Hey Warlock fans, I'm working on a 5e homebrew for a Dark Sun campaign. I can think of three good options if a player wanted to be a Templar. 1) Cleric with the Order Domain, 2) Paladin with the Oath of Conquest, or 3) a Sorcerer-King patron for a Warlock. None of the existing Patrons quite fit the flavor, so I'm going to try building custom subclass. I'm not too versed in making my own subclasses, though, and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for this particular type of Warlock. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
I like the idea of the Warlock. I’d create additional invocations that align directly with the sorcerer-King they served but generally the class seems very aligned with your intent especially the various pacts.
The best way to make a subclass is to read up on the available subclasses for ALL the classes. Then reskin or tweak those abilities and add them to your custom sub-class. Once you do that and add some flavor text so that the reader understands the lore with or without knowing anything about Dark Sun, share it on Reddit or here and ask people for feedback to help you balance it.
Please let us know how this progresses. Dark Sun is one of those settings I loved the most when I was younger. I thought it had a lot of unique flavor and a fun ecosystem.
Here's what I got so far y'all, including my WIP house rules for Arcane Defiling:
Warlock Patron: The Sorcerer-King
The immortal and all-powerful Sorcerer-Kings of Athas often lend their incredible magics to their most loyal Templars. These chosen servants enforce their master's will with the power of Arcane Defiling.
Note: The subclass runs on the assumption that you are using my own house rules for Arcane Defiling, Preserving, and Corruption for a 5e interpretation of Dark Sun. That house rule is as follows:
Arcane Defiling
Corruption: You have a Corruption Threshold equal to your Wisdom and Charisma scores added together. Corruption Points are accumulated every time you use Arcane Defiling. When your Corruption Points equal or exceed your Corruption Threshold, your Constitution score is permanently reduced by one point, and your Corruption Points reset to zero.
Preserving: When you cast a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can remove 1d4-1 of your Corruption Points.
Defiling: When you cast a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you may choose to Defile. Every living creature (except you) in a 10-foot radius around you takes necrotic damage equal to the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell. You also gain Corruption points equal to the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell.
Expanded Spell List
The Sorcerer-King lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
Sorcerer-King Expanded Spells 1st - bane, command 2nd - detect thoughts, zone of truth 3rd - bestow curse, sending 4th - arcane eye, compulsion 5th - dominate person, insect plague
Master Defiler
Starting at 1st level, when you use Arcane Defiling, you may choose a number of creatures in the area equal to your Charisma modifier. These creatures are not damaged by your Defiling. Additionally, if a living creature is reduced to 0 hit points by the damage from your Arcane Defiling, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level (minimum of 1).
Symbol of Office
Starting at 6th level, you can use your authority as a Templar to command your allies. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you may use a bonus action to command one ally within 30 feet that can see and hear you to immediately use their reaction to make a weapon attack or cast a spell with a casting time of one action or one bonus action, adding your Charisma bonus (minimum of 1) to the damage dealt.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
King's Dominion
Beginning at 10th level, you have advantage to saving throws made to resist psionics. Additionally, you gain resistance to psychic damage, and any creature who deals psychic damage to you takes a like amount of necrotic damage.
Scour the Land
Starting at 14th level, you may enhance the power of your Arcane Defiling. The radius of your arcane defiling increases to 20 feet, and the damage dealt to all creatures in that radius increases to 1d6 necrotic damage per level of the spell slot used to cast the spell. Afterward, no arcane spells can be cast for one year per level of the spell slot used in the area you have defiled.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
That's a really interesting warlock class patron. I can see some issues for action economy with the Symbol of Office 6th level power. Also from the same ability, having the patron automatically makes you a Templar? And one of rank no less, so restricted to either Sorcerer king faithful parties, or as an NPC class? The corruption and Preservation rules seem pretty good and could be applied to multiple classes easily enough which is good. especially for a world where magic is dangerous but prevalent. But I'd like to see a (druid maybe) template that's the reverse, as a preserver, who goes around trying to undo the corruption in the lands potentially.
I was picturing it as a replacement for the 2e Templar class, which is actually a type of Priest class in 2e but fits so perfectly as a Warlock in 5e. So it may be a bit niche and restrictive, but it fills a role that no other subclass fits quite right otherwise.
That said, as in my original post, I'd probably also allow a Cleric of the Order Domain or an Oath of Conquest Paladin to bear the rank of "Templar" if I were to run a Dark Sun campaign.
From reading it, the sub-class looks balanced. I don't know enough about the Dark Sun background to say much more.
I definitely think that WotC should publish some Dark Sun relevant material b/c it is one of the more original fantasy settings with a lot of well thought out world building involved.
Dark Sun is my all time favorite D&D setting. So what I am going to say is much more lore based.
