The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

[ThiagoMartell]

THE NEW WARLOCK HANDBOOK
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/cc_20050629_Warlock.jpg
Welcome to the New Warlock Handbook. This guide came up from an idea to compile various thoughts about Warlocks, since it has been spread out between various guides around the various optimization communities. Sadly, those guides haven't been updated in quite a while, so I'm trying to fill the gaps.

Color Coded for Your Convenience
I initially resisted using a color code system for this guide, but under influence of our friend LonelyTylenol, I gave in. You will find the following color ratings in this guide:
Purple - Excellent
Blue - Good
Black - Average
Red - Bad

Introduction
Warlocks are a base class presented in Complete Arcane. It has a strong demonic flavor, though options for fey flavored and celestial flavored warlocks showed up later.
The warlock shtick is at-will magic. The class is built around invocations - spell-like abilities the warlock gets to use how often he wants. The class gets an offensive option in eldritch blast, allowing for an at will ranged touch attack for magical damage. Eldritch blast can be further tweaked with essences and shapes.
If the demonic flavor, the at-will magic or something else entirely about the Warlock interests you, hang on because we get a long road ahead of us. In this handbook, we plan to explore all the options available to Warlocks.

Standing in the Shoulders of Giants
The following are the previous Warlock handbooks in case you want to check out the (awesome) guides that came before us.
Warlock Information Compilation (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2997) by Thinblade
Glaivelock Miniguide (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870282/The_Glaivelock_-_A_Mini-Guide) by JanusJones... sadly contains many errors regarding rules interpretations
Melee warlock handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159708)
Warlock FAQ by Rich Baker (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19520666/Warlock_Faq_by_Rich_Baker?pg=1) Rich Baker created the Warlock and this compilation has several of his answers regarding the class, feat interactions, what it should and should not do. Very good for those that want to homebrew invocations, since he states the design goals behind them.

A Note About The Tier System
I'm guessing most of you reading this handbook are familiar with JaronK's tier system for classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0). JaronK has Warlocks at tier 4, which is something I disagree with. You see, the tier system claims to consider potential and not specific builds. However, the Warlock has potential for very high damage output if he chooses his melee options. Between high damage output and his invocations, a Warlock is more versatile than any initiator and even the Duskblade. To me, the Warlock fits perfectly the definition of tier 3.
There have been plenty of accusations of bias towards the tier system, but I really don't think this is a case of such. I think it's just a matter of no one bothering enough to defend the Warlock at the time of it's writing and JaronK not knowing much about Warlocks, really (eldritch glaive is very counterintuitive). The tier system is unlikely to get updated ever again and should only be considered as rough guidelines anyway, but do notice that I strongly think Warlock stands quite firmly at tier 3, above the Duskblade and the martial adepts but below Beguiler.

Warlock Basics
Let's get down to the basics about Warlocks. First, overall pros and cons.
Pros:

Can function with pretty much any ability score assignment
At-will abilities, requiring no resource management (other than actions, gold and hp, but everyone needs those)
Good damage output if using melee options
Good skill list
Able to use invocations in light armor
Medium base attack bonus


Cons:


Alignment restrictions (must be chaotic or evil)
Only gets 12 invocations across 20 levels
Hard to qualify for prestige classes
Few skill points
d6 Hit Dice
Starved for feats


To Melee or Not Melee
The first question you must ask yourself regarding Warlocks is this - do you want the extra damage output from melee or not? Using eldritch glaive and or eldritch claws will gain you a lot of damage over staying ranged, but it requires investment and puts you in the frontlines.
You'll notice this is not titled "ranged or melee", because going melee does not hurt your ranged capabilities in the slightest. We'll discuss a few options for ranged-only warlocks to increase their damage output (Psionic Shot, Hellfire Warlock plus Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse), but be advised it's not spectacular damage in any way.
Please notice how we never mentioned Hideous Blow as an option for melee warlocks. That's because, as others have said before me, Hideous Blow blows hideously.
We are in no way claiming that ranged Warlocks are bad. If anything, not having to spend feats and levels for damage boosts gives them versatility. It's just that they don't make good main damage dealers. You can play a blastlock just fine, you just won't be winning any damage contests.

Charisma: Take it or Leave it
As mentioned before, Warlocks can function with pretty much any ability score assignment (yes, even 3s across the board, even if that is an unplayable character by RAW). This might confuse some readers, since the save DC for invocations depends on Charisma. It's important to notice that Warlocks have several invocations that don't allow saves, so you could simply take those. Basically, even the Warlock's main stat (according to Complete Arcane) is skippable.
It's important to keep good Charisma if you want to use invocations that allow saves, such as most eldritch essences and a few others (Tenacious Plague, Word of Changing, Nightmares Made Real), if you want to get mileage from Dark One's Own Luck if you want to use Bluff, UMD and Intimidate reliably.
If you don't want to use those, you can safely dump Charisma and stock up on 24 hour buffs (Fell Flight, Beguiling Influence, Leaps and Bounds, Dark Foresight, Walk Unseen, Entropic Warding) and invocations that don't require saves (Chilling Tentacles, Path of Shadows, Flee the Scene, Hellspawned Grace, The Dead Walk).
Some of you may already have noticed that some of the best invocations don't require saves. Also, the best essence user is the glaivelock - and that's because he forces several saves in the same round and thus does not require stellar Charisma (though it helps).
My suggestion after all this is that having a good Charisma on your Warlock is preferrable... if it does not hurt other parts of your build. Check the requirements on your feats, your expected Armor Class and decide if you want to be a melee 'lock or not before you assign points to Charisma. In most situations, 14~16 is good enough.
I don't advise dumping Charisma altogether unless you start at very high levels, since UMD is so good. At high levels, though, you don't need Cha since between ranks and taking 10 you'll meet all DCs anyway.

Warlock Class Abilities
Here we'll discuss about the various class abilities Warlocks get and how you can make use of them.
Eldritch Blast: The Warlock's signature ability, gained at level 1. Eldritch blast by itself is nothing to write home about. It's a ranged touch attack with 30ft range that hits for an average of 3.5 damage/2 levels. It can gain rider effects through essences and can target differently with shapes. Some of those rider effects are really good (such as Noxious Blast) and your damage output can be greatly increased if you use options to attack more than once a round (eldritch glaive, eldritch claw, grappling blast). Out of the box, eldritch blast is nothing special, but if you use the right options, it becomes a respectable source of damage.
Detect Magic: This is a nice ability to have, since it's at will. It's easy to forget you have it, though.
Damage Reduction: Small DR, but you'll have it against most attacks, since cold iron weapons are usually rare in NPC statblocks and monsters are very rarely able to overcome this. It's a small bonus, but it sure adds up.
Energy Resistance: This is nothing special, but it least it saves you some GP from buying equipment to do this. Passive ability and easily forgettable, but it can be a lifesaver every now and then.
Fiendish Resilience: A very minor passive ability. It's basically a built-in ability for out of combat healing - which you should be doing from wands anyway. Really forgettable. There are options to trade it away in Drow of the Underdark (Poisonous Blood) and Player's Handbook 2 (Fiendish Flamewrath). I like Fiendish Flamewrath better, but both poison and fire are commonly resisted.
Deceive Item: This is one of the strongest features of the Warlock class. Use Magic Device is the best skill in the game and Warlock is one of only two classes that can take 10 on it.
Imbue Item: This ability allows you craft magical items with no need for spells. You still need the magic item creation feats, but you could dip the Chameleon prestige class from Races of Destiny for a way around that (they get a floating feat that can be swapped evey day). More info on magic item creation will follow below.

Races for your Warlock
Part of choosing any character is selecting race. Warlocks can work as any race, but a few races are specially good as Warlocks. If you already have a race set in mind due to background or anything like that, go with that.
I'm not covering races with LA yet.
Human: As usual, humans are a good race to choose. Extra feats are helpful in a usually feat starved race, warlocks are not that dependant on ability scores so the lack of bonuses is not a problem, warlocks don't get much skill points so every little bit helps.... and it qualifies you for Chameleon. As an aside, it's a good option for fey themed warlocks because then you can take Nymph's Kiss and Fey Heritage at 1st level. Silverbrow Humans from Dragon Magic also give you Disguise as class skill, qualifying you for Chameleon as a single classed Warlock.
Halfling: Small size is very good for warlocks. Eldritch blast's damage does not depend on size and it has an interesting relation to eldritch claw - since your damage is more or less than same and you start at a lower point, a Small Warlock actually has the potential to make their eldritch claws more powerful than a Medium-sized Warlock! That only applies if you don't consider Beast Strike, though. If you can use the Strongheart Halflings from Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, they get a bonus feat, same as humans.
Xeph (Expanded Psionics Handbook): -2 Str and +2 Dex good stat modifiers, Burst is a good ability overall (remember that you get a bonus to Jump from high land speed, which helps Glaivelocks), Xeph Celerity is a racial feat that allows you to get extra attacks and xeph also opens up psionic feats. A good race for Warlocks, specially at low levels when Burst can (and will) save your life.
Hengeyokai (Oriental Adventures and Dragon Magazine 318): With the update from Dragon 318, this race has no LA (because there is no Shapechanger creature type in 3.5 - it's only a subtype). You get plenty of good options from this very fun race. Sparrow and crane hengeyokai get flight (so you don't need to take Fell Flight as an invocation), badger gives you a burrow speed (deadly when combined with Spring Attack or Mobile Spellcasting), dog gives you scent, raccon dog has a bonus to Str and hare gets a bonus to Dex and 40ft base speed. Wisdom is the stat Warlocks care less about, so a penalty here is not a problem at all (it does lock you out of Eldritch Disciple builds, though). I've seen many people saying you could spend all day blasting in sparrow form - but notice that invocations do have somatic components, so you need hands to use them, unless you take the Surrogate Spellcasting feat (from Savage Species). Shapechanger subtype qualifies you for Warshaper.
Warforged (Eberron CS or Monster Manual 3): As others did before me, I'll quote JeminiZero (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9971162#post9971162): "Also bears mentioning under races: Warforged. Con bonus, considerable immunities (which help make up for your crappy Fort save), plus never needing to rest. Also qualifies for certain awesome buffs (Construct Essence, Golem Immunity).
Plus, ya'know a mecha that flies around shooting lasers, and fighting with a beam sabre glaive.
Its not all roses though, theres a feat tax (for better armor plating), you're harder to heal, and theres the Cha penalty (but you can live without that)."
Tibbit (Dragon Compendium): Most of what was said regarding hengeyokai and halfling applies to tibbit. You get the size advantage and the ability to disguise yourself as a cat is handy.
Changeling (Eberron Campaign Setting): Shapechanger subtype and minor disguise are good assets. While it does qualify you for Warshaper, some people might argue that minor disguise replicates an illusion spell so the Warshaper features wouldn't work. That's really splitting hairs, since the description of minor disguise specifically mentions it as a transformation. RAI seems crystal clear here, but ask your DM.
Shifter (Eberron Campaign Setting): Another option to qualify for warshaper, but a rather sucky one at that. With the limited shifting, you won't get the benefits from warshaper most of the time. It doesn't have much else to offer for a warlock. Mostly a trap option.
Elan (Expanded Psionics Handbook): Solid defensive racial features, psionic and aberration type opens up Rapidstrike. A penalty to Charisma is not exactly welcomed, but you can work around that anyway. A solid race for Warlocks, specially those that use Eldritch Claw.
Daelkyr Halfblood (Races of Eberron): Aberration type with no penalty to Charisma. Symbionts are borderline broken - they get their own set of actions, after all. One of the best options around.
Kobold (Races of the Dragon): You can get dragon type through a feat, so you qualify for Rapidstrike. Small size is good as mentioned before. You don't get as much mileage of the abuse on high mental stats from the Dragonwrought feat, so it's probably not worth it. Only mentioned for completeness sake.
Shimonen Greensnake Naga (Oriental Adventures): The race is found at page 173 and the level adjustment on page 203. It's +1 LA, but it's one of the few LA really seems to be worth it, specially with buyoff. You get Str+2, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +2 and Wis +2 (Dragon Magazine 318 updates it to only Str +2 and Dex+4, a lot more reasonable - that's why it didn't get a purple rating), poison, telepathy (restricted to nagas), taint immunity and alternate form. This is a race that allows you to (ab)use Venomfire, Warshaper and Mindsight. Very, very good.

[ThiagoMartell]

The Various Kinds of Warlock:
There are many possible builds for Warlocks. In this section, we'll discuss the most common builds.
Blastlock: The blastlock stays ranged. This is the default for warlocks and the worst option when it comes to damage and debuffing. You practically need Hellfire Warlock for this to remain relevant and even with Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse it's not a main damage dealer. You can increase your damage output with common Warlock items (Chasuble of Fell Power, Warlock's Scepter) and (Greater) Psionic Shot if your race allows for that. A blastlock probably fits better on very low OP groups, where you coud use your resources for stuff other than damage.

Glaivelock: The glaivelock is focused on Eldritch Glaive, a least invocation (blast shape) from Dragon Magic. With Eldritch Glaive, the glaivelock gets the option to do iterative attacks, increasing their damage output considerably. Since the glaivelock can still apply essences, they work as good debuffers. Eldritch Glaive still targets touch AC, so the Glaivelock have good accuracy.
A glaivelock has better damage output than a ranged warlock, but worse damage output when compared to a clawlock. It's probably the best warlock option for debuffing - it forces multiple saves on the same round.

Clawlock: The clawlock uses the Eldritch Claw feat from Dragon Magazine. More than any other warlock build, the clawlock is a damage dealer. Their damage potential is very good, since they can stack anything that helps natural weapons, unarmed strikes, manufactured weapons and eldritch blast. Clawlocks depend on Dragon Magazine material, which is frowned upon on some tables, so ask your DM before building one.

Feats for the Warlock
Able Learner (Races of Destiny): Human only. Your class skills remain with you forever. Good if you're dipping or if you want to qualify for Chameleon.
Eldritch Claws (Dragon 358): As a free action, create a pair of claws. Damage is based on unarmed strike + eldritch blast. This is crazy good - you get to stack bonuses from plenty of sources, it has synergy with lots of things, the damage is really good.
Beast Strike: Adds your claw damage to your unarmed strike damage. Very good feat for clawlocks.
Improved Unarmed Strike (PHB): By itself, not that good of a feat. It's useful as a requirement, though.
Grappling Blast (Dragon 358): Allows you to grapple and deal eldritch blast damage, giving a bonus in the next grapple checks. I can see this being useful in a grappler build that dips Warlock, but increasing actual size is not that good for warlocks. I'd skip it.
Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle): Clawlocks should either take this or enter Shou Disciple. Solid damage buff.
Improved Natural Attack (Monster Manual): Clawlocks can take this feat, but they can also get it from Thayan Gladiator or the Fanged Ring. You could take this for unarmed strike as well, but you can (and should) use (Greater) Mighty Wallop instead.
Planar Affinity (online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070328)): Change two invocations instead of one. Quite lackluster. Useful in a few tricky situations (see Enlightened Spirit).
Infernal Adept (online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070613)): Opens up the Dragonfire Adept invocation list for you. Could be quite strong - we'll mention your options later.
Weapon Finesse (PHB): Glaivelocks should probably take this. You can use Str to attack with eldritch glaive, but that's all you'll ever get from it. Dexterity, on the other hand, applies to plenty of other stuff - initiative, Dex, Balance, Tumble, ranged attack rolls, Reflex saves... You can even be a finesse clawlock, though of course your damage output will suffer. However, if you're a ranged warlock that just uses glaive/claw onde in a while, I'd skip it.
Touch/Ray Spell Specialization (Complete Arcane): Low, low damage bonus. Not a requirement for anything. I'd skip it.
Obtain Familiar (Complete Arcane): Familiar are pretty useful, since they represent a second set of actions.
Improved Familiar (PHB): Now we're talking. Some improved familiar can speak and use magical items, so you could give them wands of important spells that can be cast during combat to save you actions (Nerveskitter and Snake's Swiftness spring to mind). If you're a Hellfire Warlock, give your familiar a Rod of Bodily Restoration and don't worry much about complaints of cheese.
Point Blank Shot (PHB): Low bonuses, only good as a requirement for Psionic Shot.
Precise Shot (PHB): Don't take this. Touch attacks are reliable enough and you need your feat slots for better stuff.
Mortalbane (Book of Vile Darkness, page 49): No alignment requirements, despite coming from BoVD. 5/day, get +2d6 damage on a damaging spell-like ability. This is a very good damage boost for eldritch blast and the lack of requirements make this a very good choice for your 1st level feat. Fades in usefulness as you level up, but it's still handy.
Empower/Maximize/Quicken Spell-like Ability: These feats are all very good for a warlock, since spell-like abilities are our bread and butter. Since eldritch blast counts as a 1st level spell (see the errata for Complete Arcane), it's a prime candidate for these. Empower SLA is not exactly worth it - the bonus is pretty low. Quicken & Maximize are very good options. Notice you can take those feats for other invocations, but unless you're spamming them I would advise against it.
Practiced Spellcaster (Complete Arcane): At first glance, this is a piece of crap. It helps you defeat SR and dispel... and that's that. However, Richard Baker himself said he would allow it to advance the Warlock's eldritch blast. If your DM accepts this ruling, this is very good news for any Warlock that dips around.
Supernatural Transformation (Savage Species): This feat does not work with invocations, sadly.
Surrogate Spellcasting (Savage Species): Requires Wis 13, but warlocks don't depend on ability scores as much as other classes. Allows your hengeyokai/tibbit warlock to use invocations in any form. Now you really can be a sparrow of death!
Mindsight (Lords of Madness page 126): This feat is so good that if you qualify for it you should take it. Blindsense plus detecting Intelligence and creature type?! If you dipped Mindbender of if you are a Shimonen Naga, you shouldn't ask yourself "Should I take this feat?", you should ask yourself "When should I take this feat?" with the anser being as soon as possible.
Extra Invocation (Complete Arcane): You need more invocations, but this feat by itself is not the most optimal way to get them. If you have access to Psychic Reformation and/or Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos it becomes better... but if you want versatility that much you really should be dipping Chameleon. All things considered, a necessary evil for many builds and a good filler feat if you don't know what else to take.

Magical Items for the Warlock
(Greater) Chasuble of Fell Power (Magic Item Compendium): +1d6 eldritch blast damage, +2d6 on the greater version. Take it.
Warlock's Scepter (Magic Item Compendium): Bonus to ranged touch attacks, expend charges for bonus damage on eldritch blasts. Take it.
Beast Claws (Savage Species): Your claws now deal +1d6 damage. They are also +2 weapons. Is it Christmas already? Every Clawlock should take this if allowed.
Boots of Agile Jumping (Magic Item Compendium): This item allows you to use Dexterity for Jump. Useful for Glaivelock builds that use Sudden Leap to close with the target.
Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (Magic Item Compendium): Move half your speed as a free action. The cost is very low. The problem is taking the neck slot. See if you can mix this with your chasuble. Good for melee warlocks in general.
Anklet of Translocation (Magic Item Compendium): A swift action teleport, good for everyone. Very cheap item as well.
Quicksilver Boots (Magic Item Compendium): With 3 uses a day and moving as a swift action, this item is pretty good. It's not expensive and I'd get it as soon as possible.
Cyran Gliding Boots (Magic Item Compendium): Magical roller skates. Fits thematically if you're a Cyran Avenger. Moving 10ft as a 5ft step is very good, even if it is limited in uses per day. Between this and Quicksilver Boots, I'd probably get Quicksilver Boots.
Codex Advocare (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft): 20.000 GP for a least invocation. Looks like a good deal, specially since it's the only way to get extra invocations
Gauntlet of Heartfelt Blows (Dragon Magazine): Adds Charisma as a bonus to damage. It specifically works with touch attacks! Good buy for glaivelocks.
Rod of Eldritch Power (Complete Mage): Each of this rod contains an eldritch essence or shape. Good for adding versatility to any build - sometimes you simply need that extra reach from eldritch spear or find a bunch of enemies lined up perfectly for eldritch chain. Also, you can basically get a lightsaber for 4000GP, which is pretty awesome by itself.
Bracers of the Blast Barrier (Magic Item Compendium, page 80)- 3/day turn spell-like ability into 10'x10' wall of magical energy. Pretty cool for all your line of sight interruption needs. (3200gp)
Bracers of the Entangling Blast (Magic Item Compendium, page 80)- 3/day damaging spell like ability deals 1/2 damage and entangles foe for 1d3 rounds. Entangle is a very sweet debuff. (2000gp)
Gloves of Eldritch Admixture (Magic Item Compendium 105)- Add extra energy damage (your choice of type) to eldritch blast. 3 charges/day. Nothing special, but it's cheap and you can drop it for something better later. (2500gp)

Wands
Wands are spells in item form. Many players are wary of wands, because they have limited charges. 50 is a lot though, specially for utility. Even for spells you cast once an encounter, it lasts for 12 days on of nonstop adventuring (with some change). They are not even very expensive and remember - beyond level 12, you can craft them yourself.
But how do you know if a spell is good for wands? The less it depends on caster level the better, because then the wand is cheaper. Fixed duration spells (specially those that last 24 hours) are specially good, but those that have durations measured on hours are still very good, but you should still consider those that have durations measured in minutes. If the duration is measured in rounds, though, it better be a swift action to activate.
Below are some spells that are good on wands:
Primal Instinct (Dragon Magic): A level 2 spell for Rangers with 24 hour duration. +5 to initiative and Survival. If you are dragonblooded (hello again, Silverbrow Human) you also get +5 to a Knowledge check. 24 hour buffs are always good, specially when they fit so well in wand form.
(Greater) Mighty Wallop (Races of the Dragon): +1 effective size for damage in a bludgeoning weapon, such as unarmed strike. Good for clawlocks. As a 1st level spell with duration measured in hours, it's dirty cheap. If you have enough gold to sink into the greater version, try it... however, it's going to get really expensive really fast and I don't think it's worth it.
Venomfire (Serpent Kingdoms): A creature's poison now dealing acid damage... 1d6 per caster level. Lasts hours/level. It's a 3rd level spell. If you have a viper familiar or if you have poison yourself (SG Naga, for example), you can even milk the poison, keep it in a flask and apply to weapons (such as claws). An extra 5d6 damage? Yes, please. The book that made Pun-Pun does not disappoint when it comes to overpowered stuff, does it? :smallwink:
Nerveskitter:

[ThiagoMartell]

The following is the work of LonelyTylenol
Invocations
To my knowledge, the Warlock has had invocations printed in six books: Complete Arcane (CArc), Complete Mage (CM), Dragon Magic (DrM), Cityscape (Ci), Magic of Incarnum (MoI), and Drow of the Underdark (DotU), making it, ironically, one of the better-supported classes in the game outside of core; however, you have a relatively limited number of invocations available for use, gaining only three invocations at each tier, which means you have to choose from these invocations very carefully. Not all Warlocks are going to be built the same, but there are still some general rules governing which invocations you should consider taking as a Warlock:

Passive vs. Active
As a Warlock, you'll find that some invocations you can cast are passive invocations, generally 24-hour or long-duration at-will buffs that you just cast at the beginning of the day and consider "always-on" abilities. Mere mention that these are being cast at the beginning of each day is usually enough, as barring a Dispel check, these basically are "always-on". Good examples of this include the least invocations Entropic Warding and Dark One's Own Luck, or the lesser invocation Ignore the Pyre.
Active invocations, on the other hand, have to be activated in order to work, which means that you need to be spending actions to use them, and the benefits of the invocation are generally relatively short in duration. The greater invocation Chilling Tentacles is a good example of an active invocation.
While it is generally useful to have more than one combat trick up your sleeve (or just more than one action that you can actually take in general), keep in mind that you should always be careful of how many active invocations you take; after all, it's great to have Eldritch Blast three different ways, Chilling Tentacles, Baleful Utterance, Dread Seizure and Impenetrable Barrier at your disposal, keep in mind that you have only one standard action per turn. At the same time, it's possible to pick so many passive invocations that you have nothing to do in combat but Eldritch Blast and maybe one other trick (possibly a variation of Eldritch Blast), and then be left with little to do when your Eldritch Blast doesn't cut it. Pick the active invocations that you can't live without, or pick a few that shore up blind spots in your usual offense, and then pick passive invocations to compliment them, so you aren't left with six of your best invocations being rendered totally unusable in a combat in a given time, or at a complete loss for actions entirely.

General vs. Specific (Characters)
If you picked All-Seeing Eyes, See the Unseen, Serpent's Tongue, Crawling Eye, Voidsense, and Spider-Shape, you would have, at your disposal, darkvision, see invisibility, blindsense, tremorsense, scent, good Spot and Search bonuses, and a remote vision ability, making you a scouting machine (well, insofar as a class with 2+INT skills and no perception skills as class skill can be); nobody is getting anything past you! Of course, you've also used all of your least and lesser invocations for scouting, so until level 11, this is all you can do--well, this and the bog-standard Eldritch Blast 5d6. It is possible to pick a specialty within the Warlock's invocation list, and become very good at that thing, but it is possible to over-specialize, and become pigeonholed (or useless when that one thing isn't called for). Since D&D is a combat-focused game, this is most often seen with combat-focused Warlocks who suffer from "The Whole World's a Nail" syndrome.
Just as it is possible to over-specialize, it is also possible to over-generalize. It's easy to become the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None"--just pick from the "good" invocations you get a list of seemingly useful invocations that don't complement each other in the least. Now you can do a little bit of combat, a little bit of social interaction, a little bit of scouting, and a little bit of sneaking, but you can't do combat well enough to play the combat role (meaning the group still needs a brute), social interaction enough to play the social role (meaning the group still needs a face), scouting enough to play the scout role (meaning the group still needs a scout), or sneaking enough to play a sneak (meaning the group still needs a rogue-like). Congratulations: you've just become the fifth wheel. The problem gets worse if you happen to be bad enough at each of these roles, as the brute has to waste hit points protecting you in combat, the face has to struggle through a social encounter to get past your blunders, the scout hardly sees the point in your even trying to look, and you and the sneak get exposed when you fail your Move Silently check. At this point, you've gone from fifth wheel to spare tire: you're literally only useful when one of the four falls flat, and they only need you to get you to the next stop so they can patch up the old one (or replace you with a new one).
As with the first issue, it's good to find a balance here: pick two, maybe three things that you want to be good at, and then be good at those things. After all, if you're good at battlefield control and social interaction, then you have carved out a niche for yourself in-combat (with Eldritch Chain debuffing, or Chilling Tentacles, or whatever your poison is) and out-of-combat (with Beguiling Influence, Charm, and so on), and the rest of the party doesn't have to worry about covering your behind while they do their part by beating things to death (that you've made easier to kill with battlefield control) and sneaking past the guards (that you've made easier to sneak past by seducing them, or enthralling them).

General vs. Specific (Invocations)
You get a limited number of invocations, and you need to get as much mileage out of them as humanly possible. That much is a fact. As a result, it's important to get as much mileage out of your invocations as possible: you'll want either invocations that do a lot of things, or invocations that do one thing that applies a lot of the time. Invocations that are neither (do only one thing, which is very situational) either have incredibly powerful effects or simply aren't worth the space (sometimes both).
Consider, for example, the least invocation Baleful Utterance and the greater invocation Dragonward. Baleful Utterance, which you can pick up at level 1, allows you to use Shatter as the spell at-will. After a couple levels, this begins to have a number of useful applications: it is your go-to offensive trick for crystalline creatures of any kind (dealing 1d6/level, with a Fort save for half), a ranged sunder with no opposed rolls, your go-to solution for exceptional locks (or just weak doors), manacles (or other bindings of any kind), trap mechanisms (either to disable or trigger them), and so on; creative players can think of limitless applications for Shatter with no verbal component (like causing something to explode near the guards, providing a distraction).
Dragonward, on the other hand, provides three benefits that only apply against creatures of the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype: immunity to the Frightful Presence ability of Dragons (which a successful save essentially grants you anyway, and you're a Good Will class of at least 11th level at this point), DR5/-- against the natural attacks of a dragon (but you already have DR3/cold iron, which the dragon doesn't overcome, and that continues to scale), and energy resistance 20 against any breath weapon (but only if used by a dragon or dragonblood). The benefits are very situational, in that they only matter against one type of creature, but they can all be imitated quite nicely by applying other, general effects: Dark One's Own Luck can give you your CHA to your Will save (and can be changed to any other save at any time), which can help negate the Frightful Presence effect, and Ignore the Pyre can give you scaling energy resistance (which eventually meets the energy resistance of Dragonward) against all effects by any creature of that energy type, which you can change (at-will) to be the dragon's energy type (unless you have two dragons of different colors working in tandem, which is rare). As for the DR? Well, you can have at-will flight and invisibility, and a means of getting away quickly, all as lesser invocations; why is the dragon successfully closing into melee range to attack you in the first place? The bonuses are very situational and can be entirely overlapped (or rendered obsolete) by the base class features of the Warlock, or less costly invocations picked up earlier, so why bother with it?
There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule (Vitriolic Blast, as an eldritch essence, doesn't do anything new, per se, but it does allow your existing attacks to ignore the Spell Resistance of your enemies), but in general, look for invocations that either have a broad range of direct effects or indirect applications.

Without further ado...

The Least Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Frightful Blast (CArc, active): Enemies make a Will save or are shaken for 1 minute. Does not stack with itself, or other fear effects if the creature is already shaken, but I believe it stacks with other fear effects applied after it, meaning it can work well with an Intimidate check to demoralize, or the Dreadful Wrath feat, to make everybody frightened for 1 minute. Does not affect constructs, oozes, plants, undead, vermin, and some swarms, or anything else with immunity to mind-affecting effects.
Hammer Blast (CM, active): Your Eldritch Blast does full damage to objects as opposed to half. Why on Earth would you take this over Baleful Utterance?
Sickening Blast (CArc, active): Enemies make a Fort save or are sickened for 1 minute. The sickened condition is virtually identical to the shakened condition of Frightful Blast, but can never escalate and targets a worse save. Does not affect constructs or undead.

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Glaive (DrM, active): As a full-round action, make iterative attacks with your Eldritch Glaive as if it were a reach weapon. You can make attacks of opportunity until the start of your next turn. This is everything Hideous Blow is not: you're still making touch attacks, you're not in melee range (a simple Enlarge Person puts you at 20 feet away), and you get multiple attacks for having a high Base Attack Bonus, which makes it the only option for high single-target damage in any printed book (you have to look to Dragon Magazine for the only other). If you're not a melee Warlock, this is still pretty good, but so are a lot of other things.
Eldritch Spear (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast range becomes 250 feet. If you have decided to become a non-melee Warlock (or even a ranged Warlock), this is your invocation of choice for single-target encounters. Combined with a method of flight, you basically have a way to stay completely out of range (or out of the first two range increments for archers) while dealing your full Eldritch Blast damage. This isn't the best combat option by any stretch, but it is the safest. If you're a melee warlock, this is anywhere from only average to totally unnecessary (good for getting off a few long-range attacks while enemies close into melee, and nothing else).
Hideous Blow (CArc, active): Your melee attacks channel your Eldritch Blast. Congratulations: you're now no longer making touch attacks, are still only making a single attack, are restricted to melee range, and all you're getting out of it is the base weapon damage you'd normally get. With Concentration checks to avoid attacks of opportunity being as easy as they are, this somehow manages to be worse than simply using an unshaped Eldritch Blast at point blank. As many have said before me, Hideous Blow blows hideously.

