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Satyrus
2010-09-18, 08:45 PM
Hey people one of my players in a game was unsatisfied with the current warlock so he wanted me to look over some of the ones homebrewed here or make my own. I was pointed to The Shadowmind's fix Yet Another Warlock Fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152329&highlight=warlock) and going off of that and some of my own ideas I present my fix on the class. I'm not terribly familiar with Warlocks in general so please feel free to point out if I broke anything or it's useless :smallbiggrin:

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

1st|
+0|
+0|
+0|
+2|Eldritch Blast 1d6, Invocation(least)|2

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

3rd|
+2|
+1|
+1|
+3| Eldritch Blast 2d6, Damage Reduction 1/cold iron|3|

4th|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+4|Deceive item, Eldritch Field(30ft.)|4|

5th|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+4| Eldritch Blast 3d6, Fell Completion|4|

6th|
+4|
+2|
+2|
+5|New Invocation(Lesser or least), Curse Item(minor) |6|

7th|
+5|
+2|
+2|
+5|Eldritch Blast 4d6, Damage Reduction 2/cold iron|6|

8th|
+6/+1|
+2|
+2|
+6|Fiendish Resilience 1, Eldritch Field(30ft., +2d6)|7|

9th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+3|
+6| Eldritch Blast 5d6|8|

10th|
+7/+2|
+3|
+3|
+7|Energy Resistance 5, Curse Item(medium)|8|

11th|
+8/+3|
+3|
+3|
+7| Eldritch Blast 6d6, New Invocation (Least, Lesser, or Greater), Damage Reduction 3/cold iron|10|

12th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+4|
+8|Eldritch Field(60ft.)|10|

13th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+4|
+8|Eldritch Blast 7d6, Fiendish Resilience 2|11|

14th|
+10/+5|
+4|
+4|
+9|Curse Item(major) |11|

15th|
+11/+6/+1|
+5|
+5|
+9|Eldritch Blast 8d6, New invocation(Least, Lesser, Greater, or Dark), Damage Reduction 4/cold iron|12|

16th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+5|
+10|Eldritch Field(90ft., 1d4 Strength)|14|

17th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+5|
+10|Eldritch Blast 9d6|14|

18th|
+13/+8/+3|
+6|
+6|
+11|Fiendish Resilience 5, Curse Item(Artifact)|15|

19th|
+14/+9/+4|
+6|
+6|
+11|Eldritch Blast 10d6, Damage Reduction 5/cold iron|15|

20th|
+15/+10/+5|
+6|
+6|
+12 |Tainted Soul, Energy Resistance 10|16|
[/table]

All abilites are the same as listed in Complete Arcane if not mentioned below. I did up the Invocations known and borrowing from The Shadowmind moved the ability to learn Dark invocations to level 15 instead of 16. Curse Item needs some rewording or retooling I think and might it be easier if I break up Curse Item and Corrupted Aura into multiple entries?

Damage Reduction Gain DR 1/cold iron starting at 3rd level this increases by 1 at 7th level and every four levels thereafter.

Eldritch Field: At 4th level a warlock begins to be able to gather some of the dark energies within him and release them on the terrain. This field is a reflection of the malice the warlock feels toward creatures and as such can discriminate between friend and foe. When a warlock uses the eldritch blast power in place of a shaping or essence invocation they may instead use the square it hits as the center for the Eldritch Field ability. If the ranged touch attack fails the center of this ability is still the target’s square. Those entering the field receive a fort save DC (10 + ½ warlock levels + cha mod) to negate the effects and are immune to that particular use of the ability even if they exit and reenter the radius, otherwise reentering prompts a new save or if still under the effects they automatically fail the save. Those who fail their save continue to be affected as long as they are in the radius and for a number of rounds equal to 3 + warlocks cha modifier. At 4th level the radius of this ability is 30ft. and gives a -2 profane penalty to attacks, saves and skill checks of enemies. At 8th level the penalty increases to -4 and in addition those within the radius who are hit with an eldritch blast take an extra 2d6 damage. At 12th level the penalty increases to -6, the radius expands to 60ft. and in addition those affected by an eldritch blast in this abilities radius are treated as being under the effects of this ability for twice the normal duration after leaving the radius of Eldritch Field. Finally, at 16th level the penalty reaches -8, the radius expands to 90ft. and those affected by an eldritch blast while in that radius take1d4 strength damage in addition to the other granted effects of this ability. A warlock may only have one Eldritch Field up at a time (the old one dissipates when a new one is created) and can only use that ability every 1d4+1 rounds as the dark energies rebuild.

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

Curse Item(Ex): Starting at 6th level a warlock may infuse an item with the eldritch energies corrupting them. A number of times per day equal to his charisma modifier a warlock may make a ranged touch attack with a 60ft. range against an item to give it a cursed ability from the common curses table on page 272 of the DMG. The warlock may choose from the categories of delusion, opposite effect/target, intermittent functioning, requirement or drawback but cannot those categories that require a secondary generation of effects such as intermittent functioning are randomly determined. At 6th level a warlock may only use this on minor wondrous items, weapons and armor with up to a +2 enchantment, and magic items whose required caster level does not exceed the players caster level (including invocation users). At 10th level the warlock may now curse weapons and armor with up to a +4 enchantment and medium wondrous items. At 14th level a warlock may affect weapons and armor with a +5 enchantment and major wondrous items. And at 18th the warlock can now affect any magic item including artifacts. These effects last for one week though the warlock may attempt to dispel the energies by reabsorbing them with a touch attack and a will save DC (10 + ½ levels character + cha mod) if the attempt fails the curse continues for the allotted time. Weapons with an intelligence score that are cursed receive a will save DC (10 + ½ levels warlock + cha mod) to negate the effects.

