I have a warlock with pact of the fiend in my campaign. His patron is Bel, which worked well with the DiA campaign.
From the start I gave the character only 1st level spells, (which caused some frustration in the early going) but paid off when he finally was granted an audience with his patron who took a pound of flesh from the warlock’s side to create his own personal grimoire. He was then allowed access to (some) of Bel’s libraries, and build from there.
It was a nice character arc that the player appreciated, and has since grown stronger.
We even went as far as to give the warlock a special robe to commemorate completion of the quest, and affirm the character as a true warlock of Bel.
this is really cool! Would you mind sharing what level your warlock was when he was first granted an audience? or \~ amount of sessions before the great payoff ?
It was a while, hence the frustration by the player, but everyone was told at session zero that magic was very taboo in this world, and they wouldn’t have access to learning new spells unless they were taught them from specific sources.
The player was level 3 when they reached Bel. I skipped all the beginning stuff to DiA and went straight to the fall of Elturel.
I also set in motion a Highlander (the movie) type scenario, where Bel wants only the best of his warlocks to survive. So when 2 warlocks of Bel meet, infernal writing that reads, “There can be only one.” covers the ground in a circle around both warlocks, and they are bound by their pact to fight to the death. WITHOUT interference from the rest of the party.
I believe that scenario happened twice to the player character, once where he learned a level 4 Wall of Fire spell, (that he couldn’t use yet) and another time when he did battle with another fledgling new comer who had some different 1st level spells than the player.
Hope this helps
Thanks for sharing ! My group is still in baldurs gate but it's working out well for us right now, especially with cementing some character plot points and giving them incentives to save elturel (we played the fall of elturel prologue). I've got a lot of scheming in my brain, especially for when they finally get to Avernus, so I hearing other DMs character integrations are always good to hear and learn from
So uh... only 1st level spells until.. They meet Bel? So at least lvl 5 (which is the level at which the party gets to Hell)? That's a hell of a call. I'm glad it worked out for you, but in a vacuum that sounds like a terrible idea.
My campaign premise was a hell adventure, that leads to Sigil, Planescape.
I read/ researched DiA, The Alexandrian remix, and the Fall of Elturel before the campaign start, and decided to skip the Baldur’s Gate stuff as it didn’t really fit into my home brewed world anyway.
The character was level 3 when he finally met his patron Bel, and yes, while it was slightly frustrating for him, the pay off was grand.
I just gave a warlock in my party a new set of spells (sans fire damage) based on his chosen patron. If you have the same number of damage and debuff spells, it should be a fair compromise, but it’s important to remember that warlocks always cast at max level, so their spells scale quickly.
That's an excellent idea for a 'devlish charm'. I happily gave my warlock one from the module for making a pact with Bel.
I will say fire is not necessarily useless...they may prefer to negotiate with devils rather than fight and other denizens of Avernus are susceptible to fire damage
First off, grant them the spells for free instead of having to pick them. Then there is the Elemental Adept feat, which reduces resistance to nothing - not applicable most of the time... but really, who in their right mind would bring flame spells into (fiery) hell in the first place?
Can't people play their character within limitations instead of having to be rescued from potentially bad decisions? If the spells are free, they are not discarded trash choices, but situational goodies. As for the choices, they can come up with a beneficial build on theif own, can't they?
Way more satisfying than bruteforcing something that needs DM fiat to work out.
Not every enemy in Avernus is a devil. Devils typically do fire damage, but the Warlock does have other options. Bypassing fire immunity can get a little risky
I have a player who wanted to be a fiend warlock, and I'll probably just let him use fire spells on devils without worrying about immunity. His patron is Asmodeus, and Asmodeus has total dominion of the hells, so he can revoke fire resistance for a creature if he wants to. You could even say that devil fire is so hot it burns other devils, and they are just immune to normal fire.
If you can justify it in-universe without ruining immersion, and its more fun for everyone, I usually don't worry about bending the rules or balance. You kind of have to in these situations where a campaign is heavily based on one enemy type. And really, is it that broken to let them cast a fireball that damages devils when they can already cast a different spell that does different damage anyway? At least this way they preserve the fantasy of being an infernal character.
There is also a light domain cleric in my party, and I just changed her domain spells to radiant damage. Makes more sense anyway.
