What About the Warlock?

[willpell]

Definitely not very helpful to me, as I'm really not a huge fan of the Warlock. Going from "three blasts a day" as a wizard or "five blasts a day" as a sorcerer to "potentially as many as 10 blasts per minute for 24 consecutive hours" as a Warlock strikes me as going a bit past the mark.

Someone suggested that I should go into more detail about this statement in a new thread. Well...here it is. To that guy or anyone else, if you'd like to hear more, ask away.

[Glimbur]

What mark does the warlock overstep?

[GenghisDon]

Magic as a finite resource is my guess. Resource management as part of the game in general.

d20 makes less & less use of this part of the game as time wore/wears on. D&D bears no resemblance to it's origons anymore, and little remained by the mid/late 3.5 era. Wether that is for good or ill is entirely debatable, or wether it even matters.

[Knaight]

Magic as a finite resource is my guess. Resource management as part of the game in general.

Warlock's have resource management, in the form of hit points.

[Malroth]

[quote]What mark does the warlock overstep?[quote]

The one between great classes that have useful options approximate to the creatures they are fighting (wizard and sorcerer) and useless taggers on who need to jump through every optimization trick in the book just to be almost as useful as a no gear rogue.

Thus the proof that even infinite blasting does not make blasting useful

[Tebryn]

Someone suggested that I should go into more detail about this statement in a new thread. Well...here it is. To that guy or anyone else, if you'd like to hear more, ask away.

Why should we have to ask exactly? You're making a case for something. Shouldn't you readily explain it freely to us? Seems a bit past the mark to expect us to ask you to explain it when you made a thread to explain it.

[Madara]

Well, warlocks actually have it harder. They have much less flexibility(Resulting in a lower tier).

While they can essentially cast infinite times, compare it to the fighter. At first level, they do 2d6+8(Greatsword and 18str) whereas the Warlock does 1d6 with each hit. Both never run out of firepower, except if they lose hp, which the Warlock has less of.

In the end, the fact that your invocations are set in stone, makes the warlock a lot less intimidating than you'd think infinite magic is.

[GenghisDon]

and?

everyone still has HP as resource management, even on into 4e. How fast & easily HP are recoverable has changed remarkably, however. Characters with fast healing or regeneration break this area of the game, of course. It's part of reasoning behind an ECL for critters...monsters perform under entirely different assumtions than PC's.

magic has always been a resource to be managed. 3.5e in general has/had less of that than all it's predicessors, but the warlock goes further still.

I doubt the OP is intimidated by the warlock, I suspect he finds the idea it represents to be flawed/unworthy of addition to the game.

I'll let him answer his own thread further

[Amphetryon]

Why should we have to ask exactly? You're making a case for something. Shouldn't you readily explain it freely to us? Seems a bit past the mark to expect us to ask you to explain it when you made a thread to explain it.

In a previous thread, willpell expressed the opinion (paraphrased) that the Warlock's expected DPR was too high - by a fair margin - when coupled with its menu of other options and compared against other damage outputs.

For reference, he also found the Binder's Far Hand ability to be too strong for its level and for his preferred playstyle.

[Knaight]

magic has always been a resource to be managed. 3.5e in general has/had less of that than all it's predicessors, but the warlock goes further still.
They go further with magic that barely qualifies, much like the Soulknife does with psionics. It's not like they're casting anything that would qualify as a decent spell.

[GenghisDon]

and?

are you defending the class with such an answer?

[Knaight]

and?

are you defending the class with such an answer?

I'm saying that complaining about them taking magic prevalence too far when they're the human equivalent of a relatively unimpressive magic item is unfounded, yes.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Apples and oranges.

A Wizard's or Sorcerer's job is to make the opponents lose the fight without dealing damage. It's completely irrelevant how much blasting he's capable of.

A Warlock's job is to deal enough damage to finish off an encounter, with maybe a few extremely brief debuffs thrown on so he's not completely bland.

Apples and apples would be to compare the Warlock to any other class whose job it is to deal enough damage to finish off an encounter. For example, a Barbarian or Fighter or Rogue can make "potentially as many as 10 full attacks per minute for 24 consecutive hours" and they don't go past any mark at all.

Oranges and oranges would be to compare the Warlock to a Mailman. In that case, the Mailman kills the entire encounter with a single Wings of Flurry. The Warlock can also kill an entire encounter, it just takes him quite a few more rounds to do it. I'd say that doesn't go past any mark at all.

[eggs]

Heaven forbid a D&D character endure a 20+ minute workday.

[Xtomjames]

I'll chime in here, as I love the 3.5 Warlock.

The Warlock is not a support character, it is not a primary striker or defender. It is the jack of all trades character (much like a Bard or Artificer~ironically both good gestalt or multiclass options for Warlock).

Warlocks in 3.5 have a brilliant set of abilities that lend themselves well to fitting in almost any role for a short period of time (even healer if done correctly). Past 12 level, they are probably the most broken class to ever exist, if again done correctly.

Warlocks are a very unique class for what they do, they are the rogues of the magic world in many respects. I know that at 12th level or higher I as a Warlock can best any other class if we follow RAW.

[The Rabbler]

...Past 12 level, they are probably the most broken class to ever exist, if again done correctly...
...I know that at 12th level or higher I as a Warlock can best any other class if we follow RAW...

Care to elaborate on this?

[demigodus]

Personally, I don't see how warlocks overstep any reasonable boundary. Probably our standards are different. For the warlock's unlimited blasts, it might help if you stop thinking about it as magic. If you compare it to spells, it does about half as well as lvl 3 and lower blasts after all (some of which are multi-target).

Instead, lets compare it to something else that can be done indefinitely; mundane attacks. There is no limit on how often in a day a rogue can sneak attack someone. The bonus sneak attack damage is an eldritch blast's total damage. On top of that, you have weapon damage, and strength bonus. And the rogue can get multiple attacks per round.

So anyways, my questions are these:
Do you think the rogue's superior, limitless damage output is also too much?

Do you think the warlock's blasting is too much because it is magic? If a mundane could do similar damage an unlimited amount of times per day by hitting things, would you be okay with that?

[SowZ]

I'll chime in here, as I love the 3.5 Warlock.

The Warlock is not a support character, it is not a primary striker or defender. It is the jack of all trades character (much like a Bard or Artificer~ironically both good gestalt or multiclass options for Warlock).

Warlocks in 3.5 have a brilliant set of abilities that lend themselves well to fitting in almost any role for a short period of time (even healer if done correctly). Past 12 level, they are probably the most broken class to ever exist, if again done correctly.

Warlocks are a very unique class for what they do, they are the rogues of the magic world in many respects. I know that at 12th level or higher I as a Warlock can best any other class if we follow RAW.

This simply isn't the case because you don't know enough invocations to fit any role. At 12th level or higher, Warlock won't even begin to best Wizard. Since wizards at high levels will not run out of spells and the combat should only last a handful of rounds anyway, you do not have staying power as an advantage against a wizard.

You don't have survivability even with a little more HP because you don't have the massive bag of tricks and contingencies that make a high level wizards so ridiculously hard to kill. Virtually anything a warlock can do, a wizard can also do, (usually better,) and that is without using up a slot of powers known that is very small and from a fairly small list, comparatively.

What can a warlock do better than a wizard? Not damage, not crowd control, not utility, not surviving. Now, you do have a couple cool things like reliably UMD. Of course, wizards don't need UMD so it isn't an advantage against them. Wizards are all around superior. I still like warlocks and think they are fun and tricks like enchanting a whole bag of pebbles with darkness and then flinging them into a room to give everything but you 20% miss because of devil's sight is certainly entertaining but not broken.

[demigodus]

I'll chime in here, as I love the 3.5 Warlock.

The Warlock is not a support character, it is not a primary striker or defender. It is the jack of all trades character (much like a Bard or Artificer~ironically both good gestalt or multiclass options for Warlock).

Warlocks in 3.5 have a brilliant set of abilities that lend themselves well to fitting in almost any role for a short period of time (even healer if done correctly). Past 12 level, they are probably the most broken class to ever exist, if again done correctly.

Warlocks are a very unique class for what they do, they are the rogues of the magic world in many respects. I know that at 12th level or higher I as a Warlock can best any other class if we follow RAW.

Care to explain? Also, do you mean best them in a 1 on 1 fight? In contributing to team fights? In contributing to non-combat encounters? Or in contributing in an adventuring day that involves fights, non-combat encounters, and a variety of other tasks?

Depending on what exactly you mean, if someone disagrees, would you be willing to put it to the test, if it can be done? (A comparison of a warlock you build to someone else's pure-base-class build of equal level) Without using stuff like chain-gating, chain-wishing, etc. of course.

[pwykersotz]

He's talking about magic item creation, which Warlocks do quite well with an easy Spellcraft check at level 12. They may not be Artificer level, but they can be pretty awesome provided you have enough downtime to craft.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The Warlock chassis, of having a limited number of unlimited use spell-like abilities, is an awesome concept. In fact, it's probably what the Sorcerer *SHOULD* have been, flavor-wise. In fact, I sent a new version of Sorcerer over to the D20r project based on spell-like abilities, but have not heard back from them about it.

Unfortunately, with Mudflation being what it is, they fall far behind in DPR.

Here's the problem. We'll compare it with some Core classes.

Rogue. Keeps up with the bonus damage easily enough with Sneak Attack. But this is *PER ATTACK*, which means the Rogue's DPR is going to be FAR higher. Unfortunately, while the Rogue gets wands like Gravestrike and Golemstrike to bypass immunities, the Warlock is stuck to a single strike as a standard action.

When you compare them to a Barbarian with access to Completes... the Barbarian is so badly out-DPR'ing them that there really is no comparison. Power Attack + Leap Attack + Shock Trooper + Valorous weapon. 4x PA to damage. Per hit. And AC penalties instead of attack penalties. Guaranteed in-house Pounce with Spirit Lion Totem.

Monk. Yes, I am going there. With Flurry of Blows and a form of Pounce, a Monk can easily out-DPR a Warlock. This... really says something about Warlock, I guess.

Now, where a Warlock *CAN* thrive is applying status conditions. However, their problem is a) they can't DC stack as well as a traditional caster, and b) most of their 'save or lose' eldritch essences are Greater or Dark... that's 11th level before they see anything useful. Furthermore, they're all Eldritch Essences, which means single-target, unless you also pick up something like Eldritch Cone or Eldritch Chain.

Once a Warlock hits 12, he can do some WBLomancy. However, to really capitalize on this, he needs Chameleon2 for the floating item creation feat, or he's going to sink too many of his feats into item creation to be useful in actual combat.

I'm a huge fan of Warlock, don't get me wrong, but they really aren't mechanically all that strong.

[Xtomjames]

Actually the Warlock at level 12 is probably the easiest class to break, thus I know I can beat out any class character (even a Terrasque) with one Warlock once I've reached level 12.

The imbue item ability works on ANY mundane item as per RAW. So first step is get a mundane ring, imbue it with the permanency spell (this'll be a one time ring) imbue a second ring while wearing this ring with permanency again. Now you have a permanent permanency ring. Now so long as you have taken scribe tattoo (not magic tattoo, just plain old tattoo) you can imbue an unlimited number of level 9 and 10 spells (yep epic spells) to your body with tattoos, including the nega-anti-magic field spell which negates anti-magic fields.

My favorite list includes: SR 40, DR 40, Fast Healing 40, Elements (fire, wind, sonic, acid, etc) 40, Mage Armor 12, if you gestalted or multiclass into Artificer take spell trigger or take the spell trigger feat and make a permanent tattoo of time stop that goes off if you blink as a spell trigger (becomes a free action). Imbue tattoos on your hand with all of the Eldritch Blast augmentation invocations at the same time, etc etc etc. If your first tattoo is a tattoo of "wish" you'll never need to expend material components either as you can wish for the needed materials, over and over and over. Oh and don't forget, blindsight out to 100 feet and tremorsense out to 100 feet. Truesight, Darkvision, free action teleport by blinking the right eye, auto healing, the list is endless.

The fact is if you have a high enough Knowledge Religion and Spellcraft Check or Arcane knowledge check all you need to roll is a 10 for Arcane or 16 Religion check to imbue the tattoos with the highest level spells that exist.And since the tattoos aren't technically scribed magical tattoos but magical items (that don't take up item slots) they don't have the limitation of magically inscribed tattoos and aren't limited by the RAW limit for magic items. There are no rules that actually pertain to this method of breakage, not even in errata. And if your GM follows RAW it's completely legal.

Edit: Also to answer the second question; I mean one on one, or against a group, an army or anyone. With all of these things going including the nega-anti-magic field the only thing I have to worry about is a dispell. With an anti-magic field imbued on top of the nega-anti-magic field, such dispells are negated while the anti-magic field doesn't affect me. More over, and here's the fun bit. Remember I said use all the eldtritch augment invocations, I can get one eldritch blast that is a 250 foot cone Dome that hits everything within it for the eldritch blast damage, which includes all of the other augments (fire, ice, acid, force, etc) what more any enemies outside of the doom get hit by eldritch chain with all of the other augments and because it's a chain of the same eldritch blast, ironically, each chained blast created another 250 foot dome that hits everything in range again for more damage. It's a nasty bit of work since it sort of ignores a few rules since the rules weren't designed with someone being able to imbue them (it says that the chain can't hit an already hit target but because it wasn't the chain that initially hit them, that rule no longer applies. And since you've imbued permanently on items to your hand that have all the invocations, the rule that says you can only augment the eldritch blast with only one essence and shape is ignored. Essentially once you get to level 12, a Warlock becomes so broken it's not funny.

[demigodus]

The imbue item ability works on ANY mundane item as per RAW. So first step is get a mundane ring, imbue it with the permanency spell (this'll be a one time ring) imbue a second ring while wearing this ring with permanency again. Now you have a permanent permanency ring.

By RAW, there is a very specific list of what spells you can effect with permanency. Permanency, the spell, is not on that list. So this doesn't work.

also, by RAW, a ring of permanency is undefined. You need the DM to allow it, and figure out how it works.

[willpell]

Wow, this is a ton of responses to a thread where I barely had an OP at all (and the guy who I created it for still hasn't shown up).


Magic as a finite resource is my guess. Resource management as part of the game in general.

d20 makes less & less use of this part of the game as time wore/wears on. D&D bears no resemblance to it's origons anymore, and little remained by the mid/late 3.5 era. Wether that is for good or ill is entirely debatable, or wether it even matters.

An interesting point. While it's fairly obvious that there are stylistic issues in the corebook (mostly copied without alteration from 3.0) that are not present in even the earlier sourcebooks, I had never quite grasped that the essence of the change could be stated this way. A pity Players' Handbook 2 was a supplement to PHB1 instead of a "newtype" replacement for it.


Why should we have to ask exactly? You're making a case for something. Shouldn't you readily explain it freely to us? Seems a bit past the mark to expect us to ask you to explain it when you made a thread to explain it.

I was mostly talking to the guy who proposed the thread, along with a general "we'll open the floor for comments from the audience". I wasn't sure why the topic required any further discussion but am never averse to the idea of starting up a new roundtable to brainstorm at.


In the end, the fact that your invocations are set in stone, makes the warlock a lot less intimidating than you'd think infinite magic is.

The invocation list is pretty meh, at least out of CompArc. More annoying than that it's not very strong is the fact that it very firmly staples you to the "RUUUUAGH I HOLD THE POWERS OF DARKNESS ITSELF MWHAHAHAH" (and or tortured emo inversion thereof) flavor, even though they say right in the text that "faerie" or "nature" warlocks are an option. You just plain have fewer options if you don't want to be a cackling evil caricature or an angsty antihero than if you do, and that irritates me.

Some guy, whose avatar I remember but his username I do not, pitched a rather neat set of alternate warlock powersources, powered up in a way that I'm not certain was necessary, but more importantly made different and interesting in a way the class badly needed. Unfortunately fixing the Eldritch Blast is only the top 10% of the iceberg; a rather complex new invocation system, where you mix and match appropriate "essences" to get a wide variety of buffs and tricks, would be more satisfying. As it is, you can use the guy's rules to create a pseudo-monk who blasts people with psionic "ki", but he'll still have invocations that summon bats and generate darkness fields or literal clouds of depression. (Then again he may have had alternate invocs which I just didn't find in my rather cursory glance at the thread.


For reference, he also found the Binder's Far Hand ability to be too strong for its level and for his preferred playstyle.

Yes, yes, okay, I am bad at evaluating things at first glance. I have moved past my fear of the devastating 1d6 no-save-no-hitroll blast every fifth round; we do not need to dwell on my past misjudgments, I'm sure you'll find plenty of humor in my future ones.

(In case it's unclear, I am saying this in good humor with tongue in cheek, though it is also quite accurate.)


A Wizard's or Sorcerer's job is to make the opponents lose the fight without dealing damage. It's completely irrelevant how much blasting he's capable of.

The writers of nearly every supplement apparently did not realize this. Everything I've seen written about the sorcerer and wizard in official books talks virtually only about their blasting capabilities; it's clearly what Wotco thought was their defining characteristic.


Apples and apples would be to compare the Warlock to any other class whose job it is to deal enough damage to finish off an encounter. For example, a Barbarian or Fighter or Rogue can make "potentially as many as 10 full attacks per minute for 24 consecutive hours" and they don't go past any mark at all.

I'll have to take your word for that. I have yet to build a martial character which seems out of proportion, but I haven't done very many actual combat tests. If fewer than four Fighter 3s can bring down a CR 3 Bugbear or Lizardman or whatever, there is in fact a problem, though it's as likely to be a problem with the CR system (whose bugginess is well-documented, and I'm still learning the truth of the matter one entry at a time) as with any of the classes. Still, in general, I think the "guy with a sword" is a better starting point for any and all metrics than anything magical; the whole part of being a Master of the Arcane is to break all the rules of reality, so it's perfectly fitting to calibrate everything based on the damage output of Fighters and Rogues and even Commoners.


Oranges and oranges would be to compare the Warlock to a Mailman. In that case, the Mailman kills the entire encounter with a single Wings of Flurry. The Warlock can also kill an entire encounter, it just takes him quite a few more rounds to do it. I'd say that doesn't go past any mark at all.

I am not familiar with your Mailman. What does Wings of Flurry do?


Heaven forbid a D&D character endure a 20+ minute workday.

Indeed, that is a persistent thorn in my side. One of the reasons I was blown away when I discovered Reserve Feats - suddenly it all made sense, the reason you can only cast your Level 1 spell once a day is because you're not supposed to cast it, any more than Conan is supposed to throw his sword. Casting the spell leaves you useless; a Reserve Feat is you using your magical energy in a sustainable way. Which means I should probably be over my worry of Warlocks by now, as they are basically just casters with a built-in RF and no actual spell that powers it, but I haven't yet fully satisfied myself of this.


Personally, I don't see how warlocks overstep any reasonable boundary. Probably our standards are different.

That, I can guarantee with enough confidence to open a casino paying bets on the odds anyone will prove otherwise. :smallbiggrin:


For the warlock's unlimited blasts, it might help if you stop thinking about it as magic. If you compare it to spells, it does about half as well as lvl 3 and lower blasts after all (some of which are multi-target).

Why would I start evaluating at level 3 spells? I start at level 1, where you can cast four Rays of Frost and three Magic Missiles, if you're an Evoker, or one more of each if you're a sorcerer. The higher levels are largely an enigma to me, because I haven't built the pyramid of my understanding to a sufficient height to so much as glimpse most of them.


Do you think the rogue's superior, limitless damage output is also too much?

No, because the rogue either has to close to melee range or fire ammunition which eventually runs out, plus in either case he can be disarmed. A warlock is deadly even when naked (and I think I will make a character based on exactly that fact one of these days). Maybe not very deadly, but the sociopolitical implications of a man who can't be jailed or let into a royal audience because he is always armed - those suggest the Warlock is a big deal, and if the rules do not, then it is the rules which fail.


The Warlock chassis, of having a limited number of unlimited use spell-like abilities, is an awesome concept. In fact, it's probably what the Sorcerer *SHOULD* have been, flavor-wise.

I fully agree. I wouldn't even mind if the Wizard became the Sorcerer in turn; limited spells known is a beautiful thing to me, while being able to buy spells for 150 gp a level strikes me as a trifle cheesy (unless you're running a Tippyverse, of course, there it's quite fitting).


Unfortunately, with Mudflation being what it is, they fall far behind in DPR.

I have no clue what you're saying here. I'm guessing DPR is Damage Per Round, but what is Mudflation?


Monk. Yes, I am going there. With Flurry of Blows and a form of Pounce, a Monk can easily out-DPR a Warlock. This... really says something about Warlock, I guess.

The poor monk gets no respect....


Now, where a Warlock *CAN* thrive is applying status conditions.

Also known as "annoying the DM"....


Actually the Warlock at level 12 is probably the easiest class to break, thus I know I can beat out any class character (even a Terrasque) with one Warlock once I've reached level 12.

Wait a minute, I remember you. Didn't you show up on Zaq's thread with some rather interesting, but completely non-RAW, ideas about learning the truename of a spell and then casting that spell infinitely forever? Going by this description and that one, you play in an awesomely over-the-top campaign, but one whose rules are utterly unlike D&D RAW. You really ought to describe it in detail sometime so that we can marvel at its intricacies. (And yes, I mean that sincerely. Like my sig says, I don't really do sarcasm and am never trying to be mean.)

[Xtomjames]

Actually in the case of the Warlock this is all Raw, the Truename stuff because of the wording in the book left a lot to interpretation. But I'd be glad to give some descriptions at some point. In one instance I killed Salune with a 9th level character (Divine Minion Divine rank one rogue arcane sword sage with a few things for fun) did nearly 40k damage in one blow to her avatar and gained seven ranks...lol. (I had the salient divine ability Alter Reality). But I digress, as I said, the Warlock method I shared is completely to Raw.

The tattoos aren't technically magic tattoos so they're not limited by the Scribe Magical Tattoo rules (found with the Dragonmarked in Eberron campaign setting) and they don't take up item slots which means they don't follow the limitation on the number of active magical items (which is purely based on the number of item slots you have). Thus you can have nigh unlimited tattoos on your person that are imbued with magical permanent properties at any level presuming you can roll for them.

[VGLordR2]

So first step is get a mundane ring, imbue it with the permanency spell (this'll be a one time ring) imbue a second ring while wearing this ring with permanency again. Now you have a permanent permanency ring.

(In a Spanish accent): You keep on using that spell. I do not think it works the way you think it works.

[Xtomjames]

By RAW, there is a very specific list of what spells you can effect with permanency. Permanency, the spell, is not on that list. So this doesn't work.

also, by RAW, a ring of permanency is undefined. You need the DM to allow it, and figure out how it works.

Sorry, not quite, read the permanency spell again, it says there are specific spells, as a suggestion. In fact it also states that any spell could Potentially be affected by this and it's up to the DM to decide. Since by the RAW any spell could potentially be affected by it, including its self, it works just fine.

See PHB page 260 "The DM may allow other selected spells
to be made permanent." Since the DM can decide what spells are permanent it can be used, essentially for any spell. What more there is nothing that explicitly states that an imbuement by a Warlock isn't permanent anyways, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

[TheOOB]

Actually the Warlock at level 12 is probably the easiest class to break, thus I know I can beat out any class character (even a Terrasque) with one Warlock once I've reached level 12.
.

Really, not the wizard, the cleric, the druid, the archivist, the artificer. Warlock is not really that overpowered of a class.

As for my opinion on the warlock I'm completely fine with it. You have to remember that it is very important to design classes that are simple to play for more casual players or players who just want to kill things. Those classes need to exist side by side with the more complex classes. However, it's also important that not every simple class involves hitting things with sharp sticks.

The warlock is great for people who want a simple character with no extra resource management that is more magical. The class is balanced, direct damage abilities are not that great, and versatility is the hallmark of a great class in D&D, and warlocks are not all that versatile. They are above average at item crafting, but any caster can craft items, and unless money is tight it's usually better to just buy items(xp being more valuable than gp).

[eggs]

Sorry, not quite, read the permanency spell again, it says there are specific spells, as a suggestion.
That's not true at all.

"This spell makes certain other spells permanent. "
"You can make the following spells permanent in regard to yourself. "
"In addition to personal use, permanency can be used to make the following spells permanent on yourself, another creature, or an object (as appropriate). "
"Additionally, the following spells can be cast upon objects or areas only and rendered permanent. "


The books say that DM fiat is permitted, but that's nothing special or meaningful. DM fiat is also explictly permitted to eg. alter classes. Fighters with level 9 spells may be permissible under those parameters, but they really don't have any claim to being Rules As Written because they aren't, you know, rules.
Or written.

[JetThomasBoat]

The tattoos aren't technically magic tattoos so they're not limited by the Scribe Magical Tattoo rules (found with the Dragonmarked in Eberron campaign setting) and they don't take up item slots which means they don't follow the limitation on the number of active magical items (which is purely based on the number of item slots you have). Thus you can have nigh unlimited tattoos on your person that are imbued with magical permanent properties at any level presuming you can roll for them.

What feat or whatever are you using for the tattoos? I'm talking like what book and page. Also, I'm just curious because I'm a little rusty and am new to a lot of this optimization stuff. What 3.5 books have epic spell information in them? I never actually came across any stuff for that.

[demigodus]

The writers of nearly every supplement apparently did not realize this. Everything I've seen written about the sorcerer and wizard in official books talks virtually only about their blasting capabilities; it's clearly what Wotco thought was their defining characteristic.

Yeah, it is really sad how poorly wotc understood its own system...


I'll have to take your word for that. I have yet to build a martial character which seems out of proportion, but I haven't done very many actual combat tests.

Lets go half-orc warrior (the npc warrior class), wielding a two-handed greatsword. 16 strength before racial modifiers, up to 18 strength after racial modifiers.

He does 6+2d6 damage, assuming no feats or magic items boost his damage.

At lvl 1, the warlock averages 3.5 damage per hit, the warrior averages 13 damage per hit. If they can crit, warlock averages 3.675 per hit, warrior averages 14.3 per hit. The warrior does around 3.8x the damage of the warlock. If the warrior is able to hit at least once every 3 attacks, he will out-damage the warlock. How often do you have your players face targets, where the melee fighter has to roll a 15 or higher to hit? Because those are the only opponents where the warlock might have an advantage damage wise.

At lvl 3, the warlock does 7 damage per hit, the warrior still is at the same 13 per hit, given the no-optimization ****ck he has going. If he is hitting on an 11 or higher, and the warlock is hitting on a 3 or higher, the warrior STILL wins in a contest of average damage.

This is a melee class that uses no class features, no feats, no magic items, just having a decent (16) starting strength, and having an ok race.


If fewer than four Fighter 3s can bring down a CR 3 Bugbear or Lizardman or whatever, there is in fact a problem, though it's as likely to be a problem with the CR system (whose bugginess is well-documented, and I'm still learning the truth of the matter one entry at a time) as with any of the classes.

Actually, the way the CR system is supposed to work, a single lvl 3 fighter should have about even odds of beating the CR 3 creature. If you only have one encounter per day, it is a CR 7 creature against whom you would need 4 lvl 3 fighters expending all their resources, still having about even odds.

Four fighters should be going through about 4 CR 3 encounters per day, and still have some resources left at the end, if the CR system worked as intended.


Still, in general, I think the "guy with a sword" is a better starting point for any and all metrics than anything magical; the whole part of being a Master of the Arcane is to break all the rules of reality, so it's perfectly fitting to calibrate everything based on the damage output of Fighters and Rogues and even Commoners.

In theory, maybe. Still, you know your above comment about how wotc thought wizards and sorcerors are blasters, and that is what they are good at? They similarly had no clue what they were doing when making the Fighter class. Characters with PC classes are supposed to be special. Similar to how wizards break the rules of reality, mundane PCs with swords are supposed to be sword masters. The fighter class, doesn't reflect that. At all. Making it a very poor starting point for balance.


I am not familiar with your Mailman.

It is a relatively well known wizard build that delivers "mail". Where "mail" means sufficient damage to kill anything that vaguely looks to be roughly level appropriate if you squint at the numbers enough. With very little to no miss chance.


What does Wings of Flurry do?

Think non-elemental fireball centered on caster, that also dazes on a failed save. And has no damage cap. lvl 4 spell, instead of lvl 3.


Indeed, that is a persistent thorn in my side. One of the reasons I was blown away when I discovered Reserve Feats - suddenly it all made sense, the reason you can only cast your Level 1 spell once a day is because you're not supposed to cast it, any more than Conan is supposed to throw his sword. Casting the spell leaves you useless; a Reserve Feat is you using your magical energy in a sustainable way. Which means I should probably be over my worry of Warlocks by now, as they are basically just casters with a built-in RF and no actual spell that powers it, but I haven't yet fully satisfied myself of this.

So you would be fine with a sorceror, who, say, took Acid Splash [spell], the acid damage dealing reserve feat, and Height Spell [feat]? Would have roughly same, ranged touch attack damage.


That, I can guarantee with enough confidence to open a casino paying bets on the odds anyone will prove otherwise. :smallbiggrin:

:smallbiggrin:


Why would I start evaluating at level 3 spells? I start at level 1, where you can cast four Rays of Frost and three Magic Missiles, if you're an Evoker, or one more of each if you're a sorcerer. The higher levels are largely an enigma to me, because I haven't built the pyramid of my understanding to a sufficient height to so much as glimpse most of them.

At lvl 1, wizards/sorceror that focus on blasting pretty much suck. They aren't much of a standard of comparison, because they are terribly weak. There is a reason it is recommended that wizards use crossbows most of the time at early levels...


No, because the rogue either has to close to melee range or fire ammunition which eventually runs out, plus in either case he can be disarmed.

Ammunition doesn't really run out unless the DM does not ever let the party buy supplies, or makes them play far below usual wealth by levels.


A warlock is deadly even when naked (and I think I will make a character based on exactly that fact one of these days). Maybe not very deadly, but the sociopolitical implications of a man who can't be jailed or let into a royal audience because he is always armed - those suggest the Warlock is a big deal, and if the rules do not, then it is the rules which fail.

Monks are also "deadly" when naked. The main reason this tends to be overlooked when discussing how bad monks are, is because the situation very rarely comes up in most campaigns. How often to PCs advertise the fact that disarming them is pointless (lets assume most PCs don't have idiotic stupid as an alignment)? If you are getting arrested, chances are you messed up badly already...

That sad, a character that slaughters others with only a loin cloth on might be fun. :smallsmile:


I fully agree. I wouldn't even mind if the Wizard became the Sorcerer in turn; limited spells known is a beautiful thing to me, while being able to buy spells for 150 gp a level strikes me as a trifle cheesy (unless you're running a Tippyverse, of course, there it's quite fitting).

This is kinda why wizards, clerics, and druids are considered so broken. Because in practice, they can get every spell on their (rather broken) list that matters, unless a DM starts restricting the list.


Also known as "annoying the DM"....

Depends on the DM. It IS a pretty major strategy after all. I mean 4e even went and turned crowd control into one of the 4 key party member functions. Some DMs tend to expect PCs to use status effects, and use it on the PCs.

[VGLordR2]

Sorry, not quite, read the permanency spell again, it says there are specific spells, as a suggestion. In fact it also states that any spell could Potentially be affected by this and it's up to the DM to decide. Since by the RAW any spell could potentially be affected by it, including its self, it works just fine.

See PHB page 260 "The DM may allow other selected spells
to be made permanent." Since the DM can decide what spells are permanent it can be used, essentially for any spell. What more there is nothing that explicitly states that an imbuement by a Warlock isn't permanent anyways, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

So what you're saying is that the Warlock is broken as long as the DM specifically makes a houserule to allow it to happen. It is very clear in the text that Permanency only applies to certain spells. The extra text merely states that the DM can change that. The DM, not the player.

[BootStrapTommy]

I'm personally a huge fan of the warlock and play them frequently.

The warlock SHOULD not, strictly speaking, be played as a one dimensional emo kid or as an evil caricature (an evil caricature is possible with almost every class). The warlock is a CHA based class. Warlocks are supposed to be smooth talking and people persons, but are adversely affected by their social stigma. Something like a rogue with a price of his head. One dimensional emo kids are anti-social, and patently not charismatic, while evil caricatures are laughing maniacs, which are hardly endearing and charismatic people.

If balance is the issue, the warlock is not without balancing. As has been noted, the warlock only has a very finite number of abilities which he can actually use. This means that he suffers not only from this, but also from the resulting repetition, which can be exploited by a DM as his weakness. Secondly, warlocks should be social outcasts, as their art is shunned and is in some places taboo (as you mentioned "in a royal audience"). If the DM is doing their job, that should be a factor. Finally, the warlock gains their power from deals with supernatural forces, usually baatezu, tanar'ri, or fey. It is within the power of the DM, and in a way his duty, to pull this check over the player. No need to fault a class for what a DM and REAL roleplaying was intended to fix.

That kind of balancing exists in all the "power classes" so to speak, like the monk, favoured soul, etc.

In fact I have to echo ShneekeyTheLost about monks. Monks are the single most broken class ever made in D&D, capable, if played right, of being untouchable damage factories. A "cannon" so to speak, because they sure as hell ain't made of glass. To the warlocks defense, he lacks in the AC department, which makes his forte damage and dialogue (like a rogue).

I can say that I have seen far more ridiculous classes and builds in my day than a warlock. A lot of them just monks. I've even build a swashbuckler/dervish who could outclass "10 blasts per minute for 24 consecutive hours". With just a scimitar.

The one truth the years have taught me is that anything in D&D can be made ridiculous with enough research. Especially into the supplementary material. Wizards did a poor job with overall balance, but a good DM and reasonable players are more than capable of filling in where they failed.

[BootStrapTommy]

TL;DR on the last post
Warlocks are only broken if the DM lets them be.
They should be played as the "smooth talking outlaw with a price/stigma" as that is more their design.
Compared to other, more common classes, they are pretty docile.
Any class can be broken within the bounds of the rule, all you need is the knowledge and effort.

