I don't think there was ever true agreement, really. I know I just got tired of being accused of trying to run everyone else's tables and characters because I felt a class who is explicitly defined by a deal made by one means or another generally fits CHA more than INT, and that classes should have boundaries and fixed points rather than being "just do whatever".
And don't @ me over this, I have no interest in rehashing the same argument yet again. As I said, I'm tired of going over it.
Not all pacts are deals. That is the conflation you keep wrongly making. The PHB even gives multiple examples:
"Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it."
"Sometimes, while poring over tomes of forbidden lore, a brilliant student’s mind is opened to realities beyond the material world and to the alien beings that dwell in the outer void."
"The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
You don't have to be a wheeling and dealing salesman or negotiator to be a Warlock; that is such an unnecessary limitation on what the class can be.
Sure but you still have to be daring and brash (which is CHA), to seek out & read strange forbidden mysterious tomes and try to use the secrets within to draw power from an eldritch being who could squash you like a bug.
You not a careful, studious, methodological academic like an Artificer or Wizard.
daring and brash is chaotic alignment. i'll admit that 'confidence' is right in the charisma description, but 'easily bored' or 'sloppy' is not. an example of lawful high-CHA would be the trope of the tall, prim, narrow-eyed secondary anime guy as a secretary of some sort with the clipboard and always pushing their small eyeglasses back up the bridge of their nose, beloved by many but fending off all offers that are not strictly business related. a more neutral high-CHA might be a merchant, often dealing but never pulling [social] levers just to see what happens.
also, plenty of artificers are played as lego-master tornadoes. i think it's a failed wisdom check (not even low wisdom, necessarily) that leads someone to talk to the disembodied voices past the caution tape, the nailed boards, the locks, and the pleading ghosts of weaker-willed mages in the library's restricted section.
Daring is definitely CHA-associated, it's why Swashbucklers have CHA as their secondary stat, and why Paladins are CHA-casters. Neither are necessarily sweet talkers, but they have that confidence and ego of high-CHA. Stealing power from an eldritch being is certainly a "daring" thing to do. A lawful high-CHA character could be the officer in an army that leads from the front, or the Paladin who follows their code and does the right thing regardless of risks, or a spy who puts their loyalty to the nation above all else, or the 'good' kind of political leaders who try to build fair and equitable institutions.
Ordinary stat optimization for a warlock on point build is 16 charisma, 14 dexterity, 14 constitution, and then either 12/12/8 or 12/10/10 for the remaining ability scores. Yes, you won't be a sage like that... but that's because that's not what the warlock is. The whole point of the warlock is taking shortcuts to power, a sage who carefully studied what they were going to do isn't a warlock.
That's exactly the misconception we're challenging, yes. The class description literally says you can be a brilliant student poring over tomes.
And having 14-16 INT doesn't count as "brilliant" when the average INT is 10? If you want to have a high INT score, you can! This has been repeatedly shown, and you can take INT skills as a Warlock and have a Sage/Scholar background if it means that much to you. And none of that will change the fact that the core trope of the class is making a deal with another being for power, even if that's not the only possible backstory you can give the character.
It also says your power can come FROM said tomes, or from the entities that you make contact with through them. You're not just smart incidentally or orthogonally to your power source, they can be directly linked. This is even more true with the OneD&D Warlock, which has you learning magical techniques before you pact with a patron.
My issue isn't that Warlocks can't have 14-16 Int, it's that having that benefits nothing they get from their class. Being able to choose Int as your casting stat would let you roleplay that kind of Warlock without ludonarrative dissonance.
What you are describing is a Wizard who is also an occultist, not a Warlock. One of the pillars of the Warlock concept is not acquiring their magic in the way that Wizards do. If you get your magic from studies and just happen to worship/work for some being on the side, knowingly or otherwise, then you’re closer to pulling a Percy than being a true Warlock.
Yurei the hyperbole from you is crazy. I’ve literally read a post were you called the game in general “dogsh!t” and then in another post told someone you want to keep playing the D&D because it’s the game you and your table like.
Your character idea of an occultist can be play as a bunch of other classes. Honestly Warlock doesn’t sound like the class you should be playing except that you want a couple spells specific to Warlock. In 5e there is an occultist and haunted one Background, and I’m sure you can figure out how to make something similar, if not better in 5eR. Shadow and Divine Sorcerer would work well with some flavor, but you don’t want a 12 Int you want to be the smartest in the room. So I offer to you any Artificer. They have unique infusions that can’t be replicated that could be flavored as rare occult items or the imbuing of old Magics long lost. And you get to be a genius.
I love how everybody's new favorite way to tell the whole board nothing I say matters at all is "hyperbole! Hyperbole!" As if my penchant for being colorful instead of boring in my descriptions somehow makes everything I say automatically wrong. I could just as easily say "your words are lukewarm and boring thus you're not worth paying attention to", and I'd be just as wrong as y'all always are with the constant accusations of High Per Bowl Yee
Also good job on proving my point. You are conclusively demonstrating an utter, utter disconnect between "Rules" and "Fluff". You didn't even recognize that I was working with the Invocation system as the only actual source of "esoteric tricks, powers, and abilities". Shadow sorcery? Divine sorcery? Every podunk two-cow farming village in D&D has half a dozen sorcerers in it. Bog-standard spellcasting is everywhere. And artificer? Really? The hell does the artificer chassis have to do with occultism and esoteric secrets? The artificer is specifically about inventiveness and mastery of 'secrets' the world already knows. It's an arcane engineer mastering the science of magic, not an occultist learning secrets and using powers no one can explain or understand.
Yes, if you're willing to attach any set of fluff to any rules framework with an absolute lack of regard for whether that fluff and that framework actually fit together, you can play a canny occultist as any class you want. You could play it as a fighter using Secret Sword Techniques it learned from the Outer Planes to....do the exact same thing every other fighter does. You could play it as a barbarian who learned the secrets of the universe, only to discover the secrets of the universe made them really angry. You could play them as a rogue who traded their hands to the Robot Devil in exchange for hands that were really good at rogue shit. That doesn't mean you're actually playing a canny, clever occultist - it just means you don't care what story you're actually telling so long as you're allowed to dress it up in whatever lame surface-level Halloween costume floats your boat.
Let me be clear, you are wrong. The reason spell power was lacking is because you no longer had the same level of spells as full casters at the appropriate level and it got worse as you approached level 9. Then at 11th it goes away and you actually start catching a full caster. The reason MA had to be a part of Invocations is because if it wasn’t you need to give the Warlock almost no invocations or you end up with a literally overpowered mess. I know this because I literally took the time to write up the class in this format. It was bad. I even tried with 1/3 caster with MA slots that gave you access to one slot of full caster levels at the appropriate time and even that felt like too much if I still allowed 8 invocations.
