Warlock + Richard Baker

[Yogibear41]

Does anyone have a link to the Q+A Richard Baker did on warlocks, including saying that practiced spellcaster would work to boost their eldritch blast damage if they multiclassed.

[Almostdead]

https://web.archive.org/web/20110825015745/http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19520666/Warlock_Faq_by_Rich_Baker

Snapshot.
Not even the original post.
But it is the best I can find.

[schreier]

From what I see there - it sounds like he would say it doesn't work with Practiced Spellcaster ..

Q: Would Practiced Spellcaster allow for Blast damage progression?

A: I think it should, but I doubt that the language of the feat and eldritch blast description specifically allow it. (If eldritch blast were written in such a way that it dealt damage based on the warlock's caster level, it would be fine. But the damage is based on the warlock's class level. While those two things are almost always going to be the same, you have to take a pretty liberal interpretation to let Practiced Spellcaster work on eldritch blast.)

maybe saying RAI instead of RAW?

[Particle_Man]

It wouldn’t be that hard to convince a dm to allow an equivalent feat like practiced invoker. Unless the DM is very much against such homebrew ideas.

[schreier]

I guess the question is if you want to allow it to add 2d6 damage, or just increase the CL ... at the same time, it would be capped at HD, so not a big deal

[Thurbane]

It wouldn’t be that hard to convince a dm to allow an equivalent feat like practiced invoker. Unless the DM is very much against such homebrew ideas.

Such a feat already exists, albeit in an obscure source. Practiced Magic, found in the Shackled City (https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Shackled-City-Adventure/dp/0977007103) hardcover mega-module/adventure path. It has the same "1st party" status as Dragon Compendium. Essentially works exactly like Practiced Spellcaster, but for SLAs.

Whether this increases EB damage or not is less clear. RAW, probably not.

[RedMage125]

Wouldn't that be covered under the same ruling mentioned in the PrC section of Complete Arcane that says that effects that improve caster level for warlocks increase EB damage as if they had gained a level in warlock, but do not grant additional invocations?

Or does that section explicitly say it's only for prestige classes that grant "+1 spellcaster level"?

[Troacctid]

Such a feat already exists, albeit in an obscure source. Practiced Magic, found in the Shackled City (https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Shackled-City-Adventure/dp/0977007103) hardcover mega-module/adventure path. It has the same "1st party" status as Dragon Compendium. Essentially works exactly like Practiced Spellcaster, but for SLAs.

Whether this increases EB damage or not is less clear. RAW, probably not.
It's very clear. There's no "probably" about it. Blast damage doesn't care about caster level. Boosting your caster level helps with spell penetration. That's pretty much it.


Wouldn't that be covered under the same ruling mentioned in the PrC section of Complete Arcane that says that effects that improve caster level for warlocks increase EB damage as if they had gained a level in warlock, but do not grant additional invocations?

Or does that section explicitly say it's only for prestige classes that grant "+1 spellcaster level"?
It's only for the prestige classes.

[Thurbane]

It's very clear. There's no "probably" about it. Blast damage doesn't care about caster level. Boosting your caster level helps with spell penetration. That's pretty much it.

FWIW I agree - but a lenient DM might give a multi-classed Warlock a break and house-rule/rule 0 it; it's hardly going to be OP.

[Fizban]

My version of Practiced Invoker increases blast damage, but has a Lesser invocation prerequisite to prevent a single level+feat granting an unlimited untyped 3d6 touch attack (on top of the Least invocation). Just a bit too much for my taste.

[nedz]

+2d6 ? Mortalbane ( Book of VD p49) does exactly this, albeit only 5/day.

Only half damage against certain types, but still.

[Yogibear41]

I like how Richard Baker says Hideous Blow does not provoke an attack of opportunity, and that it will be addressed in an upcoming dragon magazine, So I went and found the dragon magazine article he was talking about and they say it does provoke an attack of opportunity.....

[Fizban]

My fix for Hideous Blow is to change it from melee attack to just attack, so you can combine it with a ranged weapon. Because one ranged weapon shot is almost never going to be OP in the normal game (ironically, combining my tweaked Hideous Blow with some of my other homebrew for single ranged attacks might go higher than I'd want. Should check on that. . . ). Then I add a Least melee shape I think people would actually like: Warlock Punch, double EB damage at touch range, no AoO.

[Yogibear41]

Was actually working on a muticlass warlock/paladin of tyranny that was going to use hideous blow as a pseudo tome of battle maneuver for when he couldn't full attack and the other invocations for battle field control and situations where "I hit it with my sword" isn't appropriate, could probably convince my DM to bypass the AOO on it, since Richard Baker said it shouldn't.

[Troacctid]

The AoO thing is seriously overblown. Eldritch glaive has the same problem and I don't think I've ever seen anyone say it's useless because of it.