Free Action Pact of the Blade- Is it really broke?

[Nagog]

Good day to you all!

So I'm conceptualizing an NPC for a future campaign to procrastinate planning for my next session (ya know, like ya do) and have had an idea for a while of a CoffeeLock Smite build with Eldritch Smite. Typical Coffeelocks need to be pact of the Tome to get the Warlock invocation that allows them to Coffeelock, so for this build I'm givint them a 1 level dip into Varient Ranger for the Tireless feature (Which I figure is closer to RAW despite being UA, as it specifically addresses Exhaustion, but that's beside the point).
The issue I've discovered is the use of an Action to summon the Pact Weapon is quite taxing for a martial build, particularly due to my choice for the character to use Daggers (Two handed and Thirsting Blade). The execution of this build is pretty good, but is somewhat lacking due to the Action required to summon the Pact Weapon (a dagger) after throwing it, as the secondary weapon (another dagger) cannot attack twice per Attack Action as per Thirsting Blade, and if the action is used to summon, the bonus action attack is unavailable.

The build of this character aside (as much of it is thematic in nature), would it really be all that broken for a Pact of the Blade Warlock to be able to summon their weapon as a free action, similarly to drawing a weapon? What is the purpose of it costing an action?

[JackPhoenix]

Yes. It would be broken, because there's no such thing as "free action" in 5e. Drawing a weapon is object interaction, not "free action".

Besides that, it's an NPC. It doesn't (and shouldn't) run on the rules PC classes use.

[Man_Over_Game]

Even if you gave Pact of the Blade medium armor and shield proficiency, it still wouldn't be broken (since it only improves non-multiclassing warlock builds, who are suboptimal as melee combatants as-is).

The main concern is just wording it in a way that doesn't seem weird. Having it cost your choice of an Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction would work.

[Jerrykhor]

Nah, life's too short to be worrying bout whether drawing your goddamn weapon is broken. Just give it for free.

I have no idea why special weapons have to cost something just to be drawn, like the recent UA Rogue Soulknife cost a bonus action just to summon it.

I dont care how magical or special your weapon is, if its not using the standard item interaction to draw, then its worse than mundane weapons as far as im concerned. Action economy is important.

[Chaosmancer]

I made summoning and even altering the weapon a bonus action, but frankly, I don't see anything broken about allowing it to be free. I can literally not think of a single thing you could do with it that would be "broken" in any sense.

[Damon_Tor]

In theory there are some advantages to being able to change your weapon type freely. For example, you could be holding a regular sword one minute, then when a guy tries to run past you, bam, it's a whip, and now you get an AoO. Maybe more devious: so let's say you have polearm mastery and you smack someone from 10 feet away with your glaive. Well now he's screwed: he can't walk away from you without triggering a standard AoO, but if he moves closer to you you just magic up a spear and hit him with that.

Now, that sounds kind of rad to be honest, but it shouldn't be FREE. Make it an invocation maybe.

[Chaosmancer]

In theory there are some advantages to being able to change your weapon type freely. For example, you could be holding a regular sword one minute, then when a guy tries to run past you, bam, it's a whip, and now you get an AoO. Maybe more devious: so let's say you have polearm mastery and you smack someone from 10 feet away with your glaive. Well now he's screwed: he can't walk away from you without triggering a standard AoO, but if he moves closer to you you just magic up a spear and hit him with that.

Now, that sounds kind of rad to be honest, but it shouldn't be FREE. Make it an invocation maybe.

Just make it so that you can only change it on your turn. That removes pretty much all of those abuses.

[MaxWilson]

I have no idea why special weapons have to cost something just to be drawn, like the recent UA Rogue Soulknife cost a bonus action just to summon it.

Pact Weapons don't cost anything unusual to be drawn--you can summon it beforehand and put it in a normal scabbard, and draw it with your object interaction just like any other weapon.

But I agree that it's cooler to just allow it to be summoned as part of an Attack action, with no additional cost.

