Welcome to the New Warlock Handbook. This guide came up from an idea to compile various thoughts about Warlocks, since it has been spread out between various guides around the various optimization communities. Sadly, those guides haven't been updated in quite a while, so I'm trying to fill the gaps.
Color Coded for Your Convenience
I initially resisted using a color code system for this guide, but under influence of our friend LonelyTylenol, I gave in. You will find the following color ratings in this guide:
Purple - Excellent
Blue - Good
Black - Average
Red - Bad
Introduction
Warlocks are a base class presented in Complete Arcane. It has a strong demonic flavor, though options for fey flavored and celestial flavored warlocks showed up later.
The warlock shtick is at-will magic. The class is built around invocations - spell-like abilities the warlock gets to use how often he wants. The class gets an offensive option in eldritch blast, allowing for an at will ranged touch attack for magical damage. Eldritch blast can be further tweaked with essences and shapes.
If the demonic flavor, the at-will magic or something else entirely about the Warlock interests you, hang on because we get a long road ahead of us. In this handbook, we plan to explore all the options available to Warlocks.
Standing in the Shoulders of Giants
The following are the previous Warlock handbooks in case you want to check out the (awesome) guides that came before us.
Warlock Information Compilation by Thinblade
Glaivelock Miniguide by JanusJones... sadly contains many errors regarding rules interpretations
Melee warlock handbook
Warlock FAQ by Rich Baker Rich Baker created the Warlock and this compilation has several of his answers regarding the class, feat interactions, what it should and should not do. Very good for those that want to homebrew invocations, since he states the design goals behind them.
A Note About The Tier System
I'm guessing most of you reading this handbook are familiar with JaronK's tier system for classes. JaronK has Warlocks at tier 4, which is something I disagree with. You see, the tier system claims to consider potential and not specific builds. However, the Warlock has potential for very high damage output if he chooses his melee options. Between high damage output and his invocations, a Warlock is more versatile than any initiator and even the Duskblade. To me, the Warlock fits perfectly the definition of tier 3.
There have been plenty of accusations of bias towards the tier system, but I really don't think this is a case of such. I think it's just a matter of no one bothering enough to defend the Warlock at the time of it's writing and JaronK not knowing much about Warlocks, really (eldritch glaive is very counterintuitive). The tier system is unlikely to get updated ever again and should only be considered as rough guidelines anyway, but do notice that I strongly think Warlock stands quite firmly at tier 3, above the Duskblade and the martial adepts but below Beguiler.
Warlock Basics
Let's get down to the basics about Warlocks. First, overall pros and cons.
Pros:
- Can function with pretty much any ability score assignment
- At-will abilities, requiring no resource management (other than actions, gold and hp, but everyone needs those)
- Good damage output if using melee options
- Good skill list
- Able to use invocations in light armor
- Medium base attack bonus
Cons:
- Alignment restrictions (must be chaotic or evil)
- Only gets 12 invocations across 20 levels
- Hard to qualify for prestige classes
- Few skill points
- d6 Hit Dice
- Starved for feats
To Melee or Not Melee
The first question you must ask yourself regarding Warlocks is this - do you want the extra damage output from melee or not? Using eldritch glaive and or eldritch claws will gain you a lot of damage over staying ranged, but it requires investment and puts you in the frontlines.
You'll notice this is not titled "ranged or melee", because going melee does not hurt your ranged capabilities in the slightest. We'll discuss a few options for ranged-only warlocks to increase their damage output (Psionic Shot, Hellfire Warlock plus Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse), but be advised it's not spectacular damage in any way.
Please notice how we never mentioned Hideous Blow as an option for melee warlocks. That's because, as others have said before me, Hideous Blow blows hideously.
We are in no way claiming that ranged Warlocks are bad. If anything, not having to spend feats and levels for damage boosts gives them versatility. It's just that they don't make good main damage dealers. You can play a blastlock just fine, you just won't be winning any damage contests.
