Invocation Subclasses

[Luccan]

I was reading through the Warlock a a week or two ago thanks to one of the threads here and noticed a bit of flavor text on invocations


In your study of occult lore, you have unearthed eldritch invocations, fragments of forbidden knowledge that imbue you with an abiding magical ability.

And that got me thinking. Since your invocations aren't assumed to be linked to your patron, it might be interesting to offer invocation subclasses. I first imagine these for the Fighter and Rogue, something similar to the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster, but with invocations instead of spells. I don't want to give them Warlock spells or cantrips, since that'd be too close to the previously mentioned subclasses and besides which I think this is a good opportunity to encourage the use of some invocations unrelated to Eldritch Blast or Pact Boons*. However, I'm not actually sure what would be the right number of invocations to give them. Warlocks only get 8, but giving them half of that or less almost seems like it isn't worth it; I'm concerned they won't feel properly magical at that point. And of course I'd need to work out their growth rate on invocations known once I've found the right number. And what about the "cast a spell once per long rest using a spell slot"? I don't necessarily want to lock those away, they already don't get access to quite a few invocations. Is once a day enough for those? Unlike a warlock they don't have regular spell access, but some of those spells are nice even once a day.

After that, my concern is what other class abilities to give them. They should obviously have an occult feel, but mechanically I'm unsure where to go with it. What do you think?


*I did consider giving the Fighter the Blade Pact and the Rogue the Chain Pact, but those are explicitly tied to your patron and besides seem to defeat the purpose of encouraging some of the less often used invocations.

[Segev]

In theory, I'm not opposed. You'd have to be very careful how you granted access, though, because Invocations are a core aspect of the Warlock, and sometimes tied to Pact, but I don't think ever to Patron.

In general, expanding subsystems to other things can be fun and exciting, but again...you'd have to be careful. I think the biggest obstacle you'll face here is how intimately tied so many Invocations are to Pact Magic, requiring spell slots to be spent. If you start making "this Invocation is only for this subclass, that one's only for Warlocks," you get into territory that asks why you're using Invocations rather than a subclass's own special thing. The answer can be the same as why spells belong to various classes, though, so it's not an impossible situation. Just something to be aware of.

[Luccan]

In theory, I'm not opposed. You'd have to be very careful how you granted access, though, because Invocations are a core aspect of the Warlock, and sometimes tied to Pact, but I don't think ever to Patron.

In general, expanding subsystems to other things can be fun and exciting, but again...you'd have to be careful. I think the biggest obstacle you'll face here is how intimately tied so many Invocations are to Pact Magic, requiring spell slots to be spent. If you start making "this Invocation is only for this subclass, that one's only for Warlocks," you get into territory that asks why you're using Invocations rather than a subclass's own special thing. The answer can be the same as why spells belong to various classes, though, so it's not an impossible situation. Just something to be aware of.

Well, I'm not currently looking to invent new invocations and any I do create in the future will always be available to Warlocks. I'm just trying to figure out how to portion the available invocations out, as well as figure out what features they should get beyond that.

[Segev]

The easiest way to do it from a design-work perspective would just be to let them pick any invocation they qualify for. That will cut out any that they lack prereqs to get and make them unable to use any that use pact magic slots unless the subclass gives them pact magic.

[Luccan]

The easiest way to do it from a design-work perspective would just be to let them pick any invocation they qualify for. That will cut out any that they lack prereqs to get and make them unable to use any that use pact magic slots unless the subclass gives them pact magic.

Skimming, that does leave about twenty or so options

[Segev]

Skimming, that does leave about twenty or so options

Right. Which also means you just need then to decide at what rate you're giving out Invocations to the subclass. 5e's simplicity paradigm suggests you should not change any level gates; your level in the class granting you the subclass should be exactly as good for this as your level in warlock would be.

Notably, even though WotC enabled multiclassing spellcasters by giving a unified spell slot table for combining their levels, they also severely neutered their ability to get higher-level spells by making sure that their class levels do not stack for determining what spell levels they can prepare/learn. Translating this over, multiclassing warlock and a class with an invocation-granting subclass should not get higher-level-gated invocations.

Next, you need to decide if invocations are the only subclass features granted. Consider that Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster both have features of their own alongside their spell access, so I would recommend at least a little bit of flavorful feature design to shape and complement a particular style of play with the invocations chosen.

[Bobthewizard]

Here's my suggestion for fighter. Just spitballing here so may not be totally balanced.

At level 3, give them 1 invocation*, the 1st level abilities of a patron**

At level 7, give them a pact and add one invocation.

At level 10, give them the 6th level ability from their patron and add one invocation.

At level 15, add one invocation.

At level 18, add one invocation and give them the 10th level ability from their patron.

*For level requirements, you can take invocations requiring up to half your fighter level.

** I would not allow Hexblade.

So at the end, they'd have 1st, 6th and 10th level patron abilities, a pact, and 5 invocations. That would give them the flavor of the warlock without the spell slots.

[Bobthewizard]

And here it is for Rogue

At level 3, give them 1 invocation*, the 1st level abilities of a patron**

At level 9, give them a pact and add one invocation.

At level 13, give them the 6th level ability from their patron and add one invocation.

At level 17, add one invocation and give them the 10th level ability from their patron.

*For level requirements, you can take invocations requiring up to half your rogue level.

** I would not allow Hexblade.

So at the end, they'd have 1st, 6th and 10th level patron abilities, a pact, and 4 invocations. That would give them the flavor of the warlock without the spell slots. It's one less invocation than fighter but that seems about right since rogues tend to get less from their subclass and more from the base class.

[Segev]

Personally, I wouldn't give them Patron access. Patrons are a subclass in and of themselves, so letting a subclass choose between multiple other subclasses is getting convoluted in design.

I'd either pick a Patron to base the subclass around, yourself, or I'd ignore the Patron concept entirely for the subclasses and explain the powers as coming from something else. Perhaps these are "cultist" subclasses, and the warlock or cleric running the cult is the source of the Invocations, serving as a proxy for his Patron or god.

[KittenMagician]

As far as the patrons are concerned, i would look at it this way: Does the patron seem like a being to take active interest or demands or the Character? As far as i can tell great old one is like having a Cthulu-esque patron that views you as a flea and doesnt give notice to you except in very rare circumstances. If you are set on invocation based subclasses, maybe look into the lore of Great old one. i would also avoid giving the pact boons to these subclasses as many warlock players actually view their pact boon option at level 3 as their true subclass.

as far as when classes get invocations
Fighter:
3rd-1 (or 2) invocations
7th- none (there is an extra attack invocation that by its wording could compound with the fighter's extra attack feature already, but it is locked by a pact boon)(could lead to an eventual 5 attacks a turn)
10th- 1 invocation and some other benefit
15th- 1 invocation and some other benefit
18th- 2 more invocations and some minor thing.

this gives a total of 5 invocations which if planned right could be quite strong on top of fighter base. the extra invocation at 3rd level can be given to the subclass at any of it levels. i would also include the capability for switching invocations out.

Rogue:
3rd- 2 invocations
9th-1 invocation and some sneaky style extra benefit
13th-2 invocations and maybe a minor benefit
17th-1 invocation and a sneak attack oriented ability (maybe change the sneak attack damage to necrotic or psychic)

again this gives 5 invocations and the base rogue is very very strong.