Other Invocations
All-Seeing Eyes (CM, passive): +6 on Search and Spot, and Comprehend Languages on written material. Spot and Search are two of the more useful skills in the game, and there is good synergy here with other perception abilities. If you are a dedicated scout (or are dipping the class for scouting abilities), this is a pretty good grab.
Baleful Utterance (CArc, active): At-will shatter, as a spell-like ability. Use this to escape from bindings, open locks (or kick in doors), trigger traps, sunder enemies (without the opposed roll or the attack of opportunity), distract the guard with an explosion, shatter glass to mix into the enemy's stew, as an attack mode for crystalline enemies, and anything else you can think of that can be done with random acts of destruction! This is one of the most universally applicable low-level invocations the Warlock has, and remains useful for most of his career for some reason or other. It isn't a must-have, but it comes recommended highly.
Beguiling Influence (CArc, passive): +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. The bonuses themselves aren't fantastic, but the skills are, and hoo boy, are those skills fantastic. Unfortunately, Diplomacy isn't a class skill for you, but with the right feats, it can be. This is a must-have for any Warlock that wants to be a face, fear-based Warlocks, and most Warlocks that take Able Learner for Chameleon; the rest can hold out for Charm or some other analogue for their social needs (or trade it out later if they do grab it).
Breath of the Night (CArc, active): At-will Obscuring Mist as a spell-like ability. A useful effect for controlling space or when you and the party need to get away; however, better options do exist, and you can simply Use Magic Device a wand of Obscuring Mist (caster level 1) for the same effect, with the same duration, which makes you wonder why you'd bother picking this up at level 2 when your second-level WBL can get you all the castings you'd need for life anyway.
Dark One's Own Luck (CArc, active): You gain your CHA as a luck bonus (which cannot exceed your caster level) to one save, selected at the time of casting, for 24 hours. Since you can cast it at-will (just like any other invocation), you can switch this around as you need it, which gives it a certain deal of defensive utility. If you've pumped your CHA into the stratosphere, this is good for a late-game swap-in, but only passable early on. If you've dumped CHA, it's terrible, of course.
Call of the Wild (CM, passive): Gain wild empathy as a druid of your level and always-on Speak with Animals. Situationally useful, and very campaign-dependent; if you're a Fey-themed Warlock, or you're in a nature-heavy campaign, it definitely couldn't hurt to pick this up.
Cocoon of Refuse (Ci, active): At-will Entangle against a single creature as a spell-like ability, but 1 round/level and only in urban environments. Originally, I thought this was just like the spell--a 40-ft. radius spread--and had marked it as a good option, because at-will Entangle is good enough to be a primary battlefield control method for several levels, given how good the entangled condition is. Then I re-read it, and found out that it only applies to one creature, and now it's mediocre (but not altogether a terrible option). Obviously setting-specific, so don't take this if you're in a nature-themed campaign.
Darkness (CArc, active): At-will Darkness as a spell-like ability. Unfortunately, Darkness just isn't very good, and so neither is this invocation. It doesn't do much of anything that Breath of the Night doesn't do, and Breath of the Night does nothing a Wand of Obscuring Mist doesn't do, so don't bother with either.
Devil's Sight (CArc, passive): See in magical and non-magical darkness out to 30 feet. Half the darkvision range of See the Unseen (below), and magical darkness doesn't come up often enough to ignore the strong overlap See the Unseen has with this.
Drain Incarnum (MoI, active): 30-foot range Fort save or cause 1 essentia (or 1 WIS) damage? Where do I sign? (Don't mistake that blue for this being a good option; it's not bolded. That's blue for sarcasm, as in, "this is so bad as to be laughable". Even in an Incarnum-heavy campaign, a standard action to cause 1 essentia damage is laughable; if the creature really needs that essentia invested in that item, then congratulations; you've wasted your standard action to force them to take a swift action to re-invest that essentia. If they fail the save. Way to go, champ.)
Earthen Grasp (CArc, active): At-will Earthen Grasp as the spell. Grapples as a Medium creature with a BAB of your level, with a STR score equal to 14 + 2/3 caster levels, without Improved Grapple--in other words, it's a pretty poor grappler. It provokes attacks of opportunity just for trying, and is too fragile to endure more than maybe one. If you really want battlefield control that bad, Chilling Tentacles is worth waiting ten levels. Yes, it is.
Entropic Warding (CArc, passive): Arrows have a 20% miss chance against you, you leave no trace, and you cannot be tracked by scent. If you're a far-range Warlock (think Eldritch Spear), this addresses your one remaining weakness... Somewhat. The other two effects aren't great for the average Warlock, but are useful for scouts. This is a good invocation to grab early instead of late. If you're a scout, keep this for as long as you feel like it; otherwise, trade it out when you get greater invocations and a Ring of Entropic Deflection (MiC, p. 123) stops being cost-prohibitive.
Leaps and Bounds (CArc, passive): +6 to Balance, Jump and Tumble for 24 hours (at-will). Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to use the skills untrained, so you're only getting the +6 to Balance and Jump unless you spend cross-class ranks in Tumble. This is better for Rogue-likes and some combat types that dip Warlock, or Melee Warlocks with Able Learner (who are becoming Chameleons).
Miasmic Cloud (CArc, active): The only reason this isn't red (like Breath of the Night) is because the fatigue is a neat little add-on that makes it unique from a Wand of 1st-level spell, which stacks with other fatigue effects. It also doesn't negatively affect you, so in the low levels, this can be a good way to open up a combat.
Otherworldly Whispers (CM, passive): Gain a +6 bonus to Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion) and Knowledge (the planes) checks. These are all class skills for you, and knowledge is power in this game (and, in fact, if you have Knowledge Devotion, then knowledge literally does become power); however, it would probably be better if it let you make these checks untrained. Really, the Dragonfire Adept version of this (Draconic Knowledge) is just qualitatively better (so if your DM lets you pick up DFA invocations with Extra Invocation, grab that instead).
See the Unseen (CArc, passive): You gain darkvision and see invisibility out to 60 feet for 24 hours, at-will. Darkvision is only alright, but the ability to see invisible things becomes crucial at higher levels, when invisible enemies can become a literal death knell for the party. Grab this at level 4 (or swap it in at a later level if you, or someone in your party, has darkvision), as you're not likely to see invisible things in a game before that point anyway. (You can always grab it before this point as a precaution, but it's not strictly necessary before level 4-6.)
Serpent's Tongue (CM, passive): Gain the scent ability, and +5 to Fort saves vs. poison. Scent is useful if you have the Track feat (but the Track feat isn't good), and is an okay method of perception otherwise. The bonus to Fortitude saves vs. poison is okay, but not remarkable (and Dark One's Own Luck just does it better).
Soulreaving Aura (CM, active): As the spell Reaving Aura, but you gain temporary HP if you kill something with it. Considering you can only kill something with it if it is already at -9, and the hit points last for 1 round (and are useless unless you're locked in combat with something else at the time of casting), why would you ever cast this in combat, and kill creatures that are no threat to you, wasting a standard action to eliminate things that are? Just coup de grace enemies that need to die after they are dead.
Spiderwalk (CArc, passive): At-will Spider Climb as the spell (but with a duration of 24 hours), plus immunity to webs. It's another form of movement, and in the low levels, it will keep you safe against a large number of creatures. If you feel it necessary to have, grab it early, but swap it out when you get lesser invocations (such as Fell Flight) that give you more versatile move modes.
Summon Swarm (CArc, active): At-will Summon Swarm as a spell-like ability, only the duration is Concentration. Is this was Summon Swarm with the listed duration of Concentration + 2 rounds, it would be better, but as-is, you need to spend every standard action to let the swarm take its turn. At first level, however, it's 1d6 unavoidable damage. If you do take it, you should trade it away as soon as possible, since it is only good at level 1.
Swimming the Styx (CM, passive): Grants you a swim speed equal to your movement speed, and the ability to breathe underwater, for 24 hours (usable at-will). Its usefulness is dependent on the campaign: in an aquatic or nautical campaign (ex. Stormwrack), it's anywhere from good to great; in a desert campaign (ex. Sandstorm), it's terrible.

The Lesser Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Baneful Blast (CM, active): Have you ever wanted roughly 1/12th of your 20th-level class resources on something only marginally useful that one time in the whole campaign you fight creatures with the Humanoid (dwarf) type/subtype, and useless everywhere else? Yeah, me neither. But not all is lost! You can spend another 1/12th of your 20th-level class resources to also do +2d6 damage to plants! ...If you are in a campaign where you fight an unusually high number of elementals or something, pick up a rod of that baneful blast... Or just skip it altogether, as damage that minor to a single creature type is probably not worth the gold investment.
Beshadowed Blast (CArc, active): Blind is actually not that bad of a condition. Unfortunately, it's a Fort save with a duration of 1 round, so it's not that likely to go off against anything you would want to use it on (and not that game-changing when it does). Does not affect constructs or undead (Fortitude save), oozes (already blind), or true dragons (who have blindsense and/or blindsight), or anything else that is blind.
Brimstone Blast (CArc, active): Your first Reflex-based invocation, and unfortunately it's not very good. Fire damage is the most commonly resisted, and the Reflex save isn't even for half (meaning that the damage can essentially be negated outright with a successful save). Further, damage over time just generally isn't worth your time, because by the time this has done its extra 8d6 of damage (at level 20), the creature has been dead for three rounds. Confers no additional benefit.
Deteriorating Blast (DrM, active): Reduces the damage reduction of enemies struck by the Eldritch Blast by 5 for 1 minute... Provided they succeed the Fortitude save. The only reason this is okay is because it applies to all forms of damage reduction simultaneously, and because sometimes it's good to let the party Fighter have nice things. Unfortunately, that makes this the MVP of lesser eldritch essences--and it's still mediocre.
Hellrime Blast (CArc, active): Deals cold damage (but no extra cold damage), meaning your Eldritch Blast is now susceptible to resistances. The target must make a Fort save or suffer a -4 penalty to Dexterity for 10 minutes, which is good (except for the Fort save) except for the fact that it doesn't stack or escalate. If you happen to have Eldritch Chain, this might be good to have on a rod for a one-and-done mass debuff, because the long duration will make any single casting last as long as you need it to, but it's a bad idea for an invocation slot, because it's not worth trying multiple times if you fail (and there's no sense using it again if you succeed).

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Chain (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast hits an extra target for every 5 levels you have (maximum 5 total targets at level 20). Does not have the same explosive 1 target/level cap of Chain Spell, but also doesn't have the weaker save DCs that Chain Spell does. If you have a decent DEX, you aren't going to be missing often even at the time that you get this, and it only gets better as you level. If you are a ranged Warlock (or a BFC/debuff-focused Warlock), this will probably be your go-to blast shape, as it allows you to target several targets for damage and debuffing without even a remote risk of collateral damage (which you get out of Eldritch Cone).

Other Invocations
Charm (CArc, active): As the spell Charm Monster, but language-dependent (meaning you can often use it on dragons and most magical beasts, but not plants or oozes). Useful for all the reasons that Charm Monster is; this is your go-to invocation for social tricks even if you aren't a face, and if you are a face, this remains useful at all levels as a proxy for Diplomacy, and is a useful replacement otherwise if you don't want to invest the skill ranks. If you are a diplomancer (and not merely a face), this loses its effectiveness when epic-level checks for Bluff and Diplomacy come into play, as it is superseded by Beguiling Influence. It is still good for combat-heavy Warlocks, provided there is something big and bad that understands you within range.
Cold Comfort (CM, passive): As the spell Endure Elements. Unfortunately for this invocation, Endure Elements is a first level spell--with the same duration as this invocation. A wand of Endure Elements for you and the whole party is thus only 750gp--and a continuous item is 2,000 gp (although you could pick up four Crystals of Least Adaptation for the same price and have always-on, slotless Endure Elements for most of your party). Update 14/12/12: Cold Comfort was downgraded to a least invocation by the errata; it's still bad but eh.
Crawling Eye (CM, active): The Warlock's Arcane Eye. Has no listed duration or range, which means you can use this indefinitely as long as you are fine with having one eye (and 2 less hit points), and see twice. This is a must-have for any scouting Warlock that has made it this far, as you gain remote, (almost) consequence-free scouting using all your vision-based invocations.
Curse of Despair (CArc, active): As the spell Bestow Curse, with a -1 penalty on attack rolls on a save. The curses are strong, but the range: touch and the action cost hurts this a lot. This is better if you're Greater Invisible (such as a pixie or under the effect of Retributive Invisibility), because you can apply it without blowing your cover if you're smart about it; if you're able to scout effectively (or divine preemptively), you can sneak up, apply the curse of your choosing as a pre-fight debuff, and then begin the combat with a -4 to everyone's everything, or a 50% chance of missed actions, or both(!).
The Dead Walk (CArc, "active"): As Animate Dead, but you can also forego the material component to create free summons out of your enemies for 1 minute/level. The second half of the ability is situationally useful for those fights where your DM throws a single Unkillable Badass surrounded by legions of tiny minions at you, and you manage to kill the Unkillable Badass first, because now he's yours, and is wreaking havoc on the legions of tiny minions. It is also useful for triggering traps, creating expendable meat shields, and the like.
The real star of this show, however, is--surprise, surprise--the Animate Dead ability of this invocation. If you grab this invocation at level 6, that means you've foregone flight, which is okay--your first undead is probably going to be a zombie dire bat, for a fly speed of 40 ft (clumsy) and an AC of 22, or a zombie giant eagle, for a fly speed of 80 ft (clumsy) and an AC of 18, plus 55 hp each and the DR5/slashing of zombies. Put barding and reins on either, if you can. By level 12, you can have a 10-headed zombie hydra (which can make a partial charge and attack with all 10 heads as a standard action), a zombie rhinoceros (which retains its powerful charge ability and can thus make powerful partial charges), your original flying zombie mount, and 4 HD to spare (zombie fleshraker raptor?). Pick up big things with Powerful Charge (ex) or Pounce (ex), fly, swim and burrow speeds (per the campaign needs), or simply legions of expendable mooks of your choosing; assuming you spend judiciously, you really can't go wrong. The number of things this invocation can do if you aren't creative is astounding; if you are, warn your DM before taking it.
"Active" is in quotations because this is not a combat spell; this is something you do during your downtime, either after a combat or between adventures entirely. As a result, this becomes a mediocre to bad choice for Chameleon Warlocks, but only because it becomes an AWESOME choice for an "Extra Invocation" feat using your floating feat; take the corpses of your choosing to town with you, get some rest, wake up the next day, select Extra Invocation (The Dead Walk), animate all the dead you need, and then switch the feat out the next day when you're done; the undead remain, loyal and under your command, and you have an extra invocation slot for something else that you wouldn't have normally!
Disembodied Hand (CM, active): The Warlock's spectral hand. Allows you to deliver touch attacks remotely, and you can even deliver a consequence-free assault with this and Crawling Eye from a great distance. In spite of how flavorful and fun this may be, however, doing this with any lesser invocation would use all of your lesser invocations, and there are certainly better options.
Dread Seizure (DrM, active): Target must make a Fort save or have its movement speed halved, and take a -5 penalty on all attacks against creatures more than 5 feet away. A fairly useful single-target debuff at first glance, until you remember that Beshadowed Blast deals your Eldritch Blast damage, grants total concealment to everything it attacks (which can be better or worse than the -5 penalty, but is usually better), denies the DEX bonus of the target and confers an additional -2 penalty to AC for the same Fortitude save and a sure-thing attack roll... And that wasn't a good option to take.
Fell Flight (CArc, passive): At-will flight with a speed of equal to your land speed (good). Flight is absolutely invaluable, and you would be laughed out of every optimization or even "generally smart play" thread and board if you willingly passed it up, and yet this is not a must-grab. Why? Two reasons: First, The Dead Walk (above) can get you flight for the same invocation cost, at a better speed but worse maneuverability, provided you're not too picky to ride a flying zombie mount (you do lose three degrees of maneuverability, but will not likely be outmaneuvering enemies with your base land speed anyway). Second, flight is very easy to get with magic items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851), with the two obvious choices probably being the Feathered Wings graft (Fiend Folio, 10,000 gp) if you're evil, or the Winged Mask (Magic of Faerun, 13,000 gp) if you're not. These are a significant expenditure of WBL when you might get this invocation, but quickly become a drop in the bucket, and both grant you at-will or constant flight with a better speed (the latter at the same maneuverability). These are not perfect substitutes for Fell Flight, but they are good enough (and flight items a common enough necessity) that you might be able to get away with skipping this invocation. If you are in a low-magic campaign and your DM protests against riding a zombie eagle for some reason, this of course becomes a must-have, as at-will flight is still good; it's just not exclusive to the Warlock.
Flee the Scene (CArc, active): At-will short-range Dimension Door that leaves a Major Image behind when you use it. Useful for all the reasons that Freedom of Movement is useful: because you're probably not the best grappler in the game; because "paralysis" is one full-round action away from "coup de grace" (and spell-like abilities can be activated when paralyzed), because one way or another, you can fly (meaning you can escape in all three dimensions); and because by level 20, this gets you 75 feet as a standard action, allowing you to easily outpace most enemies that you couldn't with your normal move/fly speed. This is for that Warlock that just doesn't want to die.
Hungry Darkness (CArc, active): At-will Darkness as the spell, except every square of darkness you create is also a bat swarm. Lasts for Concentration + 2 rounds. This is everything the least invocations Darkness and Summon Swarm should have been... Except it isn't a least invocation. Bats are, in my opinion, the worst of the three swarms you can produce, and the five levels you've progressed since Summon Swarm first became an option haven't been kind to the already pitiful DC11 Fort save vs. the nauseated condition. If this were a least invocation, it would be one of the best, but at the level you get it, it's just too late.
Ignore the Pyre (DrM, passive): Gain energy resistance equal to your caster level to one type for 24 hours. Remember that, as with Dark One's Own Luck, you can change it at-will--meaning that, if you think one encounter is going to call for fire resistance and the next acid resistance, you can switch it as a standard action. That means that you can theoretically have up to 20 of any of the five resistances at any time; however, versatile as that is, resistance 20 at level 20 is still only okay. You will get use out of this if you take it; it's just not strictly necessary to.
Mask of Flesh (CM, active): Disguise Self with a number of strange implications. A friend of mine pointed out that the best use for this is probably to capture somebody (or somebodies, keep them hostage (better take 20 on that Use Rope check), and then siphon off their energy constantly, living their life while they languish in your own little dungeon. Be sure to capture people of power if you do so, and don't even pretend you're not Evil if you do.
Relentless Dispelling (CM, active): Targeted Dispel Magic at-will. Only it repeats at the start of your next turn. This comes out about even with Voracious Dispelling, in my opinion; you only get one of the three uses of Dispel Magic, but you get possibly the best one, and you are much better at it than you'd be with Voracious Dispelling.
Spider-Shape (DotU, active): Change into a monstrous spider of various sizes. The tiny spider is a decent scouting form (you get a +8 size bonus to Hide in addition to the +4 racial bonus, and a +4 bonus to Spot, and a +8 to Climb with a climb speed), and the largest form gives you 27 STR, which is... OK, I guess. Truth be told, this isn't a combat form: it's a scouting form, which you use in conjunction with your long-duration scouting buffs. There are better things you can do than this, but you can do this.
Steal Incarnum (MoI, active): Does not affect people without essentia. STARTING OFF WITH A BANG HERE. You steal one essentia per five caster levels (maximum 4) from your target and gain it... Provided the target fails a... Wait for it... Fortitude save. I'm honestly not sure why the Warlock has so many invocations from Magic of Incarnum; is there some unseen Warlock/Incarnate hybrid floating out there that I haven't seen? In any case, if your character is one of those rare breeds that actually uses essentia and lesser invocations, in an Incarnum-heavy campaign (do those exist?), full of enemies with weak Fortitude saves... Still don't take this, because it's underwhelming.
Stony Grasp (CArc, active): At-will Stony Grasp as the spell. Stony Grasp doesn't actually have a better grapple check than Earthen Grasp; it's just more durable. Since both are at-will for Warlocks, you don't actually care about the durability, meaning that this actually manages to be no better than the (already bad) least invocation, but for a much steeper cost.
Sudden Swarm (DotU, passive): The first time you kill an enemy with an invocation (including your Eldritch Blast) after casting this (which lasts 24 hours), a spider swarm bursts from the body. This is everything that the other swarm invocations wants to be: as a pre-buff, it has no action cost in combat; it is mentally under your control, as opposed to roaming on its own; the control is mental and takes only a free action, so there is no action cost in combat after it activates; and you add your warlock to the hit points (meh) and save DC of the swarm's poison (!). The swarm lasts for only a round per level, but that's probably enough to end the combat. The Fort save DC for the nauseated condition is still pathetic, but at least you're not wasting actions to attempt it; it happens for free on the kill, and takes free actions after the fact. The only cost of this invocation is the invocation itself, so the biggest problem this invocation has is the stiff competition at this level.
Thieves' Bane (Ci, active): A hold portal that explodes when somebody tries to bypass it. The damage is unimpressive, but bypasses spell resistance, but more scandalously, this is another lesser invocation that mimics a first-level spell. By this point, you could have 9 ranks in Use Magic Device (which is a class skill for you), and take 10 on the checks; if Hold Portal is something that is going to come up that much in your games, buy a wand for 750gp and skip on the damage. You have better things to do than this.
Voidsense (CArc, passive): At-will blindsense (30 ft) with a 24-hour duration (so basically always-on). Not bad, but since you already have darkvision and see invisibility always-on as a least invocation, I'm not sure I see this being useful enough independent of those senses to truly stand out. I guess it's good for scouts, who wish to be complete about their senses.
Voracious Dispelling (CArc, active): At-will Dispel Magic with no-save damage attached. You get all three uses of Dispel Magic, which lends itself to a great deal of versatility, and is the major selling point it has over Relentless Dispelling, since the damage it does isn't that great.
Walk Unseen (CArc, passive): At-will invisibility as the spell, but with a 24-hour duration. Good for all the reasons invisibility is. The only reason this isn't an absolute must-have is because there are so many other good invocations at this level, from which you must pick three (or spend greater or dark invocations on them), and this very well might not be one of them.
Wall of Gloom (CArc, active): Allows you to produce a straight wall 40 ft. long, or a ring with a 15 ft. radius. Creatures with 6 HD or less can be effectively walled off or penned up with the "halted" feature of the Wall of Gloom; unfortunately, at the level you'll be getting this, you are not likely to be fighting many creatures with 6 HD or less. Regardless, you can use this to throw up an improvised wall that a creature will not be able to see through, which you can use to interrupt a charge; however, the same can be done with a wand of Wall of Smoke or Obscuring Mist for the same action cost (and both are first-level spells). If you're using the Spell Compendium version, you gain a larger wall, but lose all special abilities of the wall.
Weighty Utterance (DrM, active): You gain an at-will quasi-Wingbind, forcing your target to make a Will save or fall 5 feet per caster level, with falling damage for those that hit the ground. You know what's better than laboring over forcing them to the ground, though? Taking the fight to them.
Witchwood Step (CM, passive): You can walk on water, and are unaffected by difficult terrain. The only problem is, both difficult terrain and water are at ground level, and if you didn't pick Fell Flight, it's only because you found another method of flying; besides, if water is of great concern to you, you took Swimming the Styx as a least invocation, so why bother with this?

[ThiagoMartell]

The Greater Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Bewitching Blast (CArc, active): Anybody hit with Eldritch Blast damage must make a Will save or be confused for 1 round. Confused is actually a pretty good condition--the target is three times as likely to lose all their actions as they are to act normally, and then there's all the other weird stuff--but between the randomness of the roll, plus the one-round duration of the effect, it's just not that reliable. Does not affect constructs, oozes, plants, undead, vermin, and some swarms, or anything else with immunity to mind-affecting effects.
Noxious Blast (CArc, active): Anyone affected by the Eldritch Blast must make a Fort save or be nauseated for 1 minute. Nauseated creatures can only make a single move action per turn--essentially, if you can get this off, that enemy is done. You don't have to worry about them anymore. Apply this on an Eldritch Chain for a multi-target debuff. Does not affect constructs or undead.
Repelling Blast (DrM, active): Throws all targets who fail a Reflex save 1d6x5 feet (1d6 squares) away from you and knocked prone. "Prone" is a decent enough condition to apply, and the Reflex save isn't that problematic, since it's not damage, but the randomness of the throw makes it difficult to predict and prepare, which is problematic. Does not affect creatures of Large size or larger.
Vitriolic Blast (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast ignores spell resistance (score!) and deals extra damage on subsequent rounds, no save. Multiple instances of Vitriolic Blast stack, so if you attack thrice with Eldritch Glaive, you'll do an extra 6d6 damage on the next round, and so on. As such, this is a must-have for Glaivelocks and other purely damage-focused builds (as it pretty much guarantees the damage you do, and often extra damage as well).
Hindering Blast (CM, active): The targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Will save or be slowed for 1 round. Will's not a bad save to target, but the one-round duration means you need to apply this constantly or all you're costing them is their move action. It's not bad--just subsumed by Noxious Blast almost completely.
Incarnum Blast (MoI, active): This is one Magic of Incarnum got right, but not for its incarnum effect: when used against anybody with at least one alignment component opposed to yours, the enemy makes a Fortitude save or is dazed for 1 round. For reference, dazed is almost as good as stunned, but harder to find immunities for, which makes this probably the best condition to apply to an enemy. Be chaotic good (evil probably being the most common among things you need to kill in most campaigns) and Eldritch Chain this. The duration and Fort save make this high-risk, high-reward.
Penetrating Blast (DrM, active): You gain a +4 bonus on caster checks to overcome spell penetration with your Eldritch Blast, and your Eldritch Blast, in turn, lowers SR by 5 on a failed Will save. I can think of better invocations (even better shapes) to take over this, but if you have a caster-heavy group, I guess this is one way to help everyone out.

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Cone (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast affects a 30-foot cone. You don't make an attack roll, but enemies make a Reflex save for half damage. Yuck. Evasion now completely invalidates your blast; what's more, at this level, you are basically always hitting with your basic blasts and Eldritch Chain anyway, so the only time this is useful is when you have large quantities of DEX-drained enemies lumped close together.
Eldritch Line (CM, active): Your Eldritch Blast affects a 60-foot line. Bad for all the reasons Eldritch Cone is bad, save for the following: you still get to make your blasts at range, but now you're less likely to hit multiple people unless you're tossing them down a hallway (and seriously, at that point, just UMD a wand of Lightning Bolt).

Other Invocations
Caustic Mire (CM, active): As the spell Caustic Mire. Also as the invocation Chilling Tentacles, below, except without the grapple checks. Pick Chilling Tentacles instead.
Chilling Tentacles (CArc, active): As Evard's Spiked Black Tentacles of Forced Intrusion, but deals cold damage even on enemies it fails the grapple check against. This is the penultimate crowd control invocation, and an absolute steal for an at-will ability: if you don't grab this at invoker level 11, then you're a Glaivelock who grabbed it at level 13.
Devil's Whispers (Ci, active): At-will Suggestion, only the victim makes another save at a -5 penalty to remember that they did it, and if they don't, then they blame themselves. Just put the gun in their hand and tell them to pull the trigger. Of course, PO/TO-level Diplomancers (some of whom may have dipped for Beguiling Influence) can do this either now or soon without the invocation with epic Diplomacy/Bluff checks, but for the rest of us (who don't want our DMs to throw entire bookshelves at us), this dominates every social encounter you will find yourself in... For a few levels, at least, at which point Mind Blank starts to come into play.
Devour Magic (CArc, active): A touch-range Greater Dispel Magic that gives you a few temporary hit points for a short period of time. The range of touch and targeted limitation combined are a deal-breaker to me; however, it is the only Dispel invocation Warlocks get that doesn't cap at 10. Even for dedicated dispellers, however, this is only okay.
Dragonward (DrM, passive): Grants you immunity to the frightful presence of dragons, DR5/-- against natural weapons of dragons, and energy resistance 20 against breath weapons caused by dragons... And only dragons. This is bad for all the reasons Baneful Blast was bad; situational bonuses that are applied on a very narrow scope tend to go unused for most of the campaign. If you know, for a fact, that 90% of your campaign is going to be the PCs getting caught in a war against dragons, then the invocation is still only decent; you already have DR that dragons can't overcome, and have a number of ways to gather the other benefits and grant them wider applications more easily.
Enervating Shadow (CArc, passive): You gain total concealment in areas that aren't brightly lit, and adjacent enemies take a -4 STR penalty upon a failed Fort save. Most of the things that would defeat the lesser invocation Walk Unseen (such as True Seeing) would defeat this as well, and that also grants total concealment, but without the light limitation. The Fort or STR penalty is mediocre, and "adjacent" is defined as five feet away from you--which you don't want enemies to be, as a Glaivelock or a size-boosted Clawlock, rendering this useless even to melee builds.
Hellspawned Grace (CM, active): For up to 10 rounds, you get to polymorph into a creature with an absurd array of good special qualities... Only you don't get its special qualities. Oh well.
Tenacious Plague (CArc, active): As the spell Insect Plague, but you add your CHA modifier to the save DC of the plague, and it deals its 2d6 damage as a magic weapon. The save DC of a Noxious Blast would be four higher (six with Ability Focus), and deal a number of DC more, and is easier to shape without collateral damage. The Long range and 1 min/level duration are cute, but there are other, much better ways of debuffing by this point.
Nightmares Made Real (CM, active): As the spell Nightmare Terrain with some mediocre damage slapped onto it to... Make it more "Warlock"-y, I guess. Nightmare Terrain is actually pretty decent, with a Will save to entangle others, and total concealment (and the ability to hide in plain sight) for you. It's when you can combine this with Chilling Tentacles that you have won, however; now, your enemies have to make a Will save, plus a grapple check every round, to be allowed to move at half speed toward/away from an enemy with total concealment!
Painful Slumber of Ages (CM, active): Target must make a Will save or fall asleep... Permanently! You don't really need a permanent duration sleep effect, however, as six seconds are generally long enough to coup de grace; however, I guess if you're in the business of taking people alive (and you're playing D&D?), I guess the fact that you're guaranteed 24 hours of sleep on a single failed save is good, and once again, you can always coup the ones you don't need.
Wall of Perilous Flame (CArc, active): As Wall of Fire, but Perilous! The damage from this spell is laughable at more or less all levels; this just happens to get special mention because you can make this wall over 200 feet long. Creating successive Walls of Perilous Flame can easily cause them to stretch out over a mile wide, or simply layer so thick that no enemy will want to go through them.
Warlock's Call (CArc, "active"): As the spell Sending, but with caveats. (Really? This is the spell you opted to nerf?) This is not worth an invocation slot; however, it is significantly better as a Chameleon invocation, as it is useful to have during down-time. The fact that this is a spell-like ability means you cast this as a standard action as opposed to its normal 10-minute casting time; you can decide for yourself if that makes this significantly better on the field, but to me, this still seems like a downtime invocation.

The Dark Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Utterdark Blast (CArc, active): Targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Fort save or take 2 negative levels. This confers a -2 penalty on attacks rolls, saves, skill checks and ability checks, -10 hit points, and a -2 to one's effective level (including all level-dependent effects). If that sounds like a lot of what the least invocations does, with some extra minor benefits... Well, that's because it is. The benefit of these levels is that they can add up, and they add up quickly--as each failed save makes the next save easier to fail. A Glaivelock often has little room for CHA in their build, but if one happened to pump it, they could shell out six negative levels in one turn with their Utterdark Glaive. Unfortunately, Utterdark Blast does have a lot of problems: it came at level 16, by which point immunity to negative levels is relatively commonplace; multiple saves need to fail for the negative levels to add up; and, being an 8th-level invocation, it is virtually impossible to apply spell-like metamagic to it, meaning the ceiling is pretty high unless you can shower tons of enemies with tons of attacks. Does not affect constructs or undead.
Binding Blast (CM, active): Targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Will save or be stunned for 1 round. If you did your research, you probably picked up Incarnum Blast a few levels ago, which does almost exactly the same thing, but as a greater invocation. Regardless, this ability has no caveats, Will is a decent save to target, and stun is one of the best effects to apply; it's just that, at this point, you probably wanted to be doing more with your dark invocations.

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Doom: Your Eldritch Blast becomes a 20-ft radius burst, centered on you. If you're using this, you are where you don't generally want to be (in melee range), unless you're a melee Warlock, in which case you have other, better uses for your blast shapes (some which you picked up in the very early levels).

Other Invocations
Caster's Lament (CM, active): OK, it's been pointed out that this isn't actually as bad as I thought it was, as you can use this once per day per enchantment that you are trying to break. That makes this a fairly useful defensive invocation, as you are able to effectively remove curses at-will during downtime. The counterspell application has limited use, but limiting the actions that an enemy can take is probably a better way to counter spells (making a proactive debuffer better in general than a reactive counterspeller).
Dark Discorporation (CArc, passive): You become a swarm of batlike shadows, gaining the swarm subtype and a number of cool, but not altogether great, traits and abilities. The killer for me is the fact that you cannot cast invocations (and can, in fact, only take a single move action) while in this form, meaning you give up more than fifteen levels of class features just to be in this form and get the swarm attack mode. Again, there's no mention of the Fort DC being higher than 12, so you're not applying mass nauseated condition with this.
Dark Foresight (CArc, passive): At-will Foresight as the spell, plus telepathic communication if you cast it on somebody else. This is mediocre except for the fact that, unlike other invocations where a second casting replaces the first there is no upper limit to the number of people you can cast this on; since this is an at-will ability, that means that you and your entire party basically always have Dark Foresight active, and not a single one of you can be surprised (but only you get the +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves, not that anyone cares), and you can always communicate telepathically with your entire party. With this active, surprise rounds never exist for the enemy; depending on your (and the enemy's) level of optimization, this can be invaluable.
Impenetrable Barrier (DrM, active): At-will Wall of Force as the spell, except that it's black and blocks all modes of vision. New walls replace old. It is, perhaps, the best at what it does--that being hard battlefield control through walls--but you are likely already a good battlefield controller by this point (either through shapes/essences, or other invocations picked up earlier), so taking this only makes you slightly better at what you can already do. You can't be faulted for putting your best foot forward, but at this point, you're probably better off picking up something you can't already do.
Incarnum Shroud: I've talked before about how scandalous a lesser invocation imitating a first-level spell is; well, this is worse. At level 16 and greater, you can select, as a dark invocation, an ability that imitates the second-level spell Blur. A continuous ring of Blur is 24,000gp to buy, and 12,000gp to make. If custom item creation is somehow too much for your DM, the Minor Cloak of Displacement does the same thing at the same cost. Blurring as a magic armor property is a +1 value. There is no excuse for getting this. None.
Path of Shadow (CArc, active): At-will Shadow Walk, with fast healing attached to it. The healing is mediocre, but at-will fast travel is fast travel (you move roughly 50mph with this spell for hours/level). It's not as good as Teleport, and you're getting it a minimum of seven levels later, but you know what? Fast travel is fast travel.
Retributive Invisibility (CArc, passive): At-will Greater Invisibility with a 24-hour duration. Greater Invisibility is awesome, so why is this only okay? Because you're getting it thirteen levels after See Invisibility first hit the scene, and five levels after True Seeing. By this point, enemies with either of the above (or blindsense, or blindsight) are commonplace, meaning your Greater Invisibility came too late to the party to be game-breaking. If you are in a high-level game where nothing seems to see invisible things, this is much better.
Steal Summoning (CM, active): This invocation is literally broken. As in, it doesn't work. The spell Steal Summoning is an immediate action cast that needs to be cast at the time a summoned creature is being brought into the world; however, as an invocation, this is always going to be a spell-like ability for you. Complete Arcane says about a Warlock's invocations: "A warlock's invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity." This is for the Warlock that has decided an invocation that you can use 1/day (Caster's Lament) is still too overpowered for him, and would like an invocation he can never use. Even if it were cast as an immediate action, the spell it imitates is too situational to ever be useful as an at-will ability.
Word of Changing (CArc, active): At-will Baleful Polymorph as the spell. This is one of those "love it or hate it" invocations; either you'll love the ability to completely negate a creature at-will for 24 hours, provided they fail the save, or you'll hate how late in the game this comes, and how often it just doesn't work (constructs and undead are immune for it being a Fortitude save; oozes and plants are immune to polymorph effects; and creatures with the shapechanger subtype just don't care. In addition, this targets Fort where Painful Slumber, a greater invocation, targets Will). I, for one, love it--mostly because Word of Changing is exactly the type of thing a high-level CE Warlock might do just for fun.

