Flaws of the Fallen [Invocations]

[AmberVael]

It is well known that there is great power to be found in the circles of the Hells. Most often this comes in the form of demon offered power, but the truth is that the strength that arises from damnation can be accessed by anyone who knows its secrets, who delves into the mysteries of the sins.

So this invocation set is a result of an experiment- an attempt to create a set in a minimal amount of time. As a result its a bit smaller than most of my sets, and may be a little less polished. Critique would be welcome.


Hoard Energy (Sloth)
Lesser; 4th
This invocation allows you to store physical energy and use it to fuel magic. While this invocation is active, you can gain charges by spending a move action, up to a maximum number of charges equal to your invoker modifier plus the number of invocation grades you have access to. As a move action you can also spend a charge to gain one of the following effects:

Additional damage equal to invoker modifier plus the number of invocation grades you have access to with eldritch blasts for 1 round.
Temporary hit points equal to your level for five rounds.
Natural armor equal to the number of invocation grades you have access to for five rounds.
However, if you take any strenuous actions, you lose all stored charges, though you continue to benefit from any active effects. Strenuous actions include making attacks with weaponry (though you may attack with spells and eldritch blasts), movement actions, or manipulating anything more than a light load. Riding animals is strenuous in its own way and also clears your stored charges, though you might ride a palanquin or sit on a flying carpet without expending your energy.

Miser’s Trove (Greed)
Least; 2nd
You have an endless supply of useful trinkets. As a standard action you can summon one of the following items for 24 hours.

Extravagant food and drink, sufficient to feed you for one day.
A noble’s outfit of any style, complete with jewelry.
A spyglass.
A bullseye lantern, flint and steel, and a pint of oil.
A polished, handheld silver mirror.
A well bred light horse with saddlebags, bit and bridle, and saddle that will not fight under any circumstances.
A lavish one person tent and bedding.
You may only summon a single item a time, and if they ever leave your possession they instantly vanish. Using this invocation again allows you to dismiss your current item and summon a different one instead.

Ruinous Blast (Wrath)
Greater; 6th; Eldritch Essence
A ruinous blast deals double damage to objects and ignores hardness, and deals damage to creatures with regeneration as if it was an appropriate attack form. Lastly, when a ruinous blast strikes a force effect such as wall of force or force cage, it destroys it as per disintegrate.

Swallowing Blast (Gluttony)
Greater; 6th; Eldritch Essence
Anyone who takes damage from a swallowing blast must make a reflex save or become engulfed. An engulfed creature is pulled into an extradimensional space, which manifests in the square or squares they were engulfed in as an amorphous black mass of approximately their size. While a creature is engulfed, there is no line of sight or effect in or out of the extradimensional space they are in. They can be freed by damaging the mass that engulfs them, which has AC 5, hardness 10, and hit points equal to four times your caster level. Even if the mass is not destroyed, it fades after 5 rounds.

Thieving Fetch (Envy)
Lesser; 3rd
You create a loyal servant from your own shadow. It is treated as a medium creature with AC 20 and 10 hit points. Its movement is completely silent, and it has Hide, Open Lock, and Sleight of Hand modifiers equal to your warlock level. It can move and climb with a 30ft speed. For all other purposes, its statistics are equal to yours. As a standard action, you may indicate an item to your Thieving Fetch and it will do its best to steal it and return it to you as stealthily. You may give it specific actions each round as a standard action, but otherwise it acts autonomously and mindlessly, prioritizing retrieving the designated item. It can manipulate items, use any movement action, and use its skills, but cannot fight or perform other actions. The fetch cannot move more than 1000ft away from you, and there must always be an unblocked path between you and it or else it is dismissed. You may only have one Fetch at a time. The fetch lasts for 24 hours, or until dismissed.

Unbowed Tyrant Crown (Pride)
Dark; 8th
For 24 hours you are immune to all mind-affecting and divination spells and effects, as per the mind blank spell. You are also constantly attended by ten unseen servants, you and your equipment are kept immaculately clean. You can cause minor theatrical effects to emphasize your words and moods, such as wreathing yourself in a holy halo, making your voice crack with thunder, or dimming light in an area but this has no mechanical effect.

Wordless Allure (Lust)
Least; 1st
When you make a rushed Diplomacy check as a standard action, you take no penalty on the check. In addition, you can make Diplomacy checks to improve attitudes without need for words or common language, and with no penalty for such a lack. Lastly, once per encounter you can reroll a failed diplomacy check. This invocation lasts for 24 hours or until dismissed.

[redking]

I like it. Unfortunately I don't half a good idea of Warlock class balance to critique it. Love the flavor, though.

