I’m running into issues with my level 3 daolock in a play-by-post Out of the Abyss campaign. I really enjoy the character as I put a lot of effort into his backstory and personality, but I feel almost useless. I do alright in combat with EB and the occasional Mind Spike. Out of combat is a different issue. My skills tend to lean more on social aspect of the game, but so far it hasn’t come up at all. I’ve tried to take more utility spells and picked up Pact of the Tome with Book of Ancient Secrets to give myself some options since PBP tends to be less combat heavy. Aside from one or two clever uses of Bottled Respite, I don’t seem to have much to contribute. The current party is a Alchemist Artificer, Forge Cleric, a Ranger (don’t remember subclass), and Path of Giant Barbarian. I don’t know if I should just stick it out, multiclass, or scrap the character. It could just be an issue with how I’m looking at everything as well. Any advise on becoming a useful member of the party would be greatly appreciated.
What is your other invocation, and your proficiencies? Is it that case that you were planning to have social utility and you are just exploring and fighting?
As a Tomelock have you looked for more rituals? identify, detect magic, find familiar, things that could make you the ‘guy in the chair’ of the party?
What is it that makes you feel useless, can you think of a specific time, or link the start of a section where you think it’s well demonstrated? Is it lack of damage, lack of ‘big moments’. What would success look like to you?
I’m very invested in this, as I’ve just started a couple of genie locks in two pbp games, to see what they’re like. One level 1 and one level 3. The level 3 is a tomelock with find familiar and alarm, then purify food and water, and Comprehend languages.
Also I notice that you don’t have Hex. Is that a conscious and particular choice?
My other invocation is Devil’s Sight right now. I had agonizing blast, but swapped it when I got Tome. Proficiencies are deception, intimidation, investigation, persuasion, slight of hand, and stealth. With our party comp I assumed I’d take the general face role as the character is kind of a charming troublemaker, but besides the group there isn’t much social interaction.
I haven’t found any more rituals, but it we move fairly slow. I planned on pretty much taking any spell scrolls/books that have rituals, which the party is in support of.
I’m not worried about damage as genies wrath helps and everybody seems to be keeping pace with each other. There isn’t a specific time that I’m struggling with, but at this point I think there have been 3 total rolls for any of the social skills among the whole party. I feel like my “face role” just doesn’t have any use. The Ranger and barbarian are keeping the party fed, the artificer is giving buffs and has a good variety of utility, and the cleric has heals and uses their channel divinity to outfit the party.
I didn’t pick up Hex because I’m keeping up with damage and I wanted to get some out of combat spells.
My other invocation is Devil’s Sight right now. I had agonizing blast, but swapped it when I got Tome. Proficiencies are deception, intimidation, investigation, persuasion, slight of hand, and stealth. With our party comp I assumed I’d take the general face role as the character is kind of a charming troublemaker, but besides the group there isn’t much social interaction.
I haven’t found any more rituals, but it we move fairly slow. I planned on pretty much taking any spell scrolls/books that have rituals, which the party is in support of.
I’m not worried about damage as genies wrath helps and everybody seems to be keeping pace with each other. There isn’t a specific time that I’m struggling with, but at this point I think there have been 3 total rolls for any of the social skills among the whole party. I feel like my “face role” just doesn’t have any use. The Ranger and barbarian are keeping the party fed, the artificer is giving buffs and has a good variety of utility, and the cleric has heals and uses their channel divinity to outfit the party.
I didn’t pick up Hex because I’m keeping up with damage and I wanted to get some out of combat spells.
I suppose there are two major obstacles from enjoying the character you envisaged playing the way you wanted to play it.
1) The social situations so far are all intra-group and so don't need checks, don't need you to identify clever solutions etc. etc.
2) You've already made your spell choices and cantrip and ritual choices, so you'd have to get to level 4 to begin turning the ship towards something else.
The easiest way to fix this would be to raise your concerns with your GM about not enjoying the way the character plays at the moment as thing stands, but it may be helpful to head into the discussion with a plan on how you could swing things around to be closer to what you wanted, while adapting what you wanted to be something you can enjoy in the campaign that you're in and the way that it's being run.
You've got a Cleric, so I presume he's got Spare the Dying and Guidance, which are two good ways to feel important and helpful and like you come through with a non-combat clutch in a key moment.
