Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[Minigiant]

I would think most "pacts" with GOOs are more "I discovered your stuff. Oh crap you saw me.'

As for the Undying Light, it's Pelor the Burning Hate or Pholtus the Blinding Light. More likely Pelor since Pholtus does not break rules.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Good point; there's no way to make a pact with a being who's unaware of your existence. The technical term for this is "crappy writing" and it shouldn't have gotten past the PHB editors. The whole warlock section reads rather badly, IMHO.

I think this is demonstrating that the intent is for the "pact" idea to be rather broad and fluffable. I can just about guarantee that Mike Mearls would say you can do whatever you want with the pact.

As far as the basic idea that warlocks have to have non-mechanical action requirements as part of their class, 5e isn't like that. I mean, 5e paladins don't even have alignment restrictions. The Oath of Devotion is explicitly devoted to law and good, but your character can be a CN poor excuse for a paladin and still have his powers.

I don't see any benefit whatsoever to design that would impose role-playing restrictions on one particular class. And as far as it being a balancing factor? That is absolutely (and thankfully) no part of 5e design. 2e tried that extensively, and it was horrible. You balance mechanics with mechanics--you never balance it with role-playing restrictions.

That being said, as a DM you are free to apply role-playing restrictions to one, several, or all classes. I certainly do. In my world, clerics have specific societal roles, most types of paladins are fairly exclusive to certain organizations, some warlocks are associated with particular patrons (at least one of which is indifferent to your existence).

But the basic games does not, and very well should not, impose that sort of restriction.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

From reading the PHB, the Great Old One may not want anything from you either; it "might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you." I don't see how you could actually make a pact with another party that doesn't even know you exist, but those warlocks get powers all the same

That's one reason why I favor Cthulock 2 more than Chthulu Tomelock 3. From a fluff perspective, you can handwave the forbidden lore stuff as just more esoteric magical knowledge, no different than wizardry--right up until the point where Cthulhu starts rewarding you--the 3rd level Pact Boon is what happens when you patron "bestows a gift upon you for your loyal service." I draw the line before it gets that far.

 

[Kithas]

If this has been addressed please disregard;
I like the idea of the undying light warlock.
Except that itt looks stupid overpowered.
The level one abilty is better than the 6th level dragon-origin sorcerer ability(the main reason people play that sub-class). Also there's nothing that says you can't have Both of these abilities...
The level 6 ability is just crazy not only do you get an auto-res before even the barbarian, but yours puts you at half health? And does a lot of AoE damage and debuffs in a big area?
The temporary hit points buff at 10th seems ok, but it is far higher numbers-wise than anything I can recall. (easily beats inspiring leader feat)
And your last ability basically gives you a more random version of lay on hands, except it's a bonus action... Your pool is smaller but not significantly.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

In the case of Great Old One (and the base description of this new option) the word Pact is serving more to indicate at minimum only a ritual binding, not necessarily a direct contract. The designers were trying to cover multiple concepts with the class, not just trying to make arcane pseudo-clerics (just as monk covers more then monastic martial artist and barbarian more then Conan). Fantasy is filled with examples of cultists and madmen siphoning the power of dangerous entities, and in many cases it turns out the entity isn't even aware of it (beyond a "hey, is that the dinner bell?" level) even if the warlock involved has created elaborate delusions to the contrary. When elsewhere in the game the words Chain, Stillness, Tides, Slippery, Supreme, Breaker, etc are used to label features they aren't intended to be literal, they are meant to be evocative, so overfocusing on the strict definition of the word "Pact" I feel limits the concepts supported by the class. That some Warlocks can "bolster their own power" by "drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings" rather then be beholden to them is a benefit, not a flaw, of the text.

All very good points; conceptually the warlock class really is all over the place, and now even moreso between the two new pacts presented in SCAG and this month's UA. Did anyone notice the similarity in their names? SCAG gave us "The Undying" patron, while the one in UA is called "The Undying Light." And their power sources are, in some ways, diametrically opposed. (One's undead-ish, the other is positive energy.)

 

[Azurewraith]

What bugs me and im surprised i didn't notice this any sooner is the stupid revival ability is ripped straight from destiny right down to the last keystroke. This makes me a sad panda.

 

[Prism]

One of the most interesting things about the Warlock class is, as a player, coming up with a backstory that contains the details behind your pact. Who its with, what event led to the deal, what are the apparent downsides (that you yet know of), what happens if you try and break the pact, can you get out of it and if so are you still a warlock or able to progress further? When the pact is with a specific fiend or fey these are questions where I feel I could come up with an interesting story to answer, knowing that the DM has plenty to work with if they wish to. The great old one is a little more obscure but there are strong themes here in madness and detachment from the real world.

