Pathfinder Warlock Redux (Based heavily on 3.5e)

[AcidOrb]

Warlocks gain their power much like a sorcerer does. It comes to them naturally, through some foul taint of their blood line or because of some dark pact with nefarious powers. Whatever the case, Warlocks can make formidable adversaries just like any other spell caster if they are prepared for a certain situation. They gain some spell casting power at later levels, and through blood lines, but most of their powers come to them as tricks or invocations. They are robust and resilient compared to other casters, and can make effective ranged fighters due to their eldritch blast ability. They usually have one physical trait that betrays their heritage or patronage, but most must make a DC 15 Perception check to notice it if within 30'. The scent of hell fire or unnaturally cool temperatures are some of the more common ones.

Role: Warlocks excel at surviving. They are tougher and have better saves than other casters, along with having inherent DR. Fiendish Fortitude and Fiendish Resilience further enhance their survivability by increasing their Constitution and giving Fast Healing. Warlocks make excellent low level substitutions for sorcerers or other magic users that are concerned with direct damage.

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d6

Starting Wealth: 3d6 x 10

Class Skills 6 + Int Bonus
Acrobatics, Bluff, Craft, Disable Device, Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate, Fly, K: Arcana, K: The Planes, K: Religion, Linguistics, Perception, Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft and Use Magic Device

{table]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Invocations
1st|+0|+2|+0|+2|Eldritch Blast 2d8, Invocation (T1), Pact|2
2nd|+1|+3|+0|+3|Devil's Sight, Cantrips/Orisons|3
3rd|+2|+3|+1|+3|Eldritch Blast 2d8|3
4th|+3|+4|+1|+4|Deceive Item, SLA Level 1st-2nd|4
5th|+3|+4|+1|+4|Eldritch Blast 2d10|5
6th|+4|+5|+2|+5|Fiendish Resilience, Invocation (T2)|5
7th|+5|+5|+2|+5|Eldritch Blast 2d10, SLA Level 3rd-4th|6
8th|+6/+1|+6|+2|+6|Fiendish Fortitude, Pact II|6
9th|+7/+2|+6|+3|+6|Eldrtich Blast 2d12|7
10th|+7/+2|+7|+3|+7|Fiendish Resilience, SLA 5th-6th|8
11th|+8/+3|+7|+3|+7|Eldritch Blast 2d12, Invocation (T3)|8
12th|+9/+4|+8|+4|+8|Fiendish Fortitude, Imbue Item|9
13th|+9/+4|+8|+4|+8|Eldritch Blast 3d12, SLA 7th|9
14th|+10/+5|+9|+4|+9|Fiendish Resilience|10
15th|+11/+6/+1|+9|+5|+9|Eldritch Blast 3d12, Pact III|11
16th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+10|Fiendish Fortitude, Invocations (T4)|12
17th|+13/+8/+3|+10|+5|+10|Eldritch Blast 4d12, SLA 8th|13
18th|+13/+8/+3|+11|+6|+11|Fiendish Resilience|13
19th|+14/+9/+4|+11|+6|+11|Eldritch Blast 4d12|14
20th|+15/+10/+5|+12|+6|+12|Unbound Font, SLA Miracle/Wish|14[/table]

Eldritch Blast (Ex)
The Warlock draws power from within his very soul and thrusts a stiletto of raw energy at a target within 30'. They may make one such Eldritch Blast attack based upon their BAB score. Invocations can change the Eldritch Blast in multiple ways, but only one of each type may be used at the same time. This means you may only select one Eldritch Essence and one Eldritch Shape.

Invocations (Su)
Invocations are innate magical abilities the warlock just intuitively knows how to do. Like how the birds fly south or the raven knows the shortest path. Warlocks gain Invocations through creating Pacts with various Powers. At first level the Warlock takes it's first Pact and seals it in his blood. Most Invocations take 10 minute rituals to function and last 24 hours. There are four tiers of Invocations and three different types, Eldritch Essence, Eldritch Shape and general purpose Invocations.

Eldritch Essence
Tier I
Frightful Blast – Target must make will save or become shaken. DC 10 + ½ Warlock Level + Charisma
Sickening Blast – Target must make Fortitude save or become sickened.

Tier II
Beshadowed Blast – Target must make Fortitude save or become blind for 1 round.
Brimstone Blast – Blast deals fire damage and target must make reflex save or catch fire.
Hellrime Blast – Blast deals cold damage and target must make Fortitude save or take -2 penalty to Dexterity.

Tier III
Bewitching Blast – Target must make a Fortitude save or become blind for 1 round.
Noxious Blast – Target must make Fortitude save or be naseated.
Repelling Blast – Target must make Reflex save or be knocked back.
Vitrolic Blast – Blast Ignores Spell Resistance and deals acid damage for several rounds.

Tier IV
Utterdark Blast – Target must make Fortitude save or gain two negative levels.

Blast Shape Invocations
Tier I
Eldritch Spear - Eldritch Blast range increased to 200'+10'/level
Hideous Blow - Eldritch Blast is channeled through your melee weapon or through unarmed attacks.

