[3.5] Warlock Baptisms (aka Invocation Styles)

[Xefas]

Baptism of the Black Lexicon
Your soul has been hollowed, and now reverberates with the ten-thousand blighted characters of the Dark Speech, each one a curse and a blasphemy against all but the most foul of creatures. To speak even a word of it is to tarnish yourself beyond redemption.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Dread Seizure is from Dragon Magic, Painful Slumber of Ages is from Complete Mage)

Baleful Utterance: Using any available material (ink, blood, mud, etc), you may scribe a word of destruction upon any implement forged of metal with the explicit purpose to be a weapon. For the next hour, that implement will resonate with dark power, granting any who wield it the Improved Sunder feat while they do so, even if they do not possess the prerequisites (or, in the case of a golem or similar construct forged as a weapon, it is considered to be 'wielding' itself). After using this ability, cracks form around your eyes, mouth, and fingernails for 24 hours.

Dread Seizure: You may cut a word of masochism into your own chest, or the chest of a willing or restrained individual (this must cause at least 1 point of damage to draw blood and be effective), wracking the subject with horrible pain that leaves them incapable of any action for 1 minute. When they recover, their nerves are deadened, rendering them immune to nonlethal damage and giving them a +4 bonus on saving throws against effects based on pain. It takes 1 week for their nerves to recover to the point of removing this effect. During this period of deadness, subjects are prone to accidentally cutting themselves, chewing their tongue to bloodiness, or similar behavior. It should be noted that creatures with Regeneration simply regenerate their own nerves, conveniently gleaning no benefit from this ability.

Painful Slumber of Ages: Concocting a mixture of tears and bile, you may scribe a word for hunger and a word for exhaustion, one on each eyelid of yourself or a willing or restrained individual. For the next week, the subject knows only hunger, but may not eat; they lust only for sleep, but may never achieve it. They become immune to being sickened, nauseated, fatigued, or exhausted, and suffer no ill effects from not eating, drinking, or sleeping. Indeed, they may not do either. Food and drink are automatically regurgitated on the following round, and even magical sleep effects have no effect on the victim.

Word of Changing: By placing a word of beasts upon your own brow, scrawled in the blood of a specific animal, you may assume the form of that animal. Only animals of size small or smaller with 1 HD or less may be chosen. Your equipment is subsumed into this form and becomes inactive. You may not use invocations in this form, though invocations that were previously on you remain so. You have the physical ability scores of the new form, as well as movement modes, but retain your mental ability scores and hit points. You retain the ability to speak properly, in all languages that you know, but may also speak with beasts that share your species. You may end this effect as a free action on your turn, or an immediate action while not your turn, but otherwise the effect is indefinite. After remaining in a form for more than a few hours, subjects tend to retain certain quirks based on the animal, such as an affinity for raw vegetables as a rabbit or a flick of the tongue for snakes.

Baptism of the Skull Throne
Orcus, broken god of undeath rests upon his throne of skulls, the lingering shadow of Tenebrous haunting him, reminding him that for all the power the Demon Prince possesses, he is the true shadow. So too are you now broken, the putrescent divinity of the once-godslayer spilling into your every black thought.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Soulreaving Aura is from Complete Mage)

Soulreaving Aura: The temporary hit points granted by this invocation now automatically last up to 1 minute. However, you may prolong this duration up to one hour, so long as you carry with you a bone or piece of flesh from the corpse that granted you them. While you do so, any words spoken by the victim in its last moments of life will echo in your ears unceasingly.

The Dead Walk: Undead created by this invocation are cloaked in a wispy, vaguely humanoid-shaped essence. This is a projection of the soul you have trapped and are currently torturing to fuel your abomination. It continually shrieks, grasping, and contorting its face and body in impossible displays of suffering. This is, unsurprisingly, unsettling. Any creature other yourself that comes within 60 feet of one must make a DC (10 + 1/2 the undead's hit dice + the higher of your charisma modifier or the charisma modifier of the undead before death) Will save or become shaken for 1 minute (this ability may never raise a creature above shaken). Creatures that successfully save are immune for 24 hours.

Enervating Shadow: This ability is no longer so fragile. It may not be countered or dispelled by light-based magics, and works perfectly fine in brightly lit areas. Furthermore, mundane and (possibly) magical sources of light are extinguished when you come within 60 feet. Magical effects are allowed opposed caster level checks to continue shining, though you may force a new check every round. Whenever a light source is extinguished by this ability, you feel clammy and suffer a slight sinking feeling in your stomach.

