So, if you picked the Great Old One subclass for your warlock, once you get to 14th level you get to create a thrall. Basically, you touch an incapitated humanoid, and it becomes charmed by you and you can talk to it telepathically (The effect ends if the charmed creature is targeted by a remove curse spell). I don't really understand how to use this ability, for several reasons.
a.) The creature has to be a humanoid, ruling out a lot of potential monsters to target with this ability
b.) Out of the humanoids, it can't really be a high-level magic user, because they'll just snort, cast remove curse on themselves, and then keep going at you.
c.) The humanoid has to be incapitated, meaning that its probably unconscious already, so unless its someone you want to keep an eye on but let live, this condition basically means that you're only using this when you've already defeated the enemy.
d.) You don't gain any kind of mind control, (besides advantages on checks to socially interact)
So is there anything that actually makes ability so great?
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"Halt your wagging and wag your halters, for I am mastercryomancer!"
I'd suggest getting the Hypnotic Pattern spell; creatures that fail their saves (Wisdom) are incapacitated, even if they're still at full hit points.
Then you can create your thrall, no muss, no fuss.
The nice thing about the Charmed condition is that you gain advantage on checks to "interact socially" with the charmed creature. As a Warlock you've already got a high Charisma. So if you don't already have Persuasion skill, get the Beguiling Influence Invocation. If you're Human, take the Prodigy Feat from Xanathar's Guide and you'll have Expertise in Persuasion. Your thrall will tend towards being cooperative.
Jacks right about the easy incapacitate, nice one Jack, also wound till you guess they are almost dead so you can sleep/ apply spider poison to weapons / use spiders so they stabilise on 0 not die. and we are ready to operate!
Now we operate! And your target is charmed permanently - which means they view you as friendly but (optionally aware there is something horribly wrong but unable to help feeling as they do living in horrible daze as they feel themselves trapped in their own body) being friendly / your friendly why would they seek out 'help' they are ok / screaming inside. (Watched Get Out?)
So who do we do this to to get value for money - well the monstrous option is another party member or leveled character so they level with you. Thats a real talking point for why not to go for you the next time the party fights. Of course I would beg you not fight each other - a game should be fun for everyone playing not one person after all, that leaves the DM that keeps throwing classed npc at you and this being a rebuttal or finding a stat block npc that is complementary to you. So without further ado stat blocked npc to catch:
the diviner - recharging and making saves fail often (always good)
transmuter - very nice stone you can take but otherwise a liitle weak
a warlock of the great old one -(comedy gold)
warlord - your own nigh invulnerable bodyguard soon to be kitted out by you, and hilariously legendary actions.
Hobgob warlord - tough as nails and 1 minute party wide buff to saves and hits? The melee group thanks you, the casters thanks you and the adventuring community thanks you.
So a big YES to Hypnotic Pattern. Like most of the other skills for the GOO, it's all about beguiling and deception.
- Thrall a high ranking minion, then use Mask Of Many Face to look like the BBEG to infiltrate the fortress.
- Thrall a guard and have them escort you to see the king.
- Thrall the hobgoblin in charge of the raiding party, then have him convince his troops that the BBEG they work for is weak and they should stage a mutiny.
- Thrall the Orge Mage to be your personal body guard
Cast Greater Invisibility. Infiltrate Government/Kingdom building. Make new best friends with the King or high ranking law enforcement officials. Profit!
Daaaamn Jayne, thats ambitious. I dont know about you but I would suspect if it wasnt a 'small world' kingdom then the defences and alarms might be hazardous to the sneaky warlocks health, and there is always that pesky save. If it works though? That could make a game crash or make it epic :) Enjoy yourself if you try for it and let us know how it plays out please!
Haha thanks Moon. Too be fair I've not actually ever done this and currently I am running a Feylock not a Goolock. But it seems like in the right circumstances it could work and be amazing lol!
I'm not sure if this is my idea or if I read it somewhere: You could knock out a successful entrepreneur thrall him/her. Convince them to sign over 1/2 (or all, if you're a ****). Then, just have them send you money regularly. Also, if they run a magic items business, bonus benefits.
I am currently playing a longer campaign and am hoping to knock and turn a high ranking baddie.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
G, Yes its possible, but If you actually have someone or some thing masquerading as a someone running a magic trade business (ie: one where only the ludicrously rich and violent prone will do business) then you will probably find they have contingencies in place to obliterate many an attempt on them, the easiest and worst case is when you try to knock them out, they melt into a puddle of ice because they are a simulacrum and you find yourself a wanted felon with a much more powerful creature than anticipated after you.
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
Everytime I see people talking about this ability, I never see the one thing that makes it, in my opinion, the best ability in the game!
GooLock with a familiar, voice of the chain master, master of miriad forms and the dream spell!
Get a Thrall and whisper in their head in a language they don't understand, just to get them feeling the mood. Spy on them with your familiar (invisible or shapeshifted) or even by being near without them knowing (alter self at will baby!) and start saying things that relate to their lives, giving yourself a sense of quasi omniscience! Then start appearing in their dreams, in there you can take the form of a god in your own demi-plane and work your way to make them believe you're a god and chose them as your prophet! Then you can present yourself, physically, as an advisor who shares your new god personna's vision.
As a "god", you can create some events and then get the target out of situations you create unharmed, create prophecies and then complete them yourself, plant rewards/make miracles with your familiar (you can even set the familiar to act like their servant and let it give them messages from their god!)
Plus, you can keep appearing in their life an anyone and create paranoia or trust or even fake renown! (I mean, in they're the only one who believes in this new god of yours, it's gonna be hard to make them believe, but if they meet other people who believe and hear the rumors of a god whispering things, they might be more interested in listening!)
