Chain familiars can attune to magic items so long as they meet the requirements for attunement. A wand of magic missles is a great item for your familiar if you can find it.
Scouting, spying, help action, and administering potions are the staples of a chain familiar.
If you plan in multi classing I’d suggest 2 spells: inflict wounds and dragons breath.
There are times when its better to go Book, and times when its better to go Chain. And the main difference between them? Part party composition, part character concept. As someone else said, and the original poster acknowledged, there's only minor benefits in battle for both paths; the overwhelming majority of battle is going to be Eldritch Blast. You can have backup damage cantrips, usually if someone gets into melee range, but the familiar could also Help and let you Repelling Blast the target away from you without problem. The main benefit in either is utility, but a question of what kind of utility.
Book gives you access to a bunch of cantrips like the Dancing Lights/Minor Illusion combo, Guidance, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Spare the Dying and Prestidigitation, and later on a bunch of utility rituals. Dancing Lights is a favorite cantrip of mine, because it has so many awesome uses - its a VERY excellent scouting tool and can be used as a distraction along with Minor Illusions against guards. Mage Hand can open potentially trapped doors and chests at a distance. Mending has proven to be handy when doing dungeon exploring in many campaigns. Message for telepathic coordination. Guidance is great for skill checks of all kinds. But you only really need one of each in your group, at best. Got a cleric in your party? That's Guidance and Spare the Dying. An Arcane Trickster? No reason for you to pick up scouting cantrips or Mage Hand. Indeed, if you're not a scout yourself, with stealth and perception abilities, you're likely better away from any scouting or trickery powers. Practically all rituals come from the wizard and cleric spell list, so if have both of those in your party, there's little reason to take the ritual magic yourself.
Familiars, on the other hand? Even if you have a rogue with expertise in Stealth in your group, I don't think they would say no to the imp tagging along and using Help to offer advantage. Very few people pay attention to small critters, and the distant eyes ability effectively turns them into a scrying spell. If your warlock is into the social scene, the familiar can also Help with any rolls you make. Insight, persuasion, etc. Even with DMs that insist on others having something to do. Another suggested that familiars can wear magic items, though that's dependent upon individual games. There's also the additional set of eyes and ears for avoiding surprise.
I personally like the cantrips more, but that's because I'm a fan of cantrips in general. That said? I think the familiar is actually "stronger" for the warlock class than the cantrips. Its a stronger fit thematically, it fills a roll that makes most other cantrips - and some spells - redundant. The Voice Invocation replaces the need for messages. If you go Imp, there's no need for dancing lights for your scouting. The familiar can work as your distant Mage Hand in a lot of cases - its a pain to resummon, but just as safe for your party. You might also get a Dark Shard Amulet. And most rituals are the types where, while occasionally handy, there's ways around the need, and depends on DM generosity.
There's that invocation that maximizes healing for the 'lock. That could be very good for a dedicated tank build.
Yep, this has been remarkably useful for my Warlock. Coupled with the Periapt of Wound Closure it turns a Warlock into the unstoppable queen of short rests...lol.
Playing a ******** Warlock who's under the thrall of a Feywild creature of enormous power and have picked Chain, and lemme tell you, the timing could not be more perfect. Party is level 3 and for whatever reason rummaging through the underdark. Party will emerge from their sleep to my character basically d**king around with his new Stand ability. I already get rewarded handsomely with my incredibly consequential RP, and this brings the opportunity to not only firehose the party with JoJokes but also to have mechanically significant contribution to the dungeon crawl as well as setup for later complications in the campaign narrative. I'd definitely explore the boundary conditions of what your Chain familiar can and can't do outside of what is mechanically defined with your DM
During one of our last campaign, My Hexblade Pact of the blade Lock, had to make a Deal with an Imp for a bit of info that we needed, he accepted for a trade, an Eye for an Eye.
Since our setting was Steampunk/Fantasy Horror, we used some stuff from the Book of True Evil or something like that amongst other things, in wich you have the rules and description for surgical procedures to implant Demon/Devils/Celestials limbs/organs etc and other grim stuff.
So We just used this to seal the deal where my Hexblade took one of his eyes out, the Imp did the same and they exchanged it (Giving me the benefits of Devil Sight in a sense, since the Imp's eye implant had the same effects as Devil Sight, plus a disadvantage on Persuasions with Non-Devil characters)
The other consequence of this, that the DM though about, was that the Imp took a liking to my character and decided to tag alone and he could see through my eye( in essence i had a SECOND pact, so i had the benefits of the Pact of the Chain, and an Imp familliar).
