Why aren't warlocks tier 2?

[RoboEmperor]

I've been toying around with this class and I have to say, it's powerful as f***. I'd say it's on par with sorcerers, so why is it tier 3 and not tier 2?

1. Resource free. Low-mid levels warlocks will outshine sorcerers. When there are no items, warlocks can still be at full power where as Sorcerers need pouches and civilization, and low-mid levels sorcerers run out of juice after 1-2 encounters, where as warlocks can keep going and going, stopped only by their hp, which never goes down in a proper party.

2. At-will Charm is awesome. Although you can only charm 1 creature at any time, you can charm them infinitely, meaning you can tie a guy down (rich guy), and spam charm on him until you succeed and pass the charisma check, which nets a very nice increase in wealth, lets you extract information you want from anyone not immune to mind-affecting spells, and also shop keepers would sell their wares at retail (half) price. Not to mention in combat, you can charm a BSF and keep him around until he dies or someone better shows up.

3. Scribe Scroll + Imbue Item = every single arcane and divine spell in the game. Especially in settings where there are no shops that sell every item in the game, a warlock in the party can help a wizard fill out their entire spellbook with the best spells or create other items (i.e. wands) even when the DM intentionally makes them scarce. Can even craft items better than wizards due to the fact that wizards don't have access to divine spells therefore incapable of making items with divine spells as requirements.

His scroll making ability makes him able to do every out of combat shenanigan a wizard and a cleric of any domain can do including creating your own demi-plane.

Combine with the At-Will Charm, you can significantly lessen the gp cost of creating your scrolls or eliminate it altogether.

Also, Runic Guardians have been officially ported into 3.5, meaning you can turn level 1-7 spells into permanent FREE once a day spells.

4. Other awesome invocations include at-will Evard's tentacles and Nightmare Terrain for the ultimate crowd control, at-will flight and dimension door for unkillability, and at-will animate dead for utility.

So to sum up,
1. Warlocks can do everything wizards do out of combat at a slower and more expensive pace.
2. Stronger than sorcerers early game.
3. Really good at-will invocations.
4. Resource free, and with resources can jump all the way to right before wizards.
5. The only times sorcerers outperform warlocks is endgame with mailman or shapechange or other OP spells, or endgame with no downtime for the warlock to craft stuff.

I think this makes them tier 2.

edit: Corrected a few mistakes I made.

[GilesTheCleric]

Warlocks are tier 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515845-Retiering-the-Classes-Home-Base). You can read the many reasons that folks agree that's where they are in the thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520903-Retiering-the-Classes-Binder-Dragonfire-Adept-Shadowcaster-Truenamer-Warlock&p=21898782#post21898782).

[Buufreak]

In short, no innate access to wish.

[RoboEmperor]

In short, no innate access to wish.

Not free wish, but with scribe scroll he has access to wish, and miracle for that matter.

edit: Actually he has access to free wish. Scribe Scroll + Imbue Item -> Shapechange -> Zodar -> Zodar -> Zodar -> Zodar

[Buufreak]

Not free wish, but with scribe scroll he has access to wish, and miracle for that matter.

edit: Actually he has access to free wish. Scribe Scroll + Imbue Item -> Shapechange -> Zodar -> Zodar -> Zodar -> Zodar

Okay, how long does it take the Warlock to do all that? Is it any longer than a standard action? That's the definition of T2. That you have just as much raw power as a T1, but with a few more limitations. Yes, a Warlock can get access to shapechange, and by extension wish, but look at all the loopholes you are jumping through, plus all the costs you are paying, in experience, gold, items, ect. Wizards and Sorcerers just do it, totally scott free, and then can do it again next round. Further, they have access to damn near everything under the sun in one way or another, at the same cost no less. Warlocks... well, the have to craft anything that they would want to use.

[AmberVael]

2. At-will Charm is ludicrously awesome. Granted against undead charm is worthless, but against the living, you can charm yourself an army, end a fight by charming the entire opposition, and infinite tries in social settings guarantees you'll succeed whatever challenge you're facing and significantly increase your wealth because a city filled with your very best friends will net you a f*** ton of free stuff for your campaign. Sponsorship. Worst case scenario, kidnap a rich guy, charm him until you succeed, and keep charming him until you pass that charisma check.

