As a warlock you're a spellcaster, but unlike other spellcasters you dont have the amount of spell slots or levels as regular spell casters or even half casters. You get 2 slots until high levels, but they do recharge on a short rest. More often than not you're going to be using your best cantrip, Eldritch Blast. Mixed with a couple invocations and you can deal consistant damage with a similar attack progression as a fighter (2 attacks at 5, 3 at 11, 4 at 17). You also get the handy devil sight and darkness, letting you shrowd your enemies in magical darkness they can't see through but you can.
Exploration: Invocations are your friend here. Eldritch Sight lets you cast detect magic at will, letting you scan for magic in a room. Spectral Sight (i think thats the name) lets you see through walls for a short period of time. Pact of the Chain can have familiars such as the imp, who can become an invisible scout.
Social: You're a charisma based spellcaster, meaning proficiency in the four social skills can easily be done without getting a little MAD. You can go any direction with this though. Like Aishtha said you probably made a deal with a less than savory character and might be suspicious of the others around you and keep to yourself. You might do the opposite, hiding your dark secret under a friendly face and a broad smile.
For all three pillars your invocations, pact choice, and patron choice will shape your character and how they affect each of these. (I.E. a fiend is a blaster dealing some serious aoe while a hexblade can cover that gish of a spellcaster and melee fighter.) It's an incredibly versital class and its far more rare to see two warlocks with similar builds on paper or personality in character.
Warlock is probably the most customizable class, with all the decisions you get to make about patron, pact, invocations, and spells. Therefore, your contributions to the different pillars will vary depending on your build.
Combat -
If you don't go melee - You are a ranged blaster doing solid damage via Eldritch Blast and occasionally using your spell slot (until high level you only have 2 and you probably used one for Hex already) for control or an area effect.
If you do go melee (blade pact and/or hexblade patron) - You can do solid melee damage but you are a little light on AC and hit points - you are not a tank. You have access to a lot of effects that increase your effectiveness and durability like refreshing temporary hit points, damaging enemies that damage you, and effects that give you extra mobility to get out of danger (invocation to have misty step) or to get in close (hexblade patron teleport next to your curse target) Your spells can enhance your combat effectiveness or can control the battle field.
Exploration -
You aren't super slealthy, but with Devil's Sight you can see no matter what, you see in color (not black and white like darkvision) and you see 120 feet - twice as far as most darkvision users. You may also have a familiar from pact of the chain, or pact of the tome/Book of Ancient Secrets (take find familiar ritual). With pact of the chain in particular, with the right invocation, your familiar can invisibly scout any distance away and you can see through its eyes while it does. Also, mage hand is super useful. If you take the Tome and Book of Ancient Secrets you have access to all classes ritual spells for some super useful effects - detect magic, comprehend languages, Leomund's Tiny Hut!, etc, etc.
Social -
You don't have a lot of skills, but you are charisma based so you can be strong in persuasion, intimidation, insight, etc. You also have access to a lot of cantrips and invocations that are super useful to this pillar. With pact of the tome you can pick up cantrips like Message, and Thaumaturgy. You have access to minor illusion. You have invocations for disguising yourself or even impersonating others. You have charm person. With the Great Old one you can create thralls to your will. There is an invocation that lets you understand all languages. Again ritual spells from Tome/Ancient Secrets gives you access to Comprehend Languages, Contact Other Plane, Divination, etc.
So you can have a strong impact in all pillars, you just have to make choices about your pact, patron, spells, and invocations. In my opinion, if you want to have a strong impact in all three you probably want to avoid pact of the blade because, to be strong in combat, a melee warlock needs to spend a lot of their invocations on melee oriented enhancements (extra damage, extra attack, etc). If you go ranged you CAN spend all your invocations to make yourself stronger in combat, but you don't have to in order to be effective, allowing you to concentrate more on other pillars.
Agree with all of the above, plus take note that some new kits, like the Celestial patron allow the Warlock to dip into a support role. I made my primary character a Celestial Tome-based Warlock that's super strong in Cantrips (I have a ton of those) and also has very cool healing capabilities. Might need a second healer, but allow them to play less of a healer build. So, yeah, I kinda like the class very much. I hope that sometime soon the homebrew of Subclasses will be possible. It would be delightful to create my own Patrons.
I'm intrigued by the Warlock class, and would enjoy a primer on what I would likely be expected to do to contribute to each pillar of play.
