Warlock Homebrew Rules, major change?!

[Brom]

I am thinking of allowing Warlocks to know all invocations in all of their books, and continuing to allow them to be usable as many times per day as wanted.

Would this break my game?

I'm doing a low magic thing. I'm not allowing any of the Big 5 or even most stuff from tier 2-3. I'm hesitant to add Beguilers and even dropped Psions.

I want games to be gritty and to be challenging as much through mundane obstacles such as terrain, food, water, the wearing down of weapons, as lethal obstacles. I do want magic and mysticism to exist, but I want even the spellcasters I want to include (Dread Necromancers, Favored Souls, Beguilers, Warmages, Warlocks, Dragonfire Adepts, and Psychic Warriors) to admit that their understanding of what is possible with magic is rather limited.

So yeah. Would it bump Warlocks over the power curve to be given all of their invocations as known invocations?

[blackjack217]

In a word, yes because he will become a flying invisible caster with a metric crapload of buffs and can spam despell for debuff. He will also be a favored 1 level dip for like 8 or more 24 hour buffs.

[Brom]

Damn.

Well, okay.

Is there a way I can boost the class power level and versatility without making it ridiculous?

[Fako]

For versatility, the main fix I've personally seen is to simply increase the number of invocations known. Allowing for more retrains would probably help as well.

As for power, I normally see two fixes: Allow Hideous Blow to ignore AoO, or allow iterative attacks with the Eldritch Blast. It may seem high, but compare the Warlock to a Two-Weapon fighting Rogue, and it's not too impressive...

[Brom]

Would you allow a Warlock to prepare new invocations for the day, and to KNOW all invocations, but be stuck with known as the number he can have to switch between in a day?

[Fako]

I wouldn't allow it, simply because there's too many good combinations to choose between. The limiting factor of a warlock is how few invocations they can access...that'd be too much. That's why I was suggesting retraining abilities (say 1 a level) to allow for more versatility as they go up in level - instead of punishing them for choosing optimum abilities that become useless at higher levels...

If you allow them to know all abilities, you'll want to cut their invocations per day instead of increasing them...

[blackjack217]

1/level invocation gain maybe? (or something more or less) Giving eldrich blast sneak attack progression is a favored move. Also you could include my blesed soul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174220) as a counterpart. The problem with iterative attacks is when you start adding esssences and shape unto them. You will be doing 27d6 damage in an area + 6 negative levels at level 20.

[Brom]

Lot, lot, LOT of material to work for between 7 and 20.

What about one invocation per level, and a Warlock may swap out one of his invocations known per day after 8 hours of resting for another?

[Fako]

Lot, lot, LOT of material to work for between 7 and 20.

What about one invocation per level, and a Warlock may swap out one of his invocations known per day after 8 hours of resting for another?

Sounds good. You might be able to get away with 1/2 Cha Mod swapped after 8 hours of rest...that way they have a more valid reason to invest in Cha (as it stands, the only reason right now is for saves)

[T.G. Oskar]

For versatility, the main fix I've personally seen is to simply increase the number of invocations known. Allowing for more retrains would probably help as well.

Hmm...would splitting the Eldritch Essence/Eldritch Blast Shape invocations from the actual invocations work as well? Or should it be the opposite (treat the breath effects of the Dragonfire Adept as if they were draconic invocations and THEN increasing the total amount of invocations)?

Regardless of what idea you propose, I find a 150% increase in choice of invocations should suffice; namely, that means 18 invocations instead of 12, starting with two invocations plus Eldritch Blast, one extra invocation when you gain a new degree of invocation, plus a mathematically patterned spread of extra invocations for a total of 18. That way, you begin play with more least invocations and get the chance to get more lesser, greater and dark invocations than before, and probably diversify a bit between the chosen invocations, essences and blast shapes other than choosing the best 12 combinations of each type.

Then again, I'd combine the two variants mentioned above: split the Eldritch Essence/Eldritch Blast Shape invocations to get 4/8 (or a more reasonable 5/7), then apply the 150% increase to both (thus getting 6/12, or 7/11 spread). Or apply the same spread as the Dragonfire Adept (6 breath effects + 8 invocations) plus the 150% increase (thus, you'd get 9 Eldritch Blast Shape/Essence invocations and 12 invocations of other types). The latter delivers a bit more but forces you to take an unusual amount of essences or blast shapes.

Of course, you may also decide whether retraining (1/day, replace one invocation with another of the same degree or lower) may be worthwhile. That would make for a superb improvement on the Warlock.


As for power, I normally see two fixes: Allow Hideous Blow to ignore AoO, or allow iterative attacks with the Eldritch Blast. It may seem high, but compare the Warlock to a Two-Weapon fighting Rogue, and it's not too impressive...

TWF Rogue is pretty powerful, but it requires some effort. Maybe you can combine that with a lesser Eldritch Blast damage, so you can either diversify or concentrate. Say, you can use Eldritch Blast as a standard action and deal full damage, or use it as a full-round action and deal 1~2 less dice of damage per iterative. That way, you could deal at 10th level a EB dealing 5d6 damage as a standard action or two EBs dealing 4d6 as a full-round action (because the Warlock gets two iteratives at that moment) which you can fire at separate targets or concentrate on one target (2 points shy of a 1d6/CL spell, but it becomes more powerful later on when you can deal 3 beams hitting for 21d6 at level 19).

