I've had an issue with warlocks trying to get a pact without actually having a pact since I started in 5e.
My reason is the definiton of pact is "a formal agreement between individuals or parties" therefore you cannot enter a pact without both warlock and patron being aware. I would probably allow a warlock player to take level 1 & 2 Warlock and get away with the patron not being aware but the moment you want to take lvl3+ the patron becomes aware of the mortal siphoning its power, for instance, the familiar from the pact of chain is actually a manifestation of the patron in the material realm, whatever the familiar sees/heres/knows the patron sees/hears/knows and potentially feels, so if the warlock constantly sends the familiar in to trigger traps the patron may get annoyed by all those little stings it gets and decide to makes itself known.
I think the mechanic i would use if a player really wanted to have a patron that was not aware of the pact would be similar to the cleric divine intervention, every week either DM or player rolls a d100 and subtract the level of their spell slot or highest mystic arcanum spell, if the roll equals or is lower than your warlock level the patron becomes aware of you and then we look at in game rammifications. This might be the Great Old One you were getting your spells from sends a wave of far realm magic into you and mutates you in a lovecraftian manner or you start turing into a star spwn, Fiends may break the pact and take your soul as a fine for stealing magic so if you die you cannot be restored to life without their permission, Archfey may curse you with various effects such as animal features or uncontrolled outbursts of laughter, Hexblades may find they lose their weapon skills until a certain creature or entity is killed by them, Celestials may send the warlock off to do a pilgramage of holy sites to beg forgiveness form clerics or holy people.
That way you have the possibility that the patron does become aware and isn't reduced to some foot note in a backstory and the Warlock does then have the fear that some day their power will come back to bite them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
I've had an issue with warlocks trying to get a pact without actually having a pact since I started in 5e.
My reason is the definiton of pact is "a formal agreement between individuals or parties" therefore you cannot enter a pact without both warlock and patron being aware. I would probably allow a warlock player to take level 1 & 2 Warlock and get away with the patron not being aware but the moment you want to take lvl3+ the patron becomes aware of the mortal siphoning its power, for instance, the familiar from the pact of chain is actually a manifestation of the patron in the material realm, whatever the familiar sees/heres/knows the patron sees/hears/knows and potentially feels, so if the warlock constantly sends the familiar in to trigger traps the patron may get annoyed by all those little stings it gets and decide to makes itself known.
I think the mechanic i would use if a player really wanted to have a patron that was not aware of the pact would be similar to the cleric divine intervention, every week either DM or player rolls a d100 and subtract the level of their spell slot or highest mystic arcanum spell, if the roll equals or is lower than your warlock level the patron becomes aware of you and then we look at in game rammifications. This might be the Great Old One you were getting your spells from sends a wave of far realm magic into you and mutates you in a lovecraftian manner or you start turing into a star spwn, Fiends may break the pact and take your soul as a fine for stealing magic so if you die you cannot be restored to life without their permission, Archfey may curse you with various effects such as animal features or uncontrolled outbursts of laughter, Hexblades may find they lose their weapon skills until a certain creature or entity is killed by them, Celestials may send the warlock off to do a pilgramage of holy sites to beg forgiveness form clerics or holy people.
That way you have the possibility that the patron does become aware and isn't reduced to some foot note in a backstory and the Warlock does then have the fear that some day their power will come back to bite them.
Fortunately for the rest of us, WotC has clarified that their assumption is that the terms of the deal are completed. Warlocks are a bag of interesting mechanics, not something where you, as the DM, get to try and railroad my character. Why do you think that it's fair that you get to lord something over warlock players, and don't do the same thing to fighters? The answer is, it is not. If the player doesn't want to RP the relationship with the patron, it's your job as the DM to accept that and let them play the class that they want.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I've not mentioned this mechanic with a view of "railroading" any player but it can serve as a plot hook/device. I did say if such a roll took place and the patron became aware of the warlock then we would discuss in game rammifications and then gave some, albeit extreme, examples of possible rammifications. This would not mean that you as a DM would have to introduce the patron then and there, you can build a story around it. The rammifications could just be the patron turns up a few days later and tells the warlcok to keep the noise down as the patron is trying to sleep, maybe it just sends another warlock out to track you down and ask you some questions or maybe it does do something more severe.
