Hawk Diesel
Adventurer
I've been looking over the warlock and have considered implementing some changes. I would be interested to hear what the community has to say.
Pact of the Chain
Rather than being able to use one of your attacks to allow your familiar to use its reaction and make an attack on your turn (which in my mind is just confusing), I'm changing this ability to say that unlike other familiars, your familiar is able to use its action to make an attack on its turn.
Pact of the Blade
I think that summoning your weapon should be a bonus action, much like the Eldritch Knight.
I changed some of the expanded spell lists of the various patrons. Reason being I felt some spells were used repetitively between the different patrons, and thought the spell lists should be more unique and specific to each patron.
The Archfey: I left these alone.
The Fiend
1st - burning hands, command
2nd - flame blade, scorching ray (Changed out blindness/deafness because I thought it fit better on a different patron's spell list)
3rd - bestow curse, stinking cloud (Changed out fireball because I thought bestowing a curse was more evil, and therefore fiendish, than a fireball)
4th - blight, Mordenkainen’s faithful hound (Once again, I consider blight to be a more evil spell. And with Mordenkainen’s faithful hound, it reminds me of the Hellhounds from Supernatural.)
5th - hallow, immolation (I just thought immolation was more appropriate than flame strike, which should go to another patron)
The Great Old One
1st - dissonant whispers, Tasha's hideous laughter
2nd - crown of madness, detect thoughts (phantasmal force fit better with the Archfey, IMO)
3rd - clairvoyance, sending
4th - confusion, Evard’s black tentacles (Confusion fits much better with the Great Old One than Dominate Beast, which again fits better on the Archfey)
5th - hold monster, telekinesis (I thought hold monster fit better, because thematically the monster could be paralyzed by the insanity washing over their mind. I thought that was cooler).
The Undying
I felt like this spell list needed some work, as with the rest of this archetype. It seemed like they couldn't decide to make this about undeath or repulsing death. So I tried to fix that.
1st - false life, ray of sickness
2nd - blindness/deafness, silence
3rd - animate dead, speak with dead (first of all, i find feign death to be a relatively useless spell. Secondly, if this warlock has the power of undeath, damn right should he be raising zombies and skeletons)
4th - aura of life, death ward
5th - antilife shell, destructive wave (contagion seemed to be off in terms of the theme. So I chose antilife shell to replicate the power over life such that it could block the living from going somewhere. And destructive wave seemed appropriate given it could be flavored as a force that is specifically disruptive to life)
The Eternal Light (changed from the Undying Light to avoid confusion. Also, I thought it dumb that this spell list only included one spell each. So I expanded the expanded spell list).
1st - color spray, healing word (I didn't like how the destructive aspect of this patron was stressed, so I tried giving more about the blinding light and healing light as well)
2nd - Aganazzar’s scorcher, heat metal (I thought these worked better. No specific reason)
3rd - daylight, revivify (I thought revivify fit so well with the radiant, life giving theme of this patron)
4th - fire shield, wall of fire (Better here than with the Fiend)
5th - flamestrike, greater restoration (Again, flame strike fits better here. Also, another bit of life giving energy)
Now I will go into some of the changes with regards to the specific patron abilities. I left the Archfey, Great Old One, and Fiend alone in this regard with the exception of the new capstone ability. I mostly focused on the Undying and the Eternal Light patrons.
The Undying
Defy Death
Made this ability regaing 1d8 + warlock level rather than + constitution modifier. Also said that it was recharged after a short rest, since thematically most warlock abilities recharge with a short rest.
Undying Nature
Added that they are immune to necrotic damage.
Indestructible Life
Once again, made this ability recharge after a short or long rest.
The Eternal Light (Formerly the Undying Light)
Radiant Soul (I changed this one a lot, because it just seemed broken the way it was).
Starting at 1st level, your link to the Positive Plane allows you to serve as a conduit for radiant energy. You know the sacred flame and light cantrips, which count as warlock cantrips for you. They don’t count against your number of cantrips known.
Additionally, you can use your action to attempt to blind one creature within 30 feet. The creature must make a Constitution saving throw against your spell DC or be blinded until the start of your next turn.
Searing Vengeance
I gave this one a constitution saving throw for half damage and to avoid the blinding effect.
Empowered Radiance (Formerly Radiant Resilience. I changed this because the healing mechanic seemed so clunky and didn't quite fit.)
Starting at 10th level whenever you cast a spell that deals radiant or fire damage, you add your Charisma modifier to that damage.
In addition, you become immune to radiant damage.
Healing Light
At 14th level, you gain the ability to channel the Eternal Light to heal yourself and other creatures. Whenever you cast your healing word spell, you heal the maximum number of hit points for that spell.
In addition, you may cast healing word once as a 5th level spell without expending a spell slot. You must complete a long rest before you can cast healing word again without expending a spell slot.
Finally, I changed the capstone ability. I thought it was possibly one of the worst capstone abilities outside the Ranger's Foe Slayer. Now the capstone is related to your patron choice, as shown below.
Aspect of the Archfey
When you reach 20th level, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• As a bonus action, you can teleport up to 60 feet.