[ThiagoMartell]

Dip Classes for the Warlock
Since it's similar in many ways to spellcasting classes, warlock should not give up caster levels if at all possible. Even then, some dips are very tasty and should be considered.
Dipping is usually more acceptable for melee warlocks, since they care more about damage potential so delaying invocations (or Imbue Item) a bit is not that big of a deal, specially if you consider the ruling Rich Baker has on Practiced Spellcaster advancing eldritch blast damage. For more generalist warlocks, dips should be considered very very carefully.
Binder (Tome of Magic): Binder is a very versatile class and very multiclass friendly. A single level dip allows you to get Naberius, which helps your face skills and makes Hellfire Warlock much less dangerous. Plenty of other vestiges are good for warlocks, including Paimon and Andromalius. This class has plenty of similatiries with Warlock, so much that it became part of the class beyond 3rd edition. Very good.
Cleric: Everyone knows Cleric is such a strong class and how strong a single level Cleric dip can be. If you go for Cloistered Cleric (a variant from Unearthed Arcana), it gets kind of ridiculous, even. It opens up Eldritch Disciple, one of the most potent classes available to Warlocks. When it comes to RAW power, it's hard to compete with a Cleric dip. Armor proficiency allows you to qualify for Battle Caster, turn undead opens up Divine Might, you can exchange your domains for devotion feats (including Knowledge Devotion, one of the rare bonuses to damage you can apply to eldritch blast).
Wizard: Wizards are almost as good a dip classes as Clerics. With a single level, you can get a familiar and a bonus feat (either Scribe Scroll or a Fighter bonus feat) or you can give up your familiar for Immediate Magic from PH2 (Abrupt Jaunt is so good it's arguably broken).
Sorcerer:
Fighter:
Ranger:
Barbarian:
Paladin: A 2 level dip for Divine Grace is good on Charisma heavy build, but Charisma heavy builds are not that good. I could see this being somewhat usable in a clawlock build using From Smite to Song to get Inspire Courage and going crazy from there, but it's very convoluted.
Warblade: The best chassis around and you can get Sudden Leap out of it, helping immensely with the mobility problem of melee warlocks. Good maneuvers all around, good skill list and a worthwhile dip even if you lack high Int for the class features.
Crusader: A good class on it's own, but it competes with Warblade in the ToB front and it's simply not as good as it's cousin for warlocks, even though it has a bit of Charisma focus.
Swordsage: 3/4 BAB and a focus on Wisdom (one of the least important abilities for warlock) makes this the worst out of the 3 ToB classes for Warlock. Note that the Shadow Hand feat does not apply to claws and that you can get all of the utility from maneuvers from invocations.
Incarnate:
Totemist:
Soulborn:
Hexblade:
Swashbuckler:

Prestige Classes for Warlocks:
Eldritch Disciple (Complete Mage):
Eldritch Theurge (Complete Mage):
Enlightened Spirit (Complete Mage): This class does not advance your warlock abilities. Instead, it gives some celestial-flavored abilities, +5d6 eldritch blast and 5 set invocations. Usually, this class sucks. However, in a gestalt or epic build, Enlightened Spirit shines. Since it is adding instead of advancing, in a gestalt build it basically doubles your eldritch blast progression throughout those 10 levels. 5 extra invocations is nothing to sneeze it - the problem is that they are set. However, they are still invocations and as such can be swapped away when you get a new tier of invocations. Having Planar Affinity helps, since you can swap two at a time - two when you get Greater, two when you get Dark - you only need to keep one, and it turns out one of the invocations Enlightened Spirit grants you is pretty good (Celestial Flight). In epic levels it works very similarly, except that you need to time your levels carefully.
Demonbinder (Drow of the Underdark):
Hellfire Warlock (Fiendish Codex II): Probably everyone that wants to play a Warlock already knows about the Hellfire Warlock, THE Warlock prestige class. Don't have Fiendish Codex II? No worries - it's free (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20061207a&page=3). It requires a sucky invocation to get in, but it's worth it. It progresses your invocations, add some damage in the form of hellfire, allows you to apply some metamagic to items (and this is a really good and often overlooked part of the class) and you even get an immediate action ability, one of the very few a Warlock gets.
The problem is that using hellfire deals Con damage and you can't be immune to it. There are three common ways to deal with it:
1) Use wands and rods of bodily restoration to keep going. The most simple solution, one suggested in the class description itself. Better if you have a familiar.
2) Dip Binder (Tome of Magic) and bind Naberius. You now heal 1 point of ability damage per round. Binder and Warlock fit like a glove onto each other and this fits both the RAI and RAW of Hellfire Warlock. The only problem is setting back one step of your progression.
3) Take Shape Soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) (from Magic of Incarnum) as a feat. This reduces any ability damage you take by 1. This is definitely not RAI and the debate on whether is not it is RAW (because what the hell does 'somehow immune' means?) has been raging over years and has never been completely settled. Check if your DM. If you can take it, hey, free power boost. Update 14/12/12: The latest 3.5 FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a) addresses Strongheart Vest.

Would the strongheart vest soulmeld (MoI 89) protect you from the ability damage of the hellfire warlock’s hellfire blast ability (FCII 90)?

The strongheart vest soulmeld reduces the amount of ability damage you receive from an attack; however, it does not keep you safe from the costs of hellfire blast because the ability damage you are taking is not from someone attacking you.
OK, so Hellfire Warlock is the bee's knees. The problem is that it's only three levels long. If only we could advance the class progression beyond that... and hey, looks like we can. Some people debate if you can actually do this, but I have yet to see any RAW argument that holds against it. I don't think that's RAI, but this depends mostly on your group. Check with yoru DM before doing it, basically. There are three ways to do it:
1) Bloodlines (from Unearthed Arcana) advance level-related class features. This would advance hellfire and hellfire only. You get your bonuses to damage, but no free invocations, no BAB, no skill points. I'm not a fan of bloodlines myself and I have yet to see a game that is enriched by adding them. Personally, I'd avoid it like the plague.
2) Uncanny Trickster (from Complete Scoundrel) is another 3 level prestige class. Two of it's levels progress class features for another class. The fluff even kind of fits - you're squeezing just a little tad of extra power from your pact with the lower realms by trickery. Might be hard to get enough skill points for all those skill tricks while you qualify for Hellfire Warlock, but if you can do it, you probably should.
3) Legacy Champion (from Weapons of Legacy) is a bit like Uncanny Trickster in that it progresses class features from another class. However, it does so on 8/10 progression. That's a potential +16d6 bonus for your hellfire damage. There are several problems with that, though. First of all, you can't take all levels while qualifying for Hellfire Warlock pre-epic. Also, you need to find/found a legacy item, and that's a whole book full of badly organized mechanics your DM might not want to read. Also, if you go for the most Legacy heavy build possible (Warlock 9/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 8) you're losing out on Imbue Item, the single best class feature Warlocks get. If you keep Imbue Item, you end up with Warlock 12/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 5. That's a slight advantage over Uncanny Trickster with a lot more to learn. Still, you suffer penalties just from using weapons of legacy and that sucks. On the plus side, if your DM allows you to pick and choose abilities for your item, it can get quite decent. My personal advice? Just use Uncanny Trickster instead.
Chameleon (Races of Destiny): Chameleon is on of the most versatile classes is all of D&D 3.5 and Warlock really needs the flexibility. The requirements lock you into a few builds - it requires being a human, changeling or doppelganger and taking the Able Learner feat. 8 ranks in Disguise can be a pain to get, forcing you to either be a Silverbrow Human, take the City Slicker feat (from the same book as Chameleon) or dip some other class. However, if you do qualify, you really should take it as fast as possible. A two level dip offers you the option you using several abilities (from a small bonus to melee to 2nd level arcane or divine spells) and a floating feat - that is, a feat you can select every day. This is awesome for the Warlock for two big reasons - Extra Invocation and item creation feats. Between this and Imbue Item, you can do any magical item.
You can go further than 2nd level, but it starts becoming more about Chameleon and less about Warlock very fast.
Cyran Avenger (Five Nations):
Ruathar (Races of the Wild):
Thayan Gladiator (Champions of Ruin):
Warshaper (Complete Warrior):

[ThiagoMartell]

Reserved post #6, hold your horses

[ThiagoMartell]

Credits

Many people helped in this Warlock Handbook. This is where we thank damn.

Lonely Tylenol made all the invocation ratings and gave a lot of good ideas.
Socratov has also been around frequently, helping with suggestions
Planar noticed a few things we never noticed, like that ruling in the FAQ regarding Strongheart Vest

[only1doug]

Reposted for continuity

As Krazzman suggests, reserve yourself a few more posts, we can delete our posts (i did, this is the repost) to allow them to be consecutive.

Are you planning to cover homebrew? (I'd suggest including a minimum of a link list, even if you don't plan to include appraisals of it)

Other topics:
Cha: Pump or Dump? (I'm sure you would of included this)

[Krazzman]

I know it seems cocky to tell you what you should write but as you have already written "To melee or to not melee". I suggest you focus on the archetypical roles first, similar to treantmonks ranger handbook.

Describing what pro and con this style has and then listing good Invoc's and Feats.

As you wrote yourself JaronK's Tiersystem is a bit flawed with his prefered classes as is ThinBlades compilation of evaluating Invocations.

Furthermore we should probably explain the "sample" builds that ThinBlade collected a bit more.

I'm just excited that you started already and hope I can help you here (although I'm AFB most of the time).

(Somehow left the part about reserving more posts in Copy-Paste-Nirvana...)

[123456789blaaa]

Why make a new handbook instead of just adding info to the Warlock Information compilation?

[Marlowe]

And on a strange note out of left-field, might we please have a different image? Morthos plainly had the worst social survival skills and dress sense of any warlock ever.

[Novawurmson]

Love me some handbooks. Do you know of any good PF Warlock updates? I've been thinking of doing one, but I feel like I saw something good somewhere...

[Krazzman]

Why make a new handbook instead of just adding info to the Warlock Information compilation?

Because the old ones obviously have some...upkeep problems.

ThinBlades compilations for my taste is just too thin/too vague with his evaluation and most of the stuff there is not explained or awefully cited(in the form of not telling in which book you can find X).

@Nova:
The most common "PF-Fix" I saw was making EB advancing like sneak attack (+1d6 per uneven warlock level), getting more Invocations and changing something about their detect magic for free (I think it was something about detect magic and 1+Int-mod level 0 spells as cantrips). But dunno where I read that.

[Socratov]

Another pro for warlocks is their excellent ability to snipe and great partyface potential

[eggs]

Is there a way to snipe for decent damage that doesn't involve turning eldritch blast into a melee attack, then back into a ranged attack?

[dextercorvia]

Is there a way to snipe for decent damage that doesn't involve turning eldritch blast into a melee attack, then back into a ranged attack?

Bloodline levels + Hellfire +Uncanny Trickster+ Legacy Champion.

Warlock6/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/UncannyTrickster+2/LegacyChampion5/Bloodline3 deals 44d6 on a Hellfire blast. (I didn't tweak all of the levels to optimize the number of Hellfire levels you can get, but I think this is close).

Even without Bloodlines, you can get Warlock8/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/LegacyChampion6/UT+2, who can Hellfire blast for 28d6. Between Quicken, Maximize, Empower SLA, and the Chain Invocation, you can put down respectable if not Mailman levels of blasting.

[Fable Wright]

Bloodline levels + Hellfire +Uncanny Trickster+ Legacy Champion.

Warlock6/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/UncannyTrickster+2/LegacyChampion5/Bloodline3 deals 44d6 on a Hellfire blast. (I didn't tweak all of the levels to optimize the number of Hellfire levels you can get, but I think this is close).

Even without Bloodlines, you can get Warlock8/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/LegacyChampion6/UT+2, who can Hellfire blast for 28d6. Between Quicken, Maximize, Empower SLA, and the Chain Invocation, you can put down respectable if not Mailman levels of blasting.

The problem is, you can use this on a melee build to triple the damage output, for the low, low price of 1 Invocation known, at which point this all becomes Utter Cheese.

The problem with most traditional sniper warlocks is that they have relatively poor ability to fight at range. Either they're forced to use Eldritch Spear, which does pitiful damage (though it does have range), or use the Chain Invocation ability, which adds some damage to other targets, but requires you to be within 60ft. It's good for killing mooks that you don't care about, or applying debuffs to multiple enemies. The only really good way to add respectable damage to a warlock build is through the Eldritch Glaive Invocation, and most of the rest of the power from the class comes from basic Battlefield Control effects like Darkness and Chilling Tentacles combined with long distance/chained debuffs. Unfortunately, to be good at debuffs mandates that you pump Charisma, which means that you have much less to put into your combat ability.

This problem went away with the Complete Mage's release, which gave us the Eldritch Theurge, which can add damage to single-shot ranged attacks, add debuffs to already pretty good spells, and generally make the combination work really, really well. The problem, though, is that it doesn't fit most people's ideas of sniping- it adds Fireballs to your Eldritch Spears at lower levels, for example, instead of Save or Die spells to quietly take out targets until level 10 in the class. You also can't progress it with Hellfire Warlock, which is a strike against it.

As a side note, mention should be made in the guide of a Chameleon 2 dip, as the floating feat is really, really good for the crafter warlock. Ranking of the Invocations available to warlocks would also be really nice.

[Novawurmson]

@Nova:
The most common "PF-Fix" I saw was making EB advancing like sneak attack (+1d6 per uneven warlock level), getting more Invocations and changing something about their detect magic for free (I think it was something about detect magic and 1+Int-mod level 0 spells as cantrips). But dunno where I read that.

Yeah, sounds about right. Wouldn't seem too amiss to throw in a bloodline-like ability like the Sorcerer.

[Snowbluff]

And on a strange note out of left-field, might we please have a different image? Morthos plainly had the worst social survival skills and dress sense of any warlock ever.

How about Epic Morthos? :smalltongue:

Back on topic, Warlock Specific PrCs, PrCs warlock qualify for by RAW, and other similar/neat things should be added as well (Ur Priest and Apostle of Peace qualification).

Can you elaborate on how the Tier system is faulty? I find that it accomplishes what it has intended quite well.

[lsfreak]

The problem is, you can use this on a melee build to triple the damage output, for the low, low price of 1 Invocation known, at which point this all becomes Utter Cheese.

Isn't that kind of the case with every piece of optimization? You have to know what's effective and what's cheese. Shock Trooper is fine, Shock Trooper with Leap Attack probably isn't; Metamagic School Focus is fine, adding Arcane Thesis broken; DMM:Persist is just a solid strategy, until you're grabbing for the nightsticks.

[God Imperror]

What about...?

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b83/SlayerofPain123/The%20Potential%20Paths%20of%20Dyrus/Dread_Warlock_by_daarken.jpg

or

http://mmorig.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fear3.jpg

[Gnorman]

Methinks that "social survival skills" and "wearing human skulls on your belt" are somewhat at odds.

[lsfreak]

Methinks that "social survival skills" and "wearing human skulls on your belt" are somewhat at odds.
"They're not human, my friend, but drow!"
/roll Bluff

[Soranar]

Here's a ranged warlock build I've played before:

The Eldritch Assassin


Race: Human
Alignment: neutral evil
Template : necropolitan (fits very well with an evil build and you don't use hellfire so it complements well)
2 Flaws

1 Warlock Spell Hand,Wild Talent (or hidden talent if allowed), Point blank shot,Psionic Shot
2 Warlock
3 Warlock Martial Study
4 Warlock deceive item
5 Factotum
6 Assassin Psionic Meditation
7 Assassin uncanny dodge
8 Assassin
9 Eldritch Theurge Greater Psionic Shot
10 Eldritch Theurge
11 Arcane Trickster
12 Arcane Trickster Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance)
13 Arcane Trickster
14 Arcane Trickster
15 Arcane Tricksterobtain familiar
16 Arcane Trickster
17 Arcane Trickster
18 Arcane Trickster any improved familiar feat
19 Arcane Trickster
20 Arcane Trickster

U can use the assassin spell sniper's shot to turn your eldritch spear into a sneak attack at any range

Damage:

Eldritch blast of a level 16 Warlock (7d6)
psionic shot damage (4d6)
sneak attack (9d6)
total= 20d6 damage (+ Int from dipping factotum)

options:

-assassin spells (which tend to complement the warlock side fairly well)
-warlock invocations (with 1 dark)
-lots of skillpoints with a great skill list
-no need for Con
-a high INT score is a must to get enough skillpoints
-martial study makes hide a class skill at all levels which helps out with the assassin skill requirements

notes:

-the familiar can become a scout/tracker to find your prey
-the necropolitan template is rather useful for many of your levels only provide d4 hitpoints(and the rest d6, though you should be far from melee)
-Factotum dip can be traded for a rogue level instead (for another 1d6 sneak ), which lets you pick a strongheart halfling as your base race
-if allowed, the practiced invoker feat (basically the same as practiced spellcaster but for warlocks) would bump your eldritch blast all the way up to that of a 20 level warlock

[Talionis]

Here's a ranged warlock build I've played before:

The Eldritch Assassin


Race: Human
Alignment: neutral evil
Template : necropolitan (fits very well with an evil build and you don't use hellfire so it complements well)
2 Flaws

1 Warlock Spell Hand,Wild Talent (or hidden talent if allowed), Point blank shot,Psionic Shot
2 Warlock
3 Warlock Martial Study
4 Warlock deceive item
5 Factotum
6 Assassin Psionic Meditation
7 Assassin uncanny dodge
8 Assassin
9 Eldritch Theurge Greater Psionic Shot
10 Eldritch Theurge
11 Arcane Trickster
12 Arcane Trickster Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance)
13 Arcane Trickster
14 Arcane Trickster
15 Arcane Tricksterobtain familiar
16 Arcane Trickster
17 Arcane Trickster
18 Arcane Trickster any improved familiar feat
19 Arcane Trickster
20 Arcane Trickster

U can use the assassin spell sniper's shot to turn your eldritch spear into a sneak attack at any range

Damage:

Eldritch blast of a level 16 Warlock (7d6)
psionic shot damage (4d6)
sneak attack (9d6)
total= 20d6 damage (+ Int from dipping factotum)

options:

-assassin spells (which tend to complement the warlock side fairly well)
-warlock invocations (with 1 dark)
-lots of skillpoints with a great skill list
-no need for Con
-a high INT score is a must to get enough skillpoints
-martial study makes hide a class skill at all levels which helps out with the assassin skill requirements

notes:

-the familiar can become a scout/tracker to find your prey
-the necropolitan template is rather useful for many of your levels only provide d4 hitpoints(and the rest d6, though you should be far from melee)
-Factotum dip can be traded for a rogue level instead (for another 1d6 sneak ), which lets you pick a strongheart halfling as your base race
-if allowed, the practiced invoker feat (basically the same as practiced spellcaster but for warlocks) would bump your eldritch blast all the way up to that of a 20 level warlock



Wonderful build.

I also would hope maybe we could have a small section on E6. Warlock stock goes up considerably in E6 and it might make for a good acknowledgement.

[dextercorvia]

The problem is, you can use this on a melee build to triple the damage output, for the low, low price of 1 Invocation known, at which point this all becomes Utter Cheese.

First, bloodline levels are already udder cheese :smallwink:. Legacy Champion and Uncanny Trickster to extend Hellfire Warlock are also going to be too cheesy for a lot of tables.

Second, going melee has the added cost of requiring you to get close with a squishy build. Ranged has the inherent advantage of not being close enough to get full attacked (usually). A lower damage is expected.

Still, either option puts up respectable numbers for a ranged blaster option.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Wonderful build.

I also would hope maybe we could have a small section on E6. Warlock stock goes up considerably in E6 and it might make for a good acknowledgement.

As an E6 DM and player, I can write that myself. :smallbiggrin:

I was planning on my initial contributing being a comprehensive list of the invocations, with my input on each (probably in Red/Black/Blue/Purple format, or whatever ends up being used). I don't expect my input on invocations to be the only input given (or used) on invocations, but more is always better in this regard. :smallsmile:

[MachineWraith]

This is relevant to my interests.

Seriously, I can't put my finger on why, but the Warlock is one of my favorite classes in 3.5. This thread is getting bookmarked, and I'll follow it closely. Thanks for all the work you're putting into it!

[Gnorman]

As an E6 DM and player, I can write that myself. :smallbiggrin:

I was planning on my initial contributing being a comprehensive list of the invocations, with my input on each (probably in Red/Black/Blue/Purple format, or whatever ends up being used). I don't expect my input on invocations to be the only input given (or used) on invocations, but more is always better in this regard. :smallsmile:

I'm happy to provide some support in this regard, if you feel you might need it.

[Treblain]

The Warlock Information Compilation has fewer gaps than I remembered, but it's still not really a full warlock handbook. We could do with one.

Don't forget:


The tricks involving the Darkness Invocation and the feats from Drow of the Underdark that key off having Darkness as an SLA. The main one is Blend Into Shadows, which gets you a decent approximation of Hide In Plain Sight. Instinctive Darkness and Intensify Darkness can be useful too, but that's the point where you start investing a lot of feats into a single trick.

The possibility of qualifying for prestige classes with straightforward spellcasting and then using them to advance Warlock. Usually suboptimal since it will probably take a dip in a spellcasting class, but it should be mentioned. Combine with early entry tricks, and you can get into classes that require actual spells of 2nd or 3rd level.

Discuss the two Hellfire Warlock controversies: Legacy Champion and Strongheart vest. Or just link to the billion threads that debate them.

Make sure you get all the invocations and their locations; one of the things a warlock handbook needs so players don't go crazy searching every book for a stray invocation or two.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Legacy Champion works by RAW; but cheesy? Maybe, it manily depends on the op-level of your table (I'd guess it would be cheesy for most tables though).

Strongheart Vest on the other hand it is quite debatable, personally I don't think it shouldn't work (Besides Naberious works wonderfully and soul binding meshes with the warlock printed fluff wonderfully, plus some people, including me, believe that a feat slot is a rarer, more precious resource than class levels). I think a note of "Debatable, so ask your DM before using this"(TM) should be enough.

[Snowbluff]

Discuss the two Hellfire Warlock controversies: Legacy Champion and Strongheart vest. Or just link to the billion threads that debate them.



Legacy Champ isn't controversial to anyone familiar with Epic PrC rules, Legacy Champ, and the wording of Hellfire Blast.

The Soulbind is the same (reduction != immunity), but it's not RAI, so some people will have an issue with it.

[ThiagoMartell]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and feedback, let's see how long it takes until we've got it all figured out.

[Lonely Tylenol]

OK, I've done all of the least invocations from all the books. I have to get ready for work; when I get back (or tomorrow), I'll do lesser, greater, and dark.

EDIT: This is basically my posting of a rough draft: I will be cleaning this up, as well, later, and I will notify Thiago when I am done with all of them. I will also take input on anything I am missing (I've noted the Darkness tricks available in Drow of the Underdark, and will look at them).

Invocations
To my knowledge, the Warlock has had invocations printed in six books: Complete Arcane (CArc), Complete Mage (CM), Dragon Magic (DrM), Cityscape (Ci), Magic of Incarnum (MoI), and Drow of the Underdark (DotU), making it, ironically, one of the better-supported classes in the game outside of core; however, you have a relatively limited number of invocations available for use, gaining only three invocations at each tier, which means you have to choose from these invocations very carefully. Not all Warlocks are going to be built the same, but there are still some general rules governing which invocations you should consider taking as a Warlock:

Passive vs. Active
As a Warlock, you'll find that some invocations you can cast are passive invocations, generally 24-hour or long-duration at-will buffs that you just cast at the beginning of the day and consider "always-on" abilities. Mere mention that these are being cast at the beginning of each day is usually enough, as barring a Dispel check, these basically are "always-on". Good examples of this include the least invocations Entropic Warding and Dark One's Own Luck, or the lesser invocation Ignore the Pyre.
Active invocations, on the other hand, have to be activated in order to work, which means that you need to be spending actions to use them, and the benefits of the invocation are generally relatively short in duration. The greater invocation Chilling Tentacles is a good example of an active invocation.
While it is generally useful to have more than one combat trick up your sleeve (or just more than one action that you can actually take in general), keep in mind that you should always be careful of how many active invocations you take; after all, it's great to have Eldritch Blast three different ways, Chilling Tentacles, Baleful Utterance, Dread Seizure and Impenetrable Barrier at your disposal, keep in mind that you have only one standard action per turn. At the same time, it's possible to pick so many passive invocations that you have nothing to do in combat but Eldritch Blast and maybe one other trick (possibly a variation of Eldritch Blast), and then be left with little to do when your Eldritch Blast doesn't cut it. Pick the active invocations that you can't live without, or pick a few that shore up blind spots in your usual offense, and then pick passive invocations to compliment them, so you aren't left with six of your best invocations being rendered totally unusable in a combat in a given time, or at a complete loss for actions entirely.

General vs. Specific (Characters)
If you picked All-Seeing Eyes, See the Unseen, Serpent's Tongue, Crawling Eye, Voidsense, and Spider-Shape, you would have, at your disposal, darkvision, see invisibility, blindsense, tremorsense, scent, good Spot and Search bonuses, and a remote vision ability, making you a scouting machine (well, insofar as a class with 2+INT skills and no perception skills as class skill can be); nobody is getting anything past you! Of course, you've also used all of your least and lesser invocations for scouting, so until level 11, this is all you can do--well, this and the bog-standard Eldritch Blast 5d6. It is possible to pick a specialty within the Warlock's invocation list, and become very good at that thing, but it is possible to over-specialize, and become pigeonholed (or useless when that one thing isn't called for). Since D&D is a combat-focused game, this is most often seen with combat-focused Warlocks who suffer from "The Whole World's a Nail" syndrome.
Just as it is possible to over-specialize, it is also possible to over-generalize. It's easy to become the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None"--just pick from the "good" invocations you get a list of seemingly useful invocations that don't complement each other in the least. Now you can do a little bit of combat, a little bit of social interaction, a little bit of scouting, and a little bit of sneaking, but you can't do combat well enough to play the combat role (meaning the group still needs a brute), social interaction enough to play the social role (meaning the group still needs a face), scouting enough to play the scout role (meaning the group still needs a scout), or sneaking enough to play a sneak (meaning the group still needs a rogue-like). Congratulations: you've just become the fifth wheel. The problem gets worse if you happen to be bad enough at each of these roles, as the brute has to waste hit points protecting you in combat, the face has to struggle through a social encounter to get past your blunders, the scout hardly sees the point in your even trying to look, and you and the sneak get exposed when you fail your Move Silently check. At this point, you've gone from fifth wheel to spare tire: you're literally only useful when one of the four falls flat, and they only need you to get you to the next stop so they can patch up the old one (or replace you with a new one).
As with the first issue, it's good to find a balance here: pick two, maybe three things that you want to be good at, and then be good at those things. After all, if you're good at battlefield control and social interaction, then you have carved out a niche for yourself in-combat (with Eldritch Chain debuffing, or Chilling Tentacles, or whatever your poison is) and out-of-combat (with Beguiling Influence, Charm, and so on), and the rest of the party doesn't have to worry about covering your behind while they do their part by beating things to death (that you've made easier to kill with battlefield control) and sneaking past the guards (that you've made easier to sneak past by seducing them, or enthralling them).

General vs. Specific (Invocations)
You get a limited number of invocations, and you need to get as much mileage out of them as humanly possible. That much is a fact. As a result, it's important to get as much mileage out of your invocations as possible: you'll want either invocations that do a lot of things, or invocations that do one thing that applies a lot of the time. Invocations that are neither (do only one thing, which is very situational) either have incredibly powerful effects or simply aren't worth the space (sometimes both).
Consider, for example, the least invocation Baleful Utterance and the greater invocation Dragonward. Baleful Utterance, which you can pick up at level 1, allows you to use Shatter as the spell at-will. After a couple levels, this begins to have a number of useful applications: it is your go-to offensive trick for crystalline creatures of any kind (dealing 1d6/level, with a Fort save for half), a ranged sunder with no opposed rolls, your go-to solution for exceptional locks (or just weak doors), manacles (or other bindings of any kind), trap mechanisms (either to disable or trigger them), and so on; creative players can think of limitless applications for Shatter with no verbal component (like causing something to explode near the guards, providing a distraction).
Dragonward, on the other hand, provides three benefits that only apply against creatures of the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype: immunity to the Frightful Presence ability of Dragons (which a successful save essentially grants you anyway, and you're a Good Will class of at least 11th level at this point), DR5/-- against the natural attacks of a dragon (but you already have DR3/cold iron, which the dragon doesn't overcome, and that continues to scale), and energy resistance 20 against any breath weapon (but only if used by a dragon or dragonblood). The benefits are very situational, in that they only matter against one type of creature, but they can all be imitated quite nicely by applying other, general effects: Dark One's Own Luck can give you your CHA to your Will save (and can be changed to any other save at any time), which can help negate the Frightful Presence effect, and Ignore the Pyre can give you scaling energy resistance (which eventually meets the energy resistance of Dragonward) against all effects by any creature of that energy type, which you can change (at-will) to be the dragon's energy type (unless you have two dragons of different colors working in tandem, which is rare). As for the DR? Well, you can have at-will flight and invisibility, and a means of getting away quickly, all as lesser invocations; why is the dragon successfully closing into melee range to attack you in the first place? The bonuses are very situational and can be entirely overlapped (or rendered obsolete) by the base class features of the Warlock, or less costly invocations picked up earlier, so why bother with it?
There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule (Vitriolic Blast, as an eldritch essence, doesn't do anything new, per se, but it does allow your existing attacks to ignore the Spell Resistance of your enemies), but in general, look for invocations that either have a broad range of direct effects or indirect applications.

Without further ado...

The Least Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Frightful Blast (CArc, active): Enemies make a Will save or are shaken for 1 minute. Does not stack with itself, or other fear effects if the creature is already shaken, but I believe it stacks with other fear effects applied after it, meaning it can work well with an Intimidate check to demoralize, or the Dreadful Wrath feat, to make everybody frightened for 1 minute. Does not affect constructs, oozes, plants, undead, vermin, and some swarms, or anything else with immunity to mind-affecting effects.
Hammer Blast (CM, active): Your Eldritch Blast does full damage to objects as opposed to half. Why on Earth would you take this over Baleful Utterance?
Sickening Blast (CArc, active): Enemies make a Fort save or are sickened for 1 minute. The sickened condition is virtually identical to the shakened condition of Frightful Blast, but can never escalate and targets a worse save. Does not affect constructs or undead.

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Glaive (DrM, active): As a full-round action, make iterative attacks with your Eldritch Glaive as if it were a reach weapon. You can make attacks of opportunity until the start of your next turn. This is everything Hideous Blow is not: you're still making touch attacks, you're not in melee range (a simple Enlarge Person puts you at 20 feet away), and you get multiple attacks for having a high Base Attack Bonus, which makes it the only option for high single-target damage in any printed book (you have to look to Dragon Magazine for the only other). If you're not a melee Warlock, this is still pretty good, but so are a lot of other things.
Eldritch Spear (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast range becomes 250 feet. If you have decided to become a non-melee Warlock (or even a ranged Warlock), this is your invocation of choice for single-target encounters. Combined with a method of flight, you basically have a way to stay completely out of range (or out of the first two range increments for archers) while dealing your full Eldritch Blast damage. This isn't the best combat option by any stretch, but it is the safest. If you're a melee warlock, this is anywhere from only average to totally unnecessary (good for getting off a few long-range attacks while enemies close into melee, and nothing else).
Hideous Blow (CArc, active): Your melee attacks channel your Eldritch Blast. Congratulations: you're now no longer making touch attacks, are still only making a single attack, are restricted to melee range, and all you're getting out of it is the base weapon damage you'd normally get. With Concentration checks to avoid attacks of opportunity being as easy as they are, this somehow manages to be worse than simply using an unshaped Eldritch Blast at point blank. As many have said before me, Hideous Blow blows hideously.

