One Warlock build that I am running atm I like to dub as the Phantom Actor. Archfey Patron, Pact of the Chain + Sprite familiar, Voice of the Chain Master, Mask of Many Faces, Actor Feat. By level 4, your a face character who can turn into just about anybody, and manipulate your way out of most any situation if your clever enough. You Sprite can turn invisible at will and fly, you can see through their sense, which makes for a great scout. Which in turn allows you to hear and watch anybody for any given length of time, so long as your familiar isn't detected, but being tiny and invisible that is difficult without magic. This allows you to use your Actor feat to impersonate that person accurately, and Mask of Many Faces lets you become them. Throw in an optional disguise kit, and you'll be hard pressed to found out. Worse comes to worse, you have charm abilities/spells. You can even use Friends, because once you turn back to your regular form, whomever was angry at you doesn't matter any more because they don't know you were the one who charmed them. (as you were somebody else at the time) Ie, Consequence free charms. Throw in whatever combat abilities you want.
Y’know, I’ve been trying to figure out a good idea for a social based archfey warlock for a while now. I’m definitely going to have to consider this build. Thanks! Also, this character is going to be a fairy with the Haunted One background, so if anyone has any ideas for that, then please let me know.
Never hear anyone talk about the idea that Ghostly Gaze allowing you to see though walls means that any spell that reads "a creature that you can see within 30 feet" now works through walls
Drow...your character ideas and the way you weave char concepts and spell/theme choices is aways top notch! Keep tossing out content and the subscribers will come Mate. Cheers
Drow Bard You got it Drow! You cover so many topics, builds...I like them ALL but the "Unconventional Builds" are the my favs. Can you do a piece comparing class/builds sustained damage output vs spike damage. Maybe Top 5 or Top 8? Keep the vids coming...they rock Bro!
@@dragonmaster613 pretty sure if buddha was a dnd character he would be a Way of Tranquility monk that also follows the tenets of the Redemption paladin.
@@dragonmaster613 lol idk why I litterally never saw this sorry. But yeah. I think a redemption paladin would be a great fit actually, re skinned as a stereotypical monk character. Keep in mind that archetypes can be re skinned to fit the aesthetic you just need to make sure the abilities match what you are going for. Have your spells be sutras, rather than a religious bend make your devotion about finding enlightenment. Character restrict yourself to fast and meditate regularly and really lean into the pacifism of the Redemption Paladins. (I'm not Buddhist so like that's about the extent I can go) I would probably go human and take the healer feat.
Oh a video on unconventional Warlock, let's see how it compares to mine... *Sees far superior Warlock builds* (lies) Ah, I see we came to the same conclusions.... Seriously though, this was a great video, I particularly liked that swarm warlock; I think I might steal that one next time ;)
I want more videos like this! Warlocks are probably one of the most versatile classes there is, and removing Eldritch Blast really helps that show. I need more unconventional warlock builds with awesome themes!
I would still leave EB+AB. That in my opinion is what makes warlocks versatile. With just those two options (maybe add hex) you are covered for combat, leaving everything else for role playing flavor or utility. If you don't take the EB+AB combo or go the hexblade build, you become a liability in the party not being able to pull your weight in damage dealing. A cantrip and and invocation is a small tax to fulfill that basic obligation and leave you free to build the rest of your character as you wish.
I liked this video simply for the Cloak of flies/Gaseous form combo. My current unconventional warlock is multi classed with sorcerer, 15 pact of chain undying/5 shadow sorcerer. True, I'm hitting the usual conventions with my Eldrich Blast, but his unconvention comes from his patron: I'm using the Inheritor background (from SCAG) to set up that due to some post-game Chronomancy he is going to [unknowingly] Raistlin Majere himself.
- I had read in xanathars that a warlock can have a Unicorn as a Patron. I had an idea to make a character whose basic backstory is that he was a bugbear chief of was considered evil even by bugbear standards. This cruel chieftain was, powerful, deviously cunning and possessed of an ego and narcissism rarely seen. As a youth, he had killed all the members of the tribe he was born into for no other reason than they knew his true name. The chief believes that names are for those who lack the strength and will to claim title and power. Once he matured he had grown to be large even by bugbear standards and possessed a natural talent for fighting and savagery that it wasn't long before he gathered his own tribe and soon became the chief of one of the strongest bugbear tribes to ever have existed. years passed and the chief's power and tribe grew in strength, but nature cares little for martial prowess, and as game grew fewer the Cheif was forced with starvation or to travel through the woods to a fabled enchanted section of forest that was sure to have plenty of game, as well as plenty of forest guardians. after weeks of slow going travel due to terrain and the insistence of the chiefs generals to bring as many of the tribe as possible to deal with the forest guardians who they would be lucky not to encounter. finally, after weeks of travel they stumbled upon an area of the forest that seemed more lush and healthy, as though it was enchanted. The chief had long ago captured a druid and after years of torture and abuse developed a kind of Stockholm syndrome toward the chief and was with them on the hunt. the chief ordered the druid to cast faerie fire and it revealed a couple of unicorn foals, pixies and other fantastical creature's. As soon as the creatures realized they were seen they became aggressive, The Tribe immediately attacked and the great battle commenced between a tribe of bugbears vsFirbolgs, treants, animals that seemed to out of nowhere, even the terrain seemed to be constantly changing. In the end, the tribe prevailed but suffered great casualties, around 2/3 of the tribe lay dead and scarcely a one escaped without a severe injury. They butchered the dead, along with the firbolgs and strange animals, the Chief himself killed the Unicorn foals himself, clawing off strips of flesh and savoring every agonizing moment of the newborns' pain. Though many of the tribe were dead, the tale of this battle and recognition the chief felt it would bring him was more than worth the loss off of those who are too weak to survive. A few days travel the chief and his tribes' survivors arrived back home and settled in for well-earned rest. As the chief laid down to sleep that night he dreamed of a great unicorn who was furious with him. The Unicorn Said " you have murdered my kin and defiled my glade. death would be too good for you, from this day forth I own you and curse you to incapable of acting on your evil nature, instead, you will be compelled to do good unless I say otherwise" when the chief awoke he noticed he had a long Unicorn Horn on his head that seemed intangible, with a sort of light around it. As well his hands seemed too always feel like they were still covered and dripping with the blood of the innocent unicorn foals. When he tried to show it to his tribe, no one could see anything, not even the druid. in anger, he went to strike the druid but found he couldn't, and instead felt a great amount of shame, along with a strange compulsion to free him. Realizing the situation, and what he was now, he knew his tribe would banish him if they found out about his affliction, or track and kill him if he tried to run. there was only one option, he poisoned the remaining members of the tribe that night and freed the captive Druid. Now the Chief wanders the lands, doing good deeds and protecting the helpless and hating every minute of it.
Only problem I have with the backstory is that he poisoned the tribe after he could only do good. While some people may rationalize that killing evil creatures is good, I think that poisoning them is still evil. He could have freed the druid and have the druid cast pass without trace to leave the tribe behind. Otherwise great concept.
This is a very funny concept. I can imagine scenes of the bugbear willing to make some evil and in the last moment he just went: "Sorry mister, here, have some cookies and please let me pet your fluffy dog"
Warlock: Devil of Darkness, Spellcaster Build Variant Human with Warcaster Feat Great Old One Patron Darkness Spell + Devils Sight Invocation Combat strategy: Cast Darkness on a copper piece then use Mold Earth Cantrip to create pits or cover to increase your AC against range attacks. Eldritch Blast from within. Weakness: AOE attacks and very low AC (12) without using cover or forcing Disadvantage with Darkness. Pact of the Tome + Book of Secrets Invocation Strategy: Ritually enables Detect Magic, Identify, and Illusory Script (a means I use to secretly communicate with my Patron/DM.) This gives me a lot of flexibility in both social and combat scenarios. All by lvl 3. Future levels: Level 4+5: -Defensive - Armor of shadows Invocation + Dex & Int -Offensive - Agonizing blast Invocation + Charisma or Spell Sniper Level 8+9: Utility - Acendent step + Charisma or Spell Sniper I also have a plan to use exclusively verbal component spells to activate with Magic Mouth (that I’d cast on an item or amulet) in order to increase spell versatility depending on what my DM will allow. www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Grotey/characters/3672377
A Hexblade with the Crossbow Expert feat is great fun to play especially when you use your spells for mobility (i.e. Spider Climb, Fly, Misty Step) and shooting someone with a bolt that has Darkness cast on it is very satisfying.
This has been working for me and my group. Thx for the inspiration Warlock Human (variant) Lv: 4 Hit points: 31 Armor Class: 14 Pact: Fey Pact Boon: Blade Feats: Sentinel, Warcaster 12 str 8 int 10 wis 14 dex 14 con 16 chr Equipment Glaive (pact weapon) Studded leather Spells Blade Ward Eldritch blast Minor illusion Comprehend Languages Protection from Evil and Good Hex Misty Step Hunger of Hadar Invocations Agonizing Blast Repelling Blast
Idea: level 3 Rouge Assassin with dip into 3 levels of Warlock. For your invocations pick up Mask of Many Faces and Devil’s sight and get the Darkness spell as soon as you can. You become master of deception and subterfuge. Cool combat potential too. If your in a group of humanoid enemies, cast darkness with at least one inside and kill them with crit surprise attacks. On your next turn use Disguise self to look like the person you just killed and walk out of the darkness, gripping your throat as if it’s been injured (that way you don’t have to imitate them speaking and you look like a hurt friend). Add gurgling sounds to really sell it. If you get a good deception check the enemies will think your their injured ally, allowing you to get off more crit surprise attacks. If things get hairy, dive back into your darkness for protection.
@@mathunit1 It's advertised similarly to a full caster yet only gets 2 spell slots for almost all of its play time, which are usually dedicated to armor of agathys and hex. Then they have no casting unless they can spare an HOUR to sit around for a "short" rest. To add insult to injury, most invocations require you to expend one of your already incredibly limited spell slots AND are only once a day. Whereas invocations SHOULD and are meant to be more permanent or at will features, which it lacks. Yet almost all or literally all your invocation slots will be required to keep your Pact Boons up to date or to make your Eldritch Blasting competitive with using a crossbow.
Yaaaaay!!!!!! Thanks sooo much!!!! This was exactly what I wanted to see! I totally dig all 3 creations, I guess I just recieved a dark calling to geek out into reading all the suggested spells again in detail and imagining what character/background/story fits each concept best. That swarmlord seems to be the natural choice for the powers a Greather Hag could grant,... My players so gonna hate this... Mongrelman warlock of pesty obnpxiousness coming up!
You've given me some interesting ideas to ponder. In 5th edition mostly I use Warlock as a multiclass option. I'm currently using it in an Archer build. Lore Bard 10 Battlemaster 6 Pact of the Blade Warlock 4. Taking improved pact weapon for a longbow. Have the ability to disarm trip and push back enemies. You also have action surge and access to the spell Swift Quiver. I took Devil's sight for my invocations. This isn't the typical 5th edition one shot first round assassin build. I was trying to build a well-rounded Archer character not a one round sniper character. Plenty of options for Feats or ability bumps. Tons of Versatility from The Bard spell-casting. Take crossbow expert and you never have to worry about using another weapon. I have many other perks on this character but I think I've probably rambled long enough. Keep up the great work
Cross with Great Weapon Fighter, Pole arm Master (Glaive), and War Caster (because the pole arm feat doesn't specify that your attack of opp. must be with your weapon.) choose Devil's Sight, Cast Darkness on self or belt... You are now a sphere of Annihilation.
