Maybe in this case, it’s more that the Great Old Ones share of power is less than the gods bc the gods are not selective while the great old ones are. Their reserve of power can compete with one another but what they give of it is a different story.
A conversation between the god of death and a necromancer from the book series Malazan Book of the Fallen (slightly paraphrased). To my eyes this is the perfect kind of relationship and inspiration between a warlock and his/her patron or a cleric with his/her deity. Just wanted to share because I thought it was super cool: "You are one of my own. We begin a game, you and me. The game of evasion. The game is this: steal their lives - snatch them away from my reach. Curse these hands you now see, these nails black with death's touch. Spit into this lifeless breath of mine. Cheat me at every turn. Heed this truth: there is no other form of service as honest as the one I offer you. To do battle against me, you must acknowledge my power. Even as I acknowledge yours. You must respect the fact that I always win, that you cannot help but fail. One day, even the Gods will answer to death. So in turn, I must give to you my respect. For your courage. For the stubborn refusal that is a mortal's greatest strength." "For all that, mortal, give me a good game."
I came up with a warlock character concept that I've ended up building a whole story around: my character made a deal with a devil - but instead of trading his soul or his agency, or something, he gave his body, his actual corporeal form to the devil. In previous conflict with some angels, this devil had been sealed in hell and prevented from directly manifesting in the material plane. This bargain with my character was effectively a way for him to partially circumvent that limitation. In return, the devil gave my character's soul a comfortable home in hell where he could explore and adventure to his heart's content (my character was a spoiled, bored rich kid with no sense of danger) Practically, what this meant was that sometimes my character was 'piloting' his body, and at other times the devil was - they had opposite alignments, and different tempraments, but roughly the same objectives. It was very fun to roleplay.
Huh, I always thought patrons gave power so those individuals could increase that power and they take it back after the people die. Like "here's an ember, make it into a fire. When you die I'll be taking the fire back." Thus increasing their power without them having to do any of the work.
And great for generally having the campaign be based around for sidequests or mainquests (mainly around the warlock's patron and the walock's deal with their patron)
The Warlock I'm currently using in a campaign is using the Seeker pact and is basically in a mutually beneficial relationship with his patron. They both want to uncover great secrets and collect forgotten knowledge. To accomplish that they work together and are on very friendly terms. It helps that they're both of good alignment even if the Warlock is a bit more chaotic in his methods.
The way I’m playing my warlock is this: My character already has done five years of service to the Raven Queen. My debt is paid and and I’m free to do what i want. But my DM and I made a rule, if I want to barter information or help from the Raven Queen, I have to either do a certain task or maybe another year of service later on in the future. Already I’ve asked for help and I had to hunt down a sect of the Cult of Orcus in one of the city’s of our campaign
Its kinda like how Doctor Strange from Marvel draws on transdimensional sources for many of his powers. Strange has on occasion called assistance from Dormammu and the Dark Dimension itself. (in the comics) However, it did get him in trouble once after World War Hulk though!
Doctor Strange is, well, strange. He's like a mix of Cleric, Warlock, and Wizard. Admittedly, though, these are terms as DnD sees them; labels that wouldn't be applicable to someone whose powers run along a different metaphysical scheme.
I always thought of the pact as ongoing service to the patron, and going against it would result in some penalty. But I suppose it depends on what the specific pact was. I never thought about that!
"You can turn against your god and you don't lose your magic." Hey man, maybe don't slip bombshells in like they're nothing! I mean, I already knew that, but I'm pretty sure the player base wasn't super aware of this.
The player could turn against their god, but the god might be very unhappy about it. Imagine "John Wick" but warlocks hunting down the renagae warlock.
Example: the cleric who didn't want to be. He was chosen by a god he didn't want to follow, or who's path he didn't think he could be a part of. He shuns it as a mistake or as a curse yet the god gave him the power for a reason even knowing he would do this. For some reason the god has faith in this plan.
