Warlock help! (3.5 D&D)

[Metahuman1]

Ok, so. I've got a new game staring, 1st level, 900GP starting gold so that we can try to actually buy stuff at the start.

Party looks like the following.

NPC Lycanthrope with unspecified spell casting, he will be around a fair bit but we have been assured won't be the star of the show.

Dragonborn (not sure on base race) Sorcerer. Currently looking at moving toward the dragon heart magic prestige class.

Cleric (race not yet specified. Or anything else about it at this time.)

Swordsage, with a heavy focus on Shadow Hand.

Artificer (Race is probably gonna be a port of Tinker Gnome.)

Human Paladin of Freedom. (He fully intends not to be a problem for the party to have around as long as the party doesn't go evil stupid. I'm ok and enjoy the idea of having him on board and so does the rest of the party, so please let's not get side tracked with Paladin discussions, thanks.)





After much playing with ideas, and rolling fixed stats (no option for reroll or point buy sadly.) of 10, 12, 12, 12, 13, 14, I have settled on using a Sparrow Hegenyokai for my race, and I have procured the DM's blessing to Home-brew a feat to get unlimited form changes per day. I am also going to look into open chakra/shape soul meld to get that one soul meld that gives perfect maneuverability so that I can hover in narrower environments.

For class, I have settled on Warlock.



Now, I want to be able to handle the traditional rogue rolls for the party. Scouting/sneaking around, and being able to detect and handle traps and pick/open locks. That's gonna be my primary thing.

secondary things are I want to have room to max out Use Magic Device as a skill, and to work in Eldritch Claws later on, cause while laser birdie is awesome, death lightsaber talons birdie of DOOOOOOOOM!TM is freaking metal album cover art waiting to be drawn. But that one can wait bit while I set the other things up first.


I will probably be taking a flaw or two for extra feats, and I will probably be able to delay a couple of levels at least getting perfect maneuverability if there's anything super pressing the character simply must take at level 1 or 3 by the latest to function.

I'm, considering taking the beauties blessing feat, just to get Cha to HP and make it safer to dump Con, but I've made no final decision there.





So, what feats/skills/Invocations should I be picking up to make this work effectively?

[ATHATH]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?252715-The-New-Warlock-Handbook-3-5-WIP

[J-H]

You can get Hover through a single feat on the SRD.

You're going to have to dip Rogue or Scout for trapfinding. The Shatter invocation is a decent choice for breaking non-magical doors, cages, and locks. Eldritch Spear is good for ranged bombardment, but you may not get very many opportunities if you're in a dungeoncrawl.

[Venger]

You can get Hover through a single feat on the SRD.

You're going to have to dip Rogue or Scout for trapfinding. The Shatter invocation is a decent choice for breaking non-magical doors, cages, and locks. Eldritch Spear is good for ranged bombardment, but you may not get very many opportunities if you're in a dungeoncrawl.
dip factotum instead, it gives a better return on investment.

[ATHATH]

You can get Hover through a single feat on the SRD.

You're going to have to dip Rogue or Scout for trapfinding. The Shatter invocation is a decent choice for breaking non-magical doors, cages, and locks. Eldritch Spear is good for ranged bombardment, but you may not get very many opportunities if you're in a dungeoncrawl.
Hm... Chameleon can grant you Trapfinding, and a two-level dip for that floating feat is pretty decent for a Warlock (take an item-crafting feat to take advantage of your ability to ignore the spells required to craft items, take Extra Invocation (The Dead Walk) to raise some undead in your downtime, etc.), even if it doesn't progress casting. Since according to the sidebar on page 150 of Races of Destiny, any creature with the Human subtype counts as a Human for the purposes of feats, PrCs, etc., you can use a flaw to take both Humanoid Heritage (your great-great-grandpa was a weird Druid who did some weird stuff in the woods) and Able Learner at first level and enter Chameleon as a Hegenyokai.

