The Ultimate Guide to Warlocks in D&D 5e: Pacts and Eldritch Invocations
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- Опубликовано: 25 май 2023
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“Pact of the Tactics”
that could be an interesting pact that gives some warlock version of battle master manuvers.
Pact benefit: gain a subscription to Pact Tactics
Patron: The Minmaxer
@@rikospostmodernlife “Hey fucker, I’m your patron” Offbeat Outlaw
-Go Pact of the Chain
-Take Voices of the Chain Master
-Take the Actor feat
-Have your Imp familiar go invisible and listen in on someone important (Guard captain, noble, etc)
-Mimic the persons voice while speaking through your invisible imp
-Confuse everyone around you
I have a character with voice of the chain master, actor, an invisible imp, silent image and mask of many faces, which means he can impersonate you and also another you at the same time with his familiar speaking through your voice in his silent image of you! He's a lot of fun
OMG I need to play that character next game I'm in!!!
@@loganusher591Go Old One Patron and use _Awakened Mind_ to speak telepathically to your "victim" or just take the Telepathy feat.
Some other ideas.
Three levels in Whispers Bard for _Words of Terror_ to really mess with someone.
And if you have a way to stay awake around the clock .....
Be a changeling, save a feat
People make fun of warlocks constantly using eldritch blast but no one mocks the fighter for constantly saying I attck
They do tho?
Warlock, AKA the ranged fighter that can also use magic sometimes.
Oh yes we mock them for that. This is D&D. We are all equal opportunity mockists.
We mock the bards for trying to seduce the lich.
The barbarian and fighters get mocked for being able to use their whacking sticks “twice.”
Wizards get mocked for casting fireballs and being blown over by a stiff breeze.
Druids will be mocked as Wild shaping hippies.
Rogues will always have everyone making perception checks to see if their valuables have been “borrowed” or asking if Mr(s). McStabby would like to backstab?
Do we really need to go into opportunities for vicious mockery that are our religious adjacent classes of clerics and paladins?
No matter the class, there is always room for sass.
@@micahrichards8396
>blown over by a stiff breeze
>shield
>absorb elements
>silvery barbs
>cleric dipping for armor
VVIZARD VVEED 🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
Yes they do
It's so fun to make some crazy invocation builds.
For the hand crossbow “exploit”, you could put an Artificer Infusion on the weapon such as Repeating Shot to make it “magical”.
Ngl it always feels weird to me seeing people downplay the Artificer when looking specifically at what its infusions do for itself and ignore that they can be giving them away to the party. Like sure, you can give yourself a +1 arcane focus and Mind Sharpener your armor to enhance your concentration checks, but the ability to also just give your tank free magical armor or a thrown weapon fighter a Returning Weapon at level 2 has so much value.
You can be Iron Man or you can be Q from the James Bond movies. Artificers are cool as hell.
Pact of the Tome: an often overlooked Cantrip to grab is Primal Savagery. It only has somatic components, so you can cast it inside a silence bubble
You get better ritual casting than any other class because you're not limited by class list for rituals.
Pact of the Tome is my favorite. I love playing utility based warlocks and love having a cantrip prepared for every situation. You can get pretty creative with your use of cantrips.
Finally, a Pact Tactics video.
6:45 You should add shillelagh because it is a way to attack with Charisma without Hexblade. Useful if you are any other warlock besides Hexblade.
I picked it up as a backup when enemies get too close for eldritch blasting. Nost as powerfull as eldritch blasting, but we are a small party and mantaining distance from enemies is not always possible.
you shouldnt be meleeing regardless
@@FallenFromGlory True, but I thought it should be mentioned regardless.
@@baconator_x4098The classic "better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it"
@@Mrryn except this is tail protection so niche that you're wasting a slot
I love Warlocks so much, they're an amazing class to play in full, and an amazing class to multi class with
I'd also recommend some of the new pact of the tome Invocations. One gives you at will Sending spell via your book. Another allows you to give your whole team a feature like the half orcs relentless endurance. They both help the tome to feel more central to your characters powers.
