Divine version of the warlock

[Kunimatyu]

Here's a sample:

Empathy: As a standard action, you touch an ally, transferring up to your level times your Charisma modifier in damage.

Stigmata: You can inflict pain on your enemies. As a touch attack, you inflict your level times d6 damage onto an enemy. They may attempt a Will save (DC 10+Cha + half-exorcist level) for half. If you have hit point damage, heal an amount equal to the damage done.

 

[Jackelope King]

Speaking of Jackelope King, I am not sure what the problem is with infinite healing. Parties with a few wands of lesser vigor effectively have bottomless hit point reservoirs as it is.

They may indeed have limitless hit points, but they are paying at least a nominal fee (at higher levels) for that ability. With unlimited healing, a party will always be fully healed at quite literally no cost. So long as the divine warlock survives, he will always be at full hit points, which is a pretty powerful ability. At higher levels it could work (when many characters are walking around with fast healing or regeneration), but having it any earlier than level 12~13 might be asking for trouble. My gut instinct is to limit healing in some way by either linking it to an inherently limited resource, by making it somewhat inefficient (tranforming damage into non-lethal, for example, is an excellent idea), or by making it downright costly (perhaps having it deal half the damage the divine warlock heals to the divine warlock).

 

[GreatLemur]

Quick thoughts on how to limit an "unlimited" healing power:

• Require the expenditure of some purchased resource for each healing, such as incense or gold dust or some other kind of ritual component (yeah, I thought of this after seeing Jackelope King's weapon-destroying healing power).
• Make the "healing" temporary, and actually cause some small amount of additional damage once it wears off. That way, it's only useful in the midst of combat, and can't be used to top the party up between fights.
• Make the healer burn his own hitpoints in order to heal others (probably at a favorable rate of exchange). Obviously, this "damage" can't be undone by the same healing power, not even by another healer.
• Make each use of the healing power provoke the risk of some lasting harmful effect. For example, the healer might be forced to make a Fortitude save (DC based on the damage healed, of course) to avoid losing her divine warlock powers for a day. (Naturally, this is only an effective limitation if your players aren't the types to just say that they stay camped for the whole day, doing nothing while the healer recovers.)
• Saddle the healing with some kind of negative side effect. An example of this kind of thing that I thought of a while back was a cleric who performed healings by asking his deity to share its own flesh with the injured character, replacing damaged tissue with divine. The drawback here was that the deity was some kind of dragon/serpent entity, and the replacement flesh was conspicuously scaly. The healed (and disfigured) characters would regain their normal appearance by "re-healing" the borrowed hit points through either natural means, or more normal magical healing. If scaly healing and a Bluff/Diplomacy penalty doesn't faze your players, then maybe the new flesh is stiff and clumsy, imposing a DEX penalty based on the amount of damage healed. Or maybe the more a character is healed, the more she will "owe" the deity behind the healing, becoming obligated to tithe treasure or go on pilgrimages?

These are all fairly half-assed ideas, and I'm not perfectly happy with any of them. Still, there might be something useful, here.

Another thing to think about is that maybe it's no so bad for a party to be able to heal itself fully in between fights. I've noticed that both pen-and-paper RPGs and MMORPGs seem to be heading towards faster, simpler post-combat healing, so that players only need to worry about their hitpoints in the middle of a fight, not after it. Something to think about, I guess.

 

[Jackelope King]

The more and more I think about it, the more I think that converting to non-lethal damage is probably the best way to go. It removes the entire resource-limiting aspect (which is arguably the single most appealing aspect of the warlock). The divine warlock remains and effective healer (i.e. under his watch, his friends will always have access to healing), but he will not be as efficient a healer as the cleric (who can have a party up and running in just a few minutes, while a divine warlock will only pull his allies out of the red, not into the green). This might present a problem if you're running a game where characters are immune to non-lethal damage (lich divine warlock anyone?), but if that's the sort of game you're playing, then odds are unlimited healing is the least of your concerns.