[Segev]

New Invocation: Cursed Blade
Whenever you are not wielding your pact blade and you need to make a weapon attack or go to draw a weapon, your pact blade appears in your hand in the form of the weapon you desired. You can do this on purpose as part of an attack, requiring no additional action. To draw any other weapon, you must either already be holding your pact blade, or spend a bonus action to suppress this ability while drawing the desired weapon.

Sometimes, Warlocks with this invocation die and leave their cursed blades behind. Such blades bond to those who attune them, forcing them to draw the cursed weapon whenever they go for a weapon of any sort. In the hands of a creature other than their bonded warlock, these cursed blades are clumsy, imposing a -2 penalty to hit and damage.

[Galithar]

"On your turn you may summon your pact weapon to your hand without requiring an action"

Not difficult to word it, and it won't break anything to be able to do that.

[da newt]

I think if it was RAW that there was no action cost (bonus, reaction, item interaction, etc) to summoning a pact weapon it would leave the feature open to abuse by throwing your pact weapon and then summoning it back essentially giving it the returning ability of the dwarven thrower and other magic weapons.

Other than that, I think a house rule that you can summon your weapon of choice once every turn is just fun and not broken.

[sithlordnergal]

Honestly, I run my game with Pact of the Blade Warlocks being able to summon their weapon as if they were drawing/sheathing their weapon: No action required unless you wanna draw two. The only thing I've seen that could potentially be troublesome is if you decide to start throwing your weapon...Once you have your weapon out, it basically acts as a returning weapon.

However, that is a non-issue for one very simple, and powerful, reason: Eldritch Blast. I can't think of any warlock build that would benefit more from throwing their weapon twice then casting Eldritch Blast. Maybe if you're going for an Emiya style from Fate, where you just throw swords at your enemy...but even then Eldritch Blast is just better. And since you can only do that with Pact of the Blade, everyone who gets the ability to summon their weapon in that manner also gets Eldritch Blast.

[Chaosmancer]

Honestly, I run my game with Pact of the Blade Warlocks being able to summon their weapon as if they were drawing/sheathing their weapon: No action required unless you wanna draw two. The only thing I've seen that could potentially be troublesome is if you decide to start throwing your weapon...Once you have your weapon out, it basically acts as a returning weapon.

However, that is a non-issue for one very simple, and powerful, reason: Eldritch Blast. I can't think of any warlock build that would benefit more from throwing their weapon twice then casting Eldritch Blast. Maybe if you're going for an Emiya style from Fate, where you just throw swords at your enemy...but even then Eldritch Blast is just better. And since you can only do that with Pact of the Blade, everyone who gets the ability to summon their weapon in that manner also gets Eldritch Blast.

Yeah, you might be able to throw your Greataxe, but as a non-thrown weapon you probably do so at disadvantage beyond 10 ft or so, so the 120 ft eldritch blast is just better than any other choice.

[sithlordnergal]

Yeah, you might be able to throw your Greataxe, but as a non-thrown weapon you probably do so at disadvantage beyond 10 ft or so, so the 120 ft eldritch blast is just better than any other choice.

Yeah, and even if you don't want to have Eldritch Blast, there are other ranged cantrips like Chill Touch that you can take. All of them are a better option.

[JackPhoenix]

Yeah, you might be able to throw your Greataxe, but as a non-thrown weapon you probably do so at disadvantage beyond 10 ft or so, so the 120 ft eldritch blast is just better than any other choice.

Thrown improvised weapons have range of 20/60. Though it's only 1d4 damage and no proficiency to hit without Tavern Brawler, so.... yeah.

[micahaphone]

Do you let your dual wielding player characters start combat with both weapons in hand, even if they don't have the feat? In my groups we usually hand wave that technicality away, everyone can start combat with their weapons in hand, barring special circumstances. Swapping weapons/equipment mid combat still follows the rules

[JackPhoenix]

Do you let your dual wielding player characters start combat with both weapons in hand, even if they don't have the feat? In my groups we usually hand wave that technicality away, everyone can start combat with their weapons in hand, barring special circumstances. Swapping weapons/equipment mid combat still follows the rules

Why wouldn't you? It makes sense you have your weapon ready when you walk into dangerous situation before you encounter an enemy.

