Updating the Warlock/Hexblade [3.5/PF]

[Aotrs Commander]

As I am, once again, finding myself addressing one unrelated issue that leads to me making yet another major 3.Aotrs houserules overhaul, I may as well get ths underway and look at the weaker classes.

What do we reckon could be done to bring the Warlock (and of somewhat lesser importance, the Hexblade) more up to par. The Warlock is my main focus here, but we may as well include the Hexblade for good measure (seeing as the majority of the other classes I've got have now been looked at in anger. Spellthief remains a bit outstanding, but I intend to do what I've done for several of the classes of that ilk and add Pf rogue talents.)


Warlock first, then.

As it stands, Warlock has already had one major upgrade in my 3.Aotrs:

If you do not apply a blast shape invocation, you may make a full-round action to make additional iterative attacks from your Base Attack Bonus. (This is not a full attack action, so you may not benefit from feats or abilities that grant you additional attacks, e.g. Haste or Rapid Shot.)

Which at least goes some way to increase the frankly piddling damage.

So. Some possible suggestions i've seen thrown around on the coupe of vaguley similar threads I managed to google on the web and other ideas, in no particular order:

1) Increase outright the number of Warlock invocations to at least one per level.

2) Split off Blast Shape and Eldtrich Essences from the main invocations with their own limit (say, one every other level or something), possbily in concert with 1).

3) Make Eldritch Blast a straight attack action (except when making it an area-effect - that might be going too far!)

4) Allow Blast Shapes to add some extra damage if you have iterative attacks (say, +50% if you have a second attack and +100% if you have three attacks - nothing extra for four attacks). Thus in theory, an Eldritch Line from an 11th level warlock would deal 9D6 and a 20th level warlock's would be 18D6.



(My group and my playstyle does not, generally, favour item creation as a rule simpy becase half the time there's not much down time to do it in, so the warlock-as-magic-doofer is not on my list of problem areas that need fixing, nor area that need addressing.)



Hexblade

I have, at the bare minimum, implemented the changes that the original author said he would make:


The hexblade suffers a little because he came on the scene relatively early in 3.5's life. As R&D pushes the boundaries of the game, we learn that some things we thought were risky or potentially broken aren't. Other times, we learn things that look fine don't actually work in play. Armored mages fall into the first category. Them seem really powerful, but in the long run they aren't. Spells and magic items allow an unarmored mage to build great defenses. The spell mage armor is as good as medium armor, and its duration allows most mages to keep it active at all times. If you compare the hexblade to the duskblade from PH 2, you can see how the thinking has changed. If you want to boost the hexblade, I'd try the following changes:

Good Fortitude save
Curse ability usable 1 + the hexblade's Cha modifier per day
Curse ability usable as a swift action
Curse ability does not count as used if the target makes his saving throw
Ability to cast in light or medium armor and while carrying a light shield or buckler
At 6th level, the hexblade can cast one hexblade spell per day as a swift action, as long as its original casting time is a standard action or faster. He gains an additional use of this power at levels 8, 11, 14, and 18.

The key to the hexblade is his curse ability, but it's a little un-fun to have it so limited in use. The hexblade also has trouble casting spells and using his melee attacks, so shifting spells to swift actions fits in with the idea of an armored mage. (These are by no means official. They're just off the top of my head changes I'd consider making.)

As of today, I have buffed the spells per day (alogn with Ranger and spellthief) to match our paladin (largely the rebalanced Paladin (https://www.penwatch.net/mwind3.5/external/rebalanced_paladin) by Seerow and OneWinged4Angel way back on the WotC boards), which bascially ends with a 6/5/4/4 at 20th).

What else might we think might be used to make the class a bit more... Well, anything really?

[ComaVision]

I let Warlocks in my games switch out their Invocations at dusk each day. It makes trap options a lesser concern and gives them more flexibility.

[tedcahill2]

What's your goal exactly? Are you basing your assessment of the warlock needing a buff on the tier system, and if so are you trying to make it a tier I class? Or is there another flaw you're trying to fix.

[Gnaeus]

Warlock as written (especially with your buff) is already a decent T4, better than the Paizo Kineticist. If you want a different balance point, please tell us what it is. I'd just use it, unless your game is high op with lots of T1s and 2s.

What do you want to use hexblade for exactly. I think easier than importing it might be creating a magus archetype trading something for the hex feature and swapping some spells.

[Telonius]

Eldritch Essences usually confer a minor ability that doesn't really seem worth expending one of your precious Invocations on. Vitriolic Blast is really the only one I'd take willingly; Hellrime or Brimstone Blast grudgingly as a prereq for Hellfire Warlock. Otherwise they just never see use; there are just too many interesting "Other" invocations to justify taking an Essence. Maybe give a bonus Essence each time you learn a new Invocation; those options might see some more use then as a minor debuff to top off your eldritch blast.

[Dagroth]

The damage progression for Eldritch Blast shouldn't change. It should be +1d6 every odd numbered level, ending up at 10d6 at 19th level. I could never figure out why there was that hiccup right in the middle.

[Florian]

For Hexblade, take a look at the PF Magus with the Hexcrafter archetype. If that´s too harsh, change BAB to full and cut down the spellcasting to paladin-equivalent.

[Cosi]

The first thing the Warlock needs is for Eldritch Blast to be not terrible. It should just count as a weapon (so you can make iterative attacks with it if you want), and there's no reason for it to shift from 1d6/2 levels to 1d6/3 levels midway through.

Then you need to give it abilities that are generally less bad. You could just give it attack spells at the levels Wizards or Sorcerers get them, because it doesn't really matter if your fireball or cloudkill is at will instead of 4/day. Also, probably some kind of demon mojo, culminating in planar binding and/or summon monster spells.

Honestly, you could just merge it into Sorcerer or Binder. Sorcerer/Warlock Gestalt would be a pretty solid base class.

[Dagroth]

I think gestalted with Sorcerer would be too powerful...

Perhaps getting a Shape Invocation once every 4 levels, an Essence Invocation once every 4 levels and a regular Invocation every 3 levels would work. So a new Invocation on 1,4,7,10,13,16,19. A new Essence on 1,5,9,13,17 and a new Shape on 2,6,10,14,18. The capstone would be DR 10/Cold Iron (instead of 5 at 19) and either Outsider (Native,Evil), Outsider (Native,Chaos) or Fey type.

Perhaps give them Fiendish or Fey Heritage (player's choice) at level 1 & a Bonus Heritage Feat at levels 8, 12 & 16. And give DFAs a Bonus Draconic Feat at the same levels.

Iterative attacks with Eldritch Blast seems okay... but not combined with Shape or Essence Invocations... except Eldritch Glaive, Eldritch Spear & Eldritch Claws.

Change Hideous Blow to "Eldritch Blade" Shape Invocation that can perform iterative attacks and threaten for AoOs. Eldritch Glaive would be a Shape Invocation that can perform iterative attacks and threatens as a reach weapon (longer reach for larger Warlocks) for AoOs.

Eldritch Spear would just increase the range to 250', as it does now, and perform iterative attacks as a standard weapon-like spell.

Eldritch Claws would be a Shape Invocation that adds Eldritch Blast to all natural attacks. Available at the same time as Spear & Blade (Least Shapes).

