This was long overdue, but it's lacking applicablity for the Dragonfire Adept class.
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Custom divine abilities, portfolios, etc.
- Thread starter WarDragon
- Start date
Upper_Krust
Hero
Howdy Omeganian dude! 
Isn't there some epic feat called Spell Stowaway or something like that which allows you to steal the effecst of a healing spell within a certain radius?
Omeganian said:
Isn't there some epic feat called Spell Stowaway or something like that which allows you to steal the effecst of a healing spell within a certain radius?
Yes there is. I'm also fond of permanent emanation.
There should be an ability that lets you acquire more spell-like abilities. This would allow for more customization without having to resort to necessarily taking another portfolio.
I'm thinking a divine ability might be worth 45 spell levels worth of "at will" spell-like abilities.
There should be an ability that lets you acquire more spell-like abilities. This would allow for more customization without having to resort to necessarily taking another portfolio.
I'm thinking a divine ability might be worth 45 spell levels worth of "at will" spell-like abilities.
Divine Warlock (partial) playtest postmortem
Since my second game includes not one, but two Warlock characters (one is single-class, the very same Alienoid quoted in my sig; the other is mostly Sorcerer and went Eldritch Theurge), I offered these up as options for the players to see how they work in play. With my game now on a three-week hiatus due to unavoidable alternate commitments on my next few weekends, I figured this would be a good time to post about what I saw with these.
For the record, this group all achieved divinity several months ago in real time, and they'd already worked out divine stats; because these options weren't available when they originally ascended, I gave both Warlocks the one-time chance to go back and retroactively change/rebuild their characters to take advantage of the options they didn't have at the start (but in world logic, should have). The Theurge stayed as-is; he's more focused on his spell-magic anyway (mostly using Eldritch Spellweave in conjunction with Vitriolic Blast to get around SR) and Ascension gave him plenty of good options there. The single-class Warlock did not, and did nearly a full rebuild of his character from Epic levels on.
Long story short, the result was quite positive; since hitting Epic and particularly after undergoing ascension, the Warlock had felt left behind the other characters. With the party tank doing Uncanny Whirlwind Attacks to go blender on multiple foes and the main psionicist taking advantage (and massive abuse) of Improved Overchannel from Untapped Potential and a few other similar options to do 20-odd Crystal Shards at once, often on a single enemy, the Warlock compared his cute little 21d6 Eldritch Blast damage to their hundreds-of-hit-points-in-one-round and felt, frankly, inadequate.
No longer. In the most recent pair of sessions, he was able to do Blasts using all of his Essences at once that were simultaneously Chained and Doomed so as to produce a carpet-bomb-like effect, usually with massive increases in range to hit the enemy from hundreds of feet away, and more than once with huge increases to the radius of the Doom effect so that each explosion could hit several enemies at once. On top of this, he's now dealing 84d12 with his standard Blast, and that's before taking into account whatever he gained with the level-ups granted at the end of last session. So, he now deals out damage on par with the other party members, and impresses the other players with his combat prowess as often as they impress him- quite a happy result! This is worth taking with a grain of salt, however, as my group has some serious powergamers in it and the characters are often heavily optimized (and would be overpowered in another game). So it's possible these abilities may in fact be overpowered compared with "base" 3.5.
I have to go to work soon, so I'll be posting this now and editing it later to add specific comments on the various options below.
EDIT: Well. Trust my luck to post something like this just before the big upgrade shuts the boards down for two days! Anyway, it looks like we're back so I may as well get on with this.
All in all, the above set of Warlock abilities is an excellent crack at the problem, and I recommend their use for any game featuring Divine-level Warlock characters. They really do help a Warlock regain combat effectiveness when compared with other-classed characters of similar level.
Since my second game includes not one, but two Warlock characters (one is single-class, the very same Alienoid quoted in my sig; the other is mostly Sorcerer and went Eldritch Theurge), I offered these up as options for the players to see how they work in play. With my game now on a three-week hiatus due to unavoidable alternate commitments on my next few weekends, I figured this would be a good time to post about what I saw with these.
For the record, this group all achieved divinity several months ago in real time, and they'd already worked out divine stats; because these options weren't available when they originally ascended, I gave both Warlocks the one-time chance to go back and retroactively change/rebuild their characters to take advantage of the options they didn't have at the start (but in world logic, should have). The Theurge stayed as-is; he's more focused on his spell-magic anyway (mostly using Eldritch Spellweave in conjunction with Vitriolic Blast to get around SR) and Ascension gave him plenty of good options there. The single-class Warlock did not, and did nearly a full rebuild of his character from Epic levels on.
Long story short, the result was quite positive; since hitting Epic and particularly after undergoing ascension, the Warlock had felt left behind the other characters. With the party tank doing Uncanny Whirlwind Attacks to go blender on multiple foes and the main psionicist taking advantage (and massive abuse) of Improved Overchannel from Untapped Potential and a few other similar options to do 20-odd Crystal Shards at once, often on a single enemy, the Warlock compared his cute little 21d6 Eldritch Blast damage to their hundreds-of-hit-points-in-one-round and felt, frankly, inadequate.