[Willie the Duck]

I think if it was RAW that there was no action cost (bonus, reaction, item interaction, etc) to summoning a pact weapon it would leave the feature open to abuse by throwing your pact weapon and then summoning it back essentially giving it the returning ability of the dwarven thrower and other magic weapons.

If I were to guess at developer intent, I would say there is a combination of 1) fear of some kind of infinite loop abuse (by combining with some future item/spell/ability) if something were to have something that could be done at no resource cost, and 2) that's what all these extra action types (bonus, reaction, object interaction) were designed for in the first place.

The first is probably prescient, or would be if they hadn't also hugely clamped down on splatbook production (minimizing extraneous official items/spells/abilities with which rules could interact), although then 'combined with one's attack' type rules would work. The later is true, but does make some real winners and losers amongst potential options.

[da newt]

If PC's say 'I draw my weapons' before combat, then they are drawn - if they are doing non-combat stuff that prohibits their hands from holding weapons, then they need to draw them IAW RAW.

If a PC is in a tavern drinking a beer, then they can't have both weapons drawn (unless they ask for a straw and are that kind of tool who would drink beer through a straw so they could be armed at all times), and if they say nothing, it is assumed they aren't brandishing their weapon while drinking.

I think common sense ought to prevail - if a PC wants to walk down main st with 2 scimitars in hand they can - but they ought to expect some looks and have others assume they are looking for a fight. If PCs are otherwise engaged in non-combat and they are surprise attacked, the PCs should need to draw their weapons (maybe even don their shield).

I prefer a bit of realism w/ my fantasy.

[Reynaert]

I prefer a bit of realism w/ my fantasy.

Then maybe you should physically try out how quickly you can draw two weapons, compared to one.

[HiveStriker]

Good day to you all!

So I'm conceptualizing an NPC for a future campaign to procrastinate planning for my next session (ya know, like ya do) and have had an idea for a while of a CoffeeLock Smite build with Eldritch Smite. Typical Coffeelocks need to be pact of the Tome to get the Warlock invocation that allows them to Coffeelock, so for this build I'm givint them a 1 level dip into Varient Ranger for the Tireless feature (Which I figure is closer to RAW despite being UA, as it specifically addresses Exhaustion, but that's beside the point).
The issue I've discovered is the use of an Action to summon the Pact Weapon is quite taxing for a martial build, particularly due to my choice for the character to use Daggers (Two handed and Thirsting Blade). The execution of this build is pretty good, but is somewhat lacking due to the Action required to summon the Pact Weapon (a dagger) after throwing it, as the secondary weapon (another dagger) cannot attack twice per Attack Action as per Thirsting Blade, and if the action is used to summon, the bonus action attack is unavailable.

The build of this character aside (as much of it is thematic in nature), would it really be all that broken for a Pact of the Blade Warlock to be able to summon their weapon as a free action, similarly to drawing a weapon? What is the purpose of it costing an action?
Hi!

I'll be probably redundant with others but...

1. It's not broken. AT ALL. It basically just gives a decent benefit in flexibility and a good but reasonable boost in power, since it would allow Warlock to freely use its Pact Weapon for multiple thrown attacks, free of charge, while also triggering dual-wielding's bonus action attack.
With that said, I would rather make it "at most" use your object interaction or make it "use bonus action" like Eldricht Knight for the following reason...

2. The distinction between actions are, partly, a way for designers to represent how quickly you do something, and/or how much "resource/effort" it requires to you.
In that mind frame, would you feel natural that a Warlock can instantly make pop/depop a powerful, magical weapon that is a pure grant from its Patron? In my eyes at least it would diminishes the "classy/powerful" factor. After all it's still some magical power you're wielding here.

