Pact of the Chains Warlock and Familiars in Your Dungeons and Dragons Game - D&D Player Tips
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Pact of the Chains Warlock and Familiars in Your Dungeons and Dragons Game - D&D Player Tips
Nerdarchist Ted and Dave discuss the least powerful of the pact boon options for the warlock character class Pact of the Chains. Since this involves mostly familiars we decided add a general discussion of familiars and their uses in game of D&D. We go over the special options for a warlock- imp, quasit, pseudo-dragon, sprite, and gazer.
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I think you gentlemen need it to add an addendum to this video. It's been widely discussed in other videos including ones on your channel that the familiars included with the Warlock pact do not bestow magic resistance.
I've been playing with an idea for a role reversal Warlock, with the Imp as the actual player character and his human "master" his merely an anchor to the material plane and puppet with which he interacts with npcs while he stays safely invisible. It's really the Imp casting all those spells too.
I thought of the same thing! I named them Puppet and Pocket. ☺️
There a character like that in the show young justice. Have you seen it?
Talking through your familiar: “Do you like my new polymorph spell?”
Played a gambling bard/warlock. He used his imp to cheat; look at other peoples cards or flip dice.
There's a few things here; Vampiric Touch has range of "Self" not "Touch", so can not be used through a familiar. A quasit can shapechange into a toad which is amphibious and has a swim speed of 40ft , so no need for a qipper. Lastly, Pact of the Chain warlocks, according to Mike Mearls, do NOT receive magic resistance from having Imp, Quasit, or Pseudodragon familiars, as those familiars gained through Monster Manual encounters, as opposed to warlock servitude, are considered different.
A note about Chains of Carceri that sold me on the invocation is that the text states, "You can cast hold monster at will - targeting a celestial, fiend, or elemental - without expending a spell slot or material components. You must finish a long rest before you can use this invocation on the *same* creature again" meaning that you can cast it as many times as you want as long as you are trying to use it on a different creature each time. Definitely helps my Summoner Chainlock when he summons Demons that are less than willing to help out.
Small point - Costs 10gp not 25gp.
Love this channel by the way! Love your work guys!
Albion Clarke THANK YOU
The rest of the party don't know it only costs 10 gp, why not make a 15 gp profit?
@@zecat3727 What a vile thing to do, love it.
I like pact of chain mainly, because it has a greater roleplaying aspect than the other two and had some great moments roleplaying my warlock with pact of the chain.
Zerift Gaming
You severely underestimate the role play value of the tomblock and their book of deep eldritch lore, or the bladelock and their weapon that is made from their will. The pact boon is as deep as you and your DM want to make it.
I didn't say they had no roleplay value, just that pact of the chain had greater, because there is so much more you can do with it. Also, writers often time limited by material given to them. Where the other two are objects as to oppose a creature that can move around, so with a tome and weapon the players can choose not use it to where as it is a living breathing creature with a will of sorts of it's own. This creature could be a secret enemy with its own agenda, a creature that serves only it's patron, or another member of the party. As oppose to limited to just the patron. You can also make it guide showing you secrets of this world or through visions and nightmares like instance following it through a series hallways filled with doors. So, my point is that it's not that the other two don't have roleplay value it's just that there's more room to work with in my experience with pact of the chain. So, I respectfully disagree.
Tomelocks can have familiars too.
But, none the special ones like imp so it looses the some of that wonder and fear.
Agreed brother having a sassy little intelligent creature following you around trying to corrupt your soul is amazing.
Pact of the chain is enticing to me because of two invocations: voice of the chain master and gift of the ever living ones.
Voice of the chainmaster is seriously overpowered. Being able to basically scry infinitely or send a message, or use your familiar as a walkie talkie. Its so good, and as you said there's no limitation to repeat cast the ability.
Gift of the everliving ones makes healing spells maximized when you get healed.. its hard to not see the value here, and thematically I just love it. I think this one was printed in xanathar's.
I'm running a Fighter/Warlock build where I'm a tank-type (F - Warden, W - Hexblade/Pact of the Chain) and I'm looking forward to having a little scout pseudodragon who can communicate to me quietly through telepathy. Also, Gift of the Everliving Ones is very powerful when you have limited healing and it auto-max's Second Wind and other healing spells and potions from others. For a tank, that's immensely beneficial.
Not only spells and abilities, Hit Dice as well, Warlocks already love taking one hour naps and the Ever Living Invo. makes it so you can basically regenerate like Wolverine by taking that short rest.
@Buddha UwU that is awesome!
Why not just turn your imp into a raven, and use its mimicry to repeat what you say?
@@Randomdudefromtheinternet cos that won't work outside a 100ft (or a mile idk exact) range
Always advantage on everything with the invisible familiar using the help action.
What's all this 25 gold cost talk? It's 10 gold. And access to a brass brazier. A one time cost perhaps. The herbs and such are consumed, not the brazier.
Not to mention that you can give an imp or Sprite caltrops, ball bearings, pocket sand, and the like
Dub Mic Step or just give them a few healing potions and tell them to act like a field medic
Shadowfaux at which point, they get shot at and likely die, because they have low ac and health, even with invisibility
Neutral Tired: so? It's not gone forever, just a little tedious sometimes
If you have a Sprite, do you have to bribe them with pizza?
Gregory Floriolli of course!
Lots of Pizza
All Hail the Zalord !!!
I bribed my Imp with licorice.
Just make sure you keep them away from 7-up. The two have an intense rivalry.
Vampiric touch is a spell you cast on self to allow you to make life drain attacks, it's in the same category as expeditious retreat.
I'd like to make a pact of the chain warlock with the keen mind feat who stays at home and sends his familiar out to help make the world's most accurate maps.
I have a pact of the chain warlock and i picked a sprite and stuck with it. The main thing was that sprites were able to carry things, so in a pinch I would administer/force feed the potion to someone who needed it and get them going.
I have a pact of the undying with a crawling claw as a familiar. My character is missing his hand and as such the claw is his own reanimated hand.
