Pact of The Chain -- Why it May Be the Best Pact Boon
First off it gives you the Find Familiar spell and it doesn't even waste your precious known spells. Here's why Find Familiar is a great spell for your Warlock. Familiars can be used to scout ahead of your party so you don't run straight into an ambush. They can also spy and evil enemies. (You and your familiar can communicate telepathically, and in addition you can see out of your familiar's eyes, hear out of your familiar's ears, and so on) Familiars can turn invisible, this means for instance that if you're stuck in a prison cell, your familiar can slip through the bars, turn invisible, and take the key from the guard. Sort of like a Mage Hand. Your familiar could also trigger or disable any traps in front of you, you wouldn't get hurt but your conscience would. Familiars can carry extra equipment, an Imp can even carry up to 90 lbs. Speaking of that, if your character is small, up to 90 pounds, than your familiar could carry you away from battle if you are unconscious or dying. They could fly you up to a hard to reach place, this also means that if your familiar can hover you could attack from the sky protecting you from all melee weapons. Some familiars such as the Imp can even turn invisible, when they turn invisible their equipment and anything they are carrying turns invisible too. This means that if your familiar is carrying you, you would turn invisible too! Think about it, you can attack from the air and be invisible at the same time! How cool is that? Familiars can also serve as meat shields (Though you shouldn't), Warlock familiars pack a lot more hit points than any other familiars. They also the same exact familiar can be resummoned by just casting the spell again. So they never truly die. If you want your familiar out of the way you can just send it to another pocket dimension without having to do anything but snap your fingers. You can also take them out of the pocket dimension in the same way. Get this, you can never go hungry when your familiar is around. Since they never truly die you can eat your familiar for any meal resummoning it by just casting the spell again. This is not advised since your familiar will hate you for eternity (Unless it truly loves you and does this willingly) and will take every chance to get back when you're not commanding it. Familiars can help you on the battlefield. To have your familiar attack you must forgo one of your own attacks, at first your familiars attacks might prove useful, but once you get to higher levels they don't amount to much and you'll want to use your own attacks. One immensely useful action your familiar can do on its turn is to use the Help action. Your familiar can take this action on its own. Unless your familiar dies and you don't have the time to resummon it, you will have advantage on your attack rolls or ability checks you make. SO USEFUL! Lastly your familiar can help in dire situations, for example, "You and the other adventurers are trying to hold off masses of demon hordes, you need to place the special stone into the throne to stop the demons. You and your friends try to hold off the monsters, but there are to many you can't keep this up much longer. You remember your familiar 'Skiff' and hand him the stone. He flies invisibly to the throne and inserts the stone. The demons are disintegrated instantly. You win the game!" I hope this shows how useful familiars can be.
Eldritch Invocations: Voice of the Chain Master: This let's you perceive through your familiar's senses and communicate telepathically with it. This is great for a lot of situations. This Invocation also lets you speak in your voice through your familiar's mouth. No need for Animal Messenger anymore. Chains of Carceri: This lets you cast hold monster at will without expending a spell slot! Gift of the Ever-Living Ones: This lets you gain the ultimate hit points. "Whenever you regain hit points while your familiar is within 100 feet of you, treat any dice rolled to determine the hit points you regain as having rolled their maximum value for you" That is just awesome!
I hope this was helpful, this is my first ever thread. I've never actually played using these examples (I rarely play just dm) but through careful study of the books I figured it out.
1) invisibility doesn’t equal hidden. Invisible creatures can still be detected and attacked by anyone nearby. Granting it any better status than that can be a slippery slope.
2) It’s 10gp and an Hour to recast familiar each time. So it’s not so easy to replace.
3) When they die they I don’t think they leave a corpse or food behind. They’re spirits, not the actual animals they represent.
4) If you use Help with a familiar, make sure you consider that bad guys will also target your familiar more often as well so you might not be able to use it as often as want.
1) If the familiar or you are invisible that means that enemies have disadvantage against you and can not actually see what you are doing.
2) It is 10gp, if you are adventuring frequently than this is only a mild price for the advantages. If you do not have the money than you can find the ingredients in the wild. So I guess It's not easy but still too useful to not replace.
3) The spirits can escape the body leaving it behind, but the soul travel to its own dimension free of its material body.
4) This is true, but some familiars can cast fear on enemies keeping them from coming close enough for a melee attack. They can also fly and turn invisible, protecting them further.