 

[apesamongus]

Have the divine warlock give temporary HP with some very long duration, probably 24 hours, and give them the type "divine" so they don't stack with themselves. So, if they don't get damaged beyond the temp HP, they can get re-buffed up to the same max, but of they are taken down low, they can't actually replenish and lost real HP.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Cabalists could have early access to aid, and subsequently get higher powered versions of it. The duration would be 1 minute/level but it might be 2d8+1 hp/level, 3d8 + 1 hp/level or more. But otherwise their healing could just convert lethal damage to nonlethal damage. Would that satisfy everyone?

They should have UMD and be able to take 10 on it, like warlocks. Then wands could be used in pinch.

For the other kinds of healing (not related to hit points) I suggest that initially they have a "transfer ailment" kind of power. They can transfer 1 point of ability score damage or drain, a negative level, blindness, or disease from one character to another. Possibly absorb the ailment, or absorb it and then give it to another character. The conditions are; the recipient of the ailment cannot be immune to it, and cannot already have it. The recipient must also be willing, not charmed or coerced.

Higher level powers could actually heal an ailment, but the ability to shift the load around could be very helpful even when you can't actually heal it.

Flavorwise, do people think that the divine warlock should be the "good twin" of the arcane warlock (what I call a cabalist), or should it still be chaotic or evil but with some healing abilities (what I call a cultist)?

 

[Jackelope King]

Cabalists could have early access to aid, and subsequently get higher powered versions of it. The duration would be 1 minute/level but it might be 2d8+1 hp/level, 3d8 + 1 hp/level or more. But otherwise their healing could just convert lethal damage to nonlethal damage. Would that satisfy everyone?

I think that captures the divine aspect of a divine warlock very nicely. A very minor quible: would it work better to make it a straight Xd8 or Xd6 instead of 2d8+1 per level? That way it could grow in power just like eldritch blast, and it will have a degree of limitation in its inherent randomness. So at first level we have 1d6 temporary hit points, and at third level it becomes 2d6 (or something similar). Coupled with non-lethal damage exchange, we cover healing in an unlimited format fairly well.

I'm not so certain that healing poison, disease, ability damage, curses, etc. should be givens. The beauty of the take 10 on UMD checks is that we allow these occassional worries to be covered by scrolls or wands. Maybe something to temporarily (one hour) surpress the effects would work, which means that in theory a divine warlock could keep a disease at bay indefinitely... if he sat up all night for weeks at a fighter's bedside until the bard got back with the remove disease scroll.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I think there is a 1st level spell somewhere called "suspend disease" - duration 1 day? That could easily be a cabalist power. Slow poison could be another given power. Or they could both be applications of a multiuse "slow metabolism" ability.

I think that cabalists should have a makeshift way of dealing with an ailment at the same level that clerics could cure it, but be able to cure it themselves 2 or 3 levels later. So they get suspend disease or "transfer disease" at level 5, and can actually cure disease at level 7 or 8. In principle they should be able to replace a cleric in a party; some things they might do better than a cleric, other things they won't do as well. But they should be able to do *something* about almost any condition.

How about an "emulate spell" ability? Perhaps they can only emulate spells that are up to half their class level (or less than half their class level; no emulation of cure disease until 8th level) Maybe it causes them 1 point of ability damage (not magically healable) per spell level emulated. Or maybe it makes them fatigued. Or both.

I like the proposal of giving temporary hit points the Xd6 format.

Maybe make the ranged healing (that converts lethal to nonlethal damage) be 30 foot ranged attacks that damage undead? (The ability could be upgraded to damage fiends, aberrations, etc.) It'd be sort of similar to the "damage undead" turning variant, except that it targets individual undead, and has unlimited uses. Such healing would not otherwise be very useful in combat, but would help ensure that people get knocked out instead of being killed.

Would cabalists depend on a particular ability score for their abilities? Warlocks can function fine with straight 10s, but I think that their save DCs are improved by Charisma. Should Wisdom play the same role for cabalists? I think it should. Again, if you are making cultists the chaotic and/or evil divine warlock, then they could stay with Charisma as their principal stat.

