2024 Warlock vs. 2014 Warlock: What’s New (2024)

If there’s one thing a Warlock knows, it’s how to make a bargain. While Warlocks received some pretty noticeable changes in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, the Warlocks must have made sure their patrons were part of the negotiating committee. Warlocks’ powerful patron magic has been shifted around, allowing you to access certain powers earlier and pack a more pronounced punch when you do. The 2024 Warlock also comes with an impressive and robust amount of customization by treating your Eldritch Invocations as an even larger smorgasbord of options than before.

Below, we cover key changes to the 2024 Warlock you’ll find in the new Player’s Handbook. If there’s a feature we don’t cover, such as Pact Magic, that means it remains unchanged or saw minor changes.

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2024 Warlock Class Features Overview

Artist: Néstor Ossandón Leal

Eldritch Invocations — Level 1

One of the first noticeable changes to the 2024 Warlock is that you get access to your first Eldritch Invocation at Warlock level 1 now instead of level 2. Overall, Eldritch Invocations have received a major overhaul, with key changes including several quality-of-life updates. Let’s take a look at some of the big shifts.

Pact Boons Are Now Eldritch Invocations

In the 2014 Warlock, your Pact Boon, such as Pact of the Blade, Pact of the Tome, or Pact of the Chain, was a separate feature bestowed at level 3. In the 2024 Warlock, the Pact Boon feature is gone, and these pacts are now options you can choose as part of your Eldritch Invocations. In the 2014 Warlock, further improvements to your Pact Boon were accessible via invocations, such as Gift of the Protectors, Investment of the Chain Master, and Thirsting Blade. So rolling Pact Boons entirely into Eldritch Invocations simplifies the structure while preserving the mechanics.

There are two really important and beneficial aspects to this shift. First, you no longer have to choose between them. All three of the former Pact Boon options can be selected as you level up and gain access to more invocations. So, you could have a pact weapon via Pact of the Blade, a familiar via Pact of the Chain, and a Book of Shadows from Pact of the Tome.

Second, while some Eldritch Invocations do carry prerequisite levels, such as Agonizing Blast, which requires you to be a level 2+ Warlock, the former Pact Boon invocations do not. This means you can select from a familiar, Book of Shadows, or pact weapon as early as level 1. The 2014 Player’s Handbook had these features arrive at level 3, so you’re getting them 2 levels earlier for the 2024 Warlock.

More Eldritch Invocations

Seeing as you get an invocation at level 1, and the progression has been expedited, 2024 Warlocks will have access to more invocations than their 2014 counterpart, maxing out at 10 when they hit level 18.

As with the older version of the Warlock, whenever you gain a Warlock level, you can replace one invocation with another as long as it isn’t a prerequisite for another invocation that you have.

Some Eldritch Invocations Can Be Repeated

Popular Eldritch Invocations for Warlocks like Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast are still here but with a couple of big changes.

First, they are no longer limited to Eldritch Blast. Instead, you choose one of your known Warlock cantrips that deals damage, and now you can add your Charisma modifier to that damage roll. So now you can boost damage for Toll the Dead or Thunderclap with Agonizing Blast if that suits your Warlock build better than Eldritch Blast. Note, however, that Repelling Blast is restricted to cantrips that deal damage via an attack roll.

Next, you can select these invocations multiple times when adding new Eldritch Invocations. So if you’re trying to build a cantrip powerhouse, you could add Agonizing Blast or Repelling Blast to multiple cantrips. But of course, you still can use it for Eldritch Blast because, let’s face it, if you’re a Warlock, you’re probably going to want to.

Spell Slots? Who Needs ‘em?

With the exception of Eldritch Smite, which deals a significant amount of damage and gives an enemy the Prone condition, none of the 2024 Player’s Handbook Eldritch Invocations carry the "using a Warlock spell slot" description. You still have spell slots for your Pact Magic, but they largely no longer fuel the invocations you get from your patron. Instead, your Eldritch Invocations feel like a wholly separate power branch unique to the Warlock class.

The customization allowed via these changes to invocations makes the 2024 Warlock feel more like someone who has pored over contracts with their patron and selected the powers best suited to them.

Magical Cunning — Level 2

The Warlock's Pact Magic and spell slot progression works the same way for the 2024 Warlock as it did for 2014. You also can still recover expended spell slots at the end of a Short or Long Rest. Magical Cunning gives you another way to recover your Warlock spell slots, however. Now, once per Long Rest, you can use this feature to spend 1 minute on a ritual that restores half of your maximum spell slots, rounded up.