1) If the familiar or you are invisible that means that enemies have disadvantage against you and can not actually see what you are doing.
2) It is 10gp, if you are adventuring frequently than this is only a mild price for the advantages. If you do not have the money than you can find the ingredients in the wild. So I guess It's not easy but still too useful to not replace.
3) The spirits can escape the body leaving it behind, but the soul travel to its own dimension free of its material body.
4) This is true, but some familiars can cast fear on enemies keeping them from coming close enough for a melee attack. They can also fly and turn invisible, protecting them further.
1) Disadvantage yes, but they can still be detected. They can be targeted and attacked, unless the ability or feature indicates that you must see the creature. Consider invisible to be like “camouflage”, not truly hidden.
2) Technically, you cannot substitute 10gp for Incense on the fly while you’re out adventuring. If you can, then it’s definitely a house rule. I’d also argue you can’t just “find” and make incense just anywhere. And it’s still an hour to cast each time.
3) It’s not a spirit inhabiting a living body - the body, everything, is the spirit. The spirit takes the form of an animal, it doesn’t possess the animal itself (as per the spell description). Again, the spell description: “When the familiar drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. It reappears after you cast this spell again.”
4) Depends on what Familiars your DM allows. I wouldn’t use house rules as a good indicator on what is considered powerful for any typical game though. (In reference to being able to Fly, Invis, and Fear - no standard familiar does all of those - a Quasit can Fear and Invis at the same time, but that also makes the Fear feature less effective as well)
1) Seriously it is invisible. How come invisible monsters or villains in movies aren't just as easy to defeat as other creatures? I know it's a rule in D&D, but still you'd have to have amazing hearing or smell to sense them.
2) Ok fine, unless your playing a pirate campaign. You get so much gp in those. Unless your dm doesn't do it that way. Again house rules.
3) Sorry about that one I guess I forgot when I was writing this. I did look at the spell while making this post, but maybe that part slipped past me. Anyways your right about that.
4) All of these familiars are included in the Dungeons&Dragons rules and can even be used in Adventure League. Please post back what familiar you find to be against the rules.
Pact of the Chain is commonly held to be the weakest of the three Pacts, usually because the people who decide relative power of different classes, subclasses, and features focus primarily on combat and tend to favor options that scale well at higher levels. Pact of the Chain is not terribly useful in combat unless one's DM is overly generous with The Help Action(C), and the familiar doesn't generally get stronger as the warlock levels up outside of access to Invocations. Many warlock players also like to point out that a Tome warlock with Book of Ancient Secrets can gain access to the base form of Find Familiar, granting them the things combat-focused players find most useful (read: the only things they care about) from familiars - The Help Action(C) and spell delivery.
Many such players dismiss the reconnaissance aspect of a Chain familiar, claiming that the party's rogue should be doing the scouting regardless, and they further like to dismiss the ability of a familiar to act as a sleepless sentry for one's camp. The majority of combat-focused wargamer players want Tome, to gain dungeon utility spells that allow them to conserve resources for combat, with a contingent favoring Blade as the foundation of triple-Smite multiclass swordmonsters.
In this humble ghost's opinion, those players are all freaking idiots.
I love Pact of the Chain. You gain a loyal companion with sapient-being level intelligence that can (in three cases) fly, and (in three cases) become invisible at will. The imp and the spirte can fly, turn invisible, and have opposable thumbs allowing them to manipulate objects for you. If the warlock itself is trained in Stealth, it and its Chain familiar make an excellent heisting team; warlocks can easily stand in for a rogue or replace one outright with a bit of background work. The Chain familiar's intelligence and loyalty to its partner means it's capable of acting on its own initiative or carrying out complex plans with precise timing. In many ways, a Chain familiar is an additional party member more than simply a wizard's pet critter, or a means of cheesing the god******* godforsaken Help Action.
The Pact of the Chain is for the player whose warlock does their best work outside of initiative. Someone with a sneaky infiltrator warlock, or a talky deceptive warlock, or any warlock other than a derpy Eldritch Blast Boi or Vengeance the Twice-King, Blade in the Dark and Smiter of necromancers. If you're asking what Pact of the Chain does for you in combat, you shouldn't take Chainand should instead re-examine why you're playing a warlock in the first place.
