D&D 3.x Are 3.5 Warlocks unbalancing?

[Baramay]

Is this supposed to impressive? I mean, other than Warlocks, are your games full of Bards and multiclassed spellcasters?

Furthermore, where does the 84 damage come from? Vitriolic Blast? Please. Damage now >>> damage a few rounds later. Or are you counting that 5% chance of a crit?

I have not checked the errata but isn't the damage still dependent on the level of the warlock? The only change would be the DC, correct.

 

[Felon]

To edit my previous post. I just saw that the eldritch blast was changed in the errata to be at caster level 1 or the level of the invocation. This allows for metamagic but at the same time, the mazimized eldritch chain can be cast at 14th level and would do 84 points of damage to 3 opponents. Four at 15th level. Yikes!

At 15th level, 84 points of damage to four targets is nothing special. Maximize SLA has a 3/day limit, so this isn't an instance of something the warlock can do all day long. Most of the time he's chaining 8d6 damage and feeling pretty humble about it.

Oh, and btw, that damage is halved for all targets after the first.

 

[Kurotowa]

But when you incorporate eldritch chain(available at 6th level) it changes dramatically. Now at 7th level you have a mage doing 8d6. A warlock does the same. At 9th level the warlock has the advantage 10d6 to 8d6. The scorching ray can be used one the same opponent while the chain must affect a 2nd opponent. At 10th the warlock can jump his 5d6 damage to affect 3 enemies.

This really doesn't make sense to me. I have no idea where you're getting your numbers from. You do know that Eldritch Chain can't jump back to the same target, right? At 10th level a Warlock with a Lesser Chastibule is doing 6d6 to one target and effectively 3d6 to two other targets. It compares poorly to both Fireball's AoE damage and Scortching Ray's single target damage, and that's not even considering 4th and 5th level spells.

 

[Hammerhead]

Maybe he thinks that Eldritch Blast does 1d6 damage/Warlock level?

 

[Felon]

I can only assume, that your DM's negative stance towards the Warlock comes from some sort of misperception.

Or he's had some poor past experiences with the class.

IME, warlocks are barely viable in combat as-is, once you get past very low levels. Changing the EB to a regular attack roll essentially makes the class useless in combat situations.

This is one of those classes that looks far more powerful on paper than it plays in game.

True. Once a wizard starts having an assortment of wands to compensate for his limited spell slots, the warlock becomes somewhat moot. For all the raving about what a great class it is, and all the annoying demands for devoting page space in upcoming books to providing new invocations, this class is pretty marginal.

Unforunately, the warlock's lack of damage output is what can often make it so abuse-prone. The warlock player knows he can't compete in the damage arena, so he feels he has to be "creative" in making the most of his invocations ("I can't do much, but I can do it all day!"). The result is warlocks doing all kinds of passive-aggressive stuff that can drive a DM bonkers. I don't want to see all the creative ways an unlimited use of Chilling Tentacles can be applied in one battle after another.

 

[Baramay]

At 15th level, 84 points of damage to four targets is nothing special. Maximize SLA has a 3/day limit, so this isn't an instance of something the warlock can do all day long. Most of the time he's chaining 8d6 damage and feeling pretty humble about it.

Oh, and btw, that damage is halved for all targets after the first.

Well, that damage is without a save. But my damage number is wrong. The damage would be 42. Thanks for the info about the 1/2 damage for secondary targets. Can a warlock only gain SLA or can he get the regular maximize feat and apply it to his eldritch blast?

 

[airwalkrr]

I once had a warlock in a campaign that ran from 1st level to 9th level. My observation is a mixed bag. At low levels, the warlock was fairly unimpressive, especially since he was a tiefling (i.e. +1 LA). He hardly ever hit, and when he did, it was nothing compared to the fighter/wizard (to whom I foolishly allowed things like a fullblade and wraithstrike; lesson learned). However, he came into his own around 5th or 6th level and dominated the campaign after that. I realized it had gotten out of hand when he started using baleful utterance on EVERYTHING (much like another poster has done). It got worse when he could summon swarms of wounding bats all the time. I can honestly say that I can't rule out his character being partially responsible at least on a subconscious level for the campaign's death (although my busy schedule probably had a lot more to do with that).

I'm conflicted though. I love the warlock class. It has such an interesting flavor and very interesting abilities. Yes as much as I love it, I have seen it do horrible things to one of my campaigns.

Now I'm not the type of guy who likes saying "no" to his players, and after this experience I imagined it was quite possible another player would want to play a warlock again in the future. I rarely just ban things from my campaign altogether. Even though my campaigns are run almost exclusively in Greyhawk, I still find a way to incorporate almost every player character idea. Though I don't often ban things, I do have a tendency to add a lot of house rules. So I approached this in my usual fashion and thought of a house rule for the warlock.