Gotta say, my favorite familiar by far is the raven. I had one with my Tiefling Blood Hunter due to Magic Initiate and his name was Greigus and he was really useful outside of combat because I could have him scout by flying above the party while traveling, he could assist in being on watch or do it himself because he could wake me telepathically if something was coming, and because of the mimicry skill there was more than one occasion where I distracted a guard or scared a bandit by having him make different noises. He may have been more effective for me than normal however due to my DM being pretty cool with me just letting my raven familiar do that stuff and he also let me keep a list of certain sounds Greigus had heard that he could choose to mimic, I remember my go to sounds were some small demon’s battle cry, a fragment of one of our bard’s songs, and a glass shattering
So, I'm not gonna go into exact details, but, I arbitrarily had my Halfling Arcane Trickster go into Great Old One Warlock based on what was happening in my game with creatures from the Far Realm. And to a lesser extent, to get limited telepathy for a running joke. But when I realized how freaking amazing a warlock dip and an Imp familiar are to a rogue, I kinda pooped a little.
Mr X
Warlock master class
Our Warlock's IMP is invaluable as a scout. Saved our butts a few times and allowed us to detour or prepare properly for battle if its unavoidable.
Chainlock screams to me summoner warlock, but they get no summoning spells
JG R Well, there is the Conjure Elemental invocation but I get what you mean, they get nothing beyond what all Warlocks get. Mind you, Xanathar's Guide adds the Summon Demon spells to the Warlock list. (Summon Lesser Demon, Summon Greater Demon, Infernal Calling).
Vaughan Cockell good 2 know
They also get Conjure Fey, Create Undead, Dance Macabre and a bunch of charm spells. So if you can manage concentration, I think Warlocks are perfectly capable of walking around with any combination of a familiar, an undead minion, a fiendish minion and a charmed minion. Even more fun if you can get a minion that can create or charm other minions.
I like pact of the chain warlock with that new invocation that allows you to count healing done to you to be max mix that with hexblade and a few levels of lore bard and your in business
There is 'summon lesser demon' and 'summon greater demon' spells from Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
My personal build is 3 lvls warlock the rest conjuration wizard. It makes your familiar quite formidable when you can deep strike back up to him and buff him with spells.
Far in the distant future, a manly man with a terrible VA is yelling "THE CODEX ASTARTES NAMES THIS TACTIC STEEL RAIN!"
AGrumpyPanda I'm afraid since he's a tiefling he's already fell to chaos, lol.
If you want a combat cheesing pact of the chain warlock, go with the spell sniper/eldritch spear combo and have a spotter imp. You should be able to hold your action and ambush people as soon as they come into veiw, knowing exactly where they are and how fast they are moving
Joshua Dallaire
dip a few levels into sorc to pick up distant spell and blast fools from 1200ft away, then quicken spell to hit em again
@@brosephnoonan223 and if you can afford it, take 3 levels of Assassin Rogue for the Assassinate feature: everyone is surprised when arcane energy blasts them from virtually out of nowhere!
@@giorgoskotsadam7006 You can also cast darkness on your imp, hold your attack and go deaf and blind for the moment you see an enemy and because your imp has devilsight you don't have to take that invocation and get to do everything with advantage.
Voice of the chain master + spider = perfect distraction, especially since he’s not invisible so doesn’t show up as strange under truesight
Leave your familier with your lover so you can talk to her while you are away.
Pact of the tome can get a regular familiar from an invocation. I had a pact of the tome hexblade with the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation...it was like almost having all three pacts.
Pseudodragons, Imps and Quasits do not give the Warlock magic resistance. First of all, that's a variant option and up to DM's discretion (so more likely than not that's a no go) and secondly, the text block that describes said option mentions that such creatures enter into a willing pact to serve as a familiar and that they can end said service for any reason at any time. Summoning a familiar and binding it to you through the spell "Find Familiar" does not even give you said creature: it summons a spirit that takes the form of a small animal or one of the special forms for a Chain Pact Warlock [You gain the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes an animal form that you choose... When you cast the spell, you can choose one of the normal forms for your familiar or one of the following special forms: imp, pseudodragon, quasit, or sprite.], which is also the reason why that form can be changed everytime you cast the spell anew. Said spirit gains the statistics of the chosen form which, according to page 6-11 of the Monster Manual, is everything written inside a creature's yellow text box. Variant options are green boxes and as such do not fall under creature statistics.
The only way you would be able to get said magic resistance is if you encounter the actual creature and somehow manage to convince it to become your PC's familiar.
I was going to post to clarify this precise detail. Your understanding is also mine but I would be interested to know if this or the auto-providing of the magic resistance variant has been confirmed on Sage Advice.
www.sageadvice.eu/2015/08/10/do-chain-pact-warlocks-get-the-familiars-magic-resistance/
The thing is, Familiars for warlocks are different from other spellcasters, just like their spell casting works differently. My understanding was that the "variant" refers to the fact that the say..imp IS a familiar rather than a random monster. Once its been made a familiar then it does confer the magic resistance, but the catch is...some familiars can leave for any reason whatsoever. But thats how I've interpreted and ruled it so honestly it does boil down to DM interpretation.
But the PHB states that the Pact of the Chain benefit is a variant of the Find Familiar spell, that adds 4 new forms to the spell as well as extra functionality. The MM optional sidebar is not about a spirit summoned, taking the form of a creature (Find Familiar spell) but an optional ability of such a creature when encountered, making it possible to enter into a relationship with the creature. As Mike Mearls said - 2 different things.
As a DM, I would still say that the MM variant option only applies to said creature being encountered in the wild, if only for the fact that magic resistance at level 3 is too powerful, and not for a spirit summoned by the Find Familiar spell that assumes the form of an Imp.
The only difference between a Wizard's familiar and a Warlock's familiar is that the latter can take 4 additional forms and can attack. That's all. Nowhere does it state that the Find Familiar spell for Warlocks finds an actual creature of the type you specify, summons it to you and then makes the creature enter into a willing familiar/master relation with the Warlock.
