The Newest Warlock Handbook [3.5]

[VoltaicVitriol]

Do you think that the handbook could use a section on multiclassing? Some advice for taking level dips out of warlock to pick up useful abilities, and some advice for other classes that might want to dip warlock.

I believe I already pointed out that Hideous Blow, while usually sub-optimal on a melee warlock, allows move actions the turn it is used and thus synergizes well with Scout, Spellthief, and other precision-damage classes. Also with swordsage (Boost manuvers can be applied to HB/EG).

[foobar1969]

A ranged touch attack is a touch attack that is at range. Not a ranged attack that is also touch. I have demonstrated this with rules backing.

3.5 is unfortunately ambiguous about ranged touch and AoOs. This question is heavily debated.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthr...d-touch-spells
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...clarifications
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questio...-from-the-same

FWIW, PF rules it as double-provoking. http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qdc

[Socratov]

Do you think that the handbook could use a section on multiclassing? Some advice for taking level dips out of warlock to pick up useful abilities, and some advice for other classes that might want to dip warlock.

I believe I already pointed out that Hideous Blow, while usually sub-optimal on a melee warlock, allows move actions the turn it is used and thus synergizes well with Scout, Spellthief, and other precision-damage classes. Also with swordsage (Boost manuvers can be applied to HB/EG).

Well, a Warlock wouldn't want to dip or multiclass too much since doing so deprives a warlock form invocations. Only for specific builds (clawlock come to mind) does multiclassing work. One of the more useful dips are binder 1 for Naberius and Chameleon 2 for crafting.

Warlock is an excellent dip for any character that wants to pick up one invocation, in particular the skills ones. The invocations that bolster skills by 6 all day are excellent targets for dips since for one level you get a +6 untyped bonus to 3-4 skills. these bonsues help a lot with either being the face (Beguiling Influence), jumping/tumbling (Leaps and bounds), walking on walls (Spiderwalk), see invisibility and through darkness (See the Unseen). Other fine invocations are Entropic Warding (for a defence focused character). Devil's sight even pierces magical darkness of up to 30' (for shadow dancers and so on). But mostly utility. If you can also get the DFA invocations then you are really in luck since those have Draconic Knowledge (+6 to Knowledge and spellcraft), Aquatic Adaptation (breathe underwater for 24 hours+swim speed) and some other fun tricks that might make it worth it.

Edit: invocations to look at from CM: all-seeing eyes (comprehend languages on any written word, +6 to spot and search), Otherworldly Whispers (+6 to knowledge (+6 to knowledge Aracana, Religion and the planes), Swimming the Styx (if draconic invocations aren't on the table for warlocks, this gives swimspeed, +8 to swim checks and water breathing)

[Amphetryon]

Well, a Warlock wouldn't want to dip or multiclass too much since doing so deprives a warlock form invocations. Only for specific builds (clawlock come to mind) does multiclassing work. One of the more useful dips are binder 1 for Naberius and Chameleon 2 for crafting.

Silverbrow Human Warlock 15/Chameleon 2/Cyran Avenger 3 seems like a fairly adaptable, party-friendly Clawlock base that can also do reasonably at range, while supplying the party. Synad is arguably as strong, thanks to Aberration/Psionic goodies, but misses automatic Disguise as a Class Skill in addition to the well-known Human bennies. . . and missing out on Disguise is troublesome here, because you're generally already sinking a Feat into getting Survival on your Class Skill list for this build.

[Socratov]

Silverbrow Human Warlock 15/Chameleon 2/Cyran Avenger 3 seems like a fairly adaptable, party-friendly Clawlock base that can also do reasonably at range, while supplying the party. Synad is arguably as strong, thanks to Aberration/Psionic goodies, but misses automatic Disguise as a Class Skill in addition to the well-known Human bennies. . . and missing out on Disguise is troublesome here, because you're generally already sinking a Feat into getting Survival on your Class Skill list for this build.

