(Warlock Patron) The Broodmother

[A Fat Dragon]

(Still working on the name, just as an FYI. Suggestions on that are welcome, as with criticism on the entire thing.)


Your Patron is a Broodmother, a great abomination living in the depths of the Underdark, known for it’s gargantuan size of both form and brood. The alignment of this creature is always inscrutable, but it is obvious of it’s one goal and desire: it wishes for you to continue it’s conquest. These patrons go often without name, and can be anything from an unnatural bonding between yourself and an insect hive-mind, to a powerful, twisted drider ruler in the depths of the Underdark.



Expanded Spell-List
The Broodmother lets you choose from an expanded list of spells. The following spells are added to the Warlock Spell-list for you
Spell Level Spells
1 Unseen Servant, Ray of Sickness
2 Web, Blindness/Deafnesss
3 Plant Growth, Stinking Cloud
4 Freedom of Movement, Grasping Vine
5 Contagion, Insect Plague


Brood-Builder
At 1st level, your Patron grants you the power to build a swarm of your own. As a reaction whenever an enemy dies within 60 feet that is a Medium or larger creature (which is not a construct, elemental or ooze), you can cultivate a new spawn from it’s corpse. After 1d6 rounds, the minion emerges from the creature’s remains, ready to serve you.

These Hive Servants use the statistics of a giant wasp (see next paragraph). They all take their actions directly after yours and always know how you want them to act, as befitting their hive-Nature. Whenever you take a long rest, these creatures will wilt and die, as your lack of active presence weakens their ability to continue living on the material plane.

At 1st level you can only summon Weak Giant Wasps, at 6th level you may summon Average Giant Wasps and at 10th Level you can summon strong Giant Wasps. (Their statistics can be found in this link: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BJWaBJb2z )

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your charisma modifier. All uses are restored after you complete a long rest.


Hive Shield
Your swarm grows as you do, coming to protect you and sacrifice themselves in a time of great need. Beginning at 6th Level, Whenever you are subjected to a saving throw to prevent taking damage, and fail, you can sacrifice one of your Hive Spawn, killing them, but adding +5 to the roll. Once you kill a Hive-Spawn in this way, your maximum amount of Hive you can have is decreased by 1 until you finish a long rest.


Brood’s Blessing
As your power with the Broodmother grows, your body is transformed to better help you control your swarm, and destroy your enemies. Beginning at 10th level, you gain resistance to poison damage, and you have advantage on saving throws against being Poisoned or contracting Diseases. In addition, while not wearing Medium or Heavy armor, your movement speed increases by 10, and you gain a climb speed of 20.


Awaken the Hive
Beginning at 14th level, your Patron allows you to call upon a gigantic, insectoid form. Once between long rests, as a bonus action, you transform, gaining the following statistics:
- Your size becomes large, and you gain +1 AC
- You gain the Spiderwalk Trait, and the Webwalker trait
- You have advantage on Charisma-Based Attacks
- - The ground around you out to 5 feet becomes covered in Webbing, making it difficult terrain, and when you move, you leave behind a trail of webbing behind you. If an enemy moves into the webbing, it must make a Dexterity save against your Spell-Save DC, or the target is Restrained for the next minute, but can repeat the saving throw at the end of every turn, ending all the conditions on a success.
- You gain Temporary HP equal to 1/2 your level x your charisma modifier.
- Advantage on saving throws against being Grappled or Restrained
This form lasts for 1 minute, or until you are knocked unconscious, or killed.

[Requilac]

Sorry if I seem a little overly critical, I am just trying my best to help and have no intention to insult you. Also I apologize if it seems like I am trying to dominate this project, you personally asked me for collaboration though so I am going to go a lot more in depth then I usually do. Don't take anything I say as a command.




Expanded Spell-List
The Broodmother lets you choose from an expanded list of spells. The following spells are added to the Warlock Spell-list for you
Spell Level Spells
1 Grease, Ray of Sickness
2 Web, Blindness/Deafnesss
3 Plant Growth, Stinking Cloud
4 Freedom of Movement, Grasping Vine
5 Contagion, Insect Plague

I am a little confused about your spell selection. Typically expanded spell-lists like this follow a specific theme, but I am seeing no theme here. At first glance I would assume you are going with disease, but that doesn't explain grease, web, plant growth, freedom of movement or grasping vine. My guess would be you were trying to mix restrainment (with web and grasping vine) with diseases, but that doesn't explain grease or plant growth. Why is plant growth even on a creature bent on complete destruction of nature? And where is grease coming from?

