2024 Player's Handbook: The Warlock contends for most powerful class D&D5e

hey everyone it's Chris and we are looking at the Warlock today uh so they're about to start their Reveal video for the Warlock in the new players handbook and there is so much to talk about so many questions people have I don't see how they could possibly answer all of them in uh one video but hopefully we get a lot of information um I am part of the Early Access program so I have read this information in fact I spent a long time uh last night getting all my notes ready where I compared everything to what we had before and to the play tests uh so if I look over here a lot it's because I'm referring to my notes um and I cannot talk about anything that they don't talk about in in these videos uh because uh part of that program is an agreement not to reveal any contents in the player handbook but they're going to reveal some contents and I can certainly talk about that that's what I've been doing in these videos that's what I'm going to keep doing and to all the viewers who've been leaving such nice comments down below thank you so much I love reading the comments on these videos it's makes my day so please continue I've been very happy with that thank you um and uh yeah so I've got my coffee ready to go and I'll probably just do a quick edit to the start of the video warlocks are really great we are talking about them today and there's a lot of new things in the new players handbook the Warlock was like all of the classes a fun Journey for us as we returned to it and looked at what could we do to take this class that so many people love playing uh with its very unique spellcasting system its otherworldly patrons its eldrich invocations how could we preserve what's great about the class while also bringing improvements one of the new things that warlock players will see right away at level two is a new feature called magical cunning and magical cunning is a way for warlocks to get some of their packed magic back sooner than just on short rests and long rests uh we knew that warlocks often feel overly constrained when it comes to their spellcasting and so magical cunning is a way to relieve some of the pressure there now with magical cunning at level two something that used to be at level two then move to level one and that's eldrich invocations eldrich invocations you start getting right away as a warlock and over the course of your career you're also going to to get more of them than you did in the 2014 warlock that required us to revisit every single eldrich invocation not only look at what it does and see if there are ways that we could improve it but also we looked at are the invocations coming in at the right levels invocations for since they were introduced often have level prerequisites and we wanted to make sure that the prerequisites were right and so people who are familiar with the Warlock will find that a number of invocations had their level prerequisites lowered so there were a number that required you to be quite high level that you can now take at a lower level but then because this feature is now available at first level many of the invocations that didn't have prerequisites before now do because uh we a did not want most of the invocations to suddenly be available to you immediately at first level but we also wanted to make it so that you would not be overwhelmed as you considered your choices as a warlock player and all right I'm going to make my first part I I'm kind of waiting uh because I I want to see how much he's going to say before I jump in but then I think he might say so much that it's a lot to react to so uh first he talks about magical cutting if you read play test 7 and if you haven't read play test 7 you can get it for free it's on D and D Beyond uh you're going to see the last version of the Warlock uh in the play test and magical cutting is there so if you want to know how it works you can just uh look at that document and you'll see how it works but basically it's a way that you know it it's kind of like the warlocks version of Arcane recovery except of course Arcane recovery for wizards gives them the ability to get spells back on a short rest except uh warlocks already get their spells back on a short rest so magical cutting allows warlock to get some spell uh spell slots back sooner but not very many uh so you're not you're not getting a whole lot of spell slots with magical cunning uh and then he talks about invocations so yeah you're going to start to get invocations at level one big changes to all kinds of invocations um there are a different number of invoc uh you're going to see some invocations don't exist anymore uh other uh invocations are going to be brand new um and you're going to see some of the invitations that you saw in other sources than the players handbook have made it to the players handbook often with redesign and as he has mentioned level requirements you better look at your level requirements because there are invocations um that didn't have level requirements before that now do uh and uh those that had level requirements a lot of those level requirements have been adjusted uh so uh it's going to take a little while for us to get used to um getting different invocations at different times than we used to and so the level prerequisites really in a way help Pace how many invocations uh you have to consider as you go on your warlocke journey through this class leveling up and at first level your your main choices when it comes to invocations are three that used to be a whole separate class feature and that are those are the packed Boon what previously were packed Boon features now are invocations yeah and this is a big deal because not only can do you get things like packed of the blade or packed of the oh or packed of the chain you can now get it at first level yeah but because we have turned them into invocations you can now theoretically over time get all of them yeah so they used to be mutually exclusive choices uh yeah okay so um again if if you look at play test 7 we saw this uh where uh pack Boons