Warlock Invocations (PEACH)

[Zeros]

Ever since 3.5 I've fallen in love with the Warlock. The general mechanics (although not always the implementation), the background and flavor, the general idea of a caster who gets to keep casting. When I first saw the 5e warlock I was disheartened that it was so limited per encounter (besides EB of course) but I quickly got over that, its different, but its still has its fun.

Anyhow, So now I've begun to Homebrew some invocations. These invocations range from 3.5 ports (Hellrime, Brimstone, Vitriolic blast) to defensive buffs, to modified spells.

Honestly, I'm relatively new to 5e, so there's bound to be balance issues, so I'm opening it up to critique. Also, if you think of better names for any invocation/spell let me know as some of the names are bland or specifically flavored to demonic patrons.

Modified spells: This first set of thing invocations are modified spells. They are generally better than the original spell, but do lose some of the potency or effect.

Hungering Frost
Prerequisite: Able to Cast Armor of Agathys. ? Level?

When you would cast Armor of Agathys you may instead cast Hungering Frost

1st-level abjuration
Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a cup of water)
Duration: 1 hour

A protective magical force surrounds you, manifesting as a spectral frost that covers you and your gear. You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have these hit points, the creature takes damage equal to your temporary hit points at the time of the attack

For the duration, temporary hit points stack. These temporary hit points may never exceed the maximum you gain from this spell. The temporary hit points from Armor of Agathys are lost first, after which the cold damage dealt to melee attackers is equal to the temporary hit points at the time of being hit.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the temporary hit points increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st.

Fel Flight
Prerequisites: Able to Cast fly, 14th level
When you would cast Fly, you may instead cast Fel Flight
3rd-level Transmutation
Cast: 1 action
Range; Self
Components: V, S, M (A wing feather from any bird)
Duration: 1 hour

You gain a flying speed of 30, when the spell ends you fall if you are still aloft, unless you can stop the fall.

Eldritch Blast Essence Ports: So I've got two general classes of these. The first are strict damage changes and the second are damage changes with a bonus effect.

Brimstone Blast
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be fire damage. This damage ignores resistance but not immunity.
vs
Brimstone Blast
Prerequisite: 3rd Level
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be fire damage. An enemy struck by this Eldritch Blast must make a Dexterity save against your Spell Save DC. On a failure they take 2d4 damage next turn.

Hellrime Blast
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be cold damage. This damage ignores resistance but not immunity.
vs
Hellrime Blast
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be cold damage. An enemy struck by this Eldritch Blast must make a Constitution save against your Spell Save DC. On a failure they have disadvantage on attacks and dexterity until the beginning of your next turn.

Vitriolic Blast
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be acid damage. This damage ignores resistance but not immunity.
vs
Vitriolic Blast
Prerequisites: 5th Level
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be acid damage. An enemy struck by this Eldritch Blast must make a Dexterity save against your Spell Save DC. On a failure they take 1d6 acid damage at the beginning of their next two turns.

Psychic Pulse
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be psychic damage. This damage ignores resistance, but not immunity.
vs
Psychic Pulse
Prerequisites: 5th level
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be psychic damage. An enemy struck by this Eldritch Blast must make a Wisdom save against your Spell Save DC. On a failure they cannot take their Bonus Action next turn.

Utterdark Blast
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose for the damage that it deals to be Necrotic damage. This damage ignores resistance, but not immunity.
vs
Utterdark blast
Prerequisite: 9th level
When you cast Eldritch Blast you may choose to reduce the damage dice to 1d8 and the damage changes to necrotic. An enemy struck by this Eldritch Blast must make a Constitution save against your Spell Save DC. On a failure their maximum health point total is reduced by an amount equal to the damage. (Patron's Champion at Arms also opens up fighting styles in general to avoid some of the necessity some people feel to 'dip')

Two-Weapon Fighting Pacts: I've seen a lot of different options for this, but generally they seem to miss out on the fact that Warlocks already use their bonus actions and need at least one free hand to cast spells. This makes a two-weapon fighting warlock a little unwieldy. The first invocation should not be used in conjunction with the second two invocations. I just want to hear people's arguments about balance on either side.

