2nd hand Warlock. Where do I go from here?

[Wilb]

Thanks to a guy suddenly moving to another city, I've been invited to a group but I was asked to keep the character, for story reasons.

So, here is the sheet sheet. Considering that I can't change a thing, but every Wotc book and UA is open, how should I proceed?

If possible, how could I prioritize survival? The person who invited me told me this campaign is "going through character sheets like toilet paper". Should I throw the character into a meat grinder and get to the next one or is it ok to keep?

New characters roll straight 1d20 per stat, in order, so I'm kinda afraid of losing the absurd stats of this character.

EDIT: I forgot to ask if there is any error in this sheet. Maybe the previous owner cheated somewhere, because I think this guy is too powerful for his level. Could you guys help me?

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Those stats are quite +++ , standard deviations for the win.
They make up for any  picks for themes/role.

Looks like some slightly modified Cantrip access.
Can you negotiate somethin' else for Dancing Lights AND Light?
The sheet is missing the Undying 1st level spells,
but maybe that's where/how the cantrips are different.
I'd take the weird cantrip access.

'Nother negotiation could be Drow Weapon access almost
exactly like the High/Wood weapon SCAG sub for 1/2 Elves.

You can always fakey guilt trip the I need special googles thingy.

Don't go Blade, you don't have the stats for it ;
argue against Chain because you're Neutral
and none of the Familiars are, you can always
take Tome and Find Familiar.  And retraining.

Personally I've enjoyed sending my familiar around
delivering Shocking Grasp to unscrew-up the other PCs.
You may have to pull your punches, with those stats.

[Wilb]

Those stats are quite +++ , standard deviations for the win.
They make up for any  picks for themes/role.

Looks like some slightly modified Cantrip access.
Can you negotiate somethin' else for Dancing Lights AND Light?
The sheet is missing the Undying 1st level spells,
but maybe that's where/how the cantrips are different.
I'd take the weird cantrip access.

'Nother negotiation could be Drow Weapon access almost
exactly like the High/Wood weapon SCAG sub for 1/2 Elves.

You can always fakey guilt trip the I need special googles thingy.

Don't go Blade, you don't have the stats for it ;
argue against Chain because you're Neutral
and none of the Familiars are, you can always
take Tome and Find Familiar.  And retraining.

Personally I've enjoyed sending my familiar around
delivering Shocking Grasp to unscrew-up the other PCs.
You may have to pull your punches, with those stats.

Thanks man!
I'll try to clean up these strange things and make sure to know what did he trade for these cantrips or if he simply put the values there without knowing, then I'll talk with the DM to allow some fiddling with the character.

EDIT: Yea one thing that was really strange was that he focused dex yet took a melee cantrip. Well the stat roll surely didn't help going STR lock but...

[TenaciousJ]

Those cantrips are right.  The 2 warlock class cantrips are Eldritch Blast and Green-Flame Blade.  Light and Sacred Flame come from the Undying Light patron in UA: Underdark Characters from the Radiant Soul feature.  Don't mistake that for the Undying patron in SCAG. Dancing Lights comes from the Drow racial spellcasting.  Patron-specific spells are not automatically granted like domain spells.  They are additional options that a warlock could choose to learn, so they don't automatically go on the sheet.  Undying Light gains Burning Hands as a level 1 choice, and the patron only has 1 available patron spell per spell level up to 5th.  That patron for a drow is an odd-couple pairing.

He picked GFB because it's a fire cantrip.  Undying Light grants Charisma to radiant and fire spells at level 1 via Radiant Soul, similar to the Draconic sorcerer/Evoker wizard at 6/10.  He was likely gearing up for Pact of the Blade since the pact weapon could be formed as a rapier and that Dex would provide decent AC with Armor of Shadows.  Before the pact, he was going to use the dagger for it, which is a finesse weapon.  An Undying Light Pact of the Blade Warlock by level 12 can stack Charisma to a single melee hit twice with GFB and then get Charisma to a secondary target as well.  RAW, the feature lets GFB add Charisma twice to the 2nd target, though RAI it works like the sorcerer/wizard features on only a single roll of a spell.  Additionally, Undying Light's level 6 feature Searing Vengeance is most effective in close-range and somewhat helps out with a Blade warlock's inherent softness.

