I always loved the Pathfinder Int-based Witch, so I, personally, prefer an Int-based Warlock. If your DM allowed an Int-based Warlock, how would you build this character? Would you multiclass or not? The silly Sorlock/Padlock stuff would probably be too MAD unless you got lucky rolls, so how about Wizard?
Are we assuming that *all* the Warlock's Charisma-based features are being switched over to Intelligence, not just their spellcasting? I'm looking at Agonizing Blast, Lifedrinker, and a few other Invocations that key off Charisma, wondering if my Int-based Warlock will be overcome with MADness.
There a reason you want your witch to be Int based? Why are you against going with Charisma? You could just use Int as a secondary stat for RP reasons and stick with charisma for main stat. Warlocks don't really need much other than charisma so it's not like it would gimp her in any way.
Either way, I didn't know too much about pathfinder so I looked up what the witch was all about. I found a reference document that said:
Some gain power through study, some through devotion, others through blood, but the witch gains power from her communion with the unknown. Generally feared and misunderstood, the witch draws her magic from a pact made with an otherworldly power. Communing with that source, using her familiar as a conduit, the witch gains not only a host of spells, but a number of strange abilities known as hexes. As a witch grows in power, she might learn about the source of her magic, but some remain blissfully unaware. Some are even afraid of that source, fearful of what it might be or where its true purposes lie.
Otherworldly sounds like The Great Old One to me although it could mean anything. Celestial, Archfey, or Fiend would all work just fine thematically too. Using a familiar sounds like Pact of the Chain would be a good fit. Maybe grab alchemy or herbalism from your background. Grab Hex as that's pretty thematic (and just generally a good spell). You can also get Bestow Curse by taking the Sign of Ill Omen Invocation. I also like thief of the five fates to get you Bane. It seems pretty thematic.
Maybe grab alchemy or herbalism from your background.
Here's the thing: you can have an INT-heavy warlock and still maintain charisma as the casting stat. In an earlier argument, I stated that the basis of the Pact is charisma, i.e. bond. Not everyone likes that concept, and thinks that INT should be the primary stat. I contend that the two are separate types of intellect. Charisma is not just ability to craft words, but also social/emotional intelligence and Knowing one's audience, and intelligence is pure IQ. Pacts are driven by the ability of both sides to deliver, thus charisma is important.
That doesn't mean that you can't have INT as you next best stat. This is how I'm playing my Feylock pact of the tome. Use lots of identify (ritual cast is nice), be the party librarian, arcane knowledge repository, acquirer of powerful things, etc. I think people often think of CHA as the ability to just speak well and carouse or seduce. But to build rapport with anyone or anything requires social ability, including patrons and others with powerful magic when you don't necessarily want combat. You can learn with both CHA and INT. Since a lot of checks require int, like arcana and religion, it's to a warlock's advantage to have INT as it is.
I guess you can multiclass with arcane trickster rogue, Eldritch knight, arcane archer they are all good. For example, hex blade with Arcane archer gain the buffed shot. Arcane trickster gains access to fast recovery of spell slots, darkness and devil sight as well as a companion if you go pact of the chain. I personally want to do it at some point if I find a willing DM.
Note: Jeremy Crowford said it wont be unbalanced to turn Watlock to int clsss
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
I put 3 levels in Artificer (Battle Smith) for the 'Battle Ready' ability. 3 levels in Warlock (pact not important, hexblade discouraged), at least 1 level in both Wizard and Rogue. With Warlock boon, I chose blade. My charisma is 13 (min multiclass). INT as high as I can get, since pact of the blade will be run off of INT. Then I took improved Pact Weapon for invocation, and repeating shot for my pact weapon. Now I have a pact weapon with unlimited ammo that reloads itself. I took Wizard for all of my offensive spells (I don't need Eldritch Blast). Get chill touch for those healers. Utility spells for the warlock. Healing spells for the Artificer. And Rogue for the sneak attack when you set your iron defender on your enemies.