The Templars were never Defilers. Their magic came from the "conduits" that were attached to them upon their transformations by Rajaat, that allowed them to basically funnel power from the few planes still attached to Athas into spell energy for others. Defilers were sought out by many of the dragon kings as possible rivals, and were brutally snuffed out, and universally loathed by all (even some of the dragon kings themselves loathed the power they had).
The Templar would probably do better as a stand alone class with sub-classes within it based on your templar's affiliation. The class should include access to cleric spells, and abilities related to command and possibly resource acquisition. Flavor the sub-class based on the individual sorcerer king. Depending on where your timeline lies (before the Cerulean Storm or after), that could mean a lot of sub-class work, but the flavor is very much worth it in my opinion. Hamanu was super strict on law and order, but a military genius. Lalai-Puy had lavish gardens. Nibenay stuck to the subterfuge and shadows. Dregoth mastered undeath to escape the assassination at the hands of his fellow kings and queens. Tectuktitlay's Moon Priest were fervent, and sacrificed to him. Etc etc.
You could use warlock as a base class, but I don't feel like it pulls the flavor that the original templars really had. They were the long arm of their king or queen. If I remember right, in the older editions, they didn't have access to the higher level spells that a cleric could reach, because of the nature of the connections their king/queen had to channel power. So if you give them a spell sheet that ends at say 6th level, give them all some base class abilities that revolve around what a templar is (command, enforcement, administration), and then flavor them with the sub-classes on each king/queen, you would be much closer in 5e terms the to original flavor they were.
@KajaGrae: The Templar-as-Defiler was coming from 4e's Templar theme, but I have been leaning more towards putting the Defiling enhancement rules into a separate Defiler subclass for Wizard. (I've also seen a really good take on Defiler Sorcerers who Defile to enhance Sorcery points.) Templar would then become, as you say, more of a direct conduit for the will of a Sorc-King. I do like the idea of making powers or invocations specific to each King/Queen as BySavras suggests in an earlier reply. Once D&D Beyond supports making custom invocations I'd give that a go.
@IamSposta: I like to start campaigns at 3rd level anyway. PC Thri-Kreen is a tricky one. I homebrewed rules for Mul and Athasian Halflings, but haven't quite figured Thri-Kreen out yet.
Thri-Kreen are the Aarakocra of Dark Sun. Broken at early levels, but balances itself out in comparison at later ones. I would really like to play one.
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Hey Warlock fans, I'm working on a 5e homebrew for a Dark Sun campaign. I can think of three good options if a player wanted to be a Templar. 1) Cleric with the Order Domain, 2) Paladin with the Oath of Conquest, or 3) a Sorcerer-King patron for a Warlock. None of the existing Patrons quite fit the flavor, so I'm going to try building custom subclass. I'm not too versed in making my own subclasses, though, and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for this particular type of Warlock. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
I like the idea of the Warlock. I’d create additional invocations that align directly with the sorcerer-King they served but generally the class seems very aligned with your intent especially the various pacts.
The best way to make a subclass is to read up on the available subclasses for ALL the classes. Then reskin or tweak those abilities and add them to your custom sub-class. Once you do that and add some flavor text so that the reader understands the lore with or without knowing anything about Dark Sun, share it on Reddit or here and ask people for feedback to help you balance it.
Please let us know how this progresses. Dark Sun is one of those settings I loved the most when I was younger. I thought it had a lot of unique flavor and a fun ecosystem.
Here's what I got so far y'all, including my WIP house rules for Arcane Defiling:
Warlock Patron: The Sorcerer-King
The immortal and all-powerful Sorcerer-Kings of Athas often lend their incredible magics to their most loyal Templars. These chosen servants enforce their master's will with the power of Arcane Defiling.
Note: The subclass runs on the assumption that you are using my own house rules for Arcane Defiling, Preserving, and Corruption for a 5e interpretation of Dark Sun. That house rule is as follows:
Arcane Defiling
Corruption: You have a Corruption Threshold equal to your Wisdom and Charisma scores added together. Corruption Points are accumulated every time you use Arcane Defiling. When your Corruption Points equal or exceed your Corruption Threshold, your Constitution score is permanently reduced by one point, and your Corruption Points reset to zero.
Preserving: When you cast a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can remove 1d4-1 of your Corruption Points.
Defiling: When you cast a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you may choose to Defile. Every living creature (except you) in a 10-foot radius around you takes necrotic damage equal to the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell. You also gain Corruption points equal to the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell.
Expanded Spell List
The Sorcerer-King lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
Sorcerer-King Expanded Spells
1st - bane, command
2nd - detect thoughts, zone of truth
3rd - bestow curse, sending
4th - arcane eye, compulsion
5th - dominate person, insect plague
Master Defiler
Starting at 1st level, when you use Arcane Defiling, you may choose a number of creatures in the area equal to your Charisma modifier. These creatures are not damaged by your Defiling. Additionally, if a living creature is reduced to 0 hit points by the damage from your Arcane Defiling, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level (minimum of 1).
