Reading the favorite multiclass combos thread got me interested. I'm one who goes for story most of the time (although sometimes a good combat-only campaign is good fun). But I wonder sometimes how people explain in-game some of the stranger multiclassing choices people make. Or even some common ones.
For example, starting as any class, and multiclassing into Sorcerer. I'd think the Draconic Bloodline would be hard to explain after you've never experienced sorcerer powers before, right? (Mom: So, Lothar...there's something I've never told you about your father...but it only shows up after the age of 30!)
Paladin-Assassin, Barbarian-Eldritch Knight, Fiend Warlock-Life Cleric, etc.
What are the most interesting, convoluted, implausible, well-crafted, poorly-crafted, inspired, etc. explanations for multiclass combos that you've seen?
Warlock combos are relatively easy. The pact was forced upon the warlock, which is why the otherwise good warlock now has a fiend as a patron or why the warlock sought out a good god that is interested in restoring and strengthening life. Barb EK could be a struggle between what's natural for the character and a desire to break from the natural tendencies. Paladin Assassin is less of a stretch for oathbreaker, conquest, vengeance, and perhaps ancients, but even otherwise good gods might have a destroying angel for the moments that they want to go old testament on someone. Some of these combos lend well to great role playing moments because of the conflict that such combinations can cause in a character.
Warlock combos are relatively easy. The pact was forced upon the warlock, which is why the otherwise good warlock now has a fiend as a patron or why the warlock sought out a good god that is interested in restoring and strengthening life. Barb EK could be a struggle between what's natural for the character and a desire to break from the natural tendencies. Paladin Assassin is less of a stretch for oathbreaker, conquest, vengeance, and perhaps ancients, but even otherwise good gods might have a destroying angel for the moments that they want to go old testament on someone. Some of these combos lend well to great role playing moments because of the conflict that such combinations can cause in a character.
I hear you, I'm not saying they can't be done. I'm just interested for the sake of the storytelling to hear what those stories are :) I've seen crazy combinations over the years (I mean, some have had no thought behind them at all, of course), and the stories are very interesting.
For example, a cleric of a LG god who is forced into a pact with a fiend. How well does that go over with his god? Or the rest of his church/temple? Does he have to hide that fact from them? Is he kicked out of the church?
I'm asking for the actual stories here, not for 'how is this possible'. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Yep, I definitely misunderstood. Unfortunately, I don't have any player side experience and none of my campaigns have included multiclassing yet as we're still getting a grasp on what the classes do in the first place. The closest I've got is a Dwarf Cleric who is intolerant of others beliefs (there's a candidate for inner turmoil if he was subjected to a pact.) and that players real life wife playing a tiefling warlock who is trying to change the perception of tieflings through her actions while trying to find the reincarnation of the Frost Prince's one time love for him so that they can be reconciled. They haven't done a bunch of role play with those aspects yet but we're still only level 2.
If the Life Cleric/Fiend Warlock was going in my campaign, I think I would talk to the player about how the character feels about it and what measures they are taking to conceal the divergence in action from the original class god/patron and their followers or trying to work with the clergy/patron to remove the influence of the other. I would probably have some tables set up to help randomly determine how some of the people react with cosmopolitan types being 50-60% likely to react favorably and provincials being about half as likely.
I have a player who's a Shadow Monk/Great Old One Warlock. She has been trying to figure out why any mention of her past has been stricken from any records that have been found thus far. In frustration she had been lashing out to the gods trying to get the attention of someone, or something, to get answers, and just because she was that angered. She accidentally touched on a source of power, it wreaked havoc on her psyche but she was able to do things she'd never been able to before. Accidentally reaching into the minds of her friends, launching projectiles from her hands, it was eerie. However, as she tried to figure out the cause of this, whenever she meditated, when she'd use this strange power, she'd suffer immense headaches. --skip forward a few sessions-- She is contacted by a strange elderly looking man who was all grey in color, everything, tip of the hat to the bottom of his sandals. He explains that she had been tapping into his powerful psychic presence and for disturbing his slumber, she is now to do his bidding, but she does get to keep the powers.
I have another player who is a Barbarian that has recently taken on Paladin levels. He was on death's doorstep when he was approached by an avatar of a diety. Given the choice to pass on or live on, he chose to live but was tasked with a mission by this avatar. The mission was successfully accomplished, there was no need to concern himself with this diety any longer except... The artifact that they helped stop the bad guy from completing was presented to him, he did bear the mark of the diety so the notion wasn't too odd. When he finished assembling the artifact it turned out to be a weapon, however the weapon had a mate. So, this Barbarian swore himself to the diety that saved him, and is now in search of the other half of this pair of artifact weapons.
