...anyway, future books should include a suggestion of whats in typical monster pockets including a few uncommon consumables particular to that type of monster. it would be fun to see some variance in monster actions at low levels and it might be fun to pick their pocket in combat. maybe kobold press monsters can do that for us.
They have more specific loot tables in stuff like Bigby’s and Fizban’s, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on more universal ones. Consumables aren’t a part of their core calculations for CR on the enemy side, so it seems unlikely they’ll move to directly incorporate them into the loadout.
i'm open to a future volo's guide with variant monsters to shuffle into a group of commons.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
...anyway, future books should include a suggestion of whats in typical monster pockets including a few uncommon consumables particular to that type of monster. it would be fun to see some variance in monster actions at low levels and it might be fun to pick their pocket in combat. maybe kobold press monsters can do that for us.
They have more specific loot tables in stuff like Bigby’s and Fizban’s, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on more universal ones. Consumables aren’t a part of their core calculations for CR on the enemy side, so it seems unlikely they’ll move to directly incorporate them into the loadout.
i'm open to a future volo's guide with variant monsters to shuffle into a group of commons.
So far any special item-based stuff such creatures do is just integrated into their statblocks; I’d be very surprised if they try to shift over to the Bethesda setup for that kind of thing. I won’t say it’s impossible, but as far as basic consumables go you have all the same issues of underperformance that you have on the PC end unless you’re doing custom ones- which as I’ve already addressed have to date been handled differently and also present a bit of a headache scaling them to be effective on a creature without being OP for players when people go to claim the spoils; and on the magical end their policy has always been “DM’s discretion, be aware it might raise the effective CR”, and I’d be quite surprised if they try to move to a more crunchy model in 5e. I’m not saying there’s absolutely no place for this concept, but it doesn’t seem to follow the design philosophy that’s been applied to date.
Also, we’ll see if they keep making monster blocks for PC races; they might feel there’s too much pressure to normalize all humanoids for that to be a good look. Particularly when most of the examples were for antagonist races, which are exactly what the aforementioned pressure is pushing against.
That's more or less the philosophy 4th edition used.
I did not like that design. I did like 3e era templates. This is how you add a zombie template to a creature etc, Yeah sure, it could get silly. But it made my job as a DM fairly easy when I wanted to spin up unique monsters.
I did not like that design. I did like 3e era templates. This is how you add a zombie template to a creature etc, Yeah sure, it could get silly. But it made my job as a DM fairly easy when I wanted to spin up unique monsters.
I found templates somewhat annoying to work with; typically if I want unique monsters I'll just jump directly to the monster creation rules. Which were opaque beyond usability in 3e, but not hard to use in 5e (4e I don't think ever updated the rules for Essentials, so they stopped working properly about halfway through the lifecycle of 4e).
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
Celestial Warlock makes sense for the player who wants a Lawful Good character in the Warlock class. Sure, a player can RP a Lawful Good Fiend Warlock, but that can be tricky to RP. Without Celestial, the Warlock class gives off an evil vibe.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
Unless, you know, a common enemy made the devils and demons set aside their differences. Plus that's setting aside how the Evil gods might throw in if it looked like the balance was going to shift out of their favor that massively.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
Celestial Warlock makes sense for the player who wants a Lawful Good character in the Warlock class. Sure, a player can RP a Lawful Good Fiend Warlock, but that can be tricky to RP. Without Celestial, the Warlock class gives off an evil vibe.
Any subclass can be lawful good, most with far less of a stretch than fiend. But even fiend is pretty basic, you made a pact to get power to defeat a great evil, protect innocents etc, you are willing to sacrifice your own soul for the sake of others.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
Celestial Warlock makes sense for the player who wants a Lawful Good character in the Warlock class. Sure, a player can RP a Lawful Good Fiend Warlock, but that can be tricky to RP. Without Celestial, the Warlock class gives off an evil vibe.
Fiend as a Lawful Good character is easy: you made a deal with a devil to save your daughter's life [or insert any other family member] but didn't read the fine print and are now forced to work for the Fiend against your morals. Or alternatively, a great evil arose and you were helpless to fight it so you begged a devil for powers to fight the evil - see the backstory of Zariel.