I'll explain what went through my mind when I came up with this idea. My opinion is that magic users should have some kind of limitation. Many things are not a big deal. It wouldn't ruin game balance to allow a 17th-level wizard to cast magic missile an unlimited number of times per day. The wizard will have much better options 95% of the time and that 5% of the time he doesn't, at least he can do something cool besides firing a crossbow. I applied this same thinking to the warlock and decided his eldritch blast, in its purest form (just the ray damage at range 60') was not a bad thing. So the warlock can use his eldritch blast an unlimited number of times per day. Where I realized the warlock needed some kind of limitation was on his invocations, but I didn't want to limit them TOO MUCH, because otherwise the warlock would simply look like an underpowered sorcerer. I wanted something that encouraged the warlock to conserve his magic for prudent situations only rather than letting him invoke with reckless abandon, but I didn't want to prevent the warlock from using his invocations theoretically as many times as he wants.

Here is the finalized rule. A warlock can use his eldritch blast an unlimited number of times per day with no penalty. This represents the special link a warlock has to eldritch energy and his ability to channel that energy scales with experience. However, a warlock has slightly more limited access to his invocations (including those that modify an eldritch blast), which is based on his Charisma modifier. A warlock can use each invocation he knows a number of times per day equal to his Charisma modifier without penalty. Each additional use of a particular invocation beyond this limit requires a Charisma check (DC 10 + invocation's effective spell level). If the warlock fails this check, the invocation fails, and he suffers an eldritch backlash that gives him a -2 penalty to Charisma and causes fatigue until he rests for 8 hours. This Charisma penalty is cumulative. It cannot result in exhaustion, although other effects can still exhaust the warlock as usual. A warlock can attempt to use his invocations as many times as he wants, however, if he accumulates a Charisma penalty equal to or greater than his Charisma score, he becomes catatonic until he rests for 8 hours. This limitation represents the fact that a warlock's grasp of the unearthly powers he wields is not perfect and that the power of personal presence he uses to channel it wearies with extended use.

I think this gives warlocks a good reason to be concerned about overusing their warlock power. At all levels, the warlock will always have something useful to do in combat by using eldritch blast. On occassions, a warlock will want to use his invocations for additional effects. Note that this limitation has little to no effect on long duration invocations. However, I do not believe these cause as serious of an impact on the game as the instantaneous effects do. I am far more worried about the character who can shatter at will than I am about the character who can walk on walls at will.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[Felon]

Well, that damage is without a save. But my damage number is wrong. The damage would be 42. Thanks for the info about the 1/2 damage for secondary targets. Can a warlock only gain SLA or can he get the regular maximize feat and apply it to his eldritch blast?

Invocations are spell-like abilities, not spells, thus metagmagic feats pertaining to spells can't be used with them.

 

[Kurotowa]

Well, that damage is without a save. But my damage number is wrong. The damage would be 42. Thanks for the info about the 1/2 damage for secondary targets. Can a warlock only gain SLA or can he get the regular maximize feat and apply it to his eldritch blast?

rude comment removed - Plane Sailing

A Warlock can use Sudden and SLA metamagic feats, and not any others. The Sudden ones can be used with any Invocation, but only once per day. The SLA are 3/day, but fixed to one Invocation and have level limits. For example, a Warlock can't Maximize an Eldritch Chain until 12th level.

 

[Felon]

Where the Warlock can be troublesome if the DM isn't prepared is with utility powers. I used Baleful Utterance to Shatter locks, traps, doors, ropes, and just about anything I could think of. Flee the Scene may be short range, but it's still Dim Door and can carry others. I used it to get around obstacles, walls, guards, and mazes. People often overlook Warlock's Call, but as an Invocation it only takes a standard action to use instead of 10 minutes. I drove my DM mad calling up every friend and contact, and after one session I agreed to switch it out again for Chilling Tentacles. Which I then happily used to punish any mob or army that got in our way.

I once had a warlock in a campaign that ran from 1st level to 9th level. My observation is a mixed bag. At low levels, the warlock was fairly unimpressive, especially since he was a tiefling (i.e. +1 LA). He hardly ever hit, and when he did, it was nothing compared to the fighter/wizard (to whom I foolishly allowed things like a fullblade and wraithstrike; lesson learned). However, he came into his own around 5th or 6th level and dominated the campaign after that. I realized it had gotten out of hand when he started using baleful utterance on EVERYTHING (much like another poster has done). It got worse when he could summon swarms of wounding bats all the time. I can honestly say that I can't rule out his character being partially responsible at least on a subconscious level for the campaign's death.

This is pretty much what I was talking about before. In his Complete Arcane interview, Rich Baker said:

The thinking here is that in most D&D games, your characters are probably going to be in only 15 to 20 rounds of combat between rests and spell recoveries. So after your spellcaster has a total daily spell allocation of 20 spells or more (say, around 5th level), his real limit is the number of actions he gets per day -- the number of specific opportunities he has to cast a spell.

This is a mantra that WotC's designers like to spout frequently: "actions are the fundamental currency in the D&D game ". The hole in this logic is so obvious that you have to wonder if the guys at WotC actually play D&D as an RPG anymore and not just a miniatures skirmish game. Have they forgotten there's a game that takes place outside of an initiative order? True, the number of actions a character gets during the course of combat may be very finite, but the number of actions a character can take out of combat is vast. Shattering every obstacle, teleporting around every hazard, charming every NPC--the potential for abuse is very real. And what's more, it's not really a "bad player" issue. The player is really just taking advantage what his class is designed to do.