Sorry for the delay, everyone. Have some judgments.

Global judging note: Let's talk about spell resistance. Spell resistance is a problem for Warlocks. It's a problem that goes away once you get vitriolic blast, but that's not an option within E6. And yes, most monsters don't have any. But that still leaves a lot of monsters that do, and they tend to run in packs. If you get into a fight with devils, or drow, (and so on), and you either don't have a decent fallback option, or haven't adjusted the maths in your favour, you're looking at around a 50% chance to be completely useless every turn. And speaking from experience, there's something very humiliating about failing to beat SR, especially low SR.

To be clear (and despite my ranting), this isn't a huge deal. But I am going to mention in in the Power section, so I'm writing it once here so that I can refer to it.

Spoiler: Filau Euit
Show

Spoiler: Originality
Show

Demonbinder is a warlock prestige class, but it's not an obvious choice in a contest like this at all. (+1)

Lesser drow is a bit unusual too, although once you'd decided to go demonbinder it was pretty much your only choice. (+0.5)

The demonic feats are very much on (evil) brand for a warlock, especially a demonbinder, but still not a usual choice. I didn't certainly didn't see wandstrike coming either. Most of the rest is pretty standard, although I like that you took Daylight Adaptation instead of just going "they published sunglasses for 50gp so I'll just wear those". (+1)

Overall: 7.5

Spoiler: Power
Show

Demonbinding is surprisingly versatile, and quite potent, but you lose a lot of its advantages because you only have 1 level. 1 use/day means that the quick recharge of damnation points is worthless to you, and using a bind for something means not having it for something else later.

In combat, wandstrike + hideous blow is definitely a cool trick (it doesn't work, but that's a problem for Elegance). Solid damage on a touch attack, with the possibility of an extra rider depending on the wand. Summoning is always great too (and means you have one option not affected by SR), even if you can only do it once per day. Baleful Utterance can be very useful in the right situation. And in classic Warlock tradition, you can always fall back on firing eldritch blasts. Overall, you're definitely more versatile than a baseline Warlock 6...some of the time. Giving up a lesser invocation pays off for you, but your added versatility came at the cost of some of the longevity that Warlocks are known for. (+0.5)

Defensively, you've got good AC, strong Will, solid Fort, and low Ref, but Dark One's Own Luck means you could swap Fort and Ref if needed. Your hp pool is low for someone who plans to be in melee - you mention binding a vrock, but if you do that, those temp hp are all you're getting for your demonbinding that whole day. Your DR isn't as anaemic as a regular Warlock, and that's worth something. Demonbinding gives you some other potential defensive options, but nothing major, and only 1/day. Also, you're harder to resurrect than normal, which counts against you here. (+0.25)

Outside of combat, you've got okay social skills, and you can boost them, but not reliably. Your Sense Motive isn't likely to win those opposed checks, and you're pretty much an expert on the planes, but not much else. Spamming Detect Magic is handy at times, and you've got a bit of Spellcraft to back it up. UMD and Craft Wand is worth something, too, but on the whole I think you're going to struggle to really contribute in non-combat adventuring outside of social situations. (-0.25)

Overall: 3.5

Spoiler: Elegance
Show

It's a very minor point, but to take Daylight Adaptation, you need to be a Cormanthor drow, and your background sort of contradicts that. More importantly, lesser drow is definitely inelegant. (-0.25)

Wandstrike and Hideous Blow both require a standard action, so you can't combine them. To be clear, even if you had the actions to use both of them in a turn, you still couldn't combine them, you could just use both in one turn. (-0.5)

Reliance on wands, even with the ability to craft them, is problematic. (-0.25)

Overall: 2

Spoiler: Use of the Secret Ingredient
Show

5 levels in Warlock, and the 6th in a Warlock prestige class. (+0.75)

You lost a level of Warlock to become a Demonbinder, but Demonbinder itself is designed to boost the Warlock's strengths. Your feats, too, are mostly ones that boost the Warlock's strengths, or they're ones you took to try and make Hideous Blow worthwhile. (+0.75)

Overall: 4.5

Total: 17.5


Spoiler: Iris the Eye Captain
Show

Spoiler: Originality
Show

Azurin is standard if you're doing anything with incarnum, but Unicorn Clan not so much. (+0.5)