I always loved the Pathfinder Int-based Witch, so I, personally, prefer an Int-based Warlock. If your DM allowed an Int-based Warlock, how would you build this character? Would you multiclass or not?
I also wanted a witch class, part druid, part warlock, with non blasty spells...ones that focus on individuals or use nature against her foes. In my mind Warlock are not Charisma casters...Bards, Pally's yes...Walrocks are not known for their charisma unless its magically induced. Like witches are generally shunned or feared but in all cases. 5e did a number on the INT ability...weird for game played with or inspired by the imagination. I really want to see the Warlock 2.0 and a Witch Class. Just no way should Warlock be just a multiclass dip like most builds. They need more spell slots and hexblade should be a part of any patron. The path of chain and tome are too weak on their own...they should be folded into all warlocks builds regardless of parton.
I'm going to try a straight up Eldritch Knight...think its a far more powerful well rounded class. Gonna try without much armor.
Sure. Why not. The mods admitted their thread necromancy policies are basically unenforced anyways.
Apparently, during the testing cycle for 5e, the warlock was tested as an Intelligence-focused class. Players hated it, probably due to whatever reason players also absolutely despised the Intelligence stat with every last little tiny fiber of their beings. I can only surmise this is why the Intelligence stat is functionally worthless in 5e, why it's the least-used 'primary' stat by far, and why every character for whom Intelligence is not a strict mechanical requirement is strongly encouraged to dump Intelligence.
Nevertheless, the playerbase wanted their warlocks Charisma-based, so Wizards made them Charisma-based. It was the wrong choice, but it was the choice they made so huzzah. If warlocks were Intelligence-based rather than Charisma-based? Well, a dip for War Wizardry would be awesome. Warlocks are focused on their combat cantrips already, Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit would be superb boosts for the class. As well as snagging extra cantrips and a spellbook packed with useful low-level utility. Beyond that, I'm one of those who feels like the warlock is worth carrying past 5, as some of the higher-level invocations are pretty excellent. Warlock with Intelligence would end up multiclassed a lot less often, which I'm personally fine with. The Charisma Caster ******** could use some pepper spraying at this point, eh?
Int based warlocks would solve an awful lot of problems created by them being a charisma based class. The rest would be solved by making eldritch blast a class feature like it was in older editions rather than a cantrip. Under the current system, I would make it scale on warlock level rather than character level since it's a warlock only cantrip. That makes the warlock dip for 2-3 levels for EB spam on your <insert other charisma caster here> a non issue.
For my party at least, Int is far from useless, we make int checks on the regular. Since none of us play wizards normally, we're usually hurting on our arcana, history and religion checks. we should be hurting for investigation too, but our DM calls for perception checks on things that /should/ be investigation imo. *shrug* I don't get a vote. I hate that int is so poorly supported via classes.
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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.
If you don't role play your dump stats, it's much easier to dump Intelligence. If you role play your character having below average intelligence then it will set you back a bit having below average Intelligence.
Recently, my Tempest Cleric with 9 Intelligence was involved in questioning a prisoner that we had. I think that questioning a prisoner falls under the Investigation skill, and so I had my Cleric asking really basic questions that we already knew the answers to that didn't really move the questioning along. She's proficient in Insight so I consider her to be an excellent judge of a NPCs character and truthfulness, but I don't extend that to her being excellent at asking the right questions. She's better at observing the NPC as the party questions the NPC, and not as effective at actually leading the interrogation. I think interrogations should be a combination of investigation and insight. Investigation to know what to ask, and insight to know how to interpret their response.
I would also categorize the development of a battle plan before combat as related to intelligence. If you have a character with below average intelligence it's not thematic at all to have your character suggest a really elaborate and effective plan for combat. If you have some more intelligent ideas and you're playing a low intelligence character, you can suggest these ideas out of character, and let the Wizard or Artificer in your party be the one that crafts the plan. You can phrase it as "would your character do such and such" when talking to the other person in your group that is playing the high intelligence character.
