Why YOU Should Play a Warlock: Player Character Inspiration | DND 5e | TTRPG

If you're needing player character inspiration and wondering why you should play a Warlock in dnd 5e, this is the video for you! Whether it's your pact boon, eldritch invocations, or just that lucrative D10 cantrip Warlocks have plenty going for them!

Join me today as we deep dive what makes the Warlock powerful, and the great roleplaying implications of playing the class at your table!

🔴 RECOMMENDED VIDEOS/PLAYLISTS

🔴 *** BE MY FRIEND ***

🔴 *** ABOUT ME ***
Hello! My name is Jay, and I am a long-time veteran of storytelling and a semi-seasoned DM! I began playing Dungeons and Dragons roughly 5 years ago and began my first ever game as the DM. I figured things out by watching online games and fumbling my way through the rules, and never looked back! I've fallen in love with TTRPG's in general and want to share my experience and thoughts with the world and community I love so much. I currently DM two separate games regularly, and continue to learn every day.

🔴 *** ABOUT THE CHANNEL ***
Play Your Role is a project with the intention of helping inspire and coach players and DM’s alike to add story beats and dramatic moments into their games through basic writing concepts, interesting player character inspirations, and discussions on how to effectively roleplay in a way that helps (not hinders) everyone else's roleplay at the table!

💡 TOPICS IN THIS VIDEO 💡
• Dungeons and Dragons
•
• Warlock
•
• DND
•
• TTRPG
•
• DND 5e

🔎 HASHTAGS 🔎
#Dungeons&Dragons
#WhyYouShouldPlayWarlock
#DND5e

🔎 SCRIPT EXCERPT: (This isn't important, just stuff for the algorithm) 🔎
I’ve noticed something funny whenever I discuss Dungeons and Dragons with people who aren’t super familiar with the game:

There always seems to be 4 classes they’re inherently aware of. The Wizard, the Bard, The Fighter, and The Warlock.

Now I’m sure that experience doesn’t translate to everyone and lets be honest it’s most likely a coincidence, but it does hit me as odd that the Warlock of all things is the one that people know about. I mean, the Wizard makes sense! It’s the classic archetypal mage and everyone knows about them.

Fighter is the same. It’s the big dude with a sword, even if they’re in the dark on DND they’ve had to have seen some kind of fantasy media with that in it.

The bard is a weird one but I think that stems from the large amount of ‘haha horny bard memes’ that have long surpassed just dnd circles and have become just a little mainstream.

But Warlock just seems so niche for it to be something that so many people seem to know despite not playing DND. I think the reason for that though, is a lot of people see the fantasy of the warlock in a lot of literature and media and just love the idea of it.

[timothywashburn]

Oh, so that's why I couldn't find all the other classes. This video is only 24 minutes old. Amazing content either way.

[lilgoblin]

my only complaint about warlock is that i want more invocations and more pact boons, and most of the time i think the DM would be more then happy to homebrew some invocations to fit the story/character your playing, at least that's what i do when i DM, amazing class, super fun roleplay, makes your character mysterious because warlock is so customizable the party has no idea what your capable of, great video, consider me a reoccurring watcher

[Dhorannis]

Similar to Sorcerer, Warlock is just a huge package of flavor. Most people think of devil worshipping cultists or people who were down on their luck and just had to get into a pact with this malevolent creature. But let me give you a different example.

This warlock is a wood elf who just happened to stumble into the Feywild. His patron is one of the many entertainers at the summer court, a dancer to be precise.
What are the interests of the summer court? Mostly preserving the balance of nature and spreading life. So, this character can be put in a lot of different settings (for example Icewind Dale where the goddess Auril prevents the return of summer).
This character is not dark and brooding. He is flamboyant and colorful and embraces his calling as an agent of warmth, life and a little mischief. In the first session, he could even be mistaken for a bard, simply because he will be dancing and playing the flute a whole lot. In battle, he will always move like he is dancing, especially when casting spells.
Why be edgy when you can be absolutely FABULOUS?

[FlailSnail]

The way I roleplaying my Warlock’s patron as a DM is like a devil lord, but without a god complex that tries not to be insulting to mortals in that he still sees them as insignificant, but also knows he can’t really feel the grief of a mortal who’s lost someone important to them, and so he tries to help his warlocks, who go out and collects little things for him.