I Rped the thing to be like Yago from Alladin, where he would always make inapproriate jokes and be sarcastic with what my character would say or do while he was in his Raven form.
In his Imp form he was more like Rocket Racoon, where i would give him a Beam blaster( device that can 3 times per day cast Lightning Bolt and needs to be recharged), so you had this 40inches Imp with a comicaly large Beam Blaster, wich he would use the "Use item" action.
It was Hilarious and cool.
All this just to point out that a Quasit or Imp familiar has hands, has an average intelligence and has the "Use item" action, so give it a wand of magic missiles or some other ranged attack magic item that they can manipulate with the "Use item" action( wich per rules is'nt the Attack action)
Plus the Scouting value of an At will invisible, shapeshifting Flying creature, that you can see and feel through his senses is also something not to sneeze at, also Touch spells conductivity, you can be really creative with this Pact.
Also people underestimate the value of the Imp going invisible, be in 5ft of your target and using the "Help others" action to give advantage on attack rolls or on any kind of rolls that you can think off that the Familliar can help with.
WHile yes the Tome pact makes you a bit more "Wizardy" its only just that, you'd get the same benefits if you MC into Wizard honestly...
I personally don't feel that the Tome pact is special enough, Pact of the Blade, you can invoke and shape a Weapon made out of Shadow/Void stuff( basically becomes a Sithlord)
Pact of the Chain, you gain a sidekick wich actions are only limited by your creativity.
Pact of the Tome, you become a Nerdy ass Warlock that can do the basics of Wizards, without all the high lvl spellslots at higher levels anyway...
I've found at low-medium levels the imp familiar is great! The poison sting does a fair amount of damage, even on a successful save. Because it can turn invisible, the imp can attack with advantage. And because your warlock uses an action to have the familiar attack as a reaction, the imp still has its action left to turn invisible and fly out of reach.
This question always confused me. I see it all the time, the whole "why does Pact of the Chain even exist?" thing. This idea that at higher levels of play, your fancy familiar can't help you while your Pact Blade or Book of Shadows remains awesome throughout.
My general response has always been "I need to sell you on a sapient flying invisible co-conspirator who's technically immortal?"
My current Chain warlock is a Feylock with a sprite familiar. Sprites don't have the combat punch of the imp or its integral devil's sight, but my familiar has an intelligence score of 14. Winterbreeze is smarter than I am, and with Voice of the Chain Master he can be anywhere I need him to be and still be in communication. My familiar can execute complex plans with precise timing requirements, which is a splendid boon when the warlock he's attached to is more of a magical thief and rogue than a straightforward blaster. Winterbreeze can distract folks without compromising either my invisibility or his own, he can manipulate things like door switches, window latches, or other small control objects, and even if the sprite's attacks are garbage next to the imp's, my familiar can make those attacks. From forty feet away. And a Tiny flying creature can find three-quarters (or total) cover so much more easily than a Medium ground-bound adventurer can.
If your only consideration is how much DPR your familiar can net you, then yeah - stay away from Chain. If I need to sell you on the benefits of a flying invisible int-of-14 helper buddy who's magically loyal to you even if you're an *******? Heh, then honestly you should be taking Blade anyways and just go with it.
Well even though the Familiar is usefull , if would still be beneficial if the familiar could be upgraded at certain levels, or through some invocations, where the familier would get an amount of HD equal to half the Warlock's lvl and a bonus to AC equal Warlock's profficiency.
Not like its indenspensible, but it would be something.
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"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
This question always confused me. I see it all the time, the whole "why does Pact of the Chain even exist?" thing. This idea that at higher levels of play, your fancy familiar can't help you while your Pact Blade or Book of Shadows remains awesome throughout.
My general response has always been "I need to sell you on a sapient flying invisible co-conspirator who's technically immortal?"
My current Chain warlock is a Feylock with a sprite familiar. Sprites don't have the combat punch of the imp or its integral devil's sight, but my familiar has an intelligence score of 14. Winterbreeze is smarter than I am, and with Voice of the Chain Master he can be anywhere I need him to be and still be in communication. My familiar can execute complex plans with precise timing requirements, which is a splendid boon when the warlock he's attached to is more of a magical thief and rogue than a straightforward blaster. Winterbreeze can distract folks without compromising either my invisibility or his own, he can manipulate things like door switches, window latches, or other small control objects, and even if the sprite's attacks are garbage next to the imp's, my familiar can make those attacks. From forty feet away. And a Tiny flying creature can find three-quarters (or total) cover so much more easily than a Medium ground-bound adventurer can.
