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Saint GoH
2010-01-29, 07:52 PM
Ok, a little precursor to the madness.

I decided to take one of my favorite classes, and make them a little more front-liney. Thus, I bring to you the Destruction Warlock. A warlock who has taken the demon power swirling in their veins, and embraced it with their all. These warlocks have succumbed to the savage nature of the demons they bind, and thus their love of combat has brought them away from their more deceptive and sneaky originals, and closer to a true fighter.


HD: d8
Age: Simple (I think?)


{table=head]Level| BaB| Fort| Ref| Will| Special Abilities| Invocations
1st| +1| +2| +0| +0| Eldritch Blast d6, Invocation (least)| 1
2nd| +2| +3| +0| +0| Bonus Feat| 1
3rd| +3| +3| +1| +1| Eldritch Blast 2d6, DR 1/cold iron| 2
4th| +4| +4| +1| +1| |2
5th| +5| +4| +1| +1| Eldritch Blast 3d6, Bonus Feat| 2
6th| +6/+1| +5| +2| +2| New Invocation (lesser) |3
7th| +7/+2| +5| +2| +2| Eldritch Blast 4d6, DR 2/cold iron| 3
8th| +8/+3| +6| +2| +2| Bonus Feat, Immolate| 4
9th| +9/+4| +6| +3| +3| Eldritch Blast 5d6| 4
10th| +10/+5| +7| +3| +3| |4
11th| +11/+6/+1| +7| +3| +3| Eldritch Blast 6d6, New Invocation (Greater), Bonus Feat, DR 3/cold iron| 5|
12th| +12/+7/+2| +8| +4| +4| |5
13th| +13/+8/+3| +8| +4| +4| Eldritch Blast 7d6, Immolate| 5
14th| +14/+9/+4| +9| +4| +4| Bonus Feat| 6
15th| +15/+10/+5| +9| +5| +5| Eldritch Blast 8d6, DR 4/cold iron| 6
16th| +16/+11/+6/+1| +10| +5| +5| New Invocation (Dark)| 7
17th| +17/+12/+7/+2| +10| +5| +5| Eldritch Blast 9d6, Bonus Feat| 7
18th| +18/+13/+8/+3| +11| +6| +6| Immolate |7
19th| +19/+14/+9/+4| +11| +6| +6| Eldritch Blast 10d6, DR 5/cold iron| 8
20th| +20/+15/+9/+5| +12| +6| +6| Bonus Feat| 8
[/table]

The warlock’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill)are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana)(Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int) and Swim (Str).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A destruction warlock is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all light armor and shields (not including tower shields). Because of his physical mastery, a destruction warlock can use any light armor or shield without fear of arcane spell failure.

Eldritch Blast: A destruction warlock has the ability to use Eldritch Blasts much like the original warlock. An eldritch blast is a ray with a range of 60 feet. It is a ranged touch attack that affects a single target, allowing no saving throw. An eldritch blast deals 1d6 points of damage at 1st level and increases in power as the warlock rises in level. However, his eldritch blast is considerably more potent than a normal warlock. As a sift action, a warlock may apply his Eldritch Blast to his melee attacks. He deals full eldritch blast damage on his first attack, but not on any subsequent attacks.

Invocations: A destruction warlock learns Invocations much like the original warlock. The save DC for an invocation (if it allows a save) is 10 + Equivalent spell level + the warlock’s Charisma modifier.

Bonus Feats: Like a fighter, the destruction warlock gains a bonus feat at 2nd level and every 3 levels afterwards (5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 20th).

Damage Reduction: At 3rd level and every 4 levels after that, a destruction warlock embraces the demon within him just a little more, and his skin toughens to that of a fiend. He gains damage reduction of 1/cold iron, increasing to a 5/cold iron at 19th level.