Combat:
As a warlock you're a spellcaster, but unlike other spellcasters you dont have the amount of spell slots or levels as regular spell casters or even half casters. You get 2 slots until high levels, but they do recharge on a short rest. More often than not you're going to be using your best cantrip, Eldritch Blast. Mixed with a couple invocations and you can deal consistant damage with a similar attack progression as a fighter (2 attacks at 5, 3 at 11, 4 at 17). You also get the handy devil sight and darkness, letting you shrowd your enemies in magical darkness they can't see through but you can.
Exploration: Invocations are your friend here. Eldritch Sight lets you cast detect magic at will, letting you scan for magic in a room. Spectral Sight (i think thats the name) lets you see through walls for a short period of time. Pact of the Chain can have familiars such as the imp, who can become an invisible scout.
Social: You're a charisma based spellcaster, meaning proficiency in the four social skills can easily be done without getting a little MAD. You can go any direction with this though. Like Aishtha said you probably made a deal with a less than savory character and might be suspicious of the others around you and keep to yourself. You might do the opposite, hiding your dark secret under a friendly face and a broad smile.
For all three pillars your invocations, pact choice, and patron choice will shape your character and how they affect each of these. (I.E. a fiend is a blaster dealing some serious aoe while a hexblade can cover that gish of a spellcaster and melee fighter.) It's an incredibly versital class and its far more rare to see two warlocks with similar builds on paper or personality in character.
Warlock is probably the most customizable class, with all the decisions you get to make about patron, pact, invocations, and spells. Therefore, your contributions to the different pillars will vary depending on your build.
Combat -
If you don't go melee - You are a ranged blaster doing solid damage via Eldritch Blast and occasionally using your spell slot (until high level you only have 2 and you probably used one for Hex already) for control or an area effect.
If you do go melee (blade pact and/or hexblade patron) - You can do solid melee damage but you are a little light on AC and hit points - you are not a tank. You have access to a lot of effects that increase your effectiveness and durability like refreshing temporary hit points, damaging enemies that damage you, and effects that give you extra mobility to get out of danger (invocation to have misty step) or to get in close (hexblade patron teleport next to your curse target) Your spells can enhance your combat effectiveness or can control the battle field.
Exploration -
You aren't super slealthy, but with Devil's Sight you can see no matter what, you see in color (not black and white like darkvision) and you see 120 feet - twice as far as most darkvision users. You may also have a familiar from pact of the chain, or pact of the tome/Book of Ancient Secrets (take find familiar ritual). With pact of the chain in particular, with the right invocation, your familiar can invisibly scout any distance away and you can see through its eyes while it does. Also, mage hand is super useful. If you take the Tome and Book of Ancient Secrets you have access to all classes ritual spells for some super useful effects - detect magic, comprehend languages, Leomund's Tiny Hut!, etc, etc.
Social -
You don't have a lot of skills, but you are charisma based so you can be strong in persuasion, intimidation, insight, etc. You also have access to a lot of cantrips and invocations that are super useful to this pillar. With pact of the tome you can pick up cantrips like Message, and Thaumaturgy. You have access to minor illusion. You have invocations for disguising yourself or even impersonating others. You have charm person. With the Great Old one you can create thralls to your will. There is an invocation that lets you understand all languages. Again ritual spells from Tome/Ancient Secrets gives you access to Comprehend Languages, Contact Other Plane, Divination, etc.
So you can have a strong impact in all pillars, you just have to make choices about your pact, patron, spells, and invocations. In my opinion, if you want to have a strong impact in all three you probably want to avoid pact of the blade because, to be strong in combat, a melee warlock needs to spend a lot of their invocations on melee oriented enhancements (extra damage, extra attack, etc). If you go ranged you CAN spend all your invocations to make yourself stronger in combat, but you don't have to in order to be effective, allowing you to concentrate more on other pillars.
Agree with all of the above, plus take note that some new kits, like the Celestial patron allow the Warlock to dip into a support role. I made my primary character a Celestial Tome-based Warlock that's super strong in Cantrips (I have a ton of those) and also has very cool healing capabilities. Might need a second healer, but allow them to play less of a healer build. So, yeah, I kinda like the class very much. I hope that sometime soon the homebrew of Subclasses will be possible. It would be delightful to create my own Patrons.
:) Cheers
Zev Georg Mir, creator of Michtim: Fluffy Adventures
Game Designer, Storyteller, UX Gamedev, Homebrewer, Michtim
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