I’m a DM in home brew creation; I had a player that wanted a multiclass Monk/Warlock (Morlock). They followed a solo quest I created as their lvl2 Monk (Kensei) to a mountain infested with Kobolds (of course). After sneaking through, killing some kobold groups, and then killing the Winged Kobold pack leader (where he got some precious gold); they went into the last room, which was a cavern. Inside was a Giant Golden Dragon. The dragon speaks with him, revealing that they are a servant of the God of Air (which contrasts with the PCs backstory having served The God of Fire some 350 years prior who stripped them of their warlock powers as punishment for disobeying and destroying two cities with meteorites). The Patron God of Air through the servant Dragon bestows warlockian (hexblade) powers into the Monks signature Katana (cause Kensei) creating the multiclass. I tried convincing the Player to use celestial patron, but they didn’t want to heal, but be up front fighting (cause Monk). The dragon then explodes after, and out of the explosion a pseudo dragon appears (mini dragon) and becomes the PCs familiar servant, and can provide communication between the PC and their patron only when the Patron chooses of course. All in all, it plays into the larger 4 player group adventure (each player gets a solo “prequel” to go from lvl 2 to lvl 3 because the main adventure I created is best to start at level 3). Later in the adventure, the group will face a evil blood mage or evil undying Warlock (haven’t decided) with a dragon servant too. I’m planning that the pseudo dragon will grow giant again (surprise!) and fight the servant dragon in the backround of the groups battle with the evil boss. Thought I’d share how I used the warlock patron (customized) in my own home brew. Cheers.
The way I rule it sometimes, is say you want to make a pact with an elder god, well... The way Elder Gods and similar creatures (like Cthulhu, who isn't actually a god, he's just god-like when compared to us. He's actually a high priest of the elder gods) were originally written, it's that 99% of them barely even know that we exist, IF at all. So how do you make a pact with something when you don't even register on their senses? Maybe your Warlock somehow contacted the mind of the creature, perhaps touching an old artifact or reading a passage from an ancient text bound in human flesh, and though the contact was brief, the power of that entity rubbed of on them like radiation. Kind of like a Wild Magic Sorcerer, but with SPOOKS Or maybe you make a true pact with Nyarlathotep who is boogeying around in human form on earth as he occasionally does. Who knows.
My DM is really into giving patrons an active hand in a characters sidequest or the main story. Currently, I'm playing a character that works with the idea of a warlock who fell in love with his Patron, the Archfey Queen of the Winter Court :) we wanted something that circumvented the traditional "deal with the devil" warlock shtick, and play with some commentary on how people tend to worship their partners or put them on pedestals
I always saw divine magic and pact magic as a sort of contract. If you fail to uphold your end, by say defying your patron, then the patron will not uphold its end and will strip you of your power. It doesn't make sense to me that a paladin could lose his/her power for breaking his oath but a Cleric or a Warlock would get to keep their power even if they went against the wishes of the entity that granted that power.
But does that really make sense when Pact magic is given through a deal or contract? Thats one thing many people dont talk about that they probably should. What if grandpa is the one who made the pact to give his family magic. The deal is between grandpa and the patron, not you and your patron. What if the deal was a single quest and not servitude. A literal one time deal. What if the "pact" is a literal purchase with the magic as the commodity, and the contract as the adherence to each sides terms for said power. Hell theres nothing saying the patron has to be smart, your pact could totally be in your favor over theirs and due to the wording of it your safe from any and all consequences. Mearls makes a good point about the idea of "if a pact is a one time deal that has already been done then the patron has no right to take away powers from the warlock". Its all in the wording and terms of the contract, not all patrons may be after a servant rather just needing a task done and magic is the reward.
@@haydenfrost988 If the magic was granted in exchange for a specific task that's already been performed, then the warlock has already held up their end of the bargain, and the patron can't renege. But if the patron made the deal in exchange for ongoing service from the warlock, and the warlock is now failing to provide that service, then it seems to me it's the warlock who's broken the contract, and the patron is no longer bound by it.
My Dark Sun sense is tingling. Tell me it is happening! After Mike's recent post and little mentions like this one about the Sorcerer Kings... Weeeeee!
Well, my hope is that they're gonna drop a new revision of Mystic (which'll be tailored for play in Dark Sun, since Mike mentioned that flavoring for different settings was part of their next pass) and then eventually announce a Dark Sun supplement.
That'd be nice. I started tailoring the mystic for my DS game but I'm not really happy with the outcome. I reshuffled the powers along the lines of the five schools of the Way. I divorced the focus from the individual powers. Now every school (Clairsentience, Psychokinesis, ...) features around a dozen meditations (formerly focus) and upward of 30 powers that you can pick up indenpendently of each other. As you gain levels you also get access to the other schools, along with their meditations and powers. Feels better than the Mystic but still not quite right. But psions were always a bit of a pain, so nothing new there. The other idea was to just use wizard spells with the spell point option from the DMG. After all they already used plain old wizard spells for the psionic monster options in the MM, although as daily powers, not point-based. But using the same old spells takes away from psionics being unique and different. Meh.
