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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sir Brennen" data-source="post: 6355527" data-attributes="member: 553">Not far-fetched at all. Fantasy is full of heroes and anti-heroes beholden to a powerful being whose goals they do not share, but still depend on them for their power. The warlock description even speaks of those that chafe against the demands of the patron. Being actually good aligned might require a complex background story for a patron of the lower planes, but not out of the realm of possibility.I think for the outer realms creatures, a mortal might enter into a pact without even fully realizing what they've done or the nature of their patron. If you go with the full Cthulhu Mythos view of the Old Ones, you tapping into their power is as important to them as the rats eating out of your trash cans in the back alley. They simply don't care. (Though for such warlocks, I kinda wish there was a Sanity score to measure the degradation of your grasp on reality as you get higher level, or some drawback like the Wild Surge mechanic.)A warlock's ability might not come from a pact he made, but perhaps a deal made by his ancestors or even parents. Maybe the warlock's goal is to rescue his parents' souls from hell, which they sold in order to save his life as a baby. Or it could be part of a family curse.Then there's the old trope of a character that thinks he can outwit the devil, tricking him into giving him something for nothing.Maybe the character was duped into the pact, and it seems unbreakable, so he keeps gaining the power as a warlock because he thinks he's probably doomed anyway (losing either his soul, mind or both), but still holds out hope his powers might reveal a way out.I don't know if there are rules in the PHB for "ex-warlocks", but I'm thinking of ruling the abilities a warlock is granted are permanent, even if he breaks the pact. You're not going to get any more, but you keep what you got. So you could have a Warlock turned Paladin, and his former patron is now a major nemesis in the campaign.Slightly off-topic: Though it sounds like splatbooks are going to be rarer this edition, I hope there are more pact types created, like for powerful elementals or "beast lords", similar to what was described in the Elric novels.</blockquote>

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