I guess my suggestion would be, if you find that there's not situations where your charisma rolls are directly affecting things, see if you can apply your Charisma based character's thinking and personality to situations where those rolls aren't needed, but you're basically creating a similar situation. If you're not getting much use from mending, because your group is together and you don't have much social scenes, consider asking your DM if you can swap things out.
Mending (things don't often break, and you can get a ritual Unseen Servant for mending simple things) for minor illusion.
Message (if you're not using it much) for either 1) Friends [You don't have Charm Person/Suggestion, so this could be a way to force your way into social encounters that will soon be hostile after 1 minute/a social hook] or 2) Mage hand.
Which leads me to Devil's Sight. You're reborn - so I don't know if you have an ancestral legacy, (presumably not, having gone for it), but how much is dark vision offering you at the moment. Is it necessary for the campaign? Is it necessary for combat in the campaign? The classic warlock combo is Darkness and Devil's sight for a huge advantage bonus, but you're not playing this character for maximal damage output, so is that the play for you?
If you're not relying on Dark Vision in combat frequently, in a way that can't just be sorted out with torches, then you could replicate the benefit by changing one of your rituals for Find Familiar (Owl for Darksight 120ft, Bat for Blindsight 60ft) and share your senses with them when in a dank and dreary place. How often are you using Tenser's floating disk, especially when you have the class's genie ring for storage?
If you were able to swap out that Devil's sight you have a host of options.
Unlimited Mask of Many Face's at will casting of disguise self means you can cast the friends cantrip all day long as some fictional person (or person you don't like) and turn someone hostile to them after you slip round a corner and take on someone elses face. Unlimited Silent Image with Misty Visions is only limited by your imagination and common decency to the other players and your DM. With minor illusion you can even add sounds to it. Create yourself a body guard, create fake bridges over gaps for enemies to flee on, create things to hide behind, create non-combat sounds in the distance, etc. etc.
These are the two most famous at will social spells that I think might make a huge different to your play, but look through the eldritch invocations for at will spells that don't require a spell slot. Expanding your spell options in terms of utility, in a way that gives you lasting options (in the way a familiar would) will give you a lot more room to play/more options in your campaign.
Similarly, at 4, consider feats that give you spells. Shadow-touched as a half feat gives you +1 cha. It also gives you invisibility (so you can swap your current invisibility out for a different spell - possibly an illusion or enchantment spell, so again you can aim at what you want, creating social fun, like Suggestion - with in combat utility), and a 1st level spell from two schools (you could choose disguise self if you went for misty visions - silent image). The feat would give you free 1/LR castings, but also can be cast with your spell slots when desired.
All this will take much longer to do playing through to 4 and fixing with level ups, and ritual collecting, so hopefully your DM agrees.
It sounds to me like (by removing your Ag blast, no hex + disadvantage for spell saves etc.) you aren't a combat beast, but with no social you're also not a Charisma beast. You're keeping 'pace' but you don't feel special, you don't feel like you have anything that makes you a unique and vital part of the group offering things to the others that they need. The above would be a big play style difference, and might make you feel more unique, if you find it fun. It's that or quit, really, cus why do it if it's not fun?
The beast speech invocation will let you use your social skills with animals, usually. You can recruit them and build an information network if that's relevant. Not sure why there are no NPC's to interact with but maybe you're stuck in the wilderness?
Talk to the DM and other casters regarding rituals. It’s within the game rules for characters with arcana proficiency to create spell scrolls from their lists of known/prepared spells.
Book of secrets warlock has the potential to be the best ritual caster in the game, even better than wizards. Tbe feature bypasses class restrictions and you have two prepared casters as party members. With their help and the consent of the DM it should be relatively easy to spend time copying their spells, just time and money.
this also can relieve some of the pressure from the teammates since their classes have to prepare the rituals to use them.
Like the others are saying: you are more likely the face of the group and helping in charisma and sozial situations.
I wouldnt see it as bad, that it looks like you dont make very much damage at the start but if you want more damage then you can get agonizing blast back. Devil sight is nice, but in my opinion if someone in the group already has not darkvision then you both need lights. If you take the blast you make at least 4 Damage with your blast if it hits and the dpr so should be 9 without the other spells (I think).
If you are level 4 you can then boost your charisma and dexterity for more ac + damage. Just lean more into the spells you get slowly your powerspike as a mage. At level 3 if you think you really need something I like the Summon shadowspawn. I think you can really flavor it as a Warlock and you got nice damage so long you hold concetration for 1 hour.