[Troacctid]

It's not really worth two feats just to get perfect maneuverability. Just take Improved Maneuverability if you really have to; it'll bump you up one step from average to good, which is all the maneuverability you're likely to need.

So, let's look at all the skills you want.

Concentration: You need it to be relevant in a lot of combat situations.
Use Magic Device: You want it maxed, because you can take 10, but your familiar can't, and you want your familiar to have wands, trust me.
Search: You can get a +6 bonus with all-seeing eyes if you have to, but it's cross-class, so you can't realistically afford to put any actual points in it. But you have detect magic at will, so you can at least find magic traps with Spellcraft.
Open Lock: Get a wand of knock and forget this skill.
Disable Device: Use relentless dispelling for magical traps, baleful utterance for mechanical traps, and you're golden.
Spellcraft: You have detect magic at will, so this skill is even better than it normally would be (and it's normally one of the best skills). It also helps you detect traps and identify items. I recommend maxing it.
Spot/Listen: These are both cross-class. Just forget them and get a familiar to do it for you.
Hide/Move Silently: Again, cross-class, just get your familiar to do it.
Bluff: Great to have, but can you afford it? Probably not, but if you have extra points, this gives you potentially a lot of power for the cost of a single skill. (Diplomacy is also great, but cross-class.)
Intimidate: You need it if you ever want to go Hellfire Warlock.
Knowledges (various): Being able to identify monsters is useful, because you want to know which ones have spell resistance and so on, but in practice you mostly end up taking these when you need them to qualify for things.


So we've got Concentration, UMD, and Spellcraft maxed. That's 3 skills right there and we're already out of points. Warlocks are very skill-starved, as you may have noticed. How can you get more? Well, I suppose you could try a prestige class. There are certainly some that would boost your skills. Paragnostic Apostle, Urban Savant, Virtuoso, Unseen Seer, Heartfire Fanner, etc. But most of them are pretty annoying to get into, even the ones that are supposed to be easy like Paragnostic Apostle, because of those darn skill taxes.

Warlocks are not meant for doing their own scouting. Either you're getting a familiar to do it (which is what I recommend) or you're using a crawling eye.

Anyway, check out my Invocations Guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-6a2WhKNXCSkbTXiocOklvsgNhCNKxgVdRGn-nhM_zs/). I've been doing a little work on a new Warlock handbook and that's the only section I've finished so far. But it's already over 15,000 words on its own and covers every Warlock invocation in the game, so hopefully it's still helpful.


You can get Hover through a single feat on the SRD.

You're going to have to dip Rogue or Scout for trapfinding. The Shatter invocation is a decent choice for breaking non-magical doors, cages, and locks. Eldritch Spear is good for ranged bombardment, but you may not get very many opportunities if you're in a dungeoncrawl.
The weight limit on shatter makes it not so great for most doors and cages, but it certainly does a number on a lot of things.


dip factotum instead, it gives a better return on investment.
For a single level? No, Rogue is better, and I don't think it's even close. Or if not Rogue, then Beguiler. Factotum is one of the worst options for trapfinding, honestly, I think I'd even take Ranger over it.


Hm... Chameleon can grant you Trapfinding, and a two-level dip for that floating feat is pretty decent for a Warlock (take an item-crafting feat to take advantage of your ability to ignore the spells required to craft items, take Extra Invocation (The Dead Walk) to raise some undead in your downtime, etc.), even if it doesn't progress casting. Since according to the sidebar on page 150 of Races of Destiny, any creature with the Human subtype counts as a Human for the purposes of feats, PrCs, etc., you can use a flaw to take both Humanoid Heritage (your great-great-grandpa was a weird Druid who did some weird stuff in the woods) and Able Learner at first level and enter Chameleon as a Hegenyokai.
You don't want to delay your invocation progression for Chameleon. It's not worth it. If you're losing two caster levels, you might as well just go Unseen Seer, you'll probably get a better return out of it. Anyway, a Hengeyokai can't be a Chameleon, it's only for humans and changelings, and even if they could take Human Heritage, which they can't, it deeefinitely would not be worth the feat tax.

