So I had a random thought, where is the line between patron material and not patron material drawn? Let’s say that a commoner is tricked into making a deal with a Lemure, would the commoner get warlock powers or is there a certain CR the patron needs to be above to have sufficient power or are the possibilities indefinite?
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I’m a decent DM and an above average rules lawyer
I have several complete Pokedexes | I may be stupid, but at least I’m not smart!
Stay Paranoid!! My Drummer given title is… Swift as the Dragon
With regard to fiends, the fiend patron says the following:
Fiends powerful enough to forge a pact include demon lords such as Demogorgon, Orcus, Fraz’Urb-luu, and Baphomet; archdevils such as Asmodeus, Dispater, Mephistopheles, and Belial; pit fiends and balors that are especially mighty; and ultroloths and other lords of the yugoloths.
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This is a DM call. I'd expect them to be the one who works out most of the details about the patron, anyway.
For a low-level NPC, there's nothing wrong with them being a warlock of a lesser power.
For a PC, it's still fine, but the DM needs to be ready to run with the story implications. Where's all that power coming from? Is your patron really what you think they are? What happens when the player tries to bully their patron? Etc.
Then for celestial warlocks you get something as low as a Cr8 unicorn. My current fiend lock has a succubus, but she's capped out on the power she can give me. For story reasons, she's had to cut a side deal with an ancient dragon spirit to keep feeding more power. DM's been on board with this all the way.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
My general rule is that a patron has to have a higher CR than the level of the warlock. So, for example, a patron must be at least CR2 to patronize a 1st level warlock, to patronize a 2nd level warlock requires the patron must be CR3 or higher. In my games, one of the ways a lower fiend can move up the rungs of their society is by patronizing warlocks as a way to expand their influence. So a spined devil might seek to patronize a warlock as a way to earn a position as a bearded devil. I also rule that a patron can only patronize a number of warlocks equal to their CR, so that spine devil could only ever have up to 2 warlocks until it becomes a bearded devil when it can start patronizing a 3rd warlock. But that’s just me, that’s by no means in the rules or anything.
So I had a random thought, where is the line between patron material and not patron material drawn? Let’s say that a commoner is tricked into making a deal with a Lemure, would the commoner get warlock powers or is there a certain CR the patron needs to be above to have sufficient power or are the possibilities indefinite?
As a lemure is a CR 0 creature with an intelligence of 1 and can't speak, I'd say that it definitely is incapable of acting as a warlock's patron. In general, I'd say that creatures should generally be assumed to have at least a 20 CR as a requirement for being a warlock's patron. Maybe something as low as 18-19, but typically not. Even when making a pact with a creature type that's typically of a lower CR (like Genies), the patron should probably be assumed to be an exceptionally powerful example of their kind.
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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.
My general rule is that a patron has to have a higher CR than the level of the warlock. So, for example, a patron must be at least CR2 to patronize a 1st level warlock, to patronize a 2nd level warlock requires the patron must be CR3 or higher. In my games, one of the ways a lower fiend can move up the rungs of their society is by patronizing warlocks as a way to expand their influence. So a spined devil might seek to patronize a warlock as a way to earn a position as a bearded devil. I also rule that a patron can only patronize a number of warlocks equal to their CR, so that spine devil could only ever have up to 2 warlocks until it becomes a bearded devil when it can start patronizing a 3rd warlock. But that’s just me, that’s by no means in the rules or anything.
That's the general rule of thumb we used for my succubus. She's CR4, so I could never be more than a 3rd level warlock. I'm presently a warlock 3/wizard 1, and she's had to make a deal with the spirit of an ancient dragon queen (because of reasons, I am not able to pact up with the dragon spirit directly). The plan was always that my succubus would have to make a deal with someone else, but the story went a bit sideways when we took an artifact from a tomb which contained her soul that the DM did not expect us to take. It works out for the DM though because he envisioned the ancient queen as more a being of action than the original dragon we were planning to use, and the ancient dragon queen's spirit wants to have a bit more 'skin in the game' so to speak than just advising people on what's to come. Now she's got an agent involved and she feel that gives her a bit more of a vote than just having an opinion. The dragon queen was not /supposed/ to be a long term NPC, but things worked out a bit differently than originally planned.