The Eldritch Master feature granted at level 20 still allows you to regain all of your Pact Magic spell slots, but flavor-wise, it is now considered a more powerful version of this level 2 feature.

Warlock Subclass — Level 3

Artist: Jodie Muir

At level 3, your 2024 Warlock gains their subclass. While Warlocks used to get their subclass at level 1, this brings the Warlock in line with the other class options in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, which will make it easier for a party of players to manage their levels and for a DM to keep track of player advancement.

The Archfey, Fiend, and Great Old One Patrons all received substantial overhauls, updates to their always-prepared spell lists, quality-of-life changes, and tweaks that bring them more in line with their flavor concepts.

• Archfey Patron: The Archfey Patron subclass leans more into the Feywild nature of your patron. Misty Step is added to your prepared spell list, and many of the features of this subclass give you extra uses of the spell, along with healing bonuses and damage effects on enemies when you use it. Beguiling Defenses has also been updated to reduce damage you take and inflict damage with a Reaction.
• Celestial Patron: Celestial Resilience now also grants Temporary Hit Points when you finish your Magical Cunning ritualor complete a Short or Long Rest.
• Fiend Patron: Dark One’s Blessing now also grants you Temporary Hit Points if someone else reduces an enemy to 0 Hit Points within 10 feet of you. Instead of once per Long Rest, you can use Dark One’s Own Luck a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier and use Hurl Through Hell again by expending a Pact Magic spell slot.
• Great Old One Patron: The Great One One Patron has received the biggest changes to any of the 2024 Warlock subclasses and now is much more heavily focused on the Lovecraftian, eldritch horror elements of it. The features of this subclass now are heavily centered on using your patron’s powers to curse your enemies with Hex, break their minds with Psychic damage, and even unleash aberrant horrors on the battlefield.

Contact Patron — Level 9

The 2024 Player’s Handbook has a brand new feature for Warlocks that ties directly into your role as the recipient of power from a patron. Starting at level 9, every 2024 Warlock has the ability to reach out and contact their patron directly once per Long Rest. This feature grants you the spell Contact Other Plane as an always-prepared spell. You can use the spell once per day to contact your patron without expending a spell slot, and you automatically succeed on the Intelligence saving throw required to complete the spell. So, go ahead and ask your patron if you can have cake for dinner. You deserve it.

Mystic Arcanum — Level 11

Mystic Arcanum functions and progresses the same as it did for the 2014 Warlock with one extra benefit. Whenever you gain a Warlock level beyond 11, you may replace one of your arcanum spells with another of the same level. This was a choice under the optional feature Eldritch Versatility in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, which is now part of the base Warlock class.

Epic Boon — Level 19

Epic Boons are a new type of feat introduced in the revised core ruleset, that all carry a prerequisite of level 19+ to access. A level 19 Warlock has access to one Epic Boon of their choice or another feat they qualify for. There are twelve Epic Boons found in the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

The following is the recommended Epic Boon for a 2024 Warlock:

• Boon of Fate: Increase one ability score of 1 to a maximum of 30. When you or another creature within 60 feet of you succeeds or fails on a D20 Test, you can roll 2d4 and add or subtract the result from the d20 roll. Once you use this feat, you can’t use it again until you complete a Short Rest, a Long Rest, or roll for Initiative.

What a Deal!

The updates to the 2024 Player’s Handbook for Warlocks pack a lot of changes into the earlier levels and then allow you to settle into a more familiar level progression as you develop. The changes really lean heavily into the chosen flavor of your Warlock and their relationship to their patron. Does your pact mean you’re a cunning swordslinger, slicing your way through your enemies fueled by your Charisma? Do you want to zip across the battlefield hopped up on Feywild magic? Or do you want to use powerful psychic magic to weaken your enemies and bring them to heel? With the 2024 Warlock, the choice is yours.

A lot has changed in the 2024 core rules revisions, and we’re excited to share more of what you can expect. Stay tuned for additional class guides for the 2024 Player’s Handbook and more!

Ready to see what's next for D&D? The 2024 Player's Handbook, 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, and 2024 Monster Manual are all available for preorder on the D&D Beyond marketplace. Plus, you can save $60 and get exclusive digital bonuses when you preorder the !

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.