I have a Fallen Aasimar 5th level Redemption Paladin and 3rd level Hexblade Warlock multiclass and I'm confused about the rules regarding Ranged Magic Weapons as your pact weapon.
To my understanding to conjure up your own pact weapon it must be a melee weapon unless you have Improved Pact Weapon, however you can convert a preexisting magic weapon of any form into your pact weapon, even if it's a ranged weapon without Improved Pact Weapon. Is this correct or do I still need Improved Pact Weapon firsr before I make the magic weapon into a Pact Weapon? It's a +1 magical repeating pistol, and Dndbeyond seems to by default give me the option to convert it, however I am unsure if this is a legal build by RAW.
The default Pact of the Blade is pretty clear about it having to be melee. It says "You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it" which is fairly clear (though not clear enough).
And considering the Improved Pact Weapon specifically says it now allows "shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow" it's safe to say that without it - it doesn't allow them.
It doesn't mention firearms though - so without homebrewing something it seems you can't use firearms at all with that feature.
The Hex Warrior feature to add your Charisma to attacks only requires you to be proficient and the weapon to not be two-handed - so you can still use that with firearms.
The only thing you can apply to a firearm is Hex Warrior. Pact of the Blade explicitly requires melee weapons, and Improved Pact Weapon only allows the 4 specific ranged weapons Emmber stated. There are 5 additional weapons on the ranged weapon tables that do not qualify for becoming a Pact Weapon, so it should definitely be read as only allowing the specific weapons listed by the feature.
Seeing as firearms are an atypical campaign option to begin with, there may be room for some interpretation on them. Considering the most similar low-tech comparable weapon to a pistol would be a hand crossbow, which is not eligible to become a pact weapon, I would infer that a pistol would not be eligible in any scenario.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Rule303, you're right that Pact of the Blade is worded a little ambiguously about whether the melee weapon limitation applies only to created weapons, or also to limit the sort of magic weapon that you can treat as your Pact weapon. Emmber and Sigred are of course right that it is absolutely 100% clear that you cannot create a ranged weapon Pact weapon, but that isn't what you're asking.
Pact of the Blade
You can use your action to create a pact weapon in your empty hand. You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it (see the Weapons section for weapon options). You are proficient with it while you wield it. This weapon counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
Your pact weapon disappears if it is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more. It also disappears if you use this feature again, if you dismiss the weapon (no action required), or if you die.
You can transform one magic weapon into your pact weapon by performing a special ritual while you hold the weapon. You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. You can then dismiss the weapon, shunting it into an extradimensional space, and it appears whenever you create your pact weapon thereafter. You can’t affect an artifact or a sentient weapon in this way. The weapon ceases being your pact weapon if you die, if you perform the 1-hour ritual on a different weapon, or if you use a 1-hour ritual to break your bond to it. The weapon appears at your feet if it is in the extradimensional space when the bond breaks.
I think that the RAI is pretty clear here, but RAW, there is a definite gap. Although, even after attuning to a magic bow, whenever you try to create it after dismissing it you'd still end up re-limited by the first paragraph telling you that you can only create a melee weapon, so you'd have essentially banished your magic item until you got around to taking Improved Pact Weapon. Attuning to a magic ranged weapon as your pact weapon but being unable to use half of the Pact of the Blade feature until you take the followup invocation might be a significant enough limitation to talk your DM into allowing you to have the benefit of the text's ambiguity.
There is no gap in the RAW. The entirety of Pact of the Blade applies exclusively to melee weapons. There is no reason for them to repeat that stipulation multiple times, of the details in the same feature, when it is very clearly stated at the beginning.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Things that Pact of the Blade does not say: "A Pact Weapon must be a melee weapon."
Things that Improved Pact of the Blade does not say: "Your Pact Weapon can be a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow."
In both instances, the "melee weapon" limitation (and the lifting of that limitation) is imposed on what form of weapon you are allowed to create/conjure. I don't disagree about the RAI, but RAW, the only limitation is what sort of weapon you can use the dismiss/create mechanic with, no what sort of magical item you can assign other Pact Weapon benefits to. Maybe it would have been overly wordy for something they felt was already obvious in intent, but that rule was not written down.
