D&D General The Player's Quantum Ogre: Warlock Pacts

[Scribe]

There is little conceptual daylight between a sorcerer and a warlock.

I cannot disagree more. One is magical to their bones, in their blood, the other is a hack being drip fed power by another being.

In fact , throughout D&D's history, all classes but fighter and wizard had an alignment-based shutoff valve. Barbarians who became Lawful could not rage in 3e. Bards had to be either partly neutral (1-2e) or non-lawful (3e) or be unable to gain levels. Clerics had to be within one step of their gods alignment. Druids had to be neutral (or partial neutral) and abide by the weapon and armor restrictions. Monks had to be lawful or lose their features and be unable to gain levels. Paladins had to be LG and obey the code. Rangers had to be good and also had a code of conduct prior to 3e. Thieves could not be LG or lose the ability to gain levels. Assassin's became weak thieves of they stop being Evil. And while wizards lacked an alignment restriction, they were one damaged spellbook away from losing all their power.

OK, bring it all back then. Deal.

 

[Older Beholder]

In 5E24 we have 4 Patrons: Archfey, Celestial, Great Old One and Fiend.

Personally, I don't see Archfey or Celestial being too demanding of their warlocks in terms of demanding sacrifice.
I also don't see a Great Old One as interested in the affairs of mortals in any comprehensible way.
Fiends are a good fit though, Demons less so than Devils or Yugoloths.

I would love to hear examples of how people have used Warlock pacts as a way to enrich the roleplaying and storytelling experiences in their game. Has anyone ever set an adventure around the Warlock's patron/pact?

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

I mean.... this seems to assume a social contract where the DM is the one doing all the invites and hosting the

Explain to me what the sorcerer sacrifices for his cool superpowers? What does the monk sacrifice? The bard or the barbarian? Why does the ranger get a free pass, but the paladin doesn't?

Depends on if you define adhering to a class-defined role/playing your role/roleplaying as a "sacrifice" - but I would say RP bounds are more accurate. I will try my darndest. Short of the player actively pursuing that via game-specific mythos, regardless of class.

Sorcerer = very little constraints or sacrifice, because power without obligation is common to the class.

Wiz = Study. Book, component reliance. The burden (cognitive loading) of being the keeper of lore, equipment source, and role-playing a high intel character.

Monk = Little constraints. Sacrifices mostly mechanical, aesthetic with less shiny stuff. Can be difficult role to define given that typical story tropes are self discovery in balance with the outside world.

Fighter = Little constraints. Sweat, blood.

Ranger = Moderate. Stronger role in nature, survival, exhaustion-heavy campaign. Roleplay impact AND abilities can be more environment/terrain related.

Druid = Moderate, like the ranger, but more versatile.

Cleric = Mod-high. RP driven constraints of the stories' available ️ institutions. Holy symbol, should possess some knowledge religion.

Barbarian = Low. RP driven constraints usually culture based.

Paladin = High. Vows, now easy to uphold though. Class description has built in info regarding the broken vow paladin

Rogue = Med. Mercurial by nature keeps them away from constraints. BUT more setting dependent. Suffers if the DM provides setting devoid of caper, heist, rooftop egress action.

Warlock = High. RP constraint of a personalized pact with a powerhouse entity.

In most cases of class with high rankings -->IMO. It involves some external power or code, meaning more DM involvement framing the character, meaning much more likely DM involvement in making your class aspects, dare I say matter, in defining your role in the party. So again IMO if you do not like the idea of give and take of how a DM has their external force affect your character within the overarching story, then it is probably best to go with a class that has the least possibility of this... or just know the patron MAY be important to the story at large whether your player intended that or not.

 

[Maxperson]

With a response of intrusive involved patrons ordering the PC around are not inherent in the 5e warlock concept.

Patrons demanding active service is one story option, not the only one.

Besides the pacting with an indifferent Old One there are many other options as well. Pacts can be paid off with the soul at death or first born in the future. Or they could already be paid off entirely in the past and the warlock powers are the reward. Or the pact could even be made by past generations giving you Elric big magic to draw on. Or again Elric could slay in the name of the demon lord when fighting foes "Blood and Souls for Arioch!" Or maybe you won a game of cards with an Archfey and this was how they paid you. Maybe one of your three wishes from a djinni was for magic. Maybe you go Dr. Strange and leave the pacts vague but invoke the patron beings with some of your magic "Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!"

Lots of D&D warlock pact story options where the patron does not tell you what to do now.

It's not up to the player whether or not the Great Old One will be indifferent. It's only a possibility and were I wanting that to be the case, I'd get the DM on board with it prior to making the character. And if I couldn't get him on board and it was a deal breaker, I'd make something other than a warlock.

 

[Necropolitan]

I would love to hear examples of how people have used Warlock pacts as a way to enrich the roleplaying and storytelling experiences in their game. Has anyone ever set an adventure around the Warlock's patron/pact?

I'm currently playing a Fiend Patron Warlock in a campaign where his Patron (Asmodeus) is the party's patron as well.

It's an Evil campaign where we're taking over a kingdom.