Incarnum shows up a lot in IC E6, but you normally see the same soulmelds over and over again. This...isn't that. Well, soulspark familiar does show up, but not as a mount. Spellfire you don't see so often. Psycarnum tricks are an optimization staple, obviously. Anyway, time to stop avoiding the point. You have an army of crawling eyes flying around on soulsparks shooting spellfire. It's not so much original as unique. (+3.5)

Overall: 9

Spoiler: Power
Show

Ugh, spellfire. With the ability to charge it yourself for free, starting combats with a 16d6 blast is pretty OP in an E6 environment. And the healing effect is a thing too, I guess. And then there's your army of eyeballs flying around on soulsparks doing the same thing. Arbitrary amounts of damage at up to...wait, 400ft range? It's a little one-note, but in these kinds of quantities damage is generally all you need (in combat, anyway). Reflex half and fire damage are minor drawbacks, but it ignores SR, so between that and eldritch blast there's almost nothing you can't hurt. (+1.5)

Defensively, you've got standard warlock AC, no save bonuses to speak of, standard warlock HP (plus you can function at up to -9), and a bit more DR than most warlocks. Concealment from darkness is a thing, and action before thought is nice, even if its 1/encounter. Your eyeballs are essentially the same, except with much better AC. That said, while offense isn't always the best defense, it's a pretty great one, and your ability to kill things quickly will go a long way towards covering your weaknesses. (I almost think Improved Initiative would have been better defensively for you than action before thought.) (-0.5)

Outside of combat, you've got...well, you've got UMD, you've got a bit of Craft, you can spam Detect Magic, and you have an army of flying eyeballs. Given that you came up with this nonsense, I'm sure you can find some non-obvious uses for your army of flying eyeballs, but mostly if you can't kill it with spellfire, you don't really have a way to interact with a situation. (-0.5)

Overall: 3.5

Spoiler: Elegance
Show

Wow, there's a lot to unpack here. This is why you should never say you're going to judge until you've seen the builds.

Unicorn Clan is...sketchy, but I wouldn't necessarily penalise for it by itself. That said, it's from OA, and you've also got the extremely FR-specific Spellfire Wielder feat. And on that topic, Magic of Faerun is 3.0 content, and Spellfire Wielder explicitly requires DM permission. Also, ugh, spellfire. (-0.5)

Psycarnum Infusion/Azure Talent is famously dodgy. (-0.25)

Obviously, you can't ride a Soulspa-
...wait, what? So, they say over and over again that soulsparks are creatures made of energy, but they didn't think to make them incorporeal? C'mon, guys. Well, I guess you can ride a soulspark. And it's a ridiculously clever way to get around the movement restrictions. Add in your ability to craft tiny leather saddles and honestly this is worth a bonus to Elegance. (+0.25)

As a pointless side note, as far as I know, it's never specified what skill is required to make saddles, but I'd happily accept whatever word(s) you chose to put between the brackets after the word Craft. What I don't understand is why you have 1 rank in each of Craft(weapon) and Craft(armour).

"For all other purposes, its statistics are equal to yours." I went and looked at the Monster Manual, and, yanno, I just can't find a decent argument that makes this not work. So, okay, I guess crawling eyes can do what you can do. Another chef might have put an eye on their shoulder firing spellfire (or more likely dissolving spittle) and called it a day, but that just wasn't enough for you. And, yes, Crawling Eye is an invocation that affects vision, so it's hard to argue that you can't use it through the eyes.

So far, you've been beating me into accepting all this. But I didn't give up, and I found what I needed to defeat you. Magic of Incarnum, page 49: "Once shaped, a soulmeld takes on a solid physical form in the shape specified for that particular meld. A shaped soulmeld acts as a normal object that might be worn, such as boots, armor, or a robe except for the following: they cannot be removed from the individual wearing them, they cannot be damaged except as specifically noted and they don’t have a weight (though they can restrict movement, thus giving an armor check penalty if applicable)." So although most of this technically works, you can't rip an eye out of a Threefold Mask of the Chimera. So there. Note that if the penalty here seems large, it's because this is the key point of your build. (-1)

Overall: 1.5

Spoiler: Use of the Secret Ingredient
Show

All 6 levels in Warlock. (+1)

You're making heavy use of spellfire, psionics, and incarnum. Very few of your feats have anything to do with being a Warlock. And yet, it's hard to hold that against you, because what you've really done was pick one specific element of the Warlock and ruthlessly optimise, exploit, and abuse it. Regardless of ingredients, this dish is fundamentally a Warlock dish, and couldn't be anything else. With all that said, though, the only level that really matters here is Warlock 6. (+0.5)

