What if... Warlock could use EB with iterative attacks [Archive]

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yougi

2013-02-17, 01:56 AM

I read everywhere how underpowered the 'Lock is compared to Sorcerers and Wizards. Now I know it's not just pure numbers, and that versatility makes a large difference. This being said, would allowing Warlocks to use EB on their iteratives (that is, blasting twice if they have a BAB of +6/+1) or with feats like Rapid/Many Shot make them too much to handle, or would it make them viable?

I know Glaivelocks can, but I'm speaking about allowing it for the basic version of EB.

limejuicepowder

2013-02-17, 02:18 AM

For pure warlocks, it would be entirely reasonable and not game-breaking at all. From personal experience, eldritch blast is already showing it's age by level 4, and probably even earlier in a more high-powered game. Really, even with interative attacks eldritch blast probably won't see a lot of use outside of special circumstances where the lock has literally nothing better to do.

But the problem is that hellfire warlock exists. Even without interatives, hellfire warlock can make blast damage good enough to actually use, and focus on. Throw interatives on top of that and it is going be kind of broken.

Tanuki Tales

2013-02-17, 02:25 AM

It's not exactly a "bad" thing that the Warlock is "weaker" than the Sorcerer or Wizard though, by the by.

Felyndiira

2013-02-17, 02:47 AM

Keep in mind, also, that a warlock's EB is almost never just a basic EB. Allowing it to work with BAB and every additional ranged attack feat would mean that a warlock with 3 attacks, manyshot, rapid shot, and haste could deliver chained utterdark blast a full six times in a row for 12 negative levels per enemy.

Right now, the biggest issue that plagues warlocks is that EB can't scale up as easily as weapon users can. Weapons can gain a variety of enchantments, be used with power attack, etc., while a warlock is stuck with whatever d6 that his eldritch blast is doing at the time. Most blasters are used as debuffers, so you will have to limit the invocations you can add to EB if you can allow that many iterative attacks with it at range.

Kane0

2013-02-17, 03:45 AM

Iterative unmodified blasts would be a good balancing move, but iterative blasts with shapes and/or essences attached would make things pretty insane pretty quickly.

/2 cp

Alienist

2013-02-17, 03:48 AM

In another thread I had a low level Artificer tossing off (sic) 150d6 damage.

Now, just ot be silly, lets say that you bump the warlock's eldritch blast up to 150d6.

The fighter, ranger and barbarian in the party are going to complain bitterly.

The cleric, the druid and the wizard are going to go "Cool story bro, when are you going to get some class features?"

That's when you go "screw you guys!" and take at will dispel magic. It won't help, but it will make you feel better.

----

The disparity is not one of damage.

Even if it was one of damage, you'd lose (even at 15 million d6 per eldritch blast), because you could run into a monster with infinity hit points, and never kill it, whereas the Wizard just hits it with Save or Die until it fails its saving throws and then blammo, they just did (effectively) infinity damage.

That's what you're competing with, not Lightning Bolt and magic Missile.

The Wizard can polymorph into anything. Can you?
The Wizard can teleport to the other side of the planet. Can you?
The Wizard can summon Rocs and Elder Elementals. Can you?

What's that? You can Summon Evard's Tentacles all day long? Cool Story Bro.

What's that? You do negative levels with your eldritch blast? I'm sure the Ranger is incredibly jealous.

You get ~12 class features.
The Wizard gets hundreds.
The Cleric gets thousands.

Did you break the action economy today? No? The Wizard did it seven times before breakfast.

Do you have a completely different set of class features today? No? Still locked into that same old twelve huh?

The Wizard has a completely different set of class features today.
The Cleric has a completely different set of class features today.
The Druid has a completely different set of class features today.

The Sorceror doesn't either, maybe you could compete with him a little? Oh, he gets to choose ~36 class features, at least 8 of which are better (by a large margin) than anything on your extremely restricted list.

Hmmm.... I don't think that's a comparison you're going to win either.

-----

My suggestion: give the Warlock a (whatever those things you get a small handful of) (Invocations?) at every level. For starters it would make them a heck of a lot more interesting to play.

Not getting new class features every level sucks.

Did I mention that the Tier 1 classes get to rewrite their class features not just every level, but every stinking day?

(!!!!)

