The Blessed Soul [Gates of Heavan]

The warlock fills a special place in the party as the arcane caster who can go all day and all night in exchange for the sometimes horrific high level powers the wizard and co get. Unfortunately there is no good alternative to the warlock that fulfills the same role. Until now:

Blessed Soul
“A warlock you call me a warlock? Care to retract that statement, paladin?”
-A blessed soul casting archons wings

Warlocks draw their power from sources dark and unholy but who ever said there was no celestial counterpart? Meet the blessed soul, who draws his powers from the upper planes.

GAME RULE INFORMATION
Abilities: you want loads of charisma
Alignment: Any good or any lawful.
Hit Die: d6.
Class Skills
The warlock’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill)
are diplomacy(Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (royalty) , Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana)
(Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion)
(Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skill points: (2 + int)


Class features:

Weapon and armor: as warlock
Invocations: as warlock but the list is completely different.
Celestial blast: crunch as eldritch blast.
Detect magic: as warlock
Damage reduction: /silver otherwise as warlock
Archon's body: Blessed souls slowly turns into an archon as they grow more powerful as indicated on the table. The description of archon traits is in the monster manual, and 8 other places.
Archon's wings: Angelic Wings erupt from your back (gain fly maneuverability good speed as land speed) for a number of minuets equal to your class level.
Table

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Blessed Soul
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special Abilites|Invocations known

1st|

+0

|

+0

|

+0

|

+2

|Celestial blast 1d6 invocation (least) Archon’s Body (lowlight)| 1

2nd|

+1

|

+0

|

+0

|

+3

|Detect Magic|2

3rd|

+2

|

+1

|

+0

|

+3

| Damage reduction 1/silver, Celestial blast 2d6|2

4th|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

|Archon’s Body (Aura of menace)|3

5th|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

| Celestial blast 3d6|3

6th|

+4

|

+2

|

+1

|

+5

|New invocation(least or lesser) Archon’s wings|4

7th|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

|Damadge reduction 2/silver, celestial blast 4d6|4

8th|

+6/+1

|

+2

|

+2

|

+6

|Archon’s body (darkvision)|5

9th|

+6/+1

|

+3

|

+3

|

+6

|Celestial blast 5d6|5

10th|

+7/+2

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

|Archon’s body (energy resistance)|6

11th|

+8/+3

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

|Damage reduction 3/silver, new invocation (least, lesser, or greater), Celestial blast 6d6|7

12th|

+9/+4

|

+4

|

+4

|

+8

|Archon’s body (Tongues, + 4 against poison)|7

13th|

+9/+4

|

+4

|

+4

|

+8

|Magic circle against evil|8

14th|

+10/+5

|

+4

|

+4

|

+9

|Celestial blast 7d6|8

15th|

+11/+6/+1

|

+5

|

+5

|

+9

|Damage Reduction 4/silver|9

16th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+5

|

+5

|

+10

|New invocation (bright or lower)|10

17th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+5

|

+5

|

+10

|Eldrich blast 8d6|10

18th|

+13/+8/+3

|

+6

|

+6

|

+11

|Archon’s body (teleport)|11

19th|

+14/+9/+4

|

+6

|

+6

|

+11

|Damage reduction 5/silver|11

20th|

+15/+10/+5

|

+6

|

+6

|

+12

|Celestial blast 9d6, Archons body (immune to electricity and paralysis)|12[/table]

Blessed Souls in the world: Frequently mistaken for actual warlocks a celestial warlock is thus often treated as such. Currently they are planning a publicity campaign to be launched as soon as someone finds a better name they found one in blessed souls.

Prestige classing: Due to the celestial nature of the blessed soul's powers all recorded attempts to add hellfire to the celestial blast ability resulted in the caster getting hit by divine lightning. In no instance has the body been found

Invocations

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Least Celestial Essence Invocations
Frightful Blast

Lesser Celestial Essence Invocations
Blinding Blast: Target must make Fortitude save or
become blind for 1 round.
Brimstone Blast: Blast deals fire damage and target must
make Reflex save or catch fire.
Lightning Blast: Blast deals lightning damage and target must
make Fortitude save or take –2 penalty to Dexterity.

Greater Celestial Essence Invocations
Holy blast: acts as if your celestial blast is a holy weapon (+2d6 to evil acts as a good aligned ability)
Sonic blast: deals sonic damage reflex save or be dazed.

Bright Celestial Essence Invocation
Force blast: blast deals force damage and ignores sr.