I have a player who's a Shadow Monk/Great Old One Warlock. She has been trying to figure out why any mention of her past has been stricken from any records that have been found thus far. In frustration she had been lashing out to the gods trying to get the attention of someone, or something, to get answers, and just because she was that angered. She accidentally touched on a source of power, it wreaked havoc on her psyche but she was able to do things she'd never been able to before. Accidentally reaching into the minds of her friends, launching projectiles from her hands, it was eerie. However, as she tried to figure out the cause of this, whenever she meditated, when she'd use this strange power, she'd suffer immense headaches. --skip forward a few sessions-- She is contacted by a strange elderly looking man who was all grey in color, everything, tip of the hat to the bottom of his sandals. He explains that she had been tapping into his powerful psychic presence and for disturbing his slumber, she is now to do his bidding, but she does get to keep the powers.
I have another player who is a Barbarian that has recently taken on Paladin levels. He was on death's doorstep when he was approached by an avatar of a diety. Given the choice to pass on or live on, he chose to live but was tasked with a mission by this avatar. The mission was successfully accomplished, there was no need to concern himself with this diety any longer except... The artifact that they helped stop the bad guy from completing was presented to him, he did bear the mark of the diety so the notion wasn't too odd. When he finished assembling the artifact it turned out to be a weapon, however the weapon had a mate. So, this Barbarian swore himself to the diety that saved him, and is now in search of the other half of this pair of artifact weapons.
Those are great. I like the monk accidentally invading the minds of her friends. Having a monk be upset enough to make a pact would be cool to roleplay--because she's still trying to control herself and discipline her mind to be a monk, right? I love it.
The barbarian story makes perfect sense. To me, barbarian always seemed more like a background than a class anyway--it's one of those ones that's hard to explain multiclassing into. "Well, I grew up in the city, stealing on the streets. But then I moved into the grasslands and started living with a village of nomads." :) But starting out there, and then hooking up with the deity saving his life is nice, it's the reasonable choice to make, in fact. The "I'm saving your life, so serve me" is how my current warlock became a warlock.
If the Life Cleric/Fiend Warlock was going in my campaign, I think I would talk to the player about how the character feels about it and what measures they are taking to conceal the divergence in action from the original class god/patron and their followers or trying to work with the clergy/patron to remove the influence of the other.
Ooh. A cleric/warlock's temple superiors sending him on a quest to get rid of his warlock pact! That could be cool. (I mean, you wouldn't want to just chop off a bunch of levels and exp if he could find a way to do it. Maybe prove to his god (from the cleric side) that he's a worthy champion, and get the god to 'take over' the pact from the fiend? But the fiend only agrees for payment. :)
Something like that. Clearly it would depend on the player, but that would definitely be something that would work. And a fiend accepting payment but not removing the pact could easily be a side quest for the character or a main quest for the party to relieve the warlock from the fiend's pact- possibly in person and by force.
Something like that. Clearly it would depend on the player, but that would definitely be something that would work. And a fiend accepting payment but not removing the pact could easily be a side quest for the character or a main quest for the party to relieve the warlock from the fiend's pact- possibly in person and by force.
The key would be the player being okay with losing the 'fiendy' parts of the pact, or finding some way for those specific benefits to stay, but not the Fiend-link. Hurl Through Hell, for example, might sound unpleasant for a celestial to grant as a power :)
Just want to point out something about warlocks. They don't get their power from their patron like a cleric does. Rather, their patron gives them access to arcane knowledge that they use to cast spells and use warlock abilities. Therefore, when you talk about about 'removing' the cleric from the pact, keep in mind that the cleric keeps the warlock levels.
Just want to point out something about warlocks. They don't get their power from their patron like a cleric does. Rather, their patron gives them access to arcane knowledge that they use to cast spells and use abilities. Therefore, when you talk about about 'removing' the cleric from the pact, keep in mind that the cleric keeps the warlock levels.
Solid point. I should clarify, I meant more that the temple might not be happy with the Warlock hurling people through hell, and they, and the deity, might be looking for something to swap that power out with. Ban the character from using that, but let him use such and such other power.
But your point is a good point, and I forgot about that when raising the 'chop off levels' concern--the temple might be okay with the character keeping the powers, as long as he's not still serving the fiend.