If you wanted to push Warlocks up a tier or two, that would be a good place to start, greatly expand the list of invocations, and let them get new ones every level, and let them choose different ones every time they sit around in a field of dandelions strummin' their fraggin' lute (or whatever it is those tier 1 pansies do each day)

Chilingsworth

2013-02-17, 04:00 AM

Well, it could be managed fairly easily:

Basic EB = Attack action (can be used with iterative attacks, etc.)

Any modified EB = Standard action (can't be used with iteratives, etc.)

Alienist

2013-02-17, 04:02 AM

Another way of looking at it is that Eldritch Blast is a ranged sneak attack (without the weapon damage, and without the pesky rubbish about flanking and what-not) vs touch.

That's pretty good. Then there's the scarf and the sonic screwdriver which add a bunch of extra d6s, plus a bunch of wibbly wobbly infusey woosey meta stuff you can plop on top of it.

But if you want a better version, have you looked at the Dragonfire Adept?

Chilingsworth

2013-02-17, 04:03 AM

Alienist

2013-02-17, 04:14 AM

Oh! Oh! I've got another one!

Throw out all the uber-confusing crap in Complete arcane about it being weapon-ish and spell-ish. WWWAAAAAAAYYYYY too much rules headache. Seriously.

Let warlocks qualify for prestige classes just like any normal spell caster based on the levels of invocations they can 'cast' (Ta da! Early entry tricks! (Also, wow, no we have more than two good prestige classes too choose from, yowza!)

Now let the Warlock slap whatever metamagic** and feats on it, treating it as though it were a spell, or a weapon, or both at the same time! Whatever works best for you!

Crikey mate! It's cats and dogs living together! Bleeding dingos!

Now, guess what? That's right, you can slap on feats like Rapid thingy or Multi-whatsit*

*Don't look at me that way, I dunno, I don't play Rangers, my dice don't roll that way thank you very much.

**Suggestion: each metamagic you slap on to Eldritch Blast adds either a -1 penalty to the to hit roll, or 2x the normal metamagic level increase as a penalty to the to hit roll (whichever is worse).

(So if you want to twin it or maximise it, you take a -8 penalty to hit, if you want to do both then you take a -16 penalty to hit)

SilverLeaf167

2013-02-17, 04:16 AM

The Warlock in the campaign I'm DMing actually boosts his damage quite a lot with the Draconic Blast class feature found in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11617491) thread. It pretty much doubles your Eldritch Blast damage and is usable every 1d4 rounds, like a dragon's breath weapon. Combined with Maximize SLA it leads to pretty high damage, at least in our not-terribly-high-op campaign; they were fighting a dragon, a single Maximized Draconic Blast took out one third of the beast's health, while also infuriating and distracting it enough that the rest of the party could get their act together.

Felyndiira

2013-02-17, 04:20 AM

The disparity is not one of damage.

Don't be so hard on the OP :smalltongue:. He did mention, after all, that the disparity isn't damage and that he knows how versatility is their main difference.

I think the idea was just to improve warlock damage a bit so that it would be considered 'good', since as you know, TO's current stance on warlocks is 'ranged EB = debuff, Eldritch Glaive/Claw = damage." The entire suggestion was to boost ranged EB enough so that it could be considered alongside some of the more damage-oriented classes, which would make warlocks not have to depend on melee to do damage.

Sure, they're still not comparable to T1/T2, but that was never the point of the question. We're only asking whether giving EB iterative attacks (as arrows) would cause concerns and/or not be enough on the damage perspective.

I still disagree with the 'any modified EB = standard action' though. If anything, if base EB can do 6x the damage of a modified EB, that gives him even less of a reason to take most of the blast shapes.

TuggyNE

2013-02-17, 06:34 AM

Keep in mind, also, that a warlock's EB is almost never just a basic EB. Allowing it to work with BAB and every additional ranged attack feat would mean that a warlock with 3 attacks, manyshot, rapid shot, and haste could deliver chained utterdark blast a full six times in a row for 12 negative levels per enemy.

That's not actually possible; Manyshot is a standard action, and I'm not sure Rapid Shot stacks with haste, either.

That said, though, Alienist's points about more damage being at once overpowered (relative to more ordinary classes) and underpowered (in that it's still only damage) are well taken.

Alienist

2013-02-17, 06:59 AM

Don't be so hard on the OP :smalltongue:. He did mention, after all, that the disparity isn't damage and that he knows how versatility is their main difference.