I'm really struggling to come up with anything for a pact with energy. I like the class mechanically but think it needs a stronger and more specific focus as at the moment I couldn't see myself playing an undying light warlock. I cant see much RP element to it at the moment. Not much for a DM to work with at least.

 

[Li Shenron]

From reading the PHB, the Great Old One may not want anything from you either; it "might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you." I don't see how you could actually make a pact with another party that doesn't even know you exist, but those warlocks get powers all the same

One of the most interesting things about the Warlock class is, as a player, coming up with a backstory that contains the details behind your pact. Who its with, what event led to the deal, what are the apparent downsides (that you yet know of), what happens if you try and break the pact, can you get out of it and if so are you still a warlock or able to progress further?

I completely agree, it is a very good thing that the PHB doesn't get into too much details on how & why the characters get their powers. See for example Bards and Druids, the description of the origin of their spellcasting capabilities is flavorful but not too specific to the point of becoming limiting.

I do not have a problem with Great Old One warlocks needing to find a way to explain how their 'pact' works or what it really is... that's part of the fun! And if the player doesn't find an explanation, that's still ok with me, I'll take it so that the character isn't capable of fully explaining it either

I am very flexible with this stuff... In the past I used to tell Clerics players that there was even a chance their deity didn't really exist, and that the source of their spellcasting powers could be wholly in their faith. Who knows?

Another example just to think out of the box, could be a Good-aligned Warlock with a Fiend pact. Is that impossible? The concept is clearly grounded on a Faust-ian pact. But how about a Good character who had a moment of weakness (or desperation, out of a tragedy) and sold his soul to a Fiend? Pact is made, benefits will be conferred to the PC, and the price is already paid. No need for the PC to act evil to please the Fiend, which already got his part of the deal. Maybe the PC will spend all his life regretting the pact, and yet exploiting its benefits (thinking that anyway there's no way to revert the pact) but trying to use them for a good cause.

 

[Serpine]

I'm really struggling to come up with anything for a pact with energy.

One approach is to assume that the energy has a sort of sentience you can align with because of its scale. For instance, in "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" the universe is formed by the interaction between the primal Triat of Wyrm (entropy, ala the negative material plane), Wyld (unfettered creation, ala the positive material plane), and Weaver (order, intended to keep balance between the other two). While they have many go-betweens and you don't normally chat them up, these forces are regarded as great spirits with their own high-end agendas that you can bind yourself to by means ranging from just doing things that support their ethos, being exposed to areas corrupted by their influence, or most spectacularly by being possessed by a lesser spirit aligned with them. The possession is angle is probably the most applicable for a warlock: The riding spirit usually doesn't do the driving, it just serves as the conduit to the energy of the primary entity that drives you to spread its influence (without much specific guidance on how to do that) in exchange for power and usually frightening physical / mental changes. Often the nastier side-effects of the changes kick in when you *aren't* advancing the cause of the triat patron.

The latter bit brings up another approach if you assume just the physical / mental changes and discard the entity wanting them. By serving as a conduit to primal energy you are changing (kind of the point behind the Undying Light Flaws, but on a crazier scale). Either because you aren't manifesting the energy enough or are manifesting it to much, you are gradually being pushed into becoming an elemental beyond the purview of being a PC. Research and rituals can be found to stave this off, or doing services for people that have a better understanding of this process (possibly having walked this path before). But in any case your time becomes increasingly dominated by the act of maintaining yourself as you are rather then becoming a thing. I'm thinking for instance of Ignus from "Planescape: Torment," an arcanist whose connection to elemental fire went so far he became a gateway to it and is now reduced to spouting flame and screaming in mad agony most of the time. You could say he failed at his "pact".

The above concepts also makes me think of the ideas behind the dark powers of Ravenloft, which also fit a lot of the structures of what you expect from a Warlock (at least one aligned with abstract energy or some sleeping great old one). As the dark powers don't identify themselves, you can't choose to make a deal with them directly. But once they take notice of you odd new abilities are granted whenever you advance their "agenda" by becoming sufficiently more corrupt. This comes with major costs as you start suffering scaling physical / mental changes and losses to your freedom to act or eventually even leave your domain. And forcing the point to gain power from them intentionally is a huge undertaking (likely more convoluted then anything you would do for an infernal sponsor) as you have to do increasingly complicated and profane things to justify higher notice (assuming of course it is actually you being noticed and not that you are being hit by an automated karma trap that people mistakenly define as an entity).

 

[Serpine]

In the past I used to tell Clerics players that there was even a chance their deity didn't really exist, and that the source of their spellcasting powers could be wholly in their faith.

Some editions back I had a cleric who worshipped the concept of cleanliness: He wore an old cleaning bucket for a helmet, had a brush as his holy symbol, and wielded reinforced brooms as weapons. He was crazy enough I'm pretty sure no deity would have ever wanted to claim him, but he was convinced enough in his righteous cause that divine power was never an issue...