Conjuration Cantrip (Warlock) Casting Time: 1 hour Range: Self Component: V, S Duration: Instantaneous Stitching together strands of shadow, you conjure forth a book in your hand. The book contains eldritch magic that only you can access, granting you the following benefits: Cantrips and Rituals. When the book appears, choose two cantrips, and choose two 1st-level spells that have the Ritual tag. The spells can be from the Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists, and they must be spells you don’t already have prepared. While the book is on your person, you have the chosen spells prepared. Spellcasting Focus. You can use the book as a Spellcasting Focus. The book disappears if you cast this spell again or die. Cantrip Upgrade. When you reach 5th level as a Warlock, this spell also enhances other cantrips while the book is on your person; you can add your Warlock spellcasting ability modifier to the damage rolls of any cantrip you cast that doesn’t already have that modifier added to its damage roll.
PACT FAMILIAR
Conjuration Cantrip (Warlock) Casting Time: 1 hour Range: 10 feet Component: V, S Duration: Instantaneous You summon an unearthly entity to serve you. It manifests in an unoccupied space of your choice within range. This creature uses the Pact Familiar stat block. If you already have a familiar from this spell, that familiar transforms into the new one but retains its memories; you don’t get a second Pact Familiar. Whenever you cast the spell, choose the familiar’s creature type: Aberration (flumph or knot of tentacles), Celestial (owl, raven, or other bird), Dragon (pseudodragon or similar dragonet), Fey (pixie or sprite), Fiend (imp or quasit), or Undead (shadow or skull). This choice affects the familiar’s default appearance, as noted in the parentheses, and it determines certain traits in its stat block. You can alter details of the creature’s appearance each time you summon it. Combat. The familiar is an ally to you and your companions, and it obeys you. In combat, it shares your Initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. On its turn, the familiar takes the Dodge action and uses its Move to avoid danger, unless you use your Reaction to command it to attack instead. Disappearance of the Familiar. The familiar disappears if it drops to 0 Hit Points, if you dismiss it as a Bonus Action, or if you die. When it disappears, it leaves behind anything it was wearing or carrying. If you cast this spell again, you decide whether you summon the familiar that disappeared or a different one. Remote Viewing. As a Magic action, you can see what your familiar sees and hear what it hears until the end of your next turn. Cantrip Upgrade. Starting when you reach 5th level as a Warlock, you can communicate telepathically with your familiar as long as you two are on the same plane of existence. Additionally, while perceiving through your familiar’s senses, you can also speak through your familiar in your own voice.
PACT FAMILIAR Tiny Aberration, Celestial, Dragon, Fey, Fiend, or Undead (Choose When Casting the Spell), Any Alignment Armor Class 10 + your spellcasting ability modifier (natural armor) Hit Points 5 + your Warlock level (the familiar has a number of Hit Dice [d4s] equal to your Warlock level) Speed 40 ft., Fly 40 ft. (Hover)
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 3 (–4) 14 (+2) 12 (+1) 10 (+0) 14 (+2) 8 (–1) Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion Senses Darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 12 Languages Telepathy 120 ft. (only between you and the familiar) Challenge — Proficiency Bonus equals your bonus Eldritch Bond. You can add your Proficiency Bonus to any ability check or saving throw that the familiar makes. ACTIONS Eldritch Strike. Melee Spell Attack: your Spell Attack Modifier to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2 + half your Warlock level (round up) damage of a type determined by the familiar’s creature type: Aberration (Acid), Celestial (Radiant), Dragon (Fire), Fey (Psychic), Fiend (Poison), or Undead (Necrotic). Invisibility. The familiar has the Invisible condition until the end of its next turn.
