Making a Warlock.

[Plaguemask]

I'm making a Warlock, he starts at level 3 and he's built to fight at range since our group more or less lacks it, he's Chaotic Evil, Human, has one flaw (Curious) and I've picked the Mortalbane and Ability Focus - Eldritch Blast.
So I've two feats that I need to pick, pretty much all material is welcome, plans are to dip Binder before going Hellfire Warlock.
I'm using a Mithral Buckler and Mithral Shirt, no melee weapons. Current stat-spread is: http://i.imgur.com/waPUH0N.png
17 total AC, 19 health.
I have Baleful Utterance and Eldritch Spear as my Least invocations.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Sounds like you have the basics down, at least. Are there any other party roles you want to fill? For example, if your party needs a MagicMart, you can take Chameleon2 for the floating feat, combined with the Warlock12 class ability and pretty much make any item your party needs. Or, if your party needs an early warning system, you can pick up the Charm invocation, then pick up a one-level dip in Mindbender, then take Mindsight for what is mostly invulnerability to surprise (barring port-n-pwn and other such techniques).

Warlocks aren't really amazing at ranged blasting, despite it supposedly being their shtick. They've got quite an impressive bag of tricks to play with, though, so their use tends to be more utility than damage. Some other ideas I'd offer for you:

What is better than blasting? Blasting with a Save or Lose conditional attached. If you are going to be focusing on blasting, you will want an Invocation that adds a Save or Lose effect to each of the three saving throws. Pair this with either Chain Blast, Eldritch Cone, or other ways of applying to multiple targets for additional lulz and fill the party role of battlefield control quite handily, if less so than a pure caster might.

Legacy Champion. If your GM lets you stack levels of HFW past what the class would normally offer.

A Wand of Lesser Restoration would be a good idea, just in case you start out-pacing Naberous. If you know an Artificer, you might be able to get an item that triggers Lesser Restoration upon using Hellfire Blast.

The feat Quicken Spell-Like Ability can give you two blasts in a turn, up to three times a day. Pretty handy.

[malonkey1]

I should add that caster level effects a Warlock's Blass damage (+1d6 per odd CL), so try to get some reliable CL boosters. If your DM will allow you, there's Dark Speech (which you can absorb thanks to that binder dip later for what I assume to be the ability to bind Naberius), which technically applies to spells and magic itme crafting, but again, your DM may be persuaded, as it fits the Warlock thematically (Baleful Utterance is even described as a few words of Dark Speech!)

[Phelix-Mu]

I should add that caster level effects a Warlock's Blass damage (+1d6 per odd CL), so try to get some reliable CL boosters.

I don't see language that reflects this, unless it was errata'd. The table of progression is inconsistent in when the boosts to EB drop, for what seems like no good reason at all. The text in the original book also lacks any mention of it being at all odd levels, so I don't think it's an error in the table.

Frankly, I just houserule it to be like Sneak Attack progression, which makes some sense, and ignore the book on this one, since it's moronic. But the RAW seems to be to follow the table.

[malonkey1]

I don't see language that reflects this, unless it was errata'd. The table of progression is inconsistent in when the boosts to EB drop, for what seems like no good reason at all. The text in the original book also lacks any mention of it being at all odd levels, so I don't think it's an error in the table.

Frankly, I just houserule it to be like Sneak Attack progression, which makes some sense, and ignore the book on this one, since it's moronic. But the RAW seems to be to follow the table.

Well, it wasn't Errata'd by Wizards that I can tell, but it was stated in the FAQ by the class's creator that Practiced Spellcaster could plausibly be applied to EB, and one could argue that other CL boosters would also be valid as well.

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, it wasn't Errata'd by Wizards that I can tell, but it was stated in the FAQ by the class's creator that Practiced Spellcaster could plausibly be applied to EB, and one could argue that other CL boosters would also be valid as well.

Which seems fair game to me, as long as one uses the table in Complete Arcane, and not any formula for when the EB improvements drop (because it doesn't follow a formula).

I'd personally allow Practiced Spellcaster, but it explicitly caps the improvement at CL=HD. Other CL boosters don't have that caveat, and so are more potent, especially on a full warlock (for the rare player that actually plays vanilla warlock). But certainly not unbalanced in the big picture, as it's just more blasty-blasty.