Using Eldritch Blast (and any Invocations) would be subject to Arcane Spell Failure in Medium or Heavy armor. But you could always get the "Armored Mage: Medium" feat.

[Grim Reader]

I gave the Hexblade the Pathfinder Witch Hex progression.

Switched stat to Cha. Hexblades Curse is always the 1st level Hex, it is usable as a swift action, unlimited uses, but a target who saves is immune for the next 24 hours.

Also Good Fort save, and can use the Familiar teaching Familiar option. That expands the spell choice.

With some bonus feat use to quicken hexes, that made the Hexblade balanced with Pathfinder classes, at least with our low-optimization group. Spells generally stays utility.

There is something linguistically satisfying about the Hexblade having Hexes too.

Do not combine with the Dark Companion ACF, or if you do do not let it stack with the Curse.

I suppose another option for the two of them, Warlock and Hexblade is to gestalt or semi-gestalt them. Give the Hexblade an inovcation/EB progress, preferably a bit slower than the Warlocks, and call it a day,

[Aotrs Commander]

What's your goal exactly? Are you basing your assessment of the warlock needing a buff on the tier system, and if so are you trying to make it a tier I class? Or is there another flaw you're trying to fix.


Warlock as written (especially with your buff) is already a decent T4, better than the Paizo Kineticist. If you want a different balance point, please tell us what it is. I'd just use it, unless your game is high op with lots of T1s and 2s.

I don't really pay huge amount of attention to the tiers (other than that they exist), but I tend to try an keep the gap between primary casters and everybody else a bit lower. (Granted, adepts aside, you can only go so far with noncasters, but by the same token, not all my players want something with any of the complexity of any of the subsystems!) The principle thing with Warlock comes from the one time a player had one... And while he said it was alraight, at level eight, his observation was that combat was boring, given that all he had to do was "fire one eldritch blast" every round. (Given the limit number invocations, crafting not being an option (at the time, we had not adopted PF gold for crafting and that party was not awarded XP (it's a day-quest group), they juts get levelled up when I say.) And everytime I look at warlock myself, I end up going "yeah, but what do I do?" I played one only in NWN2, where, with other party members to control, spamming one attack was not a problem.



I let Warlocks in my games switch out their Invocations at dusk each day. It makes trap options a lesser concern and gives them more flexibility.

Bit more than I think I'd be comfortable with personally, but definitely something I think is in the right direction.



The damage progression for Eldritch Blast shouldn't change. It should be +1d6 every odd numbered level, ending up at 10d6 at 19th level. I could never figure out why there was that hiccup right in the middle.

You know, you said that and I thought: "did I not fix that when I painstakingly copied it all up into my 3.Aotrs document?" And no; no, I did not. That is DEFINITELY getting fixed, then.


The first thing the Warlock needs is for Eldritch Blast to be not terrible. It should just count as a weapon (so you can make iterative attacks with it if you want), and there's no reason for it to shift from 1d6/2 levels to 1d6/3 levels midway through.

I think the reason I made it not an attack action to start with when I revised was because if it was, you could then Rapid Shot with it. Not sure now, honestly, though, if that really matters, given the ludicrous damage I've seen archers deal out!


Perhaps getting a Shape Invocation once every 4 levels, an Essence Invocation once every 4 levels and a regular Invocation every 3 levels would work. So a new Invocation on 1,4,7,10,13,16,19. A new Essence on 1,5,9,13,17 and a new Shape on 2,6,10,14,18.

That leaves you with only seven invocations other than various flavorus of Blast. If I split them up, I'd definitely only split them into regular invocations and blast modifers. I think the warlock likely needs more invocations that current over more blast modifers.


The capstone would be DR 10/Cold Iron (instead of 5 at 19) and either Outsider (Native,Evil), Outsider (Native,Chaos) or Fey type.

Definitely needs a better captone, certainly, and the DR probably could use a boost, yeah.


Perhaps give them Fiendish or Fey Heritage (player's choice) at level 1 & a Bonus Heritage Feat at levels 8, 12 & 16. And give DFAs a Bonus Draconic Feat at the same levels.

I'm not a fan of hertiage-y stuff, to be honest, partly due to the fact that it does not translate well to campaign worlds which fundementally differ to 3.x/PF (like Dreemaenhyll not-adventure-path-quest campaign world, wherein, for starts, te entire bestiaty was tossed out and started again.)


Iterative attacks with Eldritch Blast seems okay... but not combined with Shape or Essence Invocations... except Eldritch Glaive, Eldritch Spear & Eldritch Claws.

Change Hideous Blow to "Eldritch Blade" Shape Invocation that can perform iterative attacks and threaten for AoOs. Eldritch Glaive would be a Shape Invocation that can perform iterative attacks and threatens as a reach weapon (longer reach for larger Warlocks) for AoOs.

Eldritch Spear would just increase the range to 250', as it does now, and perform iterative attacks as a standard weapon-like spell.

Eldritch Claws would be a Shape Invocation that adds Eldritch Blast to all natural attacks. Available at the same time as Spear & Blade (Least Shapes).

Seems logical. The trade off between reach and slightly better damage (and lower hit rate) between glaive and Blow seems reasonable - and Dreemaenhyll does have a lot of nonhumanoids as character options...




What do you want to use hexblade for exactly. I think easier than importing it might be creating a magus archetype trading something for the hex feature and swapping some spells.

Honestly? That's the problem. I don't really know. At the moment, all I know it's not an appealing class. So far, I have only ever used one as an NPC and that was in a converted version of Dragon Mountain during which I was determined to use one of every class1 available to me at the time somewhere.


For Hexblade, take a look at the PF Magus with the Hexcrafter archetype. If that´s too harsh, change BAB to full and cut down the spellcasting to paladin-equivalent.


I gave the Hexblade the Pathfinder Witch Hex progression.

Switched stat to Cha. Hexblades Curse is always the 1st level Hex, it is usable as a swift action, unlimited uses, but a target who saves is immune for the next 24 hours.

Also Good Fort save, and can use the Familiar teaching Familiar option. That expands the spell choice.

With some bonus feat use to quicken hexes, that made the Hexblade balanced with Pathfinder classes, at least with our low-optimization group. Spells generally stays utility.

There is something linguistically satisfying about the Hexblade having Hexes too.

I'll look into both those options, thanks. If nothing else, it might help rigidly define my areas of doubt and uncertainty.


Do not combine with the Dark Companion ACF, or if you do do not let it stack with the Curse.

Why not?



Edit: Wait, Eldritch Doom is centred on you? It wasn't in NWN2, when I played a Warlock (I just checked), it was a spread like Fireball or something. That's changing, then! Close range or Medium range, do you reckon?



1Except complete warrior samurai, the only class I banned for being just too bad; I actually made Some Fighters that did basically everything CWSam did, but were much more useful!)

[Dagroth]

Well, you could still use my Invocation progression and allow a Warlock to take a "regular" invocation in place of a Blast or Shape invocation.

And still give them the ability to swap out an invocation every time they gain access to a new level of invocations.

Remember that my system gives 17 total invocations... that's a pretty good amount. Especially if you throw the Draconic Invocations in (which I do).

