D&D 5E Warlock Homebrew changes

[Lanliss]

More homebrew stuff, I am on a roll.

Next goal, change the Warlock. Patrons will be secondary, while Pacts will be the primary subclass. I have a few ideas for this. You will still gain your Patron spells, and will get an Invocation at 1st level, and the Patron abilities at 1st level will be made into Invocations. The rest of the Patron abilities will be moved to Invocations as well, with Prerequisites being the appropriate level and Patron.

Blade- Easy enough.
3rd-Pact, also gain Medium Armor
6th-Extra attack
10th-Not sure. Maybe the same as War magic from EK.
14th- Second extra attack

Tome-Moar spells
3rd-pact
6th- at 6th level you gain an extra spell slot that recharges on a short rest. At 14th level this increases to 2 extra spell slots.
also, you now add your Charisma Modifier to Warlock Cantrip damage, and damage for the Eldritch Blast Invocation if you have it.

10th-Magic secrets, as in the Bard. However, the spell can be changed on a level, giving the Warlock access to any two spells they want. Makes sense for someone dealing with higher beings, and addresses the issue of Warlock being so inflexible. Restricted to spells of 5th level and lower, since the Warlock does not technically have slots for 6-9.

14th-Improved Mystic Arcanum: Get 2 uses of your 6th and 7th level Mystic Arcanum.

Chain-Thinking of realizing the Monster Tamer people have mentioned here on the forums. This is where I need most of the help.

3rd-Pact
6th-Chain Monster: When you or your familiar reduces a non-humanoid creature to 0 hp you can attempt to Chain it to follow your commands. The DC is the creatures CR+5, and you roll 1d20+ your Charisma Modifier to attempt to Chain it. After you have chained a Monster you can summon it to your side as an Action. It rolls a separate Initiative, and acts on it's own. It will follow your commands, or will defend itself if you have not given it a command. You can only have one Chained Monster at a time, and chaining a new monster results in your current one dying and turning to ash. If the monster has any Lair or Legendary actions, it loses those when it becomes Chained, but otherwise remains as it was before.
There is a CR limitation on what monsters the Warlock can chain, equal to your Warlock Level + Charisma Modifier.*
You monster spends hit dice to heal as normal, and refills its hit dice after a Long rest.

*This makes it so that, at 20th level, the Warlock can attempt to chain creatures up to CR 25 (DC30). However, the limitations on their Chain attempt (1d20 + Cha Mod + 1/2 Prof. Bonus) means they can't hit higher than CR 23(DC 28). This is intended, as they might get some magic item that allows them to increase their Charisma above 20. It is also important that this Chain attempt is called just that. It is a little finicky to add a new item to the basic 3 (Attack Roll, Ability Check, Saving Throw), but there are a multitude of things that add to all of those, which would drive up the attainable CR. This way, the DM doesn't need to concern themselves with things that might stack with the Chain, because nothing does. Unless they gave their player an item to boost Charisma or their Proficiency bonus, the DM doesn't have to worry about the player trying to chain Tiamat.

10th-Greater Chain: Add half of your Proficiency bonus (rounded up) to your Chain attempts.

14th- Master of Chains- You can chain a second monster.

Thoughts? It doesn't feel too broken, but there might be some enemies that punch above their CR that I am not aware of. I feel it is important that the Chained monster can die. You cannot resummon them, so losing one in combat results in you taking a blow to power compared to the others.

EDIT: Italicized words are changes I have made.

EDIT: Another edit.

 

[LapBandit]

More homebrew stuff, I am on a roll.

Next goal, change the Warlock. Patrons will be secondary, while Pacts will be the primary subclass. I have a few ideas for this. You will still gain your Patron spells, and will get an Invocation at 1st level, and the Patron abilities at 1st level will be made into Invocations. The rest of the Patron abilities will be moved to Invocations as well, with Prerequisites being the appropriate level and Patron.

Blade-.
3rd-Pact, also gain Medium Armor, shields
6th-Extra attack

That's all they need.

Also, Eldritch Blast should only scale with Warlock level.

 

[Lanliss]

That's all they need.

Also, Eldritch Blast should only scale with Warlock level.

EB is going to be an Invocation, and all of the Invocations that make it stronger will be removed. If it seems a bit weak, I might add +cha to cantrips to the Tomelock.

EDIT: I just realized that wording won't help EB any. I might add +Cha to Cantrips and the EB invocation.

