Fiendlocks - Which Pact?

[NeoSeraphi]

So I am making a Tiefling Warlock with the Fiend as my patron, and I'm wondering which pact will be the most useful? I'm going to go Warlock 20, (starting at level 2), with 2 of my feats being used for Spell Sniper (to pick up fire bolt) and Elemental Adept (Fire). I'm looking to just cover the world in fire, and that's all I really want to do. I figure that all three of the pacts are equally useless for this, so should I just go Chain and grab an imp for flavor, or is there any mechanical benefit to blasting by choosing a pact?

[SharkForce]

if you go tome, you can pick up firebolt without spending a feat. also sacred flame (which doesn't do fire damage) and produce flame (which does). these won't actually do better damage than firebolt, but they do give you options for flame damage (and produce flame will give you the ability to light your hand(s) on fire).

it also gives you access to a bunch of useful rituals with the right invocation, but none are directly fire-based.

still, you might be able to get an imp familiar with a regular find familiar ritual (which you get), DM's discretion; there's a variant imp that will serve as a familiar in the monster manual. you can also get an unseen servant as often as you want (well, with 10 minutes of downtime regularly), which you could use for lighting fires, and tenser's floating disc, which you could use to have a bonfire following you around (or just a heck of a lot of oil).

nothing really directly fire-themed though.

[NeoSeraphi]

Well, the DM is giving us a feat at first level, so I'm grabbing Spell Sniper so I can have fire bolt when the game starts instead of having pretty much 0 fire until we level once.

I know about scribing rituals into my Tome, but I would have to find those rituals wouldn't I? And if I don't find any, then it's basically blowing an invocation (and my Pact) to get three 1st level rituals.

[Jlooney]

While i do fully understand your desire to play a warlock, why not go dragon borne sorcerer. Breath weapon elemental adept and go gold dragon

[NeoSeraphi]

While i do fully understand your desire to play a warlock, why not go dragon borne sorcerer. Breath weapon elemental adept and go gold dragon

Three words: Hurl Through Hell :smallcool:

[SharkForce]

Three words: Hurl Through Hell :smallcool:

actually deals psychic damage :P

anyways, yes, you do have to find the rituals. shouldn't be that hard, at least for the lower level ones. finding someone to teach you level 5 rituals might be hard, but level 1-2 should be pretty straightforward i would think. i mean, *someone* has to be training the apprentices that turn into level 1 wizards and the acolytes who become level 1 priests. it's not *too* crazy to imagine that they'd be at least level 3, is it?

that said, it's really not a compelling argument for going tome lock. either one will probably go just fine. and chain has a couple of really nice invocations too (at-will banishment, even limited to certain targets, is pretty nuts).

[Easy_Lee]

It depends on what you want to do. If you're getting a free feat at level one, polearm master with a quarterstaff/other polearm on a bladelock could be quite nice. You would definitely want to take one level of fighter for plate armor and shields, though, but it's currently the most powerful RAW bladelock around.

If you want to build a DEX bladelock, ask your DM for custom double weapons (dual scimitar or other DEX weapon). You'll need this because otherwise you can't get your bonus action attack with your pact weapon and your dps, even with CHA to attacks, will fall far behind. Alternatively, ask for a feat like polearm master but for another weapon type.

If you want a casty warlock, then pact of tome is easily the better choice. You can get a familiar through ritual casting the find familiar spell, as stated. If your DM uses the magic items table, spell scrolls should be dropped often enough. You can also ask about specific rituals you're looking for every time you reach a town.

Fiend pact is probably the weakest, IMO, because it focuses solely on damage. That said, here's a fun combo:
Round 1: Hurl through hell
Round 1 Continued: Have a party member drop a cage over the area where your foe was standing (illusory reality, stone wall, etc).
Round 2: Foe comes back and is trapped

[EvilAnagram]

If you have solid DEX or high enough stats to invest in STR, go Pact of the Blade. It's versatile, you get some nice damage out of it by level 14, and if you can find or make a fire-based weapon, you get to describe yourself bursting into a room with your firey blade in one hand and a ball of flickering flame in the other. Plus, always being able to have a weapon at any point can be useful.

