Celestial Pact Warlock

[AgentPaper]

Link to the Google Doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZGc1PvKZwCZvu_BXBwhC5UJeJEAUkH-caqlXsD8u810/edit?usp=sharing). Transcribed here, but the Google Doc might be more up-to date as I tweak things.

Celestial Pact
You have made a pact with a celestial from the higher planes of existence, a being whose aims are good, even if you stray from that path. Such beings seek to protect the mortal world from evil and injustice. Usually servants of good become clerics or paladins, but sometimes celestials will seek to form a pact directly, often for a specific cause that requires their direct attention. Celestials are often more discerning than other patrons, and are more likely to break a pact if the warlock takes action against their will. Beings of this sort include Domiel, the Mercy-Bringer, Ruler of Mercuria; Talisid, the Celestial Lion; Faerinaal, the Queen’s Consort; and especially powerful Solars and Throne Archons.

Expanded Spell List
The Celestial lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell.The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
Spell Level - Spells
1st - Detect Good and Evil, Guiding Bolt
2nd - Blindness/Deafness, Spiritual Weapon
3rd - Crusader’s Mantle, Spirit Guardians
4th - Aura of Purity, Freedom of Movement
5th - Dispel Good and Evil, Flamestrike

Sanctity
Starting at 1st level, you can use your action to project the power and inevitability of your patron’s divine will. For the next ten minutes, or until you take damage, any attack made against you by a creature that can see you is made with disadvantage. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Divine Awareness
Starting at 6th level, you can use your action to channel a small part of your patron’s consciousness through yourself. For 1 minute, or until your concentration is broken (as if you are concentrating on a spell), your eyes smoulder with radiant energy and your skin and clothing glow with a soft light. You gain truesight out to 30 feet, understand all languages, can communicate telepathically with any creature within 120 feet, and know when you are lied to until the effect ends. After you use this ability, you can’t use it again until after you finish a long rest.

Healing Touch
At 11th level, you gain the ability to channel divine energy directly into another creature. You can use your action to touch a creature. That creature regains 8d8+4 hit points and is freed from any curse, disease, poison, blindness, or deafness. Once you have used this ability, you can’t use it again until after you finish a long rest.

Angelic Wings
At 14th level, you gain the ability to sprout a pair of angel wings from your back, gaining a flying speed equal to your current speed. You can create these wings as a bonus action on your turn. They last until you dismiss them as a bonus action on your turn.
You can’t manifest your wings while wearing armor unless the armor is made to accommodate them, and clothing not made to accommodate your wings might be destroyed when you manifest them.

[Submortimer]

Howdy Howdy, AgentPaper! I took a crack at this concept a while back, and have actually done some significant playtesting with my version. That being said, lets see how you do yours.




Expanded Spell List
The Celestial lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell.The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
Spell Level - Spells
1st - Detect Good and Evil, Guiding Bolt
2nd - Blindness/Deafness, Spiritual Weapon
3rd - Crusader’s Mantle, Spirit Guardians
4th - Aura of Purity, Freedom of Movement
5th - Dispel Good and Evil, Flamestrike


Decent Spell list, l used something very similar.



Sanctity
Starting at 1st level, you can use your action to project the power and inevitability of your patron’s divine will. For the next ten minutes, or until you take damage, any attack made against you by a creature that can see you is made with disadvantage. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.


This is REALLY powerful, especially for 1st level. No concentration, 10 mins of disadvantage as long as they don't hit you...that's kinda nuts. That being said, you can get the same effect with Darkness+ Devil's Sight, but can do that far less often and it can't be combined with hex.



Divine Awareness
Starting at 6th level, you can use your action to channel a small part of your patron’s consciousness through yourself. For 1 minute, or until your concentration is broken (as if you are concentrating on a spell), your eyes smoulder with radiant energy and your skin and clothing glow with a soft light. You gain truesight out to 30 feet, understand all languages, can communicate telepathically with any creature within 120 feet, and know when you are lied to until the effect ends. After you use this ability, you can’t use it again until after you finish a long rest.


Truesight 30 ft. at level 6? Holy crap, man. This, again, is far too strong. Blindsight could be argued (due to the duration), but not truesight.




Healing Touch
At 11th level, you gain the ability to channel divine energy directly into another creature. You can use your action to touch a creature. That creature regains 8d8+4 hit points and is freed from any curse, disease, poison, blindness, or deafness. Once you have used this ability, you can’t use it again until after you finish a long rest.


(note: this should be at level 10) It's a big heal at level 10. Doing so once/long rest ain't bad.



Angelic Wings
At 14th level, you gain the ability to sprout a pair of angel wings from your back, gaining a flying speed equal to your current speed. You can create these wings as a bonus action on your turn. They last until you dismiss them as a bonus action on your turn.
You can’t manifest your wings while wearing armor unless the armor is made to accommodate them, and clothing not made to accommodate your wings might be destroyed when you manifest them.

