DnD 2024 Great Old One Warlock Subclass Guide

Introduction

The Great Old One Warlock is a solid generalist, with a good mix of all of the Warlock’s capabilities. They don’t seem to favor any one role in the party, which leaves you a lot of room to build an effective Warlock without being pushed toward one play style. Weapon-focused and spell-focus warlocks both work well, but higher-level features like Eldritch Hex and Create Thrall do encourage you to favor spellcasting.

This guide is for the 2024 Great Old One Warlock. For help with the 2014 rules, see our 2014 Great Old One Warlock Subclass Guide.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Great Old One Warlock Features
• Great Old One Warlock Backgrounds
• Great Old One Warlock Species
• Great Old One Warlock Ability Scores
• Great Old One Warlock Feats
• Great Old One Warlock Weapons
• Great Old One Warlock Armor
• Great Old One Warlock Multiclassing
• Example Great Old One Warlock Build – Mind Games
  • Ability Scores
  • Background
  • Species
  • Skill and Tool Proficiencies
  • Feats and Ability Score Increases
  • Levels

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Great Old One Warlock Features

3. Awakened Mind: Initially this is just a way to communicate telepathically. The duration is short, so you’re going to use it at short range simply because you can’t get very far before the duration expires. It has almost no mechanical impact until you pick up Clairvoyant Combatant.
3. Great Old One Spells.: An eclectic mix with a good mix of debuffs, save-or-suck, area control, and utility options.
   3. Level 1: Two great single-target control effects, but they will become obsolete beyond low levels since they don’t scale with upcasting.
   3. Level 2: Detect Thoughts is only situationally useful. Phantasmal Force is a powerful save-or-suck option.
   5. Level 3: Clairvoyance is a fantastic scouting option if you have a normal number of spell slots like literally any other spellcaster, but Warlocks really need to save their spell slots for something more significant and impactful. Hunger of Hadar is absolutely amazing area control.
   7. Level 4: Confusion is unreliable, but Summon Aberration is great.
   9. Level 5: Modify Memory is only situationally useful, but with Eldritch Hex you can cast it without Somatic/Verbal components, allowing you to safely use it mid-conversation, thereby making it much more powerful. Telekinesis is a great utility, and you can use it to hoist melee-only enemies into mid-air.
3. Psychic Spells: Psychic damage is rarely resisted, allowing you to use direct damage spells with much less caution than many spellcasters. The ability to cast Enchantment/Illusion components subtly can be very helpful in social situations where casting spells can be considered hostile.
6. Clairvoyant Combatant: Excellent both offensively and defensively. Melee Pact of the Blade builds will enjoy the defensive benefits more than most Warlocks, but any Warlock will enjoy Advantage with Eldritch Blast. Of course, you can do the same thing with Darkness and Devil’s Sight with a better duration and no saving throws.

   This competes for your Bonus Action with Hex, so you’ll need to pick which one you want to use first. You can reapply Hex, but not Clairvoyant Combatant, so save Clairvoyant Combatant for powerful single enemies, then use it before applying Hex until you get Eldritch Hex, at which point you should reverse the order so that your target has Disadvantage on the Wisdom save.

   You only get to use this once per Short or Long Rest, so you can’t afford to use it in every fight. You can recharge it with a spell slot, but only do that if you have multiple fights with single powerful foes that justify it.

10. Eldritch Hex: Disadvantage on saves against a chosen ability score allows you and your party to easily save-or-suck your target to death. The only problem is that most save-or-suck spells require Concentration, and, if you cast a Concentration spell, you stop concentrating on Hex, thereby losing the benefits of Eldritch Hex. You’ll need to rely on your friends or look for spells that don’t need Concentration.

    This works very well with Clairvoyant Combatant.

14. Create Thrall: Summon Aberration is a good spell. The ability to remove the Concentration requirement is great, too, allowing you to keep Concentration on Hex so that you and your aberration can get a damage bonus. The Temporary Hit Points also mean that your aberration is unusually durable.