Most commonly I play a Chaotic Good fey-based warlock, who functions some like a mix between a rogue, a ranger, and a barbarian. Basically a smooth talking dexterity fighter who moves along the battlefield laying on the DPS.

[willpell]

Yeah, it is really sad how poorly wotc understood its own system...

Personally I would rather that the Wizard more nearly resembled what Wotco thought it was, rather than the other way around. The absurd level of potency Wizard 9 spells allow seems like the sort of thing you should need to go into some strict and esoteric PRC (such as Archmage or Red Wizard) to attain. Instead, most PRCs I've seen offer less powerful, and at best vaguely interesting, options to a wizard. When your 15th level of Wizard compares favorably to your 2nd level of Archmage, something is dubious.


At lvl 3, the warlock does 7 damage per hit, the warrior still is at the same 13 per hit, given the no-optimization ****ck he has going.

I believe you meant to spell "shtick" differently. :smallcool:


Actually, the way the CR system is supposed to work, a single lvl 3 fighter should have about even odds of beating the CR 3 creature.

By expending his entire day's worth of resources, yes. (Not that fighters really have expendable resources, other than an occasional potion or weapon oil, and those don't replenish per day...hm, possible homebrew....) The metric as I remeber it is that 4 X-level characters should beat a CR X creature by expending roughly 20% of their resources; this doesn't mean a single character is 4/5 as potent as a creature, as D&D is meant to encourage teamwork, and a solo player is too likely to be neutralized by a single save-or-die, critical hit, or whatnot. (Granted it works the other way too, as Shelby will attest.)


In theory, maybe. Still, you know your above comment about how wotc thought wizards and sorcerors are blasters, and that is what they are good at? They similarly had no clue what they were doing when making the Fighter class. Characters with PC classes are supposed to be special. Similar to how wizards break the rules of reality, mundane PCs with swords are supposed to be sword masters. The fighter class, doesn't reflect that. At all. Making it a very poor starting point for balance.

Well for what it's worth, it compares very favorably to the Warrior, which was their starting point for non-PCs. Also I don't know that level 1 PCs should necessarily be Special Snowflake Chosen Ones; there's something to be said for having to earn that status.


So you would be fine with a sorceror, who, say, took Acid Splash [spell], the acid damage dealing reserve feat, and Height Spell [feat]? Would have roughly same, ranged touch attack damage.

Hm. Will have to look into that build; could make for a nice "stock" NPC.


At lvl 1, wizards/sorceror that focus on blasting pretty much suck. They aren't much of a standard of comparison, because they are terribly weak. There is a reason it is recommended that wizards use crossbows most of the time at early levels...

Even I had managed to figure that one out, just on the basis of #/day of the relevant spells (again, this was before I saw RFs).


Ammunition doesn't really run out unless the DM does not ever let the party buy supplies, or makes them play far below usual wealth by levels.

My issues with the wealth and items system are deserving of a thread many times the size of this one, one of these days....


Monks are also "deadly" when naked. The main reason this tends to be overlooked when discussing how bad monks are, is because the situation very rarely comes up in most campaigns.

My campaign may be unusual in this regard, or it may be unusual in the opposite direction; it very probably will not be typical.

[Doxkid]

I find this thread rather entertaining.

A DM I know, who is a friend of mine, also goes insane when he sees a 'Warlock' on one of my character sheets.

Then again, he got mad at me for playing a Marshal once, so...

[Feralventas]

The invocation list is pretty meh, at least out of CompArc. More annoying than that it's not very strong is the fact that it very firmly staples you to the "RUUUUAGH I HOLD THE POWERS OF DARKNESS ITSELF MWHAHAHAH" (and or tortured emo inversion thereof) flavor, even though they say right in the text that "faerie" or "nature" warlocks are an option.

I made a Magical Girl character with Warlock6/Warblade1.
Eldritch Glaive for melee combat.
Leaps and Bounds for +6 to mobility skills.
Spider Climb for more agility-abuse via jumping between surfaces.
Warblade for charging maneuvers and Leaping Dragon Stance.

Warlock makes a great anime hero. Want to go for the Fey aspect? Check out Complete Mage for things like detaching your eye and hand for sniping Eldritch Blasts from a corner with a disposable turret, or specifically aim for the Charm, Bluff-boosting, and other abilities that deal with either interactions or aspects of nature (swimming in the Styx isn't a great name for fey stuff, but it works fine as a Glastig or other aquatic fey's blessing).

And let's not forget; Fey is not guaranteed to be nice, and there are plenty of fey spirits that would work in darkness and chaos and other oddities of which are available to the warlock's list. There are also more invocations in Dragon Magic to work with.

You can also supplement it with the Fey Heritage feats, though that's not as much a warlock thing.

[Saidoro]

In fact I have to echo ShneekeyTheLost about monks. Monks are the single most broken class ever made in D&D, capable, if played right, of being untouchable damage factories. A "cannon" so to speak, because they sure as hell ain't made of glass.
Rather off-topic, but I'd really like to see your build for this. Nothing you've said at all resembles any monk I've ever seen.


Personally I would rather that the Wizard more nearly resembled what Wotco thought it was, rather than the other way around. The absurd level of potency Wizard 9 spells allow seems like the sort of thing you should need to go into some strict and esoteric PRC (such as Archmage or Red Wizard) to attain. Instead, most PRCs I've seen offer less powerful, and at best vaguely interesting, options to a wizard. When your 15th level of Wizard compares favorably to your 2nd level of Archmage, something is dubious.
You shouldn't be comparing that one level of wizard to that one of archmage, you should be comparing the 5 wizard levels since you've had your last feature to 5 levels in any prestige classes you qualify for. There are enough full progression wizard PRCs that no wizard should have to take more than 5 levels in the class unless he wants to.


By expending his entire day's worth of resources, yes. (Not that fighters really have expendable resources, other than an occasional potion or weapon oil, and those don't replenish per day...hm, possible homebrew....) The metric as I remeber it is that 4 X-level characters should beat a CR X creature by expending roughly 20% of their resources; this doesn't mean a single character is 4/5 as potent as a creature, as D&D is meant to encourage teamwork, and a solo player is too likely to be neutralized by a single save-or-die, critical hit, or whatnot. (Granted it works the other way too, as Shelby will attest.)
They have hitpoints. And characters built like PCs are listed as having a challenge rating equal to their level. Set a CR 3 challenge against a CR 3 challenge and you'd expect them each to have an even chance of winning(Barring one being specialized at something the other is weak against.)


Hm. Will have to look into that build; could make for a nice "stock" NPC.
You don't actually need builds for your stock NPCs, you can just say this person has X Hitpoints, Y saving throws, and an attack Dealing Z damage at W range with and atack bonus Q, where all the variables are level appropriate numbers. It save a lot of time, and chances are anything beyond that won't come up.

[Serafina]

Personally I would rather that the Wizard more nearly resembled what Wotco thought it was, rather than the other way around. The absurd level of potency Wizard 9 spells allow seems like the sort of thing you should need to go into some strict and esoteric PRC (such as Archmage or Red Wizard) to attain. Instead, most PRCs I've seen offer less powerful, and at best vaguely interesting, options to a wizard. When your 15th level of Wizard compares favorably to your 2nd level of Archmage, something is dubious.Uh, what?

If you're saying "well, this class is supposed to throw around fireballs and stuff" - and then give the class options that utterly outclass blasting spells - then yes, that is bad design. No matter what WotC thought, and its pretty clear that they did intend their Wizards to do a fair amount of blasting.

Also - most Wizard-PRCs fully advance spellcasting. And gain actual class features (as opposed to "one feat every 5 levels) to boot. So how are Wizard-levels in any way better than PrC-levels?

WotC constantly screwed up their class-design.
Take a look at the Cleric - he's supposed to be a supporter and healer, yet hes easily a better front-line fighter than the Fighter.
While the Healer-class (which is supposed to, well, heal) is actually a worse healer than the Cleric, despite that being the main focus of the class.
So here we have yet another example of a class being better if it does something other than its supposed focus - and a class being outdone by another in its main focus.

There are lots of other examples like that. And classes that don't even work as intended (instead of being better at something else or someone else being better) - how about a skirmisher that needs full attacks, and has to sacrifice a move action for his main class feature?


Bottom line: WotC is really bad at class design.

[willpell]

The warlock is a CHA based class. Warlocks are supposed to be smooth talking and people persons, but are adversely affected by their social stigma. Something like a rogue with a price of his head. One dimensional emo kids are anti-social, and patently not charismatic, while evil caricatures are laughing maniacs, which are hardly endearing and charismatic people.

This sort of thing is exactly why I've considered splitting Charisma into two stats. It's a little bizarre that your capacity to bend the laws of physics through sheer unbridled ego also governs how likeable you are; if anything I would tend to expect the opposite.

[Terazul]

This sort of thing is exactly why I've considered splitting Charisma into two stats. It's a little bizarre that your capacity to bend the laws of physics through sheer unbridled ego also governs how likeable you are; if anything I would tend to expect the opposite.

Not... really. Casting stats are all the mental ones. Either you're intelligent enough to figure out how to shatter the fabric of reality, wise enough to know the ways to bend the rules to your whim, or just so dang convincing enough to get it to do what you want (man that dude over there is so cool, let's help him out).

Besides, Cha by itself is one of the weakest stats unless your class uses it for something. You can jump through hoops to get it as a + to a number of things, but that's mostly trying to make it useful in the first place. And warlocks actually don't need Cha all that much, depending on how they build. The only real use for it is if you're using invocations/essences that require saving throws, otherwise it's entirely possible to build a Glaivelock or something that couldn't give two craps.

[Eldest]

WSome guy, whose avatar I remember but his username I do not, pitched a rather neat set of alternate warlock powersources, powered up in a way that I'm not certain was necessary, but more importantly made different and interesting in a way the class badly needed. Unfortunately fixing the Eldritch Blast is only the top 10% of the iceberg; a rather complex new invocation system, where you mix and match appropriate "essences" to get a wide variety of buffs and tricks, would be more satisfying. As it is, you can use the guy's rules to create a pseudo-monk who blasts people with psionic "ki", but he'll still have invocations that summon bats and generate darkness fields or literal clouds of depression. (Then again he may have had alternate invocs which I just didn't find in my rather cursory glance at the thread.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236189) are (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142707) a (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163297) few (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223940) homebrewed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212830) warlocks. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226021)

And also, the Mailman is a sorcerer build. It can work with wizards, but some of the spells the build relies on are sorc. only. Wings of Flurry being one of them.

Edit: the second to last link is my favorite of the lot.

[GenghisDon]

WOTC writers thought blasting was what arcane casters did because prior to their version of D&D it was.

If you want a game where blasting is king, try 1e AD&D or B/X. Damage spells are da king.

2e AD&D reduced that style somewhat with spell damage caps. Damage spells were still high compared to character/creature HP however.

3e maintained the 2e style damage caps, and increased character/monster HP considerably, & increasing high level character/creature HP exponentially. Blasting thus has a short shelf life in this game, being at it's peak from levels 5-10.

If one wants blasting/direct damage spells to be more viable, I suggest removing damage caps. HP inflation still renders the tactic to be considerably less effective, but it would be something. If one did this, blostering the higher level damage spells would be necessary. Cone of Cold could use d8's, for example.

Nothing to do with the warlock especially, but via the above logic, a more effective blaster warlock would probably need an eldritch blast progression of 2/3L d6's, or 3/4L d6's. WOTC gimped damage spells & then couldn't/refused to acknowledge they did.

[Xtomjames]

That's not true at all.

"This spell makes certain other spells permanent. "
"You can make the following spells permanent in regard to yourself. "
"In addition to personal use, permanency can be used to make the following spells permanent on yourself, another creature, or an object (as appropriate). "
"Additionally, the following spells can be cast upon objects or areas only and rendered permanent. "


The books say that DM fiat is permitted, but that's nothing special or meaningful. DM fiat is also explictly permitted to eg. alter classes. Fighters with level 9 spells may be permissible under those parameters, but they really don't have any claim to being Rules As Written because they aren't, you know, rules.
Or written.

Except, RAW, as I've directly quoted from the book, states the GM has as you say "fiat" because the GM has fiat, permanency can be applied to any spell, the list of spells in the book are otherwise for directive if the GM disallows permanency to be applied to other spells. Most GMs however allow it because permanency is very useful. What more, as I've stated, nothing in the imbuing class feature does it say the imbued power isn't permanent already, it is a matter of "safe rather than sorry". In fact I'm quite positive that warlock imbued items are permanent unless the spell being use is otherwise stated.

I tend to substitute scribe scroll for scribe tattoo out of the Psionics Players Handbook. however in all technicality all you need is a permanent mark that is foreign to the body to imbue. It need not be fancy or all that great looking (I just used tattooed dots, which can be done even without the feat specifically).

Epic level spells can be taken from the Epic Level Handbook which has some premade epic level spells.

[demigodus]

Personally I would rather that the Wizard more nearly resembled what Wotco thought it was, rather than the other way around. The absurd level of potency Wizard 9 spells allow seems like the sort of thing you should need to go into some strict and esoteric PRC (such as Archmage or Red Wizard) to attain. Instead, most PRCs I've seen offer less powerful, and at best vaguely interesting, options to a wizard. When your 15th level of Wizard compares favorably to your 2nd level of Archmage, something is dubious.

Maybe, but the reality is that they don't. They don't need lvl 9 spells to make blasting inefficient. The reason wizards are considered so broken is because they have better things to do then blast. For Wizards to resemble what Wotco wanted, without them simply going out of their way to ignore good spells, would require heavy DM intervention. And make them rather weak, since mundanes can out-do them in damage if built right. At which point you are left with sub-par damage, that is limited in quantity.


By expending his entire day's worth of resources, yes. (Not that fighters really have expendable resources, other than an occasional potion or weapon oil, and those don't replenish per day...hm, possible homebrew....) The metric as I remeber it is that 4 X-level characters should beat a CR X creature by expending roughly 20% of their resources; this doesn't mean a single character is 4/5 as potent as a creature, as D&D is meant to encourage teamwork, and a solo player is too likely to be neutralized by a single save-or-die, critical hit, or whatnot. (Granted it works the other way too, as Shelby will attest.)

hp is a daily resources that is supposed to get expanded with encounters...


Well for what it's worth, it compares very favorably to the Warrior, which was their starting point for non-PCs. Also I don't know that level 1 PCs should necessarily be Special Snowflake Chosen Ones; there's something to be said for having to earn that status.

Not necessarily Chosen Ones. But PCs being Special Snowflakes in terms of combat ability was supposed to be a part of the game design. Even if wotco kinda messed it up at times (monk, cw samurai, fighter, etc.). Honestly, the Barbarian might be a better baseline for how good mundanes are supposed to be....


Except, RAW, as I've directly quoted from the book, states the GM has as you say "fiat" because the GM has fiat, permanency can be applied to any spell, the list of spells in the book are otherwise for directive if the GM disallows permanency to be applied to other spells. Most GMs however allow it because permanency is very useful. What more, as I've stated, nothing in the imbuing class feature does it say the imbued power isn't permanent already, it is a matter of "safe rather than sorry". In fact I'm quite positive that warlock imbued items are permanent unless the spell being use is otherwise stated.

That... is not what RAW means. If you need DM fiat for it to work, it is no longer RAW. Your argument would at most be for your trick to be RAI.


I tend to substitute scribe scroll for scribe tattoo out of the Psionics Players Handbook. however in all technicality all you need is a permanent mark that is foreign to the body to imbue. It need not be fancy or all that great looking (I just used tattooed dots, which can be done even without the feat specifically).

Scribe tattoo to mean the psionic tattoos? The ones that are one use only? And in no way permanent?

[Douglas]

The imbue item ability works on ANY mundane item as per RAW. So first step is get a mundane ring, imbue it with the permanency spell (this'll be a one time ring) imbue a second ring while wearing this ring with permanency again. Now you have a permanent permanency ring. Now so long as you have taken scribe tattoo (not magic tattoo, just plain old tattoo) you can imbue an unlimited number of level 9 and 10 spells (yep epic spells) to your body with tattoos, including the nega-anti-magic field spell which negates anti-magic fields.
It appears that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Imbue Item does. It is not "put a spell in an item". It is "I want to make X item, which requires Y spell to make. I can make item X despite not having spell Y."

For example, Gauntlets of Ogre Power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#gauntletsofOgrePower) require the spell Bull's Strength (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/bullsStrength.htm) to make. Any character that wants to craft Gauntlets of Ogre Power must be able to cast Bull's Strength. Imbue Item allows a Warlock to craft Gauntlets of Ogre Power even though he cannot cast Bull's Strength. Imbue Item does not do anything about the other requirements, however - he still needs Craft Wondrous Item to do it, and he still needs to pay gold and experience as normal.

Most importantly to your ridiculous build, Imbue Item does not allow you to create magic items that could not otherwise exist, or to create magic items for free. It most especially does not allow you to create free magic items that duplicate any arbitrary spell you choose. You have to pick an already defined magic item, or stat up a custom one as per the normal guidelines (which, btw, explicitly require DM oversight and approval) for anyone else making them, get whatever item crafting feat is required, and pay all crafting costs as normal. If a wizard, cleric, druid, or whatever class is relevant to the spell in question, couldn't make it then a warlock can't make it either.

[HunterOfJello]

Honestly, the Barbarian might be a better baseline for how good mundanes are supposed to be....

I couldn't agree more with you. I hate when people use the Fighter class as a standard by which to compare other melee classes (or any classes at all). A class that lacks any class features is not an appropriate baseline to compare other classes to. I think the Barbarian would be a good class to compare other melee classes to, and I think the Ranger would also have been a good class to compare other classes to when considering and appropriating power and versatility.


Except, RAW, as I've directly quoted from the book, states the GM has as you say "fiat" because the GM has fiat, permanency can be applied to any spell, the list of spells in the book are otherwise for directive if the GM disallows permanency to be applied to other spells. Most GMs however allow it because permanency is very useful. What more, as I've stated, nothing in the imbuing class feature does it say the imbued power isn't permanent already, it is a matter of "safe rather than sorry". In fact I'm quite positive that warlock imbued items are permanent unless the spell being use is otherwise stated.

I tend to substitute scribe scroll for scribe tattoo out of the Psionics Players Handbook. however in all technicality all you need is a permanent mark that is foreign to the body to imbue. It need not be fancy or all that great looking (I just used tattooed dots, which can be done even without the feat specifically).

Epic level spells can be taken from the Epic Level Handbook which has some premade epic level spells.


1. Breaking the rules set up in the books to make a class more powerful does not make it legitimately more powerful. It's not even worth mentioning on these boards. A person could make the argument that their DM lets the Fighter have the spellcasting progression of wizards, clerics, and druids, therefore Fighters are the best class. However, that would only apply to their games. (Not to mention the fact that they would still be wrong. See #4)

2. Imbue Item allows you to use the item creation feats according to the rules defined under the item creation feat's information. The singular ability that Imbue Item gives to the Warlock is the ability to create an item without the need for casting the spell.

Imbue Item is a great ability since it is supernatural and allows warlocks to create magical items as if they were arcane spellcasters. It also allows them to not lose the resources they pay out if they fail in their check and it allows them to seemingly provide spells that have expensive gp and exp costs to items without paying the cost of casting the spell. Another benefit is that it allows the character to create items that use spells of a higher level than that character would have access to if they were a normal vancian caster.

3. Those are all excellent benefits and abilities. However, it does not turn Imbue Item into an ability that trumps all others and turns Warlocks into unstoppable gods. Creating any magical item still requires exp and gp costs, along with the appropriate item creation feat. You can now obtain items at half their market price, but only that. You can't go around willy nilly creating items for free. (Besides, I think there are some Inevitables that would kill you for that.)

4. Pun-Pun legitimately, within the rules, and without any exceptions given or put forward by a DM is still infinitely more powerful than any sort of Warlock you could create even using DM fiat on your Imbue Item ability. The level 1 Kobold Paladin beats out all other characters that are possible or impossible to legitimately create within the game so there isn't much point in going around declaring Warlocks to be the greatest class ever.

[Marlowe]

This sort of thing is exactly why I've considered splitting Charisma into two stats. It's a little bizarre that your capacity to bend the laws of physics through sheer unbridled ego also governs how likeable you are; if anything I would tend to expect the opposite.

Willpell, Charisma is the weakest of the six main stats, mechanically, that there is. It's fun, but it's still weak. It is better than it was in AD&D, but it doesn't govern a save and is used only for skills that are inherently optional. Unless they are actually a Charisma-based spellcasting class you only ever need one person in a group to have decent Charisma, and then only if the situation calls for socializing.

You're actually trying to nerf Charisma?:smallconfused: That shows you understand nothing about the game you're trying to critique.

Even worse (if we're on topic), nerfing Charisma wouldn't hurt Warlocks much. If Warlocks were overpowered. Which they aren't. You're suggesting a stupid thing on the basis of a stupid assumption.

[lsfreak]

This sort of thing is exactly why I've considered splitting Charisma into two stats. It's a little bizarre that your capacity to bend the laws of physics through sheer unbridled ego also governs how likeable you are; if anything I would tend to expect the opposite.

Charisma isn't how likeable you are. It's how much you can use sheer force of will to make people like you. Maybe you are actually likeable, a person who is friendly and kind and a fiercely loyal, or maybe you can read what a person's like to trick them into thinking you're likeable when you're really a sociopath who is going to use them for what you need and then get your kicks watching them executed for the crimes you committed.

[Aegis013]

In fact I have to echo ShneekeyTheLost about monks. Monks are the single most broken class ever made in D&D, capable, if played right, of being untouchable damage factories. A "cannon" so to speak, because they sure as hell ain't made of glass. To the warlocks defense, he lacks in the AC department, which makes his forte damage and dialogue (like a rogue).


I don't think this is what ShneekeyTheLost was talking about. The general consensus on this board is that 3.5 monks are actually very weak. I think Shneekey was saying even a monk, who is generally considered bad, can out damage the warlock, therefore, the warlock must not do too much damage.


Except, RAW, as I've directly quoted from the book, states the GM has as you say "fiat" because the GM has fiat, permanency can be applied to any spell, the list of spells in the book are otherwise for directive if the GM disallows permanency to be applied to other spells. Most GMs however allow it because permanency is very useful. What more, as I've stated, nothing in the imbuing class feature does it say the imbued power isn't permanent already, it is a matter of "safe rather than sorry". In fact I'm quite positive that warlock imbued items are permanent unless the spell being use is otherwise stated.

The DMG also says that DM has final word in all matters. That doesn't make the level 1 Figther with 20th level Wizard and Druid and Cleric and Sorcerer and Psion casting RAW. Even if the DM allows you to do it.



You're actually trying to nerf Charisma?:smallconfused: That shows you understand nothing about the game you're trying to critique.

Even worse (if we're on topic), nerfing Charisma wouldn't hurt Warlocks much. If Warlocks were overpowered. Which they aren't. You're suggesting a stupid thing on the basis of a stupid assumption.

I don't mean to offend, but could you tone down your aggressive-o-meter? willpell has already admitted to not having a full grasp of all the nuances of the game, but is simply open about his first impressions.

[Serafina]

You may as well split Intelligence (because there are several kinds of Intelligence), or Dexterity (because having nimble fingers or an agile body are two different things), or Strength (being a bodybuilder doesn't make you hit better and harder with swings) or really any attribute.

Or ask why Strength and Constitution aren't linked (most endurace training will build some strength a well), or why you can't use stat X for purpose Y.

Rules are always a model of reality. That model is vastly simplified for sake of playability, accessibility and simplicity.

That means that things are abstract. Hitpoints only simulate wounds to a degree and not perfectly. People don't actually get something like a BAB in real life - being good with a sword doesn't translate to being good with an polearm, being good with a longbow doesn't translate into being good with a sling -and yet it does here (weapon focus aside) due to BAB. Knowledge skills don't represent narrow fields of study - it's impossible to know a lot about demons but little about angels (because both are knowledge: planes) for example. And so on and so forth.

Really, if you want a system that tries to be a realistic simulation, D&D (or rather D20) is the wrong system for you.

[BootStrapTommy]

I don't think this is what ShneekeyTheLost was talking about. The general consensus on this board is that 3.5 monks are actually very weak. I think Shneekey was saying even a monk, who is generally considered bad, can out damage the warlock, therefore, the warlock must not do too much damage.

Lol, then I guess none of you are doing a monk right. Lol.
In almost every campaign I've experienced with a monk, they end up having ungodly AC and, while not the best damage dealer (we have a glass cannon for that), they are usually up there, especially compared to the other martial classes.

So I guess I decent to that forum consensus.

[BootStrapTommy]

This sort of thing is exactly why I've considered splitting Charisma into two stats. It's a little bizarre that your capacity to bend the laws of physics through sheer unbridled ego also governs how likeable you are; if anything I would tend to expect the opposite.

Aren't you missing the point of Charisma-based spellcasting? You cast because you're a Force of Personality, because of HOW charismatic you are. You bend the "laws of physics" with your guile and wit, because some preternatural force makes it so that even the laws of physics can't resist your smooth-talking.

[lsfreak]

Lol, then I guess none of you are doing a monk right. Lol.
In almost every campaign I've experienced with a monk, they end up having ungodly AC and, while not the best damage dealer (we have a glass cannon for that), they are usually up there, especially compared to the other martial classes.

So I guess I decent to that forum consensus.

Lots of AC and little damage means you're not really doing anything, though. They suffer all the problems of a fighter, but without the easy, 1-level barbarian dip for pounce. And a lot of big threats aren't to your AC. Pretty much anything a monk does, another melee does better - grappling, tripping, unarmed. Only thing I really like monk for is rogue dips for Invisible Fist, because greater invisibility as an immediate(!) action every 3rd round is awesome.

[B-Unit]

Lol, then I guess none of you are doing a monk right. Lol.

Or maybe you and your playgroup are just doing everything else suboptimally? Monk's a very weak class, which has been proven time and time again. It's easy to get high AC and damage with just about everything, but just about everything else does it better than a monk.

[Deophaun]

Willpell, Charisma is the weakest of the six main stats, mechanically, that there is. It's fun, but it's still weak.
Have to disagree. It is weakest just coming out of the box, but if you were going for a character that relied on one stat for everything,a charisma-based character would be near or at the top of the list, as X stat to Y bonus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732) shows.

Without optimization, though, your statement holds.

[BootStrapTommy]

Lots of AC and little damage means you're not really doing anything, though. They suffer all the problems of a fighter, but without the easy, 1-level barbarian dip for pounce. And a lot of big threats aren't to your AC. Pretty much anything a monk does, another melee does better - grappling, tripping, unarmed. Only thing I really like monk for is rogue dips for Invisible Fist, because greater invisibility as an immediate(!) action every 3rd round is awesome.

I didn't say little damage. I just said less damage than the explosive hurling mage, which is usually true for just about everyone. And I don't agree with any of that. In most of my experiences the monk has the highest AC and almost always outclasses the other martial classes for damage, unless there is a dervish on the field or some such.

[Douglas]

Have to disagree. It is weakest just coming out of the box, but if you were going for a character that relied on one stat for everything,a charisma-based character would be near or at the top of the list, as X stat to Y bonus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732) shows.

Without optimization, though, your statement holds.
Yeah, it depends very much on the level of optimization involved. Charisma has the weakest default effect, so with no optimization it is very weak. That weakness made it a favorite choice for ways to make an ability score stronger, however, which ironically ended up making it the strongest at high levels of optimization because of the sheer number of ways to get more out of it - each one can boost charisma from a dump stat to among the upper choices for high stats, and many of them can be combined.

[BootStrapTommy]

Or maybe you and your playgroup are just doing everything else suboptimally? Monk's a very weak class, which has been proven time and time again. It's easy to get high AC and damage which just about everything, but just about everything else does it better than a monk.

We could hardly be said to play sub-optimally. In fact, I'd say we clearly optimize the monk in ways you guys clearly don't. If the monk can't be broken, you're not doing it right.

Anyway, isn't this supposed be about the warlock and not monks?

[B-Unit]

We could hardly be said to play sub-optimally. In fact, I'd say we clearly optimize the monk in ways you guys clearly don't. If the monk can't be broken, you're not doing it right.

Anyway, isn't this supposed be about the warlock and not monks?

I think it's pretty easy to say you play suboptimally if a Monk is typically your pick for consistantly one of the most powerful characters in your group.

Broken is a tricky word. What broken means to one person may differ from what it means to the next. I don't think Monks can be broken. They can be good at their jobs, sometimes as good as others (though not often), but a high AC or damage output doesn't mean the class is "broken", at least not to me.

Chain Gating Solars, on the other hand. That's more my definition of broken. I've yet to see a monk that can compete in any way shape or form with something like that.

[Augmental]

We could hardly be said to play sub-optimally. In fact, I'd say we clearly optimize the monk in ways you guys clearly don't. If the monk can't be broken, you're not doing it right.

If your group is so good at optimizing monks, why don't you show us how to make a broken one?

[Serafina]

I didn't say little damage. I just said less damage than the explosive hurling mage, which is usually true for just about everyone. And I don't agree with any of that. In most of my experiences the monk has the highest AC and almost always outclasses the other martial classes for damage, unless there is a dervish on the field or some such.Actually - it isn't. Sheer damage is actually something where mundane classes can outshine magicusers. Triple-digit damage is quite realistic, and with heavy optimization you can get close or into quadruble-digits.
It's just that pure damage is actually not the optimal way to deal with encounters, that being the reason why spellcasters are better. And the fact that spells offer better defense than mundane means.

[demigodus]

We could hardly be said to play sub-optimally. In fact, I'd say we clearly optimize the monk in ways you guys clearly don't. If the monk can't be broken, you're not doing it right.

Anyway, isn't this supposed be about the warlock and not monks?

We could always start another thread about monks. However, that is pointless if the argument is going to continue to be vague like this (I'm not attacking you, this is just a statement about both sides of the argument). Would you be willing to have a more proper argument than what is going on here, where you show the monk builds from your games, and the AC and damage they do, and compare it to the builds that people on here consider to be optimized?

And then a comparison to see what sort of situations they need party support fof. For example, if you don't have a way to fly and see invisibility, you would need a wizard to cast fly, and see invisibility on you for you to fight a pixie. At levels where most enemies can fly, needing an ally to spend a turn casting a spell on you so you can contribute would be a downside to a build.

[lsfreak]

Chain Gating Solars, on the other hand. That's more my definition of broken. I've yet to see a monk that can compete in any way shape or form with something like that.

Well, technically, I think UMD and 3rd level wealth gets you an infinite wealth loop.

I'd be interested in hearing about this monk, but I think it's probably playstyle. For one, blastercasters are very suboptimal and melee is generally better at damage. For damage output, 8/9th level, I'd expect a martial character built by someone on these forums to average 50-75 damage a round with they're staying sane. Going all-out and with caster support likely doubles that, and I'm fairly certain going all-out with as many of the charging boosts as you can approaches quadruple digits by 9th level. But the important thing at this level is other things - dealing your damage while countering flight or teleportation, walls or solid fogs appearing around you, being taken out from a save-or-lose spell.

[Kavurcen]

Hi, Willpell!
If your only complaint about Warlock is that they can deal their unlimited damage without closing to melee distance, you might find it interesting that one of the easiest ways to boost a Warlock's DPR in a low optimization game is to take a feat that makes their Eldritch Blast into melee weapons.

[Andvare]

Bottom line: WotC is really bad at class design.

Just, you know, quoted for the pure, distilled, truth.


You may as well split Intelligence (because there are several kinds of Intelligence), or Dexterity (because having nimble fingers or an agile body are two different things), or Strength (being a bodybuilder doesn't make you hit better and harder with swings) or really any attribute.


D&D actually did this once. All six stats were split in two sub-stats.
It was an optional rule in the Rules Cyclopedia in 1991-ish IIRC.

Edit: BTW, is this the first time monks and warlocks have been called overpowered?
What's next? Nerf Truenamers?

Great fun, do keep it up.

[Doxkid]

Wait till these guys find out about Monk/Warlock Gestalts; wrote one up a while ago actually.

It will blow their minds.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just, you know, quoted for the pure, distilled, truth.



D&D actually did this once. All six stats were split in two sub-stats.
It was an optional rule in the Rules Cyclopedia in 1991-ish IIRC.

Edit: BTW, is this the first time monks and warlocks have been called overpowered?
What's next? Nerf Truenamers?

Great fun, do keep it up.

It's not the first time.

It almost certainly won't be the last time.

It'll be just as wrong next time as it is this time.

I like both classes. I think they blend really well together through enlightened fist. They can even keep up with the level of power the designers expected the game to be played at. None of this changes the fact that, at full-tilt optimization levels, they're both fairly weak.

[Andvare]

It's not the first time.

It almost certainly won't be the last time.

It'll be just as wrong next time as it is this time.

I like both classes. I think they blend really well together through enlightened fist. They can even keep up with the level of power the designers expected the game to be played at. None of this changes the fact that, at full-tilt optimization levels, they're both fairly weak.

I meant the first time, in the same thread.

But, alas, no it wont be the last time, and it will be just as fun wrong.

[TuggyNE]

Edit: BTW, is this the first time monks and warlocks have been called overpowered?
What's next? Nerf Truenamers?

Great fun, do keep it up.

Let's see if we can get someone to suggest toning down Healers! :smallwink: :smallamused:

[demigodus]

Let's see if we can get someone to suggest toning down Healers! :smallwink: :smallamused:

By Healers, do you mean the Healer class? The one that can out-heal even the cleric? The ultimate heal bot that everyone admits is broken?

Why exactly are we trying to get people to suggest toning down the Healer? I thought we were poking fun at how people are trying to nerf the weak classes. The Healer is all kinds of broken. It needs nerfing, but that suggestion doesn't mesh with the irony of this thread.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Actually - it isn't. Sheer damage is actually something where mundane classes can outshine magicusers. Triple-digit damage is quite realistic, and with heavy optimization you can get close or into quadruble-digits.
It's just that pure damage is actually not the optimal way to deal with encounters, that being the reason why spellcasters are better. And the fact that spells offer better defense than mundane means.

