Warlock Pacts

[JungleChicken]

Hello all. I have a GM that is starting up a 5th edition game and he is the only one with a handbook at the moment. From the little I have seen of the book I am liking the flavor of the Warlock. Most likely going with the patron of the great old one ( something lovecraftian obviously) i didn't get a chance to see the pacts and finding information on 5th edition is still a bit iffy.

So what are the pacts, their flavor, and abilities and which do you guys like and why.
i know one gets a familiar and one gets a weapon but that's really about it

[Yorrin]

You've got most of it figured out already. Chain=improved familiar, Blade=summonable magic weapon, Tome=better spellcasting.

[JungleChicken]

Is the improved familiar any good, I've been told that they have lost much of the benefits they once held, no skill increase, no attack of their own, etc etc. I mean the flavor for a warlock of a great old one having a little familiar I kind of like. I'm not looking into a Gish type character since we have melee handled I think.

[HorridElemental]

Always go Tome.

Tome will allow you to be all three types of Warlock all at once, it is pretty sick how awesome they are as casters.

Tome gives you Shillelagh Cantrip which gives you your melee attack and damage, you can grab the Find Familiar spell, and you get more BOOM spells. Take the Elemental Adept feat (or whatever it is called) and call it a day. I'm starting to think that the Warlock just isn't fair :smalltongue:

[Yorrin]

The familiar is basically just useful for scouting, imo. Personally I think tome is the most powerful. Blade is good for certain builds, but if you didnt have that build in mind ahead of time, stick with tome.

[HorridElemental]

The familiar is basically just useful for scouting, imo. Personally I think tome is the most powerful. Blade is good for certain builds, but if you didnt have that build in mind ahead of time, stick with tome.

Friend of mine played the chainlock, he usually had his familiar scout since it takes an action to direct it to do stuff in battle.

The familiar is better but the application in battle is a bit troublesome for my taste.

[JungleChicken]

Wasn't exactly sure what tome got but I kind of figured an expanded spell list. Are there any flavor abilities or is it just the one choice and you get one benefit from the pacts.

I'll have to think about between tome and chain for my wandering Cthulhu cultist while he prostheltizes the countryside.

[HorridElemental]

Wasn't exactly sure what tome got but I kind of figured an expanded spell list. Are there any flavor abilities or is it just the one choice and you get one benefit from the pacts.

I'll have to think about between tome and chain for my wandering Cthulhu cultist while he prostheltizes the countryside.

You get a shadow spellbook and some Cantrips. You also can take an invocation that gives you rituals and the ability to add more rituals.

Call it your tome of madness.

[Naanomi]

You can milk the poison out of some of those familiars to good effect,in addition to scouting. Weapon has a bit more melee damage in the long run with good overall stats, but Tome is kind of the winner in doing its own thing and the other two pact things nearly as well

[JungleChicken]

I like the Tome of Madness idea.

If not in combat I could always be consulting my tome when asked a question. If I went Fiend patron (which I won't) I could always call it the Book of Rage, al la Ezekiel Rage from Johnny Quest. The remake not the orginal

[Chaosvii7]

Always go Tome.

Tome will allow you to be all three types of Warlock all at once, it is pretty sick how awesome they are as casters.

Tome gives you Shillelagh Cantrip which gives you your melee attack and damage, you can grab the Find Familiar spell, and you get more BOOM spells. Take the Elemental Adept feat (or whatever it is called) and call it a day. I'm starting to think that the Warlock just isn't fair :smalltongue:

Shillelagh is pretty good(d8 + Cha mod, uses spell attack instead of melee) but I think the Pact of The Blade has it's own niche in that it still has a superior damage potential(As it can be ANY weapon, on top of doing that weapon's relevant damage modifer + Lifedrinker for Cha mod), and the extra attack is exclusive to Bladelocks unless you dip for it, but then you'd hurt your casting if you dipped with Tome.

You cannot get Find Familiar through the Pact of The Tome. The only way to get it outside of Pact of The Chain is to take Magical Adept in Wizard and take Find Familiar as your chosen first level spell, which you can then cast once per day. Pact of The Chain also gets access to 4 special familiars - the Quasit, the Psuedodragon, the Imp, or the Sprite. If you took the Magic Adept route, you'd only be able to take the standard ones that the spell allows.

Also worth mentioning that while the Pact of The Tome does give you the ability to spend an invocation to get rituals, you can take a feat to get access to them too. Granted, invocations are definitely the better and more plentiful resource in that case, but it isn't like it's the exclusive ability of Pact of The Tome.