And you're not taking the dead walk because you're going to be good-aligned for Nymph's Kiss and Celestial Familiar (yes, you have to take those feats, they're great in general and great for what you're trying to do), and that means no evil spells.

[Metahuman1]

Ok, first point, what is this core feat that moves me up from normal sparrow maneuverability? Cause, as far as I was aware, you needed perfect maneuverability to hover. And I want to be able to hover.


Second, alright, I was considering Nymph's Kiss. I was also going to see if I could get the DM to allow me to dip Martial Rogue for one level, and wave the human requirement for able learner so that I can get trap finding, spot, listen, hide, move silently and maybe search and tumble as class skills, allowing me to max them, and keep them topped off at a reasonable price (and possibly giving me a couple of other ranks for things a couple of ranks in say, ride for riding along my more normal party members when I don't actively need to be air born, but still feel like being a pain in the butt target.

You, seem like your recommending against this. Can you elaborate on why? (Cause, one of the big advantages of being Fine, besides being harder to hit and more accurate, is that, well, I get a MASSIVE bonus to stealth skills.)




Also, Beauty's Blessing or Faerie Mysteries Initiate for getting an alternative stat to HP? Worth while investment in this case, or don't bother?

[Troacctid]

Ok, first point, what is this core feat that moves me up from normal sparrow maneuverability? Cause, as far as I was aware, you needed perfect maneuverability to hover. And I want to be able to hover.
Hovering requires good maneuverability (or the Hover feat).


Second, alright, I was considering Nymph's Kiss. I was also going to see if I could get the DM to allow me to dip Martial Rogue for one level, and wave the human requirement for able learner so that I can get trap finding, spot, listen, hide, move silently and maybe search and tumble as class skills, allowing me to max them, and keep them topped off at a reasonable price (and possibly giving me a couple of other ranks for things a couple of ranks in say, ride for riding along my more normal party members when I don't actively need to be air born, but still feel like being a pain in the butt target.

You, seem like your recommending against this. Can you elaborate on why? (Cause, one of the big advantages of being Fine, besides being harder to hit and more accurate, is that, well, I get a MASSIVE bonus to stealth skills.)
Because you don't have enough skill points without multiclassing.

If you're going to multiclass, I guess that's alright. You'd probably go for a level of Rogue or Scout, then a level of Beguiler, and then prestige into Unseen Seer. And probably take Blend into Darkness and Darkstalker as feats. But a coure eladrin familiar has a base +24 to Hide and +Infinity to Move Silently, and it can fly through walls and detect magic and detect evil at will, so coming along with it to personally see what's going on is often redundant.


Also, Beauty's Blessing or Faerie Mysteries Initiate for getting an alternative stat to HP? Worth while investment in this case, or don't bother?
Beauty's Bounty adds Charisma to HP at level 1 only, not for any subsequent levels, and it replaces Constitution. So it's literally worse than Toughness. Do not take!

Faerie Mysteries Initiate lets you put your 10 in Constitution, but you already have Dex as a dump stat (thanks to that automatic 23 in sparrow form), so really your Con is probably gonna be 12 anyway. If you put 14 in Int, that makes it equivalent to Improved Toughness. Which is not super impressive. FMI is a decent feat for a lot of builds, but it's not well positioned for your stat array.

[Metahuman1]

Alright, so the stat swap feats are out, and I can just pick up a core feat and get hovering online. (The Hover Feat is in the MM I take it?)


I can stick a 13 in Con, a 12 in Charisma and Dex and Wis, The 10 in Strength (Cause before I get claws up and running I'm defiantly getting weapons finesse.) and a 14 in Int, which leverages me an extra skill rank x4 at level 1.

Nymph's kiss gives me 2 of them.