Symbol of Office
Starting at 6th level, you can use your authority as a Templar to command your allies. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you may use a bonus action to command one ally within 30 feet that can see and hear you to immediately use their reaction to make a weapon attack or cast a spell with a casting time of one action or one bonus action, adding your Charisma bonus (minimum of 1) to the damage dealt.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
King's Dominion
Beginning at 10th level, you have advantage to saving throws made to resist psionics. Additionally, you gain resistance to psychic damage, and any creature who deals psychic damage to you takes a like amount of necrotic damage.
Scour the Land
Starting at 14th level, you may enhance the power of your Arcane Defiling. The radius of your arcane defiling increases to 20 feet, and the damage dealt to all creatures in that radius increases to 1d6 necrotic damage per level of the spell slot used to cast the spell. Afterward, no arcane spells can be cast for one year per level of the spell slot used in the area you have defiled.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
That's a really interesting warlock class patron. I can see some issues for action economy with the Symbol of Office 6th level power. Also from the same ability, having the patron automatically makes you a Templar? And one of rank no less, so restricted to either Sorcerer king faithful parties, or as an NPC class? The corruption and Preservation rules seem pretty good and could be applied to multiple classes easily enough which is good. especially for a world where magic is dangerous but prevalent. But I'd like to see a (druid maybe) template that's the reverse, as a preserver, who goes around trying to undo the corruption in the lands potentially.
I was picturing it as a replacement for the 2e Templar class, which is actually a type of Priest class in 2e but fits so perfectly as a Warlock in 5e. So it may be a bit niche and restrictive, but it fills a role that no other subclass fits quite right otherwise.
That said, as in my original post, I'd probably also allow a Cleric of the Order Domain or an Oath of Conquest Paladin to bear the rank of "Templar" if I were to run a Dark Sun campaign.
From reading it, the sub-class looks balanced. I don't know enough about the Dark Sun background to say much more.
I definitely think that WotC should publish some Dark Sun relevant material b/c it is one of the more original fantasy settings with a lot of well thought out world building involved.
Dark Sun is my all time favorite D&D setting. So what I am going to say is much more lore based.
The Templars were never Defilers. Their magic came from the "conduits" that were attached to them upon their transformations by Rajaat, that allowed them to basically funnel power from the few planes still attached to Athas into spell energy for others. Defilers were sought out by many of the dragon kings as possible rivals, and were brutally snuffed out, and universally loathed by all (even some of the dragon kings themselves loathed the power they had).
The Templar would probably do better as a stand alone class with sub-classes within it based on your templar's affiliation. The class should include access to cleric spells, and abilities related to command and possibly resource acquisition. Flavor the sub-class based on the individual sorcerer king. Depending on where your timeline lies (before the Cerulean Storm or after), that could mean a lot of sub-class work, but the flavor is very much worth it in my opinion. Hamanu was super strict on law and order, but a military genius. Lalai-Puy had lavish gardens. Nibenay stuck to the subterfuge and shadows. Dregoth mastered undeath to escape the assassination at the hands of his fellow kings and queens. Tectuktitlay's Moon Priest were fervent, and sacrificed to him. Etc etc.
You could use warlock as a base class, but I don't feel like it pulls the flavor that the original templars really had. They were the long arm of their king or queen. If I remember right, in the older editions, they didn't have access to the higher level spells that a cleric could reach, because of the nature of the connections their king/queen had to channel power. So if you give them a spell sheet that ends at say 6th level, give them all some base class abilities that revolve around what a templar is (command, enforcement, administration), and then flavor them with the sub-classes on each king/queen, you would be much closer in 5e terms the to original flavor they were.
Are you going to have everyone start at level 3 like the original? Are you also gonna make a PC Thri-kreen too?!? Please keep us posted!
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@KajaGrae: The Templar-as-Defiler was coming from 4e's Templar theme, but I have been leaning more towards putting the Defiling enhancement rules into a separate Defiler subclass for Wizard. (I've also seen a really good take on Defiler Sorcerers who Defile to enhance Sorcery points.) Templar would then become, as you say, more of a direct conduit for the will of a Sorc-King. I do like the idea of making powers or invocations specific to each King/Queen as BySavras suggests in an earlier reply. Once D&D Beyond supports making custom invocations I'd give that a go.
@IamSposta: I like to start campaigns at 3rd level anyway. PC Thri-Kreen is a tricky one. I homebrewed rules for Mul and Athasian Halflings, but haven't quite figured Thri-Kreen out yet.
Thri-Kreen are the Aarakocra of Dark Sun. Broken at early levels, but balances itself out in comparison at later ones. I would really like to play one.