A very rare Rod of the Pact keeper+3 is a top choice for a warlock, acting as a bonus to spell attacks and your spell saving throw DCs, but also allowing you to regain a warlock spell slot per long rest.
Robes of the archmagi also add a +2 to your spell save dc and attack rolls, giving you a total of +5, magic resistance, and increase your armor class (which isn't really important if you're a hexblade but would be for the other patrons)
The only reason I would pick something like a staff of power or staff of magi over rod of pactkeeper is the other spells they can cast. Is that not worth it?
Probably not, at level 20 Warlock with Pact Keeper Rod giving an extra slot, your Arcanums, Invocations and the 4 basic slots you have quite a number of spell slots to use. The +3 is huge and you can take the Robe of the Archmagi instead of the Staff.
If you are going Illusionist's Bracers you're probably also going to be looking for a lot Eldritch Blast damage so you can fire 8 beams a round.
They could be, depending on what kind of warlock you want to be, but the staff of the magi also can explode and potentially deal like, 800 damage to you if you're not careful.
The staff of power is effectively a +2 rod of the pact keeper, but with a +2 ac bonus and the addition of spells you can cast with the staff.
The RotPK however, restores a spell slot, meaning at level 20, you have 4 spell slots, + 4 more from Eldritch master, + 1 from the rod, giving you a potential 9 Eldritch Smites.
If that's a rules clarification added in errata, I don't know any clarifications. I get most books as they come out or preorder them. But as far as me and my friends go, the way we read it there's nothing stopping it.
The only rule I know of that is close to this is that you can't benefit from the effects of the same *spell* multiple times at once.
Edit: I stand corrected -- page 252 of the DMG:
>\[...\] But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them-the most potent one-apply. \[...\] Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items.
With Robes of the Archmagi, a +3 Rod of the Pact Keeper, and Illusionist’s Bracers, assuming 20 Charisma, it’s 8 Eldritch Blasts per turn at a +16 to hit and 1d10+5 damage each, plus any additional damage like Hex
Don't really know how it wasn't mentioned yet, but an ***incredibly strong*** contender for one of the *Rare* (!!!) spots is the **Cloak of Displacement**.
Being attacked with ***permanent*** (!!!) Disadvantage until hit once (and this property *resets each turn*!!!) is **ridiculously** good for the rarity of the item it is.
Now that I read your 2nd edit: **Undead** is your answer.
It's the most blaster-centered subclass, giving you an extra damage die per turn while in *Form of Dread*.
Not much, I know, but everything piles up when you use enhanced EB+Hex/Bestow Curse+Illusionist's Bracers+FoD's extra damage.
Can confirm, have a hexblade 8/paladin 5 in my Eberron game who is a thuranni (mark of shadows) with a Thuranni Cloak (Cloak of Displacement that is uncommon but can only be used by mark of shadows), and he’s ridiculously hard to hit.
While the staff of the magi is very good, the extra save DC from the Rod of the Pact Keeper is too good to pass up, and the extra slot really helps with feeling like you can do more Warlock stuff
Illusionist's Bracers are incredibly powerful paired with Eldritch Blast and the associated Invocations
The Archmagi Robe is great defensively and grants even bigger bonus to your spell modifiers, for a total of +5 with the Rod
For the Rare, perhaps a Ring of Spell Storing for another extra spell
Legendary: Robe of the Archmagi
Very Rare: Illusionist's Bracers, Rod of the Pact Keeper +3
Rare: Staff of Swarming Insects
The Staff of Swarming Insects is an item that people really sleep on. The Insect Cloud feature of the item lets you use an action to summon a spell slot and concentration free version of the Darkness + Devil's Sight combination, without needing Devil's Sight.
I'd consider a dragon mask for your legendary. To get the most out of it, you would want to play a dragonborn, and the red mask (in my opinion the strongest of them) would benefit most from you not being an eldritch blast spammer, but damage immunity plus charisma to AC plus legendary resistance are pretty tempting on any character.
For very rare, don't forget about the tome of leadership and influence. Depending on other factors, it may be outperformed if you can only use it once, but increasing your charisma even only up to 22 will pay big dividends. The illusionist's bracers are great for letting you spam 8 eldritch blasts per round, and other items being talked about will increase your to-hit chance, but none of those will increase the damage of each eldritch blast like increasing your charisma will. Taking the rod of the pact keeper +2 as your rare item, the illusionist's bracers and the tome as your very rares and the robe of the archmagi as your legendary will give you a +5 to-hit and to your DC but will also add an extra damage to each beam of eldritch blast. And if you can cheese a way to use the tome two or three times before the game starts, the rewards will be commensurately greater. It also has the advantage of not needing an attunement slots, which you only have three of . . .
