New to spell casters.

[Cuddly Turask]

Hey everyone,
Some friends and I are going to be trying out 5e. So far in the party we have a cleric, paladin, barbarian and rogue.

We have been playing earlier edition of D&D for a while but this is my first time making a spell caster. Looking over the PHB the warlock seemed the most interesting to me. I was thinking of going with a teifling warlock maybe with the archfey or fiend patron.

I'm welcome to any suggestions on how to make a good warlock. Or even to how the sorcerers or wizard is a better class.

[Fwiffo86]

Hey everyone,
Some friends and I are going to be trying out 5e. So far in the party we have a cleric, paladin, barbarian and rouge.

We have been playing earlier edition of D&D for a while but this is my first time making a spell caster. Looking over the PHB the warlock seemed the most interesting to me. I was thinking of going with a teifling warlock maybe with the archfey or fiend patron.

I'm welcome to any suggestions on how to make a good warlock. Or even to how the sorcerers or wizard is a better class.

This question needs clarification. Are you looking at the spellcaster as a combat tool? or as a roleplaying opportunity? Some mix of both? Do you consider magic safe and simple? Dangerous and unpredictable? How common is it in the gameworld?

Ex) Warlock seems good for magic = power, even if its "dangerous". That's my take on it.

[Daishain]

Warlocks are blasters at heart. You get few spells (and only 1 each of levels 6-9), and few spell slots. However, your low end spells get recharged easily, AND you have access to Eldritch Blast, which with the invocation upgrades is easily the best offensive cantrip.

They also are tougher in melee combat than most arcane casters, but every single other character in your party has some beatdown ability, so don't focus on that.

Your patron is going to be a tough choice: The fiend, unsurprisingly, is good for offensive action. The Archfey and the Great Old One offer differing flavors of battlefield control. Personally, GOO is great. Among other things, from level one you get a means of communicating without words, which can be incredibly useful.

You also need to choose between three boons. The blade is good if you intend to be mixing it up in melee. The chain gets you an upgraded familiar. The book expands your collection of cantrips. All three can be upgraded via invocations. Personally, the upgraded book is in my opinion the best for a warlock that is staying out of the fight for the most part. Upgrade it and you get several downtime abilities. Including the Find Familiar ritual, which partially negates the advantage of the Chain boon.

If you aren't sure about the class, let me run down the other two you mentioned.

A wizard done right is a bit like macguyver. Catch him off guard and he isn't worth much. However, give him the slightest bit of breathing room to work and prepare and he will curbstomp everything with zilch effort.

The sorcerer is the wizard's idiot savant brother. He knows fewer spells, but he can make them dance and sing like no one else can. In their case, it is less about careful preparation, and more about clever use of the resources you have at hand.

[Inevitability]

Warlocks are pretty complicated, or so I heard. Maybe go with a sorcerer and fluff your powers as coming from being blessed/cursed by a fiend or fey?

[Shining Wrath]

All full casters classes are good. Warlock is the most focused on directly damaging the enemy. At high levels (spell levels 6 on up) you choose ONE spell of that level, and that is the only spell of that level you'll ever cast, once per day. You do get nice blaster power and some interesting, sinister fluff. Your patron powers are also useful, and you get Warlock invocations, which are mostly the equivalent of a low-level buff spell with a 24-hour duration.

So your Warlock will fit into your party as a direct damage dealer akin to an archer, i.e., you don't want to get into the thick of things, and your invocations can let you fill a niche out of combat - party face, party member who notices things, et cetera.

Wizards are still pure awesome sauce but are DM dependent. You get to choose spells as you level up, but that's all that will be in your spellbook unless the DM lets you find some spells. OTOH, you can cast any ritual spell from your book without having to prepare it for the day.

And sorcerers? They have the second worst spells known of the full casters (beating only the warlock). Even bards get more known. And of the full casters they alone don't get rituals. So what do they get? Metamagic. Wonderful, wonderful metamagic. And the most cantrips (one more than wizards, two more than clerics). And some interesting class features although I'm a little scared of Wild Magic, as being turned into a potted plant by the dice one spell out of 50 could be massively inconvenient. They also get a broad selection of spells to take their limited number of choices from, so a well-crafted sorcerer can fill almost any needed spellcasting niche.

If you're considering druid you need to know they've lost the animal companion and don't get to cast in beast form until level 18. They're more a lightly armored cleric with some shape changing ability in 5e.

Clerics have 6 different domains and you want to chose the domain that fits your role in the party - do you need heavy armor et cetera.

Bards are full casters now and get wonderful skill proficiencies. Bardic inspiration has been nerfed rather severely.

[Cuddly Turask]

This question needs clarification. Are you looking at the spellcaster as a combat tool? or as a roleplaying opportunity? Some mix of both? Do you consider magic safe and simple? Dangerous and unpredictable? How common is it in the gameworld?

Ex) Warlock seems good for magic = power, even if its "dangerous". That's my take on it.

More so as a combat tool but also for roleplaying opportunity.
Magic is common in the world but dangerous to obtain.

[Cuddly Turask]

Warlocks are blasters at heart. You get few spells (and only 1 each of levels 6-9), and few spell slots. However, your low end spells get recharged easily, AND you have access to Eldritch Blast, which with the invocation upgrades is easily the best offensive cantrip.

They also are tougher in melee combat than most arcane casters, but every single other character in your party has some beatdown ability, so don't focus on that.

Your patron is going to be a tough choice: The fiend, unsurprisingly, is good for offensive action. The Archfey and the Great Old One offer differing flavors of battlefield control. Personally, GOO is great. Among other things, from level one you get a means of communicating without words, which can be incredibly useful.

You also need to choose between three boons. The blade is good if you intend to be mixing it up in melee. The chain gets you an upgraded familiar. The book expands your collection of cantrips. All three can be upgraded via invocations. Personally, the upgraded book is in my opinion the best for a warlock that is staying out of the fight for the most part. Upgrade it and you get several downtime abilities. Including the Find Familiar ritual, which partially negates the advantage of the Chain boon.

If you aren't sure about the class, let me run down the other two you mentioned.

A wizard done right is a bit like macguyver. Catch him off guard and he isn't worth much. However, give him the slightest bit of breathing room to work and prepare and he will curbstomp everything with zilch effort.

The sorcerer is the wizard's idiot savant brother. He knows fewer spells, but he can make them dance and sing like no one else can. In their case, it is less about careful preparation, and more about clever use of the resources you have at hand.

P.S. rouge is a type of makeup

That is a really good point about the boons. I think I will go with the tome boon. The blade boon would be pointless because I intend to have my other party members to be in the front likes while I stay out of harms way.