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Barbarian MD
2010-02-03, 04:36 PM
Has anyone ever homebrewed Hellfire Warlock 4-10? I know there's all sorts of cheese with uncanny trickster and legacy champion or bloodlines, but I honestly think that's about the silliest thing I've ever heard of.

EDIT: This is a 5-level version of the Hellfire Warlock. The goal is to truly represent the idea of gaining a lot of power, quickly, in exchange for part of the character's life force.


The entry level has been reduced to 6, rather than 10.
Instead of providing a static increase to damage, which doesn't scale very well, we instead use modifiers to your existing Eldritch Blast.
There is an incentive to not mitigate the Constitution damage by scaling the bonus damage to the damage that you're currently experiencing. So while you can legally use Naberius or a Strongheart Vest to mitigate it, you'll be limiting the full benefits of the class.
The capstone is an Eldritch Blast Essence that bypasses SR. Vitriolic Blast does the same thing, but Acid Immunity negates the damage. This truly bypasses SR and resistances.
Because the damage is advanced based on your Con damage, rather than a static increase by level, Bloodline/Legacy Champion cheese provides no benefit, aside from continuing to increase your invoker level. So you're better off returning to Warlock after taking Hellfire Warlock 5.


I'd love to hear your thoughts, particularly about balance and flavor. I'd also be particularly interested in people's opinions on ways that this might be abused, and whether it would be dangerous to allow this in combination with Eldritch Glaive.

Here's the latest iteration of this homebrew.

Hellfire Warlock

Entry requirements:
Skills: Intimidate 6 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks.
Language: Infernal.
Warlock Invocation: Must know brimstone blast or hellrime blast.

{table]Level|Special|Invoking
1|Hellfire Blast, Fire Resistance 5|+1 level of existing invoking class
2|Hellfire Infusion, Fire Resistance 10|+1 level of existing invoking class
3|Hellfire Shield, Fire Resistance 20|+1 level of existing invoking class
4|Quick Burn, Immunity to Fire|+1 level of existing invoking class
5|Devastating Hellfire|+1 level of existing invoking class[/table]

Hellfire Blast (Sp): This is an Eldritch Blast Essence that you may apply to your eldritch blast. A hellfire blast deals your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by X (see chart below). If your blast hits multiple targets (for example, the eldritch chain or eldritch cone blast shape invocations), each target takes the extra damage. This damage is not fire damage. Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire, as described in the sidebar on page 119. You may not apply any other Blast Essence to an Eldritch Blast with the Hellfire Essence applied.

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be mitigated each round; if you pump 2 essentia points into a Strongheart Vest, it will still only mitigate 1 point this round, and 1 point the following round.

Special: If you have any ways of amplifying your Eldritch Blast, such as a Chausable of Fell Power, add this extra damage in before multiplying the damage by 2. This does not apply to damage from other sources, such as sneak attack, giant-felling/mage-slaying/etc.

Your Hellfire Pool equals the number of Constitution damage you are currently suffering from due to usage of Hellfire.
{table]Hellfire Pool|Extra Hellfire Damage
0|x2
2|x4
4|x6
6|x8
8|x10[/table]

Hellfire Infusion (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you can infuse magic items that you wield with the power of hellfire. Whenever you use a charged magic item (such as a wand or a staff), you can apply one of the following metamagic effects to your next use of the item: empower, enlarge, widen, or energy substitution. These effects work just like the metamagic feats of the same name (the Energy Substitution feat is described on page 79 of Complete Arcane). Using hellfire infusion is a swift action. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum one). When you infuse an item with hellfire, it glows briefly with fiery symbols that are disturbing to look upon.

Hellfire Shield (Sp): Starting at 3rd level, you can call up hellfire to avenge yourself on your foes. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, cause Hellfire to leap from your body, striking that creature through their weapon. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes the target, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier). This counts toward your allowed number of attacks of opportunity for this round, and cannot be used twice in the same round against the same creature (so you get one attack against Bob the Barbarian, as he full attacks you for three iterative attacks).

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be healed each round.

Immunity to Fire (Ex): At 4th level, you become immune to fire damage.

Quick Burn (Sp): At 4th level, you may, rather than slowly working your way up the damage table, instead immediately skip to a higher damage tier. However, you pay the full Constitution damage price to reach it, and 1/4 of that Constitution damage takes the form of Constitution Drain.

Devastating Hellfire (Sp): At 5th level, any time you apply your Hellfire Blast Essence, it becomes Devastating Hellfire. Your Hellfire Blast gains many of the benefits of a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like ability. It bypasses SR, cannot be dispelled or counterspelled, and cannot be disrupted. If your ranged attacks normally provoke attacks of opportunity, so does your Eldritch Blast, but the act of invoking a Hellfire Blast itself does not provoke an AoO. Your Hellfire Blast is still a SLA, however, which means that you may still apply metamagic-SLA feats to it.

Original Post

A good point has been brought up, and that is that Hellfire Warlock is supposed to bring a lot of power, very quickly, at a cost. What's written below admittedly doesn't do that, and I'll hope to build on the suggestions sometime soon (probably tomorrow afternoon--big test tomorrow morning).

The original Hellfire Warlock is a great idea, but I feel like it fails to do what it's supposed to do. 6d6 damage truly isn't all that much (about 20), particularly when Eldritch Blast is only usable 1/round. And most people that play Hellfire Warlock bypass the Con damage soulmelding Strongheart Vest or binding the vestige Naberius.

Here's what I'm going to shoot for:
1) A short progression (5 levels-ish)
2) A lot of damage
3) A real cost for that extra damage. Incarnates/Binders can still heal the damage, but only 1 point/turn. So using a more powerful hellfire blast will actually cost you something. It will still be healed, but you won't be able to nova every turn.
4) Fire immunity at the end
5) It's been suggested to make the capstone and Eldritch Blast supernatural ability, rather than an SLA. That's a great idea, but it might be better to make that a homebrew of the Warlock itself. I'm not sure how that fits a strictly Hellfire Warlock idea. I'll give it some more thought.

Bottom line: Hellfire damage should be something that would be more properly called going Nova, rather than a measly 1 Con and 6d6 damage.

As to progressing Hellfire Blast, I was loathe to slow the progression 1-3, since anyone that's already playing a Hellfire Warlock would take a hit. However, I slowed the progression after 1-3, so that the end result is the equivalent of 1d6/level, for a total of 10d6 at the end. I know it's a little funky, but I didn't want to reduce any of the abilities from 1-3. With that said, I did cut the fire resistance, to make for an even progression towards immunity.

{table]Level|Special|Invoking
1|Hellfire blast +2d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
2|Hellfire blast +4d6, Hellfire Infusion, Resistance Fire 5|+1 level of existing invoking class
3|Hellfire blast +6d6, Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
4|Resistance Fire 10|+1 level of existing invoking class
5|Devastating Hellfire|+1 level of existing invoking class
6|Hellfire blast +8d6, Resistance Fire 15|+1 level of existing invoking class
7|Improved Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
8|Resistance Fire 20|+1 level of existing invoking class
9|Hellfire blast +10d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
10|Capstone, Immunity to Fire|+1 level of existing invoking class[/table]

Hellfire Blast (Sp)
Whenever you use your eldritch blast ability, you can change your eldritch blast into a hellfire blast. A hellfire blast deals your normal eldritch blast damage plus an extra 2d6 points of damage per class level. If your blast hits multiple targets (for example, the eldritch chain or eldritch cone blast shape invocations), each target takes the extra damage. This damage is not fire damage. Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire, as described in the sidebar on page 119.

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

Invoking
At each level, you gain new invocations known, increased damage with eldritch blast, and an increase in invoker level as if you had also gained a level in the warlock class. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained.

Resistance to Fire(Ex)
At 2nd level, you gain resistance to fire 5. This resistance stacks with any resistance to fire you have gained from warlock class levels. This resistance also progresses every other level, with the end result being immunity to fire by level 20.

Hellfire Infusion (Su) Starting at 2nd level, you can infuse magic items that you wield with the power of hellfire. Whenever you use a charged magic item (such as a wand or a staff), you can apply one of the following metamagic effects to your next use of the item: empower, enlarge, widen, or energy substitution. These effects work just like the metamagic feats of the same name (the Energy Substitution feat is described on page 79 of Complete Arcane). Using hellfire infusion is a swift action. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum one). When you infuse an item with hellfire, it glows briefly with fiery symbols that are disturbing to look upon.

Hellfire Shield (Sp)
Starting at 3rd level, you can call up hellfire to surround yourself with a protective barrier. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, aim a blast of hellfire at that creature. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes the target, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier).

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

Devastating Hellfire
You may augment the power of your Hellfire by sacrificing even more of yourself. You may double the damage of your hellfire blast at the cost of an additional 2? Constitution damage. Any class or racial ability that heals or prevents constitution or ability damage (we're talking to you Binder/Incarnate) can only heal this damage at a rate of 1 per round.
Should there be a limit, like "You may use this ability 1/3-5 rounds?"

Improved Hellfire Shield
Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, aim a blast of hellfire at that creature cause an explosion of hellfire to erupt from your body. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes all creatures within 30', which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier).

Capstone
At level 10, a Hellfire Warlock gains a capstone Blast Essence. By applying this Essence, his Eldritch Blast is treated as a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like Ability. This Essence counts toward the normal limit of 1 that can be applied to any Eldritch Blast. He may apply an Eldritch Shape to a Supernatural blast. In addition, he may still apply any Metamagic SLA feats that he has to the blast.

*************************************

I'm pretty sure this is entering "overpowered" territory... But as I think about it, it might not be. A level 20 melee guy does something like 500-1000 damage per round, doesn't he?

Let's say you've got 20d6 damage at level 20 (with items)

You then use Devastating Blast for 3 Con damage. 40d6
You maximize it. 240 damage.
You quicken another one. 20d6.
You maximize it. 120 damage.

So, assuming your ranged touch attack succeeds, that's 360 damage at the cost of 3 Con at level 20 by going nova. That seems reasonable, right?

Other ideas? some sort of summon fiendish creature, immunity to fire, a way to twin your blasts?

DracoDei
2010-02-03, 04:41 PM
My mathematician side begs you to just make it +(level+3)d6 to the blast for levels 3 and up... much smoother curve... might need to tweak a few of the other abilities (which I don't know enough about Warlocks to read) up or down 1 level each to compensate for this, but probably not even that.

Hyooz
2010-02-03, 04:41 PM
The hellfire blast progression is really, really funky.

Eldan
2010-02-03, 04:46 PM
For a 10-level class, I'd just do +1d6/level bonus damage.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-03, 04:57 PM
Okay, fixed it. What about special abilities?

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-02-03, 05:01 PM
Here's one for a Capstone:

Hellfire Mastery: At 10th level, a Hellfire Warlock becomes one with the energies of Hellfire. A Hellfire Blast is now considered to be a Supernatural, rather than a Spell-Like Ability. However, if using this option, no other eldritch essence invocations or blast shape invocations may be applied

DracoDei
2010-02-03, 05:06 PM
Well, either that or add some more class abilities at levels 7 and/or higher (and probably one at 4 and/or 6)...

Barbarian MD
2010-02-03, 05:14 PM
Here's one for a Capstone:

Hellfire Mastery: At 10th level, a Hellfire Warlock becomes one with the energies of Hellfire. A Hellfire Blast is now considered to be a Supernatural, rather than a Spell-Like Ability. However, if using this option, no other eldritch essence invocations or blast shape invocations may be applied

I don't get it. Aside from making your metamagic SLA feats useless, what does this do? I know i'm missing something here...

Vaynor
2010-02-03, 05:14 PM
I'd spread out the Fire Resistance, perhaps 5 at level 2, then improving to 10 at level 4, 15 at level 6, 20 at level 8, then immunity at level 10.


I don't get it. Aside from making your metamagic SLA feats useless, what does this do? I know i'm missing something here...


Using a spell-like ability while threatened provokes attacks of opportunity. It is possible to make a Concentration check to use a spell-like ability defensively and avoid provoking an attack of opportunity. A spell-like ability can be disrupted just as a spell can be. Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and to being dispelled by dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated.


However, supernatural abilities do not provoke attacks of opportunity and never require Concentration checks.

Also the Hellfire Blast progression is still a bit weird, I think that +1d6/level would be a lot better as well as progressing at an even pace and not being too overpowered.

JoshuaZ
2010-02-03, 05:20 PM
And as long as we get to have the mathematicians on the boards commenting: I'm deeply concerned that this makes the one level dip into binder to pick up Naberius even more tempting. That trick is moved now from pretty awesome to broken.

Vaynor
2010-02-03, 05:23 PM
And as long as we get to have the mathematicians on the boards commenting: I'm deeply concerned that this makes the one level dip into binder to pick up Naberius even more tempting. That trick is moved now from pretty awesome to broken.

I think that maybe increasing the Constitution damage you receive when the hellfire blast damage reaches a certain point (perhaps at level 5) would help to solve this problem, but there's not really a good way to completely eliminate this problem as blocking all ability damage regeneration would ruin this class.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-02-03, 05:27 PM
I don't get it. Aside from making your metamagic SLA feats useless, what does this do? I know i'm missing something here...

Improvements of (Su) over (SLA):

1) Ignores SR
2) Unable to be Counterspelled
3) Doesn't provoke AoO
4) Unable to be disrupted
5) Unable to be Dispelled

So yea, it strips a bunch of ways to defend against it. The biggest one, however, is that it ignores SR and doesn't provoke AoO.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-03, 07:49 PM
What about doing this:

1) slowing the progression after level 3

2) an option that allows you to take more con damage for more damage? Naberius only fixes 1 per round, so if you took 3 Con for a ton of damage, it'd cost you more.

That would create the same uber-powerful damage, but actually make it cost something. You could even prohibit the damage from being healed any faster than 1 per round.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-03, 08:46 PM
I like the idea of making it supernatural, rather than spell-like, but I feel like the way you presented it might be a nerf.

Spell-like
Can apply metamagic (SLA) feats that you've taken up to this point
can apply blast essences and shapes (one of which surpasses SR anyway)
provokes an AoO (but by this point you're level 19, and you've invested enough in concentration that this shouldn't be a problem).

Supernatural
can't apply metamagic feats
can't be dispelled
ignores SR (but so does one blast shape)
doesn't provoke an AoO

I think that you lose more (namely, the essences and blast shapes) than you gain (can't be dispelled, and I suppose issues with mage slayers) from this as a capstone.

Vaynor
2010-02-03, 10:21 PM
I like the idea of making it supernatural, rather than spell-like, but I feel like the way you presented it might be a nerf.

Spell-like
Can apply metamagic (SLA) feats that you've taken up to this point
can apply blast essences and shapes (one of which surpasses SR anyway)
provokes an AoO (but by this point you're level 19, and you've invested enough in concentration that this shouldn't be a problem).

Supernatural
can't apply metamagic feats
can't be dispelled
ignores SR (but so does one blast shape)
doesn't provoke an AoO

I think that you lose more (namely, the essences and blast shapes) than you gain (can't be dispelled, and I suppose issues with mage slayers) from this as a capstone.

True, but I think everyone who suggested it assumed you'd add in something that says that metamagic SLA feats, and blast essences/shapes may be added to it. Also, Concentration has nothing to do with provoking an AoO. True, you can still cast spells after taking damage from an AoO with a high Concentration mod, but you will still provoke AoO's when casting SLA's.

Edit: Why is the hellfire blast progression all weird again? It needs to be evenly distributed throughout the class. You got 2d6/level for the first three levels because those were the only levels available. You need to make it something like +1d6/level. You may not be as powerful at first, but there's no point in advancing this class to 10 levels if it's still top-heavy as all hell.

lightningcat
2010-02-03, 10:33 PM
I originally read this capstone ability as a class specific blast essence that can only be applied to Hellfire Blasts. Which fits the flavor of a warlock-based prestige class.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-02-04, 01:38 AM
I like the idea of making it supernatural, rather than spell-like, but I feel like the way you presented it might be a nerf.

Spell-like
Can apply metamagic (SLA) feats that you've taken up to this point
can apply blast essences and shapes (one of which surpasses SR anyway)
provokes an AoO (but by this point you're level 19, and you've invested enough in concentration that this shouldn't be a problem).

Supernatural
can't apply metamagic feats
can't be dispelled
ignores SR (but so does one blast shape)
doesn't provoke an AoO

I think that you lose more (namely, the essences and blast shapes) than you gain (can't be dispelled, and I suppose issues with mage slayers) from this as a capstone.

Vitriolic Blast also changes the 'flavor' to Acid damage, which can then be resisted with Energy Resistance (Acid).

By turning it into a supernatural ability, with the 'flavor' still untyped, there is literally *NO* way to avoid or negate the damage. That's pretty huge.

Also, a Ring of Counterspells can't screw you over, nor any other 'reflect spell back on target' ability, which WILL affect SLA's, including Hellfire Blast, but will *NOT* work on (Su) abilities.

It also lets it affect golems, as it is no longer a spell effect.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-04, 08:11 AM
Ah, now it becomes clear. Thanks for taking the time to explain that.

So, the capstone ability turns your eldritch blast into a supernatural ability, rather than a spell-like ability. Do we want to make that capstone an essence that can be applied? Would it be overpowered to still be able to apply a blast shape? I imagine we'd also want to add a caveat that you can still use SLA-metamagic feats.

How would people feel about reducing the entry requirements? As it stands, this can't be taken before 10th level. We could change the Hellfire Blast progression so that you don't gain 6d6 in the first three levels.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-04, 12:02 PM
Current iteration in OP.So, we've got one progression, listed above, that I'm going to refer to as the original, and then here's another. You get faster entry into the class, quicker progression of the bonus features, but--ultimately--a weaker hellfire blast.

Which would be preferred? I'm tempted to say I'd rather go with quicker entry, in order to gain access to the special abilities.

Pre-requisites: same, but reduced to entry at level 5, rather than level 10.

{table]Level|Special|Invoking
1|Hellfire blast +1d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
2|Hellfire blast +2d6, Hellfire Infusion, Resistance Fire 5|+1 level of existing invoking class
3|Hellfire blast +3d6, Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
4|Resistance Fire 10|+1 level of existing invoking class
5|Devastating Hellfire, +4d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
6|Hellfire blast, Resistance Fire 15|+1 level of existing invoking class
7|Improved Hellfire Shield, +5d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
8|Resistance Fire 20|+1 level of existing invoking class
9|Hellfire blast +6d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
10|Capstone, Immunity to Fire|+1 level of existing invoking class[/table]


Level 5
Original: Warlock 5 = 3d6
New: Warlock 4/Hellfire 1 = 4d6

Level 10
Original: Warlock 9/Hellfire Warlock 1 = 7d6
New: Warlock 4/Hellfire Warlock 6 = 9d6

Level 15
Original: Warlock 9/Hellfire Warlock 6 = 15d6
New: Warlock 4/Hellfire Warlock 10/Warlock 1 = 13d6

Level 20
Warlock 9/Hellfire Warlock 10/Warlock 1 = 19d6
Warlock 4/Hellfire Warlock 10/Warlock 6 = 15d6

DragoonWraith
2010-02-04, 12:15 PM
I feel like the entire point of the Hellfire Warlock was that it was a lot of power really quickly, but it was dangerous and there wasn't a lot of depth to it. This seems to be missing that point entirely.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-04, 12:25 PM
Ah, now that's an interesting flavor idea that I hadn't thought of.

