D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XIII: Warlock)

[DND_Reborn]

While I like some of the Invocations, the class really doesn't appeal to me. We made it a subclass of Cleric and that works fine for us.

 

[Ancalagon]

I played a fathomless warlock from level 1-8 (then the campaign ended) and I loved that character. I re-flavored it so that instead of being the deep depth of the sea, the theme was the deep depth of space - he was a space probe! (race was autognome).

 

[Vaalingrade]

Warlock is one of the few classes where I view most of the subclasses of worthy of existence. The hexblade stands head and shoulders above these though, and I'm always down to eradicate any Lovecraft in D&D. Tentacles belong breaded and fried.

 

[Undrave]

The voting has been kinda slow in this one. Feels like ALL the subclasses are quite popular! It's really interesting to see that only the UA ones have really suffered... I feel like the votes are so spread out that we'll be going for a while.

 

[J-H]

Yeah, I barely recognized the UA ones.
Almost all of the Warlock subclasses are good, and they are good for different things. Warlock is so modular... you can be a gish, full caster, controller, sneak-thief, healer, or scout. There's usually enough build room to fill any two of those roles.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I don't use warlocks in my homebrew campaign. I wanted witches, and people were like, "Those should be warlocks!"

Listen, if you stumble into and knock down a witch in a tavern, you should expect to get home and your cows will all be dry, or your wheat fields will be full of rust, or you'll have nightmares of being ridden like a horse.

You stumble into and knock down a warlock in a tavern, and you should expect to be incinerated by eldritch blasts before the warlock even gets up off the floor. There's no subtlety built into the mechanics of the class.

So, no warlocks. I use Walrock Homebrew's Witch class instead.

That said, I have seen some warlock homebrew I thought was excellent and I'd use if I did use warlocks.

• Patron: Eiti3, Otherworldy Patron: The Friends (I almost regret excluding warlocks due to this amazing patron idea)
• Patron: Brandes Stoddard, D&D 5e: Three New Spells, One New Pact, One New Patron (the Death patron, different flavor from others; includes his Malediction Pact which isn't too flavorful, but is mechanically interesting)
• Patron: samhaine, D&D 5e Warlock Patron: The Elder Blood (a primordial vampire patron)
• Patron: samhaine, D&D 5e Warlock Patron: The Wyrm (an ancient dragon patron)

I also think these homebrew pacts are pretty awesome:

• saequis' Pact of the Deck Mk IV, a Cardcasting Warlock Pact (really, really intriguing concept!)
• SitkaPad's Warlock Pact Boon - Coin
• Ascended_Bebop's Pact of the Claw
• Rex_Gunn's Pact of the Cauldron, a new witchy pact boon!
• ItsADnDMonsterNow's Warlock Pact: Pact of Blood
• PeanutJaygee's Pact of the Talisman (which came out before the official one and is IMO more flavorful)
• FrostBladestorm's Pact of the Key v1.3 with the modification suggested in billFoldDog's comment

 

[Undrave]

Listen, if you stumble into and knock down a witch in a tavern, you should expect to get home and your cows will all be dry, or your wheat fields will be full of rust, or you'll have nightmares of being ridden like a horse.

That doesn't sound all that useful an ability for an adventurer.

 

[RealAlHazred]

That doesn't sound all that useful an ability for an adventurer.

Depends on the character! Some characters prefer the subtle approach! My character in our Battletech Hero game is very much the kind to hack into a computer and find out the information we were expected to find by assaulting an enemy stronghold. But I figure so long as we eventually get into a scrap with the big stompy robots it doesn't matter if it's to my character's design instead of the patron's.

 

[CleverNickName]

You're either minorly inconvenienced or brutally murdered by magic, with no in-between? That's a...dubious binary. Apart from "I just prefer it that way," why wouldn't a warlock be able to do everything a witch could do, and vice-versa?

 

[RealAlHazred]

You're either minorly inconvenienced or brutally murdered by magic, with no in-between? That's a...dubious binary. Apart from "I just prefer it that way," why wouldn't a warlock be able to do everything a witch could do, and vice-versa?

It's a matter of style.

The warlock class has built-in specialization in eldritch blast. Is it necessary to do a warlock build around eldritch blast? Absolutely not! You can make any kind of character you like! However... several invocations drastically improve eldritch blast, which is a cantrip all warlocks get and is (in its base version) arguably one of the best combat-oriented cantrips: force damage, multiple beams at higher levels, a 1d10 damage die, etc.

So, can you make a witchy warlock? Sure, absolutely! In which case, why bother having a sorcerer class; just make a wizard! Why have a paladin, when you can get the same flavor with fighter/cleric multiclassing?

I have a fairy-tale oriented setting, and wanted a witch class that would fit well with that setting. And I found one!