If you had invocations IRL, which ones would you want?

[Troacctid]

Let's say you can pick one least, one lesser, one greater, and one dark invocation to have at will in real life, with access to both the warlock and dragonfire adept lists. Which ones would you choose?

For me:
Least: Tough call. All-Seeing Eyes, Serpent's Tongue, Beguiling Influence, Call of the Beast, and Draconic Knowledge are all pretty nice. I'd probably go with Beguiling Influence, since Super Social Skills seems like a pretty good superpower to have in real life.
Lesser: Gotta be Curse of Despair, right? There's so much you can do with custom curses.
Greater: I think Hellspawned Grace is actually pretty appealing. Telepathy, scent, invisibility, mobility, and resilience against injury seems like a nice package all-around.
Dark: You know, weird as it sounds, Caster's Lament may actually be my pick here. It doesn't do anything on its own, but it would do a lot to boost Curse of Despair by making all curses easily reversible. That way, it's safe to experiment and have fun without worrying about accidentally causing permanent consequences.

[Honest Tiefling]

Least: Yeah, Beguiling Influence is NOT going to be enough for me to actually use skills I probably have a penalty to. All-Seeing Eyes seems kinda helpful, actually. At the very least it'll make ordering food a little easier. AND I can find my keys.
Lesser: Fell Flight. Screw you airlines and stealing my stuff.
Greater: Chilling Tentacles. GET OUT OF MY DAMN YARD DEER.
Dark: Going to be lame and pick Dark Foresight. Telepathy is nice, and I really rather not turn into a hellish abomination to do so.

[NecroDancer]

Least: beguiling Influence, who doesn't want to be more charismatic?

Lessor: fell flight, because flying is Awsome

Greater: chilling tentacles, for self defense

Dark: I'm split between retributive invisiblity and dark foresight.

[Starbuck_II]

Least: Endure Exposure (I get heatsick easily due to not sweating much)
Lesser: Fell Flight (flying is cool)
Greater: Draconic Toughness (Temp hps are decent).
Dark: Retributive Invisibility (Greater Invisibility!)

[AmberVael]

Least: Draconic Knowledge. The bonus to knowledge skills is good, and the ability to effectively be trained at least a little in every knowledge skill is amazing. I'm sure I could find a lot of ways to put that to use.
Lesser: Humanoid Shape. Assuming it has the range of options it does in game, you can get flight and way more from it. Even if you can only be a human, changing shape is still pretty sweet.
Greater: Devil's Whispers. This one has nasty potential, but honestly it'd be great to get myself to do things I know I should do, even putting aside what it might do to anyone else.
Dark: Path of Shadow. The ability to enter a realm that no one else can enter, use it to travel more quickly and heal from any wounds I might take? It basically makes you as fast as a car, you can travel through objects with it (not precisely, but you could escape from a lot of situations with that), and the healing thing could be very handy.

[Vizzerdrix]

Least- baleful utterance. Yup. Break all of the things.

Lesser- Spider shape. Maybe the ability to turn into a spider would get me over my fear of them. Or I could make bank selling my silk.

Greater- Chilling Tentacles. But only so long as I can teach them to drab me a drink from the fridge.

Dark- word of changing. I like the idea of turning people into tiny animals.

[Inevitability]

Not too knowledgable about invocations to pick some myself, but I have to say I'm kind of surprised/worried half the posters so far want Chilling Tentacles.

[Vizzerdrix]

Not too knowledgable about invocations to pick some myself, but I have to say I'm kind of surprised/worried half the posters so far want Chilling Tentacles.

Check the warlock handbook. I think it lists all if them.

Well its the one with the most potential for personal fun!

[TotallyNotEvil]

Least: So many good ones here. Beguilling Influence is the big draw, but as there are many other social invocations, I'm going with Draconic Knowledge. Having the equivalent of a Bachelor degree in literally every single thing is way too good to pass up. Runner ups are Swimming in the Styx and Spiderwalk. Who never wanted to breath underwater? And walking on walls sounds like a whole lot of fun.

Lesser: This one might be even better than the Least invocations. Fell Flight, Flee the Scene, Walk Unseen. Flight, teleportation, invisibility. You don't get more staple than that. Curse of Despair is, as mentioned, very interesting with Caster's Lament, but given the rather lackluster choice of Dark invocations, it's either Fell Flight here and Retributive Invisibility there or Walk Unseen here and Greater Draconic Flight there.

Greater: Devil's Whispers, no question. Can carry the Social side on its own.

Dark: Retributive Invisibility if I take Fell Flight, Greater Draconic Flight if I take Walk Unseen.

