Anyone play a high level warlock?

[juliaromero]

I was wondering if anyone had any experience playing a higher level warlock ... say mid teens or higher. It seems to me they really start to fall behind the other core classes at that level.

Their damage progression is just slow, which seems okay at the lower levels, but starts to look pretty bad at the higher ones when the magic types are throwing around hugely deadly spells and have many more defensive and utility spells available, and fighter types are doing much more damage in melee, and even the rogue's sneak attack does as much damage as the eldritch blast, which has a chance of being used multiple times in a round.

All of the stronger incantations require saving throws, but aren't that high level and can't be heightened, and at those levels the saves start to catch up to the DC's pretty fast.

But this is all conjecture right now since I haven't seen them in action. Does anyone who played a high level warlock have any comments or suggestions about it?

 

[Particle_Man]

I haven't played one, but I would imagine that the Imbue Item ability means that they become the artificier/smith of the party, rather than the blaster. They might also make good scouts.

 

[Jdvn1]

But this is all conjecture right now since I haven't seen them in action. Does anyone who played a high level warlock have any comments or suggestions about it?

Yeah, they're pretty good arcane scout-types. Also, Warlock's Scepter helps out a lot, I think, but the Warlock in my game was also pretty weak -- to highlight what you said. Ours was level 12.

 

[brehobit]

Also haven't tried to play one at high levels.

But, my feeling is that you are right. If you take an item creation feat (scrolls seem an obvious choice) you do have some real power, but at a high cost (EXPs/Gold)

Some of the Dark powers are really quite nice (hit everyone you *chose* to hit in a 20' radius with an acid blast for ~28 points of damage can be really handy, esp if you are under an improved invso effect. A few rounds of that can be a really nice thing...

My other feeling is that some of the greater/dark powers are too weak. At higher levels, casters will generally be flinging their highest level spells and not too worried about running out of spells. The Warlock's "at will" stuff becomes less relatively useful....

None-the-less, the damage reducation, elemental resistance, fast healing (1/day...) and the like are really nice bonuses. Again, I think they are a bit too weak at higher levels (too easliy emulated by items.)

4.0 Warlocks (and I hope they are in the PHB) will need some love at higher levels. Something like spell storing would be nice....

 

[juliaromero]

I would think the "extra" abilities are fairly useless at higher levels. I mean, DR 3? Not really going to help much. And energy resistance 5? Again, pretty useless at higher levels. And "Imbue Item" has no fun adventure utility, just potentially saves the group some money for in between game purchases.

In fact, the extra abilities seem so worthless to me that if you were going to take a warlock, I can't imagine why you wouldn't take a prestige class that gives you +1 at every level since you lose almost nothing. Just doesn't seem balanced to me.

 

[Whimsical]

Well, the Warlock does get d6 hit die, light armor proficiency, and continuous energy resistance. Although it doesn't help out at higher levels, it does make the Warlock a little innately tougher than a wizard or sorcerer. How does the Warlock compare to the Rogue or Bard?

 

[Jdvn1]

Pfft. How does anything relate to the Bard?

 

[Crothian]

I played one at level ten. His abiliteis where nice but it gets a little boring since there really is not a lot of varied he can do. He was okay in combat but really only as good as a dedicated archer at that level. Personally, I had more fun wuth the Use MAgical Device skill then anything the Warlockm class gave me.

 

[Whimsical]

Some players are happy being one-trick ponies. I'm sure you know of players who only cast Magic Missiles/Fireballs when they play wizards. I normally recommend that they play sorcerers. Warlocks could even be better for them.

 

[Crothian]

Some players are happy being one-trick ponies. I'm sure you know of players who only cast Magic Missiles/Fireballs when they play wizards. I normally recommend that they play sorcerers. Warlocks could even be better for them.

Um, I'm sure I don't know anyone like that. Even the Sorcerers and wizards at least have some variety to them. Way more then the Warlock. Plus, a good DM usually has many different kinds of encounters where the Warlock is not that good at many different kinds of encounters. He is rather limited on what he can do and really doesn't have any good options for curing that.