Putting Multy-classing aside for a moment, why the emphasis on spending feats to get Familiars? I've got all these invocations I can tack to jack up my personal sensory and stealth abilities, and I can hover at size category fine with that massive size bonus to the stealth skills, and a major stat focus on Dex in that form to boot. I feel like the fact that you keep suggesting that path means I'm missing something, can you explain more please?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Hover starts at good. Perfect is essentially a mimic of 2D combat in 3D. Good permits hover but still has some turning and ascension issues. Scroll down this page (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm) to see what the various maneuverabilites do. In my personal experience perfect is only really worth it if you simply do not want to bother with the flight rules at all.

[Soranar]

I would rarely recommend this but have you considered vow of poverty?

It's one of the few things that can boost your fighting form (sparrow)

It also affects your eldritch blast damage

Since you can't use items though that means UMD is useless to you so don't bother with putting ranks in it

As for the rest, a reach weapon (eldritch glaive) doubles your reach but it's still too short to fight with unless you enter your opponent's square (which is a good idea with underfooted combat)

[Metahuman1]

It's not useless, it's just going to take abit to get it online. I'll just be in sparrow form when I assign ability ranks at level up so that I can drop them in Dex. From there, Ring of Arming and a Wilding Clasp for the ring. Boom. Gear is online, and I can do this at crafting cost by hitting the artificer up for a favor.

[Troacctid]

Putting Multy-classing aside for a moment, why the emphasis on spending feats to get Familiars? I've got all these invocations I can tack to jack up my personal sensory and stealth abilities, and I can hover at size category fine with that massive size bonus to the stealth skills, and a major stat focus on Dex in that form to boot. I feel like the fact that you keep suggesting that path means I'm missing something, can you explain more please?
Because they're really powerful. A familiar is worth the equivalent of like a half-dozen invocations all on its own.

Look at the coure eladrin. Just for existing, it gives you a continuous Magic Circle against Evil that cannot be dispelled and ignores spell resistance. It can speak every language, so forget Comprehend Languages, you've got your universal translator right there. It can turn incorporeal, making itself immune to almost all damage and giving it the ability to phase through walls. It has Faerie Fire at will, which negates invisibility and other forms of concealment, no save, very important for a sneak attacker especially. It can cast Magic Missile to deal extra damage without costing you an action, or Sleep to knock out low-level minions. It has Detect Evil at will for sniffing out bad guys. It can act as a remote scout, looking ahead at minimal risk (because it's incorporeal and has insane stealth) and then reporting back to you, essentially obviating the need for Crawling Eye. It makes its own Spot and Listen and Sense Motive and Knowledge checks, essentially allowing you to roll twice and take the better result. It can aid you on all your other skill checks, essentially giving you +2 to EVERY skill. It can also aid you in combat, giving you or an ally +2 to hit or AC (on top of the bonuses you're already getting from its magic circle). How many invocations would you have to spend to match all that?

And there's more. It can use wands. It has its own whole set of actions in combat. How many times have you failed a save against some debilitating effect and wished you could just try again the next turn? When your familiar is flying right above you with a wand of Resurgence, you can. Need healing? Here's the helpful fairy with a wand of Faith Healing. Want to enable sneak attacks? Faerie Fire turns off their concealment, and then a wand of Grease makes them flat-footed for a whole round. Just looking for a little extra damage? Try a wand of Sunstroke or Power Word Pain. Need to slow enemies down? Wand of Entangle. Enemy archers giving you trouble? Have your eladrin fly over and drop an Obscuring Mist on them. Etc.

And we're not even getting into the other options—imps, mustevals, lantern archons, all with their own unique advantages.

Anyway, familiars are great.

[Pyromancer999]

If you can somehow spare the skill points(maybe through Open-minded?), Uncanny Trickster would be a good three-level dip for you, as it gives you huge boost in skill points(8+Int), in exchange for one lost level of Warlock progression.

As for Trapfinding, the Thieve's Gloves soulmeld can give you that without having to dip. On the whole, a 1-2 level dip into Incarnate can be really good for your skills, as there are many soulmelds that boost your skills overall.

[Metahuman1]

Because they're really powerful. A familiar is worth the equivalent of like a half-dozen invocations all on its own.