What I wrote is not very detailed but you are the one who gets the charisma up. If you dont get enough maby ask your dm if he can do something for it. Or go more into controll caster who tries to restrain, slow, grab or do other things with whem. Its not always the damage its the support sometimes too like some Bards
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I’m running into issues with my level 3 daolock in a play-by-post Out of the Abyss campaign. I really enjoy the character as I put a lot of effort into his backstory and personality, but I feel almost useless. I do alright in combat with EB and the occasional Mind Spike. Out of combat is a different issue. My skills tend to lean more on social aspect of the game, but so far it hasn’t come up at all. I’ve tried to take more utility spells and picked up Pact of the Tome with Book of Ancient Secrets to give myself some options since PBP tends to be less combat heavy. Aside from one or two clever uses of Bottled Respite, I don’t seem to have much to contribute. The current party is a Alchemist Artificer, Forge Cleric, a Ranger (don’t remember subclass), and Path of Giant Barbarian. I don’t know if I should just stick it out, multiclass, or scrap the character. It could just be an issue with how I’m looking at everything as well. Any advise on becoming a useful member of the party would be greatly appreciated.
Reborn Daolock
Str 8 Dex 13 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 17
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mending, Message, Mold Earth, Prestidigitation
Rituals: Purify Food and Drink, Tenser’s Floating Disk
Spells: Armor of Agathys, Fog Cloud, Invisibility, Mind Spike
What is your other invocation, and your proficiencies? Is it that case that you were planning to have social utility and you are just exploring and fighting?
As a Tomelock have you looked for more rituals? identify, detect magic, find familiar, things that could make you the ‘guy in the chair’ of the party?
What is it that makes you feel useless, can you think of a specific time, or link the start of a section where you think it’s well demonstrated? Is it lack of damage, lack of ‘big moments’. What would success look like to you?
I’m very invested in this, as I’ve just started a couple of genie locks in two pbp games, to see what they’re like. One level 1 and one level 3. The level 3 is a tomelock with find familiar and alarm, then purify food and water, and Comprehend languages.
Also I notice that you don’t have Hex. Is that a conscious and particular choice?
My other invocation is Devil’s Sight right now. I had agonizing blast, but swapped it when I got Tome. Proficiencies are deception, intimidation, investigation, persuasion, slight of hand, and stealth. With our party comp I assumed I’d take the general face role as the character is kind of a charming troublemaker, but besides the group there isn’t much social interaction.
I haven’t found any more rituals, but it we move fairly slow. I planned on pretty much taking any spell scrolls/books that have rituals, which the party is in support of.
I’m not worried about damage as genies wrath helps and everybody seems to be keeping pace with each other. There isn’t a specific time that I’m struggling with, but at this point I think there have been 3 total rolls for any of the social skills among the whole party. I feel like my “face role” just doesn’t have any use. The Ranger and barbarian are keeping the party fed, the artificer is giving buffs and has a good variety of utility, and the cleric has heals and uses their channel divinity to outfit the party.
I didn’t pick up Hex because I’m keeping up with damage and I wanted to get some out of combat spells.
I suppose there are two major obstacles from enjoying the character you envisaged playing the way you wanted to play it.
1) The social situations so far are all intra-group and so don't need checks, don't need you to identify clever solutions etc. etc.
2) You've already made your spell choices and cantrip and ritual choices, so you'd have to get to level 4 to begin turning the ship towards something else.
The easiest way to fix this would be to raise your concerns with your GM about not enjoying the way the character plays at the moment as thing stands, but it may be helpful to head into the discussion with a plan on how you could swing things around to be closer to what you wanted, while adapting what you wanted to be something you can enjoy in the campaign that you're in and the way that it's being run.
You've got a Cleric, so I presume he's got Spare the Dying and Guidance, which are two good ways to feel important and helpful and like you come through with a non-combat clutch in a key moment.
I guess my suggestion would be, if you find that there's not situations where your charisma rolls are directly affecting things, see if you can apply your Charisma based character's thinking and personality to situations where those rolls aren't needed, but you're basically creating a similar situation. If you're not getting much use from mending, because your group is together and you don't have much social scenes, consider asking your DM if you can swap things out.
Mending (things don't often break, and you can get a ritual Unseen Servant for mending simple things) for minor illusion.
