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View Full Version : So I have a 4E Warforged Warlock...



Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 03:01 PM
I have Arcana, I can wear components, I can use rituals, I can use Warlock powers, I have the Dragonmark Feat: Mark of making (that took some convincing) so I can enchant objects and make alchemical items. This leaves me with many options, but I am still getting used to this 4E system and I want to find some way to concentrate all of my stuff like you could in 3.5. I was thinking a rod component, or maybe a Pact Blade enchantment on my ArmBlade, since both can be light blades, but other than that I'm drawing blanks. It's like having cable: all these channels but nothings on. Also I want to take armor plating but I cannot find if that interferes with my armor proficiencies or not.

Basically I'm asking for any loopholes you may have found that could make my character the quintessential engine of destruction.

-Fenrazer

mabriss lethe
2010-06-09, 03:15 PM
You might want to edit the subject title so that everyone reading knows you're talking about 4E and not 3.5.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 03:18 PM
Gratzi.:smallwink:

FoE
2010-06-09, 03:42 PM
What is your warlock pact?

tcrudisi
2010-06-09, 04:05 PM
... and I want to find some way to concentrate all of my stuff like you could in 3.5.

Basically I'm asking for any loopholes you may have found that could make my character the quintessential engine of destruction.

-Fenrazer

Can you please expand upon this? I do not understand fully (or even partially) what you are asking.

The Glyphstone
2010-06-09, 04:07 PM
Can you pick up any feats, paragon paths, items, or powers with names starting it "War"? That's the first step.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 05:44 PM
I am Dark Pact.

In 3.5 there are so many stackable feats and classes and such. Like in 4e the only obvious one I stacking feats have been for the Seekers Inevitable Shot. For example, if you plan out your characters from level 1 all the way to 30 with their level by level information, you may plan to take the feat Improved Inevitable Shot, then Inescapable Shot, then Inevitable Volley then Inevitable Accuracy, all of which build upon one ability to make it stupid powerful, and have a load of other feats which you can add on as well. You could also look at the way a fighter in 3.5s feats nearly all went into swinging a sword or other weapon of choice. So a concentration of stuff not necessarily to make only one thing I do better, cause obviously nobody ones to be a one trick person, but the building blocks to make a good character. Did I answer your questions at all hahaha. I can be long winded.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 05:48 PM
Maybe loopholes was the wrong idea, but I can still think of one. For my Psion I was thinking about taking up Multiclass Seeker for that very reason of taking all of those Inevitable shot ability, because there are other abilities in both Paragon Paths for his race, human, and others that bypass it being only a once a day thing because of the multiclass restriction. For instance, Inevitable Shot is used as an encounter power as anybody that is not a Seeker, but there is a Human Paragon path that allows you to pick up another power from your early ones. It then says that if you already have it as an encounter power, that you can just use it twice as an encounter power. Stuff like that.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 05:50 PM
Can you pick up any feats, paragon paths, items, or powers with names starting it "War"? That's the first step.

Haha, yeah my DM always mixes up my class and race because of that =-]

Mando Knight
2010-06-09, 05:56 PM
I am Dark Pact.
Really? You kinda want Infernal or Star pacts for Warforged Warlocks.

Drakefall
2010-06-09, 06:16 PM
Really? You kinda want Infernal or Star pacts for Warforged Warlocks.
No, you want a Vestige Pact! Being constructed soley as a mechanical conduit for the spirits of the past is awesome roleplay.:smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Then again, if Fenrazer wants to be a charisma-bot of darkness then by jove he can be. Not particularly optimal, but hey whatever makes you happy.

Mando Knight
2010-06-09, 06:25 PM
No, you want a Vestige Pact! Being constructed soley as a mechanical conduit for the spirits of the past is awesome roleplay.:smallbiggrin:

Oh, yeah. Forgot about the Vestige Pact.

cupkeyk
2010-06-09, 06:30 PM
Yeah, choose a pact that lets you choose your con for your attack rolls. Warlocks are strikers aren't near the high dpr end but they fill up their secondary role of controller well.

