Design & Development: The Warlock

[Simia Saturnalia]

Evil characters have been presented as playable since 1e. Assassin and drow in UA.

I think that "they're taking D&D in that direction" boat sailed a long time ago.

Correction: Assassin's in the PHB. First class in the book.

 

[pemerton]

In warfare, your goal is to defeat the enemy. Yes, you're willing to kill the foe to achieve that end; but incapacitating the foe, inducing him to surrender, or routing him into headlong retreat are all victories, too. In a D&D encounter, all of those get rewarded with XP for defeating the challenge.

In the Boon of Souls, if the opponent doesn't die, he presumably doesn't qualify as having gone to his afterlife reward. So we have a mechanic here that involves a direct reward to a PC for cutting the throat of a foe who has surrendered.

Many D&D games and modules have suggested that the goal of combat with Evil humanoids is not just to produce surrender or rout, but to kill them. Hence the many debates about whether or not paladins can, consistent with their alignment and code of conduct, kill baby Orcs.

I don't want to impute a particular view to you. But if one thinks that the killing of baby Orcs is not obviously forbidden to paladins, then presumably one can't think that it's a foregone conclusion that getting boons from sending one's villains to the afterlife is Evil.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I'm still disappointed there's no Elemental Warlock. A Warlock that makes pacts with Djinn or Efreet would be cool. It would also make an Al'Qadim port very easy.

Having read the debate, I think there's quite a wide chasm between me and many other posters on the meaning of the words "good" and "evil." I guess that's to be expected. It's a debate man has been having for a long time.

But IMC, any Warlock who makes a pact with a Devil is Evil. Capital 'E'. Either that or a previously good or neutral PC who's quickly headed there. In my mind you can't have a quid pro quo with the devil and not acquire a taint / aura of evil, any more than a Cleric of Asmodeus can. Sure, the Warlock doesn't worship the devil, but "just doing business" with the devil of your own free will and on a regular basis is little better. That's just how I see it. Same for the contractor who worked on the first Death Star, saw it used to destroy Alderaan, and then freely chose to build the second Death Star too in exchange for Imperial 'favors'. To use a real-world example, someone who freely (not coerced) continued to do business with Nazis after seeing the death camps for himself would be labeled in my mind as evil. It just rubs off on you.

We'll just have to wait and see on 'Shadowy' and 'Feral', but neither of them sound good to me. All of the examples given of how they could possibly, maybe be good just seemed like a stretch to me. They both sound amoral to me (what D&D calls "X-neutral"), with Shadowy possibly being evil.

I'm fine with the Paladin not having to be LG any more, but I think it's shame there doesn't seem to be any good way to play a good Warlock. I don't like playing with evil PCs (as a DM or a PC), so I guess this class may not see a lot of play at my table. Do angels not make pacts? Or do you just call good warlocks "clerics"?

I guess we'll see.

 

[Gloombunny]

We'll just have to wait and see on 'Shadowy' and 'Feral', but neither of them sound good to me. All of the examples given of how they could possibly, maybe be good just seemed like a stretch to me. They both sound amoral to me (what D&D calls "X-neutral"), with Shadowy possibly being evil.

Well, what's wrong with the pact-beings being neutral? You don't need to use an inherently good tool to be doing good. Following your analogies about doing business with Nazis, does doing business with neutral people mean you have to be neutral? I don't think so. You can argue that any pact with demons is a bad thing, since demons are pure evil and giving them anything is an evil act no matter what you get in return. But I don't think you can stretch that argument to cover pacts with anything that merely isn't pure good.

Do angels not make pacts? Or do you just call good warlocks "clerics"?

Personally I would be very disappointed to ever see warlocks making pacts with angels. If you can get same powers by dealing with angels as you can from dealing with devils, then anyone who deals with devils is just a chump. The whole point of dark sorcery is that you're supposed to gain power from it that you couldn't otherwise have. That's why it's a temptation, despite its obvious drawbacks. Unless you like comic-opera villains who twirl their moustaches and murder kittens for fun, you're not going to get much dramatic use out of a devil-dealing villain if he could've gotten the same power and the moral high ground just as easily.