That all said, now we're re-skinning and tweaking things to be more blue draconic than infernal moving forward. My current 1st and 2nd level spells will remain infernal inspired (including shatter, refluffed into a mini fireball, eldritch blast refluffed into a fire-based infernal blast), but moving forward, my succubus is going to be learning draconic magic to pass on. So, instead of fireball, he'll get lightning bolt for example (Zeydaanqo, the dragon queen was a blue dragon)
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
My general rule is that a patron has to have a higher CR than the level of the warlock. So, for example, a patron must be at least CR2 to patronize a 1st level warlock, to patronize a 2nd level warlock requires the patron must be CR3 or higher. In my games, one of the ways a lower fiend can move up the rungs of their society is by patronizing warlocks as a way to expand their influence. So a spined devil might seek to patronize a warlock as a way to earn a position as a bearded devil. I also rule that a patron can only patronize a number of warlocks equal to their CR, so that spine devil could only ever have up to 2 warlocks until it becomes a bearded devil when it can start patronizing a 3rd warlock. But that’s just me, that’s by no means in the rules or anything.
That's the general rule of thumb we used for my succubus. She's CR4, so I could never be more than a 3rd level warlock. I'm presently a warlock 3/wizard 1, and she's had to make a deal with the spirit of an ancient dragon queen (because of reasons, I am not able to pact up with the dragon spirit directly). The plan was always that my succubus would have to make a deal with someone else, but the story went a bit sideways when we took an artifact from a tomb which contained her soul that the DM did not expect us to take. It works out for the DM though because he envisioned the ancient queen as more a being of action than the original dragon we were planning to use, and the ancient dragon queen's spirit wants to have a bit more 'skin in the game' so to speak than just advising people on what's to come. Now she's got an agent involved and she feel that gives her a bit more of a vote than just having an opinion. The dragon queen was not /supposed/ to be a long term NPC, but things worked out a bit differently than originally planned.
That all said, now we're re-skinning and tweaking things to be more blue draconic than infernal moving forward. My current 1st and 2nd level spells will remain infernal inspired (including shatter, refluffed into a mini fireball, eldritch blast refluffed into a fire-based infernal blast), but moving forward, my succubus is going to be learning draconic magic to pass on. So, instead of fireball, he'll get lightning bolt for example (Zeydaanqo, the dragon queen was a blue dragon)
The alternative would be that the Succubus become more powerful, a sort of “exceptionally powerful example” such as 6thLyranGuard mentioned.
PS- I dislike the term “rule of thumb” because it’s a reference to legalized spousal abuse. The original “rule of thumb” was that it was legal for a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no bigger around than his thumb was. Please be mindful of that in future. It’s a horrible figure of speech.
my succubus can't really "level up". Her spirit was imprisoned in a special dagger during a war thousands of years earlier and doesn't have a true physical form. My warlock ended up with the dagger, and she pacted him up quickly with the intent of stealing his body. Unfortunately for her, the city we were in had some powerful wards, and she was detected. My character was arrested. In an attempt to 'protect' my character, we, my character and the spirit of the succubus were subjected to another pact; an ancient draconic soul binding ritual which served as marriage rites for the dragons. As she is required by infernal law to honor all contracts, pacts, etc including honor, love cherish, protect etc from the draconic marriage rites which means no corrupting me; she's viewed as a traitor in the hells. As her soul is bound to mine, she's /strongly/ invested seeing to it that I am accepted into my goddess's afterlife (goddess of magic, part of why I am wizard 1...to show devotion to magic and it's studies) so that she's not sent back to the 9 hells. Given that she's a traitor, there's no place she can turn to to get the knowledge to give me in the 9 hells, and it's imperative for her, that I grow powerful enough to please the goddess of magic. That's why she was wiling to cut a deal with Zeydaanqo, even though she and Zeydaanqo strongly dislike each other. It's distasteful to both (they are ancient enemies of sorts), but Carneri, my succubus, needs the power, and Zeydaanqo wants the agency in the "quest" that our party is on.
