PF - Warcraft Inspired Warlock

[BananaPhone]

It's interesting to see the evolution of your design ideas. I see you edited your OP, so it's not possible to fully track the changes, but, when reading my initial list of objections, I can see that the majority of them don't apply anymore. It means you have had to deeply nerf the class to get it back to a more comparable power level to standard classes. It take it that playtesting or comments by others ended up supporting the points I and others were making on this thread.

I also note you had to add a couple of defensive spells, thus confirming the risk we had identified early on: That the warlock would be a glass cannon.

What's left after all these changes? The class can no longer claim to be everything the sorcerer is plus a lot more. For one thing, the extras have been reduced, and you have cut the number of spells per day, not quite revoking the full caster status, but still reducing it considerably. In spite of the d12 HD, Life Tap is only a very partial compensation for that amount of nerfing, since it corresponds to an average 3 extra HP per level (compared to sorcerer), allowing to pay for only one spell level per class level.

This, of course, changes radically at level 6 when Siphon Life comes in play, allowing restoration of spent spells with impunity, as long as there are enemies around. When no enemy is around, summoned monsters will do the trick. All you have to do is sacrifice 3 HP to restore Monster Summoning I, cast it, use Siphon Life to drain the monster of its HP, restoring more than what the spell cost (siphoning a dog will get you 6 HP for example). Repeat until at max hit points, then use Life Tap to restore any other spell cast that day. Repeat until at max hit points, and max spells slots.

Level 6 is also when Soul Leech becomes available, meaning that the warlock between fights will now automatically restore himself to full spell slots and full + 4/level hit points. Nice.

So, as far as spellcasting is concerned, my conclusion is that the class is much less rich than it was, until level 6. After level 6 it is still a lot stronger than any sorcerer, with the limited drawback of needing a few minutes between each fight to restore himself to max power (yes, it's theoretically possible to use all spells in a single fight, but that situation should be rather rare; I have played a sorcerer all the way to level 18, and from mid-levels, needing more than half my spells in a single fight was exceptional).

I was thinking of ways to include Constitution as a necessary stat, at least in the mechanical sense rather than the desired sense.

To this end I was thinking about limiting the number of times Life Tap can be used to replenish spells per day to be equal to 3 + Constitution modifier. For a lock of say, 12th level and 16 con, this means that they could, theoretically, use Life Tap to get back 6 lvl 6 spell slots, but that would cost them 108 hit points in total over the day.

Sure, they might be able to get this back from Siphon Life, but:

• They're still massively behind the sorcerer for total spells per day, they just made the sacrifices to cast a few more of their top range spells
  
  
  and
  
  
• In Theory the Lock could just Life tap away happily to both get back a few spells and to metamagic up their own spells and get it back from Siphon Life. But in practice, most casters don't want to give up huge chunks of their HP when surrounded by enemies 4 times a day - all it would take is a couple of bad rolls and they'd be skewered. So there's going to be both a tactical element as to when to use Life Tap and a big risk-reward factor that I like. Considerably more so than its previous iteration.

Yes, I think giving a constitution cap pretty much solves that issue.

Then, there's the matter of the iconic class features. On those, my earlier comments are unchanged. You still have several at-will, unfaillible abilities (meaning that they succeed automatically, no roll of any kind needed: No attack roll, no save and no SR), that deal a type of damage against which 95% of enemies have no defense (constructs, and pretty much nothing else until Death Ward comes into play at level 9), and these abilities take only a move action to use. I understand the intent, but this remains fundamentally unfair to the rest of the game.

I'd still like to go through the current spell list and do a bit of pruning. But with the locks small number of spells per day, those core abilities will be its bread-and-butter against just about all enemies. They'll be casting them lots and relying on them to get HP back for their life tap/metamagic use in what'll be a balancing act, imo. That their DoT's can also get removed/cleansed by a dispel or something similar, and the idea of then making the lock roll to hit, or overcome a SR hurdle or something along those lines when the machinery of the class requires them sticking those DoTs on people, and what is intended to be a "balance" could instead turn into a major impediment. This is compounded by the nature of a DoT spell, that is, it takes time for them to do their damage, so every round counts - particularly as these abilities count on adding up lots of small amounts of damage per round (at lvl 12, for example, Corruption is only doing 9 damage from 3d6 on average). Losing multiple rounds to failed To Hit rolls or failed SR penetration checks or some other hurdle would just throw a spanner in the whole works.

The nature of their main damage abilities, being damage over time, also add in another tactical element, imo. Once again, theoretically, the lock could get lucky and just sit back, dot up every enemy, and watch as they do massive amounts of damage across the board. But until those monsters reach 0 hp, they're still just as effective at hurting the lock and their party. Doing DoT damage to them will give them a few more turns to inflict pain on the party, where as with a sorcerer or blasty wizard they're going to die much quicker.