used to be a third level feature for warlocks they are no longer an individual feature they are now invocations um that you select and I'm sure that's why you get an invocation at level one is so that you can select a packed Boon um and uh they used to be level three as as he said uh but you used to be able to get your subass at level one so those two things are just kind of switching position um so you're going to be selecting either pack to the blade pack to the toome uh pack to the chain at level one and uh then you will be selecting your Patron at level three you know if you chose packed of the blade you were never going to get packed of the Tome now if you want to build your warlock to have both you can this invocation choice at first level is the choice you're now making when you create your warlock rather than choosing a subass yeah subass now like for all of our classes is at third level that's been standardized for all of our classes but as a warlock you still have a very juicy choice at first level that shapes how your character is going to play uh because you're you're deciding am I leaning harder into the spellcasting side of my warlock am I instead going to start going down a sort of warlock Warrior sort of path I think actually uh Jeremy is making a very good point uh right here so if you were going to play pack of the blade um uh in the 2014 rules uh your then your intention probably is to use a weapon but at level one and two you only can use Simple weapons uh you're only wearing light armor you're only uh um uh working off a an ability score that isn't your primary ability score you're not going to be very good at using a weapon um unless you pick hex Blade the one subass that lets you do it um and so uh now since hexplate is not going to be one of the four subclasses included and assuming you want to be able to play these subclasses that are in the player's handbook and do pack to the blade something had to be done and by making the packs level one it allows you to do it right from character creation now you might think but why am I waiting to level three to choose a patron well you're potentially choosing your Patron at level one that's up to you uh but they're just not giving you any unique features until level three a with packed of the blade or am I going to uh focus more on having uh spooky Critters helping me uh with a packed of the chain that packed has been enhanced with more spooky Critter options yes it has and I I should shout out if you uh go um to the the dungeon dad YouTube channel uh he did a reveal of uh a new creature that is available to warlocks as a familiar that is pretty cool uh it's a little cat Sphinx and uh so I will link his video down below so if you are interested in seeing that new creature um you can check out his video and uh what we did and this is something that people have often uh wanted and we were glad to provide it and that is we provided more familiars that speak to the different types of patrons that warlocks can later choose yeah U so we wanted to make sure that you know it whatever Patron you choose from this book or from a later book there is a there is a critter option here that is going to feel appropriate that's why now even a slad tadpole is is an option I mean these horrific worms that burrow through things and people if if that is your bliss as a warlock player you can now have that in addition to the other options that were were present before yes that is my Bliss also a skeleton familiar yes that's amazing uh because again we really are leaning into the spookiness of the Warlock this is you know if you want to play a spellcast who has all sorts of you know spooky and occult magic that is what this class is all about so you and yeah that was in the play test as well that you could choose a skeleton as a familiar and and I don't mean a familiar that's skeletal I mean the stat block the skeleton with The Sword and the the bow uh you can have that now as a familiar if you are a pack to the chain warlock you you also have a skeleton but then on the other end of the aesthetic Spectrum you also could pick uh you know something that is more Whimsical or helpful like a pseudo dragon or the Sprite Which was available before or a brand new monster the Sphinx of Wonder and the Sphinx of Wonder is a Celestial that is here speaking to the fact that one of the patron options in this book is the celestial Patron uh and then also the Sphinx of Wonder is a part of a reimagined family of sphinxes that people will get to see in the new monster manual and the Sphinx of Wonder is one of the stat blocks that is available in the creature appendix as are all of the creatures that the Warlock can choose for this feature and if you watch dungeon dad's video um he shows the stat block so you'll be able to see what it is so I mean in in the full list again every every monster that's mentioned it's in the players's handbook imp pseudo dragon quasit skeleton SLO tab pole which I love Sphinx of Wonder Sprite and even a venomous snake yeah the venemous snake used to be an option in the fine familiar spell itself but now it is actually specifically a warlock option awesome um particularly because the venomous snake was actually mechanically better than all of the other options in find familiar yeah I would argue owl was the best option mechanically but I I guess it depends what you're trying to do with you're familiar and so it is moved into the Warlock list and this again like if you went pack to the chain you have abilities later that enhance so you can use the bonus action to cause them to attack they could like swim or fly they get all these other abilities if you choose to continue to stack that's why I like about warlocks so much is they're so modular and that flexibility in building the character is true for each of these packed options that you choose at first level because if you choose packed of the blade there are also later invocations that you can take that further enhance it uh and enhance it in ways that the 2014 uh warlock did not uh you can get to the point where you know you are making