The Warlock is Broken

I admit that I am an old grognard who started playing D&D back in the 80s and have been known to grumble about this newfangled edition that we are playing. I also admit that I never played 4th edition and never really played a lot of World of Warcraft or any of the other MMORPGs out there. One of the issues that I have with 5e is with the warlock class, and not because of where it came from but because, thematically, it does not make a lot of sense. Here is what I think is wrong with the class and what I would do to fix it.

I do not think you should create an entire class just because you wanted to use the word "warlock", which is admittedly a badass name. Your classic arcane classes - wizards and sorcerers - already cover quite a bit of the territory, leaving very little for warlocks to differentiate themselves. Wizards are tied to schools and apprenticeships, the traditional paths of learning arcane knowledge. Sorcerers are inherent casters, molding the forces of nature through their ancestry or special circumstances of their birth. And as a class, sorcerers are fairly young, only appearing in 3rd edition, though you could argue hedge wizards and wild mages did first appear in 2nd edition, if not earlier. But basically for the longest time you had "trained" spellcasters and "innate" spellcasters. What do warlocks bring into the mix? They are not trained, there is by definition no academies for warlocks; yet neither are they innate, as their powers do not come from within, or their ancestry, but from an outside otherworldly entity. We already have those, by the way, they are called "clerics" and "druids".

That otherworldly patronage, the one thing that differentiates warlocks from the other arcane casters, is also what makes them make no sense as a full class on their own. If you were to live in a medieval or Renaissance fantasy world you would see the wizards going off to their various schools, the clerics gathering in their churches and temples, the druids communing with the natural world, and the sorcerers learning their various innate abilities (yes, and the hippie bards wooing various people with their lute skills and trying to convince everyone they had the magical skills, too). Then you have the warlock - she says her patron is a celestial, but what if she were lying? And with as capricious as all the gods are on both sides of the alignment chart, who can tell if this is "sane" time or "run for the hills" day? What if her patron suddenly asks her to kill you in your sleep? Or the next village over, the entire village, especially that pesky orphanage? Plus, it does not matter if she wants to do it or not, she is not giving up the power, not only because once you get a taste of it you want more, but also because her contract might stipulate that her soul is immediately property of that patron upon failure to undertake any project the patron wants her to do. No, fantasy worlds already have too much danger inherent to them, no one wants to put up with yet another potential threat, much less one that moves in next door.

The biggest problem I have is this... well, okay, let me just put this to you as an example. Please watch these two videos from Zee Bashew, who is doing some fantastic animations about D&D.

Yes, yes, Mr Bashew loves warlocks, but that is not what I wanted you to focus on. Instead, answer me this - where did those two stories happen? Both of the stories are fantastic and entertaining, but where did they happen? No, don't tell me where they happened in the game world, but did these happen in game? Before game? In an in-between session? The first video is a warlock's background, their back story that was written outside of the game by the player, probably alone without any of the other characters or even the DM present, where that PC came from and why they are a warlock. It's a fantastic story... but that's not your character, so what do you care? A PC's backstory is, let's face it, interesting to their player and their player only, and only interesting to anyone else (most likely the DM) when they want to use it against you. The second video happened in game, and will be a story the DM and the players share with each other for years to come. And that is my biggest problem with warlocks - they automatically come with this great and awesome story hook... that no one but you gives two craps about. You want the most interesting story about your character to happen in-game, with your friends, not as part of the backstory. I can do that all day by myself and without a party, it is literally called "writing fiction" and does not even need a game or rules set to do.

As such, to me the warlock is just broken, but not in a rules sense, but in a theme sense. In my current game, I do not allow warlocks as a playable class, but have been thinking about allowing it back into the mix. However, not as a class, but only as a multiclass and only offered when certain things happen in the game. Yes, I said offered, because I do like that aspect of the explanation of the class. Here is what I have worked out so far.

First off, the PC or the entire party has to be dead (or at least unconscious and making death saves) for the {whatever} to offer their aid. Or the DM can start the whispering in any of the PC's ears from this {whatever} through secret passed notes (or text messages, you kids and your technology), setting up the final offer of power at a thematically appropriate place in the story. 

Second, this power that is offered to the character - and yes, only one PC, even if the whole party is down - must be able to help the party conquer the current foe or situation. Yes, if the party just falls to bad die rolls or really poor planning, it may just be the Dice Gawds telling you that it's time to roll up some new characters and try again. This, of course, is very dependent on the DM to decide if the death meets this requirement, and may have to adjust the situation so that the newfound powers.

