Warlock PrCs?

[Half-blood]

I was thinking of playing a warlock for a Game a Friend is GMing, so I got to thinking...Are there any (preferably good) Warlock PrCs? If so, what book?
Thank you for Taking the time to answer my question.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

There is one that I know of. It involves playing with hellfire, at the cost of showing your Con score who's the daddy. I'm sure you'll hear a lot about it from others who have the book on hand. Are you planning to go lock and pres class, or are you thinking of mixing it up some?

[streakster]

Ahh...that build with the binder level for the vestige that heals ability damage, right? I like that trick.

[Nebo_]

Hellfire Warlock from Fiendish Codex II (I think) is very good if you have a way to mitigate the Con damage.

[RTGoodman]

There is one that I know of. It involves playing with hellfire, at the cost of showing your Con score who's the daddy. I'm sure you'll here a lot about it from others who have the book on hand.

Book? Who needs a book when you can have the whole thing in an excerpt? But yeah - Hellfire Warlock is from Fiendish Codex II and is pretty good (if you're willing to take the Con damage).

EDIT: Regarding "mitigating the Con damage" - you can't use the Hellfire ability if you're immune to the Con damage. However, if you can just heal it fast, you'll be fine.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There's a bunch of the ripoff Mystic Theurge-like classes, one arcane and one divine, but they suck, so let's not go there.

There is one you may be interested in. Enlightened Spirit. It has an ability at 9th level which lets him heal people by dispelling effects. Now, have a second 'lock in the party to drop effects for him to dispel (because you can't do this with your own effects), and you got an infinite healing combo...

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

There's a bunch of the ripoff Mystic Theurge-like classes, one arcane and one divine, but they suck, so let's not go there.

There is one you may be interested in. Enlightened Spirit. It has an ability at 9th level which lets him heal people by dispelling effects. Now, have a second 'lock in the party to drop effects for him to dispel (because you can't do this with your own effects), and you got an infinite healing combo...

Ummm? Enlightened Spirit is the worst possible Warlock PrC. It's worse then straight Lock no matter how you swing it. You get the same invocations you could have gotten earlier with Straight lock but you can't even choose which ones, minor other abilities that are about the same as Lock ones. And to top it off, when you hit 15 you get to go back to choosing level 6 abilities instead of level 16 ones.

The best Lock for synergy, flavor, and power is the Cleric Warlock Theurge.

Cleric 3/Warlock 1/Divine Disciple 10 (or whatever) gets you:

Warlock 9 invocations.
Cleric 12 casting.

Now you can CoDzilla, but do it with Eldritch Glaive, gives you iterative attacks but all touch attacks. Combine with Divine Power for more attacks, get hasted. And use flee the Scene quickened to teleport adjacent to your enemies and Eldritch Glaive full attack with your pimped out Cleric buffs up.

Oh and Power attack for full since these are touch attacks.

Certainly up there with Hellfire Warlock/Binder 1 for power, and way the hell better then Enlightened suck.

[graymachine]

Hellfire Warlock is pretty much the only PrC worth your time, assuming you are going for a well built character. If it's just for personal plot there are several out there, but don't be expecting to take down the BBEG.

With Hellfire Warlock if you can't or won't counter the CON damage (My warlock doesn't have an easy way around since the Tome of Magic is banded for our game) you are pretty much limited to a handful of blasts per day, assuming you try to manage your CON. Either way, there really isn't a good reason not to take Hellfire Warlock. The skill requirements are something your probably going to have, there is no alignment requirement despite the book it's in, and it's only a 3 level class with full continued caster all the way. Just because you have Hellfire Blasts doesn't mean you have to use them. Furthermore, the 2 level ability is almost worth the class entirely; you can apply any of the metamagic feats it lists to any magic item (I think) you are using up to a number of times per day equal to your CHA modifier. Best of all, it doesn't cost any CON.

[graymachine]

As an aside, can a warlock qualify for Loremaster? I don't have a book on hand so I can't check, but it seems to me that they may. Unearthly Whispers can keep you dominating the Knowledges for a good while.

[streakster]

I believe that you need to bind Naberius to mitigate the CON damage. That might be wrong, though.

[graymachine]

I believe that you need to bind Naberius to mitigate the CON damage. That might be wrong, though.