extra attacks and healing yourself with your blade strikes uh that is really satisfying and allows you uh to really be powerful as a weapon using warlock it used to be now um when play test 7 came out um I did a reaction to that or or an analysis of that and I determined um I did some calculations and I determined that pack of the blade was maybe overtuned um they could make three attacks they could use a casting stat um they did extra damage with every attack of course they have spells that can enhance it further uh they got the weapon Mastery of the whatever weapon was there packed to the blade um so it was just a lot of things to be stacking up on uh you know the Warlock when you've got barbarians and Fighters and monks and Rogues um trying to compete with weapon use and we're potentially having a spellcaster being the best weapon user um I and uh I doubt very highly he is going to get into any details here as to uh how they've rebalanced things um so uh you know obviously unless he does I can't either that you had to have a subass that sort of really unlocked this yeah um that is no longer the case now you with the base class uh have this as a legitimate option pack of the toome also has uh later invocations that build on it but then also packed of the Tome speak speaks to the fact that spellcasting in general for the Warlock has been enhanced so in addition to there being uh you know the magical cunning feature that I mentioned before we've also made more of the invocations work with more of the warlocks spells than before yeah so it used to be that most of the invocations that modified spells only pertained to eldrich blast yeah and now uh and I this is exciting for me as a person who enjoys playing warlocks granted I enjoy playing every single one of our classes and uh I really love that we've now made it so that if you want to modify other can trips you can now do that uh and eldrich blast is still fantastic you know is still a warlock specific cantrip you really cannot go wrong but you now have more build options uh when you yeah and so we saw this in the play test uh so for example agonizing blast is probably just the iconic uh invocation to take with a uh elich blast using warlock uh because um of course Alish blast scale so that uh you eventually fire multiple blasts and you're adding the bonus to every single uh blast and uh with other can trips you're not doing that uh the damage of those canri scales but the number of uh the cantrips being fired doesn't it's always one so you're only adding it once so although you got the option to put agonizing blast on other can trips once you get to level five uh I'm not sure that's such a great option but it is there come to this class you could have R of frost that also knocks people back that's a great example of uh the kind of fun combo that we have built in here I mean because just think about that you can hurl someone back if you decide to use repelling blast with Raya Frost instead of eldrich blast hurl someone back and slow them yes which is essentially making your ray of frost slow them even more effectively yeah uh because it's going to if it assuming they were trying to get to you yeah yeah I mean maybe now they'll just decide to run towards somebody else but that's probably what the Warlock was going for among the new invocation options we even have like lessons of the first ones which is a brand new invocation that simply lets the Warlock take another origin feat those Feats that you know every character gets one now when they make their character at first level well and uh that one was in the play test as well uh lessons of the first one and I remember thinking that's really good you get a feat um on the other hand you're you're always going to feel like you never have as many invocations as you want to have so you're going to have to make some tough decisions if you as a warlock simply want to get more of those starting Feats that is one way you can use your invocation choices so if you're looking for more like maybe you want the skilled feet the alert feet luck tough you want more hit points no again more moral customization for like what kind of creepy warlock you want to play and that invocation alone opens up so many modular build options because it gives you access to all of the origin Feats yeah and that that's why in many ways this class is the the character builder Paradise because because of how many different ways you can combine all of these options it will be very hard to meet two warlocks are EX the same yeah exactly uh and that's something we were going for uh we you know while while wanting to preserve the the special identity of of like eldrich blast and all of that being a part of this class we also really wanted to open up more ways to build your Warlock and play your Warlock and people are going to so uh in response to that point um he talking about uh you know preserving the way people have traditionally played warlocks so uh we there's such uh a common way to play warlocks right now that we have a term for it it's ebarb and it means alich blast agonizing blast repelling blast um and so you need two levels of warlock you take those two in vacations and it's pretty good right um so he's saying they have worked preserve that but what they wanted to do was make it so maybe that isn't the only way to go with a warlock and be good um and uh you know I can see in the design that intention and um in some cases I think achieved in other cases maybe falling a little short to find that we did that not only in the Base Class itself but also in the invocation options and then also in the subass options I mean another big enhancement that I absolutely love is you can call upon your Patron yes which seems so fundamental to being a warlock yeah so we we we realized well while revising the class that the class had no built-in way to just chitchat with their Patron even though that is such a common shtick in campaigns to have warlocks you know wanting to basically you know call HQ and and find out what their Patron is is up to or to fight with them because of course