In fairness, both damage records - per round and single attack - were held by spellcasters (until SkyDragonKnight's RKV build was nerfed by WotC). Spells do damage as well or better than melee characters if you build for them. It's just not generally the best idea to do so.

[Kuulvheysoon]

By Healers, do you mean the Healer class? The one that can out-heal even the cleric? The ultimate heal bot that everyone admits is broken?

Why exactly are we trying to get people to suggest toning down the Healer? I thought we were poking fun at how people are trying to nerf the weak classes. The Healer is all kinds of broken. It needs nerfing, but that suggestion doesn't mesh with the irony of this thread.

He was being sarcastic, judging by how he quoted someone saying how Truenamers should be nerfed.

Clerics can out-heal Healers, partially thanks to spell lists (and how theirs has expanded, while the Healer's... hasn't).

[Kelb_Panthera]

By Healers, do you mean the Healer class? The one that can out-heal even the cleric? The ultimate heal bot that everyone admits is broken?

Why exactly are we trying to get people to suggest toning down the Healer? I thought we were poking fun at how people are trying to nerf the weak classes. The Healer is all kinds of broken. It needs nerfing, but that suggestion doesn't mesh with the irony of this thread.

Sarcasm? :smallconfused:

[Kavurcen]

Good ideas everyone. Ban list for my next campaign:
Healer
Warlock
Monk
Truenamer
Samurai

Wizards and Druids get a free fighter gestalt.

[Doxkid]

By Healers, do you mean the Healer class? The one that can out-heal even the cleric? The ultimate heal bot that everyone admits is broken?

Why exactly are we trying to get people to suggest toning down the Healer? I thought we were poking fun at how people are trying to nerf the weak classes. The Healer is all kinds of broken. It needs nerfing, but that suggestion doesn't mesh with the irony of this thread.

Can't. Stop. Laughing. Oh, sweet Nimrisr my sides...

Healing is all a Healer does. Moderately well, at that.

Cleric healing is bad because
1-Its hard to keep pace with damage
2-Its not as efficient as removing the threat that makes you need healing
3-Action efficiency is one of the most important things in optimization, barely ahead of spell efficiency.

To suggest that the Healer is broken (as in 'too strong') makes no sense because what they're trying to do in the first place kind of sucks. That and, if compared to that same Cleric, they aren't really getting many advantages.

Please, allow me to break this down:
At level 1:
Healers have more spells per day by two (or by one if the cleric has a useful domain) and both know their whole spell list. The Healer, on one hand, knows about ten spells. The cleric knows as many spells as you can find in twenty or thirty different books.

The Healer heals for more by a few points; maybe 6 at this level if you really optimize for it. The cleric can turn/rebuke and use the feats keyed off of this.

Healers DO have 2 more skill points though.
At level 5:
The healer can cleanse Paralysis, Fear or Disease once per day. As can anyone who can use scrolls for level 1-3 spells. And the cleric, if they feel like spending a spell lost on it

All of the spells Healers know, Clerics also know for now. Clerics have a higher BAB and better Armor though.

The healing difference has not changed, except for the Healer possibly getting even more Cha so its Healing Hands gives it another 2 or 3 total healing on each spell.

At level 10:
The Healer has Greater Restoration as a SLA, and a Unicorn companion. Having Greater Restoration as a SLA is amazing and I can honestly say the Healer wins this part; especially if you face threats GR helps with often. The fact that they have it early too makes this spectacular.

At level 15:
The healer is pulling ahead in healing spells, and has Stone to Flesh and Regeneration as SLA. Though Regeneration doesn't have an annoying cost, its nice to get around actually casting the spell. Stone to Flesh is useful to have, on the rare occasion it comes up.

Level 20:
The Healer got Mass HEAL two levels before the cleric and can now True Res a person once a week.

The cleric, as always, is winning in other spells.
-----

So, basically, you feel
-an extra 5+ points of curing per spell
-Greater Restoration for free once a day
-Regeneration as a SLA once a day
-Mass Heal two levels before the cleric
-a free true Resurrection once a week
-A unicorn companion
-Less BAB
-2 more innate skill points
-Skill focus: heal

And a plethora of SLAs at the same level you get the normal spell, which has no cost except an action and a spell expended, is overpowered.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sorry, not quite, read the permanency spell again, it says there are specific spells, as a suggestion. In fact it also states that any spell could Potentially be affected by this and it's up to the DM to decide. Since by the RAW any spell could potentially be affected by it, including its self, it works just fine.

I've probably put more hours into the Permanency spell than you ever will (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226682). It doesn't work like that.

First of all, using Permanency to create additional spells at the discretion of the DM doesn't mean that you can assume that the spell can be Permanencied unless stated otherwise; it means that the spell cannot be Permanencied unless stated otherwise. The DM has to make a specific exception and allow extra applications of Permanency to be researched, which is essentially the DM enabling house rules (which my list is).

Second, using Permanency on Permanency doesn't give you unlimited uses of Permanency. It makes the effect of Permanency... Permanent. Which it already is. So using Permanency on Permanency expends 2,500 xp, and does nothing. This is the same as Permanency making Enlarge Person permanent, instead of giving you unlimited uses of Enlarge Person. It doesn't do anything except change the duration of the spell to "Duration: Permanent", which Permanency already has. This also applies to every other thing you've said that you think Permanency gives you unlimited uses of (as opposed to making the single use you have Permanencied permanent), like Wish.

Third, you can't Permanency a magic item. A magic item is not a spell. Neither is a non-magical item (and your "Permanencied Permanency" trick relies on both). Permanency explicitly says you can "make certain other spells permanent".

Really, nothing you've said is RAW, or RAI, or rules-legal to anybody that isn't smoking several substances that specifically create lenient DMs (meaning you're probably brewing more than house rules to get this ball rolling). The closest thing you could ever actually get to this would be to use the custom magic item creation rules to create a use-activated Ring of Permanency, which (at a base CL of 9, as a 5th-level spell) would be an item worth 5 (spell level) x 9 (caster level) x 2,000 (base item cost for a use-activated item) = 90,000 gp (45,000 gp to create), which requires 3600 xp to create the base item, but is also a continuous item of Permanency, which has an xp cost, and is treated as an item having 100 charges. With a CL of 9, you can only Permanency 1st-level spells, so you're spending 500 xp per charge. At 100 charges, that's 50,000 xp for 100 castings of Permanency for a level 1 item. Using the "extra cost" table in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm) in "Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values" (from which we also derived the base cost of this item), we know that the cost of items with an xp cost is 5gp for every 1xp expended in the casting, so that's an extra 250,000 gp. Further, you multiply the xp cost by the level of the spell you would like to cast Permanency on (since the xp cost of the spell is based on the level of the spell you're casting it on), in addition to modifying the base price due to the modifications to caster level. You multiply this gold cost modifier by 5*spell level you would like to cast Permanency on, to scale.

Here's what this use-activated item of Permanency would cost, based on the spell level that you intend to cast Permanency on:

{table=head]Spell level|Caster level|Base cost of use-activated item|Spell level for Permanency target|Base xp cost of Permanency|Commensurate gp cost|Total gp cost|Total xp cost|Time
5|9|2,000 gp|0/1|500 xp|2,500 gp|295,000 gp|53,600 xp|300 days
5|10|2,000 gp|2|1,000 xp|5,000 gp|550,000 gp|105,000 xp|550 days
5|11|2,000 gp|3|1,500 xp|7,500 gp|805,000 gp|159,400 xp|805 days
5|12|2,000 gp|4|2,000 xp|10,000 gp|1,060,000 gp|204,800 xp|1,060 days
5|13|2,000 gp|5|2,500 xp|12,500 gp|1,315,000 gp|255,200 xp|1,320 days
5|14|2,000 gp|6|3,000 xp|15,000 gp|1,570,000 gp|305,600 xp|1,640 days
5|15|2,000 gp|7|3,500 xp|17,500 gp|1,825,000 gp|356,000 xp|1,825 days
5|16|2,000 gp|8|4,000 xp|20,000 gp|2,080,000 gp|406,400 xp|2,080 days
5|17|2,000 gp|9|4,500 xp|22,500 gp|2,335,000 gp|456,800 xp|2,335 days[/table]

A 20th-level PC could sink more than 2/3 of his wealth by level into a continuous use Ring of Permanency (2nd-level spells), or 1/3 of his wealth by level into a continuous use Ring of Permanency (1st-level spells). In addition to sinking every single gold coin at 20th level into the project, they would need to steal from their party in order to complete a Ring of Permanency (3rd-level spells). They don't have the xp, at level 20, to make a Ring of Permanency (4th-level spells). At 12th level, it'll cost you triple your WBL (and almost as much xp as you have, if not more) just to make the Ring of Permanency (1st-level spells).

You can then use this Ring of Permanency on the spells on the Permanency table, and only the spells on the Permanency table, to cause the duration of existing spells to effectively become "Duration: Permanent", and only to cause the duration of existing spells to effectively become "Duration: Permanent" (it won't give you multiple castings of a spell). These spells will use the caster level of the spell as you make it, and you want to keep that in mind, because if you intend to Permanency Reduce Person at a caster level higher than 1, using item creation rules via Imbue Item to create a spell completion item such as a scroll, it'll cost you extra (multiply the cost by your caster level for the creation of the item).

That is as far as RAW will get you for your "unlimited power Warlock", and no farther. Everything else is a house rule or a pipe dream.

There may be a few minor errors with my calculations, but when my analysis is picked apart, it won't be obliterated so thoroughly as I obliterated yours, be sure of that.

[JetThomasBoat]

So....did anyone start a monk thread for the one guy? I have no clue about any of this optimization stuff, but it's kind of fun reading you guys talking about it.

Also, my two cents on the warlock, from someone used to VERY un-optimized play. I took fell flight as soon as possible. So playing a warlock kind of felt like playing a superhero because I would just fly around blasting all the time. And despite it being one of the longer campaigns from that time, at least three months or so, the DM consistently never remembered to have any ranged weapons on his enemies. :P

[willpell]

3e maintained the 2e style damage caps, and increased character/monster HP considerably, & increasing high level character/creature HP exponentially. Blasting thus has a short shelf life in this game, being at it's peak from levels 5-10.

This plus the "quadratic wizards" issue makes me think that the root of the problem lies here; it was assumed wizards were balanced because their blasting was not that spectacular at the high levels, having probably hardly even looked at what else they'd made the class capable of, because they were still thinking in "let's give the grognards what they want" mode and thus intended the wizards as walking fireball turrets with a bag of tricks. After all, Grease and Glitterdust are just minor situational debuffs, and what kind of idiot wizard would walk around with a scythe to behead all the blinded, unable-to-stand victims of a level 1 spell whose CL of 18 has made it affect an entire town square? Wizards aren't even proficient in scythes, so obviously this would never happen!

[Marlowe]

I don't mean to offend, but could you tone down your aggressive-o-meter? willpell has already admitted to not having a full grasp of all the nuances of the game, but is simply open about his first impressions.

My apologies.


Have to disagree. It is weakest just coming out of the box, but if you were going for a character that relied on one stat for everything,a charisma-based character would be near or at the top of the list, as X stat to Y bonus shows.

Without optimization, though, your statement holds Obviously I don't optimize much. :smallsmile:

[willpell]

You're actually trying to nerf Charisma?:smallconfused:

It's not a nerf; it's an attempt to better simulate flavor. Like some of the changes I proposed to Binders, which would make them vastly weaker, but IMO would make them feel more like the fluff of the class suggests they should be.


My apologies.

No problem. :smallsmile:


Except, RAW, as I've directly quoted from the book, states the GM has as you say "fiat"

The GM always has fiat; that's Rule Zero. Technically this means all of the other rules are superfluous, but it doesn't mean you can just completely ignore them by quoting Rule Zero. They are only overruled if an individual DM specifically says so; otherwise they apply, and that includes Permanency's very short list of allowable options, and the nonexistence of a Permancy ring (the player could certainly try and craft one, but the DM would have to approve it, set the DC, and apply as many circumstance penalties as he felt the situation warranted).


, the list of spells in the book are otherwise for directive if the GM disallows permanency to be applied to other spells.

Big "if", that.


Most GMs however allow it because permanency is very useful.

You have spoken to every GM in the world and 51% of them allow it? Just because you've had, say, 6 dungeon masters all approve the spell and only 4 denied it doesn't mean the entire rest of the planet follows the same demographic.


I tend to substitute scribe scroll for scribe tattoo out of the Psionics Players Handbook. however in all technicality all you need is a permanent mark that is foreign to the body to imbue.

Perhaps you should reread the "magic items on the body" section. You are allowed a certain number of magic items, and not others. Psionic tattoos are for psionics; using them for magic is a houserule (and not one I would approve personally).


It need not be fancy or all that great looking (I just used tattooed dots, which can be done even without the feat specifically).

Completely incorrect. Without a feat you can't do jack to create any magic effect that lasts longer than its stated duration from the moment you cast it forward.

[eggs]

So....did anyone start a monk thread for the one guy? I have no clue about any of this optimization stuff, but it's kind of fun reading you guys talking about it.
My crystal ball of forumnitude tells me this is how it would have gone:

OP: Greater Mighty Wallop + SUS/INA/Monk's Belt + Necklace of Natural Attacks + [List of free/swift movement techniques pulled off Surreal or Person_Man's indices] + one of various ways to crank the attack roll (level dips, law devotion, touch attacks, whatever).
Responses: Unfavorable comparisons to named builds, snipes for other details (but how do you deal with X), quibbling over role of GMW-castings, comments on partially charged wands
Counterresponse: List of items to deal with X, increased aggression in counterquibbles on GMW castings
Countercounterresponses: Outright hostile countecounterquibbles over GMW casting, inept reductio ad absurdums.
Counter^3response: Sentence-snipes that miss the point, misuse of logical language
Counter^4responses: Line-by-line sentence-snipes that no longer seem to be plugging an argument, just demonstrating the other side as wrong.
Counter^5+responses: Contents approach gibberish; readers question the basest inklings of their own minds.
Counter^6+responses: [Comprehensible only to the Old ones.]

[Doxkid]

Xtomjames will not be posting in this thread ever again. I have made sure of that.

Oh man, I laughed pretty hard at the destruction you just rained upon that guy.

[willpell]

You may as well split Intelligence (because there are several kinds of Intelligence), or Dexterity (because having nimble fingers or an agile body are two different things), or Strength (being a bodybuilder doesn't make you hit better and harder with swings) or really any attribute.

I've debated splitting every stat other than Strength and Intelligence, and the latter I wouldn't split only because I've considered removing it from the standard attributes altogether and making it a "super-attribute", with different rules governing it than the others, since its role in determining skill points is a sea-change in terms of its utility to class-building. If you know the New World of Darkness system, my thought was to turn Intelligence into a "powerstat", like vampire Blood Potency or werewolf Primal-Urge. And it is only a thought so don't yell at me or anything; I'm just kicking ideas around is all.


Or ask why Strength and Constitution aren't linked (most endurace training will build some strength a well), or why you can't use stat X for purpose Y.

I ask such questions constantly. :smallwink:


Rules are always a model of reality. That model is vastly simplified for sake of playability, accessibility and simplicity.

I would rather it was less simplified for the sake of accuracy. D&D isn't precisely "accessible" in the first place, so I'd rather push in the opposite direction and make it even more sophisticated than it already is. If I want a simple system I'll play NWOD or something (and frequently do, and sometimes wish it was as complicated as D&D, though just as often I wish D&D were as simple as it).


That means that things are abstract. Hitpoints only simulate wounds to a degree and not perfectly.

There's an exagerration. They don't simulate wounds at all. You can be gutted like a fish from belly to neck and still have 1 HP left and keep fighting as if nothing was wrong.


People don't actually get something like a BAB in real life - being good with a sword doesn't translate to being good with an polearm

Some people are just generally more competent than others; BAB is another stat that seems like the NWOD powerstats, and I could believe it's a reflection of how much the gods like you, or how much of the energy of destiny you were born with or earned. This isn't necessarily un-realistic, just the addition of an extra element that reality doesn't contain, but also doesn't specifically contradict.


(weapon focus aside)

But Weapon Focus shouldn't be aside. It should be exactly as important as Wotco assumed it was when designing the fighter class. The fact that +1 to hit isn't enough for a feat is a problem with the feat system, and it could be fixed.


Knowledge skills don't represent narrow fields of study - it's impossible to know a lot about demons but little about angels (because both are knowledge: planes) for example.

That part does bother me. I wouldn't be above revising D&D to use something more like the Call of Cthulhu skill system (which, by the way, COC has the distinction of being one of the few RPGs I've encountered where experience points do not exist, while D&D is also unusual in that you don't spend experience for new stats, crafting and Wishes and such aside, but just have a pile that grows bigger and bigger, and then automatically upgrades all your stats at once when it reaches a certain threshold).


Really, if you want a system that tries to be a realistic simulation, D&D (or rather D20) is the wrong system for you.

It's an imperfect system for me, as are all others. I cannibalize it for parts while using it in the short-term for games where it's the closest fit, until I get around to doing better.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My crystal ball of forumnitude tells me this is how it would have gone:

OP: Greater Mighty Wallop + SUS/INA/Monk's Belt + Necklace of Natural Attacks + [List of free/swift movement techniques pulled off Surreal or Person_Man's indices] + one of various ways to crank the attack roll (level dips, law devotion, touch attacks, whatever).
Responses: Unfavorable comparisons to named builds, snipes for other details (but how do you deal with X), quibbling over role of GMW-castings, comments on partially charged wands
Counterresponse: List of items to deal with X, increased aggression in counterquibbles on GMW castings
Countercounterresponses: Outright hostile countecounterquibbles over GMW casting, inept reducto ad adsurdums.
Counter^3response: Sentence-snipes that miss the point, misuse of logical language
Counter^4responses: Line-by-line sentence-snipes that no longer seem to be plugging an argument, just demonstrating the other side as wrong.
Counter^5+responses: Contents approach gibberish; readers question the basest inklings of their own minds.
Counter^6+responses: [Comprehensible only to the Old ones.]

My foresight powers tell me much the same.


..............and anyone that's been around for more than a few months has seen that argument hashed, and rehashed so many times that it's borderline criminal. I'm almost certain that seeing that discussion in 4 different itterations constitutes torture, under the geneva convention.

[JetThomasBoat]

My crystal ball of forumnitude tells me this is how it would have gone:

OP: Greater Mighty Wallop + SUS/INA/Monk's Belt + Necklace of Natural Attacks + [List of free/swift movement techniques pulled off Surreal or Person_Man's indices] + one of various ways to crank the attack roll (level dips, law devotion, touch attacks, whatever).
Responses: Unfavorable comparisons to named builds, snipes for other details (but how do you deal with X), quibbling over role of GMW-castings, comments on partially charged wands
Counterresponse: List of items to deal with X, increased aggression in counterquibbles on GMW castings
Countercounterresponses: Outright hostile countecounterquibbles over GMW casting, inept reducto ad adsurdums.
Counter^3response: Sentence-snipes that miss the point, misuse of logical language
Counter^4responses: Line-by-line sentence-snipes that no longer seem to be plugging an argument, just demonstrating the other side as wrong.
Counter^5+responses: Contents approach gibberish; readers question the basest inklings of their own minds.
Counter^6+responses: [Comprehensible only to the Old ones.]

Well, while all of that is true, I wouldn't have posted anything in the thread because I know precisely jack-s*** about how to play a monk in the games I'm used to, let alone in a heavy optimization game. So I just kind of watch, listen, think "What kind of name for a feat is that?/What the hell does that ACF (an acronym I only learned what meant last night, as I'm still very new to the forum) do?" and maybe look up one or two of these things.

But I suppose I shouldn't enjoy these conversations so much. I just see how they escalate and it makes me often afraid to even ask questions.

But I digress from the point of this thread. Which is...something about warlocks...

Also, my warlock was awesome because I named him Garth Vader :smallbiggrin:

[lsfreak]

My foresight powers tell me much the same.

Eggs is being more generous than I would be. My assumption is generally that someone who argues for monks being powerful, fighters being balanced, etc. not knowing about this kind of optimization at all. Best-case would be a little math using primarily Core sources plus lots of anecdote and how "I never have problems." What starts out with a few people trying to educate them on optimization either ends up a) terrifying the poor, newbie OP off the boards b) the OP defending hilarious claims because they took offense (for good reason) when they were indirectly insulted or c) tangential claims that require increasingly absurd levels of optimization and omniscience for the player and, assumedly, several rounds of Psychic Reformation on the wizard because each new scenario is approached with a mutually-incompatible feat setup.

[Xtomjames]

I couldn't agree more with you. I hate when people use the Fighter class as a standard by which to compare other melee classes (or any classes at all). A class that lacks any class features is not an appropriate baseline to compare other classes to. I think the Barbarian would be a good class to compare other melee classes to, and I think the Ranger would also have been a good class to compare other classes to when considering and appropriating power and versatility.




1. Breaking the rules set up in the books to make a class more powerful does not make it legitimately more powerful. It's not even worth mentioning on these boards. A person could make the argument that their DM lets the Fighter have the spellcasting progression of wizards, clerics, and druids, therefore Fighters are the best class. However, that would only apply to their games. (Not to mention the fact that they would still be wrong. See #4)

2. Imbue Item allows you to use the item creation feats according to the rules defined under the item creation feat's information. The singular ability that Imbue Item gives to the Warlock is the ability to create an item without the need for casting the spell.

Imbue Item is a great ability since it is supernatural and allows warlocks to create magical items as if they were arcane spellcasters. It also allows them to not lose the resources they pay out if they fail in their check and it allows them to seemingly provide spells that have expensive gp and exp costs to items without paying the cost of casting the spell. Another benefit is that it allows the character to create items that use spells of a higher level than that character would have access to if they were a normal vancian caster.

3. Those are all excellent benefits and abilities. However, it does not turn Imbue Item into an ability that trumps all others and turns Warlocks into unstoppable gods. Creating any magical item still requires exp and gp costs, along with the appropriate item creation feat. You can now obtain items at half their market price, but only that. You can't go around willy nilly creating items for free. (Besides, I think there are some Inevitables that would kill you for that.)

4. Pun-Pun legitimately, within the rules, and without any exceptions given or put forward by a DM is still infinitely more powerful than any sort of Warlock you could create even using DM fiat on your Imbue Item ability. The level 1 Kobold Paladin beats out all other characters that are possible or impossible to legitimately create within the game so there isn't much point in going around declaring Warlocks to be the greatest class ever.

1) I never said it was free (hence my point about using the wish spell first to constantly have the materials needed to make the other materials). Two yes you do need the item creation feat, hence Scribe Tattoo, though scribe scroll also works just fine and there are a handful of other item creation feats that exist that could also be applied (multiclassing with or gestalting with Artificer is good plan for this). 3) The RAW are explicit about the GM having the ability to allow other spells to be made permanent, in character optimization this ability assumes that the character is working under the leeway granted by a GM. This isn't breaking the rules. 4) The imbue ability for permanent active spell items works just as the imbue ability states, and you can apply this to tattoos on the body. Because you can do this using any number of feats (all tattooing is drawing on the body with a permanent marking) there is no reason why one couldn't do what I've said.

Thus your points are moot.

[Doxkid]

Well, while all of that is true, I wouldn't have posted anything in the thread because I know precisely jack-s*** about how to play a monk in the games I'm used to, let alone in a heavy optimization game. So I just kind of watch, listen, think "What kind of name for a feat is that?/What the hell does that ACF (an acronym I only learned what meant last night, as I'm still very new to the forum) do?" and maybe look up one or two of these things.

But I suppose I shouldn't enjoy these conversations so much. I just see how they escalate and it makes me often afraid to even ask questions.

But I digress from the point of this thread. Which is...something about warlocks...

Also, my warlock was awesome because I named him Garth Vader :smallbiggrin:

Yup. That's how everyone starts. Stages are something like this (For me, it's been working out like this) :

1-Confusion and research
2-Moderate knowledge base
3-Good knowledge base
4-Overconfidence in knowledge
5-being proven wrong in a big way
6-Confusion and research
7-Information Specialization
8-Mastery of X
9-Confusion and research
10-Near mastery of general knowledge
11-Hating your old posts.
12-Moderate confidence
13-Proven wrong even harder.
14-Research, but no confusion.
15-Confusion,but no research
16-???????
17-Meta-Confusion, during theoretical research-research
...

I hear talk of people actually getting to have fun at around step 27, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth.

[Marlowe]

[raises hand]

Sir, wouldn't it be easier just to skip straight to "Go completely insane in the most awesome way you can?"

[Douglas]

1) I never said it was free (hence my point about using the wish spell first to constantly have the materials needed to make the other materials). Two yes you do need the item creation feat, hence Scribe Tattoo, though scribe scroll also works just fine and there are a handful of other item creation feats that exist that could also be applied (multiclassing with or gestalting with Artificer is good plan for this). 3) The RAW are explicit about the GM having the ability to allow other spells to be made permanent, in character optimization this ability assumes that the character is working under the leeway granted by a GM. This isn't breaking the rules. 4) The imbue ability for permanent active spell items works just as the imbue ability states, and you can apply this to tattoos on the body. Because you can do this using any number of feats (all tattooing is drawing on the body with a permanent marking) there is no reason why one couldn't do what I've said.

Thus your points are moot.
Imbue Item does not in any way change what magic items are possible. Unless you can reference rules saying that the magic items you're making could be done by other characters without Imbue Item, your entire premise falls apart.

[Augmental]

3) The RAW are explicit about the GM having the ability to allow other spells to be made permanent, in character optimization this ability assumes that the character is working under the leeway granted by a GM. This isn't breaking the rules.

Theoretical Optimization generally assumes that there's no GM.

[JetThomasBoat]

Yup. That's how everyone starts. Stages are something like this (For me, it's been working out like this) :

1-Confusion and research
2-Moderate knowledge base
3-Good knowledge base
4-Overconfidence in knowledge
5-being proven wrong in a big way
6-Confusion and research
7-Information Specialization
8-Mastery of X
9-Confusion and research
10-Near mastery of general knowledge
11-Hating your old posts.
12-Moderate confidence
13-Proven wrong even harder.
14-Research, but no confusion.
15-Confusion,but no research
16-???????
17-Meta-Confusion, during theoretical research-research
...

I hear talk of people actually getting to have fun at around step 27, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth.

Well, I think instead, I'll try to remain where I'm at and mostly use the forums for looking at neat ideas people come up with in homebrew (once I sift through all the ones that involve ToB), trying to play some non-optimized PbP, avoid reading too much about optimized builds, and put in a disclaimer when I ask for build advice that I simply don't know what feats to give my half-orc druid, for example, and am not looking for people to tell me how to make the rootin'est, tootin'est damn druid ever, nor am I looking for anyone to tell me "Oh, why in the wide world of sports would you ever want to make a half-orc as a druid? Use a human with this alternate class feature and take these flaws, and blah blah blah..."

EDITED: The above post is all in good fun, though. I think it's cool that you guys are into the optimization and stuff, but it's something I simply can't get my head around. So instead, I'll use a few neat little tricks, like imbuing a bag of pebbles with darkness and then throwing them into the room and using that one warlock invocation to be the only one without the miss chance in the room, as someone mentioned earlier :P

[Kelb_Panthera]

I will say this much for warlocks, and any other plainly sub-optimal class.

At the expected level of play the designers put forth, which appears to me to be characters starting with the elite array, every feat being observed in a vacuum unless it had prereqs to account for, and spells getting the same treatment; they don't fall that far behind.

If the wizard's only got 16 int at level 4 then a 4th level monk will make his save better than half the time. If the fighter goes toe-to-toe with an equal cr bruiser, it's anybody's guess who'll win, when power attack is his only damage booster.

Basically, if Ubercharger is a funny german-sounding word, batman is just a DC comics character, and the mailman is just a guy who delivers parcels, then the class' balance isn't completely borked. Just slightly.

[SowZ]

1) I never said it was free (hence my point about using the wish spell first to constantly have the materials needed to make the other materials). Two yes you do need the item creation feat, hence Scribe Tattoo, though scribe scroll also works just fine and there are a handful of other item creation feats that exist that could also be applied (multiclassing with or gestalting with Artificer is good plan for this). 3) The RAW are explicit about the GM having the ability to allow other spells to be made permanent, in character optimization this ability assumes that the character is working under the leeway granted by a GM. This isn't breaking the rules. 4) The imbue ability for permanent active spell items works just as the imbue ability states, and you can apply this to tattoos on the body. Because you can do this using any number of feats (all tattooing is drawing on the body with a permanent marking) there is no reason why one couldn't do what I've said.

Thus your points are moot.

Well, even if the DM allows you to make any item you want as per the item creation guidelines, the character you listed having all those extrodinary GP will still cost you millions. So if you have the money and many levels worth of XP and about three years to dedicate to creating said items, go crazy. But I think you have read them incorrectly. This isn't a big deal, I doubt there is a person here who hasn't misinterpreted a rule before. But anyway, the 'gain any arbitrary effect for free' is not a feature of the warlock so there really isn't anything that makes it very special.

[Lonely Tylenol]

After all, Grease and Glitterdust are just minor situational debuffs, and what kind of idiot wizard would walk around with a scythe to behead all the blinded, unable-to-stand victims of a level 1 spell whose CL of 18 has made it affect an entire town square? Wizards aren't even proficient in scythes, so obviously this would never happen!

And here I thought you couldn't do sarcasm. :smallwink:


Oh man, I laughed pretty hard at the destruction you just rained upon that guy.

This makes me wish I had actually said the quoted. :smallbiggrin:


Also, my warlock was awesome because I named him Garth Vader :smallbiggrin:

PARTY ON
EXCELLENT
WOOWOOWOOWOOWOOOOOOOO


1) I never said it was free (hence my point about using the wish spell first to constantly have the materials needed to make the other materials).

Are you counting the XP cost for casting 50 (charged) to 100 (use-activated) Permanencies at-level, per item created? And the commensurate gp cost (which exceeds the limitations of Wish by a factor of ten)?


Two

Gah!


yes you do need the item creation feat, hence Scribe Tattoo, though scribe scroll also works just fine and there are a handful of other item creation feats that exist that could also be applied (multiclassing with or gestalting with Artificer is good plan for this).


Scribe Tattoo [Item Creation]
You can create psionic tattoos, which store powers within their designs.

Prerequisite
Manifester level 3rd.

Benefit
You can create a psionic tattoo of any power of 3rd level or lower that you know and that targets one or more creatures. Scribing a psionic tattoo takes one day. When you create a psionic tattoo, you set the manifester level. The manifester level must be sufficient to manifest the power in question and no higher than your own level. The base price of a psionic tattoo is its power level × its manifester level × 50 gp. To scribe a tattoo, you must spend 1/25 of this base price in XP and use up raw materials (special inks, masterwork needles, and so on) costing one-half of this base price.

When you create a psionic tattoo, you make any choices that you would normally make when manifesting the power.

When its wearer physically activates the tattoo, the wearer is the target of the power.

Any psionic tattoo that stores a power with an XP cost also carries a commensurate cost. In addition to the costs derived from the base price, you must pay the XP when creating the tattoo.

How are you using Scribe Scroll to create spells, or any ability from any spellcasting system above 3rd level (much less arcane)? How are you using Permanency on powers (which, RAW, it doesn't affect)?


3) The RAW are explicit about the GM having the ability to allow other spells to be made permanent, in character optimization this ability assumes that the character is working under the leeway granted by a GM. This isn't breaking the rules.

TO assumes no GM (the character exists in a vacuum, and purely by what is given by RAW by default, without DM intervention, favorable or unfavorable). PO assumes a DM that makes no interventions specifically to increase a character's power beyond the limits of RAW, and further assumes the DM intervenes against the player to close off vague or inconsistent wording, loopholes, self-interacting combinations, and so on. Neither assumes you get more than what Permanency allows in the table, and one of the two explicitly denies it. This is just factually untrue.


4) The imbue ability for permanent active spell items works just as the imbue ability states, and you can apply this to tattoos on the body. Because you can do this using any number of feats (all tattooing is drawing on the body with a permanent marking) there is no reason why one couldn't do what I've said.

You can't use it on tattoos, period, because tattoos are Psionic.

Further, the imbue ability doesn't state that it works like this, at all. It lets you create a magic item using the Creating Magic Items rules substituting Imbue Item for Permanency, with the results detailed in my previous posts, and no more.

I can't wait to see what you have to respond to my post with! :smallsmile:


[raises hand]

Sir, wouldn't it be easier just to skip straight to "Go completely insane in the most awesome way you can?"

And thus, Simon the Warblade was born. :smallamused:

Thanks, Crasical.

[Dsurion]

Wow, this is a ton of responses to a thread where I barely had an OP at all (and the guy who I created it for still hasn't shown up).Gotta sleep some time :smallwink:


I was mostly talking to the guy who proposed the thread, along with a general "we'll open the floor for comments from the audience". I wasn't sure why the topic required any further discussion but am never averse to the idea of starting up a new roundtable to brainstorm at.Well, I've never seen anyone dislike Warlocks for reasons other than being weak/evil. You said earlier that blasting a few times a day to unlimited is "over the mark," despite later saying in this thread


Indeed, that is a persistent thorn in my side. One of the reasons I was blown away when I discovered Reserve Feats - suddenly it all made sense, the reason you can only cast your Level 1 spell once a day is because you're not supposed to cast it, any more than Conan is supposed to throw his sword. Casting the spell leaves you useless; a Reserve Feat is you using your magical energy in a sustainable way. Which means I should probably be over my worry of Warlocks by now, as they are basically just casters with a built-in RF and no actual spell that powers it, but I haven't yet fully satisfied myself of this.I just had a little trouble understanding your frame of mind is all. I've played Warlocks and seen them played in environments where "optimization" as this forum sees it is a very foreign concept. They were far from being too much. Their damage aspect was rarely ever used because it was so low so, the blasting aspect wasn't something anyone concerned themselves with.