They always do. They always say "I know damage isn't power, but I want to become more powerful, so how do I do more damage?"

I hope the intent was clear - to educate rather than offend.

Malak'ai

2013-02-17, 07:34 AM

Iterative attacks with a basic EB would be a step in the right direction.

Another thing I'd look into, apart from ways of adding more dice to damage, would be adding more Debuff invocations that you could stack with your EB shapes, eg; something like "Terrifying Blast" that has the same effects of say, an Intimidation check (based on your current skill level) or a Cause Fear spell (equal to your level).

MrLemon

2013-02-17, 08:08 AM

Iterative attacks on a WL are a good idea IMO.

To reduce the Utterdark shenanigans postet earlier, maybe you could impose penalties to the Essence DC of the iteratives, for example on a rough 2 to 1 scale. I.e. for each 2 points of attack penalty, the DC is reduced by 1. That would make it -2 for the first iterative, -5 for the second, -1 for rapidshot, -n/2 for manyshot, etc.

As to Hellfire WL: I don't see the problem. Naberius can only heal 1 point of Con per round afaik. If you take the damage on every blast, you will start to suck.

Allowing WLs to access caster PrCs, as mentioned by someone earlier (forgive my not looking up your name) is also a good idea in most cases (sometimes the fluff would be really off). Things like Warlock/Rogue/Arcane Trickster for example would be a nice concept imo.

Alienist

2013-02-17, 09:16 AM

More Invocations would solve the problem because then the player could actually afford to slap on a bunch of shape/essence invocations.

I've lost track of suggestions, but here's how to make things more interesting:

Invocation at every level.
Allow feats which require a weapon to apply to Eldritch Blast. (Hence Rapid Shot and then Manyshot)

Levels 5,9,14 and 17 are dead levels where you get nothing. I would say that in addition to the Additional Invocations (to round it out to 1 per level), that at those levels the Warlock should gain a free Invocation, which must be spent on either essence or shape.

----

Chilling Tentacles is widely acknowledged as one of the better Greater Invocations.

Wizard gets it at level 7. And the Wizard gets something else (presumably just as good) immediately.

The Warlock gets it at level ... 11. And then has to wait not just one, but two levels before they get something of equivalent (or probably lesser) power.

It's criminal.

Then you look at the built in retraining feature of the class, and the extra invocations feat and you can see that the designers were quaking in their boots at the monster they had unleashed upon the world quick hit it with the nerf stick!

Oh wait, it's even worse than I thought, you can't retrain each time you get a new invocation, you can only retrain when you gain a new level of invocations! Lolburgers. *Wipes tear from eye*

----

Here's some more damage:
Mortalbane feat (5x +2d6)
Extra Invocation feat (really only good at 18th level because the designers are MEGA FACE-PALM)
Eldritch Chain Invocation
Maximise SLA
Chasuble of Fell Power +2d6
Warlock's Scepter - +1 to hit with ranged attacks spend charges for more damage (5x +1d6)
Gloves of Eldritch Admixture - spend charges for more damage (3x +2d6)

Let's say you loaded Mortalbane and the gear on a level 1 Warlock, they'd be doing 8d6 ~5 times per day, and 3d6 the rest of the time.

At say ninth level, where it gets a bit more realistic, you're doing 9d6 all day (includes brimstone essence) and spiking for 14d6 damage*.

Oh, and you're chaining too, which is where you get your multiple attacks from.

Entangling is supposed to be pretty good, but Brimstone - if they don't spend a full round action to put themselves out they keep taking damage! What's not to like? Only that it isn't Vitriolic!

Even blinding them for one round is a good way to mess with opponents, especially enemy spellcasters.

*You could be doing that 14d6 damage to a ninth level Wizard, and mess him up real bad. You're doing more dice of damage than he has hit dice, and your dice are bigger!! Oh, and just as a final mega "and the horse you rode in on" to the puny Wizard, you could maximise it!!!**

**Suck on that, tier system.

awa

2013-02-17, 11:03 AM

"Suck on that, tier system"

there is a fourth level spell that make wizards immune to rays for min per level

personally elderich blasts arnt about damge there debuffs the ability to nausiate (combine with chain to hit multiple target with a single shot) is not a bad choice.

