Anima Mage with Warlock

[Spuddles]

I've always thought the fluff of both warlock and anima mage were pretty cool. How hard would it be to make a competent warlock/anima mage? I was thinking something like binder1/warlock4 and getting my DM to approve warlock as a spellcaster for purposes of entering that class.

What does the playground think?

[Thurbane]

Yeah, I've often thought about combining Binder and Warlock (or Dragonfire Adept) using Anima Mage. Like many theurges, you lose out on some power, but it adds variety and flexibility...

[Psyren]

It's fun and flavorful; not terribly powerful but if you were after power you wouldn't be a warlock to begin with. Andromalius and Malphas can boost your eldritch blast nicely. The synergy between Naberius and Hellfire is well-known if you go that route.

Assuming 1 Binder level and Improved Binding, you would top out at 6th-level vestiges at the end of AM.

[eggs]

At worst, this would still be a decent utility setup, and at best, I could see a nifty sort of melee blaster happening. So it doesn't look bad at all. I'd strongly push for making the AM class features more relevant to the Warlock, though (the Metamagic one is pretty straightforward; I'd be tempted to replace Exploit Vestige with an extra temporary Invocation Known).

The one thing I'd be a bit concerned about is that IME both classes seem to go into comparative power slumps in the mid-levels: the Binder until it gets to its 2nd vestige, and the Warlock before it gets its Greater Invocations and crafting. I'm not sure how it would play out, but I suspect UMD is going to be this build's best friend between levels 9 and 12.