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Compendiums: Slimes, Spells, Story Mechanics, Monks
Misc: Monk Adventure, Warlock Tweaks,
Stealth Rules
Fun: Goat Background, Hag Items, Mechs
Warlock Tweaks
Entreat Patron
At 1st level, you can use your action to entreat your patron for power. Any spells that are still in effect when they start this rite end and you gain the benefits of a short rest for the purposes of regaining class features, such as Pact casting. After doing so, short rests do not allow you to regain any uses of their class features until your next long rest.
At 20th level, you can entreat your patron without this consequence. Once you do so, you must finish a Long Rest before you can do so again.
Spell list:
You gain Warlock Homebrew Spells. Remove Eldritch Blast.
Eldritch Powers
You learn one of Eldritch Bolt, Eldritch Orb, and Eldritch Blade.
Eldritch Mastery
At 2nd level, your patron has invested in you more power, which manifests in improvements to your Eldritch Powers. You gain the benefit corresponding to the power you chose:
Eldritch Blade. You gain proficency in medium armor. Your Eldritch Blade can take the form of any melee weapon and once per turn you can deal additional force damage equal to half your warlock level when you attack with it. You are proficent in your Eldritch Blade.
If your weapon lacks the heavy property, you are able to maneuver it to deflect all manner of physical and magical attacks. As long as you aren't wielding a shield and wielding your blade you gain a +1 to AC.
Eldritch Bolt. On a hit with your Eldritch Bolt, you add your charisma modifier to the damage it deals on a hit.
Eldritch Orb. When a creature succeeds on a saving throw against your cantrips or Eldritch Power, the creature takes half the damage (if any) but suffers no additional effects. Additionally, each time you cast Eldritch Orb you choose one the following damage types and gain the corresponding benefit.
| Type | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Force | The spell has a range of self and the diameter of the area of effect* increases by 10 feet. |
| Lightning | Until the start of your next turn, the first creature that enters the area of effect or ends its turn there must succeed on the save or take the same damage. |
| Thunder | On a failed save, creatures are pushed 5 feet away from the origin of the area of effect. If the it is centered on a creature, you choose. |
| Radiant | The area of effect* is doubled. |
| Psychic | On a failed save, the target can't take reactions and its speed is halved until the end of your next turn. |
| Necrotic | If the target's remaining health is less than the spell's damage roll, it is reduced to 0 hitpoints. |
Eldritch Powers
Eldritch Bolt
evocation cantrip
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 120 feet
- Components: V, S
- Duration: Instantaneous
Make a ranged spell attack. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 force damage.
The spell fires off more than one bolt when you reach higher warlock levels: two at 5th, three at 11th, and four at 17th. You can direct the bolts at the same or different targets. Make a separate attack roll for each bolt.
Eldritch Orb
evocation cantrip
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 60 feet
- Components: V, S
- Duration: 1 round.
You conjure a dark indigo ball of energy. When you use this power, you can choose to hurl the ball immediately or hold it in your hands and increase its area of effect. If you choose to hold it, you can use your action on another turn to release it. You hurl this ball of energy at a point within range, causing it to detonate in a silent, shadowy explosion. Each creature in a 5 foot diameter (this sphere's diameter increases to 10 feet if you held its power) sphere centered on that point must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d8 necrotic damage.*
The damage dealt by this power increases to 1d8 when you reach 5th level as a Warlock (2d8), and again at 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8).
Eldritch Blade
conjuration cantrip
- Casting Time: 1 bonus action
- Range: Touch
- Components: V, S
- Duration: Until dispelled.
You create a weapon in your empty hand that has the statistics of a dagger and can be used as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells. This spell ends if your Eldritch Blade is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more. It also ends if you cast this spell again, if you dismiss the weapon (no action required), or if you die. When you cast a spell using a warlock spell slot, you empower your blade for one minute.
Using an action, you can make an attack with your blade against one creature within reach and use your spellcasting ability modifier for attack and damage rolls. On a hit, if your blade is empowered, you can expend the energy to deal an additional 1d8 force damage.
