If there’s one thing a Warlock knows, it’s how to make a bargain. While Warlocks received some pretty noticeable changes in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, the Warlocks must have made sure their patrons were part of the negotiating committee. Warlocks’ powerful patron magic has been shifted around, allowing you to access certain powers earlier and pack a more pronounced punch when you do. The 2024 Warlock also comes with an impressive and robust amount of customization by treating your Eldritch Invocations as an even larger smorgasbord of options than before.
Below, we cover key changes to the 2024 Warlock you’ll find in the new Player’s Handbook. If there’s a feature we don’t cover, such as Pact Magic, that means it remains unchanged or saw minor changes.
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2024 Warlock Class Features Overview

Eldritch Invocations — Level 1
One of the first noticeable changes to the 2024 Warlock is that you get access to your first Eldritch Invocation at Warlock level 1 now instead of level 2. Overall, Eldritch Invocations have received a major overhaul, with key changes including several quality-of-life updates. Let’s take a look at some of the big shifts.
Pact Boons Are Now Eldritch Invocations
In the 2014 Warlock, your Pact Boon, such as Pact of the Blade, Pact of the Tome, or Pact of the Chain, was a separate feature bestowed at level 3. In the 2024 Warlock, the Pact Boon feature is gone, and these pacts are now options you can choose as part of your Eldritch Invocations. In the 2014 Warlock, further improvements to your Pact Boon were accessible via invocations, such as Gift of the Protectors, Investment of the Chain Master, and Thirsting Blade. So rolling Pact Boons entirely into Eldritch Invocations simplifies the structure while preserving the mechanics.
There are two really important and beneficial aspects to this shift. First, you no longer have to choose between them. All three of the former Pact Boon options can be selected as you level up and gain access to more invocations. So, you could have a pact weapon via Pact of the Blade, a familiar via Pact of the Chain, and a Book of Shadows from Pact of the Tome.
Second, while some Eldritch Invocations do carry prerequisite levels, such as Agonizing Blast, which requires you to be a level 2+ Warlock, the former Pact Boon invocations do not. This means you can select from a familiar, Book of Shadows, or pact weapon as early as level 1. The 2014 Player’s Handbook had these features arrive at level 3, so you’re getting them 2 levels earlier for the 2024 Warlock.
More Eldritch Invocations
Seeing as you get an invocation at level 1, and the progression has been expedited, 2024 Warlocks will have access to more invocations than their 2014 counterpart, maxing out at 10 when they hit level 18.
As with the older version of the Warlock, whenever you gain a Warlock level, you can replace one invocation with another as long as it isn’t a prerequisite for another invocation that you have.
Some Eldritch Invocations Can Be Repeated
Popular Eldritch Invocations for Warlocks like Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast are still here but with a couple of big changes.
First, they are no longer limited to Eldritch Blast. Instead, you choose one of your known Warlock cantrips that deals damage, and now you can add your Charisma modifier to that damage roll. So now you can boost damage for Toll the Dead or Thunderclap with Agonizing Blast if that suits your Warlock build better than Eldritch Blast. Note, however, that Repelling Blast is restricted to cantrips that deal damage via an attack roll.
Next, you can select these invocations multiple times when adding new Eldritch Invocations. So if you’re trying to build a cantrip powerhouse, you could add Agonizing Blast or Repelling Blast to multiple cantrips. But of course, you still can use it for Eldritch Blast because, let’s face it, if you’re a Warlock, you’re probably going to want to.
Spell Slots? Who Needs ‘em?
With the exception of Eldritch Smite, which deals a significant amount of damage and gives an enemy the Prone condition, none of the 2024 Player’s Handbook Eldritch Invocations carry the "using a Warlock spell slot" description. You still have spell slots for your Pact Magic, but they largely no longer fuel the invocations you get from your patron. Instead, your Eldritch Invocations feel like a wholly separate power branch unique to the Warlock class.
The customization allowed via these changes to invocations makes the 2024 Warlock feel more like someone who has pored over contracts with their patron and selected the powers best suited to them.