some warlocks don't like their Patron yeah uh you know sort of a a boss that they're aranged uh with or just a a battery for their power that uh they don't actually like uh we also uh have just like in other classes we've given warlocks now the Epic Boon at 19th level uh and warlocks of course still have uh their great Mystic Arcanum feature which gives them yet more uh flexibility in how they're built uh and also their uh class spell list has been expanded and this is true of every class in the book every list has more spells on it uh but I think this will be especially great for warlocks uh because yeah okay so I'm glad he said that uh so there's so many things to talk about with the Warlock I mean a lot of what the questions uh we have about the Warlock are hidden away there in the invocations and he's not going to have time to be going over all the invocations and telling you what's in them um so unfortunately we're going to be waiting until we can talk about that freely but um what he has also said is one of the complaints about warlocks uh that I hear is that um especially at lower levels the warlocks don't have a lot of Spell option so he's saying they have expanded the spell options and for the Warlock that is a especially a sore spot that is uh being addressed their class spell list was pretty short before now it's still not at the length of say the wizard uh or even the sorcerer uh particularly because warlocks don't just rely on their spells they also rely on their eldrich invocations and we also have to be careful whenever we put spells on the warlock spell list how it interacts with packed magic because unlike other spellcasters their spells are always basically leveling up automatically so there are certain spells that we have to be very careful about uh yeah and I mean just from a design philosophy um and I'm making assumptions here but I I think they're safe assumptions if you're going to look at a spell and consider giving it to the Warlock you really have to look at duration uh because the Warlock can get that spell slot back in 1 hour um so if you have a duration that's more than an hour there might you really need to think carefully about how that might be abusable um so he he's saying that you know when they made these decisions they were careful with warlocks and uh but even even with that carefulness being in the mix uh people are going to see that uh their class list uh uh has some uh fun additions to it perfect the arch Fay Patron is okay so we're going into sub classes really big changes on the sub classes they still have a lot to talk about um and yeah so we're not going to get all the answers we want or you're not going to get all the answers you want about the base warlock today um and and that's not a surprise to me there was simply no way they could go through all these invocations and give us the details in one video um I am hoping that we get some additional sneak peeks that provide some more in insight into invocation so I can talk more freely about changes that have been made since play test 7 um there have been changes since play test 7 I'll say that much uh so we're going to go into the uh Arch Fay Patron which if you read play test 7 you know got so many changes it's like a brand new subass it it it's um I didn't even bother comparing it to the old subass because it's just entirely different super tempting and if you like teleporting holy cow so tell me a little bit about the arch Fay Patron warlock we looked at the arch Fay Patron from 2014 and felt it needed a major enhancement uh people have often loved the theme of it of forming a with you know a member of the Fay court and you know whether whether this is uh you know a a person like you know the prince of a and darkness or an arch hag it has so much wonderful flavor yeah but we found that the gameplay of it was not living up to the flavor yeah and we decided that because often our Fay oriented player mechanics involve teleportation we were going to go all in on that in the arch Fay Patron and so what you have now is a subclass that is going to let you you know vanish and reappear elsewhere frequently but not just that it also allows you to layer on extra effects each time you teleport using MTI step and this by the way is not just when you use misy step with your steps of the fa feature the steps of the fa feature in the new subass allows you to cast Misty step a certain number of times per day without expending a spell slot and then it also allows you to again put on these extra effects but those extra effects can be put on whenever you cast misy step not just when you're casting it for free so also if you decide to just keep casting it even with your spell slots you get to add on these extra effects this is something that we exp explored previously in the aladon uh of teleporting and having these extra effects but the arch F Patron takes that notion and dials it up to 11 this includes helpful effects like teleporting and gaining temporary hit points but then it also includes things like taunting step where you impose disadvantage on someone's attack roles unless they attack you now and you as a warlock player might be wondering why would I want to encourage someone to attack me yeah well I'm glad you asked because because as you go deeper into the subass you'll see that you then start abilities where you can then punish people for attacking You by dealing psychic damage to them you can also make it so that you turn invisible and so now suddenly they have disadvantage to attack everybody else but also you we love this stick so much that in the level 14 feature which is brand new bewitching magic we've made it so that uh once you reach this level whenever you cast an enchantment or Illusion an illusion spell hey you can also Misty step and that Misty step can have these extra effects so this is going to be ridiculous in all the best ways this we really wanted uh that Fay flavor which includes often a kind of trickster element and you you're going to see this here of you are you're Vanishing you're reappearing you're messing with the foe uh monsters