House Rules to Improve Warlocks

[Nebuul]

Hi everyone, here are some house rules we are using to help warlocks improve some hopefully without them becoming OP (I'm not actually sure it's possible for that to happen, though . . .).

Here's a post I made previously about current warlock rules clarifications:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520756-Warlock-Guide-for-Rules-Clarifications-3-5e


Eldritch Blast damage changed to 1d6 + 1d6/2 lvls (max 11d6 @ 20)
Reworked Feat: Extra Invocation: You permanently learn one additional invocation from the list available to you, choosing an invocation of a grade which could be cast by a warlock caster level two levels lower than yours.
New Feat: Ephemeral Evocation: You permanently sacrifice one of your invocation slots. Once each day, you may meditate for 10 minutes to gain access to any evocation up to one category lower than the slot you sacrificed. You have access to that evocation as though it was one of your regular invocations until you choose to meditate and change it again. For example, if you sacrifice the slot of a greater invocation, you may choose a new least or lesser invocation up to once each day.
Rule: A warlock may dismiss any of her invocations as a standard action. If a warlock's own invocation would prevent this, either by limiting actions available or by removing access to class or spell-like abilities (such as with the polymorph sub-school), the warlock can still take a standard action when such an action would normally be allowed in order to dismiss that invocation.
Rule: All non-instantaneous invocations used by the warlock that can only be cast on herself have a duration of 24 hours (D) unless otherwise noted. If the invocation mimics a spell, the duration of any mimicked spells is changed to 24 hours (D).
Rule: The cast time of all warlock invocations is 1 standard action unless otherwise noted. If the invocation mimics a spell with a longer cast time, the cast time is changed to 1 standard action. When mimicking a spell with a shorter cast time, the cast time is unchanged.
Invocation Change: Beguiling Influence: Bonus is applied to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Wild Empathy checks.
Invocation Change/Clarification: Devil's Sight: The warlock sees normally in non-magical darkness as though it were full daylight. In magical darkness, the warlock sees normally out to 30'
Invocation Change: Hideous Blow: Cast time 1 swift action. Blast shape invocation. You imbue your weapon with eldritch power. Until your next turn, your successful weapon attacks also affect your opponent with your eldritch blast. If used, you must choose which eldritch essence is applied at the time of casting hideous blow.
Special: If your attack is a critical strike, the damage of your eldritch blast also deals critical damage per the rules on spell critical hits (CA p.85).
Invocation Change: Flee the Scene: Additional text: Unlike Dimension Door, you (but not any passengers) have no action restrictions after using Flee the Scene.
Invocation Change: Hellrime Blast: replace text: The Dexterity penalties from additional hellrime blasts are halved.
Invocation Change: Hungry Darkness: The bleed damage from Hungry Darkness' bat swarm stacks cumulatively.
Invocation Change: Voidsense: You imbue your senses with the unknowable powers of the void, gaining blindsight out to 30 feet for 24 hours.
Invocation Change: Enervating Shadow: Remove inability to affect creatures more than once in 24 hours. A creature already affected by enervating shadow has the duration reset but no additional strength is drained (no save).
Invocation Change: Warlock's Call: Removed damage risk.
Invocation Clarification: Dark Discorporation: Distraction fort save DC is standard invocation save DC
Invocation Change: Retributive Invisibility: add text: You are immune to your own shock wave.
Invocation Change: Caster's Lament: You can produce a break enchantment effect (as the spell) with your touch, except that you may choose whether or not to attempt to dispel each effect on the target.
In addition, you can use caster's lament to counterspell another caster's spell as if casting greater dispel magic. (removed 7th level restriction)


A lot of these things are pretty basic, but it does open up some fun avenues for exploring a warlock character.

[Malroth]

Some nice quality of life fixes and clarifications but nothing in it really changes much

Some others.
Rule: Eldritch Blast scales off caster level not Warlock level.

Feat: Eldritch Might Increase Eldritch Blast damage by 1d6 may be taken multiple times, it's effects stack.

Blast Shape: Eldritch Shield (lesser) For 24 hours or untill dismissed you loose access to your Eldritch blast to envelop yourself in it's energies, any creature that sucessfully attacks you with natural weapons or non reach melee weapons takes damage as if struck by your Eldritch blast.

[Nebuul]

It changes more than you'd think on first read -- it's a very significant buff to a lot of warlock builds.

Eldritch blast damage already scales from caster level. That's in existing rules as laid out by warlocks and prestige classes.

