While I do have a tough month I'll keep an eye on them. Even after the end of the month I bet they can legally sell on dmsguild and the likes. Kinda neat how you let DnDBeyond take a break sometimes :)
Warlocks dont get spellcasting they getvpact magic it is different and functions differently it doesn't stack when multiclassing like other spellcaster spell slots do they stack separately
@@davidmoseley1082 yes, though it's possible to use the short rest slots on other classes' spells. Like when a Paladin grabs one or two for smites. Iirc it's also possible to cast warlock spells with Pally spell slots :)
Nerdarchy look at every guide online, they’re all hexblades, so tbh I’ve seen few eldritch blast warlocks than weapon ones. At this point, being the eldritch blast warlock is the rare one.
For Eldritch Blast variety one solution is to describe it as anything other than a generic amorphous blob of energy that you throw. Have the warlock's patron, pact, and even their background change what that spell effect looks like. Does your warlock have the entertainer background or are they a Fiend warlock who get's their powers and Guild ranking from Rakdos himself? Then their casting of eldritch blast should look like knife juggling followed by surprise knife throwing. Did they make a pact with a Celestial? Then their eldritch blast might look like they summoned a small swarm of Lantern Archons who just charged screaming into the face of the biggest enemy. Archfey? They manifested the hunting bow of the lord or lady of the hunt and each time they draw back on the bow string the lifeforce of the surrounding plant life or the energies of winter or summer courts or whatever form the arrows. Undying patron? Maybe your patron is Jack Skellington and all your eldritch blast projectiles look like tiny flaming Jack O' Lanterns. Or maybe you're the apprentice of a lich and your blasts look like you pulling your own bones or finger nails out of your body and lobbing them at the enemy. Do they fight with a Staff, spear, lance, cane, rod, or polearm, and did they also take Spell Sniper and Eldritch Spear to boosts the range of their blast to 600+ feet? Then have them aim down the length of their weapon as the projectile manifests. Maybe the way they aim is different if based on their background. A soldier might take a knee and looks like they're aiming a sniper rifle, while a charlatan might look like he's lining up a shot with a pool cue. As for Warlock builds, I like to vary it based on the theme of the patron and the character, but I almost always like to take Pact of the Tome to grab things that flesh out the build. Taking Shillelagh basically gives you a free magic weapon that relies on your main stat for attack and damage rolls which is already better than pact of the blade and gives 60% of the benefit of the Hexblade's level 1 ability. Taking Book of Ancient Secrets and choosing Find Familiar as one of your rituals give you most of the pact of the chain benefits with the main downside being loss of access to a couple really good Chain specific Invocations, and your basic familiar can't go invisible at will like Imps, Quasits, and Sprites. After that there's a dozen cantrips not on the Warlock Spell list that are great for any number of character concepts for your tome cantrip slots. Dancing Lights, Guidance, Mending, Encode Thoughts, Mold Earth, Control Flames, Shape Water, Gust, Vicious Mockery, Druidcraft, Message. It should also be noted that the Celestial Patron's level 6 ability is limited Agonizing Blast for all Fire and Radiant damage spells. This can be an alternative to Eldritch Blast. Take Firebolt through Tome pact, magic initiate, or one of the Ravnica guild backgrounds. Take Green Flame Blade for any close quarters or tunnel fighting. Celestial patron gives you Sacred Flame for free which you can use on anything immune/resistant to fire damage.
You can also swap out it's base damage for battlefield control slick blast, caltrip blast, binding blast, stink blast and muffle weapon blast. Which basically covers the targets weapon in foam rubber and magically slow's it's swing down by as much as your damage as your blast would have done.
As a Great Old One warlock, I’ve been describing my blasts as spectral tentacles whipping out from my hands and lashing the enemy. My Toll the Dead is now “Piping of the Outer Servitors” and makes their ears bleed as well as damage them. 😁 as I go, I’ve been heavily theming my spell effects and the other players have been really enjoying it. I have to agree though that there’s so much tied up in Eldritch Blast that it’s too tied to practically every warlock out there except Hexblade. I would like to see an alternative to it. Perhaps an option where “agonizing blast” type extra damage could apply to the Chain Familiar as you cast damaging cantrips through them, and the hex spell extra damage applied to the chain familiar’s attacks, or something. Thematically appropriate ways to keep the “arcane cannon” position of the Warlock, but different from just more flavor to Eldritch Blast.
@@queenannsrevenge100 there's already an agonizing blast alternative in the game. The 6th level ability of celestial warlocks is basically agonizing blast for both fire and radiant damage spells. My favorite use of it is to pair firebolt and green flame blade with shillelagh on a tome pact warlock. If you can get firebolt by taking a renamed campaign flavored version of the Boros Legion background and free up two of your tome cantrips then so much the better. This trick is made even more fun with war caster, being a tiefling with flames of phlegethos, and 2 levels of paladin just to make your pyromaniac into a walking blast furnace.
At lv 5 you attack twice with EB and you can buff it. How meny attacks you're getting with a tome lock shillelagh? Why are you in melee with a 120 reach spell? You take the Lance invo it's 300...again why are you in melee? Why use alternate means to get less out of your damage spells? If the barb can hit it with it's axe, the Paladin can spam smite and your ranger can be a brooding lone wolf why can't I spam EB if it's effective and doesn't require me to handicap my character? On the different appearances of EB yes I'm totally with you, some players just don't like to be creative in this manner that's why they feel it's stale...compared to hitting it with your sword...yeah... I'm...I'm all wif ya der fighta. If you want to be a non generic caster, go Wiz, even then you're most likely a troll, not a blaster as Wiz has the most insane troll spells and divination features. You want a pure blaster, sorc. Hands down. Most people play lock for the flavor and the variety of mechanics, people that can't get through EB spam shouldn't play martial characters either.
I'm currently playing a Celestial warlock and I find myself using sacred flame as much as I do Eldritch Blast (though I do have to consciously remind myself to do so). "Oh cute, you're in cover hiding from my Eldritch Blast. make a dex save". It also really helps thematically as it hammers home the point that my character isn't a demon worshipper but is instead some celestial's deniable disposable asset for taking out evildoers. I also picked pact of the tome for some extra cleric cantrips and find myself throwing Resistance on my allies sometimes instead of just another Eldritch blast.
It sucks that sacred flame is near useless against demons and devils though due to them having advantage on saves. I'd rather make eldritch black a baseline feature with them themed in each subclass.
The thing I like most about celestial warlock is the way their lvl 6 ability can mostly replace agonizing blast and synergize with a bunch of different character options that veteran players don't expect from warlock. Going pact of the tome to get Shillelagh and then layering green flame blade, heavy armor and smites from a 2 level dip in paladin, and maybe getting firebolt from tome, a feat, or a Ravnica background can be a fun way to turn a backline "mage" character into a frontline walking blast furnace.
The best part of the celestial Warlock is the possibility of the role reversal. We all know about the GOO and the Fiend warlock, using their evil powers for good. But... what about an EVIL celestial warlock?
I feel like everyone focuses on the Eldritch Blast combat, and ignores the role playing aspects of a Warlock. The Eldritch Invocation combos are great. Take the Actor feat, Mask of Many Faces to disguise yourself at will, with Beguiling Influence to add proficiency to Deception and Persuasion, and you have the perfect Spy. Pact of the Chain Warlock, with a familiar that can cast invisibility, along with Voice of the Chain Master and Eyes of the Rune keeper, you have the perfect scout that can read any secret notes in the Enemy's Keep. Great Old One Warlock with a helm of comprehending languages, and Beast Speech, now you have the perfect Face that can speak to anyone, including animals, and understand any language.
I agree but that is kind of the point they brought up, there is A TON of customization for the non-combat aspect of the game and very little while in combat.
My Warlock uses EB for the opposite of a lot of reasons listed, using such a good Cantrip in combat gave lots of options, hitting multiple people, battle control (with the repelling blast), and that effectively imo let me take my spells and invocations which are more utility/exploration/social, because EB was so good that I had damage covered. It can be a crutch but it also lets you be able to shine elsewhere too because you dont have to worry so much about damage. I found quite early on (it was my 1st character) that EB could pretty much do as much effective damage as most of my spells, and it also kinda pushed me to think more about non combat spells, and make a character fun in a lot more aspects from a mechanincal sense.
@@GreenBaji shadow blade does not work with hex warrior... If you want to use shadow blade, I would suggest going straight arcane trickster/ arcane trickster bladesinger multiclass
@@aldoushuxley5953 Jim never mentioned a Hex "warrior" . My guess was about he using a Shadow blade which count as a light weapon and Finesse weapon for his stealth attack as a surprise attack.
@@GreenBaji hex warrior is the name of the level 1 feature of the Hexblade pact. It gives you proficiency with medium armor and shields and *lets you attack with your charisma, if you use your pact weapon* If you use the shadow blade instead of your pact weapon, you will miss out on attacking with your charisma and many important invocations like improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, eldritch smite etc. In addition to that, shadow blade requires concentration (so no Hex, darkness, shadow of moil etc for you) and does not last very long, and warlocks do not have particularly many spellslots I get that it is very flavourful, but I think it is a bad idea, to use it as your main weapon (still a good off-hand weapon though).
@@aldoushuxley5953 If you want to look it at from this damage and mechanic side I want to remind you that in higher level this Shadow blade raise up to 5d8 dmg ( if used from a lvl 7 spell-slot) for a single attack without included any sneak attack features. But I get your point. Shadow blade can't be a pact weapon so it don't get all the features from a Hexblade. I think it all depends on how many lvls the play spend into hexblade. Because if he only goes 3 lvl into warlock he won't get the big features you just mentioned. Anyway it's nice to have a place and someone to talk about Warlock topics.
I just rolled up an Undying Warlock for Tomb of Annihilation. Played as a failed Bard. Variant Human to get Prodigy and expertise in Performance at the jump. Excited to play him! Fenton Dunhall was an up and coming bard in the small town of Nashkel on the northern slopes of the Cloud Peaks. A narcissistic, but gifted musician and local celebrity, he packed every inn and tavern in the area when he performed. Selfishly feeling that he was growing too popular for the small community and it's jealous husbands, Fenton believed he deserved more. Finally growing tired of singing ballads and reciting orations about other famous heroes, Fenton decided to set out into the world and become the hero of his own story. Eventually he fell in with a group of adventurers and mercenaries who called themselves The Band of the Black Horn. The band was hired by the monks of Candlekeep to retrieve a lost arcane tome from the desert lair of the ancient blue dragon Myrraxion, in the western reaches of Calimshan. An agent of the dragon (actually Myrraxion herself in disguise) had borrowed the tome from the library and never returned it. When the band tracked down the lair, they were in for quite a surprise. The dragon was a powerful mage in her own right and the tome she had taken was the last piece in an ancient puzzle that had transformed her into a dracolich. Not prepared to fight such a powerful creature, the band was quickly defeated; but Fenton groveled and begged for his life. Amused, Myrraxion spared his life on the condition that he serve her for the rest of his days. His frail human body kept alive by her unnatural magics, Fenton has served for almost 200 years as the dragon’s entertainment, servant, scribe, and whatever else she required. With him there to serve her, she’s never had to leave the safety of her lair, growing more solitary and fearful of the outside world. But something has changed. A shift in the weave. The dragon’s great scrying magics have determined that somewhere a powerful curse is preventing the dead from returning and threatening those who have already cheated death. Paranoid and frightened that death is finally coming for her, Myrraxion sends her ward out into a world he barely remembers to find it’s source, along with a promise. End the curse and be set free.
It's still Eldritch Blast focused, but I've had fun with a Warlock who, rather than going for Agonizing Blast right away, went for Grasp of Hadar *and* Repelling Blast, and turned Eldritch Blast into a sort of battlefield control spell, moving enemies around the battlefield, knocking them into traps or obstacles, repositioning them, etc. Combined with Misty Step and the Archfae Warlock abilities, it sort of transformed Eldritch Blast into just being about the damage into a more tactical and interesting spell.
My current warlock is an aasimar paladin/warlock playing in a Realms campaign. Really pushing the fallen angel seeking redemption aspect, he stated as a paladin who follows The Red Knight. She sent one of her Solar agents to provide more utility and strategic options to my character after a few levels (in-game background to allows the multi-class) thus gaining some levels as a celestial warlock (looking to be a pact of the blade). As the face for the group he does all he can to avoid entering into combat by first discussing with any opposition why they are destined to lose the battle, openly displaying his amulet showing patronage to The Red Knight, and often ending conflicts without drawing his blade or shedding blood. The rogue in our party uses that time to strategically place herself by sneaking and our druid just acts bored behind me with an occasional quip to reinforce the hopelessness of entering conflict with our group. Its been a fun change from most games where it is smash everything type of play, though that usually ends up happening at some point as not everyone will work our the reason we always have the advantage. As a twist I wanted to avoid being the typical EB lock so took Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade as the paladin is a duelist. Having the GFB and BB gives some options in combat situations and a way around resistances most of the time. It has been one of the better hold the line characters I have played, gaining a high ac with the paladin heavy armor, ability to heal from two classes and race without using spells, and good boosts to my weapon attacks when forced into combat. Not being a blast lock took a little getting used too and I don't think it would work as well without the heavy armor but it is a nice change and has been effective with the group at lower levels of play (we just crested 5th last game starting at 1st)
Love it - first character I played in a long 5E campaign. Only thing I was dissatisfied with was the Patron character wasn't really involved in the story of the game at all. Anybody looking to play one , have a quick chat with your DM about how involved you expect/want your patron to be in your character's story and save yourself some grief. Happy Eldritch Blasting :)
Bryan Smith in a game i am playing in (as a dark elf warlock) with a newble GM. Me and the party got to meet my patron, and the patron plays a apart in the plot besides from giving me magic spells. I think it depends on the GM but i think meeting your patron or having your patron involved in things is probably the best way to do it. Becuase as a warlock you are the agent of this magical being, and it's giving you tasks to do in order to further it's goals in exchange for giving you magical abilities.
