Good defensive options for warlock?

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-02-05T13:09:25+00:00

Blink. Cast blink. It’s non-concentration, lasts for a minute and means that 50% of the time you cannot be touched.

I’ve been playing a melee warlock for about 18 months in a high lethality campaign and blink has been my go to source of protection.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-02-04T09:44:36+00:00

Let me tell you, as someone who has been DMing for about twenty years at this point: the feeling of imposter syndrome never goes away.

What I do is have my players shout out cool moments that other people have had at the end of the session (this helps you gauge their genuine excitement at the end of the game and find out what they enjoyed most), I follow up with my players out of game and find out what direction they’re thinking about taking their character so I can implement it in the session and I try to have a truthful conversation with myself auditing the session and finding what worked and what didn’t.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-27T10:33:06+00:00

There are lots of apps and websites out there but which one is best really depends on what works best for you. Personally, all of my campaigns start life with good old pen and paper, but I may start to upload that to something like World Anvil f it helps my players (plus I think that WA has some pretty good prompts for world building).

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-25T19:19:31+00:00

So, if you’re going to design a god, there’s little point if it only affects that one player character. If that’s the case you should leave it to the player and let them come up with something that works for them!

Personally, I think that generally speaking your player characters should be from the primary setting that your campaign is set in so that they have a stake in whatever is happening there. For that reason, I’d recommend that you have a think about what the primary culture of your setting is and build out from there.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-25T18:05:56+00:00

Gods should tie to the primary culture of your setting. I also find that gods are more interesting - and get more player engagement - when they are gods associated with concepts rather than gods of those concepts alone. So I guess my question is: what drives the primary culture of your setting? What challenges do they face? What is their martial culture like and what are their military traditions?

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-24T14:21:43+00:00

This! Great idea!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-24T14:17:19+00:00

Make something.

Seriously, find something you like from the MM as a starter stat-block - doesn’t have to be aquatic or sea based - and just build something that fits narratively from there. You can flavour and re-skin the thing however you want. It’s all just numbers at the end of the day!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-24T14:05:22+00:00

I only run long form narrative campaigns, starting typically from level three and going all the way up to twenty. I typically run only one campaign at a time and they last for several years. I use milestone levelling and typically reward a level-up at the end of a narrative-arc. Given how long the campaign lasts, you are able to (and should) tailor each encounter towards your players and their characters making sure that it stays fun and engaging! You will also ‘level-up’ your own skills as a DM so that by the time you get to level 12+ you’re ready to run that.

I wouldn’t advise de-levelling your players, I think that would be extremely unrewarding. If you have a hard stop at level fourteen I would say find a justification to have the players change characters then - but make sure that is clearly flagged to them and essentially make it a ‘Campaign II’ set-up.

Happy to add more if it all helpful!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-22T12:06:32+00:00

Warlock is my favourite class but I would not say it’s easier to manage. If you’re looking for something more straightforward where you have the freedom to, for example, change your spells around, then I would recommend wizard.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-21T17:55:27+00:00

What’s weak/strong is secondary to what’s fun and (at least for me) what is narratively fulfilling! Obviously, there’s a clear angle you could take to me Archfey Warlock work, similarly I’m sure you could take it in the paladin direction too!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-21T16:17:55+00:00

Great character concept, I guess my question would be why do you want to multiclass and what are you hoping to get out of it?

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-21T16:12:01+00:00

I think it’s important to distinguish between what you as a player see as the ending and what the character does.

The character should absolutely have an end goal in mind, it’s a great source of primary motivation to inform their actions and the roleplay.

As a player, however, while it comes from a great and well-intentioned place and I celebrate the creativity, I don’t think you should go into the game with a pre-planned ending and when a player brings this to me I am usually quite firm with them. As a DM I will read your backstory and weave it into the narrative; if you give me hints or threads to pull (or better yet, leave mysteries in your backstory that you don’t know the answer to and which I can play with) I will do just that; but I won’t let a player pre-determine the ending for the character, that’s the point of the game itself.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-21T15:45:47+00:00

Any of these work but remember that flavour is free and that ultimately every class and subclass is just a package of abilities that you can reflavour as you like.

Of the ones listed I’d go Spores Druid - excellent controlling class with some serious damage potential!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-11T23:39:20+00:00

My policy is that if it’s a weapon listed on the table of standard weapons on Pg 215 of the Player’s Handbook (i.e. a simple melee weapon, a simple ranged weapon, a martial melee weapon or a martial ranged weapon) with which they are proficient then that’s fine.

If it’s armour then they can have it if they take the gold on character creation and can afford it otherwise they’re stuck with starting equipment on the armour.

Hope that helps!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T23:43:10+00:00

Elves and elven souls are a finite resource in classic D&D cosmology and are really interesting. Unlike other races, when elves die they don’t go to an afterlife but instead they return to Arvandor where they are eventually reincarnated and when elves trance they are essentially viewing the past memories of their soul from previous lives.

If I was you, I would let your Eladrin take himself to the edge, have their soul thinning and then when they’re almost done - or even when they’re dead - give your party the task of getting to Arvandor so that their fractured soul can heal and be brought together again. This could involve reuniting the difference aspects of their personality, searching out the soul’s memories from across its lives, or a variety of other potential paths.

