3.5 Warlocks and Ability Focus

[Marlowe]

Sorry, but I can't believe I missed this.

crafting without chameleon? Daring...



that, or focus on corpsecrafter feats for the Walk the Dead invocation.

You're going to make augmented Undead who can be taken from your control the first time you run into an enemy spellcaster. You have no way of reestablishing control once this happens. And you're calling somebody else daring for taking a crafting feat.

Anyway. Just to save any further vagueness about "Options", let's see what Extra Invocation actually gives you.

Possible uses for Extra Invocation at level 6-9-ie, Least Invocations.

Baleful Utterance-Very good. But you should have this already.
Beguiling Influence-Worthwhile if you're trying to operate as a Face. Campaign and build situational.
Breath of the Night-Level 2 spell effect. Buy the wand. Better yet, buy a wand for a better spell.
Dark One's Own Luck-OK if you have good Charisma. And get lucky about which save you're going to boost.
Darkness-Garbage.
Devil's Sight-Too similar to the generally more useful See the Unseen.
Earthen Grasp-More Garbage. Underpowered at low level, even more underpowered at this level.
Eldritch Glaive-Good. And for once you have excellent reason not to have picked this one early.
Eldritch Spear-I like it. But then I would normally have it already.
Entropic Warding-Level 1 spell effect. Again, buy the wand. The "Can't be tracked by scent" special never comes up. It also doesn't stop you being detected by scent.
Frightful Blast-Not considered worth it at level 1. Let alone here.
Hideous Blow-...
Leaps and Bounds-Or you can fly instead.
Miasmic Cloud-Debuff your own party. Marvelous. This is, let's face it, a choice for NPCs.
See the Unseen-You should have this already. It's usually what you trade Spiderwalk out for.
Sickening Blast-See Frightful Blast.
Spiderwalk-Again: or you can fly. As with L&B you pick this up early and trade it out.
Summon Swarm-The time for this is long past.

Extra Invocations available at level 12-15-ie, Lesser Invocations. Here we have more competition in every sense.

Beshadowed Blast, Brimstone Blast, Deteriorating Blast...-All of these have already been rendered obsolete by Vitriolic Blast. Beshadowed is probably my favourite but targets a common strong save; so very hit-and-miss.You might want to pick up Brimstone or Hellrime to get into Hellfire Warlock.
Charm-Getting close to the point where enchantment-type abilities are becoming pointless. Should have picked this up earlier.
Curse of Despair-OK. If you want. Level 3 Cleric/lvl 4 Wiz spell effect.Not impressive at this level.
Dread Seizure-Less impressive at this level
Eldritch Chain-Nifty. Somewhat situational. Not required.
Fell Flight-Don't you have this already?
Flee the Scene-I'll just pick up a D-Door wand, thanks. Or make one.
Hungry Darkness-Darkness and Batswarms. At what? Level 12?.
Ignore the Pyre-I'm sure there's better ways of getting an elemental resistence.
Spider-shape-That's nice and creepy. Not spending a feat on it though.
Stony Grasp-Not good enough.
Sudden Swarm-Again. That's nice and creepy. But I'll leave this for the NPCs.
The Dead Walk-Warlocks have some serious weaknesses when it comes to necromancy. If you've gone this long without missing this you probably don't need it. And again, could always get or make a wand.
Voidsense-Not bad. Worth a feat?
Voracious Dispelling-I probably have this already.
Walk Unseen-Again. Level 2 spell effect. Buy/Make wand.
Wall of Gloom-As above. Need ditto marks.
Weighty Utterance-Could have some fun with this; but awfully situational.

In generally, Warlock Invocations after the first few levels are underpowered for level and get increasingly more so. . Least Invocations are level 1-2 effects. Not bad. Lessers are 2-4 level effects. Less good. As the game goes on, Warlocks get progressively less impressive. Spending feats on Extra Invocation to get abilities already largely superceded just aggravates this.

[ShurikVch]

What precedence? In every 3.5 statblock I've seen, spell-like abilities are listed under Special Attacks rather than Special Qualities. (The same applies to most 3.0 statblocks, though there are occasional exceptions - mostly when the creature has only a few harmless SLAs, like the aoa's detect magic from Fiend Folio, and even this seems to have gone away in 3.5 (see: lantern archon).) If you've got another source, I'm curious, but right now I can't find any evidence for SLAs being special qualities.

Actually, SLA may be either SA or SQ: if you use it against someone, it's clearly a SA (Eldritch Blast, Baleful Utterance); if not, it may be a SQ (Dark One's Own Luck, See the Unseen)

[nedz]

OK. This invocation (leaps and bounds) is made pretty much obsolete by Fell Flight. Which you get access to at the same time as you could gain L&B as an Extra Invocation. If you want L&B you take it early and swap it out at 6th. You most certainly don't wait until 6th and waste a feat to get it just when its about to become irrelevant.

Yes I know this. I just chose this invocation because it's readily quantifiable.