• As a bonus action, you can turn invisible. This invisibility lasts until you attack, cast a spell, or your Aspect of the Archfey ability ends.
• You gain advantage on saving throws against spells and resistance to spell damage.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Fiend
Once you reach level 20, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• As an action, you can summon a Balgura or a Barbed Devil. These creatures act on their own initiative. You cannot command these fiends, but they will work to protect you and attack any creatures hostile to you. They will not directly attack your allies, but they are also not concerned with their safety or well-being. You can only summon one creature at a time using this ability. The fiend remains until it is reduced to 0 HP, your Aspect of the Fiend ability ends, or you are no longer in danger, after which they disappear.
• The damage type selected for your Fiendish Resilience ability is treated as immunity rather than resistance, and this resistance is unaffected by magical weapons or silvered weapons.
• Whenever you are damaged by an attack, you may use your reaction to swap places with your summoned fiend.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Great Old One
Once you reach level 20, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• You exude an aura of madness that poisons the minds of your enemies. This aura extends in a radius 30 feet around you. Any enemies that begin their turn within this aura must succeed a Wisdom saving throw or be affected as by the confusion spell.
• You may use your Entropic Ward ability once per round.
• You do not take additional damage from critical hits. In addition, you are immune to psychic damage. Anytime a creature would deal you psychic damage, it is instead reflected back to the attacker.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Undying
When you reach 20th level, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• You become immune to being charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, and the poison condition. In addition, you gain advantage on any saving throws where failure would result in instant death.
• As a bonus action you blast one creature within 30 feet with life-disrupting energy. The creature you target must make a constitution saving throw. If they fail they take 4d6 necrotic damage, and half as much on a success.
• As a bonus action, you can instantly raise any corpse within 30 feet of you as a skeleton or zombie (your choice). You can command these undead creatures telepathically. They act on your turn and require no action to command them. You can specify a simple and general course of action, such as “Attack that creature,” “Run over there,” or “Fetch that object.” If the creature completes the order and doesn’t receive further direction from you, it defends and preserves itself to the best of its ability. These creatures are destroyed once the duration of Aspect of the Undying has elapsed.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Eternal Light
When you reach 20th level, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• You radiate bright light out to 30 feet, and dim light out another 30 feet. When you attempt to blind a target using your Radiant Soul ability, you do so using a bonus action rather than an action.
• When you use your sacred flame cantrip on enemies that are in the bright light, the cantrip’s damage is maximized.
• All allies that start their turn in the bright light regain 5 HP at the start of their turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Pact of the Chain
Rather than being able to use one of your attacks to allow your familiar to use its reaction and make an attack on your turn (which in my mind is just confusing), I'm changing this ability to say that unlike other familiars, your familiar is able to use its action to make an attack on its turn.
Pact of the Blade
I think that summoning your weapon should be a bonus action, much like the Eldritch Knight.
I changed some of the expanded spell lists of the various patrons. Reason being I felt some spells were used repetitively between the different patrons, and thought the spell lists should be more unique and specific to each patron.
The Archfey: I left these alone.
The Fiend
1st - burning hands, command
2nd - flame blade, scorching ray (Changed out blindness/deafness because I thought it fit better on a different patron's spell list)
3rd - bestow curse, stinking cloud (Changed out fireball because I thought bestowing a curse was more evil, and therefore fiendish, than a fireball)
4th - blight, Mordenkainen’s faithful hound (Once again, I consider blight to be a more evil spell. And with Mordenkainen’s faithful hound, it reminds me of the Hellhounds from Supernatural.)
5th - hallow, immolation (I just thought immolation was more appropriate than flame strike, which should go to another patron)
The Great Old One
1st - dissonant whispers, Tasha's hideous laughter
2nd - crown of madness, detect thoughts (phantasmal force fit better with the Archfey, IMO)
3rd - clairvoyance, sending
4th - confusion, Evard’s black tentacles (Confusion fits much better with the Great Old One than Dominate Beast, which again fits better on the Archfey)
5th - hold monster, telekinesis (I thought hold monster fit better, because thematically the monster could be paralyzed by the insanity washing over their mind. I thought that was cooler).
The Undying
I felt like this spell list needed some work, as with the rest of this archetype. It seemed like they couldn't decide to make this about undeath or repulsing death. So I tried to fix that.
1st - false life, ray of sickness
2nd - blindness/deafness, silence
3rd - animate dead, speak with dead (first of all, i find feign death to be a relatively useless spell. Secondly, if this warlock has the power of undeath, damn right should he be raising zombies and skeletons)
4th - aura of life, death ward
5th - antilife shell, destructive wave (contagion seemed to be off in terms of the theme. So I chose antilife shell to replicate the power over life such that it could block the living from going somewhere. And destructive wave seemed appropriate given it could be flavored as a force that is specifically disruptive to life)
The Eternal Light (changed from the Undying Light to avoid confusion. Also, I thought it dumb that this spell list only included one spell each. So I expanded the expanded spell list).