Once they're in your pocket, you can start building your own cult and raise anyone as the prophet, with yourself being a "servant of the prophet", pulling the strings!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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So, if you picked the Great Old One subclass for your warlock, once you get to 14th level you get to create a thrall. Basically, you touch an incapitated humanoid, and it becomes charmed by you and you can talk to it telepathically (The effect ends if the charmed creature is targeted by a remove curse spell). I don't really understand how to use this ability, for several reasons.
a.) The creature has to be a humanoid, ruling out a lot of potential monsters to target with this ability
b.) Out of the humanoids, it can't really be a high-level magic user, because they'll just snort, cast remove curse on themselves, and then keep going at you.
c.) The humanoid has to be incapitated, meaning that its probably unconscious already, so unless its someone you want to keep an eye on but let live, this condition basically means that you're only using this when you've already defeated the enemy.
d.) You don't gain any kind of mind control, (besides advantages on checks to socially interact)
So is there anything that actually makes ability so great?
"Halt your wagging and wag your halters, for I am mastercryomancer!"
Check out my Expanded Signature
I'd suggest getting the Hypnotic Pattern spell; creatures that fail their saves (Wisdom) are incapacitated, even if they're still at full hit points.
Then you can create your thrall, no muss, no fuss.
The nice thing about the Charmed condition is that you gain advantage on checks to "interact socially" with the charmed creature. As a Warlock you've already got a high Charisma. So if you don't already have Persuasion skill, get the Beguiling Influence Invocation. If you're Human, take the Prodigy Feat from Xanathar's Guide and you'll have Expertise in Persuasion. Your thrall will tend towards being cooperative.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
Jacks right about the easy incapacitate, nice one Jack, also wound till you guess they are almost dead so you can sleep/ apply spider poison to weapons / use spiders so they stabilise on 0 not die. and we are ready to operate!
Now we operate! And your target is charmed permanently - which means they view you as friendly but (optionally aware there is something horribly wrong but unable to help feeling as they do living in horrible daze as they feel themselves trapped in their own body) being friendly / your friendly why would they seek out 'help' they are ok / screaming inside. (Watched Get Out?)
So who do we do this to to get value for money - well the monstrous option is another party member or leveled character so they level with you. Thats a real talking point for why not to go for you the next time the party fights. Of course I would beg you not fight each other - a game should be fun for everyone playing not one person after all, that leaves the DM that keeps throwing classed npc at you and this being a rebuttal or finding a stat block npc that is complementary to you. So without further ado stat blocked npc to catch:
the diviner - recharging and making saves fail often (always good)
transmuter - very nice stone you can take but otherwise a liitle weak
a warlock of the great old one -(comedy gold)
warlord - your own nigh invulnerable bodyguard soon to be kitted out by you, and hilariously legendary actions.
Hobgob warlord - tough as nails and 1 minute party wide buff to saves and hits? The melee group thanks you, the casters thanks you and the adventuring community thanks you.
So a big YES to Hypnotic Pattern. Like most of the other skills for the GOO, it's all about beguiling and deception.
You get the idea....
Cast Greater Invisibility. Infiltrate Government/Kingdom building. Make new best friends with the King or high ranking law enforcement officials. Profit!
Daaaamn Jayne, thats ambitious. I dont know about you but I would suspect if it wasnt a 'small world' kingdom then the defences and alarms might be hazardous to the sneaky warlocks health, and there is always that pesky save. If it works though? That could make a game crash or make it epic :) Enjoy yourself if you try for it and let us know how it plays out please!
Haha thanks Moon. Too be fair I've not actually ever done this and currently I am running a Feylock not a Goolock. But it seems like in the right circumstances it could work and be amazing lol!
So....
I'm not sure if this is my idea or if I read it somewhere: You could knock out a successful entrepreneur thrall him/her. Convince them to sign over 1/2 (or all, if you're a ****). Then, just have them send you money regularly. Also, if they run a magic items business, bonus benefits.
I am currently playing a longer campaign and am hoping to knock and turn a high ranking baddie.
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
G, Yes its possible, but If you actually have someone or some thing masquerading as a someone running a magic trade business (ie: one where only the ludicrously rich and violent prone will do business) then you will probably find they have contingencies in place to obliterate many an attempt on them, the easiest and worst case is when you try to knock them out, they melt into a puddle of ice because they are a simulacrum and you find yourself a wanted felon with a much more powerful creature than anticipated after you.
Moon,
I'm just a PC living in a DM's world.
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
Everytime I see people talking about this ability, I never see the one thing that makes it, in my opinion, the best ability in the game!
GooLock with a familiar, voice of the chain master, master of miriad forms and the dream spell!
Get a Thrall and whisper in their head in a language they don't understand, just to get them feeling the mood. Spy on them with your familiar (invisible or shapeshifted) or even by being near without them knowing (alter self at will baby!) and start saying things that relate to their lives, giving yourself a sense of quasi omniscience! Then start appearing in their dreams, in there you can take the form of a god in your own demi-plane and work your way to make them believe you're a god and chose them as your prophet! Then you can present yourself, physically, as an advisor who shares your new god personna's vision.
As a "god", you can create some events and then get the target out of situations you create unharmed, create prophecies and then complete them yourself, plant rewards/make miracles with your familiar (you can even set the familiar to act like their servant and let it give them messages from their god!)
Plus, you can keep appearing in their life an anyone and create paranoia or trust or even fake renown! (I mean, in they're the only one who believes in this new god of yours, it's gonna be hard to make them believe, but if they meet other people who believe and hear the rumors of a god whispering things, they might be more interested in listening!)
Once they're in your pocket, you can start building your own cult and raise anyone as the prophet, with yourself being a "servant of the prophet", pulling the strings!