It's interesting because the party's Cleric worships Asmodeus and the difference between the Cleric and Warlock is my character sees his relationship to Asmodeus as transactional and follows Asmodeus's dogma without truly having faith in it because it fits with his own views (he's Lawful Evil because he values structure and views the lives of others as less important than what he wants) while the Cleric has genuine faith in Asmodeus's dogma (he's Lawful Evil and seeks to remake the world the way Asmodeus wants it but genuinely believes that it's the best way for things to be).

 

[Maxperson]

Why. Clerics gods don't get directly involved.

Says who?

 

[Necropolitan]

Says who?

Yeah, a lot of adventures say a way to get PCs involved is to have the Cleric's deity contact them.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

In 5E24 we have 4 Patrons: Archfey, Celestial, Great Old One and Fiend.

Personally, I don't see Archfey or Celestial being too demanding of their warlocks in terms of demanding sacrifice.
I also don't see a Great Old One as interested in the affairs of mortals in any comprehensible way.
Fiends are a good fit though, Demons less so than Devils or Yugoloths.

I would love to hear examples of how people have used Warlock pacts as a way to enrich the roleplaying and storytelling experiences in their game. Has anyone ever set an adventure around the Warlock's patron/pact?

Without going to long, being a old-school guy who was like "what the hells this warlock stuff?" - coming back to the DMing game. I LOATHED the idea of heavily featuring one, but it is something the player wanted and after reading the class more I interpreted this as nothing I could blame the player for (obviously by my earlier opinions )

Anyway, I went about it. The Patron in mine is 'The Undead' - pretty nebulous and also personalized. He is not the primary plot point, but he is a taboo historical figure who started as a healer/cleric of Pelor and eventually had "gone native" when his mission trip of healing turned into the 11th crusade. Basically the start of "War Domain" Clerics, he also led a close knit group barbarian Zealots on that ruinous path. He left a trail of cursed weapons behind (skilled craftsmen). Basically the Church of Pelor had a poor perception of this and cut off all support and obliterated his name from most record books... but the barbarians of the East and his cult remains. The primary mythos has this disease "Gift of Orcus" which more or less forced him to this ritual of desperation to become a powerful undead.

The Pact is a between his mummy/lich and the PC who was this charlatan/archaelogist. The lich can't leave his tomb without the PC bringing back a Golden Fleece plot device and the PC had contracted the same disease, which the patron put into dormancy by sharing a soul fragment with the PC, so he wouldn't die (campaign doesn't allow him to be an undead pet). So pact under duress for both parties. To uphold the pact (punishment) is fluff, but important. The PC cannot cross a sacred river home without losing his connection to the patron - which will cause the disease to ravage him at an expedited rate.

Alot of this is relayed direct to the player with hilarious voicemod moments.

Alot of my PC backstories have been shared via a vision-inducing hookah 'of remembrance'. A home-run plot sharing device that I am going to use from here on out. Though other stuff comes up organically - the wizard has figured some of this out from an unburnt book

 

[kigmatzomat]

This feels like ye olde "session 0 discussion" where the GM says "the phb says X but in THIS setting it will be Y. Do you still want to play that character as written or do you want to make some changes?" No surprises or gotcha moments.

I'm running Shadowrun on Mars, Player showed up with a mentor-spirit based summoner. The setting is after quantum-computer-based AI turned out to be demons who took over the Earth. Once I gave it more than 2 seconds thought, it was clear Mentor spirits would be seen as being a risk of demonic possession because so many demons pretended to be mentor spirits, whispering "secrets of power" that turned into "do unspeakable acts of horror". Everybody said "yep, that math's out" and the player decided nah, he didn't want to deal with the hassle.

This player happened to be the GM for our 5e game that wrapped up a few months ago, where the fey-pact tome-Warlock was required to give his patron any magical books he found, after the warlock got to play with them for a while. It wasn't explicit demands of "you will plunder the mystical libraries of the realm", just "power in exchange for powerful books that come into your possession." Aside from the 'for a while" part, it was a pretty clear contract and it fit in with the PC's backstory of being a bibliophile from a barbarian-type culture. The warlock player could have decided no, he'll judt play a sorcerer instead, but went with the pact.

Session 0- Its not always the answer but its a great default answer.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

This feels like ye olde "session 0 discussion" where the GM says "the phb says X but in THIS setting it will be Y. Do you still want to play that character as written or do you want to make some changes?" No surprises or gotcha moments.

I'm running Shadowrun on Mars, after quantum-computer-based AI turned out to be demons who took over the Earth. Mentor spirits are seen as being a risk of demonic possession because so many demons pretended to be mentor spirits. So the player decided nah, he didn't want to deal with the hassle.

This player happened to be the GM for our 5e game that wrapped up a few months ago, where the fey-pact tome-Warlock was required to give his patron any magical books he found, after the warlock got to play with them for a (nebulous defined) while. It wasn't explicit demands of "you will plunder the mystical libraries of the realm", just "power in exchange for powerful books that come into your possession." Aside from the 'for a while" part, it was a pretty clear contract and it fit in with the PC's backstory of being a bibliophile from a barbarian-type culture. The warlock player could have decided no, he'll judt play a sorcerer instead, but went with the pact.

Session 0- Its not always the answer but its a great default answer.

Shadowrun so!!!