are going to hate this Warlock and this is the and uh so I mean he's he's basically told you most of the stuff from from this uh subass and uh I I would encourage anyone who's really curious about uh the details on this subass obviously I can't reveal any details on the subass but play 7 is out there and this is basically the subass that they presented in Play Des 7 uh I I'm not going to say that it hasn't changed at all but you just from what he said it's pretty darn similar you'll definitely get the feel of of what this subass now is and it is totally brand new um now uh when it comes to things like Misty step uh he was talking about comparing it to the Aladin and definitely with the Aladin they have a face step where they they teleport uh 30 ft to place they can can see is a bonus action which is what Misty step does the difference of course is that Misty step is a spell and uh the uh face step is not a spell and so these interact differently with the rules on spell casting I would encourage people not to make too many assumptions do not assume that things are the same when it comes to things like the rules for spellcasting and any part of the rules really that has not yet been revealed um because the players handbook saw a lot of changes some things are the same and some things are different and as time goes on we're going to uncover all the things that are different the core identity of being a fay you know having a fay Patron Yes again I I look forward to people diving in people got to see a version of this in the unearth Arcana process uh and it is just a teleportation Fantasia yeah that leads us into let's talk about this Celestial Patron so the celestial Patron originally appeared in xanathar's Guide to Everything it's now graduated to the player's handbook and in the process we have enhanced it in a number of ways this subass along with the others gets to benefit from the expanded spell list and spell chapter of this book and I'm bringing that up now when we're with the celestial Patron because one of the Spells we were able to add to their their list of spells is summon Celestial one of the new summon spells and you're going to so I'm really glad he brought this up because he didn't bring it up with the arch F uh or uh Patron and I was in the back of my head saying you're not going to mention that they get all these additional spells because in the 2014 Players handbook uh all the the patrons have a list of unique spells that you can select but you don't get them automatically and you don't get any extra preparations in order to select them um it just is an expansion to your spell list um but now and we saw this in the play test um you're going to get a selection of spells that are automatically prepared and what we didn't see in the play test was the celestial having summon Celestial um they had what they have in the play test I wrote it down they had flame strike in in the play test and they now have summon Celestial I think that's way more appropriate for a Celestial Patron uh so um that just makes all kinds of sense to me see that in a number of our classes that have either you know Patron lists like this or the oath list in the Paladin or the domain lists in the in the cleric and so on and so forth that these subclasses really have benefited from the expanded spell chapter in this book also something we didn't talk about with the arch Fay Patron which I'll I'll mention here all warlock subclasses in the book have a major enhancement when it comes to that list of spells they get because in 2014 that expanded spell list that each Pat I was saying about 2014 simply gave you an expanded list that you could choose from when choosing the spells that your warlock knew the major difference now is you automatically have all of these spells always prepared and they do not count against the spells that you prepare another thing I do like about this is that in 20 the 2014 rules those expanded spell lists um I often came across players and spoke with players who assumed that you got those spells uh they just assumed they were automatically prepared because that's how the clerics worked right you had domain spell list with clerics and you got them automatically prepared they read cleric before they read warlock because C comes before W then they get to warlock they see you know Patron spell list they're not going to read into the fine details they just see this list of spells and assume it's going to work the same way um and so it created confusion and every time that I saw something like this in the new players hand book where it's less confusing it's more consistent than it was before um there's going to be less misunderstandings I think that's great for tables with your pack magic feature that's amazing that that means every warlock that uses these subclasses is going to just suddenly have a much Fuller kit uh when it comes to the spells that are available to them to cast with packed magic yeah uh so that is a big deal particularly important for the celestial Patron warlock because it's these spells that really help bring the celestial flavor to life it's how you get spells like guiding bolt cure wounds Aid it helps you really fulfill that fantasy of being The Helpful warlock uh and that and he's revealed something else that's changed from the play test as well is he said that you can get Aid you can get Aid now uh it was not on the list before that in many ways is the identity of the celestial Patron warlock uh you know not not all warlocks are are necessarily selfish with their power but you still could be yes you you absolutely be the most evil Celestial warlock You' be like a hired Hitman by the gods um and people will find that there are a number of adjustments within this subass uh you know now tying into some of the material in the base class uh you know Celestial resilience for instance now gets to play off your magical cunning feature in the base class all really fabulous uh including at level 14 and and just to remind people what celestial resilience is um you can go back to xanathars and take a look at it it gives you