This invocation won’t top that in value probably. So for combat, Investment of the Chain Master normally makes your familiar stay relevant damage wise as they now don’t compete with your Eldritch Blast. ![]() There are three Chain-exclusive invocations in the available official content: one lets you heal way more when your familiar is nearby, one has several benefits that increase its ability DC and attack on a bonus action, and the last increases your familiar telepathy range to same-plane and talk through them. It’s not WOW! (the hidden wisp no one talks about) worthy, but it’s probably not bad. If they don’t plan on, or have an opportunity where its appropriate, to use a proper spell slot on a damage attack, they can always use the charge on an Eldritch Blast. Warlocks only get so many spells per short rest, and if two of their uses happen to be damage dealers, then they have a means of ensuring a better damage roll. I don’t think the potential is off the walls, but its a reliable means of ensuring better damage on some of your spells. Advanced Color Theory never got used in our game because our Warlock was a Chain warlock and it is exclusive for Tomelocks, so I can’t say how powerful it is outside of theory. Starting with Advanced Color Theory (oh my god I’m brilliant), there is one Invocation for each Pact as well as a general one for any Wisp Warlock. Also the Color Power for FRENZY! is rad as hell. This is meant to be a primarily combat focused familiar, its perks and benefits will shine in that area. Our Warlock never used FRENZY! to scout ahead, but if they did they would probably have found out how good Blindsight can be for a scouting familiar. We originally had Blindsight on the FRENZY! but in hindsight its probably too much even though it fits thematically. FRENZY! also has Pack Tactics like the Emberborn because as far as I can remember, there’s no way of increasing your familiar’s attack bonus outside of some magic items. The Investment of the Chain Master overcomes it and lets you use your bonus action to get your Familiar to attack. At Level 5, the Eldritch Blast gets another die so the Wisp becomes a less appealing use of your action. The logic behind the damage is that the average damage on a hit from FRENZY! ends up being 9 damage, one of the types is necrotic so more rarely resisted, and a basic Eldritch Blast with 16 CHA at level 1 is 8.5 damage with the Agonizing Blast invocation. Instead of three damage immunities I dropped it to damage resistance against non-magical physical damage, lowered the max HP by a damage die, and dropped the damage die down to a 1d4+1d6 rather than 1d6+1d6. ![]() So I pretty much aped off the Emberborn familiar from that book, but tweaked it to be more wispy. I have owned the Compendium of Forgotten Secrets since maybe 2019, and it is so ripe with flavorful options for cool Warlock patron content. It’s a delicate tightrope to walk, so we look to our objectively superiors. We’ve always turned to homebrew for aid in getting better options that make Chain familiars not complete trash mechanically compared to just eldritch blasting. Most of the games I’ve played in have had a Warlock in them, or someone who has a Familiar and wants the gameplay and aesthetic of having an actually useful addition to combat in their familiar/animal companion. Pact of the Chain Warlocks get a few additional options to pick from with more combat utility, but not by much, and they don’t have a lot of long term viability for combat. The options you can pick from a regular Find Familiar are almost entirely for supporting you in non-combat means, with the closest to active combat benefits being creatures like the Owl statblock who can do Flyby Help actions. Familiars kind of suck for combat by default.
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