I know there are a lot of homebrew eldritch shapes and essences. The purpose of this isn't so much to write a bunch of new spells for warlocks as it is to fix a couple broken/useless ones as well as making some needed rule changes. Designing a bunch of new invocations (like the eldritch shield -- which I like, btw) is beyond the scope here. At least with my group, we mostly stick to spells and things from the books. But there might be some adjustments here and there, which is what this warlock stuff is all about.

[Metahuman1]

New Invocation: Material Empathy, 2nd level spell equivalent, least invocation: When a warlock invokes Material Empathy, he rolls a check of 1d20 + his combined caster/invoker level x2 + Cha Mod. This check is rolled and treated as a search check by a character trained in search, and with the trap finding class feature, in relation to any traps within 250ft of the warlock in all directions. Even if the trap is only partially within the range.

A second use of this invocation can be used to roll the same check against the traps Disarm DC, and also as if the user had trap finding. Success means the trap was disarmed, as if by a disable device check by a character with Trapfinding.

If used at touch range, the invocation can be used to make the same check in an effort to open a lock. The check in this use is treated as a trained use of the Open Lock skill.

Rule: Eldrich Blast has Iteneratives, and benefits from them.

[jedipilot24]

Here's another suggestion:
Warlocks get Point-blank Shot and Precise Shot as free bonus feats at level 1.

[Aotrs Commander]

Few ideas here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520481-Updating-the-Warlock-Hexblade-3-5-PF) I've been going over and discussing for the past week or so.

Maybe not suitable for all playstyles - since mine is expected high power level -but you might find among the suggestions stuff of use to folk.

[MuyMalo]

In our campaigns we generally allow warlocks to select dragonfire adept invocations, and vice versa. Not a huge amount of flexibility but it helps.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You've made some minor changes, and the extra d6 is nice in the early game, but... my gut feeling is that it isn't quite enough. Neither change really touches on the key issues, low damage and low options. Building a Warlock always feels like a struggle between combat ability and options-- you don't really have enough invocations known to cover both offense-boosting and option-granting ones. That, and the great difficulty in achieving a practical offense. I guess your revised Hideous Blow + archery works passably, but... it would be awfully nice to crank the damage up to the point that you don't need to take Hellfire Warlock and/or go the Eldrich Glaive glass cannon route.

[Beheld]

My houserules, besides a complete rewrite, would be that warlocks know all invocations of the levels they can cast, period. Including shapes and essences. That is probably close to enough.

[Troacctid]

Honestly I think a few numbers tweaks is enough to fix the awkward parts of the class. Start with 4 skill points instead of 2, that's a big deal. Make Eldritch Blast deal a bit more damage—switch it to d8s, or add Charisma, or whatever, there's a few ways to do it. Maybe boost the hit die up a size for good measure. And I think about one more invocation per grade is enough—smooth out the level progression a little and give a few more options so you don't feel so starved all the time.

I've experimented with making Eldritch Blast scale with CL rather than class level, but I'm not totally sold on it. Playtesting showed that it opened up new avenues of optimization, which is good, but also had the problem of potentially creating dead levels by moving the progression around, which is bad. I like it if you're doing a full rework, but not for a quick fix.


My houserules, besides a complete rewrite, would be that warlocks know all invocations of the levels they can cast, period. Including shapes and essences. That is probably close to enough.
Noooo! That's way too much. Now the class is frontloaded and overpowered as a dip, most of the levels are dead, and all builds look the same. Dislike!

[Cosi]

Three questions for OP:

1. What parts of the Warlock seem necessary to preserve to you? Do you want it to have a strong flavor of "being a fiend"? Something else?
2. How much work do you want to put into the fix?
3. What power level are you targeting? Do you want the Warlock to play well with Fighters? Bards? Wizards?


Eldritch Blast damage changed to 1d6 + 1d6/2 lvls (max 11d6 @ 20)

Sure. Are you also letting people make iterative attacks with it?


New Feat: Ephemeral Evocation: You permanently sacrifice one of your invocation slots. Once each day, you may meditate for 10 minutes to gain access to any evocation up to one category lower than the slot you sacrificed. You have access to that evocation as though it was one of your regular invocations until you choose to meditate and change it again. For example, if you sacrifice the slot of a greater invocation, you may choose a new least or lesser invocation up to once each day.

Couldn't that just be a class feature? Let them swap out an invocation of each level they can cast every day.


Rule: A warlock may dismiss any of her invocations as a standard action. If a warlock's own invocation would prevent this, either by limiting actions available or by removing access to class or spell-like abilities (such as with the polymorph sub-school), the warlock can still take a standard action when such an action would normally be allowed in order to dismiss that invocation.