Agree 100%. But, creating/conjuring is only one of the several things that Pact of the Blade allows you to do with your Pact Weapon, and the rules are phrased in a way where "melee weapon" is a limitation that has been imposed only on the creating/conjuring part and not the feature as a whole. Or at least, that's one possible reading if you're super hair-splitty.
If a warlock uses Pact of the Blade to bond with a magic weapon, does that weapon have to be a melee weapon, and can the warlock change the weapon’s form?
The warlock’s Pact of the Blade feature lets you create a melee weapon out of nothing. Whenever you do so, you determine the weapon’s form, choosing from the melee weapon options in the Weapons table in the Player’s Handbook. For example, you can create a greataxe, and then use the feature again to create a javelin, which causes the greataxe to disappear.
You can also usePact of the Blade to bond with a magic weapon, turning it into your pact weapon. This magic weapon doesn’t have to be a melee weapon, so you could use the feature on a +1 longbow, for instance. Once the bond is formed, the magic weapon appears whenever you call your pact weapon to you, and you can’t change the magic weapon’s form when it appears. For example, if you bond with a flame tongue (longsword) and send the weapon to an extradimensional space, the weapon comes back as a longsword when you summon it. You don’t get to turn it into a club. Similarly, if you bond with a dagger of venom, you can’t summon it as a maul; it’s always a dagger.
The feature allows the conjuring forth of a melee weapon, yet we allow more versatility when it comes to magic weapons. We didn’t want a narrow focus in this feature to make a warlock unhappy when a variety of magic weapons appear in a campaign. Does this versatility extend outside the melee theme of the feature? It sure does, but we’re willing to occasionally bend a design concept if doing so is likely to increase a player’s happiness.
Then why ******* bother making the distinction in the first place? For the record, I don't care whether a Pact Weapon can be a ranged weapon or not. This is just some of the worst game mechanic writing & methodology I've ever seen.
[edit] OP, you're good to go. Your magic pistol qualifies for everything.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Whichever way you come down on it, it probably does require a re-write, and SAC shouldn't stand in the place of errata. For instance, the way I had read the RAW, there was still a limitation on creating/summoning the magic item you had treated as your pact weapon, but in the SAC ruling they don't perceive that limitation. If you could always summon/create a magic bow right from level 3, I struggle to imagine a realistic scenario in which that third bullet point of Improved Pact Weapon could conceivably ever come up. Conjuring a back up weapon when you really need to make a bow attack? But... you already have attack cantrips, why would you need to do that unless you're spec'd to make ranged weapon attacks instead of Eldritch Blast attacks? And if so, is it really realistic that you wouldn't have a magic weapon made available to you by your DM by that point, or soon after? Seems far more plausible to me that that line opens you up to doing something with your Pact Weapon magic bow that you couldn't already do, namely dismiss and resummon it.
It's a perfect storm of conditions for "why even bother" because these all overlap way too much. If they're intent on not narrowing the focus to "not make a warlock unhappy", then just simplify the damn feature, right? Improved Pact Weapon was always a crap option with very niche application to begin with... just roll the use of pact weapon as a focus into the baseline Pact of the Blade or Hex Warrior, and roll the +1 option into either the Lifedrinker or Thirsting Blade invocations. Bladelocks already have a higher demand on their invocations (for the build to come online) than all other locks.
Alternatively... don't cave to unhappy warlocks? Having a thematic focus at all is pointless if you aren't giving anything up for it. Character choices, and the choices not being made, are supposed to be meaningful.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
If your DM allows it, then it is allowed. RAW though, pact of the blade seems to require the pact weapon be a melee weapon without the invocation.
It refers to the pact weapon as "this melee weapon." That is not a restriction of a weapon created, that is a substitution for the pact weapon as a whole. Granted it needs to say "the pact weapon is a melee weapon."
