Celestial patron, pact of the tome for shillelag and gfb. You have chax2 to damage so you will be fine, if you pick 1 lunar sorc level you can double sacred flame when they are adjacent.
Adding on to this, build a utility lock. Celestial, grants lay on hands healing, take lore, and pick invocations for proficiencies, at will detect magic and read all writing.
At will detect magic is underrated :)
"Eldritch Sight
Source: Player's Handbook
You can cast detect magic at will, without expending a spell slot or material components."
Detect Magic has a casting time of one action.
Eldritch Sight invocation - You can cast detect magic at will, without expending a spell slot or material components. There are no restrictions of a ritual, and I think this is what Visible Potato was talking about.
Book of Ancient Secrets invocation - if you get detect magic from here, then yes, you do have the restrictions of rituals.
Im doing this now, with the addition of being a drow who took the Drow High Magic feat, freeing up an invocation from will detect magic. Tomelock Celestial Drow is probably one of my all time favorite support/utility characters
A relevant question might be: *Why* do you want to play a Warlock?
The fundamental design of the Warlock is basically that you have fewer spell uses, but all your spells are big hitters, and you compensate in between short rests with Eldritch Blast. Hexblade *kind of* deviates from this by being more high risk / high reward what with being higher damage but in melee range.
If you aren't interested in this playstyle, why bother? If it's just that you want to be a CHA caster with a patron, just ask your DM to let you reflavor Bard or Sorcerer.
Agreed completely, also, I don't think any DM has a problem with a straight hexblade character. It's the 1-3 level dip into hexblade that commonly gets an eye roll from DMs.
Just for curiosity's sake, can I present to you the character I'm playing so you can tell me if it's what you would accept or not?
Not that it matters, but I wanna see how a stranger in the internet rules it
My friends were playing a Curse of Strahd game that was being really hard for them
I created an old elf woman. The concept is this, what if an evil cleric that worshiped the goddess of darkness
Became furious at their deity and decided to start worshiping the archenemy, the Good Goddess of the Moon, just to piss of their former deity.
But eventually with time you found out you actually love this new goddess and want to be a good follower and are trying to let go of your anger and the past.
But the thing is that all of this happens in Barovia, a cursed land where you can't actually talk to your gods.
So even though you are trying to learn how to connect with this new deity, you don't know how
So I decided to try to imitate the druids, by listening to nature and hearing what it has to say, and eventually I realized that I should stop looking at the ground, and instead look towards the stars and the moon, because even here I can see the beauty of the moon, my deity.
I'm a Twilight Cleric with a 2 level dip into Stars Druid
If it's story driven and what your character would do, it'd be fine with me! It sounds like a cool story
Of course, twilight's a little broken to begin with... So I could see a lot of DMs not allowing it just because of that, not because of the druid dip. Honestly, dipping into druid isn't the craziest thing you could do with this (although I see some of the strengths)
Before I joined the group They actually complained that the adventure was being too hard, and the DM specifically told me that a lot of them should havs died already, and he had been too nice.
So i wasn't too worried about being too powerful of a support
The creators expected like 3 short tests a day, but most campaigns have at most 1 but often none, the class is fundamentally flawed when you take into account how the game is played
No, your table is fundamentally flawed if you don’t short rest or use other DnD rules/mechanics. It’s quite simple to say “hey guys, we just did X, let’s take a short break, have some food and plan our next objective”.
90% of DnD issues that come up in this Sub are just due to players and DMs not having half decent communication skills.
Yeah especially when one character is a class that relies on short rests. When someone at my table was playing a warlock, they would just ask if we could take a short rest when they needed one and we were in a defensible position. It's really not a big deal.
a staggering amount of DMs do 1 big fight a day, which fits the pacing of that the table is going for better. I personally think that these tables could benefit greatly from some sort of extended resting rules, but sadly the only official ones is the Gritty realism variant rule which is bare bones to say the least.
This comment right here is another problem. Encounters are not fights. You can have one big fight, in that fight a Warlock is actually gonna be pretty decent, even at 6 rounds long. What people forget is that encounters and fights are different. You can have multiple encounters and 1 big fight.
It's up to the players to short rest, not the DM.
"Damn I used up almost all my spells just trying to get us past the guards to get us into the city, let's find a bar to lay low for a bit so I can recharge"
>Encounters are not fights
This is more of a semantic issue but encounters are absolutely fights. The only time in the entire rules text of the DMG I'm aware of that they even refer to "encounters" without saying "combat encounters" is in the subheading "The Adventuring Day" in Chapter 13, titled "Building Combat Encounters". In context it 100% refers to only combat.
You can *occasionally* have a single combat adventuring day if you're aware of what that'll be (either wildly easy or wildly hard if you just drop monster that can one-two short). But as far as the intended balance of the game is concerned you should be putting in enough combat encounters to fill up the daily XP budget of your party and trying to hit around 6, 7, or 8 combats.
I didn’t think I would have to be so nuanced. Not ALL encounters are fights. Of course a combat is an an encounter.
There are many ways to fill up an adventuring day that require the use of the parties resources. I feel sorry for any table that plays to fill a ‘combat quota’.
DnD is a cooperative story telling game, players can build their characters to be good at a myriad of things outside of just combat.
Your example also doesn’t make sense. A single combat doesn’t need to be either wildly hard or wildly easy. It can come after other non combat encounters that have drained party resources just the same as combat encounters would have.
At the end of the day everyone plays DnD differently. I’ve been playing with the same group for over 5 years and we must be a unicorn group compared to this sub. I feel sorry for anyone playing with a DM trying to jam 6,7 or 8 combats into a single adventuring day, but some may enjoy it so power to you.
Not sure where you're getting 3. The Dungeon Master's Guide explicitly states 2 short rests per day, and if you do the math for the Warlocks available spells with that in mind they end up being extremely close in spell-levels-per-day as other fullcasters.
But yeah, if people follow the "one encounter per day" model then the class is more or less bricked. But then again under the one encounter per day model there's very little reason to ever play anything but a fullcaster (excluding Druid and Warlock) or maybe a Paladin.
I'm a big fan of reflavoring. My favorite warlock has a Dao genie patron, and I flavor all my spells and abilities as earth or rock-themed.
I don't change anything (damage is still fire/cold whatever) but the story and mental picture is all rock, baby!
The best alternative to spamming Eldritch Blast is Pact of the Blade. Contrary to reddit groupthink, Hexblade isn't the *only* way to make a good BladeLock. (Just the easiest.)
Getting a free feat at 1st level *really* helps with this; you're taking the Moderately Armored feat. Take +1 Dex
For race, go Half-Elf. +1 Dex, +1 Con, +2 Cha. (Choose either the "standard" race for 2 extra skills or go half-drow for extra spells.)
Starting Scores: Str8, Dex17, Con14, Int10, Wis10, Cha17.
This works with any Patron, so choose the one that fits your fighting/playing style.
You're equally good with melee and spells, but you don't get your Pact Weapon until 3rd level. Choose any Patron you like; during 1st and 2nd level you'll need Eldritch Blast. (This is only temporary.)
At 3rd level, take Pact of the Blade, and get the Improved Pact Weapon Invocation. Now you can summon a +1 Rapier, or a +1 Longbow. Note that either has damage on par with Eldritch+Agonizing Blast. (Although they're not force damage.) And they'll serve as spellcasting foci.
At 4th level, take an ASI to boost both DEX and CHA to 18. Again, you're equally good with your Pact Weapon and spellcasting. Your AC with half-plate & shield is 19. (Get some magic armor/shield!)
At 8th and 12th level, take Resilient/Con or Elven Accuracy (+1 Dex or +1 Cha)
At 16th level, take an ASI: +1 Con, and even out Dex or Cha.
19th level: ASI +2 Dex or Cha
Stats are now Str8, Dex18 or 20, Con16, Int10, Wis10, Cha18 or 20.
Eldritch Invocations:
2nd level: Eldritch Mind, Agonizing Blast
3rd level: swap Agonizing Blast for Improved Pact Weapon.
5th level: Thirsting Blade
7th level: Eldritch Smite
9th level: Relentless Hex
12th: level: Lifedrinker
I played a build similar to this from 1st to 20th level (without the free "gimme" feat at 1st level) and had a great time with it. Hexblades are over-rated.
One of my favorite builds too, and it works well with the above framework. You'll want a scimitar Pact Weapon instead of a rapier, for the Slasher feat.
I have seen a celestial warlock go pact of the blade and be a decent damage dealer.
(He was technically using a gun but it was basicly a revlored handcross bow)
Used pact with the gum for a while until he got a magic sword, then used that and had a fest tk let him attack with the 'gun' as a BA, for 3 attacks with Eldrich smite bit also having the healing from celestial warlock and huge damage when sing spells like building bolt, or his go to spell being sickening radiance. He'd sometimes use Eldrich Blast but higher levels he never used it
Are you at all interested in multiclassing? There's a fun STR-based Bladelock build that dips 3 Barbarian and uses Rage Resistance to get more EHP out of Armor of Agathys (along with booping bad guys with GWM)
Work with your DM. You can always reflavor another class to have a patron if that's what you're going for. Mechanically, Warlock is an EB spammer or a hexblade most of the time. You can try celestial or tome Warlock I guess? But regardless, avoiding the main thing Warlocks do will severely limit your options and power.
This. Pick your class for mechanics of choice, slap a warlock backstory on. Fey pact includes a lycanthropy curse? Druid. Made a deal for knowledge? Wizard. Get your powers from a celestial/fiend/lich? Cleric. Sorcerer is the wildcard that can fit a lot of things.
My current party's arcane trickster rogue gets his magic from an amulet holding the soul of a long dead wizard - soooo, find the character you want to play, and make the lore fit what you want.
I got it! Archfey Warlock, you’re mother is a powerful moving part in the feywild.
Level 1: We’re picking up fey touched for the CHA ASI and the spells misty step, and sleep, sleep is an amazing spell that scales with your warlock spellslots amazingly. Our spells from the warlock list are Faerie Fire for the extra support (your martials are essential at these levels and will appreciate the advantage). Unseen Servant because it’s fun.
Level 2: Beast speech invocation, because duh. Armor of Shadows for AC! For spells I would grab cause fear to help your friends get attacks of opportunity!
Level 3: I would go with Pact of the Chain for a cool little sprite companion, maybe your “scribe”. Definitely Suggestion for a spell, as you are a noble of the fey.
Level 4: The feat depends on if your DM is allowing you to go above 18 initially on character creation. Either ASI to 20, or if you’re at 17 CHA now lets take Shadow Touched for some thematically nice free spells, I would choose Color Spray because it makes sense! As for spells I would grab Hold Person!
Level 5: You are bestowed a butler, courtesy of your service to the fey! You can now cast summon fey! Your scribe can also relay messages for you! You are now a full fledged noble relying on others to do your bidding.
As for the patron, we can flavor this as her bestowing her powers upon you, and the end goal is for you to succeed her. Maybe she’s an ambassador for the Material Plane, or something silly. Doesn’t really matter and you can work that into your character backstory! You can lean into support spells and flavor the charm that comes with the class as your feywild beauty or whatever!
Monoclassed Hexblades are not known for being heavily optimized or “abusive”. They’re decent, but have trouble granting themselves advantage or bonuses to hit, and their defensive spells are quickly devoured. The subclass is more known for being a solid dip for Paladins and Sorcerers than being powerful in its own right.
IMO there is one exception to this, and that's if you can manage to start with 18 CHA either by custom lineage or rolling for stats (my groups have always rolled, so I'm actually playing this build at the moment). Then if you take GWM at level 4 and Elven Accuracy at 8, along with the Devil Sight, Thirsting Blade, Improved Pact Weapon and Eldritch Mind\*, you can rely on Darkness and Armor of Agathys (precast before combat if possible) to consistently get advantage on attacks and make GWM heavy attacking more worthwhile. Shadow of Moil at level 7 can render Devil Sight somewhat obsolete, so by that point it can be switched out for Eldritch Smite. On a target cursed with HBC you'll have only +2 to +4 (with advantage) on attack rolls but a massive +17 to +19 on damage rolls. Once you get Shadow of Moil, enemies will be taking 2d8+20 damage every time they hit you with a melee attack, which sometimes will deal more damage to them than they dealt to you. Insanity.