I slightly disagree with the humble ghost's opinion :P. I like Pact of the Chain but I freaking love Pact of the Tome (totally agree with Pact of the Blade being fairly boring). At level 3 you have a measly 2 cantrips and like it or not 1 of them most likely will be Eldritch Blast. That leaves you with 1 piddly cantrip to play around with and I don't know about you but that leaves me very very sad. Enter the Tomes 3 extra cantrips and all of a sudden you gots more cantrips than even those flashy 'look at me I get 4 cantrips at the start' Sorcerers :D
Who cares about Book of Ancient Secrets when you can get the way cooler Far Scribe. You could literally be the mastermind of a complex operation that requires splitting the party thanks to being able to cast Sending to anybody whose name is in the book!
The Hexblade sub-class was made for the Pact of the Blade boon, but ultimately, that boon is not great for the others. Pact of the Tome is HIGHLY over-rated, as the list of useful Ritual spells does not scale well to higher levels, and they are highly situational.
Pact of the Chain is the best, unfortunately. But as a DM it is a nightmare to deal with. The higher INT versions available via this Pact ALMOST operate as a separate character. And that Familiar is clearly more powerful, in a non-combat situation, that a lower level char. That provides huge challenges for a DM, as these versions can operate magical items, open doors, maybe even unlock them, and 3 of them can do it while Invisible. With their Intelligence levels (higher than some chars), they can easily operate independently in almost any setting.
The real problem I have with them is the power-gamer that has this Familiar. There is nothing mechanically wrong with a player Warlock taking the Imp as their Fam. It is objectively the best of the 4. But I am hard-pressed to believe that an Arch-Fey Warlock will take a Fam in the shape of a Fiend (with all its superior abilities) when a Sprite, which is Fey, is available. You give a power-gamer a high end Fam, you can pretty much kiss goodbye any kind of suspenseful situation, or the group being Surprised.
one correction, the Imp has a STR of 6 so Carrying weight for a medium size creature of that strength is 90, but Tiny creatures (like your Imp or other familiars) it is halved, so only 45 pounds, which is still a lot.
Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature's carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.
one correction, the Imp has a STR of 6 so Carrying weight for a medium size creature of that strength is 90, but Tiny creatures (like your Imp or other familiars) it is halved, so only 45 pounds, which is still a lot.
Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature's carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.
And yet another reason why Familiars are totally broken. Or better, why carrying capacities are so broken. A Tiny creature, with a Str of 6, should never be able to carry, let alone fly, with 4 times its own weight. How many clever players aka powergamers have their Familiar carry them around if the char is a Halfling or Gnome (same players conveniently forget to add their equipment).
Vince, honestly, if you despise powergamers so goddam much, why don't you just not play with them? I'm an atheist, but there is a saying from the Bible that applies here, something about knocking and not opening a door. (I'm a powergamer, so I'm definitely not calling us the Devil, I'm just saying that if you don't like something, you don't have to tolerate having it at your table.)
Imps, Sprites, Quasits and other familiars are magical. Does it make sense for a normal 1-foot tall humanoid-ish creature to be able to lift 24 pounds (or whatever it is for each of the creatures)? No. However, they're magical. I tend to allow the Rules as Written overrule the Rules as Realistic as long as the RAW is also Rules as Fun. If the players are in a tight spot and the Paladin lost their Holy Avenger Great Sword and are currently stuck in an Evard's Black Tentacles wrestling a Yochlol, I'll let the imp fly the sword back to the paladin, involving a few rolls and a bit of enginuity to figure it out.
That's the thing I think Pact of the Chain is better at than the other Pact Boons (possibly excluding Pact of the Tome). Encouraging thinking. I don't mean cheesing the rules and having the gnome warlock ride atop their gazer pet to avoid melee combat (even if that is a cool image), but more intelligent thinking that promotes creativity instead of limiting choice by giving them a "get out of jail free card" familiar that can do anything and everything they want.
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Vince, honestly, if you despise powergamers so goddam much, why don't you just not play with them? I'm an atheist, but there is a saying from the Bible that applies here, something about knocking and not opening a door. (I'm a powergamer, so I'm definitely not calling us the Devil, I'm just saying that if you don't like something, you don't have to tolerate having it at your table.)