Duo Blade Pact
Prerequisite: Blade Pact
You may now create two weapons instead of one when you use your blade pact to create a weapon. While wielding these weapons you are treated as having the two-weapon fighting style.

vs

Pact of the Twins
Prerequisite:Blade Pact
You may create two melee weapons as your pact blade and may bind two melee weapons as your pact weapon which are created together as the same action. When wielding these you may make an attack with each weapon as your action. You may only make use of this invocation once per round and you may not use your bonus action for two-weapon fighting during any round in which you make use of this invocation. When wielding these pact weapons you may still cast spells as if you had a free hand.

Patron’s Champion at Arms
Prerequisite: Blade Pact
You may choose from the following fighting styles: Two-weapon fighting, Great Weapon Fighting, or Dueling. You gain that fighting style when using your pact weapon. When you use your action to create your pact weapon you may make one attack with it as a bonus action.

General Invocations: Y'know, general invocations.

Leaps and Bounds
You are proficient in Athletics and Acrobatics

Swimming the Styx
You gain a swim speed equal to your movement speed and can breathe underwater.

Umbral Shield
Once per short rest you may use your reaction to add your charisma to your AC

I'll continue to add to this as I think of others, and depending on how my understanding of 5e increases based on this thread I may try and reach into other classes to try and do some homebrew.

Also, this isn't really a 'balancing the warlock' thread. I consider the warlock to be a fairly balanced class. Its got its strengths, its got its weaknesses. This is mostly to expand options for both mechanical and flavor purposes.

Thanks for your time!

Armor of Agathys Invocation was inspired by, and modified from: Sicarius Victus in a Thread that I can't link you to until I have more posts unfortunately. Will fix that when my post count improves.
General Inspiration for Two-Weapon Fighting from many sources, of whom I wish I would've faved their homebrew.

[clash]

I am familiar with the 3.5 warlock and many of these look really flavorful. A couple comments:

Hungering Frost is confusing.

Fel Flight I would make more of a limited version of fly usable all the time rather than modifying the fly spell.

For essence blasts: 5
1. 5e doesn't have the same concept of essence blasts as 3.5 so I would follow their set paradigm and make the essences in such a way that they all stack.
2. EB gets enough damage from Agonizing blast. All of the essences should mirror repelling blast in that they only add an additional effect.

For duel wielding I would word it like this:

You may create two melee weapons as your pact blade and may bind two light(or maybe one-handed) melee weapons as your pact weapon which are created together as the same action. Whenever you take the attack action with one of your pact weapons you may attack your second weapon as a bonus action.

Edit: You may have a big problem with the duel wielding weapons and lifedrinker. You will get three attacks with +dex +cha instead of just 2. That is a big boost.

Then maybe add:
Arcane blade: Your pact blade is treated as magical and can be used as an arcane focus for casting warlock spells. Additionally you can perform somatic components of a spell with the same hand that is holding your pact weapon.

Not sure about having the duel wielding invocation and the fighting styles one. You would have to do something about the overlap.

The 1/short rest on umbral shield doesn't really follow the invocation structure. Not sure what to do about that.

Hope this helps.

[Sicarius Victis]

Modified spells: This first set of thing invocations are modified spells. They are generally better than the original spell, but do lose some of the potency or effect.

To be honest, IMO it would be simpler just to have the Invocation modify the spell the way the Blast Invocations do, rather than having a whole new spell.


Hungering Frost
Prerequisite: Able to Cast Armor of Agathys. ? Level?

When you would cast Armor of Agathys you may instead cast Hungering Frost

1st-level abjuration
Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a cup of water)
Duration: 1 hour

A protective magical force surrounds you, manifesting as a spectral frost that covers you and your gear. You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have these hit points, the creature takes damage equal to your temporary hit points at the time of the attack

For the duration, temporary hit points stack. These temporary hit points may never exceed the maximum you gain from this spell. The temporary hit points from Armor of Agathys are lost first, after which the cold damage dealt to melee attackers is equal to the temporary hit points at the time of being hit.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the temporary hit points increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st.

The right idea, definitely. Just like mine, however, it could probably be worded a bit better.


Fel Flight
Prerequisites: Able to Cast fly, 14th level
When you would cast Fly, you may instead cast Fel Flight
3rd-level Transmutation
Cast: 1 action
Range; Self
Components: V, S, M (A wing feather from any bird)
Duration: 1 hour

You gain a flying speed of 30, when the spell ends you fall if you are still aloft, unless you can stop the fall.

So, it's a weaker, self-only Fly that just doesn't require concentration? Interesting idea, but feels weak in practice.


Eldritch Blast Essence Ports

For these, I'd suggest using the second ones. The first provide literally no benefits besides flavour and occasionally taking advantage of vulnerabilities.