I played a Warlock, including rebuilding them from Pact of the Blade to Pact of the Tome. I was new and by level 5-6 I figured out melee sucked. lol I didn't have Tasha's or Xanathar's, so no Hexblade meant I was MAD with Str/Char/Con. I learned a LOT. Fortunately, DM let me switch. Ritual Casting and a magic staff with daily charges really saved my play experience and sold me on D&D. Suddenly, I had a shield and between at-will spells, rituals and cantrips, I always had things to do. Charisma let me become a face outside of combat, Find Familiar let me start scouting safely and being the party's only source of Identify and Rary's Telepathic Bond meant I was constantly ritual casting, solving problems, speaking for the group and still held up in combat with the Eldritch Blast baseline. That said, if your party already has a Wizard covering ritual casting or even moderately optimized strikers, you're going to start feeling weak pretty fast, especially if you struggle to get short rests. Warlock really is about picking them for the right party and right table, and customizing them to fit that situation. I don't think they're a one-size-fits-all class like Wizard, Cleric or Paladin. But in the right situation, they can really shine.
My personal favorite warlock combo is pact of the chain and flock of familiars to get a swarm of say imps to deal so good damage that can debuff as well
Aspect of the Moon. Great way to have your Warlock be the one to stay up all night & keep watch
The wide range of eldrich invocations is why I really love the UA warlock as it gives you the choice to go for a even more invocation stacking to make warlocks closer to the monsters they made a pact with! Your free to combine more powerful always on invocations vs a single use higher level spell to build your warlock into something really unique vs the typical eldrich cannon or hexblade. Your walock could have always on truesight, devil sight, eyes of the rune keeper, witch sight and at will alter self, speak with dead, false life, disguise self, levitate, invisibility, arcane eye....and your pact! Sure you might not have as many higher level spells but when you can combine this with feats like eldrich adapt, alert, actor, telepathic and telekenetic plus ritual casting and medium armor your no longer a spellcaster - you're a BBEG!
Speaking of the Magic Weapon workaround, I recently discovered that this should, by all rights, work with a Dhampir's Bite attack. Since your teeth are counted as a weapon, cast Magic Weapon on them and immediately start your ritual as part of a short rest. Once complete, dismiss your teeth into an extradimensional space, and summon them back to cause them to gain the benefit of Improved Pact Weapon. You now have +1 magic teeth and can cast spells out of them.
That's ridiculous and I'm now building a warlock to do that.
@@MrScaryJello Make sure you talk with your DM about it first, it's definitely squinty! But also, it's fairly low power so I can't imagine any experienced DMs would balk. If you want to know more, since you attack with your Constitution for the bite attack, you can Pact of the Blade with Con as your main stat, and it also gives self healing proficiency times per long rest. If you buff the damage of the bite appropriately, it also buffs the healing. Take Wildspacer background for a free Tough feat and by level six you can take a level of monk if you want for martial arts and bite three times per round with bite-fu. But you can also cast Booming Blade with it, so you can go Warlock 5 Sorc 15 for sorlock power and extra attack into a quickened Booming Blade Bite! Fun stuff. Lets you pump everything into Con and Charisma. Very atypical, plus you don't need a weapon or arcane focus held, so shield and free hand for a magic staff or component pouch. War Caster lets you BBB as a reaction and hold a magic staff, and at level six you have 76 hp with just a +4 Con and Charisma. Very fun! Definitely not optimized, but you get some cool standout features that aren't normal. And with your armor at a respectable 18 even at level 1, with all that HP and self healing, you're probably never going down. Plus, below half HP, you get advantage on the bites!
@@RaethFennec I'm not sure dhampir teeth are melee weapons worth at least 1 SP for Booming Blade....maybe though? There's probably someone out there that would buy them...
@@DrgnDrake Once it's a magic weapon, I think that's undeniable. But if it's in question, just swing by a dentist to get them silvered. Or failing that, some gold added!
@@RaethFennec I don't think a spell with a duration increases the inherent value of an object. Getting them silvered sounds hilarious though. Go bite some werewolves!
Familiars of the chain are very usefull if you equip them wtih magic items. With invest of the chain master, an imp can throw magic missiles with a wand by using your bonus action (Or even without it if your dm rules the use of magic items as "Us an item" action and not an "attack" action). If you get a righ of spell storing your familiar can become a caster, be it with 1-2 of your high level spells, or with spells from your team. Any type of magic item that works regardles of if the user is a caster or not is a great adition to the chain familiar.
If for some stupid reason your DM gives you multiple wands of magic missile your familiar becomes a turret.