Well, you want to spend that feat anyway and that is able learner on a human for chameleon. I can't find what book Cyran avenger is from, until then I can't see why you want it in there.

if going the crafterlock route (for which you need at least 12 lvls of warlock and 2 lvls of chameleon, a human and the feat able learner) I'd rather have 2 levels of Hellfire Warlock in there to supercharge items and wands (and such) and a lvl of binder to waive the con damage. So warlock 15/Chameleon 2/binder 1/hellfire Warlock 2

[Amphetryon]

Well, you want to spend that feat anyway and that is able learner on a human for chameleon. I can't find what book Cyran avenger is from, until then I can't see why you want it in there.

if going the crafterlock route (for which you need at least 12 lvls of warlock and 2 lvls of chameleon, a human and the feat able learner) I'd rather have 2 levels of Hellfire Warlock in there to supercharge items and wands (and such) and a lvl of binder to waive the con damage. So warlock 15/Chameleon 2/binder 1/hellfire Warlock 2

Five Nations; its primary benefit here a Level-dependent, CHA-based Smite attack (at-Range-capable at 3rd level), providing a reliable damage increase without having to wrangle with the DM over Hellfire Warlock (which I frequently see banned or nerfed into territory considerably less desirable than generally assumed here) . Able Learner doesn't make Survival (or Disguise) a Class Skill and thus doesn't increase the Skill cap, it just reduces cost; you'll still need it for Chameleon, but it won't otherwise help with Skill acquisition significantly.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't list Cyran Avenger's source outright, but I did see it mentioned explicitly (but not detailed) in the PrC section, so didn't think to source it.

[Socratov]

Ah, thanks, I will look at it later.

Anyway, I was trawling the guide and saw that the FAQ link is broken and would ask Snowbluff to put this link in there instead: http://www.adnd3egame.com/documents/mainfaq.pdf

And I'd like to request an update of the "kinds of warlocks" section to include the crafterlock and some other kinds of warlocks.

[Segev]

Might I recommend glasses which grant ebon eyes (and possibly darkvision if your race or invocation choices do not already cover this) for you and your party members, then go ahead and enjoy your darkness invocation all the time? Ebon eyes is in the Spell Compendium, and while its wording is absolutely awful, I believe the only sane interpretation of what it does is give you the ability to see in magical darkness exactly as well as you see in regular darkness. Therefore, if you already have darkvision or devil's sight, ebon eyes will let you use them to see through magical darkness.

It's a first level spell, so 1200 gp market value for a pair of magical glasses/lenses/face-item with it.

[Snowbluff]

Ah, thanks, I will look at it later.

Anyway, I was trawling the guide and saw that the FAQ link is broken and would ask Snowbluff to put this link in there instead: http://www.adnd3egame.com/documents/mainfaq.pdf

Added. Thanks.

And I'd like to request an update of the "kinds of warlocks" section to include the crafterlock and some other kinds of warlocks.

I'll see.

[foobar1969]

Shadowmaster requires some of the most useless invocations you can possibly take.
It is still very much worth it, but it's better when you already start in epic, since before that point you'll have wasted 4 of your invocations on really subpar choices.

Considering how unbalanced Shadowmaster is (in both power level and bad prereqs), would it be appropriate to discuss options for toning it down?

For example: what if a DM replaces Shades with Greater Shadow Conjuration, and Dark Disco with Path of Shadow? How worthwhile are cloudkills, walls, and 6th level summons in epic, without access to incendiary cloud, phase door, 8th level summons, etc?

[Troacctid]

Halfling Whistler is another good prestige class. You can get the prerequisite skills via Ruathar.

[Nihilarian]

Halfling Whistler is another good prestige class. You can get the prerequisite skills via Ruathar.

I've never even heard of this before.

[Troacctid]

It's a little weird--whistling up windstorms with the power of Yondalla? It's pretty strong, though, with full casting, good skills, easy prereqs, and some nice class abilities. Just about any caster can take it and feel good about it.

[DurionArcanis]

Halfling Whistler is another good prestige class. You can get the prerequisite skills via Ruathar.

That prestige class is so adorable lol. I mean it looks pretty strong but it's just so cute it's hard for me to look past that xD

[LentilNinja]

Remembering an older post from you, how about adding the +1 Adaptive weapon enchantment from ToB in? Using the Claw + Beast Strike method with a weapon to have what Hideous Blow should have been.

[Snowbluff]

Remembering an older post from you, how about adding the +1 Adaptive weapon enchantment from ToB in? Using the Claw + Beast Strike method with a weapon to have what Hideous Blow should have been.

So like I choose a greatsword. So the text of claws would read greatsword damage plus Eldritch blast. Beast strike would become great sword adding claw damage (gs + eb), for a total of 4d6 + eb. :p

[Nihilarian]

So like I choose a greatsword. So the text of claws would read greatsword damage plus Eldritch blast. Beast strike would become great sword adding claw damage (gs + eb), for a total of 4d6 + eb. :p

Picturing a dude with a glowing greatsword strapped to his forearm now

[Snowbluff]

Picturing a dude with a glowing greatsword strapped to his forearm now

Look at page 110 of the XPH, then bleach your eyes for looking at a Wayne Reynolds drawing.