As for my Warlock, I've got a Sprite familiar with 14 intelligence, and my Warlock has only 10 Intelligence (it's his dump stat, he rolled 16,15,11,11,11,10), and much of the fun of having a Pact of the Chain Warlock is that you get to role play two different characters. Because my familiar is more intelligent than my Warlock, I make sure that the strategy ideas for combat come from him (he's also the scout since he can go invisible at will, can fly, and has +8 stealth), so he takes more of a role in planning battle strategy than my Warlock does.
The Warlock's power doesn't come through studying arcane magic, or having an understanding of arcane magic. I don't think it makes sense mechanically to make them an intelligence based class. I'm glad that they are a Charisma based class.
As for DMs, it would be very heavy handed for them to remind players to role play their characters and to question whether or not their characters would be so excellent an investigation or planning a battle. So the DM needs to find a more subtle way to remind players to role play their characters, and not just play as themselves. The inspiration mechanic just doesn't really cut it for making players see the value in playing suboptimally as a way of role playing a character.
The Warlock's power doesn't come through studying arcane magic, or having an understanding of arcane magic. I don't think it makes sense mechanically to make them an intelligence based class. I'm glad that they are a Charisma based class.
You aren't completely wrong there but it is a form of knowledge only accessible by patrons so yes they can't just study any book and gain the same power amount of power that a Patron would give them but regardless of that they only lose the ability to progress if the patron won't give/ isn't able to give power for any reason. This is why they don't lose any power when switching patrons but their features are lost though.
I was researching about it a while ago and found out that warlocks (in 3rd edition) cast spells out of sheer will (which is why they made them into charisma based casters apparently). So int based caster can make sense only difference is that your character can only get the Eldritch knowledge from patrons and very few forbidden sources such as tomes instead of regular methods.
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Honestly, if I was allowed to play an INT-Based Warlock (including stuff like Agonizing blast shifting to INT), and I was allowed to Multiclass, I‘d go with Wizard X/Warlock 2. Probably Abjuration Wizard so I could refill my Arcane Ward with Warlocks at-will Mage Armor.
At lvl 20, this character has a spell for each its action (EB), Bonus Action (Misty Step) and Reaction (Shield) that it can use without spending any resources on them.
This is far from the end if this train of thought.
But if your DM allows this, why not directly ask them if you could just play a Wizard but with EB+AB.
Honestly, if I was allowed to play an INT-Based Warlock (including stuff like Agonizing blast shifting to INT), and I was allowed to Multiclass, I‘d go with Wizard X/Warlock 2. Probably Abjuration Wizard so I could refill my Arcane Ward with Warlocks at-will Mage Armor.
At lvl 20, this character has a spell for each its action (EB), Bonus Action (Misty Step) and Reaction (Shield) that it can use without spending any resources on them.
This is far from the end if this train of thought.
But if your DM allows this, why not directly ask them if you could just play a Wizard but with EB+AB.
Shoot, you could go with warlock 2 anyways with a 13 cha to recharge that arcane ward. Just take utility cantrips instead of attack cantrips, and first level spells that you will use regardless. The warlock dip can provide you with a lot of nice benefits aside from EB and AB. The real question is it worth delaying your spell progression.
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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 mind Warlock are not Charisma casters...Bards, Pally's yes...Walrocks are not known for their charisma unless its magically induced.
Warlocks in fiction are known for inspiring fear and dread in people, which in D&D is a function of Charisma. Also, in most fiction, things like warlocks, sorcerers, and the like don't generally fall neatly into easy D&D classes.
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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.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. There's pushback against warlocks being Intelligence-based because in 5e Intelligence is a bad stat and people don't want to take it. Why would someone volunteer to run an Intelligence-based class when they could be Charisma, instead? Plenty of folks out there hear of the idea that warlocks could have, and should have been, Intelligence-based and go "But my bardsorpadlock! How will I take levels in half the classes in the game in order to make all spellcasting rolls, attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks off of Charisma alone while dealing triple Smite Expertise damage?!"
