Eldritch Blast 1st level Warlock Class Feature You can take the Magic Action to release a beam of raw magical energy towards one enemy you can see that is within 120 ft of you. Make a ranged spell attack, on a hit you deal 1d10+CHA force damage to the target.
This feature improves as you increase your warlock levels: you make two ranged attacks at 5th level, three at 11th level, and four at 17th level.
Swirling Energy 3rd level Patron Feature Depending on your patron you can choose to alter your Eldritch Blast:
Fiend - your Eldritch Blast deals fire damage and the target takes an additional 1d4 fire damage at the end of their next turn.
Fey - your Eldritch Blast's damage die is reduced to a d6 and deals psychic damage rather than force. Whenever you deal psychic damage to a creature that creature has disadvantage on the next attack roll they make before the start of your next turn.
GOO - The first time you hit a creature with your Eldritch Blast their movement speed reduced by 10 ft until the start of your next turn.
Celestial - your Eldritch Blast's damage die is reduced to a d8, and deals either necrotic or radiant damage rather than force. Whenever you deal radiant or necrotic damage to a creature that creature cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn.
Pact of the Blade Invocation You can manifest your Eldritch Magic to appear like a weapon of your choice, when you use your Eldritch Blast feature you can make a melee spell attack with 5 ft reach instead of a ranged spell attack.
Diverse Blaster 3rd level Warlock Invocation When you use your Eldritch Blast feature you can choose to have it deal damage of your choice from: acid, poison, cold, fire, lightning, thunder. In addition, you can choose to reduce the damage die by one size and apply one of the following effects the first time you hit a creature with your Eldritch Blast on your turn.:
Move the target horizontally 10 ft in a direction of your choice (target must be Large or smaller).
Cause the target to make a STR save vs your spell DC or fall prone.
Deal 1d6 damage of the same type as your Eldritch Blast to one creature within 5ft of the target.
Eldritch Smite 5th level Warlock Invocation When you hit a creature with your Eldritch Blast feature, you can use your BA to expend a spellslot dealing 1d8 force damage per level of the slot.
Thirsting Blade 5th level Warlock Invocation - Pact of the Blade When a creature moves within 5ft of you, or triggers and attack of opportunity from you then you can make one attack with your Eldritch Blast on them using your reaction.
Lifedrinker 9th level Warlock Invocation When you deal necrotic damage to a creature, you can use your reaction to regain hitpoints equal to half the necrotic damage you dealt.
Pact of the Blade, maybe you missed this? you don't have proficiency or CHA mentioned here, so the weapon is always going to be less accurate than just using eldritch blast which means less damage. Part of the reason Hexblade fixes Pact of the Blade in 5E is it moved the weapons to CHA. 2nd off, there is no need for a 5 ft limitation, it can just say melee weapon attack, which doesn't break polearms, the weapons most pact of the blade warlocks would actually want to use. Also as it only replaces eldritch blast... you can't do a reaction attack to an enemy leaving your range... unless you have warcaster... then...
Thirsting Blade just gives all weapons the same broken ability that PAM has, if anything the BA attack should be removed from Polearm Master and remove anything that gives unlimited BA attacks.
Eldritch Smite, really? definitely shouldn't be usable with Eldritch Blast, personally not a fan of Eldritch Smite but this is not the solution.
Life drinker, how many sources of Necrotic damage are there? The feature needs some limitation yes, the UA had it on every attack of Pact of the Blade, but it should remain Pact of the Blade and Thristing Blade should be limited to adding only 1 extra attack, the issue was not life drinker, it was getting way too many attacks with life drinker.
Eldritch Blast, why remove force for certain patrons, generally features gain abilities, they do not remove something you previously had like this.
Don't you remember, Agilemind? Turning spells into class features is Bad! It's a Change, so it's Bad! Changing the Warlock, in any way for any reason even though the class is mechanically horrible, is Bad! All Change is always Bad, forever!
On this specific package: I can see what you're going for but I don't think you hit the mark. Pact of the Blade is supposed to be for people who want to be an awesome cursed warrior, wielding a darkly magical sinister blade in pursuit of shadowy ends. Saying "just shoot them with Eldritch Blast without the melee penalty" doesn't fit the class fantasy for a Blace warlock at all. I know if I wanted to be an awesome cursed warrior bearing a dark blade, I'd be real annoyed that my "Blade" class feature had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with weapons and was just a thin, boring excuse to slap people with Eldritch Bonk instead.
To say nothing of the fact that your "Swirling Energy" savagely nerfs my favorite patron's Eldritch Blast for no real reason. Bleh.
Pact of the Blade, maybe you missed this? you don't have proficiency or CHA mentioned here, so the weapon is always going to be less accurate than just using eldritch blast which means less damage. Part of the reason Hexblade fixes Pact of the Blade in 5E is it moved the weapons to CHA. 2nd off, there is no need for a 5 ft limitation, it can just say melee weapon attack, which doesn't break polearms, the weapons most pact of the blade warlocks would actually want to use. Also as it only replaces eldritch blast... you can't do a reaction attack to an enemy leaving your range... unless you have warcaster... then..
The feature says that you can use the Eldritch Blast to make a melee spell attack instead of a ranged one. It only appears as a weapon, not that it actually makes a weapon. So it's implied that it will use your spell attack bonus and deal 1d10 + CHA on a hit.
You might be right on that, but it is still bad, it's literally just a patch to being caught in melee range for whatever reason, it carries over literally none of what Pact of the Blade is and addresses nothing. If anything it entirely wipes out pact of the blade and replaces it with something so bland, it's not worth mentioning. So it returns to the point of, why even take Pact of the Blade? this version of pact of the blade, adds nothing, gives no reason to pick it up and is ultimately unusable. Everything here still remains terrible.
Generally you're picking up pact of the blade because it's DPR is slightly higher than Eldritch Blast's and works with magical weapons, but at the cost of having to get into 5/10 foot attack range. This is a legitimate choice, unlike spending an invocation just to avoid disadvantage on eldritch blast in melee range.
