Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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If it’s an invocation it wouldn’t matter if they could take it at level 1 because it means they can’t take another invocation. If you take armor you don’t blade, tome, or chain. Also just medium armor and shield training isn’t enough to constitute the invocation tax unless it let you manifest them from nothing or use cha instead of dex to calculate your ac. It has to be more than just the training.
I disagree. Making it available at level 1 resurrects the 1 level warlock dip for better classes to pick up armor/shields for cheap. And it's absolutely worth an invocation, I would 100% spend my invocations on armor and shield were I a melee based warlock. hard choices are the best choices.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I think part of the problem is they don't scale invocations.
Like lets say there is a pact of armor. Level 1, you can summon light armor and a shield, you are considered proficient in it. If you find magical light armor or a shield you can bond with it, and summon it to you. With 5 levels in warlock you now can summon medium armor and are considered proficient with it, If you find magical medium armor or a shield you can bond with it, and summon it to you. with 9 warlock levels you can now summon heavy armor and are considered proficient in it. If you find magical heavy armor or a shield you can bond with it, and summon it to you. This allows people to start with it, but it reduces the benefit of level 1 dips.
Most invocations should scale, sadly none do.
Hmm I still disagree crzyhawk. People did that dip back in the day because they got hex warrior, pact slots, and Eldritch blast. If it was just for the armor they could go Paladin or fighter 1 level and get the same. The 1 level dips are mostly fixed by moving all subclasses to 3. Hex warrior was armor, shields and a better version of pact of the blade. That’s why the old Hexblade is often considered the objectively best warlock. Also I’m not really petitioning to make armor an invocation. I think you can have Hexblade that uses magic to defend itself, but I understand a lot of people miss what they had, so I try to think of middle grounds that could work.
Armor and shield proficiency doesn't make any sense as an Invocation.
First, it's a characteristic of the old class that they would be removing. Second, unless there is an absurd level requirement, it would be something other classes that were already considering a dip in Warlock could take depending on the level requirement.
It should be a subclass feature or an equivalent, sustained defense should be provided. This defense should not be restricted to melee or by the curse. If the expectation is to rely on Armor of Shadows, you could give the Hexblade the Invocation for free (and of course, pick a new Invocation if they already have it) and possibly improve immediately and/or over later levels.
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My houserulings.
Don’t make open statements about things not making sense in a game about playing pretend and telling stories with your friends. Everything can make sense depending on the context.
First look at every cleric subclass that gave heavy armor in 5e that has been updated to 5.5e. So within this context it makes sense. The rules can be adjusted, that was the entire point of updating to 5.5e.
This suggestion is just one way of pulling it forward without making the Hexblade superior to all other warlock subclasses. If improved defenses are part of Hexblade subclass it should only be for melee combat or it should have a cost of some kind. If they aren’t going to change the Hexblade to balance it against the other warlock subclasses they don’t need to update it at all. It can remain a 5e choice. No point in wasting the ink and paper to make a 5.5 version that would immediately be the objectively be the best 5.5e warlock.
I feel the issue with making the medium armor invocation a level 1 invocation is it completely invalidates the already pretty much invalidated invocation that allows you to cast mage armor on yourself at will. In addition level 1 does seem to want to push you into one of the pact invocations with only at will mage armor and advantage of concentration checks being the only other level 1 invocations.
I mean that it doesn't make design sense. It doesn't solve the problem for the subclass. It creates problems for the class, subclass, and can incentivize dipping into the class to cherry pick features.
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My houserulings.
"If medium armor and shield is too powerful for all warlocks then it it definitely too powerful for just one warlock." - This is a not sound logic to me. Other subclasses grant some measure of defenses with Archfey being the illusive teleporter with Temp HP. Fiend grants Temp HP on kills, boosts to Ability Checks and Saving Throws and one interchangeable Damage Resistance. Celestial grants a budget Lay on Hands, Radiant Damage Resistance, and access to healing magics. GOO have the least reliant defenses in their mind-disturbance causing the target DisADV on ATK rolls against you and you ADV on ATK rolls against them.
Why is it then too powerful to grant the Hexblade Armor training as their primary defense benefit?
It could very well be too powerful to grant the Fiend subclass easy access to Medium Armor ON TOP of their other defensive features for the purpose of making a Warlock caster, that naturally have range as their initial and primary defense barrier.