PACT WEAPON
Conjuration Cantrip (Warlock) Casting Time: Action Range: Self Component: S Duration: 24 hours Tracing arcane sigils in the air, you conjure a Simple or Martial melee weapon of your choice in your outstretched hand, or you create a bond with a magic weapon you touch. The weapon you conjure or touch must lack the Heavy property, and the spell fails if you touch a magic item that is attuned to someone else. For the duration, the weapon grants you the following benefits: Eldritch Warrior. When you attack with the weapon, you can use your spellcasting ability modifier for the attack and damage rolls, instead of using Strength or Dexterity. Proficiency. You have proficiency with the weapon. Returning Weapon. If the weapon has the Thrown property, the weapon returns to your hand immediately after hitting or missing a target. The spell ends early if you cast the spell again or die. When it ends, a conjured weapon disappears, or your bond with a magic weapon stops. Cantrip Upgrade. When you reach 5th level as a Warlock, you gain the Extra Attack feature for the conjured or magic weapon only. With that feature, you can attack twice with the weapon
Book of Shadows is great. The 5th level upgrade is perfect for this kind of Warlock, it also lets you replace Agonizing Blast giving you an additional invocation, but there needs to be an invocation that allows you to gain more rituals. This is probably the best pact boon in the UA.
Pact Familiar is the weakest of the pacts. After 5th this is by far the best scouting familiar in the game. You do have to say, “I use it’s action to remain invisible every turn” which is a downside. Especially during initiative since you can’t make it dash and remain invisible. It has the longest distance telepathy before and definitely after 5th level. The flaw is that it’s too fragile and it’s growth is too slow keeping it fragile. It can’t deliver your spells and the attack it has is horrible. The fiend does poison damage meaning most players will never pick it. Eldritch Strike damage types need a rework. You will be reliant on Eldritch blast for damage so you will need to take the Agonizing Blast invocation.
Pact Blade is okay. It gives extra attack at 5th and allows you to use any magic weapon that isn’t heavy. That means the Gunlock is still a thing, but it did kill the heavy weapon versions of this: Greatsword, Longbow, or heavy firearms. Maybe there will be a Hexblade, but as of now I don’t see a reason for that subclass. 90% of why people used it is in the cantrip.Maybe it can offer shields and heavy weapons. A one level Warlock dip could still be good for a Paladin who wants to focus Cha and fights sword and board. Eldritch blast is still your better damage option unless you are a gunlock, but EB will eventually do more damage than your gun.
Pretty much my consensus. Book of shadows does almost everything I want from it and even gets rid of one of the most annoying invocation taxes still in the game by adding damage to cantrips.
Chain I am testing out in an upcoming game, its scouting ability and 14 wisdom+ Proficiency bonus are really what I am looking to use. I do not feel bad dumping wisdom and then still getting proficiency in all wisdom checks with a 14 is bad at all. The loss of spell cast through it sucks, and the lack of durability is par for the course with what we have seen with Familiars. The invocation taxes are alive and well here though because one of the advantages of the old chain was the base effect was strong on its own and none of the other invocations attached to it felt 'mandatory"
Blade is being over-rated by people I think. It is a decent option and it will be cool playing a Fiend Bladelock or a Fey Blade lock with the short range fear/charm and the reaction teleport and invisibility, but it isn't doing anything crazy, especially now that most of the best combat feats are half feats that add to dex or strength leaving the "SAD" part being less powerful.
Pact Weapon has one major issue actually, while it had some hexblade features added to it, it has one rather obvious weakness, and that is that it's duration is "24 hours", instead of Instantaneous; which means that the weapon/effect will simply disappear in an antimagic field. You've now gone from using +5 Charisma to probably a 0 Strength Modifier, if you even still have a weapon in your hands at all (a conjured one disappears) and even if you do have an enchanted one, you can no longer make 2 attacks a turn.
The problem with antimagic field and the like is situational. I don't think it's worth spending a second on that during testing. Can it happen to you? It can happen to you. But it does not matter. All builds must have weaknesses, and one of the bladelock builds can be that. There is no problem in it, and it is interesting that it is so. Another case is that you had a class feature that was constantly countered, since that would make it useless. But something like antimagic field is not going to show up constantly in your games. And if so, don't play a caster.