I think the trouble might be this, though: 6d6 doesn't really add for that much damage, at least in my experience, at least when you can only do it once per round. And everyone that plays with this class bypasses the Con damage with Binder/Incarnate levels anyway.

How do we capture the flavor that you're talking about--a LOT of dangerous power, but with an increased cost? That's why I liked Devastating Hellfire--the ability to double your damage at triple the Con cost, and no way to fix it immediately.

Would it work better as a 5-level PrC, then? Something that does get a lot of power quickly, but then we work to make the cost actually mean something?

DragoonWraith
2010-02-04, 01:25 PM
5-level makes more sense, because then you can do the +2d6/level thing, which I think is important to the class. As for making the damage more reasonable, you do have to be careful. As written, using Hellfire Warlock would be very, very difficult - Con damage is extremely debilitating and natural healing takes an obscenely long time. It's hard to imagine the class without some way of mitigating it, but that eliminates the whole 'dangerous' thing.

Doing it as 10 levels would be fine, but only if you are willing to have 20d6 damage by the end of it, I think. Which, all things considered, is not that ridiculous, especially if the danger is unmitigatable. But slowing the progression really just seems to defeat the purpose of the class.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-04, 02:13 PM
I've always used Hellfire Warlock for the nova aspect. Ee, if need calls for it, I can sacrifice some durability to reduce my enemies quickly to little more than cinders.

The changes you're proposing does undermine that. I wouldn't object to instead of increasing the base power of the Hellfire blast to instead offer greater versions of it which take more self damage to use.

Increasing the ability damage, especially Con, is a dangerous compromise to make. If you're concerned about it only being taken with the cheesy work-arounds which allow it to be used every round with no ill affect then specifically rewrite the damage so these no longer work.

At the risk of creating something way too powerful, perhaps use something like...

{table]Level|Special|Invoking
1|Hellfire blast +2d6|+1 level of existing invoking class
2|Hellfire blast +4d6, Hellfire Infusion, Resistance Fire 5|+1 level of existing invoking class
3|Hellfire blast +6d6, Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
4|Hellfire blast +8d6, Resistance Fire 10|+1 level of existing invoking class
5|Greater Hellfire blast +10d8|
6|Greater Hellfire blast +12d8, Resistance Fire 15|+1 level of existing invoking class
7|Greater Hellfire blast +14d8, Improved Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
8|Greater Hellfire blast +16d8, Resistance Fire 20|+1 level of existing invoking class
9|Greater Hellfire blast +18d8|+1 level of existing invoking class
10|Hellfire Incineration, Immunity to Fire|[/table]

Greater Hellfire Blast (Sp)
Works exactly like Hellfire Blast, except a Greater Hellfire Blast has a critical threat range of 18-20. It also costs 3 constitution damage and 2 strength damage to cast a greater hellfire blast rather than the usual 1 constitution damage of a regular hellfire blast. This ability does not replace your ability to cast regular hellfire blasts.

Hellfire Incineration (Sp)
Whenever you use your eldritch blast ability, you can change your eldritch blast into a hellfire incinerate. Any creature hit with an Hellfire Incinerate must make a fortitude save or instantly die leaving behind only a trace of fine dust. If the target(s) succeed their save, they take your normal eldritch blast damage plus an extra 20d10 damage, this damage is not fire damage. Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire, as described in the sidebar on page 119.

Each time you use this ability, you take 6 point of Constitution damage and 4 points of Strength damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution or Strength score or are somehow immune to Constitution or Strength damage, you cannot use this ability.

You may not use this ability or any of your hellfire blasts on the following turn after using this ability as the strain on your body is too great.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-05, 05:31 PM
Okay, here's a complete reworking of Hellfire Warlock. Let's see what happens...

The goals are: make hellfire hurt your enemies. Make hellfire hurt you. Progress it quickly, since it's supposed to be a "sell your soul for enormous power" type thing.
************************************
Hellfire Warlock

Entry requirements:
Skills: Intimidate 6 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks.
Language: Infernal.
Warlock Invocation: Must know brimstone blast or hellrime blast.

{table]Level|Special|Invoking
1|Hellfire Blast|+1 level of existing invoking class
2|Hellfire Infusion|+1 level of existing invoking class
3|Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
4|Immunity to Fire|+1 level of existing invoking class
5|Devastating Hellfire, Hellfire Wrath|+1 level of existing invoking class[/table]

Hellfire Blast (Sp): This is an Eldritch Blast Essence that you may apply to your eldritch blast. A hellfire blast deals your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by 2. If your blast hits multiple targets (for example, the eldritch chain or eldritch cone blast shape invocations), each target takes the extra damage. This damage is not fire damage. Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire, as described in the sidebar on page 119. You may not apply any other Blast Essence to an Eldritch Blast with the Hellfire Essence applied.

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be healed each round.

Special: If you have any ways of amplifying your Eldritch Blast, such as a Chausable of Fell Power, add this extra damage in before multiplying the damage by 2. This does not apply to damage from other sources, such as sneak attack, giant-felling/mage-slaying/etc.


Hellfire Infusion (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you can infuse magic items that you wield with the power of hellfire. Whenever you use a charged magic item (such as a wand or a staff), you can apply one of the following metamagic effects to your next use of the item: empower, enlarge, widen, or energy substitution. These effects work just like the metamagic feats of the same name (the Energy Substitution feat is described on page 79 of Complete Arcane). Using hellfire infusion is a swift action. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum one). When you infuse an item with hellfire, it glows briefly with fiery symbols that are disturbing to look upon.

Hellfire Shield (Sp): Starting at 3rd level, you can call up hellfire to surround yourself with a protective barrier. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, cause Hellfire to leap from your body, striking that creature. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes the target, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier).

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be healed each round.

Immunity to Fire (Ex): At 4th level, you become immune to fire damage.

Devastating Hellfire (Sp): At 5th level, any time you apply your Hellfire Blast Essence, it becomes Devastating Hellfire. Your Hellfire Blast gains many of the benefits of a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like ability. It bypasses SR, cannot be dispelled or counterspelled, and cannot be disrupted. If your ranged attacks normally provoke attacks of opportunity, so does your Eldritch Blast, but the act of invoking a Hellfire Blast itself does not provoke an AoO. Your Hellfire Blast is still a SLA, however, which means that you may still apply metamagic-SLA feats to it.

In addition, you may choose to amplify the effects of your Hellfire. By taking 3 points of Constitution damage, rather than the usual 1, you may triple the damage of your Eldritch Blast, rather than doubling it. As this is especially hard on your body, you may not triple your damage in this way more than once in 3 rounds.

Hellfire Wrath (Sp): Starting at 5th level, you can call up hellfire to surround yourself with a protective barrier. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, cause an eruption of hellfire to explode from your body. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes all creatures in squares adjacent to you, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier).

Each time you use this ability, you take 3 points of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be healed each round.

*********************************

Questions:
1) What are your thoughts: power-wise? concept-wise?
2) Would it be appropriate to add something with a Will Save for extended use of Hellfire, to better mechanically portray an inner struggle with demonic forces? Sort of like a vestige's influence on a Binder?
3) Would you recommend any changes to abilities, entry requirements, or have further feature suggestions?

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-05, 07:29 PM
Questions:
1) What are your thoughts: power-wise? concept-wise?
2) Would it be appropriate to add something with a Will Save for extended use of Hellfire, to better mechanically portray an inner struggle with demonic forces? Sort of like a vestige's influence on a Binder?
3) Would you recommend any changes to abilities, entry requirements, or have further feature suggestions?

1) For Devastating Hellfire I get to spend 300% the resource (my Con), for a 150% power boost? That seems a bit lame, I know its nova costed, but x3 in comparison to x2 isn't all that much when I'm still rolling.

For Hellfire Wrath, I like the idea. But, with "This blast automatically strikes all creatures in squares adjacent to you" which is inclusive of allies its a little underpar, even Eldritch Doom lets you choose who to hit when it goes off.
Also, for the cost (x3 that of shield which does the same damage) it wont be used unless you've got at least three enemies capable of hitting you on the following round, in which case its probably better to just flee than to take their attacks and the Con burn.

I like the purely doubling aspect of Hellfire Blast now though, it fits much better for the nova aspect.

2) I would say no, its a nice idea, but I personally feel it muddies the mechanics and makes the class even less appealing. You're already subjecting yourself to ability damage, it seems unfair to have the ability then also unpredictable and potentially fail you when you need it most.

3) I have a feeling your second question was purely proposed due to the ability damage healing that you have explicitly allowed, and thus allowing hellfire to be thrown out every round. I still disagree with this, imo hellfire warlock was never meant to be able to toss hellfire blasts every round unless death was imminent anyway. I know its limited to 1 a round, but to be fair this just prevents you from wanting to use the shield/wrath abilities (and puts you off even more from tapping into Devastating Hellfire).

Another option for the cost of using more potent hellfire moves is dealing Constitution Drain for its use. It wont heal back naturally and it'll take a little more to cure. Although as most hellfire warlocks who don't rely on work arounds so they can spam hellfire blasts carry around scrolls (and later wands) of Restoration which can still heal back drain from one ability score, this is no more damaging than ability damage other than preventing the slow heal should you be without your equipment.

I would like to see a literally nova ability however, something you could sink everything you had into if you so chose, something to use when you are on you're last legs and on your way out. Perhaps the following:

Improved Hellfire Blast (Sp): At 5th level, your Hellfire Blast improves, it now gains many of the benefits of a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like ability. It bypasses SR, cannot be dispelled or counterspelled, and cannot be disrupted. If your ranged attacks normally provoke attacks of opportunity, so does your Eldritch Blast, but the act of invoking a Hellfire Blast itself does not provoke an AoO. Your Hellfire Blast is still a SLA, however, which means that you may still apply metamagic-SLA feats to it.

Devastating Hellfire (Sp): At 5th level you have mastered the arts of hellfire and can sacrifice more of your life force into producing even more lethal hellfire blasts.

Rather than paying the usual 1 Constitution damage when using your Hellfire Blast Essence, you may instead chose to take a number of ability drain to Constitution, Strength and Charisma (each) and multiply the damage of your normal Eldritch Blast by 2 plus that number. The Blast is also assumed to be automatically maximised, and widened and the ability drain happens after the blasts affects have resolved. You may only use this ability once per encounter. And no, this number cannot be 0!

Example: Morthos decides to make his Eldritch Blast attack into a Devastating Hellfire Blast, instead of paying the 1 Constitution damage of a regular Hellfire Blast he chooses to pay 8 ability drain to make it a Devastating Hellfire Blast. His normal Eldritch Blast does 5d6, this is multiplied by the amount of ability drain he is about to receive to each stat plus 2, so x10. His Blast will therefore deal 50d6 damage, but it is also maximised so he will deal 300 hellfire damage to each target affected by his blast. After the blast has resolved he takes 8 Constitution drain, 8 Strength drain and 8 Charisma drain. Should he have also chosen to use the Cone Shape, it would have been widened and therefore covered twice as much space as it normally would have.

(this is purely late night musings and I've not bothered to test the actual balance of this in anyway btw)

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 01:08 PM
That seems insanely powerful, but it does come at a huge price. Does anyone else have an opinion on Reaper_Monkey's idea?


Wait, let me work this math out...

eldritch blast = 6d6
1 con damage = 12d6
3 con damage (my example) =18d6

vs.

24 drained ability points = 50d6 auto-maximized

However... you can't make a potion of restoration (4th level spell). So your only hope is a wand, which costs 26,000. Which you can use twice.

So you're paying pretty much every piece of gold you own to be able to nova twice, in order to deal 300 damage.

Alternatively, you can get a party cleric to cast Restoration on you 3 times.

I just don't know about this... It'd made for a pretty big moment of awesome for when the BBEG has killed all of your friends, you're surrounded by evil, and bleeding out, and then be able to give him a big screw you in the form of 300 damage on your way out the door, but I don't think it would ever get used aside from that...

DragoonWraith
2010-02-06, 01:12 PM
What about abilities that scale based on how much Con damage you have already taken? So you are encouraged to not mitigate the damage?

CTLC
2010-02-06, 01:26 PM
Hellfire requires level 9 as you need 12 in a know skill.
+6d6 is not a helluva lot of damage tbqh.
The one con would make this a useless class to me if not for my level of incarnate.
And so i doubt the worth of these brews when basically they spend their time Doing one of a few things; regretting the level you took due to the fact that using the ability is terribly damaging, or never using it and feeling like you wasted levels.
I think the class does need more damage output, but im not sure its worth it with so much damage, especially when there are multiple enemies, or when compared to other prcs. It is a very shallow prc, not much in the way of abilities aside from damage.
Basically, when i see my other options, i would simply not take these.
FYI, the devastating ability can be taken for 1 damage, and ignored completely by strongheart vest.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 01:35 PM
Now that's an exciting idea. So this way, you could still just double your damage each round and have it healed by Naberius, but you could build up to some pretty serious damage, if you were willing to risk your health and push yourself harder over the course of an encounter.

What would you suggest would be an appropriate scale?

Hellfire Blast does 1 Con damage.

{table]Con Damage Already Taken|Extra Damage
0|x2
-2|x4
-4|x6[/table]

So, a level 10 example:
Standard: 5d6
Hellfire Blast: 10d6 (take 10 damage from 1 Con)
Hellfire Blast: 10d6 (no further damage from 1 Con)
Hellfire Blast: 20d6 (take 10 more damage from 1 Con)
Hellfire Blast: 20d6 (take no further damage from 1 Con)
Hellfire Blast: 30d6 (take 10 more damage from 1 Con)
Hellfire Blast: 30d6 (take no more damage from 1 Con)

For a total of an extra 90d6 (240) damage for 30 damage to yourself, spread out over 6 rounds.

Or would that be too fast?

Alternately, you could progress it linearly (x2, x3, x4), giving you: 10,10,15,15,20,20 for an extra 60d6 (180) damage for 30 damage to yourself, spread over 6 rounds.

DragoonWraith
2010-02-06, 01:37 PM
Unfortunately, I can't really help with the numbers; almost all of my D&D experience is below level 10, so I'm just not familiar with how the numbers at those levels are supposed to look.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 01:40 PM
Hellfire requires level 9 as you need 12 in a know skill.
+6d6 is not a helluva lot of damage tbqh.
The one con would make this a useless class to me if not for my level of incarnate.
And so i doubt the worth of these brews when basically they spend their time Doing one of a few things; regretting the level you took due to the fact that using the ability is terribly damaging, or never using it and feeling like you wasted levels.
I think the class does need more damage output, but im not sure its worth it with so much damage, especially when there are multiple enemies, or when compared to other prcs. It is a very shallow prc, not much in the way of abilities aside from damage.
Basically, when i see my other options, i would simply not take these.
FYI, the devastating ability can be taken for 1 damage, and ignored completely by strongheart vest.

That's what we're trying to sort out--how much damage would it take to make this really fit the concept of "extra damage for the cost of your soul".

I think what we've moved to is the idea of doubling your damage exponentially, a la multiplying your normal Eldritch Blast x2 or more, rather than static increases of 2d6 (7 damage).

By the way, with Devastating Hellfire, it explicitly says that only 1 Con damage can be mitigated each round. So if you were to go nova, even if you pumped your essentia into Strongheart Vest, it wouldn't change the fact that it wouldn't be completely ignored by the work-arounds.

And Dragoon Wraith has suggested the novel idea of not healing your Con damage for more power, which would make Naberius great for after you've gone nova, allowing you to face another encounter in the day, but capturing the idea of spending yourself to make your damage huge.

Oh, and yeah, the original requires Level 9, but one of the iterations proposed allows entry at Level 5.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 01:45 PM
how you scale is up to smarter people than myself who are able to balance well. My idea would be something more usable. I feel like im in a bad position as i want this to be a good, playable, prc. Although i also think that i want delicious, cinematic, awesome sauce to drip from my every pore. So think about someone who knows full well that using himself up is enabling him to fight. But he cant in good conscience let everyone know hes gonna pass out in a few minutes eh? Also playing up the unpredictability nature would be nice. So including more abilities such as the ability to treat your hellfire as something solid. i.e. wrap yourself in a bubble of hellfire and float up into the air. Another idea i like is of a two stage class. [if you think long and hard, youll notice many classes have two "settings" one for meh encounters and obstacles, and BBEG of the day mode] No setting would be a warlock, Setting one would be the ability to use and manipulate hellfire, with possibilities including: constant damage, ability drain over time, or hurting yourself with the hellfire. Think sandshaper, with hellfire, but more thematically appropriate, you have a fiend inside you, you are using its hellfire, and abating its hunger. Setting two would be full on; i am quickly expending my ability to stay alive with the sole purpose of making my attacks that much hotter, and damaging, to kill you. you you and only you will die. even if i join ye.

the current versions have these issues, way i see em:
1. the damage is underwhelming, its called a full caster, and it makes you worthless. [true that comment applies to everything, but hellfire should be able to do that damage with a price]
2. you cant do much, you can 1. blast, or 2. shield. woop~
3. i think this class should be friendly with eldritch glaive, and i think it needs to be more impressive all around. In general, as long as the tank doesnt mind the mediocre damage, he can hit you with a stick, and you can die. if there are multiple enemies, you become more of a joke.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 01:58 PM
I think, if we're going to start adding in extra abilities (like the flight you're talking about), they need to be Invocations, rather than class abilities. Otherwise (IMO), I think this thing would quickly become really powerful.

And there are invocations that do that sort of thing. Fell Flight does the exact same thing.

But I get what you mean. Do you have any suggestions about specific abilities, and whether or not they should be class abilities or additional invocations one could learn?

CTLC
2010-02-06, 02:02 PM
I think that you make a good point. I was getting a little fan-boyish sure. But you bring something up that i find quite cool. Invocations, just an idea, but does the hellfire need invocations? I actually dont think it does, but if someone makes it work, more power to ya.

But my idea was that you can either not use the fiends power. Open the tap most of the way, for a constant price, or finally cut the hose, and spray at full water Fiyah! pressure! So, something not-quite-so-debilitating for the hellfire powers, and some of its bonuses. But if you want/need to blast something or do an impromptu needle in the sky? that would be the full pressure. Let the fiend pour as much fire out as it can manage.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 02:17 PM
Alright, I've tried to work in some of the suggestions into this version of the class. This post is a work-in-progress, as I try to figure out how to work the ideas of advancing Hellfire damage through building Constitution damage over time, AND allowing for a Nova option.