Magical Cunning — Level 2
The Warlock's Pact Magic and spell slot progression works the same way for the 2024 Warlock as it did for 2014. You also can still recover expended spell slots at the end of a Short or Long Rest. Magical Cunning gives you another way to recover your Warlock spell slots, however. Now, once per Long Rest, you can use this feature to spend 1 minute on a ritual that restores half of your maximum spell slots, rounded up.
The Eldritch Master feature granted at level 20 still allows you to regain all of your Pact Magic spell slots, but flavor-wise, it is now considered a more powerful version of this level 2 feature.
Warlock Subclass — Level 3

At level 3, your 2024 Warlock gains their subclass. While Warlocks used to get their subclass at level 1, this brings the Warlock in line with the other class options in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, which will make it easier for a party of players to manage their levels and for a DM to keep track of player advancement.
The Archfey, Fiend, and Great Old One Patrons all received substantial overhauls, updates to their always-prepared spell lists, quality-of-life changes, and tweaks that bring them more in line with their flavor concepts. Also, in 2014, a subclass's Expanded Spell List only added the listed spells to your Warlock spell list. In 2024, the listed spells are added to your Warlock spell list and they're always prepared for you. A considerable upgrade!
- Archfey Patron: The Archfey Patron subclass leans more into the Feywild nature of your patron. Misty Step is added to your prepared spell list, and many of the features of this subclass give you extra uses of the spell, along with healing bonuses and damage effects on enemies when you use it. Beguiling Defenses has also been updated to reduce damage you take and inflict damage with a Reaction.
- Celestial Patron: This subclass, which originally appeared in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, has been revised for its inclusion in the 2024 Player's Handbook. Its spell list now includes Aid (which replaces Flaming Sphere) and Summon Celestial (which replaces Flame Strike). Radiant Soul is now limited to just once per turn. Celestial Resilience now also grants Temporary Hit Points when you finish your Magical Cunning ritual or complete a Short or Long Rest. Searing Vengeance can now apply to you or an ally.
- Fiend Patron: Dark One’s Blessing now also grants you Temporary Hit Points if someone else reduces an enemy to 0 Hit Points within 10 feet of you. On the Fiend Spells list, Blindness/Deafness has been replaced by Suggestion, and Flame Strike and Hallow have been replaced by Geas and Insect Plague. Instead of once per Long Rest, you can use Dark One’s Own Luck a number of times per Long Rest equal to your Charisma modifier. Hurl Through Hell now requires a Charisma save and deals 8d10 Psychic damage instead of 10d10, but in addition to once per Long Rest, you can now use this feature again by expending a Pact Magic spell slot.
- Great Old One Patron: The Great One One Patron has received the biggest changes to any of the 2024 Warlock subclasses and now is much more heavily focused on the Lovecraftian, eldritch horror elements of it. The features of this subclass now are heavily centered on using your patron’s powers to curse your enemies with Hex, break their minds with Psychic damage, and even unleash aberrant horrors on the battlefield.
Contact Patron — Level 9
The 2024 Player’s Handbook has a brand new feature for Warlocks that ties directly into your role as the recipient of power from a patron. Starting at level 9, every 2024 Warlock has the ability to reach out and contact their patron directly once per Long Rest. This feature grants you the spell Contact Other Plane as an always-prepared spell. You can use the spell once per day to contact your patron without expending a spell slot, and you automatically succeed on the Intelligence saving throw required to complete the spell. So, go ahead and ask your patron if you can have cake for dinner. You deserve it.
Mystic Arcanum — Level 11
Mystic Arcanum functions and progresses the same as it did for the 2014 Warlock with one extra benefit. Whenever you gain a Warlock level beyond 11, you may replace one of your arcanum spells with another of the same level.
Epic Boon — Level 19
Epic Boons are a new type of feat introduced in the revised core ruleset, that all carry a prerequisite of level 19+ to access. A level 19 Warlock has access to one Epic Boon of their choice or another feat they qualify for. There are twelve Epic Boons found in the 2024 Player’s Handbook.
