[3.5]Warlocks, wtf

[Arros Winhadren]

So one of my players is playing a Warlock and I'm a little flabbergasted at how powerful they are. I think I must be completely misreading the Invocation descriptions because I can't see any caveat such that they only have one invocation at once. So basically this 6th-level Warlock always has +6 to bluff, Spiderclimb and now a fly speed for as long as he wants? That seems way too good.

[Kaiyanwang]

Every warlock invocation is at will. But the class is balanced, trust me. Just try.

[hiryuu]

Warlocks have the lowest damage output in the game around that level, their maneuverability is their big schtick. Look out, a level 6 character has +6 Bluff. Be glad he's not a beguiler, who'd be damn near untouchable and have +30 to Bluff whenever he feels like it, or some other class that could turn into a bear that shoots lightning and summons other bears at that level.

Seriously. Warlocks suck. BAD.

Trust Kaiyanwang. He may have manipulated an amnesiac Parvati and some immortal regenerating dude into setting off a crazy Xanatos gambit that ended up spectacularly exploding in the face of everyone who tried to decipher it, but he knows what he's talking about.

[Malacode]

Warlocks are in fact, the least powerful caster you're likely to come across. In terms of damage output, they're far behind most other characters. And Damage Output tends to be the way people define the game. It's all about how many mooks you can kill in a round to many people. The Warlock can't do that. He helps out other people by doing the things they can't do. Support caster, if ever there was one. The only remotely powerful thing they get is the ability to take 10 on any UMD check, and by the time you get that far, other characters are DMM Persisting spells and granting their Small Viper Familiars the Alter Form ability.

[Zergrusheddie]

At will Invocations are neat, and permanent fly is never bad. However, a level 3 wizard could use Alter Self to make himself a race that has wings and get Flight for 10 minutes/level. At level 14, Phantom Steed will give a 240 fly speed and would allow them to cast and move away.

Warlocks are very powerful 1-6 or around there. Their damage is enough that they will pump death into Colored Leads because the target will have lowish HP. But once the Fighter starts getting his +hit up high enough that he can Power Attack for 10 and still hit with a 2 on his first swing (2 with Haste), that Warlock will be put to shame. Warlocks are fun, but not incredibly powerful. They are great fun if you like to deal at least some damage every round, because not much has a great Touch AC.

[Tempest Fennac]

Eldrich Glaive can help a lot with damage output due to how you can full attack with it from 10 feet away (I'd class more then 1 touch attack which can do that much damage as being quite powerful).

[Nerd-o-rama]

Warlocks look powerful on paper, because we're used to magical abilities being limited to per-day. However, when it comes down to it, they are still significantly less powerful than most spellcasters, because while their effects are useable at-will and often all day, the effects are far less actually powerful than those of casters.

Take for example your +6 Bluff invocation, Beguiling Influence. Yeah, that's on pretty much all the time. However, a Bard or Beguiler of the same level can just use Glibness and get a +20 (twenty!) to bluff whenever it actually matters, essentially guaranteeing success against anyone anywhere near their level. Same goes for other utility spells and wizards, or anything they can do for damage vs. a well-built fighter-type or a blaster caster who has any idea whatsoever what he's doing.

And remember, Warlocks will only get 16 invocations ever, four of each level, barring new ones picked from (precious, precious) feats. Compare this to any other spellcaster's spells known (except Duskblades), and it is laughably paltry. And their class features, while interesting, aren't really anything to write home about.

Bottom line is, Warlocks are pretty well-balanced and hard to break (they can be broken, but so can everything else.)

[Kaiyanwang]

Trust Kaiyanwang. He may have manipulated an amnesiac Parvati and some immortal regenerating dude into setting off a crazy Xanatos gambit that ended up spectacularly exploding in the face of everyone who tried to decipher it, but he knows what he's talking about.

All the things I did, were to purify this corrupted world. Be prepared, because the universe will be remade.

[KKL]

However, a Bard or Beguiler of the same level can just use Glibness and get a +20 (twenty!) to bluff whenever it actually matters

Isn't Glibness 30 to bluff?