    However, you’re casting Summon Aberration at level 5, and it will never improve. This means that your aberration will become relatively less threatening as you gain levels, making it less and less impactful over time. It’s still good, but it won’t keep pace with regular spellcasters who are summoning creatures.

Great Old One Warlock Backgrounds

No different from other Warlocks.

Great Old One Warlock Species

No different from other Warlocks.

Great Old One Warlock Ability Scores

No different from other Warlocks.

Great Old One Warlock Feats

No different from other Warlocks.

Great Old One Warlock Weapons

No different from other Warlocks.

Great Old One Warlock Armor

No different from other Warlocks.

Great Old One Warlock Multiclassing

No different from other Warlocks.

Example Great Old One Warlock Build – Mind Games

In this build, we’re going to lean into spellcasting. While we certainly can make weapons very effective, I want to lean into Psychic Spells and Eldritch Hex. We’ll still use Eldritch Blast as our go-to offensive option, but our other spells will heavily favor enchantments and illusions.

Between Hex and our subclass features, we’re heavily loaded on Bonus Actions, so we’ll mostly avoid feats and other options which rely on our Bonus Action.

Ability Scores

Fairly standard for the Warlock.

	Base	Adjusted	Level 20
Str	8	8	8
Dex	14	15	16
Con	14	14	15
Int	10	10	10
Wis	10	10	10
Cha	15	17	20

Background

Merchant. Persuasion isn’t on the Warlock’s class skill list, so Merchant is an easy choice. The Lucky feat is great on any character.

Species

Our species matters very little here, so you’re free to pick what appeals to you. We’ll use Aasimar as an example. The damage resistances work very well alongside the Psychic damage resistance we get from Thought Shield at level 10, we get a healing option, and we get the Light cantrip. Celestial Revelation provides a combat buff once per day which will work nicely with Clairvoyant Combatant to focus attacks on a single, high-priority foe over multiple rounds.

Skill and Tool Proficiencies

We get Animal Handling and Persuasion from our background, then Deception and Intimidation from our class skills.

Feats and Ability Score Increases

At level 1 we’ll take Lucky. At low levels we can use it to help Eldritch Blast, but we’ll mostly use it to help with saving throws.

At level 4 we’ll take Spell Sniper so that we don’t need to worry about cover or about fighting in melee.

At level 8 we’ll take War Caster. Always a solid choice.

At level 12 we’ll split an ASI between Dexterity and Charisma to raise our modifiers for both.

At level 16 we’ll take Resilient (Con).

At level 19 we’ll take Boon of Fate.

