Binding and Ally as rituals?

[Darkwing Duck]

Should Planar Binding and Planar Ally be ritual spells? They seem strongly in the flavor of the Warlock.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Planar Ally takes 10 minutes to cast and Planar Binding takes an hour to cast so in that sense they look like rituals when cast.

But in the 5e paradigm of Ritual spells being cast at will - um no.

Probably just me but the flavor of Warlock is that they are bound by planar entities, not that they bind them.

 

[Ancalagon]

Planar Ally takes 10 minutes to cast and Planar Binding takes an hour to cast so in that sense they look like rituals when cast.

But in the 5e paradigm of Ritual spells being cast at will - um no.

Probably just me but the flavor of Warlock is that they are bound by planar entities, not that they bind them.

Warlock: "Oh Great Planetar of the Iron Fist, I summon you"
Planetar: I have arrived! Wait, you are a servant of Xflart, the Mindful Color?
Warlock: erm... yeah? I command you to smite my enemies!
Planetar: erm, no? As per the Jade Tablet Accords, I do not have to obey the commands of Outsiders *or their servants*.
Warlock: What?!? Obey me!!!
Planetar: Nope. And good luck with Xflart, you're reaaaaaly going to need it.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Warlock: "Oh Great Planetar of the Iron Fist, I summon you"
Planetar: I have arrived! Wait, you are a servant of Xflart, the Mindful Color?
Warlock: erm... yeah? I command you to smite my enemies!
Planetar: erm, no? As per the Jade Tablet Accords, I do not have to obey the commands of Outsiders *or their servants*.
Warlock: What?!? Obey me!!!
Planetar: Nope. And good luck with Xflart, you're reaaaaaly going to need it.

I was about to make some comments about a fiend-patroned warlock summoning some fiendish something or other being about like an employee calling middle management to come help them with their work assignments, and that turning into a kind of "The boss man says you're not hitting your numbers well enough, so never mind what you called me down here for, let's go over how you are going to get things back on track so that you aren't making the whole company look bad." thing, but... yours is better.

 

[Ancalagon]

I was about to make some comments about a fiend-patroned warlock summoning some fiendish something or other being about like an employee calling middle management to come help them with their work assignments, and that turning into a kind of "The boss man says you're not hitting your numbers well enough, so never mind what you called me down here for, let's go over how you are going to get things back on track so that you aren't making the whole company look bad." thing, but... yours is better.

Yours is pretty ace too... and it raises intriguing possibilities about how a pact with a devil would work out. I can see a devil bureaucrat and a warlock arguing about how much evil he has to commit to fulfill his end of the bargain.

Devil: I know that killing babies is right out, and I respect that. But have you considered killing kittens? You would have to kill more of course, but we would accept that.
Warlock: Hell no! What's you and killing juveniles?
Devil: Well, it's such an efficient way of killing the innocent. Hmm... You could kill the elderly - the nice ones of course.
Warlock: Ugh... wait I got it. What if I burned down the local temple to the god of light?
Devil: It's marginal, but I'm willing to go with it. See you next month!

 

[Salamandyr]

I don't see Warlocks as servants of dark powers. Clerics are the servants. Warlocks are the guys who make agreements with dark powers--quid pro quo, and you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, with both sides looking to get one up on the other. So yeah, in that sense, I think Planar Binding and Planar Ally both make sense for the warlock.

Having them as at will rituals is a bit much. Perhaps as once per day invocations.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I don't see Warlocks as servants of dark powers. Clerics are the servants. Warlocks are the guys who make agreements with dark powers--quid pro quo, and you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, with both sides looking to get one up on the other. So yeah, in that sense, I think Planar Binding and Planar Ally both make sense for the warlock.

That's actually the same reason why I think planar binding and planar ally
don't make a lot of sense for the warlock - a case of "That's not the deal we made, warlock. Do it yourself, I'm not sending you more help." on the part of the patron, or a case of "No, I don't think I need your minions performing oversight. I'll hold up my end of the deal." on the part of the warlock, with a mutual outcome of both being the distinct lack of any more of the patron's influence that the existing class features.

Of course, that's just me.

 

[Salamandyr]

Perhaps it's because I don't see the warlocks relationship with any one power as particularly close. A warlock is a guy who makes deals with dark powers. He's not asking his primary patron to send him more power, he's making a side deal with some other denizen of the dark on a short term contract basis.

Plus, Elric was a warlock, and he was summoning critters all the time.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Plus, Elric was a warlock, and he was summoning critters all the time.

Elric, being not an actual D&D character, cannot be claimed to be of any specific D&D class, even if it is one of the classes for which he is provided as inspiration for.

So whatever it is that Elric does has no bearing on what a warlock class in D&D does, though it might just have bearing on what class a person chooses if they are trying to "build Elric as a D&D character", but that is a case of what the character does in their original media matching what the character does in D&D being more important than what the character is called in their original media matching what the class name written on their character sheet is in D&D.

 

[Krachek]

Cleric and paladin are willing servant.
Warlock are opportunistic servant.