Hello all!

I'm just finalising my Warlock build (my DM has agreed that my Level 7 Bard can transform into a Level 7 Warlock!) but I've never played a Warlock before, so your advice is welcomed! ( especially on Spells and Eldritch Invocations!)

I've got for a Tiefling (so I get Darkness and Hellish Rebuke) Fiend Warlock with Pact of the Tome.

Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Devil's Sight, Book of Ancient Secrets (selecting Comprehend Languages and Identify as the ritual spells), and Sculptor of Flesh.  However, Ghostly Gaze looks pretty cool and I love the flavour of Cloak of Flies - I also wonder if I should invest in another Eldritch Blast boost...

Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Thaumaturgy (Tiefling), Mold Earth, Shape Water, and Message (the latter three are through the Pact of the Tome).  As I have Eldritch Blast, I thought I make all the other cantrips utility focused.

Spells: Armor of Agathys, Counterspell, Fireball, Hex, Misty Step, Polymorph (through Sculptor of Flesh invocation), Shadow of Moil, Sickening Radiance, and Suggestion.  I'd really like the Summon Greater Demon in there as I like the flavour and the fact it can go very wrong but what do you think?  Is it worth giving up one of the above spells for that?  Perhaps I should go for a different selection of spells...

There you have it!  I'd love to hear from those with experience of playing a Warlock and any tips they can give me!

PS - I'm wondering if I should drop Hex?  I'm not sure it's as useful as another spell from Level 7+.

I'd drop hex, and I'd also trade in comprehend languages for Find Familiar.  The familiar can be a huge help, both in and outside combat.

First and foremost, I'd like to point out to you that you don't properly know the Darkness or Hellish Rebuke spells without a house rule - Asmodeus Tieflings get each of those 1/long rest.  Devil's Sight is utterly fantastic, but if you're going with it, it might be worth considering also learning Darkness for real, so you can cast it with your Warlock slots.

Mold Earth and Message aren't nearly as good as Shape Water; since you have access to any three cantrips in the game, I recommend you grab one of the best there is, Guidance.  Your cantrip list is otherwise pretty great - the only other ones I'd recommend you consider are Prestidigitation and having an attack spell that targets saves, like Toll the Dead or Mind Sliver, for when you need to avoid rolling to hit (since such a cantrip won't be able to compete with EB's total damage out, I prefer a cantrip with a debuff attached to raw damage), but you're pretty ok as-is.

Spells: Keep Hex.  Another 2d6 damage to every casting of EB (right now, it'll go up) is clutch.  My biggest recommendation here is taking the Darkness spell to combine with Devil's Sight - you can drop Counterspell for it, since you don't have the slots to win a Counterspell duel with a "real" caster anyway, and you can use Darkness as a poor man's Counterspell in a wide variety of situations, since it shuts down targeting for so many spells.

I was tempted by this but our DM has a beloved character they bring in-and-out of their campaign who has a beefed up Imp familiar...  For a moment I thought I could get a quasit or pseudo-dragon, but then I remember they're only available to the Pact of the Chain Warlocks!

I'm confused - as a Tiefling, you get Darkness at 5th Level due to their Infernal Legacy: so Darkness once per long rest(?).

I must admit, I do love Mold Earth - I had it with a Rogue-Druid build and I cause quite a lot of mischief with it!  Like Shape Water, it's got massive potential to change your environment.  With regards to Guidance, it makes me feel cheap to think of using it - straight up 1d4 bonus to Ability Checks?  Saying that, as I'm going from Bard to Warlock, this could be like a mini-Bardic Inspiration, so that would fit the flavour...  Aside from cleaning my clothes, what benefit do you think Prestidigitation has?  I might review the debuff Cantrips again, ta.

I think Hex is another 1d6 for each casting of EB(?), so I'm not sure it scales well though it might be worth holding until I reach Level 7(?).  We've got a paladin, druid, and ranger in the party, so I'm not sure anyone else has Counterspell - you don't think it's worth it for a tight situation?  I do like Darkness being the "poor man's Counterspell" though!

A quick comparison I'm assuming 18 Charisma for, as well as the enemy doesn't have damage resistance and you manage to land both hits with an EB + hex. 2d10+8+2d6 per round of eldritch blasting, averaging that damage out is 24 or so. This is to a single target per round or split that damage in half, the Hex only adds about 4 damage a hit for a fourth level slot. 

Fireball is able to do an average of around 28 to everything in a 20 foot radius, and even with a successful save they still are taking half of the damage. So against a single enemy it might be worth it over three or so rounds to use hex instead, but also consider that hex is concentration and so you have both the change of having it stay over the course of multiple combats but also the possibility to fail a concentration save and lose it after only a single turn. 

Another few suggestions I'd like to toss out is the Blindness/Deafness spell. Blinded is a fairly serious condition and being able to apply it to 3 and eventually 4 enemies can be pretty great if you are faced with a small group of reasonable threats. Shadow of Moil is a good pre combat buff for advantage to hit things and disadvantage to hit you and doesn't have the friendly fire of the darkness devil sight combo. Suggestion as a spell isn't a great long term pick because it never upcasts and spell slots are precious. Misty Step also falls under this category so perhaps consider switching it for Thunder Step or Dimension Door Sickening Radiance's viability really depends mostly on how synergistic with the rest of the party you can be. If you have people who can knock people into it/keep them there then it can be a  serious threat over a few turns but otherwise most creatures can pretty easily leave it. 