@edit: Humanoids Shape throws a wrench into the works.

[Extra Anchovies]

For my Least invocation, I think I'd pick up Spiderwalk. Being able to ascend and descend vertical surfaces would be pretty darn convenient for taking shortcuts and for accessing otherwise out-of-reach objects and spaces.

See the Unseen and Devil's Sight could each be quite useful, but AFAIK neither one can be shut off before their duration expires, and sometimes darkness can be very nice. Also, "see normally in natural darkness" is poorly defined - if "in darkness" means when light isn't entering my eyes and "see normally" means see as if objects in my field of vision were illuminated, does closing my eyes give me a view of the insides of my eyelids? That'd be pretty gross, and make it hard to sleep :smallyuk:

My choice of Lesser invocation would definitely be Cold Comfort. I hate getting hot and sweaty and sunburned when I need to go outside in warm weather, so I'd jump at a chance to never have that problem again. Being able to share it with friends is really nice, too.

Fell Flight seems a popular choice, but I'll actually be giving it a pass. If I have a means of getting around without physical exertion, I'd definitely do a lot less walking, which is currently how I get much of my exercise.

The Dead Walk is also tempting, because skeleton helpers would be neat, but 1 GP (as 1/50 lb of gold) costs $389, so getting enough onyx for permanency would be out of the question.

There aren't really any appealing choices for Greater invocations. Chilling Tentacles seems fun but I don't want anything that I could accidentally kill somebody with. Same goes for Hellspawned Grace. Warlock's Call would be incredibly useful for sending messages that I need to make sure are heard - unlike a text message, Sending can't be ignored. But the self-damage element cuts it out of the running entirely.

Instead, I'll fill the Greater slot with another Lesser invocation: Witchwood Step. Not having to worry about water, snow, ice, sand, or other difficult-to-walk-on surfaces would be great on its own, but the ability to tromp through undergrowth and rubble unhindered would let me forgo existing paths in favor of more direct routes. It also prevents me from entering a body of water unless I choose to (Water Walk is dismissible), so I don't have to worry about drowning.

My Dark invocation, I think, would be Path of Shadow. Quick, free travel with a high capacity for companions would be pretty great. Traveling along the edge of the Material Plane would let me get anywhere in my city in maybe twenty minutes' walk at most. The random ending location is definitely an issue, but it never deals damage (just has a very small chance of making me tired), and the existence of grid streets means I can set the target location at the sidewalk at an intersection to guarantee that half of the possible directions will always spit me out into unoccupied space. If I end up getting shunted more than a mile or so, I can just shadow walk again, but landing a few hundred feet off means I still get a good amount of walking done.

[Waker]

Least- Swimming the Styx would be my choice. Really quick swim speed + ability to breathe underwater is great. Call of the Wild was really close for my 2nd choice though, wild empathy and always on speak with animals could be fun.
Lesser- Fell Flight. I know, a lot of people have already said it, but at-will flying is just too good to pass up. Flee the Scene, Voidsense and Walk Unseen get honorable mentions.
Greater- Not a terribly great array of invocations to choose from. Devil's Whispers is my pick.
Dark- Path of Shadows is really fun, but I think overall I would go with Word of Changing.

Its funny how the lower level invocations have the ones that I'm kinda torn on, while the upper tiers are kinda meh for appeal.

[Troacctid]

Surprised that people are going for Fell Flight when Draconic Flight is strictly better.

Nobody else seems interested in Curse of Despair. Let me make the case for it because I think it's actually really good.

First off, changing race is considered a curse (www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm). So you can turn yourself into an avoral and there's your flight right there.

Second, curses often have conditions that will end or even toggle them. You're transformed into a frog until you're kissed by a princess. You're transformed into a beast unless you find true love before the last petal falls. Cold water turns you into a girl, hot water turns you back. You're transformed into a swan, but you return to human form as long as moonlight touches the lake. Etc. Since you're the one giving out the curses, you get to pick the terms.

[Waker]

Surprised that people are going for Fell Flight when Draconic Flight is strictly better.

Nobody else seems interested in Curse of Despair. Let me make the case for it because I think it's actually really good.

First off, changing race is considered a curse (www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm). So you can turn yourself into an avoral and there's your flight right there.

Second, curses often have conditions that will end or even toggle them. You're transformed into a frog until you're kissed by a princess. You're transformed into a beast unless you find true love before the last petal falls. Cold water turns you into a girl, hot water turns you back. You're transformed into a swan, but you return to human form as long as moonlight touches the lake. Etc. Since you're the one giving out the curses, you get to pick the terms.
At least for me, the choice of Fell Flight is more about aesthetics. Spectral Dragon Wings might be cool and all, but I'd prefer something low key.