The invocation list is pretty meh, at least out of CompArc. More annoying than that it's not very strong is the fact that it very firmly staples you to the "RUUUUAGH I HOLD THE POWERS OF DARKNESS ITSELF MWHAHAHAH" (and or tortured emo inversion thereof) flavor, even though they say right in the text that "faerie" or "nature" warlocks are an option. You just plain have fewer options if you don't want to be a cackling evil caricature or an angsty antihero than if you do, and that irritates me.That's a legitimate gripe, and I agree with you. That's why I brought up the homebrew Druid in the other thread.


Still, in general, I think the "guy with a sword" is a better starting point for any and all metrics than anything magical; the whole part of being a Master of the Arcane is to break all the rules of reality, so it's perfectly fitting to calibrate everything based on the damage output of Fighters and Rogues and even Commoners.I agree here, too.

[JetThomasBoat]

1) I never said it was free (hence my point about using the wish spell first to constantly have the materials needed to make the other materials). Two yes you do need the item creation feat, hence Scribe Tattoo, though scribe scroll also works just fine and there are a handful of other item creation feats that exist that could also be applied (multiclassing with or gestalting with Artificer is good plan for this). 3) The RAW are explicit about the GM having the ability to allow other spells to be made permanent, in character optimization this ability assumes that the character is working under the leeway granted by a GM. This isn't breaking the rules. 4) The imbue ability for permanent active spell items works just as the imbue ability states, and you can apply this to tattoos on the body. Because you can do this using any number of feats (all tattooing is drawing on the body with a permanent marking) there is no reason why one couldn't do what I've said.

Thus your points are moot.

Something I noticed was the mention of using Scribe Tattoo, a feat Warlocks can't take because they don't meet the prerequisite for it, that being Manifester level 3rd. So while a Warlock counts as a spellcaster for the purposes of making magic items, he doesn't count as a manifester for the purposes of making psionic items. The whole changing Scribe Tattoo to a magic thing rather than a psionic thing would be house rule, unless there's some psionic Warlock variant. Also, it says under the parts about creating the tattoo that you are both the manifester and the target, and the example explains that you can't use powers like energy ball, which is an attack power, because you would be targeting yourself. So...I'm not sure, I got a little confused in the original post because there were some typing errors and a severe lack of referencing. I think you were saying that somehow you could make the tattoos have the effect of an eldritch blast in them? Which this says you can't, because even IF Scribe Tattoo worked for arcane magic instead of psionics and even IF it worked for spells (not powers) above third level and even IF Eldritch Blast was a spell that could be imbued into a magic item and even IF you could apply not ONE, not TWO, not THREE, but FOUR Eldritch Shape invocations (Eldritch Chain, Eldritch Spear, Edlritch Cone, and Eldritch Doom) to a single Eldritch Blast (which I believe you said you can because...something about the tattoos not being magic tattoos but magic items and going off the assumption that you can imbue magic items with Eldritch Blast, which it doesn't say anywhere that you can, as there are no magic items that just shoot Eldritch Blast that I'm aware of and it's not covered in the rules for making magic items, since they were written before the Warlock was created, not to mention some of your theory just isn't explained, like there being no limit on the number of chains, any reason whatsoever for the shape ones to effect each other in such a way, like the chain keeping going, Eldritch Spear making the dome Cone (which for those keeping score at home makes no sense) 250 ft. across in what I can only assume is some sort of fourth dimensional short bus of a shape), even if all that stuff were RAW, Scribe Tattoo only works for effects that target you.

So by having a tattoo of your ridiculous pick and choose Eldritch Blast, you'd be literally shooting yourself in the foot.

With an eldritch blast that can shake you and sicken you and blind you and deals fire damage and can set you on fire and cold damage that gives you a negative to Dex and it can confuse you and nauseate you and knock you back and does lingering acid damage and inflict negative levels. It will end up creating a cone Dome 250 feet wide or tall or thick or something that will suck you into the fourth dimension.

Twice, if there's anyone around to chain it off of.

[Xtomjames]

Something I noticed was the mention of using Scribe Tattoo, a feat Warlocks can't take because they don't meet the prerequisite for it, that being Manifester level 3rd. So while a Warlock counts as a spellcaster for the purposes of making magic items, he doesn't count as a manifester for the purposes of making psionic items. The whole changing Scribe Tattoo to a magic thing rather than a psionic thing would be house rule, unless there's some psionic Warlock variant. Also, it says under the parts about creating the tattoo that you are both the manifester and the target, and the example explains that you can't use powers like energy ball, which is an attack power, because you would be targeting yourself. So...I'm not sure, I got a little confused in the original post because there were some typing errors and a severe lack of referencing. I think you were saying that somehow you could make the tattoos have the effect of an eldritch blast in them? Which this says you can't, because even IF Scribe Tattoo worked for arcane magic instead of psionics and even IF it worked for spells (not powers) above third level and even IF Eldritch Blast was a spell that could be imbued into a magic item and even IF you could apply not ONE, not TWO, not THREE, but FOUR Eldritch Shape invocations (Eldritch Chain, Eldritch Spear, Edlritch Cone, and Eldritch Doom) to a single Eldritch Blast (which I believe you said you can because...something about the tattoos not being magic tattoos but magic items and going off the assumption that you can imbue magic items with Eldritch Blast, which it doesn't say anywhere that you can, as there are no magic items that just shoot Eldritch Blast that I'm aware of and it's not covered in the rules for making magic items, since they were written before the Warlock was created, not to mention some of your theory just isn't explained, like there being no limit on the number of chains, any reason whatsoever for the shape ones to effect each other in such a way, like the chain keeping going, Eldritch Spear making the dome Cone (which for those keeping score at home makes no sense) 250 ft. across in what I can only assume is some sort of fourth dimensional short bus of a shape), even if all that stuff were RAW, Scribe Tattoo only works for effects that target you.

So by having a tattoo of your ridiculous pick and choose Eldritch Blast, you'd be literally shooting yourself in the foot.

With an eldritch blast that can shake you and sicken you and blind you and deals fire damage and can set you on fire and cold damage that gives you a negative to Dex and it can confuse you and nauseate you and knock you back and does lingering acid damage and inflict negative levels. It will end up creating a cone Dome 250 feet wide or tall or thick or something that will suck you into the fourth dimension.

Twice, if there's anyone around to chain it off of.

Ah but I'm not talking about the Psionic Tattooist, I'm talking about "scribe mundane tattoo" it's actually a crafter feat used for profession. Usually if I do do this it's crossed with Artificer anyways, and Artificer gains all crafting feats as bonus feats (even ones they'd normally not qualify for like Scribe Tattoo). There are many avenues to getting what I'm talking about, I was giving a basic run down of the process at hand and what features specifically a Warlock has that allow you to do these things. I'm not going to sit here and give away every secret to it, what would be the fun in that? (What more there are several variants on the Scribe Tattoo feat, including the Scribe Tattoo feat from Forgotten realms, which has no general prerequisite.)

In any case I'm no longer going to sit here and argue with people. Here are the facts: one; it's possible and doable through various means, two: you can sit here and quibble over semantics of interpretation of certain rules, this is irrelevant and moot. Three; you can accuse me of cheating, again also moot. I've built this type of warlock character for several different campaigns and all of my GMs, many whom are very experienced, accepted the RAW and how I used them. It is a proven method of breaking the Warlock.

[Aegis013]

...I'm not going to sit here and give away every secret to it, what would be the fun in that?...

...two: you can sit here and quibble over semantics of interpretation of certain rules, this is irrelevant and moot. Three; you can accuse me of cheating, again also moot. I've built this type of warlock character for several different campaigns and all of my GMs, many whom are very experienced, accepted the RAW and how I used them. It is a proven method of breaking the Warlock.

Well, it would let us know if it was actually RAW. You're making a claim and saying "Oh yes, there is evidence, believe me. I can, or will, not show it to you, but believe me it is there."

Secondly, all RAW interpretation is is quibbling over semantics. Simply because an experienced DM or even every experienced DM, or even every DM ever allows something does not make it RAW. It does not make it the Rules as Written.

[Sponson]

I'm just sitting here watching you guys destroy this dude and loving every moment of it.

Xtomjames, if you believe that you are allowed to permanency any spell because the DM will allow you, then what's stopping you from being a level 1 wizard with a million gold because the DM will allow you? Also you seemed to have missed the fact that Rules as Written is different than Not breaking the Rules.

Lets break this down shall we?

1. The rules that are written in the very book say a DM may grant you those rights to permanency any spell. You are not wrong in that.

2. However when making something that is strictly Rules as Written, you can only ever use what is written in the book, of which those spells you are referring to are not allowed by the book, but by the DM.

3. The DM is allowed to grant you those rights, yes, but no where does it say the DM actually exists. Also nowhere does it say the DM did give you those rights. And if he did give you those rights, whats to stop him from giving you 40,000 levels, and does that still make warlocks Over Powered? Or just the DM?

4. The game is a by permission style game (none of the "but it doesn't say I can't bullocks). You were never given permission to permanency any spell by the book (Rules as WRITTEN). You can only ever get permission from the DM (whose word is NOT written), it is safe to assume that you cannot perform that which you wanted.

5. If the DM says you can, then great! You have not broken any rules regarding the permanency spell. However, what you have done is not rules as written. You have simply abided by custom rules allowed by the DM (which is, once again, not written in the book - and therefore useless/worthless).

If the DM says you can't, then you have broken rules, and that is still worthless. Either way, even if you did convince us that your little combo works, it is either so worthless (since you invoke rule zero, why not give yourself 40,000 levels?), or not Rules as Written (which is worthless because that's not even the same game at that point).
----

Not to sound negative or anything, but you're grasping at terrible terrible straws and it seems as if you are unable to admit that you're wrong. If the book says the DM has the final word, then I (as the DM) say Warlocks are banned. Rules as written it says I have the power to do that. But it doesn't mean that it (the banning of warlocks) is written in the rules. Is this such a difficult concept to grasp?

When the DM has unlimited powers over what he can allow, every rule, image, and text no longer has meaning because it can be over written. And because this is the case, and to give meaning back to the books, we are to assume the DM does not, in fact, exist when dealing with Rules as Written.

[willpell]

Honestly, the Barbarian might be a better baseline for how good mundanes are supposed to be....

Barbarians are not mundane; they have Rage, which is an Extraordinary ability. A spell-less Ranger might be closer, but even there I figure Favored Enemy represents a Batman-esque intensity of training that doesn't qualify as "normal" anymore, the sort of thing where you have to be a little mentally unbalanced to focus that hard. To me Fighter is the ultimate "hero of the people" because he's not a spellcaster, a criminal, a hermit or outcast or guy who lives in the woods or on a mountaintop - he's just a man (or she's just a woman, or it's just a hermaphroditic shapeshifter) who has trained intently to achieve mastery of all known arms, to an extent that nobody can match without making it his job, but anybody *could* make it his job.

(For this reason I've strongly debated giving all fighters Leadership or a variant thereof as a class feature, letting them turn a village of terrified peasants into an army just by offering to be the first one into the breach if they'll back him up. The only reason I haven't flat out done it is that the Marshal is a better fit for this concept; perhaps I ought to just gestalt the two of them and call it a day.)

But I'm getting sidetracked; the reason I quoted this post was to point out that you are probably talking about a Barbarian optomized with every book that offers ACFs and new feats and such for it. Keep in mind that I have not come even close to absorbing all the rules; I know that Pounce and Leap Attack exist, but have NOT incorporated them into my game, and haven't even read the thing that allows barbarians to have Pounce; at the current status of my game's Rules As Used By DM, Pounce is a thing that only Lions and Fleshrakers and such have. That could change anytime, but at the moment it's so; I am still playing Barbarians pretty much straight-PHB unless they're Exalted or have a Totemist dip or something.

I'm guessing that Barbarians got more goodies in supplements than Fighters did, because obviously the Fighter class is perfect as-written and anything that upped its potency would utterly break the game. By the time anyone reconsidered this perspective, the result was Tome of Battle, which IMO misses the point of playing a nonspellcaster by giving you a bunch of "spells" you have to learn before you know what your class does. I still love the Barbarian simply because, without even a Feats list it has to go through, I can literally build one from memory without looking at a book, and it is the only class of which this is true (his weapon selection might suffer a bit but I know the stats of a longsword by heart so that's good enough).


Anyway, isn't this supposed be about the warlock and not monks?

You have my official permission as the OPer for the derail (this thread is already a spin-off of the druid thread I made, and I would rather not spin off again). If people insist I can change the thread title to "Warlocks and Monks and so forth".


Chain Gating Solars, on the other hand. That's more my definition of broken. I've yet to see a monk that can compete in any way shape or form with something like that.

How many DMs will actually allow you to do that, though? RAI is tricky to argue, but it's almost certain that no character, and certainly no character less than epic, was meant to be able to make a literally infinite number of the Supreme Warrior-Angel Legions of the Celestial Realm into his b***es.

[demigodus]

Sarcasm? :smallconfused:

Did my best to make it sound like I seriously believed that. Based on the reactions, I seem to have succeeded. :smallbiggrin:

More seriously though, I have seen clerics in action enough to understand how utterly wrong what I said actually is. :smallsmile:

[JetThomasBoat]

Ah but I'm not talking about the Psionic Tattooist, I'm talking about "scribe mundane tattoo" it's actually a crafter feat used for profession. Usually if I do do this it's crossed with Artificer anyways, and Artificer gains all crafting feats as bonus feats (even ones they'd normally not qualify for like Scribe Tattoo). There are many avenues to getting what I'm talking about, I was giving a basic run down of the process at hand and what features specifically a Warlock has that allow you to do these things. I'm not going to sit here and give away every secret to it, what would be the fun in that? (What more there are several variants on the Scribe Tattoo feat, including the Scribe Tattoo feat from Forgotten realms, which has no general prerequisite.)



Yeah, under the Artificer it also goes on to list all the item creation feats that it gets, specifically named, by advancing in level. When it says all item creation feats, it means all item creation feats from core that are, you know, all listed a friggin' inch down the page. And a feat that doesn't show up on that list is Scribe Tattoo. And when they get bonus feats you get to pick, it's not one of those available ones either :smalltongue:

Now there is a psionic variant of the artificer, but that makes you able to make PSIONIC items that duplicate PSION POWERS. Which still begs the question of where you're getting the idea that you could use even a gestalt psionic artificer warlock to use a psionic class feature to make a psionic expendable item that duplicates spell effects?

For that matter, where do you get this scribe mundane tattoo feat? I would like to read it and see where it says that the mundane tattoo is considered an item that can be enchanted.

Also, on an unrelated note as I simply can't find it, can anyone tell me where the tattoo feat from Forgotten Realms is? I was just wanting to make use of it in a campaign, but all I can find is the Tattoo Focus feat, which has to do with the Red Wizards.

And if you didn't mean the psionic one, why mention it? Saying it wouldn't be fun is to give away all your secrets would be like if I were like "Yeah, I know about this melee weapon that can do 1 to 30 damage." and when asked, I'd be like "Where would be the fun in telling you?" and then they would be all like "Jet, dude, there aren't any d30 weapons in D&D. It's a d20 system." Then my response would be like "There are several versions of weapons that do amounts of damage, like the bow, which is a bow that doesn't do 1d30 damage."

EDITED: Found the FR feat. It's called Tattoo Magic. And it also only works with spells up to third level and you have to be the target. I will keep this in mind as I will totally use this feat sometime.

[Aegis013]

Barbarians are not mundane; they have Rage, which is an Extraordinary ability.

I think most of us on this board categorize Extraordinary abilities into the mundane. I think we categorize anything as non-magical as mundane. So Supernatural abilities are not, Spells and spell-likes, etc are not mundane, but an Ex ability to us, is.

Just so you're aware.

[willpell]

D&D actually did this once. All six stats were split in two sub-stats.

Fascinating! I'll have to try and check that out someday (when I have completely learned everything about 3E and thus have to go break my brain on 2E instead, assuming 5E isn't out by then; it's just a pity that the world's most famous roleplaying game never had a 4th edition). The one I really want to split is Dexterity, since it's always bugged me in nearly every game that manual dexterity and speed of whole-body movement get lumped into the same stat; I can't think of a single game offhand that distinguishes them, not even Champions with its amazing 14 stats. (I'm sure there is one, I just am not familiar with it.)

Also, someone mentioned "monk-warlock gestalt"? To me that would be a flavor fail; the two classes don't really belong together as-written, so you're either wedging warlock into monk flavor or vice versa, and I don't realy see the point to doing so. If I want something close to this concept I'd probably rather just play an Egoist or Kineticist Psion with some powers from the other discipline (generic and/or Expanded Knowledge).


I think most of us on this board categorize Extraordinary abilities into the mundane. I think we categorize anything as non-magical as mundane. So Supernatural abilities are not, Spells and spell-likes, etc are not mundane, but an Ex ability to us, is.

Just so you're aware.

The RAW specifically calls out EX abilities as being highly unusual, though not actually magical. Evasion is the ur-example to me; the situation where a Fireball encompasses the entire area around you, yet you manage to be standing in the one spot where the air currents carried the convection heat around you so you weren't actually singed, feels like the very definition of an almost-but-not-quite paranormal ability that puts you in the Batman / Sherlock Holmes / etc. category of "hyper-heroes"; not quite superhuman, but far more than ordinary.

[Augmental]

it's just a pity that the world's most famous roleplaying game never had a 4th edition).

But... it did have a 4th edition.

[eggs]

The RAW specifically calls out EX abilities as being highly unusual, though not actually magical.
If you want to type out "noncasting nonpsionics-using nonbinding nontruenaming nonshadowcasting nonincarnum-using nonfactotum noninvocation-users" every time you're talking about that particular class of characters, go for it.

But "mundane" is shorter.

[demigodus]

Barbarians are not mundane; they have Rage, which is an Extraordinary ability. A spell-less Ranger might be closer, but even there I figure Favored Enemy represents a Batman-esque intensity of training that doesn't qualify as "normal" anymore, the sort of thing where you have to be a little mentally unbalanced to focus that hard. To me Fighter is the ultimate "hero of the people" because he's not a spellcaster, a criminal, a hermit or outcast or guy who lives in the woods or on a mountaintop - he's just a man (or she's just a woman, or it's just a hermaphroditic shapeshifter) who has trained intently to achieve mastery of all known arms, to an extent that nobody can match without making it his job, but anybody *could* make it his job.

As an adventure, you fight dragons, ghosts, living slimes, statues brought to life, dragons that cast magic, creatures that can blow up anything within 100ft by dancing, giants that are also body builders, beings created out of fire itself (fire elementals), etc.

I expect someone who has only trained as much in combat as would be expected of one who's job it is (like, say town guards) to very quickly end up dead upon facing these monsters. "Very quickly" being as soon as their incredible stroke of luck and sheer brilliance of tactics run out. An expectation, which, the fighter class actually matches really well strangely enough.

An adventurer though is supposed to be someone who beats all these challenges through wit and skills, rather then miracles. For that, the fighter makes a poor baseline. If the fighter is the baseline for an adventurer, even monsters need heavy nerfing, not just other classes.


But I'm getting sidetracked; the reason I quoted this post was to point out that you are probably talking about a Barbarian optomized with every book that offers ACFs and new feats and such for it.

No, I'm talking about a Barbarian straight off the SRD is what should be used as baseline for melees. In a heavy optimized game, where everyone is expected to go splat book jumping, yes I expect the Barbarian to be splat-book jumped for all the best ACFs, and feats. In a low-op game, a Barbarian with maybe at most 1 ACF, and no more feat optimization as anyone else is what should be used as the standard.

A class isn't very good for using as a baseline for what power classes should be at, if it can only be used as a baseline at a very specific optimization level. (Granted, barbarians are a horrible baseline in very high op when initiatives are so high, as well as things like contingencies/celerity, that the barbarian is not expected to get a turn. But most games do not approach that level I believe...)


Keep in mind that I have not come even close to absorbing all the rules; I know that Pounce and Leap Attack exist, but have NOT incorporated them into my game, and haven't even read the thing that allows barbarians to have Pounce; at the current status of my game's Rules As Used By DM, Pounce is a thing that only Lions and Fleshrakers and such have.

Didn't you say your game is still only at around lvl 5? Pounce doesn't do anything for the Barbarian until lvl 6 anyways. As for Leap Attack, you are apparently playing a low-op game. In that game, I'm not sure how appropriate Leap Attack would be actually (although it isn't too bad without Shock Trooper. If you ever see a player get Shock Trooper as a feat, that should raise some alarms for your game).

I'm guessing that Barbarians got more goodies in supplements than Fighters did, because obviously the Fighter class is perfect as-written and anything that upped its potency would utterly break the game.


By the time anyone reconsidered this perspective, the result was Tome of Battle, which IMO misses the point of playing a nonspellcaster by giving you a bunch of "spells" you have to learn before you know what your class does.

To me that isn't the point of playing a non-spellcaster. I don't play nonspellcasters to not have a variety of options, I play them when I don't feel like having to rewrite reality to take out a housecat, and then rewrite reality really hard when I feel like making water beat up a dragon.


I still love the Barbarian simply because, without even a Feats list it has to go through, I can literally build one from memory without looking at a book, and it is the only class of which this is true (his weapon selection might suffer a bit but I know the stats of a longsword by heart so that's good enough).

Kinda why the Barbarian is a good baseline for melee classes. You don't need to pick good feats for it to be effective. It doesn't use magic, all it does is smash things, but it does it well without having to do anything complicated or not too obvious.

By the way, Greatswords are generally considered better for Barbarians. Also, "I wield a massive chunk of metal shaped vaguely like a sword" fits their image better in my opinion then "I use an average sized sword".

[Kelb_Panthera]

But... it did have a 4th edition.

Hey, how about, "let's not go there?" Willpell didn't like 4th edition. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't, but let's not get into that discussion. Fifth ed is almost upon us, I'd really rather the 3.X v 4E war would just die already.


Willpell, the word for "almost-but-not-quite-paranormal" is preternatural. The more you know, right? :smallbiggrin:

[Dusk Eclipse]

Fascinating! I'll have to try and check that out someday (when I have completely learned everything about 3E and thus have to go break my brain on 2E instead, assuming 5E isn't out by then; it's just a pity that the world's most famous roleplaying game never had a 4th edition). The one I really want to split is Dexterity, since it's always bugged me in nearly every game that manual dexterity and speed of whole-body movement get lumped into the same stat; I can't think of a single game offhand that distinguishes them, not even Champions with its amazing 14 stats. (I'm sure there is one, I just am not familiar with it.)

Also, someone mentioned "monk-warlock gestalt"? To me that would be a flavor fail; the two classes don't really belong together as-written, so you're either wedging warlock into monk flavor or vice versa, and I don't realy see the point to doing so. If I want something close to this concept I'd probably rather just play an Egoist or Kineticist Psion with some powers from the other discipline (generic and/or Expanded Knowledge).



The RAW specifically calls out EX abilities as being highly unusual, though not actually magical. Evasion is the ur-example to me; the situation where a Fireball encompasses the entire area around you, yet you manage to be standing in the one spot where the air currents carried the convection heat around you so you weren't actually singed, feels like the very definition of an almost-but-not-quite paranormal ability that puts you in the Batman / Sherlock Holmes / etc. category of "hyper-heroes"; not quite superhuman, but far more than ordinary.

Anima Beyond Fantasy has a Dexterity and Agility Stat, the former is used for attack rolls and certain skills (like sleight of hand IIRC) and the latter is used for dodging attacks (you can also opt for blocking them using Dexterity; but is safer to avoid attacks, as some abilities just need to touch you to be effective) and skills like acrobatics. Both of them are used to calculate your base speed and actions per turn though.

[Augmental]

Hey, how about, "let's not go there?" Willpell didn't like 4th edition. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't, but let's not get into that discussion. Fifth ed is almost upon us, I'd really rather the 3.X v 4E war would just die already.

I'm just pointing out that there was a fourth edition. I don't care whether he likes it or dislikes it, but he could at least acknowledge its existence.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm just pointing out that there was a fourth edition. I don't care whether he likes it or dislikes it, but he could at least acknowledge its existence.

Dude, I've met people that won't acknowledge the idea of gravity. Just let it go. Whether Willpell, or anyone else, acknowledges its existence will not affect your enjoyment of it.

[Kavurcen]

EDIT: Also, I don't think we're going to spark a massive flamewar by stating that D&D 4th Edition exists. And are you trying to compare the OP to someone who refutes gravity? :smallconfused:


I hear talk of people actually getting to have fun at around step 27, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth.
I also hear step 20's a felony. Something about not being able to do that to ferrets...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

De Train! She has gone off de-rail!

Hokay boys, let's get 'er back on track...

Ahem. There's pretty much three main 'Practical Optimization' builds for Warlocks, that I am aware of. Practical Optimization means "As a GM, I wouldn't either cringe, disallow, or throw any objects of significant weight at the player bringing this character to the game'".

1) The (almost) Damage Warlock.

Warlock8/Mindbender1/HFW3/Legacy Champion8

Basically, Legacy Champion is used to advance HFW. So you've got +18d6 damage on every eldritch blast. Most of your Invocations will likely be blast shape or blast essence, plus a couple of handy 'get out of trouble' cards. You do have 18/20 invocations progression, so at least you do get Dark Foresight. Mindbender dip for Mindsight. Some variations on this call for Binder1 for Nab for con damage healing over time. Check with your GM about the validity of Strongheart Vest before assuming it works.

2) The Swiss Army Warlock

Warlock6/Mindbender1/Chameleon2/Warlock11

He's about as versatile as a warlock gets. The shifting feat can be used for Extra Invocation when you are adventuring, which means one invocation of up to one lower than the maximum you can use which can be changed out each day. Pretty handy, actually. Back at base, of course, it's a magic item creation feat, and he's playing Magic Mart for the party. Mindbender dip for the Mindsight feat so he can also be a functional radar

3) The UrLock

Warlock4/Paladin of Slaughter 2/UrPriest2/Eldritch Disciple 10/Warlock2

Basically, he's an UrPriest with 9th level Cleric spellcasting... that also happens to have some Invocations thrown in somewhere. For those who are bored playing double-nines casters. Paladin of Slaughter can be swapped for any class with a high Fort save. I just picked that one because it also gets his Charisma to his saves. The last two levels can be anything that advances invocations if you care about a Dark invocation. Then again, Dark Foresight is worth two levels of suck.

Most 'optimized' builds that actually call themselves 'warlocks', rather than 'warlock dips' tend to follow one of these three main builds, with minor variations on the theme.

[willpell]

Oh man, I laughed pretty hard at the destruction you just rained upon that guy.

Looks like you laughed a little too soon there. It's a point to this guy's credit IMO that he's still defending his case, even in the face of substantial disagreeal (even from me). I reiterate that I have nothing against him, even if not even I can agree that his version of the game is actually RAW; I still think his campaign sounds like it might be a ton of fun (though obviously I am far from being certain of this).


all tattooing is drawing on the body with a permanent marking

I really want to see you go to a tattoo parlor, preferably one run by a Hell's Angels who prefers the "prison style" of body art, get at least a half-sleeve of ink done, and then come back here and reiterate this statement. I can go along with a lot of claims that seem outrageous at first glance (hidden wisdom can turn up in the strangest of places if you keep an open mind), but I seriously doubt anyone would say something like this after having had ink injected under their epidermis with a vibrating needle that stabs you about 500 times before you have time to feel them all simultaneously.


Yup. That's how everyone starts. Stages are something like this (For me, it's been working out like this) :

1-Confusion and research
2-Moderate knowledge base
3-Good knowledge base
4-Overconfidence in knowledge
5-being proven wrong in a big way
6-Confusion and research
7-Information Specialization
8-Mastery of X
9-Confusion and research
10-Near mastery of general knowledge
11-Hating your old posts.
12-Moderate confidence
13-Proven wrong even harder.
14-Research, but no confusion.
15-Confusion,but no research
16-???????
17-Meta-Confusion, during theoretical research-research
...

I hear talk of people actually getting to have fun at around step 27, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth.

dies laughing and awards Won (1) Internet


Well, I think instead, I'll try to remain where I'm at and mostly use the forums for looking at neat ideas people come up with in homebrew (once I sift through all the ones that involve ToB), trying to play some non-optimized PbP, avoid reading too much about optimized builds, and put in a disclaimer when I ask for build advice that I simply don't know what feats to give my half-orc druid, for example, and am not looking for people to tell me how to make the rootin'est, tootin'est damn druid ever, nor am I looking for anyone to tell me "Oh, why in the wide world of sports would you ever want to make a half-orc as a druid? Use a human with this alternate class feature and take these flaws, and blah blah blah..."

It sounds like this guy is pretty much exactly where I'm at (even to the point of avoiding Tome of Battle, though I dont know if it's for the same reason). I game to have fun, not to "win", especially in a game that has an omnipotent referree (sp?), and more rules than even s/he can possibly know.

PS: Fun fact, one of my favorite NPCs I've ever built is a half-orc Druid. Never let optomization or lack thereof stop you from using a good concept to make an interesting individual. At most, roleplay around that character being less powerful than they wish they were; more likely, convince the GM that you deserve bonus roleplaying XP, favorable magic item drops, NPC buddies and so forth.

[ThiagoMartell]

Theoretical Optimization generally assumes that there's no GM.

TO assumes a lenient DM. The Omniscifier is a good example of such, using custom items for it's TO.

[GenghisDon]

I will say this much for warlocks, and any other plainly sub-optimal class.

At the expected level of play the designers put forth, which appears to me to be characters starting with the elite array, every feat being observed in a vacuum unless it had prereqs to account for, and spells getting the same treatment; they don't fall that far behind.

If the wizard's only got 16 int at level 4 then a 4th level monk will make his save better than half the time. If the fighter goes toe-to-toe with an equal cr bruiser, it's anybody's guess who'll win, when power attack is his only damage booster.

Basically, if Ubercharger is a funny german-sounding word, batman is just a DC comics character, and the mailman is just a guy who delivers parcels, then the class' balance isn't completely borked. Just slightly.

Very True.

Note: this tends to be more fun for the people involved.

[ThiagoMartell]

Very True.

Note: this tends to be more fun for the people involved.

Yeah. Kelb said it all. Overoptimization kills the game completely,specially if it's only one person doing it. One of the most commonly mentioned rules of practical optimization on 339 was that you should only optimize so far. If you boost your damage to X, where X is the HP of any reasonable monster, you'll only force the DM to throw monsters with HP 2X against you.
You get actual return from optimization when one of two things happen:
1) Your DM wants you to (i.e., he just throws stuff out of the MM at you and doesn't mind the fact it's no challenge at all; aka lazy DM) or
2) You optimize just a bit, to a level the DM doesn't need to change/optimize the monsters to provide challenges
Or, well, the basic rule for life: don't be a jerk.

[Socratov]

Ok, gisting operating a lot of members I will voice my love, concerns and opinions about the warlock. Lease baar with me.

My love for the warlock:

The warlock is a very fun and easy class to play. It has a fantastisch fluff (up there with the bard ), great easy to grasp mechanics and laat but niet least a multitude of roles available. You get unique abilities which invite a unique style of play.

My concerns with the warlock:

The warlock is not very powerful. He has nice stuff, but it comes too late. Also his dmg is lacking.

My opinion:

A lot of people think the warlock is more then it is. Ether by the absence of resource system,or by crafting. Sure, in TO the warlock can really shine, but so can the monk or fighter. What is true, is the fact that a warlock is easy to use in optimisation (esther aa
S chassis or as dip). If you really want to see what the warlock is and isn't, stopcomparing it to the wizard or sorc and and see what the warlock actually does compared to the mundane classes. Then you will see that the warlock can shine. Next to a real magicuser like wizard, sorc, druid no one can shine.

[willpell]

And here I thought you couldn't do sarcasm. :smallwink:

I am very, very bad at it, and usually do everyone including myself the favor of not trying. You'll also notice I had it clearly labeled as such, whereas a friend of mine who professes to enjoy sarcasm opined that the point of sarcasm is largely for it to go unobserved by those whose oblivious it is intended to make fun of. As thus, labeled sarcasm arguably isn't even sarcasm anymore, but whatever.


Well, I've never seen anyone dislike Warlocks for reasons other than being weak/evil. You said earlier that blasting a few times a day to unlimited is "over the mark," despite later saying in this thread

Yes, it did occur to me as I was posting what you quoted, that a Sorc with a Reserve Feat is not dissimilar to a Warlock. I was more evaluating the Warlock as compared to a non-RF Sorc who goes blasting; the Warlock does make him look kind of silly, and in a game where the only allowed books were core and Complete Arcane (RFs are in Complete Mage), the Sorc would have a bit of an inferiority complex in that case, if he refused to give up on being exclusively a blaster.

This brings up a point that I think a lot of TO types overlook: the reason Wizards balanced all the rules on the assumption that "feats and spells exist in a vacuum" is largely that they had to assume that. Not everyone owns or uses every book. If they published Complete Arcane containing the Warlock, and later they published, say, "Complete Demonologist" containing a PRC with a "caster level" preq, meant for Sorcs, which breaks the Warlock in half, and they just didn't happen to notice...well, that PRC is still perfectly valid in games where Complete Arcane is banned or unavailable. The books were rolled out over many years, and between practicalities and personal preferences, you can't predict what combination of them will be present at any given table. Wizards couldn't assume that everyone would own all the books (and they might have wanted to reward those who did buy everything with a little more power than their playtesters deemed "fair"). So they (at best) tried to balance a book with itself and Core, since for some owners of the book that would be all they'd be using. It would have been completely beyond their means or incentives to playtest corner cases that only a small-to-medium percentage of their players would ever encounter.


the example explains that you can't use powers like energy ball, which is an attack power, because you would be targeting yourself.