Then the invocation itself only allows certain ranged weapons to be pact weapons, so I don't think you can ever make a repeating pistol a pact weapon per RAW.
[Edit]Didn't refresh the page first. Apparently, when the devs called the pact weapon a melee weapon they didn't mean it. They really need to change some lines and add a clause to clarify that created pact weapons and converted pact weapons follow different restrictions. The current wording indicates the contrary.
Hexblades often don't take Eldritch Blast as a cantrip, because it's unnecessary if you have the invocation that gives you extra attack, and you can attack and do damage with your charisma modifier anyway. Their focus is on using their melee or ranged weapons with the appropriate feats to pump out their attacks that way.
Hexblades often don't take Eldritch Blast as a cantrip, because it's unnecessary if you have the invocation that gives you extra attack, and you can attack and do damage with your charisma modifier anyway. Their focus is on using their melee or ranged weapons with the appropriate feats to pump out their attacks that way.
Literally every Hexblade warlock I have ever seen be played, talked about online, or used in a YouTube video has taken Eldritch Blast if only for the simple concept of "Oh feck, I can't get into melee because the enemy is able to fly."
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I've met many players who didn't take it, but it's usually because they intend to go ranged hexblade. Kelly McLaughlin from Dungeon Dudes also has a Tiefling Hexblade he built which doesn't have it.
Hexblades often don't take Eldritch Blast as a cantrip, because it's unnecessary if you have the invocation that gives you extra attack, and you can attack and do damage with your charisma modifier anyway. Their focus is on using their melee or ranged weapons with the appropriate feats to pump out their attacks that way.
First, not all hexblades are bladelocks. Second, agonizing blast (1 cantrip, 1 invocation) will do more damage on average than hexblade with pact of blade, improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, and lifedrinker (class, pact boon, 3 invocations). Only eldritch smite (a 4th invocation for those keeping track) tips the numbers in favor of bladelock, but now we can assume the other build can use those slots for something else, in that case the numbers are in favor of bladelock only for as many turns as you have slots. Basically, agonizing blast does more damage at levels 2-4 and 11-20 with significantly less investment it also has range advantage.
Not going to pretend that bladelocks don't exist, even if they're largely suboptimal and more complicated than locks using Blast. But still, even for a bladelock, it's almost incomprehensible that they either (1) wouldn't have taken Blast as a backup cantrip for ranged, or (2) wouldn't be building for a Bowlock who expects to receive a magic item bow at some point. Every single Pact of the Blade warlock is going to have either taken Eldritch Blast or be built around a ranged Pact Weapon, it just is bizarre to imagine that there's a theoretical build out there that didn't give any thought to ranged combat in their build, and to whom that third sentence of Improved Pact Weapon provides any benefit whatsoever, if they were always already able to dismiss/summon their magical bow.
Hexblades often don't take Eldritch Blast as a cantrip, because it's unnecessary if you have the invocation that gives you extra attack, and you can attack and do damage with your charisma modifier anyway. Their focus is on using their melee or ranged weapons with the appropriate feats to pump out their attacks that way.
First, not all hexblades are bladelocks. Second, agonizing blast (1 cantrip, 1 invocation) will do more damage on average than hexblade with pact of blade, improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, and lifedrinker (class, pact boon, 3 invocations). Only eldritch smite (a 4th invocation for those keeping track) tips the numbers in favor of bladelock, but now we can assume the other build can use those slots for something else, in that case the numbers are in favor of bladelock only for as many turns as you have slots. Basically, agonizing blast does more damage at levels 2-4 and 11-20 with significantly less investment it also has range advantage.
Agonizing blast doesn't actually do more damage, it just requires far less resources for almost the same result. Assuming 20 charisma in these examples.
