Warlock - Pact of the Aegis
Take Up the Shield, by Manuel Castañón © Wizards of the Coast LLC
The Pact of the Aegis gives you an empowered and eldritch shield, a gift from your patron to suit a warlock who wades into the fray and stands on the front line.
The Pact of the Aegis grants a warlock a powerful defensive boon, a pact shield which they can use for defense, offense, and maybe even for spellcasting too. The basic invocation gives you a pact shield, which you can use as a normal shield and as a melee weapon. It gives you Extra Attack once you hit level 5, rather than forcing you to pay an invocation tax for it. And it gives you heavy armor proficiency, unique among warlocks. And it comes with a set of new invocations! Ally's Aegis is a straightforward defensive boon, enhancing the armor and saves of everyone around you. Eldritch Bash turns your shield into a spellcasting focus and lets you apply cantrip riders on your attacks — finally a good reason to care about a cantrip that's not Eldritch Blast (though, for good measure, it does work with EB's push invocation). Empowered Bash is for warlocks who can't live without using Charisma for attack and damage; you don't have to pay a subclass tax, but it's still gonna cost you an invocation. Whirling Aegis lets you hurl your shield as a ranged weapon, even ricocheting it around your enemies like a pinball wizard. And Reflected Agony lets you slam enemies as payback for their attacks, giving you an unreliable third attack.
And, as a bonus, the Pact of the Aegis is also fully compatible with the Omega Warlock, by SwEcky! It's a warlock revision that has been the standard at my table and many others for years, which rebalances the pacts and elevates them into full subclasses (for a dual-subclass design). The Omega version of the Pact of the Aegis is similar, but with some key differences and reworks to better suit the situation. Eldritch Aegis provides the pact's base features, with Eldritch Bash and Ally's Aegis unchanged. Extra Bash at 5th is just our version of Extra Attack. Ricochet Attack is reworked slightly, with its bonus damage rescaled and moved into its own feature, Empowered Bash — this provides some added damage scaling into tier 3. And Mighty Bulwark at level 18 is totally new, giving you a brutally effective tool for defending yourself and allies.
As always, you're invited to come discuss and offer feedback on Discord!
