The Misty Shadow's Warlock Patrons - PEACH

[Shadow_in_the_Mist]

So, you're doubtlessly wondering what the hell is going on. Well, to put things simply, I've got a lot of homebrewed subclasses for 5e that I want to get critiqued, plus plans for future subclasses beyond that. For obvious reasons, I can't post each subclass here individually; I'd drown us all. But, at the same time, I can't hope to get any reviews or comments if I put them all in one thread - wall of text to the nth degree. So, I tried to compromise and instead make a relatively small group of splinter topics that I can post them under in more manageable numbers.

To see these subclasses in their natural habitat, follow the linked google-doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-MEFIyT9jA8dlnomdEUNLIzV3ELhH3FWbcdxb0FSRTY/edit

To see the index of all my 5e homebrew, follow this linked thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516554-The-Misty-Shadow-s-Absurd-Amount-of-5e-Homebrew-PEACH

Warlocks were one of 4th edition's most interesting new classes, and I'm happy that they and their tiefling iconics made the jump into the 5e corebook. Although we've got some interesting Patrons so far, I think that there's a decent amount of ideas for new Patrons to expand the list, and I'm happy to work my own magic to add to that cause.

[Shadow_in_the_Mist]

Although I have many planned Warlock Patrons, and really need help getting them off of the ground, this is the only one I've managed to sit down and hash out an attempt at so far. The Dark Mother was inspired by my fondness for "dark fertility gods", an archetype most readily seen in Pathfinder via Lamashtu and Shub-Niggurath. Although I know there's a Shub-Niggurath pledge for Warlocks out there on the internet, and I have looked it over, I find it's a little too focused on her abilities in particular to serve as the Warlock of, say, Lamashtu. Still, the Warlock features are really kicking my ass so I could use a huge helping hand with this.

The Dark Mother
Though powers of fertility and motherhood form some of the oldest and most respected deities across the multiverse, not all entities who claim dominion over such fields are so respectable. These are the Dark Mothers, maternal spirits of the world's darkest races and foulest monsters, entities of fertility ran foully rampant, and perversions of motherhood. Warlocks swearing allegiance to these deities often serve as hedge-witches or witch-doctors to rural communities or tribes of savage humanoids, or simply seek the darkling comfort of these most open-minded of mothers. Examples of the Dark Mother patron include Lamashtu, Shub-Niggurath, Zuggtmoy, Luthic, Echidna, Baba Yaga, Abhoth, and Ragnorra.

Dark Mother Expanded Spells:

1st Level Spells: Cure Wounds, Entangle
2d Level Spells: Enhance Ability, Spike Growth
3rd Level Spells: Revivify, Plant Growth
4th Level Spells: Blight, Grasping Vine
5th Level Spells: Reincarnate, Contagion


1st Level Feature: Virulent Vitality
The Dark Mother allows you to feed on the life of others to bolster your own essence. You may use an action to make a Leeching Touch; this is an Unarmed Strike that, on a successful hit, drains 1 hit dice from the target. You can use that drained hit dice to either restore lost hit points (roll the stolen hit dice to dermine how many you recover; excess points are lost) or to immediately make a save vs. a disease afflicting you. You can use this trait a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1); expended uses of this trait can only be recovered by taking a long rest.

6th Level Feature: Hateful Miasma
The Dark Mother's blessing can taint the healing magics of those who stand against her chosen. When an enemy creature that you can see within 30 feet would normally regain hit points, you can spend a reaction to attempt to foul the effect. The target creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + Charisma bonus + Proficiency bonus) or else the healing effect fails and it instead takes Necrotic damage equal to the amount it would have originally healed by.

10th Level Feature: Sup the Mother's Milk
The Dark Mother is invested in your survival now, offering you a rare level of succor against the harshness of the world around you. You gain Resistance to Poison damage and to Necrotic damage. Additionally, you have Advantage on saving throws against Poison and Disease, and on Death Saving Throws.

14th Level Feature: Mother of Monsters
Your value to the Dark Mother is such that she now makes a conduit of you, allowing you to bring forth her other children to serve your will. Calling a Darkling Spawn takes an action and lets you summon a single Challenge 7 creature with the Aberration, Beast, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze or Plant classification. This creature is friendly towards you, rolls its own initiative, and has its own turns. Its primary directives are to preserve its own life and to protect you, with the latter taking top priority. You can give it direct orders which it will obey to the best of its capabilities, but if not ordered otherwise, it will stay within movement range of you and attack either the closest enemy in reach or the last creature to attack you. A Darkling Spawn remains active for 1 hour and then departs. You can only use this feature once per long rest.

