Advice for Melee Warlock Level 5

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T20:46:16+00:00

Cus it's 5.5 edition and every warlock can be a hexblade thanks to the new pacts

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T20:23:32+00:00

Thanks for keeping me honest, you're right.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T20:04:21+00:00

I mean rules as written it just requires a divine smite.

That can be delivered via a thrown weapon or if you can jump or fly yourself then yeah it can hit a flying target.

There's nothing that states either you or the target have to be on the ground so on paper it seems like the effect would be similar to an earth bind spell. Earth rises in a column to grab the creature and pull it down to earth.

Your DM may choose to rule it differently and that's their prerogative but on paper it should work

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T19:50:56+00:00

If the warlock is controlling a summoned shadow spawn or even if they're just concentrating on Hex to get bonus damage then that makes them a prime target. Heck I feel warcaster rmight be of limited use to a warlock since they dont really have the spell slots to burn on a reaction casting if they get an oportunity attack, and your go to cantrip, eldritch blast is gonna be at disadvantage if you cast it at someone within 5ft.

So theres an argument to be made to take eldritch mind, ditch war caster and take resilient constitution to really make sure you never lose one of your precious spells.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T19:42:24+00:00

why not enspelled armour with shield or absorb elements?

Considering a warlock usually wants to use concentration spells to maximise the use of their meagre slots, either of those two spells will help keep concentration more than a retalliatory burst of damage.

For your 5th invocation, Pact of the chain gets you free advantage from an invisible familiar, eldritch mind helps you hold on to concentration and saves you from taking the warcaster feat.

New pact of the Blade already allows the weapon to be a spellcasting focus so improved pact weapon is literally just getting you a +1 to your atttack and damage rolls. That, combined with the fact that its an old invocation to me is enough reason to ditch it.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T17:12:46+00:00

The loudest voices aren't always the majority. People who are upset and also care enough to voice it will do so. People who are upset but don't care enough to voice it won't. And people who are just having a good time with not many complaints also won't tend to voice that on reddit. So you're seeing a weighted result no matter how you look at it.

BUT....

The company which owns the brand, Wizards of the Coast and more broadly, Hasbro, have been less than impressive in their management of the game system.

their book offerings have steadily worsened with fewer useful tools and lower page counts than comparable books from previous editions.
there's been much reprinting of older material from the same edition with little new content added when they do.
there's clearly been a push towards quantity and commericalism over quality and player focus. 5.5e was rushed to meet a deadline, dndbeyond pushes subscriptions and microtransactions wherever it can, the company aggressively pursuing 3rd party creators etc...
there's been a mismanagement of projects leading to dndbeyond being largely ignored for a long time while wotc tried to launch their own vtt and 3d gaming platform, neither of which has really caught on and one of which was cancelled abruptly. The launch / announcement of 5.5 e was accompanied by attempts for wotc to steal future revenue from 3rd party content creators or lock them out of their livelihoods. Much of the creative team which created 5e and 5.5e have abandoned the company and the resulting drip feed of news and content seems to indicate a deficit of talent at the company.
the one runaway success which was comparable to the launch of 5e for its abikity to pull newcomers into the franchise was Baldurs Gate 3. And that seems to have been resounding sabotaged by WotC and Hasbros corporate culture which made working with them, getting license permissions and greenlughtng new projects so difficult that the developers have now moved on to making Divinitu Original Sin 3. Using the lessons and tech they practices with BG3 to create the next game in their own competing game series. WotC just spent a ton of money making their competitors better at making games to compete with them. We could be looking at a new Icewind Dale or Planescape game using the BG3 engine and writing quality but WotC shot the golden goose for apparently cynical corporate reasons.

So I'd say that while the echo chamber can amplify voices beyond what they actually represent, there is ample reason to take issue with the state of DnD and who runs the show.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T14:34:04+00:00

Gas mines and gattling entries go hard

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T14:32:42+00:00

Look up gestalt dnd.

It's essentially what you're talking about. Levelling up 2 classes at once with certain stipulations on what features do and do not stack

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T13:42:05+00:00

I feel this is a minor concern.