Half-Drow Celestial Warlock of the Moon Goddess. pact of the Chain... Say hello to Sailor Moon and her familiar. Plus you get to play around with Drow Magic advantages without the Sunlight Sensitivity drawback. If by any chance you're more into singers/dancers, go Bard after 2 or 3 levels in lock
I took eldritch blast, but not agonizing for pact of the blade fey patron. I rethemed hunger of hadar to a swamp with acidic vines. Sword burst to thorn burst... etc. I also took the levels of Rogue- mastermind to get the 30' aid. Because my party loves it. Also nature based - plant growth is underrated and farmers love you for your 8hr casting. Far from optimal, but fun.
I'm relatively new to dnd playing wise, only been in 4 games. I just started a new game as a hexblade, tomelock and I've been really struggling to keep up with my party, this really helped me with a direction i can go in so I'm not totally useless. Thank you.
Playing a Spirit Master adjacent right now and having A LOT of fun with it. I went the route with frost spells on top of the undead stuff and it works really well. My DM also gave me armour that can 'cast' an armour of agathys once a day, so I don't even need to keep that spell. It's pretty awesome :)))
I tried an Aasimar Celestial Warlock for the Curse of Strahd campaign because our cleric left the party due to rl workload. He was very interesting and I encourage people to play this if they want something holy but in the warlock style. I usually like classes with lots of utility and this was one of my favourites so far. In retrospec I could have done some things differently but at the end of the Campaign my build was: Race: Aasimar Class: Warlock (Celestial) (Lvl: 11) Ability Scores: STR 8, DEX 14, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 14, CHA 20 Skills: Arcana, Intimidation, Insight, History Languages: Abyssal, Celestial, Infernal, Common Background: Sage, Researcher Resistances: Necrotic, Radiant, (Cold, when hoding the Staff of Frost) Class Feats: 1. Otherwordly Patron (Celestial) 2. Pact Magic (Celestial) 3. Expanded Spell List (Celestial) 4. Healing Light (Celestial) 5. Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Book of Ancient Secrets (Detect Magic Ritual, Find familiar Ritual - Owl), Fiendish Vigor, Tomb of Levistus, Gift of the Protectors 6. Pact Boon: Pact of the Tome (Mind Sliver, Shillelagh, Word of Radiance) 7. Radiant Soul (Celestial) 8. Celestial Resilience 9. Mystic Arcanum: Tasha's Otherwordly Guise Racial Traits: Healing Hands, Darkvision, Celestial Resistance, Celestial Legacy (Light Cantrip, Lesser Restoration, Daylight) Other Feats: Inspiring Leader, Lucky, War Caster Spells: Cantrips: Booming Blade, Eldritch Blast, Green-Flame Blade, Light, Mage Hand, Mind Sliver, Sacred Flame, Shillelagh (most favourite), Word of Radiance Leveled Spells: Banishment, Charm Monster, Counterspell, Cure Wounds, Dimension Door, Dispel Magic, Flame Strike, Greater Restoration, Invisibility, Wall of Fire Inventory (the most noticable items): 1. Staff of Frost (Cone of Cold, Fog Cloud, Ice Storm, Wall of Ice) 2. Vampiric Gulthias Staff (most useful with Shillelagh): Vampiric Strike, Unnatural Growth, Blight Bane 3. Helm of Comprehending Languages 4. Wand of Secrets 5. Studded Leather Armor 6. Shield 7. A piece of wood (for Shillelagh before the gulthias staff) 8. Scroll of Heroes Feast 9. Scroll of Mass Cure Wounds 10. Scroll of Wall of Fire 11. Scroll of Major Image 12. Scroll of Revivify Overall he was a durable support character with lots of tools for lots of difficult situations and when needed he could be a decent support frontliner next to our paladin. My position in most fights was in the middle helping whoever needed help and stepping on the front when it was required. I could hold the backline when surrounded and deliver some AoE damage to weaken enemies at the start of combat when that was the case. I used Dimension Door most often to enter an area or escape fight with a party member that was dying, I used Healing Light to help party members with their death saves, I gave temporary hit points to all our party members with inspiring leader every day and in the front line I used Vampiric Gulthias Staff with Vampiric Strike, Shillelagh and Booming Blade or Green-Flame to hit hard and take some hp back. Tomb of Levistus came in handy when I needed to tank lots of damage for one round and Gift of the Protectors was used as a buffer to save a party member from dying when I had too much to handle. The healing output wasn't much but it was crucial at difficult situations because it could be done from range and together with our paladin's heal it was more than enough. I enjoyed playing this character and I know he isn't the best option for a warlock but he was fun and useful. I am playing DnD for more than 15 years and I have to say it was a cool weird new adventure, both in Combat and in RP.
Wonderful video I'll be saving this and referring back to it, I'm starting up a campaign that has a lot of evil casters since the party is a pair of paladins and a cleric. Undead and demons will be a recurring theme I imagine so I will be referring to a few of these to spice things up, and give the party something to worry about. Thanks for posting.
You almost had my concept for my warlock. My warlock is nature-based, but definitely not a swarm lord. She thinks she's a druid! I've given her as many nature spells and abilities as I could - she has the talk to beasts feature and I'm doing pact of the chain. I love unconventional characters!
Ive tried out the problem solver build with a focus on intelligence taking the observant feat to make up for his low wisdom proficient in arcana, history, religion, and investigation. Currently at level 11 and ive become very fond of the name “realm seer” as i plan on attaining an “amulet of the planes” giving him access to plane shift without taking up my one use lvl 7 spell. Interesting twist with the build from my DM is the concept of a corruptive magic from his patron, Cthulhu, slowly changing his alignment. These come from a madness table i roll from when he wakes up. Being extremely inconvenient i took aspect of the moon and its become much more manageable as I commonly gather exhaustion points and pass out occasionally. Over all its a lot of fun 👍🏽
I remember playing as this character, Malok, who was a drow pact of the blade warlock who's whole thing was in his second name, Shadowstrider (cheesy I know, I was 13), so I got for one of my invocations Devil's Sight so I could see through any type of darkness, even magical (key thing here), so when I got access to 2nd level spells I got darkness, so that way I could just cast darkness, summon my blade and run into darkness. So in my head he was like a wraith, coming in out of sight stabbing you and before you can react disapearing into the darkness.
Fred Doolan Burke or even... summon your blade, cast darkness on IT and run into battle. The radius on a darkness spell is decent. Most people, enemy and ally alike wouldn’t be able to make out that the center was moving with you. They’d just hear the screams coming out of it, and see the gory results of your work when it was over.
I have just made a variant human celestial patron tomelock with healer and magic initiate feats, I have 10 cantrips with book of ancient secrets invocation at lvl 4. Quite the literal Swiss Army knife of a spell caster with solid healing to boot
All of these creative builds in the comments makes me wish I hadn’t chosen to make a warlock on a whim. I need to plan one out better than mine right now, but he’s good and crazy
How to play a Jester/assassin. Pick Entertainer background, pick human variant, ask your DM to swap out proficiency with two-weapons fighting style (if they'll allow it) and pick duel wielder feat. Next, put your first level into rogue for the skills and expertise. Then pick warlock for the next 6 levels choosing archfey pact of the blade. You use your eldritch invocations to supplement your melee, not to do damage. Pick devil's sight to see in magical darkness and the darkness spell. Lastly, put 2 more points into rogue and pick assassin, then put the last 11 levels into monk and pick way of shadow. For feats, pick war caster. After that, customize it however you'd like. The warlock skills are used for trickery and supplementing your sneak attacks. Same with the monk abilities. Your main focus is spamming sneak attacks then vanishing into darkness. Enjoy!
I liked my Kobold warlock, he used eldritch blast, but because pack tactics is so damn good, he only ever used 1 blast invocation. Between being fey pact of the tome, and not focusing on blast invocations, he had a nice wide selection of spells and invocations to pick from. He ended up doing a small multiclass into sorcerer (divine), and that added even more spells to upcast and diversify with, while letting him play around with metamagic too.
The first one you described is actually my go-to Warlock, it's the second character I ever played and I've played similar Warlocks 2 other times after all it's those utility features that made me look into the class in the first place, granted I've never done it to go against type it's just the first thing I saw in the class that called to my attention and as such I don't avoid Eldritch Blast/Hex combo but I do generally only get one Eldritch Blast invocation just to be a bit useful in combat, that being said I generally participate more in the exploration and roleplaying portions of the game than in combat and the first Warlock I ever played notoriously didn't use magic when he was being seen and as such never really used magic in combat so having optimal combat choices wasn't really a priority for that one. In any case I think in tabletop RPGs it isn't really necessary to make a combat optimal build, especially if other players are picking up the slack as having a more exploration based character and still have fun, I had a real fun time with that combat sub-optimal character that ended up becoming the Paladin's best friend because the Paladin followed him everywhere, at first because metagaming he wanted to catch me using evil black magic, but later in the campaign they were just friends, so much that when he eventually found out about the pact it just lead to a very heated discussion rather than his original plan of just killing me for being an evil Warlock (Wasn't evil but it was more like a very pragmatic Neutral Scholar Archaeologist type of character)
I help with an adventure league in helping players make characters. Here are 2 that stood out the most to me. The first is a Guild Artisan Alchemist who uses more of the mechanics of being a warlock then is a warlock. His personality is a mix of the nutty professor and Elmer Fude. Human variant (at 4 becomes a Lightfoot halfling wish all races got a feat at 1st level and no human variant) with the healer's feat (which I changed to Bandelier of potion vials. Infernal patron. Pack of the tome Agonising Blast( I used a rod for this focus that looked like a shotgun) and Devil Sight (I would use google while using it many players thought they were a magic item one asked to use them). The Bandelier was also my focus for my other spells. The other was a Half-orc took the Celestial Path using the god Grumpish as his deity, taking the pack of the chain using a Gazer as his familiar. If you don't know this god lost an eye in a battle with the elf god. A lot of Orc warriors and paladins of vengeance as a right to remove one of there own eyes. In the case of my character his other eye was transformed into his gazer.
I started a homebrew campaign with some friends a while back and the DM explained the setting. It was set in the aftermath of a Warlock-driven apocalypse. Many people among the Warlocks were tiefling, so there was a very big prejudice toward both, so I pretty much had no option but to play that (I love playing against type). I ended up making a sub-par build since my obsessive min-maxing always ends up with a character that is too op in comparison to the others. I went with a Tiefling (PHB), Pact of the Blade and Celestial patron and since he let us choose a feat to start off (no variant humans allowed of course) I took Weapon Master, added 1 STR and chose a maul, a greataxe, a pike and a whip (for flavor). Pretty much, I made a green lantern who summons different light-constructed weapons. Can you make an optimized version of this sort of concept? You dont need to do exactly what I did, obviously.