Imps, Sprites, Quasits and other familiars are magical. Does it make sense for a normal 1-foot tall humanoid-ish creature to be able to lift 24 pounds (or whatever it is for each of the creatures)? No. However, they're magical. I tend to allow the Rules as Written overrule the Rules as Realistic as long as the RAW is also Rules as Fun. If the players are in a tight spot and the Paladin lost their Holy Avenger Great Sword and are currently stuck in an Evard's Black Tentacles wrestling a Yochlol, I'll let the imp fly the sword back to the paladin, involving a few rolls and a bit of enginuity to figure it out.
That's the thing I think Pact of the Chain is better at than the other Pact Boons (possibly excluding Pact of the Tome). Encouraging thinking. I don't mean cheesing the rules and having the gnome warlock ride atop their gazer pet to avoid melee combat (even if that is a cool image), but more intelligent thinking that promotes creativity instead of limiting choice by giving them a "get out of jail free card" familiar that can do anything and everything they want.
I do avoid power-gamers as much as possible. No, that is the incorrect term. Because power-gamers also includes optimizing a char within very strict rules. I do that myself when I build a char and its stats. I have my ASI's mapped out to level 12 before session 0 is finished for a 1st level char. What I can't stand are rules lawyers who try twisting the wording of the spell, and conflate it with real-life physics, skipping RAW when it is inconvenient, using RAW when it is convenient. I am a physics guy by education, and always try to LIMIT my char's actions, or the actions of other char's, whenever possible, unless it completely contravenes RAW. And in that case, when I DM, there are pages of House Rules that deal with things utterly broken by RAW, such as falling, jumping, grappling.
A power-gamer uses 4d6 for better stats, but says it is because they like the randomness. A power-gamer whines about needing more magic for their char. A power-gamer rules lawyers every single thing that does not go their way, adding or dropping RAW whenever it is convenient. A power-game casts Invisibility on their Int 2 Owl Familiar and then sends it ahead, but gives it some complicated set of instructions no Int 2 creature could possibly understand. However, given that Warlock Fam's have Int scores higher than many players, and 3 of the 4 can be Invisible at will, it is all within RAW for scouting purposes, which is a nightmare for a DM trying to build an outdoor encounter. Hence my comments about Familiars. They are for all intents and purposes another char, one that is MORE powerful than a low level char, outside of combat. And if they are given some magic item, like a wand, they are lethal.
Pact of the Blade Hexblade lock would LOVE to **** your familiar and you up with his detect magic eyes and stupid damage. Pact of the Chain is good, but it is not THE BEST or GREAT. IMHO things in dnd break down in 3 catageories 1. Combat Usefulness 2. Roleplay Potential 3. Out of Combat Usefulness. Pact of the Chain scores thusly ,1 - 4/10. 2 - 8/10. 3. 8/10. Help is cool and is useful, but that little imp has what 20 HP? Even invisibly thats disadvantage (mathematically thats about -5 to hit). 1 hit is all it takes in levels 4-5 onward to ddrop that thing and cost you 10 gold and an hour to get it back. It can cast touch spells which is nice, but .....warlock an't got a lot of super useful ones lotta what warlock does is mind ****y shit or AOE. Plus in the later parts levels 6+ their damage is just okay and compared to pretty much any other lock falls off. Roleplay wise yeah you can do a shit load and make it super interesting and it can be REALLY fun, aces, but it loses points because you can't really summon anything more powerful then an Imp even at level 20 OP haxors. 3. Their scouting abilities/stealth abilities and finding shit out/puzzle abilities is bar none some of the best, if divination wizards or rogues didn't exist this would be 10/10.
One of my many points was that the Warlock familiar's attacks do get smaller compared to the monsters you will be fighting as you level up. Though the attacks might not be the best their usefulness in battle is immense. For instance let's take the imp as an example, in battle, if you are light enough, it could fly you around, keeping you safe from melee attacks, maybe even finding you cover. Also the imp could turn itself and you invisible at the same time. That is just freaking awesome! All the while you can also use it to spam the help action boosting your attacks. So, yeah, they are also very powerful in combat, not as fighters, but as helpers.
One of my many points was that the Warlock familiar's attacks do get smaller compared to the monsters you will be fighting as you level up. Though the attacks might not be the best their usefulness in battle is immense. For instance let's take the imp as an example, in battle, if you are light enough, it could fly you around, keeping you safe from melee attacks, maybe even finding you cover. Also the imp could turn itself and you invisible at the same time. That is just freaking awesome! All the while you can also use it to spam the help action boosting your attacks. So, yeah, they are also very powerful in combat, not as fighters, but as helpers.
