Some help with a Warlock (3.5 E)

[Overlord Rion]

Well, if you clicked it, you know what I need. I'm trying to build a level 6 Warlock. A lot of things can be changed, but there are a few things that must stay.

1. Must remain a Halfling for story reasons.

2. Gotta stay evil so keep that in mind.

And now, his stats:

STR 8
DEX 14
CON 13
INT 15
WIS 15
CHA 18

I'm trying to go for a Warlock that terrifies his opponents into submission with sheer power.

[Diarmuid]

What sources are available?

[Overlord Rion]

From what I can tell, just about everything is open except ToB

[Bakkan]

except ToB
I am saddened every time I see this.

On topic, Ability Focus if probably a decent feat investment at this level. From the Monster Manual, increases the save DC of one of your special abilities by 2. See if your DM will allow you to take Ability Focus(eldritch blast) and have it apply to all the essences and shapes you might add to your blast. If not, just take Ability Focus(frightful blast). The save DCs of your frightful blasts should be 18 (10 +2 spell level +4 Cha +2 Feat), very good at 6th level.

Your level 6 invocation should probably be fell flight, it gives you a huge tactical advantage over landbound opponents.

For your least invocations, have you considered eldritch glaive (Dragon Magic)? IT would require you to invest more into Strength, but gives you a lot more opportunities for your opponent to fail his save at the cost of putting you into melee range. Other good invocations are shatter (potentially game-breaking) and spider climb, though you should only take the latter if you are not picking up fell flight

[Malroth]

Imperious Command feat, never outnumbered Skill trick, 1 level marshal dip for motivate Cha.

[Overlord Rion]

the ToB is mostly so nobody goes overboard and confuses the hell out of the new players.

[Socratov]

step 1: stack Cha
step 2: get a nice and even mix of debuffs on your EB enabeling you to target certain types of saves, and certina types of effects, fear, elemental after damage, reduction of ability scores, vision, etc. Try to mix and match for a nice mix
step 3: don't forget the usuals (baleful utterance, beguiling influence, either fell flight or spider climb, flee the scene, Chilling tentacles of (you know the rest of the name), etc.)
step 4: pile on more cha (this is really importaint)
step 4b: get ability focus(Eldritch Blast)
step 5: never outnumbered etc.
step 5b: get more intimidate, no... MOAR!
step 6: go forth and scare and harrass the enemy in an extremely frowned upon manner
step 6b: debuff the living daylights out of the enemy
step 7: ????
step 8: win combat
step 9: use evil laugh... ...it's super effective!

[FMArthur]

Drow of the Underdark has the Fearsome armor property, which is just +5000gp, letting you demoralize with Intimidate as a move action and gives you a +5 bonus on the check.
The Never Outnumbered skill trick in Complete Scoundrel can get you a small AoE on your Intimidate checks (10ft) 1/encounter.
Imperious Command (from DotU again) is the perfect fear feat, which makes enemies cower for 1 round when you Intimidate them before being shaken.

These all combine to make any Charisma-based character pretty darn good at disabling people with fear. Your standard actions are almost unrelated entirely because Frightful Blast is your only class feature that touches fear as far as I know, and it's not Intimidate-based. But if you use an AoE blast shape with Frightful Blast before you use your Move action to demoralize (wording restricts Frightful Blast from affecting already shaken enemies) your targets will come down from their Cowering state to the still-debilitating Frightened state on their next turn. It's hard to set up the spacing to use this strategy though (a means of free movement is recommended).

But really, those three options above can handle fear on their own, only costing you some gold, 2 skill points and one feat. You might just want to diversify and devote your resources to being effective in other ways after you have those, because fear strategy gets absolutely clobbered by immunities (unless you're a spellcaster with the Dread Witch prestige class).

[blackjack217]

the ToB is mostly so nobody goes overboard and confuses the hell out of the new players.
In that case I recommend a wilder 5/thrall-herd 1 build.

[hymer]

Find a way to be (or seem and persuade your GM) bigger than your usual size. Intimidate is +4/-4 per size category difference. Halflings just aren't that scary.

[Elric VIII]

Is there an Invocation that mimics Cause Fear and Scare? Because if there is, you can qualify for Dread Witch, the best fear-based PrC.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I'm curious why you must remain evil, as the warlock class allows for chaotic characters, too.

