Some themed warlock invocations

[Loek]

Okay, so as part of my "I don't want to do what I'm supposed to do" streak, I've also been poking at fun (themed) warlock abilities. (PS: keep in mind that I'm no fan of eldritch glaive, so generally I try to ignore it when possible.)

Theme 1: Mind magic
This theme is based around the classic metal (psionic) abilities, telekinesis and telepathy.

Detect thoughts
Least, 2nd
You can use detect thoughts as the spell (see SRD (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Detect_Thoughts)).

Word of mind
Lesser, 3rd
You emulate the ability of demons and devils and "speak" by thinking instead of using your voice.
You gain telepathy 100ft.
Word of mind lasts for 24 hours.

Telekinesis
Greater, 5th
You can use telekinesis as the spell (see SRD ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Telekinesis)), with the exception that the weight limits do not max out at CL 15.
Even when not actively using the invocation, you use minute amounts of telekinetic force to steady yourself. You gain a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped and any attempts to move you against your will.

Stopping blast
Lesser, 3rd; Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into a stopping blast.
A stopping blast does nonlethal damage.
Any creature that takes (nonlethal) damage by the attack must make a fortitude save or be staggered for a single turn.


Theme 2: Look at me, I'm badass
This one started with me stumbling over the Nightmare ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Nightmare) again not too long ago. From there the idea of a big guy in burning black armor with a burning weapon on top of a black burning horse was born. The following are what I think are fair abilities to make that happen (Assuming the warlock has the battle caster (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/battle-caster--183/) feat and a nice set of mithril full plate painted black).

Eldritch armor
Lesser, 4th
Your armor is engulfed by the elements, which lash out against enemies that get close to you.
When you cast eldritch armor, select one of your eldritch essences that allows you to deal elemental damage, the damage dealt by your eldritch armor is of this type (this can be changed by casting eldritch armor again). If you don't have (or select) any elemental eldritch essences, the eldritch armor does fire damage.
Every round, at the beginning of your turn, eldritch armor deals 1d2 (per 2 CL) damage against all enemies within 15ft.
Eldritch armor last for 10 minutes per caster level.

Eldritch whip
Lesser, 3rd; Blast shape
This blast shape invocation focuses your eldritch blast into a whip. An eldritch whip uses a d2 die to determine damage instead of a d6.
The whip can only be used for a single attack per round (at full BaB).
You can throw eldritch blasts from your other hand while maintaining your eldritch whip (though this can't be done the same round you summon the whip because you must focus your eldritch blast to summon it).
The eldritch whip functions like a normal whip, though if you drop it due to a failed trip attempt it immediately dissipates.
Eldritch whip lasts for 1 round per CL.

Ride out of a nightmare
Greater, 5th
You summon a faithful mount, which takes the form of a nightmare ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Nightmare).
The mount obeys without question and can be commanded with a simple thought (a free action).
The mount is not an actual nightmare, it merely looks like one. Its alignment matches yours and their appearance can be different from regular nightmares if you wish it to be so (cosmetically, mostly related to coloring).
The summoned mount does not have access to the SLAs (Astral Projection and Etherealness) that a normal nightmare possesses.
The summoned nightmare is improved as if it was the mount of a paladin with a level equal to your invocator level - 4 (It gains the ability "share invocations" instead of "share spells").
As long as you know this invocation, you treat "Ride" as a class skill for all future levels.




So, what do you guys think? Fair? Properly graded (I'm on the fence for telekinesis, which might be fine as a lesser - Similar doubts about stopping and stunning blast - not to mention the eldritch whip)? And maybe some sort of concentration check for the whip?

Also, I'm sort of curious if it might be needed to add "invocation progressing" classes to the calculation to determine the strength of the eldritch mount.



Other warlock related stuff I've been poking around with:
Re-writing "Mind spy" to be a warlock related class (with the above invocations they qualify).
Making "Master of the unseen hand" worth it (and again warlock related).
Making spellfire worth it/playable as (you guessed it) a warlock related prestige class.

Am I going to get around to it? Probably not. Is the idea fun? Hell yea.

PS: With ben-zayb's mind spy re-write it might be easy to steal the aspects that I like and do that warlock based re-write... hmmmm....

[Zaydos]

Word of Mind: I'd not disallow talking since the fluff is fiend based and fiends can also talk.

Slowing/Stopping Blast: 1 round slow and 1 round stagger are almost identical and both fit neatly at around a Greater or Lesser (1 round daze is a dark, but 1 round blindness is a lesser) I apparently placed it as Lesser before myself, but Greater may be more appropriate (I am questioning my judgment on that a bit).

Telekinesis: With its sheer versatility I'd say Greater seems to be the proper place for it. I would, however, add some little perk/additional uses to make it just a little better (like many invocations are).

