Songs of the Spellbound Sea Protean Warlock Subclass Guide – DnD 5e

Introduction

Published in Songs of the Spellbound Sea by SoManyRobots, the Protean Warlock serves a patron from the lightless depths of the ocean. Your patron might be an Aboleth, a Kraken, or some other aquatic horror. The subclass’s features do a lot with water spells, acid, oozes, and tentacles.

This article covers 3rd-party content. Be sure to discuss using the content with your table before assuming that is available to you.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Protean Warlock Features
• Protean Warlock Ability Scores
• Protean Warlock Races
• Protean Warlock Feats
• Protean Warlock Weapons
• Protean Warlock Armor
• Protean Warlock Multiclassing
• Example Protean Warlock Build – Slippery Physique, Caustic Personality
  • 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 2014 DnD 5e 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.

Protean Warlock Features

1. Expanded Spell List: A great mix of spells with a lot of focus on water and oozes. There are direct damage spells, area control spells, crown control spells, a summon, and even a polymorph spell. It’s a great mix that will cater to variety of builds and play styles, and there isn’t a single bad spell spell in the bunch, but there also aren’t any insanely powerful spells. SoManyRobots makes a serious effort to keep spells balanced (see their Spells That Don’t Suck project), so it makes sense that nothing here is insanely powerful.

   Note that all of the listed spells are published in Songs of the Spellbound Sea, with the exception of Summon Ooze, which is published in Kibbles’ Casting Compendium.

   1. Crashing Wave: Not great damage, but the knockback effect is good. It’s easy to compare this to Thunderwave, but Crashing Wave targets Strength saves instead of problematically high Constitution saves. Unfortunately, many enemies built for melee will still have good Strength saves.
   1. Summon Ooze: A fairly typical summon spell following the design of Summon X spells from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The ooze is very durable due to numerous damage resistances, but its speed is only 10 feet and it’s blind beyond the radius of its 10 ft. of Blindsight. Most summons are easy to drag around for the spell’s 1-hour duration, but the ooze moves so slowly that it’s only useful in small spaces like dungeons,
   2. Adaptation: Versatile with a long duration, but it’s still a combination of effects which are only situationally useful. The ability to grow a natural weapon tries to make this broadly appealing, but it’s not useful for the Warlock since Warlocks don’t get Extra Attack, and your allies likely have better attack options.

      Adaptation is written as a replacement for Alter Self. It’s definitely a better spell, but still fits the niche of a spell which can handle multiple use cases.

   2. Dancing Wave: This is similar to Flaming Sphere except that it can knock targets prone and provides difficult terrain instead of damaging creatures who stay near the sphere. The ability to reposition the effect means that you can move the difficult terrain, potentially damaging and tripping a creature in the path of the moving wave. Unfortunately, it doesn’t scale wtih spell level, which makes it less useful for Warlocks.
   3. Water Cannon: Lines aren’t a great AOE because it’s so hard to hit more than two creatures, but this is prety great. By default, Water Cannon deals 2d6 damage less than Lightning Bolt, trading that damage for the ability to push targets all the way to the end of the line’s area. If you do hit two or more targets, one creature (I assume the one closest to the end) stops moving in the square just past the line’s end. Any other creatures will find that there is no available space at the end of the line and will take 2d6 more damage (matching Lightning Bolt) and falling Prone.
   3. Water Wall: Complex, but very interesting. The walls primary effect is a little bit of bludgeoning damage to creatures inside the wall plus triple cost to move through the wall, making it a decent deterrant to enemies. The interactions with cold and lightning effects are also interesting. The spell’s description specifically uses the words “when they pass through”, which implies that they pass through unimpeded (though attacks will still have Disadvantage and deal half damage). You could do things like cast Ice Knife at a cluster of enemies near the wall, or you could fire a Lightning Bolt through the wall and electrocute creatures touching any part of the wall. Clever positioning and the right spells could make this very effective, but it does require planning ahead.
   4. Melt Flesh: The damage is great if this applies twice, but Constitution saves are consistently high, so that’s unlikely to happen. It’s very high risk, high reward. If you have ways to debuff your target’s saves like Mind Sliver, this could be very effective.
   4. Whirling Water: Restraining enemies in the sphere can be extremely impactful, and spending multiple turns to collect enemies inside the ball will be very effective if you or an ally can throw area damage effects into the ball.