That said, Tome is definitely the jack of all trades warlock. Chain is for scouts and minionmancer Warlocks, and the Blade is for those that want to play higher-end damage dealing Warlocks like the old 4e Hexblade(also my favorite choice of pact). Realistically, I'm going to play all 9 kinds of Warlock, but I think the Pact of The Tome hype is a bit overrated.

[JungleChicken]

I think Chain has some thematic appeal but it seems like my least favorite really. We have a rogue for scouting and for melee we have a barbarian and paladin. I may try a blade warlock eventually but I think Tome will be good. Esoteric secrets of the great old ones and all.

Like I mentioned in my first post I knew a little about the pacts but not sure if they had extras bits for the warlock as the levels progressed.

[Yagyujubei]

You get a shadow spellbook and some Cantrips. You also can take an invocation that gives you rituals and the ability to add more rituals.

Call it your tome of madness.

no way dude, if he want's that lovecraft flavor he's gotta call it the necronomicon

[HorridElemental]

no way dude, if he want's that lovecraft flavor he's gotta call it the necronomicon

Lovecraft is another nerd thing that is overrated. Besides, every time I see necronomicon I can't help but think... Necronomnomnomicon.

Also, if Find Familiar is a ritual then yes the warlock of the tome can pick it up eventually. Take the invocation that allows the warlock to add two 1st level rituals and then add more later by inscribing them like a wizard would. With enough gold and levels a warlock can know every ritual in the game.

[Serafina]

You cannot get Find Familiar through the Pact of The Tome. The only way to get it outside of Pact of The Chain is to take Magical Adept in Wizard and take Find Familiar as your chosen first level spell, which you can then cast once per day. Pact of The Chain also gets access to 4 special familiars - the Quasit, the Psuedodragon, the Imp, or the Sprite. If you took the Magic Adept route, you'd only be able to take the standard ones that the spell allows.

Also worth mentioning that while the Pact of The Tome does give you the ability to spend an invocation to get rituals, you can take a feat to get access to them too. Granted, invocations are definitely the better and more plentiful resource in that case, but it isn't like it's the exclusive ability of Pact of The Tome.
Uh, why not?
Pact of the Tome comes with an Invocation that allows you to learn any two 1st-level rituals, and inscribe more into your tome later.
Find Familiar is a 1st-level wizard spell with the ritual tag. Simply pick it as one of your rituals (or learn it later) and you can cast it, getting a familiar.

Choose two 1st-level spells that have the ritual tag from any class's spell list.

Note that this also allows you to learn rituals from EVERY class, in whatever combination you like (neither this nor the latter rules of scribing more rituals contain any limitation that would say otherwise). Which is way superior to the feat, which only allows you to pick a single class (and you have to use its spellcasting stat, though that is not that big of a drawback)

[Chaosvii7]

Uh, why not?nFind Familiar is a 1st-level wizard spell with the ritual tag.

...Oh.

I didn't notice that.

Either way, my point still stands; Every Warlock pact has their own niche that's protected by invocations specifically for them.

[HorridElemental]

...Oh.

I didn't notice that.

Either way, my point still stands; Every Warlock pact has their own niche that's protected by invocations specifically for them.

However the Tomelock can pretty much be all three types of Warlocks all at once. Maybe not perfectly but you get enough to be well rounded and a Warzilla.

[Whistler]

Not to hijack this thread (but I don't want to start a brand new one either) but what do you guys think is the most powerful patron, mechanically? It seemed like the Fiend gave the most raw pew-pew, but I wanted to get some insight from the veterans here. I'm a new players and starting a new 5e game soon, and Warlock seems like a lot of fun. I just want to make sure I don't gimp myself and am actually useful to the group.

[Chaosvii7]

Not to hijack this thread (but I don't want to start a brand new one either) but what do you guys think is the most powerful patron, mechanically? It seemed like the Fiend gave the most raw pew-pew, but I wanted to get some insight from the veterans here. I'm a new players and starting a new 5e game soon, and Warlock seems like a lot of fun. I just want to make sure I don't gimp myself and am actually useful to the group.

It's actually pretty close in my opinion. The Archfey does a lot of spell-like effects that make it good at being either a face or a battlefield controller. Their bonus spells are kind of meh because they share of them with the other Patrons. I feel like they can be deceptively tanky, and they get their own version of Abrupt Jaunt which was always a good ability in 3.X.

The Fiend is, as you said, almost purely a master blaster archetype, but blasting is also considerably more useful in this edition as there isn't extra defenses against it like SR in 3.X, and resistance isn't too hard to deal with(Elemental Adept feat comes to mind). They also get the reroll, and the ability to resist a particular type of damage - which is good, but only if you know what kind of a fight you're walking into ahead of time.