Utterdark Blast: By desecrating a holy symbol in the name of blasphemous powers, you may enact an inversion in this invocation. For 1 hour, you may not augment your Eldritch Blast with it, but rather you turn it inwards, investing yourself with darkness for the same duration. During this time, you are immune to negative energy damage, energy drain, and death effects, as well as ability damage, ability drain, and fear effects that are a result of Necromancy or undead special attacks or qualities. For the rest of your life, every time you close your eyes, the rotting husk of Tenebrous looms in perfect clarity.

Baptism of the Eyes Beyond The World
There exists a place beyond the multiverse. But it is more than that. It is beyond time, beyond space, beyond thought, beyond comprehension. Entities, as we denizens of finite existence so futilely must refer to them as, dwell there. They are ancient in ways that we may not know, and the distant lights of our world are baubles for them to inspect. You are not their emissary. You are barely their doll. You will not be spared when the Far Realm sweeps us away on a whim, but you're far too psychotic by now to care.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Otherworldly Whispers is from Complete Mage)

Otherworldly Whispers: The whispers are louder than usual. The bonus granted by this feat also applies to Knowledge (Dungeoneering) and Knowledge (History). Whenever you make a Knowledge check that this invocation grants a bonus to while this invocation is active, a rush of unknowable voices thunders into your mind. If there is a living creature within your reach, you must spend your next action making a melee attack against it to relieve the stress brought on by this episode, probably spouting gibberish as you do so. If their is nothing within reach, you instead spend your next move action spasming and twitching uncontrollably.

Voidsense: The whispers never stop now. Not really. This invocation grants Blindsight instead of Blindsense. From now on, you always feel as if someone is watching you. What's more, you know someone is. They tell you. They tell you everything that's going on around you. The invisible stalker sneaking up behind you. The way your friends talk about you behind your back. The worms crawling in the earth beneath your feet.

Chilling Tentacles: Now you can show everyone. The cold damage dealt by this invocation is instead acid damage. This invocation may not be dispelled by divine magic, and the damage it deals ignores all damage reduction or energy resistance granted by divine magic.

Dark Foresight: The ones who dwell beyond see time as it truly is. To them, the entire history of our multiverse, from birth to oblivion, has all happened in a simultaneous instant; a flicker in the vast, uncaring emptiness. Your eyes are opened to this, and even your feeble mind may see a few moments into the future. You may no longer use this invocation on anyone but yourself, but in exchange it grants you a +4 bonus on initiative checks. As a tertiary effect, you have a perfect memory of your life while this invocation is in effect. This can be very depressing, as you realize just how much of your already infinitesimally brief lifetime has been spent waiting, sleeping, tieing your shoes, going to the bathroom, or some other activity of little consequence.

Baptism of the White Ash
Hidden deep within the woods of the world are places that mortals dream of. Places of unearthly beauty, populated by the capricious fey of the Seelie Court. Wondrous to look upon, many fools mistake them for holy beings. In truth, their mercy extends only to the point that it entertains them. They are as aloof as the winds that bellow through their court, and as fierce as the beasts that stalk through it. And now, their grace has fallen upon you.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Call of the Beast and Witchwood Step are from Complete Mage)

Call of the Beast: You no longer take a -4 penalty for using the Wild Empathy gained by this Invocation on Magical Beasts. However, if a creature should die as a direct result of actions you convinced them to perform with use of Wild Empathy, the natural world curses you. The flesh around your mouth boils and fuses, rendering you mute until 24 hours have passed.

Witchwood Step: By handing some sort of token of the natural world to another, be it a twig, berry, fruit, or similar, who willing accepts it, you may bless another creature, granting them the benefits of this invocation for 1 hour, that they might share in your graceful strides. Should they displease you within this time, it is a free action to revoke this benefit. Once revoked, the token you have given them withers and rots, and the grace that you blessed them with turns to oafishness. They become flat-footed and take a -4 penalty on Charisma-based skill checks for 1 minute.

Bewitching Blast: Using some form of colored pigment, you may anoint a willing or restrained subject with a tapestry of tattoos in a ritual that takes 5 minutes to perform. For the next hour, the world appears to them as a place of endless wonder. Colors are brighter, smiles are warmer, sounds are song-like and everything seems right. For the duration, they are immune to mind-affecting effects and abilities, but with the downside that a full 30% of their standard actions are spent staring off into space, reveling in the glory of life.