Well one cool thing about Eldritch Blasts is how much space it leaves for flavoring it Yourself. Celestial warlock shots out streams of glittering stars, feylock fires arrows of quicksilver from their moonbow (also pact weapon), undying lunches spectral skulls of the damned, that scream with agony
I actually used Betty White as the great old one a while back. She communicated in a very motherly way and made demands around cleaning up the kingdom of random monsters or dangerous magic items.
My current character is a tiefling great old one warlock and I am LOVING IT! I reflavored all my spells with new names and custom descriptions to have them themed as cosmic horror and tentacle spells. I’ve had almost as much fun creating these reflavored spells as I have actually playing the character. Eldritch invocations are an amazing mechanic and really help to customize our warlock in such unique ways to tailor to your play style and flavor
they should have given the extended spell list from your patron for free like they do with clerics that you already know them and dont count towards spells known
I've played an Archfey/Oath of the Ancients, it was a lot of fun. Before C2 of Critical Role even started, you could compare the character to Jester in the way she behaved (minus the artistry) Had a friendly rivalry with the party rogue. "Oh, that's a nasty looking pit you just fell in, let me show you how to do it." and Misty step to the other side. She'd get me a few times too, "Let me show you how to hit something." After several rounds of combat without hitting a thing Lots of fun, miss that group
I enjoyed my Fey-bladelock / Weaponmaster fighter. You get defensiv spells like "fairy fire" "Armor of Agathys" and iirc. "Misty step". The blade-based invocations as well as "Armor of Shadows" synergize well with the battle masters maneuvers. Since there is a trait you can take to get a Maneuver you can start on the multiclass path right from lvl 1. UA runescribe and runefighter could also be fun to weirden up the warlock even further giving the some additional at will/ dayli abilities with potential roleplay possibilities. Your Ancient patron could have introduced you to the awesome powers of the runes.
You can talk to your DM and see if they are ok running Warlock as an Int-based caster to open up other multiclass options (or just do it anyway and be MAD) - there's great synergy with Wizard and Artificer abilities/classes, for example. Or use the melee cantrips and pair with a rogue -- consider a chain lock/rogue whose familiar is constantly using the help action (it can do that without breaking invisibility), so you have advantage on booming blade, you get your sneak attack because it's still a melee attack, then bonus action disengage and step back and force the target to move if it wants to hit you back... ;) Then there's always feats to keep it interesting.
This was great! I really hope y'all go over the other classes again seeing how much we've gotten so much new content from WotC. Especially classes that seem kinda bland at first such as the Sorcerer or Barbarians that only got 2 subclasses in the phb.
I went Grave Domain Cleric/Celestial Warlock for all the extra curative benefits that the warlock brings to the table such as healing light and a small dice pool of healing to draw from. As well as the short rest spell slots and of course Eldritch blast. I also plan on going pact of the chain to gain a familiar which can help the party in various ways as well.
My favorite warlock build was Archfey Warlock. Misty Visions + Mask of Many Faces, the repelling blast. I took Chain to talk inside silent images. And it was a blast. Plant Growth/Hunger of Hadar + Repelling blast is a brutal combo in some fights. I didn't use Hex or Agonizing blast because more damage was boring. But at-will pushing made it a lot more rewarding. And I had a ton of tools for out of combat encounters. Also, faerie fire for my rogue and gunslinger was a much better use than Hex tbh.
Hey guys really enjoying the channel old school gamer started with 1st ed D+D and Tunnels and Trolls so my recall is becoming a bit scratchy but I’m sure I can remember the warlock being a character class offered in either dungeon mag or white dwarf mag it may not have been “canon “but I’m pretty sure it was there in 1st ed.
It was out of necessity not some grand plan unfortunately. I think we made room for a UA, but had filmed this one with a different ad spot. Nerdarchist Dave
Honestly, I would love for a variant feature for each patron type that slightly adjusts how Eldritch blast works for warlocks of that patron, instead of it being "force damage, multiple beams, these invocations" for everyone. It's just a customizable spell that I feel like it's potential is wasted as is
I play a Drow Warlock (Celestial) and I am my parties healer. I took the Urchin background and role play that my character was a low born male Who was a slave in Drow society. Essentially my charterer became a Warlock as means of betraying the Drow. by siding with the powers of good he has become the the worst "Evil" his society could envision. I play the character as soft spoken and kind a protector of innocents and someone focused on Bringing light to darkness. The sacrifice come sin the fact that i have all of my racial flaws so in some case the powers i wield can harm or be disconcerting to myself.I treat my party as my adoptive Drow House and defer all decisions tot he most powerful casting female on the team. I always save the females before the males.
I actively try not to use Eldritch blast unless I have to I love looking at invocations and finding combos that work Like I have a drow in my party that casts darkness on my cloak do I can keep concentration on another spell like hex or shadow blade and just ambush an entire group of people The warlock has so many good utility spells and is so rewarding for players that like to fight by outsmarting , like a well placed major image or disguise self
My last Warlock was a Kenku with great old one and tome pact. He believed that the Dukes of Aaqua was his patron and tome allowed him to speak telepathically (30ft limit though) to the party once he became acclimated to being with them. He sought flight and got Fly as one of his abilities/spells. Went with as many of the mind/psionic spells as well. Most enjoyable!!
I'm currently playing my first Warlock that I can remember well. He's a Shadow Monk, Celestial Pact of the Blade Warlock. Out of the 3 party members, he's the worst when it comes to damage but he's the best when it comes to stealth. In our next 3 levels, he'll be able to teleport in dim light and darkness and will gain advantage on his next attack. One of the invocations he'll get will also allow him to turn invisible in dim light or darkness and stay that way even if he's no longer in dim light or darkness. Aside from this, he focuses on using his Spell slots to cast Cure wounds while focusing on using cantrips or melee attacks.
Don't forget your create darkness on yourself and teleport multiple times to the edge of the 15feet circle while it travel it with you. And bring the invocation to see through normal and magical darkness. ;D
@@GreenBaji I definitely won't but I don't use it often unless the enemies are spread out so then I can take on one group and not be a hindrance to my allies.
currently playing a fiend warlock, tome boon in a campaign. reached lvl 14 last session. i freaking love warlocks! i love the constrictions. they make you come up with amazing things to get what you want
Hail Nerdist! My name is Andrew, and currently I am playing a Fire Genasi, warlock with the Head Boss Big Bad Patron of the Fire plane- Kossuth, and his fire Efreeta (female fire genie) as my personal patron. So I focus a lot of my spells and powers around Fire; obviously. But I found even at low level (current level 4) I can still use other cantrips like control flames, and thunderclap, allowing for more than Eldritch blast, given different circumstances. Other spells like Hellish Rebuke, misty step, firebolt, and witch bolt offer more fire based spells that fit the running theme. The back story is rich with haunted one, The old one, motivations to serve both my character, and his paton's personal in life goals. Though it is dealing with fire genie, neither are slave or master, but the edge is given to the Efreeta because they provide the powers. It's great fun so far, because of those dynamics. Thanks for your time and your show. Keep up the Nerdarchy!
Ah I miss my half elf faelock whom patron was his Ancester, pact of the blade with the + invocation gave him the bow of his ancester and ohhh he was so much fun! Another warlock i had was a homebrew so please dont mind as much but it was reflavoured fiendlock that instead of spell slots he got another invocation and cantrip from anyclass and was a "Dragon" patron. Also got dragons breath spell to use as an invocation. Sp fun
Bardlocks, Monklocks, Roguelocks, so many fun combinations. Not to mention anyone can just multiclass into it over the course of the game with a little interaction with extraplanar entities. I made a Changeling Hexblade/Battlemaster to be a Landsknecht type character, but with a different aesthetic and slightly different leveling choices that character could easily be a swashbuckling charismatic pirate type. Or you could combine the two aesthetics for what I'm gonna call a Watersknecht!
My first AL character was a celestial warlock. It's now level 20; 12 warlock (blade), 7 inquisitive rogue, 1 fighter. He's a half elf blow wielder with sharp shooter, and is usually sniping eldrich smites from extreme range (with sneak attack); 14d8+8d6 on a crit! He tosses healing in emergency situations, and rebukes on the rare occasions he gets hit. The only time I eldrich blast is to force something out of illusory prison to activate the secondary damage effect.
I like playing the hex blade and mixing in both eldritch blast and green flame blade. It really makes it fun when you have a weapon +1 that is always with you that also causes flame damage that explodes killing everything else.
what i did was go for battle field control. i talked my DM into a homebrew invocation that i have seen others use that lets you move a target 10' per hit in whatever direction you want. because face it, if you could get one that pushes and one that pulls, then you have the power to move things why force you to only get one direction. i move things around on the battle field to help the team. but a problem, i am the only real caster in the group so no one is dropping AOE spells for me to force people together. if someone had a fireball i could move targets into range and go nuking. i went raven queen and pact of the chain so i have a nice raven and the imp so i scout ahead for use and i help when we are in town apart to pass around info. also i have a passive perception that is 24 without the need of feats (i will show the math below) going with being a Tabaxi we joke i can hear flees fart. we homebrewed a invocation i have seen before that lets me cast find steed once per day so i have a sabertooth tiger i am walking around with. but what might be going away soon is i have a staff of power from curse of strahd that helps out a lot. no dedicated healer so the imp with a small potion belt along along with the Inspiring Leader and Healer feats i also back up heal everyone. Spare the dying cantrip also helps a lot (from mask of the raven queen's disciple). mixing your skills up (and maybe a few homebrew things and magic gear) you can easily make a warlock good for far more then just EB. how i get passive perception of 24 as a lvl 10 tabaxi raven queen warlock: 10 + 2 (wis) + 4 (proficient in perception) +2 ( mask of the raven queen's disciple) + 6 ((i get to add my cha if my raven is on my shoulder yes i have a +6 i rolled 18 +1 (tabaxi) +1 (mask of the raven queen's disciple) + 2 (tomb of leadership))
You’re correct about the “need” for warlock’s to maximize Eldritch Blast. I played in one group where I was yelled at for only taking one Eldritch Invocation that improved Eldritch Blast by another player. I had other abilities, but I wasn’t the most optimized for combat.
Warlock is indeed very versatile and can be built in a lot of different ways. The sheer versatility and number of choices can sometimes lead to choice paralysis though. It is important to take note of the factor that what ever direction you go in, as far as fish, spellcaster, and control all feel more powerful the more you invest into invocations that support your choice. Pact of the blade with weapon attack investments feel great as a gish striker Pact of the tome with ritual casting and other spell invocations can feel like a very powerful caster Pact of the chain with information gathering invocations can be one of the greatest ways to spy and scout that there is. And all of that without choosing a patron.
One of my ideas for a group of characters is to have two half-brothers being partial Warlock (Multiclassing) and their "sickly" half-sister being a celestial Patron
My current warlock is mainly focused more on the pact of the chain than the subclass. Having an imp familiar, and having a poisoners kit. I have a reasonable supply of 3d6 poison coming from the imp, and I have a whole bunch of daggers that I can poison and throw at people. It feels pretty unique so far.
One of my players is currenty a fiend pack warlock who made deals for knowledge multiclassed into transmutation wizard and has now taken 1 level in cleric arcana domain. Its weird and jank but i really appreciate the role play hes doing to make a character discovering how the world work at its most fundamental and how he can alter it
I was playing a GouLock up to level 9 when i discover that my patreon was a god that did lose powers and not he start to grow again so i multiclass into cleric and it was one of my favourite character to play
Best not cliché build I found, built for lv10 as that the bread and butter level of all games: you can go aasimar for the extra damage for 1min, yuan ti for MR or half elf for the more social build. I go half elf. Old one as it has the most shenanigans and best bonus spell to not just be the EB turret. BG a pick of either charlatan or noble variant for servants and boy you're lucky if you get the life event of life debt. Lv1 cantrips: EB(ofc) and prestidigitation, spells hex and unseen servant. Lv2: pick a spell you're gonna be replacing it at 3 anyway do whatever. Invo: agonising blast and mask of meny faces. Lv3 replace one 1st LV spell with phantasmal force and pick suggestion. Pact boon you can pick either tome with find familiar or chain lock doesn't make that much of a difference in the build unless you know you're going late game lv15+ then go chain lock. Lv4 mage hand cantrip and pick a replacement spell. Lv5 replace and pick one of 3: counter spell, hunger of hadar and thunder step, invocation signs of I'll omen, it's just a better hex but it's once per day so you want to hang on to hex as well. Lv6 pick the spell you didn't from the prior list. Lv7 the problem is you have 5 great spells here: blight, banishment, dimension door, hypnotic pattern and sickening radiance and you can only pick one replace one. Summon greater demon didn't make the list as it's a coin toss spell with an opportunity to backfire. This is where you need to be making a judgement from the campaign thus far. If you're facing lots of planar and elemental foes, banishment, if the GM likes to run mobs at you, radiance. If there is always a lieutenant, blight and if you like troll builds, hypnotic patter. For invocation sculptor of flesh that can save a party members life by turning them into a rex, gorilla, whatever. Also it can save your life as well. At lv8 you pick a spell dun matter as you'll be replacing it. Lv9 synaptic static and dominate person with your choice of either tome or chain invocation, or Lance of lethargy to make it harder for opponents to leave aoe spells/run away or repelling blast to push foes back into aoe spells. Lv10 is your general campaign capstone as very few adventures go much beyond that so you need to be online. Cantrips don't matter much so pick something, I do minor illusion for the RP. For spells, pick one of the 5 from the lv3 spells you didn't. Remember you still only have 2 spell slots per short rest and as you can see most of these spells are all situational and concentration and have different dynamics depending on need. Your main combat damage ability is still EB with the AB invocation, and most of your other spells, while flavourful are ment to be a battlefield troll or social/intrigue abilities most revolving around uncommon saves. So go nutz.