Pact of the Blade, maybe you missed this? you don't have proficiency or CHA mentioned here, so the weapon is always going to be less accurate than just using eldritch blast which means less damage. Part of the reason Hexblade fixes Pact of the Blade in 5E is it moved the weapons to CHA. 2nd off, there is no need for a 5 ft limitation, it can just say melee weapon attack, which doesn't break polearms, the weapons most pact of the blade warlocks would actually want to use. Also as it only replaces eldritch blast... you can't do a reaction attack to an enemy leaving your range... unless you have warcaster... then..
The feature says that you can use the Eldritch Blast to make a melee spell attack instead of a ranged one. It only appears as a weapon, not that it actually makes a weapon. So it's implied that it will use your spell attack bonus and deal 1d10 + CHA on a hit.
i was going to respond that the warlock could simply summon a weapon they're already proficient in, but the above point is much more accurate.
also, call me crazy but i like this pact of the eldritch light saber more now that it's pointed out that it might be unavailable for attacks of opportunity. something to adapt to that highlights this warlock only playing at front line fighter, out of place but bolstered by eldritch power. more importantly, the blade doesn't appear to count as a spell focus and therefore we're back to holding books instead of shields. maybe a the book needs a feature that adds AC as the words within resist destruction?
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Sorry but did you not read what I posted because almost all of your complaints are simply not true.
Pact of the Blade, maybe you missed this? you don't have proficiency or CHA mentioned here, so the weapon is always going to be less accurate than just using eldritch blast which means less damage.
No I didn't miss anything, this Pact of the Blade just lets you use EB in melee without penalty and allows you to flavour that attack as any weapon you like.
Thirsting Blade just gives all weapons the same broken ability that PAM has, if anything the BA attack should be removed from Polearm Master and remove anything that gives unlimited BA attacks.
No it doesn't, it doesn't give any BA attack, it only gives you AoO and the "an enemy moved into my reach" AoO. I fully agree the BA from PAM should be removed.
Eldritch Smite, really? definitely shouldn't be usable with Eldritch Blast, personally not a fan of Eldritch Smite but this is not the solution.
Eldritch Smite is already usable with a bow if you have Improved Pact Weapon, this is simply making EB the "bow" option, vs Pact of the Blade being the "sword" option.
Life drinker, how many sources of Necrotic damage are there? The feature needs some limitation yes, the UA had it on every attack of Pact of the Blade, but it should remain Pact of the Blade and Thristing Blade should be limited to adding only 1 extra attack, the issue was not life drinker, it was getting way too many attacks with life drinker.
Note that this Life drinker doesn't give any extra damage, and it was the extra damage part that makes the scaling of many attacks problematic. Also notice that this version requires you to use a Reaction to activate life drinker so you can only trigger it once per round. Thus it is double nerfed from the current version. There are only a handful of spells that deal necrotic damage and most of them deal significantly less damage than non-necrotic spells so hardly anyone uses them. This makes those spells viable for warlock.
Eldritch Blast, why remove force for certain patrons, generally features gain abilities, they do not remove something you previously had like this.
Again if you read what I wrote it was an option to change EB to suit your patron, just like Diverse Blaster gives you the option to change the damage type or add riders. It is purely adding versatility for those who would prefer a more thematic EB.
First, apart from balance concerns, the whole reason to play a PotB Warlock is to be a Cursed/Blessed/Empowered weapon user. I understand you believe this version is more balanced (more on that later) but you're fundamentally missing the point of the power. This is like the "we have Pact of the Blade at home" of invocations. If you feel like this role space is taking up valuable martial turf I think that's a valid concern that can be addressed, but your Blade pact here just falls fundamentally flat.
Second, on balance concerns, this ain't it. The purpose of the Blade Pact is to want to get into melee range. Your invocation provides no incentive at all to do this, again missing the whole point of the Pact.
I can see the reason for granting Eldritch Blast as a class feature instead of spell, and generally approve of it. At this point, though there's a lot of variance around the Warlocks cantrip empowering abilities should be and how they should manifest, so I'm split on this one. I think I'd like to see a Warlock forced to choose between this base power cantrip strengthening or Pact of the Blade or (a much improved) Pact of the Chain, but I think commentary on the UA has made it clear that won't be happening.
I love your idea of combining the EB damage with Patron energies. There are changes I'd suggest on the margins, but ultimately I think this is a great idea and a good replacement for the UA7 PotB's unlimited access to R/P/N damage whenever you want, which needs a drastic nerf.
Diverse Blaster I also really like, though might quibble with the numbers somewhat again.
Eldritch Smite is a waste of an invocation, but I already feel like the current Eldritch Smite is either a waste of an invocation (on a non-crit) or overpowered on a full crit; so no strong feels there.
Thirsting Blade is a consolation prize that wouldn't be necessary if these changes didn't already miss the reason that PotB exists.
I really like some of the unique changes you're suggesting here. Reducing damage type variance, focusing on Patron for energy form and treating EB as the class feature it should be are all good ideas that I think have legs.
On the other hand, it's really clear that you don't understand why Bladelock exists, so your attempt to make a version that's balanced also cuts out the very reason to play one. On a flavor concern, the Bladelock exists to fit the Blessed/Cursed/Empowered swordsperson; Elirc of Melnibone as the classic example. From a mechanic standpoint, there's just no justification to walk into melee. There's nothing you can do in melee you can't do from range, safely, without the concern of your concentration spells going up in smoke. Again, what you're proposing is the "We have Bladelock at home" Bladelock.
On a flavor concern, the Bladelock exists to fit the Blessed/Cursed/Empowered swordsperson
How is it different from EK then? EK is now the archetypal swordsperson empowered by magic. Warlock is not a swordsperson because they lack armour proficiencies and only get one weapon they are any good at using. Current PotB/Hexblade also has no justification to walk into melee, in fact current PotB/Hexblade is weaker in melee than it is at range. This version at least brings them up to parity so it is up to the player if they want to go into melee or be at range. It is to the Warlock basically the inverse as what the Soul Knife is to Rogue.
The main reason to play in melee, is that it is hella fun to play in melee. If players don't want to play in melee why should be incentivize them to do so? Likewise if players don't want to play at range, why should be incentivize them to do so?
Sorry but did you not read what I posted because almost all of your complaints are simply not true.
Pact of the Blade, maybe you missed this? you don't have proficiency or CHA mentioned here, so the weapon is always going to be less accurate than just using eldritch blast which means less damage.
No I didn't miss anything, this Pact of the Blade just lets you use EB in melee without penalty and allows you to flavour that attack as any weapon you like.
