Shinken's Guide to Melee Warlocks

[Re'ozul]

Ever since noticing the improved matural attacks possibility I've been thinking on how to up damage.

Can soomeone tell me if this is legit? (assume strongheart vest works)

warlock 5/Shou Disciple 5/Incarnum 2/Hellfire 3/warlock 3/'something with full BAB for 16 overall' 2

That should put your normal blast at 11th level equivalent: 6d6
plus Hellfire: 6d6
plus unarmed: 2d6
plus greater chasuble: 2d6

so your claws should have a normal damage of 16d6

natural attack progression seems to be:

2d6 -x1.5- 3d6 -x4/3- 4d6 -x1.5- 6d6 -x4/3- 8d6 -x1.5- 12d6

so it should go on:

12d6 -x4/3- 16d6 -x1.5- 24d6

so with improved natural attack (eldritch claws you) and a shou disciples flurry you should get attacks of:

15/15/10/5/0 for 26d6 per hit, potentially with a secondary claw attack at +11 for 24d6

is that about right with this build?

[Talionis]

There was a feat that was similar to extra invocation that allows you to choose a DFA invocation but it has to be one lower than even the type you could choose with the extra invocation feat. It was on one of those online articles on WotC website.

What's the name of that feat? It won't work for what I'm looking for but I'd love to have that in my arsenal of choices.

I was trying to use the Instill Vulnerability Invocation to grant Vulnerability to Fire and then make all my damage fire with the Burning Brand Maneuver.

[Halae]

Something you should make a note of - It never specifies where you shoot your eldritch blast from, or where the somatic component takes place. thus, even with your hands full, you can hip thrust or head bang your way to victory

[bartman]

Something you should make a note of - It never specifies where you shoot your eldritch blast from, or where the somatic component takes place. thus, even with your hands full, you can hip thrust or head bang your way to victory

According to the SRD, A Somatic Component requires one hand free, so unfortunately this will not work.

Somatic (S)

A somatic component is a measured and precise movement of the hand. You must have at least one hand free to provide a somatic component.

[true_shinken]

There was a feat that was similar to extra invocation that allows you to choose a DFA invocation but it has to be one lower than even the type you could choose with the extra invocation feat. It was on one of those online articles on WotC website.

It's the Infernal Adept feat. Planar Affinity is also worth of mention, allowing you to swap 2 invocations instead of one. I'll add'em to the guide soon-ish.

About Improved natural Attack -- let's see. Warlock 6/Binder 1/Shou Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 5.
Effective warlock level 14, hellfire +14d6 for a total of 21d6 eldritch blast. Base attack bonus is just 14 (but fractional bab gets the magic 16), unarmed damage is 2d6 (less levels would make the calculation very complicated; those 2d6 are actually important). So your claw damage is 23d6, 25d6 with greater chasuble. With beast strike, your unarmed strike damage is 27d6 (because you count unarmed damage twice with beast strike + eldritch claws). I'll take a conservative aproach and say INA increases 1.5x the damage, not 1.75. That's 40d6 damage. I think that's an average of 140 damage, with Strenght 10 and a single magical item. And that's your unarmed strike - you can flurry with it. So you get 3 attacks from bab and one from flurry - four attacks, each for 40d6 damage and you get an extra claw attack (or two if you're an elan with Rapidstrike), but that's just 25d6 damage. So that's, what, 210d6 damage? Now let's see who says 'Warlocks are underpowered' to your face.

[MeeposFire]

It's the Infernal Adept feat. Planar Affinity is also worth of mention, allowing you to swap 2 invocations instead of one. I'll add'em to the guide soon-ish.

