Bitterheart Witch by Karl Kopinski
Last time, we started through the warlock’s nine subclasses. Now, we wrap up that journey. As a reminder, there are three main categories I am looking at as I judge the power level of each subclass: combat strength, allowance for a range of powerful builds, and how it interacts with multiclassing. So, let’s finish up the warlock with the final four entries.
4. Fathomless
Like the Undead replacing the Undying, Fathomless is essentially an upgraded version of the Great Old One. Like the GOO, Fathomless warlocks dabble in eldritch horrors, albeit more explicitly water-themed ones than the original. Much like the Undead, I think this is a significant upgrade from the original and renders the GOO subclass obsolete.
Level 1 – Expanded Spell List
The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | create or destroy water, thunderwave |
| 2nd | gust of wind, silence |
| 3rd | lightning bolt, sleet storm |
| 4th | control water, summon elemental (water only) |
| 5th | Bigby’s hand (appears as a tentacle), cone of cold |
This spell list is chock-full of good workhorse spells not normally available to warlocks. Lightning Bolt is the second-best blast option at 3rd level, Sleet Storm is an excellent control spell, Summon Elemental is a spell-slot-efficient source of damage, and Cone of Cold is the Fireball of 5th-level spells. None of these options would make a great spell list on their own, but put them together and the Fathomless has a solid spell package.
Level 1 – Tentacle of the Deeps
As a bonus action, you create a 10-foot-long tentacle at a point you can see within 60 feet of you. The tentacle lasts for 1 minute or until you use this feature to create another tentacle.
When you create the tentacle, you can make a melee spell attack against one creature within 10 feet of it. On a hit, the target takes 1d8 cold damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. When you reach 10th level in this class, the damage increases to 2d8.
As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the tentacle up to 30 feet and repeat the attack.
You can summon the tentacle a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Much like the cleric’s Spiritual Weapon spell, Tentacle of the Deeps is a decent bonus-action attack outlet for builds that don’t already have something they use that action for. Since all warlocks have access to the Hex spell, this feature will have competition. But against enemies that survive more than a round, this ability can stack with Hex’s damage. For less important fights, this feature allows the warlock to save one of their precious spell slots, which is quite valuable.
Level 1 – Gift of the Sea
You gain a swimming speed of 40 feet, and you can breathe underwater.
If you’re playing in a water-based campaign, this feature is awesome. For any other setting, this will be mostly flavor.
Level 6 – Oceanic Soul
You gain resistance to cold damage. In addition, when you are fully submerged, any creature that is also fully submerged can understand your speech, and you can understand theirs.
Cold isn’t the most common damage type in 5E, but I’ll never say no to a passive resistance. On top of that, the Fathomless warlock gets to be Aquaman.* It’s somewhat interesting that while the most common use case for this communication tool is talking with aquatic creatures, it technically works with anyone. Run into an insurmountable language barrier? Just get them in a hot tub with the warlock for a heart-to-heart.
Level 6 – Guardian Coil
When you or a creature you can see takes damage while within 10 feet of the tentacle, you can use your reaction to choose one of those creatures and reduce the damage to that creature by 1d8. When you reach 10th level in this class, the damage reduced by the tentacle increases to 2d8.
Much like Tentacle of the Deeps is a decent bonus-action ability, this is very similar for reactions. Since monoclassed warlocks don’t have the spell slots to burn on spells like Shield and Absorb Elements, Guardian Coil will probably see quite a bit of use due to a lack of competition. It’s not particularly strong, but it’s better than nothing.
Level 10 – Grasping Tentacles
You learn the spell Evard’s black tentacles. It counts as a warlock spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of spells you know. You can also cast it once without a spell slot, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.
Whenever you cast this spell, your patron’s magic bolsters you, granting you a number of temporary hit points equal to your warlock level. Moreover, damage can’t break your concentration on this spell.
