Divine version of the warlock

[Drowbane]

While I admit that I actually like this title, it might be seen as a shot against the Sephardic Jewish community.

Favored Soul! Replace that silly divine sorcerer.

A divine "warlock" in many respects would out due the Cleric as a healer.

Eldritch Blast: curative blast? 1d6 to 9d6? You'd rock vs Undead, and at healing on the battlefield.

I don't want to get into possible invocations atm...

 

[Felon]

Do you have a name for a "divine warlock"? .

The initial concept is that of an empath. The basic iidea I was running with is that after healing a certain amount of damage, the empath begins to take nonlethal damage and maybe becomes fatigued (it's painful to take all those wounds upon oneself). The empath has other abilites available as well, mostly the ability to detect things and affect emotions. Reminiscent of the healer from the Minis handbook (but with a better design) with a hint of Arcana Evolved's akashic.

The alignment would be "any nonevil". I suppose an empath could go bad, dealing in negative emotional energy, but that seems more like the equivalent of an empath blackguard or ur-priest. On the other hand, I don't see all empaths being pollyanas; the concept of a healer having a detached, clinical outlook, seems as solid as the warm-hearted caregiver.

Great ideas, btw. I like the conversion of lethal to nonletha damage, essentially working witht the "reserve hit point" model provided in Unearthed Arcana.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I think the variants that Sollir Furryfoot links to are a little too close, mechanically, to the warlock. Mechanical closeness is to be legitimately expected when you use the word "variant," I suppose, but in this case it leads to some odd results. The "Gifted" (celestial warlock) substitutes doves and daylight instead of bats and darkness for Hungry Darkness. The image of doves pecking people to death just strikes me as wrong. Although at least the light isn't mechanically equivalent to darkness- a dazzling glare, or something. But still- being pecked to death by celestial doves?

@Drowbane: I think it would cause too much confusion to use the name Favored Soul. People would think you meant the other class.

And I'm thinking "stream of purity" or "celestial stream" instead of "curative blast." I think it should definitely be a default power (like eldritch blast is for the warlock) that converts a living target's lethal damage to non-lethal damage, and that damages undead. Different upgrades would allow it to affect fiends, aberrations, or constructs, improve the range, and so on, if that was the cabalist's schtick.

@Felon: I don't think it is necessary to mechanically limit the amount of healing the character can do. If it needs to be limited, I'd think that the lethal => nonlethal mechanic is sufficient. Parties would still need several hours rest to get back to full strength after a difficult battle. But I think that having parties being able to get their full hit points back after each battle should't be a problem. Maybe lethal => nonlethal at low levels, and real curing at mid levels?

@Jackelope King: A nice set of powers, but I'm afraid my mind is still focussing on what the cabalist needs to fulfill the cleric's niche. Kinda like how a druid can fill in for a cleric... mostly. So I'm thinking more about Suppress Ailment types of powers and stronger variations (I still think the duration is a little low.) Need some way to deal with paralysis, blindness, ability damage/drain, curses and negative levels. And raising the dead. The cabalist will probably have more powers than a warlock so that it can fulfill many (if not all) of these niches and still have options left that make the class fun to play. The abilities you list all look like fun, btw.

....Just looked at your list again. Do you think the "purity" theme might be laid on a little heavy? Seems a bit repetitive in that first section. Nice names for the rest of them, though.

 

[Jackelope King]

@Jackelope King: A nice set of powers, but I'm afraid my mind is still focussing on what the cabalist needs to fulfill the cleric's niche. Kinda like how a druid can fill in for a cleric... mostly. So I'm thinking more about Suppress Ailment types of powers and stronger variations (I still think the duration is a little low.) Need some way to deal with paralysis, blindness, ability damage/drain, curses and negative levels. And raising the dead. The cabalist will probably have more powers than a warlock so that it can fulfill many (if not all) of these niches and still have options left that make the class fun to play. The abilities you list all look like fun, btw.

The angle I'm approaching it from is using the Spirit Shaman abilities from Complete Divine as a base, so at level 11 you get a once per week raise dead and the ability to bar our possession at level 13. I've always liked the spirit shaman class for flavor, so I figured now would be a good time to salvage a bunch of the mechanics.

And you're right: the class I'm describing is somewhat deficient in the ability to cover for a cleric. In a way, that's intentional. I'm designing this for a setting which will only use invokers (warlock-types) as spellcasters. I've converted the hexblade to use the least and lesser warlock invocations (the two together will represent different takes on diabolist spellcasting tradition), while a converted ranger and this class will represent individuals who draw on the spirits of the land and of the dead for magic. I'm intentionally limiting the flexibility of magic in order to make spellcasters easier to handle for a few friends of mine who are new to D&D and who are not as good at resource management. In order to compensate for this, I plan on making spell-completion items like wands, scrolls, and staves the mainstay of magic items in the game, as well as making the creation of these items somewhat easier and more skill-based. That way, in the average party of mage, priest, thief, warrior, the mage and priest might only know a dozen spells between them, but given enough time and with enough expertise, they can sit down and concoct a spell (in the form of a scroll) to solve more complex problems (like curing disease, blindness, etc.). I'm envisioning this game as having a large trade between casters in scrolls and wands, with more powerful spellcasters trading staves like currency. All part of my ongoing tweaking with the magic system to find a style I like.

....Just looked at your list again. Do you think the "purity" theme might be laid on a little heavy? Seems a bit repetitive in that first section. Nice names for the rest of them, though.

More than likely. The problem with working in a mycology lab is that you rarely have access to a thesaurus when you need one