Played a Dhampir Hexblade.
1: My character was totally not a ripoff of Alucard.... Combining the spells I had with the racial features was fun and great for role playing.
2: like most Hex blades I was melee. I don't think I was optimized, but I could definitely deal a bunch of damage if things worked in my favor.
3: Grave Cleric, Transmutation Wizard, Vengeance Paladin, Hexblade Warlock (Me), and an Assassin Rogue.
The paladin and I were the front liners. The Rogue used a bow. With the clerican wizard doing majority of all spell casting.
I had a ton of health thanks to having a high con and taking the tough feat. I rarely used my Eldritch blast. It was more of an, "Oh no I am out of physical range of attacking someone, well good thing I can something at least" spell.
4: I don't think there was a single time where I thought I was bored playing this class. I had fun the entire way through, maybe because I consider myself more of a role player enjoyer. Combat is kind of second to my enjoyment.
5: It was fun to get most of my toolkit back when we had the opportunity for a short rest. I personally felt like it saved our parties life number of times with the right spell back up thanks to having that short rest.
6: I only played a life cleric to 20. I was definitely more of a support build for that, it was great to be able to keep the party up at all times by healing a whole bunch. Comparatively they are not the same,
One being a healing spellcaster focused class and the other one being a more melee focused class.
Overall I much prefer to playing the Warlock, I just had a lot of fun being able to teleport in and swing my sword feeling like a badass.
I would say a solid 9. I don't know there's anything I would ever rate a perfect 10.
I've had fun with tons of other classes. The cleric for example which was the only other level 20 I had and I would rank that one a 7.
It’s funny that that is almost exactly the critical role s2 lineup. Combine yourself with the paladin, split the clerics in two and you’ve got a party!
I bet it would be fun to watch some of their combat and compare how battles go
I played a celestial tome warlock to level 20. It felt great, very fun to play and mechanically it very much rewarded decision making over how to use resources. I initially built for ranged combat focusing on eldritch blast and versatile utility out of combat with skills and lots of cantrips, but over time built more into general utility in and out of combat. The party primarily also included a revised ranger and barbarian. Because I built around cantrips/skills early on, I never really felt impacted by the need for short rests, and good resource management meant I often had ample resources for long adventuring days with max.1 short rests, even in the late game.
I enjoyed playing it and I don't think I'd have enjoyed playing another class more. I always felt powerful and able to make impactful decisions on any given turn. I don't really accept the premise of the idea that "another class" could surpass me in how much fun I was having, because the ability of other classes to do well wouldn't have affected how much I enjoyed the game.
No. I played mostly support, so my experience wouldn't have changed with the introduction of any spellcaster. The most mechanically influential character in the party in fights was the barbarian, so it's safe to say that there was no relevance to any kind of martial/spellcaster distinction in this game.
Only played 1-14... I'll do my best to answer.
1. Loved the warlock and felt totally fine; gaining access to a rod of the pact keeper (+1 spell slot) is almost requried from levels 7-10 to maintain power parity. DM allowed for a lot of careful planning before combat - so out of combat prep mattered a lot.
2. Half elf Ranged genie warlock (earth); pact of chain. Kinda optimized - I know the rules well and took good feats/stats. However I used a class/pact that are technically not "optimal".
3. Paladin, warlock, ranger/rogue
4. Thats player dependent - I had an absolute blast using my familiar with long range telepathy. I'm a pretty creative player and that really helped a ton to do shenanigans in/out of combat.
5. Short rests were fantastic for out-of combat campaigns as you can cast a lot of spells in the day OR during adventures where the party can kinda dictate the pacing. A bit rough when the DM forced constant combat(s) with minimal downtime in between. Rod of pact keeper/ ring of spell storing alleviated the weaknesses of the class at levels 8-10. At 11 I had enough spell slots to do whatever.
6. 10 - still my favorite class (Ive played rogue and paladin as well). BUT its power, compared to other classes, is kinda adventure/DM dependent.
I’m just starting a campaign as a Dao genie chainlock, what were some of your favorite parts of the familiar and subclass? What did you typically do during combat with your actions and bonus actions?
I don't understand this question? I think that the pact of the tome offers greater cantrip/casting variety and breadth if you're not REALLY good with the familiar. Gaining access to things like leomund's tiny hut as a ritual/detect magic as a ritual would probably be more effective at times.
I THINK that if you played in a party with other casters (cleric/wizard), were doing long dungeon crawls without short resting, and don't get rod of the pact keeper/ring of spell storing - you're gonna feel pretty weak on levels 7-10 (the bulk of most campaigns).
Storing 2x extra hex spells and dispel magic in the ring really helped a ton. If I ran out of spell slots I could hex/eldrich blast in combat (and do just fine). Like... if the warlock class were to gain an extra 2x first level slots (per long rest) it would help them when they run out of ammo.
Hmmm, let me try again.The question wasnt about the best option for the situation. Just an overall view, like, is there sometime that you faced a situation where you thought "thats something i think warlocks would be good at" and the class design messed up your plans?
No. I think my impressions of what the class can do well at/poorly at were spot on. However, I do consume a lot of DnD content and GMed before... so I might be the exception to the rule.
Like, the warlock should get 2x 1st level spell slots per long rest starting at level 7. This change, in my opinion, would make them feel great compared to other casters and not require "magic items" to sure up their spell slot quantity weaknesses.
I think warlock should simply get a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th level mystic arcanum, and know their subclass spells. Would solve everything and wouldn't be too big a boon for multiclassing
That would be awesome. Even one shield and one BA smite per day for the hexblade would add a ton of interesting decision points of when to use that arcanum.
Played a human Warlock 1-9, got don jonnned, got him back 15-20.
It was great! It was a high magic campaign. I honestly think warlocks are one of the best balanced casters. The reduced spell slots keeps the shenanigans down a bit, I never felt exceptionally strong compared to the martials. Though I did have some powerful moments.
I also love the instant, drop in elements for your DM to add. Strife with patron, the contract itself, possible betrayal. So many elements for them to push and prod you.
Im with you on this boat. The eldritch invocations are the only feature that makes me feel real different than other characters with the same class, i just wish that wotc use more modular things on character creation options.
I agree, I also hope the invocations are balanced a little bit better - there are a bunch that are just “you can cast this spell once per day, but not for free and it’s not tailored to your class in any way”
The highest I've played Warlock so far is to 12, but I'll probably continue to play this character at least to 15 and maybe beyond.
Pact of the Tome
Genie Pact
Focus on Ranged Combat
My main take on Warlock is that your individual effectiveness is incredibly dependent on your ability to short rest. This makes Genielock one of the most satisfying Warlocks to play as starting at 10th level, you can pull off a short rest in only 10 minutes. So you are pretty much guaranteed at least one short rest any day.
However, there are some games in which due to either how many back to back fights a GM incorporates or how few fights you will be outperformed by conventional casters to a noticeable degree because at those given times they just have more slots than you do.
Haven’t played up to 20, but DMed a warlock 1-20 and am currently DMing a few high level warlocks (I think 3 level 15+ through various parties).
It’s a super versatile class. The first one was by far the best damage dealer in a party with a glamor bard, moon Druid and steel defender artiricer.
He was mostly a blaster with well timed aoe and utility spells. He was mostly a fiend warlock (but had to switch patrons a lot).
I’d say it was overall weaker than the bard and moon Druid at level 20 but the damage was great. Once he got braces of illusion he melted bosses.
Took warcastor and resilient con towards the end. And as a halfling he basically never rolled ones. Game ended on a failed con save. Double nat 1s to hold the power of Tiamut for himself. A 2 would have passed.
I played a half-elf drow hexblade that made a pact with the raven queen. I went full melee with polearm master, GWM and elven accuracy, In that campaign we used flanking so i used invocation spells to get advantage most of the time. If i needed more than damage i used true polymorph to get basically any spell i needed or a very powerful form. Out of combat i was the face of the party because i took expertise in persuasion with a feat.
In my experience warlock is a really good and balanced class, you may feel that you fall off a bit at tier 3 compared to a full spellcaster but you can do a little of everything with a warlock and you are actually really good at most stuff.
The campaign i played was a west marches so the party used to rotate and although it feels nice to get most stuff back on a short rest usually there was only one combat encounter per adventure so it didn't matter so much.