So, the lock decides to do a mix - they dot a few enemies up and then burn a heap of HP on a metamagic fireball to help kill the enemies quicker. There goes 18 HP plus the 9 HP to get that spell slot back. Assuming they were lvl 6 with 16 con and average hp rolls, they just went from 60 hp down to 33 - almost halving their HP pool, and that's not counting any stray attacks from enemy creatures that might come in before Siphon life can give that hp back (or assuming they had the HP to do it in the first place). And that was just to throw off 1 maximised fireball in the hope that it ended the encounter earlier than their DoTs would usually assist.

So, as it stands, I think there's a lot of synergy between the Locks core damage dealing abilities, its grimoire abilities, and its ability to replenish spell slots/metamagic with the cost of doing so (and ways of getting that back).

I haven't had a chance to play this new version, but at the moment I think the Lock is in a good risk-reward situation. Under the right circumstances they could be pretty tough with lots of HP, good saves and a parasitic relationship with enemies - slowly melting them while replenishing their own hp. If something goes wrong, however, they could get splattered after using Life Tap at the wrong time, or they might not be doing damage fast enough to save their team.

I would like to prune the spell list though, tighten the themes a bit more. Hellfire, Shadow (illusions/charms), Creation/Reality warping (teleporting/fly), etc..

I subscribed to the thread long ago, because I thought the debate was interesting. As you can see, I still do...

I also am under the impression that your changes vindicate a lot of my past remarks. That's always good for the ego

The humility on this guy .

[Gwynfrid]

I was thinking of ways to include Constitution as a necessary stat, at least in the mechanical sense rather than the desired sense.

To this end I was thinking about limiting the number of times Life Tap can be used to replenish spells per day to be equal to 3 + Constitution modifier. For a lock of say, 12th level and 16 con, this means that they could, theoretically, use Life Tap to get back 6 lvl 6 spell slots, but that would cost them 108 hit points in total over the day.

This is a good idea, to kill off the infinite loop I was describing. However, I suggest the correct way to recover your high-level spells is this: You take 5 6th level slots and one Summon Monster VI, summon a triceratops and siphon it. Your net result is 5 slots with zero HP sacrificed.

In other words, the true cost of Life Tap can be as low as you want, down to zero. With your cap, it is true that the spell slots per day will be seriously reduced - possibly to a point the class is no longer viable to go on a day-long adventure with other characters, in spite of all the rest. I see this as a case of trying to compensate excess power with excessive constraints: It's very difficult to balance, because there's so much weight on both ends of the scale.

[*] In Theory the Lock could just Life tap away happily to both get back a few spells and to metamagic up their own spells and get it back from Siphon Life. But in practice, most casters don't want to give up huge chunks of their HP when surrounded by enemies 4 times a day - all it would take is a couple of bad rolls and they'd be skewered. So there's going to be both a tactical element as to when to use Life Tap and a big risk-reward factor that I like. Considerably more so than its previous iteration. [/list]

I think the correct time to use Life Tap to recover spells isn't in question: It's between fights. So, it's not a tactical concern. Maybe, occasionally you'll want to burn HP to power some metamagic. But that should be rare. In most situations you're better off using metamagic in the normal way, by using a higher slot.

On the other hand, once you have Soul Leech the equation changes: you have 4/lvl temp HP to burn, potentially you will use those for metamagic.

I'd still like to go through the current spell list and do a bit of pruning. But with the locks small number of spells per day, those core abilities will be its bread-and-butter against just about all enemies. They'll be casting them lots and relying on them to get HP back for their life tap/metamagic use in what'll be a balancing act, imo. That their DoT's can also get removed/cleansed by a dispel or something similar, and the idea of then making the lock roll to hit, or overcome a SR hurdle or something along those lines when the machinery of the class requires them sticking those DoTs on people, and what is intended to be a "balance" could instead turn into a major impediment. This is compounded by the nature of a DoT spell, that is, it takes time for them to do their damage, so every round counts - particularly as these abilities count on adding up lots of small amounts of damage per round (at lvl 12, for example, Corruption is only doing 9 damage from 3d6 on average). Losing multiple rounds to failed To Hit rolls or failed SR penetration checks or some other hurdle would just throw a spanner in the whole works.

The nature of their main damage abilities, being damage over time, also add in another tactical element, imo. Once again, theoretically, the lock could get lucky and just sit back, dot up every enemy, and watch as they do massive amounts of damage across the board. But until those monsters reach 0 hp, they're still just as effective at hurting the lock and their party. Doing DoT damage to them will give them a few more turns to inflict pain on the party, where as with a sorcerer or blasty wizard they're going to die much quicker.

