Warlock Patron - Pact of Hellfire

[zombiecurse]

This has likely been done to death, but I thought I'd take a crack at it. A redesign of the 3.5 Hellfire Warlock for 5e.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Sy77Fa1iZf.

Credit to JNAProductions for giving me the idea to use hit dice as a resource.

[OdinTGE]

I almost always have at least one grammar nitpick when I read these things...couldn't find one. Huzzah.


I like it. Most (all?) of the pacts always come off as a little too forgiving/nice for Warlocks. I mean...pacts with fiends of the hells or abyss? That **** should be...mean. That comes through in both your flavor description and the features.

I guess my only "gripe" is that hell hounds seem like a lame choice. They have the fire breath but it's on a recharge and it doesn't particularly evoke the feeling of sentient fire anyway. My first thought was to find a more fire based creature at CR 3 but there aren't any in the official publications :(

It just really seems like what you need is a scaled down fire elemental or wildly scaled up magma mephit. I guess making and including custom creature as part of a subclass might be a bit much though. Or not? I dunno. I suppose you could make "Summon Hellfire Beast" and state in the spell that the creatures summoned take the stats of a Hell Hound that does all fire damage (rather than piercing+fire) and then give a description of some sort of Hellfire elemental.

[zombiecurse]

I almost always have at least one grammar nitpick when I read these things...couldn't find one. Huzzah.


I like it. Most (all?) of the pacts always come off as a little too forgiving/nice for Warlocks. I mean...pacts with fiends of the hells or abyss? That **** should be...mean. That comes through in both your flavor description and the features.

I guess my only "gripe" is that hell hounds seem like a lame choice. They have the fire breath but it's on a recharge and it doesn't particularly evoke the feeling of sentient fire anyway. My first thought was to find a more fire based creature at CR 3 but there aren't any in the official publications :(

It just really seems like what you need is a scaled down fire elemental or wildly scaled up magma mephit. I guess making and including custom creature as part of a subclass might be a bit much though. Or not? I dunno. I suppose you could make "Summon Hellfire Beast" and state in the spell that the creatures summoned take the stats of a Hell Hound that does all fire damage (rather than piercing+fire) and then give a description of some sort of Hellfire elemental.

Thanks for the feedback and the kind words about the grammar. I try.

As far as the hell hounds are concerned, I didn't really want to homebrew a creature specifically for this, and I actually like the flavour of the hell hounds. I also did word the spell in a way that makes it sound like the caster is literally shaping the hell hounds out of living flame. And hell hounds actually do fire damage on their attacks. The thing I was more concerned about was making it a 5th level spell. Even though they're only CR 3 creatures, that fire breath would be very nasty if you manage to get two hell hounds out of the spell. The spell has a chance of being MAYBE slightly underpowered, or of being a bit overpowered, depending on how you roll, how long you can maintain control of the hell hounds, and how often they get their fire breath back. If I was going to change anything, I might make it a 1d6 instead of a 1d4, and make it a 1/3 chance for two hell hounds instead of 1/2 (One hound on a 1-4, two hounds on a 5-6). There's also the opportunity cost of using the spell when you could have just used hex to get more consistent damage, scaling up to an extra 4d6 at level 17. I think overall the spell plays into the risk-reward playstyle I was going for.

[OdinTGE]

I completely agree that the spell works for the Pact, no question. The Risk/Reward of a summon that can turn on you fits right in. I saw that you describe the hounds as forming from flame but in your mind do they eventually coalesce into the picture in the Monster Manual, or are they a hell-hound shaped mass of flame? In between?

I guess as always it comes down to the end user. If I were to use this I'd probably describe what I summon as being somewhere in between a mass of pure flame, and the picture in the Manual.

[zombiecurse]

I completely agree that the spell works for the Pact, no question. The Risk/Reward of a summon that can turn on you fits right in. I saw that you describe the hounds as forming from flame but in your mind do they eventually coalesce into the picture in the Monster Manual, or are they a hell-hound shaped mass of flame? In between?

I guess as always it comes down to the end user. If I were to use this I'd probably describe what I summon as being somewhere in between a mass of pure flame, and the picture in the Manual.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have an issue with that kind of interpretation. I just thought it should be something fire-based that still had that kind of Nine Hells flavor to it.

[JNAProductions]

Hey, I did a thing! Well, might as well review what I wrought. :P

For Control Flames, I might just make it ignore resistance. I'm fine with your main EB ignoring resistance AND immunity though-there's a grand total of one creature who resists/is immune to force, so if you run into a Helmed Horror, it helps, but other than that, it's basically the same.

I'd allow you to take on levels of exhaustion instead of hit dice if you're out, but NOT automatically inflict exhaustion just for running out of hit dice.

I would also NOT make the number of hounds summoned random. Just make it one or two, not random.

[zombiecurse]

Hey, I did a thing! Well, might as well review what I wrought. :P

For Control Flames, I might just make it ignore resistance. I'm fine with your main EB ignoring resistance AND immunity though-there's a grand total of one creature who resists/is immune to force, so if you run into a Helmed Horror, it helps, but other than that, it's basically the same.

I'd allow you to take on levels of exhaustion instead of hit dice if you're out, but NOT automatically inflict exhaustion just for running out of hit dice.

I would also NOT make the number of hounds summoned random. Just make it one or two, not random.

Thanks for the feedback. Any thoughts on how many hounds? As I said before, I'm concerned one is not enough, and two is too many, so I tried to split it down the middle.