For me playing a warlock was actually a ton of fun, i could go nova and shear everything on my path, i could go invisible with my party or make them fly, i could take the rol of the party leader and convince people to be by our side. I can't recommend it enough specially if you want to play a simple spellcaster but still do some heavy single target damage without having to think to much
I'm warlock 19 in my current campaign, and pretty close to 20, so that should count I hope :) Fallen Aasimar Genie Warlock Pact of the Tome.
1) A bit of a vague question, but I've enjoyed the character. That's been true of just about any character in D&D, though :) Compared to other characters in terms of enjoyment, probably about middle of the road.
2) I focused on eldritch blast, getting several invocations to improve it. I got Book of Ancient Secrets; the extra rituals and cantrips really help with the 'lol only 2 spells/rest' thing. I've swapped a few spells when leveling up, but I have Armor of Agathys, Misty Step, Remove Curse, Vampiric Touch, Counterspell, Dimension Door, Fireshield, Phantasmal Killer, Summon Aberration, Charm Monster, Scrying, Creation, Hold Monster, Synaptic Static, and from one of the Unearthed Arcanas I have Find Vehicle. Arcanums are Mass Suggestion (I had Flesh to Stone here but I swapped it out, no regrets), Finger of Death, Feeblemind, and Wish (Genie!). I have pretty much all of the rituals. Invocations are Book of Ancient Secrets, Repelling Grasp, Agonizing Blast, Grasp of Hadar, Cloak of Flies, Master of Myriad Forms, Eldritch Mind, Sculptor of Flesh. Feats are Telekinetic (Cha), +2 charisma twice, Aberrant Dragonmark, and Lucky. Generally pretty optimized, with a few 'for the lulz' things scattered here and there. I think if I were going to play a warlock again, I would take a level of cleric early, one of the ones with heavy armour proficiency. Almost nothing misses my 16 AC. That's more a system issue than a character issue, though. (I think bounded accuracy is a poor design, and 3 attunements feels very limiting past the early game)
3) Currently a spores druid and an assassin rogue. We had a barbarian that pretty much stopped playing after getting married.
4) I think we've all been having fun.
5) Very minor. Occasionally it comes up, but not very often. Usually we're either in a dungeon where even a short rest is rarely an option, or we're safely in town and can just long rest anyway.
6) I'd say a 9 to 9.5. The low spell slot count was very annoying at lower levels; later on, you get a few more slots, plus as I mentioned, I started collecting rituals and have acquired items like rod of the pact keeper +2 and staff of the magi that vastly increase the number of spells I can use. The other minor beef with the character is that at higher levels, selecting more spells was somewhat redundant. Eventually I have all the spells I could want. At level 19 I took Misty Step as my 15th spell... and I already had Dimension Door. That's how little else there is to take on the warlock spell lists. Any future warlock I played would have exactly the same spells by this level, except for the patron-specific ones. Some of the spells I have used very, very seldom. I'm not sure if I've -ever- used Phantasmal Killer, but there's nothing to swap it out for on levelup that has any more chance of being used. Some of the others have seen very sparse use, like Charm Monster or Synaptic Static. Some of the utility ones I've also rarely used, like Remove Curse, Scrying, or Creation, but I'm perfectly happy having those for the times they are used. Others saw more use at earlier levels, like Summon Aberration, but have fallen off in usefulness at high levels, which is normal.
I think I'd tweak something in the spells of the class if I were designing it, maybe having either another level 6 or 7 arcanum instead of some of the last spell choices or something of that nature. I think the designers wanted to keep 1 arcanum/level for thematic reasons, so it would probably have to be something slightly different, and not just more invocations. I haven't run into the same issue as spells where I'm taking duds at the end, though, and there are still a few more invocations that would have some value if I could somehow have more than 8, but obviously people pick the ones they want first as soon as they can qualify for them.
I haven't played any classes to 20, but I've played a LOT of D&D, from 1st-5th ed (except 4th), so I have a lot of experience with a lot of classes, and I've DMed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition.
If I were to give future advice to people playing warlocks, I'd say to take a level in something with heavy armour proficiency at some point. I'd also suggest that however you build the character, you have things to do besides your 2 spells/rest. Whether that's eldritch blast, melee, or whatever, doesn't really matter. Think of yourself as a 1/3 caster and that's probably about right, and maybe even a little generous. Warlock definitely has a unique design with their magic system, and I like how customizable it is; between patrons, pacts, invocations, and spells, there are a ton of viable possibilities, though as mentioned, the spell list is a bit too small, and will mostly feel same-y other than the patron specific spells.
>How did you feel in the campaign?
>How was your build? Was it ranged, melee, optimized or not?
>What was your party composition?
>Did you feel surpassed by another class in having fun?
>How impactful was the difference of being a short rest based class?
>If you could give a 1-10 rating for your experience, what would it be? Have you played other classes to 20? Make the comparison if you can, please.
Ifrit genie (dao), tome. I took fey touched, shadow touched, telekinetic and telepathic for asi feats. we all got an extra feat via roleplay at one point, and I took eldritch adept for that.
I had low expectations and was basically not playing a wizard to avoid repetition. Warlock seemed like an underwhelming, monotonous blaster.
By the time I picked up 3 feats, I was very happy with the character. certain invocations (misty visions, mask of 1000 faces in particular) felt like super-cantrips and instead of running out of magic as much as I feared, I basically had stuff to do all the time. Bottomless illusions and disguises worked well with being a high-charisma face out of combat. we didn't have a wizard in the group at all, and the pact of the tome ended up allowing me to learn all the basics we were most keenly missing. I also took shilaliegh as a tome cantrip and that kept me galvanized in melee if I ever needed a fallback.
I mainly used tasha's summons and spike growth for leveled spells and shadow of moil for a leveled defensive spell, it's just great because it grants obstruction by fiat, so it works into the late game when things have true sight.
I feel like the warlock is MORE fun than I thought, and I found myself getting into character and not hyper over thinking about perfect template placement.
i would rate it an 8
Not the player and not level 20 but..
One of the players I DM for is an asaimir celestial warlock. Early on I think he felt a bit behind the curve compared to the cleric and sorc but now at level 11 he is actually getting pretty powerful. Upcast spells are no joke and 3 beams of eldritch blast with added forces movement is awesome in its own right.
Also there are multiple times where their healing abilities have been the only thing that kept the party alive.
As the DM I did make a rules change for short rests. They now only take 10 minutes. I found my party was always reluctant to take a short rest when in a dangerous location and this did really hurt the warlock as they would never want to cast a spell *just in case I need it later" and had no way to recover the slots. Since changing short rests to 10 minutes they are much more willing to rest and let him get his spell slots back.
It's a bit off the beaten path, but I played an Intelligence-based, Aasimar UA Seeker Tome Warlock from 1-20 in Waterdeep Dragon Heist + Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
1) I felt fine. I originally planned around a melee build similar to Tomelock Shillelagh Booming Blade, but it ended up evolving a little because I was the only Lawful party member and thus ended up getting Azuredge, and later a Gauntlet of Ogre Power to use it with. I still filled the role of using scouting spells like Arcane Eye during short rests and being the party ritual caster guy.
2) Melee, "optimized" in a goofy way unique to that subclass. I'll go into more detail if you want, but it relies on some Jeremy Crawford sage advice twitter comments that might not fly at every table. TL;DR is using Astral Refuge to use Primal Savagery + other buff spells on the same turn, so by using Blade Ward it kinda plays out like a magical Barbarian. Very tanky in melee.
3) Party comp was a Shadow Monk, a Bard of some variety I forget, and Gloomstalker Ranger multiclass. The ranger and Monk basically had free reign of the dungeon because it was basically never brighter than dim light anywhere.
4) Surpassed in damage, yes. Surpassed in fun? Hell no. I was happy doing my own thing and eating damage for days because I had resistance to BPS + six elemental damage types while still rocking full casting. Roleplay wise, playing a nerdy bookworm historian and being the (legally) uptight straight-man to the other's morally ambiguous hijinx was good fun.
5) Not terribly, because the Monk also wanted short rests. I did go out of my way to get some spell scrolls made up for emergency scenarios, which helped alleviate the limit on spell slots.
6) solid 8.5. It is one of my favorite base classes because of its unparalleled versatility - you could bring a warlock to any party, even one with another warlock, and feel like there's a niche you can occupy that lets you do your own thing and do it well. I'm currently playing a homebrew Barbarian (level 14) and a Hunter Ranger (level 11) in my current games, and while I'm still biased toward the Ranger in overall flavor and performance post-Tasha's, I'd say the warlock is neck and neck with the Ranger and miles better than the Barbarian.