What issue is this trying to fix?


Rule: The cast time of all warlock invocations is 1 standard action unless otherwise noted. If the invocation mimics a spell with a longer cast time, the cast time is changed to 1 standard action. When mimicking a spell with a shorter cast time, the cast time is unchanged.

I feel like this probably breaks something, but I don't know enough about invocations to know what.


Invocation Change: Beguiling Influence: Bonus is applied to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Wild Empathy checks.

Can you make Wild Empathy checks without being a Druid (or some other class that gets it)?


A lot of these things are pretty basic, but it does open up some fun avenues for exploring a warlock character.

I feel like this doesn't solve the fundamental problem where the things the Warlock does just aren't that good. The class is still reliant on third level spells until 11th level, which isn't very good. I think it needs either more invocations (so it can rely on diversity to carry it between new invocation levels), or some kind of primary shtick to rely on. Maybe something like a demon pet like WoW Warlocks have.


Noooo! That's way too much. Now the class is frontloaded and overpowered as a dip, most of the levels are dead, and all builds look the same. Dislike!

I would rather there be one good Warlock build than zero good Warlock builds, and "they get all the invocations" seems like one of the few quick fixes likely to achieve that. You could compromise by making invocation progression faster (like one or two every level), and only giving them all invocations below their current level (so a 7th level Warlock would have 2 - 4 lesser and all least). Maybe also let them have a companion equivalent to what an equal level Wizard could summon with a single casting of summon monster (evil only).

[Beheld]

Noooo! That's way too much. Now the class is frontloaded and overpowered as a dip, most of the levels are dead, and all builds look the same. Dislike!

At level 1, that is probably two powerful, when you have shatter and summon swarm and see invis and entropic warding, and some minor benefits, but by level 5, it's fine. So probably just don't give that ability until level 3 and give like 3 invocations at level 1 or something.

But I mostly don't worry about dips being too powerful, because I don't play at level 1, and by level 5 those level abilities aren't a big deal.

I also don't worry about all members of a class being the same. Sure you could write a whole new set of abilities or 5 and have enough material for different warlocks, but right now, the warlock class only has enough abilities for one meaningful character, so one meaningful character option set is what you get, like if you were playing a Dread Necromancer who didn't use prestige domains or arcane disciple or bloodline feats.

[Troacctid]

Class design has many concerns beyond simply having the correct amount of power.

The ALL THE INVOCATIONS Warlock is spikey, frontloaded, and generally unbalanced, as well as being less interesting and doing a worse job of achieving design goals. It's not a good fix.

[Grod_The_Giant]

At level 1, that is probably two powerful, when you have shatter and summon swarm and see invis and entropic warding, and some minor benefits, but by level 5, it's fine. So probably just don't give that ability until level 3 and give like 3 invocations at level 1 or something.

But I mostly don't worry about dips being too powerful, because I don't play at level 1, and by level 5 those level abilities aren't a big deal.

I also don't worry about all members of a class being the same. Sure you could write a whole new set of abilities or 5 and have enough material for different warlocks, but right now, the warlock class only has enough abilities for one meaningful character, so one meaningful character option set is what you get, like if you were playing a Dread Necromancer who didn't use prestige domains or arcane disciple or bloodline feats.
With all invocations known, and leaving aside essences and shapes, one level would get you

+6 Search, Spot, Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Balance, Jump, Tumble, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (the Planes)
Souped-up See Invisibility, Spider Climb, and Reaving Aura
Full on Shatter, Fog Cloud, Speak with Animals, and Darkness
Crappier versions of Comprehend Languages, Entangle, Earthen Grasp, and Summon Swarm
+1 to one save, and +5 to saves against poison
Wild Empathy
The ability to see through magical darkness
20% miss chance against ranged attacks
Scent
A small cloud that can fatigue a target
Darkvision

While none of that is individually that strong, it's the cumulative effect that makes it insane. You're not going to break any campaigns with it, but it's far and away the most versatility a single level of anything can get you. The range is comparable to, say, an Incarnate, and you're getting it all at once. No. If you want to do "all invocations available," it should probably be more of a "pick X invocations every morning" thing; that fits better with the game as a whole.

That being said, there's a lot of room for more invocations. I suggest something like... oh... call it one every level his BAB improves, with an additional one at every level he unlocks a new tier. One/level isn't bad either.

[Cosi]

ALL THE INVOCATIONS Warlock is spikey, frontloaded, and generally unbalanced, as well as being less interesting and doing a worse job of achieving design goals. It's not a good fix.

