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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Warlock Dragon Patron Ideas or Resurrecting Gods for Fun and Profit!



Karsalem
2019-11-15, 01:05 PM
So, circumstances for my warlock have changed such that I am forsaking my old patron in exchange for a new one. The TLDR is that Bahamut the Platinum Dragon is now my patron and I need some ideas for "Patron Class Features"

There are a number of "Warlock Dragon Patron" threads and web pages floating around out there and there are a number of good ideas in them but they are all for the full breadth of dragons as a patron including the whole spectrum of chromatic and metallic dragons. They are very generic and broad ideas (eg. Dragon Breath, Fear Aura, Resistance according to dragon type, etc...) What I'm looking for are ideas more specific to the dragon god Bahamut himself. So ideas centered around a Lawful Good dragon, very heroic, paladin-y type of class abilities. Also, I would really love to have some ribbon ideas as well and not just strictly combat related abilities.

I need something for:
Level 1:
Level 6:
Level 10:
Level 14:

So if you have any ideas please include where you think they would fit level-wise. Some abilities grow at higher levels (eg. 10ft Fear aura at level 1 becomes 20 ft aura at level 10)

Ideas I've come up with so far:

Dragon Breath

Dragon Fear

Dragon Resistance

Bahamuts Intercession: As a reaction you can call upon Bahamuts favor and allow you or any ally within 30 feet to reroll a saving throw.

Hubris of Bahamut: You project an aura that allows anyone within 10 feet of you to automatically succeed on all saving throws against fear.

Protect the Weak: As a reaction to an ally being hit with an attack roll within 15 feet you can move to that ally and redirect that attack to yourself.

More Coins for the Coin Throne!: At the start of combat, when any enemy creature rolls for initiative you may choose one creature and force it to roll on any loot table commensurate with its Challenge Rating. This creature has this item added to its treasure list and also has access to it until the end of combat.

Karsalem
2019-11-15, 01:06 PM
Story for later

ezekielraiden
2019-11-16, 02:51 AM
Level 1 must include Expanded Spell List and one other thing. That "one other thing" can vary a lot in power, mostly depending on whether you're furthering the caster focus of the class (in which case it won't be very powerful) or pushing some other aspect (in which case it can be more powerful, see: Hexblade patron). For Bahamut, it seems to me that a Hexblade-like path is most appropriate, as he advocates fighting evil, protecting the weak, and liberating the oppressed. However, this patron needs to be less "fear my thirsting blade" and more "have at thee, evildoer!"

So I'm going to riff off the Hexblade in various ways, but not exclusively ape it. Hexblade, especially Hexblade+Blade pact, is for making a damage-dealing melee warlock. How about a defensive melee warlock? That sounds neat to me. I'll have it minor in support stuff--not healing per se, but buffing.

New Patron: The Platinum Dragon

Level 1
Expanded Spells
The Platinum Dragon grants you access to new spells each time you level up, fitting the inspiring warriors of justice that serve him. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
1st -- bless, heroism
2nd -- find steed, spiritual weapon
3rd -- beacon of hope, crusader's mantle
4th -- aura of life, find greater steed
5th -- commune, holy weapon

Holy Warrior
At 1st level, you acquire the training necessary to effectively arm yourself for battle. You gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons.

The influence of your patron also allows you to mystically channel your will through a particular weapon. Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. This benefit lasts until you finish a long rest. If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, when you finish a long rest you can touch one piece or suit of armor, instilling it with your patron's power. You are proficient with that armor until you finish a long rest.

Divine Challenge
Starting at 1st level, you gain the ability to place a divine challenge on someone. As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target is challenged for 1 minute. The challenge ends early if the target dies, you die, or you are incapacitated. Until the challenge ends, it has the following effects:
- The target must make a Wisdom save each turn it attempts to move further away from you than where it started. On any turn where it fails this save, it cannot willingly move in any direction that would take it further away from you, though it may move closer or remain at the same distance. A successful save allows it to move freely for that turn.
- The target has disadvantage on melee weapon attacks and ranged weapon attacks against any target other than you. Other forms of attack are not affected.
- If the target dies, surrenders to you, or is incapacitated, you gain temporary hit points equal to twice your warlock level plus your Charisma modifier (minimum 1 temporary hit point).

Level 6
Retributive Shield
At 6th level, you may designate with a brief anointing ritual one friendly target as your Ward for one hour, spiritually defending them against incoming attacks. When your Ward is struck by a creature's melee attack, as long as your Ward is within 30 feet of you, as a reaction you can make one weapon attack against the creature that made the triggering attack, even if you are not adjacent to the creature. This attack deals radiant damage, and can benefit from magical effects that apply to melee weapon attacks. If the triggering creature is also affected by your Divine Challenge, it must make a Wisdom save. On a failure it is stunned until the end of its next turn. As long as the subject remains your ward, you can make a number of these attacks equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Level 10
Dragon Breath
The Platinum Dragon grants you a breath weapon similar to his own. You may use your action to exhale a frigid breath, as though you had cast cone of cold without expending a spell slot, except that this breath deals 4d8 cold damage and 4d8 radiant damage. Once you have used this frigid breath, you cannot use it again until you have completed a long rest. Both the cold and radiant damage dealt by this breath each increase by 1d8 at level 15, and a total of 2d8 at level 20.