This spell's damage increases when you reach higher levels. When you reach 5th level as a warlock, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 force damage to the target, and the force damage from expending the charge increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
Pact Boon
Pact of the Blade
removed
Pact of the Talisman
See: Pact of the Talisman by Peanut
Spells
Aftershock
1st-level Evocation
- Casting Time: 1 bonus action
- Range: self
- Components: V, M (any weapon)
- Duration: Concentration, up to one minute
While you maintain concentration on this spell, whenever you cast a spell that damages creatures within an area any creatures that are in that area at the end of your turn must make a Dexterity saving throw. If they fail, they take 1d6 force damage.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage of the spell attack increases by 1d6 for each slot level above the 2nd.
Blood ward
1st-level Necromancy
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 120 feet
- Components: V
- Duration: 1 hour
You place a blood ward on a creature that you can see within range. Until the spell ends, that creature has disadvantage on attack rolls to hit you.
Additionally, you gain 1d10 temporary hit points each time you hit the target with an melee attack.
If the target drops to 0 hit points before this spell ends, you can use an action on a subsequent turn of yours to ward a new creature. A remove curse cast on the target ends this spell early.
At Higher Levels. The temporary hit points you gain increases by 1d10 for every two slot levels above the 1st.
Eldritch Invocations
Bezutha's Bone Blade
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade cantrip
When you create your Eldritch Blade you can choose for one of your arms to form into a large bone weapon, which is a natural weapon that deals 1d6 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage (you choose). At the start of each turn, you can change the damage type of the natural weapon, and it gains one of the following benefits, which lasts until the start of your next turn:
- It gains the reach property
- It gains the properties of a shield that gives +2 to AC
- It gains a +1 to attack rolls.
Calamitous Blade
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade Cantrip
When you cast your Eldritch Blade, you can have it take on the form of an oversized heavy weapon. At the start of your turn, you can reduce your movement speed to 0 until the end of the turn. If you do so and immediately make the attack granted by your Eldritch Blade cantrip and hit, you can force your target to make a Strength saving throw against your spellcasting DC or be knocked prone.
Soul Tether
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade cantrip
When you use the action granted by your Eldritch Blade cantrip, you can make a thrown attack with your blade against any creature within range. If you hit with an attack, you can choose for the weapon to stay lodged in your target. If it is still in your target when you cast the spell again, the creature is pulled up to 20 feet closer to you.
Archer of the Ancients
If you chose Eldritch bolt or Eldrtich orb cantrip, you can use any ranged weapon as an arcane implement. If you do so, you can add half your Dexterity modifier (at least 1) to the spell save DC or attack roll of your cantrips. If you chose the Eldritch Blade cantrip, you are able to create any ranged weapon and use the action granted by the spell to make an attack with it at any creature within range.
The Twins
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade cantrip
You can summon two light weapons when you use your Eldritch Blade cantrip. When you take the action granted by the spell you can also expend your bonus action to instead make two attacks, one with each weapon. If you do so, the damage die of the spell changes to 1d4 and you don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of either attack. If your Eldritch blade is empowered you can choose to expend the energy to make a single such attack on each creature within 5 feet of you instead of dealing additional damage.
Demonic Dispatcher
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade cantrip
Your pact weapon manifests as an iron morningstar forged in Dis, the second of the Nine Hells. When you hit a creature with it while your blade is empowered, you can expend the energy to knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller.
Fezil's Fang
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade cantrip
When you create your Eldritch Blade as a war pick, it manifests as one of the many fangs of Fezil, the giant ferret that presides over the Court of Flowers. When you hit a creature with it while your blade is empowered, you can expend the energy to teleport the creature to an unoccupied location within 15 feet that you can see. This space must be on the ground or on a floor.
Claw of Acamar
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blade cantrip
You can create a black, lead flail using your Eldritch Blade cantrip. The flail’s head is sculpted to resemble a pair of grasping tentacles. The weapon has the reach property. When you hit a creature with it while your blade is empowered, you can expend the energy to reduce the creature’s speed to 0 feet until the end of your next turn.
