How To Build A 2024 Warlock For DnD

Warlocks have gotten a lot of love in the remastered 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons. Magical powers that are bargained for, borrowed, or stolen have a lot of⛄ storytelling potential that isn't captured in the traditional book smart wizard o🦄r the nepo-baby sorcerer. Alongside being fun to roleplay, they're also a strong class that holds up well in both combat and social encounters.

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Building a warlock can be intimidating. Their class features lots of choices, and it's easy to get concerned about building a character who is both fun to play and tells a good story. 𝓀This guide will cover the main choices and how you can tie them together in a narrative.

How To Choose A Warlock Patron

Winged, red demon with glowing eyes holding a sword. — Lorcan, Warlock Collector by Andrew Mar

Your subclass is determined by your warlock's patron, and while they only start giving you unique features at third level, you'll want to have▨ a clear idea from the start so that your character is thematically coherent and you ♛know how to play them.

Your choice of pact can have a large impact on the way your character plays beyond the warlock's base kit. Each of the subclasses has a defined niche the♔y like to perform within, along with drawbacks relative to the others.

Patron	Class Identity	Playstyle	Weakness
Archfey	Survivability	The archfey specializes in spells that let you avoid damage and escape danger and features that punish enemies for targeting you. If your DM has the mindset of running intelligent enemies that know to focus the spellcaster, the fey is a strong pick.	You have very few resources per day, depending entirely on your pool of Misty Steps to activate your class features.
Celestial	Team Player	The celestial is the biggest departure from the warlock's core identity. With abilities focused on providing healing and temporary hitpoints, the celestial trades away some personal power for keeping their team in fights for longer. In a game that uses the gritty realism variant rules, a celestial warlock goes from being a combined healer/damage-de🔜al🦋er to the best healer a group can ask for while still boasting competent damage.	You have to choose carefully how many resources you want to commit to both dealing damage and healing your team. Sometimes the tactical choice is going to be empowering someone else to feel badass.
Fiend	Combat All-Star	The fiend largely focuses on personal survivability through temporary hitpoints, damage resistances, and stronger saving throws. This gets mixed in with some damage 🦩spells and features.	The fiend's abilities require carefully remembering what your character is able to do: Choosing a damage resistance ea🌜ch day ♈is very strong, but only if you plan ahead and use these abilities proactively.
Great Old One	Roleplaying And Intrigue	The most warlock of warlocks, much of this subclass shines brightest out of combat. Conjuring minions and bending minds is potent but operates best when the campaign focuses on such matters. The ability to always deal psychic damage is nice, as it's a🍎 rare resistance, but it's also rarely a weakness.	Much of your subclass will be consigned to flavor text, unless your DM makes an active attempt to tie your pact into the narrative. Unfortunately, a campaign that uses these warlocks thematically is also more likely to resist psychic damage.

Best Species For A Warlock

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a group of orcs. — Orc species by Mike Pape.

Your species will give you a mixture of passive and active abilities to complement your class. It'll also open or close doors in roleplaying scenarios, so make sure you check with the DM🌟 about the setting. All options are mechanically viable, but some offe🤪r perks that a warlock will be interested in.

Orcs make great warlocks both thematically and mechanically. Adrenaline rush and relentless endurance may be written with martial characters in mind, but their survivability fits well on a squishy spellcaster.
Goliaths have a versatile range of subtypes. Cloud goliaths functionally get an extra pool of Misty Steps that a fey warlock will covet, while a stone goliath can tank a surprising amount of damage.
Aasimar's flight has a limited duration but doesn't require concentration. You can use flight offensively, defensively, and for ignoring carefully curated agility puzzles your DM worked hours on.
Humans get to double dip on the origin feats, which are covered in the backgrounds section. The resourceful trait is going to vary in value depending on how well your party generates inspiration and how often your DM hands it out.
Dwarven tremorsense can completely negate most forms of invisibility or stealth but will eventually lead to an argument about what qualifies as valid terrain for the ability to activate. Toughness is a nice bonus.

