Does a Pact Weapon Have Weight? A Warlock’s Guide to Conjured Armaments
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Yes, a pact weapon has weight. While the Pact of the Blade allows a warlock to conjure a weapon seemingly from nothing, that weapon adheres to the laws of physics as long as it is held. The Pact doesn’t specify any weightlessness or magical lightness; you’re essentially creating a fully formed, functional weapon, complete with its expected mass.
Understanding Pact of the Blade: More Than Just Summoning
The Pact of the Blade is a cornerstone feature for warlocks seeking a more martial path. It grants the warlock the ability to conjure a weapon as an action, instantly becoming proficient with it. This weapon can take the form of any simple or martial weapon, and it counts as magical for overcoming resistances and immunities to nonmagical attacks. However, there are caveats. The weapon vanishes if it’s more than 5 feet away for longer than a minute, or if you dismiss it to a pocket dimension as a bonus action.
The lack of explicit weight exemption indicates the conjured weapon is as real as any other weapon. Think of it like magically forging a sword on the spot, rather than merely creating an illusion of one. This distinction is vital for strategic gameplay, impacting factors such as encumbrance, carrying capacity, and even tactical maneuvers. If a warlock is using a heavy two-handed weapon, they will feel its full weight, affecting their movement and potentially other actions.
Implications for Gameplay
The weight of your pact weapon matters for several reasons:
- Encumbrance: If you’re already burdened with armor and adventuring gear, adding the weight of a heavy pact weapon like a greatsword or halberd could push you closer to being encumbered.
- Strength Checks: Certain situations, like climbing or swimming, may require Strength checks. A heavy pact weapon could impose disadvantage on these checks if you are already burdened.
- Tactical Maneuvers: While wielding a heavy weapon, actions like dashing or dodging may be slightly less effective than if you were using a lighter weapon.
Understanding these implications can help warlocks make informed decisions about their pact weapon choice and overall combat strategy.
FAQs: Pact Weapons Demystified
1. What weapons can be pact weapons?
Under the rules of D&D, a warlock can turn any regular weapon into their pact weapon via a ritual, which allows the warlock to store the weapon in an extra-dimensional space. The pact weapon can be a simple or martial weapon of your choice.
2. Can my pact weapon be a firearm?
By default, the weapon is limited to melee weapons, so you can’t use it as a pact weapon unless you find a magic firearm. If you find a magic firearm, you can transform it into your pact weapon by performing a special ritual while you hold it.
3. Can a pact weapon be broken?
It’s mentioned in the rule itself already: “The weapon ceases being your pact weapon if you die, if you perform the 1-hour ritual on a different weapon, or if you use a 1-hour ritual to break your bond to it. The weapon appears at your feet if it is in the extradimensional space when the bond breaks.”
4. Can my Hexblade be my pact weapon?
Your Hexblade Patron weapon is not your pact weapon. One of the examples they give for a patron is blackrazor, and that is certainly not the weapon in the hands of a level 1 hexblade warlock.
5. Can a staff be a pact weapon?
None of the “staff” magic items can be set as hex weapon or pact weapon. However, you can make a copy of staff of power and change its item type to weapon-quarterstaff.
6. Do pact weapons need ammo?
Improved Pact Weapon lets you conjure a bow as your pact weapon. However, it does not say you can conjure a new piece of ammunition every time you make an attack, so you would still need ammunition.
7. Can you have a two-handed pact weapon?
Yes. If you pick a two-handed weapon to be your pact weapon like a glaive or a halberd, you can stack Polearm Master on top of Great Weapon Master for top-tier damage and get constant advantage from devils sight/darkness early on or shadow of moil later.
8. Can a longbow be a pact weapon?
The Improved Pact Weapon Eldritch Invocation allows an extended list of summoned pact weapons which extends to short and long bows, and both heavy and light crossbows. In addition, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to its attack and damage rolls, unless it is a magic weapon that already has a bonus to those rolls.
9. Can you use Hex Warrior on a pact weapon?
In short, Hex Warrior works with Pact of the Blade for one weapon per day. Because Hex Warrior only works once per day. But it doesn’t work with a Greatsword or any other two-handed weapon.
10. Can a Hexblade have two weapons?
Hexblade allows you to use Charisma for attacks with one weapon you choose, plus with any pact weapon you have. So you can have two separate weapons: your pact weapon, plus your Hexblade-chosen weapon.
11. What is the benefit of pact weapon?
This weapon counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. Your pact weapon disappears if it is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more. It also disappears if you use this feature again, if you dismiss the weapon (no action required), or if you die.
12. Can you turn Shadow Blade into a pact weapon?
The key things are that shadow blade never counts as a pact weapon or as a hex warrior weapon so you can never use charisma with it. This means the hexblade has to use strength or dexterity to attack with a shadow blade and not charisma.
13. Can a warlock use a greatsword as a pact weapon?
Yes, you can turn a greatsword into your pact weapon with the Pact of the Blade feature as the benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon’s type, which can include two-handed weapons.
14. Can you use charisma for a pact weapon?
Pact of the Blade basically lets you have any melee weapon to conjure, you’re proficient on the spot only issue was that it does NOT use your charisma unless you are a hexblade. Pact of the blade is confirmed to enable charisma-based weapon scaling in BG3.
15. Can an artificer infuse a pact weapon?
Note, this requires a magic weapon, where Artificer Infusions require a mundane weapon. Thus, you must first have a mundane weapon, turn it into a magical weapon by applying an Infusion and then you can make it into your pact weapon.
Weighing Your Options
Choosing the right pact weapon is a crucial decision for any warlock. While the Pact of the Blade offers unparalleled flexibility in combat, understanding the limitations of the pact, including the impact of weapon weight, will help you optimize your character for any situation. You should also consider the Games Learning Society for more information about role playing games and ways they benefit people. The GamesLearningSociety.org promotes learning through gaming, and can offer different perspectives to gameplay strategies.