That was probably the reason why for everyone with similar feature they didn't make it "free": it's not something as mundane as shaking hands or speaking, it should bear some weight.
With that said, I don't understand why they made it an action for Warlock, whereas it's a bonus action for everyone else: imo bonus action is the perfect balance, since it doesn't eat your Action (so you can still Attack/Booming Blade) but it does represent investment enough that you cannot bonus action attack or cast spell.
I mean, I understand that this feature is much better than EK's one since a) you can reshape weapon everytime, and b) it automatically inflicts magic damage (huge boon over martials, that many people forget). Still, seems to me kinda too expensive of a cost.

(Also, I don't understand either why Eldricht Knight can bind to two different weapons but can only recall one: big missed opportunity to have dual-wielding fun imo).

In short: I'd rather make it use bonus action personally, but making it something like "call it for free when engaging in a weapon attack" is definitely not breaking anything, not by a large margin. :)

Since your concept is precisely about a dual-wielding Blade Warlock, I'll suggest the following:
- Allow bonding with two weapons (it's a NPC, you're already planning to tweak rules, so who cares you're basically eating into Eldricht Knight?) *as long as they are similar in shape and nature* (not handaxe and scimitar, but two daggers are fine).
- Allow recall of both weapons with an action, or one only with a bonus action.
- Allow instant call of weapons at the cost of necrotic damage inflicted to self, reducing maximum and effective HP until you get a short rest, by 1d12 (because confer above, there should always be a cost).


Pact Weapons don't cost anything unusual to be drawn--you can summon it beforehand and put it in a normal scabbard, and draw it with your object interaction just like any other weapon.

But I agree that it's cooler to just allow it to be summoned as part of an Attack action, with no additional cost.
That's a cool trick!


Even if you gave Pact of the Blade medium armor and shield proficiency, it still wouldn't be broken (since it only improves non-multiclassing warlock builds, who are suboptimal as melee combatants as-is).

The main concern is just wording it in a way that doesn't seem weird. Having it cost your choice of an Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction would work.
Suboptimal? Compared to a pure Fighter with GWM and the like and very magical equipment like +2 weapon, and if Warlock on the other side waste spells, certainly. Otherwise? Not at all.
- Blade pact -> automagical, makes raw damage plain better than Fighter until latter gets magic weapon or is EK with Magic Weapon...
- At which time Warlock can cast Greater Invisibility if he was smart enough to pick Archfey (yeah, melee Warlocks were fully functional far before Hexblade: they just needed to be played like Rogues or Monks).
- Before that, Warlock can help himself and others before engaging in melee with spells like Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern or Fear.
- After that, Warlock can instead help himself and others with Hold Monster.
Not saying because you cast it will automatically land, but I expect people to not try offensive spells if they don't have at least 2/3 chance of succeeding. Otherwise, Greater Invisibility for offense and defense combined works great until high levels where alternative sensory features become more common.

Like Monks, Warlocks are a class which gameplay can be one that evolves greatly as you progress depending on your focus, because of the way slots work (auto-scaling, few per rest). :)

EDIT: I do like the "on reaction" suggestion: "When you roll Initiative as a reaction, you can call your pact weapon to your hand. Doing so reduce your Initiative score by 2".
"When you are targeted by a weapon attack, you can use a reaction to call your pact weapon to your hand" (no extra strings needed here, since it eats your reaction anyways, so no Defensive Duelist or OA until start of your next turn".

[Chaosmancer]

Suboptimal? Compared to a pure Fighter with GWM and the like and very magical equipment like +2 weapon, and if Warlock on the other side waste spells, certainly. Otherwise? Not at all.

I think the idea that Melee Warlocks are suboptimal comes from the fact that there is no melee warlock build that wouldn't do better if they used Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast instead. Except maybe a Hexblade with PAM since they can get 3 attacks earlier and can stack enough extras onto the d4 attack to make it worthwhile.

For an example to take your points

- Eldritch Blast is also auto-magical damage
-Greater Invisibility for advantage works at range, perhaps better at range since it is harder for the enemy to guess where you are
- Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern and Fear are great for ranged attacks too, especially hold person

[NaughtyTiger]

Yes. It would be broken, because there's no such thing as "free action" in 5e. Drawing a weapon is object interaction, not "free action".