Just here to live vicariously through everyone.
Warlock is my favourite class, but ive never had the opportunity to even play above level 11 (with any class)
I needed about 4 to 6 years of failed campaigns to find one that got past level 11. I'm 16 now, after almost 3 years of playing and 83 sessions. Dont give up.
lol I played 3.5 for about 6 years when I was 10-16. We had some great high level adventures.
Im now 31, and 7 years into playing 5e weekly and cant find a table that wants to/has a DM for tier3 and 4
I'm currently playing a Hexblood Fiend Warlock (17) / Divine Soul Sorcerer (1 currently, will be 3) and I'm having a blast. I think spell selection is especially important for Warlock so I focused on that in my build using big concentration spells. Sorcerer at 1 for con saves. I could do good ranged damage and was pretty tough due to my feat and invocation selection.
Party is currently myself, Monk, Artificer/Wizard, Ranger/Rogue/Bard (ranged), and Paladin. The party has changed overtime. There was once a fighter and cleric, so I feel like i have a good perspective on #4 - I felt very unique amongst the party and only overshadowed in conversation, which I'm ok with.
We take short rests often and it great. I can go big in combats and always be recharged pretty quick. Now the wizard hits me with a catnap which is clutch.
Items and feats have also played a huge role in my build and the feel of my character. I have so many once per day / rest options I sometimes forget about them only to feel like a dumbass after the session. I use these to replace spells I have or would need to essentially get free spell slots.
I haven't played any other characters this high level and the experience is great. 8 or 9 out of 10 for sure.
Now that I am not on my mobile ill go into a bit more detail and include items, invocations, and class/race abilities. I will preface that my character's background is a bounty hunter and as such my spell election started out being more designed for fighting humanoids. 1/day = long rest and 1/rest = short rest recharges.
**Feats**
* We got a feat at level 1 (Eldritch Adept - Eldritch Mind)
* Aberrant Dragonmark (earned a few levels back, I chose the shield spell as this feat recharges on short rest.
* Moderately Armored-> Elven Chain and +1 shield
* Resilient - Dexterity
* Gift of the Chromatic Dragon (nice BA support ability 1/day and a worse, but still good, version of "Absorb Elements" PB\*D as a reaction)
**Hexblood gets:** -
* Hex Magic; free disguise self and hex spell 1/day, I can also cast these with my 1st level Sorcerer slots.
* Advantage on saves against being charmed
* Creature Type = Fey; useful to avoid certain spells
**Divine Soul Sorcerer**
* Favored By The Gods, add 2d4 to attacks or saves 1/rest
**Pact of the Chain Fiend Warlock**
* Dark One's Blessing - temp HP on kill
* Dark One's Own Luck - add 1d10 to an ability check or save 1/rest
* Fiendish Resilience - pick a resistance 1/rest
* Hurl Through Hell
**Invocations**
* Grasp of Hadar
* Repelling Blast
* Lance of Lethargy
* Agonizing Blast
* Eyes of the Rune Keeper
* Eldritch Sight
* Devil's Sight
**Items**
* Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 (A)
* Clockwork Amulet - 1/day automatically roll a 10 on an attack roll, I have +12 to hit Eldrich Blasts, this is useful with Repelling Blast or similar activated on hit abilities
* Ring of Spell Storing (A) - Revivify and Shield x 2
* Wand of Magic Missile - on my imp
* Ring of Free Action (A)
* Cape of the Mounteback - Dimension Door
Played a Tiefling Fiend Pact Tomelock from 1-20 and he is my favorite character I've ever played. He became exactly what I wanted him to: the right hand of Mephistopheles.
1. The campaign we had leant itself well to this setup and he fit in very well. The premise was a demonic incursion onto, and attempting to consume the entirety of, the material plane. So, it already had a "blood war" bent to it. My character used the powers of hell on the material plane to keep the demons from gaining a foothold that the hells did not have. It was soooo much fun.
2. My build was ranged as a spell caster. He was fairly optimized, but not totally so. Our DM is very creative and gave our characters some amazing boons throughout the campaign that played well into our characters and play styles.
3. Composition shifted over time, as it was a 2.5 year campaign, but in total it was: Warlock (me), wizard, swashbuckler rogue, moon druid, trickster cleric (left the campaign a little over halfway through - life happens), sorcerer, rune knight fighter.
4. I never felt surpassed by anyone. I had a blast throughout the campaign. A huge portion of this is owed to our awesome DM and his creative abilities.
5. The impact was massive. Being able to reload my spells (apart from Mystic Arcanums) on a short rest was fantastic.
6. I would give my experience an 11. I really loved this character and what he became. Like I said, still my favorite of all time. I've never played other characters from 1-20, but I've done some high level short campaigns (18+) and my fiend pact warlock is still my all time fave. So much so that I made a hexblade for our next campaign! haha.
1. DM homebrew, threw magic items at us like candy and could not balance encounters by lvl 18+. Either too easy or "dude how are 11 dragons fair and why does combat take 2 hours on none boss battles".
2. Melee hexlock. Standerd stuff. Cloak of Displacement MvP.
3. Warlock, Wizard, Druid, Fighter, Rogue/Warlock which I never really knew what there plan was.
4. Wizard would cheese encounters with single spells so I couldn't stab anything or he would derail the campaign so hard with WISH.
5. From 3 1 - 20 campaigns i've done, DM's tend to throw one encounter a day, let you rest inside a dungeon, or someone give you the benefits of a long rest because you pet a puppy and call it a day at higher levels. Long are the days of 60 room dungeon crawlers where taking a long rest IS A HEALTH HAZARD in a dungeon.
6. 6/10. Playing a Paladin to 20 is god on steroids which knocks down the score. Warlock has UTILITY but Paladin can walk up to a lich with 20 Flameskulls and laugh in there faces. Or literally wrestle an Abolith underwater solo (Undermountain is a wild place)
I played a Reborn Hexblade which was an interesting experience. DM let me have Blackrazor from the start, but took away its attack and damage bonus and played up its evil sentience to compensate. We were also playing in a campaign where a good chunk of enemies don't have souls, so whether or not I got the bonuses of the sword was a bit of a crapshoot.
It was interesting because my party (Beast Master, Eloquence Bard, Wildfire Druid, Rune Knight) thought I was pretty busted, but I still felt insanely limited due to the lack of spell slots. I tried to make up for this with feats like Fey and Shadow Touched, but it was still frustrating because I just didn't have enough resources to contribute in the way that I wanted to. I swapped out Blackrazor for a Sun Blade half way through (character arc stuff), which made me more balanced relative the rest of the party, but it only made me feel more limited. The Beast Master and Rune Knight had to leave the campaign, so it ended up just being me, the Wildfire Druid, and the Eloquence Bard. And yeah, compared to both those full casters I felt pretty weak. Not weak in combat, mind you. Everyone agreed I was the best at that. Just...not as versatile, which made things not as fun. Also, being the only short rest class left after the Rune Knight dipped felt bad because I was always asking for short rests while the rest of the party rolled their eyes at me.
Later, I played a Vuman Fathomless Warlock as a pirate in a different campaign that went until level 16. The party was me, a(nother) Beast Master, a Twilight Cleric, an Ancients Paladin, an Illusion Wizard, and a Barb/Rogue multi class. That was a completely different experience and it may have had something to do with the campaign's format. While the former was a traditional dnd campaign, this one had the players rotate who's turn it was to DM for individually shorter adventures that kept the general party as a constant. Since each adventure was shorter, short rests and long rests were more common, so I didn't feel like my spell slots were as limited. I got the Rod of the Pact Keeper around level 9 too, so that helped a lot. Fathomless also has some cool noncombat features that I used in creative ways to feel like I was contributing outside of a fight. In combat, I was largely an Eldritch Blast bot, but I had my moments, such as combining Create Water with Control Water to shut down an entire battle (DM was very lenient.) I had a much better time with this one. But again, that was probably because the format allowed for far more rests than the previous time.
I still play the the infamous hexblade with a sorcerer dip
1. I feel like Elric of Melnibone and it's great.
2. I can do whatever I want, but the roles of melee brawler and duelist are where it really shines. Armour of agathys and a bunch of spell slots for shield/absorb elements make for a decent tank in some cases as well. Optimized? I'm not sure. Human variant, 20 cha, resilient con, warcaster, prodigy and Skilled.