Thirsting Blade just gives all weapons the same broken ability that PAM has, if anything the BA attack should be removed from Polearm Master and remove anything that gives unlimited BA attacks.
No it doesn't, it doesn't give any BA attack, it only gives you AoO and the "an enemy moved into my reach" AoO. I fully agree the BA from PAM should be removed.
Eldritch Smite, really? definitely shouldn't be usable with Eldritch Blast, personally not a fan of Eldritch Smite but this is not the solution.
Eldritch Smite is already usable with a bow if you have Improved Pact Weapon, this is simply making EB the "bow" option, vs Pact of the Blade being the "sword" option.
Life drinker, how many sources of Necrotic damage are there? The feature needs some limitation yes, the UA had it on every attack of Pact of the Blade, but it should remain Pact of the Blade and Thristing Blade should be limited to adding only 1 extra attack, the issue was not life drinker, it was getting way too many attacks with life drinker.
Note that this Life drinker doesn't give any extra damage, and it was the extra damage part that makes the scaling of many attacks problematic. Also notice that this version requires you to use a Reaction to activate life drinker so you can only trigger it once per round. Thus it is double nerfed from the current version. There are only a handful of spells that deal necrotic damage and most of them deal significantly less damage than non-necrotic spells so hardly anyone uses them. This makes those spells viable for warlock.
Eldritch Blast, why remove force for certain patrons, generally features gain abilities, they do not remove something you previously had like this.
Again if you read what I wrote it was an option to change EB to suit your patron, just like Diverse Blaster gives you the option to change the damage type or add riders. It is purely adding versatility for those who would prefer a more thematic EB.
I missed that you also changed pact of the blade not even using a weapon, I'll admit that but it still doesn't change that in fact, most of my complaints are true. For some reason I messed up PAM BA attack with OA attack, that is definitely on me and I apologize for that.
However back to the points.
First off, it does entirely break polearms, since it's not allowing weapons, which is just a crazy change. Just saying it's a weapon, does not make it "pact of the blade". It's just Eldritch Blast but you remove the melee distance disadvantage; which I will again ask, what is the point? Like literally, why would anybody want to pick that up? The literal only reason is because an enemy got into attack range and you want to use the 10 foot push back to run away. A situation that as a Warlock you want to be avoiding 99% of the time, except for when you're pact of the blade, since you want to actually use the weapon as there are actual advantages to using the weapon. Most of what you put fails because you have converted Pact of the Blade into a meaningless invocation that only benefits blasters and entirely DESTROYS gish warlocks. Pact of the Blade is meant to be for the Gish, there is no Gish here.
Second off, a pact of the blade warlock currently can take opportunity attacks with their pact of the blade weapon, here there is no pact of the blade weapon. So it does in fact break this part of Pact of the Blade entirely. Basically I see no reason anybody would want to use this version of Pact of the Blade, in fact it seems to be broken in the same way Pact of the Blade is broken in 5E if you do not choose hexblade. Since you, as a weapon holder, are back to strength/dexterity attacks. Hexblade fixes Pact of the Blade because Pact of the Blade made Warlock MAD instead of SAD while Hexblade set warlock back to SAD, even with Pact of the Blade. This is in regards to OAs from enemies leaving your range.
Third, Your writing to "Swirling Energy" sounds like a permanent change. Perhaps something more along the lines of: "When you cast Eldritch Blast, you can choose to change the damage type of your rays for that casting of Eldritch Blast to the appropriate choice for your Patron"
Also yes, Eldritch Smite on Eldritch Blast is just not good, yes Eldritch Smite could be used on a longbow attack, you'd have to spec into this tho, there was far more cost than a single invocation that is open to everybody and it's either strong enough that everybody takes it or weak enough nobody takes it, the balance it'd need to be a good invocation is so delicate that it just does not exist. For Pact of the Blade it was a meh invocation but still had it's place, since the prone condition is powerful, which it had, here you moved that to an entirely separate invocation, so all this eldritch smite will be used for is critical hits, which is the very same type of nova abuse that people complain about with Paladin. Suddenly a 2d10+CHA ray now does 2d10+6d8, or 8d8 or 10d8 damage, it's just a huge nova ability and it gets entirely broken when you get 3/4 rays and a significantly higher chance to critical hit every round, also more spell slots.
On a flavor concern, the Bladelock exists to fit the Blessed/Cursed/Empowered swordsperson
How is it different from EK then? EK is now the archetypal swordsperson empowered by magic. Warlock is not a swordsperson because they lack armour proficiencies and only get one weapon they are any good at using. Current PotB/Hexblade also has no justification to walk into melee, in fact current PotB/Hexblade is weaker in melee than it is at range. This version at least brings them up to parity so it is up to the player if they want to go into melee or be at range. It is to the Warlock basically the inverse as what the Soul Knife is to Rogue.
The main reason to play in melee, is that it is hella fun to play in melee. If players don't want to play in melee why should be incentivize them to do so? Likewise if players don't want to play at range, why should be incentivize them to do so?
My gut instinct is to say that an Eldritch Knight weilds magic, a Warlock is, or is at least burdened by, magic. For an EK magic is a tool, for the Warlock its the source. In case it needs to be said this is not me trying to excuse power disparity in favor of either, just a belief that each class is distinctive.
Realistically, however, I don't think there's anything I can say to convince you if the differences aren't obvious. We have fundamentally different ideas about the flavor, and discussing the point won't change each other's minds.
You can build an effective Bladelock with the current rules. It's difficult and requires a finely-tuned build, but it's doable.
Given the prevalence and power of concentration spells, equal damage between melee and range leaves melee significantly worse. The incentive there is to balance the cost.
I do think linking eldritch blast to warlock somehow is needed to stop the warlock dip issues. I think the pact of the blade dip is less of an issue though. it is really only 1 class and a couple subclasses that benefit from that dip. Those are, of course Bards and Paladins. You still need at least 13 strength to multi-class in and you still need 15 strength for the heavy armor for pally. Combine with all the best combat feats being half feats that bump strength and not cha and it becomes debatable if taking 1 level warlock to get cha to your attacks instead of just using strength is even worth it, even now the sorcadin is just as viable if not better than the hexadin.