Other Invocations
All-Seeing Eyes (CM, passive): +6 on Search and Spot, and Comprehend Languages on written material. Spot and Search are two of the more useful skills in the game, and there is good synergy here with other perception abilities. If you are a dedicated scout (or are dipping the class for scouting abilities), this is a pretty good grab.
Baleful Utterance (CArc, active): At-will shatter, as a spell-like ability. Use this to escape from bindings, open locks (or kick in doors), trigger traps, sunder enemies (without the opposed roll or the attack of opportunity), distract the guard with an explosion, shatter glass to mix into the enemy's stew, as an attack mode for crystalline enemies, and anything else you can think of that can be done with random acts of destruction! This is one of the most universally applicable low-level invocations the Warlock has, and remains useful for most of his career for some reason or other. It isn't a must-have, but it comes recommended highly.
Beguiling Influence (CArc, passive): +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. The bonuses themselves aren't fantastic, but the skills are, and hoo boy, are those skills fantastic. Unfortunately, Diplomacy isn't a class skill for you, but with the right feats, it can be. This is a must-have for any Warlock that wants to be a face, fear-based Warlocks, and most Warlocks that take Able Learner for Chameleon; the rest can hold out for Charm or some other analogue for their social needs (or trade it out later if they do grab it).
Breath of the Night (CArc, active): At-will Obscuring Mist as a spell-like ability. A useful effect for controlling space or when you and the party need to get away; however, better options do exist, and you can simply Use Magic Device a wand of Obscuring Mist (caster level 1) for the same effect, with the same duration, which makes you wonder why you'd bother picking this up at level 2 when your second-level WBL can get you all the castings you'd need for life anyway.
Dark One's Own Luck (CArc, active): You gain your CHA as a luck bonus (which cannot exceed your caster level) to one save, selected at the time of casting, for 24 hours. Since you can cast it at-will (just like any other invocation), you can switch this around as you need it, which gives it a certain deal of defensive utility. If you've pumped your CHA into the stratosphere, this is good for a late-game swap-in, but only passable early on. If you've dumped CHA, it's terrible, of course.
Call of the Wild (CM, passive): Gain wild empathy as a druid of your level and always-on Speak with Animals. Situationally useful, and very campaign-dependent; if you're a Fey-themed Warlock, or you're in a nature-heavy campaign, it definitely couldn't hurt to pick this up.
Cocoon of Refuse (Ci, active): At-will Entangle against a single creature as a spell-like ability, but 1 round/level and only in urban environments. Originally, I thought this was just like the spell--a 40-ft. radius spread--and had marked it as a good option, because at-will Entangle is good enough to be a primary battlefield control method for several levels, given how good the entangled condition is. Then I re-read it, and found out that it only applies to one creature, and now it's mediocre (but not altogether a terrible option). Obviously setting-specific, so don't take this if you're in a nature-themed campaign.
Darkness (CArc, active): At-will Darkness as a spell-like ability. Unfortunately, Darkness just isn't very good, and so neither is this invocation. It doesn't do much of anything that Breath of the Night doesn't do, and Breath of the Night does nothing a Wand of Obscuring Mist doesn't do, so don't bother with either.
Devil's Sight (CArc, passive): See in magical and non-magical darkness out to 30 feet. Half the darkvision range of See the Unseen (below), and magical darkness doesn't come up often enough to ignore the strong overlap See the Unseen has with this.
Drain Incarnum (MoI, active): 30-foot range Fort save or cause 1 essentia (or 1 WIS) damage? Where do I sign? (Don't mistake that blue for this being a good option; it's not bolded. That's blue for sarcasm, as in, "this is so bad as to be laughable". Even in an Incarnum-heavy campaign, a standard action to cause 1 essentia damage is laughable; if the creature really needs that essentia invested in that item, then congratulations; you've wasted your standard action to force them to take a swift action to re-invest that essentia. If they fail the save. Way to go, champ.)
Earthen Grasp (CArc, active): At-will Earthen Grasp as the spell. Grapples as a Medium creature with a BAB of your level, with a STR score equal to 14 + 2/3 caster levels, without Improved Grapple--in other words, it's a pretty poor grappler. It provokes attacks of opportunity just for trying, and is too fragile to endure more than maybe one. If you really want battlefield control that bad, Chilling Tentacles is worth waiting ten levels. Yes, it is.
Entropic Warding (CArc, passive): Arrows have a 20% miss chance against you, you leave no trace, and you cannot be tracked by scent. If you're a far-range Warlock (think Eldritch Spear), this addresses your one remaining weakness... Somewhat. The other two effects aren't great for the average Warlock, but are useful for scouts. This is a good invocation to grab early instead of late. If you're a scout, keep this for as long as you feel like it; otherwise, trade it out when you get greater invocations and a Ring of Entropic Deflection (MiC, p. 123) stops being cost-prohibitive.
Leaps and Bounds (CArc, passive): +6 to Balance, Jump and Tumble for 24 hours (at-will). Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to use the skills untrained, so you're only getting the +6 to Balance and Jump unless you spend cross-class ranks in Tumble. This is better for Rogue-likes and some combat types that dip Warlock, or Melee Warlocks with Able Learner (who are becoming Chameleons).
Miasmic Cloud (CArc, active): The only reason this isn't red (like Breath of the Night) is because the fatigue is a neat little add-on that makes it unique from a Wand of 1st-level spell, which stacks with other fatigue effects. It also doesn't negatively affect you, so in the low levels, this can be a good way to open up a combat.
Otherworldly Whispers (CM, passive): Gain a +6 bonus to Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion) and Knowledge (the planes) checks. These are all class skills for you, and knowledge is power in this game (and, in fact, if you have Knowledge Devotion, then knowledge literally does become power); however, it would probably be better if it let you make these checks untrained. Really, the Dragonfire Adept version of this (Draconic Knowledge) is just qualitatively better (so if your DM lets you pick up DFA invocations with Extra Invocation, grab that instead).
See the Unseen (CArc, passive): You gain darkvision and see invisibility out to 60 feet for 24 hours, at-will. Darkvision is only alright, but the ability to see invisible things becomes crucial at higher levels, when invisible enemies can become a literal death knell for the party. Grab this at level 4 (or swap it in at a later level if you, or someone in your party, has darkvision), as you're not likely to see invisible things in a game before that point anyway. (You can always grab it before this point as a precaution, but it's not strictly necessary before level 4-6.)
Serpent's Tongue (CM, passive): Gain the scent ability, and +5 to Fort saves vs. poison. Scent is useful if you have the Track feat (but the Track feat isn't good), and is an okay method of perception otherwise. The bonus to Fortitude saves vs. poison is okay, but not remarkable (and Dark One's Own Luck just does it better).
Soulreaving Aura (CM, active): As the spell Reaving Aura, but you gain temporary HP if you kill something with it. Considering you can only kill something with it if it is already at -9, and the hit points last for 1 round (and are useless unless you're locked in combat with something else at the time of casting), why would you ever cast this in combat, and kill creatures that are no threat to you, wasting a standard action to eliminate things that are? Just coup de grace enemies that need to die after they are dead.
Spiderwalk (CArc, passive): At-will Spider Climb as the spell (but with a duration of 24 hours), plus immunity to webs. It's another form of movement, and in the low levels, it will keep you safe against a large number of creatures. If you feel it necessary to have, grab it early, but swap it out when you get lesser invocations (such as Fell Flight) that give you more versatile move modes.
Summon Swarm (CArc, active): At-will Summon Swarm as a spell-like ability, only the duration is Concentration. Is this was Summon Swarm with the listed duration of Concentration + 2 rounds, it would be better, but as-is, you need to spend every standard action to let the swarm take its turn. Pass.
Swimming the Styx (CM, passive): Grants you a swim speed equal to your movement speed, and the ability to breathe underwater, for 24 hours (usable at-will). Its usefulness is dependent on the campaign: in an aquatic or nautical campaign (ex. Stormwrack), it's anywhere from good to great; in a desert campaign (ex. Sandstorm), it's terrible.

[Marlowe]

...ah, Summon Swarm is better than that. You don't concentrate on the swarm. You summon a new one every turn, right on the target. It's an area attack that you get to shape. It does a steady drain of damage, doesn't require you to make hit rolls, and can do some useful debuffing if you're lucky (and depending on whether the DM plays the monsters for "doing damage" or "self-preservation"). Obviously, it loses effectiveness very quickly with levels, but for a low-level Warlock it's a very useful offensive power.

[Malroth]

Darkness becomes blue or even purple if you're a stealth build using the drow of the underdark feat blend into darkness but you're definately correct on the red rating for anyone who isn't.

[Lonely Tylenol]

...ah, Summon Swarm is better than that. You don't concentrate on the swarm. You summon a new one every turn, right on the target. It's an area attack that you get to shape. It does a steady drain of damage, doesn't require you to make hit rolls, and can do some useful debuffing if you're lucky (and depending on whether the DM plays the monsters for "doing damage" or "self-preservation"). Obviously, it loses effectiveness very quickly with levels, but for a low-level Warlock it's a very useful offensive power.

I know you don't concentrate on the one you have; the problem is, since the duration is only Concentration, the first one vanishes the moment you begin summoning the second. Thus, you have to spend every standard action on your turn in order to get a new swarm, which means that it's not just an attack; if you want to keep it going, it's your only attack form. If it had a duration of Concentration + 2 rounds, you could have multiple swarms, or simply use only one action every three turns while you do other things (which would make it blue, but as-is, you have to trade your standard action in order to force the Fort save vs. nauseated--an even trade, IF they fail. Unfortunately, the save DC is not based on your casting of Summon Swarm, but instead on the creatures summoned, so the DC is 11, and never really improves. Between this, Close range, and the Concentration duration, it's really a mess of an attack form, that is more or less obsolete, in spite of the strengths it does have, by level 3--a full three levels before you can get rid of it. I'd honestly rather have a single-target Will vs. shaken with my save DCs from twice the range, if I needed to have the attack form.

Perhaps I was too rash--but it's no better than average, even with the advantages it has over Eldritch Blast at low levels.


Darkness becomes blue or even purple if you're a stealth build using the drow of the underdark feat blend into darkness but you're definately correct on the red rating for anyone who isn't.

Noted; at the beginning of the post, I mention (albeit in an edit) that it is a rough draft, and that I will be looking at these feats soon.

[Socratov]

On sniping: the warlock is one of the only classes that can add bonus dmg (as opposed to sneak attack and skirmish) to an attack, and hide thereafter. With quicken you can make 2 attacks (standard action+quicken on high levels) and hide with the move action. Normally this would use ranger or any hips, but you can use greater invis (or whatever the invocation is named) to help hide.

[Marlowe]

Oh, I agree SS has those faults. It's an ability you can have at first level though, and it has tactical uses in quite a few stuations.

Anyway, the real point is Thank you for making a post of substance. I'll be chewing over it for a while.

[Krazzman]

Minor nitpick:

Beguiling Influence... I would make it black initially and then would say something that with a party face already it is more going red, if you are the party face it becomes Purple.
The main point of this feat is for social interaction if your Warlock won't be speaking to the npc's it's near worthless (yes even for seduction!).
As you said the Charm Invoc would be far better.

[Lonely Tylenol]

EDIT: I will be working on the lesser invocations tomorrow. I am beat.


Oh, I agree SS has those faults. It's an ability you can have at first level though, and it has tactical uses in quite a few stuations.

Anyway, the real point is Thank you for making a post of substance. I'll be chewing over it for a while.

Anytime. I welcome the discussion. :smallsmile:


Minor nitpick:

Beguiling Influence... I would make it black initially and then would say something that with a party face already it is more going red, if you are the party face it becomes Purple.
The main point of this feat is for social interaction if your Warlock won't be speaking to the npc's it's near worthless (yes even for seduction!).
As you said the Charm Invoc would be far better.

Unless you're playing a game where only the "face"-type ever talks, this is not likely to ever be true.

Fact of the matter is, regardless of whether or not you are the dedicated "face" of the group, Beguiling Influence is a good pick: it's +6 to the entire social triumvirate, and every last one of those skills is broken, plus the class has good CHA synergy (if you're building for it). 18 CHA and this invocation mean +10 to the full trio without a single rank invested, and this is a good thing, regardless of whether or not you're the "face" (just like taking options that make you more survivable are always a good thing, whether or not you're the "tank", and don't get me started on tanking in D&D). It can be good for a BFC-focused Warlock or a scout Warlock just as it can be for a face, because it makes you good at something with common applications for minimal investment.

Out-of-the-box, Beguiling Influence is just good for Warlocks. The reason it's blue across the board and the other skill-boosting invocations aren't (but may be conditionally blue) is because they are options that are not conventionally good: Leaps and Bounds gives you bonuses to two checks you stop using after 5 levels (and one you can't use anyway), All-Seeing Eyes give bonuses to two good skills (but the Warlock can't do much to capitalize on them), and Otherworldly Whispers gives three knowledge skills with no INT synergy and doesn't let you make them untrained. Beguiling Influence lacks this problem unless you specifically build away from it.

I mean, if you literally *aren't* talking to people in-game, as in Vow of Silence-style not talking, then yes, it's a bad option, just like Eldritch Glaive is bad if you've taken the Vow of Peace, and the Sack of Puppies trick is bad if you're a Paladin of Honor.

[Krazzman]

Unless you're playing a game where only the "face"-type ever talks, this is not likely to ever be true.

Even with my Cha 16 Warlock (the highest Cha in the group) I don't do the "Face" things because it doesn't fit the character.



Out-of-the-box, Beguiling Influence is just good for Warlocks. The reason it's blue across the board and the other skill-boosting invocations aren't (but may be conditionally blue) is because they are options that are not conventionally good: Leaps and Bounds gives you bonuses to two checks you stop using after 5 levels (and one you can't use anyway), All-Seeing Eyes give bonuses to two good skills (but the Warlock can't do much to capitalize on them), and Otherworldly Whispers gives three knowledge skills with no INT synergy and doesn't let you make them untrained. Beguiling Influence lacks this problem unless you specifically build away from it.

Yeah I know that it is better than those other skill-boosters but my motivation for my nitpick was that it get's a lot better for a face. Since a single Warlock dip as a barde gives you +6 in 3 trained skills and that is something to write home about. It's a solid option (Black) for everyone but get's purple for someone who utilizes all 3 skills... thus ranking it as overall blue.

Hope that was now clear enough... sometimes my writing skill drops dead...

EDIT: seriously what did I wrote there? :smallconfused:

[Fable Wright]

The Various Kinds of Warlock:
There are many possible builds for Warlocks. In this section, we'll discuss the most common builds.
Blastlock: The blastlock stays ranged. This is the default for warlocks and the worst option when it comes to damage and debuffing. You practically need Hellfire Warlock for this to remain relevant and even with Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse it's not a main damage dealer. You can increase your damage output with common Warlock items (Chasuble of Fell Power, Warlock's Scepter) and (Greater) Psionic Shot if your race allows for that. A blastlock probably fits better on very low OP groups, where you coud use your resources for stuff other than damage.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's not necessarily true. Use of the Eldritch Theurge PrC (with early entry tricks) lets you add blaster spells to your Eldritch Blast. While individually, the two options are poor, the power to Fireball someone while you Eldritch Blast them from range with an Eldritch Spear with just one Standard action gives the Blastlock some form of credibility. Dip Warmage 1 with Versatile Spellcasting, and get all the blasting spells you need with easy, early entry. Add Practiced spellcaster so that your extra damage is actually worth something, and you can, in fact, to relevant damage as a blaster.

[Grim Reader]

Do not forget the Nosomatic Chirurgeon PrC. Lose a single use of a spell-like ability to cast spells opens up a lot of of Prcs etc.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Sadly only for bog standard halflings (since racial variants such as strongheart, glimmerskin are forbidden to take dragonmarks), though yeah it is a nice trick and can be very powerful with the correct set up.

[Marlowe]

My own (ignorant) opinion. I've built many low-level Warlocks and then have the campaign fall apart before I actually get to play them. I have sort of resigned myself now to the apparent fact that the Warlock is my favourite class that it seems I'll never get to play.

For a starter power, the best picks appear to be Summon Swarm (which yes, you will be switching out soon), Spiderwalk, and Baleful Utterance.

Spiderwalk gives you movement options that can keep you safe. And many other things to.

Summon Swarm gives you the ability to hurt and mess (low-level) people over without rolling dice. It has other tactical applications too, but that's the gist.

And Baleful Utterance lets you break stuff. Sweet. Only as a combat power, it's the only one of these which is stat-dependant. It involves a saving throw, which means it's effected by Charisma. And Charisma, in my (ignorant) opinion, is less important than Dex and Con for Warlocks in general. In a starting character, it may very easily be this power involves too low a save DC to be reliable in combat.

I'd take Baleful Utterance as my second power without question. For a first level power, I keep thinking that it's a straight choice between the other two. SS for offense, SW for survivability.

It's quite situational. If you're playing in an urban or forested area, Spiderwalk is better than if you're playing in Orcish Nebraska. If your DM plays his early level opponents as people that would rather try and fix themselves up from continuous damage than fight, then the bleeding from batswarms becomes quite powerful. Whether they pass the save or not.

And as I said, If I'd gotten more (any) chances to play with the class, I might have a different opinion.

[ThiagoMartell]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's not necessarily true. Use of the Eldritch Theurge PrC (with early entry tricks) lets you add blaster spells to your Eldritch Blast. While individually, the two options are poor, the power to Fireball someone while you Eldritch Blast them from range with an Eldritch Spear with just one Standard action gives the Blastlock some form of credibility. Dip Warmage 1 with Versatile Spellcasting, and get all the blasting spells you need with easy, early entry. Add Practiced spellcaster so that your extra damage is actually worth something, and you can, in fact, to relevant damage as a blaster.
Could you give us on average build with damage calculations? From your description it doesn't sound impressive.

@LonelyTylenol and Marlowe: Summon Swarm is devastating at first level for a single reason - it's a standard action 1d6 sure damage with an added debuff effect. No attack roll, no save - just plain damage. This is at first level, where everyone is missing half their attacks. You can also use it to block line of sight in a way similar to Wall of Gloom.

[eggs]

With a Sorcerer-heavy build, it wouldn't be tough to throw some Eldritch Chained metamagicked Wings of Flurries around for 70-80d6 damage without going into the Hellfire Warlock's rules abuses. Considering the daze tagalong and force/untyped damage, that's not bad.

But in that situation, Warlock would hardly be doing the heavy lifting.

[Fable Wright]

With a Sorcerer-heavy build, it wouldn't be tough to throw some Eldritch Chained metamagicked Wings of Flurries around for 70-80d6 damage without going into the Hellfire Warlock's rules abuses. Considering the daze tagalong and force/untyped damage, that's not bad.

But in that situation, Warlock would hardly be doing the heavy lifting.

Spellblast only has the spell activate on the initial target, so chaining metamagic Wings wouldn't work. Still, it doesn't specify blasting spells, so you can easily drop Waves of Exhaustion, Circle of Death, Greater Fireburst, or Solid Fog onto an Eldritch Blast. Something like a Warlock 2/Warmage 2/Warlock +1/Eldritch Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Eldritch Disciple +5/X 2, Versatile Spellcaster at level 3 and Practiced Spellcaster at level 6 would be able to do somewhat respectable damage per hit. At level 8, you can do 11d6 with your Eldritch Blast + a Fireball, which is more than a Glaivelock can do at that level, and you deal damage to everyone in a radius (at the cost of giving everyone a Reflex save to avoid some damage). At 10th level, you can be sending around Orbs of X with a second rider debuff, and after that you get Hellfire damage added to Blasting spells. And after you get Virtrolic Blast, you get to ignore Spell Resistance on any spell that deals damage. The damage is indeed far less than a focused Glaivelock can do, I will admit. However, at the higher levels, the damage does add up. At level 18, for example, you get 7d6 base EB damage + 6d6 Hellfire damage + 15d8 damage from Greater Fireburst. Alternatively, 7d6 base Eldritch Blast damage + 6d6 Hellfire damage + Circle of Death. Possibly with Sneak Attack damage from Martial Study + Martial Stance. More than the Eldritch Assassin build posted earlier, at least.

Alternatively, Precocious Apprentice Sorcerer 2/Warlock 3/Eldritch Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Eldritch Disciple +5/X 2 grants you Divine Companion, a better spell list that can take advantage of Greatreach Blast, Wings of Flurry tacked onto Eldritch Blasts or cast as a Virtrolic Blast spell. Base damage at level 18 from this build would be 16d6 Wings of Flurry damage + 6d6 Hellfire damage + 7d6 Eldritch Blast damage + 2d6 Assassin's Stance Sneak Attack damage. Or using something as silly as Arcane Fusion to combine Wings of Flurry with Burning Hands and Utterdark Blast for save v. 4 negative levels. And, again, any spell that deals damage, even 1d6/round spells, can be made instantly SR: No with Virtrolic Blast. Again, not the sheer damage per round that Glaivelocks can put out, but it can be done at range and has more options available.

[eggs]

Spellblast only has the spell activate on the initial target, so chaining metamagic Wings wouldn't work.
I may have misphrased that. I mean 8d6 to 9d6 Eldritch Blast damage (chained) + 60d6 to 75d6 from a Twinned Empowered Wings of Flurry (depending on CL) as an area effect + 2 saves v. daze - pretty reliable damage at level 20 that doesn't rely on any big bumps past ECL 10.

If the spell were chained, it would be much higher.

[ThiagoMartell]

Spellblast only has the spell activate on the initial target, so chaining metamagic Wings wouldn't work. Still, it doesn't specify blasting spells, so you can easily drop Waves of Exhaustion, Circle of Death, Greater Fireburst, or Solid Fog onto an Eldritch Blast. Something like a Warlock 2/Warmage 2/Warlock +1/Eldritch Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Eldritch Disciple +5/X 2, Versatile Spellcaster at level 3 and Practiced Spellcaster at level 6 would be able to do somewhat respectable damage per hit.
Early entry tricks to be 'respectable'... well, I'll mention this in the Eldritch Theurge (I think that's what you meant instead of Disciple), but I'm not getting excited about it.


At level 8, you can do 11d6 with your Eldritch Blast + a Fireball, which is more than a Glaivelock can do at that level, and you deal damage to everyone in a radius (at the cost of giving everyone a Reflex save to avoid some damage).
A singleclassed glaivelock with nothing except eldritch glaive is doing 4d6 a hit. 8d6 on two hits. With the barest hint of optimization (better return on chasuble of fell power and warlock's scepter, gauntlet of heartfelt blows, using an essence for extra damage) the glaivelock pulls ahead.

At 10th level, you can be sending around Orbs of X with a second rider debuff, and after that you get Hellfire damage added to Blasting spells. And after you get Virtrolic Blast, you get to ignore Spell Resistance on any spell that deals damage.
Wait - doesn't that ability count as applying an essence?

The damage is indeed far less than a focused Glaivelock can do, I will admit. However, at the higher levels, the damage does add up. At level 18, for example, you get 7d6 base EB damage + 6d6 Hellfire damage + 15d8 damage from Greater Fireburst. Alternatively, 7d6 base Eldritch Blast damage + 6d6 Hellfire damage + Circle of Death. Possibly with Sneak Attack damage from Martial Study + Martial Stance. More than the Eldritch Assassin build posted earlier, at least.
I'll add this build to the Eldritch Theurge sectin, when we actually get to adding one :smallbiggrin:

[Fable Wright]

Early entry tricks to be 'respectable'... well, I'll mention this in the Eldritch Theurge (I think that's what you meant instead of Disciple), but I'm not getting excited about it.
Early entry doesn't exactly break the game in the case of Theurge builds. It makes them on par with other builds. Alternatively, if there was a Practiced Invoker feat that advanced Eldritch Blast damage, or the DM lets a Chausible of Fell Power count as a permanent +1d6 Eldritch Blast damage, early entry isn't needed. Besides, you're still paying a price for early entry- either essentially wasting a feat slot on Precocious Apprentice, or consigning yourself to an inferior spell list in the case of Warcaster.


A singleclassed glaivelock with nothing except eldritch glaive is doing 4d6 a hit. 8d6 on two hits. With the barest hint of optimization (better return on chasuble of fell power and warlock's scepter, gauntlet of heartfelt blows, using an essence for extra damage) the glaivelock pulls ahead.
True. They also need to somehow move into range before doing this damage, nor can they waste groups of foes with it, so it's probably even.


Wait - doesn't that ability count as applying an essence?
As it turns out, Hellfire Blast isn't an essence. The wording- you can change your Eldritch Blast into a Hellfire blast, and the lack of mentioning the fact that it counts as an essence, means that it isn't an invocation. I mistyped when talking about adding Hellfire- I meant that it's possible to add the Hellfire damage to the Eldritch blast in addition to the blast spell.

[ThiagoMartell]

As it turns out, Hellfire Blast isn't an essence. The wording- you can change your Eldritch Blast into a Hellfire blast, and the lack of mentioning the fact that it counts as an essence, means that it isn't an invocation. I mistyped when talking about adding Hellfire- I meant that it's possible to add the Hellfire damage to the Eldritch blast in addition to the blast spell.

I know Hellfire Blast is not an essence, what I meant is the Eldritch Theurge's ability to add spells to eldritch blasts.

[Snowbluff]

You should note Beaststrike, Eldritch Claws, and Elightened FIst entry for a good option for melee damage.

Epic Eldritch Theurges should note that one of the Epic warlock feats allow 2 essenses to be applied to a spell. :smallcool:

DMofDarkness seems tp be covering my opinions on the ET pretty well. +1

[Fable Wright]

I know Hellfire Blast is not an essence, what I meant is the Eldritch Theurge's ability to add spells to eldritch blasts.

The Eldritch Theurge gains this ability through the Spellblast Eldritch Essence learned at third level of the class, so unless other essences can't be applied to a Hellfire blast, I don't see why Spellblast can't...

[Lonely Tylenol]

Even with my Cha 16 Warlock (the highest Cha in the group) I don't do the "Face" things because it doesn't fit the character.

Yes, but to what extent? When Bobby Sue NPC from MagicMart asks if you want to sign up for the Super Saver discount for BIG $$$ BARGAINS, are you going to look expectantly to the Rogue? What if he's not there?

Unless you literally have one person who handles every social interaction in your game, chances are the rest of the party will occasionally do some speaking, some of the time. That includes you. That means that, at least on those times, this invocation is useful. That doesn't mean it is a must-grab (it never is; it is merely a good option), or that you absolutely need to fill an invocation slot with it, but unless you have taken a vow of silence, or you're just that guy who never roleplays (or you have a group that does dice less social interaction or just dungeon crawls), this will come up at least occasionally, and it will be useful when it does. You can decide for yourself if that means it's worth an invocation slot--you've decided that it isn't. That's OK. If you *did* pick it, however, it would not likely go wasted.


Yeah I know that it is better than those other skill-boosters but my motivation for my nitpick was that it get's a lot better for a face. Since a single Warlock dip as a barde gives you +6 in 3 trained skills and that is something to write home about. It's a solid option (Black) for everyone but get's purple for someone who utilizes all 3 skills... thus ranking it as overall blue.

This invocation is also not purple for a face, because while it is perhaps the most useful invocation a face can have at this level, it's also not strictly necessary: after all, all it does is provide a bonus to your social interaction skills. A good-sized bonus for its level, and it is untyped, so it stacks with all other bonuses--both good qualities--but it isn't a catch-all game-breaker*. A face can still be a good face without it (provided they have good CHA), and have an extra invocation for their trouble, but it's still a good option if you want the extra bonuses.

*The only time this isn't true is when you can put epic-level skill checks in play well before epic levels. If you can instill Suggestion with your Bluff checks, or turn people into fanatics with Diplomacy, then you basically get the equivalent of Devil's Whispers with a least invocation. Then, it's purple. But this is usually a component of a very specific, narrow build (which dips Warlock and Marshal, then goes Bard, etc. Namely, it's blue, but not purple, for a face, until you get into Epic (PO or TO, depending on level) Diplomancer builds.

Thus, I rank it as blue because it is good (but not an absolute must-have) for faces, and it is also good (but not an absolute must-have) for non-faces.

[DementedFellow]

I think it deserves special mention that a Warlock is one of two classes that can function reasonably well with all stats being 3. The other is druid, for those interested in knowing.

[Novawurmson]

I see your Druid and raise you a Wildshape Variant Ranger!

[DementedFellow]

I see your Druid and raise you a Wildshape Variant Ranger!

I didn't really think of any variant classes, the Warlock and Druid are fresh that way out of the box though.

[ThiagoMartell]

The Eldritch Theurge gains this ability through the Spellblast Eldritch Essence learned at third level of the class, so unless other essences can't be applied to a Hellfire blast, I don't see why Spellblast can't...

So how are you using both this and Vitriolic Blast at the same time? :smallconfused: In your post you specifically mentioned using Vitriolic Blast to ignore SR while using this ability.

I think it deserves special mention that a Warlock is one of two classes that can function reasonably well with all stats being 3. The other is druid, for those interested in knowing.
You seem to have missed this, but this is already mentioned several times in the handbook as it stands.

[DementedFellow]

You seem to have missed this, but this is already mentioned several themes in the handbook as it stands.
No I saw it. I just think it warrants special mention you could have the lowest statted character in all creation and still be a viable warlock. But I understand if you don't feel compelled to word it like that.

[GenghisDon]

Nice start, keep it going, please.

I'm curious, does anyone think a warlock that more or less ignored EB could be viable/good? :smalleek:simply took more invocations instead of blast shapes/esences?



Isn't that kind of the case with every piece of optimization? You have to know what's effective and what's cheese. Shock Trooper is fine, Shock Trooper with Leap Attack probably isn't; Metamagic School Focus is fine, adding Arcane Thesis broken; DMM:Persist is just a solid strategy, until you're grabbing for the nightsticks.

I could not agree more with this:smallcool::smallsmile:

[ThiagoMartell]

Nice start, keep it going, please.

I'm curious, does anyone think a warlock that more or less ignored EB could be viable/good? :smalleek:simply took more invocations instead of blast shapes/esences?
I could go on and on about this, but basically it depends on your DM's optimization level and party composition.
There is a lot more to Warlock than Eldritch Blast - in fact, the strongest features in the class is Imbue Item.
Just using vanilla eldritch blast without caring much about it is pretty much what I expect from a blastlock. Unless you use prestige classes and early entry tricks, your damage is going to suck no matter what, so you might as well use your resources for other stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure I said that in the handbook. :smalltongue:

[Fable Wright]

So how are you using both this and Vitriolic Blast at the same time? :smallconfused: In your post you specifically mentioned using Vitriolic Blast to ignore SR while using this ability.

You seem to have missed this, but this is already mentioned several times in the handbook as it stands.

No, you can add Virtrolic Blast to spells through the 5th level Eldritch Spellweave class feature. No SR on any damage dealing spell is nice, though you can't do that and Eldritch Blast in the same round.

[ThiagoMartell]

No, you can add Virtrolic Blast to spells through the 5th level Eldritch Spellweave class feature. No SR on any damage dealing spell is nice, though you can't do that and Eldritch Blast in the same round.

Ah, OK, now I get it. ^^

[GenghisDon]

I could go on and on about this, but basically it depends on your DM's optimization level and party composition.
There is a lot more to Warlock than Eldritch Blast - in fact, the strongest features in the class is Imbue Item.
Just using vanilla eldritch blast without caring much about it is pretty much what I expect from a blastlock. Unless you use prestige classes and early entry tricks, your damage is going to suck no matter what, so you might as well use your resources for other stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure I said that in the handbook. :smalltongue:

You allude it, perhaps, Thiago, but I still took away from the blastlock section the character would presumably have a blast shape & essence at least. My bad, perhaps.

I agree, and think it needs be quite clear there IS more to the class than EB...& think many will be sucked into thinking otherwise. Not that I mind folks focusing on EB instead or in addition to, in other cases. I think it's got some versatility, which also makes me think your Tier 3 suggestion is likely.

On support; yes, the class actually has a fair bit. WOTC clearly liked the class/idea. It's right in the 4e PH, off the hop. And with 3 distinct flavours mapped out already.

[gorfnab]

Hellfire Ur-Lock:
Warlock 4/ Binder 1/ Ur-Priest 2/ Eldritch Disciple 2/ Hellfire Warlock 3/ Eldritch Disciple 8
Or
Warlock 4/ Binder 1/ Ur-Priest 2/ Eldritch Disciple 2/ Hellfire Warlock 3/ Eldritch Disciple 2/ Mindbender (with Mindsight feat) 1/ Eldritch Disciple 5

[Krazzman]

Yes, but to what extent? When Bobby Sue NPC from MagicMart asks if you want to sign up for the Super Saver discount for BIG $$$ BARGAINS, are you going to look expectantly to the Rogue? What if he's not there?

Then of course I would use it, but as it is not part of my build it won't be that effective.



Unless you literally have one person who handles every social interaction in your game, chances are the rest of the party will occasionally do some speaking, some of the time. That includes you. That means that, at least on those times, this invocation is useful. That doesn't mean it is a must-grab (it never is; it is merely a good option), or that you absolutely need to fill an invocation slot with it, but unless you have taken a vow of silence, or you're just that guy who never roleplays (or you have a group that does dice less social interaction or just dungeon crawls), this will come up at least occasionally, and it will be useful when it does. You can decide for yourself if that means it's worth an invocation slot--you've decided that it isn't. That's OK. If you *did* pick it, however, it would not likely go wasted.

No, not quite we started at level 1 in a small village. As there was some sort of harvest-festival we were partying and our stealth-char got us a quest. We were sort of trapped there till level 4 then ventured on to bring a book somewhere (the reason we were together in the first place) and get some material (no checks needed so far). As we ventured back to our Initial-Backstory-Questgiver our Cleric got a direct order from her church. So far we bought stuff but we knew we couldn't get it for a lower price as they were already selling it at a discount.


