Great Fool Patron Warlock: Crooked Moon D&D 5e Optimisation Guide

Mock and torment with the powers of the great fool.

At a glance

Great fool patron features

Great fool spells (Lv 3) – 3/5

The spells here are OK and there is some decent variety. Disguise self can be good on a charisma build, hideous laughter is a solid, low level save or suck spell and vicious mockery is a decent cantrip.

You’ve also got some crowd control in stinking cloud, some damage dealing with phantasmal killer and arcane hand is quite a good continuous effect spell. None of these spells are really exciting though and spells like spiritual weapon and blink can be hard to justify concentration on.

Puppet master is excellent though. It’s like enemies abound but with more control over who’s attacked. This does require a wisdom saving throw, which is typically better on monsters than the intelligence required from enemies abound, but this does save the spell list from complete mediocrity.

Killing joke (Lv3) – 4/5

An extra cantrip worth of damage on quite a few rounds is pretty good for upping your damage output. As vicious mockery is a cantrip, it scales in damage with your level too. You’ll even get to debuff the enemy a bit too with disadvantage on an attack roll.

Jester’s japes (Lv6) – 4/5

An action to cause a reasonably substantial debuff for up to a minute is quite good. Some of these effects are better and more useful than others. Specifically flower spurt and jolly arms. Blindness is usually a big problem and half damage on attacks will be a big problem for non-spellcasting creatures.

I feel like clown shoes will rarely be more useful than the previous 2 options. Honk honk may be useful occasionally and certainly has decent roleplay value, but it remains more situational than the rest.

Still, you get something equivalent to about a level 2 spell each short rest that doesn’t require concentration but can last the length of an encounter. That’s pretty decent and remains decent at higher levels too.

Mocking banter (Lv10) – 4/5

This somewhat conflicts with killing joke as it requires a reaction to use, but this will be useful once per encounter at most and can be easily used at times when it will be more potent. It also can occur during differing circumstances. Rather than being in conflict, I think this simply gives you another chance to deal damage with your reaction. Just make sure you use it against big damage attacks for maximum output.

Send in the clowns (Lv14) – 4/5

This is 6d10 damage per turn with the option of directing this against multiple targets and causing prone or frightened for a round. It’s a great alternative to your spell slots.

If we compare this to eldritch blast. This is 2-3d10 more damage each turn (depending on your level) plus a minor condition imposed for a round making this a decent upgrade. However, if we add agonising blast into the mix, this changes a bit. If we assume you have 20 charisma at this point, eldritch blast will be averaging 31.5 damage or 42 damage at level 17. Send in the clowns averages 33 damage. So this is better until level 17, but if you have the agonising blast eldritch invocation, you may need to consider whether the extra effects are worth the damage reduction at later levels. I’d often say so, but it’s one to consider.

This will work best when targeting multiple creatures so you can inflict frightened or prone on multiple creatures each turn. There’s no saving throw here either so on a hit, even the BBEG is getting frightened or knocked prone. That’s a potential problem, but neither of these are debilitating enough to be a huge issue for a BBEG (and some may be immune to these conditions anyway).

How good is the great fool patron subclass?

The Great Fool accomplishes the idea of whimsy and mockery within their skillset. Despite the humour, there’s a devilish amount of trickery too. You get a really solid damage boost with reactions doing the heavy lifting at most levels here. There’s also a lot of preserving of spell slots by granting spell adjacent features.

The Great Fool is let down a little by a very mediocre spell list, but puppet master is excellent and most of the rest are decent enough.

If you want to mock your enemies, cause them damage and a reasonably regular tirade of minor debuffs, then the great fool patron is a really solid option.

4/5

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Building a great fool patron warlock

Great fool warlocks can fit most kinds of warlock builds meaning that largely the same build recommendations for any warlock also apply to great fools. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my warlock optimisation guide.

As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for this warlock subclass.

Species/race

Below are some of The Crooked Moon species that I think have the best synergy with the great fool patron subclass:

• Azureborn: Flight is really handy for staying safe from melee specialists, especially for a ranged build. Guidance and augury are both good spells and augury can be cast again by a warlock. Enhanced initiative for the party is good on any class.
• Bogborn: Warlocks tend to make a lot of attacks rolls either through their pact weapon or eldritch blast so guiding bond is a useful boost to those attack rolls. Bonus action healing is useful too for a sometimes melee class that isn’t the toughest.
• Gnarlborn: A changeable skill proficiency is useful for a class that’s likely to be the party face. Restraining as a bonus action will give your bonus action something important to be doing and fits with the multitude of debuffs the great fool warlock likes to be spreading around the battlefield.
• Harvestborn: More damage against bloodied creatures works nicely for a class that often focuses on damage dealing. Bonus action is the other useful thing here. You don’t have a lot occupying your bonus action so this gives you an option to help the party.
• Plagueborn: A face skill is useful for a charisma class. You also get poison resilience and another option for debuffing those you attack.
• Relicborn: A face skill is good for a charisma class (even if it’s performance). This is especially the case as you can use this with your bonus action to grant yourself advantage on your next attack roll and potentially gain temporary hit points. Moment of remembrance is good, but may conflict a bit with your other reaction options.

Backgrounds

Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for a great fool warlock:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Crossroads gambler	Any	Fate gambler	Deception, insight	One kind of gaming set
Cultist	Any	Cult initiate	Arcana and one other	Calligrapher’s supplies
Druskenvald dweller	Any	Any	Survival and one other	Choose one
Experiment	Any	Altered	Intimidation, medicine	Alchemist’s supplies
Scholar of the forbidden	Any	Dread speech	Arcana, intimidation	Calligraoher’s supplies
Wicker weaver	Any	Charm twister	Insight, nature	Weaver’s tools

Feats

I’d consider the following feats for a great fool warlock:

• Altered: Natural armor will always be good as it accomplishes what mage armor does without using a spell slot or needing to be prepared (or taking an eldritch invocation). Night vision might be a good choice if you don’t already have darkvision.
• Charm twister: Bless is a good buff and you can repeat cast it. Twisted hex can be situational to engineer, but if you can plant it in the right place, then that disadvantage can be a real pain.
• Cult initiate: You already have access to warlock spells, but extra options and an extra casting are still decent for a warlock, though I might favour magic initiate if possible.
• Dread speech: Bane is a pretty good debuff and frightened with a bonus action is a decent option too.
• Fate gambler: It’s probably saving throws you’ll be forcing most out of this list. The heroic inspiration will be handy, as will the temporary hit points.

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