temporary hit points and it gives your allies temporary hit points it's a little bit like inspiring leader though Everything's changed in the new players handbook but um here you you can look in the in play test 7 you can see how uh Celestial resilience works and yeah so um the difference there is that it used to work on a short or long rest only um and then in the play test um they added that uh you could also benefit from when you use magical cunning so it gives you one extra use per day te and Searing Vengeance this feature now applying to you or an ally perfect and that's a change from the play test as well um so in the play test as well as the original version in zaniar um the way siring Vengeance works is uh if you take uh I I've got just referring to my notes sorry uh but um basically if you are going to make a death savings throw you can regain hit points equal to half your hit point maximum and actually like Rise Up from prone um and uh then every creature around you uh that you choose takes radiant damage uh so that's how it works and that you can only do it once prong rest and what he is saying now is if somebody else is going to make a death saving throw you can use that feature on them now so that's brand and a pretty big buff I think the fiend has always been an extremely popular and iconic uh warlock sub class and and really strong out of the gate the fiend of the four subclasses has the most of its sort of 24 pieces still present right but those pieces have all been enhanced the spell list uh has been Revisited you can use some of your features more often than could before like dark one's own luck hurl through and and we saw this in the play test as well uh so dark one's own luck in the 2014 Players handbook it's good feature I mean if you fail a saving throw um or an ability check I I mean you're going to use it on a saving throw let's be honest um so you fail your saving throw you roll a d10 uh then you add it to your result and it might change the result right um and you could only do it once per short or long run but we saw in the play test that you could use it a number of times equal to your charisma modifier per long rest now depending how many short rest you take that might not actually be more um but if you need fail two saves in the same combat it's definitely going to feel like more uh so it's going to give you more flexibility which is a significant enhancement um you know I I've been uh I have a friend who's probably going to start a campaign for um the new book right and I've been dying to figure out what I'm going to play and I'm definitely considering Warlock and you know you got Arch Fay and great old one get these massive changes so they're super attractive but then I'm keep looking back at fi too uh because there are these kinds of nice enhancements and you guys know I like to make my saving throws hell is still terrifying but also has sort of clearer functionality uh than it had before you also with the fish resilience that you get here magical weapons no longer bypass your resistance that's fantastic yeah so it's and we've seen that in everything so far everything that referred to magical attacks everything that referred to um you know things not going through uh and we saw this in the play test as well we've seen this right from day one of the revised rules play testing uh that that language seems to be gone from everything uh now we haven't seen the monster manual yet right uh so who knows but it seems to be gone from everything up to now um and hurl through hell what a feature that is in 2014 it's kind of a premier warlock feature because there is no saving throw then in the play test they added a saving throw so that's clearly not an enhancement um but maybe he's thinks there was some confusion in how it worked uh whether it should provide a saving throw or not um but anyway that not a big surprise with herl through hell in the players handbook if you were following the play tests this of the four sub classes is the most like what it was before but even so you're going to find but just just a bit better uh oddly tanky in uh Boulder yeah so what what I would say is with fiend definitely going to be tougher than it was in 2014 despite the change to hurl through hell because remember hurl through hell comes at level 14 and there's so many enhancements that he's already revealed to you here in terms of your spells known um in terms of how the resistance Works uh in and and you saw more if you read the the play test so overall I would say the fiend is more powerful than it used to be R gate three really cuz that constantly killing killing of a a creature and getting temporary H points bouncing around like that uh just kept you alive on the battlefield much longer than I anticipated that tankiness in Boulders Gate 3 is also here in Spades because probably the biggest enhancement for the fiend Patron is in dark one's blessing yeah uh because now you gain its benefit whether you're the one who drops the foe or someone else does within a certain distance of you and uh yeah so that's a big like dark ones blessing is a good feature even in 2014 and we saw in the play test that they enhanced it um and yeah so he's telling you that that enhancement went through so if you want to know how it works look up the play test so you are going to be farming those temporary hit points much more easily than you ever could before great old ones this one is for all intense I I mean as much as I've been talking about I can't really decide I am leaning towards wanting to play great old one the most uh because I really like where this subass has landed and purposes a new subass we really rebuilt the subass from the ground up just like the arch Fay Patron yeah so Arch Fay and and great old one like I said before these are new sub classes they have the old names but they're they're so different than what they were in 2014 which is good because I was not a fan of the mechanics of either of those sub classes before because we felt that the great old one Patron in 2014 oozed with flavor and and I and I very purposefully Lally CH