Warlocks can be whatever the player wants them to be, more than any other class. But the PHB lists them as researchers and knowledge-seekers driven by a hunger for hidden lore and secret power. They gain that lore and power by striking a bargain with an otherworldly Power. Silly people read that and say "See? Bargaining! That's Persuasion! Persuasin is Charisma! Leave my bardsorpadlock alone!"
No. That's negotiation. Negotiation is a matter of Intelligence as much as Charisma. Force of personality means nothing to creatures beyond humanity who don't really care how sparkly your teeth are or how genuine your smile is. They care solely for whether you have the capability to deliver on your end of the deal; coming up with a 'Your End' you can hack and proving you can hack it is a function of being smart enough to know what you can and can't do and how to go about it.
Now sure. Some folks just wake up one day with a pact, or have that pact thrust upon them through circumstances outside their control. At which point I would contend that it is still your intelligence - your reasoning, your problem-solving abilities, your powers and prowess of deduction - that allow you to figure out magical abilities you now suddenly have without any clue why or how they work.
Warlocks. They should have been an Intelligence class. And if you don't like that idea, ask yourself why Intelligence sucks so much you never want to take it on any of your characters.
Warlocks aren't real and mental stats are subjective. There's no "should have" to any of it, it's purely what the game designers decided to do. If you want to make warlocks run on intelligence in your games, go right ahead, nobody's going to stop you.
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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.
Heh. Not quite true. DDB is stopping me, because it's super awkward to try and change a class' scaling stat. Especially for Warlocks, where many invocations that can't be modified scale off of Charisma. Now yes, one could just manually change the values of every single action, spell or class ability on their sheet, but doesn't that seem like way too much aggravation?
What gets me is more the Charisma Caster ********, where you just keep adding one to three levels of every single freaking Charisma caster in the game because "why not, it's better than building a character that makes sense!", and the bit where mechanically, Intelligence is an absolutely godawful trap that no one should take unless their class strictly requires it. I often do anyways, because I have a strong preference for the clever, well-educated adventurer whose wit is as much a weapon as their weapon, but I am fully aware that every time my Intelligence is higher than 8, I am deliberately sabotaging myself. It sucks and I hate it, but ehh.
I haven't played a character with an INT score below 10 since 3.0 edition, whether or not it was a "good" build for that class. Frankly, I don't care because I don't concern myself with trying to optimize every last detail of my characters.
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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.
I haven't played a character with an INT score below 10 since 3.0 edition, whether or not it was a "good" build for that class. Frankly, I don't care because I don't concern myself with trying to optimize every last detail of my characters.
Int is not something I like to dump either. My group calls for a fair amount of int checks. I do not believe the narrative of int is bad and everyone dumps it. That is not my experience.
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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.
Tasha
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I always loved the Pathfinder Int-based Witch, so I, personally, prefer an Int-based Warlock. If your DM allowed an Int-based Warlock, how would you build this character? Would you multiclass or not? The silly Sorlock/Padlock stuff would probably be too MAD unless you got lucky rolls, so how about Wizard?
Are we assuming that *all* the Warlock's Charisma-based features are being switched over to Intelligence, not just their spellcasting? I'm looking at Agonizing Blast, Lifedrinker, and a few other Invocations that key off Charisma, wondering if my Int-based Warlock will be overcome with MADness.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
Yes, All the CHA Warlock features would be Int based.
There a reason you want your witch to be Int based? Why are you against going with Charisma? You could just use Int as a secondary stat for RP reasons and stick with charisma for main stat. Warlocks don't really need much other than charisma so it's not like it would gimp her in any way.
Either way, I didn't know too much about pathfinder so I looked up what the witch was all about. I found a reference document that said:
Otherworldly sounds like The Great Old One to me although it could mean anything. Celestial, Archfey, or Fiend would all work just fine thematically too. Using a familiar sounds like Pact of the Chain would be a good fit. Maybe grab alchemy or herbalism from your background. Grab Hex as that's pretty thematic (and just generally a good spell). You can also get Bestow Curse by taking the Sign of Ill Omen Invocation. I also like thief of the five fates to get you Bane. It seems pretty thematic.
