This one's been kicking around in my head for a long time. Way, WAY before I did the Codex of Waves, which I honestly half-did to support this (and another) project.
It's very satisfying then to be able to finally revise it and make it into a version I'd allow in games. Doubly so because this patron also has elements of me experimenting with Unearthed Arcana modifications to the warlock, like the Eldritch Smite invocation for the Pact of the Blade, and my figuring out of what the answer to that should be for the chain pact.
All in all, I find it in a pretty nice place. The balance of it feels just about as it should, though I'm certainly not the best judge of that. Look it over and give me your thoughts, same as always, and we can make it even better.
CHANGELOG:
- Pelagic Tentacle now says what it does with flying/falling creatures, and includes an addendum to let you use it to give your falling friends a slimy, extradimensional hand.
- Brine has been made overall more useful, with the original effect being transitioned into a bonus of sorts.
- Jellify now gives you a grey ooze friend if you kill someone with it, so go out and murder your way into having a lil' slime buddy today.
- Anchor of Drowned Sailors applies benefits to ALL pact weapons, making it more versatile and a direct competitor with Eldritch Smite. Technically you could double up both invocations, which is great I guess if you want to blow all your spell slots in one round.
- The Young Sea Drake has been retuned, giving it a knockback breath and almost-invisibility, neither of which cost spell slots.
- Verbage tweaks for two spells, for clarity. Not exciting, but probably important!
CONCERNS:
- I think the balance on Brine is solid, but it may be situationally very powerful. I don't think that's important enough to make it outright overpowered, though.
- The sea drake is essentially a pseudodragon + warlock scaling, escape abilities, and almost invisibility. I'm hoping it's useful enough in its present state to warrant an invocation.
WHAT I LEARNED:
- Changing these spells kinda sucks, because now I have to go back and change them in the Codex of Waves as well. Grumble grumble grumble.
I really like this one. I'm thinking on using this Patron for a NPC Pirate Captain Warlock in a upcoming part of the campaign
ReplyDeleteLove the idea of a warlock pirate captain!
DeleteThe crew obeys the warlock, and the warlock obeys the patron. Now, whatever could the patron want a whole pirate ship for?
This solves my issue of wanting to have a warlock of an Old One, but not liking the whole mind control flavor. I look forward to using it!
ReplyDeleteNice to see the update! Time for an overly detailed look because I've got nothing better to do.
ReplyDeleteNice to see clarification for the tentacle. While any creature can always choose to fail a saving throw (which makes for some weird corner cases with involuntary saves like fighting disease), it's nice to see you actually clarify you can catch someone with the tentacle, I can see a lot of people not actually thinking of that.
Just to clarify, brine can be used for melee spell attacks/touch attacks. Not sure if this is deliberate or not.
I honestly don't see brine ever being overpowered. The only case I could see it being overpowered is if you sent a knight with a two-handed weapon or a similar enemy against a low level party but brine is a level 6 ability. Brine also only halves damage and attacks capable of taking a warlock from full to 0 are pretty rare (unless you have an asshole DM of course). The fact that brine doesn't affect magical or non-metal weapons gives DMs huge leeway for their villains. If I was running an enemy and I really didn't want to have brine destroy his weapon I'd just give him a sword with a non-magical enchantment, like a pirate captain with a cutlass that allows him to always know where north is.
Nice to see my idea get in but now Jellify is super powerful, mainly because of the grey oozes ability to destroy almost anything metal. A grey ooze can deal 3d6+1 damage a round and it lasts for an hour. It's a level 14 ability so for that level it's not overpowered but it's certainly top tier.
I don't really have much to say on the Anchor or Sea Serpent. Forced movement is really good considering how rare it is in 5E and the "no suicide" clause in most enchantment spells means it's the only way to send enemies into hazards like fire pits or poorly secured bookshelves.
>any creature can always choose to fail a saving throw
DeleteI was 90% sure that was the case, but felt it was good to specify. It's something people don't think about, y'know?
>brine can be used for melee spell attacks/touch attacks
Yup, intentional. I don't want to just limit it to melee WEAPON attacks. I feel melee vs. ranged should be the limiter with that ability.
>the grey oozes ability to destroy almost anything metal
Solid point, didn't think terribly hard about how useful that would be.
Grey ooze is the lowest CR of all the oozes, though, so I can't really downgrade it with stuff from the Monster Manual. That'd mean I could either keep it, remove it entirely, or replace it with a purely homebrewed monster. Not sure which option I'm leaning towards.
> Forced movement is ... the only way to send enemies into hazards
True enough. I wanted this patron to feel very controller-y, as that falls well within the domain of water. I gotta figure a move + damage in exchange for a spell slot is overall reasonable, though that in mind I may end up dipping it down to 15 or 10 feet.