Level Up (A5E) Pact of the Blade past level 5

I’m wondering if anyone can see much value progressing past 5 levels in warlock if you are pact of the blade? Your martial damage seems to peak at that point and future benefits are primarily as a caster/eldritch blast.

I’m currently playing in a campaign, I’m a 1 Fighter/Warlock Dread Knight. I’ve pumped my wisdom and have pact of the blade, with the relevant invocations.

My role is primarily ranged single target damage, OOC I fill the rogue skills. I can’t see much reason to continue as a warlock?

Any perspective would be appreciated.

As I personally view it, it's actually the opposite: you don't have much reason to go into anything other than Warlock, given your archetype is Dread Knight. Maybe two more levels in Fighter to pick up an archetype that'll help your specialization or round you out. Your martial damage isn't going to improve much after FIghter 1/Warlock 5, but that's what spells and magic damage are for.

What is your current pact weapon and what Dread Armaments at level 1 did you pick up? Based on what you're saying I'm assuming your weapon is a bow and Eldritch Smite?

JerichoPenumbra said:

As I personally view it, it's actually the opposite: you don't have much reason to go into anything other than Warlock, given your archetype is Dread Knight. Maybe two more levels in Fighter to pick up an archetype that'll help your specialization or round you out. Your martial damage isn't going to improve much after FIghter 1/Warlock 5, but that's what spells and magic damage are for.

What is your current pact weapon and what Dread Armaments at level 1 did you pick up? Based on what you're saying I'm assuming your weapon is a bow and Eldritch Smite?

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Essentially yes, except I’ve got a rifled musket from zeitgeist with an ammo clip.

I’m considering dipping into rogue for 3-7 levels and taking the cutthroat subclass or alternatively 2-3 levels in ranger.

I guess my thinking is that warlock is pretty slow progression for martial damage output after lvl 5, the spells are nice to have but the spell list isn’t particularly great for my role.

I just find it a little disappointing that it feels like martial support for the class really starts to taper off after level 5….

Well I think the first problem you have is thinking about the Warlock as a platform for marital damage in the first place. It is primarily a caster, martial capabilities will always be second fiddle for it. Also doesn't help that of the two 1st level options for Dread Armaments, you picked the one that in my opinion is a bit weaker (but still usable). What material does your table allow? Cause there's a fairly useful supplement by Purple Martin Games that might suit your desires; Manual of Adventurous Resources: Battlemages (Or MoAR: Complete for Battlemages, the other four in the series plus a little extra). What patron spell list did you pick?

Given you have Dread Knight, I think you should go to at least 7th level Warlock before going to different classes (if any others at all). 6th level would give your the Dread Rider ability, giving you a resummonable mount, and 7th would allow you to give that mount a fly speed allowing you to rain death on your enemies below. I do feel your pain about the warlock spell list (playing one in the game I'm currently in), but given the lacking spell list you should probably be thinking of using your spell points more for adding damage to your attacks. Picking up the rare version of True Strike or the Windup spell would probably be useful, since you just need to hit once and then spend 2 (4 for wind up) spell points to do damage as if you hit with two attacks (4d8+whatevs total), and then you still have a potential attack for another target or just keep on piling the damage to the first target.

JerichoPenumbra said:

Well I think the first problem you have is thinking about the Warlock as a platform for marital damage in the first place. It is primarily a caster, martial capabilities will always be second fiddle for it. Also doesn't help that of the two 1st level options for Dread Armaments, you picked the one that in my opinion is a bit weaker (but still usable). What material does your table allow? Cause there's a fairly useful supplement by Purple Martin Games that might suit your desires; Manual of Adventurous Resources: Battlemages (Or MoAR: Complete for Battlemages, the other four in the series plus a little extra). What patron spell list did you pick?

Given you have Dread Knight, I think you should go to at least 7th level Warlock before going to different classes (if any others at all). 6th level would give your the Dread Rider ability, giving you a resummonable mount, and 7th would allow you to give that mount a fly speed allowing you to rain death on your enemies below. I do feel your pain about the warlock spell list (playing one in the game I'm currently in), but given the lacking spell list you should probably be thinking of using your spell points more for adding damage to your attacks. Picking up the rare version of True Strike or the Windup spell would probably be useful, since you just need to hit once and then spend 2 (4 for wind up) spell points to do damage as if you hit with two attacks (4d8+whatevs total), and then you still have a potential attack for another target or just keep on piling the damage to the first target.

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I’m familiar with Purple Martins material, at the moment I’m staying within A5E official content.

