Submortimer
2015-06-26, 11:52 PM
Warlock Patron: The Enhanced
http://img08.deviantart.net/9159/i/2012/184/9/f/the_avengers___iron_man_by_thedurrrrian-d55tn2d.jpg
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."
- Opening Narration, The Six-Million-Dollar man
"Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of Scraps!"
"Well...I'm not Tony Stark"
- Obadiah Stane and Prof. Riva, Iron Man
"What are your Prime Directives?"
"Serve theP Public Trust, Protect the Innocent, Uphold the law."
- Bob Morton to Murphy, Robocop
The path to power often lies across a mire of hardship and strife. For many, that can mean years of hard study and practice; for some, it can mean deals with people or entities that man was not meant to deal with. For a small few, though, their power is thrust upon them, often against thier own wishes. It is from this small group of individuals that the Enhanced pull thair ranks.
The Enhanced are warlocks with a peculiar patron, that of one of the whirring, clicking entities of Mechanus. In most cases, an enhanced is a righteous, law-abiding individual who suffer's some form of ignominious or horrifc near death; the servants of Mechanus collect the poor soul, craft him a new, powerful body, and bestow upon him great power. Rarely, they will offer a sprig of divine inspiration to one who has lost all hope, and that inspiration allows the chosen one to craft the means to change his life.
Whatever the case may be, the Enhanced are uniformly Odd and alien when viewed by common folk, seeming to share much more in common with golems than man.
Enhanced Warlock Bonus Spell list
Warlock Level
Spells
1st
Shield, Magic Missile
3rd
Enhance Ability, Scorching Ray
5th
Haste, Lightning Bolt
7th
Fabricate, Locate Creature
9th
Destruction Wave, Wall of Force
Armor Plating
- at 1st level, you gain the ability to summon a suit of armor. As a Bonus action, this armor appears on your person, fitted and ready to go. You are proficient with this armor, it has no strength requirement, and you suffer no drawbacks from sleeping in this armor. It always appears as a full-body suit of heavy, fully-sealed plate armor made of some alien material, but it's ability to protect you grows as your warlock level grows.
- At 1st level, It has a 14 AC and a +2 maximum dex bonus, and counts as medium armor.
- At 5th level, It Grants either a 16 AC and counts as heavy armor, or grants a 15 AC and a +2 maximum dex bonus, and counts as medium armor
- at 9th level, it grants 18 AC and counts as heavy armor.
you may dismiss your armor as a bonus action. You may summon a lower version of your armor, should you so choose, whenever you summon your armor. Should you fobtain suit of magical armor, you may integrate it's abilities into your armor plating; doing so requires a ritual that requires 8 hours, after which your armor plating gains the magical enchantment. You may only integrate one magical suit of armor at a time, and you must still attune to it, if required.
Probability Matrix
- At 6th level, your mental capacity recives a profound upgrde. Following a short or long rest, select either Int or Wis skills: you add half your proficiency bonus to all skills of that type that you are not proficient in until you take a short or long rest.
- Additionally, you benefactors offer you the chance to augment your inteliigence at the cost of your emotions. Upon reaching 6th level, you may swap your INT score and your CHA score; this process takes 24 hours, and is permanent. should you choose this, your pact magic, invocations, and all other warlock features that utilize charisma now instead use intelligence. Your Racial stat bonuses do not change, and are unaffected by this swap.
Ablative Coating
- At 10th level, your armor begins to generate a field of ablative energy. Following a short or long rest, select two of Radiant, Lightning, or Force damage. While you are wearing your armor plating, your gain resistance to the chosen damage type until you use this ability again.
Omni-Cannon
- At 14th level, you unlock the full power of your enhanced frame. As an action, you may fire a huge blast of energy in a 10ft x 120ft line. All creatures in this line must make Dexterity saves: Failure means they take 5d10 Radiant and 5d10 force damage, while success means they take half that. After using this ability, you must take a short or long rest before you can do so again.
Pact Boon: Pact of the Arm
- You gain a special spell focus that fuses to your one of or both of your arms: A magical gauntlet, a pair of palm-mounted focusing crystals, an arm-mounted crossbow, whatever it may be. Whichever form it takes, it's function is to focus your spell attacks, granting them additional power. Any time you make a ranged spell attack, it gains a +2 to attack roll. Your Arm focus does not inhibit your normal use of that hand or arm, but that hand must be free in order to use your focus. Additionally, you gain one cantrip that uses a ranged spell attack from any class list.
