D&D 5E Cleric with Warlock Spell List - Good, Bad, Indifferent?

[DEFCON 1]

By the way... I'd also be remiss if I didn't say that no matter what class and spell list you decide to go with, you definitely need to add the 10,000 option wild magic surge table to your PC. Any time you roll a '1' on a d20 you then roll a 1d10000 for a random Mourning-produced magic effect.

The Net Libram of Random Magical Effects

 

[jgsugden]

At this point, I'd just build a new class that fits your concept:

THRALL

You died in battle and your soul was claimed by a dark power. That power returned your soul to your body and will let you continue your life so long as you play by their rules. They grant you power to do their bidding. They did not make a deal with you - they took possession of your soul and are using it.

Martial Weapons, Medium Armor

Normal spell progression. Wisdom is your spellcasting trait. Your spells are granted to you only so long as you are in the service of your Master's wishes. You need to understand (like with insight) how the service and actions align for the magic to work, so wisdom is your list.

Spell list: Similar to warlock, but with some of the paladin and ranger options.

Granted abilities over levels: Similar to certain clerics. Perhaps some summoning of servants of your master included in the palce of Channel Divinity.

 

[TwoSix]

Last option I'd put forth is playing the Fighter Eldritch Knight with the warlock spell list and WIS casting stat. That might also give you what you want without having all the extra cleric class feature junk getting in your way.

I did consider EK, but I decided against it for a few reasons.

1) I'm generally visualizing the character as a competent warrior, but not a great one. Getting fighting styles and Extra Attack goes against that. Admittedly, a character granted the fighting abilities of his dead companions lost in the Mourning is also a really good hook. I might keep that in my back pocket depending on what the rest of the party looks like. Thanks!
2) I'm pretty sure the game is starting at 1st or 2nd, so the spells wouldn't be available at the start of the game, and they're pretty essential to the overall concept.
3) Fundamentally, I'm a caster player; I've played some classes over the years that don't have a lot of resources to manage, and I generally get bored with them more easily. Third casters don't really have enough "oomph" for me until at least 7th level, when they get 2nd level spells. I freely admit this is part and parcel of my obsession with the combat mini-game, though.

 

[TwoSix]

At this point, I'd just build a new class that fits your concept:

THRALL

You died in battle and your soul was claimed by a dark power. That power returned your soul to your body and will let you continue your life so long as you play by their rules. They grant you power to do their bidding. They did not make a deal with you - they took possession of your soul and are using it.

Martial Weapons, Medium Armor

Normal spell progression. Wisdom is your spellcasting trait. Your spells are granted to you only so long as you are in the service of your Master's wishes. You need to understand (like with insight) how the service and actions align for the magic to work, so wisdom is your list.

Spell list: Similar to warlock, but with some of the paladin and ranger options.

Granted abilities over levels: Similar to certain clerics. Perhaps some summoning of servants of your master included in the palce of Channel Divinity.

That's not bad. The DM has let me play homebrew classes before, so it's not off the table. He's generally more amenable to reskinning to fit a narrative, though.

 

[Big Bucky]

Because concept builds are fun too? I don't think anyone is impinging the fun quotient of the Warlock class. I love Warlocks, personally.

Sure but the concept doesn’t seem to have much to do with Clerics. What god does he worship? From his reply it seems like he picked Cleric for mainly mechanical reasons. Nothing wrong with that but doesn’t really have anything to do with the concept.

 

[jaelis]

2) I'm pretty sure the game is starting at 1st or 2nd, so the spells wouldn't be available at the start of the game, and they're pretty essential to the overall concept.

If that's the dominant factor, you can solve it with variant human and magic initiate.

 

[Fenris-77]

Sure but the concept doesn’t seem to have much to do with Clerics. What god does he worship? From his reply it seems like he picked Cleric for mainly mechanical reasons. Nothing wrong with that but doesn’t really have anything to do with the concept.

I think the idea is that he doesn't know, which is pretty cool. The Cleric chassis works well for someone being used by a god too IMO. Mechanical reasons are fine if they are there for narrative purposes, which they are in this case.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I did consider EK, but I decided against it for a few reasons.

1) I'm generally visualizing the character as a competent warrior, but not a great one. Getting fighting styles and Extra Attack goes against that. Admittedly, a character granted the fighting abilities of his dead companions lost in the Mourning is also a really good hook. I might keep that in my back pocket depending on what the rest of the party looks like. Thanks!
2) I'm pretty sure the game is starting at 1st or 2nd, so the spells wouldn't be available at the start of the game, and they're pretty essential to the overall concept.
3) Fundamentally, I'm a caster player; I've played some classes over the years that don't have a lot of resources to manage, and I generally get bored with them more easily. Third casters don't really have enough "oomph" for me until at least 7th level, when they get 2nd level spells. I freely admit this is part and parcel of my obsession with the combat mini-game, though.

Those are all valid reasons for going in the direction you are going. In that regard, a Knowledge Cleric would certainly be on the path you were hoping for.

Although you also mentioned Tempest Cleric with the hope of swapping thunder/lightning damage for psychic, which immediately makes me think that maybe the Psionic Soul Sorcerer playtest might be an idea? Yes, you'd still want to swap WIS in for CHA... but considering many of us think the eventual subclass might see WotC very well swap INT in for CHA for it when its printed means that it's certainly on the table for you as a possibility.

Or... if the new psionics UA doesn't do much for you... if you have the old Mystic playtest document, an Order of the Immortal might be the warrior-esque "weird magic" guy that could maybe work, or an Unleashed psion from Kibbletasty's Psion revamp. (Assuming of course your DM is okay with UAs and playtest stuff, which isn't necessarily a guarantee.)

Just throwing out ideas here for you... but would still be quite fine giving the thumbs-up to a Knowledge or Tempest Cleric.

 

[jaelis]

I'm currently thinking about Tempest, but if the DM would let me reskin thunder and lightning to psychic.

IMO reskinning thunder and lightning to just psychic would be an appreciable upgrade, because of how thunderbolt strike and divine strike would interact. You'd probably want to do something about that.

edit: Also while the domain spells don't seem to break anything, they also don't fit your theme very well. Could maybe swap them out for the GOO list?

 

[TwoSix]

Sure but the concept doesn’t seem to have much to do with Clerics. What god does he worship? From his reply it seems like he picked Cleric for mainly mechanical reasons. Nothing wrong with that but doesn’t really have anything to do with the concept.

Because I'm a firm believer that classes are a metagame concept used to bundle abilities, and that characters are defined by their abilities, not the class name.

I want a character that's a decent warrior and has access to scary magical abilities that aren't really under his control and he doesn't understand. Warlock spells are the best fit for the abilities he uses (psion abilities would be the best fit, but those aren't available), but the overall cleric chassis (Wisdom based, gets armor and weapons, works better with cantrips, long rest caster) fits better for everything else, and also fits my play temperament better.

Really, I'm mostly concerned that there's some weird broken synergy that I'm missing, but the thematic discussions have definitely helped my flesh out the character in my head, so it's definitely appreciated.