Warlock is themed as darker & edgier compared to the other casters, they explicitly make pacts with (often evil but at the very least inhuman) entities, or delve into forbidden knowledge & secrets in order to obtain power. Your character may believe they are doing it for good reasons but it absolutely a morally questionable thing to do. Just look at the spells & invocations, it's not a happy bunny class, and it's just weird that there is a subclass that tries to pretend it is a happy bunny class.
But honestly, I've only seen a handful of people actually play their character as morally upstanding. Most are to some degree selfish, opportunistic, mercenaries.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
They could probably defeat devils, but don't demons just constantly respawn in the Abyss? So it's impossible for them to be defeated. So sure the celestials could take over the Nine Hells but then they'd be stuck in the endless blood war against demons, and well... how long until they turn evil if they're stuck fighting an endless war against demons just like Zariel did?
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
why would the defeat evil? just because your competent doesnt mean you opposition is incompetent.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
Celestial Warlock makes sense for the player who wants a Lawful Good character in the Warlock class. Sure, a player can RP a Lawful Good Fiend Warlock, but that can be tricky to RP. Without Celestial, the Warlock class gives off an evil vibe.
We can toss out Celestial Warlocks just as soon as we are ready to throw out evil paladins with them.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
They could probably defeat devils, but don't demons just constantly respawn in the Abyss? So it's impossible for them to be defeated. So sure the celestials could take over the Nine Hells but then they'd be stuck in the endless blood war against demons, and well... how long until they turn evil if they're stuck fighting an endless war against demons just like Zariel did?
from what i read, if anybody in the war dies on home turf then they don't respawn. zero reason to turtle, every reason to push. new (and reused) bad souls go to the front lines of an endless repeating war, while new good souls... do not. stands to reason the celestials might have to rely on mortal agents and mercenaries to get anything 'good' done if their stock of souls doesn't contribute to a defense. maybe the good souls are all used up in that mortal-world effort which is why the eternal reward is rest in the elysium fields.
so i guess celestial warlock makes some sense overall in that the celestial may be looking for outside solutions. hard to say since the warlock's perspective is mostly of a random interaction offering power. just a tiny bit more guidance would be welcome to maybe suggest they often recruit closer-to-neutral actors and maybe then often insist on providing a familiar to be the moral compass the celestial thinks they lack. or something. i mean, if they could have sent a cleric then they would have, right? good celestial warlock as a good cleric alternative just doesn't grab me as reasonable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
They could probably defeat devils, but don't demons just constantly respawn in the Abyss? So it's impossible for them to be defeated. So sure the celestials could take over the Nine Hells but then they'd be stuck in the endless blood war against demons, and well... how long until they turn evil if they're stuck fighting an endless war against demons just like Zariel did?
from what i read, if anybody in the war dies on home turf then they don't respawn. zero reason to turtle, every reason to push. new (and reused) bad souls go to the front lines of an endless repeating war, while new good souls... do not. stands to reason the celestials might have to rely on mortal agents and mercenaries to get anything 'good' done if their stock of souls doesn't contribute to a defense. maybe the good souls are all used up in that mortal-world effort which is why the eternal reward is rest in the elysium fields.
so i guess celestial warlock makes some sense overall in that the celestial may be looking for outside solutions. hard to say since the warlock's perspective is mostly of a random interaction offering power. just a tiny bit more guidance would be welcome to maybe suggest they often recruit closer-to-neutral actors and maybe then often insist on providing a familiar to be the moral compass the celestial thinks they lack. or something. i mean, if they could have sent a cleric then they would have, right? good celestial warlock as a good cleric alternative just doesn't grab me as reasonable.
Oh, so then good celestials would be trying to end the blood war by making mortals all be good so they don't contribute to the armies on either side, and instead go to the other outer planes. Neutral celestials wouldn't care about the hells/blood war so long as it stays confined to the Nine Hells / Abyss. Whereas evil celestials - e.g. Bhaal, Bane - are probably are happy for it to continue and even spill out onto the mortal planes since they could probably get more followers if the mortal planes were embroiled in endless war.
