Celestial Warlock Handbook: DnD 5e Subclass Guide – RPGBOT

Introduction

The Celestial offers three tempting options: access to some cleric spells, a pool of easy hit point restoration (Healing Light), and access to some sources of radiant/fire damage. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do any of those especially well. The radiant/fire damage options will still lag behind your core Warlock options, and the Cleric spell options are so limited that they’re only good in a party where having a real divine spellcaster is not a possibility or where your divine spellcaster has an unconsciousness problem.

While the Celestial does add a splash of Healer to the Warlock’s roles, it may not be enough in a typical campaign to replace a cleric. The rest of the subclass’s features focus primarily on Blaster and Controller options, further emphasizing that this is still primarily a warlock with just a taste of Light Domain Cleric.

If you’re desperate for healing but also need to be a warlock for some reason, the Celestial is fine. Otherwise, it’s a mix of decent healing and disappointing blasting on top of the Warlock’s excellent core features. If you want to actually cast spells like a Cleric while not being a Cleric, consider the Divine Soul Sorcerer instead.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Celestial Warlock Features
• Celestial Warlock Ability Scores
• Celestial Warlock Races
• Celestial Warlock Feats
• Celestial Warlock Weapons
• Celestial Warlock Armor
• Celestial Warlock Multiclassing
• Example Build – Celestial Support Warlock
  • Ability Scores
  • Race
  • Background
  • Skills and Tools
  • Feats
  • 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.

Celestial Warlock Features

1. Expanded Spell List: Most of the options are poor attempts to introduce fire damage to the Warlock’s spell list, but there are a handful of useful options mixed in with the garbage, including staple healing options like Lesser Restoration and Restoration.
   • 1st-level Spells: You don’t really need either. Cure Wounds is tempting, but you get Healing Light which will provide comparable healing without eating your extremely limited spell slots. You can still use Cure Wounds right before a short rest to get some healing out of any leftover spell slots, but I’ve never seen a warlock make it to a short rest with remaining spell slots.
   • 2nd-level Spells: Both good options, but Lesser Restoration should be left to your party’s divine spellcaster if possible. Flaming Sphere looks tempting with Radiant Soul, but Radiant Soul only applies to one damage roll for a given spell, so you don’t get to apply it every time your sphere hits something. Still, it’s a decent area control option, and you get a lot of use out of a single spell slot.
   • 3rd-level Spells: Get Revivify. Let me clarify: you should really get Revivify. It’s really good. The one concern is that you only have two spell slots until 11th level and it’s hard to reserve one of them so that you always have revivify ready. Get a Pearl of Power if you can.
   • 4th-level Spells: Wall of Fire is one of the most iconic area control spells, and it works very well in the Warlock philosophy of spending one spell slot to massively reshape an encounter before reverting to cantrips. You can use invocations to push/pull enemies through the wall, too. Unfortunately you still only get to apply Radiant Soul once each time you cast it.
   • 5th-level Spells: Flame Strike is fine, but it does less damage in a smaller AOE than Fireball and Radiant Soul’s bonus damage only affects one target. In general, spending a spell slot to deal instantaneous AOE damage is rarely a good use of a Warlock’s resources compared to other damaging options like Hunger of Hadar. Restoration is a situational but important healing option. If you can, leave high-powered healing to your party’s divine spellcaster.
1. Bonus Cantrips: Warlocks don’t have a way to create light with a cantrip, so Light is nice. Sacred Flame won’t matter often since Eldritch Blast will outpace Sacred Flame’s damage (especially with Agonizing Blast), but more cantrips never hurt and sometimes you need to keep zombies down or deal with creatures that have high AC but low Dexterity saves.
1. Healing Light: Roughly equivalent to Healing Word, but without eating into your spell slots. This provides enough healing that the Celestial Warlock made a solid showing in the Healbot Olympics. However, it’s the Celestial’s only healing option and doesn’t solve problems beyond hit point restoration, so you still need to look elsewhere for options to handle status conditions.
6. Radiant Soul: Warlocks deal the vast majority of their damage with Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast. Celestial warlocks get Sacred Flame, which is probably the best way to make use of this feature, but If you pick up Agonizing Blast (you should, it’s amazing), this will almost never matter while using cantrips because Eldritch Blast will massively outpace any other cantrip’s damage output, even with the damage boost from Radiant Soul. If you don’t take Agonizing Blast, Sacred Flame will do slightly more damage than Eldritch Blast.

   The Celestial’s expanded spell list offers a handful of extra spells that deal radiant/fire damage, but most of them aren’t a great use of your warlock spell slots and the damage still only affects one target on one damage roll (e.g. one target of Flame Strike).