If your only consideration is how much DPR your familiar can net you, then yeah - stay away from Chain. If I need to sell you on the benefits of a flying invisible int-of-14 helper buddy who's magically loyal to you even if you're an *******? Heh, then honestly you should be taking Blade anyways and just go with it.
All snark aside, I already stated I was "sold" on Pact of the Chain. I had mistakenly felt it was less "blasty" than Pact of the Tome, and had misread/misunderstood the Chains of Carceri invocation. That aside, I think you overestimate the usefulness, at high levels, of the Pact of the Chain familiar. I'm not saying it's useless (it most certainly is not), but its usefulness is seriously limited by its low HPs, the higher frequency of enemies who'll be able to see through its invisibility, etc. At high levels, many of the activities the Pact of the Chain familiar can perform can be duplicated using other features/spells. Again, this in no way makes the familiar useless, or anywhere near that, but it's not ridiculously useful, either. "Effectively immortal" is overstating it, too. Sure, you can always re-summon them if they die, but you need to re-cast Find Familiar, something you're not gonna be doing mid-combat, so they're quite the opposite of "effectively immortal" in combat: they've always got one foot in the grave, since usually a single hit will poof them, especially at higher levels.
So tl;dr: I already said I was sold on it, no need to re-convince me, even less of a need for snark, and you're still overstating the usefulness, at higher levels (which was part of the original question), of the Pact of the Chain familiar.
Heh. Fair, fair. Was mostly using the opportunity to get the response down as I'd been asked similar questions a few times by other players, all of whom looked at me funny when it became known I'd gone Chain instead of Blade or Tome. Personally, I think Blade is super over-hyped, even for Hexblades. Yeah, Hexblade and Blade Pact go together like peanut butter and jelly, but a Hexblade Tomepact is just as powerful, given the thing most people forget (the titular Hex Blade is your patron, not your weapon, unless homebrewed otherwise). All the Hexblade's defining features work as well with Eldritch Bonk as they do with melee strikes, and keeping your melee strikes competitive with just EB+Agonizing, let alone other melee attackers, eats basically all of your Invocations. And on anything other than Hexblades, Blade Pact is weird and unhelpful unless you're using a magic staff as your 'Pact Weapon' and just using the Blade Pact feature to ensure it's always available to you, a'la binding a Staff of Fire or something to you as a "quarterstaff".
Tome Pact is exceptionally powerful, but primarily because Book of Ancient Secrets is nutballs. The default three cantrips you get is super nice, but nothing you can't solve with a one-level dip in Wizard or Sorcerer. Tome Pact gets them without slowing warlock progression, but let's be realistic here - nobody is champing at the bit for Eldritch Master. Book of Ancient Secrets is freaking huge, though. And honestly, Aspect of the Moon is no slouch, either. Becoming effectively immune to sleep short-circuits a lot of DM fiat "while you were sleeping..." screwjobs and greatly simplifies night watches, on top of just overall giving you more time to do things.
I'm a big fan of Chain Pact mostly because I'm an equally big fan of tandem characters like that, a pair of entities which coordinate closely to help each other out, and D&D provides precious few opportunities to do it. Chains of Carceri is weird (though the new Avernus book may provide a hell of a reason to become really good at paralyzing fiends), but Voice of the Chain Master and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones are both excellent. The familiar doesn't do much in combat, but it doesn't need to. The warlock should be all the combat capability the pairing needs.
I know for RP purposes many Chainlocks probably have their familiar manifest in the same form all the time, but I just want to point out that with some time and fairly cheap reagents, you technically have access to 18 different forms.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I actually have a homebrew rule for that that i am work-shopping in my current game, as I thought the familiar not being able to scale with the warlock a major failing of this subclass.
Its actually a simple upcast adaptation of the find familiar spell...