One way to ease the pain of Find Familiar is to make it a 3rd or 4th level spell, thereby not available to low level chars. Now, how to handle this for Pact of the Chain warlocks, that is dicey. Maybe say they get the "regular Fam" with the Pact Boon, and then the enhanced version as Invocation available at 5th level Warlock. The spell's impact on campaigns at low levels is way over-sized, and that impact is amplified with an Intelligent, Invisible Familiar.
One of my many points was that the Warlock familiar's attacks do get smaller compared to the monsters you will be fighting as you level up. Though the attacks might not be the best their usefulness in battle is immense. For instance let's take the imp as an example, in battle, if you are light enough, it could fly you around, keeping you safe from melee attacks, maybe even finding you cover. Also the imp could turn itself and you invisible at the same time. That is just freaking awesome! All the while you can also use it to spam the help action boosting your attacks. So, yeah, they are also very powerful in combat, not as fighters, but as helpers.
i just quickly made a halfling wizard with starting equipment and looking at the character sheet they are at 63 pounds. You would have to get rid of quite a bit to get to the 45 weight limit. Not impossible but you’re not carrying much. And I think that’s just carrying weight not including the halfling
Pact of The Chain -- Why it May Be the Best Pact Boon
First off it gives you the Find Familiar spell and it doesn't even waste your precious known spells. Here's why Find Familiar is a great spell for your Warlock. Familiars can be used to scout ahead of your party so you don't run straight into an ambush. They can also spy and evil enemies. (You and your familiar can communicate telepathically, and in addition you can see out of your familiar's eyes, hear out of your familiar's ears, and so on) Familiars can turn invisible, this means for instance that if you're stuck in a prison cell, your familiar can slip through the bars, turn invisible, and take the key from the guard. Sort of like a Mage Hand. Your familiar could also trigger or disable any traps in front of you, you wouldn't get hurt but your conscience would. Familiars can carry extra equipment, an Imp can even carry up to 90 lbs. Speaking of that, if your character is small, up to 90 pounds, than your familiar could carry you away from battle if you are unconscious or dying. They could fly you up to a hard to reach place, this also means that if your familiar can hover you could attack from the sky protecting you from all melee weapons. Some familiars such as the Imp can even turn invisible, when they turn invisible their equipment and anything they are carrying turns invisible too. This means that if your familiar is carrying you, you would turn invisible too! Think about it, you can attack from the air and be invisible at the same time! How cool is that? Familiars can also serve as meat shields (Though you shouldn't), Warlock familiars pack a lot more hit points than any other familiars. They also the same exact familiar can be resummoned by just casting the spell again. So they never truly die. If you want your familiar out of the way you can just send it to another pocket dimension without having to do anything but snap your fingers. You can also take them out of the pocket dimension in the same way. Get this, you can never go hungry when your familiar is around. Since they never truly die you can eat your familiar for any meal resummoning it by just casting the spell again. This is not advised since your familiar will hate you for eternity (Unless it truly loves you and does this willingly) and will take every chance to get back when you're not commanding it. Familiars can help you on the battlefield. To have your familiar attack you must forgo one of your own attacks, at first your familiars attacks might prove useful, but once you get to higher levels they don't amount to much and you'll want to use your own attacks. One immensely useful action your familiar can do on its turn is to use the Help action. Your familiar can take this action on its own. Unless your familiar dies and you don't have the time to resummon it, you will have advantage on your attack rolls or ability checks you make. SO USEFUL! Lastly your familiar can help in dire situations, for example, "You and the other adventurers are trying to hold off masses of demon hordes, you need to place the special stone into the throne to stop the demons. You and your friends try to hold off the monsters, but there are to many you can't keep this up much longer. You remember your familiar 'Skiff' and hand him the stone. He flies invisibly to the throne and inserts the stone. The demons are disintegrated instantly. You win the game!" I hope this shows how useful familiars can be.