3:37 echo knight dip allows you to attack with melee weapon at 60ft range and even do extra attacks. So you don't need improved pact weapon invocation
A reminder to anyone reading this: Warlock 2 Sorcerer 3 is an amazing base to build either a warlock or sorcerer off of as it gives you access to, for example, EB + quickened EB. That both classes scale off CHA just sweetens the deal. It also allows sorcerers to get partial benefit from rod of the pact keeper.
Edited because I dyslexia’d the two numbers.
Don't you need Sorcerer 3 to get metamagic?
@@SimonClarkstone ye, it's Sorc 3 Warlock 2 that's the base, Warlock 3 Sorc 2 is the Coffeelock base
This came at the perfect time, currently building my first Warlock for a one shot
Oh no now they're gonna nerf it even harder. Kobold what have you done?
Fave class let's GOOOOO
Additional boon with investment of the chain master say you get a magic item that has a set dc that's lower than your spell save dc it would get upgraded to your dc if your familiar uses it
Thank you for your information video
I love warlocks. I wanna try that space control variant.
now we all are ager to see the video of building Gatorland . . .
at 3:02 there is a sage advise from jeremy crawford (RAI) say overwise , but many of this feature are at a level of which you can expect already having magic weapon. rule as intendent this kind of class feature are quickly useless , which is dump . In that case RAW is better them this RAI and should be use . But keep your DM can use the RAI , you should make sure which version is apply to your game before fighting the lich.
One thing you didn’t cover in the video is the optimization aspect of the invocations that give per long rest spells. I specifically want to know if things like Mire the Mind, Bewitching Whispers, Dreadful Word, or Minions of Chaos are worth it. Love your vids.
Hexblade 9 Rune knight 11 multiclass, no eldrich blast baby dont need it. Pact of the chain for the psuedodragon buddy, investment of the chain master, chains of carceri, relentless hex, tricksters escape, eldritch mind baby
Yes. Gator Land!
The majority of monsters do not have ranged attacks. Stacking slows and knock backs can lock down boss encounters and there are no saves to use legendary saves on. The lock’s ability to do this resourcelessly at range is really under appreciated.
Fiendish vigor is super underrated lvl2-4. Its better than repelling blast at those levels and combines very well with hexblade or martial warlocks. Better than barbarian hitpoints at lvl2
I remember for a level 1 one shot, I grabbed Fiendish Vigor from Vhuman, and a level in barbarian, and I effectively had 44 hp against our foes (12+2 from CON, +8 from fiendish vigor between combats, and with the barbarian resistances halving enemy damage, I had 44 hp) at level 1 along with 18 AC from medium armor and a shield.
Hey Kobold, I don't know if you heard but in the Tales of the Valiant Kickstarter, there is a stretch goal that got unlocked that will include a linguistic guide to speaking the Draconic language. They are going to hire a linguist to create the language. If it's available to you when it's created, will you do a "How to Speak Draconic" video? I think it would be great. Thanks.
6:29 They’ve got a Gatorland in Florida if Gator is interested.
kobold no, youre dooming the warlock again!!
I prefer the non combat invocations. Like Eyes of he Rune Keeper and Elcrich Sight (for GOOwarlock) or Beast Speach and Mask of Many Faces (for archfey warlock).
Can a warlock use 2 invocations on the same spell. Can I use agonizing blast and repelling blast on the same Aldridge blast.
Yes.
Gator land !
Yes!
Saw the thumbnail and thoight you were discussing Arcanum's
You missed out one combo with Grasp of Hadar. If you have a flying speed, you can pull an enemy just high enough into the sky to take fall damage, which typically bypasses all damage resistance.
I think that Tomb of Levistus is bad mostly because it'll only save you from one attack, on top of skipping your turn, so if an enemy can shove or knock you prone during it, you'll be prone on said enemy's next turn. It depends on what your party composition though.
In general, I agree, but there are monsters with really strong attacks that they can only make *sometimes* (like, dragon's breath) and there are traps. I don't think ToL is must-have by any means, but it can certainly be a competitive choice in some campaigns/tables.
@@MsNathanv yep! it's not worthless, and some tables and campaigns will definitely love to have it. But, both as a DM and as a player, more often than not it blows up in the warlock's face (making them take more damage than they would've otherwise), which is why I consider it bad. Glad to see someone counter my point tho lol.
ok so... warlock 5 (doesnt matter the type, though maybe hexblade cuz charisma will be one of your two focus stats), swarmkeeper ranger 3, arcane archer 11.
for the warlock take pact of the blade with improved pact, eldritch smite, and agonizing blast.
for the ranger fighting style take archery
for the warrior fighting style take Superior Technique (get a battle manuver).
take the Martial Adept feat (two more battle manuvers)
grab crossbow expert, sharpshooter, spell sniper, and warcaster when available.
focus on dex and charisma (though you'll need a 13 wis).
enjoy?