Given how few spell slots warlocks have, an extra casting of a decent 4th-level spell is very nice. Evard’s Black Tentacles isn’t the best spell in the world, but assuming you can keep the enemy inside its effect, it can do a solid amount of damage per round. Throw some extra hit points and unbreakable concentration on top, and you get a good feature.
Level 14 – Fathomless Plunge
You can magically open temporary conduits to watery destinations. As an action, you can teleport yourself and up to five other willing creatures that you can see within 30 feet of you. Amid a whirl of tentacles, you all vanish and then reappear up to 1 mile away in a body of water you’ve seen (pond size or larger) or within 30 feet of it, each of you appearing in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of the others.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
As a GM, I resent this feature for forcing me to consider the number of pond-sized* bodies of water that are within a mile of the players at all times. As a player, I’m not particularly impressed either. This is a situational teleportation effect with no combat application outside of an escape route, not what I want to see in a subclass capstone. I’m also not a fan of how reliant this is on the terrain the warlock is in.
The Fathomless is a collection of solid features. If you’re looking for the Cthulhu-worshiping subclass, this will fill that niche. Outside of that, I find it serviceable, if a bit boring. Fourth place.
3. Fiend
From the depths of the ocean to the pits of hell, we have the Fiend. Despite its ancient origins,* this subclass has managed to maintain relevance among its younger peers.
Level 1 – Expanded Spell List
The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | burning hands, command |
| 2nd | blindness/deafness, scorching ray |
| 3rd | fireball, stinking cloud |
| 4th | fire shield, wall of fire |
| 5th | flame strike, hallow |
Much of this relevancy can be summed up by “short-rest Fireballs.” When it’s acquired, Fireball is one of the best spells in the game, and the ability to cast it twice per short rest is incredibly good. Even at higher levels, Fireball is still a decent damage spell. The rest of this feature is very bad, but the single standout spell is enough to make this expanded list extremely good.
Level 1 – Dark One’s Blessing
When you reduce a hostile creature to 0 hit points, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level (minimum of 1).
A renewable source of temporary hit points is another good feature. Depending on how your GM interprets hostile, this ability could allow the Fiend to replenish this pool of temp HP between encounters by attacking random critters. However, even a strict reading allows for a solid boost to hit points throughout a battle.
Level 6 – Dark One’s Own Luck
When you make an ability check or a saving throw, you can use this feature to add a d10 to your roll. You can do so after seeing the initial roll but before any of the roll’s effects occur.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
A single d10 per rest is far too weak for a 6th-level ability. If the number of uses was equal to a charisma or proficiency modifier, that would be solid. In its current form, this feature is bad.
Level 10 – Fiendish Resilience
You can choose one damage type when you finish a short or long rest. You gain resistance to that damage type until you choose a different one with this feature. Damage from magical weapons or silver weapons ignores this resistance.
A resistance makes for a good feature, and the ability to pick that resistance makes for a great one. This ability even allows for selection of the physical damage types.* On average, bludgeoning is the most common monster damage type in the game, and since almost no monsters have silver or magic weapons, this translates to a lot of extra health in many encounters.
Level 14 – Hurl Through Hell
When you hit a creature with an attack, you can use this feature to instantly transport the target through the lower planes. The creature disappears and hurtles through a nightmare landscape.
At the end of your next turn, the target returns to the space it previously occupied, or the nearest unoccupied space. If the target is not a fiend, it takes 10d10 psychic damage as it reels from its horrific experience.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest
Assuming you’re not fighting fiends, this feature is a good single-target damage option that also banishes your target for a round. The biggest issue with Hurl Through Hell is how limited its usage is. It’ll feel good to use this ability, but that feeling won’t come up too often. Personally, I would have preferred a bit less damage in exchange for more uses.
The Fiend isn’t a terribly complicated subclass. It gets one of the best blast spells in the game and makes the warlock significantly more resilient. From hell’s heart, I grant this subclass third place.