Overall: 4.5

Total: 19.5


Spoiler: Malloch
Show

Spoiler: Originality
Show

Human, bleh. (-1)

I sort of expected to see a darkness build, but hellbreaker is a surprise. I also would have expected rogue rather than ninja, although it's neat that for your purposes sudden strike is the same as sneak attack. (+2)

Poison Spell + Eldritch Glaive is cool too, and some of the feats you've taken aren't what anyone would've expected. (+1)

Overall: 7

Spoiler: Power
Show

The rules for hidden melee attackers are a bit murky, but anyway. Eldritch Glaive is a full-round action, which means you can't hide and use it in the same turn. And the Blend Into Shadows feat was right there to give you swift action hiding, much more important than Instinctive Darkness (because you'll generally only need one darkness per combat, but you could need to hide as often as every round). Even ignoring that, the full-round action thing makes you a very immobile melee fighter, which is...not great. Your damage is okay, but not anything special, although Con-damaging poison will help when it works. Speaking of which, I love the flavour of an assassin hired by devils to kill other devils, but most devils are immune to poison and have SR, so your speciality is kinda what you're worst at. That bit's not worth a penalty (beyond the general problem of your main schtick not working on absolutely everything), but I thought it was pretty funny. (-0.5)

Defensively, you've got solid AC, terrible Fort, strong Ref and Will, and your hp pool is kinda pathetic. Hiding (and concealment) will help, but there's a big problem with hiding in magical darkness - you're hidden, but anyone can hit you with an area effect just by aiming for the centre. Your good Ref will help, but this is one place where going ninja instead of rogue hurts - you don't have evasion, and even if you're only taking half damage you'll still go down pretty quickly. (-0.25)

Outside of combat, your good stealth will serve you well, and (with the help of your familiar) you've got some Spot and Listen to go with it. You've got solid Bluff and Sense Motive scores, some Search (and trapfinding to go with it), and some magical knowledge. You can spam Detect Magic, and your Spellcraft will make that more useful, too. Also...whatever Escape Artist does. Overall, you've got the skills to be useful in a variety of non-combat situations. (+1)

Overall: 3.25

Spoiler: Elegance
Show

I'm pretty certain you meant to say that your level 4 ability point goes to Dex, not Wis. You also forgot your bonus skill points for being human at level 1, although you remembered them at all higher levels. You also didn't list your languages, which wouldn't normally matter, but one of them has to be Infernal in order to qualify for Hellbreaker. And as long as I'm showing off how carefully I read the entries, you didn't list the source for Undo Resistance. Similarly, Eldritch Glaive is from Dragon Magic, not Draconomicon. Also, Mantle of Darkness doesn't prevent creatures that can see through magical darkness from seeing through yours, it just lets you hide anyway. It doesn't affect your tactics, it's just a slight inaccuracy in what you wrote. None of these nitpicks would be worthy of a penalty by themselves, but taken all together I'm going to give a minor one. (-0.25)

I love using Warlock to cover the "pact with devil" pre-req of Devil's Favor. I feel compelled to point out the oddity of Devil's Favor (favoured by a devil) + Hellbreaker (anti-devil class). That said, your background, while...concise, does cover this quite neatly. I'm choosing to believe that both of those neat little touches were intentional. (+0.25)

You can't use Poison Spell on Eldritch Glaive, since as an invocation it's an SLA, not a spell. I really wish you could, but you can't. It sucks, but there it is. (-0.5)

Overall: 2.5

Spoiler: Use of the Secret Ingredient
Show

2 levels in Warlock, less than half. (-0.5)

I struggle a bit to rate this one, because while it's mostly not a Warlock, the Darkness schtick is really a Warlock schtick. Drow (or Mark of Shadow) builds can do it too, but the usage limits make it really impractical. The Eldritch Glaive stuff I'm also a little torn on, but in the opposite way, because while Eldritch Glaive is a Warlock thing, the result is not that different to any other poison-using Ninja (except that it gets to target touch AC, obviously). On the whole, I'm going to go with no bonus or penalty here.

