Warlock Invocations?

[Scarey Nerd]

I'm currently playing a LE Human Warlock in a 3.5 campaign, but I don't really know what invocations are good to take. I started with beguiling influence because +6 to social skills is tasty, and at 2nd level I took Summon Swarm for backstory purposes (He's a desert nomad, so he uses the invocation to summon swarms of scorpions with the stats of spiders for fluffy goodness). What other invocations are good to take? Least in particular, but advice on all level is appreciated :smallsmile:

[Diarmuid]

At very low level, the Eldritch Spear invocation can be good for killing people from very far away.

Many people are fond of the Spider Climb invocation as it can help keep you out of harm's way. Depending on how good your Charisma modifier is, The Dark One's Own Luck can help boost a lagging behind save.

I'm sure someone will link to a handbook of sorts shortly.

[AmberVael]

See the Unseen is a good one- invisible enemies can be a pain, and that invocation sorts them out easily.

Baleful Utterance has some good applications, particularly at low levels or when a dispel becomes available to you. Blow up doors, or windows, explode armor or swords or wands or scrolls, or potions... you get the idea. Generally, destroy anything in the way or of value to an enemy.
Warning: Do not use area attack in bars. :smalltongue: (Unless you're interested in starting a huge bar fight and/or fire).

Entropic Warding is pretty cool. Cannot be detected by scent, or tracked (so this is great for sneaky and stealthy characters), and ranged attacks have a 20% miss chance (which is awesome, because you want to get a fly speed, and once you have one, ranged attacks are what you need to defend against).

Here are some Lesser ones I like:

Voracious Dispelling. Dispelling at will, that also does a bit of damage. Pairs up great with Baleful Utterance, and is quite handy whenever you are up against magical threats.

Fell Flight. You fly. As much as you want. That's really all that needs to be said, except THIS ONE IS AWESOME.

Spider-Shape, from Drow of the Underdark! It's a polymorph to let you become a fiendish, monstrous spider of varying sizes depending on your level. Fun stuff, huh? It's not for all builds, but used properly it can be pretty useful. (Also, imagine a giant infernal spider flying around with Fell Flight...)

[Yorrin]

First time 'lock? Cool. I remember rolling my first one. It's a fun little class, to be sure. The good news? Warlocks are actually pretty hard to screw up. Most of your options are pretty decent, and unless you're in a high-optimization campaign you'll be fine no matter what you pcik.

For your last Least invocation... don't sweat it too much. There's plenty of acceptable options. Baleful Utterance, Darkness, Devil's Sight, Entropic Warding, See the Unseen, and Spiderwalk are all fine choices out of CAr. Your choices will largely be dependent on what you're wanting to do with your 'lock. Ranged damage build? Gran Entropic Warding to keep the foe's ranged damage at bay (or even Eldrich spear to stay out of range). Going for a Glaive-lock (melee damge build)? Then head over to Dragon Magic and pick up Eldrich Glaive. Need mobility? Spiderwalk is always surprisingly useful. Etc. If you've got access to Drow of the Underdark then Darkness has delicious synergy with the feats from that manual.

Lesser invocations are where it's really at. You get access to trickery like Fell Flight, Flee the Scene, or Walk Unseen (I recommend picking up one of those three as soon as you hit level 6). If you're going the social route Charm is fun, and Wall of Gloom makes for a surprisingly effective means of battlefield control.

Greater invocations are your combat invocations. Chilling Tentacles is quite powerful if you're going the battlefield controller route, and Vitriolic Blast is a good idea if you're playing a blaster. If you grabbed Darkness as a least then I'd pick up Enervating Shadow for the synergy there. By the time you get up here you should have a pretty good idea of what else you need, and so you can pick invocations that work specifically with your campaign.

That last sentence also applies to Dark invocations. Dark Discorporation is not as good as it might sound, imo. But be sure to check our Dragon Magic for Impenetrable Barrier.

Just general advice- in addition to CArc, be sure to take a loot at the invocations in Dragon Magic and Complete Mage. I've only mentioned a couple of them, but they're definitely worth taking a look at.

On the outside chance you're playing a Warlock in a high-optimization campaign, you're going to need to make some build decisions right away. You should look up the Glaive-lock build on these boards that uses Hellfire Warlock if you're going the damage route. If you're not going with the Hellfire Glaive, you're going to need to start picking abilities for maximum synergy.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Least invocations of note:

Eldritch Glaive. It's what Hideous Blow should have been... but wasn't. It's a full-round action, but it gives you a full attack with your EB as a melee touch attack with reach (that does not provoke AoO, since it only lasts for your attack) that cannot attack adjacent squares, dealing EB damage per hit.

Shatter. There's a thousand and one things to do with this

Spiderclimb. Spider-lock, spider-lock... does whatever a spider-lock does. Specifically, crawls out of reach and snipes with relative impunity at low levels.

Entropic Warding. Lack of scent + Pass Without Trace + Entropic Shield with a duration of 24 hours. What's not to like?

See The Unseen. Darkvision + See Invis. Always useful. Particularly handy when paired with a Wand of Gltterdust so you can point out the invisible foes for everyone else.

Then for lessers, you have the following options:

Hellrime/Brimstone Blast. Both of these suck, actually, but they can be necessary to qualify for Hellfire Warlock, which is a tasty-good prestige class for warlocks. Go ahead and take Brimstone. The fire damage will be particularly handy next time you run into a troll.