I’m currently bouncing a Dendar the Night Serpent Warlock in my mind that I want to use for Tomb of Annihilation to make into a Yuan-ti Pureblood. Between Pact of Chain to receive the cobra familiar or Pact of the Tome since that fits with the archeologist backstory
id go pact of the chain
I just keep imaging Gargimel and his cat.
with the UA beastmaster hunter, they should update the warlock pact of chain to grant the warlocks proficiency bonus to their familiars attacks, saves and armor class. Similar to the PHB beastmaster ranger.
Or maybe make an Invocation that amps the familiar's combat ability even more than that, maybe grant them Extra Attack as well.
Hallow Faust That sounds a lot more interesting! You could give the warlock a benefit he gets from the summoned pet of choice
What other familar has hands? Feeding healing potions? Opening doors? Stealing keys after a bad night at the tavern? Mostly an owl isn't going to cut it.
Early game imp is the best for warlocks depending on what you are fighting.
Imp
10 Hp
Resistance to nonmagical non silvered bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. That means it essentially has 20 hp against nonmagic monsters and humans. Which is more than the warlock has for the first few levels.
It's also has immunity to fire and poison.
It's attack is +5 and does 1d4 + 3 piercing and on a DC 10 does 3d6 poison damage (half on a save) if the warlock forgoes their action. Which is about the same as a guiding bolt and more than magic missile.
But wait there's more. Investment of the chain master let's the warlock command them to take the attack action as the warlock's bonus action and the DC is the warlock's spell DC
With point by it's pretty easy to have a charisma of 16. Meaning the imps poison DC will be 13 instead of 10.
The imp also can attack twice. Once using warlock's action (which consumes imps reaction) and twice using the warlock's bonus action (using the imps action)
That's 2d4 + 6 and 6d6 of poison.
That's on par with the average and max single target damage of a fireball.
Lastly imps can shape change into a raven with a fly speed of 60 and have devils sight so can see through magical darkness. So could technically fly in attack twice and leave not provoking any opportunity attacks and get far enough away that it wouldn't interfere with other party members
In later gift of the everliving invocation makes all healing max and since familiars have their own action economy and have hands they should be able to give the Warlock or other party members healing potions.
The Celestial Chainlock I made has an imp familiar that was forced into eternal servitude by my patron and it begrudgingly obeys my commands. The relationship between the character and the familiar is a bit strained at times and it's often quite funny. It's still in essence a spirit so I can change it around into various forms but it typically doesn't enjoy having it's form manipulated, especially if is no longer able to speak because of it. His name is Libic and his main jobs are scouting, pranking, occasionally attacking, and flying around creatures heads invisibly swearing at them in infernal to distract them. His favorite thing to do is roll abysmally on saving throws and get one shot by aoe effects.
I've always been a fan of having pets in game, and having a familiar is a very special pet! But maybe I'm still on a hold over of ideas from 3.5, but I am not a fan of the idea of dismissing your familiar or changing it into something else. I have always seen familiars as actual animals given a bit of the caster's power - they're friends, they're companions, they have names. They are what they are. My old sorcerer had a lizard familiar that he created from a pet lizard that he raised. He used the ritual to imbue it with power - his own. That power was an extension of himself, the creature was just borrowing it, but Dameon the lizard was still Dameon, just with a little fun, extra juice. And when he died, he had to be resurrected like any other character. Finding a new familiar would give my sorcerer a new familiar with a new personality. I guess I see familiars as another character - I could see using an later spell to change it, but it would go back to normal when then spell ends. In my games, we are definitely not treating the find familiar spell the way it does it in the book.
And our group has been proponents of familiars for all classes for years.
Nope. The Find Familiar spell is very clear that you summon a spirit that takes on an animal shape. A shape which you can change. Even homeruling it to be a real animal wouldn't stole you from shoving it into a pocket dimesion. Or temporarily altering its form.
I've used the quasit many times to walk around and explore a dungeon whilst invisible. It can also polymorph into a centipede, which my DM said was small enough to sneak under doors etc. In combat a quasit can also attempt to frighten your enemies, which is great.
I've used the pseudodragon as a flying scout quite a lot as well as a long-range messenger. It can also poison an enemy in combat if you need that.
Polymorphs the familiar into a dinosaur.... O.o
That doesn't work. Trust me. . . I've tried. Polymorph only lets you turn the target into something with as much CR or less. If your familiar has a CR of 0, it's staying that way.
But it still can't attack, so...
It still looks really cool though!!!
@@Noah-wx7fm pact of chain familiar can attack
Turn it into a commoner with true polymorph, get your patron to make him a lvl 5 warlock, true polymorph him into a red wyrmling, then give it a f*ck ton of longevity potions to make it older (they start making things older after a certain amount of uses) and you now have an ancient dragon familiar
Alternatively, if you have the right kind of wizard in your party, use time ravage to age it so it has 30 days to live, then give it 3 longevity potions, now you have an ancient dragon familiar for probably about 20 years
It is not easy to homebrew a balanced alternative to them, because Pseudodragon and Sprite are CR1/4 while the devils are CR 1.
Sentinel Ravel through the Raven Queen Warlock pact is the best! Thry come back to life after a long rest, and never need sleep!
For Pact of the Chain, the main combat draw IMO will be the Invocation Chains of Carceri, basically once per creature per day Hold Monster on any Celestials, Fiends, and Elementals you meet. The scouting can be useful as well, but mostly Pact of the Chain is IMO the biggest roleplaying opportunity of the Boons. As for the Magic Resistance, I don't think that is Adventurer's League legal, so yeah...
Absolutely re Chains of Carceri. It's one of the main reasons I went Pact of the Chain with my Warlock. Since part of our mission in the campaign is to find a worthy person to take custody of a Dragon Egg and raise the Dragon, the Sprite has been for me an excellent choice.
The Heart Sight is an interrogative boon, and can be used whilst the Sprite is invisible, as while attacking or taking another hostile action against a creature cancels Invisibility, as far as I can tell, touching them doesn't.