 

[Jackelope King]

Here's my thoughts on an initial divine warlock's list of spells. This version is more of a shaman/spiritualist than a priest, so I focused on that aspect for the flavor of the spells and abilities. At the moment I'm just using wisdom for the prime casting ability. I used "complex" and "exotic" spells in place of "greater" and "dark" just to differentiate it from the warlock's invocations... flavor reasons really:

Purify Effect Spells
Least Purify Effect Spells
Purifying Strike: Purify target with a ranged or melee attack.
Unnerving Purification: Targets must make Will save or become shaken.

Lesser Purify Effect Spells
Blur the Boundary: Target must make a Will save or become corporeal for one round.
Cascade of Purity: Purify deals electrical damage and cascades across foe.
Grasp of Purity: Target must make Will save or become stunned.
Soothing Touch of Purity: Convert a target’s damage to non-lethal damage with a touch.

Complex Purify Effect Spells
Clutch of Purity: Target must make Will save or become paralyzed.
Surge of Purity: Electrical purify damages target and secondary foes.
Vigor of Purity: Target gains temporary hit points which do not stack with themselves.
Wave of Purity: Damage all foes with purify in a line between target and yourself, Reflex save for half.

Exotic Purify Effect Spells
Maelstrom of Purity: Purify within 60 feet, plus targets must make a Fortitude save or be deafened.
Seal of Purity: Target must make a Will save or be trapped in stasis, but risk damage from target.

Purify Target Spells
Least Purify Target Spells
Purify Undead
Purify Outsider (Type)

Lesser Purify Target Spells
Purify Aberration
Purify Magical Beast

Complex Purify Target Spells
Purify Monstrous Humanoid
Purify Giant

Exotic Purify Target Spells
Purify Humanoid (Type)

Other Spells
Least Spells
Beguile Animal: Use charm animal as the spell.
Breath of Dreams: Short-lived cloud of fog renders foes unconscious and grants concealment.
Breath of the Night: Create a fog cloud as the spell.
Cloak of Nature: Gain bonus on Hide and Move Silently, plus leave no trail.
Favor of the Spirits: Gain a luck bonus on one type of saves.
Daylight: Use daylight as the spell.
Earthen Grasp: Use earthen grasp as the spell.
Helpful Spirit: Use wood wose as the spell.
Leaps and Bounds: Gain bonus on Balance, Jump, and Tumble checks.
Scent: Gain the scent ability.
Spirit Horse: Use phantom steed as the spell.
Summon Swarm: Use summon swarm as the spell.
Telling: Use augury as the spell.

Lesser Spells
Aid of the Spirits: Use prayer as the spell, plus allies are protected by mirror images.
Crumble: Use rusting grasp as the spell.
Elemental Puppet: Summon a medium earth elemental which looks like you in a cloud of dust.
Hoisted by the Winds: Use levitate as the spell or use gust of wind as the spell.
Overgrowth: Vegetation grows rapidly, blocking line of site and forming hidden pockets of thorny vines.
Phantasmal Warrior: An unseen spirit possesses your weapon and attacks for you.
Purifying Embrace: Use dispel magic as the spell, plus heal yourself.
Stony Grasp: Use stony grasp as the spell.
Suppress Ailment: Neutralize effects of poison or disease for one hour.
The Earth Speaks: Gain tremorsense out to 60 feet.
Winter’s Wrath: Use sleet storm as the spell.

Complex Spells
Gaping Maw of the Sea: Huge water elemental in vortex form strikes at your foes.
Phantoms of Smoke: Semi-real spirits protect you and weaken foes who attack them.
Spirit of the Wildfire: Change a large tree into a burning treant whose blows may set foes on fire.
Tongue of Endless Tales: Speak to any natural object or creature.
Wall of Ferocious Vines: Poisonous, thorny vines attack foes.
Warding Fumes: Protect yourself from living creatures but immobilize yourself.

Exotic Spells
Fell Desert’s Wrath: Become a cyclone of swarming sand.
Grasp the Whirlwind: Create a great whirlwind in your hand.
Guise of the Beast: Use alter self to transform into any animal.
Nature’s Way: Use tree stride as the spell, plus remain safely melded with tree to heal.
Whispers of the Spirits: Use commune with nature as the spell, plus scry on a target sensed through commune.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Hope this will help:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=370164