With the bard I can see it as more of an issue, but I also find this is an issue for the EB+AB too. The bard just doesn't have a lot of "attack strength" without its subclasses typically as its focus is really on skills and social and mental manipulations. So while I agree that PotB needs to be toned down, I don't know if I agree that dipping it is that big of an issue right now.
You could do a lot to solve the Bladelock dipping issue if you made PotB only grant a 2nd attack ising the Thirsting Blade Invocation, cutting off the normal martial 2nd attack. A Paladin or bard that dips Warlock would need to choose between attacking with Cha or getting their 2nd attack at all on lvl 5.
You could do a lot to solve the Bladelock dipping issue if you made PotB only grant a 2nd attack ising the Thirsting Blade Invocation, cutting off the normal martial 2nd attack. A Paladin or bard that dips Warlock would need to choose between attacking with Cha or getting their 2nd attack at all on lvl 5.
This works too. Even without it though, if they took 1 level and then went into the other class than it would be similar to dipping other martial classes like fighter where the person is delaying extra attack one level anyway.
I want to say I think we should focus on refinement at this stage of the UA. I am also starting to realize why they put the monk and the warlock in separate playtests because those are the 2 that need the most help and will get the most focus. I actually suspect that the next playtest will have the monk and maybe the ranger, but wont really have any of the other classes and instead I am hoping they focus on spells. With the final playtest having Warlock and a couple other revisions. I think we should expect to see fewer and fewer changes and more and more minor moves.
My gut instinct is to say that an Eldritch Knight weilds magic, a Warlock is, or is at least burdened by, magic.
If the Warlock is supposed to be burdened by magic, then what is the unique mechanical cost or penalty they should have? What should this burden look like?
Should it be generic to all Warlocks?
e.g. A warlock cannot benefit from LRs as they a plagued by nightmares, instead once per day they can spend a Pact slot to regain hit dice equal to the level of the slot when they take a Short Rest.
e.g. If a warlock is reduced to 0 hp they cannot regain consciousness until 1d4 rounds have passed, as their Patron holds their soul captive to punish them for their failure.
Should it be linked to their Pact Boon?
e.g. A Blade Pact Warlock has disadvantage on attack rolls that don't use their pact weapon, a Tome-lock Warlock has to make a Wisdom save each time they cast a ritual spell or use a scroll that isn't in their Tome and gain temporary insanity on a failure, Chain-lock Warlocks are stunned for one round if their familiar dies.
Should it be linked to their Patron?
e.g. A Warlock must succeed on a Wis save equal to 5+CR in order to take a hostile action against a creature of the same creature type as their patron.
This isn't difficult, folks. Presuming Eldritch Bonk gets Class Feature'd a'la the original post?
"Pact of the Blade" Invocation, req. Warlock level 1 "As a Bonus Action, you can conjure a powerful weapon to enforce your will. You create a simple or martial melee weapon in your hand, and you gain proficiency with that weapon while you are holding it, or you summon a weapon you've bound to yourself. You can use the Magic action to attack with this weapon rather than the Attack action; when you do so, you can use your Charisma modifier for the attack and damage rolls of the weapon instead of Strength or Dexterity, and you can make a number of melee weapon attacks equal to the number of beams you can produce with your Eldritch Blast class feature."
Boom. Done. Now, to hit the rest.
The Improved Pact Weapon Invocation gains the following bullet: "you can use the Mastery property of any Pact weapon you create or bind." Now you can do the whole Mastery-swapping thing, but it costs you an additional Invocation and also gives IPW a reason to exist on ce the warlock finds a swaggy magic weapon they want to bind.
The Thirsting Blade Invocation is rewritten to state: "When you use your reaction to make an attack with your Pact weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls. When a creature within five feet of you moves five feet within your reach, or makes an attack roll against a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to make a single melee attack with your Pact weapon against that creature." Now Thirsting Blade still gives more attacks, and lets the player feel like their blade really does thirst because the Invocation gives them plenty of opportunities to strike more often. You get the fun bullet from the Sentinel feat - being able to much more easily make off-turn reaction attacks - without the DM Headache bullet of "now your movement's all ****ed up." Not as sold on the precise wording of this one, but it's a start.
As for the whole "mechanical drawback from making a Pact", that's an interesting discussion I will have to get to later. Bleh life.
My gut instinct is to say that an Eldritch Knight weilds magic, a Warlock is, or is at least burdened by, magic.
If the Warlock is supposed to be burdened by magic, then what is the unique mechanical cost or penalty they should have? What should this burden look like?
Should it be generic to all Warlocks?
e.g. A warlock cannot benefit from LRs as they a plagued by nightmares, instead once per day they can spend a Pact slot to regain hit dice equal to the level of the slot when they take a Short Rest.
e.g. If a warlock is reduced to 0 hp they cannot regain consciousness until 1d4 rounds have passed, as their Patron holds their soul captive to punish them for their failure.
Should it be linked to their Pact Boon?
e.g. A Blade Pact Warlock has disadvantage on attack rolls that don't use their pact weapon, a Tome-lock Warlock has to make a Wisdom save each time they cast a ritual spell or use a scroll that isn't in their Tome and gain temporary insanity on a failure, Chain-lock Warlocks are stunned for one round if their familiar dies.
Should it be linked to their Patron?
e.g. A Warlock must succeed on a Wis save equal to 5+CR in order to take a hostile action against a creature of the same creature type as their patron.
These are interesting questions that Dungeons and Dragons never asks. It would be cool (and closer to ttrpgs that I appreciate more than any edition of D&D) if the game was built to handle this aspect of roleplaying; unfortunately its just not. In a thread (threads, really) about how to balance the class in the paradigm we have I don't think we can meaningfully engage with these questions.
Tl;Dr, the only real costs in class decisions in the game is opportunity costs, not real negatives. Changing that is a major change to the game.
As far as how the Warlock is then distinct from the EK, I think it's best expressed as the diff between invocations and spell casting. The new (improved) Eld Knight gets really cool abilities wrapped around how they use magic like a tool, blending it to their fighting arts,combining casting with attacks, the narrowly defined toolkit packages of spells. An EK is constantly in control.
The flavor of the Warlock suggests a lack of control. You're never going to be in a position where you can't disguise yourself, speak with dead, turn invisible, etc if you took those powers. They define you in a way that spells don't. An Eld Knight is a regular person+, a Warlock is changed person.