Felyndiira

2013-02-17, 02:44 PM

That's not actually possible; Manyshot is a standard action, and I'm not sure Rapid Shot stacks with haste, either.

I've been playing too much Pathfinder lately, it seems >.<.

Rapid shot does stack with haste, though (nothing in the feat defines it as a 'haste effect'), so that's still 5 chained utterdark blasts as a full attack action.

Soranar

2013-02-17, 02:59 PM

Giving a warlock iteratives would affect a few things (assuming no rapid shot or manyshot, just iteratives for now)

1rst, eldritch spear becomes a fairly interesting shape (250 ft range blaster with access to 24 hour flight)

2nd eldright glaive builds become, mostly, irrelevant.

3rd BAB builds become a factor again, so an eldritch disciple build (with divine might) gains even more power

4th all in all you become on par with say, a blaster sorcerer. Not particularly versatile but, if optimized, able to nuke a game with a well crafted build. So I'd say tier 2.

Daer

2013-02-17, 04:19 PM

well the utterdark problem could be avoided if the effect would hit only once per round. though i think iteratives should follow same damage type as first.

This way glaive still would have some reason to be taken, if you want make enemy roll multiple times against debuffs then you need to take risk and go melee.

Urpriest

2013-02-17, 04:32 PM

With blast effects, ranged touch attacks, and scaling damage, this would feel a lot like Pathfinder's Alchemist. Like the others, I don't see a problem with this.

Alienist

2013-02-18, 08:26 AM

"Suck on that, tier system"

there is a fourth level spell that make wizards immune to rays for min per level

Voracious Dispelling (which the Warlock actually managed to get hold of a level before your hypothetical wizard who just happens to have exactly what he needed in his spellbook and also decided to prepare, and cast just before the encounter ...

Would you like damage with your dispelling? Excellent!

Here's the thing that really annoys me about these Wizard vs X debates. The people arguing for Wizards seem to have completely forgotten ALL the limitations of their class*. E.g. even if you have it in your spell book, which you probably don't, did you bother spending a spell slot on it this morning ... no, you probably didn't.

There's an obscure spell for that?? Golly gosh, did any of your characters ever take it? No? Well then, how is it relevant?
It has min/level per day. Did you persist it? If so, how? If not, well then, how is it relevant?

To cite a ridiculous extreme, the last time there was a fighter 1 vs wizard 1 debate, not only did the pro-wizard faction insist that the wizard had to have terrain advantage, win all the initiatives, the fighter would fail all his saves, but the wizard could also see invisible and fly, and had twenty feats, and oh I don't know, shoot fireballs out his donkey.

I honestly get the impression that the way some people play Wizards is to
just sit there with the Spell Compendium (and a pile of splatbooks next to it), and leaf through until they find exactly what they're looking for, and can barely be bothered checking to see if they have spell slots of that level, let alone keeping track of a spell book or number of times per day they've cast spells.

And arguing about it on the internet is as pointless as that whole Bill and Ted "remind me to travel back in time and put a bucket exactly where we'll need it now" scene.

*It's not just Wizards though, bizarre and improbable as my hypothetical example is, I did have the honor of playing with one guy who was playing a Sorcerer and he wouldn't let anybody** see his spells know list he'd written out in very faint pencil ...

**Especially not the DM

---

To my shame, I just tracked how many different spells of each level he was using and blew the whistle on him when he cheated, which then caused a huge argument, and then it turned out he was using several class features to reduce the number of spells known, but he hadn't actually bothered reading past the benefit he gained (so he gained the benefit but didn't pay the cost). So not only was he cheating, he was mega cheating. Needless to say there's eight hours of my life gone which I'll never get back.

yougi

2013-02-18, 10:34 AM

Don't be so hard on the OP :smalltongue:. He did mention, after all, that the disparity isn't damage and that he knows how versatility is their main difference.

I think the idea was just to improve warlock damage a bit so that it would be considered 'good', since as you know, TO's current stance on warlocks is 'ranged EB = debuff, Eldritch Glaive/Claw = damage." The entire suggestion was to boost ranged EB enough so that it could be considered alongside some of the more damage-oriented classes, which would make warlocks not have to depend on melee to do damage.

Sure, they're still not comparable to T1/T2, but that was never the point of the question. We're only asking whether giving EB iterative attacks (as arrows) would cause concerns and/or not be enough on the damage perspective.