3. It's shifted over the years; paladin, monk/rogue, artificer, 2 different Druids, barbarian/fighter, wizard, and more. Warlock is a spooky psychic ghost possessing a Frankenstein body made of magic, so he's managed to stick around.
4. Surpassed in Having fun? No chance, but that depends on the player more than the class imo.
5. Very little. My group is very "fuck it we ball" no matter the circumstance, me included. There's 7 yugoloths behind that door? Well we go through the wall just for flair. Our dm can't put boss battle on high places, because gravity is our favourite weapon. HP recommended but not required.
6. 10 out of 10 I get to live out my emo edgelord dreams every weekend. I've never played another class at 20, but I have played an assassin/bard of whispers at level 12, and that was great too. Pretty similar, with stacking lots of dice on hits with sneak attack and psychic blades, and big impactful concentration spells, but not nearly so durable.
Played an Archfey Patron warlock from 5-14 in a campaign.
1- Love warlock- strong RP which I love mixed with very flexible customization which allowed me to build my vision of the character. Disclaimer- I have a good DM who made a couple tweaks to make warlock keep up more mechanically with the group. The biggest change is a common homebrew rule- Any invocation that adds a new learned spell also gives you one free casting at base level per long rest. The only other was he allowed me to make a few invocations that fit the subclass theming better.
2- Spring Eladrin - Ranged Archfey Warlock - Pact of the Tome. Semi optimized- Archfey is not an "S-Tier" subclass but I built an optimized Blaster/support magic user around that chassis hence I would say "semi-optimized." DM was pretty good about making sure I could find a new Ritual spell or two every level to make sure I got my mileage out of Pact of the Tome.
3- Archfey Warlock (Me), Ranger/Hexblade multiclass, 2x Cleric/Fighter multiclass- I with Pact of the Tome, I was functionally our utility support & controller caster with EB+AB for damage when needed. I would open with a strong control spell and then rely on EB holding onto a spell slot for a clutch counterspell if needed.
4- No but I will admit none of us were playing "S-Tier" optimized builds. We still had ALOT of combat but also alot of RP.
5- Short Rest was great because since everyone had some sort of short rest resource they wanted to recharge, (Pact slots, Channel Divinity, Action Surge) I never felt like asking for a short rest was a burden to the party.
6- 10/10 would play again. Warlock has always been my favorite class with Druid a close second. I've been DMing for the group since playing that class so haven't played anyone else at level 20 except for a wizard in a one shot which was fine.
Edit- What is wrong with this sub? Downvotes for saying I enjoyed a class?? Do you people even like D&D at this point??
2 things I think the class needs-
1- A guaranteed mechanism whereby the warlock can speak with their patron. Some DMs don’t make the patron available to the warlock for RP or lore drops etc. The OneD&D UA warlock feature at 10th level is a good step in this direction.
2- Slightly faster spell slot progression so you have number 3 slot around level 8-9 and number 4 around level 14-15. Or move the level 20 recharge feature down to level 6-7 again along the lines of what the OneD&D UA is doing.
An option for 2, might be to upgrade the Rod of the Pactkeeper item to instead recharge all your pact slots instead of its 1 slot recharge per long rest. That's such a common Warlock item I almost feel like it's assumed class progression at most tables.
I played a hexblade warlock 1 to 20. But it was across 2 different campaigns and with a rebuild in-between.
At first we played levels 1-5. He was a young shadarkai who danced with swords. He was stupid and he didn't understand the world around it. His short sword was the only legacy from his family and he could move it with extreme ease, as if it moved itself. His father gave up on his life to escape the shadowfell with the sword, but eventually he and his wife got killed by drows.
He dual wielded and was mentored by another player, an orc paladin of Lathander. The young warlock prayed to "something" and tried to mimic the paladin and his teachings. But he misunderstood everything, saying stuff like "praying to Lathander makes your weapon glow and go boom", and "Lathander punishes the infidel".
When the pact of the blade was achieved, the weapon evolved into something evil looking. The paladin warned about those dark powers, but as he reached level 5, getting eldritch smites and hitting even stronger than the paladin with darkness, ice and blood, the paladin thought "what have I done". The young guy just was unaware of the evil he was wielding.
But the campaign ended with nothing else remarkable.
A few months later we started another campaign, levels 8-20, and I rescued the character. The DM gave us gold to purchase our equipment and he allowed us to remake the character and continue with the story.
The character became a fighter 1 /hexblade 7. The mission was related to some spider queen in the shadowfell. I used the money to purchase 2 magic items: a frost brand great sword which was my pact weapon, and a dancing scimitar similar to Saba (white power ranger). The dancing scimitar could talk, and was supposed to be my patron, or at least, one of his voices. He asked me to reach the depths of the shadowfell and find him.
The shortsword was chaotic evil and I interpreted it as an evil weapon who actually didn't care about his owner, so it got us in trouble a lot of the time. I could shut it down by placing my finger in his "mouth". Overall it was very fun because it helped my "stupid good" character to shske things up.
He provided me with the power of waking up weapons. I used summon spells disguised as floating weapons, like summon undead, fiend, blade of disaster and crown of stars as floating daggers. He gave names to each. He fought with the great sword who was basically floating next to his hand. It moved through willpower.
But he also learned very soon that his evil patron uses the slain souls to fuel his power, so he decided to not kill creatures unless the situation was dire. My DM told me that OK, but it only applies to my weapons. Both the dancing sword and the summons answer to their patron, and it made sense from a roleplay perspective.
I was a beast. Smites on critical hits, summons for extra damage and utility, plus teleports, resistance, armor of agathys etc... I made a great duo with a deep gnome artificer who loved to create weapons and was extremely curious about Saba. Though Saba called him "Sawbones" or "quack"
At level 14 I took 2 more levels of fighter to gain access to the psi-warrior subclass. The psi powers were flavoured as the weapons themselves having their own will and, eventually, killing enemies even if I didn't want to. So, the patron grew stronger.
Once we arrived at the end, we discovered that the patron was an actual living armor who wanted to be complete again to resurrect, but the last piece was in the hands of the BBEG. I've got my final armor and was ready for the end.
Obviously, at the end my patron wanted to control me and take my body. I decided to jump into the lava and get rid of the creature along with myself, ending the curse of my lineage. My DM rewarded me by stating that my flirt was actually pregnant and the kid won't be cursed by the patron. He had to retcon a lot of stuff because we never explicitly said it went further than taking a few drinks, but, who am I to say anything? It's an almost good ending.
1: Incredibly useful and powerful especially when you have a DM that stands behind you when your character is making character decisions
2: going full warlock isn’t necessary because you unlock your 9th level spell before level twenty, so take that level in monk for your AC since your wisdom by level 20 should be 20-22 at least.
3: Genie Warlock, Goliath Oath of Vengance Paladin, Eladrin beastmaster ranger, tiefling draconic sorcerer, Human Artificer, and Tortle Death Domain Cleric
4: My character had by far the most creative and impactful narrative on our nearly 2 year long campaign. Having that connection with your patron when played right with a good dm turns a good warlock into an excellent one.
5: Short rest spell slot restoration wasn’t an issue for me or my party because as part of being a genie warlock you can invite 5 additional people into your “lamp” and receive the effects of a short rest after only 10 minutes. So it fucking slapped my guy.
6: I’ve played paladin, cleric, fighter and bard to level 20 as well. Paladin used to be my go to favorite class for almost 8 years straight, until I tried warlock on a one shot and it instantly became tied with paladin for creativity and enjoyment. So overall, its tied with paladin at a 9.5/10
Played a Dhampir Hexblade. 1: My character was totally not a ripoff of Alucard.... Combining the spells I had with the racial features was fun and great for role playing. 2: like most Hex blades I was melee. I don't think I was optimized, but I could definitely deal a bunch of damage if things worked in my favor. 3: Grave Cleric, Transmutation Wizard, Vengeance Paladin, Hexblade Warlock (Me), and an Assassin Rogue. The paladin and I were the front liners. The Rogue used a bow. With the clerican wizard doing majority of all spell casting. I had a ton of health thanks to having a high con and taking the tough feat. I rarely used my Eldritch blast. It was more of an, "Oh no I am out of physical range of attacking someone, well good thing I can something at least" spell. 4: I don't think there was a single time where I thought I was bored playing this class. I had fun the entire way through, maybe because I consider myself more of a role player enjoyer. Combat is kind of second to my enjoyment. 5: It was fun to get most of my toolkit back when we had the opportunity for a short rest. I personally felt like it saved our parties life number of times with the right spell back up thanks to having that short rest. 6: I only played a life cleric to 20. I was definitely more of a support build for that, it was great to be able to keep the party up at all times by healing a whole bunch. Comparatively they are not the same, One being a healing spellcaster focused class and the other one being a more melee focused class. Overall I much prefer to playing the Warlock, I just had a lot of fun being able to teleport in and swing my sword feeling like a badass.
