured PHB weapons not qualified, but also not allowing a single casting of True Strike to determine whether or not an item is trapped, cursed, or otherwise adversely affected or modified unless I deliberately wanted to make that a plot point.
It's all a moot point, until anybody can show any rule that a Pact Weapon has no value, it has value. Jeremy Crawford even clarified this in the past.
If you follow the rules on casting components strictly (and I know that many don't), then Shillelagh is much less practical. Unless you're a druid or ranger, your other hand needs to be empty in order for you to cast the spell.
True, that is new as of 2024. Because the weapon is still required in hand but not listed as a material component. So, unless you are a Druid or the right kind of Ranger (or other select subclasses), Shillelagh-with-a-shield is way less practical.
Unless you get a Ruby of the War Mage, which is common (~100GP) and in the new DMG.
If you follow the rules on casting components strictly (and I know that many don't), then Shillelagh is much less practical. Unless you're a druid or ranger, your other hand needs to be empty in order for you to cast the spell.
True, that is new as of 2024. Because the weapon is still required in hand but not listed as a material component. So, unless you are a Druid or the right kind of Ranger (or other select subclasses), Shillelagh-with-a-shield is way less practical.
Unless you get a Ruby of the War Mage, which is common (~100GP) and in the new DMG.
It should work just fine for any Arcane caster too since they can use a Quarterstaff as a focus (and the M component has no cost/isn't destroyed).
Now if we were talking about a spell like Shadow Blade, which creates a weapon which is a specific weapon that lacks a value/cost, then you have a conjured weapon with no value, however Pact weapon simply states you summon "a Simple or Martial Melee weapon of your choice", if you summon a greatsword, you summon a greatsword. A greatsword has an associated cost, it has a value, nothing in pact weapon says it does not have a value.
I see nothing in 2024 that changes how this works and advice in 2014 was that Pact of the Blade DOES inherit everything, including cost/value.
That's JC's personal ramblings, it did NOT make it into the SAC or any other officially published source I know of.
Also if you are going to lean on JC's word here you really shouldn't claim that a Pact Weapon and a Shadow Blade works differently as he said "I'd allow it" for both.
End of the day it isn't really a big deal IMO and if someone really wanted it to work because they had a cool concept then I might well allow it, I just don't see it being strictly allowed.
Now if we were talking about a spell like Shadow Blade, which creates a weapon which is a specific weapon that lacks a value/cost, then you have a conjured weapon with no value, however Pact weapon simply states you summon "a Simple or Martial Melee weapon of your choice", if you summon a greatsword, you summon a greatsword. A greatsword has an associated cost, it has a value, nothing in pact weapon says it does not have a value.
I see nothing in 2024 that changes how this works and advice in 2014 was that Pact of the Blade DOES inherit everything, including cost/value.
That's JC's personal ramblings, it did NOT make it into the SAC or any other officially published source I know of.
Also if you are going to lean on JC's word here you really shouldn't claim that a Pact Weapon and a Shadow Blade works differently as he said "I'd allow it" for both.
End of the day it isn't really a big deal IMO and if someone really wanted it to work because they had a cool concept then I might well allow it, I just don't see it being strictly allowed.
There isn't a need for a SAC because it's not clarifying a rule, there is no rule that says it doesn't inherit a particular value like cost, just like find familiar doesn't say that the familiar doesn't gain the HP of the assumed form. Everything is included unless explicitly stated otherwise, so why does that need a SAC?
If you follow the rules on casting components strictly (and I know that many don't), then Shillelagh is much less practical. Unless you're a druid or ranger, your other hand needs to be empty in order for you to cast the spell.
True, that is new as of 2024. Because the weapon is still required in hand but not listed as a material component. So, unless you are a Druid or the right kind of Ranger (or other select subclasses), Shillelagh-with-a-shield is way less practical. Unless you get a Ruby of the War Mage, which is common (~100GP) and in the new DMG.
It should work just fine for any Arcane caster too since they can use a Quarterstaff as a focus (and the M component has no cost/isn't destroyed).
They can only do that for their class spells, and none of them have Shillelagh as a class spell (more or less).
Already answered above but Constructs have always been valid targets of the Sentinel feat, uncertain how anybody could be confused on this. the easiest way to determine if something is a creature is, does it have a stat block? If it has a stat block then it's a creature. Sentinel was one of the most potentially overpowered feats in 2014, more so in the Sentinel + Polearm Master combination it was infamous for.
