D&D 3E/3.5 3.5: newb needs a little help with Hellfire Warlock build

irdeggman said:

At 12th level a warlock gets the following breakdown of invocations:

Least - 3 (Baleful utterance, Entropic warding, spiderwalk)
Lesser - 3 (hellrime blast, eldritch chain, flee the seen)
Greater - 1 (chilling tentacles)
Dark - 0

I am not sure how the helfire warlock adds to the mix but I am assuming it is a +1 level for invocations which makes it the same progression as a warlock.

Also extra invocation allows adding an extra invocation of 1 level lower than normal. Can't take it until at least 6th level (which grant 1 more least invocation, 11th level to get an extra least - a 12th level warlock can't gain an extra greater). So taking the feat twice would be your 6th, 9th or 12th level feats. So you could get 2 least or 1 least and 1 lesser. Can't get both eldritch chain and walk unseen {invisibility} using the extra invocation feat.

Extra invocations:

Walk unseen {invisibility} - lesser using 12th level feat.

XXXX - least using 6th or 9th level feat

Click to expand...

right! guess I messed that up mistaking all feats for chosen at level12 (where I made the character). newbie-mistake right there

But even though I mixed things up, it still works, right? Just a little differently from what I wrote above (btw: yes, Hellfire Warlock progresses Invocations just like the Warlock base class):

invocations normally gained (not through the extra feat):
least:
- baleful utterance
- entropic warding
- spiderwalk

lesser:
- hellrime blast
- eldritch chain
- flee the scene

greater:
- chilling tentacles

gained through extra invocation feat:
- walk unseen (lesser)

and this actually leaves me with TWO more feats I have yet to spend since so far I only used one for Maximise SLA (Hellfire Blast), one for Extra Invocation (Walk Unseen) and the two Abyssal Heritor feats. Saved me one feat as opposed to what I wrote in my last post. Damn so I still have to decide on 2 feats lol (not that I couldnt find something useful, its just that I'm trying to figure out which would make the most sense for me)

Digging up the old thread just to say what happened now:

Just before we made it to the point where I would have started using this char we ran into problems with how the game went and everything. Long story short: we found it was too much of a challenge to play a high level campaign with a relatively large party (6 players) half of which are noobs (including myself). There just is too much to consider and understand and we kept running into problems because of that.

Our solution to this basically was to start over with new chars, everyone starting on level 1 and first developing a concept that would make it easier for the party to work together well. We decided on the basic idea that the whole party comes from the same vilage, everyone knows each other, most are friends, the bard and mage even are brothers. Also no "freakshow" characters/races, we only have a woodelf fighter, a halfling rogue and all the other chars are human.

What I decided to to is simply keep this character (as I spent time figuring it all out and would really like to play it and havent played it at all so far) so I reduced it to level 1, adjusted a few things to the new general idea and exchanged the 2 Abyssal Heritor feats for something different.
Why? well, to make it all work out I would have had to take the 2 Abyssal Heritor feats as my 2 starting feats (Human) and it just would have been too much "freakshow" to fit in with the "you're all basically normal guys at first" and probably also to survive as a low level char ("look at the demon!!! kill it!! kill it!!"). Being a low level Warlock might already cause enough problems in some environments if I fail to hide it.

So the bottomline for now is: We already started this new campaign and so far I have quite a bit of fun playing the normal guy who just discovers the weird abillities he starts developing. And yes: the warlock can be quite a bit of fun even on low levels

I'm lvl2 now and have Baleful Utterance and Spiderclimb in addition to Detect Magic (free on lvl2). You dont have to deal all the damage in a fight if you make it easier for the rest of the party to defeat the enemy by suddenly discovering you can surprisingly shatter his weapon with a single word

Oh actually here is another question as I was thinking about this:


What possibilities do you know of to allow for another action or an attack after using Flee the Scene?

Generally what are your ideas for good use of Flee the Scene?

For example I had this idea for combat use, to draw a bottle of alchemists fire or two (I believe it was that, basically the alchemistic handgrenade), run up to an enemy until you're right in front of them (or maybe even into a group of close-standing enemies), drop the bottles (free action) and Flee the Scene out of there. Thinking about it this would probably provoke attacks of opportunity though, right?

As to not post a whole new thread just for one little question, I'm digging up this one again:

I'm looking for the full description (rules) of the invocation Eldritch Glaive as I want to have a look and decide if maybe I should take it later.

I read its in some issue of Dragon Magazine, what I dont know though is how to get that. (As I've never so much as seen a physical copy of any dragon magazine issue)
Is there some form of online version maybe? And which issue was Eldritch Glaive in?
Is the invocation included in some other rules book that one of my friends might have (most of them are players for much longer than myself and they have quite a collection)

Eldritch Glaive is in Dragon Magic a supplement book.

Ok, I found it and it seems pretty good but does anyone have more insight about its ingame use?
Is it actually worth taking if my char doesnt have a high strength?
Also in order to make good use of it I would have to cast in melee every round, how do people usually minimize the dangers of this?

Hexer said:

Ok, I found it and it seems pretty good but does anyone have more insight about its ingame use?
Is it actually worth taking if my char doesnt have a high strength?

Click to expand...

Take Weapon Finesse and run it off of Dex.

Also in order to make good use of it I would have to cast in melee every round, how do people usually minimize the dangers of this?

Click to expand...

Cast Defensively.

Hexer said:

Ok, I found it and it seems pretty good but does anyone have more insight about its ingame use?
Is it actually worth taking if my char doesnt have a high strength?

Click to expand...

THe damage it does is not really based on Str - that is to say any Str mod to damage is minimal when compared to what is done from the EB.

Also in order to make good use of it I would have to cast in melee every round, how do people usually minimize the dangers of this?

Click to expand...

It is a "reach" weapon - so if you are 2 squares away, generally no AoO.

Also since it is a reach weapon you can't attack adjacent squares.

Can you dual-wield say a Light Mace and an Eldritch Glaive, or would you have to quick draw the Mace to hit in melee?

Omegaxicor said:

Can you dual-wield say a Light Mace and an Eldritch Glaive, or would you have to quick draw the Mace to hit in melee?

Click to expand...

An Eldrich Glaive is weild like a normal Glaive.

A Glaive is a 2 handed weapon. You do not have a hand free to hold a second weapon.