Unreserved! or, Breaking the Warlock

[Nifft]

Over here I suggested a new kind of feat for the Warlock, which would give him the equivalent of what the [Reserve] feats give Sorc / Wiz / Cleric / Druid / Bards. Basically the ability to intrude like hell on their territory.

Having said that, I feel pressure to deliver. So here they are:

[Unlock] feats allow a Warlock to unlock powerful magical effects, but at great personal cost. Each use of such a feat drains his fell powers, such that his Eldritch Blast damage is reduced by -1d6 until he gets a good night's rest. Using an [Unlock] feat is a spell-like ability (rather than an Invocation). Each feat grants at least one, and another smaller benefit which applies when using certain magic items.


Planar Bastion [Unlock]
Prerequsite: Eldritch Blast +4d6
Benefit: You may use banishment as a spell-like ability; doing so costs you -1d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest. Additionally, any spell-trigger or spell-completion item that you use with the Abjuration school functions at +2 caster level.


Planar Breach [Unlock]
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blast +6d6
Benefit: You may use plane shift as a spell-like ability; doing so costs you -1d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest. Additionally, any spell-trigger or spell-completion item that you use with the Conjuration (Teleportation) sub-school functions at +2 caster level.


Planar Mastery [Unlock]
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blast +9d6
Benefit: You may use gate as a spell-like ability, except that you must pay any XP cost that would be associated with the spell; doing so costs you -3d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest. Additionally, any spell-trigger or spell-completion item that you use with the Conjuration (Summoning) sub-school functions at +2 caster level.


Eldritch Healer [Unlock]
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blast +2d6
Benefit: You may use lesser restoration or cure moderate wounds as a spell-like ability; using either costs you -1d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest. Additionally, any spell-trigger or spell-completion item that you use with the Conjuration (Healing) sub-school functions at +2 caster level.


Eldritch Elocutionist [Unlock]
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blast +7d6
Benefit: You may use holy word or blasphemy as a spell-like ability; using either costs you -2d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest. Additionally, any spell-trigger or spell-completion item that you use with the [Sonic] descriptor functions at +2 caster level.


Gimmie more!

Cheers, -- N

 

[borble]

Eldritch sword [Unlock]
Prerequisite: Eldritch Blast +5d6
Benefit: You may use true strike as a spell-like ability, lasting 3+ wis mod rounds; using either costs you -4d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest or dose 3d6 damage to you. 5 +wis mod charges per day.

ben

 

[Pyrex]

I'm not entirely certain what that's supposed to do.

As written, True Strike lasts until the end of your next turn or until discharged, making that an awful feat.

The other option is that it applies to all your attacks for 3+ rounds, which is horribly broken.

 

[borble]

but it removes 4d6 or dose 3d6 damage

 

[Nifft]

I'm not entirely certain what that's supposed to do.

AYE! You post in my thread, you comment on my work! (My avatar is cuter, after all.)

Surlyly yours, -- N

 

[accipiter]

Sounds cool and useful to me! I'm working on a Warlock NPC at the moment, and something like this would be quite appetizing. Quick question, though -- is that -1d6 to Eldritch Blast essentially a reserve, ie, if you have the feat and take the -1d6 to your EB, you can keep using the Plane Shift ability all day for that single reduction? Or do you take a fresh -1d6 to EB with every use of Plane Shift?

"Each use of such a feat drains his fell powers, such that his Eldritch Blast damage is reduced by -1d6 until he gets a good night's rest" seems pretty clear that it's stacking reductions to EB, but, meh, I'm confused anyway. (I sometimes wonder if I fill the niche of "test fool" for achieving "foolproof".)

 

[Nifft]

"Fresh" -1d6 each time. So you have a limited number of uses total, and each use reduces your effectiveness overall for the day.

I've left the concept of "rest" intentionally vague, but it should be similar to what Clerics & Sorcerers need to do to get back spells.

Cheers, -- N

 

[DarkKestral]

Nifft, I'm not quite sure how you're going about the entire reserved feats thing...

Are you trying to produce uber-powerful one-shot abilities at the expense of the warlock's general tendency to have fairly OK abilities that are always active or trying to emulate the reserve feats use of not spending a resource (in this case, d6s of eldritch blast damage) to gain some other ability?

If it's the first, it should have a recharge smaller than that.. I'd think that a 1d4+1 round recharge that had a -2d6 eldritch blast penalty for the duration of the recharge would be better, with the right limitations, as the main determinant of power for most games at higher levels, and even to some degree at lower ones, is still combat actions. If you risk anywhere from 40 average damage for a heal of 38 hps average at 20th level barring any additional benefits from feats and other abilities, you'd better not get punished too much further if you're paying for a feat slot for that heal. Maybe add a cannot heal a character to >50% of total HP limitation or something.. like the new healing touch reserve feat.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Why not a generic [Unlock] feat:

Prerequistes: A number of EB dice equal to the chosen spell level

Benefit: In exchange for a reduction of your EB damage you can cast a chosen spell as a spell like ability. Each casting of the spell reduces your EB dice by a set amount. You regain EB dice at a rate of 1 point per hour of rest.
You may chose any spell from the Sorcerors spell list.
The reduction is based on the chosen spell level, for each 3 levels the reduction increased by one.
You must pay the material component GP cost by expending 1 XP for each 5 GP as well as any related XP costs.
Special: If you have taken a Metamagic Feat you can take an unlock feat for a spell with the feats abilities applied.
You can take this feat multiple times, selecting a new spell each time.


Examples:
to take [Unlock: Mass Heal] the character needs at least 9D6 of EB capability. Each use of Mass Heal reduces his EB ablility by 3D6.

to take [Unlock: Identify] the character needs at least 1D6 of EB capability. Each use of Identify reduces his EB ablility by 1D6 and he must pay 20 XP {100 gp value /5).

to take [Unlock: Quickened True Strike] the character needs at least 5D6 of EB capability and have taken the Quicken Metamagic feat. Each use of the Quickened True Strike reduces his EB ablility by 2D6.

 

[Nifft]

Why not a generic [Unlock] feat

First off, that's mostly brilliant.

Second: add something about paying XP cost, and prohibit some spells -- wish should be legal, miracle should not. Also planar binding should be legal, but not planar ally. I note you write about the Sorcerer spell list, but also have mass heal as your example spell, so I'm a bit confused.

Third: some spells are just too weak. Restoration might be worth a feat, but cure light wounds just isn't. So some mechanism for upgrading would be nice. Like, you get the lesser, regular, and greater version of a spell when you qualify for them. That would cover the planar binding and restoration lines.

Fourth: I kinda like the secondary benefits, both to the original [Reserve] feats and to my [Unlock] feats. How would you model this with the generic feat?

- - -

However, the healing thing that I wrote is just plain wrong. Emulating a single spell is bad in this case; the scaling is terrible.

Resilient Gift [Unlock]
Prereq: Eldritch Blast +2d6
Benefit: You can cure damage or ability damage as a spell-like ability; using either costs you -1d6 Eldritch Blast damage until you rest. Additionally, any spell-trigger or spell-completion item that you use with the Conjuration (Healing) sub-school functions at +2 caster level.

You can heal hit point damage or ability damage according to your caster level (in the class that grants you Eldritch Blast) as follows. You can cure 4 hp / level, or you can cure ability damage equal to 1 / 3 levels. Alternately, you can remove a single condition or effect that imposes a penalty on ability scores (such as Fatigue or a ray of enfeeblement).



Cheers, -- N