Dark Foresight: When you cast this invocation on another, it functions as if they were the ones foreseeing. You need not alert them to dangers for them to take advantage of its effects, and they gain the insight bonuses to Armor Class and Reflex Saves associated with this. If, however, the subject ever displeases you, you may revoke the invocation as a free action, rendering them blind and deaf for 1 minute.

Baptism of the Shattered Oak
Beneath the dark canopies that shun all light, in the stagnant pools, and the infested hollows of the world; these are the places where nightmares are born. In hushed voices, mortals speak of wayward fairies that lead good men into the marsh to die, or twisted, ugly spirits that torment innocent travelers into madness. These are the true stories of the Unseelie Court. This is your legacy.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Serpent's Tongue, Mask of Flesh, and Nightmares Made Real are from Complete Mage)

Serpent's Tongue: While this invocation is active, you can smell the fear and misery festering in those around you. You glean additional information from creatures in range of your Scent special ability, including whether they are poisoned, diseased, shaken, sickened, or cursed (anything that can be removed by a Remove Curse spell), and whether they are poisonous, or capable of spreading disease through non-magical means.

Mask of Flesh: When you steal the flesh of another through use of this invocation, and successfully inflict them with a Charisma penalty, you also steal a little bit of their memories. You instinctively know, on sight, anyone who would qualify as "Close Friends" or "Intimate" with the victim (see the Disguise skill), though you do not automatically know any additional information beyond a name. In addition, you are treated as having the Favored Enemy class feature (see Ranger) towards the Close Friends and Intimates of your victim.

Nightmares Made Real: You gain a +10 bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks while in the area of your Nightmare Terrain. In addition, while you are hidden, as a standard action, you may force a creature within your Nightmare Terrain to make a Will save or become shaken for 1 minute. This ability may not force a person beyond shaken with repeated use, with the following exceptions. It may turn a person up to Frightened through repeated use if you are currently wearing their flesh from your Mask of Flesh invocation. It may turn a person up to Panicked with repeated use if they are a Close Friend or Intimate with the current victim of your Mask of Flesh invocation.

Path of Shadow: If you abandon someone on the border of the Plane of Shadow by using this invocation while wearing their flesh from your Mask of Flesh invocation, you may permanently steal their appearance. They take on a new appearance, typically older and more feeble-looking, though always completely different and unrecognizable from their previous form, even to their most intimate of associates. This is their true form now; it is not magic that can be dispelled, and no magic short of a Wish or Miracle duplicating a Polymorph Any Object spell can give them their exact true appearance back (and even then, that's only for the duration of the spell). Even better, you now own their appearance. It is not magic, nor the work of your invocation any longer; you have two (or possibly more, depending on how many times you do this) true forms, and may shift from one to another as a swift action. Even though you no longer need Mask of Flesh to duplicate the stolen appearance, it still counts as having been stolen by Mask of Flesh for the purposes of the abilities granted by this Baptism.

Baptism of Consecrated Midnight
The darkness of night cloaks and protects within itself the thief, the murderer, and the heretic. It is a time for villainy; but also of redemption. The eternally nighted shores of Lunia, the First of Celestia's Mounts, the Silver Heaven, and Haven of the Redeemed represents the opportunity within us all to shine the light of hope into even the darkest of our iniquities.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action).

Darkness: Henceforth, the zone of darkness that you produce with this Invocation appears just as dark and forbidding as it ever did to your foes, but to your allies, it is studded with brilliant starlight that provide enough illumination to prevent them from taking a miss chance from its effects.

Curse of Despair: Should a foe fail their saving throw against this Invocation, you may choose to forgo immediately cursing them to instead supply a trigger to the curse. You must state a form of behavior clearly and in a way that the target may understand that there will be dire consequences should they disobey. The curse takes effect immediately if they perform the behavior you have stated.

Enervating Shadow: At any point while you have this Invocation active, you may spend an immediate action to invert it, focusing the darkness inward and pushing your own light out. As an unfortunate side effect, you take the -4 penalty to Strength normally dealt by this Invocation for the duration, but in exchange your body shines brightly with moonlight, cloaking all of your allies within 60 feet in a protective glow, granting them a +2 Perfection bonus on all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks, and armor class. This bonus does not effect you. After the duration of Enervating Shadow would have elapsed, you may preserve this light effect with a move action every round.

