Prerequisite: 5th level, Pact of the Blade feature
Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a warlock spell slot to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to the target, plus another 1d8 per level of the spell slot, and you can knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller.
Eldritch Smite: Stop, Drop, and Roll Extra Damage
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
You know all those smite spells paladins get access to like Branding Smite and Wrathful Smite? Eldritch Smite is an invocation that makes them look like chumps. If you are finding you aren’t using your spell slots (somehow) on your melee warlock, Eldritch Smite is here to transform them into sweet, sweet paladin smite features. If you want to unload a boatload of damage all at once twice per short rest, you can do that.
Here’s the thing: this isn’t really giving you more resources, but a competing option for a resource you are already lacking in. This isn’t giving the blade-lock fantasy more spells slots to play with, nor some other kind of ability to leverage in combat to allow their spells to flourish out of combat. It's kind of teaching you a new spell, “Eldritch Smite”, that deals 2d8 force damage and knocks huge or smaller creatures prone, that up-casts for a 1d8 per slot above first. This kind of turns your warlocks into paladins.
But fun fact: Warlocks already can multi-class paladin. If you want to turn your spell slots into divine smites, why not sink two levels into paladin for two extra first level spell slots, divine smite, lay on hands, some baller armor and weapon proficiencies, and more? That seems like a more accessible route to explore to me, at least.
If multiclassing is off the table for you entirely, I find it really hard to believe that taking an invocation that just gives you a new weapon based spell, even if it's pretty solid, is worth it. A guaranteed prone effect, no save, is excellent. It can cripple the most terrifying enemies. Paired with a ranged Improved Pact Weapon and you can be sniping creatures out of the sky, which is pretty cool. You’ll still be gated to that twice per short rest, which isn’t ideal. When you compare that effect to a 5th level cast of most concentration spells, or even just a Hex, you have to get a lot of benefits out of the prone condition there to justify the damage you’re not getting, alongside the myriad of other possible effects the slots are offering you. This can only ever be a giant stack of damage and prone in two to four short bursts per short rest. If you go a few fights between short rests, your spell slots will only be affecting two of those creatures in those encounters, tops. That doesn’t seem worth it to me.
Even with these glaring issues, I can see Eldritch Smite being a way to satisfy a lot of player’s fantasies. If you came to the table to gut creatures with a flaming spear from hell, and don’t really care about getting tools to explore the world in a bunch of varied ways, Eldritch Smite can streamline a character into doing one thing over and over, and doing it pretty darn well. The more invocations you sink into melee warlocks, the more your build becomes basically a vaguely eldritch fighter, and that is the exact fantasy I know a lot of people want. If that’s for you, and you don’t really care about your spells too much, Eldritch Smite can find a home on your sheet (given you’ve already taken Thirsting Blade, because that one is WAY important).
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