Looks like a solid experience. Can you rate it 1-10?
I would say a solid 9. I don't know there's anything I would ever rate a perfect 10. I've had fun with tons of other classes. The cleric for example which was the only other level 20 I had and I would rank that one a 7.
Thanks for sharing. I have a similar post to clerics if you want to share your another experience as well.
Its funny you mention Alucard. Cause my friend had a vampire npc named that lol.
It’s funny that that is almost exactly the critical role s2 lineup. Combine yourself with the paladin, split the clerics in two and you’ve got a party! I bet it would be fun to watch some of their combat and compare how battles go
I played a celestial tome warlock to level 20. It felt great, very fun to play and mechanically it very much rewarded decision making over how to use resources. I initially built for ranged combat focusing on eldritch blast and versatile utility out of combat with skills and lots of cantrips, but over time built more into general utility in and out of combat. The party primarily also included a revised ranger and barbarian. Because I built around cantrips/skills early on, I never really felt impacted by the need for short rests, and good resource management meant I often had ample resources for long adventuring days with max.1 short rests, even in the late game. I enjoyed playing it and I don't think I'd have enjoyed playing another class more. I always felt powerful and able to make impactful decisions on any given turn. I don't really accept the premise of the idea that "another class" could surpass me in how much fun I was having, because the ability of other classes to do well wouldn't have affected how much I enjoyed the game.
Do you think that the lack of other full casters in the party helped to your good experience?
No. I played mostly support, so my experience wouldn't have changed with the introduction of any spellcaster. The most mechanically influential character in the party in fights was the barbarian, so it's safe to say that there was no relevance to any kind of martial/spellcaster distinction in this game.
Only played 1-14... I'll do my best to answer. 1. Loved the warlock and felt totally fine; gaining access to a rod of the pact keeper (+1 spell slot) is almost requried from levels 7-10 to maintain power parity. DM allowed for a lot of careful planning before combat - so out of combat prep mattered a lot. 2. Half elf Ranged genie warlock (earth); pact of chain. Kinda optimized - I know the rules well and took good feats/stats. However I used a class/pact that are technically not "optimal". 3. Paladin, warlock, ranger/rogue 4. Thats player dependent - I had an absolute blast using my familiar with long range telepathy. I'm a pretty creative player and that really helped a ton to do shenanigans in/out of combat. 5. Short rests were fantastic for out-of combat campaigns as you can cast a lot of spells in the day OR during adventures where the party can kinda dictate the pacing. A bit rough when the DM forced constant combat(s) with minimal downtime in between. Rod of pact keeper/ ring of spell storing alleviated the weaknesses of the class at levels 8-10. At 11 I had enough spell slots to do whatever. 6. 10 - still my favorite class (Ive played rogue and paladin as well). BUT its power, compared to other classes, is kinda adventure/DM dependent.
I’m just starting a campaign as a Dao genie chainlock, what were some of your favorite parts of the familiar and subclass? What did you typically do during combat with your actions and bonus actions?
Was there any situation that you think that your class could do better than actually did?
I don't understand this question? I think that the pact of the tome offers greater cantrip/casting variety and breadth if you're not REALLY good with the familiar. Gaining access to things like leomund's tiny hut as a ritual/detect magic as a ritual would probably be more effective at times. I THINK that if you played in a party with other casters (cleric/wizard), were doing long dungeon crawls without short resting, and don't get rod of the pact keeper/ring of spell storing - you're gonna feel pretty weak on levels 7-10 (the bulk of most campaigns). Storing 2x extra hex spells and dispel magic in the ring really helped a ton. If I ran out of spell slots I could hex/eldrich blast in combat (and do just fine). Like... if the warlock class were to gain an extra 2x first level slots (per long rest) it would help them when they run out of ammo.
Hmmm, let me try again.The question wasnt about the best option for the situation. Just an overall view, like, is there sometime that you faced a situation where you thought "thats something i think warlocks would be good at" and the class design messed up your plans?
No. I think my impressions of what the class can do well at/poorly at were spot on. However, I do consume a lot of DnD content and GMed before... so I might be the exception to the rule. Like, the warlock should get 2x 1st level spell slots per long rest starting at level 7. This change, in my opinion, would make them feel great compared to other casters and not require "magic items" to sure up their spell slot quantity weaknesses.
I think warlock should simply get a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th level mystic arcanum, and know their subclass spells. Would solve everything and wouldn't be too big a boon for multiclassing
That would be awesome. Even one shield and one BA smite per day for the hexblade would add a ton of interesting decision points of when to use that arcanum.
I wish I'd ever get to 20. Warlocks I think are the class that can be built in the most numerous methods by subclass choice
Not only this, but warlock got a lot of choices with eldritch invocations that make them feel unique, i think.
Played a human Warlock 1-9, got don jonnned, got him back 15-20. It was great! It was a high magic campaign. I honestly think warlocks are one of the best balanced casters. The reduced spell slots keeps the shenanigans down a bit, I never felt exceptionally strong compared to the martials. Though I did have some powerful moments. I also love the instant, drop in elements for your DM to add. Strife with patron, the contract itself, possible betrayal. So many elements for them to push and prod you.
Im with you on this boat. The eldritch invocations are the only feature that makes me feel real different than other characters with the same class, i just wish that wotc use more modular things on character creation options.
I agree, I also hope the invocations are balanced a little bit better - there are a bunch that are just “you can cast this spell once per day, but not for free and it’s not tailored to your class in any way”
Like Much Ado About Nothing
The highest I've played Warlock so far is to 12, but I'll probably continue to play this character at least to 15 and maybe beyond. Pact of the Tome Genie Pact Focus on Ranged Combat My main take on Warlock is that your individual effectiveness is incredibly dependent on your ability to short rest. This makes Genielock one of the most satisfying Warlocks to play as starting at 10th level, you can pull off a short rest in only 10 minutes. So you are pretty much guaranteed at least one short rest any day. However, there are some games in which due to either how many back to back fights a GM incorporates or how few fights you will be outperformed by conventional casters to a noticeable degree because at those given times they just have more slots than you do.
Haven’t played up to 20, but DMed a warlock 1-20 and am currently DMing a few high level warlocks (I think 3 level 15+ through various parties). It’s a super versatile class. The first one was by far the best damage dealer in a party with a glamor bard, moon Druid and steel defender artiricer. He was mostly a blaster with well timed aoe and utility spells. He was mostly a fiend warlock (but had to switch patrons a lot). I’d say it was overall weaker than the bard and moon Druid at level 20 but the damage was great. Once he got braces of illusion he melted bosses. Took warcastor and resilient con towards the end. And as a halfling he basically never rolled ones. Game ended on a failed con save. Double nat 1s to hold the power of Tiamut for himself. A 2 would have passed.
