I've played, technically speaking, two different Warlock characters in D&D. One was my very first D&D character, a Great Old One-patron guy whose mind was severely twisted by his interaction with his patron (notably, I'm not a big fan of the "slimy, tentacle" version of cosmic horror, preferring the "bizarre geometric shapes representing something one cannot totally comprehend," so my Warlock's patron was, or rather was best-perceived as, a possibly-infinitely-tall stone tower in a perpetual state of actively collapsing, its constituent pieces each seeming to explode out from it, but none ever hitting the ground and there always being more tower left where the massive stone blocks had fallen out). The other was made for Descent into Avernus, and actually made it all the way to level 14, completing the adventure (we got the golden ending, in which we redeemed Zariel,) and was an amoral bastard who had a Hexblade patron (in this case, it wasn't entirely clear whether the patron was a floating sword in a quiet, empty city in the Shadowfell or the ancient knight/queen whose bones sat in a throne facing said sword).
Both characters were built to be focused on Eldritch Blast - yes, I'm someone who took a Hexblade, of all subclasses, and still built them for blasting.
The thing is, Blastlocks still work decently well when you straight-class it. Warlocks are, of course, infamously dipped into to grab Eldritch Blast and some Invocations, but the common wisdom for the past decade has been that you'll generally want to mix that with some other class's features, like Sorcerers, Bards, or Paladins (basically the other Charisma casters).
Now, I actually think a full Warlock is still pretty good. Sure, there aren't as many feats that buff the damage of ranged spell attacks (though we'll touch on the lack of buffs for ranged weapon attacks as well in the new rules,) and the scaling isn't quite as good as weapons, even with Agonizing Blast (though it's pretty close).
I felt like I was a pretty strong contributor to the party during that adventure, and that was before they even added the new summoning spells from Tasha's, which I actually think can make a Warlock do very good damage.
But, I know that Bladelocks are popular. I examined building a pure-Warlock Pact of the Blade (and could have sworn I made a post about it, but can't seem to find it now,) but you run into a couple of problems.
The first is that Warlocks only get training in Light Armor, which for any character who isn't focused purely on Dexterity, is only slightly better than being naked (we could build for Dexterity, but I'm assuming the reason we're playing a Warlock here is so that we can use Charisma for our pact weapon and still have a good spell attack/save DC). The second reason is that the various feats that buff our melee damage, such as Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, or Dual Wielder (the latter of which might require some extra funkiness, like casting Shillelagh on a Club to allow us to properly dual-wield) each both have not-insignificant stat requirements while also only buffing Strength (or Strength/Dexterity) and not Charisma.
The pure-Warlock build I created didn't actually get a chance to boost Charisma until level 12, spending the first two feats on Great Weapon Master and Moderately Armored. By much later in their career, they capped out their Charisma and would feel, I think, pretty good as-is (still focusing Eldritch Invocations and other Warlock features on buffing their melee damage) I have been thinking about how this could all be much easier:
Just start off as a Fighter.
After all, being a Fighter would grant you both Medium and Heavy Armor training. It would also grant you weapon mastery - something our previous build didn't even get. Thus, for this single level investment, you wind up with a lot of what you need. You'll already need a 13 in Strength to get Great Weapon Master, so you've got the minimum to multiclass out of Fighter.
You will still run into the issue that you aren't boosting your Charisma until later, but you're saving a whole feat thanks to the armor training.
Furthermore, Fighters have proficiency in Constitution saving throws, which will come up a lot as a melee-based spellcaster. It means you won't get a Warlock's Wisdom saving throw proficiency, but that feels like a fair trade.
In other words, I think it would work out pretty well for you to grab that first level of Fighter, granting you your chain mail and even starting with a Greatsword (not that you won't just be conjuring one with your Pact next level). You can even pick up Blind Fighting to get a poor man's Devil's Sight.
Ultimately, the price you pay for this dip is delayed spell slot and invocation progression (of particular note Thirsting Blade and Devouring Blade) as well as the inability to get Eldritch Master, though this latter one I think is less terrible given that you already have essentially half of this feature via Magical Cunning. And, of course, some good subclass features.
It could be tempting to take more Fighter levels, but in terms of solving some of the issues a Bladelock runs into, a single level does a lot for us.
To me, the bigger hurdle is the story behind it.
I... I don't love multiclassing. Actually, I sort of dislike it from both a mechanical and a roleplay perspective. It feels like multiclassing is basically only built to allow weird "hacks" to exploit more damage out of these classes than they're designed to do. It also pressures designers to hold back really cool and transformative features until higher levels. This is part of why I'm actually very excited about the fact that multiclassing isn't a thing in MCDM's Draw Steel (and given how that game's resource system works, multiclassing would be a total mess).
Now, I don't think it would be impossible to justify a Fighter/Warlock build. You could have someone who trained to be a master-of-arms who then, for whatever reason, began to seek out esoteric, eldritch knowledge.
Of course, you could argue that this is all a little too picky - you could just run a straight-classed Bladelock without taking any feats to support it and just deal with the low AC. But I think one of the things D&D '24 has done, largely by making Feats a core, rather than optional rule, and by incentivizing people to take General Feats by giving all of them an ability score bump, is that players are further encouraged to make "builds" rather than just following the straightforward route for their classes.
I enjoy the mechanical complexity of D&D, but I still think that the #1 goal for a D&D game should be to make characters who feel part of their world, that the player can get invested in emotionally, and to tell stories.
Some players (some of whom I play with) have an almost allergic reaction to any kind of "optimization," feeling that anything beyond making your primary stat your highest is too crunchy and finicky and distracting from the roleplay potential of the character. I don't agree with this: I think that you can roleplay a character who wants to be as effective a monster-hunter as they can, and that can make some optimization compatible with your in-world conception of the character.
To me, the danger is when you start making huge choices for your character that are purely for mechanical advantages, without thinking through the in-world reasons for them. But with a little effort, you can fit these together.
For example, when the 2024 PHB came out, one of the first characters I built was a Cloud Goliath Monk. I took the Sailor background largely because it gave the right ability score bonuses and the Tavern Brawler feat (which is honestly somewhat redundant for a Monk but still has some nice bonuses to unarmed strikes) but from that, I built out a whole backstory of a man from a flying city of airship-sailors who was shipwrecked and washed up on a remote island and rescued by the grandmaster of a monastery. The Tavern Brawler feat I justified as being the fighting techniques the character's possibly-dead ship captain/mentor had taught him after he got beaten up in a bar, which the monks then recognized as his own special combat style that he blended with their techniques.
So, yes, these were choices initially made from a mechanical point of view, but with not very much effort, I was able to fit it into a fun hero's journey story - his reckless style being the thing that sets him apart from the other monks, and why he's the guy they're sending out into the world.
So yeah, I don't think it's impossible to come up with a good story justification for starting off with a level of Fighter. And I also think that it's not anathema to good roleplay to consider the mechanical "build" of your character and use that as a framework for the character work and storytelling you want to do with it.
What I'd just say is: do try to put in that effort.
And yeah, I know that my table is not necessarily the typical one. My friends are largely actors and other "theater kids," so we're naturally drawn to the storytelling aspects of the game. But I think that if you aren't really getting into your characters, you aren't really getting everything out of D&D that you could be.
No comments:
Post a Comment