[Soranar]

Humm, for a chaotic evil character, I have an old build that would work for you

The freak

Human (1 bonus feat)
Worship an elder evil (5 bonus feats that can be vile feats)


Level 1 Aberration Blood, Willing deformity (bonus feat), willing deformity: tall (gain reach +5ft)
Level 2
Level 3 inhuman reach (another +5 ft reach)


Combine this with eldritch glaive (which acts as a reach weapon and doubles your reach) and now you threaten 10-30 ft away. You look like a freak though so it's hard to roleplay without heavy robes to hide your form and such.

it works very well for a warlock, you can even use the feat mage slayer with very little repercussion (your spells don't really use caster level)

[malonkey1]

Which seems fair game to me, as long as one uses the table in Complete Arcane, and not any formula for when the EB improvements drop (because it doesn't follow a formula).

I'd personally allow Practiced Spellcaster, but it explicitly caps the improvement at CL=HD. Other CL boosters don't have that caveat, and so are more potent, especially on a full warlock (for the rare player that actually plays vanilla warlock). But certainly not unbalanced in the big picture, as it's just more blasty-blasty.

I agree. It's a rather loose reading. One of my favorite characters was a Warlock/Wild Mage that used Practiced Spellcaster to get around the CL penalty and basically get a free +1d6 CL. He was a fun "archer" for our game.

[Plaguemask]

Sounds like you have the basics down, at least. Are there any other party roles you want to fill? For example, if your party needs a MagicMart, you can take Chameleon2 for the floating feat, combined with the Warlock12 class ability and pretty much make any item your party needs. Or, if your party needs an early warning system, you can pick up the Charm invocation, then pick up a one-level dip in Mindbender, then take Mindsight for what is mostly invulnerability to surprise (barring port-n-pwn and other such techniques).

Warlocks aren't really amazing at ranged blasting, despite it supposedly being their shtick. They've got quite an impressive bag of tricks to play with, though, so their use tends to be more utility than damage. Some other ideas I'd offer for you:

What is better than blasting? Blasting with a Save or Lose conditional attached. If you are going to be focusing on blasting, you will want an Invocation that adds a Save or Lose effect to each of the three saving throws. Pair this with either Chain Blast, Eldritch Cone, or other ways of applying to multiple targets for additional lulz and fill the party role of battlefield control quite handily, if less so than a pure caster might.

Legacy Champion. If your GM lets you stack levels of HFW past what the class would normally offer.

A Wand of Lesser Restoration would be a good idea, just in case you start out-pacing Naberous. If you know an Artificer, you might be able to get an item that triggers Lesser Restoration upon using Hellfire Blast.

The feat Quicken Spell-Like Ability can give you two blasts in a turn, up to three times a day. Pretty handy.
Now my plans look something like this:
Keep progressing Warlock.
Take Chameleon at level 5, progress for two levels.
Keep progressing: Bluff and Disguise until there's 8 ranks in both.
Keep progressing Knowledge (The Planes) whenever possible.
Get Intimidate to 6 ranks before level 10.
Remember that you get 6 Skillpoints per level.
After finishing Chamelon, keep progressing Warlock (Don't forget Brimstone Blast before reaching level 10.)
At level 9, dip Binder for one level. Bind Naberius.
Take Hellfire Warlock once I reach level 10.
Keep progressing Hellfire Warlock through Uncanny Trickster or Legacy Champion.

[Ellowryn]

Now my plans look something like this:
Keep progressing Warlock.
Take Chameleon at level 5, progress for two levels.
Keep progressing: Bluff and Disguise until there's 8 ranks in both.
Keep progressing Knowledge (The Planes) whenever possible.
Get Intimidate to 6 ranks before level 10.
Remember that you get 6 Skillpoints per level.
After finishing Chamelon, keep progressing Warlock (Don't forget Brimstone Blast before reaching level 10.)
At level 9, dip Binder for one level. Bind Naberius.
Take Hellfire Warlock once I reach level 10.
Keep progressing Hellfire Warlock through Uncanny Trickster or Legacy Champion.

if you keep progressing hellfire warlock you will not get the level 12 warlock ability. Now 2 levels of chameleon is good as the floating feat is nice but without that 12 level ability you can't really craft anything.

[Segev]

If you want both omnicrafting and hellfire, I'd go with Warlock 12/Chameleon 2/Binder 1/Hellfire Warlock 3/Bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm) 2. An intermediate bloodline gets you 2 bloodline levels, and they auto-advance your Warlock CL, your HF Warlock blast, and even your Binder level for anything that runs off of that. If your DM takes a particular reading of Bloodline levels, you can even add 2 more levels of something else (like Uncanny Trickster) if you like.

[Troacctid]

I would not take Chameleon that early. Warlock 5 is not a break point. Delaying lesser invocations is bad. The floating bonus feat doesn't do anything worthwhile until ECL 14, and that's only if you're a straight Warlock 12. You should be capping off the build with Chameleon at the end, once you already have most of the invocations you want.