Look at the coure eladrin. Just for existing, it gives you a continuous Magic Circle against Evil that cannot be dispelled and ignores spell resistance. It can speak every language, so forget Comprehend Languages, you've got your universal translator right there. It can turn incorporeal, making itself immune to almost all damage and giving it the ability to phase through walls. It has Faerie Fire at will, which negates invisibility and other forms of concealment, no save, very important for a sneak attacker especially. It can cast Magic Missile to deal extra damage without costing you an action, or Sleep to knock out low-level minions. It has Detect Evil at will for sniffing out bad guys. It can act as a remote scout, looking ahead at minimal risk (because it's incorporeal and has insane stealth) and then reporting back to you, essentially obviating the need for Crawling Eye. It makes its own Spot and Listen and Sense Motive and Knowledge checks, essentially allowing you to roll twice and take the better result. It can aid you on all your other skill checks, essentially giving you +2 to EVERY skill. It can also aid you in combat, giving you or an ally +2 to hit or AC (on top of the bonuses you're already getting from its magic circle). How many invocations would you have to spend to match all that?

And there's more. It can use wands. It has its own whole set of actions in combat. How many times have you failed a save against some debilitating effect and wished you could just try again the next turn? When your familiar is flying right above you with a wand of Resurgence, you can. Need healing? Here's the helpful fairy with a wand of Faith Healing. Want to enable sneak attacks? Faerie Fire turns off their concealment, and then a wand of Grease makes them flat-footed for a whole round. Just looking for a little extra damage? Try a wand of Sunstroke or Power Word Pain. Need to slow enemies down? Wand of Entangle. Enemy archers giving you trouble? Have your eladrin fly over and drop an Obscuring Mist on them. Etc.

And we're not even getting into the other options—imps, mustevals, lantern archons, all with their own unique advantages.

Anyway, familiars are great.



Alright, so. What your basically recommending, in a nut shell, is that the familiar, even with my size bonuses and such, can be stealthier AND harder to kill then me, with alternative senses, making it easier for it to do scouting/sneaking safely.


Assuming I have that right, can you show me were this creature is stated, and what feats (and books there found in.) I need to take to get this working?



Also, since I evidently don't need Able Learner (Which the DM house ruled I could take.), Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently, Tumble or Search, here's a question. Should I still take Nymph's kiss, and is it worth it to put my 14 into Int? If so, where should I be assigning the other skill ranks?

Or should I save the feat and/or Assign the stat to Cha and leave a 12 in Int?

[Troacctid]

Alright, so. What your basically recommending, in a nut shell, is that the familiar, even with my size bonuses and such, can be stealthier AND harder to kill then me, with alternative senses, making it easier for it to do scouting/sneaking safely.


Assuming I have that right, can you show me were this creature is stated, and what feats (and books there found in.) I need to take to get this working?
Celestial Familiar feat from Book of Exalted Deeds. Coure eladrin and musteval guardinal are in the same book.


Also, since I evidently don't need Able Learner (Which the DM house ruled I could take.), Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently, Tumble or Search, here's a question. Should I still take Nymph's kiss, and is it worth it to put my 14 into Int? If so, where should I be assigning the other skill ranks?

Or should I save the feat and/or Assign the stat to Cha and leave a 12 in Int?
Nymph's Kiss is still great. You can never have too many skill points. I'd use them to qualify for prestige classes.

[Gildedragon]

So for good flight: pectoral of... Maneuvering iirc (in draconomicon or dragon magic) is a torso wondrous item that improves your flight maneuverability by 1 or 2 steps

[Metahuman1]

Alright, I'll have to look at them later (About to head to work.) but quick follow up question. Can either of them get Trapfinding and good search checks at a reasonable price?



Gildedragon: I'll look into that item as well. Might save me a feat. =)

[Gildedragon]

Yanno. The artificer has trapfinding so... Maybe let them take care of that?