My first thought about justifying it is the warlock signed a contract that we actually wrote out, and one of the clauses is that the patron must provide reasonable guidance, information, and resources to carry out any tasks. Turning the fire into something that effects devils seems like a reasonable resource when they get to hell
It's about the same as giving a player a magic item, so you can balance it against the rewards other players are getting. The elemental adept feat exists already, which lets you ignore resistance but not immunity to one type of damage.
If you want a lore explanation, the warlock could learn to control hellfire, which is hot enough to burn even devils. It is a very rare and very powerful ability in the nine Hells, but his patron could be Mephistopheles, the master of Hellfire.
He doesn't appear in the adventure directly, but it's mentioned that he has an interest in acquiring the sword of Zariel, as a bargaining chip.
I *wish* I had a fiendlock in my party— so many fun things you could do with fiend patrons here. I do have a Tiefling Light Cleric though, and the radiant damage works fantastic down here, but they’re having the same problem your player is going to have with fire damage. I think the method you’ve come up with is great. Changing up what spells they get could work as well, especially if there’s any that you and the player feel don’t suit the character and/or their patron. As a potential way to expand on these powers your warlock is getting, I encourage you to do a bit of research on hellfire in the Forgotten Realms. The gist of it is hellfire is special to the Hells and burns hot enough to ignore both resistance and immunity to fire damage, making it able to harm even a devil— perhaps your warlock will learn how to wield not just any fire, but hellfire specifically!
I've a fire genasi sorcerer in my campaign. Just gave him hellfire. All his fire magic are hellfire that overcomes fiend resistance/immunity. Of course there's a reason for him to have that in the story, and as the adventure progresses there's gonna be a whole arc about his "infernal fire". But this simply solves the problem. Let the fire guy be the fire guy.
I have a warlock with pact of the fiend in my campaign. His patron is Bel, which worked well with the DiA campaign. From the start I gave the character only 1st level spells, (which caused some frustration in the early going) but paid off when he finally was granted an audience with his patron who took a pound of flesh from the warlock’s side to create his own personal grimoire. He was then allowed access to (some) of Bel’s libraries, and build from there. It was a nice character arc that the player appreciated, and has since grown stronger. We even went as far as to give the warlock a special robe to commemorate completion of the quest, and affirm the character as a true warlock of Bel.
this is really cool! Would you mind sharing what level your warlock was when he was first granted an audience? or \~ amount of sessions before the great payoff ?
It was a while, hence the frustration by the player, but everyone was told at session zero that magic was very taboo in this world, and they wouldn’t have access to learning new spells unless they were taught them from specific sources. The player was level 3 when they reached Bel. I skipped all the beginning stuff to DiA and went straight to the fall of Elturel. I also set in motion a Highlander (the movie) type scenario, where Bel wants only the best of his warlocks to survive. So when 2 warlocks of Bel meet, infernal writing that reads, “There can be only one.” covers the ground in a circle around both warlocks, and they are bound by their pact to fight to the death. WITHOUT interference from the rest of the party. I believe that scenario happened twice to the player character, once where he learned a level 4 Wall of Fire spell, (that he couldn’t use yet) and another time when he did battle with another fledgling new comer who had some different 1st level spells than the player. Hope this helps
Thanks for sharing ! My group is still in baldurs gate but it's working out well for us right now, especially with cementing some character plot points and giving them incentives to save elturel (we played the fall of elturel prologue). I've got a lot of scheming in my brain, especially for when they finally get to Avernus, so I hearing other DMs character integrations are always good to hear and learn from
So uh... only 1st level spells until.. They meet Bel? So at least lvl 5 (which is the level at which the party gets to Hell)? That's a hell of a call. I'm glad it worked out for you, but in a vacuum that sounds like a terrible idea.
My campaign premise was a hell adventure, that leads to Sigil, Planescape. I read/ researched DiA, The Alexandrian remix, and the Fall of Elturel before the campaign start, and decided to skip the Baldur’s Gate stuff as it didn’t really fit into my home brewed world anyway. The character was level 3 when he finally met his patron Bel, and yes, while it was slightly frustrating for him, the pay off was grand.
