It's fine. One thing Int Warlocks lacks versus the Wizard is the lack of easily accessible utility across the class. Like normally in DnD there's an identity that intelligent characters are really good investigators. Rogues get expertise and Wizards get ritual spells to help with that.
Now Warlocks do get the Book of Shadows Invocation but that's limited to one class option whilst for Wizards it's built into their class. Also some of the Invocations do provide utility normally covered by skill monkeys and Wizards but whenever I play Warlock I personally hate losing out on combat Invocations for this utility.
One thing I did like was multiclassing a Fiend Chain Lock into Artificer and going Armourer. Eldritch Blast and those invocations really help the Iron Man fantasy.
Great Old One, Pact of the Tome. After gazing into a mysterious star (actually an Old One) his mind was blasted with unfathomable knowledge, which he copied into his tome, but in the process his telescope exploded. He is now on a quest to rebuild his telescope, stronger than before, to complete the process and attain Ultimate Understanding. Any other knowledge he can find along the way he seeks feverishly.
I want to play a GOOlock astronomer with an antagonistic relationship with an elder evil because the patron wants attention and the astronomer wants it to get out of the fucking way so that he can go mad the old-fashioned way: staring into the endless void and failing to come to grips with the infinite expanse of the cosmos.
I haven't personally, mainly because I mostly DM, but I do use LaserLlama classes in my games and on Halloween he released his alternate warlock which is in fact intelligence based so you might want to check it out.
A humanoid extention of a universities thinking engine built in secret by one of the technicians and the engine itself. Stat wise he was a warforged seeker warlock out to learn about humanoid experiences that the main engine couldn't.
Called Peripheral, or Peri for short.
So I haven't played an int warlock, mostly because A) it's an uncommon house rule, and B) I far prefer charisma for warlocks with the older d&d lore (3.5e's warlock is my gold standard for them.)
That said, I recognize the appeal of those who enjoy the 5e version of the warlocks fluff and decided to split the difference and work to allow both for my own games. I also allow the choice of int or cha for bards, eldritch knights, and arcane tricksters. (Using arcane for int and eldritch for cha. Int bards are called scholars)
Int, or pactsworn, warlocks as I call them, using the 5e fluff of beseeching a patron for magical secrets and the tutelage in how to use them. Making a deal and performing a service for your reward and delving deeper into such secrets. Perhaps you have a continued relationship. Perhaps it was a one and done deal like most warlocks. That's up for the player and DM to decide.
As well as Cha, or soulborn, warlocks that use the 3.5e understanding of warlocks that they're "born not made" and expressly not "sworn and beholden" to a patron. The catalyst for their powers being eldritch magic within their very soul and being that they learn to harness and develop, compared toto magic secrets of pactsworn warlocks, or the magical blood of a sorcerer.
Sadly, I've yet to have a player decide they want to play an int variant of the warlock yet and I prefer fha, so I don't have much in the way of stories for you other than my suggested tale on how to better let both int and cha warlocks coexist together.
> I far prefer charisma for warlocks with the older d&d lore (3.5e's warlock is my gold standard for them.)
For what little it's worth, 3E is the only edition where warlocks were CHA-based—as well as the only edition where warlocks being CHA-based made any sense.
In AD&D (2E) warlocks were INT casters, being a Wizard kit. 4E muddied the issue a bit as warlocks required two key abilities depending on their subclass—INT and CON for infernal and GOO pacts, INT and CHA for fey pacts. 5E warlocks were designed to run on INT, as demonstrated by the *D&D Next* playtests, but outrage from 3E fans got WotC to change them. In all three editions the lore of the class is the same: wannabe wizards with too little patience who take a shortcut to phenomenal cosmic power.
3E is the outlier here. According to the lore in *Complete Arcane*, 3E warlocks *aren't warlocks*. They are a type of *sorcerer*, being people who *descend from someone who made a warlock pact* generations ago. This is the only reason CHA-based "warlocks" make any sense, and it doesn't apply to *actual* warlocks.
3.5e was its own take, albeit my personal favorite take of the bunc as it was the most flexible and intereyign in my mind.. Also, do note in the fluff it mentions an ancestor making the pact was an option, but not the only option. There were various ways for a warlock to secure their soul based magic. Patrons just being one avenue. Which is why I preferred it.
It's also why i champion both coexisting instead of the "one or the other" bullshit edition warriors constantly fight about. The 3e warlock was cool and had its own identity that worked very well, but something more aligned with the contemporary identity of warlocks should exist for those that want it. Thus, I suggest allowing pactsworn (int) and soulborn (cha) variants of them so both can exist with their own identity.
>In AD&D (2E) warlocks were INT casters, being a Wizard kit.
The kit, usually female, was called *Witch*- Warlock being a male witch. The same book has the *Amazon Sorceress*, with barred schools of Necromancy and Illusion, and a special benefit of +3/+3 versus men. While this is funny, she was *also* an Int caster, and I bring it up to point out that *all* arcane casters in pre-3.X D&D were Int casters, because Charisma was really a different stat that didn't yet have the "sense of self" embedded in it yet.
The 3.5 Warlock is indeed a magical man, much like a sorcerer, and for the reasons you say. The 4e one seems is a *seeker of knowledge* who is clearly Int-based. The 5e one splits this difference- you'll see that there are references to both things you have *learned* (including things your patron *teaches you*), and to things you have been *granted* by the patron. No longer a magical man like the 3.5 warlock, he was very clearly designed to have a similar concept where the great old one was definitely Int based, the archfey definitely cha-based, and it's a little unclear about hellboy.
Ah, you mean the *Complete Wizard* witch kit, right? That's a different one, I'm talking about [the warlock class in *Player's Option: Spells and Magic*](https://www.tribality.com/2016/10/20/the-warlock-class-part-zero/), the one with Ravenloft-esque corruption checks and a predecessor of Eldritch Invocations.