With regard to the question "Why do you think that it's fair that you get to lord something over warlock players, and don't do the same thing to fighters?" No lording is intended, its a game mechanic that might be useful thats all story dependant, i took the view that it is possible that the more power a warlock amasses the more their patron may become aware of them. Whilst character backstory is largely just fluff in terms of pre made or official adventures/campaigns settings if I am running something homebrewed/self written and soemone playing a fighter had in their backstory they were hired to kill a merchants wife but they let the wife go free and lied to the merchant the deed was done and walked off with a couple of thousand gold pieces, does that mean I should never use or refernece that merchant? or that i shouldn't decide to have that as plot device at some stage? If a Rogue player says they spend all their downtime breaking into homes and stealing things should there not be a chance the home owner comes back and catches them or a roving patrol of town watch might happen by as they exit the building? And should I not ask them to RP the trial?.
Ultimately I've not had a player want to play a warlock whose patron is not aware of them and that wasn't up for a bit of roleplay with their patron so this all just me thinking about a given question.
Backstory is always potential plot hooks. So if the DM is fine with it, let the player run with it. Where with a conventional pact there is always the potential the patron wants the warlock to do something for them, with this background there is a similar potential. What happens if the patron does become aware? As the warlock gains more power the likelihood would go up as well. The warlock could have visions as the patron is reaching out to understand who is this being they are fueling. There are plenty of possibilities.
Good temple is trying to summon a Celestial to deliver a petition for help: the Town is under attack.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
The guard has great pain in his arm for a few days. The temple is unable to heal it. The guard expresses eldritch energies, and is taught the basic of the warlock class by the temple. The Celestial is unaware of the exchange of power and exerts no influence. Further the Celestial is not able to reach the prime on his own, nor is he aware of any energy loss.
wala: here is an example of a warlock gaining his power by accident and the patron is unaware.
Since he is book taught, we could say the patron is his Temple. OR he could join adventurers right away and stumble into his powers.
Good temple is trying to summon a Celestial to deliver a petition for help: the Town is under attack.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
The guard has great pain in his arm for a few days. The temple is unable to heal it. The guard expresses eldritch energies, and is taught the basic of the warlock class by the temple. The Celestial is unaware of the exchange of power and exerts no influence. Further the Celestial is not able to reach the prime on his own, nor is he aware of any energy loss.
wala: here is an example of a warlock gaining his power by accident and the patron is unaware.
Since he is book taught, we could say the patron is his Temple. OR he could join adventurers right away and stumble into his powers.
There, stolen power. What do you think.
to play Asmodeus' advocate, there are few plot holes to plug.....
You have a town under attack, the temple tries to summon a celestial to deliver a petition for aid.
So what you have is a temple, summoning a celestial messenger, during an attack, to take a request back to the celestial planes in the hopes other celestials will planeshift into the town in the nic of time.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
This renders the summoning of the celestial a bit pointless. You say the guards heoric efforts save the temple and the Celestial departs with the petition for aid which is no longe needed as the guard has already saved everyone. I think I would word it more as the celestial was summoned but the interaction of the guard with the circle killed the celestial as it was forming on the mateial plane and some of its celestial nature imbued itself into the guard who then went into a magically infused kill frenzy and blasted the attacks with beams of eldritch enregy (assuming you mean to take eldritch blast). The ritual ends prematurely, in the aftermath of the battle the temple staff (be they clerics, other warlocks, monks of the sun soul or divine soul sorcerers) praise the guard as being touched/blessed by the divine and start to help him learn how to control his powers. SO you could say the celestial patron is perm dead and not reforming on the celstial planes, but as a DM I would likely expect some sort of roleplay from the player where that celestial nature colours their actions as "Being connected to such power can cause changes in your behavior and beliefs" (quote from Xanathars guide).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
Good temple is trying to summon a Celestial to deliver a petition for help: the Town is under attack.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
The guard has great pain in his arm for a few days. The temple is unable to heal it. The guard expresses eldritch energies, and is taught the basic of the warlock class by the temple. The Celestial is unaware of the exchange of power and exerts no influence. Further the Celestial is not able to reach the prime on his own, nor is he aware of any energy loss.
wala: here is an example of a warlock gaining his power by accident and the patron is unaware.
Since he is book taught, we could say the patron is his Temple. OR he could join adventurers right away and stumble into his powers.
There, stolen power. What do you think.
to play Asmodeus' advocate, there are few plot holes to plug.....
You have a town under attack, the temple tries to summon a celestial to deliver a petition for aid.