Quote from Branoc >>

I'm confused - as a Tiefling, you get Darkness at 5th Level due to their Infernal Legacy: so Darkness once per long rest(?).

I must admit, I do love Mold Earth - I had it with a Rogue-Druid build and I cause quite a lot of mischief with it!  Like Shape Water, it's got massive potential to change your environment.  With regards to Guidance, it makes me feel cheap to think of using it - straight up 1d4 bonus to Ability Checks?  Saying that, as I'm going from Bard to Warlock, this could be like a mini-Bardic Inspiration, so that would fit the flavour...  Aside from cleaning my clothes, what benefit do you think Prestidigitation has?  I might review the debuff Cantrips again, ta.

I think Hex is another 1d6 for each casting of EB(?), so I'm not sure it scales well though it might be worth holding until I reach Level 7(?).  We've got a paladin, druid, and ranger in the party, so I'm not sure anyone else has Counterspell - you don't think it's worth it for a tight situation?  I do like Darkness being the "poor man's Counterspell" though!

1. Hex applies to any hit with any attack.  EB generates more and more attacks as you level up, with each attack qualifying for Hex individually.
2. Prestidigitation is usually for shenanigans with things like Minor Illusion - you use the sensory effects from it, like granting your minor illusion roast chicken the ability to smell like roast chicken (or, for this example, you can use Presti's ability to warm up air to render your illusory chicken actually warm).  It's not vital, just worth considering.
3. Mold Earth has severe problems in most environments I've adventured in, but if you find yourself spending a lot of time on loose earth, more power to you.
4. Darkness 1/long rest is a lot worse than 2/short rest, particularly when you consider the Warlock in question has Devil's Sight.  The Tiefling Asmodeus racial lacks the necessary text (which is found in various forms on various things, like the Mage Initiate feat) to let you actually know the racial spells for casting with your spell slots. 

Ah yes, CHA is 18.  Interesting comparison of Hex and Fireball.  If I drop Hex, I’m not sure what I should replace it with (maybe I’ll get that Summon Greater Demon for kicks!).

Great shout about Blindness/Deafness - I’ve dropped Suggestion for this.  Also, I’ve dropped Misty Step for Thunder Step (this one passed me by!  I love Misty Step for a BA but Thunder Step is good for the damage and possible rescuing of self / party member).

We’ve got a Druid with lots of area control, and I think both he and the Paladin have Hold Person - so Sickening Radiance should work nicely with those.

Thanks!

1. Re: Hex, see MinokeTheWise’s comment above - would you agree?

2. Prestidigitation does sound interesting for convincing people of an illusion... maybe I’ll drop Mold Earth for that.

3. Mold Earth allowed my character - whilst being chased into an alleyway - quickly dig a hole with it and hold action to drop earth on top of pursuer if they fell into the surprise hole: it worked very well!  I also did it when someone jumped off their horse into an unexpected 5ft hole!  But perhaps I should flex a new cantrip.

4.  Ahhh I see now, ta!

Even without Pact of the Chain, don't overlook the utility of a basic owl familiar. They've got a 60' flying speed, a flyby ability that lets them swoop in and out of danger without incurring opportunity attacks, they're stealthy, you can look through their eyes, and you can still have them do things like fly in an opponents face or carry around a pebble enchanted with darkness to create advantage/disadvantage in combat. But you don't have to do that right now, you can also learn that spell from your DM's beloved NPC (or pretty much any wizard) and add it to your tome later if you want it.

I also like prestidigitation for general persuasion. It's indirect, but I find if I snap my fingers to heat up an NPC's dinner for them and make their mug of tavern grog taste like a top shelf martini, then it seems like the difficulty of the persuasion check tends to go down by the time dice start rolling. If you win over the DM, you've probably won over the NPC too. Plus if anyone annoys you,  you can soil their pants and make them walk around in a 5' cloud of their own farts for a while, so that's just good fun.

I personally don't like hex that much, mostly because I don't like that it scales duration instead of damage, so you really have to hold concentration on it all day to get your money's worth out of the high level spell slot you used to cast it. Which is fine until you want to use your cool polymorph or silent image invocation. But the extra damage is nice, so your mileage may vary.

You might want to rethink Armor of Agathys too, because as an infernal Warlock you already get Cha + Warlock level of temp HP every time you kill something from Dark One's Blessing, and those two won't stack. True, Agathys at lvl 4 will make 20 temp hp and dish out 20 cold damage for it, once, but is that really worth using up 1 of your 2 spell slots on when you've already got a replenishing source of temp hp? Up to you.

Your character also looks fine as is, though, I'm just throwing out my two cents.