Naberius is the "spirit" (Can't remember name) that you bind with your Binder level. I think that he heals CON damage every round or couple of rounds, for 24 hrs as per the binder ability. You probably would want to make the check made to see if he takes control of you for the next 24 hrs pretty high; he could have some benign drives, but they could be rather bad.

[Kellus]

Well, there's a pretty cool one in Drow of the Underdark, called the demonbinder. If you're Chaotic Evil. And a drow.

[The_Snark]

As an aside, can a warlock qualify for Loremaster? I don't have a book on hand so I can't check, but it seems to me that they may. Unearthly Whispers can keep you dominating the Knowledges for a good while.

Nope. Requires you to be able to cast spells.

There aren't many prestige classes made for warlocks, and even fewer made for pure warlocks. Hellfire warlock and enlightened spirit are the only pure-warlock classes that I know of; the former is pretty good, and becomes very good if you can mitigate/heal the Con damage, and the latter is, as mentioned, pretty weak; you're giving up eventual Dark invocations, and most of the things you get are either not terribly great or things you could have gotten anyway. Things like tongues and death ward are nice, but not worth giving up dark invocations. The only thing to be said for it is that if you wait until higher levels, you will end up with a tiny bit more eldritch blast damage than you otherwise would have, and even that's probably outweighed by the lack of any dark blast shapes or eldritch essences above lesser. It might be useful in a game where you almost exclusively fought undead or evil outsiders, but that's about it.

The eldritch disciple and eldritch theurge are for cleric/warlocks and arcanist/warlocks, respectively. For theurge classes, they're pretty decent, but they're probably not what you're looking for.

They can also be acolytes of the skin, enlightened fists, or wild mages, but the first is a terrible class, the second is for multiclass spellcaster monks (and isn't all that great), and the third is a semi-mediocre caster; when you're losing HP and base attack bonus, it hurts even more.

Most warlocks are better off staying warlocks and taking a dip in hellfire warlock if it fits; the others are all specialized concepts, and most aren't very good, so there's no reason to jump through justifying hoops to take them.

[streakster]

Naberius is the "spirit" (Can't remember name) that you bind with your Binder level. I think that he heals CON damage every round or couple of rounds, for 24 hrs as per the binder ability. You probably would want to make the check made to see if he takes control of you for the next 24 hrs pretty high; he could have some benign drives, but they could be rather bad.

Vestige. So it is old Nabby?

IIRC, he just makes you very talkative if you fail. Not that bad.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Talkative indeed. If you rp as a valley-girl type character, the real challange would be if your party can ever tell the difference.

[Chronos]

A warlock's invocations do not make him eligible for prestige classes that require spellcasting, but his caster level does qualify him for PrCs that require caster level, and any PrC that advances arcane spellcasting (if you can qualify for it) can be used to advance invocations and Eldritch Blast. So if you get a few spellcaster levels in, not only can you take the appropriate combination class, but if you choose, you can then continue your invocations with some PrC that your spellcasting class qualified you for. I think, though I'm not certain, that you could even go from Eldritch Disciple (warlock + cleric) into Mystic Theurge (arcane casting + divine casting), if you chose Spell as one of your domains (to get Anyspell, to qualify for the "2nd level arcane spell" requirement of MT). That would give you invoking as a 15th-level warlock and casting as an 18th-level cleric.

Alternately, you can take things like the racial paragon classes, which have no prereqs other than race (but will cost you an invoking level or two).

Another prestige class to consider is Chameleon. It doesn't advance invoking, but a two-level dip will give you a bonus feat that you can change every day. Choose item creation feats, and combined with the Warlock's Imbue Item class feature, you can create almost any item at character level 14.

[The_Snark]

Talkative indeed. If you rp as a valley-girl type character, the real challange would be if your party can ever tell the difference.

The other side effect, actually, is that your voice goes deep and gravelly...

[Kurald Galain]

A warlock's invocations do not make him eligible for prestige classes that require spellcasting, but his caster level does qualify him for PrCs that require caster level,

Correct. However, given the relatively low power of the warlock class, I don't believe it would be much of an issue, balance-wise, to let a warlock use an "invocation that duplicates an Xth-level spell" instead of being actually able to cast an Xth-level spell.

