Design & Development: The Warlock

[SteveC]

Let me just quote the PHB:



Ok so lets break this down a bit.

Good = respect for life and concern for sentient life, if you and your groups have been playing them as cold blooded goblin slayers who kill women and children for being green and short well thats you but it's not Good.

Evil = killing for sport or out of duty to some evil diety or master, this is exactly the flavor of the warlock that we have been presented with.

The other quotes are there to remind everyone that this is supposed to be a game about fighting against the Darkness and Evil....I thought 4E was going further along that path with the whole "Points of Light" thing...players are light against the darkness....but what I'm worried about is it seems that Tiefling and Warlock both scream they are the darkness. While taking away the only becon of light left the paladin and making him just another tool for any one and giving the darkness a class all to itself.

Paraxis,
Thanks for posting the notes from the PHB. When I am posting I usually only have access to the SRD, which does not include the "most characters are good or neutral" part.

I may differ a bit from the posters on both sides of this issue (but that's hardly surprising) as I think there's nothing wrong whatsoever with the Warlock and the class' flavor. I get the whole "fighting darkness both within and without" thing, really I do. My chief concern is the fact that the Warlock is going to be one of the "big 8" of the new series, where I think the class has a lot less appeal than, say, the Mageblade (or whatever they officially are calling it).

I think this is going to be a class that is underused in a lot of campaigns, and it's also going to possibly attract some negative connotations to the game that have been absent for a long time.

On a lighter note, after watching Metalapocalypse this weekend, I think we really need a revamped bard in the core rules. Fourth Edition needs to make bards METAL!...as Nathan Explosion would say. That would really be far more interesting than a class that makes dark pacts in my mind!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about...take a look here .

--Steve

 

[D.Shaffer]

A fighter gets levels from playing the game like any other class.
He does not have a class ablility based on getting a bonus from killing people.

What about the fighter? His class abilities are a variety of feats, some of which DO give him bonuses when he kills people. (Cleave for example)

Nevermind the point that all his bonus feats are mostly to the point of helping him kill things faster or in more creative ways.

 

[Paraxis]

What about the fighter? His class abilities are a variety of feats, some of which DO give him bonuses when he kills people. (Cleave for example)

Nevermind the point that all his bonus feats are mostly to the point of helping him kill things faster or in more creative ways

Let me try to explain my thoughts better, killing can be done for a good cause. IMHO.
Execution of convictied murderers, war fought against forces of evil, self defense, ect....

A fighter is a professional killer it's what the class is all about, but who he kills, why he kills, and even how he kills makes a huge difference. A soldier who is a sniper compared to a professional hitman are completly different people or characters.

The flavor of the Warlock suggests heavly to me that, his/her motivation for killing is to gain more power from the being the warlock made a pact with, in the case of atleast 1/3rd of them maybe more of these beings are all infernal powers of pure evil. Shadow and Feral again to me don't sound much better.

So a fighter who is a swashbuckler fighting for queen and country is vastly different then a warlock marking peoples souls and sending them to hell for a round and bringing them back.

A sword swing is only as dark as the heart of the man swinging it.

A blast of infernal hellfire is dark and evil no matter the motivations behind it because of where the power comes from.

I think I have expressed everything I can on the matter, those of you who like warlock my feelings won't change that, just like your feelings won't change mine. I just wanted to express my disapointment with WoTC who up untile this fluff piece had me 100% for 4E, and it's still hard for me to understand why the logic of making a paladin be a warrior for any diety didn't get applied to the new version of the warlock it just makes no sense to me.