Great Old One is a lot more of a niche patron, but it's got my favorite spell(Evard's Black Tentacles) and their list of benefits are pretty niche; Resistance to psychics, mind control, and a 1/Encounter ability that lets you force disadvantage on an opponent's attack make it kind of a weird fit, but I think Great Old One is the best pact for a caster-oriented Warlock.

All in all, I think the patrons and pact boons are all diverse and balanced between each other. Is the Warlock balanced against the other classes?

Eh...

But I don't think there's a clear winning Warlock combo. The Tomelocks love the expanded spell lists, there's some decent combat triggers for Hexblades, and Chainlocks like being able to disable and control people, which every patron does in some way, shape, or form.

[Whistler]

Thanks Chaos! Very informative.

Archfey appeals to me the most in flavor but the least in mechanics. I also don't really love chain pact.

So I think I'll go Tome/Old One or Blade/Fiend, depending on our group makeup of casters and melee.

Do you think Warlocks are capable of being really strong? I see a lot of complaining about Wizard being OP and melee's being lower tier, etc. Just curious if Warlock has high potential.

[Chaosvii7]

Thanks Chaos! Very informative.

Archfey appeals to me the most in flavor but the least in mechanics. I also don't really love chain pact.

So I think I'll go Tome/Old One or Blade/Fiend, depending on our group makeup of casters and melee.

Do you think Warlocks are capable of being really strong? I see a lot of complaining about Wizard being OP and melee's being lower tier, etc. Just curious if Warlock has high potential.

I think the Warlock is the best designed class, no question. They get one of the largest selections of abilities and benefits that are all so mechanically different that they really feel like meaningful decisions when you pick among them. As far as versatility? They get a good amount of spells per day, and can do some pretty interesting things with their array of features. I'm sure they've got competition in the field of combat and scouting, but they're pretty high up in the spellcasting field, especially considering that instead of having to ration spell slots for every encounter on their own, it's done for them by way of their entire spellcasting mechanic.

[Person_Man]

I think the Warlock is the best designed class, no question. They get one of the largest selections of abilities and benefits that are all so mechanically different that they really feel like meaningful decisions when you pick among them. As far as versatility? They get a good amount of spells per day, and can do some pretty interesting things with their array of features. I'm sure they've got competition in the field of combat and scouting, but they're pretty high up in the spellcasting field, especially considering that instead of having to ration spell slots for every encounter on their own, it's done for them by way of their entire spellcasting mechanic.

I obviously haven't had a chance to see it in a real game yet. But the class reads like its very kludge-y to me.

I've only read through the entire class once so I'm probably missing something, but it seems like the Warlock gets half casting (1th though 5th level spells) from a decent list a limited number of times per day (like an arcane Paladin or Ranger), a small number of at-Will Cantrips, a small number of at-will Evocations (which mostly duplicate lower level spells anyway), and a small number of useful-ish continuous buffs based on your subclass choices.

It feels like they wanted an at-will Wizard (similar to its 3.5 version) but just couldn't commit to it because of the skewed Rube Goldberg Machine like resource management of other magic using classes. In other words, a more simple At-Will magic using Warlock is a great idea, but because every other magic using class has a convoluted resource management system that they have to juggle in order to use their spells, the Warlock must also have his magical resources divided up a bunch of different ways and limited to low-mid level stuff.

So it might be a great class. But it's crunch is just inelegantly managed, because so much of it overlaps with the even more convoluted full caster classes.

[Chaosvii7]

I've only read through the entire class once so I'm probably missing something, but it seems like the Warlock gets half casting (1th though 5th level spells) from a decent list a limited number of times per day (like an arcane Paladin or Ranger)

You may very well have missed something. Warlock spell slots recharge every short or long rest, not just on long rests. Those 5 slots? Those are per encounter, not per day. While there's a lot of talk about the length of a shot rest and what it means for the adventuring day, mechanically a Warlock in the average adventuring party should have enough encounters per day to make their spell slot recharge rate matter.

Also, they DO get 6th - 9th level spells, but those are per day abilities(see Mystic Arcanum if you haven't already, but I assume you did.)

I'm not saying their design is perfect, but they have such a selection of class features to take that it's really fun to explore and build a Warlock as you go. Every level is something new, very rarely do you just get more of the same; Either it's a new invocation, a new spell known, Mystic Arcanum, or a new Patron feature.

[JungleChicken]

I'm kind of digging the Warlock of the Tome, like the previously mentioned book of madness/necronomicon.

Maybe carry around a staff (quarter staff from the weapon table) that has a shogoth, or some tentacled horror carved in it, and when I cast Shillelagh it's one of the tentacles from the carving that magically whips somebody.

Also what are the available familiars from the find familiar ritual. I know I wouldn't be able to get the imp but something their might be flavorful

[Yagyujubei]

pact of the old one is the most broken single dip in the game. The applications of telepathic speech to anything with intelligence are insane.