2. Hexblade
Figuring out where to place the Hexblade was extremely difficult. For those of you unaware, this subclass has a… reputation of being an overpowered and overstuffed mess that does entirely too much for too little investment. In many ways, that reputation is well earned. The Hexblade is probably the most used subclass in 5E, making its way into all sorts of builds. However, as good a dip as this subclass is, it does have some serious issues when viewed through the lens of a monoclass or mostly warlock build.
Level 1 – Expanded Spell List
The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | shield, wrathful smite |
| 2nd | blur, branding smite |
| 3rd | blink, elemental weapon |
| 4th | phantasmal killer, staggering smite |
| 5th | banishing smite, cone of cold |
As a 1-3 level dip, this list has some excellent entries. Shield is a great spell that most casters don’t have access to, and Blur is a solid defensive concentration spell. Unfortunately, this feature gets a lot worse for builds sticking with Hexblade. For a monoclass warlock, Shield is far too expensive given how few spell slots warlocks have.
Blur remains decent, but besides that, Cone of Cold is the only spell I’d actually want to cast. Smite spells are inefficient damage boosts, Elemental Weapon is an awful concentration spell, and Phantasmal Killer requires two failed saves before it does its below-average damage.
Level 1 – Hexblade’s Curse
As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target is cursed for 1 minute. The curse ends early if the target dies, you die, or you are incapacitated. Until the curse ends, you gain the following benefits:
- You gain a bonus to damage rolls against the cursed target. The bonus equals your proficiency bonus.
- Any attack roll you make against the cursed target is a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20.
- If the cursed target dies, you regain hit points equal to your warlock level + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 hit point).
You can’t use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.
This is another feature that is great when granted by a dip into Hexblade. It’s a damage increase that scales as you increase in level and expands your crit range. While Hexblade’s Curse doesn’t get worse when used by a monoclass warlock, it also doesn’t get much better until 14th level. The class-specific scaling present in this feature is attached to the healing portion of the ability, which is by far the weakest part.
Level 1 – Hex Warrior
You gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons.
Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. This benefit lasts until you finish a long rest. If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, this benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon’s type.
For dipping purposes, this is one of the best features in the game. Allowing paladins to focus entirely on charisma has led to one of the best builds I’ve seen, and the other charisma-based casters/subclasses benefit to a lesser extent from the martial proficiencies and attribute consolidation.
For monoclassed warlocks, the armor proficiencies will still be useful, but the ability to use charisma as an attack stat will often fall short when compared to Eldritch Blast. It’s not impossible for a warlock to use Hex Warrior like a paladin does, but it requires a lot more investment, investments that could have been spent improving what the warlock is already good at.
Level 6 – Accursed Specter
When you slay a humanoid, you can cause its spirit to rise from its corpse as a specter, the statistics for which are in the Monster Manual. When the specter appears, it gains temporary hit points equal to half your warlock level. Roll initiative for the specter, which has its own turns. It obeys your verbal commands, and it gains a special bonus to its attack rolls equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of +0).
The specter remains in your service until the end of your next long rest.
Once you bind a specter with this feature, you can’t use the feature again until you finish a long rest.
This is the first feature that doesn’t show up in most dips, and, sadly, it is very bad. First off, a humanoid needs to die to trigger the ability. This isn’t a massive requirement as humanoids are fairly common, but there will be encounters or campaigns that spend large amounts of time fighting other creature types, rendering Accursed Specter useless.
Even when the specter is summoned, it is very low impact. At 6th level, the specter has 28 hit points, whereas most summons land between 30-40. The specter also has sunlight sensitivity, meaning that in many encounters, it will have a hard time landing hits, even with the accuracy bonus it receives. When it does land a hit, the damage is a decent 3d6, but that is not enough to make up for the specter’s fragility or the restrictions on its summoning.
Level 10 – Armor of Hexes
If the target cursed by your Hexblade’s Curse hits you with an attack roll, you can use your reaction to roll a d6. On a 4 or higher, the attack instead misses you, regardless of its roll.
