The warlock is a character class in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was introduced as a non-core base class who practice arcane magic in the supplemental book Complete Arcane for the 3.5 edition of Dungeons & Dragons. In 4th and 5th edition, the warlock is a core class. Publication history Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition Warlocks were a new addition to Dungeons & Dragons that were introduced in the 3.5 Edition source book Complete Arcane (2004). Warlocks in this edition received their abilities through the influence of some supernatural being such as a demon or fey. They are either born with these powers or receive them through a fell pact, which turns their soul into a dark font of eldritch powers. Warlocks do not cast spells, but instead use spell-like abilities called "invocations", which represent the tapping of the power granted to the warlock. The most important of these abilities is the "eldritch blast" which is the warlock's main offensive ability, firing a blast of magical energy at the target. The major difference that warlocks have from all other Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition magic users is their ability to use their invocations "at will," without a limit on the number of times an invocation can be cast. In contrast, Vancian magic users, such as the wizard, cast a set number of spells every day from a wider selection of spells than a warlock. Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, highlighted that this warlock at will mechanic was "presaging the at-will spellcasting of 4e". Richard Baker, author of Complete Arcane, said:The warlock's biggest advantage is no real limit on the number of times per day he can use his powers. (He's got a couple of powers with limited uses per day, but 90 percent of his powers have no such restriction.) The thinking here is that in most D&D games, your characters are probably going to be in only 15 to 20 rounds of combat between rests and spell recoveries. So after your spellcaster has a total daily spell allocation of 20 spells or more (say, around 5th level), his real limit is the number of actions he gets per day — the number of specific opportunities he has to cast a spell. So the warlock is still bound to the same ultimate limit that any moderate-level wizard deals with. Now, it's pretty useful to never