I couldn't vote higher than Bad on any of them, because the entire Pact Cantrip concept is flawed
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I really miss Book of Shadows' capability to learn all the rituals. Pact of the Blade is as it needs to be, though I still don't understand the one-handed limitation and why it can't be your spellcasting focus. Pact of the Chain could use some work. Feels a little "meh", though it certainly helps that resummoning this familiar is free.
I haven't decided if Pact Blade should just expand the acceptable weapons to 2-handed and ranged weapons or if an updated version of Improved Pact Weapon should be included in the PHB (it would give a +1 to the weapon, and expand it to include any simple or martial weapon).
The familiar is a bit confusing - I like the direction it's going, but I feel like it should have the features the current version of Find Familiar has (the ability to deliver spells and wink out of existence briefly 1/day when it is reduced to 0 hp). I might even need more hp, though probably not much more.
The Book of Shadows is very good. The removal of the ability to get all the rituals is a nerf, but when paired with the changes to rituals and the warlock's approach to spells it makes sense.
I'm not sure how popular it is, but I'd love to see them take on the Pact of the Talisman as well.
Book of Shadows: Pretty solid as is, but I would like to see it expanded a bit to include higher level ritual spells, maybe even as an Invocation. I don't know.
Pact Familiar: Needs to be rewritten to include everything that is missing from the "standard" familiar and made a bit stronger overall. I would like to see a focus on Invocations that summon creatures tied directly to this feature. Really lean into the Pact of the Chain as a conjurer.
Pact Weapon: Really this just needs to include all weapons and just be done with it.
I voted bad on book of shadows, without the ability to add rituals(you have a pretty limited known list so relying on that and ooh 2 1st level ones daily, sucks) makes it a pale shadow of what it should be. Its l;evel 5 thing is nice but it is something that should be baked into warlocks. I also think all cantrips should have the feature of working like eldritch blast for warlocks, including working with the invocations.
Chain is trash. Conceptually its fine I guess, but if your pact is around something a 1st level ritual can swing it better be far better than the normal familiar, and its not. It is at best barely better.
Blade I put as good, its overall solid but needs heavy weapons and ranged weapons, even if its a invocation.
All could use work as I think the need more of their core functionality invocations baked in, sadly some of which did not exist until supplements came about.
Chain is trash. Conceptually its fine I guess, but if your pact is around something a 1st level ritual can swing it better be far better than the normal familiar, and its not. It is at best barely better.
I disagree that it's worse then find familiar, unless you forgo materials, Find Familiar still requires 10GP of materials to be burnt in a brass brazier, which makes it less viable for scouting whereas warlock can just re-summon their familiar anywhere with no material requirements. But it should have the same reaction to attack as the Paladin/Druid UA, Bonus Action means it's competing with Hex, and it does less damage than Hex. Overall I do feel the familiar itself should scale far better than it does, and with the exception of the undead, most of the Favor of the Chain Master effects seem pretty inconsistent. Undead, Fiend and Dragon seem stronger than Aberration, Fey and Celestial.
My one complaint about Book of Shadows is that I cannot add ritual spells to my book as I level up. That's one of the cornerstones of that fantasy of playing the seeker of forbidden knowledge - you find stuff and add it to your book.
Chain is trash. Conceptually its fine I guess, but if your pact is around something a 1st level ritual can swing it better be far better than the normal familiar, and its not. It is at best barely better.
I disagree that it's worse then find familiar, unless you forgo materials, Find Familiar still requires 10GP of materials to be burnt in a brass brazier, which makes it less viable for scouting whereas warlock can just re-summon their familiar anywhere with no material requirements. But it should have the same reaction to attack as the Paladin/Druid UA, Bonus Action means it's competing with Hex, and it does less damage than Hex. Overall I do feel the familiar itself should scale far better than it does, and with the exception of the undead, most of the Favor of the Chain Master effects seem pretty inconsistent. Undead, Fiend and Dragon seem stronger than Aberration, Fey and Celestial.