Charisma: Take it or Leave it
As mentioned before, Warlocks can function with pretty much any ability score assignment (yes, even 3s across the board, even if that is an unplayable character by RAW). This might confuse some readers, since the save DC for invocations depends on Charisma. It's important to notice that Warlocks have several invocations that don't allow saves, so you could simply take those. Basically, even the Warlock's main stat (according to Complete Arcane) is skippable.
It's important to keep good Charisma if you want to use invocations that allow saves, such as most eldritch essences and a few others (Tenacious Plague, Word of Changing, Nightmares Made Real), if you want to get mileage from Dark One's Own Luck if you want to use Bluff, UMD and Intimidate reliably.
If you don't want to use those, you can safely dump Charisma and stock up on 24 hour buffs (Fell Flight, Beguiling Influence, Leaps and Bounds, Dark Foresight, Walk Unseen, Entropic Warding) and invocations that don't require saves (Chilling Tentacles, Path of Shadows, Flee the Scene, Hellspawned Grace, The Dead Walk).
Some of you may already have noticed that some of the best invocations don't require saves. Also, the best essence user is the glaivelock - and that's because he forces several saves in the same round and thus does not require stellar Charisma (though it helps).
My suggestion after all this is that having a good Charisma on your Warlock is preferrable... if it does not hurt other parts of your build. Check the requirements on your feats, your expected Armor Class and decide if you want to be a melee 'lock or not before you assign points to Charisma. In most situations, 14~16 is good enough.
I don't advise dumping Charisma altogether unless you start at very high levels, since UMD is so good. At high levels, though, you don't need Cha since between ranks and taking 10 you'll meet all DCs anyway.
Warlock Class Abilities
Here we'll discuss about the various class abilities Warlocks get and how you can make use of them.
Eldritch Blast: The Warlock's signature ability, gained at level 1. Eldritch blast by itself is nothing to write home about. It's a ranged touch attack with 30ft range that hits for an average of 3.5 damage/2 levels. It can gain rider effects through essences and can target differently with shapes. Some of those rider effects are really good (such as Noxious Blast) and your damage output can be greatly increased if you use options to attack more than once a round (eldritch glaive, eldritch claw, grappling blast). Out of the box, eldritch blast is nothing special, but if you use the right options, it becomes a respectable source of damage.
Detect Magic: This is a nice ability to have, since it's at will. It's easy to forget you have it, though.
Damage Reduction: Small DR, but you'll have it against most attacks, since cold iron weapons are usually rare in NPC statblocks and monsters are very rarely able to overcome this. It's a small bonus, but it sure adds up.
Energy Resistance: This is nothing special, but it least it saves you some GP from buying equipment to do this. Passive ability and easily forgettable, but it can be a lifesaver every now and then.
Fiendish Resilience: A very minor passive ability. It's basically a built-in ability for out of combat healing - which you should be doing from wands anyway. Really forgettable. There are options to trade it away in Drow of the Underdark (Poisonous Blood) and Player's Handbook 2 (Fiendish Flamewrath). I like Fiendish Flamewrath better, but both poison and fire are commonly resisted.
Deceive Item: This is one of the strongest features of the Warlock class. Use Magic Device is the best skill in the game and Warlock is one of only two classes that can take 10 on it.
Imbue Item: This ability allows you craft magical items with no need for spells. You still need the magic item creation feats, but you could dip the Chameleon prestige class from Races of Destiny for a way around that (they get a floating feat that can be swapped evey day). More info on magic item creation will follow below.
Races for your Warlock
Part of choosing any character is selecting race. Warlocks can work as any race, but a few races are specially good as Warlocks. If you already have a race set in mind due to background or anything like that, go with that.
I'm not covering races with LA yet.
Human: As usual, humans are a good race to choose. Extra feats are helpful in a usually feat starved race, warlocks are not that dependant on ability scores so the lack of bonuses is not a problem, warlocks don't get much skill points so every little bit helps.... and it qualifies you for Chameleon. As an aside, it's a good option for fey themed warlocks because then you can take Nymph's Kiss and Fey Heritage at 1st level. Silverbrow Humans from Dragon Magic also give you Disguise as class skill, qualifying you for Chameleon as a single classed Warlock.