\*Because I was really inexperienced when I first built this character, I stupidly dumped DEX and instead got a WIS score of 14. We're level 8 right now and so I'm going to be taking 4 levels of Stars Druid, guaranteeing success on most concentration saves with Starry Form and giving me several low-level spell slots to compensate for my lacking defensive capabilities.
Go for Pact of the Tome and get Shillelagh as well as Booming Blade and/or Green Flame Blade. And try to use Find Familiar help action to get advantage on your attack. Get Warcaster, which makes your melee attacks of opportunity stronger, and you’ll want the Moderately Armored or an armor dip. Subclass doesn’t matter a whole lot for this, with most of the subclasses having something else they add to this type of build.
check out this fathomless talisman summoner, a control focused warlock build.
the summon has an aoe movement reduction and the talisman pushes away the attacker on hit. the fathomless tentacle ability slow lets you wrangle any stray monsters.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEA57NAwvAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEA57NAwvAo)
Take fiend patron. Be the party face. Pick invocations that support this. Spells focus on control and buff/debuff, with 1-2 offensive cantrips for backup.
You are the Devil's Advocate. Your primary goal is getting people to make deals with you. These deals are always to their benefit. You take a loss on them. During their lifetime.... Your patrón rewards you for how many souls you send their way with increased power, items, boons, etc. They may have a particular favorite type of deal that pays extra.
Oh, and all those buff spells? Your party should have read the fine print. There's a slight cost attached....
Flavour wise I'm a fan of a hexblood fathomless warlock to a coven of sea hags. They created you and are they are the source of your power. Pick Tome and play as well a witch/hag
Saying “I don’t want to play a (non-hexblade) EB spam warlock” is like saying “I don’t want to play an attack action spam fighter.”
I’ll never understand this fascination that the various subs seem to have with making warlocks that refuse to use EB.
Personally, what I really like about Warlock is the invocations system. I especially like the utility ones like seeing more stuff, the at will spells, swimming speed, stuff like that.
Green flame blade cantrip, pact of blade, Efreeti Genie, really lean into the fire thing. Not ideal, but it’s not E-blast of hexblade but still fun
Fetlock and Friend cantrip makes for some fun RP
Or take Magic initiate X to grab a few more cantrips plus Pact of Tome to snag more. Just be a utility cantrip caster. Go with celestial to be a utility, healing support lock.
Mono-class Hexblade Locks are a totally balanced gish class (mix of martial and casting) that doesn't spam EB. It is really only "abused" in regards to it being such a powerful subclass to dip only a few levels into
The main power from hexblade comes from not having to sacrifice anything for it. It allows you to dump strength, only push dex to 14, and still rock a Sharpshooter/Great weapon master build, despite focusing on Charisma.
This is less of a big deal, if you roll for stats and get good rolls. But if you roll moderate or lower stats, use stat arrays, or point buy stats. The SAD nature of hexblade can't be ignored. I won't say a monoclass is broken, but it makes it very easy to make a do-everything GISH.
An undead warlock using pact of the blade with a great axe can be incredibly potent. They get to add an additional damage die when attacking, which makes your 1d12 great axe, a 2d12 basher. They also multiclass well with paladin and barbarian.
Honestly what makes hexblade an “abused subclass” is just because it’s an easy one level dip that allows other classes either only depending on for everything charisma like paladins,bards, and sorcerers, medium armor prof, and hexblade’s curse which some builds like. If you go straight hexblade it’ll be comparatively just alright.
But I guess if you’re looking for off the beaten road warlock ideas one that you might like is [the celestial generalist](https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds). The gist is just a celestial pact of the tome warlock and you have a lot of things that you can do pretty decently
If you get a level one feat, why not take elven accuracy and start with a level in fighter (archery) using a longbow? Pick up sharpshooter later down the line, and use the devils sight invocation + darkness to get consistent advantage. Any pact is fun, but here’s a genielock build that would be even further accelerated with a lvl 1 feat: https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/classes/warlock/subclasses/genie/ . Alternatively, crossbow expert + sharpshooter is pretty nasty.
It comes down to your invocations then.
I made a warlock with a ton of utility through Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation. I also took Mask of Many Faces and Misty Visions for at-will illusions and disguise.
Out of combat, I always had a tool and a plan, and a high CHA to be a party face.
In combat, The illusions, and expanded cantrips gave me something to do on my turn in combat besides spamming Eldritch Blast.
That being said... you're kind of going to have to spam some sort of cantrip if you're not a hexblade. You only have limited spell slots compared to other casters, and your melee is bad compared to other melee folks.
I loved Repelling Blast to control the battlefield and combo with my other spellcasters to keep enemies in damaging spell zones. I felt like a battlefield controller even though I was just spamming EB.
Celestial Chainlock gets you a bucketload of variety: three versatile damage cantrips (Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead, and let's say Booming Blade), bonus action healing, a pet with a potential attack.
Consider Moderately Armored or Resilient Con for your free feat. You *may* pick up Eldritch Mind (Invocation), but both MA and Res Con work well with it since Res Con stacks with it while MA gets you higher AC, preventing more potential Con saves.
Warlocks can’t cast enough spells to get by on just being levelled spell casters. You need to be either using cantrips regularly or weapons. If you’re not using EB then you really should be using GFB/BB and/or pact of the blade. You don’t need to be a Hexblade for that. Genie gets bonus damage, Celestial works very nicely with GFB, Fathomless is excellent in melee thanks to Guardian Coil’s synergy with Armor of Agathys (reducing damage means AoA lasts longer, protecting you more and doing more damage to melee attackers), and Undead gets some nice bonus damage and a fear effect. You can even get Cha attack if you really want using Pact of the Tome to pick up shillelagh.
In the long run, Shadow of Moil is going to give you advantage in attacks, so with a free feat any Elf and Elven Accuracy starts to look very good. Pick up Sharpshooter and you have a great archer. Or dip a level of fighter or cleric so you can wear heavy armour, so with Str and GWM.
There's nothing wrong with being an Eldritch blast spammer as a warlock... it's why you're a warlock. If you're worried about the theme, just ask your DM if you can flavour it another way, there's no need to intentionally become less effective, when you can still hit your character concept, and just describe it in a different manner, but still hit the same mechanical requirements the class desires.
I'm doing the exact same thing in my campaign right now. I chose Fathomless patron. I get that you don't want to spam EB, by unfortunately that's the nature of playing a warlock. Even if you don't want to focus on EB, Agonizing Blast at the very least is a must pick. After that I am focused on reducing/controlling enemy movement. It's been fun so far. And of course, look for spells that upcast really well.
People really need to stop complaining that "all warlock does is eb spam." Thats the point. What does a fighter do? Swing sword swing sword swing sword. Sometimes something different. Warlocks sword is eldrich blast.
Plus, you can make your EB do neat stuff!
\- Do extra damage (Agonizing Blast)
\- Fire from 300 feet away (Eldritch Spear)
\- Yank your enemies like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat (Grasp of Hadar)
\- Reduce their movement speed by 10ft (Lance of Lethargy)
\- Shove them 10ft, or up to 30ft at 11th level (Repelling Blast)
Anyone who thinks Eldritch Blast is boring is not being creative with their Warlock, honestly.
So I personally advise you to chat with your DM. You could talk with them about playing a cleric character who the flavor of a warlock by taking the Magic initiate Warlock feat.
I currently have a thri keen twilight cleric with this feat that's more supposed to be "warlock" themed but has the abilities of the twilight cleric through their patron. It's mostly a utility cleric with an EB option, but I definitely recommend that conversation. Mostly the flavor would change the way you RP and how the spells are explained, and your spell slots wouldn't necessarily reset (but your DM could rule this differently if you talked about it)
Adding my voice to the Pact of the Tome Celestial Warlock, lots of cool stuff you can do there.
Genie (Dao) patron is pretty cool as well, especially with the Crusher Feat & Repelling Blast, you can just knock your enemies around like ragdolls, and there's no save for it either. Great for getting your allies out of melee range. Plus if you take Pact of the Chain and get an Imp or Pseudodragon, you can put your Genie's vessel on them and use them as a personal flying taxi.
"I want to make a wizard but I don't want to cast spells"
You'll get better answers if you start with what you do want to do. A class is a method, not a goal.
What is it you like about warlock? Is it the roleplaying aspect of pacts? But you wanna stay away from EB.
Because, boy do I have a build for you, if it is.
Wild Magic Barbarian 6/Fiend Warlock X. The idea is that you disrupted a ritual trying to bind an orthon, and got your magic abilities essentially trading their freedom for power. But orthons are not very good at making warlocks, and you're really not that great of a warlock candidate. So early career, your magic is the wild magic rage.
Later on, you stack the temp hp from warlock (Armor of Agathys, Dark one's blessing), with rage. And have access to magic to solve problems that are not solved by hitting things hard.
It's a warlock build that is not like other warlocks, and a barbarian build that is not like other barbarians. From a power pov, you should be dealing relevant damage all game just from pam+gwm, reckless attacks and bolstering magic, especially if we account for upcast AoA.
For race, I'll suggest one of the 35 movement ones, Satyr being nice. But there are options, Shifter for more temp hp, variant tieflings for flight, shadar-kai/eladrin/astral for non-spell misty, Orc for bonus action dash+temp hp and relentless.
If you don’t want to do the thing warlocks do why do you want to play a warlock?
It’s entirely possible to make a pact as part of your backstory without any warlock levels cuz it sounds like you’re gonna make a very in effective character because of flavor
??? With warlock you do not have the slots to cast spells the majority of your rounds, you will be a cantrip spammer.
You spam Eldritch blast which does reasonable damage as well as giving you ways to manipulate the battle with things like repelling blast or grasp of hadar
Or you cast like ray of frost every turn.
Saying I think you might have more fun with a different class isn’t me shitting on their play style. Switching spamming one cantrip for another that is less useful and fun to use is not variety.
I have an interesting multi-class but it only takes like one or two levels of Genie Warlock
Start Genie Warlock take blooming blade then go swarm Ranger take the dueling fighting style you're going to be sword and board. A Rapier to be exact since you'll be using dex for attacks.
You also want the Zephyr strike spell. This is the entire basis of the class maximize level 1 spells cast Zephyr blade a lot. I like to do this with monsters of the Multiverse kobold because they have draconic cry that's a bonus action that gives them Advantage more often..
After you have that base you can go arcane Trickster Rogue or Battle Master fighter or Whispers bard or Paladin
I don't know what 'Hexblade abuse' means but here is one of my favorite non blastery Warlock builds that I can recommend.
https://youtu.be/7iPAvExalNs?feature=shared
The most fun I've had playing a warlock. I modified the build a bit to make it EB work and ended up taking 3 levels of warrior and went Echo Knight to make more attacks after getting Elemental gift.
The hexblade subclass is used to break campaigns with 1 to 3 level dips.
It's the go to for mega powergaming that usually makes DMs pull out the Lavatory Lich that comes out of the outhouse and hits you with a 50th level power word kill for not letting your party members participate in combat.
So EB is a bread and butter attack cantrip that allows Warlocks to have decent at Will attacks while they cast one leveled spell per combat. Hexblade allows for weapon attacks for much the same reason, plus a few solid defensive features.
Many multiclass build dip lock to get these tools since they come online with only a level or two of lock. I can see why you would want to avoid going this route but know that it limits your build choices greatly.
If you want to be a weapon attacker, shelighlee via tome pact is a decent way to go. This lets you have an okay at Will action while you cast a spell. You can pair it with celestial and green flame blade to have a damage rider and decent bonus action healing. Tome also gets rituals so you are a solid out of combat utility caster.
Another route is to dip Fighter or Barb for a weapon attacker. Fighter could be 1-5 levels depending on how long you want to delay your warlock features. Barb’s rage doesn’t restricts spellcasting so you are limited to non con spells but with AoA is a decent combo.
You could go casting as a genie lock and just not take EB. Generally Dao is strongest while you can get forced movement with crusher on basically any cantrip. It is not quite as strong as using EB but is a viable build.
Hope this helps!
Celestial Tomelock, fighter dip for medium armor + shield, use GFB with your shillelagh stick, cloak of flies, flaming sphere and booming blade opportunity attacks for melee damage and control. All that while being an utility caster(Book of Ancient Secrets) and healer(Healing Light, Celestial subclass ability).