Unfortunately, to repeat, there's no mechanical way to express this in game because that wouldbe asking the game to be self-aware in ways it wasn't meant to. Changing this would be a change for the better, but way beyond the scope of the questions here.
This was the kind of space that prestige classes were meant to fill in 3rd. If prestige classes came back (will never happen) I think the Warlock prolly belongs in a low level pre-req prestige class.
But you do the balancing with the game you have, not the game you'd prefer.
"Pact of the Blade" Invocation, req. Warlock level 1 "As a Bonus Action, you can conjure a powerful weapon to enforce your will. You create a simple or martial melee weapon in your hand, and you gain proficiency with that weapon while you are holding it, or you summon a weapon you've bound to yourself. You can use the Magic action to attack with this weapon rather than the Attack action; when you do so, you can use your Charisma modifier for the attack and damage rolls of the weapon instead of Strength or Dexterity, and you can make a number of melee weapon attacks equal to the number of beams you can produce with your Eldritch Blast class feature."
Without going into the other changes, even as someone who applauds the addition of the 3rd attack at level 11 in the UA7 Warlock, your version quoted here is incredibly powerful. In addition you're removing the need to take additional Warlock levels/invocations for the added attacks, so if they don't fix EB (which we all agree they should) the dip potential here is bonkers.
It may be slightly balanced by requiring the magic action rather than an attack action, this would cut you off from things like Pole Arm Master, etc; but that would require a pretty in depth look at how the new feats are being written.
Which is all to say, it's not actually, unfortunately, that easy.
I do like gating weapon mastery behind Imp Pact Weapon, that seems like a good & sensible change.
I'm also gonna repeat that choosing your Pact Weapon should require a long rest. I don't think it's a big deal to have the use of any weapons mastery tag at any time because I think there's one, maybe two clear winners on that front and anyway players will have an aesthetic preference anyway; but it doesn't hurt the Warlock anyway to force 'em to stick with just one weapon decision per long rest.
The Eldritch Knight is a warrior that can cast spells.
The Blade pact warlock is (theoretically, ostensibly, not really but for purposes of argument) a spellcaster that can use swords.
If you don't know what the difference is there, I can't help you. Nobody says the Eldritch Knight and the Bladesinger are the same thing, and those two subclasses share a whole lot more DNA than the warlock and the EK.
Flavor is not free. Flavor unsupported by mechanics is thin, insubstantial, and deeply unsatisfying. Mechanics unsupported by flavor are dry, dusty, and unappetizing. You need both, they need to work together, and there's no room for debate on the matter. Not really.
EDIT: You missed the part where I said that this change was in conjunction with the Eldritch-Blast-as-class-feature change given in the original post, Kahbiel. the only way to get more EB beams is to get more warlock levels.
The flavor of the Warlock suggests a lack of control. You're never going to be in a position where you can't disguise yourself, speak with dead, turn invisible, etc if you took those powers. They define you in a way that spells don't. An Eld Knight is a regular person+, a Warlock is changed person.
Flavour is free, I don't think I've ever played with a Warlock who RPed it as having a lack of control. Of the warlock I have played:
One was a girl taken by hags to be turned into one of their own but she instead made a deal with Dendar to break free of their enchantments, stole one of their grimoires and fled. She was cautious about revealing the her magic inside cities but otherwise relished in and had no regrets at all about her Pact.
The other believed they were cursed long before they became a warlock due to a prophecy in their home town, they left home due to pressure from the elders who believed the prophecy and lived life completely recklessly as they believed they were doomed to die anyway, they joined pirates, drank, murdered, stole, and when one of the things they stole spoke to them offering them power they took it without even asking about the strings. It wasn't until they had defeated the prophecy that they began to regret their Pact and ultimately turned against their patron at the very end of the campaign.
The last was a human, who desperately wanted to be an elf and sought out a Moon-bow and made a pact with it to try to achieve this goal.
About 1/3 the warlocks I've played with ignored the flavour text entirely and just used the mechanics, while another 1/3 made pacts with benevolent beings so they RPed more like Paladins, only two warlocks chose to have escaping their pact be a primary motivator for their character.
Eldritch Blast
1st level Warlock Class Feature
You can take the Magic Action to release a beam of raw magical energy towards one enemy you can see that is within 120 ft of you. Make a ranged spell attack, on a hit you deal 1d10+CHA force damage to the target.
This feature improves as you increase your warlock levels: you make two ranged attacks at 5th level, three at 11th level, and four at 17th level.
Swirling Energy
3rd level Patron Feature
Depending on your patron you can choose to alter your Eldritch Blast:
Pact of the Blade
Invocation
You can manifest your Eldritch Magic to appear like a weapon of your choice, when you use your Eldritch Blast feature you can make a melee spell attack with 5 ft reach instead of a ranged spell attack.
Diverse Blaster
3rd level Warlock Invocation
When you use your Eldritch Blast feature you can choose to have it deal damage of your choice from: acid, poison, cold, fire, lightning, thunder. In addition, you can choose to reduce the damage die by one size and apply one of the following effects the first time you hit a creature with your Eldritch Blast on your turn.:
Eldritch Smite
5th level Warlock Invocation
When you hit a creature with your Eldritch Blast feature, you can use your BA to expend a spellslot dealing 1d8 force damage per level of the slot.
Thirsting Blade
5th level Warlock Invocation - Pact of the Blade
When a creature moves within 5ft of you, or triggers and attack of opportunity from you then you can make one attack with your Eldritch Blast on them using your reaction.
Lifedrinker
9th level Warlock Invocation
When you deal necrotic damage to a creature, you can use your reaction to regain hitpoints equal to half the necrotic damage you dealt.
I'm sorry, but I just think most of this is bad.
Pact of the Blade, maybe you missed this? you don't have proficiency or CHA mentioned here, so the weapon is always going to be less accurate than just using eldritch blast which means less damage. Part of the reason Hexblade fixes Pact of the Blade in 5E is it moved the weapons to CHA. 2nd off, there is no need for a 5 ft limitation, it can just say melee weapon attack, which doesn't break polearms, the weapons most pact of the blade warlocks would actually want to use. Also as it only replaces eldritch blast... you can't do a reaction attack to an enemy leaving your range... unless you have warcaster... then...