Regardless, there are a handful of prestige classes in Complete Arcane and Complete Mage that can be entered as a warlock, such as (IIRC) Mindbender.

Alternately, you can take things like the racial paragon classes, which have no prereqs other than race (but will cost you an invoking level or two).

Yes, but frankly those paragons aren't too useful in most builds.

[RTGoodman]

Isn't there a PrC or two in Complete Scoundrel that advances your class features from any class at most of the levels and gives some bonus skill tricks or something? That might work, if you're into be a skill-monkey type Warlock.

[Kurald Galain]

Isn't there a PrC or two in Complete Scoundrel that advances your class features from any class at most of the levels and gives some bonus skill tricks or something?

Legacy Champion?

[Kesnit]

Blackguard. You need 10 levels of Warlock to qualify. (I think it's 10.) But with a 2 level dip, you have undispellable CHA to all your saves, medium armor (take Battle Caster and you don't have ASF. Or just chance it). With Hidious Blow, you can be a melee-lock.

[sombrastewart]

I'm always amused by the fact that a warlock can go into Sentinel of Bharri from BoED. It's an amusing little combo.

[Person_Man]

Blinky the Ninja

Chaotic Good Whisper Gnome Warlock 2/Whatever 3/Shadow Sun Ninja 4

Take Blend into Shadows (Drow of the Underdark). It allows you to Hide in Plain Site as a Swift Action as long as you're within an area of magical darkness. Boost your Hide check - buy magic items, maybe take 1 level of Exemplar, Marshal, and/or Factotum. Remember, rolling a natural 20 doesn't automatically pass a Skill check. So unless an enemy has a ridiculously high Spot, you can't be targeted by anything except for area of effect attacks. So you might want to pick up Evasion and/or Mettle, just to be safe.

Cast your Darkness invocation individually on multiple pieces of ammunition (shuriken, arrows, bolts, whatever). Darkness lasts for 10 minutes per level, so duration isn't an issue. Keep one in your hand at all times. The rest are a free action to draw when you attack with them. Alternatively, you can take Quickdraw and just cast Darkness on any assortment of hand held items that you can easily draw and drop as you move around the battlefield. Basically, you just want backups spread throughout the battlefield in case someone casts Dispel Magic on you.

Buy a Wand of Ebon Eyes (Spell Compendium), and cast it on all of your friends. Now your friends don't have to worry about the 20% miss chance from your magical Darkness. Or they can take At Home in the Deep, Pierce Magical Concealment, or find some other feat, spell, or item. Or you can just screw your friends - you don't need them with this build, and with Devil's Sight you're not effected by the miss chance from magical Darkness.

Take Darkstalker (Lords of Madness) which allows you to Hide from things with Scent, Tremorsense, See Invisibility, and similar abilities. You can now Hide in Plain Site against literally everything.

Shadow Sun Ninja (Tome of Battle) will give you the Light within Darkness special ability. After you successfully Hide and make a melee attack, all opponents (not everyone, just opponents) within 60 feet who failed to detect you must make a Fort Save or be Blinded for one round.

Take Frightful Presence (Draconomicon). When you attack, all opponents within 30 feet who have fewer hit dice then you must Save or be Shaken. Remember, Fear effects stack, so if your enemy fails twice they try to run away. This is basically just another way to control the battlefield.

Find a way to pump your melee attacks. I suggest Tome of Battle maneuvers and/or Eldritch Glaive (Dragon Magic), which allows you to combine invocations with your melee attacks.


The full combo put together:

Round 1) Attack enemies with your ranged attack, spreading Darkness throughout the battlefield. Enemies within range of you must make a Will Save vs. Fear. Then Hide in Plain Site as a Swift Action. Move if you feel paranoid.

Round 2) Make melee attacks (you are now no longer hidden). Enemies within range must make a Will Save vs. Fear. Enemies who failed their Spot check must Save or be Blinded for 1 round. Hide in Plain Site as a Swift Action. Move if you feel paranoid.

Repeat.

[Darrin]

Ahh...that build with the binder level for the vestige that heals ability damage, right? I like that trick.

Here's another trick that won't cost you any Warlock levels:

Shape Soulmeld feat + Strongheart Vest. Magic of Incarnum, p. 89. One single feat, and no need to bind it to any chakra. Reduces ability damage by 1 point.