[Troacctid]

Alright, I'll have to look at them later (About to head to work.) but quick follow up question. Can either of them get Trapfinding and good search checks at a reasonable price?
Well...you could get a wand of find traps, if your definition of "reasonable" includes 2nd level wands. Other than that, I don't believe so. They can detect magic traps like a boss though, detect magic is great.

[Sagetim]

I mean, a level of rogue isn't going to destroy you, because you can probably get that sneak attack bonus added to your EB pretty regularly. Trapfinding is a bit of a bastard in 3.5, and not being familiar with Incarnum, I didn't know you could get it from a soul meld. So, the more yo know~

Anyway, I'd go with 14 dexterity instead of int, because your ac and to hit and init will love you for it, as will your ref save and so on. You might not have all the skill points to do all the things, but hitting regularly and reliably is pretty damn important. And a plague of low rolls can make those touch attacks with eldritch blast seem rather weak as they keep missing despite having a lower ac to contend with. Which is where having a higher solid modifier comes in handy. Hitting an opponent on a 2 is nice, and having a higher enough attack bonus to do that regularly is rather important if you're playing a damage dealing class like warlock.

Vow of Poverty may have some nice bonuses at higher level, but surviving long enough to get there can be rather tricky if you're starting at level 1. And since you don't have the human bonus feat from level 1, you can't start with vow of poverty anyway, it has the feat tax of Sacred Vow.

Your stats are so...relatively even that getting an alternate stat to your hp seems rather meaningless. As a Warlock, you should focus on invocations that don't have save dc's attached, or the saves are for superfluous effects (like brimstone blast setting someone on fire, or whatever. That doesn't matter, it gives you +2d6 damage and sets you to fire damage is the important part). Fell Flight, The Dead Walk, Summon Swarm, Walk Unseen, Stop the Unstoppable, Break the Unbreakable, Row Row Fight The Power...wait, those last 3 aren't invocations. Anyway, there's a lot of utility available that has nothing to do with your charisma modifier because it doesn't have a saving throw dc attached. Focus on things like that, becuase a 12 or 13 cha is probably never going to be competitive enough to give monsters a hard time resisting anything you throw out.

For blast invocations that means things like brimstone blast, vitrolic blast, and enervating negative energy blast whose name I forget are all fine choices. You might not inflict negative levels with the last one, but that's okay...it's a good damage type to have on hand. By contrast, frightening blast or nausea blast or whatever they're called are very 'make a saving throw' based for their effectiveness and aren't going to give you significant mileage that other invocations could.

Bear in mind there's a darkness invocation And one that lets you see in both regular AND magical darkness, so if you want to be a jerk, you can buff your sight at the start of the day and drop darkness to be hidden from your foes as you assassinate them within. Team up with the sword sage for additional shadowy shenanigans.

To get back to the trapfinding conundrum, taking a one level dip in rogue is going to give you these trade offs: worse BAB, Many skill points, much better ref save, Evasion? Or was that rogue 2? Sneak Attack, Lower Eldritch Blast Damage at some levels, a lower caster level for penetrating spell resistance, fewer/slower invocation progression.

I don't factotum, so I don't know it's pro's and cons with regards to recommending it or not. Anyway, you should be fine as long as you avoid sing things with a dc. Because it's going to be pretty bad. In fact, warlock's can use charisma as a dump stat because they can be built to not need it for Anything.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, one of the things with Warlocks is that you can invest in Charisma and use it as a primary stat and have high DCs and it's great, or you can also just dump Charisma, not take those invocations, and just do different things than the Warlock with all the Charisma invocations. Or you can go somewhere in the middle and have some stuff that cares about Charisma but still does other stuff even if they make the save. It just depends on what you want to do.

In this case there is no reason to have Dexterity as your highest stat because it's just going to be a 23 in sparrow form regardless.

Devil's Sight is cute, but you can also just save an invocation slot and not put your enemies inside the darkness. Creatures outside an area of darkness aren't concealed by it.

[ATHATH]

According to this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4858) list, Psychic Reformation-ing out Weapon Finesse for Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment (Kobold Domain)) or giving it the Keeper's Guide will let your Coure Eladrin familiar obtain Trapfinding.