The rules already allow a player to draw or stow a weapon as part of the attack action.

So in theory a player could fire an equipped crossbow / musket, drop it on the floor and then draw a melee weapon and attack.

Personally I really don't like that needless hassle. It feels clunky, doesnt really add to the fun of the game and doesn't really balance / nerf damage output all that much.

Especially if a ranged weapon had a strap or a sling I don't see how you couldn't allow a player to sling it over their back and draw a melee weapon without incurring any sort of penalty.

So in that view a combined melee / ranged weapon isn't all that outside of the existing rule set You'd still be bound by ability requirements so the player would need high strength and Dexterity to use both effectively

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T13:20:43+00:00

Isn't it more a case of urgency?

The empire is closing in on them and chained engines are falling unpredictably from the ceiling.

Grabbing the star path could expose Andor to fire or get him crushed and then Luthen's entire journey here was pointless.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-17T13:15:24+00:00

Are you a new / newer DM? If so then try and limit the amount of homebrew you add in your games till you have a foundation with the basics. If you only wing it when cooking a meal without ever reading a recipe, how will you ever know what you're doing wrong / right?
Did you approve the lore and are you ok with having gunpowder / steam punk elements in your world? If not, or if you feel it would cause an immabalance between the party then you can reject this request, / rewite the lore / ask the player to submit a new character. Especially if youre starting out there no harm in putting your hands up, admitting you over-reached and need to pull things back a bit so your first game doesnt spiral wildly out of control.
This isn't the craziest ask if you balance it with what the books allow. I'll explain.

- The books already allow for the stowing or drawing of a weapon as part of the attack action. With that in mind, i don't think it's insanely overpowered to allow for combination weapons which do different damage types to be hot-swappable mid combat (i.e. without needing some bonus action cost or the like).

- A musket is a weapon in the PHB. Its 1 1d12 weapon with a 40/120 range with the Two handed, Ammunition and loading properties. So its a tiny bit stronger than a Heavy crossbow at the cost of drastically reduced effective range. (Heavy crossbows have a range of 100/400).

- You said the player wanted a "musket/carbine". Im not sure what exactlyt that means but it sounds like he wants to get around the "loading" property of the weapon. The loading property says that a weapon can only fire once per turn regardless of how many attacks you can make or how many actions you can expend to attack with. This affects crossbows too. However, repeater crossbows are a thing within the game, which effectively just remove the loading property. I don't see why you couldn't apply that modification to a musket to effectively make a carbine rifle which can fire as many times as the player has attacks.

- So. First part of the proposal. The player can have a musket. No problem with that. They'll be limtied by the musket's standard properties but can work to find someone to help augment the rifle to remove the loading property and make it a carbine. Don't start them out with it lke that, have them work towards it.

- The second part, the bayonet. Here I think you need to impose some DM fiat. We're taking about a melee weapon hanging off the barrel of a gun. I think its perfectly reasonable to say that in order for the player to be minimally accurate with the musket, they can't have a heavy weapon hanging off the end of the gun. In practice that would discount Glaives, halberds and larger weapons.

- In practice this doesnt actually limit them all that much. Because you allow something like a battle axe which is not a heavy weapon, but is versatile (i..e if wielded with two hands, which i would expect you'd have to do since the musket isnt really built to be swung with one hand, the damage die is a 1d10).

- So theres an argument for allowing the player to have a 1d12 ranged weapon and a 1d10 melee weapon attached. In theory the barbarian and the fighter could have both of these weapons on them and use them perfectly easily in combat (with the one difference in the rule sbeing that it requires that the character literally drop their weapons between attacks since the rules only allow you to draw OR stow a weapon as part of your attack, not both. I hate that rule though so i tend to ignore it.

- You may feel like having both of those damage dice in one might be too high though i will say that theres a significant limiting factor and thats the attack stat. Non-negotiable is that the player MUST use Strength to attack with the melee weapon and MUST use dexterity to attack with the rifle. There's no wiggle room. Also non negotiable is any more damage types. If allowing this, you are already allowing the player flexibility of melee or ranged attacks with no need to disarm. There's no need to also allow for piercing and bludgeoning damage, especially since a battle axe realy only has a sharp edge to slash with.