Story wise, you could say that they performed a ritual to have the warlock "forget" aspects of the pact magic and the deity becomes the patron for celestial to mechanically move away from the more fiendish aspects of the warlock class. Or you could easily say that the deity is willing to "use the tools of my enemies against them when it suits my needs" to reconcile the warlock/cleric using both. Either could have interesting themes to play through including addiction, atonement, amnesia... and those are just some A's!
Yes at first it might look like a contradiction BUTTTTT, its DnD and everything is possible.
Mine character for example is a Tiefling, Unbeknowst to him he's one of the last descendant from a Lineage directly coming from a Devil, a Nazrugon called Azreal, Dark prince of Blades, wich was one of the Lords of a small hellish realm that they made with their powers and each had control over a section of it( imagine Floating islands, revolving around a Nexus of Arcane and Fell power), but since he was the better one, the others where jaleous and tried to steal his powers and seal him, before that he imbued his cherished sword with nearly all his powers, and transported it into the material plane to his first and most powerfull Champion, so that he could get revived later and take his revenge on the other Devil Lords.
Off course things din't go as expected, and upon arriving in the material Plane, the sword broke into many fragements, scattering around the world.
So Azrael champion set out to search for the fragements, Millenia's gone by and came Kain, orphan Tiefling who was enrolled into the army, and did well enough to go up ranks and even become the personal Aid of a Knight, who despite been a Tiefling took him under his wing and even adopted him, since he had no descendance, so that his name would go on wiht his legacy.
Off course things couldn't go this well for long, War broke out wiht the neigboring country, as a Knight Kain and his adoptive father participated in it, and after a long and gruesome campaign, where Soldiers has to follow orders, even if those orders doesn't seem right, they where dispatched for a last crucial mission.
But alas it was a set up, Kain's Father Knights detachement was so effective, that when the peace negotiations betwee the two nations started, the other party would give out substantial ressources to the condition that they would set up those knights, because of personal reasons( a few of the Higher ups of the other country, been killed in combat by Kain's knights, they had a blood feud and a thrist for vengeance).
Politics be as it is, they agreed, and thus led them into an ambush, where Kain, his Father and the knights had little chance of coming out alive.
By sacrificing himself, Kain's Father saved him, and ordered him to leave, and if possible to not take revenge, but to seek justice for them and the poeple.
Kain was the only one to survive, everyone thinking he died,he swore to take revenge, it is at this moment that he started earing whispers in the Dark, calling out his name, thinking he was in shock after his father death he dismissed it as mere fatigue, but in truth, his actions and thirst for revenge awakened a being related to him...
He wandered for weeks alone into an unknow land, a knight no more, simply a warrior that needed to eat , so he became a sell sword a mercenary, first for some low life unkowned bands that quickly turned to bandits after a while, so he left them, until he found a band a bit more promising.
The Ebon Blades Mercenaries, a place where he finally found again a sense of camaraderie.
One day on a Monster subjugation mission, they had to clean out a Den of Ogres, he got split from the main group alone in the tunnels and got ambushed by an Ogre, who litteraly bit off his left arm, with the blood lose and shock Kain's vision grew darker and his strength leaving him, but again after a long time he heard the Whispers again, next time he opened his eyes, the Ogre lied dead on the floor, and him not knowing or remembering what happened.
His comrades found him collapsed on the floor and brought him back.
When he came about, he felt soemthing strange..., where his arl was, was something else, it looked like an arm, but with a metalic appearance, and claws instead of fingers.
While unconcious one of the Tinkerers and alchemist , that the mercenaries often asked services to had used the materials collected on the Ogre and some other strange aloys to make the "Ogre Claw" an Augmentic Arcane-Prosthetic that would give the use of an arm again and also boosted strength( the Dm and i came up with a modified Gauntlets of Ogre Power).
After this incident his Hexblade powers awakened, and the Whispers became clearer, sometimes leading him in places long forgotten to find fragements of a Dark metal that would absorb light, when he found a few of those he was capable of conjuring the Abyss Eater, Azrael's blade, even if it was a diminished form of it, Kain felt a compulsion from time to time to go look in places or hunt after monsters that was Mutated or more powerfull then they should be, holding on a fragement of the Blade...
Now thats the basics in the actual campaign a lot happened, just for been brief Kain and the party went on missions for the Ebon Blades, he discovered that the Ebon Blades was ONE of the armed groups under the orders of a secret and Eaons old organisation named the Library, who was somekind of cosmic and arcane truth seekers and guardians, led by a Lich named Mordrax, who was the one to actually gift Kain with his Ogre claw.