There have been two warlocks in my current campaign. While they're mechanically pretty similar (they were even both tieflings), both players brought excellent backstories that led to at least a handful of sessions revolving around them and their patrons.
I play an archfey tomelock that uses shillelagh and booming blade in battle. Out of combat I'm the utility caster with book of ancient secrets. I've shot like 3 Eldritch blasts the whole campaign lol
Simple solution to the constant Eldritch Blast? Don’t take Eldritch Blast. On the Warlock spell list are Chill Touch to prevent healing for a round, Frostbite to impose disadvantage on the next weapon attack, Toll the Dead to get d12 damage dice if the enemy is damaged even a single hit point already. Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade for melee Warlocks. Celestial Pact gives Sacred Flame as a bonus cantrip. Multiclass or take Magic Initiate or Spell Sniper to get Sorcerer cantrips like Acid Splash, Firebolt, and Ray of Frost. Free up those Invocations for at will spells.
In one of the games I'm in currently, I'm running a character that's mostly (10 out of 12 levels) Archfey Pact Warlock, and he's been tons of fun- and rarely uses Eldritch Blast more than once or twice a fight. Hell, our Pyromancer slings Fire Bolt at least five times as much as I Eldritch Blast, and he's got WAY more spell options than I do, lol! My warlock used to be some other race (I didn't decide what, left it for the DM to play with) but as part of the pact his soul got moved into the body of a dead Warforged Envoy. (The Archfey wiped most of his memory as part of the deal, too, since his life had pretty much sucked balls anyway.) In return, he had to spend for five years (all backstory, before the game started) protecting a section of wilderness from abuse by 'civilization'. He does retain the benefits of his Urchin background, though, which is good; for his tool set as a Warforged Envoy, I had it be Thieves' Tools. Thanks to the Warforged Envoy form he can shift into different armored states, allowing him to be more tanky sometimes if I think I'll need to. I rolled really well when we were rolling stats (18, 17, 17, 17, 11, 9, the DM said if he hadn't watched it happen he'd have said I was lying, lol) so since he uses a spear all the time I skipped my first ASI to get the feat Spear Mastery for both flavor and increased usefulness in battle. I went with Pact of the Tome. His Invocations are Book of Ancient Secrets so I could get Find Familiar, Devil's Sight for long-range dark vision, Eldritch Sight for unlimited casting of Detect Magic, and Gift of the Depths because swim speed, and Eldritch Spear for crazy long range Eldritch Blasts. Early on I gave him two levels of Druid- taking the Circle of the Shepherd- to give him a splash of healing and utility spells, and because it fits the RP aspects of the character. I go with the Bear Spirit totem, adding a bit of party buff that can be regularly refreshed without cutting into my limited spell slots.
I tend to multi class and use items to augment PC choices. As DM I removed the scrolls spell list restrictions so even non casters can use them if truly needed. All they have to do succeed at an arcana roll for it.
I had a half elf undying warlock that made a pact with a Bealnorn in a crypt in Myth Drannor. His pact weapon was a longbow and his eldritch blast took the form of valleys of force arrows.
My favorite 5e character so far has been my Kobold Fey Warlock. Tons of fun RP, Favorite spell Sleep, never realize how fun it is when you cast it at 5th level! We didn't do a ton of higher level games so we kind of accelerated their higher levels, I ended up going Divine Sorcerer to play off of the Fey Warlock, with a celestial/seelie heritage on one side from sorcerer, and an unseelie fey patron, and the two duking it out over my soul.
One thing I'd like to see in the future is for the Patron of the Undying to get an Eldritch Invocation that allows them access to Animate Dead as a spell. Mechanically, I think it makes sense since they already get access to Speak with Dead for their spell list. Thematically, I think it also makes sense you're serving something connected to the undead. That kind of an addition would certainly give traditional Necromancers a run for their money. Personally I'm using a Drow Elf Tomelock, with the Undying Court of Aerneal as his patron (under the Pact of the Undying patron option). To really spice it up, I also drafted up a homebrew Eldritch Invocation (with DM approval), to really make the class shine: =========================== "Gift of the Undying Court"/"Gift of the Dead" Prerequisites: 6th level, Pact of the Undying patron. (The Undying Court of Aerenal is suggested as your Patron, but is open to DM discretion.) [Additional Option: Pact of the Tome pact boon feature, and Book of Ancient Secrets Eldritch Invocation. (Also at DM discretion.)] You can cast the Animate Dead spell, without using a spell slot, once per short or long rest. [Optional: At DM Discretion, Inclusion of Pact of the Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets.] If you also have the Pact of the Tome pact boon feature, and the Book of Ancient Secrets eldritch invocation, paired together, you can scribe the Animate Dead spell into your tome and cast it as a ritual, without using a spell slot, and without using spell components. At 10th level, this becomes an at-will ability.
Agonizing Blast is the only eldritch blast invocation that I really consider mandatory, Repelling Blast is another I take reasonably often, the other ones I have pretty much never taken, I more prefer taking invocations that help you get around the problem of having really few spell slots, which is taking invocations that give you access to other things to do that don't spend your spell slots, like being able to cast various spells at will. Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation also help a lot with expanding your options.
I'm making a Sorlock currently to get over this hurdle. I wanted to play a Warlock, but I didn't want to get relegated to just Eldritch Blasting every turn. Divine Soul Sorlock. Sorcerers get very few spells known, so by pimping out my Eldritch Blast to max with two levels of Warlock I'm able to take more support spells (and some healing as well), and only keep like Fireball as an AOE damage option for when the team really needs it. This way, I still get to spam Eldritch Blast frequently (sometimes twice a turn, because of Quickened Metamagic) for reliable damage, but I'm also very useful to the party because I'm the guy that's casting Twinned Enlarge or Twinned Haste on your melee dudes. At least that's how I hope it will turn out :D It's also funny how getting the third Warlock level and then using the Warlock slots to replenish Sorcery point pretty much makes it so that you get your lvl 20 feature way sooner.
I’m playing a celestial warlock pact of the chain healer/tank sort of. I heal myself and my allies and with the gift of the ever living ones, fiendish vigor, tomb of levistus it’s hard to get me to drop. I love the action economy with this build and my familiar is awesome and it’s one of my favorite characters that I’ve ever played
I've always wanted to play that combo. Without multi-classing or taking certain feats, a celestial chainlock is the only class that can heal with their familiar and that's really cool.
I still wish you guys would take a look at my homebrew rewrite of the warlock class. I tried to email it to you months ago and haven't heard back, so I don't even know if it was received. The whole point of it is to rearrange the class features so that the type of pact you strike provides your primary abilities, the patron provides the spell list and flavors those abilities through specific invocations, and the various invocations are re-balanced so each can be a good option. I think it enhances the flexibility of the class and offers more interesting decisions when crafting your characters. It's tough to remove the EB reliance, but I think I've toned it back so other options are also viable. Firstly only the tome (the main caster) subclass gets the new agonizing blast, and second, that ability applies to every damage roll of every spell/cantrip. Finally, any given warlock can only get 2 EB invocations: the range upgrade which is basic, and a special bonus granted by your patron. These vary from the push/pull effect to healing to a shockwave for extra damage. I've got five patrons figured out so far: the Fey, Fiend, Great Old One, Celestial, and Raven Queen. Each uses almost the same expanded spell list as the official versions and comes with around 10 unique invocations that were either taken, modified, or made up to fit the patron's theme. I've expanded on the old pact boons, including many options that were found in invocations before, and even made an attempt at adding a fourth pact that provides a stealth/illusion option, called the Pact of the Bell. It took a while to work out just what features I wanted to include, but I recently managed to narrow it down to a backstab-like ability and several things based on the illusionist subclass of wizard. I think it will provide an interesting alternative to the Arcane Trickster for a magic/rogue build. Sadly, I haven't been able to test any of this design yet, and I'm thinking I should probably get permission from my DM to build exclusively warlocks from my new design until I feel it's been balanced. I've tried to balance it in design but that's only using mathematics, not experience.
To fix the cantrip problem, perhaps one solution could be to remove it and in its place allow warlocks to pick their signature cantrip or have it tied to their subclass, like firebolt for the fiend, sacred flame for celestial, toll the dead for undying, or one of the SCAG blade cantrips for hexblade, any invocations that affected EB could be applied to their signature cantrip instead and either their base damage brought in line with EB or have interesting features in the subclasses that apply to them
Use magic initiate to access more cantrips, chill touch, ray of frost and even firebolt have useful applications outside of pure damage dealing so are great utility spells also you can get a lv1 spell for free that can more or less take the place of one of your invocations so you can take the invocations that really speak to your character. My personal build would be a cowboy with a magic wand styled like a Colt peace maker, variant human, hexblade pact of the tome starting with the spell sniper feat, taking the agonizing blast and book of ancient secrets invocations at lv2.
I made a mountain dwarf, celestial blade 'lock. He hastily accepted his patron's call after being offered fame and glory. He goes around calling himself a paladin bit fully understanding what that means or his situation. Its a sub-optimium build trying to make a as paladiny as possible forgoing many usual warlock abilities, and spending the first asi for heavy armor proficiency. Can't wait for his world to crash, when obligation hits and he may do something he doesn't like.
i think hexpally is amazing to play in game i got a Portector Assimar called Zeffice the ruthless hes a pact of the blade warlock with two double ended shortswords called the gemini and hes a pally of acients his aim is to protect the multiverse from anything that troubles it hes a light heart soul with a ruthless attitude when it comes to combat he will not give up as long as theres a single breath in his body i dont know how to explain my chrecter part from this one explination throght i share this with you guys
Since Agonizing Blast works per beam (several Sage Advice columns have confirmed this) - you can really "sell" the Warlock - on a mechanical level - as more of a "highly magical and versatile archer" (similar in power level to a ranged Fighter) than a full spellcaster.
He makes the exact point people are saying that fighter is no different or barbarian in combat...sure you can pick a fighting style but that is no different then picking an invocation to change it up, push, pull, damage, slow.. fighter attack....attack....attack....dodge....attack.. There is literally no difference expect invocations actually gives you more options esp since a warlock can change out spells on rest (given Ua options..)
The warlock I am using does use eldric blast, but the big thing with him is his role playing, LN that makes deals for his fiend Patron. He will ask them before they die if they will change there ways if they are humanoid. He gets them to sign a contract and if they break it his patron gets there soul. He plays like a gangster from the early mob years and even dresses like it. Weapon is a staff but it is custom to look like a fancy walking cane.
I didn't start off the campaign with the idea of multiclassing into warlock but the DM approached me when my bard was lv 6 asking would I be ok with doing it for the story. I was forced "in story" to only take warlock levels and am now lv 12. It turns out that lv6 bard lv6 warlock is quite powerful due to the access to all of the extra spell slots for casting warlock spells.
I had a warforged Hexblade(was going for a lv3 shadow sorcerer dip) once, he always summoned his weapon (Halberd and Longbow) and was a Tank Damager. Literally took the idea from Dark souls Black Knight with the lightning bow in the intro. Felt like he played like an Alt-paladin with Booming Blade instead of Smites
I have a Celestial, Pact of the Blade Warlock at 7th level, he's quickly becoming the magic bloodhound/mage hunter of the group as he's built for more detecting and disabling magic rather then casting though he does have a fair few hard hitting spells that tend to help. While he's no tank he is someone a mage would hate.
Its always slightly interesting to think of the idea of a shelelegh tomelock. Which with a Celestial warlock could actually make an interesting style. Green flame blade. You'd add Cha to the damage on the weapon, and the green flame.
Black dragonborn pact of the great old one tomelock with the archaeologist background. I wanted a bit flavor and function, and it turned out wonderfully. I hope I can play again when I'm feeling psyched up enough to roleplay and the weather gets better.
The best part of a Warlock is the flavor and the roleplay aspect: Hexblade: Take the pact of the blade, call it a katana and give it the stats of a scimitar. Still take Eldritch Blast, but make it take the shape of shurikens. Now you have a mystical ninja, just make sure to take stealth and deception. Undying: That character can be cursed by a Lich or a Mummy Lord, then the souls of those cursed before link with the character to prevent the transformation. Now the character is bound to help these souls to find final rest. Eldritch Blast now takes the shape of tiny motes of light representing lost souls striking the opponent. Take Pact of the Tome and learn rituals like Ceremony, take religion and deception, and now you can pass as a wandring Cleric of the Grave Domain.