1st - color spray, healing word (I didn't like how the destructive aspect of this patron was stressed, so I tried giving more about the blinding light and healing light as well)
2nd - Aganazzar’s scorcher, heat metal (I thought these worked better. No specific reason)
3rd - daylight, revivify (I thought revivify fit so well with the radiant, life giving theme of this patron)
4th - fire shield, wall of fire (Better here than with the Fiend)
5th - flamestrike, greater restoration (Again, flame strike fits better here. Also, another bit of life giving energy)
Now I will go into some of the changes with regards to the specific patron abilities. I left the Archfey, Great Old One, and Fiend alone in this regard with the exception of the new capstone ability. I mostly focused on the Undying and the Eternal Light patrons.
The Undying
Defy Death
Made this ability regaing 1d8 + warlock level rather than + constitution modifier. Also said that it was recharged after a short rest, since thematically most warlock abilities recharge with a short rest.
Undying Nature
Added that they are immune to necrotic damage.
Indestructible Life
Once again, made this ability recharge after a short or long rest.
The Eternal Light (Formerly the Undying Light)
Radiant Soul (I changed this one a lot, because it just seemed broken the way it was).
Starting at 1st level, your link to the Positive Plane allows you to serve as a conduit for radiant energy. You know the sacred flame and light cantrips, which count as warlock cantrips for you. They don’t count against your number of cantrips known.
Additionally, you can use your action to attempt to blind one creature within 30 feet. The creature must make a Constitution saving throw against your spell DC or be blinded until the start of your next turn.
Searing Vengeance
I gave this one a constitution saving throw for half damage and to avoid the blinding effect.
Empowered Radiance (Formerly Radiant Resilience. I changed this because the healing mechanic seemed so clunky and didn't quite fit.)
Starting at 10th level whenever you cast a spell that deals radiant or fire damage, you add your Charisma modifier to that damage.
In addition, you become immune to radiant damage.
Healing Light
At 14th level, you gain the ability to channel the Eternal Light to heal yourself and other creatures. Whenever you cast your healing word spell, you heal the maximum number of hit points for that spell.
In addition, you may cast healing word once as a 5th level spell without expending a spell slot. You must complete a long rest before you can cast healing word again without expending a spell slot.
Finally, I changed the capstone ability. I thought it was possibly one of the worst capstone abilities outside the Ranger's Foe Slayer. Now the capstone is related to your patron choice, as shown below.
Aspect of the Archfey
When you reach 20th level, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• As a bonus action, you can teleport up to 60 feet.
• As a bonus action, you can turn invisible. This invisibility lasts until you attack, cast a spell, or your Aspect of the Archfey ability ends.
• You gain advantage on saving throws against spells and resistance to spell damage.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Fiend
Once you reach level 20, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• As an action, you can summon a Balgura or a Barbed Devil. These creatures act on their own initiative. You cannot command these fiends, but they will work to protect you and attack any creatures hostile to you. They will not directly attack your allies, but they are also not concerned with their safety or well-being. You can only summon one creature at a time using this ability. The fiend remains until it is reduced to 0 HP, your Aspect of the Fiend ability ends, or you are no longer in danger, after which they disappear.
• The damage type selected for your Fiendish Resilience ability is treated as immunity rather than resistance, and this resistance is unaffected by magical weapons or silvered weapons.
• Whenever you are damaged by an attack, you may use your reaction to swap places with your summoned fiend.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Great Old One
Once you reach level 20, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• You exude an aura of madness that poisons the minds of your enemies. This aura extends in a radius 30 feet around you. Any enemies that begin their turn within this aura must succeed a Wisdom saving throw or be affected as by the confusion spell.
• You may use your Entropic Ward ability once per round.
• You do not take additional damage from critical hits. In addition, you are immune to psychic damage. Anytime a creature would deal you psychic damage, it is instead reflected back to the attacker.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Undying
When you reach 20th level, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• You become immune to being charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, and the poison condition. In addition, you gain advantage on any saving throws where failure would result in instant death.
• As a bonus action you blast one creature within 30 feet with life-disrupting energy. The creature you target must make a constitution saving throw. If they fail they take 4d6 necrotic damage, and half as much on a success.
• As a bonus action, you can instantly raise any corpse within 30 feet of you as a skeleton or zombie (your choice). You can command these undead creatures telepathically. They act on your turn and require no action to command them. You can specify a simple and general course of action, such as “Attack that creature,” “Run over there,” or “Fetch that object.” If the creature completes the order and doesn’t receive further direction from you, it defends and preserves itself to the best of its ability. These creatures are destroyed once the duration of Aspect of the Undying has elapsed.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Aspect of the Eternal Light
When you reach 20th level, you can assume the form and take on some of the abilities of your patron. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For one minute, you gain the following abilities:
• You radiate bright light out to 30 feet, and dim light out another 30 feet. When you attempt to blind a target using your Radiant Soul ability, you do so using a bonus action rather than an action.
• When you use your sacred flame cantrip on enemies that are in the bright light, the cantrip’s damage is maximized.
• All allies that start their turn in the bright light regain 5 HP at the start of their turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