[Naanomi]

Imp, Quasit, and Sprite can be invisible, for unparalleled scouting. Sprite and Pseudodragon poison is not awful. Pact of the Chain may not have the wide-ranging utility of Tome or Gish-in-a-can as Blade, but does have potential and can be awfully flavorful.

One of the PCs in my game (background: kidnapped as a child to serve in arch-fey courts, Entertainer/Warlock) and his Sprite have been very useful, and he hasn't regretted the choice yet; either in combat or outside it.

[JungleChicken]

Imp, Quasit, and Sprite can be invisible, for unparalleled scouting. Sprite and Pseudodragon poison is not awful. Pact of the Chain may not have the wide-ranging utility of Tome or Gish-in-a-can as Blade, but does have potential and can be awfully flavorful.

One of the PCs in my game (background: kidnapped as a child to serve in arch-fey courts, Entertainer/Warlock) and his Sprite have been very useful, and he hasn't regretted the choice yet; either in combat or outside it.


That's a pretty good concept to go with the Pact of the Chain. I like it.

[JungleChicken]

For Invocations, when I hit level 2 probably next week, What are some useful ones. I was thinking armor of shadows and possibly agonizing blast. I looked through the feats when I had access to the players handbook and nothing really popped as being super useful

[Yagyujubei]

the eye abilities seem useful to me, at will detect magic can come in handy in tons of situations, and since Lock has really limited spell slots you def. dont want to be wasting them on something like that. plus it allows your other casters to not worry about slotting it themselves freeing up their slots as well.

[JamesT]

Imp, Quasit, and Sprite can be invisible, for unparalleled scouting. Sprite and Pseudodragon poison is not awful. Pact of the Chain may not have the wide-ranging utility of Tome or Gish-in-a-can as Blade, but does have potential and can be awfully flavorful.

One of the PCs in my game (background: kidnapped as a child to serve in arch-fey courts, Entertainer/Warlock) and his Sprite have been very useful, and he hasn't regretted the choice yet; either in combat or outside it.

Plus, they can use the Help action on their turn to give you or someone else Advantage. Not sure if that was mentioned

[Sir_Leorik]

For Invocations, when I hit level 2 probably next week, What are some useful ones. I was thinking armor of shadows and possibly agonizing blast. I looked through the feats when I had access to the players handbook and nothing really popped as being super useful

If you have the Eldritch Blast cantrip, the Repelling Blast Invocation gives your Warlock battlefield control options. (My Warlock has already hit second level, and has taken it.)

[Chaosvii7]

If you have the Eldritch Blast cantrip, the Repelling Blast Invocation gives your Warlock battlefield control options. (My Warlock has already hit second level, and has taken it.)

Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast if you're a caster or scout, otherwise take Armor of Shadows and one other invocation of your choice. I'm building a Bladelock and I'm considering taking Mask of Many Faces along with Armor of Shadows, if not just for the flavor.

[Yorrin]

For Invocations, when I hit level 2 probably next week, What are some useful ones. I was thinking armor of shadows and possibly agonizing blast. I looked through the feats when I had access to the players handbook and nothing really popped as being super useful

You've hit on the two I would pick already. I'd say stick with AoS and AB.

[BW022]

Always go Tome.

Tome will allow you to be all three types of Warlock all at once, it is pretty sick how awesome they are as casters.


No. I have no idea where you are getting this from.

First, the shillelagh cantrip is not a replacement for pact of the blade. Blade allows you to form any weapon and makes you proficient with it. A two-handed sword, halberd, rapier, etc. This give you options to make weapons with reach, far more damage, use finesse, or two-weapon fighting. Further, at 5th, there is a pact of the blade invocation which allows multiple attacks. It also gives you the option of putting a magical weapon in extra-dimensional space.

Second, you would have to wait until 5th-level to get book of secrets to learn rituals -- including find familiar. Further, you can only summon regular familiars and these cannot attack. This is not a replacement for pact of the chain which allows imp, pseudodragon, quasit, or sprites -- which have special attacks, hit points, and abilities which might keep them alive in combat. You would be much better just taking ritual casting (wizard) as a 4th-level talent... as over half of ritual spells are wizard.

Sorry... it isn't better and it doesn't allow replacing of the key abilities of the other pacts -- even waiting until 5th. A hawk isn't a replacement for invisible sprites shooting sleep arrows nor a shape shifting boar imp. Nor is shillelagh a replacement for a halberd able to attack twice each round.

[JungleChicken]

Any good feats for Tomelocks? I really haven't seen anything that makes me think it would be better than a bump in Cha or Dex. Granted I only looked through the PHB once since I don't own a copy at the moment