Level 14
Inexorable Challenge
Starting at 14th level, you can spread your Divine Challenge from a defeated creature to another creature. When the creature challenged by your Divine Challenge dies, is incapacitated, or surrenders to you, you can apply the challenge to a different creature you can see within 30 feet of you, provided you aren't incapacitated. When you apply the challenge in this way, you don't gain temporary hit points from the death, incapacitation, or surrender of the previously challenged creature.

There. A nice, solid, slightly-damage-y, slightly-support-y Warlock chassis.

Edited to tighten up some wording on the Challenge and Retributive Shield.

Great Dragon
2019-11-16, 12:17 PM
@ezekielraiden

This is interesting. Not sure if I can get a player to test this anytime soon.

Medium armor being granted to Blade Pact (needing a daily ritual) is nice.

Retributive Shield: This is hard to picture: How is the Warlock 'attacking' the foe?
Would allowing the Ward to use their Reaction to deal the radiant damage be ok?

The rest looks ok.

Theaitetos
2019-11-16, 12:46 PM
I'd suggest a mixture of different patrons (Celestial, Fiend) and some features from Sorcerer subclasses.

1: The Celestial's extended spell list, The Celestial's bonus cantrips, Divine Soul's Favored by the Gods
6: The Celestial's radiant soul
10: The Fiend's fiendish resilience
14: Storm Sorcerer's wind soul (but resistance instead of immunity to lightning & thunder), visible dragon wings

ezekielraiden
2019-11-16, 02:09 PM
@ezekielraiden

This is interesting. Not sure if I can get a player to test this anytime soon.

Medium armor being granted to Blade Pact (needing a daily ritual) is nice.

Retributive Shield: This is hard to picture: How is the Warlock 'attacking' the foe?
Would allowing the Ward to use their Reaction to deal the radiant damage be ok?

The rest looks ok.

The idea with retributive shield is that you're getting a "free" attack against the target even though you aren't adjacent (as you normally would need to be). Think of it as...your weapon is a phantom blade protecting your ward. If someone attacks your ward, you have a chance to harm them back, even though you "only do so spiritually" rather than actually slapping them with your weapon. I included the ability to apply stuff as if it were a real melee weapon attack so that (for example) if you have Paladin levels and can thus Smite, that effect can also be applied, in addition to any neat properties your weapon might possess.

Edit:
Be forewarned that this doubles down on the Paladin/Warlock MC synergy. A Warlock 3(Platinum+Blade)/Paladin X may actually be stronger than a straight Paladin X+3 for some values of X. (Allowing the char to purely pump Con and Cha, expend Warlock spells to smite per short rest, pseudo-mark one opponent per short rest, and still get Extra Attack/Improved Divine Smite just slightly delayed; add in careful choice of your 2 Invocations can make your weapon attacks quite painful even without smiting.) I think overall the combo of delayed levels, lost features, and redundancy *should* make it merely A Neat Combo rather than Brokenly Overpowered, but seeing as I spitballed this in about an hour, it may need refinement.

Trandir
2019-11-16, 02:14 PM
Wait those are sorcerer levels but you talk about a patron.

Is this subclass supposed to fit a warlock or a sorcerer?

ezekielraiden
2019-11-16, 02:28 PM
Wait those are sorcerer levels but you talk about a patron.

Is this subclass supposed to fit a warlock or a sorcerer?

I believe Theaitetos is saying that features should be copied from the Divine Soul and Storm Sorcerer subclasses, rather than saying it should be a Sorcerer subclass.

Theaitetos
2019-11-16, 03:32 PM
I believe Theaitetos is saying that features should be copied from the Divine Soul and Storm Sorcerer subclasses, rather than saying it should be a Sorcerer subclass.

Yes, that's what I meant: Do not create entirely new feats for this Platinum Dragon Warlock, as that could be OP and make others upset. Instead mix already existing feats at similar levels from other subclasses. Maybe I should explain:


1: The Celestial's extended spell list, The Celestial's bonus cantrips, Divine Soul's Favored by the Gods
The Platinum Dragon is a god too, which is why The Celestial is a fitting start for the features. The Divine Soul's "Favored by the Gods" feat is a weak version of the legendary saves that grown dragons have.

6: The Celestial's radiant soul
A resistance to fire damage and a little bonus fire damage seems very fitting. The radiant part can be the divine influence of Bahamut, but maybe you want to exchange it for poison or acid.

10: The Fiend's fiendish resilience
All the dragons have a specific resistance (or even immunity) to their element, and the Platinum Dragon should be able to grant you any of these, but only one at a time.

