Two Warlock roleplay concepts I need help with the crunch on.

[togapika]

Concept 1: Earth Genasi with an Earth Genie patron, late teens to early adult (16-18). Her personality is similar to Tom from Parks and Rec, semi-vapid white girl who has tons of get rich quick schemes/business ideas, most of which don't work out. Her patron is her actual father and he granted her power to attempt to keep her on one of those kid leashes/force her to get a real job. Has a nemesis who is a gender-shifting Water Genesai named Deuce who was her best friend and business partner, until he stole the idea/recipe/w/e she had for an alcoholic beverage she would have named Cristal after herself.

Problems:
1. Earth Genasi is generally considered really bad.
2. I was thinking it would be cool to have her use big stone or crystal gauntlets in a fight, but Pact of the Blade doesn't include unarmed attacks.
3. If I take Earth Genie as her patron, I can't take Hexblade, which means I would need STR/DEX/CON/CHA all at decent levels unless I somehow got my GM to allow the gauntlets to be finesse or something

Concept 2: Water Genasi with Fathomless patron styled as a school girl, but has the Armor of Shadows Invocation for a magical girl style transformation. The tentacles belong to her uncle who helps her beat up baddies and protects her from unsavory people. I was thinking of maybe trying to go trident and shield.

Problems:
1. Trident isn't heavy so no GWM, isn't listed in PAM, and doesn't have any better stats than the simple spear does.
2. My bonus action would be used for my tentacle slam, so no PAM bonus attack, no TWF, etc.
3. Fathomless means no Hexblade, so again with the STR/DEX/CON/CHA

[Greywander]

Concept 1:
1. Refluff a different race to be an earth genesai. Dwarves are suitably earthy, and warforged might also fit. Anything will work, really. Or just roll with it; Pass without Trace is still a pretty nice spell.
2. Either (a) refluff an existing weapon (e.g. a mace) to be gauntlets, or (b) consider rolling an Armorer artificer instead. What, mechanically, is warlock giving you that you need for this concept?
3. Again, why play a warlock at all? Why not be, say, a barbarian? Or a fighter? Otherwise, consider dumping CHA, picking your spells accordingly, and grabbing the Moderately Armored feat.

Concept 2:
1. Refluff. Spear works with PAM and already has basically the same stats as a trident. Glaive or pike works for GWM.
2. Then don't bother with PAM. You just saved yourself a feat. Or go for a glaive with GWM instead.
3. Well, warlocks are the magical girl class... so we're back to dumping CHA. Otherwise, consider a simic hybrid monk with the grappling appendages, allowing you to slap people with your tentacles using Flurry of Blows.

You also don't always have to perfectly optimize. Although I know the pain of deliberately playing something suboptimal. But as long as the rest of the table is about as optimized as you are, you should be fine. You can also get by perfectly fine with a 16 in your primary stat (although this isn't, of course, optimized).

[togapika]

1. Seems like a good idea, and I'll probably do that
2/3. The reason for warlock is that it's powers that can come directly from her dad, and the idea for the gauntlets was just that I thought it was a cool idea that an earth genasi could somehow form natural gauntlets made of stone, crystal, or w/e


For concept 2, I could take Piercer I suppose and just try and look for other ways to increase my damage to be useful.

[Greywander]

2/3. The reason for warlock is that it's powers that can come directly from her dad,
This is fluff, though. You could play literally anything and explain your abilities as "it comes from her dad". If this is your primary reason for choosing warlock, then I strongly recommend at least looking at some other classes to see if they might fit better, mechanically. Refluffing is so easy to do, it's not worth playing a class whose mechanics are fighting against your concept.


and the idea for the gauntlets was just that I thought it was a cool idea that an earth genasi could somehow form natural gauntlets made of stone, crystal, or w/e
This honestly sounds a lot like Shillelagh, but refluffing a club/q-staff as gauntlets. You could be a tomelock and grab Shillelagh as one of your free cantrips. This does require some DM approval to have it work with stone/crystals instead of wood, though. Tome pact means missing out on blade invocations, though... Booming Blade can help fill that gap.


For concept 2, I could take Piercer I suppose and just try and look for other ways to increase my damage to be useful.
I'm worried you're going to end up with something that isn't fun to play. Consider either (a) playing a Hexblade and refluffing it, (b) ditching the trident and using Eldritch Blast, or (c) trying a different class.