You can only charm one person at a time with the invocation.

[RoboEmperor]

Okay, how long does it take the Warlock to do all that? Is it any longer than a standard action? That's the definition of T2. That you have just as much raw power as a T1, but with a few more limitations. Yes, a Warlock can get access to shapechange, and by extension wish, but look at all the loopholes you are jumping through, plus all the costs you are paying, in experience, gold, items, ect. Wizards and Sorcerers just do it, totally scott free, and then can do it again next round. Further, they have access to damn near everything under the sun in one way or another, at the same cost no less. Warlocks... well, the have to craft anything that they would want to use.

5000xp isn't scott-free. My argument is that being able to craft anything they want and their superiority early game closes the gap to the point they can be tier 2. But honestly, how many games get to level 17+ and isn't almost the end of the campaign. But I do get your point. Access to wish solely through level up, but I think having access to wish with only crafting materials a level 1 wizard needs is also good enough.


You can only charm one person at a time with the invocation.

Good god you're right. Gotta edit that post. This is why I post here to double check XD.

[Buufreak]

5000xp isn't scott-free.

Did you miss the supernatural ability bit about no xp cost?

Now, as a side note, I am somewhat understanding your argument. It is flawed, but I see your point of view. Honestly, I'm not seeing any major difference between a Warlock's imbue item ability and the entire shtick that is the Artificer. However, I don't see the hype behind it either, mostly because I've never played in a campaign that had theoretical months of down time, much less literal amounts even close to that. In a perfect world, yea, this could be an amazing ability that cracks the game wide open. But that isn't where we live.

[RoboEmperor]

Did you miss the supernatural ability bit about no xp cost?

well generally, shapechange -> zodar doesn't happen without the DM throwing a book at you, and if that's allowed then anyone with access to a shapechange scroll can create infinite shapechange scrolls so in the end the sole advantage a sorcerer or wizard has over a rogue is 3,825 gp, so I was assuming we were talking about the standard 5,000xp direct use of wish, the only version a DM doesn't murder you for.

I was just saying access to any spell in the game with materials a level 1 wizard has access to + superior early game power + strong lategame power all combine into a tier 2.

Anyways, endgame sorcerer > warlock, but that's not the only factor is all I'm saying, and downtime warlock > downtime sorcerer endgame.

I get your point though, so I guess this is where our discussion ends, because we agree on the samething just not whether such power merits a tier 2 position.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Warlock isn't a very good crafter, though. They effectively know all spells, but they're feat-starved and have no native cost mitigation abilities. I mean... look, you're basically arguing that once you hit 12th, they're sort of a lower-powered Artificer? Well...to quote myself in a previous discussion...



UMD: The Artificer doesn't get to take 10 until level 13, and has less native use for Cha. Advantage: Warlock... though for pretty much the entire time they have the advantage, they can't craft to make full use of it.
Crafting class feature: The Warlock gets to pretend they have the spell. The Artificer gets to pretend they have the spell, and they get +2 CL for prereqs, and they get to fake racial and alignment restrictions. Oh, and they get to do this from level one. Advantage: Artificer
Crafting Efficiency: The Artificer has their crafting reserve, and they can eat unwanted magic items to refill it. They can also make Dedicated Wights to work on things for them. They also get 5 bonus feats that can be spent to pick up cost reduction feats. The Warlock has bupkiss. Advantage: Artificer by about a hundred miles.
Crafting feats: The Artificer gets 8. The Warlock gets none, and if you take any before level 12 they're useless. So you have one, maybe two in playable levels. Advantage: Artificer, by a lot.
Item Power: Warlocks can spend more money to make higher-CL items. Artificers can do that too... and they can apply metamagic feats in, just, so many ways. (Did you know they have a 3rd level infusion that just adds a metamagic feat for 1 round/level, no questions asked and with no extra costs?). Advantage: Artificer, by a million miles.
Non-Crafting Stuff: Warlock invocations are decent to good. Artificer infusions are decent. Slight advantage to Warlock, I think.