[JeminiZero]

And remember, Warlocks will only get 16 invocations ever, four of each level, barring new ones picked from (precious, precious) feats.

12 invocations actually. They only gain 3 for each level.

And as mentioned, what warlocks pack in stamina, they lack in firepower. They're not that powerful.

[Nerd-o-rama]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glibness.htm

So it is. That just makes it a guaranteed success under almost any circumstance, barring lies so flagrant the DM just says no.

EDIT: I am 0 for 2 on numbers tonight. I think my points stand, though.

[Tempest Fennac]

Apart from a 1 level Incarnum class dip for that ability which reduces stat damage by 1 with Hellfire Warlock levels, how else would you break a Warkock? (I'm only really asking out of curiosity.)

[Malacode]

The Warlock Dual-Casting PrC's are able to be broken. An Eldritch Disciple with a coupla nightsticks and DMM: Persist can get his Cleric buffs persisted on himself along with his Invocations. It makes for a really good support character. Not the best in melee, but not the worst. Not the best caster, but not the worst. Not the best healer, but not the worst. It's all about how you buff yourself to fit what role your party most needs. Not broken unless you really cheese up DMM, but still very useful.

[Arros Winhadren]

Hmm. I think the people on this board have a different idea of what constitutes "broken" than I do. Then again, I've never seen a wizard played correctly and I don't allow ToB.

I have to say I'm a little surprised by my Incarnate player too. 3d6 to any enemy that hits him and +3d6 to an enemy once/round? That's pretty good at level 6.

[Bosh]

Hmm. I think the people on this board have a different idea of what constitutes "broken" than I do. Then again, I've never seen a wizard played correctly and I don't allow ToB.

I have to say I'm a little surprised by my Incarnate player too. 3d6 to any enemy that hits him and +3d6 to an enemy once/round? That's pretty good at level 6.

Yeah, but even a wizard played blasty-style will overshadow a warlock (in pretty much any adventure a wizard who just casts spells like fireball will do more damage than a warlock).

And no, a couple d6 isn't that much to talk about at level 6 :) Something as simple as a twf rogue with two short swords gets 8d6 total attack damage at level 6, (if he hits) and there's a lot of ways to push that higher.

[BobVosh]

A wizard casting glitterdust and only glitterdust will outshine a warlock in a combat.

[Tempest Fennac]

Why don't you allow ToB, Arros? Also, how did the Incarnate get that sort of damage in? (I could never figure out how Incarnum is meant to work.)

[Eldariel]

That's one thing to remember, Warlock damage is just plain D6:s without bonuses. One d6 = average of 3.5 damage, so even though there's a huge number of them, the lack of bonuses means that the damage isn't really that big. It may seem intimidating with all the dice flying around, but if you focus on the numbers rather than the number of dice, you'll notice he isn't dealing any more than your melee types.

Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue on level 6 will have no trouble dealing ~50 damage on a good day. Warlock will be doing 11 per attack, so he needs 4-5 turns to deal the damage a melee type can deal in 1. Of course, the melee type's realistic expected damage is lower because he's not hitting with both and can't always charge/flank, but even then, 25-30 shouldn't be difficult to achieve. That's about the same as what ToB characters dish out; it's all around the same curve damagewise really.


EDIT: Just adding that when I first played with a Warlock, I thought they were damn strong. I was playing melee in the party and me rolling one die and him rolling a bunch just felt wrong, especially since he was making touch attacks. Then I started to pay attention to the damage he was dealing more closely; 11? 17? That's what I do with one hand's one strike in a two-weapon fighting build! It definitely seems like they're doing more with Eldritch Blast than they really are. Pay attention to the real numbers; they're far less overwhelming than the percieved ones, which are amplified by the amount of dice involved.

[TomTheRat]

You know, I was looking at this a while back. Is there any reason a Warlock can't unleash his Eldrich Blasts through a whip? Touch attacks, trip attempts, 15 ft reach?

[Aquillion]

Hmm. I think the people on this board have a different idea of what constitutes "broken" than I do. Then again, I've never seen a wizard played correctly and I don't allow ToB.