Note however that there are "crawling tattoos" which can be attack-based; they're classed as Universal Items for some reason, and I don't know if they work the same way as regular psionic tattoos, but it's not an incredibly far logical leap.



4. The game is a by permission style game (none of the "but it doesn't say I can't bullocks).

This is perhaps my biggest problem with D&D. It doesn't matter whether the book says "no"; it matters whether the GM says "no". Having the rules dictate "it's always no unless we say yes" suggests that the player can use the book to say "yes" when the GM says "no", and that's not what being a GM is about. You're doing the work of creating the world, keeping its secrets, and revealing them when your players will enjoy the discovery; you should always have the veto power, whether because the proposed idea would ruin a surprise you're sure the players would enjoy, or just because it makes your already-very-labor-intensive job more difficult.


When the DM has unlimited powers over what he can allow, every rule, image, and text no longer has meaning because it can be over written.

This is untrue. Every rule, image and text has meaning until it actually is overwritten. The possibility that it might be changed later doesn't mean it isn't worth anything right now. The rules exist to offer a default selection of options, from which the DM may expand as he sees fit. That is, in fact, exactly what I came to D&D for, having the mostly-WOD background that I do. WOD doesn't spell out much in the way of default options, not in the kind of excrutiating detail Wotco is good at providing. The D&D rules build an entire world; I'll doubtless do a bunch of remodeling of it, but I'm glad to have the framework in place and not have to build the entire thing from scratch, to the extent that WOD's rather vaguer rules make necessary.


If you want to type out "noncasting nonpsionics-using nonbinding nontruenaming nonshadowcasting nonincarnum-using nonfactotum noninvocation-users" every time you're talking about that particular class of characters, go for it.

But "mundane" is shorter.

Unless you're talking about the Commoner and the Expert, "martial classes" about covers it. Some rogues may never pick up a knife in their lives, but in general the Rogue class is largely defined by Sneak Attack, making it a martial class. I would even characterize Factotum as a martial class, since he only "fakes" magic. Most classes with no casting, invoking, manifesting, uttering, meldshaping or soulbinding are at least largely defined by their weapon use, so I figure "martial" is a good enough word. (I actually kinda wish there were a playable-quality noncombatant class of which this wouldn't be true, but even the Nobles of Dragonlance are competent duelists; I don't know of any class anyone would seriously consider playing wich has poor BAB progression, few or no weapon proficiencies, and no mystical powers; if one exists I'd love to hear about it, as I play exclusively PBP these days and combat tends to take forever in those, so my game skews light on it in the first place.


As an adventure, you

:elan: "I'm an adventure!" :elan: (Sorry, couldn't resist.)


I expect someone who has only trained as much in combat as would be expected of one who's job it is (like, say town guards) to very quickly end up dead upon facing these monsters.

Such a character has long odds, but it's far from impossible for him to triumph through everything from McGuffin deployment to just the quickness of his wits. There are no shortage of stories where a completely mundane character gets tangled up in the clash of great forces yet manages to come out on top. Perseus comes to mind; he went up against Medusa (not "a", but "the") with a "sword and board". Granted he had a little divine aid, but I don't think it's enough that he deserves to be called a cleric instead or anything. The fighter has as much right to stand tall in an epic saga as any other sort of character - and that's assuming the game is an epic saga, which not every D&D game is, though it is the default. You can also run no shortage of games where these things are rare exceptions to a largely mundane default, and the Fighter is even more appropriate in those games (think of what Dark Sun might look like if psionics was no more acceptible than magic - or just look at Gor, assuming you're of sufficient age and thickness-of-skin to do so).


An adventurer though is supposed to be someone who beats all these challenges through wit and skills, rather then miracles. For that, the fighter makes a poor baseline.

"Wit" is not a game stat. The character's ability to, say, best a monster in a riddle contest is not represented by anything beyond the Intelligence score.


If the fighter is the baseline for an adventurer, even monsters need heavy nerfing, not just other classes.

I may very well do exactly that. For now I'm skewing low on CRs until I'm sure how to avoid unintentional TPKs.


If you ever see a player get Shock Trooper as a feat

Noted. Which book is this in?


To me that isn't the point of playing a non-spellcaster. I don't play nonspellcasters to not have a variety of options, I play them when I don't feel like having to rewrite reality to take out a housecat, and then rewrite reality really hard when I feel like making water beat up a dragon.

See, I don't see you saying two different things here. The point of the fighter is that his tactics are simple but effective (you know, in theory). The Wizard does indeed need to rewrite reality to kill a housecat - or more to the point, a bugbear, who brought six other bugbears with them, annd they're standing far apart enough not to be aceable with a single spell. At low levels, that wizard is in a world of hurt, and he needs the fighter to protect him. When the levels increase enough that you can replace "bugbear" with "balor", then yes, the fighter is out of his depth. But then, wizards are famously arrogant, so it'd be quite in-flavor for the wizard to pick that fight long before even he is ready for it, while a fighter, whether or not he can do basic math, is probably smart enough to have avoided the removal of his head for some time.


Kinda why the Barbarian is a good baseline for melee classes. You don't need to pick good feats for it to be effective. It doesn't use magic, all it does is smash things, but it does it well without having to do anything complicated or not too obvious.

Agreed.


Hey, how about, "let's not go there?" Willpell didn't like 4th edition.

Actually I'm not even saying that. I don't know enough about 4E to be sure that I wouldn't like it, although what I have heard about it suggests against this being likely. What I am saying is that 4E was not "the world's greatest roleplaying game" (whether this is actually a fitting title for D&D, it is the branded slogan). From what I have seen of it, it barely qualifies as a roleplaying game at all, let alone one of superlative quality, being far more deserving of the term "tactical combat simulation" or "tabletop strategy miniatures game". It may very well be an extremely good game within those categories, I don't know and I'll probably never get around to finding out (though I did think about it, the 4E Manual of the Planes had an awfully pretty inside cover, that being the sum total of my investigation into it, and not enough to shell out thirty bucks but if it had been five that might have been a different story). My point was simply that it bore little resemblance to any of the previous edition past the use of a lot of the same IP, and thus wasn't really part of the same gameline despite sharing the name.


Willpell, the word for "almost-but-not-quite-paranormal" is preternatural. The more you know, right? :smallbiggrin:

I know the word, but thanks anyway, it is indeed quite fitting.

[ThiagoMartell]

You know, reading Socratov's post, I thought about the Warlock in the tier system.

Warlock can deal tons of damage in melee builds. Be it eldritch glaive or eldritch claw, an optimized melee warlock is up there with chargers for damage output. This is one area where it excels - pure damage.
A warlock can debuff with eldritch essences. It's not the best debuffer out there, but with eldritch glaive it can forces multiple saves. This is an area where it does okay - debuffing.
The warlock is the only class with at will dispel. Without sinking resources at it, the warlock can still be good dispeller. This is an area where the warlock does okay - dispelling.
Among enchantment invocations and Cha skills, the warlock can be a good party face. It requires very little effort. This is another area where the warlock does okay - social interaction.
Between attacks of opportunity from eldritch glaive and chilling tentacles, the warlock can do a measure of battlefiled control. Without sinking resources into it, this is another area where it does okay - battlefield control.
While it lacks bonus item creation feats, the warlock can craft items quite easily. It also gets to take 10 in UMD. This is one area where the warlock excels - magic item usage, being behind only the artificer.
With Fell Flight, Spider Climb, bonus to movement skills and Flee the Scene, the warlock gets good mobility. In fact, this is not only something he does okay, it's something the warlock excels at.

So the warlock excels in three areas and does at least three other things quite well. Isn't that the definition of tier 3?

[Douglas]

You know, reading Socratov's post, I thought about the Warlock in the tier system.

Warlock can deal tons of damage in melee builds. Be it eldritch glaive or eldritch claw, an optimized melee warlock is up there with chargers for damage output. This is one area where it excels - pure damage.
Not really. Unoptimized, a warlock's damage is really low. Optimization can push it to good levels, but the same amount of optimization for chargers can get a whole lot more damage. Warlock damage output is low to mediocre.


While it lacks bonus item creation feats, the warlock can craft items quite easily. It also gets to take 10 in UMD. This is one area where the warlock excels - magic item usage, being behind only the artificer.
Imbue Item doesn't come until level 12. That's much too late to count as excelling.


With Fell Flight, Spider Climb, bonus to movement skills and Flee the Scene, the warlock gets good mobility. In fact, this is not only something he does okay, it's something the warlock excels at.
Those are... respectable, but not great. Fell Flight is at least flight, and it's nice that it can be on all the time, but the speed of it is low. Spider Climb is inferior to flight in every way, and bonuses to skill checks aren't worth much unless they're a lot bigger than what the Warlock can get - especially with the class handicapped in those skills by having to take them cross class. Unlimited use teleportation is very good, yes, but the short range and standard action cost prevent it from being truly excellent. Add that each of these takes a rather large chunk of character build resources thanks to the Warlock's low number of invocations known, and mobility is at best merely "okay".


So the warlock excels in three areas and does at least three other things quite well. Isn't that the definition of tier 3?
No, the Warlock does not excel in three areas. There are several areas the class can be adequate in, but nothing really good. It can be optimized to become good in some of those areas, but equal optimization effort applied to other classes will go a lot farther.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know, reading Socratov's post, I thought about the Warlock in the tier system.

Warlock can deal tons of damage in melee builds. Be it eldritch glaive or eldritch claw, an optimized melee warlock is up there with chargers for damage output. This is one area where it excels - pure damage.No. Even with a Hellfire Glaivelock, the damage is only 'par', and when compared to a charger with nothing but PA/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, it drops dramatically off the scale... the wrong way.

A warlock can debuff with eldritch essences. It's not the best debuffer out there, but with eldritch glaive it can forces multiple saves. This is an area where it does okay - debuffing.Actually, I'd say this is an area they excel in. True, they come to it later in life, but unlimited and potentially multi-target Slow, Nauseated, Confusion... these are Save or Lose conditions you can toss around blithely. Perhaps not as obnoxious as a Batman Wizard, but better than most can manage.

The warlock is the only class with at will dispel. Without sinking resources at it, the warlock can still be good dispeller. This is an area where the warlock does okay - dispelling.Your problem are dispel checks, and a cripplingly limited selection for Invocations. You are sinking resources into this... one of only three invocations you get at that tier. That's an ENORMOUS investment. Do you want to dispel, or do you want to inflict Save or Blind on your blasting, or do you want DimDoor at will, or do you want always-on Flight, or do you want to multi-target your blasting? Pick three.

Among enchantment invocations and Cha skills, the warlock can be a good party face. It requires very little effort. This is another area where the warlock does okay - social interaction.I'd have to agree... okay is the word to use. However, it does require investment of those precious invocations known. You can do it, but you have to build for it. You don't get it for 'free', by any means. And that generally means foregoing other options.

Between attacks of opportunity from eldritch glaive and chilling tentacles, the warlock can do a measure of battlefiled control. Without sinking resources into it, this is another area where it does okay - battlefield control.I'd say better than just Okay here, for the same reason I said it excelled at Save or Lose. Chilling Tentacles, area-effect Save or Slowed/nauseated/blinded/confused... this is powerful stuff, man.But again, you're sinking character resources into it.

While it lacks bonus item creation feats, the warlock can craft items quite easily. It also gets to take 10 in UMD. This is one area where the warlock excels - magic item usage, being behind only the artificer.Yes and no. It gets much better with a Chameleon2 dip, but by itself, either it has to sink precious feats into it, or it's effectively a dead class feature. That's an extreme character resource cost, but it can be set up to be well behind the artificer, who not only gets the item creation feats as bonus feats, but also gets a free crafting reserve.

With Fell Flight, Spider Climb, bonus to movement skills and Flee the Scene, the warlock gets good mobility. In fact, this is not only something he does okay, it's something the warlock excels at.Agreed. Flee The Scene, Fell Flight... it's hard to lock down a Warlock who don't want to get locked down.


So the warlock excels in three areas and does at least three other things quite well. Isn't that the definition of tier 3?The problem is that a Tier three excels in three areas and does at least three other things quite well... at the same time. The reason Warlock is Tier 4 is because these options are mutually exclusive for a warlock. Pick one thing to focus on, and you can be good at it, in exchange for being poor in all other areas. That lack of flexibility is what cost it a tier rating.

[demigodus]

put in a disclaimer when I ask for build advice that I simply don't know what feats to give my half-orc druid, for example, and am not looking for people to tell me how to make the rootin'est, tootin'est damn druid ever, nor am I looking for anyone to tell me "Oh, why in the wide world of sports would you ever want to make a half-orc as a druid? Use a human with this alternate class feature and take these flaws, and blah blah blah..."

[missing the point]Actually, Druids have an alternate racial progression (Alternate class feature you can only take if you are a specific race) for Half-Orcs. You lose one use of wild shape per day, but get Augment Summoning at lvl 6 with it. As such, when you are making a Druid that focuses on summoning, sometimes going Half-Orc is better then going Human, depending on your build. Though the int penalty slightly hurts...[/missing the point]

[Marlowe]

First of all. I'd like to apologise for my previous behaviour. I have played in a...number of games where the DM tried to "balance" things by nerfing or changing things that weren't broken. Then displayed he didn't understand the basic rules. Forcing people into playing certain class/race combos then rolling attacks of opportunity for 5-foot steps comes to mind.

So people suggesting "fixes" that don't fix anything is something of a berserk button for me.

Secondly, I'll just put in the opinion that the Warlock is possibly the best designed class in 3.5. It has potent powers, but it has to choose which ones it wants, and can only have a few. It can deliver damage reliably, but not impressively compared to those classes that are supposed to be good at it. Most of its powers effect only itself, so its group synergy is lacking compared to, say, the Bard.

The Warlock doesn't overshadow anyone, but is never contemptible. If other classes seem stupidly weaker or stronger than the Warlock, that's because they are the ones poorly designed, and part of the problem.

If the chessy dimestore gothic fluff bothers you, it is very easy to change. I've got a Warlock NPC in my PbP post whose "Bat swarms" are ravens, and whose "spider swarm" is a flurry of poisonous thorned flowers (what? She's a girl, and I thought it would look pretty). Warlock powers are very generic, you can refluff them many ways.

[ThiagoMartell]

Not really. Unoptimized, a warlock's damage is really low. Optimization can push it to good levels, but the same amount of optimization for chargers can get a whole lot more damage. Warlock damage output is low to mediocre.
Unoptimized does not make any difference regarding the tier system.
You also don't seem to be familiar with eldritch claws. With eldritch claws, you can even make the warlock a charger, using the weapon with the highest base damage in 3.5


Imbue Item doesn't come until level 12. That's much too late to count as excelling.
That makes no difference for the tier system.


Those are... respectable, but not great. Fell Flight is at least flight, and it's nice that it can be on all the time, but the speed of it is low. Spider Climb is inferior to flight in every way, and bonuses to skill checks aren't worth much unless they're a lot bigger than what the Warlock can get - especially with the class handicapped in those skills by having to take them cross class. Unlimited use teleportation is very good, yes, but the short range and standard action cost prevent it from being truly excellent. Add that each of these takes a rather large chunk of character build resources thanks to the Warlock's low number of invocations known, and mobility is at best merely "okay".
Spider Climb and Leaps and Bound are useful in low levels, warlocks can and should take Quicken Spell Like Ability and they can also take Improved Speed.


No, the Warlock does not excel in three areas. There are several areas the class can be adequate in, but nothing really good. It can be optimized to become good in some of those areas, but equal optimization effort applied to other classes will go a lot farther.
This is simply wrong, sorry. You don't seem to be familiar with clawlocks at all.



The problem is that a Tier three excels in three areas and does at least three other things quite well... at the same time. The reason Warlock is Tier 4 is because these options are mutually exclusive for a warlock. Pick one thing to focus on, and you can be good at it, in exchange for being poor in all other areas. That lack of flexibility is what cost it a tier rating.
Not really. Tier 3 is "Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area."
A clawlock or glaivelock does damage really well (clawlock is up there with chargers, since it can use all their tricks) and is still able to contribute meaningfully in other areas.


No. Even with a Hellfire Glaivelock, the damage is only 'par', and when compared to a charger with nothing but PA/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, it drops dramatically off the scale... the wrong way.
A clawlock can take PA, Leap Attack and Shock Trooper and has his own tricks and his base damage is higher.
Also, remember the tier system looks only at level apropriate challenges. A charger can kill something 5+ CRs above it in a single hit, but it makes no difference. Both chargers and glaivelocks can kill something or CR = party level+4 in a single round, so they are in the same spot when it comes to damage dealing in the confines of the tier system.


Actually, I'd say this is an area they excel in. True, they come to it later in life, but unlimited and potentially multi-target Slow, Nauseated, Confusion... these are Save or Lose conditions you can toss around blithely. Perhaps not as obnoxious as a Batman Wizard, but better than most can manage.
DC is kinda on the low side, compared to what primary casters can do, though. Hence why I don't consider it as excelling.


Your problem are dispel checks, and a cripplingly limited selection for Invocations. You are sinking resources into this... one of only three invocations you get at that tier. That's an ENORMOUS investment. Do you want to dispel, or do you want to inflict Save or Blind on your blasting, or do you want DimDoor at will, or do you want always-on Flight, or do you want to multi-target your blasting? Pick three.
While this is a good gameplay argument, the tier system measures potential versatility.


I'd have to agree... okay is the word to use. However, it does require investment of those precious invocations known. You can do it, but you have to build for it. You don't get it for 'free', by any means. And that generally means foregoing other options.
But that's the same for everyone. Everyone agrees Warblades are tier 3, but you only get so much maneuvers known.


Save or Lose. Chilling Tentacles, area-effect Save or Slowed/nauseated/blinded/confused... this is powerful stuff, man.But again, you're sinking character resources into it.
But everyone is sinking resources to get stuff. At least, all tier 3 classes but Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are. Those classes get no freebies.


Yes and no. It gets much better with a Chameleon2 dip, but by itself, either it has to sink precious feats into it, or it's effectively a dead class feature.
For crafting maybe, but you can use wands, staves and the like very well.

The warlock is a class that suffered because JaronK didn't know much about it, basically.

[Socratov]

First of all. I'd like to apologise for my previous behaviour. I have played in a...number of games where the DM tried to "balance" things by nerfing or changing things that weren't broken. Then displayed he didn't understand the basic rules. Forcing people into playing certain class/race combos then rolling attacks of opportunity for 5-foot steps comes to mind.

So people suggesting "fixes" that don't fix anything is something of a berserk button for me.

Secondly, I'll just put in the opinion that the Warlock is possibly the best designed class in 3.5. It has potent powers, but it has to choose which ones it wants, and can only have a few. It can deliver damage reliably, but not impressively compared to those classes that are supposed to be good at it. Most of its powers effect only itself, so its group synergy is lacking compared to, say, the Bard.

The Warlock doesn't overshadow anyone, but is never contemptible. If other classes seem stupidly weaker or stronger than the Warlock, that's because they are the ones poorly designed, and part of the problem.

If the chessy dimestore gothic fluff bothers you, it is very easy to change. I've got a Warlock NPC in my PbP post whose "Bat swarms" are ravens, and whose "spider swarm" is a flurry of poisonous thorned flowers (what? She's a girl, and I thought it would look pretty). Warlock powers are very generic, you can refluff them many ways.

(Using tablet, so no optimaal text editing)

And there you have it:the main point of a warlock is playability. You can do a lot whilst not turning hem up to eleven. This enables a party to contributie equally wile still opening magic options to the party. (Thanks for the mentions by the way, i feel honored :smallredface:) in best balanced characters i would like to add bard for the very same reasons. A party with a warlock or bard will use magic as intended: to support.

Indelen the warlock is great with fluff. You can fluff the power any way you want wihoutmhaving to change too much. This is way I prefer bard and warlocks in any game I play.

[eggs]

eldritch claws
One build using an obscure Dragon Magazine feat doesn't represent the class very well.

[Sponson]

This is perhaps my biggest problem with D&D. It doesn't matter whether the book says "no"; it matters whether the GM says "no". Having the rules dictate "it's always no unless we say yes" suggests that the player can use the book to say "yes" when the GM says "no", and that's not what being a GM is about. You're doing the work of creating the world, keeping its secrets, and revealing them when your players will enjoy the discovery; you should always have the veto power, whether because the proposed idea would ruin a surprise you're sure the players would enjoy, or just because it makes your already-very-labor-intensive job more difficult.

-----
This is untrue. Every rule, image and text has meaning until it actually is overwritten. The possibility that it might be changed later doesn't mean it isn't worth anything right now.

My apologies, I believe you may have misunderstood my standing here. I'm not saying the DM makes everything worthless all the time. What I'm saying is if you're building a character, you cannot rely on the DM to constantly provide you with all the rule-changes and allowances. You follow the rules as best you can from the books, like you said, so that we aren't building our own rules.

It's like cheating in a video game, why simply give ourself more gold if you have established the fact you are willing to "break" the system yourself? Having the DM give you something that isn't in line with the system on his own volition is different than asking the DM to give you something and having him say yes.

But I digress, what I am referring to is the character creation part of the game. You say that it doesn't matter that the book says no, but rather the DM. But how do you gauge that in a vacuum? Do you have a magical DM that gives you his input when creating a character that belongs to no campaign? Obviously not, so you follow the book as best you can, ignoring parts that are to the DM's discretion (going back to the why not just give yourself 40,000 levels because the DM says it's okay part).

Referring to the part which you mention that it doesn't matter if the books say "yes", so long as the DM says "no". How do you create a character if the DM is not there? Do you buy a mundane longsword because the book says you can, but then decide you won't because the DM might say so? That does not make sense . I'm not saying that the book has power over the DM, quite the opposite. I'm saying that the DM is a subjective force that should be excluded when considering retroactively creating a character - unless the DM has explicitly stated rules retroactively in response (such as "No magic items", Character Level is 10 but only with 30,000 gold, and here are the banned Splat Books).

That way you are working within guidelines without banking your build on whether or not the DM that doesn't exist yet says yes or no. What we have here is a case where someone is arguing that a warlock is overpowered because of a break of written rules that allows the warlock to specifically be so. But that is the same as something saying a video game is badly designed because they hacked the game and made himself invincible.

Edit: To expand further, whatever the DM does during the game is completely fine - it is to the enjoyment of the players in the end. If the DM turns your Pun Pun into a powerless blade of grass within the first 4 seconds of game time because the DM's word is final, then so be it. But you cannot in good faith claim that Pun Pun is a powerless build because of what the DM has done.

[Amphetryon]

Unoptimized does not make any difference regarding the tier system.
Not true; the tiers are predicated on everyone at the table using roughly the same amount of optimization. That's not the same thing as than 'does not make any difference'. If, for example, you're talking about an Eldritch Claw Chargelock, you should compare its damage output against a similarly optimized Barbarian, not against a dagger & shield-wielding Halfling Barbarian with Endurance and Diehard as his Feats, or you're not talking about 'roughly the same amount of optimization' anymore.

[obryn]

Greetings, 3.5ers! It is I, your 4e cousin dropping by with a 3.5 warlock question.

A poster (who has been in this thread also) is over in the 4e forum, asking about 4e warlocks and talking about the tricks he did with his 3.5 warlock and how disappointed he is that they are not possible in the 4e rules. I am now curious for myself if the below is possible, RAW - I don't think so, but I wanted to ask people who have played 3.5 more recently than 5 years ago, and who actually know the rules.


Actually Attacks of Opportunity in 3.5 state that it is a Threatened Enemy and no where in 3.5 STD does it say that it must be a melee attack (even though it suggests it, the wording in this case is obtuse actually and with point blank shot and the nature of the Eldritch blast in 3.5 one can make AoO with it and thus hit multiple targets with it).
So... basically hit a bunch of enemies with an Eldritch Cone when someone provokes an AoO. I think this is a very dicey interpretation - as I remember it, in 3.5, you can't ever make AoO's with spells or spell-like-abilities, even those which require attack rolls. But I don't know, and my burning curiousity impels me to ask anyway.

Thanks, folks!

-O

[Andvare]

Oooh, he keeps delivering!

His grasp of the rules are, well, limited. The rules for AoO clearly states "An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack", which was also linked to in the first response on that thread.

[Augmental]

While this is a good gameplay argument, the tier system measures potential versatility.

No. A cleric has access to every cleric spell and can choose which of those thousands of spells to cast every day. A warlock learns a total of 12 invocations, choosing among a list of 50.


But that's the same for everyone. Everyone agrees Warblades are tier 3, but you only get so much maneuvers known.

The warblade gets more maneuvers known then the warlock gets invications known.


But everyone is sinking resources to get stuff. At least, all tier 3 classes but Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are. Those classes get no freebies.

The problem is the warlock has a much smaller amount of resources (in this case, invocations).

[Dsurion]

Yes, it did occur to me as I was posting what you quoted, that a Sorc with a Reserve Feat is not dissimilar to a Warlock. I was more evaluating the Warlock as compared to a non-RF Sorc who goes blasting; the Warlock does make him look kind of silly, and in a game where the only allowed books were core and Complete Arcane (RFs are in Complete Mage), the Sorc would have a bit of an inferiority complex in that case, if he refused to give up on being exclusively a blaster.This brings up an interesting point - Assume none of the primary casters existed in D&D. What would your ideal casting class(es) be and how would you go approach the casting mechanic?

I know that's a very open question, but I'm curious :smallbiggrin:

[SowZ]

Ah but I'm not talking about the Psionic Tattooist, I'm talking about "scribe mundane tattoo" it's actually a crafter feat used for profession. Usually if I do do this it's crossed with Artificer anyways, and Artificer gains all crafting feats as bonus feats (even ones they'd normally not qualify for like Scribe Tattoo). There are many avenues to getting what I'm talking about, I was giving a basic run down of the process at hand and what features specifically a Warlock has that allow you to do these things. I'm not going to sit here and give away every secret to it, what would be the fun in that? (What more there are several variants on the Scribe Tattoo feat, including the Scribe Tattoo feat from Forgotten realms, which has no general prerequisite.)

In any case I'm no longer going to sit here and argue with people. Here are the facts: one; it's possible and doable through various means, two: you can sit here and quibble over semantics of interpretation of certain rules, this is irrelevant and moot. Three; you can accuse me of cheating, again also moot. I've built this type of warlock character for several different campaigns and all of my GMs, many whom are very experienced, accepted the RAW and how I used them. It is a proven method of breaking the Warlock.

Well, it would be a proven method if you proved it to us. I may as well say I can build a level six fighter with no items and a DR of 200,000 but I'm not going to tell anyone how. You can't expect anyone to believe you largely because you still haven't addressed the XP cost/gold cost of what you are suggesting, to say nothing of the interpretation of RAW.

[Kelb_Panthera]

EDIT: Also, I don't think we're going to spark a massive flamewar by stating that D&D 4th Edition exists. And are you trying to compare the OP to someone who refutes gravity? :smallconfused:

No, of course not. I brought up the most absurd example I could think of for why refusal of acknowledgment doesn't change whether or not something's there or how it will affect people. Willpell seems like a reasonable enough fellow. I just think it would be entirely pointless to demand he acknowledge 4E or anything else.

Very True.

Note: this tends to be more fun for the people involved.


Yeah. Kelb said it all. Overoptimization kills the game completely,specially if it's only one person doing it. One of the most commonly mentioned rules of practical optimization on 339 was that you should only optimize so far. If you boost your damage to X, where X is the HP of any reasonable monster, you'll only force the DM to throw monsters with HP 2X against you.
You get actual return from optimization when one of two things happen:
1) Your DM wants you to (i.e., he just throws stuff out of the MM at you and doesn't mind the fact it's no challenge at all; aka lazy DM) or
2) You optimize just a bit, to a level the DM doesn't need to change/optimize the monsters to provide challenges
Or, well, the basic rule for life: don't be a jerk.

holy crap 0_o I thought I was gonna be harpooned for that comment. Praise was completely unexpected.

Edit: struck out for mistaken impression.

[ThiagoMartell]

No. A cleric has access to every cleric spell and can choose which of those thousands of spells to cast every day. A warlock learns a total of 12 invocations, choosing among a list of 50.
Why does the amount of resources a cleric has negate the statement that the tier system measures potential versatility? Because that's what it measures.


The warblade gets more maneuvers known then the warlock gets invications known.
And so what? Most maneuvers do the exact same thing - deal more damage.


The problem is the warlock has a much smaller amount of resources (in this case, invocations).
You seem to be missing the point. To fill all the roles I pointed, you only need Eldritch Glaive, any good eldritch essence, Flee the Scene, Voracious Dispelling and Chilling Tentacles. That's less than half of your invocations known, leaving 7 free to do whatever you want with them. You can get more from feats. In fact, you can borrow from the Dragonfire Adept list with feats.
I'm not saying the warlock is specially versatile. I'm saying it fits the description of tier 3. It does one think well (damage, for melee warlocks) and does plenty of other things reasonably well. You can't do all those things, but with the 5 invocations I pointed out, you can do damage, debuffing, mobility, battlefield control and dispelling. You can still do social stuff with your skills. You can craft with your feats.
Mond you, that's a lot more versatility than a warblade has. Because it can hit things with a sword in fancy ways, but it's still hitting things with a sword. Warblade has mobility, damage and some battlefield control. That's about it.

Greetings, 3.5ers! It is I, your 4e cousin dropping by with a 3.5 warlock question.

A poster (who has been in this thread also) is over in the 4e forum, asking about 4e warlocks and talking about the tricks he did with his 3.5 warlock and how disappointed he is that they are not possible in the 4e rules. I am now curious for myself if the below is possible, RAW - I don't think so, but I wanted to ask people who have played 3.5 more recently than 5 years ago, and who actually know the rules.


So... basically hit a bunch of enemies with an Eldritch Cone when someone provokes an AoO. I think this is a very dicey interpretation - as I remember it, in 3.5, you can't ever make AoO's with spells or spell-like-abilities, even those which require attack rolls. But I don't know, and my burning curiousity impels me to ask anyway.

Thanks, folks!

-O
This guy is just, well, wrong.


Not true; the tiers are predicated on everyone at the table using roughly the same amount of optimization. That's not the same thing as than 'does not make any difference'. If, for example, you're talking about an Eldritch Claw Chargelock, you should compare its damage output against a similarly optimized Barbarian, not against a dagger & shield-wielding Halfling Barbarian with Endurance and Diehard as his Feats, or you're not talking about 'roughly the same amount of optimization' anymore.

I think you missed the context of what I said, because I was saying the same thing you did, only with a lot less text.


One build using an obscure Dragon Magazine feat doesn't represent the class very well.
The tier system is not about 'representing a class'. It's about potential and tools available.
Scroll through the tier system discussion and you'll see the Factotum is only at tier 3 because of an obscure skill from a setting specific 3.0 book using a race specific weapon from a different book.

[eggs]

The tier system is not about 'representing a class'. It's about potential and tools available.
Scroll through the tier system discussion and you'll see the Factotum is only at tier 3 because of an obscure skill from a setting specific 3.0 book using a race specific weapon from a different book.
It's also the class that sparked several hundred pages of flamefests for getting special treatment.

[ThiagoMartell]

It's also the class that sparked several hundred pages of flamefests for getting special treatment.
So you think expanding said treatment is a bad thing? I really don't get it. Using all tools available (like it seems to be the point, after all) it seems pretty clear to me that warlocks should be at tier 3.
In fact, it does not even require eldritch claws to be at that tier. All you need is enough damage to drop an adequate level challenge and you can do that with a glaivelock, no problem.

[obryn]

Oooh, he keeps delivering!

His grasp of the rules are, well, limited. The rules for AoO clearly states "An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack", which was also linked to in the first response on that thread.
Righto! However, he was fairly insistent even after the direct rules quote, leading me to wonder if there was perhaps a feat or exception I didn't know about. After reading his posts in this thread, I was ... um ... pretty sure there was some creative misreading of the rules going on, but I had to ask.

Thanks!

-O

[Madara]

So you think expanding said treatment is a bad thing? I really don't get it. Using all tools available (like it seems to be the point, after all) it seems pretty clear to me that warlocks should be at tier 3.
In fact, it does not even require eldritch claws to be at that tier. All you need is enough damage to drop an adequate level challenge and you can do that with a glaivelock, no problem.

Warlock ends up being a high T4. If you go pure Warlock. While you do have the potential to be better than many martial classes, having your choices pretty much set in stone is frustrating. And the saves for their abilities are much lower than a caster of the same level. While you could spam Shatter until the enemy fails their save, remember the action economy. You just spent 4 rounds to blow up his sword. When it reaches rocket-tag levels, the Warlock falls behind.

[eggs]

So you think expanding said treatment is a bad thing?
I think it's a bad thing that treatment has been applied at all.

Arguing that a class is useful in combat because of a feat or a skill that most players probably haven't even heard of is going to severely misrepresent the class in most cases.

It's the same reason Monks are usually credited with mediocre melee, despite all the weird splatbook support like Sidewinder Monk+Craven, Greater Mighty Wallop, Amulets of Natural Weapons and Sacred Strike or that Divine Minds aren't called awesome grapplers just because they can bounce between 6-8 splats to crank their modifiers to high heaven.

Certain Warlock builds can do awesome damage. Certain Monk builds can do awesome damage. Certain Warriors can do enough damage to stop encounters outright. Most don't (even Hellfire Glaivelocks without class-prolongation are pretty mediocre for straight damage output).

[ThiagoMartell]

I think it's a bad thing that treatment has been applied at all.

Arguing that a class is useful in combat because of a feat or a skill that most players probably haven't even heard of is going to severely misrepresent the class in most cases.

It's the same reason Monks are usually credited with mediocre melee, despite all the weird splatbook support like Sidewinder Monk+Craven, Greater Mighty Wallop, Amulets of Natural Weapons and Sacred Strike or that Divine Minds aren't called awesome grapplers just because they can bounce between 6-8 splats to crank their modifiers to high heaven.