Sure, but there are also constraints on the problem. Can you make a better fix than "Warlocks get all the invocations all the time"? Sure. But it will take more effort to get the same level of fix out of it. There's something to be said for the simplest possible solution, even if better ones exist.

[Troacctid]

Sure, but there are also constraints on the problem. Can you make a better fix than "Warlocks get all the invocations all the time"? Sure. But it will take more effort to get the same level of fix out of it. There's something to be said for the simplest possible solution, even if better ones exist.
"Warlocks get a new invocation at every level." Hey, what do you know, I did it and it took about 3 seconds! Would you look at that.

Alternately: "Play the class as written." That's a better fix and it didn't even change anything!

[Cosi]

"Warlocks get a new invocation at every level." Hey, what do you know, I did it and it took about 3 seconds! Would you look at that.

Alternately: "Play the class as written." That's a better fix and it didn't even change anything!

Now you're just completely ignoring power as a consideration at all. If you think "all invocations" is a minimal fix from a power perspective, clearly "more but not all invocations" is not. You can feel free to dispute that claim, but ignoring it entirely, and then complaining because fixing it quickly doesn't work the way you want is just being irritating.

[Zaq]

I agree that the key is more invocations (meaning more to choose from and also more invocations known).

From Greater invocations on, Warlocks have perfectly acceptable debuffs and control options (both eldritch essences and just straight up invocations, like Chilling Tentacles and Wall of Perilous Flame), but that isn't true early on. One way that we might make the Warlock more interesting is by allowing some lower-level invocations to provide appropriate lower-level control/debuff effects (the ones that exist now are generally pretty underpowered). This of course assumes that you're also granting more invocations known, because they already don't have enough.

As far as building for damage goes, I don't know what the best baseline is. Granting iteratives with EB seems decent on the face of it, but I'm honestly not sure where that puts us relative to other classes.

I also agree that giving them better skills would make a small but very noticeable difference.

[Troacctid]

I disagree with granting iteratives on eldritch blasts. People always bring it up, but that's just not how the class is designed. You're supposed to be a spellcaster, not an archer. A single attack is fine, you just need to buff the base damage a little. I like increasing the damage dice to d8s.


Now you're just completely ignoring power as a consideration at all. If you think "all invocations" is a minimal fix from a power perspective, clearly "more but not all invocations" is not. You can feel free to dispute that claim, but ignoring it entirely, and then complaining because fixing it quickly doesn't work the way you want is just being irritating.
I'm not saying it's a minimal fix. I'm saying it breaks more than it fixes, to the point where I'd rather have no fix at all.

[Cosi]

Depending on target power level, the quick fix for the Warlock (and also Shadowcaster, Truenamer, Binder, etc) is to give them Sorcerer casting and change nothing else. This fixes the issue where Sorcerers have no class features, and simultaneously fixes the issue where the classes have a variety of meh options without a solid primary contribution to fall back on.


From Greater invocations on, Warlocks have perfectly acceptable debuffs and control options (both eldritch essences and just straight up invocations, like Chilling Tentacles and Wall of Perilous Flame), but that isn't true early on.

evard's black tentacles is a 4th level spell. Extra damage on that is nice, sure, but "damage" isn't really a problem evard's black tentacles struggles with. wall of perilous flame is just wall of fire with some funky riders. Again, that's a 4th level spell. Those are things you get at 11th level, and are expected to ride until 16th level when you get Dark invocations. There are certainly situations where I would want some at-will 4th level spells over daily 6th level ones, but there are not nearly enough of them to hang a class on.


As far as building for damage goes, I don't know what the best baseline is. Granting iteratives with EB seems decent on the face of it, but I'm honestly not sure where that puts us relative to other classes.

It depends on where you want the class to fit. Giving them iteratives makes their damage slightly worse than a Rogue of equal level. That seems reasonable, assuming you don't buff their damage much more.


I disagree with granting iteratives on eldritch blasts. People always bring it up, but that's just not how the class is designed. You're supposed to be a spellcaster, not an archer. A single attack is fine, you just need to buff the base damage a little. I like increasing the damage dice to d8s.

Spellcasters get multi-attack blasts. scorching ray gets its first extra ray before the Warlock gets iterative attacks.


I'm not saying it's a minimal fix. I'm saying it breaks more than it fixes, to the point where I'd rather have no fix at all.

I don't really think it breaks much of anything. The dip issue is marginal at best, and vanishes if you bump full invocations up to 3rd level. Having one viable build seems better than having none, and seems like a pretty minor problem as most campaigns will have at most one Warlock. Do we really care that whether there are potential Warlocks that are not being played if the actual Warlocks that are being played are good?