I have to say I'm a little surprised by my Incarnate player too. 3d6 to any enemy that hits him and +3d6 to an enemy once/round? That's pretty good at level 6.

Don't compare a warlock to the wizard. Compare them to the rogue, a class that isn't primarily focused on melee, but who still gets far more damage when done right. Compare them to the fighter or to a decent archer build.

Seriously. They can't compete with an even slightly competent 'power-attack-for-full' fighter build. They can't compete with any archer that has a source of bonus damage.

They get a few nifty-on-paper abilities from their invocations, but the best of those can generally be gotten through magic items or spells (flying all day is not as hard to get as you seem to think -- Overland Flight, Phantom Steed, Wings of Flying, Carpet of Flying, etc.) In general, trading your class features for something you can get for gold or with a single spell slot is not a good idea. And even with that... when it comes down to it, their ultimate contribution to the party is going to be a blast every turn, usually. And those blasts are well behind just about anyone else who chooses to focus on damage.

Vanilla unoptimized warlocks are underpowered. It's not just that they're not broken, and I'm not just saying that they're underpowered 'for a caster' -- they are a flat-out weak class. They rank a bit above the Monk, because some invocations do let them do nice things and because their blasting is at least functional, but they have the same basic problem -- they've got nothing major to contribute to the party, and most of their best abilities (flight, invisibility, etc) are either defensive or available via magic items, or both.

They can still be fun, mind you, because they can contribute, and because hey, I can fly around invisibly breaking stuff. But if you break down the numbers, they're usually going to be contributing less than just about everyone else.

[sonofzeal]

Hmm. I think the people on this board have a different idea of what constitutes "broken" than I do. Then again, I've never seen a wizard played correctly and I don't allow ToB.

I have to say I'm a little surprised by my Incarnate player too. 3d6 to any enemy that hits him and +3d6 to an enemy once/round? That's pretty good at level 6.

Warlocks get a bunch of neat toys, fight being the biggest, but that's really all they are - toys. I mean, flight is useful and all, but it doesn't win fights for you. His blast is reliable but mediocre, and he's stuck with whichever tricks he choses to pull off.

We generally use the word "broken" to represent either something that renders most challenges irrelevant or trivial, or something that completely overshadows its teammates in every possible way. A warlock is neither of those - flight works for some things and helps keep him safe, but is hardly a "win" button. And his damage output at level 6 (3d6 once per round) is less than a decent Barbarian should be doing, without rage, at level 1. He lacks the ability to take down enemies quickly, he lacks good "battlefield control", and with d6 HD and light armor, he lacks the ability to Tank too. He does things you wouldn't expect based on the base classes... but that's hardly uncommon; there's about a dozen classes out there that break the mold for what to expect, and pretty much all of them are entirely balanced in their own ways because they lack other abilities.

[Zergrusheddie]

Fiery Burst: Complete Mage
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 2nd-level spells.
Benefit: As long as you have a fire spell of 2nd level or higher available to cast, you can spend a standard action to create a 5-foot-radius burst of fire at a range of 30 feet. This burst deals 1d6 points of fire damage per level of the highest-level fire spell you have available to cast. A successful Reflex save halves the damage.
As a secondary benefit, you gain a +1 competence bonus to your caster level when casting fire spells.

A Wizard could take one feat and play the Warlock's game. Hell, convince the DM to let you put in on a 'line' instead of a hex and you could probably get multiple hits. The Wizard would also Blind, Slow, and Haste.
Warlocks may even be underpowered; when a huge piece of your character is offered away by a feat, there is a problem.

Best of luck
-Eddie

[Tokiko Mima]

If you know how to, it is possible to build a warlock that's up there with any optimized class. They aren't broken out of the box though. In fact, the only thing you could do (that I can think of off the cuff) with a Core + Complete Arcane Warlock that's remotely powerful is taking and combining Maximize SLA, Empower SLA, and Quicken SLA. That would give you a nice 3/day blast at least, though that won't come together until level 10 or so.

There's a couple more tricks you can have fun with once you access Dragon Magic, Magic of Incarnum, and Fiendish Codex II. A fully optimized Warlock will give almost any class except Batman a run for it's money.