But that wouldn't be enough. Blast Shape and Essence Invocations would require a major overhaul. Heck, all invocations need a major overhaul. Personally, I don't like the 24-hour duration of most buffs since, unless you're dispelled, there's no reason why to have them at-will (much less when you can't buff others with it); either make them permanent abilities which can't be dispelled (only suppressed) or give them a reasonable duration but make them truly at-will or give the option to provide some of those buffs to allies. Mostly, a reason why they should be at-will abilities. I find only Walk Unseen and Retributive Invisibility to be examples of good choices of invocations because they can be used more than once, but an invocation that gives me a +6 bonus to skills for 24 hours is kinda pointless (good, of course, but pointless when you realize it's just a glorified magic item which can be dispelled). I wouldn't mind them being either 24 hours or at-will, but not both since otherwise it's just there to be reused and replaced every day after 6 seconds.

Then, you get Blast Shape and Essence Invocations which are cool but not truly effective; Essences that cause special effects are limited by their "effective" spell level, because that means they have a semi-fixed score (I mean, Stunning Fist of all feats has a scaling based on character level, and few people would use it because it's a Fort save; at least you'd have an excuse to use it more than once). Altering EB should also work somewhat with the Essences; Hideous Blow working as a swift action essence but only enhancing one weapon for one round (to prevent TWF exploits), or have some of the essences grant extra damage dice but disallow their combination with extra EBs. Something to make you choose stuff like Eldritch Spear or Eldritch Cone, I'd say.

But again; major rehaul on invocations. You may figure it's a much more daunting (and less quick) warlock rehash than what's intended. As a fellow poster would say; them's my 2 coppers.

[blackjack217]

they are 24 hour buffs so you don't have to worry about them stopping in the middle of a fight. And to stop the pre battle buff routine. They assume that since they are at will you will always have them up.

[T.G. Oskar]

they are 24 hour buffs so you don't have to worry about them stopping in the middle of a fight. And to stop the pre battle buff routine. They assume that since they are at will you will always have them up.

Artificial restriction, then. You could say "you can replace an invocation with this ability", and then have the same ability to permanently fly, or permanently gain the +6 bonus to certain skills. Namely, only a few may remain as 24-hour duration at-will invocations, but if they can get discharged or dismissed involuntarily other than being dispelled.

And if you get dispelled, they still stop during the middle of the fight. Thing is, you use it only ONCE per day (or a bit more if you have it dispelled, but the chances of finding monsters or NPCs with dispelling abilities don't exceed 15% of all enemies you'll face in the game, 25% to be very generous), so it's more of an artificial restriction of having a permanent ability (a permanent buff or permanent increase in skills). It's roughly like DM Persisted spells, except that assuming you have infinite TU attempts and it applies to Eternal Wands; you mostly worry about it when you need to recharge it.

[Jukebox Hero]

You could allow multiple attacks with the eldritch blast, but each successive attack does less damage and does not carry the essences/blast effects.

[blackmage]

For someone who wants to focus more on the spell-like invocations than Eldritch Blast, try this (http://forum.faxcelestis.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21) homebrew class. It has no Eldritch blast, but gets about 1 invocation per level. Larger variety of invocations to pick and choose from, too.

[Fizban]

I think there may have been some misunderstanding here. The OP says "invocations." The only printed invocations not for the Warlock are for the Dragonfire Adept, and those don't do any sort of broken combinations with the Warlock stuff. There's no real reason to keep them separate other than the rigid fluff for both classes.

As for upgrading the warlock, as has been suggested, the best way to make them more versatile is to just give them more invocations known. I wouldn't even do the "free essences/shapes" thing, since I think there should be room for someone who doesn't focus on their blast. The current Warlock gets a maximum of 12 invocations. I wouldn't suggest a full 20, but 15 is a bit more at least. The progression would be 1/2/3/3/4/5/6/6, and so on (every level except multiples of 4). I'd suggest giving out 2 at first level, but that makes it a little too dip friendly.

The other thing to do would be to give out some free meta-SLA feats. I know it's pretty generic, but no one seems to complain about wizards getting them (except sorcerers, like me). Meta-SLAs are the only way for a Warlock to really "go nova," or as I like to call it, "contribute during a difficult encounter." Most of the Warlock's controlling spells are pretty weak and/or last only one round, so being able to layer them and/or force multiple saves using Quicken SLA would be great. Eldritch Blast damage doesn't even match basic blasting spells, so again, Quicken or Maximize is required to meet even normal damage per round expectations for a boss encounter. If you use my new invocation progression, then you can give out the feats at 4th and every 4 after that, on the levels when they don't get a new invocation.

Finally, more invocations to choose from! Seriously, the existing list is enough to make one or two different interesting characters, but after that you're pretty much out of options. Search around online for some homebrew lists. It's really not hard at all, just take a spell and say "now this is an invocation," but it's nice to have that second opinion and sometimes you'll find unique stuff (similar to the Crawling Eye and Hand, with their own mechanics).

Oh, and one last thing. Whoever decided to delay blast damage at high levels (when your blast is already dealing too little damage) was stupid. Straighten up the table so it's a simple 1d6 +1d6/2 levels, same as sneak attack. It's like someone thought "oh, and we'll give them an item for extra damage!" and someone else thought "oh, there's an item for +2d6 damage, better reduce the main damage by 2d6 so it's not overpowered." :smallsigh:

[Barbarian MD]

I have a Warlock 2.0 that I'm rather proud of, even if I never got around to creating all the invocations I had hoped to write.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142707