It's funny - the subclass for Warlock I've actually played the most is one that I... sort of don't like.
The Hexblade came in with Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and it kind of broke the class. Hexblades come with a couple key abilities: they get what will now be referred to as Medium Armor Training, along with proficiency in Martial Weapons. They also get the Hex Warrior trait, which allows them to designate a weapon (and will automatically apply this to any Pact Weapon with Pact of the Blade) that lacks the two-handed property (again, Pact of the Blade gets around this) to be able to use Charisma rather than Strength or Dexterity when making attack and damage rolls with it.
Pact of the Blade was always part of the Warlock kit, but if you wanted to go with a Bladelock prior to this subclass, you needed to basically decide whether you were going to allow a lower Charisma in order to boost the stat for your weapon, or to kind of just have your pact weapon as a weird back-up option in case you couldn't use Eldritch Blast.
The Hexblade solved one of the big problems with this - you could continue progressing your spellcasting ability while also progressing your weapon ability.
The problem, then, that I had with it, was that it suddenly became the only rational subclass choice if you wanted to go Pact of the Blade. If you wanted to be a weapon-wielding Warlock, you were basically handicapping yourself to go with any other option.
In particular, what then bugged me further was that the flavor of the Hexblade is... weird.
See, in playtesting, there was actually a Warlock Patron that was just straight-up the Raven Queen. Mechanically, it was quite different, but it shared a connection to the Shadowfell that the Hexblade ostensibly also has.
Sentient weapons (and sentient magic items in general) are an established thing across 5E, but the way I've often seen Hexblades played tends to treat the name of the subclass not as the description of the character's patron, but of the Warlock themselves - that you are a Hexblade, which could easily be a name to describe someone who uses dark magic to supplement their martial capabilities.
The new Pact of the Blade liberates us from this subclass. I'm sure people will still take it - it is, after all, still pretty strong. Indeed, I think the oft-overlooked benefit of the Hexblade is its Medium Armor and Shield proficiency. My Hexblade Warlock was actually not a weapon-user - he focused primarily on Eldritch Blast. But with Medium Armor and a Shield, with a mere 14 in Dexterity he was able to have an AC of 19 by the end of our campaign. If it hadn't been for his subclass, he'd be sitting at an AC of 14.
Frankly, I think that the Moderately Armored feat (which will be a general feat, not an origin feat) might be very appealing to any light-armor-wearing spellcaster. While I think Wizards and Sorcerers might find a two-feat investment too much to get a decent AC, Warlocks, Druids, and Bards could be pretty happy starting themselves off with a Dex of 13 and then picking up this feat (which I believe can also boost your Dexterity by a point) to significantly improve their survivability (ironically, Moon Druids might not care very much, because I think their enhanced Wild Shape lets them take an AC of 13+Wisdom if it's better than the animal form, which will essentially give them roughly the equivalent of a heavy-armor-wearing character who doesn't use a shield).
Still, the exciting point about the new Pact of the Blade is that any subclass can pick it up. Personally, I think the idea of a melee-based Archfey Warlock could be really cool, taking advantage of their many free Misty Steps to teleport around the battlefield. Now, really any Warlock who wants to focus on weapon use can start doing so at level 1.
Here's the thing: with Warlocks (and all classes) only getting their subclasses at level 3, the "Hexblade dip" is now a much more significant commitment. But it's also basically pointless, because you still only need one level of Warlock to get the new Pact of the Blade.
And that makes multiclassing pretty simple.
In fairness, this isn't really much different from how it was when Hexblades were introduced - you'll still grab a single level of Warlock and all of a sudden be able to use Charisma for attack and damage rolls.
As before, Paladins and Bards are the most likely to be attracted to this. Paladins, of course, are a true martial class, but Charisma is also very powerful for them, especially when they get Aura of Protection. While a typical Paladin is unlikely to max out their Charisma, taking this single dip will make it easier to leave Strength behind and just stack up Charisma.
Valor Bards, of course, will be particularly well-suited to this.
Now, some caveats:
The Heavy weapon property has been changed to stop discriminating against small species. Rather than getting disadvantage if you're Small, you now need a 13 in Strength for Heavy Melee weapons or a 13 in Dexterity for Heavy Ranged weapons. That is fantastic for your Halfling Barbarian who wanted to wield a Greataxe. But it does mean there's a minimum investment for Bladelocks (and Battle Smith Artificers, for that matter) to get to use these weapons.
I believe you need a separate invocation to use a ranged weapon as your pact weapon, though frankly if I was going to use a ranged weapon as a Warlock, I'd probably just... not and use Eldritch Blast. But this will mean that if you want to use a Maul or a Glaive or the like, you'll need a minimum of 13 Strength.
