Sorlock with blade

[ZzSan9zZ]

Hi everyone.
I'm building a character for level 6, and I'm the munchkin. The main idea is the melee warlock based on Cha. I'm thinking about Sorc3(or 4 for a feat)/lock++.
So that I'm going to have 2 attacks from invocation, quick spell, which allows an additional attack, and so on.
I do not understand, why all bladelock builds are based on fighter 1-2. They say "you have CON save proff and heavy armor proff". The plate armor provides 18 AC, while the Half plate provides 17( or even 18 with feat and +3 dex). The CON save are granted by sorc as well as fighter.
Ok, I'll have less HP, and won't get a fighting style. It's ok for me. So the question is - what I'm missing??? Thanks.

[JackPhoenix]

Heavy armor requires zero investment in ability, if you're fine with lower speed. With 2 levels, you'll get Action Surge, which is just great (but better for someone with actual spellcasting).

And of course, smaller the dip, the less you delay access to your main set of abilities.

[Snowbreeze]

You might want to keep a close eye on the the requirements for Thirsting Blade (extra attack invocation) aswell when taking into account your build.

You need to have Pact of the Blade (meaning minimum of level 3 Warlock), aswell as being a level 5 Warlock (in order to satisfy the level 5 requirement. This part refers to class levels, not total levels).

If you are starting at level 6, in order to start with Thirsting Blade, you therefor need to have atleast 5 levels of Warlock, leaving you only with 1 level of sorcerer (handful of cantrips, but also 2 level 1 slots for shield / absorb elements I suppose aswell as a CON prof). Not having extra attack at level 6 as a melee orientated char is painful (although as a lock you can still happily blast away with the best of them, but that might not be the idea you were going for).

Depending on how far your campaign goes and your own preference, that might or not might be worth it over full Lock / other multiclass.

Regarding Fighter, see Jack's reply :)

[Unoriginal]

Hi everyone.
I'm building a character for level 6, and I'm the munchkin. The main idea is the melee warlock based on Cha. I'm thinking about Sorc3(or 4 for a feat)/lock++.
So that I'm going to have 2 attacks from invocation, quick spell, which allows an additional attack, and so on.
I do not understand, why all bladelock builds are based on fighter 1-2. They say "you have CON save proff and heavy armor proff". The plate armor provides 18 AC, while the Half plate provides 17( or even 18 with feat and +3 dex). The CON save are granted by sorc as well as fighter.
Ok, I'll have less HP, and won't get a fighting style. It's ok for me. So the question is - what I'm missing??? Thanks.


I don't understand what you get from the Sorcerer.

If you want a CHA melee warlock, you just need to go Hexblade.

You don't need Fighter levels for melee warlock, either, but if not going Hexblade you need good STR or DEX, and generally getting better armor proficiency is better. Githyanki Bladelocks are pretty good.

[ZzSan9zZ]

I don't understand what you get from the Sorcerer.

If you want a CHA melee warlock, you just need to go Hexblade.

You don't need Fighter levels for melee warlock, either, but if not going Hexblade you need good STR or DEX, and generally getting better armor proficiency is better. Githyanki Bladelocks are pretty good.

Sorc gives me proof in CON save, metamagic, and several spells(includes a lot of cantrips).

In general, I get the answer to my main question. Thanks a lot for your help!:smallsmile:

[Willie the Duck]

I do not understand, why all bladelock builds are based on fighter 1-2. They say "you have CON save proff and heavy armor proff". The plate armor provides 18 AC, while the Half plate provides 17( or even 18 with feat and +3 dex). The CON save are granted by sorc as well as fighter.
Ok, I'll have less HP, and won't get a fighting style. It's ok for me. So the question is - what I'm missing??? Thanks.

I would say that most bladelock builds in total probably include a huge number from before hexblades came out (when people were trying to make the thing work). Without hexblade, a level of fighter is absolutely a great idea. Even with hexblade, it certainly is still a viable dip (for the con save, fighting style, d10 starting hp, better martial-class skill selection, etc.).

Regardless, you do you. My gut says you will end up being disappointed -- a hexblade sorlock is, at best, a gimmick 'melee warlock,' who will spend a lot of time coming up with spell- and metamagic-derived ways of getting combat damage to approach what a fighter (or hexblade 1/paladin X-1, if you want the feel of that munchkinny goodness) of the same level would be able to do. However, if the thrill is in the process, I can see the appeal.

[Keravath]

I would say that most bladelock builds in total probably include a huge number from before hexblades came out (when people were trying to make the thing work). Without hexblade, a level of fighter is absolutely a great idea. Even with hexblade, it certainly is still a viable dip (for the con save, fighting style, d10 starting hp, better martial-class skill selection, etc.).

