Prerequisite: Level 9+ Warlock, Pact of the Blade Invocation
Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can deal an extra 1d6 Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage (your choice) to the creature, and you can expend one of your Hit Point Dice to roll it and regain a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 Hit Point).
Why does it 'drink' the warlocks life? Why not the target's? Like:
Once per turn when you hit a non undead, non-construct creature with your pact weapon, roll one of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice,. The creature takes an amount of Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage (your choice) equal to the number rolled, and you regain a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 Hit Point), and the Hit Point Die is expended for the creature. At Warlock level 15 you can roll two of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice, using their combined total.
Why limit it and what is wrong with drinking the the life?
As written, you are not limited to non undead, non-construct creatures.
Uhm, you did not read in in full, did you? Why drinking my own life, resp. spending my own hit dice, when the invocation should enable me to spend the target's hit dice instead? I want to "drink the other's life, not my own"...and that's how it should be.
Prerequisite: Level 9+ Warlock, Pact of the Blade Invocation
Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can deal an extra 1d6 Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage (your choice) to the creature, and you can expend one of your Hit Point Dice to roll it and regain a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 Hit Point).
Why does it 'drink' the warlocks life? Why not the target's? Like:
Once per turn when you hit a non undead, non-construct creature with your pact weapon, roll one of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice,. The creature takes an amount of Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage (your choice) equal to the number rolled, and you regain a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 Hit Point), and the Hit Point Die is expended for the creature. At Warlock level 15 you can roll two of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice, using their combined total.
Think that would be more fitting, and flavourful.
Enemy Hit Dice are effectively not a resource. The foe is probably not going to last long enough for the Warlock to make the enemy run dry on Hit Dice, and most Foes will not survive beyond the combat to spend their own Hit Dice to heal themselves.
So this is essentially "Every turn when you hit a Creature with your Pact Weapon, do an extra 1d8 (2d8 at 15th Level), and regenerate that same number of HP, plus your CON Modifier"
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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.🎵
I do think it needs buffed, but not changed in the way you are implying.
if it is, I don’t really think you can go off hit dice when facing other monsters; it would have to be based of something else.
But yeah, I too do have a bit of a problem with using my own hit dice. I main a Verdan Fighter/Celestial Warlock with max Constitution and the Epic Boon to resurrect an extra time with half health. (The more health I have the more I can gain back.) more to the point, the Verdan Black Blood ability lets me reroll 1’s and 2’s on my hit dice for a short rest (which as a warlock i try to take more of), so it benefits me more to use the hit dice as intended rather than “burning” it on Life Drinker. If it just healed all or some of the damage or what my hit dice is as a warlock (8 I believe), that would make it much more appealing, albeit slightly more powerful and require possible play-testing/balancing.
But to answer your question, yes… just bot in the way you are implying necessarily.
Enemy Hit Dice are effectively not a resource. ...
Not yet, but:
UA Apocalyptic Subclasses, Defiled Sorcerer, Defile and Empower:
"Life Steal. Instead of drawing on your own life force when you use this feature, you can try to steal life from another creature you can see within 30 feet of yourself. That creature makes a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC; creatures that have Immunity to the Exhaustion condition automatically succeed on the save. On a failed save, in place of rolling your Hit Point Dice, roll a number of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice, up to a number equal to half the level of slot expended (round down, minimum of one die); you then add that total rolled to one damage roll of the spell, and those Hit Point Dice are expended for the creature. Once a creature fails its save against Life Steal, you can’t use Life Steal again until you finish a Long Rest unless you expend 3 Sorcery Points (no action required) to restore your use of it."
So, there were already ideas to make enemy hit dice a resource.
Interesting… I did not know that. Still, they didn’t make the complete change before Lifedrinker was printed in the 24 rules, so I’m not sure it will matter
Enemy Hit Dice are effectively not a resource. ...