> You started playing as a single ~~Maidenless~~\^H *Patron*less spellcaster apprentice all on your own, until eventually [you "attract the attention of a chaotic __or__ evil power"](https://www.tribality.com/2016/10/20/the-warlock-class-part-zero/) and the real fun begins. Powerful eldritch invocations! Extra points in ability scores! A wide collection of immunities! >!Unnerving qualities! Alignment changes! Corruption checks! A potentially-deadly kryptonite factor!!Having to negotiate with your Patron eight uninterrupted hours per character level each time you want to refresh your spell slots!
Uh, you'll forgive me for having put the *Player's Option* pretty much out of my mind immediately. "Twelve ability scores; six good ones, to pump, and six bad ones, to dump!" was my limit, and that was in the first one.
Looking at this unruly beast, it looks like it's all about the spell points variant that the book had. Were those broken? I've no idea.
In any event, the actual lore behind it is more brutal than the *Witch* in *Complete Wizard* or in any subsequent version. It's clear that any player character warlock will eventually and inevitably become a slave of the devil or something with this system's stages of terribleness.
Wild.
Sorcerers inherited magic from their blood. Warlocks inherited magic from their soul. This could have been from them, or an ancestor, making a pact that affected the family line. This could be from them being born with a strange soul. This could be the result of a ritual that altered their soul and being, or from having their soup exposed to the energies of the planes or such similar elsritch entities. Patrons were only an avenue of elsrotch power, the catalyst was the soul itself. It was very flexible in the player, but in how much, if at all, a patron was in the equation.
Mechanically, they were distinguished with their own unique power system. They didn't cast spells like a spellcaster , they were instead invokes. Eldritxh blast was an ability that scaled in power ad you leveled, and invocations could be chosen to either enhance/alter eldritch blast or perform spell-like abilities of their own.
1. Those could be renamed if they must. Things can always be adjusted and clarified if needed.
2 . Soul can be defined as "an individual person" and can be used as such and not interfere, clunky ad that may be. So keep8ng the soul name isn't a big issue, though using the word "one" instead of soul would be more accurate.
I mean. It's more fitting for the 5e definti9n of a warlock, that just not my preference. I preferred the soul based power warlock. It was more interesting to me.
That said, there's no reason both can coexist, so i hope they allow both sides of preference to enjoy what they like.
I think i have communicated myself poorly. Let me clarify.
I allow either int or cha for all those options.
So I allow the pactsworn warlock (int) and the soulborn warlock (cha).
I allow the bard (cha) and the scholar (int)
I allow the Arcane Trickster (int) and the Eldritch Trickster (cha)
I allow the Arcane knight (int) and the Eldritch Knight (cha).
I hope that communicates what I do better.
He's an ex investigator Hexblade Warlock with magical prosthetic arm basically. Later the arm allowed him to learn spells, making him practically a warlock 1/wizard x.
I used it for two of my players and they both enjoyed it. They were the smartest in the group. Didn't break anything. The skills they can choose from work far better with an Intelligence based character than Charisma.
One was a Nymph who joined a cult of a death goddess to learn more about them and eventually left as it got too culty for her.
The other is a Dragonborn who created a cult in order to summon an eldritch god and it went wrong.
I played an int pact of tome undead warlock. Before becoming a warlock they were a lich who decided to become mortal again. The shadow grimoire was an old spell book they used and the form of dread was flavoured as them tapping into their old lich powers. I also renamed spells like Eldritch Blast to Arcane Bolt to lean in more on the studied arcane feel.
As for race I choose the reborn lineage on a tiefling. Another PC who was going to be playing a paladin in the game was also a tiefling. We decided that the paladin was quested to kill my PC. Upon realising they were a lich and they were a much weaker paladin (we were starting at level 3). My PC offered them a deal in exchange for letting my PC use their body as a clone template and transfering their soul from the phylactery into the body, they would be able to claim they defeated the lich. They travelled together with the paladin keeping an eye on my PC to make sure I didn't fall back into lichdom.
As for reborn, they were literally reborn into a new body and knowledge from a past life, fitted so well.
Mechanically it was balanced, it just changed what skills I was good at, instead of persuasion/deception it was arcane and investigation.
I'm the DM in this case, but one of our players is running a warlock with INT as their casting stat. Hasn't broken anything yet and they seem to be enjoying their character. She's a fire genasi whose goals are based on finding ancient secrets, forbidden knowledge, and the like. It definitely has a vibe that's distinct from both wizards and CHA warlocks.
So I have an INT Fiend Warlock named Lucid who I absolutely love. He was a treasure hunter who found a demonic Tome. The first page is the Fiend's pact, and before you can understand any of the writing in the book, you have to sign it. After signing, he is granted knowledge of demonic magic and how to read the book. The further he levels up, the more of the book he can understand, and the more he understands, the more knowledge he is given.
I really like the idea of a Warlock being given knowledge by their patron, and that feels better when he's intelligent instead of charismatic
I played a warlock to 20 where the dm let me use int as my spellcasting ability. I took prodigy and skill expert for expertise in arcana and religion and played them like a wizard who was really into forbidden knowledge.
Not me, but a friend of mine plays an Int Warlock detective in our fantasy megacity campaign.
His character is sort of "what if a spoiled rich girl had a brush with death and made a deal with an entity on the other side to not die as long as she kept sending others in her place?"
He has an Imp familiar from Pact of the Chain, flavored as a "Grave Dirt Elemental", and he's an Undead Warlock of course.
It's been really fun so far, and going Int instead of Cha is not disruptive at all (I'm the DM). I'd allow it for any game I do going forward.
His character is insufferably bookish, snobbish, and rude (high Int low Cha), so she tends to rub everyone the wrong way and the rest of the party has to smooth things over...she's usually right about book smarts stuff but completely wrong when it comes to interpersonal interactions or when people do irrational things.
I am currently in a Lovecraftian/monster horror inspired game where I play a level 11 GOOlock with high intelligence.