Nothing much to change here shapes:

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Least Blast Shape Invocations
Celestial Spear: Blast range increases to 250 feet.
Righteous Blow: Melee attack channels eldritch blast.
Lesser Blast Shape Invocation
Celestial Chain: Blast jumps from initial target to secondary
targets.
Celestial Emanation: 15' radius centered on caster
Greater Blast Shape Invocation
Celestial Cone: Blast takes the shape of a cone.
Dark Blast Shape Invocation
Celestial Smite: Blast affects all enemies within 20 feet.

Least Invocations:

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Celestial presence: Gain bonus on Sense motive, Diplomacy,
and Intimidate checks.
Breath of the Night: Create a fog cloud as the spell.
Celestial fortune: Gain a luck bonus on one type
of saves.
Light: Use light as the spell.
Archon’s Sight: dark vision out to 60 feet and low light vision as well as detect magic.
Earthen Grasp: Use earthen grasp as the spell.
Wind armor: Deflect incoming ranged attacks,
leave no trail, and prevent being tracked by scent.
Leaps and Bounds: Gain bonus on Balance, Jump, and
Tumble checks.
Gust of wind: as the spell.
See the Unseen: Gain see invisibility as the spell and
darkvision.
hover: wind under your feet mimics the effect of a levitation spell, but with more impressive visuals.
Summon Swarm: Use summon swarm as the spell.

Lesser Invocations


Are replaced/renamed:

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Blessings of the archons: as bless + protection from evil
Call the spirits:calls deathless
Swarm of light: calls a swarm of bright lights to attack your enemy.
Charm: Cause a single creature to regard you as a
friend.
Luminous armor: as the spell (Boed)
Wind wall: as the spell
Flee the Scene: Use short-range dimension door as the spell,
and leave behind a major image.
Stony Grasp: Use stony grasp as the spell.
Voidsense: Gain blindsense 30 feet.
Smiting Dispelling: Use dispel magic as the spell, causing
damage to creatures whose effects are dispelled.

Greater Invocations:

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Needs to be replaced:
Warlock’s Call: Use sending as the spell, but risk damage
from recipient.

Done:
Holy light: emit light and impose a strength penalty on evil creatures radius 10
Curtain of light: as the spell.
Replenishing dispel: Use targeted greater dispel magic with a
touch and gain temporary hit points based on the level of
spells successfully dispelled.
Wall of lightning: Create a wall of fire as the spell,
but half the damage from the wall results from supernatural
power and the other half is electricity damage. (looks different visibly as well)
Tenacious Plague: Use insect plague as the spell, but the
summoned locust swarm deals damage as a magic weapon.

Bright Invocations

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Luminous Discorporation: Become a swarm of small lights,
gaining many benefits of the swarm subtype.
Celestial Foresight: Use foresight as the spell, and communicate
telepathically with a close target of the effect.
Wind walk: as the spell.
Call Archons: calls 2 hd per level archons under your control (multiple castings cannot exceed this limit) none of which can have more HD than your invoker level - 2 (max HD 11)
Needs to be replaced:
Word of Changing: Use baleful polymorph as the spell,
but the effect could become permanent.

Uhhh...huh? How is this different from the normal warlock besides fluff? Why is it called a Celestial Warlock? The Dragonfire Adept is a Warlock by any other name, only for draconic magic.

We really need some more clear design parameters, and maybe a table to organize on. Help me, help you.

It it different because if your powers come from the goodly gods you cannot have a raise undead ability. Where appropriate I simply kept the abilities with refluff. Abilities I want comment on: force blast is it over/under powered? Also I am deliberately keeping it as close to the warlock as possible so more DM's will be willing to use it. It is more of a variant then a true base class. I may add abilities to truly differentiate it later.

Edit: I did the invocations that where easy to replace first leaving the ones with balance issues till later, which is why you are mistaking it for a re-fluff. I need ideas for the shadow/ invisibility stuff what should I replace them with?

I am also conisdering adding a holy essence does + 2d6 to evil as the enchantment. What level should that be?

Just a thing, but:
If basically only the invocations change, isn't it easier to just make the warlock available to all alignments, and making a few alternate invocations to choose from?

Okay looking over things. Right now it's just a warlock with renamed abilities.

Archon's Sight doesn't make sense. Archons can't see in magical darkness; Devils on the other hand can see perfectly fine in magical darkness without limit (hence Devil's Sight). It should probably be completely replaced.

Celestial Presence again seems diabolic and not heavenly in the least. Archons are intimidating and excellent diplomats so those two bonuses should stay, but Bluff? I'd say swap it for Sense Motive as it fits the fluff closer.

Summon Swarm I'm on the fence about. Swarms of insects have a tendency to be connected to evil in modern ideas, but I can think of religious examples that connect them with Divine Wrath so I'd say it should stay.

Spider Walk ought to be replaced with a more celestial themed ability (again it's an ability associated with demonic possession and not angels).