My Patron and my Warlock have an interesting relationship. He was a king of the country we are in [ from a long forgotten part of history, long story ] and honestly both my Fighter Warlock and the king's ideals matched up perfectly. He wanted me to make Brozar great again like it was in the Forgotten era and my character already had plans to do such but to a lesser level. Basically now, my character [ After alot of hard work a persuasion ] has started the process of making the country better from the rogue paradise it was to something better as a member of the governing council. My character and the patron have taken on a sort of a paternal bond because of my character being casted out from his home and then taking the patrons last name to have claim to land in the country to bring back the old kingdom. All in all a pretty interesting story.
So in my campaign a player character I made that died by fulfilling his pact with his patron was such a fun and cool (lightly heavy metal edgy ) concept. His name was Sazu, Lost Loxodon who was a warlock pact of the fiend who’s patron was Baphomet. I enjoyed the metal concept so much that I sprinkled in a level in barbarian and maxed my con out to be the biggest battle rager our party has seen. As time went on my character died once and had a reincarnate scroll used on him and he came back as a tiefling. This was a super cool and fun concept as I could rage with essentially a flametounge greatsword and with some special concept ideas with my DM became immune to fire as I shared the demon blood of Baphomet. Warlocks are fun, maybe a little complicated at moments for new people, but so much fun.
Always have loved the idea of warlocks and their patrons. Warlocks are really interesting as characters, since they’re always going to be on edge and untrusting. Patrons almost always (actually I haven’t seen once that a patron doesn’t have some hidden motive) are unpredictable and untrustworthy. The main way I learned about the relationship between Warlocks and Devils was Brimstone Angels, which does still follow an abnormal warlock-patron relationship, but still tells you a lot about it. Plus that story gives so much depth to the history and warlocks and the hells themselves that I just love it, so, take my opinion with a slight grain of salt since I’m likely a little biased.
Onr of the things I did with that sharing of power dynamic. Is that the patrons power gets increased in the long run because of there investment. So when their servant dies it's like an investment maturing and the power they gave comes back twice as powerful.
All of the patrons give me a "sell your soul for power" kind of vibe in the beginning, but then I found the perfect patron (for me) which is a brand new one (a UA one at that). The seeker. It seems much better and friendlier than the rest and I feel like I could be pals (or at least I could get along) with one.
Flavor text in 5E Player's Handbook and "Xanathar's Guide to Everything" describes warlocks seeking arcane knowledge, and even ignoring warning signs most wizards would heed (XGE, top of p53), and describes the average pact as a master-apprentice relationship (PHB, middle of p105). I take this to mean that patrons are magical beings in a far deeper way than the sorcerer class, and this gives them a unique insight into magic that can be partially shared. This is why Pact Magic works far more like a high-level supernatural being's "Innate Spellcasting" trait than like anyone else's "Spellcasting" class feature; the only reason Warlock is its own class and not a Sorcerer option. From that, I can see it going like this: if you have a falling-out with your patron, they can't take all of your powers any more than a wizard , but you better make nice or find a new patron before you expect to use certain features or *gain levels in the class.*
I tried to be a warlock once ,and my thinking and the DM's thinking was different on how I should interact with the patron ... i think i was right (also was a newish player). My though was ,I'm doing its dirty work and being its vessel to do its bidding if I need help ,im going to talk to it and say can you help we with this or ,how would you approach this , ect (I'd even make a roll for it) ,sort of like the VTM or world of darkness merit of common sense or undead/spirit guide. Also I'd like to think I had payed my price so me asking for help would either be a way for them to have some form of control over my actions after losing the control of the bargain or pact.
I was looking this up because I always find myself picking up warlocks of unrelated, obscure or dead deities and wondering how others see that in comparison to a cleric. Usually I tie the pact to a very grand scale request. Best example was being granted safe passage out of the feywild only if I promised to resculpt the prime material in the image of the wilds. That campaign hand gone long enough I was hoping that the dm would of started moving away from a good vs evil narrative to a chaos vs law, ultimately sending some sort of inevitable at us
What I like about this take is that it doesn't necessitate a common cosmology via mechanical design. The other thing I think people fail to note is the idea that power just is; it doesn't necessarily have to have a mechanistic cause and effect. Warlock are given *access* to power that otherwise is beyond mortals thus that power cannot be taken away but neither can it be added upon without further assistance for an outside source.
I have warlocks granted power by gods in my game. Hell I have some that follow gods that grant them druid abilities because for some it makes more sense than clerics. I have a homebrew deity that prefers warlocks over clerics and the fluff fits the well fluff a lot better. This Goddess has people with powers like that of a Cleric but also Celestrial Warlocks with spell lists using the Cleric domain of choice not the Celestrial spell list. Along with Light cantrip and a spell that works like sacred flame but visually looks like a burning stream of water. It is a Goddess of Death, Life and Nature.