Yes yes, the classic 2014 Pact Magic Enjoyer refrain of "we want ALL the spellpower of the wizard, and we want it ALL to come back on a short rest, and we want it to ALWAYS cast at maximum level, and we want armor/weapon proficiencies and a d8 hit die and Invocations and Pact boons too, and now we're somehow upset when that means super unfun limitations on slot count that basically mean we don't have spellcasting! We're unwilling to accept ANY reasonable limitation whatsoever on Pact Magic because then we couldn't abuse free zero-minute short rests to outperform every other spellcasting class in the game!"
Half-casting was, is, and always will be a fundamentally better framework than 2014 Pact Magic.
It’s not interesting when they admit all the boons weren’t of the same level of power and they have no intention of fixing that. It means you clearly are expected to take the more powerful boons or you are nerfing yourself
The amount of work they'd have to do to make Chain equivalent to Blade and Tome would cause the playerbase to erupt in infinite unstoppable nerdrage. After all, look at the sheer, mindless fury people are spewing everywhere when they just tried to make Blade equivalent to Tome.
Blade Pact shouldn’t be the in the top 3 Martials in the game while having access to eldritch blast and spells. That’s horrendous design. Lifedrinker should be the invocation that improves the Bladelocks damage at 12th level. Just up it to a d12 and leave thirsting blade with two attacks. Also make it so Blade invocation only gives Cha to one attack and Thirsting blade is the only way to get extra attacks using Cha then you don’t have to worry about Paladins using it so they can supercharge their auras. You don’t have to nerf it into the bad Pact Boon from 2014, but you do need to balance it so it’s not simply superior to ever other build so much so that everyone dips Warlock to get some blade love. As of now it’s silly not to get at least 1 level of UA7 Warlock on you Paladin, Bard, or Sorcerer. Either for an extra spell slot with Tome or for Cha on weapon attacks with Blade.
And that's a dumb stance to take. Yes, a well built Blade warlock absolutely should be able to keep up damage-wise with the strongest martial classes. Because the Blade warlock has weaker armor, a weaker hit die, and zero defensive/melee-supportive class features outside taking Invocations or using its two whole spells per day to patch up its weaknesses for one single fight per spell. if the Blade warlock also deals drastically less damage, the way idiots keep demanding it does, then there is zero reason whatsoever to take it. And no, demanding that the warlock give up EVERY Invocation slot to make Blade Pact only just slightly weaker than a fighter is by just ****in' existing is not "balance".
Blade Pact by itself should be able to keep up reasonably well with the damage of a melee-focused character, with Invocations making them better at what they do. Not "you need to take Blade Pact and then eight other Invocations just to get to slightly below the offensive level of a basic fighter using absolutely no resources whatsoever while having less than half the defensive/survival potential and no ability to address that because your two whole spell slots a day are forcibly utilized to patch up your weak offense." No other Pact Boon is nonfunctional until you take half a dozen other Invocations, Blade Pact does NOT merit being crippled until well into Tier 3.
What you are describing is a Wizard who is also an occultist, not a Warlock. One of the pillars of the Warlock concept is not acquiring their magic in the way that Wizards do. If you get your magic from studies and just happen to worship/work for some being on the side, knowingly or otherwise, then you’re closer to pulling a Percy than being a true Warlock.
No, I'm describing a Warlock; I'm literally quoting the PHB Warlock entry. And just because your path to power can start at books for both, doesn't mean you acquire it "the way that Wizards do."
I don't think there was ever true agreement, really. I know I just got tired of being accused of trying to run everyone else's tables and characters because I felt a class who is explicitly defined by a deal made by one means or another generally fits CHA more than INT, and that classes should have boundaries and fixed points rather than being "just do whatever".
And don't @ me over this, I have no interest in rehashing the same argument yet again. As I said, I'm tired of going over it.
Not all pacts are deals. That is the conflation you keep wrongly making. The PHB even gives multiple examples:
"Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it."
"Sometimes, while poring over tomes of forbidden lore, a brilliant student’s mind is opened to realities beyond the material world and to the alien beings that dwell in the outer void."
"The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
You don't have to be a wheeling and dealing salesman or negotiator to be a Warlock; that is such an unnecessary limitation on what the class can be.
Sure but you still have to be daring and brash (which is CHA), to seek out & read strange forbidden mysterious tomes and try to use the secrets within to draw power from an eldritch being who could squash you like a bug.
You not a careful, studious, methodological academic like an Artificer or Wizard.
daring and brash is chaotic alignment. i'll admit that 'confidence' is right in the charisma description, but 'easily bored' or 'sloppy' is not. an example of lawful high-CHA would be the trope of the tall, prim, narrow-eyed secondary anime guy as a secretary of some sort with the clipboard and always pushing their small eyeglasses back up the bridge of their nose, beloved by many but fending off all offers that are not strictly business related. a more neutral high-CHA might be a merchant, often dealing but never pulling [social] levers just to see what happens.
also, plenty of artificers are played as lego-master tornadoes. i think it's a failed wisdom check (not even low wisdom, necessarily) that leads someone to talk to the disembodied voices past the caution tape, the nailed boards, the locks, and the pleading ghosts of weaker-willed mages in the library's restricted section.
However, the entire point of the Warlock is that you aren’t using power you’ve methodically conducted independent studies to acquire, as with a Wizard or Artificer. You have made contact with a being of power and- generally speaking because casting stats are general concepts- entered into a transactional relationship to ensure continued access to and development of the power. Which, despite certain strawman assertions to the contrary, does not compel anyone to play a village idiot. It’s just a matter of the fact that when taken as an archetype, the concepts for the class do not favor the interpretation that your proficiency with magic comes from rigorous study and research; they come from your relationship with another being and CHA is the stat most commonly associated with relationships. And not just the horny kind, so let’s please not invoke that strawman again either.
i don't think that first sentence is entirely true. wizards are using spellbooks and methodical study because these are things that work reliably. wizards burn up a ton of paper and ink getting these things right. they do this partly because that's the way they were taught and partly because any other way is for warlocks, sorcerers, and bards. why arcane tricksters don't require a spellbook, i'll never know (and what a waste!). warlocks see the 'failed' experiments of wizards as mislabeled byproducts. what else are these taboo books that sages are apparently stumbling upon? "when i did this, an aboleth peeked through my crystal ball. said it had been trying to contact me about my carriage's extended warranty. i don't even own a horse. whoops. here's how to avoid that, future reader..." ...and the warlock thinks, jackpot!
this is why i feel like warlocks should do more rituals, more than wizards even. for a wizard, the ritual is like a long-form mathematical proof which their memorized spell references. many spells would be ridiculous as a ritual, requiring additional resources and a team of casters (see hag covens). like long division and laplace transforms, wizards learn the theory and then move on to application. for the warlock, however, they might see a ritual as a way to cast the spell without memorizing, without precautions, and without years of training. this may or may not be how someone reaches a fey patron or a hexblade, but it's certainly a plausible reason for stumbling upon a great old one.