What level are you?

BTW Lei d'Cannith is a warforged made of flesh with a Mark of Making. Notice a instead of the for the article, it was tattoed on when she was a child, she doesn't actually have it but she seems to exhibit all the benefits.

There is that Dungeon Crafter or something or the other. You can make stuff during short rests. Take up Master Maker too. You can now make stuff four levels higher. Consumables four levels higher are more powerful than your standard, yet affordable.

Kaun
2010-06-09, 06:34 PM
Yeah super Opti builds dont seem to be a big thing in 4e.

4e is more of team game then previous editions and the best place to do your optimization is in team synergy rather then making yourself a solo destroyer.

All so feats arn't as big a deal in 4e as they were in 3x. They are definatly no longer the main building blocks of your character.

Mando Knight
2010-06-09, 06:41 PM
Also I want to take armor plating but I cannot find if that interferes with my armor proficiencies or not.

Armor plating in 4e is just normal armor used as a Warforged Component.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 08:22 PM
I see what you fellas mean by Vestige. I mainly wanted Dark Pact for cosmetic reasons. The attacks were all good looking with nasty outcomes. Unfortunately a card laid is a card played and now I have to look how to build him from here on out. Good to know about the armor plating. Thats pretty cool it is more of a team thing and I have kinda noticed since the switch.

I liked how 3.5 would allow you to be diverse, and still have those two or three nukes that each character could build toward. The reason why we left that system behind is cause everything you do has a different system and 4E puts them all under the same umbrella.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 08:24 PM
All so feats arn't as big a deal in 4e as they were in 3x. They are definatly no longer the main building blocks of your character.

Which is a crying shame with how often you gain them in this.

Fenrazer
2010-06-09, 08:28 PM
What level are you?

Pretty fresh campaign. I'm only a three, but early in character progress I set up a spreadsheet of everything I plan on selecting from around five through thirty. Also with what you said about doing something with Con for Damage, I understand. I have not made many distance strikers, so I wanted something that can take a hit in the meantime.

Anonomuss
2010-06-10, 12:41 PM
Maybe loopholes was the wrong idea, but I can still think of one. For my Psion I was thinking about taking up Multiclass Seeker for that very reason of taking all of those Inevitable shot ability, because there are other abilities in both Paragon Paths for his race, human, and others that bypass it being only a once a day thing because of the multiclass restriction. For instance, Inevitable Shot is used as an encounter power as anybody that is not a Seeker, but there is a Human Paragon path that allows you to pick up another power from your early ones. It then says that if you already have it as an encounter power, that you can just use it twice as an encounter power. Stuff like that.

Unfortunately this doesn't work as the human paragon path quality you refer to, specifically refers to encounter attack powers.

Master_Rahl22
2010-06-10, 01:03 PM
WOTC has made a practice of nerfing the "nukes" as you put it any time they find them. The idea is that they don't want one choice to be clearly the best and you always just use that. For example, for a long time any character with any kind of Int at all would MC Wizard and go into Blood Mage PP and find multiple ways to force movement. Blood Pulse + forced movement = upwards of 10d6 damage per turn from one power. They nerfed Blood Pulse so it now only triggers when the creature voluntarily moves.

I'd say pick a few (2 or 3) particular aspects of your character and focus on that. I made a Tiefly Fey Pact Warlock that focused on teleporting, Warlock's Curse, and control. Thus, my feats, powers and items all tend to improve one of those things. You're right, you can no longer just stack something until it's huge (with the possible exception of charging), but you can stack several things until they're impressive.

Fenrazer
2010-06-11, 05:02 PM
Unfortunately this doesn't work as the human paragon path quality you refer to, specifically refers to encounter attack powers.

which is treated as an encounter power when taken as a multiclass power.