Permanent flight is always good. may look lackluster compared to other choices, but this is solid, in my opinion.

So, your design structure is a little weird. For the Pacts out of the book, they generally follow this structure:

1st: At will ability (Short rest for Fey)
6th: Short rest ability
10th: Defensive ability
14th: Capstone Long rest ability.

All of your guy's abilities are long rest, save the capstone. That's not awful, make it what you will, but know that it's not in line with what the other pacts offer.

[AgentPaper]

Good points. Not sure how I missed that patter, since I was looking for something exactly like that when I was making this. I guess I got thrown off by the first Fey ability being off. I switched to the at-will version of Sanctity, where it works as long as you're at full HP, but nerfed it to only work out to 30 feet. Might still be too strong for level 1, I'm starting to think I should move it up to level 10, let it be fully-powered without the range restriction, and have something else for level 1. Not sure what that would be, though.

I stuck the wings in there because it's a flavor home run, but it might overlap with Favored Soul a bit much, and kinda disrupts the whole class since Healing Touch wants to be level 14. I'll probably think on it a bit, then make more changes later though.

[khadgar567]

agent and submortimer a small question for both of you lets say pc has this patron and apotheosis pact boon what happens when pc gain wing from any of them then other one is he gains speed boost or both wing in same time

[Submortimer]

agent and submortimer a small question for both of you lets say pc has this patron and apotheosis pact boon what happens when pc gain wing from any of them then other one is he gains speed boost or both wing in same time

I'd say that the abilities don't overlap. The thing with the Apotheosis pact that gives you wings is an invocation, so if you had this, you just wouldn't take the invocation.

[khadgar567]

I'd say that the abilities don't overlap. The thing with the Apotheosis pact that gives you wings is an invocation, so if you had this, you just wouldn't take the invocation.
actually it may be good to have 120 ft speed near the end game

[Submortimer]

actually it may be good to have 120 ft speed near the end game

I'm sure it'd be great to have that, but there's nothing that grants permanent flight at even half that speed. No dice.

[ZenBear]

Looks pretty cool so far. A few points:

1. I'm surprised Cure Wounds isn't on the spell list. If any Warlock Patron might grant Cure, it would be a Celestial.

2. Sanctity is cool and seems balanced, but would work best at the same level of the other defense features (6 or 10, afb).

3. Divine Awareness is too strong at that level. Perhaps it could work as the capstone. Honestly I don't see it as fitting for a CHA caster.

4. Healing Touch is essentially Lay on Hands in a single big burst. It wouldn't be necessary at all with Cure Wounds on the spell list.

5. Angel Wings are cool. Doesn't matter that Dragonblood and Favored Soul have essentially the same ability. Remove the armor limitation, there's no point putting that monetary barrier.

I would lean into the awesome presence theme. Level 1 should be an ability similar to the Fey awe/fear, but maybe a more passive boon instead of an activated Charm/Fear. Move Sanctity back to the appropriate level and keep Angel Wings. Replace Divine Awareness and Healing Touch with something more in line with the awesome presence theme. I would be interested in coming up with a way to change Eldritch Blast's damage type to Radiant, and/or gain a boost to radiant damage spells.

[AgentPaper]

1. I'm surprised Cure Wounds isn't on the spell list. If any Warlock Patron might grant Cure, it would be a Celestial.
That was a specific design choice. You aren't a cleric or paladin, you're closer to an avatar of divine justice. I specifically picked out offensive abilities from the cleric's kit, and avoided healing and defensive buffs for the most part. There will probably be changes to the spell list since this is just a first draft, and I'm open to suggestions, but Cure Wounds is definitely not going on there.


2. Sanctity is cool and seems balanced, but would work best at the same level of the other defense features (6 or 10, afb).
Yeah, I've been thinking that as well. Moved it to 6.


3. Divine Awareness is too strong at that level. Perhaps it could work as the capstone. Honestly I don't see it as fitting for a CHA caster.
Also agreed. Was trying to think of a way to make it fit the level, switching truesight for darkvision or something, but nothing really worked right. Moved it to 10, where it's more on par with the capabilities of casters at that level.


4. Healing Touch is essentially Lay on Hands in a single big burst. It wouldn't be necessary at all with Cure Wounds on the spell list.
It's not necessary even as it is. As mentioned, healing is not meant to be a role that the divine warlock can fill, but I do like the idea of giving them one big burst of healing each day.


5. Angel Wings are cool. Doesn't matter that Dragonblood and Favored Soul have essentially the same ability. Remove the armor limitation, there's no point putting that monetary barrier.
Armor limitation is the same as the dragonblood sorcerer gets. I suppose I could make them etheral wings that go through armor, but that seems like an unnecessary snub at sorcerers. Its mostly a flavor thing anyways, and I like how it makes the feature feel a bit less gamey.