Eldritch Invocations: Voice of the Chain Master: This let's you perceive through your familiar's senses and communicate telepathically with it. This is great for a lot of situations. This Invocation also lets you speak in your voice through your familiar's mouth. No need for Animal Messenger anymore. Chains of Carceri: This lets you cast hold monster at will without expending a spell slot! Gift of the Ever-Living Ones: This lets you gain the ultimate hit points. "Whenever you regain hit points while your familiar is within 100 feet of you, treat any dice rolled to determine the hit points you regain as having rolled their maximum value for you" That is just awesome!
I hope this was helpful, this is my first ever thread. I've never actually played using these examples (I rarely play just dm) but through careful study of the books I figured it out.
Forgot to mention that this is not a question just a post.
Yes, I tend to agree. This is spot on
Thank you Cyclops08, sorry the formatting's so bad It's my first post here.
A few inaccuracies here:
1) invisibility doesn’t equal hidden. Invisible creatures can still be detected and attacked by anyone nearby. Granting it any better status than that can be a slippery slope.
2) It’s 10gp and an Hour to recast familiar each time. So it’s not so easy to replace.
3) When they die they I don’t think they leave a corpse or food behind. They’re spirits, not the actual animals they represent.
4) If you use Help with a familiar, make sure you consider that bad guys will also target your familiar more often as well so you might not be able to use it as often as want.
1) If the familiar or you are invisible that means that enemies have disadvantage against you and can not actually see what you are doing.
2) It is 10gp, if you are adventuring frequently than this is only a mild price for the advantages. If you do not have the money than you can find the ingredients in the wild. So I guess It's not easy but still too useful to not replace.
3) The spirits can escape the body leaving it behind, but the soul travel to its own dimension free of its material body.
4) This is true, but some familiars can cast fear on enemies keeping them from coming close enough for a melee attack. They can also fly and turn invisible, protecting them further.
1) Disadvantage yes, but they can still be detected. They can be targeted and attacked, unless the ability or feature indicates that you must see the creature. Consider invisible to be like “camouflage”, not truly hidden.
2) Technically, you cannot substitute 10gp for Incense on the fly while you’re out adventuring. If you can, then it’s definitely a house rule. I’d also argue you can’t just “find” and make incense just anywhere. And it’s still an hour to cast each time.
3) It’s not a spirit inhabiting a living body - the body, everything, is the spirit. The spirit takes the form of an animal, it doesn’t possess the animal itself (as per the spell description). Again, the spell description: “When the familiar drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. It reappears after you cast this spell again.”
4) Depends on what Familiars your DM allows. I wouldn’t use house rules as a good indicator on what is considered powerful for any typical game though. (In reference to being able to Fly, Invis, and Fear - no standard familiar does all of those - a Quasit can Fear and Invis at the same time, but that also makes the Fear feature less effective as well)
1) Seriously it is invisible. How come invisible monsters or villains in movies aren't just as easy to defeat as other creatures? I know it's a rule in D&D, but still you'd have to have amazing hearing or smell to sense them.
2) Ok fine, unless your playing a pirate campaign. You get so much gp in those. Unless your dm doesn't do it that way. Again house rules.
3) Sorry about that one I guess I forgot when I was writing this. I did look at the spell while making this post, but maybe that part slipped past me. Anyways your right about that.
4) All of these familiars are included in the Dungeons&Dragons rules and can even be used in Adventure League. Please post back what familiar you find to be against the rules.
Pact of the Chain is commonly held to be the weakest of the three Pacts, usually because the people who decide relative power of different classes, subclasses, and features focus primarily on combat and tend to favor options that scale well at higher levels. Pact of the Chain is not terribly useful in combat unless one's DM is overly generous with The Help Action(C), and the familiar doesn't generally get stronger as the warlock levels up outside of access to Invocations. Many warlock players also like to point out that a Tome warlock with Book of Ancient Secrets can gain access to the base form of Find Familiar, granting them the things combat-focused players find most useful (read: the only things they care about) from familiars - The Help Action(C) and spell delivery.
Many such players dismiss the reconnaissance aspect of a Chain familiar, claiming that the party's rogue should be doing the scouting regardless, and they further like to dismiss the ability of a familiar to act as a sleepless sentry for one's camp. The majority of combat-focused wargamer players want Tome, to gain dungeon utility spells that allow them to conserve resources for combat, with a contingent favoring Blade as the foundation of triple-Smite multiclass swordmonsters.
In this humble ghost's opinion, those players are all freaking idiots.