[Marlowe]

Look at page 110 of the XPH, then bleach your eyes for looking at a Wayne Reynolds drawing.

Spoiler

Show

[Troacctid]

Steal Summoning (CM, active): This invocation is literally broken. As in, it doesn't work. The spell Steal Summoning is an immediate action cast that needs to be cast at the time a summoned creature is being brought into the world; however, as an invocation, this is always going to be a spell-like ability for you. Complete Arcane says about a Warlock's invocations: "A warlock's invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity." This is for the Warlock that has decided an invocation that you can use 1/day (Caster's Lament) is still too overpowered for him, and would like an invocation he can never use. Even if it were cast as an immediate action, the spell it imitates is too situational to ever be useful as an at-will ability.

I just noticed this...it's incorrect. Rules Compendium page 188 clarifies:

Using a spell-like ability usually takes 1 standard action and provokes attacks of opportunity unless otherwise noted. If the spell-like ability duplicates a spell that has a casting time of less than 1 standard action, the spell-like ability has that casting time.

So Steal Summoning should actually work as an immediate action.

Even if it didn't, though, saying it's literally broken would still be wrong. I mean that's just not true. Dispel Magic is a standard action to cast--would you say its counterspell mode doesn't work? No, it works fine, you just have to ready it. And in this case, since you're targeting a summoning spell, it probably takes a full round to cast, so you wouldn't even need to predict in advance that they're going to cast it.

...I mean, it's still garbage, but let's at least get the rules straight.

[Snowbluff]

Oh man, that's a pretty big error. Maybe it's specific trumping general there. Well, I don't really care either way. Let me check.

Speaking of, wouldn't dispel magic based invocations only scale to +10 CL? It's always bothered me and I've been wondering if you knew a way around that.

[Troacctid]

Speaking of, wouldn't dispel magic based invocations only scale to +10 CL? It's always bothered me and I've been wondering if you knew a way around that.

Yeah, they inherit the +10 maximum from Dispel Magic, except for that one that's based on Greater Dispel Magic. You can get an extra +1 pretty easily with Paragnostic Apostle, though, and the Soultouched Spellcasting feat can give you another +1 or more. And there's the granted power of the Inquisition domain for another +4, if you can get your hands on that somehow.

[Troacctid]

Incarnum Blast (MoI, active): This is one Magic of Incarnum got right, but not for its incarnum effect: when used against anybody with at least one alignment component opposed to yours, the enemy makes a Fortitude save or is dazed for 1 round. For reference, dazed is almost as good as stunned, but harder to find immunities for, which makes this probably the best condition to apply to an enemy. Be chaotic good (evil probably being the most common among things you need to kill in most campaigns) and Eldritch Chain this. The duration and Fort save make this high-risk, high-reward.

Hey, so, dazing is a good debuff, but isn't this just worse than Noxious Blast if you're not investing essentia into it? I mean, instead of dazing them for 1 round, you're nauseating them for the whole remaining duration of the encounter, and immunity to the dazing is going to be a lot more common than immunity to the nausea. (Neither one works on undead or constructs, but Incarnum Blast also fails against animals and vermin, for example.) Not to mention that you completely screw yourself over if you target a nonliving enemy without realizing it, since not only are they immune to the additional effect, they're also immune to the damage.

I could see taking it for the combination of debuffing and extra damage if your build also has an essentia pool--maybe in gestalt, for example, or if you have a Wand of Soul Boon--but barring that, it seems like an obviously inferior choice.

[Taveena]

Hey, so, dazing is a good debuff, but isn't this just worse than Noxious Blast if you're not investing essentia into it? I mean, instead of dazing them for 1 round, you're nauseating them for the whole remaining duration of the encounter, and immunity to the dazing is going to be a lot more common than immunity to the nausea. (Neither one works on undead or constructs, but Incarnum Blast also fails against animals and vermin, for example.) Not to mention that you completely screw yourself over if you target a nonliving enemy without realizing it, since not only are they immune to the additional effect, they're also immune to the damage.

I could see taking it for the combination of debuffing and extra damage if your build also has an essentia pool--maybe in gestalt, for example, or if you have a Wand of Soul Boon--but barring that, it seems like an obviously inferior choice.

Huh. Reading back on it, it seems you're right. I think the initial guide missed - like I did - that "Nonliving creatures are entirely unaffected by incarnum blast."

Damnit, MoI. The one half-decent invocation we thought you had and you failed us.

[Snowbluff]

Yeah that does suck. I'm not a big fan of the MoI invocations in the first place. Probably rate it Black?