Besides that, it's an NPC. It doesn't (and shouldn't) run on the rules PC classes use.

Do you consider "dropping your sword" an object interaction?

doh. totes didn't notice the blue font.

[Chaosmancer]

Do you consider "dropping your sword" an object interaction?

Blue text is usually sarcasm

[HiveStriker]

Even if you gave Pact of the Blade medium armor and shield proficiency, it still wouldn't be broken (since it only improves non-multiclassing warlock builds, who are suboptimal as melee combatants as-is).

The main concern is just wording it in a way that doesn't seem weird. Having it cost your choice of an Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction would work.


I think the idea that Melee Warlocks are suboptimal comes from the fact that there is no melee warlock build that wouldn't do better if they used Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast instead. Except maybe a Hexblade with PAM since they can get 3 attacks earlier and can stack enough extras onto the d4 attack to make it worthwhile.

For an example to take your points

- Eldritch Blast is also auto-magical damage
-Greater Invisibility for advantage works at range, perhaps better at range since it is harder for the enemy to guess where you are
- Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern and Fear are great for ranged attacks too, especially hold person
I agree with what you say (except that Hold Person is better for melee since it makes auto-crits, although of course technically nothing prevents you from grabbing Crossbow Expert to get "melee EB crits" ;)).

I think you paint it darker than need be though. Because yeah, Eldricht Blast can (ultimately) get better than melee, provided you max only one stat (so STR/DEX vs CHA).
But...
- It's similar damage when all attacks connect compared to a dual-wielder Warlock with Thirsting Blade (yeah, even without the style).
- It requires for that to pick an Invocation (Agonizing Blast) that could be spent elsewhere.
- Many feats empower melee action, with Sentinel, PAM, Warcaster* and GWM being first in line (although I personally dislike GWM for a Warlock, I get why it can be a good choice if paired with something like Greater Invisibility or successful Hold spell that boosts hit chance), which provide extra chances of weapon attacks (*Warcaster & Booming Blade of course ;)).
- And you get Lifedrinker for a nice boost at level 12 to top off.
At the end of the day, you can technically boost your damage much further than Agonizing Blast, although it comes at a significant price in terms of "resilience through stats".

In other words, "it's usually not worth the effort" for most people, because most people simply want a "good and reliable damage-dealing option". And in that regard, Eldricht Blast is by miles the better choice no argue on that.
But people who want to make a good damage-dealer as a melee Warlock could already do so as a pure Warlock, without weapon cantrips, without Hexblade, without even multiclassing. It's just that there were very few different ways to do it which required tough choices, so often you ended like "hmm, was it worth investing really all that *just to be great at melee*?

It's like Valor Bards specializing in archery or Swords Bard putting their own around melee fighting: it works really well. Just, most people choose casters to... Actually *be* casters. So, usually, they legitimately don't feel "optimal" to spend more than a small chunk of all their building choices into one specific aspect.

[Man_Over_Game]

The problem is, versatility isn't always a boon. Unless there's a situation where Option B works when Option A doesn't, there's no point in investing into both.

The Sun Soul monk, for instance, cannot do both his ranged attacks and use his Stunning Strike feature.

Where a Drunken Monk contributes 5 points in melee and 1 points in Range, the Sun Soul contributes 3 points in melee and 3 points in Range. However, unless there's a situation where Range works when Melee doesn't, the Drunken will contribute 5 points to the Sun Soul's 3, making the Sun Soul feel like he's only contributing 60% as much as he could have. This is a different story if ranged combat was the primary method of contributing (but most DMs wouldn't do that to a Drunken Monk).

Similarly, attacking with Eldritch Blast is almost always relevant, while attacking with a melee weapon is far less so. In fact, the only reason a ranged attack would be inferior to a melee attack, excluding any on-hit weapon features, is if an enemy was within 5 feet of you. Unless that's something you expect, that's a generally easy thing to avoid or mitigate considering Eldritch Blast's range. Even the Archfey patron gets Misty Step.

[sithlordnergal]

Hi!

I'll be probably redundant with others but...