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay. Running out of time (because I need to stop myself before this spins off into another "finishes at stupid o'clock in the morning" job...)

First pass Warlock revision, for suggestions:

Eldritch Blast +D6 every odd level. May make full attack if not using a blast shape (unless blast shape says otherwise), including extra attacks from other sources (e.g. Haste, Rapid Shot etc).

DR +1/Cold Iron every even level (starting at 2nd); cap out at (for the sake of argument) 15/cold iron at 30th.

Fiendish Resiliance upped to 3/4/5 (at 8th/13th/18th).

Energy Resistance upped to 10/20.

Hideous blow/eldritch claw/eldritch glaive as suggested earlier (i.e. full attacks).

Eldritch Doom revised to be close range, no two targets can be more than 40' apart. (From poorly-labelled 20'R centred on you.)



Invocations increased to 1/level, no split between blast shape/eldritch essense/invocations (element most subject to revision).

[tedcahill2]

What if you made eldritch blast a dice pool of damage that could be divide up however the player wanted each round? So a level 9 warlock could do a single blast for 5d6, or 2 blasts for 2d6 and 3d6, or 5 blasts at 1d6 each, etc.

[Aotrs Commander]

What if you made eldritch blast a dice pool of damage that could be divide up however the player wanted each round? So a level 9 warlock could do a single blast for 5d6, or 2 blasts for 2d6 and 3d6, or 5 blasts at 1d6 each, etc.

How would splitting the already low base damage from Eldritch Blast up further be of benefit?

I can't think of a situation where being able to very slightly damage five monsters facing a level 9 party would be a better choice than hitting one monster for (assuming allowing iterative attacks) 5D6 twice.

(Especially given the wizard has been able to clear chaff like that with Fireball since four levels ago.)

I vaguely suppose you could apply an essence to more than one target that way, but if that weas a desired outcome, surely a modification to Eldtritch Chain would be something to better implement...?

[tedcahill2]

How would splitting the already low base damage from Eldritch Blast up further be of benefit?

I can't think of a situation where being able to very slightly damage five monsters facing a level 9 party would be a better choice than hitting one monster for (assuming allowing iterative attacks) 5D6 twice.

(Especially given the wizard has been able to clear chaff like that with Fireball since four levels ago.)

I vaguely suppose you could apply an essence to more than one target that way, but if that weas a desired outcome, surely a modification to Eldtritch Chain would be something to better implement...?

Why does everyone always compare a classes capabilities to that of a wizard. A fresh wizard, with all their spell slots, would and should always out damage other classes. That's the nature of using magic.

Name another ranged oriented combat class (like an archer or something) that can consistently deal 5d6 damage with a touch attack + other shapes and effects. Warlocks can do that all day.

They aren't weak, but I agree that can be a bit boring.

[Aotrs Commander]

Why does everyone always compare a classes capabilities to that of a wizard. A fresh wizard, with all their spell slots, would and should always out damage other classes. That's the nature of using magic.

Name another ranged oriented combat class (like an archer or something) that can consistently deal 5d6 damage with a touch attack + other shapes and effects. Warlocks can do that all day.

They aren't weak, but I agree that can be a bit boring.

My point of intended approximate balance considers modal class use. Wizard and clerics are among the most common, both as characters an opposition, so if a class or feature is not at least vaguely equivilent to a stated-as-less-than-optimal fucntion (i.e. blasting for primary casters) in at least some capacity (however narrow), isn't likely not strong enough.

(Healing, for example, has been DRASTICALLY buffed in my games, because I considered that if a Cure Serious Wounds wasn't capable of healing more damage to one character than a standard arcane damage spell was capable of dealing to several, and likely less damage that a single hit from an enemy would deal out, than it wasn't worth using. The Cure spells were a legacy of AD&D and they desparately needed making competative in 3.5; and since they were used as the basis for all other healing spells... My Cure Serious now does 15+D8/level (max 15+7D8), which is at least above Fireball damage. (And yes, Inflict spells are now to be properly feared.))

Thus, 9th level archer dealing less than 20 damage per round, even by using lesser regular attack rolls, isn't particularly trying at its job, in my experience.

You game may be entirely different, of course, but for my paradigm, 5D6 per round at 9th level is just not competative.

You can say the warlock can also inflict status effects... But in the main, those on a Blast are generally inferior to a full spell. So it can't competatively damage with well, anyone and can't status better than a caster. The middle ground of light damage and moderate status effects is not especially helpful.

Warlocks also, in practise, can't even do that all day, in the same way as the fighter cannot swing his sword all day; because the party as a whole will never adventure that long between rests. By 9th level, in my expereience, the party will be resting long before the wizard and cleric have even emptied their bottom-levels spells anyway, so being able to shoot things for longer that isn't helpful.

(And for that matter, in my games, the fifteen minute adventuring day is expected, since the NPC opposition will certainly be novaing right back. My games - especially when I design an encounter myself - are designed around being essentially a string of boss fights, with the occasional speed-bump chaff fight. So they "can do it all day," balance is not useful.

On top of that, I have a tacit exhaustion system that says "if you perform any combat actions for more than a few minutes constantly (like 50-100 rounds), you will become exhausted." (For which you can thank Rolemaster.) Tacit, because combats don't ever last that long for it to come up, even when dragged out. If they last more then four or five rounds, it's unusual.)

Let me put it this way: my games and those of my group, frequently reach mid-late teen levels and at least one went into low Epic. Characters - even Fighters, monks etc (though they have been buffed over core; fighter get a feat every level, for example) - dealing one or two hundred points of damage per round is not unusual.

Example: In the last party which has officially ended, the group topped out at level 17. Before the end (without looking it up exactly, but I tracked down a jolly moment I'd recounted to ponythread), the Ninja/Rogue/Invisible Blade was capable of making up to six attacks at 11D6 damage each per round (and he added Swordsage at the last, which put him another one or two D6 + IL up on even that) alone, and the pure fighter dagger guy was dealing a good post-hundred per round at that point (ten attacks at a rough recollection of D4+10+D6 elemental, with the crit range more or less compenstating for the iterative hit-drop off); then there was the Paladin...

So, yeah, the Warlocks paltry RAW damage (which I considered poor enough to have fixed long before I looked at this thread) just cannot compete in that environment, nor are the blast debuffs better than what a full caster could do, even if you did let them fire at nine (or ten) different targets per round at level 20.

(Let's face it, D6 damage to ten level 20 things may as well not be any damage at all - and in my games, boss monsters with my special boss-template easily reach low hundred hit points at mid-level1!)

Most pertinently, I feel, as a class principally designed and flavoured around Shootin' Ma Lazars (regardless as whether the true power can be argued to bein the crafting), it kind of SHOULD be good at blasting.

The iterative attack boosts I have already implemented largely fixes the damage problem, I think (and the thread convincing me to switch to an attack action further buffs that); that is not where I consider the Warlock's current problem. It doesn't have enough things to do ASIDE from that. As my warlock player said, by the time at 8th level, he could fly, turn invisible, shoot 250 feet to sicken people, he'd only got one Other Thing left... Which meant his combat actions were reduced to "shoot sickening blast 1/rnd," which is why he said he felt bored. (As a result, that was one of the reasons I allowed iterative attacks, which at least gave him two shots per round.)



