D&D 5E A Clockwork Warlock

[Ancalagon]

What if your patron was a lich - but not an average lich, more of a mechanical one? (like the Iron Lich in 3.X iron kingdsom).

A group of us created this together, but it's not quite right yet. Comments would be welcomed

The clockwork Warlock

One of the interesting things about the 5e warlock is how varied their patrons can be. Someone (Trappy Jenkins) on the Dungeon Dudes disc...

slugsandsilver.blogspot.com

thanks!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

What if your patron was a lich - but not an average lich, more of a mechanical one? (like the Iron Lich in 3.X iron kingdsom).

Whenever I see "clockwork" I think of this:

 

[Laurefindel]

One thing that seems to come back in anything clockwork in 5e is reliability, with some kind of “take 10” on a d20.

arm, eye, heart; all are imaginable having only one because we have dominance in one over the other, but we use our legs more or less equally. Having only one Mecha-leg doesn’t sound like being particularly fast or acrobatic.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Interesting. So it's kinda steampunky. I'd have to work it out to see if it's balanced.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

One thing that seems to come back in anything clockwork in 5e is reliability, with some kind of “take 10” on a d20.

arm, eye, heart; all are imaginable having only one because we have dominance in one over the other, but we use our legs more or less equally. Having only one Mecha-leg doesn’t sound like being particularly fast or acrobatic.

If I remember right, in the old Planescape (2e?) rules, if you made a modron, they had an optional rule that you rolled your initiative at character creation and that was your character's permanent initiative because of how tied they are to Absolute Order

 

[Ancalagon]

One thing that seems to come back in anything clockwork in 5e is reliability, with some kind of “take 10” on a d20.

arm, eye, heart; all are imaginable having only one because we have dominance in one over the other, but we use our legs more or less equally. Having only one Mecha-leg doesn’t sound like being particularly fast or acrobatic.

Both are very good points, thanks!

 

[Laurefindel]

With clockwork also comes the idea of "over-clocking", where you can wind the spring more or letting it unwind faster than the "recommended parameters".

Various abilities pertaining to action economy could be introduced, such as a 2nd reaction, the ability to use two bonus actions, or things that can be improved such as upcasting spells, effect riders on damage rolls, or increased DC to resist X. Something good but not as good as a haste spell.

But overclocking shouldn't come without a drawback of some sort. Probably best to use the "reverse" effect of overclocking.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Since all wizards in 5e are very same-y (and as such completely fail to capture the feel of the Clockwork Mage from AD&D 2e), we actually used the Rogue frame for our take on it.

The Clockwork Mage - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild