Doesn't Shadow of Moil make the non-racial casting of Darkness redundant? Surely it's better in basically every situation. The free darkness essentially give you an extra use of on-demand advantage per day if you keep Devil's Sight but I don't see how it's worthwhile to keep Darkness in your spell slots...
SoM is better for combat; It doesn't hamper your allies (No magical darkness, so Darkvision can see through the area around you), and it gives you off-turn damage, without needing your reaction.
However, Darkness lasts 10 minutes, and has a much larger area; It can be cast on a point, or on an object you can carry; if cast on an object, you can turn the darkness on and off, by covering the object. It blocks darkvision, and it can dispel low-level magical light.
I think what Freakybeak is saying that - as a Tiefling - I get to innately 'cast' Darkness once per long rest, so I don't need to use one of my precious spell choices to also choose Darkness as a learnt spell (i.e. SoM is good enough for now).
Also, update on my Tiefling Tomelock build (my next game is this Wednesday, so I'm just doing the final tweaks...!):
Level 7 Tiefling (innate Darkness and Hellish Rebuke) Fiend Warlock with Pact of the Tome: STR 8, DEX 16, CON 14, INT 9, WIS 10, CHA 18.
Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Eldritch Mind (will probably swap this out at Level 12 for War Caster after I get +2 CHA from Level 8 ASI), Book of Ancient Secrets (selecting Comprehend Languages and Identify as the ritual spells - I don't want Find Familiar or Detect Magic to start off with as party members / regular NPC knows this), and Relentless Blast.
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Thaumaturgy (Tiefling), Mind Sliver, Shape Water, and Vicious Mockery (the latter three are through the Pact of the Tome).
Spells: Armor of Agathys, Blindness/Darkness, Command, Fireball, Shadow of Moil, Sickening Radiance, Summon Greater Demon (I had to get this - I think it's going to cause so much delightful chaos, especially when my Warlock loses control!), and Thunder Step.
Keep Hex no matter what. First, I'm pretty sure MinokeTheWise math is wrong. 2d6 average damage is 7, not 4, the average damage of your EB would be 26 Hex is going to last 8 hours, for the times were you are going to be going for extended periods without rest or doing multiple small fights this is an absolute must have. Hex lasts 8 hours, Mike Mearls Sage Advice you can keep concentration during a short rest. This means you can have an active hex, short rest, and have both spell slots too.
You can't just compare it to fireball. Yes fireball does massive aoe damage, but it also can hit your own team, is one of the most resisted damage types. And you would not be giving up fireball to get keep hex. Fireball is for a bomb aoe, Hex is for when you need that spellslot to make an impact fight after fight round after round.
100% drop Armor of Agathys. Temp HP does not stack, you choose one source to keep and lose the other. for a fiend warlock Armor of Ag is an objectively bad spell.
Rituals Find familiar Detect Magic if no one has it.
cantrips Prestidigitation I highly recommend taking just read though it again and think creatively. Guidance is amazing, especially if you want to just call it inspiration to play off your old class a bit. (it can also be cast through your familiar and on your familiar) I'd drop shape water and mold earth, I love those spells, but they aren't nearly as useful as the other ones listed (Maybe take shape water now and mage hand later since a familiar can do a lot of the same things and mage hand is on the warlock list). (Also message is a great choice and I have no idea why some people don't see how useful it is especially if your group has a rogue or you have a familiar to locate a target and speak to them without them ever seeing you)
Invocations Id go Agonizing, book of shadows, and repelling blast then what ever you want. Repelling is just amazing, there is no save, no size limit not even legendary reactions can stop it. Knocking things away means you can avoid opportunity attacks for you and others in your party. 2 blasts is up to 20ft of knock back, so you can keep enemies in your parties spell radii, knock enemies of ledges for an additional 1d6/10ft. Nothing else can knock enemies around like this so its pretty unique.
Math is right, I used 5.5 as average for the d10 and 3.5 for the d6 because multiple dice means that rounding is less needed. The hex lasting that long is a good catch, though concentration means you also have to judge against other concentration spells. Fireball was a reasonable comparison to me because of not realizing that and going "if you have to spend the spell slot during combat which is the better use", I'll conceded that if you have hex up and short rest then keep it up, but forgetting about it and casting mid combat is likely to just be worse than the fireballl AOE.
Fireball catching friendlies is a bit of a table to table tactical thing, I tend to play with a lot more ranged/caster players than people that bull rush into melee and so that context can matter. Ditto on the damage resistances being common because it's a table to table thing for what you fight so much it matters.