And that's a dumb stance to take. Yes, a well built Blade warlock absolutely should be able to keep up damage-wise with the strongest martial classes. Because the Blade warlock has weaker armor, a weaker hit die, and zero defensive/melee-supportive class features outside taking Invocations or using its two whole spells per day to patch up its weaknesses for one single fight per spell. if the Blade warlock also deals drastically less damage, the way idiots keep demanding it does, then there is zero reason whatsoever to take it. And no, demanding that the warlock give up EVERY Invocation slot to make Blade Pact only just slightly weaker than a fighter is by just ****in' existing is not "balance".
How do you expect anyone to engage if you keep calling everyone dumb idiots or worse for having different views to yours? You keep accusing people of being hateful towards you, yet like 90% of your sentences contain at least one insult directed towards pretty much literally everyone. 😝
I for one don't like that Pact of the Blade just suddenly got a third attack out of nowhere in UA7; does pact of the blade need to stay competitive into later tiers of play? Absolutely! But who was actually asking for three attacks? What blade locks lack compared to similar "martial casters" like Blade Singer and Eldritch Knight is the ability to mix casting and attacks into one, so why didn't they give us the ability to swap an attack for a cantrip like they can? Though it would help if we knew what was planned regarding SCAGtrips like green flame blade, are these going to go away? Without them eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast is still going to overshadow blade regardless.
And that's my big problem with just getting more attacks as that's basically all eldritch blast does except it doesn't require a specific pact boon; you can argue it needs Agonizing Blast which is fair, but that's a more than reasonable trade off for the safety of blasting from range rather than risking your hide up close. I'm on the fence about whether blade should require an invocation to keep up with Agonizing Blast, but I do want it to have invocations so I can tailor it; I especially want Relentless Hex as it should be the perfect partner for a blade lock, but it was poorly implemented in 5e.
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I don't think there was ever true agreement, really. I know I just got tired of being accused of trying to run everyone else's tables and characters because I felt a class who is explicitly defined by a deal made by one means or another generally fits CHA more than INT, and that classes should have boundaries and fixed points rather than being "just do whatever".
And don't @ me over this, I have no interest in rehashing the same argument yet again. As I said, I'm tired of going over it.
Not all pacts are deals. That is the conflation you keep wrongly making. The PHB even gives multiple examples:
"Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it."
"Sometimes, while poring over tomes of forbidden lore, a brilliant student’s mind is opened to realities beyond the material world and to the alien beings that dwell in the outer void."
"The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
You don't have to be a wheeling and dealing salesman or negotiator to be a Warlock; that is such an unnecessary limitation on what the class can be.
Sure but you still have to be daring and brash (which is CHA), to seek out & read strange forbidden mysterious tomes and try to use the secrets within to draw power from an eldritch being who could squash you like a bug.
You not a careful, studious, methodological academic like an Artificer or Wizard.
daring and brash is chaotic alignment. i'll admit that 'confidence' is right in the charisma description, but 'easily bored' or 'sloppy' is not. an example of lawful high-CHA would be the trope of the tall, prim, narrow-eyed secondary anime guy as a secretary of some sort with the clipboard and always pushing their small eyeglasses back up the bridge of their nose, beloved by many but fending off all offers that are not strictly business related. a more neutral high-CHA might be a merchant, often dealing but never pulling [social] levers just to see what happens.
also, plenty of artificers are played as lego-master tornadoes. i think it's a failed wisdom check (not even low wisdom, necessarily) that leads someone to talk to the disembodied voices past the caution tape, the nailed boards, the locks, and the pleading ghosts of weaker-willed mages in the library's restricted section.
However, the entire point of the Warlock is that you aren’t using power you’ve methodically conducted independent studies to acquire, as with a Wizard or Artificer. You have made contact with a being of power and- generally speaking because casting stats are general concepts- entered into a transactional relationship to ensure continued access to and development of the power. Which, despite certain strawman assertions to the contrary, does not compel anyone to play a village idiot. It’s just a matter of the fact that when taken as an archetype, the concepts for the class do not favor the interpretation that your proficiency with magic comes from rigorous study and research; they come from your relationship with another being and CHA is the stat most commonly associated with relationships. And not just the horny kind, so let’s please not invoke that strawman again either.
i don't think tha first sentence is entirely true. wizards are using spellbooks and methodical study because these are things that work reliably. wizards burn up a ton of paper and ink getting these things right. they do this partly because that's they way they were taught and partly because any other way is for warlocks, sorcerers, and bards. why arcane tricksters don't require a spellbook, i'll never know (and what a waste!). warlocks see the 'failed' experiments of wizards as mislabeled byproducts. what else are these taboo books that sages are apparently stumbling upon? "when i did this, an aboleth peeked through my crystal ball. said it'd be trying to contact me about my carriage's extended warranty. i don't even own a horse. whoops. here's how to avoid that, future reader..." ...and the warlock thinks, jackpot!
this is why i feel like warlocks should do more rituals, more than wizards even. for a wizard, the ritual is like a mathematical proof that their memorized spell references. many spells would be ridiculous in ritual form, perhaps requiring several people (see hag covens). like long division and laplace transforms, wizards learn the theory and then move on to application. for the warlock, however, they might see a ritual as a way to cast the spell without memorizing, without precautions, and without years of training. this may or may not be how someone reaches a fey patron or a hexblade, but it's certainly a plausible reason for stumbling upon a great old one.
I mean, the concept sounds really interesting, but we’re returning to the point that at most a Warlock is getting magic via the equivalent of writing one of those “research papers” where you’re basically told to just find pre-existing research on the topic and rephrase that information while citing the source, whereas a Wizard get the core of their power from a doctoral dissertation (the spells they learn on level up). A Warlock in this context is still largely just reading instructions and going through steps someone else worked out. Doesn’t mean they’re a moron, but it still doesn’t really seem like a significantly intellectual exercise in the same way the Wizards spending all that paper and ink on is.
To be clear, when I talk about things like independent study, I’m not just picturing reading through books and copying down useful information. I’m talking about active research, application of the scientific method. Doing rituals is a cool way to frame how the Warlock levels up and also seems like a good framework for a feature that’s interchangeable on a long rest, similarly to the Weapon Masteries. But it’s not the same kind or degree of scholarship that’s associated with Wizards, imo.
Daring is definitely CHA-associated, it's why Swashbucklers have CHA as their secondary stat, and why Paladins are CHA-casters. Neither are necessarily sweet talkers, but they have that confidence and ego of high-CHA. Stealing power from an eldritch being is certainly a "daring" thing to do. A lawful high-CHA character could be the officer in an army that leads from the front, or the Paladin who follows their code and does the right thing regardless of risks, or a spy who puts their loyalty to the nation above all else, or the 'good' kind of political leaders who try to build fair and equitable institutions.