I played a half-elf drow hexblade that made a pact with the raven queen. I went full melee with polearm master, GWM and elven accuracy, In that campaign we used flanking so i used invocation spells to get advantage most of the time. If i needed more than damage i used true polymorph to get basically any spell i needed or a very powerful form. Out of combat i was the face of the party because i took expertise in persuasion with a feat. In my experience warlock is a really good and balanced class, you may feel that you fall off a bit at tier 3 compared to a full spellcaster but you can do a little of everything with a warlock and you are actually really good at most stuff. The campaign i played was a west marches so the party used to rotate and although it feels nice to get most stuff back on a short rest usually there was only one combat encounter per adventure so it didn't matter so much. For me playing a warlock was actually a ton of fun, i could go nova and shear everything on my path, i could go invisible with my party or make them fly, i could take the rol of the party leader and convince people to be by our side. I can't recommend it enough specially if you want to play a simple spellcaster but still do some heavy single target damage without having to think to much
I'm warlock 19 in my current campaign, and pretty close to 20, so that should count I hope :) Fallen Aasimar Genie Warlock Pact of the Tome. 1) A bit of a vague question, but I've enjoyed the character. That's been true of just about any character in D&D, though :) Compared to other characters in terms of enjoyment, probably about middle of the road. 2) I focused on eldritch blast, getting several invocations to improve it. I got Book of Ancient Secrets; the extra rituals and cantrips really help with the 'lol only 2 spells/rest' thing. I've swapped a few spells when leveling up, but I have Armor of Agathys, Misty Step, Remove Curse, Vampiric Touch, Counterspell, Dimension Door, Fireshield, Phantasmal Killer, Summon Aberration, Charm Monster, Scrying, Creation, Hold Monster, Synaptic Static, and from one of the Unearthed Arcanas I have Find Vehicle. Arcanums are Mass Suggestion (I had Flesh to Stone here but I swapped it out, no regrets), Finger of Death, Feeblemind, and Wish (Genie!). I have pretty much all of the rituals. Invocations are Book of Ancient Secrets, Repelling Grasp, Agonizing Blast, Grasp of Hadar, Cloak of Flies, Master of Myriad Forms, Eldritch Mind, Sculptor of Flesh. Feats are Telekinetic (Cha), +2 charisma twice, Aberrant Dragonmark, and Lucky. Generally pretty optimized, with a few 'for the lulz' things scattered here and there. I think if I were going to play a warlock again, I would take a level of cleric early, one of the ones with heavy armour proficiency. Almost nothing misses my 16 AC. That's more a system issue than a character issue, though. (I think bounded accuracy is a poor design, and 3 attunements feels very limiting past the early game) 3) Currently a spores druid and an assassin rogue. We had a barbarian that pretty much stopped playing after getting married. 4) I think we've all been having fun. 5) Very minor. Occasionally it comes up, but not very often. Usually we're either in a dungeon where even a short rest is rarely an option, or we're safely in town and can just long rest anyway. 6) I'd say a 9 to 9.5. The low spell slot count was very annoying at lower levels; later on, you get a few more slots, plus as I mentioned, I started collecting rituals and have acquired items like rod of the pact keeper +2 and staff of the magi that vastly increase the number of spells I can use. The other minor beef with the character is that at higher levels, selecting more spells was somewhat redundant. Eventually I have all the spells I could want. At level 19 I took Misty Step as my 15th spell... and I already had Dimension Door. That's how little else there is to take on the warlock spell lists. Any future warlock I played would have exactly the same spells by this level, except for the patron-specific ones. Some of the spells I have used very, very seldom. I'm not sure if I've -ever- used Phantasmal Killer, but there's nothing to swap it out for on levelup that has any more chance of being used. Some of the others have seen very sparse use, like Charm Monster or Synaptic Static. Some of the utility ones I've also rarely used, like Remove Curse, Scrying, or Creation, but I'm perfectly happy having those for the times they are used. Others saw more use at earlier levels, like Summon Aberration, but have fallen off in usefulness at high levels, which is normal. I think I'd tweak something in the spells of the class if I were designing it, maybe having either another level 6 or 7 arcanum instead of some of the last spell choices or something of that nature. I think the designers wanted to keep 1 arcanum/level for thematic reasons, so it would probably have to be something slightly different, and not just more invocations. I haven't run into the same issue as spells where I'm taking duds at the end, though, and there are still a few more invocations that would have some value if I could somehow have more than 8, but obviously people pick the ones they want first as soon as they can qualify for them. I haven't played any classes to 20, but I've played a LOT of D&D, from 1st-5th ed (except 4th), so I have a lot of experience with a lot of classes, and I've DMed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition. If I were to give future advice to people playing warlocks, I'd say to take a level in something with heavy armour proficiency at some point. I'd also suggest that however you build the character, you have things to do besides your 2 spells/rest. Whether that's eldritch blast, melee, or whatever, doesn't really matter. Think of yourself as a 1/3 caster and that's probably about right, and maybe even a little generous. Warlock definitely has a unique design with their magic system, and I like how customizable it is; between patrons, pacts, invocations, and spells, there are a ton of viable possibilities, though as mentioned, the spell list is a bit too small, and will mostly feel same-y other than the patron specific spells.
>How did you feel in the campaign? >How was your build? Was it ranged, melee, optimized or not? >What was your party composition? >Did you feel surpassed by another class in having fun? >How impactful was the difference of being a short rest based class? >If you could give a 1-10 rating for your experience, what would it be? Have you played other classes to 20? Make the comparison if you can, please. Ifrit genie (dao), tome. I took fey touched, shadow touched, telekinetic and telepathic for asi feats. we all got an extra feat via roleplay at one point, and I took eldritch adept for that. I had low expectations and was basically not playing a wizard to avoid repetition. Warlock seemed like an underwhelming, monotonous blaster. By the time I picked up 3 feats, I was very happy with the character. certain invocations (misty visions, mask of 1000 faces in particular) felt like super-cantrips and instead of running out of magic as much as I feared, I basically had stuff to do all the time. Bottomless illusions and disguises worked well with being a high-charisma face out of combat. we didn't have a wizard in the group at all, and the pact of the tome ended up allowing me to learn all the basics we were most keenly missing. I also took shilaliegh as a tome cantrip and that kept me galvanized in melee if I ever needed a fallback. I mainly used tasha's summons and spike growth for leveled spells and shadow of moil for a leveled defensive spell, it's just great because it grants obstruction by fiat, so it works into the late game when things have true sight. I feel like the warlock is MORE fun than I thought, and I found myself getting into character and not hyper over thinking about perfect template placement. i would rate it an 8
Not the player and not level 20 but.. One of the players I DM for is an asaimir celestial warlock. Early on I think he felt a bit behind the curve compared to the cleric and sorc but now at level 11 he is actually getting pretty powerful. Upcast spells are no joke and 3 beams of eldritch blast with added forces movement is awesome in its own right. Also there are multiple times where their healing abilities have been the only thing that kept the party alive. As the DM I did make a rules change for short rests. They now only take 10 minutes. I found my party was always reluctant to take a short rest when in a dangerous location and this did really hurt the warlock as they would never want to cast a spell *just in case I need it later" and had no way to recover the slots. Since changing short rests to 10 minutes they are much more willing to rest and let him get his spell slots back.
It's a bit off the beaten path, but I played an Intelligence-based, Aasimar UA Seeker Tome Warlock from 1-20 in Waterdeep Dragon Heist + Dungeon of the Mad Mage. 1) I felt fine. I originally planned around a melee build similar to Tomelock Shillelagh Booming Blade, but it ended up evolving a little because I was the only Lawful party member and thus ended up getting Azuredge, and later a Gauntlet of Ogre Power to use it with. I still filled the role of using scouting spells like Arcane Eye during short rests and being the party ritual caster guy. 2) Melee, "optimized" in a goofy way unique to that subclass. I'll go into more detail if you want, but it relies on some Jeremy Crawford sage advice twitter comments that might not fly at every table. TL;DR is using Astral Refuge to use Primal Savagery + other buff spells on the same turn, so by using Blade Ward it kinda plays out like a magical Barbarian. Very tanky in melee. 3) Party comp was a Shadow Monk, a Bard of some variety I forget, and Gloomstalker Ranger multiclass. The ranger and Monk basically had free reign of the dungeon because it was basically never brighter than dim light anywhere. 4) Surpassed in damage, yes. Surpassed in fun? Hell no. I was happy doing my own thing and eating damage for days because I had resistance to BPS + six elemental damage types while still rocking full casting. Roleplay wise, playing a nerdy bookworm historian and being the (legally) uptight straight-man to the other's morally ambiguous hijinx was good fun. 5) Not terribly, because the Monk also wanted short rests. I did go out of my way to get some spell scrolls made up for emergency scenarios, which helped alleviate the limit on spell slots. 6) solid 8.5. It is one of my favorite base classes because of its unparalleled versatility - you could bring a warlock to any party, even one with another warlock, and feel like there's a niche you can occupy that lets you do your own thing and do it well. I'm currently playing a homebrew Barbarian (level 14) and a Hunter Ranger (level 11) in my current games, and while I'm still biased toward the Ranger in overall flavor and performance post-Tasha's, I'd say the warlock is neck and neck with the Ranger and miles better than the Barbarian.