A War broke out with Demons and otherwordly beings, things went to shit, we where transported into a huge Labyrinthian Fortress that span across multiple planes.
At this time the group kinda dissolved because of RL things, and after a while the Dm contacted me to see if i was up to continue with Kain, but in a slightly changed setting.
After Shit hit the fan, the Inquisition was founded and hunted down every and all beings capable of magic to either seal them, imprison them or kill them, Mordrax feeling that he din't have long before they came for him, put Kain who was mortally wounded into a Magic Stasis in somekind of cryopod in a secret lab/crypt with instructions for when i woke up.
After Millenia's i woke up from my power nap, see the instructions, goes through a teleportation circle and arrive at the lowest depths of the inquisition Super Mega Duper Max Security Prison for Magical beings that are too powerfull to kill or Seal.
Thats where i meet the other guys, who where locked in the upper levels and made their way until the lowest levels, i offered to help them if they help me, we found the Lich, got him out of his magical restraints and darted our asses out of the place through the lowest levels where there was a breach to the Underdark, because Demons, Abominations and Celestials started to escape and wreack havoc in the prison so we had to bail asap.
We fell into the territory of an Ancient Green Dragon, who after some hard negotiations decides that we are too amusing to just eat, so he gives us a task and will let us leave alive.
We have to go get a Mcguffin in a Necropol full of Undead nagas and Yuan tis and also Wretched Horrors...
At thios moment the Dm had personal stuff to deal with, so one of the players offered to start another game in teh Midgard setting, where i made a Bard of Metal Named Ronnie Osbourne, going around to spread the Glory of Metal( basically i was playing Eddie Riggs from Brutal legends).
In teh mean while, the other DM from the campaig with Kain decided " **** theres stuff that iw ant them to do, but it will only take place muuuuuuucccchhhh later, but i'm too excited to wait" so he ask the others if they would be okay with fastforwarding the plot and the setting, everyone is like okay, so we could keep our characters, only updating them to lvl12 or make new ones.
Essentially the new setting was set once again centuries in the futur, where Another war broke out between Planes, old Gods and other cosmic shit, and shit did hit the fan, like hard... Age of Sigmar hard for those who knows about it...
For those who don't, basically, all the realms and Planes fragmented themselfs, everything now sits in the Astral sea, there's no world anymore just giant chunks of ground floating in the Astral, technology took a kick in the arse, and basically its WH40k if it had sex with Eve online with a dash of Arcance and Steampunk...
So there's AStral ships( spelljammer anyone?) Clockworks engineers with Sentient golems, clockworks prosthetics, firearms and arcane guns, and armors are updated to have environmental suits in them to be pressurized and to be able to breath in the Astral space...
So i'm the only one with the same character, everyone else did new ones, one is basically a steampunk Tony Stark, Clock work Wizard(midgard setting deep magic book) with a Golem suit/form and that can enchant/craft Mechano Arcanic tools and weapons (i ordered a Beam Handcannon-shoots Lightning Bolt spell on use).
As for Kain, things get even more crazy, at some point he received two more augmentics from the Lich ( chirurgical procedures and graft from the Book of True Evil) one that gave me the benefice of a SECOND Pact Boon,( for thematics i choose Pact of the Chain, and took an Imp Familiar), and an Imp's eye( who gave the same benefits then Devil's Sight).
For an RP standpoint, the Imp had infi we needed, we struck a deal he asked for one of my eyes, and i tricked him into a bet, that i won, so we actually exchanged both One of our eyes( he as One of mine and i have One of his), bonding us in some way, and from then on he followed me and he bugs the ever living hell out of me, i even once said" i swear to Asmodeus balls that if you don't shut up i'll nail your tongue on the table" Imp" do you have nails?" Kain "...No..." Imp "Ahahahah fat chances to make me shut up then!"...
Apparently during the final battle with some otherworldy dark beings Mordrax died, for good apparently, and the Cosmic Ruin ritual that we where trying to stop, only half succeded, but it was still powerfull enough to fling everything in creation out of the loop into the state it is now, and i was trapped in a Space-Time paradox bubble, where i was flung in time and ended up centuries after it all happened...
I discovered that our story became legends, Kain was refered to as the "Legendary Dark Knight Kain", so when i tell poeple that my name is Kain, and they see my arm and overall aspect, they deduce that i'm just some Hardcore fan of the legendary hero, and that i have a few screw looses...
Kain as no end of frustrations, between people not believing him or lookign at him funny, and the Imp that just doesn't stop bugging him, there's also the crazy and ridiculous Myths and stories about Kain the Hero, that half of it are bullshit that he never said or done, and the other half are deformed because of the passage of time...
