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In Volo's Guide to Monsters (p. 219-220), there are 3 warlock NPC statblocks: Warlock of the Archfey, Warlock of the Fiend, and Warlock of the Great Old One. Each Warlock NPC has 3 high-level spells in its list of "1/day" spells.

For example, the Warlock of the Fiend has the following:

1/day each: feeblemind, finger of death, plane shift

Can it cast each of these spells once per day, or can it only choose one of these spells to cast once per day?

To phrase it differently, do the spells in this list share a special "spell slot" of sorts, or can they each be cast independently of one another?

V2Blast
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Andrendire
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2 Answers2

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1 each per day; looks like reskin of Warlock feature Mystic Arcanum

In my copy of Volo's, I read this under Warlock of the Fiend:

1/day each: feeblemind, finger of death, plane shift ( pg. 219)

Translation: each day cast one feeblemind, one finger of death, and one plane shift. Given the level of those spells, seeing it as a reskin of Mystic Arcanum it makes sense.

Mystic Arcanum
At 11th level, your patron bestows upon you a magical secret called an arcanum. Choose one 6th‑level spell from the warlock spell list as this arcanum. You can cast your arcanum spell once without expending a spell slot. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again. 7th‑level spell at 13th level, one 8th‑level spell at 15th level, and one 9th‑level spell at 17th level. You regain all uses of your Mystic Arcanum when you finish a long rest. (SRD, p. 48)

The NPC's "1 each day spells" map to the Mystic Arcanum Warlock class feature except that a PC warlock would have one each of levels 8, 7, 6 (if 8th was their highest level spell) and the NPC's three spells work out to 8, 7, 7. As it's an NPC and not a PC, that's close enough; there are a lot of other "similar but different" NPC to PC comparisons.

  • This Warlock is a 17th level spell caster, so in theory it could have a 9th level spell as a Mystic Arcanum ... again, not a perfect "fit" between PC feature and NPC feature.

As with most NPC's these warlocks are innate spell casters. If you look at the at will spells that are listed next to those three spells, they look at lot like eldritch invocations: alter self, false life, levitate (self only), silent image

Cantrips and Spell slots are listed separately.

V2Blast
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KorvinStarmast
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9

It appears that whatever source you're using to find this creature's statblock has elided some important details, as in my reference, the statblock is quite explicit that these spells are being provided once per day each.

[...]
1/day each: feeblemind, finger of death, plane shift
[...]

—Warlock of the Fiend, Volo's Guide to Monsters, pg. 219

So as best as I can determine, this is just a matter of a misquoted statblock.

V2Blast
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Xirema
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    You taught me a new word, but looking it up, it does not seem that "elided" is used correctly here (in that elided seems to be about speech and this is written.) – NotArch Nov 04 '19 at 17:28
  • Must be a difference in editions, then, as the text I wrote comes directly from the book as well. – Andrendire Nov 04 '19 at 17:29
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    @Andrendire I don't know what to tell you then. I'm looking at a scanned PDF of the book, which has the wording I've quoted. I'll check my print copy later in the evening, although that one should be a relatively recent printing so I guess place your bets on whether it has the same wording. – Xirema Nov 04 '19 at 17:37
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    @NautArch Elision works in written text as well (see the second definition). The ellipsis [...] is the most common example I know of written text being elided. – Upper_Case Nov 04 '19 at 19:46
  • Well, apparently I was blind when I ran this monster last night and when I copied down the text this morning, because in fact my copy does state "1/day each". – Andrendire Nov 05 '19 at 02:25
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    @Andrendire My working theory is that you may have seen the text in the adjacent statblock for the Warlock of the Archfey, where it does indeed say "1/day" because that statblock only has a single spell in that category, so adding "each" would have been redundant. – Xirema Nov 05 '19 at 02:39
  • @Xirema: And the GOO warlock NPC has 2 spells, rather than 3. – V2Blast Nov 05 '19 at 09:40
  • @Xirema That's probably what happened! Thanks for the correction in either case. – Andrendire Nov 05 '19 at 16:09