Immolate: At 8th level the warlock can channel the fury of the demon he has bound, and as a free action, can activate a flamewreath that surrounds him in wispy flames. These flames deal no damage to the warlock, but deal 1d6 pts of damage to any opponent that attacks the warlock with natural or held weapons. Activating your fiendish flamewreath is a free action; it lasts for 2 minutes or until you take another free action to end it. The flames provide light equivalent to a torch, but can’t be extinguished except by you. This is a supernatural ability. At 13th level, your fiendish flamewreath deals 2d6 points of fire damage. At 18th level, the damage improves to 4d6 points.




Well.... Critique away.

DragoonWraith
2010-01-29, 08:13 PM
Define "overpowered". In a game with Wizards and Clerics and Druids, built even moderately effectively (read, not just a blaster, not just a healbot, actually uses all three of his major features together), not even close. You could run a Warlock//Fighter gestalt character (that is, exactly the Fighter's Bonus Feat progression, all of the Warlock's secondary features, a strong Will save, and d10 HD), and still not be overpowered, compared to those.

Compared to a straight up Fighter? I should hope so. It's pretty much a failed class if it doesn't out-class the Fighter.

Overall? I think it's a bit on the weak-ish side, actually. As in, compared to the actual Warlock. Maybe better at melee, but overall weaker. The bonus feats are nice, but the HD is still rather low-ish for a melee combatant, and you lose out on the rather nice features of Warlock (Deceive Item, most notably, though for a melee combatant the loss of the DR is also quite sad).

Basically, the question becomes: Do you have access to Dragon Magic, and therefore the Eldritch Glaive invocation? If so, this'll be a fine melee character, as long as you get a high Con to offset the low HD. So can the Warlock, for that matter. But without it? Well, the Eldritch Blast sort of doesn't matter, because you're supposed to be in melee, and Hideous Blow is, well, hideous (seriously, don't ever use that).

TabletopNuke
2010-01-29, 09:10 PM
I will start off by saying I love Warlocks. They are perhaps my most favorite class second only to Psions.
Warlocks? Psions? I know you are fairly new, but have you seen my mindscourge (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131476) class? It's basically a psionic warlock, with some of the class features switched out for more psionic-flavored ones. In addition, I'm making new anomalies (invocations) with more psionically-flavored effects (telepathy field, mind reading, ect).


Basically, the question becomes: Do you have access to Dragon Magic, and therefore the Eldritch Glaive invocation? If so, this'll be a fine melee character, as long as you get a high Con to offset the low HD.

I don't yet have a copy of Dragon Magic, myself, but I've heard many great things about eldritch glaive. I'd have to agree with DW here. If you need a melee 'lock, this (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870282/The_Glaivelock_-_A_Mini-Guide) might be relevant to your interests.

Also, Complete Warrior has the Improved Toughness feat, which will give you one more HP/level, though you can't take it until level 6 unless you dip into a class with a good Fort save.

Saint GoH
2010-01-29, 10:31 PM
Ok, I liked the idea of a glaivelock, but it still seemed a little squishy in my opinion. It was still a warlock (with a d6 HD) that was relying on AoO's with a glaive to hinder his opponents. Already having a chain trip build for a fighter, this just seemed too similar.

I enhanced the abilities of the warlock ever so slightly, giving him the DR (which yer right Dragoon, a melee fighter without DR makes for sad pandas) and also the Fiendish Flamewreath ability found in PHB 2.

Plus, I added a little bit of becoming a fiend, although for a capstone level 20 ability I'm not sure its quite enough. Finally, because I wanted some versatility with the character (as opposed to only being able to do this with a glaive), I basically made the Eldritch Glaive null by giving the warlock the ability to add his blast and essences to any held melee weapon. Which in turn allows him to use his high BaB to make additional attacks.

TabletopNuke
2010-01-29, 10:52 PM
Ok, I liked the idea of a glaivelock, but it still seemed a little squishy in my opinion. It was still a warlock (with a d6 HD) that was relying on AoO's with a glaive to hinder his opponents. Already having a chain trip build for a fighter, this just seemed too similar.

Too squishy? That's what self-buffing invocations are for! Go look at that thread I linked!


I basically made the Eldritch Glaive null by giving the warlock the ability to add his blast and essences to any held melee weapon. Which in turn allows him to use his high BaB to make additional attacks.