Overall: 2.5

Total: 15.25


Spoiler: O'ren Ishi
Show

Spoiler: Originality
Show

The first time I saw a sparrow hengeyokai doing something decidedly un-sparrowlike, I was very impressed. This...is not that time. (-0.5)

Baneful Blast (arcanists) is a clever idea, even if it doesn't work (see Elegance), and I've never seen Born Flyer before, but the rest of your choices are pretty pedestrian. Well, most of the rest of your choices are just mortalbane. (-1)

Overall: 3.5

Spoiler: Power
Show

This is a mostly basic eldritch blaster, but I do like eldritch spear, especially since you took some Spot ranks to go with it. You have enough mortalbane to assume that it applies whenever you're fighting applicable foes, as well as another 2d6 against arcanists. And your attack bonus is extremely impressive - most warlocks rely on "everyone has low touch AC right", but that's just not always true. That said, if you'd wanted to make eldritch blast as reliable as possible (and you should, since it's pretty much all you have), you should have swapped a couple of those instances of mortalbane for some spell pen feats. Especially since most of the things mortalbane doesn't work on have SR, so there's a decent range of enemies where, instead of a 100% chance to do 5d6 damage, you have about a 50% chance to do 3d6 damage. (+0.25)

Defensively, you have really great AC, terrible Fort, solid Ref, average Will, and hardly any hp. Entropic Warding + flight is nice, especially since you plan to stay as far away from enemies as possible. Flyby Attack makes you that bit more mobile, too. Stealth is also a very viable option for you in combat. (+0.5)

Outside of combat, stealth is still a very viable option for you. You've got a bit of Spot, but no Listen. You've got UMD, and that's worth something, and you can spam Detect Magic, and that's worth something too. Still, I think you're going to find yourself useless a lot of the (non-combat) time. (-0.5)

Overall: 3.25

Spoiler: Elegance
Show

There is an argument to be made that Surrogate Spellcasting doesn't work on invocations. It certainly should, but Complete Arcane is...well, let's just say that my opinion of its rules text (specifically regarding invocations) is not as high as Zaq's. But then I suppose when you're used to the Truenamer, your baseline for well written rules probably suffers a bit. Anyway, all of this is to say that I'm noting that the argument could be made, but not making it myself or assigning a penalty here.

If you'd taken Born Flyer before Flyby Attack, I would've given you a bonus for qualifying for Flyby Attack with no possible reservations. (And I wonder if you meant to, since I'm not sure why else you'd have taken Born Flyer.)

ACF Chain: Yeah, no. I'm sure you saw this one coming. Arcane Hunter can only be taken at Ranger 1, Baneful Blast mentioning Favored Enemy doesn't mean it is Favored Enemy, even if you could do it Favored Enemy technically doesn't even apply to eldritch blast, etc. There's just no way this works. (-0.75)

Overall: 2.5

Spoiler: Use of the Secret Ingredient
Show

All 6 levels in Warlock. (+1)

This is a quintessentially Warlock build. It uses Eldritch Blast, and that's honestly about all it does. The only non-Warlock thing about it is the cross-class skill ranks. (+0.75)

Overall: 4.75

Total: 14


Spoiler: Para Gnostic
Show

Spoiler: Originality
Show

Lesser Aasimar is pretty popular for optimization. (-0.5)

Paragnostic Apostle is both an unusual way to boost eldritch blast and an unusual thing to see at all in an E6 contest. (+2)

So, you're an eldritch blaster, and that's boring. Knowledge Devotion is a fairly standard way of boosting it, as are some of your other feats. That said, I've never seen Hellsworn before, and that's surprising to me. It's also not usual to take multiple eldritch essences (and apparently in this round, it's not usual to take any at all, for some reason). (+0.5)

Overall: 7

Spoiler: Power
Show

At last! Someone relying solely on eldritch blast who actually has better than a 50/50 chance against level-appropriate SR! (+0.25)

You've got a lot of small boosts to your eldritch blast numbers, and between them, they definitely add up better than a baseline Warlock. You are missing the minimum 1 rank in Knowledge (local) that would make your Knowledge Devotion universally applicable. Sickening blast and frightful blast are a little redundant with each other, but on the occasion when you can apply both it'll really ruin someone's day. (+0.5)

Defensively, you've got standard warlock AC, decent Fort and Will, low Ref (although Dark One's Own Luck lets you shift that around), and very little hp. Flight is good, but you're definitely a bit on the squishy side. And that's a bigger deal for you than most people, because Hellsworn means you're difficult to resurrect. (-0.5)

Outside of combat, you're a knowledge bank, you can spam Detect Magic (and you've got the Spellcraft to make it a bit more useful), and that's really it. (-0.5)

Overall: 2.75

Spoiler: Elegance
Show

You've got an extra skill point at level 5, but you're also missing one at level 6, so I'll let it slide. You've also given yourself 6 more hp than you actually have.