Path of Shadow: If you bring a creature to the border of the Plane of Shadows using this Invocation, and have personally witnessed them committing an evil act for which they have sought no redemption, you may use their villainy as a planar conduit to slip through the faded reality of the Shadows into the Astral Plane and beyond, straight to the Gates of the Nine Hells of Perdition. There, you subject them to a glimpse of their ultimate fate should they continue pursuing this path; the Maggot Pit, a 1000-foot diameter canyon cut into the blasted wasteland of Avernus, wherein countless mortals lay upon racks, contorted into inhuman shapes of pain by Devils wielding implements more sinister than the Prime Material has ever been despoiled with the presence of. This lasts no more than a minute, before the two of you are shunted back to your previous positions before this Invocation was activated. At that point, your subject must make a Will saving throw (keeping in mind that anyone may choose to fail a saving throw). If they succeed on the Will save, they have the mental fortitude to put all guilt from their mind and feel no remorse for the evils they have done. Their flesh is seared from the bone on the following round with white-hot flames that deal 10d6 damage, half of which is fire damage, the other half of which is divine in nature (the damage caused by this ability never kills anyone; at worst, it will reduce them to -9 hit points and stable). If they fail on the Will save, they admit to having an ounce of humanity within them and feel legitimate regret for at least some of the evils they have done. They are instead filled with all-consuming horror and stunned for 1 round. During this stunned period, the subject may not save against your Curse of Despair Invocation should you attach a trigger related to not performing similar actions to the ones you've personally witnessed them doing before.

Baptism of the Demonweb
No one knows whether it was the dark goddess Lolth who spawned spider-kind from the most vile depths of the Abyss, or whether it was the unrelentingly malicious nature of the spiders that brought Lolth into being, but forevermore the two have been intertwined. To throw one's lot in with a spider is to become one with the foulest of conspiracies the multiverse has ever known; one that stretches under every bed, beneath every floor-board, in every attic, on every windowsill, and especially in Australia.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Spider-shape is from Drow of the Underdark)

Spiderwalk: While this Invocation is active, spiders or spider-related creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or less automatically start off with an attitude of Indifferent towards you. Even if they engage your party in combat, they will always prefer to attack targets other than you until you take a hostile action. As a side-effect, your fingers constantly twitch and flex in disturbing motions while you are idle and not putting forth a conscious effort towards making them not do so.

Spider-Shape: You may use your Eldritch Blast, as well as Least and Lesser Invocations, while in the spider-form granted by this Invocation. When you attain the ability to use Dark Invocations, you may also use Greater Invocations while in your spider-form.

Tenacious Plague: Instead of summoning swarms of locusts, you may choose to summon swarms of spiders with this Invocation. If you do so, the spiders gain the normal benefit of your charisma modifier to their distraction ability and the ability to deal damage as if wielding a magical weapon, but in addition, they also add 1/2 your character level and your charisma modifier to the DC of their Poison ability. After attaining this ability, you constantly see scurrying spiders on the very fringes of your peripheral vision, regardless of whether they are there or not.

Dark Discorporation: When you use this Invocation, you may choose to take the shape of spiders instead of bats. With this option, you lose the fly speed normally granted and instead gain a climb speed of 40ft. In exchange, you may use your Tenacious Plague Invocation while in this form as a move action.

Baptism of the Ancient Evil Beneath the Tides
Sharks, sahuagin, sea serpents, kraken. For all the horrible things the seas of the Prime conceal that mortals know of, there are many more that they know not of. Things far worse. And for all these grotesque, alien things, the seas of the Abyss are without compare to such mortal trifles; hosting aquatic monsters ancient when the world was young, forged of primordial chaos and madness. And those things fear Dagon.
Benefit: Below are listed four Invocations. As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action). (Swimming the Styx, Stony Grasp, and Binding Blast are from Complete Mage)

Swimming the Styx: While this invocation is active, your left arm becomes a mass of writhing tentacles. It may still perform all the functions it would normally, but in addition, you may make a natural Slam attack with it that deals 1d8 damage for a medium creature, and you gain the Improved Grapple feat if you did not already have it even if you do not meet its prerequisites.

Stony Grasp: Instead of a fist of stone, you conjure a miniature portal from which a horrible tentacle bursts forth. Unlike the normal Stony Grasp, this portal may appear from any surface, or even in a completely empty space. In addition, the tentacle has a reach of 10ft. After attaining this ability, your skin becomes noticeably cold and clammy to the touch.

Chilling Tentacles: If you summon a tentacle via your Stony Grasp Invocation within the area of this Invocation, the tentacle's reach becomes 20ft instead of 10, and gains a +4 bonus on Grapple checks. Once per round, when that tentacle succeeds on a grapple check, it may drag the creature it succeeded on the check against 10ft towards the area of the Invocation for free. After attaining this ability, you leave soggy footprints anywhere that you stand for more than a few minutes.