1. It's not broken. AT ALL. It basically just gives a decent benefit in flexibility and a good but reasonable boost in power, since it would allow Warlock to freely use its Pact Weapon for multiple thrown attacks, free of charge, while also triggering dual-wielding's bonus action attack.
With that said, I would rather make it "at most" use your object interaction or make it "use bonus action" like Eldricht Knight for the following reason...

2. The distinction between actions are, partly, a way for designers to represent how quickly you do something, and/or how much "resource/effort" it requires to you.
In that mind frame, would you feel natural that a Warlock can instantly make pop/depop a powerful, magical weapon that is a pure grant from its Patron? In my eyes at least it would diminishes the "classy/powerful" factor. After all it's still some magical power you're wielding here.



I mean, I personally picture the Warlock being able to summon their weapon about as quickly as Archer can in Unlimited Blade Works. If you look up the first battle between him and Lancer, his weapon is destroyed, and he resummons it with a phrase short enough to bring it back between a pair of strikes from Lancer.

[HiveStriker]

Similarly, attacking with Eldritch Blast is almost always relevant, while attacking with a melee weapon is far less so. In fact, the only reason a ranged attack would be inferior to a melee attack, excluding any on-hit weapon features, is if an enemy was within 5 feet of you. Unless that's something you expect, that's a generally easy thing to avoid or mitigate considering Eldritch Blast's range. Even the Archfey patron gets Misty Step.

Nope. First, there is the cover problem: allies will usually provide at least a +2 AC to the enemy you target whenever you're in small areas, whether indoors (room, cavern) or outdoors (forest, ruins). Sometimes you can find an angle to override that, often not. Beyond that, there is the problem of general cover behind which people can get. While technically cover can exist "against" a melee attack, it's much harder to enable (except in taverns brawls ;)).

Second, there is the general accuracy problem: when you have more than one melee guy in party, having one of them investing a weapon attack into Shove is a sound choice, because the missed chance at extra damage on that one, provided of course checks succeed (Barbarian, Rogue, STR Monk, some Fighters) will be more than reimbursed by the extra damage it generates through accuracy and higher chance of crits on everyone else's attack.
Which also means you're putting all your ranged allies in trouble if they want to help killing that one enemy faster: at low level, usually a single enemy can be dispatch by two or three people max if they all hit. But the HP scaling of monsters makes it soon enough imperative to focus fire as much as possible.
If your only option is Eldricht Blast, you basically have to choose another target.
Unless you go for the "Darkness + Devil's Sight" or later Greater Invisibility to offset the disadvantage, still, it's a net loss of accuracy for you (plus it means you don't use concentration on something else).
Conversely (just to show i'm thorough ;)), melee also have a requirement that may sometimes make ranged attack better from the straight go: mobility. After all, melee means being close, and getting to it is not always easy (or possible).

Third, melee situations do happen more often than not, either because you want them or because enemy managed to reach you. Unless you have several casters with strong deterrent to manage enemy mobility, there will be enemies that bypass your frontline to try and get you. With Booming Blade, attacking "preemptively" with Extra Attack is less interesting than pre-SCAG. But until level 11, it's still more effective if you don't expect the enemy to move. And unless you picked Crossbow Expert, it will be far more effective than Eldricht Blast.
In addition to that, you get extra chance of dealing damage with opportunity attacks, and you have some options to help you through (Mirror Image, Armor of Agathys, possibly Fire Shield if going Fiend, all enough to stand strong against a handful of attacks and not using concentration).

Fourth, if you don't take Agonizing Blast, it simply deals LESS damage on average. And even if you pick Agonizing Blast, it will only start getting straight better at level 8 onwards. And only if the alternative Blade one doesn't get any magic weapon, nor any feat improving its weapon attack damage on top of Lifedrinker.

I'm sorry but what you say is simply wrong: melee is a *very* strong option damage-wise. The only thing that can give a strong edge to ranged over melee is that usually you're putting yourself in much less threat.
In other words, the real effectiveness of options is always assessed by taking into accounts both potential benefits and potential drawbacks, as well as their respective effort and resource required. I'm pretty sure we can agree on that.