One thing I did for warlock was instead of spell slots used a mana point where the max they could do was 4 5th lvl spells and then if they wanted they could cast more lower level spells I let them replenish during rest by using their hit dice so they split between that and healing
I played a hexblade/pact of the tome bugbear warlock. 9 levels in warlock and 1 level in rogue. I took the feat spell sniper so I could green flame blade properly at 10 feet. with the alert feat and aspect of the moon invocation I let the party sleep. It was fun build and I would love to play it again. Sadly the homebrew campaign was heavily demons and devils so that GFB cantrip was trash.
Yeah defiantly it is a bit tricky to go warlock and not eldritch blast everything. A lot of the possibly cool options for extra combat umph (druid and barbarian come to mind most) add new flavour but restrict your spell caster a limited but sometimes very useful combo. An idea i have been toying around with is a monk warlock combo, i feel this duo has a lot of ways to supplement each other, i know there is the obvious voice of shadow monk and drop darkness, but i have been trying to come up with something a little less on the nose although that does sound fun
Warlock is my favourite class. I don't try to re-invent the wheel: I take the power that I'm given and run wild with it. Hexblast all the things! Unfortunatelly, by changing it to a cantrip and removing the shapes/sizes/types of eldritch blast, they messed it up royally. As it stands, eldritch hexblast is the best thing someone can be doing without access to magic weapons and in our high level campaign, we have a swords bard/warlock, a devotion paladin/warlock and a warlock/warlock because after level 17 hexblast is the thing.
My most "successful" Warlock thus far has been a Pact of the Celestial, an Envoy Warforged (yes, still going since before the disastrous latest Eberron book) constructed for the sole purpose of housing the essence of a (very slowly) dying Solar. Between intrigue with their chapter of Ilmater worshipers being slightly corrupt, the sometimes differing goals and ideals of the Solar themselves and a Warforged who must balance their deeply emotional attachment with their passenger as well as their desire to alleviate the burdens of the world's most unfortunate even at the cost of his own safety has just been, if you'll pardon the pun, a blessing. It's also rather amusing that the Warlock at the table is the party's singularly most empathic and positive force, not to mention the reactions of the general populace as this glistening, winged and immaculately gilded construct bestows blessings and healing like some mythological servant of the gods.
I have currently two warlock builds in my head. One the great old one pact of the tome and one warlock/bard archfey pact of the tome & collage of glamour. The first heavy cantrip, with feat magic initiate to get like 10 cantrips and "free" castings. The second has bit more magic and focus on manipulation.
I'm playing a Celestial sorlock with pact of the chain.. so I am planning to take Voice of the Chain Master, Investment of the Chain, and later using a feat to either get Gift of the Ever Living One's or Agonizing Blast. I have to pick 3 out of those 4 that I want. Lol. It's the max invocations I can have since Eldritch Adept seems to only be available once.
I've had to home-brew other attack cantrips to solve the monotony of eldritch blast. I just reskinned the abilities to apply to firebolt or green flame blade or booming blade . It helps open up some more customization
i like to see how i can chain different spells together to make the warlock spells feel like combo attacks. like you drop a bonfire, then the next turn you blast them back through the bonfire and they take the damage. you end up with 3 D10 + 15 + 3D8 if you pull it off right and your DM gives you the +5 for every blast at level 11. that adds up to 69 damage from a full hit at max rolls and no crits/nat 1 fails. you can do it with other aoe spells as well letting you work with other players to set up super moves.
The big problem with Hexblade is that it was created to fix one very big problem with Pact of the Blade Warlocks, basically that they suck. It's a Pact that strongly suggests a melee style, but you only have light armour. Good luck surviving with that. However by giving Hexblade so much, medium armour and shield, the ability to use Charisma as your attack stat instead of Strength or Dexterity, you create a dip that any sane Charisma caster will drop into for one level (probably level 2) just because it gives them the ability to protect themselves. You don't even have to to take Eldritch Blast... though of course you should. However Shield is a trap for Warlocks. They don't have spare low level spell slots, so you're burning one of your 2-4 high level slots to cast it. It's good for that dip from another class (like Bard, for example). In my view the coolest "Warlock" is a College of Swords Bard. Take your first level in Bard, then take three levels in Hexblade/Pact of the Blade, that will give you Eldritch Blast, Booming Blade, Agonizing Blast, Improved Pact Weapon, obviously Shield and Hex plus another couple of spells that Bards don't normally get, Armor of Agathys and Hellish Rebuke seem appropriate. I would use a Tiefling Descendent of Levistus as the base. You're a Bard, but you can summon eldritch great swords and bash people with them.
My Hexblade build mostly swings his sword instead of eldritch blasting, I use the branding smite spell at the beginning of a combat encounter and that greatly improves damage output so that I don't HAVE to rely on eldritch blast.
Having played two Warlocks in 5E, I think I can see some of the ways to improve the class. One problem is that some campaigns don't follow the rigorous eight encounter a day style that the 5E creators intended. Instead they have one big encounter a day. This shortchanges the Warlock (as well as Fighters and Monks). DMs who intentionally eschew the eight encounter work day should multiply the number of Pact Magic slots by three to account for the missing Short Rests. The other problem with the Warlock is that they are frontloaded in how they get class features, so multiclassers dip into the class and scorn those like me who actually play a dedicated Warlock. One way to fix it is to make Eldritch Blast a class feature, rather than a cantrip. Using this variant, Eldritch Blast will scale only through Warlock levels, rather than casters who dip into Warlock. The final problem with Warlock is that the Hexblade is so much better mechanically than all the other subclasses. I still haven't seen a proper fix for this problem.
Your solution to the encounter issue is way too over powered, there's a reason full casters dont get more than 3 slots for levels above 1st, having 6 5th level spells available would be busted. If you have an issue with this just dip a level or 2 into sorcerer or bard for some more slots.
Honestly, almost every problem with 5e can be solved by switching to the optional "gritty realism" rest variant in the DMG. Long rests being a week of downtime and short rests being overnight really enables warlocks and other short rest classes to shine. Even the wizard is improved, getting much more mileage from Arcane Recovery.
I don’t think any of theses are necessary to put in the rule book and could be solved by people who are worried about this discussing it with your dm beforehand and figuring something out
@@ethanlocke3604 Well, of course you should talk to the DM about any issues, and the problem with warlocks and spell slots is easy to fix by ensuring that the party gets a short rest after most fights. The problem is that sometimes the party themselves will not take those short rests, and the cleric or wizard will want to push on, while the warlock is stuck with Eldritch Blast for the rest of the day. A party of a warlock, monk, fighter, and rogue is going to be a lot easier on the warlock than a party with them, a cleric, a wizard, and an artificer.
The celestial warlock can start adding charisma to fire/radiant spells at level 6, making green flame blade a good combat cantrip. Go pact of the tome and take shillelagh and green flame blade for a pretty decent gish.
I made a Tabaxi Warlock Celestial that was touched by Nabobion to try and help bring the Tabaxi away from the Cat Lord and to the Celestial Plane. This charactor believed so much in this he later became a multiclass Nature Cleric to better surve him.
i built a cursed one hexblade lock as a sword saint, she basically believed in the spirits of her ancestors lived in her sword and whispered to her, she used arms of hadar and booming blade but kept eldritch blast for her "bow" attack
I really love playing warlocks, so this is the story of the one Im currently playing as: He is a young pirate that stole a cursed tresure from another ship, making by a pact with Tibalt by accident (so I made him a fiend warlock), he has Devil's Sight, Fiendish vigor because i think it goes well thematicly, and Im planing on armor of Shadows and the pact of the blade. So when he cast these spells Devil's sight and fiendish vigor will make my character look more like his patron and armor of shadows will cast his clothes like a burning piece of paper as well as his scimatar. he has defensive duelist and Im planing on taking martial adept so he can parry and riposte btw he points his fingers like a gun and casts elditch blast hahaha
I think I found a funny way to play Warlock/ Hexblade by taking Orc as race and going for a straight up melee build. Orc not just giving me a lot of movement but also supports the roleplay aspect to be Evil and intimidate people. Eldritch Blast became the alternative if something is too far away. ANd to explain what "master" or higher being he serves I went to route that he read a cursed tome that forced him into a pact and the stronger he becomes the stronger becomes the connection to this pact. Warlocks also have a great variety for spells that can support a melee character. Like the combination to see through darkness and using Darkness on himself which is an incredible combination in melee combat, especially in lower lvl. And if you combine that with war caster you are an unstoppable force that can even summon demons in a fight. With lvl 5 things get already really crazy. If this post get's enough likes I will share my written background story of the character if anyone is interested in that.
Just as long as you realize that nobody besides you can see through that darkness unless you specifically build a darklock party. And if you do that, expect the DM to throw in a caster with Daylight or some type of dispel.
@@Nurk0m0rath Highly possible, but this darkness is not meant to be the standard and more like a strong situation solver. I will mostly use to summon demons and catch the souls of my enemies to sell them to the forced into master. :3
@@GreenBaji So, your solution to a highly dangerous situation is to fight alone, in utter darkness, with no support from the allies you supposedly travel with because you're stronger together? Bear in mind that the only RAW mechanical benefit to this tactic is that you can attack with advantage (because enemies can't see you) while they attack with disadvantage (because they can't see you). It's the same benefit as a greater invisibility spell or being hidden, except with the added benefit/penalty that nobody but you can see anything within 20ft of the focal point, unless they're fiends or have blindsight. While some tables may play with rules that you can't attack anything you can't see, it's far too easy in D&D to metagame away almost all penalties to blindness. Don't get me wrong, I do like the tactic and I still think it can have its uses. I just haven't found them yet. It would make sense as a way to divide the battlefield or "crowd control" one or several targets while your allies deal with other objectives ... except that there are usually better ways to do so. Creatures can make their way out of the darkness by following the sound of combat unless you have a friend cast silence as well, and even then can randomly wander outside the zone. They can still attack anyone inside, just with disadvantage. There's no saving throw to avoid being trapped, and as far as I know there's no hard-and-fast rule that prevents them from targeting a distant enemy with a ranged attack (which means some tables may use this rule while others will not). Spells, however, sometimes have line of sight requirements that may come into play. But ultimately, I guess it comes down to your table. If yours lets you get away with stuff like this once in a while, enjoy it.
@@Nurk0m0rath I get your point it has a drawback yes, but If it comes to these situations I want to remind that I wouldn't use it for a all standard fights. I had one situation where I had to battle alone a strong enemy because he challenged the group to send our best fighter to duel him. In that situation I would have loved to use it, but I wasn't the needed level for the spell. Another Situations I have in mind would be to snipe out strong single targets, taking advantage of being surrounded by enemies, to cause chaos if you infiltrate a place or intimidate someone with just punches until he submit. 10 Minutes with the warcaster feat could create a long and intense battle. To give a bit more context of the campaign I using this character is my character the frontliner aka the tank that scares the shit out of the opponents. And at the beginning of this campaign I even was afrait to use Arms of hadar in fear to his my allies, but so far I never hit them with it so far. I am aware of it always depends on the situation and take care of my allies. ( Even if I have to contain myself as an Orc against the long ear in our group xD)
my warlock is the Celestial, also has one level of Life Cleric to beef up her healing and AC. her patron and cleric deity are the same, Vandria Gilmadreth.
I think u guys kinda downplayed how cool the pact of the tome can be. It gives you cantrips but then the book of ancient secrets also 2 lv 1 spell FROM ANY CLASS. You can pretty much bypass the pact of the chain by choosing find familiar. It also solves one problem for the warlock: u can now cast ritual spells and you can add more spells that u find adventuring around
The sameyness of characters is a bigger problem with 5e in general. Warlock is your Eldritch Blast guy. Clerics are your Spiritual Weapon plus Spirit Guardians guy with the only difference being if you use a Cantrip or Melee weapon attack. Wizards aren’t quite as bad but there are still a handful of spells at each spell level that really stand out and your Wizard will have one of them. Martial characters are either ranged or great weapon fighters with occasional sword or board builds. It doesn’t take long before you see all of these standard class builds show up at your table.
Links from Video
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The Ultimate Guide to Alchemy, Crafting & Enchanting for 5E - bit.ly/UltimateCraftingGuide2
While I do have a tough month I'll keep an eye on them. Even after the end of the month I bet they can legally sell on dmsguild and the likes. Kinda neat how you let DnDBeyond take a break sometimes :)
Warlocks dont get spellcasting they getvpact magic it is different and functions differently it doesn't stack when multiclassing like other spellcaster spell slots do they stack separately
@@davidmoseley1082 yes, though it's possible to use the short rest slots on other classes' spells. Like when a Paladin grabs one or two for smites. Iirc it's also possible to cast warlock spells with Pally spell slots :)
Nerdarchy look at every guide online, they’re all hexblades, so tbh I’ve seen few eldritch blast warlocks than weapon ones. At this point, being the eldritch blast warlock is the rare one.
When does the Out of Box Encounters book get shipped I cant wait
nerdarchy out here with that 3:15am upload (love that intro hahaha)
Hi, man! how's it going?
Great time for us europeans :P
Thanks and go to bed!.
Nerdarchist Dave
For Eldritch Blast variety one solution is to describe it as anything other than a generic amorphous blob of energy that you throw. Have the warlock's patron, pact, and even their background change what that spell effect looks like.
Does your warlock have the entertainer background or are they a Fiend warlock who get's their powers and Guild ranking from Rakdos himself? Then their casting of eldritch blast should look like knife juggling followed by surprise knife throwing.