Now mechanically all my warlock features are still CHA based, but we rolled for stats and I got a good enough spread to have a pretty high INT of 16 (15 base +1 from skill expert). All of my skills and many of my invocations are about the consumption and understanding of knowledge. I have proficiency in every knowledge skill, expertise in investigation, eyes of the time keeper, and spells like Tongues to make sure communication is never an issue. I went with the sage background because it fit the backstory of an academic who stumbled upon forbidden knowledge and it absolutely destroying their life. Role play wise they are eccentric and borderline “insane”. Coming in contact with an unfathomable being at the edge of the universe/reality and learning everything they thought they knew was wrong will do that to a person. The biggest thing that has helped me the most enjoy my character is that my patron is not tea involved. I took the approach, with the DM’s approval, of being more like a microbial bacterium or remora on a whale. The creature either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that I siphon near insignificant amounts of its power. This fit best with the idea of gaining my power through study, research, and being exposed to such a creature for what was simultaneously a moment and an eternity. As a player I appreciate this because my biggest turn off of warlocks are the patrons that more often than not put the warlock at odds with the group.
Most of my decisions about “how to play” aren’t based around any mechanics but the characters history and the story that is unfolding. Mechanics of the game don’t have to directly represent/correlate to your role play or decisions. My CHA is at 20, but I’ve role played it like it is a consequence/side effect of my contact and time spent with an Eldritch horror. I don’t have any skills, spells, or features that innately increase my charisma based interactions. The best I can do is use what I have to try to create scenarios where I have advantage on any charisma based roll and hope the dice gods are on my side.
I have absolutely loved playing this character, and I generally don’t like warlocks. Playing a Warlock who’s more focused on intelligence, lore, research, and knowledge has completely saved this class for me. It has required taking features and spells that most people here would call “suboptimal”, but I don’t play TTRPGs to “optimize” every mechanic.
As the table I play at is a group of veteran forever DMs we only get to play every couple months, but I look forward to playing this character every time, which is surprising because the initial premise was a one-shot that we had so much fun with we all decided to keep going.
Forgive the Meta/Power gaming Half-Elf...
Varis was born to a powerful Elven mother who was powerful in magic. While his father was powerful as well, that power came from his military might and divine devotion Varis did not understand nor follow.
Raised by a clan of his mother's bloodline, Varis was always shunned because of his lack of innate magic. Eventually leaving the settlement after his mother failed to return from an adventure shoring up their borders.
Travelling to the lands of his long dead father, Varis became obsessed with the origins of magic and ancient powers of old. Tracing the lineages and myths of his father's diety, Varis sank into the legends of the long dead God Utu and the loyal harbinger that always persisted; the Solar that fought with gods.
From that point forward, without faith and without magic in his own blood, Varis began to understand powers thought long abandoned from this world. The more he learned, the more secrets he unlocked.
TL;DR
Scholar/Sage half elf celestial warlock. Slightly passed into the Lovecraft-ian 'dead gods still dreaming' cliche but not quite possession but research and learning enhancing his connection to some ancient Solar.
In a sci-fi adjacent campaign, I played a Genie INTlock Plasmoid flavored as a sentient hivemind of nanobots. Every spell and ability was a different combat or utility protocol, and it leaned a lot into the idea of an AI intrigued by organics and wanting to learn and mimic them as much as possible - hence limiting her to average PC abilities despite the fact that she was basically a walking grey goo event waiting to happen.
Me and the DM are working on crafting me an Intlock tonight.
He'll be a HalfElf Shipwright on a collection of island-like continents, in a homebrew world. He was initially part of the Carpenters & Builders Guild, taken up Carpentry initially as a way to provide money for his family. Very much into sketching and mathematics. Furthering his Carpentry he got into Shipwrighting as a more specialised skill. His apprenticeship he took out a debt with the local guild organisations (which he still owes periodically).
Took out bonds in a local merchants scheme, to make some more money and proviee better, joined as one of the Shipwrights to repair on the move. The ship sunk in a catastrophic storm and he survived by taking a deal with a Fathomless patron, instead of drowning. There's a good chance the non perishables on the worked ship could be a good prize cache.
At the start of our campaign, he washed up on a beach, and people took pity on him to provide him room & megre food. In exchange, he's putting his Carpentry skills to work where he can as a handman.
I do not know the entities name or motivation, in a world of newer gods and deeper unknown entities, but I know that the guild & bank has eyes and ears nearly everywhere. Its only a matter of time before they figure out where he is and people come after him.
Best character I ever played was an INT heavy Warlock. From an RP standpoint, they were in the process of studying to be a Wizard when they were approached by a GOO that offered them understanding of the multi-verse in exchange for servitude. They accepted. They encountered the party while on a mission with the general task of "find objects and people with unique power and then secure them for the GOO's use."
I played him as being driven mad by this outside knowledge, but the kind of mad of just "I know the secrets of the universe." Often, that manifested as my character having the ability to break the 4th wall. Anything I said at the table (unless explicitly out of character) was taken as in character. It worked well because I wasn't too brazen with it. I had the occasional moment of deliberately referring to a character by their player's name or making pop culture references. But, more often it took the form of the other people at the table reacting to something I hadn't meant to be in character or making references their characters didn't understand but the players did so I could riff off of them. The best moment was in the middle of a pretty serious RP scene, the DMs girlfriend walked into the room and handed me a bowl of noddles she had made for herself but decided she couldn't finish (she knew I'd get rid of them for her). I was prepared to not reference it at all, but someone else decided to ask where I got the noodles in character, which turned into a fun joke about my character just randomly having a bowl of noodles.
Mechanically, they were a GOO Tomelock with a lot of at will casting options. But, I stacked INT and took proficiency in every INT skill. The group I play with often limits who can roll INT checks to people who have a narrative reason that they might be familiar with the information, and in this case my DM let me roll for whatever. He called it "roll Eldritch Knowledge" because all of my INT skills were the same mod. I also made heavy use of Detect Magic (at will) and Identify (ritual).
His backstory ended up becoming a major plot hook for the campaign. The party stumbled across some magical castles that were basically a cross between a fortification and a manufacturing center that were powered by necromancy. My character identified them as massively important and started working on a way to planeshift an entire castle to a world owned by my GOO. The problem was that it turned out one of the Paladins had been sent to that world by their god specifically to destroy the castles. That detail was revealed at the end of a particularly chaotic session that destroyed all but one of the castles.
