D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XIII: Warlock)

[EzekielRaiden]

"Rust" is a mold that infects wheat, so I'd say more on the order of weeks than seasons, but okay. I'm not saying the character shouldn't have immediate offensive capability. However, the warlock is designed to focus on that. If your warlock character wants to take the subtle approach, they can, sure. However, a bunch of invocations are designed to focus on eldritch blast; if you choose to focus your warlock on other abilities, there is less mechanical aid.

A season is approximately three months. "Weeks" is pretty clearly a significant portion of a season, and if "rust" refers to a grain blight, all the more reason to think in seasonal terms since that's literally about growing seasons and a harvest failure that won't manifest until...well, harvest time.

In any case, you can certainly play your character any way you wish, but telling someone, "Your character doesn't really seem like a player character," is a little bit of a judgement.

D&D's rules just don't support effects on the timeline of multiple weeks or longer, and a class built exclusively around such effects would be extremely difficult if not impossible to play in the vast majority of content. A class not built exclusively around that...would get features approximately equivalent in impact to things like eldritch blast.

That is why I said what I said. You are either proposing a character class that lives and works at a time scale that doesn't fit into the mechanical structure of D&D (and probably never has, even back into the logistics-and-heisting old school style), or you are proposing something that the Warlock already does reasonably well, especially if you choose to play Pact of the Tome and take Book of Ancient Secrets. Indeed, the BoAS Tomelock is uniquely suited to being an excellent ritualist because, unlike any other class in 5e, it doesn't have a limit to its ritual learning: ALL rituals can be scribed into the Book of Shadows, regardless of class, so long as you can find a copy.

A class built exclusively around effects that take even weeks to truly manifest is simply not something that D&D is designed for, and one that is not built exclusively for that will already find a home among the extant classes. Doubly so if you go Tomelock and focus all of your Invocations on utility effects rather than combat; you don't even have to take eldritch blast if you don't want to, and Tome gives you three cantrips from any list you like. Take, for example, shillelagh or primal savagery (melee option), message, and druidcraft to create a classical "witchy" type character, or sacred flame, guidance, and spare the dying to be a medicine-man type healer-seer (with mage hand and your choice of other baseline Warlock cantrip, probably prestidigitation.)

Invocation choices could be something like (in order taken): Book of Ancient Secrets and Beguiling Influence, One With Shadows (upgrading to Shroud of Shadow at 15), Devil's Sight, Whispers of the Grave, Ascendant Step, Master of Myriad Forms, Visions of Distant Realms. This produces a character replete with "subtle" effects, powerful at-will magic (especially once you hit level 15), and an emphasis on social and investigative things rather than offense.

 

[Undrave]

"Rust" is a mold that infects wheat, so I'd say more on the order of weeks than seasons, but okay. I'm not saying the character shouldn't have immediate offensive capability. However, the warlock is designed to focus on that. If your warlock character wants to take the subtle approach, they can, sure. However, a bunch of invocations are designed to focus on eldritch blast; if you choose to focus your warlock on other abilities, there is less mechanical aid.

In any case, you can certainly play your character any way you wish, but telling someone, "Your character doesn't really seem like a player character," is a little bit of a judgement.

That is why I said what I said. You are either proposing a character class that lives and works at a time scale that doesn't fit into the mechanical structure of D&D (and probably never has, even back into the logistics-and-heisting old school style),

What Ezekiel said. The timescale you are proposing just doesn't work for a player character.

And even if it existed, time is meaningless in D&D and you get into the hacker/infiltration solo adventure problem where a player gets to play a completely different game 1 on 1 with the DM while everybody watches as their central concept?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Even better, the Warlock I just described is Patron-agnostic. So you could go with Fathomless (perhaps taking shape water instead of druidcraft) and be a water-witch, Celestial if you want a blaster-healer holy-person type, Undead or Undying for an "ageless wisdom" angle, or Genie for a borderline artificer feel.

And if doing damage actually becomes a concern, you can always grab eldritch blast and swap out an invocation for Agonizing Blast. Or grab an extra invocation via Eldritch Adept, if you don't want to give up your other invocations. The damage boost is probably worth the feat, especially once you have +5 Cha. (It works out to something like a 40% increase when crits are factored in.)

 

[RealAlHazred]

I feel like my approach of, maybe, casting charm person on one jail guard to get someone out and your approach of eldritch blasting every guard in the guardhouse are both equally valid. But, please continue to tell me I'm playing D&D wrong, and that my strategy of using my hat of disguise and friends cantrip are "not D&D."

EDIT: Maybe it's the specific examples I put in my first post about the witch, which are folklore examples (although, you can absolutely do them in D&D with bestow curse and similar). I just want a character class that supports "subtle" magical approaches, that is not an Arcane Trickster or a Bard.