The following is the recommended Epic Boon for a 2024 Warlock:
- Boon of Fate: Increase one ability score of 1 to a maximum of 30. When you or another creature within 60 feet of you succeeds or fails on a D20 Test, you can roll 2d4 and add or subtract the result from the d20 roll. Once you use this feat, you can’t use it again until you complete a Short Rest, a Long Rest, or roll for Initiative.
What a Deal!
The 2024 Player's Handbook is now available on the D&D Beyond marketplace, which means it's time to set out on new adventures with fresh or familiar characters!
The updates to the 2024 Player’s Handbook for Warlocks pack a lot of changes into the earlier levels and then allow you to settle into a more familiar level progression as you develop. The changes really lean heavily into the chosen flavor of your Warlock and their relationship to their patron. Does your pact mean you’re a cunning swordslinger, slicing your way through your enemies fueled by your Charisma? Do you want to zip across the battlefield hopped up on Feywild magic? Or do you want to use powerful psychic magic to weaken your enemies and bring them to heel? With the 2024 Warlock, the choice is yours.
We’re delighted to share with you the changes to fifth edition D&D that appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Make sure to keep an eye out on D&D Beyond for more useful guides on using the wealth of new options, rules, and mechanics found in the 2024 Player's Handbook!

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
This article was updated on August 13, 2024, to issue corrections or expand coverage for the following features and subclasses:
- Warlock Subclass: Added that the spells on the Warlock subclass's spell lists are always prepared.
- Warlock Subclass (Celestial Patron): Clarified that the Celestial Patron has been brought from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Also expanded coverage to detail all the updates to this subclass.
- Warlock Subclass (Fiend Patron): Expanded coverage to detail all the updates to this subclass.
- Mystic Arcanum: Cut text stating that the Eldritch Versatility option in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has effectively been brought to the base class. This feature only allowed you to update Mystic Arcanum spells at levels 16 and 19.
Any confirmation on whether Pact of the Blade invocation allows CHA for attack rolls?
Yes it has been confirmed.
The 1 level warlock dip for paladins lives on.
I am very sad by the state of invocations that has been revealed. JC stated outright in the warlock video a month or so ago that all invocations that granted a learned spell also were granted a free casting per long rest. This gave many of us hope for a nice buff to things like Thief of Five Fates or Sculptor of Flesh which was already a popular homebrew. Instead nearly all of those invocations have been cut completely. Along with the nerfs to Tome Pact, the complete lack of balance between the Chain pact options and the fake extra invocations, I really do not see the math in how people like Treantmonk are claiming this is a massive buff.
Has someone posted the stat blocks for the familiar options? If so I'd love to see them or are you just assuming they be the same as the current versions? I know they have all been reprinted in the new PHB.
As for the invocations/pact boons, it seems that WotC has forgotten that not every Warlock wants to be a Bladelock. Making a non-martial warlock is completely pointless now. Only 2 pact of the Tome invocations and they are weaker than the UA versions and not really worth taking.
How do warlocks not know who they've bargained with as a patron till level 3? I've been unimpressed with much of these 2024 changes as far as how they'll impact naratively.
If your a new player that hasn't decided your subclass yet you can role play it this way but if you know what subclass you're going to play you can simply role play it as you need to prove yourself worthy of the pact before your patron gives you their patron specific benefits. It's not that hard to do. To be honest I think it actually adds to the quality of the role play.
It's actually tiring how many 1 dip hexblade warlocks I've seen who don't even bother roleplaying their pact at all.
Just dropping in a plug for the old UA Eldritch Armor invocation to make a formal return. Thematic, useful, but not too overpowering. (Though with Pact of the Blade (UA) not giving medium armor like Hexblade used to it may be overpowered; or it may become even more needed.) Even if they limit it to medium armor (and shields) only.
There's a theme for the undercover hexblade able to summon a magic sword and armor (of shadows), and another theme for the paladin-light Pact of the Blade & Eldritch Armor (medium) celestial warlock. (Without doing a 1-2 level paladin/warlock dip-dance at the start.) I mean, why let Pact of the Blade let you " use [your weapon] as a spellcasting focus" if you can't put a shield on your off hand anyway?