[nemonomen]

I think the 4 most known classes are probably wizard, fighter, bard and rogue. Or maybe I’d swap the bard for the cleric. Idk.

[louthelost]

I started playing my first warlock basically just because I wanted to try out a casting class but felt overwhelmed by the amount of spells and magic mechanics of most full casters. Also I still wanted to be able to hit stuff. So I basically just handed my DM a couple vibes and told her to go wild with whatever she wanted to do with my patron and let me say, I cannot recommend this enough, especially with a DM you know and trust. Warlocks have So Much good storytelling potential just as he said in this video, and so much opportunity to have some real fun figuring out things about your patron and your dynamic with them

[nerderiffic]

an example of warlocks that surprised me is actually the persona's from the persona series. they find people down on their luck, and lend their power through a contract giving the weilder strength to overcome adversity. plus there's tonnes of different types of persona with different backgrounds and elemental types just like how theres all kinds of patrons. and the weilder doesn't cast magic, instead acccessing the power by channelling their persona's strength, also through some kind of item like a pact boon (eg the cards in persona 4, the masks in persona 5 and the evoker in p3)

I just think it's a really odd but cool similarity that one of my fav game series and my fav dnd class combine like this

[Abyssionknight]

I've always viewed Warlocks as fighters that use eldritch blast instead of a traditional weapon. Fighters get more ASI/feats, while warlocks simply replace those with magic spells.

I've always loved the amount of narrative you can get with warlocks too. One campaign that always stuck with me was one where about 30 sessions in, we discovered how the gods came to exist. We learned that the reason these so called divine beings obsess over their churches is because those are the source of their power. When you joined their church you were unwittingly entering into a pact with these beings. As you pray and devote yourself, you offer the power of your soul to these Eldritch beings, and in return they'd protect you. Only those who joined the church, and bound themselves with an even more powerful pact, would be rewarded with actual power. Essentially everyone was funneling power into the gods, getting nothing in return, and if you joined the church, all that power the 'gods' owed to their worshippers was given to their clergy. That was the explanation for why the magic of clerics is so much more diverse than that of a warlock.

Finally we learned that normal warlock patrons were in fact the good guys. They were the beings that didn't want to deceive and steal power from others, instead valuing freedom and the ability to choose. As a result they were much weaker patrons than the gods, but their value of freedom is also why Warlocks have more customization to how their powers manifest. That's also why traditional warlocks in the campaign were hated and hunted down -- the Gods didn't want people to realise that most of them were being scammed / used as a power source.

It was at that point the party decided to get strong enough to kill the Gods and free everyone, though we TPK'd around level 15 and just never got to achieve our goals. That idea that Clerics are warlocks, powered by their gods worshippers, has always stuck with me. It's changed how I view clerics, even though I know 99.9% of DM's don't view clerics and their gods the way this DM did.

[Lngbrdninjamasta]

This comment is to feed the algorithm. But I also think your videos are awesome! And want more people to see them

[heyfell]

For those who are going to play Warlock after this video: please, for the love of Asmodeus, consider other options beyond only the Hexblade. Yeah, i know it's op and cool, but you can definetly pick something else, and it can be even more interesting. Hexblade is a bit overused, and i don't like how often people disregard other fantastic options just to pick the overpowered min-maxing black sword.

[percussiveseer]

Usually, people are also aware of rogues, because assassins are rather common to find in media (or spies, or anything you can use a rogue for... can't wait for your take on it). Same goes for the barbarian. At least that was my experience with newcomers, never really saw warlocks as a "known" thing.
I do agree that warlocks are very cutomisable

Wish I could leave 2 likes per vid to help you feed your Patron, Youtube. Keep up the good work!

[agsilverradio]

Personally, the 1st DnD classes I think of are fighter, wizard, paladin. followed by rogue, barbarian, and bard, in that order.
...
Specificly pairing the
a Wizard with a Barbarian,
a Paladin with a Rogue,
and a Fighter with a Bard.
And trying to force them to try to get along.