Tier 2: improved pact weapon, thirsting blade
Agonizing blast 2(d10+5) = 21
Two long bow attacks 2 (d8+6) = 21 ... add in cross bow expert and this is ... 3 (d6+5) = 25.5 or 2(d10+6) = 23 (unfortunately improved pact weapon doesn't allow for hand crossbows)
Two glaive attacks 2 (d10+6) = 23 ... add in polearm master ... 2(d10+6) + (d4+6) = 31.5
Two long bow attacks 2 (d8+11) = 31 ... cross bow expert ... 3 (d6+10) = 40.5
Two glaive attacks 2 (d10+11) = 33 ... add in polearm master ... 2(d10+11) + (d4+11) = 46.5
----
Note that with polearm master, the glaive bladelock is doing more average damage than tier 4 agonizing blast. 4(d10+5) = 42.
----
However, add in the use of Shadow of Moil or darkness+devils sight for regular advantage on attacks AND Great weapon master/sharpshooter and the damage from a bladelock FAR exceeds that from agonizing blast especially after lifedrinker.
Level 12 bladelock with 18 charisma, great weapon master, polearm master, improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, lifedrinker
damage is 2(d10+20) + (d4+20) = 73.5 ... regularly attacking with advantage due to shadows of moil.
I am currently playing a build similar to this, level 11 - 10 hexblade/1 shadow sorcerer - resilient con, gwm, pam, variant human - 16 cha and it works pretty much as advertised with melee damage far exceeding agonizing blast (though he has that as a ranged fallback) ... and it only scales up from here. The bladelock can use +3 magic weapons which affect both to hit and damage. The big issue is that they do need to invest heavily in both feats and invocations to ensure that they do substantially more damage than agonizing blast. Agonizing blast is just a 2 level dip away for any charisma based class which makes it an easy baseline but a hexblade bladelock can easily surpass that with a significant investment.
I have a Fallen Aasimar 5th level Redemption Paladin and 3rd level Hexblade Warlock multiclass and I'm confused about the rules regarding Ranged Magic Weapons as your pact weapon.
To my understanding to conjure up your own pact weapon it must be a melee weapon unless you have Improved Pact Weapon, however you can convert a preexisting magic weapon of any form into your pact weapon, even if it's a ranged weapon without Improved Pact Weapon. Is this correct or do I still need Improved Pact Weapon firsr before I make the magic weapon into a Pact Weapon? It's a +1 magical repeating pistol, and Dndbeyond seems to by default give me the option to convert it, however I am unsure if this is a legal build by RAW.
The default Pact of the Blade is pretty clear about it having to be melee. It says "You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it" which is fairly clear (though not clear enough).
And considering the Improved Pact Weapon specifically says it now allows "shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow" it's safe to say that without it - it doesn't allow them.
It doesn't mention firearms though - so without homebrewing something it seems you can't use firearms at all with that feature.
The Hex Warrior feature to add your Charisma to attacks only requires you to be proficient and the weapon to not be two-handed - so you can still use that with firearms.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
The only thing you can apply to a firearm is Hex Warrior. Pact of the Blade explicitly requires melee weapons, and Improved Pact Weapon only allows the 4 specific ranged weapons Emmber stated. There are 5 additional weapons on the ranged weapon tables that do not qualify for becoming a Pact Weapon, so it should definitely be read as only allowing the specific weapons listed by the feature.
Seeing as firearms are an atypical campaign option to begin with, there may be room for some interpretation on them. Considering the most similar low-tech comparable weapon to a pistol would be a hand crossbow, which is not eligible to become a pact weapon, I would infer that a pistol would not be eligible in any scenario.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Rule303, you're right that Pact of the Blade is worded a little ambiguously about whether the melee weapon limitation applies only to created weapons, or also to limit the sort of magic weapon that you can treat as your Pact weapon. Emmber and Sigred are of course right that it is absolutely 100% clear that you cannot create a ranged weapon Pact weapon, but that isn't what you're asking.
I think that the RAI is pretty clear here, but RAW, there is a definite gap. Although, even after attuning to a magic bow, whenever you try to create it after dismissing it you'd still end up re-limited by the first paragraph telling you that you can only create a melee weapon, so you'd have essentially banished your magic item until you got around to taking Improved Pact Weapon. Attuning to a magic ranged weapon as your pact weapon but being unable to use half of the Pact of the Blade feature until you take the followup invocation might be a significant enough limitation to talk your DM into allowing you to have the benefit of the text's ambiguity.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
There is no gap in the RAW. The entirety of Pact of the Blade applies exclusively to melee weapons. There is no reason for them to repeat that stipulation multiple times, of the details in the same feature, when it is very clearly stated at the beginning.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Things that Pact of the Blade does not say: "A Pact Weapon must be a melee weapon."