That makes sense since it's a pact with the nature of the universe if you will, life and death an unending cycle that powers the goddess. (Honestly been trying to make a warlock that made a pact to become a necromancer in order to re-establish this type of cycle since my dnd campaign is set in a period of in death throughout the world but atm still tweaking it)
Dark Sun! Dark Sun! Do it Mearls, do it! The one big difference from the Warlock is that if you kill a Sorcerer King, the Templar loses all his juju (ala Kalak's Templars being hosed after he died).
So i had this idea of having the patron an eyeball with the spirit of a little girl inside it. I have no idea what type of patron it would be (i got the idea from "dark imagimation", a homebrew subclass). Their relationship would be of almost brother and sister, a childsish entity that grants him the ability to use cantrips (and spells when she has controll of the body), and is with him because she really wishes to see the world and live adventures.
I feel like the ability to completely revoke all of the power that a character has because of the subjective opinion of how a diety or patron would react to an action by a character is way too much power on part of the DM. That is why I liked what he said in this video. Sometimes a player just wants some really cool flavor, or just really likes the mechanical aspects of a class, without wanting to let the DM have ultimate control over their character. Feels so restricting. The DM is there to facilitate a story and provide a cool world for us to play in. He is not there to dictate what I can and can't do lest he revoke power. It feels like blackmail and that's not fun.
Never an action. If they do things straying them from the alignment of that god, give them warnings, visions, have their magic waver a little just in flavour to show them something is wrong or with a warlock, have the patron straight up tell them. Make it clear that if they continue to deviate and go down this path they will eventually lose their power and the blessing of their god. If they continue down that path it's their own choice and fault and they must suffer the consequences. They can always repent and try to regain their gods favour even if they do lose their power and then regain it or follow a more suiting deity, swear fealty to them etc. There's so many options. It's not just, you killed an innocent, no more powers for you, game over. If you go against your source of power, why on earth would they let you keep that power to fight against what they hold dear? And a dm is there to tell you what you can and can't do, it happens all the time in game. The only reason it'd be like blackmail is if you have a power hungry dick of a dm that abuses it and if you're someone that doesn't like having consequences for your actions and think it's unfair when you have to rightly face up to them.
Jhakaro I think it’s cooler for a patron to put a hit on a warlock that goes directly against them. If a warlock antagonizes say a fiend, that fiend will send cultists after that fucker, or a great old one will devise plans to set this warlock up to fail sooner than they already expected said warlock to fail. What you suggested works with clerics, where a cleric might find their deity isn’t giving them as much power, and when they next pray to the god they may even receive a vision. But not for warlocks, because a warlock’s relationship with their patron is much more selfish than a cleric’s faith. A warlock of a celestial doesn’t have to think like a celestial, they just have to earn the power given to them by a pact through whatever deal said celestial made.
My daughter is creating a Water Genasi character, who is innocent of the conflict between Genasi and Genies, so she sought out her deadbeat Marid mother to get to know her. She made a warlock’s pact with her own mother in order to spend more time with her and get to know her. How this plays out in game should be interesting.
Well a deathlock is the result of a warlock who does not uphold their end of the bargain. And there is also a punishment for clerics who betray their gods, on-top of being labeled as False in the eyes of Kelemvor
Lol my warlock and her archdevil patron were engaged and she had tried to rid herself of her pact but it always backfired. She was barely nineteen and already engaged without any say in the matter. Her warlock marks were one of her eyes was black (iris) and white blue (pupil) and there would be streaks of white in her hair whenever she called upon her patron. She tried greater restoration but the clerics that did that ended up having to cast that spell on themselves! Because of this she developed the fear of death, afraid that if she died, her being would be forever bound to her patron. So her goal was to either become a cleric of a deity who could help her or become a warlock with a pact with a celestial. Obviously her patron, who viewed her as his love reincarnated didn’t approve and sent her family who was a part of his cult, after her. Eventually she did get rid of the pact but not the marks or the fact that she was still engaged to her former patron and was destined to be his spouse. But when she died, she was safe in the arms of her celestial patron.
That's a setting issue, not really part of the rules either way. The rules themselves dictate no specifics on what happens in this situation and in some settings gods are extremely hands off, in others they may be much more involved with their followers.
