The Revised Warlock.

[The Shadowmind]

The warlock is stuck as a tier 4 class, and I wanted to see if I could make it version of it that is at least tier 3 or tier 2, but not in tier 1.

Warlock
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Heritage Feat, Invocations Know

1st|
+0|
+0|
+0|
+2|Eldritch Blast Invocation(least), Heritage Feat|2

2nd|
+1|
+0|
+0|
+3|Detect magic|2|

3rd|
+2|
+1|
+1|
+3|Point Blank Shot,Combat Casting|4|

4th|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+4|Deceive item,Precise Shot|6|

5th|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+4|Magical Aptitude, Fell Completion|6|

6th|
+4|
+2|
+2|
+5|Imbue Item, New Invocation(Lesser or least),Scribe Scroll,Heritage Feat|8|

7th|
+5|
+2|
+2|
+5|Eldritch Magic|8|

8th|
+6/+1|
+2|
+2|
+6|Fell craft 10%|10|

9th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+3|
+6|Craft Wondrous Item,Heritage Feat|10|

10th|
+7/+2|
+3|
+3|
+7|Mettle|12|

11th|
+8/+3|
+3|
+3|
+7|Improved Eldritch Magic,New Invocation (Least, Lesser, or Greater)|14|

12th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+4|
+8|Heritage Feat|14|

13th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+4|
+8|Fiendish restoration|16|

14th|
+10/+5|
+4|
+4|
+9|Fell craft 20%|16|

15th|
+11/+6/+1|
+5|
+5|
+9|New invocation(Least, Lesser, Greater, or Dark)|18|

16th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+5|
+10|Greater Eldritch Magic|20|

17th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+5|
+10|Improved Fiendish restoration|20|

18th|
+13/+8/+3|
+6|
+6|
+11|Heritage Feat|22|

19th|
+14/+9/+4|
+6|
+6|
+11|Greater Fiend restoration|22|

20th|
+15/+10/+5|
+6|
+6|
+12 |Utterdark Soul, Fell craft 30%|24|
[/table]

Eldritch Blast A Warlock's Eldritch Blast damage is equal 1d6+1d6/2 levels. For the purpose of increasing caster levels treat a warlock as an arcane caster. Everything else remains the same.

Heritage Feat At first level a warlock may pick either the Fey Heritage Feat,Fiendish Heritage Feat, or Skill Focus:Use Magic Device. At 6th level a warlock gets either Fey Presence, Fiendish Presence, or an item creation feat he qualifies for if he took Skill Focus:Use Magic device. At 9th level a warlock gets either Fey legacy, Fiendish legacy or an item creation feat he qualifies for. At 12th level a warlock gets Fey Power, Fiendish Power, or an item creation feat he qualifies for. A warlock must qualify for the feats in order to take them.

Eldritch MagicAt level 7, a warlock uses some of the eldritch power given to him to fuel the use of magic items increasing their potency, because of this the save DC of each effect of every spell completion item increases by 2, this ability improves at level 11, then again at level 16.

Improved Eldritch Magic The save DC of each effect of every spell completion item increases by an additional +2, the save DC of each effect of every spell completion item increases by 2.

Greater Eldritch Magic The caster level of spell completion items used by the warlock increases by 2, and the DC of each effect of every spell completion item increases by an additional +2.

Fell CraftA warlock draws for the ancestral pact when making item, causing him to put less effort into making magic items, this causes the warlock to use less experience in making magic items, the warlock uses 10% less experience in crafting in all magic items at level 8, and increases 10% every six levels.

Fell Completion A warlock is able to use a spell completion magic item in light armor with no chance of arcane spell failure.

Fiendish Restoration At level 13 a warlock is able to use Fiendish Restoration. Every two rounds for 10 rounds a warlock heals 1 ability damage. A warlock can do this once a day.

Improved Fiendish RestorationAt level 17 a warlock is able to use Fiendish Restoration. Every two rounds for 10 rounds a warlock heals 1d3 ability damage. A warlock can do this once a day.

Greater Restoration At level 19 a warlock is able to use Greater Fiendish Restoration. Every round for 15 rounds a warlock heals 1d6 ability damage. A warlock can do this once a day.

Utterdark Soul At level 20 a warlocks soul has become corrupted by fiend and fey energy. From this, a warlock heals from both positive and negative energy, and is immune to death effects.
---

You lose all DR/Cold iron, Fiendish Resilience, and Energy resistance, in exchange for all the PHB craft feats but at a later level then they normally are gained, a stronger eldritch blast, twice the number of invocation, mettle, not wasting feats on the two almost all warlocks need to take (point blank/precise shot), and several bonus feats in later levels.

---

So any critiques?

[Zeta Kai]

What, no capstone? Really? I mean, 2 extra invocations is nice, but by then, if you don't already have just about every invocation that you need & then some, then you're doing something wrong. I thought that we were past the point where you could have a class that had dead levels at all, let alone an absent cap.

I'm sorry, I hate to harp on one relatively-minor point, but really? None?