Vaughan Cockell
My sprite is a weirdo obsessed with "normies" who loves to flitter on up to people, completely unseen, and just touch them. Molesting strangers doesn't break invisibility, thats why it was invented.
One thing that you got near, but never really mentioned directly is that these are the only companions that are _intelligent_ at least until 9th level when the druid can make everyone else's companions intelligent (unless the DM has strict ruling on the familiars being fae not beast, so they can't be awakened), and so are able to carry out complex course of strategy independently.
And some of them have _hands_, so they can manipulate things. And carry things. All while invisible (if you're using an imp, quasit, or a sprite).
We've seen a bunch of new patrons in UA and later material (SCAG, etc) I'd love to see some new pacts.
Voice of the Chain Master + Beast Speech then you really could talk to fish with your fish.
It's hard to believe that you actually think that a creature having the variant familiar sidebar make it valid for the find familiar spell or pact of the chain. The sidebar has nothing to do with the spell. It's basically just hiring a sidekick that can choose if it stays around and if it wants to do what you want.
Magic initiate can give good berry for resurrecting. Could probably get a custom utility vest to stash all kinds of goodies on him, grappling hook and caktrops for instance. There is nothing written saying a familiar cannot use magic items. I am mostly speaking with the imp in mind.
Putting a Chainlock Familar up your sleeve or somewhere on you and having Gift of the Ever-Living Ones at all times is something I find very useful, even for roleplay as you can just hide your Familiar on you constantly and hide the fact you're a warlock from the party and be a Celestial Warlock (Godlock?) And pretend to be a cleric.
I need to shore up a weakness that my Fighter/Cleric has first, but I'm seriously considering picking up Magic Initiate and getting a Hawk or Raven for a familiar at some point.
It'd be thematic with his Death Domain, a Priest of the God of the Afterlife. Not evil, but ensuring that people don't cheat death. Yes, he doesn't like Undead.
He's sort of a ghetto Paladin, but I'm okay with that. He's not sneaky, so being able to scout by way of a Familiar would be insanely helpful.
Short answer--YES!
I love the Warlock concept so much, but I feel like there are several paths they could have taken that would require some tweaking. I want to give you my ideas for the Chain-lock. (Sorry this can get lengthy, but I have thought about this a lot and I'm kinda passionate about it.)
My logic for approaching this would be to homebrew a few invocations or a set of invocations that allow for the Warlock to basically gain similar features as the Ranger's Beast Master archetype, and control their "Combat Familiar" in the same way the Ranger controls their animal companion. Other invocations could further enhance the effectiveness in similar ways to how the Pact of Blades invocations do. For example, 'Thirsting Fang' would allow the Warlock to command their familiar to attack in the same turn that they attack. As the name suggests, this is very similar to the Thirsting Blade invocation, but instead of giving the Warlock the ability to attack twice, it mimics the ability in a similar way that BM Rangers have access to. As for a more unique idea however, I think it would be interesting for an invocation to give the Warlock the ability to cast self-targeting spells on their familiar instead of their self. I would give this a much higher level requirement, but I think it could be useful.
I haven't seen you guys do a whole lot of homebrew discussions, so I don't know if you would be willing to look into this at all, but I also have some thoughts on Pact of Tome that I would be willing to share if you're interested ... or more likely whenever I am compelled to comment on a video that is more directly related.
Honestly, it seems to me like Familiars really need a big boost. They just aren't that powerful, and when you have a Warlock branch fully dedicated to Familiars it just feels like intentionally gibbling yourself for little reason. I've put together a few house rule options for familiars. You can mix as many or as few as you like, though I would personally use them all.
1 - Familiars/Animal Companions gain hit dice, proficiency, stats, and the like through level up just as the master does.
2 - Familiars have their own action block, either directly tied to the masters action, or their own turn in initiative, controlled by the player rather than allowing the player to exchange their own action for a familiars action
3 - The master may use their Familiar as the origin of any spell or magic ability at their disposal, including any spells that target Self
4 - If a familiar or animal companion is part of a class feature and not simply achieved with the Find Familiar spell and that creature dies, it will automatically reform in (1d10 - Spellcasting Ability Mod) days at no cost to the master.
I personally divide familiars and animal companions into suitable base types, like tanks, bruisers, assassins, casters, and healers. Then those creatures will level up along those general lines, including taking suitable feats for their role, etc.
I treat these kind of creatures much like the Demonology Warlock and Beast Master Hunter from World of Warcraft. The two together are very powerful, but separate are somewhat weak. A class feature familiar should be noticeably powerful in its own right. At least, that's my opinion.
You're underestimating how powerful that makes familiars. Add your level to HP and let them attack once, but the rest makes them a second character.
Pact of the chain warlock is my favorite thing to play hands down. There's really no way to optimize, you just have to be creative.
This is something I just came to terms with. I'm not optimized compared to my party but i still help and have a ton of out of combat uses. While PotC might not be the most combat useful pact it certainly has a myriad of uses to stay relevant.
I just got a weird idea for a pact of the chain warlock with voice of the chain master. Background as a scholar, specifically a librarian, and have a sprite for a familiar. Leave the sprite in the library and whenever you need to find some information you have it do the research.
Imagine this: one PC plays the Warlock, one PC plays a lesser Demon familiar. Either homebrew a class or just homebrew a race and add some rules in the mix.
As soon as I'm done with the last bit of considerations and perks for my 3rd Hexblade-pact patron option, and after 18 individual patron npc descriptions among the 6 patron types, I'm planning to homebrew special familiars, capping off my setting's warlock section (for now).
Familiar, Beast Companion, Humonculus, Servo, and Raven with bonuses and tons of spells...
Warlock 5
Raven Queen - Raven
Pact of Chain - Familiar
Eldritch Invocation options
W/ Eldritch Adept feat will have
-Investment of Chain Master
-Voice of Chain Master
-Gift of the Everliving One
Artificer 6
Homonculous
W/ Quicksmithing Feat - Servo
Ranger 3
Companion's Bond
Druid 6
Circle of Shepherds - Mighty Summoner
(Good Berry)
20 levels, 2 feats, 5 "permanent" pets, with HP bonuses, Good Berries to keep them fed, lots of low level spell slots and thus more small summonables and versatility. Not a beater build out, but definitely a skill heavy problem solver.