This is essentially a more restricted version of the 5th-level rogue ability Uncanny Dodge. Both reduce damage by an average of 50 percent, but the rogue’s works on any target and appears five levels earlier. This shows up four levels after Accursed Specter, and I like it even less.
Level 14 – Master of Hexes
When the creature cursed by your Hexblade’s Curse dies, you can apply the curse to a different creature you can see within 30 feet of you, provided you aren’t incapacitated. When you apply the curse in this way, you don’t regain hit points from the death of the previously cursed creature.
Finally, a good feature for those who decide to stick with the Hexblade. Now your amazing 1st-level feature can be moved around in a similar way to the Hex spell, although it cannot be maintained between fights like Hex. This is very strong, as Hexblade’s Curse adds a ton of damage and can now be used against every target in a fight. Unfortunately, you still have to rest before you can use it again, but I’ll take what I can get.
The Hexblade is the only subclass I’ve seen that benefits its parent class so much less than those that multiclass into it. The warlock chassis simply lacks any serious synergy with the subclass outside of levels 1–3 and 14. It still makes for a decent monoclass option, but it is on the strength of its multiclass synergy that Hexblade curses me for its second-place ranking.
1. Genie
The Genie is the newest addition to the warlock family and by far my favorite from a design perspective. As much as the optimizer in me loves the Hexblade, the Genie managed to do something I wasn’t sure was possible with just a subclass: make warlock a rewarding class at all levels.
Level 1 – Genie Kind
You choose your patron’s kind or determine it randomly, using the Genie Kind table.
| d4 | Kind | Element |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dao | Earth |
| 2 | Djinni | Air |
| 3 | Efreeti | Fire |
| 4 | Marid | Water |
One of the ways the Genie does this is by having four distinct paths* for the warlock to choose from. While the choice doesn’t have any mechanical consequences in this feature, we soon see how much this can change up the experience between two Genie warlocks.
Level 1 – Expanded Spell List
The Genie Expanded Spells table shows the genie spells that are added to the warlock spell list for you, along with the spells associated in the table with your patron’s kind: dao, djinni, efreeti, or marid.
| Spell Level | Genie Spells | Dao Spells | Djinni Spells | Efreeti Spells | Marid Spells |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | detect evil and good | sanctuary | thunderwave | burning hands | fog cloud |
| 2nd | phantasmal force | spike growth | gust of wind | scorching ray | blur |
| 3rd | create food and water | meld into stone | wind wall | fireball | sleet storm |
| 4th | phantasmal killer | stone shape | greater invisibility | fire shield | control water |
| 5th | creation | wall of stone | seeming | flame strike | cone of cold |
| 9th | wish |
There are a couple of major differences between this spell list and those we covered in earlier entries. The first is that half of the Genie’s additional spells change depending on the element they chose in the previous feature. The designers even managed to put some solid options on every list. Spike Growth and Wall of Stone are the dao’s standouts, Greater Invisibility is a great addition for the djinn, the efreeti gets Fireball, while the marid has Blur and Sleet Storm. Spell lists aren’t the only consideration when choosing your Genie type, but it’s great that all of these options have something going for them.
The second difference between this list and other warlock subclasses is that it cheats by having one additional spell outside of the levels normally granted by features like this: a little spell called Wish. Turns out that giving warlocks the strongest spell in the game makes playing the class to high levels a bit more enticing. It’s true that many warlocks won’t see this feature, given the level ranges of most campaigns, but just having a powerful option at high levels can make a class feel better to play. For those who reach 17th level, this will put them massively ahead of any other warlock.
Level 1 – Genie’s Vessel
Your patron gifts you a magical vessel that grants you a measure of the genie’s power. The vessel is a Tiny object, and you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells.
