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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Warlock patron, The Elemental Lord (e.g. genie)



Greywander
2019-12-14, 12:07 AM
Ever wanted to serve a genie and gain elemental powers as a warlock? Well, now you can! Highlights include gaining thematic cantrips, adapting to your chosen elemental plane, gaining a mephit servant, and, ultimately, wishes! Yes, wishes! Not very strong ones, but wishes, like you'd expect from a genie!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dvJJ08c24Ucj5m9vg3EDyHBSSErzSBubQmzsH2ABOfI/edit?usp=sharing

Be sure to leave some feedback on any criticism you have, and how it could be improved.

Greywander
2019-12-14, 03:08 AM
Alright, cleaned this up a bit. No more free flight for air elemental patrons. Wishes haven't changed, but I like the flavor of it, at least. Might be OP, but it's definitely weaker than straight up Wish.

PhantomSoul
2019-12-16, 09:20 AM
The list of elemental lords surprises me a bit, but maybe I've gotten too used to my own setting's lore! I'll keep genies in mind as the main patron for my upcoming thoughts and the OP mention of wish makes me think that's probably reasonable. :)

Minor thought: in the expended spell list, I'd clarify in the text that the "All" list really is for everyone -- at first it looked like it was an option for any, but then I could the intent. I really like that there's a shared subset for "genieness"; it's nice flavour.

Elemental Magic gives a lot compared to other Patrons at level 1 I believe -- two cantrips is substantial, the second point is usually quite strong (particularly compared to a limited telepathy or getting a bit of temp HP on a kill), and the third point fits as flavour. Fire's second benefit is a bit surprising; I'm guessing it's meant to encourage a more aggressive playstyle as the link to fire. Maybe some flavour text would help me imagine the right thing and it would be fine, though! (Though it's definitely much more broad than existing patrons, as something to keep in mind.)

Level 6
- I get the flavour for Air and it's nice. It might be nice to simplify it somewhat (e.g. just one rule for adding your character level or proficiency to the height and distance you can jump). It would probably even be fine to make this one a bit more powerful; it looks like there's some wiggle room.
- It might just be the lack of flavour text (e.g. Earth elementals living in dark caverns or recesses in the Elemental Plane of Earth, and so Earth Patrons somehow grant Darkvision), but I'm having trouble seeing the link for the Earth's darkvision. I'd also consider using the "increases by 30 feet" phrasing or something along those lines to give a benefit for those who already have 120 feet of darkvision (though that's a lot).
- Fire: Some fluff for inhaled poisons would help

Level 6, pt. 2
Ah, a second bit (that helps with the Air feature above) -- how are you imagining the mephit being used? (Or how do you intend it to be used?) Currently it seems like a non-scaling concentration-free conjuration for combat and non-combat, but at the start of the feature I had started getting the impression it would be more like an expanded set of Familiars with the same restrictions. My first thought is that it might be nice for this to be turned into an invocation, maybe specifically for Pact of the Chain warlocks (pact+patron requirements for an invocation would be more complex, but it could potentially let you refine the flavour/utility to match the playstyle).

[I've got to go -- I had a quick look at the wish feature and a partial read suggests it could be reasonable, like a Limited Wish set at level 5, with Divine Intervention-style options as an alternative. Maybe some limits to what the spell is would be ideal, but I don't expect it would be that game-breaking... even though level 14 might be a little earlier than I'd put that type of feature!]

Greywander
2019-12-16, 10:51 PM
The list of elemental lords surprises me a bit, but maybe I've gotten too used to my own setting's lore! I'll keep genies in mind as the main patron for my upcoming thoughts and the OP mention of wish makes me think that's probably reasonable. :)
Genies are the main ones, but I didn't want to shoehorn it into something too narrow. There's a variety of powerful creatures that live on the Elemental Planes, and while some of them might be better suited as a different patron (e.g. an aboleth as a GOO), I wanted to give more freedom to players when it came to fluffing their patron. Genies are pretty specific, and you might want the mechanics of this patron without the flavor of serving a genie.

That said, I'm kind of surprised we don't already have draconic patrons yet. Giants, too, but I can understand that most giants wouldn't get strong enough to be warlock patrons.


Minor thought: in the expended spell list, I'd clarify in the text that the "All" list really is for everyone -- at first it looked like it was an option for any, but then I could the intent. I really like that there's a shared subset for "genieness"; it's nice flavour.
Good call. Each patron adds two spells per spell level with their expanded list, so the intention was for all Elemental warlocks to get one spell per level, while your second spell is specific to your element. I'll add some clarification on this point.


Elemental Magic gives a lot compared to other Patrons at level 1 I believe -- two cantrips is substantial, the second point is usually quite strong (particularly compared to a limited telepathy or getting a bit of temp HP on a kill), and the third point fits as flavour. Fire's second benefit is a bit surprising; I'm guessing it's meant to encourage a more aggressive playstyle as the link to fire. Maybe some flavour text would help me imagine the right thing and it would be fine, though! (Though it's definitely much more broad than existing patrons, as something to keep in mind.)
I waffled around a lot on what order to give the 1st and 6th level abilities. I want the cantrips to come at 1st level (and I was comparing this to the Celestial patron, but maybe that's not a fair comparison), but I might move the other benefits to 6th level and bring Elemental Adaptation at 1st level instead.