[Metahuman1]

Oh, don't misunderstand, I really personally wish trapfinding was much more, trivial, to get one's hands on. I do.

That said, here's a quick question. Do familiars get there own feats as they level up? Can the Familiar have flaws?



Also, the reason I ask is cause while yes, I, COULD team up with the artificer, I don't want to forcibly pegon hole him.

Cause, to stay with me searching if I/my familiar are trying to scout ahead, he also needs to invest in things like Hide and Move Silently as well, and it get's to eat skills rather fast. Were as if he doesn't, he finds traps but gives us all away, ruining a chunk of the point.

So, It's better to just have me and my familiar teamed up to cope with the traps at this point. If the Familiar can FIND all the traps, I can use that one Invocation mentioned above baleful utterance I think, to break them so that there not an issue. I can probably also after a couple of levels start using a casting of Silence form one of the others on a rock or something to make sure that the noise stay's localized from doing so.



Follow Up Question about Nymph's Kiss: Do I have to take it at first level to get the x4 at first level (thus meaning I can max a class skill.), or do I get that if I put it off till 3rd level?

I've got a LOT of feats competing for limited slots at first level, so, wondering if this can be safely moved into the "Abit later." bin.

[Troacctid]

That said, here's a quick question. Do familiars get there own feats as they level up? Can the Familiar have flaws?
No and no.


I can probably also after a couple of levels start using a casting of Silence form one of the others on a rock or something to make sure that the noise stay's localized from doing so.
Sonic attacks such as shatter do not function in an area of magical silence. Relentless dispelling works just fine on magical traps though.


Follow Up Question about Nymph's Kiss: Do I have to take it at first level to get the x4 at first level (thus meaning I can max a class skill.), or do I get that if I put it off till 3rd level?
Taking it earlier means more extra skill points total, as it does not apply retroactively. However, the extra skill points it gives you are not multiplied at 1st level.

[Metahuman1]

Drat. That would have made it so much simpler.



Right, but I can let the coin with the silence on it roll juuuuuuust past were the trap actually is and then shatter the traps mechanism so that it can't go off, and keep the sound from carrying nearly as effectively down in the "moving forward" Direction. I did something similar on a Trap Smasher Barbarian build once to keep form constantly giving away the party.



Alright, so, I may have to sideline Nymph's kiss till level 3 or 6 then.



Does Eldritch Blast itself have a stomatic/verbal component? I'm trying to figure out if I can maybe delay a couple of levels on that feat that makes invocation use work in Sparrow Form.

[Gildedragon]

Eldritch blast has no components as far as I know.

[Sagetim]

Yeah, one of the things with Warlocks is that you can invest in Charisma and use it as a primary stat and have high DCs and it's great, or you can also just dump Charisma, not take those invocations, and just do different things than the Warlock with all the Charisma invocations. Or you can go somewhere in the middle and have some stuff that cares about Charisma but still does other stuff even if they make the save. It just depends on what you want to do.

In this case there is no reason to have Dexterity as your highest stat because it's just going to be a 23 in sparrow form regardless.

Devil's Sight is cute, but you can also just save an invocation slot and not put your enemies inside the darkness. Creatures outside an area of darkness aren't concealed by it.

Oh, yeah, if sparrow form just sets you to 23 or has that massive a bonus to dex, then it does make more sense to go for int and have them skill points. Someone else pointed out that you can store warlock invocation buffs in a spell storing item for other people to utilize with their massive durations, so using walk unseen and using that to make the artificier invisible for 24 hours means they don't need to know how to hide. But that still requires hitting at least level 6 (and you might want The Dead Walk and the feat Corpse Crafter more for expendible minions made from the bodies of fallen foes, but now with better strength).

I'm also not sure if the spell storing thing with invocations actually works RAW or if it was an RAI thing that someone was sharing. Either way, I'd run it by your DM to make sure they are okay with it instead of springing it as a surprise. Because that could be a pretty rude surprise.