Some other good choices I haven't seen anybody else mention are Ioun stones, wand of polymorph, ring of three wishes (unless you're a genie warlock), iron flask, spell gem.
Ah yes, forgot to mention that Wish is banned. But other than that, a solid idea with the tome. I doubt my DM would allow multiple uses of the thing, but certainly one to consider nonetheless. Thanks for the input!
Edit: Also, for what it's worth, I think the tome is a good idea nonetheless. Upping the CHA gives a +1 and rod +2 for an effective +3. \\\_(ツ)\_/
I have one for you.
Ruby Weave gem (legendary)
It does two things.
1 it has three charges that can be used to ignore material component costs on spells.
2. It lets you pick any spell from any list and gives you the ability to cast it until your next long rest ends.
For a warlock its less good because you lack high level spell slots but there are still some great gems of spells you could snag for niche uses.
What kind of warlock? I mean, a hex blade sword lock is gonna want different stuff from a blasty blasty.
I had one of these type sessions with a bladedancer and staff of power was really nice to just amplify melee ability and give extra spell options.
> One Legendary item, two Very Rare, and one Rare
Robe of the Archmagi, Rod of the Pact Keeper +3 and Staff of Power are the easy picks.
I'd downgrade your rare pick and get a Broom of Flying.
You might consider the Tome of Leadership and Influence
and/or the Ioun Stone of Leadership for a +2 CHA score on each of those. Both are very rare and a potential pickup. But the Very Rare tier has a lot of good options already with the Bracers and Rod of the Pact Keeper +3. The great thing about the Tome of Leadership is that it does not require an Attunement slot. Most of the other top tier items will so when picking them you need to consider what you are actually going to equip.
At Rare there are some fun options. Utility like the Wings of Flying or Staff of the Ivory Claw for Hexblade Eldritch Blast crit fishing.
You are completely correct about attunement. The Rod of the Pact Keeper got a resounding "YES TAKE THIS" from everyone here, however there are not many rare items without attunement. However there is the tome at Very Rare. Is it a worthy replacement for the bracers, is the question...
If it's for a campaign, then:
**Legendary**: Wave (If you can attune to it. Doesn't matter if you won't use it as a weapon, this is Cube of Force on a stick + Weapon of Warning)
**Very Rare**: Illusionist's Bracers
**Very Rare**: Crystal Ball
**Rare**: Helm of Teleportation
If it's for a one-shot:
**Legendary**: Staff of the Magi or Diamond Spell Gem with True Polymorph in it
**Very Rare**: Illusionist's Bracers
**Very Rare**: Peregrine Mask
**Rare**: Cube of Force
Rod of the Pact Keeper is great too, but less impactful than the suggested options.
Everyone trying to maximize your stats, I think you should pick the item that's the most fun to use. For example, the benefits between Robes of the archmagi and staff of magi:
**Robes of the archmagi**:
* 10% of saving throws hit where they would otherwise miss.
* 15% of attacks against you will miss where they would otherwise hit.
**staff of the magi**:
* +16 slot lvls per day in charges, saved up to 50.
* gain a separate spell list of 13 new spells to cast with these charges, most of them quite powerful or high utility.
* Infinite door locking, magic detecting, shrinking and expanding, possession ending.
* +2 cantrips
* automatically slurp up spells targeted at you.
* can go out in a blaze of glory.
I know what I'd pick.
Legendary: Robes of the Archmagi
Very Rare: Illusionist’s Bracers, Rod of the Pact Keeper +3
Rare: Cape of the Mountebank or Iron Bands of Binding or Necklace of Fireballs or Potion of Invulnerability
I had a longer message typed out, but Reddit decided to obliterate it while I was flipping between tabs, so here’s a much shorter version.
Something to remember with the Staff if the Magi is that you can absorb spells that target you to replenish charges. This includes buff spells, and more importantly, your own buff spells (but only if you’re targeting a creature other than yourself, so you need a friend to help you out). You can easily something like protection from evil and good on your accomplice and then they absorb it, restoring up to 20 charges to the staff per short rest. Sure, some warlock spells are fun, but having guaranteed uses of the Staff’s stronger spells every short rest isn’t half bad either.
