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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next For those who miss the Hellfire warlock...



clash
2016-09-16, 09:51 AM
This is a new pact boon I made to emulate it.

Hellfire Pact
You are given a flame of hellfire that resides in your soul. It increases your power but in doing so, it consumes you.
As a result of the hellfire dwelling within you, you gain resistance to fire and cold damage.

Level 5: Hellfire blast invocation - Requires Hellfire Pact
When you use eldrith blast you may lace it with hellfire changing it to a hellfire blast. The damage type changes to fire damage and you fire one additional ray. When you do so you immediately take 1d12 necrotic damage as the hellfire consumes part of your soul. This damage cannot be reduced.

Level 11: Hellfire shield invocation - Requires Hellfire Pact
As an action you can cause the hellfire to cover your entire body, burning any who strike you. when in this state you shed bright light in a 20ft radius. Additonally you can cause hellfire to lash out against anyone who hits you with an attack within 30ft of you causing them to make a dex save or take 2d10 fire damage. On a failed save they take half damage. Each time the fire lashes out at them it consumes part of your soul dealing 1d12 necrotic damage. This damage cannot be reduced. This shield lasts until dispelled by you.

Let me know what you think.

JakOfAllTirades
2016-09-16, 12:33 PM
Hellfire Pact
You are given a flame of hellfire that resides in your soul. It increases your power but in doing so, it consumes you.
As a result of the hellfire dwelling within you, you gain resistance to fire and cold damage.

Level 5: Hellfire blast invocation - Requires Hellfire Pact
When you use eldrith blast you may lace it with hellfire changing it to a hellfire blast. The damage type changes to fire damage and you fire one additional ray. When you do so you immediately take 1d12 necrotic damage as the hellfire consumes part of your soul. This damage cannot be reduced.

Level 11: Hellfire shield invocation - Requires Hellfire Pact
As an action you can cause the hellfire to cover your entire body, burning any who strike you. when in this state you shed bright light in a 20ft radius. Addi tonally you can cause hellfire to lash out against anyone who hits you with an attack within 30ft of you causing them to make a dex save or take 2d10 fire damage. On a failed save they take half damage. Each time the fire lashes out at them it consumes part of your soul dealing 1d12 necrotic damage. This damage cannot be reduced.

Let me know what you think.

This is on the right track to capture the flavor and feel of the old Hellfire prestige class, IMHO.

Warlock Pacts in 5E all give benefits at the same levels: 1st, 6th, 10th, 14th. So I'd suggest expanding this to provide Pact Features at each of those levels and adjusting their power levels accordingly.

Level 1 could use something slightly more interesting: see the other Warlock pacts. (Also, several races already get Fire Resistance.)

For the Hellfire Blast Invocation: An extra ray from Eldritch Blast might be broken. I'd suggest making this Invocation a trade off (because that's what Warlocks do): it changes the Blast to Fire which ignore Fire Resistance, but it fires one less ray. Level 6.

Hellfire Shield Invocation: This needs a duration and a once per Short/Long rest limitation. It should probably also ignore Fire Resistance. It's hard to say whether it's survivable, though: more than a few rounds could be lethal if the Warlock takes too many hits. Right now it's basically a Hellish Rebuke cast at 1st level, with a 1d12 necrotic side effect on the caster. I'd consider 3d10 (Tieflings get that much for free). Level 10 or 14.

You might want to bring the necrotic damage down a bit, d12's will ruin your day. You've got necrotic damage from an at-will ability, and again from an ability of unknown duration that triggers when you get hit. As written, it looks like a suicide pact. Use a smaller die type and there'll be a risk-reward dynamic that looks interesting to play. Check out the Blood Hunter class on the DMGuild; it uses a die type progression that increases with level for "self inflicted" damage to activate some class abilities. Blood Curses start at a d6 when they first come online level 6, and hit a d12 to amplify at level 19. For some other abilities it just uses the character level in HP; no dice rolls.

Awesome idea, and I'm looking forward to see where this goes.

clash
2016-09-16, 12:47 PM
This is on the right track to capture the flavor and feel of the old Hellfire prestige class, IMHO.
Warlock Pacts in 5E all give benefits at the same levels: 1st, 6th, 10th, 14th. So I'd suggest expanding this to provide Pact Features at each of those levels and adjusting their power levels accordingly.

Sorry I wasn't clear but this is designed to be a pact boon not a warlock patron. Hellfire blast and Hellfire shield are invocations not archetype abilities.



Level 1 could use something slightly more interesting: see the other Warlock pacts. (Also, several races already get Fire Resistance.)


See above. Evaluated beside a familiar, a few cantrips or a weapon with proficiency 2 dmg resistances seemed like a good deal to me.



For the Hellfire Blast Invocation: An extra ray from Eldritch Blast might be broken. I'd suggest making this Invocation a trade off (because that's what Warlocks do): it changes the Blast to Fire which ignore Fire Resistance, but it fires one less ray. Level 6.


Changing the blast to fire and ignoring fire resistence is no benefit. Almost nobody is immune to force right now. There needs to be a benefit to using it that is worth taking 1d12 damage.



Hellfire Shield Invocation: This needs a duration and a once per Short/Long rest limitation. It should probably also ignore Fire Resistance. It's hard to say whether it's survivable, though: more than a few rounds could be lethal if the Warlock takes too many hits. Right now it's basically a Hellish Rebuke cast at 1st level, with a 1d12 necrotic side effect on the caster. I'd consider 3d10 (Tieflings get that much for free). Level 10 or 14.


This is intended to be an always on invocation. You have the choice of causing the fire to lash out and taking the appropriate damage and I feel increasing the damage would be too powerful for an always on effect.



You might want to bring the necrotic damage down a bit, d12's will ruin your day. You've got necrotic damage from an at-will ability, and again from an ability of unknown duration that triggers when you get hit. As written, it looks like a suicide pact. Use a smaller die type and there'll be a risk-reward dynamic that looks interesting to play. Check out the Blood Hunter class on the DMGuild; it uses a die type progression that increases with level for "self inflicted" damage to activate some class abilities. Blood Curses start at a d6 when they first come online level 6, and hit a d12 to amplify at level 19. For some other abilities it just uses the character level in HP; no dice rolls.


The important thing here is the abilities are optional, you don't use them when you are low on hp. Although if given that you still think it is too high I will consider reducing the self inflicted damage.

JakOfAllTirades
2016-09-16, 02:23 PM
Sorry I wasn't clear but this is designed to be a pact boon not a warlock patron. Hellfire blast and Hellfire shield are invocations not archetype abilities.

SMH! Sorry about that.

Disregard my previous post, I'll revise my thoughts on this later. I'm out the door to work in about five minutes....