So you’re the DM of aDungeons & Dragonscampaign, and you havethe honor of a warlockbeing in your party. Except… your player says they’re thinking about trying a new character build. Maybe they want to try a new class altogether, or maybe they simply want to try another subclass.
It’s also possible that your campaign is wrapping up, and you want to resolve narrative loose ends with the warlock. Either way, your player needs options for getting out of their pact. Here are a few options to discuss with your player for resolving things with their patron, from least to most drastic.
9Ask Nicely
Worth A Shot
This method has a very low chance of success. A warlock saying, “Please, Mr. Archdevil, can I go home now?” has a very high chance of getting themselves thrown into the Nine Hells for all eternity as a lemure, so think before you suggest this to your players.
If the warlock’s patron is a more benevolent entity, however, this actually becomes a viable idea.A celestial or other good-aligned creatureis probably going to be much more amenable to releasing a warlock from their pact if things just aren’t working out. Otherwise, you’ll probably need to come up with better ideas.
8Search For An Escape Clause
Every Decent Contract Should Have One
As with many tools in the DM’s arsenal, this one is best discussed with your players before the game starts. But even if you don’t have the opportunity, it’s always a good idea to have alternative escape conditions in place as part of a warlock’s pact. This enables your player to choose whether they want to keep playing the character or re-spec.
Keep in mind, however, that the price to pay can be steep indeed. Perhaps, for instance, the archdevil patron will release the warlock from servitude if they sacrifice 99 innocent souls to the Nine Hells. You can use this as an opportunity to create one last side quest before your player re-specs.
7Get Creative With The Terms
Who Doesn’t Love A Loophole?
This isn’t an option in itself so much as an alternative route your players could come up with. D&D players are nothing if not creative, however, so we thought it would be prudent to tell you to prepare for this. If their plan is creative enough and your players went through a lot of effort, you should probably let it work.
Remember that archdevil who wanted exactly 99 innocent souls to be sacrificed for Asmodeus? Perhaps the contract never said they needed to be the souls of humanoid creatures. If your players decide to sacrifice 99 puppies, bees, or any other innocent creature, it might count as fulfilling the contract.
6Fulfill Your Pact
Sometimes, The Only Way Out Is Through
Not every pact needs to last an eternity. This is a potential way out that should ideally be discussed with your player before the campaign begins, since their character would probably know about it. Still, it’s a straightforward and believable way to allow a warlock to be released from servitude. Talk with your warlock’s player to see if they have any suggestions.
Perhaps that archfey stipulated that your warlock would serve them for a year and a day, which is just enough time in-game to experience the events of the campaign. Or perhaps the eldritch being from the void beyond the stars only needed the warlock to serve them until a certain artifact was destroyed. It’s pretty easy to come up with ways to end a warlock’s contract organically.
5Search For Magical Intervention
Hey, It (Mostly) Works
At higher levels, players gain access to the Wish spell. This is a powerful spell with the ability to rewrite reality, so your warlock could theoretically use it to get out of their pact. However, this doesn’t come without a catch. Adding a monkey’s paw to a wish is a time-honored tradition, so don’t be afraid to do it if it makes narrative sense.
There are also a few other options players have at their disposal if they want to break a pact through magical means. The Fates card from theDeck of Many Thingsallows a character to erase one event from their past, as if it never happened. This could extend to agreeing to a warlock pact, but your players will probably cause a time paradox or two in the process.
4Find A Better Deal
Better The (Literal) Devil You Don’t Know
This option has the potential to get messy very quickly, but it still provides plenty of narrative interest. If your player simply wants to change warlock subclasses, this necessitates the introduction of a new patron. You should discuss this with your player, as this involves making an entirely new NPC.
Narratively speaking, your player’s old patron probably isn’t going to be too pleased about this turn of events. A devil whose warlock forsakes them for a fae is going to result in tense social encounters for your party, where every word they utter could spell their doom.
3Get Right With The Gods
Divine Intervention: Not Just For Clerics
If your party has a cleric among their ranks, this option is pretty viable. At higher levels, clerics can usetheir Divine Intervention abilityto ask their gods to tip the scales of fate in their favor. With some communication, you could plot out a scene where your cleric helps the warlock to escape their patron.
Ideally, the god in question should have some history with the warlock’s patron, or at least have a domain that would naturally concern them with the patron’s affairs. If your party doesn’t have a cleric, or your players want to involve a different god, then this method becomes much more difficult and probably requires a lengthy sidequest.
2Kill Your Patron
You Can’t Have A Contract When One Party Is Dead
Ask yourself this right now: does the warlock’s patron have stats? If so, they are killable, and their death becomes one possible route to a warlock’s freedom. This is a great way to wrap up loose ends at the end of the campaign, and other party members can get involved in freeing their friend from the patron’s clutches.
We highly recommend this method for most patrons, since it gives you a quest and encounter to plan without leaving any players out of the fun. If your warlock’s player doesn’t want to change classes, it’s also easy enough to just say that their warlock powers will fade away sometime after the campaign ends.
1Die
You Can’t Have A Contract When You’re Dead
This is by far the most drastic option, but it’s also the one with the highest rate of success. If your player is amenable to rolling up a new character, you could simply come to an agreement to kill their existing warlock off in a blaze of glory. No warlock, no pact.
Of course, most players don’t want their characters to die. If this is the case, you could perhaps have your patron state that their pact is binding until the warlock dies… but then say absolutely nothing about the possibility of resurrection. If the character needs to stay dead, undeath is a possible option to discuss with your player.