Maybe grab alchemy or herbalism from your background.
Here's the thing: you can have an INT-heavy warlock and still maintain charisma as the casting stat. In an earlier argument, I stated that the basis of the Pact is charisma, i.e. bond. Not everyone likes that concept, and thinks that INT should be the primary stat. I contend that the two are separate types of intellect. Charisma is not just ability to craft words, but also social/emotional intelligence and Knowing one's audience, and intelligence is pure IQ. Pacts are driven by the ability of both sides to deliver, thus charisma is important.
That doesn't mean that you can't have INT as you next best stat. This is how I'm playing my Feylock pact of the tome. Use lots of identify (ritual cast is nice), be the party librarian, arcane knowledge repository, acquirer of powerful things, etc. I think people often think of CHA as the ability to just speak well and carouse or seduce. But to build rapport with anyone or anything requires social ability, including patrons and others with powerful magic when you don't necessarily want combat. You can learn with both CHA and INT. Since a lot of checks require int, like arcana and religion, it's to a warlock's advantage to have INT as it is.
May the gentle moonlinght guide you to greater wisdom
I guess you can multiclass with arcane trickster rogue, Eldritch knight, arcane archer they are all good. For example, hex blade with Arcane archer gain the buffed shot. Arcane trickster gains access to fast recovery of spell slots, darkness and devil sight as well as a companion if you go pact of the chain. I personally want to do it at some point if I find a willing DM.
Note: Jeremy Crowford said it wont be unbalanced to turn Watlock to int clsss
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
I've made a Wizard/Artificer/Warlock/Rogue build.
I put 3 levels in Artificer (Battle Smith) for the 'Battle Ready' ability. 3 levels in Warlock (pact not important, hexblade discouraged), at least 1 level in both Wizard and Rogue. With Warlock boon, I chose blade. My charisma is 13 (min multiclass). INT as high as I can get, since pact of the blade will be run off of INT. Then I took improved Pact Weapon for invocation, and repeating shot for my pact weapon. Now I have a pact weapon with unlimited ammo that reloads itself. I took Wizard for all of my offensive spells (I don't need Eldritch Blast). Get chill touch for those healers. Utility spells for the warlock. Healing spells for the Artificer. And Rogue for the sneak attack when you set your iron defender on your enemies.
I also wanted a witch class, part druid, part warlock, with non blasty spells...ones that focus on individuals or use nature against her foes. In my mind Warlock are not Charisma casters...Bards, Pally's yes...Walrocks are not known for their charisma unless its magically induced. Like witches are generally shunned or feared but in all cases. 5e did a number on the INT ability...weird for game played with or inspired by the imagination. I really want to see the Warlock 2.0 and a Witch Class. Just no way should Warlock be just a multiclass dip like most builds. They need more spell slots and hexblade should be a part of any patron. The path of chain and tome are too weak on their own...they should be folded into all warlocks builds regardless of parton.
I'm going to try a straight up Eldritch Knight...think its a far more powerful well rounded class. Gonna try without much armor.
Sure. Why not. The mods admitted their thread necromancy policies are basically unenforced anyways.
Apparently, during the testing cycle for 5e, the warlock was tested as an Intelligence-focused class. Players hated it, probably due to whatever reason players also absolutely despised the Intelligence stat with every last little tiny fiber of their beings. I can only surmise this is why the Intelligence stat is functionally worthless in 5e, why it's the least-used 'primary' stat by far, and why every character for whom Intelligence is not a strict mechanical requirement is strongly encouraged to dump Intelligence.
