The new Parasite Warlock Patron out of Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part 2 will turn your body into a living weapon, symbiotically.
Think of it as the ‘ Venom’ subclass, if you want. The new Parasite Patron Warlock subclass out of Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part 2 is a fantastic blend of both a little bit of body horror and eldritch horror, all mashed up in a cool subclass that makes you into a magical melee-er. As long as you don’t mind fighting with grotesque parasitic limbs.
Because the Parasite Warlock is inhabited by their Patron. You make a pact that involves your Patron living inside your body, feeding upon whatever it does, and fueling you with its alien cells. This gives you strange new abilities, but also furthers its agenda and turns you into something… not human… maybe more?
It’s up to you how the parasite expresses itself. This could be a mutant ooze, an astral creature’s nightmare given form. Maybe even something cast off by the birth of an eldritch aberration that has found a chance at survival in your flesh and blood and bones. Either way, here’s what having a Parasite for a Patron can do for your Warlock.
The Parasite Warlock
It all comes down to the Parasite. This is a creature that you have bonded with mind and body. It is concerned with survival, and you, its host, are a key to that. So it will occasionally express its power through your body. In game terms, this manifests as a cool Parasitic Weapon that really changes the way you play your Warlock.
Parasitic Weapon makes you function as melee-oriented Warlock. As a Bonus Action, you manifest your patron’s power – it can take whatever form you want, but you get a melee spell attack that deals 1d12 damage (no ability modifier, but that’s what Eldritch Invocations are for), and has a reach equal to five times your proficiency bonus. So you start at a 10-foot reach, and will eventually be hitting targets up to 30 feet away with your melee attack.
Beyond the 1d12 damage that can be upgraded with the same kinds of invocations that boost Eldritch Blast, you get a Parasitic Flurry that gives you multiple attacks with your parasitic weapon when you take the Attack action, two at level 5, three at level 11, and four at level 17.
You also get a suite of eldritch-horror themed Parasite Spells that represent your Parasitic Patron’s power moving through you. This includes stuff like sanctuary (as you’re protected by a pulsing layer of alien flesh exuding from your body) or enlarge/reduce (as your parasite warps your body to become larger). Even Haste, Black Tentacles, and worst/best of all Dominate Person.
Finally you also benefit from Symbiotic Reinforcement, an ability which lets you use your Charisma in place of Strength for Strength saves. And you can also manifest a shield as a Bonus Action, giving yu the requisite +2 to AC, though at level 10 the shield gives you +3 to AC.
All in all, this is a lot of tools. But it’s kind of needed. Since this is still not that different from a Warlock with Eldritch Blast and a Hex. Less powerful, in fact, because Eldritch Blast has more range. There’s even a sidebar that suggests you let the EB Eldritch Invocations work with this subclass, and if I were running a player with this subclass, I would. It’s fun, but it’s nowhere close to being busted.
Higher Level Parasites Reveal The Secret Of The Ooze
At higher levels, you get more ooze-related benefits, starting with Liquefied Body at 6th level. This ability lets you turn into an Alex Mack style ooze where you become a viscous liquid for 10 minutes and can squeeze thrugh the tiniest spaces, move through difficult terrain for free, and rules as written, you can still do all your normal stuff, too.
You also gain the horrifying ability to give a body horror style birth to a companion creature thanks to Birth Parasite, which lets you extrude an independent piece of your patron. This takes the form of a parasitic ooze which has its own stat block and acts as your familiar (including benefitting from any Pact of the Chain boons).
The Ooze acts on its own and can make an attack using your modifiers to deal an extra 1d6 + proficiency bonus per hit. It’s pretty handy all things considered, especially since giving birth is only the beginning.
At 10th level, you learn to Transmit Parasite, an ability that lets you use your parasitic ooze to either deal damage to enemies, or protect your allies. As a Bonus Action, you can command your ooze to detonate, in which case it moves up to its speed and then explodes dealing 4d6 damage and blinding creatures that fail a save. Or you can command it to ward a creature, as it attaches itself to a willing ally and lets you communicate telepathically with your warded ally, and the ooze takes damage instead of your ally.
The whole subclass caps off at 14th level with Virulent Form. You unleash a portion of your Patron’s true power as it takes over your form. In game terms, you gain several benefits:
- You become one size category larger
- You gain your Charisma modifier in temporary hit points at the start of each turn
- Your Parasitic Weapon deals 2d8 instead of 1d12 and can crit on a 19 or 20
- You can make an attack with your parasitic weapon as a Reaction whenever you take damage from someone within your reach
There’s a lot going for this subclass. If you like the cosmic horror of having a living ooze or whatever inside you, then you’ll want to check this out.
Look for the Parasite Warlock in Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part 2!
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