She doesn't have her own physical body anymore as that was destroyed when she was imprisoned in the binding dagger, but she's able to manifest in my imp (chain pact) modified so that it can't shapeshift like most of them. She can have her succubus body (with imp stat block) or imp size succubus (literally, the little devil riding around on my shoulder giving me advice). That's also why we have the dragon queen's spirit. She too had been imprisoned in a binding dagger (didn't foresee her enemies copying their binding dagger weapons and using one to shank the dragon queen), and my character knowing how dangerous those things are secured it so it could be locked up somewhere safe. The DM was like uhhhh ok. and I later found our that he didn't think we'd remove that from her tomb. When I asked him about how Carneri was going to get her power, he suggested Zeydaanqo for the reasons listed above.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
In my games, a succubus and an incubus are the same thing, they can switch back and forth. They switch to succubus form to seduce a male, take his, er, “largess,” and then afterwords transform into an incubus during which process the male’s “deposit” is transformed inside the fiend. Then, the now incubus can use it to procreate when it seduces a female, and the product of that union will be a new fiend.
I think that's the modern canon on them but I am uncertain. I tend to view a lot of the more modern 'lore' with distain, for example in my head canon, Cambions are still only male, and female cambions are still "alu-fiends". It's also why I don't subscribe to the "all tieflings have horns and tail thing". I much prefer the 2e tiefling which had lower planar features based on a table. That returned with the SCAG for the variant tieflings, so I use it for all my tieflings now (fond of Glasya bloodline in particular) but that will all be going away with 2024.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The alternative would be that the Succubus become more powerful, a sort of “exceptionally powerful example” such as 6thLyranGuard mentioned.
If the Succubus isn't siphoning off the majority of the power for herself, you should be very disappointed in her.
PS- I dislike the term “rule of thumb” because it’s a reference to legalized spousal abuse. The original “rule of thumb” was that it was legal for a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no bigger around than his thumb was. Please be mindful of that in future. It’s a horrible figure of speech.
Very off-topic, but that's a folk etymology with no real evidence, and not so widespread that the phrase has solidly acquired the connotation. (Probably because the much more likely connotation, of using the thumb as an approximate measuring device, is so easy to understand.)
Then for celestial warlocks you get something as low as a Cr8 unicorn. My current fiend lock has a succubus, but she's capped out on the power she can give me. For story reasons, she's had to cut a side deal with an ancient dragon spirit to keep feeding more power. DM's been on board with this all the way.
There are a couple ways to look at it, I think both fit the class. 1, its a special unicorn of exceptional power a normal unicorn can not make a warlock pact. 2. Patrons give you the spark, the warlock determines how big the fire grows. And maybe while they are usually beings of exceptional power, not always. Lesser beings maybe only have one warlock, greater beings maybe thousands. Maybe some combination of the two ideas, they are exceptional and only give a spark.
I personally lean towards a combo. Even if its a CR 26 demon lord or something, it does not make much sense that they are the direct power for hundreds or thousands of Level 20 warlocks. Even mystic arcanums are really just secrets they have shown you, that does not mean they are even capable of using the abilities, only that they have the knowledge. That being said even to give you the spark I'd expect the being to be more than a CR8 unicorn. Though perhaps with celestial beings they are more cooperative so the unicorn is just a face for a greater power.
There are a couple ways to look at it, I think both fit the class. 1, its a special unicorn of exceptional power a normal unicorn can not make a warlock pact. 2. Patrons give you the spark, the warlock determines how big the fire grows. And maybe while they are usually beings of exceptional power, not always. Lesser beings maybe only have one warlock, greater beings maybe thousands. Maybe some combination of the two ideas, they are exceptional and only give a spark.
I personally lean towards a combo. Even if its a CR 26 demon lord or something, it does not make much sense that they are the direct power for hundreds or thousands of Level 20 warlocks. Even mystic arcanums are really just secrets they have shown you, that does not mean they are even capable of using the abilities, only that they have the knowledge. That being said even to give you the spark I'd expect the being to be more than a CR8 unicorn. Though perhaps with celestial beings they are more cooperative so the unicorn is just a face for a greater power.
That's an interesting point. Do people generally think of patrons as sources of power, or just sources of knowledge? (Giving you the secrets of how to tap whatever source wizards tap, just through different means.)