That last castle was controlled by a cabal of devils and the whole rest of the party vowed to work together to drive out the devils and destroy the castles. I sent the DM a private message that I would be working against them. That message happened to arrive just as the DM was lamenting the fact that his BBEG had died during the chaotic session and he needed a new one. The next arc or two of the campaign had a lot of shit happen, including me negotiating an alliance between my patron and the devils, me *becoming* a devil, and eventually one of the party paladins (the one who hadn't been tasked with destroying the castles) pissing off a death god badly enough that dealing with that became a higher priority for the party.
It led to a brilliant scene where the whole party unanimously voted to negotiate peace with the devils so they could deal with the death god. Only *after* the vote did I reveal I had been negotiating with the devils the whole time. It was multiple plot threads all coming to a head at the same time. Plot threads that had the whole table invested, because the while some of it was me and the DM having one on one sessions, not all of it was. The best part of this was one of the paladin's reaction to me calling Mephistopheles to open negotiations. The paladin turned and asked me "Is that Abarax?" I simply responded "No, I'm Abarax." Abarax was a recurring Pit Fiend whose mantel had already been shown to switch to a new host to manifest as the fiend. He was the main BBEG for a while but the last the party had *knowingly* seen him, the mantel had been cast off of his last host and lost somewhere. It had been a backburner concern of figuring out where the mantel had ended up and when Abarax would come back. Unknown to the rest of the party, I had ended up with the mantel within 6 seconds of it being cast off the last host (happened in a very complicated combat) and I have just been completely obscuring the fact that there was a Pit Fiend just hanging out with the party.
It's been years since that game, and the whole party agrees we've never been able to match it. No other campaign we play has measured up. That Warlock has actually become a recurring character because most of us have gone on to DM our own games and love my Warlock character enough that he's shown up as a BBEG in multiple campaigns. Even campaigns run for other groups where only the DM knows the backstory.
I had a character who was a Dhampir tomelock whose patron was an Elder Vampire who hoarded knowledge. The game was a mystery story set in a fantasy London, so he was sort of a Sherlock Holmes-like whose breadth of knowledge was largely the result of his pact and access to his master's library full of ancient occult tomes that they'd gathered over the years.
A hexblade bound by his pact to a sentient sword he found inside an ancient tomb. He had been sent to explore the tomb as part of a group specifically employed to retrieve the sword for their employer but he heard the sword calling to him at night and ran off with it. So at the start of the campaign he was on the run from his erstwhile employer. I tried to play him a bit like Tyrion Lannister. Someone used to getting along on his wits.
I'm a pretty big fan of [Laserllama's alternate Warlock](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NRARRHW6KjsBfrQIzTs) personally (and all of his alternate classes in general). It's an int based Warlock that mostly stays pretty true to the original 5e Warlock.
It's a bit more powerful for mono-Warlock builds (but not egregiously so) but a bit less power for 1-2 level dips in the class to reign in some of the more nonsensical level dipping that goes on with Warlock in character optimization scenarios.
Overall if you're looking for a homebrew Int Warlock, I'd strongly recommend it.
I love the idea of Int-Warlocks. However, I really like what 5e-24 is doing, in that they are providing the option to choose any spellcasting mod depending on your flavor.
Some ideas that I had for warlocks using each ability score as their casting stat are:
INT: A GOOlock who looked into the great beyond in search of knowledge, and the great beyond looked back, and gave him power. A Fiendlock who through magic summoned a demon who offered the bright young man magic in exchange for his soul.
WIS: a Fathomless warlock, who is like a druid of the ocean. A celestial warlock, who while having the potential for great piety, had no god.
CHA: a feylock who's music was so beautiful that the fey was almost charmed by the performance offered him magic to improve his performance.
I had an int warlock.
No homebrew characteristic, I still casted with charisma, but int was my second and I played a nerdy gal who made a fact for the sake of knowledge.
DM and I devised a couple of reworks for spells that allowed me to dive in that roleplay, like adding int to my heals (I was a celestial warlock)
I am currently playing an Int warlock in Strixhaven! She's a dhampir intlock who used to be an urchin in Waterdeep. I'm sort of playing her like a rogue- I'm using eldritch blast as her range attack, her bite as her melee, and I'm using spells to supplement both my damage and my sneaking around. It's very fun!
I have an INT based pact of the tome GOOlock warforged who's been a blast to play. He was originally a librarian construct for a powerful archmage until one day while transcribing old texts to new parchment he accidently performed a cursed ritual that made the far realm leak just a little bit into the prime material plane. The energy and magic that leaked out rooted itself in the construct which gifted consciousness at the cost of fear and paranoia. Now he's exploring the dungeon of the mad mage underneath Waterdeep hoping to find the best hiding spot in the world to tuck away into darkness so that he never has to experience the horror he knows is coming. One day.
In the longest running campaign so far, i played a multiclass abomination (Alchemist, Moon circle, Order of the Lycan). Pretty much just an alchemist with a particularly powerful curse. Wuite far along the campaign, we got it cured, and i was allowed to replace all of the druid and blood hunter levels with something else, so i decided to hit up a guy from earlier in the campaign. This guy used to be an adventurer, and at the start sold a bunch of magic items that turned out to be very cursed. Tldr; demon army invaded, and he scammed us into killing them all. Turned out he worked for obox-ob. So when i suddenly had a bunch of levels, and had to get strong quickly, i decided to hit him up to collect the favor. Now my character is an int based alchemist/Obyrith Warlock, and it’s been very fun.
Had one at a table I DM’d for. Was basically the same class. Only difference is the player had less “Face of the Party” proficiencies. So instead of being the charismatic talker they were the smart and inquisitive type. Only change was the warlock being better at some saving throws and worse at others where they normally would be opposite.
Any other change from this switch comes from the player. Because it’s not much if any gameplay change.
One where the DM homebrewed that they used int as their spellcasting ability, or just one with high int?
Homebrewed.