Did they make a pact with a Celestial? Then their eldritch blast might look like they summoned a small swarm of Lantern Archons who just charged screaming into the face of the biggest enemy.
Archfey? They manifested the hunting bow of the lord or lady of the hunt and each time they draw back on the bow string the lifeforce of the surrounding plant life or the energies of winter or summer courts or whatever form the arrows.
Undying patron? Maybe your patron is Jack Skellington and all your eldritch blast projectiles look like tiny flaming Jack O' Lanterns. Or maybe you're the apprentice of a lich and your blasts look like you pulling your own bones or finger nails out of your body and lobbing them at the enemy.
Do they fight with a Staff, spear, lance, cane, rod, or polearm, and did they also take Spell Sniper and Eldritch Spear to boosts the range of their blast to 600+ feet? Then have them aim down the length of their weapon as the projectile manifests. Maybe the way they aim is different if based on their background. A soldier might take a knee and looks like they're aiming a sniper rifle, while a charlatan might look like he's lining up a shot with a pool cue.
As for Warlock builds, I like to vary it based on the theme of the patron and the character, but I almost always like to take Pact of the Tome to grab things that flesh out the build. Taking Shillelagh basically gives you a free magic weapon that relies on your main stat for attack and damage rolls which is already better than pact of the blade and gives 60% of the benefit of the Hexblade's level 1 ability. Taking Book of Ancient Secrets and choosing Find Familiar as one of your rituals give you most of the pact of the chain benefits with the main downside being loss of access to a couple really good Chain specific Invocations, and your basic familiar can't go invisible at will like Imps, Quasits, and Sprites. After that there's a dozen cantrips not on the Warlock Spell list that are great for any number of character concepts for your tome cantrip slots. Dancing Lights, Guidance, Mending, Encode Thoughts, Mold Earth, Control Flames, Shape Water, Gust, Vicious Mockery, Druidcraft, Message.
It should also be noted that the Celestial Patron's level 6 ability is limited Agonizing Blast for all Fire and Radiant damage spells. This can be an alternative to Eldritch Blast. Take Firebolt through Tome pact, magic initiate, or one of the Ravnica guild backgrounds. Take Green Flame Blade for any close quarters or tunnel fighting. Celestial patron gives you Sacred Flame for free which you can use on anything immune/resistant to fire damage.
I like the orb the translucent beast or fish maybe even a glowing ranged weapon even for the Eldritch blast skin.
You can also swap out it's base damage for battlefield control slick blast, caltrip blast, binding blast, stink blast and muffle weapon blast. Which basically covers the targets weapon in foam rubber and magically slow's it's swing down by as much as your damage as your blast would have done.
As a Great Old One warlock, I’ve been describing my blasts as spectral tentacles whipping out from my hands and lashing the enemy. My Toll the Dead is now “Piping of the Outer Servitors” and makes their ears bleed as well as damage them. 😁 as I go, I’ve been heavily theming my spell effects and the other players have been really enjoying it.
I have to agree though that there’s so much tied up in Eldritch Blast that it’s too tied to practically every warlock out there except Hexblade. I would like to see an alternative to it. Perhaps an option where “agonizing blast” type extra damage could apply to the Chain Familiar as you cast damaging cantrips through them, and the hex spell extra damage applied to the chain familiar’s attacks, or something. Thematically appropriate ways to keep the “arcane cannon” position of the Warlock, but different from just more flavor to Eldritch Blast.
@@queenannsrevenge100 there's already an agonizing blast alternative in the game. The 6th level ability of celestial warlocks is basically agonizing blast for both fire and radiant damage spells.
My favorite use of it is to pair firebolt and green flame blade with shillelagh on a tome pact warlock. If you can get firebolt by taking a renamed campaign flavored version of the Boros Legion background and free up two of your tome cantrips then so much the better. This trick is made even more fun with war caster, being a tiefling with flames of phlegethos, and 2 levels of paladin just to make your pyromaniac into a walking blast furnace.
At lv 5 you attack twice with EB and you can buff it. How meny attacks you're getting with a tome lock shillelagh? Why are you in melee with a 120 reach spell? You take the Lance invo it's 300...again why are you in melee? Why use alternate means to get less out of your damage spells? If the barb can hit it with it's axe, the Paladin can spam smite and your ranger can be a brooding lone wolf why can't I spam EB if it's effective and doesn't require me to handicap my character?
On the different appearances of EB yes I'm totally with you, some players just don't like to be creative in this manner that's why they feel it's stale...compared to hitting it with your sword...yeah... I'm...I'm all wif ya der fighta. If you want to be a non generic caster, go Wiz, even then you're most likely a troll, not a blaster as Wiz has the most insane troll spells and divination features. You want a pure blaster, sorc. Hands down.
Most people play lock for the flavor and the variety of mechanics, people that can't get through EB spam shouldn't play martial characters either.
I'm currently playing a Celestial warlock and I find myself using sacred flame as much as I do Eldritch Blast (though I do have to consciously remind myself to do so). "Oh cute, you're in cover hiding from my Eldritch Blast. make a dex save". It also really helps thematically as it hammers home the point that my character isn't a demon worshipper but is instead some celestial's deniable disposable asset for taking out evildoers. I also picked pact of the tome for some extra cleric cantrips and find myself throwing Resistance on my allies sometimes instead of just another Eldritch blast.
It sucks that sacred flame is near useless against demons and devils though due to them having advantage on saves. I'd rather make eldritch black a baseline feature with them themed in each subclass.
Celestial Warlock, also known as a Russian Cleric.
The thing I like most about celestial warlock is the way their lvl 6 ability can mostly replace agonizing blast and synergize with a bunch of different character options that veteran players don't expect from warlock.
Going pact of the tome to get Shillelagh and then layering green flame blade, heavy armor and smites from a 2 level dip in paladin, and maybe getting firebolt from tome, a feat, or a Ravnica background can be a fun way to turn a backline "mage" character into a frontline walking blast furnace.
The best part of the celestial Warlock is the possibility of the role reversal.
We all know about the GOO and the Fiend warlock, using their evil powers for good.
But... what about an EVIL celestial warlock?
Their patron might have something to say about that.
Who uploads dnd at 6am?
Nerdarchy:WARLOCK!!!
It's 0600 somewhere. :)
I feel like everyone focuses on the Eldritch Blast combat, and ignores the role playing aspects of a Warlock. The Eldritch Invocation combos are great. Take the Actor feat, Mask of Many Faces to disguise yourself at will, with Beguiling Influence to add proficiency to Deception and Persuasion, and you have the perfect Spy. Pact of the Chain Warlock, with a familiar that can cast invisibility, along with Voice of the Chain Master and Eyes of the Rune keeper, you have the perfect scout that can read any secret notes in the Enemy's Keep. Great Old One Warlock with a helm of comprehending languages, and Beast Speech, now you have the perfect Face that can speak to anyone, including animals, and understand any language.
I agree but that is kind of the point they brought up, there is A TON of customization for the non-combat aspect of the game and very little while in combat.
Or do all of those things at once
My Warlock uses EB for the opposite of a lot of reasons listed, using such a good Cantrip in combat gave lots of options, hitting multiple people, battle control (with the repelling blast), and that effectively imo let me take my spells and invocations which are more utility/exploration/social, because EB was so good that I had damage covered. It can be a crutch but it also lets you be able to shine elsewhere too because you dont have to worry so much about damage.
I found quite early on (it was my 1st character) that EB could pretty much do as much effective damage as most of my spells, and it also kinda pushed me to think more about non combat spells, and make a character fun in a lot more aspects from a mechanincal sense.
I had a lot of fun playing a Assassin/Hexblade Warlock, or as I called it an Asslock.
Lemme guess shadow blade is an important part of ya build ~?
@@GreenBaji shadow blade does not work with hex warrior...
If you want to use shadow blade, I would suggest going straight arcane trickster/ arcane trickster bladesinger multiclass
@@aldoushuxley5953 Jim never mentioned a Hex "warrior" .
My guess was about he using a Shadow blade which count as a light weapon and Finesse weapon for his stealth attack as a surprise attack.
@@GreenBaji hex warrior is the name of the level 1 feature of the Hexblade pact.
It gives you proficiency with medium armor and shields and *lets you attack with your charisma, if you use your pact weapon*
If you use the shadow blade instead of your pact weapon, you will miss out on attacking with your charisma and many important invocations like improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, eldritch smite etc.
In addition to that, shadow blade requires concentration (so no Hex, darkness, shadow of moil etc for you) and does not last very long, and warlocks do not have particularly many spellslots
I get that it is very flavourful, but I think it is a bad idea, to use it as your main weapon (still a good off-hand weapon though).
@@aldoushuxley5953 If you want to look it at from this damage and mechanic side I want to remind you that in higher level this Shadow blade raise up to 5d8 dmg ( if used from a lvl 7 spell-slot) for a single attack without included any sneak attack features.
But I get your point. Shadow blade can't be a pact weapon so it don't get all the features from a Hexblade. I think it all depends on how many lvls the play spend into hexblade. Because if he only goes 3 lvl into warlock he won't get the big features you just mentioned.
Anyway it's nice to have a place and someone to talk about Warlock topics.
I just rolled up an Undying Warlock for Tomb of Annihilation. Played as a failed Bard. Variant Human to get Prodigy and expertise in Performance at the jump. Excited to play him!
Fenton Dunhall was an up and coming bard in the small town of Nashkel on the northern slopes of the Cloud Peaks. A narcissistic, but gifted musician and local celebrity, he packed every inn and tavern in the area when he performed. Selfishly feeling that he was growing too popular for the small community and it's jealous husbands, Fenton believed he deserved more.
Finally growing tired of singing ballads and reciting orations about other famous heroes, Fenton decided to set out into the world and become the hero of his own story. Eventually he fell in with a group of adventurers and mercenaries who called themselves The Band of the Black Horn.
The band was hired by the monks of Candlekeep to retrieve a lost arcane tome from the desert lair of the ancient blue dragon Myrraxion, in the western reaches of Calimshan. An agent of the dragon (actually Myrraxion herself in disguise) had borrowed the tome from the library and never returned it. When the band tracked down the lair, they were in for quite a surprise. The dragon was a powerful mage in her own right and the tome she had taken was the last piece in an ancient puzzle that had transformed her into a dracolich.
Not prepared to fight such a powerful creature, the band was quickly defeated; but Fenton groveled and begged for his life. Amused, Myrraxion spared his life on the condition that he serve her for the rest of his days. His frail human body kept alive by her unnatural magics, Fenton has served for almost 200 years as the dragon’s entertainment, servant, scribe, and whatever else she required. With him there to serve her, she’s never had to leave the safety of her lair, growing more solitary and fearful of the outside world.
But something has changed. A shift in the weave. The dragon’s great scrying magics have determined that somewhere a powerful curse is preventing the dead from returning and threatening those who have already cheated death. Paranoid and frightened that death is finally coming for her, Myrraxion sends her ward out into a world he barely remembers to find it’s source, along with a promise. End the curse and be set free.
It's still Eldritch Blast focused, but I've had fun with a Warlock who, rather than going for Agonizing Blast right away, went for Grasp of Hadar *and* Repelling Blast, and turned Eldritch Blast into a sort of battlefield control spell, moving enemies around the battlefield, knocking them into traps or obstacles, repositioning them, etc. Combined with Misty Step and the Archfae Warlock abilities, it sort of transformed Eldritch Blast into just being about the damage into a more tactical and interesting spell.
My current warlock is an aasimar paladin/warlock playing in a Realms campaign. Really pushing the fallen angel seeking redemption aspect, he stated as a paladin who follows The Red Knight. She sent one of her Solar agents to provide more utility and strategic options to my character after a few levels (in-game background to allows the multi-class) thus gaining some levels as a celestial warlock (looking to be a pact of the blade).
As the face for the group he does all he can to avoid entering into combat by first discussing with any opposition why they are destined to lose the battle, openly displaying his amulet showing patronage to The Red Knight, and often ending conflicts without drawing his blade or shedding blood. The rogue in our party uses that time to strategically place herself by sneaking and our druid just acts bored behind me with an occasional quip to reinforce the hopelessness of entering conflict with our group. Its been a fun change from most games where it is smash everything type of play, though that usually ends up happening at some point as not everyone will work our the reason we always have the advantage.
As a twist I wanted to avoid being the typical EB lock so took Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade as the paladin is a duelist. Having the GFB and BB gives some options in combat situations and a way around resistances most of the time. It has been one of the better hold the line characters I have played, gaining a high ac with the paladin heavy armor, ability to heal from two classes and race without using spells, and good boosts to my weapon attacks when forced into combat. Not being a blast lock took a little getting used too and I don't think it would work as well without the heavy armor but it is a nice change and has been effective with the group at lower levels of play (we just crested 5th last game starting at 1st)
Love it - first character I played in a long 5E campaign. Only thing I was dissatisfied with was the Patron character wasn't really involved in the story of the game at all. Anybody looking to play one , have a quick chat with your DM about how involved you expect/want your patron to be in your character's story and save yourself some grief. Happy Eldritch Blasting :)
Bryan Smith in a game i am playing in (as a dark elf warlock) with a newble GM.
Me and the party got to meet my patron, and the patron plays a apart in the plot besides from giving me magic spells.
I think it depends on the GM but i think meeting your patron or having your patron involved in things is probably the best way to do it.
Becuase as a warlock you are the agent of this magical being, and it's giving you tasks to do in order to further it's goals in exchange for giving you magical abilities.
