My take on the fourth warlock paragon path

[Shinen]

Warlock has become my favorite class in fourth edition, and I've been dissapointed in a couple things in particular. The first, and most obvious, is the number of Paragon Paths. My other gripe is that at one point Wizards mentioned the ability to enter into multiple pacts. This is my solution to both problems. Without further ado, the Pactmaster:

Pactmaster

Swindler, cheat, liar. These are all things a Pactmaster might be called. He has managed to form pacts with a multitude of entities in a gambit for his soul, and the souls of others. He can only hope that when collection time comes around, he will be more powerful than those same
entities.

Prerequisite: Warlock Class and Warlock's Curse Class Feature

Pactmaster Path Features:
Brilliant Action (Level 11): When you spend an action point to take an extra action, you gain a +1 bonus to your intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.

Pact Changing (Level 11): Each day, you may choose a pact. Until the next day, you are treated as belonging to that pact for the purposes of pact bonuses, and your at-will pact power is replaced by the respective pact at-will power. (If you already have the pact at-will powers of your current pact and the pact you are changing to, your powers do not change.) Your pact boon and warlock’s curse triggered abilities also change.

Curse Shifting (level 16): When a creature under your warlock’s curse drops to 0 hit points are fewer, you may change pacts as per the Pact Changing ability. If you choose not to, your intelligence modifier is counted as one higher for the purposes of your next warlock power that has a pact bonus and for the attack and damage of the Pact Blast power.

Pact Blast Pactmaster (All) Attack 11
Encounter * Arcane, Implement, Psychic
Standard Action Ranged 10
Target: One Creature
Attack: Intelligence Vs. Fort, Ref, or Will
Hit: 2d8+Int Psychic Damage
Effect: If you are Fey Pact, this targets will and you may teleport to an square within five squares of the target.. If you are Star Pact, this targets reflex, and the target takes half the damage at the beginning of next turn. If you are Infernal Pact, this targets fortitude, and you or an ally within five squares of the enemy may spend a healing surge.

Boon of the Pacts Pactmaster (All) Utility 12
Encounter * Arcane
Minor Action Personal
Effect: The next warlock power used this turn counts you as a member of its pact for the purposes of the pact bonus.

Servant of Many Powers Pactmaster (All) Utility 20
Daily * Arcane
Standard Action Personal Effect: Until the end of the encounter, you are treated as a member of every pact for the purposes of pact bonuses on powers, and for the Pactmaster power Pact Blast’s effects. You still target the defense based on your ‘true’ current pact.

I'm having a hard time judging the balance of this paragon path, and any help would be appreciated.

 

[WOLead]

Balance wise, I can't see a problem personally. Just a few things though.

Cursed Action doesn't make much sense outside of a MC. There is already a feat at the Paragon Tier that allows a Warlock to curse two enemies at a time, Twofold Curse.

Pact Changing: Change the following line from:
"Your pact boon and warlock’s curse triggered abilities also change"
by adding a qualifier to:
"Your pact boon and warlock’s curse triggered abilities also change if you have them."
This might be able to prevent an argument over whether a class that MCs into Warlock would get the Pact Boon when he uses that ability. As it is, a class that MCs into Warlock does not recieve the Pact Boon.

Curse Shifting: Make the Int modifier being counted as one higher also apply to Pact Blast

You may want to change the Hit on Pact Blast Pactmaster line:
Hit: 2d8+Cha Psychic Damage
to
Hit: 2d8+Int Psychic Damage
As the attack on it is from Intelligence. Strange, with the Warlock primaries being Cha and Int, but this Pact tries to allow a person to take advantage of the Encounter Pact Abilities as its main focus, so an Int based Attack roll would make a little sense.

Curse Shifting: Make the Int modifier being counted as one higher also apply to Pact Blast as its an Intelligence attack.

For the 20th Daily Power, I'm tempted to say change it. It seems a bit weak. Maybe just adding, "Add +2 to the Int Modifiers for any Warlock Power that uses them." Do not take my word on that though, as I may be missing something that makes this power worthwhile.

On the name, Pactmaster sounds too similar to the new DDI Warlord path, Pack Master. An alternative could be Pact Shyster. Shyster meaning "An unethical, unscrupulous practitioner, especially of law." fits rather well for the flavor text you have for this class.

Ninja Edit: Looking at the Pact Initiate feat, it says nothing about a person who MCs into Warlock on getting the Pact Bonuses on the Encounter Powers. They only recieve the At-Will as Per-Encounter and able to take the Paragon Path of the Pact, as useless as it seems for now. So the flavor of this Paragon Path may not be even worthwhile for a class that MCs Warlock. Maybe ignore the possiibilty of another class choosing this Path by insuring it can't be done with...
Prerequisites: Warlock Class and have not taken a Multiclass feat.
The poor Warlock is already making so many deals with in his own realm, how does he have the time swindling to work on a separate class.

 

[Shinen]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm going to apply a few thing you mentioned (namely pact blast being completely int based and changing the name. I'm not a DDI member so I didn't know about Pack Master, and I could see where that could get very confusing. I don't like the name Pact Shyster, however. While it keeps in line with the definition, its..well, semi-modern slang, and doesn't fit well in a fantasy setting IMO.

As for the level 20 power, I may up the power level some, but keep in mind a lot of the strength comes from making the level 11 power a very strong ability. And since its a paragon power, they HAVE to still have it...and I think its worth two standard actions to do that damage, and teleport, and heal somebody, and deal half that damage next turn, in addition to gaining the pact bonuses.

For the matter of multiclass not gaining the pact bonus...now that I look again, you're right. I'll have to make it warlock specific, then. Oh well.

 

[zerotkatama]

I get that you intend for Servant of Many powers to interact with Pact Blast, but if you have all 3 pacts going at once, what defense are you targeting with Pact Blast?

 

[Shinen]

I get that you intend for Servant of Many powers to interact with Pact Blast, but if you have all 3 pacts going at once, what defense are you targeting with Pact Blast?

Whatever pact you were considered before using Servant of Many Powers. That's actually listed just in the power, at the very end.

 

[WOLead]

Ah, I didn't catch that the level 20 power interacted with the level 11 power that well. I'll leave that one in your hands then.

As for the name, Pact Shyster isn't Medieval enough, I agree. It was just the closest I could come up to what the Flavor text resembles while being similar to the original name. What about Maestro of Perfidy or Magister Infidelitas?

Though I'm kinda curious how this will hold out if/when a fourth Pact is released one day.

 

[Shinen]

Though I'm kinda curious how this will hold out if/when a fourth Pact is released one day.

Not very well, I'd assume...but hey, all you'd really have to do is house rule in abilities for Pact Blast, and limit Servant of Many to a certain number of pacts.