Hello warlocks! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 54th episode of our invocation series and this will actually be the final invocation added in through the tasha’s cauldron of everything book. So it’s safe to say we’ll be waiting quite sometime before some more added but i wait eagerly with baited breath.
In any case today we’re gonna be diving into is undying servitude a good invocation? which provides a lot of interesting flavor although i do have some concerns regarding its overall scalability and utility. In any case before we dive into its description and prerequisites i’d like to point out that if you’d like to see the full category please do feel free to check this link. In any case let’s dive right into undying servitude.
Description
Under the prerequisites it is required that you are at least a 5th level warlock. And the description reads as followed: You can cast animate dead without using a spell slot. Once you do so you can’t cast it in this way again until you finish a long rest.
It’s really simple! There’s a handful of warlock invocations that behave almost identical to this. I really do feel like this is just to give them a more of a necromantic kind of a feel to them. Although most necromancy based warlocks have been able to do this by simply multi-classing. However if you’re in a game that doesn’t allow multi-classing and you’d like to be able to have some sense of necromancy in your play style. Do you know what are the dnd 5e undying servitude spells.
This is certainly the best way to do it. There are a couple different patrons you can choose that give you access to kind of pseudo undead abilities, namely the undying, the undead and to a lesser extent the hex blade warlock. However they are at best pseudo undead and even in addition to that the warlock will likely never get a subclass that just gives them an extended spell list with animate dead 5e on it.
This is likely due to balancing reasons. The warlocks always casting their spells at the highest level and regaining them on a simple short rest. Make it rather interesting when it comes to creating a horde of zombies. Or skeletons whichever one you may choose. In any case let’s move on to the walk through here.
Walkthrough
So it is quite simple essentially once per long rest, you can cast the animate dead spell at its third level. Without burning through one of your precious spell slots. So it’ll give you access to one undead minion so to speak we have a whole article on animate dead so feel free to check that out in the third level spells list.
In any case it is rather interesting, there’s a strong argument to be made for you putting armor and giving them weapons, so they can scale as you level which is of course quite nice. In addition to that they provide excellent role play opportunities not only for yourself and your party but for the dungon master as well and through a lesser extent the reaction of NPCs. Now let’s move on to my personal thoughts.
Thoughts
I do love the idea of there being a lich or pseudo lich warlock rather and with the undying patron it’s certainly achievable now you can even have your own undead minion. However in terms of its viability at higher levels i’m a little bit worried with regards to that.
However i still think if this is the route you’re trying to go multi-classing is still gonna be your best way to achieve this result, just based off of the way packed magic works. There’s no real reason not to. Don’t miss these articles ghostly gaze 5e | eldritch sight 5e | eldritch invocations 5e |
Conclusion
That being said, however as pointed out in some of my prior articles not every game allows multi-classing. So in those cases i think this particular invocation is quite useful at least during earlier levels of play. Once again it’s scalability and viability has me a little bit concerned.
That being said, however i suppose the idea of equipping said skeleton or zombie with weapons and armor and upgrading and through extension scaling them that way is certainly within the realm of possibilities. That being said, let me know what you think of undying servitude down beneath in the comment section, be sure to mention any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns you have regarding it. As always i hope you all have a wonderful day and of course happy adventuring.