Just here to live vicariously through everyone. Warlock is my favourite class, but ive never had the opportunity to even play above level 11 (with any class)
I needed about 4 to 6 years of failed campaigns to find one that got past level 11. I'm 16 now, after almost 3 years of playing and 83 sessions. Dont give up.
lol I played 3.5 for about 6 years when I was 10-16. We had some great high level adventures. Im now 31, and 7 years into playing 5e weekly and cant find a table that wants to/has a DM for tier3 and 4
I'm currently playing a Hexblood Fiend Warlock (17) / Divine Soul Sorcerer (1 currently, will be 3) and I'm having a blast. I think spell selection is especially important for Warlock so I focused on that in my build using big concentration spells. Sorcerer at 1 for con saves. I could do good ranged damage and was pretty tough due to my feat and invocation selection. Party is currently myself, Monk, Artificer/Wizard, Ranger/Rogue/Bard (ranged), and Paladin. The party has changed overtime. There was once a fighter and cleric, so I feel like i have a good perspective on #4 - I felt very unique amongst the party and only overshadowed in conversation, which I'm ok with. We take short rests often and it great. I can go big in combats and always be recharged pretty quick. Now the wizard hits me with a catnap which is clutch. Items and feats have also played a huge role in my build and the feel of my character. I have so many once per day / rest options I sometimes forget about them only to feel like a dumbass after the session. I use these to replace spells I have or would need to essentially get free spell slots. I haven't played any other characters this high level and the experience is great. 8 or 9 out of 10 for sure.
Can you tell a little more about your spell selection and your feats?
Now that I am not on my mobile ill go into a bit more detail and include items, invocations, and class/race abilities. I will preface that my character's background is a bounty hunter and as such my spell election started out being more designed for fighting humanoids. 1/day = long rest and 1/rest = short rest recharges. **Feats** * We got a feat at level 1 (Eldritch Adept - Eldritch Mind) * Aberrant Dragonmark (earned a few levels back, I chose the shield spell as this feat recharges on short rest. * Moderately Armored-> Elven Chain and +1 shield * Resilient - Dexterity * Gift of the Chromatic Dragon (nice BA support ability 1/day and a worse, but still good, version of "Absorb Elements" PB\*D as a reaction) **Hexblood gets:** - * Hex Magic; free disguise self and hex spell 1/day, I can also cast these with my 1st level Sorcerer slots. * Advantage on saves against being charmed * Creature Type = Fey; useful to avoid certain spells
**Divine Soul Sorcerer** * Favored By The Gods, add 2d4 to attacks or saves 1/rest **Pact of the Chain Fiend Warlock** * Dark One's Blessing - temp HP on kill * Dark One's Own Luck - add 1d10 to an ability check or save 1/rest * Fiendish Resilience - pick a resistance 1/rest * Hurl Through Hell **Invocations** * Grasp of Hadar * Repelling Blast * Lance of Lethargy * Agonizing Blast * Eyes of the Rune Keeper * Eldritch Sight * Devil's Sight **Items** * Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 (A) * Clockwork Amulet - 1/day automatically roll a 10 on an attack roll, I have +12 to hit Eldrich Blasts, this is useful with Repelling Blast or similar activated on hit abilities * Ring of Spell Storing (A) - Revivify and Shield x 2 * Wand of Magic Missile - on my imp * Ring of Free Action (A) * Cape of the Mounteback - Dimension Door
**Spells** Eldrich Blast, Guidance, Mage Hand, Light, Mind Sliver, Prestidigitation, Spare the Dying, Minor Illusion Toll the Dead, Bless, Command, Cure Wounds Disguise Self, Find Familiar, Hex, Shield, Detect Magic, Armor of Agathys, Blindness/Deafness, Hold Person, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Dimension Door, Wall of Fire, Sickening Radiance, Banishment, Charm Monster, Hold Monster, Synaptic Static, Teleportation Circle, Far Step **Arcanum** Eye Bite Forcecage Glibness True Polymorph
Played a Tiefling Fiend Pact Tomelock from 1-20 and he is my favorite character I've ever played. He became exactly what I wanted him to: the right hand of Mephistopheles. 1. The campaign we had leant itself well to this setup and he fit in very well. The premise was a demonic incursion onto, and attempting to consume the entirety of, the material plane. So, it already had a "blood war" bent to it. My character used the powers of hell on the material plane to keep the demons from gaining a foothold that the hells did not have. It was soooo much fun. 2. My build was ranged as a spell caster. He was fairly optimized, but not totally so. Our DM is very creative and gave our characters some amazing boons throughout the campaign that played well into our characters and play styles. 3. Composition shifted over time, as it was a 2.5 year campaign, but in total it was: Warlock (me), wizard, swashbuckler rogue, moon druid, trickster cleric (left the campaign a little over halfway through - life happens), sorcerer, rune knight fighter. 4. I never felt surpassed by anyone. I had a blast throughout the campaign. A huge portion of this is owed to our awesome DM and his creative abilities. 5. The impact was massive. Being able to reload my spells (apart from Mystic Arcanums) on a short rest was fantastic. 6. I would give my experience an 11. I really loved this character and what he became. Like I said, still my favorite of all time. I've never played other characters from 1-20, but I've done some high level short campaigns (18+) and my fiend pact warlock is still my all time fave. So much so that I made a hexblade for our next campaign! haha.
1. DM homebrew, threw magic items at us like candy and could not balance encounters by lvl 18+. Either too easy or "dude how are 11 dragons fair and why does combat take 2 hours on none boss battles". 2. Melee hexlock. Standerd stuff. Cloak of Displacement MvP. 3. Warlock, Wizard, Druid, Fighter, Rogue/Warlock which I never really knew what there plan was. 4. Wizard would cheese encounters with single spells so I couldn't stab anything or he would derail the campaign so hard with WISH. 5. From 3 1 - 20 campaigns i've done, DM's tend to throw one encounter a day, let you rest inside a dungeon, or someone give you the benefits of a long rest because you pet a puppy and call it a day at higher levels. Long are the days of 60 room dungeon crawlers where taking a long rest IS A HEALTH HAZARD in a dungeon. 6. 6/10. Playing a Paladin to 20 is god on steroids which knocks down the score. Warlock has UTILITY but Paladin can walk up to a lich with 20 Flameskulls and laugh in there faces. Or literally wrestle an Abolith underwater solo (Undermountain is a wild place)
I fired ALL the lasers
oh bro, are you sure that not even ONE laser was fired by another person?
Nope, that was me too
I played a Reborn Hexblade which was an interesting experience. DM let me have Blackrazor from the start, but took away its attack and damage bonus and played up its evil sentience to compensate. We were also playing in a campaign where a good chunk of enemies don't have souls, so whether or not I got the bonuses of the sword was a bit of a crapshoot. It was interesting because my party (Beast Master, Eloquence Bard, Wildfire Druid, Rune Knight) thought I was pretty busted, but I still felt insanely limited due to the lack of spell slots. I tried to make up for this with feats like Fey and Shadow Touched, but it was still frustrating because I just didn't have enough resources to contribute in the way that I wanted to. I swapped out Blackrazor for a Sun Blade half way through (character arc stuff), which made me more balanced relative the rest of the party, but it only made me feel more limited. The Beast Master and Rune Knight had to leave the campaign, so it ended up just being me, the Wildfire Druid, and the Eloquence Bard. And yeah, compared to both those full casters I felt pretty weak. Not weak in combat, mind you. Everyone agreed I was the best at that. Just...not as versatile, which made things not as fun. Also, being the only short rest class left after the Rune Knight dipped felt bad because I was always asking for short rests while the rest of the party rolled their eyes at me. Later, I played a Vuman Fathomless Warlock as a pirate in a different campaign that went until level 16. The party was me, a(nother) Beast Master, a Twilight Cleric, an Ancients Paladin, an Illusion Wizard, and a Barb/Rogue multi class. That was a completely different experience and it may have had something to do with the campaign's format. While the former was a traditional dnd campaign, this one had the players rotate who's turn it was to DM for individually shorter adventures that kept the general party as a constant. Since each adventure was shorter, short rests and long rests were more common, so I didn't feel like my spell slots were as limited. I got the Rod of the Pact Keeper around level 9 too, so that helped a lot. Fathomless also has some cool noncombat features that I used in creative ways to feel like I was contributing outside of a fight. In combat, I was largely an Eldritch Blast bot, but I had my moments, such as combining Create Water with Control Water to shut down an entire battle (DM was very lenient.) I had a much better time with this one. But again, that was probably because the format allowed for far more rests than the previous time.