14: Storm Sorcerer's wind soul (but resistance instead of immunity to lightning & thunder), visible dragon wings
Dragon wings is kinda obvious, but Bahamut is also a protector and champion and should therefore have the additional ability of this feat to bestow the flight ability upon a few others (including visible wings).

ezekielraiden
2019-11-16, 03:53 PM
Yes, that's what I meant: Do not create entirely new feats for this Platinum Dragon Warlock, as that could be OP and make others upset. Instead mix already existing feats at similar levels from other subclasses.
I mean, I based my stuff almost entirely on the Hexblade. The Challenge is essentially a Curse that works off of compelled duel as its basis, rather than hex. The armor benefit is literally just a cut-down version of the UA "Eldritch Armor" Invocation, and the spells are similar to (but not the same as) the Celestial spells as-is. And the level 14 effect is, again, just the Hexblade's improved Curse tweaked to match Challenge. Getting a single free 5th-level slot per short rest dedicated to a single spell is actually relatively low powered, which is why I had it scale, since at very high levels one free 5th level slot is only a 25% increase in your per-short-rest capacity. I figured that was more or less equivalent to the benefit of shadow-copying higher-level opponents as you advance.

We're both taking what exists and tweaking it. You're tweaking somewhat less, but picking from other classes. I'm tweaking somewhat more, but only looking at Warlock.

Theaitetos
2019-11-16, 05:23 PM
We're both taking what exists and tweaking it. You're tweaking somewhat less, but picking from other classes. I'm tweaking somewhat more, but only looking at Warlock.

My answer wasn't really directed at you. Just in general, I prefer moving things around than creating new feats (as the OP did).

Your feats seem well thought out, you basically adopted spells into abilities: Compelled Duel → Divine Challenge, Hellish Rebuke → Retributive Shield, Cone of Cold → Dragon Breath

Karsalem
2019-11-16, 05:34 PM
Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Thank you for all the ideas

Great Dragon
2019-11-18, 09:19 AM
Well, just dropping in my thoughts.


The idea with retributive shield is that you're getting a "free" attack against the target even though you aren't adjacent (as you normally would need to be). Think of it as...your weapon is a phantom blade protecting your ward. If someone attacks your ward, you have a chance to harm them back, even though you "only do so spiritually" rather than actually slapping them with your weapon. I included the ability to apply stuff as if it were a real melee weapon attack so that (for example) if you have Paladin levels and can thus Smite, that effect can also be applied, in addition to any neat properties your weapon might possess.

Edit:
Be forewarned that this doubles down on the Paladin/Warlock MC synergy. A Warlock 3(Platinum+Blade)/Paladin X may actually be stronger than a straight Paladin X+3 for some values of X. (Allowing the char to purely pump Con and Cha, expend Warlock spells to smite per short rest, pseudo-mark one opponent per short rest, and still get Extra Attack/Improved Divine Smite just slightly delayed; add in careful choice of your 2 Invocations can make your weapon attacks quite painful even without smiting.)

The Phantom Blade is an interesting take on Retributive Shield.
Something to seriously consider.

But, I'm not a fan of the double down MC bit.
To me the biggest benefit of MC is versatility.
Making it where the MC is stronger than both Classes really undermines either being viewed as anything more then just stepping stones to "real power"

Yes, I know that I'll most likely trigger "but I don't do it for power" responses.
But, I still stand firm. I find it very unlikely that the MC was chosen before reading and comparing all possible combinations (including Feats, if allowed by the DM) and then built for maximum output.

I could see me allowing Paladin's Smite being used if the Eldritch Smite Invocation was taken.
But, not for free without that.


I think overall the combo of delayed levels, lost features, and redundancy *should* make it merely A Neat Combo rather than Brokenly Overpowered, but seeing as I spitballed this in about an hour, it may need refinement.

I'd have to run the numbers (and pseudo-test) to see if the lost features are enough to not be too OP. But, only if redundancy actually hurts (like they could have gotten something better just being a single class at that level) instead of just not stacking would that really make a difference.


Yes, that's what I meant: Do not create entirely new feats for this Platinum Dragon Warlock, as that could be OP and make others upset. Instead mix already existing feats at similar levels from other subclasses.

Copying something instead of making a new feature just makes the Original less appealing when the new version is better. Maybe some overlapping is unavoidable, but I'd rather see it being limited as much as possible.

Switching between Resistances is really Over the Top. I'd rather give one chosen Resistance and copy the original Dragonborn Template's Heart ability. Where switching out the Breath Weapon was allowed (on a short or long rest). So that they could then deal with the Resistance of any one Chromatic Dragon. Treating this similar to Eldritch Smite (uses a Spell Slot to activate for one minute).

Even this has some potential for OP abuse, though.
Like a MC Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer/Platinum Warlock for up to three Resistances?
(Not 100% sure, since I'm AFB)

Nielspeterdejon
2019-11-22, 10:06 AM
I think I saw a homebrew about IO on Unearthed arcana, but it was removed after. Not sure why :C