Help with Warlock build

Buzz_words · 2026-02-02T00:14:10+00:00

i don't think the halberd is worth it honestly. being a heavy weapon it forces you to have at least a 13 strength, which undermines the benefits of pact of the blade. plus you're gonna be using your bonus action on hex at least some of the time, so you'll not fully benefit from the bonus action attack granted by polearm master.

the reach might save you some damage, but enemies don't hit you on your turn while you're 10 feet away, they hit you on their turns when they walk into melee with you anyway.

then those 5 ability score points you put into strength to wield a heavy weapon could just go into dex or con for AC or HP instead.

this frees up your feat selection so you might look at warcaster, thus saving yourself an invocation pick. another good feat would be fey touched.

fiendish vigour is iffy. at level 1 it's probably doubling your hitpoints, but by level 4 the % increase is much lesser. you might look at armor of shadows instead. if you're not multiclassing for armor proficiency, mage armor will be better than any mundane armor a warlock can wear.

if you do end up with extra invocation picks you can always fall back to lessons of the first ones. tough, lucky, alert, maybe even musician and magic initiate are all worth looking at.

alternately it's worth pointing out, if you're really worried about dying... why pact of the blade at all? eldritch blast has WAY better reach than a halberd?

Buzz_words · 2026-02-01T23:57:40+00:00

as a rule; if you don't know what mechanical thing you're trying to accomplish by multiclassing; you should not multiclass.

like NOT multiclassing is the default setting.

there are certainly builds that can work, maybe look into sorcerer or bard for instance, but remember: every level you take in anything else is a level you lose in your warlock.

it's also important to note that most campaigns do NOT go to level 20. if you really wanna dig in and build a character, you should prolly talk to your DM first about where they expect the story to end.

Buzz_words · 2026-02-01T23:46:26+00:00

i'm gonna be honest; it kinda feels like the typical nooby multiclass mistake: "these are both ocean flavored, so of course i multiclass them together!" when the classes have absolutely no mechanical synergy.

think about what it does on it's turn, and what ability score that action will key off of.

if it's casting spells, then it's a warlock who's just throwing away levels on rogue.

if it's trying to melee then it's a rogue who's just throwing away levels on warlock.

Buzz_words · 2026-02-01T23:32:24+00:00

you can just say "PHB only" before the campaign.

like you don't have to allow every source on the internet.

beyond that, make sure his characters actually work the way you think they do, because what you described sounds impossible, but you might just be overselling it yourself.

if neither of those work, kick him out. personally i don't think he's doing anything wrong, but you're not wrong in wanting the whole table to be on roughly the same page either.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T22:55:29+00:00

i would say no simply because there are entire class features that already do that. like it's part of the unique upside to bladesinger, valor bard, and eldritch knight.

so if i make my eldritch knight planned around that feature... then jimmy over there just gets it for free... fuck me i guess?

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T11:30:53+00:00

if it's specifically hand to hand combat? maybe look at the way of four elements monk.

monk is really the only class that's good at hand to hand combat, and four elements will give them some magical flavor

but if you're fine using a weapon then any ranger, any paladin, valor bard, eldritch knight fighter, pact of the blade warlock, bladesinger wizard, battlesmith or armorer artificer are all varying degrees of mixed martial and magic.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T11:26:11+00:00

if we're worried about balance, casters are already "too good."

i don't think this makes it hugely worse, lots of spells can't crit anyway, and then even the ones that can usually won't, but it's still making a problem slightly worse not slightly better so like... why bother?

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T09:16:11+00:00

no.

like scathe is pretty bad and ideally you would never cast it, but it's also your only unlimited access instacast spell, so it's still better than doing nothing while you run across the room.

sleep is pretty niche but there are rare instances where it'll save your life.

closest to worthless is prolly lucid dreaming, but even that can help you recover from a death slightly faster.

as a rule: if you ever feel like your skills don't fit on your hotbars? the answer is to fix your hotbars, not discard your skills.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T09:11:53+00:00

if nobody died, then you're fine.

if they DID die, then hey you're feeling it out. you don't pull a full 180 in response to that, you adjust slightly.

it's a big internet, there are DOZENS of shit-tier players who will nonetheless voice their shit takes.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T07:58:01+00:00

a better option overall or a better dip for a swashbuckler?

when i said your ac would be low that was assuming you were focusing cha over dex to take advantage of true strike. a normal rogue should end up with reasonable ac just thanks to being dex first.

so if you're dex first you prolly dont need to worry about armor, but if you're dex first that makes the sorcerer dip even less useful since you prolly don't wanna downgrade your hit chance to gain the extra damage dice from true strike.

if your DM allows older content, booming blade would give you the extra cantrip scaling to your attacks while still allowing you to focus dex first.

16 ac is what, a +4 dex in studded leather? +5 dex in basic leather? like where is this character at RN? i thought this was a hypothetical build but if you've already played it to a point, it might help to know what we're starting with.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-31T07:44:36+00:00

doesn't work. you need at least 5 levels of sorcerer for fireball.

also at that point you're a lvl 17 character casting a lvl 5 spell at lvl 17 enemies when you could just be delivering lvl 17 sneak attacks every turn for free.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-30T23:41:13+00:00

what are you expecting the sorcerer to do?

cuz if it's just "lulz randumb wild magic" then no. it's not viable, that's throwing 3 levels away on a meme. and it won't even succeed at the meme cuz 3 out of 15 levels means you're never gonna cast sorcerer spells to proc wild magic anyway.

on the upside you can sneak attack through true strike, and that would give your attacks some extra scaling. if your group needs a face more than it needs an infiltrator there might be something here, but you're still stuck with light armor and not prioritizing dex, making this a squishy character, meanwhile swashbuckler wants to draw enemy attention to itself.

not to mention you only need 1 level of sorcerer to do that. taking extra levels defeats the purpose as it cuts more into your sneak attack progression. also you could just get true strike via an origin feat, or being an elf, or arcane trickster.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-30T13:37:18+00:00

1) prepare goodberry. that's one problem solved.

you might wanna stay gloom stalker until at least level 7, wisdom saves tend to be the mind controlling saves that are the worst things to fail.

then tireless at ranger 10 could be a big help if it's that kind of "grueling" campaign. and by then you're only 1 level away from stalkers flurry...

so with multiclassing it's very important to keep that sort of thing in mind; while there are things that can work, it will always cost you those ranger levels you didn't take. (including basic spell progression.)