Upcasting Find Familiar as a Pact of the Chain Warlock
Cast in Lvl 3 Slot (available at Lvl 5) - CR2 Small (Ex: Faerie Dragon (older), Meenlock, Spined Devil, Wll O Wisp) Cast at Lvl 4 Slot (available at Lvl 7) - CR3 Medium (Ex: Assassin Bug, Basilisk, Dragon Wyrmling, Hell Hound, Wight, Doppelganger) Cast at Lvl 5 Slot (available at Lvl 9) - CR3 Large (Ex: Displacer Beast, Giant Scorpion, Manticore, Nightmare, Owlbear, Phase Spider)
Cost is 30gp x Spell Slot
Casting time is 1 hour x Spell Slot Used
I figure as a Warlock, you are already limited by the max spell slots you can manage , so setting the limits of the spell based off the warlock limitation makes sense.
If you want, you can expand Find Familiar for other casters and allow upcasting as well, but it needs to still be weaker that a Chain Warlock for example:
Upcasting Find Familiar as any other Caster
Cast in Lvl 3 Slot - CR1 Tiny Cast at Lvl 4 Slot - CR2 Small Cast at Lvl 5 Slot - CR3 Medium
Cost is 30gp x Spell Slot
Im not sure if I would still allow the upcasting for other casters myself, as ChainLock is really where this feature is supposed to shine.. but to each their own. As a DM, you could choose to further filter down the options based on the patron type.. totally up to you, but since this is just a manifestation of a spirit in a corporeal form, I think allowing different utility and forms is still way more beneficial. The fact you cant change out your familiars shape during combat keeps it manageable.
I completely missed the "per creature" part! Humongous difference.
Dragon's Breath on the familiar... I didn't think of it in time, so I didn't pick the spell. Now I'm crossing my fingers I find a scroll or spellbook somewhere with it. :D
I also did this for my psuedo dragon...had a crafted necklace that alowed it do use this spell feature once per day. Balances it more with other Familiar's power.
Ok, so I "get" Pact of the Blade Warlocks. They're dark-themed melee hybrid casters, and between Darkness/Devil's Sight, Hex, Hellish Rebuke, Thirsting Blade, etc, can lay down some serious damage. Pact of the Tome... I feel they're kinda light on spell slots to work as full casters, so I kinda "get" them as a caster/archer hybrid, only slinging Eldritch Blast rather than arrows. But Pact of the Chain... I might be missing something (in fact, I'm assuming I am, hence the thread!), but it feels like they're "tome" warlocks with fewer spells and a beefed up familiar which stops being particularly useful after a couple of levels. What am I missing?
I love the warlock class thematically, but its highly under powered, the worst by far casting class. They should get all three pact's at regular skills, everyone likes the hexblade best, and you can get Pact of Tome and Pact of the Chain by essentially taking Ritual Castor feat. I think you should get a Patron then get all three pacts and you would not be overpowered and still probably the weakest casting class in the game. Pact of the Chain and Tome are essentially worthless. You never cast higher than 5th level spells, your slots are pathetic and have essentially made this a multiclass option for 3 lvls.
They also need something other than just Eldritch blast cantrip like a Witch Bolt cantrip option that scales. It's just a one or two trick pony. Lastly their Mystic Arcarnum should also be a short rest ability. Then you would have a class worth keeping to higher levels.
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Sorry, Cant
Elliott Neve
Chain familiars can attune to magic items so long as they meet the requirements for attunement. A wand of magic missles is a great item for your familiar if you can find it.
Scouting, spying, help action, and administering potions are the staples of a chain familiar.
If you plan in multi classing I’d suggest 2 spells: inflict wounds and dragons breath.
Just for my own satisfaction....
There are times when its better to go Book, and times when its better to go Chain. And the main difference between them? Part party composition, part character concept. As someone else said, and the original poster acknowledged, there's only minor benefits in battle for both paths; the overwhelming majority of battle is going to be Eldritch Blast. You can have backup damage cantrips, usually if someone gets into melee range, but the familiar could also Help and let you Repelling Blast the target away from you without problem. The main benefit in either is utility, but a question of what kind of utility.
Book gives you access to a bunch of cantrips like the Dancing Lights/Minor Illusion combo, Guidance, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Spare the Dying and Prestidigitation, and later on a bunch of utility rituals. Dancing Lights is a favorite cantrip of mine, because it has so many awesome uses - its a VERY excellent scouting tool and can be used as a distraction along with Minor Illusions against guards. Mage Hand can open potentially trapped doors and chests at a distance. Mending has proven to be handy when doing dungeon exploring in many campaigns. Message for telepathic coordination. Guidance is great for skill checks of all kinds. But you only really need one of each in your group, at best. Got a cleric in your party? That's Guidance and Spare the Dying. An Arcane Trickster? No reason for you to pick up scouting cantrips or Mage Hand. Indeed, if you're not a scout yourself, with stealth and perception abilities, you're likely better away from any scouting or trickery powers. Practically all rituals come from the wizard and cleric spell list, so if have both of those in your party, there's little reason to take the ritual magic yourself.