It's mostly a question of why a celestial would want a warlock rather than a cleric?
Good celestial the only reason I can think of is they might want a warlock rather than cleric would be to do something morally grey or even evil, but then that kinda would mean the celestial isn't Good anymore wouldn't it? If you hire a hit-man to kill an innocent person that's just as evil an act as if you had killed the innocent person yourself isn't it? So what's the point? I guess maybe, a good minor celestial might hire a warlock in order to retrieve something they need that they cannot retrieve themselves because it's cursed or something... but why wouldn't they just send a cleric to purify it? or maybe the good minor celestial is trapped in someway and needs a warlock to help free them?
Neutral celestials... I don't know.. maybe they'd want a warlock to interface with domains outside their own? Would e.g. Silvanus want a warlock to infiltrate & sabotage a city that's expanding upon his forests? Maybe, that seems at least slightly plausible.
Evil celestials.. um... I guess the "trapped please help free me" case would still work, but otherwise?
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
Celestial Warlock makes sense for the player who wants a Lawful Good character in the Warlock class. Sure, a player can RP a Lawful Good Fiend Warlock, but that can be tricky to RP. Without Celestial, the Warlock class gives off an evil vibe.
We can toss out Celestial Warlocks just as soon as we are ready to throw out evil paladins with them.
Evil Paladins are much easier to explain than Celestial Warlocks, they are simply Paladins who follow Evil gods. Bane, Bhaal, Auril, Shar all would have need of paladins and those paladin ought to be evil - Conquest & Vengeance subclasses can fit them quite well. Or you can have a paladin that isn't affiliated with a god at all and gains their power from their own narcissism.
The biggest problem with evil paladins, is why anyone who isn't evil would want to have them in the party.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
They could probably defeat devils, but don't demons just constantly respawn in the Abyss? So it's impossible for them to be defeated. So sure the celestials could take over the Nine Hells but then they'd be stuck in the endless blood war against demons, and well... how long until they turn evil if they're stuck fighting an endless war against demons just like Zariel did?
from what i read, if anybody in the war dies on home turf then they don't respawn. zero reason to turtle, every reason to push. new (and reused) bad souls go to the front lines of an endless repeating war, while new good souls... do not. stands to reason the celestials might have to rely on mortal agents and mercenaries to get anything 'good' done if their stock of souls doesn't contribute to a defense. maybe the good souls are all used up in that mortal-world effort which is why the eternal reward is rest in the elysium fields.
so i guess celestial warlock makes some sense overall in that the celestial may be looking for outside solutions. hard to say since the warlock's perspective is mostly of a random interaction offering power. just a tiny bit more guidance would be welcome to maybe suggest they often recruit closer-to-neutral actors and maybe then often insist on providing a familiar to be the moral compass the celestial thinks they lack. or something. i mean, if they could have sent a cleric then they would have, right? good celestial warlock as a good cleric alternative just doesn't grab me as reasonable.
Oh, so then good celestials would be trying to end the blood war by making mortals all be good so they don't contribute to the armies on either side, and instead go to the other outer planes. Neutral celestials wouldn't care about the hells/blood war so long as it stays confined to the Nine Hells / Abyss. Whereas evil celestials - e.g. Bhaal, Bane - are probably are happy for it to continue and even spill out onto the mortal planes since they could probably get more followers if the mortal planes were embroiled in endless war.
It's mostly a question of why a celestial would want a warlock rather than a cleric?
Good celestial the only reason I can think of is they might want a warlock rather than cleric would be to do something morally grey or even evil, but then that kinda would mean the celestial isn't Good anymore wouldn't it? If you hire a hit-man to kill an innocent person that's just as evil an act as if you had killed the innocent person yourself isn't it? So what's the point? I guess maybe, a good minor celestial might hire a warlock in order to retrieve something they need that they cannot retrieve themselves because it's cursed or something... but why wouldn't they just send a cleric to purify it? or maybe the good minor celestial is trapped in someway and needs a warlock to help free them?