I've generally played them as sources of power, but source of knowledge actually plays better with the way warlocks work in-game. You can tell your patron to go to hell whenever they want anything, and you still get to be a warlock.
The power level of a Patron is a delicate balance. Frankly, wotc should have quantified the entire thing, or at least given some kind of guidelines. Just HOW does a Patron bestow powers? That is something a god can do, but Patrons are not gods...usually, until we get into the Great Old Ones.
Low level entities (as described in previous posts) would never have the ability to bestow any kind of power on any PC. And on the other side of the coin, why on earth would any powerful being (named Fiend, Dragon, demi-god etc) waste time and effort on a 1st level PC?
To paraphrase The Godfather "some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a favor. But until then, enjoy this gift of power." The one thing all warlock patrons have in common is immortality, which means that a small investment of power now can pay big dividends only a few short decades later, whether that's from having a powerful spellcaster indebted to the patron and advancing their goals on the mortal realm or via claiming their soul after death.
Plus, there is no way a Patron, unless it is a god, has the bandwidth to make pacts and then follow up occasionally on those pacts with hundreds or thousands of mortals simultaneously. It would pick and choose its moments and "clients", likely based on some trigger of in-game activities by a PC. (found the wrong book/item, slayed the wrong ally/enemy of a potential Patron, messed around with the wrong spell like Plane Shift, Contact Plane)
Where does it say anywhere that the typical warlock patron has "hundreds or thousands" of warlocks simultaneously?
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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.
There are a couple ways to look at it, I think both fit the class. 1, its a special unicorn of exceptional power a normal unicorn can not make a warlock pact. 2. Patrons give you the spark, the warlock determines how big the fire grows. And maybe while they are usually beings of exceptional power, not always. Lesser beings maybe only have one warlock, greater beings maybe thousands. Maybe some combination of the two ideas, they are exceptional and only give a spark.
I personally lean towards a combo. Even if its a CR 26 demon lord or something, it does not make much sense that they are the direct power for hundreds or thousands of Level 20 warlocks. Even mystic arcanums are really just secrets they have shown you, that does not mean they are even capable of using the abilities, only that they have the knowledge. That being said even to give you the spark I'd expect the being to be more than a CR8 unicorn. Though perhaps with celestial beings they are more cooperative so the unicorn is just a face for a greater power.
That's an interesting point. Do people generally think of patrons as sources of power, or just sources of knowledge? (Giving you the secrets of how to tap whatever source wizards tap, just through different means.)
I've generally played them as sources of power, but source of knowledge actually plays better with the way warlocks work in-game. You can tell your patron to go to hell whenever they want anything, and you still get to be a warlock.
I lean more towards the “knowledge” end of the spectrum than the direct “power” end. But that’s me. You do you.
The power level of a Patron is a delicate balance. Frankly, wotc should have quantified the entire thing, or at least given some kind of guidelines. Just HOW does a Patron bestow powers? That is something a god can do, but Patrons are not gods...usually, until we get into the Great Old Ones.
Low level entities (as described in previous posts) would never have the ability to bestow any kind of power on any PC. And on the other side of the coin, why on earth would any powerful being (named Fiend, Dragon, demi-god etc) waste time and effort on a 1st level PC?
To paraphrase The Godfather "some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a favor. But until then, enjoy this gift of power." The one thing all warlock patrons have in common is immortality, which means that a small investment of power now can pay big dividends only a few short decades later, whether that's from having a powerful spellcaster indebted to the patron and advancing their goals on the mortal realm or via claiming their soul after death.
Plus, there is no way a Patron, unless it is a god, has the bandwidth to make pacts and then follow up occasionally on those pacts with hundreds or thousands of mortals simultaneously. It would pick and choose its moments and "clients", likely based on some trigger of in-game activities by a PC. (found the wrong book/item, slayed the wrong ally/enemy of a potential Patron, messed around with the wrong spell like Plane Shift, Contact Plane)
Where does it say anywhere that the typical warlock patron has "hundreds or thousands" of warlocks simultaneously?