So what you have is a temple, summoning a celestial messenger, during an attack, to take a request back to the celestial planes in the hopes other celestials will planeshift into the town in the nic of time.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
This renders the summoning of the celestial a bit pointless. You say the guards heoric efforts save the temple and the Celestial departs with the petition for aid which is no longe needed as the guard has already saved everyone. I think I would word it more as the celestial was summoned but the interaction of the guard with the circle killed the celestial as it was forming on the mateial plane and some of its celestial nature imbued itself into the guard who then went into a magically infused kill frenzy and blasted the attacks with beams of eldritch enregy (assuming you mean to take eldritch blast). The ritual ends prematurely, in the aftermath of the battle the temple staff (be they clerics, other warlocks, monks of the sun soul or divine soul sorcerers) praise the guard as being touched/blessed by the divine and start to help him learn how to control his powers. SO you could say the celestial patron is perm dead and not reforming on the celstial planes, but as a DM I would likely expect some sort of roleplay from the player where that celestial nature colours their actions as "Being connected to such power can cause changes in your behavior and beliefs" (quote from Xanathars guide).
Point taken. Thanks for the reply.
still, my point was to present a case of stolen power (in this case accidentally). Your example works better than mine. But there are ways to stumble on such power either accidentally or to deliberately steal such power.
I'm trying to come up with a way to do just that with a Hexblade. All my mind can come up with is a youth stumbling into a graveyard at a time when the barriers to the shadow real were weak. Black Razor stabbed the boy (it didn't intend to, it wanted to make the bargain), and the boy survived staggering to a nearby temple where he was healed. without a bargain, he ended up with powers.
I find it much easier to come up with an accidental gain of power than a deliberate, premeditated stealing of power.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
this has intrigued me. It frees up the character from being beholden to a potentially monstrous master.
I can see a warlock stealing power from a Great Old One who either didn't care, or was so alien he had no idea what happened.
BUT. what about a Celestial, a Hexblade, or the others? I haven't the foggiest idea how to go about this...or what consequences might be involved.
I've had an issue with warlocks trying to get a pact without actually having a pact since I started in 5e.
My reason is the definiton of pact is "a formal agreement between individuals or parties" therefore you cannot enter a pact without both warlock and patron being aware. I would probably allow a warlock player to take level 1 & 2 Warlock and get away with the patron not being aware but the moment you want to take lvl3+ the patron becomes aware of the mortal siphoning its power, for instance, the familiar from the pact of chain is actually a manifestation of the patron in the material realm, whatever the familiar sees/heres/knows the patron sees/hears/knows and potentially feels, so if the warlock constantly sends the familiar in to trigger traps the patron may get annoyed by all those little stings it gets and decide to makes itself known.
I think the mechanic i would use if a player really wanted to have a patron that was not aware of the pact would be similar to the cleric divine intervention, every week either DM or player rolls a d100 and subtract the level of their spell slot or highest mystic arcanum spell, if the roll equals or is lower than your warlock level the patron becomes aware of you and then we look at in game rammifications. This might be the Great Old One you were getting your spells from sends a wave of far realm magic into you and mutates you in a lovecraftian manner or you start turing into a star spwn, Fiends may break the pact and take your soul as a fine for stealing magic so if you die you cannot be restored to life without their permission, Archfey may curse you with various effects such as animal features or uncontrolled outbursts of laughter, Hexblades may find they lose their weapon skills until a certain creature or entity is killed by them, Celestials may send the warlock off to do a pilgramage of holy sites to beg forgiveness form clerics or holy people.
That way you have the possibility that the patron does become aware and isn't reduced to some foot note in a backstory and the Warlock does then have the fear that some day their power will come back to bite them.
Fortunately for the rest of us, WotC has clarified that their assumption is that the terms of the deal are completed. Warlocks are a bag of interesting mechanics, not something where you, as the DM, get to try and railroad my character. Why do you think that it's fair that you get to lord something over warlock players, and don't do the same thing to fighters? The answer is, it is not. If the player doesn't want to RP the relationship with the patron, it's your job as the DM to accept that and let them play the class that they want.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I've not mentioned this mechanic with a view of "railroading" any player but it can serve as a plot hook/device. I did say if such a roll took place and the patron became aware of the warlock then we would discuss in game rammifications and then gave some, albeit extreme, examples of possible rammifications. This would not mean that you as a DM would have to introduce the patron then and there, you can build a story around it. The rammifications could just be the patron turns up a few days later and tells the warlcok to keep the noise down as the patron is trying to sleep, maybe it just sends another warlock out to track you down and ask you some questions or maybe it does do something more severe.
