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View Full Version : [3.5] Warlock PrC question



aivanther
2010-04-24, 04:57 PM
This is a question (or series of questions) about Warlocks and prestige classing from an optimization stand point. At the moment this is hypothetical, but it may turn into a character concept later on.

Anyway, I was looking through some 3.5 books and basically came to the conclusion that there are two decent PrC for warlock; Hellfire Warlock and Enlightened Spirit. Tell me if there's one I'm missing.

Hellfire Warlock: Hellfire blast is nice, the con damage is not so much, but a wand of (lesser) restoration would handle that I guess. Hellfire infusion reads as being pretty sweet: empower, enlarge, widen, or energy substitute for free on charged item cha/day. An immediate action of a hellfire blast looks kind of sweet to.
From what I can tell you only really end up losing one 10 resistance and being forced to choose fire, 1 dr/cold iron, and a bump up to 3 on fast healing for 2 minutes. Not a huge sacrifice from what I can tell. This actually seems to be made for a warlock bump in a pretty sweet manner.

Enlightened Spirit: Gain an extra dice on eldritch blast, very nice. +AC is nice and death ward really can be nice as well.
However, you lost a lot of invocations to gain an eldritch shape (yawn), what is effectively two situational and minor eldritch essences, and a flight that could be gained by normal warlock stuff. You end up losing out on a crap load of other class features and a lot of invocations.

So, the questions.

1) Does hellfire warlock end up playing out well, or does the constitution damage end up screwing you over to much?

2) Is enlightened spirit worth it? Do the trade offs work well, am I missing something?

3) Do they synergize well? I mean, does a warlock 5/enlightened spirit 10/hellfire warlock 3 do as well/better than a warlock 18? Or a W 8/ES 10 or W15/HW 3?

Starbuck_II
2010-04-24, 05:01 PM
Enlightened Spirit: Gain an extra dice on eldritch blast, very nice. +AC is nice and death ward really can be nice as well.
However, you lost a lot of invocations to gain an eldritch shape (yawn), what is effectively two situational and minor eldritch essences, and a flight that could be gained by normal warlock stuff. You end up losing out on a crap load of other class features and a lot of invocations.

2) Is enlightened spirit worth it? Do the trade offs work well, am I missing something?


Well, the aura is no save. That means they don't get a save: they just get -2 penalty to hit/save when around you (24 hrs or till hit you).
You get a Divine bonus to AC (very hard to come by), but that depends on wether you plan on fighting up close.

Eldariel
2010-04-24, 05:03 PM
Anyway, I was looking through some 3.5 books and basically came to the conclusion that there are two decent PrC for warlock; Hellfire Warlock and Enlightened Spirit. Tell me if there's one I'm missing.

Eldritch Disciple from Complete Mage is amazing, particularly in combination with Ur-Priest (though that's much the fault of the Ur-Priest). Warlock 4/Binder 1/Ur-Priest 2/Eldritch Disciple 10/Hellfire Warlock 3 is a very solid build. You get Take 10 on UMD (the key Warlock ability), full divine casting, Hellfire+recovering the Con-damage with Naberius from Binder and yeah...that's an awesome Glaivelock.

Overall, Eldritch Disciple rocks even without the nuttiness that is Ur-Priest; divine casting just goes great with Invocations (well, divine casting rocks rather) and Eldritch Disciple has nice abilities. But Ur-Priest/Eldritch Disciple is truly nice.

senrath
2010-04-24, 05:04 PM
I don't think Enlightened Spirit is really worth it, unless you're exclusively fighting things like Devils. The lack of flexibility really hurts.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-04-24, 05:21 PM
Mindbender is an awesome dip for warlocks, and one of the few +1 level to spellcasting that warlocks can enter withou jumping through hoops.

Also Eldritch Theurge is not bad, I like Bard 1/ Warlock 5/ eldritch theurge 4/ (Bard prestige class which gives sorcerer-esque casting ) 1/ Eldritch theurge +6 (using it to advance the above class) it makes for good cha synergy.

