Editing Warlock (section)

===5e===
The 5e Warlock is a complicated marriage of 3e invocations, 4e pacts, and 5e spellcasting, with a few caveats. They gain a pitiful amount of spell slots, as well as only a handful of spells known. To the untrained player's eye, they're painfully limited compared to "real" casters, but in reality they're <strike>roid-pumping nightmares</strike> not bad. Their spell slots all automatically scale the slot level up so their spells are always guaranteed to be pumped up, and also refresh after every encounter or few (short rest). Invocations are back from 3.5, albeit scaled back a bit, providing various kinds of special abilities, from access to spells that aren't on their list as at-will, encounter or daily powers, to power-ups for the pact form, and of course power-ups for Eldritch Blast.

To complete the Warlock package, you get a pact with a supernatural being. The pact gives you a thematic extended spell list; for example, Great Old One Warlocks can cast (but not spam, sadly) Evard's Black Tentacles. Pacts provide a bevvy of unique class features like teleportation, damage resistance or telepathy. On top of magical powers, they also give you a consolation prize in the form of a pact boon, which can either be a souped-up familiar, a free enchanted weapon that you can shapeshift into whatever kind of weapon you need (and you always have proficiency with it, even if it's currently in a form you wouldn't otherwise have proficiency with), or a magical book that gives you an additional three cantrips that can each come from ''a separate class's list''. An alternative pact boon was the Star Chain, introduced in "Non Divine Faithful", which closely ties into the Seeker patron: this is a magical trinket that can be used to cast ''Augury'' and can be used to grant Advantage on an Int check once per short rest. A better alternate pact boon is the talisman, introduced in the class features UA, a magic necklace that allows whoever wears it (which can be you or anyone else, no attunement slot required) to add a d4 to an ability check roll if they aren't proficient in the pertinent skill. This was later made official with Tasha's Cauldron of everything, but was nerfed so that it can only be used a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier.

The available pacts are:

''Archfey'' - Bound to a powerful faerie lord or sylvan pseudo-deity, a warlock with this pact gains the power of Fey Presence (Charm or Frighten all creatures in a 10ft cube around you once per short rest), Misty Escape (teleport 60 feet and turn invisible once per short rest), Beguiling Defenses (you are immune to Charming and can attempt to Charm anyone foolish enough to try a Charm effect on you) and Dark Delirium (can attempt to entrap a target in an illusion to Charm or Terrify it once per short rest). This one is in the Player's Handbook.

''Fiend'' - Bound to a [[Demon Prince]], [[Archdevil]], [[yugoloth|Ultraloth]], powerful [[demodand|ghereleth]], or other sufficiently-powerful entity native to the lower planes, a warlock with this pact gains Dark One's Blessing (gain temporary HP for dropping another creature to zero HP), Dark One's Luck (can add a d10 to an ability check or saving throw after you roll it once per short rest), Fiendish Resilience (gain Resistance to a single damage type of your choice after completing a short rest, though magic and silvered weapons can pierce it) and Hurl Through Hell (teleport a target into some hellish dimension for 1 turn, causing 10d10 Psychic damage to a non-fiendish target, once per long rest). This one is in the Player's Handbook.

''Great Old One'' - Warlocks with this pact are bound to terrible abominations from outside time and space, drawing on the power of aberrant gods like [[Cthulhu]]. They gain the boons of Awakened Mind (telepathy with a 30ft range), Entropic Ward (can make yourself harder to hit and get a bonus if the target missed once per short rest), Thought Shield (mind cannot be involuntarily read, Resistance to Psychic Damage, inflict equal Psychic damage on anyone who inflicts Psychic damage on you) and Create Thrall (permanently charm a single creature with a touch, gaining telepathic communication with them from anywhere on the same plane, so good luck justifying ''this'' ability with a good-aligned character). This one is in the Player's Handbook.