A RAW about breaking a Patron Pact, or a Cleric refusing to serve the God is needed asap. Breaking a bond that gives a benefit without a consequence makes no sense at all.
im DM'ing a party with 2 warlocks and a sorcerer. and that's it. so its very fun to watch these two characters who have this kindred kinda power also be very suspicious of one another. so anyway ive always thought of it in the terms of a ongoing bargain with warlocks servant do this for me and i shall give you this power. devils might want you to kill someone steal something and plant it on someone else. an archfey could ask for anything a small trinket a might sword a wonderful song. a Great Old One will ask for knowledge or to spread chaos or insanity, or a potato. and the more power they give you the more your able to do so the greater the next task would be before your awarded more power. thats the way ive always ran warlocks you have to do this service to get your next level because your getting it from this being with whom you have a pact. but once you have completed your end of the bargain and gotten the power its your power. you can turn on your patron but you wont get anymore warlock power that way.
The thing about the "magic from a higher power" classes is that they necessitate the introduction of an NPC. The DM has to play that god or patron, and while there are some demons in the Monster Manual, they really don't scale with the players. So the reaction of the god or patron is up to the DM, but if they decide to get physical, there's no rules for it. Personally, I'm not that interested in a cleric who never prays or reads omens, and I'm not interested in a warlock who never communicates with his patron either. Just playing those classes mechanically, without the roleplay aspect, seems pointless to me. Make NPCs! And while you're at it, consider how much of the details of their power-lending agreement they're willing to divulge! Consider what forces they command, how much they care about one or two pesky mortals, and how they'd even find out if the pact was broken. I fully disagree on the notion that there should be RAW for the breaking of a pact, vow, whatever. I think there should be suggestions, sure, and I think there should be more content regarding gods and patrons, their abilities, their motivations, etc, for those of us who don't want to build it all from scratch. But I don't want players telling me my Great Old One doesn't *actually* thirst for the spinal fluid of ogres, or that my thunder god doesn't *actually* command an army of bird soldiers, if you look in the book.
Just wondering since Mike mention that Warlocks don't lose their power if they disobey their patron. While they can be punished by their patron (or just completely ignored), what kind of powers do warlocks have? Is it a seed of power where they only grow in power by receiving gifts of power from their patron or is it a seed of power where it can grow by itself? While this is probably decided by a Dungeon Master, but I would like to know people's thoughts on it.
Im a warlock/paladin. I fight as a paladin for an evil undeath god but in secret I actually work with the raven queen to steal an artifact from him and give it to her. Im a double agent between two gods 🤷♂️
Main thing that bugs me with the Archfey patrons is that the courts are all lumped together and flavored as the seelie court of Titannia. The Queen of Air and Darkness would have a different set of spells/abilities, as would the Erlking and so forth.
Interesting that he said a cleric can’t lose their power if they betray their god, because that’s kind of the opposite of how most people play it. I mean typically a paladin loses power if they break their oath...
So, I got a complicated character. Shes not a table character, more an OC I use for RP, but I’m using D&D magic and classes for her. She’s an elf that died, had her head cut off, but she was resurrected and then was given an offer from a god of death to be a dullahan, a psychopomp looking for souls. So, she’d likely be a warlock for undying patron. However, then she got corrupted by an Eldritch slime. Now she has Eldritch blood and corruption in her body, how does that reflect on her?
confusing bit is how do warlocks get more powerful. if you gain more levels in warlock, you get more abilities from your patron that you didn't have before. if the power the patron gave was done in the past and they aren't constantly giving you new things to do, i assume that the idea is the warlock was given general fiendish power (for instance) and then their own ability to harness it improves over time. but that also makes it confusing as to what the patron is giving the warlock. is the patron giving away a part of their power (thus becoming slightly weaker) when they do this? they must be giving them a considerable amount (for mortals) if warlocks can attune to the powers given all the way to level 20. what i'm trying to say is that if the patron were to give them very little power, then it wouldn't make sense for the warlock to get stronger as they level up. the power would be extremely limited. the only way this makes sense is if the warlock is given a sizeable amount of power from the get-go that they can learn to harness better. then it brings the question of how much the patron is sacrificing in this deal. itd make warlocks pretty rare unless the patron is particularly powerful. i also like the cleric/warlock mix of "you're a leech that hasnt been noticed", which you could specifically relate to the great old one pact. great old ones in lovecraft are meant to be so powerful that the martial plane would be beneath their notice in its complete entirety. in that case, warlocks could be using eldritch rituals and invocations to the tiniest fraction of power of the great old ones. a huge amount of power for a human but a GOO wouldnt notice even if many did it. for smaller patrons (i believe the PHB mentions a unicorn as a potential patron) it's a bit weird. it definitely doesn't make sense for the warlock to have the ability to overpower their patron. unicorns are much stronger than starter PCs but after level 10 or so the should be on a comparable level to a standard unicorn, maybe slightly weaker. by level 20 a pc is definitely stronger than any normal unicorn. how can a level 20 warlock have a unicorn as a patron then? the power the unicorn granted them is greater than the unicorn's power itself. it makes very little sense.
