I have been considering a Hexblade Warlock with a houserule to allow two Pact Weapons, so that they could dual-wield. What would the effects of such a houserule be? It is an extra option for Pact of the Blade, but is it stronger than things they can already do? It doesn’t seem like it to me, except maybe with the Improved Pact Weapon invocation giving two +1 weapons. But even that doesn’t seem too bad considering Polearm Master could basically do the same thing.
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6\$\begingroup\$ Hi, welcome to the site! I recommend the Tour if you haven’t—we do things a little differently here. In particular, we’re not really good at “what would you guys do?” But oftentimes, it’s pretty easy to rework questions like that into things we are pretty good at: that’s what I’ve tried to do here. The difference here is that instead of just asking for people’s opinions, the question explicitly requires answers to describe the effects, allowing the reader to make a judgment about what to actually do. \$\endgroup\$– KRyanCommented May 27, 2020 at 22:54
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2 Answers
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Something similar can already be achieved RAW
You mention that you're playing a Hexblade Warlock, with the Pact of the Blade pact boon. Whilst Pact of the Blade only allows the single weapon, this is separate from your "Hex weapon", by which I mean the weapon that you can designate as per your Hex Warrior class feature.
The Hexblade warlock's Hex Warrior feature (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, p. 55) says:
Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. This benefit lasts until you finish a long rest. If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, this benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon's type.
Although you cannot shunt your "Hex weapon" into an extradimensional space like your Pact weapon, both can be used with Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity. Hence you could duel wield your Pact weapon and your Hex weapon (assuming they are both Light weapons), both of which would use Charisma, which is the next best thing to having two Pact weapons.
Hopefully this suits your purposes, since otherwise you're into homebrew/houserule territory.
Note that if you go with this plan, you can only use Eldritch Invocations like Thirsting Blade with your Pact weapon, not your Hex weapon, so if you wanted to make use of that combo, treat your Hex weapon as your "offhand weapon" and your Pact weapon as your "main weapon", which would then allow you to make 3 attacks per turn with Thirsting Blade and two-weapon fighting.
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1\$\begingroup\$ This is definitely the most balanced suggestion. OP perhaps didn't realize this was a possibility. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2020 at 2:01
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3\$\begingroup\$ I realized it is a possibility, but I was specifically asking about the implementation of 2 pact weapons. Which would mean you could summon both and the Improved Pact Weapon invocation would extend to both. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 28, 2020 at 2:33
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\$\begingroup\$ @LexTalionis Ah, fair enough; well, RAW, that won't work, since Eldritch Invocations that affect Pact weapons don't extend to Hex weapons, unfortunately. That said, if you're duel wielding and want to use Thirsting Blade for "Extra Attack", you would only be missing out on the +1 for your offhand attack anyway, so 2/3 attacks would still benefit from Improved Pact Weapon. \$\endgroup\$– NathanSCommented May 28, 2020 at 9:15
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1\$\begingroup\$ @LexTalionis So you want to make this change purely, 100%, as a buff? You ask in your question if it's stronger than what we can do already, but it seems to me you already know it's stronger which is why you want to do it. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 29, 2020 at 3:00
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No big issues
The main consequence that you might not be considering is that a Warlock doesn't necessarily have to use a pact weapon themselves; Their pact weapons can be used by others and they can exist away from the Warlock for up to a minute. A not-so-uncommon thing to do would be to hand over a pact weapon to a Fighter, Paladin or something of the sort to have them whack things with it (as they're generally going to be better at it than a Warlock, you'll need to invest quite heavily in melee combat just to break even). Allowing the Warlock to summon two weapons makes this even more attractive because now they can give one weapon away and still get to use one.
The other one would obviously be that they can dual wield pact weapons effectively, but since the goal of your houserule seems to be enabling just that that is probably not a big concern for you.
Since you're in houserule territory at this point anyway you could easily "fix" this by applying even more houserules (e.g. not let this Warlock give his weapons away, or only let them do it while they have only one weapon summoned etc). If you don't see the Warlock in question giving their weapons away or you just don't care about your party having easier access to magic weapons you could also just decide that this isn't an issue for you at all, it is a pretty minor upside in most parties.
One really minor point is that this would allow a Warlock to summon two daggers before combat and use them for throwing, so this gives a Warlock two rounds of ranged weapon attacks instead of one... but I don't see this as an issue worth worrying about considering they have far superior ranged attacks compared to that, even taking Improved Pact Weapon into account.