He is now a crew member on a Junk ship, barely holding together with rust, as the Master at Arms and Boarding Officer( he has an Assault Hoverboard-Broom of flying)...
Wow...that was long...
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"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
I like the idea of the warlock part coming in when he was given a magical prosthetic. I'm working on a homebrew subclass that's an Artifact Pact. Not the 'hexblade' where it's the 'force that creates artifacts', but rather that you have powers because you were 'touched' by a powerful artifact at some point. Very similar to what happened to your character.
Ah no my Character is a Warlock because he is the direct descendant of a Devil, and in this moment where his life was in Danger, his Ancestor/Patron gave him the strength neccesary to survive.
The Prosthetic is a consequence.
But to be fair this character is the 2nd or 3rd incarnation of an old character of mine that i had in 4th Ed, at the time his prosthetic was an Axe-gauntlet( a piece of equipement that worked as a shield AND an Axe, but din't use your hand, so your hand was free, and when not attacking you would have the benefit of a light shield to your AC, wich was +1 AC at the time).
At the time his story was pretty much similar, except that he had lost an eye and his arm when a Building came on his head during the razing of his Hometown, when his Patron manifested himself he gave him a new arm and an eye, wich was the representation of their pact.
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"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Reading the favorite multiclass combos thread got me interested. I'm one who goes for story most of the time (although sometimes a good combat-only campaign is good fun). But I wonder sometimes how people explain in-game some of the stranger multiclassing choices people make. Or even some common ones.
For example, starting as any class, and multiclassing into Sorcerer. I'd think the Draconic Bloodline would be hard to explain after you've never experienced sorcerer powers before, right? (Mom: So, Lothar...there's something I've never told you about your father...but it only shows up after the age of 30!)
Paladin-Assassin, Barbarian-Eldritch Knight, Fiend Warlock-Life Cleric, etc.
What are the most interesting, convoluted, implausible, well-crafted, poorly-crafted, inspired, etc. explanations for multiclass combos that you've seen?
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Warlock combos are relatively easy. The pact was forced upon the warlock, which is why the otherwise good warlock now has a fiend as a patron or why the warlock sought out a good god that is interested in restoring and strengthening life. Barb EK could be a struggle between what's natural for the character and a desire to break from the natural tendencies. Paladin Assassin is less of a stretch for oathbreaker, conquest, vengeance, and perhaps ancients, but even otherwise good gods might have a destroying angel for the moments that they want to go old testament on someone. Some of these combos lend well to great role playing moments because of the conflict that such combinations can cause in a character.
I hear you, I'm not saying they can't be done. I'm just interested for the sake of the storytelling to hear what those stories are :) I've seen crazy combinations over the years (I mean, some have had no thought behind them at all, of course), and the stories are very interesting.
For example, a cleric of a LG god who is forced into a pact with a fiend. How well does that go over with his god? Or the rest of his church/temple? Does he have to hide that fact from them? Is he kicked out of the church?
I'm asking for the actual stories here, not for 'how is this possible'. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Yep, I definitely misunderstood. Unfortunately, I don't have any player side experience and none of my campaigns have included multiclassing yet as we're still getting a grasp on what the classes do in the first place. The closest I've got is a Dwarf Cleric who is intolerant of others beliefs (there's a candidate for inner turmoil if he was subjected to a pact.) and that players real life wife playing a tiefling warlock who is trying to change the perception of tieflings through her actions while trying to find the reincarnation of the Frost Prince's one time love for him so that they can be reconciled. They haven't done a bunch of role play with those aspects yet but we're still only level 2.
If the Life Cleric/Fiend Warlock was going in my campaign, I think I would talk to the player about how the character feels about it and what measures they are taking to conceal the divergence in action from the original class god/patron and their followers or trying to work with the clergy/patron to remove the influence of the other. I would probably have some tables set up to help randomly determine how some of the people react with cosmopolitan types being 50-60% likely to react favorably and provincials being about half as likely.
I have a player who's a Shadow Monk/Great Old One Warlock. She has been trying to figure out why any mention of her past has been stricken from any records that have been found thus far. In frustration she had been lashing out to the gods trying to get the attention of someone, or something, to get answers, and just because she was that angered. She accidentally touched on a source of power, it wreaked havoc on her psyche but she was able to do things she'd never been able to before. Accidentally reaching into the minds of her friends, launching projectiles from her hands, it was eerie. However, as she tried to figure out the cause of this, whenever she meditated, when she'd use this strange power, she'd suffer immense headaches. --skip forward a few sessions-- She is contacted by a strange elderly looking man who was all grey in color, everything, tip of the hat to the bottom of his sandals. He explains that she had been tapping into his powerful psychic presence and for disturbing his slumber, she is now to do his bidding, but she does get to keep the powers.