This one's accidental... he was my first ever character (and still is my most-used and favorite) and I had no concept of optimized race-class pairs. Beforehand I recently got into Lovecraft before my friends took me into D&D and I saw warlock and took it (I went Fiend). Another funny thing that in terms of concept based on other media, my favorite race was the Orc (I went Orog specifically to toss out the -2 to int). Apprently Orc brought along proficiency in Greataxe. Paired with the DM's homebrew rule of using your Dex mod instead of your Spell mod for Ranged hit spells (basically my eldritch blast never hit to I threw it out). It basically was 2 fireballs per short rest, and a bunch of Axe-swinging Which is even funnier cuz the DM had this homebrew creature that everytime it gets hit it switches between being immune to any physical attack (including magic weapons) and any energy attacks. So I was just sitting there, not caring, dealing damage either way. It was fun.
Aasimar-turned tiefling whose parents worship a couatl. After being by captured by the cult shed been harrassing, shes now a tiefling who is TERRORIFIED of everything. Her couatl that she served is now her patron and she has an emotional support familiar. Just for the full on RPing. This is my first warlock nd im excited
Very cool builds. I could honestly mix any number of these themes. I would take some of the swarm and spirit masters and just play the “scare the shit outta people build”
Want to have a good modifier for attacks? Dump all your stats into charisma, and take one of the weapon feats in unearthed arcana, i used blade mastery. Dump 2 levels into fighter for the fighting style(Archery), Second Wind, and Action Surge. Dump 4 levels into Warlock(Hexblade), hex warrior makes it so you can use charisma for attack & damage rolls. The only invocation that matters for this is improved pact weapon, it adds a +1 to attack and damage rolls and allows you to summon ranged weapons. Let's add all that together: 5(Char)+3(Prof.)+2(Archery)+1(PactW)= +11 to hit with ranged weapons and replace Archery with blade mastery in the equation and you have +10 for any bladed weapon. Everything else is +9 to hit and the damage is +6
Genie pact of chain warlock 3 and 17 wizard scribe. You style yourself a witch sending your imp familiar to follow the party while you pop in and out when what the party is doing is of interest to you. You took familiar investment and voice of the chain master invocations to be able to assist with touch spells from the comfort of your witch hut/genie vessel a lantern with shadow puppet motifs that shift as the activity inside does. When your spell book manifests a mental form it could be a hag or your visage composed of text or a flame skull. Maybe you track down a ring of spell storing or some spell wrought tattoo needles so the imp can help out in the less consequential combats and if things get truly dire then you step in. Like if the familiar goes down though if you're making good use of the invisibility that should be a rare occurrence. Could also be a fun way to play a summoner wizard or a necromancer.
If I could find a game again, I have a Celestial Patron Tiefling Tomelock with the Charlatan Background I'm jonesing on. Concept is someone who is very much the party face and can Fight on par with many warlocks
i made a redemption pala, celestial warlock 3/3+ and she was an aasimar, all about healing and helping but when in the aasimar form i switch my ego to purge the wicked. i know its multi classing but i found it thematic without using eldritch blast and going ether pack of the tome for a holy bible look or chain for a little angel over your shoulder. i went with the book
Interesting video, but ti would be nice if you gafe a quick summary of what all those abbilties spells and invocations actually do, for those of us who don't have every page of the book memorized.
This is a 6th Level Character I am currently playing that I think is a very good spy/ infiltrator. Go equal parts Warlock and Bard, and pick The Great Old One as your patron. Load up on social manipulation and fear based spells like Suggestion or Dissonant Whispers. With the Bard, you can do any college, but I find College of Whispers fits well for this character. Moreover, go pact of the chain and get an imp for all your spying needs. Lastly, (This is the magic), go Variant human and get the Actor feat, and put you expertise into Performance and Deception. As invocations go, get Mask of Many Faces and Devil's Sight(To compensate the fact you when human). At this point, now you can disguise as literally anybody whenever you want, you roll with advantage when you do, AND you have a huge bonus making it near impossible to screw up. In other words, you are the Faceless Men from Game of Thrones, but you also have Vicious Mockery and Tasha's Hideous Laughter. It's really fun and I suggest giving it a go.
I'm thinking of making a fallen aasimar who feels like they were abandoned to die by the heavens and was saved by a lich/powerful necromancer. Neutral/Neutral Evil, hates to see innocent people die early, and enjoys ensuring that the last moments of his enemies are confusing, anxiety ridden, and painful.
I cannot be the only person who thinks it would be hilarious to play a Warlock who is over the top evil roleplay wise but is of the Celestial Patron and their Patron is a fucking unicorn named Prettypants...
So much like a warlock I built. She's a tome old one type with the sight invocations and such. A lot like what you mentioned but i haven't got to play her yet :(
Befor watching I was blanning to do Warlock hexblade no feats building a neat idea around Link from Zelda :D I would like to mix this with Shadow Monk and some Bard and all have stealth. 3 musketörs or what were they called xD Would make neat group to play 4th player could be rogue and so on . . . as Monk can be range and warlock can use bows as hexblade so on and so on . . .
This requires more than just warlock but I made a Cantrip Master Ritual Healer. Druid/Warlock/Cleric. To maximize the effect you need at least 9 levels as such 4/4/1. You want to get to Warlock 3 and Cleric 1 as fast as you can without it effecting how well you preform for your group. This will give you lots of access to rituals without having to find them as well as 16 cantrips. Take Circle of Dreams for Druid to give you 1d6 bonus healing charges that grant temp HP. Take Celestial Warlock to give you more 1d6 bonus healing charges. Take Life cleric to get a bonus to your healing as well as access to the level 1 cleric buffing spells that you don't have access to from the other two classes and heavy armor potential. At level 4 Druid you will have 3 cantrips At level 1 Cleric you will have 3 cantrips At level 4 Warlock you will have 3 cantrips, Celestial gives you two more (Light and Sacred Flame), and Pack of the Tome gives you 3 more; for a total of 8. Almost half of the ritual spells found in the PHB and XGE are Druid spells so you will not have to find those spells if you have enough levels in Druid to have access to them, and you can take 2 others as a Warlock (Comprehend Languages and Unseen Servant). This means when you get your tome you will have 4 rituals as a Warlock as well as any Druid rituals you have access to at that time. This does however also mean you will have to use two of your Warlock known spells for ritual spells but if you are able to write them into your ritual book later then you can upgrade those spells to better ones at higher levels. I would recommend taking at least one more level of Warlock to round out your first 10 levels so you have access to level 3 spells including revivify from the Celestial options. The last 10 levels you can either take as Druid or Warlock but I would recommend Druid to give you more overall spell slots as well as better wildshape and stronger healing/control/buffs, but going Warlock would still be a very fun way to play this, and at higher levels you should be doing more than just healing anyway so you should be able to get by with the bonus healing charges and scaling up the lower level healing spells if you need to heal. You can also choose to skip the 1 level of Life Cleric to advance in Druid or Warlock faster but you will lose out on the great level 1 cleric spells like bless and bane, the heavy armor access, and though small the 2+spell level bonus healing. Though that 1 level of Life Cleric will also mean you lose out on one charge from your 1d6 bonus healing but as warlock gets 2 at level 1 you will still have 20 charges total at level 20. In a similar fashion you could instead of using Druid take Divine Soul Sorcerer for access to cleric spells and Celestial Warlock for the bonus healing charges but you wont get as many charges or "free" access to as many rituals through your Druid levels. Though both are a CHA based class so you wont have to worry about your stats as much and you wont have to go into cleric to get access to level 1 cleric spells. You will still have lots of cantrips, but you will have to use your tome and magic initiate to get any non arcane ones. You would also achieve more or less the same results by level 5 this way instead of level 9. Also if you don't care about the bonus healing charges and plan on getting at least 5 levels of Sorcerer here then you can take any patron as you will have access to revivify from the cleric list as a Divine Soul.
I have Tiefling from Hell set out to deal with someone whose violated the Term of their contract (as hell is more business operated) And made her a nice Fiend that doesn't lie or kill children and encourages people to pray to their gods. She's not good no no no but business oriented first. Killing children is illegal due to that they didn't have the chance to sin yet and would go to heaven. Lying is despicable because demons have respect and having to Lie is what Demons do. And when people pray to their god and find they won't answer they'll turn to her. I know its not a mechanical feature but I think its worth knowing a different spin on the pact of the Fiend. Where you are more Lawful than you are evil. You play a Devil but you act more like a business Man(Woman) Knowing what you want your character to be in really important when making them. In this I'd get 'Devil Sight'+Voice of Chain for an imp servant so that I can see perfectly in the dark and can essentially have an telephone anywhere on the plan that I'm on.
I've been wanting to play a warlock that isn't just a damage dealer. Love the last build you had, great to play games with opponents. How would you build a face using just warlock? Something I'm considering since I love RP and want to try warlock
Well if you actually decided to look into them... you'd find that the warlock has amazing spells available as cantrips and special benefits no other caster can get in the form of pacts and invitations. A face? Warlocks go off of charisma, if you need more charming go pact with archfey and look for cantrips and eldritch invocations based on your role playing needs.
I have a divine warlock/ ranger Aasimar. Pact of the blade. Improved pact weapon. Eldritch Smite. Im basically a Flying turret that deals a ton or radiant damage in Angel form. Plus Sharpshooter feat. Ooo boy. The damage. Plus thirsting blade and ranger extra attack. Ranger spells too.
I have a Lvl 4 Goblin Shadow Sorc. I was going for the Shadow/ Grave Master (i dont know what that is exactly) I was thinking of MCing at Lvl 6 with Lore Bard for Add'l Magical Secrets for Spirit Guardian and Animate Dead.
I took 3 champion/ rest celestial with magic initiate to take cleric spare the dying, word of radiance and bless to make a really shitty paladin but it's pretty fun with pact of the blade and some things, I'm just a sword and shield fighter that got fingerbanged by a Solar and now I can poop Sacred flames
Surprised you didn't mention a full on bladelock. With all the pact of the blade invocations, I honestly think he stands up to most melee classes. I multiclassed a little with paladin just for heavy armor on mine, but you could easily do a pure Warlock weapon fighter by going with dex and the mage armor invocation. It works perfectly because the weapons are your bulk damage, and your few spells are your power spikes and utility. Also, I honestly think the fiend is the best for this. Between resistances and temporary HP, he can be pretty Damn beefy. Especially with defensive spells like armor of agathys and flame shield. Not to mention the very thematic idea of a demonic marauder.
I'm currently playing a female Shadar-Kai warlock, pact of the blade, with the Raven Queen as my patron ( not particularly optimal, but perfectly lore-relevant and our party can get rid of this boring tiny-hut without having to worry about night watch ), without Eldritch Blast, of course, and she effectively goes without any armor just fine. 18 AC has its limits, for sure, but we're talking about 18 AC in absolutely every circumstances ( we're okay with my DM that, except for extraordinary circumstances that would physically stop her to do it, my character recast tacitly her mage armor every 6 or 7 hours ), which is something of at least 33% more often than an heavy armor wielder ( who can really sleep in an heavy armor ? ). Sure, she's kind of creepy and our halfelin cleric spares no efforts to stand as far from her as possible, but, well, she's absolutely fearless and does her bloody job with a smile plastered on her face, a creepy smile, but a smile nonetheless :p.