Nevertheless, the playerbase wanted their warlocks Charisma-based, so Wizards made them Charisma-based. It was the wrong choice, but it was the choice they made so huzzah. If warlocks were Intelligence-based rather than Charisma-based? Well, a dip for War Wizardry would be awesome. Warlocks are focused on their combat cantrips already, Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit would be superb boosts for the class. As well as snagging extra cantrips and a spellbook packed with useful low-level utility. Beyond that, I'm one of those who feels like the warlock is worth carrying past 5, as some of the higher-level invocations are pretty excellent. Warlock with Intelligence would end up multiclassed a lot less often, which I'm personally fine with. The Charisma Caster ******** could use some pepper spraying at this point, eh?
Please do not contact or message me.
Int based warlocks would solve an awful lot of problems created by them being a charisma based class. The rest would be solved by making eldritch blast a class feature like it was in older editions rather than a cantrip. Under the current system, I would make it scale on warlock level rather than character level since it's a warlock only cantrip. That makes the warlock dip for 2-3 levels for EB spam on your <insert other charisma caster here> a non issue.
For my party at least, Int is far from useless, we make int checks on the regular. Since none of us play wizards normally, we're usually hurting on our arcana, history and religion checks. we should be hurting for investigation too, but our DM calls for perception checks on things that /should/ be investigation imo. *shrug* I don't get a vote. I hate that int is so poorly supported via classes.
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 you don't role play your dump stats, it's much easier to dump Intelligence. If you role play your character having below average intelligence then it will set you back a bit having below average Intelligence.
Recently, my Tempest Cleric with 9 Intelligence was involved in questioning a prisoner that we had. I think that questioning a prisoner falls under the Investigation skill, and so I had my Cleric asking really basic questions that we already knew the answers to that didn't really move the questioning along. She's proficient in Insight so I consider her to be an excellent judge of a NPCs character and truthfulness, but I don't extend that to her being excellent at asking the right questions. She's better at observing the NPC as the party questions the NPC, and not as effective at actually leading the interrogation. I think interrogations should be a combination of investigation and insight. Investigation to know what to ask, and insight to know how to interpret their response.
I would also categorize the development of a battle plan before combat as related to intelligence. If you have a character with below average intelligence it's not thematic at all to have your character suggest a really elaborate and effective plan for combat. If you have some more intelligent ideas and you're playing a low intelligence character, you can suggest these ideas out of character, and let the Wizard or Artificer in your party be the one that crafts the plan. You can phrase it as "would your character do such and such" when talking to the other person in your group that is playing the high intelligence character.
As for my Warlock, I've got a Sprite familiar with 14 intelligence, and my Warlock has only 10 Intelligence (it's his dump stat, he rolled 16,15,11,11,11,10), and much of the fun of having a Pact of the Chain Warlock is that you get to role play two different characters. Because my familiar is more intelligent than my Warlock, I make sure that the strategy ideas for combat come from him (he's also the scout since he can go invisible at will, can fly, and has +8 stealth), so he takes more of a role in planning battle strategy than my Warlock does.
The Warlock's power doesn't come through studying arcane magic, or having an understanding of arcane magic. I don't think it makes sense mechanically to make them an intelligence based class. I'm glad that they are a Charisma based class.
As for DMs, it would be very heavy handed for them to remind players to role play their characters and to question whether or not their characters would be so excellent an investigation or planning a battle. So the DM needs to find a more subtle way to remind players to role play their characters, and not just play as themselves. The inspiration mechanic just doesn't really cut it for making players see the value in playing suboptimally as a way of role playing a character.
You aren't completely wrong there but it is a form of knowledge only accessible by patrons so yes they can't just study any book and gain the same power amount of power that a Patron would give them but regardless of that they only lose the ability to progress if the patron won't give/ isn't able to give power for any reason. This is why they don't lose any power when switching patrons but their features are lost though.
I was researching about it a while ago and found out that warlocks (in 3rd edition) cast spells out of sheer will (which is why they made them into charisma based casters apparently). So int based caster can make sense only difference is that your character can only get the Eldritch knowledge from patrons and very few forbidden sources such as tomes instead of regular methods.