Duo Blade Pact
Prerequisite: Blade Pact
You may now create two weapons instead of one when you use your blade pact to create a weapon. While wielding these weapons you are treated as having the two-weapon fighting style.

Short and sweet. But how does it interact with a bonded weapon?


Pact of the Twins
Prerequisite:Blade Pact
You may create two melee weapons as your pact blade and may bind two melee weapons as your pact weapon which are created together as the same action. When wielding these you may make an attack with each weapon as your action. You may only make use of this invocation once per round and you may not use your bonus action for two-weapon fighting during any round in which you make use of this invocation. When wielding these pact weapons you may still cast spells as if you had a free hand.

A bit more complicated. As written, it does not stack with Thirsting Blade, and it is not very useful for conventional TWF. Maybe if later, the attack from it stacked with the one from regular TWF?


Patron’s Champion at Arms
Prerequisite: Blade Pact
You may choose from the following fighting styles: Two-weapon fighting, Great Weapon Fighting, or Dueling. You gain that fighting style when using your pact weapon. When you use your action to create your pact weapon you may make one attack with it as a bonus action.

I'm just honestly surprised that this isn't an official one. You'd think something like this would be a necessity. I think this should also allow using the Blade as an AF, though.


Umbral Shield
Once per short rest you may use your reaction to add your charisma to your AC

Minor Shield that doesn't use a spell slot. Not bad.


Armor of Agathys Invocation was inspired by, and modified from: Sicarius Victus in a Thread that I can't link you to until I have more posts unfortunately. Will fix that when my post count improves.


You know, I was wondering why that looked familiar. For anyone that's wondering, I can provide the link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?504059-A-New-Bladelock-Pact-of-the-Blade-Modifications-(PEACH)).

[Zeros]

@Clash and Sicarius Victus: Hey, thanks for your response!


To be honest, IMO it would be simpler just to have the Invocation modify the spell the way the Blast Invocations do, rather than having a whole new spell.

I guess my feeling on it is that it makes it clear. They can cast this version or they can cast that version. For example, when looking into it I thought that having the full damage from Armor of Agathys and being able to increase your THP was a little too powerful, so I felt that it might be best to make you choose full damage mode, or stacking THP mode (which generally deals less damage).


The right idea, definitely. Just like mine, however, it could probably be worded a bit better.

Hungering Frost is confusing.

Hmm... I was trying to stick close to the original spell and this appears to actually be a combination of two iterations of this HB invocation... How about this fix?

1st-level abjuration
Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a cup of water)
Duration: 1 hour

A protective magical force surrounds you, manifesting as a spectral frost that covers you and your gear. You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. Whenever a creature hits you with a melee attack they take damage. This damage is equal to the amount of temporary hit points you have previous to their attack.

Additionally, temporary hit points stack for the duration. You may never have more temporary hit points than you gained when you cast this spell.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the temporary hit points increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st.


So, it's a weaker, self-only Fly that just doesn't require concentration? Interesting idea, but feels weak in practice.

Fel Flight I would make more of a limited version of fly usable all the time rather than modifying the fly spell.

I was trying to avoid making this stronger than the Sorcerer's wings from his draconic heritage. Perhaps if we extended the duration to 24 hours it would feel more in line?


For these, I'd suggest using the second ones. The first provide literally no benefits besides flavour and occasionally taking advantage of vulnerabilities.

For essence blasts: 5
1. 5e doesn't have the same concept of essence blasts as 3.5 so I would follow their set paradigm and make the essences in such a way that they all stack.
2. EB gets enough damage from Agonizing blast. All of the essences should mirror repelling blast in that they only add an additional effect.

I agree that EB has enough damage as is, not sure what I was thinking by adding damage :p. So I'll modify those for different benefits on the Vitriolic and Brimstone blasts. However, I don't think that these should stack with each other. Eldritch Blast is fairly nice, these should be more options that correspond more to flavor and options.

Any suggestions for what the benefits might be?


Short and sweet. But how does it interact with a bonded weapon?

Honestly, this one was more put together as the basic version of the other two and I didn't write it out quite as RAW intensive as I should've.


Prerequisite: Blade Pact
You may now create two weapons instead of one when you use your blade pact to create a weapon. You may bind to two weapons to use as your pact weapon. While wielding your pact weapons you are treated as having the two-weapon fighting style.


A bit more complicated. As written, it does not stack with Thirsting Blade, and it is not very useful for conventional TWF. Maybe if later, the attack from it stacked with the one from regular TWF?