Also my numbers probably are wrong, since I am working AFB

aivanther
2010-04-24, 05:38 PM
Ur-Priest

Yes, well, lets trying to keep it sane please?

Eldariel
2010-04-24, 05:39 PM
Yes, well, lets trying to keep it sane please?

I did outline it works just fine without Ur-Priest too, just that Ur-Priest is a too perfect fit both, flavor-wise and mechanically not to mention, did I not?

aivanther
2010-04-24, 05:41 PM
I did outline it works just fine without Ur-Priest too, just that Ur-Priest is a too perfect fit both, flavor-wise and mechanically not to mention, did I not?

Yes, but my mental faculties rebel at the thought of any use of anything so broken as ur-priest.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-24, 06:38 PM
Also Eldritch Theurge is not bad, I like Bard 1/ Warlock 5/ eldritch theurge 4/ (Bard prestige class which gives sorcerer-esque casting ) 1/ Eldritch theurge +6 (using it to advance the above class) it makes for good cha synergy.

Also my numbers probably are wrong, since I am working AFB

Bard 1/Warlock 8/Eldritch Theurge 1/Sublime Chord 1/Eldritch Theurge +9. Alternately, you might want to swap a warlock level for a second sublime chord level, because Song of Arcane Power is pretty nice.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-24, 08:46 PM
Yes, but my mental faculties rebel at the thought of any use of anything so broken as ur-priest.

What do your mental faculties do at the thought of Ur-Priest/Beholder Mage, with the Alternative Source Spell feat to make your Ur-Priest spells count as Arcane, then advancing them both with Ultimate Magus? Just curious.:smallcool:



On-topic, warlocks can qualify for any PrC that needs a caster level, but not spells of a certain level. Acolyte of the Skin, for example...though that's a very bad example. It's pretty easy to get a DM to agree to let such classes advance invocations when they would advance spellcasting too.

aivanther
2010-04-24, 09:59 PM
On-topic, warlocks can qualify for any PrC that needs a caster level, but not spells of a certain level. Acolyte of the Skin, for example...though that's a very bad example. It's pretty easy to get a DM to agree to let such classes advance invocations when they would advance spellcasting too.

Yes, I believe it says something ot that regard in the CArcane. However, most prestige classes I've seen really don't fit Warlock well, unless I'm missing something.

bartman
2010-04-24, 10:54 PM
The blood magus is an interesting one. the ability to travel any distance through someone is pretty cool. never actually played one, but they always looked appealing to me

The Glyphstone
2010-04-24, 10:57 PM
Yes, I believe it says something ot that regard in the CArcane. However, most prestige classes I've seen really don't fit Warlock well, unless I'm missing something.

There are some very interesting ones out there if you're open minded enough. One of the biggest benefits is the fact that unlike full casters, warlocks can afford to experiment with the PrCs that lose caster levels, because the difference in power gradient between levels of invocations is far smaller than the one between spell levels.

Optimystik
2010-04-24, 11:30 PM
Tainted Scholar, while being world-shatteringly broken on other casters, is not nearly as bad (or good) for Warlocks.

Child of Night gives creepy, yet thematically appropriate abilities.

Ruathar is the easiest PrC to qualify for in the game, and provides a stepping stone to other thematically appropriate ones like Sentinel of Bharrai and Swanmay.

Enlightened Fist... meh.

Fizban
2010-04-25, 01:41 AM
I was looking through Magic of Incarnum the other day and I noticed their Incarnum Blast (I think). While Hellfire Warlock is great, I'm always interested in other ways to increase my blast, and this didn't seem too bad, although it does require a lot of investment. It's not a PrC, but basically you start as an incarnum race, then dip a level of Incarnate and take the extra essentia feat. The end result being +4d6 on your blast against people opposed to your alignment on any axis. You can't get the Incarnum blast till 12th, but you can get a couple nifty bonuses out of the soulmelds until you have something better to do with your essentia. And of course nothing's stopping you from taking Hellfire Warlock at the same time, and dipping Binder for Naberious too (since strongheart vest don't do it). Then there's the Chausibles of Fell Power, and those gloves from the MiC...