I love Pact of the Chain. You gain a loyal companion with sapient-being level intelligence that can (in three cases) fly, and (in three cases) become invisible at will. The imp and the spirte can fly, turn invisible, and have opposable thumbs allowing them to manipulate objects for you. If the warlock itself is trained in Stealth, it and its Chain familiar make an excellent heisting team; warlocks can easily stand in for a rogue or replace one outright with a bit of background work. The Chain familiar's intelligence and loyalty to its partner means it's capable of acting on its own initiative or carrying out complex plans with precise timing. In many ways, a Chain familiar is an additional party member more than simply a wizard's pet critter, or a means of cheesing the god******* godforsaken Help Action.
The Pact of the Chain is for the player whose warlock does their best work outside of initiative. Someone with a sneaky infiltrator warlock, or a talky deceptive warlock, or any warlock other than a derpy Eldritch Blast Boi or Vengeance the Twice-King, Blade in the Dark and Smiter of necromancers. If you're asking what Pact of the Chain does for you in combat, you shouldn't take Chainand should instead re-examine why you're playing a warlock in the first place.
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I slightly disagree with the humble ghost's opinion :P. I like Pact of the Chain but I freaking love Pact of the Tome (totally agree with Pact of the Blade being fairly boring). At level 3 you have a measly 2 cantrips and like it or not 1 of them most likely will be Eldritch Blast. That leaves you with 1 piddly cantrip to play around with and I don't know about you but that leaves me very very sad. Enter the Tomes 3 extra cantrips and all of a sudden you gots more cantrips than even those flashy 'look at me I get 4 cantrips at the start' Sorcerers :D
Who cares about Book of Ancient Secrets when you can get the way cooler Far Scribe. You could literally be the mastermind of a complex operation that requires splitting the party thanks to being able to cast Sending to anybody whose name is in the book!
The Hexblade sub-class was made for the Pact of the Blade boon, but ultimately, that boon is not great for the others. Pact of the Tome is HIGHLY over-rated, as the list of useful Ritual spells does not scale well to higher levels, and they are highly situational.
Pact of the Chain is the best, unfortunately. But as a DM it is a nightmare to deal with. The higher INT versions available via this Pact ALMOST operate as a separate character. And that Familiar is clearly more powerful, in a non-combat situation, that a lower level char. That provides huge challenges for a DM, as these versions can operate magical items, open doors, maybe even unlock them, and 3 of them can do it while Invisible. With their Intelligence levels (higher than some chars), they can easily operate independently in almost any setting.
The real problem I have with them is the power-gamer that has this Familiar. There is nothing mechanically wrong with a player Warlock taking the Imp as their Fam. It is objectively the best of the 4. But I am hard-pressed to believe that an Arch-Fey Warlock will take a Fam in the shape of a Fiend (with all its superior abilities) when a Sprite, which is Fey, is available. You give a power-gamer a high end Fam, you can pretty much kiss goodbye any kind of suspenseful situation, or the group being Surprised.
one correction, the Imp has a STR of 6 so Carrying weight for a medium size creature of that strength is 90, but Tiny creatures (like your Imp or other familiars) it is halved, so only 45 pounds, which is still a lot.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
And yet another reason why Familiars are totally broken. Or better, why carrying capacities are so broken. A Tiny creature, with a Str of 6, should never be able to carry, let alone fly, with 4 times its own weight. How many clever players aka powergamers have their Familiar carry them around if the char is a Halfling or Gnome (same players conveniently forget to add their equipment).
Vince, honestly, if you despise powergamers so goddam much, why don't you just not play with them? I'm an atheist, but there is a saying from the Bible that applies here, something about knocking and not opening a door. (I'm a powergamer, so I'm definitely not calling us the Devil, I'm just saying that if you don't like something, you don't have to tolerate having it at your table.)
Imps, Sprites, Quasits and other familiars are magical. Does it make sense for a normal 1-foot tall humanoid-ish creature to be able to lift 24 pounds (or whatever it is for each of the creatures)? No. However, they're magical. I tend to allow the Rules as Written overrule the Rules as Realistic as long as the RAW is also Rules as Fun. If the players are in a tight spot and the Paladin lost their Holy Avenger Great Sword and are currently stuck in an Evard's Black Tentacles wrestling a Yochlol, I'll let the imp fly the sword back to the paladin, involving a few rolls and a bit of enginuity to figure it out.