      The timing of when creatures are restrained and when they makes saves is important to consider. They make a Strength save at the beginning of their turn to either become or remain Restrained by the sphere. This means that creatures with passable Strength have a decent chance to escape, so you may need to chase them with the sphere to recapture them. If you use the spell’s Bonus Action, you can toss a creature into the air, dealing 4d6 bludgeoning damage plus falling damage, then landing right back into the sphere where they’ll need to make another save at the beginning of their turn anyway. It’s guaranteed damage at the cost of your Bonus Action.

      The damage isn’t great and doesn’t scale. You’re here primarily for the Restrained effect and the ability to haul creatures around un the sphere. Since you’re likely going to spend most of your Actions rolling the sphere around, expect to rely on your allies for damage.

   5. Oozeform: This works incredibly well alongside the Protean Warlock’s Corrosive Skin feature. You’ll eventually add double (sometimes quadruple) your Proficiency Bonus to the 2d4 damage from Oozeform. Envelop a creature (or creatures), and you become the most obvious target for attacks, which will then result in huge amounts of retaliatory damage. If they don’t want to attack you, they either take ongoing damage or they need to spend an Action to attempt to escape.

      Since enveloping creatures grapples them, you’re free to move around and bring enveloped creatures with you. You move at half seed, but this could allow you to envelop multiple creatures. If you can fly, you could fly enemies into the air and slowly melt them unless they decide to escape and eat the falling damage.

      With a 10-minute duration, you can easily cast this before walking into dangeorus situations. That does leave you to guess what size you’ll need, but It will nearly always be Large unless your enemies are too big to envelop.

      Note that enveloped creatures might choose to make ranged attacks instead of melee attacks. They’re already Restrained, so the Disadvantage for doing so is the same.

   5. Whirlpool: The damage per turn isn’t amazing, but the 30-foot radius is massive. Many creature shave 30 ft. speed, so would need to Dash to escape the area in a single turn. If they don’t, they’re stuck making ongoing saves to be pulled back into the middle. If you and your allies can forcibly reposition enemies, such as with the Telekinetic feat or by grappling, you can put escaped enemies back into the Whirlpool if they manage to escape.

      The only issues is that enemies inside the effect are still dangerous if they can cast spells or attack at range. Hunger of Hadar blinds creatures inside the area, which is much better crowd control despite the lower damage.

1. Protean Form: A combat buff as a Bonus Action. The effects are all good and will remain effective for your whole career.
   • AC Bonus:+1 AC is always nice.
   • Peudopod: Reach can be very useful if you’re building to use weapons, but this appears to apply to all attacks, so you could also use melee spell attacks.
   • Move Speeds: Both a Climb speed and a Swim speed, allowing you to adapt to multiple environments. But you can also cast Adaptation to if you need to swim.
6. Corrosive Skin: This is a decent amount of retaliatory damage. It’s not enough that enemies are likely to avoid attacking you, but it’s enough to have an impact. Pair this with Armor of Agathys and you can do a whole lot of damage to anything foolish enough to attack you. However, a Warlock doing a good job fighting at range will go long periods without seeing this applied.
6. Protean Gifts: Protean Gift is mostly for yourself, but you might find that it’s more effective when used on an ally.
10. Vile Tentacle: This only works a few times per day, but that’s enough. Vulnerability to the next source of damage can result in a huge amount of damage if your party can apply big single damage sources like Sneak Attack or a spell like Disintegrate.
14. Perfected Form: By this level your Corrossive Skin deals 10 damage per hit, and doubling that to 20 is pretty great. Two effects from Protean Form is also nice.

Protean Warlock Ability Scores

No different from a typical Warlock.

Protean Warlock Races

No different from a typical Warlock. Songs of the Spellbound Sea has some really fun new race and lineage options.

Protean Warlock Feats

No different from a typical Warlock.

• :

Protean Warlock Weapons

No different from a typical Warlock.

Protean Warlock Armor

No different from a typical Warlock.

Protean Warlock Multiclassing

No different from a typical Warlock.

Example Protean Warlock Build – Slippery Physique, Caustic Personality

The Protean Warlock is built to do cool stuff with acid and water, and it’s generally a casting-focused subclass with a little splash of other stuff. We’re going to lean hard into some of that “other stuff” and turn ourselves into the most indigestible, un-huggable, and generally caustic thing that we possible can.