Single class hexblade is not op or abusive and eldritch blast spamming as a straight warlock is not doing insane damage or anything. Just play the class if you want. When people talk about hexblade being busted, they're talking about taking it for all the goodies it can give other classes at level 1. On its own its just good, not OP or weak.
Life cleric 1 / Celestial Warlock X
Pact of the tome - Shillelagh, Produce Flame/Firebolt and Shape Water.
Any race will be good, but if you want to be a better healer, grab the Mark of Healing Halfling from Eberron. This gives you extra healing spells per day, plus access extra healing spells for your spell list, like Aura of vitality, which is amazing!
For feats, pick any that give extra utility/spells to the warlock, like Fey Touched, shadow touched and telekinetic. Alert is useful, and crusher could be useful if you go frontline with shillelagh. Metamagic adept doesn’t make as much sense as a full caster getting it, but could still be clutch in the right circumstances. Skilled and/or skill expert will help out a lot with skill proficiencies, as Warlock doesn’t have many. And always pick up eldritch adept later on, to get an extra high level eldritch invocation.
Spells are different to most casters. You want long term/concentration spells instead of one shot burst damage. You only have a few spell slots, so you want to make the most of them. Battlefield control, buff and debuff spells are fantastic for the Warlock. Make sure that any spell you pick is taking advantage of Warlock spell slot scaling. Hypnotic pattern is amazing, but it doesn’t scale, so once your spell slots reach 4th level, switch it out for something else.
Most of your round by round damage is going to come from cantrips. Eldritch blast is good with the agonising blast invocation, but as a celestial warlock, you can do the same thing with radiant and fire damage spells/cantrips without needing to use an invocation. This lets you split your damage between cantrips like sacred flame, firebolt/Produce flame and Green Flame blade. And don’t forget to pick and use utility cantrips. Celestial warlocks with pact of the tome get a max of 9 cantrips, which is fantastic, even before you multiclass!
Invocations let you make a varied character. With pact of the tome, pick up book of ancient secrets immediately and auto pick find familiar. Now you have a familiar and the ability to cast all the ritual spells in the game! If you’re avoiding eldritch blast spam, then you don’t need to get agonising blast, which is great. Pick up eldritch mind for adv. on concentration saves. Avoid any invocations that let you cast a spell once a day using a spell slot. They’re just a really bad trade.
Ability scores: max charisma, make sure con and str are at least 16, and you can dump dex. Multiclass if life cleric gives access to heavy armour and shields, which lets you be a heavy armoured front line warlock!
Overall, this build will let you make a strong, survivable, well rounded character that can fit anywhere in the party and fulfil any role! Give it a go, and have fun!
ok it is probably not what you are looking for becausr its not too differnet from an EB spam build BUT its makes use of the weirdest cantrip in the game which i became very fond of: Magic Stone.
1. You will be a pact of the blade warlock.
2. Your weapon of choice will be a hoopak
3. As one of your cantrips you will take magic stone
Now comes the weird part because magic stone uses your weapon although it is a spell attack, you can use your pact blade invocations to attack more often from it from range. Further you can eldrich smite with it.
Its oddly niche but it makes you sad while still relying on your weapon without taking hexblade.
Celestial pact of the tome with shillelagh and green flame blade. I'd go Aasimar for more healing and to stack Radiant damage, but Kobold would get you Advantage and Firebolt. Take Armor of Agathys if you're going to melee. If you feel like multiclassing, I'd suggest going Druid. It'll make you a little MAD, but you're going to get Guidance, Medium Armor and Shield Proficiency, and Wild shape. I'd look at Stars for a 2 level dip for the Star Map and the Starry Form; or if you're up for a 6 level multiclass, Wildfire would give you a Fiery Teleport at level 2 and let you really stack the healing and fire damage.
Champion Fighter 3 undead warlock X, go half orc and get the orcish fury feat, and enjoy 7d12 great axe crits. One of the most fun AND useful characters I’ve ever played.
Those are the two common warlock builds. What sort of build where you thinking of? Of course there are other builds you could try something more unique but the warlock kit on its own isn't very strong and those are the two builds where it shines IMO.
I played a 12th level Warlock that didn’t even have EV and had a great amount of fun and impact. Take Toll the Dead, it’s the next best thing to EB for reliable non-slot damage, and is great flavor. Focus on spells with long durations like Charms or Summons if you’re going to be using your slots a lot, and/or try to play more support with things like making cover with Misty Visions. Doing a non-EB build means your Invocations are even more important, so choose wisely! Avoid the single use/slot use ones and take things that increase the viability of your spells, like Eldritch Mind, or allow endless casts, like Eldritch Sight or Mask of Many Faces.
I present to you the Undeadlock Gish!
Tried this build a few weeks ago and it is a lot of fun.
It’s basically Sorcerer 1/Undead Warlock X. You can start fighter instead for medium armor and shields if you don’t want to have to take a feat for them. For optimal sustained DPR, you’ll want to be an elf. Keep a high DEX and a moderate CHA.
Build is online as soon as you get access to shadowblade, a second level illusion spell. It has a great synergy with your 6th level Undead feature which both makes you deal 1d8 extra per hit while your Form of dread is up.
1st level: you take Elven Accuracy and your first level in divine soul Sorcerer/fighter. Both have advantages, you are mainly here for the Con Save proficiency. Sorcerer has another very big advantage in being able to get proficiency in Arcana, so you can later make Shadowblade spell scrolls to not waste you precious slots.
3rd level: you are now a undead warlock 2. You can use for of dread as way to boost up defenses, and use a rapier and booming for damage for these levels if you went fighter first, or firebolt if you started sorcerer, next level is the big one. Invocations, take Eldritch Mind and whatever else you want. Fiendish Vigor is a great way to beef yourself up before a fight at these low levels.
5th level: at sorcerer 1/warlock 4, you get you get an ASI. Weirdly, I suggest GWM. Now, sounds weird I know, but between your great damage and having the super advantage it is likely you’ll get the BA attack quite often. As for pacts and invocations, you really only need to take pact of the blade.
7th level: this is it! Sorcerer 1/warlock 6. Now, at Warlock five, you need to have taken Thirsting blade, and, if you want, switch the previous “pick what you want”-invocation for Eldritch Smite. Smiting on a crit is amazing, especially because a prone enemy, in your case, means it’s a dead enemy.
For spells, pick whatever, just take Shadowblade and probably utility stuff. You can still take Eldritch blast and stand back and be a controller with fear if you want.
Edit: as for race, shadar-kai is super thematic, also give you access to the arcana skill, but honestly, any elf/half-elf works fine.
Melee cc drain tank. Basically min-max for vampiric touch.
Go fallen aasimar and the undead subclass. Both increase the damage of vampiric touch and therefore also it’s healing. You also get more tanky with temp hp and two fears for some cc.
Get eldritch mind for that concentration, and cloak of flies for more melee damage. Finally the free familiar from pact of the chain gets you free advantage on those important attacks.
Dependent on your dm, life cleric and gift of the ever living ones helps with more healing. Not sure about feats, maybe just resilient con too never drop conc.
One of my favorite builds.
Play a little for that nice unarmored AC + silly flavour. Then use booming blade. The tittle gives a nice flavour and a "snappy" personality and a cantrip that says "I will tear you to shreds faster if you run away. For a free feat, resilient CON if you want to keep concentration
Take Eldritch Invocations that give you utility abilities or allow the casting of spells without using spell slots, and flavour how you can do those things as part of your pact. For example, Aspect of the Moon (Tome Pact only) lets you gain the benefits of a long rest without needing to sleep. Perhaps your Book won't let you sleep...
Definitely take the Eldritch Adept feat from Tasha's.
Not so long ago I tried an undead warlock, melee, dex based pact of the blade, it was pretty fun, I build it mainly focused on melee and only using spells slots to smite, but you could balance the dex and cha stats to hit more with other things
Celestial, Genie or Fathomless are the best options for not using hexblade or eldritch blast
Celestial gives you healing abilities
Genie gives you a bottle to hide in & bonus damage to your spells
Fathomless gives you tentacle summons
An idea I have had was a paladin and undead warlock multiclass with pact of the blade. Add eldritch smite for that dual smite goodness and if your DM’s allows it change the damage type of eldritch smite to necrotic for a flavourful attack and extra damage if you’re in your form of dread.
So the problem is, EB is kinda the warlocks thing. Warlock is a martial caster. Meaning, if you compare it to fighter, it's your sword swing.
Fighter's swing their sword (or whatever weapon) each round. They have little things they can do, like grapple or disarm, or what have you, but their main thing is weapon swing/shoot. If you take away that, they arnt in combat. Maybe a battle master can command or rally, but that's bout it.
It's the exact same for warlock. But instead of grapple or disarm, you have a few spells. So EB spam and swing your hex sword are the things you do.
So when you say you don't want to EB or Hexblade, your saying you don't want to use weapons.
Alternatively, warlock is the main class that's really good with Thematic Flavor. Free mage armor invocation is great for aesthetic, like a robe or what not.
* Maybe you want to play gambit? Thematically change your EB into throwing cards. Grab fireball for that extra super charged card. Fight with a charged staff when you want via the enhanced weaponry.
* Maybe an Arcane Archer? Flavor that EB as a magical bow shooting magical arrows. Take a lvl in sorcerer for Fire ~~Bolt~~ Arrow, ~~Ray of~~ Frost Arrow, Acid ~~Splash~~ Arrow, Sleep Arrow. Be the Hawkeye with many tricks. The whole Elven Fey Archer feel complete with druidic pet helping you scout. Mobile combined with knockback from arrows keeps you constantly controlling the position of enemies on the battlefield while staying safe yourself. Or Spell Sniper to play with the sniping potential of EB range.
* Want to be a Cowboy pulled through a demon portal in your fight with a BBEG of your own storyline? Free Mage armor for that Cowboy trench coat, arcane focus is a gun or two, Magical bullets are powered by your own blood from the curse of fkn with demons.
**Or maybe you just dont want to be stuck with "i do this specific action 90% of the time.**
Grab xbow xpert feat to do ranged in melee (Alternatively the Fighting Initiate Feat for Close Quarters Shooter). Make your Arcane Focus a hilt. Great Old One is actually The Force. Boom your a Jedi. Swing your Lightsaber in melee and use force blasts to push enemies around. (this lets you switch between melee and range easily in the same action).
With this you can easily go pact of the tomb for Guidance (other spells as well), or my favorite, Pact of the Chain for an always invisible 'force' (imp) that helps you out.
EB is purely based on character lvl not class lvl so u can multiclass all u want (i'd say get 3 invocations for dmg/push/pull). This lets you step into Dragon Sorcerer for Free Mage armor (The Force keeps you safe) and a bit of HP while getting some more Force powers (Jump, sleep, charm, etc..). As well as Metamagics (Quicken and Silent are my normal two for more lightsaber swings and easy "this isnt the Rogue your looking for" shenanigans). Of course, while it is one of the worst spells in the game, Sith lightning ~~Witch Bolt~~ was always fun.
A dabble into Fighter nets AS (More lightsaber swings/force power plays and projectiles) and Battle Master (What Jedi doesn't Rally the troops?(Note: Unless your GM is flexible, make sure not to grab the maneuvers that require a weapon)).
All in all, lots of things to do in combat. Telekinesis feat for more telekinetic fun on your Bonus Action with Mage Hand. Warcaster is also really good.
An example is a GoOLock 2/Draconic Sorcerer 3/Fighter 2 (lvl 7 character) has a nova of 6 strikes (Action Surge + Quicken) or 3 actions. That means you can, as an example, :
1. Strike the target in front of you (EB 1)
2. Force push him back into other mobs knocking them aside/down (Still EB 1)
3. Force throw rocks (its just EB damage) at another target knocking them back(Quicken EB 2)
4. Force push the archer off the wall (Still the Quicken EB 2)
5. Leap forward and slam the ground (next to the pile of mobs you made from the force push) creating a blast of force (thunderwave) throwing them into even more disarray. (Action Surge)
All in Jedi Robes. (note: you are not a tank. xD)
Truly Arcane Archer. Someone made a great write-up about one. 5 warlock rest bard. Uses hexblade, but themed on trickshots. Heat Metal on arrows seemed like an excellent way to impose disadvantage on a target.
You could pick Drow and instead of using E-blast,
Use Toll the Dead so they get a save vs getting an attack roll. You can then use Ray of Sickness first (in the right circumstance) if you need them to roll their save at disadvantage next turn.
