Genie Warlock 5E Guide | Warlock Subclass from Tasha’s Cauldron

Care to make a wish? Well, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything can grant it! Warlocks tend to look anywhere and everywhere they can to find patrons, so why not some of the most powerful mortals in the universe? Making a pact with a genie is tricky; they’re cunning, and to give you this much power, you had to find a Noble Genie. You’ll likely be a weapon to play as a pawn in a genie-based rivalry, and this pact will be little more than a bragging right… But at least you get some power out of it! Check out what you’ve earned in our Genie Warlock 5E guide!

What’s Your Wish?: The Genie Warlock 5E

The Genie is a strange utility Warlock with crazy coverage of the spell lists and great options through the 4 types of Genie. Because of that, they have a mix of damage, rest protection, and grants the Warlock access to Wish. They’re very versatile, and quite safe.

When you choose a Genie, you also choose their type; Dao, Djinni, Efreeti, and Marid.

Expanded Spell List

When you get spells, these are spells that you can also learn. The Genie list are the spells you’re guaranteed to get added to the Warlock’s options, and then you gain a second spell from the type of Genie you’ve formed a pact with.

Let’s talk about the spells you’ll always get. Detect Evil and Good tends to be useful, since most campaigns go into combat against Evil things. It may also find you a Fey or Celestial trickster hiding amongst a crowd. Nice for you! Phantasmal Force is one of the better illusion spells that you can make, and you can even theoretically use it to deal damage. It’s better as a problem solving or distraction tool, though. Create Food and Water is also mostly for problem solving, since most DMs don’t care too much about where you get food. When it does come up, you have a literally infinite supply of nutrition. Nice!

Phantasmal Killer is great crowd control and damage, forcing the Frightened condition and even dealing strong damage! Make sure they don’t have a good wisdom save, or immunity to fear, and this will go far! Creation is far too utility-based for it’s own good, but with a creative DM you can make this do anything you want! Usually, Creation is a job for a Wizard, though. Wish is a great spell, but you can only cast it once per day… Though, be very, very careful about using Wish. The Downside of the Wish spell when used creatively is very large.

So, not a horrible list, though they’re mostly utility spells that might be better for Wizards. Of the other options, Efreeti is the best blaster, Dao is a defensive choice, Djinni grants Greater Invisibility, and Marid is about combat control. Choose what your Warlock does best, and go down that line! Or, use the following abilities to decide on your path instead.

Genie’s Vessel

Also at level 1, you gain a Tiny object, which is your spellcasting implement. This is your “Genie’s Bottle”, and thus it should be fairly custom-built to you.

Bottled Respite. As an action, you can magically vanish and enter your vessel, which remains in the space you left. The interior of the vessel is an extradimensional space in the shape of a 20-foot-radius cylinder, 20 feet high, and resembles your vessel… You can remain inside the vessel up to a number of hours equal to twice your proficiency bonus. Once you enter the vessel, you can’t enter again until you finish a long rest.

Genie’s Wrath. Once during each of your turns when you hit with an attack roll, you can deal extra damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus. The type of this damage is determined by your patron: bludgeoning (dao), thunder (djinni), fire (efreeti), or cold (marid).

Bottled Respite is a cool ability, horribly neutered by the final sentence. You get to hide in your own dimension, which can let others carry you, or steal your bottle. And then you have a sick bachelor pad that you can chill out in. And you can stay there for up to 12 hours in the late game! That’s a ton of protection.

Unfortunately, you only get to enter your bottle once per day, so it’s just there to protect you briefly. At least you’ll get a good Short Rest, without needing to talk to anyone else. But… gosh, you really don’t get to use this ability to its fullest!

The other benefit is a pretty small amount of bonus damage, but hey, it hurts things. Dealing 2-6 damage consistently will whittle down an enemy pretty quickly, and it’s not limited to number of times per day or anything. So it’s free!

However, your vessel can be destroyed… Fairly easily. It’s health is your Warlock level plus proficiency bonus, maxing out at 26 at level 20. If someone wants your home destroyed, they’ll decimate it. You can replace it during an hour-long ceremony, so that’s nice at least. You can change your lamp whenever you rest, if you want to. 

This ability isn’t too important. Don’t worry, it’ll get better!

Elemental Gift

At level 6, you gain two significant abilities.

You now have resistance to a damage type determined by your patron’s kind: bludgeoning (dao), thunder (djinni), fire (efreeti), or cold (marid).

In addition, as a bonus action, you can give yourself a flying speed of 30 feet that lasts for 10 minutes, during which you can hover. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

You resist your Genie’s element. Efreeti are representing fire damage, and that tends to be common… But bludgeoning resistance? That’s not common! This is the last ability that your patron’s kind is based on, so you might want to use their spells to determine what type they are. Alternatively… Fire is most common, then bludgeoning, then cold, then thunder. That’s an approximation, of course, but that just tends to be the case.