If you just have eldritch blast and the single invocation, there is enough flavor left to differentiate besides that right? One could go full support high level spells, or full control. Full social, there are so many options. If you let yourself be defined by eldritch blast, then you're not going to have a blast. Or is it: Warlock = Eldtritch blast Rogue = Dagger Warrior = Big ass axe Do their weapons define their classes? An entire class charasteristic (level 5) is being used to be able to attack twice with your flimsy Axe, with warlock that isn't even the case.
Im wanting to make a swarm lord character for my brother's campaign though my instinct was to go with The Old One and have my character speak through the mind (only really speaks to nature). The only problem the dm is having with the character is that he says "why would anyone want to party with a creepy bug man", curious if you have any ideas on that
Perhaps you could masquerade as a druid, perhaps you have an interest in fey creatures and things like Nixies or grigs have more bug like qualities. Have you ever seen the movie D&D 3? it's terrible, but the swarm lord is the best and most interesting character.
I really don't think getting good mileage out of Eldritch Blast "gobbles up" feats and invocations. My first thought with the class was, "Cool. Eldritch Blast plus Agonising Blast plus Hex takes care of combat. Now everything else gets put into divination and support."
Oh, just one thing with Eldritch sight. It isn't actually the ability to detect magic at all times. It's the ability to _cast the spell_ Detect Magic without using a spell slot or components. So it still counts as a "concentration" effect, meaning you can't have any other concentration effect up at the same time. It's still amazingly useful though.
Aspect of the Moon, does not allow you to be in watch all night. You spell need to take 8 hours for a long rest (during which you can take one two hour rest) , not doing so will cause exhaustion. Just like an elf cannot take two watches just because they only trance four hours.
tl;dr of my post: normally I agree that taking multiple watches forfeits long rest, but I believe you are wrong in this case and may not understand how some character abilities/traits create exceptions to certain rules. Then I attempt to explain how you misunderstand elf trance and Aspect of the Moon using PHB and Sage Advice as sources to explain. Also missing long rests doesn't cause exhaustion, but missing sleep probably does. While I agree that, normally, taking a watch for more than 2 hours would forfeit a long rest (PHB 186 under Long Rest), especially with the PHB errata, there are exceptions that you may be misunderstanding. In D&D a rule that modifies another rule supersedes the original rule. These modifying rules tend to be special exceptions granted by a racial trait or class ability for a character. For example, an elf actually could take two watches because an elf's 4 hour trance gives the same benefits as a human's 8 hours of sleep (PHB 23) and therefore either completed long rest in 4 hours anyway (though that's apparently relatively new and therefore not something I'd personally go with) or has extended light activity time compared to most other characters, because the elf's 4 hour trance replaces a human's 6-8 hour sleep during a long rest. I have a link to a Sage Advice thread (Crawford, 2017) that seems to imply, due to phb errata, that an elf has a 4 hour long rest while everyone else has an 8 hour one, though a disclaimer was made that DM decides how elf trance works. Another Sage Advice thread (Crawford, 2014) states that elves have to take an 8 hour long rest, but because trance is 4 hours long they have more time for light activity, implying they have 4 hours for light activity/watch during a long rest compared to another character's 2 hours. tl;dr elf trance is a pain in the ass and elf players better be establishing with their DM what the hell trance actually does. The 2014 sage advice therefore implies that a character that requires no sleep and has no replacement for sleep, such as trance, could spend all 8 hours doing light activity/be on watch, while the 2017 ruling implies a sleepless character only has to say they took a long rest to benefit from it despite not putting any time into it (which is almost 100% certainly wrong). Luckily another Sage Advice thread (Crawford, 2018) addresses Aspect of the Moon, stating that the removal of sleep doesn't remove the need for a long rest. Either this means an Aspect of the Moon character only needs 2 hours of long rest if a long rest can only have 2 hours of light activity (PHB 186) and the light activity is what constitutes their long rest or alternatively the Aspect of the Moon character can have 8 hours of light activity during the long rest. In either case, it allows the Aspect of the Moon character to spend the 8 hours the rest of the party is using for long rest to keep watch. Honestly, I'm like 80% sure that sleep and long rests are meant to be separate, but they are bundled together because you can only benefit from long rest once per 24 hours (PHB 186). I recall reading in one of the 5e books that missing sleep is what causes exhaustion, basically what I think you're referring to when you say missing long rest gives exhaustion, but I can't find the specific page and i'm unsure which book it's in. Missing sleep is implied to have a penalty on page 177 of the PHB under constitution though. The Rest Variant Rules (DMG 267) would make a whole lot more sense if sleep was separate from a long rest, but because these rules drastically change rest duration i'm not sure these rules really help prove anything. Minor nitpick, but missing a long rest doesn't impose exhaustion (PHB 186). The only interaction long rest has with exhaustion is that it removes one point of exhaustion (PHB 291). Besides, missing a long rest potentially has more potential detriments than a point in exhaustion anyway: no hit dice recovery and no HP is healed. Skipping the long rest for a warlock would also mean they need to grab a short rest to recover spell slots as well. www.sageadvice.eu/2017/09/01/i-dont-understand-the-change-to-elf-trance-why-do-they-suddenly-no-longer-need-to-finish-the-8-hours/ www.sageadvice.eu/2014/08/28/elf-trance/ www.sageadvice.eu/2018/02/22/does-aspect-of-the-moon-allow-to-skip-the-dc-10-con-save-for-not-taking-a-long-rest/
i admit that i missed the change to the rules on elf trance, a stupid change, and was going by the old rules that did say, even a trancing elf could only take one watch, because their long rest was still 8 hours and not four. but even the ruling on aspect of the moon you linked to refers to the rule i was talking about not taking a long rest does, cause a Con save or be exhausted (page 78 Xanathar's). so a long rest for someone with Aspect is still 8 hours and while they dont need sleep the rules for long rest still say only one watch, aspect dosent change that only changes that they are awake not asleep, during the other 6 hours
One of my favorite things about Warlock is that it is multi classing gold. For example the warlock's invocations are based off of level and thus as long as you have enough warlock levels to have a subclass all you have to do is meet level and invocation prerequisites. Thrirsting blade and the invocation that adds your charisma modifier to damage can both be picked up and used at level 12, with only 3 levels of warlock. Thirsting blade is multi classing gold for adding into a multi class build for any melee/warlock build so you don't have to worry about losing extra attack to get some spell casting omph.
Eldritch Sight is an invocation, a precious Warlock class feature, that can be replaced by a Wand of Detect Magic. Seriously, save room for invocations that can't be so easy replaced.
Eldrich blast = I attack with my weapon. I don't understand why the hate for Eldrich since it's an attack with basic magical blast at a distance. Haven't played one but that sounds hella useful for a glass cannon, and cool for a multiclass.
Whomever complains about "eldritch blast bots" really never tried seeing any other options for the warlock at all in the first place. Ive played a warlock whom started agonizing blast and silent image as a cantrip. The silent image cantrip is far more useful and have been using it in and out of fights to give my party advantages I've never been able to do with any other warlock or caster before. And silent image isn't the only spell you can grab as a cantrip for warlocks. Honestly sick of these idiots that feel the warlock is meant to or optimized to just be carrying eldritch blast every turn when there's been SOOOOOO many options once you can get eldritch invocations.
@@erikwarming you can create walls that your enemies cant see through but your allies can. Or cover a dangerous part of terrain like a pit or trap with a benign illusion so that the enemies are more likely. Or surround an enemy with many copies of your fighter ally (if your dm says its *AN* image, then just attach them via an image of the ground between them)
Im personally curious if you could make a celestial pact? Im curious what you come up with and the ideas you have to get the most out of that sub-classes abilities
One Warlock build that I am running atm I like to dub as the Phantom Actor.
Archfey Patron, Pact of the Chain + Sprite familiar, Voice of the Chain Master, Mask of Many Faces, Actor Feat.
By level 4, your a face character who can turn into just about anybody, and manipulate your way out of most any situation if your clever enough.
You Sprite can turn invisible at will and fly, you can see through their sense, which makes for a great scout. Which in turn allows you to hear and watch anybody for any given length of time, so long as your familiar isn't detected, but being tiny and invisible that is difficult without magic. This allows you to use your Actor feat to impersonate that person accurately, and Mask of Many Faces lets you become them. Throw in an optional disguise kit, and you'll be hard pressed to found out.
Worse comes to worse, you have charm abilities/spells. You can even use Friends, because once you turn back to your regular form, whomever was angry at you doesn't matter any more because they don't know you were the one who charmed them. (as you were somebody else at the time)
Ie, Consequence free charms.
Throw in whatever combat abilities you want.
Thanks, I'm totally stealing this concept for my next character!
I did a level 6 WL with Archfey and level 14 Bard with college of Glamour. I am the most bezazzling mofo in faerun.
not to mention the sprite lets you figure out who's trust worthy with Heart Sight
Y’know, I’ve been trying to figure out a good idea for a social based archfey warlock for a while now. I’m definitely going to have to consider this build. Thanks!
Also, this character is going to be a fairy with the Haunted One background, so if anyone has any ideas for that, then please let me know.
Never hear anyone talk about the idea that Ghostly Gaze allowing you to see though walls means that any spell that reads "a creature that you can see within 30 feet" now works through walls
Drow...your character ideas and the way you weave char concepts and spell/theme choices is aways top notch! Keep tossing out content and the subscribers will come Mate. Cheers
How it going S.K? Great to here from you, always nice read your comments. It really keeps me going.
Drow Bard You got it Drow! You cover so many topics, builds...I like them ALL but the "Unconventional Builds" are the my favs. Can you do a piece comparing class/builds sustained damage output vs spike damage. Maybe Top 5 or Top 8? Keep the vids coming...they rock Bro!
I also have a Divine Warlock Asimar, pact of the Tome, I made jesus
That is badass.
Can you do other religious icons? Like Buddha, his roommate. (There's an anime where Jesus and Buddha are roommates)
@@dragonmaster613 pretty sure if buddha was a dnd character he would be a Way of Tranquility monk that also follows the tenets of the Redemption paladin.
@@dragonmaster613 lol idk why I litterally never saw this sorry. But yeah. I think a redemption paladin would be a great fit actually, re skinned as a stereotypical monk character. Keep in mind that archetypes can be re skinned to fit the aesthetic you just need to make sure the abilities match what you are going for.
Have your spells be sutras, rather than a religious bend make your devotion about finding enlightenment. Character restrict yourself to fast and meditate regularly and really lean into the pacifism of the Redemption Paladins. (I'm not Buddhist so like that's about the extent I can go)
I would probably go human and take the healer feat.
Lol
Oh a video on unconventional Warlock, let's see how it compares to mine...
*Sees far superior Warlock builds*
(lies) Ah, I see we came to the same conclusions....
