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Most warlocks inDungeons & Dragonsmake a deal with the devil, but celestial warlocks are the exceptions that prove the rule. Though having similar abilities to clerics and paladins, they’re not motivated by faith or any sort of divine plan, they simply struck up a deal with a being from a higher plane and are compelled to use that power to help the innocent.
Of course, that’s the official flavor text, you’re never obligated to play your warlocks exactly like that. What is true about Celestial Warlocks is they can easily be built into a flexible build that can both heal and fend off enemies with awesome magical power.
Celestial Warlock Class Features
By making a pact with a celestial you gain access to several useful cleric spells including Cure Wounds, Revivify, and Greater Restoration,which will use your Charisma.
Outside of spells, you get a pool of d6 that you can choose to use to heal allies once per long rest, giving you some healing options that don’t require spell slots, though it’s not going to be a lot.
Radaint soul will give you resistanceto fire and radiant damage,and when you cast a spell that deals fire or radiant damage, you can add your Charisma modifier bonus to the roll against one of the targets.
It’s specifically added to the roll for radiant or fire damage, so your enemy resists either of those, then it is counted in the part that’s halved.
You can give yourself and your allies temporary hit points based on your level and Charisma modifier once per short or long rest.
Your capstone ability issearing vengeance,allowing you to regain half your hit point maximum when you make a death-saving throw while dealing radiant damage to nearby enemies and blinding them.
Why Should You Play Celestial Warlock
Celestial warlocks are good because they’rehealers with solid offensive options,like eldritch blast.
What it lacks in healing abilities you can make up for bytaking thePact of the Tomefeature, which can give you three cleric cantrips you can cast at will, and don’t count against your number of spells known.
Searing vengeancestands out as your best ability andone of the few that will help you once you’ve reached the death-saving throw stage.
With the right stat spreads and Eldritch Invocations, you’re able to very easily fill both an offensive and support role.
Which Eldritch Invocations Should A Celestial Warlock Take?
Warlocks get access to Eldritch Invocations to further customize their builds, with which ones they have access to being dependent on their Pact and what spells they have, in this case Pact of the Tome.
No Prerequisite
Eldritch Mind is good to take forthe advantage on maintaining concentration spells.
Invocations For Eldritch Blast
Agonizing Blast will allow you to make your Eldritch Blast stronger, Eldritch Spear increases its range, and Repelling Blast allows you to push enemies away.
This allows your Eldritch Blastto be an effective offensive option despite only being a cantrip, and allows you to do crowd control and keep enemies away from you.
Invocations For Pact Of The Tome
Book of Ancient Secrets allows youto grab any two first-level spells with the ritual tagimmediately, cast Warlock spells as a ritual, and you can add more if you’re a high enough level.
Find Familiar and Detect Magic are two good ones to start out with.
For Dungeon Masters, if a player has this invocation, make sure to reward them with spells so they can make the most of it.
Far Scribe allows you tocast the Sending spell to certain creatures without spending a spell slot, which can come in handy if your party plans on splitting up or you otherwise need to keep in touch.
Gift of The Protector is good for support, as you can write the names of allies in your bookand prevent them from dropping to 0 hit pointsso long as the attack wouldn’t kill them automatically.
This feature can only be used once on any creature per long rest.
Best Spells For A Celestial Warlock
This list will include Cleric cantrips you may get from the Pact of The Tome feature. Furthermore, since you can improve your Fire and Radiant Damage,it’s good to prioritize those spells.
You also get good healing spells just from your patron, so it’sokay to stick to offensive spells.Here are some good ones to take at early levels.
Effects
Guidance
Guidance is a Cleric cantrip that allows you to give an ally a d4 to add to an ability check, letting them potentially succeed a check they would have failed.
Resistance
Resistance is a Cleric cantrip that is exactly like Guidance, but you add the d4 to saving throws instead of ability checks. This is more likely to be useful in a battle.
Spare The Dying
Spare the Dying is a Cleric cantrio allows you to stabilize a creature that’s making death saving throws, meaning they’re no longer at risk of dying from a failed saving throw.
Toll The Dead
This is a “save or suck” spell where if an enemy succeeds in a saving throw, they’re completely immune. If they fail they take 1d8 necrotic damage, or 1d12 if they have taken damage.
Word of Radiance
Word of Radiance is another Cleric cantrip that allows you to deal 1d6 radiant damage to any creatures you may see, provided they fail a Constitution saving throw. As a celestial warlock you can choose one creature and add your Charisma modifier to the damage to one enemy.
Eldritch Blast
This is the iconic cantrip for Warlocks and does 1d10 force damage. If you take the Agonizing Blast invocation, you can add your Charisma modifier.
Green-Flame Blade
If you have a weapon in your hands, you can cast this spell to deal fire damage to a different nearby enemy based on your Charisma modifier. If you cast it at fifth level you can roll 1d8, and since you’re rolling you can add your Charisma modifier again thanks to radiant soul.
