Warlock in Play

[Zephyrus]

I have to agree that I have concerns about several of the new alternate classes. Magic always seems to do that. Context often has a big determining factor in what is balenced and what is not.

In most cases it appears the warlock is fairly balenced and fair and quite reasonable. However their appear to be ways to break the mold and that is what I Think many people are realy worried about.

I tend to make the characters for my groups. Mostly cause I guess in some ways I'm good at breaking the mold. I dont think myself a powergamer. But I can come up with power designs. I like my characters to feel they are effective. So recently a friend wanted to DM a game and with CA just out we opted to do an all Arcane Party. The group started at everyone at 3rd level.

Gray Elf Warmage
Half-Elf Bard*
Human Sorcerer
Half-Orc Warlock*

(*we're using house rules where the Half-Elves get +2 CHA/-2 CON and Half-Orc get Toughness as a Bonus feat at 1st level and +1 HP each level after 1st)

The Warmage has a 20 INT and a 18 CHA and the Spellcasting Prodigy feat.
The Bard issently anything spectacular save for being a great performer.
The Sorcerer is taking several of the Draconic Heritage feats and is going to become a Dragon Disciple.
The Half-Orc has taken Medium Armor Profiency and Battlecaster as feats and Hidious Blow as one of its Invocations. It uses a Warmace 2 Handed

(we're also using the weapon groups optional rules from AU?)

What we ended up with was a VERY VERY Powerful party that was also extreamly fragile. Enemies able to stand up to the punishment we could throw at them were either deadly to the party or were no contest.

A Grayelf Warmage at 1st level with a 20 INT can cast Magic Missile 3+ times dealing 1d4+6 damage!

The Half-Orc has a 20 STR. At 1st level. Combined with his Hidious Blow he can deal 1d12 (Waremace) +7 (1-1/2 STR) + 1d6. Even if he was wearing light armor thats a tremendious amount of damage for a character to dish out. (Okay, not much more than a Half-Orc Fighter, but its still alot of damage and Concievably goes up to +2 or even +3d6 before the Fighter starts getting his itterative attacks.

As I said the party's fragile so the challenge for hte DM to do encounters that is a problem.

It just seems to me that several items appear to be too easily used in the extreame. Even w/o using the house rules to use weapon groups.

The Warlock and Warmage come across to me both as classes that can be taken advantage of more than others. OR at least sufficient restraints were not designed into their abilities. At least how powerful/easily abused they might be at various levels.

 

[Thanee]

As I said the party's fragile so the challenge for the DM to do encounters that is a problem.

Why should the DM do that? It's rather your job to see, that you come out alive from a challenge a regular party would have no trouble with, even though it takes them a round or two longer to blast the others away.

The Warlock and Warmage come across to me both as classes that can be taken advantage of more than others. OR at least sufficient restraints were not designed into their abilities. At least how powerful/easily abused they might be at various levels.

You said it yourself... fragile. There's your payoff for this kind of specialization.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Saeviomagy]

We were playing at around level 12, so the warlock was hitting three people with 6d6 blasts each, and confusing each one (as the DC for that save was very high). It was... devastating. He could blast and dimension door out, leaving behind a major image... and quicken invisibility to add to the confusion.

So where's the party wizard's simulacrum of a beholder while all this is happening?

No, I'm serious. That's the sort of stuff a wizard should be doing, and a warlock just cannot compete.

 

[ARandomGod]

So where's the party wizard's simulacrum of a beholder while all this is happening?

No, I'm serious. That's the sort of stuff a wizard should be doing, and a warlock just cannot compete.

Heheh. The wizard in the party a) didn't have that spell, a necromancer who chose enchantment and illusion as denied schools, and b) wasn't present. He would have made a substantial difference.

Only three of the party was present at the time of the attack. I know, you shouldn't split up, but we were attacked in the town, we thought we were safe. On the gripping hand, while this was a level 12 warlock, he was fighting characters at levels 12,15, and 16. That's an average of a party level 14+. And he defeated them handily.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Do recall that negative levels aren't level loss, only a penalty to actions - you never actually lose feats or skills or the like (though for a while there I was terrified of losing my Whirlwind Attack feat when fighting a swarm of wights.)

They can still kill ya anyway, I thought?

Random God, I'm just pleased as punch that someone else read those books. However, your usage was wrong; properly, it must be "On the one hand, on the other hand, on the gripping hand." Gripping hand can only be used after "one hand, other hand." Yeah, I'm a wanker, I know.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Only three of the party was present at the time of the attack. I know, you shouldn't split up, but we were attacked in the town, we thought we were safe. On the gripping hand, while this was a level 12 warlock, he was fighting characters at levels 12,15, and 16. That's an average of a party level 14+. And he defeated them handily.

So what were the party members that did get attacked? I find it hard to believe that they all failed the will save, were all subject to mind influencing powers, and not one of them had a ranged attack.

Yea, we've played with it. The warlock was awesomely powerful. In specific, he was using Bewitching Blast (will save or confused one roung) and the essence which allows you to chain attack multiple targets with your blast. The DC on that goes up with the warlocks level... We were playing at around level 12, so the warlock was hitting three people with 6d6 blasts each, and confusing each one (as the DC for that save was very high). It was... devastating. He could blast and dimension door out, leaving behind a major image... and quicken invisibility to add to the confusion.

The chain does half damage to secondary targets if I'm not mistaken. The DC for that power is around about 14+stat bonus. With ability focus, it's 16+stat bonus.