While you are touching the vessel, you can use it in the following ways:
- Bottled Respite. As an action, you can magically vanish and enter your vessel, which remains in the space you left. The interior of the vessel is an extradimensional space in the shape of a 20-foot-radius cylinder, 20 feet high, and resembles your vessel. The interior is appointed with cushions and low tables and is a comfortable temperature. While inside, you can hear the area around your vessel as if you were in its space. You can remain inside the vessel up to a number of hours equal to twice your proficiency bonus. You exit the vessel early if you use a bonus action to leave, if you die, or if the vessel is destroyed. When you exit the vessel, you appear in the unoccupied space closest to it. Any objects left in the vessel remain there until carried out, and if the vessel is destroyed, every object stored there harmlessly appears in the unoccupied spaces closest to the vessel’s former space. Once you enter the vessel, you can’t enter again until you finish a long rest.
- Genie’s Wrath. Once during each of your turns when you hit with an attack roll, you can deal extra damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus. The type of this damage is determined by your patron: bludgeoning (dao), thunder (djinni), fire (efreeti), or cold (marid).
The vessel’s AC equals your spell save DC. Its hit points equal your warlock level plus your proficiency bonus, and it is immune to poison and psychic damage.
If the vessel is destroyed or you lose it, you can perform a 1-hour ceremony to receive a replacement from your patron. This ceremony can be performed during a short or long rest, and the previous vessel is destroyed if it still exists. The vessel vanishes in a flare of elemental power when you die
Even though the subclass pretends this is one feature, it’s actually two. The first is a very cool extradimensional space that can be accessed once per long rest. There are too many ways to use Bottled Respite to list them all here, but to sum it up, this is a very cool and flexible tool that’s loaded with possibilities for creative players.
The much easier part of this ability to discuss is Genie’s Wrath, a flat once-per-turn damage boost that differs in type depending on your elemental choice. Out of the options here, magical bludgeoning is by far the best, but even the worst of these types is still a completely free damage boost that works for monoclass and multiclass builds alike, as it’s tied to the class-agnostic proficiency bonus.
Level 6 – Elemental Gift
You now have resistance to a damage type determined by your patron’s kind: bludgeoning (dao), thunder (djinni), fire (efreeti), or cold (marid).
In addition, as a bonus action, you can give yourself a flying speed of 30 feet that lasts for 10 minutes, during which you can hover. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This feature blows every other 6th-level warlock ability out of the water. First, you get a free resistance depending on your element choice. It’s at this point that the dao Genie pulls ahead in most campaigns, as bludgeoning is not only the best damage type to deal to enemies, it’s also one of the most common types those enemies will deal back to you.
On top of this resistance, you get a decent duration flight ability up to six times per long rest.* While the duration of this flight isn’t enough to have on constantly during exploration, it’s more than enough for combat, and the number of uses means that even at 6th level, the Genie warlock is likely to be flying during every fight they’re in. This isn’t just the best warlock 6th-level feature, it’s one of the best 6th-level features in the game.
Level 10 – Sanctuary Vessel
When you enter your Genie’s Vessel via the Bottled Respite feature, you can now choose up to five willing creatures that you can see within 30 feet of you, and the chosen creatures are drawn into the vessel with you.
As a bonus action, you can eject any number of creatures from the vessel, and everyone is ejected if you leave or die or if the vessel is destroyed.
In addition, anyone (including you) who remains within the vessel for at least 10 minutes gains the benefit of finishing a short rest, and anyone can add your proficiency bonus to the number of hit points they regain if they spend any Hit Dice as part of a short rest there.
Now your magic lamp can be used as a base of operations for the entire party. On top of that, it also grants one 10-minute short rest with improved healing from hit dice. This is good for any class, but it’s amazing for warlocks, allowing them an additional refresh of their spell slots almost any time they want.
Level 14 – Limited Wish
As an action, you can speak your desire to your Genie’s Vessel, requesting the effect of one spell that is 6th level or lower and has a casting time of 1 action. The spell can be from any class’s spell list, and you don’t need to meet the requirements in that spell, including costly components; the spell simply takes effect as part of this action.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish 1d4 long rests.
