D&D 5e: what to do with a my 9th-level warlock?
February 27, 2022 4:31 AM Subscribe
I play D&D casually with friends online, and after having my character die (and be brought back) several times in subsequent sessions, am interested in a shake-up, on the premise that being brutally murdered and brought back over and over can kinda mess with you. I am not somebody who knows the game in and out. Looking for some recommendations...
Pact of the Chain, loyal to the Fiend, with a quasit familiar ("Jimmy Peanuts") who largely serves as a scout. My DM is very cool and supports fun gaming ideas. We're supposed to have a pre-game before our next session re. the Fiend's disappointment.
Our group in general is about 50% casual gamers and 50% very seasoned gamers who don't intend to munchkin but know the rules so well that they inadvertently are the group's super heavy hitters.
So I'd like to
While I'm focused on spells as a change that slots easily into the rules, my DM is pretty great and would likely be up for tinkering with other prior decisions if it leans into a more interesting/fun character overall.
Pact of the Chain, loyal to the Fiend, with a quasit familiar ("Jimmy Peanuts") who largely serves as a scout. My DM is very cool and supports fun gaming ideas. We're supposed to have a pre-game before our next session re. the Fiend's disappointment.
Our group in general is about 50% casual gamers and 50% very seasoned gamers who don't intend to munchkin but know the rules so well that they inadvertently are the group's super heavy hitters.
So I'd like to
- explore some options for my next level up, when I get to reconfigure all my spells (Warlock!), thinking that all this dyin' might push my character into either paranoid "hide and fight from afar" behaviour or conversely get super aggro
- tips on how to not lean into game-breaking exploitation, but good synergies that will help my character stand up next to a wheat thresher of an orc barbarian and a cleric with wildly powerful summons and necrotic spells.
While I'm focused on spells as a change that slots easily into the rules, my DM is pretty great and would likely be up for tinkering with other prior decisions if it leans into a more interesting/fun character overall.
Best answer: Warlock multiclasses well, especially if you can talk your DM into some retroactive changes upon your recent return to life.
Two of the other Charisma-based classes, Paladin and Sorcerer, have features that allow them to "spend" spell slots for other benefits. Warlocks get their spell slots back on a short rest, and Warlock spell slots spend just as well as any other.
In practice, this means that a melee-inclined Warlock with at least two levels of Paladin has the ability to use Divine Smite almost every hit (against any enemy that's worth smiting). The party takes a short rest to recover from the fight, and you get back two spell slots to spend on more Smites for the next fight.
You need a Strength of 13 to be a multiclass Paladin, though, so you'd need to come back different, possessed of a strength from beyond the grave and a new commitment to a vow.
The Sorcerer side of things works with their Sorcery Points. A Warlock with at least two levels of Sorcerer can "bank" any spare spell slots into Sorcery Points, which can become more spells later. Add one more level of Sorcerer, and you can start using the Sorcery Points for Metamagic, making your spells better in various ways, including using Quickened Spell to do two whole Eldritch Blasts in one turn for a stunning amount of damage (but basically a maximum of twice between rests).
If I were building a Warlock to start play at level 9, I'd consider a build with 2, 3, 4, 5, or 9 levels of Warlock; 2, 4, or 5 levels of Paladin; and/or 2, 3, 4, or more levels of Sorcerer. Splits that are powerful in my opinion include [Warlock 9], [Warlock 3 / Paladin 3 / Sorcerer 3], [Warlock 4 / Paladin 5], [Warlock 5 / Sorcerer 4], and more!
No matter what, any ol' Warlock has the power to be a highly effective source of ranged damage if you follow Zalzidrax's advice and take Agonizing Blast as an invocation. Even if you wind up being very aggro, having this as an option makes you useful in fights where you can't run up and hit the enemy every turn.
posted by 4th number at 9:28 AM on February 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Two of the other Charisma-based classes, Paladin and Sorcerer, have features that allow them to "spend" spell slots for other benefits. Warlocks get their spell slots back on a short rest, and Warlock spell slots spend just as well as any other.
In practice, this means that a melee-inclined Warlock with at least two levels of Paladin has the ability to use Divine Smite almost every hit (against any enemy that's worth smiting). The party takes a short rest to recover from the fight, and you get back two spell slots to spend on more Smites for the next fight.
You need a Strength of 13 to be a multiclass Paladin, though, so you'd need to come back different, possessed of a strength from beyond the grave and a new commitment to a vow.
The Sorcerer side of things works with their Sorcery Points. A Warlock with at least two levels of Sorcerer can "bank" any spare spell slots into Sorcery Points, which can become more spells later. Add one more level of Sorcerer, and you can start using the Sorcery Points for Metamagic, making your spells better in various ways, including using Quickened Spell to do two whole Eldritch Blasts in one turn for a stunning amount of damage (but basically a maximum of twice between rests).