Seriously though, this was a great video, I particularly liked that swarm warlock; I think I might steal that one next time ;)
I want more videos like this! Warlocks are probably one of the most versatile classes there is, and removing Eldritch Blast really helps that show. I need more unconventional warlock builds with awesome themes!
I'll see what I can do :)
I would still leave EB+AB. That in my opinion is what makes warlocks versatile. With just those two options (maybe add hex) you are covered for combat, leaving everything else for role playing flavor or utility. If you don't take the EB+AB combo or go the hexblade build, you become a liability in the party not being able to pull your weight in damage dealing. A cantrip and and invocation is a small tax to fulfill that basic obligation and leave you free to build the rest of your character as you wish.
@@I..cast..fireball that's actually a fair point, never thought about how EB+AB can free up your roleplaying choices
The Spirit Master is an amazing idea. I love the Warlock class and this video was so interesting!
I have a warlock that's all about illusions and telepathy.
His mission is to drive those around him insane
for medical reasons I need your build
@@pizzabotepicness6730 oop that was a long time. I remember he was a gnome for minor illusion great old one warlock
@@Whysoshort bless your soul man.
I liked this video simply for the Cloak of flies/Gaseous form combo.
My current unconventional warlock is multi classed with sorcerer, 15 pact of chain undying/5 shadow sorcerer. True, I'm hitting the usual conventions with my Eldrich Blast, but his unconvention comes from his patron: I'm using the Inheritor background (from SCAG) to set up that due to some post-game Chronomancy he is going to [unknowingly] Raistlin Majere himself.
- I had read in xanathars that a warlock can have a Unicorn as a Patron. I had an idea to make a character whose basic backstory is that he was a bugbear chief of was considered evil even by bugbear standards. This cruel chieftain was, powerful, deviously cunning and possessed of an ego and narcissism rarely seen. As a youth, he had killed all the members of the tribe he was born into for no other reason than they knew his true name. The chief believes that names are for those who lack the strength and will to claim title and power. Once he matured he had grown to be large even by bugbear standards and possessed a natural talent for fighting and savagery that it wasn't long before he gathered his own tribe and soon became the chief of one of the strongest bugbear tribes to ever have existed.
years passed and the chief's power and tribe grew in strength, but nature cares little for martial prowess, and as game grew fewer the Cheif was forced with starvation or to travel through the woods to a fabled enchanted section of forest that was sure to have plenty of game, as well as plenty of forest guardians. after weeks of slow going travel due to terrain and the insistence of the chiefs generals to bring as many of the tribe as possible to deal with the forest guardians who they would be lucky not to encounter. finally, after weeks of travel they stumbled upon an area of the forest that seemed more lush and healthy, as though it was enchanted. The chief had long ago captured a druid and after years of torture and abuse developed a kind of Stockholm syndrome toward the chief and was with them on the hunt. the chief ordered the druid to cast faerie fire and it revealed a couple of unicorn foals, pixies and other fantastical creature's. As soon as the creatures realized they were seen they became aggressive, The Tribe immediately attacked and the great battle commenced between a tribe of bugbears vsFirbolgs, treants, animals that seemed to out of nowhere, even the terrain seemed to be constantly changing.
In the end, the tribe prevailed but suffered great casualties, around 2/3 of the tribe lay dead and scarcely a one escaped without a severe injury. They butchered the dead, along with the firbolgs and strange animals, the Chief himself killed the Unicorn foals himself, clawing off strips of flesh and savoring every agonizing moment of the newborns' pain. Though many of the tribe were dead, the tale of this battle and recognition the chief felt it would bring him was more than worth the loss off of those who are too weak to survive. A few days travel the chief and his tribes' survivors arrived back home and settled in for well-earned rest. As the chief laid down to sleep that night he dreamed of a great unicorn who was furious with him. The Unicorn Said " you have murdered my kin and defiled my glade. death would be too good for you, from this day forth I own you and curse you to incapable of acting on your evil nature, instead, you will be compelled to do good unless I say otherwise"
when the chief awoke he noticed he had a long Unicorn Horn on his head that seemed intangible, with a sort of light around it. As well his hands seemed too always feel like they were still covered and dripping with the blood of the innocent unicorn foals. When he tried to show it to his tribe, no one could see anything, not even the druid. in anger, he went to strike the druid but found he couldn't, and instead felt a great amount of shame, along with a strange compulsion to free him. Realizing the situation, and what he was now, he knew his tribe would banish him if they found out about his affliction, or track and kill him if he tried to run. there was only one option, he poisoned the remaining members of the tribe that night and freed the captive Druid. Now the Chief wanders the lands, doing good deeds and protecting the helpless and hating every minute of it.
Babidi That's an awesome idea, such a cool inversion on the Warlock idea, it's got tons of flavour.
thanks!
Only problem I have with the backstory is that he poisoned the tribe after he could only do good. While some people may rationalize that killing evil creatures is good, I think that poisoning them is still evil. He could have freed the druid and have the druid cast pass without trace to leave the tribe behind. Otherwise great concept.
This is a very funny concept. I can imagine scenes of the bugbear willing to make some evil and in the last moment he just went: "Sorry mister, here, have some cookies and please let me pet your fluffy dog"
Warlock: Devil of Darkness, Spellcaster Build
Variant Human with Warcaster Feat
Great Old One Patron
Darkness Spell + Devils Sight Invocation
Combat strategy: Cast Darkness on a copper piece then use Mold Earth Cantrip to create pits or cover to increase your AC against range attacks. Eldritch Blast from within. Weakness: AOE attacks and very low AC (12) without using cover or forcing Disadvantage with Darkness.
Pact of the Tome + Book of Secrets Invocation
Strategy: Ritually enables Detect Magic, Identify, and Illusory Script (a means I use to secretly communicate with my Patron/DM.)
This gives me a lot of flexibility in both social and combat scenarios. All by lvl 3.
Future levels:
Level 4+5:
-Defensive - Armor of shadows Invocation + Dex & Int
-Offensive - Agonizing blast Invocation + Charisma or Spell Sniper
Level 8+9:
Utility - Acendent step + Charisma or Spell Sniper
I also have a plan to use exclusively verbal component spells to activate with Magic Mouth (that I’d cast on an item or amulet) in order to increase spell versatility depending on what my DM will allow.
www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Grotey/characters/3672377
A Hexblade with the Crossbow Expert feat is great fun to play especially when you use your spells for mobility (i.e. Spider Climb, Fly, Misty Step) and shooting someone with a bolt that has Darkness cast on it is very satisfying.
This has been working for me and my group. Thx for the inspiration
Warlock
Human (variant)
Lv: 4
Hit points: 31
Armor Class: 14
Pact: Fey
Pact Boon: Blade
Feats: Sentinel, Warcaster
12 str
8 int
10 wis
14 dex
14 con
16 chr
Equipment
Glaive (pact weapon)
Studded leather
Spells
Blade Ward
Eldritch blast
Minor illusion
Comprehend Languages
Protection from Evil and Good
Hex
Misty Step
Hunger of Hadar
Invocations
Agonizing Blast
Repelling Blast
Idea: level 3 Rouge Assassin with dip into 3 levels of Warlock. For your invocations pick up Mask of Many Faces and Devil’s sight and get the Darkness spell as soon as you can. You become master of deception and subterfuge. Cool combat potential too. If your in a group of humanoid enemies, cast darkness with at least one inside and kill them with crit surprise attacks. On your next turn use Disguise self to look like the person you just killed and walk out of the darkness, gripping your throat as if it’s been injured (that way you don’t have to imitate them speaking and you look like a hurt friend). Add gurgling sounds to really sell it. If you get a good deception check the enemies will think your their injured ally, allowing you to get off more crit surprise attacks. If things get hairy, dive back into your darkness for protection.
I mainly play Warlocks so thank you for the video
Yep, I love what they've done with warlocks in this edition. I really like the flexibility.
I absolutely hate the warlock mechanically, but it's all I play, because I love it thematically and its potential.
@@supercalifragic1551 Your mechanic hate makes no sense.
@@mathunit1 It's advertised similarly to a full caster yet only gets 2 spell slots for almost all of its play time, which are usually dedicated to armor of agathys and hex. Then they have no casting unless they can spare an HOUR to sit around for a "short" rest. To add insult to injury, most invocations require you to expend one of your already incredibly limited spell slots AND are only once a day. Whereas invocations SHOULD and are meant to be more permanent or at will features, which it lacks. Yet almost all or literally all your invocation slots will be required to keep your Pact Boons up to date or to make your Eldritch Blasting competitive with using a crossbow.
Yaaaaay!!!!!! Thanks sooo much!!!! This was exactly what I wanted to see! I totally dig all 3 creations, I guess I just recieved a dark calling to geek out into reading all the suggested spells again in detail and imagining what character/background/story fits each concept best.
That swarmlord seems to be the natural choice for the powers a Greather Hag could grant,... My players so gonna hate this... Mongrelman warlock of pesty obnpxiousness coming up!
I'm happy your pleased with it. Great comment, It deserved the time to make a video discussing it. This was all you man! ;)
You've given me some interesting ideas to ponder. In 5th edition mostly I use Warlock as a multiclass option. I'm currently using it in an Archer build. Lore Bard 10 Battlemaster 6 Pact of the Blade Warlock 4. Taking improved pact weapon for a longbow. Have the ability to disarm trip and push back enemies. You also have action surge and access to the spell Swift Quiver. I took Devil's sight for my invocations. This isn't the typical 5th edition one shot first round assassin build. I was trying to build a well-rounded Archer character not a one round sniper character. Plenty of options for Feats or ability bumps. Tons of Versatility from The Bard spell-casting. Take crossbow expert and you never have to worry about using another weapon. I have many other perks on this character but I think I've probably rambled long enough. Keep up the great work
Swarm Lord = Shino Aburame
Cross with Great Weapon Fighter, Pole arm Master (Glaive), and War Caster (because the pole arm feat doesn't specify that your attack of opp. must be with your weapon.) choose Devil's Sight, Cast Darkness on self or belt... You are now a sphere of Annihilation.
Polearm actually does specify that :/
Half-Drow Celestial Warlock of the Moon Goddess. pact of the Chain... Say hello to Sailor Moon and her familiar. Plus you get to play around with Drow Magic advantages without the Sunlight Sensitivity drawback. If by any chance you're more into singers/dancers, go Bard after 2 or 3 levels in lock
Sailor Moon Idol
@@GrassPokeKing bardlock :)
I took eldritch blast, but not agonizing for pact of the blade fey patron. I rethemed hunger of hadar to a swamp with acidic vines. Sword burst to thorn burst... etc.
I also took the levels of Rogue- mastermind to get the 30' aid. Because my party loves it. Also nature based - plant growth is underrated and farmers love you for your 8hr casting.
Far from optimal, but fun.
I'm relatively new to dnd playing wise, only been in 4 games. I just started a new game as a hexblade, tomelock and I've been really struggling to keep up with my party, this really helped me with a direction i can go in so I'm not totally useless. Thank you.