[Troacctid]

Spellcasters get multi-attack blasts. scorching ray gets its first extra ray before the Warlock gets iterative attacks.
Warlocks get multi-attack blasts too. They're all blast shapes, as they should be.

Scorching Ray also costs you limited daily resources to cast; nova damage can and should be higher than "basic attack" damage.

[Cosi]

Warlocks get multi-attack blasts too. They're all blast shapes, as they should be.

Why though? Why do all magic users need to fit the same pattern of abilities as the PHB casters, even if they operate in a fundamentally different paradigm for abilities?


Scorching Ray also costs you limited daily resources to cast; nova damage can and should be higher than "basic attack" damage.

I think the paradigm of balancing "daily limited" versus "at will" abilities by making at-will abilities worse is fundamentally broken. You have to hit a very narrow sweet spot, and even if you do, you've only balanced for a very small subset of campaigns.

[Troacctid]

Why though? Why do all magic users need to fit the same pattern of abilities as the PHB casters, even if they operate in a fundamentally different paradigm for abilities?
Didn't you literally just suggest giving Warlocks the exact same casting as a Sorcerer? Like, three posts ago? I don't understand what you're trying to say here. :smallconfused:


I think the paradigm of balancing "daily limited" versus "at will" abilities by making at-will abilities worse is fundamentally broken. You have to hit a very narrow sweet spot, and even if you do, you've only balanced for a very small subset of campaigns.
It's been a core mechanic in literally every edition of D&D. It's a fundamental part of the game at this point.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Now you're just completely ignoring power as a consideration at all. If you think "all invocations" is a minimal fix from a power perspective, clearly "more but not all invocations" is not. You can feel free to dispute that claim, but ignoring it entirely, and then complaining because fixing it quickly doesn't work the way you want is just being irritating.
It's not a linear thing. You start to hit a point of diminishing returns where the value of each new invocation begins to go down-- partially because you'll run out of really good ones, but mostly because it doesn't take that many more invocations to hit a point of "I have enough options to cover multiple situations without getting bored."


Warlocks get multi-attack blasts too. They're all blast shapes, as they should be.

Scorching Ray also costs you limited daily resources to cast; nova damage can and should be higher than "basic attack" damage.
Eldrich Blast damage, as written, is pathetic. At 10th level you're doing base of 5d6, up to maybe 8d6 with the right items. That's 28 damage. That's... sad. Yes, it's an at-will attack; that means it should be balanced against similar at-will options... say, a longbow.

If you want an alternate route to boost damage, I suggest adding Cha to blast damage and folding Hellfire Warlock into the base class-- it's practically obligatory anyway, so why not make it part of the default?

[Cosi]

Didn't you literally just suggest giving Warlocks the exact same casting as a Sorcerer? Like, three posts ago? I don't understand what you're trying to say here. :smallconfused:

You can fix Warlocks by making them Sorcerers. But that doesn't imply that all magic users should be like Sorcerers. You could also fix Warlocks by making them as good as Sorcerers, but not Sorcerers. Or, if you felt like Sorcerers were broken you could fix them by making them less good until they were balanced with Warlocks.

My point is that there is more than one way for a magic user to work. Something like the Sorcerer is one of those ways, and stapling the Warlock to it ensures you get something that works. But that's no reason to say that at class that works like the Warlock couldn't be distinct from but equal to the Sorcerer.


It's been a core mechanic in literally every edition of D&D. It's a fundamental part of the game at this point.

"Not having a Warlock in the PHB" was a core part of every edition of D&D until 4e put the Warlock in the PHB. I'm not convinced there are any Sacred Cows you're not allowed to kill in D&D.

[Nebuul]

Three questions for OP:

1. What parts of the Warlock seem necessary to preserve to you? Do you want it to have a strong flavor of "being a fiend"? Something else?
2. How much work do you want to put into the fix?
3. What power level are you targeting? Do you want the Warlock to play well with Fighters? Bards? Wizards?

1. I basically like the flavor as-written. My invention us to not change it, just to make the class more viable.
2. I think more work can be done, obviously, but the points addressed in my post fix a lot of warlock usability issues.
3. I'm not looking for warlocks to go head-to-head with optimized wizards because I think those are a problem rather than a goal marker, but I would like for warlocks to be useful in standard friendly groups without being made accidentally useless even without using spell combos.


Sure. Are you also letting people make iterative attacks with it?

The only iterative stacks are melee, either with the reworked hideous blow or with eldritch glaive.