Things that Improved Pact of the Blade does not say: "Your Pact Weapon can be a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow."
In both instances, the "melee weapon" limitation (and the lifting of that limitation) is imposed on what form of weapon you are allowed to create/conjure. I don't disagree about the RAI, but RAW, the only limitation is what sort of weapon you can use the dismiss/create mechanic with, no what sort of magical item you can assign other Pact Weapon benefits to. Maybe it would have been overly wordy for something they felt was already obvious in intent, but that rule was not written down.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Improved Pact Weapon Invocation does specifically say:
That clearly means that without it - the weapon conjured cannot be one of those. If it could be before then there would be no need to specify that.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Agree 100%. But, creating/conjuring is only one of the several things that Pact of the Blade allows you to do with your Pact Weapon, and the rules are phrased in a way where "melee weapon" is a limitation that has been imposed only on the creating/conjuring part and not the feature as a whole. Or at least, that's one possible reading if you're super hair-splitty.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Wow, chalk this one up to sheer stupidity on the dev side.
Then why ******* bother making the distinction in the first place? For the record, I don't care whether a Pact Weapon can be a ranged weapon or not. This is just some of the worst game mechanic writing & methodology I've ever seen.
[edit] OP, you're good to go. Your magic pistol qualifies for everything.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Okay yea that feature needs a rewrite then because that is not what I got from reading it.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
I, for one, spotted that distinction from my first read and was just confirmed by dev commentary.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Whichever way you come down on it, it probably does require a re-write, and SAC shouldn't stand in the place of errata. For instance, the way I had read the RAW, there was still a limitation on creating/summoning the magic item you had treated as your pact weapon, but in the SAC ruling they don't perceive that limitation. If you could always summon/create a magic bow right from level 3, I struggle to imagine a realistic scenario in which that third bullet point of Improved Pact Weapon could conceivably ever come up. Conjuring a back up weapon when you really need to make a bow attack? But... you already have attack cantrips, why would you need to do that unless you're spec'd to make ranged weapon attacks instead of Eldritch Blast attacks? And if so, is it really realistic that you wouldn't have a magic weapon made available to you by your DM by that point, or soon after? Seems far more plausible to me that that line opens you up to doing something with your Pact Weapon magic bow that you couldn't already do, namely dismiss and resummon it.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
It's a perfect storm of conditions for "why even bother" because these all overlap way too much. If they're intent on not narrowing the focus to "not make a warlock unhappy", then just simplify the damn feature, right? Improved Pact Weapon was always a crap option with very niche application to begin with... just roll the use of pact weapon as a focus into the baseline Pact of the Blade or Hex Warrior, and roll the +1 option into either the Lifedrinker or Thirsting Blade invocations. Bladelocks already have a higher demand on their invocations (for the build to come online) than all other locks.
Alternatively... don't cave to unhappy warlocks? Having a thematic focus at all is pointless if you aren't giving anything up for it. Character choices, and the choices not being made, are supposed to be meaningful.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
If your DM allows it, then it is allowed. RAW though, pact of the blade seems to require the pact weapon be a melee weapon without the invocation.It refers to the pact weapon as "this melee weapon." That is not a restriction of a weapon created, that is a substitution for the pact weapon as a whole. Granted it needs to say "the pact weapon is a melee weapon."Then the invocation itself only allows certain ranged weapons to be pact weapons, so I don't think you can ever make a repeating pistol a pact weapon per RAW.[Edit]Didn't refresh the page first. Apparently, when the devs called the pact weapon a melee weapon they didn't mean it. They really need to change some lines and add a clause to clarify that created pact weapons and converted pact weapons follow different restrictions. The current wording indicates the contrary.