This isn't sorcerer-vs-wizard; this is adept-vs-wizard.
Also consider: at the level you get to start scribing scrolls, WBL is exploding enormously. You know who else can use scrolls effectively at this level? Anyone who invested in UMD. You can replace half the cost with experience points, and depending on how restrictive the DM is about item availability it might be a bigger edge for finding obscure stuff, but this is also 12th level-- an afternoon shopping trip to the City of Brass or Sigil or something is easy enough to arrange.

At very low levels? You might be able to go longer than the Sorcerer, but you'll stink. Eldritch Blast does atrocious damage compared to a martial type at any comparable optimization level, and Least Invocations are hardly anything to write home about. I mean, sure, Baleful Utterance or Spiderwalk is nice, but you're picking one or two neat tricks off a fairly short list of weak tricks. The Sorcerer might only be casting a spell or two a fight, but even a basic AoE blast is going to have more effect than a few turns of your pinpricks.

Once you hit Lesser and Greater Invocations, sure, you have some nice tricks, and you have enough feats and levels and gold to make your blast start to feel more useful, but you don't have any broken tricks. You've got a few nice things, and you can sometimes dominate an encounter with a well-placed BFC, but that's not T2 power. That's more T3-- shines when the spotlight hits them, capable of a surprising trick or two, and difficult to render useless, but not game-breaking.

[Karl Aegis]

Enemies can target you. Your hp stat is relevant to your character. You aren't tier 2. Not by a long shot.

[RoboEmperor]

Also consider: at the level you get to start scribing scrolls, WBL is exploding enormously. You know who else can use scrolls effectively at this level? Anyone who invested in UMD. You can replace half the cost with experience points, and depending on how restrictive the DM is about item availability it might be a bigger edge for finding obscure stuff, but this is also 12th level-- an afternoon shopping trip to the City of Brass or Sigil or something is easy enough to arrange.

This assumes you have access to civilizations that carry all the gear you wish to purchase, which at least in my DM's games, is a huge assumption. I'm not familiar with those cities but my DM only stocks common stuff in metropolises.



At very low levels? You might be able to go longer than the Sorcerer, but you'll stink. Eldritch Blast does atrocious damage compared to a martial type at any comparable optimization level, and Least Invocations are hardly anything to write home about. I mean, sure, Baleful Utterance or Spiderwalk is nice, but you're picking one or two neat tricks off a fairly short list of weak tricks. The Sorcerer might only be casting a spell or two a fight, but even a basic AoE blast is going to have more effect than a few turns of your pinpricks.

Depends on the build. My DM rolls 25 point buy, but with 32 point buy, eldritch glaive would surpass martials right? Warlocks can get glaive with 25 point buy but that causes them to dump CHA.


Once you hit Lesser and Greater Invocations, sure, you have some nice tricks, and you have enough feats and levels and gold to make your blast start to feel more useful, but you don't have any broken tricks. You've got a few nice things, and you can sometimes dominate an encounter with a well-placed BFC, but that's not T2 power. That's more T3-- shines when the spotlight hits them, capable of a surprising trick or two, and difficult to render useless, but not game-breaking.

I guess if you negate warlock's crafting ability he's T3. I guess it all comes down to whether your game has access to all magic items in existence via shops, and sorcerer v.s. warlock power at like level 1-9. I think sorcerers start to surpass warlocks at level 10 w.o wealth, but at that point OOC scrolls like lesser planar binding + charm can boost warlocks further.

I never used an artificer so I can't comment on their fighting prowess v.s. warlocks.

edit: Pathetic eldritch blast damage can be negated with at-will summon swarm levels 1-2.

[OldTrees1]

Depends on the build. My DM rolls 25 point buy, but with 32 point buy, eldritch glaive would surpass martials right? Warlocks can get glaive with 25 point buy but that causes them to dump CHA.

No. Martials gain multiplicative synergy between Str and Dex. You are not even gaining additive synergy between Str and Cha. High point buy will favor the Martials.

[GilesTheCleric]

This assumes you have access to civilizations that carry all the gear you wish to purchase, which at least in my DM's games, is a huge assumption. I'm not familiar with those cities but my DM only stocks common stuff in metropolises.

A GM's houserules or homemade campaign setting can make a huge difference. If all you're able to purchase are +1 swords even in Waterdeep, then you're effectively playing a low-magic game, and the base assumptions of the game scaling don't apply any more.