Wish is the best spell in the game, so getting a weaker version of it at 14th level is very good. This gives the Genie warlock access to a massive number of additional spells. Some standout options include Heal, Globe of Invulnerability, Disintegrate, and Wall of Force. If none of those suit your fancy, there are 286 more to choose from. The only downside to this feature is the 1d4 long-rest cooldown. As a rule, I dislike features that force players to track anything past a single long rest, but even that isn’t enough to dampen my excitement for this ability.
Genie is the only subclass that makes me want to play a monoclassed warlock. It has great features at every level and a capstone in Wish that puts all other warlocks to shame. It might not be the multiclassing powerhouse of the Hexblade, but it still makes an excellent dip for builds that want Eldritch Blast but don’t need the Hex Warrior stat cheating. First place to Genie, we ain’t never had a subclass like them.
That wraps up the warlock. Next time we’ll start the final class in this long-running series with the wizard.
I have also created a tier list for those of you who are interested.
Treat your friends to an evening of ritual murder – in a fictional RPG scenario, of course. Uncover your lost memories and escape a supernatural menace in our one-shot adventure, The Voyage.
I wouldn’t say Fireball is the only standout on the Fiend Patron’s spell list. Analyzing the Warlock class is always tricky due to the number of synergies involved.
I’ve found that, at mid-to-higher levels, Fiend Warlocks get better use of Scorching Ray than other casters due to two things: 1) Pact Magic automatically upcasts it; and 2) it combo’s well with Hex. So a Warlock at 9th level and up who’s get an active Hex spell can cast Scorching Ray for six beams of 3d6 damage each. (As opposed to the usual three at 2d6 each.)
This is actually a better combo at 11th level and up, when the Warlock has an extra spell slot left over after casting Hex and Scorching Ray.
Hurl Through Hell also shouldn’t be under-rated. The fact that it triggers on a hit means that anything, even a lowly Eldritch Blast, can set it off. This allows a Warlock who’s completely out of spell slots to 1) still do massive damage to a boss monster; 2) banish said boss for a full round, ignoring legendary resistance because there’s no save; 3) give everyone in the party a chance to hold an action to attack the boss monster upon its return.
As a DM, I wouldn’t want my players pulling those kind of shenanigans more than once per long rest. But it makes for a great boss fight.
ps – thanks for NOT ranking the Hexblade #1. Maybe it’ll catch on.
Scorching Ray is certainly a fun option if you want to roll a lot of dice. Unfortunately its actual damage output usually isn’t competitive. At 11th level, assuming a 60% hit/dex save failure rate a warlock’s Fireball will deal on average 28, whereas Scorching Ray + Hex will hit for 37.8. However you could just Fireball a second time for a total of 56 average damage. It takes the same number of rounds, two, and if there are any other enemies around the two Fireballs becomes so much better. Fireball isn’t particularly great at 11th level either, but it’s better than Scorching Ray.
I don’t think I underrated Hurl Through Hell. It’s very good when you get to use it, but that’s not as often as I’d like. 5E has gotten better about the usage numbers for high level abilities, but the Fiend still suffers from its PHB design.
Happy to help, I discovered a real love for the Genie patron while making this list =P.
I forgot to add: the Fiend Warlock’s Hurl Through Hell feature should work just fine against Fiends. Few, if any, Fiends in 5E are resistant/immune to psychic damage. ;)
Hurl has a special clause that fiends are immune to its damage. They still disappear for a round which is good but the loss of the damage does sting.
Not sure how I missed that, but thanks.
The fiend to the Fiend Warlock: “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
While I agree that Genie is probabally the best sub-class mechanically, and is probabally a blast to play, the whole sub-sub-class thing just rubs me the wrong way on principle.
I see these layered subclasses as a designer’s attempt to sneak in fixes to a base class when reworking that class isn’t on the table. It can make a subclass feel overloaded, but sometimes you gotta overload it to make an under developed class feel good to play.