Eldrazi are predominantly associated with disease and conjuring, not necessarily restraining. Here are the things I would replace.

1) I would personally replace grease with unseen servant (inflict wounds would be my second choice)
2) Replace web with alter self (or spider climb if that doesn't work for you). Neither are necessarily following a theme of disease or summoning, but I could't find something better and physical mutation seems like something suitable for an eldrazi worshipper.
3) replace plant growth with bestow curse.
4) replace freedom of movement with guardian of faith. Nothing is a really good option here, but I fail to see how freedom of movement reinforces the theme, and with some slight reflavoring guardian of faith could make sense.



Brood-Builder
At 1st level, your Patron grants you the power to build a swarm of your own. As a reaction whenever an enemy dies within 60 feet that is a Medium or bigger creature, you can cultivate a new spawn from it’s corpse. After 1d4 rounds, the minion emerges from the creature’s remains, ready to fight. In addition to that, you may also cultivate up to two new spawn over the course of a short rest.
These Hive Servants use the statistics of a Giant Wasp (Though, it may have it look any way you wish, as long as it makes sense) and you may have a number of them alive at one time, equal to your Charisma Modifier. They roll initiative separately from you, and all go on the same turn, and always know how you want them to act, as befitting their hive-Nature. Whenever you take a long rest, these creatures will wilt and die, as your lack of active presence weakens their ability to continue living on the material plane.

These aren't necessarily bad mechanics, but they seem more complex then they need to be. I would re-word so that is a much more elegant system. Determining how many you can have at once can be confusing, especially to a full-caster who has to manage all their spells. And the whole part where they act on their own initiative is what WotC uses but it is also much more complex then it needs to be. And I also find it weird (in the bad way) how the servants can pop out of golems and air elementals.

Another thing I just realized, a giant wasp might be a little too powerful. Animate dead is a 3rd level spell and it can only produce one CR 1/4 monster, so a feature which allows you to summon up to three CR 1/2 monsters at 1st level is way too much. I would probably stat out your own giant wasps which incredibly increase in power as you level up. At 1st level they are CR 1/8, at 6th level they are CR 1/4, and at 10th level they are CR 1/2.

Here is how I would re-word it.
At 1st level, your Patron grants you the power to build a swarm of your own. As a reaction whenever an enemy dies within 60 feet that is a Medium or larger creature (which is not a construct, elemental or ooze), you can cultivate a new spawn from it’s corpse. After 1d6 rounds, the minion emerges from the creature’s remains, ready to serve you.

These Hive Servants use the statistics of a giant wasp (see next paragraph). They all take their actions directly after yours and always know how you want them to act, as befitting their hive-Nature. Whenever you take a long rest, these creatures will wilt and die, as your lack of active presence weakens their ability to continue living on the material plane.

At 1st level you can only summon Weak Giant Wasps, at 6th level you may summon Average Giant Wasps and at 10th Level you can summon strong Giant Wasps. (Their statistics can be found in this link: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BJWaBJb2z )

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your charisma modifier. All uses are restored after you complete a long rest.




Hive Shield
Your swarm grows as you do, coming to protect you and sacrifice themselves in a time of great need. Beginning at 6th Level, Whenever you are subjected to a saving throw to prevent taking damage and fail, you can sacrifice one of your Hive Spawn, killing them but adding +5 to the roll. Once you kill a Hive-Spawn in this way, your maximum amount of Hive you can have is decreased by 1 until you finish a long rest.

This is a pretty cool feature over-all. When you decide to sacrifice a spawn, does the DM have to tell you whether the +5 will be enough to succeed on the roll, or can you sacrifice a spawn just to have you fail anyway. I would recommend the former.



Brood’s Blessing
As your power with the Broodmother grows, your body is transformed to better help you control your swarm, and destroy your enemies. Beginning at 10th level, you gain resistance to poison damage, and your attacker takes as much damage as you do. In addition, while wearing no armor, your movement speed increases by 10, and you gain a climb speed of 20.

