Oh my word, that’s perfect! I’d envisioned the servants as being wimpy small-sized (not tiny) minions. Exploiting them as living time bombs regardless of their consent is just devious, unjust, and oh so warlock-like. I can even see a Celestial-based pact feeding in to that if the justification is sufficient (or at least, sufficient in the warlock’s eyes).
I keep imagining what if Pain and Panic from Hercules served Rasputin from Anatasia with the devotion of the Overlord's minions. And if you are a particularly cruel master you can just blow one up as a party trick or if your tea is too cold.
This actually has me thinking about a topic I considered, but I didn’t think about it further because I wasn’t sure if the basic pact boon was balanced. Since there does seem to be a semblance of balance in basically having two seen (not unseen) servants, I’d like to see people’s ideas about the parameters of those.
So there are multiple patrons available to warlocks: celestial, fey, fiend, and great old one seem typical. The Shadowfall patron is unfamiliar to me, and I’m not sure if the Raven Queen patron is official or not. But in any case, I’d imagined servants who fit the flavor of all these different patrons since, unlike familiars, the servants are a boon from the patron rather than merely found. There are a few rules which would make the servants demonstrably different from a familiar:
small size only; nothing tiny like a familiar, and nothing medium like a hireling.
nothing which flies; that’s a role which would be better filled by a familiar, plus the unseen servant can’t fly.
nothing with exceptionally impressive abilities; maybe a few, but for the most part, these things are loot carriers and food preparers.
nothing which is particularly intelligent or appealing.
With that in mind, there are a few existing candidates depending on patron, though some patrons may require further homebrew for qualified creatures.
Celestial: this one is tricky because existing small-sized candidates all seem disqualified based on the above. Light angels and lantern archons can’t carry anything, and a hollyphant may be able to carry things but not well. Also, all three can fly, which seems overpowered for a simple servant.
Fey: they have the boggle, which is probably the best possible example. That ugly little thing seems like a candidate in every way: small, mostly unaggressive, kind of dumb, but capable of carrying things. A woodland spirit in the form of a large monkey might also work. Darklings and redcaps are also small, but they’re too aggressive to fit the role, I think.
Fiend: this is a tough one. Cackler (demon) and spinagons (devil) are both small size, but they’re also capable of fighting, plus the latter can fly. Manes and lemures are also too aggressive despite being dumb enough. Maybe homebrew a little fiendish creature used as an indentured servant in the outer planes?
Great old one: I’m honestly stumped here. The Great Old Ones probably want things that way.
All of the above is still the idea of a noob; I’m not emotionally attached to any of this, so if it’s bunk, then please feel free to shoot it down. I wouldn’t mind home brewing miserable little creatures used as shoeshiners or cannon fodder here with other players on the forums, but I don’t know if that would be reinventing the wheel or not.
If you're using the stats for Unseen Servant anyway, the actual appearance of the servants doesn't really matter.
The celestial could summon Caroline and Justine from Persona 5. The fey could summon wingless sprites of some sort. The fiend could literally just summon Pain and Panic. The great old one could summon anything that fits their theme.
So there are multiple patrons available to warlocks: celestial, fey, fiend, and great old one seem typical. The Shadowfall patron is unfamiliar to me, and I’m not sure if the Raven Queen patron is official or not. But in any case, I’d imagined servants who fit the flavor of all these different patrons since, unlike familiars, the servants are a boon from the patron rather than merely found. There are a few rules which would make the servants demonstrably different from a familiar:
small size only; nothing tiny like a familiar, and nothing medium like a hireling.
nothing which flies; that’s a role which would be better filled by a familiar, plus the unseen servant can’t fly.
nothing with exceptionally impressive abilities; maybe a few, but for the most part, these things are loot carriers and food preparers.
nothing which is particularly intelligent or appealing.
DarkAbyssKeeper's response summarizes where I was going with my redesign of Pact of the Servant. Skip to the blue part if you don't want to read my ramblings.
Point number one was part of the changes made to Unseen Servant and points three and four I believe are answered directly within the usual parameters of the spell. For point two, in my opinion, the original description of the Unseen Servant can go either way as to whether or not it can fly, and I would just leave that up to DM's discretion and the player's preferences (some DM's may decide to go off of the Living Unseen Servant creature from Waterdeep. I don't but just wanted to include that for the sake of clarity).