 

[Fanaelialae]

More homebrew stuff, I am on a roll.

Next goal, change the Warlock. Patrons will be secondary, while Pacts will be the primary subclass. I have a few ideas for this. You will still gain your Patron spells, and will get an Invocation at 1st level, and the Patron abilities at 1st level will be made into Invocations. The rest of the Patron abilities will be moved to Invocations as well, with Prerequisites being the appropriate level and Patron.

Interesting. Just a thought, but you could make warlocks have two subclasses (one from patron and one from pact). You'd probably need to reduce the number of invocations they get, or something (maybe 5 at 20th?).

Blade- Easy enough.
3rd-Pact, also gain Medium Armor
6th-Extra attack
10th-Not sure. Maybe the same as War magic from EK.
14th-Life drinker (+Charisma to damage with pact weapon.)

I like it. Since you're giving them medium armor, maybe make it a package deal where they can summon armor with the same action as summoning their weapon?

Tome-Moar spells
3rd-pact
6th- You gain 2 spell slots per short rest.
10th-Magic secrets, as in the Bard. However, the spell can be changed on a level, giving the Warlock access to any two spells they want. Makes sense for someone dealing with higher beings, and addresses the issue of Warlock being so inflexible. Restricted to spells of 5th level and lower, since the Warlock does not technically have slots for 6-9.
14th-Improved Mystic Arcanum: Get 2 uses of your 6th and 7th level Mystic Arcanum.

Not sure what you mean by the level 6 ability. Warlocks already regain all of their spell slots on a short rest. If these are supposed to be extra spell slots on top of what they already get, I'd recommend just one bonus slot (and even that's a lot IMO).

Chain-Thinking of realizing the Monster Tamer people have mentioned here on the forums. This is where I need most of the help.

3rd-Pact
6th-Chain Monster: When you or your familiar reduces a non-humanoid creature to 0 hp you can attempt to Chain it to follow your commands. The DC is the creatures CR+5, and you roll 1d20+ your Charisma Modifier to attempt to Chain it. After you have chained a Monster you can summon it to your side as an Action. It rolls a separate Initiative, and acts on it's own. It will follow your commands, or will defend itself if you have not given it a command. You can only have one Chained Monster at a time, and chaining a new monster results in your current one dying and turning to ash. If the monster has any Lair or Legendary actions, it loses those when it becomes Chained, but otherwise remains as it was before.

10th-Greater Chain: Add your Proficiency bonus to your Chain attempts.

14th- Master of Chains- You can chain a second monster.

Thoughts? It doesn't feel too broken, but there might be some enemies that punch above their CR that I am not aware of. I feel it is important that the Chained monster can die. You cannot resummon them, so losing one in combat results in you taking a blow to power compared to the others.

EDIT: I forgot to mention healing on the Chainlock. I am thinking that you cannot use a Chained monster until you have taken a Short rest, and it simply refills health on a rest. Should I instead make it spend hit-dice as normal?

I think the level 6 ability is problematic as written. Making it require the warlock to get the "killing blow" is probably going to lead to metagaming if there's a creature the warlock really wants (though depending on your group, that might not be a problem). Also, PCs can, with some preparation and risk, take down monsters well above themselves in CR (and an equal CR monster is already above a single PC in power). As such, you could very well end up with a chained creature that is more powerful than the warlock! A single feature should never be more powerful on its own than the character that possesses it. For example, a CR 21 Lich has only 135 HP. With a little luck, even a mid level party could take it down, and while there's a chance that the warlock won't make their check, there's also a chance that they will.

As such, I would recommend making the chaining easier (it might be automatic on being brought to 0, or not require the warlock to land the killing blow) but also institute a CR cap. Maybe something like the CR limit on a Moon Druid's forms.

You're also going to want to consider exactly how this will affect a creature. Is the warlock only in control of their physical form or their mental faculties as well? If I "assassinate" the king and chain him, am I effectively now the king, or am I restricted to making him do the chicken dance (rather than making decrees)? One way to go would be to restrict the creature type (if you don't allow humanoids then a significant part of this issue goes away).

I'm not sure on the matter of healing. On the one hand, getting back all of their HP on a short rest means that the warlock (with pets) can potentially soak more damage in a day than a barbarian (and that's a lot). On the other hand, tying it to HD makes it very finicky, which I'm also not a fan of.