The power level of a Patron is a delicate balance. Frankly, wotc should have quantified the entire thing, or at least given some kind of guidelines. Just HOW does a Patron bestow powers? That is something a god can do, but Patrons are not gods...usually, until we get into the Great Old Ones.
Low level entities (as described in previous posts) would never have the ability to bestow any kind of power on any PC. And on the other side of the coin, why on earth would any powerful being (named Fiend, Dragon, demi-god etc) waste time and effort on a 1st level PC?
To paraphrase The Godfather "some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a favor. But until then, enjoy this gift of power." The one thing all warlock patrons have in common is immortality, which means that a small investment of power now can pay big dividends only a few short decades later, whether that's from having a powerful spellcaster indebted to the patron and advancing their goals on the mortal realm or via claiming their soul after death.
Plus, there is no way a Patron, unless it is a god, has the bandwidth to make pacts and then follow up occasionally on those pacts with hundreds or thousands of mortals simultaneously. It would pick and choose its moments and "clients", likely based on some trigger of in-game activities by a PC. (found the wrong book/item, slayed the wrong ally/enemy of a potential Patron, messed around with the wrong spell like Plane Shift, Contact Plane)
Where does it say anywhere that the typical warlock patron has "hundreds or thousands" of warlocks simultaneously?
How special of a snowflake do you see the PCs?
Why do you think that there's only one fiend making pacts with mortals?
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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.
The power level of a Patron is a delicate balance. Frankly, wotc should have quantified the entire thing, or at least given some kind of guidelines. Just HOW does a Patron bestow powers? That is something a god can do, but Patrons are not gods...usually, until we get into the Great Old Ones.
Low level entities (as described in previous posts) would never have the ability to bestow any kind of power on any PC. And on the other side of the coin, why on earth would any powerful being (named Fiend, Dragon, demi-god etc) waste time and effort on a 1st level PC?
To paraphrase The Godfather "some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a favor. But until then, enjoy this gift of power." The one thing all warlock patrons have in common is immortality, which means that a small investment of power now can pay big dividends only a few short decades later, whether that's from having a powerful spellcaster indebted to the patron and advancing their goals on the mortal realm or via claiming their soul after death.
Plus, there is no way a Patron, unless it is a god, has the bandwidth to make pacts and then follow up occasionally on those pacts with hundreds or thousands of mortals simultaneously. It would pick and choose its moments and "clients", likely based on some trigger of in-game activities by a PC. (found the wrong book/item, slayed the wrong ally/enemy of a potential Patron, messed around with the wrong spell like Plane Shift, Contact Plane)
Where does it say anywhere that the typical warlock patron has "hundreds or thousands" of warlocks simultaneously?
How special of a snowflake do you see the PCs?
What does that have to do with anything?!? A fiend might have a half a dozen Warlocks, a powerful fiend might have a few dozen warlocks, a particularly powerful fiend might have a few score. Maybe very powerful fiends like Asmodeus have a couple hundred, but how many people do you think are walking around with a fiendish patron? Spellcasters are rare, Warlocks are only a small percentage of all spellcasters, and those that make pacts with fiends are only a fraction of all warlocks. Even if the world has a population as high as 3,500,000,000 (3.5b), if 1% of those people are “adventurers” (PCs & NPCs) then that’s 35,000,000 “adventurers.” If half of them are full spellcasters then that’s only 17,500,000 total. Even if all those full casters are evenly distributed among Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards (which I think is unlikely, but for the sake of argument we’ll presume that many of them actually are Warlocks), then that means 2,916,667 of those casters are Warlocks. There are 9 potential patron options, and if presume that the number of Warlocks is distributed evenly across those options that means only 324,074 total Warlocks have fiend patrons. If we presume that total number of fiendlocks is distributed evenly across the three types of fiends (devils, yugoloths, and demons), that means only 108,025 warlocks for each of the three fiend types total. Even if we only count the types of fiends listed under the fiend patron option as being powerful enough to have warlocks, there are still hundreds, of them for each of those fiend types. That means there ain’t that many warlocks per fiendish patron. It’s just basic arithmetic.
The power level of a Patron is a delicate balance. Frankly, wotc should have quantified the entire thing, or at least given some kind of guidelines. Just HOW does a Patron bestow powers? That is something a god can do, but Patrons are not gods...usually, until we get into the Great Old Ones.
