Summary
Warlocks are a unique class inDungeons & Dragons,even among their fellow spellcasters. They have fewer spell slots but can cast many things for free, and their spells always work at their strongest potential. And that’s not even mentioning the roleplaying goldmine that is having a patron, the source of your powers, associated with your character.
All that said, it’s also important to ensure your warlock player is being properly challenged - unless your group doesn’t care about difficulty. And how do you verify their skills, spells, and overall tactics are being put to the challenge?
Our goal here is to help you increase difficulty, but that’s about it. We’re not here to help you kill a player character or encourage any Dungeon Master versus Player mentality. Using these tricks too often or having many of them in the same encounter can make things too difficult for your warlock, to the point that it is no longer fun.
Be mindful of when to use these and use them sparingly.
5Analyze Their Patron
And Pact, Just In Case
Aside from roleplaying, the type of patron chosen by the player will dictate the extra features and spells they can get. In other words,it’s their subclass. Some features can catch you by surprise, such as hiding inside their genie patron’s vessel, or the patron may give them spells you weren’t expecting from a warlock, like a sudden Fireball from a fiend patron.
Combined with whatever pact they get at level three, two warlocks can be very different from one another, which also means you need to be extra sure of what they got and what their abilities are so you can properly challenge them.
Of all the options here, be extra aware if they get Hexblade (and most likely Pact Of The Blade) because how they fight will change significantly, turning them into a melee combatant with spells. In other words, their battle tactics will mostly involve getting close to everyone, which also changes how enemies will behave.
4Analyze Their Eldritch Invocations
Even More Customization
Another exclusive thing warlocks get is their Eldritch Invocations, and they can vary a lot. Most of them involve getting a spell that the warlock can cast at will, access to a spell warlocks don’t usually get, or a passive bonus, such as seeing through magical darkness or making Eldritch Blast even better than it usually is.
Similar to spells, this is also something you need to be aware of as your player character levels up because the warlock can go in many different directions depending on which invocations they choose.
Use weaker encounters throughout the adventure to see your players' usual battle tactics so you can think of ways to counter these tactics when powerful bosses are in play.
3Use Antimagic Tactics
From Counters To Excessive Beating
Warlocks are spellcasters that rely on their Charisma, meaning some tricks here are similar to how you deal withother classes, like sorcerers. To fight magic, you may focus your attacks on them to make them break concentration on their Hex or whatever spell they’re using, or you can rely on things such as Counterspell or antimagic areas.
Countering spells from a class that already has few spell slots can be very annoying, but you can instead focus on whatever spells they can cast at will from their Eldritch Invocations, for instance.
Still, you can also make things harder by putting them into constant fights without rests since short rests are enough to recover their spell slots. This will make things harder for the whole party, though, so be extra mindful before doing so.
2Make Social Interactions Harder
Don’t Always Let Them Talk Their Way Out Of Things
Another important detail that is similar to sorcerers is the Charisma aspect. Aside from how the ability score helps with their spells, it also makes them good party faces, with the power to convince people to not attack them, lie their way out of problems, or intimidate people with an angry look.
While the idea of letting your players deal with issues without combat is excellent and should be encouraged, some characters should be harder to convince than others, so you can use high numbers for DCs when the warlock rolls one of these skills or contest it with a saving throw of your own. It’s also important to note that depending on who they’re trying to convince or the situation they’re in, you should just say ‘no’ and cut rolls altogether - You’re not just convincing the BBEG to give up on their plans (unless they have anexcellentargument).
1Use Their Patron Against Them
Add Some Drama To The Relationship
What type of relationship does your warlock and their patron have? Many players enjoy the classic ‘deal with the Devil’ trope that warlocks get, though many players also create good relationships between their characters and patrons. Either way, this is something you can explore to add extra obstacles during the campaign.
The patron can make complicated or even ludicrous requests based on their personality, temporarily revoke powers just to mess around with the character, or even have a serious discussion about cutting off their connection entirely.
We only recommend these situations that may cause loss of power if you and your player are okay with such a prospect and want to have games with a strong narrative where the relationship between the characters is unstable and heavily layered. Otherwise, ‘threatening’ to take all their powers away just for the sake of challenging them can create a tense environment between the two of you.
