I'm building a dhampir Undead Warlock, and taking pact of the blade. My concept is a scary melee brute who can Hulk-out with Form of Dread, do good melee with improved pact of the blade to summon a glaive and take Polearm Master, heal with vampiric bite, and pull enemies into melee range with grasp of hadar.
My question is this: Should I take a 1-level dip into Fighter or Cleric to get armor proficiency? Death Cleric's Reaper with Toll the Dead might be a pretty powerful combo to back up melee damage.
Or can I make myself tanky enough to survive in the frontline staying pure warlock? Is Dhampir a good choice, or would I get more mileage out of a dragonborn, or aasimar?
I would suggest going Variant Human or Custom Lineage instead of Dhampir and use the free feat to pick up Moderately Armored. The drawback of your proposed character is needing STR (to attack with a weapon), CON (to attack with Vampiric Bite) and CHA (to hit things with Eldritch Blast to pull them in) which makes staggeringly MAD character.
Also the Vampiric Bite heal does not stack with Grave Touched because Grave Touched changes the damage to necrotic in order to be boosted by Form of Dread. This stops the heal from the bite because the bite heals equal to piercing damage dealt.
Another suggestion is to use a Greataxe over a Glaive to maximize the bonus damage from Grave Touched and not bother with Polearm Master as you should already have multiple ways to use your Bonus Action as a Warlock anyway (activating Form of Dread, Hex, moving Hex etc).
I love undead Warlocks, generally though you want to get the most out of frightened and don't try to pull them into melee. On point buy like to start with a 17 Charisma and get either Fey Touched with Dissonant Whispers or Shadow Touched with Cause Fear for these characters. Shadow Touched with False Life is an option to consider if you want to Grind in melee and want to use your Warlock slots for the hps to do it, but false life clashes with the temp hps you get from FOD (as does Fiendish Vigor and Armor of Agatys). You can use Dissonant Whispers to move an enemy further from you then reposition yourself so he has to use dash to get to you on his turn. I use cause Fear (to include upcasting) early in a fight to keep a bad guy or two away from you, hopefully for a few rounds while the others close.
With either Form of Dread attacks or Cause Fear, if they are Frightened they can't close with you, so they stand there and do nothing or just dodge while you hit them from range. Once they finally get into melee then you melee them. For this reason I would skip GOH and take agonizing blast. Keep blasting them until they manage to save and close with you and then go into melee.
The other thing you want to do is back up from frightened enemies with multiattack. When the bad guy gets into melee you attack him with your Glaive and if you Frighten him you back up and take an AOO. The reason is he makes one attack at disadvantage with an AOO but then he can't attack you on his turn because he is frightened and can't move closer.
This is obviously if you are fighting enemies that do not have ranged attacks .... although that is most enemies generally.
As far as Fighter I would not go Fighter, I would start with 16 Dexterity, that and light armor should be fine as long as you play tactically, keep them frightened and don't get yourself surrounded.
If you want to really be aggressive and let yourself "get surrounded", then I would multiclass. The classes I would look at are Dragon Sorcerer, Shadow Sorcerer, War Magic Wizard and Bladesinger Wizard. With any of these you can pick up the shield spell. Dragon Sorcerer gives you a 13 base AC, Shadow Sorcerer gives you a save against going to 0 hps, War Magic can be done with a 13 Intelligence and a 2-level dip gives you awesome saves as well as a reaction +2 AC boost when you run out of shield. Bladesinger is tough in terms of abilities, but if you have the stats for it (min 16 Dex, 16 Charisma, 14 Intelligence) a 2-level Dip will give you a 17AC in bladesong with studded (22 with shield), also a headband of intellect can up your intellligence to 19 if you can grab one and boost your AC by 2 more.
Finally I have played a Dampir Undead Warlock and you need to make use of your wall climbing ability tactically during combat indoors. Use the walss and cieling to go around enemies or put yourself where they can't all get to you. If you got Fey Touched, keep in mind you can misty step on to the ceiling.
Start with Dhampir: You get 35 foot movement, 2 proficiencies, Darkvision, Don't need to breathe, Spider Climb, and Vampiric Bite. All of these are excellent for a martial character. There are probably better ones, but you have great mobility, some skills, darkvision, situational defense (breathing), and a situational offensive trick. Of course custom lineage/variant human will give you a feat to get the build going faster, but that is only so useful and also kind of narratively boring. But yes take one of those and PAM as your entry level feat and its a perfectly reasonable option. I prefer your concept of Dhampir but I wouldn't argue too much with someone who claimed custom lineage/variant human were mechanically superior.