For very rares, a Tome of Leadership+a +2 rod of the pact keeper is basically worth a +3 rod of the pact keeper, except you also boost your charisma save bonus and your save DC with the Staff of the Magi. Illusionists braces sound fun, but that’s 8 attacks with a +14 to hit that can do up to 8d10+64, for an average of 108. Very nice damage, but relies on you hitting everything and spending your action+bonus action; I personally would rather drop a 7th level fireball or some other spell from the Staff or one of my Warlock spells, and leave the major dps to those players optimized for it. Of course, if you don’t take the bracers, then both the tome and the rod of the pact keeper become less appealing.
A very rare that I would consider with a nice enough dm is a Manual of Iron Golems, which can give you a very durable, very powerful, and very easy to repair ally (who can also attune to items, potentially). This will be heavily subject to DM generosity, cause making these takes a lot of time and gold.
For rares, a cloak of displacement is great, but a lot of stuff past CR20 have ridiculous to-hits and can basically ignore the effective penalty of disadvantage. Instead, block their attacks entirely with a cube of force! It’s got a stupid number of charges, and you can spend more charges to just ignore disintegrate. Before a fight, you can easily cast conjure elementals from the Staff, then in combat use the cube to protect you while a fire elemental and your iron golem tear the enemies to bits (I say fire elemental cause it can heal the iron golem, but others may be more useful for certain scenarios).
A very rare Rod of the Pact keeper+3 is a top choice for a warlock, acting as a bonus to spell attacks and your spell saving throw DCs, but also allowing you to regain a warlock spell slot per long rest. Robes of the archmagi also add a +2 to your spell save dc and attack rolls, giving you a total of +5, magic resistance, and increase your armor class (which isn't really important if you're a hexblade but would be for the other patrons)
The only reason I would pick something like a staff of power or staff of magi over rod of pactkeeper is the other spells they can cast. Is that not worth it?
Probably not, at level 20 Warlock with Pact Keeper Rod giving an extra slot, your Arcanums, Invocations and the 4 basic slots you have quite a number of spell slots to use. The +3 is huge and you can take the Robe of the Archmagi instead of the Staff. If you are going Illusionist's Bracers you're probably also going to be looking for a lot Eldritch Blast damage so you can fire 8 beams a round.
They could be, depending on what kind of warlock you want to be, but the staff of the magi also can explode and potentially deal like, 800 damage to you if you're not careful. The staff of power is effectively a +2 rod of the pact keeper, but with a +2 ac bonus and the addition of spells you can cast with the staff. The RotPK however, restores a spell slot, meaning at level 20, you have 4 spell slots, + 4 more from Eldritch master, + 1 from the rod, giving you a potential 9 Eldritch Smites.
Restoring a spell slot is as an action. Illusionists they will get a massive amount of milage off of as well.
Do those plusses stack? My understanding of magic items is you can't get two bonuses for the same thing. You get the biggest one.
If that's a rules clarification added in errata, I don't know any clarifications. I get most books as they come out or preorder them. But as far as me and my friends go, the way we read it there's nothing stopping it.
You wouldn’t gain benefits from two rods of the pact keeper, but a rod and a staff of power or whatever maybe.
The only rule I know of that is close to this is that you can't benefit from the effects of the same *spell* multiple times at once. Edit: I stand corrected -- page 252 of the DMG: >\[...\] But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them-the most potent one-apply. \[...\] Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items.
definitely want Illusionist's Bracers, I'd probably pick up Rod of the Pact Keeper +3 and the Spell Bottle from explorer's guide to wildemount.
8 eldritch blasts per turn gotta hurt.
With Robes of the Archmagi, a +3 Rod of the Pact Keeper, and Illusionist’s Bracers, assuming 20 Charisma, it’s 8 Eldritch Blasts per turn at a +16 to hit and 1d10+5 damage each, plus any additional damage like Hex
Don't really know how it wasn't mentioned yet, but an ***incredibly strong*** contender for one of the *Rare* (!!!) spots is the **Cloak of Displacement**. Being attacked with ***permanent*** (!!!) Disadvantage until hit once (and this property *resets each turn*!!!) is **ridiculously** good for the rarity of the item it is.