And I have a question! Why would a warlock take Spiderclimb AND Fell Flight? One of those seems kinda redundant.

[Bosh]

Tokiko Mima: right, but a fully optimized Commoner is damn powerful as well :) That doesn't mean that Commoner isn't a weak class...

[Tokiko Mima]

Tokiko Mima: right, but a fully optimized Commoner is damn powerful as well :) That doesn't mean that Commoner isn't a weak class...

Yeah, but I wouldn't necessarily count Warlocks out, unless the Warlocks player makes very bad decisions with invocation choice (picking Fell Flight and Spiderclimb counts) and ability scores. A first level warlock with a Summon Swarm invocation is about the most powerful 1st level character you'll ever see, for example.

As a baseline, I would put them on approximately the same level as any other class up to level 8 or so, then after that depends on the choices the warlock makes for invocations and feats. I wouldn't necessarily call them weak, but it would depend on how many splat books they're allowed to use.

[Kaiyanwang]

A Wizard could take one feat and play the Warlock's game. Hell, convince the DM to let you put in on a 'line' instead of a hex and you could probably get multiple hits. The Wizard would also Blind, Slow, and Haste.
Warlocks may even be underpowered; when a huge piece of your character is offered away by a feat, there is a problem.

I agree with you that reserve feats can be very powerful, but eldricht blast can be transformed in an area attack, can change energy type and the like. More, the "basic" blast is untyped damage bonus, useful if you fight monsters like outsiders. You point is still valid, anyway.

OP: I generally agree with people above – the warlock is not so powerful. For a spellcaster is very limited, and Aquillion is right when compares him to melee characters – works very similar.
Anyway, in my experience invocation-users are not so bad. One of my players plays with a Dragonfire Adept and, at least in the kind of campaign I run, the at-will thing is very useful (even you have to consider that area attacks are easier with DAdept and when high level spells enter in play things change a lot. Man: A LOT).

Further, you have to consider that people think that every class and every option must be always used. This is not always true. As an example, you could play a campaign whit Paladins, Hexblades, Rangers and Invocation Users as the only refluffed spellcasters. The world would work in a very different way, as well as PCs attitude toward magic, monsters and so on (this is IMO the advantage of subsystems but this could involve a whole thread).

Another thing: I think that in a gestalt campaign, a Warlok//Rogue could not be so powerful but very fun to play – perhaps a tiefling

[Arros Winhadren]

I think I should clarify that I wasn't speaking about damage when I said that my Warlock is powerful. He doesn't do very much and isn't a huge help in fights. What is good about him are his bonuses that never go away - since I plan my world and then stick my players in it, there are a lot of situations where flying and spiderclimb at-will simply make what should be a hard encounter an easy encounter.

As for ToB, I simply don't like how powerful it makes people. Maybe I'll let my players use it sometime, but I find it a little too powerful.

Before you start going off about wizards, let me explain that I just don't understand the approach people take towards wizards on these boards. Whenever someone points out that a wizard can handle a certain situation with at spell, they automatically assume that the wizard knows the spell, the wizard has the materials for the spell and that the wizard prepared the spell. It seems that there's an unmentioned gap between what a wizard could theoretically do and what someone playing a wizard is going to be able to do on an average basis.

[Tempest Fennac]

I've heard from a lot of people that ToB classes are about as powerful as Sorcerers. A couple of other people have said they are as broken as spellcasters supposedly are, though. I agree with you about Shroeder's Wizard coming into debates a lot. To be fair, if a Warlock had the sense to invest in plenty of scrolls (and some Unlimited Wands), they would be versatile enough to handle a lot of situations which their Invocations can't cover.

[kamikasei]

What is good about him are his bonuses that never go away - since I plan my world and then stick my players in it, there are a lot of situations where flying and spiderclimb at-will simply make what should be a hard encounter an easy encounter.

Not to put to fine a point on it, if you decide what the players will face before you take account of their abilities, why is it the classes' fault that they don't match up with your notion of encounter difficulty?