Armor of Agathys stacking is a somewhat fair point but is tactically dependent. I'd rather look at it as "I can spend a spell slot to gain 20 extra health and when that runs out I get more from my feature" rather than "Oh man if I use this spell my class feature doesn't do anything".
Rest of the post is pretty much fine/understandable opinion, I think you can be a little more creative with invocations but eh.
Hmm, okay, I'm going to drop Armor of Agathys and get Hex - I have the same understanding as Minoke, re: it's benefits, but as I've got Shadow of Moil and Thunderstep, I think I'll rely on them to bolster me in melee (which I'll mostly be avoiding!). Hex will give my Eldritch Blast a boost, which will greatly improve the chance of getting a killing blow for the Dark One's Blessings (i.e. +11 Temp HP) as well as improve Crits. Also, holding it through 8 hours via Concentration and getting spell slots back is a good benefit.
I'm going to stick with Comprehend Languages and Identify for my Book of Ancient Secrets - I know Find Familiar is great, but we have a Ranger Beast Master and a regular NPC who has a familiar, so I'm going to cover a different basis so as not to step on their toes. Also, another party member has Dispel Magic. The other choice would have been Unseen Servant but I played a game where someone regularly used that, so don't fancy it myself!
Guidance is good, but I just feel it's a bit boring for me. I think Mold Earth and Shape Water are really great cantrips and relies on your creativity, however, my character did have Prestidigitation as a Bard, so I think I'll swap Shape Water out and put Prestidigitation back in.
Don't forget, you can learn any and all ritual spells, up to half your Warlock level (rounded up); at 9th level you can potentially have:
12x 1st level
9x 2nd level
6x 3rd level
1 4th level
4x 5th level
Granted, this will cost you 3600gp, and 144 hours, but considering this gives you wizard levels of preparation, for some, it might be worth it.
Absolutely! Aside from the aforementioned ritual spells (i.e. Find Familiar, Detect Magic, and Unseen Servant), are there any particular ritual spells you'd recommend? I can then have a chinwag with my DM and see if they're pliable enough to provide them within the campaign!
Math is right, I used 5.5 as average for the d10 and 3.5 for the d6 because multiple dice means that rounding is less needed. The hex lasting that long is a good catch, though concentration means you also have to judge against other concentration spells. Fireball was a reasonable comparison to me because of not realizing that and going "if you have to spend the spell slot during combat which is the better use", I'll conceded that if you have hex up and short rest then keep it up, but forgetting about it and casting mid combat is likely to just be worse than the fireballl AOE.
Fireball catching friendlies is a bit of a table to table tactical thing, I tend to play with a lot more ranged/caster players than people that bull rush into melee and so that context can matter. Ditto on the damage resistances being common because it's a table to table thing for what you fight so much it matters.
Armor of Agathys stacking is a somewhat fair point but is tactically dependent. I'd rather look at it as "I can spend a spell slot to gain 20 extra health and when that runs out I get more from my feature" rather than "Oh man if I use this spell my class feature doesn't do anything".
Rest of the post is pretty much fine/understandable opinion, I think you can be a little more creative with invocations but eh.
Yeah so EB 5.5x2 is 11, Hex 3.5x2 is 7, Agonizing 4x2 is 8 11+7+8= 26. How are you getting 24?
Armor of agathys just isn't worth it for fiend. It does actually waste your class feature, no matter how you try to put a positive spin on it. And any argument that you made for not using a spell slot for fireball instead of hex can just be directed not using the spell slot for Armor of Ag.
Purify Food and Drink is also handy in a pinch, when you've run low on rations; not so good when you're at the high table at a banquet, unless you can pass it off as a religious thing.
Gentle Repose is a must have if there's a real risk of the party dying, and you don't have access to the right cleric, right now.
Facing a mage, and have time to prepare? Silence will massively improve your chances
Sneaking into a morgue? Need to pretend to be dead for some other reason? Feign Death is your friend!
Not sure if it's still relevant, but i've been playing a warlock from level 4, and now i am on level 9. A few notes:
* My DM is hurrying our chars, so rests are few and far between and I have to be very stingy with spell slots. Therefore I only spend a slot when I can see a pretty big advantage in doing so (darkness against mobs of shooters, banishment to break a caster's concentration on a summoned demon).
- Invisibility, fly and other "support" options become awesome when your high level spell slot allow to affect much of the party (invis the whole party to ambush enemies, fly to escape a melee monster)
* Eldritch blast + agonizing blast is amazing. For the low cost of a cantrip and an invocation I am outdamaging the dedicated archer NPC. It is very odd, but I almost felt like a barbarian, because I just kept on rolling those d10s every single round.