Not yet, but:
UA Apocalyptic Subclasses, Defiled Sorcerer, Defile and Empower:
"Life Steal. Instead of drawing on your own life force when you use this feature, you can try to steal life from another creature you can see within 30 feet of yourself. That creature makes a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC; creatures that have Immunity to the Exhaustion condition automatically succeed on the save. On a failed save, in place of rolling your Hit Point Dice, roll a number of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice, up to a number equal to half the level of slot expended (round down, minimum of one die); you then add that total rolled to one damage roll of the spell, and those Hit Point Dice are expended for the creature. Once a creature fails its save against Life Steal, you can’t use Life Steal again until you finish a Long Rest unless you expend 3 Sorcery Points (no action required) to restore your use of it."
So, there were already ideas to make enemy hit dice a resource.
Perhaps I haven't made clear what I mean by a Resource, namely, something finite that meaningfully limits the use of a feature..
What limits the use of the Life Steal feature on Foes in practice is primarily the Defiler's Spell Slots, Sorcery Points, and Long Rests. That you can use it to drain creatures other than the one you are attacking, and that you can refresh the ability in combat make the expenditure of others Hit Dice at least somewhat meaningful.
For almost all combats, making your version of LifeDrinker consume the Foe's Hit Dice is in practice a cosmetic feature. On Foes, it just gives the DM another thing to track in combat that probably isn't worth the effort of tracking, because the Foe Creature is probably going to die or flee first, but the DM has to track it now because the player might actually run the creature dry. on hit dice with bad damage rolls.
From my point of view: If the DM decides to track Expended Foe Hit Dice, outside of PVP situations, it's mostly meaningless hassle. If the DM decides not to track it because it's just extra meaningless hassle because running dry almost never happens, there isn't much of a point of limiting the feature by that in the first place.
If you want it limited, limit it based on an Ability Modifier, or Proficiency Bonus, or a number of uses per Short or Long Rest, Something that can be offloaded to the Player to track.
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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.🎵
Limiting the feature seems to be, well, a feature of the design, but since you are expending an invocation slot for it it should be better than spending the hit die on a short rest. Maybe adding the Warlock's CHA modifer in addition or something. As it stands, it is basically gives the HP benefit of s short rest without taking one.
I agree that it does not give the vibe of drinking someone's life. It is also just a weak invocation, it wouldn't be bad for a level 2 invocation but level 9, oof. I don't know why they didn't just have it heal the damage rolled on the d6. It would still be weak but it would feel more like life drinking. Healing 3-4 every round is not going to unbalance the game. Thankfully it didn't manifest as temp hit points at least.
I'm kinda ambivalent about the 2024 Lifedrinker using your Hit Dice. On one hand it sucks to spend a resource that in 2014 was not very used because people didn't Short Rest, but with the load of changes to 2024 where Short Resting is a lot more plausible, it is not as good to spend your Resting healing. On the other hand is the 2014 mindset that says it is nice to actually spend your Hit Dice, but the first point is overshadowing it more and more.
What if Lifedrinker actually was able to drink the enemy's lifeforce and utilize your own to become more durable?
"Once on your turn when you hit an enemy with your pact weapon, you can deal an extra 1d6 Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage. If you roll a 5 or 6 on this die, you regain one spent Hit Die. You may then expend a Hit Die, roll it and restore a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier. If you would regain a spent Hit Die from this feature but have no spent Hit Dice, you may instead roll a Hit Die without expending it and restore a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier."
This technically means the limited resource can renew itself but only on a 33% chance. This is more a durability-type buff.
Another potential could be to have the Hit Die count toward the damage:
"Once on your turn when you hit an enemy with your pact weapon, you may expend a Hit Die and roll it. Your hit deals extra Necrotic, Psychic or Radiant damage (your choice) equal to the roll plus half your Warlock level (rounded down). You restore Hit Points equal to the amount of extra damage."
Now that's a pretty banger damage boost plus healing. Typically 1d8 + 4-10 for between 8.5 - 14.5 bonus damage/healing. This also brings Lifedrinker up from being a fairly poor invocation to be a fairly strong one - which is more fitting when it requires a specific Pact. And it brings it closer to the power of the 2014 Lifedrinker that just dealt bonus Necrotic damage equal to your CHA mod on EVERY hit. For comparison the Investment of the Chain Master (lvl 5 req.) grants you the ability to use a Bonus Action to make your Familiar take the Attack action. One familiar could be the Pseudodragon which have 2x attacks for 1d4 + 2 damage or the equivalent of 9 damage - although with the drawback of a +4 to attack roll, meaning increasingly difficult to hit as you go up in CR. There's no limit other than the familiar needs to be alive and in a position to attack (which a 40 ft. fly speed makes quite doable). As such I don't think the changed Lifedrinker would be going overboard as it doesn't grant the utility of the Pact of the Chain-path.