Before you start going off about wizards, let me explain that I just don't understand the approach people take towards wizards on these boards. Whenever someone points out that a wizard can handle a certain situation with at spell, they automatically assume that the wizard knows the spell, the wizard has the materials for the spell and that the wizard prepared the spell. It seems that there's an unmentioned gap between what a wizard could theoretically do and what someone playing a wizard is going to be able to do on an average basis.

This is a valid criticism of many specific arguments, but in general it still holds that a wizard played with just some system skill and forethought (no need for precognition) can have a standing prepared spell list granting unbeatable versatility and utility surpassing that of near any other class.

It sounds like your approach is to decide on the challenges to be faced before you know what your players are capable of. That seems inevitably to require limits on what the players can do so that they line up with what you intend to be hard or easy encounters. The playstyle is a matter of taste, but it's not going to generate very useful results on whether a given class or build is in fact weak or powerful in itself.

[Aquillion]

I think I should clarify that I wasn't speaking about damage when I said that my Warlock is powerful. He doesn't do very much and isn't a huge help in fights. What is good about him are his bonuses that never go away - since I plan my world and then stick my players in it, there are a lot of situations where flying and spiderclimb at-will simply make what should be a hard encounter an easy encounter.

What will you do if a player chooses Overland Flight as one of his automatically-learned spells? It allows flying at-will, essentially, and is one of the wizard's most basic tools.

Whenever someone points out that a wizard can handle a certain situation with at spell, they automatically assume that the wizard knows the spell, the wizard has the materials for the spell and that the wizard prepared the spell.

Wizards are automatically assumed to have all the non-costly materials for any spells they know as long as they have their spell component pouch. Those components are purely flavor text; the rules specifically say that you are not supposed to track them.

The problem is that if you actually pay attention, you'll notice that the "certain spells" people name tend to come from a fairly small pool of core utility spells -- Disintegrate, Grease, Glitterdust, Fly/Overland Flight/Phantom Steed, Haste, Slow, the Polymorph and Planar Binding lines, the Teleport lines, and so on. These spells are almost always applicable, and if used well, most of them can either instantly resolve a situation, or overwhelmingly tilt it in favor of the caster's side. These spells are so important not just because they're powerful (although they generally are), but because they're rarely useless.

The Warlock has access only to the most limited pool of such effects. They can contribute only in a small way, like an archer with a spare Wings of Flying and a Ring of Invisibility. Compare this to a wizard, who can easily turn the nastiest undead construct into a fraction of its former threat with a single third-level Slow spell, or contribute vastly more damage over the course of the battle with a well-placed Haste, and it's easy to see why the wizard comes out ahead -- and that's ignoring the really extreme things wizards can do with Teleport or the Planar Binding spells, things that can radically reshape the course of the entire plotline by granting them access to new abilities that no noncaster class can easily mimic (for these purposes, the Warlock is a noncaster, barring UMD tricks.)

Full casters can break the rules that apply to other classes, often in a very straightforward way that requires no complicated exploitation. Warlocks can't. (Do you ban Teleport in your games, say? It'd understandable if you do, but we're talking RAW here -- how is a Warlock supposed to compete with the Teleport line? A skilled wizard can go anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds.)

Many critics also fail to realize quite how many spells slots wizard ends up with. An 11th level specialist wizard with decent intelligence (say, 22 -- which is unoptimized; they could easily get it much higher) has 7/6/6/5/4/3 spells, for a total of 31. Given your typical four encounters per day, that's a bit under eight per encounter, with enough to lead with a sixth level spell for most of them, or a fifth at least -- and most encounters will be under control far before they've had a chance to use eight spells, letting them fall back on the first-level spells, or even just cantrips / doing nothing, once it's clear no further magic is needed. Often one high-level spell will be enough, and the rest can be minor first- or second-level effects, if further spells are needed at all. A sorcerer will lack sixth level spells, but will have even more spells of every other level.

(Part of the key to playing a good wizard is realizing when not to spend magic. A well-placed spell from your top-level slots should be able to get most situations under control; throwing around eight spells in a single encounter should only happen if it's a really epic confrontation. Once it's reached a point where your fighter-types are just cleaning things up, you don't really need to do anything else.)