Maybe something like the creature recovers up to half its maximum hp on a short rest (so if you creature has 100 max hp, and is at 20 hp before the short rest, it will be at 50 hp after the short rest). That will force the warlock to be a bit more conservative with the pets. The fact that they can perma-die is a limited limitation in my view. Unless you have pets with unique abilities that aren't easy to replace, you can just chain whatever creatures you're currently fighting to replace any pets you lose. You're going to want to replace your pets fairly regularly anyway, since they don't scale with your level.

 

[Lanliss]

Interesting. Just a thought, but you could make warlocks have two subclasses (one from patron and one from pact). You'd probably need to reduce the number of invocations they get, or something (maybe 5 at 20th?).



I like it. Since you're giving them medium armor, maybe make it a package deal where they can summon armor with the same action as summoning their weapon?

I think being able to summon armor might be a bit much. I might add it, and a Shield one, as invocations, but think getting free medium armor 24/7 is a little too much.

Not sure what you mean by the level 6 ability. Warlocks already regain all of their spell slots on a short rest. If these are supposed to be extra spell slots on top of what they already get, I'd recommend just one bonus slot (and even that's a lot IMO).

Yes, It is meant to give them 2 extra slots per short rest. This Warlock will be 100% spells, so I think being able to cast more than the others is fine. Maybe I can start it at 1 extra, and they get a 2nd extra slot at something like 16-18?

I think the level 6 ability is problematic as written. Making it require the warlock to get the "killing blow" is probably going to lead to metagaming if there's a creature the warlock really wants (though depending on your group, that might not be a problem). Also, PCs can, with some preparation and risk, take down monsters well above themselves in CR (and an equal CR monster is already above a single PC in power). As such, you could very well end up with a chained creature that is more powerful than the warlock! A single feature should never be more powerful on its own than the character that possesses it. For example, a CR 21 Lich has only 135 HP. With a little luck, even a mid level party could take it down, and while there's a chance that the warlock won't make their check, there's also a chance that they will.

As such, I would recommend making the chaining easier (it might be automatic on being brought to 0, or not require the warlock to land the killing blow) but also institute a CR cap. Maybe something like the CR limit on a Moon Druid's forms.

You're also going to want to consider exactly how this will affect a creature. Is the warlock only in control of their physical form or their mental faculties as well? If I "assassinate" the king and chain him, am I effectively now the king, or am I restricted to making him do the chicken dance (rather than making decrees)? One way to go would be to restrict the creature type (if you don't allow humanoids then a significant part of this issue goes away).

I'm not sure on the matter of healing. On the one hand, getting back all of their HP on a short rest means that the warlock (with pets) can potentially soak more damage in a day than a barbarian (and that's a lot). On the other hand, tying it to HD makes it very finicky, which I'm also not a fan of.

Maybe something like the creature recovers up to half its maximum hp on a short rest (so if you creature has 100 max hp, and is at 20 hp before the short rest, it will be at 50 hp after the short rest). That will force the warlock to be a bit more conservative with the pets. The fact that they can perma-die is a limited limitation in my view. Unless you have pets with unique abilities that aren't easy to replace, you can just chain whatever creatures you're currently fighting to replace any pets you lose. You're going to want to replace your pets fairly regularly anyway, since they don't scale with your level.

It was my intention that the Warlock must get the killing blow. If the initiative isn't set up in the most favorable order, this means that choosing to leave an enemy for the Warlock to kill could result in another turn for the enemy.

The whole Chaining system was mostly off the top of my head, and doesn't seem too broken. I can see limiting it though, maybe to something like your spell DC. The will leave a number of the big-bads safe from chaining. Or, I could limit it to "CR no higher than your Character level + Charisma Modifier (Max of CR 20)". However, I do want the Warlock, if they are lucky, to be able to chain something a bit higher up than them, otherwise what is the point. The purpose of this concept is that the Caster/Trainer/Master is the weaker party, and has the Chained creature to do the hard stuff for them.

For healing, I think I will stick with spending hit dice. It will be a little finicky, but not too bad I think.

I want to leave how the creature reacts up to the player. They might want to be a Fiendlock who revels in the hatred his slaves feel for him, or they want to play a Feylock who the creatures just want to serve. Entirely up to the player. Also up to the player is how much they like the pets. They might get sentimental, and try to keep their Zombie around forever, or they might be indifferent to losing their creature.

