Xanathar's Warlock Celestial

WotC's Mearls talks to D&D Beyond about the Warlock Celestial subclass in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. "What we've established in the cosmology of Dungeons & Dragons, is that clerics are tied to the divine beings, gods, or concepts and viewed with the divine, so it might be like the silver flame from Eberron. The celestial though is rather than being a divine being per se, it's a celestial being so it could be something like an angel, a ki-rin, a unicorn or anything else that's a powerful good aligned creature but it doesn't necessarily have to be a God."

[video=youtube;yfEWMNe2Q8M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfEWMNe2Q8M[/video]

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"And so that's the difference between for a warlock, warlock don't make pacts with specific individuals who are sharing power with the Warlock, rather than a cleric renting, gains power that's granted to them by the divine. And also with Celestials we still assume obviously it's a celestial, it's some sort of good aligned creature. So it's something the celestial warlock compared to other warlocks as a healer, they gain cure wounds as one of their sort of baked-in first level spells, and one of their first class class features allows them to heal. They also deal with radiant energy.

So I mean obviously you can play an evil celestial pact warlock if you wanted to, nothing stopping you from doing that, but the game kind of assumes that celestial means either good aligned or having to do with radiant energy and healing. And so compared to a cleric, where when you think of a divine spellcaster you think you think they're going to be tied to a domain like the cleric class does, where the god's portfolio influences the follower's magic, the celestial's more specific about being about radiant energy. It's almost like it's less refined compared to a cleric's ability to wield magic and cosmologically it's more of a brute force way to get magic with a pact, and that's kinda how we think of the Warlock in general that the Warlock pact is like the is almost like a a hack in the system of magic rather than the sort of accepted or intended ways in which people use spells. And in my head canon that's kind of why the warlock came into D&D later on it, sort of took the universe of D&D a while, people to figure out how to use magic this way as opposed to the sort of more traditional spell slot based ways of using magic.

And so yeah it's a celestial, you can imagine it might be something like especially, say, a coatl who might have agents in the world and so the coatl has these pacts with its agents for going out and working on its behalf, so they're they're good aligned celestial style creatures who aren't gods. And because of that one of the things I like about warlocks [in the city of pax?] is it can be more personal, a coatl might have a desire to protect a specific person, a specific family, or city where gods are more remote in Dungeons & Dragons, and I think that's something which in a DM can play up or a player could really bring into the game, this idea that the patron is more personal, might be someone you have more direct conversations with rather than speaking directly to God or Thor or something like that where they're much more remote, more abstract.

So I really kind of created it with this idea of someone wanting playing more the heroic warlock. Warlocks traditionally have a sinister bent to them in the game. If you look at the Players Handbook, the initial patrons are either things that are traditionally very evil like a fiend or the Great Old Ones or something that's kind of dangerous, maybe not evil but not necessarily friendly like a fey lord, so we wanted to kind of balance the scales a little bit and say being a warlock is does not inherently make you villainous or doesn't inherently make you dark and sinister. That celestial beings - obviously it's a celestial pact - they can also create pacts and so it's kind of balancing out the storytelling possibilities. And I also like that even introducing a new healer into the game essentially then you can run a warlock as your healer if you don't want to play a cleric, you can play a character in a very different casting tempo who can still bring a lot of healing to the table for the group."

 

[cbwjm]

So, a Good Witch, sort of.

It's OK, but I actually like the danger of playing a character that makes a deal with the devil, still!

In all though, it's quite a good addition, but there are a couple of things:

Firstly, some of the Warlocks abilities and developments are a bit undefined/undeveloped still. For example, we could do with a more specific Familiar type for Great Old One Pacts of the Chain, or more guidelines with regards to how to earn more spells or rituals in the Pact of the Tomb, or what levels to give out magical weapons to fuse with Pact of the Blade. There is an awful lot of DM fiat involved with how effective a Warlock can be currently. A bit more definition, not to mention more options in Invocations, etc.

Secondly, and this is a weird one to me admittedly, but I actually wonder whether the fundamental way in which a Warlock works magic through Pacts is more to do with Intelligence (investigating forbidden tombs, negotiating effective get-out clauses, etc) than it is with Charisma (which implies the link to the Patreon is simply based upon charm). We already have a Charisma based caster with the Sorcerer (two classes if you also count the Bard), yet only the Wizard is based on Intelligence. I personally don't like playing unintelligent characters regardless, so the INT score is high on my Warlocks anyway, but I do think that the switch could be made quite easily and justifiably. Does anyone else agree at all?

Yep. I think that there could easily be a change from Cha to Int. I'd imagine it as something like an occultist who seeks out forbidden knowledge.

 

[Greg K]

Many things in D&D are influenced by historical folklore and religion, but it isn't those things. It's its own thing and modifies existing real world information into fantasy all of the time, but we shouldn't fall over if they don't match up.

I agree. However, I also have a strong dislike in WOTC D&D for celestial = radiant and healing as well, for favored soul, angelic-like with angel wings.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

So, a Good Witch, sort of.