I still disagree with the 'any modified EB = standard action' though. If anything, if base EB can do 6x the damage of a modified EB, that gives him even less of a reason to take most of the blast shapes.

Thank you for an actual answer to my question. Indeed, but it then forces the Warlock to choose between blasty mode and debuff mode. Is that a bad thing?

They always do. They always say "I know damage isn't power, but I want to become more powerful, so how do I do more damage?"

I hope the intent was clear - to educate rather than offend.

No, to be honest, your intent was not very clear, at least to me. The fact that you do state it is, however, noted.

No, I don't want to make the Warlock T1 by increasing its damage. I just think if the Warlock is to be a blaster, would that be a good way to make him an actually good blaster?

I find it interesting that in your later posts you note about how everyone compares Wizard to X by preparing lots more spells than what they're able to do, yet you say "Warlock is not good because you can't kill a monster with INFINITY hit points!", which seems to me to fall in the same category of argumentation. Yes Wiz/Sor's have save or sucks, cool for them: after they've run out of spells, the Warlock is supposed to still be able to blast away. However, even with that in mind, given Reserve feats and what not, the Wizards and Sorcerers of the D&Dverse still have more staying power: one of the PCs I DM (Wiz11) has the Storm Bolt (IIRC) reserve feat: as long as he doesn't cast his Chain Lightning, he can shoot those 6d6 mini-lightning bolts all day long, damaging many creatures, and never missing (Errata says it's save for half). An 11th level Warlock can use EB for 6d6 all day long. That means that not only are a Wizard's prepared spells better than a Warlock's Invocations, but even at the Warlock's game (all day blasting), the Wizard is better. I thought that maybe allowing Warlocks to EB multiple times per round would at least give them their niche back.

Iterative attacks with a basic EB would be a step in the right direction.

Another thing I'd look into, apart from ways of adding more dice to damage, would be adding more Debuff invocations that you could stack with your EB shapes, eg; something like "Terrifying Blast" that has the same effects of say, an Intimidation check (based on your current skill level) or a Cause Fear spell (equal to your level).

That would also be interesting. I could also think of that, either as invocations or as items (Rod of Metamagic-style, but for EB). Thoughts, anyone?

With blast effects, ranged touch attacks, and scaling damage, this would feel a lot like Pathfinder's Alchemist. Like the others, I don't see a problem with this.

Thank you for your answer. Guys, Urpriest said he was okay with it, anyone who disagrees with him loses! Thread closed! :smallbiggrin:

(Blue means sarcasm, please don't leave)

Giving a warlock iteratives would affect a few things (assuming no rapid shot or manyshot, just iteratives for now)

1rst, eldritch spear becomes a fairly interesting shape (250 ft range blaster with access to 24 hour flight)

2nd eldright glaive builds become, mostly, irrelevant.

3rd BAB builds become a factor again, so an eldritch disciple build (with divine might) gains even more power

4th all in all you become on par with say, a blaster sorcerer. Not particularly versatile but, if optimized, able to nuke a game with a well crafted build. So I'd say tier 2.

Thank you for your input! :)

Here's the thing that really annoys me about these Wizard vs X debates. The people arguing for Wizards seem to have completely forgotten ALL the limitations of their class*. E.g. even if you have it in your spell book, which you probably don't, did you bother spending a spell slot on it this morning ... no, you probably didn't.

There's an obscure spell for that?? Golly gosh, did any of your characters ever take it? No? Well then, how is it relevant?
It has min/level per day. Did you persist it? If so, how? If not, well then, how is it relevant?

Well, to be fair, when I play a Wizard, I make sure to have a scroll of all those useful obscure spells: no need to prepare them, but on these rare times I'll need it, I'll have it.

*It's not just Wizards though, bizarre and improbable as my hypothetical example is, I did have the honor of playing with one guy who was playing a Sorcerer and he wouldn't let anybody** see his spells know list he'd written out in very faint pencil ...

**Especially not the DM

---

To my shame, I just tracked how many different spells of each level he was using and blew the whistle on him when he cheated, which then caused a huge argument, and then it turned out he was using several class features to reduce the number of spells known, but he hadn't actually bothered reading past the benefit he gained (so he gained the benefit but didn't pay the cost). So not only was he cheating, he was mega cheating. Needless to say there's eight hours of my life gone which I'll never get back.