If I were building a Warlock to start play at level 9, I'd consider a build with 2, 3, 4, 5, or 9 levels of Warlock; 2, 4, or 5 levels of Paladin; and/or 2, 3, 4, or more levels of Sorcerer. Splits that are powerful in my opinion include [Warlock 9], [Warlock 3 / Paladin 3 / Sorcerer 3], [Warlock 4 / Paladin 5], [Warlock 5 / Sorcerer 4], and more!
No matter what, any ol' Warlock has the power to be a highly effective source of ranged damage if you follow Zalzidrax's advice and take Agonizing Blast as an invocation. Even if you wind up being very aggro, having this as an option makes you useful in fights where you can't run up and hit the enemy every turn.
posted by 4th number at 9:28 AM on February 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: My first thought would be to multiclass into a Way of the long death monk.
"Monks of the Way of the Long Death are obsessed with the meaning and mechanics of dying. They capture creatures and prepare elaborate experiments to capture, record, and understand the moments of their demise. "
Possibly asking your DM if you can sacrifice your last two level ups and retroactively take them as monk levels, so you end up with 3 levels as monk and n-2 levels of Warlock.
It's a messy multiclass and doesn't synergise that well, but it's very strong on the RP side.
A similar approach might be to fully shift your patron to be either The Undying or The Undead, under the pretext that your previous fiend patron has lost track of you through all this death and rebirth but you've drawn the attention of something more... grave.
If you wanted to try multiclassing as sorcerer as suggested above you could be a Shadow Sorcerer which gives you features like Strength of the Grave:
"Starting at 1st level, your existence in a twilight state between life and death makes you difficult to defeat. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 5 + the damage taken). On a success, you instead drop to 1 hit point."
Which is very thematic.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 11:19 AM on February 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
"Monks of the Way of the Long Death are obsessed with the meaning and mechanics of dying. They capture creatures and prepare elaborate experiments to capture, record, and understand the moments of their demise. "
Possibly asking your DM if you can sacrifice your last two level ups and retroactively take them as monk levels, so you end up with 3 levels as monk and n-2 levels of Warlock.
It's a messy multiclass and doesn't synergise that well, but it's very strong on the RP side.
A similar approach might be to fully shift your patron to be either The Undying or The Undead, under the pretext that your previous fiend patron has lost track of you through all this death and rebirth but you've drawn the attention of something more... grave.
If you wanted to try multiclassing as sorcerer as suggested above you could be a Shadow Sorcerer which gives you features like Strength of the Grave:
"Starting at 1st level, your existence in a twilight state between life and death makes you difficult to defeat. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 5 + the damage taken). On a success, you instead drop to 1 hit point."
Which is very thematic.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 11:19 AM on February 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
So as a writer (and a light DnD player) I’d encourage you to look beyond the next level up and think “what do I want my characters arc to be over the next few levels?”
Your character starts off moving towards one end of the spectrum, wanting to fight as far from the action as possible for example. But at some point they decide “that’s not who I am” and start getting closer until they swing over to the aggro side. And if you’ve done that over multiple levels, suddenly you have a character that’s been on a journey with lots of options and backstory. It’s a great way to keep play from feeling rote and to surprise vet players.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 12:41 PM on February 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Your character starts off moving towards one end of the spectrum, wanting to fight as far from the action as possible for example. But at some point they decide “that’s not who I am” and start getting closer until they swing over to the aggro side. And if you’ve done that over multiple levels, suddenly you have a character that’s been on a journey with lots of options and backstory. It’s a great way to keep play from feeling rote and to surprise vet players.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 12:41 PM on February 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: If you're able to use content from Explorer's guide to Wildemount there's a cool fighter subclass called "Echo Knight" which can be built as a Dex fighter. You should already have been putting points into Dex for your AC so you should have enough to multiclass into fighter. Echo knight allows you to create a copy of yourself that moves around separately and you can attack from there or switch places with it. For flavour the echo could basically be a shade, a sort of ghosty version of how you looked when you started the adventure. The backstory would be that each time you died your soul was gathered by your patron, but then ripped back by resurrection, leaving some parts of yourself behind in the afterlife. But you can now summon those as separate entities to fight for you. This would fit with the reckless idea, your soul didn't come back whole so you feel disconnected from life and no longer fear death.
posted by 100kb at 12:53 PM on February 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by 100kb at 12:53 PM on February 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Best answer: You are going to get a bazillion ideas in here, but here are a few of mine off the top of my head, based on DMing a campaign with a rather custom built warlock in it:
-in my experience, Warlocks are pretty squishy up close unless they go Hexblade. Without multiclassing, I would look for methods of mobility to stay at range: Eldritch Blast with Eldritch Spear, Misty Step, ThunderStep, Dimension Door, etc;
-you may want to go a summons route and get spells around summoning monsters/demons to fight up close instead of you;
-look for ways to leverage your familiar - Investment of the Chain Master (in Tasha's) can give you some options there;
-magic items you may want to talk with your DM about include Pearl of of Power & Rod of the Pact Keeper (to give you more spells & more options), but don't discount spell scrolls - single use, but can be a way to beef up your casting options.