What you already have there would make a fine multiclass into sorcerer.  You could double up on charisma to fire spells via Draconic sorcerer.  Undying Light is also very effective with a paladin multiclass but the character's low Strength holds that one back.  It works just fine solo-classed too.  You know what you're getting into if you continue into Pact of the Blade.  Pact of the Tome would be a lot less risky and you could grab Shillelagh so the GFB tricks work well without having to be your main trick.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Undying A vs Undying B = oops my bad.
Ha, time for some serious re-reading.
Nice detailing there TenJ.
iirc one of the tweet-ratas involved multiple
uses a +cha on level 5+ Eldritch Blasts.
Which one idk (bad aDMg again).

Day Googles for Drow, seemed to me to be a
reasonable Common Permanent custom item.
Especially since Warlock super-Darkvision
is a level 2 thing.

[TenaciousJ]

Undying A vs Undying B = oops my bad.
Ha, time for some serious re-reading.
Nice detailing there TenJ.
iirc one of the tweet-ratas involved multiple
uses a +cha on level 5+ Eldritch Blasts.
Which one idk (bad aDMg again).

Day Googles for Drow, seemed to me to be a
reasonable Common Permanent custom item.
Especially since Warlock super-Darkvision
is a level 2 thing.

There's no errata on Agonizing Blast since it's intended to apply to every hit of Eldritch Blast.  The one tweet just clarified that there's not supposed to be errata on Agonizing Blast. The Radiant Soul feature is more closely related to the Sorcerer feature than it is to Agonizing Blast since both are +Charisma to spells of specific elements.

I use stylish shades as a common item once I'm sure the drow player isn't trying to be "that guy."  I don't mind drow, especially Eberron drow, just the kind of player typically drawn to the default presentation of the race.

[Wilb]

Well, he's a half-drow, and there seems to be no mention to sunlight sensitivity in the sheet. Half-drows get it too?

[TenaciousJ]

They don't.  I over-looked that it was a half-elf.  I saw Drow magic and it never occurred to me someone would actually take Drow magic over the other choices available to a variant half-elf.  That probably explains why the character's ability scores are so good.  Sometimes I forget how much half-elves obsolete elves for minmaxing when SCAG is allowed since my players gravitate towards humans and my Eberron race conversions.

I suppose that choice was made to gain an extra use of Darkness for Devil's Sight tricks.

[Wilb]

They don't.  I over-looked that it was a half-elf.  I saw Drow magic and it never occurred to me someone would actually take Drow magic over the other choices available to a variant half-elf.  That probably explains why the character's ability scores are so good.  Sometimes I forget how much half-elves obsolete elves for minmaxing when SCAG is allowed since my players gravitate towards humans and my Eberron race conversions.

I suppose that choice was made to gain an extra use of Darkness for Devil's Sight tricks.

I agree, but I think maybe bladelock would have been inferior to a EB focused lock since the stats are so grand (and STR is so low). Using darkness to gain advantage probably craps all over the rest of the party, but extra "slots" as a warlock are always welcome.

[TenaciousJ]

What's with the low-Strength argument?  Did you forget finesse weapons exist?  When you have 20 Dexterity, the only marginal value of Strength is +1 AC wearing plate vs. studded leather (0 difference with Armor of Shadows), 2.5 average damage of the best 2-hander vs. the best finesse weapon, and the saving throws.  Feats favor Strength weapons but we know it's a trap to make a melee-focused warlock as opposed to one which has the option of doing good damage there when the situation arises.

In a situation where Green-Flame Blade can hit 2 targets, it will do more damage than Eldritch Blast since Radiant Soul allows for Charisma to Green-Flame Blade.  How valuable split damage will be is situational though, and you could achieve the same thing via Pact of the Tome and Shillelagh while gaining other cantrips and rituals to work with.  It's just valuable to know you have the tactic for when it's viable, not suggesting that it be your go-to tactic in every situation.

The Darkness trick works with Eldritch Blast too.  Cast Darkness on your staff and carry it around.  You cannot be seen by enemies unless they have Devil's Sight.  They have the Blinded condition with respect to you, so you have advantage to attack them.  Sure they can guess you're in the big moving globe of dark stuff with high enough intelligence, but they still have disadvantage to attack you and would need to rely on saving throw aoes to reliably do anything to you.  This usage is a bit more party-friendly because you can stay back out of the party's line of sight and still gain the advantages of the trick.  You can even be the last guy in the marching order in tighter quarters and use Darkness to prevent ambushers from being able to used ranged abilities.

The character has the 3 most important ability scores for a single-classed warlock extremely high.  You really can do anything you want from the current layout except multiclass with paladin.