[5ColouredWalker]

Hoard Energy:
I see only one use. Increasing your HP/AC/Damage for a ambush. If you're playing a sleeping race, it's a minor benefit to keeping watch, but most DM's don't do such things to players. Given such limited usefulness and such a low boost, it being Lesser ensures no one's going to pick it up. I'd have trouble justifying it as a least.

If you gave the ability to move without being carried in special circumstances it'd be slightly useful for the first round or so in encounters. Giving that and dropping it to least and I could argue for it.

Miser's Trove:
Handy but easily replicable by items, so only useful if you can learn beyond the standard set by a great deal. You might want to add a clause that changing summon doesn't effect you having eaten [One could rule either way.], and that the food can only feed the warlock, unless you intend for it to be able to feed the entire party.

Ruinous Blast:
A solid contender for Virtrolic Blast as Most Valued essence.

Swallowing Blast:
A nice bit of crowd control.

Thieving Fetch:
Are commands mental or do they have to be communicated in a language you know? A handy little thing.

Unbowed Tyrant Crown:
Perfect. 24 Hour 8th level spell that's what you're grabbing it for turns into an invocation with no notable boost.

Wordless Allure:
Overpowered because Diplomacy is. I'd ask how it's affecting people, but it's tag is pretty clear. I'd add a DM suggestion tag to increase it to a Lesser invocation if Diplomacy is being used per RAW.

Mostly just asking for clarification. Short version is Wordless Allure should potentially be moved up a grade, Hoard Energy down a grade and improved, with everything else needing checks to ensure it works as intended.

[Fizban]

Vael made more invocations and I missed them!? Let's fix that.

Hoard Energy: I agree that this is a little lame, but I wouldn't say it's only useable for ambush and guard duty. The classic warlock spider climbs/flies up and just shoots every round without having to move, dealing lower damage constantly over a long period of time. They'd have plenty of room to ready and use a charge or two. I'd also make it a point that any time I stop moving I'm always storing charges, any fight that breaks out after a standstill should see you full up on energy (the invocation could possibly be reworded to do so automatically). I'd assume that an elephant with a howdah (platform) is sufficient, and love the excuse to actually do so for once. Floating Disk sidecar strategy also works at the moment.

Miser's Trove: agreed that this could use the uncommon sense clarification regarding food. I'm guessing it's not meant to feed other people, but if you hand feed them yourself it should work. What happens if you dump the oil on the ground? Since they vanish once they leave your possession, I assume the horse appears with reigns in hand and vanishes if you dismount and let go, though the same implies that the tent would vanish. . . as soon as you exit it? Feels like it's missing something, a campfire probably isn't appropriate but the similar Survival Pouch item has those. I like the invocation in general, though not so much the name and it doesn't feel like a manifestation of greed since you're not actually acquiring wealth.

Ruinous Blast: I disagree with Walker here. Bypassing regeneration only matters if the whole party is doing it, if even one person is dealing nonlethal then the regeneration is still effective, and once the target is down you have time to strangle it to death even if you don't have the right damage type. Anyone can hurt objects. Tapping force effects is the only important thing I see here, and it's wholly dependent on how often and aggressively your DM uses force effects. I'd like to call for more damage but that's probably not the right move, adding the dusting effect of Disintegrate would be good though. Gives you two useful niches, removing force effects and annihilating annoying bodies/items beyond repair.

Swallowing Blast: actually a bit harder to escape in some ways since it's designated as an extradimensional space, so you can't teleport out. Complete lack of size limitations is probably inappropriate, but awesome.

Thieving Fetch: bit of a contradiction in the wording here, first is says it will do things as stealthily as possible, then it says it will prioritize item retrieval above all other concerns. This makes it quite dangerous to actually send out alone since it will break stealth to get the item, which is not what I'd want. Stated ability to manipulate items should allow it to activate some magic items, though probably not many are that good.

Tyrant Crown: the dance between Mind Blank and everything else has always bugged me. I'd be pretty loathe to spend a Dark invocation on what so many consider a required immunity, the most important aspect of which (the divination immunity), will go pretty much unnoticed since the whole party won't have it and it's generally bad form for a DM to scry and die gank the party in the first place. A Greater rank version should be doable, see Lesser Mind Blank, but then it wouldn't have any room for other prideful effects. Unseen Servants are a bit vague: does "always attended" mean they've invincible, they're replaced immediately, or just that they last for the whole duration (and require a standard action to re-cast and refresh every time you get AoE'd)?

Wordless Allure: I had a friend who tried to diplomance as part of every build, he'd never not take this on any character. Even without the default brokenness of the skill I'd still say this is too good. I guess if the group specifically wants an easy way to remove the rush penalty without altering the main skill it does the job, but I don't think it's appropriate. I want rushed diplomacy checks to be a rare thing that's not likely to work but may have astounding success, not a first resort spam attack.


I also read the Magical Girl invocations, those were quite nice. And the animal set, which I caught at some point before.