I will try to come back with some deeper thoughts tonight, including having a look at some of the custom invocations I've looked at for the Warlock in my campaign.
posted by nubs at 1:19 PM on February 27, 2022
-in my experience, Warlocks are pretty squishy up close unless they go Hexblade. Without multiclassing, I would look for methods of mobility to stay at range: Eldritch Blast with Eldritch Spear, Misty Step, ThunderStep, Dimension Door, etc;
-you may want to go a summons route and get spells around summoning monsters/demons to fight up close instead of you;
-look for ways to leverage your familiar - Investment of the Chain Master (in Tasha's) can give you some options there;
-magic items you may want to talk with your DM about include Pearl of of Power & Rod of the Pact Keeper (to give you more spells & more options), but don't discount spell scrolls - single use, but can be a way to beef up your casting options.
I will try to come back with some deeper thoughts tonight, including having a look at some of the custom invocations I've looked at for the Warlock in my campaign.
posted by nubs at 1:19 PM on February 27, 2022
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the suggestions -- they were all great, and I've given all these options a lot of thought. Ultimately I spent a while online with my GM last night, and we've settled on a path: he's allowed me to juggle ability scores and dual-class as a paladin (W5, P4); I'm going to go the route of "I've abjured the Fiend, am following the path of righteousness", and rather than trying to unwind Pact of the Chain now have a quasit that I've bound to me and am trying to rehabilitate through sheer goodness.
Working through spell lists and reading some guidance on how to play paladins now... excited about this new direction!
posted by Shepherd at 7:12 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Working through spell lists and reading some guidance on how to play paladins now... excited about this new direction!
posted by Shepherd at 7:12 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
And, while it's often more for flavor given the scales that fights in D&D take place on, the Eldritch Spear invocation and or the feat Spell Sniper let you blast things from much further away, and can be combined to be able to fight from really quite far away. Some way to fly is probably also a plus there.
On the other hand, if you want to go the more reckless route, I think sticking with the first level spell Armor of Agathys is a good bet. It's basically daring the enemy to hit you by giving you temporary hit points and doing a hefty chunk cold damage if you get hit while you still have them. And you can cast it well before combat and it doesn't require concentration. If you're using a 5th level spell slot to cast it, it will give you a pretty solid chunk of damage and hit points, enough that enemies might hurt themselves multiple times with it.
As for a tactical reason for getting in close as a warlock who hasn't gone the pact of the blade route, that's a little tricky, but there is the spell Spirit Shroud from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. It gives bonus damage on attacks within 10 feet. Since it doesn't specify a type of attack, this includes ranged spell attacks as well, such as eldritch blast. Which you probably would want to be using since it gives you multiple attacks and will get the extra damage on each of them.
Using eldritch blast this does create a slight problem in that you get disadvantage on ranged attacks when you have an enemy next to you. And if you move out of an enemy's reach, they get a free attack on you. Of course, if you have Armor of Agathys up, daring them to hit you could just be more damage for you. This is only going to be a trick you get to pull once every short rest, however.
Another option, if your GM is on board, is just have a custom invocation that makes Eldritch Blast into a melee attack instead of a ranged attack - cloaking your fists in demonic power or growing glowing, ephemeral claws or whatever coolness fits your character. That seems perfectly in keeping with the power of the official invocations, and I don't see a lot of GMs open to homebrewing things having a problem with it.
The other problem is that Spirit Shroud is a concentration spell, which means you have to make a concentration check (a constitution ability check) each time you take damage to keep it from going away. You'll almost certainly need something that gives you advantage on those checks, like the Eldritch Mind invocation also from Tasha's, or the War Caster feat.
And in general, if you want to be fighting things with Eldritch blast, the Agonizing Blast invocation to add charisma to damage is a must.
Some other invocations that might be nice are:
Trickster's Escape for going the more cowardly route, or even in general. Freedom of Movement is a good counter to some really annoying things that can take your character out of combat, and tends to make sure you can always get away.
Cloak of Flies for the more reckless route, since it will make you more scary and make it hurt for enemies to be next to you.
One thing that can trip up new players is that you can only have on concentration spell cast at a time, so pay attention to that, otherwise I would suggest the Ascendant Step invocation along with Far Step, but unfortunately since levitation is also a concentration spell, you can only teleport or hover in the air, not both. And you can't use either of them at the same time as the Hex spell, which is also concentration.
As to your questions about synergies, a lot of the really nasty 5e tricks involve two spellcasters casting different concentration spells making an area both very bad to be in and then also difficult to leave. So think Hunger of Hadar and some other lingering area of effect spell like entangle or stinking cloud. Or in a level or two having the cleric ring the area with blade barrier. Warlock invocations like Repelling Blast or Hunger of Hadar can help push people into bad effects or pull things into range of your barbarian's weapons or the cleric's Spirit Guardians, too.
Hopefully that's not too overwhelming an amount of stuff to throw at you!
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:46 AM on February 27, 2022 [2 favorites]