As you go for glaive/PAM you will have limited options to improve your AC and will run into problems without heavy armor. The main problem with a PAM (non hexblade) single class build is that you are stuck with Str (to hit), Dex (armor), Con (concentration), and Cha to get above 14. Yes you can work with Armor of Agathys, and Mage armor but you won't be putting a lot of points in Dex so where does that take you 15 AC?
So you need to simplify a build that require 4 attributes. Racially you could go with Loxodon for a Con based AC, Tortle for a natural high AC, Mountain Dwarf for medium armor, the old Githyanki for medium armor.
I like the concept of starting your first level with fighter. You get heavy armor proficiency, you get constitution saves, second wind. Later on you can take a second level for action surge (probably once you have spirit shroud and grave touched). Now you can dump dexterity, you don't need to get wisdom to 13 like with a cleric, and just work on Str/Con/Cha. Much more manageable. Start with a 16 in both Str and Cha (maybe a 17 in one) take PAM at level 5 (ft1/war4).
I have played a warlock with a cleric dip and it was fun, but the ability scores were tough to manage.
I would take a long look at Conquest Paladin, if you're really feeling like multi-classing... although it's a more long term commitments, and not really a dip.
There are too many good articles out there for me to go into at length, but you should def check it out. The synergy with Undead 'Lock is amaaaazing.
For future consideration, I am currently playing a Dhampir Barbarian/Warlock multiclass and having an excellent time of it. Started Barbarian 1, then took Warlock to lvl 6, then back to Barbarian, so that at level 10 I am Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 4/Undead Warlock 6. Focus on Warlock spells that provide utility or concentration-free buffs. Pact of the Blade, Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite, and I grabbed Beguiling Influence for some added skills.
I like to cast Armor of Agathys when I have the chance before combat, but otherwise I use my slots on Eldrtich Smite. Rage, Reckless Attack, Form of Dread, Eldritch Smite.
Bump strength first and leave Charisma at 13 or 14. Level 5 was a little rough without extra attack, but it comes online at 6 so not terrible. For the record, I have vastly preferred this character to my previous straight Hexblade from years ago. More flavor, more versatility. My two cents.
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I'm building a dhampir Undead Warlock, and taking pact of the blade. My concept is a scary melee brute who can Hulk-out with Form of Dread, do good melee with improved pact of the blade to summon a glaive and take Polearm Master, heal with vampiric bite, and pull enemies into melee range with grasp of hadar.
My question is this: Should I take a 1-level dip into Fighter or Cleric to get armor proficiency? Death Cleric's Reaper with Toll the Dead might be a pretty powerful combo to back up melee damage.
Or can I make myself tanky enough to survive in the frontline staying pure warlock? Is Dhampir a good choice, or would I get more mileage out of a dragonborn, or aasimar?
I would suggest going Variant Human or Custom Lineage instead of Dhampir and use the free feat to pick up Moderately Armored. The drawback of your proposed character is needing STR (to attack with a weapon), CON (to attack with Vampiric Bite) and CHA (to hit things with Eldritch Blast to pull them in) which makes staggeringly MAD character.
Also the Vampiric Bite heal does not stack with Grave Touched because Grave Touched changes the damage to necrotic in order to be boosted by Form of Dread. This stops the heal from the bite because the bite heals equal to piercing damage dealt.
Another suggestion is to use a Greataxe over a Glaive to maximize the bonus damage from Grave Touched and not bother with Polearm Master as you should already have multiple ways to use your Bonus Action as a Warlock anyway (activating Form of Dread, Hex, moving Hex etc).
I love undead Warlocks, generally though you want to get the most out of frightened and don't try to pull them into melee. On point buy like to start with a 17 Charisma and get either Fey Touched with Dissonant Whispers or Shadow Touched with Cause Fear for these characters. Shadow Touched with False Life is an option to consider if you want to Grind in melee and want to use your Warlock slots for the hps to do it, but false life clashes with the temp hps you get from FOD (as does Fiendish Vigor and Armor of Agatys). You can use Dissonant Whispers to move an enemy further from you then reposition yourself so he has to use dash to get to you on his turn. I use cause Fear (to include upcasting) early in a fight to keep a bad guy or two away from you, hopefully for a few rounds while the others close.
With either Form of Dread attacks or Cause Fear, if they are Frightened they can't close with you, so they stand there and do nothing or just dodge while you hit them from range. Once they finally get into melee then you melee them. For this reason I would skip GOH and take agonizing blast. Keep blasting them until they manage to save and close with you and then go into melee.