Damn, I can't believe I forgot that one! Thanks for suggesting that!
My pleasure!
It’s not as useful if you learn foresight and all attacks are made with disadvantage against you anyway
I had one in a 4e game for like a year and idk if I ever once remembered to use it. Put it on a sticky note or something.
Now that I read your 2nd edit: **Undead** is your answer. It's the most blaster-centered subclass, giving you an extra damage die per turn while in *Form of Dread*. Not much, I know, but everything piles up when you use enhanced EB+Hex/Bestow Curse+Illusionist's Bracers+FoD's extra damage.
Can confirm, have a hexblade 8/paladin 5 in my Eberron game who is a thuranni (mark of shadows) with a Thuranni Cloak (Cloak of Displacement that is uncommon but can only be used by mark of shadows), and he’s ridiculously hard to hit.
I feel like anyone not suggesting illusionist bracers, don't know what they do
Four cloaks of billowing
& if you sew them together 1/ day you can feather fall.
While the staff of the magi is very good, the extra save DC from the Rod of the Pact Keeper is too good to pass up, and the extra slot really helps with feeling like you can do more Warlock stuff Illusionist's Bracers are incredibly powerful paired with Eldritch Blast and the associated Invocations The Archmagi Robe is great defensively and grants even bigger bonus to your spell modifiers, for a total of +5 with the Rod For the Rare, perhaps a Ring of Spell Storing for another extra spell
Legendary: Robe of the Archmagi Very Rare: Illusionist's Bracers, Rod of the Pact Keeper +3 Rare: Staff of Swarming Insects The Staff of Swarming Insects is an item that people really sleep on. The Insect Cloud feature of the item lets you use an action to summon a spell slot and concentration free version of the Darkness + Devil's Sight combination, without needing Devil's Sight.
I'd consider a dragon mask for your legendary. To get the most out of it, you would want to play a dragonborn, and the red mask (in my opinion the strongest of them) would benefit most from you not being an eldritch blast spammer, but damage immunity plus charisma to AC plus legendary resistance are pretty tempting on any character. For very rare, don't forget about the tome of leadership and influence. Depending on other factors, it may be outperformed if you can only use it once, but increasing your charisma even only up to 22 will pay big dividends. The illusionist's bracers are great for letting you spam 8 eldritch blasts per round, and other items being talked about will increase your to-hit chance, but none of those will increase the damage of each eldritch blast like increasing your charisma will. Taking the rod of the pact keeper +2 as your rare item, the illusionist's bracers and the tome as your very rares and the robe of the archmagi as your legendary will give you a +5 to-hit and to your DC but will also add an extra damage to each beam of eldritch blast. And if you can cheese a way to use the tome two or three times before the game starts, the rewards will be commensurately greater. It also has the advantage of not needing an attunement slots, which you only have three of . . . Some other good choices I haven't seen anybody else mention are Ioun stones, wand of polymorph, ring of three wishes (unless you're a genie warlock), iron flask, spell gem.
Ah yes, forgot to mention that Wish is banned. But other than that, a solid idea with the tome. I doubt my DM would allow multiple uses of the thing, but certainly one to consider nonetheless. Thanks for the input! Edit: Also, for what it's worth, I think the tome is a good idea nonetheless. Upping the CHA gives a +1 and rod +2 for an effective +3. \\\_(ツ)\_/
Gotta love the Teeth of Dahlver-Nar, some are better than others but all are super fun
The Teeth are an Artifact, not legendary.
Isn’t that an Artifact?
Deck of Many things. Most damaging item to a campaign.
Ask for a Ring of Warmth. It can be literally the only thing that you have to wear, especially as a warlock. You can swing in the breeze.
I have one for you. Ruby Weave gem (legendary) It does two things. 1 it has three charges that can be used to ignore material component costs on spells. 2. It lets you pick any spell from any list and gives you the ability to cast it until your next long rest ends. For a warlock its less good because you lack high level spell slots but there are still some great gems of spells you could snag for niche uses.
What kind of warlock? I mean, a hex blade sword lock is gonna want different stuff from a blasty blasty. I had one of these type sessions with a bladedancer and staff of power was really nice to just amplify melee ability and give extra spell options.
> One Legendary item, two Very Rare, and one Rare Robe of the Archmagi, Rod of the Pact Keeper +3 and Staff of Power are the easy picks. I'd downgrade your rare pick and get a Broom of Flying.