 

[coyote6]

I'm still disappointed there's no Elemental Warlock. A Warlock that makes pacts with Djinn or Efreet would be cool. It would also make an Al'Qadim port very easy.

I would guess that that's where supplements (and Dragon articles, and maybe licensed 3rd party books) will come in handy.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Personally I would be very disappointed to ever see warlocks making pacts with angels. If you can get same powers by dealing with angels as you can from dealing with devils, then anyone who deals with devils is just a chump. The whole point of dark sorcery is that you're supposed to gain power from it that you couldn't otherwise have. That's why it's a temptation, despite its obvious drawbacks. Unless you like comic-opera villains who twirl their moustaches and murder kittens for fun, you're not going to get much dramatic use out of a devil-dealing villain if he could've gotten the same power and the moral high ground just as easily.

This is an excellent point. And it makes for interesting characterization too. Perhaps you took the quick route to power, and too late figured out that you're doomed. Can you redeem yourself by using evil power for good, or does it just drag you down more quickly as you use it?

Neutral pact contacts aside, being able to make deals with evil beings for power seems pretty darn old-school sword & sorcery to me. I am very glad it's in D&D. It makes me think of old fantasy pulp, especially when there can be a contrast between those who revel in their evil power and those who are chained to it against their will. Good stuff.

 

[Paraxis]

It makes me think of old fantasy pulp, especially when there can be a contrast between those who revel in their evil power and those who are chained to it against their will. Good stuff.

I have seen that mentioned a few times as an idea for a character or concept in this thread, the whole "chained to it against their wil" thing. People talk about Spawn, or some poor shlub who didn't know what he was getting into at the time ect.

The problem is this is a game with levels, and player choice. The player chooses for his character to use said powers, and to keep taking more levels in the Warlock class, there is no chain.

The player is having his character make a choice to keep being a pawn to dark powers, if he wanted to redeem himself it's simple never take a level of warlock again and don't use any of your class abilities you gained from it.

 

[Rechan]

The problem is this is a game with levels, and player choice.

That's metagame thinking. Making character decisions based solely on player knowledge - like switching to a slashing weapon the first time your character encounters a zombie, despite your character never having encountered or heard about zombies - is metagaming, and is a no no.

 

[pemerton]

I have seen that mentioned a few times as an idea for a character or concept in this thread, the whole "chained to it against their wil" thing. People talk about Spawn, or some poor shlub who didn't know what he was getting into at the time ect.

The problem is this is a game with levels, and player choice. The player chooses for his character to use said powers, and to keep taking more levels in the Warlock class, there is no chain.

The player is having his character make a choice to keep being a pawn to dark powers, if he wanted to redeem himself it's simple never take a level of warlock again and don't use any of your class abilities you gained from it.

You are running the player and the PC together here. Yes, the player is choosing to keep his/her PC a warlock. S/he is not chained - s/he is choosing to play D&D in a certain way.

But it doesn't follow that the PC has any choice. The player (presumably with the GM's concurrence) can simply stipulate that his/her PC has no choice, and is chained to a dismal fate. This explains the levels. As for the use of abilities, if the PC finds him- or herself confronted by monsters, and the dark abilities are all s/he has, then again s/he has no choice but to defend herself. And if those are the only abilities s/he is able to use to do good deeds, then so much greater is the tragedy of it all!

 

[Paraxis]

It's not metagame thinking at all.

People use training rules, people talk about how you get feats from practicing in down time, or if you don't use training then when you level in a new class how you have been dabbling in that field for awhile now.

You have to want to be a better fighter in the game in order for taking more levels in the class to make sense, you must pray and be faithful to gain higher understanding as a cleric, if you want as a warlock to not go futher down the dark path you just don't.

As a DM you could say that a warlock has no choice but to take further levels of warlock because of the pact he made, but then that takes away player choice wich is something 3E and apparently 4E try to never ever do. The game has become about choices, not railroading PC's down a career path.

So this whole tragic character concept is just an excuse to play an "evil" character but at the same time going he is just misunderstood and dark. When it is a choice he makes every time he levels to go futher into the darkside, he could go to a temple and start taking levels of cleric anytime he has the chance, the player knows it his character knows it and the DM knows it.