Familiars, on the other hand? Even if you have a rogue with expertise in Stealth in your group, I don't think they would say no to the imp tagging along and using Help to offer advantage. Very few people pay attention to small critters, and the distant eyes ability effectively turns them into a scrying spell. If your warlock is into the social scene, the familiar can also Help with any rolls you make. Insight, persuasion, etc. Even with DMs that insist on others having something to do. Another suggested that familiars can wear magic items, though that's dependent upon individual games. There's also the additional set of eyes and ears for avoiding surprise.
I personally like the cantrips more, but that's because I'm a fan of cantrips in general. That said? I think the familiar is actually "stronger" for the warlock class than the cantrips. Its a stronger fit thematically, it fills a roll that makes most other cantrips - and some spells - redundant. The Voice Invocation replaces the need for messages. If you go Imp, there's no need for dancing lights for your scouting. The familiar can work as your distant Mage Hand in a lot of cases - its a pain to resummon, but just as safe for your party. You might also get a Dark Shard Amulet. And most rituals are the types where, while occasionally handy, there's ways around the need, and depends on DM generosity.
The pseudodragon familiar variant shares its magic resistance with you if it’s within 10 ft. Also has blind sense of 10 ft.
i do not believe familiars are able to Attack according to find familiar spell.
No it doesn't, that's a variant rule meant to apply only to NPC familiars that choose to follow you
There's that invocation that maximizes healing for the 'lock. That could be very good for a dedicated tank build.
They can, for Chain Pact Warlocks:
Yep, this has been remarkably useful for my Warlock. Coupled with the Periapt of Wound Closure it turns a Warlock into the unstoppable queen of short rests...lol.
Abide.
Playing a ******** Warlock who's under the thrall of a Feywild creature of enormous power and have picked Chain, and lemme tell you, the timing could not be more perfect. Party is level 3 and for whatever reason rummaging through the underdark. Party will emerge from their sleep to my character basically d**king around with his new Stand ability. I already get rewarded handsomely with my incredibly consequential RP, and this brings the opportunity to not only firehose the party with JoJokes but also to have mechanically significant contribution to the dungeon crawl as well as setup for later complications in the campaign narrative. I'd definitely explore the boundary conditions of what your Chain familiar can and can't do outside of what is mechanically defined with your DM
During one of our last campaign, My Hexblade Pact of the blade Lock, had to make a Deal with an Imp for a bit of info that we needed, he accepted for a trade, an Eye for an Eye.
Since our setting was Steampunk/Fantasy Horror, we used some stuff from the Book of True Evil or something like that amongst other things, in wich you have the rules and description for surgical procedures to implant Demon/Devils/Celestials limbs/organs etc and other grim stuff.
So We just used this to seal the deal where my Hexblade took one of his eyes out, the Imp did the same and they exchanged it (Giving me the benefits of Devil Sight in a sense, since the Imp's eye implant had the same effects as Devil Sight, plus a disadvantage on Persuasions with Non-Devil characters)
The other consequence of this, that the DM though about, was that the Imp took a liking to my character and decided to tag alone and he could see through my eye( in essence i had a SECOND pact, so i had the benefits of the Pact of the Chain, and an Imp familliar).
I Rped the thing to be like Yago from Alladin, where he would always make inapproriate jokes and be sarcastic with what my character would say or do while he was in his Raven form.
In his Imp form he was more like Rocket Racoon, where i would give him a Beam blaster( device that can 3 times per day cast Lightning Bolt and needs to be recharged), so you had this 40inches Imp with a comicaly large Beam Blaster, wich he would use the "Use item" action.
It was Hilarious and cool.
All this just to point out that a Quasit or Imp familiar has hands, has an average intelligence and has the "Use item" action, so give it a wand of magic missiles or some other ranged attack magic item that they can manipulate with the "Use item" action( wich per rules is'nt the Attack action)
Plus the Scouting value of an At will invisible, shapeshifting Flying creature, that you can see and feel through his senses is also something not to sneeze at, also Touch spells conductivity, you can be really creative with this Pact.