1Said template essentially allows additional reistance to SoDs, at the expense of either a increment of hit points to Iron Heart Surge0like away Bad Things or effectively a negative energy level trade-for-a-save reroll. Which means said boss monsters cannot anti-cliamatically be killed in the first round by Finger of Death... But can be whittled down and eventual killed by Finger of Death later on...! For our paradigm of games, this works AMAZINGLY well.

[tedcahill2]

I guess that's the difference in my games. Every adventure is more of a marathon than a sprint. All of the casters are forced to hold back their best spells because they know they haven't reached the main fight yet, and there is no chance to rest before it comes.

When my players are in the midst of a dungeon there is no resting. So year the wizard can launch a few high power spells, but the warlock is blasting all day.

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay, second pass at Warlock.

Changes:
Eldritch Blast +D6 every odd level. May make full attack if not using a blast shape (unless blast shape says otherwise), including extra attacks from other sources (e.g. Haste, Rapid Shot etc).

DR +1/Cold Iron every even level (starting at 2nd); cap out at (for the sake of argument) 15/cold iron at 30th.

Fiendish Resiliance upped to 3/4/5 (at 8th/13th/18th).

Energy Resistance upped to 10/20.

Hideous blow/eldritch claw/eldritch glaive as suggested earlier (i.e. full attacks).

Eldritch Doom revised to be close range, no two targets can be more than 40' apart. (From poorly-labelled 20'R centred on you.)



Invocations:

A warlock gets a bonus essense of blast shape every odd level (i.e. whenever he gets an extra +D6 to eldritch blast). He may also select essense or blast shapes from his regular invocations if desired.

Invocation progression changes such that a) warlock now will get four of each level (least, lesser, greater, dark) and b) at every level, a warlock will gain at least one invocation/essense/blast shape (i.e. at least one decision). (4/5 levels means the spread ia a bit odd, but whatever.) The warlock stars with two invocations (and thus had, like, three tricks not one at level 1).


LevelInvocations
1st 2+1
2nd 3+1
3rd 3+2
4th 4+2
5th 4+3
6th 5+3
7th 6+4
8th 7+4
9th 7+5
10th 8+5
11th 9+6
12th 10+6
13th 11+7
14th 12+7
15th 12+8
16th 13+8
17th 14+9
18th 15+9
19th 15+10
20th 16+10


Other alternatives:

1 invocation per level (no split between regular, essense, blast shape)

1 invocation per level plus the 10 bonus: seems too much.

Original 12 invocations, plus the 10 bonus.

Thoughts?

[Dagroth]

Remember that a Warlock can change out a lower invocation when they get access to higher level invocations.

Remember that a Warlock can spend Feats if they want to get more invocations.

I based the idea that Blast Shape & Essence Invocations would be picked separately on the way DFAs get differing types of breath weapons as they level up.

Access to higher level Invocations should be explicitly Caster Level based, not Class Level based, so a Warlock can take a dip in a PrC like Telflammar Shadow Lord and still get high level Invocations by grabbing Practiced Spellcaster.

[Aotrs Commander]

Remember that a Warlock can change out a lower invocation when they get access to higher level invocations.

That doesn't help with the limited number they have at once, though. Sure, it gives them the option to go "that invocation was uterly crap, now I can get rid of it" but not much else.

Edit: I could see some value in maybe keeping the original number of invocations (12 - plus the bonus essense/shapes), if you modifed the swap out to work like it does with maneuvers, such that you can replace one with one of any level you can use, instead of having to replace it with one equal or lower.


Remember that a Warlock can spend Feats if they want to get more invocations.

I hadn't, but that's a further feat tax that seems unecessary, as warlock get few enough feats to be able to do their main job, without having to burn more to not be a two-trick pony or something. Hell, I'd much rather just scrap the feat and give them more invocations to start with.


I based the idea that Blast Shape & Essence Invocations would be picked separately on the way DFAs get differing types of breath weapons as they level up.

I'd rather leave the player the flexibilty to choose. I don't use DFA (I only take a handful of bits out of Dragon Magic - Dragon Fire Inspiration and the onvocatons because the variety was desparately needed); on looking now, I'm not much struck with it, to be honest. DFA would seem to have all the problem of the warlock, only larger. Their breath weapon also isn't an invocation, so I would not personally treat it in quite the same manner. (Granted, this was only a cursory look, so if I'm missing the obvious, do educate me.)


Access to higher level Invocations should be explicitly Caster Level based, not Class Level based, so a Warlock can take a dip in a PrC like Telflammar Shadow Lord and still get high level Invocations by grabbing Practiced Spellcaster.

I'd have to disagree. I don't see why the warlock should get any extra of his "spells" by dipping into a class that doesn't award any spellcaster class level progression anymore than the wizard or bard should. The Warlock already gets eldritch blast damage and invocations as "+1 spellcaster class level" same as they do, so of he chooses to take four levels of Fighter or something, he shouldn't get to take a feat to get his level "spells" like he would if he didn't. The casters and mainfesters don't get to do that, the invokers shouldn't either.



I'm sort of guessing from all that, then, you think that my current nominal pass gives too many invocations...?

(Note: my balance point veers more towards "caster" than not (and primary caster like wizard/cleric/druid/archivist, because they are the modal casting classes in my games).)

[DEMON]

My suggested fixes to Warlock would be:

- Make the Eldritch Blast progress steadily towards 10d6 the way Rogue's sneak attack does, instead of topping at 9d6.

- Allow the Warlock to do iterative attacks with Eldritch Blast, lowering the damage foe each extra EB by 2d6 and the save DC by -2. (e.g. at lvl 15 you shoot 3x at +11 / +6 / +1 for 8d6 / 6d6 / 4d6 damage).

- "At any level when a warlock learns a new invocation, he can also replace an invocation he already knows with another invocation of the same or a lower grade. At 6th level, a warlock can replace a least invocation he knows with a different least invocation (in addition to learning a new invocation, which could be either least or lesser)." Allow the Warlock to swap a lower grade Invocation for a higher grade up to the one he's currently able to cast).

[Dagroth]

I see a Warlock being closer to a Bard type caster than a T1 type caster. Maybe somewhere in-between.

I agree that changing an Invocation should be to any level of Invocation you have access to.

I agree that they need a few more Invocations, but also see that giving them Iteratives with EB/HB/EC/EG makes them more "gish-y"... not to mention the 24-hour effect for most Invocations. A small increase should be enough.

What feats does a Warlock need to do their job? Empower/Maximize/Quicken SLA are all nice and handy to have. Craft Ring is useful, since you can make a Ring of Spell Storing and then give your entire party the benefits of your 24-hour SLAs. Craft Wonderous Item for making your own Chausible & stat items is useful...

But what feats do you need?

[Sagetim]

Why does everyone always compare a classes capabilities to that of a wizard. A fresh wizard, with all their spell slots, would and should always out damage other classes. That's the nature of using magic.

Name another ranged oriented combat class (like an archer or something) that can consistently deal 5d6 damage with a touch attack + other shapes and effects. Warlocks can do that all day.

They aren't weak, but I agree that can be a bit boring.