It's pretty much just flavor text so you need to decide with your dm when you create the character. I've run for a feind-lock who was given a bit more power each level up for proving his competence. I run for a archfey warlock who was granted a huge well of power and they become more effective at useing it whenever they level up. I'm currently running for a fathomless warlock whose patron is physically fussed internally with his patron and becomes more powerful as it grows accustom to his body.
In my worlds, powerful beings vie for the right to grant wishes when some unfortunate idiot finds a magic item with a wish or a genie in it. They can impose their own conditions on the wisher and make demands of them in exchange for the wish being granted. That’s how a warlock gains power, from making a wish without thinking about the consequences.
People seem pretty bothered by the difference between warlocks and clerics. Warlocks were given magic via contract, a deal. If you’ve paid the price for your power, it is yours, and the patron can’t take it back. Clerics and Paladins are channeling the power of their deity through their faith. If they aren’t doing the will of their deity, the deity won’t empower the cleric. They’ve lost favor with the god. Warlocks are more selfish than a cleric, it’s just a fact.
With warlocks I can understand not losing their abilities. It's more transnational, I do this for you and you give me power, and as I grow stronger you keep supplying me with more power and I will keep doing these things on your behalf. If you turn away from your patron it makes sense that you don't lose the power you've already gained, but it also would make sense for your patron to not give you any more power, cutting you off from gaining abilities from that specific patron when you level up forcing you to find a new one or take a different class. I kind of disagree with the clerics not losing their power if they turn against their gods. While I don't think they should lose their magic right away for one slip up, if they lose the favor of their god I think there should be consequences that get worse and worse the more the cleric turns from their god until they repent or find a new god. I think a DM should warn the cleric initially if they do this there will be consequences if they continue. If you have a lawful good god and you kill an enemy who is fleeing maybe you lose access to your cantrips when preparing spells the next day, you do something bad like steal from a church you have one of the dice you roll for healing and damage taken away. Then say the Cleric murders someone in cold blood they lose the ability to cast their highest level spells. They murder say a child and then their magic gets taken away. It doesn't have to be this heinous of acts or this type of retribution, but it makes no sense that a god of law and good would keep allowing you to use your full power, gifted by them, to keep committing blasphemous acts. Even if you believe a cleric's power comes directly from their faith it makes no sense for them to get their full power after they broke faith with their god personally, this is how I'm going to be playing it in the games I run and will give the players fair warning without taking away their ability to choose
When some of my players want to multi to warlock, (or anything really) I set up a little thing they have to do in order to make the mutliclass “official”. Like if a barb wants to multiclass in paladin, I’d mention to them that there is a temple/religion district and that they can go their and pick their favorite God, so a small quest and they get to multiclass in a way that’s not like “I’m a galthor the ravager, I have burned down entire villages and looted monasteries, but now for some reason after I killed those kobolds I can smite motherfuckers”. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But for warlocks I would just have them seek out whatever patron they’re looking for and have them make the pact. It could be something along the lines of “you finally reached the life-tree of the great old one, you hear him speak to you” or whatever, and then they could get a quest to solidify the pact, or have the patron write a blank check along the lines of “I’m giving you this power, but you owe me”. I’m currently building a warlock/paladin multiclass because I’m super interested to see how I can role play having 2 “Masters” both a patron and a diety I have to please in order to get stronger. I’m not sure if I answered your question well, but that’s how I handle multiclasses in general, and warlocks specifically
An old campaign setting where the use of magic depleted the health of the world if used incautiously. By the time the game is set, the world was long ago turned into an arid desert wasteland, where people struggle to survive, magic-users are pariahs, psionic plants and animals populate the wilderness, and characters' alignments get temporarily changed to True Neutral if they get thirsty enough. The last remaining civilizations are controlled be despotic Sorcerer Kings.
Why does the character creator on your website only have "The Fiend" as the Otherworldly Patron for Warlocks and since the site suggests to "Unlock all official options in the market place", why doesn't it label what to buy, I only get a $600 deal to buy everything instead of getting a straight answer...
Depends on the setting and in the case of warlocks the specific term of the pack. I've run for a warlock who had a specific pact and would lose his power if he violated specific terms. I've run for a warlock that was simply granted a sliver of their warlocks power that they have complete control over unless the patron hunts them down in person and takes it back. My favorite one is a warlock I'm running for rigth now whose patron is physically fused internally with him (like a venom symbiote), his patron is able to try to hyjack his body and he can try to force the patron to grant him magic against it's will. It's all up to the dm and I recomend discussing and astablishing terms with your player.