As for Sentinel, in 2014 it would work hit or miss, but only so long as the target in question didn't also have the sentinel feat, so while it is now only against attacks that hit, it is now irrelevant if the target hit also has the sentinel feat or not.
--- Witch Bolt
Well for a few early levels it's worth using, later game... it's just a concentration hog, not really worth using.
Really, there are better improved spells that even Witch Bolt, lest people not forget about True Strike that was in a worse position than Witch Bolt in 2014 and now is in a better position than Witch Bolt in 2024. There are legitimate builds that reliant on True Strike now, heck it's a great way to build a College of Valor bard for example.
Totally agree on Witch Bolt, there are definitely spells with a better glow up than it. Grasping Vine got the biggest glow up in my opinion. It went from total garbage to actually a good combination of single target control and damage.
I'd like to point out that the changes that they made to polearm master and sentinel to break that combo opened up a different combo. Since the reactive strike is no longer an opportunity attack and does not specify that the creature has to move itself into your reach you can use a spell or feature to move your enemy into your reach to trigger the attack. Polearm master says this "you can take a Reaction to make one melee attack against a creature that enters the reach you have with that weapon." I made valor bard build that takes magic initiate druid for thorn whip and shillelagh to get the reaction and bonus action attacks. You could do something similar with an EK or elements monk.
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This is precisely why I provided examples to divest "what it's worth" from "how much I can acquire it for," and included the bolded "full knowledge of its capabilities and properties" A Holy Avenger that can disappear at any time is definitely not worth as much as one that will stay in the vault until needed, even if nobody in the kingdom knows this. How much the King actually paid for it (and whether or not he was swindled) is related, but not really relevant.
I also never said that the Pact-conjured club is worthless. It's still a club that you can use to bonk people for a limited period of time. I said that it's not worth more than one 1 SP; it is not the same as, nor can it fulfill every expectation a normal Club enthusiast would have of a normal club, because a normal club does not requires you to be followed around by some weirdo Warlock to keep it from disappearing.
Would a Holy Avenger +3 that could disappear at any time be worth more than 1 SP? I'd lean towards probably. I would probably adjucate on a case-by-case basis, leaning towards making conjured PHB weapons not qualified, but also not allowing a single casting of True Strike to determine whether or not an item is trapped, cursed, or otherwise adversely affected or modified unless I deliberately wanted to make that a plot point.
🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
Charisma Saving Throw: DC 18, Failure: 20d6 Psychic Damage, Success: Half damage
It's all a moot point, until anybody can show any rule that a Pact Weapon has no value, it has value. Jeremy Crawford even clarified this in the past.
True, that is new as of 2024. Because the weapon is still required in hand but not listed as a material component. So, unless you are a Druid or the right kind of Ranger (or other select subclasses), Shillelagh-with-a-shield is way less practical.
Unless you get a Ruby of the War Mage, which is common (~100GP) and in the new DMG.
It should work just fine for any Arcane caster too since they can use a Quarterstaff as a focus (and the M component has no cost/isn't destroyed).
That's JC's personal ramblings, it did NOT make it into the SAC or any other officially published source I know of.
Also if you are going to lean on JC's word here you really shouldn't claim that a Pact Weapon and a Shadow Blade works differently as he said "I'd allow it" for both.
End of the day it isn't really a big deal IMO and if someone really wanted it to work because they had a cool concept then I might well allow it, I just don't see it being strictly allowed.
There isn't a need for a SAC because it's not clarifying a rule, there is no rule that says it doesn't inherit a particular value like cost, just like find familiar doesn't say that the familiar doesn't gain the HP of the assumed form. Everything is included unless explicitly stated otherwise, so why does that need a SAC?
They can only do that for their class spells, and none of them have Shillelagh as a class spell (more or less).
Totally agree on Witch Bolt, there are definitely spells with a better glow up than it. Grasping Vine got the biggest glow up in my opinion. It went from total garbage to actually a good combination of single target control and damage.
I'd like to point out that the changes that they made to polearm master and sentinel to break that combo opened up a different combo. Since the reactive strike is no longer an opportunity attack and does not specify that the creature has to move itself into your reach you can use a spell or feature to move your enemy into your reach to trigger the attack. Polearm master says this "you can take a Reaction to make one melee attack against a creature that enters the reach you have with that weapon." I made valor bard build that takes magic initiate druid for thorn whip and shillelagh to get the reaction and bonus action attacks. You could do something similar with an EK or elements monk.