I really, really wish they had just fixed the blade pact instead of giving us Hexblade. Something as simple as moving the CHA for weapon attacks from Hexblade to blade pact would have made a world of difference (not to mention cutting down on Hexblade dips), and would have solved one of the big issues you have with both builds. Maybe ask your DM if they might consider doing that.

[Heyboo]

Alter self from lvl 2 of artificer/sorcerer/wizard (specifically the natural weapons feature) can give you crystalline death-punchies. It requires concentration and lasts for an hour.
There is a pretty rad stone sorcerer UA that never saw print- a tanky sorcerer that is for sure earth themed.
Might pair nicely with an extra attack class.

[Segev]

How about four-elements monk for the earth gensai? You didn't list anything in the concept nor activities of the build that really sounded like it needed the patron powers of a genie nor any invocations nor spells. Monk would let you punch things, and your bigger damage die and eventually-magic unarmed strikes could be the crystal gauntlets. Even crystal gauntlets she summons or dismisses at will.

[togapika]

How about four-elements monk for the earth gensai?

I thought Four Elements Monk was rated as the worst monk subclass?

[Segev]

I thought Four Elements Monk was rated as the worst monk subclass?

Generally yes. You could pick another. Maybe Astral Self, with the astral refluffed to earthen.

[TyGuy]

You didn't list anything in the concept nor activities of the build that really sounded like it needed the patron powers of a genie nor any invocations nor spells.


Her personality is similar to Tom from Parks and Rec, semi-vapid white girl who has tons of get rich quick schemes/business ideas, most of which don't work out.

A half genie character inspired by Tom most definitely needs a cushy gaudy decked out genie vessel. It's even more appropriate having this PC living off daddy's money powers through the warlock pact.

[TyGuy]

Problems:
1. Earth Genasi is generally considered really bad.
2. I was thinking it would be cool to have her use big stone or crystal gauntlets in a fight, but Pact of the Blade doesn't include unarmed attacks.
3. If I take Earth Genie as her patron, I can't take Hexblade, which means I would need STR/DEX/CON/CHA all at decent levels unless I somehow got my GM to allow the gauntlets to be finesse or something

1. let go of 100% min/max optimization. Slightly unoptimized PCs that are really fun are better than min/maxed PCs that aren't very fun. Pass without trace will come up.
2. Unless you're in something super structured, this may be an easy reflavor or homebrew with an open minded DM. May as well ask.
3. See #1. I've done it myself as GM and I've seen other GMs "bring unoptimized PCs up to speed" with magic items and such. It makes me kinda think the +1 AC fighting style is useless, because it makes the average GM think "guess you don't need magic armor now..." I'd just balance out your stats between str/dex/con after cha and play it out. Maybe you'll come across gauntlets of ogre strength one day, maybe not. But the character concept is amazing and if it's fun to play, a 5% lower chance to hit or a 1 less AC won't make a huge difference in enjoyment.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Earth:
1. Custom Lineage from Tasha's can have any flavor you want it to have. So say you're a half-Dao and those are the stats you get. This also allows you to take Moderately Armored as your bonus feat.
2. One of them is large and functions as a shield, the other is sharp and functions as a morningstar or battleaxe.
3. With custom lineage and moderately armored, point buy: Str 15+1, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 14+2

Water:
1. Trident has been a serious disappointment in pretty much every edition. You could instead use a cutlass (scimitar) which has finesse, and dump Str.
2. Finesse weapon and empty hand for spells/EB is the way to go IMO. Otherwise get Moderately Armored and use a shield.
3. It's fine, dump Str for a finesse weapon, you've got melee and ranged (EB) attacks covered plus a melee bonus action. You can pick up Telekinetic for a ranged bonus action if you feel like you need one.

[togapika]

Water:
1. Trident has been a serious disappointment in pretty much every edition. You could instead use a cutlass (scimitar) which has finesse, and dump Str.


Good idea. I'll probably still go with mage armor, but I might look for a way to get shield proficiency.

For the earth idea I might just skip the gauntlet idea and go with something like a maul. It seems appropriate and I could ask the gm if there's a way I can get cha to hit or damage without hexblade.

Of course I'd still need to decide on what to do about armor, either taking a feat for medium or seeing if I can talk the gm into giving me barbarian unarmed somehow so I could take gwm

[togapika]

In general terms, which concept do y'all like better?
I can be flexible with mechanics, but which role-playing ideas sound better?