I would remove the whole "and your attacker takes as much as damage as you do (from only poison damage I assume). First of all its weird as to how that would work out in game and second of all its much too similar to the GOOlock's level 10 feature. Also I would add in a clause about how you have advantage on saving throws and ability checks against being diseased or poisoned. I also find the fact that the speed increase only works while unarmored unfair because most warlocks use light armor and/or a shield. Perhaps you should just say "while you are not wearing medium or heavy armor".



Awaken the Hive
Beginning at 14th level, your Patron allows you to call upon a gigantic, insectoid form. Once a long rest, as a bonus action, you transform, gaining the following statistics:
- Your size becomes large, and you gain +1 AC
- You gain the Spiderwalk Trait, and the Webwalker trait
- You have advantage on Charisma-Based Attacks
- The ground around you becomes Webbing, and when you move, you leave behind a trail of webbing behind you
- You instantly spawn the maximum number of Hive-Spawn you can
- You gain Temporary HP equal to 1/2 your level x your charisma modifier.
- Advantage on saving throws against being Grappled or Restrained
This form lasts for 1 minute, or until you are knocked unconscious, or killed.

First off, "once a long rest" is not an existing mechanic. I think what you mean is "once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest". And this seems a little more complex then it needs to be. I think it would be much more simple if you were to simply polymorph into a homebrewed giant spider. Here is how I would reword it.

Beginning at 14th level, your Patron allows you to transform into a gigantic, insectoid form. Using a bonus action you can transform into a Giant Edlrazi Spider (see statistics in this link: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BJWaBJb2z ). All of your statistics aside from your personality and known languages are replaced by that of the spider's.

You assume the hit points of your new form. When you reverts to normal form, you return to the number of hit points it had before you transformed. If you revert as a result of Dropping to 0 Hit Points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form.

Your gear melds into the new form. You can't activate, use, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of your Equipment.

You return to your normal form after one minute has passed, if you are knocked unconscious, if you are killed or if you use a bonus action to end it.

And here is a link to the stat-blocks of the Hive Servants at their different CR levels and the Giant Eldrazi spider.
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BJWaBJb2z

[A Fat Dragon]

I did change some things, and others things I did not change. I kept most of the spell-list, as I’m trying to get a Wild, Nature, Insect feel, and those spells are rather fitting (And, aren’t on the Warlock Spell List already. Warlock patrons are weird in that they don’t grant you the spells, but rather the ability to choose those spells). I changed the Brood-Builder as requested, as that seemed like something I knew should be changed, and for the final ability, I didn’t change, as I liked it where as it’s not a Polymorph, but rather a transformation. You aren’t becoming something else, but rather a mutation of yourself, and your patron, and I kind of liked that feel of becoming something in between yourself and your patron. I think it’s kind of fitting, as instead of your patron just transforming you, instead, you are channeling both them and yourself into a median, and it fits really nice thematically. In addition, I like the alteration to the traits that it gives, as it benefits the subclass in a way that makes sense: if you’re using EB, it gives you a benefit on that. If you’re slicing and dicing with a Pact-Blade, it benefits that. In addition, it’s just a nice little panic button to have in cass you sacrifice your whole swarm, and need to get them back fast.

Thank you so much for giving me the insight I needed. This is much better now, and in its final stages it seems. Sorry it too so long to do, I was a tad bit busy, and had to think through a few decisions on what I want to final build to be like.

I’m not very worried on the Complexity of it, as in order to play this Subclass in the first place, it requires a lot of keeping track of multiple variables, so having things be slightly confusing is not the worst thing I. The world, though I will try my best to simplify it all.

[Requilac]

I did change some things, and others things I did not change. I kept most of the spell-list, as I’m trying to get a Wild, Nature, Insect feel, and those spells are rather fitting (And, aren’t on the Warlock Spell List already. Warlock patrons are weird in that they don’t grant you the spells, but rather the ability to choose those spells).

Soryy if the following message sounds too agressive.

You wanted to give a wild and nature feel to a warlock whose patron is unnatural eldritch abomination whose sole purpose is to pollute and consume all life it comes across? I guess I just don't understand. Agree to disagree I suppose. It is not a big concern though.

