Warlocks are too anime and overpowered

[VariSami]

I find it funny that the Warlock is being hit for making animesque characters possible: I really liked the example of a blaster girl.

First of all, the Warlock is not the only offender. I'm not even sure if he's the worst one, though he is quite prominent. In Heroes of Horror, there is the Unholy Scion Template which is essentially a Half-Fiend who has dominated his mother. If we use the original example, this fits well. If it's about having a Class that makes this possible, any spontaneous caster will suffice. The Sorcerer, anyone? I once played a Halfling child that was a Wild Sorcerer in 4th ed. and other esitions ought to make it just as plausible.

And then there are the Martial Classes from Book of Nine Swords. Of course they were meant to be explicitly oriental and anime-inspired but I see no remarks concerning them in the OP. There's also the Monk. Ooh, and from the Complete Series: Wu Jen, Samurai, Shugenja and Ninja. There is a clear oriental strait among the classes. Of course anime does not equal oriental or vice versa but they do have common elements and oriental features are an essential part of anime.

Then again, it's not that simple. While dangerous children are an anime staple, they can easily be adapted in other settings as well. I'd gladly take advantage of the Warlock girl-prodigy in a slightly horror-inclined quest or campaign. Her best friend since early childhood is an imaginary fiend who keeps telling her to kill their cat with her newly ignited spark she inherited from her real father. Once the cat is lifeless, the fiend chuckles and tells her that the man who raised her is not her real father and should be killed. You see where this is going? While the story could easily be adapted as an anime, it is not inherently anime-like.

I'm not sure if there was a real point to this post, though. I just wanted to share some of my opinions concerning this topic - just like the OP seems to have done. Thanks for the inspiring mental image.

 

[Nezkrul]

[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] -need to read the description of the class again, my man. Nowhere in the description does it mention that YOUR character has a pact with a demon/devil/other evil outsider. It only mentions that as a possibility, one of your character's ancestors did. It also tells you that Fey heritage works just fine. And, I really hope you or your players/mates aren't Mary Sues. You AREN'T your character, he/she/it isn't real, its FICTION. /rant

@nay-sayers I'm sorry but the words "Over-powered" and "Warlock" should NEVER be used in conjunction with eachother, EVER. Yes they have nifty sweet abilities that most others don't get, all day. But they only get 12 of them through 20 levels without spending feats. Now, what if you gave a sorcerer only 12 spells, 3 of them from levels 1 and 2, 3 of them from levels 3 to 5, 3 of them from levels 6 and 7, and 3 of them from levels 8 and 9. You know what happens to the sorcerer? He STILL has the potential to destroy the campaign with the right spell selections. A Warlock will NEVER destroy a campaign like a sorcerer can and like how wizards can always. They are one of the most feat-starved classes to play to try to bump them up from tier4(5).

If you, as the DM, allow wizard, sorcerer, psion, cleric, druid, erudite, and even truenamer in your campaign, but you ban warlock because it's "over powered and/or not within the theme", then please PLEASE mail me the weed you been smoking, that's some good $h&t right there.

 

[VariSami]

@nay-sayers I'm sorry but the words "Over-powered" and "Warlock" should NEVER be used in conjunction with eachother, EVER. Yes they have nifty sweet abilities that most others don't get, all day. But they only get 12 of them through 20 levels without spending feats. Now, what if you gave a sorcerer only 12 spells, 3 of them from levels 1 and 2, 3 of them from levels 3 to 5, 3 of them from levels 6 and 7, and 3 of them from levels 8 and 9. You know what happens to the sorcerer? He STILL has the potential to destroy the campaign with the right spell selections. A Warlock will NEVER destroy a campaign like a sorcerer can and like how wizards can always. They are one of the most feat-starved classes to play to try to bump them up from tier4(5).

If you, as the DM, allow wizard, sorcerer, psion, cleric, druid, erudite, and even truenamer in your campaign, but you ban warlock because it's "over powered and/or not within the theme", then please PLEASE mail me the weed you been smoking, that's some good $h&t right there.

Oh, right. And mechanic-wise there's that. Though Warlocks can actually be extremely powerful in low level campaigns, the same way Fighters can. They dish out almost guaranteed (ranged) hits with decent damage and can shatter things ad infinitum. But they get worse over time, unless pitted against favorable match-ups. A flyer or spiderwalker that can spam blasts all day long is indeed a hard match-up for the movement mode -handicapped melee fighters. But that's about it, regardless of that particular type's omni-presence.

 

[Nezkrul]

yes, but the game isn't about pvp, its about working together. The fighter would love to have a warlock backing him up because the guy can snipe something fierce OR said warlock can flank with the fighter and eldritch glaive stuff to death with him.

 

[Dausuul]

Back in the 1980s there was this national frenzy over D&D being Satanic. Crazy stuff, media driven. Jack Chick tracts portrayed D&D as teaching real magic, complete with dark rituals, player suicide and human sacrifice.

So, to put this simply, the Warlock class is exactly what mommy warned you about D&D. ...

So regardless of its playability or lack thereof, I avoid it in my games. Take that for whatever it's worth.

Wait... you see that as a reason to avoid the warlock?

 

[Greenfield]

Chalk it off to painful memories, or perhaps to the simple awareness that intolerant and occasionally violent stupidity is never that far away. All it would take is a few Folks On a certain eXtreme news station (best left nameless) to decide that they needed something to stir up the right-wing religious folks. Ratings are golden, after all.

For those who missed the mania the last time around, there were Congressional hearings on the subject of D&D (I kid you not) with distraught parents swearing that their little boy was happy and healthy and told them *everything*, up until the day he killed himself. Then they found the D&D books and now they know, they know that it was because of that satanic game.

And of course nobody questioned how, if the kid told them everything, he hadn't told them about D&D. And nobody took the obvious step in realizing that if he kept that from them, he was probably keeping other things from them. And nobody ever asked a mental health professional how likely it is for a person, any person, to kill themselves over just one thing, like a game.

Sorry to dredge up painful memories of mass hysteria past, but sadly there's no reason that it can't happen again. I would rather that the authors had decided not to give the idiots an excuse.

Oh, and for the record, the "Plane of Whores" mentioned in another thread? Not from any 1st Ed D&D book I've ever heard of. Maybe a 3rd party something or other, but the authors of the day were catching enough flak over the picture of the thinly veiled woman on the cover of the original Eldritch Wizardry book. (Their first color cover, if I recall correctly, and incredibly tame by today's standards.) There is no way they'd leave such obvious bait where the Bible-thumpers could find it.


No politics, please. There is a whole other forum for that. Thanks. - Lwaxy

 

[Dozen]

Heh.
(Deleted rest of post when realized it's a joke. Dozen needs more points in Sense Motive...)

 

[JamesonCourage]

Any chance you can point me to whatever threads inspired this rant?

Old thread is old.

 

[Dozen]

Old thread is old.

I can't help but notice the Avatar.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Old thread is old.

Upon reading that, I realize I'm just not sophisticated enough to participate in such a conversation.