Low level entities (as described in previous posts) would never have the ability to bestow any kind of power on any PC. And on the other side of the coin, why on earth would any powerful being (named Fiend, Dragon, demi-god etc) waste time and effort on a 1st level PC?
To paraphrase The Godfather "some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a favor. But until then, enjoy this gift of power." The one thing all warlock patrons have in common is immortality, which means that a small investment of power now can pay big dividends only a few short decades later, whether that's from having a powerful spellcaster indebted to the patron and advancing their goals on the mortal realm or via claiming their soul after death.
Plus, there is no way a Patron, unless it is a god, has the bandwidth to make pacts and then follow up occasionally on those pacts with hundreds or thousands of mortals simultaneously. It would pick and choose its moments and "clients", likely based on some trigger of in-game activities by a PC. (found the wrong book/item, slayed the wrong ally/enemy of a potential Patron, messed around with the wrong spell like Plane Shift, Contact Plane)
Where does it say anywhere that the typical warlock patron has "hundreds or thousands" of warlocks simultaneously?
How special of a snowflake do you see the PCs?
Why do you think that there's only one fiend making pacts with mortals?
I don't. But I also don't assume there are a bottomless pile of them to create warlocks. Some will have a few warlock pacts, some will hundreds, some will have thousands. I think the rules are fairly clear that they are not feeding the warlock power directly otherwise they could cut it off at will, they need to be powerful enough to grant the warlock the knowledge and make the pact, so their aren't infinite warlock making fiends out there, but once they are powerful enough to make one, they will make all they can as it benefits them. And while they don't say it directly, by giving many of the patrons specific names its clear intent imo is that the patrons will have many pacts. The PC is not the only warlock in the universe who Titania of the Summer Court made a pact with.
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So I had a random thought, where is the line between patron material and not patron material drawn? Let’s say that a commoner is tricked into making a deal with a Lemure, would the commoner get warlock powers or is there a certain CR the patron needs to be above to have sufficient power or are the possibilities indefinite?
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ModeratorWith regard to fiends, the fiend patron says the following:
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This is a DM call. I'd expect them to be the one who works out most of the details about the patron, anyway.
For a low-level NPC, there's nothing wrong with them being a warlock of a lesser power.
For a PC, it's still fine, but the DM needs to be ready to run with the story implications. Where's all that power coming from? Is your patron really what you think they are? What happens when the player tries to bully their patron? Etc.
Then for celestial warlocks you get something as low as a Cr8 unicorn. My current fiend lock has a succubus, but she's capped out on the power she can give me. For story reasons, she's had to cut a side deal with an ancient dragon spirit to keep feeding more power. DM's been on board with this all the way.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
My general rule is that a patron has to have a higher CR than the level of the warlock. So, for example, a patron must be at least CR2 to patronize a 1st level warlock, to patronize a 2nd level warlock requires the patron must be CR3 or higher. In my games, one of the ways a lower fiend can move up the rungs of their society is by patronizing warlocks as a way to expand their influence. So a spined devil might seek to patronize a warlock as a way to earn a position as a bearded devil. I also rule that a patron can only patronize a number of warlocks equal to their CR, so that spine devil could only ever have up to 2 warlocks until it becomes a bearded devil when it can start patronizing a 3rd warlock. But that’s just me, that’s by no means in the rules or anything.
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As a lemure is a CR 0 creature with an intelligence of 1 and can't speak, I'd say that it definitely is incapable of acting as a warlock's patron. In general, I'd say that creatures should generally be assumed to have at least a 20 CR as a requirement for being a warlock's patron. Maybe something as low as 18-19, but typically not. Even when making a pact with a creature type that's typically of a lower CR (like Genies), the patron should probably be assumed to be an exceptionally powerful example of their kind.
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.
