Design & Development: The Warlock

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm interested in seeing where they go with this. The class, as written, sounds evil. The proposed patrons are one obviously evil, one that prorably is, and one that may be. "Shadow" is the probably: it seems like that's a reference to the Shadowfell, which is the land of the dead. Making pacts with the dead (or undead) sounds pretty evil.

Unless it's a more Hades-like land of the dead. Lots of grey wastes, bored souls wandering for eternity, etc. That's not evil, just grim.

 

[Wormwood]

Unless it's a more Hades-like land of the dead. Lots of grey wastes, bored souls wandering for eternity, etc. That's not evil, just grim.

Which really seems to be the case when discussing the Shadowfell.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, the 4e design team then wouldn't be the first group of fallible humans to have conflicting goals. Maybe there's no "Alignment: Any Evil" written on the class requirements, but any class whose powers depend on killing someone and giving their soul over to your infernal master is, ipso facto, populated entirely by evil individuals.

Now, we don't know for sure at this time that Boone of Souls is used by the Shadowy or Feral Warlocks, but if it is, then yeah, every Warlock is evil. You just can't go around selling people's souls to the devil and (factually) be good or neutral. That's just not how it works. To say otherwise is to distort the alignment description to Newspeak.

See Plane Sailing's post, above. Also, I notice that you embellish this every time you mention it. Before, it was just sending people to the afterlife. Now it's selling souls to the devil.

 

[Korgoth]

I think maybe Irda has misinterpreted the article, but nevertheless the Warlock gets "campaign contributions" from dodgy extra-planar entities for killing people. An Assassin gets money for killing people, a Warlock gets 'magic juice' for killing people. Same difference - they're both evil.

Though I will say again that I think an evil-only class is fine for the PHB. Always has been.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think maybe Irda has misinterpreted the article, but nevertheless the Warlock gets "campaign contributions" from dodgy extra-planar entities for killing people. An Assassin gets money for killing people, a Warlock gets 'magic juice' for killing people. Same difference - they're both evil.

Though I will say again that I think an evil-only class is fine for the PHB. Always has been.

A fighter gets levels from killing people.

 

[Snapdragyn]

...nevertheless the Warlock gets "campaign contributions" from dodgy extra-planar entities for killing people. An Assassin gets money for killing people, a Warlock gets 'magic juice' for killing people. Same difference - they're both evil.

Just like a cleric of Heironeous gets 'campaign contributions' (in the form of spells) from extra-planar entities (Heironeous & his celestial host) for killing evil people?

 

[Wolfspider]

Just because the mechanic of alignment has been removed doesn't mean that there can't be evil creatures and characters in the game....

 

[Twowolves]

Well, the 4e design team then wouldn't be the first group of fallible humans to have conflicting goals. Maybe there's no "Alignment: Any Evil" written on the class requirements, but any class whose powers depend on killing someone and giving their soul over to your infernal master is, ipso facto, populated entirely by evil individuals.

Bingo.

And I don't care if the article didn't specifically say you kill somone and hand their soul off to an infernal patron, the very fact that the class as they have presented it gains power via pacts with EVIL patrons makes it an evil class to me. Yeah, you can do other things with it, and yeah, you can change the flavor text to whatever you like, but the fact is they are "selling" the idea to the target audience as a class that makes deals with the Devil(s) in exchange for power, and they specifically say it's a natural fit for the tieflings, a race tainted with the infernal. That doesn't scream "but they can be feral nature-boys too" to me.

Also note that at no time was I one of those who said that evil had no place in the PHB. I also don't agree that necromancy is inherantly evil (outside of those spells with the "Evil" descriptor). In fact, I run Scarred Lands, where there is a perfect example of a city run by non-evil necromancers and protected by advanced skeleton patrols. Simply put, a core rulebook dealing with classes and races needs to be able to handle both good guys (the PCs) and bad guys (character-classed NPC villians), if for no other reason than to have similar rules grouped in the same volume. I just don't recall the authors pushing Assassins and Necromancers as being quite so "wicked cool" in prior editions either.

It's insulting, which is contrary to the board rules.

So, if I am insulted by someone calling me a "Scruffy Nerfherder", even if I am, it's against board rules? Can I say "4th ed Cheerleader"? Or is "Cheerleader" a Newspeak insult too? Maybe the easily insulted can cobble together some kind of Thoughtcrime Insult List and post it somewhere so I know how not to offend those going out of their way to find offense.

 

[Wolfspider]

Just like a cleric of Heironeous gets 'campaign contributions' (in the form of spells) from extra-planar entities (Heironeous & his celestial host) for killing evil people?

I wasn't aware that it was a requirement for a cleric of Heironeous to kill people in order to regain spells or that killing evil people gave a cleric of Heironeous special abilities.

 

[frankthedm]

Sending an enemy to their afterlife reward.

Nothing about turning souls over to your own master, whatever that might be.

Yep. Now IME, any horror movie or novel that involves "marking somone's soul" usually had that mean the victim DID get damned or devoured by some soul eating horror.

Sadly, the warlock does not automaticly change direction of the marked soul. Now since the real afterlife, which comes AFTER one's layover in the Shadowfell, is beyond all ken, there is wiggle room to say "Yes, that marking does have a deleterious effect on the soul's fate".