Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Warlock

[Pezmerga]

I am kicking around ideas for a Pathfinder Warlock.

Now this looks like a lot to me without playtesting. I basically added in the Hellfire Warlock Prestige abilities. Now, The other way I thought about doing this was by making the Hellfire Blast into an invocation. Maybe make the +2d6 one a Lesser, the 4d6 one a Greater, and the 6d6 one a Dark one? Same with Hellfire Shield and Infusion... I really like the idea of including infusion in the base class as a feature though.

I did up the progression of the base Eldritch Blast Damage, and added more invocations as well. Perhaps all 3 Hellfire Warlock Abilities should be Invocations? Perhaps I should nix that idea altogether and make a feat that ups EB damage to d8s? Add Charisma to damage? Con? Basically I feel like the warlock lacks blasting power in the mid-upper levels. He doesn't need to be on sorc level (nor should he), but imo it could definitely use a boost.

Heck I even thought of making EB a Standard Ranged Attack (not touch) just to justify upping the damage. Maybe create a feat that turns it into a touch attack for later on in levels? Then maybe doing a Full BAB? Or I could do like monk and just let them use their class level for BAB when using EB? Having a Full BAB would make it easier to use some of the lower level Shapes that involve attacking with a melee weapon too...

Anyway I am looking for input. I read a lot of discussions already, but nothing that really satisified. Also level 6 and 18 still sorta bother me... I would like to distribute the abilities a little better too. But I don't wanna imbalance the lower levels by moving up DR1 and such...

 

[Pezmerga]

I see a mistake,
Change Level 13 Fiendish Resilience to 4, and level 18 to 6.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I see as perfectly reasonable power up the EB by 1 die from the old level, AND add the use of hellfire on the top of it. Nice Idea, I like it a lot.

I like it more than the invocation option... just add in some mechanic to recover quickly from THAT damage (not stat damage in general).

You could add an high level feat that enables the use of EB as a full attack (maybe few times a day, like the APG alchemist).

I see the option of a feat that raises the damage to d8 perfectly reasonable, but of course you could consider all the three things together OP.. so let's hear what the internet thinks in this regard

I appreciate a lot the increase of invocations known - warlock disperately needed it. I wonder if to raise them to 1/lvl would be too much.

Consider the option to add one that binds fiends (or maybe fey, too), but from a specific, restricted list.

If you opt to add Charisma or Con to damage, remember that con to damage does not synergize so well with the Hellfire ability, until level 20 (unless you want to make the mechanic interesting because of the choice).

 

[Pezmerga]

I kinda like the idea of the warlock trading something of himself for more power...

Could change the Hellfire Blast to take hp damage instead of Con Damage..and maybe make it usuable con or cha/day to balance that.

Another option is to maybe make the hellfire blast a class option and instead of the con damage each use, make it usable CON (or CHA) mod/day and when you select it as a class option you lose 1 hp per level and gain 1 hp less per level permanently. Of course we could come up with other options too. Of course I don't have any other options cooked up yet. To make this viable we would have to cook up more powers....Or maybe just make a Defensive/Control option too and let the class branch into two different paths, kinda like the ranger.

Hell maybe even make some abilities that they can buy with permanent HP loss, and put a level restriction? Could almost do away with the invocation system completely then! or Just let you "buy" new ones with hp and go back to the old Invocations per level. Just have to restrict how many powers you can buy per each level and such.

This is a little more radical of a change though.

 

[xXxTheBeastxXx]

I actually worked a warlock into my pile of custom classes as a variant off the witch (spontaneous casting, added eldritch blast, re-worked hexes into invocations, added detect magic and deceive item to the list of abilities.

Overall, I feel like your table is a little jam-packed. You've got some cool abilities in there, but I think it needs a little more variance. That's one of the hallmarks of PF classes over 3.5, the choices (rogue talents, magus arcanas, etc.). I understand that it gets 16 invocations to choose, but I think it needs some selectable class abilities as well.