Also people underestimate the value of the Imp going invisible, be in 5ft of your target and using the "Help others" action to give advantage on attack rolls or on any kind of rolls that you can think off that the Familliar can help with.
WHile yes the Tome pact makes you a bit more "Wizardy" its only just that, you'd get the same benefits if you MC into Wizard honestly...
I personally don't feel that the Tome pact is special enough, Pact of the Blade, you can invoke and shape a Weapon made out of Shadow/Void stuff( basically becomes a Sithlord)
Pact of the Chain, you gain a sidekick wich actions are only limited by your creativity.
Pact of the Tome, you become a Nerdy ass Warlock that can do the basics of Wizards, without all the high lvl spellslots at higher levels anyway...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Pact of the chain basically gets you a persona, so, I personally am not complaining.
I've found at low-medium levels the imp familiar is great! The poison sting does a fair amount of damage, even on a successful save. Because it can turn invisible, the imp can attack with advantage. And because your warlock uses an action to have the familiar attack as a reaction, the imp still has its action left to turn invisible and fly out of reach.
This question always confused me. I see it all the time, the whole "why does Pact of the Chain even exist?" thing. This idea that at higher levels of play, your fancy familiar can't help you while your Pact Blade or Book of Shadows remains awesome throughout.
My general response has always been "I need to sell you on a sapient flying invisible co-conspirator who's technically immortal?"
My current Chain warlock is a Feylock with a sprite familiar. Sprites don't have the combat punch of the imp or its integral devil's sight, but my familiar has an intelligence score of 14. Winterbreeze is smarter than I am, and with Voice of the Chain Master he can be anywhere I need him to be and still be in communication. My familiar can execute complex plans with precise timing requirements, which is a splendid boon when the warlock he's attached to is more of a magical thief and rogue than a straightforward blaster. Winterbreeze can distract folks without compromising either my invisibility or his own, he can manipulate things like door switches, window latches, or other small control objects, and even if the sprite's attacks are garbage next to the imp's, my familiar can make those attacks. From forty feet away. And a Tiny flying creature can find three-quarters (or total) cover so much more easily than a Medium ground-bound adventurer can.
If your only consideration is how much DPR your familiar can net you, then yeah - stay away from Chain. If I need to sell you on the benefits of a flying invisible int-of-14 helper buddy who's magically loyal to you even if you're an *******? Heh, then honestly you should be taking Blade anyways and just go with it.
Please do not contact or message me.
Well even though the Familiar is usefull , if would still be beneficial if the familiar could be upgraded at certain levels, or through some invocations, where the familier would get an amount of HD equal to half the Warlock's lvl and a bonus to AC equal Warlock's profficiency.
Not like its indenspensible, but it would be something.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
I thought I explained the question properly. Nobody else seems to be confused by the question, odd.
(Sorry, you throw snark, you get snark back!)
All snark aside, I already stated I was "sold" on Pact of the Chain. I had mistakenly felt it was less "blasty" than Pact of the Tome, and had misread/misunderstood the Chains of Carceri invocation. That aside, I think you overestimate the usefulness, at high levels, of the Pact of the Chain familiar. I'm not saying it's useless (it most certainly is not), but its usefulness is seriously limited by its low HPs, the higher frequency of enemies who'll be able to see through its invisibility, etc. At high levels, many of the activities the Pact of the Chain familiar can perform can be duplicated using other features/spells. Again, this in no way makes the familiar useless, or anywhere near that, but it's not ridiculously useful, either. "Effectively immortal" is overstating it, too. Sure, you can always re-summon them if they die, but you need to re-cast Find Familiar, something you're not gonna be doing mid-combat, so they're quite the opposite of "effectively immortal" in combat: they've always got one foot in the grave, since usually a single hit will poof them, especially at higher levels.
So tl;dr: I already said I was sold on it, no need to re-convince me, even less of a need for snark, and you're still overstating the usefulness, at higher levels (which was part of the original question), of the Pact of the Chain familiar.
Heh. Fair, fair. Was mostly using the opportunity to get the response down as I'd been asked similar questions a few times by other players, all of whom looked at me funny when it became known I'd gone Chain instead of Blade or Tome. Personally, I think Blade is super over-hyped, even for Hexblades. Yeah, Hexblade and Blade Pact go together like peanut butter and jelly, but a Hexblade Tomepact is just as powerful, given the thing most people forget (the titular Hex Blade is your patron, not your weapon, unless homebrewed otherwise). All the Hexblade's defining features work as well with Eldritch Bonk as they do with melee strikes, and keeping your melee strikes competitive with just EB+Agonizing, let alone other melee attackers, eats basically all of your Invocations. And on anything other than Hexblades, Blade Pact is weird and unhelpful unless you're using a magic staff as your 'Pact Weapon' and just using the Blade Pact feature to ensure it's always available to you, a'la binding a Staff of Fire or something to you as a "quarterstaff".