Levels

Level	Feat(s) and Features	Notes and Tactics
1	Eldritch Invocation: – Pact of the Tome Pact Magic Cantrips: – Eldritch Blast – Mind Sliver Prepared Spells – Mage Hand* – Toll the Dead* – Hex – Tasha’s Hideous Laughter Rituals: – Detect Magic – Find Familiar	Pact of the Tome gets us 2 extra cantrips and 2 level 1 rituals. We’ll take Detect Magic and Find Familiar for the rituals, Offensively, our options are fairly standard. Eldritch Blast and Hex are the bulk of our combat tactics, but we can use Tasha’s Hideous Laughter if we need something non-lethal. Use Mind Sliver to debuff your target’s saves before you try to save-or-suck them.
2	Magical Cunning New Eldritch Invocations: – Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Blast) – Fiendish Vigor New Prepared Spells – Comprehend Languages	Agonizing Blast improves our damage output and Fiendish Vigor improves our durability considerably. Comprehend Languages is there for utility. Remember that you can cast it as a ritual.
3	Great Old One Patron Awakened Mind Great Old One Spells Psychic Spells New Prepared Spells – Hold Person – Suggestion – Detect Thoughts* – Dissonant* Whispers – Phantasmal Force* – Tasha’s Hideous Laughter*	Awakened Mind is initially a friendly way to communicate telepathically with a friend. Eventually it will be for violence. Psychic Spells allows you to change your spells’ damage type to psychic. Against most creatures, that’s a safe way to get around damage resistances. It won’t matter much for Eldritch Blast, but any other damaging spells will benefit. The second half of Psychic Spells lets us cast Enchantment/Illusion spells without V/S components, allowing us to cast them without anyone knowing that we’ve done so. This is great for social situations because you can use Detect Thoughts, Hold Person, Suggestion, or whatever else without getting into trouble. Notably, all of our new subclass spells are enchantments and illusions. You also can’t be counterspelled. We’ve been preparing Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on our own until now. Be sure to retrain it or you’re throwing away a prepared spell.
4	Feat: Spell Sniper (Cha 17 -> 18) New Cantrip: – Ray of Frost New Prepared Spells – Spider Climb	Spell Sniper lets us use ranged attack spells like Eldritch Blast and Ray of Frost without suffering Disadvantage for being in melee. That’s extremely risky at this level, but, once we get Clairvoyant Combatant in 2 levels, it becomes much less risky.
5	New Eldritch Invocations: – Grasp of Hadar – One With Shadows New Prepared Spells – Fear – Clairvoyance* – Hunger of Hadar*	Grasp of Hadar is risky, so don’t use it every time that you use Eldritch Blast. One With Shadows allows us to cast Invisibility almost whenever we want, so there’s rarely an excuse to be visible when combat starts unless you’re concentrating on Hex or something. If enemies are crowded together at a safe distance, hit them with Hunger of Hadar and use Ray of Frost to slow their escape. Remember that you can change the damage type of both spells with Psychic Spells. If they’re too close to you, hit them with Fear and force them to drop what they’re holding and run away. Remember that it’s subtle thanks to Psychic Spells. Cantrips improve at this level, too.
6	Clairvoyant Combatant New Prepared Spells – Vampiric Touch	Clairvoyant Combatant immediately changes our tactics. Against single enemies, we’re not suddenly very dangerous. Use Grasp of Hadar to pull enemies into melee with you. They’ll have Disadvantage to hit you, which at least partially offsets your middling AC, while you have Advantage to hit them, and can attack safely in melee thanks to Spell Sniper. Just keep an eye on your hit points. Use Vampiric Touch and borrow some of your enemy’s if it becomes a problem. Remember that Clairvoyant Combatant allows a save. If you’re worried at all, use Mind Sliver to penalize their save.
7	New Eldritch Invocation: – Ghostly Gaze New Prepared Spells – Banishment – Confusion* – Summon Aberration*	Ghostly Gaze lets you see through walls. You need to see your target to use Clairvoyant Combatant. Therefore, you can see through the wall, then hit your target with Clairvoyant Combatant before combat starts. Neat. You can also do this with Clairvoyance, but Ghostly Gaze is portable and doesn’t eat one of your 2 spell slots. Unfortunately, it requires Concentration, and you immediately end Concentration when you start casting another spell that requires Concentration, so you can’t use it to drop Hunger of Hadar or Summon Aberration on the other side of a wall. You also can’t attack through solid walls. But you can use Mind Sliver with no components, allowing you silently deal psychic damage while your target(s) panics and dies. When you’re in combat, use Eldritch Blast with Grasp of Hadar to pull enemies into melee with your summoned creature. If you summon a Mind Flayer, they do automatic damage to adjacent enemies. Have your summon Dodge if your enemies try to attack it, then hold them in place with some combination of Grasp of Hadar and Ray of Frost.
