Could we please have a non evil/ammoral pact for Warlocks? :)

[Lord Ernie]

Well, I fail to see how the possibility of Good pacts turns warlocks that selected non-Good pacts into caricatures, any more than the presence of Good deities turns the clerics and paladins of non-Good deities into caricatures. I'm sure that an otherwise decent fellow who decided to make a pact with a dangerous and possibly evil entity must have had an absolutely compelling reason to do so.

I think his point was that if you make good Warlocks possible, the classic Warlock archetype of "I sold my soul to an evil demon, to gain power to do good" becomes null and void. After all, he could just have made a Good pact and gained his powers that way.

 

[FireLance]

I think his point was that if you make good Warlocks possible, the classic Warlock archetype of "I sold my soul to an evil demon, to gain power to do good" becomes null and void. After all, he could just have made a Good pact and gained his powers that way.

And my counter-point is that it makes him an even more interesting and complex character. He could have made a Good pact, but he didn't. Why?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think his point was that if you make good Warlocks possible, the classic Warlock archetype of "I sold my soul to an evil demon, to gain power to do good" becomes null and void. After all, he could just have made a Good pact and gained his powers that way.

Precisely. It just makes anyone who didn't make a good pact look like a ninny, and undermines the entire concept.

And my counter-point is that it makes him an even more interesting and complex character. He could have made a Good pact, but he didn't. Why?

No, it undermines the entire concept. I can see you're not going to be able to fathom this, so this'll be my last post to you. If anyone can just sell their soul to Magic Jesus and get happy times plus massive magical powers, it breaks the reasoning behind selling your soul to the devil - unless you can get something significantly better out of the devil (which seems unlikely as the difference between power sources are likely to be minor and balanced), or the good guys are incredibly picky.

From a metagame perspective, it's terrible, because 90% of players want a power-source in alignment with them - thus virtually all Warlocks will be the "goodlocks", again, really ripping up the concept.

I mean, Favoured Soul is Favoured Soul, let's keep him out of the Warlock.

 

[Walking Dad]

I think his point was that if you make good Warlocks possible, the classic Warlock archetype of "I sold my soul to an evil demon, to gain power to do good" becomes null and void. After all, he could just have made a Good pact and gained his powers that way.

New concept for an evil character:

"I betrayed the power of good, to serve my own needs. Now I'm killing Paladins with blasts of radiant light and use my angelic charm to seduce virgins "

 

[Ruin Explorer]

New concept for an evil character:

"I betrayed the power of good, to serve my own needs. Now I'm killing Paladins with blasts of radiant light and use my angelic charm to seduce virgins "

Admittedly, this is kind of hilarious.

 

[Yttermayn]

Admittedly, this is kind of hilarious.

I'll second that. As far as the discussion in general goes: why are we worried about what other GM's do with the material that WOTC provides? The GM's and players have the ultimate say in what and how it gets used. There's no WOTC police who will round up dissenters and beat them with fish or something if they change the rules to suit thier needs. From the sound of it, the books themselves are going to be piecemeal cyborg half digital pains in the butt anyways. (I can see the books stuffed with sheefs of loose printout updates sticking out all over the place now.) As an American in Montana, do I really care that some GM I saw in the forums once from Montreal decided that warlocks should wear pink bunny ears and shoot flowers and candy out of his hands at his enemies? Or that some other GM in Toronto insists his player's warlocks have to perform human sacrifice every day to maintain their infernal powers? Hmmm, lemme check... nope!

 

[FireLance]

From a metagame perspective, it's terrible, because 90% of players want a power-source in alignment with them - thus virtually all Warlocks will be the "goodlocks", again, really ripping up the concept.

And if, indeed, 90% of players want a power-source in alignment with them, why force a concept on them that they don't want?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And if, indeed, 90% of players want a power-source in alignment with them, why force a concept on them that they don't want?

They only want it for simplicity's sake, and if it's not an option, they won't miss it (the vast majority won't, anyway).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'll second that. As far as the discussion in general goes: why are we worried about what other GM's do with the material that WOTC provides? The GM's and players have the ultimate say in what and how it gets used.

I'm not worried about what GMs do - I'm worried about what WotC would do. If someone wants to make up "good pacts" for his game, that's fine, no-one cares. If WotC puts it in as a default option, they need to re-name and re-flavour the whole Warlock class, because they're undermining it's central conceit.

 

[Mallus]

And if, indeed, 90% of players want a power-source in alignment with them, why force a concept on them that they don't want?

To appease some random gamer on the Internet?

I like the idea of assorted-flavor warlocks; good, evil, fey, elemental... whatever. It's more flexible, and works with a wide variety of character types from from the Sailor Scouts to Elric of Melnibone. Personally, I'd like to play a Grant Morrison-esque Warlock who made a pact with an metafictional, extra-dimensional whatsit, but that's probably because I spent yesterday afternoon rereading Flex Mentallo.

And I don't see it 'weakening the archetype' at all, seeing as there's no chance in Hell that the 4e RAW is going to actually support the archetype in terms of role-playing and require/enforce consequences for the warlock's power pact and the notion that it is a shortcut to power.