Current iteration in OP

Hellfire Warlock

Entry requirements:
Skills: Intimidate 6 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks.
Language: Infernal.
Warlock Invocation: Must know brimstone blast or hellrime blast.

{table]Level|Special|Invoking
1|Hellfire Blast|+1 level of existing invoking class
2|Hellfire Infusion|+1 level of existing invoking class
3|Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class
4|Quick Burn, Immunity to Fire|+1 level of existing invoking class
5|Devastating Hellfire, Hellfire Wrath|+1 level of existing invoking class[/table]

Special Note: This class cannot be advanced beyond Level 5. Bloodlines, Legacy Champions, etc gain no Hellfire Warlock advancement beyond Level 5.

Hellfire Blast (Sp): This is an Eldritch Blast Essence that you may apply to your eldritch blast. A hellfire blast deals your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by X (see chart below). If your blast hits multiple targets (for example, the eldritch chain or eldritch cone blast shape invocations), each target takes the extra damage. This damage is not fire damage. Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire, as described in the sidebar on page 119. You may not apply any other Blast Essence to an Eldritch Blast with the Hellfire Essence applied.

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be mitigated each round; if you pump 2 essentia points into a Strongheart Vest, it will still only mitigate 1 point this round, and 1 point the following round.

Special: If you have any ways of amplifying your Eldritch Blast, such as a Chausable of Fell Power, add this extra damage in before multiplying the damage by 2. This does not apply to damage from other sources, such as sneak attack, giant-felling/mage-slaying/etc.

{table]Constitution Damage Previously Taken|Extra Hellfire Damage
0|x2
-2|x4
-4|x6
-6|x8
-8|x10[/table]

Hellfire Infusion (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you can infuse magic items that you wield with the power of hellfire. Whenever you use a charged magic item (such as a wand or a staff), you can apply one of the following metamagic effects to your next use of the item: empower, enlarge, widen, or energy substitution. These effects work just like the metamagic feats of the same name (the Energy Substitution feat is described on page 79 of Complete Arcane). Using hellfire infusion is a swift action. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum one). When you infuse an item with hellfire, it glows briefly with fiery symbols that are disturbing to look upon.

Hellfire Shield (Sp): Starting at 3rd level, you can call up hellfire to surround yourself with a protective barrier. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, cause Hellfire to leap from your body, striking that creature. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes the target, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier). This counts toward your allowed number of attacks of opportunity for this round, and cannot be used twice in the same round against the same creature (so you get one attack against Bob the Barbarian, as he full attacks you for three iterative attacks).

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be healed each round.

Immunity to Fire (Ex): At 4th level, you become immune to fire damage.

Quick Burn (Sp): At 4th level, you may, rather than slowly working your way up the damage table, instead immediately skip to a higher damage tier. However, you pay the full Constitution damage price to reach it, and 1/4 of that Constitution damage takes the form of Constitution Drain.

Devastating Hellfire (Sp): At 5th level, any time you apply your Hellfire Blast Essence, it becomes Devastating Hellfire. Your Hellfire Blast gains many of the benefits of a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like ability. It bypasses SR, cannot be dispelled or counterspelled, and cannot be disrupted. If your ranged attacks normally provoke attacks of opportunity, so does your Eldritch Blast, but the act of invoking a Hellfire Blast itself does not provoke an AoO. Your Hellfire Blast is still a SLA, however, which means that you may still apply metamagic-SLA feats to it.

Hellfire Wrath (Sp): Starting at 5th level, you can call up hellfire to surround yourself with a protective barrier. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, cause an eruption of hellfire to explode from your body. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes all creatures in squares adjacent to you, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier). This counts toward your allowed number of attacks of opportunity for this round, and cannot be used twice in the same round against the same creature (so you get one attack against Bob the Barbarian, as he full attacks you for three iterative attacks).

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. Soulmelds and Vestiges are legal ways in which to heal the Constitution damage. However, only 1 point of Constitution damage elicited by using Hellfire can be healed each round.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 02:19 PM
Wait, let me work this math out...

eldritch blast = 6d6
1 con damage = 12d6
3 con damage (my example) =18d6

vs.

24 drained ability points = 50d6 auto-maximized


Okay first off the paying 8 ability drain to each stat is just an example, its a variable amount, you choose how much to sink into it. So it would be:

eldritch blast = 6d6
1 con damage = 12d6
3 con damage (my example) =18d6

vs.

eldritch blast = 6d6
24 drained ability points (8 to each) = 60d6 auto-maximized (so 360 damage)
or
3 drained ability points (1 to each) = 18d6 auto-maximized (so 108 damage)
or
9 drained ability points (3 to each) = 30d6 auto-maximized (so 180 damage)


However... you can't make a potion of restoration (4th level spell). So your only hope is a wand, which costs 26,000. Which you can use twice.

You can however make a scroll, and warlock comes kitted out with UMD with deceive device for this very purpose. I've no idea why you can only use a wand twice, a wand comes with 50 charges, yes you need to use it 3 times to fully heal all the damage (once for each stat) but that is why it damage is to three different stats in order to actually make the damage count.


I just don't know about this... It'd made for a pretty big moment of awesome for when the BBEG has killed all of your friends, you're surrounded by evil, and bleeding out, and then be able to give him a big screw you in the form of 300 damage on your way out the door, but I don't think it would ever get used aside from that...

I think this is somewhat said because you've missed the point that you can vary the amount you can fuel the ability with, but even so yes this is sorta the point. Its a nova ability, its meant to take you out of the fight a little after using it, or be used as a last farewell when things turn so dire your dead anyway.


What about abilities that scale based on how much Con damage you have already taken? So you are encouraged to not mitigate the damage?

I like the idea of this, it makes sense, and it encourages you to build up the burn too. So you can shoot off a few weaker blasts in the minor fights leading up to a known big stand off so when you get there you know you're blasts are going to be primed to do massive damage. Then you can heal only a little to maintain peak efficiency, it becomes less about nova and more about compromise and resource management. It gets my thumbs up for sure as an alternative to the nova build, although I'd like to see the self healing as part of the class feature.

EDIT:

advancing Hellfire damage through building Constitution damage over time, AND allowing for a Nova option.

...

{table]Constitution Damage Previously Taken|Extra Hellfire Damage
0|x2
-2|x3
-4|x4
-6|x5
-8|x6[/table]


This does a good job of advancing hellfire damage through built up con damage.... but its not allowing nova. You have to cast hellfire blast 9 times before you get maximum effect, this is good as a build up, but nova is the ability to sink lots of resources to get a very short very bright burn at an instant. Not overly critiquing the mechanic here, but nova its not.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 02:24 PM
I totally screwed up as I was thinking it through. I was thinking you'd need 8 charges from a wand per ability, rather than just 3 total. *Embarrassed Face*

Yeah, let me ponder the numbers a bit, but you may be on to something.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 02:28 PM
a few notes i have.
1. yay, it seems much more playable, higher levels increase eldritch as warlock, but the hellfire gives you the x2 right off the bat. While leaving the option to take a -8 and make something go very, very dead.
2. hellfire wrath could be a bite more flexible. the way it is now, it seems like hellfire shield, in a burst [making shield useless] that somehow needs to be hit with a stick to activate.
3. it says con damage previously taken, is it cumulative?
4. the abilities still seem to all do the same thing, maybe dropping shield or wrath, to give a different ability for [although its not a utility class] some utility.
5. is hellfire infusion so necessary? i dont know how it is balance wise, but it doesnt really fit the theme for me. it could easily be replaced with something from Acolyte of the skin's ability list. which is basically another warlock prc, but is meant to play up the fiend aspect.


This does a good job of advancing hellfire damage through built up con damage.... but its not allowing nova. You have to cast hellfire blast 9 times before you get maximum effect, this is good as a build up, but nova is the ability to sink lots of resources to get a very short very bright burn at an instant. Not overly critiquing the mechanic here, but nova its not.

oh, i took it as either you can slowly build up, or if i wanted to go ahead and drop 8 con in one round, i could skip the motions.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 02:34 PM
Okay, how would be go about reconciling the Nova-Drain aspect, and the Building Damage aspect?

I like them both, and I'd like to see them both in the build, but I have no idea how to make them work together.

So, here's my understanding of how they might stack:
Morthos, over 6 rounds, deals 6 Con damage to himself. He now has an Eldritch Blast damage modifier of x8. 40d6 (average 140 damage).

He now hits the BBEG with a Devastating Hellfire Blast, draining himself of another 8 in each stat (8 Str, 8 Con, and 8 Cha, putting him at 14 Con total). This deals a maximized x8 + x10 damage (I imagine you add them together?) for x18 damage. 90d6 (540 damage).

Now, does his new 8 Con Drain count toward his Eldritch damage table? If so, he's now able to spam a ridiculous amount of damage each turn. (But he is sitting at -14 Con, so he's probably close to being dead. I suppose that balances out...)

EDIT: Or, I suppose you could allow use the table in two ways. You could slowly work your way up to that damage, or you could just jump straight to -8 to deal a ton of damage...

CTLC
2010-02-06, 02:40 PM
Okay, how would be go about reconciling the Nova-Drain aspect, and the Building Damage aspect?

I like them both, and I'd like to see them both in the build, but I have no idea how to make them work together.

So, here's my understanding of how they might stack:
Morthos, over 6 rounds, deals 6 Con damage to himself. He now has an Eldritch Blast damage modifier of x8. 40d6 (average 140 damage).

He now hits the BBEG with a Devastating Hellfire Blast, draining himself of another 8 in each stat (8 Str, 8 Con, and 8 Cha, putting him at 14 Con total). This deals a maximized x8 + x10 damage (I imagine you add them together?) for x18 damage. 90d6 (540 damage).

Now, does his new 8 Con Drain count toward his Eldritch damage table? If so, he's now able to spam a ridiculous amount of damage each turn. (But he is sitting at -14 Con, so he's probably close to being dead. I suppose that balances out...)

EDIT: Or, I suppose you could allow use the table in two ways. You could slowly work your way up to that damage, or you could just jump straight to -8 to deal a ton of damage...


WHOA, i was thinking that he could take another 2 to make it 40d6, and then reset, the table. or have a cap, and have it reset every encounter.
but -14 con, is not worth it. just too high a price, that makes your character useless for the next week, and then weak for another week. assuming you arent VERY dead. which you are, because a housecat bit off your toe.

Edit: i like your edit.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 02:43 PM
How about this:

"you may, rather than slowly working your way up the damage table, instead immediately skip to a higher damage tier. However, you pay the full Constitution damage price to reach it, and 1/4 (1/2?) of that Constitution damage takes the form of Constitution Drain.'


have it reset every encounter.
If you're using Naberius to heal 1 ability damage each round, then it would reset every encounter (but not the drain). In fact, once you reached a damage level that you were happy with, you could allow Naberius to keep you there by healing the 1 Con for the Hellfire that you used each turn.

So
1) Hellfire blast (1 Con)
2) Hellfire blast (2 con)
3) Hellfire blast (3 con)
4) Hellfire blast (4 con)
5) Hellfire blast (5 con - 1 from Naberius = 4 con)
Repeat actions of round 5 ad nauseum.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 02:50 PM
Okay, how would be go about reconciling the Nova-Drain aspect, and the Building Damage aspect?

I like them both, and I'd like to see them both in the build, but I have no idea how to make them work together.

If you allow both mechanics side by side they could work quite well assuming drain =/= damage. But its getting messy and I dont like messy mehcanics, and as you point out if they are equal then you can get some very crazy quantities of damage.


Should this table advance x2/x3/x4/x5/x6 instead? I'm having trouble thinking through how balanced this would be at various levels

If you use just slow build damage then use x2/x4/x6/x8/x10, if you allow sudden nova aspects then use x2/x3/x4/x5/x6 and have a minimum of 1 Con for using hellfire, otherwise all that will happen if you will pay as much (likely the maximum) con damage to do a single blast and then keep firing at that rate with no additional loss, with the ability to heal back with one spell. By no means balanced.


EDIT: Or, I suppose you could allow use the table in two ways. You could slowly work your way up to that damage, or you could just jump straight to -8 to deal a ton of damage...

I personally think this should not be the case however, the earlier numbers hardly make a difference if you can just jump to the highest and easily negate any loss what so ever (as I just said above).

The slow build option works because it makes you an increasing threat at the same time as making you notably weaker, allowing enemies to realise your threat and react accordingly (ie, kill you due to your now weakended state).

Nova works because its a huge sudden burst of unpredicted damage which takes time to recover from yourself, significantly reducing your power output over the next few rounds (at least) due to it.

I'll give it some thought of how to include both however, as I do like the nova option. Perhaps some sort of "Dark Phoenix" power (instead of wrath as CTLC pointed out its a little useless now), which lets you do a Eldritch Doom like blast of hellfire with a high multiplier but takes you out of the game for a while (time hop style) as you literally explode and then reform. The nova aspect could be something like "using your current hellfire burn multiplier plus a number of your choice, this number is then drained for ALL of your ability scores once you reform, you reform in 3 plus this number rounds."

EDIT:
If you're using Naberius to heal 1 ability damage each round, then it would reset every encounter (but not the drain). In fact, once you reached a damage level that you were happy with, you could allow Naberius to keep you there by healing the 1 Con for the Hellfire that you used each turn.

Lets please not have to take a dip into another class to make this viable, warlock can UMD for scroll and wand casting easily for healing anyway (one Restoration heals ALL ability damage, or ALL drain to ONE ability, thus one casting undoes all of the bad). Include self healing as an option for the class.. hell have the ability damage count instead as class point pool which does the same thing as con damage and then grant a way to heal it within the class (this prevents you overriding basic assumptions of how healable the damage is as it cant be healed by any other source).

CTLC
2010-02-06, 02:53 PM
now, i think thats fine. my next area of thought would be something more for abilities, no infusion, no shield [or no wrath] with the survivor of the two not being triggered only by melee. I really think the only restricting factor for a hellfire's power is the hellfire's ability to not die. If you shoot him with a ballista, he should be able to incinerate it before it hits him, albeit with a cost. one idea is to have a scaling table, much like the one for blast, to control a certain amount of hellfire. in cu ft. this could either, be a seperate table, and allow a bit of utility and defense [i like defensive things in dnd, if you havent noticed :smallwink: ] or combine it all to one table, the more you let out, the more it costs, and the more you can do.
so for no con damage, you get x2, and 1 cu foot.
once you have scaled up [either in leaps, bounds, or steps] it increases both
so eventually at -8 you can really control chunks of hellfire, and you can add some damage. but when you either hit 0hp, or the encounter ends, you have a reset table, and boatloads of bad con effects. I think it fits the buy a fiends power, and burn hot and fast theme.

Edit: talking about reaper monkey's post.
1. the table should include an upkeep cost. where after the one time cost, you take a certain amount of damage [probably just plain damage] to stay at that tier, or drop some tiers down.
2. if you go x2, x4, x6 etc. and allow both, i see no cheese. maybe make it so it heals naturally only, because warlocks do get fast healing. so this makes neither the control, nor the damage [which i almost consider part of the general hellfire] cheesy.
3. Finally, a few examples of things you can do, this is super hot remember?
The 1 cu ft is free to use, it just leaks off the fiend, its enough to keep yourself warm [or on fire] maybe 1 cu ft is too much to start... but you could do a few cu inches, maybe melt a lock, or light a fire, or stay warmer. I realize warlocks have umd and all, but umd doesnt compensate for a lack of abilities.
[edits are fun]

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 02:59 PM
now, i think thats fine. my next area of thought would be something more for abilities, no infusion, no shield [or no wrath] with the survivor of the two not being triggered only by melee. I really think the only restricting factor for a hellfire's power is the hellfire's ability to not die. If you shoot him with a ballista, he should be able to incinerate it before it hits him, albeit with a cost. one idea is to have a scaling table, much like the one for blast, to control a certain amount of hellfire. in cu ft. this could either, be a seperate table, and allow a bit of utility and defense [i like defensive things in dnd, if you havent noticed :smallwink: ] or combine it all to one table, the more you let out, the more it costs, and the more you can do.
so for no con damage, you get x2, and 1 cu foot.
once you have scaled up [either in leaps, bounds, or steps] it increases both
so eventually at -8 you can really control chunks of hellfire, and you can add some damage. but when you either hit 0hp, or the encounter ends, you have a reset table, and boatloads of bad con effects. I think it fits the buy a fiends power, and burn hot and fast theme.

I don't think Hellfire Shield works like that (and neither does its improved version, Hellfire Wrath). They're both triggered by melee, and neither of them prevent you from taking damage.

However, there is a Dark Eldritch Blast Shape, which deals your Eldritch Blast in a 30' radius. I think that's what you're aiming for, and that already exists (which is why you advance invoker level--you have to be something like Warlock 15 to reach that kind of power).

Now, if you're talking about a shield, there is already an invocation called Entropic Shield, which does the same thing as the spell against ranged weapons (20% miss chance). I think you'd be fine refluffing that invocation to say that the wind deflects the arrow wisps of hellfire swirling around the Hellfire Warlock incinerate the arrow.


so for no con damage, you get x2, and 1 cu foot.
You still take 1 Con damage. The table I provided scales with previous con damage.


I'll give it some thought of how to include both however, as I do like the nova option. Perhaps some sort of "Dark Phoenix" power (instead of wrath as CTLC pointed out its a little useless now), which lets you do a Eldritch Doom like blast of hellfire with a high multiplier but takes you out of the game for a while (time hop style) as you literally explode and then reform. The nova aspect could be something like "using your current hellfire burn multiplier plus a number of your choice, this number is then drained for ALL of your ability scores once you reform, you reform in 3 plus this number rounds."Now that's an interesting idea...

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 03:04 PM
Edit: talking about reaper monkey's post.
1. the table should include an upkeep cost. where after the one time cost, you take a certain amount of damage [probably just plain damage] to stay at that tier, or drop some tiers down.
2. if you go x2, x4, x6 etc. and allow both, i see no cheese. maybe make it so it heals naturally only, because warlocks do get fast healing.

Warlocks do get fast healing... once per day, that lasts for 2 minutes. So not really the same thing. I don't really like an upkeep cost, the idea is that con drain (and thus reduced hp) *is* the upkeep cost, you're already on reduced hp without taking additional damage on top of that.

I was going to counter the rest of your post, but mhvaughan just did that for me, warlocks get a lot of nice invocations and nothing says you cant reflavour them a little (infact any good DM should encourage it). I'm also not sure when the last time any warlock of mine has needed to incinerate a ballista bolt, although id demand a reflex save to jump out the way if it did happen (save for half damage that is).

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:06 PM
I don't think Hellfire Shield works like that (and neither does its improved version, Hellfire Wrath). They're both triggered by melee, and neither of them prevent you from taking damage.

However, there is a Dark Eldritch Blast Shape, which deals your Eldritch Blast in a 30' radius. I think that's what you're aiming for, and that already exists (which is why you advance invoker level--you have to be something like Warlock 15 to reach that kind of power).

