D&D 5E What's the theme for the Warlock spell list?

[Bupp]

My playing experience is with Red Box, as well as 1st and 2nd Editions, and now 5th edition. Never had a warlock in one of my games, and I've never run one.

I am a big fan of collecting different spells and converting them to 5e. I'm pretty comfortable with the feel of the spell lists for all the other classes (yes, even sorcerers, even though they aren't part of my old school experience), but warlocks are a bit alien to me.

So for those of you that play warlocks, what are you looking for in a spell that you add to your spell list?

 

[AmerginLiath]

My first glance is that you have a very heavy of what I'd think of as 'contact' spells, mental mental magic where the warlock is communicating with other creatures, other entities, or other planes. When this reaching-into-the-mind-to-talk applies to combat, you get into charm spells and a big in-combat focus on "debuffs" to weaken or hold the opponent (especially great for setting up incapacitated monsters for other damage dealers to immediately finish off). In-between contacting another being's mind and screwing around with what they can do with their body, the third major theme I see is one that I think of a "altering perspective," involving teleporting about, changing the terrain with illusion or darkness, or even literally changing the senses of himself or others. There are also some damage spells, of course, but I see those as "let's pick the witchiest of the blasting spells to add on out of necessity")

A warlock is tied ever-more-intimately into something larger and stranger or more fearful, and his spells support that shift, making the world around him more inhuman and mercurial. While a wizard may conjure permanent changes or craft temporary illusions out of learned Spellcraft, the warlock's Pact Magic can be thought of like the waking dream of a larger mind intruding on our own world – think of the odd ways of communication, or travel (or lack of it, given how often we're stuck in place in dreams), or landscape-shifting of dreams, and you can pick spells that fit in that "walking dream" notion (nightmarish for a Fiend, confusing and haunting for a Great Old One, beautiful and I-don't-want-to-wake-up for an Archfey).

But that's just my first rambling thought on it.

 

[Mephista]

There are a couple themes in the warlock class. The big one, in my opinion, is "Curses." In fact, warlocks have access, in one way or another, to every curse spell in the game save Contagion. They have a signature curse spell no one else has - Hex - and that's pretty much a staple of the class. And, of course, eldritch blasts. As an aside, they're also pretty good with necrotic damage - most of the direct damage spells they have deal that. Think of warlocks as the archetypical "dark magic user." You're a fiendish warlock, a wicked witch, a Call of Cthulhu style occultist.

In many ways, you're like the mirror reflection of the paladin. Where as the paladin is a mix of Fighter with Holy Magic, you're a lot like a mix of rogue with Unholy Arcane Magic. In the book of vile darkness, they talk about how there are three "evil virtues" - Destruction, Corruption, and Domination. So, when the paladin upholds the virtues of Purity, Justice, and Mercy, the warlock embodies the dark vices.

Fiend warlocks specialize in direct damage and, ah, retributive spells I want to call them. Things like Hellish Rebuke, Fire Shield, Armor of Aragyth. You hit me, you suffer. They get a few AoEs, but those are pretty negligible beyond fireball. Their big thing is being close to the front line and being a damage dealer, soaking damage via THP. This is also a big one for being vampy, and, by vampy, I mean energy drain style.

Fey warlocks get teleports, illusions, and charms. They're the ones that mess directly with your mind. I like to think of them as anti-bards, all the charm and illusions, but focusing on debuffs instead of buffs. They're great at mobility as well - between the teleports, or the level 1 point blank "everyone is charmed and thus can't hurt you" effects. Their level 14 capstone is a pretty awesome ability - its basically a renewable save or die effect, the ultimate in single target illusions.

Great Old Ones are miniture psions. They're the best ones with all the mind control and "contact" spells that AmerginLaith mentioned, especially since the level 1 telepathy bypasses the whole "must understand your language" requirement. They get a lot of control spells, like Hunger of Hadar and Telekinesis, to literally lock down the battlefield with difficult movement and force pushes. I'd love to see Mind Blast here.


The last theme, tied into the invocations and patron abilities, is "self transformation." A big thing with the patron themed stuff is that you become more and more like your patron. More fiendish. More fey. More, ah, aberration-like? That's why there's Alterself and the polymorphs.

Anyways, when you're picking spells, that's the things you look for, depending on what path you took. Mind control, curses, distractions, destruction.


So far, I've talked about theme of the class. Another thing that the class -mechanically- lends itself to is At-Will castings. You generally want things that are long term buffs or debuffs, or repeatable. That's important to a lot of warlocks, since they have so few spell slots.