So, the lock decides to do a mix - they dot a few enemies up and then burn a heap of HP on a metamagic fireball to help kill the enemies quicker. There goes 18 HP plus the 9 HP to get that spell slot back. Assuming they were lvl 6 with 16 con and average hp rolls, they just went from 60 hp down to 33 - almost halving their HP pool, and that's not counting any stray attacks from enemy creatures that might come in before Siphon life can give that hp back (or assuming they had the HP to do it in the first place). And that was just to throw off 1 maximised fireball in the hope that it ended the encounter earlier than their DoTs would usually assist.

I don't think I can debate you much further on these abilities. The problem with them is not in-context, it's fundamentals. You're giving the class powers that have no comparable in any other class. 1) No one can do damage, however little, at will without any die roll whatsoever. 2) There are no ways to do damage, however little, on less than a standard action, before Quicken Spell shows up. It's that simple.

So, as it stands, I think there's a lot of synergy between the Locks core damage dealing abilities, its grimoire abilities, and its ability to replenish spell slots/metamagic with the cost of doing so (and ways of getting that back).

Sure there is synergy. It's basically, let's use whatever high-damage spell the sorcerer/wizard can do, plus inescapable ongoing damage. That's why it's not workable, imho. By the way, ongoing damage to enemy casters mean they need a concentration check to cast, every round. It's pretty much a Win button.

The humility on this guy .

I know, right?

[BananaPhone]

This is a good idea, to kill off the infinite loop I was describing. However, I suggest the correct way to recover your high-level spells is this: You take 5 6th level slots and one Summon Monster VI, summon a triceratops and siphon it. Your net result is 5 slots with zero HP sacrificed.

In other words, the true cost of Life Tap can be as low as you want, down to zero. With your cap, it is true that the spell slots per day will be seriously reduced - possibly to a point the class is no longer viable to go on a day-long adventure with other characters, in spite of all the rest. I see this as a case of trying to compensate excess power with excessive constraints: It's very difficult to balance, because there's so much weight on both ends of the scale.

Then a small caveat saying that you can't drain hp from your own summoned minions should solve taht.

I think the correct time to use Life Tap to recover spells isn't in question: It's between fights. So, it's not a tactical concern. Maybe, occasionally you'll want to burn HP to power some metamagic. But that should be rare. In most situations you're better off using metamagic in the normal way, by using a higher slot.

On the other hand, once you have Soul Leech the equation changes: you have 4/lvl temp HP to burn, potentially you will use those for metamagic.

Given the cost, and that in practice, not theory, targets to drain your hp back will not be as a densely populated as you believe, and I still think that yes, Life Tap does have a tactical element to it.

I do like Soul Leech for its ability to help Siphon Life give you some more HP back. But alongside Soul Leech is Soul Collector and Lingering Torment, both of which, I think, are also good choices depending on what type of warlock you want to make.

Soul Leech is better for the idea of being a parasite that feeds off your enemies. Soul Collector is better for making a tougher warlock (particularly in later levels), and Lingering Torment puts out more dps to its precious few spells per day, giving you more umph. I haven't had the chance to playtest them all, but I think they're all viable choices for how you want to customise your Lock.

I don't think I can debate you much further on these abilities. The problem with them is not in-context, it's fundamentals. You're giving the class powers that have no comparable in any other class. 1) No one can do damage, however little, at will without any die roll whatsoever. 2) There are no ways to do damage, however little, on less than a standard action, before Quicken Spell shows up. It's that simple.

I don't think it is that simple though. When you tell me that no other class can deal damage as a move action my reaction is:

...and?

And I don't mean that dismissively towards you - I mean, it doesn't bother me that the class ability sets a precedent if there is the justification for it.

The simple fact is that no one, and I mean no one, wants to play a "main caster/blaster" who, at level 12, has to spend their whole turn doing 9 damage to a single enemy.

Add in there both the chance "to miss" and the chance not to beat Spell Resistance, and you've got 3 core damage dealing abilities that suck so hard.


Let's say Mr Level 12 Warlock and his party are facing down 8 lvl 14 orc tribe champions. Everyone else does their thing, while Mr Loc spends a Standard Action to cast Corruption on 1 of the orcs. Oh fiddlesticks, he rolled crap so he missed. Guess he spends this turn doing nothing. Then he tries again next turn, he hits and deals 9 damage from the first corruption tick. Yay, he's done an average of 4.5 damage a round...as the main caster.

Then the next round he casts Siphon Life on the same orc. He hits. Great! Now he did 12 damage from Siphon Life and another 9 damage from Corruption. Great, in 3 rounds he's done 30 damage, or 10 damage a round. At level 12. To a single enemy.

That is beyond pathetic to the point that no one would want to play the class if they ever realised this. I've got a level 10 evoker admixture wizard in my stable who, at 2 levels lower, could throw out roughly 162 damage in that same amount of time. Let's be generous and say all their enemies made the high save DC each round (not likely) - they'd still pump out 80 damage, almost 3 times that of the higher level warlock in a comparable amount of time.

