Warlock tank without a weapon

[Levistej]

Greetings fellow gamers, first of all I would like to apologize in advance for any bad grammar or general mistreatment of the noble english language you may quite likely stumble upon while reading this post.

So, to begin...
I've for quite some time been thinking about the idea of playing frontline, spell wielding tank all dressed up in armor, wielding a shield in one hand and flinging spells with the other. Weird as it may seem, I havent quite been able to find this build development through any amount of search-fu.

Basically, the idea is to play a good aligned fiend pact warlock. An inquisitor, demon hunter, devil scourge type adventurer. The premise od the backstory is that he hails from a order of knights that fight and study demons and devils using their respective power in this battle. The campaign starts at level 5. Stat are 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10.

When talking about mechanics the build goes as follows:

Variant Human; Fighter 1 / Fiend patron pact of the tome warlock 4
Str: 10
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Int: 11
Wis: 12
Cha: 18

Fighting style: Defence
1st lvl feat: Warcaster
Invocations: Devils Sight and Agonizing blast
Chosen cantrips via Tome pact: Thorn Whip, Guidance, Sacred Flame

The idea is to be armored in a breastplate, having a plethora of cantrips at your disposal to while being in melee without needing a weapon and having a semi-reliable way of gaining THP through the fiend pact. It would be even nicer if I could get the DM to grant me the magic resistence of an Imp familiar which was my original plan but I dont want to cheese it out too much. :smallbiggrin:

What are your thoughts? I cant see a real weakness to this build and really enjoy the image of an armored but unarmed battlemage of sorts. Warcaster truly shines here as a method of upping my concentration and combined with thorn whip gives me a great opportunity attack option for bringing the enemies where I want them.

As allways, all ideas are more then welcome. :smallsmile:

[khachaturian]

hate to rain on your parade, but a lot of the abilities don't really synergize very well.

it sounds like your plan is to rely on dark one's blessing as a source of temporary hp as opposed to armor of agathys. while this is a legitimate tactic against a horde of mooks, you are still too squishy to get into melee against an enemy capable of dishing out real damage

thorn whip kind of sucks. it is not the same as a reach weapon in 3.5 for opportunity attacks, which is what you might be thinking about. you would be much better off in melee with pact of the blade and something like green flame blade

imp would require pact of the chain

devil's sight and darkness needs buy-in from the entire party... and it's kind of cheesy

fighter 1 doesn't give you much. fighter 2, on the other hand gives you action surge...

[Levistej]

Well, I figured thorn whip would be used exclusively for opportunity attacks when somene tries to disengage and is a target that could set alarms or something. On regular attacks from melee I intend to stick to eldritch blasts by not necessarily attacking the mook thats in my face but rather focusing on samthing further away to make the one near me want to leave and thereby open himself up to a nasty aoo via warcaster.

Why do you think this build is squishy? It has almost fighter level ac and hp while also heaving a lot of ways to generate THP. Also, thorn whip although it sucks damage wise has a no save pull atached to it which to me looks like a tool that any tank would love to have. I may very well swap sacred flame for shilelagh so I can do some booming and greenflame blade shenanigans but the thorn whip cantrip is something I would overall consider solid and almost great for any tank.

Am I really living in a dissilusion?

[Wakelord]

Cool idea! I can see the appeal of an armoured character flinging spells but not weapons.

I guess the easy alternative would be mountain dwarf for instant medium armour access

But assuming human, fighter & warlock are locked in, I think you could have a decent combo. Armour of Agathyst could help give you THP at the start of the fight, and give enemies a true 'catch 22' of either hitting you and activating AoA or leaving you and getting hit by OA.

On the note of OA, depending on your Dex/Str taking booming blade over thorn whip would increase your stickiness, as it halts movement or they take an additional 2d8 (at lvl 5).

I think your biggest problem will be HP. Getting 1-2 enemies next to you most of the time is going to erode your health pretty fast, even with respectable 18AC. Healing 1d10+1 will certainly help, but only so much.

[Levistej]

Is 4hp less than a pure fighter of the same level really such an issue when a regular fighter build doesnt have so many ways to put up thp?
The AC would be 19 if I'm not mistaken.(16 armor+2dex+1style) I could be tempted to go with a half-plate but I just dont like that pesky disadvantage on stealth.

[Arkhios]

War Caster can't be taken as a 1st level human variant feat unless the first level is in a full caster class. The feat specifically requires you to be able to cast spells before you can take the feat. A 1st-level fighter is not.

[MrStabby]

Well, I figured thorn whip would be used exclusively for opportunity attacks when somene tries to disengage and is a target that could set alarms or something. On regular attacks from melee I intend to stick to eldritch blasts by not necessarily attacking the mook thats in my face but rather focusing on samthing further away to make the one near me want to leave and thereby open himself up to a nasty aoo via warcaster.

Why do you think this build is squishy? It has almost fighter level ac and hp while also heaving a lot of ways to generate THP. Also, thorn whip although it sucks damage wise has a no save pull atached to it which to me looks like a tool that any tank would love to have. I may very well swap sacred flame for shilelagh so I can do some booming and greenflame blade shenanigans but the thorn whip cantrip is something I would overall consider solid and almost great for any tank.

Am I really living in a dissilusion?