Though that may be a separate concern as I think you are talking about specific creatures being summoned as your servants, and which creature is determined by your deity. For this ability, I didn't tie anything down so strictly like with Planar Servant. Part of the reason for that is shown through the following spells/features:
There are other examples, but I think these represent all of the points I am looking for. Find familiar and find steed show that you are not tied to a particular creature when you summon it, no matter how many times it dies. Nor do I think your servants granted by this feature should be.
Spiritual weapon I included sort of as an example to the contrary, but also for why I actually break this rule as a DM. The spell's description states "The weapon can take whatever form you choose. Clerics of deities who are associated with a particular weapon (as St. Cuthbert is known for his mace and Thor for his hammer) make this spell's effect resemble that weapon." The first part makes the same point as find familiar and find steed, but the second part restricts the caster a bit based off of a previous choice. I allow my players to still choose any form, but still acknowledging that choosing a weapon based off of your deity is really cool for flavor. If you serve Thor then you are very likely to honor him by wielding a spiritual representation of Mjolnir through this spell, yet you may also feel you are not worthy enough to wield his hammer, even a representation of it, so you create a greataxe instead.
With Crossbow Expert, even though it has "crossbow" in the name, and two of its three features are specific to crossbows, one of its benefits also applies to any ranged weapon attack, whether it be a longbow or a thrown weapon. In this way just because you have a feature intended primarily for one purpose does not mean that adjacent or similar features can't also benefit.
Most importantly is the Totem Warrior Barbarian. At levels 3, 6 and 14 you choose an aspect based off of an animal spirit. In previous versions, an ability like this would require you to pick one animal early on which then determines all later features. Here you get to choose a different animal spirit every time, so you can mix and match. This leaves many possible choices for what it means to the player to have a spirit totem.
If the player absolutely loves tigers, then they may take the tiger spirit at all levels. If the player feels that their character embodies the swift, speedy, agile or synonym of animals, they have multiple choices in how that manifests. At level 3 you can choose Eagle for a bonus dash action or Elk for a speed bonus, at level 6 you can choose the Elk for traveling, Tiger for Acrobatics and Stealth, or Wolf for tracking. At level 14 you can choose to fly or to move through enemy spaces.
Maybe all the player wants is the best combat bonuses and to min/max their character and they pick different animals solely for those purposes.
The general design here is trying to avoid restrictions based off of thematic choices while still not allowing mechanics tied to those themes to break the game or in the very least avoid making one so much better or worse than the other options so that it is almost always or almost never chosen. The first thematic choice is that, regardless of your patron, the servants you summon can be of any of the types listed and they can be different each time you cast Unseen Servant as a ritual. The Great Old One can summon an elemental, the Hexblade can summon an undead. We can even say the servants themselves don't have to be of the same type, so The Fiend can summon one fiend and one celestial and you have your classic shoulder angel/devil trope and my character can be based on Doctor Faustus. Or my character can have an Archfey Patron and always summon fey servants if that fits their theme.
Because all servants use the exact same stats otherwise, there is no concern for one type being overpowered or underpowered. They only fly based off of your interpretation of the Unseen Servant spell. You could say they don't fly at first but you can add another invocation that allows them to do so, possibly giving additional movement bonuses through the same invocation. My personal interpretation is that they do fly, and another invocation would give them two benefits; one to double their movement speed and another to double the range at which they can move away from their master.
Probably to avoid confusion, in Pact of the Servant where it says the servants are of the chosen type, we add "but they take on any appearance you choose." I'm not against this meaning literally anything, players can have a lot of fun with that, but if you are then you can define it further. It is implied within the line "When you cast this spell as a ritual, choose one of the following creature types" that you get to choose a different type every time you cast it, though not that they can be two separate types. You can clarify that if you like.
Finally, the difference between Pact of the Servant allowing any type regardless of patron and Planar Servant being tied to your patron is due to the power granted by the various features. It is difficult to describe a specific pattern of thought when it came to designing these because I think it is so variable depending upon your goals. For this subclass, you have more versatility on the theme at lower levels but with a very generic, though likewise versatile "one-size-fits-all" function of the feature.