Now, if you're talking about a shield, there is already an invocation called Entropic Shield, which does the same thing as the spell against ranged weapons (20% miss chance). I think you'd be fine refluffing that invocation to say that the wind deflects the arrow wisps of hellfire swirling around the Hellfire Warlock incinerate the arrow.


You still take 1 Con damage. The table I provided scales with previous con damage.

Now that's an interesting idea...

1. hellfire shield makes no sense. that much fire, but only when hit with a sword? not an arrow? and it doesnt deter the meleer at all, or burn the arrow.
2. doom is not what i meant, hellfire is triggered as an immediate when attacked, doom cant be.
3. entropic shield is not a shield, its entropic warding. it wards, like a ward.
4. i think the few cu inches is not worth a con damage, but yes, when you increase that amount or get your first damage boost should start at one con, meh bad.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 03:07 PM
Yeah, I agree with no upkeep cost. I think the problem is that CTLC is missing the fact that anytime you use hellfire, it deals 1 Con damage.

So, you've made it to the -8 Con/x10 tier, and you fire off a hellfire blast, you're now at -9 Con. If you've got Naberius backing you up, you can heal back to -8 again and repeat the cycle. But in the end you still took 1 con damage from that use of hellfire.

EDIT regarding Hellfire Shield:
Yeah, I know what you mean. But that's the exact wording from the original PrC.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:09 PM
ohhh, so only if i keep that damage do i get the bonus, and then i have to continue adding one when i try to use it. huh, ok.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 03:13 PM
So, you've made it to the -8 Con/x10 tier, and you fire off a hellfire blast, you're now at -9 Con. If you've got Naberius backing you up, you can heal back to -8 again and repeat the cycle. But in the end you still took 1 con damage from that use of hellfire.

Agreed, although I would still like to address the requirement for a dip for Naberius. I'm not saying it should be dismissed as being viable, but you are factoring into a lot of our assumptions of how the class will ultimately play like.

We can add in the exact mechanic earlier into the prestige if needs be, but otherwise I think we should assess how a warlock/hellfire warlock will cope using the mechanic (balanced against a pure warlock of equivalent level). If the class is given the ability to heal 1 con damage a round (optional and preferably only damage dealt from a use of hellfire) then the 0 con damage should give no multiplier.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 03:14 PM
Right. You don't automatically get rid of the 8 Con.

So you have two options.

Option One (heal every round by binding Naberius)
Round 1) Hellfire Blast x2, -1 Con, +1 Con Naberius = 0 total Con damage
Round 2) Hellfire Blast x2, -1 Con, +1 Con Naberius = 0 total Con damage
Round 3) Hellfire Blast x2, -1 Con, +1 Con Naberius = 0 total Con damage

Option two (build your damage by taking more and more Con damage)
Round 1) Hellfire Blast x2, -1 Con total
Round 2) Hellfire Blast x2, -2 Con total
Round 3) Hellfire Blast x4, -3 con total
Round 4) Hellfire Blast x4, -4 Con total

Now, if you wanted to, you could then begin to heal 1 Con every turn
Round 5) Hellfire Blast x4, -5 Con total +1 Con Naberius = -4 Con
Round 6) Hellfire Blast x4, -5 Con total +1 Con Naberius = -4 Con

Now let's say you took a break from using Hellfire Blast
Round 7) Chilling Tentacles, +1 Con Naberius = -3 Con
Round 8) Eldritch Blast, +1 Con Naberius = -2 Con
Round 7) Encounter Over, +1 Con Naberius = -1 Con
Round 7) Encounter Still Over, +1 Con Naberius = 0 Con

Does that make sense?

EDIT: Reaper_Monkey, I get what you're saying. However, if 0 previous Con gives no additional damage, you won't have any benefit of using Eldritch Blast until Round 3.

And I'm not sure that fast ability healing fits with the concept of Hellfire Warlock. Where is that healing coming from? If you've taken a level dip for Binder, and have Naberius, it makes sense thematically. But if you're a pure Hellfire Warlock, the demonic source of your power sure isn't giving it back to you.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:16 PM
i took a level for incarnate, which gives my strongheart vest, which functions as dr 1/-- for ability score damage. so if i pay 8 con, but get it reduced to 7, do i get a bonus for 8 or 7?

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 03:19 PM
i took a level for incarnate, which gives my strongheart vest, which functions as dr 1/-- for ability score damage. so if i pay 8 con, but get it reduced to 7, do i get a bonus for 8 or 7?

You would only get the bonus associated with 7 damage. Think of it like this: your character's pain is feeding the demonic force, which gives you more power. If you're not hurting so badly, it doesn't have as much to feed on, and therefore starves the power that it can give you.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:23 PM
but its not the pain, its the life energy, which strongheart vest simply buffers.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 03:26 PM
Think about it mechanically: if you allowed Strongheart Vest to buffer the con damage, but still gain the bonus to damage, you'd be gaining power every other round for no cost.

This is what would happen if you allowed that
Round 1) x2 (-1 Con, +1 Con Strongheart = 0 Con)
Round 2) x2 (-1 Con, +1 Con Strongheart = 0 Con)
Round 3) x4 (-1 Con, +1 Con Strongheart = 0 Con)
Round 4) x4 (-1 Con, +1 Con Strongheart = 0 Con)
Round 5) x6 (-1 Con, +1 Con Strongheart = 0 Con)

So yeah, you would have taken 5 Con damage, but Strongheart has negated all 5 of those, so you're not experiencing any kind of penalty.

So that's why you would only get the bonus for -7, rather than -8, in your example.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:28 PM
ok then, that seems fine. i still think it should scale x2, 4, 6

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 03:35 PM
EDIT: Reaper_Monkey, I get what you're saying. However, if 0 previous Con gives no additional damage, you won't have any benefit of using Eldritch Blast until Round 3.

And I'm not sure that fast ability healing fits with the concept of Hellfire Warlock. Where is that healing coming from? If you've taken a level dip for Binder, and have Naberius, it makes sense thematically. But if you're a pure Hellfire Warlock, the demonic source of your power sure isn't giving it back to you.

Good point I guess, although it is meant to be slow build, perhaps shift it to the first multiplier is on -1 con damage so:

{table]Hellfire Pool|Extra Hellfire Damage
-1|x2
-3|x4
-5|x6
-7|x8
-9|x10[/table]

As for thematic reasoning, yes it is a little weak, however you really shouldn't base a prestige around one class and assume a dip into another.

Perhaps small amounts of hellfire doesn't strain the body at all naturally as you can recover fairly quickly, however opting to draw in more into yourself is damaging and this is required to get more devastating blasts. So over time of using hellfire you can opt to slowly build up more hellfire into your soul (befitting to the reasoning behind fire immunity too) which of cause weakens you but allows you to produce more powerful blasts.

Mechanic wise not much changes:

Whenever you use hellfire you take 1 con damage and increase your hellfire pool by 1.
At the end of each round, if you used any eldritch blast (hellfire blasts inclusive) you may choose to reduce your hellfire pool by 1 and heal 1 con damage at the same time (ie, you are expelling the hellfire in your blasts, note that you still take the damage from reducing your Constitution score if it was an even change).
You may take a full round action to reduce your hellfire pool by any amount of your choosing, you heal the same amount of con damage, you do not heal back the lost hp from your lower Con score.

This also makes a hell of a lot of sense for why Dark Phoenix works, you literally flood your body with hellfire causing it to erupt in a blast of hellfire, doing so however clearly does more lasting damage to your body hence the ability drain to all stats. Also don't forget that hellfire warlock can be themed as masters of hellfire, or even just a more potent deal with more evil forces, its not in the demons best interests to destroy you if you're doing its bidding.

EDIT: oh, the hellfire pool is to prevent this from being an easy way to heal con damage from any other source (like poisons etc) and means that the power it literally gained ONLY from casting hellfire blast (otherwise I can chug poison to nova still, which I think isn't really befitting to the flavour of the class).

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 03:35 PM
It does.

I added in the class feature "Quick Burn", which gives you a nova option at level 4. It might belong at an earlier level, but I just kind of stuck it in.

Reaper Monkey, let me know if you come up with your Phoenix idea. I'd be curious to hear more about it, and see if it might fit into the class progression or replace the current 'nova' mechanic.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:39 PM
so, rewrite the class with:
either wrath or shield, which i think still needs fixing.
dark phoenix [i love this ability. would cause legal issues though]
new table for hellfire

and am i the only one who likes the manipulating hellfire aspect. cause its my dream...

DragoonWraith
2010-02-06, 03:39 PM
You might consider non-linear growth. That is, losing 1 Con to go from 19 to 18 isn't nearly as bad as losing 1 Con to go from 6 to 5. Therefore, the damage bonus should be greater. If you leave yourself with 1 Con, you had better be killing every danger present, or you are royally screwed.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:41 PM
You might consider non-linear growth. That is, losing 1 Con to go from 19 to 18 isn't nearly as bad as losing 1 Con to go from 6 to 5. Therefore, the damage bonus should be greater. If you leave yourself with 1 Con, you had better be killing every danger present, or you are royally screwed.

yup! :smallamused:
but if a balanced caster were to do the same with all spell slots.
and it isnt linear, the more con you lose, the higher the hellfire pool, the lower your total con.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 03:44 PM
Non-linear growth makes sense, but...

How do you do that mechanically? It sounds messy.

and

Linear growth rewards people with strong constitution scores. Non-linear growth encourages low-constitution builds, for faster maximization of damage. High Con warlocks would have to spend a lot more time working their way to the higher damage that Low Con warlocks would start out with.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 03:48 PM
would that be so horrible?
I think it would be, i think it should be based off total con invested, not what the # of the con was. More con = more con left after you finish your investing. which is fine.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 04:10 PM
It does.

I added in the class feature "Quick Burn", which gives you a nova option at level 4. It might belong at an earlier level, but I just kind of stuck it in.

Reaper Monkey, let me know if you come up with your Phoenix idea. I'd be curious to hear more about it, and see if it might fit into the class progression or replace the current 'nova' mechanic.

Well the quick burn feature works quite well as a lesser nova mechanic, and very well with my proposed hellfire pool (as you cannot heal that drain back from reducing said pool). I'd assume the true nova ability would work as follows:

Hellfire Phoenix (Su): At level 5 your very soul becomes infused with hellfire, as a result you can summon up massively more hellfire than your body can handle without fear of death. You may flood your body with hellfire causing it to erupt in a devastating explosion leaving only glowing cinders where you once stood, however you soul is not dead and will rise from these ashes as a pheonix would leaving you weakened but unharmed.

As a standard action a hellfire warlock may create a 20ft blast centred on himself which deals your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by your current hellfire pools multiplier plus X, where X is a number of your choice which can be no greater than 10. This blast deals damage to all creatures and objects within range and destroys your body and any possessions you were carrying. You may not perform any act until you reform.

After 2 + X rounds of using this ability your body and all of its possession reform from the ashes you left behind, unscathed and undamaged, this takes 1 full round to happen but cannot be prevented in anyway. Once fully reformed you take X ability drain to each of your ability scores. You reform in the same spot you left from assuming your ashes were not moved, otherwise you reform in the nearest space large enough for you fit adjacent to your ashes.

If your ashes have been sealed in a container from which they cannot escape or there is no space large enough adjacent to them for you to reform, you instead reform at the soonest possible moment that there is enough space for you to do so.

EDIT:

You might consider non-linear growth. That is, losing 1 Con to go from 19 to 18 isn't nearly as bad as losing 1 Con to go from 6 to 5. Therefore, the damage bonus should be greater. If you leave yourself with 1 Con, you had better be killing every danger present, or you are royally screwed.

Very good point, this makes a lot more sense actually.


Non-linear growth makes sense, but...

How do you do that mechanically? It sounds messy.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, I assume he means:

{table]Hellfire Pool|Extra Hellfire Damage
-1|x2
-3|x3
-5|x6
-7|x10
-9|x16[/table]

CTLC
2010-02-06, 04:24 PM
phoenix looks cool. Its nice and epic. not that epic, just adj epic. i think it can replace wrath quite well. but shield still bothers me some. I just dont feel that it works mechanics wise, and needs work. quick burn could be level 3. I really love forcing the party to possibly deal with a weakened party member. monkey's most recent table seems a bit whoa, but if its balanced [i dont really know] then hokay.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 04:29 PM
phoenix looks cool. Its nice and epic. not that epic, just adj epic.

I've been very conservative with its abilities, I personally think it could do with auto-maximising, or at least increasing the die to a d10 instead of a d6. Also I've not put in any save currently, it might make sense for there to be a reflex save for half (which means it does nothing to rogues :smallfrown:). The actual power balance needs some assesment overall, I just wanted to the get the idea down in more detail so it could be reviewed.


monkey's most recent table seems a bit whoa, but if its balanced [i dont really know] then hokay.

This isn't a suggestion, more an example of non-linear scaling. In fairness if we do choose to non-linearly scale the multiplier, the phoenix ability will have to be changed or it will suck in comparison (as its a linear addition but with a larger cost).

CTLC
2010-02-06, 04:35 PM
I've been very conservative with its abilities, I personally think it could do with auto-maximising, or at least increasing the die to a d10 instead of a d6. Also I've not put in any save currently, it might make sense for there to be a reflex save for half (which means it does nothing to rogues :smallfrown:). The actual power balance needs some assesment overall, I just wanted to the get the idea down in more detail so it could be reviewed.
i thought it was your choice, so you dont kill yourself, X is your choice, and are you talking about making the damage die d10s? that would be intense. No reflex save, just, its a giant explosion, the guy who is a hellfire warlock and immune to fire is dead, so are you. at best a reflex for half, with a special rule that you cant reduce it anymore than half. But can someone do an example of its damage, cause im confused a bit. also, could i use it for an X of 1, since my pool may already be -9,and how would that work?



This isn't a suggestion, more an example of non-linear scaling. In fairness if we do choose to non-linearly scale the multiplier, the phoenix ability will have to be changed or it will suck in comparison (as its a linear addition but with a larger cost).

well, it can be modified if needed. although x16 may not be op, when you consider -9 con!

Barbarian MD
2010-02-06, 04:39 PM
Ah, I thought Dragoon was saying that you would get X for reducing your Con from 18 to 17, and Y*X for reducing your Con from 10 to 9. Looking at your table and re-reading his post, it seems clear that I understood him wrongly.

When you say that Phoenix increases the damage, do you mean you add X+your bonus damage, as in 5d6*(4+X), or multiply, as in 5d6*4*X?

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 04:53 PM
When you say that Phoenix increases the damage, do you mean you add X+your bonus damage, as in 5d6*(4+X), or multiply, as in 5d6*4*X?

5d6*(4+X), although when you assume 4 is Y and Y can be 0 or nonlinearly scaled to "14" then you can see how this no longer holds water. I guess saying (5d6*Y)*X however means that this isn't an issue as long as you have something for Y to be.

X can, of cause, still be 0 currently. Which just means you convert your hellfire blast into an earlier and weaker version of the Doom shape that also takes you out of play for a while (which can have its advantages anyway).

EDIT: An alternative to this ability which maintains EB*(Y+X) is to have a constant AoE damage for X rounds and not just when you blow up, this means that the reduced damage (linear v non-linear) isn't a factor as its persistent damage. It also avoids the issue of someone moving your ashes as there are none, your just raw hellfire until you reform. Less of a stealth exit, but so much cooler looking visually and has some interesting practical uses by blocking off an area etc. You can even say that you don't choose X to start with and that X merely increases every round you stay in that form (max of 10 still). Therefore it gets more powerful the longer you maintain it but you have the option of calling it off early if it stops being useful.


i thought it was your choice, so you dont kill yourself, X is your choice, and are you talking about making the damage die d10s? that would be intense. No reflex save, just, its a giant explosion, the guy who is a hellfire warlock and immune to fire is dead, so are you. at best a reflex for half, with a special rule that you cant reduce it anymore than half. But can someone do an example of its damage, cause im confused a bit. also, could i use it for an X of 1, since my pool may already be -9,and how would that work?
well, it can be modified if needed. although x16 may not be op, when you consider -9 con!

Don't forget that you are immune to Fire, not hellfire. so if your a hellfire warlock and then your buddy hellfire warlock did this whilst standing next to you, then you burn just as much as your buddy fighter and the swarms of demonic bovine. Although perhaps they should pick up some hellfire resistance?

And yes, with hellfire phoenix X can be 1 so you don't injure yourself much, infact it can be 0 even, it can even be 10 even if that would kill you outright when you reform (which would be a little lame, reforming into a corpse, but still).

-9 Con is quite lethal yes, but I would assume you've boosted your HP as much as you possibly can and are sitting in the back where you cant be reached with a nice metal clad meatsheild between you and the danger zone... so x16 could still be very very broken. Don't forget that this is meant to be had at level 10, therefore it should balance to any other level 10 class.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 04:58 PM
you mean level 11, brimstone and hellrime can be gotten, at earliest, at 6.

so phoenix can be used without much in the way of penalty except for the rounds you miss. potential, it should be 3/day though.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-06, 06:05 PM
Okay, my full attempt at this then! An alternative 7 level depth with some interesting additions. Please note I've use the same name for one of the abilities as the old hellfire phoenix, this however is now called hellfire inferno.

In short, I've allowed self healing of hellfire damage (the damage is just caused from holding hellfire within yourself). I've added non-linear scaling, although limited your ability to access the really powerful multipliers until later levels for balance. I've made hellfire inferno (formerly phoenix) a ongoing effect that deals damage to an area as long as your in said form, less nova I know but I feel the class has moved away from that aspect a fair bit and quick burn still fits for a nova aspect. I've also added in some hellfire resistance (always half) and the ability to go out in a blaze of glory... and be resurrected in one too :smallbiggrin:.

Oh, and I've removed the ability to heal the damage via Soulmelds and Vestiges because its not needed anymore, although I guess you still can as I've not ruled it out persay.

Just changed hellfire soul to allow auto energy substitution for any fire based invocation to hellfire too. Changed the wording of quick burn (as I forgot to include the now very important hellfire pool increase), the function is unchanged however.

Hellfire Warlock

Entry requirements:
Skills: Intimidate 6 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks.
Language: Infernal.
Warlock Invocation: Must know brimstone blast or hellrime blast.

{table=head]Level|Special|Invoking|Pool Limit
1|Hellfire Blast|+1 level of existing invoking class|5
2|Hellfire Infusion|+1 level of existing invoking class|5
3|Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class|7
4|Quick Burn, Immunity to Fire|+1 level of existing invoking class|7
5|Devastating Hellfire|+1 level of existing invoking class|9
6|Hellfire Inferno|+1 level of existing invoking class|9
7|Hellfire Soul, Hellfire Phoenix|+1 level of existing invoking class|11[/table]

Hellfire Blast (Sp): This is an Eldritch Blast Essence that you may apply to your eldritch blast. A hellfire blast deals your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by X (see chart below). If your blast hits multiple targets (for example, the eldritch chain or eldritch cone blast shape invocations), each target takes the extra damage. This damage is not fire damage. Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire, as described in the sidebar on page 119. You may not apply any other Blast Essence to an Eldritch Blast with the Hellfire Essence applied.