@@biogundam6541 That's awesome that your Patron showed up :) Yeah it's definitely as much a pact with your DM to run this NPC as it is for your PC.
A sith/jedi build focused on the force to pull and push with EB and with hexblade for the jedi sword :) (multiclassed with battle master)
Well one cool thing about Eldritch Blasts is how much space it leaves for flavoring it Yourself. Celestial warlock shots out streams of glittering stars, feylock fires arrows of quicksilver from their moonbow (also pact weapon), undying lunches spectral skulls of the damned, that scream with agony
I actually used Betty White as the great old one a while back. She communicated in a very motherly way and made demands around cleaning up the kingdom of random monsters or dangerous magic items.
My current character is a tiefling great old one warlock and I am LOVING IT! I reflavored all my spells with new names and custom descriptions to have them themed as cosmic horror and tentacle spells. I’ve had almost as much fun creating these reflavored spells as I have actually playing the character. Eldritch invocations are an amazing mechanic and really help to customize our warlock in such unique ways to tailor to your play style and flavor
they should have given the extended spell list from your patron for free like they do with clerics that you already know them and dont count towards spells known
I've played an Archfey/Oath of the Ancients, it was a lot of fun. Before C2 of Critical Role even started, you could compare the character to Jester in the way she behaved (minus the artistry)
Had a friendly rivalry with the party rogue. "Oh, that's a nasty looking pit you just fell in, let me show you how to do it." and Misty step to the other side. She'd get me a few times too, "Let me show you how to hit something." After several rounds of combat without hitting a thing
Lots of fun, miss that group
I enjoyed my Fey-bladelock / Weaponmaster fighter.
You get defensiv spells like "fairy fire" "Armor of Agathys" and iirc. "Misty step".
The blade-based invocations as well as "Armor of Shadows" synergize well with the battle masters maneuvers.
Since there is a trait you can take to get a Maneuver you can start on the multiclass path right from lvl 1.
UA runescribe and runefighter could also be fun to weirden up the warlock even further giving the some additional at will/ dayli abilities with potential roleplay possibilities. Your Ancient patron could have introduced you to the awesome powers of the runes.
You can talk to your DM and see if they are ok running Warlock as an Int-based caster to open up other multiclass options (or just do it anyway and be MAD) - there's great synergy with Wizard and Artificer abilities/classes, for example. Or use the melee cantrips and pair with a rogue -- consider a chain lock/rogue whose familiar is constantly using the help action (it can do that without breaking invisibility), so you have advantage on booming blade, you get your sneak attack because it's still a melee attack, then bonus action disengage and step back and force the target to move if it wants to hit you back... ;) Then there's always feats to keep it interesting.
An Int warlock makes a lot of sense. We've too many charisma casters anyway.
This was great! I really hope y'all go over the other classes again seeing how much we've gotten so much new content from WotC. Especially classes that seem kinda bland at first such as the Sorcerer or Barbarians that only got 2 subclasses in the phb.
That is the plan. We weren't sure if we'd get push back for regurgitating old video topics, but we've felt they were long over due.
Nerdarchist Dave
@@Nerdarchy Given all the new additions recently it shouldn't be seen as "regurgitation," rather "updates and addendums!"
New takes on an old idea?
I went Grave Domain Cleric/Celestial Warlock for all the extra curative benefits that the warlock brings to the table such as healing light and a small dice pool of healing to draw from. As well as the short rest spell slots and of course Eldritch blast. I also plan on going pact of the chain to gain a familiar which can help the party in various ways as well.
My favorite warlock build was Archfey Warlock. Misty Visions + Mask of Many Faces, the repelling blast.
I took Chain to talk inside silent images. And it was a blast. Plant Growth/Hunger of Hadar + Repelling blast is a brutal combo in some fights.
I didn't use Hex or Agonizing blast because more damage was boring. But at-will pushing made it a lot more rewarding. And I had a ton of tools for out of combat encounters.
Also, faerie fire for my rogue and gunslinger was a much better use than Hex tbh.
Hey guys really enjoying the channel old school gamer started with 1st ed D+D and Tunnels and Trolls so my recall is becoming a bit scratchy but I’m sure I can remember the warlock being a character class offered in either dungeon mag or white dwarf mag it may not have been “canon “but I’m pretty sure it was there in 1st ed.
I see you're starting to do "Insert pre-recorded add" here. Nice. Seriously, it's probably a great idea that saves time on your part.
It was out of necessity not some grand plan unfortunately. I think we made room for a UA, but had filmed this one with a different ad spot.
Nerdarchist Dave
Honestly, I would love for a variant feature for each patron type that slightly adjusts how Eldritch blast works for warlocks of that patron, instead of it being "force damage, multiple beams, these invocations" for everyone. It's just a customizable spell that I feel like it's potential is wasted as is
I play a Drow Warlock (Celestial) and I am my parties healer. I took the Urchin background and role play that my character was a low born male Who was a slave in Drow society. Essentially my charterer became a Warlock as means of betraying the Drow. by siding with the powers of good he has become the the worst "Evil" his society could envision. I play the character as soft spoken and kind a protector of innocents and someone focused on Bringing light to darkness.
The sacrifice come sin the fact that i have all of my racial flaws so in some case the powers i wield can harm or be disconcerting to myself.I treat my party as my adoptive Drow House and defer all decisions tot he most powerful casting female on the team. I always save the females before the males.
Really nice idea! Bravo!
@@louiscarlhalle - It helps when you have a DM who likes unique takes on characters and loves crafting a story.
I actively try not to use Eldritch blast unless I have to
I love looking at invocations and finding combos that work
Like I have a drow in my party that casts darkness on my cloak do I can keep concentration on another spell like hex or shadow blade and just ambush an entire group of people
The warlock has so many good utility spells and is so rewarding for players that like to fight by outsmarting , like a well placed major image or disguise self
My last Warlock was a Kenku with great old one and tome pact. He believed that the Dukes of Aaqua was his patron and tome allowed him to speak telepathically (30ft limit though) to the party once he became acclimated to being with them. He sought flight and got Fly as one of his abilities/spells. Went with as many of the mind/psionic spells as well. Most enjoyable!!
I'm currently playing my first Warlock that I can remember well. He's a Shadow Monk, Celestial Pact of the Blade Warlock. Out of the 3 party members, he's the worst when it comes to damage but he's the best when it comes to stealth. In our next 3 levels, he'll be able to teleport in dim light and darkness and will gain advantage on his next attack. One of the invocations he'll get will also allow him to turn invisible in dim light or darkness and stay that way even if he's no longer in dim light or darkness. Aside from this, he focuses on using his Spell slots to cast Cure wounds while focusing on using cantrips or melee attacks.
Don't forget your create darkness on yourself and teleport multiple times to the edge of the 15feet circle while it travel it with you. And bring the invocation to see through normal and magical darkness. ;D
@@GreenBaji I definitely won't but I don't use it often unless the enemies are spread out so then I can take on one group and not be a hindrance to my allies.
currently playing a fiend warlock, tome boon in a campaign. reached lvl 14 last session. i freaking love warlocks! i love the constrictions. they make you come up with amazing things to get what you want
Hail Nerdist!
My name is Andrew, and currently I am playing a Fire Genasi, warlock with the Head Boss Big Bad Patron of the Fire plane- Kossuth, and his fire Efreeta (female fire genie) as my personal patron. So I focus a lot of my spells and powers around Fire; obviously.
But I found even at low level (current level 4) I can still use other cantrips like control flames, and thunderclap, allowing for more than Eldritch blast, given different circumstances. Other spells like Hellish Rebuke, misty step, firebolt, and witch bolt offer more fire based spells that fit the running theme. The back story is rich with haunted one, The old one, motivations to serve both my character, and his paton's personal in life goals. Though it is dealing with fire genie, neither are slave or master, but the edge is given to the Efreeta because they provide the powers. It's great fun so far, because of those dynamics.
Thanks for your time and your show. Keep up the Nerdarchy!
Ah I miss my half elf faelock whom patron was his Ancester, pact of the blade with the + invocation gave him the bow of his ancester and ohhh he was so much fun! Another warlock i had was a homebrew so please dont mind as much but it was reflavoured fiendlock that instead of spell slots he got another invocation and cantrip from anyclass and was a "Dragon" patron. Also got dragons breath spell to use as an invocation. Sp fun
Hexblade lock with Green Flame Blade and Sword Burst :D
ofc with Eldritch Blast to pull them closer or to do a bit of ranged :D
Bardlocks, Monklocks, Roguelocks, so many fun combinations. Not to mention anyone can just multiclass into it over the course of the game with a little interaction with extraplanar entities.
I made a Changeling Hexblade/Battlemaster to be a Landsknecht type character, but with a different aesthetic and slightly different leveling choices that character could easily be a swashbuckling charismatic pirate type. Or you could combine the two aesthetics for what I'm gonna call a Watersknecht!
My first AL character was a celestial warlock. It's now level 20; 12 warlock (blade), 7 inquisitive rogue, 1 fighter. He's a half elf blow wielder with sharp shooter, and is usually sniping eldrich smites from extreme range (with sneak attack); 14d8+8d6 on a crit! He tosses healing in emergency situations, and rebukes on the rare occasions he gets hit. The only time I eldrich blast is to force something out of illusory prison to activate the secondary damage effect.
I like playing the hex blade and mixing in both eldritch blast and green flame blade. It really makes it fun when you have a weapon +1 that is always with you that also causes flame damage that explodes killing everything else.
I'm a warlock cleric. Helps to have those extra spell slots, and everyone loves a healer.
what i did was go for battle field control. i talked my DM into a homebrew invocation that i have seen others use that lets you move a target 10' per hit in whatever direction you want. because face it, if you could get one that pushes and one that pulls, then you have the power to move things why force you to only get one direction. i move things around on the battle field to help the team. but a problem, i am the only real caster in the group so no one is dropping AOE spells for me to force people together. if someone had a fireball i could move targets into range and go nuking. i went raven queen and pact of the chain so i have a nice raven and the imp so i scout ahead for use and i help when we are in town apart to pass around info. also i have a passive perception that is 24 without the need of feats (i will show the math below) going with being a Tabaxi we joke i can hear flees fart. we homebrewed a invocation i have seen before that lets me cast find steed once per day so i have a sabertooth tiger i am walking around with. but what might be going away soon is i have a staff of power from curse of strahd that helps out a lot. no dedicated healer so the imp with a small potion belt along along with the Inspiring Leader and Healer feats i also back up heal everyone. Spare the dying cantrip also helps a lot (from mask of the raven queen's disciple). mixing your skills up (and maybe a few homebrew things and magic gear) you can easily make a warlock good for far more then just EB.
how i get passive perception of 24 as a lvl 10 tabaxi raven queen warlock: 10 + 2 (wis) + 4 (proficient in perception) +2 ( mask of the raven queen's disciple) + 6 ((i get to add my cha if my raven is on my shoulder yes i have a +6 i rolled 18 +1 (tabaxi) +1 (mask of the raven queen's disciple) + 2 (tomb of leadership))
You’re correct about the “need” for warlock’s to maximize Eldritch Blast. I played in one group where I was yelled at for only taking one Eldritch Invocation that improved Eldritch Blast by another player. I had other abilities, but I wasn’t the most optimized for combat.
I'm with Ted....bring on the Clerics
Warlock is indeed very versatile and can be built in a lot of different ways.
The sheer versatility and number of choices can sometimes lead to choice paralysis though. It is important to take note of the factor that what ever direction you go in, as far as fish, spellcaster, and control all feel more powerful the more you invest into invocations that support your choice.
Pact of the blade with weapon attack investments feel great as a gish striker
Pact of the tome with ritual casting and other spell invocations can feel like a very powerful caster
Pact of the chain with information gathering invocations can be one of the greatest ways to spy and scout that there is.
And all of that without choosing a patron.
One of my ideas for a group of characters is to have two half-brothers being partial Warlock (Multiclassing) and their "sickly" half-sister being a celestial Patron
My current warlock is mainly focused more on the pact of the chain than the subclass. Having an imp familiar, and having a poisoners kit. I have a reasonable supply of 3d6 poison coming from the imp, and I have a whole bunch of daggers that I can poison and throw at people. It feels pretty unique so far.
One of my players is currenty a fiend pack warlock who made deals for knowledge multiclassed into transmutation wizard and has now taken 1 level in cleric arcana domain. Its weird and jank but i really appreciate the role play hes doing to make a character discovering how the world work at its most fundamental and how he can alter it
I was playing a GouLock up to level 9 when i discover that my patreon was a god that did lose powers and not he start to grow again so i multiclass into cleric and it was one of my favourite character to play
Best not cliché build I found, built for lv10 as that the bread and butter level of all games: you can go aasimar for the extra damage for 1min, yuan ti for MR or half elf for the more social build. I go half elf.
Old one as it has the most shenanigans and best bonus spell to not just be the EB turret.
BG a pick of either charlatan or noble variant for servants and boy you're lucky if you get the life event of life debt.
Lv1 cantrips: EB(ofc) and prestidigitation, spells hex and unseen servant. Lv2: pick a spell you're gonna be replacing it at 3 anyway do whatever. Invo: agonising blast and mask of meny faces.
Lv3 replace one 1st LV spell with phantasmal force and pick suggestion. Pact boon you can pick either tome with find familiar or chain lock doesn't make that much of a difference in the build unless you know you're going late game lv15+ then go chain lock.