That aside, what do you want to do with you warlock? People have already touched upon using a "scarelock." I'm a big fan of Hellfire Glaivelocks, but that doesn't come online until level 10 and can easily be added to other warlock builds via eldritch glaive (Dragon Magic) and the aforementioned prestige class (FC II).

[Overlord Rion]

The remaining evil thing is mostly another story reason. Trying to go for both flavor and something mechanically useful. I could also just call the fear thing just story and go for the sheer power portion as well, which is what I'm leaning towards, now that I see the options for actually using the fear mechanic.

[nedz]

Your 6th level feat could be Extra Invocation, which would add flexibility.
Its also one of the best feats available.

Do you want ranged or melee ?

[Soranar]

If you go the eldritch glaive route, take weapon finesse (STR won't affect the damage on it anyway, only to hit)

Considering your stats, I'd think of using the following combo:

(works best with flaws and/or a strongheart halfling for the extra feats needed)

hidden talent (I'd take dimension hop, let's you teleport 10 ft as a swift action for a PP, you can get more PP from magic items)
point blank shot (+1 damage and requirement for following feat)
psionic shot (+2d6 damage on a ranged attack, you lose your psionic focus)
psionic meditation (gaining your psionic focus is a move action)

once you get BAB +5

greater psionic shot 4d6 damage on a ranged attack.

Note that this is one of the very limited ways by which you can get more damage on an eldritch blast (the others being mostly sneak attack)

other than that, the feat obtain familiar is always nice

[FMArthur]

Is there an Invocation that mimics Cause Fear and Scare? Because if there is, you can qualify for Dread Witch, the best fear-based PrC.

Not that I know of, and what would be the point? To derive benefits for your spells that you don't have? Nah, the whole thing would need rewriting to work with and actually be useful to Warlocks.

[Particle_Man]

I assume you know the trick about Hellfire Warlock levels plus either a level of binder or (if your DM agrees) a strongheart vest soulmeld from magic of incarnum (to either quickly heal or never take the ability damage when you pump your damage on the hellfire eldritch blast).

For flavour, the fiendish heritage feats could be cool.

Anyhow, chasuble of fell power for extra damage is nice. Personally I like Flee the Scene but I can see Fell Flight too.

[Darth Stabber]

the ToB is mostly so nobody goes overboard and confuses the hell out of the new players.

Code for melee can't have nice things, ToB is more straight forward than half the other books in 3.5 (including core).

Beyond that I would reccommend either hellfire glaivelock, or hellfire eldritch claw if your GM allows it, with the binder dip either way. Psionic shot does work to make ranged warlock doable, but it still kinda needs hellfire warlock and the binder (or incarnum) dip to be truely effective, and it is somewhat easier to run a glaivelock.

[Elric VIII]

Not that I know of, and what would be the point? To derive benefits for your spells that you don't have? Nah, the whole thing would need rewriting to work with and actually be useful to Warlocks.

I thought Dread Witch also boosted the effects of your fear-causing feats/abilities (like the Dreadful Wrath). Is this not the case?


Warlock/Ur-Priest/Eldritch Disciple is always a nice build. The Cleric list has some decent fear-based spells. You would have to use the Ur-Priest adaptation that specifies worshiping a dead god or change Eldritch Disciple's fluff to a cultist anti-god theme.

[Kuulvheysoon]

The BoVD has a subrace of EEEEEEEEEEEVIL halflings (Jerrens?) Might be worth a look (for flavour reasons, of course).

[Overlord Rion]

Oh, crap, I nearly forgot. This campaign will likely end around 8 or 9. So the Hellfire stuff isn't going to work. I realized this about an hour ago.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

My two cents:

1) Strongheart Halfing. All the half-pint shpeal... with the bonus feat of a Human.

2) up to level 9, a Warlock isn't going to be particularly strong, but here's some tips:

- There's a neck-slot item in MiC that boosts your EB damage. I'd suggest it to you.

- There's also some gloves which can switch around the energy flavor of your EB 3/day. It's useful if you run into something with an elemental weakness

- The best invocations are ones which mimic spells, rather than augmenting your EB (at least until you hit level 11, then you get some insanely awesome Eldritch Essence invocations and can do multi-target Save or Lose every round)

- The only exception to the previous is Beshadowed Blast. Blind is a nasty condition to inflict. Doubly so if you have a party member who has precision-based damage which triggers on flat-footed opponents.

