Pact of the Blade Rework

Pact of the Blade has long been underpowered and inferior to other pacts, in and out of combat. The only way to make an engaging Bladelock character, without making a MAD PC or Multiclassing, has been to become a Hexblade.

Other reworks of Pact of the Blade work well, but they fail to utilize the potential of Pact of the Blade or encroach on the Hexblade's ability as a melee warlock. The goal of these reworks is to allow a greater versatility in Pact of the Blade without usurping/stepping on the Hexblade's ability as the premier melee warlock subclass. Other changes increase overall damage and survivability of Bladelocks in general, helping them to compete with the mechanical superiority of the Eldrich Blast/Agonizing Blast combo.

Damage calculations with notes have been included to help emphasize and explain changes. Unchanged text has been trimmed.

Pact of the Blade Rework

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. When you attack with your pact weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity for the attack rolls. This weapon counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

While you have an active pact weapon, you have proficiency in medium armor.

Your pact weapon disappears ... or if you die.

You can transform one magic weapon into your pact weapon ... space when the bond breaks.

Invocation: Improved Pact Weapon

Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade feature

You can use any weapon you summon with your Pact of the Blade feature as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells.

In addition, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to its attack and damage rolls, unless it is a magic weapon that already has a bonus to those rolls.

The weapon you conjure can be a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow. If you conjure a one handed melee weapon or simple ranged weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the damage rolls. If you conjure a two handed melee or martial ranged weapon, it loses the 'Heavy' property.

Invocation: (replaces lifedrinker)

Eldritch Empowerment

Prerequisite: 12th level, Pact of the Blade feature

When you hit a creature with your pact weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d10 force damage.

Damage calculations and Design Notes

Damage calculations and some example calculations can be found on page 2.

Credit to Homebrewery

Thanks to Homebrewery for the tools needed to make this homebrew! https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/

Art Credits

Spellsword by LiQian, https://liqian.artstation.com/ Watercolor Pieces by Flamable Concrete, https://www.deviantart.com/flamableconcrete

Design Notes

Pact of the Blade

Giving a Pact of the Blade Warlock medium armor is a important buff to keep them in melee. However, giving medium armor proficiency without shields is rare (the only other example being Mountain Dwarfs). Shields are not given as a proficiency to the Pact of the Blade warlocks to keep them in a similiar role as Rogues and Monks, keeping the ability to sustain longer to Hexblades.

Improved Pact Weapon

The changes were the main balance changes, allowing bladelocks to keep up with their blaster counterparts in combat. However, as mentioned certain abilities were limited as to not just give 'Hex Warrior' to all Bladelocks.

This allows for more flavorful combinations other than the optimal choice of a Rapier on Bladelocks or the Greatsword on Hexblades. It also allows for a Small race to use weapons that they normally couldn't access to open more flavorful options as well as assigning more thematic weapons to different patrons. eg. a Goblin Barbarian making a deal with Baphomet just to be able to use a greataxe, a Genielock holding a lamp in one hand and a blade in the other,or a Goolock wielding a tentacle-like whip.

A Hexblade will always be best at wielding a greatsword with charisma, but others can still utilize the warlock class to build a thematic yet usable subclass.

Lifedrinker Change

This change is essentially to allow a diversity of builds with Bladelocks, if a Bladelock decides not to max Charisma and instead is determined to have max strength or dexterity, they should have that option. Although adding the same stat to damage twice is strong and easy to follow, it is slightly lackluster and necrotic damage is anti-thematic to certain warlock patrons. With other options available, why not change it up.

Balance Notes

The changes here are almost all buffs, as was needed by Pact Warlocks, but the Lifedrinker change is larger a buff to damage as it can benefit from critical hits and has a higher average damage than the +5 from 20 Charisma Lifedrinker. 1d10 force damage was chosen to mimic Eldritch Blast, if you feel its too strong, consider changing it to 1d8 (like Eldritch Smite or a Paladin's Improved Smite) or allowing a player to change the Necrotic Damage type of Lifedrinker to a Force Damage or a type representative of their Patron.