The intent is for all three attacks to be used as part of the action, rereading though I definitely see where it doesn't work by RAW. A little change of wording below.

Prerequisite:Blade Pact
You may create two melee weapons as your pact blade and may bind two melee weapons as your pact weapon which are created together as the same action. When wielding these you may take your attacks with your primary hand and one attack with your off-hand as a single action. You may only make use of this invocation once per round and you may not use your bonus action for two-weapon fighting during any round in which you make use of this invocation. When wielding these pact weapons you may still cast spells as if you had a free hand.


I'm just honestly surprised that this isn't an official one. You'd think something like this would be a necessity. I think this should also allow using the Blade as an AF, though.
Agreed, it feels like it falls right in line with the aspect of a bladelock. As for the Arcane Focus I'm of the opinion that the pact blade should definitely count as the Arcane Focus regardless of the circumstance. But this aspect is actually in the first of the two invocations "you may cast spells as if you had a free hand." Meaning that if you have an arcane focus or component pouch you could make use of it although you were dual wielding.


For duel wielding I would word it like this:

You may create two melee weapons as your pact blade and may bind two light(or maybe one-handed) melee weapons as your pact weapon which are created together as the same action. Whenever you take the attack action with one of your pact weapons you may attack your second weapon as a bonus action.

This still runs into the problem of the Warlock's action economy and at this point is gimping himself to be able to maintain damage (especially before Lifedrinker). Taking up the bonus action makes it so that a Warlock loses a little less than a 1/3 of his damage and cannot do any of the warlocky things such as misty escape.

about 1/3 of his damage comes from Hex usually (about 1/4 at higher levels). This means a handful of things.
1.) he has to use up one of his few spell slots
2.) he has to maintain concentration while in melee (which with low AC due to no armor is a good chance of losing it every round)
3.) he gives up about half of his damage whenever a target of Hex dies. Due to using the bonus action to shift Hex around.

These invocations are trying to address that issue so that someone can play a twf bladelock. It will still be risky of course, but at least they will be not be getting gimped by the action economy.


Edit: You may have a big problem with the duel wielding weapons and lifedrinker. You will get three attacks with +dex +cha instead of just 2. That is a big boost.

Yeah, I was worried about that too. I made an excel sheet to compare with other things. Turns out that even with this bonus they do MORE damage with Eldritch blast, even when assuming the twf warlock can get both their primary damage stat and Charisma up to 5. My calculation at that time didn't include Hit Chance or Crit Chance but Eldritch Blast came out to 56 avg dpr while this style was 54 avg dpr. When I get the chance I'll update it with Crit chance and Hit chance and post the excel sheet. (Note: this comparison was with an intense commitment on the side of the TWF warlock and only taking agonizing blast with the EB Warlock).



Then maybe add:
Arcane blade: Your pact blade is treated as magical and can be used as an arcane focus for casting warlock spells. Additionally you can perform somatic components of a spell with the same hand that is holding your pact weapon.

Not sure about having the duel wielding invocation and the fighting styles one. You would have to do something about the overlap.

While the Arcane blade is nice it becomes a feat tax by itself, imo, which is why I put it together with the other benefit.

As said before, even with all this investment (the four invocations: Thirsting, TWF pact, TWF style, Lifedrinker and the Dual Wielder feat) the damage is still comparable to a warlock with just agonizing blast and Eldritch Blast. Besides that aspect, why would you say to split those off balance wise? (Honestly asking, I know there is more than damage in the game, and so I want to know what I'm missing as to why this is/might be overpowered.


The 1/short rest on umbral shield doesn't really follow the invocation structure. Not sure what to do about that.

Minor Shield that doesn't use a spell slot. Not bad.

Yeah, I felt it was a little odd compared to the others, but making it take a spell slot makes it almost assured to never be picked, you just don't have the use for it. I recently saw one from another person who did a similar thing where they could use it a number of times equal to their charisma per day. But that doesn't seem to be the same either. Any thoughts on what brings that in line to make it more consistent?

Hey, Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. Definitely open to rebuttal on this, trying to understand where the line on Homebrew should sit and that means getting some experience from those who've played more than I have.

Also, if you have any suggestions or requests I'd love to try and put some more stuff into here to expand warlock options.

[clash]

On the mobile so things may not be formatted the best but here goes.

