Do reserve feats make the Warlock redundant?

[Shade]

I always thought the flavor of warlock was a bit redundant anyway (filling the same flavor niche as the sorcerer), let alone nonsential (I get my abilities from fey and fiends, even though there are no fey and fiends with my abilities).

Now there's one...the soul demon in Dungeon #139. I know it's just one, but others may follow in time.

 

[TarionzCousin]

(and the character being evil or chaotic doesn't help in the self-policing department either).

Ahh, but doesn't Complete Mage allow for "good" warlocks now? I think I read that in the review. So your Warlock could be more responsible (and pick more daisies and skip everywhere he goes, if you're so inclined.)

 

[Ozmar]

It boils down to this: the warlock only does a few things, but does them ad infinitum. If the warlock picks invocations that turn out to be weak, then he'll always be doing something weak. If he picks something that's easy to exploit, then he'll be exploiting the heck out of it. "All things in moderation" is one of the better homilies out there for a reason, folks.

Sure, it's pretty handy for the party to have a warlock that walks around using dark speech to shatter everything--and I do mean everything--but it's also a pain in the neck for the guy running the campaign. Likewise, it's annoying to have a class that makes invisibile creatures pointless, or who you can count on to fill up every battlefield with masses of chilling tentacles, or who tries to charm every NPC and monster encountered. Now, please, nobody try to regale me with all the various ways these specific abilities I mentioned can be mitigated; not only are you unlikely to think of anything I haven't thought of, but you'd be kind of missing the point. Invocations will be in non-stop use, so any countermeasures have to be nigh-constant as well.

Worst of all, the player in question has every reason to think he should be allowed to use his invocations at every opportunity. It's what the class does (and the character being evil or chaotic doesn't help in the self-policing department either).

Looks good, plays bad.

Agreed. The biggest problem with the class is doing the SAME THING in EVERY BATTLE over and over. Its boring to play, and exasperating to DM.

-Ozmar the Critical

 

[Felon]

Thanks for agreeing with me, Ozmar--but now I must brace myself, for the cosmic laws of the internet dictate that someone reading your agreement will be compelled to take the role of contrarian and refute my simple and elegant logic.

 

[hexgrid]

Agreed. The biggest problem with the class is doing the SAME THING in EVERY BATTLE over and over. Its boring to play, and exasperating to DM.

-Ozmar the Critical

Do you mean the fighter? Or maybe the rogue?

 

[GQuail]

It boils down to this: the warlock only does a few things, but does them ad infinitum. If the warlock picks invocations that turn out to be weak, then he'll always be doing something weak. If he picks something that's easy to exploit, then he'll be exploiting the heck out of it. "All things in moderation" is one of the better homilies out there for a reason, folks.

...
Worst of all, the player in question has every reason to think he should be allowed to use his invocations at every opportunity. It's what the class does (and the character being evil or chaotic doesn't help in the self-policing department either).

Looks good, plays bad.

I think this is a very interesting perspective. As you say, if the warlock only has two or three non-Eldritch Blast SLAs, then of course he's going to use them every combat - and depending on what they are, that could get real dull real fast. And not just from a DM point of view - as a player, I think it could be a bit bleh too. In my current group we've got some PCs who because of spell-selection suffer a similar problem - great in their chosen fields but not much use outside a narrow band. With only 12 invocations to choose from during the whole career and a natural tendency towards ones that change the Eldritch Blast, it seems the Warlock could easilly fallinto a rut.

As to the core topic: Reserve feats don't give all the powers of the Warlock. For one thing, I've not seen anyone post for sure whether there's saves or not on things liek the lightning blast - and especially at higher levels, I fancy my chances with touch attacks more than I do with Reflex saves. The feats +1 to the caster level of the spells powering it will make players look forward to finally using up "the big one" and blasting their foes full-on, so I think we'll mostly see it being used to spellcasters can contribute to mook fights without wasting slots. Warlocks will also get a lot more flexibility as to how the damage is shaped, and the fact it's pure damage rather than a certain element type makes them a bit more generally useful too.

I think the list of reserve feats posted showed plenty of non-damage-dealing ones - stuff like getting a swim speed if you kept a water spell available. There's a lot that can be done with Reserve feats as well as just a faux Eldritch Blast, and people who want to stop the Warlock from being overshadowed by them could just rule out the aggressive ones. But I think they're a really cool idea, and help spellcasters to specialise in things otehr than the 8 Schools of Magic - give the sample lightning reserve feat to a wizard, let him take the metagmagic feat that allows him to memorize spells as a chosen element (Electricity, naturall) over the original, and you'd finally see a D&D caster with a reason to become a focused "Storm Mage" or whatever.

 

[Particle_Man]

I think this is a very interesting perspective. As you say, if the warlock only has two or three non-Eldritch Blast SLAs, then of course he's going to use them every combat - and depending on what they are, that could get real dull real fast. And not just from a DM point of view - as a player, I think it could be a bit bleh too.

I don't get bored with it.

Warlocks will also get a lot more flexibility as to how the damage is shaped, and the fact it's pure damage rather than a certain element type makes them a bit more generally useful too.

Until some monster has "Baleful Resistance 20" I suppose.

 

[Felix]

Agreed. The biggest problem with the class is doing the SAME THING in EVERY BATTLE over and over. Its boring to play, and exasperating to DM.

I think almost every character does nearly the same thing every battle; it's the tactics of how those same abilities are employed against different enemies with dissimilar weaknesses that make DnD combat interesting.

Yes, the warlock is going to stay at range and lob Eldrich Blasts; so will the archer. I see little difference here.

 

[Asmor]

For one thing, I've not seen anyone post for sure whether there's saves or not on things liek the lightning blast - and especially at higher levels, I fancy my chances with touch attacks more than I do with Reflex saves.

I'm not positive, as I'm at school right now and don't have access to the book, but I believe the lightning blast feat (Storm Bolt?) does not have a reflex save, it's just a 20-foot line. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense since spells without attack rolls usually have saves, but I think I remember looking for that specifically and not seeing it. Of course, the fact that it's only a 20-foot line is pretty limiting... it means that you need to be in close range, and you can't even hide behind the meatshield unless he's got some hefty lightning resistance/immunity.

To compare, there's a fire one that lets you make 5-foot radius blasts within 30 feet which does allow reflex for half, and an acid one which is a touch attack with a potentially longer range (5 feet/spell level).

Again, I could be wrong, but I think I remember hearing that spell resistance doesn't work against most of these feats either.

 

[Felon]

No save is mentioned for Storm Bolt.