This build focuses heavily on damage, and is built to work in melee. It’s an unusual take on the Warlock, but the results are pretty great.

If magic items are an option in your game, look for adamantine armor. We want to get his as much as possible, but take as little damage as possible. Crits will be very costly and high risk for us, so turning crits into regular hits is a huge benefit.

If you’re open to multiclassing, 2 levels of Abjuration Wizard is great. Using the ward as an additional layer of hit points in front of Armor of Agathys will stretch the spell’s effectiveness, Armor of Agathys recharges the ward, and you can use the Wizard spell slots for things like Absorb Elements and Hellish Rebuke. This will require you to invest in Intelligence, and the ward won’t have a lot of capacity, but it’s at least worth considering.

This is one of the absolute strangest builds I’ve written. The Portable Punching Bag Bardadin has a lot of overlap here, but this build is a crazy combination of a lot of orange-rated options that somehow perfectly line up to create… something. The damage is surprisingly high considering we’re essentially ignoring whatever we do during our own turn. There are several numerous open decision points, too, so there is a ton of room to customize and add other capabilities to the build.

Ability Scores

Atxayotl gives us +1 in Con and +2 in our choice of Wisdom or Charisma, so we’ll choose Charisma.

	Base	Increased
Str	8	8
Dex	14	14
Con	15	16
Int	8	8
Wis	10	10
Cha	15	17

Race

Atxayotl. The ability score increases work well for us, and we want the Landbound’s ability to Dash as a Bonus Action. Island Customs get us an extra skill proficiency, and Innate Regeneration and Limb Regrowth will be great for our “hit me in the face” shenanigans. Innate Regeneration makes our Hit Dice a little more effective, which will help us recover between fights without relying on allies to heal us with magic.

If that doesn’t sound appealing, Goliath works really well. Stone’s Endurance to mitigate incoming damage will stretch the effectiveness of Armor of Agathys considerably.

Background

Unimportant to the build. If you want to stick to Backgrounds from Songs of the Spellbound Sea, Quicksteel Trader works well.

Skills and Tools

We’ll get one skill (probably Persuasion) from our Race, two skills from our Background, and 2 Warlock class skills. Pick what you like since it’s not critical to the build.

Feats

At level 4 we take Gift of the Gem Dragon and increase our Charisma to 18.

At level 8 we raise our Charisma to 20.

At level 12 we take Resilient (Constitution) to improve our Concentration.

At levels 16 and 19 we have open space. Gift of the Chromatic Dragon would be nice so that we can mitigate elemental damage, but +2 Constitution would also be great.

