Warlock Patrons: The Celestial

Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Sometimes you envision an archon or solar, a majestic, radiant justicar of goodness and think “why ask gods for powers when these creatures are so freaking cool on their own?” If so, the Celestial warlock is for you. It takes the customization options the base warlock class offers and opens up an even more supportive route than any other option gets access to, getting a huge pool of free healing dice, backline caster damage improvements, a massive increase in your spell repertoire for healing and defense, and a capstone that staves off death is massive burst of light. This option slaps, and will deliver on a ton of potential fantasies and encourage a variety of builds that can help any warlock thrive.

1st-3rd Level: Healing Light, Bonus Cantrips, and Expanded Spells

Healing Light is the standout feature Celestial warlocks get. Getting two free healing dice at 1st level makes this something you can easily even dip into with multiclassing. Sticking with it grows that pool larger and larger, offering you what will feel like your level plus one’s worth of Healing Words (the only healing spell you probably ever need). It, on its own, will be more than enough healing for any character to consider, costs you only a bonus action to use, and unlike regular Healing Word, still lets you cast spells with your action. Healing Light is probably the best healing ability in 5e.
Quick tip: save them for creatures who are under, unless you can spend enough to keep them from dropping in the first place. A creature going from 0 to 3 hit points from 1d6 or 6 from 2d6 likely still drops to one more attack roll; spend them wisely to keep people off 0 and in the fight longer by using only as many as you absolutely need to.
Light and Sacred Flame are both perfectly fine to pick up for free. Healing Light is good enough that these are likely mainly just flavor enhancers, not major upgrades. Still, Sacred Flame can be a damaging option you can lean on in the mid tiers, and Light… well, Light’s basically just a torch, but hey, it's free, so… yay? It enhances the thematics, lets go with that.
Cure Wounds is a 1st level optional spell from your expanded spell list that you do not need. I really want to hit this point home: Healing Light is more than enough healing. You are getting one of the best healing tools in the game. You do not need more healing, and Cure Wounds isn’t good healing. You do not need Cure Wounds.
Guiding Bolt, on the other hand, is a solid single target damaging option for the first few levels. Past 3rd level it's going to be difficult to justify spending spell slots on this, especially given that its upcast is just 1d6 bonus dice. It won’t hurt to have on your sheet for the long haul as your only “big” single target damage option, and can even find times occasionally in the mid tiers to shine. By no means a bad spell, but not the best with Pact Magic, and not something you’ll look to be regularly casting past the early game.
Flaming Sphere is a 2nd level scaling consistent extra damage option.It gives you an early bonus action damaging effect to play around with, and can really help out the backline caster fantasy options thrive in the lower tiers. 2d6 bonus damage to an area each turn you control with just a bonus action is pretty sweet; for a 3rd level slot, only get 1d6 more damage isn’t great, but still likely can show up from time to time. Past that, you’ll have better options than this, so you probably can drop it past 6th level.
Lesser Restoration is a notable inclusion here simply because its an effect a lot of tables want to have access to. It's a spell you’ll learn, and will only ever need to cast to beat specific effects; if it ever dismisses paralysis, it's exceptional. It's no Dispel Magic, by any stretch, but if you’re happy with your current repertoire of spells you’re casting, Lesser Restoration can be nice to pick up and just have for the mid tiers of play. You won’t regularly cast it, but when it comes up, the whole table will be thankful somebody was responsible. If you’re playing with bard, cleric, or druid, though, you probably can just let them worry about it.