10. Celestial Resilience: This will save a ton of your party’s healing resources. It’s not quite as good as the Inspiring Leader feat since it only works after a rest and your allies don’t get as many temporary hit points, but it’s very close, and you don’t need to give your party a 10-minute pep talk to make it work.
14. Searing Vengeance: There is no save to resist the blinding effect, so you can stand up and safely walk yourself to somewhere safe before going back to lasering stuff to death. Since creatures that you damage are blinded, you get Advantage on attacks against them, so it’s a great time for Eldritch Blast.

    But, like anything that only triggers while you’re dying, it’s entirely possible that you will never need this because you’re doing such a good job at staying conscious.

Celestial Warlock Ability Scores

No different from a typical warlock.

Celestial Warlock Races

No different from a typical warlock.

Celestial Warlock Feats

No different from a typical warlock.

Celestial Warlock Weapons

No different from a typical warlock.

Celestial Warlock Armor

No different from a typical warlock.

Celestial Warlock Multiclassing

No different from a typical warlock.

Example Build – Celestial Support Warlock

Warlocks have few class options dedicated to supporting fellow party members, and The Celestial is the only subclass that adds such options. In this build we’ll lean into supporting our party using spells, invocations, and Pact of the Talisman. We’re not going to focus on damage in this build, but if you need a little more damage output you can drop one of the Invocations recommended below in favor of Agonizing Blast.

Ability Scores

We’ll start close to the ability scores recommended in our Warlock Handbook, and put our +2 into Charisma and our +1 into Dexterity.

	Base	Increased
Str	8	8
Dex	15	16
Con	15	15
Int	8	8
Wis	8	8
Cha	15	17

Race

Custom Origin Stout Halfling. We want Lucky and Bountiful Luck to add even more support capabilities. If you’re playing in Eberron, Mark of Healing and Mark of Hospitality can also work.

Background

Faction Agent. Weirdly, the Warlock’s skill list doesn’t include Persuasion, so we want it from our background. This gets us both Insight and Persuasion, plus two languages to support our role as a Face.

Skills and Tools

We’ll take Arcana and History from our class, giving us Arcana, History, Insight, and Persuasion. We got languages from our background, so we don’t have any tool proficiencies.

Feats

At 4 we take Bountiful Luck. This lets us share our Lucky trait as a Reaction

At 8 we’ll split an Ability Score Increase between Constitution and Charisma.

At 12 we’ll max Charisma to 20.

At 16 we’ll take Eldritch Adept (Agonizing Blast). Better late than never, right?

At 19 we’ll take Cartomancer.