[Shadow_in_the_Mist]

Alright, Zeek0 has been offering me some critique on the Dark Mother Patron and, due to problems with their connection, I need to post their critique myself before responding to it.

On the Spell List:

I wonder at this, and why the expanded spells are built around plants. I associate mothers with animals, since only they have mothers in this context. Patrons of the harvest and death may certainly have a place, but I don’t think the Dark Mother is it.

Well, it's a complicated thing to explain. A large part of it was inspired by the actual fan-made Shub-Niggurath Patron bonus spell list, but mostly, it's because these spells all seemed to fairly balance out corrupting life (Contagion, Blight) and inspiring life (Cure Wounds, Reincarnate). Maybe some different spells would be appropriate: do you have any suggestions for a more appropriate list?


On Virulent Vitality:

I would rule this as a touch attack. Can I use this on allies? If so, it’s a rather powerful ability.

Are there specific rules for a Touch Attack in 5e? And no, you can only use this on enemies.


On Hateful Miasma:

I don’t think I can remember a time when the enemy used healing during combat. What I mean to say, is that this is very circumstantial. Not only do you have to be fighting magic users, but healing magic users (most evildoers are on the non-healing side of things).

Yeah, unfortunately, I kind of struggled with meaningful ideas to actually be feature-based and not spell-based. I'm really open to suggestions for replacements in terms of this feature. Lamashtu and Shub-Niggurath are my big go-to inspirations for this sort of Warlock Patron, if it helps at all.


On Sup the Mother's Milk:

Yet another Witch Nipple sort of reference. I’d prefer a more broadly useful defensive ability (you can still keep resistances, just add something).

I don't the follow first half of this? Ad I'm okay with bumping this up, it's supposed to be about getting a general toughness boost, but how would you do that in a flavorful way?

On Mother of Monsters:

I like this feature an awful lot, but I confess that I have no idea if it is balanced. Also, by "Challenge 7", do you mean CR 7 or lower?

Yeah, this idea struck me as a literal nugget of flavor gold, but making it balanced? I have no clue how to do that. And yes, Challenge 7 means any appropriate target with a Challenge of 7 or lower.

[Submortimer]

Although I have many planned Warlock Patrons, and really need help getting them off of the ground, this is the only one I've managed to sit down and hash out an attempt at so far. The Dark Mother was inspired by my fondness for "dark fertility gods", an archetype most readily seen in Pathfinder via Lamashtu and Shub-Niggurath. Although I know there's a Shub-Niggurath pledge for Warlocks out there on the internet, and I have looked it over, I find it's a little too focused on her abilities in particular to serve as the Warlock of, say, Lamashtu. Still, the Warlock features are really kicking my ass so I could use a huge helping hand with this.

I'm down. The "pact" style of warlock seen in 4e mostly came from the Binders of 3.5, and there was at least one "mother of monsters" in that book.



The Dark Mother
Though powers of fertility and motherhood form some of the oldest and most respected deities across the multiverse, not all entities who claim dominion over such fields are so respectable. These are the Dark Mothers, maternal spirits of the world's darkest races and foulest monsters, entities of fertility ran foully rampant, and perversions of motherhood. Warlocks swearing allegiance to these deities often serve as hedge-witches or witch-doctors to rural communities or tribes of savage humanoids, or simply seek the darkling comfort of these most open-minded of mothers. Examples of the Dark Mother patron include Lamashtu, Shub-Niggurath, Zuggtmoy, Luthic, Echidna, Baba Yaga, Abhoth, and Ragnorra.

Dark Mother Expanded Spells:

1st Level Spells: Cure Wounds, Entangle
2d Level Spells: Enhance Ability, Spike Growth
3rd Level Spells: Revivify, Plant Growth
4th Level Spells: Blight, Grasping Vine
5th Level Spells: Reincarnate, Contagion



I'm going to tell you that you will get pushback from anyone who likes balance when you put cure wounds on this list. I can get the idea, but combat healing is generally seen as a big no no for warlock bonus spells; it's why I'll generally give a warlock that I want to heal Prayer of Healing, as it's an out of combat spell only. I'm less concerned about the rest of the list, even if it's not quite so thematic. Instead of grasping vine, though, you could easily swap in Evard's Black Tentacles.