I think the problem with hungering frost is the hit points stack thing is really confusing. I would instead word it that any time you would gain temp got points from another source it heals your armor if I am taking it right. That may be op when attacked with the temp HP invocation though.

For the flight what about free flight but must begin and end on solid surface so only short distance? I feel that would make a good improvement over the levitate one.

Maybe make an eldritch essence invocation that lets you choose a damage type when casting. And I would suggest a few others that add effects that way you have one damage type but can have multiple effects. If your not sold limiting applying one essence at a time would be balanced just not quite as consistent.

As for the two one of the drawbacks is losing the bonus action. Twf rangers have to deal with the same thing. That's how twf works I would suggest against a workaround. Getting thirsting blade on the third attack might balance it anyways. Giving up 2d6 to get an additional 10 in just Dex and cha makes the twf still more powerful. Perhaps even a balance issue with the bonus action.

I suggested arcane blade as a separate one because i could see any type of bladelock wanting it and considering it gives half of warcaster for free with the additional arcane focus I think it would be strong enough on its own.

As for the shield a plus 2 might be reasonable as a reaction unlimited all day long

I don't see any balance issue as is just trying to come up with a more consistent alternative

[Bharaeth]

Hey Zeros, thought I'd throw in with a little feedback.

Brimstone Blast: There is no advantage for spending an invocation to convert your force damage to fire damage, even if ignoring resistance. There are many more opponents with immunity to fire damage, I think, then there are with resistance to force damage. The rider versions might make it worthwhile, though - although, to stay in line with 5e terminology, I would state that the damage is fire damage (there are no untyped damages in 5e, I think?), and state whether the damage occurs at the beginning or the end of their turn, or when.

Hellrime Blast: As well as the relevant points above, in reference to Brimstone Blast; the rider is pretty cool, here. Not sure whether disadvantage on attacks and Dexterity is overpowered (maybe just disadvantage on attacks alone?), but I would specify on the Dexterity disadvantage, if I were you: do you mean disadvantage on Dexterity checks, disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws, or disadvantage on checks and saving throws using Dexterity?

With the Psychic Pulse, I harbour doubts as to whether enough NPC's have bonus action options in order to make this worth it

Utterdark Blast: personally, I think it's an unnecessarily fiddly mechanic to reduce maximum hit point totals with PCs, but I think it's even less useful against NPCs. By the time you've hit them and damaged them, in most cases their maximum hit points will no longer see any use. Do monsters heal much during fights?

Pact of the Twins is great, but it seems to me that a two-weapon fighting bladelock with this is even better at two-weapon fighting than a fighter can be. At least before three or more attacks comes online. I guess this is an issue with two-weapon fighting in general, though.

[Zeros]

Alright, let's redo the frost again then ;)
1st-level abjuration
Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a cup of water)
Duration: 1 hour

A protective magical force surrounds you, manifesting as a spectral frost that covers you and your gear. You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. For the duration, temporary hit points stack up to 5 temporary hit points.

For the duration, whenever a creatures hits you with a melee attack they take damage equal to the number of temporary hit points you have.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the temporary hit points, and temporary hit point stack maximum, increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st.

For the Eldritch Essence Invocations I'm going to go ahead and switch to each having a rider effect, although I don't have the time at the moment to actually do that (I'll update when I've done so).

Going back to the TWF argument, I may have to go make a thread to talk about balance of different weapon styles and whatnot, as I'm seemingly misunderstanding at the moment.

For the shield, I like the concept, but it basically gives Warlocks +2 to AC all day long (Basically the equivalent of a shield). While it is definitely more consistent, it pushes a twf, dueling, or gwf warlock up to the same level of AC as a comparable warlock who put in the effort to gain shield proficiency. But, I can't think of a better way to make it consistent with current Invocations without having that power spike.


@Bharaeth: Thanks for the feedback.

For the Eldritch essences I'm going to have to do some reworking them. They aren't explicitly supposed to be overpowered by any means, more a flavoring with benefits. Definitely going to switch to the rider effects for all of them.

Thanks for the thoughts on Bonus actions and max hit point totals and pcs. I had wondered about that when writing them up, but not having had much exposure to the monster manual yet I wasn't quite sure.

You have a point with it potentially being better than the fighter's twf (actually, by simple numbers this warlock's twf is better than normal fighter twf BUT that's not accounting for Action Surge or their combat archetypes). However, I still feel justified with the damage comparison as the warlock's twf is comparable to its eldritch blast damage and consistently lower than EB from level 17 on.