Um, no, wizards are not the primary damage dealers in a party unless/until they get something like fireball. The party's primary damage dealers at level 1 are going to be the rogues and any two handed fighter types they have, duskblades in particular are good at dishing out damage by blowing resources, but fighters and rogues would be the ones I'd look at for consistent damage output.

And compared to a rogue, warlocks are godawful at damage output. A rogue's sneak attack (which is Bonus damage, not baseline damage. So slap a crap weapon in hand and they already have a better damage range, as they level they're Going to go for a better, more magical weapon with greater damage output) outclasses the eldritch blast for damage dealing starting at level 1 and continuing all the way to 20. When rogues start getting extra attacks, be it from two weapon fighting, iterative attacks, or both, they start inflating that damage disparity. Haste, which does nothing for the warlock in regards to boosting his dps, gives rogues another attack at their highest bonus. Classes don't exist in a vacuum, they exist within the context of a party.

Rogues can also perform sneak attacks at range (which, admittedly is a ridiculously short one in 3.5's base rules. Probably because they rightly feared allowing a rogue to get up to 5 attacks off from long range, each with a handful of vengeful d6's).

So when it comes to buffing the warlock to work for pathfinder, I would think these would be enough:
Allow you to get more eldritch blast rays out when not using a shape invocation based on your iterative attacks.
But this does Not make Eldritch Blast an attack action, it remains a standard action. Let the mundane ranged attackers have their jiggery pokery with multishot, rapid shot, and all that without having to compete with the warlock's superior baseline for damage dice.

Allow blast shapes to add damage based on how many iterative attacks you have.
Because they've always been pretty depressingly weak when you try to actually use them in play. In theory busting out a cone for 5d6 or so at the drop of a hat Sounds cool, but in play you're going to use that maybe once a fight, and then everyone else is going to mop everything up before you get a chance to use it again. Which just makes you wonder why you didn't play a wizard and have cone of cold for more damage instead.

Scale Fiendish Resilience, The Damage Reduction, The Energy Resistance
The only way that damage reduction becomes meaningful is if you blow most of your feats on Fey Heritage, and that's really depressingly awful for a class ability. At least Barbarian damage reduction can't be bypassed, and that goes some distance to justify it being so low. And Fiendish Resilience just isn't that useful if the value and/or duration never scales. It Sounds cool, but isn't really all that great in play. And the energy resistance is just kind of sad. By the time you get it, it's so...Sooooo little compared to what you're going to be dealing with. Like trying to put out a fire by spitting at it.

More Invocations?

I'm not sure about that. 12 seems fine for regular invocations, so adding 4 essence and 4 shape options throughout the Warlock progression seems like it would do you. I wold say 3, but there are 4 levels of invocations (Least, Lesser, Greater, Dark) so giving someone too few choices to actually get one of each relevant tier would be cruel. Kind of like telling a sorcerer they can pick from the entire wizard list, but only 3 spells.

Eldritch Doom

My god, the point blank aoe on this is awful. By the time you get it, it's dealing 8 or 9 d6 damage, sure, and you can spam it, yes. But by that same point the wizard can snap their fingers and kill everyone in the room with wail of the banshee. The fighter can easily put out 2d6+26 damage per attack (which beats your damage average silly when people can ref save for half vs your 'Doom'), the rogue has enough levels to access the tricks that let them consistently sneak attack things even without teamwork. So, yeah....I think you can just let it have the regular range of an eldritch blast with a 20ft radius burst at the end. Maybe even bump it up to medium range if you want to be nice and give warlock the only scaling range they get.

Eldritch Spear

I think you can safely bump this up from 250 ft to a 250ft range increment. Yes, it means that as a shape invocation it out ranges long bows. Oh no....it out ranges longbows. Any long range spell does that, and does that waaaaay better anyway. Even if the DM lets Far Shot work with Eldritch Blast, you can't slap a distance enhancement on it, and as mentioned in my other suggestion, you're not getting the extra shots from iterative attacks. If this seems too broken, this would be the one eldritch blast I would see not getting to add extra damage for the iterative attacks you would get from unshaped blasts. Also bear in mind that from what I've seen a lot of players never get the chance to use even that much range, either fighting in rooms, hallways, woods, etc.

And when it comes to balancing this class, it is definitely more suited to a marathon. But from what I've seen most players don't play the marathon game. They play the sprint and rest game. So of course they think wizards and clerics are the best, they blow through resources like nobody's business. Fighters, Rogues, Warlocks, and book of nine swords classes all shine in the marathon game a lot more, because they either have things that do not cost resources, or their resources are back by the time the next fight rolls around.

Eldritch Blow, Claw, Glaive

I don't know about claw and glaive, so I'm not going to weigh in on those. But Eldritch Blow should probably be a swift action and last for 1 round. That way it eats into your action economy, buffs your weapon for the round that you're using it, lets you make your normal weapon attacks, and even sticks around for attacks of opportunity. It should also not be getting the buffed damage boost, if you're doing that for shape invocations. Nor should claw or glaive. I think this would make Eldritch Blow, you know, Usable instead of incredibly action taxed and depressingly ineffective for that investment.

[digiman619]

Personally, I'd just make a Spheres of Power Elementalist and be dpne with it, but I am, perhaps, too much of a fanboy of those rules to be helpful here.

[Dagroth]

So we would have:
Eldritch Blast: Base ability. Attack Action. Range: Close (25ft +5ft/2 levels). Allows for iterative attacks, but provokes attack of opportunity unless successfully cast defensively.

Eldritch Bow: Lesser (Least?) Shape Invocation. Attack Action. Range: Medium (100ft +10ft/level). Allows for iterative attacks, but provokes attack of opportunity unless successfully cast defensively.

Eldritch Blade: Least Shape Invocation. Swift Action. Shapes Eldritch Blast into a sword-like weapon for 1 round. Allows for iterative attacks & AoOs.

Eldritch Whip: Lesser Shape Invocation. Swift Action. Shapes Eldritch Blast into a Whip-like 15' reach weapon for 1 round. Threatens 10' & 15'. Allows for iterative attacks & AoOs.

Eldritch Claws: Least (Lesser?) Shape Invocation. Swift Action. Add Eldritch Blast damage to all Natural Attacks (and since a Monk's Unarmed Strike is considered both a natural attack & manufactured weapon for purposes of spells, it would work for a Monk) for 1 round.


Weapon Focus (Eldritch Blast) would apply to all of the above attack forms.

New Feat: Off-hand Energy wielder. Requires 3d6 Eldritch Blast. Allows a Warlock to gain an extra attack using their off-hand with Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Bow, Eldritch Blade or Eldritch Whip. All attacks made that round are at -2 and do 1d6 less damage.

[Cosi]

New Feat: Off-hand Energy wielder. Requires 3d6 Eldritch Blast. Allows a Warlock to gain an extra attack using their off-hand with Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Bow, Eldritch Blade or Eldritch Whip. All attacks made that round are at -2 and do 1d6 less damage.

Why not just let Warlocks use the normal TWF/Rapid Shot rules? We don't dock Rogue sneak attack on off-hands. Also, this creates an extra feat to do almost exactly what TWF already does. Just declare that any version of Eldritch Blast that uses an attack roll counts as a weapon. Hell, make all of them count so that you can voltron AoE blasts with TWF for extra juice. It's not breaking anything.