''Undying'' - A Warlock with this pact has offered their soul to something that has "cheated death"; most obviously a powerful [[lich]], [[ghost]] or [[vampire]], but mortals ascended to godhood and weirder things are also valid. [[Planescape: Torment|The Nameless One]] isn't mentioned, but would be a perfectly thematic (and awesome!) patron for this pact. The "necromantic" pact, these warlocks get features related to the ability to cheat death; Among the Dead (Spare the Dying as a bonus cantrip, Advantage on saving throws against disease, Undead must pass a Wisdom save to attack you), Defy Death (gain a significant healing 1/day by passing a death saving throw or using Spare the Dying), Undying Nature (can hold your breath indefinitely, don't need food, water or sleep, immunity to magical aging, age 1 year for every 10 you live) and Indestructible Life (can freely heal yourself 1/encounter, including reattaching limbs as part of it). Comes from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

''[[Hexblade]]'' - Basically, you want to play a character inspired by Sauron or Arthas with Morgoth or Lich King style figure; your power is with a mysterious [[Shadowfell]] entity that makes its presence felt through powerful weapons bound with shadowy magic. [[derp|Despite this, you don't have to take the Pact of the Blade.]] Having first appeared in [[Unearthed Arcana]], the official version came out in "Xanathar's Guide", at which point it seems to have absorbed some of the fluff, if not the crunch, from the [[Raven Queen]] patron featured in that same UA. This pledge makes the warlock more of a melee combatant, in the vein of the class it takes its name from; their two level 1 features are ''Hexblade's Curse'' (1/short rest, place a curse on a foe within 30ft that makes your attacks more likely to hit and heals you if they die whilst cursed) and ''Hex Warrior'' (you can enchant one-handed weapons you are proficient with to use Charisma for their attack & damage rolls; if you've the Pact of the Blade, your Pact Weapon always has this trait no matter the form it takes, also you get free proficiency with medium armor, shields and martial weapons). At level 6, they gain ''Accursed Specter'' (raise a slain humanoid as a loyal specter 1/day). Their level 10 feature, ''Armor of Hexes'', buffs up their curse by letting the warlock negate a cursed opponent's attack against them on a 4+. Finally, at level 14, they get ''Master of Hexes'', which lets them forgo the healing effect for dropping a cursed opponent to instead immediately reapply that curse to a fresh opponent. Its bonus spells are close-ranged, a mixture of protective spells (shield, blur, blink) and temporary weapon enchantments - the only exceptions are Phantasmal Killer and Cone of Cold.

''Celestial'' - This is the "good guy warlock" patron option, where you make a pact with an [[angel]] of some description. In mechanics, it's a refluffed version of the Undying Light Patron presented in an earlier Unearthed Arcana - ironically, unlike the Hexblade, this version was so well-received that WoTC saw no need to change its subclass features when they reprinted it for the Xanathar's Guide to Everything. The difference between the two versions is that it adds some healing spells to its list of bonus spells, instead of just fire/radiant damage-dealers, and rearranges what levels you get which features at. At 1st level, you gain Healing Light - the "heal with a touch" feature from the UL Patron, which it didn't get until level 14 - and Light & Sacred Flame as bonus cantrips. At level 6 it gets Radiant Soul, which is Resistance (Radiance) and bonus to radiant & fire damage, a feature the UL got at 1st level. They both get the same "bonus temporary HP on completing a rest" feature at level 10, but the Celestial renames it the Celestial Resilience trait. Finally, it gets Searing Vengeance - 1/day, when reduced to death, spring up at half maximum hitpoints and inflict radiant damage & blindness on all enemies within 30 feet - as its 14th level trait, when for the UL Patron it was a 6th level feature.
*More on that last ability: specifically, you can use it once per day, and you can opt to activate it instead of rolling a death save. So here's one way for you to exploit it: ''Celestial Warlock Drop Pod Bombing Runs''. It's kinda like the ODST drop pods from Halo, except without the actual pods. You get a bunch of other celestial warlocks, recruit a bunch of griffins or dragons or whatever, ride them over pearl harbor, then deliberately drop off your rides. After you get all your bones broken by the crash, you activate your Searing Vengence, then start shooting eldritch blasts, while topping off your health with your Healing light ability for your bonus actions. (of course the key here is that this ability can only be triggered ''when you would be otherwise forced to roll a death save'', and in 5e, if an attack that downs you has enough remaining overkill damage to equal your maximum possible HP, it will just kill your character outright, no death saves allowed. So if your ride's altitude is high enough for the fall damage to be ridiculous, then instead of looking like clever badasses, [[Modron|monodrones]] will just teleport in to put Darwin awards on your <s>corpses</s> puddles.)

