Introduction
We’re taking a look at building single-class parties. Building a party around a single class presents unique challenges often due individual classes’ limited capabilities. DnD is fundamentally a game about a party of diverse characters pooling their abilities to become more than the sum of their parts. The single-class party flips that on its head, introducing fun new challenges.
So weird that they get their own spellcasting mechanic, the Warlock handles the single-class party situation a bit differently from other classes. While everyone in the party will have some of the staple options like Eldritch Blast, we otherwise have a ton of room to customize in order to suit the needs of our role within the party.
The Rules
- No multiclassing
- 4 party members
- Must attempt to cover all party roles
Strengths and Weaknesses of the All-Warlock Party
Warlocks are highly customizable, and the diversity of Pact Boons and subclasses offers a lot of options which can cover a wide range of capabilities. Eldritch Blast builds are consistently effective Strikers, but that’s certainly not the limit of the Warlock’s capabilities.
Where warlocks struggle is from levels 12 to 20. Mystic Arcanum isn’t as good as what full spellcasters get, and, for the most part, their other features stop advancing at level 11.
The Party
Member 1: Hexblade Warlock
Yes, this one was inevitable. It’s the only warlock with better than light armor, so natural this is our Defender. We’ll build around melee with Pact of the Blade and the associated Invocations, and we’ll put feats into options like Polearm Master and Sentinel.
Member 2: Celestial Warlock
Another inevitability since this is the only Warlock with meaningful healing, our Celestial Warlock will be our Healer. The subclass spell list also includes Wall of Fire, so we’ll call this our Controller, too, since they get Wall of Fire on top of great Controller options like Hunger of Hadar.
Member 3: Genie Warlock
The Efreeti’s spell list offers go-to Blaster options, including Fireball. The main genie spell list also offers some Utility options on top of the utility provided by the other subclass features. We can throw in Pact of the Tome, too, to get ritual spellcasting.
We’ll also make this our Scholar. A small investment in Intelligence and the right skills is likely all that we can manage, but the combination of Pact of the Tome and Intelligence-based skills seems natural.
Member 4: Great Old One Warlock
With telepathy and a lot of ability to cause mischief outside of combat, the Goolock seems like our best choice as a Scout. We’ll need additional skills from our race or from Eldritch Invocations, but otherwise we’ll do just fine.
The Report Card
| Role | Member(s) |
|---|---|
| Blaster | 3 |
| Controller | 2 |
| Defender | 1 |
| Face | Everyone |
| Healer | 2 |
| Scholar | 3 |
| Scout | 4 |
| Striker | Everyone |
| Support | Everyone |
| Utility Caster | 3 |
Biggest Strength
Four people with Eldritch Blast and possible Repelling Blast means that enemies will almost never reach the party in melee. High Charisma means that social situations should be easy, though without Expertise or magic buffs like Enhance Ability we’re not much better than anyone else.
Biggest Weakness
As we pass 10th level, things will get harder for us. Our tactics change very little, and Mystic Arcanum offers few viable options at each step since we can only afford to take the most powerful options.
Conclusion
Warlocks are a weird class and this would be a weird party. Balancing the competing desires of patrons could be a lot of fun, taking the party into all sorts of unpredictable situations. While things would likely get hard as the party moved into high levels, this would be a ton of fun from levels 4 to 10, which is where most games are played.
