Draconic Warlock

[Sravoff]

Has any one done any tweaking to the warlock to make it more dragon based as aposed to demon based?

I saw a thread awhiel ago that was looking for warlock changes, and I just nnow got the draconic idea.

I am thinking of letting em take draconic feats from Complete Arcane. How ever drop all their spell levels to one half their level equivalents.

The eldritch blast probably needs soom tweaking, and most the invocations need to be renamed and slightly tweaked.

The main tweak that will be the hardest is the special qualtities I think.

Their DR should probably be magic
Deceive Item doesn't fit that well I don't think
Fiendish resilience has to change, but I am not sure what to
Energy resistance needs to be changed to match the dragon type the character models after
and imbue item has to with deceive item.

has any oen done any of this sort of tweaking?

 

[Nyaricus]

Also see the Celestial version here:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=153826

 

[Sravoff]

Also see the Celestial version here:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=153826

I'll re post the draconic warlock when I get it looking as good as that one,

 

[Nyaricus]

heh heh I dunno, I saw that before, and just thought I'd give you a heads up on it. Hope it helps for balance and such!

Later man!

 

[Sravoff]

I meant format wise, unlimited healing is quite a problem.

Ay way, here is what have so far.

Changes To The Warlock

Eldritch Blast: Change to Draconic Bite. Instead of calling upon baleful arcane energy to blast foes, the Draconic Warlock calls the essence of a dragon to Bite foes. The dragon called always is the same as the dragon type chosen with Draconic Heritage, (see below). This deals damage identical to eldritch blast except for this cange. The damage is piercing damage instead of arcane.

Gain Draconic Herigate as a bonus feat at first level

Draconic Feats: The Draconic Warlock is eligible for all Draconic feats in the Complete Arcane book. However, all spell levels are divided by half for the purose of useing invocations or Draconic Bite powers to power the feats. Any invocation used cannot be used for 1d4 rounds thereafter.

Damage Reduction: Use the barbarians damage reduction progression, except that Magic over comes the DR.

Lose the following
A) Decieve Item
B) Imbue Item
C) Fiendish Resilience

Draconic Skin: As a standard action, the Draconic Warlock may sumon the essence of dragon skin from one of his ancestors. This gives the Draconic Warlock a Natural Armor bonus of +5. At level eleven and every five levels after, the Natural armor bonus increases by 3. This ability last for 2 minutes.

Energy Resistance: One of the energy types chosen must match the energy type of the draconic breath weapon chosen for the Draconic Heritage feat.

 

[Dagredhel]

This is a neat idea.

I'm surprised, though, that you haven't started off by trying to emulate the Eldritch Blast power as some sort of quasi-breath weapon. (I say "quasi-breath weapon" because I suppose it would have to remain a ray/ranged touch attack for balance purposes.) The Blast Invocations are actually quite similar in concept to the metabreath feats in the Draconomicon.

Does "Draconic Bite" do half damage to objects like a standard Eldritch Blast?

Making Invocations unavailable for 1d4 rounds after using a Draconic feat that normally is triggered by spellcasting is a nifty idea, insofar as it mirrors the 'recharge' time for a dragon's breath weapon. To be honest, though, I think some of the effects you'd get from the feats would be better modeled by invocations (Draconic Breath and Flight, in particular.)

Why use the Barbarian progression for DR? Barbarian DR increases at 7, 10, 13, 16 and 19. The Warlock gets DR sooner, with 3, 7, 11, 15, 19. And as to the type, I think it's probably much more likely that a character will face opponents with magical weapons than cold iron, so if anything the progression should be better, not worse.

I'd also think about keeping Deceive Item and Imbue Item, unless you just don't like them in principle. They (Imbue Item in particular) give the class parity with actual spellcasters when it comes to magic items, since they don't have a spell list.

 

[Dagredhel]

"Draconic Skin": The dragonskin spell from the Draconomicon lasts 10 minutes per level, and provides both natural armor and DR vs. one energy type. It also caps out at a +5 bonus, like Barkskin. So my feeling is that by comparison your Draconic Skin ability has too short a duration and grants too much natural armor at higher levels (especially for a class that can utilize light armor.) By comparison, the toughest true dragons, Gold and Red, have only natural armor +7 and +6, respectively, when medium-sized.