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage and increase your Hellfire Pool by 1. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

Special: If you have any ways of amplifying your Eldritch Blast, such as a Chausable of Fell Power, add this extra damage in before multiplying the damage. This does not apply to damage from other sources, such as sneak attack, giant-felling/mage-slaying/etc.

Hellfire Pool: Your Hellfire Pool measures the amount of Constitution damage you are currently suffering from due to storing Hellfire within your body. This determines how potent your hellfire abilities are as shown in the table below. It takes time to master hellfire and benefit from additional hellfire stores, if you exceed your Hellfire Pool Limit (as shown in the class table above) you do not gain the appropriate multiplier. This limit does not prevent you from increasing your pool beyond this number, it just prevents you from gaining any advantage from doing so.

{table=head]Hellfire Pool|Extra Hellfire Damage
1|x2
3|x3
5|x4
7|x7
9|x10
11|x15[/table]

At the end of your turn, if you used any eldritch blast or hellfire blast and your hellfire pool is 1 or greater, you may choose to reduce your hellfire pool by 1 and heal 1 Constitution Damage at the same time. You may also vent excess hellfire by spending a full round action to reduce your hellfire pool to 0, healing Constitution Damage by the same amount as you reduced it by.

Note that you may not heal Constitution Drain this way, and any lost HPs from a reduced Constitution are still lost and must be healed back naturally.

Hellfire Infusion (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you can infuse magic items that you wield with the power of hellfire. Whenever you use a charged magic item (such as a wand or a staff), you can apply one of the following metamagic effects to your next use of the item: empower, enlarge, widen, or energy substitution. These effects work just like the metamagic feats of the same name (the Energy Substitution feat is described on page 79 of Complete Arcane). Using hellfire infusion is a swift action. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum one). When you infuse an item with hellfire, it glows briefly with fiery symbols that are disturbing to look upon.

Hellfire Shield (Sp): Starting at 3rd level, you can call up hellfire to avenge yourself on your foes. Whenever someone directs a melee attack against you, you can, as an immediate action, cause Hellfire to leap from your body, striking that creature through their weapon. This blast deals damage equal to your eldritch blast (including bonus damage from the hellfire blast ability). This blast automatically strikes the target, which can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier). This counts toward your allowed number of attacks of opportunity for this round, and cannot be used twice in the same round against the same creature (so you get one attack against Bob the Barbarian, as he full attacks you for three iterative attacks).

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage and increase your Hellfire Pool by 1. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

Immunity to Fire (Ex): At 4th level, you become immune to fire damage.

Quick Burn (Sp): At 4th level, you may, rather than slowly working your way up the damage table, instead immediately skip to a higher damage tier. You may increase your hellfire pool by any amount instead of the usual 1 while using a hellfire ability, however you then pay 1/4 of that amount (rounded up) in Constitution Drain, and take the rest as Constitution Damage.

Devastating Hellfire (Sp): At 5th level, any time you apply your Hellfire Blast Essence, it becomes Devastating Hellfire. Your Hellfire Blast gains many of the benefits of a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like ability. It bypasses SR, cannot be dispelled or counterspelled, and cannot be disrupted. If your ranged attacks normally provoke attacks of opportunity, so does your Eldritch Blast, but the act of invoking a Hellfire Blast itself does not provoke an AoO. Your Hellfire Blast is still a SLA, however, which means that you may still apply metamagic-SLA feats to it.

Hellfire Inferno: At 6th level you can covert your very body into a storm of hellfire. As a standard action a hellfire warlock body erupts into a swirling cloud of hellfire, his body and all of his possessions are converted leaving nothing but a 20ft radius, 20ft high cylinder of hellfire centred on where he stood. You may not move or act in any other way while you are performing this ability, nor can you be targeted by any means.

Any object or creature within this area at the start of their turn, or enters this area during their turn, is dealt your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by your current hellfire pools multiplier. This damage is hellfire damage and follows the rules accordingly.

At the start of each round you can choose to either take a standard action to reform into your normal form, or maintain this form for another full round. If you maintain the hellfire inferno form you increase current eldritch blast damage multiplier by an additional 1 for determining the damage dealt to anything within the area. If you change back to your normal form, you reapear in the same spot you left from and all of your ability scores take ability drain equal to the number of rounds you used this ability for due to the massive stress it places in your body and mind.

I'll provide an example later

Hellfire Soul: At 7th level your soul becomes infused with hellfire, as a result all hellfire damage is reduced by 50%. In addition you may convert your normal eldritch blast damage or any invocation which normally deals fire damage to instead deal hellfire damage. This does not provide any multipliers that hellfire blast does, it only changes the damage type to that of hellfire.

Hellfire Phoenix: At 7th level your mastery of hellfire is complete, your body and soul are perfect conduits of hellfire and are regularly infused with the hellfire. Your very existence is intertwined with the substance, and as such upon your demise (-10hp or fewer) your body is immolated by hellfire reducing it to a pile of ash, and any creature adjacent to you takes damage as if struck by a hellfire blast (with appropriate multipliers as if you were alive).

Due to your body no longer being intact you cannot be restored to life by the Raise Dead spell, however if this ash is burnt by hellfire for a full hour you are restored to life as if by the Resurrection spell.

Hellfire is generally quite hard to come by, so I think this is quite balanced, as you also cant be raised by a lower level spell. However do you think it should just be any fire instead and just take longer to perform/have another draw back? Remember that Resurrection still drops your level by 1 upon raising, so its not a perfect means of raising.

CTLC has suggested improving the range on the damage on your death, what do people think about this?

CTLC
2010-02-06, 06:49 PM
Changed damage multiplier scaling.
Changed recovering damage ability.
Changed hellfire shield's effect.
Changed hellfire shield's penalty.
Added Vulnerability to cold.
Changed Quick Burn's drain penalty.
Added a note to Devastating hellfire.
Added a second round onwards ability for inferno, added limit on rounds, noted the abilities may not go below one.
Noted on hellfire soul that it is devastating
Changed hellfire phoenix's aoe and fluff.

Vulnerability to Cold )Ex): At 4th level you become vulnerable to cold, taking 150% damage from cold sources of energy.

Quick Burn (Sp): At 4th level, you may, rather than slowly working your way up the damage table, instead immediately skip to a higher damage tier. However, you pay the full Constitution damage price to reach it, and 1/3 over of that Constitution damage takes the form of Constitution Drain. So if someone were to jump to a pool of 9, then she/he/it would take 9 points of con damage, and 3 points of con drain. The 9 points of damage can be healed halfway normally. The con drain is healed at a rate of 1 point per hour as hellfire warlocks are accustomed to recovering from hellfire's costs.


Devastating Hellfire (Sp): At 5th level, any time you apply your Hellfire Blast Essence, it becomes Devastating Hellfire. Your Hellfire Blast gains many of the benefits of a Supernatural, rather than Spell-Like ability. It bypasses SR, cannot be dispelled or counterspelled, and cannot be disrupted. If your ranged attacks normally provoke attacks of opportunity, so does your Eldritch Blast, but the act of invoking a Hellfire Blast itself does not provoke an AoO. Your Hellfire Blast is still a SLA, however, which means that you may still apply metamagic-SLA feats to it. The attack is still a touch attack.

Hellfire Inferno: At 6th level you can covert your very body into a storm of hellfire. As a standard action a hellfire warlock body erupts into a swirling cloud of hellfire, his body and all of his possessions are converted leaving nothing but a 20ft radius, 10ft high cylinder of hellfire centred on where he is. Any object or creature within this area is dealt your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by your current hellfire pools multiplier. This damage is hellfire damage and follows the rules accordingly. If the ability is used for more than the first round, the fire forms 4 phoenix wings, the warlock gains the ability to fly at 60ft per round, and with perfect maneuverability. Finally, instead of flying, the warlock may opt to center an orb of hellfire on an enemy, with a 10ft diameter. Using this option requires line of sight, and immediately ends hellfire inferno.


At the start of each round you can choose to either take a standard action to reform into your normal form, or maintain inferno for another full round. If you maintain the hellfire inferno form you increase current eldritch blast damage multiplier by an additional 1 for determining the damage dealt to anything within the area. If you change back to your normal form, you reapear in the same spot you last were and all of your ability scores take ability drain equal to the number of rounds you used this ability due to the massive stress it places in your body and mind. This cannot reduce any ability below 1, not even constitution. The total amount of rounds during which the hellfire can use this ability is equal to his (total invoker level).


I'll provide an example later

Hellfire Soul: At 7th level your soul becomes infused with hellfire, you take half damage from any hellfire source, in addition you may convert your normal eldritch blast damage to be hellfire damage even when you are not using the hellfire blast. The blast is indeed devastating.

Hellfire Phoenix: At 7th level your mastery of hellfire is complete, your very body and soul are perfect conduits of hellfire and are regularly infused with the substance. Your very existence is intertwined with the substance, and as such upon your demise (-10hp or fewer) your body appears to go into hellfire inferno mode, but the wings form instantly, and they whip around the entire 20ft circle, any creature adjacent to you takes damage as if struck by the warlock in hellfire inferno form.


Due to your body no longer being intact you cannot be restored to life by the Raise Dead spell, however if this ash is burnt by hellfire for a full hour you are restored to life as if by the Resurrection spell. There is no time limit on this resurrection, but a majority of the ashes are required, and the negative level is imparted on the warlock. It is the DM's discretion as to the price of a hellfire warlock's time and abilities.

edited: only included sections i commented in.

CTLC
2010-02-06, 09:30 PM
bump for the cat god.
but really, first time even editing something like this. and im fairly new to dnd, so comments are plain needed.

Chocolate!
[can heathens of cake overtake light animal tribes ever?]

whatever, just fruit of some sort. fruit honestly!

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 05:35 AM
Comments, ideas? Sorry about editing it, but i felt my comments were sort of unreadable, and this was clearer and easier.

Actually this was a bit harder to read, even though I wrote the first version as I didn't know what you edited, it helps if you leave a summary at the top (or just don't copy what you aint changed).

Overall, cold weakness should be 150% damage, you haven't changed the fact that hellfire warlock never becomes immune to hellfire.

Shaping (hell)fire is, well, questionable. You say "and do with it as he wills, with DM's discretion" well if I were DM id say that unless its burning something or has its own fuel source to use until it reaches something to burn, you aint going to be doing much with this stuff.

It seems like you want to make weapons out of it, or walls and discs to make you fly.
Well I guess we can expand Hellfire Infusion to also allow you to charge weapons (and not just wands) to do a little more damage of the hellfire type... but in honesty a warlock who is meleeing will use an Eldritch Glaive shape or die. Seriously, they aint built for melee.
As for discs to make you fly, well warlocks get Fellflight which lets them fly anyway, flavour it as him standing on a disc of hellfire and be done (or have hellfire wings, or leave a trail of hellfire like he was a rocket, it doesn't matter). And 3ft cu is more than enough to make disc to float on if you can consider it solid regardless, as it can just be very very thin. Ultimately, this isnt needed.
Walls on the other hand is interesting, however I'm pretty sure there is a wall of fire invocation the warlock has access too still. Perhaps I'll expand hellfire soul to allow auto energy substituiton for any of your spells/invocations from fire to hellfire. That does the job well enough.


If I havn't covered why you want to create and shape hellfire already, please do point out why (and what function you wish it to provide) and I'll get back to you. Honestly though I cant really think of anything which cant be done through other means or is pretty much superfluous or overpowered sorry.

EDIT: Also would it be too much to request that you edited you copy of my conversion to remove anything you didn't change to make it more readable and to stop me confusing it with mine as I'm still editing it to get the wording right etc.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 10:25 AM
Actually this was a bit harder to read, even though I wrote the first version as I didn't know what you edited, it helps if you leave a summary at the top (or just don't copy what you aint changed).

Overall, cold weakness should be 150% damage, you haven't changed the fact that hellfire warlock never becomes immune to hellfire.
i edited out the parts i didnt change, and changed it to 150%


Shaping (hell)fire is, well, questionable. You say "and do with it as he wills, with DM's discretion" well if I were DM id say that unless its burning something or has its own fuel source to use until it reaches something to burn, you aint going to be doing much with this stuff.

ya, i got rid of it.


It seems like you want to make weapons out of it, or walls and discs to make you fly.
Well I guess we can expand Hellfire Infusion to also allow you to charge weapons (and not just wands) to do a little more damage of the hellfire type... but in honesty a warlock who is meleeing will use an Eldritch Glaive shape or die. Seriously, they aint built for melee.
As for discs to make you fly, well warlocks get Fellflight which lets them fly anyway, flavour it as him standing on a disc of hellfire and be done (or have hellfire wings, or leave a trail of hellfire like he was a rocket, it doesn't matter). And 3ft cu is more than enough to make disc to float on if you can consider it solid regardless, as it can just be very very thin. Ultimately, this isnt needed.
Walls on the other hand is interesting, however I'm pretty sure there is a wall of fire invocation the warlock has access too still. Perhaps I'll expand hellfire soul to allow auto energy substituiton for any of your spells/invocations from fire to hellfire. That does the job well enough.


again, your right, i got rid of it, but the last point intrigues me.


If I havn't covered why you want to create and shape hellfire already, please do point out why (and what function you wish it to provide) and I'll get back to you. Honestly though I cant really think of anything which cant be done through other means or is pretty much superfluous or overpowered sorry.

sometimes i have to kill my babies. [expression referring to killing ideas]


EDIT: Also would it be too much to request that you edited you copy of my conversion to remove anything you didn't change to make it more readable and to stop me confusing it with mine as I'm still editing it to get the wording right etc.

no problem, sorry again, tired and busy make bad editing.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 11:27 AM
No offence, but perhaps you should stick to just explaining the changes and why they are being changed rather than just presenting the end result as cold mechanics. As I found this much more difficult to assess than your previous prose suggestions.

Even so, ill try to assess this:

Changed damage multiplier scaling.
Changed recovering damage ability.
Changed hellfire shield's effect.
Changed hellfire shield's penalty.
You've ommited these in your edit, so I don't know what you changed it to.


Added Vulnerability to cold.
I'm not sure this is needed, but perhaps it does help balance a little. If we did need this however, I'd just drop immunity to 20 resistance instead as its not worth the payoff.


Changed Quick Burn's drain penalty.
Yes, I'm not sure why, you've made it cost more drain, but then allowed the draining to be healed... this doesn't sit right with me at all. Ability Drain to one ability can be healed in full by one spell (which you should have access to by the time you have this ability), as warlocks have very good UMD usually this really should be a wealth investment. I say no against healing drain.


Added a note to Devastating hellfire.
Fair enough, I guess it helps to clarify, although it probably isn't needed as changing the spell-like/supernatural doesn't change the to hit mechanics at all...


Noted on hellfire soul that it is devastating
No, it shouldn't be, changing the damage type from what is effectively untyped and so unavoidable to an equally unavoidable damage type isn't that much of a change. This was purely for the ability to beat up cold things easier and to flavour mechanically a more fundamental change to the normal warlock powers you have.


Changed hellfire phoenix's aoe and fluff.

Okay, so you've made the final death-throes have more range, yeah I guess thats fine, it isn't going to come up that often as death is quite a poor tactic most of the time. Again, the description of the ability I feel should be left a little more vauge; although it is called phoenix so I guess wings are logical if you really wanted to embrace that, although nothings stopping someone adding that as the visualistics of the ability normally.

The lack of time limit was implied, but I guess it does pay to be explicit. Again, the level drain aspect is as per the spell and was implied, but yes it makes sense to be explicit. The final line of "It is the DM's discretion as to the price of a hellfire warlock's time and abilities." confuses me, I have no idea what you were trying to say here.



Added a second round onwards ability for inferno, added limit on rounds, noted the abilities may not go below one.

Hellfire Inferno: At 6th level you can covert your very body into a storm of hellfire. As a standard action a hellfire warlock body erupts into a swirling cloud of hellfire, his body and all of his possessions are converted leaving nothing but a 20ft radius, 10ft high cylinder of hellfire centred on where he is. Any object or creature within this area is dealt your normal eldritch blast damage multipled by your current hellfire pools multiplier. This damage is hellfire damage and follows the rules accordingly. If the ability is used for more than the first round, the fire forms 4 phoenix wings, the warlock gains the ability to fly at 60ft per round, and with perfect maneuverability. Finally, instead of flying, the warlock may opt to center an orb of hellfire on an enemy, with a 10ft diameter. Using this option requires line of sight, and immediately ends hellfire inferno.

At the start of each round you can choose to either take a standard action to reform into your normal form, or maintain inferno for another full round. If you maintain the hellfire inferno form you increase current eldritch blast damage multiplier by an additional 1 for determining the damage dealt to anything within the area. If you change back to your normal form, you reapear in the same spot you last were and all of your ability scores take ability drain equal to the number of rounds you used this ability due to the massive stress it places in your body and mind. This cannot reduce any ability below 1, not even constitution. The total amount of rounds during which the hellfire can use this ability is equal to his (total invoker level).

First off, the limit to the height of the cylinder really makes very little difference to this ability. Secondly I envisioned this ability as lots of hellfire bolts all circling around where you were... but kept the fluff open for interpertation, your addition of phoenix wings does defeat that somewhat... and four seems odd, I'd personally keep the description vauge as so to allow players to choose their own description.

As for the ability to move whilst in the form, I did consider the ability to allow some movement, but this then becomes very very potent and you have to work out how damage is dealt (is it just when the area moves into their space? when their turn starts? when your turn starts? if they enter it at any point during their turn?) its less than clear and messy to work out in honestly.

You've also limited the amount of time you can maintain the ability for, this is fine, although you've also made it so you can't kill yourself/knock yourself out with it... I disagree with this.

I could use this once and drain all the way to 1, and then activate it the following round for a number of rounds equal to my invoker level... and have no negative effect at all, infact, once I hit 1 on all my ability score, there is really no need to not use this all the time. It does more damage than I could ever hope to as its an AoE, and so long as I fly out of the way just before it runs out I'm fine to reset it indefinatly. I think the "you can use this until it kills you" is a fair and logical duration limiter.

As for the movement, if its possible it should be limited to 20ft a round at most. Although as I've already said it makes working out when damage is dealt more complicated and provides much too much functionality to this ability. You are already immune to everything whilst doing it, and are causing a very lethal pain barrier to aid in an escape/assult what not, adding more just makes this way too powerful.

This sentiment extends to the ability to drop an orb onto an enemy... more so as you've not stated what happens when you do this.