For higher levels you have very specific, powerful spells that, through invocations, you are making even more powerful in some instances or gaining access to where you previously didn't in the case of the celestial. One way to avoid making this too powerful is restricting certain abilities to a specific patron as we have done. However, this is only for three of the six patrons currently available and does not consider the possibility of more patrons in the future. I see various solutions to this issue:
Create a unique feature for each patron using a spell that summons a thematically appropriate creature. At this point, they should probably all be separate invocations at various levels depending on the power of the feature gained. If it is a spell already on the Warlock spell list, then the invocation should be available the next time the Warlock increases their invocations known (2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18) after they could normally cast the spell. If it is not on the Warlock spell list then gaining access to the spell but without altering it is enough (similarly the invocation is available after the spell could normally be cast by a class of the appropriate level), but also gaining a thematically appropriate ability that isn't game-breaking is a nice touch, like I did with Celestial Servant.
Keep Planar Servant as is, except we remove the patron restriction and increase the level requirement to 15. This means any Pact of the Servant Warlock of any patron has all three types of servants, so no one is missing out. This may require other restrictions, such as the creature being of a lower CR or not being able to summon more than one of this type of servant per day.
Remove this feature as an invocation, and tie it into the Pact of the Servant feature. In this approach, we could likewise create unique servants depending on the patron as in point #1 that are available at higher levels,
Create a generic servant that can be called on for a limited time once a day, can be thematically altered based off of your patron, but it has to be designed in such a way as not to step on the toes of the other spells. This can be either an invocation or tied to the Pact of the Servant feature. I think either way this approach is reinventing the wheel, but it can be done and just needs to be a bit more meticulously designed.
So, this is a rough draft but I'd love feed back. Some background, my character is a firbolg warlock who uses mostly illusions and enchantments. She is always up to something and no one ever knows what's coming next. My patron is the Baleful night form the DM Binder. As I said illusion based witch vibe. Okay so please don't hate on it to much.
Pact of the Witch's Hut
Your patron gifts you a space of your own. With in you will find the tools and necessities required for your basic needs. At lv 3 you gave a Runic mark on your body. As an action you may appear in your own Witch's Hut. With in is a Fully functioning kitchen, a singular bedroom (fully equipped) and a living area. You may stay there a number of hours equal to 3 times your proficiency bonus. Whilst there time moves at 1/2 speed in the Material plane. You may use this once a long rest.
Invocations
Magic Cauldron- Perique inside the Hut summons a magical cauldron with in your Witch's Hut, with it you are proficient with alchemist supplies, brewers supplies, cooking utensils, herbalism kit and the poisoners kit. Using your cauldron you are able to craft as if you have each kit. Material components still required.
Scrying Pool- Perique inside the Hut 7th lv Cast scrying at will w/o components. You are treated as if on the same plane of existence from which you entered into your hut
Alter- Perique inside the Hut 9th lv Place a body upon the alter and cast as a ritual Raise Dead. Doing so you must offer up part of your self to satisfy your patron. Take a negative 2 in Con for one week. Also suffer 5 negative levels of exhaustion.
Witch's Mark- Witches Hut You make mark a willing target with your seal, allowing them to enter your Hut with you. This does not change the number of rooms available. Once inside, they may leave whenever they like
Oh my word, that’s perfect! I’d envisioned the servants as being wimpy small-sized (not tiny) minions. Exploiting them as living time bombs regardless of their consent is just devious, unjust, and oh so warlock-like. I can even see a Celestial-based pact feeding in to that if the justification is sufficient (or at least, sufficient in the warlock’s eyes).
Darbakh - Duergar warden [Pic] [Model]
Quorian - half-elf watcher [Model]
Ruffler - human wizard [Model]
PM me the word ‘tomato’
I keep imagining what if Pain and Panic from Hercules served Rasputin from Anatasia with the devotion of the Overlord's minions. And if you are a particularly cruel master you can just blow one up as a party trick or if your tea is too cold.
This actually has me thinking about a topic I considered, but I didn’t think about it further because I wasn’t sure if the basic pact boon was balanced. Since there does seem to be a semblance of balance in basically having two seen (not unseen) servants, I’d like to see people’s ideas about the parameters of those.