Playing a Spirit Master adjacent right now and having A LOT of fun with it. I went the route with frost spells on top of the undead stuff and it works really well. My DM also gave me armour that can 'cast' an armour of agathys once a day, so I don't even need to keep that spell. It's pretty awesome :)))
I tried an Aasimar Celestial Warlock for the Curse of Strahd campaign because our cleric left the party due to rl workload. He was very interesting and I encourage people to play this if they want something holy but in the warlock style. I usually like classes with lots of utility and this was one of my favourites so far.
In retrospec I could have done some things differently but at the end of the Campaign my build was:
Race: Aasimar
Class: Warlock (Celestial) (Lvl: 11)
Ability Scores: STR 8, DEX 14, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 14, CHA 20
Skills: Arcana, Intimidation, Insight, History
Languages: Abyssal, Celestial, Infernal, Common
Background: Sage, Researcher
Resistances: Necrotic, Radiant, (Cold, when hoding the Staff of Frost)
Class Feats:
1. Otherwordly Patron (Celestial)
2. Pact Magic (Celestial)
3. Expanded Spell List (Celestial)
4. Healing Light (Celestial)
5. Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Book of Ancient Secrets (Detect Magic Ritual, Find familiar Ritual - Owl), Fiendish Vigor, Tomb of Levistus, Gift of the Protectors
6. Pact Boon: Pact of the Tome (Mind Sliver, Shillelagh, Word of Radiance)
7. Radiant Soul (Celestial)
8. Celestial Resilience
9. Mystic Arcanum: Tasha's Otherwordly Guise
Racial Traits: Healing Hands, Darkvision, Celestial Resistance, Celestial Legacy (Light Cantrip, Lesser Restoration, Daylight)
Other Feats: Inspiring Leader, Lucky, War Caster
Spells:
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Eldritch Blast, Green-Flame Blade, Light, Mage Hand, Mind Sliver, Sacred Flame, Shillelagh (most favourite), Word of Radiance
Leveled Spells: Banishment, Charm Monster, Counterspell, Cure Wounds, Dimension Door, Dispel Magic, Flame Strike, Greater Restoration, Invisibility, Wall of Fire
Inventory (the most noticable items):
1. Staff of Frost (Cone of Cold, Fog Cloud, Ice Storm, Wall of Ice)
2. Vampiric Gulthias Staff (most useful with Shillelagh): Vampiric Strike, Unnatural Growth, Blight Bane
3. Helm of Comprehending Languages
4. Wand of Secrets
5. Studded Leather Armor
6. Shield
7. A piece of wood (for Shillelagh before the gulthias staff)
8. Scroll of Heroes Feast
9. Scroll of Mass Cure Wounds
10. Scroll of Wall of Fire
11. Scroll of Major Image
12. Scroll of Revivify
Overall he was a durable support character with lots of tools for lots of difficult situations and when needed he could be a decent support frontliner next to our paladin. My position in most fights was in the middle helping whoever needed help and stepping on the front when it was required. I could hold the backline when surrounded and deliver some AoE damage to weaken enemies at the start of combat when that was the case. I used Dimension Door most often to enter an area or escape fight with a party member that was dying, I used Healing Light to help party members with their death saves, I gave temporary hit points to all our party members with inspiring leader every day and in the front line I used Vampiric Gulthias Staff with Vampiric Strike, Shillelagh and Booming Blade or Green-Flame to hit hard and take some hp back. Tomb of Levistus came in handy when I needed to tank lots of damage for one round and Gift of the Protectors was used as a buffer to save a party member from dying when I had too much to handle. The healing output wasn't much but it was crucial at difficult situations because it could be done from range and together with our paladin's heal it was more than enough. I enjoyed playing this character and I know he isn't the best option for a warlock but he was fun and useful. I am playing DnD for more than 15 years and I have to say it was a cool weird new adventure, both in Combat and in RP.
I feel like mentioning mold earth for the last one, so you can easily dig up corpses.
Wonderful video I'll be saving this and referring back to it, I'm starting up a campaign that has a lot of evil casters since the party is a pair of paladins and a cleric. Undead and demons will be a recurring theme I imagine so I will be referring to a few of these to spice things up, and give the party something to worry about. Thanks for posting.
You almost had my concept for my warlock. My warlock is nature-based, but definitely not a swarm lord. She thinks she's a druid! I've given her as many nature spells and abilities as I could - she has the talk to beasts feature and I'm doing pact of the chain. I love unconventional characters!
Mountain Dwarf Warlock. Use Deafness on the enemy, Darkness on self with Devil's Sight move within 10ft and use Poison Spray...
Do you think you could do a video for Shadow Sorceries, specifically with ways to use/abuse those wonderful Hounds of Ill Omen?
I really liked that. Keep up the good work!
Ive tried out the problem solver build with a focus on intelligence taking the observant feat to make up for his low wisdom proficient in arcana, history, religion, and investigation. Currently at level 11 and ive become very fond of the name “realm seer” as i plan on attaining an “amulet of the planes” giving him access to plane shift without taking up my one use lvl 7 spell.
Interesting twist with the build from my DM is the concept of a corruptive magic from his patron, Cthulhu, slowly changing his alignment. These come from a madness table i roll from when he wakes up.
Being extremely inconvenient i took aspect of the moon and its become much more manageable as I commonly gather exhaustion points and pass out occasionally.
Over all its a lot of fun 👍🏽
I remember playing as this character, Malok, who was a drow pact of the blade warlock who's whole thing was in his second name, Shadowstrider (cheesy I know, I was 13), so I got for one of my invocations Devil's Sight so I could see through any type of darkness, even magical (key thing here), so when I got access to 2nd level spells I got darkness, so that way I could just cast darkness, summon my blade and run into darkness. So in my head he was like a wraith, coming in out of sight stabbing you and before you can react disapearing into the darkness.
Fred Doolan Burke or even... summon your blade, cast darkness on IT and run into battle. The radius on a darkness spell is decent. Most people, enemy and ally alike wouldn’t be able to make out that the center was moving with you. They’d just hear the screams coming out of it, and see the gory results of your work when it was over.
I have just made a variant human celestial patron tomelock with healer and magic initiate feats, I have 10 cantrips with book of ancient secrets invocation at lvl 4. Quite the literal Swiss Army knife of a spell caster with solid healing to boot
All of these creative builds in the comments makes me wish I hadn’t chosen to make a warlock on a whim. I need to plan one out better than mine right now, but he’s good and crazy
How to play a Jester/assassin. Pick Entertainer background, pick human variant, ask your DM to swap out proficiency with two-weapons fighting style (if they'll allow it) and pick duel wielder feat.
Next, put your first level into rogue for the skills and expertise. Then pick warlock for the next 6 levels choosing archfey pact of the blade. You use your eldritch invocations to supplement your melee, not to do damage. Pick devil's sight to see in magical darkness and the darkness spell.
Lastly, put 2 more points into rogue and pick assassin, then put the last 11 levels into monk and pick way of shadow. For feats, pick war caster. After that, customize it however you'd like.
The warlock skills are used for trickery and supplementing your sneak attacks. Same with the monk abilities. Your main focus is spamming sneak attacks then vanishing into darkness. Enjoy!
I liked my Kobold warlock, he used eldritch blast, but because pack tactics is so damn good, he only ever used 1 blast invocation. Between being fey pact of the tome, and not focusing on blast invocations, he had a nice wide selection of spells and invocations to pick from. He ended up doing a small multiclass into sorcerer (divine), and that added even more spells to upcast and diversify with, while letting him play around with metamagic too.
The first one you described is actually my go-to Warlock, it's the second character I ever played and I've played similar Warlocks 2 other times after all it's those utility features that made me look into the class in the first place, granted I've never done it to go against type it's just the first thing I saw in the class that called to my attention and as such I don't avoid Eldritch Blast/Hex combo but I do generally only get one Eldritch Blast invocation just to be a bit useful in combat, that being said I generally participate more in the exploration and roleplaying portions of the game than in combat and the first Warlock I ever played notoriously didn't use magic when he was being seen and as such never really used magic in combat so having optimal combat choices wasn't really a priority for that one.
In any case I think in tabletop RPGs it isn't really necessary to make a combat optimal build, especially if other players are picking up the slack as having a more exploration based character and still have fun, I had a real fun time with that combat sub-optimal character that ended up becoming the Paladin's best friend because the Paladin followed him everywhere, at first because metagaming he wanted to catch me using evil black magic, but later in the campaign they were just friends, so much that when he eventually found out about the pact it just lead to a very heated discussion rather than his original plan of just killing me for being an evil Warlock (Wasn't evil but it was more like a very pragmatic Neutral Scholar Archaeologist type of character)
I help with an adventure league in helping players make characters. Here are 2 that stood out the most to me. The first is a Guild Artisan Alchemist who uses more of the mechanics of being a warlock then is a warlock. His personality is a mix of the nutty professor and Elmer Fude. Human variant (at 4 becomes a Lightfoot halfling wish all races got a feat at 1st level and no human variant) with the healer's feat (which I changed to Bandelier of potion vials. Infernal patron. Pack of the tome Agonising Blast( I used a rod for this focus that looked like a shotgun) and Devil Sight (I would use google while using it many players thought they were a magic item one asked to use them). The Bandelier was also my focus for my other spells. The other was a Half-orc took the Celestial Path using the god Grumpish as his deity, taking the pack of the chain using a Gazer as his familiar. If you don't know this god lost an eye in a battle with the elf god. A lot of Orc warriors and paladins of vengeance as a right to remove one of there own eyes. In the case of my character his other eye was transformed into his gazer.
I started a homebrew campaign with some friends a while back and the DM explained the setting. It was set in the aftermath of a Warlock-driven apocalypse. Many people among the Warlocks were tiefling, so there was a very big prejudice toward both, so I pretty much had no option but to play that (I love playing against type). I ended up making a sub-par build since my obsessive min-maxing always ends up with a character that is too op in comparison to the others. I went with a Tiefling (PHB), Pact of the Blade and Celestial patron and since he let us choose a feat to start off (no variant humans allowed of course) I took Weapon Master, added 1 STR and chose a maul, a greataxe, a pike and a whip (for flavor). Pretty much, I made a green lantern who summons different light-constructed weapons. Can you make an optimized version of this sort of concept? You dont need to do exactly what I did, obviously.
What's the point of weapon master feat?
@@pinkliongaming8769 Three years ago I was a feeble minded fool
I love the idea of the Spirit Master! Great story telling potential!
This one's accidental... he was my first ever character (and still is my most-used and favorite) and I had no concept of optimized race-class pairs. Beforehand I recently got into Lovecraft before my friends took me into D&D and I saw warlock and took it (I went Fiend). Another funny thing that in terms of concept based on other media, my favorite race was the Orc (I went Orog specifically to toss out the -2 to int). Apprently Orc brought along proficiency in Greataxe. Paired with the DM's homebrew rule of using your Dex mod instead of your Spell mod for Ranged hit spells (basically my eldritch blast never hit to I threw it out).
It basically was 2 fireballs per short rest, and a bunch of Axe-swinging
Which is even funnier cuz the DM had this homebrew creature that everytime it gets hit it switches between being immune to any physical attack (including magic weapons) and any energy attacks. So I was just sitting there, not caring, dealing damage either way. It was fun.
