a 3.5 warlock "fix"

[GenghisDon]

I was thinking a very simple change/house rule to the eldritch blast damage might go a way to solving this class's problems at HL/VHL.

simply keep the damage increasing at the odd levels throughout it's progression.

Thus L13 is 7d6, L15 is 8d6, L17 is 9d6, L19 is 10d6, L21 is 11d6, ect.

It's a small change, but I'd think a welcome one. I don't expect it to jump "tier" or anything, just be more playble at higher levels. Thoughts?

[Urpriest]

At this point, the warlock is scaling as well as a rogue, but unlike the rogue a warlock can't make full attacks. So it depends what your balance point is.

[Keneth]

The "broken" part of warlock isn't his damage, he can already be a very decent damage dealer, bumping it up slightly isn't what's gonna fix the class. I made a Pathfinder conversion of Warlock recently that gives him a straight damage progression (every odd level) to his eldritch blast with which he can also make full attacks now. He can also replace any or all invocations one per day after a rest period (he has access to just about all of them) which makes him a lot more versatile, and as an added bonus, he can choose any blast shapes when he gets the choice (turned them into separate class abilities rather than invocations). I've always hate waiting until endgame to get eldritch doom which isn't even anything special. I playtested it recently and with all the combined buffs (theres a few more), he lands solidly at the top of tier 3, maybe even low tier 2.

I've seen some very similar remakes of the class in the homebrew forum.

[DementedFellow]

Guys, I thought the damage part was only a small part of the tier system. Increasing the damage won't increase the tier unless the Warlock sucks at what he does, and since it is ranged touch attacks, most will land.

He still has other tricks up his belt. I don't think adding a few more dice will increase the tier standing at all.

[GenghisDon]

neither do I, nor was my intention ever to move them up a tier. Having DMed a VHL warlock, damage WAS a problem.

I think full (touch or AOE) attacks are a likely problem, but YMMV. Quicken SLA lets them get an extra shot off here & there already, and empower, maximise, or twin SLA can up the damage some.

I suppose a bigger fix would be making more invocations of each ranking.

The purpose of the post is just to suggest a small house rule peeps can adopt easily & fairly.

I don't think Tier 4 classes need all that much "fixing" really.

[Keneth]

The general way of amping up the damage of a warlock (without homebrew) is going for a hellfire glaivelock (or clawlock) to make use of a full attack. The more "basic" variants of warlocks are indeed slightly gimped in damage, but then a couple of extra dice aren't really gonna fix the underlying issue.

[GenghisDon]

no, but it made no sense why the designers dropped the progression past L11. The epic version regains the ever 2 level damage increase even. WTF were they thinking, I have no idea.

The post belongs in homebrew/HR section though, my bad guys.

[Keneth]

They were thinking "screw linear progression, we gotta fill them gaps."

[Tvtyrant]

Why not simply let them make iteratives with their EB? That pushes their damage up without giving them more options. You could also give them full BaB, so they get 4 of their rays a turn at higher levels.

[Keneth]

Giving them full BAB would be bad, they're not a warrior class. Besides, at high levels, pretty much everyone is hasted, so they would already get four attacks at a high enough attack bonus (since they're touch attacks). Let's not turn warlocks into something they're not. :smallwink:

[Tvtyrant]

Giving them full BAB would be bad, they're not a warrior class. Besides, at high levels, pretty much everyone is hasted, so they would already get four attacks at a high enough attack bonus (since they're touch attacks). Let's not turn warlocks into something they're not. :smallwink:

I'm not following your logic. Full BaB means you are able to swing something 4 times in a six second period, which in this case could simply look like Freeza pointing his little finger ray and swinging his hand back and forth.

[Keneth]

It would be out of context since you could then pick up ye ol'e greatsword and start whacking away with efficiency unbefitting of a class that's supposed to be a rogue and not a warrior. You could, however, alter his eldritch blast ability so that the warlock treats his class level as BAB for the purposes of attacking with it. But the extra ray isn't really needed, just having a full attack works out quite neatly.