Regardless, you do you. My gut says you will end up being disappointed -- a hexblade sorlock is, at best, a gimmick 'melee warlock,' who will spend a lot of time coming up with spell- and metamagic-derived ways of getting combat damage to approach what a fighter (or hexblade 1/paladin X-1, if you want the feel of that munchkinny goodness) of the same level would be able to do. However, if the thrill is in the process, I can see the appeal.

I'd have to disagree. There is a niche for a melee warlock that will outdamage the fighter easily (or an agonizing blast warlock) but requires significant investment in feats.

However, to the OP, for a level 6 character, there is no way to build a melee sorlock that is even remotely close to one that relies on eldritch blast. To have two attacks a warlock requires the blade pact at level 3 and thirsting blade at level 5 which allows you to make two attacks with your pact weapon.

You might think ... well I can cast booming blade and then quicken booming blade for a second attack and this is true but at level 6 ... with only 3 levels of sorcerer ... you only have 3 sorcery points and quicken costs 2 ... so you end up getting one double attack during the entire encounter unless you start burning spell slots for sorcery points which at level 3/4 sorcerer gets expensive in terms of resources very quickly.

In this case at level 6, you could go sorcerer 1/hexblade warlock (blade pact) 5 and pick up improved pact weapon and thirsting blade as invocations. Take devils sight with those. Start variant human, pick up PAM and/or GWM and use a glaive. Cast darkness and use devils sight for always on advantage to hit and disadvantage to be hit. Use the 10' reach of the polearm to leave room for your team mates to see past your darkness spell to the combat for targeting spells. The darkness won't affect melee attacks but will cancel all other forms of advantage/disadvantage. At level 7 warlock you switch to using Shadows of Moil from Darkness.

The PAM/GWM melee warlock using a glaive with resilient con or con saves is a very effective melee combatant since the -5/+10 from GWM can often be compensated for by the +1 from improved pact weapon and by advantage due to darkness+devils sight or Shadow of Moil. It takes a lot of resources but because the build usually has advantage on every attack it scales closer to the PAM/GWM barbarian using reckless attack except that opponents have disadvantage to hit you rather than advantage.

[Willie the Duck]

I'd have to disagree. There is a niche for a melee warlock that will outdamage the fighter easily (or an agonizing blast warlock) but requires significant investment in feats.
Yes, melee warlock. Not melee sorlock who takes 3 or 4 levels of sorcerer and delays their second normal attack until level 8+.

[Keravath]

Yes, melee warlock. Not melee sorlock who takes 3 or 4 levels of sorcerer and delays their second normal attack until level 8+.

Agree :) ... depends on whether you can call a warlock X/sorcerer 1-3, a sorlock :) ... but yes, a typical melee sorlock (sorcerer X/warlock 1-3) would end up using booming blade + quickened booming blade - which can be ok but is very resource intensive and honestly isn't better than agonizing blast + quickened agonizing blast anyway - except that you could use a magical weapon for it.

[Tanarii]

I do not understand, why all bladelock builds are based on fighter 1-2. They say "you have CON save proff and heavy armor proff". The plate armor provides 18 AC, while the Half plate provides 17( or even 18 with feat and +3 dex). The CON save are granted by sorc as well as fighter.Because before the hexblade came along, you needed an attack stat for melee. And if you wanted to use non-finesse melee weapons that meant Str. And Multiclassing dip is a cheap way to get Heavy Armor, so that you don't need any Dex.

[xyianth]

I'm only going to throw this out there as technically a viable way to make the concept work in low level games:

draconic sorcerer 3/fiend warlock 3
choose pact of the tome instead of pact of the blade.
for invocations, take aspect of the moon and book of ancient secrets.
for cantrips, pick up shillelagh with your pact and booming blade as one of your 6 cantrip choices from class levels.
for metamagic, pick up twinned spell and quickened spell.
grab find familiar with your book of ancient secrets

You no longer need to sleep, and can therefore spend the 8 hours of long rest as 8 short rests. Each short rest restores 2x 2nd level pact magic slots. Convert these to sorcery points, then convert the sorcery points to spell slots. (this lets you upgrade all your 1st level slots into 2nd level slots and lets you generate an extra 2nd level slot per short rest. total is 12x 2nd level slots in 8 hours, +1 more per extra hour) You can then convert these slots back into sorcery points as a bonus action in combat. This lets you quicken booming blade every other round for up to 12 rounds. On rounds that you are restoring sorcery points, you can eldritch blast or cast a leveled spell or just booming blade once. You can also twin booming blade at half the cost.

This is cheesy, but the slots last until you long rest, which you technically never need to do. You could in theory stockpile slots for days.

