Otherworldly Patron - The Sheikh

[quinron]

THE SHEIKH
You are granted power by a genie noble, among the most powerful beings on the Elemental Planes. Your patron treats you as they would any other servant, taking your cooperation as a matter of course. The genie nobles keep their motivations guarded, revealing them only when their goals have been accomplished, but they almost always involve the expansion of their power and influence.

Elemental Patronage
Your patron is a spirit of the Inner Planes, and as such is associated with a specific element. Choose the type of genie you serve: dao, djinni, efreeti, or marid. Your choice will determine several of your later abilities.
Djinn are demanding but fair, and they tend to be the most appreciative of all genies. Marids are openly derisive toward humanoids, but individuals who prove themselves to be significantly powerful can gain their respect. Dao and efreet, however, treat their subjects as slaves, showing them contempt if not outright hostility.

Expanded Spell List
The Sheikh lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. A number of the following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you: those in the Sheikh column, and those in the column corresponding to your patron’s type.

Spell Level	Sheikh	Dao	Djinni	Efreeti	Marid
1st	command	earth tremor	fog cloud	burning hands	create or destroy water
2nd	levitate	Maximilian's earthen grasp	gust of wind	enlarge/reduce	alter self
3rd	tongues	erupting earth	lightning bolt	fireball	wall of water
4th	compulsion	stone shape	storm sphere	wall of fire	control water
5th	conjure elemental	passwall	control winds	dominate person	maelstrom

Bonds of Servitude
At 1st level, the duration of your enchantment spells is doubled.

Genie's Step
Starting at 6th level, you gain the ability to temporarily take on a genie’s form. As an action, you transform the lower half of your body into a swirling column of sand, air, smoke, or water, just as your patron does in flight. Your movement changes in a manner appropriate to your patron:
Dao: You gain a burrow speed of 30 feet and a fly speed of 30 feet.
Djinni: You gain a fly speed of 60 feet.
Efreeti: Your walking speed increases by 10 feet, and you gain a fly speed of 30 feet.
Marid: You gain a swim speed of 30 feet and a fly speed of 30 feet.
This transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as an action. After you use this ability, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

Elemental Demise
Starting at 10th level, your body is infused with barely-restrained elemental energy. When you are knocked unconscious, your body explodes. Each creature within 30 feet other than you must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC, taking 8d6 damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful save. The damage type is determined by your patron: bludgeoning damage for dao or marid, thunder damage for djinni, or fire damage for efreeti.
If you become stable while unconscious after exploding, your body and any items you were wearing or carrying are transformed into a wisp of sand, cloud, smoke, or steam, depending on your patron. You regain consciousness, and you are continuously under the effects of a gaseous form spell. You remain in this form until you regain at least 1 hit point, at which point you return to your normal form in your space, or until you take damage, at which point you return to your normal form in your space and are knocked unconscious.
After you use this ability, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

Master's Favor
At 14th level, your patron gives you the means to contact them directly. You can cast contact other plane once as a ritual. You can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
When you successfully contact your patron, instead of asking questions, you can instead ask that they grant you a wish. Make your request, then roll percentile dice. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your warlock level, your patron grants your wish, within the confines of the wish spell. The DM determines how exactly your wish is granted, though it is always in a manner that benefits your patron more than yourself.
If your patron grants your wish, you can’t use this feature to make a wish again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can do so again after you finish a long rest.

[zeek0]

I hate to see homebrew go by without any comments - here's my take.

I rather like that you made a single subclass for the whole group.

Spells that are on the warlock expanded spell list feature need to be not on the spell list in the first place. See tongues.

At 6th level you gain access to the fly spell, which grants the same general benefits of Genie's Step. However, this feature does not require concentration, a key drawback to thefly spell. If you look to other classes for reference, the dragon sorcerer doesn't gain flight until level 14, and tempest cleric at level 17. If you allow short-term flight without concentration, I would make it the 10th level feature instead.

The main problem that I find with Elemental Demise is that it is not under the control of the player - they have to almost die before they get to use it. So it becomes that the player both wants to be defeated so that it can do some good damage, and does not want to be defeated, because it doesn't want to die. Its an awkward place to be I think.

Overall, I like the ideas here and the work you put into it. Here's some positive feedback:

• the spell choices you made on the expanded spell list.
• the changable effects in many of the features based on your choice
• Master's Favor is a good, flavorful feature of this class

[quinron]

Thanks very much for the feedback - I'm currently finding myself in a bit of a catch-22, wanting other people to reply to my material, but not being able to build up goodwill because I don't comment often on other people's material, mostly because I don't get many replies to help me learn how to develop material.

I thought I checked the list and didn't see tongues on it; I guess I just missed that entirely, I'll replace it with something better.

Now that you point it out, I can see how Genie's Step would be better swapped for the level 10 ability - I was thinking of it as comparable to fly, but I think you're right, not requiring concentration makes it quite a bit more powerful.

As for Elemental Demise, that was the one that took the most thinking to put together; by the time I'd settled on it, I was just trying to figure out how to make it work, not whether or not it would be a good idea. I think I like the idea of swapping it to 6th level and letting it be a damage replacement effect might be cool - like, if you're a djinni warlock, you can make a spell deal lightning (or maybe thunder) damage instead of its normal type.

[Amnoriath]

As for Elemental Demise, that was the one that took the most thinking to put together; by the time I'd settled on it, I was just trying to figure out how to make it work, not whether or not it would be a good idea. I think I like the idea of swapping it to 6th level and letting it be a damage replacement effect might be cool - like, if you're a djinni warlock, you can make a spell deal lightning (or maybe thunder) damage instead of its normal type.

Perhaps instead you emulate this at 6th level by giving a scaling version of Hellish Rebuke for each one changing the damage type, size of dice, and rider once per short or long rest.