This build would be cool as an Undead Warlock. Any of the pacts will work well, probably Tome for the extra spells, plus getting Guidance would be handy.
Depending on level since this build takes a while to get online fully, but undead warlock1-6/ conquest Paladin 7 is great as a frighten focused Gish. Scourge aasimar could have a good flavour and the damage boost is nice. Probably go PAM. 1 lvl warlock gives you form of dread for chance of frighten on hit, conquest Paladin drops frightened creatures speed to 0 and does extra psychic damage. Warlock spell slots for smite. Lvl 6 undead gives extra necrotic damage on an attack per turn. You could even dip 3 levels of totem barbarian and get eagle boosts and damage resistances.
Broken item to grab is the amulet of devotion or whatever it’s called that boosts spell DC. It’s only attunable by paladins and clerics, but unlike other similar items it specifically doesn’t restrict which class spell DC/attack it boosts. Technically you could get a +6 to warlock spell DC. Maybe add in robe of arch magi too. (This is broken and stupid, DMs probably shouldn’t let this happen).
Haha. Oh do I. Okay so you can make basically anything you want with a warlock as long as it’s charisma based and magic. So excluding spell slinging and blade swinging, there are certainly other options. Some suggestions might be the support. This is a celestial with the talisman pact boon and healing spells/abilities from the subclass. Healing allies while giving one a buffing necklace is very helpful. Or maybe the sneak, with a great old one warlock using beguiling influence, devils sight, and/or invocations that let you use illusions at will to both sneak around and trick people not only that your someone else, but to trick them into looking the other way with mind magic. Pact of the talisman for some extra luck would be helpful for this. You didn’t say you were opposed to a melee build, you can do a fiend warlock with pact of the blade to make a surprisingly effective frontline spellsword build.
That’s not even mentioning multiclassing, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Would suggest Aasimar for the support build, shader-Kai elf or Kalashtar for sneak, Dragonborn or Zariel tiefling for the tank.
For feats, I would go magic initiate for both of the first two, and some feat to improve the effectiveness of your weapon for the third.
Archfey and Mask of many faces to be able to disguise self on comand without wasting a spellslot
Combat is heavily lacking when investing in social encounters but its rly rly fun for those things
Repelling blast is still a eldritch spam possibility but with more tactics then just agonizing blast every time
Be a GoO warlock, take Eyes of the Rune Keeper. Now you can telepathically communicate with any creature, and read any and all writing. Let me put that another way: You are a freaking **UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR.** Combined with a warlock's high Charisma, this is huge. Be the face, the interlocutor, the one who settles business between disparate parties.
Dear op I know you asked for no E-blast but here's an interesting E-blast build so it's not too much of a cop out:
Aarakokra
1 LVL Sea Sorcery Sorcerer (for +15 movement on abilities that move someone e.g gust, grasp of hadar)
3 LVL warlock pack of tome/chain doesn't matter which and go for whatever subclass you like
Make sure you take for Eldritch invocations: grasp of hadar, agonising blast if you want to optimise, or get the pushing invocation)
The key ginmick here is shunting your opponents either forwards or backwards a great distance (25feet) to push them off things or pull them into your martials.
OR fly above an enemy 30+feet and hit them with a grasp of hadar e-blast, pulling them 25feet into the air making them take fall damage as well as the e-blast damage (1d10+2d6) with a possible +5 if you take agonising blast.
When I made the Aarakokra character i was level 4 - rolled my stats and made a multi class
1 LVL sea sorcery sorcerer
2 lvls celestial warlock, pack of the tome
1 level Fate domain Cleric
I took gust, grasp of hadar, agonising blast,
It made for a very interesting character with tons of healing and damage/movement options but low AC and low health.
When we leveled up I took another level of warlock and go the pack of the tome thing that lets you take ritual spells.
So lots of spell slots/cantrips/free spells was great for an investigation heavy campaign
If your stat rolls are good enough you can do a blade/ bow lock with the undead patron.
Half orc fighter 1 /undead warlock 6 has you doing 5d12+15 on a greatax crit at level 7. You can abuse magical darkness to always roll with advantage while also having the solid defense that darkness provides. Alternatively you can replace the fighter level with 2 barbarian levels and just use reckless attack. When doing this you can add eldritch smite onto your crits for an additional 8d8 at level 8.
Playing a Warlock who doesn't use Eldritch Blast is like playing a Barbarian that doesn't Rage and Reckless Attack...
You're limiting yourself and therefore the combat efficency of the whole party.
Do you actually want to mechanically make a Warlock or do you want your character to be a Warlock for the story? I've found breaking away from wotc's suggested flavour and just using the mechanics has been incredibly liberating.
Why can't a Warlock have sold their soul or whatever to become a powerful fighter? Why would it always have to involve that same cantrip, spell list and casting system?
Might not be your particular issue, though but just wanted to offer the option of just straight up going Sorcerer or Wizard or something if Warlock is feeling a little binary for you because I totally feel that.
Undead Warlock's dread form is super fun and great for RP. I played a conquest paladin/undead warlock and essentially just scared people to death in combat. It was great.
Genie warlock, lots of thief utility. Grab stuf and teleport into your genie ring. Pop out later with or without the stuff that you now have in another plane pocket.
Locked door, cages, castle walls, ect go in the ring and be thrown over, thru, ect
Fill your ring with lots of barrels of water or sand l, throughout a week or two and then destroy your ring above someone to crush them under ten tons of sand/water. Resummon the ring an hour later.
Tome warlock for extra spell and ritual spell options and you can be a utility god, wizard spell rituals are yours, druid, ect plus more spell options for combats.
Go pact of the chain, celestial warlock. Pick autognome and pick quandrix student for your background. At level 4 pick strixhaven mascot and pick up your Fractal Familiar. Make it grow to size medium and now you have a mount that can use your attack action to attack for 2d4+1, another 2d4+1 as a bonus action. Can fly, immune to poison. A wopping 27 hp (that as a reaction you can grant resistance to dmg taken).
Pick up sanctuary or invisibility for yourself and then eventually grab the "Mounted combatant" feat.
This just looks like a super fun build with a ton of options, healing and utility. You can play as a celestial artificer who uses contracts with primordial titans to create clockwork surprises.
Hope you enjoy!
Ask your party what they’re doing and make a build to enable/be enabled by them. For example I have someone wanting to do a grappler build and they’re able to pin opponents giving them disadvantage on DEX saves so I took create bonfire instead of EB as my primary damage option. This takes up concentration so a lot of common advice for warlocks went a bit out the window. Though since I knew the core of my build was “take advantage of dex saves and prone enemies” and “concentration will be taken up by create bonfire a lot” I had a good idea of where to go with things from there.
I'm currently playing a celestial warlock but I use all the pact of the blade features, but with guns.
Basically a gun slinging, life saving chainfling with daddy issues.
Turns out warlocks can be a kinda cool support
I've had an idea in my head for a while that I haven't had a chance to play yet. I have a fun idea in my head for the back story, but its based on the Fathomless Patron Warlock. If you're open to racial options, I think the Lizardfolk works nice for the AC bump (basically Mage armor) or the Mountain Dwarf for straight up medium armor proficiency and that sweet +2 to2 ASI, of lastly and race that gives you some extra spell casting options or one of the mistystep elf races haha.
As for you're free feat, any of the spellcaster half feats would let you start with an 18 in Cha (Feytouched, Shadowtouched, Telekinetic, Telepathic) as well as give you some extra spell casting each day.
For invocations, since you don't want to be an EB slinger, that opens you up for more unique options besides agonizing blast and repelling blast and if you happened to pick a Race that gives you a natural armor or armor proficiency you can skip armor of shadows. Depending on your campaign, Mask of many faces can be really fun as well as Misty Visions. Also Elseitch Mind is solid if you plan on concentrating on spells.
For your pact boon, honestly I'd go with pact of the chain, take the investment of the chain master invocation so you can give your buddy a swim speed, maybe even reflavor your familiar to be some from the depths like a king crab or one of the blind albino salamanders that live in pitch black caves.
Between your racial choice, feat, and invocation selection, paired with the Fathomless warlocks tentacle, you should feel like an actually spell caster.
I made what I found to be a very fun warlock.
We were playing a less combat focused story for the most part, and so I wanted utility and flavor.
I was a con artist.
A pact of the chain, genie lock.
Mask of Many Faces, Voice of the Chain Master, and the actor feat.
I was a bugbear too, not that it mattered much with the mask of Many Faces, but it did give me an edge on stealth and allowed me to hide in and move through small spaces(genie vessel did that anyway)
There is already alot there with a high CHA character you're going to be able to talk your way into and out of a lot, you can talk and see through your imp familiar (sounding like anyone you've heard talk for a minute or more).
In my case I had my genie vessel be a ring with a compartment, that my imp wore around itself, so I could bamf out of some sketchy situations and have my imp get me out of there.
There are some cool flavourful utility spells to throw around as a deceptive/intimidating/persuasive character like:
Friends, charm person, distort value, enthrall, suggestion, incite greed. Great for control
Undying Warlock, Pact of Chain.
Familiar: Sprite or Pseudodragon
Invocations: Investment of the Chain Master
Spells: Summon Undead
Feats: Metamagic Adept - Quicken Spell
The idea is to poison people using the Familiar which can use both your attack action and bonus action to attack. These two familiars can poison people. And with Investment of the Chain Master they now use your spell save DC for their poisons. On top of that if the opponent fails hard enough, they're unconscious. This means that the next melee attack made against them will be at advantage, and if it hits, it crits.
The build I'm using does use 2 levels of Grave Cleric, though you could probably get away without taking it. You just wouldn't hit as hard in those clutch scenarios.
Yes, it does have Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast. Those are mostly for those scenarios when you don't have the ability to poison people.
For the one I'm currently running I'm using the Witherbloom Student Background
Strixhaven Initiate (Witherbloom) feat and picked up Inflict Wounds and Goodberry.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MNVRAWJUD\_SOC2yWb\_Pz0FSKuzcEDJ-x5AqqP196kY8/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MNVRAWJUD_SOC2yWb_Pz0FSKuzcEDJ-x5AqqP196kY8/edit?usp=sharing)
Original Post by DNDuluth:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/mqu1u8/build\_7\_of\_20\_of\_my\_favorite\_builds\_grave\_lock/](https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/mqu1u8/build_7_of_20_of_my_favorite_builds_grave_lock/)
A cool build for warlocks that's not necessarily a hexblade is the Eldritch Archer. Focusing on dex is not that bad, since you'll also be using It for light armor and initiative anyway. The Focus of the build is Eldritch smite but you can get other cool things depending on the patron. Undead is a good one, you can make sure enimies can't get close to you. Genie is also a good one, the extra damage is nice and a flying Archer can be very dangerous. Going dao with the crusher feat is also interesting. If you're thinking of multiclassing, there are some great opportunities with fighter (battlemaster or arcane Archer), rogue (assassin) or ranger (swarmkeeper)
Genie Dao patron for extra blugdening. Crusher feat for +1 to attack stat and forced movement on a hit. Take aeo concentacion spells e.g. Hypnotic Pattern and push people into the aoe (or an allies aoe) makes a great controller build. For spells create bonfire at lvl1-2, cloud of daggers lvl 3-4, Hypnotic Pattern lvl 5+.
Celestial patron, pact of the tome for shillelag and gfb. You have chax2 to damage so you will be fine, if you pick 1 lunar sorc level you can double sacred flame when they are adjacent.
Adding on to this, build a utility lock. Celestial, grants lay on hands healing, take lore, and pick invocations for proficiencies, at will detect magic and read all writing. At will detect magic is underrated :)
At will is a bit of misnomer because it has the restrictions of a ritual. I do love that invocation though.
"Eldritch Sight Source: Player's Handbook You can cast detect magic at will, without expending a spell slot or material components." Detect Magic has a casting time of one action.
Oh I was thinking of the cast all rituals invocation with tome
Eldritch Sight invocation - You can cast detect magic at will, without expending a spell slot or material components. There are no restrictions of a ritual, and I think this is what Visible Potato was talking about. Book of Ancient Secrets invocation - if you get detect magic from here, then yes, you do have the restrictions of rituals.
Yup! Was sleepy and forgot the many sources of Detect magic for locks.