At best, he could quicken 3 times a day.

He can't blast and then dimension door out. He can blast, and then one round later he can dimension door.

And if THAT killed off those characters, then I hate to think what might happen if you ever met a real spellcaster.

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

You seem to tthink this class is vastly overpowered, but I think you are overlooking some major limitations.

The Warlock may have unlimited uses of the EB and invocations, but is severlt limited by the number of invocations known.

Take an 8th level Warlock vs an 8th level Sorcerer.

The Warlock gets unlimited uses of their invocations and has some pretty good choices, but has a total of 5 (3 least and 2 lesser) to choose from.

The Sorcere has at least 22 spells per day (7 - 1st lvl, 7 - 2nd lvl, 5 - 3rd lvl, 3 - 4th lvl) with a 14 charisma (minimum to cast 4th level spells; in reality it should be much higher) and 11 spells known (5 - 1st lvl, 3 - 2nd lvl, 2 - 3rd lvl, 1 - 4th lvl) and this doesn't include cantrips.

The Warlock's EB does 4d6 damage with a ranged touch attack and range of 60' unless he has Eldritch Spear, which increases the range to 250.

The Sorcere can do 8d6 damage 12 times (scorching ray or fireball/lightning bolt) as either a ranged touch attack or automatically (with a save for half damage) AND 5d6 damage 3 times (ice storm) or even out and out kill the opponent phanstasmal killer (save for 20 damage).

The Sorcere potentially has 15 attacks per day that can do more damage than the Warlock's EB. PLus even if the Sorcerer has all of the above damage spells, he still has 8 other spells known.

The Warlock has 5 total invocations known at 8th level regardless of charisma, 4 if he wanst his EB to have a range of 250'.

Keep this in mind when you explicate about how powerful the Warlock is compared to other classes. If he had access to every invocation whenever he wanted it he would be ready for every situation (and overpowered), however he has to choose carefully and will be limited in usefulness by his choices.

pbd

Must be a campaign style question - as GM I regularly have the casting characters IMCs running "dry" and these players are not some "trigger happy" folks, blasting away at every shadow, dustmote or strange noise - even at level 15 (the highest we currently play ). So "endless ammunition" would be pretty high on any caster's wish list, even it meant some limited-choice of effects. It's already an option in the rules - and what makes a sorcerer so attractive in comparison to the wizard.

And yes, "Dispel Magic" is a pretty common occurence IMCs, ripping away buffs and hence "permanency" effects are not high on anyone's to-have list.

As for the number of spells - a sorcerer must spend a sizable number of his spell's (usually 1 or more/spell-level) to keep his damage output competitive - while the Warlock doesn't. And the EB is always in addition to the number of invocations he has. Also, all "blast" shape invocations help all other effects delivered via the EB - such as confusion, nausea, acidic damage etc etc etc. too, which means these effects will usually have a better range then their "spell" equivalents.

As for Scorching Ray - you must hit with each missile separately, and the sorcerer has weak BA-progression,while the warlock has a medium one. Scorching Ray is also subject to Fire Resistance - a pretty common occurence. And it has "close" range, which means, the casting sorcerer is smack within charge range until 12th level for most humanoids/monsters.
EB is not subject to resistances (except SR), the warlock hits easier, and it can be delivered at greater range. Overall, the warlock looks pretty much a good candidate for taking Improved Critical rays, too.
Fireball is an AE-spell, has a reflex save for half AND is subject to evasion and Fire Resistance... So it usually does not yield anything close to its potential maximum damage.

And yes, a warlock needs to be played differently from a sorcerer, but so needs every class. And if played correctly/smartly, the warlock becomes a party killer par excellence. Should your GM feels nasty enough.........

 

[drnuncheon]

Unless someone figures out he's a warlock and decides that since the See the Unseen power is so good every warlock must have it, he can probably see invisible people. Test it with a low-level mook with a potion of invisibility, then if he's caught send things after him with ranks in hide instead of magic concealment. I don't see Spot on the warlock class skill list.

Wow...does anyone not use Hide in conjunction with invisibility? I mean, stands to reason if you know some people or things can see invisibility, you wouldn't solely rely on it if you were trying not to be seen...

J

 

[drnuncheon]

Also, all "blast" shape invocations help all other effects delivered via the EB - such as confusion, nausea, acidic damage etc etc etc. too, which means these effects will usually have a better range then their "spell" equivalents.

...and they cost you two invocation choices, while the spell only costs one spell choice, so they represent a much higher proportion of your resources - therefore, they probably should be better.

J

 

[Zephyrus]

Why should the DM do that? It's rather your job to see, that you come out alive from a challenge a regular party would have no trouble with, even though it takes them a round or two longer to blast the others away.

You said it yourself... fragile. There's your payoff for this kind of specialization.

For one, the DM is inexperienced (While I made the PC's and am normally the DM, I'm not running this game. though when we were brainstorming the all arcane party I was sorely tempted). But also. As I said, most of the creatures that could survive a round of combat with us could kill just about any one of us (even the Half-Orc, who's got about 1/3rd more HP than the rest of us) in like fashion. So the challenge is more so that its making an encounter thats fun, challenging and not a matter of which side goes first.



Theirs a thread about does a Warlock using Hidious Blow. Does using it provoke an AOO or does Hidious blow just count as a melee attack.. I can see having it count as a AOO might help balance the potential power of the ability. Just requires a casting on the defense check and with Concentration as a class skill its not so bad.