This invocation is also not purple for a face, because while it is perhaps the most useful invocation a face can have at this level, it's also not strictly necessary: after all, all it does is provide a bonus to your social interaction skills. A good-sized bonus for its level, and it is untyped, so it stacks with all other bonuses--both good qualities--but it isn't a catch-all game-breaker*. A face can still be a good face without it (provided they have good CHA), and have an extra invocation for their trouble, but it's still a good option if you want the extra bonuses.

But the reason I think this is purple for a face is the reason that for a face skillfocus (1 of those 3) is already a good option and as someone said a 1 leveldip is not that important as a feat is... jeah the mileage of 6-times a feat effect for a 1-level dip could be purple.



*The only time this isn't true is when you can put epic-level skill checks in play well before epic levels. If you can instill Suggestion with your Bluff checks, or turn people into fanatics with Diplomacy, then you basically get the equivalent of Devil's Whispers with a least invocation. Then, it's purple. But this is usually a component of a very specific, narrow build (which dips Warlock and Marshal, then goes Bard, etc. Namely, it's blue, but not purple, for a face, until you get into Epic (PO or TO, depending on level) Diplomancer builds.

Thus, I rank it as blue because it is good (but not an absolute must-have) for faces, and it is also good (but not an absolute must-have) for non-faces.

Jeah ok, I now know what you are weighting there exactly. Hope this was at least a bit helpful.

[Grim Reader]

Im on holliday and away from books. So please forgive me if Im overlooking something simple and fundamental here. I just leafed through CM in a local store. And it looks to me as though the Enlightened Spirits advancement table can be considered an invocation advancement table. Its not hard to qualify for.

So with one level of Enlightened Spirit, you can then go into Ultimate Magus (several ways of doing that with just one level of a spellcasting class) and advance both Warlock and Enlightened Spirits Blast and invocations? Changing out the invocations you dont want from ES.

[dextercorvia]

Im on holliday and away from books. So please forgive me if Im overlooking something simple and fundamental here. I just leafed through CM in a local store. And it looks to me as though the Enlightened Spirits advancement table can be considered an invocation advancement table. Its not hard to qualify for.

So with one level of Enlightened Spirit, you can then go into Ultimate Magus (several ways of doing that with just one level of a spellcasting class) and advance both Warlock and Enlightened Spirits Blast and invocations? Changing out the invocations you dont want from ES.

The main problem is that UM only advances one prepared and one spontaneous class on seven of its levels, and Warlock (and Enlightened Spirit) are neither.

[thompur]

The Various Kinds of Warlock:
There are many possible builds for Warlocks. In this section, we'll discuss the most common builds.
Blastlock: The blastlock stays ranged. This is the default for warlocks and the worst option when it comes to damage and debuffing. You practically need Hellfire Warlock for this to remain relevant and even with Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse it's not a main damage dealer. You can increase your damage output with common Warlock items (Chasuble of Fell Power, Warlock's Scepter) and (Greater) Psionic Shot if your race allows for that. A blastlock probably fits better on very low OP groups, where you coud use your resources for stuff other than damage.

Glaivelock: The glaivelock is focused on Eldritch Glaive, a least invocation (blast shape) from Dragon Magic. With Eldritch Glaive, the glaivelock gets the option to do iterative attacks, increasing their damage output considerably. Since the glaivelock can still apply essences, they work as good debuffers. Eldritch Glaive still targets touch AC, so the Glaivelock have good accuracy.
A glaivelock has better damage output than a ranged warlock, but worse damage output when compared to a clawlock. It's probably the best warlock option for debuffing - it forces multiple saves on the same round.

Clawlock: The clawlock uses the Eldritch Claw feat from Dragon Magazine. More than any other warlock build, the clawlock is a damage dealer. Their damage potential is very good, since they can stack anything that helps natural weapons, unarmed strikes, manufactured weapons and eldritch blast. Clawlocks depend on Dragon Magazine material, which is frowned upon on some tables, so ask your DM before building one.

Feats for the Warlock
Eldritch Claws (Dragon 358):
Beast Strike:
Improved Unarmed Strike (PHB):
Grappling Blast (Dragon 358):
Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle):
Improved Natural Attack (Monster Manual):
Planar Affinity (online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070328)):
Infernal Adept (online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070613)):
Weapon Finesse (PHB):
Touch Spell Specialization (Complete Arcane):
Obtain Familiar (Complete Arcane):
Improved Familiar (PHB):

Magical Items for the Warlock
(Greater) Chasuble of Fell Power (Magic Item Compendium): +1d6 eldritch blast damage, +2d6 on the greater version. Take it.
Warlock's Scepter (Magic Item Compendium): Bonus to ranged touch attacks, expend charges for bonus damage on eldritch blasts. Take it.
Beast Claws (Savage Species): Your claws now deal +1d6 damage. They are also +2 weapons. Is it Christmas already? Every Clawlock should take this if allowed.
Boots of Agile Jumping (Magic Item Compendium): This item allows you to use Dexterity for Jump. Useful for Glaivelock builds that use Sudden Leap to close with the target.
Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (Magic Item Compendium): Move half your speed as a free action. The cost is very low. The problem is taking the neck slot. See if you can mix this with your chasuble. Good for melee warlocks in general.
Anklet of Translocation (Magic Item Compendium): A swift action teleport, good for everyone. Very cheap item as well.
Quicksilver Boots (Magic Item Compendium): With 3 uses a day and moving as a swift action, this item is pretty good. It's not expensive and I'd get it as soon as possible.
Cyran Gliding Boots (Magic Item Compendium): Magical roller skates. Fits thematically if you're a Cyran Avenger. Moving 10ft as a 5ft step is very good, even if it is limited in uses per day. Between this and Quicksilver Boots, I'd probably get Quicksilver Boots.
Codex Advocare (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft): 20.000 GP for a least invocation. Looks like a good deal, specially since it's the only way to get extra invocations
Gauntlet of Heartfelt Blows (Dragon Magazine): Adds Charisma as a bonus to damage. It specifically works with touch attacks! Good buy for glaivelocks.

I would add Rod of Eldritch Power(Complete Mage: Page 127). I like it for situational blast shapes like Eldritch Spear and Hammer Blast.

[Allanimal]

I would add Rod of Eldritch Power(Complete Mage: Page 127). I like it for situational blast shapes like Eldritch Spear and Hammer Blast.

That is a great find that I have never seen mentioned before in Warlock threads.

[ThiagoMartell]

I would add Rod of Eldritch Power(Complete Mage: Page 127). I like it for situational blast shapes like Eldritch Spear and Hammer Blast.

I don't have Complete Mage here, so could you mind telling me what it does and how much it costs?

[GenghisDon]

"Rod of Eldritch Power

Beloved by warlocks, these rods augment the user's eldritch blast.

{{scrubbed}}

complete mage pages 127-128

It definetely ought be mentioned.

[Re'ozul]

I always wondered.

A Glaive being a two handed weapon, would it still be affected by Steadfast boots regardless of its substance?

[ThiagoMartell]

I always wondered.

A Glaive being a two handed weapon, would it still be affected by Steadfast boots regardless of its substance?

No, man... Eldritch glaive is not a weapon. I guess I'll cut and paste that section from the melee warlock handbook where they explain this...

[Lonely Tylenol]

"Rod of Eldritch Power

-snip-

Between this and some of the item comparisons that I made with my Least abilities, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should include a straight gp comparison for a lot of items; basically, how much, in wealth, you are saving by getting this ability instead of an item that emulates this ability. (For instance, a Wand of Obscuring Mist is 750 gp, and emulates Breath of the Night word-for-word, but a Ring of Entropic Deflection is 8,000 gp and gives you one of the effects conditionally... Or a continuous magic item of Entropic Shield, Pass Without Trace and Remove Scent is 9,000 gp, but is at CL1 for the purpose of being dispelled (whereas Entropic Warding scales with your level), making it an infinitely better choice per wealth investment.

I'm working on the lessers now. I was going to prepare for my game tonight, but ruined my leg, so now I have nothing better to do than lie down with a computer atop my lap. :smalltongue:

[ThiagoMartell]

Between this and some of the item comparisons that I made with my Least abilities, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should include a straight gp comparison for a lot of items; basically, how much, in wealth, you are saving by getting this ability instead of an item that emulates this ability. (For instance, a Wand of Obscuring Mist is 750 gp, and emulates Breath of the Night word-for-word, but a Ring of Entropic Deflection is 8,000 gp and gives you one of the effects conditionally... Or a continuous magic item of Entropic Shield, Pass Without Trace and Remove Scent is 9,000 gp, but is at CL1 for the purpose of being dispelled (whereas Entropic Warding scales with your level), making it an infinitely better choice per wealth investment.

I'm working on the lessers now. I was going to prepare for my game tonight, but ruined my leg, so now I have nothing better to do than lie down with a computer atop my lap. :smalltongue:
Btw, added your evaluation of the least invocations to the OP. I only changed a bit about Summon Swarm.

[GenghisDon]

Between this and some of the item comparisons that I made with my Least abilities, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should include a straight gp comparison for a lot of items; basically, how much, in wealth, you are saving by getting this ability instead of an item that emulates this ability. (For instance, a Wand of Obscuring Mist is 750 gp, and emulates Breath of the Night word-for-word, but a Ring of Entropic Deflection is 8,000 gp and gives you one of the effects conditionally... Or a continuous magic item of Entropic Shield, Pass Without Trace and Remove Scent is 9,000 gp, but is at CL1 for the purpose of being dispelled (whereas Entropic Warding scales with your level), making it an infinitely better choice per wealth investment.

I'm working on the lessers now. I was going to prepare for my game tonight, but ruined my leg, so now I have nothing better to do than lie down with a computer atop my lap. :smalltongue:

Get better soon. What the rod made me think of was this item:


Magical Items for the Warlock
Codex Advocare (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft): 20.000 GP for a least invocation. Looks like a good deal, specially since it's the only way to get extra invocations

Given it's cost, a simular book for a lesser invocation would be 80,000 gp and a greater invocation would be 180,000 gp. Beyond that would be epic items.

what do you all think? fair?

[Lonely Tylenol]

The Lesser Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Baneful Blast (CM, active): Have you ever wanted roughly 1/12th of your 20th-level class resources on something only marginally useful that one time in the whole campaign you fight creatures with the Humanoid (dwarf) type/subtype, and useless everywhere else? Yeah, me neither. But not all is lost! You can spend another 1/12th of your 20th-level class resources to also do +2d6 damage to plants! ...If you are in a campaign where you fight an unusually high number of elementals or something, pick up a rod of that baneful blast... Or just skip it altogether, as damage that minor to a single creature type is probably not worth the gold investment.
Beshadowed Blast (CArc, active): Blind is actually not that bad of a condition. Unfortunately, it's a Fort save with a duration of 1 round, so it's not that likely to go off against anything you would want to use it on (and not that game-changing when it does). Does not affect constructs or undead (Fortitude save), oozes (already blind), or true dragons (who have blindsense and/or blindsight), or anything else that is blind.
Brimstone Blast (CArc, active): Your first Reflex-based invocation, and unfortunately it's not very good. Fire damage is the most commonly resisted, and the Reflex save isn't even for half (meaning that the damage can essentially be negated outright with a successful save). Further, damage over time just generally isn't worth your time, because by the time this has done its extra 8d6 of damage (at level 20), the creature has been dead for three rounds. Confers no additional benefit.
Deteriorating Blast (DrM, active): Reduces the damage reduction of enemies struck by the Eldritch Blast by 5 for 1 minute... Provided they succeed the Fortitude save. The only reason this is okay is because it applies to all forms of damage reduction simultaneously, and because sometimes it's good to let the party Fighter have nice things. Unfortunately, that makes this the MVP of lesser eldritch essences--and it's still mediocre.
Hellrime Blast (CArc, active): Deals cold damage (but no extra cold damage), meaning your Eldritch Blast is now susceptible to resistances. The target must make a Fort save or suffer a -4 penalty to Dexterity for 10 minutes, which is good (except for the Fort save) except for the fact that it doesn't stack or escalate. If you happen to have Eldritch Chain, this might be good to have on a rod for a one-and-done mass debuff, because the long duration will make any single casting last as long as you need it to, but it's a bad idea for an invocation slot, because it's not worth trying multiple times if you fail (and there's no sense using it again if you succeed).

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Chain (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast hits an extra target for every 5 levels you have (maximum 5 total targets at level 20). Does not have the same explosive 1 target/level cap of Chain Spell, but also doesn't have the 1/2 damage and weaker save DCs that Chain Spell does. If you have a decent DEX, you aren't going to be missing often even at the time that you get this, and it only gets better as you level. If you are a ranged Warlock (or a BFC/debuff-focused Warlock), this will probably be your go-to blast shape, as it allows you to target several targets for damage and debuffing without even a remote risk of collateral damage (which you get out of Eldritch Cone).

Other Invocations
Charm (CArc, active): As the spell Charm Monster, but language-dependent (meaning you can often use it on dragons and most magical beasts, but not plants or oozes). Useful for all the reasons that Charm Monster is; this is your go-to invocation for social tricks even if you aren't a face, and if you are a face, this remains useful at all levels as a proxy for Diplomacy, and is a useful replacement otherwise if you don't want to invest the skill ranks. If you are a diplomancer (and not merely a face), this loses its effectiveness when epic-level checks for Bluff and Diplomacy come into play, as it is superseded by Beguiling Influence. It is still good for combat-heavy Warlocks, provided there is something big and bad that understands you within range.
Cold Comfort (CM, passive): As the spell Endure Elements. Unfortunately for this invocation, Endure Elements is a first level spell--with the same duration as this invocation. A wand of Endure Elements for you and the whole party is thus only 750gp--and a continuous item is 2,000 gp (although you could pick up four Crystals of Least Adaptation for the same price and have always-on, slotless Endure Elements for most of your party).
Crawling Eye (CM, active): The Warlock's Arcane Eye. Has no listed duration or range, which means you can use this indefinitely as long as you are fine with having one eye (and 2 less hit points), and see twice. This is a must-have for any scouting Warlock that has made it this far, as you gain remote, (almost) consequence-free scouting using all your vision-based invocations.
Curse of Despair (CArc, active): As the spell Bestow Curse, with a -1 penalty on attack rolls on a save. The curses are strong, but the range: touch and the action cost hurts this a lot. This is better if you're Greater Invisible (such as a pixie or under the effect of Retributive Invisibility), because you can apply it without blowing your cover if you're smart about it; if you're able to scout effectively (or divine preemptively), you can sneak up, apply the curse of your choosing as a pre-fight debuff, and then begin the combat with a -4 to everyone's everything, or a 50% chance of missed actions, or both(!).
The Dead Walk (CArc, "active"): As Animate Dead, but you can also forego the material component to create free summons out of your enemies for 1 minute/level. The second half of the ability is situationally useful for those fights where your DM throws a single Unkillable Badass surrounded by legions of tiny minions at you, and you manage to kill the Unkillable Badass first, because now he's yours, and is wreaking havoc on the legions of tiny minions. It is also useful for triggering traps, creating expendable meat shields, and the like.
The real star of this show, however, is--surprise, surprise--the Animate Dead ability of this invocation. If you grab this invocation at level 6, that means you've foregone flight, which is okay--your first undead is probably going to be a zombie dire bat, for a fly speed of 40 ft (clumsy) and an AC of 22, or a zombie giant eagle, for a fly speed of 80 ft (clumsy) and an AC of 18, plus 55 hp each and the DR5/slashing of zombies. Put barding and reins on either, if you can. By level 12, you can have a 10-headed zombie hydra (which can make a partial charge and attack with all 10 heads as a standard action), a zombie rhinoceros (which retains its powerful charge ability and can thus make powerful partial charges), your original flying zombie mount, and 4 HD to spare (zombie fleshraker raptor?). Pick up big things with Powerful Charge (ex) or Pounce (ex), fly, swim and burrow speeds (per the campaign needs), or simply legions of expendable mooks of your choosing; assuming you spend judiciously, you really can't go wrong. The number of things this invocation can do if you aren't creative is astounding; if you are, warn your DM before taking it.
"Active" is in quotations because this is not a combat spell; this is something you do during your downtime, either after a combat or between adventures entirely. As a result, this becomes a mediocre to bad choice for Chameleon Warlocks, but only because it becomes an AWESOME choice for an "Extra Invocation" feat using your floating feat; take the corpses of your choosing to town with you, get some rest, wake up the next day, select Extra Invocation (The Dead Walk), animate all the dead you need, and then switch the feat out the next day when you're done; the undead remain, loyal and under your command, and you have an extra invocation slot for something else that you wouldn't have normally!
Disembodied Hand (CM, active): The Warlock's spectral hand. Allows you to deliver touch attacks remotely, and you can even deliver a consequence-free assault with this and Crawling Eye from a great distance. In spite of how flavorful and fun this may be, however, doing this with any lesser invocation would use all of your lesser invocations, and there are certainly better options.
Dread Seizure (DrM, active): Target must make a Fort save or have its movement speed halved, and take a -5 penalty on all attacks against creatures more than 5 feet away. A fairly useful single-target debuff at first glance, until you remember that Beshadowed Blast deals your Eldritch Blast damage, grants total concealment to everything it attacks (which can be better or worse than the -5 penalty, but is usually better), denies the DEX bonus of the target and confers an additional -2 penalty to AC for the same Fortitude save and a sure-thing attack roll... And that wasn't a good option to take.
Fell Flight (CArc, passive): At-will flight with a speed of equal to your land speed (good). Flight is absolutely invaluable, and you would be laughed out of every optimization or even "generally smart play" thread and board if you willingly passed it up, and yet this is not a must-grab. Why? Two reasons: First, The Dead Walk (above) can get you flight for the same invocation cost, at a better speed but worse maneuverability, provided you're not too picky to ride a flying zombie mount (you do lose three degrees of maneuverability, but will not likely be outmaneuvering enemies with your base land speed anyway). Second, flight is very easy to get with magic items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851), with the two obvious choices probably being the Feathered Wings graft (Fiend Folio, 10,000 gp) if you're evil, or the Winged Mask (Magic of Faerun, 13,000 gp) if you're not. These are a significant expenditure of WBL when you might get this invocation, but quickly become a drop in the bucket, and both grant you at-will or constant flight with a better speed (the latter at the same maneuverability). These are not perfect substitutes for Fell Flight, but they are good enough (and flight items a common enough necessity) that you might be able to get away with skipping this invocation. If you are in a low-magic campaign and your DM protests against riding a zombie eagle for some reason, this of course becomes a must-have, as at-will flight is still good; it's just not exclusive to the Warlock.
Flee the Scene (CArc, active): At-will short-range Dimension Door that leaves a Major Image behind when you use it. Useful for all the reasons that Freedom of Movement is useful: because you're probably not the best grappler in the game; because "paralysis" is one full-round action away from "coup de grace" (and spell-like abilities can be activated when paralyzed), because one way or another, you can fly (meaning you can escape in all three dimensions); and because by level 20, this gets you 75 feet as a standard action, allowing you to easily outpace most enemies that you couldn't with your normal move/fly speed. This is for that Warlock that just doesn't want to die.
Hungry Darkness (CArc, active): At-will Darkness as the spell, except every square of darkness you create is also a bat swarm. Lasts for Concentration + 2 rounds. This is everything the least invocations Darkness and Summon Swarm should have been... Except it isn't a least invocation. Bats are, in my opinion, the worst of the three swarms you can produce, and the five levels you've progressed since Summon Swarm first became an option haven't been kind to the already pitiful DC11 Fort save vs. the nauseated condition. If this were a least invocation, it would be one of the best, but at the level you get it, it's just too late.
Ignore the Pyre (DrM, passive): Gain energy resistance equal to your caster level to one type for 24 hours. Remember that, as with Dark One's Own Luck, you can change it at-will--meaning that, if you think one encounter is going to call for fire resistance and the next acid resistance, you can switch it as a standard action. That means that you can theoretically have up to 20 of any of the five resistances at any time; however, versatile as that is, resistance 20 at level 20 is still only okay. You will get use out of this if you take it; it's just not strictly necessary to.
Mask of Flesh (CM, active): Disguise Self with a number of strange implications. A friend of mine pointed out that the best use for this is probably to capture somebody (or somebodies, keep them hostage (better take 20 on that Use Rope check), and then siphon off their energy constantly, living their life while they languish in your own little dungeon. Be sure to capture people of power if you do so, and don't even pretend you're not Evil if you do.
Relentless Dispelling (CM, active): Targeted Dispel Magic at-will. Only it repeats at the start of your next turn. This comes out about even with Voracious Dispelling, in my opinion; you only get one of the three uses of Dispel Magic, but you get possibly the best one, and you are much better at it than you'd be with Voracious Dispelling.
Spider-Shape (DotU, active): Change into a monstrous spider of various sizes. The tiny spider is a decent scouting form (you get a +8 size bonus to Hide in addition to the +4 racial bonus, and a +4 bonus to Spot, and a +8 to Climb with a climb speed), and the largest form gives you 27 STR, which is... OK, I guess. Truth be told, this isn't a combat form: it's a scouting form, which you use in conjunction with your long-duration scouting buffs. There are better things you can do than this, but you can do this.
Steal Incarnum (MoI, active): Does not affect people without essentia. STARTING OFF WITH A BANG HERE. You steal one essentia per five caster levels (maximum 4) from your target and gain it... Provided the target fails a... Wait for it... Fortitude save. I'm honestly not sure why the Warlock has so many invocations from Magic of Incarnum; is there some unseen Warlock/Incarnate hybrid floating out there that I haven't seen? In any case, if your character is one of those rare breeds that actually uses essentia and lesser invocations, in an Incarnum-heavy campaign (do those exist?), full of enemies with weak Fortitude saves... Still don't take this, because it's underwhelming.
Stony Grasp (CArc, active): At-will Stony Grasp as the spell. Stony Grasp doesn't actually have a better grapple check than Earthen Grasp; it's just more durable. Since both are at-will for Warlocks, you don't actually care about the durability, meaning that this actually manages to be no better than the (already bad) least invocation, but for a much steeper cost.
Sudden Swarm (DotU, passive): The first time you kill an enemy with an invocation (including your Eldritch Blast) after casting this (which lasts 24 hours), a spider swarm bursts from the body. This is everything that the other swarm invocations wants to be: as a pre-buff, it has no action cost in combat; it is mentally under your control, as opposed to roaming on its own; the control is mental and takes only a free action, so there is no action cost in combat after it activates; and you add your warlock level to the swarm's hit points (meh) and save DC of the swarm's poison (!). The swarm lasts for only a round per level, but that's probably enough to end the combat. The Fort save DC for the nauseated condition is still pathetic, but at least you're not wasting actions to attempt it; it happens for free on the kill, and takes free actions after the fact. The only cost of this invocation is the invocation itself, so the biggest problem this invocation has is the stiff competition at this level.
Thieves' Bane (Ci, active): A hold portal that explodes when somebody tries to bypass it. The damage is unimpressive, but bypasses spell resistance, but more scandalously, this is another lesser invocation that mimics a first-level spell. By this point, you could have 9 ranks in Use Magic Device (which is a class skill for you), and take 10 on the checks; if Hold Portal is something that is going to come up that much in your games, buy a wand for 750gp and skip on the damage. You have better things to do than this.
Voidsense (CArc, passive): At-will blindsense (30 ft) with a 24-hour duration (so basically always-on). Not bad, but since you already have darkvision and see invisibility always-on as a least invocation, I'm not sure I see this being useful enough independent of those senses to truly stand out. I guess it's good for scouts, who wish to be complete about their senses.
Voracious Dispelling (CArc, active): At-will Dispel Magic with no-save damage attached. You get all three uses of Dispel Magic, which lends itself to a great deal of versatility, and is the major selling point it has over Relentless Dispelling, since the damage it does isn't that great.
Walk Unseen (CArc, passive): At-will invisibility as the spell, but with a 24-hour duration. Good for all the reasons invisibility is. The only reason this isn't an absolute must-have is because there are so many other good invocations at this level, from which you must pick three (or spend greater or dark invocations on them), and this very well might not be one of them.
Wall of Gloom (CArc, active): Allows you to produce a straight wall 40 ft. long, or a ring with a 15 ft. radius. Creatures with 6 HD or less can be effectively walled off or penned up with the "halted" feature of the Wall of Gloom; unfortunately, at the level you'll be getting this, you are not likely to be fighting many creatures with 6 HD or less. Regardless, you can use this to throw up an improvised wall that a creature will not be able to see through, which you can use to interrupt a charge; however, the same can be done with a wand of Wall of Smoke or Obscuring Mist for the same action cost (and both are first-level spells). If you're using the Spell Compendium version, you gain a larger wall, but lose all special abilities of the wall.
Weighty Utterance (DrM, active): You gain an at-will quasi-Wingbind, forcing your target to make a Will save or fall 5 feet per caster level, with falling damage for those that hit the ground. You know what's better than laboring over forcing them to the ground, though? Taking the fight to them.
Witchwood Step (CM, passive): You can walk on water, and are unaffected by difficult terrain. The only problem is, both difficult terrain and water are at ground level, and if you didn't pick Fell Flight, it's only because you found another method of flying; besides, if water is of great concern to you, you took Swimming the Styx as a least invocation, so why bother with this?

[SaintRidley]

Thiaggo (and Tylenol, but directed at Thiaggo here), just wanted to say after how we got into it in the other thread, I do really like the way this handbook is progressing. I've been meaning to try out an Eldritch Theurge type some time, and I've been pulling some great ideas from the thread.

Keep up the good work, the both of you.

[ThiagoMartell]

LonelyTylenol, I think Beshadowed Blast deserves a black rating for galivelocks. Even being a Fort save, once you're forcing the save twice a round, it becomes quite more likely to trigger. It's still nothing to write home about, tho.
In fact, there are so many good Lesser invocations that not having to bother with an essence is actually somewhat good. :smalltongue:

[Menteith]

[SIZE="4"]
Crawling Eye (CM, active): The Warlock's Arcane Eye. Has no listed duration or range, which means you can use this indefinitely as long as you are fine with having one eye (and 2 less hit points), and see twice. This is a must-have for any scouting Warlock that has made it this far, as you gain remote, (almost) consequence-free scouting using all your vision-based invocations.

Question about Crawling Eye; The Eye is a Fine creature with Hide and Move Silently modifiers equal to the Warlock's level. Does this mean the Eye doesn't get a +16 size bonus to Hide?

[thompur]

Here's a couple more somewhat usefull magic items, all from Magic Item Compendium.

*Bracers of the Blast Barrier(pg 80)-3/day turn spell or SLA into 10'x10' wall of magical energy(3200gp)

*Bracers of the Entangling Blast(pg 80)-3/day damaging spell or SLA deals 1/2 damage and entangles foe for 1d3 rds.(2000gp)

*Gloves of Eldritch Admixture(pg 105)-add extra energy damage(your choice of type) to eldritch blast. 3 charges/ day.(2500gp)

[Malroth]

Instinctual darkness feat from drow of the underdark allows you to use Darkness SLA's as an immediate action including hungry darkness so you can use it off turn to disrupt chargers and enemy spellcasters. Which might merit a bump to black.

[ThiagoMartell]

Instinctual darkness feat from drow of the underdark allows you to use Darkness SLA's as an immediate action including hungry darkness so you can use it off turn to disrupt chargers and enemy spellcasters. Which might merit a bump to black.

We'll discuss those darkness-related feats soon. :smallsmile:

[Lonely Tylenol]

Btw, added your evaluation of the least invocations to the OP. I only changed a bit about Summon Swarm.

That's fine; I may be making further revisions to the list in time, in which case I will just send you my edits. (The Darkness concerns are going to come up a bit.)


Given it's cost, a simular book for a lesser invocation would be 80,000 gp and a greater invocation would be 180,000 gp. Beyond that would be epic items.

what do you all think? fair?

I honestly wouldn't pay that much for any of those invocations, because so many of them can be permanently gathered (or, rather, their effects) for much cheaper. An extreme example of this would be Cold Comfort, from Complete Mage; as a lesser invocation, it would cost 80,000gp to buy its use, but a Least Crystal of Adaptation (MiC, p. 24) costs 500gp, is slotless, and gives an always-on Endure Elements spell. The same money that could buy a lesser-equivalent tome could buy 160 Least Crystals of Adaptation, which is hopefully enough for you and the rest of your party. Many of the others give use-activated effects of first-level spell-equivalents, which would cost you 750 in wand form, or 2,000 gp in continuous form (if such a thing was necessary). Even the better, more expensive least invocations, such as Entropic Warding, never reach 20,000 gp (for a least), unless you buy them at higher caster levels (but a dispel on them would be suppressed for only 1d4 rounds, as a magic item).

OK, time for greaters and darks.

The Greater Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Bewitching Blast (CArc, active): Anybody hit with Eldritch Blast damage must make a Will save or be confused for 1 round. Confused is actually a pretty good condition--the target is three times as likely to lose all their actions as they are to act normally, and then there's all the other weird stuff--but between the randomness of the roll, plus the one-round duration of the effect, it's just not that reliable. Does not affect constructs, oozes, plants, undead, vermin, and some swarms, or anything else with immunity to mind-affecting effects.
Noxious Blast (CArc, active): Anyone affected by the Eldritch Blast must make a Fort save or be nauseated for 1 minute. Nauseated creatures can only make a single move action per turn--essentially, if you can get this off, that enemy is done. You don't have to worry about them anymore. Apply this on an Eldritch Chain for a multi-target debuff. Does not affect constructs or undead.
Repelling Blast (DrM, active): Throws all targets who fail a Reflex save 1d6x5 feet (1d6 squares) away from you and knocked prone. "Prone" is a decent enough condition to apply, and the Reflex save isn't that problematic, since it's not damage, but the randomness of the throw makes it difficult to predict and prepare, which is problematic. Does not affect creatures of Large size or larger.
Vitriolic Blast (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast ignores spell resistance (score!) and deals extra damage on subsequent rounds, no save. Multiple instances of Vitriolic Blast stack, so if you attack thrice with Eldritch Glaive, you'll do an extra 6d6 damage on the next round, and so on. As such, this is a must-have for Glaivelocks and other purely damage-focused builds (as it pretty much guarantees the damage you do, and often extra damage as well).
Hindering Blast (CM, active): The targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Will save or be slowed for 1 round. Will's not a bad save to target, but the one-round duration means you need to apply this constantly or all you're costing them is their move action. It's not bad--just subsumed by Noxious Blast almost completely.
Incarnum Blast (MoI, active): This is one Magic of Incarnum got right, but not for its incarnum effect: when used against anybody with at least one alignment component opposed to yours, the enemy makes a Fortitude save or is dazed for 1 round. For reference, dazed is almost as good as stunned, but harder to find immunities for, which makes this probably the best condition to apply to an enemy. Be chaotic good (evil probably being the most common among things you need to kill in most campaigns) and Eldritch Chain this. The duration and Fort save make this high-risk, high-reward.
Penetrating Blast (DrM, active): You gain a +4 bonus on caster checks to overcome spell penetration with your Eldritch Blast, and your Eldritch Blast, in turn, lowers SR by 5 on a failed Will save. I can think of better invocations (even better shapes) to take over this, but if you have a caster-heavy group, I guess this is one way to help everyone out.

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Cone (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast affects a 30-foot cone. You don't make an attack roll, but enemies make a Reflex save for half damage. Yuck. Evasion now completely invalidates your blast; what's more, at this level, you are basically always hitting with your basic blasts and Eldritch Chain anyway, so the only time this is useful is when you have large quantities of DEX-drained enemies lumped close together.
Eldritch Line (CM, active): Your Eldritch Blast affects a 60-foot line. Bad for all the reasons Eldritch Cone is bad, save for the following: you still get to make your blasts at range, but now you're less likely to hit multiple people unless you're tossing them down a hallway (and seriously, at that point, just UMD a wand of Lightning Bolt).