I'd say Paladins are CHA-based more as a historical artifact, and the whole Prince Charming, Knight in Shining Armor archetype they fit into. And Swashbucklers are CHA-secondary because they taunt and feint and distract, all personal interactions. Not because they're particularly daring.
It also says your power can come FROM said tomes, or from the entities that you make contact with through them.
.....
No, I'm describing a Warlock; I'm literally quoting the PHB Warlock entry. And just because your path to power can start at books for both, doesn't mean you acquire it "the way that Wizards do."
Could you point out where? I'm not seeing it myself. I always see the entity being primary. Unless the tome itself is an entity, such as a trapped demon, I suppose. But not the tome itself.
However, the entire point of the Warlock is that you aren’t using power you’ve methodically conducted independent studies to acquire,
i don't think that first sentence is entirely true. .... warlocks see the 'failed' experiments of wizards as mislabeled byproducts. what else are these taboo books that sages are apparently stumbling upon? "when i did this, an aboleth peeked through my crystal ball. said it had been trying to contact me about my carriage's extended warranty. i don't even own a horse. whoops. here's how to avoid that, future reader..." ...and the warlock thinks, jackpot!
this is why i feel like warlocks should do more rituals, more than wizards even. for the warlock, however, they might see a ritual as a way to cast the spell without memorizing, without precautions, and without years of training. this may or may not be how someone reaches a fey patron or a hexblade, but it's certainly a plausible reason for stumbling upon a great old one.
Ish? Like, the iconic warlock definitely goes dungeon exploring and finds ways to contact various kinds of fiends and abominations and fey beings and elementals and... you get the idea. I do support more summoning type magic for the warlock, on par with the druid at minimum.
Not sure that really should translate directly to rituals automatically myself. Anything for contacting extraplanar beings is the warlock's wheelhouse, while there's plenty of rituals that have nothing to do with that.
I mean, Tome is great for ritualists, but that feels more like the consequences of other beings granting / teaching you that magic rather than a particular affinity for it on your own.
How do you expect anyone to engage if you keep calling everyone dumb idiots or worse for having different views to yours? You keep accusing people of being hateful towards you, yet like 90% of your sentences contain at least one insult directed towards pretty much literally everyone. 😝
I for one don't like that Pact of the Blade just suddenly got a third attack out of nowhere in UA7; does pact of the blade need to stay competitive into later tiers of play? Absolutely! But who was actually asking for three attacks? What blade locks lack compared to similar "martial casters" like Blade Singer and Eldritch Knight is the ability to mix casting and attacks into one, so why didn't they give us the ability to swap an attack for a cantrip like they can? Though it would help if we knew what was planned regarding SCAGtrips like green flame blade, are these going to go away? Without them eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast is still going to overshadow blade regardless.
They've said multiple times that XGtE and TCoE are being grandfathered in to 5.5e, so those cantrips are staying. Moreover, True Strike looks like they're trying to make that into a core SCAGtrip too.,
If Warlock got "replace-attack-iteration-with-cantrip" that should be a subclass feature, specifically Hexblade.
And that's my big problem with just getting more attacks as that's basically all eldritch blast does except it doesn't require a specific pact boon; you can argue it needs Agonizing Blast which is fair, but that's a more than reasonable trade off for the safety of blasting from range rather than risking your hide up close. I'm on the fence about whether blade should require an invocation to keep up with Agonizing Blast, but I do want it to have invocations so I can tailor it; I especially want Relentless Hex as it should be the perfect partner for a blade lock, but it was poorly implemented in 5e.
I definitely agree that 3 attacks built in to Warlock is too cheap, and said as much in my survey.
EB range is offset by pact weapons benefiting from feats ,features like WM, and of course, properties on the weapon itself if you find a magic one (which can be literally anything currently.)
How do you expect anyone to engage if you keep calling everyone dumb idiots or worse for having different views to yours? You keep accusing people of being hateful towards you, yet like 90% of your sentences contain at least one insult directed towards pretty much literally everyone. 😝
Heh. Key difference - I called the stance dumb. Not the stance-taker.
I for one don't like that Pact of the Blade just suddenly got a third attack out of nowhere in UA7; does pact of the blade need to stay competitive into later tiers of play? Absolutely! But who was actually asking for three attacks? What blade locks lack compared to similar "martial casters" like Blade Singer and Eldritch Knight is the ability to mix casting and attacks into one, so why didn't they give us the ability to swap an attack for a cantrip like they can? Though it would help if we knew what was planned regarding SCAGtrips like green flame blade, are these going to go away? Without them eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast is still going to overshadow blade regardless.
A cantrip mixed attack could be an interesting Invocation, but in this specific case I can also see the Pact of the Blade focusing on making their blade the key thing. Spellswords like the Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger are about taking a fundamentally mundane thing (their sword) and using it in tandem with magic. The Pact of the Blade is about gaining the ability to summon an eldritch blade from the shadows of Elsewhere; the weapon itself is fundamentally magical and the Pact of the Blade feels better to me when Invocations focus on that aspect, enhancing this magical tool/artifact you've gained from your contacts.
And that's my big problem with just getting more attacks as that's basically all eldritch blast does except it doesn't require a specific pact boon; you can argue it needs Agonizing Blast which is fair, but that's a more than reasonable trade off for the safety of blasting from range rather than risking your hide up close. I'm on the fence about whether blade should require an invocation to keep up with Agonizing Blast, but I do want it to have invocations so I can tailor it; I especially want Relentless Hex as it should be the perfect partner for a blade lock, but it was poorly implemented in 5e.
Pact of the Blade is already an Invocation, and if it only ever gets two attacks then no, it shouldn't require a second whole-ass invocation tax just to barely keep pace with Agonizing Doink. Again - the warlock pays for its Pact of the Blade power by having no any-features-at-all to support its melee combat outside Blade Pact Invocations. Their defense is where they pay the price, not their offense. If Pact of the Blade simply cannot keep up with a mundane fighter using a mundane sword, even when going all in on the Invocations? i.e. the situation we have right-the-****-now? Then Pact of the Blade is a trap that should be avoided at all costs.
It doesn't have to be. It can do plenty of damage. Itr doesn't need to be super weak compared to a regular schmoe with plain steel in order for fighters to retain their niche.
Pact of the Blade is already an Invocation, and if it only ever gets two attacks then no, it shouldn't require a second whole-ass invocation tax just to barely keep pace with Agonizing Doink.
The key problem is that there are no magic items that boost the damage of eldritch blast, and pretty much every magic weapon in the book boosts weapon damage. A level 11 blastlock using eldritch blast and hex does 3d10+3d6+15 (42) damage per round, a bladelock (lifedrinker, thirsting blade) using a greatsword and hex does 12d6+15 (57) + 3E -- which is okay until he's using a flame tongue and is doing 18d6+15 (78). Plus of course his 3 uses per short rest of eldritch smite for 6d8 damage.