Certain Warlock builds can do awesome damage. Certain Monk builds can do awesome damage. Certain Warriors can do enough damage to stop encounters outright. Most don't (even Hellfire Glaivelocks without class-prolongation are pretty mediocre for straight damage output).

Recently, there was a discussion about the tiers and one dude kept saying a level 7 wizard couldn't deal with a dragon. The answer? "Sure he can - Shivering Touch." An obscure spell (that wouldn't even work on all dragons).
Your Monk example is not the same thing. Monks don't get Greater Mighty Wallop. They can't craft Necklaces of Natural Attacks. Everything I mentioned are stuff warlocks can do by themselves.
And you're really underestimating the damage potential of a glaivelock. Quicken SLA and Maximize SLA can both be applied to eldritch glaive. Considering a base of 13d6 EB (vitriolic blast, greater chasuble), 78 damage per hit, with quicken that's 6 attacks a round for 468 damage. That's enough to kill a solar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar), an ancient blue dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#blueDragon), a pit fiend (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#pitFiend), a balor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor), a titan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm)... well, plenty more. Mind you, that's not even an optimized glaivelock.


Warlock ends up being a high T4. If you go pure Warlock. While you do have the potential to be better than many martial classes, having your choices pretty much set in stone is frustrating. And the saves for their abilities are much lower than a caster of the same level. While you could spam Shatter until the enemy fails their save, remember the action economy. You just spent 4 rounds to blow up his sword. When it reaches rocket-tag levels, the Warlock falls behind.

Still don't see how that's tier 4. The definition of tier 3 is doing one thing well and having versatility to do other stuff. The warlock fits this description.

[Madara]

Part of that is the difference between a class's abilities and a build's abilties.

Take a look a the Sorcerer. They have everything the wizard has, and they are T2. Why are they only T2? Because while they can be just as game-breaking, they can't do so in as many ways.

For the warlock, you have those options at your figer tips, but not all those options. The fact is that you can't have flight, invisibility, and teleportation while debuffing.

Also, this. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=hcu3dpjdaib6287r9pph410213&topic=4874.0)

[Socratov]

Recently, there was a discussion about the tiers and one dude kept saying a level 7 wizard couldn't deal with a dragon. The answer? "Sure he can - Shivering Touch." An obscure spell (that wouldn't even work on all dragons).
Your Monk example is not the same thing. Monks don't get Greater Mighty Wallop. They can't craft Necklaces of Natural Attacks. Everything I mentioned are stuff warlocks can do by themselves.
And you're really underestimating the damage potential of a glaivelock. Quicken SLA and Maximize SLA can both be applied to eldritch glaive. Considering a base of 13d6 EB (vitriolic blast, greater chasuble), 78 damage per hit, with quicken that's 6 attacks a round for 468 damage. That's enough to kill a solar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar), an ancient blue dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#blueDragon), a pit fiend (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#pitFiend), a balor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor), a titan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm)... well, plenty more. Mind you, that's not even an optimized glaivelock.



Still don't see how that's tier 4. The definition of tier 3 is doing one thing well and having versatility to do other stuff. The warlock fits this description.

Ehm is it not that tier 3 is being terrific at one thing, white being good at a new others, enough to take over a specifiek role? A warlock can take over rules,but minor roles and not even that good, they can film in gaps like no other (besides the bard then obviously)

[ThiagoMartell]

Part of that is the difference between a class's abilities and a build's abilties.
Barbarians charging and taking Power Attack, Leap Attack and Shock Trooper are fine. Factotums with Iaijutsu Focus and gnome razors are fine. Warlocks that choose eldritch glaive as one of their invocations... are not? :smallconfused:
Sorry, that makes no sense.


Take a look a the Sorcerer. They have everything the wizard has, and they are T2. Why are they only T2? Because while they can be just as game-breaking, they can't do so in as many ways.
Which fits the definition of t2. Please check the definition of t3.


For the warlock, you have those options at your figer tips, but not all those options. The fact is that you can't have flight, invisibility, and teleportation while debuffing.
Except you can. You need 5 invocations for that. You get 12.


Also, this. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=hcu3dpjdaib6287r9pph410213&topic=4874.0)
Actually, that outdated post just further proves my point. It mentions eldritch glaive doing damage well and acknowledges the versatility. Warlocks really should be in tier 3. The only reason they are not is... well, I don't know. Maybe JaronK does not like them. His appreciation of Factotum is the only reason it uses different standards, after all.


Ehm is it not that tier 3 is being terrific at one thing, white being good at a new others, enough to take over a specifiek role? A warlock can take over rules,but minor roles and not even that good, they can film in gaps like no other (besides the bard then obviously)

Glaivelocks and Clawlocks can be the main damage dealer of a party.

[Madara]

Well, unless you want to sacrifice your greater and dark slots, you don't get 12 lesser ones.

You get(If you take the best for each level)
3 Least
3 Lesser
3 Greater
and 3 Dark


Of the lessers, you want
Walk Unseen
Flee the Scene
and Fell flight


That's three. No blasts this level, unless you're willing to drop something. But what about your debuffing? You have to rely on least blasts. So you take either Frightful or Sickening. But guess what the save DC for those is? 16, assuming you have 18 charisma. Its not that great.

[ThiagoMartell]

Well, unless you want to sacrifice your greater and dark slots, you don't get 12 lesser ones.
Just use a higher slot. Or take Extra Invocation. Or Infernal Adept. And that's if you want to do all that. You could simply drop something (even debuffing, really) and fit tier 3 perfectly. Excels in damage, able to handle social encounters, able to do battlefield control, able to dispel, able to craft magic items, has great mobility.
Now, please tell me. What can a Warblade do, aside from damage, that a Warlock doesn't do at least as well or even better?


That's three. No blasts this level, unless you're willing to drop something. But what about your debuffing? You have to rely on least blasts. So you take either Frightful or Sickening. But guess what the save DC for those is? 16, assuming you have 18 charisma. Its not that great.
You can swap invocations. You can drop a least invocation for a lesser invocation later down the road. With Planar Affinity, you can even drop two at a time. Or you could take Utterdark Blast. Also, you won't have a Charisma of 18 when you're at level 20 - more like 30. Also, Ability Focus. Also, that veil from MIC. Also, what makes warlock a good debuffer is forcing several saves in the same round.

[Madara]

Just use a higher slot. Or take Extra Invocation. Or Infernal Adept. And that's if you want to do all that. You could simply drop something (even debuffing, really) and fit tier 3 perfectly. Excels in damage, able to handle social encounters, able to do battlefield control, able to dispel, able to craft magic items, has great mobility.
Now, please tell me. What can a Warblade do, aside from damage, that a Warlock doesn't do at least as well or even better?
Let's take extra invocation and burn one of your very few feats. Since you don't get and bonus feats as a warlock. Also, the tier system doesn't account for PrCs because that's difficult to account for since there are so many.

Now, go ahead and show us your invocation progression that can do all those things. And at what level. Then we shall compare it to a T3 of the same level.



You can swap invocations. You can drop a least invocation for a lesser invocation later down the road. With Planar Affinity, you can even drop two at a time. Or you could take Utterdark Blast. Also, you won't have a Charisma of 18 when you're at level 20 - more like 30. Also, Ability Focus. Also, that veil from MIC. Also, what makes warlock a good debuffer is forcing several saves in the same round.

You seem to misunderstand. You can only swap for something of equal or lower level. Which not only means you can't swap least for lesser, but also that once you swap a greater for a lesser, you can never go back up via swapping.

As for the tier definition, which you are only quoting part of, let's look at the T4 definition:

Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribue to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.
The warlock falls under the second option. Many things to a reasonable degree, without shining.

[ThiagoMartell]

Let's take extra invocation and burn one of your very few feats. Since you don't get and bonus feats as a warlock. Also, the tier system doesn't account for PrCs because that's difficult to account for since there are so many.
Infernal Adept is a feat, not a prc.


Now, go ahead and show us your invocation progression that can do all those things. And at what level. Then we shall compare it to a T3 of the same level.
I've already showed it to you.


You seem to misunderstand. You can only swap for something of equal or lower level. Which not only means you can't swap least for lesser, but also that once you swap a greater for a lesser, you can never go back up via swapping.
I got it mixed up with Infernal Adept, yeah. Still don't see much a problem, since most dark invocations are not that good.


The warlock falls under the second option. Many things to a reasonable degree, without shining.
What about the damage output, on par with a charger, as acknowledged by JaronK himself?
A Warlock's damage output is on par with a Warblade or a Duskblade. Please, tell me why both those classes are on tier 3 while warlock is on tier 4 despite being more versatile.

[Augmental]

A Warlock's damage output is on par with a Warblade or a Duskblade. Please, tell me why both those classes are on tier 3 while warlock is on tier 4 despite being more versatile.

The Duskblade is a spellcaster. Spells > Invocations.

[Douglas]

What about the damage output, on par with a charger, as acknowledged by JaronK himself?
With roughly the same degree of optimization as you used to get your 400 something damage, a good charger can get a thousand or two - and can do it without starting the round within a 5' step of his reach distance, which your glaivelock has to do. The charger can also do it unlimited times per day instead of just 3.

[eggs]

I still don't think Warlocks' damage is anything special, but I'm having a hard time seeing why the Warlock would be T4.

I think this is one of those places where people shift the goalposts for magical v. nonmagical classes. Just in the animate dead and item creation powers, they have more versatility than the Warblade or Crusader can even approach, plus a fair number of directions that they can specialize well (debuffs, damage, item abuse).

[Lonely Tylenol]

Ehm is it not that tier 3 is being terrific at one thing, white being good at a new others, enough to take over a specifiek role? A warlock can take over rules,but minor roles and not even that good, they can film in gaps like no other (besides the bard then obviously)

"Terrific at one thing, while being good at a few others, but not enough to take over [those other roles]". Basically, tier 3 is great at what it does, and... Well... Acceptable, and capable of contributing at others... But not good enough outside its specialty to overshadow others. This is analogous to a student who gets "A"s in math, but is a "B"-"C" student in subjects not related to math: they still pass at other subjects (such as literature), and in group work, they can contribute to their peers without getting in the way, but they are still not strictly as good as somebody who gets an "A" in that subject (even if they are a savant, who only gets good grades in that particular subject).

Thus, a Factotum (who is a generalist, basically a straight "B" student all around, with an "A" in skill monkey-ing) still takes a backseat to the Barbarian in melee, since the Barbarian has an "A" for melee damage/capabilities.

I don't have the time to respond to everything else quite yet (I will try to get to more during lunch recess), but it proved an interesting read. :smallsmile:

[Menteith]

I'd put the Warlock solidly in T3 with a little bit of optimization. The Warlock can be optimized to do enough damage to one shot most CR appropriate enemies on a full attack, has high mobility, and has decent out of combat utility for a number of situations on top of that. And for the record, most Duskblade spells aren't better than Invocations, and they're certainly not as diverse. The tier system is a set of noncodified (and indeed, near impossible to codify) guidelines, and by its nature, it's inherently going to have grey areas. Whether or not the Warlock is seen as a T4 or T3 class is irrelevant; it's still the same set of abilities and chassis - you know, the stuff that we should be discussion rather than having a debate about semantics which won't be solved.

[ThiagoMartell]

With roughly the same degree of optimization as you used to get your 400 something damage, a good charger can get a thousand or two - and can do it without starting the round within a 5' step of his reach distance, which your glaivelock has to do. The charger can also do it unlimited times per day instead of just 3.
First of all, charging is not as easy as you make it seem. Open any battle map and you'll see plenty of difficult terrain, trees, pillars, tables, chests, people... you can't charge over those.
Second, my presented build is not optimized at all. It had two feats and two invocations chosen. Your only choice to top that is with a barbarian charger with pounce (an ACF) with Leap Attack, Shock Trooper and Power Attack. Not only does the charger need more feats and your AC afer attacking sucks. The fact that the warlock's damage output is on par with a charger is mentioned on the tier system itself.
Third, there are at least three options for moving 10ft as a 5ft step. Also, Travel Devotion. Also, familiar with a Benign Transposition wand.
Fourth, after charging using Shock Trooper, unless you killed everyone you're going down.
Fifth and the most important of all. The tier system only cares about level apropriate challenges. Dealing a gazillion damage doesn't matter, because no level apropriate challenge has that much hp.

[Augmental]

Second, my presented build is not optimized at all. It had two feats and two invocations chosen. Your only choice to top that is with a barbarian charger with pounce (an ACF) with Leap Attack, Shock Trooper and Power Attack. Not only does the charger need more feats and your AC afer attacking sucks. The fact that the warlock's damage output is on par with a charger is mentioned on the tier system itself.

Then show us an optimized clawlock/glaivelock build.


Fourth, after charging using Shock Trooper, unless you killed everyone you're going down.

Past low levels, Armor Class is a terrible defense anyway.


Fifth and the most important of all. The tier system only cares about level apropriate challenges. Dealing a gazillion damage doesn't matter, because no level apropriate challenge has that much hp.

So being able to KO the Tarrasque in one hit doesn't mean a thing to you? Like, it doesn't mean anything at all?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

This brings up an interesting point - Assume none of the primary casters existed in D&D. What would your ideal casting class(es) be and how would you go approach the casting mechanic?

I know that's a very open question, but I'm curious :smallbiggrin:

To be honest? I like the SLA mechanic, it's just that the Warlock doesn't get enough to be able to act like a 'primary caster', but not enough other things (barring a Dragon Mag feat which is pretty much rubber-stamped homebrew) to take on the role of 'Gish' as well.

Of course, the problem with a clawlock using Power Attack is that you can't actually power attack with off-handed weapons, and you get a smaller multiplier on your primary attack, so even a PO Ubercharger is going to seriously out-damage a clawlock, even with the EB damage boost. Also, most Ubercharge builds I build have either Robliar's Gambit or Karmic Strike. Go ahead, hit me. I promise the riposte is gonna hurt you a LOT more than your hit just hurt me. One of the benefits of having a high Con and a D12 HD.

Look at my sig, I've got classes which use the SLA model. The 'arcanist' has a 1/2 BAB, but gains a new invocation every level, giving them almost twice as many invocations total. The revamp I'm doing is strongly based on the other warlock fix that splits off blast enhancements and shapes from the 'other' invocations, so you can have some of both. I also set up a Bard on the SLA model, and it seems to work fairly well. However, it's got a lot more versitility with blasting, and more effects to toss around, with the potential for more damage ouptut (blowing invocations for bigger die size), and the ability to make a blast an attack action rather than a standard action (after level 10, so you won't be able to hit a BAB of +16 with it, but you can hit that third iterative attack, and being an attack action, Haste gives you another one).

Honestly, the way the spellcasting system is set up versus the way the melee classes are set up... it's no wonder there's a dichotomy. You need to give Melee options other than 'hit something', and you need to limit the caster's bag of tricks. SLA-using 'casters' with ToB style 'melee' is a good pairing.

[roguemetal]

Honestly, the way the spellcasting system is set up versus the way the melee classes are set up... it's no wonder there's a dichotomy. You need to give Melee options other than 'hit something', and you need to limit the caster's bag of tricks. SLA-using 'casters' with ToB style 'melee' is a good pairing.
I rarely agree with people in regards to ToB, but I have to agree here. Warlocks aren't unbalanced, their mechanics just aren't appropriate for most games.

Pairing them with other abilities that don't require times per day will balance them quite nicely. I don't, however, think they would do great alongside other SLA casters such as the factotum. MoI might also be a decent balance, though I haven't attempted this.

[ThiagoMartell]

Then show us an optimized clawlock/glaivelock build.
Warlock 6/Ruathar 1/Cyran Avenger 5.
336 damage at level 12. Invocations spent: 1. Feats spent: 2. You still can do pretty much anything else a warlock does.

Warlock 6/Binder 1/Shou Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 5
Claw damage: 40d6. 7 attacks per round (3 from bab, 1 from flurry, 1 from rapidstrike, 1 from haste, 1 from snap kick)... 280d6 damage, all day long. 980 average damage. That's without considering Strenght or Beast Claws. Or the fact that Warlock can still take Power Attack, Leap Attack and Shock Trooper.


Past low levels, Armor Class is a terrible defense anyway.
A common fallacy. Armor Class is useful as a Power Attack buffer at higher levels.
Even then, Warlock gets built in miss chance (Darkness + Ebon Eyes, Entropic Warding). Duskblade and Warblade... don't.


So being able to KO the Tarrasque in one hit doesn't mean a thing to you? Like, it doesn't mean anything at all?
If you charge the tarrasque, it will grapple you before you hit it and maybe eat you. Going into melee with the tarrasque is silly. A warlock can defeat the tarrasque slowly but surely at level 6 with Fell Flight. It defeats it fast, surely and safely at level 11 (Fell Flight+ Vitriolic Blast).
Of course, a clawlock can still kill it in a single full attack.

Btw, I don't think you can get to 840 damage in a single hit (well, unless you use one of those Leap Attack + mounted combat builds that don't make any sense). With BAB 20, Power Attack, Leap Attack, Frenzied Berserker and Battle Jump, that's weapon damage x2, plus 80, plus Str modifier x3. If we use a 3d6 weapon and consider Str 40 (quite generous), we end up with a max damage of 161.


The Duskblade is a spellcaster. Spells > Invocations.
Are you sure you remember the Duskblade spell list? :smallconfused: It's more limited than the invocations Warlocks get. It gets damage with a side dish of, well, damage.

[Augmental]

A common fallacy. Armor Class is useful as a Power Attack buffer at higher levels.
Even then, Warlock gets built in miss chance (Darkness + Ebon Eyes, Entropic Warding). Duskblade and Warblade... don't.

There's plenty of ways to get miss chance. The Smoking weapon property (Lords of darkness), Mithralmist Shirt, and Cloak of Displacement are a few.


Are you sure you remember the Duskblade spell list? :smallconfused: It's more limited than the invocations Warlocks get. It gets damage with a side dish of, well, damage.

I'd describe it as a side dish of buffs, offensive and defensive, a couple teleportation spells, and some dispels.

[Axinian]

Are you sure you remember the Duskblade spell list? :smallconfused: It's more limited than the invocations Warlocks get. It gets damage with a side dish of, well, damage.

Well remember, there are tons more ways to get more versatile spell lists than there are to get more versatile use of invocations.

For the record, I agree with your points.

[JetThomasBoat]

Note however that there are "crawling tattoos" which can be attack-based; they're classed as Universal Items for some reason, and I don't know if they work the same way as regular psionic tattoos, but it's not an incredibly far logical leap.



Do you have a source? I'm just kind of curious is all.

[JetThomasBoat]

[missing the point]Actually, Druids have an alternate racial progression (Alternate class feature you can only take if you are a specific race) for Half-Orcs. You lose one use of wild shape per day, but get Augment Summoning at lvl 6 with it. As such, when you are making a Druid that focuses on summoning, sometimes going Half-Orc is better then going Human, depending on your build. Though the int penalty slightly hurts...[/missing the point]

I actually was familiar with that one. I was looking at that just the other day. The half-orc druid in question really doesn't need to be that well thought out, as I'm actually making several DMPCs that will exist within the campaign, but for the most part, unless we get more players, the two people playing PCs will choose from one of the DMPCs to join their merry little band and it's in Eberron, so I figured "Of course make the druid a half-orc."

So they might not even pick this particular character to join them. But if they do, I think they'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Do you have a source? I'm just kind of curious is all.

XPH. I forget which page number but I'm reasonably certain it's amongst the universal items under Crawling Tattoo.

[willpell]

Willpell seems like a reasonable enough fellow.

Thank you for making my day. I am tempted to sig this, as many people seem to have believed otherwise and it would be nice to have a counterexample.


Scroll through the tier system discussion and you'll see the Factotum is only at tier 3 because of an obscure skill from a setting specific 3.0 book using a race specific weapon from a different book.

is curious....


Arguing that a class is useful in combat because of a feat or a skill that most players probably haven't even heard of is going to severely misrepresent the class in most cases.

This. If I had the reins at Wotco, I'd redo the entire line on the assumption that classes ought to be self-contained: put all the tools the class needs to have in one book, so that anyone who plays that class can buy that book and have everything they'll ever want. (Granted some classes would have a book 400x as thick as some others...)


or that Divine Minds aren't called awesome grapplers just because they can bounce between 6-8 splats to crank their modifiers to high heaven.

Wait, a Divine Mind is good at something? Details please! I want to love that class badly, but even by my standards of potency it's awful.

(Seriously, skipping "spells" for the first three levels like a Paladin or Ranger wasn't enough? You had to make it four? And whose bright idea was a five-foot radius aura which takes AN HOUR to change? Even if this was the first class ever to get Auras, I find it hard to believe they were that scared of their potential power.)


Certain Warriors can do enough damage to stop encounters outright.

I'm confused. The Warrior is literally just a Fighter Minus. What build could possibly ever hinge upon it?


After reading his posts in this thread

Wait...it's not Xtomjames is it?

EDIT: @ JetThomasBoat: Crawling Tattoos, SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#crawlingTattoos)

[The Rabbler]

Warlock 6/Binder 1/Shou Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 5
Claw damage: 40d6. 7 attacks per round (3 from bab, 1 from flurry, 1 from rapidstrike, 1 from haste, 1 from snap kick)... 280d6 damage, all day long. 980 average damage. That's without considering Strenght or Beast Claws. Or the fact that Warlock can still take Power Attack, Leap Attack and Shock Trooper.

Snap Kick is very specifically an unarmed strike and Eldritch Claws can't be used in conjunction with Flurry of Blows. Furthermore, how are you getting to 40d6 claw damage? You get +18d6 eldritch blast damage from your Warlock levels, Hellfire Warlock levels, and Legacy Champion levels.

I'd also like to see what BAB this build reaches. That would directly determine whether or not a vanilla ubercharger could do better, as Power Attack stems directly from BAB.



If you charge the tarrasque, it will grapple you before you hit it and maybe eat you. Going into melee with the tarrasque is silly. A warlock can defeat the tarrasque slowly but surely at level 6 with Fell Flight. It defeats it fast, surely and safely at level 11 (Fell Flight+ Vitriolic Blast).
Of course, a clawlock can still kill it in a single full attack.

Charge attacks don't provoke attacks of opportunity, so an ubercharger could quite easily approach and dispatch a Tarrasque in a single full attack.



Btw, I don't think you can get to 840 damage in a single hit (well, unless you use one of those Leap Attack + mounted combat builds that don't make any sense). With BAB 20, Power Attack, Leap Attack, Frenzied Berserker and Battle Jump, that's weapon damage x2, plus 80, plus Str modifier x3. If we use a 3d6 weapon and consider Str 40 (quite generous), we end up with a max damage of 161.


I'm sure he meant that an ubercharger could kill a Tarrasque in a single full attack, rather than a single hit. And it's not like a clawlock could prove any better on that front.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I mean no offense, but I'd rather you didn't sig that. It's only a first impression, after all. :smallredface:

If I get to know you better I may change my mind.

[Menteith]

is curious....


I believe that they're talking about Iaijutsu Focus from Oriental Adventures, which reads..."If you attack a flat-footed opponent immediately after drawing a melee weapon, you can deal extra damage, based on the result ofan Iaijutsu Focus check". It's a Cha based skill, and caps out at +9d6 damage with a 50+ check, but with a Gnomish Quickrazor, you can effectively emulate a Ninja's Sudden Strike class feature (since you're "drawing" the quickrazor every attack), which gives a good damage boost the Factotum. Unless they're referring to the Autohypnotize skill, which is insanely easy to abuse.

[JetThomasBoat]

I forgot to ask. Can one of yous guys tell me where to find Eldritch Glaive and Eldritch Claws?

[eggs]

Wait, a Divine Mind is good at something? Details please! I want to love that class badly, but even by my standards of potency it's awful.
The two big things it has going for it are the Ectopic Ally (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) ACF, which is pretty danged nice (a level 10 Divine Mind can summon a 19 HD astral construct as a standard action) and very good scaling through the mid- to high-levels (it's hard to clump it with the Monk & co. at the point where a Divine Mind has access to Metamorphic Transfer's mini-shapechange, level 9 astral constructs, mind control, teleportation and psionic timestop at the same time).

On grappling specifically, the DM gets access to all sorts of miscellaneous size boosts, shapeshifts and attack/grapple bonuses. Throw on Mancatcher proficiency (essentially Improved Grab + bonuses to attack rolls are added to grapple checks) and few builds can be pretty respectable grapplers.

I'm confused. The Warrior is literally just a Fighter Minus. What build could possibly ever hinge upon it?
Yeah. Warrior sucks. But it still can throw together a bare-bones Battle Jump build that makes things die.

[Soranar]

On Warlocks (having played a LOT of them)

The problem with the tier system is that it is only concerned with straight builds (x class 20) with an equal amount of optimization.

And, to be fair (much like many other tier 4 classes), the warlock can easily reach a higher tier through optimization. (see Paladins, Rogues and many more). But without it they are rather lackluster (tier 4). And here I think the debate lies in how much optimization is truly optimization. (like saying that taking natural spell as a druid is optimized or common sense)

First, the fighter / Warlock comparison

Level 1-6 both deal damage but the warlock is ranged and uses touch attacks (at those levels AC is a factor)

7+ Warlock simply gains more abilities to deal with fights and non fighting situations

BUT

the fighter type (any melee) gets far better at dealing damage (due to magic items and numerous buffs, most of which don't work for the warlock)

Is the Warlock more versatile? Definitely
Is the Warlock more useful? Depends on the group

Does the Warlock benefit from a high pts system (or just good STATs)?

Not that much, as much as a Warlock doesn't require good STATs, he doesn't get that much out of them either (he can through multiclassing and PrC but straight Warlocks are not that STAT dependant)

In comparison a fighter type really benefits from good STATs , magic items and buffs and he fills his role (meatshield) well. Even if the Druid's pet is as strong as a fighter.

Best environment to make a warlock shine: low point system with a tier limit (basically a not tier 3 or more game with elite array or 25 pts system)

Best straight warlock abilities that can make it on par with a tier 3 class

-quicken spell-like ability

Even with a 3 times a day limit, this feat alone lets you do some very interesting things. (since you can pick it for each SLA you can do it for your EB and interesting invocations like flee the scene)

Vitriolic Blast AKA ''Golem Bane" completely ignoring SR. This makes warlocks one of the few arcane casters that don't need to bypass golems by trapping/ignoring them but by simply destroying them. And this works regardless of your CHA. Much like a Druid's natural spell, picking this particular blast shape should be automatic.

Ways to truly optimize a Warlock

without CHA

-''free'' invocations slots by filling up roles that should require an invocation (like flight)
-make up for your class' other bad features through STATS and racial abilities (for example, a dragonborn of bahamut mongrelfolk doesn't really care if his hitpoints are only d6, nor does he need fell flight)

with CHA

-make your DCs so high that every status effect you can inflict gets inflicted. (suddenly even your most meager eldritch blast has an annoying status effect)

[Kelb_Panthera]

I forgot to ask. Can one of yous guys tell me where to find Eldritch Glaive and Eldritch Claws?

Eldritch Glaive is in dragon magic. I gather from previous comments that eldritch claw is from an issue of dragon magazine.

[The Rabbler]

Eldritch Glaive is in dragon magic. I gather from previous comments that eldritch claw is from an issue of dragon magazine.

issue 358 to be exact. A google search for "D&D eldritch claws" will pull up a realmshelps.net image of the feat.

[Pyromancer999]

The two big things it has going for it are the Ectopic Ally (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) ACF, which is pretty danged nice (a level 10 Divine Mind can summon a 19 HD astral construct as a standard action) and very good scaling through the mid- to high-levels (it's hard to clump it with the Monk & co. at the point where a Divine Mind has access to Metamorphic Transfer's mini-shapechange, level 9 astral constructs, mind control, teleportation and psionic timestop at the same time).


You're forgetting that the SLA manifests as per the Divine Mind's class level as the manifested level. Since an augment would be effectively adding on two power points/use spent, the maximum level Astral Construct they should be able to summon is 5th level. Of course, there is a chance I could be wrong, but that should be correct.

[eggs]

You're forgetting that the SLA manifests as per the Divine Mind's class level as the manifested level. Since an augment would be effectively adding on two power points/use spent, the maximum level Astral Construct they should be able to summon is 5th level. Of course, there is a chance I could be wrong, but that should be correct.
As a PLA, it manifests fully augmented to manifester level. Manifester level is 10, so the default EA is a level 5 Astral Construct.

The additional augmentation mechanic [EDIT: the one built into Ectopic Ally class feature] is unrelated to PP; it just pushes the AC up a level. So the DM can nova its uses to augment its Ectopic ally 4 steps up from the default AC5 to AC9. That's not usually a good idea, but it's a big red "OH ****" button that's useful to have at hand.

[willpell]

I mean no offense, but I'd rather you didn't sig that. It's only a first impression, after all. :smallredface:

Fair enough. :smallcool:


Unless they're referring to the Autohypnotize skill, which is insanely easy to abuse.

Huh? My reading of it was that it barely did anything. Shrug off a caltrop, shrug off a poison/disease, stabilize at <0 HP or emulate the Diehard feat...hardly anything really. The only ability that seemed like it might be useful is Memorize, and that'd be fairly situational, although enough for me to build a few characters partially around it for flavor reasons.


Yeah. Warrior sucks. But it still can throw together a bare-bones Battle Jump build that makes things die.

But the same build gets strictly better with a Fighter right? So why use Warrior at all? Just to prove you can? The Warrior class probably doesn't even exist in my game; most of its former representatives out of the MM will probably get a bonus feat and 2 more HP and I'll call 'em fighters, or maybe I'll go with Barbarian and assume they choose not to Rage during the fight (though 4extra HP is kinda getting noticeable). Spell-less Ranger is also a fitting option. I despise classes that exist solely to suck; no "character" would choose to take them if an option existed, and I'd rather assume it does. Of the NPC classes in the DMG, the only ones I plan on ever using are Adept (for a fairly exotic spell list that's part Wizard and part Cleric) and Aristocrat (solely for the sake of starting with lots of gold).


As a PLA, it manifests fully augmented to manifester level. Manifester level is 10, so the default EA is a level 5 Astral Construct.

Manifester level is five. DMs are like Paladins and Rangers, only even worse - their "caster" level is either half their character level or their character level minus the levels before they get "spells", and in either case that calculates to 5 for the DM.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The problem with ectopic ally is that it doesn't key off of the DM's manifester level, just his level. As in his class level. The poor wording of that article makes what the previous posters said, unfortunately, true.

I can almost forgive an editing mistake like that on the website though........ almost.

[willpell]

Hm. Okay, Ectopic Ally makes your psychic aura suck even more than it did before, which is a shame since it actually gives you a built-in buddy for it to affect. But it's still a pretty good trade, even given how dull the Ectopic dudes are. I'll probably homebrew some new ones I like better and use those.

More to the point, that page also shows Hidden Talent replacing Wild Talent, giving the Divine Mind a power at first level, and that's worth tons to me. Even just one power 2/day is better than no powers at all, and you give up nothing for it, the GM just has to approve. I don't otherwise use Hidden Talent, but given the horridness of the DivM, allowing it in their case seems extraordinarily fitting.

[lsfreak]

Charge attacks don't provoke attacks of opportunity, so an ubercharger could quite easily approach and dispatch a Tarrasque in a single full attack.

I missed this before. A charge itself doesn't provoke, but the movement from leaving a square does. If you charge something with more reach than you, you'll get smacked with an AoO before you can unleash your 2d6+1000 damage. With a grapple on the AoO, that'll ruin your charge even if you do survive the damage.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Snap Kick is very specifically an unarmed strike and Eldritch Claws can't be used in conjunction with Flurry of Blows. Furthermore, how are you getting to 40d6 claw damage? You get +18d6 eldritch blast damage from your Warlock levels, Hellfire Warlock levels, and Legacy Champion levels.

I'd also like to see what BAB this build reaches. That would directly determine whether or not a vanilla ubercharger could do better, as Power Attack stems directly from BAB.



Charge attacks don't provoke attacks of opportunity, so an ubercharger could quite easily approach and dispatch a Tarrasque in a single full attack.



I'm sure he meant that an ubercharger could kill a Tarrasque in a single full attack, rather than a single hit. And it's not like a clawlock could prove any better on that front.

Beast strike is a feat from Dragon (can't remember which one) which lets you add your claw or slam damage to your unarmed strike damage and since Eldritch claw damage is Eldritch blast+Unarmed Strike, with Beast Strike you essentially deal (Unarmed Strike x 2)+ Eldritch Blast damage. It also allows flurry, power attack and other unarmed strike boosters (Size increases are particularly nice, so I would suggest any Clawlock who uses beast strike to invest in some way to cast Greater Mighty Wallop, I am partial to Minor Schemas).

[eggs]

Hm. Okay, Ectopic Ally makes your psychic aura suck even more than it did before, which is a shame since it actually gives you a built-in buddy for it to affect. But it's still a pretty good trade, even given how dull the Ectopic dudes are. I'll probably homebrew some new ones I like better and use those.
The aura radius already sucks. Sharing its benefits is basically a lost cause.

More to the point, that page also shows Hidden Talent replacing Wild Talent, giving the Divine Mind a power at first level, and that's worth tons to me.
It's useful, but it's not the locked choice that Ectopic Ally is. The problem with the HT ACF is that the ACF blocks taking Hidden Talent feat. This is often problematic with the Divine Mind's Powers known mechanic, as it will leave a lot of Mantles without a decent power choice at level 5. The Creation mantle is the only one where it's a clear win. Often, taking something like Hidden Talent (Dimension Hop/Astral Construct/Entangling Ectoplasm/Minor Creation/etc) as an actual feat will have better results.

EDIT:
Anyway, um, Warlocks!

