D&D 5E Warlocks & Patrons

[Icharbezol]

I'm having some difficulty with a player's character concept, and I thought I'd turn here for advice on the how's and whys I can make this work for them in my campaign. Any help and ideas for rationalizing this and making it work will be great, and thanks out to those willing to help me out.

The setting is Eberron 5e. I'm trying to stick with an overarching theme for the starting characters while allowing them to play what they want at the same time-Cyran survivors of the Last War. My issues with this concept that's being presented to me are that the player wants to start his character as a human vengeance paladin/undying warlock who does not follow the tenets of his warlock patron but actively fights against them.

Not quite sure how the heck I'm going to make this work, as it really doesn't make any sense to me at all. Why would this warlock be able to level up and gain new warlock powers if he does nothing but attempt to destroy his patron and all those who serve it? Any ideas?

 

[Kreinas]

A pact is made with a patron as a clear contract. In exchange for X, I will grant you the ability to Y. It says right in the PHB that your goals and the goals of your patron may clash. If he destroys his patron, he then loses the powers.

 

[Illithidbix]

The obvious one is the Emperor from Star Wars. Esp. if the character is a paladin!


Warlock pacts are with inhuman beings, so making them *not entirely make sense* works to reinforce the alienness of it all. This very much applies to Great Old Ones and Archfey, but I also believe the principle extends to other type of pacts.

Temping a Paladin into Darkness would seem far too well *fun* for many immortal beings who have very little in terms of actual needs or wants. If you become an immortal then entertainment and a challenge is inherently more interesting.

Also vast arrogance, a belief that the player *simply can't* ultimately harm them, or that at the height of their power, the character will realise that the Patron is his real benefactor, not the Paladin Oath and the powers it's sworn to.

 

[TwoSix]

The patron is a patron of death, right? Doesn't matter whether you're fighting for or against your patron, you're still sending him new souls.

Plus, in Eberron I would probably say an undying patron as either an aspect of the Devourer or one of the Lords of Dust. Either one would enjoy letting you try to fight them, much as you tire out a fish before you reel it in.

 

[Jediking]

His Patron may be incredibly cunning and be playing a dangerous game with the Paladin. Maybe by granting the Paladin power and having him go off and adventure is benefiting the Patron without the Paladin knowing. So even as he is trying to hurt his Patron, he's actually being used. Depending on how long or how deep you want to explore this the Patron could end up being a BBEG or something.

And why did he take the Oath of Vengeance? Did it have anything to do with making a pact? Did the Patron have anything to do with the event that caused it? (You can decide this. Don't rewrite the character's history for him or without his consent, but maybe you can work together to make an explanation.)

 

[famousringo]

One idea is that the player could in fact be stealing this power from his "patron". Using dark rituals gleaned from a forgotten text to draw power which is only meant for true believers. This could put the player on the patron's #1 most wanted list, or it could be an elaborate scheme to claim the player's soul, or the patron may be completely unaware that somebody is running around stealing secrets not meant for outsiders.

 

[Savevsdeath]

A pact is made with a patron as a clear contract. In exchange for X, I will grant you the ability to Y. It says right in the PHB that your goals and the goals of your patron may clash. If he destroys his patron, he then loses the powers.

Actually, nowhere does it say that Warlocks lose their powers if their patron is destroyed. In fact,it is stated many times that a Warlock often opposes his patron. Once the deal is made, you have the power and can grow it as you like. They can't just take it away.

 

[Kreinas]

Actually, nowhere does it say that Warlocks lose their powers if their patron is destroyed. In fact,it is stated many times that a Warlock often opposes his patron. Once the deal is made, you have the power and can grow it as you like. They can't just take it away.

In the same way a warlock losing his power isnt in RAW, neither is the assumption that the power is permanent. If a cleric lost his deity, I would rule his powers are lost as well. The OP asked for suggestions in dealing with the character. Per RAW, a character can conflict with their patron. My suggested solution; no patron = no power.

Before correcting me on my interpretation, perhaps you should recognize that your own statemenr is just that; an interpretation with no basis in the RAW.

Furthermore, your comment reads as though I made an assertion that you could not clash with your patron, despite the fact that the comment you quoted specifically states that RAW you can.

Edit: My apologies if this came off as aggressive. That was not the intent.

 

[Icharbezol]

His Patron may be incredibly cunning and be playing a dangerous game with the Paladin. Maybe by granting the Paladin power and having him go off and adventure is benefiting the Patron without the Paladin knowing. So even as he is trying to hurt his Patron, he's actually being used. Depending on how long or how deep you want to explore this the Patron could end up being a BBEG or something.

And why did he take the Oath of Vengeance? Did it have anything to do with making a pact? Did the Patron have anything to do with the event that caused it? (You can decide this. Don't rewrite the character's history for him or without his consent, but maybe you can work together to make an explanation.)

His oath doesn't seem to have anything to do with his patron or pact at all, he just wants to multiclass the two for the "kewl powerz", his words. The only kind of backstory he's come up with thus far is for his undying warlock patron to be a lost or forgotten goddess that he's married to, which I'm not keen on at all, so I'm trying to get him to revise that a little and choose something a little more Eberron-specific for a patron.

He originally made the character for another game and wants to bring it into this one. I asked for no pregens at the announcement of the game so that we could create a group of characters together built around the setting rather than bringing in a bunch of random home-generated characters with no relation to one another or the setting.

I do like the idea of the patron using him and being a BBEG in the campaign. But the player seems to just want the patron to explain his powers, with no relationship to the patron at all because when I suggest the patron might be angry with him for stealing her powers, he says "Nah, I'm not taking this combo to have a character flaw."

But this is the same player who took Dependent as a flaw in Shadowrun for his character, didn't like that the dependent kept getting in trouble (pretty much as per the negative quality description) and halfway through the campaign pitched a fit about wanting to be allowed to change it out for different negative qualities and ditch Dependent for something else instead and now says that the Dependent NPC was never really his little sister but was instead a poser person sent to watch and keep tabs on him by a corporation.

/shrug

 

[Icharbezol]

His specific choice for class combo is purely based on the powers he gets from the classes, as confirmed by him. And I'm fine with that as long as there's something that fits the setting. But I'm not really liking the lost/forgotten goddess angle he wants to use.

I posited a thought about the Undying patron being a daelkyr because he doesn't want to play an Aerenal elf, which was my first thought. I think I like that or the Lords of Dust angle much better.