 

[mellored]

IMO:
Eldrich blast is just a 1d8 attack cantrip. Invocations can add a second target, or make it an AoE, use it in melee (eldritch claws), cause fear on a critical hit, push 5', etc..
extra effects, but not damage.

All warlocks can curse as a bonus action, upto Cha creatures. It reduces a creature's AC by 2. The curse can be expanded based on pact/invocations, you can expand it from there.

Fiend = cursed enemies take extra damage from fire.
Fey = cursed enemies have -2 against charm and fear saves.
Old One = If a cursed enemy rolls a 1, you can redirect it's attack.

Icey curse = cursed creatures are slowed by 5'.
ect...

Also, every warlock get's the ability to make their own bargin. If they can get someone to agree of their own free will, you can gain their soul, which can be used for a 1-time automatic 20. You can store a number of souls equal to your 1/2 your level.

 

[Lanliss]

IMO:
Eldrich blast is just a 1d8 attack cantrip. Invocations can add a second target, or make it an AoE, use it in melee (eldritch claws), cause fear on a critical hit, push 5', etc..
extra effects, but not damage.

All warlocks can curse as a bonus action, upto Cha creatures. It reduces a creature's AC by 2. The curse can be expanded based on pact/invocations, you can expand it from there.

Fiend = cursed enemies take extra damage from fire.
Fey = cursed enemies have -2 against charm and fear saves.
Old One = If a cursed enemy rolls a 1, you can redirect it's attack.

Icey curse = cursed creatures are slowed by 5'.
ect...

Also, every warlock get's the ability to make their own bargin. If they can get someone to agree of their own free will, you can gain their soul, which can be used for a 1-time automatic 20. You can store a number of souls equal to your 1/2 your level.

The mechanics aren't bad, but this pushes a lot of the "Warlocks can't be Good" thinking that I dislike.

I am fine with EB as a basic cantrip, the problem only comes along when other classes dip in 2 levels for EB and one of the invocations. That is still possible this way, but they need at least 3 levels for +cha to damage, and I might change EB to a single attack like the rest of the cantrips, meaning you would only get the +cha on one attack instead of four.
And now I am realizing that 3rd level is probably a bit early for +Cha to cantrips anyway, since Clerics have to wait until 8th level for that. I will go ahead and bump that to the 6th level bonus.

 

[Lanliss]

I just realized, this gives me a good chance to change the Capstone ability as well. Eldritch master is pretty boring, so I would like to make it a more flavorful and interesting ability. Any thoughts? I am leaning towards Invocations. A special tier of invocations that require 20th level, and do a number of interesting things. This will be separate from the normal Invocations, kind of like Mystic Arcanum is separate from normal spells.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I just realized, this gives me a good chance to change the Capstone ability as well. Eldritch master is pretty boring, so I would like to make it a more flavorful and interesting ability. Any thoughts? I am leaning towards Invocations. A special tier of invocations that require 20th level, and do a number of interesting things. This will be separate from the normal Invocations, kind of like Mystic Arcanum is separate from normal spells.

Some ideas.
Occult Revelation
Prerequesite: 20th lvl

Skin of the Fiend: 1/Long rest, shapeshift into a Devil or Demon of appropriate CR.
Devour Magic: Dispel magic 1/short rest, if dispel succeed, regain a Spell slot
Sacrifice to Caiphon: Spend HD to recover Spell slots
Touch of the Starry night: As an action, can touch a Surprised creature so cause her to fall asleep.

 

[Mephista]

My big change to the Warlock is mainly to the spells.
1) Hex is no longer Concentration.
2) Armor of Agyths keeps its damage running as long as you have THP from any source.

Rather than doing medium armor, I kind of hacked Armor of Shadows to be more like the 4e counterpart and made it into half-cover, granting a +2 AC/Dex save bonus. You keep the leather armors.

Waiting until level 14 to give Lifedrinker is a bad idea. You need it to keep up with the level 11 power curve. 1-4 are apprentice levels, 5-10 are heroic, 11-16 are paragon, and 17+ are "epic," if y'all don't mind me stealing the 4e terms. In 5e, they're not quite named, but level 5, 11, and 17 still represent a big jump in terms of combat power for everyone. Waiting through 3~4 levels, if the game even lasts that long (most end around level 11), to get your normal power curve is kind of annoying.

With Tome? Not really that bad. Actually pretty consistant with Archfey abilities, just more flexible.

Chain... I'll have to look over when I'm not tired.