Some suggestions on invocations:

* Summon Swarm is a good invocation if you are 1st level. However, due to the static, and pathetic, Fort save involved... not worth bothering with at this stage of the game.

* See The Unseen is a really fun invocation. See Invis and Darkvision (since you're a halfling, you don't normally get it) always on? Yes, please!

* Entropic Warding is another really handy defensive invocation. 20% miss chance is fun. So is the lack of scent and not leaving a trail.

* Spiderwalk is a largely underutilized Invocation, mostly because you can pick up Fell Flight as a Lesser. However, if you're hurting for Lessers, and you have a spare Least... it's not bad by any means. Particularly when combined with Flee The Scene, this can do a lot to make you look like Nightcrawler's fighting style. Or maybe Zeratul.

* Eldritch Glaive. Remember what I said about Zeratul? Yea, this is all kinds of badass. Works best if you have Iterative Attacks, though. Also consider the feat Eldritch Claws if you are wanting a different way of doing this, and can get multiple attacks. If so, a two-level dip in Totemist would not be the worst thing that ever happens to your character.

* Flee The Scene. Speaking of this earlier, this gives you tremendous tactical maneuverability. Plus the whole invisibility/illusion thing is really confusing to opponents.

* Fell Flight. I'm actually not as fond of this in your situation, because it won't really come up much. Depending on the terrain you are going to be in, Spiderclimb + Flee The Scene will keep you out of harm's reach the vast majority of the time.

* Walk Unseen. If you're wanting to be Zeratul, you've got to have Stealth Mode. This is that.

* Beshadowed Blast. Fort save or Blind. You know, in addition to your regularly scheduled damage.

* Eldritch Chain. Multi-target. Combo with Beshadowed Blast for multi-target Fort Save or Blind.

* Voracious Dispelling. Can actually be quite handy if you're running into opponent casters. They are expending their limited resources to try and counter your unlimited resources. Plus, you're keeping the truly dangerous opponents occupied with rebuffing instead of obliterating your team. Sounds like a win to me.

[Duke of URL]

Your 6th level feat could be Extra Invocation, which would add flexibility.

And your 9th. And 12th. And 15th...

Unless you're looking for some PrC requirement or you want to be an item crafter, Extra Invocation is almost always the best choice of a feat once you hit level 6.

[mucco]

Get your UMD up to +19 and spend a sizeable amount of your WBL in wands. Better to burn WBL than feats for extra invocations, usually. A(n eternal?) wand of Primal Instinct gives you +5 Init, for example.

Use the rest of your WBL to get those bonuses to EB. I'd put my feats in Ability Focus, Psi Shot, Meditation (regain focus as move action) and/or get the super combo Beshadowed+Chain Blast. Half damage to the secondary target, but, it's two blinds instead of one. Golden. Glaive is good too, but, how many attacks do you manage to have? Boots of Speed maybe, but I'd give priority to wand flexibility over that. It depends, want to do big damage or be a better toolbox?

Get the ACF from PHB2.

[Duke of URL]

I'd argue against glaive in that you don't get that second attack until level 8, so unless you're doing a Combat Reflexes sort of thing and provoking AoOs, you don't really get much benefit for having to be that close in combat; ranged touch as a standard action is much better than melee touch as a full-round action, until you start getting those extra attacks. In a longer running game, it's a decent choice for a 9th level Extra Invocation feat, especially if thinking Hellfire.

[nedz]

Fell Chasuble adds 1d6, Greater Fell Chasuble adds 2d6 to your EB. Both of these are in CArc. I wouldn't bother with the mace thing.


Get your UMD up to +19 and spend a sizeable amount of your WBL in wands. Better to burn WBL than feats for extra invocations, usually. A(n eternal?) wand of Primal Instinct gives you +5 Init, for example.

Use the rest of your WBL to get those bonuses to EB. I'd put my feats in Ability Focus, Psi Shot, Meditation (regain focus as move action) and/or get the super combo Beshadowed+Chain Blast. Half damage to the secondary target, but, it's two blinds instead of one. Golden. Glaive is good too, but, how many attacks do you manage to have? Boots of Speed maybe, but I'd give priority to wand flexibility over that. It depends, want to do big damage or be a better toolbox?

Get the ACF from PHB2.

Warlock 4 can take 10 on UMD checks, the DC for wands is 20, so you only need +10 (and you probably have some Cha)