Lv4 mage hand cantrip and pick a replacement spell. Lv5 replace and pick one of 3: counter spell, hunger of hadar and thunder step, invocation signs of I'll omen, it's just a better hex but it's once per day so you want to hang on to hex as well.
Lv6 pick the spell you didn't from the prior list.
Lv7 the problem is you have 5 great spells here: blight, banishment, dimension door, hypnotic pattern and sickening radiance and you can only pick one replace one. Summon greater demon didn't make the list as it's a coin toss spell with an opportunity to backfire. This is where you need to be making a judgement from the campaign thus far. If you're facing lots of planar and elemental foes, banishment, if the GM likes to run mobs at you, radiance. If there is always a lieutenant, blight and if you like troll builds, hypnotic patter. For invocation sculptor of flesh that can save a party members life by turning them into a rex, gorilla, whatever. Also it can save your life as well.
At lv8 you pick a spell dun matter as you'll be replacing it.
Lv9 synaptic static and dominate person with your choice of either tome or chain invocation, or Lance of lethargy to make it harder for opponents to leave aoe spells/run away or repelling blast to push foes back into aoe spells.
Lv10 is your general campaign capstone as very few adventures go much beyond that so you need to be online. Cantrips don't matter much so pick something, I do minor illusion for the RP. For spells, pick one of the 5 from the lv3 spells you didn't.
Remember you still only have 2 spell slots per short rest and as you can see most of these spells are all situational and concentration and have different dynamics depending on need. Your main combat damage ability is still EB with the AB invocation, and most of your other spells, while flavourful are ment to be a battlefield troll or social/intrigue abilities most revolving around uncommon saves. So go nutz.
There have been two warlocks in my current campaign. While they're mechanically pretty similar (they were even both tieflings), both players brought excellent backstories that led to at least a handful of sessions revolving around them and their patrons.
I play an archfey tomelock that uses shillelagh and booming blade in battle. Out of combat I'm the utility caster with book of ancient secrets. I've shot like 3 Eldritch blasts the whole campaign lol
Simple solution to the constant Eldritch Blast? Don’t take Eldritch Blast. On the Warlock spell list are Chill Touch to prevent healing for a round, Frostbite to impose disadvantage on the next weapon attack, Toll the Dead to get d12 damage dice if the enemy is damaged even a single hit point already. Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade for melee Warlocks. Celestial Pact gives Sacred Flame as a bonus cantrip. Multiclass or take Magic Initiate or Spell Sniper to get Sorcerer cantrips like Acid Splash, Firebolt, and Ray of Frost. Free up those Invocations for at will spells.
My warlock is a Kobolt hexblade archer that uses its spell slots mostly for Smite spells, its cantrips are Chill Touch and Toll the Dead.
In one of the games I'm in currently, I'm running a character that's mostly (10 out of 12 levels) Archfey Pact Warlock, and he's been tons of fun- and rarely uses Eldritch Blast more than once or twice a fight. Hell, our Pyromancer slings Fire Bolt at least five times as much as I Eldritch Blast, and he's got WAY more spell options than I do, lol!
My warlock used to be some other race (I didn't decide what, left it for the DM to play with) but as part of the pact his soul got moved into the body of a dead Warforged Envoy. (The Archfey wiped most of his memory as part of the deal, too, since his life had pretty much sucked balls anyway.) In return, he had to spend for five years (all backstory, before the game started) protecting a section of wilderness from abuse by 'civilization'. He does retain the benefits of his Urchin background, though, which is good; for his tool set as a Warforged Envoy, I had it be Thieves' Tools.
Thanks to the Warforged Envoy form he can shift into different armored states, allowing him to be more tanky sometimes if I think I'll need to. I rolled really well when we were rolling stats (18, 17, 17, 17, 11, 9, the DM said if he hadn't watched it happen he'd have said I was lying, lol) so since he uses a spear all the time I skipped my first ASI to get the feat Spear Mastery for both flavor and increased usefulness in battle. I went with Pact of the Tome. His Invocations are Book of Ancient Secrets so I could get Find Familiar, Devil's Sight for long-range dark vision, Eldritch Sight for unlimited casting of Detect Magic, and Gift of the Depths because swim speed, and Eldritch Spear for crazy long range Eldritch Blasts.
Early on I gave him two levels of Druid- taking the Circle of the Shepherd- to give him a splash of healing and utility spells, and because it fits the RP aspects of the character. I go with the Bear Spirit totem, adding a bit of party buff that can be regularly refreshed without cutting into my limited spell slots.
I tend to multi class and use items to augment PC choices. As DM I removed the scrolls spell list restrictions so even non casters can use them if truly needed. All they have to do succeed at an arcana roll for it.
I also make spell gems easier to access in some areas especially in the underdark regions.
I had a half elf undying warlock that made a pact with a Bealnorn in a crypt in Myth Drannor. His pact weapon was a longbow and his eldritch blast took the form of valleys of force arrows.
My favorite 5e character so far has been my Kobold Fey Warlock. Tons of fun RP, Favorite spell Sleep, never realize how fun it is when you cast it at 5th level! We didn't do a ton of higher level games so we kind of accelerated their higher levels, I ended up going Divine Sorcerer to play off of the Fey Warlock, with a celestial/seelie heritage on one side from sorcerer, and an unseelie fey patron, and the two duking it out over my soul.
One thing I'd like to see in the future is for the Patron of the Undying to get an Eldritch Invocation that allows them access to Animate Dead as a spell.
Mechanically, I think it makes sense since they already get access to Speak with Dead for their spell list.
Thematically, I think it also makes sense you're serving something connected to the undead.
That kind of an addition would certainly give traditional Necromancers a run for their money.
Personally I'm using a Drow Elf Tomelock, with the Undying Court of Aerneal as his patron (under the Pact of the Undying patron option).
To really spice it up, I also drafted up a homebrew Eldritch Invocation (with DM approval), to really make the class shine:
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"Gift of the Undying Court"/"Gift of the Dead"
Prerequisites: 6th level, Pact of the Undying patron. (The Undying Court of Aerenal is suggested as your Patron, but is open to DM discretion.)
[Additional Option: Pact of the Tome pact boon feature, and Book of Ancient Secrets Eldritch Invocation. (Also at DM discretion.)]
You can cast the Animate Dead spell, without using a spell slot, once per short or long rest.
[Optional: At DM Discretion, Inclusion of Pact of the Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets.]
If you also have the Pact of the Tome pact boon feature, and the Book of Ancient Secrets eldritch invocation, paired together, you can scribe the Animate Dead spell into your tome and cast it as a ritual, without using a spell slot, and without using spell components.
At 10th level, this becomes an at-will ability.
Agonizing Blast is the only eldritch blast invocation that I really consider mandatory, Repelling Blast is another I take reasonably often, the other ones I have pretty much never taken, I more prefer taking invocations that help you get around the problem of having really few spell slots, which is taking invocations that give you access to other things to do that don't spend your spell slots, like being able to cast various spells at will. Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation also help a lot with expanding your options.
I'm making a Sorlock currently to get over this hurdle.
I wanted to play a Warlock, but I didn't want to get relegated to just Eldritch Blasting every turn.
Divine Soul Sorlock. Sorcerers get very few spells known, so by pimping out my Eldritch Blast to max with two levels of Warlock I'm able to take more support spells (and some healing as well), and only keep like Fireball as an AOE damage option for when the team really needs it.
This way, I still get to spam Eldritch Blast frequently (sometimes twice a turn, because of Quickened Metamagic) for reliable damage, but I'm also very useful to the party because I'm the guy that's casting Twinned Enlarge or Twinned Haste on your melee dudes. At least that's how I hope it will turn out :D
It's also funny how getting the third Warlock level and then using the Warlock slots to replenish Sorcery point pretty much makes it so that you get your lvl 20 feature way sooner.
I’m playing a celestial warlock pact of the chain healer/tank sort of. I heal myself and my allies and with the gift of the ever living ones, fiendish vigor, tomb of levistus it’s hard to get me to drop. I love the action economy with this build and my familiar is awesome and it’s one of my favorite characters that I’ve ever played
I've always wanted to play that combo. Without multi-classing or taking certain feats, a celestial chainlock is the only class that can heal with their familiar and that's really cool.
I still wish you guys would take a look at my homebrew rewrite of the warlock class. I tried to email it to you months ago and haven't heard back, so I don't even know if it was received. The whole point of it is to rearrange the class features so that the type of pact you strike provides your primary abilities, the patron provides the spell list and flavors those abilities through specific invocations, and the various invocations are re-balanced so each can be a good option. I think it enhances the flexibility of the class and offers more interesting decisions when crafting your characters.
It's tough to remove the EB reliance, but I think I've toned it back so other options are also viable. Firstly only the tome (the main caster) subclass gets the new agonizing blast, and second, that ability applies to every damage roll of every spell/cantrip. Finally, any given warlock can only get 2 EB invocations: the range upgrade which is basic, and a special bonus granted by your patron. These vary from the push/pull effect to healing to a shockwave for extra damage.
I've got five patrons figured out so far: the Fey, Fiend, Great Old One, Celestial, and Raven Queen. Each uses almost the same expanded spell list as the official versions and comes with around 10 unique invocations that were either taken, modified, or made up to fit the patron's theme. I've expanded on the old pact boons, including many options that were found in invocations before, and even made an attempt at adding a fourth pact that provides a stealth/illusion option, called the Pact of the Bell. It took a while to work out just what features I wanted to include, but I recently managed to narrow it down to a backstab-like ability and several things based on the illusionist subclass of wizard. I think it will provide an interesting alternative to the Arcane Trickster for a magic/rogue build.
Sadly, I haven't been able to test any of this design yet, and I'm thinking I should probably get permission from my DM to build exclusively warlocks from my new design until I feel it's been balanced. I've tried to balance it in design but that's only using mathematics, not experience.
To fix the cantrip problem, perhaps one solution could be to remove it and in its place allow warlocks to pick their signature cantrip or have it tied to their subclass, like firebolt for the fiend, sacred flame for celestial, toll the dead for undying, or one of the SCAG blade cantrips for hexblade, any invocations that affected EB could be applied to their signature cantrip instead and either their base damage brought in line with EB or have interesting features in the subclasses that apply to them
Use magic initiate to access more cantrips, chill touch, ray of frost and even firebolt have useful applications outside of pure damage dealing so are great utility spells also you can get a lv1 spell for free that can more or less take the place of one of your invocations so you can take the invocations that really speak to your character.
My personal build would be a cowboy with a magic wand styled like a Colt peace maker, variant human, hexblade pact of the tome starting with the spell sniper feat, taking the agonizing blast and book of ancient secrets invocations at lv2.
I love the idea of a warlock fiend patron that is based off of the German Folktale, “The Marksmen.”
I made a mountain dwarf, celestial blade 'lock. He hastily accepted his patron's call after being offered fame and glory. He goes around calling himself a paladin bit fully understanding what that means or his situation.
Its a sub-optimium build trying to make a as paladiny as possible forgoing many usual warlock abilities, and spending the first asi for heavy armor proficiency.
Can't wait for his world to crash, when obligation hits and he may do something he doesn't like.
i think hexpally is amazing to play in game i got a Portector Assimar called Zeffice the ruthless hes a pact of the blade warlock with two double ended shortswords called the gemini and hes a pally of acients his aim is to protect the multiverse from anything that troubles it hes a light heart soul with a ruthless attitude when it comes to combat he will not give up as long as theres a single breath in his body i dont know how to explain my chrecter part from this one explination throght i share this with you guys
Since Agonizing Blast works per beam (several Sage Advice columns have confirmed this) - you can really "sell" the Warlock - on a mechanical level - as more of a "highly magical and versatile archer" (similar in power level to a ranged Fighter) than a full spellcaster.
He makes the exact point people are saying that fighter is no different or barbarian in combat...sure you can pick a fighting style but that is no different then picking an invocation to change it up, push, pull, damage, slow..
fighter attack....attack....attack....dodge....attack..
There is literally no difference expect invocations actually gives you more options esp since a warlock can change out spells on rest (given Ua options..)
The warlock I am using does use eldric blast, but the big thing with him is his role playing, LN that makes deals for his fiend Patron. He will ask them before they die if they will change there ways if they are humanoid. He gets them to sign a contract and if they break it his patron gets there soul. He plays like a gangster from the early mob years and even dresses like it. Weapon is a staff but it is custom to look like a fancy walking cane.
I want to play a necromancer who achieves the epic boon of immortality JUST so he can be the Undying patron for my next character.
I didn't start off the campaign with the idea of multiclassing into warlock but the DM approached me when my bard was lv 6 asking would I be ok with doing it for the story. I was forced "in story" to only take warlock levels and am now lv 12. It turns out that lv6 bard lv6 warlock is quite powerful due to the access to all of the extra spell slots for casting warlock spells.
I had a warforged Hexblade(was going for a lv3 shadow sorcerer dip) once, he always summoned his weapon (Halberd and Longbow) and was a Tank Damager. Literally took the idea from Dark souls Black Knight with the lightning bow in the intro. Felt like he played like an Alt-paladin with Booming Blade instead of Smites
I have a Celestial, Pact of the Blade Warlock at 7th level, he's quickly becoming the magic bloodhound/mage hunter of the group as he's built for more detecting and disabling magic rather then casting though he does have a fair few hard hitting spells that tend to help. While he's no tank he is someone a mage would hate.
