Weapon Bond and Pact of the Blade

[carrdrivesyou]

So I got to thinking the other day, and ended up in a strange mental conundrum.

Weapon Bond: lets you bond with two weapons of choice that you then cannot be disarmed of, and can teleport to your hand, so long as you are on the same plane of existence.

Pact of the Blade: lets you create a pact with a particular melee weapon (ranged if you have Improved Pact Weapon invocation), that disappears after being more than 5ft away from you for a minute. You can conjure any melee weapon, or a specific one if you pacted with a magic weapon.


That all being said, what would happen if more than one person pacted or bonded with a particular weapon? Do they both get to use it? Does the item get cloned? Does it just keep shifting hands to whoever summons it?

I would assume that once a pact or bond is forged, it cannot be undone by normal means, and that another person cannot pact or bond with that particular weapon. Given that ruling, would that make some weapons impossible to steal?

How could I use this creatively as both player or DM?

Thoughts?

[Anymage]

Pure RAW, or how I'd interpret?

Pure RAW, nothing prevents multiple people from bonding to the same weapon, but it gets rather silly. Multiple bladelocks all bonding the same magic weapon, which then devolves into the question of whether the "disappears after being away from you for one minute" means that it has to be within 5' of any of the bladelocks or that it needs to be within 5' of all of the bladelocks. An EK teleporting the weapon while another EK is using it depends on whether that teleportation counts as a disarm, but I'm guessing most people will agree that it does.

RAI? The intent is to have a weapon that can never be stolen and that can always be called up with minimal effort. The simplest solution is to say that once bonded, the weapon is not bondable to anyone else until the initial bond is broken. EKs can voluntarily sever their bonds (instead of needing to juggle backup weapons to break a bond by going over their two weapon limit), bonds break on death, otherwise any stolen weapon is just a temporary inconvenience that the thief cannot overwrite with their own attunement or even their own bond.

[greenstone]

Pact of the Blade: lets you create a pact with a particular melee weapon (ranged if you have Improved Pact Weapon invocation), that disappears after being more than 5ft away from you for a minute.

Not quite. You can conjure a weapon, which disappears if it is more that 5 ft away from you, or you can transform a magic weapon, which never disappears (though you can dismiss it).

Nothing in the rules prevents two warlocks transforming the same magic weapon into their pact weapon. There will be issues, of course, when one warlock dismisses the weapon while the second warlock is fighting…

A pact of the blade warlock who is also an eldritch knight fighter can weapon bond to their transformed pact weapon, in which case they can't be disarmed of their pact weapon.

[Addaran]

Nothing in the rules prevents two warlocks transforming the same magic weapon into their pact weapon. There will be issues, of course, when one warlock dismisses the weapon while the second warlock is fighting…

That could be a cool concept for a cult or order. The founder discover an artificat and everyone binds with it so they can use it in dire circumstance. Some kind of Excalibur/holy avenger for a celestial warlock order who fights evil. Even when the demon/lich kill the wielder, the other fighters can all just teleport it in their hand.

[KorvinStarmast]

I treat the bond as exclusive: if Warlock X bonds to it, nobody else can until that warlock releases it.
Simpler that way.
@addaran

That could be a cool concept for a cult or order. The founder discover an artificat and everyone binds with it so they can use it in dire circumstance. Some kind of Excalibur/holy avenger for a celestial warlock order who fights evil. Even when the demon/lich kill the wielder, the other fighters can all just teleport it in their hand.

If one cult member is using it, and another one calls for it, does the second member get a busy signal?

"The sword you have reached cannot come to your hand. Please leave a message at the tone ..."

[Addaran]

I treat the bond as exclusive: if Warlock X bonds to it, nobody else can until that warlock releases it.
Simpler that way.
@addaran
If one cult member is using it, and another one calls for it, does the second member get a busy signal?

"The sword you have reached cannot come to your hand. Please leave a message at the tone ..."

Nah, it gets summoned! That's why they need to be organized and only summon the super weapon only when really needed. If it disapears while you're using it, you have to trust that your friend needs it more.

[KorvinStarmast]

Nah, it gets summoned! That's why they need to be organized and only summon the super weapon only when really needed. If it disapears while you're using it, you have to trust that your friend needs it more.

Let us suppose that there are two members of that cult. Hergo was fighting with the neat sword when Shergu summoned it for their fight. This will lead to a later conversation that starts something like this.

Hergo says: "Shergu, nice way to prove that buddy is only half of a word!"

[PhantomSoul]

Nah, it gets summoned! That's why they need to be organized and only summon the super weapon only when really needed. If it disapears while you're using it, you have to trust that your friend needs it more.

And if you need it for more than a minute, you probably need to recreate it! (Which is secretly nice because effectively your cult pact weapon automatically disappears within a minute if an enemy would get it.)

[Segev]

An order of Eldritch Knights who all bond the same sentient weapon (and one other as their actual primary fighting tool) and use it as a messenger could be interesting.