[Tokiko Mima]

Isn't there a PrC or two in Complete Scoundrel that advances your class features from any class at most of the levels and gives some bonus skill tricks or something? That might work, if you're into be a skill-monkey type Warlock.

There's one in Complete Scoundrel that does that: Uncanny Trickster. It's only for 2/3 levels, but it's not a bad PrC by itself and it's easy to qualify for if your campaign allows skill tricks (which by the way are awesome).

Weapons of Legacy has another one that you can advance 8/10: Legacy Champion. I prefer Uncanny Trickster because the WoL is pretty weak overall and very Feat heavy.

I think there might be another PrC that does this but for the life of me I can't remember which one it is.

[streakster]

Here's another trick that won't cost you any Warlock levels:

Shape Soulmeld feat + Strongheart Vest. Magic of Incarnum, p. 89. One single feat, and no need to bind it to any chakra. Reduces ability damage by 1 point.

Ah, but a lot DM's don't allow that. They say you have to take the damage. I agree though, that's better if you can swing it.

[Paul H]

Hi

Depends on if you want 'off the wall' characters.

1) Dragon Devotee (RoD) Not strictly Warlock PrC, but you can still meet prereqs at 7th lvl. Over 5 levels you gain the draconic creature template (inc +2 to Cha, Con & Str), 2 levels of Sorceror etc. OK, but not brilliant.

2) Eldritch Disciple (CM) My favourite. Can enter with Cl3/Warlock 2, provided you've got Practiced Spellcaster (Warlock). Full Warlock caster progression, nearly full cleric caster progression, and some very nice ablities. Depends whether you think 3 levels of Cleric is worth it. The Extra Turning feat is extraemely useful, but not necessary.

3) Green Star Adept (CA) Bit of a wierd one this. You can meet prereqs at 7th lvl. You get full CL, but only increase actual level for invocations on even numbered levels. (Bit like increasing CL even levels, but with Practiced Spellcaster feat). You slowly become a construct, with DR etc.

4) Mindbender (CA) You can meet prereqs at 5th lvl. Some nice ablities, but only increase CL on odd numbered levels.

5) Enlightened Fist (CA) The Stunning Fist prereq means you'll have to be at least 11th lvl (Warlock 10/Ftr 1) to take this, unless you're LE Warlock 4/Monk1. Almost full CL, Most of the extra abilities are only for spells, not spell effects, so all you're really gaining is D8 HP

6) Kensai (CW) Must be LE for this one. Good if you channel eldritch through a weapon, otherwise useless.

But then again, why not just stay a Warlock?

Cheers
Paul H

[Draz74]

Yeah, Mindbender is a good PrC for Warlocks, at least as a 1-Level dip.

Blinky the Ninja

Chaotic Good Whisper Gnome Warlock 2/Whatever 3/Shadow Sun Ninja 4

Take Blend into Shadows (Drow of the Underdark). It allows you to Hide in Plain Site as a Swift Action as long as you're within an area of magical darkness. Boost your Hide check - buy magic items, maybe take 1 level of Exemplar, Marshal, and/or Factotum. Remember, rolling a natural 20 doesn't automatically pass a Skill check. So unless an enemy has a ridiculously high Spot, you can't be targeted by anything except for area of effect attacks. So you might want to pick up Evasion and/or Mettle, just to be safe.

One level of Factotum won't do much for your Hide check. It will just allow you to add +1 to your Hide check once per day. Lots of levels of Factotum, on the other hand, is a very different story.

Cast your Darkness invocation individually on multiple pieces of ammunition (shuriken, arrows, bolts, whatever). Darkness lasts for 10 minutes per level, so duration isn't an issue. Keep one in your hand at all times.

Or just on a necklace, etc. No sense occupying a free hand needlessly.

Take Darkstalker (Lords of Madness) which allows you to Hide from things with Scent, Tremorsense, See Invisibility, and similar abilities. You can now Hide in Plain Site against literally everything.

Actually, Darkstalker does nothing against See Invisibility. (Which isn't a problem, since See Invisibility doesn't help vs. darkness and Hiding anyway.) Point is, you can still be detected with True Seeing (if Darkness is your only source of cover or concealment), or the Psionic power Touchsight, or a few other obscure possibilities.