That is AWFUL. I don't think I will ever get cheating at D&D. I mean, it's not like it was a hard game to break while sticking to RAW. Plus it's not like winning more than the rest of the party will bring you anything: you're not getting paid for playing, and your job status does not depend on your D&D performance, you won't be recognized for you work ("hey, that's the guy from the Eberron Campaign we follow on TV! Dude, I LOOOVE your work! That Sublime Chord/UrPriest Mystic Theurge was pure genius! What's going to happen in the next episode? Will you take a level of Wildshape Ranger?") and I've never seen a chick go "Wow, you sure know how to build a versatile and powerful D&D character, wanna go get a cup of coffee sometimes, maybe after you can come over so I show you this... "Swordsage build" I've been working on? *sexy wink*"

This being said... Can we go back to the main topic? :smallbiggrin:

Alienist

2013-02-18, 12:10 PM

No, to be honest, your intent was not very clear, at least to me. The fact that you do state it is, however, noted.

Your homework assignment is to write a 2000 word essay on why the Tier system is a crock of excrement, bonus points if you can provide a rational explanation for why discussion on power in D&D always circle back around to damage.

I find it interesting that in your later posts you note about how everyone compares Wizard to X by preparing lots more spells than what they're able to do, yet you say "Warlock is not good because you can't kill a monster with INFINITY hit points!", which seems to me to fall in the same category of argumentation.

It's the Warlock. You know, the guy who bargains his soul away to infernal powers?

Playing Devil's Advocate is entirely on topic.

Yes Wiz/Sor's have save or sucks, cool for them: after they've run out of spells, the Warlock is supposed to still be able to blast away.

I specifically avoided mentioning save or sucks, because I think they're overrated.

Save or Die on the other hand is what I actually mentioned.

However, even with that in mind, given Reserve feats and what not, the Wizards and Sorcerers of the D&Dverse still have more staying power:

D&D really isn't about staying power.

That said, people grossly overrate the power of a level 1 caster. I find the 10 minute adventuring day to be highly unrealistic, but some players have bullied their groups into thinking it's the norm. Unsurprisingly, a class that is bound by resource management is a lot better if you take the resource management out of the picture.

---

same argument applied to the barbarian:
it can swing its two handed sword all day long, does that mean it has lots of power?
Can the barbarian teleport around the world? Shift to another plane? Polymorph into Godzilla? etc.

Being able to swing a sword, or backstab, all day long really isn't that big of a deal. But the game designers think it is, which is why Warlock and melee classes are nerfed.

one of the PCs I DM (Wiz11) has the Storm Bolt (IIRC) reserve feat: as long as he doesn't cast his Chain Lightning, he can shoot those 6d6 mini-lightning bolts all day long, damaging many creatures, and never missing (Errata says it's save for half). An 11th level Warlock can use EB for 6d6 all day long. That means that not only are a Wizard's prepared spells better than a Warlock's Invocations, but even at the Warlock's game (all day blasting), the Wizard is better. I thought that maybe allowing Warlocks to EB multiple times per round would at least give them their niche back.

That's your problem there. The point of the Tier 1s (allegedly) is that without even bothering to specialise, they can be better at everyone else's niche than they are, even when they specialise.

I disagree that the Warlock's "niche" is blasting. Blasting is a nice sideline for them, nothing more.

Then there's the other thing, your hypothetical Warlock. Where is his Chasuble? He just went up to 8d6. Where are his feats and other gear to pump it up to 13d6? It's his niche right? But you've made 0 investment in it!

Why in the blue blazes isn't he investing in it if it's his niche?

You want to hit multiple targets? Slap a cone effect on that bad boy.
The lightning line only goes 20 feet, so it's not going to hit more than 4 opponents. The cone goes 30 feet, so you can easily hit double that.

Personally I find that a Cone doesn't take more trouble manoeuvring to use than a short Line

Or slap Chain on it. There's your iterative attacks right there.

Well, to be fair, when I play a Wizard, I make sure to have a scroll of all those useful obscure spells: no need to prepare them, but on these rare times I'll need it, I'll have it.

That's an excellent point. Sadly, your wizard is already dead. //sheds small tear// :-p

In all seriousness, if you wanted to make a mage-killer, a Warlock wouldn't be a bad choice.

