Quote Originally Posted by Phhase View Post
Vestigial Invocation: Just to be clear, this means that each bound vestige grants you a bonus Invocation, right?
You have one bonus invocation "slot" which is an invocation known by any one of your currently bound vestiges. You don't have one for each vestige. It had been that way in an earlier draft, but I changed it due to balance concerns.

The Prisoner: Seems ok. Does Chains of the Prisoner require a reaction, or is it effectively a free action? For that matter, apply that question to all of the vestige powers.[/quote]
They don't require reactions: they're meant to be flavored as augmentations to an existing spell, sort of souped-up limited-use metamagic. This particular one developed into it's own sort of pseudospell as I wrote the class, but the original concept was that the chains augment another control spell and make it harder to escape.

The Ascendant: It's ok. Who's Karsus?
He's the reason spells stop at ninth level in Forgotten Realms lore. In short: thousands of years ago powerful wizards used tenth and eleventh level spells to make things like spaceships and floating cities and all kinds of crazy stuff. Then this one guy Karsus decided to invent a twelfth level spell to make himself into a new God of Magic. Instead he wound up turning off magic for a while, all those floating cities the other wizards had worked so hard on crashed, and he was unmade in the process. By the time the universe got around to issuing a new God of Magic to get things back up and running, everyone decided that super-crazy magic wasn't a very good idea and the new God put a hard limit of 9th level on everything.

3.5's binder class and the 4e vestige pact warlock both had Karsus as a vestige that could be used. It seemed like an important inclusion, even if he isn't actually explicitly named.

The Abdicant: I regret to inform you that Diplomacy is not a formal skill in 5e. Persuasion works, though.
Good catch, thanks, fixed.

The power is "Twinspell - Self only". Works, I guess. To be clear, the spell must be one that can ONLY target you, not one that targets a single creature that happens to be you in the moment, right?
No, the spell/ability has to "effect" you, not necessarily target you, so you could, for example, use it to Misty Step your fighter to a better location. And you do not need to be the only creature effected, nor is the range of "self" a requirement. And the chosen creature (who must not be effected by the spell under other circumstances) is effected instead of you and is treated as if it cast the spell itself, which means you are not actually effected at all. This means you could do something like drop a fireball ontop of yourself and some bad guys, use The Shadow's power to make a creature outside the AoE "willing" and then assign him as your "champion" which means (a) you take no damage and (b) the champion does. It also makes the champion considered the source of the damage, so for example it wouldn't break a charm effect you've placed on the other targets.

These abilities are deliberately designed with broad applications to allow for exactly these sorts of shenanigans.

The Guardian: Oh boy, Reclamation could be huge, literally.

The Lost: Spelltheft/Reflection. Iiiiiinteresting.... Nice flavor too. Potentially great with Reclamation.
Yes, the fact that creates a new spell for which you are the caster allows for a number of interesting combos with the other powers. Again, this is deliberate.

The Void: Neat. What's it look like?
I left out explicit "fluff" descriptions for the same reason I left out names. I imagine it would like the black hole from Interstellar, something that warps reality and fills you with a strong sense of "this should not be". Other people might picture it as purple fire or liquid metal or the elemental plane of cotton candy.

The Shadow: Oh boy. That ability could be REALLY powerful. I've made a post once about niche applications of Nystul's Magic Aura, which requires a willing target. This could really kick it up a notch...Wait! If you can cast a spell that brings the dead back to life, could you bring them back against their will!? That would be insane!
It has to be a creature that can see and hear you. It's debatable whether dead creatures are still "creatures" as a defined game term, but they can't usually see or hear while dead, so it's probably a moot point.

The Paradox: Interesting. Especially because Counterspells that enemies use are NOT refunded. Are you refunded material components too?
I would read it as "yes" because "the spell has no effect" would seem to include the consumption of material components. I changed this to make it clearer.

The Indebted: Interesting spin on Blood Prices for spells. Would Paradox Rewind undo the max hp reduction too?
Yes.

The Question: There is some extreme potential here. Especially if you combine it with something that lets you cast spells remotely, and/or Distant Spell metamagic. I just need to mull it over for a while...
I saw this as more of a situational vestige than a "core" or "combo" vestige: real important when you need it, but you won't need it that often. Being unseen is a powerful counter for spellcasters, so a vestige that could help with that problem seemed like a good idea. I also wanted something for my "detective" warlocks. It's a weird niche that warlocks are oddly adept at given how many of their spells and invocations seemed oriented toward the concept, so this guy has out-of-combat potential that might not set off too many min-max alarms.

That said, I'm interested to hear if you can come up with anything fun. I think there's potential with taking a huge AoE spell, making it even bigger with Guardian's Reclamation, then making it ignore cover with the Answer. Blast a section of a dungeon with a Circle of Death with a 120 foot radius, watch it clear out mooks with little trouble before they even get line of sight on you.

Honestly, I was unimpressed at first, but now that I'm done, I think it's really quite good. If you're worried about it being Multiclass bait, I contest that that's ok. I like the idea of Synergy Warlock. After all, that's kind of the flavor of the subclass in the first place, yeah? If you want to give it a little more individual identity, give each vestige a unique Invocation and/or Boon. That would cement the cool factor, for me anyway.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm on the fence about how frontloaded it is, but I'm glad to hear you think it's good as is.