As for Fire, yeah, it's meant to be more aggressive. Honestly, I was grasping a bit for each of the elements, though the Air benefit was the easiest. Given that fire is more blasty, a sort of knock-back effect made sense to me. Some flavor text might help sell it thematically.


Level 6
- I get the flavour for Air and it's nice. It might be nice to simplify it somewhat (e.g. just one rule for adding your character level or proficiency to the height and distance you can jump). It would probably even be fine to make this one a bit more powerful; it looks like there's some wiggle room.
It's tricky, because long jumps and high jumps use different formulas, so, say, adding your level to the distance of both is too strong for a high jump, while adding your proficiency bonus is too weak for long jumps. I could probably simplify it somewhat, though.


- It might just be the lack of flavour text (e.g. Earth elementals living in dark caverns or recesses in the Elemental Plane of Earth, and so Earth Patrons somehow grant Darkvision), but I'm having trouble seeing the link for the Earth's darkvision. I'd also consider using the "increases by 30 feet" phrasing or something along those lines to give a benefit for those who already have 120 feet of darkvision (though that's a lot).
Yeah, it's pretty much "underground is dark, here, have some darkvision". I think it's probably better to avoid "+30 feet" for darkvision abilities, as it could be possible to stack them to get extra long darkvision. The only ability I know of that does this is the goggles that grant darkvision.


- Fire: Some fluff for inhaled poisons would help
True. It was based on some stuff I was reading about the Plane of Fire. While the air isn't necessarily poisonous, per se, it does say that it's toxic to breathe. This may be more due to being really, really hot than anything that's actually in the air.


Level 6, pt. 2
Ah, a second bit (that helps with the Air feature above) -- how are you imagining the mephit being used? (Or how do you intend it to be used?) Currently it seems like a non-scaling concentration-free conjuration for combat and non-combat, but at the start of the feature I had started getting the impression it would be more like an expanded set of Familiars with the same restrictions. My first thought is that it might be nice for this to be turned into an invocation, maybe specifically for Pact of the Chain warlocks (pact+patron requirements for an invocation would be more complex, but it could potentially let you refine the flavour/utility to match the playstyle).
Honestly the mephits just reminded me of imps, and are elementals, so I thought it would be cool to give one as a pseudo-familiar. I could make it a familiar, but then you're disincentivized to take Pact of the Chain (since you already get a neat familiar). They're meant to be used in a similar fashion to familiars, though you're right that I might need to add more to the ability (like telepathically communicating with your mephit).

Maybe it would be better to make it an actual familiar, but give some additional benefits if you also go Pact of the Chain. Or maybe I should just cut the ability entirely. I'll have to think on this some more.


[I've got to go -- I had a quick look at the wish feature and a partial read suggests it could be reasonable, like a Limited Wish set at level 5, with Divine Intervention-style options as an alternative. Maybe some limits to what the spell is would be ideal, but I don't expect it would be that game-breaking... even though level 14 might be a little earlier than I'd put that type of feature!]
No problem, thanks for the feedback so far.

14th level is the last level that warlocks get a patron feature, so that was really the only level to put the Wish ability. It's 3 levels before wizards get the real Wish spell, but it's also much weaker, so I think it balances out. Obviously, a feature like this is going to be difficult to balance without some playtesting, as some things sound stronger or weaker on paper than they are in actual practice. It was actually named Limited Wish as one point before I renamed it, as I knew Limited Wish was already a thing and didn't want to create confusion.

Eldan
2019-12-17, 10:39 AM
A small thing, but I'd add the Archomentals to the list of possible patrons. They are the first thing that comes to mind if I think elemental patron.

PhantomSoul
2019-12-17, 10:20 PM
Finally getting back to it!

- Primordial Investiture
> The Investiture spells are a great fit, and not requiring concentration is a nice way to make it special for them. They're not equally powerful, but the flavour is great and it's a nice shortcut to have an ability set -- plus it feels logical for a warlock to not have a major permanent effect (their patron is the elemental and not them, after all).
> I'd probably specify which elemental type they can convert to, but that's for flavour and not for balance!

- Simple Wish (pt. 2)
> I'd remove giving free gold; I can imagine some fluff for it, but an ability that just gives money seems odd, especially compared to other classes' abilities. I could also imagine attempts at abuse from downtime, backstories, sporadic-in-game-action-campaigns (e.g. you play out one day from one week then two days a week later) or fast-forwarded campaigns.
> I expected dislike the non-magical object or structure option, but I think it's fun. It's open to creativity, and playtesting could adjust if any glaring issues come up.
> I love the idea of turning back time, but I could see it being difficult in practice since players and the DM likely won't track exactly what happened when, so things like HP and effects could easily be forgotten or missed. If this were a Reaction to immediately fix it I think it would work, so maybe as an action you grant yourself the ability to give advantage disadvantage on a roll [your choice] for the next minute (costing a reaction to give advantage/disadvantage). It could be flavoured as you "becoming" the genie.
> I would've loved to see something about the patron's involvement or attitude (e.g. making a difference between Fire and Air Genies), but in practice that's not really feasible (different settings and variability of patrons)

MrStabby
2020-01-11, 09:38 PM
My personal preference would be to lose the wish as an ability but add a "Limited Wish" in place of Geas on the spell list: 5th level spell to mimic the effect of any 3rd level or lower spell from any list as an action (still need components). This then keeps the theme but frees up that level 14 ability. Maybe elemental servant upgraded at level 14 to summon an elemental (maybe with some bonuses) or something like the druid's elemental form?