''Fathomless'' - For the warlocks who want tentacle powers, but feel that Great Old One patrons are nothing but landlubbers. This patron basically gives you the ability to summon tentacles and adapts your body to life in the deep, cold ocean. Overall, an excellent choice if you want to have Davy Jones as your patron.

''[[Genie]]'' - Your [[Elementalist]] warlock, you have to choose specifically whether your patron is a [[dao]], [[djinn]], [[efreet]] or [[marid]]. You get some generically genie-like spells (detect evil/good, phantasmal force, create food & water, phantasmal killer, creation, wish), plus some elemental spells determined by your patron's elemental alignment. You start off with a "Genie Vessel", which is any kind of trinket that could potentially have held a genie; the traditional lamp, a bottle, an urn, a lantern, a hollow statuette, or a ring with a compartment; this holds an extradimensional lounge room in it that you can teleport into to hide, emulating the "genie in the vessel" yourself - at 10th level, you can bring up to 5 willing creatures along with you when you do. At 1st level, you can do bonus elemental damage on an attack once per turn. At 6th level, you gain elemental resistance and can fly through levitation for a few periods of time per day. Finally, at 14th level, you can gain a Limited Wish that emulates the effects of a 6th level or lower spell once every 1d4 days. Elemental damage granted by your features is determined by your patron; bludgeoning for a dao, Thunder for a djinni, Fire for an efreet, and Cold for a marid. This pact is also your best official option for another kind of elemental patron, such as an [[Archomental]] or the [[Elder Elemental Eye]]. Got added to the game in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. If this version doesn't take your fancy, there's also the [[Scarred Lands]] and [[Midgard]] versions, which ironically aren't as different from the official version or each other as you might initially think, or mix-and-matching with the playtest version that had better mechanics for its spell list and elemental resistance.

''[[Undead]]''- Though it pulls from a similar patron pool to the Undying Warlock, it leans more into the spooky scary part of [[Necromancy]] instead of the 'doesn't die when he's killed' part. Your bonus spells are mostly offensive necromancy, plus ''Phantom Steed'', ''Death Ward'', ''Speak with Dead'',  and ''False Life''. Your main ability is '''Form of Dread''', which gives you some temporary HP and fear-related abilities for a minute, and your other abilities make you increasingly undead-like, from not needing to eat, to resistance to necrotic damage (and exploding upon death), to being able to project your spirit for a while.
 
====Semi-Official Stuff====
The Warlock has been surprisingly well-off in terms of [[Unearthed Arcana]] content, with the Ghost in the Machine, Undying Light, Seeker, [[Hexblade]] and [[Raven Queen]] patrons in Unearthed Arcana, and the [[Kraken]] and [[Lolth]] patrons created by Mearls and released either on his Stream or in Twitter. As stated, the Undying Light was reworked into the Celestial Patron, and the Hexblade made it into the game in Xanathar's Guide, and you can read up on the UA articles on its page.

But what about Mearls' creations? Well...

'''Lolth''' as a Patron is a kind of dark mirror to the normal [[Archfey]] patron, combining some obvious Lolth references with bits of the [[Queen of Air and Darkness]]. Her bonus spells are Faerie Fire and Jump (1st level spells), Darkness and Web (2nd level spells), Fear and Vampiric Touch (3rd level spells), Dimension Door and Giant Insect (4th level spells), and Cloudkill & Hold Monster (5th level spells). 
* Her level 1 class feature is ''Dark Queen's Servitor''; this is basically a modified version of [[Druid|Wild Shape]] that lets you turn into a giant spider, whose bite does bonus poison damage based on your level. The big draw is that you can still cast your Bonus Spells whilst in giant spider form.
* At level 6, she grants you the ''Poisoned Beauty'' feature, which lets you attempt to inflict the Charmed and Vulnerable (Poison) conditions on a visible creature for 1 minute (or until damaged) if it fails a Charisma save. You can use this ability once per Short Rest.
* At level 10, she grants you the ''Spider Queen's Chosen'' feature, which gives you Resistance (Non-Magical Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing) when you're in Spider Form.
* Finally, at 14th level, she gives you the ''Kiss of the Spider Queen'' feature, which lets you spend an action to touch a creature; the victim of your touch takes 12d10 damage (your choice of Poison or Psychic), or half that if it succeeds on a Constitution save. You can only use this ability once per Long Rest, and a creature Charmed by you has Disadvantage on its save.