New Invocations
Energetic Blast (level 7, Pact of the Arm)
- You may focus powerful elemental energies through your Arm Focus, charging your eldritch blast. When you cast eldritch blast, you may choose for it to deal Radiant, Lightning, Fire, or Force damage.
Focused Blast (Level 9, Pact of the Arm)
You can divert additional energy into your Arm when you focus your Eldritch Blast on a single opponent. When you cast Eldritch Blast, If all of your beams target a single opponent, you may use your bonus action to shoot one additional beam. You cannot move in the same turn you use this ability.
Spell Copy (level 12, Pact of the Arm)
- You may channel spell energy directly into your focus, giving you new weapons to bring against your foes. You may learn new spells af if you had a spellbook, with one requirement: the spell learned must either require a spell attack roll, or give you the ability to make spell attack rolls. (Flame blade or Melf's Minute Meteor's is an acceptable choice, Fireball is not).
So, it's fairly obvious where the inspiration for this comes from: Robocop, Mega Man, Iron Man...heck, Astro boy...any fiction that involves heroes using technology to bring someone back from the dead, Cover themselves in a suit of armor, and shoot lasers out of their hands...or at least two of the three. It requires some re-fluffing of the Warlock's spells and abilities, but playing them up as devices and cybernetic enhancements isn't exactly too hard (fly = rocket boots, Shocking grasp = taser, Dimension door = portal gun...you get the idea).
Of course, in the right setting, this lends itself to still being a purely magical class: a warforged would be a definite fit for both the theme as as a warlock in general. The pact Boon, while designed to mimic Mega Man's Mega Buster or Iron Man's Repulsor Gauntlets, can just as easily be a purely magical device: think Ezreal from League of Legends as an example.
I'm aware the 6th level ability is...problematic. There are class abilities that specifically change your stats outside of ASI's (i;m looking at you, Barbarian capstone), but nothing that does this. In practice, I don't see how, the way I've written it, it could be abused, but I'm sure I'm missing something. I really wanted to give this ability to this particular class, but to just give the "use Int instead of Cha for warlock stuff" at level 6 would be needlessly painful for any Enhanced pact warlock that built for that.
http://img08.deviantart.net/9159/i/2012/184/9/f/the_avengers___iron_man_by_thedurrrrian-d55tn2d.jpg
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."
- Opening Narration, The Six-Million-Dollar man
"Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of Scraps!"
"Well...I'm not Tony Stark"
- Obadiah Stane and Prof. Riva, Iron Man
"What are your Prime Directives?"
"Serve theP Public Trust, Protect the Innocent, Uphold the law."
- Bob Morton to Murphy, Robocop
The path to power often lies across a mire of hardship and strife. For many, that can mean years of hard study and practice; for some, it can mean deals with people or entities that man was not meant to deal with. For a small few, though, their power is thrust upon them, often against thier own wishes. It is from this small group of individuals that the Enhanced pull thair ranks.
The Enhanced are warlocks with a peculiar patron, that of one of the whirring, clicking entities of Mechanus. In most cases, an enhanced is a righteous, law-abiding individual who suffer's some form of ignominious or horrifc near death; the servants of Mechanus collect the poor soul, craft him a new, powerful body, and bestow upon him great power. Rarely, they will offer a sprig of divine inspiration to one who has lost all hope, and that inspiration allows the chosen one to craft the means to change his life.
Whatever the case may be, the Enhanced are uniformly Odd and alien when viewed by common folk, seeming to share much more in common with golems than man.
Enhanced Warlock Bonus Spell list
Warlock Level
Spells
1st
Shield, Magic Missile
3rd
Enhance Ability, Scorching Ray
5th
Haste, Lightning Bolt
7th
Fabricate, Locate Creature
9th
Destruction Wave, Wall of Force
Armor Plating
- at 1st level, you gain the ability to summon a suit of armor. As a Bonus action, this armor appears on your person, fitted and ready to go. You are proficient with this armor, it has no strength requirement, and you suffer no drawbacks from sleeping in this armor. It always appears as a full-body suit of heavy, fully-sealed plate armor made of some alien material, but it's ability to protect you grows as your warlock level grows.
- At 1st level, It has a 14 AC and a +2 maximum dex bonus, and counts as medium armor.