That would be waaay too powerful, in my humble opinion. At level 20, you can deal 40d6 damage per round, not including the weapon and Strength damage. Eldritch glaive has some restrictions to balance that kind of thing.

Baron Corm
2010-01-30, 02:30 AM
I don't see any problem with adding eldritch blast to damage. Rogues have an easy enough time adding sneak attack to damage at that level.

But as it is, the only thing this class has worse than a warlock is Deceive Item, which in some campaigns won't even matter. What I would do is lower the rate of gaining invocations, and increase the level at which the class gains access to better invocations. It's supposed to be a more feral version, so this definitely fits.

Saint GoH
2010-02-07, 05:38 PM
I don't see any problem with adding eldritch blast to damage. Rogues have an easy enough time adding sneak attack to damage at that level.

But as it is, the only thing this class has worse than a warlock is Deceive Item, which in some campaigns won't even matter. What I would do is lower the rate of gaining invocations, and increase the level at which the class gains access to better invocations. It's supposed to be a more feral version, so this definitely fits.

So I tried to mitigate the amount of damage granted, because this character does not have to worry about positioning as much as a rogue so it didn't seem fair to have ALL his attacks doing that.

I guess the idea was to kind of take UMD and items and stuff away. But I hadn't really considered it till now. I was looking for a warlock that relied less on UMD and deceive/imbue item.

Also, I limited the amount of invocations gained to 2 a tier, but Im not sure how to break up when you gain new invocation tiers.

FlamingKobold
2010-02-07, 06:18 PM
So... your capstone is a bonus feat... that's probably not okay. I think it's always cool to put in some kind of cool capstone, even in base classes.

DragoonWraith
2010-02-07, 06:21 PM
So... your capstone is a bonus feat... that's probably not okay. I think it's always cool to put in some kind of cool capstone, especially in base classes.
Fixed that for you.

imp_fireball
2010-02-07, 06:51 PM
Also, Complete Warrior has the Improved Toughness feat, which will give you one more HP/level, though you can't take it until level 6 unless you dip into a class with a good Fort save.

Improved toughness is terrible. I don't even know if dreadnaughts are available in books in 3.5 but in the 3.5r (I think that's what it's called) on this sight, the dreadnaught's rugged ability is twenty times better (literally; straight un-optimized dreadnaught has about 700hp at 20th level).


I don't see any problem with adding eldritch blast to damage. Rogues have an easy enough time adding sneak attack to damage at that level.

Except that it's 10d6, not 40d6. And only under certain conditions.


Age: Simple (I think?)

You could always go with 'as warlock'.

Also, maybe give it another name like - Eldritch blade? I don't know?

TabletopNuke
2010-02-10, 05:23 PM
Improved toughness is terrible.

It's like increasing your HD by one. And a lot of importance is placed on HD size. What's so bad about it?


I don't even know if dreadnaughts are available in books in 3.5 but in the 3.5r (I think that's what it's called) on this sight, the dreadnaught's rugged ability is twenty times better (literally; straight un-optimized dreadnaught has about 700hp at 20th level).

700 hp?! I've never heard of dreadnaughts. What's 3.5r?

jiriku
2010-02-10, 05:40 PM
Double the damage reduction. Seriously. Damage reduction is laughably ineffective on any of the 3.5 classes that provide it.

And as far as 40d6 per round at level 20...that's, umm, adequate. Many (most?) classes support builds that can do the same or better.

Draz74
2010-02-10, 05:45 PM
700 hp?! I've never heard of dreadnaughts. What's 3.5r?

He means d20r, which is a system by Fax Celestes native to this very Homebrew Forum.

Its main "Fighter" replacement class is called the Dreadnaught.

Temotei
2010-02-10, 05:47 PM
It's like increasing your HD by one. And a lot of importance is placed on HD size. What's so bad about it?



700 hp?! I've never heard of dreadnaughts. What's 3.5r?

Improved Toughness isn't that great, but it's good for backup if you can't find anything else...which is extremely unlikely.