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View Full Version : Dragonborn make good Star Pact Warlocks?



Myshlaevsky
2008-08-24, 01:08 PM
Just looking for advice here, as they seem like a fairly solid choice to me. The array I'm starting with is:

Str: 15
Con: 16
Dex: 10
Int: 12
Wis: 8
Cha: 18

Their stat bonuses make it easy to qualify for the heavy armour feats, which means you don't have to worry about pumping Dex or Int. As well as that, the fact you'll always be boosting Con means that Draconic Heritage and Dragon Breath are more useful. Dragonborn Fury offers a nice to-hit bonus, too, which can help with a lower attacking stat. What's the downside?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-08-24, 01:52 PM
Unless you're going for Plate, you only need a 13 in STR and CON. Definitely knock STR down to 13 unless you really want a Heavy Shield. If you do want Heavy Shield, I'd say take STR 14 and at level 11 you can retrain some Feat for Heavy Shield Proficiency and take Shield Mastery as your level 11 feat. Since Shield and Armor Mastery don't stack, if you're going to use a Shield you shouldn't bother with Full Plate Mastery.

Of course, that requires more DEX. Well, DEX is good for the Initiative.

Do you want to be in melee at all? If so, you'll need a good Dex to get access to the Light Blade feats.

Oh, and if you can find the points, put some in INT. Lots of powers make use of it.

Viruzzo
2008-08-24, 04:19 PM
Oh, and if you can find the points, put some in INT. Lots of powers make use of it.
Correct, Int is for Warlocks the generic "power enhancer" stat, and as such you'll probably do a better job raising that and forgetting Str (and using Light Armor with the Int bonus).
All in all, Star Pact is the most MAD of the three, so if you go for that you will have to forgo the other stats. For a melee Warlock you should probably go Infernal, pumping Con, Int and then whatever you want.

Totally Guy
2008-08-24, 04:35 PM
Remember, the warlock curse doesn't just apply to spells, you can use it with any other kind of power, keeping that strength up might be good if you cross class to fighter.

In the same vein I'm surprised I've not seen anyone suggest an Infernal Pact Dwarf yet. They've got the bonus to the casting stat and Dwarfen arcane spell casters have always been missing in 3.5.

Myshlaevsky
2008-08-24, 06:41 PM
Remember, the warlock curse doesn't just apply to spells, you can use it with any other kind of power, keeping that strength up might be good if you cross class to fighter.

In the same vein I'm surprised I've not seen anyone suggest an Infernal Pact Dwarf yet. They've got the bonus to the casting stat and Dwarfen arcane spell casters have always been missing in 3.5.

The Hexenhammer melee warlock build uses a dwarf as its basis. The problem with boosting Int is that it means I have to forget about increasing either CHA or CON at each stat boost which correspondingly reduces my to-hit chance. Is the suggestion that I should focus on CHA entirely, and therefore forgoe those Star Pact powers which rely on Con in favour of their Fey counterparts, or vice versa? The problem I can see in this is that in such cases I would get the bonuses of a good Int anyway, as it's often pact-dependant.

I'm not really sure what to do with those 2 points freed up by reducing strength to 13. I could get a Dex of 12, but that's about it. Any suggestions?

EDIT: This character does not intend to melee. I will therefore reduce the Str - I had thought scale armour proficiency required a Str of 15.

Zocelot
2008-08-24, 07:07 PM
If you have not yet seen, Wizards posted some new Star Warlock powers, most of which are CHA based. You can easily forgo CON, if you can get your DM to allow them.

Mando Knight
2008-08-24, 08:43 PM
You could normally forgo CON as a Star Pact Warlock, but not as a Dragonborn Starlock. The reason for that is that a Dragonborn Starlock has the CON-based Dragon Breath racial power for free, and it ends up being a decently reliable source of accursed elemental bang... and if the PC ever gets stuck without his magic implement (or before he gets one), it's his most accurate power. (It's too bad you can't pick radiant as a Dragon Breath element, as then the Astral Fire feat would become that much more useful...)

Myshlaevsky
2008-08-24, 08:48 PM
If you have not yet seen, Wizards posted some new Star Warlock powers, most of which are CHA based. You can easily forgo CON, if you can get your DM to allow them.

I have seen this, briefly - I believe there are also some effective CON+2 powers in the article?

Essentially, I don't want to forgo either CON or CHA. As the poster above me mentions, the benefits of CON for Dragonborn go someway to helping the MAD here. In order not to forgo either CON or CHA, I must forgo INT - and therefore wear heavy armour. Is this such a terrible idea that it is not viable, or will be terrifically sub-optimal?

Zocelot
2008-08-24, 09:11 PM
Only 2 of the new Warlock powers were Con based, the same amount as were Int based.

A fair amount of your powers depend somewhat heavily on Int. Putting points in Int will not only make you more effective, but will also mostly make up for not being able to wear heavy armour, and boost your Ref.

If you go for Cha/Con/Int, you have a stat for every defense.

Myshlaevsky
2008-08-24, 09:14 PM
Only 2 of the new Warlock powers were Con based, the same amount as were Int based.

A fair amount of your powers depend somewhat heavily on Int. Putting points in Int will not only make you more effective, but will also mostly make up for not being able to wear heavy armour, and boost your Ref.

If you go for Cha/Con/Int, you have a stat for every defense.

Hmmm. If it's not too much trouble, what stat outlay would you then recommend, and what advancements?

Shades of Gray
2008-08-24, 09:14 PM
(It's too bad you can't pick radiant as a Dragon Breath element, as then the Astral Fire feat would become that much more useful...)

Yeah, but Astral fire would affect fire breath.