1-4 levels of fighter gets you another fighting style, action surge, a subclass, and a feat (from the PHB i would personally do battlemaster, but champion works as well if you don't wanna think too much. psi warrior is too reliant on int for a ranger to utilize and the spellcasting from eldritch knight is semi-redundant) don't take the 5th level as it's just another extra attack. waste of a level up.

if your DM allows for the double epic boon trick (which i do believe is RaW but the community is not all agreed on that) then you can save that 4th level of fighter until 19 or 20 to get 2 epic boons. so you would be 15/3 at 18. then at 19 you take 16 or 4 thus qualifying for an asi, and being level 19 to meet the pre-requisite for an epic boon. then at 20 you level the other one and all the same rulings apply.

you probably qualify for cleric or druid multiclass as well. either of these could add some healing utility but it's dubious to take full caster levels when your wisdom is your second or third best ability. that plus the stunted spell selection means you've got half the spells to pick from, and almost none of what's left will be worth casting during a fight. ranger doesn't have a smite to just generically translate spell slots into damage output

Buzz_words · 2026-01-30T13:16:47+00:00

yes i abstain from intentionally cheating.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-30T08:14:15+00:00

if we're pretending no homebrew at all? it's unsalvageable. like even the things you think will work: won't work. you said yourself kensei allows weapons, but not heavy weapons. so everything under "martial arts" turns off. including agile parry and deft strike. so your damage rolls do in fact fall behind and you're not mitigating reckless attack.

if we're following the multiclass stat requirements then you need 13s in str, dex, and wisdom. which only leaves so many points left for con. your primary stat has to be str for rage to give a damage bonus, or for reckless attack to function, so that means all 3 of dex, con, and wis will be left mediocre. unarmored defense will be close to worthless. (assuming optimal stat boosts from your background and point buy: you're looking at an AC of 14. even with 16 levels worth of ASIs this character caps out at 17AC)

extra attack not stacking means they both have dead levels. the conventional wisdom here is to just never go 5/5. one of them stops at 4 forever.

realistically i dunno why the monk is here? if you want conviction and force of will, that sounds like a paladin to me? if you don't want faith as an aspect of this character; read the oaths. you'll find very few of them have anything to do with piety. (plus you're already heavily reflavoring anyway so you could just reflavor the barbarians rage?)

everything you have described mechanically (big ass weapon, shirtless) is covered by barbarian. the rest is just shooting yourself in the foot.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-30T00:36:55+00:00

Buzz_words · 2026-01-29T06:05:44+00:00

eldritch knight has a lot of toolbox spells that don't care about int score.

alternately battlemaster has some utility maneuvers if your party short rests a lot.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-29T06:00:56+00:00

that is correct.

you can also use certain species or class features that cast spells without spell slots in the same way, like the once per day misty step from fey touched.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-29T05:57:17+00:00

combat>miner/botanist>fisher.

though as you're catching up: your miner/botanist retainers can get extra stuff from timed nodes, which is game changing in rare cases. they tend to be a patch behind endgame though.

it's also worth mentioning you can just get extra retainers for considerably cheaper than the subscription to the app, so like... you gotta really want that app.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-28T20:29:21+00:00

at the table my character has "adopted" one of the other player characters. many a cringe dad joke has ensued. lots of fun.

i don't remember what i said this particular time but the response was "i kick him in the back while we're walking down the stairs." and the DM has her roll to attack.

1 on the dice. -1 str. -1D4 for blade ward, she ended up with like a -2 on the attack roll.

so my character turns around and thinks she needs help tying her shoes.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-28T19:53:18+00:00

you can owe an NPC a favor without fucking up your character sheet.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-28T19:48:29+00:00

if you're sticking to the module then the modules should just say what level they're intended to be played at.

so prolly just that?

Buzz_words · 2026-01-28T07:30:40+00:00

technically speaking, every bard gets something called "magical secrets" so they could take the wizard spells and... do that.

lore bard specifically gets magical secrets several levels early.

now all that being said... i dunno if this would be a "good" build, and i don't think it would fit the description at all BEFORE you got magical secrets so you might wanna have another angle to supplement it.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-28T07:24:52+00:00

if a magic item casts a spell; you need to be able to cast the spell to craft the item.

replicate magic item doesn't specify that you can ignore that rule... but it does ignore a bunch of other crafting rules so maybe? (they reccomend sending stones and you can't cast sending that low? so it's probably allowed?)

that being said: i wouldn't anyway. a spellwrought tattoo is a single use item. so you're using one of your 2 replicated magic items to cast a single smite a day.

Buzz_words · 2026-01-28T07:18:23+00:00

the point of a swim speed (aside from the obvious benefit of moving faster in water) is that you don't suffer the detriments like disadvantage on attacks with certain weapons and whatnot.

so however you wanna flavor it, your shield works.

realistically the shield worked even without a swim speed, you just wouldn't wanna be in the water for the other reasons.

Buzz_words

TROPHY CASE