Thirsting Blade just gives all weapons the same broken ability that PAM has, if anything the BA attack should be removed from Polearm Master and remove anything that gives unlimited BA attacks.
Eldritch Smite, really? definitely shouldn't be usable with Eldritch Blast, personally not a fan of Eldritch Smite but this is not the solution.
Life drinker, how many sources of Necrotic damage are there? The feature needs some limitation yes, the UA had it on every attack of Pact of the Blade, but it should remain Pact of the Blade and Thristing Blade should be limited to adding only 1 extra attack, the issue was not life drinker, it was getting way too many attacks with life drinker.
Eldritch Blast, why remove force for certain patrons, generally features gain abilities, they do not remove something you previously had like this.
Don't you remember, Agilemind? Turning spells into class features is Bad! It's a Change, so it's Bad! Changing the Warlock, in any way for any reason even though the class is mechanically horrible, is Bad! All Change is always Bad, forever!
On this specific package: I can see what you're going for but I don't think you hit the mark. Pact of the Blade is supposed to be for people who want to be an awesome cursed warrior, wielding a darkly magical sinister blade in pursuit of shadowy ends. Saying "just shoot them with Eldritch Blast without the melee penalty" doesn't fit the class fantasy for a Blace warlock at all. I know if I wanted to be an awesome cursed warrior bearing a dark blade, I'd be real annoyed that my "Blade" class feature had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with weapons and was just a thin, boring excuse to slap people with Eldritch Bonk instead.
To say nothing of the fact that your "Swirling Energy" savagely nerfs my favorite patron's Eldritch Blast for no real reason. Bleh.
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You might be right on that, but it is still bad, it's literally just a patch to being caught in melee range for whatever reason, it carries over literally none of what Pact of the Blade is and addresses nothing. If anything it entirely wipes out pact of the blade and replaces it with something so bland, it's not worth mentioning. So it returns to the point of, why even take Pact of the Blade? this version of pact of the blade, adds nothing, gives no reason to pick it up and is ultimately unusable. Everything here still remains terrible.
Generally you're picking up pact of the blade because it's DPR is slightly higher than Eldritch Blast's and works with magical weapons, but at the cost of having to get into 5/10 foot attack range. This is a legitimate choice, unlike spending an invocation just to avoid disadvantage on eldritch blast in melee range.
i was going to respond that the warlock could simply summon a weapon they're already proficient in, but the above point is much more accurate.
also, call me crazy but i like this pact of the eldritch light saber more now that it's pointed out that it might be unavailable for attacks of opportunity. something to adapt to that highlights this warlock only playing at front line fighter, out of place but bolstered by eldritch power. more importantly, the blade doesn't appear to count as a spell focus and therefore we're back to holding books instead of shields. maybe a the book needs a feature that adds AC as the words within resist destruction?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Sorry but did you not read what I posted because almost all of your complaints are simply not true.
No I didn't miss anything, this Pact of the Blade just lets you use EB in melee without penalty and allows you to flavour that attack as any weapon you like.
No it doesn't, it doesn't give any BA attack, it only gives you AoO and the "an enemy moved into my reach" AoO. I fully agree the BA from PAM should be removed.
Eldritch Smite is already usable with a bow if you have Improved Pact Weapon, this is simply making EB the "bow" option, vs Pact of the Blade being the "sword" option.
Note that this Life drinker doesn't give any extra damage, and it was the extra damage part that makes the scaling of many attacks problematic. Also notice that this version requires you to use a Reaction to activate life drinker so you can only trigger it once per round. Thus it is double nerfed from the current version. There are only a handful of spells that deal necrotic damage and most of them deal significantly less damage than non-necrotic spells so hardly anyone uses them. This makes those spells viable for warlock.
Again if you read what I wrote it was an option to change EB to suit your patron, just like Diverse Blaster gives you the option to change the damage type or add riders. It is purely adding versatility for those who would prefer a more thematic EB.
First, apart from balance concerns, the whole reason to play a PotB Warlock is to be a Cursed/Blessed/Empowered weapon user. I understand you believe this version is more balanced (more on that later) but you're fundamentally missing the point of the power. This is like the "we have Pact of the Blade at home" of invocations. If you feel like this role space is taking up valuable martial turf I think that's a valid concern that can be addressed, but your Blade pact here just falls fundamentally flat.
Second, on balance concerns, this ain't it. The purpose of the Blade Pact is to want to get into melee range. Your invocation provides no incentive at all to do this, again missing the whole point of the Pact.
I can see the reason for granting Eldritch Blast as a class feature instead of spell, and generally approve of it. At this point, though there's a lot of variance around the Warlocks cantrip empowering abilities should be and how they should manifest, so I'm split on this one. I think I'd like to see a Warlock forced to choose between this base power cantrip strengthening or Pact of the Blade or (a much improved) Pact of the Chain, but I think commentary on the UA has made it clear that won't be happening.
I love your idea of combining the EB damage with Patron energies. There are changes I'd suggest on the margins, but ultimately I think this is a great idea and a good replacement for the UA7 PotB's unlimited access to R/P/N damage whenever you want, which needs a drastic nerf.
Diverse Blaster I also really like, though might quibble with the numbers somewhat again.
Eldritch Smite is a waste of an invocation, but I already feel like the current Eldritch Smite is either a waste of an invocation (on a non-crit) or overpowered on a full crit; so no strong feels there.
Thirsting Blade is a consolation prize that wouldn't be necessary if these changes didn't already miss the reason that PotB exists.
I really like some of the unique changes you're suggesting here. Reducing damage type variance, focusing on Patron for energy form and treating EB as the class feature it should be are all good ideas that I think have legs.
On the other hand, it's really clear that you don't understand why Bladelock exists, so your attempt to make a version that's balanced also cuts out the very reason to play one. On a flavor concern, the Bladelock exists to fit the Blessed/Cursed/Empowered swordsperson; Elirc of Melnibone as the classic example. From a mechanic standpoint, there's just no justification to walk into melee. There's nothing you can do in melee you can't do from range, safely, without the concern of your concentration spells going up in smoke. Again, what you're proposing is the "We have Bladelock at home" Bladelock.