Hexblades often don't take Eldritch Blast as a cantrip, because it's unnecessary if you have the invocation that gives you extra attack, and you can attack and do damage with your charisma modifier anyway. Their focus is on using their melee or ranged weapons with the appropriate feats to pump out their attacks that way.
Literally every Hexblade warlock I have ever seen be played, talked about online, or used in a YouTube video has taken Eldritch Blast if only for the simple concept of "Oh feck, I can't get into melee because the enemy is able to fly."
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I've met many players who didn't take it, but it's usually because they intend to go ranged hexblade. Kelly McLaughlin from Dungeon Dudes also has a Tiefling Hexblade he built which doesn't have it.
First, not all hexblades are bladelocks. Second, agonizing blast (1 cantrip, 1 invocation) will do more damage on average than hexblade with pact of blade, improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, and lifedrinker (class, pact boon, 3 invocations). Only eldritch smite (a 4th invocation for those keeping track) tips the numbers in favor of bladelock, but now we can assume the other build can use those slots for something else, in that case the numbers are in favor of bladelock only for as many turns as you have slots. Basically, agonizing blast does more damage at levels 2-4 and 11-20 with significantly less investment it also has range advantage.
Not going to pretend that bladelocks don't exist, even if they're largely suboptimal and more complicated than locks using Blast. But still, even for a bladelock, it's almost incomprehensible that they either (1) wouldn't have taken Blast as a backup cantrip for ranged, or (2) wouldn't be building for a Bowlock who expects to receive a magic item bow at some point. Every single Pact of the Blade warlock is going to have either taken Eldritch Blast or be built around a ranged Pact Weapon, it just is bizarre to imagine that there's a theoretical build out there that didn't give any thought to ranged combat in their build, and to whom that third sentence of Improved Pact Weapon provides any benefit whatsoever, if they were always already able to dismiss/summon their magical bow.
Ah well.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Agonizing blast doesn't actually do more damage, it just requires far less resources for almost the same result. Assuming 20 charisma in these examples.
Tier 2: improved pact weapon, thirsting blade
Agonizing blast 2(d10+5) = 21
Two long bow attacks 2 (d8+6) = 21 ... add in cross bow expert and this is ... 3 (d6+5) = 25.5 or 2(d10+6) = 23 (unfortunately improved pact weapon doesn't allow for hand crossbows)
Two glaive attacks 2 (d10+6) = 23 ... add in polearm master ... 2(d10+6) + (d4+6) = 31.5
Tier 3: improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, lifedrinker
Agonizing blast 3(d10+5) = 31.5
Two long bow attacks 2 (d8+11) = 31 ... cross bow expert ... 3 (d6+10) = 40.5
Two glaive attacks 2 (d10+11) = 33 ... add in polearm master ... 2(d10+11) + (d4+11) = 46.5
----
Note that with polearm master, the glaive bladelock is doing more average damage than tier 4 agonizing blast. 4(d10+5) = 42.
----
However, add in the use of Shadow of Moil or darkness+devils sight for regular advantage on attacks AND Great weapon master/sharpshooter and the damage from a bladelock FAR exceeds that from agonizing blast especially after lifedrinker.
Level 12 bladelock with 18 charisma, great weapon master, polearm master, improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, lifedrinker
damage is 2(d10+20) + (d4+20) = 73.5 ... regularly attacking with advantage due to shadows of moil.
I am currently playing a build similar to this, level 11 - 10 hexblade/1 shadow sorcerer - resilient con, gwm, pam, variant human - 16 cha and it works pretty much as advertised with melee damage far exceeding agonizing blast (though he has that as a ranged fallback) ... and it only scales up from here. The bladelock can use +3 magic weapons which affect both to hit and damage. The big issue is that they do need to invest heavily in both feats and invocations to ensure that they do substantially more damage than agonizing blast. Agonizing blast is just a 2 level dip away for any charisma based class which makes it an easy baseline but a hexblade bladelock can easily surpass that with a significant investment.