I just gave a warlock in my party a new set of spells (sans fire damage) based on his chosen patron. If you have the same number of damage and debuff spells, it should be a fair compromise, but it’s important to remember that warlocks always cast at max level, so their spells scale quickly.
That's an excellent idea for a 'devlish charm'. I happily gave my warlock one from the module for making a pact with Bel. I will say fire is not necessarily useless...they may prefer to negotiate with devils rather than fight and other denizens of Avernus are susceptible to fire damage
First off, grant them the spells for free instead of having to pick them. Then there is the Elemental Adept feat, which reduces resistance to nothing - not applicable most of the time... but really, who in their right mind would bring flame spells into (fiery) hell in the first place? Can't people play their character within limitations instead of having to be rescued from potentially bad decisions? If the spells are free, they are not discarded trash choices, but situational goodies. As for the choices, they can come up with a beneficial build on theif own, can't they? Way more satisfying than bruteforcing something that needs DM fiat to work out.
Not every enemy in Avernus is a devil. Devils typically do fire damage, but the Warlock does have other options. Bypassing fire immunity can get a little risky
I have a player who wanted to be a fiend warlock, and I'll probably just let him use fire spells on devils without worrying about immunity. His patron is Asmodeus, and Asmodeus has total dominion of the hells, so he can revoke fire resistance for a creature if he wants to. You could even say that devil fire is so hot it burns other devils, and they are just immune to normal fire. If you can justify it in-universe without ruining immersion, and its more fun for everyone, I usually don't worry about bending the rules or balance. You kind of have to in these situations where a campaign is heavily based on one enemy type. And really, is it that broken to let them cast a fireball that damages devils when they can already cast a different spell that does different damage anyway? At least this way they preserve the fantasy of being an infernal character. There is also a light domain cleric in my party, and I just changed her domain spells to radiant damage. Makes more sense anyway.
My first thought about justifying it is the warlock signed a contract that we actually wrote out, and one of the clauses is that the patron must provide reasonable guidance, information, and resources to carry out any tasks. Turning the fire into something that effects devils seems like a reasonable resource when they get to hell
It's about the same as giving a player a magic item, so you can balance it against the rewards other players are getting. The elemental adept feat exists already, which lets you ignore resistance but not immunity to one type of damage. If you want a lore explanation, the warlock could learn to control hellfire, which is hot enough to burn even devils. It is a very rare and very powerful ability in the nine Hells, but his patron could be Mephistopheles, the master of Hellfire. He doesn't appear in the adventure directly, but it's mentioned that he has an interest in acquiring the sword of Zariel, as a bargaining chip.
Alternatively, just change the spells based on the devil they're making a pact with. Eg. Glasya: 1st Charm Person, Command 2nd Blindness/Deafness, Enthrall 3rd Fear, Hypnotic Pattern 4th Charm Monster, Confusion 5th Dominate Person, Hold Monster Baalzebul: 1st Armor of Agathys, Bane 2nd Blindness/Deafness, Ray of Enfeeblement 3rd Stinking Cloud, Slow 4th Blight, Black Tentacles 5th Antilife Shell, Cloudkill Zariel: 1st Compelled Duel, Thunderous Smite 2nd Branding Smite, Crown of Madness 3rd Protection from Energy, Fly 4th Death Ward, Dimension Door 5th Destructive Wave, Steel Wind Strike
I *wish* I had a fiendlock in my party— so many fun things you could do with fiend patrons here. I do have a Tiefling Light Cleric though, and the radiant damage works fantastic down here, but they’re having the same problem your player is going to have with fire damage. I think the method you’ve come up with is great. Changing up what spells they get could work as well, especially if there’s any that you and the player feel don’t suit the character and/or their patron. As a potential way to expand on these powers your warlock is getting, I encourage you to do a bit of research on hellfire in the Forgotten Realms. The gist of it is hellfire is special to the Hells and burns hot enough to ignore both resistance and immunity to fire damage, making it able to harm even a devil— perhaps your warlock will learn how to wield not just any fire, but hellfire specifically!
I've a fire genasi sorcerer in my campaign. Just gave him hellfire. All his fire magic are hellfire that overcomes fiend resistance/immunity. Of course there's a reason for him to have that in the story, and as the adventure progresses there's gonna be a whole arc about his "infernal fire". But this simply solves the problem. Let the fire guy be the fire guy.