UA: Vestige Patron Warlock

 You know what's metal as hell?

Forging a pact with a dying god.

Yes, the Vestige is a patron that was once a powerful deity, but is on their way out, soon (or maybe already) adrift on the Astral Sea. Conceptually, there's certainly some potential for this to overlap with the Great Old One, but I think the GOO is implied to have never really been tied directly to the religious framework of gods, celestials, and fiends. But I think the potential for deeply esoteric lore and ancient secrets is very strong with this concept. Let's hope the mechanics match that potential!

Before we get into them, though, the Vestige patron is notably a pet subclass, giving you a manfiestation of that vestige that acts as a battle companion. Maybe it's because I played WoW first, but it always struck me as strange that there was no Warlock pet subclass.

Patron Spells:

The approach here is very different: you pick from the Life, Light, Trickery, or War domains of Clerics. Your Vestige spells are the same list as the Cleric subclass' spells.

I'd probably say that Life and War are the best options, but I'm not very confident in that. Life will of course give you a lot of healing, if that's something your party could use. Cure Wounds at 5th level is an average of probably 50 healing.

Level 3:

Vestige Companion

You get a combat pet, like Beast Masters or Battle Smiths. Your is a Vestige Companion, which can be a Celestial, Fiend, or Undead. You can re-summon it when you finish a long rest and change its appearance and its creature type.

Like other subclass pets, you need to use a bonus action to direct it unless you're incapacitated. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks to let it take an attack each turn.

If the vestige is reduced to 0 HP, you can spend 1 minute performing a magical ceremony to get it back - unlike the other subclass pets, you don't need to expend any spell slot to do this, so you should basically always get it back unless you have two fights in quick succession.

Also, unlike other pets, you can dismiss the vestige into a pocket dimension as an action, like a familiar, and then you can use an action while it's dismissed this way to summon it to an unoccupied space within 30 feet of you.

The companion is Small, has an AC of 13+ your Charisma (so likely starting 16 and going up to 18) and has a 30-foot hovering fly speed. It's immune to being Charmed, Frightened, or Prone. It has resistance to the damage associated with its type (fire for Fiends, necrotic for Undead, or radiant for Celestials).

It has an attack called Vestige's Strike, which is either melee or ranged up to 60 feet, and deals 1d6+3+your Charisma, dealing the damage associated with its type (see above).

It also has a bonus action it can do 1/day, which depends on its type:

Cursed Invocation (Undead): The vestige curses a target within 30 feet of it that you can see for 1 minute. While cursed, the target has disadvantage on attacks against you or your vestige.

    Solid enough, and definitely best to use against a tough boss monster.

Fiendish Swap (Fiend): If you are within 60 feet of each other, you and the vestige teleport to swap places.

    There's some fun utility you can get out of this, though the 1/day limit will make you probably try to hold on to it too much.

Healing Touch (Celestial): The vestige touches another creature, who regains HP equal to 2d8 + your Charisma and they end one of either the Blinded, Deafened, or Poisoned condition.

    A pretty solid emergency heal. Nothing enormous, but nice to have. Not quite as exciting if we take the Life domain spell list, but still good to have.

Level 6:

Vestige Recovery

The Vestige now regains its bonus action Divine Power (the three bonus action options in its stat block) when you take a Short or Long rest or when you use your Magical Cunning feature.

    Ok, you know what? I just said that these things were less impressive with such limited use. This addresses that. This might not be that exciting for our whole level 6 feature, but it's welcome.

Level 10:

Aura of Power

Your vestige becomes more powerful and can manifest an aura in a 30-foot emanation when you use a Magic action to activate it. The aura lasts a number of hours equal to your Charisma modifier or until the Vestige disappears or is temporarily dismissed. You, the vestige, and your allies within the aura gain resistance to Fire, Necrotic, and Radiant damage and have immunity to the charmed and frightened conditions. You can manifest this aura once per long rest.

Also, when you drop to 0 HP while within the aura, you instead change your HP to a number equal to your Warlock level plus your Charisma. The vestige is then dismissed to its pocket dimension and can't be returned until you finish a long rest.

    Ok, a lot to unpack:

    Getting all three resistances and the condition immunities make this pretty powerful. And it can last quite a long time. You won't be able to play any dismiss/summon shenanigans while it's active, as that'll cancel the aura.

    I'd honestly prefer getting something other than the "drop to zero" protection, as I think we already get that with other subclasses like the Undead patron.

Level 14:

Semblance of Life

Once per long rest, while the Vestige is within 90 feet of you, you can cast a special version of Summon Fiend, Summon Undead, or Summon Celestial without requiring any material components or expending a spell slot. Rather than summoning a new creature, your Vestige takes on the stat block of the summoned spirit for the duration of the spell, reverting to its normal form when the spell ends. The spell is cast at a level equal to half your Warlock level, rounded down (maximum 9th level) and its duration is reduced to 1 minute.

    Phew, ok, let's unpack this:

    Warlocks normally can't upcast Summon spells beyond 5th level, with Summon Fiend as the only one they can cast at higher levels via Mystic Arcanum. When you get this, you'll be casting it at 7th level. Effectively, this gives you an extra 7th level spell, and later an extra 8th level and 9th level, though limited in which spell that can be. That being said, Summon spells are quite good and scale well.

    I'd like to see it clarified, but I think that if the "spirit" version of the vestige is reduced to 0 HP, it ought to revert to its normal form rather than dying - in theory a Warlock could just drop concentration right when it would take lethal damage, so as a DM I'd just rule it like the 5.0 version of polymorph and Wild Shape, where any damage carries over to the original form.

Overall Thoughts:

    My instinct is that this is probably pretty good. I think it would be cool if they expand the Patron spells to work with any Cleric domain, which would let the subclass continue to grow a little. Because the pet can fly and make ranged attacks, it should be able to attack pretty reliably.

    What I find kind of weird though, is that the "pet" warlock subclass would be "a dying god." It feels like an inversion of the patron/warlock relationship, even if the vestige is more like an avatar than the deity themselves. Of all patrons, the Vestige feels like it should be the one that fills the warlock with awe (and possibly dread).

And that marks the last of the Mystic subclasses. Very curious to see where these might be found - I think we're due for a new "general rules expansion" book in the vein of Xanathar's and Tasha's, and book with a theme of "magic" would be a great place for these four and the Arcane subclasses seen earlier.