Third, the DM decides who is offering this power to the PC, and which PC in case of a TPK, or rolls a d6 to determine who (1 - Archfey; 2 - Fiend; 3 - Great Old One; 4 - Celestial; 5 - Hexblade; 6 - the PC gets to decide). The DM also decides when the new warlock is going to be tasked with something that goes against the PC's ethos or the party or their current mission. Yes, even if they end up with a patron such as the Celestial, the Archfey, or Hexblade, every warlock (this is another quibble I have with the base warlock class, this should happen to every warlock, period) will be asked at some point to do this betrayal, of their party, their employer, or themselves. If the warlock refuses, not only do they lose all of their warlock levels, but half of their other levels (removable curse side quest to get these back, but the warlock levels are gone for good), plus the patron has now marked them for termination by one of their other agents. Or even themselves, but make it another agent of the warlock, because you want this to be a challenge that the party can overcome, not the impossible TPK you would expect by suddenly facing the Great Cthulhu itself.

Fourth, this has to happen in secret. Or as secret as any small group of friends can keep such things from each other. The other players, if they know, will have to keep in mind their characters do not know... at least until it becomes obvious to everyone. Again, this ties back into the warlock's patron requiring something that causes the character to think long and hard about their deal. Think about it as if you were living in this magical world, and suddenly you find out one of your trusted associates has this contract that will require them to do something they don't want to do and more than likely it will be something you are not going to like either. How do you think someone living in that world will react? It is not good - how can I trust them? when will they be asked to kill or betray me? will I have to kill them first? are they too powerful to kill or will they become too powerful to kill and do I need to do it now, do I run, or wait until they attempt the betrayal? Which is why I insist the betrayal portion of the contract be included with every warlock. Otherwise, without this contract, just make a wizard and send them to school, they can find arcane knowledge just like all the other non-sorcerers.
Fifth, finally, the rules crunch. This is the part that I am not 100% on, so this is just one option I would like to offer up and always welcome discussion (discussion mind you, not "that's wrong, you suck" and nothing more, don't waste your time or mine with trolling). Hopefully this will spark some thought and force me to do some more cogitating on the problem, and one of us will come up with something that works fantastically. The main problem is that because you are making this a multiclass, you (as our nominal DM) never know when the PC will accept the contract. If the party is still all 1st level, a simple multiclass as laid out by the PHB will suffice, but at higher levels you have to get creative to give the character enough oomph to actually be worth them considering the contract.

• For tier one characters (levels 1 to 4), give them as many levels of warlock equal to their current level. Do not give them any experience points, just give them the levels (plus hit points/dice, and any other leveling bonuses as listed in the PHB) in addition to the class levels they already hold. The character still has to earn those levels back and basically how many ever levels of warlock they just gained, that is what they are doing for those levels. For example, a 2nd level fighter dies and accepts an offer from a celestial. Now the character is fighter 2/warlock 2, and until they earn enough experience points for level 5, cannot make any leveling choices like the rest of the party is doing.
• For tier two PCs (levels 5 to 10), give the character 3 to 5 levels of warlock, and just like tier one PCs, no extra XP, and they have to spend that many levels earning the warlock levels they gained. I say 3 to 5 levels, as I am not sure how many I would give. Probably just default and say 5, as it is definitely enough of a bump to make a difference, but not so much as to make that character vastly more powerful than the rest of the party. And if a player death occurs at this tier, the party is generally facing some very serious threats and need the extra firepower. 
• For tiers three and four PCs, the likelihood of them needing the pact (in other words, dying) but it may happen, so you have to plan for it. Whatever level the character is currently, they get half that number of levels of warlock. So if the PC is 13th level, they automatically get 6 levels (round down) of warlock, plus the hit points/dice and everything but the XP of those 6 levels. This is dangerous territory, as this could easily push the PC into levels over 20, in fact if they are 14th level or higher, it will push them into combined class levels higher than 20. I think this is still okay - yes, that PC is going to be hugely powerful, but this also means their patron is going to be asking for that "special favor" sooner rather than later. This also means that character is basically done - they no longer level and are really just waiting for the contract to come due or the campaign to end or the rest of the characters to also hit 20 and decide it is time to retire.

I hope it was obvious, but whatever contract you decide to hand to the newly warlock character, if they die, their character now belongs to the {whatever}. Normal resurrection spells and the like no longer work on that PC, and the rest of the party will now have to go on a quest (if they so choose) to recover the warlock's soul from the {whatever}, and then can perform the resurrection or whatever.

There you go, hopefully this sparks some thought and initiates a discussion. And wasn't too much of a mad, disjointed ramble like I normally do.