Warlocks being broken?

[Naxas]

I know I am a little late to the conversation but as far as warlocks being broken, they are not unless you try to make them that way which isn't hard, giving them as high dex as posible, a rod of magical precision, a chasuble of fell power, gloves of eldritch admixture, elven chain, ammulet of nat armor, ROP, helm of glorios recovery, gloves of dex, and if posible a fing of freedom of movement for items. combine that with fell flight walk unseen, see the unseen, eldriitch spear,baleful utterance, swimming the styx, flee the scene, and vitrolic blast, for invocations and you are almost imposible to kill in most fights. Also if your DM is anything like me or any of the DM's I have had, practiced spellcasting works the same way as choosing a PRC, so it works just fine.

also to those who said a warlock is not a decent NPC villian or that the CR is to low, using the basic options I have above I used a 14th lvl warlock with a 1 ecl for catfolk, so 15 total against 3 PCs of 16th lvl a barbarion, ranger, and a cleric if memory serves me, and the only way they killed it was through divine favor, but the barbarion was lost in the first couple rounds, and the ranger couldn't reach the 250 ft up and still get through the things armor, and clerics spells did next to nothing in the way of damage, I think he had mostly suport spells ready. but that was only like my second time trying to DM, and I gave up after that because I wiped a party of like 6 or 7 with a couple storm giants my first atemp.

All that aside a warlock is a very survivable class low damage doesn't matter if you don't die, as a matter of fact the only way one of my warlocks has ever died as a PC is after being grapled, because they are almost helpless in graples (hince the ring of freedom of movement).

Back on topic the best way to answer the question is the warock broken is to ask this question. Is it broken to have my lvl 3 warlock, lvl 4 warmage, lvl6 eldritch theurge, do a max of 25d6 and most of the time 21d6 or 18d6? you tell me.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Warlock isn't particularly front-loaded, so dipping Warlock doesn't help much.

Warlock's a very good dip for most classes that don't wear medium or heavy armor. One level of Warlock is a good fallback attack for any archer or arcanist, with an invocation that can either extend your range or give you another useful at-will ability. Two levels of Warlock is detect magic at will and a second invocation. Devil's Sight, See the Unseen, Spiderwalk, Baleful Utterance. and Entropic Warding are all incredibly useful for party scouts and rogues. Three levels of Warlock gives you a 2d6 ranged touch attack at-will for surprise round sneak attacks.

As far as three level dips, Warlock 3 is as good for a Rogue or a Ranger as Soulknife 2/Soulbow 1 is for a Ninja, Monk, or Psychic Warrior.

Even splitting Warlocks aren't very good, I'll grant you. Especially since they don't get the nice Prestige Class options like Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight. But Eldritch Disciple and Eldritch Theurge are both very nice options that moe than make up for the loss of caster and invoker levels.

Warlock's another one of those classes-- like Monk or Marshal-- that isn't exciting on its own, but really shines in a Gestalt environment.

 

[GreedySmurf]

By the sounds of hte thread thus far I'm going to be a bit of a lone voice in not liking the Warlock class, and thinking it is very much on the more powerful side. (Not necessarily overpowered per se)

Some background -
I'm DMing the Paizo adventure path Rise of the Runelords, we're nearing the end of the Hook Mountian Massacre & the party has just hit 12th.

The player with the Warlock is pretty good at optimizing without being an outrageous powergamer.

A few of the issues I've been having I think may be just unfortunate cross-overs with the modules, with the typ of enemies, and there isn't a lot of arcane enemies who can easily do something about the Warlock.

The Eldritch blast may not be as powerful in one round as some arcane spells, put the round after round output is pretty devastating, and when combined with the ability to make it hit 2 additional targets - superb. And you're inflicting damage in a mixed/crowded battlefield which can't be done with Fireballs et al. And the touch attack nature of the Eldritch Blast completely neutralises any downside of not having a good BAB progression.

The ability that grants Evards Tentacles at will - massive issue. Any battlefield is controlled far too easily within a round or two with this ability - the spell itself has such a massive Grapple modifier it's bloody ridiclous at the current EL's.

I haven't even got to what I suspect is going to be the worst issue - which the player has started to talk about and plan for - the abiltiy to make magic items - seemingly with no limit with regards to access to spells, etc. He can make items with any spell requirement with only a use magic device check?

So basically the Warlock in my campaign is certainly the star of the show to date.

So I'm not necessairly jumping up and down and saying it is overpowered, but IMO is certinaly high powered. I do suspect if I had a full on Arcane caster in the group, he would be hitting his straps right about now and causing the same issues with this set of modules though

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Warlock is certainly pretty good compared to the noncasters, sure. I think you underestimate what a good archer can dish out on a full attack, though. A warlock generally can't compete with it. And archers are pretty weak, too! Compared to casters...warlocks a quite weak, especially by the level of your game.

Not "Eldritch blast may not be as powerful in one round as some arcane spells," EB will almost NEVER be as powerful as ANY spell a spellcaster will cast. The most common evocations will be doing d6/level to an area, instead of d6/2 levels (roughly, a little worse, actually) to one target.

And the Warlock can't pick up Evard's until a few levels after the wizard can (level 7). The spell's grapple mod is very strong at the earliest levels, but IME it does not advance in bonus fast enough to compete with a lot of big monsters and full BAB warriors as you rise in level. Str 18, large, and effectively full BAB (uses your CL) is amazing at level 7. At level 12? You're likely fighting lots of large or larger enemies, and the party fighter surely has more than 18 str. By level 15+, the evards will likely have less than 50% chance to grapple the big monsters and fighter types. Rogues will have about as good a chance with escape artist. And casters will just teleport out (if arcane) or have freedom of movement pre-buffed on already anyway (if divine). Besides that, a normal caster can throw down many more varied battlefield control spells and debuffs with his spell slots. The warlock just has the evard's trick.