Eldritch Armor: So you have to have an eldritch essence which makes it deal typed damage? I'm not sure I like that.

Eldritch Whip: So can you attack with it the same round you use Eldritch Blast? That seems to be the intent, but the wording could use some work (for example you note it's an offhand weapon, does that mean you take 2 weapon fighting penalties?). It's +33% damage, but unlike Eldritch Armor doesn't stack with Eldritch Glaive (as that takes 2 hands).

Ride out of Nightmare: Does it get the SLAs? If so o_O at-will Astral Projection and Etherealness should not be a side benefit of a greater invocation. If not... you might want to include the feat in the invocation. How does Share Spells work with them? I'm guessing you can share invocations but you need to note it since Share Spells specifies no SLAs.

[Loek]

Did (quite) some minor touch ups on wording and correcting copying/writing errors.

Removed stunning blast (which said slow, but should have been stunning). Now stopping does only nonlethal damage and possible stagger.

Specified that the nightmare does not get the SLA's. Thinking about adding the feat into the invocation, not sure yet. Also thinking about making a dark version which gets something like the SLAs (1/day planeshift or greater teleport - nightmare and rider only - or something like that. Would also get the option to immediatly trade in "ride out of a nightmare" for another greater (or lesser/least) invocation when you take it).

Re-wrote the whip so that no mention of off-hands is made.

And finally, gave the Eldritch armor a standard "fire damage" which can be changed by applying an elemental eldritch essence.

Still thinking about telekinesis... maybe give some sort of "good footing" or such against most combat manouvers (as you can use your telekinesis to "glue" you to the floor/make you more stable). Alternatively: Allow a telekinetic blast essence (force damage and bull rush?) making telekinesis both a normal invocation and a eldritch essence in one.


Bottom line: Proof read when you copy lines from exisiting sources to get the wording right and check those SLA's which you vaguely remember but can't quite place before doing something with the creature.

[Loek]

Added some side benefits to telekinesis (probably needs different wording on the section "being moved against your will"... but no ideas atm).
Added the feat effects (paladin like mount) to the effects of the invocation "ride out of a nightmare".

And to shake things up, a new feat:

Focused blaster
As your physical, mental and eldritch strength increases, you learn how to create and fire two eldritch blasts as the same time.

Prerequisite: BAB +8, Eldritch blast 3d6, Concentration 8

Benefit: You can fire two eldritch blasts as a standard action, both of which use your full BAB.
To do so, you must succeed on a concentration check, with a DC of 25. Failure means you only fire a single eldritch blast.
This DC is further modified by the following conditions:

Condition Change to the DC
The equivalent spell level of the second eldritch blast +1 per equivalent spell level
Your BAB -1 per point of BAB
The second blast has a different target than the first +5
The second blast has a different blast shape than the first +5
The second blast has a different eldritch essence than the first +5

The minimum for the modified DC is 15.

Normal: You can only fire a single eldritch blast as a standard action.



I know the whole "lets give warlocks additional blasts" thing has been done to death... but I figured I'd give it my 2 (very late) cents.

Also, as I've been poking at a warlock fix (and some prestige classes) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?348542-Warlock-%28and-prestige-classes%29-rewrite-%28Hey-at-least-it-s-not-a-fighter-fix%29), the end goal is to add the results of this thread to that one eventually, but keep this one for the random crazy feat/invocation ideas.

[Zaydos]

Before doing math on the feat, I must point out that targeting 2 targets is actually worse than double damage on one target.

That said this doesn't stack with Eldritch Glaive so works as a fine damage alternative for people who don't want to be glaive or claw locks, and I can understand the flavor reason 2 blasts at different targets would be harder.

So math time.

Lv 12 is the minimum to take this feat for a full warlock and those are who gains the most from it. 15 ranks in Concentration, +let's say 3 Con as a reasonable Lv 12 lock estimate, maybe even dump 2500 into +5 via Tunic of Steady Spellcasting. So to shoot off two Eldritch Cones would be (I might have Eldritch Cone's Lv wrong) DC 22 and you'd have a +23 to make the check (auto-success). So what you're looking at is autosuccess with a small chance of failure if you use a different shape or essence and a large one if you do both. Well at 12th. At 20th your bonus is 9 higher (better Con item) your BAB is 6 higher and the DC is now 29 (25 + 19 - 15) to cast 2 completely different Lv 9 blasts.

The damage output is worse than Glaive, but at high levels you're doing 2 AoE save or daze a turn (DC 21 + Cha mod if you take Ability Focus, I think there might be an item to increase it further). Hmm...

[Loek]

Blegh, math... what can't it ruin.

Yea, probably should have done that myself before finalizing it.