*****

Looking over this, some of my critiques might sound a little harsh, this isn't my intent at all and I hope you realise I am just evaluating some what bluntly for the sake of clarity.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 11:48 AM
No offence, but perhaps you should stick to just explaining the changes and why they are being changed rather than just presenting the end result as cold mechanics. As I found this much more difficult to assess than your previous prose suggestions.

mkay


Even so, ill try to assess this:

You've ommited these in your edit, so I don't know what you changed it to.
Changed damage multiplier scaling.
i changed it to, X2, X3, X5, X7, X10, X15
Changed recovering damage ability.
Well it felt a bit broken, definitely make it so you keep atleast one point of damage, or so you heal back half rounded up, or both.
Changed hellfire shield's effect.
I said the damage couldnt be reduced below half, and that if the save was failed the attack stopped.
Changed hellfire shield's penalty.
I thought that it should be 1 con drain, with no addition to the pool.



I'm not sure this is needed, but perhaps it does help balance a little. If we did need this however, I'd just drop immunity to 20 resistance instead as its not worth the payoff.
I dont think its so needed, but i think the balance is improved, immunity is more important than the 20 resistance so i think it should stay.


Yes, I'm not sure why, you've made it cost more drain, but then allowed the draining to be healed... this doesn't sit right with me at all. Ability Drain to one ability can be healed in full by one spell (which you should have access to by the time you have this ability), as warlocks have very good UMD usually this really should be a wealth investment. I say no against healing drain.
reading back that was a big mistake, but i guess quick burn doesnt need changing.



Fair enough, I guess it helps to clarify, although it probably isn't needed as changing the spell-like/supernatural doesn't change the to hit mechanics at all...
eh


No, it shouldn't be, changing the damage type from what is effectively untyped and so unavoidable to an equally unavoidable damage type isn't that much of a change. This was purely for the ability to beat up cold things easier and to flavour mechanically a more fundamental change to the normal warlock powers you have.
Ok, i guess that might be too much.


Okay, so you've made the final death-throes have more range, yeah I guess thats fine, it isn't going to come up that often as death is quite a poor tactic most of the time. Again, the description of the ability I feel should be left a little more vauge; although it is called phoenix so I guess wings are logical if you really wanted to embrace that, although nothings stopping someone adding that as the visualistics of the ability normally.
Say what you will about dying, i find it useful...



The lack of time limit was implied, but I guess it does pay to be explicit. Again, the level drain aspect is as per the spell and was implied, but yes it makes sense to be explicit. The final line of "It is the DM's discretion as to the price of a hellfire warlock's time and abilities." confuses me, I have no idea what you were trying to say here.
How much it costs to hire a different hellfire warlock to burn earlier hellfire warlock's ashes.




First off, the limit to the height of the cylinder really makes very little difference to this ability. Secondly I envisioned this ability as lots of hellfire bolts all circling around where you were... but kept the fluff open for interpertation, your addition of phoenix wings does defeat that somewhat... and four seems odd, I'd personally keep the description vauge as so to allow players to choose their own description.
I disagree, hovering above an enemy is a common tactic. And ceilings can be flammable. Well, yeah, fluff really doesnt matter right now.



As for the ability to move whilst in the form, I did consider the ability to allow some movement, but this then becomes very very potent and you have to work out how damage is dealt (is it just when the area moves into their space? when their turn starts? when your turn starts? if they enter it at any point during their turn?) its less than clear and messy to work out in honestly.
Well yes, but if one cannot move, then its pretty useless. An option is a slow move, with attacks made on everything you sweep over, which is both powerful in the damage, but weak in that most things outrun you.



You've also limited the amount of time you can maintain the ability for, this is fine, although you've also made it so you can't kill yourself/knock yourself out with it... I disagree with this.

I could use this once and drain all the way to 1, and then activate it the following round for a number of rounds equal to my invoker level... and have no negative effect at all, infact, once I hit 1 on all my ability score, there is really no need to not use this all the time. It does more damage than I could ever hope to as its an AoE, and so long as I fly out of the way just before it runs out I'm fine to reset it indefinatly. I think the "you can use this until it kills you" is a fair and logical duration limiter.
Atleast say that when you use this long enough that upon exiting this mode the drain would be fatal, you die and the mode ends on its own.



As for the movement, if its possible it should be limited to 20ft a round at most. Although as I've already said it makes working out when damage is dealt more complicated and provides much too much functionality to this ability. You are already immune to everything whilst doing it, and are causing a very lethal pain barrier to aid in an escape/assult what not, adding more just makes this way too powerful.
you are right, but again, doesnt 20 movement make this a bit weak? Maybe its fast movement, with no turning or anything, and things you sweep over get minor damage [reflex for none] and things you stop over get the full treatment?


This sentiment extends to the ability to drop an orb onto an enemy... more so as you've not stated what happens when you do this.

I was just thinking that going through all the flashy stuff just to see your enemy fly away was rather depressing. The orb is basically treat an enemy as if you were in this mode and right above him, but then end the mode. But if you use what i said directly above, the orb is plain unnecessary.
*****


Looking over this, some of my critiques might sound a little harsh, this isn't my intent at all and I hope you realise I am just evaluating some what bluntly for the sake of clarity.
not really, i was making underwhelming amounts of sense, ive been sick for a while and have been trying to catch up for school, so i understand the bluntness.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 12:33 PM
Changed damage multiplier scaling.
i changed it to, X2, X3, X5, X7, X10, X15
I used a 50% increase (rounded) scale, and I think x4 as you max with a single dip is more than enough. Later on you can jump to x7 which is more potent and desirable so it wont hurt too much to have x4 there.


Changed recovering damage ability.
Well it felt a bit broken, definitely make it so you keep atleast one point of damage, or so you heal back half rounded up, or both.
Um, well you've still not said what you changed it to exactly. Also the recovery method is the same as we were going with the assumption that you dipped for Naberius. I can see your worries, but 1 point is nothing in a build which is designed to take con burn.

Also, what with the lower values of con burn being lower multiplies (hence again not changing it) you still take a while before you get really potent damage output, by which point your running around with large con damage and much more fickle. The balance here comes in that you are willingly taking damage and keeping it in order to have consistent high damage output.

Look at it this way, it will take a lot of rounds to build up to the high and possibly overpowered multipliers, by which point either the fight has finished or you've flagged yourself as a real threat. The quick burn ability which lets you jump to those high values does drain which doesn't heal back and thus has that lingering damage afterwards that you're looking for.

So overall you have three choices.
You can run around with low Con and HP so you can start blasting with high multipliers, which means you're vulnerable between fights and throughout the fight.
You can quick burn up to the potent multipliers at the start of a fight, but then have to deal with lingering drain damage which doesn't auto heal afterwards and thus leaving you vulnerable after the fight or costing you resources to heal.
Or you can slowly build up the damage which in most short fights wont get you to the really damaging multipliers, and will also make you a growing and obvious threat whilst weakening you in the process.


It does need play testing, but it seems fine imo.


Changed hellfire shield's effect.
I said the damage couldnt be reduced below half, and that if the save was failed the attack stopped.
Changed hellfire shield's penalty.
I thought that it should be 1 con drain, with no addition to the pool.

Um... are we talking about the same hellfire shield. The one which is just an instant hellfire blast at anyone who strikes you in melee? If so it doesn't get reduced at all anyway, and the cost is fine as it is.


I dont think its so needed, but i think the balance is improved, immunity is more important than the 20 resistance so i think it should stay.

Perhaps, maybe just let it act like hellfire soul and reduce all fire damage by half instead of immunity.


How much it costs to hire a different hellfire warlock to burn earlier hellfire warlock's ashes.
Hell has quite a bit of hellfire you know, nice side quest there. Also, you might have two in your party, ya never know. I doubt its a commonly available service either way, and if you were going to pay someone you might as well just pay for the rez normally.


I disagree, hovering above an enemy is a common tactic. And ceilings can be flammable. Well, yeah, fluff really doesnt matter right now.
True, but without movement its still going to be "everyone in this room" regardless of if your standing on the floor or not.


Atleast say that when you use this long enough that upon exiting this mode the drain would be fatal, you die and the mode ends on its own.
Point. This probably should be there, otherwise you just stay that way forever once you know your dead anyway. Although you still need your body back if you hope to be rezzed so it will end eventually, if you're going to self sacrifice this way perhaps it is fair to just let it run until its of no use anymore.


you are right, but again, doesnt 20 movement make this a bit weak? Maybe its fast movement, with no turning or anything, and things you sweep over get minor damage [reflex for none] and things you stop over get the full treatment?
I can see the use in having a sweep over damage... but I'm still quite firm against allowing movement, its more than powerful enough when used right as it is.


Well yes, but if one cannot move, then its pretty useless. An option is a slow move, with attacks made on everything you sweep over, which is both powerful in the damage, but weak in that most things outrun you.

I was just thinking that going through all the flashy stuff just to see your enemy fly away was rather depressing.
Yes, but it means that your enemy has moved away, saving the rest of the party, or stopping a sudden rush of new enemies. Its not intended for the ability to deal huge damage, the huge damage is meant to dissuade anyone from stupidly entering the area. Its purely battlefield control with some nice start up damage, and if you can lure something into the area, potent ongoing damage as it continues. Even without movement, a sealed room, a cave, a pit, or anything else which restricts enemies movements can make this ability the equivalent to boiling fish in a barrel. Adding movement just makes it insanely useful in almost all situations which it should not be.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 12:46 PM
Well, for one, the hellfire shield's penalty is from the book, and was not written with the hellfire pool in mind. I think it could use some changes.

For the table, it is your decision, i was just going for steady, and increasingly powerful.

I think you may be overvaluing the cost with moving around with reduced con, but if someone who knows more about balance thinks its fine, then ok.

It does need play testing doesnt it. hum.

I think it should be immunity to fire, hellfire is hotter to the nth degree, so normal fire should be a joke.

I guess a sidequest in hell is alright, but uh, most people dont do too well in hell.

I think your campaigns have smaller rooms than mine...

And finally, i was actually thinking of inferno as a damage move, not BC. But if thats the way you want to play it, then sure. However, as a nova, I thought it would be more offensive and less defensive.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 12:58 PM
Okay, another multiquote reply... these are becoming increasingly popular seemingly...

Well, for one, the hellfire shield's penalty is from the book, and was not written with the hellfire pool in mind. I think it could use some changes.

True, but if anything its weaker than a regular hellfire blast as it targets one person only, where as any warlock with half a brain will apply some shape to their hellfire blasts to make them hit at the very least two people. Going on this assumption, your bid to make it cost more is even less desirable. I also did rewrite the additional hellfire pool increment, which means it continues to up your multiplier damage too, as such I think it balances quite well as an alternative to quick burn as you take the hp damage from whatevers hitting you too.


I think you may be overvaluing the cost with moving around with reduced con, but if someone who knows more about balance thinks its fine, then ok.
Your body ceases to exist whilst you performing this ability, it is literally used to fuel the effect (thus why you are weakened so much from it). As such you cannot be targeted or affected in anyway, as it states, so your fundementally immune to the universe whilst doing it. This is why adding movement as well is so overwhelmingly powerful.


I think it should be immunity to fire, hellfire is hotter to the nth degree, so normal fire should be a joke.
Okay, well I guess we'll have to wait for someone else to chime in here then, I think immunity but no weakness still.


I guess a sidequest in hell is alright, but uh, most people dont do too well in hell.
Meh, you don't need to go that deep into hell, besides we can just make it fire for the rezzing, perhaps with a more potent draw back?


I think your campaigns have smaller rooms than mine...
Its a 40ft diameter circle, yes its not going to fill every room in the world, but it will do a good job of rendering small inclosed spaces as utterly lethal, or one half of the room unreachable if you burst in the middle. The logical thing to do is to lure you enemies into a small room that can be locked behind them and then explode ensuring their deaths.

Regardless, when it first goes off your sure everyone gets hit once if they are in range to start with even if they then sensibly flee out of the area. As such it still does the job of hitting more people than any shape you can apply to your hellfire blast at the same level. You don't need to keep it going for more than one round afterall.


And finally, i was actually thinking of inferno as a damage move, not BC. But if thats the way you want to play it, then sure. However, as a nova, I thought it would be more offensive and less defensive.
Nah, quick burn is nova, this is an odd utility ability, its both offence and defence as its battlefield control.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 03:12 PM
would you mind posting the most updated class in a new post, and including some examples of damage of the attacks at 1st and 7th levels?

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 04:51 PM
would you mind posting the most updated class in a new post, and including some examples of damage of the attacks at 1st and 7th levels?

I would much rather wait until mhvaughan has had a chance to look over the suggested edits in fairness. Also, the example damage would be dependant on when you entered the class as its all multiples of the base Eldritch Blast damage, but also dependant on how hard you were burning (ie how low your con was due to hellfire use). It shouldn't be too hard to approximate however.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 05:05 PM
{table=head]Hellfire Pool|Extra Hellfire Damage
1|x2
3|x3
5|x4
7|x7
9|x10
11|x15[/table]

if you enter at level 8, which i recommend as warlock 7 is 4d6 while warlock 6 is 3d6.
then its 8d6, 12d6, 16d6, 28d6, 40d6, and 60d6!!!
thats higher than i thought. much higher.
if it matters, my progression would be, 8d6 [28], 12d6 [42], 20d6 [70], 28d6 [98], 40d6 [140], 60d6 [210].
so its barely any difference at all.

but thats high, i think the ability to heal it all is too much, at level 15 you have 60d6 damage. I realize you have to build up, and i realize you are walking around with reduced con, [or used quick burn] but you should not be able to heal that all.

Barbarian MD
2010-02-07, 05:49 PM
I feel like, at this point, we need outside opinion. The three of us are too close to the design, and we need someone else to givr us a feel for balance and power-level.


I fear that it got out of hand, power-wise. You'll notice that I even removed Hellfire Wrath from the version I posted in the OP.

Here are my concerns:

1) Fast healing of ability damage.
You'll note that, before, being able to heal this damage required an investment. You either had to take a level dip, or invest eavily in magical healing. But now you're suggesting they get it for free. I feel like, power-wise, that's too much. Fluff-wise, I also disagree with it, but that's just me.

2) Hellfire Inferno.
I'm trying to figure out what becoming a living whirlwind of fire compares to, and the closest I can figure is an elemental. It's a neat idea conceptually, but I feel like it's becoming a messy mechanic, and I'm not sure it's going to to fit. If anything, it merely duplicates the Dark Blast Shape, which is actually better. We want people to look forward to gaining levels beyond Hellfire Warlock, but I feel like there's very little to look forward to if we replicate all their powers at an earlier level...

3) I think playtesting would demonstrate that X15 damage is too high. We're talking about an ability that would become available at Leel 6, and I think i would prove to be game-breaking. Perhaps we should move the pre-reqs back up.

4) I think being unable to be resurrected is a nerf. It'd make for an interesting plot hook, to be sure, but I think it'd be a pain to the party.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 05:58 PM
if you enter at level 8, which i recommend as warlock 7 is 4d6 while warlock 6 is 3d6.
then its 8d6, 12d6, 16d6, 28d6, 40d6, and 60d6!!!
thats higher than i thought. much higher.
if it matters, my progression would be, 8d6 [28], 12d6 [42], 20d6 [70], 28d6 [98], 40d6 [140], 60d6 [210].
so its barely any difference at all.

but thats high, i think the ability to heal it all is too much, at level 15 you have 60d6 damage. I realize you have to build up, and i realize you are walking around with reduced con, [or used quick burn] but you should not be able to heal that all.

At each level, you gain new invocations known, increased damage with eldritch blast, and an increase in invoker level as if you had also gained a level in the warlock class. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. As such, it doesn't make a difference if you go in level 8 or level 7 for base eldritch blast damage.

Also, you are limited to the benefits provided by an increased hellfire pool, your maximum for the first two levels of this prestige is 5, which is a x4 multiplier.

But yes, there is minor difference between 16d6 and 20d6 assuming your base EB is 4d6, but as you can get this with one level dip, its a difference I think matters. This is what I meant when I said once you had access to x7 at level 3 the x4 really doesn't make a difference as you can reach a higher tier of multiplier.

As for the x15 multiplier, you can only get this if you take all 7 levels of the prestige, this means you are at least level 13. In additon whilst your producing this damage, you have to have -11 con, which at level 13 is (on average) likely to be a 65 HP reduction to your max HP.

As warlock has a hit die of d6, as does this prestige, even with a good Con score of 18 (as you really should've invested in a high Con score!), assuming you rolled average hp your normal max hp is 42 + 52 from con so 94. So instead of being a 94 hit pointed warlock with 18 Con, you are a 29 hit pointed warlock with 7 Con.... wearing light armour.

I think this more than makes up for x15 for your EB damage.

The power from this class is from maintaining a high con damage state. I think its only fair to allow them to heal it back and manage how low they want it to be, otherwise who in their right mind would choose to invest 7 levels into a class which is only going to kill them? Yes you could dip binder to get Naberius, but then its an 8 level investment for something that either goes against the intention of the build (ie that you have to suffer the damage) and thus is cheese, or should have been included into the build to start with and balanced around (what I'm suggesting).

Dont forget that Mr. 29 hp, 7 Con, x15 EB multiplier Warlock I just mentioned is still on 29 hp's once they've healed back all the Con damage and have to be healed normally. The full round action to instantly heal it all back also ommits drain (thus quick burn still hurts), and can be reproduced with a single spell anyway! I really cant see why they shouldn't have the option of managing their Con damage considering the class is built around that very assumption now.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 06:00 PM
I feel like, at this point, we need outside opinion. The three of us are too close to the design, and we need someone else to givr us a feel for balance and power-level.

this is quite true.


I fear that it got out of hand, power-wise. You'll notice that I even removed Hellfire Wrath from the version I posted in the OP.

Here are my concerns:

1) Fast healing of ability damage.
You'll note that, before, being able to heal this damage required an investment. You either had to take a level dip, or invest eavily in magical healing. But now you're suggesting they get it for free. I feel like, power-wise, that's too much. Fluff-wise, I also disagree with it, but that's just me.
I agree, i think that these abilities should be felt for a long week. And i think no investment should really help here.



2) Hellfire Inferno.
I'm trying to figure out what becoming a living whirlwind of fire compares to, and the closest I can figure is an elemental. It's a neat idea conceptually, but I feel like it's becoming a messy mechanic, and I'm not sure it's going to to fit. If anything, it merely duplicates the Dark Blast Shape, which is actually better. We want people to look forward to gaining levels beyond Hellfire Warlock, but I feel like there's very little to look forward to if we replicate all their powers at an earlier level...
It is becoming messy, but itll get cleaned up as we finish it. I dont think it duplicates doom [which is not a higher level worthy ability imo] as doom doesnt cripple you. Well, levels of hellfire are useless on their own, improving base eldritch damage is incentive.



3) I think playtesting would demonstrate that X15 damage is too high. We're talking about an ability that would become available at Leel 6, and I think i would prove to be game-breaking. Perhaps we should move the pre-reqs back up.
I agree, prereqs are not the issue though, the multiplier just needs to be smaller, something more like, roll eldritch damage, multiply by x1.5, x2, x2.5, x3, x3.5, x4, round up. That is a wee bit low for -9 con, but point stands.