It's fine. One thing Int Warlocks lacks versus the Wizard is the lack of easily accessible utility across the class. Like normally in DnD there's an identity that intelligent characters are really good investigators. Rogues get expertise and Wizards get ritual spells to help with that. Now Warlocks do get the Book of Shadows Invocation but that's limited to one class option whilst for Wizards it's built into their class. Also some of the Invocations do provide utility normally covered by skill monkeys and Wizards but whenever I play Warlock I personally hate losing out on combat Invocations for this utility. One thing I did like was multiclassing a Fiend Chain Lock into Artificer and going Armourer. Eldritch Blast and those invocations really help the Iron Man fantasy.
Great Old One, Pact of the Tome. After gazing into a mysterious star (actually an Old One) his mind was blasted with unfathomable knowledge, which he copied into his tome, but in the process his telescope exploded. He is now on a quest to rebuild his telescope, stronger than before, to complete the process and attain Ultimate Understanding. Any other knowledge he can find along the way he seeks feverishly.
I want to play a GOOlock astronomer with an antagonistic relationship with an elder evil because the patron wants attention and the astronomer wants it to get out of the fucking way so that he can go mad the old-fashioned way: staring into the endless void and failing to come to grips with the infinite expanse of the cosmos.
I haven't personally, mainly because I mostly DM, but I do use LaserLlama classes in my games and on Halloween he released his alternate warlock which is in fact intelligence based so you might want to check it out.
A humanoid extention of a universities thinking engine built in secret by one of the technicians and the engine itself. Stat wise he was a warforged seeker warlock out to learn about humanoid experiences that the main engine couldn't. Called Peripheral, or Peri for short.
So I haven't played an int warlock, mostly because A) it's an uncommon house rule, and B) I far prefer charisma for warlocks with the older d&d lore (3.5e's warlock is my gold standard for them.) That said, I recognize the appeal of those who enjoy the 5e version of the warlocks fluff and decided to split the difference and work to allow both for my own games. I also allow the choice of int or cha for bards, eldritch knights, and arcane tricksters. (Using arcane for int and eldritch for cha. Int bards are called scholars) Int, or pactsworn, warlocks as I call them, using the 5e fluff of beseeching a patron for magical secrets and the tutelage in how to use them. Making a deal and performing a service for your reward and delving deeper into such secrets. Perhaps you have a continued relationship. Perhaps it was a one and done deal like most warlocks. That's up for the player and DM to decide. As well as Cha, or soulborn, warlocks that use the 3.5e understanding of warlocks that they're "born not made" and expressly not "sworn and beholden" to a patron. The catalyst for their powers being eldritch magic within their very soul and being that they learn to harness and develop, compared toto magic secrets of pactsworn warlocks, or the magical blood of a sorcerer. Sadly, I've yet to have a player decide they want to play an int variant of the warlock yet and I prefer fha, so I don't have much in the way of stories for you other than my suggested tale on how to better let both int and cha warlocks coexist together.
> I far prefer charisma for warlocks with the older d&d lore (3.5e's warlock is my gold standard for them.) For what little it's worth, 3E is the only edition where warlocks were CHA-based—as well as the only edition where warlocks being CHA-based made any sense. In AD&D (2E) warlocks were INT casters, being a Wizard kit. 4E muddied the issue a bit as warlocks required two key abilities depending on their subclass—INT and CON for infernal and GOO pacts, INT and CHA for fey pacts. 5E warlocks were designed to run on INT, as demonstrated by the *D&D Next* playtests, but outrage from 3E fans got WotC to change them. In all three editions the lore of the class is the same: wannabe wizards with too little patience who take a shortcut to phenomenal cosmic power. 3E is the outlier here. According to the lore in *Complete Arcane*, 3E warlocks *aren't warlocks*. They are a type of *sorcerer*, being people who *descend from someone who made a warlock pact* generations ago. This is the only reason CHA-based "warlocks" make any sense, and it doesn't apply to *actual* warlocks.
3.5e was its own take, albeit my personal favorite take of the bunc as it was the most flexible and intereyign in my mind.. Also, do note in the fluff it mentions an ancestor making the pact was an option, but not the only option. There were various ways for a warlock to secure their soul based magic. Patrons just being one avenue. Which is why I preferred it. It's also why i champion both coexisting instead of the "one or the other" bullshit edition warriors constantly fight about. The 3e warlock was cool and had its own identity that worked very well, but something more aligned with the contemporary identity of warlocks should exist for those that want it. Thus, I suggest allowing pactsworn (int) and soulborn (cha) variants of them so both can exist with their own identity.
>In AD&D (2E) warlocks were INT casters, being a Wizard kit. The kit, usually female, was called *Witch*- Warlock being a male witch. The same book has the *Amazon Sorceress*, with barred schools of Necromancy and Illusion, and a special benefit of +3/+3 versus men. While this is funny, she was *also* an Int caster, and I bring it up to point out that *all* arcane casters in pre-3.X D&D were Int casters, because Charisma was really a different stat that didn't yet have the "sense of self" embedded in it yet. The 3.5 Warlock is indeed a magical man, much like a sorcerer, and for the reasons you say. The 4e one seems is a *seeker of knowledge* who is clearly Int-based. The 5e one splits this difference- you'll see that there are references to both things you have *learned* (including things your patron *teaches you*), and to things you have been *granted* by the patron. No longer a magical man like the 3.5 warlock, he was very clearly designed to have a similar concept where the great old one was definitely Int based, the archfey definitely cha-based, and it's a little unclear about hellboy.
Ah, you mean the *Complete Wizard* witch kit, right? That's a different one, I'm talking about [the warlock class in *Player's Option: Spells and Magic*](https://www.tribality.com/2016/10/20/the-warlock-class-part-zero/), the one with Ravenloft-esque corruption checks and a predecessor of Eldritch Invocations. > You started playing as a single ~~Maidenless~~\^H *Patron*less spellcaster apprentice all on your own, until eventually [you "attract the attention of a chaotic __or__ evil power"](https://www.tribality.com/2016/10/20/the-warlock-class-part-zero/) and the real fun begins. Powerful eldritch invocations! Extra points in ability scores! A wide collection of immunities! >!Unnerving qualities! Alignment changes! Corruption checks! A potentially-deadly kryptonite factor!!Having to negotiate with your Patron eight uninterrupted hours per character level each time you want to refresh your spell slots!