Couldn't that just be a class feature? Let them swap out an invocation of each level they can cast every day.

I think it's better served as a feat to keep with the spirit of the class, but I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of a floating invocation being granted once the warlock can cast lesser invocations that can be reassigned each day that gives one category less max power.


What issue is this trying to fix?

There are a number of invocations that trap the warlock for 24 hours in a form. Dark Discorporation because it states he can only take move actions, and hellspawned grace because it is polymorph sub school which removed class abilities.


I feel like this probably breaks something, but I don't know enough about invocations to know what.

It mostly does things like allow summon swarm to be useful, and it also helps with warlocks call, casters lament, and a few other invocations.


Can you make Wild Empathy checks without being a Druid (or some other class that gets it)?

Warlocks can take an invocation that gives speak with animals and wild empathy using warlock levels. This would just provide a bit of synergy.


I feel like this doesn't solve the fundamental problem where the things the Warlock does just aren't that good. The class is still reliant on third level spells until 11th level, which isn't very good. I think it needs either more invocations (so it can rely on diversity to carry it between new invocation levels), or some kind of primary shtick to rely on. Maybe something like a demon pet like WoW Warlocks have.

Once you're familiar with the pitfalls of the class - and honestly it's pretty clear that you aren't - changes like this help a lot to just make it more usable. Once these were in place, folks could try it out and see how it's working before making additional changes. But there are probably (definitely) additional changes that could be made with invitations to up the power level.

[Troacctid]

Eldrich Blast damage, as written, is pathetic. At 10th level you're doing base of 5d6, up to maybe 8d6 with the right items. That's 28 damage. That's... sad. Yes, it's an at-will attack; that means it should be balanced against similar at-will options... say, a longbow.

If you want an alternate route to boost damage, I suggest adding Cha to blast damage and folding Hellfire Warlock into the base class-- it's practically obligatory anyway, so why not make it part of the default?
Yeah, I like going up to d8s and/or adding Charisma to damage.

[Cosi]

I think it's better served as a feat to keep with the spirit of the class, but I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of a floating invocation being granted once the warlock can cast lesser invocations that can be reassigned each day that gives one category less max power.

That's reasonable.


There are a number of invocations that trap the warlock for 24 hours in a form. Dark Discorporation because it states he can only take move actions, and hellspawned grace because it is polymorph sub school which removed class abilities.

Alright, but it seems like you're forced to use a lot of extra verbiage the way it's written. On reflection, it seems like you could just expand the next line (all invocations are dismissable) to get pretty much the same effect.


It mostly does things like allow summon swarm to be useful, and it also helps with warlocks call, casters lament, and a few other invocations.

Oh I don't think it breaks everything, but I don't remember invocations well enough to know if there's a killer app like major creation lying around.


Once you're familiar with the pitfalls of the class - and honestly it's pretty clear that you aren't

I'll confess to not know the details, but the big issue with the Warlock always seemed to be that it has a lot of abilities that are interesting if you already are a Warlock for some reason, but nothing to convince you to pull the trigger on being a Warlock to begin with.

These seem good at what they're trying to do, but I still don't think they give me a reason to be a Warlock instead of a Beguiler or a Sorcerer or a Druid or something. For me, that's a bigger issue than the quality of life type problems this fixes.

[Aotrs Commander]

Yeah, I like going up to d8s and/or adding Charisma to damage.

+1 damage per dice (because in reality, that's all D6=> D8 gives you, 3.5=>4.5 damage, especially when dealing with multiple dice) and charisma still leaves it barely on par with a single SA from a rogue (aside from it being touch AC). Without iterative attacks as a single-target attack, the warlock is increasingly ineffectual as a ranged attacker. Changeing to area effect-attacks then compares it directly to the casters where it, with those mods, is less behind but still low. 9D8, no, let's say, 10D8 if you give it D8/2levels and let's be generous and say 30 Cha at 20th level, so +10 from a high 30 Charisma is still considerably behind (55 damage) the wizard's 20D6 attack spell at the same level (70 damage).

55 Damage to a single target per round is not even trying for a melee combatant at that level, for that matter. (I've seen 15-16th level character cranking out two hundred damager per round regularly, though granted if your group does not optimise much this may be a different experience.)




As I said in my thread about this topic, at the moment, myself, I'm leaning towards blast being D6 every odd level, an iterative attack (if you don't use a blast shape, bar some exceptions), and saying for blast shapes, at 8 BAB (11th for a typical warlock) you automatically empower and maximise at 16 BAB (epic for a typical warlock). (As +50% per iterative was a little too much.)