I like to compare things in D&D to something I can point to and say 'there it's like that thing from that book' or what ever. For me, I don't like thing of warlocks as the whole deal-with-a-devil, becoming a servant of Hell, type of thing; that always felt more like becoming a cleric for an evil deity. I think a better comparison for warlock would be *(DRESDEN FILES SPOILER)* when Harry made his deals with his godmother and Queen Mab. He got a power boost from each and further tied his being to the unseelie, but that doesn't mean that he owes his loyalty to them. If fact, each successive deal them seems to only increase the antagonism between him and them. Plus, it's been practically confirmed that you can't cleanse a soul of dark magic, Harry is a warlock.
Man, I really disagree with Mike on his perception of how Clerics and Warlocks wouldn't lose their power by going against their patron. AS a GM, I can say that in any game I run, you will lose your power because power given and also be taken.
Definitely a difference in how people play their games. Personally as a player and as a DM it's a one-time deal that's it. I don't go with a once given can be taken away kind of power source I go with a once given it jump-starts the ability to create your own.
Understandable for Clerics - who are merely vessels/conduits for divine miracles - but arguable for Warlocks. One _could_ , as you do, see the Pact as an ongoing service provided by the Patron. That the Warlock _only_ has power because the Patron, like a god, funnels it to them. One could alternatively, though, see the Pact as a deal that is done when the terms of the agreement have been fulfilled on both sides. That a Warlock's power is sold to them and they keep it; less like a service, and more like a product. And when the Warlock buys that product, it's theirs. Period. And I think Mike is thinking of Warlocks in the latter sense. To him, of course a Warlock can act against their Patron, provided the Warlock has already held up their end of the bargain. And if, like Mike said, the character fulfilled their obligation off-screen, before the campaign started, then they aren't beholden to the Patron. Especially if their Pact didn't cover anything besides "do this thing, and you get power". Not every Pact will be this long contract written in legalese, where the Patron included a clause forbidding the Warlock from acting against the Patron. Sometimes, the Pact was just a verbal agreement made at a crossroads, sealed with a handshake. Sometimes - as would be common with the unfathomable Great Old Ones - the Warlock and/or Patron might not even be consciously aware the Pact was even made.
Yeah but that makes no sense because how then are they rising in level? A patron would always make sure that power given is equal to deeds done. So if you're level 1 Warlock, they only gave you the secrets to magic that is equal to level 1 because what they asked of you was fairly simple and easy. How then without a continuing pact, do you gain levels? You can't. And if it was a one time deal of "do this and I'll grant you power equal to the gods" then you'd complete a huge quest and undertaking and become like level 20 immediately except that still doesn't make sense because 1) mechanically in game, it'd be overpowered if every one else is like level three and 2) you'd need to be such a high level to complete the task required to get 20th level powers that you couldn't do it before level 1 or anytime soon after. And if it's that the Patron gave them secrets in book form or something that the person can just study then they're just a wizard and it still makes no sense that a patron would give a mortal the means to immense demigod power even if they have to study for years themselves to be able to use it, when what he got in return was fairly insignificant. There needs to be equivalent exchange.
Change up how you view Warlocks and it becomes much easier to answer the questions you have. You ask how can a Warlock keep rising in level if they dont have to actively act as a thrall to a patron? Don't play it as them taking energy from their Patron. Play it as the Patron unlocked or supplied the first taste and now just like with any other class the more it is used (I.E gain Experience with the class) the better they become at casting and the stronger they become. Literally have the origin of their magic and their casting instincts come from a patron or family members deal with a patron, but all the feats and advancements you make in it come from your own work and practice with the magics given to you. The more you cast the more you are used to tapping into the corrupted magics within you, and the more powerful you can become. Invocations? Magical skills and mutations that come about from the taint of dark magic becoming stronger. Pact boon? You instinctually summon an imp or pseudo dragon and bind it to your soul when you become strong enough. You magically conjure a physical weapon in self defense as a reaction to a city guard attacking you. During the night the dark magics within you speak to you and compel you to scribe down the secrets of magics beyond your power to cast until now. I get its not for everyone but this style of play DOES work if you try to find the right way to explain the lore behind it. RAW puts a serious tone of an ongoing deal or servitude, while Mearls the design lead has said its a one time deal and to be fair weve known that for a while from twitter. Personally i love this addition as it allows even more freedom for however a player will want to play a warlock. There are players who just want to play the warlock class with no need for a patron actively meddling in their life and this is how they can.