I always grab fiendish vigor at level 2. Up to level 5 those extra temporary hitpoints will mater a lot (and usually replace it with tomb of levistus at 5 for the oh shit moments).
Pick Pact of the Chain and Investment of the Chain Master at level 3
Summon beefed up Imp
Retrain into Pact of the Blade
Profit!
Is Mask of Many Faces any good from an optimisation perspective?
Yes, if you optimise for social interactions and trickery.
Namely, the Friends cantrip as you can get advantage on charisma checks for a short interaction, then turn around the corner and change disguise before the target realises they have been under a spell.
Gonna turn my Imp familier into a long range assasin who takes out monarchs, kings, ect. Also looks like I gotta find my nearest assasins guild.
Since this video has been released wizard will now update the warlock.
🍕💚🐊
Have Devil’s Sight.
Cast darkness on crossbow bolt.
Fire it into an enemy.
Ruin their day.
Warlocks go BRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Take pact of the tome and find familiar made into a tiny spider or the like tiny and stealthy bug
Take great old one patron for the awakened mind
Talk with dm that since patron and pact are from same source as Class features, you should be able to use your familiar as a point of origin to use such features, a.k.a. use the awakened mind from your familiar point of view when seen through its eyes
Make the spider get to an annoying npc house (a guard or a leader enemy that you need to maintain tired)
Take the actor feat if needed
Take the non-sleep invocation from pact of the tome
Talk to his mind, theres various routes heres:
1. If know of a passed away friend or family that you knew of, talk to the npc on his voice thanks to actor feat, then you can scare it off or trick it to do stuff, easy roleplay opportunity
2. Start screaming in his mind, 24/7, he wouldnt be able to sleep, or to talk correctly with anyone, so he get exhaustion levels, take a week and he will be so tired it will be an easy target to negotiate or talked away, if it fights it would be easy too...
It can work on entire camps too, scream at the mind of night guards, they alert everyone, take all night searching for non-existing enemies, try to sleep, repeat until day time, take a week and the entire camp will be exhausted and irritated to fight as it should, minimum effort from a combination that is already good: old one and tome pact as utility, you already beat an entire army with just staying in one place and mentally screaming to someone
People really under-estimate repelling blast. Assuming you are using eldritch blast, at worst its making it take longer for melee enemies to reach you.
The thing that gets slept on though is that there is no saving throw and no size or weight limit to what can be pushed. As a result you can push creatures larger than anyone else can and often for further than they can too.
My favorite is throwing one enemy into another one, its incredible for crowd control
I played a warlock who used silent image to summon a rotating banana
Your Warlock be thinking "rotato FASTER BANANA!"
kobold what happened to pathfinder :( I was looking forward to it
Awww no talk about Eyes of the Runekeeper :(
That and Eldrich Sight makes the DMs tear their hair out :D No magic goes undetected, no text goes unread.
And if you ever reach lvl 15, Visions of Distant Realms. Unlimited scouting on demand.
i really don't like that some many invocations are there only to make things viable
if you don't take them (and there are a lot of them) you will be almost useless,
imagine a pact of the blade warlock without thirsting blade
the one dnd warlock takes away so much of the cool and unique things of warlock, they can be a very odd specialist but the new one is a lesser version of other classes
I'm playing a Warlock without Eldritch Blast just to prove that it's not necessary to be effective.
So far I am proving correct.
I’ve done that before. It’s super fun
Pretty sure that both the pact weapon and the fists are Turned off by anti magic field via similar issues to the as if u were concentrating on a spell thing reason why barbs can't use favored foe raw.
I would argue that agonizing blast and repelling blast are better for Warlock builds but others are better for dips.
Not really, because those are all eldritch blast needs to pop off. Just grab 2 warlock levels and you’ve always got a decent combat option, allowing tons of flexibility for building whatever the heck you want after.
But this depends on what your goals with your dip are. If you aren’t just after EB, there are definitely tons of options. Personally, if you’re aiming for hexblade and mostly going for charisma weapon attacks, Mask of Many and Misty Visions can make great use of all that charisma (especially if your main class has deception expertise). Or there’s the cheese no DM should allow of abjuration wizard + Armor of Shadows.