On the subject of Pact of the Armor: This is a serious danger to make a lot of other invocation options obsolete. Would I have wished they made those options (like Armor of Shadows) better than what they are? Definitely. But they are what they are now. Making a singular Invocation to grant Medium Armor and Shield training would be an auto-include for any caster because they give up basically nothing for it: They don't need a weapon so they already have hands free to grip a Shield. A Bladelock would require War Caster or giving up spells with Somatics components that don't include a Material component where their Pact Weapon can satisfy both - or a lenient DM that allows draw-/stowing more freely than the rules enable when making an attack. This invocation would help caster Warlocks more than Bladelocks, and honestly that's not where the help is needed.
Back to Invocation tax: At level 5 you have access to 5 Invocations, and for a Bladelock you're already locking in Pact of the Blade and Thirsting Blade - this build doesn't really make sense without those. Many will also find it very alluring to pick up Fiendish Vigor to pad their lacking HP and limited other defenses. That leaves two Invocations. With Pact of the Armor, that leaves 1 invocation. The major class feature that sets Warlock apart is the modular building blocks of the Invocation system and you leave Bladelocks with 1 real choice at level 5 and almost guarantee a need for War Caster at level 4. PYF of Agonizing Blast, Devil's Sight, Eldritch Mind, or Eldritch Smite if you want to keep improving the Bladelock build or go for some other utility.
If you make the Hexblade's features operate in a manner that benefits Bladelocks significantly more than caster Warlocks, you can bridge some of the disparity caused by caster Warlocks being at ranged and only really requiring 1 invocation to secure competitive damage contribution, and Bladelocks requiring the ability to survive in melee range, requiring additional need to maintain Concentration (Concentration spells being the most efficient use of their limited spell slots), and needing to use at least 3x invocations to be competitive in their damage and likely spending 5-6 in total to also cover survivability.
Bladelocks do give something up compared to a Caster Warlock. They give up the relative safety of ranged attacks by being melee exclusive, they give up 3x Invocations to acquire similar damage to Eldritch Blast paired with just Agonizing Blast and the opportunity costs of the control options available to Eldritch Blast. The relative safety of range also means less risk of losing Concentration, so your limited spell slots can get a lot more mileage without being disrupted, so you have less need/desire to secure against losing Concentration. If the Hexblade subclass were to give additional AC by Armor training, then the Bladelock also "give up" the opportunity cost of other subclasses and their features.
There's a reason that ranged weaponry only go up to a d10 on a weapon with Loading property or a d8 without it, requiring two-hands and is a martial weapon class. And the same reason that melee weapons generally have higher weapon damage dice: Higher risk; higher reward. This is currently not true with Bladelock compared to an Eldritch Blaster.
As for entitled players that want things for free, I find caster Warlocks take a lot for granted that Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast functions as well as they do together to secure caster Warlocks with a competent damage output of a stellar damage type without resource costs for their entire career, and how well it functions with the Hex spell to add more to it if desired, and then come around and say Bladelocks don't give anything up.
'
Let me hit you with this Homebrew:
Eldritch Blast doesn't get cantrip upgrades but can add your Spellcasting Ability Modifier to the damage roll straight off the bat. You need Agonizing Blast at lvls 5, 11, and 17 to get more beams.
If WotC had made the Warlock like this, I guarantee that Warlocks would be complaining about an Invocation tax.
A terrible invocation existing does not mean imo they shouldn't make another invocation that does something similar but better. Ideally they would fix bad invocations, but they seem to be opposed to making errata past typo corrections. I guess they like the 3e philosophy of trap options. So create a new invocation that offers defense but does not suck. Thematically I'd go with summon armor onto your body that is worn and you are proficient in as its like pack of the blade then.
An invocation to add +1 to +3 to a non-magic weapons for Pact of the Blade. bonded weapon is something I would be interested in.
Yes. I think the cool of the ability is the creation of weapons, the chr use just makes it functional. But once magic weapons are introduced you kind of lock in on that weapon. personally instead of +1 etc id prefer a rarity based system but that may be a bit too far.
So many people to address.
Aquilontune. Mage Armor has one great benefit over medium armor and shields. It comes up so rarely it almost doesn’t matter. You can sleep in mage armor. Anyway making a Pact of the Armor invocation at least gives the option to all warlocks. As a Pact it also offers growth through other invocations that could make it worth the tax. If it’s just a 2nd or 3rd level invocation that just gives you training I don’t think it’s worth the tax.