Hellish Rebuke
1
When you’re attacked you can use your reaction to force whoever attacked you to make a Dexterity saving throw. They take 2d10 fire damage on a fail and half as much damage on a success, plus you can add your Charisma modifier.
Witch Bolt
If you successfully hit a creature with a raged spell attack roll, you deal 1d12 lightning damage and, provided you continue to use your action to do so, you may do it again on every turn you maintain concentration.
Mind Spike
2
Targets must succeed a Wisdom saving throw or take 3d8 psychic damage, and you can know where they are as long as you maintain concentration. If they succeed they take half as much damage and you can’t locate them.
Shatter
This will deal 3d8 thunder damage to all creatures in range that fail a Constitution saving throw. They take half as much damage if they succeed on the roll. Not that this will also affect allies so be careful.
Best Stats For A Celestial Warlock
A benefit to taking this class instead of multiclassing into cleric is you can cast cleric spells using your Charisma, giving you fewer stats you need to worry about keeping good.
Benefits of Investing
Charisma
This is your main spell casting stat and the modifier that is applied to most of your class features so it should be your first priority.
Constitution
Constitution determines your ability to keep up concentration spells as well as your hit points so you can survive longer.
Dexterity
This determines your Armor Class, meaning the higher it is the harder time enemies will have hitting you.
Strength
Warlocks have quite a few options to make or improve melee attacks, so strength can be a good investment if you want to use spells like Green-Flame Blade
Wisdom
It’s not immediately necessary for any of your skills, but if you take cleric spells through feats or other means, you will use wisdom as your spell casting stat. It’s also a common saving throw.
Intelligence
Safe option to make a dump stat, as it’s not necessary for any of your abilities. However, if you want to take wizard spells through feats or other means, you’ll use this for spellcasting.
Best Species For A Celestial Warlock
Warlocks tend to have complicated relationships with their patrons, but Celestials are unique lore-wise in that they’re not usually working towards their own ends, giving you a very interesting basis for a relationship.
Why are they giving you power? What do they ask of you in exchange? How is the relationship different than that of a Cleric or Paladin, is it because your patron isn’t a god or because you don’t worship them?
There are a lot of possibilites and choosing certain species makes those questions more interesting.
A Tiefling celestial warlock is mechanically very good as you get a boost to Charisma and you can have Hellish Rebuke without it counting against the number of spells you know, and lore-wise it’s interesting to bedescended from an Infernal while also making a pact with a Celestial.
What drove you to make a deal with your natural enemies? Is that a point of conflict between you and your patron? There’s a lot you can work with if you really want to dig into the character.
The only downside is your fire resistance from being a Tieflingdoesn’t stack with the resistance you get from radiant soul,but that’s pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
Similarly, the Elf subspecies that gives you a Charisma boost and the ability to use Charisma to cast an extra spell is the Drow, which is a dark elf. D&D doesn’t do inherent alignments anymore for good reason but if you want to explore the idea of something considered “evil” making a pact with something fundamentally “good.”
You can also go the complete opposite direction, being a whimsical warrior who’s made a pact with a unicorn to spread goodness across the land, and a lightfoot halfling carries that implication while also giving you a boost to Charisma and letting you reroll nat ones.
You can also ignore all of this and just choose a species that boosts your stats, in which case Dragonborn, Human, and Half-Elf will all allow you to boost your Charisma.Dragonborn also grants you an extra resistance if you want to limit the damage you take further.
Best Feats For A Celestial Warlock
Elemental Adept
When you take this feat, select fire damage so you can ignore an enemy’s resistance to fire, and you ca treat any one you roll on the die as a two.
This allows you to mostly have fire spells andbenefit from radiant soul without leaving you so specialized you struggleagainst creatures with resistance to fire damage.
Magic Initiate
Magic Initiate allows you to learn two cantrips and one first level spell from any spell list. You shouldpull from the bard or sorcerer lists, soyou can still use Charisma for spell casting.
If you choose bard, take Vicious Mockery, Thunderclap, and Healing Word.
If you choose sorcerer, take Fire Bolt, Acid Splash, and Burning Hands.
If you’d like more cleric spells,you’ll have to use Wisdom for your spell casting.Choose cantrips you didn’t pick for the Pact of the Tome feature and aren’t Light or Sacred Flame since you already have those from your patron.
For a 1st level spell take Bless or Bane depending on if you prefer helping allies or inflicting penalties.
This feat allows you to cast whichever first level spell you take at it’s lowest levelwithout using a spell slot.
War Caster
If you didn’t take the Eldritch Mind invocation, then this will also allow you tohave advantage on Constitution checks to maintain concentration,making it easier for you to maintain spells like Witch Bolt.
Furthermore, if you have a weapon in your handyou can still cast spells with somatic componentsif you opt to keep a melee weapon on you to use Green-Flame Blade.
Finally, if an enemy provokes an opportunity attack from you, you can use your reaction to cast a spell instead of making a melee attack.
NEXT:Best Ways To Make An Overpowered Warlock In Dungeons & Dragons