No longer. In the most recent pair of sessions, he was able to do Blasts using all of his Essences at once that were simultaneously Chained and Doomed so as to produce a carpet-bomb-like effect, usually with massive increases in range to hit the enemy from hundreds of feet away, and more than once with huge increases to the radius of the Doom effect so that each explosion could hit several enemies at once. On top of this, he's now dealing 84d12 with his standard Blast, and that's before taking into account whatever he gained with the level-ups granted at the end of last session. So, he now deals out damage on par with the other party members, and impresses the other players with his combat prowess as often as they impress him- quite a happy result! This is worth taking with a grain of salt, however, as my group has some serious powergamers in it and the characters are often heavily optimized (and would be overpowered in another game). So it's possible these abilities may in fact be overpowered compared with "base" 3.5.
I have to go to work soon, so I'll be posting this now and editing it later to add specific comments on the various options below.
EDIT: Well. Trust my luck to post something like this just before the big upgrade shuts the boards down for two days! Anyway, it looks like we're back so I may as well get on with this.
Tlin (the Alienoid Warlock character's name- see sig) took this six times, so he's now getting quadruple damage on his Blasts (his normal damage, plus 50% times 6 == 300% increase). This more than anything else, I think, has helped him achieve parity with the other divine characters. IMO, the one thing wrong here is that the mechanic of "take this six times and suddenly you have to use a slot of the next higher tier" is wonky and confusing. This should be split up like the Gramarye bunch are, I think- just have the higher tiers require the lower ones to get them, and include a Special: note in each one saying it can be taken up to six times. Also, in switching to that more standard paradigm, it'd probably be a good idea to make the Divine one add an extra 100% damage, the Cosmic 200%, etc. I can't help thinking that there are much better things to spend a slot as valuable as an entire Divine ability on, than a mere extra 50% more of the base damage.Belzamus said:
As may be clear from my above paragraphs, Tlin got both of these as well, and they're working out well for him. Combined with the six Eldritch Empowerments, he went from (what would be at his level) 21d6 damage, to 84d12- an increase in average damage from 73.5 to 546! Now, that is a lot of damage, but when you compare it to the hundreds that the party tank deals out with each and every hit (after he took six Divine Immensities so as to gain the ridiculous STR and weapon damage increases among other things) and the party psion's "Crystal Novas" (which he can let off several times before resting thanks to taking Divine Manifester and carefully stacking artifacts and buffs to give himself over 2000 PP every day), it actually starts to look reasonable. The fact of the matter is, at these levels, it's easily possible to deal out thousands of damage over the course of a couple of rounds. This is, among other reasons, why UK's estimate that characters should be able to take on critters of double their CR is correct- monster hit points and damage just don't go up fast enough to keep pace on any other mathematical curve.Belzamus said:
Tlin's player was salivating at the prospect of taking this, but only after the combat last session did he finally get enough XP to reach BAB +25 and do it (via altered personal artifacts, which of course also increased value when he levelled up). So we haven't seen what effect this is going to have on his character yet. I suspect that this one will prove to be considerably more potent than any of the above options. We'll see if he actually gets to the point of overshadowing the tank or the psion; I doubt he will, but it looks potentially possible.Belzamus said:
Tlin has already shown how to abuse this to the Nth Degree, in conjunction with the party psion who has researched several Epic power buffs that grant every party member massive ability score boosts. With those buffs active on him, Tlin's CHA modifier is over +40, so he throws in all of his Shapes and Essences and still has plenty left over to double his range and area. Now, given that he does rely on another party member's help to achieve this, this may not be a proper indicator of Metablast's power; however, he himself noted last session that he could easily wipe out an entire castle with one Eldritch Blast using the stuff this Metablast ability gives him. This one, therefore, bears watching I'd say, though at the moment I'm not sure what's appropriate for fixing it.Belzamus said:
Tlin has his eye on these as well, though I don't think he'll actually be in a position to take them for some time yet without using Wishes etc. to rejuggle his Divine & feat slots. I will note that the above skill prerequisites are nonstandard and should probably be changed to just be 40 ranks, in keeping with other such abilities in Ascension. Tellurian Blast is no problem as far as I can see, since it's easy enough to just add Vitriolic Blast to an Eldritch Blast attack and get around SR that way; Witchfyre, however, gives me pause when considered in conjunction with Eldritch Empowerment. At Tlin's current level, if he takes Witchfyre, his base Blast damage will go from 21d6 to 42d6 before we even consider the effects of other abilities; this in turn means that his real damage will jump from 84d12 to 168d12 (over 1000 points of damage on average, per hit). For a sub-Demigod, this seems excessive to me. Perhaps this should be the Divine version of Eldritch Empowerment?Belzamus said:
Obviously all of the above are so far beyond any of my PCs that we won't be playtesting them anytime soon (unless I play with some villain builds and throw an Immortal Warlock at the PCs of course). They do seem to be logical extensions of the existing lower-tier abilities, and in line with other similar powers already available at the appropriate power level (for example, Oblivion Blast looks fine when compared with Astro Effect or Divine Nullification).Belzamus said:
All in all, the above set of Warlock abilities is an excellent crack at the problem, and I recommend their use for any game featuring Divine-level Warlock characters. They really do help a Warlock regain combat effectiveness when compared with other-classed characters of similar level.
Last edited:
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dear god it hurts my eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can someone tone down the yellow!!??!!??!!??
How about an additional essence each time the Charisma bonus is doubled (1 at 1, 2 at 2, 3 at 4. 4 at 8...)? At 40+, it will give six essences, looks quite managable.
Are there any abilities that let you attack someone through time, without actually traveling through time your self.
Kinda like Panversal, except, through time, rather than space?
Kinda like Panversal, except, through time, rather than space?
Similar Threads