[Aotrs Commander]

Allow you to get more eldritch blast rays out when not using a shape invocation based on your iterative attacks.
But this does Not make Eldritch Blast an attack action, it remains a standard action. Let the mundane ranged attackers have their jiggery pokery with multishot, rapid shot, and all that without having to compete with the warlock's superior baseline for damage dice.

Eh, I've seen enough horrendous archers that the warlock is more in danger of being left behind, so I'm okay (at least until playtest) with standard blast being an attack action.


Allow blast shapes to add damage based on how many iterative attacks you have.
Because they've always been pretty depressingly weak when you try to actually use them in play. In theory busting out a cone for 5d6 or so at the drop of a hat Sounds cool, but in play you're going to use that maybe once a fight, and then everyone else is going to mop everything up before you get a chance to use it again. Which just makes you wonder why you didn't play a wizard and have cone of cold for more damage instead.


So how about then:

If you do not apply a Blast Shape invocation, you may make a full-attack action to make additional attacks from your Base Attack Bonus (or other source of extra attacks). If you use a Blast Shaope invocation and your base attack bonus is 6+ or more, you increase the number of dice from your Eldritch Blast by 50% (round down). If you base attack bonus is 11+, you instead double the number of dice from your Eldritch Blast. (Note: some Blast Shape invocations instead allow multiple attack. In this case, your base damage does no increase.)



Which pushes the Warlock's area attacks a little close to the wizard. You might argue that at top level, it's a almost too high, but...

(I went for 12 not 11 for the second one because otherwise the warlock IS better than spells as 16D6 at level 6. You could instead just say +50% dice every 6 points of BAB; I don't think you could easily get +18 BAB pre-epic and still have enough dice to break 20D6 anyway.)



Scale Fiendish Resilience, The Damage Reduction, The Energy Resistance
The only way that damage reduction becomes meaningful is if you blow most of your feats on Fey Heritage, and that's really depressingly awful for a class ability. At least Barbarian damage reduction can't be bypassed, and that goes some distance to justify it being so low. And Fiendish Resilience just isn't that useful if the value and/or duration never scales. It Sounds cool, but isn't really all that great in play. And the energy resistance is just kind of sad. By the time you get it, it's so...Sooooo little compared to what you're going to be dealing with. Like trying to put out a fire by spitting at it.

Already done, as noted above.

More Invocations?

I'm not sure about that. 12 seems fine for regular invocations, so adding 4 essence and 4 shape options throughout the Warlock progression seems like it would do you. I wold say 3, but there are 4 levels of invocations (Least, Lesser, Greater, Dark) so giving someone too few choices to actually get one of each relevant tier would be cruel. Kind of like telling a sorcerer they can pick from the entire wizard list, but only 3 spells.

Okay, so how about splitting the difference a bit. Old number of invocations (which you can ick what you like), plus a bonus blast shape or essense at 1st and then every 3 levels?


LevelInvocations
1st 1+1
2nd 2+1
3rd 2+2
4th 3+2
5th 3+2
6th 4+3
7th 4+3
8th 5+3
9th 5+4
10th 6+4
11th 7+4
12th 7+5
13th 8+5
14th 8+5
15th 9+6
16th 10+6
17th 10+6
18th 11+7
19th 11+7
20th 12+7


I am VERY tempted to add one more invocation at level 1 (among the other reasons, 13 seems an appropriate number just on flavour..!) But do we think that 2 plus essense is too much at 1st level?



Eldritch Doom

My god, the point blank aoe on this is awful. By the time you get it, it's dealing 8 or 9 d6 damage, sure, and you can spam it, yes. But by that same point the wizard can snap their fingers and kill everyone in the room with wail of the banshee. The fighter can easily put out 2d6+26 damage per attack (which beats your damage average silly when people can ref save for half vs your 'Doom'), the rogue has enough levels to access the tricks that let them consistently sneak attack things even without teamwork. So, yeah....I think you can just let it have the regular range of an eldritch blast with a 20ft radius burst at the end. Maybe even bump it up to medium range if you want to be nice and give warlock the only scaling range they get.

I'd out it to Close, any number of targets, no two of which coild be further than 40' apart, but I suppose saying "All enemies within a 20'R" would achieve basically the same effect, but simpler; probably less prone to abuse with regard to inaimated objects, too. I think close is probably good enough, especially if by the time you can get this, you'll be on 16D6. If you increased the range, you'd make it just a straight 20'R, I think, not friendly-fire proof.

(For comparison, at the same level, Horrid Wilting is "living targetsm no two of which can be more than 60' apart" and long range, but would deal the same damage and is one of probably only one or two spells the wizard can cast per day. A spammable 20'R attack of comparable damage (plus potential statuses) might be overdoing it a little...

Maybe double the dice is too much...? Yeah. Maybe you could say instead, at 11th level (or better, every 8 BAB), you automatically empower all non-multiple attack blast shapes? (And maximise at 16BAB (and thus 1st epic?) 8D6+50% (near as dammit 12D6) as a spammable-plus-status area attack which ignores friendlies/short range or normal burst/medium range might be more appropriate...?


Eldritch Spear

I think you can safely bump this up from 250 ft to a 250ft range increment. Yes, it means that as a shape invocation it out ranges long bows. Oh no....it out ranges longbows. Any long range spell does that, and does that waaaaay better anyway. Even if the DM lets Far Shot work with Eldritch Blast, you can't slap a distance enhancement on it, and as mentioned in my other suggestion, you're not getting the extra shots from iterative attacks. If this seems too broken, this would be the one eldritch blast I would see not getting to add extra damage for the iterative attacks you would get from unshaped blasts. Also bear in mind that from what I've seen a lot of players never get the chance to use even that much range, either fighting in rooms, hallways, woods, etc.

As I think I'm fine with mutiple nonshape iteratives, I think blast is probably fine at 250'. Though I am slightly inclined to put another, higher level version with great range in as well, maybe. (But I also know that flight+unlimited ranged attack can be extremely abusable, so I'm happy keeping the warlocks's range relatively short. It's not like they are going to have much difficulty getting into position or anything, but unlimited ammo cloaked long-range sniping is not something I'm prepared to let the PCs have - or do to them. (It's the unlimited part, which is the problem. That combo is bad enough as it is, but with ammo or spells, they can't do it forever. At least a warlock has to get within reasonable bow range to be able to wipe out an entire army while flying cloaked...)



Eldritch Blow, Claw, Glaive

I don't know about claw and glaive, so I'm not going to weigh in on those. But Eldritch Blow should probably be a swift action and last for 1 round. That way it eats into your action economy, buffs your weapon for the round that you're using it, lets you make your normal weapon attacks, and even sticks around for attacks of opportunity. It should also not be getting the buffed damage boost, if you're doing that for shape invocations. Nor should claw or glaive. I think this would make Eldritch Blow, you know, Usable instead of incredibly action taxed and depressingly ineffective for that investment.

I've cleaned the wording up a bit. I've given any Blast shape that gives multiple attacks a Boost descriptor (which says you can use it to make full attacks, and which disqualifies it from the extra blast shape damage.) As written, I've already said they last until the start of your next turn in the case of those three aforementioned. (Eldritch Spear, which is also a (Boost), doesn't, being a ranged atack.)