About Improved natural Attack -- let's see. Warlock 6/Binder 1/Shou Disciple 5/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 5.
Effective warlock level 14, hellfire +14d6 for a total of 21d6 eldritch blast. Base attack bonus is just 14 (but fractional bab gets the magic 16), unarmed damage is 2d6 (less levels would make the calculation very complicated; those 2d6 are actually important). So your claw damage is 23d6, 25d6 with greater chasuble. With beast strike, your unarmed strike damage is 27d6 (because you count unarmed damage twice with beast strike + eldritch claws). I'll take a conservative aproach and say INA increases 1.5x the damage, not 1.75. That's 40d6 damage. I think that's an average of 140 damage, with Strenght 10 and a single magical item. And that's your unarmed strike - you can flurry with it. So you get 3 attacks from bab and one from flurry - four attacks, each for 40d6 damage and you get an extra claw attack (or two if you're an elan with Rapidstrike), but that's just 25d6 damage. So that's, what, 210d6 damage? Now let's who says 'Warlocks are underpowered' to your face.

Do not forget snap kick. Too bad dragon content is among the most often banned content in games. I do like this eldritch claw feat so thanks for making this guide.

[true_shinken]

Update! Added an item, a build and a sexy witch.
I'm sure incarnum has good support for claw locks. I'll look it up soon.

[Cieyrin]

Update! Added an item, a build and a sexy witch.
I'm sure incarnum has good support for claw locks. I'll look it up soon.

You want to be a bit more specific on the item? It's been a while since I looked at this guide and all...

[The Cat Goddess]

I'm confused by the Eldritch Glaive wording. It says in the Warlock description that all invocations are spell-like, therefore they take a standard action to use.

But in Eldritch Glaive's description, it doesn't explicitly state that using the invocation is a full-round action, it only tells you that as a full-round action you may make attacks with it, and that it persists and causes you to threaten the usual areas until your the beginning of your next turn.

So what type of action is Eldritch Glaive? I can see an argument for both standard, or for Full-Round.

By the way you're describing it, you could conceivably activate it as a Standard Action if you didn't attack with it. You would, however, still threaten and make AoOs with it.

[true_shinken]

You want to be a bit more specific on the item? It's been a while since I looked at this guide and all...

Beast Claws! They are awesome.

[Cieyrin]

Beast Claws! They are awesome.

I think those may have been updated at some point. Let me check around and I'll get back to you.

Either way, still pretty damn neat.

[true_shinken]

Updated with incarnum. If someone has any incarnum tricks that are Warlock-friendly, I'd love to know about them.

[LansXero]

Sorry if its a bit offtopic; in the first post there is a list of weapon-relevant feats that arent good... so, what would be good feats for a lvl 1 human warlock with only faerun, core and completes allowed? thanks for any advice :D

[true_shinken]

Sorry if its a bit offtopic; in the first post there is a list of weapon-relevant feats that arent good... so, what would be good feats for a lvl 1 human warlock with only faerun, core and completes allowed? thanks for any advice :D

That's the thing - those are the only weapon relevant feats that apply to weaponlike spells by RAW. For 1st level, your best bet is probably Mortalbane. Restricted to core and completes... things get tricky. You could take Improved Unarmed Strike so you'll qualify for Shou Disciple later, I guess.

[Cieyrin]

Neat on the Incarnum addition.

As for checking into Beast Claws, I appear to be wrong, as I was thinking of Claws of the Leopard and Dragonclaw Gauntlets, neither of which are similar at all.

[true_shinken]

Got special permission.
It's updated, folks.

Update includes:

• A few new jokes as links.
• A method to use eldritch claw and glaive in the same round
• Added the link to Planar Affinity
• Added Warshaper to prestige classes
• Added a section about increasing reach, for Glaivelocks
• Added a section about debuffing, for Glaivelocks
• Added a very small (for now) section about UMD
• Added a new build (Tentacler Monster) and spoilered all the builds to make reading easier

That's all for now. Any comments and suggestions are apreciated.

[Makiru]

I do feel that Spellfire Wielder (Magic of Faerun) is worth mentioning here, since it can be used as a touch attack/SLA and can give some extra hilarious nova damage.