Levels

Level	Feat(s) and Features	Notes and Tactics
1	Protean Expanded Spell List Protean Form Pact Magic Cantrips Known: – Blade Burst* – Booming Blade Spells Known: – Crashing Wave* – Hex	At this level we’re a pretty typical Warlock. We can use Protean Form to get a +1 AC bonus for 1 minute, which is nice since we likely have an AC of 14 at best. At this level our Dexterity and Charisma modifiers are the same, so we can do better damage with a crossbow at range instead of Eldritch Blast, so we’ll use Hex with a crossbow as our ranged attack. In melee, we’ll use Blade Burst or Booming Blade, but try to stay out of melee. Blade Burst is a lot like Sword Burst, but it’s in Songs of the Spellbound Sea, so we’re going to use it instead. We’ll also take Crashing Wave in case enemies crown in an and need space.
2	Eldritch Invocations – Eldritch Mind – Any New Spell Known: – Armor of Agathys	At this level we start telling people that our skin feels perpetually cold and clammy to touch. Eldritch Mind will be useful for our whole career since we’re not making room for Warcaster. Armor of Agathys is our first taste of how our build will work long-term. Our hope is to draw melee attacks from our enemies and deal as much retaliatory damage as we possibly can.
3	Pact Boon: New Spell Known: – Pact of the Talisman Retrain Invocations: – Any -> Rebuke of the Talisman	An unusual choice, but Pact of the Talisman is the only defensive pact option, and we need durability more than anything that the other pacts offer. As we said in our Pact Boons Guide, “you may find that the Talisman is more effective if you lend it to an ally who will be drawing a lot of attacks.” In this case, we’re the one drawing a lot of attacks. Pact of the Blade would also work for this build if you wanted to focus more on offense. There are enough spare invocation slots to make that work pretty well. We retrain our second invocation into Rebuke of the Talisman. It works like Hellish Rebuke or Gift of the Gem Dagon, but it’s free and doesn’t deal a ton of damage. It’s mostly a fallback option when we’re short on resources. Hellish Rebuke will do much more damage, but it’s very costly when we only have 2 spell slots which we’re primarily reserving for Armor of Agathys. At this point you might start inentionally walking into melee. Armor of Agathys gives you 10 Temporary Hit Points
4	Feat: Gift of the Gem Dragon (Cha 17 -> 18) New Cantrip Known: – Lightning Lure New Spell Known: – Any	We now add “looks like they might be related to dragons, but one of the weird kinds of dragons” to our character’s description. Gift of the Gem Dragon gets us +1 Charisma and another Reaction option. 2d8 damage will easily beat the game from Rebuke of the Talisman, but also allows a save to resist the knockback effect. Use whichever suits the needs of the situation. Now that we’re getting more comfortable in melee, we add Lightning Lure to give us a way to drag nearby enemies into melee with us without risking a range attack roll.
5	New Invocation: – Cloak of Flies New Spell Known: – Water Canon	We now add “smells like dead fish” to our character’s description, and we attract a suitably dense cloud of flies. Cloak of Flies deals automatic damage to creatures that start their turn adjacent to us. It’s poison damage, which isn’t amazing, but even with how common resistance/immunity is, it’s not universal. Water Canon is an upgrade from Crashing Wave. We won’t need it frequently, but sometimes launching a couple enemies 60 feet away can do cool stuff like blasting them out a window or off a cliff. There’s also nothing stopping you from walking into melee then aiming the line slightly upward to launch enemies into the air for easy falling damage.
6	Corrosive Skin Protean Gifts New Spell Known: – Vampiric Touch	We now add “makes your skin burn when you touch them” and “whatever they have is apparently contageous” to our character’s description. Corrosive Skin is the conceptual heart of the build. With Armor of Agathys running, we now have our full combo. If we’re hit with a melee attack this level we deal 15 cold damage, 6 acid damage (remember that it’s double your PB), then can spend our Reaction to use either Rebuke of the Talisman or Gift of the Gem Dragon’s Telekinetic Reprisal. According to the Fundamental Math, we’re hitting Target DPR without our Reaction, without Cloak of Flies, and without even taking a turn. If you add damage from Cloak of Flies and/or hitting enemies with a Cantrip, you’re doing great. If you need to draw attacks, you can walk out of reach to intentionally provoke Opportunity Attacks. Remember that the Landbound Atxayotl can Dash as a Bonus Action, too. Our biggest limitation is the THP provided by Armor of Agathys. Expect to cast it mid-combat from time to time to keep the combo going. If you have an ally with Fighting Style (Interception), they are your absolute best friend and you should carry them on your back if you need to in order to keep them nearby. Vampiric Touch gives us a decent offensive option that also turns us into a regen tank. If we burn through Armor of Agathys, we can either re-cast Armor of Agathys or use Vampiric Touch and start siphoning hp from our enemies. We’ll still deal retaliatory damage from Corrosive Skin and from our Reactions, plus Cloak of Flies will continue to deal damage. We also get Protean Gifts at this level. We’re probably not getting much use out of Protean Form for ourselves, but we can put that +1 AC on an ally.
