A happy go lucky sailor who found himself aboard the doomed ship The Dark Duchess! (Yo dungeonites... A forever DM is going to get to play in a game! yay) I'll probably get to level 3 next session so I'm trying to be a good player and have some choices made ahead of time. I'm torn between two pact boon options; either Pact of the Chain or Pact of the Tome.
So could I request of my fellow locks a lil' opinion? Do you have a Pro vs Con thought on the two Pacts?
For me I see a major PRO of the Chain pact is having one of the special familiars and an additional attack option. A CON being, it seems like I'd be making extra work for my DM and he's just starting. I feel like it can be exploited in a way and with a busy table do I want to manage all that? Any experience with that? PRO for Pact of the Tome; well Find Familiar could easily be added to it and I could get a normal familiar and those benefits anyway. Plus a pretty nifty expansion of magic for the class. CON it feels like you need a couple of the Warlock Invocations added to it to make it work great. Gotta love that Ancient Secrets ritual snag. Which can limit other invocations sorta if you have another build goal in mind.
Am I overlooking any benefit or detriment to the choice? Any cool stories using either? What's a hungry halfling to do?!
I think pact of the chain is very flavourful. I think using an invisible imp for scouting is pretty nice, especially with some of the extra invocations to make it more powerful. However, when I have played this class, you have to be careful to not overwhelm the rest of the party with it being you familiar doing almost everything while you all stand by the entrance to a dungeon. Mechanically it should not be too much bother for the DM, as long as you have the stats handy.
Very good thought. I find tome to be okay, but yeah def needs some invocations to have great potential.
I'm not 100% on how I'll play him. Kinda thinking of doing an even more straight forward EB blaster and using a lot of the skills I picked up with the sailor bg as his primary use. Then maybe use some invocations to make him rather sneaky. I hope to have a better grasp of what I can do with him in a few more sessions, but level 3 is fast approaching.
I'm going to say that I'm a huge fan of chainlocks. My current character went the imp route, and the little guy prevented a TPK, covered our lack of a rogue nicely, and at levels 3-4 has been a nice attack option. I know people love Pact of the Tome for its utility, but if you play the character long enough, the rituals become more flavor, unless you happen to the only ritual caster of your group. I just grabbed a level of bard at 6th level, and that will get me so much more mileage and a little ritual casting. I find that long after the familiar loses its viability as an attacker, special familiars give access to some nice invocations, and some RP benefits (an imp can give the Help action on Persuasion!) Decide the role you want to play, and go with it.
I'm going to say that I'm a huge fan of chainlocks. My current character went the imp route, and the little guy prevented a TPK, covered our lack of a rogue nicely, and at levels 3-4 has been a nice attack option. I know people love Pact of the Tome for its utility, but if you play the character long enough, the rituals become more flavor, unless you happen to the only ritual caster of your group. I just grabbed a level of bard at 6th level, and that will get me so much more mileage and a little ritual casting. I find that long after the familiar loses its viability as an attacker, special familiars give access to some nice invocations, and some RP benefits (an imp can give the Help action on Persuasion!) Decide the role you want to play, and go with it.
Now that's the kind of long term warlock opinion I was looking for. Thank you. I see a lot of min-max talk about tome, which don't get me wrong I'll definitely consider. I was just wondering if chain players had some profound experiences. Roleplay flavor is one of my top considerations, but I think I can have fun with both that way. Protecting a special book or a critter seems fun to me. Did you RP the imp along side your character? Or did the DM provide the flavor?
At our table, the DM controls the familiar's personality. Szet (the imp), is a sadistic little guy, but he's obedient to my warlock. I control the actions of the imp (we use a VTT so I am responsible to move his token and declare actions). One of the the nice strategies is to have the invisible imp move into position next to something you want to hit. When that target moves, the imp take its opportunity attack. We use the RAW rules that the imp take its attack on the warlock's initiative as a reaction, so sniping stuff when it moves away is a nice way to get that attack (beware that the imp is now visible and can get hit after you go!). I don't use the Help action on attacks much at all; the imp tends to sneak attack.
But in game; its good stuff. The imp took a point blank fireball and laughed it off with fire immunity. And we are playing Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, which without being spoiler-y the imp is immune to a major plot issue in that game. So he's flying around like Alice in Resident Evil "you will all die down here!". But despite all the creep factor, dude has hands and we strapped a potion of healing to him which likely saved the entire group.
