Make Tome Warlocks more versital casters?

[ClaytonCross]

I have been playing a Pact of the Tome warlock. It seems to me that the Pact of the blade and Pact of the chain are good at their jobs but the Tome sells diversity with cantrips and rituals from any class but in reality when it comes to combat you don't have time for rituals and everyone expects you to spam eldritch blast so the can trips end up being spent on spare the dying, guidance, and maybe vicious mockery or shocking grasp for their side effects not their damage. I have started realizing that what I really want is more flexibility with Mystic Arcanum and Pact Magic. Some examples:

Don't Fear the Dead
Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome

You can cast Protection from Evil and Good at will, without expending a spell slot or material components.
(concentration restrictions still apply)

- The intent is to open a spell that you ether wouldn't take because the cost of a higher level pact slot would be too high (on a 1st level spell that does not scale), free up a spell choice that might cost early game flexibility, or release a spell slot on a situational spell which might other wise cause you to hold one of your few spell slots "just in case" because your in a crypt and a random ghost or other undead could wreck the party. This grants the caster a significant option other than eldritch blast in those emergency situations and makes a situational non-scaling emergency spell significantly less costly and more appealing to a caster prioritized warlock. ​

Hex Mastery
Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome and Warlock level 5

You can cast Hex as a level 1 spell at will, without expending a spell slot or material components. (concentration restrictions still apply)

- The intent is to open Tome warlocks up to use there limited number of Pact Magic Slots by removing the fear of making a "mistake choice" that results in them having nothing effective left to use. Hex could already be used again and again off a single spell cast but this opens up another early spell option and allows Tome warlocks to act more like casters without the fear of becoming "useless" by mistake and encourages them to cast a larger variety of concentration spells. It also has the added bonus of removing the waste of casting a spell that provides no real bonus at higher levels since the extended duration only discourages casting other concentration spells with not increased impact in use.​

Empowered Arcanum
Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome and Warlock level 12
Your Mystic Arcanum can be use for lower level spells or lower level Mystic Arcanum you know. When you do so they are cast as if using the equivalent level spell slot of the spell you chose for your Mystic Arcanum.

- This is intended to allow the tome warlock to pick "suboptimal" perhaps more fun choices for Mystic Arcanum while not destroy their usefulness in combat. A tome warlock might want to take true seeing at level 7 and Astral Projection at level 9 but choose Circle of Death at level 7 and Psychic Scream at level 9 because they feel they need higher level attack. Being able to cast Enervation as 6th or 9th level spell might make them feel free enough to choose true seeing and Astral Projection greatly freeing the subclass to be a more diverse caster when the might other wise feel forced to take because they only have one option with the spell. It also makes spells like counter spell that scale and can have a dramatic effect on the game and be worth scaling useable at higher levels when you really need them.

Blade and Chain don't need this 3 options (in my opinion) because Blade will primarily focus on melee and melee related invocation and Chain having a versatile familiar which are often invisible making them excellent scouts and can even fight inflicting the poisoned status crippling a target or just providing the help action to aid a party member in their attacks which opens the Chain warlocks to take other fun subterfuge type invocations without losing their ability to be useful to the party in or out of combat.
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If past post tell me anything, my idea are likely flawed and broken... So I am not really listing them as a homebrew option for approval so much as for correction or simple just advice on a better idea for the same purpose of making it more sustainable to be a higher level caster as a Tome warlock and/or make spending those precious few Pact Magic slot more tempting to use instead of holding them or being afraid to waste them on lower level spells.​

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Edited due to thread input that greatly improved the ideas.

 

[Aldarc]

I have wondered whether it would be too much if the Pact of the Tome had higher level invocation option that gave them an extra pact slot.

 

[Dausuul]

Versatility is certainly a weak point for the warlock. That said, a couple of questions:

1. How many short rests are you getting? The key assumption of the warlock is that you can squeeze in ~2 short rests for every long rest the party takes. If you get those rests, you can cast six leveled (non-ritual, in combat) spells per day. If you don't, you can cast two. The difference is huge. Given your proposed fixes, I suspect you're having trouble with this. You may want to talk to your DM about options here.

2. How much success have you had getting hold of spellbooks and scrolls? Rituals are immensely valuable, but if you're forever stuck with the two 1st-level rituals you get when you take Book of Ancient Secrets, you're operating at a fraction of your potential.