I have another player who is a Barbarian that has recently taken on Paladin levels. He was on death's doorstep when he was approached by an avatar of a diety. Given the choice to pass on or live on, he chose to live but was tasked with a mission by this avatar. The mission was successfully accomplished, there was no need to concern himself with this diety any longer except... The artifact that they helped stop the bad guy from completing was presented to him, he did bear the mark of the diety so the notion wasn't too odd. When he finished assembling the artifact it turned out to be a weapon, however the weapon had a mate. So, this Barbarian swore himself to the diety that saved him, and is now in search of the other half of this pair of artifact weapons.
Those are great. I like the monk accidentally invading the minds of her friends. Having a monk be upset enough to make a pact would be cool to roleplay--because she's still trying to control herself and discipline her mind to be a monk, right? I love it.
The barbarian story makes perfect sense. To me, barbarian always seemed more like a background than a class anyway--it's one of those ones that's hard to explain multiclassing into. "Well, I grew up in the city, stealing on the streets. But then I moved into the grasslands and started living with a village of nomads." :) But starting out there, and then hooking up with the deity saving his life is nice, it's the reasonable choice to make, in fact. The "I'm saving your life, so serve me" is how my current warlock became a warlock.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Ooh. A cleric/warlock's temple superiors sending him on a quest to get rid of his warlock pact! That could be cool. (I mean, you wouldn't want to just chop off a bunch of levels and exp if he could find a way to do it. Maybe prove to his god (from the cleric side) that he's a worthy champion, and get the god to 'take over' the pact from the fiend? But the fiend only agrees for payment. :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Something like that. Clearly it would depend on the player, but that would definitely be something that would work. And a fiend accepting payment but not removing the pact could easily be a side quest for the character or a main quest for the party to relieve the warlock from the fiend's pact- possibly in person and by force.
The key would be the player being okay with losing the 'fiendy' parts of the pact, or finding some way for those specific benefits to stay, but not the Fiend-link. Hurl Through Hell, for example, might sound unpleasant for a celestial to grant as a power :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Just want to point out something about warlocks. They don't get their power from their patron like a cleric does. Rather, their patron gives them access to arcane knowledge that they use to cast spells and use warlock abilities. Therefore, when you talk about about 'removing' the cleric from the pact, keep in mind that the cleric keeps the warlock levels.
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Solid point. I should clarify, I meant more that the temple might not be happy with the Warlock hurling people through hell, and they, and the deity, might be looking for something to swap that power out with. Ban the character from using that, but let him use such and such other power.
But your point is a good point, and I forgot about that when raising the 'chop off levels' concern--the temple might be okay with the character keeping the powers, as long as he's not still serving the fiend.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Story wise, you could say that they performed a ritual to have the warlock "forget" aspects of the pact magic and the deity becomes the patron for celestial to mechanically move away from the more fiendish aspects of the warlock class. Or you could easily say that the deity is willing to "use the tools of my enemies against them when it suits my needs" to reconcile the warlock/cleric using both. Either could have interesting themes to play through including addiction, atonement, amnesia... and those are just some A's!
One of the easiest is Warlock/Paladin.
Yes at first it might look like a contradiction BUTTTTT, its DnD and everything is possible.
Mine character for example is a Tiefling, Unbeknowst to him he's one of the last descendant from a Lineage directly coming from a Devil, a Nazrugon called Azreal, Dark prince of Blades, wich was one of the Lords of a small hellish realm that they made with their powers and each had control over a section of it( imagine Floating islands, revolving around a Nexus of Arcane and Fell power), but since he was the better one, the others where jaleous and tried to steal his powers and seal him, before that he imbued his cherished sword with nearly all his powers, and transported it into the material plane to his first and most powerfull Champion, so that he could get revived later and take his revenge on the other Devil Lords.
Off course things din't go as expected, and upon arriving in the material Plane, the sword broke into many fragements, scattering around the world.
So Azrael champion set out to search for the fragements, Millenia's gone by and came Kain, orphan Tiefling who was enrolled into the army, and did well enough to go up ranks and even become the personal Aid of a Knight, who despite been a Tiefling took him under his wing and even adopted him, since he had no descendance, so that his name would go on wiht his legacy.
