Fighting a Warlock's Fiend

[Kanthalion]

I'm considering a quest line where the big bad turns out to be the fiend who holds the lein on our Warlock's soul. I think it would make for some interesting dramatic tension and hard choices for that player.

What do you think would happen to the warlock and his powers if they kill it?

[AlanBruce]

Well, it depends on the player's backstory.

How did he acquire his warlock powers? Complete Arcane suggests that warlocks got their invocations through Infernal Pacts. Other warlocks got it through a curse passed down from ancestors who made such pacts.

However, the Forces of the Underworld are not the only ones who are said to bestow a warlock with power.

This fiend may be a major antagonist to the party. Maybe the warlock defies the fiend and despises him for some measure of control he has over him and so, taking a gamble, uses those same powers against him, along with the party's help.

Once the fiend is defeated, other Powers- Fey or Celestial- may look at the warlock's actions as an act of Atonement and choose to patron his eldritch powers, so he keeps them, but now furthered by other realms rather that the Hells.

[the_david]

I'm not sure if there are rules for this. I can see 3 possibilities:
- He loses his powers because his patron was the source.
- His powers are a gift that are indepent of his patron so he doesn't lose them.
- He loses his powers at some point as his patron revokes them.

There is a prestige class that might work for him. The Enlightened Spirit from Complete Mage.

[Flickerdart]

I suppose it would depend on the nature of the pact - the standard seems to be "you get power in life, I own your soul in death." So the fiend would have no influence over the warlock after the pact was made; he could not even revoke the powers because that would be a breach of contract. Fiends are not truly destroyed when they are killed, so killing him wouldn't make the warlock lose his powers.

It would be interesting if the warlock was savvy enough to add a "you will do nothing to hasten my death" clause - meaning that the fiend would have great difficulty in fighting him!

[Kanthalion]

I'm not sure if there are rules for this. I can see 3 possibilities:
- He loses his powers because his patron was the source.
- His powers are a gift that are indepent of his patron so he doesn't lose them.
- He loses his powers at some point as his patron revokes them.

There is a prestige class that might work for him. The Enlightened Spirit from Complete Mage.

I was thinking something along the lines of the first one, (thus the hard choice) but I'm reluctant to completely strip him off all his powers--maybe just the eldritch blast?


Fiends are not truly destroyed when they are killed, so killing him wouldn't make the warlock lose his powers.

Doesn't that just apply on the material plane?

[Chronos]

- His powers are a gift that are indepent of his patron so he doesn't lose them.
I'd rule either that, or that when the fiend dies, the warlock is able to siphon off part of the fiend's power (i.e., the part of the fiend's power that he'd already been using), and so effectively become independent of a patron. Taking away powers is just being unfair to the player.

Of course, the warlock might also try to siphon off a greater share of the fiend's power as it dies. The pact would provide a link to make such an attempt possible... but this would have consequences. Like, probably, the warlock becoming an NPC and the new villain for the party.