I also increased the resistances, DR and healing, and am currently aiming to give it the same number invocations (though very tempted to add one to all levels), but award a bonus blast shape or essense feat at 1st and every 3rd level.

That way, it can keep closer pace with either the wizards' area effect damage (plus its statuses) or deal competative single-target damage to a noncaster/archer (in the level of optimisating environment of my group).

[Zaq]

Eldrich Blast damage, as written, is pathetic. At 10th level you're doing base of 5d6, up to maybe 8d6 with the right items. That's 28 damage. That's... sad. Yes, it's an at-will attack; that means it should be balanced against similar at-will options... say, a longbow.


I think we're fundamentally on the same side of this discussion, but I'm not sure where you're going with the longbow. EB with zero investment is (at the chosen level for discussion) 5d6, or 17.5 average on a hit. At this level with no investment, a longbow will do 2d8 over two hits, or maybe 2d8+4 if it's a composite longbow and you've got 14 STR (but again, assuming basically no investment here), which is either 9 or 13 assuming that both shots hit. And it's likely going to be easier to land one touch attack than two non-touch attacks, though the fact that we've got two shots does raise the average a bit. But I don't feel like crunching the numbers for average AC and average touch AC at this level.

Now, looking only at minimum investment is highly misleading. A level 10 character who cares about archery isn't going to only be firing two shots for 1d8 + 2 damage a pop. They'll have Rapid Shot, they'll have a magic bow, they'll have nickel-and-dime bonuses (PBS, if nothing else; +1 isn't a lot, but it's not zero, either), they might have decent STR or something, or they might even have Sneak Attack or other precision damage. But every bit of investment is just that—investment. And I do agree that EB is pretty darn sad as written, so I'm not arguing for nerfing it or anything crazy like that. But I'm not sure where we're aiming with the longbow comparison.

Of course, it's not wise to ignore the fact that the as-written Warlock has significantly fewer avenues of damage optimization than a generic archery-focused character does (you mentioned 8d6, and I'm not sure that it's possible to reliably get above that without going Hellfire or impeding your ability to attack every round . . . maybe if you could burn like four feats on Hidden Talent / Psychic Meditation / Psionic Shot / Greater Psionic Shot? Not even sure if that's feasible by this level). But when we're not building a class from the ground up but rather tweaking an existing class in an existing system, how do we account for that? Do we give the Warlock a new way to invest resources into increasing EB effectiveness, and if so, what does that look like? Do we assume that the Warlock's EB capabilities should be the same as someone who invests basically nothing into archery, or the same as someone who builds themselves as an archer, or something different altogether?

I think that's really the sticking point. EB balance is weird not because it's at-will but because it's baked in. Making a ranged touch attack is one of the easiest things to do in this game (sure, you'll want Precise Shot early on, and you probably don't want a negative DEX mod, but it doesn't take long before even a medium BAB progression has you hitting on damn near every touch attack you make against a non-specialized opponent), and the Warlock doesn't have to do anything to get this extremely reliable attack. (NB: I do not think that this is a bad thing or an overpowered thing.) It's less than a Rogue's Sneak Attack (both in that there's no iterative potential and also fewer dice as a baseline), but Rogues have to actually work to get Sneak Attack, particularly on a full attack and particularly after turn 1. (Yes, there are plenty of ways to trigger SA, but they don't just happen without some amount of effort.) EB just comes baked in; it scales automatically and is super reliable. So where do we balance that? My gut says that Rogues and Fighters have to invest too much already to be competent, but the fact remains that Rogues and Fighters and all kinds of similar damage-dealing classes do have to put in investment to be competent, so it's a little weird to say that the Warlock just gets to match their damage output merely by taking levels in their primary class.

I don't have an answer, and as I said, I think we're fundamentally on the same side. But the more I think about this, the less convinced I am that there's an easy answer, because the game flat out doesn't really have a reliable baseline.

[Nebuul]

I added a link towards the top of the original post to this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520756-Warlock-Guide-for-Rules-Clarifications-3-5e) that gives a little more explanation on current rules hiccups experienced by warlocks.

[Grod_The_Giant]

@Zaq: Yeah, that's fair. I'm mostly thinking of the last time I saw a Warlock played, in a campaign with a Warblade, a Psion, a Scout, and... I don't remember what all else, from around 6-8. The player had a lot of gripes about how boring it was-- move and plink, move and plink.