Basic familiar any creature small or smaller and CR 0. Unless you are pact of the chains
But- you dont get magic resistance from find familar imp/quasit/psuedodragon.. you only get that if you found one of them in the wild and convinced them to become your familar
so also one thing to think about its the Farsest caster in the game.
as long as you are in the same plane you can cast Any spell in the same plane anywhere using the creature reaction .... so they can dash and then cast the spell. pair that with Eldrech spear ........ and you have your own Orbital nuke Satellite :D
Ahmed Yassin not enough damage to kill most targets, its more like a drone with a flame thrower attached. Plus by the time this is viable the player can do the same but better. I mean dropping fireballs from 240 feet with the feat that doubles range on spells is better than spamming eldritch blast later on. At pre fly and fireball it could be very effective though.
Jersey Dragon 1. Spell sniper only work with spells that has attack rolls. Only the sorcerer with metamagic can do that. 2. The eb is the rideculas example. The fam can drop fireball and all other fun spells any spells even touch spells. Invisible + blight . Then the fam can turn invisible again the same turn.
I'm thinking about letting my warlock player butter up thier patron in order to gain items or power thoughts?
Trace Wright yes. You should make the patron a reason that character and player fuel linked to your setting and world. Tasks and quests that might be hard to accomplish or perhaps morally grey are always fun to throw at the Warlock in exchange for power or magic items
Though, I would suggest the power actually be in-game power as opposed to additional invocations or spells. The number of resources the warlock gets is carefully balanced, and even minor changes can have unforseen consequences. Then again, the pact rod gives one additional spell slot per day, at the low low cost of atunement, so additional spell power is plausible, but should be kept on the top shelf, for the really big deals.
Important to mention is that:
Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A familiar can’t attack, but it can take other actions as normal.
So in order to cast touch spells through your familiar, you can only do so if on your turn, the familiar already is next to an enemy. Or you would have to hold your action to cast a touch spell until the familiar's turn and wait for it to get close enough.
I send my sprite familiar invisible with the rogue to give them advantage on stuff like check for traps and to keep communication with them.
At early levels, an Imp has an attack modifier the same as a PC's, but does more damage (barring poison resistance/immunity, which I realize is a big thing.) It also has advantage on its first attack and maybe on alternating attacks, depending on how you use it, and can benefit from Darkness without any invocation cost, and without getting in the way of party members much. With Investment of the Chain Master, it can actually attack *twice* per round at PC level 3! Oh, and it can fly, and if it dies, you're only out 10gp, a spell slot, and an hour. What about hp? They're overkill at low level, considering immunities and resistances, which also, incidentally, make healing or temp HP (like from Inspiring Leader, which I think every party should have somewhere) count double. They are sufficient to take an Ancient dragon wing beat, which is about the damage you should ever expect accidentally directed at them, and of course they can just straight up ignore the breath of an ancient green or red dragon.
At higher levels, the effectiveness depends highly on the availability of magic items, but at the very least, this is a critter than can deliver a healing potion without using your action. If everybody had a Chain familiar, you could probably afford to go to 0 hp every turn. Yes, you're that close to party invulnerability.
Oh, yeah, and scouting.
Chain is the best pact, not the worst pact.
when you guys were talking about swapping out familiar bodies on the fly dependent upon need it got me thinking of the Dresden Files. The relationship he has with Bob the Skull is kind of like a cross between pact of the chain and tome. He sends bob out to scout and gather like a chain warlock, but he also does research and acts like an tome pact on steroids. Would be fun to work with a good dm to balance a Harry Dresden Warlock/wizard/sorcerer hybrid
I have a drow infernal warlock and felt that taking an imp familiar was a good rp choice. I don't min/max my characters like a lot of people. And already the imp has come in handy in a fight against animated armour. I had the imp sit on the helmet of the armour when it was knocked off by the tank in the group, the helmet was trying to get back to the suit; so I told the imp to sit on the helmet and to stop it from moving.
Only had one session with the imp, but I can see more rp opportunities coming up.
I had a pact of the chain lock for a oneshot. He had a pseudodragon with invocation where he never had to sleep. Cant remember if he could sense through the familiar through an invocation or the chain pact.
I like a bardic warlock idea. I take 5/6 levels in warlock dip. I use pact of chain toofer support and utility in multiple situations. Like blindsight, darkvision, mimicry, magic resistance, etc. I use another spell along with voice of chain master to make illusions/enchantments waay easier.
I was literally just thinking about this when this video popped up!
Can you use the familiar's eyes to see a place that your body can't then cast something like misty step, or some other spell that involves seening something?
I home rulered that a pact of the chain Warlock could use their bonus action instead of action to have the familiar make its attack.
Drakkonus Frostburn how did it work out for you? Did you find overall a better experience with chainlock?
Thezerowulf tl/dr Most definitely, it felt better for the player I think. It really did a lot to set her familiar apart from the Arcane tricksters familiar in the party. It was not just a scout any more but could now get into the fight like the party's ranger's animal companion. Otherwise she would have just have used Eldritch blast, instead of "wasting" an action on the familiar's attack.
In my humble opinion if you are a chain Warlock you don't get much out of using your, in her case a, pseudo-dragon doing an attack instead of Eldritch blast. I likewise, had the idea that the Paladin in the group a Dragonborn should use his bonus action for his breath weapon instead of action. Really I guess the origin of using bonus action instead of action is that the players weren't using these features because they were actions. Dropping them down to bonus actions made them usable for the player. At least that is what I got from my experience DMing. Honestly if the party's Ranger was not using the revised Ranger rules I would imagine I would have had to allow her to use her bonus action to let her animal companion attack also. To be clear; in the revised Ranger rules UA the animal companion has its own turn and can attack without costing a ranger's action like in the PHB.