Some quality rituals to look out for:

• Leomund's tiny hut. This one is insane and busted. It gives the party an invincible fortress in which to rest, and has other uses as well. Your DM probably shouldn't let you have this one, but if s/he does, your pact has already justified itself.
• Phantom steed. The steed is fragile and it won't fit in a cramped dungeon. But it gives you a move speed of 100! Very handy. You can give the steed to another PC, too. If your party has 5 or fewer members, you can actually outfit the entire party with phantom steeds. You'll only have a short time before they start expiring (the spell takes 10 minutes to cast as a ritual and lasts for 1 hour), but if you know a battle is coming up and have time to prepare, the party's melee warriors will love you.
• Water breathing. Targets up to 10 creatures and lasts 24 hours. Your entire party can operate underwater, forever.
• Find familiar. Your familiar won't be as good as a chainlock's, but it's still nothing to sneeze at. I like owls, myself. They have decent Perception and advantage on 90% of Perception checks, they fly fast, and they can deliver touch spells for you without provoking OAs.
• Forbiddance. This isn't a wizard spell, so it may be harder to get hold of - you'll need a scroll or a friendly cleric. And you have to be 11th level, of course. But look at the stuff it does! If you know you're facing enemies on the list of affected types, and you can force them to fight you inside the forbiddance zone... yow. Bonus points for shutting down teleportation and plane travel.
• Commune. Another non-wizard spell, but you get to ask three yes-or-no questions per day. Very very useful.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I'm playing a Tome Warlock at the moment too, and I hear you. In combat I get, maybe, one spell, and then it's Eldritch Blast. The good news is that EB+Agonizing Blast is really good. My real pet peeve, as a GOO-lock, is that my spell list is overly reliant on Wisdom saving throws. It makes going against clerics and wizards tough.

Personally I always thought it was dumb and unnecessarily restrictive that your Mystic Arcanum spell slots can only be used for your one MA spell of that level. My house rules treat them like ordinary spell slots that regenerate after a long rest. So if you want to use your 6th level MA slot to cast Fireball, have at it. I don't make Warlocks (regardless of Pact) pay an Invocation tax for something that literally every other caster can do for free.

Also, rituals from every class are great. If you're DM isn't letting you learn new rituals on the regular, he's being a jerk. That's the main thing you do. My tomelock contributes quite a bit to the group with tiny hut, water walking and breathing, phantom steeds, detect magic, identify, comprehend languages, etc. etc. Gotta collect them all.

The real flexibility limitation of Warlocks isn't your spell slots. Multiple highest-level slots per SR is amazing. The problem is your spells known. I've introduced one more house rule, which is that Warlocks can "borrow" a number of spells equal to their Charisma modifier from their patron after completing a long rest. You spend 10 minutes per spell flattering your patron and telling him how great he is, and in return he lends you some spells for the day. These are in addition to your spells known.

The real question is, what spell lists can they borrow spells from? Obviously the Warlock list and your Expanded Spells are fair game, but what about other classes? If you want to make Tomelock's especially flexible, maybe let them borrow from the Wizard spell list. Or switch it up by Patron: Celestial: Cleric, Fiend: Sorcerer, Archfey: Druid, GOO: Wizard, Hexblade: Paladin (Smites!).

 

[Vymair]

I'm a chain warlock for role-play reasons, but I think being able to cast lots of rituals would be very effective outside of combat. In combat, the reality of the warlock is that it is really designed as an archer who has a few tricks. This is especially true of a chain/tome warlock. My default action in most combat rounds is to eldritch blast and it's quite effective. I enjoy the class quite a bit, but it helped when I thought of the class as ranged attack first. The tricks have become quite powerful as time has gone on, but the bread and butter is still eldritch blast.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

For a warlock, I think it works best if you consider combat "something to get through" and recognize that your best spotlight moments/maximum contributions to the group are likely to be out of combat where the warlock (especially a tomelock) really shines.