Once you have access to Plane Shift, you can get to the City of Brass or Sigil. They're planar metropolises in Planescape (also default 3e D&D if you're using the generic "Greyhawk" setting), wherein you can find nearly anything.

[Barstro]

Not free wish, but with scribe scroll he has access to wish, and miracle for that matter.

edit: Actually he has access to free wish. Scribe Scroll + Imbue Item -> Shapechange -> Zodar -> Zodar -> Zodar -> Zodar

How?

Scribe Scroll [Item Creation]

Benefit
You can create a scroll of any spell that you know.
Emphasis added

[RoboEmperor]

How?

Emphasis added

I remember having this argument on another topic, on cooperative item crafting, and it ended with you being able to craft a divine scroll as a wizard if the cleric provides the spell.

So IIRC the other item crafting rules contradict that underlined part in your quote and overruled it.

Imbue Item

in place of a required spell he doesn't know

Warlocks can create items that require spells that he doesn't know with a use magic device check.

[Cosi]

1. Resource free. Low-mid levels warlocks will outshine sorcerers. When there are no items, warlocks can still be at full power where as Sorcerers need pouches and civilization, and low-mid levels sorcerers run out of juice after 1-2 encounters, where as warlocks can keep going and going, stopped only by their hp, which never goes down in a proper party.

Who cares? The Sorcerer's spells are better than the Warlock's invocations, and 99% of the time you can just rest. Daily limits have very little practical meaning.


2. At-will Charm is awesome. Although you can only charm 1 creature at any time, you can charm them infinitely, meaning you can tie a guy down (rich guy), and spam charm on him until you succeed and pass the charisma check, which nets a very nice increase in wealth, lets you extract information you want from anyone not immune to mind-affecting spells, and also shop keepers would sell their wares at retail (half) price. Not to mention in combat, you can charm a BSF and keep him around until he dies or someone better shows up.

This seems much less impressive than the Beguiler's ability to just have a bunch of charmed minions, and is also dependent on you taking that particular invocation.


3. Scribe Scroll + Imbue Item = every single arcane and divine spell in the game. Especially in settings where there are no shops that sell every item in the game, a warlock in the party can help a wizard fill out their entire spellbook with the best spells or create other items (i.e. wands) even when the DM intentionally makes them scarce. Can even craft items better than wizards due to the fact that wizards don't have access to divine spells therefore incapable of making items with divine spells as requirements.

The default game includes item shops, making crafting fairly unimpressive (baring stupid huge cost reduction cheese on e.g. Artificers). Yes, if you don't play with those rules, you get some advantage, but that's true of changing the rules in any particular way. If all fights occur in antimagic fields, Wizards start looking pretty bad.


In short, no innate access to wish.

Druids don't have that. Also Psions. And Favored Souls, Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, Spirit Shaman, and a bunch of other things that are as good as (or better than) the Sorcerer.

[Barstro]

Imbue Item

Warlocks can create items that require spells that he doesn't know with a use magic device check.

Ah, ok. Other words to be long enough of a post.

[GrayDeath]

First let me sate that I like the Warlock. Very much so. (I would give it more skillpts and a few more invocations, but thats it, otherwise a great class).


Depending on Setting and Campaign it can be anywhere from barely T3 to massively powerful T3 (as above posts explain).
But it simply lacks the broadly applicable amount of Power T2 requires.
It does not have the "I Win" Buttons, merely a lot of "My chances to Win are improved" buttons.

Or to put it bluntly: It does not break the Game, so its not T2. :smallcool:

[Grod_The_Giant]

This assumes you have access to civilizations that carry all the gear you wish to purchase, which at least in my DM's games, is a huge assumption. I'm not familiar with those cities but my DM only stocks common stuff in metropolises.
It's worth bearing in mind that this is 12th level crafting. Teleport and Plane Shift have been around for a few levels now; the Greater versions are coming the very next. Even if you can only pick up the item you need at a major city (which is a not unreasonable implementation), such things are well within your reach at this level. And if they're more restrictive... well... that's a non-RAW/standard game environment that makes one strategy better than another, which skews things a bit.