RPG Bot posted a change log and he was one of the content creators with early access to the PHB so I am assuming he is accurate. This is where I am drawing the conclusion on lack of balance between the chain pact options.
https://rpgbot.net/2024-dnd-5e-transition-guide-and-change-log-everything-thats-different-in-the-new-players-handbook/
Fully agree on the 1 level Hexblade dip.
“Wow Paladin! Tell me how you have a sword powered by the shadowfell?”
”What do you mean you don’t know? You’re a Devotion paladin devoted to a god of light! There has to be an interesting story on how you got a sword that literally is powered by darkness magic.”
”Right….no story reason….just didn’t want to invest in your strength score…..yeah no I get it. No I didn’t forbid multiclassing….You do see how those two subclasses have conflicting lore right?”
Ever heard about Celestial Warlock?
They don't want to play a Celestial Warlock because it doesn't allow you to use your Charisma to attack with your pact weapon.
Well, it does now.
But it is a moot point. Flavor is mutable. If a player is creative with backstory, I can perfectly accept Hexblade who is not "powered by darkness magic".
Or the most obvious and totally lazy explanation "I was a disciple of darkness, but I repented, saw the light and now I use the dark secrets I learnt for The Good"
The lore is the easiest part, if you make some minimal effort nothing is conflicting there.
And yet....people often will not make that minimal effort. Flavor is free but it's the player's job to address the flavor of how they got their powers, not the DM's.
I like the extra access to EIs and I like that you can get multiple of the old pact boons (makes the whole replacing one of your actions with an attack from your familiar viable without multi-classing for extra attack) and the whole your patron gives you your extra spell list permanently is great, most of the other additions are pretty solid and give either better infrastructure for roleplay (e.g. the ability to contact your patron using an actual gameplay ability) or more spells without worrying about making the entire party take a 1 hour break (e.g. the weaker version of arcane recovery), my one issue is with changing it so subclasses are selected at 3rd level, I've always had to do way too much mental gymnastics to justify paladins choosing their oath at 3rd level (I justify it as saying they're divine soul sorcerers who work out, their abilities are innate and their oath just gives them direction) so having to do more mental gymnastics to justify warlocks choosing their patron at 3rd level is annoying and a seemingly pointless change, I've seen some explanations for it that I actually like, but honestly I'll probably home rule it that you choose your patron at 1st level, also helps hexblades feel like hexblades asap... Still waiting on more EIs, spells or subclass features that work with Relentless Hex and Maddening Hex, especially if you can have multiple effects like that up at a time (current max is hex, hexblades curse, and sign of ill omen, which only works at 9th level or higher since bestow curse doesn't require concentration at spell level 5 or higher... Wait, that probably doesn't use warlock spell slots anymore... Shit)
Officially moving all subclasses to 3rd level was done to make it easier for new players but I'm 99.9% sure that the real reason was to stop broken multiclass options like Hex Blade. You got WAY too much from a one level dip and it needed to be nerfed. Why do you think it was so popular? I personally think Hex blade is easily the least interesting of the Patrons thematically but mechanically it was awesome! Well at least at level 1, afterwards it drops off a bit.
You can easily explain it with role play. Your patron won't trust you with their unique powers until you demonstrated that you can handle the basic stuff. I mean nearly every job works this way. There is usually a probation period. Thanks to the EI at level one you can still attack with your Charisma but you don't get Medium Armor & Shields, your Hexblades curse, patron spells, etc... until level 3. This change also makes it so that a martial Warlock doesn't HAVE TO BE a Hexblade you can now select any Patron and make it work.
Full casters learning first level spells at third level is just poor design.
Personally I disagree. I'd rather have them at level 3 then not get them at all. Early in the play test they just gave us the 2nd level spells (for the Cleric's Domain Spells). The player base complained and asked for the 1st level spell as well when we hit level 3. So it's not them to blame; it us. We literally got what we asked for.
A core aspect of the Wizard class is being able to constantly build their known spell list including lower level spells and they are widely considered an S-Tier class. Claiming one of the most popular features in the game is “poor design” is certainly a take…
Without a Hexblade patron as an option, can Pact of the Blade warlocks still take medium armour?