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    Ogre in the Playground
     
    sandmote's Avatar

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    Post The Keeper of Balance: Neutral Aligned Warlock Patron

    This page on the homebrewery

    This is a second attempt at a slightly beefier warlock tied to the neutral extraplanars. The first one is here and mostly focuses on effects that boost survivability slightly. For this one I've beefed up a few of the features to grant more flexibility and offensive capabilities, but shifted the theming to be based on Newtonian mechanics. This justified some movement based abilities and spells.

    Fluff
    Warlocks enter into bargains with fiends and celestials, but so to do they enter into contracts with other powers of the outer planes. Some powers, such as Hierarch Modrons, powerful Inevitables, Rilmani that focus on the basic principles of the universe and their preservation. When they can be goaded into granting a pact to another creature, the abilities they grant lean toward this same emphasis of neutrality and opposition to interference.



    Expanded Spell List
    The Keeper of Balance lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

    Expanded Spell List
    Spell Levels Spells
    1st Catapult, Detect Evil and Good
    2nd Calm Emotions, Locate Object
    3rd Clairvoyance, Defenestration
    4th Locate Creature, Private Sanctum
    5th Antilife Shell, Dispel Evil and Good

    Undo Motion
    At 1st level, you learn to mirror the forces on objects, allowing you to quickly return them to your possession. As a bonus action, one weapon or piece of ammunition object weighing no more than 10 pounds within 90 feet that has left your grasp since the start of your last turn returns to your hand. If a creature is holding the weapon object, it can make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC to keep the weapon object from returning.

    Weapons and ammunition you return to your hand remain in the same state they were in before moving back to your hand; they are not repaired and regain expended magical abilities.

    This feature only returns the weapon or ammunition to your hand; it does not reverse the effects of time. It does not repair any damage to the object or return any expended abilities the object has expended.

    Infused Support
    When you choose this archetype at 1st level, you are infused with the sturdiness of your patron. Your hit points increase by 1 per warlock level and you gain proficiency with medium armor and shields.

    Equal Force
    Starting at 6th level, your patron allows you to balance the harm done to you by your enemies. When you take damage from a melee attack, you can use a reaction to turn the harm back on your attacker. You halve the attack's damage against you and the attacker takes an equal amount of damage. Determine the damage the attacker takes before calculating any resistances or immunities from the damage.

    Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

    Inertial Support
    By 10th level, the dents and minor setbacks of life fail to slow down your inexorable push towards your goals. At the end of a short rest, you may choose to gain one of the following benefits:
    • You make one saving throw against the save DC of a spell or effect that requires concentration from the creature it originates from.
    • You regain one hit die. You can spend this hit die at the end of the same short rest.
    • You end one disease or poison affecting you that you are aware of.


    Repel Planar Powers
    At 14th level, your patron grants you a protective cover, which renders you highly resistant to their effects. You are constantly under the effects of the protection from evil and good spell. If a creature hits you with an attack or you fail a saving throw against an effect created by that creature, the creature ignores the effects of the spell until you finish a short or long rest.


    I'm still not sure that protection from evil and good is still useful. I mean, but that level you should expect a lot of creatures affected by it, so I did include a limit of how strong it is, but it is still a 1st level spell that wont always apply in a fight.

    Otherwise, 1st level seems a bit lackluster and I'm not sure about still keeping in the "move stuff around" abilities/expanded spells.
    Last edited by sandmote; 2021-11-20 at 05:19 PM.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: The Keeper of Balance: Neutral Aligned Warlock Patron

    This isn’t bad but the capstone is no so bueno.

    The effect of a first level spell that breaks as soon as a creature lands a hit or you fail a save, things the game is designed to have happen. Even with the spell up. It’s up there with the auto sanctuary of the ever living warlock and monk.

    The first bullet of the level 10 feature doesn’t seem to make sense, please provide an example that isn’t geas.

    The level 6 is amazing but would typically be capped at prof bonus /day.
    Last edited by BerzerkerUnit; 2021-11-18 at 03:50 PM.

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    Default Re: The Keeper of Balance: Neutral Aligned Warlock Patron

    Quote Originally Posted by BerzerkerUnit View Post
    This isn’t bad but the capstone is no so bueno.

