Warlocks have gotten a lot of love in the remasteredDungeons & Dragons. Magical powers that are bargained for, borrowed, or stolen have a lot of storytelling potential that isn’t captured in the traditional book smart wizard or the nepo-baby sorcerer. Alongside being fun to roleplay, they’re also a strong class that holds up well in both combat and social encounters.
Building a warlock can be intimidating. Their class features lots of choices, and it’s easy to get concerned about building a character who is both fun to play and tells a good story. This guide will cover the main choices and how you can tie them together in a narrative.
How To Choose A Warlock Patron
Your subclass is determined by your warlock’s patron, and while they only start giving you unique features at third level, you’ll want to have a clear idea from the start so that your character is thematically coherent and you know how to play them.
Your choice of pact can have a large impact on the way your character plays beyond the warlock’s base kit. Each of the subclasses has a defined niche they like to perform within, along with drawbacks relative to the others.
Archfey
Survivability
The archfey specializes in spells that let you avoid damage and escape danger and features that punish enemies for targeting you. If yourDM has the mindset of running intelligent enemies that know to focus the spellcaster, the fey is a strong pick.
You have very few resources per day,depending entirely on your pool of Misty Stepsto activate your class features.
Celestial
Team Player
The celestial is the biggest departure from the warlock’s core identity. With abilities focused on providing healing and temporary hitpoints, the celestial trades away some personal power for keeping their team in fights for longer.In a game that uses the gritty realism variant rules, a celestial warlock goes from being a combined healer/damage-dealer to the best healer a group can ask for while still boasting competent damage.
You have to choose carefully how many resources you want to commit to both dealing damage and healing your team.Sometimes the tactical choice is going to be empowering someone else to feel badass.
Fiend
Combat All-Star
The fiend largely focuses on personal survivability through temporary hitpoints, damage resistances, and stronger saving throws. This gets mixed in with some damage spells and features.
The fiend’s abilities require carefullyremembering what your character is able to do: Choosing a damage resistance each day is very strong, but only if you plan ahead and use these abilities proactively.
Great Old One
Roleplaying And Intrigue
The most warlock of warlocks, much of this subclass shines brightest out of combat.Conjuring minions and bending minds is potentbut operates best when the campaign focuses on such matters. The ability to always deal psychic damage is nice, as it’s a rare resistance, but it’s also rarely a weakness.
Much of your subclass will be consigned to flavor text, unless your DM makes an active attempt to tie your pact into the narrative. Unfortunately,a campaign that uses these warlocks thematically is also more likely to resist psychic damage.
Best Species For A Warlock
Your species will give you a mixture of passive and active abilities to complement your class. It’ll alsoopen or close doors in roleplaying scenarios,so make sure you check with the DM about the setting. All options are mechanically viable, but some offer perks that a warlock will be interested in.
Best Backgrounds For A Warlock
Your choice of background determines your starting ability scores and origin feat. These are the top picks, but it’s hard to go wrong as long as you get a Charisma boost:
If your DM allows you to justify broader choices of ability scores than what the origins offer, a scribe can be a thematic choice.Without a Charisma boost, it is hard to justify.
How To Choose Eldritch Invocations
Eldritch invocations let youbuild a significant portion of your class features by picking out what you want. Building your class a la carte means putting a bit of extra effort into getting the exact warlock that you have in mind rather than a factory preset.
With that in mind, certain options make for stronger characters, so you’ll want to consider how to thread the needle between the specific class fantasy you have in mind and whether they’ll perform well in actual play.
Pact of the Blade
Agonizing Blast
The bonuses these invocations provide make it very difficult for a warlock to actually perform their role without theextra damage or accuracythey provide.
Lifedrinker
Thirsting Blade
Some playstyles of warlock will require certain invocations to function at all.If you’re playing a pact of the blade warlock, you’re functionally required to take the derivative invocations whenever they become available.
Party Synergies
Repelling Blast
These invocations give you new tactical options that rely on good teamwork. Repelling Blast can be great for setting up a polearm master’s extra attacks or saving an ally from needing to disengage, while Eldritch Smite can knock enemies prone to set up a rogue’s Sneak Attack.
Otherworldly Leap
Mask of Many Faces
Some invocations solve specificproblem types that will regularly appear depending on the type of campaignbeing run. Otherworldly Leap is great when playing with terrain maps and altitude,saving you the need to Misty Stepevery time you want to scale a building. Mask of Many Faces is great in an intrigue campaign if you have the roleplaying chops to pull off a good impersonation.
One With Shadows
Gift of the Depths
These invocations let you do things that your class would otherwise struggle with, typically out of combat. This can be filling in for a party role: If your rogue is absent for a week,One With The Shadows lets you fill in as the party scout.
Fun
Anything you want!
Is there actually a reason to combine Lightning Lure with Repelling Blast? Not really, but it’s fun to visualize flinging people back and forth like a magic yoyo.
Multiclassing For A Warlock
Warlocks have plenty of multiclassing options due to the plethora of Charisma-based classes and the ability of the Blade Pact to substitute for Strength and Dexterity in any martial class.
Even if you do not rely on Strength or Dexterity for your weapons and armor, you’ll stillneed to meet the stat requirementsfor the multiclasses you want to take.