- I forgot Hex pretty early in favor of darkness+devil sight. Hex adds reliable damage, but darkness both protects me AND the advantage gives me an increased chance of crits. Even then, for most low stake battles you can make do with EB alone.
* Summoning Barlguras with summon greater demon is incredibly fun, both in a good and in a bad way. I definitely surprised my DM at just how brutal that thing is. It's also a matter of time before you lose control of it, so be sure to tell your party members beforehand how fun it will be to kill an uncontrolled demon.
* Do yourself a favor and pick Eldritch mind (or some other feat that helps concentration, but an invocation is much cheaper than a feat). Nothing is worse than having your summoned Barlgura turn on you because you took an arrow.
I suggest keeping Hex, it is a great damage booster and once you can cast it on 5th level, its concentration lasts for 24 hours and of course no fight lasts that long :D My 8th level warlock has the Fiend patron and focuses on heavy damage, so if that is what you want to do as well, I'd recommend Wall of Fire and Blight spells (I think that you should have access to them already). Also Hellish Rebuke is awesome. I really love Pact of Chain especially after how it got improved with Tasha's cauldron of everything. If you are a Chainlock with the "Investment of the Chain Master" invocation, you get massive benefits to the Find Familiar spell that you can now cast as a ritual, you can summon an imp (which is arguably the best of the choices you can summon) and it has now some serious combat potential because you can use your bonus action to have it attack (physical AND potentially poison damage on every hit) or gain resistance to any damage it get attacked with. It can also turn invisible and shape-shift. My DM even made a little quest line for me to get the ability to summon an imp as a familiar (until then I was using classic familiars) which was pretty cool! It has downsides like having only very little HP (my imp dies in a hit or two when it gets attacked) but you can re-summon it for 10 GP and if you do it as a ritual, you do not spend a spell slot (though you do it for an hour).
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Warlock in WoW, warlock in D&D, warlock everywhere.
The other thing to consider about Hex is that you get to choose which stat to impose disadvantage to on ability checks. Never a bad thing to make an opponent roll twice and take the worst result. Especially with a spell that doesn't require a roll to hit and has no saving throw.
Not sure if it's still relevant, but i've been playing a warlock from level 4, and now i am on level 9. A few notes:
* My DM is hurrying our chars, so rests are few and far between and I have to be very stingy with spell slots. Therefore I only spend a slot when I can see a pretty big advantage in doing so (darkness against mobs of shooters, banishment to break a caster's concentration on a summoned demon).
- Invisibility, fly and other "support" options become awesome when your high level spell slot allow to affect much of the party (invis the whole party to ambush enemies, fly to escape a melee monster)
* Eldritch blast + agonizing blast is amazing. For the low cost of a cantrip and an invocation I am outdamaging the dedicated archer NPC. It is very odd, but I almost felt like a barbarian, because I just kept on rolling those d10s every single round.
- I forgot Hex pretty early in favor of darkness+devil sight. Hex adds reliable damage, but darkness both protects me AND the advantage gives me an increased chance of crits. Even then, for most low stake battles you can make do with EB alone.
* Summoning Barlguras with summon greater demon is incredibly fun, both in a good and in a bad way. I definitely surprised my DM at just how brutal that thing is. It's also a matter of time before you lose control of it, so be sure to tell your party members beforehand how fun it will be to kill an uncontrolled demon.
* Do yourself a favor and pick Eldritch mind (or some other feat that helps concentration, but an invocation is much cheaper than a feat). Nothing is worse than having your summoned Barlgura turn on you because you took an arrow.
Thanks YakiHakase! I'm glad to hear you've had fun with summoning demons - it's exactly the kind of chaotic fun I'm looking forward to add to the mix in our games! I think I might go for a support spell later (such as Fly or Invisibility).
Butch94, thanks for the advice! I'm aiming to avoid familiars for now as I don't want to step on party members' toes as they have companions already! I might get Wall of Fire later on but I'll leave Blight to my Druid colleague who already has it.
Eligius, I think I'll keep Hex! Imagine Hex and Mind Sliver combined to mess up an enemy's saving throw...!
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I think what Freakybeak is saying that - as a Tiefling - I get to innately 'cast' Darkness once per long rest, so I don't need to use one of my precious spell choices to also choose Darkness as a learnt spell (i.e. SoM is good enough for now).
Also, update on my Tiefling Tomelock build (my next game is this Wednesday, so I'm just doing the final tweaks...!):
Level 7 Tiefling (innate Darkness and Hellish Rebuke) Fiend Warlock with Pact of the Tome: STR 8, DEX 16, CON 14, INT 9, WIS 10, CHA 18.
Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Eldritch Mind (will probably swap this out at Level 12 for War Caster after I get +2 CHA from Level 8 ASI), Book of Ancient Secrets (selecting Comprehend Languages and Identify as the ritual spells - I don't want Find Familiar or Detect Magic to start off with as party members / regular NPC knows this), and Relentless Blast.
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Thaumaturgy (Tiefling), Mind Sliver, Shape Water, and Vicious Mockery (the latter three are through the Pact of the Tome).
Spells: Armor of Agathys, Blindness/Darkness, Command, Fireball, Shadow of Moil, Sickening Radiance, Summon Greater Demon (I had to get this - I think it's going to cause so much delightful chaos, especially when my Warlock loses control!), and Thunder Step.
Keep Hex no matter what.
First, I'm pretty sure MinokeTheWise math is wrong. 2d6 average damage is 7, not 4, the average damage of your EB would be 26
Hex is going to last 8 hours, for the times were you are going to be going for extended periods without rest or doing multiple small fights this is an absolute must have.
Hex lasts 8 hours, Mike Mearls Sage Advice you can keep concentration during a short rest. This means you can have an active hex, short rest, and have both spell slots too.
You can't just compare it to fireball. Yes fireball does massive aoe damage, but it also can hit your own team, is one of the most resisted damage types. And you would not be giving up fireball to get keep hex. Fireball is for a bomb aoe, Hex is for when you need that spellslot to make an impact fight after fight round after round.
100% drop Armor of Agathys. Temp HP does not stack, you choose one source to keep and lose the other. for a fiend warlock Armor of Ag is an objectively bad spell.
Rituals
Find familiar
Detect Magic if no one has it.
cantrips
Prestidigitation I highly recommend taking just read though it again and think creatively.
Guidance is amazing, especially if you want to just call it inspiration to play off your old class a bit. (it can also be cast through your familiar and on your familiar)
I'd drop shape water and mold earth, I love those spells, but they aren't nearly as useful as the other ones listed (Maybe take shape water now and mage hand later since a familiar can do a lot of the same things and mage hand is on the warlock list).
(Also message is a great choice and I have no idea why some people don't see how useful it is especially if your group has a rogue or you have a familiar to locate a target and speak to them without them ever seeing you)
Invocations
Id go Agonizing, book of shadows, and repelling blast then what ever you want.
Repelling is just amazing, there is no save, no size limit not even legendary reactions can stop it. Knocking things away means you can avoid opportunity attacks for you and others in your party. 2 blasts is up to 20ft of knock back, so you can keep enemies in your parties spell radii, knock enemies of ledges for an additional 1d6/10ft. Nothing else can knock enemies around like this so its pretty unique.
Math is right, I used 5.5 as average for the d10 and 3.5 for the d6 because multiple dice means that rounding is less needed. The hex lasting that long is a good catch, though concentration means you also have to judge against other concentration spells. Fireball was a reasonable comparison to me because of not realizing that and going "if you have to spend the spell slot during combat which is the better use", I'll conceded that if you have hex up and short rest then keep it up, but forgetting about it and casting mid combat is likely to just be worse than the fireballl AOE.
Fireball catching friendlies is a bit of a table to table tactical thing, I tend to play with a lot more ranged/caster players than people that bull rush into melee and so that context can matter. Ditto on the damage resistances being common because it's a table to table thing for what you fight so much it matters.
Armor of Agathys stacking is a somewhat fair point but is tactically dependent. I'd rather look at it as "I can spend a spell slot to gain 20 extra health and when that runs out I get more from my feature" rather than "Oh man if I use this spell my class feature doesn't do anything".
Rest of the post is pretty much fine/understandable opinion, I think you can be a little more creative with invocations but eh.
Hmm, okay, I'm going to drop Armor of Agathys and get Hex - I have the same understanding as Minoke, re: it's benefits, but as I've got Shadow of Moil and Thunderstep, I think I'll rely on them to bolster me in melee (which I'll mostly be avoiding!). Hex will give my Eldritch Blast a boost, which will greatly improve the chance of getting a killing blow for the Dark One's Blessings (i.e. +11 Temp HP) as well as improve Crits. Also, holding it through 8 hours via Concentration and getting spell slots back is a good benefit.
I'm going to stick with Comprehend Languages and Identify for my Book of Ancient Secrets - I know Find Familiar is great, but we have a Ranger Beast Master and a regular NPC who has a familiar, so I'm going to cover a different basis so as not to step on their toes. Also, another party member has Dispel Magic. The other choice would have been Unseen Servant but I played a game where someone regularly used that, so don't fancy it myself!
