Bringing the Warlock into Pathfinder

Well, I hope the thread title is fairly self-explanatory. Basically, I'll be playing in a sort of 3.5/Pathfinder hybrid game pretty soon and rather want to play a Warlock. We'll be using the Pathfinder base classes (and races), and I've noticed that pretty much all of them are significantly more powerful than their core counterparts. So, I'm looking for suggestions to bring to my DM in the organizational meeting coming up soon, to keep the Warlock roughly in the same place in comparison to the rest of our stuff.

Things we're already planning to do:
-d8 hit die, as per the obvious pattern in Pathfinder
-Class skills are any Pathfinder skill that includes at least one of the 3.5 Warlock skills
-Invocations granting skill bonuses will be rebalanced or replaced with something similar.

I'm not sure on anything else. I'm pretty new to the whole thing (pretty much all of what I know about class balance and the like is from hanging around here). Help?

Raise Eldritch Blast damage to the same progression as the rogue's Sneak Attack (+1d6 every odd level; this fixes the slower damage progression at high levels). Grant a new invocation known every level, and allow the invocations from Dragon Magic and Complete Mage (possibly allowing you to take Dragonfire Adept invocations as well; this fixes the lack of options problem with normal warlocks). Give warlocks more skill points (preferably 6+Int, but at least 4+Int; gives them better utility and more options). Grant DR/cold iron every even level (up to +10 at 20th level), change the energy resistance to 10 at level 5, 20 at level 10, 30 at level 15, and immunity at level 20, and raise Fiendish Resilience to 2/5/10 rather than 1/2/5 and allow it to be used as an immediate action (makes the class features actually worthwhile rather than worthless).

That's the quick fix. The invocations need to be buffed as well, but that requires combing through the entire list and adding a lot of new ones, which can be quite time consuming. Getting more invocations is enough to at least tide over that problem though, as long as you avoid the really bad ones and allow more options to choose from in Dragon Magic/Complete Mage.

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Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

Things we're already planning to do:
-d8 hit die, as per the obvious pattern in Pathfinder
-Class skills are any Pathfinder skill that includes at least one of the 3.5 Warlock skills
-Invocations granting skill bonuses will be rebalanced or replaced with something similar.

I'm not sure on anything else. I'm pretty new to the whole thing (pretty much all of what I know about class balance and the like is from hanging around here). Help?

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The Warlock already has something at every level, and no 'dead level' problems, and you've covered the things that would specifically get added to a Pathfinder-up of the class. (Make sure to add the Fly skill to the class skills list.)

I'd second the recommendation of allowing Invocations from other sources (including the Dragonfire Adept dude, which is pretty much a Warlock-by-another-name anyway), and I'd tweak the Extra Invocation feat to be available at lower level, when the Warlock really could use it (1st level, specifically, same time that a Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, etc. gets access to Extra Rage, Extra Music and Extra Channeling). You'll already be getting a few extra feats with Pathfinder, which you can use to pick up an extra Invocation or two, if you want.

Given that the Cleric, Fighter, Wizard and Sorcerer didn't get extra skill points, there really isn't any reason for the Warlock to have fared any better. With Favored Class and possibly a human bonus (and not dumping Int), you should be fine with 2 + Int mod.

Things to ask if you can use are Ability Focus (from the Monster Manual, +2 DC to saves of the invocation you select, which should be Eldritch Blast!) and Battlecaster (wear medium armor, which allows you, once you have Fell Flight, to strap on a suit of Mithral Fullplate, ignore the Armor Check penalty for being non-proficient, and fly around with +8 armor Eldritch Blasting to your cruel little heart's content).

Pathfinder has made a step away from silly alignment restrictions, with the Bard, at least, and it wouldn't be out of line to do the same with the Warlock, allowing one to play a non-chaotic, non-evil Warlock (who perhaps made pacts with lawful outsiders or even good ones!). That's a flavor choice, and it's not like you can't have a Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil Warlock even with the chaotic or evil restriction.

Most classes have some sort of 20th level capstone, which you wouldn't be seeing for a long time, and it would make sense for a Warlock to gain the Outsider type and one or two other appropriate abilities based on whether you Pacted with fey, demons, etc.

I'd like to note that the odds of this campaign going beyond 12th-13th level are quite low, and I'll worry about that when I get to it.