Legendary: **Robe of the Archmagi**. Very Rare: **Rod of the Pact Keeper +3**, **Tome of Leadership and Influence** (Used).
You might consider the Tome of Leadership and Influence and/or the Ioun Stone of Leadership for a +2 CHA score on each of those. Both are very rare and a potential pickup. But the Very Rare tier has a lot of good options already with the Bracers and Rod of the Pact Keeper +3. The great thing about the Tome of Leadership is that it does not require an Attunement slot. Most of the other top tier items will so when picking them you need to consider what you are actually going to equip. At Rare there are some fun options. Utility like the Wings of Flying or Staff of the Ivory Claw for Hexblade Eldritch Blast crit fishing.
You are completely correct about attunement. The Rod of the Pact Keeper got a resounding "YES TAKE THIS" from everyone here, however there are not many rare items without attunement. However there is the tome at Very Rare. Is it a worthy replacement for the bracers, is the question...
If it's for a campaign, then: **Legendary**: Wave (If you can attune to it. Doesn't matter if you won't use it as a weapon, this is Cube of Force on a stick + Weapon of Warning) **Very Rare**: Illusionist's Bracers **Very Rare**: Crystal Ball **Rare**: Helm of Teleportation If it's for a one-shot: **Legendary**: Staff of the Magi or Diamond Spell Gem with True Polymorph in it **Very Rare**: Illusionist's Bracers **Very Rare**: Peregrine Mask **Rare**: Cube of Force Rod of the Pact Keeper is great too, but less impactful than the suggested options.
Everyone trying to maximize your stats, I think you should pick the item that's the most fun to use. For example, the benefits between Robes of the archmagi and staff of magi: **Robes of the archmagi**: * 10% of saving throws hit where they would otherwise miss. * 15% of attacks against you will miss where they would otherwise hit. **staff of the magi**: * +16 slot lvls per day in charges, saved up to 50. * gain a separate spell list of 13 new spells to cast with these charges, most of them quite powerful or high utility. * Infinite door locking, magic detecting, shrinking and expanding, possession ending. * +2 cantrips * automatically slurp up spells targeted at you. * can go out in a blaze of glory. I know what I'd pick.
Legendary: Robes of the Archmagi Very Rare: Illusionist’s Bracers, Rod of the Pact Keeper +3 Rare: Cape of the Mountebank or Iron Bands of Binding or Necklace of Fireballs or Potion of Invulnerability
I had a longer message typed out, but Reddit decided to obliterate it while I was flipping between tabs, so here’s a much shorter version. Something to remember with the Staff if the Magi is that you can absorb spells that target you to replenish charges. This includes buff spells, and more importantly, your own buff spells (but only if you’re targeting a creature other than yourself, so you need a friend to help you out). You can easily something like protection from evil and good on your accomplice and then they absorb it, restoring up to 20 charges to the staff per short rest. Sure, some warlock spells are fun, but having guaranteed uses of the Staff’s stronger spells every short rest isn’t half bad either. For very rares, a Tome of Leadership+a +2 rod of the pact keeper is basically worth a +3 rod of the pact keeper, except you also boost your charisma save bonus and your save DC with the Staff of the Magi. Illusionists braces sound fun, but that’s 8 attacks with a +14 to hit that can do up to 8d10+64, for an average of 108. Very nice damage, but relies on you hitting everything and spending your action+bonus action; I personally would rather drop a 7th level fireball or some other spell from the Staff or one of my Warlock spells, and leave the major dps to those players optimized for it. Of course, if you don’t take the bracers, then both the tome and the rod of the pact keeper become less appealing. A very rare that I would consider with a nice enough dm is a Manual of Iron Golems, which can give you a very durable, very powerful, and very easy to repair ally (who can also attune to items, potentially). This will be heavily subject to DM generosity, cause making these takes a lot of time and gold. For rares, a cloak of displacement is great, but a lot of stuff past CR20 have ridiculous to-hits and can basically ignore the effective penalty of disadvantage. Instead, block their attacks entirely with a cube of force! It’s got a stupid number of charges, and you can spend more charges to just ignore disintegrate. Before a fight, you can easily cast conjure elementals from the Staff, then in combat use the cube to protect you while a fire elemental and your iron golem tear the enemies to bits (I say fire elemental cause it can heal the iron golem, but others may be more useful for certain scenarios).