My warlock pact changes

[Garfunion]

Seeing as how this warlock thread has become a shouting match, I just wanted to post my suggested changes to the warlock class.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503557-Fixing-BladeLocks-via-Balancing

(PEACH)

Edit: made a small change to the pact of the chain and some word changes to the blade pact invocation

Pact Boon
At 3rd level, your otherworldly patron bestows a gift upon you for your loyal service. You gain one of the following features of your choice.

If you lose your patron's gift, you can perform a 1--hour ceremony to receive a replacement from your patron. This ceremony can be performed during a short or long rest, and it destroys the previous gift. The gift turns to ash when you die.

Pact of the Chain
Your patron gives you a small length of chain that you may use as an arcane focus. While the chain is in your possession you may cast the find familiar spell as a ritual, without spending the material component cost. This spell does not count against your number of spells known.

When you cast find familiar spell with the chain, you can choose one of the normal forms for your familiar or one of the following special forms: imp, pseudodragon, quasit, or sprite.

While the chain is on your person, when you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your familiar to make one attack of its own with its reaction.

Pact of the Blade
Your patron gives you a melee weapon of your choice. You are proficient with it while you wield it and you may use this weapon as an arcane focus.

While wielding your pact weapon, hostile creatures within 5 feet of you do not impose disadvantage on your ranged spell attack rolls.

You can transform one magic melee weapon into your pact weapon or choose a different weapon by performing the same ritual, as if you lost your patron's gift. You can’t affect an artifact or a sentient weapon in this way. A magic weapon ceases being your pact weapon if you die and it does not turn to ash.

Pact of the Tome
Your patron gives you a grimoire called a Book of Shadows, that you may use as an arcane focus. When you gain this feature, choose three cantrips from any class’s spell list (the three needn’t be from the same list). While the book is on your person, you can cast those cantrips at will. They don’t count against your number of cantrips known. If they don’t appear on the warlock spell list, they are nonetheless warlock spells for you.

Eldritch Invocations
If an eldritch invocation has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the invocation at the same time that you meet its prerequisites. A level prerequisite refers to your level in this class.

Bane Blade
Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade feature
Your pact weapon becomes magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
Additionally when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, the creature gains disadvantage on one attack roll made against you until the end of its turn.

Chain of Control
Prerequisite: Pact of the Chain feature
When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can pull the creature up to 10 feet toward you in a straight line.

Cursed Gift
You may use a bonus action to summon your patron's gift (if it is on the same plane of existence you are on), causing it to teleport instantly to your empty hand. If you have lost your patron's gift it will appears near you after you complete a long rest.

Lifedrinker
Removed

Unquenchable Blade
Prerequisite: 11th level, Pact of the Blade feature
When you cast a cantrip with an attack roll, you may replace two attack roll with a melee weapon attack using your pact weapon. The damage type of your pact weapon attack matches that of the cantrip this turn.
This invocation does not stack with thirsting blade invocation.

Thirsting Blade
Prerequisite: 5th level, Pact of the Blade feature
When you cast a cantrip with an attack roll, you may replace one attack roll with a melee weapon attack using your pact weapon. The damage type of your pact weapon attack matches that of the cantrip this turn

[Sicarius Victis]

I feel like the base Pact Boon part de-values Blade more than it needs to. It allows it to work as an AF, which Blade Pact should do already, and allows ranged spells in melee, but if you're using ranged attacks to fight in melee, what's the point of bringing a weapon in the first place? In exchange for that, you're losing the ability to summon your weapon, the ability to use more than just a single type of weapon with it, its free magical stuff, and really just about everything that makes the official Blade Pact worth having. You are now able to get those as Invocations, because obviously you weren't already wasting enough to make decent use of the Blade Pact.

Your Thirsting Blade and Unquenchable Blade weren't necessary, you're usually able to do more damage with your normal melee anyways. At least you were, when you're not using a homebrew that removed the places where the Bladelock got most of their damage from in the first place. And sure, that lets you EB as well as attack, but a) giving up some ranged capabilities in exchange for melee is what's intended to make Bladelock more balanced, and b) even ignoring that, odds are you'd still do more damage with Thirsting Blade + Lifedrinker, because with your proposed changes you won't even be able to afford AB or similar effects for a good part of your career.

[Garfunion]

I feel like the base Pact Boon part de-values Blade more than it needs to. It allows it to work as an AF, which Blade Pact should do already, and allows ranged spells in melee, but if you're using ranged attacks to fight in melee, what's the point of bringing a weapon in the first place?