Lesser Aasimar is inelegant (or outright cheesy, depending who you ask), and so is using its racial Daylight ability for early entry into Paragnostic Apostle. (-0.5)

Overall: 3

Spoiler: Use of the Secret Ingredient
Show

Only half of your levels are in Warlock, but the other half are in a prestige class that you're using to progress Warlock. (+0.5)

On that subject, pretty much the only thing a pure Warlock has that you don't is Deceive Item. Your feats, and the extra features you got from Paragnostic Apostle, are all designed to boost Eldritch Blast. (+0.75)

Overall: 4.25

Total: 17


Spoiler: Tarragon Mapleflash
Show

Spoiler: Originality
Show

Human, boring. (-1)

An Eldritch Disciple build is less boring, and boosting Knowledge Devotion isn't the most obvious use of the Cleric half. (+2)

The fey feats are very much on brand for a warlock, but still not a usual choice. (+0.5)

Overall: 6.5

Spoiler: Power
Show

Knowledge Devotion is a good way to boost eldritch blast, and you've certainly optimized the hell out of it, but I can't help but feel that you could have gotten a lot more for those spell slots than +5 to attack and damage. Obviously there's nothing stopping you from just preparing different spells, but your writeup is pretty clear about your plans (and it got you points in UotSI). I'm also not sure what you're getting out of eldritch glaive, since you have a higher attack bonus and range with your basic eldritch blast, and the same damage either way. I guess there are potential AoOs you can both deliver and avoid - it's not huge, but it's not nothing. Healing Blast is quite nice, and the SLAs from Fey Presence are quite strong, even at 1/day. (+0.5)

Defensively, medium armor makes up for your lack of Dex bonus (no 10500gp mithral fullplate in an E6 competition where we don't assume WBL or magic items), you've got okay Fort, terrible Ref, and great Will. You don't have much hp, but you have more DR than a regular warlock. On the whole, if I were you I'd definitely stick to firing eldritch blasts from a distance rather than wading into melee. (-0.25)

Outside of combat, you can attempt a lot of knowledge checks, with varying degrees of success depending which skill applies. You can spam Detect Magic, and you've got Spellcraft to make it a bit more useful. You're a 3rd-level Cleric, so with time to prepare you could do a lot with spells, too, which makes it tricky to rate. (-0.25)

Overall: 3

Spoiler: Elegance
Show

Your trick with leveling order at level 1 is clever, and it would normally work, but the contest rules specify that: "feats that affect which skills are class skills for you and/or how you spend your skill points (Able Learner, Martial Study, Truename Training, Apprentice, etc.) apply immediately at the level at which you take them (even though you normally spend skill points before taking a feat)." I think this is the first time it's ever applied in reverse, so that's pretty cool. It is on somewhat shaky ground, since it's a feat that gets swapped in for a class feature, but I think most people would agree that you could invoke that rule to get the extra class skill from Knowledge Devotion, or that a Fighter could use the extra class skill from Martial Study if they picked it up with a Fighter bonus feat. (-0.25)

You're missing a skill point at level 4 - I think you meant to put it in Spellcraft. No penalty.

Negative Energy Ray is 3.0 content (obviously), but I'm a big NWN fan. So is Wieldskill, which (along with some of the other spells in your sample list) you didn't list the source for. No penalty.

One of the pre-reqs for Eldritch Disciple is "must worship a chaotic or evil deity", and Mystra is NG. (-0.25)

Practiced Spellcaster doesn't boost Eldritch Blast damage. Rich Baker said that it should, not that it does (not that it would matter either way, since Rich Baker's FAQ on the forums isn't official in any way). (-0.5)

Divine Magician lets you pick one spell from the Sorc/Wiz list "Each time you gain the ability to cast a new level of cleric spells", so you definitely can't use it with the Extra Spell feat. (-0.25)

I have to say, I like how a lot of the build elements here flow together. Eldritch Disciple means Cleric, means high Wis, means Zen Archery. Cloistered Cleric is a strict upgrade to Cleric, and leads naturally to Knowledge Devotion. (+0.25)

Overall: 2

Spoiler: Use of the Secret Ingredient
Show

Only 2 levels in Warlock, but one of the others advances Warlock (and not Cleric), so you're essentially half Warlock. (-0.25)

You've got a lot of non-Warlock stuff, but many of your feats and spells are based around boosting your Warlock abilities. No bonus or penalty.

Overall: 2.75

Total: 14.25