Sir Pippin Boyd
2016-03-09, 06:47 AM
I'm playing my first Warlock in a 5th ed game, and am very excited to explore the Warlock/Patron relationship for roleplaying opportunities. I'm looking through the list of spells that Warlocks get access to, and I'm finding disappointingly little in way of Divination spells that follow through on the fluff's promise of gaining knowledge from one's Patron. That is, until 5th level spell slots become accessible and I gain Scrying and Contact Other Plane both on the same tier.
I'm very excited for Contact Other Plane in particular, but looking at its description more thoroughly, the DC 15 Intelligence save is clearly going to be a large deterrent. Obviously, making direct contact with a Patron is a pretty big deal so I wouldn't complain about a little risk, but with my int mod of +2 and warlocks not having Intelligence as a proficient save, I'm looking at about a projected 35% chance of getting the answers I want and a 65% chance of the sudden and violent onset of severe I-can't-even. This appears to be an oversight in my opinion, as it makes warlocks inherently really awful at what could be seen as their most strongly thematic spell.
Is there anything relatively accessible that gives me a bonus on intelligence saves, or even better, advantage on them that I can use to benefit from this spell more reliably? I'm considering asking my DM if he'll grant me some sort of bonus on the save if the entity I'm contacting is my patron, as that isn't a requirement of the spell's current version.
Outside of that, does anyone have stories or advice on how the Warlock/Patron relationship has played out in their game?
I'm very excited for Contact Other Plane in particular, but looking at its description more thoroughly, the DC 15 Intelligence save is clearly going to be a large deterrent. Obviously, making direct contact with a Patron is a pretty big deal so I wouldn't complain about a little risk, but with my int mod of +2 and warlocks not having Intelligence as a proficient save, I'm looking at about a projected 35% chance of getting the answers I want and a 65% chance of the sudden and violent onset of severe I-can't-even. This appears to be an oversight in my opinion, as it makes warlocks inherently really awful at what could be seen as their most strongly thematic spell.
Is there anything relatively accessible that gives me a bonus on intelligence saves, or even better, advantage on them that I can use to benefit from this spell more reliably? I'm considering asking my DM if he'll grant me some sort of bonus on the save if the entity I'm contacting is my patron, as that isn't a requirement of the spell's current version.
Outside of that, does anyone have stories or advice on how the Warlock/Patron relationship has played out in their game?