Basically, the difference between them is Claw is to all natural attacks, glaive is a reach but just the blast damage and hideous blow comes on top of your weapon attacks.




Better, do we think?

Edit:


Why not just let Warlocks use the normal TWF/Rapid Shot rules? We don't dock Rogue sneak attack on off-hands. Also, this creates an extra feat to do almost exactly what TWF already does. Just declare that any version of Eldritch Blast that uses an attack roll counts as a weapon. Hell, make all of them count so that you can voltron AoE blasts with TWF for extra juice. It's not breaking anything.

As I'm currently doing, you could get rapid shot with ranged, and the way I've worded Hideous Blow says "when you hit with a weapon", which would allow you to use TWF.

[Grim Reader]

Why not?

Sorry, I forgot this thread.

I though the combination allows a bit too much debuffing without using your standard action. The Dark Companion is a no-save penalty as a move action as I remember, it gets followed up by a swift action Curse that is now more likely to land, and then finish with a save-or-die.

I do think I was considering buffing the curse by making it a bit more level-scaling when I decided that though.

[Sagetim]

Eh, I've seen enough horrendous archers that the warlock is more in danger of being left behind, so I'm okay (at least until playtest) with standard blast being an attack action.



So how about then:

If you do not apply a Blast Shape invocation, you may make a full-attack action to make additional attacks from your Base Attack Bonus (or other source of extra attacks). If you use a Blast Shaope invocation and your base attack bonus is 6+ or more, you increase the number of dice from your Eldritch Blast by 50% (round down). If you base attack bonus is 11+, you instead double the number of dice from your Eldritch Blast. (Note: some Blast Shape invocations instead allow multiple attack. In this case, your base damage does no increase.)



Which pushes the Warlock's area attacks a little close to the wizard. You might argue that at top level, it's a almost too high, but...

(I went for 12 not 11 for the second one because otherwise the warlock IS better than spells as 16D6 at level 6. You could instead just say +50% dice every 6 points of BAB; I don't think you could easily get +18 BAB pre-epic and still have enough dice to break 20D6 anyway.)




Okay, so how about splitting the difference a bit. Old number of invocations (which you can ick what you like), plus a bonus blast shape or essense at 1st and then every 3 levels?


LevelInvocations
1st 1+1
2nd 2+1
3rd 2+2
4th 3+2
5th 3+2
6th 4+3
7th 4+3
8th 5+3
9th 5+4
10th 6+4
11th 7+4
12th 7+5
13th 8+5
14th 8+5
15th 9+6
16th 10+6
17th 10+6
18th 11+7
19th 11+7
20th 12+7


I am VERY tempted to add one more invocation at level 1 (among the other reasons, 13 seems an appropriate number just on flavour..!) But do we think that 2 plus essense is too much at 1st level?




I'd out it to Close, any number of targets, no two of which coild be further than 40' apart, but I suppose saying "All enemies within a 20'R" would achieve basically the same effect, but simpler; probably less prone to abuse with regard to inaimated objects, too. I think close is probably good enough, especially if by the time you can get this, you'll be on 16D6. If you increased the range, you'd make it just a straight 20'R, I think, not friendly-fire proof.

(For comparison, at the same level, Horrid Wilting is "living targetsm no two of which can be more than 60' apart" and long range, but would deal the same damage and is one of probably only one or two spells the wizard can cast per day. A spammable 20'R attack of comparable damage (plus potential statuses) might be overdoing it a little...

Maybe double the dice is too much...? Yeah. Maybe you could say instead, at 11th level (or better, every 8 BAB), you automatically empower all non-multiple attack blast shapes? (And maximise at 16BAB (and thus 1st epic?) 8D6+50% (near as dammit 12D6) as a spammable-plus-status area attack which ignores friendlies/short range or normal burst/medium range might be more appropriate...?



As I think I'm fine with mutiple nonshape iteratives, I think blast is probably fine at 250'. Though I am slightly inclined to put another, higher level version with great range in as well, maybe. (But I also know that flight+unlimited ranged attack can be extremely abusable, so I'm happy keeping the warlocks's range relatively short. It's not like they are going to have much difficulty getting into position or anything, but unlimited ammo cloaked long-range sniping is not something I'm prepared to let the PCs have - or do to them. (It's the unlimited part, which is the problem. That combo is bad enough as it is, but with ammo or spells, they can't do it forever. At least a warlock has to get within reasonable bow range to be able to wipe out an entire army while flying cloaked...)




I've cleaned the wording up a bit. I've given any Blast shape that gives multiple attacks a Boost descriptor (which says you can use it to make full attacks, and which disqualifies it from the extra blast shape damage.) As written, I've already said they last until the start of your next turn in the case of those three aforementioned. (Eldritch Spear, which is also a (Boost), doesn't, being a ranged atack.)

Basically, the difference between them is Claw is to all natural attacks, glaive is a reach but just the blast damage and hideous blow comes on top of your weapon attacks.




Better, do we think?

Edit:



As I'm currently doing, you could get rapid shot with ranged, and the way I've worded Hideous Blow says "when you hit with a weapon", which would allow you to use TWF.

If you're finding that damage is getting too high at high levels for the aoe shapes, you might start it at +25%, then +50%, so that you don't wind up at 20 with an eldritch doom that does 20d6. On the subject of Doom, I think it should go for medium range because if you're tossing a 20ft burst, you don't want it to be literally danger-close. 25ft +5ft/2 levels, at 17, gets you 65ft range.

A longer range shape invocation at higher level feels like it would be a waste to have the lower level one, unless you can replace it (which I think you guys already mentioned). I just don't want someone to look at their list and go 'man, I got eldritch spear at level 1, but now that eldritch sniper rifle is available, it just makes my spear look wimpy wimpy wimpy.' and have no recourse but to expend Another one of their limited invocation picks on something that's a replacement ability.

12+7 looks like a solid amount of invocations to wind up at by level 20. With the ability to trade out lower invocations for higher ones at almost every level, you could also drop the less useful at higher level essences and what not by the time 20 rolls around.

As I recall, Eldritch Blast has a range of 60ft, and no increments baseline. So changing it to close is a tremendous downgrade until you hit level...16? That's just painful.

Otherwise looks good to me. And letting players eldritch blow both of their weapons at the same time certainly opens up opportunities for more builds. Just make sure that the players can't stack blow with glaive or what have you so that you avoid some nasty dice stacking potential.

[Aotrs Commander]

Sorry, I forgot this thread.

I though the combination allows a bit too much debuffing without using your standard action. The Dark Companion is a no-save penalty as a move action as I remember, it gets followed up by a swift action Curse that is now more likely to land, and then finish with a save-or-die.

I do think I was considering buffing the curse by making it a bit more level-scaling when I decided that though.

Ah. Righto. Cheers.


If you're finding that damage is getting too high at high levels for the aoe shapes, you might start it at +25%, then +50%, so that you don't wind up at 20 with an eldritch doom that does 20d6.

+25% is a bit more messy to work out, though, otherwise I'd have gone there first. (My warlock player, for a kick off, is a bit lazy as well...!) +50% is easier.