I actually tried to make my own subclass of the paladin to improve group power, for when you have 3 or more players
here is a template: oath of leadership
Oath of leadership spells
3rd level: bane, guiding bolt.
5th level: barkskin, spiritual weapon.
9th level: haste, slow
13th level: aura of life, confusion
17th level: circle of power, mass cure wounds
Channel Divinity -3rd level
help strike true:
as an action, you give willing creatures( 1+cha modifier) advantage on attack rolls until your next turn.
ward off fire:
as an action, you give an amount of creatures equal to 1 plus your proficincy bonus disadvantage on attack rolls for the next minute. while those creatures are affected by this affect, you can only attack once per turn, no matter how many attacks you can normally make.
aura of power: -7th level
you and friendly creatures within 10 ft of you gain a bonus to attack rolls equal to your proficency bonus. those creatures also gain a bonus to damage rolls equal to a quarter of your paladin levels.
extra attack(2) – 15th level
when you use your action to attack, you can attack 3 times. (note: this is affected by ward off fire)
avatar of hope – 20th level
as an action, you channel the fighting spirit inside you, forming it into a sort of armor. for one minute, you gain the following benefits:
up to ten willing creatures within 60 ft of you gain a +5 bonus to attack rolls, skill checks, and saving throws.
up to 20 creatures within 60 ft of you get a -5 bonus to attack rolls and saving throws
you gain a bonus to your armor class equal to half your proficency bonus
once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest
One correction on the Genie subclass:
A warlock can’t enter their vessel more than once per long rest, so the “short rest in 10 minutes” feature can only be used once. While it’s nice, it’s certainly not infinite spells for the warlock.
That limitation was included in my assessment but I wasn’t clear. Curse my poor wording.
I have updated that sentence to be clearer, thanks for pointing it out =).
Thanks for the warlock write-up, it surprisingly makes me want to play one, especially the Genie.
If you were to make a Genie warlock, which race or races would you learn toward? I’m thinking the Dao variation, if that makes a difference.
Thanks!
I’m glad you liked it :). For early to mid levels custom lineage reigns supreme with they fey touched feat for 18 cha and two additional spells.
Post level 8 or so and options like the yuanti pureblood gain traction since you’ve naturally gained 2 feats already, making the free feat relatively weaker.
Sleet storm is meh. o much of the warlocks spells are concentration so not being able to use hunger of hadar or sickening radiance to kill enemies makes it less appealing to the spell slot starved warlock. any other class i would agree though
lightning bolt is much harder to hit multiple enemies with, so in terms of damage its less for a better damage type.
cone of cold is good area damage and nothing else. i would take it if i was the only blaster, but probably not if i wasn’t. synaptic static does 8d6 psychic,(about 8 damage less on average,) in a sphere, on usually the worst save (int) and makes the target have a d6 subtracted. 9/10 times im going to take SS.
water elemental spirit is probably the worst one, with a fairly rare speed, normal bludgeoning damage, and a rare resistance. never hurts to have a pet, although the spell requires concentration, not great for the warlock.
id say if there is water to swim and fight and cross in your campaign like 15% of the time, Fathomless is at least number 3, or else number 4
also, wall of fire is way better than fireball for warlocks, who can keep people inside the AOE with EB
Thanks for the write-up! I’ve definitely gained a better appreciation now for the Genie and also the Fathomless. In your view, in playing one of these as your main class, do you stand to benefit much from a multiclass dip, or are they better played monoclass? I like the idea of a 1 level dip into Draconic Sorcerer for an AC and HP boost, but I’m not sure that’s worth it, and nothing else stood out as beneficial.
If you want to play a majority warlock then the strongest dip I can think of would be fighter or cleric for heavy armor. Fighter gives you the extra AC fighting style which is very nice. Genie with 21 base AC will be much harder to kill. Cleric is a little less AC but you get some good cantrips and a few first level spell slots.