Tome Pact is exceptionally powerful, but primarily because Book of Ancient Secrets is nutballs. The default three cantrips you get is super nice, but nothing you can't solve with a one-level dip in Wizard or Sorcerer. Tome Pact gets them without slowing warlock progression, but let's be realistic here - nobody is champing at the bit for Eldritch Master. Book of Ancient Secrets is freaking huge, though. And honestly, Aspect of the Moon is no slouch, either. Becoming effectively immune to sleep short-circuits a lot of DM fiat "while you were sleeping..." screwjobs and greatly simplifies night watches, on top of just overall giving you more time to do things.
I'm a big fan of Chain Pact mostly because I'm an equally big fan of tandem characters like that, a pair of entities which coordinate closely to help each other out, and D&D provides precious few opportunities to do it. Chains of Carceri is weird (though the new Avernus book may provide a hell of a reason to become really good at paralyzing fiends), but Voice of the Chain Master and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones are both excellent. The familiar doesn't do much in combat, but it doesn't need to. The warlock should be all the combat capability the pairing needs.
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I know for RP purposes many Chainlocks probably have their familiar manifest in the same form all the time, but I just want to point out that with some time and fairly cheap reagents, you technically have access to 18 different forms.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
There is a lot of roleplaying opportunity when you have an actual diabolic representation of an imp or whatever on your shoulder
I actually have a homebrew rule for that that i am work-shopping in my current game, as I thought the familiar not being able to scale with the warlock a major failing of this subclass.
Its actually a simple upcast adaptation of the find familiar spell...
Upcasting Find Familiar as a Pact of the Chain Warlock
Cast in Lvl 3 Slot (available at Lvl 5) - CR2 Small (Ex: Faerie Dragon (older), Meenlock, Spined Devil, Wll O Wisp)
Cast at Lvl 4 Slot (available at Lvl 7) - CR3 Medium (Ex: Assassin Bug, Basilisk, Dragon Wyrmling, Hell Hound, Wight, Doppelganger)
Cast at Lvl 5 Slot (available at Lvl 9) - CR3 Large (Ex: Displacer Beast, Giant Scorpion, Manticore, Nightmare, Owlbear, Phase Spider)
Cost is 30gp x Spell Slot
Casting time is 1 hour x Spell Slot Used
I figure as a Warlock, you are already limited by the max spell slots you can manage , so setting the limits of the spell based off the warlock limitation makes sense.
If you want, you can expand Find Familiar for other casters and allow upcasting as well, but it needs to still be weaker that a Chain Warlock for example:
Upcasting Find Familiar as any other Caster
Cast in Lvl 3 Slot - CR1 Tiny
Cast at Lvl 4 Slot - CR2 Small
Cast at Lvl 5 Slot - CR3 Medium
Cost is 30gp x Spell Slot
Im not sure if I would still allow the upcasting for other casters myself, as ChainLock is really where this feature is supposed to shine.. but to each their own. As a DM, you could choose to further filter down the options based on the patron type.. totally up to you, but since this is just a manifestation of a spirit in a corporeal form, I think allowing different utility and forms is still way more beneficial. The fact you cant change out your familiars shape during combat keeps it manageable.
I also did this for my psuedo dragon...had a crafted necklace that alowed it do use this spell feature once per day. Balances it more with other Familiar's power.
I love the warlock class thematically, but its highly under powered, the worst by far casting class. They should get all three pact's at regular skills, everyone likes the hexblade best, and you can get Pact of Tome and Pact of the Chain by essentially taking Ritual Castor feat. I think you should get a Patron then get all three pacts and you would not be overpowered and still probably the weakest casting class in the game. Pact of the Chain and Tome are essentially worthless. You never cast higher than 5th level spells, your slots are pathetic and have essentially made this a multiclass option for 3 lvls.
They also need something other than just Eldritch blast cantrip like a Witch Bolt cantrip option that scales. It's just a one or two trick pony. Lastly their Mystic Arcarnum should also be a short rest ability. Then you would have a class worth keeping to higher levels.