Binding Blast: When you stun a creature with this Invocation, on that creature's lost turn, tentacles explode from the surrounding area and drag them up to 20 feet in a direction of your choice. After attaining this ability, your eyes have the unsettling habit of twisting in their socket and glancing in two different directions when you don't mean them to.

[Merk]

Very cool work.

As long as you know one of them, and each one that precedes it, you may activate the associated ability as a standard action unless otherwise noted (not including permanent enhancements to the capabilities of the invocation itself, which require no action).

I take this to mean: for each invocation you know in the style feat, you can use its associated power. Is this correct?

[Xefas]

Very cool work.

Thank ya

I take this to mean: for each invocation you know in the style feat, you can use its associated power. Is this correct?

To give an example, if you have Baptism of the Black Lexicon, and Baleful Utterance, you can use Baleful Utterance's special ability. If you have both Baleful Utterance and Dread Seizure, you can use both of their special abilities.

But, if you have Baleful Utterance, Dread Seizure, Word of Changing, but not Painful Slumber of Ages, you can only use Baleful Utterance and Dread Seizure's special abilities. You have to have each one in the order; you can't skip a invocation if you want to use the higher ones. I hope that makes it more clear.

[Cahokia]

I *love* these. The effects are truly chilling, and they seem balanced as well. Good job!

[Eldan]

Yup, these are great. Have you thought about making some more? This could actually be a pretty cool way to implement that fey warlock I've been thinking about...

[Xefas]

I *love* these. The effects are truly chilling, and they seem balanced as well. Good job!

Always encouraging to hear someone likes my work.

Yup, these are great. Have you thought about making some more? This could actually be a pretty cool way to implement that fey warlock I've been thinking about...

Sure thing. I just put up Baptism of the Eyes Beyond the World. The next one will be fey for sure.

[Gelatinous Boss]

Nice, this is incredibly balanced

[Fako]

These are amazing! Definitely using them when I can... question though: are these treated as feats, or as an augment to the original class itself? Also, is there a maximum number of Baptisms you can use, and if you are past that maximum, would you be able to cycle between them each day?

[Xefas]

Well, Eldan, there's two Fey-warlock feats. One for Seelie, one for Unseelie. And, I have to say, I'm especially proud of the Unseelie one. I hope they prove useful to you.

These are amazing! Definitely using them when I can... question though: are these treated as feats, or as an augment to the original class itself? Also, is there a maximum number of Baptisms you can use, and if you are past that maximum, would you be able to cycle between them each day?

These are feats, and you can take as many as you are willing to devote feat slots towards, and may use all of them simultaneously. Although, it might be kind of an awkward story to justify being a conduit for, say, Orcus, Mephistopheles (once I get his feat up), *and* the Far Realm all at once. But, if you pull it off, and your DM is okay with it, why not?

I'm kind of considering a Baptism-related Alternate Class feature now, too.

[Eldan]

Thank you very much. These should indeed do nicely.

[Cahokia]

Wow. Baptism of the Shattered Oak is an inspiring piece of work.

[The Tygre]

This may, in fact, be the most brutal thing I have ever seen for warlocks. Fekkin' metal, yo.

[kryan]

These are creative and brilliant. Thank you very much!

[The Dark Fiddler]

Xefas, man, I love these. The only problem is that they all have invocations from a book I don't have...

You may just be the thing that makes me get Complete Mage, man.

[kryan]

Complete Mage is a pretty solid book. Abjurant Champion, Master Specialist, Ultimate Magus, and Unseen Seer are all pretty sweet PrCs.

[Xefas]

Xefas, man, I love these. The only problem is that they all have invocations from a book I don't have...

You may just be the thing that makes me get Complete Mage, man.

Well, the problem is that there aren't a whole lot of Warlock Invocations to speak of at all, and even less if I were just using Complete Arcane. In truth, few concepts are completely rounded out through all four levels of Invocation (and the concepts that are tend to just be redundant from one level to another), but part of the fun of making these feats is figuring out how to make them work as a theme.

That said, you might see some homebrewed Warlock Invocations from me in the future.

For now, I'm working on Baptisms for Mephistopheles, Baalzebul, and Graz'zt.

[Fizban]

Great stuff. As always though, if I see something for evil my first question is: where's the stuff for good? A couple good outsider baptisms would be nice if you could find a theme to build them on. If you wouldn't normally allow refluffing of the abilities, that could even be one of the features, converting your dark powers into light.

