D&D 5E Warlock in party with Quasit breaking story

[iserith]

I understand how liberal D&D is in it's structure. It's one of the things I like best about it . I'v thought about doing that discussion but just a session ago I limited an ability of his and he ended up requesting a character revamp claiming I basically destroyed his reason for having that ability (it was an invocation).

(here's that situation shortly: he had repelling blast. He hit a huge creature (as big as a five story building basically) and wanted it to move 10 feet back. I said he can't move something weighing hundreds of tons 10 feet back with a simple spell like that. He said because the invocation doesn't specify how big the creature must be then it should work on a creature of any size. We argued over it for half an hour. In the end he agreed with me reluctantly but requested to unchoose repelling blast).

As an aside to the aside, my recommendation as a longtime DM is to not find yourself in these arguments by just siding with the player. You're on the same team after all and moving a huge creature 10 feet probably isn't a big advantage anyway. (At least not all the time.)

 

[Decorayah]

Thanks for that DEFCON 1. It's a greatly appreciated way to view the rules. As I said - I am new to this (my first time being DM and second time playing D&D ever) and this kind of information is useful for me. Your ruling does make sense and I will probably use it

 

[UnknownDyson]

Are you for real?

What drawbacks? You yourself mentioned that everything mentioned can be obtained by being a pact of the chain warlock and, oh look, it's mentioned several times that the warlock is a pact of the chain. The only thing here being ignored seems to be your ignoring the fact that it's a pact of the chain warlock.

You clearly did not read my posts. Because I've stated that when dealing with a quasit, pact of the chain or not the drawback is that the quasit can do what ever it wants. It can leave your service at any time. It can betray you if it doesn't like you, it can steal from you. It is a demon from the abyss. My point is, if you ignore that and allow the pact of the chain warlock to change the rules for his familiar then you are giving him a familiar without the built in drawbacks. And that is a decision made by the DM.

 

[briggart]

Then it sounds like you are making find familiar more powerful then it generally is by allowing the warlock to ignore its built in drawbacks.

I don't see why. The find familiar is very specific in that what you summon is a spirit (player's choice of fey, celestial or fiend) that can assume a set of specific forms, and the PotC ability simply adds new forms other to the default list. There are no indications that the forms provided by the warlock abilities behave differently that the default ones, especially since binding a real quasit or imp provides additional benefits (magic resistance) over those of the PotC feature. DMs are clearly free to rule that in their campaign there additional drawbacks to the warlock ability, but I don't think this is the default.

 

[Decorayah]

A lot of good ideas in your post Caliban. Thanks for doing the point by point analysis. Seems it's not that the quasit is overpowered - it's more me under-powering my creatures's defenses. Glad to hear those Tressym are common and me adding them won't seem forced. It's exactly the kind of thing I need to balance things out without directly nerfing the warlock.

 

[briggart]

Edit: double post.

 

[Yunru]

You clearly did not read my posts. Because I've stated that when dealing with a quasit, pact of the chain or not the drawback is that the quasit can do what ever it wants. It can leave your service at any time. It can betray you if it doesn't like you, it can steal from you. It is a demon from the abyss. My point is, if you ignore that and allow the pact of the chain warlock to change the rules for his familiar then you are giving him a familiar without the built in drawbacks. And that is a decision made by the DM.

No, no it can't. Clearly the one not reading is you. Let's see:
1. It's not a demon from the abyss. The Pact of the Chain only expands the form your familiar can take. It's still the familiar from Find Familiar, and thus a Fey, Fiend or Celestial of your choice.
2. It's can't do whatever it wants. It's still bound by the stipulations of the Find Familiar spell, and oh look: "Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands."

Thus the only one "changing the rules for a familiar" is you.

 

[gyor]

You castle has a pride of Tressyms trained just for finding invisible familiars and killing them. Tressyms can detect invisible creatures.

 

[ccs]

Your argument about it possibly being a problem only I see and the players actually not having anything against a less surprise/mystery more tactics/battles is a good one. I do however have a counter. At the begging of the campaign I gave them a poll with a couple of questions. In it they clearly chose they want mystery/investigation more than battles. The only one that answered the opposite was that one player I am talking about.

I do however agree it's worth a discussion with them

It's also worth remembering that your enjoyment of the game is at least every bit as important as the various players.

 

[UnknownDyson]

No, no it can't. Clearly the one not reading is you. Let's see:
1. It's not a demon from the abyss. The Pact of the Chain only expands the form your familiar can take. It's still the familiar from Find Familiar, and thus a Fey, Fiend or Celestial of your choice.
2. It's can't do whatever it wants. It's still bound by the stipulations of the Find Familiar spell, and oh look: "Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands."

Thus the only one "changing the rules for a familiar" is you.

Its a variant familar and isn't governed by the same rules as normal familiars. Players that aren't pact of the chain can't even use them. But honestly I don't really care, you can change quasits to celestials if you want if you're the dm. Do you.