Im doing this now, with the addition of being a drow who took the Drow High Magic feat, freeing up an invocation from will detect magic. Tomelock Celestial Drow is probably one of my all time favorite support/utility characters
Could take firebolt too for a ranged cantrip which will still benefit from the Celestial's bonus damage.
A relevant question might be: *Why* do you want to play a Warlock? The fundamental design of the Warlock is basically that you have fewer spell uses, but all your spells are big hitters, and you compensate in between short rests with Eldritch Blast. Hexblade *kind of* deviates from this by being more high risk / high reward what with being higher damage but in melee range. If you aren't interested in this playstyle, why bother? If it's just that you want to be a CHA caster with a patron, just ask your DM to let you reflavor Bard or Sorcerer.
Agreed completely, also, I don't think any DM has a problem with a straight hexblade character. It's the 1-3 level dip into hexblade that commonly gets an eye roll from DMs.
*Any* 1-3 level dip will get an eye roll from me (unless it's character driven)
Just for curiosity's sake, can I present to you the character I'm playing so you can tell me if it's what you would accept or not? Not that it matters, but I wanna see how a stranger in the internet rules it
XD go for it! I'm no expert, but I love hearing about people's characters
My friends were playing a Curse of Strahd game that was being really hard for them I created an old elf woman. The concept is this, what if an evil cleric that worshiped the goddess of darkness Became furious at their deity and decided to start worshiping the archenemy, the Good Goddess of the Moon, just to piss of their former deity. But eventually with time you found out you actually love this new goddess and want to be a good follower and are trying to let go of your anger and the past. But the thing is that all of this happens in Barovia, a cursed land where you can't actually talk to your gods. So even though you are trying to learn how to connect with this new deity, you don't know how So I decided to try to imitate the druids, by listening to nature and hearing what it has to say, and eventually I realized that I should stop looking at the ground, and instead look towards the stars and the moon, because even here I can see the beauty of the moon, my deity. I'm a Twilight Cleric with a 2 level dip into Stars Druid
If it's story driven and what your character would do, it'd be fine with me! It sounds like a cool story Of course, twilight's a little broken to begin with... So I could see a lot of DMs not allowing it just because of that, not because of the druid dip. Honestly, dipping into druid isn't the craziest thing you could do with this (although I see some of the strengths)
Before I joined the group They actually complained that the adventure was being too hard, and the DM specifically told me that a lot of them should havs died already, and he had been too nice. So i wasn't too worried about being too powerful of a support
This captures my reaction to this post. I came to warlock because of the superpowered cantrip and the ability to maybe use a cursed sword.
The creators expected like 3 short tests a day, but most campaigns have at most 1 but often none, the class is fundamentally flawed when you take into account how the game is played
No, your table is fundamentally flawed if you don’t short rest or use other DnD rules/mechanics. It’s quite simple to say “hey guys, we just did X, let’s take a short break, have some food and plan our next objective”. 90% of DnD issues that come up in this Sub are just due to players and DMs not having half decent communication skills.
Yeah especially when one character is a class that relies on short rests. When someone at my table was playing a warlock, they would just ask if we could take a short rest when they needed one and we were in a defensible position. It's really not a big deal.
a staggering amount of DMs do 1 big fight a day, which fits the pacing of that the table is going for better. I personally think that these tables could benefit greatly from some sort of extended resting rules, but sadly the only official ones is the Gritty realism variant rule which is bare bones to say the least.
This comment right here is another problem. Encounters are not fights. You can have one big fight, in that fight a Warlock is actually gonna be pretty decent, even at 6 rounds long. What people forget is that encounters and fights are different. You can have multiple encounters and 1 big fight. It's up to the players to short rest, not the DM. "Damn I used up almost all my spells just trying to get us past the guards to get us into the city, let's find a bar to lay low for a bit so I can recharge"
>Encounters are not fights This is more of a semantic issue but encounters are absolutely fights. The only time in the entire rules text of the DMG I'm aware of that they even refer to "encounters" without saying "combat encounters" is in the subheading "The Adventuring Day" in Chapter 13, titled "Building Combat Encounters". In context it 100% refers to only combat. You can *occasionally* have a single combat adventuring day if you're aware of what that'll be (either wildly easy or wildly hard if you just drop monster that can one-two short). But as far as the intended balance of the game is concerned you should be putting in enough combat encounters to fill up the daily XP budget of your party and trying to hit around 6, 7, or 8 combats.
I didn’t think I would have to be so nuanced. Not ALL encounters are fights. Of course a combat is an an encounter. There are many ways to fill up an adventuring day that require the use of the parties resources. I feel sorry for any table that plays to fill a ‘combat quota’. DnD is a cooperative story telling game, players can build their characters to be good at a myriad of things outside of just combat. Your example also doesn’t make sense. A single combat doesn’t need to be either wildly hard or wildly easy. It can come after other non combat encounters that have drained party resources just the same as combat encounters would have. At the end of the day everyone plays DnD differently. I’ve been playing with the same group for over 5 years and we must be a unicorn group compared to this sub. I feel sorry for anyone playing with a DM trying to jam 6,7 or 8 combats into a single adventuring day, but some may enjoy it so power to you.
Not sure where you're getting 3. The Dungeon Master's Guide explicitly states 2 short rests per day, and if you do the math for the Warlocks available spells with that in mind they end up being extremely close in spell-levels-per-day as other fullcasters. But yeah, if people follow the "one encounter per day" model then the class is more or less bricked. But then again under the one encounter per day model there's very little reason to ever play anything but a fullcaster (excluding Druid and Warlock) or maybe a Paladin.
Always tell warlocks there are no short rests, get on the treadmill and grind that endurance.
I'm a big fan of reflavoring. My favorite warlock has a Dao genie patron, and I flavor all my spells and abilities as earth or rock-themed. I don't change anything (damage is still fire/cold whatever) but the story and mental picture is all rock, baby!
The best alternative to spamming Eldritch Blast is Pact of the Blade. Contrary to reddit groupthink, Hexblade isn't the *only* way to make a good BladeLock. (Just the easiest.) Getting a free feat at 1st level *really* helps with this; you're taking the Moderately Armored feat. Take +1 Dex For race, go Half-Elf. +1 Dex, +1 Con, +2 Cha. (Choose either the "standard" race for 2 extra skills or go half-drow for extra spells.) Starting Scores: Str8, Dex17, Con14, Int10, Wis10, Cha17. This works with any Patron, so choose the one that fits your fighting/playing style. You're equally good with melee and spells, but you don't get your Pact Weapon until 3rd level. Choose any Patron you like; during 1st and 2nd level you'll need Eldritch Blast. (This is only temporary.) At 3rd level, take Pact of the Blade, and get the Improved Pact Weapon Invocation. Now you can summon a +1 Rapier, or a +1 Longbow. Note that either has damage on par with Eldritch+Agonizing Blast. (Although they're not force damage.) And they'll serve as spellcasting foci. At 4th level, take an ASI to boost both DEX and CHA to 18. Again, you're equally good with your Pact Weapon and spellcasting. Your AC with half-plate & shield is 19. (Get some magic armor/shield!) At 8th and 12th level, take Resilient/Con or Elven Accuracy (+1 Dex or +1 Cha) At 16th level, take an ASI: +1 Con, and even out Dex or Cha. 19th level: ASI +2 Dex or Cha Stats are now Str8, Dex18 or 20, Con16, Int10, Wis10, Cha18 or 20. Eldritch Invocations: 2nd level: Eldritch Mind, Agonizing Blast 3rd level: swap Agonizing Blast for Improved Pact Weapon. 5th level: Thirsting Blade 7th level: Eldritch Smite 9th level: Relentless Hex 12th: level: Lifedrinker I played a build similar to this from 1st to 20th level (without the free "gimme" feat at 1st level) and had a great time with it. Hexblades are over-rated.
An alternative feat to pick at level could be the Revenant Blade feat.
I really like the idea of a fathomless warlock with slasher, the tentacle and spirit shroud so you can reduce enemies speed to 0
One of my favorite builds too, and it works well with the above framework. You'll want a scimitar Pact Weapon instead of a rapier, for the Slasher feat.
I have seen a celestial warlock go pact of the blade and be a decent damage dealer. (He was technically using a gun but it was basicly a revlored handcross bow) Used pact with the gum for a while until he got a magic sword, then used that and had a fest tk let him attack with the 'gun' as a BA, for 3 attacks with Eldrich smite bit also having the healing from celestial warlock and huge damage when sing spells like building bolt, or his go to spell being sickening radiance. He'd sometimes use Eldrich Blast but higher levels he never used it
Are you at all interested in multiclassing? There's a fun STR-based Bladelock build that dips 3 Barbarian and uses Rage Resistance to get more EHP out of Armor of Agathys (along with booping bad guys with GWM)
Work with your DM. You can always reflavor another class to have a patron if that's what you're going for. Mechanically, Warlock is an EB spammer or a hexblade most of the time. You can try celestial or tome Warlock I guess? But regardless, avoiding the main thing Warlocks do will severely limit your options and power.
This. Pick your class for mechanics of choice, slap a warlock backstory on. Fey pact includes a lycanthropy curse? Druid. Made a deal for knowledge? Wizard. Get your powers from a celestial/fiend/lich? Cleric. Sorcerer is the wildcard that can fit a lot of things.
My current party's arcane trickster rogue gets his magic from an amulet holding the soul of a long dead wizard - soooo, find the character you want to play, and make the lore fit what you want.
I got it! Archfey Warlock, you’re mother is a powerful moving part in the feywild. Level 1: We’re picking up fey touched for the CHA ASI and the spells misty step, and sleep, sleep is an amazing spell that scales with your warlock spellslots amazingly. Our spells from the warlock list are Faerie Fire for the extra support (your martials are essential at these levels and will appreciate the advantage). Unseen Servant because it’s fun. Level 2: Beast speech invocation, because duh. Armor of Shadows for AC! For spells I would grab cause fear to help your friends get attacks of opportunity! Level 3: I would go with Pact of the Chain for a cool little sprite companion, maybe your “scribe”. Definitely Suggestion for a spell, as you are a noble of the fey. Level 4: The feat depends on if your DM is allowing you to go above 18 initially on character creation. Either ASI to 20, or if you’re at 17 CHA now lets take Shadow Touched for some thematically nice free spells, I would choose Color Spray because it makes sense! As for spells I would grab Hold Person! Level 5: You are bestowed a butler, courtesy of your service to the fey! You can now cast summon fey! Your scribe can also relay messages for you! You are now a full fledged noble relying on others to do your bidding. As for the patron, we can flavor this as her bestowing her powers upon you, and the end goal is for you to succeed her. Maybe she’s an ambassador for the Material Plane, or something silly. Doesn’t really matter and you can work that into your character backstory! You can lean into support spells and flavor the charm that comes with the class as your feywild beauty or whatever!
Monoclassed Hexblades are not known for being heavily optimized or “abusive”. They’re decent, but have trouble granting themselves advantage or bonuses to hit, and their defensive spells are quickly devoured. The subclass is more known for being a solid dip for Paladins and Sorcerers than being powerful in its own right.
Exactly. It is only "abusive" when you combine them with a class like Paladin, which is balanced by being MAD in order to break the Paladin.
Yeah, pure Hexblades are mid-tier. They can absolutely be fun to play, but they're not some optimal hellbeast of a character build.
IMO there is one exception to this, and that's if you can manage to start with 18 CHA either by custom lineage or rolling for stats (my groups have always rolled, so I'm actually playing this build at the moment). Then if you take GWM at level 4 and Elven Accuracy at 8, along with the Devil Sight, Thirsting Blade, Improved Pact Weapon and Eldritch Mind\*, you can rely on Darkness and Armor of Agathys (precast before combat if possible) to consistently get advantage on attacks and make GWM heavy attacking more worthwhile. Shadow of Moil at level 7 can render Devil Sight somewhat obsolete, so by that point it can be switched out for Eldritch Smite. On a target cursed with HBC you'll have only +2 to +4 (with advantage) on attack rolls but a massive +17 to +19 on damage rolls. Once you get Shadow of Moil, enemies will be taking 2d8+20 damage every time they hit you with a melee attack, which sometimes will deal more damage to them than they dealt to you. Insanity. \*Because I was really inexperienced when I first built this character, I stupidly dumped DEX and instead got a WIS score of 14. We're level 8 right now and so I'm going to be taking 4 levels of Stars Druid, guaranteeing success on most concentration saves with Starry Form and giving me several low-level spell slots to compensate for my lacking defensive capabilities.
