Description
Warlock Marches Forth!
Thanks to the Warlock Patreon supporters, the new 5th Edition booklet is here—with terrific cover art by Pedro Potier.
The topic is conflict and the wages of war, with an emphasis on PC options including 6 martial subclasses including Path of the Herald, College of Tactics, Chaplain, Beast Trainer, Legionnaire, and Sapper. That’s not all of course; Warlock also provides new mercenary backgrounds, 8 new creatures, and lost battle magic spells and items with Warlock: War & Battle!
Weighing in at 34 pages, this booklet’s esteemed sections and designers are:
- The Butcher’s Bill: Wartime Careers and Creatures, by Kelly Pawlik
- Lost Combat Spells and War Magics of the Red Wastes, by Brian Suskind
- The Free Companies: Mercenary Backgrounds in the Septime States, by Brian Suskind
Support Warlock as we expand the dark fantasy options for 5E!
gatesvp –
The book has three sections all related to war professions. It basically breaks out to the following:
– 6 archetypes (barbarian, bard, fighter, ranger, rogue, rogue)
– 8 beasts + basic beast training rules (complements the ranger class)
– 6 spells
– 8 magic items (mostly uncommon)
– khandarian elemental bottles (alchemist’s fire but cooler)
– 3 backgrounds (connected to Septime States)
Overall, this is a lot of player content wrapped in a little bundle. I would say this is on par with some of the Deep Magic stuff in terms of total content.
There is a lot of variety and good ideas here. The Sapper is a really unique Rogue Archetype. New Beasts are always useful. “Chain Counterspell” is a great idea for a 6th level variant of Counterspell.
But this book struggles with the editing of a lot of complex abilities and spells. “Chain Counterspell” does verbal hurdles to create “bonus Reactions”. A few of the spells simply state “does not stack” using common gamer terms instead of terms specific to D&D. The class Archetypes have similar complexity issues.
As a DM, this is fun material to give your PCs. But you should understand the limitations of what you’re bringing into the game. For this issue, you’ll need to be ready to adjust them. I’m not sure that I would dump all of this into my home game, “Caustic Sphere” seems particularly troublesome.