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Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Broken Pact Warlock

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Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted pick up on a conversation started during a live chat about the concept of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons warlocks with broken pacts between their Otherworldly Patrons. The three ways Dave and Ted approached the idea of a Broken Pact warlock represent very different and very cool perspectives for this discussion. If they’d stuck with just one of them and developed the single idea more then I’d be taking what they said and polishing it up here as an Otherworldly Patron for 5E D&D you could drop right into your game. But since they had to be all ambitious and come up with three distinct paths I’m gonna leave all those ideas in the video and instead give you my own take. And yes, I’ll break it down with specific class features so you can play your next 5E D&D game as a Broken Pact warlock. So let’s get into it.

Otherworldly Patron Broken Pact for 5E D&D

The video reminds us how players choose their warlock’s Otherworldly Patron at 1st level so it seems strange to fold in breaking the pact simultaneously but nevertheless this is the scenario we find ourselves in. During the liminal space between this 1st level choice and a character’s first steps as an adventurer they experience second thoughts. This warlock feels cognitive dissonance immediately upon striking a bargain with whatever Otherworldly Patron they thought to gain power from. For my take on a Broken Pact warlock I’m drawing heavily on a line from the very beginning of the class description in the Player’s Handbook:

“Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings such as fey nobles, demons, devils, hags, and alien entities of the Far Realm, warlocks piece together arcane secrets to bolster their own power.”

The distinction I take away from this, which differentiates warlocks from clerics in particular is they’re not receiving power from the Otherworldly Patron or even beseeching their aid when they cast spells. Instead the patron reveals the knowledge of how to do these magical things to a warlock. In this regard there’s no taking the powers away or denying access because the warlock already knows how to elicit the magical effects.

In the case of our Broken Pact warlock even though they experience buyer’s remorse at the very instant of whatever bargain they strike and subsequently denounce the eldritch entity, the knowledge has already been imparted. From this point forward they’ve taken a step down a mysterious road and cannot help but learn to live with the unfathomable knowledge they’ve received. Their understanding of magic continues to unfold despite their distaste for the circumstances.

So they become a warlock hunters! For this concept I took a page from the ranger playbook for a tangential take on Favored Enemy. Broken Pact warlocks experienced their first taste of eldritch power in this moment of weakness and from their perspective a “warlock” can be whatever they imagine. Consider a person who bargains with a primal entity. They may come to view all beasts as “warlocks” — creatures who receive their power from a supernatural source. For verisimilitude I doubt very many people within a setting use 5E D&D class names to describe what they do. A cultist devoted to Asmodeus is probably much more like to tell you they serve the Dark Lord than they’re a Fiend warlock, right? So a Broken Pact warlock who refers to a shambling mound as a warlock doesn’t sound so far fetched to me.

Expanded Spell List

The Broken Pact lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Broken Pact Expanded Spells

Spell Level and Spells

1st. Detect evil and good, sanctuary

2nd. Located object, see invisibility

3rd. Clairvoyance, nondetection

4th. Death ward, locate creature

5th. Dispel evil and good, planar binding

Warlock Anathema

Beginning at 1st level, you draw on your sense of balancing the encroaching eldritch forces upon the world whenever you defeat one of the creatures you’ve come to believe to be warlocks of the patron you spurned. Chose a type of creature as your Warlock Anathema: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants or undead.

When you reduce one of your Warlock Anathema creatures to 0 hit points, you gain Inspiration. You can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll. Additionally, if you have Inspiration, you can give up your inspiration to another creature Inspiration. You can have Inspiration equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level (minimum of 1).

Unknowable Aura

Starting at 6th level, your inurement of weird eldritch knowledge lets you vanish from the senses of nearby entities. As an action you can cause each creature in a 10-foot cube originating from you to make a Constitution saving throw against your warlock spell save DC. The creatures that fail their saving throws are all blinded or deafened until the end of your next turn.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest unless you use Inspiration.

Mortal Tether

Starting at 10th level your intuitive understanding of magical energy bolsters you against supernatural forces. Whenever you finish a long rest choose a damage type: acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant or thunder. You gain resistance to that damage type. In addition you are immune to any effect that allows other creatures to sense your emotions or read your thoughts. As an action you can spend Inspiration to change the damage. You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one) until you finish a long rest.

Deep Learning

Starting at 14th level, you have advantage on saving throws against spells. Furthermore, you have resistance against the damage of spells.

In addition, when a creature you can see within 30 feet of you is targeted by a spell attack or is forced to make a saving throw against a spell, you can use your reaction and spend Inspiration to give the caster disadvantage on the attack or grant the target creature advantage on the saving throw.

There you have my take on a Broken Pact warlock for 5E D&D. If I’m honest the hype warlocks get for baked in roleplaying and narrative opportunities bothers me because the same can be said of any character class. A cleric’s relationship with their deity, paladins and their Sacred Oaths and even fighters and rogues include hooks to hang your roleplaying hats on in their class descriptions. For this warlock take I had a few design goals in mind, chief among them using Inspiration somehow. I also wanted to give them features with a dual purpose of a somewhat narrow focus but broad enough to be universally useful. What do you think? Would you play a Broken Pact warlock in your next 5E D&D game? Let me know in the comments (which incidentally are way easier to find and use on our spiffy new revamped website!).

 

 

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Doug Vehovec

Nerditor-in-Chief Doug Vehovec is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio, with D&D in his blood since the early 80s. Fast forward to today and he’s still rolling those polyhedral dice. When he’s not DMing, worldbuilding or working on endeavors for Nerdarchy he enjoys cryptozoology trips and eating awesome food.

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