I'm not sure about some of those changes, PId6. They seem a little... Drastic, especially the huge (66%) increase to invocations known and effective doubling (or tripleing) to all resistances. I was thinking that changing the Extra Invocation feat to allow any invocation the character would normally be able to learn (that is, no more max-1) it would go a long way to improving the class in general. As for the rest, I'll try for a bit of an improvement (especially to Fiendish Resilience, perhaps in the form of greater duration instead of bigger numbers). As to extra sources of invocations, that's what DM-approved custom jobs are for!:smallwink: (Besides, the Complete Mage ones are either really weird (detaching body parts) or terrible(all of the EB stuff. Seriously, letting it do normal instead of half damage to objects?))

Set: Wait, doesn't armour non-proficiency affect attack rolls? Like the one I use to shoot Eldrich Blasts at things? Otherwise, lots of good ideas!

Bumping their invocations known isn't going to be that drastic a power-up though - since they already have all abilities at will, this just gives them more versatility, not more raw power.

CMage has some strange invocations, but it also has some that fill in needed gaps. Eldritch Glaive, for instance, is a melee blast shape that doesn't suck. So I'll third their inclusion.

I guess it depends - are you just looking to Pathfinderize the class, or are you looking to actually balance it? For the latter, PId6's suggestions look like a good start.

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Originally Posted by icefractal

CMage has some strange invocations, but it also has some that fill in needed gaps. Eldritch Glaive, for instance, is a melee blast shape that doesn't suck. So I'll third their inclusion.

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...and it's in Dragon Magic anyway.

I'm trying to basically take where it is in the 3.5 system and shift it into a similar place in Pathfinder (that is, I'd like it to be similarly powerful in comparison to the rest of the classes as it is in normal 3.5), with perhaps a little bit of a relative boost. So, I'm not looking to up-tier the class or put it on a level with wizards and the like.

Also, I didn't see Eldrich Glaive in CM? In fact, I saw 2-3 invocations I'd even think about taking, and those are pretty much overshadowed by other things. Am I crazy?

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Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

Set: Wait, doesn't armour non-proficiency affect attack rolls? Like the one I use to shoot Eldrich Blasts at things? Otherwise, lots of good ideas!

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It does indeed, but Warlocks rarely have a problem with hitting, since they use ranged touch attacks.

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Originally Posted by PId6

Raise Eldritch Blast damage to the same progression as the rogue's Sneak Attack (+1d6 every odd level; this fixes the slower damage progression at high levels). Grant a new invocation known every level, and allow the invocations from Dragon Magic and Complete Mage (possibly allowing you to take Dragonfire Adept invocations as well; this fixes the lack of options problem with normal warlocks). Give warlocks more skill points (preferably 6+Int, but at least 4+Int; gives them better utility and more options). Grant DR/cold iron every even level (up to +10 at 20th level), change the energy resistance to 10 at level 5, 20 at level 10, 30 at level 15, and immunity at level 20, and raise Fiendish Resilience to 2/5/10 rather than 1/2/5 and allow it to be used as an immediate action (makes the class features actually worthwhile rather than worthless).

That's the quick fix. The invocations need to be buffed as well, but that requires combing through the entire list and adding a lot of new ones, which can be quite time consuming. Getting more invocations is enough to at least tide over that problem though, as long as you avoid the really bad ones and allow more options to choose from in Dragon Magic/Complete Mage.

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I second the resistance thing and Fiendish Resilence idea (immediate action).
I'm okay with idea of eldritch blast 1d6/odd level (only adds 1 or 2 d6's).

Whilst in the FLGS last night, I'm sure I saw a pathfinder sourcebook that claimed, amongst other things, to be a way of incorporating the warlock and other classes.

God knows what the deal with that was, but worth chasing up, possibly, if you're going the pathfinder route and want a Warlock? :)

I just checked that out, Tiki. Turns out their next book, Tome of Secrets, features Warlocks. Who suck.

What wonderful things happened with them? Instead of invocations, they get those wizard (and cleric? They seem to be able to Turn Undead) abilities. You know, the ones that are pretty much only good if the wizard runs out of spells. Apparently there's some that are Warlock only, but Paizo neglected to show any in their preview. Also, their DR goes down at every level except 4th and becomes DRX/Cold Iron or two other things (that is, there are three ways to overcome it). Energy resistance is gone entirely, as far as I can see. Let me get this straight: Weaker invocations, less powerful class features and no other changes? Wow, I sure hope there's something really, really nice for 'Locks that didn't get mentioned in the preview, because otherwise they seem to have been gimped into irrelevence...

Play a Dragonfire Adept? Seriously, it's the fixed Warlock. Just change the fluff, and you're done.

For the record, I'm pretty sure the Tome of Secrets is a third party sourcebook.

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Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

I just checked that out, Tiki. Turns out their next book, Tome of Secrets, features Warlocks. Who suck.