The '''Kraken''' Patron is pretty unique, and it makes a nicely themed pairing with a [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|Storm Sorcerer]]. Its bonus spells are a mixture of "storm [[elementalism]]" (thunderwave, create/destroy water, gust of wind, call lightning, water breathing, control water, cone of cold), two divinatory spells (augury, commune with nature) and Evard's Black Tentacles, which is an obvious fit.
* At level 1, you gain the feature ''Grasp of the Kraken'', which lets you summon writhing spectral tentacles at a point you can see within 60 feet. Creatures you target within 10ft of that point must make a Strength save against your Warlock spell save DC, or be grappled for 1 minute or until you use this ability again. A spectral tentacle has a Str (Athletics) bonus of 2 + your Proficiency bonus, and a reach of 10 feet.
* At level 6, you can the feature ''Inky Escape'', which lets you drop a Darkness (5ft radius) on a point within 5ft of you as a Reaction to taking damage once per short rest. You can see through this darkness, obviously.
* At level 10, you gain the powerful ''Scion of the Depths'' feature, which grants you the ability to breathe water, a swim speed equal to your normal speed, and Immunity (Lightning). When your immunity reduces damage from an effect to 0, as a reaction you can cause creatures of your choice that you can see within 30 ft. of you to take lightning damage equal to your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus.
* Finally, at level 14, you gain the feature ''Unleash the Kraken'', which lets you open a portal at a point visible within 30 feet of you. When you open the portal, kraken tentacles pour through it, and you must choose which boon you gain from the list below. Once you use this ability, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
** ''Transport:'' You and up to 5 creatures of your choosing that you can see are grasped by tentacles that emerge from the portal. A second portal opens at a point of your choice within 100 miles that you have visited in the past 24 hours, depositing you and your chosen allies there.
** ''Fury:'' The tentacles slam into your foes. Pick up to 5 creatures that you can see within 30 ft. of the portal. Those creatures must make Dexterity saving throws against your Warlock spell save DC. Creatures that fail their saving throws take 10d6 bludgeoning damage and are restrained for 1 minute. Creatures that succeed take half the bludgeoning damage and are not restrained. On its turn, a restrained creature can use its action to attempt a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to end its restrained condition.

The Kraken Patron above eventually got bumped up to a slightly higher tier of Semi-official with the release of the September UA's '''Lurker in the Deep Patron''', which pays a lot of homage to the above. It can be seen as an upgrade to the Kraken Patron. The bonus spells are exactly the same.
* At level 1, you get the ''Grasp of the Deep'', which is basically the same thing as Grasp of the Kraken, but instead of grappling with the tentacles you get to smack someone repeatedly for 1d8 (upgrades to 2d8 at level 10) cold/lightning damage as a bonus action. It also reduces their speed by 10 feet temporarily. Also at level 1, you get ''Scion of the Deep'', which lets you telepathically communicate to anything with a swimming speed like Aquaman.
* At level 6, you get ''Fathomless Soul'', which gives you a bunch of sea-themed goodies: the ability to breathe air and water, resistance to cold damage, and a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. You also get ''Guardian Grasp'', which allows you to halve any incoming damage for you or your buddies by wrapping your tentacle around them. This will make the tentacle go away, but it's well worth it.
* At level 10, you get ''Devouring Maw'' which summons a giant gaping maw that restrains foes in an area on a failed save, deals them an automatic 3d6 cold/lightning damage, and nets you some sweet temp hp equal to your Warlock level as long as there is someone near the maw.
* As your capstone at level 14, you get ''Unleash the Depths'' which is more or less the same thing as Unleash the Kraken above. The only major difference is that the Fury half of unleash does 6d10 cold rather than 10d6 Bludgeoning, and knocks people prone.