It's OK, but I actually like the danger of playing a character that makes a deal with the devil, still!

In all though, it's quite a good addition, but there are a couple of things:

Firstly, some of the Warlocks abilities and developments are a bit undefined/undeveloped still. For example, we could do with a more specific Familiar type for Great Old One Pacts of the Chain, or more guidelines with regards to how to earn more spells or rituals in the Pact of the Tomb, or what levels to give out magical weapons to fuse with Pact of the Blade. There is an awful lot of DM fiat involved with how effective a Warlock can be currently. A bit more definition, not to mention more options in Invocations, etc.

Secondly, and this is a weird one to me admittedly, but I actually wonder whether the fundamental way in which a Warlock works magic through Pacts is more to do with Intelligence (investigating forbidden tombs, negotiating effective get-out clauses, etc) than it is with Charisma (which implies the link to the Patreon is simply based upon charm). We already have a Charisma based caster with the Sorcerer (two classes if you also count the Bard), yet only the Wizard is based on Intelligence. I personally don't like playing unintelligent characters regardless, so the INT score is high on my Warlocks anyway, but I do think that the switch could be made quite easily and justifiably. Does anyone else agree at all?

In general, swapping casting stats does no harm, so if the DM is good with it, it is good.

Once the mystic and artificer are "official" instead of being UA/DMs Guild, we will have three official int casters (plus eldritch knight and arcane spell thief), and if a DM is good with UA, then there are three already.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't like it, thematically. I don't see the need for "balance". It's clear from the original concept of the Warlock that the Warlock "bargains" with the dangerous, fey, mostly chaotic, outsiders for power, and their sanity and soul is in danger because of this.

That doesn't work with celestials at all, who (again, thematically) should be looking out for your soul and directing you towards holiness. I feel like a celestial would never strike bargains directly; he's on a Mission From God, and if someone came to them for power his response should be "Go to Church!".

Agreed. I don't feel like every warlock has to be GRIMDARKSCARY, but I have always felt one of the core differences between warlocks and clerics was that warlocks had the option to turn against their patrons. You make your bargain, get your power, and then if you want to use that power to destroy your patron's servants and wreck its plans, you're free to do so. Your patron can't withdraw the grant; the power is bought and paid for, it's yours. (But watch out for the fine print.)

That doesn't seem like how celestials roll. Celestials care how their power gets used. They aren't going to sell you Divine Smiting Power and then watch you slaughter innocents with it. Celestials lend their power to the deserving, they don't sell it to the highest bidder.

 

[Kurotowa]

That doesn't seem like how celestials roll. Celestials care how their power gets used. They aren't going to sell you Divine Smiting Power and then watch you slaughter innocents with it. Celestials lend their power to the deserving, they don't sell it to the highest bidder.

Don't think of it as a lending that can be revoked, think of it as a blessing bestowed upon the worthy with no take backs. Yes, the celestial is going to be much more careful in selecting a champion than a Fiend who has a more transactional view and doesn't overly care how the power is used, but that just helps explain why Celestial pacts are less common than Fiend pacts.

So nothing prevents a Warlock with a Celestial pact from undergoing a traumatic experience that causes an alignment change. Similarly, nothing prevents someone really clever from conning a celestial into a pact under false pretenses. Heck, if that's the route you're going, better a celestial than a fiend. The fiend will demand a price no matter what, but a celestial might hand over power as a free gift if you convince them you're of a like mind with them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In the purview of the "whys" of a celestial warlock, don't forget that it is a pact being made. A deal, and deals have two sides.

I could see a character contact an Angelic being to bid for the health of their child, or the safety of their village. Celestial agrees, but they want something in return. They want the service of the character, to wield the power of the angels in this world against the forces of darkness.

In this way the power and the adventuring are the payment the warlock is giving, which fits within the context of a celestial pact. Good people capable of fighting darkness aren't common, but desperate people who would be willing to serve in exchange for someone else's life or happiness, those are really common.


Or, go the route of abstinence. The pact is that you have power as long as you don't do or do do some list of things. Perhaps part of your payment is to give charity to the poor in every city you enter, or spend every sixth day in prayer, or transport some holy relics from an ancient shrine to a more modern city where they can be put to better use. Much like people seek to cleanse their souls in this world, perhaps that is the payment the Celestial seeks in return for power.



Between the two I really like the idea of the Warlock not wanting their power. It's weird to consider, because generally warlocks deal with such dangerous things that we can't imagine them making contact except for the purposes of gaining power, but this kind of thing works really well.

 

[Yaarel]

I am wrestling with this quote with a mix of hope and perplexity. I am parsing its sentences as follows.



"
What we've established in the cosmology of Dungeons & Dragons, is that clerics are tied to the divine beings − gods or concepts − and [clerics are] viewed [as] with the divine. So it [as a ‘concept’ of divine being] might be like the silver flame from Eberron.

The celestial [warlock] though is [viewed as with a celestial creature] − rather than [it] being a divine being, per se − it's a celestial being. So it could be something like an angel, a ki-rin, a unicorn, or anything else that's a powerful good aligned creature. But it doesn't necessarily have to be a God.