I love the idea of using invocations to make the WL a super spy. James Bond, eat your heart out.
Fantasy espionage action!
Aasimar-turned tiefling whose parents worship a couatl. After being by captured by the cult shed been harrassing, shes now a tiefling who is TERRORIFIED of everything. Her couatl that she served is now her patron and she has an emotional support familiar. Just for the full on RPing. This is my first warlock nd im excited
I love this unconventional series and I really hope you keep it going in future :)
He there Gsalamere! how's it going, always great to get a comment from you!
It's going really well, thanks for asking!
I've currently got a feylock who fights with his fists. I've tweaked some of his spells to work in conjunction with unarmed strikes.
Pact of the chain can give you a pseudodragon. The sting of a pseudodragon can send the enemy unconscious. Anyone knows what will mean in the end^^
Fantastic video, glad to hear things are starting to move with the business.
Thanks man!
I made a warlock who's "thing" was seeing all. like Devil's Sight, X-Ray, Eyes of the Rune Keeper, Magic Sight and Divination and Spells
Very cool builds. I could honestly mix any number of these themes. I would take some of the swarm and spirit masters and just play the “scare the shit outta people build”
Want to have a good modifier for attacks?
Dump all your stats into charisma, and take one of the weapon feats in unearthed arcana, i used blade mastery. Dump 2 levels into fighter for the fighting style(Archery), Second Wind, and Action Surge. Dump 4 levels into Warlock(Hexblade), hex warrior makes it so you can use charisma for attack & damage rolls.
The only invocation that matters for this is improved pact weapon, it adds a +1 to attack and damage rolls and allows you to summon ranged weapons.
Let's add all that together: 5(Char)+3(Prof.)+2(Archery)+1(PactW)= +11 to hit with ranged weapons and replace Archery with blade mastery in the equation and you have +10 for any bladed weapon.
Everything else is +9 to hit and the damage is +6
i've had the idea for a doomsayer warlock going GOO and tome getting mokery and telling ppl of the end of times and other fear\control effects
Genie pact of chain warlock 3 and 17 wizard scribe. You style yourself a witch sending your imp familiar to follow the party while you pop in and out when what the party is doing is of interest to you. You took familiar investment and voice of the chain master invocations to be able to assist with touch spells from the comfort of your witch hut/genie vessel a lantern with shadow puppet motifs that shift as the activity inside does. When your spell book manifests a mental form it could be a hag or your visage composed of text or a flame skull. Maybe you track down a ring of spell storing or some spell wrought tattoo needles so the imp can help out in the less consequential combats and if things get truly dire then you step in. Like if the familiar goes down though if you're making good use of the invisibility that should be a rare occurrence. Could also be a fun way to play a summoner wizard or a necromancer.
If I could find a game again, I have a Celestial Patron Tiefling Tomelock with the Charlatan Background I'm jonesing on. Concept is someone who is very much the party face and can Fight on par with many warlocks
i made a redemption pala, celestial warlock 3/3+ and she was an aasimar, all about healing and helping but when in the aasimar form i switch my ego to purge the wicked. i know its multi classing but i found it thematic without using eldritch blast and going ether pack of the tome for a holy bible look or chain for a little angel over your shoulder. i went with the book
Interesting video, but ti would be nice if you gafe a quick summary of what all those abbilties spells and invocations actually do, for those of us who don't have every page of the book memorized.
Can you do unconventional monks next? I'm thinking of making a Fire Genasi Shadow monk
Coming soon :)
This is a 6th Level Character I am currently playing that I think is a very good spy/ infiltrator. Go equal parts Warlock and Bard, and pick The Great Old One as your patron. Load up on social manipulation and fear based spells like Suggestion or Dissonant Whispers. With the Bard, you can do any college, but I find College of Whispers fits well for this character. Moreover, go pact of the chain and get an imp for all your spying needs. Lastly, (This is the magic), go Variant human and get the Actor feat, and put you expertise into Performance and Deception. As invocations go, get Mask of Many Faces and Devil's Sight(To compensate the fact you when human). At this point, now you can disguise as literally anybody whenever you want, you roll with advantage when you do, AND you have a huge bonus making it near impossible to screw up. In other words, you are the Faceless Men from Game of Thrones, but you also have Vicious Mockery and Tasha's Hideous Laughter. It's really fun and I suggest giving it a go.
I love it, Had a similar idea in my hexblade guide but i really like the specifics you've chosen in this concept. Nicely done :)
I'm thinking of making a fallen aasimar who feels like they were abandoned to die by the heavens and was saved by a lich/powerful necromancer.
Neutral/Neutral Evil, hates to see innocent people die early, and enjoys ensuring that the last moments of his enemies are confusing, anxiety ridden, and painful.
Eladrin + Ghostly Gaze = Teleport through walls!
I'm currently playing a Shadow Sorcerer and multiclassing into Undying Warlock. I just love the idea of cheating death almost constantly
I love your channel
I cannot be the only person who thinks it would be hilarious to play a Warlock who is over the top evil roleplay wise but is of the Celestial Patron and their Patron is a fucking unicorn named Prettypants...
In my head, I'm thinking that the Warlock puts on the evil show because he doesn't want anyone to know he gets his powers from a goddamn unicorn...
@@NopeJustPatrick until the DM decides it's time to reveal their Patron to the rest of the party...
@@samtheactualkenku6205 Hilarity ensues...
@@NopeJustPatrick then the Warlock kills the next enemy with an insane amount of radiant damage and the group starts to respect the Unicorn Warlock
So much like a warlock I built. She's a tome old one type with the sight invocations and such. A lot like what you mentioned but i haven't got to play her yet :(
Befor watching I was blanning to do Warlock hexblade no feats building a neat idea around Link from Zelda :D
I would like to mix this with Shadow Monk and some Bard and all have stealth.
3 musketörs or what were they called xD
Would make neat group to play 4th player could be rogue and so on . . .
as Monk can be range and warlock can use bows as hexblade so on and so on . . .
Literally first warlock I ever made was the first one described in this video lmao
I thought it would interesting to multiclass warlock and Bard like you made a deal with the devil to play music and become famous.
A southern fiddle playing Bard who made a pact when the devil came down to Georgia??
This requires more than just warlock but I made a Cantrip Master Ritual Healer. Druid/Warlock/Cleric. To maximize the effect you need at least 9 levels as such 4/4/1. You want to get to Warlock 3 and Cleric 1 as fast as you can without it effecting how well you preform for your group. This will give you lots of access to rituals without having to find them as well as 16 cantrips.
Take Circle of Dreams for Druid to give you 1d6 bonus healing charges that grant temp HP.
Take Celestial Warlock to give you more 1d6 bonus healing charges.
Take Life cleric to get a bonus to your healing as well as access to the level 1 cleric buffing spells that you don't have access to from the other two classes and heavy armor potential.
At level 4 Druid you will have 3 cantrips
At level 1 Cleric you will have 3 cantrips
At level 4 Warlock you will have 3 cantrips, Celestial gives you two more (Light and Sacred Flame), and Pack of the Tome gives you 3 more; for a total of 8.
Almost half of the ritual spells found in the PHB and XGE are Druid spells so you will not have to find those spells if you have enough levels in Druid to have access to them, and you can take 2 others as a Warlock (Comprehend Languages and Unseen Servant). This means when you get your tome you will have 4 rituals as a Warlock as well as any Druid rituals you have access to at that time. This does however also mean you will have to use two of your Warlock known spells for ritual spells but if you are able to write them into your ritual book later then you can upgrade those spells to better ones at higher levels.
I would recommend taking at least one more level of Warlock to round out your first 10 levels so you have access to level 3 spells including revivify from the Celestial options.
The last 10 levels you can either take as Druid or Warlock but I would recommend Druid to give you more overall spell slots as well as better wildshape and stronger healing/control/buffs, but going Warlock would still be a very fun way to play this, and at higher levels you should be doing more than just healing anyway so you should be able to get by with the bonus healing charges and scaling up the lower level healing spells if you need to heal.
You can also choose to skip the 1 level of Life Cleric to advance in Druid or Warlock faster but you will lose out on the great level 1 cleric spells like bless and bane, the heavy armor access, and though small the 2+spell level bonus healing. Though that 1 level of Life Cleric will also mean you lose out on one charge from your 1d6 bonus healing but as warlock gets 2 at level 1 you will still have 20 charges total at level 20.
In a similar fashion you could instead of using Druid take Divine Soul Sorcerer for access to cleric spells and Celestial Warlock for the bonus healing charges but you wont get as many charges or "free" access to as many rituals through your Druid levels. Though both are a CHA based class so you wont have to worry about your stats as much and you wont have to go into cleric to get access to level 1 cleric spells. You will still have lots of cantrips, but you will have to use your tome and magic initiate to get any non arcane ones. You would also achieve more or less the same results by level 5 this way instead of level 9. Also if you don't care about the bonus healing charges and plan on getting at least 5 levels of Sorcerer here then you can take any patron as you will have access to revivify from the cleric list as a Divine Soul.
I have Tiefling from Hell set out to deal with someone whose violated the Term of their contract (as hell is more business operated) And made her a nice Fiend that doesn't lie or kill children and encourages people to pray to their gods.
She's not good no no no but business oriented first. Killing children is illegal due to that they didn't have the chance to sin yet and would go to heaven. Lying is despicable because demons have respect and having to Lie is what Demons do. And when people pray to their god and find they won't answer they'll turn to her.
I know its not a mechanical feature but I think its worth knowing a different spin on the pact of the Fiend. Where you are more Lawful than you are evil. You play a Devil but you act more like a business Man(Woman)
Knowing what you want your character to be in really important when making them. In this I'd get 'Devil Sight'+Voice of Chain for an imp servant so that I can see perfectly in the dark and can essentially have an telephone anywhere on the plan that I'm on.
I think EB is ok as your default attack move. It's good enough that you don't have to augment it. EB invocations are very tempting though...
I've been wanting to play a warlock that isn't just a damage dealer. Love the last build you had, great to play games with opponents. How would you build a face using just warlock? Something I'm considering since I love RP and want to try warlock
Well if you actually decided to look into them... you'd find that the warlock has amazing spells available as cantrips and special benefits no other caster can get in the form of pacts and invitations.
A face? Warlocks go off of charisma, if you need more charming go pact with archfey and look for cantrips and eldritch invocations based on your role playing needs.
I like either Eldritch Sight or Devil's Sight. Got them Wizard eyes
I think getting eldrich blast is ok. Just don't get invocations for it.
I have a divine warlock/ ranger Aasimar. Pact of the blade. Improved pact weapon. Eldritch Smite. Im basically a Flying turret that deals a ton or radiant damage in Angel form. Plus Sharpshooter feat. Ooo boy. The damage. Plus thirsting blade and ranger extra attack. Ranger spells too.
I have a Lvl 4 Goblin Shadow Sorc. I was going for the Shadow/ Grave Master (i dont know what that is exactly) I was thinking of MCing at Lvl 6 with Lore Bard for Add'l Magical Secrets for Spirit Guardian and Animate Dead.