Take the 250 foot range for your Eldritch Blast, and Voracious Dispelling. And ... you're done. (Probably prioritise stats for hp in case he gets off one of those pesky level in d6 blasts, and then saves in case he gets off a save or suck. (By the time he gets save or dies, it's too late))

Things like all day flying and all day invisibility are just icing. Not very good icing, the food dye is a watery browny-yellow, and it wasn't made with real sugar, but hey, it could have been worse, you could have been a fighter.

But then the same argument could be made for a Monk with an Eversmoking Bottle, he's actually not bad at smacking the wizard upside of the head.

But just because you killed a wizard doesn't make you tier 1. This is not the wild west. Just because you shot billy the kid in the back while he was taking a bath, doesn't make you the new numero uno cowboy that everyone else is gunning for.

----

Eldritch blast suffers from a lack of good feat support ONLY because of that incredibly stupid design decision to make it "weapon-ish".

(A) Allow the Warlock to sink feats into it, suddenly he gets rapid shot and many shot.

Problem solved.

(B) Allow the Warlock to choose one of his built in class options (Eldritch Chain).

Problem solved.

(C) Realise that Eldritch blast is much better than sneak attack damage, to which it is a roughly equivalent feature.

Problem solved.

(D) Realise that a class with dozens of features (and no splatbook support to speak of) is never going to 'compete' with a class with hundreds, or thousands of features (and dozens more everytime a new splatbook comes out)

Problem solved.

(E) Give the Warlock more invocations, you could give him all the Eldritch Essence and Eldritch Shape invocations (from CA) for free (when he qualifies for them) and it wouldn't be overpowering. (That's 15 free invocations (invocations for everybody! Everybody gets a free invocation)

Problem solved.

(F) More support, especially gear (and feats, but see (A)).

Problem solved.

You say you want to keep the discussion open, but why? There's no shortage of options (up to and including porting Alchemist across from Pathfinder)

That is AWFUL. I don't think I will ever get cheating at D&D.

It's strongly tied to the ego.

I mean, it's not like it was a hard game to break while sticking to RAW.

It's harder if you have a DM with good reading comprehension and working knowledge of English.

Most of the rules lawyering is:
"Well, it appears to say 'X' on first through twelfth readings, but if we take these seventeen different and obscure meanings for these half a dozen words I carefully selected, and if we ignore all the precedent, then it could possibly be interpreted to mean 'not X'."

And all the DM has to say is "even if that was a valid reading, it isn't the only reading, and it's not the best or most natural reading. In fact, it is a highly unnatural reading, so ... no."

Plus it's not like winning more than the rest of the party will bring you anything:

Oh, my friend, we haven't even begun to scrape the bottom of the barrel, first we have to dig through a layer of grimy trolls and people who think it's funny to steal from other party members or get other people killed off.

This being said... Can we go back to the main topic? :smallbiggrin:

Why? What is left to discuss?

Nobody cares if you pump EB because you're never going to make the Warlock as good at blasting as the Mailman (and around here nobody cares if you outshine the mundane classes, because at this stage you're just holding up a candle in daylight in that regard), and Felyndiira has pointed out several potential downsides that you should consider.

Stick a fork in this turkey, it's done.

Waker

2013-02-19, 03:58 AM

Would giving the Warlock iterative attacks be an improvement? Yes, though unless combined with the aforementioned EB invocations, it wouldn't be a gigantic change.
Improving the versatility of a Warlock can be done rather simply by giving them access to SLAs similar to how a Factotum casts (sans the inspiration point mechanic). You might want to limit access to certain magic schools for flavor purposes and include a note that the Warlock stills needs to pay the material/xp costs for spells that have them. With that, the Warlock could be bumped to Tier 3 or possibly even 2, depending on the spell progression.
I also totally support the idea that Warlocks might benefit from access to PrCs that require access to "Cast Spells of X Level".

Seer_of_Heart

2013-02-19, 04:04 AM

(D) Realise that a class with dozens of features (and no splatbook support to speak of) is never going to 'compete' with a class with hundreds, or thousands of features (and dozens more everytime a new splatbook comes out)

:smallfrown: If only it was so, you make it sound like they still write books for 3.5

Alienist

2013-02-19, 04:08 AM

:smallfrown: If only it was so, you make it sound like they still write books for 3.5

Sorry, that was unkind and cruel of me, I apologise.