Its always slightly interesting to think of the idea of a shelelegh tomelock. Which with a Celestial warlock could actually make an interesting style. Green flame blade. You'd add Cha to the damage on the weapon, and the green flame.
Black dragonborn pact of the great old one tomelock with the archaeologist background. I wanted a bit flavor and function, and it turned out wonderfully. I hope I can play again when I'm feeling psyched up enough to roleplay and the weather gets better.
The best part of a Warlock is the flavor and the roleplay aspect:
Hexblade: Take the pact of the blade, call it a katana and give it the stats of a scimitar. Still take Eldritch Blast, but make it take the shape of shurikens. Now you have a mystical ninja, just make sure to take stealth and deception.
Undying: That character can be cursed by a Lich or a Mummy Lord, then the souls of those cursed before link with the character to prevent the transformation. Now the character is bound to help these souls to find final rest. Eldritch Blast now takes the shape of tiny motes of light representing lost souls striking the opponent. Take Pact of the Tome and learn rituals like Ceremony, take religion and deception, and now you can pass as a wandring Cleric of the Grave Domain.
I is simple hooman, I see warlock, I click warlock. I warlock
One thing I did for warlock was instead of spell slots used a mana point where the max they could do was 4 5th lvl spells and then if they wanted they could cast more lower level spells I let them replenish during rest by using their hit dice so they split between that and healing
You guys are awesome. Missed your videos
I played a hexblade/pact of the tome bugbear warlock. 9 levels in warlock and 1 level in rogue. I took the feat spell sniper so I could green flame blade properly at 10 feet. with the alert feat and aspect of the moon invocation I let the party sleep.
It was fun build and I would love to play it again. Sadly the homebrew campaign was heavily demons and devils so that GFB cantrip was trash.
Yeah defiantly it is a bit tricky to go warlock and not eldritch blast everything.
A lot of the possibly cool options for extra combat umph (druid and barbarian come to mind most) add new flavour but restrict your spell caster a limited but sometimes very useful combo.
An idea i have been toying around with is a monk warlock combo, i feel this duo has a lot of ways to supplement each other, i know there is the obvious voice of shadow monk and drop darkness, but i have been trying to come up with something a little less on the nose although that does sound fun
Warlock is my favourite class. I don't try to re-invent the wheel: I take the power that I'm given and run wild with it. Hexblast all the things! Unfortunatelly, by changing it to a cantrip and removing the shapes/sizes/types of eldritch blast, they messed it up royally. As it stands, eldritch hexblast is the best thing someone can be doing without access to magic weapons and in our high level campaign, we have a swords bard/warlock, a devotion paladin/warlock and a warlock/warlock because after level 17 hexblast is the thing.
My most "successful" Warlock thus far has been a Pact of the Celestial, an Envoy Warforged (yes, still going since before the disastrous latest Eberron book) constructed for the sole purpose of housing the essence of a (very slowly) dying Solar. Between intrigue with their chapter of Ilmater worshipers being slightly corrupt, the sometimes differing goals and ideals of the Solar themselves and a Warforged who must balance their deeply emotional attachment with their passenger as well as their desire to alleviate the burdens of the world's most unfortunate even at the cost of his own safety has just been, if you'll pardon the pun, a blessing.
It's also rather amusing that the Warlock at the table is the party's singularly most empathic and positive force, not to mention the reactions of the general populace as this glistening, winged and immaculately gilded construct bestows blessings and healing like some mythological servant of the gods.
I have currently two warlock builds in my head. One the great old one pact of the tome and one warlock/bard archfey pact of the tome & collage of glamour. The first heavy cantrip, with feat magic initiate to get like 10 cantrips and "free" castings. The second has bit more magic and focus on manipulation.
I'm playing a Celestial sorlock with pact of the chain.. so I am planning to take Voice of the Chain Master, Investment of the Chain, and later using a feat to either get Gift of the Ever Living One's or Agonizing Blast.
I have to pick 3 out of those 4 that I want. Lol. It's the max invocations I can have since Eldritch Adept seems to only be available once.
“And attune to that notification bell”
*literal chills*
I've had to home-brew other attack cantrips to solve the monotony of eldritch blast. I just reskinned the abilities to apply to firebolt or green flame blade or booming blade . It helps open up some more customization
i like to see how i can chain different spells together to make the warlock spells feel like combo attacks. like you drop a bonfire, then the next turn you blast them back through the bonfire and they take the damage. you end up with 3 D10 + 15 + 3D8 if you pull it off right and your DM gives you the +5 for every blast at level 11. that adds up to 69 damage from a full hit at max rolls and no crits/nat 1 fails. you can do it with other aoe spells as well letting you work with other players to set up super moves.
The big problem with Hexblade is that it was created to fix one very big problem with Pact of the Blade Warlocks, basically that they suck. It's a Pact that strongly suggests a melee style, but you only have light armour. Good luck surviving with that.
However by giving Hexblade so much, medium armour and shield, the ability to use Charisma as your attack stat instead of Strength or Dexterity, you create a dip that any sane Charisma caster will drop into for one level (probably level 2) just because it gives them the ability to protect themselves. You don't even have to to take Eldritch Blast... though of course you should.
However Shield is a trap for Warlocks. They don't have spare low level spell slots, so you're burning one of your 2-4 high level slots to cast it. It's good for that dip from another class (like Bard, for example).
In my view the coolest "Warlock" is a College of Swords Bard. Take your first level in Bard, then take three levels in Hexblade/Pact of the Blade, that will give you Eldritch Blast, Booming Blade, Agonizing Blast, Improved Pact Weapon, obviously Shield and Hex plus another couple of spells that Bards don't normally get, Armor of Agathys and Hellish Rebuke seem appropriate. I would use a Tiefling Descendent of Levistus as the base.
You're a Bard, but you can summon eldritch great swords and bash people with them.
My Hexblade build mostly swings his sword instead of eldritch blasting, I use the branding smite spell at the beginning of a combat encounter and that greatly improves damage output so that I don't HAVE to rely on eldritch blast.
Having played two Warlocks in 5E, I think I can see some of the ways to improve the class. One problem is that some campaigns don't follow the rigorous eight encounter a day style that the 5E creators intended. Instead they have one big encounter a day. This shortchanges the Warlock (as well as Fighters and Monks). DMs who intentionally eschew the eight encounter work day should multiply the number of Pact Magic slots by three to account for the missing Short Rests.
The other problem with the Warlock is that they are frontloaded in how they get class features, so multiclassers dip into the class and scorn those like me who actually play a dedicated Warlock. One way to fix it is to make Eldritch Blast a class feature, rather than a cantrip. Using this variant, Eldritch Blast will scale only through Warlock levels, rather than casters who dip into Warlock.
The final problem with Warlock is that the Hexblade is so much better mechanically than all the other subclasses. I still haven't seen a proper fix for this problem.
Your solution to the encounter issue is way too over powered, there's a reason full casters dont get more than 3 slots for levels above 1st, having 6 5th level spells available would be busted. If you have an issue with this just dip a level or 2 into sorcerer or bard for some more slots.
Honestly, almost every problem with 5e can be solved by switching to the optional "gritty realism" rest variant in the DMG. Long rests being a week of downtime and short rests being overnight really enables warlocks and other short rest classes to shine. Even the wizard is improved, getting much more mileage from Arcane Recovery.
I don’t think any of theses are necessary to put in the rule book and could be solved by people who are worried about this discussing it with your dm beforehand and figuring something out
@@ethanlocke3604
Well, of course you should talk to the DM about any issues, and the problem with warlocks and spell slots is easy to fix by ensuring that the party gets a short rest after most fights. The problem is that sometimes the party themselves will not take those short rests, and the cleric or wizard will want to push on, while the warlock is stuck with Eldritch Blast for the rest of the day.
A party of a warlock, monk, fighter, and rogue is going to be a lot easier on the warlock than a party with them, a cleric, a wizard, and an artificer.
Theodore Minick good point
The celestial warlock can start adding charisma to fire/radiant spells at level 6, making green flame blade a good combat cantrip. Go pact of the tome and take shillelagh and green flame blade for a pretty decent gish.
Love this channel you guys are amazing
I made a Tabaxi Warlock Celestial that was touched by Nabobion to try and help bring the Tabaxi away from the Cat Lord and to the Celestial Plane. This charactor believed so much in this he later became a multiclass Nature Cleric to better surve him.
i built a cursed one hexblade lock as a sword saint, she basically believed in the spirits of her ancestors lived in her sword and whispered to her, she used arms of hadar and booming blade but kept eldritch blast for her "bow" attack
I really love playing warlocks, so this is the story of the one Im currently playing as:
He is a young pirate that stole a cursed tresure from another ship, making by a pact with Tibalt by accident (so I made him a fiend warlock), he has Devil's Sight, Fiendish vigor because i think it goes well thematicly, and Im planing on armor of Shadows and the pact of the blade. So when he cast these spells Devil's sight and fiendish vigor will make my character look more like his patron and armor of shadows will cast his clothes like a burning piece of paper as well as his scimatar.
he has defensive duelist and Im planing on taking martial adept so he can parry and riposte
btw he points his fingers like a gun and casts elditch blast hahaha
I think I found a funny way to play Warlock/ Hexblade by taking Orc as race and going for a straight up melee build. Orc not just giving me a lot of movement but also supports the roleplay aspect to be Evil and intimidate people. Eldritch Blast became the alternative if something is too far away. ANd to explain what "master" or higher being he serves I went to route that he read a cursed tome that forced him into a pact and the stronger he becomes the stronger becomes the connection to this pact. Warlocks also have a great variety for spells that can support a melee character. Like the combination to see through darkness and using Darkness on himself which is an incredible combination in melee combat, especially in lower lvl. And if you combine that with war caster you are an unstoppable force that can even summon demons in a fight. With lvl 5 things get already really crazy.
If this post get's enough likes I will share my written background story of the character if anyone is interested in that.
Just as long as you realize that nobody besides you can see through that darkness unless you specifically build a darklock party. And if you do that, expect the DM to throw in a caster with Daylight or some type of dispel.
@@Nurk0m0rath Highly possible, but this darkness is not meant to be the standard and more like a strong situation solver. I will mostly use to summon demons and catch the souls of my enemies to sell them to the forced into master. :3
@@GreenBaji So, your solution to a highly dangerous situation is to fight alone, in utter darkness, with no support from the allies you supposedly travel with because you're stronger together? Bear in mind that the only RAW mechanical benefit to this tactic is that you can attack with advantage (because enemies can't see you) while they attack with disadvantage (because they can't see you). It's the same benefit as a greater invisibility spell or being hidden, except with the added benefit/penalty that nobody but you can see anything within 20ft of the focal point, unless they're fiends or have blindsight. While some tables may play with rules that you can't attack anything you can't see, it's far too easy in D&D to metagame away almost all penalties to blindness.
Don't get me wrong, I do like the tactic and I still think it can have its uses. I just haven't found them yet. It would make sense as a way to divide the battlefield or "crowd control" one or several targets while your allies deal with other objectives ... except that there are usually better ways to do so. Creatures can make their way out of the darkness by following the sound of combat unless you have a friend cast silence as well, and even then can randomly wander outside the zone. They can still attack anyone inside, just with disadvantage. There's no saving throw to avoid being trapped, and as far as I know there's no hard-and-fast rule that prevents them from targeting a distant enemy with a ranged attack (which means some tables may use this rule while others will not). Spells, however, sometimes have line of sight requirements that may come into play.
But ultimately, I guess it comes down to your table. If yours lets you get away with stuff like this once in a while, enjoy it.
@@Nurk0m0rath I get your point it has a drawback yes, but If it comes to these situations I want to remind that I wouldn't use it for a all standard fights. I had one situation where I had to battle alone a strong enemy because he challenged the group to send our best fighter to duel him. In that situation I would have loved to use it, but I wasn't the needed level for the spell.
Another Situations I have in mind would be to snipe out strong single targets, taking advantage of being surrounded by enemies, to cause chaos if you infiltrate a place or intimidate someone with just punches until he submit. 10 Minutes with the warcaster feat could create a long and intense battle.
To give a bit more context of the campaign I using this character is my character the frontliner aka the tank that scares the shit out of the opponents. And at the beginning of this campaign I even was afrait to use Arms of hadar in fear to his my allies, but so far I never hit them with it so far. I am aware of it always depends on the situation and take care of my allies. ( Even if I have to contain myself as an Orc against the long ear in our group xD)
my warlock is the Celestial, also has one level of Life Cleric to beef up her healing and AC. her patron and cleric deity are the same, Vandria Gilmadreth.
Awesome cantrips.. Red eyes wins everything and it was obviously eldritch blast that he was gonna cast.
I think u guys kinda downplayed how cool the pact of the tome can be. It gives you cantrips but then the book of ancient secrets also 2 lv 1 spell FROM ANY CLASS. You can pretty much bypass the pact of the chain by choosing find familiar. It also solves one problem for the warlock: u can now cast ritual spells and you can add more spells that u find adventuring around
The sameyness of characters is a bigger problem with 5e in general. Warlock is your Eldritch Blast guy. Clerics are your Spiritual Weapon plus Spirit Guardians guy with the only difference being if you use a Cantrip or Melee weapon attack. Wizards aren’t quite as bad but there are still a handful of spells at each spell level that really stand out and your Wizard will have one of them. Martial characters are either ranged or great weapon fighters with occasional sword or board builds.
It doesn’t take long before you see all of these standard class builds show up at your table.