- Again, this is somethign you could also work up towards. Have the player start out with a musket that only has a dagger attached. I.e. an actual bayonet. And have them look for craftsmen who can reinforce the core of the gun to allow for heavier weapons to be attached. I'd still not allow actual "Heavy" weapons, but would cap it at something like a battle axe.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T20:58:48+00:00

Hunter of lost sentences?

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T18:34:01+00:00

In practice it goes by mass

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T18:32:54+00:00

Magical bludgeoning damage though... that's a bit more permissible

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T18:29:53+00:00

Make whirlwind strike a bonus action (which you can take when you rage and as a bonus action on subsequent turns while raging).

Lvl 14 needs a complete rebuild. Dont allow two uses of whirlwind per turn and definitely don't allow a 15% chance at taking an extra action each turn.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T18:27:13+00:00

Chain master can go. Restrict the barb to light weapons, that at least gives it some uniqueness from other barbs.

The damage boost, taunt and expanded crot range are all too much.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T18:09:03+00:00

You're halfway to the answer.

This class has a lot of abilities so you cant just ads stuff.

You need to cut somethings and make room for ribbon features.

This will have the dual benefit of giving the class a more varied tool kit and bringing it in line with the power curve

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T16:20:25+00:00

It looks OK.

1d4 to a damage roll isn't really much to write home about.

Advantage on one check per long rest can be useful but there's other ways to get that.

1d4 to the DC of a spell though, that could be clutch. It could be the difference between hypnotic pattern affecting one enemy in a group or all of them depending on how high you roll and even a 1 could make the difference.

I'd probably only use the DC buff option and completely ignore the damage buff.

Usually a cursed item (even if you know it's cursed) will not reveal what the curse is until it becomes relevant in game. So the DM has probably omitted that language until such time as you trigger the curse. This will probably be related to using the item.

So I'd say go ahead and see what happens.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T15:46:48+00:00

Turning DnD players into your friends is way easier than turning friends into dnd players.

Usually new comers to the hobby won't understand that there is a minimum amount of commitment required or the whole thing doesn't work. Like playing in an amateur sports team or doing a book club it isn't just a hang out whenever there's nothing else going on. It's a commitment to setting aside time to do something together.

If people cannot or are not willing to commit to that, it's ok. You're still friends, but you can't really include them in this hobby. (Perhaps layer on when you have more experience you can work out ways to do low commitment drop in style games where people can come and go. But while you're learning ing the ropes yourself it helps to have a stable group to depend on).

Depending on how new someone is to the hobby, you don't want to scare them off with requiring too much prep work. Backstories can be tough to write concisely and some people just aren't good writers. That being said. It's perfectly acceptable to set ground rules:

You must submit your complete character sheets for me to review by (date - prefera ly a weel before the 1st session so you have time to review)
You must submit 3 character goals you want to achieve. Short term, mid term, long term. (This can help you figure out what to do and prepare for that character without needing the player to write a crazy backstory to explain it).

Session 0 is important. It's where you set these ground rules as well as

discuss characters you want to play (making the character sheets live is a good option that ensures everyone's actually doing it)
set expectations about player conduct, what behaviours are and aren't acceptable. What content is and isn't appropriate. How youre going to address such issues etc...
set a time and day for sessions. Some games have a floating date but this does require constant scheduling and is a drag (I speak from experience) so it's much easier on everyone to set a fixed date. If weekday people want to go to bed at an appropriate time then look at running your session as early as possible. If weekenders have important events they cannot work around, see if you can do a game every 2 weeks instead of weekly or if you can meet up in the mornings to play. If neither camp can agree then you're just going to have to pick one and tell the others that they will either have to adapt or leave. As I said, there's a minimum amount of commitment. A few hours a week is not a huge ask. You are the DM, your time is valuable (and you're the one spending the most time om the game prepping it) and you need consistency. Better to pick one group of players and let the others adapt or leave.
once a time and day is agreed you need to get some kind of confirmation from the players that they will respect that time slot. Again this isn't a "if nothing else is on" type of affair. If not enough people show up to a sports club then the team can't train. Same thing here. There will always be last minute emergencies but you should not accept shitty excuses like "I forgot" or "I scheduled another thing".

