D&D 5E Investment of the Chain Master: Sprite is the new Imp?

[Dausuul]

So, looking at the new warlock invocations in Tasha's, Investment of the Chain Master jumped out at me. Specifically, these two bits:

• As a bonus action, you can command the familiar to take the Attack action.
• If the familiar forces a creature to make a saving throw, it uses your spell save DC.

These are, uh... significant improvements. All of the special warlock familiars have potent debuffing attacks, but the save DCs are only 10-11, and you have to give up one of your own attacks to use them. This invocation removes both restrictions.

Now, familiars still have one big weakness, which is their abysmal hit point totals. Zipping in to engage big monsters in melee when you have 10 hit points or less is a risky plan. That's where the sprite comes in: Unlike quasits, imps, and pseudodragons, the sprite can attack at range. This allows it to snipe from the sidelines, duck behind cover, and take advantage of whatever tanking your party has to offer. It also has a quite respectable fly speed of 40, and the best attack bonus and AC of the lot (+6 and 15 respectively).

So, as long as you can keep your sprite alive, you now get a bonus-action attack each round: +6 to hit, and on a hit, the target takes 1 damage and has to make a Con save against your spell save DC. If it fails, it's poisoned... for the rest of the fight, with no chance to shake it off. If it fails by 5, it's also knocked unconscious! It can be woken up by damage or being shaken, but otherwise it's out for the full minute.

To be clear, I am not claiming this is OMGBROKEN: When all's said and done, the sprite still only has 2 hit points. One stray arrow or AoE and it's out. But if you can land just one of those poison hits per combat, I'd say the invocation has more than paid for itself. And if you can in fact keep the sprite alive, it will be devastating.

DMs with warlock players using Tasha's: If you feel it's unsporting to target a familiar in combat, you may wish to reconsider that attitude.

 

[Zerdal]

There is one downside: many monsters are immune to poison, so the potential of this invocation depends on a campaign. If you know you will face mostly humanoids, it's powerfull, for sure. Also, while imps have devil's sight, sprites don't even have darkvision, which is also a problem.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is undoubtedly very powerful, and takes Pact of the Chain from a solid utility option with niche combat applications to a top-notch combat option. Im pretty ok with that though, as it encourages combat-focused warlocks to go down different paths than hex and EB spam.

 

[Dausuul]

There is one downside: many monsters are immune to poison, so the potential of this invocation depends on a campaign. If you know you will face mostly humanoids, it's powerfull, for sure. Also, while imps have devil's sight, sprites don't even have darkvision, which is also a problem.

Poison immunity is an issue, yes, but it's concentrated in a few particular creature types. It isn't that you have to be facing "mostly humanoids," it's that you have to be not facing "mostly undead" or "mostly demons.*"

As for darkvision, it's no different from having a human or a halfling in the party. Needing to carry a light source is very common. Even if you do have darkvision on everybody, that Perception penalty is a killer if the DM remembers to enforce it.

*Or constructs or elementals, I suppose, but how many campaigns feature those as the majority of antagonists?

It is undoubtedly very powerful, and takes Pact of the Chain from a solid utility option with niche combat applications to a top-notch combat option. Im pretty ok with that though, as it encourages combat-focused warlocks to go down different paths than hex and EB spam.

It kinda doesn't, though. EB/hex spam works quite nicely with Investment of the Chain Master. You do have to skip the poison attack on any round where you lock hex onto a new target, but you aren't likely to be switching targets once a round or even once every two rounds.

 

[Charlaquin]

It kinda doesn't, though. EB/hex spam works quite nicely with Investment of the Chain Master. You do have to skip the poison attack on any round where you lock hex onto a new target, but you aren't likely to be switching targets once a round or even once every two rounds.

Good point. For some reason I was thinking of hex taking up the bonus action every turn. Probably because I’m used to Hex/EB Warlocks taking Maddening Hex.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Poison immunity is an issue, yes, but it's concentrated in a few particular creature types. It isn't that you have to be facing "mostly humanoids," it's that you have to be not facing "mostly undead" or "mostly demons.*"

Or "mostly constructs".

Which covers most of the monsters in your typical dungeon.

 

[Olrox17]

Also elementals. And an assortment of other miscellaneous creatures. Like unicorns, for some reason.

 

[tetrasodium]

If you look at the summon x spells in tasha's there is a definite air of debuffing being the role of pokemon master. With them (I think) being all 1hr no concentration it seems like they may have accepted that 5e concentration tags on spells was at least overused to the point that the debuffing roles in the party were overly restricted to an unappealing degree thar ustified a second stab at it before they are ready for a 5.5.

I don't know how I feel about the pokemon gym leader feel, but with each summon x spell being able to summon a few different critters and each critter having some different options for attacking/debuffing it returns some of the much needed flexibility thst was lost going from vancian per slot prep to spontaneous slots from select spells known till they are willing to pull the trigger on 5.5

 

[BacchusNL]

If you look at the summon x spells in tasha's there is a definite air of debuffing being the role of pokemon master. With them (I think) being all 1hr no concentration it seems like they may have accepted that 5e concentration tags on spells was at least overused to the point that the debuffing roles in the party were overly restricted to an unappealing degree thar ustified a second stab at it before they are ready for a 5.5.

I don't know how I feel about the pokemon gym leader feel, but with each summon x spell being able to summon a few different critters and each critter having some different options for attacking/debuffing it returns some of the much needed flexibility thst was lost going from vancian per slot prep to spontaneous slots from select spells known till they are willing to pull the trigger on 5.5

All new summon spells require concentration, my dude. I was a bit confused at first with what you ment with "pokemon master" but yeah...walking around with like 5 summoned creatures at the same time would be kind of OP.

 

[tetrasodium]

All new summon spells require concentration, my dude. I was a bit confused at first with what you ment with "pokemon master" but yeah...walking around with like 5 summoned creatures at the same time would be kind of OP.

Thanks, I overlooked the little symbol so it probably changes sme of what I wrote & makes the summon x spells a lot less nicer. The change definitely bumps the value of quasit with 1/day fear & shoves the really powerful gazer familiar variant (volos126) up to completely absurd

Spoiler: gazer

The sad thing is that if not for EB it might be ok having familiars at that power level for chain pact.