Ah, good idea to learn Find Familiar from the DM's favourite NPC (though I'm not sure they're the teaching type!).  The Ranger in our party is a Beast Master, so there are 'pets' galore and I don't want to tread on any toes.  Perhaps I'll grab Find Familiar at a later date (I once played a campaign where someone had an owl familiar, so I can appreciate they are the optimal choice!).

I love your uses of Prestidigitation!  I'll definitely try giving those a go!

Interesting shout about Hex - perhaps I'll drop it for now (which seems a shame for such a specialist Warlock spell!).

Wouldn't it be useful to have Armor of Agathys for the start of a battle (especially as it doesn't require Concentration)?  Once you lose those temp HP, you can then rely on the Dark One's Blessing to boost you up?  Perhaps it's not worth the spell slot but it would improve survivability in a battle(?).  Though I've got Thunder Step if I need to make a quick get away...

Thanks! :)

Hmm, whilst I'm thinking about it, when I reach Level 8, it's an Ability Score Improvement - do I boost my CHA to 20, or get a Feat like War Caster or Resilient (CON)?

My warlock stats are STR 8, DEX 16, CON 14, INT 9, WIS 10, CHA 18.

I generally prefer the ASI to the feat, outside edge cases where I want a feat to solve a particular problem.

If you start with CHA 17 at Level 1 think about taking „Fey Touched“ as feat instead of your ASI: CHA +1 (so you get CHA 18), Misty Step and one other 1st level Divination/Enchantment spell (even Hex can be an option) per long rest AND these spells can be used with your normal spell slots, thereby increasing your number of known spells by 2. 

Thanks for the calculations and feat suggestions Lurky, Haudrafundschluss and crzyhawk!  I’m leaning towards CHA 20 (as that would spread out to a lot of benefits, such as CHA ability skill checks, spell attacks, damage, and DC) or a cool feat like Fey Touched.

What are you thoughts about Metamagic Adept?

Try not to double/tripple post in a row, if you need to just edit previous message. 

IMO Metamagic Adept is a bit meh but there are a few decent reasons to want it. Mostly careful spell so you can drop the lasting aoe spells around your allies (like Sickening Radiance). If it gave more than 2 points I'd be more interested in it but since things like Quicken take basically all your points it's barely worth bothering with for that stuff.

As you have your choice of any three cantrips, I'd suggest you skip prestidigitation, and go with thaumaturgy instead... I don't understand why 'locks get Presti instead. I think Thaumaturgy is much more thematic, especially if you want to play up the scary Warlock angle... although, don't Tieflings get access to it anyway?

Ah, fair point Minoke - I've now condensed my responses into one post and deleted the others.

I was thinking Careful Spell with Sickening Radiance in a big melee fight would be really cool.  Also, Subtle Spell might allow for some good shenanigans.  But perhaps it isn't worth it compared to other Feats (like War Caster and Fey Touched) or CHA 20.

Bishop69, I do get the Thaumaturgy cantrip as a Tiefling but Prestidigitation gives a lot more options on trickery rather than making an entrance!

Quote from quindraco >>

Quote from Branoc >>

I'm confused - as a Tiefling, you get Darkness at 5th Level due to their Infernal Legacy: so Darkness once per long rest(?).

I must admit, I do love Mold Earth - I had it with a Rogue-Druid build and I cause quite a lot of mischief with it!  Like Shape Water, it's got massive potential to change your environment.  With regards to Guidance, it makes me feel cheap to think of using it - straight up 1d4 bonus to Ability Checks?  Saying that, as I'm going from Bard to Warlock, this could be like a mini-Bardic Inspiration, so that would fit the flavour...  Aside from cleaning my clothes, what benefit do you think Prestidigitation has?  I might review the debuff Cantrips again, ta.

I think Hex is another 1d6 for each casting of EB(?), so I'm not sure it scales well though it might be worth holding until I reach Level 7(?).  We've got a paladin, druid, and ranger in the party, so I'm not sure anyone else has Counterspell - you don't think it's worth it for a tight situation?  I do like Darkness being the "poor man's Counterspell" though!

 

1. Hex applies to any hit with any attack.  EB generates more and more attacks as you level up, with each attack qualifying for Hex individually.
2. Prestidigitation is usually for shenanigans with things like Minor Illusion - you use the sensory effects from it, like granting your minor illusion roast chicken the ability to smell like roast chicken (or, for this example, you can use Presti's ability to warm up air to render your illusory chicken actually warm).  It's not vital, just worth considering.
3. Mold Earth has severe problems in most environments I've adventured in, but if you find yourself spending a lot of time on loose earth, more power to you.
4. Darkness 1/long rest is a lot worse than 2/short rest, particularly when you consider the Warlock in question has Devil's Sight.  The Tiefling Asmodeus racial lacks the necessary text (which is found in various forms on various things, like the Mage Initiate feat) to let you actually know the racial spells for casting with your spell slots. 

 Doesn't Shadow of Moil make the non-racial casting of Darkness redundant? Surely it's better in basically every situation. The free darkness essentially give you an extra use of on-demand advantage per day if you keep Devil's Sight but I don't see how it's worthwhile to keep Darkness in your spell slots...