Fenrazer
2010-06-11, 05:07 PM
Armor plating in 4e is just normal armor used as a Warforged Component.

I'm assuming that means that it will affect caster rolls?

ninja_penguin
2010-06-11, 05:13 PM
There is no correlation to how heavy a suit of armor that you're wearing and how well your spells work in 4e. It's fantastic. you just need proficiency with whatever you're wearing.

Before they rolled out the swordmage, I made a wizard wearing full plate just because I could back when 4e first came out.


Edit- Although it should be noted that some class features, feats, and various bonuses don't work if you're wearing heavy armor, in order to prevent ludicrous defense stacking.

Fenrazer
2010-06-11, 05:23 PM
Freshly rolled? Or after a few feats to buy the proficiencies?

erikun
2010-06-11, 05:36 PM
You are only proficient in leather armor as a warlock, so you'd need to spend a lot of feats to work your way up to platemail. There's also the issue of AC: you lose your DEX/INT bonus to AC once you start wearing chainmail or heavier.

Well, taking a look at your stats, the Warforged (+STR, +CON) doesn't seem to contribute much to the Dark Pact Warlock (CHA primary, INT secondary). You can benefit from the higher than average STR for easy qualification of the Light Shield Proficiency feat, though, and higher than average CON will allow you to qualify for both Hide Armor Proficiency and (at level 11) Hide Armor Specialization. That gives you a decent AC boost, either to make up for lower than average INT or to just increasing your evasion.

Any kind of dagger can be enchanted as a Pact Blade, regardless of how you hold onto it. If you have the Transfer Enchantment ritual, then there is no question about how you get the enchantment off the new dagger you found and onto the one stored in your arm cavity, or however that works.

For feats, it depends on how you plan on fighting. Defensive Mobility and Toughness will be handy if you plan on slipping into/out of melee frequently. Implement Expertise will be a must, probably at first level, as you'll want all the to-hit bonuses you can find. You might want to look at what paragon path/multiclassing your character will get into. Assuming you're going for Light Shield/Hide proficiencies, you'll have the unique stats to pick up Berserker's Fury (the Barbarian multiclass) giving you +2 to damage for any one encounter each day, and the option of picking up Barbarian rages. You might find another multiclass more useful or thematic, though.

Mando Knight
2010-06-11, 07:45 PM
Any kind of dagger can be enchanted as a Pact Blade, regardless of how you hold onto it.Any light blade. This means Parrying Dagger and Double Sword are viable choices, as are the Short Sword and Shuriken.

Implement Expertise will be a must, probably at first level, as you'll want all the to-hit bonuses you can find.
Implement Expertise is out of date, and isn't entirely important for a 1st level character. There are better feats out there, like White Lotus Riposte, for that slot.

Implement Expertise is completely obsolete: Versatile Expertise grants the bonus to all attacks made with the selected two weapon/implement groups. Weapon Expertise only manages to hang on because of the Weapon Master feat, which expands Weapon Expertise and Focus to all weapons the user's proficient with.

erikun
2010-06-11, 09:28 PM
A shadowy robot character that shoots throwing stars from its wrists? That's pretty awesome.


Implement Expertise is out of date, and isn't entirely important for a 1st level character. There are better feats out there, like White Lotus Riposte, for that slot.
I'm not familiar with the White Lotus Riposte or Versatile Expertise feats, so you'll excuse me if I didn't know there were other options. Also, remember that this character will likely have 16/17 in their primary stat - a striker with only a +3 in their primary. That a bit low for anyone, especially for a single-target attacker whose job is to deal damage.

Although it sounds like you want Ritual Caster as well. Well, if you're starting at level 3, that's two feats - one for Ritual Caster and one for a to-hit booster.

NeoVid
2010-06-11, 11:33 PM
You don't need heavy armor on a Warlock, since your second highest stat is Int, which improves AC.

If you really want major-league info, go nuts. (http://community.wizards.com/wiki/dnd%3ACharOp%2FStrikers)