[Xefas]

Great stuff. As always though, if I see something for evil my first question is: where's the stuff for good? A couple good outsider baptisms would be nice if you could find a theme to build them on. If you wouldn't normally allow refluffing of the abilities, that could even be one of the features, converting your dark powers into light.

Alright, I accept the challenge. I'll do a few Celestial-themed Baptisms.

[DracoDei]

Those going to only be for CG Warlocks, or are you proposing to rewrite the alignment restrictions (perhaps with some mechanical changes?) as well due to different fluff?

Also... excellent work. I don't have any of the relevant books except the one that Warlocks are actually in, but I can still tell you have something nicely creepy going on here... except for the Seelie stuff, which is appropriately a bit less creepy.

[Xefas]

Those going to only be for CG Warlocks, or are you proposing to rewrite the alignment restrictions (perhaps with some mechanical changes?) as well due to different fluff?

Yeah, the more Warlock stuff I homebrew, the more I feel like just doing a whole Revised Warlock Handbook.

Chapter 1: What is a Warlock? Shirking the alignment restriction; rules for Warlocks of all kinds. Fluff, etc.
Chapter 2: The Revised Warlock Class; not making them more powerful, just making their class features aside from Invocations/Eldritch Blast actually worth a damn
Chapter 3: New Invocations/Feats/Skill Tricks
Chapter 4: Alternate Class Features - Mixing With Other Classes

I may get started on that after the 6 Baptisms I have queued.

[SilentNight]

Nice, this is incredibly balanced

For the most part yes, I noticed though that Dread Seizure grants immunity to nonlethal damage, which can lead to some invincible abuse with regeneration. I'd suggest making it not work on creatures with regeneration or retooling it a bit more.

That said, these are great, I wish I had Complete Mage so I could put them to use.

[Xefas]

For the most part yes, I noticed though that Dread Seizure grants immunity to nonlethal damage, which can lead to some invincible abuse with regeneration. I'd suggest making it not work on creatures with regeneration or retooling it a bit more.

Ah, good catch. I put in a clause about Regeneration. Thanks

Also, the Baptism of Consecrated Midnight is up. It's all goody-goody, and I think is my first Baptism to only require Complete Arcane.

[Violet Octopus]

This is brilliantly executed, and is simultaneously a great way of giving optional complexity without changing how warlocks work resource-wise (unlike, say, the SLA metamagic feats), a boost for the less popular invocations, and a fantastic way to mechanically add flavour in a less restrictive way than prestige classes.

This is instantly my favourite warlock homebrew, and has made me excited about them again. I hope you do decide to make a warlock supplement.

Any chance of a slaad or djinni-themed baptism after the celestial ones?

[Xefas]

Any chance of a slaad or djinni-themed baptism after the celestial ones?

Possibly. I'll think about it. I definitely want to homebrew some Slaadi-esque Invocations at some point, at the very least.

In the mean time, spiders and more tentacles! Baptism of the Demonweb and Baptism of the Ancient Evil Beneath the Tides. I hope my crippling arachnophobia comes across in the description of the former.

[Eldan]

Great stuff. As always though, if I see something for evil my first question is: where's the stuff for good? A couple good outsider baptisms would be nice if you could find a theme to build them on. If you wouldn't normally allow refluffing of the abilities, that could even be one of the features, converting your dark powers into light.

You could conceivably use the Seelie Fey stuff for Eladrin, if you throw a little bit more warrior and a little less trickery into the mix.

Edit: and now, I really want to run a warlock game. Every player has to gestalt with warlock. Or play in one, and gestalt it with binder.

[Roc Ness]

This is pretty darn good stuff. I'm a gonna bookmark this.

P.S. As an Australian, I like the Australia touch. Although we aren't as overrun by wildlife as you think.

[DracoDei]

Baptism of Consecrated Midnight could be interprited to not allow YOU to see through it, JUST your allies.


EDIT: For the spider-based one, this phrase needs tuning up in two places: "not putting for a conscious effort towards making them do so."
for -> forth
do so -> not do so

[Slug Bear]

These are awesome. Just awesome. You've got baptisms for Dark Speech, demons (Orcus, Lolth and Dagon), Far Realms, Fey (regular and evil) and shadowy celestial mojo. Were you planning to do any other celestial baptisms? And since you have demons covered (though baptisms for Graz'zt and Demogorgon would be cool), how about some diabolical baptisms? Just throwing a few out there for consideration.

[Eldan]

Hellfire Baptism, perhaps? Though there's the Hellfire Warlock already.