8	Feat: War Caster (Cha 18 -> 19) New Prepared Spells – Charm Monster	War Caster both helps us maintain Concentration and allows us to hit enemies with spells in place of an Opportunity Attack. This works very well if you pull enemies into melee with you using Grasp of Hadar. You can then hit them with Ray of Frost to slow them, making it easier to pull them back toward you. If they want to stay in melee, either let your mind flayer eat them or hit them with Vampiric Touch. An extra silly trick: You can make an opportunity attack when a creature leaves your reach. You can change your reach using a weapon, even if you’re not proficient in that weapon. You can, therefore, use a whip to extend your reach and then use War Caster when they leave. Use Grasp of Hadar to pull enemies into your 10-foot reach without pulling them adjacent to you. They may still walk up to you, of course.
9	New Eldritch Invocation: – Visions of Distant Realms New Prepared Spells – Hold Monster – Modify Memory* – Telekinesis*	Visions of Distant Realms gives us a very safe way to scout at no cost. If you can walk it around walls or corners, you can accomplish the same things that you could with Ghostly Gaze, so you might retrain Ghostly Gaze into something else like Gift of the Protectors or Repelling Blast. Hold Monster is our big single-target off switch. Hit enemies with Mind Sliver first if you can, and remember that you can cast it without V/S components.
10	Eldritch Hex Thought Shield New Cantrip: – Synaptic Static	Eldritch Hex is why we didn’t build around weapons. Imposing Disadvantage on saves against all of our spells is very powerful. However, it requires that we concentrate on Hex, which means that we need to focus on instantaneous damage spells like Blight and Synaptic Static. Unfortunately, we don’t get a ton of great options for that. Cantrips work, of course, but, if you’re resorting to Cantrips, you can use Eldritch Blast and attack with Advantage.
11	Mystic Arcanum: Eyebite New Prepared Spells – Any	Eyebite is just really, incredibly good. If you’re tired of Eyebite, consider Create Undead so that you can have pet ghouls. Use Hold Monster At this point our extra space for prepared spells is very flexible. Use any further prepared spells to collect Ritual spells unless you have other ideas that you’re excited about.
12	Feat: ASI – Dex 15 -> 16 – Cha 19 -> 20 New Eldritch Invocation: – Any	The ASI is boring, but the math is good. There also aren’t any new invocation options at this level that work for us. Consider Repelling Blast if you haven’t already retrained something to get it. You might also take Pact of the Chain to get a cool pet.
13	Mystic Arcanum: Finger of Death New Prepared Spells – Any	Finger of Death isn’t great because it’s a Con save. But, if you can hit a creature with both Mind Sliver and Eldritch Hex, they have Disadvantage and -1d4 on their save, which works out to roughly -6 on average. That’s pretty great. Also, Finger of Death is one of very few spells that can get you a permanent pet undead without a daily spell slot tax, so it’s very tempting to start a collection. If you want to play it safe, Forcecage is still great.
14	Create Thrall	This does a lot to keep your spell slots relevant in combat once Mystic Arcanum comes online, though remember that your summons’ stats won’t scale since your spell slots are capped at level 5. If you’re using Arcane Eye or Ghostly Gaze to see stuff around corners or behind walls, you can cast Summon Aberration and drop a monster into the room to do stuff for you.
15	Mystic Arcanum: Befuddlement New Eldritch Invocation: – Witch Sight New Prepared Spells – Any	Use Arcane Eye to find an enemy spellcaster. Hit them with Hex from around a corner, then hit them with Befuddlement. You’ve made no sound, they’ve had no opportunity to see you, and they’re making an Intelligence save (consistently the lowest save on average) with Disadvantage. That fight is now functionally over before it began. Witch Sight isn’t super exciting and it’s not always useful, but it does work through Arcane Eye, which is pretty great. If you haven’t already retrained it, retrain One With Shadows into Shroud of Shadow from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
16	Feat: Resilient (Con 14 ->15)	A massive boost to our Constitution saves. Between this and Advantage on saves for Concentration from War Caster, you’re in great shape.
17	Mystic Arcanum: True Polymorph New Prepared Spells – Any	Using Power Word Kill around a corner feels very on brand for this build, but it’s just not a good spell even with the 2024 damage buff, so we’ll go for True Polymorph and turn ourselves into a problem.
18	New Eldritch Invocation: – Any	I honestly have no idea what to do with another Invocation at this level. How about Lessons of the First Ones to get Skilled?
19	Epic Boon: Boon of Fate (Con 15 -> 16) New Prepared Spells – Any	Boon of Fate is a great way to impose -2d4 on a save against a save-or-suck spell.
20	Eldritch Master	Nice, but doesn’t change our tactics.