Will poke around, and maybe find (invent) a reason why targeting the same target is actually a bad thing. And after that... math city I suppose... maybe remove BAB as a modifier... (or reduce it to -1 per 2 points of BAB...)

Anyhow, thanks for the (quick) feedback.

[Loek]

Lets start with the original (thanks Zaydos) so it's clear and ready for comparison:
Level 12

DC = 25 + 6 (cone spell level) - 9 (bab) = 22
Concentration = 15 + 3 (CON) = 18 (or 23 with tunic)

Level 20

DC = 25 + 9 (max spell level) - 15 (bab) + 10 (dif shape and essence) = 29
Concentration = 23 + 3 (CON) = 26 (or 31/36 with tunic/third eye)


Next is the situation if the DC is increased for targeting the same target (something about how the eldritch energies are hard to focus when so close together ("don't cross the beams!")) and BAB only gives half reduction:
Level 12

DC = 25 + 5 (cone spell level) - 4 (bab) + 5 (same target) = 31
Concentration = 15 + 3 (CON) = 18 (or 23 with tunic)

Conclusion: without tunic, a 35% chance, with tunic a 60% chance. (And when targeting different targets, it becomes 60% to 85%)

Level 20

DC = 25 + 9 (max spell level) - 7 (bab) + 15 (different shape/essence, same target) = 42
Concentration = 23 + 3 (CON) = 26 (or 31/36 with tunic/third eye)

Conclusion: without items a 20% chance, with items 45% or 70% chance (and every one of the downsides you avoid (different shape/essence, same target) it increases with another 25% - making it a max 95% chance even without items at max spell level (and from a quick look through, the max level for essences/shapes is 8th, so increase all numbers with 5%))


To be honest, 60% at first to 95% (1 keeps on failing) is a decent spread. On top of that you can risk more failure if you wish, or make it easier by using low level blasts.


However, I had one more scenario to calculate: BAB gives full reductions (as original), targeting the same is still a pain (+2) but less so and the first blast's spell level also influences the DC (at half rate)
Level 12

DC = 25 + 6 (cone on blast 2) + 3 (cone on blast 1) - 9 (bab) = 25
Concentration = 15 + 3 (CON) = 18 (or 23 with tunic)

Level 20
DC = 25 + 8 (max blast level found) + 4 (same but on second blast) - 15 (BAB) + 12 (max increase due to target/shape/essence) = 34
Concentration = 23 + 3 (CON) = 26 (or 31/36 with tunic/third eye)

Conclusion: It actually ends up easier then situation 2 and it can also be lowered easier (2 different blasts to lower in spell level to lower the DC).


So the new version would be:


Focused blaster
As your physical, mental and eldritch strength increases, you learn how to create and fire two eldritch blasts as the same time.

Prerequisite: BAB +8, Eldritch blast 3d6, Concentration 8

Benefit: You can fire two eldritch blasts as a standard action, both of which use your full BAB.
To do so, you must succeed on a concentration check, with a DC of 25. Failure means you only fire a single eldritch blast.
This DC is further modified by the following conditions:

Condition Change to the DC
The equivalent spell level of the second eldritch blast +1 per equivalent spell level
Your BAB -1 per 2 points of BAB (rounded down)
The second blast has the same target as the first +5
The second blast has a different blast shape than the first +5
The second blast has a different eldritch essence than the first +5


Normal: You can only fire a single eldritch blast as a standard action.


ps: removed the minimum DC as it is almost impossible to reach anyhow (requires level 1 blast and BAB 22, so not pre epic and for a pure warlock quite well into epic)


EDIT: also thinking about letting you use it again on the second blast from the epic feat Eldritch Sculptor (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20061027a). So you'd use the following as attacks (as a full attack action):

First eldritch blast (standard)
Second eldritch blast (focused blaster (based on 1st blast) with normal concentration DC)
Third eldritch blast (from the epic feat)
Foruth eldritch blast (focused blaster (based on 3rd blast) with +20 DC)

or something like that.

[Loek]

Theme 3: Elemental blasts
Ment to fill in the blanks in the elemental (and dragon related) types available to warlocks (pre greater invocations).

Hellrime and brimstone blast already provide the fire and cold damage and at higher levels you have vitriolic blast for acid.

So, we were missing electricity, a low-level acid and thematic links to air/water/earth (besides the links to the damage types: electricity/cold/acid)


Gusting blast
Least, 2nd, Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into a gusting blast.
Any creature struck by a gusting blast suffers the effect of a strong wind (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Weather#Winds) originating from you for single round, in addition to the normal damage from the blast.
This affects a single 5ft square (if the target is larger, it affects the square closest to the caster).

Special: A gusting blast fired by a warlock with a caster level of at least 10, has the effect of "severe wind" instead and affects a 10ft square around the struck target.

A gusting blast fired by a warlock with a caster level of at least 20, has the effect of "a windstorm" instead and it affects a 15ft square around the struck target.