Other Invocations
Caustic Mire (CM, active): As the spell Caustic Mire. Also as the invocation Chilling Tentacles, below, except without the grapple checks. Pick Chilling Tentacles instead.
Chilling Tentacles (CArc, active): As Evard's Spiked Black Tentacles of Forced Intrusion, but deals cold damage even on enemies it fails the grapple check against. This is the penultimate crowd control invocation, and an absolute steal for an at-will ability: if you don't grab this at invoker level 11, then you're a Glaivelock who grabbed it at level 13.
Devil's Whispers (Ci, active): At-will Suggestion, only the victim makes another save at a -5 penalty to remember that they did it, and if they don't, then they blame themselves. Just put the gun in their hand and tell them to pull the trigger. Of course, PO/TO-level Diplomancers (some of whom may have dipped for Beguiling Influence) can do this either now or soon without the invocation with epic Diplomacy/Bluff checks, but for the rest of us (who don't want our DMs to throw entire bookshelves at us), this dominates every social encounter you will find yourself in... For a few levels, at least, at which point Mind Blank starts to come into play.
Devour Magic (CArc, active): A touch-range Greater Dispel Magic that gives you a few temporary hit points for a short period of time. The range of touch and targeted limitation combined are a deal-breaker to me; however, it is the only Dispel invocation Warlocks get that doesn't cap at 10. Even for dedicated dispellers, however, this is only okay.
Dragonward (DrM, passive): Grants you immunity to the frightful presence of dragons, DR5/-- against natural weapons of dragons, and energy resistance 20 against breath weapons caused by dragons... And only dragons. This is bad for all the reasons Baneful Blast was bad; situational bonuses that are applied on a very narrow scope tend to go unused for most of the campaign. If you know, for a fact, that 90% of your campaign is going to be the PCs getting caught in a war against dragons, then the invocation is still only decent; you already have DR that dragons can't overcome, and have a number of ways to gather the other benefits and grant them wider applications more easily.
Enervating Shadow (CArc, passive): You gain total concealment in areas that aren't brightly lit, and adjacent enemies take a -4 STR penalty upon a failed Fort save. Most of the things that would defeat the lesser invocation Walk Unseen (such as True Seeing) would defeat this as well, and that also grants total concealment, but without the light limitation. The Fort or STR penalty is mediocre, and "adjacent" is defined as five feet away from you--which you don't want enemies to be, as a Glaivelock or a size-boosted Clawlock, rendering this useless even to melee builds.
Hellspawned Grace (CM, active): For up to 10 rounds, you get to polymorph into a creature with an absurd array of good special qualities... Only you don't get its special qualities. Oh well.
Tenacious Plague (CArc, active): As the spell Insect Plague, but you add your CHA modifier to the save DC of the plague, and it deals its 2d6 damage as a magic weapon. The save DC of a Noxious Blast would be four higher (six with Ability Focus), and deal a number of DC more, and is easier to shape without collateral damage. The Long range and 1 min/level duration are cute, but there are other, much better ways of debuffing by this point.
Nightmares Made Real (CM, active): As the spell Nightmare Terrain with some mediocre damage slapped onto it to... Make it more "Warlock"-y, I guess. Nightmare Terrain is actually pretty decent, with a Will save to entangle others, and total concealment (and the ability to hide in plain sight) for you. It's when you can combine this with Chilling Tentacles that you have won, however; now, your enemies have to make a Will save, plus a grapple check every round, to be allowed to move at half speed toward/away from an enemy with total concealment!
Painful Slumber of Ages (CM, active): Target must make a Will save or fall asleep... Permanently! You don't really need a permanent duration sleep effect, however, as six seconds are generally long enough to coup de grace; however, I guess if you're in the business of taking people alive (and you're playing D&D?), I guess the fact that you're guaranteed 24 hours of sleep on a single failed save is good, and once again, you can always coup the ones you don't need.
Wall of Perilous Flame (CArc, active): As Wall of Fire, but Perilous! The damage from this spell is laughable at more or less all levels; this just happens to get special mention because you can make this wall over 200 feet long. Creating successive Walls of Perilous Flame can easily cause them to stretch out over a mile wide, or simply layer so thick that no enemy will want to go through them.
Warlock's Call (CArc, "active"): As the spell Sending, but with caveats. (Really? This is the spell you opted to nerf?) This is not worth an invocation slot; however, it is significantly better as a Chameleon invocation, as it is useful to have during down-time. The fact that this is a spell-like ability means you cast this as a standard action as opposed to its normal 10-minute casting time; you can decide for yourself if that makes this significantly better on the field, but to me, this still seems like a downtime invocation.

The Dark Invocations
Eldritch Essences
Utterdark Blast (CArc, active): Targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Fort save or take 2 negative levels. This confers a -2 penalty on attacks rolls, saves, skill checks and ability checks, -10 hit points, and a -2 to one's effective level (including all level-dependent effects). If that sounds like a lot of what the least invocations does, with some extra minor benefits... Well, that's because it is. The benefit of these levels is that they can add up, and they add up quickly--as each failed save makes the next save easier to fail. A Glaivelock often has little room for CHA in their build, but if one happened to pump it, they could shell out six negative levels in one turn with their Utterdark Glaive. Unfortunately, Utterdark Blast does have a lot of problems: it came at level 16, by which point immunity to negative levels is relatively commonplace; multiple saves need to fail for the negative levels to add up; and, being an 8th-level invocation, it is virtually impossible to apply spell-like metamagic to it, meaning the ceiling is pretty high unless you can shower tons of enemies with tons of attacks. Does not affect constructs or undead.
Binding Blast (CM, active): Targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Will save or be stunned for 1 round. If you did your research, you probably picked up Incarnum Blast a few levels ago, which does almost exactly the same thing, but as a greater invocation. Regardless, this ability has no caveats, Will is a decent save to target, and stun is one of the best effects to apply; it's just that, at this point, you probably wanted to be doing more with your dark invocations.

Blast Shapes
Eldritch Doom: Your Eldritch Blast becomes a 20-ft radius burst, centered on you. If you're using this, you are where you don't generally want to be (in melee range), unless you're a melee Warlock, in which case you have other, better uses for your blast shapes (some which you picked up in the very early levels).

Other Invocations
Caster's Lament (CM, active): OK, it's been pointed out that this isn't actually as bad as I thought it was, as you can use this once per day per enchantment that you are trying to break. That makes this a fairly useful defensive invocation, as you are able to effectively remove curses at-will during downtime. The counterspell application has limited use, but limiting the actions that an enemy can take is probably a better way to counter spells (making a proactive debuffer better in general than a reactive counterspeller).
Dark Discorporation (CArc, passive): You become a swarm of batlike shadows, gaining the swarm subtype and a number of cool, but not altogether great, traits and abilities. The killer for me is the fact that you cannot cast invocations (and can, in fact, only take a single move action) while in this form, meaning you give up more than fifteen levels of class features just to be in this form and get the swarm attack mode. Again, there's no mention of the Fort DC being higher than 12, so you're not applying mass nauseated condition with this.
Dark Foresight (CArc, passive): At-will Foresight as the spell, plus telepathic communication if you cast it on somebody else. This is mediocre except for the fact that, unlike other invocations where a second casting replaces the first there is no upper limit to the number of people you can cast this on; since this is an at-will ability, that means that you and your entire party basically always have Dark Foresight active, and not a single one of you can be surprised (but only you get the +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves, not that anyone cares), and you can always communicate telepathically with your entire party. With this active, surprise rounds never exist for the enemy; depending on your (and the enemy's) level of optimization, this can be invaluable.
Impenetrable Barrier (DrM, active): At-will Wall of Force as the spell, except that it's black and blocks all modes of vision. New walls replace old. It is, perhaps, the best at what it does--that being hard battlefield control through walls--but you are likely already a good battlefield controller by this point (either through shapes/essences, or other invocations picked up earlier), so taking this only makes you slightly better at what you can already do. You can't be faulted for putting your best foot forward, but at this point, you're probably better off picking up something you can't already do.
Incarnum Shroud: I've talked before about how scandalous a lesser invocation imitating a first-level spell is; well, this is worse. At level 16 and greater, you can select, as a dark invocation, an ability that imitates the second-level spell Blur. A continuous ring of Blur is 24,000gp to buy, and 12,000gp to make. If custom item creation is somehow too much for your DM, the Minor Cloak of Displacement does the same thing at the same cost. Blurring as a magic armor property is a +1 value. There is no excuse for getting this. None.
Path of Shadow (CArc, active): At-will Shadow Walk, with fast healing attached to it. The healing is mediocre, but at-will fast travel is fast travel (you move roughly 50mph with this spell for hours/level). It's not as good as Teleport, and you're getting it a minimum of seven levels later, but you know what? Fast travel is fast travel.
Retributive Invisibility (CArc, passive): At-will Greater Invisibility with a 24-hour duration. Greater Invisibility is awesome, so why is this only okay? Because you're getting it thirteen levels after See Invisibility first hit the scene, and five levels after True Seeing. By this point, enemies with either of the above (or blindsense, or blindsight) are commonplace, meaning your Greater Invisibility came too late to the party to be game-breaking. If you are in a high-level game where nothing seems to see invisible things, this is much better.
Steal Summoning (CM, active): This invocation is literally broken. As in, it doesn't work. The spell Steal Summoning is an immediate action cast that needs to be cast at the time a summoned creature is being brought into the world; however, as an invocation, this is always going to be a spell-like ability for you. Complete Arcane says about a Warlock's invocations: "A warlock's invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity." This is for the Warlock that has decided an invocation that you can use 1/day (Caster's Lament) is still too overpowered for him, and would like an invocation he can never use. Even if it were cast as an immediate action, the spell it imitates is too situational to ever be useful as an at-will ability.
Word of Changing (CArc, active): At-will Baleful Polymorph as the spell. This is one of those "love it or hate it" invocations; either you'll love the ability to completely negate a creature at-will for 24 hours, provided they fail the save, or you'll hate how late in the game this comes, and how often it just doesn't work (constructs and undead are immune for it being a Fortitude save; oozes and plants are immune to polymorph effects; and creatures with the shapechanger subtype just don't care. In addition, this targets Fort where Painful Slumber, a greater invocation, targets Will). I, for one, love it--mostly because Word of Changing is exactly the type of thing a high-level CE Warlock might do just for fun.

[Lonely Tylenol]

LonelyTylenol, I think Beshadowed Blast deserves a black rating for galivelocks. Even being a Fort save, once you're forcing the save twice a round, it becomes quite more likely to trigger. It's still nothing to write home about, tho.
In fact, there are so many good Lesser invocations that not having to bother with an essence is actually somewhat good. :smalltongue:

I think even as a Glaivelock, this is maybe the fourth or fifth best essence you can pick up (though certainly one of the better lessers), which makes me wonder when you would use this and not any of the three or four better ones. I guess it can be picked up early and swapped out when you reach level eleven?


Question about Crawling Eye; The Eye is a Fine creature with Hide and Move Silently modifiers equal to the Warlock's level. Does this mean the Eye doesn't get a +16 size bonus to Hide?

Unfortunately not; its modifiers are equal to your Warlock level, which means that it essentially doesn't gain a size bonus based on its size category; that's the only bonus it gets. This means you will probably want to be a little more careful with the eye than you might otherwise be.


Here's a couple more somewhat usefull magic items, all from Magic Item Compendium.

*Bracers of the Blast Barrier(pg 80)-3/day turn spell or SLA into 10'x10' wall of magical energy(3200gp)

*Bracers of the Entangling Blast(pg 80)-3/day damaging spell or SLA deals 1/2 damage and entangles foe for 1d3 rds.(2000gp)

*Gloves of Eldritch Admixture(pg 105)-add extra energy damage(your choice of type) to eldritch blast. 3 charges/ day.(2500gp)

This item actually manages to make Nightmares Made Real less useful, as Chilling Tentacles (which does damage, albeit mediocre damage) can have the Entangling Blast applied to them, fulfilling both ends of the combo (minus the concealment for you, which is OK, because you're going to be well above anyway) with the no-save entanglement that you get as a result. Good find.


Instinctual darkness feat from drow of the underdark allows you to use Darkness SLA's as an immediate action including hungry darkness so you can use it off turn to disrupt chargers and enemy spellcasters. Which might merit a bump to black.

I know this works with Darkness, but I don't believe this works with Hungry Darkness, as it is not technically the same thing (it has Darkness in its name, and functions like Darkness, but isn't Darkness). I'm going to ask in the RAW thread to confirm or deny this.

[ThiagoMartell]

I think even as a Glaivelock, this is maybe the fourth or fifth best essence you can pick up (though certainly one of the better lessers), which makes me wonder when you would use this and not any of the three or four better ones. I guess it can be picked up early and swapped out when you reach level eleven?

Exactly. It sucks overall, but at the level you get it, it's pretty much the only option unless you're somehow stacking fear effects.

[GenghisDon]

I honestly wouldn't pay that much for any of those invocations, because so many of them can be permanently gathered (or, rather, their effects) for much cheaper. An extreme example of this would be Cold Comfort, from Complete Mage; as a lesser invocation, it would cost 80,000gp to buy its use, but a Least Crystal of Adaptation (MiC, p. 24) costs 500gp, is slotless, and gives an always-on Endure Elements spell. The same money that could buy a lesser-equivalent tome could buy 160 Least Crystals of Adaptation, which is hopefully enough for you and the rest of your party. Many of the others give use-activated effects of first-level spell-equivalents, which would cost you 750 in wand form, or 2,000 gp in continuous form (if such a thing was necessary). Even the better, more expensive least invocations, such as Entropic Warding, never reach 20,000 gp (for a least), unless you buy them at higher caster levels (but a dispel on them would be suppressed for only 1d4 rounds, as a magic item).

This depends on item availablity and several other assumptions, particularily what a DM will be fooled into allowing for cheap. cold comfort ought be a least invocation, obviously. It's hardly worth mentioning, as it's a red herring.

One of the big complaints I've heard regarding the class is not enough abilities. the books help with that.

If your lesser invocations are charm, the dead walk & fell flight, adding flee the scene or eldritch chain hardly sucks.

Still, it's just an idea. If you are playing a warlock & find such an item, you'd be free to sell it for half $.

[eggs]

Setting-based item availability isn't a huge deal for Warlocks. For half their career, they can just make whatever; the other half, they use the same scrolls or other casters that Wizards do.

[Urpriest]

Just to clarify, Caster's Lament restricts one use per 24 hours on any particular target. It's not as if it can only be used once per 24 hours period.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Exactly. It sucks overall, but at the level you get it, it's pretty much the only option unless you're somehow stacking fear effects.

I suppose, but keep in mind that you aren't getting your second iterative until 8th (possibly even later if you are PrCing out), so you may only actually get your iterative uses of this at 8th, 9th, or even 10th level, at which point you're asking for a maybe a level or two's use out of this invocation. This isn't as egregious as Summon Swarm, which has the same window of usefulness, but remains dead for a few levels, but it's still suspect. I suppose I can make special mention of it, however.


This depends on item availablity and several other assumptions, particularily what a DM will be fooled into allowing for cheap. cold comfort ought be a least invocation, obviously. It's hardly worth mentioning, as it's a red herring.

One of the big complaints I've heard regarding the class is not enough abilities. the books help with that.

If your lesser invocations are charm, the dead walk & fell flight, adding flee the scene or eldritch chain hardly sucks.

Still, it's just an idea. If you are playing a warlock & find such an item, you'd be free to sell it for half $.

This is true; out of the box, the Warlock is lacking in invocations, and this does change that, but it's hardly a cost-effective method; for instance, to steal from your lesser invocations example, Charm could be replaced by a use-activated item of Charm Monster would be 21,000gp (as made by a Bard), or 28,000gp (as made by a Wizard), but wouldn't have the "one monster only" limitation and wouldn't be language-dependent, so it would be strictly better as an at-will ability. Fell Flight could be replaced by the Feathered Wings graft for 10,000gp, or the Winged Helm for 13,000gp, or if these (and the myriad other cheap options) aren't available, the Phoenix Cloak for 50,000gp, or the Wings of Flying (a DMG item) for 54,000gp. Obviously, it is more effective to simply take Fell Flight than wait several levels to afford a Phoenix Cloak for 50,000gp, but the Phoenix Cloak is still more cost-effective than a tome. I honestly don't know if I would try to replicate The Dead Walk with a magic item (but if I did, it would have to be a staff, which would be unsightly high in price), and Flee the Scene and Eldritch Chain cannot be replaced entirely by magic items.

I am of the mind that, in order to increase the Warlock's versatility, one must hunt for bargains, and compare them to his or her invocations out of necessity. This is especially true of Chameleon Warlocks, who can basically make whatever item they want by level 14, barring direct GM intervention. After all, Flee the Scene and Fell Flight are both useful invocations with a great deal of utility, and had I all the lesser invocations in the world, I would spend no shortage of them on these two; however, I have to look at what I can take, and what I can afford not to take. Both are absolute necessities to have by a certain point; however, I know I will never be able to get Flee the Scene unless I spend an invocation for it, while finding permanent flight through magic items is not only possible, but quite cheap by comparison; therefore, I need to take Flee the Scene, but can afford not to take Fell Flight (by simply taking any of the many items that emulate Fly).

Of course, if magic items are a limited resource in your game, the paradigm changes somewhat: Fell Flight becomes absolutely necessary to take once again (because you can't replace the invocation with magic items), and any way to actually gain more invocations known is a welcome addition, but even then, cost-effectiveness has to be looked at closely; for example, if an 11th-level Warlock scrimped and saved every piece of silver he made from 1st level, and WBL was being enforced, he still couldn't buy himself a lesser invocation. This is unnecessarily prohibitive, compared to use-activated items or, more extremely, to scrolls, and the Wizard's method for acquiring new spells.


Just to clarify, Caster's Lament restricts one use per 24 hours on any particular target. It's not as if it can only be used once per 24 hours period.

Aha. Oh, yeah, I read that hilariously wrong; you can, for each enchantment you are attempting to break, use it only once every 24 hours. Let me just go and change that...

[Socratov]

it's coming otgether nicely I think, I'm missing some things though,

One frequently used build is the crafterlock (with 2 chameleon levels).

And there is this feat chain of heritage feats (with fey heritage, fiend heritage, etc.) which can help the warlock increasing his passive abilities somewhat (more DR/fast healing, etc.).

[Lonely Tylenol]

it's coming otgether nicely I think, I'm missing some things though,

One frequently used build is the crafterlock (with 2 chameleon levels).

And there is this feat chain of heritage feats (with fey heritage, fiend heritage, etc.) which can help the warlock increasing his passive abilities somewhat (more DR/fast healing, etc.).

I will be posting an optimized Crafterlock build as soon as I've discerned the legality of a certain trick (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253348), largely because I'm concerned more with creating the "ultimate versatile build" (a Crafterlock with all the bells and whistles) than with a straight Crafterlock build (which only actually needs fourteen levels off a 20-level build).

[Lonely Tylenol]

Actually, I'll just post the build up now, and we can have a discussion about its legality (because this seems as good a place as any to have the discussion, at least until the thread picks up more):

Mr. Versatility, Human Warlock 12/Chameleon 2/Ruathar 3/Hellfire Warlock 3

Ability scores: Whatever you want. I prefer to have a CHA focus with a build like this, just 'cause. I mean, the build focuses on having options, so you might as well. I recommend having at least a 12, and preferably a 14, in Intelligence and/or Wisdom by level 13 or 14, to make use of the Chameleon spells as they come.

Skills: Prerequisites. Other than that, go crazy.

Feats: Largely irrelevant. You are selecting Able Learner at 1st level to qualify for Chameleon, but that is it. Make safe choices or go crazy; it's all up to you. I strongly recommend Shape Soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) at some point, however.

Invocations: Whatever you want. You are probably going to be taking the standard invocation loadout--whatever you think is "good"--and being your standard, run-of-the-mill Warlock for much of your career. At twelfth level, you have Imbue Item and a Greater Invocation--not much to write home about, but it's something--and then things start to get crazy.

The tricks:
At your second level of Chameleon, you gain a bonus feat... Only this one floats! Combined with Imbue Item, this means you're now making all the magic items you need. Congratulations! Additionally, you can select Extra Invocation with your floating feat to select any least or lesser invocation... Which at some point, you're going to use to select Hellrime Blast, to qualify for Hellfire Warlock.

After grabbing Hellfire Warlock and riding out to all three levels (for simplicity's sake, these are your last three levels, from 18 to 20), you switch Extra Invocation (Hellrime Blast) for something else... And one of three things is going to happen:
1) You don't lose your Hellfire Warlock class features. Congratulations! You just got into the class without burning an invocation known on the prereqs. Modify the above build to include a Mindbender dip, because hey, why not.
2) You lose your Hellfire Warlock class features forever. In this case, disregard this build and fall back on "default Crafterlock build".
3) You lose your Hellfire Warlock class features, but regain them if you somehow qualify for the prestige class again. This is the option that I am counting on (and the option that I believe is favorably regarded as being the correct one).

You have now entered a "quantum state" with every single one of your invocations. Every time you remove Extra Invocation (Hellrime Blast) as your Chameleon feat, you lose your Hellfire Warlock class features... Including the invoking features gained therein. Your invoker caster level goes from 18 to 15, and you lose access to all your dark invocations.

Then, the next day, you select Extra Invocation (Hellrime Blast) with your floating Chameleon feat. Suddenly, you meet the prerequisites for Hellfire Warlock again, and your Invoker caster level jumps back from 15 to 18. What happens here is clear to nobody (there certainly isn't RAW on this), but either you regain the same dark invocations that you lost (basically regaining the same three caster levels you lost prior), or you regain three entirely new caster levels that replace the old, which means that you select two new dark invocations. This is, to my knowledge, the only way in the game to modify your dark invocations known once you learn them.

In addition to learning a new pair of dark invocations, your invocation caster level has once again jumped across the 16 mark, which means that you are once again eligible for an invocation swap. Thus, every time you select Extra Invocation (Hellrime Blast) as your Chameleon feat, you gain two new dark invocations (replacing your two old ones) and a single least, lesser or greater invocation (replacing an old one of the same level). This can happen once every two days, and can be repeated as many times as you want--as long as you DON'T swap into Brimstone Blast or Hellrime Blast (as you can then no longer stop qualifying for Hellfire Warlock). During downtime (when you would be performing this trick), you don't necessarily need the dark invocations, so you can still swap it out for item creation feats, etc., as necessary; when you wish to adventure, however, you must take Extra Invocation (Hellrime Blast), but your other eleven invocations are whatever you feel like at the time.

Congratulations: You're now a Warlock (CL 18, 11 invocations known plus Hellrime Blast) who prepares invocations like a Wizard prepares spells... Just a little bit slower.

[Allanimal]

Mr. Versatility, Human Warlock 12/Chameleon 2/Ruathar 3/Hellfire Warlock 3

just out of curiosity, why Ruathar 3?

[Lonely Tylenol]

just out of curiosity, why Ruathar 3?

Because three levels more in Warlock would have just given you scaling bonuses to DR/cold iron, fiendish resilience 2, and... Honestly, I can't remember the third thing, but it wasn't remarkable. Ruathar at least gives you low-light vision, two good saves, and a better skill list (that you can use to shore up some undeveloped skills). Also, it's the least prohibitive PrC in the game, requiring only that you have six levels and *something* to show for it, and anything else that I could think of off the top of my head would require you to make Mr. Versatile less versatile (by cutting down his options in order to qualify for more PrCs), or doesn't give anything good in three levels (and you only have three to spare, if you are crafting).

EDIT: The Ruathar levels can be traded for other PrCs, if you so wish. For example, you could dip Mindbender by taking the Charm invocation (and you could do worse); this would net you all the power of a Mindbender dip, but at the sacrifice of versatility (either Charm is always a known invocation, in which case you have locked in one of your three "lesser" slots, or you float it, in which case your invoker level can never be 18, because you can't swing the qualifications for Mindbender and Hellfire Warlock with the same feat). Other dips and PrCs, such as Paragnostic Apostle, are less prohibitive, but lack Mindbender's power.

Basically, "power" and "versatility" are on the same slide reel here... And I have "versatility" cranked up to eleven.

[Gnorman]

On the legality of the build question:

I was under the impression that not qualifying for your prestige class didn't actually affect your ability to progress in it or retain its features, provided that you've already taken the first level.

The only relevant passage I can find in the SRD:

"Prestige classes offer a new form of multiclassing. Unlike the basic classes, characters must meet Requirements before they can take their first level of a prestige class. The rules for level advancement apply to this system, meaning the first step of advancement is always choosing a class. If a character does not meet the Requirements for a prestige class before that first step, that character cannot take the first level of that prestige class. Taking a prestige class does not incur the experience point penalties normally associated with multiclassing."

It is notably silent on any subject other than the one-time entry requirement.

EDIT: Ah, but Complete Warrior says differently...

[Lonely Tylenol]

On the legality of the build question:

I was under the impression that not qualifying for your prestige class didn't actually affect your ability to progress in it or retain its features, provided that you've already taken the first level.

The only relevant passage I can find in the SRD:

"Prestige classes offer a new form of multiclassing. Unlike the basic classes, characters must meet Requirements before they can take their first level of a prestige class. The rules for level advancement apply to this system, meaning the first step of advancement is always choosing a class. If a character does not meet the Requirements for a prestige class before that first step, that character cannot take the first level of that prestige class. Taking a prestige class does not incur the experience point penalties normally associated with multiclassing."

It is notably silent on any subject other than the one-time entry requirement.

You have to look outside the SRD to find *any* rules on losing prerequisites once levels in the class have been gained, but they are there (CW, p. 16 & CArc, p. 17). Both state (in different ways) that losing prerequisites for a PrC after you've gained levels causes you to lose all features of the class, but not the Hit Dice (actual levels) gained. No mention is made of what happens when prerequisites are regained, which continues to intrigue me.

In any case: if this is how it is played at your table, people, then use your floating Chameleon feat to pick up Charm (for Mindbender) and Hellrime Blast (for Hellfire Warlock), and never look back.

[Gnorman]

I suppose it rather hinges on whether or not "lose" in this case means "it is taken from you permanently" or "it is suppressed until such time as you requalify"

Let's examine what I believe is an analogous model: I am a paladin who took the Charging Smite variant. I fall, losing all my class abilities. If and when I am atoned, could I get a special mount instead?

I think it is a bit of a stretch to read it as "you relevel your character from the ground floor up," especially when you consider that the levels (i.e., the hit dice) were never actually lost.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I suppose it rather hinges on whether or not "lose" in this case means "it is take from you permanently" or "it is suppressed until such time as you requalify"

Let's examine what I believe is an analogous model: I am a paladin who took the Charging Smite variant. I fall, losing all my class abilities. If and when I am atoned, could I get a special mount instead?

I think it is a bit of a stretch to read it as "you relevel your character from the ground floor up," especially when you consider that the levels (i.e., the hit dice) were never actually lost.

I'm not sure if I consider that an analogous model, as the class features are not one and the same. In my example, the class features are all one and the same; it just so happens that one of these features is modular (within that feature).

How about this, for an analogy: I am a Cleric of Kord (CL 8), Chaotic Good, of the Spontaneous Divine Caster variant in Unearthed Arcana. Suddenly, I have a change of heart and devote myself to law, becoming a LG worshiper of Pelor. In this process, I would have to have lost all spellcasting granted to me by my god, then (instead of seeking atonement) found a new god and received power from him. Would the spells granted to me by that god, then, be the exact same spells known that I had before, when I worshiped Kord? Does this mean that I could have a Lawful Good deity who lets me cast Protection from Law?

What if I were to atone? Same spells? What about level drain?

What about like features elsewhere? If I am a good-aligned Cleric, who turns undead, and I fall (losing all my class features), and later go on to worship an evil deity and receive my powers from them, do I still turn undead?

A case can be made either way on whether you can or can't choose new dark invocations when you regain the invocations class feature; after all, "invocations known" is something that is CL-dependent (and yours changes), but it's not like the levels just disappear outright. I do think, however, that you do at least gain the ability to swap invocations again. After all, you *do* lose those three caster levels (going from 18 to 15) and then gain three (going from 15 to 18), learning to cast a higher grade of invocations in the process...

[Krazzman]

@Lonely Tylenol:
I would stay with the first ruling you brought up. You only need the req's for getting the first level. Else some classes wouldn't be able to take the second level and would upon taking the first lose their class features.

I think an example for that is the Urpriest (or what was the class called where you have to not be able to cast spells?...yet?) he would lose the benefits directly.

Hope this helps you.

EDIT:
Whorshipping an evil deity as a Cleric leaves you to be neutral at least, as you can only be 1 alignment away from your god. And yes a neutral cleric could turn undead. Maybe he whorships an evil deity but doesn't like undead? Together witht he level loss for changing alignment (or am I mixing that up with changing alignment from curses?) this could be the point.

[Socratov]

I concur with krazzman, (for the exact same example), another example is dragon disciple with it's capstone (you can't be a dragon to take the class but the capstone makes you a dragon or something). And it would work with mindbender as well if I'm not mistaken (but I'm no expert on the matter). The floating extra invocation is versatile enough. More debated is strongheart vest (else pick a level of binder with naberius, also nice for being a face) . Cheesy is legacy champion and uncanny trickster for hellfire blast.

I think it would do great to add a section of debated and cheesy methods :smallamused:

[ThiagoMartell]

OK. The dreaded time has come.

Hellfire Warlock's Hellfire Blast & Hellfire Shield read like this:

Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitution damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

The class specifically mentions healing that Constitution damage is fine. Wands of lesser restoration are mentioned in it's description. Any work around that deals with healing that damage is fine by both RAW and RAI - the vestige Naberius, Rods of Bodily Restoration, that kind of stuff.

The easiest way to do so, though, would be the Strongheart Vest soulmeld. It reduces ability damage by one. The thing is - it makes you immune to Strongheart Vest Constitution damage, since it's always 1. Isn't that the same as somehow being immune to Constitution damage? RAI seems that it's not supposed to work - it's specifically mentioned the fiends want a piece of the warlock's soul, not incarnum.

Discuss. :smallcool:

Personally (and that counts very little to handbook purposes), I'd allow a player to do so then have a subplot of devils pissed off by it trying to get a piece of his soul until some archdevil simply steps up and cancels the contract or somesuch.

[Fable Wright]

The class specifically mentions healing that Constitution damage is fine. Wands of lesser restoration are mentioned in it's description. Any work around that deals with healing that damage is fine by both RAW and RAI - the vestige Naberius, Rods of Bodily Restoration, that kind of stuff.

The easiest way to do so, though, would be the Strongheart Vest soulmeld. It reduces ability damage by one. The thing is - it makes you immune to Strongheart Vest Constitution damage, since it's always 1. Isn't that the same as somehow being immune to Constitution damage? RAI seems that it's not supposed to work - it's specifically mentioned the fiends want a piece of the warlock's soul, not incarnum.

Discuss. :smallcool:

First off, you may wish to change the Caster's Lament description to include Lonely Tylenol's updated assessment.

Second, this is very much a RAW/RAI conflict in addition to a power balance one, making it an issue that can't really be decided very well. I personally think of it in terms of the Blood Mage's need for actually drawing blood- it deals one point of damage to draw it, despite damage reduction or whatever. However, my opinion is simply that- mine. It's never going to be conclusively answered, because both the RAW and RAI are clear about what's going on, and contradict each other. The threads about this argument basically dissolve into whether it's better to use RAW or RAI, which is a personal taste matter and can't be conclusively answered.

[eggs]

The easiest way to do so, though, would be the Strongheart Vest soulmeld. It reduces ability damage by one. The thing is - it makes you immune to Strongheart Vest Constitution damage, since it's always 1. Isn't that the same as somehow being immune to Constitution damage? RAI seems that it's not supposed to work - it's specifically mentioned the fiends want a piece of the warlock's soul, not incarnum.

Discuss. :smallcool:
RAI: Clear No.
RAW: It's not immunity, so sure.
Would it fly in my games: No. It's clearly abusing semantics. And I consider that a bad thing. (In games where Versatile Spellcasting Beguiler 1s cast level 2 spells, I'd imagine it would be a different story.)

[Socratov]

Well, honestly, the warlock could use it, I'd allow it on the premise that the rest of the party is noticably stronger (like JaronK's tierslist t2 stronger) (but then I'd allow it to be subdual damage to taste). If I'd allow it, I'd too make a plotpoint of it involving a cheated feeling devils (and like the Lannisters they do pay their debts).

On the rules: it's not crystal clear. Yes DR is not immunity (even when it practically is), no it doesn't fit the fluff (and even with my taste for refluffing) and the big discussion is whether the fluff is part of the written rule. My sentiment is equal to this quote:

Psyren as a fiendish soul connoiseur:

I see Incarnum as being like tofu. Sure you can shape it to look like a steak, and even add steak flavoring, but it's never going to be a steak.

and you promised the devil a steak. Is it RAW? I honestly don't know. Is it RAI? I'd say hell yes. My ruling would be to ask for a DM fiat since the rules are not really clear enough.

Power: sure that extra level loses you a feat, but gains you a level of warlock (or something other). However, if we are speaking about power, and one of your choices os to be good at being a face, then taking a level of Binder and binding Naberius actually strengthens you ( only the healing, but the bonus to social skills as well).

(no I will not be pulled into an argument here, this situation has arisen without a conclusion too many times, if you however are curious on why I think the way I do abou tthis, feel free to PM me)

TL;DR: It is heavily debated, ask your DM and discuss it with him or her.

[thompur]

Feats for the Warlock[/COLOR]
Able Learner (Races of Destiny): Human only. Your class skills remain with you forever. Good if you're dipping or if you want to qualify for Chameleon.
Eldritch Claws (Dragon 358): As a free action, create a pair of claws. Damage is based on unarmed strike + eldritch blast. This is crazy good - you get to stack bonuses from plenty of sources, it has synergy with lots of things, the damage is really good.
Beast Strike: Adds your claw damage to your unarmed strike damage. Very good feat for clawlocks.
Improved Unarmed Strike (PHB): By itself, not that good of a feat. It's useful as a requirement, though.
Grappling Blast (Dragon 358): Allows you to grapple and deal eldritch blast damage, giving a bonus in the next grapple checks. I can see this being useful in a grappler build that dips Warlock, but increasing actual size is not that good for warlocks. I'd skip it.
Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle): Clawlocks should either take this or enter Shou Disciple. Solid damage buff.
Improved Natural Attack (Monster Manual): Clawlocks can take this feat, but they can also get it from Thayan Gladiator or the Fanged Ring. You could take this for unarmed strike as well, but you can (and should) use (Greater) Mighty Wallop instead.
Planar Affinity (online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070328)): Change two invocations instead of one. Quite lackluster.
Infernal Adept (online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070613)): Opens up the Dragonfire Adept feat for you. Could be quite strong - we'll mention your options later.
Weapon Finesse (PHB): Glaivelocks should probably take this. You can use Str to attack with eldritch glaive, but that's all you'll ever get from it. Dexterity, on the other hand, applies to plenty of other stuff - initiative, Dex, Balance, Tumble, ranged attack rolls, Reflex saves... You can even be a finesse clawlock, though of course your damage output will suffer. However, if you're a ranged warlock that just uses glaive/claw onde in a while, I'd skip it.
Touch/Ray Spell Specialization (Complete Arcane): Low, low damage bonus. I'd skip it.
Obtain Familiar (Complete Arcane): Familiar are pretty useful, since they represent a second set of actions.
Improved Familiar (PHB): Now we're talking. Some improved familiar can speak and use magical items, so you could give them wands of important spells that can be cast during combat to save you actions (Nerveskitter and Snake's Swiftness spring to mind). If you're a Hellfire Warlock, give your familiar a Rod of Bodily Restoration and don't worry much about complaints of cheese.