With regard to the question "Why do you think that it's fair that you get to lord something over warlock players, and don't do the same thing to fighters?" No lording is intended, its a game mechanic that might be useful thats all story dependant, i took the view that it is possible that the more power a warlock amasses the more their patron may become aware of them. Whilst character backstory is largely just fluff in terms of pre made or official adventures/campaigns settings if I am running something homebrewed/self written and soemone playing a fighter had in their backstory they were hired to kill a merchants wife but they let the wife go free and lied to the merchant the deed was done and walked off with a couple of thousand gold pieces, does that mean I should never use or refernece that merchant? or that i shouldn't decide to have that as plot device at some stage? If a Rogue player says they spend all their downtime breaking into homes and stealing things should there not be a chance the home owner comes back and catches them or a roving patrol of town watch might happen by as they exit the building? And should I not ask them to RP the trial?.
Ultimately I've not had a player want to play a warlock whose patron is not aware of them and that wasn't up for a bit of roleplay with their patron so this all just me thinking about a given question.
Backstory is always potential plot hooks. So if the DM is fine with it, let the player run with it. Where with a conventional pact there is always the potential the patron wants the warlock to do something for them, with this background there is a similar potential. What happens if the patron does become aware? As the warlock gains more power the likelihood would go up as well. The warlock could have visions as the patron is reaching out to understand who is this being they are fueling. There are plenty of possibilities.
OK, let me bounce this off of you.
Good temple is trying to summon a Celestial to deliver a petition for help: the Town is under attack.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
The guard has great pain in his arm for a few days. The temple is unable to heal it. The guard expresses eldritch energies, and is taught the basic of the warlock class by the temple. The Celestial is unaware of the exchange of power and exerts no influence. Further the Celestial is not able to reach the prime on his own, nor is he aware of any energy loss.
wala: here is an example of a warlock gaining his power by accident and the patron is unaware.
Since he is book taught, we could say the patron is his Temple. OR he could join adventurers right away and stumble into his powers.
There, stolen power. What do you think.
to play Asmodeus' advocate, there are few plot holes to plug.....
You have a town under attack, the temple tries to summon a celestial to deliver a petition for aid.
So what you have is a temple, summoning a celestial messenger, during an attack, to take a request back to the celestial planes in the hopes other celestials will planeshift into the town in the nic of time.
A battle breaks out and spills into the temple. A town guardsman fights off the attackers and falls backwards into the summoning circle just as the Celestial appears. for a moment, his right arm occupies the same space as the Celestial. The heroic efforts of the guard saves the temple and the Celestial (not the power giving type, but in more of a clerical position), takes the position and delivers it. The town is saved.
This renders the summoning of the celestial a bit pointless. You say the guards heoric efforts save the temple and the Celestial departs with the petition for aid which is no longe needed as the guard has already saved everyone. I think I would word it more as the celestial was summoned but the interaction of the guard with the circle killed the celestial as it was forming on the mateial plane and some of its celestial nature imbued itself into the guard who then went into a magically infused kill frenzy and blasted the attacks with beams of eldritch enregy (assuming you mean to take eldritch blast). The ritual ends prematurely, in the aftermath of the battle the temple staff (be they clerics, other warlocks, monks of the sun soul or divine soul sorcerers) praise the guard as being touched/blessed by the divine and start to help him learn how to control his powers. SO you could say the celestial patron is perm dead and not reforming on the celstial planes, but as a DM I would likely expect some sort of roleplay from the player where that celestial nature colours their actions as "Being connected to such power can cause changes in your behavior and beliefs" (quote from Xanathars guide).
Point taken. Thanks for the reply.
still, my point was to present a case of stolen power (in this case accidentally). Your example works better than mine. But there are ways to stumble on such power either accidentally or to deliberately steal such power.
I'm trying to come up with a way to do just that with a Hexblade. All my mind can come up with is a youth stumbling into a graveyard at a time when the barriers to the shadow real were weak. Black Razor stabbed the boy (it didn't intend to, it wanted to make the bargain), and the boy survived staggering to a nearby temple where he was healed. without a bargain, he ended up with powers.
I find it much easier to come up with an accidental gain of power than a deliberate, premeditated stealing of power.