There's a reason getting more than two attacks is unique to the fighter.
Pact of the Blade is already an Invocation, and if it only ever gets two attacks then no, it shouldn't require a second whole-ass invocation tax just to barely keep pace with Agonizing Doink.
The key problem is that there are no magic items that boost the damage of eldritch blast, and pretty much every magic weapon in the book boosts weapon damage. A level 11 blastlock using eldritch blast and hex does 3d10+3d6+15 (42) damage per round, a bladelock (lifedrinker, thirsting blade) using a greatsword and hex does 12d6+15 (57) + 3E -- which is okay until he's using a flame tongue and is doing 18d6+15 (78). Plus of course his 3 uses per short rest of eldritch smite for 6d8 damage.
There's a reason getting more than two attacks is unique to the fighter.
That's completely irrelevant to the idea that Pact of the Blade somehow "needs" to be weaker than the basic, resourceless, featureless Attack Spam of martial classes. That a Blade warlock that goes all in on Pact of the Blade should somehow STILL be outputting less firepower than a fighter doing nothing whatsoever except rolling their basic attacks. That's horseshit, and the idea that it's "fair" because the warlock gets Eldritch Blast and extremely limited pseudo-spellcasting shows a deep misunderstanding of how game design works.
The Blade warlock needs to be 100% fully capable and competitive as a melee character or there's no goddamn reason to ever take it. End of argument.
It has everything to do with style of play for 95% of the tables. And with the stat system most people use, yeah you kind of have to dump int. Not as in forced to but in that it is really really mechanically bad not to. You can maybe swing a 12 but that wont fit the sage thing people are likely going for. And even if it were just one stat int just fits the class 1000000000X better.
Ordinary stat optimization for a warlock on point build is 16 charisma, 14 dexterity, 14 constitution, and then either 12/12/8 or 12/10/10 for the remaining ability scores. Yes, you won't be a sage like that... but that's because that's not what the warlock is. The whole point of the warlock is taking shortcuts to power, a sage who carefully studied what they were going to do isn't a warlock.
Except you are wrong. 90% of the description of the warlock is sage oriented. almost nothing of it is con man oriented.
I don't think there was ever true agreement, really. I know I just got tired of being accused of trying to run everyone else's tables and characters because I felt a class who is explicitly defined by a deal made by one means or another generally fits CHA more than INT, and that classes should have boundaries and fixed points rather than being "just do whatever".
And don't @ me over this, I have no interest in rehashing the same argument yet again. As I said, I'm tired of going over it.
Not all pacts are deals. That is the conflation you keep wrongly making. The PHB even gives multiple examples:
"Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it."
"Sometimes, while poring over tomes of forbidden lore, a brilliant student’s mind is opened to realities beyond the material world and to the alien beings that dwell in the outer void."
"The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
You don't have to be a wheeling and dealing salesman or negotiator to be a Warlock; that is such an unnecessary limitation on what the class can be.
Sure but you still have to be daring and brash (which is CHA), to seek out & read strange forbidden mysterious tomes and try to use the secrets within to draw power from an eldritch being who could squash you like a bug.
You not a careful, studious, methodological academic like an Artificer or Wizard.
No charisma is not daring and brash, daring and brash is a personality type which can come with any level of charisma. Charisma just determines how the brash like any other personality type comes off to others.
I don't think there was ever true agreement, really. I know I just got tired of being accused of trying to run everyone else's tables and characters because I felt a class who is explicitly defined by a deal made by one means or another generally fits CHA more than INT, and that classes should have boundaries and fixed points rather than being "just do whatever".
And don't @ me over this, I have no interest in rehashing the same argument yet again. As I said, I'm tired of going over it.
Not all pacts are deals. That is the conflation you keep wrongly making. The PHB even gives multiple examples:
"Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it."
"Sometimes, while poring over tomes of forbidden lore, a brilliant student’s mind is opened to realities beyond the material world and to the alien beings that dwell in the outer void."
"The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
You don't have to be a wheeling and dealing salesman or negotiator to be a Warlock; that is such an unnecessary limitation on what the class can be.
Sure but you still have to be daring and brash (which is CHA), to seek out & read strange forbidden mysterious tomes and try to use the secrets within to draw power from an eldritch being who could squash you like a bug.
You not a careful, studious, methodological academic like an Artificer or Wizard.
daring and brash is chaotic alignment. i'll admit that 'confidence' is right in the charisma description, but 'easily bored' or 'sloppy' is not. an example of lawful high-CHA would be the trope of the tall, prim, narrow-eyed secondary anime guy as a secretary of some sort with the clipboard and always pushing their small eyeglasses back up the bridge of their nose, beloved by many but fending off all offers that are not strictly business related. a more neutral high-CHA might be a merchant, often dealing but never pulling [social] levers just to see what happens.
also, plenty of artificers are played as lego-master tornadoes. i think it's a failed wisdom check (not even low wisdom, necessarily) that leads someone to talk to the disembodied voices past the caution tape, the nailed boards, the locks, and the pleading ghosts of weaker-willed mages in the library's restricted section.
However, the entire point of the Warlock is that you aren’t using power you’ve methodically conducted independent studies to acquire, as with a Wizard or Artificer. You have made contact with a being of power and- generally speaking because casting stats are general concepts- entered into a transactional relationship to ensure continued access to and development of the power. Which, despite certain strawman assertions to the contrary, does not compel anyone to play a village idiot. It’s just a matter of the fact that when taken as an archetype, the concepts for the class do not favor the interpretation that your proficiency with magic comes from rigorous study and research; they come from your relationship with another being and CHA is the stat most commonly associated with relationships. And not just the horny kind, so let’s please not invoke that strawman again either.
You aren't using your powers through the power of conning people either. It never describes how magic is powered for well any class.But virtually the entire class description revolves around intelligence, so i am going with it actually what does power your magic at least it would be far far far more likely to than charisma.
That's completely irrelevant to the idea that Pact of the Blade somehow "needs" to be weaker than the basic, resourceless, featureless Attack Spam of martial classes.
Actually, it does -- pact magic is quite a bit stronger than the spellcasting ability of any martial class (now, if it was still a half caster... maybe. But it isn't). It's worse than full caster so blade pact should be better than College of Valor, but that's not a high bar to cross.
A cantrip mixed attack could be an interesting Invocation, but in this specific case I can also see the Pact of the Blade focusing on making their blade the key thing.
Oh I wasn't thinking as an invocation, I meant as a feature of pact of the blade when it gets extra attack, and the idea is to get access to green-flame blade and similar so you're still using the blade if you want to. Since it's a pact boon rather than a sub-class feature (as Blade Singer etc. are) I guess it could be limited to melee or weapon cantrips? Probably doesn't need to be though, since you still have an attack to make so the incentive is to use something that combos with that.