Neutral celestials... I don't know.. maybe they'd want a warlock to interface with domains outside their own? Would e.g. Silvanus want a warlock to infiltrate & sabotage a city that's expanding upon his forests? Maybe, that seems at least slightly plausible.
Evil celestials.. um... I guess the "trapped please help free me" case would still work, but otherwise?
Keep in mind “celestials” /= “deities”, and it’s usually framed that being an actual spellcasting Cleric requires an innate quality as opposed to just being a member of the appropriate clergy, so if something like an angel, coatl, kirin, etc needs an agent they can’t give someone Cleric powers and might not have someone with the potential at hand in the first place.
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
They could probably defeat devils, but don't demons just constantly respawn in the Abyss? So it's impossible for them to be defeated. So sure the celestials could take over the Nine Hells but then they'd be stuck in the endless blood war against demons, and well... how long until they turn evil if they're stuck fighting an endless war against demons just like Zariel did?
from what i read, if anybody in the war dies on home turf then they don't respawn. zero reason to turtle, every reason to push. new (and reused) bad souls go to the front lines of an endless repeating war, while new good souls... do not. stands to reason the celestials might have to rely on mortal agents and mercenaries to get anything 'good' done if their stock of souls doesn't contribute to a defense. maybe the good souls are all used up in that mortal-world effort which is why the eternal reward is rest in the elysium fields.
so i guess celestial warlock makes some sense overall in that the celestial may be looking for outside solutions. hard to say since the warlock's perspective is mostly of a random interaction offering power. just a tiny bit more guidance would be welcome to maybe suggest they often recruit closer-to-neutral actors and maybe then often insist on providing a familiar to be the moral compass the celestial thinks they lack. or something. i mean, if they could have sent a cleric then they would have, right? good celestial warlock as a good cleric alternative just doesn't grab me as reasonable.
Oh, so then good celestials would be trying to end the blood war by making mortals all be good so they don't contribute to the armies on either side, and instead go to the other outer planes. Neutral celestials wouldn't care about the hells/blood war so long as it stays confined to the Nine Hells / Abyss. Whereas evil celestials - e.g. Bhaal, Bane - are probably are happy for it to continue and even spill out onto the mortal planes since they could probably get more followers if the mortal planes were embroiled in endless war.
It's mostly a question of why a celestial would want a warlock rather than a cleric?
Good celestial the only reason I can think of is they might want a warlock rather than cleric would be to do something morally grey or even evil, but then that kinda would mean the celestial isn't Good anymore wouldn't it? If you hire a hit-man to kill an innocent person that's just as evil an act as if you had killed the innocent person yourself isn't it? So what's the point? I guess maybe, a good minor celestial might hire a warlock in order to retrieve something they need that they cannot retrieve themselves because it's cursed or something... but why wouldn't they just send a cleric to purify it? or maybe the good minor celestial is trapped in someway and needs a warlock to help free them?
Neutral celestials... I don't know.. maybe they'd want a warlock to interface with domains outside their own? Would e.g. Silvanus want a warlock to infiltrate & sabotage a city that's expanding upon his forests? Maybe, that seems at least slightly plausible.
Evil celestials.. um... I guess the "trapped please help free me" case would still work, but otherwise?
warlock isnt inherently evil, they are people who made deals with powers they don't understand to obtain more knowledge/power. Also the concept of gods and heavens version of good isn't always nice. Christianity has god cursing people with famine, war, pestilence. Many other religions also has sometimes harsh positive aligned gods. Also, if you aren't particularly riteous, Having the classic Angels over you can be a fairly scary proposition. Judgement is a concept as well.
I saw an actual play with celestial warlock, for like half of the story the Patron would intimidate or threaten the player with heavenly judgement.
It works essentially the same as warlock usually works.
A cleric isnt a transactional relationship, its a very different vibe, its driven by faith and a unity of purpose.
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i'm open to a future volo's guide with variant monsters to shuffle into a group of commons.
kobold grubeater, volatile goblin, blue-gums halfling, duergar rocklicker, thirsty nothic, sunscreened vampire...