yes choose the word oozed with with this this subass that is all about entities like cthulu yeah uh but we felt that just as the arch Fay Patron didn't really deliver the goods well enough mechanically we felt the same here those two subclasses really needed an overhaul so that they felt like peers to the celestial and fiend Patron warlocks Celestial and fiend Patron war that that's exactly right these these subclasses if you're going to include them in the players handbook they need to be as good as the other ones you put in the handbook um and I think they've done a pretty good job because honestly is a good subass and always has been um and and so it didn't need a lot of enhancement and it got some uh but it didn't really require a whole bunch um and Celestial I mean a lot of people uh know this is Celestial was printed in the same book as hexblade and that meant celesti and and I've seen this for other things as well um like the S Warrior uh fighter same thing printed in the same book as the Run Knight and so you get this one subass or option that's so good that uh it kind of overshadows the stuff that's beside it and the celestial Patron is one that got overshadowed because there was so much talk about hex plade uh when it came out and Celestial was kind of Forgotten but you know what it's a decent subass uh so didn't need a whole lot of enhancement either uh so um yeah Arch Fay and great old one they needed this redesign warlocks were on really solid ground mechanically yeah absolutely um but these two they needed they needed some love and uh in this case oh my gosh did we pour on the ooze and and the pionic power uh because now you're going to be able to much more easily have that fantasy of using uh psychic power to harm people to whisper into other people's minds uh to summon in aberration because again one of the the benefits of having the new summoning spells in this book is that we could now build the summon aberration spell directly into this subass uh because the create thall feature now relies on you summoning up this strange creature from beyond the stars uh which the new version of summon aberration one of the options uh includes summoning a mind flare yeah so the the the the friend Ed all right so it's I wasn't expecting any spell reveals there is a spell reveal for you uh you can select a mind flare option or mind flare esque option it's not an actual mind flare of course uh it's going to use the same kind of uh mechanics that we see with the other options within those summoning spells um but yeah uh I I kind of expected to see those spells go into the players handbook with very few changes maybe some slight wording or mechanical stuff but that was a pretty big one uh when I read it summon might be a mind flayer that appears and is helping you now not a mind Flare from the monster manual yes a a version it is a a mind flare option within the summon aberration spell and this is a great spell list for them by the way I mean because that's a big change for these these earlier ones but we're getting detect thoughts dissonant Whispers fantasmal Force Tasha's hideous laughter Clairvoyance hunger of Hadar confusion summon aberration modify memory and telekinesis and when you do damage you can turn Okay so that's the entire list that you get with the great old one Patron so now I can reveal um in the play test uh they got E's black tentacles um and then they didn't get Summon aberration because uh their 14th level feature gave them that as well uh so Evers is gone summon aberration has replaced it but other than that it's the same list as we saw in the play test turn things into psychic damage yes because that that connects to the fact that three of the features in this subass are in entirely new now create th is functionally also entirely new but it's using the old name yeah but psychic spells Clairvoyant combatant and eldrich hex are all entirely new features in this subass and they are allowing you to first off uh when you cast enchantment or illusion spells you can do so without verbal or sematic components because we wanted you to be able to feel like that psionic magic user where it's just your mind is doing it and they're they're not no one is necessarily seeing you do anything while you use your spooky magic uh but as you mentioned the psychic spells feature also lets you when you deal damage with a warlock spell change it to psychic yeah uh so you can have again this sort of full psionic fantasy of whatever spell you're casting uh that's dealing damage it can be psychic damage and you can flavor that as this is all in your head yes yeah well particularly because they never saw you they never saw you casting a spell um so also then with Clairvoyant combatant this new feature ties in with the subclasses awakened mind feature where you can with awakened mind create a connection yeah between your mind and someone else's well then with Clairvoyant combatant you can make that connection go bad this is all about really zeroing in on a Target and just heightening how much damage you're doing to that one target this is actually a nod to uh how psionics worked back in first edition DND where you could have these psionic battles going on in people's minds and nothing visible is even happening you know if someone were watching like it looks like those people and and um I I I just have to mention this that uh I did a character build for the great old one Patron uh called The Voice from Beyond um and uh this version of the great old one uh Patron I wish had been around because it is so perfect for that build um so that is a build that is definitely going to get updated after the rules change uh because it's this is just so in line with the thematics of that build um just perfect um and I am obviously thrilled about how this subass turned out or like flinching in pain but from what and this subass just brings that to the table the Elder Tex is significantly more powerful as well yes the enhanced version of hex that you have is again all about heightening the suffering for this one Target because it gives them advantage on saving