Warlock+Summon Swarm+Violate Spell-like Ability= Death???

[Raven Helcat]

I am building a warlock for an upcoming campaign, and stumbled across this.
Violate Spell-like Ability(BoVD) makes half the damage on any spell-like ability Vile Damage. Vile Damage can only be healed by magic cast within the area of a Consecrate or Hallow spell. A warlock can Summon Swarm at first level. A Bat Swarm does 1D6 plus wounding, losing 1 additional hit point per round, until someone make a successful DC10 Heal check, or uses some kind of magical healing. Consecrate and Hallow spells are not just lyin' about the place at first level. So, what I want to know is how do you think this would pan out RAW? Slow, agonizing, not so instant kill? Also, this is my campaign, so I obviously don't want to break it, but I absolutely love finding possible 'crazy gems' like this! I realize it's no warlock with hivemind trick, but if it works, it is pretty cool.

Thank you in advance for your input!

[kharmakazy]

I'm not sure how that would impact the summoned creature exactly... so I'll leave that to people more well versed in those mechanics...

but healing really isn't a problem against enemies at low levels, unless you have a dm that tends to favor tactics like that. I wouldn't really consider it terribly useful.

[wuwuwu]

The Spell-like Ability isn't doing the damage, the swarm it summons is. Wouldn't work, probably.

[Urpriest]

The Spell-like Ability isn't doing the damage, the swarm it summons is. Wouldn't work, probably.

Even if the swarm did, the bat swarm's wounding isn't damage, it's wounding. I could see the damage being impossible to heal, but the ability doesn't say that all consequences of the attack are incapable of being healed. If you had a Vile Contagion you could still cure it in the usual way, it's just the damage from it that would be incurable if anything. Same with bat swarm wounding.

[Raven Helcat]

Ultimately, I agree. The Wounding ability really did it in for me too. Well, all we can do is try....:smallwink:



....but it should still be pretty sweet on Chilling Tentacles!!! :smallbiggrin:

[randomhero00]

The SLA summon Swarm doesnt do dmg, the summons do. So violate wouldnt work.

Its not as good as it sounds though anyway. So feel free to allow it.

If you have PF available there is a rogue ability, Bleed, or something. It does 1 hp dmg/round until something like a DC 15 heal check is made. This would practically do the same thing. It auto kills animals eventually since they can't make heal checks :P But it is also considered the worst rogue talent. So your above trick wouldnt be much better.

[Tokiko Mima]

I wouldn't be too discouraged though. Even without the Violate Spell-like Ability feat, the combo of low level warlock with Summon Swarm is still amazingly potent. Summon Swarm invocation remains a vastly better version of what is still a second level spell you can cast at ECL 1 and that you can cast over and over as a standard action.

[FMArthur]

Even if it did work despite being a nondamaging summon SLA, remember that in D&D half of 1 is 0.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Violate Spell-Like Ability only affects damage cause directly by the spell. Any damage caused indirectly, such as that from summoned creatures, would not be affected. It works similarly to actions that would break the Invisibility spell.

[Retech]

I thought that damage was always minimum 1?

[Acanous]

Damage is minimum 1 (Unless the subject has DR or resistance to damage type) but you would take that 1 as regular damage, not as vile.

By the feat, 1/2 of the damage dealt by a SLA is vile. If your SLA did 1 damage, the subject would take 1 damage, and 0 vile.

Make sense?

As it stands, though, the swarm wouldn't get any vile damage, being a summon. But those tenticals look like a decent prospect.

I wonder if you could stack it with Utterdark Blast and permanently heal undead?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Even if the swarm did, the bat swarm's wounding isn't damage, it's wounding. I could see the damage being impossible to heal, but the ability doesn't say that all consequences of the attack are incapable of being healed. If you had a Vile Contagion you could still cure it in the usual way, it's just the damage from it that would be incurable if anything. Same with bat swarm wounding.

With the following caveat:

If the target cannot be healed by magic, then the only solution to stop the wounding effect would be a DC 10 Heal check, easily within the grasp of even 1st level untrained mooks.

[Xtomjames]

However, take the feat anyways as it applies to your eldritch blast in general. Hit a creature a few times over and you can deal enough damage that in the heat of battle a character can't be healed, and stabilization is a pain. It will also apply to any of the eldritch essences you place on top of the eldritch blast and any of the other invocations you decide to take and use so long as it causes damage.

Another useful tip for you, take the invocation Darkness and the feat Extend Darkness instead of the vile feat. While it might take a round to actually cast darkness, you can create deeper darkness unlimitedly with the feat. As a tactic that and Devil's Sight you can hinder your targets without taking any negatives yourself.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

However, take the feat anyways as it applies to your eldritch blast in general. Hit a creature a few times over and you can deal enough damage that in the heat of battle a character can't be healed, and stabilization is a pain. It will also apply to any of the eldritch essences you place on top of the eldritch blast and any of the other invocations you decide to take and use so long as it causes damage.

Another useful tip for you, take the invocation Darkness and the feat Extend Darkness instead of the vile feat. While it might take a round to actually cast darkness, you can create deeper darkness unlimitedly with the feat. As a tactic that and Devil's Sight you can hinder your targets without taking any negatives yourself.
The HiPS feat is probably more powerful than the Deeper Darkness one...

[mabriss lethe]

and don't forget that there's a feat in the same book , Instinctive darkness, I think. that lets you pop off a darkness SLA as an immediate action (or maybe swift, I can't remember and I'm AFB.)

[Raven Helcat]

For the record, it's Intensify Darkness.(had fun tracking that down) DotU :smalltongue:

Thanks for all the info and input. I think I'll go for the Instinctive Darkness feat. Immediate action is great, being that I, in general, have no other use for an immediate action. (feel free to show me why I'm wrong) And other than size of the darkness/dispelling difficulty/duration, it doesn't gimp the opponents any more than regular darkness. Like Xtomjames said, Intensify Darkness is a full round action....doesn't feel right for my warlock.