Now there's a invocation for that
Getting MR is only from variant familiars RAW and ROI. They clarified this.
But...they don't give you magic resistance. That's for having a literal familiar which is for NPCs only. You have a spirit that *looks like* one of those familiars, they don't give you magic resist.
A Pact of the Tome could use Book of Ancient Secrets to also summon a familiar as well.
^This.
The main downsides to going this route are: 1) being limited to "normal" familiars, and 2) not being able to synergize with any Chain Pact invocations. But if you're not too into the features of Pact of the Chain, Tome's access to Familiars is serviceable enough.
You could, but you wouldn't be gaining the benefits that chain pact Warlock a get from their boon. The prequisite for those abilities is "Pact of the Chain", not "Find Familar".
Congratulations. Its a cat.
I just thought I would mention it since it kinda got skipped over at 0:44
Pact of the Chain is arguable the better Pact for non-Hexblades. With Voice of the Chainmaster and the Imp familiar, you basically have a permanent Arcane Eye which can see through magical darkness and a permanent Mage hand/Message spell, which has infinite range. They're also the only pets which can actually speak a language and reason intelligently. Actually, my Imp has higher Wisdom and Intelligence than me, so in many respects she's the brains of the operation.
^This^
So yeah now that tasha's is out pact of the chain has gotten way more viable with the invocation Investment Of The Chain Master which makes any save the familiar has go off your warlock spell save DC as the biggest thing they get a flying or swimming speed of your choice when you summon it which is 40 ft any of the familiar's weapon attacks count as magical to be rid of immunity and resistance to nonmagical damage and if the familiar takes damage you can give it resistance to that damage as a reaction so now since usually a warlock doesn't use its bonus action unless they were a more combative warlock (as with fathomless or Hexblade for example) you'll find yourself using your familiar to debuff enemies or lead them away to either gain a surprise round/steal from them while distracted/go through a path they were blocking and while the imp is still useful for its role in surveillance while being immune to magical darkness but wouldn't be all that useful for its one attack that could deal Poison damage since an enemy could cleave them in half easily same goes for Pseudodragon for being able to keep an eye out just with its melee attack being somewhat more useful for if you want to chance being able to make someone pass out for an hour (or until it takes damage or is shaken awake) to possibly end a fight early what now really takes the cake is the sprite and the gazer which I'll explain for both of them the sprite's shortbow has a poison which doesn't go away after they fail against it's save which again with the Invocation is the warlocks save so now a normal couple of rounds for a sprite goes along of it starting as invisible it shooting an enemy with advantage due to invisible possibly giving the enemy essentially unending Poisoned condition since usually you aren't fighting like paladins and stuff that can remove poison then the sprite goes behind full cover since it's really small so it can't be targeted by attacks unless an enemy goes out of their way to search for the tiny creature shooting at it instead of worrying about the frontliners up next to them next sprite turn they go invisible and move to a different cover next turn they repeat the process the only downside being that a good couple of creature types naturally are immune to the poisoned condition making the sprite more situational but at least they can still do their alignment thing and now my favorite familiar now the Gazer now let me tell you how great the Gazer is 1 it's eye rays don't count as spells so if he's invisible from the invisibility spell if he uses a ray on someone he's neither using the attack action nor casting a spell so it doesn't break invisibility it will stay up until to break concentration which also from tasha's you can have advantage on concentration checks from the eldritch mind Invocation and you probably have either one of 2 of the 120ft range cantrips eldritch Blast or chill Touch so you aren't in constant range of concentration checks anyways although it would be better for the gazer if you take mind Sliver so if you target one enemy with mind Sliver and they fail the save their next save subtracts a d4 (this does go with the other familiars with saves as well keep in mind) then hit the same enemy with 2 rays which the gazer can be at most 60ft away to use on them while they're also invisible so after they attack they move to a different position so now 1 of the rays which are all saves exclusively subtracts a d4 from his roll and side thing but the gazer's type of flying naturally hovers so that means they're immune to being prone so no falling to it's death and final thing is that they're still a great choice for a wizard/sorcerer (probably aberrant sorcerer since it's thematic) who forms a pact with them using find familiar because since their eye rays aren't attack rolls they can use them on the familiars turn freely
Thank u for reading all this you're cool and now another person knows about how great the Gazer is now for combat/causing a suprise round for your party have fun at your tables have a great day :)
I would be interested in using a warlock as part of a multicast character who used their familiar as a form of telepresence. They can stay relatively safe in camp while their familiar adventures with the group. Caveat being, the familiar still has very few HP.
if the enemy creature is within 5ft of your familiar and it uses the Help Action, does the ally you are helping have to be within 5ft of your familiar or can it be far away?
Ive said this before and ill say it again;
The celestial chain boon warlock is AMAZING. You can take a couple levels in sorcerer for Twin Spell metamagic and you can start twin spelling Cure Wounds at 5th level at two different targets. This is effectively 10 casts of a 5th level Cure Wounds spell as long as you're targeting 2 people.
Combine this with them being able to use the Help action, you can give anyone you want advantage on anything. The Help action, as far as I'm aware, can be applied to attacks and skill checks.
With an imp, you gain an invisible familar with improved division, letting them see through magical darkness as well as conventional darkness. Rather than have them hang on YOUR shoulder, why not have them hang on the rogue's shoulder? The rogue is often scouting ahead, you PLAY a rogue to be the guy that scouts ahead. Normally you do it alone, so nobody else gets hurt but NOW you have a little devil on your shoulder who gives you advantage on your stealth checks, slight of hand checks to disarm tracks or pick locks or what have you, and if you get in trouble youll never be "alone".
At least one member of your party will know exactly what's going on. Moreover, if you FAIL to disarm a trap and you end up eating a javelin to the face, youll have a friend there who can heal you up.
This works in combat as well, the familar IS an ally and will meet the requirements in granting sneak attack. An imp works best for this but the sprite is decent. Their sleep arrow is sinfully easy to save against BUT when an enemy doesn't save against it they are OUT of that fight.