[CWayneMartin]

I live the idea of Warlocks but I've always thought of then as the "demon Ranger" as in, their mechanics are only good if you build them a specific way. On top of having very limited spellcasting. I've only seen them in low-level play or someone took a few levels to gain the spell slots on a short rest. A great DM would expand the utilities of their evocations and give them constant feedback from their diety whenever the character makes a choice. Like a little angel/demon on their shoulder acting as their conscience.

[lordandrak]

This is a great series, before this the only equivalent fast-paced "class pitch" was Xp to level 3s and Runesmith (I know there are other reviews but they tended to focused on mechanics in a hack and slash environment)

[commandercaptain]

Warlock seems like the sort of class that should be granted through roleplay rather than chosen at character creation, kind of like an artifact. It goes to show that PCs need roleplay hooks tied to all classes by default.

4:36 In that respect, warlocks appeal to new players when they think NINE TAILS.
7:03 This temporary superpower is what's needed to help low level characters survive, rather than power creep or the rigid stats most classes pose. It's like a 3E class in a 5E game. Mitigation at its finest.
8:18 Sounds like something that should've been fleshed out with cleric rules as well.

PS: @ 1:57 , I got a Hero Wars ad of a guy punching his way out of a prison. YouTube algorithm powers ACTIVATE.

[knate]

Options for less sinister patrons if you don't like the idea of being sworn to eldritch horrors or evil fiends:

Djinn Genies while definitely power obsessed can still be very personable and may believe it is their duty to help you if they believe you are brought together by fate, greater fey this can be hit or miss but one of the greater fey is a great faeire dragon who loves desserts and pranks and is sort of the only way to have a dragon patronage, Undying this one is tricky but especially if you are an elf Balenorn (basically special Elf Liches) can be any non-evil alignment and are dedicated to a specific task maybe they lend their power so you can help out or research something for you, hexblade The raven Queen is a true neutral deity and no one says it has to be an evil sentient weapon... and celestials this one is more obvious which is why it is last but most (though not all of you do like the idea of an evil patron) are always protecting something divinely or intervening in fate this is easy but to spice things up, I love having a Couatl patron because one you can potentially flip the script because while they are powerful casters they have a lower CR so you can potentially have a rescue mission and two you they get awesome divination spells and also Dream so if your DM likes to give the party a nudge you can absolutely have dream sequences to give the party hints in the form of cryptic dreams.

But yeah, anyways if the fiendish or eldritch pacts call to you remember that things can always be reflavoured and in universe fiends are constantly at each other's throats and trying to dispel and one up each other so even if you are playing something like Descent into Avernus where you are fighting devils, it is still possible to have a devilish patron because they may not be allied with the main faction and be willing to lend you help to one up their rival.

[starlight]

Little character I made; He's an archeologist dedicated to uncovering mysteries of the past as well as magic items to help better defend his village and family. However when he returns home, he finds it under attack by bandits, he fights back but is captured and made to watch as they kill his family. Just as they're about to kill him, a celestial spirit reaches out to him, offering him power to fight back and save the rest of his people. He takes the pact and manages to drive the bandits away. He now quests to save any survivors of his home as well as take revenge on the bandit leader who killed his wife and child.

The Celestial's stake in this is to help guide a vengeful soul who has a part to play in fighting a coming threat.

[zuku_kellygtv]

I have a life cleric who befriended a old ancient witch... He's now multiclass into warlock. Not sure if the DM saw that coming when the first encounter happened between the characters. Annnd that's why I love dnd

[Lobsterwithinternet]

8:45 Agreed.

And if say this is also the case with Clerics, Paladins and Sorcerers. The only difference is it's been played down over the last 1 or 2 editions with the de-emphasis on alignments.

[multivitaminsaft]

I love this class! With all the patrons, invocations, spells and pacts this class can make your character basically anything you want.
And on top of it you get some kind of layout for your backgroundstory through your patron.
Also it´s awesome for multiclassing.
Try it with fighter. The proficiency in con-saves comes in handy.
I´ve built a fighter-warlock with the genie patron. A fighter who can fly, not only without wings but in heavy armor on top of it?
Now that´s scary right?
Also heavy armor master, armor of agathys and parry from the battlemaster make a great combo.
;D