Since cantrips scale separately you then don't need an extra attack for scaling, and blade invocations can focus on changing how it plays or adding new abilities rather than worrying too much about scaling.
Pact of the Blade is already an Invocation
Since I said it ages ago in this thread I really should have reiterated but I don't expect pact boons to remain as invocations; that was such a weird change as the pact boons are just so much better than any other invocation, it's basically begging every warlock to have all three boons as standard on every build. Even the weaker (compared to blade and tome) pact of the chain still adds a tonne of utility that's hard to pass up.
I'm expecting it'll go back to being a specific "boon" feature, but maybe there'll be a higher level invocation that lets you take a second boon if you want one.
With regards to defence I think part of the problem is that so many of Warlock's defensive options take a damn action to use, so to boost your defence using pact magic it's not just the slot that you lose but your entire first turn of combat, as you can't do a bonus action spell as well and there aren't a lot of other bonus actions to do. And that effects even warlock specific spells like shadow of moil (though it at least can do some damage so getting it active isn't nothing, I guess).
Not that pact of the blade needs to fix those defensive issues, but half the time you don't spend the slot even when you think you should, because you don't want to risk losing a whole turn only for the fight to end after only two or three rounds. I'm hoping we might get some tweaks to some of the defensive spells; some might need to be made a little weaker to become bonus actions, but if it means they can be used more easily (or at all) I think it'd be worth it, because you can't rely on getting a setup round to activate anything with a shorter duration.
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Pact of the Blade is already an Invocation, and if it only ever gets two attacks then no, it shouldn't require a second whole-ass invocation tax just to barely keep pace with Agonizing Doink.
The key problem is that there are no magic items that boost the damage of eldritch blast, and pretty much every magic weapon in the book boosts weapon damage. A level 11 blastlock using eldritch blast and hex does 3d10+3d6+15 (42) damage per round, a bladelock (lifedrinker, thirsting blade) using a greatsword and hex does 12d6+15 (57) + 3E -- which is okay until he's using a flame tongue and is doing 18d6+15 (78). Plus of course his 3 uses per short rest of eldritch smite for 6d8 damage.
There's a reason getting more than two attacks is unique to the fighter.
I don't think there was ever true agreement, really. I know I just got tired of being accused of trying to run everyone else's tables and characters because I felt a class who is explicitly defined by a deal made by one means or another generally fits CHA more than INT, and that classes should have boundaries and fixed points rather than being "just do whatever".
And don't @ me over this, I have no interest in rehashing the same argument yet again. As I said, I'm tired of going over it.
Not all pacts are deals. That is the conflation you keep wrongly making. The PHB even gives multiple examples:
"Sometimes a traveler in the wilds comes to a strangely beautiful tower, meets its fey lord or lady, and stumbles into a pact without being fully aware of it."
"Sometimes, while poring over tomes of forbidden lore, a brilliant student’s mind is opened to realities beyond the material world and to the alien beings that dwell in the outer void."
"The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
You don't have to be a wheeling and dealing salesman or negotiator to be a Warlock; that is such an unnecessary limitation on what the class can be.
Sure but you still have to be daring and brash (which is CHA), to seek out & read strange forbidden mysterious tomes and try to use the secrets within to draw power from an eldritch being who could squash you like a bug.
You not a careful, studious, methodological academic like an Artificer or Wizard.
daring and brash is chaotic alignment. i'll admit that 'confidence' is right in the charisma description, but 'easily bored' or 'sloppy' is not. an example of lawful high-CHA would be the trope of the tall, prim, narrow-eyed secondary anime guy as a secretary of some sort with the clipboard and always pushing their small eyeglasses back up the bridge of their nose, beloved by many but fending off all offers that are not strictly business related. a more neutral high-CHA might be a merchant, often dealing but never pulling [social] levers just to see what happens.
also, plenty of artificers are played as lego-master tornadoes. i think it's a failed wisdom check (not even low wisdom, necessarily) that leads someone to talk to the disembodied voices past the caution tape, the nailed boards, the locks, and the pleading ghosts of weaker-willed mages in the library's restricted section.
However, the entire point of the Warlock is that you aren’t using power you’ve methodically conducted independent studies to acquire, as with a Wizard or Artificer. You have made contact with a being of power and- generally speaking because casting stats are general concepts- entered into a transactional relationship to ensure continued access to and development of the power. Which, despite certain strawman assertions to the contrary, does not compel anyone to play a village idiot. It’s just a matter of the fact that when taken as an archetype, the concepts for the class do not favor the interpretation that your proficiency with magic comes from rigorous study and research; they come from your relationship with another being and CHA is the stat most commonly associated with relationships. And not just the horny kind, so let’s please not invoke that strawman again either.
You aren't using your powers through the power of conning people either. It never describes how magic is powered for well any class.But virtually the entire class description revolves around intelligence, so i am going with it actually what does power your magic at least it would be far far far more likely to than charisma.
And now we've gone from strawmanning CHA as horny to strawmanning it as a con man. Do Paladins con people? Or Sorcerers? If you're going to attack the casting stat, please try to come up with a better argument than "CHA only means this one single thing and nothing else and it doesn't fit my headcanon of what a Warlock is". And before you try and turn this around on me pigeonholing INT, let me be clear. INT covers areas such as recall, critical thinking, problem solving, and suchlike. It's multifaceted, but just reading stuff from a book is not a notable exercise in INT, anymore than plagiarizing someone else's work is.
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Daring is definitely CHA-associated, it's why Swashbucklers have CHA as their secondary stat, and why Paladins are CHA-casters. Neither are necessarily sweet talkers, but they have that confidence and ego of high-CHA. Stealing power from an eldritch being is certainly a "daring" thing to do. A lawful high-CHA character could be the officer in an army that leads from the front, or the Paladin who follows their code and does the right thing regardless of risks, or a spy who puts their loyalty to the nation above all else, or the 'good' kind of political leaders who try to build fair and equitable institutions.
What you are describing is a Wizard who is also an occultist, not a Warlock. One of the pillars of the Warlock concept is not acquiring their magic in the way that Wizards do. If you get your magic from studies and just happen to worship/work for some being on the side, knowingly or otherwise, then you’re closer to pulling a Percy than being a true Warlock.
I love how everybody's new favorite way to tell the whole board nothing I say matters at all is "hyperbole! Hyperbole!" As if my penchant for being colorful instead of boring in my descriptions somehow makes everything I say automatically wrong. I could just as easily say "your words are lukewarm and boring thus you're not worth paying attention to", and I'd be just as wrong as y'all always are with the constant accusations of High Per Bowl Yee
Also good job on proving my point. You are conclusively demonstrating an utter, utter disconnect between "Rules" and "Fluff". You didn't even recognize that I was working with the Invocation system as the only actual source of "esoteric tricks, powers, and abilities". Shadow sorcery? Divine sorcery? Every podunk two-cow farming village in D&D has half a dozen sorcerers in it. Bog-standard spellcasting is everywhere. And artificer? Really? The hell does the artificer chassis have to do with occultism and esoteric secrets? The artificer is specifically about inventiveness and mastery of 'secrets' the world already knows. It's an arcane engineer mastering the science of magic, not an occultist learning secrets and using powers no one can explain or understand.