And I'ma be honest with you... scrolls aren't spells. They're nice for utility, sure, but you'll go broke trying to use them as your main source of offense. You're comparing to a Sorcerer? A 12th level Sorc will have ~17 spells/day in his top three level slots. Crafting an equal number of scrolls will cost you over 9000 gold and 700xp... and that's for one day's worth of adventuring. Three or four encounters. You'll face several times that many encounters over the course of the level-- figure you get it done in three full days, just to be nice... and we're over 27,000 gold and about 2200 xp, enough to set you back considerably on both WBL (you're expected to gain about 22,000 going from 12th to 13th, plus a bit extra for consumables) and XP.

Plus, you have much less ability to adapt to changing circumstances than a Wizard (because you can only do one scroll every day or two) and even the Sorcerer is likely to have a leg up on you in terms of sheer spells known vs scrolls carried (and let's not forget, they can pick up scrolls too). You don't have any metamagic or spell focus type feats to slap on (which is another way the Artificer blows you out of the water). You don't even have cost reduction, probably, because Warlocks need their feats and you don't get to start crafting until 12th, meaning it's 15th before you can take a second craft-related feat and not have it be dead weight for months of real play time.

Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to downplay the effectiveness of this stuff; crafting scrolls is a delightfully useful trick. But it's limited enough that you're not going to break the game open in the same way that a T1/T2 class is.


Depends on the build. My DM rolls 25 point buy, but with 32 point buy, eldritch glaive would surpass martials right? Warlocks can get glaive with 25 point buy but that causes them to dump CHA.
No, it won't. You get a decent attack, but... You're encouraged to put yourself in the middle of things for more AoOs, especially since you won't get an iterative until 8th, but that's not exactly a winning prospect with a d6 HD, light armor, and no special defenses. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad strategy, but it'll lag behind a comparably optimized martial at most levels, I think.


I guess if you negate warlock's crafting ability he's T3. I guess it all comes down to whether your game has access to all magic items in existence via shops, and sorcerer v.s. warlock power at like level 1-9. I think sorcerers start to surpass warlocks at level 10 w.o wealth, but at that point OOC scrolls like lesser planar binding + charm can boost warlocks further.


I never used an artificer so I can't comment on their fighting prowess v.s. warlocks.
They don't just get to whip out scrolls and wands and junk; they have infusions and class features that let them attach metamagic. I mean, there's a 3rd level infusion that'll let you just add Twin Spell or Persistent Spell or something to a wand for 1 round/level, no questions asked; now you have a day-long Wraithstrike for a single wand charge and a 3rd level spell slot.


edit: Pathetic eldritch blast damage can be negated with at-will summon swarm levels 1-2.
So you go from 1d6 to one target to 1d6+debuff in a 10ft area. Which you can't control, incidentally; odds are good you'll accidentally hit party members sometimes, even if you dismiss it and resummon it every round. Again-- it's not a bad trick, but it's one situational trick. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it doesn't really help, it's never really broken and you have no way to change it around when it's not needed. (And, you know, now you're pretty low utility outside the fight, because that's your only invocation)

[GilesTheCleric]

And I'ma be honest with you... scrolls aren't spells. They're nice for utility, sure, but you'll go broke trying to use them as your main source of offense. You're comparing to a Sorcerer? A 12th level Sorc will have ~17 spells/day in his top three level slots. Crafting an equal number of scrolls will cost you over 9000 gold and 700xp... and that's for one day's worth of adventuring.

This made me curious, so I punched the numbers in quickly.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd160/ryuusui-ken/Capture_zpsev2opnh1.png

Assuming that you can solve every encounter with a single scroll of the highest level you would have been able to cast as a wiz/clr/drd, it's actually affordable. Of course, you would need to have nearly prescient spell selection. Clearly a sorcerer is better, but it's theoretically possible.

[RoboEmperor]

Alright got it.

Imbue Item made worthless via plane shift, and warlock with no items < sorcerer no items later in the game.

At least I picked up a new trick for my sorcerer now XD.

[GrayDeath]

Its in no way worthless.

People need to learn that there is a huge gap between T 2 (which has a Hammer or 2 to break the game) and T5 (which is worthless but functioning).

A Warlock does profit a lot from it, as he does not need the spells/abilities normally required. Its just not a Solve-All-Approach. ;)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Alright got it.

