D&D 5E Request for Warlock feature suggestions!

[FrogReaver]

1: he said Patron agnostic. But Celestial can make it a blessing instead.

Patron agnostic would be a feature that makes sense for any given patron. If the feature doesn’t make sense for all then it’s not Patron agnostic.

Curses don’t make sense for all.

2: no more than rage is a spell. Which takes concentration and is buffed by subclass options. And the curse can also use Invocations to customize.

Rage doesn’t take concentration. It doesn’t look or feel like a spell.

Curses in the game are already nearly always spells. Making a curse that you claim isn’t a spell is still going to look and feel just like those spells.

 

[mellored]

Most Barbarians aren’t transforming though…

Warlocks aren't either.

Transform just seems more primal (i.e. wild shape, Eagle’s Splendor, animal shapes, bear totem). You transform into a something with teeth, horns, and claws to run into melee.
Which fits the barbarian just fine.

Which doesn't sound very "pact magic'" to me.

I guess you could do it as some kind of demonic possession.

Hmm...

Demonic Possession
You transform into...
When you use this or at the start of your turn. Make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw. If you fail, you attack the nearest creature, friend or foe. Reminder that you may choose to fail a save.
If you succeed, you maintain control of yourself and can attack whoever you wish or end the transformation.

Level 11: you have advantage on your transform savings throw.


... still seems more like an uncontrollable Barbarian rage.

 

[mellored]

Rage doesn’t take concentration.

Sure it does. You can't concentrate on anything else while raging.

It just doesn't break with damage.

It doesn’t look or feel like a spell.

It's Stone Skin and some muscle booster.
Zealot adds a kind of smite.

Curses in the game are already nearly always spells. Making a curse that you claim isn’t a spell is still going to look and feel just like those spells.

I disagree.
But that's a pretty subjective option.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One of the strength of spellcasting is that you have a large list of powers to select one. So maybe the feature should also be designed to have several options, but themed differently than invocations?
But of course that also means you need to come up with more abilities.

I like the idea of curses, though I think a curse that just gives advantage/disadvantage might be a bit boring, to be honest.

Warlock's Curse
You can curse a creature that you can see as a bonus action. You can have one such curse active at a time. If you sustain a curse for a full day, it no longer counts against this limit.

When you start your turn, you gain 1 dark fate. You can have no more than x (by level) dark fates.
When a curse lasts for a full month, you can choose one of the Curse abilities you have. The effect is now automatically triggered without needing to spend dark fate.

A curse can be removed:

• By you with a bonus action (you can end it as a free action if the creature dies).
• By another Warlock as a ritual. The ritual lasts an hour for a curse that lasted less than a day, and 8 hours for a curse that lasted a week.
• With the Remove curse spell or similar

Omens of Ill Fate
Curses of ill fate trigger when your cursed creature fails an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw during its turn.

Omen of Bad Luck
When a cursed creature fails a ability check, attack roll or saving throw during its turn, it has disadvantage on its next check, roll or throw.

Omen of Insanity
The creature makes a free attack against one of its allies. If no allies are in range, it attacks itself.

Omen of Twisted Rewards
You or an ally you can see can spend a hit die and recover 1d6 additional hit points.

Curses of Revenge
Curses of Revenge trigger when a cursed creature damages a creature with an attack or spell during its turn.

Punishment of Blindness
The creature becomes blinded until the end of its next turn.

Punishment of Thorns
The creature suffers 1d6 damage.

Punishment of Regret
The creature is overcome by regret, giving it disadvantage on attacks rolls, ability checks and saving throws until the end of its next turn.

Curses of Weakness
Curses of weakness occur when you hit a cursed creature with an attack or it takes damage from one of your spells or Warlock abilities (other than curses).
Pact of the Chain: You can also trigger these curses if your familiar made the attack or cast the spell.

Weakness of the Flesh
The target takes 1dx damage.

Weakness of Resolve
The target's next attack or spell deals (or heals) only half damage.

Weakness of the Mind
The target must make a saving throw before it attempts to cast a spell or make an ability check to recall information. If it fails, it cannot retrieve the information. For spells, this means it cannot cast the spell until the end of its next turn. It can still cast other spells or use its action differently, but not the spell it originally intended.

 

[Baron Opal II]

This could be a good use of "seals", actually. Each seal has a positive and negative aspect, chosen when inflicted. So, you can use a positive seal on yourself or allies, and a negative seal on opponents and those that need "persuasion" to follow your superior ideas.