That's the general rule of thumb we used for my succubus. She's CR4, so I could never be more than a 3rd level warlock. I'm presently a warlock 3/wizard 1, and she's had to make a deal with the spirit of an ancient dragon queen (because of reasons, I am not able to pact up with the dragon spirit directly). The plan was always that my succubus would have to make a deal with someone else, but the story went a bit sideways when we took an artifact from a tomb which contained her soul that the DM did not expect us to take. It works out for the DM though because he envisioned the ancient queen as more a being of action than the original dragon we were planning to use, and the ancient dragon queen's spirit wants to have a bit more 'skin in the game' so to speak than just advising people on what's to come. Now she's got an agent involved and she feel that gives her a bit more of a vote than just having an opinion. The dragon queen was not /supposed/ to be a long term NPC, but things worked out a bit differently than originally planned.
That all said, now we're re-skinning and tweaking things to be more blue draconic than infernal moving forward. My current 1st and 2nd level spells will remain infernal inspired (including shatter, refluffed into a mini fireball, eldritch blast refluffed into a fire-based infernal blast), but moving forward, my succubus is going to be learning draconic magic to pass on. So, instead of fireball, he'll get lightning bolt for example (Zeydaanqo, the dragon queen was a blue dragon)
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
The alternative would be that the Succubus become more powerful, a sort of “exceptionally powerful example” such as 6thLyranGuard mentioned.
PS- I dislike the term “rule of thumb” because it’s a reference to legalized spousal abuse. The original “rule of thumb” was that it was legal for a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no bigger around than his thumb was. Please be mindful of that in future. It’s a horrible figure of speech.
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my succubus can't really "level up". Her spirit was imprisoned in a special dagger during a war thousands of years earlier and doesn't have a true physical form. My warlock ended up with the dagger, and she pacted him up quickly with the intent of stealing his body. Unfortunately for her, the city we were in had some powerful wards, and she was detected. My character was arrested. In an attempt to 'protect' my character, we, my character and the spirit of the succubus were subjected to another pact; an ancient draconic soul binding ritual which served as marriage rites for the dragons. As she is required by infernal law to honor all contracts, pacts, etc including honor, love cherish, protect etc from the draconic marriage rites which means no corrupting me; she's viewed as a traitor in the hells. As her soul is bound to mine, she's /strongly/ invested seeing to it that I am accepted into my goddess's afterlife (goddess of magic, part of why I am wizard 1...to show devotion to magic and it's studies) so that she's not sent back to the 9 hells. Given that she's a traitor, there's no place she can turn to to get the knowledge to give me in the 9 hells, and it's imperative for her, that I grow powerful enough to please the goddess of magic. That's why she was wiling to cut a deal with Zeydaanqo, even though she and Zeydaanqo strongly dislike each other. It's distasteful to both (they are ancient enemies of sorts), but Carneri, my succubus, needs the power, and Zeydaanqo wants the agency in the "quest" that our party is on.
She doesn't have her own physical body anymore as that was destroyed when she was imprisoned in the binding dagger, but she's able to manifest in my imp (chain pact) modified so that it can't shapeshift like most of them. She can have her succubus body (with imp stat block) or imp size succubus (literally, the little devil riding around on my shoulder giving me advice). That's also why we have the dragon queen's spirit. She too had been imprisoned in a binding dagger (didn't foresee her enemies copying their binding dagger weapons and using one to shank the dragon queen), and my character knowing how dangerous those things are secured it so it could be locked up somewhere safe. The DM was like uhhhh ok. and I later found our that he didn't think we'd remove that from her tomb. When I asked him about how Carneri was going to get her power, he suggested Zeydaanqo for the reasons listed above.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Hunh. That’s so cool.
In my games, a succubus and an incubus are the same thing, they can switch back and forth. They switch to succubus form to seduce a male, take his, er, “largess,” and then afterwords transform into an incubus during which process the male’s “deposit” is transformed inside the fiend. Then, the now incubus can use it to procreate when it seduces a female, and the product of that union will be a new fiend.
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I think that's the modern canon on them but I am uncertain. I tend to view a lot of the more modern 'lore' with distain, for example in my head canon, Cambions are still only male, and female cambions are still "alu-fiends". It's also why I don't subscribe to the "all tieflings have horns and tail thing". I much prefer the 2e tiefling which had lower planar features based on a table. That returned with the SCAG for the variant tieflings, so I use it for all my tieflings now (fond of Glasya bloodline in particular) but that will all be going away with 2024.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
If the Succubus isn't siphoning off the majority of the power for herself, you should be very disappointed in her.