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
I wish they would replace celestial pack warlock. The whole hell so we need heaven, nature so we need aberrations thing did not land with me. I'm fine with the other 3, they were in the PH from the getgo, so it works. But I have no interest in celestial and outside a small handful of people on forums I have never seen anyone clamoring to play the celestial warlock. I'd rather have a brand new sub class than this.
So far any special item-based stuff such creatures do is just integrated into their statblocks; I’d be very surprised if they try to shift over to the Bethesda setup for that kind of thing. I won’t say it’s impossible, but as far as basic consumables go you have all the same issues of underperformance that you have on the PC end unless you’re doing custom ones- which as I’ve already addressed have to date been handled differently and also present a bit of a headache scaling them to be effective on a creature without being OP for players when people go to claim the spoils; and on the magical end their policy has always been “DM’s discretion, be aware it might raise the effective CR”, and I’d be quite surprised if they try to move to a more crunchy model in 5e. I’m not saying there’s absolutely no place for this concept, but it doesn’t seem to follow the design philosophy that’s been applied to date.
Also, we’ll see if they keep making monster blocks for PC races; they might feel there’s too much pressure to normalize all humanoids for that to be a good look. Particularly when most of the examples were for antagonist races, which are exactly what the aforementioned pressure is pushing against.
That's more or less the philosophy 4th edition used.
I did not like that design. I did like 3e era templates. This is how you add a zombie template to a creature etc, Yeah sure, it could get silly. But it made my job as a DM fairly easy when I wanted to spin up unique monsters.
I found templates somewhat annoying to work with; typically if I want unique monsters I'll just jump directly to the monster creation rules. Which were opaque beyond usability in 3e, but not hard to use in 5e (4e I don't think ever updated the rules for Essentials, so they stopped working properly about halfway through the lifecycle of 4e).
Agreed, it seems to basically be a cop-out for people who want the RP-theming of a cleric but don't want to play a cleric. It really doesn't fit the rest of the class features and doesn't really make a lot of sense lore-wise except for the more evil-aligned deities.
Celestial Warlock makes sense for the player who wants a Lawful Good character in the Warlock class. Sure, a player can RP a Lawful Good Fiend Warlock, but that can be tricky to RP. Without Celestial, the Warlock class gives off an evil vibe.
the worst part about celestials (in general, not the warlock) is that if they were competent, manipulative, and effective then surely they could just defeat evil, right? demons and devils are locked in the blood war. instead we're left to believe they're either really subtle or else avoiding even a single other Zariel situation. and, really, sending your immortal soul to the good place sorta sells itself. lazy! gods can be complicated but celestials are alien (to me). how do you play a celestial warlock patron any other way than a boss who doesn't know what your job description is but still insists you meet some arbitrary quotas so their insatiable bosses will be pleased in them?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
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Unless, you know, a common enemy made the devils and demons set aside their differences. Plus that's setting aside how the Evil gods might throw in if it looked like the balance was going to shift out of their favor that massively.
Any subclass can be lawful good, most with far less of a stretch than fiend. But even fiend is pretty basic, you made a pact to get power to defeat a great evil, protect innocents etc, you are willing to sacrifice your own soul for the sake of others.
Fiend as a Lawful Good character is easy: you made a deal with a devil to save your daughter's life [or insert any other family member] but didn't read the fine print and are now forced to work for the Fiend against your morals. Or alternatively, a great evil arose and you were helpless to fight it so you begged a devil for powers to fight the evil - see the backstory of Zariel.
Warlock is themed as darker & edgier compared to the other casters, they explicitly make pacts with (often evil but at the very least inhuman) entities, or delve into forbidden knowledge & secrets in order to obtain power. Your character may believe they are doing it for good reasons but it absolutely a morally questionable thing to do. Just look at the spells & invocations, it's not a happy bunny class, and it's just weird that there is a subclass that tries to pretend it is a happy bunny class.
But honestly, I've only seen a handful of people actually play their character as morally upstanding. Most are to some degree selfish, opportunistic, mercenaries.