"

A ‘divine being’ can instead be an abstract ‘concept’ of divinity. Impersonal, rather than personal.



To be fair, the Players Handbook fails to ‘establish’ a link between the cleric class and any divine ‘concept’. It explicitly and persistently explains the cleric as a polytheistic idolator. Clerics worship a creature, typically a humanoid. Many examples, reinforce this. The lists of polytheistic gods that probably should have been in the Dungeon Masters Guide as part of the setting cosmology, are instead part of the Cleric class in the Players Handbook.

Note, the Paladin accesses the Divine as a ‘concept’, namely alignment, as an ethical ideal and behavior. The Druid is a bit mixed, but the class can understand Nature itself as a divine force of life and variety, thus an abstract divine ‘concept’ where the Druid encounters the divine via Nature.

That said, with regard to the Cleric, what the quote seems to emphasize is, the Cleric class ‘established’ the Cleric as being connected with the *divine*, a deity. The quote goes beyond the Players Handbook rules as written, and instead offers the possibility that this ‘deity’ might instead be impersonal rather than personal, thus more like the ‘concept’ of Silver Flame, in the sense of the concept that ‘God is Light’.

Other divine concepts might be ‘God is Love’, ‘God is compassionate actions’, so whenever someone experiences altruistic love in this material world, this experience itself is understood to be a direct encounter with the infinite Divine that manifests in this abstract way in the forms of any physical acts of kindness. Or so on. In this way, domains work well with monotheism − the divine might be ‘creator’ the creative principle, ‘light’, ‘healing’, ‘compassion’, warrior ‘protector’, and many other ways to express the divine.



By contrast, the Warlock has no contact with any sense of the Divine, but instead relates to actual heavenly creatures, whether they be an angel, kirin, spiritual guardian, perhaps a righteous ancestor, saint, or so on.



I want the Players Hanbook to include errata that explicitly offers examples of how the Cleric might access the divine as an abstract ‘concept’.



The default 5e setting imports many elements from other settings: mainly Forgotten Realms, but splicing it with Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Planescape, and so on.

I would love to see elements of Eberron also spliced into the default 5e setting. There are things Eberron did well that are worth emulating. The different kinds of religions help cultures and subcultures feel palpably different form each other. The animistic traditions, the macabre elven ancestor veneration. And monotheistic (or perhaps monistic) Silver Flame.

With regard to the Silver Flame, I love the abstraction. To be honest, I am less a fan of its hierarchical dictatorship model of its organization, where one ‘prophet’ has a monopoly on Truth (with a capital T) and tells everybody else what to do.

If importing Silver Flame into the 5e default setting, I would rather have the organizational structure be a Great Assembly − a Jedi Council − of sages, who arrive at Truth by votes and occasionally a consensus or two. The members of the Council view the divine from different perspectives, have different opinions, different things they want to accomplish, and different agendas. But each sage recognizes the infinite divine is also present among those other sages of the Council, who oneself disagrees with, and the holiness is more in the open-ended discussion about the divine, striving toward the infinite, rather than in happening to arrive at any particular ‘right’ answer, here or there. The Council − and really the entire community that the Council represents − is together the collective prophetic entity, rather than any particular person.

I want the Players Handbook to have the Cleric class description with errata to include examples of divine ‘concepts’, such as the Silver Flame. Eberron is a great place to start.

I want the ‘cosmology’ of D&D 5e to ‘establish’ divine ‘concepts’ as an abstract option for a kind of ‘divine beings’. Officially.

 

[Mistwell]

I want the Players Hanbook to include errata that explicitly offers examples of how the Cleric might access the divine as an abstract ‘concept’.

I want the Players Handbook to have the Cleric class description with errata to include examples of divine ‘concepts’, such as the Silver Flame. Eberron is a great place to start...I want the ‘cosmology’ of D&D 5e to ‘establish’ divine ‘concepts’ as an abstract option for a kind of ‘divine beings’. Officially.

You will never get errata for the PHB of that nature in 5e. You might get an expansion book which adds that concept as an optional rule, or a setting book which includes it, but they're definitely never going to errata the 5e PHB for something like that. I mean, they've expressly said changes like that are not going to be done through errata for the entire run of this edition.

Nor should they. It was not an "error" to write it the way they wrote it, it was a choice they made. There is nothing to "correct" for having accidentally left something out. It's just something they could add for some campaigns, which can easily be done without any errata. But the default just does not function the way you want it to function. We have the default - it's four years now, and you're not getting a different default.

 

[Yaarel]

The Players Handbook already has errata. This clarification about what kinds of options a player has with regard to the divine, is important.

 

[cbwjm]

Not sure it is. Leave it up to the individual table to make that decision. Some tables might require gods to gain access, others might allow gods and abstract concepts, some might just have divine magic as a different type of magic learned like wizardry. Players of dnd tend to be pretty creative, I'd be surprised if every table is restricting itself to what's in the book.