Baleful Utterance you still have listed as using a word of Dark Speech which is an evil act and is the language of ultimate evil. Also it's a word of destruction and not really a Celestial ability.

Breath of Night at least needs a name change and Miasmic Cloud should probably be replaced with something more fitting of a celestial power source.

I'd say give them Walk Unseen since even though D&D celestials don't have it, it is a traditional power for angelic beings.

If you're giving them Summon Swarm give them Tenacious Plague as well, it's just an improved version of the former.

I'd also say they could have Devour Magic (maybe with a name change), or have the version from the Good aligned warlock PrC in Complete Mage.

Change Dark Foresight's name. It is heavenly insight forewarning you of the dangers in your path and allowing you to warn your friends. Except for the name it is completely power source neutral (at least as far as Celestial/Infernal goes).

Like Walk Unseen I'd say give them Retributive Invisibility.

Blast Shapes: Swap Eldritch for Celestial in their name.

Eldritch Essences (change to Celestial Essences):
Change Beshadowed Blast's name (the blinding effect is still completely appropriate).

Give them back Frightful Blast; Celestials can be scary when they're wrathful.

Force Blast is stronger than Vitriolic Blast but it is too weak for a Dark Invocation unless it has an unmarked rider effect (also why would force ignore SR?).

If you have Complete Mage it has some good invocations that could be adapted more easily.

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Originally Posted by Eldan

Just a thing, but:
If basically only the invocations change, isn't it easier to just make the warlock available to all alignments, and making a few alternate invocations to choose from?

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Class skills change, yeah I know...

Also Dark Speach (among others) is under the needs to be replaced section. Also the lack of invisibility is supposed to be one of the things that makes it different, though I could change that. Also the Archon thing is the main ability I am really worried about. I am thinking of making Archon's wings a class ability that scales like dragon shaman (unless I got the class wrong). And aura of menace as a class ability to partially offset the invis loss. thoughts?
Also rewrite of invocations incoming.

The celestial warlock's Dark invocations should be reamed Bright invocations.
And how about naming celestial warlocks "blessed souls"?

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Originally Posted by Southern Cross

The celestial warlock's Dark invocations should be reamed Bright invocations.
And how about naming celestial warlocks "blessed souls"?

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They are now bright. Blessed souls sounds good. Does anyone have anything to say about the Call Archons thing? It kinda worries me.

Don't really see why to give them Animate Dead by another name. It's about the evillest ability on the Warlock list and sure you could refluff it but you'd do better giving them some Celestial Form ability that let them become a celestial temporarily (using the Polymorph subschool introduced in PHBII which means you lose all your normal stuff) or just Summon Monster from a very limited list and a limit on how many monsters they can summon at once.

This probably isn't your intent, but the Call Archons ability, as written, is just Animate Dead and as such can only create zombies and skeletons. I'd suggest making it clearer and holding off on it until the new Archons are developed.

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Originally Posted by Iamyourking

This probably isn't your intent, but the Call Archons ability, as written, is just Animate Dead and as such can only create zombies and skeletons. I'd suggest making it clearer and holding off on it until the new Archons are developed.

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The idea was to substitute archons for undead and slash the HD cap or you would be controlling 4 clerics of your level, which would be horrific. Modified to say that.

In which case it would be better to use Create Undead as a base, as it makes a specific monster based on your level. Plus there's the fact that the only Archon with actual cleric casting is the Trumpet, which is probably too powerful to summon at CR 14. Note that Create Greater Undead caps at CR 11 Devourers at level 20; and for this ability you'd probably want even weaker Archons since you can do it at will.

The current spell has a hard cap on the number of archons you can summon at any one time. I looked at create undead, and I was horrified. Are you really suggesting I should give out an 8th level spell as a lesser invocation? And considering that this is a nerf I'll think of something... And got it updating now.

Shadow Walk seems like a fine invocation as is, I don't see too much overtly evil about the Shadow Plane, it touches various planes. At that level, some ability to move quickly over land would be really good.

Done also I have added a bunch of new invocations stolen from spells from BoED. Needs to be checked for balance. Also, how powerful is Archon's body?

Archon's body is probably fine at the level you get it at, the most notable thing you get out of it being electricity immunity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iamyourking

Archon's body is probably fine at the level you get it at, the most notable thing you get out of it being electricity immunity.

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And dark vision 60, low light vision aura of menace (-2 to saves ac and attack is nice for no action) magic circle against evil, greater teleport at wi.. er.. whoops should I really give him greater teleport at will?

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Originally Posted by blackjack217

And dark vision 60, low light vision aura of menace (-2 to saves ac and attack is nice for no action) magic circle against evil, greater teleport at wi.. er.. whoops should I really give him greater teleport at will?