The other thing you want to do is back up from frightened enemies with multiattack. When the bad guy gets into melee you attack him with your Glaive and if you Frighten him you back up and take an AOO. The reason is he makes one attack at disadvantage with an AOO but then he can't attack you on his turn because he is frightened and can't move closer.
This is obviously if you are fighting enemies that do not have ranged attacks .... although that is most enemies generally.
As far as Fighter I would not go Fighter, I would start with 16 Dexterity, that and light armor should be fine as long as you play tactically, keep them frightened and don't get yourself surrounded.
If you want to really be aggressive and let yourself "get surrounded", then I would multiclass. The classes I would look at are Dragon Sorcerer, Shadow Sorcerer, War Magic Wizard and Bladesinger Wizard. With any of these you can pick up the shield spell. Dragon Sorcerer gives you a 13 base AC, Shadow Sorcerer gives you a save against going to 0 hps, War Magic can be done with a 13 Intelligence and a 2-level dip gives you awesome saves as well as a reaction +2 AC boost when you run out of shield. Bladesinger is tough in terms of abilities, but if you have the stats for it (min 16 Dex, 16 Charisma, 14 Intelligence) a 2-level Dip will give you a 17AC in bladesong with studded (22 with shield), also a headband of intellect can up your intellligence to 19 if you can grab one and boost your AC by 2 more.
Finally I have played a Dampir Undead Warlock and you need to make use of your wall climbing ability tactically during combat indoors. Use the walss and cieling to go around enemies or put yourself where they can't all get to you. If you got Fey Touched, keep in mind you can misty step on to the ceiling.
Start with Dhampir:
You get 35 foot movement, 2 proficiencies, Darkvision, Don't need to breathe, Spider Climb, and Vampiric Bite. All of these are excellent for a martial character. There are probably better ones, but you have great mobility, some skills, darkvision, situational defense (breathing), and a situational offensive trick.
Of course custom lineage/variant human will give you a feat to get the build going faster, but that is only so useful and also kind of narratively boring. But yes take one of those and PAM as your entry level feat and its a perfectly reasonable option. I prefer your concept of Dhampir but I wouldn't argue too much with someone who claimed custom lineage/variant human were mechanically superior.
As you go for glaive/PAM you will have limited options to improve your AC and will run into problems without heavy armor. The main problem with a PAM (non hexblade) single class build is that you are stuck with Str (to hit), Dex (armor), Con (concentration), and Cha to get above 14. Yes you can work with Armor of Agathys, and Mage armor but you won't be putting a lot of points in Dex so where does that take you 15 AC?
So you need to simplify a build that require 4 attributes. Racially you could go with Loxodon for a Con based AC, Tortle for a natural high AC, Mountain Dwarf for medium armor, the old Githyanki for medium armor.
I like the concept of starting your first level with fighter. You get heavy armor proficiency, you get constitution saves, second wind. Later on you can take a second level for action surge (probably once you have spirit shroud and grave touched). Now you can dump dexterity, you don't need to get wisdom to 13 like with a cleric, and just work on Str/Con/Cha. Much more manageable. Start with a 16 in both Str and Cha (maybe a 17 in one) take PAM at level 5 (ft1/war4).
I have played a warlock with a cleric dip and it was fun, but the ability scores were tough to manage.
I would take a long look at Conquest Paladin, if you're really feeling like multi-classing... although it's a more long term commitments, and not really a dip.
There are too many good articles out there for me to go into at length, but you should def check it out. The synergy with Undead 'Lock is amaaaazing.
For future consideration, I am currently playing a Dhampir Barbarian/Warlock multiclass and having an excellent time of it. Started Barbarian 1, then took Warlock to lvl 6, then back to Barbarian, so that at level 10 I am Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 4/Undead Warlock 6. Focus on Warlock spells that provide utility or concentration-free buffs. Pact of the Blade, Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite, and I grabbed Beguiling Influence for some added skills.
I like to cast Armor of Agathys when I have the chance before combat, but otherwise I use my slots on Eldrtich Smite. Rage, Reckless Attack, Form of Dread, Eldritch Smite.
Bump strength first and leave Charisma at 13 or 14. Level 5 was a little rough without extra attack, but it comes online at 6 so not terrible. For the record, I have vastly preferred this character to my previous straight Hexblade from years ago. More flavor, more versatility. My two cents.