That's the thing I think Pact of the Chain is better at than the other Pact Boons (possibly excluding Pact of the Tome). Encouraging thinking. I don't mean cheesing the rules and having the gnome warlock ride atop their gazer pet to avoid melee combat (even if that is a cool image), but more intelligent thinking that promotes creativity instead of limiting choice by giving them a "get out of jail free card" familiar that can do anything and everything they want.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The best warlock pact is whichever one you enjoy the most.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I do avoid power-gamers as much as possible. No, that is the incorrect term. Because power-gamers also includes optimizing a char within very strict rules. I do that myself when I build a char and its stats. I have my ASI's mapped out to level 12 before session 0 is finished for a 1st level char. What I can't stand are rules lawyers who try twisting the wording of the spell, and conflate it with real-life physics, skipping RAW when it is inconvenient, using RAW when it is convenient. I am a physics guy by education, and always try to LIMIT my char's actions, or the actions of other char's, whenever possible, unless it completely contravenes RAW. And in that case, when I DM, there are pages of House Rules that deal with things utterly broken by RAW, such as falling, jumping, grappling.
A power-gamer uses 4d6 for better stats, but says it is because they like the randomness. A power-gamer whines about needing more magic for their char. A power-gamer rules lawyers every single thing that does not go their way, adding or dropping RAW whenever it is convenient. A power-game casts Invisibility on their Int 2 Owl Familiar and then sends it ahead, but gives it some complicated set of instructions no Int 2 creature could possibly understand. However, given that Warlock Fam's have Int scores higher than many players, and 3 of the 4 can be Invisible at will, it is all within RAW for scouting purposes, which is a nightmare for a DM trying to build an outdoor encounter. Hence my comments about Familiars. They are for all intents and purposes another char, one that is MORE powerful than a low level char, outside of combat. And if they are given some magic item, like a wand, they are lethal.
Pact of the Blade Hexblade lock would LOVE to **** your familiar and you up with his detect magic eyes and stupid damage. Pact of the Chain is good, but it is not THE BEST or GREAT. IMHO things in dnd break down in 3 catageories 1. Combat Usefulness 2. Roleplay Potential 3. Out of Combat Usefulness. Pact of the Chain scores thusly ,1 - 4/10. 2 - 8/10. 3. 8/10. Help is cool and is useful, but that little imp has what 20 HP? Even invisibly thats disadvantage (mathematically thats about -5 to hit). 1 hit is all it takes in levels 4-5 onward to ddrop that thing and cost you 10 gold and an hour to get it back. It can cast touch spells which is nice, but .....warlock an't got a lot of super useful ones lotta what warlock does is mind ****y shit or AOE. Plus in the later parts levels 6+ their damage is just okay and compared to pretty much any other lock falls off. Roleplay wise yeah you can do a shit load and make it super interesting and it can be REALLY fun, aces, but it loses points because you can't really summon anything more powerful then an Imp even at level 20 OP haxors. 3. Their scouting abilities/stealth abilities and finding shit out/puzzle abilities is bar none some of the best, if divination wizards or rogues didn't exist this would be 10/10.
One of my many points was that the Warlock familiar's attacks do get smaller compared to the monsters you will be fighting as you level up. Though the attacks might not be the best their usefulness in battle is immense. For instance let's take the imp as an example, in battle, if you are light enough, it could fly you around, keeping you safe from melee attacks, maybe even finding you cover. Also the imp could turn itself and you invisible at the same time. That is just freaking awesome! All the while you can also use it to spam the help action boosting your attacks. So, yeah, they are also very powerful in combat, not as fighters, but as helpers.
One way to ease the pain of Find Familiar is to make it a 3rd or 4th level spell, thereby not available to low level chars. Now, how to handle this for Pact of the Chain warlocks, that is dicey. Maybe say they get the "regular Fam" with the Pact Boon, and then the enhanced version as Invocation available at 5th level Warlock. The spell's impact on campaigns at low levels is way over-sized, and that impact is amplified with an Intelligent, Invisible Familiar.
i just quickly made a halfling wizard with starting equipment and looking at the character sheet they are at 63 pounds. You would have to get rid of quite a bit to get to the 45 weight limit. Not impossible but you’re not carrying much. And I think that’s just carrying weight not including the halfling
https://ddb.ac/characters/46235446/pYBBxI
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?