I don't think its worse, I just don't think it is better. You are right that it does not take components so you can make it more of a disposable asset(though it lost extra dimensional escape which had a similar perk for the standard familiar) but it actually loses some otherstandard familiar functionality by losing deliver spell. Given how much blade swings things for a person becoming a gish/blade lock chain should be doing the same, and its just not there. I don't think your familiar would be much better than a tome lock taking find familiar for a day and summoning that. And to me that seems like a bad spot to be in.
As a total aside I think the normal familiar is too good, my one change to it would be to make its origin obvious. I do not think it is good design to rely on GM graces to determine how stealthy a spider is. I've seen some in here have spiders roll right past everyone as its just a spider, I've seen the other end where people are like I will not suffer a small creature to live all critters apparently get attacked on sight. They supposedly are against the DM may I style abilities, and a familiars scouting falls heavily into that. If it was obviously a familiar, the answer would be the same across the board. That change with a pacts invisibility would go a long way to making it feel right. Though the invisibility needs to change. Invisible is not hidden, they use an action to turn invisible. They are not hidden round 1, round 2, they hide and are hidden, end of round they are now visible so I guess I hope they moved to cover, and they have to do the two round swap again, or maybe you can keep your hidden roll going another DM call thing. Either way having to take a action every turn is just bad design imo.
Edit to add, eldritch bond does at least make it much more skilled at sneaking etc. But like I said it just doesn't feel like enough of a boost.
While I agree that is the intended flavor that it should be going for, I wouldn't call ritual spells that are widely available to multiple classes "forbidden knowledge" lol.
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Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
While I agree that is the intended flavor that it should be going for, I wouldn't call ritual spells that are widely available to multiple classes "forbidden knowledge" lol.
They should add some warlock only rituals.
Thematically I feel the warlock at its core feels more ritual based than the wizard. It is unfortunate the mechanics don't capture that.
BOOK OF SHADOWS
Conjuration Cantrip (Warlock)
Casting Time: 1 hour Range: Self
Component: V, S Duration: Instantaneous
Stitching together strands of shadow, you conjure forth a book in your hand. The book contains eldritch magic that only you can access, granting you the following benefits:
Cantrips and Rituals. When the book appears, choose two cantrips, and choose two 1st-level spells that have the Ritual tag. The spells can be from the Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists, and they must be spells you don’t already have prepared. While the book is on your person, you have the chosen spells prepared.
Spellcasting Focus. You can use the book as a Spellcasting Focus.
The book disappears if you cast this spell again or die.
Cantrip Upgrade. When you reach 5th level as a Warlock, this spell also enhances other cantrips while the book is on your person; you can add your Warlock spellcasting ability modifier to the damage rolls of any cantrip you cast that doesn’t already have that modifier added to its damage roll.
PACT FAMILIAR
Conjuration Cantrip (Warlock)
Casting Time: 1 hour Range: 10 feet Component: V, S Duration: Instantaneous
You summon an unearthly entity to serve you. It manifests in an unoccupied space of your choice within range. This creature uses the Pact Familiar stat block. If you already have a familiar from this spell, that familiar transforms into the new one but retains its memories; you don’t get a second Pact Familiar.
Whenever you cast the spell, choose the familiar’s creature type: Aberration (flumph or knot of tentacles), Celestial (owl, raven, or other bird), Dragon (pseudodragon or similar dragonet), Fey (pixie or sprite), Fiend (imp or quasit), or Undead (shadow or skull). This choice affects the familiar’s default appearance, as noted in the parentheses, and it determines certain traits in its stat block. You can alter details of the creature’s appearance each time you summon it.