1st Level Feature: Virulent Vitality
The Dark Mother allows you to feed on the life of others to bolster your own essence. You may use an action to make a Leeching Touch; this is an Unarmed Strike that, on a successful hit, drains 1 hit dice from the target. You can use that drained hit dice to either restore lost hit points (roll the stolen hit dice to dermine how many you recover; excess points are lost) or to immediately make a save vs. a disease afflicting you. You can use this trait a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1); expended uses of this trait can only be recovered by taking a long rest.


1. Recommend making this a melee spell attack, so it procs off charisma instead of strength.
2. Does the monster take damage from the lost hit dice? the wording should be more clear.

Also, as we like to try and push homebrew to be more like what is in the core books, most of the flavor text should be stripped from the ability, and the formatting and wording can use some work. I'll put my suggestions in Spoilers as I go down the list.

Virulent Vitality
Starting at 1st level, you can use your action to make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a successful hit, The creature takes 1d8 necrotic damage and you heal a number of hit points equal to the damage dealt plus your charisma modifier; alternatively, you can immediately end the effects of a disease or poison on yourself instead of healing.
The damage this ability deals increases as you gain levels in the warlock class, dealing 2d8 damage at level 5, 3d8 damage at level 11, and 4d8 damage at level 17. You can use this ability a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1); expended uses are regained following a long rest.



6th Level Feature: Hateful Miasma
The Dark Mother's blessing can taint the healing magics of those who stand against her chosen. When an enemy creature that you can see within 30 feet would normally regain hit points, you can spend a reaction to attempt to foul the effect. The target creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + Charisma bonus + Proficiency bonus) or else the healing effect fails and it instead takes Necrotic damage equal to the amount it would have originally healed by.

Normally, I would suggest that you have a more broad, but 1/rest use ability at 6th level, but i like this effect.

Hateful Miasma
Starting at 6th level, you can foul an effect that would heal a foe. When a hostile creature that you can see within 30 feet would normally regain hit points, you can spend a reaction to force that creature to make a Wisdom saving throw; failure causes the effect to fail, and the creature takes Necrotic damage equal to the amount it would have been healed by.


10th Level Feature: Sup the Mother's Milk
The Dark Mother is invested in your survival now, offering you a rare level of succor against the harshness of the world around you. You gain Resistance to Poison damage and to Necrotic damage. Additionally, you have Advantage on saving throws against Poison and Disease, and on Death Saving Throws.


I think immunity to poison damage at this level is fine, and appropriate.

Sup the Mother's Milk
Starting at 10th level, you gain Resistance to Necrotic damage. Additionally, you are immune to both poison and disease, and you gain advantage on Death Saving Throws.



14th Level Feature: Mother of Monsters
Your value to the Dark Mother is such that she now makes a conduit of you, allowing you to bring forth her other children to serve your will. Calling a Darkling Spawn takes an action and lets you summon a single Challenge 7 creature with the Aberration, Beast, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze or Plant classification. This creature is friendly towards you, rolls its own initiative, and has its own turns. Its primary directives are to preserve its own life and to protect you, with the latter taking top priority. You can give it direct orders which it will obey to the best of its capabilities, but if not ordered otherwise, it will stay within movement range of you and attack either the closest enemy in reach or the last creature to attack you. A Darkling Spawn remains active for 1 hour and then departs. You can only use this feature once per long rest.

This shouldn't be much stronger than Conjure Celestial, since it's at 14th level and it's once per day.

Mother of Monsters
Starting at 14th level, you can summon monsters to do you bidding. By performing a ritual lasting one minute, you can summon an Aberration, Beast, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze or Plant with a challenge rating of 4 or lower. This creature perceives you as friendly, can communicate with you telepathically, and obeys any commands given to it by you to the best of its ability. In combat, it acts on its own initiative; you control its actions, unless you are incapacitated or are otherwise unable to command it. This creature remains in existence for 1 hour. once you use this ability, you must finish a long rest before you can do so again.

Hopefully I've been helpful! happy homebrewing!

[Gr7mm Bobb]

Always happy to see more love for the warlock. As stated above, Cure Wounds for warlocks is something that makes me uncomfortable. Inefficient in combat, but super efficient outside combat (1 hour spell recovery vs 8 hr standard).

I like the direction the Mother patron is going. Was expecting something along the lines of Sterling Vermins Crone patron and was pleasantly surprised. I will look over it as it progresses and add comments and concerns when I'm not using a phone.

(warning self promotion ahead)
I saw that you have an ice/frost themed patron planned. I have one "completed" that could use some touch up. If you want to use features or parts of features from it, no offense will be taken. It's called the Immemmorial Glacier, it feels a little rough around the edges, but I think it's in a direction I like. 14th level ability feels effective, but lackluster.