FAQ
Entreat Patron Details
Entreat patron is designed to replace "Eldritch Master" (the warlock capstone)
The Entreat Patron feature can be implemented in parallel with similar features for Fighter Battlemaster and Monk. Below is a table for the ability name and regained features for each:
| Class | Ability Name | Regained Features |
|---|---|---|
| Warlock | Entreat Patron | Pact Casting Slots |
| Monk | Meditate | Ki |
| Fighter | Focus | Superiority Die |
Incompatibility
This homebrew is not meant to be used with Hexblade.
Playing on a grid
If you are playing on a grid it may be easier to model Eldritch orb as (ironically) cubes instead of spheres, as that follows dnd5e's conventions on area of effects better. The 5ft diameter sphere is only large enough to target 1 medium or larger creature. The 10ft sphere can cover 4 squares in a windowpane configuration, or two adjacent squares.
How to get Eldritch Powers
Eldrtich Powers spells are cantrips that scale with Warlock Level. They are not on any spell list and as such, are impossible to gain through features such as Magical Secrets or Mage Initiate.
Changelog
Version 1
Posted to r/dndhomebrew. Had three spells, eblade was more of a spell cantrip and gave adv/disadvantage.
Version 2
Posted to r/unearthed arcana. Eblade worked more similarly to an scagtrip. Changes were made to the orb effects and some of the spells were nerfed. Entreat patron was reworked.
Version 3
Eldritch warrior now gets several changes. I've tried to keep it as simple as I can while making it do the things I want (it looks complex now I know, but trust me it could be worse).
- There is additional scaling in the 2nd level now instead of in the cantrip because it didn't make sense to grant 1/2 (round down to one) damage at level 1.
- Added scratch damage
- Orb lightning was nerfed and the effect clarified.
- Eblade invocations: Mostly utility upgrades. Attempted to give breadth of meaningful weapon choice
Version 4
- Reverted scratch damage, replaced with shield like effect. (My reasoning being that I think that the damage is sufficent and additional survivability is more suitable)
- Added note making incompatible with hexblade.
Summary
- At level one you choose between one of the 3 "Eldritch Powers" and learn it. They are like cantrips that scale off warlock level. Gain homebrew spells.
- At level two, you gain "Eldritch Mastery," Which improves your cantrips overall. This replaces one of your invocations.
- At level three, blade pact is replaced by Talisman pact.
Notes
The issue with warlocks is that:
- Despite many (interlocking) choices at creation, they present too few combat choices.
- You are forced to choose between significant in-combat boosts and flavorful out of combat features. Agonizing blast and Eldritch blast are the prime examples of this.
- They attempt to satisfy the gish niche through an pact, which is ill suited for the job as pacts don't have much combat budget and are more suited for fun OOC Utility. As a result, to keep up with other martials they need additional invocation taxes. Then, if we spend every invocation on martial combat, we are a full casting martial.
- EB shouldn't scale off player level. Its more of a class feature. You can't multiclass 2 levels in any other class and get the same amount of at-will DPR as the class you're multiclassing into.
Our solution involves several changes to how warlocks work. Listed in no particular order:
- Supplement the warlock spell list with melee spell options, remove blade pact. We can prevent melee warlock from stepping on martials' shoes by giving them windows of strength via spellcasting.
- Offer an alternative to EB, which is a blade pact cantrip, which retains the aesthetic of having a weapon but with a dedicated melee spellcaster. We can make blade pact cantrip competitive if we have people choose between EB and blade pact cantrip instead of giving both. This cantrip enables Scagtrip use (which is perfect for the fantasy), but does not require it. (If you get the scagtrip secondary proc, you only deal marginally more damage than normal)
- Offer another alternative to EB, which is Eldritch Orb. This does less damage on average than EB but is more flexible and has utility. It also improves the spell-slingy feel by replacing low spell slot AOE spell casts.
- EB is competitive at lvl 1 because of hex. Add in other lvl 1 spells that synergize with other eldritch powers as well.
Some notes about regarding Entreat Patron:
- This is an adaption for how the game is played vs its original design. You should ignore this if you use some other adaptation, such as DMG's long rest variant.
- The capstone (which I didn't include the changes for in this document) involves being able to short rest effectively even after use of Entreat Patron.
Credits
Thank you to the DoMT for advice and feedback. Special thanks to: Swordmeow, Caim (Cometdance), Layhnet, Sandwhichbear, Izzy, and GenuineBeliever