I do not fault folks loving Pact of the Tome; it makes your warlock an awesome utility caster. But chainpacts are fun as heck. and in your case, the imp could be a raven in plain sight which could be a good look on a pirate build.
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Firstly meet my new to the world lil Warlock Arvin Beetboiler
https://ddb.ac/characters/48770485/92sUM5
A happy go lucky sailor who found himself aboard the doomed ship The Dark Duchess! (Yo dungeonites... A forever DM is going to get to play in a game! yay)
I'll probably get to level 3 next session so I'm trying to be a good player and have some choices made ahead of time. I'm torn between two pact boon options; either Pact of the Chain or Pact of the Tome.
So could I request of my fellow locks a lil' opinion? Do you have a Pro vs Con thought on the two Pacts?
For me I see a major PRO of the Chain pact is having one of the special familiars and an additional attack option. A CON being, it seems like I'd be making extra work for my DM and he's just starting. I feel like it can be exploited in a way and with a busy table do I want to manage all that? Any experience with that?
PRO for Pact of the Tome; well Find Familiar could easily be added to it and I could get a normal familiar and those benefits anyway. Plus a pretty nifty expansion of magic for the class. CON it feels like you need a couple of the Warlock Invocations added to it to make it work great. Gotta love that Ancient Secrets ritual snag. Which can limit other invocations sorta if you have another build goal in mind.
Am I overlooking any benefit or detriment to the choice? Any cool stories using either?
What's a hungry halfling to do?!
I think pact of the chain is very flavourful. I think using an invisible imp for scouting is pretty nice, especially with some of the extra invocations to make it more powerful. However, when I have played this class, you have to be careful to not overwhelm the rest of the party with it being you familiar doing almost everything while you all stand by the entrance to a dungeon. Mechanically it should not be too much bother for the DM, as long as you have the stats handy.
Very good thought. I find tome to be okay, but yeah def needs some invocations to have great potential.
I'm not 100% on how I'll play him. Kinda thinking of doing an even more straight forward EB blaster and using a lot of the skills I picked up with the sailor bg as his primary use. Then maybe use some invocations to make him rather sneaky. I hope to have a better grasp of what I can do with him in a few more sessions, but level 3 is fast approaching.
I'm going to say that I'm a huge fan of chainlocks. My current character went the imp route, and the little guy prevented a TPK, covered our lack of a rogue nicely, and at levels 3-4 has been a nice attack option. I know people love Pact of the Tome for its utility, but if you play the character long enough, the rituals become more flavor, unless you happen to the only ritual caster of your group. I just grabbed a level of bard at 6th level, and that will get me so much more mileage and a little ritual casting. I find that long after the familiar loses its viability as an attacker, special familiars give access to some nice invocations, and some RP benefits (an imp can give the Help action on Persuasion!) Decide the role you want to play, and go with it.
Now that's the kind of long term warlock opinion I was looking for. Thank you. I see a lot of min-max talk about tome, which don't get me wrong I'll definitely consider. I was just wondering if chain players had some profound experiences. Roleplay flavor is one of my top considerations, but I think I can have fun with both that way. Protecting a special book or a critter seems fun to me.
Did you RP the imp along side your character? Or did the DM provide the flavor?
At our table, the DM controls the familiar's personality. Szet (the imp), is a sadistic little guy, but he's obedient to my warlock. I control the actions of the imp (we use a VTT so I am responsible to move his token and declare actions). One of the the nice strategies is to have the invisible imp move into position next to something you want to hit. When that target moves, the imp take its opportunity attack. We use the RAW rules that the imp take its attack on the warlock's initiative as a reaction, so sniping stuff when it moves away is a nice way to get that attack (beware that the imp is now visible and can get hit after you go!). I don't use the Help action on attacks much at all; the imp tends to sneak attack.
But in game; its good stuff. The imp took a point blank fireball and laughed it off with fire immunity. And we are playing Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, which without being spoiler-y the imp is immune to a major plot issue in that game. So he's flying around like Alice in Resident Evil "you will all die down here!". But despite all the creep factor, dude has hands and we strapped a potion of healing to him which likely saved the entire group.
I do not fault folks loving Pact of the Tome; it makes your warlock an awesome utility caster. But chainpacts are fun as heck. and in your case, the imp could be a raven in plain sight which could be a good look on a pirate build.