[ThiagoMartell]

There's plenty of ways to get miss chance. The Smoking weapon property (Lords of darkness), Mithralmist Shirt, and Cloak of Displacement are a few.
Equipment that anyone can take is not considered in tier discussions.
Also, there are plenty of ways to ignore or reduce miss chance, such as Blind Fight and Pierce Magical Concealment.


I'd describe it as a side dish of buffs, offensive and defensive, a couple teleportation spells, and some dispels.
Well, I'd love for that to be true. Their buffs are mostly all bad, they really get only a couple of teleportation spells (as in, two) and they lack the spells they need the most (melee touch).
Check it:
0 Level: acid splash, disrupt undead, ray of frost, touch of fatigue. Lacks the only two good cantrips (prestidigitation and sonic snap).
1st Level: Bigby’s tripping hand (sucks), blade of blood (sucks), burning
hands (sucks(, cause fear, chill touch (sucks), color spray, jump (sucks), Kelgore’s fire bolt, lesser deflect (sucks), magic weapon (sucks once you get an actual magic weapon), obscuring mist, ray of enfeeblement, resist energy, rouse, shocking grasp (the signature Duskblade spell), stand, swift expeditious retreat, true strike.
2nd Level: animalistic power (sucks), Bigby’s striking fist (sucks), bull’s strength, bear’s endurance, cat’s grace, (all three are useless once you get gear, which will be soon after you get them available, so you shouldn't even learn them), darkvision (sucks), deflect (sucks), dimension hop (probably the best spell at this level), ghoul touch (sucks), Melf ’s acid arrow (sucks), scorching ray (your go-to ranged spell, too bad it can't be channeled), see invisibility, seeking ray, spider climb, stretch weapon (sucks), sure strike (sucks), swift fly, swift invisibility, touch of idiocy.
3rd Level: crown of might (sucks), crown of protection (sucks), dispelling touch (only gets good at level 13), doom scarabs, energy aegis, energy surge (sucks), greater magic weapon, halt, keen edge, protection from energy, ray of exhaustion, regroup, vampiric touch (at last you get something to channel aside from shocking grasp).
4th Level: Bigby’s interposing hand (sucks), channeled pyroburst, dimension door, dispel magic, enervate, fire shield, phantasmal killer (sucks), shout, toxic weapon (sucky).
5th Level: Bigby’s clenched fist (sucks), chain lightning, disintegrate, hold monster, polar ray (you get it as 3 spell levels lower and it still sucks), slashing dispel, sonic shield, waves of fatigue.

[GenghisDon]

I missed this before. A charge itself doesn't provoke, but the movement from leaving a square does. If you charge something with more reach than you, you'll get smacked with an AoO before you can unleash your 2d6+1000 damage. With a grapple on the AoO, that'll ruin your charge even if you do survive the damage.

I like combat reflexes & hold the line feat to get AOO's vs all charges myself.

Aside from grapples; trips, disarms & sunders (prefferably improved ones) tend to work nicely with it

[Marlowe]

I like combat reflexes & hold the line feat to get AOO's vs all charges myself.

Aside from grapples; trips, disarms & sunders (prefferably improved ones) tend to work nicely with it

Got a Hexblade with that build, first martial character I've ever built. It will be interesting to see how it works.

[GenghisDon]

have fun & good luck with it.

[ThiagoMartell]

The problem with the tier system is that it is only concerned with straight builds (x class 20) with an equal amount of optimization.

The problem with that assumption is the definition of tier 1 and 2. "Capable of breaking the game" and "capable of breaking the game in many ways". You just don't get that without optimization. Unoptimized blaster wizards and healer clerics fall at tier 4, but the tier system presents wizard and cleric at tier 1, considering what they can accomplish with optimization. The factotum was already mentioned - it takes quite a bit of specialization for it to be useful in combat as much as JaronK claims.


Snap Kick is very specifically an unarmed strike and Eldritch Claws can't be used in conjunction with Flurry of Blows. Furthermore, how are you getting to 40d6 claw damage? You get +18d6 eldritch blast damage from your Warlock levels, Hellfire Warlock levels, and Legacy Champion levels.
Dusk Eclipse already explained it. You don't seem to be at all familiar with eldritch claw, so let me explain how it works.
You get 2 claw attacks. The damage of those claw attacks is your unarmed strike damage plus your eldritch blast damage. It means you can stack upgrades to both unarmed strike and eldritch blast to get more claw damage.
Beast Strike adds claw damage to unarmed strike damage. Your unarmed strike damage ends up as: unarmed strike + unarmed strike + eldritch blast.
As Dusk Eclipse pointed out, 40d6 damage is for a Medium warlock with a single size boost from Improved Natural Attack. You can apply Greater Mighty Wallop both to unarmed strike and to claw. So considering the use of a schema:
Eldritch blast 18d6
Unarmed strike (Medium) 2d6 -> Greater Mighty Wallop (Colossal) 8d6
Claw damage (Medium) 26d6 -> Greater Mighty Wallop (Colossal) 130d6
Beast Strike 156d6
Oh, remember. 7 attacks a round. Average of 3822 damage... without charging.


I'd also like to see what BAB this build reaches. That would directly determine whether or not a vanilla ubercharger could do better, as Power Attack stems directly from BAB.
This is irrelevant. It's enough damage to defeat any monster in the MM with a single full attack. The fact you can do more than that is only relevant in the realms of TO, which is not what concerns to the tier system.


Charge attacks don't provoke attacks of opportunity, so an ubercharger could quite easily approach and dispatch a Tarrasque in a single full attack.
It provokes as normal for movement.


I'm sure he meant that an ubercharger could kill a Tarrasque in a single full attack, rather than a single hit. And it's not like a clawlock could prove any better on that front.
It's not like it needs to.

[Douglas]

The problem with that assumption is the definition of tier 1 and 2. "Capable of breaking the game" and "capable of breaking the game in many ways". You just don't get that without optimization.
In the sense that the tier system means it in, yes you do. Or, at least, with no more optimization than choice of which spells to take.


Unoptimized blaster wizards and healer clerics fall at tier 4, but the tier system presents wizard and cleric at tier 1, considering what they can accomplish with optimization. The factotum was already mentioned - it takes quite a bit of specialization for it to be useful in combat as much as JaronK claims.
The tier system is all about relative performance at equal levels of optimization. It is also about the classes themselves, not about what PrCs can do for them.

At very low optimization:
Straight up blaster wizard, does nothing but throw fireballs and similar spells.
vs
Weapon focus fighter using sword and board.

At high op:
Wizard with all kinds of spells, carefully selected for effectiveness and versatility.
vs
Fighter with incredible damage output and other combat stats.

In both cases, the wizard is vastly superior. If the assumed standard for damage output in low-op is what the fighter can do, the wizard will be putting out quantities of damage that will break the game - anything the fighter can kill in any reasonable amount of time will die in batches every round to the fireballs. In high op, the fighter can kill stuff, but the wizard makes the encounter never even happen by teleporting past it. Regardless of the level of optimization assumed, the wizard is better. That is the point of the tier system and is why wizard is rated higher than fighter.

[Dread Angel]

I had a Warlock in an old 3.5 campaign I ran. It was fine, right up till the bastard got Invisibility and Fly. ****ing permanently.

Yeah, he couldn't DPR for crap....but it's supremely annoying having a permanently invisible flying character running....floating, whatever....around with the party basically foiling just about every ambush and whatnot.

I never EVER allow Warlocks. Infinite casting, regardless of the effectiveness, is utterly stupid.

I play Pathfinder now anyway so it's a nonissue.

[ThiagoMartell]

In the sense that the tier system means it in, yes you do. Or, at least, with no more optimization than choice of which spells to take.
"The choice in which spells to take" is all it takes for the warlock to have good damage output (eldritch glaive). If that is not a double standard, I don't know what is.


At very low optimization:
Straight up blaster wizard, does nothing but throw fireballs and similar spells.
vs
Weapon focus fighter using sword and board.

At high op:
Wizard with all kinds of spells, carefully selected for effectiveness and versatility.
vs
Fighter with incredible damage output and other combat stats.

In both cases, the wizard is vastly superior.
Wrong. That's the whole point of LogicNinja's wizard guide. If you stick to damage spells, you are spending actions and spells for the same damage a Fighter deals. Just check his guide - fireball does the same average damage as a sword swing.


If the assumed standard for damage output in low-op is what the fighter can do, the wizard will be putting out quantities of damage that will break the game - anything the fighter can kill in any reasonable amount of time will die in batches every round to the fireballs.
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. Level 5 wizard casts fireball: 5d6 damage. Average damage on a failed save: 17.5. Level 5 Fighter swings his sword: 2d6+9 (Str +6 (+4 x 1.5), Weapon Specialization +2, magic weapon +1) average damage 16 without Power Attack.
At level 10, we'll be at an average of 35 damage from Fireball. The Fighter, on the other hand, will be at Str 22 at least, with a +2 weapon, attacking at least twice a round. That's an average of 38 damage.
They do pretty much the same damage.
Don't take my word for it, though. The tier system has a wizard-like character that can only blast - the warmage. He sits comfortably at tier 4, exactly where the blaster wizard would be.


In high op, the fighter can kill stuff, but the wizard makes the encounter never even happen by teleporting past it. Regardless of the level of optimization assumed, the wizard is better. That is the point of the tier system and is why wizard is rated higher than fighter.
No, that is not the point of the tier system, because that is not true. It measures potential. The wizard has more potential, sure. It doesn't mean it's better than the fighter at all optimization guideposts.

[only1doug]

I had a Warlock in an old 3.5 campaign I ran. It was fine, right up till the bastard got Invisibility and Fly. ****ing permanently.


It would be awful if such feats could be reproduced by every class in the game for just the cost of a +4 LA template. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sprite.htm#pixie) (OK, +4LA is quite expensive but worth it in this case)

[Zale]

I had a Warlock in an old 3.5 campaign I ran. It was fine, right up till the bastard got Invisibility and Fly. ****ing permanently.

Yeah, he couldn't DPR for crap....but it's supremely annoying having a permanently invisible flying character running....floating, whatever....around with the party basically foiling just about every ambush and whatnot.

I never EVER allow Warlocks. Infinite casting, regardless of the effectiveness, is utterly stupid.

I play Pathfinder now anyway so it's a nonissue.


That seems odd. Did none of their foes have any ability to see invisible things or fly?

[ThiagoMartell]

It would be awful if such feats could be reproduced by every class in the game for just the cost of a +4 LA template. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sprite.htm#pixie) (OK, +4LA is quite expensive but worth it in this case)


That seems odd. Did none of their foes have any ability to see invisible things or fly?
Guys, unoptimized parties, casual gamers. You know the drill. Leave him be, his playstyle should not bother you.

[Zale]

Guys, unoptimized parties, casual gamers. You know the drill. Leave him be, his playstyle should not bother you.

See Invisible + Fly is optimized now?

[ThiagoMartell]

See Invisible + Fly is optimized now?
Dude, it obviously is for his party, otherwise that wouldn't have been a problem.

[willpell]

The problem with that assumption is the definition of tier 1 and 2. "Capable of breaking the game" and "capable of breaking the game in many ways". You just don't get that without optimization. Unoptimized blaster wizards and healer clerics fall at tier 4, but the tier system presents wizard and cleric at tier 1, considering what they can accomplish with optimization.

So basically, optomization is about how much you can exceed Wotco's expectations for what the class should be; the Fighter turned out exactly as the 3.0 designers wanted it to, and therefore it sucks, while the cleric and wizard are easy to shatter into a million tiny pieces, any one of which is more powerful than the intended default option for the class. :smallsigh:


Dusk Eclipse already explained it. You don't seem to be at all familiar with eldritch claw, so let me explain how it works.
You get 2 claw attacks. The damage of those claw attacks is your unarmed strike damage plus your eldritch blast damage. It means you can stack upgrades to both unarmed strike and eldritch blast to get more claw damage.
Beast Strike adds claw damage to unarmed strike damage. Your unarmed strike damage ends up as: unarmed strike + unarmed strike + eldritch blast.

I find myself wanting to combine this trick with a Binder who favors Ronove (which is unfortunately a really bad Vestige to favor, as I was reluctantly forced to admit after level 7), since that way you can get monk unarmed strike damage while still wearing light armor (or heavy armor if you can turn off ASF somehow). I see the Warlock and the Binder as having very similar flavor and it seems reasonable to dream up some way of combining them - perhaps a deal with the devil that lets you gestalt these two classes in exchange for losing 1% of your soul every time you fail a binding check or something, I dunno. Seems like it could be neat; there are doubtless better ways of doing, say, 2d10+EB per punch, but I'm easily impressed. :smallsmile:

[ThiagoMartell]

So basically, optomization is about how much you can exceed Wotco's expectations for what the class should be; the Fighter turned out exactly as the 3.0 designers wanted it to, and therefore it sucks, while the cleric and wizard are easy to shatter into a million tiny pieces, any one of which is more powerful than the intended default option for the class. :smallsigh:
Well... pretty much this, yeah.


I find myself wanting to combine this trick with a Binder who favors Ronove (which is unfortunately a really bad Vestige to favor, as I was reluctantly forced to admit after level 7), since that way you can get monk unarmed strike damage while still wearing light armor (or heavy armor if you can turn off ASF somehow). I see the Warlock and the Binder as having very similar flavor and it seems reasonable to dream up some way of combining them - perhaps a deal with the devil that lets you gestalt these two classes in exchange for losing 1% of your soul every time you fail a binding check or something, I dunno. Seems like it could be neat; there are doubtless better ways of doing, say, 2d10+EB per punch, but I'm easily impressed. :smallsmile:
Shou Disciple already gets armor + Monk unarmed damage. Or anyone taking Superior Unarmed Strike.
Warlock/Binder is a kickass combination anyway. Paimon and Naberius are specially good vestiges for Warlocks.

[Dusk Eclipse]

So basically, optomization is about how much you can exceed Wotco's expectations for what the class should be; the Fighter turned out exactly as the 3.0 designers wanted it to, and therefore it sucks, while the cleric and wizard are easy to shatter into a million tiny pieces, any one of which is more powerful than the intended default option for the class. :smallsigh:



I find myself wanting to combine this trick with a Binder who favors Ronove (which is unfortunately a really bad Vestige to favor, as I was reluctantly forced to admit after level 7), since that way you can get monk unarmed strike damage while still wearing light armor (or heavy armor if you can turn off ASF somehow). I see the Warlock and the Binder as having very similar flavor and it seems reasonable to dream up some way of combining them - perhaps a deal with the devil that lets you gestalt these two classes in exchange for losing 1% of your soul every time you fail a binding check or something, I dunno. Seems like it could be neat; there are doubtless better ways of doing, say, 2d10+EB per punch, but I'm easily impressed. :smallsmile:

Actually WotC did notice that Binders and Warlock were meant for each other, in 4e vestige were one of the firdt power sources for warlocks (along with infernal, starspwn and fet IIRC).

And as ThiagoMartell mentioned, getting high Unarmed strike damage is easy (monk's belt, superior unarmed strike, greater mighty wallop, improved natural attack, which incidentally as far as I can tell can be applied to both eldritch claws and Unarmed strike) and that is without counting Eldritch blasts boost such a the chausable of fell power, or hellfire..

[ThiagoMartell]

And as ThiagoMartell mentioned, getting high Unarmed strike damage is easy (monk's belt, superior unarmed strike, greater mighty wallop, improved natural attack, which incidentally as far as I can tell can be applied to both eldritch claws and Unarmed strike) and that is without counting Eldritch blasts boost such a the chausable of fell power, or hellfire..

Actually, now that you mentioned schemas, INA just seems like a poor feat or something you take before you have the money to pay for GMW. It's a single size boost, while GMW grants five. Check a few posts up, it got up to 156d6 damage with Beast Strike.

[willpell]

Well... pretty much this, yeah.

So...I guess I just want to play the classes the way Wotco intended them, where they're all pretty much equally viable and are never optomized more than a little. I do like refluffing them, but not overclocking their power level for the most part, and while I like having other options for cleric and wizard than healer or blaster, I don't feel as though those other options should be better than what the class is, er, classically known for being.


Actually, now that you mentioned schemas, INA just seems like a poor feat or something you take before you have the money to pay for GMW. It's a single size boost, while GMW grants five. Check a few posts up, it got up to 156d6 damage with Beast Strike.

Er, you'd be paying that money every time you paid an NPC spellcaster to cast the spell, right? As opposed to taking the feat just once? I didn't see anything about it being a Permanency target.

[ThiagoMartell]

Er, you'd be paying that money every time you paid an NPC spellcaster to cast the spell, right? As opposed to taking the feat just once? I didn't see anything about it being a Permanency target.

You can craft a schema (or a wand, it's just 3rd level) of GMW if you have 12 or more levels of Warlock.

[willpell]

You can craft a schema (or a wand, it's just 3rd level) of GMW if you have 12 or more levels of Warlock.

Wands eventually run out though. What on Oerth is a schema?

[ThiagoMartell]

Wands eventually run out though. What on Oerth is a schema?
GMW lasts one hour per CL. If you use it every single day, you'll only run out in about a month.
It's nothing on Oerth, it's from Eberorn :smallamused:

[Socratov]

Well, whenever dragon mag is mentioned i am cautious since a lot of dm's don't accent it at their tables. Imo a warlock schould make use of his long range potential and a nifty bag of tricks. Think that a warlock is not safe in melee combat (defenses are easily negated).

All things considered i think a warlock is an excellent partner for gestalt because of the nad and the handy self buffs.

[Zale]

Dude, it obviously is for his party, otherwise that wouldn't have been a problem.

Oh. My apologizes. I thought he was the DM complaining about how the Warlock was ruining things.

That's how I processed the wording.

[Lanaya]

Yeah. Kelb said it all. Overoptimization kills the game completely,specially if it's only one person doing it.

Well obviously overoptimising will negatively impact the game, since the definition of overoptimised is that the character in question has been optimised too much. But unless your entire post was intended as an exercise in tautology, I'm guessing you just meant highly optimised, rather than overoptimised, in which case I strongly disagree. My current campaign is high-op gestalt, and the party's DPS comes in the form of a rogue//barbarian/monk/swordsage/fighter/Idon'tevenknowwhatelse who was easily charging for over 200 damage at level 7. There is not a single level-appropriate encounter I could throw at them that he can't kill in a single round. And it's the best damn campaign I've ever run. For starters, the least optimised character has the most actual power, since he used roleplaying and cunning plans to end up in charge of an army of thousands, including some wizards higher level than the party are, which no amount of damage optimisation is ever going to do. But that's just a minor detail. The main thing is, I really like having powerful PCs.

As a DM, there are few things that irritate me as much as having to put the kiddie gloves on and treat the PCs with delicate care. Last adventure, in a large city, I put them up against a sniper four levels higher than they were. He spent his time stalking them and then, once he found them, would do damage to one PC roughly equal to their maximum health (humanbane is often a great weapon enhancement for bad guys). And I knew that I could use an NPC like that, who could easily kill half the party in three rounds, because the players were tough enough to handle it. More importantly, he wasn't just a standard, 'two to four monsters whose EL is equal to average party level standing on the other end of an empty room, roll initiative' kind of enemy. Every single encounter like that ends in two rounds at most, because of Mr DPS, and it's wonderful. Super optimised damage dealers are the bane of lazy DMing, because every encounter has to either a: be strong enough to cause a TPK, in which case the campaign ends very quickly, or b: be more than just a straightforward 'he hits you for x damage, you hit him for x damage, he hits you for x damage, you kill him, good job'.

For instance, one of my favourite encounters from this campaign was in a room full of pits concealed by illusions, with a trio of shambling mounds who I gave blindsight with my magical DM powers (they're eyeless plant monsters, they see with mysterious magical powers). Except that there was also a druid who the party was supposed to have already killed. Since they hadn't, I put him in the room too, and the moment they entered he filled it with a sleet storm. Suddenly the whole party is completely blind, moving at half speed, falling over, falling into pits and being hit from outside their 5 foot sight range by blindsighted plant monsters. Eventually they did clear everything out, at which point the sleet storm ended to reveal the druid, in lion form, who had prepared a squad of summoned lions during the fight. Very nearly had multiple PC deaths there, and it was one of the most fun encounters I've ever run. Not just from a sadistic DM point of view, although that's certainly part of it, but also because it was unusual, and it required the players to think. But take away the optimisation and suddenly a level 9 druid against a level... 6, I think, party, with a team of level-appropriate monsters in the room AND a whole roomful of concealed traps, is an instant TPK.

Also it's fun to watch one guy roll literally every d6 we own for damage. Especially when it still takes him about six rounds to kill a lone enemy (level 16 defensively-focused crusader against a level 5 party, that was a fun encounter too). But hey, low- and medium-op can be fun too, don't get me wrong. Just... can't we all get along and let the high-op players do our thing too, without being told it's badwrongfun?

[Kelb_Panthera]

For the record, I never said high-op was bad or wrong or anything like that. All I said was, "Most classes become more balanced if you keep optimization low."

I didn't even mean that they were perfectly balanced at the lowest level of optimization, just that they're better balanced at that point.

Someone who posted before this showed the math for why a fighter and a wizard who are both at near-zero optimization could produce similar damage results on a single target.

That sort of thing is what I was talking about, and that sort of thing is where I think the designers were aiming, even though they missed by a considerable margin.

[Menteith]

For the record, I never said high-op was bad or wrong or anything like that. All I said was, "Most classes become more balanced if you keep optimization low."

I didn't even mean that they were perfectly balanced at the lowest level of optimization, just that they're better balanced at that point.

Someone who posted before this showed the math for why a fighter and a wizard who are both at near-zero optimization could produce similar damage results on a single target.

That sort of thing is what I was talking about, and that sort of thing is where I think the designers were aiming, even though they missed by a considerable margin.

Even at low op, a Wizard will generally leave a Fighter behind after the low levels anyway; a Fighter 9 with Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Improved Critical Endurance, Diehard, Dodge, Toughnessx3 (or a similarly unoptimized feat selection) is going to bite it to a Wizard with something as simple as Fly and Wind Wall in a PvP situation, and even with poor spell selection, the "iconic" spells (like Teleport, Fly, or even Lightning Bolt/Fireball) are significantly more useful than attacking a guy for 1d8+str+2 once a round If faced with a challenge they can get around by preparing different spells, most players will start to pick up on the basics of optimization during that first character - Wizards can easily grab new spells, Fighters can't grab new feats. Now, if the Fighter's optimized and the Wizard isn't, this can be averted, but with equal levels of optimization, I'd still say the game is pretty unbalanced.

[Augmental]

The factotum was already mentioned - it takes quite a bit of specialization for it to be useful in combat as much as JaronK claims.

That's not why the factotum is tier 3. It's tier 3 because it can do nearly anything - it has every skill as a class skill, has trapfinding, adds your intelligence modifier to Strength and Dexterity checks and skill, and can spend inspiration points to boost your attack/damage roll/saving throw/armor class for a turn, cast spells, sneak attack, heal, turn undead, get extra standard actions, ignore spell resistance and damage reduction, avoid an attack that you knock you out, and even outright emulate an extraordinary class ability at high levels.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Even at low op, a Wizard will generally leave a Fighter behind after the low levels anyway; a Fighter 9 with Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Improved Critical Endurance, Diehard, Dodge, Toughnessx3 (or a similarly unoptimized feat selection) is going to bite it to a Wizard with something as simple as Fly and Wind Wall in a PvP situation, and even with poor spell selection, the "iconic" spells (like Teleport, Fly, or even Lightning Bolt/Fireball) are significantly more useful than attacking a guy for 1d8+str+2 once a round If faced with a challenge they can get around by preparing different spells, most players will start to pick up on the basics of optimization during that first character - Wizards can easily grab new spells, Fighters can't grab new feats. Now, if the Fighter's optimized and the Wizard isn't, this can be averted, but with equal levels of optimization, I'd still say the game is pretty unbalanced.

Again, I didn't say that the game wasn't unbalanced at that level of optimization, just that it was less noticeable. Especially within a group of cooperating adventurers.

Let's not bring up PvP because it's an unusuall situation that was probably never considered by the dev's. The game is supposed to be about a group of players cooperating, not trying to wring each others' necks.

[lsfreak]

Let's not bring up PvP because it's an unusuall situation that was probably never considered by the dev's. The game is supposed to be about a group of players cooperating, not trying to wring each others' necks.

That argument only works in campaigns that lack enemies with PC classes.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That argument only works in campaigns that lack enemies with PC classes.

Even in such a campaign, it's never one on one. The party's fighter is backed up by 3 other party members typically, to the enemy's one wizard. That or there's multiple enemies on both sides and the fighter leaves the wizard to someone more suited to taking him down, while acting as a meatshield/ mook-mop. PvP 1V1 is a very atypical situation.

[Balmas]

This point may have been made before, but I'm too lazy to trawl through eight pages to find it.

Warlocks are like an exaggerated version of the sorcerer. Instead of having more spells per day at the cost of more limited versatility, you have a grand total of 12 spells, usable as many times as you like. In theory, this is a good thing--after all, once a wizard runs out of spells, he's pretty much a glorified commoner with fancy gear.

Here's the sticking point. As adventurers, very rarely if ever will you have a day with more than three or four encounters. In those encounters, it's rare for any given combat to last beyond five or so rounds. Even if a wizard were to spam spells every round, tossing in a quickened spell as bonus, the wizard would still cast just as many--if not more--spells as the warlock.

Warlocks outstrip Wizards for about four levels. From that point on, wizards become self-sustaining dynamos of arcane might.

The few bonuses of the warlock class--BAB, HP, infinite casting-- are rendered more or less moot by what is given up to obtain it. Barring DM intervention, most metamagic feats are forever beyond your reach. You are forever limited to 12 or less SLAs from a narrow list in one splat book. (Compare to the dozens of books containing wizard spells.) Damage output is weak, even compared to melee fighters of a comparable level. Debuff spells are not well addressed.

[willpell]

Here's the sticking point. As adventurers, very rarely if ever will you have a day with more than three or four encounters.

Don't count on that in my game. A character who beds down at noon because he's out of spells for the day is likely to get ambushed in his sleep, just because it makes sense for the monstrous predators of the world to seek out weakness and avoid things that can kill them for XP.


You are forever limited to 12 or less SLAs from a narrow list in one splat book.

This is incorrect. Several books offer additional warlock invocations; Dragon Magic is the one I'm sure of, but I think there are a few in Complete Mage or Player's Handbook 2 or something as well.

[Augmental]

Don't count on that in my game. A character who beds down at noon because he's out of spells for the day is likely to get ambushed in his sleep, just because it makes sense for the monstrous predators of the world to seek out weakness and avoid things that can kill them for XP.

Rope trick can solve that problem.

[Doxkid]

Don't count on that in my game. A character who beds down at noon because he's out of spells for the day is likely to get ambushed in his sleep, just because it makes sense for the monstrous predators of the world to seek out weakness and avoid things that can kill them for XP.


There are too many ways to ifnd a safe place to nap for that to work, most of the time.

A better solution is time frames: Get X done within the day, or Y.

All quests don't have to be like this, but it makes sense for a decent amount of them; especially when they can actually lose objectives., or fail part of their quest

[ThiagoMartell]

Well obviously overoptimising will negatively impact the game, since the definition of overoptimised is that the character in question has been optimised too much. But unless your entire post was intended as an exercise in tautology, I'm guessing you just meant highly optimised, rather than overoptimised, in which case I strongly disagree. My current campaign is high-op gestalt, and the party's DPS comes in the form of a rogue//barbarian/monk/swordsage/fighter/Idon'tevenknowwhatelse who was easily charging for over 200 damage at level 7. There is not a single level-appropriate encounter I could throw at them that he can't kill in a single round. And it's the best damn campaign I've ever run.
That's where I disagree completely. Once your characters can't feel challenged at all, it means the character creation minigame has thown the tactical combat game completely out of the window. That is the definition of broken - when the game doesn't work as intended anymore.

For starters, the least optimised character has the most actual power, since he used roleplaying and cunning plans to end up in charge of an army of thousands, including some wizards higher level than the party are, which no amount of damage optimisation is ever going to do. But that's just a minor detail. The main thing is, I really like having powerful PCs.
Congratulations on liking powerful PCs, then.
Also, do you use grids? Charges are not that easy to setup when the environment matters.


As a DM, there are few things that irritate me as much as having to put the kiddie gloves on and treat the PCs with delicate care.
Oh, I agree completely, that's irritating. Not being able to challenge the PCs unless I have to redo monsters from stratch is a lot more irritating, IMHO. I have better things to do with my free time than adding templates and advancing monsters because someone wanted to write a big number in his sheet.
If doing that (or just letting the PCs win by default), hey, more power to you. It's just not my thing. No story where success is guaranteed is the least bit fun, IMHO.


Last adventure, in a large city, I put them up against a sniper four levels higher than they were. He spent his time stalking them and then, once he found them, would do damage to one PC roughly equal to their maximum health (humanbane is often a great weapon enhancement for bad guys). And I knew that I could use an NPC like that, who could easily kill half the party in three rounds, because the players were tough enough to handle it. More importantly, he wasn't just a standard, 'two to four monsters whose EL is equal to average party level standing on the other end of an empty room, roll initiative' kind of enemy. Every single encounter like that ends in two rounds at most, because of Mr DPS, and it's wonderful. Super optimised damage dealers are the bane of lazy DMing, because every encounter has to either a: be strong enough to cause a TPK, in which case the campaign ends very quickly, or b: be more than just a straightforward 'he hits you for x damage, you hit him for x damage, he hits you for x damage, you kill him, good job'.
Oh, that is the issue. That is a level apropriate encounter. Your party is not as optimized as you seem to think. Specifically, nonspellcasters humanoids are notoriously under-CRed.
So DMs that don't have time for tailoring encounters for the party are lazy now? I'm sorry, but most people just don't seem to have the amount of free time that you have. Please tell me why someone breezing through encounters is 'wonderful', because I just don't see it. It doesn't help drama, it doesn't advance a story, it's nto even a tactically interesting combat. Rolling dice and adding high numbers to it is fun on itself?


For instance, one of my favourite encounters from this campaign was in a room full of pits concealed by illusions, with a trio of shambling mounds who I gave blindsight with my magical DM powers (they're eyeless plant monsters, they see with mysterious magical powers).
I'm confused. DMs who don't tailor encounters for the party are lazy. But arbitrarily giving abilities to monsters is fine? :smallconfused: Isn't there a bit of bias going on there? The system has it's built-in ways to do stuff like that. You not doing that and using DM Fiat to get whatever you want... well, isn't that laziness?


Except that there was also a druid who the party was supposed to have already killed. Since they hadn't, I put him in the room too, and the moment they entered he filled it with a sleet storm. Suddenly the whole party is completely blind, moving at half speed, falling over, falling into pits and being hit from outside their 5 foot sight range by blindsighted plant monsters. Eventually they did clear everything out, at which point the sleet storm ended to reveal the druid, in lion form, who had prepared a squad of summoned lions during the fight. Very nearly had multiple PC deaths there, and it was one of the most fun encounters I've ever run. Not just from a sadistic DM point of view, although that's certainly part of it, but also because it was unusual, and it required the players to think. But take away the optimisation and suddenly a level 9 druid against a level... 6, I think, party, with a team of level-appropriate monsters in the room AND a whole roomful of concealed traps, is an instant TPK.
Well, this is where you're getting it wrong. The results you got where pretty much expected in the tier sistem. Average party level +3 is a level apropriate encounter. That's not an instant TPK.


Also it's fun to watch one guy roll literally every d6 we own for damage.
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this. I don't find watching someone rolling tons of dice fun at all. I'd rather spend that time RPing.


Especially when it still takes him about six rounds to kill a lone enemy (level 16 defensively-focused crusader against a level 5 party, that was a fun encounter too). But hey, low- and medium-op can be fun too, don't get me wrong. Just... can't we all get along and let the high-op players do our thing too, without being told it's badwrongfun?
Let me just say this: your group is not high op. It's medium op at most.
You're defending a playstyle you probably never experienced.

[willpell]

On a completely unrelated note, I had a thought today about Fighters. Not wanting to go the whole hog by cracking open Tome of Battle, I thought you could nonetheless give the fighter a bit more spellcaster-esque versatility by making him able to shift his fighter bonus feats during a daily training regimen (taking 1 hour to synch up with the meldshapers and prepared-spell casters, while their Binder buddy taps his foot in impatience for 49 minutes). When I was first starting to relearn the game, I gave all my fighter (and psychic warrior) characters a "shortlist" of legal feat choices for their next level up, and it now occurs to me that this could be like a Spells Known list for a wizard, letting the player shop through his options when preparing for an encounter. Doesn't make the fighter any stronger, but might make him more interesting to play over the course of a long campaign.

[ThiagoMartell]

The few bonuses of the warlock class--BAB, HP, infinite casting-- are rendered more or less moot by what is given up to obtain it. Barring DM intervention, most metamagic feats are forever beyond your reach. You are forever limited to 12 or less SLAs from a narrow list in one splat book. (Compare to the dozens of books containing wizard spells.) Damage output is weak, even compared to melee fighters of a comparable level. Debuff spells are not well addressed.
Just... just read the rest of the thread, please. Pretty much everything you know about warlocks is wrong.


That's not why the factotum is tier 3. It's tier 3 because it can do nearly anything - it has every skill as a class skill, has trapfinding, adds your intelligence modifier to Strength and Dexterity checks and skill, and can spend inspiration points to boost your attack/damage roll/saving throw/armor class for a turn, cast spells, sneak attack, heal, turn undead, get extra standard actions, ignore spell resistance and damage reduction, avoid an attack that you knock you out, and even outright emulate an extraordinary class ability at high levels.
Don't tell that to me, tell it to JaronK. You know, the guy who put Factotum at tier 3 and explicitly said it was because it could contribute in combat meaningfully thanks to Iaijutsu Focus.