For Paladins, technically the minimum requirement for multiclassing is a 13 in both Strength and Charisma (and applies both to the new class you want to add and the original class) so you should be covered. I might actually continue to invest a little more in Strength, though - Splint and Plate armor slows you down if you have less than 15 Strength. If you would be sticking just with Chain Mail, I think you might be better off simply investing in Dex to use medium armor, which eventually would let you bump up to Half Plate, which, with 14 or more in Dex, gives you better AC than Chain Mail.
For Valor Bards, it's true that Heavy Weapons are going to be quite good with the new Great Weapon Master (which, again, shocking though it may seem, is actually better than the old version in most cases). Without this dip, we'd most likely be focusing on Dexterity and likely fighting with finesse weapons (or ranged weapons - while Starry Wisp gives Bards and Druids a decent ranged attack cantrip, it probably won't be able to keep up with weapons the way EB does - though we do also get this if we pick up 1 level of Warlock, but probably not with the bells and whistles that help it scale unless we take at least a second level).
Taking Great Weapon Master does boost heavy ranged weapons like Longbows and Heavy Crossbows (and Muskets? Can't recall if they're heavy, but they probably should be) but it also gives us a +1 to Strength only, meaning that at best we're rounding off an odd Strength score. It's still very impactful if we want to focus on weapons.
Now, the downside with a Valor Bard is that if you want to dual-wield, only one weapon gets to be your Pact Weapon. Looking at the playtest 7 wording (I'm not an influencer - I'm getting my PHB no sooner than you are) it seems you could theoretically bond with a magical ranged weapon. Naturally, if we're going for a bit more survival, sword-and-board is a tried-and-true style, and then we only have to worry about the one weapon. In this case, we probably don't care about the requirements for Heavy, as we'll be using in most cases some kind of d8 weapon (or d10 if we want to use it two-handed - a pretty good choice for grapple-heavy builds, but we're probably not that given that we're not maxing out Strength).
Let's see if we can hack this, though, using True Strike.
The new True Strike is kind of a mini-Pact of the Blade cantrip, allowing us to attack with a weapon using our spellcasting ability for both attacks and damage (not an option - if we cast the spell we have to use it) and we can do either radiant or the weapon's normal damage, plus at 5, 11, and 17, we get to add d6s of radiant damage to it.
Ok: to be honest, I don't think this will work (future Dan here: actually it will!), but let's try it anyway: What we want to do is use True Strike to allow us to overcome a second weapon not getting the Pact of the Blade benefit. We'll assume we've got a Shortsword and Scimitar, so we've got Nick in there.
As a Valor Bard, at level 6 and higher, we get Extra Attack, and we get to weave a cantrip to replace one of our attacks when we take the Attack Action. (The type of action is important here).
The Light property says that if we attack with a light weapon as part of the attack action, we can make an attack as a bonus action with a different light weapon (and with nick it becomes part of the attack action).
So: putting it together: we want to cast True Strike with our non-Pact weapon and then attack twice with our pact weapon. Can we do this?
Here's the thing: the light property doesn't require us to define one weapon as our "main hand" weapon and one as our "off-hand." Indeed, you've always been able to attack with two non-light weapons held in each hand - you just wouldn't get the extra bonus light attack.
So, here's what we do:
For our first attack, we cast True Strike using our mundane (or at least non-Pact) weapon. Because we have now attacked with this weapon, we can make our bonus Light attack with our Pact weapon.
However, our second regular attack is not done with the mundane weapon, but instead with our pact weapon. There's nothing in the Light property that says we cannot have made any attacks with that weapon before - it only specifies we have to have first made an attack with a different light weapon.
Third, we attack with our pact weapon again as our Light weapon bonus attack - remember, our casting of True Strike allowed this to happen, because it was an attack (the wording of True Strike includes "you make one attack with the weapon") and it was part of the Attack Action (normally any use of True Strike would be a Magic Action, but Valor Bards, Eldritch Knights, and Bladesinger Wizards all can cast cantrips with the Attack Action).
Thus, even though one of these weapons isn't meant to be used with Charisma, we found a way!
We can then boost up this damage with the Bard's extensive spellcasting capabilities (I've seen a lot about Conjure Minor Elementals being a huge boost to multiattacking characters).
So, all in all, I think we'll have plenty of Warlock dips for years to come. I still think that players should really try straight-classing Warlocks more often, and if you want to play a Martial Bladelock, there are invocations that will allow you to keep pace nearly with a Fighter (on top of your powerful spells) but will also require a significant investment in the class.
In an odd sense, I almost feel like the two levels of Patron-less Warlock (though I would also say that picking your subclass need not be the beginning of a relationship with a patron) can open up the flavor as someone who delves into particularly esoteric and occult knowledge. I kind of love the notion of a Paladin who has gotten deep into the weeds about esoteric alchemy and mysticism, and maybe never formalizes a pact with any otherwordly entity, but walks in strange circles and might be the subject of whispered rumors despite their prestigious and righteous role. A Bard stumbling onto eldritch knowledge feels pretty easy to justify - hell, maybe you're a master of stage combat who came across a tattered script for a play called The King in Yellow.
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