[arguskos]

What, no capstone? Really? I mean, 2 extra invocations is nice, but by then, if you don't already have just about every invocation that you need & then some, then you're doing something wrong. I thought that we were past the point where you could have a class that had dead levels at all, let alone an absent cap.

I'm sorry, I hate to harp on one relatively-minor point, but really? None?
You need a rubber stamp that says "No Dead Levels Plz". :smallwink:

Also, two notes about this class. First, yes, I agree with Zeta about the dead levels. Fill those dudes! Second, all the "special" Blasts they get over their levels. Are they Blast Shapes? Blast Essences? Neither? If neither, that means you can have a vitriolic utterdark forceful empowered maximized quickened twinned eldritch blast... which seems a mite big silly.

[The Shadowmind]

You need a rubber stamp that says "No Dead Levels Plz". :smallwink:

Also, two notes about this class. First, yes, I agree with Zeta about the dead levels. Fill those dudes! Second, all the "special" Blasts they get over their levels. Are they Blast Shapes? Blast Essences? Neither? If neither, that means you can have a vitriolic utterdark forceful empowered maximized quickened twinned eldritch blast... which seems a mite big silly.
Okay filled those out with something, warlocks typically take Hellfire warlock PrC anyway, but made this ability synergy with that PrC still, and a level twenty ability.
And changed the special blasts so they are treated as a essecen or blast shape for being applied to the blast. Originally had it neither, but that probably was to strong. Forceful stays neither, since it is just a small power boost.

[Quirp]

Nice work!
One minor thing though: Greater Fiendish Restoration has no duration mentioned. I would say it is 10 rounds as Fiendish Restoraion, but you should write that in the description (if it has no duration: :smalleek:)

[The Shadowmind]

Okay at level 14 this warlock can do 1d6+7d6+X Base Blast damage, where X is charisma modifier. So for a character of 20 charisma, the blast can be can be twined, and quickened so (8d6+5)*4, for a max possible of 212(average 132) damage, five times a day. Every two caster levels added from items/feats/spells the damage increases by 4d6, or 14 more damage on average. Since this takes the eldritch essence, and shape slot, then you limited to one target.
With the number of invocations the warlock knows doubled then the versatility of the warlock goes, and with the PHB crafting feats learned, the warlock gets to mimic a weaker artificer without as many tricks.


Now the big questions:
Would someone pick this over the normal warlock?
Would you as a DM allow this in your game?

[arguskos]

Would someone pick this over the normal warlock?
Why WOULDN'T you? It gets relevant class features, more invocations, and crafting feats. It's basically the Warlock++++.


Would you as a DM allow this in your game?
No. Now, don't take this the wrong way. I have two very good reasons why I wouldn't permit this in my games.

1. I don't like the design, and don't use class redesigns I haven't done myself. This is not a slander on your work, it's nice enough, I just... don't like it. It's not thematic enough nor does it mesh well enough with my internal vision of how to fix the Warlock. Note that my understanding is tailored to my game, and mine alone. YMMV and all that.

2. I find the standard Warlock to be fine, actually. They aren't a class that really NEEDED a redesign, just an addition. Simply give them access to non-breath Invocations from Dragon Magic and ta-da, they're fine as-is. They've worked great for me (and I don't run low-powered games, I'm mid-to-high powered usually), meaning I wouldn't use a redesign.

Now, all that said. If I felt that the Warlock needed bigger numbers? Sure, this is a good method of obtaining them, and in that, I think you succeeded in your design goal. :smallsmile:

[Barbarian MD]

I started a Warlock rewrite about a month ago. You can find it here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142707). I gave it more invocations, and I made the eldritch blasts iterative (and came up with some ways to mitigate iterative blast essences/shapes).

I got busy with real life, and never quite put the finishing touches on it, flavor-wise (I wanted to rewrite a number of invocations), but the skeleton is there, if you want to look at it for additional inspiration (but I do like what you've done with this).

[The Shadowmind]

@mhvaughan-I agree several of the warlock's invocations need tweaks, and possible a lesser invocation that is able to heal damage on other. In this I tried to give it the less tricky metamagics in a mimicry form. Making the Blasts iterative and and the metamagic mimicry might make it to strong on the raw damage end for a T2/T3 class. If I decicde to make a few new invocation I might check the Binder's vestige abilities to see which ones would work as invocations.


@arguskos-You said mid-high powered games, do you mean mid-high level like 12 to 20 with mid to high optimization, or like T1/T2 classes with mid to high optimization? By the numbers a warlock is pretty decent even compared to T1/T2 classes till about level 11/12, then his blasts start getting weaker in progress, and without any bonus feats unless he started at a high level game he is lacking in item creation feats or spent most of the earlier weaker then he should of been.
I want to see the information, since it is likely this version is to strong number wise.

[The Shadowmind]

Updated the homebrew version, got rid of the fake metamagic blast because they felt tacked on, and changed the option to take the Fey and Fiend Heritage feats or any item creation feat instead of the the Core item creation feats. Made a weaker fiendish restoration at a lower level. Since a warlock is normally going to be crafting, gave a way for the exp cost of crafting to be reduced a little without using feats. And added a more item focused class ability, Eldritch magic.