Off course things couldn't go this well for long, War broke out wiht the neigboring country, as a Knight Kain and his adoptive father participated in it, and after a long and gruesome campaign, where Soldiers has to follow orders, even if those orders doesn't seem right, they where dispatched for a last crucial mission.
But alas it was a set up, Kain's Father Knights detachement was so effective, that when the peace negotiations betwee the two nations started, the other party would give out substantial ressources to the condition that they would set up those knights, because of personal reasons( a few of the Higher ups of the other country, been killed in combat by Kain's knights, they had a blood feud and a thrist for vengeance).
Politics be as it is, they agreed, and thus led them into an ambush, where Kain, his Father and the knights had little chance of coming out alive.
By sacrificing himself, Kain's Father saved him, and ordered him to leave, and if possible to not take revenge, but to seek justice for them and the poeple.
Kain was the only one to survive, everyone thinking he died,he swore to take revenge, it is at this moment that he started earing whispers in the Dark, calling out his name, thinking he was in shock after his father death he dismissed it as mere fatigue, but in truth, his actions and thirst for revenge awakened a being related to him...
He wandered for weeks alone into an unknow land, a knight no more, simply a warrior that needed to eat , so he became a sell sword a mercenary, first for some low life unkowned bands that quickly turned to bandits after a while, so he left them, until he found a band a bit more promising.
The Ebon Blades Mercenaries, a place where he finally found again a sense of camaraderie.
One day on a Monster subjugation mission, they had to clean out a Den of Ogres, he got split from the main group alone in the tunnels and got ambushed by an Ogre, who litteraly bit off his left arm, with the blood lose and shock Kain's vision grew darker and his strength leaving him, but again after a long time he heard the Whispers again, next time he opened his eyes, the Ogre lied dead on the floor, and him not knowing or remembering what happened.
His comrades found him collapsed on the floor and brought him back.
When he came about, he felt soemthing strange..., where his arl was, was something else, it looked like an arm, but with a metalic appearance, and claws instead of fingers.
While unconcious one of the Tinkerers and alchemist , that the mercenaries often asked services to had used the materials collected on the Ogre and some other strange aloys to make the "Ogre Claw" an Augmentic Arcane-Prosthetic that would give the use of an arm again and also boosted strength( the Dm and i came up with a modified Gauntlets of Ogre Power).
After this incident his Hexblade powers awakened, and the Whispers became clearer, sometimes leading him in places long forgotten to find fragements of a Dark metal that would absorb light, when he found a few of those he was capable of conjuring the Abyss Eater, Azrael's blade, even if it was a diminished form of it, Kain felt a compulsion from time to time to go look in places or hunt after monsters that was Mutated or more powerfull then they should be, holding on a fragement of the Blade...
Now thats the basics in the actual campaign a lot happened, just for been brief Kain and the party went on missions for the Ebon Blades, he discovered that the Ebon Blades was ONE of the armed groups under the orders of a secret and Eaons old organisation named the Library, who was somekind of cosmic and arcane truth seekers and guardians, led by a Lich named Mordrax, who was the one to actually gift Kain with his Ogre claw.
A War broke out with Demons and otherwordly beings, things went to shit, we where transported into a huge Labyrinthian Fortress that span across multiple planes.
At this time the group kinda dissolved because of RL things, and after a while the Dm contacted me to see if i was up to continue with Kain, but in a slightly changed setting.
After Shit hit the fan, the Inquisition was founded and hunted down every and all beings capable of magic to either seal them, imprison them or kill them, Mordrax feeling that he din't have long before they came for him, put Kain who was mortally wounded into a Magic Stasis in somekind of cryopod in a secret lab/crypt with instructions for when i woke up.
After Millenia's i woke up from my power nap, see the instructions, goes through a teleportation circle and arrive at the lowest depths of the inquisition Super Mega Duper Max Security Prison for Magical beings that are too powerfull to kill or Seal.
Thats where i meet the other guys, who where locked in the upper levels and made their way until the lowest levels, i offered to help them if they help me, we found the Lich, got him out of his magical restraints and darted our asses out of the place through the lowest levels where there was a breach to the Underdark, because Demons, Abominations and Celestials started to escape and wreack havoc in the prison so we had to bail asap.
We fell into the territory of an Ancient Green Dragon, who after some hard negotiations decides that we are too amusing to just eat, so he gives us a task and will let us leave alive.
We have to go get a Mcguffin in a Necropol full of Undead nagas and Yuan tis and also Wretched Horrors...