Levels

Level	Feat(s) and Features	Notes and Tactics
1	Otherworldly Patron: The Celestial Expanded Spell List Bonus Cantrips – Light – Sacred Flame Healing Light Pact Magic Spells Known: – Hex – Protection from Evil and Good Cantrips Known: – Create Bonfire – Eldritch Blast	We come out of the gate with 4 cantrips, giving us an edge over other Warlocks. Like other Warlocks, Hex+Eldritch Blast is our go-to combat option. Sacred Flame will work for enemies with high AC, but otherwise ignore it. Healing Light is a small pool, but it still lets us save a dying ally as a Bonus Action. Don’t expect to use it for anything else, because it will never heal enough to keep pace with enemy attacks.
2	Eldritch Invocations – Repelling Blast – Fiendish Resilience New Spell Known: – Hellish Rebuke	Fiendish Resilience is here temporarily to help us stay alive until level 3. Repelling Blast lets us control the battlefield a bit. It won’t add to our damage unless your DM lets you get away with launching enemies away at an upward angle, but it’s enough to keep enemies out of melee, to break grapples, and otherwise to make yourself a problem for enemies.
3	Pact Boon: Pact of the Talisman New Spell Known: – Misty Step Retrain Invocation: – Fiendish Resilience -> Rebuke of the Talisman	Pact of the Talisman lets us boost the wearer’s ability checks a few times per day. At this level, our PB is only +2, so it’s not much. Expect to use it for high-value ability checks like in social situations or when an ally uses Athletics to Grapple or Shove an enemy. Now that we have our pact, we can retrain an Invocation into Rebuke of the Talisman. This lets us get into our pact’s Invocations 2 levels early. Rebuke of the Talisman isn’t a ton of damage, but the only usage limitation is your Reaction, psychic damage resistance is rare, and knocking enemies 10 feet away can include knocking them 10 feet upward and away in order to drop them for another 1d6 damage and force them prone, potentially preventing them from getting back into melee within the same turn or launching them into something dangerous. If possible, plan to pass your talisman to a front-line ally when you’re somewhere dangerous, then take it back for social situations. It doesn’t require attunement or anything, so you can freely pass it back and forth.
4	Feat: Bountiful Luck New Cantrip Known: – Minor Illusion New Spell Known: – Lesser Restoration	Bountiful Luck allows us to protect nearby allies from rolling a Natural 1. It’s a great asset in any party, and it gets better as your party makes more attack rolls and ability checks. Minor Illusion adds some utility. We’ll grab a spell from our subclass list for the first time. Lesser Restoration is useful for removing annoying status conditions, which happens enough that any party needs it available. If you have a Cleric or a Druid in the party, you can probably skip it.
5	New Invocation: – Maddening Hex New Spell Known: – Hunger of Hadar	Maddening Hex gives us a way to handle groups of enemies. Use Eldritch Blast+Repelling Blast to push enemies into a group, then trigger Maddening Hex as a Bonus Action. It’s not as consistently useful as Agonizing Blast, but remember that we’re emphasizing supporting our allies in this build, so direct damage isn’t our focus. Instead, position enemies for allies to succeed. Hunger of Hadar is simply too good to pass up. Use Eldritch Blast+Repelling Blast to shove enemies into it and keep them toward the middle of the effect.
6	Radiant Soul New Spell Known: – Revivify	The damage bonus from Radiant Soul feels really exciting, but it’s one damage roll against one target of the spell. It does apply to cantrips, which is nice, but it’s not enough to make other damage cantrips beat Eldritch Blast+Hex even without considering invocations. It does make it less frustrating to resort to Sacred Flame when necessary, but that’s not huge. Revivify is a tax. If you can get it, you’re obligated to do so because it’s too important to not have available.
7	New Invocation: – Protection of the Talisman New Spell Known: – Wall of Fire	Protection of the Talisman is a fantastic defensive buff for the wearer. One of the better options on our subclass spell list, Wall of Fire is fantastic area control. It’s not so brutally effective as Hunger of Hadar, but Wall of Fire’s area of effective is much more flexible, the damage scales with spell level, and you can still use both Rebuke of the Talisman and Repelling Blast to launch enemies through it.
8	Ability Score Increase: Con 15 -> 16, Cha 17 -> 18 New Spell Known: – Summon Aberration	Summon Aberration is among the better summon spells. Commanding the summoned creature will conflict with our other Bonus Action stuff, but sometimes you need an extra body. Use what suits the situation.
9	New Invocation: – Grasp of Hadar New Spell Known: – Synaptic Static	Super late, but we finally add the second forced movement option to Eldritch Blast. This lets us perform “cheese grater” tactics by forcing enemies to move 10 feet away then 10 feet immediately closer (or vice versa), potentially re-triggering area control effects like Spike Growth or Wall of Fire. With two shots, we can do this twice per turn, but remember that area control effects typically only apply their effects once per turn. Plan to target two enemies or use your second shot as insurance. Note that Xanathar’s clarified that you get to pick the order of simultaneous effects. Synaptic Static gives us a burst of area damage with a huge AOE and a debuff that doesn’t require Concentration. We could learn Flame Strike instead, but… why? The damage is bad, and Radiant Soul doesn’t fix that.
10	Celestial Radiance New Cantrip Known: – Mind Sliver	Celestial Radiance is basically Inspiring Leader, giving you and your party a big pile of temporary hit points.
11	Mystic Arcanum: Eyebite New Spell Known: – Restoration	Hopefully you’ll never need to cast Restoration. It’s expensive. If anyone in your party can cast it, learn something else.
12	Ability Score Increase: Cha 18 > 20 New Invocation: – Bond of the Talisman	Bond of the Talisman is a really weird invocation, but we’re leaning into Talisman hard here. The teleportation has no range limitation within the same plane of existence, so you can use this both to get around in combat and to travel great distances safely.
13	Mystic Arcanum: Plane Shift New Spell Known: – Any	Plane Shift is a combination utility and save-or-suck.
14	Searing Vengeance	If you’re going to go down, this is a great retaliatory option. Of course, if you never drop to 0, it will literally never matter.
15	Mystic Arcanum: Maddening Darkness New Spell Known: – Any New Invocation: – Shroud of Shadow	Maddening Darkness takes the place of Hunger of Hadar and Wall of Fire as our best area control option. Unfortunately, it doesn’t limit creatures’ movement, so you’ll need to repeatedly launch them into the area with Repelling Blast. Shroud of Shadow lets us cast Invisibility at will without spending a spell slot. We can cast it on ourselves or on an ally. Either option will be consistently useful.
16	Feat: Eldritch Adept (Agonizing Blast)	A huge boost in DPR, though admittedly very far into our career.
17	Mystic Arcanum: Foresight New Spell Known: – Any	Give someone in your party the gift of Foresight. There isn’t a better buff.
18	New Invocation: – Visions of Distant Realms	My favorite scouting option for free! Scout an area from a safe distance before risking your allies’ safety. At this point, strongly consider multiclassing.
19	Feat: Cartomancer New Spell Known: – Any	Cartomancer is a lot of fun. Throw an Eyebite into it, and you can cast Eyebite, then immediately re-trigger it using your Action.
20	Eldritch Master	Literally always a disappointing capstone.