Confession; at first I wanted to add your CHA mod to the equation as well, but that would result in basically +1x Extra Attack and while it is limited to your Hit Dice, that's a growing resource and you have quite a few at lvl 9. The reason I wanted to use Warlock level is to grant more reasons to stay on the Warlock track for a melee build - whilst currently there are a lot of reasons to only go lvl 12 Warlock and then another fullcaster class to gain more spell slots for utility/defenses. You already have plenty of reasons to main the CHA stat so there's no need to pair every benefit to it.
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Current Lifedrinker:
Why limit it and what is wrong with drinking the the life?
As written, you are not limited to non undead, non-construct creatures.
Uhm, you did not read in in full, did you? Why drinking my own life, resp. spending my own hit dice, when the invocation should enable me to spend the target's hit dice instead? I want to "drink the other's life, not my own"...and that's how it should be.
What do you mean drinking your own life? You drink the creatures life. Because if you do not hit you do not get to roll a dice.
I believe the point is that you need to spend your own hit die. So it’s your own life you use, not the enemy’s.
Quote from Sunnyssundries >>
Enemy Hit Dice are effectively not a resource. The foe is probably not going to last long enough for the Warlock to make the enemy run dry on Hit Dice, and most Foes will not survive beyond the combat to spend their own Hit Dice to heal themselves.
So this is essentially "Every turn when you hit a Creature with your Pact Weapon, do an extra 1d8 (2d8 at 15th Level), and regenerate that same number of HP, plus your CON Modifier"
🎵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
I do think it needs buffed, but not changed in the way you are implying.
if it is, I don’t really think you can go off hit dice when facing other monsters; it would have to be based of something else.
But yeah, I too do have a bit of a problem with using my own hit dice. I main a Verdan Fighter/Celestial Warlock with max Constitution and the Epic Boon to resurrect an extra time with half health. (The more health I have the more I can gain back.) more to the point, the Verdan Black Blood ability lets me reroll 1’s and 2’s on my hit dice for a short rest (which as a warlock i try to take more of), so it benefits me more to use the hit dice as intended rather than “burning” it on Life Drinker. If it just healed all or some of the damage or what my hit dice is as a warlock (8 I believe), that would make it much more appealing, albeit slightly more powerful and require possible play-testing/balancing.
But to answer your question, yes… just bot in the way you are implying necessarily.
Not yet, but:
UA Apocalyptic Subclasses, Defiled Sorcerer, Defile and Empower:
"Life Steal. Instead of drawing on your own life force when you use this feature, you can try to steal life from another creature you can see within 30 feet
of yourself. That creature makes a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC; creatures that have Immunity to the Exhaustion condition
automatically succeed on the save. On a failed save, in place of rolling your Hit Point Dice, roll a number of the creature’s unexpended Hit Point Dice, up to a
number equal to half the level of slot expended (round down, minimum of one die); you then add that total rolled to one damage roll of the spell, and
those Hit Point Dice are expended for the creature. Once a creature fails its save against Life Steal, you can’t use Life Steal again until you finish a Long Rest
unless you expend 3 Sorcery Points (no action required) to restore your use of it."
So, there were already ideas to make enemy hit dice a resource.
Interesting… I did not know that. Still, they didn’t make the complete change before Lifedrinker was printed in the 24 rules, so I’m not sure it will matter
Perhaps I haven't made clear what I mean by a Resource, namely, something finite that meaningfully limits the use of a feature..
What limits the use of the Life Steal feature on Foes in practice is primarily the Defiler's Spell Slots, Sorcery Points, and Long Rests. That you can use it to drain creatures other than the one you are attacking, and that you can refresh the ability in combat make the expenditure of others Hit Dice at least somewhat meaningful.