Tokiko Mima
2010-04-25, 02:54 AM
1) Does hellfire warlock end up playing out well, or does the constitution damage end up screwing you over to much?

It's more of an annoyance really. You have to keep track of how your constitution is effecting your maximum HP, and it can make Fort saves dicey. There's a ton of items that heal you right back up, my favorite being Rod of Bodily Restoration (MIC).

Overall, if you need to start using Hellfire, you should be killing stuff fast enough that it won't get much of a chance to fight back. It's very akin to the proverbial ubercharger in that way.


2) Is enlightened spirit worth it? Do the trade offs work well, am I missing something?

No. It's a terrible PrC.You give up all of your best (Greater+Dark) invocations to gain a couple that are the equivalent of least/lesser invocations.

This class does not advance your invocation casting, more over it puts you behind in caster level for abilities that at best produce 10 extra damage on a limited number of creatures.

However, as the requirements aren't difficult to meet, it might be worth dipping if you want the three class abilities available at level one.


3) Do they synergize well? I mean, does a warlock 5/enlightened spirit 10/hellfire warlock 3 do as well/better than a warlock 18? Or a W 8/ES 10 or W15/HW 3?

Warlock and Hellfire Warlock work great together. So well in fact, that unless you have an RP reason, I suggest all warlocks plan on taking Hellfire Warlock when it becomes available. The free metamagic trigger-like class ability alone is very handy.

Warlock/Enlightened Spirit is not as good as straight warlock. Enlightened Spirit weakens warlock by removing the option to select good invocations and instead grants weaker invocations, and fewer of them.

TheMadLinguist
2010-04-25, 04:06 AM
Wait, there are hellfire warlocks that aren't binders?


A dip into demonbinder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070430a&page=3) can be useful, though the 1/day limit on demonbinding is a little restrictive. Usefulness really depends if you read "Once per day per class level, you can spend damnation points to invoke the essence of a demon and bind it to your soul" as giving you one use of each demon, or one use of any demon.

Prodan
2010-04-25, 12:13 PM
Wait, there are hellfire warlocks that aren't binders?

Shape Soulmeld

bartman
2010-04-25, 12:34 PM
Wait, there are hellfire warlocks that aren't binders?

I saved the one level dip in favor of the MIC Rod of Bodily Restoration. Works great for me, at the end of combat, i pull out my rod and regain all my used CON points.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-04-25, 01:16 PM
What do your mental faculties do at the thought of Ur-Priest/Beholder Mage, with the Alternative Source Spell feat to make your Ur-Priest spells count as Arcane, then advancing them both with Ultimate Magus? Just curious.:smallcool:I still prefer my 999 build

Its the first and only successful attempt at it, though I saw someone else come close once with tainted sorcerer ::shudder::

Starbuck_II
2010-04-25, 01:36 PM
Wait, there are hellfire warlocks that aren't binders?


A dip into demonbinder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070430a&page=3) can be useful, though the 1/day limit on demonbinding is a little restrictive. Usefulness really depends if you read "Once per day per class level, you can spend damnation points to invoke the essence of a demon and bind it to your soul" as giving you one use of each demon, or one use of any demon.

Um, no it would still be 1/day (but it lasts all day). If you want 2/day, take a second lv.

I do love the adaptation that makes it non-evil required instead of just evil.

Fiendbinder + Demonbinder seem like both good flavor together. Trouble is you need SM 4 to enter Fiendbinder.
FiendB summons them and DemonB makes you be them.

TheMadLinguist
2010-04-25, 04:20 PM
All day? It seems like it only lasts a minute.