[Thiyr]

On the subject of the warshaper: You may be able to qualify for it via Spider-shape, from Drow of the Underdark, meaning you don't need to be of a specific race for it. Hazy, as it isn't polymorph as an SLA, but it is a polymorph affect. That said, logically it works. Also of note, all of its class abilities are limited to when you are shapeshifted, meaning it might be, depending on form, less useful to some than to others, depending on DM ruling and how you're going about your melee.

[true_shinken]

I do feel that Spellfire Wielder (Magic of Faerun) is worth mentioning here, since it can be used as a touch attack/SLA and can give some extra hilarious nova damage.

That class is similar to Warlock, but does not progress invocations.
Can a Warlock auto-fuel himself with spellfire? Hmmm...
I don't really see that much synergy, but if you have more to add, please let us know. ^^

On the subject of the warshaper: You may be able to qualify for it via Spider-shape, from Drow of the Underdark, meaning you don't need to be of a specific race for it. Hazy, as it isn't polymorph as an SLA, but it is a polymorph affect. That said, logically it works. Also of note, all of its class abilities are limited to when you are shapeshifted, meaning it might be, depending on form, less useful to some than to others, depending on DM ruling and how you're going about your melee.

Hm, Spider-shape is debatable, but Humanoid Form (through Infernal Adept) is not... I'll think about a way to make this useful. Thanks a lot.

[Cieyrin]

I was rereading the guide and there's an issue with the Wuxia Mofo, in that he can't meet the Shou Disciple's skill requirements with just Warlock till 13th, when your cross-class skill cap reaches 8 ranks for Jump. You need to dip Human Paragon for at least 1 level to make Jump your Adaptive Skill. Something like Warlock 1/Human Paragon 3/Warlock +2/Shou Disciple 5 will net you an extra bonus feat so that your feat investment gets paid back to you, plus a free ability boost to whatever at the cost of 1 level of invocation progression.

Also, I would take Mountain Hammer over Foehammer unless you have some penchant against staying on the ground while using it, which as a Warlock you may, since you'll have access to Fell Flight. It's just that Mountain Hammer does everything Foehammer does, plus bust through Hardness, which fits really well with Melee Warlocking in my mind. Taking my Eldritch claw and busting through a stone wall like I was the Juggernaut scores you plenty of cool points in my book, which you just can't do with Foehammer.

[true_shinken]

I was rereading the guide and there's an issue with the Wuxia Mofo, in that he can't meet the Shou Disciple's skill requirements with just Warlock till 13th, when your cross-class skill cap reaches 8 ranks for Jump. You need to dip Human Paragon for at least 1 level to make Jump your Adaptive Skill. Something like Warlock 1/Human Paragon 3/Warlock +2/Shou Disciple 5 will net you an extra bonus feat so that your feat investment gets paid back to you, plus a free ability boost to whatever at the cost of 1 level of invocation progression.

Man, I can't believe I missed this, Kenshiro is going to kill me.
I'll think of a way to fix this.

[Hazzardevil]

I was wondering, its not that hard for a warlock to qualify for abjurant champion and it works well with the full BAB and d10 HD, why don't you mention it Shinken?

[true_shinken]

I was wondering, its not that hard for a warlock to qualify for abjurant champion and it works well with the full BAB and d10 HD, why don't you mention it Shinken?

Because while you can take advantage of the chassis, all of the class features are sadly useless for a Warlock, since you don't have spells.

[Shreaver]

Hope I'm not resurrecting something that was meant to stay hidden away, but...seeing as how I am unfamiliar with this class, Glaivelocks need to focus on the STR attribute, yes?

[MeeposFire]

Hope I'm not resurrecting something that was meant to stay hidden away, but...seeing as how I am unfamiliar with this class, Glaivelocks need to focus on the STR attribute, yes?

No I would put points into con, dex, or cha before str. They are touch attacks so accuracy will not be a big deal and if you want just be sure to use anything that gives you a small bonus to attack and you will be fine.

[DeAnno]

If you are very concerned about your touch attack to hit, better to invest in Weapon Finesse and dump Str in favor of Dex, and have an accurate ranged Eldritch Blast to fall back on.