Yes, if you're willing to attach any set of fluff to any rules framework with an absolute lack of regard for whether that fluff and that framework actually fit together, you can play a canny occultist as any class you want. You could play it as a fighter using Secret Sword Techniques it learned from the Outer Planes to....do the exact same thing every other fighter does. You could play it as a barbarian who learned the secrets of the universe, only to discover the secrets of the universe made them really angry. You could play them as a rogue who traded their hands to the Robot Devil in exchange for hands that were really good at rogue shit. That doesn't mean you're actually playing a canny, clever occultist - it just means you don't care what story you're actually telling so long as you're allowed to dress it up in whatever lame surface-level Halloween costume floats your boat.
Yes yes, the classic 2014 Pact Magic Enjoyer refrain of "we want ALL the spellpower of the wizard, and we want it ALL to come back on a short rest, and we want it to ALWAYS cast at maximum level, and we want armor/weapon proficiencies and a d8 hit die and Invocations and Pact boons too, and now we're somehow upset when that means super unfun limitations on slot count that basically mean we don't have spellcasting! We're unwilling to accept ANY reasonable limitation whatsoever on Pact Magic because then we couldn't abuse free zero-minute short rests to outperform every other spellcasting class in the game!"
Half-casting was, is, and always will be a fundamentally better framework than 2014 Pact Magic.
The amount of work they'd have to do to make Chain equivalent to Blade and Tome would cause the playerbase to erupt in infinite unstoppable nerdrage. After all, look at the sheer, mindless fury people are spewing everywhere when they just tried to make Blade equivalent to Tome.
And that's a dumb stance to take. Yes, a well built Blade warlock absolutely should be able to keep up damage-wise with the strongest martial classes. Because the Blade warlock has weaker armor, a weaker hit die, and zero defensive/melee-supportive class features outside taking Invocations or using its two whole spells per day to patch up its weaknesses for one single fight per spell. if the Blade warlock also deals drastically less damage, the way idiots keep demanding it does, then there is zero reason whatsoever to take it. And no, demanding that the warlock give up EVERY Invocation slot to make Blade Pact only just slightly weaker than a fighter is by just ****in' existing is not "balance".
Blade Pact by itself should be able to keep up reasonably well with the damage of a melee-focused character, with Invocations making them better at what they do. Not "you need to take Blade Pact and then eight other Invocations just to get to slightly below the offensive level of a basic fighter using absolutely no resources whatsoever while having less than half the defensive/survival potential and no ability to address that because your two whole spell slots a day are forcibly utilized to patch up your weak offense." No other Pact Boon is nonfunctional until you take half a dozen other Invocations, Blade Pact does NOT merit being crippled until well into Tier 3.
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No, I'm describing a Warlock; I'm literally quoting the PHB Warlock entry. And just because your path to power can start at books for both, doesn't mean you acquire it "the way that Wizards do."
(I thought you were done with this debate?)
i don't think that first sentence is entirely true. wizards are using spellbooks and methodical study because these are things that work reliably. wizards burn up a ton of paper and ink getting these things right. they do this partly because that's the way they were taught and partly because any other way is for warlocks, sorcerers, and bards. why arcane tricksters don't require a spellbook, i'll never know (and what a waste!). warlocks see the 'failed' experiments of wizards as mislabeled byproducts. what else are these taboo books that sages are apparently stumbling upon? "when i did this, an aboleth peeked through my crystal ball. said it had been trying to contact me about my carriage's extended warranty. i don't even own a horse. whoops. here's how to avoid that, future reader..." ...and the warlock thinks, jackpot!
this is why i feel like warlocks should do more rituals, more than wizards even. for a wizard, the ritual is like a long-form mathematical proof which their memorized spell references. many spells would be ridiculous as a ritual, requiring additional resources and a team of casters (see hag covens). like long division and laplace transforms, wizards learn the theory and then move on to application. for the warlock, however, they might see a ritual as a way to cast the spell without memorizing, without precautions, and without years of training. this may or may not be how someone reaches a fey patron or a hexblade, but it's certainly a plausible reason for stumbling upon a great old one.
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How do you expect anyone to engage if you keep calling everyone dumb idiots or worse for having different views to yours? You keep accusing people of being hateful towards you, yet like 90% of your sentences contain at least one insult directed towards pretty much literally everyone. 😝
I for one don't like that Pact of the Blade just suddenly got a third attack out of nowhere in UA7; does pact of the blade need to stay competitive into later tiers of play? Absolutely! But who was actually asking for three attacks? What blade locks lack compared to similar "martial casters" like Blade Singer and Eldritch Knight is the ability to mix casting and attacks into one, so why didn't they give us the ability to swap an attack for a cantrip like they can? Though it would help if we knew what was planned regarding SCAGtrips like green flame blade, are these going to go away? Without them eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast is still going to overshadow blade regardless.
And that's my big problem with just getting more attacks as that's basically all eldritch blast does except it doesn't require a specific pact boon; you can argue it needs Agonizing Blast which is fair, but that's a more than reasonable trade off for the safety of blasting from range rather than risking your hide up close. I'm on the fence about whether blade should require an invocation to keep up with Agonizing Blast, but I do want it to have invocations so I can tailor it; I especially want Relentless Hex as it should be the perfect partner for a blade lock, but it was poorly implemented in 5e.
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I mean, the concept sounds really interesting, but we’re returning to the point that at most a Warlock is getting magic via the equivalent of writing one of those “research papers” where you’re basically told to just find pre-existing research on the topic and rephrase that information while citing the source, whereas a Wizard get the core of their power from a doctoral dissertation (the spells they learn on level up). A Warlock in this context is still largely just reading instructions and going through steps someone else worked out. Doesn’t mean they’re a moron, but it still doesn’t really seem like a significantly intellectual exercise in the same way the Wizards spending all that paper and ink on is.
To be clear, when I talk about things like independent study, I’m not just picturing reading through books and copying down useful information. I’m talking about active research, application of the scientific method. Doing rituals is a cool way to frame how the Warlock levels up and also seems like a good framework for a feature that’s interchangeable on a long rest, similarly to the Weapon Masteries. But it’s not the same kind or degree of scholarship that’s associated with Wizards, imo.
I'd say Paladins are CHA-based more as a historical artifact, and the whole Prince Charming, Knight in Shining Armor archetype they fit into. And Swashbucklers are CHA-secondary because they taunt and feint and distract, all personal interactions. Not because they're particularly daring.