I would add a few feats from the MM:

*Ability Focus(p303)-+2 to save DC of special attack(especially useful for Blastlocks that depend on status effect essences).

*Empower SLA & Quicken SLA(p303 & 304)-Each useable 3/day.

*Flyby Attack(pg303)-Make attack during move action.

From Complete Arcane:

*Arcane Mastery(pg73)-Take 10 on caster level checks, including overcoming SR. I always take this for my Warlocks cuz I hates me them miss chances, and combined with Spell Penetration, will almost always get past level appropriate SR.

*Heighten SLA & Maximize SLA(pg 80 & 81)-useable 3/day. Meh.

[ThiagoMartell]

Arcane Mastery is kind of sucky. I mean, when you have Vitriolic Blast as a an option...

[thompur]

Arcane Mastery is kind of sucky. I mean, when you have Vitriolic Blast as a an option...

Not when you face a lot of evil outsiders.:smallwink:

[Socratov]

ehm... I haven't seen a lot of enemies who are both immune to acid and have hefty spell resistance (I think some sort of golem is one of them and that's that). And then if you throw around hellfire vitriolic blasts you will ignore spell resistance on the hellfire dice and hellfire can't be resisted (by definition)

[Krazzman]

Flyby-Attack... last time I checked this only worked partial for a clawlock... and only them. Seems to be not a strong option.

Thiago, did you try to put LT's Invocationrankings into spoilers to not use 2 posts for invocations or would that still exceed the limit of the post? (I don't know, never wrote that much in a forum...^^)

[GenghisDon]

one can NOT take vitrolic blast

arcane mastery works for all their invocations.

[Thiyr]

Arcane mastery can be useful if you want to take advantage of Escalation Mage, but that's a niche case, and while nifty it is far from a must-have PrC. That it helps with SR is a nice add on at that point.

[Socratov]

one can NOT take vitrolic blast

arcane mastery works for all their invocations.

The thing is, when you don't go blasting ever, you will probably take the battlefield control route. The only way to really do that effectively is chilling tentacles, and they dont get hindered by sr, but grapple the hell out of everything. Next is the black wall of force which is (and you guessed it) no sr. The problem with sr is that it is only a problem for blaster/melee locks, solved by vitriolic blast. And the warlock is feat heavy as it is.

If you dont take VB and target persons then it's okay i guess...

[GenghisDon]

I don't particularily care about "take 10" feats or abilities EVER, but since many players like them, it's worth a mention.

I generally don't worry overly much about SR either, it's generally 50% failure at worst, and often far less than that. Many a caster takes spell penetration early on, to tilt the odds & beyond that, SR is an uncommon problem, really. The only way SR truly IS an issue is when adding levels & HD that increase SR but don't increase CR. When I DM I tend to fix that, but yes, it's certainly possible to "optimize" SR.

[Urpriest]

Flyby-Attack... last time I checked this only worked partial for a clawlock... and only them. Seems to be not a strong option.

Thiago, did you try to put LT's Invocationrankings into spoilers to not use 2 posts for invocations or would that still exceed the limit of the post? (I don't know, never wrote that much in a forum...^^)

I don't think Flyby Attack is being suggested for melee warlocks. It's being suggested for Ranged, when you really do get most of your abilities done as a Standard Action.

[Lonely Tylenol]

@Lonely Tylenol:
I would stay with the first ruling you brought up. You only need the req's for getting the first level. Else some classes wouldn't be able to take the second level and would upon taking the first lose their class features.

I think an example for that is the Urpriest (or what was the class called where you have to not be able to cast spells?...yet?) he would lose the benefits directly.

Hope this helps you.

The Ur-Priest and Dragon Disciple are kind of rare exceptions, in that they are poorly written, and they're easily solved by simply stating that no class can lose its class features because its own class features cause it to fail its prerequisite (Rules as Common Sense Dictate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240218) #13).

Nevertheless, if the abovementioned rule is in effect, then I would definitely take the Chameleon 2 dip so that I can dip Mindbender without ever learning Charm, Hellfire Warlock without ever learning Hellrime Blast, Divine Oracle without ever learning All-Seeing Eyes (I will still take See the Unseen), all by taking Extra Invocation just long enough to meet the prerequisites of the first level of the PrC... Maybe detouring into Escalation Mage by taking a single metamagic feat. If I were to Martial Study and Martial Stance up Assassin's Stance, I could qualify for Arcane Trickster without the Spell Hand feat. And so on.

The rule gets REALLY absurd when you use the PHB II retraining rules, however.


EDIT:
Whorshipping an evil deity as a Cleric leaves you to be neutral at least, as you can only be 1 alignment away from your god. And yes a neutral cleric could turn undead. Maybe he whorships an evil deity but doesn't like undead? Together witht he level loss for changing alignment (or am I mixing that up with changing alignment from curses?) this could be the point.

I am referring, specifically, to a cleric that falls (becomes evil), but no, a neutral Cleric who worships an evil deity cannot turn undead:


Turn or Rebuke Undead (Su)

Any cleric, regardless of alignment, has the power to affect undead creatures by channeling the power of his faith through his holy (or unholy) symbol (see Turn or Rebuke Undead).

A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) can turn or destroy undead creatures. An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) instead rebukes or commands such creatures. A neutral cleric of a neutral deity must choose whether his turning ability functions as that of a good cleric or an evil cleric. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed. This decision also determines whether the cleric can cast spontaneous cure or inflict spells.


I concur with krazzman, (for the exact same example), another example is dragon disciple with it's capstone (you can't be a dragon to take the class but the capstone makes you a dragon or something). And it would work with mindbender as well if I'm not mistaken (but I'm no expert on the matter). The floating extra invocation is versatile enough. More debated is strongheart vest (else pick a level of binder with naberius, also nice for being a face) . Cheesy is legacy champion and uncanny trickster for hellfire blast.

I honestly don't see how the debate with Strongheart Vest exists, as people agree that actually dipping Incarnate and binding Strongheart Vest doesn't constitute immunity to CON damage for the purposes of Hellfire Warlock's abilities (meaning that the vest itself doesn't confer an immunity to CON damage), and Shape Soulmeld simply gives you the benefits of a soulmeld. In this case, the soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) isn't conferring unto you an immunity to CON damage in any way, so why would the Hellfire Warlock's abilities not work with it?


I think it would do great to add a section of debated and cheesy methods :smallamused:

This would be a good idea.


The easiest way to do so, though, would be the Strongheart Vest soulmeld. It reduces ability damage by one. The thing is - it makes you immune to Strongheart Vest [B]Hellfire Warlock? Constitution damage, since it's always 1. Isn't that the same as somehow being immune to Constitution damage? RAI seems that it's not supposed to work - it's specifically mentioned the fiends want a piece of the warlock's soul, not incarnum.

If you have DR 10/silver and magic, and an enemy hits you with a nonsilver weapon for 6 damage, you aren't immune to the attack; it has simply dealt 0 damage to you.

Similarly, if you reduce the ability damage you take by 1, and the attack deals 1 ability damage, you aren't immune to it; it has simply dealt 0 damage to you.

Let's look at it this way: I, a low-level Incarnate who has shaped the Strongheart Vest, am struck by a weapon coated in Greenblood oil (Injury DC13, 1 CON/1d2 CON) and fail my initial save, taking 1 CON damage, mitigated to 0. I then fail my second save (I guess my CON was never really that high to begin with), taking 1 CON damage, mitigated to 0. Does the fact that I suffered both the initial and secondary effects of the poison, but no net ability damage, mean that I am immune to poison? If I was "immune" to the initial damage of the poison (which dealt me no CON damage due to the mitigation of the Strongheart Vest), would I even need to make a secondary save?

If the answer to the above questions are "no" and "yes", respectively, then it's because simply mitigating the damage doesn't make a creature immune to all ill effects; it just makes the actual ill effects they suffer (as a result of their non-immunity) a net zero.

As far as RAI goes, wands of lesser restoration are specifically mentioned, meaning the ability damage was meant to be able to be healed; why is it so absurd that it could be mitigated?



Thiago, did you try to put LT's Invocationrankings into spoilers to not use 2 posts for invocations or would that still exceed the limit of the post? (I don't know, never wrote that much in a forum...^^)

Unfortunately, spoilers still count toward the character limit, meaning it would actually be more likely to take up more posts if you used spoilers. (You could have a post that was nothing but 10,000 characters of forum code, with two lines of actual text, that would be shut down by the text limit.)

I will try to shorten my explanations if I get the time (I know I rant and rave a bit), but it is low-priority.

[Socratov]

I don't think Flyby Attack is being suggested for melee warlocks. It's being suggested for Ranged, when you really do get most of your abilities done as a Standard Action.

This is indeed a great option. It all depends on the build you are going. If you go ranged blasting (becuase you don't want to get hurt) then flyby attack is great, jsut move half your movement into range, shoot, and move out the rest again. It loses a bit when you can quicken flee the scene though, then it's move in full, shoot and quicken flee the scene out.

[ThiagoMartell]

Thiago, did you try to put LT's Invocationrankings into spoilers to not use 2 posts for invocations or would that still exceed the limit of the post? (I don't know, never wrote that much in a forum...^^)

Doesn't work, it really needs 2 posts.




I honestly don't see how the debate with Strongheart Vest exists, as people agree that actually dipping Incarnate and binding Strongheart Vest doesn't constitute immunity to CON damage for the purposes of Hellfire Warlock's abilities (meaning that the vest itself doesn't confer an immunity to CON damage), and Shape Soulmeld simply gives you the benefits of a soulmeld. In this case, the soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) isn't conferring unto you an immunity to CON damage in any way, so why would the Hellfire Warlock's abilities not work with it?
The problem here is more about RAI than anything else.


If you have DR 10/silver and magic, and an enemy hits you with a nonsilver weapon for 6 damage, you aren't immune to the attack; it has simply dealt 0 damage to you.
But if it's an attack that always deals 6 damage, yes, you are immune to it. Hellfire always deals 1 point of Con damage.


If the answer to the above questions are "no" and "yes", respectively, then it's because simply mitigating the damage doesn't make a creature immune to all ill effects; it just makes the actual ill effects they suffer (as a result of their non-immunity) a net zero.
This reasoning really does not apply to hellfire, since it only ever deals 1 damage. RAI is pretty clear - you're supposed to suffer damage. Strongheart Vest prevents that damage. So it's against RAI.


As far as RAI goes, wands of lesser restoration are specifically mentioned, meaning the ability damage was meant to be able to be healed; why is it so absurd that it could be mitigated?
Because then there is no ill effect.
Healing means you have a window of weakness due to hellfire and even limits it's uses (even with Naberis and an odd Con score, you can only blast once a round without getting into trouble, so that means no Quicken and no Hellfire Shield).
There is also the matter of fluff.

[Krazzman]

Because then there is no ill effect.
Healing means you have a window of weakness due to hellfire and even limits it's uses (even with Naberis and an odd Con score, you can only blast once a round without getting into trouble, so that means no Quicken and no Hellfire Shield).
There is also the matter of fluff.

I think there are a few things (this stuff about RAI and RAW qualify, as the PrC stuff LT opened a thread for). You should probably mention that a few of the tricks are not legal under every DM. The hard parts I see about this Handbook are following:
Banned books, books not available, DM think's it's too cheesy etc.

I for my part have only the completes, core (as part 2) and ToB to build chars under the DM we play.

Everywhere where RAW/RAI or something else conflicts you should Point to Handbookrule 13 part 37 :"Ask your dm about it".

@LT (I hope I'm allowed to abbreviate it that way)
I saw you opening that thread but didn't feel like writing anything worthwhile there. And yes I think it is stupid that you loose your special stuff as DD or UrPriest... now common sense would be if you loose something the class mechanical needs... then yes loosing the stuff seems pretty forward. But loosing something the PrC doesn't need mechanically like a Blackguard loosing the improved sunder feat (because of what-ever) or a Stormlord that loses Toughness... or whatever. The main problem we have here are the mentioned 3 contradicting (at least sort of) rulings. We could say that everything from CWar follows that and CArc follows it ruling, the rest follows the Core-ruling or something. But you mentioned it isn't decked with the rules.


@Flyby attack:
I don't know if that action is that "save". I mean RAI they didn't think about casting when they wrote that feat because of the similarities with Improved Flyby Attack and Greater Flyby Attack (I think...). RAW yes Flyby attack works for a R-Blasterlock. But maybe that wasn't intended. But now I'm thinking about taking it...

[Urpriest]

@Flyby attack:
I don't know if that action is that "save". I mean RAI they didn't think about casting when they wrote that feat because of the similarities with Improved Flyby Attack and Greater Flyby Attack. RAW yes Flyby attack works for a R-Blasterlock. But maybe that wasn't intended. But now I'm thinking about taking it...

RAI it's suggested for Dragons for use with Breath Weapons, and even given tactics for them in Draconomicon. It's absolutely supposed to be used for SLAs.

[Khatoblepas]

But if it's an attack that always deals 6 damage, yes, you are immune to it. Hellfire always deals 1 point of Con damage.

But you aren't immune to the damage condition itself, even if the attack did 0 damage. If the attack did 11 damage, you would take damage. You are not immune to greatswords even with DR 10/silver and magic. You aren't even immune to longswords. You just mitigate the damage. Unfortunately, Hellfire Warlock says this:


if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

This is what is written. If you took 2 points of Constitution damage while wearing a Strongheart Vest, you would take 1 point of Constitution damage. You are not immune to it, since you can still take Con damage. If it had said:


If you do not take one point of Constitution damage, this ability does not function.

or


if you do not have a Constitution score or somehow do not take the Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability.

Then you would have a point. But no, Immunity has a specific meaning in D&D 3.5:


A creature that has immunity to an effect is never harmed (or helped) by that effect. A creature cannot suppress an immunity in order to receive a beneficial effect.

Can someone wear a strongheart vest and take 100d8 Con damage and still be up and kicking? No. Because they take 100d8 - 1 Con damage. They aren't immune. And this doesn't work the other way (I take 0 damage ergo I am immune), because that would be like saying:

I have Fire Resistance 10. I am on fire. Fire does 1d6 damage to me per round, but I am resistant to it. This means I am immune to fire, ergo no fire attack can hurt me because I am taking 0 fire damage from this particular fire.

And someone being immune to fire just because they're resistant and on fire is silly. Let's apply that to Hellfire Warlock.

I have Ability Damage Resistance 1. I am using Hellfire Blast. It does 1 Con damage but I am resistant to it. This means I am immune to ability damage, ergo no ability damage can harm me because I am taking 0 damage from this particular ability.

No matter how you spin it, you aren't immune to ability damage while wearing a Strongheart Vest, in the same way that you aren't immune to fire if you have Fire Resistance 10.

[Socratov]

@Kathoblepas


...Each time you use this ability, you take 1 point of Constitutions damage. Because the diabolical forces behind the power of hellfire demand a part of your essence in exchange for this granted power, if you do not have a Constitutiuon score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability. (bolded part emphasised by me)

this is the whole problem, what does somehow immune mean? Is the 'your essence' part rule or fluff? This at least makes clear that you need to scrifice your constitution as a trade for the hellfire. Healing is no problem since it's basically restocking your shelves (RAI it would mean that if healing was not ok the con dmg would be drain instead). RAI: strongheart vest does not work. RAW? I couldn't say. The immunity comparison with DR sticks a bit (resistance is different since it is not immunity or DR and has no say in the matter), but it is iffy at best. Is devils wanting a piece of your soul part of the actual rules mechanics or not? It is part of the raw since it is in normal type included with the mechanics. My ruling is no, you can't have it, use wands of lesser resto or naberius instead or suffer, whatever (unless special circumstances like in my last post). But a different DM would rule according to your viewpoint. Which is why the general agreed upon solution is "ASK YOUR DM!" just to end the endless circle arguments. (if you'd still try and whine with me I'd grant it, but you'd have to answer some kind of plothooked devil wanting his due (beware some of them are very powerful), or getting regular fire damage instead (pseudo soul for pseudo hellfire). You'd get bonuspoints if you would negociate the con dmg away with a devil to gain hellfire, but that would be very circumstantial and depending on the level of the group (it would cost you dearly or corrupt you in some way though). But bottomline, there is no exact solution to this debate because of wording.

PS: I know I promised to not go with this debate, but the flesh is weak.

[Khatoblepas]

@Kathoblepas

(bolded part emphasised by me)

this is the whole problem, what does somehow immune mean? Is the 'your essence' part rule or fluff?

Somehow immune means "You become immune to Constitution Damage somehow". It doesn't list feats or class abilities, all it cares about is whether you are Immune to Constitution Damage. The "your essence" part is fluff, as souls do not have an established game term beyond what is described in the Book of Vile Darkness.


Is devils wanting a piece of your soul part of the actual rules mechanics or not? It is part of the raw since it is in normal type included with the mechanics.

It's part of the fluff, since it's establishing WHY you take the Constitution Damage. In terms of the rules, Strongheart Vest is totally kosher.

And in terms of fluff, you're draining the limitless energies of souls past, present, future, and those not yet in the timestream [insert actual incarnum fluff here]. I think a devil would applaud your "by-the-letter" interpretation of their contract. It's a very standard "Beat-the-Faustian-Pact" approach to dealing with devils. You will get their ire, of course, since they're still fiends, but they're the one that laid out the groundrules. You're following them to the letter...

... but not the spirit.

[Socratov]

Well, that's where your opinion differs in mine. I consider the explanation part of the rule (soul isn't mentioned, just 'your' and 'essense' right next to each other).

about the immune part, if it would have said "If somehow you have developed an immunity to ability damage" Id's say you were correct since immunity is defined. Immune is not immunity to the letter, but can refer to the act of not being harmed by it. The added word 'somehow' (in this case in a preceding place) hints to me that a broader definition is used.

[lawyer mode]This really is a matter of discussing semantics and in that respect "somehow immune" and "immune somehow" don't carry the exact same sematics. One could argue that somehow immune refers to the end result and immune somehow refers to getting immune to the effect. In the last place it's about having full on immunity, making strongheart vest an awesome option. In the first sense (somehow immune) it refers to the end result, regarding an always 1 damage and always 1 reduction always resulting in a no damage, effectively making you immune (as per the result) to the effect, making Strongheart vest as an illegal option. [/lawyer mode]

Then there is the fact that RAW is generally accepted at forums such as these to be leading (becuase of the only common denominator) and that most tables tend to clear up rules beforehand if the rules are not 100% clear in interpretation. So again, the most prudent action is asking the GM

[ThiagoMartell]

It's really simple, really. You can read 'somehow immune' as referring to Immunity (not that immune has no in-game definition, only immunity). Then RAI disagrees with RAW regarding the vest.
You can read 'somehow immune' as actual English. Then RAI and RAW agree.
In the end, of course, ask your DM.

EDIT: Updated guide is updated!

[Socratov]

I think this guide needs a discussion on PrC's

The warlock general PrC's are (amongst others) Enleightened soul, Hellfire warlock (allready in there, but in the PrC section it might benefit from the explanation on it's other abilities), Acolyte of the skin, Eldritch knight, Eldritch theurge etc.

Now, personally I'm not at all that familiar with the theurges (although a handbook those exists, so you might want to look in there).

I'll stae what I know, discussion is welcome. If you think some of what I say is bull****, please say so, and more importantly, way why it's so and what it should be. (points spoilered for length)

General PrC discussion

The warlock works iffy with caster PrC's. The general rule is that if a spellcasting level requirement is stated, you can enter the class (even though because of not so decent writing you would gain nothing from it since it would give you more spells based on a previous class, instead of invocations or spellcaster levels you so desperately need). If however a class requirers a certain level of spells you can cast you can't take levels.

Apart form that the warlock benefits of a few key points:

invocations
bab
saves
skillpoints
bonus (crafter) feats
abilities that benefit SLA's
standard nice things to have like flight, mindblank, etc. (there's a list somewhere that states them all, if you find it, pls tell me, so this item can link to it)
particular nice things like HiPS, other means of defenses like miss chance, increased defenses, things helping your build damage, all depending on your preferred build


This list is a general list, that said, some points may be more importaint depending on your build, and other points may be rendered moot.

To know what you need to select, a few general pointers exist:

more invocations is always a great thing to have. The warlock is starved for invocations as it is.
For melee you need a good way to not get hit, to not get damage and to be able to move without losing standard or full round actions.
When using a melee buildyou need to do damage. For doing damage you need ways to increase your damage done on hit (like extra dice from sneak attack and it's likes or by increasing the dice themselves (each die increase gives +1 damage on average)). To be able to do damage you need to hit. Anything increasing your chance to hit will give you less concerns for trying to hit instead allowing you to focus more on damage.
For ranged combat you need ways to keep away form enemies. Anything allowing you to evade enemies or to help you not get noticed by them will help. Any round you can't hit becase you are runnign away costs you damage or actions to help your party in the fight
Equally for the melee warlock, anything giving you to hit or extra damage is great. Keep in mind that opposed to the melee warlock you can't make iteratives attacks so damage might be hard to come by.
Sniping is acutally very possible for a warlock, but your build will need to be geared towards it to make it work (aka, get HiPS!)
Feats are nice to have, however, don't get fooled by a zillion feats since a lot of class abilities are stronger then feats alltogether. To see if you want a feat as classability or a non feat classability, seek out a feat and campare it to the classability. Compare for short term effectiveness and long term effectiveness. Feats can be retrained (if allowed), classabilities can not.
a general pointer is see what the effect of choosing one over the other will bring to you long term and see if it fits your long term goals. A powerhit now with a boost later is better then a boost now and hit later.

Hellfire warlock
Hellfire warlock is *the* PrC for warlocks. It gives better blasting, invocations, some item abilites and invocations. Shame it's only 3 levels though (and even that can be fixed by applying a little bit of cheddar)
Requirements: knowledge: The Plains 13 ranks, Intimidate 6 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks, either brimstone blast or hellrime blast (eldritch essences) and you need to speak the infernal language.

benefits: d6 hit die per level, 2+int skillpoints per level, +1 invocation spellcaster level per level, 3/4 bab, good fortitude save, bad reflex and will saves.

Class abilites: Hellfire blast (+2d6 per level*): you turn your eldritch blasts into a hellfire blast adding damage dice onto your normal eldritch blast dice. It will cost you 1 con damage to use it per use. (see disputed rules section)

Hellfire Infusion: use metamagic(empower/enlarge/widen/energy substitution) on a charged item, X times a day where X is your Cha modifier.

Hellfire Shield: you can pull up a hellfire shield allowing to retaliate any attack with a hellfire blast allowing ref half (DC+10+1/2 characterlevel+Cha). Any time you use this you get 1 con damage. The problem here is what is defined as usage? Is it pulling up the shield? Is it using the retaliation? ASk your DM and find a reading you can both agree to.

fire resistance 10 (stacks with warlock resistances)

If you are not taking this as a warlock you either are not allowed to use it (per books) or you are an idiot. Anything this does is infinitely better then any other Warlock PrC and it can be used with any alignment. Ways to mitigate the con damage are heavily disputed and discussed in teh build themselves.

Chameleon
Chameleon is *the* PrC for the crafterlock. Use it, love it, cuddle it do things to it that would make Cthulu lose San.

Entry requirements: human or doppleganger race (when using ebberron also changeling), Able learner, bluff 8 ranks, disguise 8 ranks, sense motive 4 ranks, spellcraft 4 ranks.

benefits: lots. (it's too much, so I'll just post the general best option: to dip it with 2 levels)
d8 hit die per level, 4+int skillpoints per level, 3/4 bab, all bad saves, aptitude focus (+2) and bonus feat.

Aptitude focus: you can pick a role allowing you to do something extra:

pick any one: spellcasting (arcane) and some bonuses on skills, bonus on combat stats, divine spellcasting and some skillbonsues, rogue abilites without the sneak attack and some bonuses on skills, wild empathy and woodland stride including some bonsues on a few skills.

Bonus feat: but this one is special: itcan be changed with just an hour of meditation! It lets you qualify for stuff (but you lose benefits if you change it and don't qualify anymore, which is iffy with PrC's). Use it to craft, or grab extra invocation and change it to another one once you're in need one of those you-may-need-it-sometime-but-allmost-never invocations. Ofcourse, when you are crafting, tak ethe appropiate crating feat so you can make anything you want (after lvl 12 in warlock to get imbue item)


Will be continued...

P.S. These PrC' are described in a short manner becuase I'm particularly lazy. If you want to expand on what I said or add to the PrC discussion, be my guest, I'll even mention you helping out :smallwink:

[eggs]

Just jumping on the PrC redirect:
-Fiendbinder is the Truenaming Thaumaturgist thing, Demonbinder is the crappy DotU Warlock PrC.
Sentinel of Bharri (BoED) might deserve a shoutout for being generally awesome (full casting and turn into a giant justicebear all day).

And while I don't think every Acolyte of the Skin, Impure Prince or Renegade Mastermaker that will take the Warlock as a member deserves a full writeup, Warlock-eligible classes are hard enough to track down that it could be useful to at least consolidate a list of shenaniganless-entry Warlock-advancing classes (assuming there aren't too many; if there are, a filtered list would work) - speaking for myself, tht's usually the kind of info I go to handbooks for.

EDIT:
I'd be willing to help with that, if it sounds like throwing too much work on anyone's plate. I'm not on top of all the Warlocks powers, and would probably miss some combos if I tried to say anything about the class powers, but I could at least come up with a list.

[GenghisDon]

Bah, if such cheese is to be used, then one ought just strike "if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability." from the hellfire warlock class. Total limburger cheese..pee-u

[Socratov]

Bah, if such cheese is to be used, then one ought just strike "if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability." from the hellfire warlock class. Total limburger cheese..pee-u

to be honest, advancing level based abilities of a 3 level PrC is a bit cheesy (depending on the op level of your party ofcourse) but beyond that it's not much more then cheddar IMO (and even then, it's an option, and rule -1 is use your common sense and confer with your DM)

PS: what is limburger cheese? Haven't heard anything about it and I currently stay near there... is it any good?

[GenghisDon]

It smells...it's "powerful"

[Socratov]

It smells...it's "powerful"

You don't, by any chance, mean pugnent? :smallamused:

Well, long discussion short, cheese is according to the group's taste :smallsmile:

Btw, ill update with enleightenee soul next weekend, as welk as start on the list pertaining casting advancing classes (and showcasing urpriest which fits thematically awesoem on warlock and even works as well...)

[GenghisDon]

pugnent describes it perfectly.

I was, of course, aiming at 2 targets BTW

[ThiagoMartell]

Update!


Races, feats and prestige classes ranked under LT's color code
Fixed a few typos - if you find any, please let me know
Added write ups for Chameleon and Enlightened Soul prestige classes
Added Shinomen Greensnake Naga to the races section
Added Mindsight to the feats section
Added a wands section, but it's still just a stub

[eggs]

Warlock-eligible classes are hard enough to track down that it could be useful to at least consolidate a list of shenaniganless-entry Warlock-advancing classes (assuming there aren't too many; if there are, a filtered list would work) - speaking for myself, tht's usually the kind of info I go to handbooks for.
Okay, that was a bad idea.

I didn't realize that entering/advancing through PrCs is only half the problem; very few casting PrCs do anything useful for characters who don't technically cast. :smallannoyed:

[ThiagoMartell]

I didn't realize that entering/advancing through PrCs is only half the problem; very few casting PrCs do anything useful for characters who don't technically cast. :smallannoyed:

Exactly. Abjurant Champion is good for basically any class... except for warlocks. :smalltongue:
The Warlock Information Compilation has a good list, it probably covers most classes. Thinblade commits a lot of mistakes regarding those classes, though (Swanmay being the most egregious).

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm willing to let "Shape Soulmeld" be regarded as a debatable trick, but for handbook and optimization purposes, it should at least be considered as an option, especially if we're already considering dragon magazine feat interactions (which the entire clawlock is built upon) and other debatable rules interpretations (Changeling to get into Warshaper). My builds will include it, with the stipulation that you can drop it for a Binder dip or a Wand of Lesser Restoration if need be, but I won't generally be including Binder dips in my builds, as I don't know much about the Binder and often can't spare the level for some reason. However, this:


You can read 'somehow immune' as actual English. Then RAI and RAW agree.

Is not true. Perhaps if it said "somehow immune to the Constitution damage", it would be. But it doesn't. So it isn't. Instead, it refers to "somehow immune to Constitution damage", which means immunity to Constitution damage (the general, not the specific).

Source: Years of tutoring, and going to college to teach, actual, proper English.

In any case, here's a scout build for those of you, to demonstrate that the Warlock can, in fact, fulfill the scout role. It's also a method of increasing a ranged Warlock's damage without Legacy Champion or Uncanny Trickster (although roughly the same thing could be done with Uncanny Trickster instead of Rogue, the build would suffer in its scouting abilities for the sake of improving Hellfire Blast damage, and that isn't the point of this build). In essence, this is a scout/stealth Warlock hybrid.

Human Rogue 1/Warlock 5/Ruathar 2/Swordsage 1/Hellfire Warlock 3/Arcane Trickster 8

Ability Scores: CON > INT > DEX > WIS > CHA > STR
The Warlock is trying to be a skill monkey, so INT is needed to improve the Warlock's odds of making that happen.

The level-by-level (this build will actually have one, but it is fluid, if you wish to change things):

{table=head]Level|Class|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Feats|Features|Invocations & Maneuvers

1st|Rogue 1|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+0|Able Learner, Spell Hand|Sneak Attack +1d6, Trapfinding

2nd|Warlock 1|
+0|
+0|
+0|
+2||Eldritch Blast 1d6|All-Seeing Eyes

3rd|Warlock 2|
+1|
+0|
+2|
+3|Craven|Detect Magic|See the Unseen

4th|Warlock 3|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+3||Damage reduction 1/cold iron, Eldritch Blast 2d6|

5th|Warlock 4|
+3|
+1|
+3|
+4||Deceive item|Entropic Warding

6th|Warlock 5|
+3|
+1|
+3|
+4|Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest)|Eldritch Blast 3d6

7th|Ruathar 1|
+3|
+1|
+5|
+6||Word of friendship, gift of the elves|Hellrime Blast

8th|Ruathar 2|
+4|
+1|
+6|
+7||Low-light vision, elfwise, (Eldritch Blast 4d6)

9th|Swordsage 1|
+4|
+1|
+8|
+9|Martial stance (assassin's stance)|Quick to act +1, Discipline focus (Weapon Focus)|Hunter's Sense (stance), Cloak of Deception, Shadow Jaunt, Mind Over Body, Mountain Hammer, Action Before Thought, Sapphire Nightmare Blade

10th|Hellfire Warlock 1|
+4|
+1|
+8|
+11||Hellfire Blast +2d6|Crawling Eye

11th|Hellfire Warlock 2|
+5|
+1|
+8|
+12||Hellfire Blast +4d6, hellfire infusion, resistance to fire 10, (Eldritch Blast 5d6)|

12th|Hellfire Warlock 3|
+6/+1|
+2|
+9|
+12|Quicken Spell-Like Ability|Hellfire Blast +6d6, hellfire shield|Walk Unseen

13th|Arcane Trickster 1|
+6/+1|
+2|
+11|
+14||Ranged legerdemain 1/day, (Eldritch Blast 6d6)|Chilling Tentacles, The Dead Walk (replacing Hellrime Blast)

14th|Arcane Trickster 2|
+7/+2|
+2|
+12|
+15||Sneak Attack +1d6|

15th|Arcane Trickster 3|
+7/+2|
+3|
+12|
+15|Maximize Spell-Like Ability|Impromptu sneak attack 1/day|Devil's Whispers

16th|Arcane Trickster 4|
+8/+3|
+3|
+13|
+16||Sneak Attack +2d6, (Eldritch Blast 7d6)|

17th|Arcane Trickster 5|
+8/+3|
+3|
+13|
+16||Ranged legerdemain 2/day|Noxious Blast

18th|Arcane Trickster 6|
+9/+4|
+4|
+14|
+17|Empower Spell-Like Ability|Sneak Attack +3d6|Retributive Invisibility, Curse of Despair (replacing Walk Unseen)

19th|Arcane Trickster 7|
+9/+4|
+4|
+14|
+17||Impromptu sneak attack 2/day, (Eldritch Blast 8d6)|

20th|Arcane Trickster 8|
+10/+5|
+4|
+15|
+18||Sneak Attack+4d6|Dark Foresight[/table]

Equipment worth considering (specific to Warlock and Rogue, in addition to the usual goodies):
Feathered Wings graft (FF p. 210, slotless; if you can't swing this, replace The Dead Walk with Fell Flight)
Rod of Eldritch Power x2 (Eldritch Spear and Eldritch Chain, CM p. 127, held)
Warlock's Scepter (MiC p. 63, held)
Wand of Sniper's Shot (SC p. 194, held, use with Eldritch Spear version of Rod of Eldritch Power)
Greater Chausible of Fell Power (MiC p. 85, throat)
Deathstrike Bracers (MiC p. 93) OR Bracers of the Hunter (SoX, p. 145) OR Bracers of the Entangling Blast (MiC p. 80, arms)
Rogue's Vest (MiC p. 130, torso)
Mantle of the Predator (MiC p. 200, shoulders)
Gloves of Eldritch Admixture (MiC p. 105, hands)
Boots of Elvenkind (from Ruathar, feet)

What this build has:
Offenses:
Eldritch Blast 8d6. With the right items (Greater Chausible of Fell Power), this improves to 10d6, with the possibility of further improvement through charges (Warlock's Scepter +1d6-3d6, Gloves of Eldritch Admixture +2d6-4d6). Can be quickened, maximized, and empowered 3/day each.
Hellfire Blast +6d6.
Sneak Attack +7d6+20. With the right items (Rogue's Vest, Bracers of the Hunter, Mantle of the Predator), this improves to +10d6+20.
In total, you should be rolling 26d6+20 damage on a single hit (average 111, maximized 151, empowered 139, maxipowered to 179), without charges, and three times a day, you can do it twice in one round. You will not be the primary single-target damage-dealer; rather, your role in the party will probably be to Eldritch Chain that damage to multiple targets at the same time, and tack on a debuff while you're at it (I picked up Noxious Blast, and for awhile at least you'll have Hellrime Blast, but you could pick another). Chilling Tentacles will be your other offensive invocation.
Sneak attack damage will likely be delivered either through the surprise round (which you're focused on getting), winning initiative, and later Cloak of Deception, impromptu sneak attack, and being greater invisible (when it counts), but you will get it off. Rules note: the Hide rules for sniping impose a -20 penalty to your Hide check, but being 250 feet away imposes a -25 penalty to your opponent's Spot check to observe you; combined with being invisible (when it matters) and hopefully just generally being good at hiding, this could allow you to make multiple sneak attacks with your wand of Sniper's Shot as well, enough so that actually shelling out for a tome to learn Eldritch Spear outright (or just a few rods, if you're lazy or cheap) becomes a fairly good investment.