[NeoSeraphi]

If you want a casty warlock, then pact of tome is easily the better choice. You can get a familiar through ritual casting the find familiar spell, as stated. If your DM uses the magic items table, spell scrolls should be dropped often enough. You can also ask about specific rituals you're looking for every time you reach a town.

I can only scribe rituals in it if I burn one of my invocations though, right? So I'd be burning one invocation in addition to my pact and I get my familiar (once I get that ritual), and...what else? Rituals aren't particularly useful for blasting and fire bolt is already the best fire cantrip...I don't see how Pact of the Tome is better for a blast focused fiendlock.

What are the mechanical advantages to a familiar anyway? They can't attack in this edition, right?

[Easy_Lee]

I can only scribe rituals in it if I burn one of my invocations though, right? So I'd be burning one invocation in addition to my pact and I get my familiar (once I get that ritual), and...what else? Rituals aren't particularly useful for blasting and fire bolt is already the best fire cantrip...I don't see how Pact of the Tome is better for a blast focused fiendlock.

What are the mechanical advantages to a familiar anyway? They can't attack in this edition, right?

They can take the help action every round to provide a constant source of advantage. But if you just want to blow **** up, you would be much better off with a fire dragon sorcerer. Hurl through hell has nothing on twinned quickened firebolt.

[NeoSeraphi]

They can take the help action every round to provide a constant source of advantage. But if you just want to blow **** up, you would be much better off with a fire dragon sorceter. Hurl through hell has nothing on twinned quickened firebolt.

I've played draconic sorcerers before. Warlock is new, it's different to me. I want to play something new. And the tiefling fiend RP synergy is too good to pass up. I'm just trying to optimize the class I picked.

[RedMage125]

Fiend pact is probably the weakest, IMO, because it focuses solely on damage.
The optimizers here and at the WotC forums disagree. Right now, they're ranking them (from highest to lowest) as Fiend, Great Old One, Archfey. Warlocks main schtick is doing damage, and Fiendlocks excel there, especially their expanded spell list; Cthulocks have some great stuff for a mix of damage and control; Feylocks focus almost exclusively on charm effects, which can be situational, although they get Sleep at first level, arguably one of the best 1st level spell in the game.


I can only scribe rituals in it if I burn one of my invocations though, right? So I'd be burning one invocation in addition to my pact and I get my familiar (once I get that ritual), and...what else? Rituals aren't particularly useful for blasting and fire bolt is already the best fire cantrip...I don't see how Pact of the Tome is better for a blast focused fiendlock.

I'd hardly call the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation "burning" an invocation. It is by far one of the best invocations out there, especially when you ask yourself honestly what is your character going to be doing out of combat. Contact Other Plane could be useful, as could Divination...you want to learn a fiend's truename to make him your personal slave? Not to mention that one of your early ones could be Find Familiar and get you a famiiar anyway.
Someone's already mentioned the fiery cantrips out there that would come with the default Tome of Shadows, and the rituals are just added versatility.


They can take the help action every round to provide a constant source of advantage. But if you just want to blow **** up, you would be much better off with a fire dragon sorceter. Hurl through hell has nothing on twinned quickened firebolt.

Which could, of course, be followed by another spell, like Fire Storm (just to stick with one available at the same level a fiendlock gets HtH).

3d10+CHA + 3d10+CHA + 7d10+CHA is better than 10d10 any day.

[Easy_Lee]

I've played draconic sorcerers before. Warlock is new, it's different to me. I want to play something new. And the tiefling fiend RP synergy is too good to pass up. I'm just trying to optimize the class I picked.

So you want to play something new, want to play fiend warlock, but don't want to go blade pact? Blade pact can cast the same spells as any other pact, save specifics like hold person and a few cantrips. Why not blade? Tome is the best pure caster of the warlocks for all of the reasons stated, but only because it has more spell options. Most of your damage is coming from eldritch blast or your weapon no matter what kind of warlock you play.