Most reasonable DMs won't let this work unchecked, but if you are only using it to effectively quicken cantrips I personally wouldn't take too much issue with it. You are basically just a magically augmented fighter at that point.

If you want to use a weapon other than a quarterstaff enhanced with shillelagh, change fiend warlock to hexblade warlock. The rest works the same.

[jojosskul]

Agree :) ... depends on whether you can call a warlock X/sorcerer 1-3, a sorlock :) ... but yes, a typical melee sorlock (sorcerer X/warlock 1-3) would end up using booming blade + quickened booming blade - which can be ok but is very resource intensive and honestly isn't better than agonizing blast + quickened agonizing blast anyway - except that you could use a magical weapon for it.

My vote is to call it a Warcerer. No? That's horrible? I should be ashamed? You're right, I'll see myself out.

[Tanarii]

My vote is to call it a Warcerer. No? That's horrible? I should be ashamed? You're right, I'll see myself out.
Any warlock dip or warlock with another dip should be called a war-something

Warcerer
Waradin
Ward

[DeAnno]

This works a lot better as pure Bladelock 17 then going into 3 levels of Sorc at the end. There really are too many important waypoints for Bladelocks to want to skip levels: Extra Attack, Cha to damage, and Foresight are all very evenly staggered, and all lynchpins of Bladelock power. In addition, you gain extra spells/short rest at a long stagger ending at 17 too, making it doubly important not to lose any caster levels until then.

If you want to use Quicken before that, the Metamagic Adept feat from Tasha's is much more efficient, especially considering that Bladelocks are extremely SAD. Once you get Charisma 20 you can take pretty much whatever feats you want.

[jojosskul]

Any warlock dip or warlock with another dip should be called a war-something

Warcerer
Waradin
Ward

If I built a Ward the character's name would, by default, be Burt. My patron would be the infamous GOO Adam West.

[Willie the Duck]

I'm only going to throw this out there as technically a viable way to make the concept work in low level games:

draconic sorcerer 3/fiend warlock 3
choose pact of the tome instead of pact of the blade.
for invocations, take aspect of the moon and book of ancient secrets.
for cantrips, pick up shillelagh with your pact and booming blade as one of your 6 cantrip choices from class levels.
for metamagic, pick up twinned spell and quickened spell.
grab find familiar with your book of ancient secrets

You no longer need to sleep, and can therefore spend the 8 hours of long rest as 8 short rests. Each short rest restores 2x 2nd level pact magic slots. Convert these to sorcery points, then convert the sorcery points to spell slots. (this lets you upgrade all your 1st level slots into 2nd level slots and lets you generate an extra 2nd level slot per short rest. total is 12x 2nd level slots in 8 hours, +1 more per extra hour) You can then convert these slots back into sorcery points as a bonus action in combat. This lets you quicken booming blade every other round for up to 12 rounds. On rounds that you are restoring sorcery points, you can eldritch blast or cast a leveled spell or just booming blade once. You can also twin booming blade at half the cost.

This is cheesy, but the slots last until you long rest, which you technically never need to do. You could in theory stockpile slots for days.

Most reasonable DMs won't let this work unchecked, but if you are only using it to effectively quicken cantrips I personally wouldn't take too much issue with it. You are basically just a magically augmented fighter at that point.

If you want to use a weapon other than a quarterstaff enhanced with shillelagh, change fiend warlock to hexblade warlock. The rest works the same.

This is even more down the line to which I was talking. Yes, with enough shenanigans you can do some double-booming blades, and by dedicating your first round bonus action to shillelagh, have a reasonable attack on which to apply it, and by being a draconic sorcerer, have a semi-okay AC, although being 6th level without a single ASI it won't be great (and if your Dex is stellar, why bother with shillelagh?). My questions here are: 1) Does this melee combat character have a combat damage output (spread over the number of rounds that they can safely stay in combat) that approaches or supersedes a barbarian/fighter/rogue/paladin, swords or valor bard, bladesinger wizard, or straight up hexblade bladelock (perhaps the one Keravath posited), and 2) Is this spellcasting build actually getting to cast any spells, other than the ones which allow them to approximate a martial character? I ask, because every time I have seen something like this (OP's build, or the one you suggest) attempted, it ends up being a whole lot of spinning wheels (including very little actual spellcasting, outside of spell-casting-in-approximation-of-melee-combat-prowess) and disappointment, in search of a theoretical potential which doesn't materialize when the dice hit the table.

[borg286]

One option I'll throw out there is Aberrant Mind Sorcerer and using Dissonant Whispers to get an opportunity attack. The drawback is that it costs a spell and if the target makes their save then there is no added damage. The benefits are huge damage: 3d6 psychic, Opportunity Attack (warcaster can make it Booming Blade), and allies' opportunity attacks.