Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Warlocks are illogical

This bothers me a bit. Why would anyone go for a Warlock pact, anyway ?

You literally have to deal with devils of all "people". Yikes !

When you can have pretty much the same level of power by going Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Cleric, or Druid.

Well that, and also frankly Warlocks play very much like one trick ponys.

Only one subclass of Warlock makes a deal with a Devil. Every other subclass gains their power from other powerful entities.

Also, what makes a "Devil" any worse than one of the evil Cleric deities? Like, is Bhaal, Myrkul, Lolth, Shar, Tiamat, Bane, Asmodeus etc any better than your run of the mill Devil?


Firstly, Sorcerers are literally determined at birth. You choose being a Sorcerer as much as you choose what race you are.

Secondly, not everyone has access to an institute to study being a Wizard or Bard. Nor necessarily has the faith to gain power from a deity like a Cleric or Druid.

Warlocks allow any Tom, Dick and Harry to instantly gain incredible power, for the price of having to obey the terms of the pact they made with whomever gave them the power (The details of such a pact being dependant on what was decided between you and the powerful entity)


Technically, one could say the same about any martial class. Where the "One Trick" is "I hit them with my weapon". (The exception being the 2 martial Bard subclasses because for whatever reason, they get to be full Martials AND full Casters)

Warlock can be viewed similarly to the likes of say, EK, AT, Ranger and FE Monk. They have their primary method of engaging in combat (Either Eldritch Blast or weapon usage) but have a limited capacity to utilize spells as well (Whereby they sacrifice per combat uses for spell variety. So they only get a small number of spell slots, but get to choose from a wide variety powerful spells)

You are talking about fiendlock, which is only one flavor of warlock. And Wyll is the best example how a character can end up in a pact without planning too.

If you are a GOOlock, you might not have made the pact knowingly - you might have read an eldritch book, or had an encounter with a strange being - GOOlock is actually the subclass, that makes the most sense in BG3, especially as Durge, since you were in very close proximity to an eldtrich being for a while and it looked for allies:

Feylock can be a good thing too, there are a lot of well meaning patrons. My bard/feylock in our current DnD game has one of the Sea Lords as patrons and they are guarding water creatures and environments. My character made the pact after saving a n innocent sea creature and Elias, one of the Sea Lords, approached her and offered her power, if she looks out for sea creatures and keeps them save. Her father is a ranger, so she felt that this is a noble cause and would have done it anyways. Not every fey is a hag or other mean spirited creature.

There are more patrons in DnD, some of them very likely evil others good, but warlock doesn't have to be a bad thing.
And since it is your game, you can even flavor your fiend patron as someone like Crowley (from Good Omens, not Supernatural in this case), who just doesn't want to meddle in hell politics and is looking to settle down in Faerun, maybe needing a mortal to show them the ropes.

Edit: And warlocks can do a lot of stuff, since they get their spells back on short rest. the pacts are also pretty good and make for different playstyles.

It seems illogical if you approach the game as a simple combat arena.
But warlock is maybe one of the most fascinating RP classes. How did you decide to get into a pact with a "spiritual" being ? How did you manage to do it ? Or was it the "sponsor" who sought you out and seduced or forced you to agree to the pact ?

If you just use "warlock" without constructing any backstory, it may seem bland. But creating the backstory makes it very rich.

As I learned DnD on BG1 I'm not convinced about Warlocks - too new, we didn't use to have them back in the day, etc.
My personal take on them is that they are a variety of Sorcerers - some are born with Powers, some sell their souls for them. And the boring people - Wizards - GASP - you'll never believe this! - actualy read BOOKS and STUDY to have them Powers! The horror!

Yes, that's where the wizard gets illogical. After leveling up, they should find a teacher or library to study and learn for... weeks, months ... to learn their new spells. But they learn them instantly in CRPG's. So, all classes require some degree of acceptance of illogical situations.

Actually the other two options for Warlock master also dont sound pleasant.


About Wizard, I would assume that the spells you "instantly" learn at levelup would actually be spells you have researched on your own time before the levelup.

Either way the solution that we get to learn two spells at levelup is purely from the gaming experience just so much better than the solution in AD&D, when there was a good chance that you would levelup, especially on the lower levels in BG1, and you would simply not know any spell on that new spell level, and there was also no upcasting back in AD&D either, so these slots have been completely useless to you.

To paraphrase "some of my best campaigns have been as warlocks"

I think they're actually a lot of fun and far from a one trick pony.

Okay they have of course more tricks than just one but still compared to the Wizard you'll have very few choices, and even compared to a Bard and Sorcerer your selection of options is somewhat small-ish.

As far as comparing spell selection between Warlock and Wizard then yes I agree Warlocks have fewer options. There is more to the game though than spell mechanics. For me the fun with Warlock lies in the RP aspects. Having a MC whose source of power is either taboo, or the result of some mysterious entity, allows for a lot of fun with the imagination.

I like playing most classes as they all have their strengths and unique attributes.

Well, pact of the blade is something different from wizard or sorceror. I bound my warlock with the sword of justice from Anders in act 1, so you have the +2 AC and a good melee damage, if you need to change to melee.

The details of the pact are best left for the player and DM to work out. Wyll clearly got a bad deal though.

I think Warlock is confusing for how the gain and expend spellslots. It's pretty different than all the other casters. Their spell options are a lot more compressed, not just from the spell list but how the spells are cast and then replenished on short rest. The way the encounters are designed and the whole long resting mechanics of BG3 just make it harder when comparing with Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Druid etc.

I feel like if there were a couple other caster classes that worked in a similar way for their spellslots, it would be easier to get the head around, but that's more of D&D gripe than a bG3 gripe. For BG3 they is some wonkiness when multiclassing Warlock with other Spellcasters.

I think it's fine if you consider that peasants are incredibly and improbably meek in D&D stat block wise. 3 peasants vs. 6 (smart) alley cats is a near certain death encounter.

A warlock is just someone without any special innate talent, who for some reason set out to fight anyway. Like Wyll. If they had a better option, they wouldn't have become warlocks. The concept works for me.

The way I see it, Warlocks are better Wizards (flavour wise).

A wizard learns magic by going to an institute or an older master. They pay with money or favors or work.
A Warlock does the same, but gets their teaching from someone who knows much more than a mortal mage!

Also, you don't need to sell your soul. You could "just" be tasked to kill some random person to further a devil or demons plan.
Read the wrong book at a library and fail your sanity roll to enter a "pact" with a greater older one.
Or agree to work towards creating the best circus company ever for a (very bored) fey.
Or scratch this one hard to reach place for the undying! And so on.

Your task can range from the obvious to the utterly (to you) weird.