SmiteMakesRight. A pact of armor does fix the problem for the subclass by giving them the option to add defenses. It also doesn’t incentivize dipping anymore than warlock is already dippable. Fighter and paladin are better 1 level dips for defensive improvements.
Iteration. The logic is very sound you just have your fingers in your ears and don’t want to listen. The last UA Hexblade had defensive abilities as well. They weren’t that great, but it had them. Why should only the Hexblade that gets improved damage also get armor and shield training at 3rd level? Also Armor and shields have the potential to be magical out pacing all the other defensive features other warlocks have. Bladelocks don’t give up anything. They take a risk of going into melee but they can still blast from a distance. Honestly they could blast from a distance then when something is within melee range thinking it’s safe from the blasting they stab it. If you give only hexblade’s the training their AC is better while blasting too.
That was in one of the 5e books, but it was only a +1 it was called improved pact weapon. It added that bonus to any pact weapon that didn’t have a bonus. So you could have a +1 flame tongue as a pact weapon.
I do tend to agree that if it is a "pact of the armor" ability then it probably would be something you would start with at level 1. There are also reasons to want to be able to change armor quickly and on the fly with things like strength requirements and stealth disadvantages or not + additional invocations on top of it could make for a cool new pact. My only thing against it being level 1 was if it wasn't a "pact" invocation at which point I felt it should be level 2 as most invocations that aren't pact invocations with the rare exception being 2 options that don't really do a lot to add to the warlock at level 1.
At the end of the day, I think baseline Blade is already giving enough to justify the Invocation tax- you get to attack with your casting stat, extra attacks that scale up to 3 rolls per action, a rider for bonus damage on one attack per round with a healing option, pretty reliable bypassing of any damage resistances/immunities, and a Smite option. Throwing in Fighter equivalent passive staying power seems like a bit too much at once, imo. Especially since you can still take EB and have a nearly equally effective- as in, without AB- ranged option without impacting your Blade kit at all.
Pact of Armor fixes a problem but doesn't fit the subclass because:
Right now, the subclass is coded for you to be in melee combat, preferably while with the target of your curse. Ignoring the curse itself, there are 10 abilities from the subclass (some are under the heading of a larger ability, like Hungering Hex and Accursed Shield are under Hexblade's Curse, but I am counting them individually). Of those, 7 only function with a target cursed by Hexblade's Curse, which until level 14 will realistically only be active for a few minutes per day, but more likely less than 1 minute*. Think about that, you have a subclass that is about doing its thing for a minute or two a day and then it is a generic Warlock. Two only function within 10 feet of an enemy, one additional is about moving closer to the hexed target's location, and another one relies on making a weapon attack.
*You can extend the theoretical duration beyond 1 minute per Charisma modifier uses by using certain spells, but without the ability to move the Hexblade's Curse, you are constrained by how long a cursed target survives combat.
A subclass member can be built around ranged attacks and so frontline survivability becomes less important, but you lose out on a decent chunk of the class doing so. If they are in melee, they will be likely need:
That's level 5 before there is any real distinction between Hexblades. If you add a "Pact of Armor" Invocation, it just replaces Armor of Shadows and solves nothing. What it does do is strengthen the non-Hexblade options, devaluing Hexblade itself. It's a problem we already saw with the Pact of the Blade changes.
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My houserulings.
Glad you agree it fixes the problem.
Being available to all warlocks is not a problem, unless you are saying your warlock needs to be more powerful than other warlocks.
Competing for invocation space means it’s a choice you have to make. That’s fine. This whole game is about making choices.
Armor of Shadows would be for people who need defense improvement while sleeping, know they are in a low item game, don’t want something that could be physically taken from them, or who don’t want to wear physical armor. Also armor of shadows has always been a meh pick even in 5e. You could always wear studded leather for a +2, so the invocation has really only offered a +1 to AC. If you find magic studded armor you swap out the invocation unless you care about one of the previous reasons I mentioned to take armor of shadows.
I'm not sure why a invocation outpacing a trap option is a bad thing. Armor of shadows is terrible, it has always been terrible outside the 2014 abjurer glitch, unless they errata it it will remain terrible. Pact armor would effectively be a patch for a terrible invocation since they never actually just fix bad things.