Defenses:
Entropic Warding helps here, as you get a 20% miss chance against ranged attacks, and you will be invisible (and later greater invisible) for most of your career, which are all well and good. You will have two good saves for most of your career (and multiclassing will make them great saves), and Mind Over Body will likely shore up your third often enough. Your greatest defense, however, is probably going to be...

Senses:
In addition to whatever you get out of your skill ranks, you will have a +8 to Spot and Search (+6 from All-Seeing Eyes, +2 from elfwise) and a +2 to Listen (elfwise). All three will be class skill equivalents from 1 to 20 (they become class skills, and thus get the "in-class skill" cap, from Rogue 1, and Able Learner means they will always be available at a 1:1 ratio). In addition, you will have trapfinding (Rogue 1), low-light vision (Ruathar 2), darkvision and invisibility 60 ft. (See the Unseen, and scent (Hunter's Sense stance). True Seeing, blindsense, and tremorsense elude you, although the first two can be picked up as magic items (and the third isn't strictly necessary at any time). If you so choose, you have the option of selecting Voidsense to pick up blindsense 30 ft., but it's not recommended due to redundancy and limited selection of features.
You also have the ability to scout remotely, thanks to Crawling Eye. This is important: your Crawling Eye is what you are probably going to be using to scout ahead most of the time, since being invisible isn't a catch-all at later levels. It is also what will allow you to snipe effectively (you get somewhat close to maximum range, position the eye closer so that you don't take huge Spot penalties to single out targets out a distance, and then you snipe from maximum Eldritch Spear range with your wand of Sniper's Shot using your Crawling Eye as a vantage point; now, your opponent takes massive penalties to observe you, but you don't take massive penalties to observe your enemy).
Lastly, as a "capstone" (which you can pick up earlier by grabbing the Charm invocation in place of any other lesser invocation and dipping Mindbender), you can communicate all this information that you gain with the rest of the party telepathically.

Stealth:
Hide and Move Silently are "class skills" for you, and if you were able to swing a high INT, you should have at least a decent modifier in both. Being invisible (and later greater invisible) will help, as it is essentially a +20 bonus to your Hide check. You will also likely be picking up any combination of Boots of Elvenkind (+5 to Move Silently), Bracers of the Hunter (+5 to Hide), Rogue's Vest (+2 to both) and Mantle of the Predator (+5 to both); however, all four items grant competence bonuses, and thus don't stack, so if you grab a Mantle of the Predator, Bracers of the Hunter and Boots of Elvenkind aren't necessary for their skill bonuses, and vice-versa. Shadow Jaunt is certainly an option for moving when you don't want your enemy to know where you're going (bonus points if you can Shadow Jaunt in all three directions, e.g. you can fly). Finally, you leave no trail and can't be tracked by scent thanks to Entropic Warding.

Miscellany:
Devil's Whispers allows you to instill Suggestions into people. Mountain Hammer lets you break all the things (and is one of the few reasons you can justify not taking Baleful Utterance). The Dead Walk is Animate Dead (which is useful for all the reasons Animate Dead is useful). Use Magic Device is a class skill (which I recommend you get enough ranks in to take 10 on wand use, if nothing else).

Possible changes to the build:
Remove Rogue to add Factotum: Since this build relies on a high INT, a level of Factotum in place of Rogue may suffice. You sacrifice 1d6 of Sneak Attack Damage and 8 skill points, but gain every skill as a class skill (which Able Learner allows you to basically keep indefinitely), including Concentration, which Rogue lacks (meaning you can't grab four ranks in Concentration at level 1, and have to make it up later in order to make Mind Over Body useful as a Fort save analogue). You can also add your INT to-hit, which helps in those early levels, when your Eldritch Blast is going to be suffering from a low hit chance thanks to the poor BAB that all your dips get you, but only a very limited number of times. Ultimately, I chose Rogue because it allows you to qualify for Craven early (and the late levels are so feat-starved already).

Add Uncanny Trickster: three levels of Uncanny Trickster can be taken in place of two levels of Arcane Trickster near the end (and the Rogue level at the beginning). This trades 2d6 of Sneak Attack damage (but no invocation caster levels) for 4d6 Hellfire Blast damage, makes you decidedly less skillful to start (that first level of Rogue gives you 24 points over a first-level Warlock, and Able Learner doesn't do anything for you at this point, so your skill list is stunted), but makes up for it down the road (by being an 8+INT class itself), and allows you to take Maximize Spell-Like Ability at level 6 by making your caster levels a little more front-loaded. You could do this with Legacy Champion as well, but at that point you might as well just trash the skilled idea entirely (which is the unique feature of this build).

Feats: If Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) is not allowed in your game or you make one of the above changes and can't fit Craven back into the build, possible replacements include Nymph's Kiss (remember, you're trying to be skillful) or the Darkness SLA feats from Drow of the Underdark (below).

Darkness: The Darkness invocation is very useful for a stealth-based character who is intending to take advantage of the Drow of the Underdark feats. If you are allowed to take flaws (and thus move Craven and Shape Soulmeld to 1st level), consider taking Darkness as your second invocation (ECL 3), bumping See the Unseen to your third and getting rid of Entropic Warding entirely (or learning it later as a tome), and then taking Instinctive Darkness and Blend Into Shadows (which let you cast Darkness as an immediate action and hide in plain sight, respectively). If Shape Soulmeld is out of the picture (or you use either of the level switches above and can't fit Craven into the build), consider switching in one or both of these feats.

Enjoy!

[ThiagoMartell]

Is not true. Perhaps if it said "somehow immune to the Constitution damage", it would be. But it doesn't. So it isn't. Instead, it refers to "somehow immune to Constitution damage", which means immunity to Constitution damage (the general, not the specific).
Well, my point is that 'immune' is not defined in the rules. Immunity is, but immune is not.


Source: Years of tutoring, and going to college to teach, actual, proper English.
Same here, actually :smalltongue:

Good build, btw

[123456789blaaa]

Exactly. Abjurant Champion is good for basically any class... except for warlocks. :smalltongue:
The Warlock Information Compilation has a good list, it probably covers most classes. Thinblade commits a lot of mistakes regarding those classes, though (Swanmay being the most egregious).

Could you list all the problems with thinblades guide please? Then I could go to the handbook discussion thread and show him these problems so that he could fix them. I would hate for a new optimizer to be mislead. Heck, since he has stated that he won't be updating the guide anymore maybe he could put a link to your guide in the handbook. After all, the purpose of the guide was to collect all the scattered optimization information about warlocks.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, my point is that 'immune' is not defined in the rules. Immunity is, but immune is not.

Neither is dead. :smallconfused:

[ThiagoMartell]

Neither is dead. :smallconfused:
It actually is (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm). :smallwink: Anyway, let's just agree to disagree here, buddy. This debate has been going on for years, I doubt it's going to stop now.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It actually is (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm). :smallwink: Anyway, let's just agree to disagree here, buddy. This debate has been going on for years, I doubt it's going to stop now.

Fine. I absolutely refuse to budge on the point that Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) is deserving of mention on the guide, even if it comes with a giant asterisk and "by the way, your DM might not approve of this, so clear it with them first". Frankly, I don't care to try to convince every DM in the world that Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) needs to be allowed in their game, but everyone at least deserves to make an informed decision (and the ability to make an informed decision by way of mention, either in the feats section or its own section of the guide, benefits both the player that wants to use it, and the discerning or hesitant DM who doesn't).

[ThiagoMartell]

Fine. I absolutely refuse to budge on the point that Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) is deserving of mention on the guide, even if it comes with a giant asterisk and "by the way, your DM might not approve of this, so clear it with them first". Frankly, I don't care to try to convince every DM in the world that Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) needs to be allowed in their game, but everyone at least deserves to make an informed decision (and the ability to make an informed decision by way of mention, either in the feats section or its own section of the guide, benefits both the player that wants to use it, and the discerning or hesitant DM who doesn't).

Oh, it is going to be on the guide, I didn't think for a second to leave it out. Agree 100% with you.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Oh, it is going to be on the guide, I didn't think for a second to leave it out. Agree 100% with you.

Oh, OK. I think I had come to the conclusion that, since there is a feat section (which is complete, or no?), and this is not on it, that it wasn't going to be.

[ThiagoMartell]

Oh, OK. I think I had come to the conclusion that, since there is a feat section (which is complete, or no?), and this is not on it, that it wasn't going to be.

Oh, it's nowhere near complete. We still have a lot of work to do here. :smallbiggrin:
There are at least two other soulmelds that belong there - Arcane Focus and Mage Spectacles, btw.
Combat Casting should be mentioned, Shielded Casting, Battlecaster Offense/Defense, Knowledge Devotion, Snap Kick... there is a lot to cover yet.

[Krazzman]

Fine. I absolutely refuse to budge on the point that Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) is deserving of mention on the guide, even if it comes with a giant asterisk and "by the way, your DM might not approve of this, so clear it with them first". Frankly, I don't care to try to convince every DM in the world that Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) needs to be allowed in their game, but everyone at least deserves to make an informed decision (and the ability to make an informed decision by way of mention, either in the feats section or its own section of the guide, benefits both the player that wants to use it, and the discerning or hesitant DM who doesn't).

Ok... just on a side note... how about E6? A small part about the Warlock in E6? LT dm's it afaik and thus could provide a bit of knowledge on that part. Or is this too specific for this handbook (or would take too long?).

I have no experience with E6 so I don't know how validate this could be.

[ThiagoMartell]

Ok... just on a side note... how about E6? A small part about the Warlock in E6? LT dm's it afaik and thus could provide a bit of knowledge on that part. Or is this too specific for this handbook (or would take too long?).

I have no experience with E6 so I don't know how validate this could be.

I'd love to include something about Warlocks in E6, but I have very little experience with it.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Ok... just on a side note... how about E6? A small part about the Warlock in E6? LT dm's it afaik and thus could provide a bit of knowledge on that part. Or is this too specific for this handbook (or would take too long?).

I have no experience with E6 so I don't know how validate this could be.

I can write a sub-guide on the Warlock as it relates to E6, as I have spent a lot of time dealing with Warlocks as they relate to E6 and other low-level play (one of the player in my E6 game has made a Warlock as his back-up character, and I have worked exhaustively with him on options, and I am also in a game run by this same player, where the party belongs to an order of Warlocks that deals with toppling unfit governments), but my E6 game does not have a Warlock PC in it (yet). You'll be relying on my general knowledge and experience how E6 works (but I have a fair bit of that), and my general Warlock experience and intuition (which is what I used for the rest of my contributions), but I have never explicitly mixed peanut butter and chocolate.

I should also include a cautionary note: the way level adjustment is handled informs a Warlock's decisions greatly in E6. For instance, if you're using the suggested level adjustment rules (where level adjustment determines point buy instead of actual level reduction), you are a Pixie Warlock. This is not negotiable: Pixies are Tiny-sized, receive all the favorable stat modifiers, have innate flight and at-will Greater Invisibility (the equivalent of a lesser and dark invocation each), and are just objectively better than almost every other race in almost every way. If you are using standard level adjustment rules, however, the LA+4 becomes very prohibitive (as you can only realistically take two class levels, unless your DM allows you to just progress as four levels later, taking ten levels' worth of experience to reach 6 class levels), and you would want to pursue another race.

Other options become rather prohibitive, as well; a Glaivelock becomes okay, but not your absolute best damage option, and a Clawlock never scales to the point where they are reliably hitting everything (and never gets Shock Trooper, so Power Attack is not as reliable). Really, you aren't going to be the best damage-dealer in the game anyway; the selling point is that you can do it the safest, what with at-will flight and the ability to attack from 250 feet away (above) with no penalties. Basically, an E6 Warlock plays drastically differently from a 20-level Warlock, so I suppose it would be useful to have a sub-guide.

[namo]

Very nice guide (already, and it's not even finished)! :smallsmile: Thinblade's was indeed in need of a dust-up.

Two remarks that come a bit late as I just read through the thread:
- Arcane Mastery is also useful for Warlock who take one of the dispelling Invocations. Associate it with a cheap Dispelling Cord (MIC) and it affords you great reliability

- I also think Beshadowed Blast should be Black. I agree few people will take it because of the opportunity cost, but in itself it's not bad. In particular, it can hose arcane casters who are among of the warlock's (and the party's) worst enemies. Fort may not be the best save to target, but it's good to be able to target all saves with various effects, and blinding is great.

[Socratov]

And now the continuation of the PrC's worthy of specific mention (waht out they are heavily debated)

Legacy Champion

requirements: knowledge history 5 ranks, the least legacy feat, ownership of a legacy item, character level 10'th
What does it do for a warlock? Well, consider the fact that you get +2d6 hellfire damage from Hellfire warlock. Legacy champion gives you:
At each level except 1st and 7th,
you gain class features and an increase in effective
level as if you had also gained a level in a class to which
you belonged before adding the prestige class level.
The specific class features you gain include spells
per day (and spells known, if applicable), improved
chance of turning or destroying undead, metamagic or item creation feats, bonus feats, monk special abilities,
sneak attack progressions, and so on, depending
on the class. You do not, however, gain the benefit of
your previous class’s Hit Dice, attack progression,
skill points, or saving throws. If you had more than
one class before becoming a legacy champion, you
must decide to which class to add eachThe trick is debatable becuase of the "As if you had taken another level of that class" part. Some argue that it continues HFW's Hellfire blast (which explicitly gives +2d6 of hellfire damage) and invocations as if you had gained a level, but without gaining that level and not going beyond the 3 levels of HFW. The people against that say that you can't gain levels beyond the 3rd and thus not use it to gain benefits. Check wiht your DM if this is allowed as a tactic. If it is you get a nice powerboost, if it isn't, you don't

Uncanny Trickster

Requirements: 4 skills with at least 8 ranks, 4 skilltricks.
what does it do? It does that same as Legacy champion:

At each level after 1st, you gain class features (including spellcasting ability) and an increase in effective level as if you had also gained a level in a class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain the benefit of your previous class’s Hit Dice, attack progression, skill points, or saving throws. If you had more than one class before becoming an uncanny trickster, you must decide to which class to ad

the trick is equally hot debated as Legacy Champion and you must again ask your DM. (some tricks are worth it however)


then a list of useful tricks on your warlock (if you have the skillpoints to spare):

Tricks you love, separated by role:

face:

Second Impression
Assume Quirk
Never Outnumbered (max intimidate)

these tricks increase your chances of succeeding at social skills by offering second chances or expanding on the uses of the skills. Very useful shoudl you be a face (and that without investing in face invocations or feats)
scouting:

Clarity of Vision (instead of the invoaction see the unseen)

or 1 round you can see invisible creatures within 30 feet if you can succeed on a dc 20 spot check. Coupled with a wand of gliterdust no more invisibility for the enemy, no invocation requiered and everyone enjoys it.
casting:
False Theurgy: this is debatable, but worth trying your DM for. It is uncaertain if by spells invocations are also allowed.

Miscellanious:
Easy escape: if you get into melee you will need some form of free movement, this trick gives it: you can escape from a grapple using this trick.

Skilltricks are a great way of enhancing a character with minute resources (only 2 skillpoints for a trick). The rest of the skilltricks are either too situational or not helpful at all.

[only1doug]

I've been lax on fulfilling my intention to detail the homebrew stuff for warlock, My apologies for that, caused by Holiday + increased workload after Holiday.

I've just had my first session Playing my new Warlock: Tarneuril Leafsong (http://pifro.com/pro/view.php?id=8432) who seems to be an Elf (but is actually a changeling) and it was quite fun (I ditched my idea for a shadowgnome warlock). I have talked my GM into allowing a Homebrew Feat chain for Warlocks: Floating Invocation (Least), (Lesser), (Greater), (Dark).

Floating Invocation Feat Chain

Floating Invocation (Least)
Prerequisite: Access to Least Invocations
Benefit: Choose one of your existing Least Invocations, This is now changeable on a daily basis: once every 24hrs you may change your Floating Invocation to a different Least Invocation. This process takes 1hr and can only be done after getting a good nights sleep.

Floating Invocation (Lesser)
Prerequisite: Access to Lesser Invocations, Floating Invocation (Least)
Benefit: Choose one of your existing Lesser Invocations, This is now changeable on a daily basis: once every 24hrs you may change your Floating Invocation to a different Lesser Invocation. This process takes 1hr and can only be done after getting a good nights sleep. You can change any or all of your Floating Invocations during the same time period.

Floating Invocation (Greater)
Prerequisite: Access to Greater Invocations, Floating Invocation (Lesser)
Benefit: Choose one of your existing Greater Invocations, This is now changeable on a daily basis: once every 24hrs you may change your Floating Invocation to a different Greater Invocation. This process takes 1hr and can only be done after getting a good nights sleep. You can change any or all of your Floating Invocations during the same time period.

Floating Invocation (Dark)
Prerequisite: Access to Lesser Invocations, Floating Invocation (Greater)
Benefit: Choose one of your existing Dark Invocations, This is now changeable on a daily basis: once every 24hrs you may change your Floating Invocation to a different Dark Invocation. This process takes 1hr and can only be done after getting a good nights sleep. You can change any or all of your Floating Invocations during the same time period.

[ThiagoMartell]

Updated with a description of Hellfire Warlock in the prestige class section. I think I covered everything, please check it out.

[Jackalope]

Here's a thought I had while looking at the MiC:

Get a Warlock's Scepter and enchant it with the Morphing enhancement. It can now be turned into a spiked gauntlet since the scepter is a light mace. Turning it into a spiked gauntlet means you can now hold something in that hand like another weapon, and that includes using Eldritch Glaive. The new Warlock's Gauntlet can still have its charges used to increase the EG damage, but the accuracy boost won't work because EG is a melee touch attack, not a ranged touch attack which the item states.

[Snowbluff]

You are in the wrong place, buddy.
(http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265455&page=1)

If you guys didn't understand me, this is here for you. The former curator has been banned. :smalltongue:

[Blackhearted]

Great Handbook!

Just a heads up though. Practiced Spellcaster doesn't increase the damage dice of Eldritch Blast.

Read the entire page.
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19520666/Warlock_Faq_by_Rich_Baker?pg=31

Richard Baker states that he thinks it should work, but he's not sure the language supports it. Initially this is confusing considering he wrote the class, and the Complete Arcane book. However, without errata the language trumps what he may have posted on a forum at 3am.

More importantly, there is an official FAQ, by Andy Collins, that specifically says it DOESN'T work.

[Onerai]

Hi all, hope this isn't thread necromancy - just wanted to say how handy this guide was. Quite a fan of the Warlock flavour, even if its implementation was questionable.

Just three things I wanted to note when PrC-ing:
1) CArc calls out that warlocks can advance invocations, eldritch blast etc through anything that advances arcane spell-casting, so long as they can qualify for it (and in fact, even if they qualify using another source).
2) Eldritch Theurge (CMage) allows you to plonk area spells into your blast using "spellblast", which can either shore up ranged damage significantly (Searing Heat fireballs, here we come) or add much deadlier CC effects to damage (Web, anyone?)
3) The entry notes for Chameleon are correct in calling out that bluff, disguise and human/changeling/dopelganger are required. However, warlocks DO get disguise as a class skill! It's one of the only classes that does! Easy qualifier for a straight (probably human) warlock.

Hope this helps fellow fans of the class :)

[Snowbluff]

Handbooks are normally exempt from thread necro, but I have taken over this handbook, since the OP isn't around anymore.

[super dark33]

Handbooks are normally exempt from thread necro, but I have taken over this handbook, since the OP isn't around anymore.

You should post a giant link to the new thread, the google search for warlock handbook leads here and people may get confused.
Maybe ask one of the mods to change the first post to a giant link to the new thread?

[Snowbluff]

You should post a giant link to the new thread, the google search for warlock handbook leads here and people may get confused.
Maybe ask one of the mods to change the first post to a giant link to the new thread?

I wasn't going to since I already had a link, but I will now that you requested it.

THE ZOMBIFIED WARLOCK HANDBOOK (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265455&page=1)

[Garagos]

Utterdark Blast can be really helpful if you have any undead in your party and don't mind healing them from time to time. My warlock combined Utterdark Blast and Chain Blast Shape to heal several shadows at once for several rounds. The shadows lasted a lot longer than our DM expected and drained a lot of strength from the group's enemies which made taking them down much easier for us.

[SinjinStormcrow]

Race: Human
Alignment: neutral evil
Template : necropolitan (fits very well with an evil build and you don't use hellfire so it complements well)
2 Flaws

1 Warlock Spell Hand,Wild Talent (or hidden talent if allowed), Point blank shot,Psionic Shot
2 Warlock
3 Warlock Martial Study
4 Warlock deceive item
5 Factotum
6 Assassin Psionic Meditation
7 Assassin uncanny dodge
8 Assassin
9 Eldritch Theurge Greater Psionic Shot
10 Eldritch Theurge
11 Arcane Trickster
12 Arcane Trickster Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance)
13 Arcane Trickster
14 Arcane Trickster
15 Arcane Tricksterobtain familiar
16 Arcane Trickster
17 Arcane Trickster
18 Arcane Trickster any improved familiar feat
19 Arcane Trickster
20 Arcane Trickster

That is a good build but I have one question....for Martial Stance Assassin's stance maybe I am reading it wrong and if that is the case please explain it to this person but to normally gain that stance you need to have 1 shadowhand maneuver and I didn't think martial study did that. If I am not on the right track please enlighten me :)

Edit: Nvm I reread it. I see where it works sorry

[Donny_Green]

hey all really quick question, and sorry if it has already been asked, but I was wondering what type of energy eldritch blast?

More specifically does it subvert the miss chance presented by incorporeal creatures?

Please accompany any answer with the source where I can reference it. I have some real rule sticklers in my group.

[Phelix-Mu]

1.) It's magical energy. So not a normal energy of the classic five types. I think it says this in the class description.

2.) It's a magical attack, so it has, I think, a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal target. I think. Rules on spells and interaction with incorporeal are described under the incorporeal entry in the DMG (thought the Rules Compendium version may be better...they added stuff to it as the game evolved).

Hope this helped. Maybe someone else has some better answers. I am curious on the second point too, as I'm not quite sure.

[only1doug]

1.) It's magical energy. So not a normal energy of the classic five types. I think it says this in the class description.

2.) It's a magical attack, so it has, I think, a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal target. I think. Rules on spells and interaction with incorporeal are described under the incorporeal entry in the DMG (thought the Rules Compendium version may be better...they added stuff to it as the game evolved).


I concur with both of these.
1. Some essences can convert it to one of the elemental types if you want to use them.

Brimstone blast essence converts eldritch blast to fire, hellrime blast essence converts it to cold and vitriolic blast essence converts it to acid.


2. It isn't of the force type so doesn't negate the incorporeal element.

If you want to bypass incorporeal then I recommend gauntlets of ghost fighting (4000 gp) from the Magic item compendium (pg216), normal damage to incorporeal foes (ignoring the 50% miss chance) (extra damage if meleeing)

Gauntlets of Ghost fighting are my favourite method of dealing with incorporeal miss chance, at 4k they are cheaper than adding the ghost touch enchantment to a weapon (+1 enhancement bonus cost, weapon must already have a +1 or higher enhancement bonus so minimum cost 6k) and do an extra 1d6 damage in melee combat.

[Againstusername]

Just a note about Warlocks and Supernatural Transformation: invocations may not qualify as spell-like abilities but Eldritch Blast quite specifically does

[VoltaicVitriol]

Just a note about Warlocks and Supernatural Transformation: invocations may not qualify as spell-like abilities but Eldritch Blast quite specifically does

Complete Arcane, page 7, second paragraph under INVOCATIONS:
"A warlock’s invocations are spell-like abilities; using an
invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks
of opportunity"

Complete Arcane, page 130, under WARLOCK INVOCATIONS, first paragraph, second sentence
"While warlocks are as closely linked to the arcane as any
wizard or sorcerer, these special powers are spell-like abilities, not spells."

Yes, invocations are spell-like abilities.

[Rookwood]

Thanks for the guide, it really helped.:smallsmile:

[Snowbluff]

Thanks for the guide, it really helped.:smallsmile:

This is the old version. If you're interested in discussing the new one, it's here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?265455-The-Newest-Warlock-Handbook-3-5) It might have a couple new things that may help. :smallsmile:

[Voidspawn]

I have this idea for a homebrew anti-caster sniper Warlock build with some interesting implications.

The Master Spellthief feat from Complete Scoundrel allows your levels from any arcane spellcasting class to stack with your Spellthief levels for the purposes of determining the max spell level that can be stolen, among other things.


So, if you can get your DM to agree to let you tweak this feat to apply to Warlock levels, you can take a 1-level dip in Spellthief for the Steal Spell ability.

From then on, any time you use your Eldritch Blast against a flat-footed opponent, you can forgo the +1d6 sneak attack damage in exchange for stealing a spell from the target. One hell of an awesome trade-off, in my opinion. The Steal Spell ability also suppresses the target's ability to cast the stolen spell for 1 minute (excellent against a spontaneous caster with more limited use against a prepared caster, depending on circumstance).

With the right Warlock ability choices, you can come up with tons of ways to deny dex to your enemy. Useless against your mundane fighter, of course, but a total day-wrecker for enemy casters.

In my homebrew build I've made a few further tweaks to the Steal Spell ability. Basically instead of casting the spell, I "spend" it by either applying the effect to my next Eldritch Blast or upping the damage output by +1d6 per level of the spell I stole. There are a million ways to homebrew this into a fantastically specialized anti-caster sniper but I'll let your imaginations go where ya want.

[JbeJ275]

Just built a warlock for a game on this very site, the guide was very helpful 10/10 :smallbiggrin:

[missionary7]

Your analysis of Hellspawned Grace is inaccurate. There is nothing in the description of that invocation that says you don't get the special qualities of the Hellcat. In fact, quite the opposite.

HELLSPAWNED GRACE
Greater; 6th
You take on the form and statistics of a hellcat (MM 54) for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your warlock level. This is a polymorph effect (see page 91)....

If you go to page 91 of the Complete mage, and read about the Polymorph Subschool, it says:

A spell of the polymorph subschool changes the target's form from one shape to another. Unless stated otherwise in the spell's description, the target of a polymorph spell takes on all the statistics and special abilities of an average member of the new form in place of its own except as follows:
• The target retains its own alignment (and personality, within the limits of the new form's ability scores).
• The target retains its own hit points.
• The target is treated has having its normal Hit Dice for purpose of adjudicating effects based on HD, such as the sleep spell, though it uses the new form's base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and all other statistics derived from Hit Dice.
• The target retains the ability to understand the languages it understands in its normal form. If the new form is normally capable of speech, the target retains the ability to speak these languages as well. It can write in the languages it understands, but only if the new form is capable of writing in some manner (even a primitive manner, such as drawing in the dirt with a paw).
In all other ways, the target's normal game statistics are effectively replaced by those of the new form. The target loses all of the special abilities it has in its normal form, including its class features (even if the new form would normally be able to use these class features).

Considering that this invocation is sourced from Complete Mage, and the description of the invocation refers you to an explanation within Complete Mage itself, I would say that these rules trump the normal rules for the Polymorph spell, and therefore, you'll get all the awesome special qualities of the Hellcat form, in all it's glory. The biggest drawback I see, is that the description for the Polymorph subschool also mentions that you lose all special abilities of your normal form, including class abilities, which sounds like it would also include eldritch blast and your other invocations. Now, if you can find a way to hang onto your invocations and eldritch blast while in Hellcat form, using Eldritch Claw as a Hellcat would be pretty dang sick!

[daremetoidareyo]

Considering that this invocation is sourced from Complete Mage, and the description of the invocation refers you to an explanation within Complete Mage itself, I would say that these rules trump the normal rules for the Polymorph spell, and therefore, you'll get all the awesome special qualities of the Hellcat form, in all it's glory. The biggest drawback I see, is that the description for the Polymorph subschool also mentions that you lose all special abilities of your normal form, including class abilities, which sounds like it would also include eldritch blast and your other invocations. Now, if you can find a way to hang onto your invocations and eldritch blast while in Hellcat form, using Eldritch Claw as a Hellcat would be pretty dang sick!

Look, this is just an idea, and although kinda RAW, it's also not RAI. It is stated that you can use spell like abilities to create magic items. So, seeing as the eldritch blast is a spell like ability and there are feats like create skull talisman and attune gem, you could, theoretically mind you, create a number of one-time-use eldritch blast skulls/gems for your hell cat form to use...

[Troacctid]

I think Hellspawned Grace is fine but not amazing. It offers some nice abilities. Invisibility and telepathy and, like, some jump bonuses, I guess. But not being able to use any of your normal abilities makes it pretty awkward.

[darkela5]

Use this thread instead =>Thread: The Newest Warlock Handbook [3.5]
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfd298112a5fcc7b41e286ac11ce13efffa82b02835be6d737 2bccd00ba12e00.jpg

[LordBlade]

So, with Hellfire Warlock, how exactly does the +1 of existing invoking class work exactly?
Do I just count it as increasing the base Warlock class abilities?

Like 11th level Warlock getting access to Greater invocations... if I was a L10 Warlock and took a level of Hellfire, do I get access to Greater invocations? Or do I just get a 7th invocation (as an 11th Warlock would get) but still have to pick from Least and Lesser?

EDIT:

Also, how exactly do the mechanics for Empower/Maximize/Quicken spell work with Eldritch Blast?

[Zombulian]

Use this thread instead =>Thread: The Newest Warlock Handbook [3.5]
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfd298112a5fcc7b41e286ac11ce13efffa82b02835be6d737 2bccd00ba12e00.jpg

No linky there friendo


So, with Hellfire Warlock, how exactly does the +1 of existing invoking class work exactly?
Do I just count it as increasing the base Warlock class abilities?

Like 11th level Warlock getting access to Greater invocations... if I was a L10 Warlock and took a level of Hellfire, do I get access to Greater invocations? Or do I just get a 7th invocation (as an 11th Warlock would get) but still have to pick from Least and Lesser?

EDIT:

Also, how exactly do the mechanics for Empower/Maximize/Quicken spell work with Eldritch Blast?

Yeah you advance your invocations and EB as normal just not any other Warlock class abilities.
On the metamagic question, do you mean trying to use the regular feats? Because that won't work, Warlocks don't use spell slots. There are feats however, called Empower/Maximize/Quicken SLA that do the same thing and are only usable 3/day.


Look, this is just an idea, and although kinda RAW, it's also not RAI. It is stated that you can use spell like abilities to create magic items. So, seeing as the eldritch blast is a spell like ability and there are feats like create skull talisman and attune gem, you could, theoretically mind you, create a number of one-time-use eldritch blast skulls/gems for your hell cat form to use...

Interdasting. Seems like a bit of a waste of exp though.

[Troacctid]

No linky there friendo
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?265455-The-Newest-Warlock-Handbook-3-5

[Endarire]

The wands section ends after "Nerveskitter:" which has no description.

[Endarire]

If we're playing in an E8 environment with no flaws/traits but with all sources allowed pending GM approval and starting at level 3, how do Glaivelock and Clawlock compare?