How some Feats interact with the Warlock

[Diarmuid]

So I'm making a warlock who's hopefully going to take advantage of the Eldritch Glaive invocation from Dragon Magic.

I know things like Weapon Focus: Ranged Spells, Ranged Spell Specialization, Point Blank Shot, etc would work just fine with a normal Eldritch Blast that you're firing at someone far away....but what happens when you use Eldritch Glaive?

Would you instead need to take Weapon Focus, Specialization, Improved Critical, etc for Touch Spells?

Eldritch Glaive says you make melee touch attacks, but you can only make them at 10' away. Complete Arcane says that Touch Spells are defined as "damage dealing spells with a range of Touch"

Now, just to clear things up...I'm not interested in if my character build is optimized, or what I could be taking to make it better...I'm just curious how the "Feats for Weaponlike Spells" interact with Eldritch Glaive.

Thanks.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'd start out with some standard melee combat feats that work well with making reach touch attacks, such as Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, and Combat Expertise. Other good options include Ability Focus: Eldritch Blast (applies to every Eldritch Essence you use), Fey Heritage/Power/Skin (CM), and even Aberration Blood/Inhuman Reach (LoM). Travel Devotion (CC) is a must-have for a Glaivelock. Check out some handy guides (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=820872) on building this type of character to see what your options are and to find out what works and what doesn't.

[Tokiko Mima]

You'd need to take Weapon Focus: Melee Touch to realize an attack bonus to Eldritch Glaive. Point Blank Shot and Ranged Spell Specialization all would not work on Eldritch Glaive. Improved Critical would have to be applied to both Ranged and Melee Touch attacks as well.

A Warlock would need 4+ levels of Fighter to get Weapon Specialization, and it's not worth it in the slighest. The extra damage is miniscule. You'd also need to take ranged and melee touch seperately as Feats.

I feel compelled to note, despite your disclaimer.. that these are all especially bad Feats for Warlocks, and also bad for most other class combinations as well. Because Monster size modifiers lower their touch AC as they get bigger, Touch attacks become so much easier to make as you advance in levels. Therefore any effort you spend on improving your warlock's attack bonus beyond raising your BAB pays off less and less over time. A well built Warlock at level 12+ will only miss on a roll of 1 for most monsters at his CR. Its best to use magic items to raise your attack bonus at low levels, because they are much easier to change than Feats.

In general, the Feat I would suggest for a Warlock looking at boosting their attack bonus for Glaive attacks is Weapon Finesse. That feat lets a warlock completely dump Strength and focus their effort on Dexterity and optionally Charisma.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Note you don't need Fighter 4+ for Touch Spell Specialization from CA, but it's still not worth spending a feat on. Tokiko's right though, you can Power Attack for the max or use Combat Expertise for the max or both and still hit every time, even without any feats to improve your attack bonus. Plus feats like Ability Focus are better anyway since a Blinding Eldritch Glaive can force an opponent to Save-or-Blind multiple times in a round, or multiple opponents, especially if you're getting to make AoOs.

[monty]

Eldritch Glaive is a melee touch attack, so it's treated as a melee weapon for all purposes. It still has Range: Touch, just with reach.

[Diarmuid]

Monty,

Thanks for that. That's the kind of feedback I was really looking for. And yes...while I know that weapon focus is certainly not optimal, I was hoping to try and work in Ranged Recall from Complete Mage, which has Weap Foc and Point Black Shot as prereqs.

While we're on the subject, I've got two other points I think I have the answer for, but it never hurts to have others double check your work.

Eldritch Blast, is specifically mentioned as not an invocation, but merely is a Spell-like Ability. Is Eldritch Blast effected by Arcane Spell Failure of armor? Would applying an Edlritch Blast Shape and/or an Eldritch Essence be impacted by ASF?

With this build I dont plan on having an "combat useful" invocations and can deal with the ASF as I can just activate them until they work each morning.

I had considered taking Battle Caster to avoid that aspect of it, but I still wouldnt actually be proficient with medium armor.

Tokikio - What makes you think that Weapon Finesse would be applicable to Eldritch Glaive? It's a melee touch attack in the form of a glaive. I dont see anything that would lead one to believe that attack is finesseable.

[Yucca]

Eldritch Blast, is specifically mentioned as not an invocation, but merely is a Spell-like Ability. Is Eldritch Blast effected by Arcane Spell Failure of armor? Would applying an Edlritch Blast Shape and/or an Eldritch Essence be impacted by ASF?


The Complete Arcane errata corrects this. The Eldritch Blast is an invocation, and all references to it not being one should be ignored. Warlocks suffer ASF in medium or heavy armor, but you wouldn't need to check separately for applying the Shape or Essence invocations. You would only make one ASF check and that's for the actual use of the Blast.

[Diarmuid]

Ok, I hadnt seen that errata, thanks. Having to burn 2 feats for Battle Caster and the armor proficiency itself is just to much of a waste. I suppose I could splash a level of warrior for the proficiency, and that would also get me proficiency with martial weapons, but it's not really something I'm looking to do with this character.

I guess another option could be to get a few levels of cleric and go Eldritch Disciple.

Thanks for the input guys.

[MeklorIlavator]

The reason it's finessable is that it's a melee touch attack, and touch attacks are always light weapons (says so in the Complete Arcane section on weapon-like feats, pg 73).