Combat. The familiar is an ally to you and your companions, and it obeys you. In combat, it shares your Initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. On its turn, the familiar takes the Dodge action and uses its Move to avoid danger, unless you use your Reaction to command it to attack instead.
Disappearance of the Familiar. The familiar disappears if it drops to 0 Hit Points, if you dismiss it as a Bonus Action, or if you die. When it disappears, it leaves behind anything it was wearing or carrying. If you cast this spell again, you decide whether you summon the familiar that disappeared or a different one.
Remote Viewing. As a Magic action, you can see what your familiar sees and hear what it hears until the end of your next turn.
Cantrip Upgrade. Starting when you reach 5th level as a Warlock, you can communicate telepathically with your familiar as long as you two are on the same plane of existence. Additionally, while perceiving through your familiar’s senses, you can also speak through your familiar in your own voice.
PACT FAMILIAR
Tiny Aberration, Celestial, Dragon, Fey, Fiend, or Undead (Choose When Casting the Spell), Any Alignment
Armor Class 10 + your spellcasting ability modifier (natural armor)
Hit Points 5 + your Warlock level (the familiar has a number of Hit Dice [d4s] equal to your Warlock level)
Speed 40 ft., Fly 40 ft. (Hover)
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
3 (–4) 14 (+2) 12 (+1) 10 (+0) 14 (+2) 8 (–1)
Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion
Senses Darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 12 Languages Telepathy 120 ft. (only between you and the
familiar)
Challenge — Proficiency Bonus equals your bonus
Eldritch Bond. You can add your Proficiency Bonus to any ability check or saving throw that the familiar makes.
ACTIONS
Eldritch Strike. Melee Spell Attack: your Spell Attack Modifier to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2 + half your Warlock level (round up) damage of a type determined by the familiar’s creature type: Aberration (Acid), Celestial (Radiant), Dragon (Fire), Fey (Psychic), Fiend (Poison), or Undead (Necrotic).
Invisibility. The familiar has the Invisible condition until the end of its next turn.
PACT WEAPON
Conjuration Cantrip (Warlock)
Casting Time: Action Range: Self Component: S Duration: 24 hours
Tracing arcane sigils in the air, you conjure a Simple or Martial melee weapon of your choice in your outstretched hand, or you create a bond with a magic weapon you touch. The weapon you conjure or touch must lack the Heavy property, and the spell fails if you touch a magic item that is attuned to someone else.
For the duration, the weapon grants you the following benefits:
Eldritch Warrior. When you attack with the weapon, you can use your spellcasting ability modifier for the attack and damage rolls, instead of using Strength or Dexterity.
Proficiency. You have proficiency with the weapon.
Returning Weapon. If the weapon has the Thrown property, the weapon returns to your hand immediately after hitting or missing a target.
The spell ends early if you cast the spell again or die. When it ends, a conjured weapon disappears, or your bond with a magic weapon stops.
Cantrip Upgrade. When you reach 5th level as a Warlock, you gain the Extra Attack feature for the conjured or magic weapon only. With that feature, you can attack twice with the weapon
Book of Shadows is great. The 5th level upgrade is perfect for this kind of Warlock, it also lets you replace Agonizing Blast giving you an additional invocation, but there needs to be an invocation that allows you to gain more rituals. This is probably the best pact boon in the UA.
Pact Familiar is the weakest of the pacts. After 5th this is by far the best scouting familiar in the game. You do have to say, “I use it’s action to remain invisible every turn” which is a downside. Especially during initiative since you can’t make it dash and remain invisible. It has the longest distance telepathy before and definitely after 5th level. The flaw is that it’s too fragile and it’s growth is too slow keeping it fragile. It can’t deliver your spells and the attack it has is horrible. The fiend does poison damage meaning most players will never pick it. Eldritch Strike damage types need a rework. You will be reliant on Eldritch blast for damage so you will need to take the Agonizing Blast invocation.