So there are multiple patrons available to warlocks: celestial, fey, fiend, and great old one seem typical. The Shadowfall patron is unfamiliar to me, and I’m not sure if the Raven Queen patron is official or not. But in any case, I’d imagined servants who fit the flavor of all these different patrons since, unlike familiars, the servants are a boon from the patron rather than merely found. There are a few rules which would make the servants demonstrably different from a familiar:
With that in mind, there are a few existing candidates depending on patron, though some patrons may require further homebrew for qualified creatures.
Celestial: this one is tricky because existing small-sized candidates all seem disqualified based on the above. Light angels and lantern archons can’t carry anything, and a hollyphant may be able to carry things but not well. Also, all three can fly, which seems overpowered for a simple servant.
Fey: they have the boggle, which is probably the best possible example. That ugly little thing seems like a candidate in every way: small, mostly unaggressive, kind of dumb, but capable of carrying things. A woodland spirit in the form of a large monkey might also work. Darklings and redcaps are also small, but they’re too aggressive to fit the role, I think.
Fiend: this is a tough one. Cackler (demon) and spinagons (devil) are both small size, but they’re also capable of fighting, plus the latter can fly. Manes and lemures are also too aggressive despite being dumb enough. Maybe homebrew a little fiendish creature used as an indentured servant in the outer planes?
Great old one: I’m honestly stumped here. The Great Old Ones probably want things that way.
All of the above is still the idea of a noob; I’m not emotionally attached to any of this, so if it’s bunk, then please feel free to shoot it down. I wouldn’t mind home brewing miserable little creatures used as shoeshiners or cannon fodder here with other players on the forums, but I don’t know if that would be reinventing the wheel or not.
Darbakh - Duergar warden [Pic] [Model]
Quorian - half-elf watcher [Model]
Ruffler - human wizard [Model]
PM me the word ‘tomato’
If you're using the stats for Unseen Servant anyway, the actual appearance of the servants doesn't really matter.
The celestial could summon Caroline and Justine from Persona 5. The fey could summon wingless sprites of some sort. The fiend could literally just summon Pain and Panic. The great old one could summon anything that fits their theme.
My DM's Guild Content - Mostly quick rules and guides.
DarkAbyssKeeper's response summarizes where I was going with my redesign of Pact of the Servant. Skip to the blue part if you don't want to read my ramblings.
Point number one was part of the changes made to Unseen Servant and points three and four I believe are answered directly within the usual parameters of the spell. For point two, in my opinion, the original description of the Unseen Servant can go either way as to whether or not it can fly, and I would just leave that up to DM's discretion and the player's preferences (some DM's may decide to go off of the Living Unseen Servant creature from Waterdeep. I don't but just wanted to include that for the sake of clarity).
Though that may be a separate concern as I think you are talking about specific creatures being summoned as your servants, and which creature is determined by your deity. For this ability, I didn't tie anything down so strictly like with Planar Servant. Part of the reason for that is shown through the following spells/features:
There are other examples, but I think these represent all of the points I am looking for. Find familiar and find steed show that you are not tied to a particular creature when you summon it, no matter how many times it dies. Nor do I think your servants granted by this feature should be.
Spiritual weapon I included sort of as an example to the contrary, but also for why I actually break this rule as a DM. The spell's description states "The weapon can take whatever form you choose. Clerics of deities who are associated with a particular weapon (as St. Cuthbert is known for his mace and Thor for his hammer) make this spell's effect resemble that weapon." The first part makes the same point as find familiar and find steed, but the second part restricts the caster a bit based off of a previous choice. I allow my players to still choose any form, but still acknowledging that choosing a weapon based off of your deity is really cool for flavor. If you serve Thor then you are very likely to honor him by wielding a spiritual representation of Mjolnir through this spell, yet you may also feel you are not worthy enough to wield his hammer, even a representation of it, so you create a greataxe instead.
With Crossbow Expert, even though it has "crossbow" in the name, and two of its three features are specific to crossbows, one of its benefits also applies to any ranged weapon attack, whether it be a longbow or a thrown weapon. In this way just because you have a feature intended primarily for one purpose does not mean that adjacent or similar features can't also benefit.
Most importantly is the Totem Warrior Barbarian. At levels 3, 6 and 14 you choose an aspect based off of an animal spirit. In previous versions, an ability like this would require you to pick one animal early on which then determines all later features. Here you get to choose a different animal spirit every time, so you can mix and match. This leaves many possible choices for what it means to the player to have a spirit totem.