Just to note that if you do have a mook in your face you will get disadvantage attacking another at range.

[Levistej]

Wouldnt the disadvantage be applied only if I attacked an adjacent enemy with a ranged attack and not if I attack someone at a distance even though I'm engaged in melee?

[JellyPooga]

I like this idea a lot!

A couple of suggestions, though;

- Lightning Lure is strictly worse than Thorn Whip, but is also available to the Warlock without taking Tome Pact. If you want your Imp familiar, LL might be an option to make that happen.

- Although it's bad news for your Stealth checks, Heavy Armour might be a way to go. It means taking Fighter at 1st, which means delaying War Caster until Warlock 4 (minimum character level 5). The extra point or two of AC could save your life if you're going to mix it up in melee. A Druid, Ranger or even Bard buddy with Pass Without Trace, or a Trickery Cleric friend can make the Disadvantage from your armour negligible or eliminate it altogether.

- If you're not too worried about strict optimisation, a 2 level dip into Necromancer Wizard for Grim Harvest might be a satisfyingly sinister way to keep your health up while you're in the thick of some mooks. The lower HD is a bit of a problem, but it's only one less HP (average) than Warlock, so the additional free healing will stand you in good stead against foes that don't have the mojo to take you down in one.

- If you have a friend with a damaging environmental spell like Spike Growth, then grabbing Repelling Blast to complement Thorn Whip/Lightning Lure by pushing, then pulling your victim through the AoE in conjunction with Action Surge (or Quicken Spell Metamagic if you fancy dipping Sorcerer 3, but I don't recommend that) can be a fairly resource efficient way to put out a lot of hurt.

- Study up on your chosen foes; there's little point in taking anything that deals fire damage if you're looking to be a Devil Hunter, for instance, given their universal immunity to fire. This rules out, for example, Hellish Rebuke.

- Co-ordinate with your party members and allies. As suggested by my previous comments, your friends can do wonders to shore up your weaknesses and they should be willing to back you up, given that you're literally setting yourself up as a human shield for them. Obviously don't get preachy about it, but suggest to them that protecting you with buffs is also protecting them. A Warding Bond between you and a back-line Cleric, for example, will let you mix it up on the front-line a lot longer.

[MrStabby]

Wouldnt the disadvantage be applied only if I attacked an adjacent enemy with a ranged attack and not if I attack someone at a distance even though I'm engaged in melee?

P195 of the PHB: "when you make a ranged attack with a weapon, a spell or some other means, you have disadvantage on the attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and isn't incapacitated"

The hostile creature does not have to be the one targeted.

[Levistej]

I see...I guess shilalegh is a must then, even so, its not a bad choice.

[Arkhios]

You can get around the disadvantage with Crossbow Master feat :)

[Socratov]

War Caster can't be taken as a 1st level human variant feat unless the first level is in a full caster class. The feat specifically requires you to be able to cast spells before you can take the feat. A 1st-level fighter is not.

That's why it's better to pick crossbow mastery and when you hit your warlock levels to get repelling blast and agonizing blast. Whcih you can now use in melee to push them away.

[khachaturian]

It's certainly worth trying if you think that it will be cool and fun to play, it just seems like the build is trying to do too many things while not being particularly good at any of them

thorn whip wouldn't keep an enemy from getting away; as a reaction, the enemy is already 5' away from you and its movement or position wouldn't be affected. if you really wanted to shut down enemy movement, the sentinel feat might be an option, but I would imagine that your ASI priorities would be maximizing charisma

[PeteNutButter]

It's certainly worth trying if you think that it will be cool and fun to play, it just seems like the build is trying to do too many things while not being particularly good at any of them

thorn whip wouldn't keep an enemy from getting away; as a reaction, the enemy is already 5' away from you and its movement or position wouldn't be affected. if you really wanted to shut down enemy movement, the sentinel feat might be an option, but I would imagine that your ASI priorities would be maximizing charisma

^This.

If you are holding a reach weapon (whip if you want a shield) then you could pull them all of 5ft... Sentinel is just better for holding foes down.

Altenatively several leveled spells could stop their movement outright. Booming blade would force them to consider moving for extra damage and ultimately do more damage than any other cantrip but EB.

You know a light cleric can blast well and gets medium armor as well.

[Levistej]

Thanks for all the replies guys!
I played a cleric 2 times already so I'm trying something new. Just got the info my dm may let me try the Order of the Immortal mystic which I've been dying to try out for quite some time. Thus, I may have to leave this little warlock project of mine on Ice for some time. Be seeing you in a new thread. :smallbiggrin:

[djreynolds]

I would take a dwarf as my race, you can now dump strength and still wear heavy armor. So effectively you can dump strength and dex and wear plate armor. Hill dwarf gives an extra HP a level and a plus to wisdom and con.

And an effective melee cantrip is shocking grasp which you can get from a dip of sorcerer or magic initiate.

[Sir cryosin]

I was going to suggest that you play a a cleric of the arcane domain. You get shocking grasped and at lv6 you can add your modified to it. You get some cool touch spells like inflict wounds and spirt Guardian. And if you want to use a weapon grab magic initiative for sheleighleigh. With a +2 Dex mod and a shield your ac is 18. You can grab the feat for heavy armor.