[Beheld]

With all invocations known, and leaving aside essences and shapes, one level would get you

+6 Search, Spot, Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Balance, Jump, Tumble, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (the Planes)
Souped-up See Invisibility, Spider Climb, and Reaving Aura
Full on Shatter, Fog Cloud, Speak with Animals, and Darkness
Crappier versions of Comprehend Languages, Entangle, Earthen Grasp, and Summon Swarm
+1 to one save, and +5 to saves against poison
Wild Empathy
The ability to see through magical darkness
20% miss chance against ranged attacks
Scent
A small cloud that can fatigue a target
Darkvision

While none of that is individually that strong, it's the cumulative effect that makes it insane. You're not going to break any campaigns with it, but it's far and away the most versatility a single level of anything can get you. The range is comparable to, say, an Incarnate, and you're getting it all at once. No. If you want to do "all invocations available," it should probably be more of a "pick X invocations every morning" thing; that fits better with the game as a whole.

That being said, there's a lot of room for more invocations. I suggest something like... oh... call it one every level his BAB improves, with an additional one at every level he unlocks a new tier. One/level isn't bad either.

As I said, kick it back to level 3 when the all invocations of each level triggers, and no one will dip it at level 1 or whatever, and it is perfectly comparable to other classes.


Class design has many concerns beyond simply having the correct amount of power.

The ALL THE INVOCATIONS Warlock is spikey, frontloaded, and generally unbalanced, as well as being less interesting and doing a worse job of achieving design goals. It's not a good fix.

Having all the invocations is more interesting.

Changing it to level 3 when that triggers removes all front loadedness as an issue (though it really isn't that front loaded, it's just that if you play in e6 that looks good compared to progressing your real class). It's really not any spikier than a Beguiler getting a new spell level.

[Aotrs Commander]

@Zaq: Yeah, that's fair. I'm mostly thinking of the last time I saw a Warlock played, in a campaign with a Warblade, a Psion, a Scout, and... I don't remember what all else, from around 6-8. The player had a lot of gripes about how boring it was-- move and plink, move and plink.

That is exactly what the one player who has so far played a warlock -and at exactly that level spread, 6 and 8 - said. (I have onlyl played one personally in NWN2, which was't too bad, but while I was neeming with me, of course, I was also controlling the other characters, too.)

It is also worth noting the times when the warlock is at its apogee, the player doesn't get to actually do anything. For example, the last game we played with that party had them trapping a load of vampiric dire wolves in a quarry - and then everybody having a cup of tea, while the warlock just floated out of reach and neemed them to death. (Which, of course, we skipped over.)

To be fair, that was one of the best ways I expected them to deal with that problem (since there were way too many to fight), but it illustrates the major problem. The warlock's most optimum conditions for functioning (flying over thinsg that can't shoot back and using the lack of ammunition to just keep chiopping away) involve it basically doing things off-screen.

Which is why I think, regardless of eldritch blast damage (which, for my game environment, DOES need the buff), I think warlocks need more invocations; the qurstion is how many. (My first pass, rather than what was mentioned earlier, was to set it such that they got four of each level (so 16), plus every other level a bonus blast/essense, which seemed to be too much.

Also, illustraively though, when I said I was allowing iterative attacks, my player said "great, at least that's something else to do," which said he must have been pretty bored to be excited by rolling a second attack every round...!



I think part of the problem is that the warlock's biggest strength - the unlimited ammo ranged attack - is inherently at cross purposes, since the best way to use it is just to keep spamming your best attack round after round. I'm not even sure that more invocations will help (other hand give some more options and at least a wider choice of essences), but at least with the 3.Aotrs increased damage output. the play feels like they will be contributing as much, say, the fighter.



(In what I consider supreme irony, since it runs completely counter to the fluff of the world, where the bad guys tend to have the greater bias to psionics than anyone, that particular party with the one warlock is the most psionic-heavy party we've ever had. Until the most recent character, had no divine and no primary casters at all...! In fact, they are so oddball, I had to assign one of the character's flunkies as an outdoors type/rogue... As otherwise, the Warlock WAS the scout!

I think it was something like psion, psychic warrior, ardent, monster class unicorn/dragon shaman, duskblade (the one caster initially), warlock and a swordsage, only later replaced by wiz/clr/MT. That's what I get saying "don't worry about the balance, just play whatever you like," to each player in isolation...!)


I added a link towards the top of the original post to this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520756-Warlock-Guide-for-Rules-Clarifications-3-5e) that gives a little more explanation on current rules hiccups experienced by warlocks.

That was worth a check, to make sure my right ups could make nessecary tweaks I would have otherwise missed (e.g. allowing Dark Discorpoation to be dismissed as a move action!)