Even at low op, a Wizard will generally leave a Fighter behind after the low levels anyway; a Fighter 9 with Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Improved Critical Endurance, Diehard, Dodge, Toughnessx3 (or a similarly unoptimized feat selection) is going to bite it to a Wizard with something as simple as Fly and Wind Wall in a PvP situation, and even with poor spell selection, the "iconic" spells (like Teleport, Fly, or even Lightning Bolt/Fireball) are significantly more useful than attacking a guy for 1d8+str+2 once a round If faced with a challenge they can get around by preparing different spells, most players will start to pick up on the basics of optimization during that first character - Wizards can easily grab new spells, Fighters can't grab new feats. Now, if the Fighter's optimized and the Wizard isn't, this can be averted, but with equal levels of optimization, I'd still say the game is pretty unbalanced.
Wait. Why didn't the Fighter take Power Attack? A core feat and one that most NPC fighters have?
Why does the wizard get two of the best spells for it's level (Fly and Wind Wall) and the Fighter gets Toughness x3? That's the thing, this is not what the tier system intended. "Good spell selection" is part of optimization. The fact there are more good spells than good feats does not change that. This is yet another double standard being applied here.
"Equal levels of optimization" means the Fighter has as many good options as the wizard does. So if the wizard gets Fly, the fighter gets Power Attack. If the fighter took Weapon Specialization, you have to consider the wizard is packing Fireballs and Lightning Bolts. That is what equal levels of optimization means. You can't say the Fighter took Toughness 3 times and the Wizard took Fly and Wind Wall and call that same level of optimization.

[Dsurion]

On a completely unrelated note, I had a thought today about Fighters. Not wanting to go the whole hog by cracking open Tome of Battle, I thought you could nonetheless give the fighter a bit more spellcaster-esque versatility by making him able to shift his fighter bonus feats during a daily training regimen (taking 1 hour to synch up with the meldshapers and prepared-spell casters, while their Binder buddy taps his foot in impatience for 49 minutes). When I was first starting to relearn the game, I gave all my fighter (and psychic warrior) characters a "shortlist" of legal feat choices for their next level up, and it now occurs to me that this could be like a Spells Known list for a wizard, letting the player shop through his options when preparing for an encounter. Doesn't make the fighter any stronger, but might make him more interesting to play over the course of a long campaign.I've seen a lot of homebrew that does exactly that. I think the ones I like the most are the ones that make you able to change out your feats once a day after 8 hours of rest, then a few levels later it progresses to 1 hour prep (but now sleep is now longer required), then a few levels later a full round action, and finally as a swift action.

Other people will tell you to just play a Warblade for that reason, but that's no fun at all :smallbiggrin:

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm comfortable using a stock-standard fighter in my games, but if I really wanted options I could build a fighter around tactical feats that gets more "maneuvers" than any of the ToB initiators, that he can use at will, with no refresh mechanics or 1/encounter limit.

To be fair, I play at a pretty low-op level of play, where that fighter will be just as useful as any other party member.

[willpell]

Other people will tell you to just play a Warblade for that reason, but that's no fun at all :smallbiggrin:

As I said, no Tome of Battle. I might like it, but I already bit off Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic when I really shouldn't have (I now love them both, but god were they a ton of work to learn - I'm speaking only of the Binder and Incarnate, mind, the Totemist I know only a little of, the Truenamer I know just from Zaq's handbook, and the Shadowcaster is a complete....wait for it...mystery to me). I haven't even wrapped my brain entirely around magic and psionics, so Tome of Battle is where I'm drawing the line in the sand: I absolutely will not burden myself with any more optional supplements until I'm finished learning the mandatory ones. (Psionics is mandatory because three of my five players are using it, and spellcasting of course is inextricable from core).

[Kelb_Panthera]

As I said, no Tome of Battle. I might like it, but I already bit off Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic when I really shouldn't have (I now love them both, but god were they a ton of work to learn - I'm speaking only of the Binder and Incarnate, mind, the Totemist I know only a little of, the Truenamer I know just from Zaq's handbook, and the Shadowcaster is a complete....wait for it...mystery to me). I haven't even wrapped my brain entirely around magic and psionics, so Tome of Battle is where I'm drawing the line in the sand: I absolutely will not burden myself with any more optional supplements until I'm finished learning the mandatory ones. (Psionics is mandatory because three of my five players are using it, and spellcasting of course is inextricable from core).

I'm gonna have to disagree with the notion that the standard vancian magic system is inextricable. The game will change rather dramatically without it, but it'll still be playable, especially if you're subbing in one of the other magical systems.

In a psionics=yes, magic=no setup, the game's not even all that different. There are just crystals everywhere.

[Menteith]

The last few times someone wanted to play a Fighter in our games, they were allowed to freely gestalt Fighter/Rogue, giving a decent chassis (d10 HD, full BAB, good skill list), fighter bonus feats, and actual class features in Sneak Attack/Rogue abilities.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Don't tell that to me, tell it to JaronK. You know, the guy who put Factotum at tier 3 and explicitly said it was because it could contribute in combat meaningfully thanks to Iaijutsu Focus.

Now, there are a lot of things I have been meaning to respond to in this thread, but haven't, but this I cannot ignore, because it is just laughably wrong.

Here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.msg72557#msg72557) is JaronK's essay on why the Factotum is Tier 3 (spoilered for length):

So, I posted this elsewhere, but it belongs here as it goes into my reasoning behind the placement of the Factotum, a class that few people are familiar with.

______

Here's how combat went the first time a friend of mine picked up a Factotum (never having played before). He was just released from being captured (plot point to get him into the game) and thus had absolutely no gear at all, just the mundane clothes on his back. If he was anything like a Rogue, he should have been unable to fight, but he was thrown directly into combat, and here's what he did, and note that this is an 8th level Tiefling Factotum:

First, he made a rediculously high Escape Artist check to get out of his bindings (he was supposed to be just waiting for us to rescue him). Then he sneaks down the hall. Coming around the corner, he saw a bad guy right in front of him at the opening to a courtyard where the rest of the party was battling. So, on his initiative (it was an ongoing battle) he gets a free standard action with his Factotum abilities and Alter Selfs into an Advespa, which he had learned about with a quick google search for "Alter Self Forms." This gives him 5 natural attacks, 7 Natural Armour, and a flight speed. Then he full attacks the bad guy in front of him, getting a little sneak attack in for good measure. Next round, as our party is cleaning up pretty good and the Sorcereress just glitterdusted the guy and an enemy near him, the guy ran, getting away around a corner... but the Factotum just used an extra standard action to get to the corner, then charged him and used sneak attack to finish him off.

Now, this is simply not something a naked Rogue does.

Now, you can call an 8th level character using Alter Self to gain natural AC and natural attacks TO, but since it was used in game, it's clearly not, nor is it even overpowered (it's still light duty Wild Shape). Yes, Wizards using Alter Self at level 3 to get +8 Natural AC for 30 minutes is overpowered. But Factotums can't do that sort of thing until 5, at which point the Druid already has Wild Shape, which is an equivalent ability at level 5 and continues to get far better, outpacing Alter Self dramatically as the levels increase

Meanwhile, there's the old Iajuitsu Focus thing. Yes, OA was updated for 3.5, and yes, Factotums have ALL skills as class skills, including Autohypnosis and IF. The ability to take extra standard actions and, when you need, add your Factotum level to your check once in a while makes this incredibly potent. You can draw a weapon (usually with the eager enchantment if you can get it, since generally speaking Factotums have a better place to spend feats) in the surprise round (gained through hiding, or casting invisibility, or whatever), partial action charge the enemy, and deal IF damage. Then, if you want, use an extra standard action to hit them again. Then, if you win initiative, use an extra standard action to sheath your weapon while you move up to another enemy, then draw it and full attack, dealing IF damage a second time (and if you want to add sneak attack damage, you could do that too). I don't know why some people don't think IF should count... that's exactly what the Factotum's forte is (using any skill he wants). And of course an item that gives Sapphire Nightmare Blade is exceptionally cheap.

And then of course there's the spellcasting. While he has few spells per day and they're way behind a Wizard, he's got four big advantages here.

First and formost, he can gain extra standard actions, and can do it a LOT if he takes the Factotum only feat that, well, he almost certainly will take. Saying that feat doesn't count because it's in a weird place is silly, since the Factotum itself is in a weird place so you're already looking through weird places, and the "weird place" is the Class Chronicals about Factotums anyway. That's not hugely weird. The result is that he can combo spells together, which can be extremely useful.

The second advantage Factotums get with spells is that unlike Wizards, they can use the entire list without needing a spellbook. That means that if a Factotum suddenly realizes he needs spell X, that's exactly what he's going to have ready for the next day... plus he doesn't have to spend tons of his wealth by level on a spellbook. This is huge in games like World's Largest Dungeon, or just games where the situation changes a lot.

And the third is that his spells are actually spell like abilities, meaning they always have a standard action casting time. He does have to pay component costs and can't use exp cost spells, but the standard action thing is VERY good with some spells, for example Major Creation or any other spell balanced by its slow casting time.

And fourth, he can ignore SR whenever he wants, starting from level 11. Just think about that one for a second. *Consider how many spells are balanced by the fact that at least SR can stop them, and then realize that when a Factotum does it, he can ignore that. *Cast Spectral Hand and Shivering Touch in the surprise round, touch attack the dragon with it, and ignore his SR for the purpose, which would be his only defense? *Sure. *And you've even got the Factotum's advantages in sneaking up on him, just stay out of the range of his Blindsense (unless you have Darkstalker of course).

So, another way a Factotum could fight (we've been through two already, turning into a powerful combat form and using Iajuitsu Focus for damage boosting) would be to combo useful spells together. One easy example is Cloudkill with Solid Fog, making a fog of death that enemies can't escape from quickly enough. And remember, you can cast the whole combo in the surprise round if you want. Very nasty. You could even cast Animate Dead in the middle of a battle if you so desired, due to the casting time decrease. No one ever expects the skillmonkey to pull that move off. *And the above mentioned combination of Spectral Hand with any potent touch attack. *All this and the ability to ignore SR whenever it suits you is pretty darn incredible.

The important point is that everything I've stated here is just a Factotum with a few Fonts of Inspiration. That's it. I haven't discussed gear other than the side note about using Sapphire Nightmare Blade, or race (though the Advespi thing only works if you're an outsider... that particular character happens to be a Tiefling... but you can use other forms if you're another race). And those were just some examples of what a Factotum can do (I haven't even gone into Turn Undead or his healing abilties or his ability to ignore DR, or his ability to eventually mimic any three Ex class abilities from 15th level characters... how about 10d6 sneak attack, 10d6 sudden strike, and full flurry of blows? Or would you prefer Pounce? You know what else is Ex? A Fighter's Bonus Feats, and you probably just gained 10 of them because you just gained the bonus feats ability of a fighter of your Factotum level. Now, technically spellcasting itself is Ex, but we'll ignore that for now). I haven't gone into his defense either... the ability to simply ignore any damage that would take him to 0 or less hitpoints for 4 Inspiration Points is pretty freaking awesome, as as Int to AC in any armour if he needs it (though his later version of the ability requires light armour). And who doesn't like the ability to add your class level to any save when you want it?

And of course, all of that was just combat. We haven't even gotten started on out of combat.

Out of combat you're much like a Rogue, except that unlike a Rogue you can pump Int without worrying (Rogues have to care about their Dex a lot more if they want to survive, and their poorer defense makes Con that much more critical). This means your higher int will make up for the skill point difference. Then you've got both Int and Dex (and both Int and Str) to skills that require Str or Dex, the ability to add your Factotum level once per day to any skill you've got a point in already, and of course the ability to cast nearly any Wizard/Sorc spell, though admittedly a few spell levels behind the big boys. This can mean scouting an area while Alter Selfed into a Whispergnome or Skulk for better hide and move silently, using Autohypnosis to automatically memorize every detail you see, and then sneaking back. Or just using a divination spell. You've got such spells as Knock and Silence to help out too. And that's just the scouting aspect.

There's a reason Factotums are in Tier 3 in my system, and in fact they're pretty high in Tier 3. They've got so much innate flexibility it's obscene... unexperienced DMs thinking they're weaker could get VERY surprised but how much a Factotum can alter himself to suit a situation perfectly.* Put a Factotum in a group with a Rogue and that Rogue ends up looking like dead weight plenty of the time (any time where the situation calls for one skill monkey to do something). And the Fighter? The Factotum can often outclass him too, sometimes dropping whole encounters in the surprise round and start of the first round. And he can do all of it without warning, adapting on the fly to the situation in front of him.* Certainly, when I watch the one that's currently grouped with my Dread Necromancer (plus a Sorcerer, Cleric, Swordsage, and Paladin of Tyranny/Hexblade) there's no way he's the weak link.

So yeah, really potent, really flexible class that can REALLY surprise a DM.

JaronK

Iaijutsu Focus is a part of why the Factotum is so good--but it is a small part. Most of what makes the Factotum SO GOOD is that he is Shrödinger's Wizard. Then, you have extra standard actions to cast them all at the same time. Its spell selection is derived from the "Sorcerer/Wizard list"--ALL of it--and it can prepare any spell from that list at the top of the day, depending on what it needs to do, without prior knowledge. It is the penultimate skill-user--adding two attributes to all physical skills (sans Concentration), adding its class level to any skill it has a rank in on a per-need basis, and knowing every skill as a class skill (with enough ranks and INT synergy to have more skill points than a Rogue). Then, it gets its INT to attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, saves, turn uses, sneak attack damage, and the ability to roll out of death, all for inspiration points, leading up to the ability to emulate any (Ex) abilities from any class, ever.

Compared to all of this, Iaijutsu Focus abuse is a parlor trick. Seriously. It's maybe the fourth or fifth most abusable CHA-based skill in the Factotum's repertoire (behind Use Magic Device, Handle Animal, Diplomacy, and maybe Intimidate). Why would I care about the +9d6 IF damage off a DC50 check (which is good, but never great, as it doesn't scale beyond that upper limit) when the same check result gets an enemy from hostile to friendly, or from friendly to fanatic with Diplomacy, or trains magical beasts and vermin with Handle Animal, or uses all the magic devices with Use Magic Device, or demoralizes to cause every enemy to cower uselessly in fear (including Great Wyrms and below) for a round as a move action with Intimidate (+ Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered)?

Then there's Autohypnosis, and, well, every other Epic-level check that the Factotum trivializes.

I mean, yeah, it's a good enough parlor trick to sink skill points into (mostly because you have enough skill points to max whatever the Hell you want), but it's so far down the line of useful Factotum abilities (and all of them are useful) that I wouldn't move the Factotum a pip on the tier system, let alone a whole tier.

[GenghisDon]

If the L5 fighter takes toughness x3, the L5 wizard's L2-3 spellbook is keen edge, tongues, owl's wisdom, obscure object, misdirection, & whispering wind.

The factotum better be good without iaijutsu focus, as most games simply aren't going to include it. Psionic skills aren't going to be an option in many games either (although at least those skills are from the same game/3.5e).

None of which has anything to do with warlocks.

A DM that wishes to include warlocks as a primary PC or NPC force in their games simply ought create additional materials for the class. More invocations of every power level, and perhaps some warlock specific feats or tigher "theme" packages (less choice range, more or greater abilities). There are 1,000's of spells to pillage from, and one could look at some 4e warlock stuff as well.

So what if there isn't as much support for the class on paper (or PDF)? That mainly just hinders munchkins who can't "legally optimise" their caricatures.

I repeat the suggestion I made in another thread that the EB damage progression remain steady & the level advancement chart be alter to suit; L13=7d6, L15=8d6, L17=9d6, L19=10d6, L21=11d6, ect. It's a small fix, but one that should be made simply because it's a WOTC error, wether they admit it or not.

[Menteith]

If the fighter takes toughness x3 the wizard's L2-3 spellbook is keen edge, tongues, owl's wisdom, obscure object, misdirection, & whispering wind.

The problem is that once the Wizard realizes that their list isn't helping them very much, they can trivially change it to a better one...which the Fighter can't. Also, most players, even in a low power game, will have at least one functional spell each level (what kind of new players doesn't choose Fireball or Lightning Bolt at level 3?), while I've actually seen new players want to take Toughness multiple times (because it makes my "tank" tougher).

[Kelb_Panthera]

If the fighter takes toughness x3 the wizard's L2-3 spellbook is keen edge, tongues, owl's wisdom, obscure object, misdirection, & whispering wind.

Those aren't even bad options at that. A buff for your cleric/druid/monk friend, a buff for your frontliner and some out-of combat utility. High-op? certainly not. Useful? quite probably.

This is exemplary of why even at the lowest level of optimization, the casters are still ahead of the martial types, but at the same time, I highly doubt that the fighter will complain about that keen edge when he crits twice as often, or if that owls wisdom saves him from a charm or dominate. In a cooperative (read: normal) game, the imbalance is less noticable at low-op levels.

[GenghisDon]

9 HP (or as some HR, 3+4+5=12 HP) is useful too.

It's true the wizard can & almost certainly will recover from their spell choices, but doesn't pretty much everyone here allow feats to be "re-trained"/swapped also? So toughness times 3 might become improved toughness, blind fighting & zen archery, for examples? Sorcerer types certainly don't recover from "poor" spell choices quickly, however. I think there is WAY too much focus on improving the lower Tier classes, where instead the simplest & best "fixes" for the game deal with NERFs for the Tier 1's.

The WOTC "geniuses" also ADMITEDLY put crocked feats into the 3e game; and while one can argue they also did so for spells, the truth is that nearly all spells CAN be useful (as pointed out in the above posts, no argument from me). A DM certainly can remove or "fix" these insipid traps for inexperienced or less dicerning players. I'd say they should.

[Menteith]

9 HP (or as some HR, 3+4+5=12 HP) is useful too.

It's true the wizard can & almost certainly will recover from their spell choices, but doesn't pretty much everyone here allow feats to be "re-trained"/swapped also? So toughness times 3 might become improved toughness, blind fighting & zen archery, for examples? Sorcerer types certainly don't recover from "poor" spell choices quickly, however. I think there is WAY too much focus on improving the lower Tier classes, where instead the simplest & best "fixes" for the game deal with NERFs for the Tier 1's.

Feat retraining rarely is at will (though maybe it should be). A Wizard has no real downsides for picking and experimenting with spells, and every player, no matter how low op, is going to figure out that some spells are better than others, and adjust accordingly. Sorcerers with a single blasting spell of each level and otherwise randomized spells are still leagues ahead of a low op Fighter (Barbarians are different animals, but Fighters actually demand decent optimization due to how many trap feats there are). I'd rather just use the lower powered casters than deal with houserules on the Wizard (although I'd expect that banning/agreeing not to use certain spells stops most of the nuts power anyway); the game already has classes that can give me the feel of a Wizard (Dread Necro, Bardic Sage, Beguiler, Warmage) that still let mundanes contribute and shine.

[GenghisDon]

bah, I edit/type too slowly.

I agree with you Menteith, but you seem to believe one is powerless to alter said situations. RAW is merely a starting point for a game IMHO. It has no inheirant value whatsoever, save for a "shared experience" between groups & for convention/on-line play.

Still, you are certainly exercising such an option by making warmages, beguilers, ect the default casters, so GOOD ON YOU. I think you could safely add the warlock to that list, but it's your call.

[Menteith]

bah, I edit/type too slowly.

I agree with you Menteith, but you seem to believe one is powerless to alter said situations. RAW is merely a starting point for a game IMHO. It has no inheirant value whatsoever, save for a "shared experience" between groups & for convention/on-line play.

Still, you are certainly exercising such an option by making warmages, beguilers, ect the default casters, so GOOD ON YOU. I think you could safely add the warlock to that list, but it's your call.

Unless I'm serious about homebrew, and can fully document it, I'd rather just stick to an existing option (and there is some wonderful homebrew out there that I have used, much of it on these forums). And trust me, I don't use RAW precisely for many things; I just find it's easier to maintain a banned list for typical games. In a setting like Tippyverse, I have no problems using more powerful options, but for something like Red Hand of Doom (or my standard homebrew setting) it doesn't make sense for Wizards as they are to exist.

[TuggyNE]

Well, this is where you're getting it wrong. The results you got where pretty much expected in the tier sistem. Average party level +3 is a level apropriate encounter. That's not an instant TPK.

Your math is off. CR 9 NPC + 3x CR 6 monsters + an unknown number of low-CR traps = EL 11+. For a level 6 party to blast through that is impressive, especially if that wasn't a major boss fight, but was just run-of-the-mill.

[willpell]

Rope trick can solve that problem.

While the spell doesn't say the character can't sleep in the extradimensional space, it doesn't say that they can either, and doesn't D&D generally default to the answer being "no"? I've explicitly ruled in my campaign that characters hiding inside a Rope Trick are still climbing a rope and thus have to keep hanging on (probably requiring Climb or Concentration checks - you try gripping a rope continually for three hours or longer); other DMs may not make that ruling, but since Rope Trick is only a 2nd-level spell, making it provide complete immunity to any and all forms of attack for 1 hour per caster level seems massively overpowered and probably not RAI.

[GenghisDon]

Rope trick began as something else entirely...it's duration was only 10 min/level or so BITD. It's massively overpowered/game changing at hour/L & spell level 2. Fix it or ban it, or simply resign oneself to nova/sleep, nova/sleep boring inanity, punctuated by bouts of "What? that's not fair! How could we be expected to do X in Y amount of time! you are a terrible DM!". I know what I choose.

Rope trick is the prime example of how WOTC game designers FAIL. The see a "sacred cow", fail to understand what it actually represents (or worse, beleive they are "fixing" it) & proceed to blithely & completely alter how the D&D game is played. Much to the detriment of the game. ****ing morons.

Rope trick was a spell to temporarily escape/confound one's enemies/pursuers. It wasn't Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, the level 2 version. Not that it is any "younger" player's fault to not know this, it's WOTC's fault.

[Lonely Tylenol]

While the spell doesn't say the character can't sleep in the extradimensional space, it doesn't say that they can either, and doesn't D&D generally default to the answer being "no"? I've explicitly ruled in my campaign that characters hiding inside a Rope Trick are still climbing a rope and thus have to keep hanging on (probably requiring Climb or Concentration checks - you try gripping a rope continually for three hours or longer); other DMs may not make that ruling, but since Rope Trick is only a 2nd-level spell, making it provide complete immunity to any and all forms of attack for 1 hour per caster level seems massively overpowered and probably not RAI.

The rope actually remains from end to end within the Material Plane (none of it extends into the extradimensional space - the length of rope, as it existed in the Material Plane, simply rises from the ground until it is hanging perpendicular to the ground), and the extradimensional space is pretty explicit in being what it is--a pocket within time and space that holds up to 8 people (7 if you actually do pull the rope in with you, since it occupies one such space if it is actually within this pocket dimension), in which no mention of a rope existing on its own ever happens (and it is made very clear that the rope you originally cast it on never leaves the Material Plane). You are, for all intents and purposes, crammed into a dark, featureless room with six or seven of your friends. Now, you can decide for yourself if this extradimensional space has some features of its own, or how spacious it is (it certainly isn't cozy), but you certainly don't spend 1hr/CL hanging from a rope that doesn't exist, per any rules I've read (and designer intent on the contrary is clear as well). It's clearly poorly designed (in that it starts to get better than, say, a spell like Mage's Magnificent Mansion at about the level you'd get such a spell), but unless your group has some weird fetish for getting attacked at night, this isn't going to upset the balance all the same. Still, if you want what is in my opinion a more sensible nerf, just make it 1 min/lvl or 10 min/lvl. It still performs its original probable function--and even has good duration at that--but it doesn't stay up long enough to sleep in.

[willpell]

BITD

I don't know this acronym. I thought you were talking about 3.0 so I looked up that version of the spell, and was puzzled to notice that the only substantive difference was that there was a mention of a DC 30 Strength check to pull down the rope, which 3.5 omits. There's also a clause saying that climbing the rope requires a DC 5 Climb check, but that's hardly "substantive"; it's almost impossible to fail such a check.


(and it is made very clear that the rope you originally cast it on never leaves the Material Plane).

It does if you pull it up after you. To me, the fact that the space holds 8 "somethings", regardless of whether each something is a 10-inch pixie, a 10-foot ogre, or the rope itself, means it can't sensibly be regarded as a room; instead I imagine it as the rope seeing to extent up to infinity while everyone climbs in single file, and the entry of an eighth individual simply closes the window for anyone else to climb on board, as does pulling up the rope after 7 or fewer people have climbed.


unless your group has some weird fetish for getting attacked at night

As I said, I use the option to attack the players in their sleep as one way of discouraging them from using up all their spells as fast as possible and then going to bed for the day at noon. So forbidding Rope Trick from being an exploit, by not allowing you to sleep in it, is a priority for me. You can use it to hide from pursuers for a good long while, but it'll be a grueling ordeal to hang on for that long, and if one person falls out they'll probably betray the location of the entire group to whoever's chasing them.

[GenghisDon]

BITD=back in the day

In this case, much further back than 3e

OD&D...the spell's origon "Rope Trick: This spell enables the user to cause a length of rope (6' to 24') to stand upright by itself, and when he (and up to three others) climbs to its summit, disappears into another dimension. The rope is simply tossed into the air and climbed. If undisturbed
the rope remains in place for the duration of the spell, but it can be removed,
and if it is the persons coming back from the other dimension will fall the distance they climbed to the top of the rope. Duration: 6 turns plus the level of the magic-user employing it." greyhawk pg 23. It was a L3 spell & a turn is 10 minutes, so it lasted 1 hour +10 minutes/CL

AD&D 1e version: "Explanation/Description: When this spell is cast upon a piece of rope from 5' to 30' in length, one end of the rope rises into the air until the whole is hanging perpendicular, as if affixed at the upper end. The upper end is, in fact, fastened in an extra-dimensional space, and the spell caster and up to five others can climb up the rope and disappear into this place of safety where no creature can find them. The rope cannot be taken into the extradimensional space if six persons have climbed it, but otherwise it can be pulled up. Otherwise, the rope simply hangs in air, and will stay there unless removed by some creature. The persons in the extra-dimensional
space must climb down the rope prior to the expiration of the spell duration, or else they are dropped from the height to which they originally climbed when the effect of the spell wears out. The rope can be climbed by only one person at a time. Note that the rope trick spell allows climbers to reach a normal place if they do not climb a11 the way to the rope's upper end, which is in an extra-dimensional space. The material components of this spell are powdered corn extract and a twisted loop of parchment. PH (1e) pg 71. duration is 2 turns/level (20 minutes/CL), is a L2 spell for M-U (wizards) or L3 for illusionists

AD&D 2e version is pretty much the same, although it's up to 7 (or 8 without the rope) people. Ah, power creep, thou art inevitable!

I'm actually surprised, given the default party size of 3e (4), that they didn't go back to 4 people tops. Party size in OD&D/AD&D1e was typically 6-12+, so the spell was often less useful than it is for later, smaller groups.

duration change is the key. Not that VHL casters BITD didn't try to use rope trick spells to crash out in sometimes, they just had to expend more spells to do so (metamagic was casting a booster spell back then).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Ultimately, it boils down to flexibility. Warlocks don't have it. Full casters do.

Warlocks get twelve invocations over their entire career. That's... not a lot. Most 'combos' tend to assume you have 3-4 specific ones. That further reduces your flexibility.

The other problem is the upper limit to what they can do. It's a lot lower than just about any other class.

I don't acknowledge Dragon Mag as a viable source, it's nothing but published homebrew. Eldritch Glaive is not very easy to get to work, because it's a full-round action to activate, meaning you can't Pounce with it. So a Warlock's damage output tends to be exceedingly poor.

They would make decent shutdown specialists if they could tweak their DC's, at least after level 11, but they just don't have as many options to DC-stack as most wizards do.

It's a good mechanic concept, but fairly poorly executed. The DFA did a somewhat better job at it. I've got some homebrewed classes using the mechanic which don't do too badly.

The class which has 1/2 BAB also has one invocation per level, for a total of 20, nearly twice as many as the Warlock gets. It also gets access to damage boosters, can make a blast as an attack action (after a few levels), and is considered to be able to cast spells of x level where x is the highest level invocation available to him.

The classes which have a 3/4 BAB and 12 invocations have actually viable class features. No one cares about DR5/cold iron. No one cares about fast healing for only a couple of minutes out of the day. And Energy Resistance 10 as a capstone is just pathetic.

[GenghisDon]

agreed on flexability.

the rest, not so much.

DR is VERY handy

so is ER, and it's certainly not a "capstone" for a warlock, it's just part of a progression. Presumably at L30 it would be 15. Nothing to write home about, perhaps, but better than NOTHING

healing is healing. 20 free HP at L8, 40 free HP at L13 or 100 free HP at L18 isn't a bad thing.

There is also the extra invocation feat (& no doubt an epic version) to expand one's abilites, although that is a cost.

[Socratov]

One question though, does decheive item do what i think it does? The way i read it, it allowes you to use just about any item (even those you shouldn't be able to use).

[Zale]

One question though, does decheive item do what i think it does? The way i read it, it allowes you to use just about any item (even those you shouldn't be able to use).

That's kind of what UMD does.

So long as you have enough ranks in the skill.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

agreed on flexability.

the rest, not so much.

DR is VERY handyDR 5/Cold Iron is pointless, considering most damage output, just to be able to threaten the PC's, is going to be over 50 damage a hit. So no, 1/10th damage reduction is minor at best.


so is ER, and it's certainly not a "capstone" for a warlock, it's just part of a progression. Presumably at L30 it would be 15. Nothing to write home about, perhaps, but better than NOTHINGER 5 at level 10, and ER 10 at level 20 is a JOKE. At level 10, you are eating 10d6 from most blastomancy. 5 points is pointless. That's an average of 35 damage. Not nearly enough to be worth bothering with. By level 20, if you are getting hit by elemental damage, it's going to be a lot more painful than that. And considering it's only effective against two energy types (although granted, you CAN pick Sonic and Acid), it isn't that useful.

Compare with Ironsoul Forgemaster, who gets Energy Resistance 5/essentia against ALL energy-based damage. At the first level of the PrC.


healing is healing. 20 free HP at L8, 40 free HP at L13 or 100 free HP at L18 isn't a bad thing. If that were the case, it would be worth it. But it isn't. The key phrase here is "Once per day", without a method of breaking it up. In other words, most of that will be overhealing.


There is also the extra invocation feat (& no doubt an epic version) to expand one's abilites, although that is a cost. Blow feats on invocations, or blow feats to make invocations viable... pick one.

[Socratov]

That's kind of what UMD does.

So long as you have enough ranks in the skill.

So all it does is removing the skillcheck modifier? (Next to taking10 on umd)?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So all it does is removing the skillcheck modifier? (Next to taking10 on umd)?

That's pretty much exactly what it does... allows you to Take 10 on a UMD. It doesn't remove the skillcheck modifier. It simply allows you to guarantee that you can make the UMD check if you could make it by rolling a 10.

[GenghisDon]

DR 5/Cold Iron is pointless, considering most damage output, just to be able to threaten the PC's, is going to be over 50 damage a hit. So no, 1/10th damage reduction is minor at best.

ER 5 at level 10, and ER 10 at level 20 is a JOKE. At level 10, you are eating 10d6 from most blastomancy. 5 points is pointless. That's an average of 35 damage. Not nearly enough to be worth bothering with. By level 20, if you are getting hit by elemental damage, it's going to be a lot more painful than that. And considering it's only effective against two energy types (although granted, you CAN pick Sonic and Acid), it isn't that useful.

Compare with Ironsoul Forgemaster, who gets Energy Resistance 5/essentia against ALL energy-based damage. At the first level of the PrC.

If that were the case, it would be worth it. But it isn't. The key phrase here is "Once per day", without a method of breaking it up. In other words, most of that will be overhealing.

Blow feats on invocations, or blow feats to make invocations viable... pick one.

I think you might be a bit spoiled by PRC's.

Take a look at what the standard classes get. Most get NOTHING, just a spell progression or feat (type) progression. The extras are SUPPOSED to be minor.

While I understand the DR, resistances, ect, aren't game changers at those levels, they do matter, especially in non-munchkin/optimiser games. 5 or 10 less points per attack is 5 or 10 less. It really does add up, even if it is just turning 50 point hits/blasts into 45-40 point ones (which, incidentally, prevents a massive damage save as well, but that's hardly my point).

DR/magic is the real stinker, and even it has usefulness.

[Aegis013]

I think you might be a bit spoiled by PRC's.
...
The extras are SUPPOSED to be minor.
...
especially in non-munchkin/optimiser games.

I recommend avoiding abrupt jumps to conclusions, especially regarding other people. Different people enjoy different aspects and levels of game play. You seem to enjoy low-op, which is great, but to assume someone is spoiled on a comparison of abilities alone, or suggest that a high-op game is full of nothing but munchkins, or especially to suggest that optimizer is synonymous with munchkin can be rather offensive. Please try to be more polite and respectful of your fellow playgrounders in the future.

[GenghisDon]

{{scrubbed}}

[Aegis013]

See, there is where I'm screwed.

"Optimiser" is merely a propoganda term for munchkin, power gamer & min/maxer. An attempt to remove the negative conotations from such terms.

Let me attempt make this clear, then. Generally, I believe, on this board optimizer is defined as a person with a great deal of knowledge about the system who has the ability to create not only an effective character/monster/encounter/etc within the reasonable confines of the rules, but to create an extremely effective character/monster/challenge, etc etc. Sometimes optimizers can unintentionally misinterpret the rules, but so can anybody.

Munchkin is a term used for people who do things such as lie about what they rolled on a die. Or intentionally misinterpret rules. Or add things to their character sheet and attempt to hide the reasoning from the DM (because they are cheating).

Suggesting that someone who has done some research, or can simply look at option A and option B and go "Well, option A is objectively more powerful for reason X." is a cheater can be pretty offensive. That is what other people will likely interpret you are suggesting by saying optimizer is the same as munchkin; that knowing about the game is no different than cheating.

If you choose to define it another way, I recommend you prepare yourself for a good deal of miscommunication.