Also, I find GMs are very willing to give a familar based character a lot of love if the player isnt like "I picked this imp because it can turn invisible, eat fireballs, and give me magic resistance and advantage on anything I want" and they treat them like a member of the party, as opposed to a tool to be exploit the game mechanics.
My great old one chainlock has a gazer who's eye beam DC has been replaced with MY dc. My DM allowed this because, from the very start, my little Jyggylag has been a valuable member of the party. I didn't pick the gazer ever expecting a boost, I picked it because my patron is Alabar, and that's basically a planet sized beholder and I wanted to have a tiny piece of a twisted, sentient planet as my familar. Its my friend, its my master, its my pet. We go town to town, prophesizing the end of days and the dawn of tentacles. We'd be doing this REGARDLESS of its DCs.
Heimskr, Prophet of Talos
Pretty sure you can't do that :)
Unless you went celestial sorcerer.
Metamagic only works on sorcerer spells not on spells you cast as a warlock
Now the Investment of the Chain Master invocation exists Chain Pact is pretty good.
My son who's playing for the first time recently multiclassed into a wizard and cast find familiar. I gave him a porg (from the new Star Wars movie) this was before the movie was released and we realized how cool Porgs are. I could have used anything standard but wanted to introduce something new to my world and now my son loves it. I also have a little fun and as DM give the Porg a little bit of a love for gold coin and the Porg has a habit of picking up gold in his mouth and walking away with it Nothing harmful and never when it will actually hurt in game play.
Investment of the chain master is really good. Voice of the chain master isn’t bad at all. Gift of the everliving ones is situationally pretty nice. I like my idea of using the 2nd level spell flock of familiars on a quasit, have 2 of them turn into bats (quasits can transform into toads, bats, and millipedes) keep one of them in its base form. Use 2 of them to survey the battle field, while invisible, using their 60ft of blindsight. One will occasionally use its poisonous sting to inflict damage on my bonus action or use a touch spell for me on my action. When the first one drops to 0hp, have one of the surveyors transform back to quasit. The spell lasts an hour and most dungeons would theoretically take less than that. If you already have a familiar one would stick around after the spells duration as normal. Because we communicate telepathically for free, you could at least have a decent understanding of the area around you. But as an action, you can choose to observe through your familiars senses. Perfect for scouting and getting details about a place out of your DM, but it leaves your pc open to danger due to a lack of senses in their own body.
I wanted to play a spider themed drow mystic, and was thinking of modifying an already existing Mystic order to add some spider themed spells, but now I'm thinking of multiclassing and just dipping into a couple levels of Lolth warlock
Summon Familiar on otherside of locked/trapped/whatever door.
use action see through it's eyes
use misty step to teleport to a space you can see
step 4. Profit
When you want to use your chain-familiar to actually attack, consider Pseudodragon. It's poison has the chance to let the target drop unconscious.
Correction: Sprites do the same on a ranged attack, with a DC that is just 1 lower. The duration is way shorter though.
Could also play a Warlock/Cleric. Have a fast familiar who buzzes around delivering healing spells.
You can get familiar with pact of tome and take book of secrets.
Or magic initiate of course.
I'm so confused, where in the Pact of the Chain feature does it state the player also receives magic resistance if the Imp has it? Am I missing something? Are they thinking this is a real Imp vs a familiar Imp? I guess this is 5 years old so I assume its widely established you do not receive magic resistance from your familiar.
Eldrithch knight / pact of the chain warlock. Mix levels however you see fit, just make sure if you intend to use damage dealing spells to pump your Cha. Focus on abjuration spells from E.k., since most of those don't have a save and you're not gonna get up to Banish anyway
Or chainlock/bard. Or chainlock/sorc. Or chainlock/rogue.
I've got a chainlock warlock with pact of the outsiders. His invisible sprite familiar sits on the shoulders of people we're talking to with it's nutso stealth bonus and invisibility and speaking mind to mind with me while I get a second by second update on what they're feeling giving me advantage on persuasion, insight and deception. He's also a complete bastard for delivering poisons with his tiny bow and fucking off before anything can happen. He can work keys and lockpicks, cut bootlaces and belts, deliver messages and so much more. He's also been a plot hook as the tribe he's from had a few quests for us.
And if someone else is talking I've got 30ft telepathy and can feed them second by second info. With my little invisible friend I'm the scout and a telepathic hub for my party allowing us to work in complete silence and stealth. Furthermore there's a simple thing to set up when you're scouting through a familiar, have the rogue or anyone that has a good perception bonus give you a smack if something's happening.
I'm playing a mage wich my gm alowed to have a Imp as familiar, but we changed his offensive capabilitys. He acts like the imps in WoW wich means he's keeping distance and casts non aoe 3W6 Firebals. His personality is also close to the WoW counterpart, so the interactions between him and everyone else ofthen creates rofl moments.
Maybe it has been covered already but I don't think a familiar can cast a Warlock's spells with a range of "self" (i.e. Vampiric Touch)...???
Voice of the chain invocation. Thought: Would this allow your familiar to be the source of a V only spell in a similar way that you can use your familiar as the source of a touch spell?
Can the imp use its special abilities a normal imp can?
You can get Find Familiar as a Warlock with Pact of the Tome in addition to the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation.
Also, the invisible familiars you get from pact of the chain give your party a free advantage (help) a round on any enemy/skill check, so there's that + the MR.
Could I target my imp with fireball to catch enemies in splash?
Yes, but also your imp is immune to fire.
Nerdarchist Dave
@@Nerdarchy yep and then it can use dragons breath too
Alright now to get level 3 in sorcerer so I can quicken that agonizing blast and see if I can get some illusionist bracers, lol
AFAIK you don't get the MM monsters, you get the PHB monsters. SO no magic resist.
Then use a Quickling at a 120ft speed they're not hitting that familiar 😂
My question is, Do the pets have personalities or are they like clay doh you can just shape the spirit into whatever you want?