For almost all combats, making your version of LifeDrinker consume the Foe's Hit Dice is in practice a cosmetic feature. On Foes, it just gives the DM another thing to track in combat that probably isn't worth the effort of tracking, because the Foe Creature is probably going to die or flee first, but the DM has to track it now because the player might actually run the creature dry. on hit dice with bad damage rolls.
From my point of view: If the DM decides to track Expended Foe Hit Dice, outside of PVP situations, it's mostly meaningless hassle. If the DM decides not to track it because it's just extra meaningless hassle because running dry almost never happens, there isn't much of a point of limiting the feature by that in the first place.
If you want it limited, limit it based on an Ability Modifier, or Proficiency Bonus, or a number of uses per Short or Long Rest, Something that can be offloaded to the Player to track.
🎵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
Limiting the feature seems to be, well, a feature of the design, but since you are expending an invocation slot for it it should be better than spending the hit die on a short rest. Maybe adding the Warlock's CHA modifer in addition or something. As it stands, it is basically gives the HP benefit of s short rest without taking one.
I agree that it does not give the vibe of drinking someone's life. It is also just a weak invocation, it wouldn't be bad for a level 2 invocation but level 9, oof. I don't know why they didn't just have it heal the damage rolled on the d6. It would still be weak but it would feel more like life drinking. Healing 3-4 every round is not going to unbalance the game. Thankfully it didn't manifest as temp hit points at least.
I'm kinda ambivalent about the 2024 Lifedrinker using your Hit Dice. On one hand it sucks to spend a resource that in 2014 was not very used because people didn't Short Rest, but with the load of changes to 2024 where Short Resting is a lot more plausible, it is not as good to spend your Resting healing. On the other hand is the 2014 mindset that says it is nice to actually spend your Hit Dice, but the first point is overshadowing it more and more.
What if Lifedrinker actually was able to drink the enemy's lifeforce and utilize your own to become more durable?
"Once on your turn when you hit an enemy with your pact weapon, you can deal an extra 1d6 Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage. If you roll a 5 or 6 on this die, you regain one spent Hit Die.
You may then expend a Hit Die, roll it and restore a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier.
If you would regain a spent Hit Die from this feature but have no spent Hit Dice, you may instead roll a Hit Die without expending it and restore a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier."
This technically means the limited resource can renew itself but only on a 33% chance. This is more a durability-type buff.
Another potential could be to have the Hit Die count toward the damage:
"Once on your turn when you hit an enemy with your pact weapon, you may expend a Hit Die and roll it. Your hit deals extra Necrotic, Psychic or Radiant damage (your choice) equal to the roll plus half your Warlock level (rounded down). You restore Hit Points equal to the amount of extra damage."
Now that's a pretty banger damage boost plus healing. Typically 1d8 + 4-10 for between 8.5 - 14.5 bonus damage/healing. This also brings Lifedrinker up from being a fairly poor invocation to be a fairly strong one - which is more fitting when it requires a specific Pact. And it brings it closer to the power of the 2014 Lifedrinker that just dealt bonus Necrotic damage equal to your CHA mod on EVERY hit.
For comparison the Investment of the Chain Master (lvl 5 req.) grants you the ability to use a Bonus Action to make your Familiar take the Attack action. One familiar could be the Pseudodragon which have 2x attacks for 1d4 + 2 damage or the equivalent of 9 damage - although with the drawback of a +4 to attack roll, meaning increasingly difficult to hit as you go up in CR. There's no limit other than the familiar needs to be alive and in a position to attack (which a 40 ft. fly speed makes quite doable). As such I don't think the changed Lifedrinker would be going overboard as it doesn't grant the utility of the Pact of the Chain-path.
Confession; at first I wanted to add your CHA mod to the equation as well, but that would result in basically +1x Extra Attack and while it is limited to your Hit Dice, that's a growing resource and you have quite a few at lvl 9. The reason I wanted to use Warlock level is to grant more reasons to stay on the Warlock track for a melee build - whilst currently there are a lot of reasons to only go lvl 12 Warlock and then another fullcaster class to gain more spell slots for utility/defenses. You already have plenty of reasons to main the CHA stat so there's no need to pair every benefit to it.