Tainted Soul(Su): At 20th level a warlock has allowed the eldritch energies that he draws his powers from to consume the pure soul once possessed and become a creature of those energies. A warlock becomes a native outsider and gains all attributes of that type except his base attack bonus remains the same. In addition the warlock may now use two eldritch blasts each round though only one may be affected by essence or shaping invocations.

Epsilon Rose
2010-09-19, 01:33 AM
Cool, right, hope you don't mind me chipping in my two cents.

First this does address (I'm not sure what values constitute fix and overkill) the warlocks main problem (his extreme lack of invocations). That said, onto the flaws.

Corrupted Aura: This does have some nice effects, very nice at the higher levels, but it's not useful for anything other than a glavelock until at least 12th level. The problem is an eldritch essences are a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity, which means that the warlock is going to want to use them from as far away as possible and for most that means at least 60ft. This might be useful for defense really early on but as soon as they hit level six they'll probably take flight and then anything that's likely to hit them is also probably outside the auras range.

Curse Item: This looks kinda nice on paper but it's really only useful for griefers and the DM, every one else will run into two problems: first the effects are to random and to many of them just aren't useful, e.g. I don't care if the barbarians flaming greataxe makes his hair an inch longer; second, it's requirement of a touch attack means it's going to be almost useless in combat since even if it were to go off perfectly the warlock would still get badly injured (this if pretty easy to see if we look at the flaming greataxe again, say it went perfectly and got an opposite effect curse (there are a few that might be more useful but they have an even lower probability of actually coming up) that means the warlock is still going to take the base 1d10 damage and as a semi squishy character with ranged options it's just not worth it), even with this limitation it still might be use full for things like sabotage where the warlock could prep the item beforehand but even this is hamstrung by the first problem, since the warlock can't control what the curse will be he has no way to make sure his sabotage will work as intended (or at all).

Over all, this certainly isn't worse than the original, since all you did was add things it's technically better but if you're not a close range warlock it's not much of an improvement, the only real benefits they'd get for most of the class are the extra invocations and the extra eldritch damage.

p.s. please forgive me if I said something horribly stupid, it's kind of late.

Edit: I should be asleep now but I came up with two suggestions and they wont leave me be till I post them, so here I go:

The curse ability can be easily fixed by giving the warlock control over what curse gets used and maybe giving it range later (but that's not necessary, once he has control I'd consider it fixed and useful).

My suggestion for the aura is a bit odder: let him place it. Give it arrange of say 60ft (that seems to be the standard for the warlock [you could make it scale if you wanted to]), he could put it on a creature or object but if the creature is unwilling he has to succeed on a ranged touch attack or the is centered randomly on a square adjacent to the creature or the square the creature is in (but not on the creature). This would be a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity, only one aura can be maintained at a time and if a new one is used the old one dissipates, it can be dismissed as a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The fluff could read something along the lines of: The warlock creates a sphere of condensed infernal intent and hurls it a target where it expands into his malign aura.

If you want I can rewrite that better when it's not 3:00AM.

Dante & Vergil
2010-09-19, 08:57 PM
Allow the Corrupted Aura to be turned on and off, and allow some people to be excluded by the warlock when it's on.

Pechvarry
2010-09-20, 12:43 AM
I'd consider changing Corrupted Aura to persist for a duration. If they fail their save, they're affected for as long as they remain within the aura and for X rounds thereafter. X can be whatever you think is fair. Cha mod? A static 5 (like bardic music)? Class level? If X = relatively short, you could give the Warlock that many rounds to come close again and reestablish the link or... don't. Either way, you create a Warlock who has to zip into combat occasionally. You might want to update the rules on how often the warlock can subject someone to the save, though.

Alternatively, I guess you could lose the aura and just give them Hexblade's Curse and progression (with cursed target taking extra eldritch blast damage).

Satyrus
2010-09-26, 03:11 PM
I tried to make a post in reponse a few days ago but my computer gave me the blue screen of death literally just as I wen to post it :smallfurious:

So I'l just going to do a short run-down of the things I've changed.

The Corrupted Aura's name has been changed to Eldritch Field becuase it's no longer an aura really. I've changed it to be used in place of an essence of shaping invocation on the eldritch blast. It now begins with a radius of 30ft. and its center can be targeted at any space within reach of an eldritch blast. The effect lasts indefintely but only one field can be up at a time. Making the initial save against the field makes you immune to that particular field but if you fail you are still under its effects for a short time. Reentering the field after a failed save and before the time runs out on the previous effect do not recieve a new save but reentering after the effects have worn off does prompt a new save. Lastly, there is now a cooldown time between uses so that a warlock can't just spam an eldritch field every turn.

Curse Item has been altered to hopefully be more useful. It's now a ranged touch attack with a 60ft. range. The level of scrolls, wands, etc. that a warlock can effect is based off their caster level, including invocation levels. Also, a warlock may now choose the primary type of curse but if that type requires a secondary roll to determine it's affects that is still determined randomly.