Warlock Undying assistance

[Sinrus]

Hello everyone! So I’m going to be playing a warlock and going with the undying patron and am curious as to what might be considered the best way to build the character. My group is very RP oriented so both in and out of combat suggestions would help. Also to add an interesting set up I decided to go as a Yuan-Ti pureblood. I’ve played many other classes but this is my first go as a lock and I know it has many facets to it so any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Man_Over_Game]

Hello everyone! So I’m going to be playing a warlock and going with the undying patron and am curious as to what might be considered the best way to build the character. My group is very RP oriented so both in and out of combat suggestions would help. Also to add an interesting set up I decided to go as a Yuan-Ti pureblood. I’ve played many other classes but this is my first go as a lock and I know it has many facets to it so any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

The Undying is pretty bland. It's mostly excels in...well, not dying, so you'll want some major mechanical support from your Invocations and spell choices to liven things up a bit. Normally, I'd recommend the Eldritch Blast invocations to provide a good kick in combat, but I'd rather recommend Mask of Many Faces for your campaign.

When possible, I'd also recommend Actor as a feat. Combined, you can look and act like anyone you want. Even Prestidigitation can make you smell how you want.

I'd play it as someone who morphs their body into however it wants, which is why Undead have a hard time recognizing it as a living creature, and how you change your face and can replace your limbs later on. It's not a strong feature, so I'd talk to your DM about extending it to Elementals too.

You can perform in melee combat more often than other Warlocks, so I'd recommend Tomelock. This allows you to afford things like Booming Blade or Shilellagh if you want. It also works well with Mask of Many Faces, as you'll have more tools to leverage your infiltration tactics.

Also, a single level into Rogue will go a long way to help with this concept. Expertise into Deception, Thieves Tools, Performance or Persuasion can be very useful. If you like the melee-aspect, consider Swashbuckler and use Booming Blade, and the extra Charisma to Initiative means you'll go sooner and use your battlefield effects without interuption.

In-combat, try to focus on Concentration spells and controlling the battlefield, as your damage might not be great. Keep in mind that your Short Rest spellcasting makes your tactics extremely reliable in every combat. This means that your party can actually develop plans around your spells rather than adapting around them, so talk with them beforehand about what of your spells they can benefit from. Knowing that my Warlock is planning on summoning a tentacle monster from the abyss might make me toss an axe rather than jumping into the frey.

[Sinrus]

The Undying is pretty bland. It's mostly excels in...well, not dying, so you'll want some major mechanical support from your Invocations and spell choices to liven things up a bit. Normally, I'd recommend the Eldritch Blast invocations to provide a good kick in combat, but I'd rather recommend Mask of Many Faces for your campaign.

When possible, I'd also recommend Actor as a feat. Combined, you can look and act like anyone you want. Even Prestidigitation can make you smell how you want.

I'd play it as someone who morphs their body into however it wants, which is why Undead have a hard time recognizing it as a living creature, and how you change your face and can replace your limbs later on. It's not a strong feature, so I'd talk to your DM about extending it to Elementals too.

You can perform in melee combat more often than other Warlocks, so I'd recommend Tomelock. This allows you to afford things like Booming Blade or Shilellagh if you want. It also works well with Mask of Many Faces, as you'll have more tools to leverage your infiltration tactics.

Also, a single level into Rogue will go a long way to help with this concept. Expertise into Deception, Thieves Tools, Performance or Persuasion can be very useful. If you like the melee-aspect, consider Swashbuckler and use Booming Blade, and the extra Charisma to Initiative means you'll go sooner and use your battlefield effects without interuption.

In-combat, try to focus on Concentration spells and controlling the battlefield, as your damage might not be great. Keep in mind that your Short Rest spellcasting makes your tactics extremely reliable in every combat. This means that your party can actually develop plans around your spells rather than adapting around them, so talk with them beforehand about what of your spells they can benefit from. Knowing that my Warlock is planning on summoning a tentacle monster from the abyss might make me toss an axe rather than jumping into the frey.

Wow! Thank you very much for the post these ideas are excellent and some I never really contemplated. But I must say you have me a bit wondering if going undying is the best way to go if you think it’s bland (although I really like the idea of infiltrating). But if I may ask which would you think is the most enjoying path for a warlock?

[Dork_Forge]

The Fiendish Vigor invocation is both very thematic for your character and great mechanically, you get to walk into every encounter with temp hp from a necrotic source.

[JerichoPenumbra]

I happen to like Undying thematically, and the beauty of warlock is that it is a fairly versatile class for building what you want. Though I do think Warlock gets a bit pigeonholed into playing deceptive actor/infiltrator role because of the Mask of Many Faces and Beguiling Influence Invocations. You could easily go for a more Scholarly or Detective route, picking up assorted Int based skills and Insight from a Background and take Eyes of the Rune Keeper Invocation. I'd make the argument that since it says you can read all writing you could potentially read any cipher you come across, take it up with your DM.

I'll echo MOGs suggestion of Pact of the Tome, mainly because it's my favorite and it gives you a lot of options. As a side suggestion though, Pact of the Chain could provide decent scouting potential and it's exclusive Gift of the Ever-Living Ones Invocation will really compound your hard to kill nature. If you think that's a nice route I'd consider flavoring your Undying Patron as some incarnation of the Ouroboros considering you're a Yuan-Ti. Another thematic choice could be Cloak of Flies, re-flavored to be the sound of hissing snakes instead of buzzing flies.

[Seekergeek]

If your table is open to UA, the Undying gets some thematic support in the form of Animate Dead and Summon Undead Spirit appearing on the warlock spell list. I've played an Undying patron once before and while it was great in the specific campaign we were playing in, it can be a bit niche. I'd go for Toll the Dead over EB in this case, and pick up the tome pact. That's what I did and I really poured a lot of RP into a compulsion to expand my grimoire with rituals and non-mechanical nightmare fuel. Being a Yuan-Ti would also open up some RP opportunities alongside the basic creepy death-guy, in that they are devoid of what is generally accepted as human(oid) emotion. An utterly detached necromancer who doesn't understand why those around him might object to the reanimation of their loved ones in order to "further the cause" could have all sorts of fun implications about town.