So it's simply up to you, each and everytime, to decide whether you are ok with the associated risks, or if you'd prefer hanging back in safety.

But when the threat level is manageable (and target is "reachable" in both cases), overall in game mechanics, melee has (and always have had) a much higher ceiling damage than ranged, simply because there are so many more options available to enhance it that you will usually have several of those options available at any time in any kind of party.
Whereas enhancing accuracy through buff or advantage for ranged attacks is but a small subset of everything available to melee.


The problem is, versatility isn't always a boon. Unless there's a situation where Option B works when Option A doesn't, there's no point in investing into both.

The Sun Soul monk, for instance, cannot do both his ranged attacks and use his Stunning Strike feature.

Where a Drunken Monk contributes 5 points in melee and 1 points in Range, the Sun Soul contributes 3 points in melee and 3 points in Range. However, unless there's a situation where Range works when Melee doesn't, the Drunken will contribute 5 points to the Sun Soul's 3, making the Sun Soul feel like he's only contributing 60% as much as he could have. This is a different story if ranged combat was the primary method of contributing (but most DMs wouldn't do that to a Drunken Monk).


By the way, that parallel doesn't hold at all. Drunken Monk and Sun Soul Monk have the exact same class features, and globally the same incentive to boost respectively DEX and WIS.
Why would then Sun Soul act differently than Drunken Monk whenever melee is "safe enough", or whenever chance of landing Stunning Strike is high enough to attempt it? Because if it lands, there is no risk of getting attacked back by your target, in OA or otherwise.

How they act different is not in "safe" situations, but in "not safe" situations: in addition to simply moving away as far as possible with Disengage as a bonus action after your Attack action...

Drunken has options...
a) Simply do Flurry of Blows and move back thanks to free Disengage. Result? Attack melee + Flurry = 4 attacks, using martial arts die, for 1 ki.
b) Staying in melee, use Dodge as bonus action, and hope on a miss to redirect incoming attack (double benefit: aggro attacks you think you can avoid, deal extra damage).

Sun Soul has options...
a) Simply use its radiant attack twice on Extra Attack and twice as bonus action. Result? 4 attacks, using martial arts die, for 1 ki.
b) Staying in melee, using Attack and cast Burning Hands as a bonus action, costing at least 2 Ki to harm several creatures at once.

What's the difference?
With option a), *ZERO* (well, once you get at least d8 die anyways). Both land the same number of attacks, deal magical damage (with similar lack of resistance from most monsters), and avoid OA from most creatures even at higher level.

With option b), you're simply using the features that make you the archetype you are, that you choose to be better in some specific area (Level 6 features could be summarized as Drunken: gambling threesome tank, Sun Soul: mob undertaker).

In other words, not because you have option X should you feel compelled to use it over other things. It's just one more tool, to improve your chance of being efficient in more various situations.

[Chaosmancer]

Nope. First, there is the cover problem: allies will usually provide at least a +2 AC to the enemy you target whenever you're in small areas, whether indoors (room, cavern) or outdoors (forest, ruins). Sometimes you can find an angle to override that, often not. Beyond that, there is the problem of general cover behind which people can get. While technically cover can exist "against" a melee attack, it's much harder to enable (except in taverns brawls ;)).

Not everyone does this. I generally do not give cover for only a single ally next to an enemy.

Maybe if it is a crowd.


Second, there is the general accuracy problem: when you have more than one melee guy in party, having one of them investing a weapon attack into Shove is a sound choice, because the missed chance at extra damage on that one, provided of course checks succeed (Barbarian, Rogue, STR Monk, some Fighters) will be more than reimbursed by the extra damage it generates through accuracy and higher chance of crits on everyone else's attack.

Possibly, but you can also be more likely to waste your turn if you do not have prof in Athletics, because the you are rolling with a lower modifier.

In fact, there are a lot of mitigating factors involved with this, from whether you are using the flanking rules, the strength of the opponent, and how many allies will gain advantage vs disadvantage for ranged allies.