“ Well I think the first problem you have is thinking about the Warlock as a platform for marital damage in the first place“
I can understand this, my counterpoint is that I’m not really building a Warlock, I’m building a Ranged Striker, 5 levels in warlock has served me well but I think it’s value is tapering off.


“Also doesn't help that of the two 1st level options for Dread Armaments, you picked the one that in my opinion is a bit weaker (but still usable).”
Agree to disagree on that one, I’ve found Combat Maneuvers to be fairly underwhelming for ranged characters.

“Picking up the rare version of True Strike or the Windup spell would probably be useful, since you just need to hit once and then spend 2 (4 for wind up) spell points to do damage as if you hit with two attacks (4d8+whatevs total), and then you still have a potential attack for another target or just keep on piling the damage to the first target.”
I’ll see if I can get my hands on rare true strike, sadly windup is melee only.

“6th level would give your the Dread Rider ability, giving you a resummonable mount, and 7th would allow you to give that mount a fly speed allowing you to rain death on your enemies below.”
I have considered this, I’m just not sure how much value I place on a mounted fly speed.
I tend to place more value on features that are more reliable and we have had our fair share of combats inside.

I'll admit, I'm not sure what you're cooking with being a 'Ranged Striker' and have most of the levels be Warlock yet not be a 'Warlock' but you do you.

No disagreement that Combat Maneuvers are severely lacking for ranged attacks, but that's why you'd be using them for combat utility and defense against those getting into melee with you. Because while Dread Knight has a mechanical limitation of not being able use the maneuvers you learn from it with exertion and visa versa for multiclassing, it technically doesn't have any limitation for the multiclassing taking the better progression of level of degrees you can learn by RAW. With that dip into Fighter you would have been able to learn second degree maneuvers, like Deflect Strikes which is a pretty good defensive.

Good point about Wind Up, I just remembered it existed and not the finer details. That said it would be useful for when you find yourself in melee and can't get away.

You can also think the mount as an alternate familiar. Telepathy within 1 mile and Panther's have a decent Stealth check, so you could potentially use it as a scout. (Though I admit I don't know what your setting and environment are like)

While I loved multiclassing in 3.PF, in 5e it is considerably less friendly. A5e took some of the edge off of it, but most multiclassing is really hard coded to be two classes at most for effectiveness. I can see based on your proposed selections you're going for as much single target nuke damage at once, but I'm honestly not sure if that's necessary. Or effective given how long it takes to level

As a Dread Knight, use Eldritch Smite to boost your pact weapon damage, or that of Eldritch Scythe or Eldritch Whip. You should scale pretty well for damage with Eldritch Smite pumping your damage each round at the cost of one spell point per +d8 up to your proficiency bonus. By Warlock level 11, you should switch over to using Eldritch Scythe to maximize damage output in this manner.

Now if you're concentrating on ranged damage, it doesn't work so well at higher levels as you have noted, because Eldritch Smite doesn't work with Eldritch Ray. You're stuck with your Thirsting Blade for two attacks with your pact weapon. To bump up the damage output, maybe switch over to a revolver and two-weapon fighting. Dread Knight is more intended to be a melee combatant.

Pact of the Blade does work okay with ranged damage with Eldritch Ray, using a ranged magic weapon to boost your Eldritch Ray attack/damage with those magical modifiers from your pact weapon. However, Eldritch Smite won't help you there.

The other thing you may want to make this sort of build work is the Improved Pact Weapon eldritch invocation, so that you can use your pact weapon as a spell focus. For some reason, that eldritch invocation is missing in A5E, and that makes it much more difficult to create a two-weapon-fighting or weapon+shield build with Warlock.

As we discussed on another thread, it is also a design oversight in my opinion that Thirsting Blade doesn't just count as Extra Attack. That means you don't get the second two-weapon-fighter attack, which again is rather frustrating for a melee Warlock build.

Tessarael said:

As we discussed on another thread, it is also a design oversight in my opinion that Thirsting Blade doesn't just count as Extra Attack. That means you don't get the second two-weapon-fighter attack, which again is rather frustrating for a melee Warlock build.

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I think it would be useful if some designer chipped in. I don't think it was an oversight as it's so much simpler to just say "you gain the extra attack feature".

This issue is goes back to the 5E D&D Player's Handbook. Thirsting Blade in A5E is the same as in the 5E D&D PHB. Multi-classing rules on page 164 of the PHB specifically state that Thirsting Blade and Extra Attack do not stack.

But yes, having an A5E designer chime in might be helpful, regarding whether Thirsting Blade should count as Extra Attack or not, specifically for two-weapon fighting two off-hand attacks, once you get Extra Attack. I.e., was that a design oversight or intentional, and would it be unbalanced to allow it.