Very off-topic, but that's a folk etymology with no real evidence, and not so widespread that the phrase has solidly acquired the connotation. (Probably because the much more likely connotation, of using the thumb as an approximate measuring device, is so easy to understand.)
There are a couple ways to look at it, I think both fit the class. 1, its a special unicorn of exceptional power a normal unicorn can not make a warlock pact. 2. Patrons give you the spark, the warlock determines how big the fire grows. And maybe while they are usually beings of exceptional power, not always. Lesser beings maybe only have one warlock, greater beings maybe thousands. Maybe some combination of the two ideas, they are exceptional and only give a spark.
I personally lean towards a combo. Even if its a CR 26 demon lord or something, it does not make much sense that they are the direct power for hundreds or thousands of Level 20 warlocks. Even mystic arcanums are really just secrets they have shown you, that does not mean they are even capable of using the abilities, only that they have the knowledge. That being said even to give you the spark I'd expect the being to be more than a CR8 unicorn. Though perhaps with celestial beings they are more cooperative so the unicorn is just a face for a greater power.
That's an interesting point. Do people generally think of patrons as sources of power, or just sources of knowledge? (Giving you the secrets of how to tap whatever source wizards tap, just through different means.)
I've generally played them as sources of power, but source of knowledge actually plays better with the way warlocks work in-game. You can tell your patron to go to hell whenever they want anything, and you still get to be a warlock.
To paraphrase The Godfather "some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a favor. But until then, enjoy this gift of power." The one thing all warlock patrons have in common is immortality, which means that a small investment of power now can pay big dividends only a few short decades later, whether that's from having a powerful spellcaster indebted to the patron and advancing their goals on the mortal realm or via claiming their soul after death.
Where does it say anywhere that the typical warlock patron has "hundreds or thousands" of warlocks simultaneously?
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 lean more towards the “knowledge” end of the spectrum than the direct “power” end. But that’s me. You do you.
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How special of a snowflake do you see the PCs?
Why do you think that there's only one fiend making pacts with mortals?
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.
What does that have to do with anything?!? A fiend might have a half a dozen Warlocks, a powerful fiend might have a few dozen warlocks, a particularly powerful fiend might have a few score. Maybe very powerful fiends like Asmodeus have a couple hundred, but how many people do you think are walking around with a fiendish patron? Spellcasters are rare, Warlocks are only a small percentage of all spellcasters, and those that make pacts with fiends are only a fraction of all warlocks. Even if the world has a population as high as 3,500,000,000 (3.5b), if 1% of those people are “adventurers” (PCs & NPCs) then that’s 35,000,000 “adventurers.” If half of them are full spellcasters then that’s only 17,500,000 total. Even if all those full casters are evenly distributed among Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards (which I think is unlikely, but for the sake of argument we’ll presume that many of them actually are Warlocks), then that means 2,916,667 of those casters are Warlocks. There are 9 potential patron options, and if presume that the number of Warlocks is distributed evenly across those options that means only 324,074 total Warlocks have fiend patrons. If we presume that total number of fiendlocks is distributed evenly across the three types of fiends (devils, yugoloths, and demons), that means only 108,025 warlocks for each of the three fiend types total. Even if we only count the types of fiends listed under the fiend patron option as being powerful enough to have warlocks, there are still hundreds, of them for each of those fiend types. That means there ain’t that many warlocks per fiendish patron. It’s just basic arithmetic.
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I don't. But I also don't assume there are a bottomless pile of them to create warlocks. Some will have a few warlock pacts, some will hundreds, some will have thousands. I think the rules are fairly clear that they are not feeding the warlock power directly otherwise they could cut it off at will, they need to be powerful enough to grant the warlock the knowledge and make the pact, so their aren't infinite warlock making fiends out there, but once they are powerful enough to make one, they will make all they can as it benefits them. And while they don't say it directly, by giving many of the patrons specific names its clear intent imo is that the patrons will have many pacts. The PC is not the only warlock in the universe who Titania of the Summer Court made a pact with.