4) I think being unable to be resurrected is a nerf. It'd make for an interesting plot hook, to be sure, but I think it'd be a pain to the party.[/QUOTE]
yup, yup, and think of it as a task. :smallbiggrin:

CTLC
2010-02-07, 06:06 PM
At each level, you gain new invocations known, increased damage with eldritch blast, and an increase in invoker level as if you had also gained a level in the warlock class. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. As such, it doesn't make a difference if you go in level 8 or level 7 for base eldritch blast damage.
you cut the cheese.


Also, you are limited to the benefits provided by an increased hellfire pool, your maximum for the first two levels of this prestige is 5, which is a x4 multiplier.
x4 damage is not limited.



But yes, there is minor difference between 16d6 and 20d6 assuming your base EB is 4d6, but as you can get this with one level dip, its a difference I think matters. This is what I meant when I said once you had access to x7 at level 3 the x4 really doesn't make a difference as you can reach a higher tier of multiplier.

As for the x15 multiplier, you can only get this if you take all 7 levels of the prestige, this means you are at least level 13. In additon whilst your producing this damage, you have to have -11 con, which at level 13 is (on average) likely to be a 65 HP reduction to your max HP.
x15 kills everything dead instantly though, especially if your eldritch base damage scales. [which it shouldnt]


As warlock has a hit die of d6, as does this prestige, even with a good Con score of 18 (as you really should've invested in a high Con score!), assuming you rolled average hp your normal max hp is 42 + 52 from con so 94. So instead of being a 94 hit pointed warlock with 18 Con, you are a 29 hit pointed warlock with 7 Con.... wearing light armour.
right, but x15 kills it dead instantly!



I think this more than makes up for x15 for your EB damage.

no way.


The power from this class is from maintaining a high con damage state. I think its only fair to allow them to heal it back and manage how low they want it to be, otherwise who in their right mind would choose to invest 7 levels into a class which is only going to kill them? Yes you could dip binder to get Naberius, but then its an 8 level investment for something that either goes against the intention of the build (ie that you have to suffer the damage) and thus is cheese, or should have been included into the build to start with and balanced around (what I'm suggesting).
no, you either kill it dead and heal, dip and still kill it dead and heal, never use that high a mod as x4 also kills it dead, and heal.


Dont forget that Mr. 29 hp, 7 Con, x15 EB multiplier Warlock I just mentioned is still on 29 hp's once they've healed back all the Con damage and have to be healed normally. The full round action to instantly heal it all back also ommits drain (thus quick burn still hurts), and can be reproduced with a single spell anyway! I really cant see why they shouldn't have the option of managing their Con damage considering the class is built around that very assumption now.
Ok, so heal him, but 1. he will never, ever go to x15, 2. he gets + a point every 4 levels, the damage shouldnt be healable by spell or cheese [this ability] at all.
and the mod should never get so high, level 15 with x15 mod is like 800!!!
and a full round later there is no pain.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 06:07 PM
I feel like, at this point, we need outside opinion. The three of us are too close to the design, and we need someone else to givr us a feel for balance and power-level.

Yes, that probably would help.


I fear that it got out of hand, power-wise. You'll notice that I even removed Hellfire Wrath from the version I posted in the OP.
You'll note that my rebuild also leaves this out.


Here are my concerns:

1) Fast healing of ability damage.
You'll note that, before, being able to heal this damage required an investment. You either had to take a level dip, or invest eavily in magical healing. But now you're suggesting they get it for free. I feel like, power-wise, that's too much. Fluff-wise, I also disagree with it, but that's just me.
I just mentioned a lot about this, saying you have to take a dip into another class just means that the ability to do it costs 1 level (and a first level ability at that), thus if its so easy to obtain and value, it should be built into the class.

Maybe you're objection is because you disagree with the fluff, I have attempted to change how it is considered, more that its the damage from holding on to and attempting to control greater amounts of hellfire rather than simply damage dealt to your body by channelling it.

Either way, I think that the class is crippled with out having this ability and anyone who would take it would dip binder for the power anyway, so it seems silly to leave it out.


2) Hellfire Inferno.
I'm trying to figure out what becoming a living whirlwind of fire compares to, and the closest I can figure is an elemental. It's a neat idea conceptually, but I feel like it's becoming a messy mechanic, and I'm not sure it's going to to fit. If anything, it merely duplicates the Dark Blast Shape, which is actually better. We want people to look forward to gaining levels beyond Hellfire Warlock, but I feel like there's very little to look forward to if we replicate all their powers at an earlier level...
Yes, I know its a little messy, its why I didn't bother providing an example as I assumed it would need more work. Good point that it is mostly duplicating Dark Blast Shape and as such is stealing some glory of later levels.


3) I think playtesting would demonstrate that X15 damage is too high. We're talking about an ability that would become available at Leel 6, and I think i would prove to be game-breaking. Perhaps we should move the pre-reqs back up.
Again, I did just cover this, you can only get x15 at level 7 of the prestige. Although I am very much a fan of play testing to see how potent it really is, but don't forget the cost you are paying for this power output, you are very much turning yourself into a glass cannon.


4) I think being unable to be resurrected is a nerf. It'd make for an interesting plot hook, to be sure, but I think it'd be a pain to the party.
Hmm, in that case then perhaps just normal fire is needed to rez? As the inability to use a worse raising spell really doesn't matter then.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 06:10 PM
binding naberious heals one point of ability damage a round.
that is not an instant full round heal, nor should it apply to this class at all.
eldritch doom is not worth anything, negative levels are.

and yes, x15 makes you a glass cannon, but frankly, x5 is enough [with room to spare] and turns you into a glass nuke, with an insta heal next round, and the first attack.

imp_fireball
2010-02-07, 06:15 PM
Hellfire burns hotter than any normal fire

From a fluff stand point, hotter = more fire damage and more fire = greater radius of effect. If you want to make it stand out you should probably word it 'hellfire burns the soul as well as the body' thus it isn't strictly fire damage. From a mechanic side of things, it could be fire damage as well as negative energy damage or untyped damage.


I think its only fair to allow them to heal it back and manage how low they want it to be

Or maybe allow them to craft 'con restoration crystals' or have a cleric handy. Maybe they can gain CON by consuming the souls of creatures or draining them (ala world of warcraft's soul shards). This doesn't make them evil though! They need it to keep going! Thus it's like Christopher Reeves and stem cells in that south park episode. :smallbiggrin:

What about the ability to shape fire too? Cast rain of fire? Liquid fire in veins? It's all 'hell fire' of course.


1) Fast healing of ability damage.
You'll note that, before, being able to heal this damage required an investment. You either had to take a level dip, or invest eavily in magical healing. But now you're suggesting they get it for free. I feel like, power-wise, that's too much. Fluff-wise, I also disagree with it, but that's just me.

My suggestion is that they have to grip soul shards for a number of rounds to recover ability damage. Each soul shard lasts so-and-so long, requires GP to create as well as souls. And whatever resulted in the creation of the hellfire warlock to begin with may desire certain souls (like, I don't know, virgins or paladins?). Even if the warlock isn't evil.

They couldn't possibly be good though unless they live in a world with extreme anti-heroes.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 06:23 PM
stuff
To be entirely too blunt. If you were sooo against x15 multiplier, why when you edited it previously did you keep it in? I'm sorry but your sudden about turn to say that it should never every be this when you could've critiqued and pointed this out before mhvaughan stated it but you didn't and thus your sudden change of tune has offended me. Please, if you are going to critique, do so fairly and justly, otherwise you hinder more than you help.


binding naberious heals one point of ability damage a round.
that is not an instant full round heal, nor should it apply to this class at all.
eldritch doom is not worth anything, negative levels are.

and yes, x15 makes you a glass cannon, but frankly, x5 is enough [with room to spare] and turns you into a glass nuke, with an insta heal next round, and the first attack.

Instant full heal of ability damage but not hp damage that was caused from it, your still on 29hps afterwards! Yes you are back to 18 Con and therefore can heal to greater amounts, but your still half dead! Plus your damage output is now x2 at best again!

Also, if you are saying that the binder dip should never be allowed to function in this matter, then even more reason to have a huge multiplier if you just pretty much signed you own death warrant! It will take literally weeks on end to heal that sort of damage naturally.... or... again, if you can tolerate me repeating myself ONE SPELL. One, which takes a standard action to cast sorry, three rounds (in which case then yes I might make it take longer than a full-round to perform, the intention was that you use it after combat anyway so this really isn't a problem), which your DM will probably be kind enough to let you have for a discounted price when he realises how much you suck without it. ONE.

Really, it is too much to ask to just allow this class to sort itself out without draining its pocket or pestering the cleric? As that is all that will happen otherwise, the power growth of the multiplier takes time to get into effect and keeps you weak if you keep it high. If you want to jump to the big guns (nova via quick burn) the damage is more lasting due to it being drain. You are acting like you are not going to fall over in a light breeze just because the damage is curable, but if you are expecting to be using the higher level multipliers in combat then you are, simply because you have to be at lower Con scores whilst doing so. Yes you can kill nearly anything with one blast, but you can also be killed by one half decent charge!

:smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious: ..... Okay. I'm getting waaay too worked up by this. I'm going to take a step back and cool down. I'm sorry if this... well rant, has offended at all, but gah! I cant see how you're not seeing this as a worthy pay off. Yes, maybe x15 is a little much and it should be reeled back to maybe x10... I'm not saying my numbers are perfect, but the healing thing really should be there because this class just plain sucks without it.

EDIT: *Slightly calmer* Yes, I also realise the utter hypocrisy cause from me pointing out that one should critique fairly and justly, and then flying off the handle myself. I am sorry for if this post sounds harsher than it should, but I keep saying the same thing as it seems like its falling of deaf ears. Again, sorry, I'll be good now honest. :smalltongue:

imp_fireball
2010-02-07, 06:28 PM
:smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfu rious: ..... Okay. I'm getting waaay too worked up by this. I'm going to take a step back and cool down. I'm sorry if this... well rant, has offended at all, but gah! I cant see how you're not seeing this as a worthy pay off. Yes, maybe x15 is a little much and it should be reeled back to maybe x10... I'm not saying my numbers are perfect, but the healing thing really should be there because this class just plain sucks without it.

Or you could like, not give in to their demands at all, and at least consider my idea.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 06:31 PM
To be entirely too blunt. If you were sooo against x15 multiplier, why when you edited it previously did you keep it in? I'm sorry but your sudden about turn to say that it should never every be this when you could've critiqued and pointed this out before mhvaughan stated it but you didn't and thus your sudden change of tune has offended me. Please, if you are going to critique, do so fairly and justly, otherwise you hinder more than you help.

not blunt, its the obvious point to raise, answer: hadnt worked out the damage yet and thought the eldritch didnt increase with hellfire levels. I was wrong too, but x15 is ridiculous.


Instant full heal of ability damage but not hp damage that was caused from it, your still on 29hps afterwards! Yes you are back to 18 Con and therefore can heal to greater amounts, but your still half dead! Plus your damage output is now x2 at best again!
but everything else is dead!



Also, if you are saying that the binder dip should never be allowed to function in this matter, then even more reason to have a huge multiplier if you just pretty much signed you own death warrant! It will take literally weeks on end to heal that sort of damage naturally.... or... again, if you can tolerate me repeating myself ONE SPELL. One, which takes a standard action to cast, which your DM will probably be kind enough to let you have for a discounted price when he realises how much you suck without it. ONE.
it takes a day per point. I think that it should heal more quickly than natural as the hellfire gets higher leveled and i think it shouldnt be healable by anything that doesnt heal the soul. so unless your party cleric casts greater restoration or even something better then nuhuh. and you dont suck without it, you are too good with this level of it, maybe using fast healing as the warlock ability would be the perfect thing to couple with this, but if you cant fast heal anymore today, and use this, then stay in bed for 9 days!



Really, it is too much to ask to just allow this class to sort itself out without draining its pocket or pestering the cleric? As that is all that will happen otherwise, the power growth of the multiplier takes time to get into effect and keeps you weak if you keep it high. If you want to jump to the big guns (nova via quick burn) the damage is more lasting due to it being drain. You are acting like you are not going to fall over in a light breeze just because the damage is curable, but if you are expecting to be using the higher level multipliers in combat then you are, simply because you have to be at lower Con scores whilst doing so. Yes you can kill nearly anything with one blast, but you can also be killed by one half decent charge!

yes its too much, someone taught the cheese how to reproduce a-sexually! I understand how it works, and yes i see the fragility, but it is too much for a one round fix.


:smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfu rious: ..... Okay. I'm getting waaay too worked up by this. I'm going to take a step back and cool down. I'm sorry if this... well rant, has offended at all, but gah! I cant see how you're not seeing this as a worthy pay off. Yes, maybe x15 is a little much and it should be reeled back to maybe x10... I'm not saying my numbers are perfect, but the healing thing really should be there because this class just plain sucks without it.

thats fine. I see it as a too worthy pay off. i dont want my dm to deny me the class!
the class just plain out damages its level without it, too much.
x10, at level 15, is 245 damage average.

Edit: like imp's idea, nom souls = heal. sure, why not, but it needs to be significantly less cheesy than it is right now.

warlock soul hurt, warlock eat your soul, warlock soul feel warm nau.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 06:55 PM
but everything else is dead!
Until you hit Dark invocations (level 16) you are limited to using Cone as your shape, this has a limited range (30ft) and unless you are cleverly using the terrain (read: corridor) to your advantage you will NOT be able to kill everything even with massive damage. If you are being clever, well done, this is your reward.


it takes a day per point. I think that it should heal more quickly than natural as the hellfire gets higher leveled and i think it shouldnt be healable by anything that doesnt heal the soul. so unless your party cleric casts greater restoration or even something better then nuhuh.
No, you need only Restoration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/restoration.htm), a level 4 spell, obtainable at level 7 by most healing classes and easy to get as a scroll or wand for good time usage by the warlock himself, hell he can even scribe the scrolls himself too!


yes its too much, someone taught the cheese how to reproduce a-sexually! I understand how it works, and yes i see the fragility, but it is too much for a one round fix.
Fair enough, so instead of dismissing it out of hand, suggest that it should take longer to fix. I'm quite content with having 5 rounds to heal all Con damage, its just to speed up the healing and to save you from spamming EBs to trigger the hellfire pool reduction and thus healing.


Or you could like, not give in to their demands at all, and at least consider my idea.
Okay! :smallsmile:


From a fluff stand point, hotter = more fire damage and more fire = greater radius of effect. If you want to make it stand out you should probably word it 'hellfire burns the soul as well as the body' thus it isn't strictly fire damage. From a mechanic side of things, it could be fire damage as well as negative energy damage or untyped damage.
You might not be aware, but hellfire is already an established energy type that was introduced in the Fiendish codex II book, as was the class that we are attempting to rebuild. It pretty much counts as untyped damage for most purposes and can deal damage to objects directly (unlike normal fire).

The prestige class we're editing is here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20061207a&page=3) if you want to overlook the original material.


Or maybe allow them to craft 'con restoration crystals' or have a cleric handy. Maybe they can gain CON by consuming the souls of creatures or draining them (ala world of warcraft's soul shards). This doesn't make them evil though! They need it to keep going! Thus it's like Christopher Reeves and stem cells in that south park episode. :smallbiggrin:
The crystals idea is pretty much pointless as you have scrolls you can buy or scribe. Although as a "I killed you so I get this boost", then yes maybe. I cant see how you can say you're stealing their souls power without being evil however :smallconfused:


What about the ability to shape fire too? Cast rain of fire? Liquid fire in veins? It's all 'hell fire' of course.
Warlock gets the ability to do a lot of cool stuff so shaping the blast to a point of "rain" is easily doable already. But fire in veins could be nice... would make a mess of all your gear the second you got cut though, so I see it more as a flavourful nerf than a boon.


My suggestion is that they have to grip soul shards for a number of rounds to recover ability damage. Each soul shard lasts so-and-so long, requires GP to create as well as souls. And whatever resulted in the creation of the hellfire warlock to begin with may desire certain souls (like, I don't know, virgins or paladins?). Even if the warlock isn't evil.

They couldn't possibly be good though unless they live in a world with extreme anti-heroes.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, currently we haven't made the class have an alignment restriction, this would require it... I dunno overall. Its a fairly significant change to the classes current flavour and would push it very much towards NPC rather than PC material, which I'm not really in favour of myself.

Good ideas overall though, please keep them coming!

CTLC
2010-02-07, 07:01 PM
Until you hit Dark invocations (level 16) you are limited to using Cone as your shape, this has a limited range (30ft) and unless you are cleverly using the terrain (read: corridor) to your advantage you will NOT be able to kill everything even with massive damage. If you are being clever, well done, this is your reward.


No, you need only Restoration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/restoration.htm), a level 4 spell, obtainable at level 7 by most healing classes and easy to get as a scroll or wand for good time usage by the warlock himself, hell he can even scribe the scrolls himself too!
I was saying it shouldnt be healable by normal restoration. as an example.


Fair enough, so instead of dismissing it out of hand, suggest that it should take longer to fix. I'm quite content with having 5 rounds to heal all Con damage, its just to speed up the healing and to save you from spamming EBs to trigger the hellfire pool reduction and thus healing.
the warlock already gains a fast healing ability thing. maybe let the hellfire do something to gain a fast healing for ability damage [if normal fast healing doesnt cover it]. Something to help is find, One Round Fix is silly.


Okay! :smallsmile:


You might not be aware, but hellfire is already an established energy type that was introduced in the Fiendish codex II book, as was the class that we are attempting to rebuild. It pretty much counts as untyped damage for most purposes and can deal damage to objects directly (unlike normal fire).
mhm



The crystals idea is pretty much pointless as you have scrolls you can buy or scribe. Although as a "I killed you so I get this boost", then yes maybe. I cant see how you can say you're stealing their souls power without being evil however :smallconfused:
unless you rule normal spells dont cure burns on your soul. which i would personally.



Warlock gets the ability to do a lot of cool stuff so shaping the blast to a point of "rain" is easily doable already. But fire in veins could be nice... would make a mess of all your gear the second you got cut though, so I see it more as a flavourful nerf than a boon.
you can do aoe attacks somehow im sure, rain is however not doable at all.
heh, veins of magma.


Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, currently we haven't made the class have an alignment restriction, this would require it... I dunno overall. Its a fairly significant change to the classes current flavour and would push it very much towards NPC rather than PC material, which I'm not really in favour of myself.
its already chaotic only. that seems fine on its own. Maybe you just tap into the resource instead of strip mining?


Good ideas overall though, please keep them coming!

amen!