Best Backgrounds For A Warlock

Dungeons & Dragons image showing two adventurers bartering with a hag. — Hag by Linda Lithen

Your choice of background determines⛄ your starting abilꦬity scores and origin feat. These are the top picks, but it's hard to go wrong as long as you get a Charisma boost:

Acolyte gives you the Charisma boost you need and the Cleric Initiate feat. Getting access to Healing Word as a warlock is a great trump card for if your party's main healer goes down in a fight.
Charlatan gives you Charisma and your choice between Dexterity and Constitution. All three ability scores are great to have. The Skilled feat doesn't stand out but is never useless.
The lore text on the Hermit fits perfectly for a warlock of the great old ones, but the mechanical boost to healing lines it up better with a celestial patron.
Wayfarer's Lucky feat will ensure you rarely critfail, along with the Charisma and Dexterity boosts, both of which are great.

If your DM allows you to justify broader choices of ability scores than what the origins offer, a scribe can be a thematic choice. Without a Charisma boost, it is hard to justify.

How To Choose Eldritch Invocations

Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player's Handbook artwork of a warlock dragonborn using their arcane focus by Ignatius Budi. — Warlock dragonborn by Ignatius Budi

Eldritch invocations let you build a significant portion of your class features by picking out what you want. Building your class a la carte means putting a bit of extra effort into ♐getti🍸ng the exact warlock that you have in mind rather than a factory preset.

With that in mind, certain options make for stronger characters, so you'll want to🐬 consider how to thread the needle between the specific class fantasy you have in mind and whether they'll perform well in actual play.

Invocation Type	Examples	Uses
Basic Damage Upgrades	Pact of the Blade Agonizing Blast	The bonuses these invocations provide make it very difficult for a warlock to actually perform their role without the extra damage or accuracy they provide.
Specializations	Lifedrinker Thirsting Blade	Some playstyles of warlock will require certain invocations to function at all. If you're playing a pact of the blade warlock, you're functionally required to take the derivative invocations whenever they become🀅 available.
Party Synergies	Repelling Blast	T𝕴hese invoc🐼ations give you new tactical options that rely on good teamwork. Repelling Blast can be great for setting up a polearm master's extra attacks or saving an ally from needing to disengage, while Eldritch Smite can knock enemies prone to set up a rogue's Sneak Attack.
Problem Solvers	Otherworldly Leap Mask of Many Faces	Some invocations solve specific problem types that will regularly appear depending on the type of campaign being run. Otherworldly Leap is great when playing with terrain maps and altitude, saving you the need to Misty Step every time you want to scale a building. Mas♕k of Many Faces is great in an int🌄rigue campaign if you have the roleplaying chops to pull off a good impersonation.
Versatility	Lessons of the First Ones One With Shadows Gift of the Depths	These invocations let you do things that your class would otherwise struggle with, typically out of combat. This can be filling in for a party role: If your rogue is absent for a week, One With The Shadows lets you fill in as the party scout.
Fun	Anything you want!	Is there actually a reason to combine Lightning Lure with Repelling Blast? Not really, but it's fun to visualize flinging people b🍷ack and forth like a ♛magic yoyo.

Multiclassing For A Warlock

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a barbarian, a ranger and a monk fighting gnolls. — Art by Craig J Spearing

Warlocks have plenty of multiclassing options due to the plethora of Charisma-based classes and the ability of the Blade Pact to su🃏bstitute for Strength and Dexterity in any martial class.

Even if you do not rely on Strength or Dexterity for your weapons and armor, you'll still need to meet the stat requirements for the multiclasses you want to take.

Bards can give the warlock skill expertise without compromising on spellcasting. You'll need to keep track of what spells you gain from which class, as some invocations only interact with explicitly warlock spells.
A draconic sorcerer gains Unarmoured Defense that scales to Charisma, greatly improving survivability. Metamagic does good work, especially with a warlock's limited pool of spell slots.
A one-level dip in fighter can give weapon mastery with your pact weapon and Medium Armor Proficiency. If you don't need the armor, rogue can also give you weapon mastery alongside Expertise, Thieves Cant, and Sneak Attack.
Druid and wizard can access the spell Conjure Minor Elementals, which adds damage to all attacks you make in a turn. An Eldritch Blast warlock is able to multiply their damage, but they need to invest heavily into the other class to get it.
One level of cleric can give you Heavy Armor Proficiency but may require some roleplaying explanation.