PrC: Eldritch Blaster

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Common knowledge states that casters should leave the damage output to the sword-swingers and stick to support roles. I wouldn't suggest repeating this in front of an Eldritch Blaster, you may not live to regret it.

Okay, this is pretty much a Spellwarp Sniper for Invokers. It's designed to make your Eldritch Blast actually useful. Yes, it's capstone ability is pretty powerful, but still won't be able to match the damage output of something like a FB ubercharge build. It also keeps you from getting Dark invocations (unless you delay entry to 16th level, in which case you can have one dark blast invocation and one dark shape invocation).

This is supposed to be a non-cheezy alternative to Hellfire/Naberious for reasonable damage output from a warlock.

Prerequsites:

Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
Other: Any three Eldritch Essence Invocations, one of which must be at least Greater AND any two Blast Shape invocations, one which must be Lesser.


HD d6
{table=head]Lvl | BAB | Fort | Ref | Wil | Special
1 | +1 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Bonus Essence; +1d6 EB
2 | +2 | +0 | +0 | +3 | Bonus Shape
3 | +3 | +1 | +1 | +3 | Force Essence +1d6 EB
4 | +4 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Mastery of Elements
5 | +5 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Eldritch Mastery, +1d6 EB[/table]
Skills: 2+Int Mod, same list as Warlock

Casting An Eldritch Blaster adds his Eldritch Blaster levels to his Warlock levels for purposes of level-dependent effects and the invocation types he qualifies for (thus a Warlock15/Eldritch Blaster 1 qualifies for Dark invocations), however he does not gain any new invocations, except as specifically listed below.

Bonus Essence - At 1st level, an Eldritch Blaster gains a bonus Eldritch Essence Invocation
Eldrich Blast An Eldrich Blaster increases the damage his Eldrich Blast does by 1d6 at 1st and every odd level thereafter.
Bonus Shape - At 2nd level, an Eldritch Master gains a bonus Eldrich Shape Invocation
Force Essence - At 3rd level, an Eldritch Master gain an extra Eldrich Essence Invocation, which turns his Eldrich Blast into a Force effect.
Mastery of Elements - At 4th level, an Eldritch Master may alter the elemental flavor of his blast, while keeping the other qualities of the blast, to either Fire, Cold, Lightning, or Acid. This may be applied to an Eldritch Blast which has been altered by an Eldritch Essence Invocation, as it is not exactly an invocation.
Eldrich Mastery - At 5th level, the Eldritch Blaster gains the highest pinnacle of mastery, letting him consider an Eldritch Blast as a ranged weapon. This lets him apply the effects of certain feats (rapid shot) and lets him make an eldrich blast for every attack in a full attack option. It is still a SLA, however, which means it is still a touch attack, and SR may still apply (unless a method of bypassing or negating SR presents itself).

[Risek]

To be honest, it really doesn't look that powerful, I suppose the capstone might seem a bit powerful, but remember, the warlock still has to actually hit with those attacks, and they don't exactly have the best BAB. It looks fine, but perhaps you might consider dropping Mastery of Elements and Force Essence in favor of full invoking? And I would gradually build towards the capstone, rather then granting it all at once.

This actually reminds me of my Eldritch Exemplar PrC..

Oh yeah, you misspelled "Eldritch"....um....everywhere.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

To be honest, it really doesn't look that powerful, I suppose the capstone might seem a bit powerful, but remember, the warlock still has to actually hit with those attacks, and they don't exactly have the best BAB. It looks fine, but perhaps you might consider dropping Mastery of Elements and Force Essence in favor of full invoking? And I would gradually build towards the capstone, rather then granting it all at once.

This actually reminds me of my Eldritch Exemplar PrC..

Oh yeah, you misspelled "Eldritch"....um....everywhere.

Funny, last time I did this, it had full invoking, and people called it horridly overpowered.

I'm wanting this to be a 'blaster specialist', someone who has a blast for all occasions, but not too much else.

I'll see what I can do about splitting up the capstone.

And hey, at least I'm consistant! I will fix the typo.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Burley]

I think this is great. It's not too powerful at all. All it does is let you take the feats that should already apply.
It's a short PrC, and actual gives more Invocations than staying straight warlock would. I don't see why any blaster-focused warlock wouldn't take this PrC.
Props, Shneekey. Mad Props.

Edit: Oh, one question. Do you think there would be room in there for a mechanic that let you apply two essense invocations to one blast? In lieu of the blast shape invocation, of course. So, instead of Shape+Essense, you'd have Essense+Essense? Maybe make it an alternate capstone ability?

[Risek]

Edit: Oh, one question. Do you think there would be room in there for a mechanic that let you apply two essense invocations to one blast? In lieu of the blast shape invocation, of course. So, instead of Shape+Essense, you'd have Essense+Essense? Maybe make it an alternate capstone ability?

Hmmm.... something like the feats here? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20061027a)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I think this is great. It's not too powerful at all. All it does is let you take the feats that should already apply.
It's a short PrC, and actual gives more Invocations than staying straight warlock would. I don't see why any blaster-focused warlock wouldn't take this PrC.
Props, Shneekey. Mad Props.

Edit: Oh, one question. Do you think there would be room in there for a mechanic that let you apply two essense invocations to one blast? In lieu of the blast shape invocation, of course. So, instead of Shape+Essense, you'd have Essense+Essense? Maybe make it an alternate capstone ability?

Hmm... I'm getting some really good ideas, but I can't shoehorn them all into a5 level PrC, however extending it to a 10 level PrC makes it horridly underpowered, because you effectively have a 10th level Warlock's invocations with a few extra blast/shape invocations extra.

My ideas are:

To 'extend' out the capstone ability, have 'extra blast' that lets you shoot an extra eldrich blast if your BAB is +6 or higher, but the second at a -5 penalty. Then a third one later on. If I have a BAB requirement, I should be able to keep things under control with that ability chain, capping out with 'make full attacks'.

Eldrich Adaptability: Let you apply an eldrich shaping invocation in lieu of an eldrich blast invocation, or vice versa.

Of course, this begs me to put in something which lets them add a third invocation blast/shape ability somewhere...

You see the problem? It's just too much to fit into a 5 level PrC, but making it a 10 level PrC would seriously cramp the non-blasting invocation ability of the lock in question.

Hell, it also tempts me to find a way to make some of the touch type invocations able to be loaded into a blast, ala Imbue Arrow from Arcane Archer.

What does everyone think? make it a 10 level PrC (with somewhat easier entry requirements) with 1/2 casting progression?

[Baron Corm]

I don't understand what this PrC gives that a warlock couldn't get through invocations. The changes are very minor, at least. Have you seen the Eldritch Glaive invocation?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I don't understand what this PrC gives that a warlock couldn't get through invocations. The changes are very minor, at least. Have you seen the Eldritch Glaive invocation?

You can't use an Eldrich Glaive with Eldrich Spear to make a full attack at 250' range. You also can't use Eldrich Glaive to make a full attack of Chain Utterdark Blasts to generate 6 negative levels on every opponent on the board every turn...