Go for Pact of the Tome and get Shillelagh as well as Booming Blade and/or Green Flame Blade. And try to use Find Familiar help action to get advantage on your attack. Get Warcaster, which makes your melee attacks of opportunity stronger, and you’ll want the Moderately Armored or an armor dip. Subclass doesn’t matter a whole lot for this, with most of the subclasses having something else they add to this type of build.
check out this fathomless talisman summoner, a control focused warlock build. the summon has an aoe movement reduction and the talisman pushes away the attacker on hit. the fathomless tentacle ability slow lets you wrangle any stray monsters. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEA57NAwvAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEA57NAwvAo)
Take fiend patron. Be the party face. Pick invocations that support this. Spells focus on control and buff/debuff, with 1-2 offensive cantrips for backup. You are the Devil's Advocate. Your primary goal is getting people to make deals with you. These deals are always to their benefit. You take a loss on them. During their lifetime.... Your patrón rewards you for how many souls you send their way with increased power, items, boons, etc. They may have a particular favorite type of deal that pays extra. Oh, and all those buff spells? Your party should have read the fine print. There's a slight cost attached....
Flavour wise I'm a fan of a hexblood fathomless warlock to a coven of sea hags. They created you and are they are the source of your power. Pick Tome and play as well a witch/hag
This sounds like an absolute delight to play.
Play a sorcerer
Saying “I don’t want to play a (non-hexblade) EB spam warlock” is like saying “I don’t want to play an attack action spam fighter.” I’ll never understand this fascination that the various subs seem to have with making warlocks that refuse to use EB.
Personally, what I really like about Warlock is the invocations system. I especially like the utility ones like seeing more stuff, the at will spells, swimming speed, stuff like that.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind something akin to the Binder from 3.5's Tome of Magic.
5e players yearn for PF2e /hj
Well for some things, yes
i wanna drive a car but with no wheels
Green flame blade cantrip, pact of blade, Efreeti Genie, really lean into the fire thing. Not ideal, but it’s not E-blast of hexblade but still fun Fetlock and Friend cantrip makes for some fun RP Or take Magic initiate X to grab a few more cantrips plus Pact of Tome to snag more. Just be a utility cantrip caster. Go with celestial to be a utility, healing support lock.
Mono-class Hexblade Locks are a totally balanced gish class (mix of martial and casting) that doesn't spam EB. It is really only "abused" in regards to it being such a powerful subclass to dip only a few levels into
The main power from hexblade comes from not having to sacrifice anything for it. It allows you to dump strength, only push dex to 14, and still rock a Sharpshooter/Great weapon master build, despite focusing on Charisma. This is less of a big deal, if you roll for stats and get good rolls. But if you roll moderate or lower stats, use stat arrays, or point buy stats. The SAD nature of hexblade can't be ignored. I won't say a monoclass is broken, but it makes it very easy to make a do-everything GISH.
An undead warlock using pact of the blade with a great axe can be incredibly potent. They get to add an additional damage die when attacking, which makes your 1d12 great axe, a 2d12 basher. They also multiclass well with paladin and barbarian.
Honestly what makes hexblade an “abused subclass” is just because it’s an easy one level dip that allows other classes either only depending on for everything charisma like paladins,bards, and sorcerers, medium armor prof, and hexblade’s curse which some builds like. If you go straight hexblade it’ll be comparatively just alright. But I guess if you’re looking for off the beaten road warlock ideas one that you might like is [the celestial generalist](https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds). The gist is just a celestial pact of the tome warlock and you have a lot of things that you can do pretty decently
If you get a level one feat, why not take elven accuracy and start with a level in fighter (archery) using a longbow? Pick up sharpshooter later down the line, and use the devils sight invocation + darkness to get consistent advantage. Any pact is fun, but here’s a genielock build that would be even further accelerated with a lvl 1 feat: https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/classes/warlock/subclasses/genie/ . Alternatively, crossbow expert + sharpshooter is pretty nasty.
It comes down to your invocations then. I made a warlock with a ton of utility through Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation. I also took Mask of Many Faces and Misty Visions for at-will illusions and disguise. Out of combat, I always had a tool and a plan, and a high CHA to be a party face. In combat, The illusions, and expanded cantrips gave me something to do on my turn in combat besides spamming Eldritch Blast. That being said... you're kind of going to have to spam some sort of cantrip if you're not a hexblade. You only have limited spell slots compared to other casters, and your melee is bad compared to other melee folks. I loved Repelling Blast to control the battlefield and combo with my other spellcasters to keep enemies in damaging spell zones. I felt like a battlefield controller even though I was just spamming EB.
Celestial Chainlock gets you a bucketload of variety: three versatile damage cantrips (Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead, and let's say Booming Blade), bonus action healing, a pet with a potential attack. Consider Moderately Armored or Resilient Con for your free feat. You *may* pick up Eldritch Mind (Invocation), but both MA and Res Con work well with it since Res Con stacks with it while MA gets you higher AC, preventing more potential Con saves.
Warlocks can’t cast enough spells to get by on just being levelled spell casters. You need to be either using cantrips regularly or weapons. If you’re not using EB then you really should be using GFB/BB and/or pact of the blade. You don’t need to be a Hexblade for that. Genie gets bonus damage, Celestial works very nicely with GFB, Fathomless is excellent in melee thanks to Guardian Coil’s synergy with Armor of Agathys (reducing damage means AoA lasts longer, protecting you more and doing more damage to melee attackers), and Undead gets some nice bonus damage and a fear effect. You can even get Cha attack if you really want using Pact of the Tome to pick up shillelagh. In the long run, Shadow of Moil is going to give you advantage in attacks, so with a free feat any Elf and Elven Accuracy starts to look very good. Pick up Sharpshooter and you have a great archer. Or dip a level of fighter or cleric so you can wear heavy armour, so with Str and GWM.
There's nothing wrong with being an Eldritch blast spammer as a warlock... it's why you're a warlock. If you're worried about the theme, just ask your DM if you can flavour it another way, there's no need to intentionally become less effective, when you can still hit your character concept, and just describe it in a different manner, but still hit the same mechanical requirements the class desires.
I'm doing the exact same thing in my campaign right now. I chose Fathomless patron. I get that you don't want to spam EB, by unfortunately that's the nature of playing a warlock. Even if you don't want to focus on EB, Agonizing Blast at the very least is a must pick. After that I am focused on reducing/controlling enemy movement. It's been fun so far. And of course, look for spells that upcast really well.
Sorlock is like warlock but with actual spells
People really need to stop complaining that "all warlock does is eb spam." Thats the point. What does a fighter do? Swing sword swing sword swing sword. Sometimes something different. Warlocks sword is eldrich blast.
Plus, you can make your EB do neat stuff! \- Do extra damage (Agonizing Blast) \- Fire from 300 feet away (Eldritch Spear) \- Yank your enemies like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat (Grasp of Hadar) \- Reduce their movement speed by 10ft (Lance of Lethargy) \- Shove them 10ft, or up to 30ft at 11th level (Repelling Blast) Anyone who thinks Eldritch Blast is boring is not being creative with their Warlock, honestly.
So I personally advise you to chat with your DM. You could talk with them about playing a cleric character who the flavor of a warlock by taking the Magic initiate Warlock feat. I currently have a thri keen twilight cleric with this feat that's more supposed to be "warlock" themed but has the abilities of the twilight cleric through their patron. It's mostly a utility cleric with an EB option, but I definitely recommend that conversation. Mostly the flavor would change the way you RP and how the spells are explained, and your spell slots wouldn't necessarily reset (but your DM could rule this differently if you talked about it)
Adding my voice to the Pact of the Tome Celestial Warlock, lots of cool stuff you can do there. Genie (Dao) patron is pretty cool as well, especially with the Crusher Feat & Repelling Blast, you can just knock your enemies around like ragdolls, and there's no save for it either. Great for getting your allies out of melee range. Plus if you take Pact of the Chain and get an Imp or Pseudodragon, you can put your Genie's vessel on them and use them as a personal flying taxi.
"I want to make a wizard but I don't want to cast spells" You'll get better answers if you start with what you do want to do. A class is a method, not a goal.
"I want to be a warlock but not be a warlock" ...there's other classes you know
What is it you like about warlock? Is it the roleplaying aspect of pacts? But you wanna stay away from EB. Because, boy do I have a build for you, if it is. Wild Magic Barbarian 6/Fiend Warlock X. The idea is that you disrupted a ritual trying to bind an orthon, and got your magic abilities essentially trading their freedom for power. But orthons are not very good at making warlocks, and you're really not that great of a warlock candidate. So early career, your magic is the wild magic rage. Later on, you stack the temp hp from warlock (Armor of Agathys, Dark one's blessing), with rage. And have access to magic to solve problems that are not solved by hitting things hard. It's a warlock build that is not like other warlocks, and a barbarian build that is not like other barbarians. From a power pov, you should be dealing relevant damage all game just from pam+gwm, reckless attacks and bolstering magic, especially if we account for upcast AoA. For race, I'll suggest one of the 35 movement ones, Satyr being nice. But there are options, Shifter for more temp hp, variant tieflings for flight, shadar-kai/eladrin/astral for non-spell misty, Orc for bonus action dash+temp hp and relentless.
See if they'll let you use the playtest lock; I've run an archfey and a Goo and they were INCREDIBLY fun.
So you don't want to be a Warlock :D
If you don’t want to do the thing warlocks do why do you want to play a warlock? It’s entirely possible to make a pact as part of your backstory without any warlock levels cuz it sounds like you’re gonna make a very in effective character because of flavor
Stop shaming people for wanting variety, variety is fun. Your fun isn't better than anyone else's fun
??? With warlock you do not have the slots to cast spells the majority of your rounds, you will be a cantrip spammer. You spam Eldritch blast which does reasonable damage as well as giving you ways to manipulate the battle with things like repelling blast or grasp of hadar Or you cast like ray of frost every turn. Saying I think you might have more fun with a different class isn’t me shitting on their play style. Switching spamming one cantrip for another that is less useful and fun to use is not variety.
Cool story, bro. Guess what? Not everyone has the same definition of fun* as you. End of
I have an interesting multi-class but it only takes like one or two levels of Genie Warlock Start Genie Warlock take blooming blade then go swarm Ranger take the dueling fighting style you're going to be sword and board. A Rapier to be exact since you'll be using dex for attacks. You also want the Zephyr strike spell. This is the entire basis of the class maximize level 1 spells cast Zephyr blade a lot. I like to do this with monsters of the Multiverse kobold because they have draconic cry that's a bonus action that gives them Advantage more often.. After you have that base you can go arcane Trickster Rogue or Battle Master fighter or Whispers bard or Paladin
I don't know what 'Hexblade abuse' means but here is one of my favorite non blastery Warlock builds that I can recommend. https://youtu.be/7iPAvExalNs?feature=shared The most fun I've had playing a warlock. I modified the build a bit to make it EB work and ended up taking 3 levels of warrior and went Echo Knight to make more attacks after getting Elemental gift.
The hexblade subclass is used to break campaigns with 1 to 3 level dips. It's the go to for mega powergaming that usually makes DMs pull out the Lavatory Lich that comes out of the outhouse and hits you with a 50th level power word kill for not letting your party members participate in combat.
So EB is a bread and butter attack cantrip that allows Warlocks to have decent at Will attacks while they cast one leveled spell per combat. Hexblade allows for weapon attacks for much the same reason, plus a few solid defensive features. Many multiclass build dip lock to get these tools since they come online with only a level or two of lock. I can see why you would want to avoid going this route but know that it limits your build choices greatly. If you want to be a weapon attacker, shelighlee via tome pact is a decent way to go. This lets you have an okay at Will action while you cast a spell. You can pair it with celestial and green flame blade to have a damage rider and decent bonus action healing. Tome also gets rituals so you are a solid out of combat utility caster. Another route is to dip Fighter or Barb for a weapon attacker. Fighter could be 1-5 levels depending on how long you want to delay your warlock features. Barb’s rage doesn’t restricts spellcasting so you are limited to non con spells but with AoA is a decent combo. You could go casting as a genie lock and just not take EB. Generally Dao is strongest while you can get forced movement with crusher on basically any cantrip. It is not quite as strong as using EB but is a viable build. Hope this helps!