Natural armor fits the class concept, but maybe it should be gained earlier and max out at +5 (at least through level 20.) Unless it is "always on" (which I don't have a problem with,) I'd suggest the duration should be longer (10 minutes per level?) and the number of uses per day should increase as well.

Increasing HD (maybe a progressive increase like with the Dragon Disciple) would also help to bolster the class' survivability.

It would also make more sense if the Energy Resistance was versus one type only. The amount of Energy Resistance could be increased as partial compensation.

I'm also thinking that if the class still ends up falling a bit short of the Warlock in power, it would be easy enough to adjust by increasing the number of Invocations known.

 

[Nifft]

Here's my suggestions:

1/ Drop the DR. Instead, grant Energy Resistance 5 at 3rd level, 15 at 7th, 30 at 11th, and immunity at 15th. Consider giving a Natural Armor bonus at the levels when the Warlock would have gained Energy Resistance.

2/ Breath Weapon. I think it would be balanced to have a breath weapon that is an Supernatural ability, but only if it deals energy damage, has a recharge time, and can't be extended in range. Energy resistance is common (especially at higher levels), and having access to Draconic Feats is cool.

3/ Drop the Shape / Essence invocations. Use some of the effects from dragon breath spells found in Draconomicon instead -- change them into Invocations, of course. Also, an Invocation that gave you a Bite attack would be cool.

4/ Higher HD. d8 would probably be fine. Make sure there are not a lot of long-range Invocations, though.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dagredhel]

Energy Resistance: should be to one type of energy, corresponding to the character's dragon ancestry. I think 5/10/15/20 at levels 5/10/15/20 is a reasonable progression (that could be continued into Epic levels.)

Damage Reduction: -/magic at the same levels as the Warlock (3/7/11/15/19).

Breath Weapon:: Merging Eldritch Blast and a breath weapon are problematic for several reasons. Look at the differences:

Eldritch Blast vs. Breath Weapon
ranged touch attack vs. area attack
invocation vs. supernatural ability
attacker can interrupt use vs. no Concentration check required
no Save vs. Save for 1/2 damage
1/2 damage vs. objects vs. full damage vs. objects (plus no save in many cases)
usable every round vs. recharge time of 1d4 rounds after use
"arcane" (unspecified) damage vs. specific energy type

I'm still trying to think of ways to reconcile the two.

Fiendish Resilience - replacement ability: I realized the other day that this mid- to high level Warlock ability mimics a chain of Druid spells (i.e., the vigor spells from Complete Divine.) And since the 8th level ability mimics a low level spell, the replacement ability shouldn't be too tough, either. My new improved suggestion is immunity to sleep and paralysis effects at 8th level, and then a +4 natural armor bonus for 1 minute/level at level 13, replaced by Draconic Might (spell from Draconomicon, +5 to Str, Con, and Cha, +4 natural armor, duration 1 minute/level) 1/day at level 18.

 

[Dagredhel]

Breath Invocations

How about the following:

Breath Invocations

Dragon's Breath
Least;1st
You can belch forth a gout of damaging energy, corresponding to the breath weapon of your draconic progenitor, at an adjacent target. The type of energy damage is chosen when this ability is first selected. The amount of damage is 1d8 at 1st level, +1d8/2 additional levels through 11th level, and +1d8/3 additional levels thereafter. This is an area effect targeting a single adjacent space; no attack roll is required, but the target is allowed a Reflex save for 1/2 damage. Once used, minor breath weapon can not be used again for 1d4 rounds, as per a true dragon's breath weapon. Dragon's Breath need only be initially invoked once per day, and may then be employed as noted above for 24 hours.

Lesser Dragon's Breath
Lesser; 4th
Your Dragon's Breath becomes a 30-foot line or a 15-foot cone shaped burst. Like the type of damage dealt by your breath, the shape of your Lesser Dragon's Breath must be decided when the invocation is first selected, and is the same thereafter. (This invocation does not allow you to switch back and forth between a line and cone.)

Greater Dragon's Breath
Greater; 6th
The reach of your Dragon's Breath becomes a 60-foot line or a 30-foot cone shaped burst. Like the type of damage dealt by your breath, the shape of your Greater Dragon's Breath must be decided when the invocation is first selected, and is the same every time it is used. (This invocation does not allow you to switch back and forth between a line and cone.)