- At 5th level, It Grants either a 16 AC and counts as heavy armor, or grants a 15 AC and a +2 maximum dex bonus, and counts as medium armor
- at 9th level, it grants 18 AC and counts as heavy armor.
you may dismiss your armor as a bonus action. You may summon a lower version of your armor, should you so choose, whenever you summon your armor. Should you fobtain suit of magical armor, you may integrate it's abilities into your armor plating; doing so requires a ritual that requires 8 hours, after which your armor plating gains the magical enchantment. You may only integrate one magical suit of armor at a time, and you must still attune to it, if required.
Probability Matrix
- At 6th level, your mental capacity recives a profound upgrde. Following a short or long rest, select either Int or Wis skills: you add half your proficiency bonus to all skills of that type that you are not proficient in until you take a short or long rest.
- Additionally, you benefactors offer you the chance to augment your inteliigence at the cost of your emotions. Upon reaching 6th level, you may swap your INT score and your CHA score; this process takes 24 hours, and is permanent. should you choose this, your pact magic, invocations, and all other warlock features that utilize charisma now instead use intelligence. Your Racial stat bonuses do not change, and are unaffected by this swap.
Ablative Coating
- At 10th level, your armor begins to generate a field of ablative energy. Following a short or long rest, select two of Radiant, Lightning, or Force damage. While you are wearing your armor plating, your gain resistance to the chosen damage type until you use this ability again.
Omni-Cannon
- At 14th level, you unlock the full power of your enhanced frame. As an action, you may fire a huge blast of energy in a 10ft x 120ft line. All creatures in this line must make Dexterity saves: Failure means they take 5d10 Radiant and 5d10 force damage, while success means they take half that. After using this ability, you must take a short or long rest before you can do so again.
Pact Boon: Pact of the Arm
- You gain a special spell focus that fuses to your one of or both of your arms: A magical gauntlet, a pair of palm-mounted focusing crystals, an arm-mounted crossbow, whatever it may be. Whichever form it takes, it's function is to focus your spell attacks, granting them additional power. Any time you make a ranged spell attack, it gains a +2 to attack roll. Your Arm focus does not inhibit your normal use of that hand or arm, but that hand must be free in order to use your focus. Additionally, you gain one cantrip that uses a ranged spell attack from any class list.
New Invocations
Energetic Blast (level 7, Pact of the Arm)
- You may focus powerful elemental energies through your Arm Focus, charging your eldritch blast. When you cast eldritch blast, you may choose for it to deal Radiant, Lightning, Fire, or Force damage.
Focused Blast (Level 9, Pact of the Arm)
You can divert additional energy into your Arm when you focus your Eldritch Blast on a single opponent. When you cast Eldritch Blast, If all of your beams target a single opponent, you may use your bonus action to shoot one additional beam. You cannot move in the same turn you use this ability.
Spell Copy (level 12, Pact of the Arm)
- You may channel spell energy directly into your focus, giving you new weapons to bring against your foes. You may learn new spells af if you had a spellbook, with one requirement: the spell learned must either require a spell attack roll, or give you the ability to make spell attack rolls. (Flame blade or Melf's Minute Meteor's is an acceptable choice, Fireball is not).
So, it's fairly obvious where the inspiration for this comes from: Robocop, Mega Man, Iron Man...heck, Astro boy...any fiction that involves heroes using technology to bring someone back from the dead, Cover themselves in a suit of armor, and shoot lasers out of their hands...or at least two of the three. It requires some re-fluffing of the Warlock's spells and abilities, but playing them up as devices and cybernetic enhancements isn't exactly too hard (fly = rocket boots, Shocking grasp = taser, Dimension door = portal gun...you get the idea).
Of course, in the right setting, this lends itself to still being a purely magical class: a warforged would be a definite fit for both the theme as as a warlock in general. The pact Boon, while designed to mimic Mega Man's Mega Buster or Iron Man's Repulsor Gauntlets, can just as easily be a purely magical device: think Ezreal from League of Legends as an example.
I'm aware the 6th level ability is...problematic. There are class abilities that specifically change your stats outside of ASI's (i;m looking at you, Barbarian capstone), but nothing that does this. In practice, I don't see how, the way I've written it, it could be abused, but I'm sure I'm missing something. I really wanted to give this ability to this particular class, but to just give the "use Int instead of Cha for warlock stuff" at level 6 would be needlessly painful for any Enhanced pact warlock that built for that.