Design & Development: The Warlock

[Sir Brennen]

Obviously. Their Boone of Souls would be for saving someone's soul, or for freeing trapped souls by killing the demon holding them in his menagerie, or something else celestials would be interested in.

And again, we don't know that Boon of Souls is a feature of all warlocks; it may be part of the Infernal path only.

 

[Zaruthustran]

One more thing to consider: there are only so many potential sources of *supernatural* power in the D&D game. There's gods, demons/devils, psionics, and magic. That's... pretty much it.

Clerics and paladins derive power from gods.

Wizards derive power from magic.

Psionics are not in the PHB.

That leaves demons/devils. They're part of D&D, so it just makes sense to use them as the power source for a class. Those beings exist in the fiction, so there ya go. The dramatic possibilities that come with a hero whose powers derive from an evil source? That's just a bonus.

For examples of heroes who are only able to accomplish heroics by drawing on evil or corrupt training/powers, see:

Jason Bourne
Spawn
Bionic Woman
Ghost Rider
Wolverine
Elric
The Incredible Hulk
Witchblade
Spiderman/Venom

And so on and so on. All those heroes have incredible powers provided by entities or organizations that they despise. All are demonstrably compelling and popular.

 

[BBQ]

They aren't ditching alignment. It's going to be changed a bit, but it's staying.

Warlocks in 3.5 aren't "evil only". Neither are Dread Necromancers or Archivists (Heroes of Horror), though they're pretty "dark themed" as well.

"Dark themed" doesn't mean "evil". Don't mix the two up. Warlocks can, in all likelihood, be any alignment they want. It's a matter of the spin you give it.

 

[Stone Dog]

They're ditching alignment? Where did they say that?

They aren't ditching alignment. They ARE stating an intent to remove alignment from the mechanics of the game. Slight difference.

 

[Rechan]

You misunderstood. I don't want to spend my time adding (or subtracting and then adding) flavor to the mechanics. I want to spend my time adding flavor to the character.

Then wait until the 4e Warlock gets to the SRD.

The SRD is absolutely flavorless.

Because honestly? I don't see them just posting the numbers without any words that designate flavor. If you want that, look at True d20.

 

[DandD]

That is, if they do add 4th edition rules to the SRD. Although I do hope.

 

[Gargoyle]

It's a darker D&D, and like it or not it's going to affect a lot of campaigns, because good DM's hate to restrict player choices, and don't have time to rework the warlock to be less "evil-ish".

I'm quoting myself here, due to the growing length of the thread, and since Cadfan refers to that part of my post.

I disagree, particularly with the part highlighted. Necromancers were in the PHB in 3e. They were one amongst several types of wizards. Evil clerics were in the PHB, just dropped in like a normal, every day thing.

I never said that evil player characters didn't exist. In fact I said "evilish" on purpose and should have just stuck with "dark". Forget alignment for the moment.

My point is that the core classes in 3E and even 2E are predominately heroic, not so dark and grim as the warlock. I stand by my statement that 4e will be a darker D&D because of the inclusion of the warlock...it's up front and will affect campaigns, sometimes in a negative way...hopefully in positive ways.

The reason it will have more impact than the occassional evil necromancer or cleric (or any other class) is because it is more difficult to imagine a good warlock given the type of abilities I've seen so far. It leans toward evil more than the other classes because of its abilities. It doesn't force evil characters down a DM's throat as much as say the 1E assassin, but it does create a complication for some groups who are trying to run a more heroic campaign. A good aligned warlock might be hard to pull off in RP situations. We'll see when they reveal more.

 

[SteveC]

Can you quote exactly where your statistics come from. Because if you look at the posts on this board, the sides are pretty much even as far as who likes the allegedly (i use allegedly because we don't have hard facts, more just inference as far as the class being restricted to being evil - again, if you can quote/link to an exact place where it definitively states them as being so, I'd love to see it) dark tone as those who dislike it.

I am a member of the RPGA and to tell you the truth, the one thing I dislike about it is someone who is not at *MY* table has decided that the game is about heroics, therefore my wanting to play someone with more shades of grey/dark isn't a viable choice. That decision should be made between players and DM. Which, is pretty much what WOTC is doing, giving you the choice. If your DM doesn't want to have that in their campaign, then don't have it. It would be no more difficult than it was for my 1E DM to ban Assassins, or from my 2E DM banning Psionics, or my 3E DM banning the entire Book of Exalted Deeds (or Exalted Cheese as he called it.)

Why is it better to take away choices than keep em in and have it be decided between the people concerned?

In a word, "no," I won't because there aren't any such statistics, other than the RPGA, which is the largest organized play group in the world. RPGA has a strict no evil characters policy, and evil actions get your character removed from play.

Now beyond that, take a look at what the core books say about alignment: characters in D&D are heroes, by and large.

Beyond that, I invite you to look at the various story hours on this very site, and also take a look at the vast number of published modules. Good and heroic characters are the default in the vast majority of them. If you look at WotC adventures, or Dungeon Magazine, you'll see this in spades.

Now to the meat of your issue: in no way should I tell you anything about what your table is like, or how you play the game. Not at all. Your game is your game, and if you and your friends are having fun, that's great.

What I am saying is that placing a class into the core rulebook for a game that has a strong evil component to it doesn't make sense, because most people don't play their games that way. That doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't play those kinds of games.

Now I know that you can have warlocks that aren't evil, the characters that the class is built around are just that, but I would argue that there are far more iconic classes that belong there in this class' place. Druid or warlock? That's one example. Mageblade or warlock? I'd argue for the Mageblade, thankyouverymuch. Warlock in a supplement? Sure!

One real component to this that many of us forget is that D&D is a game that gets purchased a lot by parents of teens or even preteens. A class that oozes evil from it (even if that's not an accurate depiction of the totality of the class) doesn't belong in the core for that reason alone.

So no, I don't think your game needs to be good, or that it should avoid dark imagery, just that the warlock isn't the best or most useful class to put into the core PHB.

--Steve

 

[Bishmon]

Then wait until the 4e Warlock gets to the SRD.

The SRD is absolutely flavorless.

That won't really change anything. The SRD just strips the class down to its mechanics, but when the mechanics are stuff like 'dark discorporation', 'dark foresight', 'utterdark blast', 'tenacious plague', 'curse of despair', etc., that doesn't really get rid of any of the flavor of the class. (And obviously I'm just using those invocations as examples.)

 

[Bishmon]

Because honestly? I don't see them just posting the numbers without any words that designate flavor. If you want that, look at True d20.

Really? Look at the ranger. It gets abilities like 'endurance', 'animal companion', 'combat style', 'camouflage'. The druid gets 'nature stride', 'trackless step', 'wild shape', etc. Those names aren't exactly all that flavorful.

Even the spells sections provide much more flexibility in character building than the warlock's powers do. There's a few obviously good spells, a few obviously evil spells, and a whole lot of middle 'gray-area' spells that can be used however the player imagines it.

That's what I want for a warlock. I don't have a problem with a dark-flavored warlock. I just don't want that to be the only option in the rules as written by virtue of the flavor written in the mechanics. Sure, have some obviously dark stuff. But have some obviously good stuff, too, and have a whole lot of gray-area stuff that warlocks of any flavor can use for what they imagine.