As for Curse of Despair, it's a bit too open-ended since Curses aren't a really well-defined thing as far as the limits go. Your own arguments for why it's great make it less appealing in my eyes. I mean, it's supposed to be a freakin' curse, bad stuff only. That being said, if there was Polymorph Self or some kind of Wild Shape invocation, I'd be all over that. The only ones they do have like Hellspawned Grace or Mask of Flesh wouldn't give me the versatility that I want.

[Troacctid]

There are plenty of examples in culture and folklore of curses that the cursed person is able to benefit from. And it's explicitly possible in the rules for a curse to mix bad with good. It should be possible for a good witch to give people "good" curses, even within the RAW range of what is considered a curse, by simply putting the emphasis on the good part.

[Gruftzwerg]

build1:
(Scalding Gust) my power lvl is over 9000, try to stand in front of me xD
(Fell Flight) for obvious reasons^^
(Terrifying Roar) feel my powerful voice
(Retributive Invisibility) now i can dodge light-rays

build2:
(Devils Insight) vision in (magical) darkness is nice
(Hungry Darkness) we are getting warm
(Nightmares made real) now we are getting to the funny part
(Dark Discorporation) now I feel like "Itachi Uchiha" xD

[Beheld]

There are plenty of examples in culture and folklore of curses that the cursed person is able to benefit from. And it's explicitly possible in the rules for a curse to mix bad with good. It should be possible for a good witch to give people "good" curses, even within the RAW range of what is considered a curse, by simply putting the emphasis on the good part.

You and I must have very different definitions of what "explicitly" means.

[Troacctid]

You and I must have very different definitions of what "explicitly" means.
Here's the line. You can tell me if I'm off base, I guess.

Sometimes they’re directly bad for [the subject]; sometimes they’re just inconvenient. Occasionally they mix bad with good, forcing characters to make difficult choices.

[Beheld]

Here's the line. You can tell me if I'm off base, I guess.

Here is the line:

"Bestow Curse is only ever negative and Troacctid is definitely wrong."

Sure my line may not be in the spell description, but neither is yours. Unless the Warlock ability allows you to create Cursed Items, in which case I totally agree that you can use it to create weapons that give bonuses to attack and damage and can't be removed without the remove curse spell.

[KillianHawkeye]

1. Call of the Beast, because talking to animals would be awesome.
2. Walk Unseen, because sometimes I just want everyone to leave me alone.
3. Painful Slumber of Ages, because at least it's not tentacles, right?
4. Dark Discorporation, because if I'm going to start turning into a villain, I might as well turn into a swarm of bats and make people think I'm Dracula!

[Milo v3]

Hmm...

Least - Spiderwalk - Love climbing stuff
Lesser - Crawling Eye - Favourite invocation and would be so creepy
Greater - Enervating Shadow - Darkness = Good
Dark - Path of Shadow = Darkness + Super Speed = Perfect

[phlidwsn]

Least--Cold Comfort. Never pay heating or a/c bills again.

Lesser--Fell Flight. A close call between this and Walk Unseen, but in the end its way too easy to get run over while inivs.

Greater--Devil's Whispers. At-will Suggestion that the target thinks is their own idea? Time to start cleaning up politics. Besides, what could possibly go wrong with assuming I know best about everything? (I may have to reconsider Walk Unseen now, the synergy is tempting)

Dark--Path of Shadows. No contest. Healing, escape route, fast overland travel, and perfect place to hide the bodies.

[Zaq]

Well, I'm not an adventurer, and the challenges I face every day don't usually involve dungeoneering, or goblins, or dragons, or monsters, or even people who feel especially violent towards me. And the world I live in doesn't usually subject me to lots of danger on a daily basis, nor are there other people with explicitly magical effects. So am I going to be the only one who's got any sort of magic? Am I going to have to choose between either keeping my powers secret or having folks freak out because I have access to abilities that human beings aren't expected to have (and possibly being treated as a fraud, a prodigy, a demon, a menace, a freak, a prophet, and/or some mix thereof)? Will I be able to let researchers try to learn from me without being reduced to a subhuman test subject? Because my answers might be different depending on exactly how the rest of the world treats my invocations.

[Troacctid]

When you get your invocations, you don't know whether other people are also getting them or how the world will react. You have to make the decision without that knowledge.