They could probably defeat devils, but don't demons just constantly respawn in the Abyss? So it's impossible for them to be defeated. So sure the celestials could take over the Nine Hells but then they'd be stuck in the endless blood war against demons, and well... how long until they turn evil if they're stuck fighting an endless war against demons just like Zariel did?
why would the defeat evil? just because your competent doesnt mean you opposition is incompetent.
We can toss out Celestial Warlocks just as soon as we are ready to throw out evil paladins with them.
from what i read, if anybody in the war dies on home turf then they don't respawn. zero reason to turtle, every reason to push. new (and reused) bad souls go to the front lines of an endless repeating war, while new good souls... do not. stands to reason the celestials might have to rely on mortal agents and mercenaries to get anything 'good' done if their stock of souls doesn't contribute to a defense. maybe the good souls are all used up in that mortal-world effort which is why the eternal reward is rest in the elysium fields.
so i guess celestial warlock makes some sense overall in that the celestial may be looking for outside solutions. hard to say since the warlock's perspective is mostly of a random interaction offering power. just a tiny bit more guidance would be welcome to maybe suggest they often recruit closer-to-neutral actors and maybe then often insist on providing a familiar to be the moral compass the celestial thinks they lack. or something. i mean, if they could have sent a cleric then they would have, right? good celestial warlock as a good cleric alternative just doesn't grab me as reasonable.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Oh, so then good celestials would be trying to end the blood war by making mortals all be good so they don't contribute to the armies on either side, and instead go to the other outer planes. Neutral celestials wouldn't care about the hells/blood war so long as it stays confined to the Nine Hells / Abyss. Whereas evil celestials - e.g. Bhaal, Bane - are probably are happy for it to continue and even spill out onto the mortal planes since they could probably get more followers if the mortal planes were embroiled in endless war.
It's mostly a question of why a celestial would want a warlock rather than a cleric?
Good celestial the only reason I can think of is they might want a warlock rather than cleric would be to do something morally grey or even evil, but then that kinda would mean the celestial isn't Good anymore wouldn't it? If you hire a hit-man to kill an innocent person that's just as evil an act as if you had killed the innocent person yourself isn't it? So what's the point? I guess maybe, a good minor celestial might hire a warlock in order to retrieve something they need that they cannot retrieve themselves because it's cursed or something... but why wouldn't they just send a cleric to purify it? or maybe the good minor celestial is trapped in someway and needs a warlock to help free them?
Neutral celestials... I don't know.. maybe they'd want a warlock to interface with domains outside their own? Would e.g. Silvanus want a warlock to infiltrate & sabotage a city that's expanding upon his forests? Maybe, that seems at least slightly plausible.
Evil celestials.. um... I guess the "trapped please help free me" case would still work, but otherwise?
Evil Paladins are much easier to explain than Celestial Warlocks, they are simply Paladins who follow Evil gods. Bane, Bhaal, Auril, Shar all would have need of paladins and those paladin ought to be evil - Conquest & Vengeance subclasses can fit them quite well. Or you can have a paladin that isn't affiliated with a god at all and gains their power from their own narcissism.
The biggest problem with evil paladins, is why anyone who isn't evil would want to have them in the party.
Keep in mind “celestials” /= “deities”, and it’s usually framed that being an actual spellcasting Cleric requires an innate quality as opposed to just being a member of the appropriate clergy, so if something like an angel, coatl, kirin, etc needs an agent they can’t give someone Cleric powers and might not have someone with the potential at hand in the first place.
warlock isnt inherently evil, they are people who made deals with powers they don't understand to obtain more knowledge/power. Also the concept of gods and heavens version of good isn't always nice. Christianity has god cursing people with famine, war, pestilence. Many other religions also has sometimes harsh positive aligned gods. Also, if you aren't particularly riteous, Having the classic Angels over you can be a fairly scary proposition. Judgement is a concept as well.
I saw an actual play with celestial warlock, for like half of the story the Patron would intimidate or threaten the player with heavenly judgement.
It works essentially the same as warlock usually works.
A cleric isnt a transactional relationship, its a very different vibe, its driven by faith and a unity of purpose.