4th-7th Level: Radiant Soul and 3rd and 4th level Expanded Spells

Radiant Soul is the biggest “build around” option offered; it gives you bonus damage with radiant or fire damage to one creature hit by a spell you cast when you cast it. There are a lot of words here that are important to keep in mind; you only ever deal bonus damage to a single target, and that damage only occurs when you cast the spell, not any time after that. Flaming Sphere, for example, will deal no bonus damage, as it deals no damage on cast. Radiant Soul empowers your Sacred Flame to add mod to damage which will make it feel like a long-ranged greatsword, which is pretty baller. Paired with quicken spell, you can do some nifty extra casts of cantrips if you look outside warlock to empower this further; as is, it likely is going to just make all the damaging effects you already liked meaningfully better.
Plus, Radiant Soul gives you resistance to both damage types, a decent improvement for frontline builds. Not a big reason to be a martial Celestial warlock, but a fine enough quality of life upgrade, specifically with fire damage (the more common of the two types).
Daylight is technically a 3rd level spell. It’s a super torch. You probably don’t ever want a super torch. You just don’t need it. It doesn’t blind creatures. It doesn’t have applications outside of lighting things up and dismissing magical darkness. No character ever needs this, especially warlocks with only two spell slots per short rest.
Revivify, on the other hand, is resurrection magic normally locked to 5th level clerics and druids. If you don’t have either in your group, this can be something you pick up like Lesser Restoration just to have it for when you need it. Death can be swift and unexpected; keep a few diamonds on you if you plan on picking this up. Even with a cleric or druid with it, having two characters with Revivify gives everyone a little death safety net. Just don’t die getting eaten by a dragon or anything.
Guardian of Faith is such a cool addition to the warlock spell list; normally a cleric exclusive, getting a 10 ft. radius pool of 60 damage to mess around with adds a layer of consistency to warlocks. On top of that, Guardian of Faith has an eight hour duration, meaning with short rest recharge spell slots, you can readily and easily set these up as defenses for specific locations to fall back to. You can pretty regularly set these up as defense measures before short resting in a couple of places, recharge the slots, and continue about your business with two areas you know will have damaging defenses in place. You’re happy to spend 4th level slots on these, and occasionally a 5th in a pinch, especially given they don’t require concentration and will hit like a bus.
Wall of Fire is a great little scaling area of effect damaging spell. If you can ever get two instances of damage of this on multiple creatures, it is better than Fireball. That can be a tall order, especially given that it eats your concentration, but with some teamwork, you can deal the damage on cast and proceed to pin enemies down within 10 feet of it or force them to move through it for the bonus damage. It's a fun spell to play with, and a fine addition to caster-based damaging warlocks in the backline.

8th-10th Level: Celestial Radiance and 5th Level Expanded Spells

Celestial Radiance is another 10th level defensive feature that acts kind of like a better version of Aid cast every short rest. You get a big pool of temp HP, they get a medium sized pool of temp HP, all for free. What I like about Celestial Radiance is unlike many of the character specific options, this rewards the entire team for your build. It fits perfectly as a defensive tool for Celestial warlocks that doubles as a protective tool for their allies. It's not revolutionary, and makes some invocation options you may have considered earlier quite a bit worse, but is a notable improvement.
Flame Strike is going to feel like a 5th level cast of a 3rd level Fireball, with one creature taking bonus damage equal to your Charisma modifier from Radiant Soul. I have a hard time justifying this, but when it is the best “I need a big area of damage now” spell Celestial warlocks have access to. It’ll typically feel good to use if you’re not regularly being shown up by the wizard or sorcerer blasting Fireballs everywhere. You probably will want this on your sheet if you’re slinging spells from the backline.
Greater Restoration is a replacement for Lesser Restoration; if you have Lesser Restoration, swap it out now! Beyond that, it's again really nice to have for when you need it. If you have a full caster friend that can prepare it, though, I’d try to shift that responsibility to them instead.

14th Level: Searing Vengeance

Searing Vengeance is truly an epic celestial fantasy; should you make a death save, you instead defy death, instantly getting half your max HP hit points back, stand up, and unleash a burst of light that blinds and damages whatever creatures you desire to, no save required. Now, this isn’t an option that you really can choose how to weaponize most effectively, but it does majorly reward melee celestial warlocks. It is a reason on its own to go Thirsting Blade and get into the thick of it. Those builds can weaponize a high constitution for more hit points regained, and can make the most of the brief blind. Even outside of melee warlocks, having a free tool to defy death and get half your max HP back in disastrous situations can prevent TPKs entirely. Healers with an extra life are amazing.

All Together

Celestial warlocks can go any number of directions and always provide cheap, powerful healing and protection to the group. They really love being backline damage batteries, firing off Radiant Soul empowered Sacred Flames, Guiding Bolts, and Flaming Spheres early, eventually growing towards Flame Strikes later. You get potent support tools with Healing Light, Revivify, and Celestial Radiance. These defensive options also make frontlining with a pact weapon greatsword entirely reasonable, especially with damaging area control tools without concentration like Guardian of Faith on your expanded spell list. Celestial warlock is one of the most flexible warlock options in the game with a ton of juice and flavor to make it rewarding for nearly any build to play with.

Thank you for visiting!

If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.

The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a. ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0. A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.

Warlock 5e