The Star Pact Handicap

[Eldorian]

I still don't see what the hubbub is all about. In 4e, you get either two primary stats, or a primary stat and two secondary stats (optimally, you can do whatever you want if you don't care about being good at what you do). The Star Pact warlock is best served by two primary stats, con and cha.

 

[Khaim]

I still don't see what the hubbub is all about. In 4e, you get either two primary stats, or a primary stat and two secondary stats (optimally, you can do whatever you want if you don't care about being good at what you do). The Star Pact warlock is best served by two primary stats, con and cha.

No. You either have one primary and a choice between two secondaries, or one secondary and a choice between two primaries. The warlock falls into the latter category. The problem with the Star Pact is that it takes away your choice: you need both primary stats, and your secondary. Any other class with double primaries (cleric, paladin, ranger) can completely ignore one in favor of the other. A Fey or Infernal warlock can as well. A Star warlock can't.

That said, the Star pact boon is by far the best, and makes up for any minor difficulties in power selection. If I were playing a warlock, I'd take Star (and multiclass into a good paragon path).

 

[Nifft]

The problem with the Star Pact is that it takes away your choice: you need both primary stats, and your secondary.

Disagree. IMHO one can play a strong Star Pact Warlock and ignore either Charisma or Constitution.

Cheers, -- N

 

[exodus747]

Yes, you could take two minor cursing actions, then spend your action point to attack twice.

you can put 2 curses out in one turn Uhh i don't think u can
PHB page 131 Once Per Turn as a minor action, you can place a warlocks curse on the enemy nearest you that you can see

2 things 1 st Once per turn 2 cd the nearest creature you can see only one creature can be the nearest and once means once.

 

[Nifft]

the nearest creature you can see only one creature can be the nearest and once means once.

It's possible for two creatures to both qualify as "nearest", but once does indeed mean once.

-- N

 

[Rystil Arden]

Disagree. IMHO one can play a strong Star Pact Warlock and ignore either Charisma or Constitution.

Cheers, -- N

I agree with Nifft. I've made a pretty darn powerful Star Pact Charisma build with Tiefling (the better to Fear you with) that simply ignores Con. The inability to use Dire Radiance is regrettable, but it hits a lot with its Cha Fear powers, has scary-good Int-based debuffs, and can eventually leave even solos unable to act for many many rounds.

Unrelated note--Looking more closely at the Rods due to reading this thread, it strikes me that Rod of Reaving will allow a level 5 (or whatever level you get the Rod) Warlock to kill minions instantly of arbitrarily high level. Forget the Cleave-your-friend-to-hit-the-minion strategy, this is more effective and safer too!

 

[jedrious]

You know I had this arguement with one of my players in my Sunday game, he went with the 3.x mentality and purchased an 18 str with point buy and as a human made that a 20, unfortunately he now qualifies for nearly no feats, his combat superiority ability is comprimised and his weapon based powers don't grant him any benefit, whereas the other fighter in the group used the 16,14,14,12,11,8 array and chose Elf, ending up with 16 str, 12 con, 16 dex, 8 int, 16 wis and 11 cha, a Half-Elf or Tiefling can pull this off with Con, Int and Cha being their 16s and can keep their constitution and charisma equal throughout their progression and you really won't notice the lower attack and damage


also remember that a Warlock/Whatever/Demigod using the star pact Doom of Delban and Divine Regeneration can put out more hurt in an encounter than any other build with complete reliability (the cascade of blades exploit is entirely too situational and only works if the enemy just stands there and takes it)

 

[Eldorian]

No. You either have one primary and a choice between two secondaries, or one secondary and a choice between two primaries. The warlock falls into the latter category.

You miss the point. The way the game works, a character could easily have his Con and Cha within 2 points of each other all the way to 30. A star pact warlock can have a good Con and a good Cha. He doesn't NEED Int. So, from stat purchasing point of view, a character either has two primaries, ie, he ups those two every time he gains stat points, or a primary and 2 secondaries, ie, ups the primary every stat gain, and ups the secondary every other stat gain, and this is basically the optimal way to level a character in the game.

A half elf warlock could easily start with an 18 con and an 18 cha, and have them be equal and as high as he can get them all the way to 30. Most other star pact "warlock races" will have one of them 18, the other 16.

This is not a big deal. No more than a cleric who wishes to have both melee and ranged powers, or a ranger who wishes to have melee and ranged powers, or a paladin who wishes to use str and cha powers, and etc. You'll sacrifice the secondary bonuses of having Cha, Wis, or Wis, in my 3 cases here, but you'll make up for it with versatility. Considerable versatility actually. Which is what star pact has, as people have mentioned, targeting different defenses and having different effects.

This entire thread displays 3e thinking. In 4e you always increase 2 or more stats when you gain stat points. You can have two primary stats.

 

[Rystil Arden]

This entire thread displays 3e thinking.

Nope, not really. It displays 4e thinking.

If you aren't getting the Int boosts for picking the Star Warlock powers, you only have the one at-will and the Curse kill bonus to distinguish you at all from a Fey or Infernal Warlock cherrypicking some Star Warlock powers (except that the Fey or Infernal Warlock will be actually getting their intended Int bennies with their own powers). Int for a Warlock exists to give you benefits for sticking with your own pact's specialty powers. You really miss out on some powerful and nasty abilities if you ignore Int.

For instance, consider Sign of Ill Omen (a sweet Star power) at level 8 for the Cha/Con balanced Star Warlock with 20 in both Cha and Con (Half-Elf or Hobgoblin) and 10 Int and for the Cha/Int Star Warlock with 20 Cha and Int (Tiefling). Let's say you use this on a solo. The solo can probably hit on about an 8 with its attacks.

So the Cha/Con Star Warlock has reduced its hit rate from 65% to 42.25%. Not too shabby. That's better than giving the enemy a -4 to hit.

What about the Cha/Int Warlock? She can do much better--she reduces the hit chance to 16%! That's quite excellent.

There are many examples of things like this where Star Pact Warlocks get an interesting advantage for having high Int (and not something ho-hum like a tiny bit more damage by adding in Int). Ironically, because of this, it makes more sense for the Star Warlock to treasure Int, when she can least afford to do so (unless you dump one of the two attack stats).

 

[Eldorian]

There are many examples of things like this where Star Pact Warlocks get an interesting advantage for having high Int (and not something ho-hum like a tiny bit more damage by adding in Int). Ironically, because of this, it makes more sense for the Star Warlock to treasure Int, when she can least afford to do so (unless you dump one of the two attack stats).

Have you perhaps thought that a star pact warlock with decent int (he's not going to have a 10 here, guys), but with primary stats con and cha, gains a lesser benefit on these powers in return for his versatility in choosing powers that affect numerous defenses, pays for this versatility by losing out on crazy high pact bonuses, and this is in turn balanced by those powers having better pact bonuses than the other two pacts, and a star pact warlock who maximizes con or cha and int gains a benefit of good pact bonuses at the cost of power selection?

I personally like all 3 pacts.