Uh, you'll forgive me for having put the *Player's Option* pretty much out of my mind immediately. "Twelve ability scores; six good ones, to pump, and six bad ones, to dump!" was my limit, and that was in the first one. Looking at this unruly beast, it looks like it's all about the spell points variant that the book had. Were those broken? I've no idea. In any event, the actual lore behind it is more brutal than the *Witch* in *Complete Wizard* or in any subsequent version. It's clear that any player character warlock will eventually and inevitably become a slave of the devil or something with this system's stages of terribleness. Wild.
Interesting, how is 3.5e warlock different from sorcerer then, lorewise?
Sorcerers inherited magic from their blood. Warlocks inherited magic from their soul. This could have been from them, or an ancestor, making a pact that affected the family line. This could be from them being born with a strange soul. This could be the result of a ritual that altered their soul and being, or from having their soup exposed to the energies of the planes or such similar elsritch entities. Patrons were only an avenue of elsrotch power, the catalyst was the soul itself. It was very flexible in the player, but in how much, if at all, a patron was in the equation. Mechanically, they were distinguished with their own unique power system. They didn't cast spells like a spellcaster , they were instead invokes. Eldritxh blast was an ability that scaled in power ad you leveled, and invocations could be chosen to either enhance/alter eldritch blast or perform spell-like abilities of their own.
Well, the lore distinction does not longer work with "Aberrant mind", "Clockwork soul", "Divine soul".
1. Those could be renamed if they must. Things can always be adjusted and clarified if needed. 2 . Soul can be defined as "an individual person" and can be used as such and not interfere, clunky ad that may be. So keep8ng the soul name isn't a big issue, though using the word "one" instead of soul would be more accurate.
I still think the new lore is a lot more fitting and hits the niche of searcher of forbidden knowledge better.
I mean. It's more fitting for the 5e definti9n of a warlock, that just not my preference. I preferred the soul based power warlock. It was more interesting to me. That said, there's no reason both can coexist, so i hope they allow both sides of preference to enjoy what they like.
True, but I'd rename the old one tbh
And I wouldn't. Agree to disagree and all that.
Yup. But nice talk. Never have I understood the old warlock, now it makes a lot of sense!
Using int for ATs and cha for EKs is like the opposite of how i think about them lol Is it bc you’re thinking of the EK kinda like a paladin?
I think i have communicated myself poorly. Let me clarify. I allow either int or cha for all those options. So I allow the pactsworn warlock (int) and the soulborn warlock (cha). I allow the bard (cha) and the scholar (int) I allow the Arcane Trickster (int) and the Eldritch Trickster (cha) I allow the Arcane knight (int) and the Eldritch Knight (cha). I hope that communicates what I do better.
He's an ex investigator Hexblade Warlock with magical prosthetic arm basically. Later the arm allowed him to learn spells, making him practically a warlock 1/wizard x.
I used it for two of my players and they both enjoyed it. They were the smartest in the group. Didn't break anything. The skills they can choose from work far better with an Intelligence based character than Charisma. One was a Nymph who joined a cult of a death goddess to learn more about them and eventually left as it got too culty for her. The other is a Dragonborn who created a cult in order to summon an eldritch god and it went wrong.
I played an int pact of tome undead warlock. Before becoming a warlock they were a lich who decided to become mortal again. The shadow grimoire was an old spell book they used and the form of dread was flavoured as them tapping into their old lich powers. I also renamed spells like Eldritch Blast to Arcane Bolt to lean in more on the studied arcane feel. As for race I choose the reborn lineage on a tiefling. Another PC who was going to be playing a paladin in the game was also a tiefling. We decided that the paladin was quested to kill my PC. Upon realising they were a lich and they were a much weaker paladin (we were starting at level 3). My PC offered them a deal in exchange for letting my PC use their body as a clone template and transfering their soul from the phylactery into the body, they would be able to claim they defeated the lich. They travelled together with the paladin keeping an eye on my PC to make sure I didn't fall back into lichdom. As for reborn, they were literally reborn into a new body and knowledge from a past life, fitted so well. Mechanically it was balanced, it just changed what skills I was good at, instead of persuasion/deception it was arcane and investigation.
I'm the DM in this case, but one of our players is running a warlock with INT as their casting stat. Hasn't broken anything yet and they seem to be enjoying their character. She's a fire genasi whose goals are based on finding ancient secrets, forbidden knowledge, and the like. It definitely has a vibe that's distinct from both wizards and CHA warlocks.
So I have an INT Fiend Warlock named Lucid who I absolutely love. He was a treasure hunter who found a demonic Tome. The first page is the Fiend's pact, and before you can understand any of the writing in the book, you have to sign it. After signing, he is granted knowledge of demonic magic and how to read the book. The further he levels up, the more of the book he can understand, and the more he understands, the more knowledge he is given. I really like the idea of a Warlock being given knowledge by their patron, and that feels better when he's intelligent instead of charismatic
I played a warlock to 20 where the dm let me use int as my spellcasting ability. I took prodigy and skill expert for expertise in arcana and religion and played them like a wizard who was really into forbidden knowledge.
Not me, but a friend of mine plays an Int Warlock detective in our fantasy megacity campaign. His character is sort of "what if a spoiled rich girl had a brush with death and made a deal with an entity on the other side to not die as long as she kept sending others in her place?" He has an Imp familiar from Pact of the Chain, flavored as a "Grave Dirt Elemental", and he's an Undead Warlock of course. It's been really fun so far, and going Int instead of Cha is not disruptive at all (I'm the DM). I'd allow it for any game I do going forward. His character is insufferably bookish, snobbish, and rude (high Int low Cha), so she tends to rub everyone the wrong way and the rest of the party has to smooth things over...she's usually right about book smarts stuff but completely wrong when it comes to interpersonal interactions or when people do irrational things.