If the player absolutely loves tigers, then they may take the tiger spirit at all levels. If the player feels that their character embodies the swift, speedy, agile or synonym of animals, they have multiple choices in how that manifests. At level 3 you can choose Eagle for a bonus dash action or Elk for a speed bonus, at level 6 you can choose the Elk for traveling, Tiger for Acrobatics and Stealth, or Wolf for tracking. At level 14 you can choose to fly or to move through enemy spaces.
Maybe all the player wants is the best combat bonuses and to min/max their character and they pick different animals solely for those purposes.
The general design here is trying to avoid restrictions based off of thematic choices while still not allowing mechanics tied to those themes to break the game or in the very least avoid making one so much better or worse than the other options so that it is almost always or almost never chosen. The first thematic choice is that, regardless of your patron, the servants you summon can be of any of the types listed and they can be different each time you cast Unseen Servant as a ritual. The Great Old One can summon an elemental, the Hexblade can summon an undead. We can even say the servants themselves don't have to be of the same type, so The Fiend can summon one fiend and one celestial and you have your classic shoulder angel/devil trope and my character can be based on Doctor Faustus. Or my character can have an Archfey Patron and always summon fey servants if that fits their theme.
Because all servants use the exact same stats otherwise, there is no concern for one type being overpowered or underpowered. They only fly based off of your interpretation of the Unseen Servant spell. You could say they don't fly at first but you can add another invocation that allows them to do so, possibly giving additional movement bonuses through the same invocation. My personal interpretation is that they do fly, and another invocation would give them two benefits; one to double their movement speed and another to double the range at which they can move away from their master.
Probably to avoid confusion, in Pact of the Servant where it says the servants are of the chosen type, we add "but they take on any appearance you choose." I'm not against this meaning literally anything, players can have a lot of fun with that, but if you are then you can define it further. It is implied within the line "When you cast this spell as a ritual, choose one of the following creature types" that you get to choose a different type every time you cast it, though not that they can be two separate types. You can clarify that if you like.
Finally, the difference between Pact of the Servant allowing any type regardless of patron and Planar Servant being tied to your patron is due to the power granted by the various features. It is difficult to describe a specific pattern of thought when it came to designing these because I think it is so variable depending upon your goals. For this subclass, you have more versatility on the theme at lower levels but with a very generic, though likewise versatile "one-size-fits-all" function of the feature.
For higher levels you have very specific, powerful spells that, through invocations, you are making even more powerful in some instances or gaining access to where you previously didn't in the case of the celestial. One way to avoid making this too powerful is restricting certain abilities to a specific patron as we have done. However, this is only for three of the six patrons currently available and does not consider the possibility of more patrons in the future. I see various solutions to this issue:
So, this is a rough draft but I'd love feed back. Some background, my character is a firbolg warlock who uses mostly illusions and enchantments. She is always up to something and no one ever knows what's coming next. My patron is the Baleful night form the DM Binder. As I said illusion based witch vibe. Okay so please don't hate on it to much.
Pact of the Witch's Hut
Your patron gifts you a space of your own. With in you will find the tools and
necessities required for your basic needs. At lv 3 you gave a Runic mark on your body.
As an action you may appear in your own Witch's Hut. With in is a Fully functioning kitchen,
a singular bedroom (fully equipped) and a living area. You may stay there a number of hours
equal to 3 times your proficiency bonus. Whilst there time moves at 1/2 speed in the
Material plane. You may use this once a long rest.
Invocations
Magic Cauldron- Perique inside the Hut
summons a magical cauldron with in your Witch's Hut, with it you are proficient with
alchemist supplies, brewers supplies, cooking utensils, herbalism kit and the poisoners kit.
Using your cauldron you are able to craft as if you have each kit. Material components
still required.
Scrying Pool- Perique inside the Hut 7th lv
Cast scrying at will w/o components. You are treated as if on the same plane of
existence from which you entered into your hut
Alter- Perique inside the Hut 9th lv
Place a body upon the alter and cast as a ritual Raise Dead. Doing so you must offer up
part of your self to satisfy your patron. Take a negative 2 in Con for one week. Also
suffer 5 negative levels of exhaustion.
Witch's Mark- Witches Hut
You make mark a willing target with your seal, allowing them to enter your Hut with you.
This does not change the number of rooms available. Once inside, they may leave whenever they like