Fell Flight. Because it's flight... always on. Best way to not be hurt is to be out of reach. Even at 6th level, it's rare to run into an opponent who can effectively combat someone who has taken to the skies.

Flee The Scene. At-will Dimension Door. That leaves an image behind. Sign me up!

Charm. Unlimited usage is always fun, but the real reason to take it is to qualify for the one-level dip in Mindbender for Mindsight.

Voracious Dispelling. Spamming dispels is a fun way to swing nerf bats at opponent casters.

Walk Unseen. Well, it saves you from having to buy the ring, and at the lower end of the spectrum, it's still viable. But with Fell Flight and Flee The Scene, you shouldn't need to worry about needing invisibility to not be hurt.

Eldritch Chain. When you load up your eldritch blast with a Save or Lose effect, it's always fun to hit multiple targets simultaneously.

Greater

Vitriolic Blast. This is your FIRST Greater invocation at level 11. No, seriously, not taking this at 11 is like a Druid not taking Natural Spell at 6. Bypassing SR is fairly significant, now that you're CR high enough to be running into it regularly.

Noxous Blast. Fort Save or Lose. In addition to your regularly scheduled EB damage. Gotta love it.

Bewitching Blast. Will save or Lose. In addition to your regularly scheduled EB damage. Love that one too.

Hindering Blast. Will save or Lose. In addition to your regularly scheduled EB damage. Yea, those show up a lot at this level.

Repelling Blast. Reflex save or... be pushed back. I don't know, maybe that can be battlefield control. But at least you get your regularly scheduled EB damage.

Eldritch Cone. Multiple targets + Save or Lose = fun times.

Dark

Utterdark Blast. Negative levels are fun. Pair it up with Eldritch Chain or Cone for best effect. Paired up with Eldritch Glaive can be tons of fun as well.

Dark Foresight. You know that spell that makes Wizards immune to surprise, but they have to go through hoops to make sure they get it all day long, because it's normally only 10 min/lvl? Yea, you get this all day long. No extra charge. No Incantatrix shenanigans necessary. Do this.

Retributive Invisibility. Probably not too valuable anymore, since just about everything can see invis by now, but if they still can't, this is definitely for the lulz.

Word of Changing. Fort save or Lose. Okay, so it's only a 5th level spell, and you're having to eat a Dark invocation for it, but there aren't many useful Dark invocations, and you can spam it every round, so it has it's advantages.


But BEWARE THE TRAPS!!!

Devil's Sight + Darkness. At first blush, this looks AWESOME! You get to make as much darkness as you want, and ignore it's effects too! Then you realize something...

First off, Darkness is *NOT* what it says on the tin. It's more like 'gloomy shadows all emo-like'. You get a 20% concealment, but that's it. It doesn't break line of sight, much less line of effect. Since Entropic Warding lets you have that same percentage modifier vs ranged attacks (and you shouldn't be getting hit in melee all that often).

Second off, it eats up two of your three least invocations. Ouch. On a single trick that isn't all that effective.

[Psyren]

Warlock Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2915.0), enjoy

[Socratov]

Pretty much the best ones have been pointed out, if you atart pre lvl 6, get spider climb, since it's a lesser version of fell flight, after you get to lvl 6 switch it for another least invocation and get fell flight. Now, some tricks woth some invocations, which don't seem obvious from the start on:

Baleful utterance: you know skeletons are technically chrystalline too right? that's casterlvl * d6 damage, lat's say you have vaoracious dispelling, and just surpressed an enemies weapon (only do this when you can spare the loot, and absolurtely can't handle the enemy with this weapon), you dispell (surpress) and shatter -> weapon broken. who needs sunder anyway :smallamused:

furthermore there are indeed a gazillion uses for shatter and the like.

Now Voracious dispelling, it's so great it's nuts! You can area dispell, targeted dispell, surpress magic weapons, basically this turns you into an AMfield, without nerfing your partymembers (and specifically casters), however, have you ever noticed that this invocation couterspells too? I dont know if you can ready swift actions, but as soon as you can get the feat for it, use quickened SLA (voracious dispelling) (that is along with flee the scene actually the best candidate for quicken SLA), ready the quickened voracious dispelling and 3 times/day casters wont be able to do jack, mind you, that is 3 rounds they cannot cast spells, which is enoug incapacitation for your fighter to slice and dice them into hell.

Vitriolic blast: no SR andextra damage, sign me up puh-lease. SR is your greatest enemy, and battling it the normal way is very feat intensive, so if you only need to use 1 invocation slot to never worry about that ugly piece of mechanic again, now, that's a keeper.

the best eldritch shape invocation I'd say is eldritch chain. it allows you to target 1, then another, another etc. (depending of level). what's even better, when you will go hellfire warlock the hellfire blast won't be halved, all the enemies will take full damage form your hellfire blasts (how this works is still debated, whether only the extra dice are hellfire, or that the hellfire blast acts as an eldritch shape invocation, discuss this with your DM)


Now a note: your eldritch blast has a range of 60' it will take a long time to actually need the extra range, on top of that, you have nothing that enhances your sight at range and you will take severe penalties beyond 60' vision to actually see what you want to hit. On top of that, spot isn't even a class-skill. Instead of that you are better off with beguiling influence, see the unseen, and depeing on your abilities other invocations.