    The effect of a first level spell that breaks as soon as a creature lands a hit or you fail a save, things the game is designed to have happen. Even with the spell up. It’s up there with the auto sanctuary of the ever living warlock and monk.
    The effect doesn't end. Instead, that individual creature ignores the effect for 1 hour. The difference is in how it is treated when you are fighting multiple creatures of the listed types (aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead). For instance, if you are fighting four ghoul, each ghoul will be subject to the spell until it manages to hit you. After the 1st ghoul hits you, the others shave disadvantage until they hit.

    I'm hoping it is better balanced than foresight, because it doesn't let you completely ignore tactical thinking: once a creature can ignore the effect, you'll still have to inflict disadvantage/get advantage from something else.

    The first bullet of the level 10 feature doesn’t seem to make sense, please provide an example that isn’t geas. [/QUOTE] Geas doesn't require concentration. I was thinking of suggestion, but after double checking only it and the upcast versions of the Dominate spells would qualify.

    Would adding some way to make a saving throw against effects that don't normally allow a saving throw (like hex and hunter's mark) make it slightly more relevant?

    Quote Originally Posted by BerzerkerUnit View Post
    The level 6 is amazing but would typically be capped at prof bonus /day.
    I meant to cap it at 1/short rest. thanks for the catch.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: The Keeper of Balance: Neutral Aligned Warlock Patron

    Pretty neat! I have ideas for clarification.

    Quote Originally Posted by sandmote View Post
    Undo Motion
    At 1st level, you learn to mirror the forces on objects, allowing you to quickly return them to your possession. As a bonus action, one weapon or piece of ammunition within 90 feet that has left your grasp since the start of your last turn returns to your hand. If a creature is holding the weapon, it can make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC to keep the weapon from returning.

    Weapons and ammunition you return to your hand remain in the same state they were in before moving back to your hand; they are not repaired and regain expended magical abilities.
    This reads like they do gain their expended magical abilities back. I'm pretty sure this is not the correct interpretation, so maybe wording it as "they are not repaired and do not regain expended magical abilities" would read better.

    Based on your responses about Inertial Support, I feel that it may be useful to include a few examples in the first bullet point. I know it's not "good practice" when making clean abilities, but it would certainly draw the mind in the right direction to include "such as Charm Person or Suggestion" in the verbiage.

    I think the 14th level ability is neat. Free disadvantage against attacks until struck is pretty decent, and you're right in that it probably does apply to most strong enemies at that level. I can't help but think that creatures would probably open with a save ability (that Protection does not help you with) and then close in if it works as general practice, but it would probably give you a level of awe-power against weaker foes.

    Very solid, though I've no idea how to judge the value of Repel Planar Powers as compared to the other Warlock capstones, as they tend to be flashier one-offs more so than ongoing effects. A very cool take all around!

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    Default Re: The Keeper of Balance: Neutral Aligned Warlock Patron

    Quote Originally Posted by LecternOfJasper View Post
    This reads like they do gain their expended magical abilities back. I'm pretty sure this is not the correct interpretation, so maybe wording it as "they are not repaired and do not regain expended magical abilities" would read better.
    Damn it, I was thinking of "they are not repaired or regain expended magical abilities." I'll try to clean up the effect to also be more generic.

    As a general comment, I think this stayed in the backlog for too short a period for me to read it with fresh eyes when editing. Usually it needs a couple weeks, but I'm trying to keep myself to a deadline and I'm a bit behind.

    Edit: as further evidence of the above, why didn't I allow the feature to work with objects below a certain weight?

    Quote Originally Posted by LecternOfJasper View Post
    Based on your responses about Inertial Support, I feel that it may be useful to include a few examples in the first bullet point. I know it's not "good practice" when making clean abilities, but it would certainly draw the mind in the right direction to include "such as Charm Person or Suggestion" in the verbiage.
    It doesn't apply to charm person either. I'll just drop the bullet. Might try adding something else later if anything appropriate occurs to me.
    Last edited by sandmote; 2021-11-20 at 05:19 PM.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: The Keeper of Balance: Neutral Aligned Warlock Patron

    Quote Originally Posted by sandmote View Post

    Edit: as further evidence of the above, why didn't I allow the feature to work with objects below a certain weight?
    Ooh, good catch, it's always fun when abilities are open to less combat oriented functions. Makes practicing cornhole much more efficient!

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