•Currently the warlock's pact boon is not an arcane focus.
•Allowing the blade pact to cast ranged spell in melee combat without disadvantage, gives the player RP option. "I charge my blade with eldritch energy and attack the creature. " cast eldritch blast as normal.



In exchange for that, you're losing the ability to summon your weapon, the ability to use more than just a single type of weapon with it, its free magical stuff, and really just about everything that makes the official Blade Pact worth having. You are now able to get those as Invocations, because obviously you weren't already wasting enough to make decent use of the Blade Pact.


•Currently the blade pact, when creating a weapon requires you to choose a melee weapon. As for a magical weapon it can be any.
•While yes I did remove the magical weapon property and summoning features from the blade pact. It was to offset the ranged spell casting in melee.
•Bane Blade gives the magical feature back to the blade pact as well as a small defense buff. If your warlock gains a magic weapon as they adventure, they can replace this invocation with another.
•Cursed Gift invocation provides it benefits to all pact boons. This helps out the tome warlock a lot.



Your Thirsting Blade and Unquenchable Blade weren't necessary, you're usually able to do more damage with your normal melee anyways. At least you were, when you're not using a homebrew that removed the places where the Bladelock got most of their damage from in the first place. And sure, that lets you EB as well as attack, but a) giving up some ranged capabilities in exchange for melee is what's intended to make Bladelock more balanced, and b) even ignoring that, odds are you'd still do more damage with Thirsting Blade + Lifedrinker, because with your proposed changes you won't even be able to afford AB or similar effects for a good part of your career.


•You may not be reading the invocation right. Unquenchable Blade replaces thirsting blade. This allows my level 17 warlock to replace two eldritch blast bolt for two melee weapon attack. My warlock uses a great sword so his attacks are 2d6+mod force damage + 2d6+mod force damage + 1d10 force damage + 1d10 force damage. You can also add 4d6 hex damage if you cast the hex spell. And because his weapon damage is force he does not need Bane blade invocation that much.

It's more about the RP less about the mechanics.

[Sicarius Victis]

•Currently the warlock's pact boon is not an arcane focus.

I never said it was. I said it should be. That's one thing I agree with you on.


•Allowing the blade pact to cast ranged spell in melee combat without disadvantage, gives the player RP option. "I charge my blade with eldritch energy and attack the creature. " cast eldritch blast as normal.

Or you could just, you know, let them make Pact Weapon weapon attacks instead of spell attacks if that's the feel you're going for.


•Currently the blade pact, when creating a weapon requires you to choose a melee weapon. As for a magical weapon it can be any.

Yes. Just like yours. Except yours only lets you bond with melee weapons afterwards. And yours also offers none of the versatility that the standard Blade Pact does, such as the ability to switch what wrapon you have WITHOUT requiring an hour or so to bond to a different weapon.


•While yes I did remove the magical weapon property and summoning features from the blade pact. It was to offset the ranged spell casting in melee.

To offset the thing they didn't need, that turned the "melee combatant" one into a better "spell blaster" than the ACTUAL "spell blaster" ones, such as Tomelock?


•Bane Blade gives the magical feature back to the blade pact as well as a small defense buff. If your warlock gains a magic weapon as they adventure, they can replace this invocation with another.

Or they can just get it as part of the base Pact if they use the official one.


•Cursed Gift invocation provides it benefits to all pact boons. This helps out the tome warlock a lot.

Does Tomelock really need the buffs? It's the most effective Boon of all of them, and is already more than capable of doing a Bladelock's job for him.


•You may not be reading the invocation right. Unquenchable Blade replaces thirsting blade. This allows my level 17 warlock to replace two eldritch blast bolt for two melee weapon attack. My warlock uses a great sword so his attacks are 2d6+mod force damage + 2d6+mod force damage + 1d10 force damage + 1d10 force damage. You can also add 4d6 hex damage if you cast the hex spell. And because his weapon damage is force he does not need Bane blade invocation that much.

What makes you think I'm not reading it right? And unless you can also afford AB, and you're actually USING it, then odds are that the official Bladelock can do at least as much damage as yours anyways. Until 17th level, when they can just use Wish anyways.


It's more about the RP less about the mechanics.

And here I figured it should be about making the mechanics for the RP.

Edit: Sorry, I'm being pretty harsh on you and your Pacts. Harsher than I should be. I'm just not seeing the reason why a Bladelock who wants to make a melee-based character would use yours instead of the official.