A longer range shape invocation at higher level feels like it would be a waste to have the lower level one, unless you can replace it (which I think you guys already mentioned). I just don't want someone to look at their list and go 'man, I got eldritch spear at level 1, but now that eldritch sniper rifle is available, it just makes my spear look wimpy wimpy wimpy.' and have no recourse but to expend Another one of their limited invocation picks on something that's a replacement ability.

I'd probably make it not a not-boost (i.e., one attack but you'd get the extra damage) with much longer range if I did. But as I say, I'm not overly keen on letting the warlocks be able to destroy everything slowly from half a mile away, while fliyng and invisible, where nothing without magic will ever be able to find them, much less hit them.


12+7 looks like a solid amount of invocations to wind up at by level 20. With the ability to trade out lower invocations for higher ones at almost every level, you could also drop the less useful at higher level essences and what not by the time 20 rolls around.

Jolly good!


On the subject of Doom, I think it should go for medium range because if you're tossing a 20ft burst, you don't want it to be literally danger-close. 25ft +5ft/2 levels, at 17, gets you 65ft range.

Depends whether it is a burst or a targeted effect. If it's a targeted effect (as I current have it written), there IS no danger zone, because it only affects the enemies. I think no friendly fire is worth the exchange of close range.


As I recall, Eldritch Blast has a range of 60ft, and no increments baseline. So changing it to close is a tremendous downgrade until you hit level...16? That's just painful.

What? No, that wasn't part of the plan! Eldritch Doom would be Close (IF it is a target/enemy only effect, if a regular burst, yeah medium is better.) Regular blasts stays at 60.


Otherwise looks good to me. And letting players eldritch blow both of their weapons at the same time certainly opens up opportunities for more builds. Just make sure that the players can't stack blow with glaive or what have you so that you avoid some nasty dice stacking potential.

You couldn't, unless you can somehow cast two invocations at the same time. (I could add extra wording to wortk around this effect oif te spell is not a duration so can't be extended, but I don;t think that will be a problem for my group anyway.)

[Dagroth]

Why not just let Warlocks use the normal TWF/Rapid Shot rules? We don't dock Rogue sneak attack on off-hands. Also, this creates an extra feat to do almost exactly what TWF already does. Just declare that any version of Eldritch Blast that uses an attack roll counts as a weapon. Hell, make all of them count so that you can voltron AoE blasts with TWF for extra juice. It's not breaking anything.

Because if we don't, it makes them too powerful compared to standard (non-optimized) melee. Besides, Sneak Attack is situational and is useless (or just weakened) against a fair number of opponent types.

Edit: Reason #2... it's a freakin' touch attack! I don't think Touch AC can be higher than regular AC.

I'd like to see the Warlock as a solid Tier 3 class (which is why we bump up the number of Invocations available and vary the way Eldritch Blast can be used) without turning it into the uber-blaster.

[Aotrs Commander]

Because if we don't, it makes them too powerful compared to standard (non-optimized) melee. Besides, Sneak Attack is situational and is useless (or just weakened) against a fair number of opponent types.

I'd like to see the Warlock as a solid Tier 3 class (which is why we bump up the number of Invocations available and vary the way Eldritch Blast can be used) without turning it into the uber-blaster.

They're not going against non-optimised melee, in this case, to be fair. They are going against very much optimised melee, all classes of which have gotten an upgrade some time (or are undergoing one now, in this pass).

(E.g. Fighter gets a feat every level (the extra of which do NOT have to be fighter bonus feats and fighter get a number of "no, not even you can have it Warblade" on top, Monks are full bab and get the extra attacks from flurry whenever they make an attack action (unlike pretty much anything else) and get some buffs to the higher level powers, paladins were long-since revised to an ungraded version fromthe old WotC forums (smite is per encounter and +D6s), rogue got a few extra bits and pieces and is just about to get the rouge talaent from PF etc etc)... Mid-high level melee (or ranged for that matter) is recorded as regularly doing one or two hundred damage per round.

10D6 on top of TWF is actually no worse that the Rogue/ninja/invisible blade/swordsage that was making six attacks at 11-12D6 plus mods each at one point before the end of one campaign (which finished at 17th); and he had items for sneak attacking undead and such.)

So my particular warlock balance point is far closer to the top tiers (and psionics) for damage, especially since those T1 casters are the ones you see almost exclusively on both sides of the table.

[Dagroth]

Oh... then this thread should be in homebrew, because I was just trying to provide the kind of upgrades that a Warlock would need to fit in with standard Warblades/Crusaders/Duskblades/Swordsages/etc.

Not the kind of Warlock that would fit in with Sorcerer+Sandshaper+Full Casting Progression Rainbow Servant.

[Aotrs Commander]

Oh... then this thread should be in homebrew, because I was just trying to provide the kind of upgrades that a Warlock would need to fit in with standard Warblades/Crusaders/Duskblades/Swordsages/etc.

Not the kind of Warlock that would fit in with Sorcerer+Sandshaper+Full Casting Progression Rainbow Servant.

The latter combination (and my player's aforementioned four-class murder machine character) aren't homebrew1, though, so I don't think this is really in quite in the homebrew field, exactly. It's just a different balance point/tier/optimisation environment. (As I say, my point of major concern of "something is too strong" is more "is better than wizard/cleric/druid" and not "is better than duskblade" or something.)



(And if other people get idea of who to tweak the warlock for their groups - as perhaps you have yourself - all the better.)



1Okay, the "rogue" part of that latter equation MIGHT have been high enough to qualify for the at-the-time rogue fix of a limited-choice feat at 6th level, but I don't think it was; it was otherwise just out of the books.

[AOKost]

So we would have:
Eldritch Blast: Base ability. Attack Action. Range: Close (25ft +5ft/2 levels). Allows for iterative attacks, but provokes attack of opportunity unless successfully cast defensively.

Eldritch Bow: Lesser (Least?) Shape Invocation. Attack Action. Range: Medium (100ft +10ft/level). Allows for iterative attacks, but provokes attack of opportunity unless successfully cast defensively.

Eldritch Blade: Least Shape Invocation. Swift Action. Shapes Eldritch Blast into a sword-like weapon for 1 round. Allows for iterative attacks & AoOs.

Eldritch Whip: Lesser Shape Invocation. Swift Action. Shapes Eldritch Blast into a Whip-like 15' reach weapon for 1 round. Threatens 10' & 15'. Allows for iterative attacks & AoOs.

Eldritch Claws: Least (Lesser?) Shape Invocation. Swift Action. Add Eldritch Blast damage to all Natural Attacks (and since a Monk's Unarmed Strike is considered both a natural attack & manufactured weapon for purposes of spells, it would work for a Monk) for 1 round.


Weapon Focus (Eldritch Blast) would apply to all of the above attack forms.

New Feat: Off-hand Energy wielder. Requires 3d6 Eldritch Blast. Allows a Warlock to gain an extra attack using their off-hand with Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Bow, Eldritch Blade or Eldritch Whip. All attacks made that round are at -2 and do 1d6 less damage.

Love these ideas. They are similar to what I'm using in my custom game, though I'm going to add something similar to your suggestion for the new feat of Off-hand Energy Wielder. Make it similar to Two-Weapon Fighting and Multi-Weapon Fighting feat trees. That would allow for greater damage throughput too.