How is it different from EK then? EK is now the archetypal swordsperson empowered by magic. Warlock is not a swordsperson because they lack armour proficiencies and only get one weapon they are any good at using. Current PotB/Hexblade also has no justification to walk into melee, in fact current PotB/Hexblade is weaker in melee than it is at range. This version at least brings them up to parity so it is up to the player if they want to go into melee or be at range. It is to the Warlock basically the inverse as what the Soul Knife is to Rogue.
The main reason to play in melee, is that it is hella fun to play in melee. If players don't want to play in melee why should be incentivize them to do so? Likewise if players don't want to play at range, why should be incentivize them to do so?
I missed that you also changed pact of the blade not even using a weapon, I'll admit that but it still doesn't change that in fact, most of my complaints are true. For some reason I messed up PAM BA attack with OA attack, that is definitely on me and I apologize for that.
However back to the points.
First off, it does entirely break polearms, since it's not allowing weapons, which is just a crazy change. Just saying it's a weapon, does not make it "pact of the blade". It's just Eldritch Blast but you remove the melee distance disadvantage; which I will again ask, what is the point? Like literally, why would anybody want to pick that up? The literal only reason is because an enemy got into attack range and you want to use the 10 foot push back to run away. A situation that as a Warlock you want to be avoiding 99% of the time, except for when you're pact of the blade, since you want to actually use the weapon as there are actual advantages to using the weapon. Most of what you put fails because you have converted Pact of the Blade into a meaningless invocation that only benefits blasters and entirely DESTROYS gish warlocks. Pact of the Blade is meant to be for the Gish, there is no Gish here.
Second off, a pact of the blade warlock currently can take opportunity attacks with their pact of the blade weapon, here there is no pact of the blade weapon. So it does in fact break this part of Pact of the Blade entirely. Basically I see no reason anybody would want to use this version of Pact of the Blade, in fact it seems to be broken in the same way Pact of the Blade is broken in 5E if you do not choose hexblade. Since you, as a weapon holder, are back to strength/dexterity attacks. Hexblade fixes Pact of the Blade because Pact of the Blade made Warlock MAD instead of SAD while Hexblade set warlock back to SAD, even with Pact of the Blade. This is in regards to OAs from enemies leaving your range.
Third, Your writing to "Swirling Energy" sounds like a permanent change. Perhaps something more along the lines of: "When you cast Eldritch Blast, you can choose to change the damage type of your rays for that casting of Eldritch Blast to the appropriate choice for your Patron"
Also yes, Eldritch Smite on Eldritch Blast is just not good, yes Eldritch Smite could be used on a longbow attack, you'd have to spec into this tho, there was far more cost than a single invocation that is open to everybody and it's either strong enough that everybody takes it or weak enough nobody takes it, the balance it'd need to be a good invocation is so delicate that it just does not exist. For Pact of the Blade it was a meh invocation but still had it's place, since the prone condition is powerful, which it had, here you moved that to an entirely separate invocation, so all this eldritch smite will be used for is critical hits, which is the very same type of nova abuse that people complain about with Paladin. Suddenly a 2d10+CHA ray now does 2d10+6d8, or 8d8 or 10d8 damage, it's just a huge nova ability and it gets entirely broken when you get 3/4 rays and a significantly higher chance to critical hit every round, also more spell slots.
My gut instinct is to say that an Eldritch Knight weilds magic, a Warlock is, or is at least burdened by, magic. For an EK magic is a tool, for the Warlock its the source. In case it needs to be said this is not me trying to excuse power disparity in favor of either, just a belief that each class is distinctive.
Realistically, however, I don't think there's anything I can say to convince you if the differences aren't obvious. We have fundamentally different ideas about the flavor, and discussing the point won't change each other's minds.
You can build an effective Bladelock with the current rules. It's difficult and requires a finely-tuned build, but it's doable.
Given the prevalence and power of concentration spells, equal damage between melee and range leaves melee significantly worse. The incentive there is to balance the cost.
I do think linking eldritch blast to warlock somehow is needed to stop the warlock dip issues. I think the pact of the blade dip is less of an issue though. it is really only 1 class and a couple subclasses that benefit from that dip. Those are, of course Bards and Paladins. You still need at least 13 strength to multi-class in and you still need 15 strength for the heavy armor for pally. Combine with all the best combat feats being half feats that bump strength and not cha and it becomes debatable if taking 1 level warlock to get cha to your attacks instead of just using strength is even worth it, even now the sorcadin is just as viable if not better than the hexadin.
With the bard I can see it as more of an issue, but I also find this is an issue for the EB+AB too. The bard just doesn't have a lot of "attack strength" without its subclasses typically as its focus is really on skills and social and mental manipulations. So while I agree that PotB needs to be toned down, I don't know if I agree that dipping it is that big of an issue right now.
You could do a lot to solve the Bladelock dipping issue if you made PotB only grant a 2nd attack ising the Thirsting Blade Invocation, cutting off the normal martial 2nd attack. A Paladin or bard that dips Warlock would need to choose between attacking with Cha or getting their 2nd attack at all on lvl 5.
This works too. Even without it though, if they took 1 level and then went into the other class than it would be similar to dipping other martial classes like fighter where the person is delaying extra attack one level anyway.
I want to say I think we should focus on refinement at this stage of the UA. I am also starting to realize why they put the monk and the warlock in separate playtests because those are the 2 that need the most help and will get the most focus. I actually suspect that the next playtest will have the monk and maybe the ranger, but wont really have any of the other classes and instead I am hoping they focus on spells. With the final playtest having Warlock and a couple other revisions. I think we should expect to see fewer and fewer changes and more and more minor moves.
If the Warlock is supposed to be burdened by magic, then what is the unique mechanical cost or penalty they should have? What should this burden look like?
Should it be generic to all Warlocks?
e.g. A warlock cannot benefit from LRs as they a plagued by nightmares, instead once per day they can spend a Pact slot to regain hit dice equal to the level of the slot when they take a Short Rest.
e.g. If a warlock is reduced to 0 hp they cannot regain consciousness until 1d4 rounds have passed, as their Patron holds their soul captive to punish them for their failure.
Should it be linked to their Pact Boon?
e.g. A Blade Pact Warlock has disadvantage on attack rolls that don't use their pact weapon, a Tome-lock Warlock has to make a Wisdom save each time they cast a ritual spell or use a scroll that isn't in their Tome and gain temporary insanity on a failure, Chain-lock Warlocks are stunned for one round if their familiar dies.