Halfling: Small size is very good for warlocks. Eldritch blast's damage does not depend on size and it has an interesting relation to eldritch claw - since your damage is more or less than same and you start at a lower point, a Small Warlock actually has the potential to make their eldritch claws more powerful than a Medium-sized Warlock! That only applies if you don't consider Beast Strike, though. If you can use the Strongheart Halflings from Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, they get a bonus feat, same as humans.
Xeph (Expanded Psionics Handbook): -2 Str and +2 Dex good stat modifiers, Burst is a good ability overall (remember that you get a bonus to Jump from high land speed, which helps Glaivelocks), Xeph Celerity is a racial feat that allows you to get extra attacks and xeph also opens up psionic feats. A good race for Warlocks, specially at low levels when Burst can (and will) save your life.
Hengeyokai (Oriental Adventures and Dragon Magazine 318): With the update from Dragon 318, this race has no LA (because there is no Shapechanger creature type in 3.5 - it's only a subtype). You get plenty of good options from this very fun race. Sparrow and crane hengeyokai get flight (so you don't need to take Fell Flight as an invocation), badger gives you a burrow speed (deadly when combined with Spring Attack or Mobile Spellcasting), dog gives you scent, raccon dog has a bonus to Str and hare gets a bonus to Dex and 40ft base speed. Wisdom is the stat Warlocks care less about, so a penalty here is not a problem at all (it does lock you out of Eldritch Disciple builds, though). I've seen many people saying you could spend all day blasting in sparrow form - but notice that invocations do have somatic components, so you need hands to use them, unless you take the Surrogate Spellcasting feat (from Savage Species). Shapechanger subtype qualifies you for Warshaper.
Warforged (Eberron CS or Monster Manual 3): As others did before me, I'll quote JeminiZero: "Also bears mentioning under races: Warforged. Con bonus, considerable immunities (which help make up for your crappy Fort save), plus never needing to rest. Also qualifies for certain awesome buffs (Construct Essence, Golem Immunity).
Plus, ya'know a mecha that flies around shooting lasers, and fighting with a beam sabre glaive.
Its not all roses though, theres a feat tax (for better armor plating), you're harder to heal, and theres the Cha penalty (but you can live without that)."
Tibbit (Dragon Compendium): Most of what was said regarding hengeyokai and halfling applies to tibbit. You get the size advantage and the ability to disguise yourself as a cat is handy.
Changeling (Eberron Campaign Setting): Shapechanger subtype and minor disguise are good assets. While it does qualify you for Warshaper, some people might argue that minor disguise replicates an illusion spell so the Warshaper features wouldn't work. That's really splitting hairs, since the description of minor disguise specifically mentions it as a transformation. RAI seems crystal clear here, but ask your DM.
Shifter (Eberron Campaign Setting): Another option to qualify for warshaper, but a rather sucky one at that. With the limited shifting, you won't get the benefits from warshaper most of the time. It doesn't have much else to offer for a warlock. Mostly a trap option.
Elan (Expanded Psionics Handbook): Solid defensive racial features, psionic and aberration type opens up Rapidstrike. A penalty to Charisma is not exactly welcomed, but you can work around that anyway. A solid race for Warlocks, specially those that use Eldritch Claw.
Daelkyr Halfblood (Races of Eberron): Aberration type with no penalty to Charisma. Symbionts are borderline broken - they get their own set of actions, after all. One of the best options around.
Kobold (Races of the Dragon): You can get dragon type through a feat, so you qualify for Rapidstrike. Small size is good as mentioned before. You don't get as much mileage of the abuse on high mental stats from the Dragonwrought feat, so it's probably not worth it. Only mentioned for completeness sake.
Shimonen Greensnake Naga (Oriental Adventures): The race is found at page 173 and the level adjustment on page 203. It's +1 LA, but it's one of the few LA really seems to be worth it, specially with buyoff. You get Str+2, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +2 and Wis +2 (Dragon Magazine 318 updates it to only Str +2 and Dex+4, a lot more reasonable - that's why it didn't get a purple rating), poison, telepathy (restricted to nagas), taint immunity and alternate form. This is a race that allows you to (ab)use Venomfire, Warshaper and Mindsight. Very, very good.