This would also allow for generic seals available for all, and, should it be desired, specific seals for a given patron.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Seals? Hmm. That reminds me of a Runethane (from the 3e era Arcana Evolved rules) 4Eified class I am working on. In developing it, I came up with different forms runes could take, most of them synonyms of course: Marks (which I renamed Signs because Marks are already a mechanic in 4E) for short-term effects directly applied to a target, Inscriptions (for longer-lasting effects, primarily buffs, applied to items like armor or weapons), Seals (area effects that exist to keep enemies inside), Sigils (area effects that protect allies inside and hurt enemies trying to enter or inside), Symbols (blast/cone like effects that hit the creatures in front of the rune) and Manifestations (basically summoning elemental manifestations of the runes). Maybe this could be useful as inspiration, if only for some synonyms when making up new class features.

I'll stick with calling it curses for now, though the idea of having a benefitial alternative for curses sounds interesting, maybe I'll come up with something.

Empowered Curses
At certain levels, you learn how to empower your curses further. Choose from the following abilities. You can use this ability twice. You recover one use after a short rest, and all uses after a long rest.

Chained Curse
When you trigger a curse, you can also apply its effect to an enemy adjacent to the cursed target.

Infectious Curse
When a cursed target dies, each adjacent enemy also suffers the curse. This does still count only as one active curse.

Lingering Curse
When a curse is triggered, after resolving its effect, the target no longer counts against your active curses, but it ends after the target takes a short rest.

Twin Curse
When a curse is triggered, you can apply two curses that share this trigger.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Warlock Seals
As Warlock, your pact grants you magical powers you can apply to yourself or others to aid or protect them. Applying a seal requires a standard action. You can only have X seals active at a time. Many seals can be expended to gain a greater effect, some might even require doing so.

Signs
Signs are seals that aid you or your allies in their efforts.

Sign of [Ability]
This is a collection of sign, one for each ability score.. When the target makes an ability check, save or roll based on that ability, and its d20 roll is below your Warlock level, it can end the sigil to re-roll the check and take the better result.

Sign of Healing
While the target has this sign, when it receives healing (including during a short rest), it may add your proficiency bonus to the hit points restored. A character can expend this sign once to regain hit dice equal to half your Warlock level, but it cannot benefit from the sigil again until it took a long rest.

Sign of Might
When the target hits with an attack, it can expend the sigil to inflict 2d6 extra damage.

Sign of Spells
When the target casts a spell, it can expend the seal to force one enemy to re-roll its saving throw. The target can benefit from this ability only once, and must take a short rest to benefit from it again.

Symbols
Symbols grant you, or their target, new abilities.

Symbol of Dread
You can use this symbol to inspire fear in others. You are proficient with Intimidate while the symbol is active, if you are already proficient, you gain expertise in Intimidate.
Starting at Level 5, you can expend the siginal to cast the Fear spell. You can use this ability only once, and recover it after a long rest.

Symbol of Flames
The target of the symbol can use a bonus action to ignite inflammable materials in a 5 ft square within 30ft.
It can also use this to ignite a melee weapon or ammunition as part of an attack, causing the attack to deal fire damage instead of its usual weapon damage.

Symbol of Frost
The target of the symbol can use a bonus action to reduce the temperature on a 5 ft square within 30 ft. Water and similar liquids surfaces freeze almost instantly (if deeper water, allow creatures inside a dexterity save to escape), and you may treat the terrain as difficult. The target cannot freeze more than 2 squares per Warlock level, and the effect lasts not longer than a few minutes.

Sigils
Sigils protect their target from harm, or punish those that would harm them.
Sigil of Thorns
While affected by this sigil, when the target takes damage from an adjacent enemy, that enemy takes piercing damage equal to your proficiency bonus. The target can expend the sigil to inflict 2d6+Cha piercing damage to all enemies adjacent to it (Dexterity check for half damage.)

Sigil of Fire
While affected by this sigil, the target is either resistant to fire or cold (your choice). When attacked, the wearer can expend the sigil as reaction to inflict 2d6+your Cha fire damage to the attacker (Dexterity save for half damage.) If it fails the save, it takes also fire damage equal to your proficiency bonus at the start of its turn until it succeeds a Dexterity check. (Or however ongoing damage works in 5E)

Sigil of Frost
While affected by this sigil, the target is either resistant to fire or cold (your choice). When attacked, the wearer can expend the sigil as reaction to inflict 2d6+your Cha cold damage the attacker. If it fails the save, its speed is reduced by 10 ft. It can make a Constitution save against this effect at the end of each of your turns.

Sigil of Health
While affected by this sigil, the target is resistant to poison damage. Starting at warlock Level 9, it also gains resistance to necrotic damage. Medicine checks on the target have advantage.
When making a saving throw against a disease or poison, the target can expend the sigil as free action to gain advantage on the roll.


Probably needs some work regarding how often certain abilities can be expended per day/rest cycle, and exact values.