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Simply write that they don't get it if you don't want, or that they can only use the teleport 1/day

I changed it to once an hour, should limit abuse.

Edit:
Also added a bunch of invocations, only 5 left to replace!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sir_Chivalry

Shadow Walk seems like a fine invocation as is, I don't see too much overtly evil about the Shadow Plane, it touches various planes. At that level, some ability to move quickly over land would be really good.

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Wind Walk? 60mph vs. 50mph with limited planar travel options, gaseous form vs. emerging from the shadows.

I wouldn't make archon summoning an invocation, the comparison to Animate Dead is almost nonexistent. Skeletons and zombies are mindless bruisers, while archons are intelligent and have multiple spell like abilities, as well as at-will teleportation. If you want to modify it, you could say to use the normal skeleton/zombie template except with deathless type instead of undead. The differences are negligible, but deathless are positive energy so they aren't inherently evil. For material component fluff you could could use opals (I think they're whitish, right?). Alternatively, you might let them animate objects. The Ravid can apparently animate objects with burst of positive energy, so I think it could work for a good-lock. Adapting Animate Dead into animated objects should cut the HD limits in half, and use the same material component for permanent animation.

I agree that the class is so far just a refluffing. To be significantly different, it will need unique invocations that cannot be taken by Warlocks or Dragonfire Adepts, and I would also suggest replacing the energy resistance and fast healing abilities with more themed abilities. Not because those abilities aren't good-like, but because it needs some abilities that set it apart from Warlocks other than invocation choice, and should then lose some other abilities in return.

Bumped call archons up to bright. added wind walk. Thinking about turning archons body into a class feature and I might even remove umd from the class list altogether. Thoughts? Also, originally it was intended to be very, and visibly, similar to the warlock so that a DM who was weary of homebrew would likely allow it. Also thinking about creating a "lightning soul" 3 level prc using Heavenly lightning (page 100 BoED) in a manner similar to the hellfire warlock

So I have decided to turn Archons body into a class feature. The abilities I expect to give it by level 20 are: Magic circle against evil, Darkvision 60 feet, low light vision aura of menace, immunity to electricity and petrification and greater teleport at will. These will replace Celestial grace, Energy resistance, and Imbue item. Does anyone have any ideas for progression?

I am also knocking UMD off the skill list and bumping the skill points per level to compensate.

Also does anyone know how to make a table?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blackjack217

So I have decided to turn Archons body into a class feature. The abilities I expect to give it by level 20 are: Magic circle against evil, Darkvision 60 feet, low light vision aura of menace, immunity to electricity and petrification and greater teleport at will. These will replace Celestial grace, Energy resistance, and Imbue item. Does anyone have any ideas for progression?

I am also knocking UMD off the skill list and bumping the skill points per level to compensate.

Also does anyone know how to make a table?

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Here-Guide to Homebrewing

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Originally Posted by Sir_Chivalry

Here-Guide to Homebrewing

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Thanks for your help. As a reward for your assistance I have created a shiny new table with new class abilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blackjack217

Thanks for your help. As a reward for your assistance I have created a shiny new table with new class abilities.

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Thank you for making a table. I find the class playable, even enjoyable. I see little difference from the warlock, so I'll adress the few changes you've made.

1. Invocations. I see nothing wrong with the list, nice changes. To replace Call Archons, perhaps you might consider an invocation that calls deathless like the animate dead ability. Just say they are spirits from Celestia, don't require bodies, and it remains pretty much the same, excpet change the material component to something like an opal.

2. DR/Silver is good.

3. Archon's body, as long as it is fleshed out proper is great. I see you've put the work in, it looks fine.

4. Skill points should still be 2+ int, not too much has changed.

Looks good!

Call archons has been nerfed yet again. There are a few new invocations for peaching. Skill points have been reduced (please note the lack of umd). Told where to find archons body info. Also I plan to have archons wings have no time limit at a certain level. Any level look "dead" where I could slot it into?

Forgive me for getting off topic, but I noticed that Archon's Wings could be replaced quite easily with a 4th-Level Spell from a 3rd-Edition supplement known as the Demon Hunter's Handbook. The spell is called Wings of Glory, and it grants flight at double base land speed, sheds light equivalent to a Daylight spell, and the wings grant you two attacks with a BAB equal to your HD (as Fighter), and these count as Holy weapons. Quite nice, though I cannot at the moment remember the duration of this particular spell. Probably 1 round or 1 minute per level.

Just throwing it out there, see if you like it or no.

Blackjack has long since left the project, you should have posted this in the main thread rather than necro an 8-months dead thread.