Mayhaps a bloodline option? I originally ran with this idea, then scrapped it when the witch came out. One of the points of the 3.5 warlock was its power came from demonic heritage.

Also, full BAB with EB doesn't sound too bad.

-The Beast

 

[krupintupple]

has anyone had any experience with turning fiendish resilience into a flat-out fast healing X ability? i was toying with this, kinda making it like the dragon shaman's healing auras, so it only works up to half-health. then again, the warlock isn't really the most broken class, so i was wondering if anyone's ever considered just giving them a de-powered fiendish resilience; like fast healing 1 at level 8, etc. and calling it a day?

 

[Qumi]

Why not use ideas from Dnd 4ed? A warlock would choose a pact with some power, maybe similar to sorcerer's bloodlines? Specific invocations would have additional mechanics/powers depending on the pact, the warlock would get some different abilities instead of fiendish resilience or so, if he/she would choose other than hell pact option.

For example:

Fay pact

Fay paths -as an immediate action character can teleport 10 ft + 1 ft/lvl. This ability can be used 1 time a day at 4 lvl and 1 time more every 4 lvls. This ability replaces Fiendish resilience.

Beguiling arcana - add +1 to Difficulty check of your mind affecting invocations. At 8 lvl add +2. At 16 lvl add +3. At 20 lvl add +4.

Fay beauty - Add twice as much charisma bonus to charisma based skills. This ability lasts 10 minutes. It can be used 1/day at 5th lvl, 2/day at 10th lvl, 3/day at 15th lvl. At 20 lvl it is constant and active all the time. For example Meelis has 18 Charisma, thus +4 charisma bonus. He has 8 ranks in Diplomacy and with charisma bonus 12. When he uses this ability he get +8 charisma bonus and thus has 16 in Diplomacy.

and so on...

Invocations:

Beguiling influence
Fay pact: the caster gains Ranger's ability "Wild Empathy", but uses his warlock lvl to determine wild empathy check.
Dark pact: the caster also adds the bonus from this invocation to Sense Motive.
Star pact: the caster can use Diplomacy, Bluff or Intimidate check to cause temporary madness upon one humanoid. The DC is 10 + wisdom mod of the target + the numer of HD of the target. If the check succeeds the target in confused for 1 + your charisma modifier turn.

Leaps and bounds
Fay pact: the caster gains Woodland stride ability.
Hell pact: the caster is affected by constant Feather Fall.
Dark pact: the caster gets bonus +10 instead of +6 when the caster is in dark area, shadows or shadowy illumination.


these are just simple examples, made very quickly

 

[Falling Icicle]

In the conversion I made of the Warlock for Pathfinder I just did the following:

- Increased hit die to d8.

- Added Acrobatics (to replace Jump) and Fly to their class skills.

- Eldritch Blast damage scales by +1d6 every 2 levels (up to 10d6 at 19th level).

- Bonus Item Creation feat at 12th level to go with Imbue Item.

Really, nothing else is needed. The Warlock was already a very solid class, so little change is needed to bring it up to Pathfinder standards. If you still think the class needs a bit of a buff you could give them an eldritch pact, similar to a sorcerer bloodline that grants certain invocations and maybe a couple other features.

As for Hellfire, I would not make that a normal part of the class. It's a very exotic power meant for the most daring infernalists and doesn't fit many warlock character concepts. You could always make the Hellfire abilities invocations if you really don't like the prestige class. Hellfire Blast (+6d6 damage, 1 Con damage per use) works well as a Greater Eldritch Essence Invocation, for example.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

What about the capstone? Every PF class has one.

Well, for clerics it depends from domains, and Barbarian has one capstone at 17 and one at 20, weaker.. but overall....

 

[Borthos]

I would agree in keeping the hellfire blast off of the normal list, but i'd make imbue item to 10, and at 14th and 18th give them a new item creation feat. maybe?

Keep the invocations at 16 though, that's a much better improvement