Pact Blade is okay. It gives extra attack at 5th and allows you to use any magic weapon that isn’t heavy. That means the Gunlock is still a thing, but it did kill the heavy weapon versions of this: Greatsword, Longbow, or heavy firearms. Maybe there will be a Hexblade, but as of now I don’t see a reason for that subclass. 90% of why people used it is in the cantrip.Maybe it can offer shields and heavy weapons. A one level Warlock dip could still be good for a Paladin who wants to focus Cha and fights sword and board. Eldritch blast is still your better damage option unless you are a gunlock, but EB will eventually do more damage than your gun.
Pretty much my consensus. Book of shadows does almost everything I want from it and even gets rid of one of the most annoying invocation taxes still in the game by adding damage to cantrips.
Chain I am testing out in an upcoming game, its scouting ability and 14 wisdom+ Proficiency bonus are really what I am looking to use. I do not feel bad dumping wisdom and then still getting proficiency in all wisdom checks with a 14 is bad at all. The loss of spell cast through it sucks, and the lack of durability is par for the course with what we have seen with Familiars. The invocation taxes are alive and well here though because one of the advantages of the old chain was the base effect was strong on its own and none of the other invocations attached to it felt 'mandatory"
Blade is being over-rated by people I think. It is a decent option and it will be cool playing a Fiend Bladelock or a Fey Blade lock with the short range fear/charm and the reaction teleport and invisibility, but it isn't doing anything crazy, especially now that most of the best combat feats are half feats that add to dex or strength leaving the "SAD" part being less powerful.
Pact Weapon has one major issue actually, while it had some hexblade features added to it, it has one rather obvious weakness, and that is that it's duration is "24 hours", instead of Instantaneous; which means that the weapon/effect will simply disappear in an antimagic field. You've now gone from using +5 Charisma to probably a 0 Strength Modifier, if you even still have a weapon in your hands at all (a conjured one disappears) and even if you do have an enchanted one, you can no longer make 2 attacks a turn.
The problem with antimagic field and the like is situational. I don't think it's worth spending a second on that during testing. Can it happen to you? It can happen to you. But it does not matter. All builds must have weaknesses, and one of the bladelock builds can be that. There is no problem in it, and it is interesting that it is so. Another case is that you had a class feature that was constantly countered, since that would make it useless. But something like antimagic field is not going to show up constantly in your games. And if so, don't play a caster.
There is no design problem there.
I couldn't vote higher than Bad on any of them, because the entire Pact Cantrip concept is flawed
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I really miss Book of Shadows' capability to learn all the rituals. Pact of the Blade is as it needs to be, though I still don't understand the one-handed limitation and why it can't be your spellcasting focus. Pact of the Chain could use some work. Feels a little "meh", though it certainly helps that resummoning this familiar is free.
It needs to be a "Simple or Martial melee weapon"
I haven't decided if Pact Blade should just expand the acceptable weapons to 2-handed and ranged weapons or if an updated version of Improved Pact Weapon should be included in the PHB (it would give a +1 to the weapon, and expand it to include any simple or martial weapon).
The familiar is a bit confusing - I like the direction it's going, but I feel like it should have the features the current version of Find Familiar has (the ability to deliver spells and wink out of existence briefly 1/day when it is reduced to 0 hp). I might even need more hp, though probably not much more.
The Book of Shadows is very good. The removal of the ability to get all the rituals is a nerf, but when paired with the changes to rituals and the warlock's approach to spells it makes sense.
I'm not sure how popular it is, but I'd love to see them take on the Pact of the Talisman as well.
Book of Shadows: Pretty solid as is, but I would like to see it expanded a bit to include higher level ritual spells, maybe even as an Invocation. I don't know.
Pact Familiar: Needs to be rewritten to include everything that is missing from the "standard" familiar and made a bit stronger overall. I would like to see a focus on Invocations that summon creatures tied directly to this feature. Really lean into the Pact of the Chain as a conjurer.