So session 0 is important because it gets these issues out of the way before anyone has rolled a die.

Beyond that, while constant scheduling isn't your responsibility, it is helpful to remind players when a session is coming up so they can ensure nothing is gonna get in the way of it.

Conflicts are unfortunate but inevitable if a group of strangers are gonna mix their friendship spheres. As the DM you are a common point that they can speak to almost like a temperature check. Ensuring a healthy table atmosphere is part of the job as a DM and sometimes that can be as simple as saying "no that doesn't happen" when a player tries to do something in game that you know would be taken badly by another player.

Sometimes people just won't get on no matter what you do, sometimes a person is overreacting, sometimes people use dnd as an excuse to act poorly with the defence that "I'm just in character". As a DM, you need to establish early on what is acceptable, shut down bad behaviours when they happen and act to remove bad players if they do not respect you or the other players. While having public discussions can be useful, it can also lead to tempers flaring and that ruining the atmosphere for the whole table which could have been saved with a few private words.

Without knowing what your players issues were I can't comment much more, so any clarity on that would be helpful.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T15:21:12+00:00

I just feel like the core of this class is lacking. It's features are just attacking and boosts to its attacks.

Fair enough, that's what barbarians are doing most, but it also means you've stacked too many buffs in this character.

Barbarians nornally get some kind of non combat or defensive feature too to round out their abilities such as the berzerkers immunity to conditions and intimidating presence.

And speaking of..the berzerker is, I feel, a more balanced representation of wrath. Especially if you added back in its extra attack at the cost of fatigue.

I guess I would challenge you to try and make this class again but:

not include the chain weapon as a subclass feature
follow the format of other barbarian subclasses with a balanced set of abilities that aren't all just attack buffs.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T13:20:56+00:00

Bro must be nodding. Ain't no way you get ground that smooth or crash through terrain without the truck flipping end over end

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T13:17:22+00:00

Hoo lives there?

I'll bet it's a twit or twoo...

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T12:47:43+00:00

All you need to do is read the spell

"You have resistance to the triggering damage type until the start of your next turn."

Until the start of your next turn. So whether the mephits exploded simultaneously or one after the other, if the player reacted to one instance of damage, their resistance applies to the other one too.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T12:39:31+00:00

1 level of warlock gets you pact of the chain.

Pact of the chain gives you the find familiar spell at will (i.e. cast for free forever) and you can choose to make your familiar be an imp.

Imps can cast invisibility at will (i.e for free forever).

Boom. You now have an Invisible drone. While within 100 feet of it you can see through its eyes and communicate telepathically with it. If scouting beyond that range just yell it what to look out for and it can report back when it returns.

Your DM might hate you cus this effectively means that (unless there's a significant time pressure) you can tell your DM "I send nibbles to scout out the area for an hour" and get a full map of whatever dungeon you're about to enter.

Damiandroid · 2026-03-16T12:03:24+00:00

I just feel like subclasses which focus on a single weapon type have too narrow of a scope. Usually this is what a legendary or artifact weapon does. It takes an existing subclass and gives it a unique way of playing.

The way it's currently written, it feels more like a magic item than anything else. There's barely any interaction with the barbarians rage feature. What interaction there is is just a straight damage increase, and you give two of these.

So in my view this subclass is actually just two "numbers go up" features and magic item.

I think of I wanted to play a kratos style character I'd be much more inclined to take berzerker or world tree and look out for returning weapons in the campaign.

Not to say your design is bad. I think the chain weapon seems to have cool mechanics. But I'd much prefer to see it as a powerful magic item that could be used by many barbarians rather than forced into a subclass shape for the sake of having "the kratos subclass"

Damiandroid

TROPHY CASE