The familiar is a spirit which has it's own personality, you may change it's form without altering it's personality by re-casting the spell. A Celestial spirit might detest being in the form of an Imp or Quasit for instance. You can dismiss the Familiar entirely if you so choose, in order to gain a new one _(new spirit that is)_ when you next use the spell.
I asked my DM if he would like to Roleplay my familiar and design his personality.
I had a long discussion with my Dm about that topic, since i wanted to have my spirit becoming a gazer ( mini beholder from volo) and he was like you can't have because it doesn't suit your alignment which is neutral good.
i kept trying to say that it is pact of the chain and i can do whatever i want with my pet but he keeps reminding me of the penalties that is written on the book which basically means if i do any physical harm i will lose the pet. We ended it up that the pet has no personality and it's just a spirit that i can change it's shape.
Your familiars "type" _(Celestial, Fiend or Fey)_ is your choice, as a lock usually you would choose the type which best suits your patron but it's your choice and you can reason your way into any type without much trouble.
_(for instance, a powerful devil might have tricked a celestial spirit into a pact, and now enjoys forcing it to take a minuscule form and serve one of his warlocks)_
The familiars form on the other hand, is whatever you choose when you perform the summoning ritual so long as you choose from the assorted tiny beasts in the spell description, or the imp, quasit, pseudodragon and sprite from the pact of the chain feature, this decides what its physical form looks like _(roughly imo, I like to let the players customise so long as it resembles the base creature)_ and what its capable of _(it's stat block)._
*Neither of these choices is in any way linked to the alignment of the character who is bonded to the familiar.*
Note that the rules in the "Variant: ____ familiar" boxes, next to the monsters stat blocks are not rules for a familiar gained through the Find Familiar spell. These are rules for any character who might come into contact with the monster during an adventure, and convince it to magically bond with them, becoming their familiar. If you use the Find Familiar spell, You do not, for instance, gain the magic resistance from a quasit or sprite familiar. As your familiar is a spirit _(of the type you chose),_ residing in an imp-like or quasit-like form. *Not* a real Imp or quasit which you have struck a bargain with. You'll notice that the details are different also, 1 mile telepathy for a "real" quasit, 100 foot telepathy for a Find Familiar spirit in whatever form.
The advantage of using Find Familiar is that the spirit *cannot* for any reason decide to end it's pact with you, along with all benefits listed in the Find Familiar spell which are not stated in the "Variant: ____ Familiar" boxes, such as: If it dies you can simply re-summon it, you can deliver touch spells through it, you can dismiss it into a pocket dimension and call it back, it does what its told _(more or less),_ etc...etc...
So, keeping this all in mind, as far as the Gazer is concerned, it's the DM's choice whether or not to let you use that form and stat block for your familiar, as it is not one of the standard familiar types offered by the spell or your pact of the chain feature. *However* the gazer is no stronger than an imp or quasit, so there's no issue with balance. It also has a nice flavour you could roleplay, basically I see no reason not to say yes.
As far as it's personality is concerned, *you can choose, it's yours to roleplay.* Note that it wont be an aberration type creature, but maybe it acts much like a gazer normally does _(maybe you decide the form has some influence in shaping the spirits personality, or maybe it's just a bullyish little fiend or fey spirit),_ It's still a spirit of whatever type you chose, and will likely have a personality befitting such a type of creature.
*You do not need to abide by the rules in the "Variant: Gazer Familiar" box, as this is not that kind of familiar. It is not able to leave you if you harm it*
@Mr.Zriael, Thank you for making that point. I'll try taking this to my DM. I hope i didn't misunderstand this part in page 213
Variant Familiar:
Any spellcaster that can cast the find familiar spell (Such as an apprentice, warlock, or wizard) is likely to gave a familiar. The familiar can be one of the creatures described in the spell (see the player's handbook) or some other tiny monster such as a Cranium rat, a crawling claw, a gazer, an imp, a pseudodragon, or a quasit.
Does this mean it's an addition to warlock's pets for players or is it as you said up to the DM/not meant to be for players?
Sometimes I think that Pact of the Chain familiars should at least get a bit more hitpoints and/or hitting power. Sure you can summon a special familiar, but you are almost never going to give up your attack just to have it miss/be ineffective at later levels.
Maybe it could add your warlock level to it's health pool and add your proficiency bonus to its DC saves, attack rolls, and any skills/saves it is proficient in. Bit too much Beast Master? Probably, but considering one of the primary features the Boon gives you, I think it would be pretty fair.
Im fairly new to 5e, but it seems that the Find Familiar spell has changed since you made the video back in 2018. Might be time to redo it and pull this one down.
So ... Funny story. I made a warlock with a raven familiar, and everyone in my group (including me) forgot that you can only cast through your familiar if the spell has "touch" as range.
Result - I used it to eldritch blast 4 enemy camps before my DM said "wait HOLD ON..."
Everyone scratches their heads as to what to do now that we are in the middle of the campaign; and our whole approach to attacking orc camps was "send Paco the Raven to scout from the sky, everyone gets in position to attack, Eldritch blast, everyone looks at sky trying to find WTF just hit them, we storm them".
The DM decided that if it wouldn't be a stretch to say Voice of the Chain Master increased the range of the spells I can cast through Paco.
It was either that or retcon why I was able to shoot lasers through my bird for 2 months and now I couldn't.
Pact of chain ORRRR unearthed’s pact of the Raven Queen. You get a cool bird? (You can re-skin it so it’s a parrot) fun role play
TKD Ward Raven Queen is a patron you take at level one, whereas pact of the chain is a level three boon. You can technically (and I've had a player do this) take them both. Still don't know why anyone would want one familiar and one familiar-lite at the same time, but it's doable.
If you wanted to roleplay Odin, with a raven on each shoulder.
Bluecho4 You get one.
That patron is so OP on the later levels.
Cory Gumminger Actually, you could do a few things. Ravens can mimic voices, therefore acting as a translator for your other familiar. You can also fly and communicate with your other familiar at the same time, essentially giving you two sets of eyes.