Could you point out where? I'm not seeing it myself. I always see the entity being primary. Unless the tome itself is an entity, such as a trapped demon, I suppose. But not the tome itself.
Ish? Like, the iconic warlock definitely goes dungeon exploring and finds ways to contact various kinds of fiends and abominations and fey beings and elementals and... you get the idea. I do support more summoning type magic for the warlock, on par with the druid at minimum.
Not sure that really should translate directly to rituals automatically myself. Anything for contacting extraplanar beings is the warlock's wheelhouse, while there's plenty of rituals that have nothing to do with that.
I mean, Tome is great for ritualists, but that feels more like the consequences of other beings granting / teaching you that magic rather than a particular affinity for it on your own.
I mean, clearly y'all do keep engaging, so...
They've said multiple times that XGtE and TCoE are being grandfathered in to 5.5e, so those cantrips are staying. Moreover, True Strike looks like they're trying to make that into a core SCAGtrip too.,
If Warlock got "replace-attack-iteration-with-cantrip" that should be a subclass feature, specifically Hexblade.
I definitely agree that 3 attacks built in to Warlock is too cheap, and said as much in my survey.
EB range is offset by pact weapons benefiting from feats ,features like WM, and of course, properties on the weapon itself if you find a magic one (which can be literally anything currently.)
Heh. Key difference - I called the stance dumb. Not the stance-taker.
A cantrip mixed attack could be an interesting Invocation, but in this specific case I can also see the Pact of the Blade focusing on making their blade the key thing. Spellswords like the Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger are about taking a fundamentally mundane thing (their sword) and using it in tandem with magic. The Pact of the Blade is about gaining the ability to summon an eldritch blade from the shadows of Elsewhere; the weapon itself is fundamentally magical and the Pact of the Blade feels better to me when Invocations focus on that aspect, enhancing this magical tool/artifact you've gained from your contacts.
Pact of the Blade is already an Invocation, and if it only ever gets two attacks then no, it shouldn't require a second whole-ass invocation tax just to barely keep pace with Agonizing Doink. Again - the warlock pays for its Pact of the Blade power by having no any-features-at-all to support its melee combat outside Blade Pact Invocations. Their defense is where they pay the price, not their offense. If Pact of the Blade simply cannot keep up with a mundane fighter using a mundane sword, even when going all in on the Invocations? i.e. the situation we have right-the-****-now? Then Pact of the Blade is a trap that should be avoided at all costs.
It doesn't have to be. It can do plenty of damage. Itr doesn't need to be super weak compared to a regular schmoe with plain steel in order for fighters to retain their niche.
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The key problem is that there are no magic items that boost the damage of eldritch blast, and pretty much every magic weapon in the book boosts weapon damage. A level 11 blastlock using eldritch blast and hex does 3d10+3d6+15 (42) damage per round, a bladelock (lifedrinker, thirsting blade) using a greatsword and hex does 12d6+15 (57) + 3E -- which is okay until he's using a flame tongue and is doing 18d6+15 (78). Plus of course his 3 uses per short rest of eldritch smite for 6d8 damage.
There's a reason getting more than two attacks is unique to the fighter.
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That's completely irrelevant to the idea that Pact of the Blade somehow "needs" to be weaker than the basic, resourceless, featureless Attack Spam of martial classes. That a Blade warlock that goes all in on Pact of the Blade should somehow STILL be outputting less firepower than a fighter doing nothing whatsoever except rolling their basic attacks. That's horseshit, and the idea that it's "fair" because the warlock gets Eldritch Blast and extremely limited pseudo-spellcasting shows a deep misunderstanding of how game design works.
The Blade warlock needs to be 100% fully capable and competitive as a melee character or there's no goddamn reason to ever take it. End of argument.
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Except you are wrong. 90% of the description of the warlock is sage oriented. almost nothing of it is con man oriented.
No charisma is not daring and brash, daring and brash is a personality type which can come with any level of charisma. Charisma just determines how the brash like any other personality type comes off to others.
You aren't using your powers through the power of conning people either. It never describes how magic is powered for well any class.But virtually the entire class description revolves around intelligence, so i am going with it actually what does power your magic at least it would be far far far more likely to than charisma.
Actually, it does -- pact magic is quite a bit stronger than the spellcasting ability of any martial class (now, if it was still a half caster... maybe. But it isn't). It's worse than full caster so blade pact should be better than College of Valor, but that's not a high bar to cross.
Oh I wasn't thinking as an invocation, I meant as a feature of pact of the blade when it gets extra attack, and the idea is to get access to green-flame blade and similar so you're still using the blade if you want to. Since it's a pact boon rather than a sub-class feature (as Blade Singer etc. are) I guess it could be limited to melee or weapon cantrips? Probably doesn't need to be though, since you still have an attack to make so the incentive is to use something that combos with that.
Since cantrips scale separately you then don't need an extra attack for scaling, and blade invocations can focus on changing how it plays or adding new abilities rather than worrying too much about scaling.
Since I said it ages ago in this thread I really should have reiterated but I don't expect pact boons to remain as invocations; that was such a weird change as the pact boons are just so much better than any other invocation, it's basically begging every warlock to have all three boons as standard on every build. Even the weaker (compared to blade and tome) pact of the chain still adds a tonne of utility that's hard to pass up.
I'm expecting it'll go back to being a specific "boon" feature, but maybe there'll be a higher level invocation that lets you take a second boon if you want one.
With regards to defence I think part of the problem is that so many of Warlock's defensive options take a damn action to use, so to boost your defence using pact magic it's not just the slot that you lose but your entire first turn of combat, as you can't do a bonus action spell as well and there aren't a lot of other bonus actions to do. And that effects even warlock specific spells like shadow of moil (though it at least can do some damage so getting it active isn't nothing, I guess).
Not that pact of the blade needs to fix those defensive issues, but half the time you don't spend the slot even when you think you should, because you don't want to risk losing a whole turn only for the fight to end after only two or three rounds. I'm hoping we might get some tweaks to some of the defensive spells; some might need to be made a little weaker to become bonus actions, but if it means they can be used more easily (or at all) I think it'd be worth it, because you can't rely on getting a setup round to activate anything with a shorter duration.
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Honestly not sure if that works on EB; it doesn't have an M component.
And now we've gone from strawmanning CHA as horny to strawmanning it as a con man. Do Paladins con people? Or Sorcerers? If you're going to attack the casting stat, please try to come up with a better argument than "CHA only means this one single thing and nothing else and it doesn't fit my headcanon of what a Warlock is". And before you try and turn this around on me pigeonholing INT, let me be clear. INT covers areas such as recall, critical thinking, problem solving, and suchlike. It's multifaceted, but just reading stuff from a book is not a notable exercise in INT, anymore than plagiarizing someone else's work is.