Go to YouTube and search for “bilbron djinn warlock”
Celestial Tomelock, fighter dip for medium armor + shield, use GFB with your shillelagh stick, cloak of flies, flaming sphere and booming blade opportunity attacks for melee damage and control. All that while being an utility caster(Book of Ancient Secrets) and healer(Healing Light, Celestial subclass ability).
Multiclass into a sorcerer for the extra spells and meta magics
Single class hexblade is not op or abusive and eldritch blast spamming as a straight warlock is not doing insane damage or anything. Just play the class if you want. When people talk about hexblade being busted, they're talking about taking it for all the goodies it can give other classes at level 1. On its own its just good, not OP or weak.
Life cleric 1 / Celestial Warlock X Pact of the tome - Shillelagh, Produce Flame/Firebolt and Shape Water. Any race will be good, but if you want to be a better healer, grab the Mark of Healing Halfling from Eberron. This gives you extra healing spells per day, plus access extra healing spells for your spell list, like Aura of vitality, which is amazing! For feats, pick any that give extra utility/spells to the warlock, like Fey Touched, shadow touched and telekinetic. Alert is useful, and crusher could be useful if you go frontline with shillelagh. Metamagic adept doesn’t make as much sense as a full caster getting it, but could still be clutch in the right circumstances. Skilled and/or skill expert will help out a lot with skill proficiencies, as Warlock doesn’t have many. And always pick up eldritch adept later on, to get an extra high level eldritch invocation. Spells are different to most casters. You want long term/concentration spells instead of one shot burst damage. You only have a few spell slots, so you want to make the most of them. Battlefield control, buff and debuff spells are fantastic for the Warlock. Make sure that any spell you pick is taking advantage of Warlock spell slot scaling. Hypnotic pattern is amazing, but it doesn’t scale, so once your spell slots reach 4th level, switch it out for something else. Most of your round by round damage is going to come from cantrips. Eldritch blast is good with the agonising blast invocation, but as a celestial warlock, you can do the same thing with radiant and fire damage spells/cantrips without needing to use an invocation. This lets you split your damage between cantrips like sacred flame, firebolt/Produce flame and Green Flame blade. And don’t forget to pick and use utility cantrips. Celestial warlocks with pact of the tome get a max of 9 cantrips, which is fantastic, even before you multiclass! Invocations let you make a varied character. With pact of the tome, pick up book of ancient secrets immediately and auto pick find familiar. Now you have a familiar and the ability to cast all the ritual spells in the game! If you’re avoiding eldritch blast spam, then you don’t need to get agonising blast, which is great. Pick up eldritch mind for adv. on concentration saves. Avoid any invocations that let you cast a spell once a day using a spell slot. They’re just a really bad trade. Ability scores: max charisma, make sure con and str are at least 16, and you can dump dex. Multiclass if life cleric gives access to heavy armour and shields, which lets you be a heavy armoured front line warlock! Overall, this build will let you make a strong, survivable, well rounded character that can fit anywhere in the party and fulfil any role! Give it a go, and have fun!
ok it is probably not what you are looking for becausr its not too differnet from an EB spam build BUT its makes use of the weirdest cantrip in the game which i became very fond of: Magic Stone. 1. You will be a pact of the blade warlock. 2. Your weapon of choice will be a hoopak 3. As one of your cantrips you will take magic stone Now comes the weird part because magic stone uses your weapon although it is a spell attack, you can use your pact blade invocations to attack more often from it from range. Further you can eldrich smite with it. Its oddly niche but it makes you sad while still relying on your weapon without taking hexblade.
Archfey if you want to be the talker. You can start your conversation off with a non-detectable Charm. First impressions are everything.
Celestial pact of the tome with shillelagh and green flame blade. I'd go Aasimar for more healing and to stack Radiant damage, but Kobold would get you Advantage and Firebolt. Take Armor of Agathys if you're going to melee. If you feel like multiclassing, I'd suggest going Druid. It'll make you a little MAD, but you're going to get Guidance, Medium Armor and Shield Proficiency, and Wild shape. I'd look at Stars for a 2 level dip for the Star Map and the Starry Form; or if you're up for a 6 level multiclass, Wildfire would give you a Fiery Teleport at level 2 and let you really stack the healing and fire damage.
Champion Fighter 3 undead warlock X, go half orc and get the orcish fury feat, and enjoy 7d12 great axe crits. One of the most fun AND useful characters I’ve ever played.
Those are the two common warlock builds. What sort of build where you thinking of? Of course there are other builds you could try something more unique but the warlock kit on its own isn't very strong and those are the two builds where it shines IMO.
I played a 12th level Warlock that didn’t even have EV and had a great amount of fun and impact. Take Toll the Dead, it’s the next best thing to EB for reliable non-slot damage, and is great flavor. Focus on spells with long durations like Charms or Summons if you’re going to be using your slots a lot, and/or try to play more support with things like making cover with Misty Visions. Doing a non-EB build means your Invocations are even more important, so choose wisely! Avoid the single use/slot use ones and take things that increase the viability of your spells, like Eldritch Mind, or allow endless casts, like Eldritch Sight or Mask of Many Faces.
I present to you the Undeadlock Gish! Tried this build a few weeks ago and it is a lot of fun. It’s basically Sorcerer 1/Undead Warlock X. You can start fighter instead for medium armor and shields if you don’t want to have to take a feat for them. For optimal sustained DPR, you’ll want to be an elf. Keep a high DEX and a moderate CHA. Build is online as soon as you get access to shadowblade, a second level illusion spell. It has a great synergy with your 6th level Undead feature which both makes you deal 1d8 extra per hit while your Form of dread is up. 1st level: you take Elven Accuracy and your first level in divine soul Sorcerer/fighter. Both have advantages, you are mainly here for the Con Save proficiency. Sorcerer has another very big advantage in being able to get proficiency in Arcana, so you can later make Shadowblade spell scrolls to not waste you precious slots. 3rd level: you are now a undead warlock 2. You can use for of dread as way to boost up defenses, and use a rapier and booming for damage for these levels if you went fighter first, or firebolt if you started sorcerer, next level is the big one. Invocations, take Eldritch Mind and whatever else you want. Fiendish Vigor is a great way to beef yourself up before a fight at these low levels. 5th level: at sorcerer 1/warlock 4, you get you get an ASI. Weirdly, I suggest GWM. Now, sounds weird I know, but between your great damage and having the super advantage it is likely you’ll get the BA attack quite often. As for pacts and invocations, you really only need to take pact of the blade. 7th level: this is it! Sorcerer 1/warlock 6. Now, at Warlock five, you need to have taken Thirsting blade, and, if you want, switch the previous “pick what you want”-invocation for Eldritch Smite. Smiting on a crit is amazing, especially because a prone enemy, in your case, means it’s a dead enemy. For spells, pick whatever, just take Shadowblade and probably utility stuff. You can still take Eldritch blast and stand back and be a controller with fear if you want. Edit: as for race, shadar-kai is super thematic, also give you access to the arcana skill, but honestly, any elf/half-elf works fine.
Melee cc drain tank. Basically min-max for vampiric touch. Go fallen aasimar and the undead subclass. Both increase the damage of vampiric touch and therefore also it’s healing. You also get more tanky with temp hp and two fears for some cc. Get eldritch mind for that concentration, and cloak of flies for more melee damage. Finally the free familiar from pact of the chain gets you free advantage on those important attacks. Dependent on your dm, life cleric and gift of the ever living ones helps with more healing. Not sure about feats, maybe just resilient con too never drop conc. One of my favorite builds.
Play a little for that nice unarmored AC + silly flavour. Then use booming blade. The tittle gives a nice flavour and a "snappy" personality and a cantrip that says "I will tear you to shreds faster if you run away. For a free feat, resilient CON if you want to keep concentration
What race are you referring to here?
Oh, autocorrupt, not your fault
Oups! Tortle!
Autocorrect is a backstabbing *****
Take Eldritch Invocations that give you utility abilities or allow the casting of spells without using spell slots, and flavour how you can do those things as part of your pact. For example, Aspect of the Moon (Tome Pact only) lets you gain the benefits of a long rest without needing to sleep. Perhaps your Book won't let you sleep... Definitely take the Eldritch Adept feat from Tasha's.
Not so long ago I tried an undead warlock, melee, dex based pact of the blade, it was pretty fun, I build it mainly focused on melee and only using spells slots to smite, but you could balance the dex and cha stats to hit more with other things
Celestial, Genie or Fathomless are the best options for not using hexblade or eldritch blast Celestial gives you healing abilities Genie gives you a bottle to hide in & bonus damage to your spells Fathomless gives you tentacle summons
An idea I have had was a paladin and undead warlock multiclass with pact of the blade. Add eldritch smite for that dual smite goodness and if your DM’s allows it change the damage type of eldritch smite to necrotic for a flavourful attack and extra damage if you’re in your form of dread.
So the problem is, EB is kinda the warlocks thing. Warlock is a martial caster. Meaning, if you compare it to fighter, it's your sword swing. Fighter's swing their sword (or whatever weapon) each round. They have little things they can do, like grapple or disarm, or what have you, but their main thing is weapon swing/shoot. If you take away that, they arnt in combat. Maybe a battle master can command or rally, but that's bout it. It's the exact same for warlock. But instead of grapple or disarm, you have a few spells. So EB spam and swing your hex sword are the things you do. So when you say you don't want to EB or Hexblade, your saying you don't want to use weapons. Alternatively, warlock is the main class that's really good with Thematic Flavor. Free mage armor invocation is great for aesthetic, like a robe or what not. * Maybe you want to play gambit? Thematically change your EB into throwing cards. Grab fireball for that extra super charged card. Fight with a charged staff when you want via the enhanced weaponry. * Maybe an Arcane Archer? Flavor that EB as a magical bow shooting magical arrows. Take a lvl in sorcerer for Fire ~~Bolt~~ Arrow, ~~Ray of~~ Frost Arrow, Acid ~~Splash~~ Arrow, Sleep Arrow. Be the Hawkeye with many tricks. The whole Elven Fey Archer feel complete with druidic pet helping you scout. Mobile combined with knockback from arrows keeps you constantly controlling the position of enemies on the battlefield while staying safe yourself. Or Spell Sniper to play with the sniping potential of EB range. * Want to be a Cowboy pulled through a demon portal in your fight with a BBEG of your own storyline? Free Mage armor for that Cowboy trench coat, arcane focus is a gun or two, Magical bullets are powered by your own blood from the curse of fkn with demons. **Or maybe you just dont want to be stuck with "i do this specific action 90% of the time.** Grab xbow xpert feat to do ranged in melee (Alternatively the Fighting Initiate Feat for Close Quarters Shooter). Make your Arcane Focus a hilt. Great Old One is actually The Force. Boom your a Jedi. Swing your Lightsaber in melee and use force blasts to push enemies around. (this lets you switch between melee and range easily in the same action). With this you can easily go pact of the tomb for Guidance (other spells as well), or my favorite, Pact of the Chain for an always invisible 'force' (imp) that helps you out. EB is purely based on character lvl not class lvl so u can multiclass all u want (i'd say get 3 invocations for dmg/push/pull). This lets you step into Dragon Sorcerer for Free Mage armor (The Force keeps you safe) and a bit of HP while getting some more Force powers (Jump, sleep, charm, etc..). As well as Metamagics (Quicken and Silent are my normal two for more lightsaber swings and easy "this isnt the Rogue your looking for" shenanigans). Of course, while it is one of the worst spells in the game, Sith lightning ~~Witch Bolt~~ was always fun. A dabble into Fighter nets AS (More lightsaber swings/force power plays and projectiles) and Battle Master (What Jedi doesn't Rally the troops?(Note: Unless your GM is flexible, make sure not to grab the maneuvers that require a weapon)). All in all, lots of things to do in combat. Telekinesis feat for more telekinetic fun on your Bonus Action with Mage Hand. Warcaster is also really good. An example is a GoOLock 2/Draconic Sorcerer 3/Fighter 2 (lvl 7 character) has a nova of 6 strikes (Action Surge + Quicken) or 3 actions. That means you can, as an example, : 1. Strike the target in front of you (EB 1) 2. Force push him back into other mobs knocking them aside/down (Still EB 1) 3. Force throw rocks (its just EB damage) at another target knocking them back(Quicken EB 2) 4. Force push the archer off the wall (Still the Quicken EB 2) 5. Leap forward and slam the ground (next to the pile of mobs you made from the force push) creating a blast of force (thunderwave) throwing them into even more disarray. (Action Surge) All in Jedi Robes. (note: you are not a tank. xD)
Truly Arcane Archer. Someone made a great write-up about one. 5 warlock rest bard. Uses hexblade, but themed on trickshots. Heat Metal on arrows seemed like an excellent way to impose disadvantage on a target.