The flying speed is much more enticing. You gain up to 60 minutes of flight, which is usually enough to handle most situations. You’ll be very magic-item efficient, since this’ll replace your need for flight boots or anything like that. Instead, you can just pop flight and explode into the air. Wonderful! Just make sure you’ll need ten minutes of flight when you use a charge of this.

Sanctuary Vessel

At level 10, you buff your Bottled Respite… Just slightly.

When you enter your Genie’s Vessel via the Bottled Respite feature, you can now choose up to five willing creatures that you can see within 30 feet of you, and the chosen creatures are drawn into the vessel with you.

As a bonus action, you can eject any number of creatures from the vessel, and everyone is ejected if you leave or die or if the vessel is destroyed.

In addition, anyone (including you) who remains within the vessel for at least 10 minutes gains the benefit of finishing a short rest, and anyone can add your proficiency bonus to the number of hit points they regain if they spend any Hit Dice as part of a short rest there.

So, cool, you get to protect all of your allies during that short rest. Alternatively, you can use this to teleport people out of bad situations, like being in a jail cell or falling off a cliff. Then you catch them in your comfy-cozy bedroom, just to chillax. 

However, perhaps more impressive is the buff to short rests. First of all, you reduce one short rest per day from one hour to ten minutes. That’s amazing! That’s so much time saving, so you can do a time-sensitive quest and basically get a free short rest during it. That can be insanely nice… And at least you get another short rest for free. As a Warlock, that’s critical!

Limited Wish

Your final ability, at level 14, is intriguing. You get to talk directly to your patron, and get a modicum of their power.

As an action, you can speak your desire to your Genie’s Vessel, requesting the effect of one spell that is 6th level or lower and has a casting time of 1 action. The spell can be from any class’s spell list, and you don’t need to meet the requirements in that spell, including costly components; the spell simply takes effect as part of this action.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish 1d4 long rests.

This is a pretty wonderful ability. You get to cycle through an infinite series of spells to cast any one you want, and you only spend an action. Admittedly, you don’t get the powerful spells that take awhile to cast, like Restoration. You only get problem solving spells that are useful in fights. That’s okay; scan some of the spell lists for potent 6th level options. You might find things like Conjure Fey or Heal to be useful from Druids, for instance; Heal is an especially good option to have as a class with such limited healing!

Of course, this ability’s usefulness coincides with how well you know the spell list. If you’re familiar with casting, or have a friend who is, this will be insanely good for you! If you get into a situation and get worried, scan the spell lists and start begging!

Pact Boon Synergies

Like most Warlocks, the Genie tends towards two of the three pact boons.

Pact of the Blade

Yeah… no. You get absolutely no reason to go to the frontlines; no temp HP, no Charisma for weapon attacks, no increased armor. Nothing. In fact, with Flight, you’re better off with spells.

Pact of the Chain

Here’s where it gets interesting. The Pact of the Chain is a great way to get a scout for your team. If you want to crush early game encounters, the Imp will decimate any enemy it stings. If that wasn’t good enough, you can have the Imp look like a little Genie themselves. Then you can have him head into your little home and have some great flavor going for you… But realistically the Imp is a stellar scout and great companion.

Pact of the Tome

The Pact of the Tome is the safe option. You get more cantrips from multiple different classes, increasing your general utility. Your invocations open to give you more spells from different classes, giving you access to options that you wouldn’t normally have. If you chose the Genie for utility casting, this is probably the choice for you.

Best Race for The Genie Warlocks

The Genie wants Charisma, since it’s so centered around casting spells and using Eldritch Blast. Afterwards, you can use Dexterity or Constitution to keep yourself safe on the battlefield.

Scourge Aasimar

The Scourge Aasimar are absolute beasts from Volo’s Guide to Monsters. They gain the +2 Charisma, +1 Constitution that I think is oh so perfect for Warlocks. Darkvision is great utility, Celestial resilience gives two solid resistances, and Healing Hands lets you pick your cleric off the ground during touch fights. However, what may be more interesting is Radiant Consumption which, at level 3, allows you to take some damage to deal more damage with each attack. This can really boost your damage per round with Eldritch Blast; Radiant Consumption and Genie’s Wrath is a +16 damage buff at level 20!

Conclusion – Our Take on the Genie Patron

The Genie is a weird one, with a ton of options but a mechanic that’s not too powerful. If you’re looking for a non-standard Warlock, which has a ton of options rather than a few good blasting spells, look no further.