Touch attacks: the same can be said for wizards and sorcs. Also, the warlock really wouldn't be able to hit very often if they weren't touch attacks. He only gets medium BAB, and won't be attacking flatfooted AC frequently (like the rogue) and can't really rely on buffs to attack bonus unless the party provides them (unlike bard and cleric, who can self-buff, and druids, who can just decide to be a str 30 bear). They also typically only get the one attack per round. 3/day with a feat they can get 2 attacks per round (Quicken SLA).

Item creation: Yes, this combined with the take 10 on UMD is probably their best class feature, actually. That said, they don't get any bonus feats to help gain those item creation feats like a wizard, and if played up to level 12 (instead of starting there) are unlikely to invest feats towards something they can't yet make use of at all. So the warlock will either be very limited in what he can make by feats or he will "waste" earlier feats and wait for the benefit, being weaker for it until then. Finally, item creation power level is completely in the DM's hands. You need downtime to craft. As the DM, you can control how much downtime the party gets...

I understand you were just saying Warlocks aren't bad, and they aren't. But they're also not quite as amazing as you assert when compared to what a real caster could do. Which is fine, since casters are overpowered by level 12 typically.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

By the sounds of hte thread thus far I'm going to be a bit of a lone voice in not liking the Warlock class, and thinking it is very much on the more powerful side. (Not necessarily overpowered per se)

Not entirely alone.

I started off really disliking the Warlock when it came out- I thought they were a good concept poorly executed. In the years since then, I've gotten to the point that I can see that they have some merit. So I guess I've progressed from hatred to neutral.

I still don't think they're overpowered, though.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I know I am a little late to the conversation but as far as warlocks being broken, they are not unless you try to make them that way which isn't hard, giving them as high dex as posible, a rod of magical precision, a chasuble of fell power, gloves of eldritch admixture, elven chain, ammulet of nat armor, ROP, helm of glorios recovery, gloves of dex, and if posible a fing of freedom of movement for items. combine that with fell flight walk unseen, see the unseen, eldriitch spear,baleful utterance, swimming the styx, flee the scene, and vitrolic blast, for invocations and you are almost imposible to kill in most fights. Also if your DM is anything like me or any of the DM's I have had, practiced spellcasting works the same way as choosing a PRC, so it works just fine.

well, there was some debate on whether or not a Chausable of Fell Power & Gloves of Eldtritch Admixture would also be empowered or maximized if the Warlock used his or her Empower SLA? The Chausable & Gloves both add to Eldritch Blast damage itself, I believe, which is a bit different than something like a Bane weapon, or the Mortalbane feat. If the Chausable & Gloves would add to the EB damage before Empowerment/Maximization, then the warlock could be a formidable foe in combat. Otherwise, the big bang a warlock produces by their 3x empowering and/or maximizing peters out rather quickly.

As I stated way up in this thread, I had run a level 6 warlock as a minion NPC as a change of pace from an evil cleric or mage minion for the main bad guy. However, he came up rather short in combat and got taken down to exactly zero hit points in round 2 by a fireball. The level 6 sorcerer I had run in a prior encounter for the group caused a lot more problems for the group than the warlock with her stinking cloud & web spells.

 

[Dredan]

At 21st level a Warlock is only doing 9d6 around. There is no modifiers to that damage like +1 per lvl or anything like that. 9d6 isn't much a round at 20th level. A barbarian at 21st level would be able to take out a Warlock that isn't prepared because he will have 3-4 attacks, and at his level his strength and magic item benefits will be up there. That Warlock has a few variations to help do AoE's but considering a comparison to a wizard at 21st level, a wizard's spells are more devastating. 9d6 (54dmg) max a round without any special feats isn't a lot. Barbarian or wizard will do much more then that a round if they hit. My 2 cents. Check out the monster feat that allows spell-like abilities to be supernatural, then you don't even have to worry about SR. That feat is definately one that needs DM approval depending on what race you are and other factors. But the warlock is quite balanced and fun to play. My 2 cents.

 

[Dredan]

Back on topic the best way to answer the question is the warock broken is to ask this question. Is it broken to have my lvl 3 warlock, lvl 4 warmage, lvl6 eldritch theurge, do a max of 26d6 and most of the time 21d6 or 18d6? you tell me.

Your warlock eldrich blast will not do that much damage with that build. Your bending the rules a tad to try and squeeze more dice of damage out of the eldrich blast by trying to add classes to up the spellcasting level. Spells - level, you can cast higher level spells by getting the bonuses of mystic theurge, however class abilities do not go up per your spell caster level. Sorry but your warlock will not do that much damage

 

[NewJeffCT]

At 21st level a Warlock is only doing 9d6 around. There is no modifiers to that damage like +1 per lvl or anything like that. 9d6 isn't much a round at 20th level. A barbarian at 21st level would be able to take out a Warlock that isn't prepared because he will have 3-4 attacks, and at his level his strength and magic item benefits will be up there. That Warlock has a few variations to help do AoE's but considering a comparison to a wizard at 21st level, a wizard's spells are more devastating. 9d6 (54dmg) max a round without any special feats isn't a lot. Barbarian or wizard will do much more then that a round if they hit. My 2 cents. Check out the monster feat that allows spell-like abilities to be supernatural, then you don't even have to worry about SR. That feat is definately one that needs DM approval depending on what race you are and other factors. But the warlock is quite balanced and fun to play. My 2 cents.

A monster feat that allows you to count your SLA as supernatural? Which book is that from, may I ask?

Thanks

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A monster feat that allows you to count your SLA as supernatural? Which book is that from, may I ask?

Thanks

Definitely- inquiring minds want to know!