I am still a 4E fanboy, and hope to have many enjoyable games with the system but I am unhappy about this class, and it's a major issue with me because a good section of the PHB will go to warlock powers just like to cleric and wizard spells, and it seems that the inclussion of the warlock pushed a more well rounded class out of the PHB. IMHO the warlock belongs in the DMG or a splat book, maybe even PHB2 where planar power sources could be touched on.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Ok. I see the Infernal pact Warlock as being evil by your quote serving an evil master and all, but the Shadow and Feral may not be. If the patron of the warlock is not evil then the warlock killing non-innocents for them is ok by those definitions, right?
The warlock is not a class that is going to substitute for a 1E paladin. I have never seen a rogue that fits that stricture well either. I could puzzle one out for both but it is a stretch. A chaotic good 'lock who serves Herne the Hunter to cull corruption from the Feywild's herd? I could see that. A Lawful Good 'lock who works for a Grim Reaper type entity to usher the souls of the dead through the Shadowfell to their ultimate destination works too.

I like that one. He could be a hunter of those who have lived beyond their allotted years. All those wizards with their potions of longevity or their lich transformations, look out. You're going to bear the mark of the inevitable.

 

[The Human Target]

Hmm. Two thoughts:
1. I would classify both Danny Ocean and Han Solo as either CN or CG. Danny I think is pretty clearly CG the whole time, and Han shifts from CN to CG during Ep. IV and stays there for the next two movies.

2. None of the other people on your list play well with others. It may be fun to read about them, but they make bad team-mates. I don't allow evil PC's because they're bad for group cohesion.

Quite the contrary, why and how you do things are just as important as their immediate effect. Maybe Thomas Aquinas is a bit heavy reading for the average D&D game, but his work, and others like it, should be studied before serious discussion of the alignments.

Danny Ocean, Han Solo, James Bond, Jack Bauer, Wolverine, Batman, and even Spawn to a lesser extent all do play well with others. The might cause some friction, but they are still integral to their teams.

The only two on the list that don't, Lestat and Boba Fett, are oddly enough the only two that are evil.

Proving once again you can be dark and still be a good, viable character.

 

[Fishbone]

I'm concerned that the sorcerer will get screwed again.
I want to hear something about them because I want the sorcerer to be equal to the wizard, who has been outshining it for years, and the newly minted Warlock that R&D is having a ball with.

 

[Paraxis]

I'm concerned that the sorcerer will get screwed again.
I want to hear something about them because I want the sorcerer to be equal to the wizard, who has been outshining it for years, and the newly minted Warlock that R&D is having a ball with.

I agree, honestly if they would have called the Warlock class Sorcerer I would have been much happier. Change some fluff around and the inate magic comes from either having demonic,draconic,fey,ect...heritage or making deals with those forces willingly and kept the flavor of the powers more middle of the road and we got a cool sorcerer class.

Favored Soul would have been a good idea to for a warlock alternate if the power source turns out to be divine, I see a favored soul of Asmodeus to be just like the warlock write up we have seen.

Mechanics were the big difference in wizard,sorcerer,and warlock in 3.5. Now the mechanics are all going to be almost identical (atleast it looks like it will be) its the fluff that matters.

 

[Rechan]

I'm concerned that the sorcerer will get screwed again.
I want to hear something about them because I want the sorcerer to be equal to the wizard, who has been outshining it for years, and the newly minted Warlock that R&D is having a ball with.

The Sorcerer's pretty much not going in the PHB. So, this lets them take the time to refine it rather than the 3.0 sorcerer basically being a last-minute idea slapped together.

 

[Fishbone]

Okay, the Sorcerer ain't core, or the Gnome.
This ain't the D&D I know.
What will happen with core groups that want a Charisma based arcane caster that doesn't sell his soul to X/y/z? If the Bard gets axed then what?

 

[Paraxis]

If the Bard gets axed then what?

If? I thought we already knew it got the axe.

I was under the assumption that the 8 classes in the PHB1 will be:
Cleric
Fighter
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Wizard
Warlock
Warlord

No sorerer, bard, monk, or barbarian.

I think that leaves one caster per non-physical stat if they keep the 3.5 relations.
Cleric=Wis
Wizard=Int
Warlock=Cha

If it makes a difference I would assume again that Paladin is a caster as well sort of that will be tied to Cha.

But all those are assumptions and you know what they say happens when you ass-u-me things.