Guidance is good, but I just feel it's a bit boring for me. I think Mold Earth and Shape Water are really great cantrips and relies on your creativity, however, my character did have Prestidigitation as a Bard, so I think I'll swap Shape Water out and put Prestidigitation back in.
Thanks for all the help so far everyone! :)
Absolutely! Aside from the aforementioned ritual spells (i.e. Find Familiar, Detect Magic, and Unseen Servant), are there any particular ritual spells you'd recommend? I can then have a chinwag with my DM and see if they're pliable enough to provide them within the campaign!
Yeah so EB 5.5x2 is 11, Hex 3.5x2 is 7, Agonizing 4x2 is 8 11+7+8= 26. How are you getting 24?
Armor of agathys just isn't worth it for fiend. It does actually waste your class feature, no matter how you try to put a positive spin on it. And any argument that you made for not using a spell slot for fireball instead of hex can just be directed not using the spell slot for Armor of Ag.
Thanks Lurky - some great suggestions (and uses!). That Phantom Horse sounds great!
Not sure if it's still relevant, but i've been playing a warlock from level 4, and now i am on level 9. A few notes:
* My DM is hurrying our chars, so rests are few and far between and I have to be very stingy with spell slots. Therefore I only spend a slot when I can see a pretty big advantage in doing so (darkness against mobs of shooters, banishment to break a caster's concentration on a summoned demon).
- Invisibility, fly and other "support" options become awesome when your high level spell slot allow to affect much of the party (invis the whole party to ambush enemies, fly to escape a melee monster)
* Eldritch blast + agonizing blast is amazing. For the low cost of a cantrip and an invocation I am outdamaging the dedicated archer NPC. It is very odd, but I almost felt like a barbarian, because I just kept on rolling those d10s every single round.
- I forgot Hex pretty early in favor of darkness+devil sight. Hex adds reliable damage, but darkness both protects me AND the advantage gives me an increased chance of crits. Even then, for most low stake battles you can make do with EB alone.
* Summoning Barlguras with summon greater demon is incredibly fun, both in a good and in a bad way. I definitely surprised my DM at just how brutal that thing is. It's also a matter of time before you lose control of it, so be sure to tell your party members beforehand how fun it will be to kill an uncontrolled demon.
* Do yourself a favor and pick Eldritch mind (or some other feat that helps concentration, but an invocation is much cheaper than a feat). Nothing is worse than having your summoned Barlgura turn on you because you took an arrow.
I suggest keeping Hex, it is a great damage booster and once you can cast it on 5th level, its concentration lasts for 24 hours and of course no fight lasts that long :D My 8th level warlock has the Fiend patron and focuses on heavy damage, so if that is what you want to do as well, I'd recommend Wall of Fire and Blight spells (I think that you should have access to them already). Also Hellish Rebuke is awesome. I really love Pact of Chain especially after how it got improved with Tasha's cauldron of everything. If you are a Chainlock with the "Investment of the Chain Master" invocation, you get massive benefits to the Find Familiar spell that you can now cast as a ritual, you can summon an imp (which is arguably the best of the choices you can summon) and it has now some serious combat potential because you can use your bonus action to have it attack (physical AND potentially poison damage on every hit) or gain resistance to any damage it get attacked with. It can also turn invisible and shape-shift. My DM even made a little quest line for me to get the ability to summon an imp as a familiar (until then I was using classic familiars) which was pretty cool! It has downsides like having only very little HP (my imp dies in a hit or two when it gets attacked) but you can re-summon it for 10 GP and if you do it as a ritual, you do not spend a spell slot (though you do it for an hour).
Warlock in WoW, warlock in D&D, warlock everywhere.
The other thing to consider about Hex is that you get to choose which stat to impose disadvantage to on ability checks. Never a bad thing to make an opponent roll twice and take the worst result. Especially with a spell that doesn't require a roll to hit and has no saving throw.
Thanks YakiHakase! I'm glad to hear you've had fun with summoning demons - it's exactly the kind of chaotic fun I'm looking forward to add to the mix in our games! I think I might go for a support spell later (such as Fly or Invisibility).
Butch94, thanks for the advice! I'm aiming to avoid familiars for now as I don't want to step on party members' toes as they have companions already! I might get Wall of Fire later on but I'll leave Blight to my Druid colleague who already has it.
Eligius, I think I'll keep Hex! Imagine Hex and Mind Sliver combined to mess up an enemy's saving throw...!