What wonderful things happened with them? Instead of invocations, they get those wizard (and cleric? They seem to be able to Turn Undead) abilities. You know, the ones that are pretty much only good if the wizard runs out of spells. Apparently there's some that are Warlock only, but Paizo neglected to show any in their preview. Also, their DR goes down at every level except 4th and becomes DRX/Cold Iron or two other things (that is, there are three ways to overcome it). Energy resistance is gone entirely, as far as I can see. Let me get this straight: Weaker invocations, less powerful class features and no other changes? Wow, I sure hope there's something really, really nice for 'Locks that didn't get mentioned in the preview, because otherwise they seem to have been gimped into irrelevence...

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Ahaha. Aha. Ahahaha.
No, really? That's...actually quite unexpected. I thought it was 'martial characters can't have nice things', not 'things that aren't wizard or cleric can't have nice things'.
There must be something in there...

Ah, right, it IS third party or something. Adamant Entertainment. And it is supposedly available from November, but that IS the book I saw, in store, yesterday. Heh. Educational.

Perhaps not one to chase up, after all.

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Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

I'm not sure about some of those changes, PId6. They seem a little... Drastic, especially the huge (66%) increase to invocations known and effective doubling (or tripleing) to all resistances. I was thinking that changing the Extra Invocation feat to allow any invocation the character would normally be able to learn (that is, no more max-1) it would go a long way to improving the class in general. As for the rest, I'll try for a bit of an improvement (especially to Fiendish Resilience, perhaps in the form of greater duration instead of bigger numbers). As to extra sources of invocations, that's what DM-approved custom jobs are for!:smallwink: (Besides, the Complete Mage ones are either really weird (detaching body parts) or terrible(all of the EB stuff. Seriously, letting it do normal instead of half damage to objects?))

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My suggestions are more in line with balancing the warlock in line with classes like barbarian, martial adepts, and PF paladin. I'm going for a more general fix, not just a straight conversion. Don't worry about making it as powerful as wizard; that's not going to happen unless you start giving out Time Stop invocations or something.

Lack of invocations is one of the biggest problems of the warlock, since invocations are needed to provide options for them, but you only get 3 at each level and many of them are fairly fixed (See Invisibility, Fly, Chilling Tentacles, etc). Since most invocations aren't that powerful anyway, giving more invocations only provide more versatility, which is something warlocks need. Likewise with the skill points, since warlocks are set up like skill monkeys/half casters, yet they only get 2+Int per level. Extra Invocation may work, but you shouldn't force anyone to spend feats on what they should be getting as class features.

The reason resistances need to be boosted is that they are worthless normally; at 10th level, you would normally be able to stop 5 points out of a 10d6 fireball, taking on average 30 damage rather than 35. And fireball is only a 3rd level spell! An empowered fireball, perfectly usable by a 10th level wizard, deals on average 52 damage, becoming 47 after resistances; preventing less than 10% damage in situational places is not a worthwhile class feature. And resist 10 at 20th level is just utterly laughable. Resist Energy, a 2nd level spell, works three times better than the warlock's 20th level capstone.

As for Complete Mage, it's true that it does have quite a few underpowered invocations, but there are some gems in there. All Seeing Eyes and Otherworldly Whispers, for example, are fine as least invocations, and others can be situationally useful. The main goal is to expand options (not to mention the detach eye/hand ones are just cool). Most of them are not absolutely necessary though, so they're a lot harder to fit into your list unless you have more invocations as per my previous suggestion.

Oh, and yeah, easiest is to just use refluffed Dragonfire Adept.

I have been working on this one for a bit. The goal was to keep the feel and flavor of the original 3.5 class and give it a kick into pathfinder. I took some Ideas off the sorcerer's blood lines for the pacts. The raw files are still modifiable and I open to suggestions.

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/0JdZTcW...%20Warlock.pdf

Most of the old invocations for the scores I hand are listed in their full forms so this is pretty long, about 11 pages. I added a few that we created in our own campaigns and remove one or two that were based of complicated spell from 3.5 sources that didn't convert well. Though some like earthen grasp have the full spell description (modified for pathfinder) listed in their invocation description.

Fluff wise, Warlocks are beings who have either made Pacts with powerful beings or are descended from those that have, give Warlocks limited access to the Sorcerer bloodlines that Pathfinder has. Any spells that would be granted from the bloodline can be used as a spell-like ability 1/day or 1 + Cha/day.

Do something similar to eldritch claws from Dragon Magazine. "Alternate" Warlocks, like the different pacts in 4e, would be cool as well.