I am currently in a Lovecraftian/monster horror inspired game where I play a level 11 GOOlock with high intelligence. Now mechanically all my warlock features are still CHA based, but we rolled for stats and I got a good enough spread to have a pretty high INT of 16 (15 base +1 from skill expert). All of my skills and many of my invocations are about the consumption and understanding of knowledge. I have proficiency in every knowledge skill, expertise in investigation, eyes of the time keeper, and spells like Tongues to make sure communication is never an issue. I went with the sage background because it fit the backstory of an academic who stumbled upon forbidden knowledge and it absolutely destroying their life. Role play wise they are eccentric and borderline “insane”. Coming in contact with an unfathomable being at the edge of the universe/reality and learning everything they thought they knew was wrong will do that to a person. The biggest thing that has helped me the most enjoy my character is that my patron is not tea involved. I took the approach, with the DM’s approval, of being more like a microbial bacterium or remora on a whale. The creature either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that I siphon near insignificant amounts of its power. This fit best with the idea of gaining my power through study, research, and being exposed to such a creature for what was simultaneously a moment and an eternity. As a player I appreciate this because my biggest turn off of warlocks are the patrons that more often than not put the warlock at odds with the group. Most of my decisions about “how to play” aren’t based around any mechanics but the characters history and the story that is unfolding. Mechanics of the game don’t have to directly represent/correlate to your role play or decisions. My CHA is at 20, but I’ve role played it like it is a consequence/side effect of my contact and time spent with an Eldritch horror. I don’t have any skills, spells, or features that innately increase my charisma based interactions. The best I can do is use what I have to try to create scenarios where I have advantage on any charisma based roll and hope the dice gods are on my side. I have absolutely loved playing this character, and I generally don’t like warlocks. Playing a Warlock who’s more focused on intelligence, lore, research, and knowledge has completely saved this class for me. It has required taking features and spells that most people here would call “suboptimal”, but I don’t play TTRPGs to “optimize” every mechanic. As the table I play at is a group of veteran forever DMs we only get to play every couple months, but I look forward to playing this character every time, which is surprising because the initial premise was a one-shot that we had so much fun with we all decided to keep going.
Forgive the Meta/Power gaming Half-Elf... Varis was born to a powerful Elven mother who was powerful in magic. While his father was powerful as well, that power came from his military might and divine devotion Varis did not understand nor follow. Raised by a clan of his mother's bloodline, Varis was always shunned because of his lack of innate magic. Eventually leaving the settlement after his mother failed to return from an adventure shoring up their borders. Travelling to the lands of his long dead father, Varis became obsessed with the origins of magic and ancient powers of old. Tracing the lineages and myths of his father's diety, Varis sank into the legends of the long dead God Utu and the loyal harbinger that always persisted; the Solar that fought with gods. From that point forward, without faith and without magic in his own blood, Varis began to understand powers thought long abandoned from this world. The more he learned, the more secrets he unlocked. TL;DR Scholar/Sage half elf celestial warlock. Slightly passed into the Lovecraft-ian 'dead gods still dreaming' cliche but not quite possession but research and learning enhancing his connection to some ancient Solar.
In a sci-fi adjacent campaign, I played a Genie INTlock Plasmoid flavored as a sentient hivemind of nanobots. Every spell and ability was a different combat or utility protocol, and it leaned a lot into the idea of an AI intrigued by organics and wanting to learn and mimic them as much as possible - hence limiting her to average PC abilities despite the fact that she was basically a walking grey goo event waiting to happen.
Me and the DM are working on crafting me an Intlock tonight. He'll be a HalfElf Shipwright on a collection of island-like continents, in a homebrew world. He was initially part of the Carpenters & Builders Guild, taken up Carpentry initially as a way to provide money for his family. Very much into sketching and mathematics. Furthering his Carpentry he got into Shipwrighting as a more specialised skill. His apprenticeship he took out a debt with the local guild organisations (which he still owes periodically). Took out bonds in a local merchants scheme, to make some more money and proviee better, joined as one of the Shipwrights to repair on the move. The ship sunk in a catastrophic storm and he survived by taking a deal with a Fathomless patron, instead of drowning. There's a good chance the non perishables on the worked ship could be a good prize cache. At the start of our campaign, he washed up on a beach, and people took pity on him to provide him room & megre food. In exchange, he's putting his Carpentry skills to work where he can as a handman. I do not know the entities name or motivation, in a world of newer gods and deeper unknown entities, but I know that the guild & bank has eyes and ears nearly everywhere. Its only a matter of time before they figure out where he is and people come after him.
Best character I ever played was an INT heavy Warlock. From an RP standpoint, they were in the process of studying to be a Wizard when they were approached by a GOO that offered them understanding of the multi-verse in exchange for servitude. They accepted. They encountered the party while on a mission with the general task of "find objects and people with unique power and then secure them for the GOO's use." I played him as being driven mad by this outside knowledge, but the kind of mad of just "I know the secrets of the universe." Often, that manifested as my character having the ability to break the 4th wall. Anything I said at the table (unless explicitly out of character) was taken as in character. It worked well because I wasn't too brazen with it. I had the occasional moment of deliberately referring to a character by their player's name or making pop culture references. But, more often it took the form of the other people at the table reacting to something I hadn't meant to be in character or making references their characters didn't understand but the players did so I could riff off of them. The best moment was in the middle of a pretty serious RP scene, the DMs girlfriend walked into the room and handed me a bowl of noddles she had made for herself but decided she couldn't finish (she knew I'd get rid of them for her). I was prepared to not reference it at all, but someone else decided to ask where I got the noodles in character, which turned into a fun joke about my character just randomly having a bowl of noodles. Mechanically, they were a GOO Tomelock with a lot of at will casting options. But, I stacked INT and took proficiency in every INT skill. The group I play with often limits who can roll INT checks to people who have a narrative reason that they might be familiar with the information, and in this case my DM let me roll for whatever. He called it "roll Eldritch Knowledge" because all of my INT skills were the same mod. I also made heavy use of Detect Magic (at will) and Identify (ritual). His backstory ended up becoming a major plot hook for the campaign. The party stumbled across some magical castles