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Honestly, if I was allowed to play an INT-Based Warlock (including stuff like Agonizing blast shifting to INT), and I was allowed to Multiclass, I‘d go with Wizard X/Warlock 2. Probably Abjuration Wizard so I could refill my Arcane Ward with Warlocks at-will Mage Armor.
At lvl 20, this character has a spell for each its action (EB), Bonus Action (Misty Step) and Reaction (Shield) that it can use without spending any resources on them.
This is far from the end if this train of thought.
But if your DM allows this, why not directly ask them if you could just play a Wizard but with EB+AB.
Shoot, you could go with warlock 2 anyways with a 13 cha to recharge that arcane ward. Just take utility cantrips instead of attack cantrips, and first level spells that you will use regardless. The warlock dip can provide you with a lot of nice benefits aside from EB and AB. The real question is it worth delaying your spell progression.
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
Warlocks in fiction are known for inspiring fear and dread in people, which in D&D is a function of Charisma. Also, in most fiction, things like warlocks, sorcerers, and the like don't generally fall neatly into easy D&D classes.
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've said it before, I'll say it again. There's pushback against warlocks being Intelligence-based because in 5e Intelligence is a bad stat and people don't want to take it. Why would someone volunteer to run an Intelligence-based class when they could be Charisma, instead? Plenty of folks out there hear of the idea that warlocks could have, and should have been, Intelligence-based and go "But my bardsorpadlock! How will I take levels in half the classes in the game in order to make all spellcasting rolls, attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks off of Charisma alone while dealing triple Smite Expertise damage?!"
Warlocks can be whatever the player wants them to be, more than any other class. But the PHB lists them as researchers and knowledge-seekers driven by a hunger for hidden lore and secret power. They gain that lore and power by striking a bargain with an otherworldly Power. Silly people read that and say "See? Bargaining! That's Persuasion! Persuasin is Charisma! Leave my bardsorpadlock alone!"
No. That's negotiation. Negotiation is a matter of Intelligence as much as Charisma. Force of personality means nothing to creatures beyond humanity who don't really care how sparkly your teeth are or how genuine your smile is. They care solely for whether you have the capability to deliver on your end of the deal; coming up with a 'Your End' you can hack and proving you can hack it is a function of being smart enough to know what you can and can't do and how to go about it.
Now sure. Some folks just wake up one day with a pact, or have that pact thrust upon them through circumstances outside their control. At which point I would contend that it is still your intelligence - your reasoning, your problem-solving abilities, your powers and prowess of deduction - that allow you to figure out magical abilities you now suddenly have without any clue why or how they work.
Warlocks. They should have been an Intelligence class. And if you don't like that idea, ask yourself why Intelligence sucks so much you never want to take it on any of your characters.
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Warlocks aren't real and mental stats are subjective. There's no "should have" to any of it, it's purely what the game designers decided to do. If you want to make warlocks run on intelligence in your games, go right ahead, nobody's going to stop you.
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.
Heh. Not quite true. DDB is stopping me, because it's super awkward to try and change a class' scaling stat. Especially for Warlocks, where many invocations that can't be modified scale off of Charisma. Now yes, one could just manually change the values of every single action, spell or class ability on their sheet, but doesn't that seem like way too much aggravation?
What gets me is more the Charisma Caster ********, where you just keep adding one to three levels of every single freaking Charisma caster in the game because "why not, it's better than building a character that makes sense!", and the bit where mechanically, Intelligence is an absolutely godawful trap that no one should take unless their class strictly requires it. I often do anyways, because I have a strong preference for the clever, well-educated adventurer whose wit is as much a weapon as their weapon, but I am fully aware that every time my Intelligence is higher than 8, I am deliberately sabotaging myself. It sucks and I hate it, but ehh.
Please do not contact or message me.
I haven't played a character with an INT score below 10 since 3.0 edition, whether or not it was a "good" build for that class. Frankly, I don't care because I don't concern myself with trying to optimize every last detail of my characters.
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.
Int is not something I like to dump either. My group calls for a fair amount of int checks. I do not believe the narrative of int is bad and everyone dumps it. That is not my experience.
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