Pact Weapon: Really this just needs to include all weapons and just be done with it.
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't a warlock wizard multi-class have 2 functioning familiars?
I voted bad on book of shadows, without the ability to add rituals(you have a pretty limited known list so relying on that and ooh 2 1st level ones daily, sucks) makes it a pale shadow of what it should be. Its l;evel 5 thing is nice but it is something that should be baked into warlocks. I also think all cantrips should have the feature of working like eldritch blast for warlocks, including working with the invocations.
Chain is trash. Conceptually its fine I guess, but if your pact is around something a 1st level ritual can swing it better be far better than the normal familiar, and its not. It is at best barely better.
Blade I put as good, its overall solid but needs heavy weapons and ranged weapons, even if its a invocation.
All could use work as I think the need more of their core functionality invocations baked in, sadly some of which did not exist until supplements came about.
I disagree that it's worse then find familiar, unless you forgo materials, Find Familiar still requires 10GP of materials to be burnt in a brass brazier, which makes it less viable for scouting whereas warlock can just re-summon their familiar anywhere with no material requirements. But it should have the same reaction to attack as the Paladin/Druid UA, Bonus Action means it's competing with Hex, and it does less damage than Hex. Overall I do feel the familiar itself should scale far better than it does, and with the exception of the undead, most of the Favor of the Chain Master effects seem pretty inconsistent. Undead, Fiend and Dragon seem stronger than Aberration, Fey and Celestial.
My one complaint about Book of Shadows is that I cannot add ritual spells to my book as I level up. That's one of the cornerstones of that fantasy of playing the seeker of forbidden knowledge - you find stuff and add it to your book.
A single class Warlock can have two functioning familiars. There's nothing in Pact of the Chain that prevents you taking Find Familiar.
Neither Pact of the Tome, nor the Ritual Caster feat, now allow you to add ritual spells to your book.
Aside from Wizards with the Scribe Spell spell, nobody can.
At least PotT allows you to recreate your book whenever you want another spell.
I don't think its worse, I just don't think it is better. You are right that it does not take components so you can make it more of a disposable asset(though it lost extra dimensional escape which had a similar perk for the standard familiar) but it actually loses some otherstandard familiar functionality by losing deliver spell. Given how much blade swings things for a person becoming a gish/blade lock chain should be doing the same, and its just not there. I don't think your familiar would be much better than a tome lock taking find familiar for a day and summoning that. And to me that seems like a bad spot to be in.
As a total aside I think the normal familiar is too good, my one change to it would be to make its origin obvious. I do not think it is good design to rely on GM graces to determine how stealthy a spider is. I've seen some in here have spiders roll right past everyone as its just a spider, I've seen the other end where people are like I will not suffer a small creature to live all critters apparently get attacked on sight. They supposedly are against the DM may I style abilities, and a familiars scouting falls heavily into that. If it was obviously a familiar, the answer would be the same across the board. That change with a pacts invisibility would go a long way to making it feel right. Though the invisibility needs to change. Invisible is not hidden, they use an action to turn invisible. They are not hidden round 1, round 2, they hide and are hidden, end of round they are now visible so I guess I hope they moved to cover, and they have to do the two round swap again, or maybe you can keep your hidden roll going another DM call thing. Either way having to take a action every turn is just bad design imo.
Edit to add, eldritch bond does at least make it much more skilled at sneaking etc. But like I said it just doesn't feel like enough of a boost.
While I agree that is the intended flavor that it should be going for, I wouldn't call ritual spells that are widely available to multiple classes "forbidden knowledge" lol.
Mother and Cat Herder. Playing TTRPGs since 1989 (She/Her)
Currently, we will see if that is the intended result later on.
They should add some warlock only rituals.
Thematically I feel the warlock at its core feels more ritual based than the wizard. It is unfortunate the mechanics don't capture that.
It just has to be a magic weapon
Edit: that isn’t heavy