Design & Development: The Warlock

[Simia Saturnalia]

You're right. Since I had been following the news about 4e and did not make the decision until this thread, then I obviously had no right to be paying attention to this forum. I forgot it was only for fanboys who consider 4e the second coming.

Read it how you like. I don't think I said "Why have you been here all this time". I suggested your (obviously new) dislike of the core warlock and (potentially new, at least newly aggravated) hatred of "fanboys" might have a common solution.

I will now remove myself from here and please feel free to come to Circvs Maximvs sometime where I can be quite candid when speaking to you.

Ooh, promise? I'll bring the wine.

 

[Wormwood]

You may disagree with that conclusion; however, I would bet that the class says "any non-good."

Care to make a friendly wager on that? Because I'm confident that the 4e design team won't be making the same mistakes as the 3e team did.

 

[Wormwood]

I forgot it was only for fanboys who consider 4e the second coming.

And again with the name calling.

sheesh.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Sending an enemy you've marked to their afterlife reward = Killing ie EVIL tone.

Man, if killing in D&D is evil I really wonder what your campaigns look like - which isn't to say I think it couldn't be fun (lots of subterfuge & diplocmacy, perhaps?), just that it sounds very different from classic D&D (kill the bad guys & take their stuff - but if killing=EVIL then that's right out!).

Your patron shows their gratitude by giving you a Boon of Souls = Killing for sake of killing ie EVIL

So a cleric of Pelor destroying undead & being granted spells by her deity the next day is EVIL? After all, that's a patron showing gratitude by giving powers to one who kills.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Umm. I'll bet you an imaginary cookie that different warlocks with different patrons have different powers.

My thoughts as well. The writer of the article just picked one cool ability to highlight in the limited space he had.

 

[Stone Dog]

So a cleric of Pelor destroying undead & being granted spells by her deity the next day is EVIL? After all, that's a patron showing gratitude by giving powers to one who kills.

I'd go rather with living enemies rather than undead. Killing most undead is about as morally questionable as breaking furniture.

 

[Bishmon]

Because it's impossible to say "You summon a swarm of spear-wielding pixies" while using the bat swarm stats, or "The bat wings are actually fairie wings". It's like saying Magic Missile is limiting because the flavor text says rays of magical energy. Every mage player I've ever known has tailored their MM thematically to the caster. So exactly how can't you do that with the Warlock?

Tone it down a little, if you don't mind. I don't appreciate the snarky response.

You can do those things to a warlock to change its flavor. The problem is, in 3E, you had to. That's my point. Almost every other class has inherent flexibility to it. Not the warlock. If you wanted to play anything other than the infernal dude, you had to rewrite a number of mechanics. Sometimes you had to change a name (summon a swarn of doves instead of summon a swarm of bats), sometimes you had to do more legwork (finding an appropriate monster for the turning into a hellcat ability).

It certainly was possible to do that. But I don't think I should have to.

 

[frankthedm]

After some initial shock, everyone admitted that the warlock's eldritch blast didn't break the game.
Not quite everyone - I still see arguments about it...

The Blast was less an issue than then spammed walls of fire and Chillling tentacles..

 

[Lackhand]

So a cleric of Pelor who righteously smites a cleric of Nerull (currently engaged in killing puppies) et cetera et cetera... Same scenario, same moral weight to me.

Sure, the Warlock can present a tricky moral conundrum, and one that poses a problem in some people's games.

But I don't think that it has to post that conundrum, unless you want it to.


And the war of warlock vs warlock, one of whom is devoted to the cause of good, and the other corrupted by the demonic beings she serves? Downright myffic, that is.

So is cleric vs warlock, just in a different way.

 

[Stalker0]

It's probably worth pointing out that 1st edition had an evil-only class in the PHB (the Assassin). So the idea of an evil-only class has been done before, and in the core rules.

That said, I do hope the warlock isn't evil-only (or, if alignment is being drastically overhauled/done away with, that the flavor will allow for non evil-ish options).

Just because it has been done, doesn't mean it should. Core classes should be general classes in my mind, fit to fill a large range of campaign settings.

This was always the problem with the paladin, its hard to put a paladin and an evil guy in the same party. Yes people have done it, but you have to work to make it work. That's probably why there are now different kinds of paladin's in 4e.

The same should be true for the warlock. Yes, perhaps I want to play the anti-hero I have bad powers but use them for good. Or maybe I just want to have a pact with a good creature and can my powers that way. Why does the warlock need to have a dark taint innately?

Other than that though, I am very excited about the new warlock, it does seem pretty cool.