I took 3 champion/ rest celestial with magic initiate to take cleric spare the dying, word of radiance and bless to make a really shitty paladin but it's pretty fun with pact of the blade and some things, I'm just a sword and shield fighter that got fingerbanged by a Solar and now I can poop Sacred flames
I have a warlock bound to a cursed hand crossbow. 3 attacks with sharpshooter and lifedrinker is nice
awesome video! thanks for that
Surprised you didn't mention a full on bladelock. With all the pact of the blade invocations, I honestly think he stands up to most melee classes. I multiclassed a little with paladin just for heavy armor on mine, but you could easily do a pure Warlock weapon fighter by going with dex and the mage armor invocation. It works perfectly because the weapons are your bulk damage, and your few spells are your power spikes and utility. Also, I honestly think the fiend is the best for this. Between resistances and temporary HP, he can be pretty Damn beefy. Especially with defensive spells like armor of agathys and flame shield. Not to mention the very thematic idea of a demonic marauder.
I'm currently playing a female Shadar-Kai warlock, pact of the blade, with the Raven Queen as my patron ( not particularly optimal, but perfectly lore-relevant and our party can get rid of this boring tiny-hut without having to worry about night watch ), without Eldritch Blast, of course, and she effectively goes without any armor just fine. 18 AC has its limits, for sure, but we're talking about 18 AC in absolutely every circumstances ( we're okay with my DM that, except for extraordinary circumstances that would physically stop her to do it, my character recast tacitly her mage armor every 6 or 7 hours ), which is something of at least 33% more often than an heavy armor wielder ( who can really sleep in an heavy armor ? ). Sure, she's kind of creepy and our halfelin cleric spares no efforts to stand as far from her as possible, but, well, she's absolutely fearless and does her bloody job with a smile plastered on her face, a creepy smile, but a smile nonetheless :p.
If going Drow, Drow High Magic is very good for Tome Locks.
Basically that Feat, as a Drow, you don't really need Eldritch Sight.
If you just have eldritch blast and the single invocation, there is enough flavor left to differentiate besides that right? One could go full support high level spells, or full control. Full social, there are so many options. If you let yourself be defined by eldritch blast, then you're not going to have a blast.
Or is it:
Warlock = Eldtritch blast
Rogue = Dagger
Warrior = Big ass axe
Do their weapons define their classes? An entire class charasteristic (level 5) is being used to be able to attack twice with your flimsy Axe, with warlock that isn't even the case.
Im wanting to make a swarm lord character for my brother's campaign though my instinct was to go with The Old One and have my character speak through the mind (only really speaks to nature). The only problem the dm is having with the character is that he says "why would anyone want to party with a creepy bug man", curious if you have any ideas on that
Perhaps you could masquerade as a druid, perhaps you have an interest in fey creatures and things like Nixies or grigs have more bug like qualities. Have you ever seen the movie D&D 3? it's terrible, but the swarm lord is the best and most interesting character.
I think agonizing first to up that damage then others that is how I roll
I really want to play a swarm lord now
I am running a Arcane Trickster Rogue with the Celestial Warlock class.
A rare sight to see someone comment 'Rogue' instead of 'Rouge'.
I would be curious to hear your breakdown on the Mystic class.
Tortole hexblade warlock with 20 ac +2dex 22 ac XD
I'm actually playing this warlock currently
I really don't think getting good mileage out of Eldritch Blast "gobbles up" feats and invocations.
My first thought with the class was, "Cool. Eldritch Blast plus Agonising Blast plus Hex takes care of combat. Now everything else gets put into divination and support."
Oh, just one thing with Eldritch sight. It isn't actually the ability to detect magic at all times. It's the ability to _cast the spell_ Detect Magic without using a spell slot or components. So it still counts as a "concentration" effect, meaning you can't have any other concentration effect up at the same time.
It's still amazingly useful though.
Aspect of the Moon, does not allow you to be in watch all night. You spell need to take 8 hours for a long rest (during which you can take one two hour rest) , not doing so will cause exhaustion. Just like an elf cannot take two watches just because they only trance four hours.
tl;dr of my post: normally I agree that taking multiple watches forfeits long rest, but I believe you are wrong in this case and may not understand how some character abilities/traits create exceptions to certain rules. Then I attempt to explain how you misunderstand elf trance and Aspect of the Moon using PHB and Sage Advice as sources to explain. Also missing long rests doesn't cause exhaustion, but missing sleep probably does.
While I agree that, normally, taking a watch for more than 2 hours would forfeit a long rest (PHB 186 under Long Rest), especially with the PHB errata, there are exceptions that you may be misunderstanding. In D&D a rule that modifies another rule supersedes the original rule. These modifying rules tend to be special exceptions granted by a racial trait or class ability for a character.
For example, an elf actually could take two watches because an elf's 4 hour trance gives the same benefits as a human's 8 hours of sleep (PHB 23) and therefore either completed long rest in 4 hours anyway (though that's apparently relatively new and therefore not something I'd personally go with) or has extended light activity time compared to most other characters, because the elf's 4 hour trance replaces a human's 6-8 hour sleep during a long rest. I have a link to a Sage Advice thread (Crawford, 2017) that seems to imply, due to phb errata, that an elf has a 4 hour long rest while everyone else has an 8 hour one, though a disclaimer was made that DM decides how elf trance works. Another Sage Advice thread (Crawford, 2014) states that elves have to take an 8 hour long rest, but because trance is 4 hours long they have more time for light activity, implying they have 4 hours for light activity/watch during a long rest compared to another character's 2 hours. tl;dr elf trance is a pain in the ass and elf players better be establishing with their DM what the hell trance actually does.
The 2014 sage advice therefore implies that a character that requires no sleep and has no replacement for sleep, such as trance, could spend all 8 hours doing light activity/be on watch, while the 2017 ruling implies a sleepless character only has to say they took a long rest to benefit from it despite not putting any time into it (which is almost 100% certainly wrong). Luckily another Sage Advice thread (Crawford, 2018) addresses Aspect of the Moon, stating that the removal of sleep doesn't remove the need for a long rest. Either this means an Aspect of the Moon character only needs 2 hours of long rest if a long rest can only have 2 hours of light activity (PHB 186) and the light activity is what constitutes their long rest or alternatively the Aspect of the Moon character can have 8 hours of light activity during the long rest. In either case, it allows the Aspect of the Moon character to spend the 8 hours the rest of the party is using for long rest to keep watch.
Honestly, I'm like 80% sure that sleep and long rests are meant to be separate, but they are bundled together because you can only benefit from long rest once per 24 hours (PHB 186). I recall reading in one of the 5e books that missing sleep is what causes exhaustion, basically what I think you're referring to when you say missing long rest gives exhaustion, but I can't find the specific page and i'm unsure which book it's in. Missing sleep is implied to have a penalty on page 177 of the PHB under constitution though. The Rest Variant Rules (DMG 267) would make a whole lot more sense if sleep was separate from a long rest, but because these rules drastically change rest duration i'm not sure these rules really help prove anything.
Minor nitpick, but missing a long rest doesn't impose exhaustion (PHB 186). The only interaction long rest has with exhaustion is that it removes one point of exhaustion (PHB 291). Besides, missing a long rest potentially has more potential detriments than a point in exhaustion anyway: no hit dice recovery and no HP is healed. Skipping the long rest for a warlock would also mean they need to grab a short rest to recover spell slots as well.
www.sageadvice.eu/2017/09/01/i-dont-understand-the-change-to-elf-trance-why-do-they-suddenly-no-longer-need-to-finish-the-8-hours/
www.sageadvice.eu/2014/08/28/elf-trance/
www.sageadvice.eu/2018/02/22/does-aspect-of-the-moon-allow-to-skip-the-dc-10-con-save-for-not-taking-a-long-rest/
i admit that i missed the change to the rules on elf trance, a stupid change, and was going by the old rules that did say, even a trancing elf could only take one watch, because their long rest was still 8 hours and not four.
but even the ruling on aspect of the moon you linked to refers to the rule i was talking about not taking a long rest does, cause a Con save or be exhausted (page 78 Xanathar's). so a long rest for someone with Aspect is still 8 hours and while they dont need sleep the rules for long rest still say only one watch, aspect dosent change that only changes that they are awake not asleep, during the other 6 hours
Swarm Lord Warlock sounds decent. I can see a Goblin PC taking to the build well.
One of my favorite things about Warlock is that it is multi classing gold. For example the warlock's invocations are based off of level and thus as long as you have enough warlock levels to have a subclass all you have to do is meet level and invocation prerequisites. Thrirsting blade and the invocation that adds your charisma modifier to damage can both be picked up and used at level 12, with only 3 levels of warlock. Thirsting blade is multi classing gold for adding into a multi class build for any melee/warlock build so you don't have to worry about losing extra attack to get some spell casting omph.
Johnathon Crines that is not how invocations work. That would be like saying that 5 levels in fighter and 15 in paladin gives you 4 attacks.
It's been confirmed that the invocations that require a certain level refer to the warlock level, not character level.
Here is the data you need to understand invocations better. www.sageadvice.eu/2014/11/04/warlock-invocation-prerequisites/
Eldritch Sight is an invocation, a precious Warlock class feature, that can be replaced by a Wand of Detect Magic. Seriously, save room for invocations that can't be so easy replaced.
Eldrich blast = I attack with my weapon. I don't understand why the hate for Eldrich since it's an attack with basic magical blast at a distance. Haven't played one but that sounds hella useful for a glass cannon, and cool for a multiclass.
It's not hate for EB, it's variety beyond the most common warlock cantrip. Hence 'Unconventional'
How would you make Spawn?
What about something with the Conjure Wizard
Whats up X, yep i'll do all the classes eventually. Wizard is a difficult one though.
Wizard you may want to break up to have a baseline video and then the bolt on actions of the schools doing 2 or 3 in one video.
Other than Pact of the Undying, how can you get the Spare the Dying cantrip?
Whomever complains about "eldritch blast bots" really never tried seeing any other options for the warlock at all in the first place.
Ive played a warlock whom started agonizing blast and silent image as a cantrip. The silent image cantrip is far more useful and have been using it in and out of fights to give my party advantages I've never been able to do with any other warlock or caster before. And silent image isn't the only spell you can grab as a cantrip for warlocks.
Honestly sick of these idiots that feel the warlock is meant to or optimized to just be carrying eldritch blast every turn when there's been SOOOOOO many options once you can get eldritch invocations.
how have you been using Silent image in combat?
@@erikwarming liberally, at will.
@@erikwarming you can create walls that your enemies cant see through but your allies can.
Or cover a dangerous part of terrain like a pit or trap with a benign illusion so that the enemies are more likely.
Or surround an enemy with many copies of your fighter ally (if your dm says its *AN* image, then just attach them via an image of the ground between them)
Im personally curious if you could make a celestial pact? Im curious what you come up with and the ideas you have to get the most out of that sub-classes abilities
How woulf you do a ranger hexblade I know im late to the banf wagon but hey
You have a vídeo combo about half-elf bowlock + arcane Archer fighter? If you wont please try when you can, tnx
I'll definitely look into it :)