[Vizzerdrix]

Ya know, the more I think about it, the less useful spider shape is. They breath through their skin and our world lacks the oxygen to support their size. I may rethink my list a bit.

[Blackhawk748]

Least: Beguiling Influence. A bunch of other ones are neat, but becoming suave as all hell is great.

Lesser: Humanoid Shape. Shapeshifting is to awesome not to use.

Greater: Hmmm. Hellspawned Grace is neat, but Nightmares Made Real is way to much fun.

Dark: Path of Shadow. Screw buying plane tickets.

[Extra Anchovies]

Lesser: Humanoid Form. Shapeshifting is to awesome not to use.

There's nothing by that name on the WotC list (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/invocations) - are you sure it's from an official source?


Dark: Path of Shadow. Screw buying plane tickets.

Well, 50 miles per hour would still be a lot of walking, but if the effective travel rate scales with your actual speed, bicycles would kick it up to 250 m/h, about half that of modern commercial jets. In that case, screw plane tickets indeed.

[Blackhawk748]

There's nothing by that name on the WotC list (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/invocations) - are you sure it's from an official source?



Well, 50 miles per hour would still be a lot of walking, but if the effective travel rate scales with your actual speed, bicycles would kick it up to 250 m/h, about half that of modern commercial jets. In that case, screw plane tickets indeed.

Whoops, thats Humanoid Shape, not form.

Ya, but recall that it states that the Plane of Shadows reduces the distance as well so its freaking nuts.

[J-H]

Social skills trump all for utility in almost every situation. Mobility and stealth gets you in position to use them, or lets you get the information necessary to exploit them.

Beguiling influence
Charm
Walk Unseen (a lesser instead of the greater - all the Greaters are less useful)
Path of Shadow (healing, shadow walk)

[Troacctid]

Social skills trump all for utility in almost every situation. Mobility and stealth gets you in position to use them, or lets you get the information necessary to exploit them.

Beguiling influence
Charm
Walk Unseen (a lesser instead of the greater - all the Greaters are less useful)
Path of Shadow (healing, shadow walk)
As long as you're doing the enchanter gig, why not Devil's Whispers over Charm? Higher save DC and more direct control, plus you can affect more than one person at a time, and they don't remember that they were mind-controlled afterwards. It has to be pretty annoying when you want to charm a new person, but you can't because you're not ready to let the last one snap out of it yet.

[Krazzman]

Least: See the Unseen or Entropic Warding (the comfy in climate thingy)
Lesser: Fell Fligth, Flee the Scene or some social thing... maybe Walk Unseen.
The other two... no clue, never played a Warlock above level 7...

[Rijan_Sai]

Under the assumption that this is for every day "real life," as opposed to adventuring, I would probably go with:

*Re-reads the lists*
Least(1): All-Seeing Eyes - The bonus to search and spot are useful, but the ability to read all the languages? Yes please!! (Admittedly, Beguiling Influence could be useful too...)

Least(2): Draconic Knowledge - It's everything Otherworldly Whispers wishes it could be, and more!! (Just think about using your boosted knowledge in all sort of random, obscure fields while being able to read foreign and archaic/obsolete languages...)

Lesser: So many good choices!! But I would have to go with Walk Unseen. 24/7 (dismissible) invisibility? Wrong on so many levels, and too good to pass up!!

Greater: (After reading and re-reading the lists, there is just nothing here that is a "must-have" for every day life...)

Dark: Path of Shadows - Others have covered why this is good! I did consider Draconic Flight, Greater, but the (rough calculation) >7mph vs the 50mph of PoS is kind of a killing point... (Flight would be so much fun, though!)

[CasualViking]

I'm surprised at all the posters not making their choices from a taking-over-the-world standpoint.

Least: Beguiling Influence, because why not.
Lesser: Flee the Scene
Greater: Devil's Whispers, all the offensive ability i need
Dark: Dark Foresight. This plus Flee the Scene should get me out of just about anything.

[J-H]

Why would I want to take over the world?

[Milo v3]

I'm surprised at all the posters not making their choices from a taking-over-the-world standpoint.
Unfortunately I don't have enough HD to survive a nuke, so not talking over the world seems the best idea. :smalltongue:

[Elkad]

Absolutely nothing mind-altering. No persuasion, charm, or anything else. The urge to meddle would be too great.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Jjj6oI5fg

[phlidwsn]

Absolutely nothing mind-altering. No persuasion, charm, or anything else. The urge to meddle would be too great.

Power corrupts, but absolute power is kinda neat.

[KillianHawkeye]

Why would I want to take over the world?