Tier II
Eldritch Chain - Eldritch Blast can jump up to two times, dealing 1/2 damage. Targets must be within 15' of eachother.
Eldritch Line Burst - Eldritch Blast is concentrated into a 5' wide 80' long line.

Tier III
Eldritch Cone - Eldritch Blast is spread out in a 15' wide, 30' long cone.

Tier IV
Eldritch Doom - Eldritch Blast effects all enemies in a 20' radius spread.

Invocations
Tier I
Acidic Disarm - Gain Burning Disarm as an at will spell like ability, but with acid instead of fire. Bypasses SR and allows no save for half damage.
Baleful Utterance - Mutter word of dark speech and shatter objects as the spell.
Beguiling Influence - Gain +6 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks.
Breath of the Night - Create a fog cloud as the spell.
Dark One's Own Luck - Gain an insight bonus to AC equal to your Charisma modifier.
Darkness - Gain Darkness, as a spell like ability.
Earthen Grasp - Gain Earthen Grasp, as a spell like ability.
Leaps and Bounds - Gain +8 bonus on Acrobatics and Fly checks.
Miasmic Cloud - Create a cloud of mist that grants concealment and fatigues those who enter.
See the Unseen - Gain See Invisibility as a spell like ability.
Spiderwalk - Gain Spider Climb as a spell like ability and immune to webs.
Summon Swarm - Gain Summon Swarm as a spell like ability.

Tier II
Entropic Warding - Gain Charisma modifier as deflection bonus, 20% miss chance for ranged weapons, leave no tracks and prevents you from being tracked by scent.

Pacts (Ex/Su)
The Warlock must make peaceful contact with any appropriate outsider of any type or from elemental plane. They must take part in a dark ritual or be the recipient of a geas/quest spell and fulfill their mission. For each Pact they make the gain access to more power, including Sorcerer bloodlines, including feats, powers and all spells available to them. You can also have a celestial or otherwise divine basis for your power, in which case you select spells as an oracle and can gain revelations like one. The recipient must keep these Pacts secret and honor them, or their Keepers will summon them and they will have to answer for their treachery. The initial Pact is usually with a fiendish or infernal power, and they are taught dark speech, but it is up to the player and the DM to make. Additional Pacts must be made with the DM and carried out through in game RP.

Devil's Sight (Su)
The Warlock may see in the darkness up to 120' and may see in supernatural darkness as well. They also can see all auras, good, evil, lawful, chaotic and magic.

Deceive Item (Ex)
At 4th level and higher a Warlock has the ability to more easily command magic items made for the use of other characters. When making a Use Magic Device check, a Warlock may take 10 even if distracted or threatened.

Fiendish Resilience (Su)
Warlocks are suffused with unnatural energy, re-knitting wounds and healing broken limbs with celerity. Warlocks gain Fast Healing 2 and DR 2/cold iron at 6th level. At 10th level their Fast Healing and DR increase by one, to FH 3 and DR 3/cold iron. At 14th level, it increases again to FH 4 and DR 4/cold iron. At 18th level it increases one final time to FH 5 and DR 5/cold iron.

Fiendish Fortitude (Su)
The Warlock makes a second Pact with another powerful entity and is gifted with eternal youth and abyssal grace or infernal luck. You add your Charisma bonus to all saves and gain +2 Constitution at 8th level, an additional +2 Constitution at 12th level and an additional +2, for a total of +6 Constitution.

Cantrips/Osirons (Sp)
The Warlock is able to cast 0 level spells as a spell-like ability as a sorcerer or oracle of an equal level. You continue to gain spell like abilities as a sorcerer or oracle of an equal level, but gain access to higher level spells more slowly. You may cast first and second level spells at will. Third and forth level spells 3/encounter. Fifth and sixth level spells 3/day. Seventh level spells 2/day. Eighth level spells 1/day.

Unbound Font (Ex/Su)
You can call upon the raw powers of all three of your pacts for a number of turns equal to your constitution score. You can maintain this font of power longer if you wish to start taking one Constitution point damage every turn you maintain it beyond that point. When in such a state, wind swirls around you, heat radiates off of you and you glow with an unnatural light. Your Eldritch Blast attacks are maximized, and you can apply any meta-magic ability to your spell like abilities for free.

[Re'ozul]

Things I have trouble with at the moment:

Invocations:

Most Invocations take 10 minute rituals to function and last 24 hours.
Bwuah?

Pacts:

For each Pact they make the gain access to more power, including Sorcerer bloodlines, including feats, powers and all spells available to them.
This confuses me, do they get the entire bloddline? How would that work.
Powers are easy, you just get them.
Feats are based on the sorcerer bloodline feat progression. Would a warlock then get a progression for each pact, does he get bonus feat slots to use them?
What happens with the bonus spells known? Are they somehow added to the invocation list?

Cantrips/Osirons (Sp)
Is this the point where you get the bloodline spells?

[AcidOrb]

Things I have trouble with at the moment:

Invocations:

Bwuah?