_____

Not to be too naggy, but you Didn't adress my question about Hive Shield. When you decide to sacrifice a spawn, does the DM have to tell you whether the +5 will be enough to succeed on the roll, or can you sacrifice a spawn just to have you fail anyway?



and for the final ability, I didn’t change, as I liked it where as it’s not a Polymorph, but rather a transformation. You aren’t becoming something else, but rather a mutation of yourself, and your patron, and I kind of liked that feel of becoming something in between yourself and your patron. I think it’s kind of fitting, as instead of your patron just transforming you, instead, you are channeling both them and yourself into a median, and it fits really nice thematically. In addition, I like the alteration to the traits that it gives, as it benefits the subclass in a way that makes sense: if you’re using EB, it gives you a benefit on that. If you’re slicing and dicing with a Pact-Blade, it benefits that. In addition, it’s just a nice little panic button to have in cass you sacrifice your whole swarm, and need to get them back fast.

Fair enough I understand your point. Not how I would do it, but it should work out fine. I just have a couple of suggestions on how to improve it.

1) Spiderwalk isn't an actual trait. Did you mean spider climb?

2) I would recommend getting rid of the part where you summon hive spawn. I am afraid it would then be a little overpowered. Its not even really necessary, so maybe you should scrap it to make sure this feature isn't out of hand.

2) You mention that you create webbing while in this form, but you never mentioned what the webbing does. Care to elaborate? Does it create difficult terrain? And you also say the ground around you becomes webbing. How much of the ground around you. Out to a 5 ft radius I would guess.

This is how I would word it...

Webbing erupts from you out to a 5ft. radius and covers the ground. Any tile that you step on after this point is also covered in webbing. Areas with webbing on them are considered difficult terrain.




Thank you so much for giving me the insight I needed. This is much better now, and in its final stages it seems. Sorry it too so long to do, I was a tad bit busy, and had to think through a few decisions on what I want to final build to be like.


Glad to be of help! This is a rather interesting concept and I hope it works out well. Hopefully your had work shall pay off.

[A Fat Dragon]

It’s alright. I guess I was a bit vague: My original idea was more Eldritch, but I guess I transformed the idea of it without letting you know. Lack of communication on my part. As for the edits: it’s fine. You need to be aggressive when you’re editing, or you’ll never shape it into the final project.

For the Hive Shield thing, yes, you can still fail, but if you do use it, and you succeed, your DM would tell you so, but not by how much you succeed.

1) Yes, I do mean Spider-Climb, sorry for my incorrect usage of trait-names, I’ll fix that.

2) Yeah, I tried to reduce the amount it summoned, but it still seemed too strong. Going to remove that part of the trait

3) I believe there is a section in the DM about the effects of webbing, and if I’m wrong, then I was referring to what the effect of the Web spell does, which creates Rough Terrain, and can restrain those caught it in if they fail a save (The save DC would be your Spellsave DC).

[Requilac]

It’s alright. I guess I was a bit vague: My original idea was more Eldritch, but I guess I transformed the idea of it without letting you know. Lack of communication on my part.

Oh, I was unaware that your concept changed since I last talked with you. That was my fault too, I should have figured that out from context clues. Ignore my previous comments on that matter.




3) I believe there is a section in the DM about the effects of webbing, and if I’m wrong, then I was referring to what the effect of the Web spell does, which creates Rough Terrain, and can restrain those caught it in if they fail a save (The save DC would be your Spellsave DC).

Oh, you are actually right, there is a section in the DMG about it. Hehe... I didn’t know about it until I looked it up. You may want to create a reference to that page from the DMG if you wish to include it though. Something like a (see page X of the DMG for what Webbing does) comment.

Either way that clause needs some changes. You say that the target is restrained, but you don’t say for how long. I would either just say it creates Webbing and reference the section in the DMG or reword it. Did you mean that if a target fails the save “they are restrained until the end of their next turn”, “the target is restrained for the next minute, but can repeat the saving throw at the end of every turn, ending all the conditions on a success” or “the target is restrained for the next minute, but can use an action to succeed on a Strength (Athletics) check against your spell save DC to break free and end all the conditions”.