Why wouldn't you? :smallconfused:


Unfortunately I don't have enough HD to survive a nuke, so not talking over the world seems the best idea. :smalltongue:

Once you've taken over the world, you'd control all the nukes. I'm not seeing the issue here. Just don't nuke yourself.

[J-H]

"Uneasy rests the head upon which the crown lies."

Once you take over the world, you have to actually rule it. Premature gray hairs, 4 hours a day of powerpoints, a hundred pages a day of summary briefings, planning meetings, lobbyists, and making sure your subordinates aren't trying to overthrow you (or are incompetent, or are corrupt), to name a few.

Also, then you're responsible for bad things. A natural disaster killed 150,000 people? Too bad you didn't authorize more spending on early warning systems - you could have prevented half of those deaths. Put down a rebellion too hard and generate a bunch of starving orphans? That's on your head too.

Thus, my choices - enough power to sneak around, find out info, and gain enough power and wealth to be very, very comfortable, and to protect myself, while flying mostly under the radar. Still, enough "lucky" trades in the US and you'll have the SEC or IRS looking at you; it might be best to take the wealth and buy a private island in another country. I hear Costa Rica is nice; or you can buy citizenship on St. Lucia or a few other Caribbean islands for a paltry six or seven figure sum.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm surprised at all the posters not making their choices from a taking-over-the-world standpoint.

But...But...That requires going outside! Where's there is sunlight!

[Flickerdart]

Show-off list
Swimming the styx would immediately make me an Olympic champion - Michael Phelps swims at 6.4 feet per second (38 feet per round). You can beat that even with a brisk jog. And the ability to breathe underwater makes you the best free diver in the world.
Fell flight then lets you win high jump and long jump competitions.
Hellspawned grace gives you hellcat statistics, presumably their resistance to fire and telepathy as well. Run into burning buildings to rescue people! Then mess with their heads!
Shadow walk lets me zoom around the world as fast as a car, but more importantly, it lets me take people to other planes of existence!

Fun list
Call of the beast would be amazing - why yes, I would love to be able to talk to animals. Mostly so I could make birds poop on people I don't like. Though serpent's tongue is tempting for the +5 against getting drunk, the Scent it grants you is no advantage in a bar.
Cold comfort lets you sport summer fashions all year round.
Warlock's call is pretty dope. Who needs email when you have sending?
Dark foresight would let me and all my friends avoid all danger forever. It also doesn't say it only deals with physical harm - knowing what to say to avoid, for example, a rebuke from your boss would be amazing.

[Troacctid]

Dark foresight would let me and all my friends avoid all danger forever. It also doesn't say it only deals with physical harm - knowing what to say to avoid, for example, a rebuke from your boss would be amazing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZcHxxVwxj8

[Extra Anchovies]

Show-off list
Swimming the styx would immediately make me an Olympic champion - Michael Phelps swims at 6.4 feet per second (38 feet per round). You can beat that even with a brisk jog. And the ability to breathe underwater makes you the best free diver in the world.

my face when i saw this post (http://i.imgur.com/lbGRJAB.png)


Fell flight then lets you win high jump and long jump competitions.

You could also nab Spiderwalk to set some new free-climbing records.


Hellspawned grace gives you hellcat statistics, presumably their resistance to fire and telepathy as well. Run into burning buildings to rescue people! Then mess with their heads!

"Come with me if you want to live! I'm also an invisible demon tiger!"


Shadow walk lets me zoom around the world as fast as a car, but more importantly, it lets me take people to other planes of existence!

Shadow Walk doesn't say how to determine where on the other planes you end up, but if you can pick the location yourself you could travel anywhere in the world in 2d4 hours by walking to the Astral plane and back. Heck, the material plane encompasses the whole known universe - once you convince NASA to lend a space-suit you could be the first person on Mars.


Warlock's call is pretty dope. Who needs email when you have sending?

I thought so too at first, but issue with this one is the fact that people who don't want to respond can try to kill you. I'm pretty sure nobody I'd be messaging with it would want to attempt the Will save, but it's a risk I'm not willing to take.

[Troacctid]

You could also nab Spiderwalk to set some new free-climbing records.
You can do that with flight too, technically. It's just a bit more obvious that you're cheating.

[AmberVael]

Warlock's call is pretty dope. Who needs email when you have sending?

See, I thought about this and then wondered "how often would I really need this over a regular cell phone?"

There are a few advantages it has over a cell phone, but not many ways that benefit the average user. You'd probably have to seek out applications for it and sell the skill to make it really useful to you, and if I want money there are many other invocations that could do that better.