 

[CleverNickName]

sales pitch: make a pact with an otherworldly power! very edgy and cool!
actual gameplay: mobile turret

But what does the artificer's Eldritch Cannon have to do with this?

Oh wait, you meant the Laser Cleric.

No, sorry, you were talking about the Elfish Accuracy/Sharpshooter Ranger, right? No?

The Kensei Monk with a longbow? The Quickened Sharpshooter Sorcerer?

Still no? How about...


(Seriously, every single character concept that involves a ranged attack can be Turned Up to Eleven^TM until it is little more than a walking machine-gun. I'm not saying it's the "best" way to do it, or the "right" way, or even the "fun" way...but I've seen it done countless times and the warlock is hardly the top offender.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

sales pitch: make a pact with an otherworldly power! very edgy and cool!
actual gameplay: mobile turret

Correction: Mobile turret that gets mad rail kills with the push effect.

 

[Ancalagon]

I see that the GOO is fairing poorly compared to the fiend and...

I love the GOO concept - but the execution is a bit underwhelming isn't it?

 

[OB1]

@CleverNickName hoping for your help here. I LOVE Hexblade mechanically, but feel like it's the least interesting of all the patrons story wise, which is what makes Warlocks so fun to play (for me). It feels like the lore wants the sword to really just be an extension of it's creator's will (as the subclass suggests and as seen in CritRole S2) but then there is this odd disconnect between what is supposed to be the actual source of your power and the entity that you are interacting with. I don't know, I want to upvote this subclass, but when I can choose to be tormented by a powerful archfey or devil or archlich, being tormented by a sword just doesn't quite rise to that level.

 

[CleverNickName]

@CleverNickName hoping for your help here. I LOVE Hexblade mechanically, but feel like it's the least interesting of all the patrons story wise, which is what makes Warlocks so fun to play (for me). It feels like the lore wants the sword to really just be an extension of it's creator's will (as the subclass suggests and as seen in CritRole S2) but then there is this odd disconnect between what is supposed to be the actual source of your power and the entity that you are interacting with. I don't know, I want to upvote this subclass, but when I can choose to be tormented by a powerful archfey or devil or archlich, being tormented by a sword just doesn't quite rise to that level.

I'm not sure I'm the right person to help you, but I can tell you all about my hexblade. His name was Malachi, and he wasn't really all that focused on the weapon. More than anything else, he was a vampire hunter.

Spoiler: The Story of Malachi, my Hexblade

He was once a wealthy landowner, who controlled a huge collection of fields and vineyards outside of Yartar, in the Desserin River Valley. He had a wife and three beautiful children, a spacious manor house, and a brewery that sold ale, wine, and mead from Waterdeep to Neverwinter. He had an enviable life until his oldest child died suddenly of a strange illness. Weeks later, his youngest child died as well, and whispers of plague began to spread among the workers. And when his wife also fell ill, the whole estate was put under quarantine.

Three nights after her funeral, he learned the truth about the illness: a vampire had infiltrated his manor house, in the guise of one of the housekeepers. That vampire had Turned all of his family and half his staff, and now it had come to claim him as well. Bitten and dying, and terrified of what fate awaited him in the thrall of a vampire, he cried out to the gods for strength and mercy. And the Raven Queen answered.

She struck a bargain with Malachi: in exchange for his soul, she would give him power over shadow and death, and he would use that power to destroy the vampires that had ruined his life. With the Raven Queen's power, he could weave powerful weapons from wisps of shadow. He could tear away the shadows of creatures he had slain and command them to fight for him. Darkness no longer had power over him; he could see normally even in magical darkness. (And so on. We basically just reskinned everything to be all about shadow and mutual hatred of the undead.)

Malachi used his new powers to destroy the vampires that had taken his family from him and ruined his fortune. And when that grim task had been finished, he expected the bargain to be fulfilled and the Raven Queen would claim his soul. But she had bigger plans in store for him...he would be her instrument on earth, to root out all vampires and destroy them. And Malachi dared not to disobey her, for he knew what he would become if she withdrew her powers.

My advice? Ignore or change the lore as you wish. I basically made mine into an Amish Van Helsing, with elements from Fullmetal Alchemist (except he used shadowstuff instead of metal). He was the bane of vampires everywhere, but the Raven Queen made certain he understood that he was on her leash.

 

[Undrave]

I see that the GOO is fairing poorly compared to the fiend and...

I love the GOO concept - but the execution is a bit underwhelming isn't it?

Yeah it's a little generic. Ooooh Telepathy... meh. Really needed Dire Radiance like the 4e Star Pact Warlock IMO