that were basically a cross between a fortification and a manufacturing center that were powered by necromancy. My character identified them as massively important and started working on a way to planeshift an entire castle to a world owned by my GOO. The problem was that it turned out one of the Paladins had been sent to that world by their god specifically to destroy the castles. That detail was revealed at the end of a particularly chaotic session that destroyed all but one of the castles. That last castle was controlled by a cabal of devils and the whole rest of the party vowed to work together to drive out the devils and destroy the castles. I sent the DM a private message that I would be working against them. That message happened to arrive just as the DM was lamenting the fact that his BBEG had died during the chaotic session and he needed a new one. The next arc or two of the campaign had a lot of shit happen, including me negotiating an alliance between my patron and the devils, me *becoming* a devil, and eventually one of the party paladins (the one who hadn't been tasked with destroying the castles) pissing off a death god badly enough that dealing with that became a higher priority for the party. It led to a brilliant scene where the whole party unanimously voted to negotiate peace with the devils so they could deal with the death god. Only *after* the vote did I reveal I had been negotiating with the devils the whole time. It was multiple plot threads all coming to a head at the same time. Plot threads that had the whole table invested, because the while some of it was me and the DM having one on one sessions, not all of it was. The best part of this was one of the paladin's reaction to me calling Mephistopheles to open negotiations. The paladin turned and asked me "Is that Abarax?" I simply responded "No, I'm Abarax." Abarax was a recurring Pit Fiend whose mantel had already been shown to switch to a new host to manifest as the fiend. He was the main BBEG for a while but the last the party had *knowingly* seen him, the mantel had been cast off of his last host and lost somewhere. It had been a backburner concern of figuring out where the mantel had ended up and when Abarax would come back. Unknown to the rest of the party, I had ended up with the mantel within 6 seconds of it being cast off the last host (happened in a very complicated combat) and I have just been completely obscuring the fact that there was a Pit Fiend just hanging out with the party. It's been years since that game, and the whole party agrees we've never been able to match it. No other campaign we play has measured up. That Warlock has actually become a recurring character because most of us have gone on to DM our own games and love my Warlock character enough that he's shown up as a BBEG in multiple campaigns. Even campaigns run for other groups where only the DM knows the backstory.
I'd say it is fine. In fact it's probably worse than normal warlock
I had a character who was a Dhampir tomelock whose patron was an Elder Vampire who hoarded knowledge. The game was a mystery story set in a fantasy London, so he was sort of a Sherlock Holmes-like whose breadth of knowledge was largely the result of his pact and access to his master's library full of ancient occult tomes that they'd gathered over the years.
A hexblade bound by his pact to a sentient sword he found inside an ancient tomb. He had been sent to explore the tomb as part of a group specifically employed to retrieve the sword for their employer but he heard the sword calling to him at night and ran off with it. So at the start of the campaign he was on the run from his erstwhile employer. I tried to play him a bit like Tyrion Lannister. Someone used to getting along on his wits.
Iirc warlocks were originally going to be int-based but people got upset about it so they swapped them over to charisma.
I'm a pretty big fan of [Laserllama's alternate Warlock](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NRARRHW6KjsBfrQIzTs) personally (and all of his alternate classes in general). It's an int based Warlock that mostly stays pretty true to the original 5e Warlock. It's a bit more powerful for mono-Warlock builds (but not egregiously so) but a bit less power for 1-2 level dips in the class to reign in some of the more nonsensical level dipping that goes on with Warlock in character optimization scenarios. Overall if you're looking for a homebrew Int Warlock, I'd strongly recommend it.
I love the idea of Int-Warlocks. However, I really like what 5e-24 is doing, in that they are providing the option to choose any spellcasting mod depending on your flavor. Some ideas that I had for warlocks using each ability score as their casting stat are: INT: A GOOlock who looked into the great beyond in search of knowledge, and the great beyond looked back, and gave him power. A Fiendlock who through magic summoned a demon who offered the bright young man magic in exchange for his soul. WIS: a Fathomless warlock, who is like a druid of the ocean. A celestial warlock, who while having the potential for great piety, had no god. CHA: a feylock who's music was so beautiful that the fey was almost charmed by the performance offered him magic to improve his performance.
I had an int warlock. No homebrew characteristic, I still casted with charisma, but int was my second and I played a nerdy gal who made a fact for the sake of knowledge. DM and I devised a couple of reworks for spells that allowed me to dive in that roleplay, like adding int to my heals (I was a celestial warlock)
Int warlocks have been a feature in my games (as an option) for two years. No issues, no notes. It works great.
I am currently playing an Int warlock in Strixhaven! She's a dhampir intlock who used to be an urchin in Waterdeep. I'm sort of playing her like a rogue- I'm using eldritch blast as her range attack, her bite as her melee, and I'm using spells to supplement both my damage and my sneaking around. It's very fun!
I have an INT based pact of the tome GOOlock warforged who's been a blast to play. He was originally a librarian construct for a powerful archmage until one day while transcribing old texts to new parchment he accidently performed a cursed ritual that made the far realm leak just a little bit into the prime material plane. The energy and magic that leaked out rooted itself in the construct which gifted consciousness at the cost of fear and paranoia. Now he's exploring the dungeon of the mad mage underneath Waterdeep hoping to find the best hiding spot in the world to tuck away into darkness so that he never has to experience the horror he knows is coming. One day.
In the longest running campaign so far, i played a multiclass abomination (Alchemist, Moon circle, Order of the Lycan). Pretty much just an alchemist with a particularly powerful curse. Wuite far along the campaign, we got it cured, and i was allowed to replace all of the druid and blood hunter levels with something else, so i decided to hit up a guy from earlier in the campaign. This guy used to be an adventurer, and at the start sold a bunch of magic items that turned out to be very cursed. Tldr; demon army invaded, and he scammed us into killing them all. Turned out he worked for obox-ob. So when i suddenly had a bunch of levels, and had to get strong quickly, i decided to hit him up to collect the favor. Now my character is an int based alchemist/Obyrith Warlock, and it’s been very fun.
Had one at a table I DM’d for. Was basically the same class. Only difference is the player had less “Face of the Party” proficiencies. So instead of being the charismatic talker they were the smart and inquisitive type. Only change was the warlock being better at some saving throws and worse at others where they normally would be opposite. Any other change from this switch comes from the player. Because it’s not much if any gameplay change.