Damage Calculations and Examples

Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast

1 Invocation, 2 ASI, Dex 16, AC 15

Lvl 3- 16 Cha 1x +6 1d10+3 ~ 8.5

Lvl 5- 18 Cha 2x +7 1d10+4 ~ 19

Lvl 11- 20 Cha 3x +10 1d10+5 ~ 31.5

Lvl 17- 20 Cha 4x +11 1d10+5 ~ 42

Hexblade, standard

3 Invocations, 2ASI, 14Dex, AC17, +1 Pact Greatsword

Lvl 3- 16 Cha 2x +7 2d6+1+4 ~ 24

Lvl 5- 18 Cha 2x +8 2d6+1+4 ~ 24

lvl 12- 20 Cha 2x +11 2d6+1+5+5~ 36

Lvl 17- 20 Cha 2x +12 2d6+1+5+5~ 36

Bladelock, Standard

3 Invocations, 2 ASI, AC15/16/17, 16 Cha, +1 Pact Rapier

Lvl 3- 16Dex 1x +6 1d8+1+3 ~ 8.5

Lvl 5- 18Dex 2x +7 1d8+1+4 ~ 19

lvl 12- 20Dex 2x +11 1d8+1+5+3 ~ 27

Lvl 17- 20Dex 2x +12 1d8+1+5+3 ~ 27

Reworked Bladelock

3 Invocations, 2 ASI, AC 17, 14 Dex, +1 Pact Longsword

As our pact weapon is one handed, we can use charisma for the attack and damage rolls.

Lvl 3- 16Cha 1x +7 1d10+1+3 ~ 8.5

Lvl 5- 18Cha 2x +8 1d10+1+4 ~ 19

lvl 12- 20Cha 2x +11 1d10+1+5+1d10 ~ 34

Lvl 17- 20Cha 2x +12 1d10+1+5+1d10 ~ 34

HexBlade

3 Invocations, 2 ASI, AC17, 14Dex, +1 Pact Greatsword

As we are a hexblade, we can add Charisma attack and damage rolls instead of strength.

Lvl 3- 16Cha 1x +7 2d6+1+3 ~ 11

Lvl 5- 18Cha 2x +8 2d6+1+4 ~ 24

lvl 12- 20Cha 2x +11 2d6+1+5+1d10 ~ 37

Lvl 17- 20Cha 2x +12 2d6+1+5+1d10 ~ 37

Rework Eg: Strbladelock, 'Tiny Titan'

3 Invocations, 2 ASI, AC17, 14Dex, 14Cha, +1 Pact Greataxe

As our weapon is two handed and we're not a hexblade, we can use Cha or Str for attack rolls, but only Str for damage rolls.

Lvl 3- 16Str 1x +7 1d12+1+3(Str) ~ 10.5

Lvl 5- 18Str 2x +8 1d12+1+4(Str) ~ 21

lvl 12- 20Str 2x +11 1d12+1+5(Str)+1d10 ~ 36

Lvl 17- 20Str 2x +12 1d12+1+5(Str)+1d10 ~ 36

Rework Eg: Bladelock, 'Eldritch Archer'

3 Invocations, 2 ASI, AC 17, +1 Longbow

As we are not a Hexblade and the pact weapon is not a simple ranged weapon, we use Dex when determining longbow damage, but can swap to a shortbow at later levels.

Lvl 3- 16Dex 16Cha 1x +7 1d8+1+3(Dex) ~ 8.5

Lvl 5- 16Dex 18Cha, 2x +8 1d8+1+3(Dex) ~ 19

lvl 12- 16Dex 20Cha, 2x +11 1d6+1+5(Cha)+1d10 ~ 30

Lvl 17- 16Dex 20Cha, 2x +12 1d6+1+5(Cha)+1d10 ~ 30