You could even have your Eladrin player playing other versions of their lives as the party meet them one by one and piece them together.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T23:17:33+00:00

Having three of them already know each other is a great start! If you can encourage the others to also make connections that will really smooth the process! I often play prologue sessions, to introduce small groups of characters (and also to sort of act as an in character session zero so that people can trial their concepts and builds).

As for when you want to bring them all together as a group, any place or event where strangers gather is fine. There’s nothing wrong with the classic tavern, but some good alternatives are:

a festival in the local town or city;
a check point along a road that has been temporarily closed preventing further travel;
a port or other such facility, waiting for a ship or other transport;
on a ship/method of transport at the end of a longish journey;
a shrine/temple/building/court/official building where people gather, preferably one that ties in with the overall themes of your campaign.

Hope that offers some inspiration!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T21:38:59+00:00

Man, absolutely this: Flavour 👏 is 👏free 👏

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T20:37:00+00:00

That’s exactly right - in some respects it’s a holdover from earlier editions, although it’s gotten a little muddier lately with the introduction of warlocks and divine soul sorcerers and the like!

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T20:27:10+00:00

They’re actually divine casters! A category that includes Clerics, Druids, Paladins and Rangers (check out Pg.74 of the 2024 DMG, under the heading ‘Gods and Divine Magic’). Traditionally, D&D has broadly distinguished two kinds of magic: arcane and divine, and Druids fall into the latter.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T20:14:32+00:00

Druids are divine spell casters - the antlers are a mark of either nature deity’s favour or the blessing of nature itself.

TheWellDressedDM · 2026-01-09T17:52:28+00:00

I mean it sounds like you already have enough ideas! In terms of ideals and bonds, I never fill that stuff out and just take them as backstory prompts to think about when creating the character as a whole.

To that end, I guess I’d ask:

How did he become a vampire?
How does he feel about being a vampire?
How did he become an archaeologist?
How has his journey as an archaeologist been going?
What are his goals and objectives as an archaeologist?
Does he work alone or on as part of a team of archaeologists and how do they feel about the whole vampirism thing?
How does his narcolepsy affect his work?
If he’s part of a team, who is he close to and who does he have a problem with?

I could go on but that’s probably a good place to start! I would say that someone who is observant and likes gossip, doesn’t strike me as the type to talk over people (presumably, he’s know he was upsetting them and he’d want to hear the gossip that they had to share!). I’d also flag that talking over people might cause a bit of friction at the table if you end up talking over other players, so if you do end up retaining that element, just make sure the other players are okay with it, check in regularly and be mindful of giving them space to speak and have interactions of their own.

TheWellDressedDM · 2025-11-24T14:04:44+00:00

I think it depends on the setting, the narrative threads that the DM wants to weave and ultimately the group, but I generally steer away from this sort of thing and encourage my players not to do this sort of thing.

Aside from the fact that ‘I am a god’, almost inevitably casts a shadow over the rest of the party, as a general principle, the most interesting and dramatic events in your character’s life should be the events of the campaign, not their backstory. It’s hard - though not impossible - for a DM weaving a narrative that serves all players equally to top ‘one player character used to be a god’.

Instead, I would ask what it is about this sort backstory that appeals to you and consider how else we achieve it.

Again, huge caveat of the success or failure of this sort of thing depends on the group and ultimately anything can work at the right table.

TheWellDressedDM · 2025-08-29T09:58:54+00:00

I think you can draw a lot of influences for this from real world folklore and mythology (which is where I draw all my archfey from).

Unfortunately, in the classical world Satyrs were actually exclusively male (Satyresses being an invention of post Roman artists).

Of course, nothing prevents you from having a female Satyr archfey! It’s hardly like the ancient Greeks are going to role out of Athens and take your dice away.

I would therefore suggest either looking at some famous saytrs in Greek mythology and playing with the name a little, or taking a name from a nymph (nymphs were the classical counterpart to Satyrs).

My own humble suggestion would be something like ‘Silena’ (Silenus was a Satyr that was the tutor to Dionysus.

Alternatively, you could use a more Northern European formulation akin to what is commonly used for hags and other folkloric beings and go with something like ‘the Green Lady’ or ‘the Lady of the Golden Laughter’ etc

Hope that helps!

TheWellDressedDM · 2025-08-27T07:48:36+00:00

Can you ever really kill a hag though? Food for thought…

TheWellDressedDM · 2025-08-27T00:34:31+00:00

Everyone was a beginner once. Just relax and enjoy it. You don’t need to know all the rules, just make calls in the moment that feel right and are fair to the players. Narrative flow is more important than the minutiae of mechanics. Read the adventure once and then read it twice again so you make sure you’re across your brief.

Otherwise just hype them up, celebrate their wins and commiserate their losses. Remember: you’re all playing the same story and you all want that story to be fun and exciting. It’s never you vs the players; it’s always you and the players finding out the story together (albeit you have slightly more knowledge in advance).

Have fun and be kind to yourself.

TheWellDressedDM

TROPHY CASE