Warlock in Play

[pbd]

Has anyone had the chance to guage the warlock in play yet?

I am intrigued by the class, it seems to be quite a split from the standard spellcaster. I am interested in trying it myself, but haven't yet had the chance and am wondering about any possible rules issues/fixes that have come up.

I know there have been several threads on the class ( iahve definately een perusing them); think of this as a summary and play test discussion.

Rules discussions/stories please!

Thanks,
pbd

 

[Vorith]

Last time I played my level 3 there was a warlock npc and he was quite useful...they would make a great PC.He stood up front with the tanks and was very effective, though in higher levels he won't want to do this as much.The eldrich blast is awesome.I'd go with it they look promising.

 

[Orichin]

I've happened across quite a number of posts that reference warlocks, what book are they in?

 

[ARandomGod]

Has anyone had the chance to guage the warlock in play yet?

I am intrigued by the class, it seems to be quite a split from the standard spellcaster. I am interested in trying it myself, but haven't yet had the chance and am wondering about any possible rules issues/fixes that have come up.

I know there have been several threads on the class ( iahve definately een perusing them); think of this as a summary and play test discussion.

Rules discussions/stories please!

Thanks,
pbd

Yea, we've played with it. The warlock was awesomely powerful. In specific, he was using Bewitching Blast (will save or confused one roung) and the essence which allows you to chain attack multiple targets with your blast. The DC on that goes up with the warlocks level... We were playing at around level 12, so the warlock was hitting three people with 6d6 blasts each, and confusing each one (as the DC for that save was very high). It was... devastating. He could blast and dimension door out, leaving behind a major image... and quicken invisibility to add to the confusion.

We've since nerfed it some... I think it was too soon really, a knee jerk reaction. I'd've wanted to see more to determine that it was really overpowered as it was. But I do agree that the first encounter was completely overwhelming. (The campain was set up so that the player attacked the other characters before later joining them... well, magically altered so as to become one of the players that had died and wanted a new character.) A monk or equivelant took the warlock by surprise and grappled him to submission. That really IS a major weakness of the class. Other arcane casters too, of course, but the warlock needs somatic components to DD out.

The proposed (and accepted) nerfs were
1) The DD ability can't take you to places the character couldn't walk/run to, and only to places that can be seen by the warlock.
2) The flight ability was not allowed... it wasn't allowed to begin with either.
3) Only one eldritch blast effect may be used at a given time. Either a shapeint one or an "essence" one, not both. (It's written so that you could use one shape and one essence to boost the power.)

And, while I think that some of that may be a little extreme or overreacting... That's mostly because I'd want to see more of the class as written before altering it. Even with these nerfs, the warlock character is clearly at the top of the power spectrum of the player characters. And these are some pretty high powered PC's.

 

[Chun-tzu]

I've happened across quite a number of posts that reference warlocks, what book are they in?

Complete Arcane.

 

[Sue Bloodbucket]

The Warlock is a new coreclass in the complete arcane.
But i think that it should not be alowed to players unless certain changes are made...

For example she get detect magic at will at 2nd lvl, for that she is able to detect any magic trap in her sensory radius.
In conection with the disspelling ability (at will once per round again) she also can surpress the trap in question.
That makes a perfect dungeoncrawl for anybody... at least perfectly boring.
It's not my turn to write about all the loopholes and unballanced powers of the warlock in here once again as you can search this forum for that stuff up and down.

I just want to tell you our (althougt not tested jet) houserule for invocations: For every Invocation (no the blast isn't one, just functions like one) the warlock takes a backlash of power equal to the invocations lvl. The backlash is alike to subdual (nonleathel) but also works on creatures immune to stun damage (undead etc.)

We hope that this will stop the warlock in his certain path to godhood when it comes to duels of wizardry but still doesn't cripple the class. We will see if it works

Sue

 

[AuraSeer]

Sue, have you actually used the warlock in play, or are you basing your judgement on what's in the book?

Most of the objections to the warlock seem just like those that were raised against the mystic theurge. I was one of those who felt the MT's greater spell capacity would make it greatly overpowered relative to "normal" spellcasters. But after I actually watched an MT in play for several sessions, I realized they're a lot more balanced than they seem; if anything, they're weaker than the single-classed casters. Once my copy of CA arrives, I expect to find the same thing about warlocks.

 

[Sue Bloodbucket]

To be honest: No we did not play the warlock yet.

I would like to play one but my beloved screen monkey will not let me unless some minor (to major) changes are made.
And i must admit i think i see why that is...

But we will see...

Sue

 

[Abstraction]

If the detect magic ability works as the spell, that would be round 1: Detect that there are magical auras in the area; round 2: Determine number and strength of auras; round 3: Determine precise location of auras. Followed by a couple rounds of Dispels and then at least one more round of detect to make sure you got it. If your adventurers have 6 rounds to spend every 60 feet or so, that is your real problem.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If the detect magic ability works as the spell, that would be round 1: Detect that there are magical auras in the area; round 2: Determine number and strength of auras; round 3: Determine precise location of auras. Followed by a couple rounds of Dispels and then at least one more round of detect to make sure you got it. If your adventurers have 6 rounds to spend every 60 feet or so, that is your real problem.

And that's only IF it's a magical trap. This won't have a hope of finding or working against a nonmagical trap.