Yeah but again, the PHB literally goes against everything Mike said in that video, many times over. Hell, the Eldritch Master ability at level 20 says, "At 20th level, you can draw on your inner reserve of mystical power while entreating your patron to regain expended spell slots. You can spend 1 minute entreating your patron for aid to regain all your expended spell slots from your Pact Magic feature." Why on earth would you do that if your deal is over with the patron? Why would your patron help you if your deal is done and over at level 1? The answer is, it wouldn't. Seems like a case of Mike giving HIS view on how they work and not what the game actually says unless they release errata for the whole warlock section. The whole warlock class is created around having contact with your patron. It literally tells you to think of all these things when making one and to work with the dm on it. If it was a one off deal before the game even starts and the pact's meant to have been completed then it makes no sense to have to work all that out when it has no actual bearing on the game. Again class abilities even go against this in their flavour. If someone wants to play warlock without it, first off, why? That takes away half the fun of a warlock but whatever, if that's what they want, that's great but then they can just talk to the dm about it as the PHB states and work out the role of the Patron. The patron might be very scarce and only appear now and then to ask of something or they might only ask for small favours in downtime, again as the book suggests, so that they never have to actually take game time out to do anything and it's more there for flavour than anything else. Or the patron might be very vague and be like, "Do good in the world." So as long as the character stays mostly good for most of the campaign they're fine and don't have the patron actively intervening. The option to have a non invasive patron is there in the warlock section as is. As far as the "given power but has to work at it themselves to make it better" theory, people don't need to be given magic. Anyone can learn it, no matter who they are so long as they're clever enough and get the right education. Wizards are built on this idea. Sorceror's are given natural ability to wield magic almost from birth due to either bloodline or what you said for the warlock, where they got power from a fey or something at a young age. Warlock's are meant to have a symbiotic relationship with their patron, I help you, you help me, we all benefit. Again, a patron won't give them the means of obtaining great power unless the deed they did in return was equally great. Most devils will grant power because they actually want to corrupt you for more souls, and through you others so they'd want to stick around for as long as possible to use you. I dunno, obviously people can play it however they like, but what he said just takes all the cool factor and uniqueness away from warlocks and makes them a shittier sorcerer/wizard and makes no sense when compared to the official PHB and a patron's deal. He says they can't take back power because a deal is a deal but if they said, I need you to get me this ancient artefact and in order to get it it takes you til like level 12, and in fact the patron only gives you the power in the first place, not because you asked for it but because it knows that you'll need it to get what it wants. Sure after you get it, the deal might end and it can't take back the power because the contract holds but if you don't, it's not going to let you keep your side of the bargain, it makes no sense. A warlock is supposed to get the power as they go, granted to them by their patron through secrets of arcane knowledge or through funnelling their power into you.
Every time Mearls talks, it just worries me that he's the man in charge of so much of D&D's extended lore and chronology. I cannot disagree more with most of the statements he's made in this video, concerning the requirements of warlocks to their patrons, and how seemingly arbitrary and final it is. Every piece of advice he's given concerning the role of races and classes in 5E so far seems to absolutely come from this aspect of 'What makes it play best/how can we make sure this never annoys any munchkins'. The class is built atop Faustian aspects that you'd frankly be a fool not to mine for as much as you can; that's one of many reasons I've changed the class to be Intelligence-based in my games, which not only makes more narrative sense but increases the role of Intelligence and stops every bard, rogue and pally dipping into the damn class. Quite frankly, if you as a DM don't make your warlock's patron talk to your warlock, give them a full personality, and make demands of their player or else withdraw aspects of their abilities, you are wasting what fundamentally is roleplaying and narrative gold. Of course, do exactly the same for clerics and paladins- hell, every class has narrative buttons you can push. To just wave over them so easily is frankly just laziness, and it, along with Unearthed Arcana, shows that Mearls' understanding of what makes the most coherent narrative sense is roughly equivalent to D&D Beyond's understanding of a community's love for overpaid pricing plans.
Completely disagree with how he differs between Clerics and Warlocks. Yet again he shows personal preference of how he interprets classes and that differently worries me. Does he not know how gods specifically choose clerics being apart from acolytes and priests from their gods, or even just how divine intervention and channel divinity works? How the hell does the conduit forces continued service from the diety they reject? Also, does it not even get drilled into his mind that pacts can be binding just like any deal in real life, where going against a deal also cuts off obligation from the party? How exactly would you even gain yet more power/levels when one turns on their source of power?
How about not rooting the game in a singular mechanical cosmology? By making Divine magic a force miraculous powered by the faith of the user than it opens up actual crisis of faith and notions of theological understanding that an actual *priest* would deal with.