I would lean into the awesome presence theme. Level 1 should be an ability similar to the Fey awe/fear, but maybe a more passive boon instead of an activated Charm/Fear. Move Sanctity back to the appropriate level and keep Angel Wings. Replace Divine Awareness and Healing Touch with something more in line with the awesome presence theme. I would be interested in coming up with a way to change Eldritch Blast's damage type to Radiant, and/or gain a boost to radiant damage spells.

I definitely want to hit the awesome presence theme, but that should only be one part of things, having all of the abilities key off of that would be too bland. I do need a level 1 feature though, currently leaning towards re-writing Healing Touch as one, but I'm concerned that that would make healing too much of an integral part of what the class does. I like Healing Touch as a big, one-off thing you can do later on. Giving some kind of boost to radiant damage and allowing EB to deal radiant damage is another idea, but I think that stuff might be better served with invocations (which I plan to add a few of).

[ZenBear]

That was a specific design choice. You aren't a cleric or paladin, you're closer to an avatar of divine justice. I specifically picked out offensive abilities from the cleric's kit, and avoided healing and defensive buffs for the most part. There will probably be changes to the spell list since this is just a first draft, and I'm open to suggestions, but Cure Wounds is definitely not going on there.
...
Also agreed. Was trying to think of a way to make it fit the level, switching truesight for darkvision or something, but nothing really worked right. Moved it to 10, where it's more on par with the capabilities of casters at that level.
...
It's not necessary even as it is. As mentioned, healing is not meant to be a role that the divine warlock can fill, but I do like the idea of giving them one big burst of healing each day.
...
Armor limitation is the same as the dragonblood sorcerer gets. I suppose I could make them etheral wings that go through armor, but that seems like an unnecessary snub at sorcerers. Its mostly a flavor thing anyways, and I like how it makes the feature feel a bit less gamey.
...
I definitely want to hit the awesome presence theme, but that should only be one part of things, having all of the abilities key off of that would be too bland. I do need a level 1 feature though, currently leaning towards re-writing Healing Touch as one, but I'm concerned that that would make healing too much of an integral part of what the class does. I like Healing Touch as a big, one-off thing you can do later on. Giving some kind of boost to radiant damage and allowing EB to deal radiant damage is another idea, but I think that stuff might be better served with invocations (which I plan to add a few of).

I figured that was your intent. I don't like the decision to omit healing spells as I feel it limits player freedom (and where else outside of multiclassing is a Warlock ever going to have access to healing if not from a divine Patron?), but if that's really how you want it then I definitely think a boost to radiant damage spells is in order as a feature, not an invocation. Level 1 is the perfect place for it, as long as it isn't too strong but scales with level. Perhaps a twist on the Life Domain feature, you deal an extra 2 + spell level damage to each affected target when you deal radiant damage with a spell. Might be OP, but you get the idea.

I'm really not a fan of Divine Awareness or Healing Touch. Both are too similar to Paladin features and don't fit the feel of this Pact IMO. If you really want them though, I would change the name of Divine Awareness to something like Aspect or Avatar of Divinity, and Healing Touch to Salvation or similar.

[Markoff Chainey]

Hi, I was thinking about creating my own celestial pact version and stumpled upon yours, so I wanted to toss in some ideas that I came up with.

I like the wings, because they are part of an angel... I like the idea that the warlock himself becomes a "lesser version" of his patron. So you could think about adding some "angelic features" along the way... almost unaging, becomes an outsider, resistance to radiant damage, resistance / immunity to fear, vulnerability to necrotic damage, disadvantage on all CHA checks on deception or deceit, inability to lie, ... (btw. I think the angels are not all good, but all of them are lawful) - you could enhance the wings if you add disadvantages IMO.

Also, I could imagine that an angel would want his "protegé" whom he lends powers, to fight against his enemies and that would be abberations, demons and fiends. Instead of the healing ability, you could grant him something that helps especially with that. - Maybe the ability to "planeshift" the true form of an opponent into the current plane of existence, so that he will really die if he is beaten and not just banished, along with a radiant aura that effects that kind of creatures. Or grant him some advantage upon killing them like temp hp or spell slot refresh.. (I would prefer that over the healing ability)

The Hex spell is really important for most warlocks - but it should be also changed to radiant damage if the patron is "good" IMO. And a Chain-Warlock would need another more "celestial" familiar...

I really like your ideas and especially the spell list! The only thing I am not sold on is the healing ability.

Just my 2 cents, thanks for sharing!

[RavenJovan]

This is exactly what I was looking for, can't wait to see it finished

[RavenJovan]

is there only going to be one eldritch invocation, or are you going to make more?