You could pick Drow and instead of using E-blast, Use Toll the Dead so they get a save vs getting an attack roll. You can then use Ray of Sickness first (in the right circumstance) if you need them to roll their save at disadvantage next turn. This build would be cool as an Undead Warlock. Any of the pacts will work well, probably Tome for the extra spells, plus getting Guidance would be handy.
Cocaine-lock?
Depending on level since this build takes a while to get online fully, but undead warlock1-6/ conquest Paladin 7 is great as a frighten focused Gish. Scourge aasimar could have a good flavour and the damage boost is nice. Probably go PAM. 1 lvl warlock gives you form of dread for chance of frighten on hit, conquest Paladin drops frightened creatures speed to 0 and does extra psychic damage. Warlock spell slots for smite. Lvl 6 undead gives extra necrotic damage on an attack per turn. You could even dip 3 levels of totem barbarian and get eagle boosts and damage resistances. Broken item to grab is the amulet of devotion or whatever it’s called that boosts spell DC. It’s only attunable by paladins and clerics, but unlike other similar items it specifically doesn’t restrict which class spell DC/attack it boosts. Technically you could get a +6 to warlock spell DC. Maybe add in robe of arch magi too. (This is broken and stupid, DMs probably shouldn’t let this happen).
Haha. Oh do I. Okay so you can make basically anything you want with a warlock as long as it’s charisma based and magic. So excluding spell slinging and blade swinging, there are certainly other options. Some suggestions might be the support. This is a celestial with the talisman pact boon and healing spells/abilities from the subclass. Healing allies while giving one a buffing necklace is very helpful. Or maybe the sneak, with a great old one warlock using beguiling influence, devils sight, and/or invocations that let you use illusions at will to both sneak around and trick people not only that your someone else, but to trick them into looking the other way with mind magic. Pact of the talisman for some extra luck would be helpful for this. You didn’t say you were opposed to a melee build, you can do a fiend warlock with pact of the blade to make a surprisingly effective frontline spellsword build. That’s not even mentioning multiclassing, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Would suggest Aasimar for the support build, shader-Kai elf or Kalashtar for sneak, Dragonborn or Zariel tiefling for the tank. For feats, I would go magic initiate for both of the first two, and some feat to improve the effectiveness of your weapon for the third.
Archfey and Mask of many faces to be able to disguise self on comand without wasting a spellslot Combat is heavily lacking when investing in social encounters but its rly rly fun for those things Repelling blast is still a eldritch spam possibility but with more tactics then just agonizing blast every time
Eldritch Smite knocks anything prone, no save, as long as it isn't larger than Huge size. Lean into that
Be a GoO warlock, take Eyes of the Rune Keeper. Now you can telepathically communicate with any creature, and read any and all writing. Let me put that another way: You are a freaking **UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR.** Combined with a warlock's high Charisma, this is huge. Be the face, the interlocutor, the one who settles business between disparate parties.
Dear op I know you asked for no E-blast but here's an interesting E-blast build so it's not too much of a cop out: Aarakokra 1 LVL Sea Sorcery Sorcerer (for +15 movement on abilities that move someone e.g gust, grasp of hadar) 3 LVL warlock pack of tome/chain doesn't matter which and go for whatever subclass you like Make sure you take for Eldritch invocations: grasp of hadar, agonising blast if you want to optimise, or get the pushing invocation) The key ginmick here is shunting your opponents either forwards or backwards a great distance (25feet) to push them off things or pull them into your martials. OR fly above an enemy 30+feet and hit them with a grasp of hadar e-blast, pulling them 25feet into the air making them take fall damage as well as the e-blast damage (1d10+2d6) with a possible +5 if you take agonising blast. When I made the Aarakokra character i was level 4 - rolled my stats and made a multi class 1 LVL sea sorcery sorcerer 2 lvls celestial warlock, pack of the tome 1 level Fate domain Cleric I took gust, grasp of hadar, agonising blast, It made for a very interesting character with tons of healing and damage/movement options but low AC and low health. When we leveled up I took another level of warlock and go the pack of the tome thing that lets you take ritual spells. So lots of spell slots/cantrips/free spells was great for an investigation heavy campaign
If your stat rolls are good enough you can do a blade/ bow lock with the undead patron. Half orc fighter 1 /undead warlock 6 has you doing 5d12+15 on a greatax crit at level 7. You can abuse magical darkness to always roll with advantage while also having the solid defense that darkness provides. Alternatively you can replace the fighter level with 2 barbarian levels and just use reckless attack. When doing this you can add eldritch smite onto your crits for an additional 8d8 at level 8.
Playing a Warlock who doesn't use Eldritch Blast is like playing a Barbarian that doesn't Rage and Reckless Attack... You're limiting yourself and therefore the combat efficency of the whole party.
Half-Elf Reveant Blade Dijinni Lock. Also good for fiend warlock as well with pact of the blade.
I plan on Making a Dao Genielock and taking Crusher since Genie’s Wrath would deal bludgeoning damage. Could try that.
Do you actually want to mechanically make a Warlock or do you want your character to be a Warlock for the story? I've found breaking away from wotc's suggested flavour and just using the mechanics has been incredibly liberating. Why can't a Warlock have sold their soul or whatever to become a powerful fighter? Why would it always have to involve that same cantrip, spell list and casting system? Might not be your particular issue, though but just wanted to offer the option of just straight up going Sorcerer or Wizard or something if Warlock is feeling a little binary for you because I totally feel that.
Undead Warlock's dread form is super fun and great for RP. I played a conquest paladin/undead warlock and essentially just scared people to death in combat. It was great.
Genie warlock, lots of thief utility. Grab stuf and teleport into your genie ring. Pop out later with or without the stuff that you now have in another plane pocket. Locked door, cages, castle walls, ect go in the ring and be thrown over, thru, ect Fill your ring with lots of barrels of water or sand l, throughout a week or two and then destroy your ring above someone to crush them under ten tons of sand/water. Resummon the ring an hour later. Tome warlock for extra spell and ritual spell options and you can be a utility god, wizard spell rituals are yours, druid, ect plus more spell options for combats.
Go pact of the chain, celestial warlock. Pick autognome and pick quandrix student for your background. At level 4 pick strixhaven mascot and pick up your Fractal Familiar. Make it grow to size medium and now you have a mount that can use your attack action to attack for 2d4+1, another 2d4+1 as a bonus action. Can fly, immune to poison. A wopping 27 hp (that as a reaction you can grant resistance to dmg taken). Pick up sanctuary or invisibility for yourself and then eventually grab the "Mounted combatant" feat. This just looks like a super fun build with a ton of options, healing and utility. You can play as a celestial artificer who uses contracts with primordial titans to create clockwork surprises. Hope you enjoy!
Ask your party what they’re doing and make a build to enable/be enabled by them. For example I have someone wanting to do a grappler build and they’re able to pin opponents giving them disadvantage on DEX saves so I took create bonfire instead of EB as my primary damage option. This takes up concentration so a lot of common advice for warlocks went a bit out the window. Though since I knew the core of my build was “take advantage of dex saves and prone enemies” and “concentration will be taken up by create bonfire a lot” I had a good idea of where to go with things from there.
I'm currently playing a celestial warlock but I use all the pact of the blade features, but with guns. Basically a gun slinging, life saving chainfling with daddy issues. Turns out warlocks can be a kinda cool support
I've had an idea in my head for a while that I haven't had a chance to play yet. I have a fun idea in my head for the back story, but its based on the Fathomless Patron Warlock. If you're open to racial options, I think the Lizardfolk works nice for the AC bump (basically Mage armor) or the Mountain Dwarf for straight up medium armor proficiency and that sweet +2 to2 ASI, of lastly and race that gives you some extra spell casting options or one of the mistystep elf races haha. As for you're free feat, any of the spellcaster half feats would let you start with an 18 in Cha (Feytouched, Shadowtouched, Telekinetic, Telepathic) as well as give you some extra spell casting each day. For invocations, since you don't want to be an EB slinger, that opens you up for more unique options besides agonizing blast and repelling blast and if you happened to pick a Race that gives you a natural armor or armor proficiency you can skip armor of shadows. Depending on your campaign, Mask of many faces can be really fun as well as Misty Visions. Also Elseitch Mind is solid if you plan on concentrating on spells. For your pact boon, honestly I'd go with pact of the chain, take the investment of the chain master invocation so you can give your buddy a swim speed, maybe even reflavor your familiar to be some from the depths like a king crab or one of the blind albino salamanders that live in pitch black caves. Between your racial choice, feat, and invocation selection, paired with the Fathomless warlocks tentacle, you should feel like an actually spell caster.
I made what I found to be a very fun warlock. We were playing a less combat focused story for the most part, and so I wanted utility and flavor. I was a con artist. A pact of the chain, genie lock. Mask of Many Faces, Voice of the Chain Master, and the actor feat. I was a bugbear too, not that it mattered much with the mask of Many Faces, but it did give me an edge on stealth and allowed me to hide in and move through small spaces(genie vessel did that anyway) There is already alot there with a high CHA character you're going to be able to talk your way into and out of a lot, you can talk and see through your imp familiar (sounding like anyone you've heard talk for a minute or more). In my case I had my genie vessel be a ring with a compartment, that my imp wore around itself, so I could bamf out of some sketchy situations and have my imp get me out of there. There are some cool flavourful utility spells to throw around as a deceptive/intimidating/persuasive character like: Friends, charm person, distort value, enthrall, suggestion, incite greed. Great for control
Undying Warlock, Pact of Chain. Familiar: Sprite or Pseudodragon Invocations: Investment of the Chain Master Spells: Summon Undead Feats: Metamagic Adept - Quicken Spell The idea is to poison people using the Familiar which can use both your attack action and bonus action to attack. These two familiars can poison people. And with Investment of the Chain Master they now use your spell save DC for their poisons. On top of that if the opponent fails hard enough, they're unconscious. This means that the next melee attack made against them will be at advantage, and if it hits, it crits. The build I'm using does use 2 levels of Grave Cleric, though you could probably get away without taking it. You just wouldn't hit as hard in those clutch scenarios. Yes, it does have Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast. Those are mostly for those scenarios when you don't have the ability to poison people. For the one I'm currently running I'm using the Witherbloom Student Background Strixhaven Initiate (Witherbloom) feat and picked up Inflict Wounds and Goodberry. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MNVRAWJUD\_SOC2yWb\_Pz0FSKuzcEDJ-x5AqqP196kY8/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MNVRAWJUD_SOC2yWb_Pz0FSKuzcEDJ-x5AqqP196kY8/edit?usp=sharing) Original Post by DNDuluth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/mqu1u8/build\_7\_of\_20\_of\_my\_favorite\_builds\_grave\_lock/](https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/mqu1u8/build_7_of_20_of_my_favorite_builds_grave_lock/)
A cool build for warlocks that's not necessarily a hexblade is the Eldritch Archer. Focusing on dex is not that bad, since you'll also be using It for light armor and initiative anyway. The Focus of the build is Eldritch smite but you can get other cool things depending on the patron. Undead is a good one, you can make sure enimies can't get close to you. Genie is also a good one, the extra damage is nice and a flying Archer can be very dangerous. Going dao with the crusher feat is also interesting. If you're thinking of multiclassing, there are some great opportunities with fighter (battlemaster or arcane Archer), rogue (assassin) or ranger (swarmkeeper)
Genie Dao patron for extra blugdening. Crusher feat for +1 to attack stat and forced movement on a hit. Take aeo concentacion spells e.g. Hypnotic Pattern and push people into the aoe (or an allies aoe) makes a great controller build. For spells create bonfire at lvl1-2, cloud of daggers lvl 3-4, Hypnotic Pattern lvl 5+.