[AmberVael]

I pretty much said the same things on Incarnum Blast back on page two. Well, better late than never I suppose.

[Troacctid]

I'd say red if you don't have essentia, blue if you do. Adding in extra damage is probably enough to put it back over the top. Under standard rules, though, that's tough to do, especially if you want 3 or 4 points of essentia for the full value. You can do it, but it probably eats up feats, so the opportunity cost is real.

[Snowbluff]

I pretty much said the same things on Incarnum Blast back on page two. Well, better late than never I suppose.

*hug of appreciation)

I'd say red if you don't have essentia, blue if you do. Adding in extra damage is probably enough to put it back over the top. Under standard rules, though, that's tough to do, especially if you want 3 or 4 points of essentia for the full value. You can do it, but it probably eats up feats, so the opportunity cost is real.

OKay, I changed it to note that it only works on living critters.

[Troacctid]

Incarnum Blast (MoI, active) (Red if you do not have essentia): This is one Magic of Incarnum got right, but not for its incarnum effect: when used against anybody with at least one alignment component opposed to yours, the enemy makes a Fortitude save or is dazed for 1 round. For reference, dazed is almost as good as stunned, but harder to find immunities for, which makes this probably the best condition to apply to an enemy. Be chaotic good (evil probably being the most common among things you need to kill in most campaigns) and Eldritch Chain this. The duration and Fort save make this high-risk, high-reward. However, it doesn't only works on living creatures.

I think you got a little tongue-tied at the end there.

It's probably necessary to rewrite the description entirely to account for the new rating, since almost the whole thing is wrong. The incarnum effect is important, it is easy to find immunities for, and the conditional rating seems like it could benefit from more explanation (and possibly a switch from default blue with conditional red to default red with conditional blue, since the red is going to be by far the more common scenario).

Also, Steal Summoning and Darkness are still factually inaccurate. And while we're at it, another poke about stuff mentioned further up the page: Water Halfling, Dvati, Half-Drow, Illumian, Raptoran, Warforged Scout, and Whisper Gnome for races; and Anima Mage, Arachnomancer, Halfling Whistler, Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, Mindbender, and Winterhaunt of Iborighu as prestige classes.

And another thing, thoughts on Mulhorandi Divine Minion? +1 LA (assuming Neraph as the base race) to wild shape as an 11th level Druid, except at will and as a free action, and your forms are limited. Also comes with fear immunity. Seems nice, even if you don't take advantage of the wide range of cheese it enables (such as healing back to full health instantly by wildshaping back and forth a bunch of times in a round and recovering HP as if you had rested for the night each time, or taking Aberration Wild Shape or Dragon Wild Shape to gain access to the full range of aberration or dragon forms). I wouldn't drop a level for much, but that's gotta be around Greater Invocation level, value-wise, and you get it from day one.

[Snowbluff]

I think you got a little tongue-tied at the end there.

It's probably necessary to rewrite the description entirely to account for the new rating, since almost the whole thing is wrong. The incarnum effect is important, it is easy to find immunities for, and the conditional rating seems like it could benefit from more explanation (and possibly a switch from default blue with conditional red to default red with conditional blue, since the red is going to be by far the more common scenario).

I'll fix it in a bit. I just wanted to make sure the rating was more correct, and I was AFB.
Also, Steal Summoning and Darkness are still factually inaccurate. And while we're at it, another poke about stuff mentioned further up the page: Water Halfling, Dvati, Half-Drow, Illumian, Raptoran, Warforged Scout, and Whisper Gnome for races; and Anima Mage, Arachnomancer, Halfling Whistler, Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, Mindbender, and Winterhaunt of Iborighu as prestige classes.
[/quote] *grumble grumble* I'll get to it after I move.

And another thing, thoughts on Mulhorandi Divine Minion? +1 LA (assuming Neraph as the base race) to wild shape as an 11th level Druid, except at will and as a free action, and your forms are limited. Also comes with fear immunity. Seems nice, even if you don't take advantage of the wide range of cheese it enables (such as healing back to full health instantly by wildshaping back and forth a bunch of times in a round and recovering HP as if you had rested for the night each time, or taking Aberration Wild Shape or Dragon Wild Shape to gain access to the full range of aberration or dragon forms). I wouldn't drop a level for much, but that's gotta be around Greater Invocation level, value-wise, and you get it from day one.

Well, unless it specifically enhances the capabilities of the class I'm not sure I want to include. I do like the template, however. It's a really swell one. It might make it in on that alone. :3