Yeah tell me about them invocations
I always try and build a warlock without pact of blade/eldritch because it's so overdone and so many utility invocations to choose from
Bump
Thirsting Blade should just straight up be Extra Attack, so that it works with Shadow Blade.
Pact tactics
Edit: dammit. You already thought of it
I think the talisman is underpowered so I homebrewed you can make more than 1 for your party members and the die size increases as you level (same levels as your cantrip upgrades) and doesnt have the failure caveat. No other pact boon has this kind of limitation so I dont get it. Let them waste it on initiative
I recently had a homebrew idea where Warlocks get 1 free casting of each of their Patrons spells once per long rest. I might change it if we start playing and it feels too unbalanced
Haha "or even uuhhh roleplaying..."
The wording you are talking about with monks and the pact weapon has been confirmed by Jeremy crawford to function like magic items in the anti magic field. Im surprised you sont know this, because i learned it from your boy treantmonk in...i think its in his can sul-katesh be beaten video where he talks about the ruling.
That said its one of the only Crawford rulings i dont subscribe to because why tf would you write it like that if it just functioned like the thing you're saying it is similar to
Eveybody forgets one very strong thing a warlock can do. You can basicaly take pact of the chain, take Voice of the chain master, take Misty Step as a spell and voilà you have a teleport that could travel you troughought the whole plane of existence. How? Just use an action to look trough the eyes of your familiar who is on the other side of the plane then cast Misty Step as a bonus action while seeing trough the eyes of your familiar. Misty Step teleports you 30 feet to a space you can see...the perfect escape. Just leave your pet at home and when things become to dicy you just teleport back home or something like that. And i could be wrong but if you do this with something like Blessing of the raven queen abbility it can't even be counterspelled guaranteeing your escape. I think this could make a very strong bad guy. Just let him pop up summon some demons and then make a snarky remark and dissapear in smoke. The warlock is safe and somewhere else and the party still needs to deal with the demons.
Any build which relies on DM interpretation is worthle...Oh wait you have *pizza*? All good then!
Algorithm bump
Investment of the Chain master is insane for milking a Pseudodragon goddamn. DC 11? Pretty whatever, most enemies are going to shrug that away. Your Save DC? Pretty damn reliable
I think warlock should be a wizard subclass.
There’s enough substance to warlock’s flavor (that is of an occultist who was granted their power) to make it a whole class, and I think turning it into a Wizard subclass would end up limiting that flavor a lot (because they would have to limit patrons to 1 or 2, or make the features mostly unrelated to the type of patron to allow for that freedom)
Not saying it wouldn’t make a sick subclass though
Dude I'm sorry it is really hard to listen to you. This was dry and a slog to listen to
I'm sorry I talk slow in RL. you can watch the vid in 1.5x speed. That probably helps.
Nooo not an Eldritch blast warlock - So dull! Get inventive instead!
It is the obvious choice of invocation, turning an already alright cantrip into something more like a real spell in effectiveness with some extra versatility. But there are so many more fun to play and still effective options.
"it is powerful and therefore bad!"
@@pandanielxd No, its just boring to play (and DM) - Guess what I'm going to do this turn and every turn in almost every combat... Less variety of skills used than the stereotypical ranger everyone loves to hate for only ever shooting arrows.
Step away from that EB build and you can get some really good warlock builds that don't even have it at all, or frequently have a collection of other good options, so you have a real choice to make as the player.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 I dont think you comprehend what is good
@@pandanielxd If you mean a warlock without EB try and build one and I think you would be surprised. There are any ways it can be potent, and a good build is never about being the absolute best min-max damage dealer for a single style of fight or situation anyway. For one thing you play the game to have fun not do the same thing every time its your go for a few hundred hours that character might live, and that level of min max for whatever criterial you picked means there will be a major flaw in your abilities that can and will be exploited sometimes.
D&D is too chaotic and has far to much scope to reliably always get that convenient problem you built your whole character around solving and while just dealing damage splash or single target isn't ever likely to be a bad thing to build for it is not the only way to win even in the most direct combat encounters either. Plus even with no EB you can do a heap of damage very reliably.
I might have missed it, but i didnt hear far-scribe. Unlimited sending as long as you have the recipient's signature.
My guy plz repost minus the back pipes