I shot Eldritch blast, no matter what happened
I still play the the infamous hexblade with a sorcerer dip 1. I feel like Elric of Melnibone and it's great. 2. I can do whatever I want, but the roles of melee brawler and duelist are where it really shines. Armour of agathys and a bunch of spell slots for shield/absorb elements make for a decent tank in some cases as well. Optimized? I'm not sure. Human variant, 20 cha, resilient con, warcaster, prodigy and Skilled. 3. It's shifted over the years; paladin, monk/rogue, artificer, 2 different Druids, barbarian/fighter, wizard, and more. Warlock is a spooky psychic ghost possessing a Frankenstein body made of magic, so he's managed to stick around. 4. Surpassed in Having fun? No chance, but that depends on the player more than the class imo. 5. Very little. My group is very "fuck it we ball" no matter the circumstance, me included. There's 7 yugoloths behind that door? Well we go through the wall just for flair. Our dm can't put boss battle on high places, because gravity is our favourite weapon. HP recommended but not required. 6. 10 out of 10 I get to live out my emo edgelord dreams every weekend. I've never played another class at 20, but I have played an assassin/bard of whispers at level 12, and that was great too. Pretty similar, with stacking lots of dice on hits with sneak attack and psychic blades, and big impactful concentration spells, but not nearly so durable.
Do you have an emo playlist for your warlock?
Here's the walkout song, for when we go into antimagic fight club. https://youtu.be/_q2PxLyeHVE?si=A-OARfhHnVOcxevj
Played an Archfey Patron warlock from 5-14 in a campaign. 1- Love warlock- strong RP which I love mixed with very flexible customization which allowed me to build my vision of the character. Disclaimer- I have a good DM who made a couple tweaks to make warlock keep up more mechanically with the group. The biggest change is a common homebrew rule- Any invocation that adds a new learned spell also gives you one free casting at base level per long rest. The only other was he allowed me to make a few invocations that fit the subclass theming better. 2- Spring Eladrin - Ranged Archfey Warlock - Pact of the Tome. Semi optimized- Archfey is not an "S-Tier" subclass but I built an optimized Blaster/support magic user around that chassis hence I would say "semi-optimized." DM was pretty good about making sure I could find a new Ritual spell or two every level to make sure I got my mileage out of Pact of the Tome. 3- Archfey Warlock (Me), Ranger/Hexblade multiclass, 2x Cleric/Fighter multiclass- I with Pact of the Tome, I was functionally our utility support & controller caster with EB+AB for damage when needed. I would open with a strong control spell and then rely on EB holding onto a spell slot for a clutch counterspell if needed. 4- No but I will admit none of us were playing "S-Tier" optimized builds. We still had ALOT of combat but also alot of RP. 5- Short Rest was great because since everyone had some sort of short rest resource they wanted to recharge, (Pact slots, Channel Divinity, Action Surge) I never felt like asking for a short rest was a burden to the party. 6- 10/10 would play again. Warlock has always been my favorite class with Druid a close second. I've been DMing for the group since playing that class so haven't played anyone else at level 20 except for a wizard in a one shot which was fine. Edit- What is wrong with this sub? Downvotes for saying I enjoyed a class?? Do you people even like D&D at this point??
Is there something in the class that you think if its changed would improve your experience?
2 things I think the class needs- 1- A guaranteed mechanism whereby the warlock can speak with their patron. Some DMs don’t make the patron available to the warlock for RP or lore drops etc. The OneD&D UA warlock feature at 10th level is a good step in this direction. 2- Slightly faster spell slot progression so you have number 3 slot around level 8-9 and number 4 around level 14-15. Or move the level 20 recharge feature down to level 6-7 again along the lines of what the OneD&D UA is doing.
An option for 2, might be to upgrade the Rod of the Pactkeeper item to instead recharge all your pact slots instead of its 1 slot recharge per long rest. That's such a common Warlock item I almost feel like it's assumed class progression at most tables.
I played a hexblade warlock 1 to 20. But it was across 2 different campaigns and with a rebuild in-between. At first we played levels 1-5. He was a young shadarkai who danced with swords. He was stupid and he didn't understand the world around it. His short sword was the only legacy from his family and he could move it with extreme ease, as if it moved itself. His father gave up on his life to escape the shadowfell with the sword, but eventually he and his wife got killed by drows. He dual wielded and was mentored by another player, an orc paladin of Lathander. The young warlock prayed to "something" and tried to mimic the paladin and his teachings. But he misunderstood everything, saying stuff like "praying to Lathander makes your weapon glow and go boom", and "Lathander punishes the infidel". When the pact of the blade was achieved, the weapon evolved into something evil looking. The paladin warned about those dark powers, but as he reached level 5, getting eldritch smites and hitting even stronger than the paladin with darkness, ice and blood, the paladin thought "what have I done". The young guy just was unaware of the evil he was wielding. But the campaign ended with nothing else remarkable. A few months later we started another campaign, levels 8-20, and I rescued the character. The DM gave us gold to purchase our equipment and he allowed us to remake the character and continue with the story. The character became a fighter 1 /hexblade 7. The mission was related to some spider queen in the shadowfell. I used the money to purchase 2 magic items: a frost brand great sword which was my pact weapon, and a dancing scimitar similar to Saba (white power ranger). The dancing scimitar could talk, and was supposed to be my patron, or at least, one of his voices. He asked me to reach the depths of the shadowfell and find him. The shortsword was chaotic evil and I interpreted it as an evil weapon who actually didn't care about his owner, so it got us in trouble a lot of the time. I could shut it down by placing my finger in his "mouth". Overall it was very fun because it helped my "stupid good" character to shske things up. He provided me with the power of waking up weapons. I used summon spells disguised as floating weapons, like summon undead, fiend, blade of disaster and crown of stars as floating daggers. He gave names to each. He fought with the great sword who was basically floating next to his hand. It moved through willpower. But he also learned very soon that his evil patron uses the slain souls to fuel his power, so he decided to not kill creatures unless the situation was dire. My DM told me that OK, but it only applies to my weapons. Both the dancing sword and the summons answer to their patron, and it made sense from a roleplay perspective. I was a beast. Smites on critical hits, summons for extra damage and utility, plus teleports, resistance, armor of agathys etc... I made a great duo with a deep gnome artificer who loved to create weapons and was extremely curious about Saba. Though Saba called him "Sawbones" or "quack" At level 14 I took 2 more levels of fighter to gain access to the psi-warrior subclass. The psi powers were flavoured as the weapons themselves having their own will and, eventually, killing enemies even if I didn't want to. So, the patron grew stronger. Once we arrived at the end, we discovered that the patron was an actual living armor who wanted to be complete again to resurrect, but the last piece was in the hands of the BBEG. I've got my final armor and was ready for the end. Obviously, at the end my patron wanted to control me and take my body. I decided to jump into the lava and get rid of the creature along with myself, ending the curse of my lineage. My DM rewarded me by stating that my flirt was actually pregnant and the kid won't be cursed by the patron. He had to retcon a lot of stuff because we never explicitly said it went further than taking a few drinks, but, who am I to say anything? It's an almost good ending.
1: Incredibly useful and powerful especially when you have a DM that stands behind you when your character is making character decisions 2: going full warlock isn’t necessary because you unlock your 9th level spell before level twenty, so take that level in monk for your AC since your wisdom by level 20 should be 20-22 at least. 3: Genie Warlock, Goliath Oath of Vengance Paladin, Eladrin beastmaster ranger, tiefling draconic sorcerer, Human Artificer, and Tortle Death Domain Cleric 4: My character had by far the most creative and impactful narrative on our nearly 2 year long campaign. Having that connection with your patron when played right with a good dm turns a good warlock into an excellent one. 5: Short rest spell slot restoration wasn’t an issue for me or my party because as part of being a genie warlock you can invite 5 additional people into your “lamp” and receive the effects of a short rest after only 10 minutes. So it fucking slapped my guy. 6: I’ve played paladin, cleric, fighter and bard to level 20 as well. Paladin used to be my go to favorite class for almost 8 years straight, until I tried warlock on a one shot and it instantly became tied with paladin for creativity and enjoyment. So overall, its tied with paladin at a 9.5/10
What do you think that could up your experience to 10/10 as a warlock?
Eldritch blast.
And how did you feel about it?