7	New Invocation: – Protection of the Talisman New Spell Known: – Any	We’re drawing a lot of attention, and eventually we’re going to be forced to make saves. Protection of the Talisman will make that much easier for us.
8	ASI: Cha 18 -> 20 New Spell Known: – Any	It’s weird being this gross, but also this charming. Max Charisma makes your spells more reliable and makes Cloud of Flies and Talisman’s Rebuke more damage.
9	New Invocation: – Tomb of Levistus New Spell Known: – Oozeform	At this level we can add “likely related to the blob fish” and “amphibian from the frozen depths of hell” to our description. I have never once put Tomb of Levistus on a build, but hear me out: Corrosive Skin and Cloak of Flies both still work, so enemies try to bite and claw their way through the wall of THP are going to continue taking damage. This is absolutely a panic option for when things have gone super wrong, but we’re trying to turn a class with d8 hp into a punching bag, so we’re already in very weird territory. I’m very excited about Oozeform. It lasts up to 10 minutes if we can maintain Concentration (which is why we have Eldritch Mind), and during that time we’re now a horrifying blob fish ooze thing. We add yet another 2d4 retaliatory damage, and now we can use our Action to envelop other creatures. While enveloped, creatures take automatic damage both from Oozeform and from Cloak of Flies, and they’re Restrained. They can spend an Action to repeat the save, in which case you’ll simply envelop them again on your next turn. We can continue to move (albeit at half speed to maintain the grapple), potentially enveloping more enemies. If we run out of enemies, we can sit still and either Dodge or use Blade Burst for even more damage. Strangely, the creatures that you have enveloped don’t get cover of any kind. Your allies are free to continue attack them while you digest them. The only problems here are that you must maintain Concentration with just +3 and Advantage, and that you can only envelop creatures up to Large size. Still doable, but certainly not foolproof. But if you’re running Armor of Agathys, enemies hitting you will take 2d4+53 damage (2d4 acid from Oozeform, 45 cold from Armor of Agathys, 8 acid from Corrosive Skin) plus either Rebuke of the Talisman for 5 damage or Telekinetic Reprisal for 2d8 damage. The knockback on both is optional, so they’re safe to use purely for damage. 58 damage on average is well into High DPR, and that’s before considering our Reaction, Cloak of Flies, the 8d4 damage from being enveloped, or potentially a different Action on our turn. Also, if our hp runs low while we’re in Oozeform, we can still use Tomb of Levistus. Enemies aren’t prevented form escaping when we do this, but they still take damage while we take a nap behind the relatively safety of 90 THP.
10	Vile Tentacle New Cantrip Known: – Mind Sliver	Vile Tentacle is great. If you have an ally who can deal a ton of damage in one shot, that’s ideal. Otherwise, try to provoke an Opportunity Attack. Mind Sliver is for enemies that we’ve Enveloped. If they try to escape, they make the save with the -1d4 penalty. If they attack you, it’s at Disadvantage because they’re Restrained. Either way, they’re in huge trouble.
11	Mystic Arcanum: – Any New Spell Known: – Any	If you’re considering a multiclass dip into Abjuration Wizard, consider doing so around now.
12	Feat: Resilient (Constitution 16 -> 17) New Invocation: – Any	A massive boost to Concentration. We’re probably taking bigger hits at this level, which makes it hard to maintain Concentration on Oozeform. We now get a total of +7 and Advantage, which is about as reliable as we can hope for.
13	Mystic Arcanum: – Death Ray New Spell Known: – Any	Death Ray is the replacement for Finger of Death published in Spells That Don’t Suck and in Songs of the Spellbound Sea. It’s buffed significantly. Use whichever spell your DM allows. Death Ray / Finger of Death is a big pile of single-target damage, which is exactly what we want to use with Vile Tentacle. When you need to nuke something in one turn, smack it with a tentacle, then hit it with Death Ray for double damage. Doubling 8d10+40 (7d8+30 for Finger of Death) is a huge pile of damage. You only get to do this once per day, but one-shotting an encounter once per day is absolutely worth the resource cost.
14	Perfected Form	Time to stop sharing Protean Form. Doubling your Corrosive Skin damage is too good to give up. That’s another 10 damage per hit at this level.
15	New Invocation: – Any Mystic Arcanum: – Any New Spell Known: – Any	–
16	Feat: any	–
17	Mystic Arcanum: – Any New Spell Known: – Any	With our Charisma and our Proficency Bonus now maximized, let’s look at our final retaliatory damage: 45 from Armor of Agathys, 24 from Corrosive Skin, 2d4 from Oozeform, and either 5 or 2d8 depending on which Reaction we chose. That’s a total of 74 on average before the Reaction and, again, that’s outside of our turn. During our turn, Oozeform is still a go-to option in most encounters. Envelop enemies and make it very clear that all of their choices are bad. 8d4 damage (avg. 20) isn’t amazing at this level, but enveloped enemies are Restrained and Grapple, so you and your allies are free to throw whatever you like at them with minimal risk.
18	New Invocation: – Any	–
19	Feat: Any New Spell Known: – Any	–
20	Eldritch Master	We need those spells slots for Armor of Agathys and Oozeform. Gotta keep ourselves both cold and slimy.