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-07, 07:10 PM
I was saying it shouldnt be healable by normal restoration. as an example.
Okay, so you're restricting the ability to heal back even further... whilst still pushing for nerfing the damage. So you deal less damage when you do use the point of the class, you have to watch you don't overuse it because you cant regulate the damage dealt to you, and if you do have to use it in a tight spot its more than likely going to be result in killing you (indirectly as you are now weaker and cant heal back at all). Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?


the warlock already gains a fast healing ability thing. maybe let the hellfire do something to gain a fast healing for ability damage [if normal fast healing doesnt cover it]. Something to help is find, One Round Fix is silly.
Fast healing ability damage... is this not what I've already got effectively?


unless you rule normal spells dont cure burns on your soul. which i would personally.
Hellfire never states it injurs the soul, yes we can add it, but having uncurable damage rarely helps PCs as monsters very rarely heal themselves up.


you can do aoe attacks somehow im sure, rain is however not doable at all.
Doom Shape can be reflavoured as causing molten rain to fall around you. Done.


its already chaotic only. that seems fine on its own. Maybe you just tap into the resource instead of strip mining?
Still evil really, if your using souls to power anything, your evil, even if you dont consume the soul in the process.

Also. I sleep now, I'll cya all tomoz. With any luck a third party will review what we've got and give some handy feedback.

CTLC
2010-02-07, 07:16 PM
Okay, so you're restricting the ability to heal back even further... whilst still pushing for nerfing the damage. So you deal less damage when you do use the point of the class, you have to watch you don't overuse it because you cant regulate the damage dealt to you, and if you do have to use it in a tight spot its more than likely going to be result in killing you (indirectly as you are now weaker and cant heal back at all). Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?
well, yes. im all-around-totally nerfing it. cause it needs nerfing, the goal is not to create something thats the most powerful thing ever, we want to create a tier 2, damage focused, playable prc.


Fast healing ability damage... is this not what I've already got effectively?

1 round, unlimited us VS. multiple rounds, not unlimited use, possibly not a full heal
no its not the same, not by a loooong shot.


Hellfire never states it injurs the soul, yes we can add it, but having uncurable damage rarely helps PCs as monsters very rarely heal themselves up.
its very difficult to cure damage that matters as the PC gets the hard to cure version.


Doom Shape can be reflavoured as causing molten rain to fall around you. Done.
mkay, i guess. not the same effect really, as random smaller amounts of less potent bladdy blah. but whatever.


Still evil really, if your using souls to power anything, your evil, even if you dont consume the soul in the process.

eh, make it evil only?
and if PCs want to use it in a good aligned group [im playing an evil warlock right now] ask the dm?


Also. I sleep now, I'll cya all tomoz. With any luck a third party will review what we've got and give some handy feedback.[/QUOTE]
mmm, sleep. that thing. Ye, we need third parties. and 4th...

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-08, 04:24 AM
well, yes. im all-around-totally nerfing it. cause it needs nerfing, the goal is not to create something thats the most powerful thing ever, we want to create a tier 2, damage focused, playable prc.
Warlock is a tier 4 class. These edits will push it down a tier easily. The warlock is pretty much a straight up blaster with a few neat tricks which let them get around easier.

My suggestion is to make them a straight up blaster which is more potent at the cost of their own fragility. Your suggestion is to give them a pathetic increase in damage (ala the old hellfire warlock), for a huge cost (even worse than the old hellfire warlock), and then make them suffer it for a long period of time (which sucks several times worse than the old hellfire warlock). You are making a tier 5 class easily.

Edit: Oh, and may I add that yes a hypothetical x15 damage will indeed blitz anything with a hp reserve (we hope), but there are these things normal wizards have called save or die (or suck/whatever) which means 1 spell can indeed kill 1 creature (or at times more). So is it really that bad to just allow this class to kill things in one shot when they themselves are weak enough to be killed in one shot?

A pure warlock versus my suggested hellfire warlock would be about evenly matched. As the hellfire warlock burns up to bigger blasts, they have lower hp reserves and are easier to kill by the smaller in comparison EB of the pure warlock. Yes it does come down to who can hit who first. But as that would be the case with two pure warlocks fighting anyway the difference is minor.


1 round, unlimited us VS. multiple rounds, not unlimited use, possibly not a full heal no its not the same, not by a loooong shot.
Okay, I've said this multiple time snow, the heal to full can take as long as you like, its purely to save the warlock spamming blasts when they don't need to after fights to cure back the damage suffered in the fight. As lets face it, that looks stupid.

Yes, a permanent ongoing heal of 1 con damage a round is quite potent, but we're asking this class to burn down 11 con damage in some cases. That is madness without allow it to be healed back. You seem to want this class to be a one trick pony, where they can blast off some half decent shots during one fight and pay for it the entire next week! Who would cripple their character for a week just for the chance to do what they could do in five rounds sitting at the back sniping? Really?


its very difficult to cure damage that matters as the PC gets the hard to cure version.
Again, why? It makes no difference, unless you make a habit of leaving enemies alive or running into casters who heal a lot this does nothing of use to the class.


eh, make it evil only?
and if PCs want to use it in a good aligned group [im playing an evil warlock right now] ask the dm?
Why pigeon hole the class to heal with souls when I've offered a perfectly valid reason to heal from just releasing the hellfire they've absorbed? The mechanic is the same, but the flavour means the DM will have to edit said flavour to let anyone who isn't evil play the class. I know its a prestige class so you can be a little more forceful with the flavour, but if its not needed it shouldn't be done. This isn't needed.

Edit: As for the hellfire inferno, I've given it some thought and I do agree its just too messy to keep. It no longer serves the original purpose of its conception (to nova), and so I'm binning it. I still think 7 is a nice number for the prestige class, more so if a real multiplier is kept till the final level (as otherwise I can't see this being anymore than a single dip class which defeats the point of expanding it over more levels).

I'll put my brain to work for something to replace it with, perhaps Imp can suggest something with his fresh eyes?

Double Edit! I have changed a few bits this time, anything I havn't changed I didn't provide a write up for. You will note that I've changed the venting of hellfire to allow you to heal without spamming blasts at nothing to trigger the healing, it will now take the same number of turns to heal as your reduced Con and mean you cant do so whilst running away from things. I've also changed the maximum pool limit and the multiplier provided so its a shallower rise. And I changed the maximum multiplier cap so it raises each level and a single dip can not exceed a x3 multiplier.

I changed immunity to only be granted while your using hellfire, but gave back the old fire resistance and improved it at 4, the immunity also now gives vulnerability to cold as suggested by CTLC. I dropped inferno altogether, but allowed shield to be more potent at 6th too.

Hellfire Soul and Hellfire Phoenix are hardly changed at all, but I did make edits to them before which might have been overlooked. Phoenix now requires normal fire to activate, but takes a day to do so, which means your out of action for a while until they can set up a fire to last that long.

Hellfire Warlock

Entry requirements:
Skills: Intimidate 6 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks.
Language: Infernal.
Warlock Invocation: Must know brimstone blast or hellrime blast.

{table=head]Level|Special|Invoking|Pool Limit
1|Hellfire Blast|+1 level of existing invoking class|3
2|Hellfire Infusion, Resistance to Fire 10|+1 level of existing invoking class|5
3|Hellfire Shield|+1 level of existing invoking class|7
4|Quick Burn, Resistance to Fire 20|+1 level of existing invoking class|9
5|Devastating Hellfire|+1 level of existing invoking class|11
6|Wreathed in Flames|+1 level of existing invoking class|13
7|Hellfire Soul, Hellfire Phoenix|+1 level of existing invoking class|15[/table]

Hellfire Blast (Sp): Same

Hellfire Pool: Your Hellfire Pool measures the amount of Constitution damage you are currently suffering from due to storing Hellfire within your body. This determines how potent your hellfire abilities are as shown in the table below. It takes time to master hellfire and benefit from additional hellfire stores, if you exceed your Hellfire Pool Limit (as shown in the class table above) you do not gain the appropriate multiplier. This limit does not prevent you from increasing your pool beyond this number, it just prevents you from gaining any advantage from doing so.

{table=head]Hellfire Pool|Extra Hellfire Damage
1|x2
3|x3
5|x4
7|x5
9|x7
11|x9
13|x12
15|x15[/table]

Whenever you use any eldritch blast or hellfire blast and your hellfire pool is 1 or greater, you may choose to reduce your hellfire pool by 1 and heal 1 Constitution Damage at the same time. You may also vent hellfire in this manor without casting a eldritch blast or hellfire blast by spending a standard action instead, this still only reduces your hellfire pool by 1 and heals 1 Constitution Damage though.

You may fire a single hellfire blast and heal the Constitution damage back right away and still get the x2 multiplier, however you still take damage from reducing your Constitution this way. You may not heal Constitution Drain at all using this ability, and any lost HPs from a reduced Constitution are still lost and must be healed back naturally.

Invoking: At each level, you gain new invocations known, increased damage with eldritch blast, and an increase in invoker level as if you had also gained a level in the warlock class. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained.

Hellfire Infusion (Su): Same

Resistance to Fire 10 (Ex): At 2nd level, you gain resistance to fire 10, this then increases again by a further 10 at level 4. This resistance stacks with any resistance to fire you have gained from warlock class levels.

Hellfire Shield (Sp): Same

Quick Burn (Sp): Same

Devastating Hellfire (Sp): Same

Wreathed in Flames: At 6th level your body becomes infused with hellfire whenever you use it, literally igniting you with the very hellfire you control. Whenever you use any hellfire ability you can choose to activate this ability as a free action, you can dismiss it at any time as a free action, but it automatically ends if your hellfire pool reaches 0.

While under the effects of this ability your body appears to be literally burning, sections of it may appear to be composed of hellfire, or simply your body is surrounded by loops of constantly moving hellfire. This hellfire does not injur you or any of your possession, but it does sheds light as a torch would. Whilst in this form you gain the fire subtype (Immunity to fire, vulnerability to cold) and your hellfire sheild no longer allows a reflex save to reduce the damage dealt.

Hellfire Soul: At 7th level your soul becomes infused with hellfire, as a result all hellfire damage is reduced by 50%. In addition you may convert your normal eldritch blast damage or any invocation which normally deals fire damage to instead deal hellfire damage. This does not provide any multipliers that hellfire blast does, it only changes the damage type to that of hellfire, it does however allow you to activate your wreathed in flames ability.

Hellfire Phoenix: At 7th level your mastery of hellfire is complete, your body and soul are perfect conduits of hellfire and are regularly infused with the hellfire. Your very existence is intertwined with the substance, and as such upon your demise (-10hp or fewer) your body is immolated by hellfire reducing it to a pile of ash, and any creature adjacent to you takes damage as if struck by a hellfire blast (with appropriate multipliers as if you were alive).

Due to your body no longer being intact you cannot be restored to life by the Raise Dead spell, however if this ash is burnt by a constant fire for a full day you are restored to life as if by the Resurrection spell. A significant amount of the ash is needed for this process to work, and upon completion you reform in the nearest available location that you can fit in, automatically wreathed in flames as per the ability.

So.. What are peoples thoughts on this now?

CTLC
2010-02-08, 04:54 PM
wreathed in flames feels a bit useless. the shield no reflex save is nice, but not huge. the fire immunity is no much improvement on res 20, the vulnerability is less than significant. So its immolation, without the immolation?

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-08, 05:22 PM
wreathed in flames feels a bit useless. the shield no reflex save is nice, but not huge. the fire immunity is no much improvement on res 20, the vulnerability is less than significant. So its immolation, without the immolation?

Yes, it just allows immunity (so you can wade in lava) and a better shield (with logical reasoning behind it)... and incase you needed it, torch light! In complete honesty, its also better than a dead level, which it easily could be.

It isn't huge, I did have it with a little more kick, but scaled it down in favour of boosting it at a later date if it was so needed. I instead focused on having the power more clearly placed in obtaining more potent blasts, as that is pretty much what this class has always stood for. There are a few little treats, much like its base class, but I don't want to over egg that too much as this class should only be about killing things with fire. Anything else is icing on the cake imo.

It also seemed more prudent to underplay suggestions rather than overplay and then scale back, as criticism has been very heavy handed in dismissing ideas rather than suggestion tweaks to rebalance. The whole class has been weakened somewhat by moving immunity to later, and having the multiplier scale slower and be held back longer. This should hopefully pay for the logical ability of managing your con damage with optional infinite healing, and allow the higher end multipliers be more palatable as they are restricted for longer and cost more to obtain.

CTLC
2010-02-08, 06:16 PM
but its almost completely useless. why bother? Mechanically it is light [which is either a disadvantage, or replicated for less than a gp], immunity to fire [which you already mostly have, and should have entirely], pumps an awful and useless ability that noone will ever use, and gives you vulnerability.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-08, 06:46 PM
but its almost completely useless. why bother? Mechanically it is light [which is either a disadvantage, or replicated for less than a gp], immunity to fire [which you already mostly have, and should have entirely], pumps an awful and useless ability that noone will ever use, and gives you vulnerability.

Light was merely thrown in for good measure and because it made sense to be there, it is fire after all. Immunity is much better than 20/25 resistance, the vulerability was you idea too but can now be avoided when its too hindering. The shield is a very useful ability when you consider you wish to dissuade people from hitting you considering you are so fragile, so making it more potent is a nice boon.

But ultimately the reason is because something is always better than nothing.

Yes, this something may not be the bells and whistles of a shiny new ability, but its of purely optional use anyway so you can ignore it even exists if you were so inclined. I also don't think there should be anything more potent in here unless it has a self inflicted pay off to balance it anyway, or it'll subtract from the main power and purpose of the class.

If nothing else, it lets you try to wangle situational bonuses to intimidate checks and the like :smallbiggrin:.

Edit: Also, do you care to comment on the now edited ability damage healing and the more shallow (and allowing deeper bonuses) multiplier increase of the hellfire pool? As these seem to be where the most complaints occurred around last time.

CTLC
2010-02-08, 07:50 PM
Edit: Also, do you care to comment on the now edited ability damage healing and the more shallow (and allowing deeper bonuses) multiplier increase of the hellfire pool? As these seem to be where the most complaints occurred around last time.

The healing ability damage is still pretty cheesy. A standard action to heal a point of con damage, geeesus. And the multiplier is still useless, id spend maybe, maybe 3 points of con [by the way, it increases by two con every time, so you have a round with no advantages] and still deal overpowered damage. The multipliers are too high, and the con invested is too high [not as over the top as the multipliers, but still silly]. noone would ever go very high on that table.

imp_fireball
2010-02-08, 09:15 PM
The crystals idea is pretty much pointless as you have scrolls you can buy or scribe. Although as a "I killed you so I get this boost", then yes maybe. I cant see how you can say you're stealing their souls power without being evil however

Well, it wouldn't have to be evil but it definitely wouldn't be good. Neutral HFW's would do it because they needed to in order to survive and they're desperate. Of course, that doesn't a prevent a paladin from giving a patronizing grunt of disapproval.

Because, I mean c'mon, they're warlocks, paladins already oppose them anyway (depending on what god they serve, of course).

As for fluff - the warlock would take pieces from another creature's soul in order to patch up their own soul.

Evil warlocks would exploit the soul's power for reasons beyond saving themselves - I'll leave that up to your option. Maybe include HFW specific feats that are divided into the alignments of neutral or evil.



warlock soul hurt, warlock eat your soul, warlock soul feel warm nau.

But it's hilarious, no? :smallamused:

Though one could argue that the concept of a 'soul' is cheesy.

Also, you may as well mention that a lot of arch devils/fiends and demon princes are evil Hell Fire Warlocks. That would be where the 'gonna eat yur soul rawr' comes from.

Reaper_Monkey
2010-02-09, 04:24 AM
The healing ability damage is still pretty cheesy. A standard action to heal a point of con damage, geeesus.

Cheesy? I don't think you quite understand the meaning of that in the context of mechanical advantages. Cheesy would be applied to a collection of mechanics from different sources which act together in a way which clearly wasn't intended, giving you advantages or weakening disadvantages when they wouldn't otherwise be unable to.

As such, this can not be cheesy. Overpowered, perhaps, but not cheesy.

A standard action, or free if you fire an elditch/hellfire blast (as its even cheaper that way aint it) to heal one con damage *that you have already previously dealt to yourself*, this can not heal con damage from any other source.


And the multiplier is still useless, id spend maybe, maybe 3 points of con [by the way, it increases by two con every time, so you have a round with no advantages] and still deal overpowered damage.

First, I know it takes two to increase, I wrote the mechanic, its intended that way. Also, a normal eldritch blast can crit, and in doing so deals x2 damage, so the ability to do that on demand cant be that overpowered if you aint going that deep into con damage for the big multipliers.


The multipliers are too high, and the con invested is too high [not as over the top as the multipliers, but still silly].

Okay, so one thing is too high, and the balancing agent for that thing is too high.... would this not suggest that they balance when taken together?? :smallconfused:


noone would ever go very high on that table.
Yes, you also said that you wouldn't go any deeper than 3 for the x3 multiplier. Oh look. The class works as intended! That is the entire point of this class! You pay for your power with your very life effectively, get it wrong and you will die. If you would never take this beyond 3 con damage then that says how much of a cost you must pay to get the better damage.

If your goals are to make a tier 2 class, you are by no means going about it the right way. As I have already stated, a warlock is tier 4. A warlocks primary and only feature is the ability to fire off eldritch blasts all day every day. They are a blaster class. They are also a very poor blaster class.

This prestige in its original form was about boosting said blasting ability at the cost of your own health. It in itself grants what is effectively a x3 multiplier for every odd class level and overall it takes 1.5 EB dice and turns it into 7.5 HB dice which is over the course of 3 levels an average of a x5 multiplier for those levels! And you claim my providing of a x3 is too much when you cant heal back the damage at all to preserve it?!

Look, if your happy with paying 2 con max and getting a multiplier of 1.5 when doing so, then great! Your build will be very much underpar and the archer will out pace you with ease, the fighter will cleave up anything near by before you get more than a pot shot in, and even the pure warlock will have nicer toys than you and be able to do pretty much the same damage.

Seriously, have a go at following your own advice and put together your idea of what this class should be, then compare it to a pure warlock and see how much you've gained for your investment and how much you've lost. When you're done that and are happy in the knoweldge you have made a class equal to its base class in power, compare the warlock (or your version of the hellfire warlock) to any of the tier two classes. Perhaps you'll get more perspective to build on, or perhaps you'll make a better class than I have, either way its beneficial.


99 soulzA.

Yes a warlock and especially a hellfire warlock will sit on the wrong side of a paladin. However nothing stops you reflavoring the class into simply a pryomancer, a master of elemental fire, you might even just alter it subtly and say its a curse (more so with the con damage) or an unwanted gift. It can be cut in a lot of different ways to pull off the "I'm not evil, honest" angle.

As such, I'm still very very hesitant to include messing with others souls into the flavour. Also, I'm kinda happy with where the class is right now flavour wise and mechanic wise. It could do with maybe one extra original minor power, but I think its nearing completion now. Changing the healing mechanic will make it harder to predict when healing is available and will most likely make it needlessly complicated, more so when you could just dip binder to pull off the same effect with less turn economy impact.

Sorry to dismiss your soul idea out of hand, but the original hellfire warlock already has some quite substantial flavour to it and I'm disinclined to move too far away from that unless there are clear benefits from doing so. Please do keep offering cool uses for hellfire/fire based abilities though.