 

[Gadget]

It seems to me that the Pact of the blade and Pact of the chain are good at their jobs

If I could interrupt, I would like to point out that, though I'm not terribly sure about chain'locks, there has been endless debate about blade'locks since almost day one, with the gist being that a lot of people don't feel that they are 'good at their jobs', thus the release of the hexblade warlock subclass. It sounds like you are not getting the short rests that Warlocks are dependent upon to really shine. Granted, you should not expect a short rest every encounter, but you should average about two per long rest with some days getting less, and some getting more.

 

[ClaytonCross]

Versatility is certainly a weak point for the warlock. That said, a couple of questions:

1. How many short rests are you getting? The key assumption of the warlock is that you can squeeze in ~2 short rests for every long rest the party takes. If you get those rests, you can cast six leveled (non-ritual, in combat) spells per day. If you don't, you can cast two. The difference is huge. Given your proposed fixes, I suspect you're having trouble with this. You may want to talk to your DM about options here.

2. How much success have you had getting hold of spellbooks and scrolls? Rituals are immensely valuable, but if you're forever stuck with the two 1st-level rituals you get when you take Book of Ancient Secrets, you're operating at a fraction of your potential.

Some quality rituals to look out for:

• Leomund's tiny hut. This one is insane and busted. It gives the party an invincible fortress in which to rest, and has other uses as well. Your DM probably shouldn't let you have this one, but if s/he does, your pact has already justified itself.
• Phantom steed. The steed is fragile and it won't fit in a cramped dungeon. But it gives you a move speed of 100! Very handy. You can give the steed to another PC, too. If your party has 5 or fewer members, you can actually outfit the entire party with phantom steeds. You'll only have a short time before they start expiring (the spell takes 10 minutes to cast as a ritual and lasts for 1 hour), but if you know a battle is coming up and have time to prepare, the party's melee warriors will love you.
• Water breathing. Targets up to 10 creatures and lasts 24 hours. Your entire party can operate underwater, forever.
• Find familiar. Your familiar won't be as good as a chainlock's, but it's still nothing to sneeze at. I like owls, myself. They have decent Perception and advantage on 90% of Perception checks, they fly fast, and they can deliver touch spells for you without provoking OAs.
• Forbiddance. This isn't a wizard spell, so it may be harder to get hold of - you'll need a scroll or a friendly cleric. And you have to be 11th level, of course. But look at the stuff it does! If you know you're facing enemies on the list of affected types, and you can force them to fight you inside the forbiddance zone... yow. Bonus points for shutting down teleportation and plane travel.
• Commune. Another non-wizard spell, but you get to ask three yes-or-no questions per day. Very very useful.

1. My DM is very story focused and as a result we rarely get into more than one. The exception to that being Dungeons which tend to be more traps than monsters because he gets board with NPC combat after a few rounds. While I could ask him to put more daily combat in, the rest of the group is fine with it and he is playing his preferred style so I would be an outlier trying to turn the whole group to my style which not only seems a bit selfish but also could cause friction which would hurt my game play making it also counter productive.

2. We have a wizard in the group, so the DM and Party pass any scrolls we get to him and it was made clear to me that if I took book of ancient secrets that I would basically be the backup, since I am the groups scout, and they see rituals and breaking down magic as the wizards job to I have taken a more combat stance with my spells with the exception of taking mending and guidance with tome so that I can repair gear and aid the rogue in disarming traps.

The Old One Patron gave me Phantasmal Force so I have at least one new toy for combat... but so far we have been fighting undead so I mostly end up using eldritch blast and hex or protection form good/evil on the tank and shatter if I can ever catch someone not fighting someone in my group already because most undead are not ranged. Hopefully we will fight some dragon born soldiers soon and might find some grouped archers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's really the DM's job to give every party member a chance to shine. If they aint doing that changing the rules is unlikely to help.

Having said that, I think there is room in the game for more tomelock invocations. Xanthar added lots of good stuff for bladelocks, the other boons where left behind a bit.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I second the sentiment from above that the real issue isn't spell slots but spells known. I allow warlock players to treat them as prepared casters (with spell books, like a wizard) if they choose, in lieu of a limit to spells known. I also allow warlocks to attune to any magic item regardless of any restrictions the item normally has, and I allow proficiency with martial weapons since that has minimal impacy (at best) on the effectiveness of the class.

The changes I list have by and large addressed the issue. I suppose it's worth keeping in mind that I don't allow full casters in my campaign and so the warlock has to fill much of the traditional wizard's role.