Should it be linked to their Patron?
e.g. A Warlock must succeed on a Wis save equal to 5+CR in order to take a hostile action against a creature of the same creature type as their patron.
Sigh.
Okay.
This isn't difficult, folks. Presuming Eldritch Bonk gets Class Feature'd a'la the original post?
"Pact of the Blade"
Invocation, req. Warlock level 1
"As a Bonus Action, you can conjure a powerful weapon to enforce your will. You create a simple or martial melee weapon in your hand, and you gain proficiency with that weapon while you are holding it, or you summon a weapon you've bound to yourself. You can use the Magic action to attack with this weapon rather than the Attack action; when you do so, you can use your Charisma modifier for the attack and damage rolls of the weapon instead of Strength or Dexterity, and you can make a number of melee weapon attacks equal to the number of beams you can produce with your Eldritch Blast class feature."
Boom. Done. Now, to hit the rest.
The Improved Pact Weapon Invocation gains the following bullet: "you can use the Mastery property of any Pact weapon you create or bind." Now you can do the whole Mastery-swapping thing, but it costs you an additional Invocation and also gives IPW a reason to exist on ce the warlock finds a swaggy magic weapon they want to bind.
The Thirsting Blade Invocation is rewritten to state: "When you use your reaction to make an attack with your Pact weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls. When a creature within five feet of you moves five feet within your reach, or makes an attack roll against a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to make a single melee attack with your Pact weapon against that creature." Now Thirsting Blade still gives more attacks, and lets the player feel like their blade really does thirst because the Invocation gives them plenty of opportunities to strike more often. You get the fun bullet from the Sentinel feat - being able to much more easily make off-turn reaction attacks - without the DM Headache bullet of "now your movement's all ****ed up." Not as sold on the precise wording of this one, but it's a start.
As for the whole "mechanical drawback from making a Pact", that's an interesting discussion I will have to get to later. Bleh life.
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These are interesting questions that Dungeons and Dragons never asks. It would be cool (and closer to ttrpgs that I appreciate more than any edition of D&D) if the game was built to handle this aspect of roleplaying; unfortunately its just not. In a thread (threads, really) about how to balance the class in the paradigm we have I don't think we can meaningfully engage with these questions.
Tl;Dr, the only real costs in class decisions in the game is opportunity costs, not real negatives. Changing that is a major change to the game.
As far as how the Warlock is then distinct from the EK, I think it's best expressed as the diff between invocations and spell casting. The new (improved) Eld Knight gets really cool abilities wrapped around how they use magic like a tool, blending it to their fighting arts,combining casting with attacks, the narrowly defined toolkit packages of spells. An EK is constantly in control.
The flavor of the Warlock suggests a lack of control. You're never going to be in a position where you can't disguise yourself, speak with dead, turn invisible, etc if you took those powers. They define you in a way that spells don't. An Eld Knight is a regular person+, a Warlock is changed person.
Unfortunately, to repeat, there's no mechanical way to express this in game because that wouldbe asking the game to be self-aware in ways it wasn't meant to. Changing this would be a change for the better, but way beyond the scope of the questions here.
This was the kind of space that prestige classes were meant to fill in 3rd. If prestige classes came back (will never happen) I think the Warlock prolly belongs in a low level pre-req prestige class.
But you do the balancing with the game you have, not the game you'd prefer.
Without going into the other changes, even as someone who applauds the addition of the 3rd attack at level 11 in the UA7 Warlock, your version quoted here is incredibly powerful. In addition you're removing the need to take additional Warlock levels/invocations for the added attacks, so if they don't fix EB (which we all agree they should) the dip potential here is bonkers.
It may be slightly balanced by requiring the magic action rather than an attack action, this would cut you off from things like Pole Arm Master, etc; but that would require a pretty in depth look at how the new feats are being written.
Which is all to say, it's not actually, unfortunately, that easy.
I do like gating weapon mastery behind Imp Pact Weapon, that seems like a good & sensible change.
I'm also gonna repeat that choosing your Pact Weapon should require a long rest. I don't think it's a big deal to have the use of any weapons mastery tag at any time because I think there's one, maybe two clear winners on that front and anyway players will have an aesthetic preference anyway; but it doesn't hurt the Warlock anyway to force 'em to stick with just one weapon decision per long rest.
The Eldritch Knight is a warrior that can cast spells.
The Blade pact warlock is (theoretically, ostensibly, not really but for purposes of argument) a spellcaster that can use swords.
If you don't know what the difference is there, I can't help you. Nobody says the Eldritch Knight and the Bladesinger are the same thing, and those two subclasses share a whole lot more DNA than the warlock and the EK.
Flavor is not free. Flavor unsupported by mechanics is thin, insubstantial, and deeply unsatisfying. Mechanics unsupported by flavor are dry, dusty, and unappetizing. You need both, they need to work together, and there's no room for debate on the matter. Not really.
EDIT:
You missed the part where I said that this change was in conjunction with the Eldritch-Blast-as-class-feature change given in the original post, Kahbiel. the only way to get more EB beams is to get more warlock levels.
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Flavour is free, I don't think I've ever played with a Warlock who RPed it as having a lack of control. Of the warlock I have played:
One was a girl taken by hags to be turned into one of their own but she instead made a deal with Dendar to break free of their enchantments, stole one of their grimoires and fled. She was cautious about revealing the her magic inside cities but otherwise relished in and had no regrets at all about her Pact.
The other believed they were cursed long before they became a warlock due to a prophecy in their home town, they left home due to pressure from the elders who believed the prophecy and lived life completely recklessly as they believed they were doomed to die anyway, they joined pirates, drank, murdered, stole, and when one of the things they stole spoke to them offering them power they took it without even asking about the strings. It wasn't until they had defeated the prophecy that they began to regret their Pact and ultimately turned against their patron at the very end of the campaign.
The last was a human, who desperately wanted to be an elf and sought out a Moon-bow and made a pact with it to try to achieve this goal.
About 1/3 the warlocks I've played with ignored the flavour text entirely and just used the mechanics, while another 1/3 made pacts with benevolent beings so they RPed more like Paladins, only two warlocks chose to have escaping their pact be a primary motivator for their character.