Warlock - where to from here

[KyleG]

Ok lets be clear. I know its not optimised. I know its not the best idea. But it is the character i want to play. What i would like now is some advice with these cards as i enter the next few levels of the game.


This is a character who IS more likely to fight with two weapons, he will change weapon as he feels necessary (dm not requiring it to be an action ROC) but for the most part is going to be TWFing
Multi classing is not allowed
starting stats are what they are.



Hexblade - Pact of Blade Level 3 leveled up end of last session to Level 4
8/14/16/14/10/14 currently with 39 HP (that includes Level 4 HP)
Currently with Improved Pact Weapon and Mask of many faces Invocations.
Lucky enough to have a stone to hold 1 spell each day.

So over the next say 3 levels what should i do?
Level 4 - Feat or +2 Cha? What spells to have? What spell to hold in my stone?
Level 5 - Thirsting Blade for sure. what spells?
Level 6 - where to from here? This is looking to be a long 12+ running campaign.

DM has asked us for future magic item suggestions. What should i throw out there?

[tieren]

For the item, if you don't have one ask for rod of the pact keeper.

I presume you went hexblade so you wouldn't' be MAD using the same ability fr attacks and spells. You should do nothing but boost charisma for a while.

For the spells at 5th level I would want hypnotic pattern and Hunger of Hadar, particularly if you are going to literally be knocking enemies away.

[Keravath]

Ok lets be clear. I know its not optimised. I know its not the best idea. But it is the character i want to play. What i would like now is some advice with these cards as i enter the next few levels of the game.


This is a character who IS more likely to fight with two weapons, he will change weapon as he feels necessary (dm not requiring it to be an action ROC) but for the most part is going to be TWFing
Multi classing is not allowed
starting stats are what they are.



Hexblade - Pact of Blade Level 3 leveled up end of last session to Level 4
8/14/16/14/10/14 currently with 39 HP (that includes Level 4 HP)
Currently with Improved Pact Weapon and Mask of many faces Invocations.
Lucky enough to have a stone to hold 1 spell each day.

So over the next say 3 levels what should i do?
Level 4 - Feat or +2 Cha? What spells to have? What spell to hold in my stone?
Level 5 - Thirsting Blade for sure. what spells?
Level 6 - where to from here? This is looking to be a long 12+ running campaign.

DM has asked us for future magic item suggestions. What should i throw out there?

1) You are a TWF hexblade warlock with a 14 charisma. This means +2 to hit and +2 to damage on your weapon attacks as well as only contributing 2 to spell DC if you use any of your limited spell resources for attacks which you probably won't. As a result, I think your greatest priority for level 4 and 8 ASI will be to increase charisma. Just my opinion but that is what I would do. Hopefully, you have charisma based skills like persuasion and deception that will also benefit. (It will also make your ranged attacks more effective).

2) Spells are probably utility mostly. I tend to go with Hex Misty Step/Invisibility(?)/Darkness(works best if you have devils sight) Fly/Blink/Hypnotic Pattern (just because it can be encounter changing if it does well) .. other popular choices might be Armor of Agathys and Hellish Rebuke though I usually consider them a waste of a very limited spell slot resource (depends on whether you are the kind of warlock that likes to use up your spell slots).

My preferred approach for melee warlocks is to use Darkness+Devils Sight swapping to Shadows of Moil at level 7 to get advantage to attack creatures that can't see you and disadvantage for them to attack you. It increases survivability in melee range (and allows for you to move away after attacking) - this can also work well with the booming blade cantrip which will probably be a better option than attacking with two weapons but it is up to you.

3) If you can't multiclass then you simply go hexblade blade pact warlock the whole way. :) ... Improved Pact Weapon (until you get a better weapon you can bind as your pact weapon), Thirsting Blade, Lifedrinker (12th level) plus whatever is useful. I have found Devils sight to be useful if only for the 120' see perfectly in the dark ability. Even with a party carrying a bunch of torches ... you can still see perfectly in the complete darkness beyond the torches to 120' while your human companions using the torches can't see much at all and if magical darkness does come up then you can see through that too.

Some of what to do depends on what race you are as well but melee warlocks are pretty straightforward.

Also, even if you want to focus on melee you should STILL take eldritch blast and add agonizing blast around level 7 since there will be times when your preferred melee mode of combat won't work.

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Finally, I have a level 8 melee hexblade warlock (variant human) but he went the Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master route. The character started with 8/14/15/10/10/16 and took resilient con at 8th level to get a 16. PAM at level 1 and GWM at level 4. I'll have to suffer through having charisma a little low for the next 4 levels but I thought having proficiency in con saves and some extra hit points for the next 4 levels was likely to be better than the higher charisma since the character tries to get advantage using shadows of moil and makes 3 attacks/round. If I was going to change something up, I would probably have bumped charisma at level 4 and saved GWM for level 12. So far, most of the fights he has been involved in, the opponents have AC in the 17 to 20 range which is where the trade off for not using GWM kicks in (with my +7 to hit) so there have been a lot of combats where it didn't make sense to use it (though it does really nice damage when it hits). If I had been fighting creatures with an AC around 14 then GWM would make sense on all the attacks.

[KyleG]

Thanks Keravath. Good ideas and boosting charisma is indeed probably best. I really want to do the darkness combo but don't want to hinder my companions