Take Frightful Presence (Draconomicon). When you attack, all opponents within 30 feet who have fewer hit dice then you must Save or be Shaken. Remember, Fear effects stack, so if your enemy fails twice they try to run away. This is basically just another way to control the battlefield.

Not available until Level 6, and even then, only if you maxxed Intimidate. Which is hard considering I don't think it's a class skill for most of the classes you've recommended. Also, no guarantee that your enemies will have fewer Hit Dice than you. Also, requires a high Charisma (as does your earlier suggestion of a one-level Marshal dip).

Fear effects stack, but I don't think multiple fear effects from the same source (e.g. Frightful Presence) stack. You'd need another source of fear to get people to actually run away. And anyone who saves successfully once is immune to your Frightful Presence for the rest of the day.

Find a way to pump your melee attacks. I suggest Tome of Battle maneuvers and/or Eldritch Glaive (Dragon Magic), which allows you to combine invocations with your melee attacks.

I could be completely wrong about this, but don't you need Tome of Battle maneuvers to qualify for Shadow Sun Ninja anyway?

[Person_Man]

One level of Factotum won't do much for your Hide check. It will just allow you to add +1 to your Hide check once per day. Lots of levels of Factotum, on the other hand, is a very different story.

My mistake, you're right. You need need Factotum 3 to get Brains over Brawn, which lets you add your Int bonus to Dex and Str checks.

Or just on a necklace, etc. No sense occupying a free hand needlessly.

Good call. In fact, giving a necklace or whatever with Darkness cast on it to every party member would be a great idea. Basically, you just want Darkness to be on as many things as possible, and you want those things to be spread out, so that you won't be nerfed by Dispel Magic.

Actually, Darkstalker does nothing against See Invisibility. (Which isn't a problem, since See Invisibility doesn't help vs. darkness and Hiding anyway.) Point is, you can still be detected with True Seeing (if Darkness is your only source of cover or concealment), or the Psionic power Touchsight, or a few other obscure possibilities.

You're right about See Invisibility, I just lumped it in with the others out of habit. Darkstalker effects "blindsense, blindsight, scent, or tremorsense."

I double checked the exact wording of Blend into Shadows. It requires that you "be within 10 feet of an area of magical darkness" in order to use it. It does not require that you be concealed by it. Thus True Seeing would have no effect on it. I should have been more precise in my original post - sorry.

You're absolutely right about Touchsight though. So expect your DM to throw a Psion BBEG at you, specifically to nerf Blinky. I wonder if there's a way to defeat Touchsight?

Not available until Level 6, and even then, only if you maxxed Intimidate. Which is hard considering I don't think it's a class skill for most of the classes you've recommended. Also, no guarantee that your enemies will have fewer Hit Dice than you. Also, requires a high Charisma (as does your earlier suggestion of a one-level Marshal dip).

True, but you are a Warlock, so you're probably going to have a high Cha anyway.

Fear effects stack, but I don't think multiple fear effects from the same source (e.g. Frightful Presence) stack. You'd need another source of fear to get people to actually run away. And anyone who saves successfully once is immune to your Frightful Presence for the rest of the day.

Hmmm, I'm not sure about Frightful Presence stacking. If you're right, then you'd need to invest in magic items, invocations, Avenging Executioner, and/or Disciple of the Eye as well.

Heck, you could just chuck Frightful Presence entirely, and just rely on your ability to Hide in Plain Site, Light Within Darkness, and your melee attacks. I just like to pile things on.

I could be completely wrong about this, but don't you need Tome of Battle maneuvers to qualify for Shadow Sun Ninja anyway?

Yes, you do. Though its possible to qualify by spending 3 feats instead, you probably want to take a few levels of Swordsage.

[MammonAzrael]

I haven't read through every post, but I agree that there aren't that many great PrCs for Warlocks. Which is disappointing, since the Warlock is such a fun class. There are some great homebrew PrCs out there, though:

• Eldritch Warrior
• Outcast
• Necrolock

I know there should be plenty more, even if they aren't listed on the compendium in the Homebrew section.

If you're interested in the flavor of Enlightened Spirit, I've made a modified version that's linked in my sig. It's been brought up in power a bit, and comment if you want. The Shaman of Wrath is also a Warlock PrC.