Message (if you're not using it much) for either 1) Friends [You don't have Charm Person/Suggestion, so this could be a way to force your way into social encounters that will soon be hostile after 1 minute/a social hook] or 2) Mage hand.
Which leads me to Devil's Sight. You're reborn - so I don't know if you have an ancestral legacy, (presumably not, having gone for it), but how much is dark vision offering you at the moment. Is it necessary for the campaign? Is it necessary for combat in the campaign? The classic warlock combo is Darkness and Devil's sight for a huge advantage bonus, but you're not playing this character for maximal damage output, so is that the play for you?
If you're not relying on Dark Vision in combat frequently, in a way that can't just be sorted out with torches, then you could replicate the benefit by changing one of your rituals for Find Familiar (Owl for Darksight 120ft, Bat for Blindsight 60ft) and share your senses with them when in a dank and dreary place. How often are you using Tenser's floating disk, especially when you have the class's genie ring for storage?
If you were able to swap out that Devil's sight you have a host of options.
Unlimited Mask of Many Face's at will casting of disguise self means you can cast the friends cantrip all day long as some fictional person (or person you don't like) and turn someone hostile to them after you slip round a corner and take on someone elses face. Unlimited Silent Image with Misty Visions is only limited by your imagination and common decency to the other players and your DM. With minor illusion you can even add sounds to it. Create yourself a body guard, create fake bridges over gaps for enemies to flee on, create things to hide behind, create non-combat sounds in the distance, etc. etc.
These are the two most famous at will social spells that I think might make a huge different to your play, but look through the eldritch invocations for at will spells that don't require a spell slot. Expanding your spell options in terms of utility, in a way that gives you lasting options (in the way a familiar would) will give you a lot more room to play/more options in your campaign.
Similarly, at 4, consider feats that give you spells. Shadow-touched as a half feat gives you +1 cha. It also gives you invisibility (so you can swap your current invisibility out for a different spell - possibly an illusion or enchantment spell, so again you can aim at what you want, creating social fun, like Suggestion - with in combat utility), and a 1st level spell from two schools (you could choose disguise self if you went for misty visions - silent image). The feat would give you free 1/LR castings, but also can be cast with your spell slots when desired.
All this will take much longer to do playing through to 4 and fixing with level ups, and ritual collecting, so hopefully your DM agrees.
It sounds to me like (by removing your Ag blast, no hex + disadvantage for spell saves etc.) you aren't a combat beast, but with no social you're also not a Charisma beast. You're keeping 'pace' but you don't feel special, you don't feel like you have anything that makes you a unique and vital part of the group offering things to the others that they need. The above would be a big play style difference, and might make you feel more unique, if you find it fun. It's that or quit, really, cus why do it if it's not fun?
The beast speech invocation will let you use your social skills with animals, usually. You can recruit them and build an information network if that's relevant. Not sure why there are no NPC's to interact with but maybe you're stuck in the wilderness?
it sounds like to me your character was built for RP, talk to your dm about it. Thats the only way your going to get anywhere.
Talk to the DM and other casters regarding rituals. It’s within the game rules for characters with arcana proficiency to create spell scrolls from their lists of known/prepared spells.
Book of secrets warlock has the potential to be the best ritual caster in the game, even better than wizards. Tbe feature bypasses class restrictions and you have two prepared casters as party members. With their help and the consent of the DM it should be relatively easy to spend time copying their spells, just time and money.
this also can relieve some of the pressure from the teammates since their classes have to prepare the rituals to use them.
Like the others are saying: you are more likely the face of the group and helping in charisma and sozial situations.
I wouldnt see it as bad, that it looks like you dont make very much damage at the start but if you want more damage then you can get agonizing blast back. Devil sight is nice, but in my opinion if someone in the group already has not darkvision then you both need lights. If you take the blast you make at least 4 Damage with your blast if it hits and the dpr so should be 9 without the other spells (I think).
If you are level 4 you can then boost your charisma and dexterity for more ac + damage. Just lean more into the spells you get slowly your powerspike as a mage. At level 3 if you think you really need something I like the Summon shadowspawn. I think you can really flavor it as a Warlock and you got nice damage so long you hold concetration for 1 hour.
What I wrote is not very detailed but you are the one who gets the charisma up. If you dont get enough maby ask your dm if he can do something for it. Or go more into controll caster who tries to restrain, slow, grab or do other things with whem. Its not always the damage its the support sometimes too like some Bards