The new Vestige Patron Warlock Subclass in the Mystic Unearthed Arcana is all about being friends with your boss. Sort of.
Of the four new subclasses in the Mystic Subclasses Unearthed Arcana now on D&D Beyond, the Vestige Patron Warlock feels the most like it captures something out of modern D&D. Because it takes the Warlock concept and gives you a way to play it the way, I suspect, many people do. In bog standard, rules as they are written D&D, a Warlock’s pact with a more powerful being is something they made and have done already. Their patron isn’t assumed to be an active part of their life – nor are they beholden to obey any special requests or anything like that.
But the Vestige Patron Warlock is kind of like having it be “bring your elder power to the adventure day” every day. Because this is actually a summons class, where you have a single companion who stays with you for most of your adventuring time.
Vestige Patron Warlock – So That’s Your Boss, Huh?
At the heart of the Vestige Patron Warlock is the Vestige itself. These are dying gods. Maybe they were once a benevolent force in the world, or were terribly evil, or otherwise unknowable and mysterious. Whatever the case, they’re not around anymore, at least not in the usual deity ways. Instead, they become your Patron, granting you the power to bring them with you wherever you go.
It’s more helpful than it sounds. Because this takes the form of a summonable companion that you don’t have to worry about dropping to 0 hit points (because you can bring them back with a magic ritual that takes one minute), and provides you with some potent benefits that improve as you level up.
This is all outlined in your level 3 feature, Vestige Companion, which as you might imagine, forms the very heart of the subclass. You draw upon the strength of your Patron and pact to summon forth your vestige. You decicde whether they have a Celestial, Fiend, or Undead nature, and decide what it looks like with one small caveat: “regardless of its form, the vestige bears features indicating its supernatural origin.” Which is basically WotC making it official that you can give Withers big naturals.
Also you have to tell it what to do. Listen, it might be the being responsible for giving you your magical powers, but if you want it to help you out, you have to tell it how. Mechanically this is because WotC thinks having a summoned creature that doesn’t take a Spell Slot should require your Bonus Action to act. Can’t have it go be an independent character that can do its own stuff. In a nutshell, you use a Bonus Action or can give up one of your Attacks to make it take an action. Unless you are Incapacitated, in which case all bets are off.
But what does it do in combat? Vestiges have two different actions in their stat blocks. They can make a Vestige Strike or they can use Divine Power. Vestige strike is pretty easy, it’s a melee or ranged spell attack that can hit up to 60 feet away and deals 1d6 + 3 + Charisma Modifier damage that’s either fire, necrotic, or radiant.
Divine Power is a little more interesting. It’s a Bonus Action that it can only use once per day, which can do one of three things: curse a creature to have Disadvantage when attacking you or the vestige, magically swap places with you (within 60 feet), or cure 2d8 + your Charisma Modifier hit points and cure Blinded, Deafened, or Poisoned if one of those is present. You also get a selection of bonus spells from the Cleric’s Life, Light, Trickery, or War domains. Which feels a little like a cop out mechanic instead of curating a list, but also those lists of spells are pretty good.
Higher Level Vestige – Is This Codependency?
As you grow in power, so does your vestige. In fact, mostly this subclass is about your vestige companion getting stronger. At each level of the Vestige Patron Warlock, it isn’t you who gets better, it’s your vestige. Starting at level 6 with Vestige Recovery. This feature lets your vestige regain its divine power after a Short or Long Rest or whenever you use Magical Cunning.
At 10th level, your vestige begins to emanate an Aura of Power. This ability is a weird case of ludonarrative dissonance, as they say, because it’s an aura your patron gives off – but you have to tell them to use it, and not with a Bonus Action either. You have to take the Magic Action to do so. But the Aura lasts for your Charisma mod in hours, so it’s not too costly. The Aura of Power gives you resistance to Fire, Necrotic, and Radiant Damage, as well as Immunity to being Charmed or Frightened. Also if you drop to 0 hit points, you don’t die, but instead gain your Warlock level + Charisma mod hit points (and your vestige is gone until after a long rest).
At Level 14, the whole subclass caps off with Semblance of Life. Your vestige grows stronger and stronger, and with your assistance, can briefly adopt a more powerful form. You gain the ability to cast Summon Celestial, Summon Fiend, or Summon Undead, but it’s the vestige. It becomes the creature you summon, using its stat block, for the duration of one minute. You get to do this once per Long Rest.
All in all, I like the idea of this class. It tells a very specific story with its mechanics, and that’s real interesting to me. Because, yeah, you’re a Warlock and you’ve got this companion, but as you level up, it’s really your companion who’s becoming stronger in a unique way. You’re doing all the usual Warlock stuff, so you’re also gaining in power, but the mechanics call the relationship between Warlock and Patron into question. Meaty stuff for the DM and the Player to think about.
But that’s just what I think – you should let WotC know what you think of this subclass (and the three others) by taking the survey at the link below!
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