Pacts:

This confuses me, do they get the entire bloddline? How would that work.
Powers are easy, you just get them.

They get entire bloodlines, but only one feat per pact.


Feats are based on the sorcerer bloodline feat progression. Would a warlock then get a progression for each pact, does he get bonus feat slots to use them?

A Warlock gets bonus feats for each Pact they make. Only one though, so they only get 3 in total, one for each bloodline. If you select to gain oracle powers you gain a revelation and one domain and its spells as spells known.


What happens with the bonus spells known? Are they somehow added to the invocation list?

Cantrips/Osirons (Sp)
Is this the point where you get the bloodline spells?

The way bloodline or divine bonds (as I call them, to get oracle powers) work is they can't technically cast spells, as they are not technically a spell caster. They gain them all as Spell Like Abilities a number of times per day based upon the listed progression. If you get a spell from an invocation (earthen grasp for example) you gain it as an at will SLA. But yeah that is the point at which you are able to start using all spells known from your pacts.

What confuses you about invocations? They are like mini rituals to call the spirits to aid them. It takes 10 minutes for most rituals, so its like a wizard or cleric waking up and having to prepare his spells/meditate for an hour. Eldritch essences and shape invocations are spell like or supernatural abilities that can be added to any eldritch blast. They have a standard level and DC i just havent worked them out yet. Say a Warlock gets up and only has the entropic warding and beguiling influence invocations, it takes him around 20 minutes to put those invocations in place and gain their benefits.

[Re'ozul]

Okay, thats a lot of stuff answered.
I was confused by the description of invocations and how/when spells are gained etc.

So am I correct to assume that this Warlock can choose which Invocations they have each day with each invocation needing an 'install'-time of 10 minutes? If so then that may be a bit much later on, especially should you add a version of the extra invocation feat. It also makes it necessary to include some limiting factor that defines how many of each tier you can have, otherwise a level 16 character could just load all of its slots with T4 invocations)
Maybe something more like "Each invocation may be exchanged for another of the same grade once per day with a ritual needing 10 minutes of time and X worth Y Gold per tier" - to lower switcheroo abuse.

While I like the class so far, I fear it may become a bit too strong.
You basically get all of the powers (I think) of 3 bloodlines over time and three sets of SLAs in addition to an already greatly improved (by switching mechanic) basic set of invocations.

You are also missing the detect magic at-will of the 3.5 warlock which was pretty nice. Maybe pull the orisons/cantrips away from the rest of the SLAs to the very start.
"At level one your pact grants you access to 3 cantrips from the sorcerer/wizard spell list (or oracle spell list if you chose a mystery) which you may use at-will). Each time you gain a new pact you may choose 3 more." or more/less depending on what you want.

[AcidOrb]

Okay, thats a lot of stuff answered.
I was confused by the description of invocations and how/when spells are gained etc.

So am I correct to assume that this Warlock can choose which Invocations they have each day with each invocation needing an 'install'-time of 10 minutes? If so then that may be a bit much later on, especially should you add a version of the extra invocation feat. It also makes it necessary to include some limiting factor that defines how many of each tier you can have, otherwise a level 16 character could just load all of its slots with T4 invocations)
Maybe something more like "Each invocation may be exchanged for another of the same grade once per day with a ritual needing 10 minutes of time and X worth Y Gold per tier" - to lower switcheroo abuse.

While I like the class so far, I fear it may become a bit too strong.
You basically get all of the powers (I think) of 3 bloodlines over time and three sets of SLAs in addition to an already greatly improved (by switching mechanic) basic set of invocations.

You are also missing the detect magic at-will of the 3.5 warlock which was pretty nice. Maybe pull the orisons/cantrips away from the rest of the SLAs to the very start.
"At level one your pact grants you access to 3 cantrips from the sorcerer/wizard spell list (or oracle spell list if you chose a mystery) which you may use at-will). Each time you gain a new pact you may choose 3 more." or more/less depending on what you want.

First things first, thanks for the feedback. Right off the start you seem to be missing something... Invocations work just like 3.5 do. But normally they are a standard action. What this means is if you want to gain the effects of an Invocation that does not give you a spell like ability, you must take part in a 10 minute ritual. So you wake up and want to put on See the Unseen and Beguiling Influence invocation at first level. You burn incense, chant in dark speech or wwhatever else it takes to complete the ritual.

I am limiting the Warlocks spell casting to spell like abilities mostly til later levels, to prevent the warlock from being too powerful early on. The Deceive Item ability is very powerful for a smart player. I feel what I am doing is a blend of 3.5 and PF warlock and meets a nice middle ground. That does indeed mean you eventually get up to 27-32 spell like abilities, depending on waht pacts you make and with what power. You get up to 3 bloodlines, but only the powers and abilities of the first one. If you take divine/celestial pacts you instead are granted domains and their powers, but you only get three revelations, one for each pact. So you get three domains and all the powers and spells (except ninth) as spell like abilities a variable number of times per day.

Also, read a little but dud :P It's there under "Devil's Sight".