Psychic reformation requires a manifester who is at least level 7, and no one in the party is playing a psionic class.

I thought familiars do get feats if their hit dice go up for some reason, since everyone gets feats as their hit dice go up. But the thing about basic familiars is that they have half your hp, not more hit dice. As a DM I would not allow familiars to have flaws (and I'd only barely let players get them, maybe). Mainly because the kinds of players I've encountered who want to use flaws also don't want to roleplay and want to min max their way to victory over everything. So flaws, instead of being an indicator of someone willing to take penalties to add more flavor to their character, tend to be an indicator in my personal experience of murderhobo tendencies. That's personal experience though, so I would hope your mileage would vary there.

Eldritch Blast (and all warlock invocations) are described as having simple enough somatic components (if any) that they can be utilized with light armor without arcane failure. So if you're worried that your sparrow form might have trouble if it doesn't have hands or has wonky claw hands, you should be fine.

[Metahuman1]

Ok. Soooooo, having checked the book, that coure eladrin familiar doesn't come online till level 7.

Which, makes me think that plan isn't going to help me from level 1 to level 7. Any advice on supplementing it in the mean time? Cause I was thinking I'd be able to just take the 2 feats at level 1 can call it a day on that front with this familiar plan, and that does not appear to be the case unless I've missed something.

[ATHATH]

Ok. Soooooo, having checked the book, that coure eladrin familiar doesn't come online till level 7.

Which, makes me think that plan isn't going to help me from level 1 to level 7. Any advice on supplementing it in the mean time? Cause I was thinking I'd be able to just take the 2 feats at level 1 can call it a day on that front with this familiar plan, and that does not appear to be the case unless I've missed something.
I mean, as a tiny bird, you're already pretty darn stealthy (even if enemies see you, they might just think that you're just some random bird). I'm not sure that you need to supplement that innate stealthiness further before hitting level 7.

[Metahuman1]

En, right, but the idea was that I'd be dropping not just my ability to sneak up on things but also my ability to catch things sneaking up on me and the party and to scout an area out onto the familiar. and waiting till 7th level to be able to make more then an untrained un-ability modified spot/listen check seems, iffy.

[ATHATH]

En, right, but the idea was that I'd be dropping not just my ability to sneak up on things but also my ability to catch things sneaking up on me and the party and to scout an area out onto the familiar. and waiting till 7th level to be able to make more then an untrained un-ability modified spot/listen check seems, iffy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't you need to invest in Spot, Listed, and Hide anyway because your familiar will inherit your ranks in those skills if they're better than its own (ranks in those skills)?

[Metahuman1]

That's, not at all what I'd been lead to believe by the previous posts suggesting getting a familiar to do it for me. In fact the first post doing so says pretty clearly not to bother dumping ranks in them because the familiar will do it for me and do it better.

[Troacctid]

Well you can get a regular familiar at level 3. Bats do have blindsense out to 20 feet, and other familiars have scent, so that's not too shabby.

[ATHATH]

That's, not at all what I'd been lead to believe by the previous posts suggesting getting a familiar to do it for me. In fact the first post doing so says pretty clearly not to bother dumping ranks in them because the familiar will do it for me and do it better.
Looking at the Coure Eladrin's statblock, it has only 2 HD, so most of its bonuses to skills are innate and can be added to skill ranks. In any case, its Spot and Listen bonuses are only +5 (each), so shoring them up wouldn't hurt (too much?).

[Troacctid]

Spot and Listen are great skills, they're just cross-class, so you can't reasonably buy them on a typical Warlock.

[ATHATH]

Spot and Listen are great skills, they're just cross-class, so you can't reasonably buy them on a typical Warlock.
Ah. Forgot about that. There's bound to be some way to get them onto your list, though, right?

[Venger]

Ah. Forgot about that. There's bound to be some way to get them onto your list, though, right?

here you go (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6832.0)

[ATHATH]

here you go (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6832.0)
Already checked there, but thanks.