Special:A gusting blast fired in combination with a blast essence that affects an area is resolved a little differently. The entire area of effect suffers the effect of the wind, regardless of whether they are struck by the actual eldritch blast.



Earthbound blast
Leser, 3rd, Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into an earthbound blast.
Any creature struck by an earthbound blast sinks slightly into the ground (reflex save to avoid - struck creatures that aren't touching the earth also suffer no additional effects), in addition to the normal damage from the blast.
While so sunken, they suffer a –1 penalty on attack rolls and AC and are unable to move.
To free themselves from the earths grasp, they must do one of the following:

Succeed on a DC 10 escape artist check - as an immediate action.
Succeed on a DC 10 strength check - as a move action.
Or take a full round action to free themselves without a check.
All but the immediate action will provoke an attack of opportunity.

Special: When targeted not against creatures, but against natural, uncut or unworked rock of any sort; it functions in a way similar to the spell transmute rock to mud (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Transmute_Rock_to_Mud), but only affecting a single 5ft cube per blast.



Thundering blast
Lesser, 4th, Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into a thundering blast.
A thundering blast does electricity damage.
Any creature struck by a thundering blast is deafened for 1d6 rounds (fortitude save for half) and those within 5ft are deafened for 1 round (fortitude negates).
Any exposed brittle or crystalline object within this area suffer 1d6 points of sonic damage (a creature holding fragile objects can negate damage to them with a successful Reflex save).



Melting blast
Least, 2nd, Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into a melting blast.
A melting blast does acid damage.
The blast deals normal damage to objects, rather than half.
Note: The melting blast replaces the hammer blast [complete mage] (or at least serves much the same purpose)



Desiccating blast
Lesser, 4th, Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into a desiccating blast.
A desiccating blast does dessication damage.
Any creature struck by a dessication must succeed on a fortitude save or become dehydrated.
A desiccating blast does 50% extra damage to plants and elementals of the water sub type.
A desiccating blast does 50% less damage against elementals of the earth and fire sub type.



Hydrating blast
Greater, 5th, Eldritch essence
You transform your eldritch blast into a hydrating blast.
A hydrating blast can be used in both offensive and utilitarian ways.

When used offensively, a hydrating blast does damage like a normal eldritch blast.
A hydrating blast does 50% extra damage against elementals of the fire sub type.
A hydrating blast does 50% less damage against elementals of the water and air sub type.
It also fills the lungs of the target with water (reflex negates).
A creature with its lungs full of water is considered to be drowning (assuming it needs to breath and can't breath water).
It takes a full round action for a creature to cough up the water from its lungs (which provokes attacks of opportunity).

When used for utilitarian purposes, a hydrating blast creates up to 5 gallons of water (similar to the create water (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Create_Water) spell).



As per always, any kind of feedback is appreciated.

[Loek]

Eldritch spray
Prerequisite: Ability to use dark invocations, Concentration 15 ranks, 3 eldritch essence invocations

Benefit: You gain the "Eldritch spray" invocation as a bonus invocation.

Normal: The eldritch spray invocation can not be learned through normal methods (including taking levels in the warlock class and/or feats that grant additional invocations).


Eldritch spray
Dark, 7th, Eldritch blast shape essence

Range: 60 ft.
Area: Cone-shaped burst

This invocation causes seven shimmering, intertwined beams of eldritch power to spray from your hand. Each beam has a different power. Creatures in the area of the invocation with 8 HD or less are automatically blinded for 2d4 rounds. Every creature in the area is randomly struck by one or more beams, which have additional effects. Roll a d8 for each creature to determine which beam strikes it.


1d8 Effect
1 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Frightful Blast" essence (using d4's for the damage)
2 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Sickening Blast" essence
3 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Brimstone Blast" or "Hellrime Blast" essence (your choice)
4 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Eldritch chain" blast shape (and no eldritch essence)
5 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Vitriolic Blast" essence
6 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Bewitching blast" essence (using d8's for the damage)
7 Struck by an eldritch blast with the "Eldritch doom" blast shape, centered on the target (you can apply an essence to this blast)
8 Struck twice, roll again (using a d6). Re-roll incase of doubles.

You don't have to possess the eldritch essence or blast shape in question to achieve the effect. However, in the case of a 7, where you get to apply an eldritch essence of choice, you can only apply essences that you know. This essence should be applied before rolling the d8 to determine who gets hit by what beam (and is the same for all of them).



I really like the idea of having a "prismatic spray" like eldritch blast. However, when I was thinking about it, I figured it might be a bit too much for a "normal" dark invocation. So I made it into a feat based invocation instead.

The weird type "Eldritch blast shape essence" is because it somewhat fullfils both purposes and should count as both when meeting requirements.