Warlocks Galore??

[carrdrivesyou]

Something I noticed while transitioning from 3.5 to 5e is that the flavor of warlocks have changed a fair bit.

In 3.5, warlocks were known to be blasphemers and heretics and were universally reviled as those who had sold their souls for power.

In 5e this doesn't seem to be the case. With the many different patrons to choose from, I can only imagine that the number of warlocks in a 5e world would be much higher than those in a 3.5 world.

Am I looking too much into this, or does it really seem like the class has "come out" a bit so to speak?

Just curious on your thoughts Playgrounders!

[ErHo]

Arcane Clerics.

[strangebloke]

A base class is a lot of design space. A lot more than it was in 3e. limiting a whole base class purely to heretics and Devil worshippers is a waste of design space.

Paladins don't have to be lawful good.

Clerics don't have to serve a God.

Fighters don't have to suck.

[DragonBaneDM]

I think a fair bit of warlock fluff comes from 4th edition's structure. The power sources combined Striker/Controller/Defender/Leader setup a perfect slot for Warlock as an Arcane damage dealer.

Also, 4th moved away from things like alignment-restrictions on classes. Lawful Good Barbarian? Sure!

But underneath that new Warlock chassis you had to have options for subclasses and unique builds, so the original pacts of Infernal, Fey, and Star were set up to give a unique feel, with Vestige, Dark, and a few others coming along later.

That fluff rang true with a lot of people! So the lore for a multitude of patrons and the "big three" of Archfey, Fiend, and Great Old One carried over to 5th.

[Unoriginal]

Something I noticed while transitioning from 3.5 to 5e is that the flavor of warlocks have changed a fair bit.

In 3.5, warlocks were known to be blasphemers and heretics and were universally reviled as those who had sold their souls for power.

In 5e this doesn't seem to be the case. With the many different patrons to choose from, I can only imagine that the number of warlocks in a 5e world would be much higher than those in a 3.5 world.

Am I looking too much into this, or does it really seem like the class has "come out" a bit so to speak?

Just curious on your thoughts Playgrounders!

Well, you're correct in the sense that being a Warlock is not someone who has sold their soul for power, and that there is quite a few more of them in 5e than in 3.X.

There's quite a few Warlock NPCs, for example.

But being a Warlock still requires you to make a contact with a supernatural entity to get your initial spark of power, and to study weird magicks and obscure lore to really master it. So, it's still notably more marginal than the other forms of arcane magic

[MeeposFire]

Blasphemers and heretics in 3e was more the binder angle than the warlock one. Warlocks in 3e could even be from deals in the past you did not even know about or all sorts of things.

In 4e they later combined the warlock and and binder class flavors and that was mostly ported over in 5e.

[the secret fire]

Something I noticed while transitioning from 3.5 to 5e is that the flavor of warlocks have changed a fair bit.

In 3.5, warlocks were known to be blasphemers and heretics and were universally reviled as those who had sold their souls for power.

In 5e this doesn't seem to be the case. With the many different patrons to choose from, I can only imagine that the number of warlocks in a 5e world would be much higher than those in a 3.5 world.

Am I looking too much into this, or does it really seem like the class has "come out" a bit so to speak?

Just curious on your thoughts Playgrounders!

The real reason for the proliferation of warlocks in 5e is that they are a great multiclass option for all of the CHA-based classes...like annoyingly so. But yes, they are also not restricted to being soulless power-mongers.