Imbue Item made worthless via plane shift, and warlock with no items < sorcerer no items later in the game.

At least I picked up a new trick for my sorcerer now XD.
It's hardly useless, and I would agree that the Warlock is the second best magic item user in the game, after the Artificer. It's a useful-but-not-overpowering ability-- Tier 3, in other words.

[Telonius]

I'd peg Warlock as being very high (maybe the highest) T3, but still T3. Imbue Item gives it an extreme amount of versatility, but it takes a lot of time to get there. It doesn't have the same sort of game-shattering mechanics as a Sorcerer, Wizard, or Artificer. On top of that, it can be an extremely adept social character with just one invocation; and gets plenty of other nice options for at-will active and passive abilities.

[Starbuck_II]

So you go from 1d6 to one target to 1d6+debuff in a 10ft area. Which you can't control, incidentally; odds are good you'll accidentally hit party members sometimes, even if you dismiss it and resummon it every round. Again-- it's not a bad trick, but it's one situational trick. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it doesn't really help, it's never really broken and you have no way to change it around when it's not needed. (And, you know, now you're pretty low utility outside the fight, because that's your only invocation)

Not sure you have ever Summon Swarm with Warlock.
As someone who went from 1st to 11th, I'll lay it on you.

You are doing it wrong with that Invocation. You cast it as a standard action as it is an invocation. Thus you never NEVER Concentrate with it. You cast, it does damage, you end it, end of spell.

See a non-invocation attacks allies potentially because it last 3 rounds after concentration ends. Your will not. It ends when you will it as a free action.
So, in sort, yes, it is weak versus DR, but really, really strong vs none DR, high AC foes (which is most things).

[VisitingDaGulag]

T3 is extreme flexibility (out of the box) or extreme power (out of the box). Since sneak attack is more damage but doesn't carry rogue to high tiers either, we have to look beyond eldritch blast. Invocations have lots of traps and don't feel more powerful than the spells they model. The 5 minute workday means the at-will part is not that much of a boon.

All we are left with is a crafter without crafting feats. Indeed many of the above arguments about warlock crafting help convince me that works' "flexibility" doesn't even work at a t3 level without extensive effort. Hopefully that's a good enough answer for the OP.

@Giles that's a wonderful example of why scrolls need to be banned. You just illustrated how a PC commoner with ranks in UMD could win D&D just by using one kind of feat/magic item repeatedly. If that's not the definition of broken, I don't know what is.

[GilesTheCleric]

@Giles that's a wonderful example of why scrolls need to be banned. You just illustrated how a PC commoner with ranks in UMD could win D&D just by using one kind of feat/magic item repeatedly. If that's not the definition of broken, I don't know what is.

I agree with you, but for different reasons I think are worth mentioning. First, the best use of scrolls is power building. Having a daily number of spells is powerful, but what's more powerful is having as many spells per day as you can make or afford, which is usually a much larger number. With that greater number of "spells per day", you have access to more effects at once, and thus can be more efficient in defeating encounters.

Second, I think the root of the problem is not with scrolls (aside from power-building), but with the spells that you can place into scrolls. If spells weren't so good in this game, scrolls wouldn't be, either.

Third, I don't see relying on a single type of magic item as being broken by definition. There's many different types of abilities in this game, and some have more or less inherent flexibility than others. The fighter's bonus feat is highly inflexible, while manoeuvers and spells are highly flexible. Can you break the game with feats? Yes, there's many of them, for example Dark Speech. Can you break the game with spells? Yes, there's tons of them, for example Dominate Monster. You could break the game with a single feat or spell, or you could do it with a pile of them. Trying to equate "scrolls" with "a feat" or "a spell" is disingenuous, though. "Scrolls" gives a character access to the entire suite of ~4000 spells in the game. "A feat" gives a character access to only one of the ~3000 feats in the game.

Also, I want to reiterate that the graph I made assumes that every single of the 13 encounters that are required for each level up can be solved with a single spell, picked ahead of time without knowing what the encounter will be. It's a pretty unrealistic scenario, but one that a player could work towards (eg. purchasing spells of Banishment, and then seeking exclusively outsiders to fight). That requires more than just the scolls to enact, and at that point isn't much different from the actions one might take to optimise any other approach to the game.