Warlock Optimization Help (Rotating Patron)

[nalgarryn]

Hey all,

So crazy idea, making a Warlock that changes its patron depending on on the type of enemy it has recently defeated. This warlock gains its power by absorbing it from defeated foes... he/she/it tears out the heart (or essence?) of a recently defeated foe and uses this to charge/expand (learn?) it's power. Even with enough exp to level up, this character would still need to defeat an enemy in order to actually level up.

Beast -> N/A
Construct -> N/A
Giant -> N/A
Humanoid -> N/A
Ooze -> Ewww
Plant -> N/A

Aberration -> Great Old One
Celestial -> Celestial
Dragon -> Undying
Elemental -> Genie (as per type)
Fey -> Archfey
Fiend -> Fiend
Monstrosity -> Great Old One / DM's choice
Undead -> Undead

Since the otherworldly source of power keeps changing, there's a bit of a challenge in terms of min-maxing. Note also that hexblade isn't included in this list so that actually does simplify things somewhat. Basically the 1/6/10/14 level abilities are rotated out as are the expanded spell lists.

The DM could force the loss of spells known, and have them immediately replaced, or have them lost only when they are swapped out at level up(that's not determined). I'm sure someone is clever enough to come up with a strategy to rotate through the patrons and develop a very strong spell list, but the warlock is quite limited in number of spells known regardless, and can only change one on level up. If the DM forces the player to swap out spells from the expanded list on patron change, that's actually a bit of a benefit because it expands the pace at which the player can swap out their limited number of known spells.

The direction I would go with this is Pact of the Tome with the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation with at least Find Familiar. This gives me all the rituals I can find scrolls for a bit of diversity.

What other first level ritual and three cantrips would you choose, and how would you build out this warlock with race/stats/feats/invocations?

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For feats I kind of like Telekinetic (mage hand shenanigans, completely no somatic or verbal giveaways!) Fey Touched (misty step plus another 1st level spell) and Lucky.

[RogueJK]

Beast -> N/A
Construct -> N/A
Giant -> N/A
Humanoid -> N/A
Ooze -> Ewww
Plant -> N/A

Aberration -> Great Old One
Celestial -> Celestial
Dragon -> Undying
Elemental -> Genie (as per type)
Fey -> Archfey
Fiend -> Fiend
Monstrosity -> Great Old One / DM's choice
Undead -> Undead

I'm sure you could figure something out for a patron appropriate to every creature type, with a bit of tweaking. For example:

Ooze -> Fathomless, just instead of a squid tentacle is an ooze tentacle that does acid damage. Everything else already kinda fits to one degree or another.

Plant -> Fathomless (Just call it Treemore, or something). Instead of a squid tentacle it's a vine/plant tentacle that does magical piercing damage. Instead of cold resistance and a swim speed, you get fire resistance and can ignore difficult terrain, and instead of teleporting to water you can teleport to trees (similar to Tree Stride). The spells are already fairly nature-y, but you could make some alterations to that as well, to add in some of the explicitly plant-based spells like Spike Growth and Plant Growth.

Humanoid -> Hexblade. That subclass already includes the ability to bind the soul of a slain humanoid to your service. Reflavor it away from the "sentient magic weapon" aspect and more towards "warrior spirit" or similar.


For the others, you might be able to come up with suitable abilities by drawing some inspiration from the various Sorcerer subclasses. They get subclass abilities at the exact same levels except 10, and you could reflavor one of the existing Warlock subclass Level 10 abilities to fit that creature type better, similar to what I described above with Fathomless. This would allow you to cover some of the other bases with stuff like Draconic Sorcerer for Dragon (in place of the Undying that doesn't really fit there), Clockwork Soul or UA Stone Sorcerer for Construct, and UA Giant Sorcerer for Giant. You'd probably need to make some balance tweaks, though.

Beast is the tough one. There aren't any specifically animal-related Sorcerer or Warlock subclasses. Archfey is about as close as you'll get to a generic "Nature" patron (and that's not really that close), without coming up with something from scratch or finding a 3rd party/homebrew option. But if you want to get real wacky with that one, you could borrow the abilities from Beast Barbarian. They get their subclass abilities at 3/6/10/14, which is pretty identical to Warlock. You'd just need to come up with some appropriate additional animal-related spells (Summon Beast, Alter Self, Animal Friendship, Giant Insect, etc.), and tweak the abilities away from relying on Rage. Going with Bonus Action activation and Proficiency Bonus times per day for 1 minute a pop (like the Fathomless tentacle) could be appropriate. Consider making the resulting natural weapon attacks CHA-based to allow them to be useful, since you're unlikely to have a high STR or DEX. Not really any different from a Tomelock with access to Shillelagh.


For feats I kind of like Telekinetic (mage hand shenanigans, completely no somatic or verbal giveaways!) Fey Touched (misty step plus another 1st level spell) and Lucky.

Telekinetic is great, especially if you already took Mage Hand as one of your Warlock/Tomelock known cantrips and therefore get the benefit of the range boost. 60' invisible subtle Mage Hand comes into play way more often than you might think.

Inspiring Leader also works very well on a Warlock. Combined with your high CHA, that's a ton of extra HP for you and the rest of the party every day.

[Kane0]

Interesting idea! Its a good thing the devs never went with patron specific invocations

Most obvious thing is not to bank on any particular subclass features or spells being available to you, but if they take effect immediately (bypassing rest recharges) then you can abuse any that arent passive. Id probably not pick more than one or two patron spells since youd have to choose or randomly determine their replacements after each heart you eat (by the way would that be an action, a minute, ten mins, a short rest?).
Luckily invocation and feat choices are pretty much independant, so you can be an eldritch blaster or chainlock or bladelock regardless of patron, though you will have to be careful about picking up things that take bonus actions or reactions that may or may not be in competition with your current patron.