At thios moment the Dm had personal stuff to deal with, so one of the players offered to start another game in teh Midgard setting, where i made a Bard of Metal Named Ronnie Osbourne, going around to spread the Glory of Metal( basically i was playing Eddie Riggs from Brutal legends).
In teh mean while, the other DM from the campaig with Kain decided " **** theres stuff that iw ant them to do, but it will only take place muuuuuuucccchhhh later, but i'm too excited to wait" so he ask the others if they would be okay with fastforwarding the plot and the setting, everyone is like okay, so we could keep our characters, only updating them to lvl12 or make new ones.
Essentially the new setting was set once again centuries in the futur, where Another war broke out between Planes, old Gods and other cosmic shit, and shit did hit the fan, like hard... Age of Sigmar hard for those who knows about it...
For those who don't, basically, all the realms and Planes fragmented themselfs, everything now sits in the Astral sea, there's no world anymore just giant chunks of ground floating in the Astral, technology took a kick in the arse, and basically its WH40k if it had sex with Eve online with a dash of Arcance and Steampunk...
So there's AStral ships( spelljammer anyone?) Clockworks engineers with Sentient golems, clockworks prosthetics, firearms and arcane guns, and armors are updated to have environmental suits in them to be pressurized and to be able to breath in the Astral space...
So i'm the only one with the same character, everyone else did new ones, one is basically a steampunk Tony Stark, Clock work Wizard(midgard setting deep magic book) with a Golem suit/form and that can enchant/craft Mechano Arcanic tools and weapons (i ordered a Beam Handcannon-shoots Lightning Bolt spell on use).
As for Kain, things get even more crazy, at some point he received two more augmentics from the Lich ( chirurgical procedures and graft from the Book of True Evil) one that gave me the benefice of a SECOND Pact Boon,( for thematics i choose Pact of the Chain, and took an Imp Familiar), and an Imp's eye( who gave the same benefits then Devil's Sight).
For an RP standpoint, the Imp had infi we needed, we struck a deal he asked for one of my eyes, and i tricked him into a bet, that i won, so we actually exchanged both One of our eyes( he as One of mine and i have One of his), bonding us in some way, and from then on he followed me and he bugs the ever living hell out of me, i even once said" i swear to Asmodeus balls that if you don't shut up i'll nail your tongue on the table" Imp" do you have nails?" Kain "...No..." Imp "Ahahahah fat chances to make me shut up then!"...
Apparently during the final battle with some otherworldy dark beings Mordrax died, for good apparently, and the Cosmic Ruin ritual that we where trying to stop, only half succeded, but it was still powerfull enough to fling everything in creation out of the loop into the state it is now, and i was trapped in a Space-Time paradox bubble, where i was flung in time and ended up centuries after it all happened...
I discovered that our story became legends, Kain was refered to as the "Legendary Dark Knight Kain", so when i tell poeple that my name is Kain, and they see my arm and overall aspect, they deduce that i'm just some Hardcore fan of the legendary hero, and that i have a few screw looses...
Kain as no end of frustrations, between people not believing him or lookign at him funny, and the Imp that just doesn't stop bugging him, there's also the crazy and ridiculous Myths and stories about Kain the Hero, that half of it are bullshit that he never said or done, and the other half are deformed because of the passage of time...
He is now a crew member on a Junk ship, barely holding together with rust, as the Master at Arms and Boarding Officer( he has an Assault Hoverboard-Broom of flying)...
Wow...that was long...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
I like the idea of the warlock part coming in when he was given a magical prosthetic. I'm working on a homebrew subclass that's an Artifact Pact. Not the 'hexblade' where it's the 'force that creates artifacts', but rather that you have powers because you were 'touched' by a powerful artifact at some point. Very similar to what happened to your character.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Ah no my Character is a Warlock because he is the direct descendant of a Devil, and in this moment where his life was in Danger, his Ancestor/Patron gave him the strength neccesary to survive.
The Prosthetic is a consequence.
But to be fair this character is the 2nd or 3rd incarnation of an old character of mine that i had in 4th Ed, at the time his prosthetic was an Axe-gauntlet( a piece of equipement that worked as a shield AND an Axe, but din't use your hand, so your hand was free, and when not attacking you would have the benefit of a light shield to your AC, wich was +1 AC at the time).
At the time his story was pretty much similar, except that he had lost an eye and his arm when a Building came on his head during the razing of his Hometown, when his Patron manifested himself he gave him a new arm and an eye, wich was the representation of their pact.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)