throws and so that is going yeah so um the hex spell is okay um but generally if I'm going to play a higher level warlock I'm not I usually will trade out actually hex um at least by level five I've gotten rid of of hex and replace it with something else um but just because I got better things to concentrate on than hex right uh but I'll tell you if you're giving disadvantage on the saving throw for the ability score you check with hex that's a big boost to that spell and uh I know it I'll have to think about that one uh because that does make it a lot more enticing but still going to require concentration so you got to remember that whatever spells that you're or saving throws that you're causing you're not going to be able to concentrate on a different spell uh so it might require some teamwork to to work around that or look for uh other options that aren't going to use your concentration against a a certain ability uh so you can let's say if you're going to be casting spells that Force wisdom saving throws you can use this spell uh your hex to give them disadvantage on wisdom saving throws which again can create this sort of Snowball Effect uh with your your harmful magic against there's a lot of synergy with all of these subclasses I mean all everything in the new players handbook is very intentional as a giant fan of warlocks it's very difficult to make a choice these are all fantastically realized and hit many sub genres of this creepy genre that I love so much people are going to love all the all this new knowing how much of a warlock fan you are it it was important to me to be able to hear you say that yeah it's tough I mean fiend and Celestial have always been very strong but Fay and uh old ones is so strong and so specific uh I absolutely love them and they're they're so on theme and I can't wait to uh optimize them and some builds the new players handbook is available okay so that's all they're going to have to say on warlock so I want to give some general uh Impressions and opinions obviously I'm not going to be revealing anything here but if you're curious what I've thought reading the the new players handbook I am going to share that with you um so I am happier with the balance of the Warlock in the players handbook than I was in under 7 under 7 I had some serious uh concerns about balance and uh I am happier with it now though I still think the warlock's pretty good like I'm not sure but it's it's near the top of the list for sure now um and I don't think it was before um I do think they did a pretty good job of uh making it so that you might not want to just do a two Lev warlock dip and do agonizing blast and repelling blast every single time though you'll still want to do that with some builds because it's still going to be a great uh option for your character mechanically as it always has been um but I do think they have given a fair amount of incentive to stick with warlock that wasn't there in 2014 and that's good um I also really appreciate that like if I'm just using the 2014 Players handbook and making a warlock I don't feel like I have very good subclass options other than fiend um but now I definitely do there's four subclasses here that I think are all perfectly valid not you know the balance is pretty good pretty good definitely way way better than we're used to seeing like we're used to seeing subclasses all over the place but in general um and I can say this for the whole player's handbook the uh balance between subclasses they obviously paid much more attention to it this time around and and it shows and and uh uh I'm very pleased with that um because I mean even as recently as tasas we had peace clerics and Twilight clerics um and and then we were introduced with new sorcerer subclasses that were way more powerful than all the other sorcerer subclasses um and uh so uh you know if we ignore previous sources and we're just looking at 48 options in this player handbook I don't know that there's you know a bad option in the entire book so I'm very pleased with that um there are the invocations uh obviously we're going to see some big changes and it's going to be really interesting to kind of dive into different ways to put these things together uh because it's going to look different it's definitely going to look different your warlock is not going to be like your 2014 warlock it's going to be an entirely different jigsaw puzzle to put together um so it it's exciting for someone like me who likes to do builds who likes new toys uh to get these new toys and and see what I can do with them um and I think it was fairly clear from what he said that uh uh you're going to have three packed options so he didn't mention pack to the Talisman right uh so uh if you want to use pack to the Talisman you will need to use the version in tashes uh which is there and it's compatible and it's got invocations attached to it and they're compatible as well so um if you want to use it that's what you're going to have to do because it's not going to be presented as an option in this book um what else do I want to say uh there's so much more about this warlock that I'd love to tell you that I can't tell you yet but I sure will and I'll tell you what if they do and a video where they go over invocations or publish an article where they go over invocations you can bet I will be reacting to it and presenting that information to you and giving some thoughts because I'm dying to talk about this stuff uh but tomorrow we're going to be looking at the Druid and so that talk about a class with a lot of questions attached to it because I know y all want to know where wild shape landed and uh I am wondering what they're going to say in the video but I will absolutely looking forward to seeing it and reacting to it thanks everyone I'll be talking to you tomorrow

Channel: Treantmonk's Temple

Views: 60,583

Keywords: dnd, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Optimization, Guide, Wizard, Wizards, charop, ultimate, best, most powerful

Id: tRzRNaU1tSg

Length: 59min 44sec (3584 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2024