So who would you rather beside you if you were a team mate? Be honest. Don't come up with some tricksy loophole that the majority of players won't know about - be honest, you'd give the warlock the arse and you'd get someone else in.

Oh, but you say, the Lock can then throw their own fireballs/lightning bolts etc out into the field! Yeah, okay, they can - but a sorcerer/wizard can do that better, as I've just explained, either by bloodline powers or arcane school powers.


However, if the Lock can cast their corruption/siphon life/curse of agony as currently written, then things are a bit more attractive.

In the first round they can put a Corruption + Curse of Agony on one of the orcs, that'll tick for 27 damage. Next round they put a Siphon Life on the same one, and then a Corruption on a second orc - the total round damage tick is 30. Then the next round they put Curse of Agony and Siphon Life on that second orc, both orcs now tick for 39 damage. After 3 rounds the first orc has taken 87 damage (3 ticks of corruption, 2 ticks of curse of agony, 2 ticks of siphon life), and the second orc has taken 48 damage (2 ticks of corruption, 1 tick of curse of agony, 1 tick of siphon life). Assuming the orcs started off with around 117 HP (13 levels of average fighter HP, 1 level max, + 14 levels of +3 con modifier), the Warlock spent three rounds to do 74% damage to one orc and 41% damage to the other orc - and they haven't even touched the other 6 orcs yet. They'll most likely throw out an empowered fireball or some such the next round, or round after that, to help make up for it to supplement their main DoT damage.

Meanwhile, my lvl 10 evoker admixture fireball-specialised wizard threw 3 empowered fireballs at the orcs for the cost of 3 level 3 spell slots, doing 162 damage in total, turning every single orc in a 20 foot radius into ash. Unless the orcs roll a 16 on their ref save (+4 ref + 1 dex = +5 for lvl 14 fighter), 3 times in a row (something like a 1% chance) then they're all toast. All of them. Not just 2 are "almost" dead, all of them are dead at minimal cost to the wizard that was 4 levels lower than all of them.


I could go on with more examples, but this is not the game breaking apocalypse that you think this is. It breaks convention, yes. Under the right circumstances and if given time to sit back and dot lots of opponents up, the Warlock could possible do a lot of damage. But the nature of the damage over time spells in a game where killing-the-enemy-as-fast-as-possible is the more efficient method of character preservation than healing, in practice it's nowhere near as OP/unfair as you believe it is - it's just different.

[Gwynfrid]

Well, of course I didn't suggest that you change the at-will abilities to totally nerf them. That would make sense if they were just complementary abilities to a full caster, but this is clearly not the intent of the class. I'll admit that I have the comfortable seat of the critic, and haven't made any positive suggestions, I only raised concerns: I'm not writing the class, you are. But naturally, I can offer suggestions if you'd like me to.

But when I say that there are fundamental issues there, I don't mean it's because you are breaking new ground. I mean it's because you are going in a direction that's very difficult to balance. Difficult to balance isn't a euphemism for overpowered: It means it's either overpowered or underpowered, and it's hard to adjust the parameters to will make it just right. This sort of thing happens when you ignore one of more of the standards of the rules, such as: Every method of doing damage has some sort of counter to it; very few magical actions, and none at low levels, bypass SR; you get one damaging attack per round; etc.

So, yeah, if you don't bypass SR, you have entirely wasted a round. Guess what, this is the case for every caster in the game. Nobody is singling you out...

Going back to your example of a combat against some big orc fighters: First, you will only rarely encounter such basic opponents at level 12. If you do, then methods for dispatching them will be so many, it doesn't really matter who has the best. In real games, you will see much more variety, including monsters with SR, protection from fire and what have you.

Let's say that you encounter a CR12 monster, since your party is level 12. The sorcerer or wizard will try to blast, enchant, polymorph etc. This may or may not work well depending on the monster's defenses, the party's tactical position around the monster, terrain, etc. In the case of the warlock, the play is simple:
- Round 1, Corruption + Curse of Agony on the monster.
- Round 2, Dimension Door away (taking with him the rest of the party, if they have any sense of what's good for them).
- Round 13, walk back and search the lifeless husk for loot.

During rounds 1-12, you have done a total of 54d6 damage, if my reading of your abilities is correct. That's 189 average damage, while the vast majority of CR12 monsters have 130 to 170 HP. There is no chance of failure. There is no defense either, other than dispelling. If the monster is a caster with Greater Dispel at its disposal (a small minority of enemies will have that) then they need a caster level check against 11+warlock's CL, and a Concentration check, DC10+6+damage received in that round, in order to survive (the very rare enemy with Anti-Magic Field needs only the Concentration check). Good luck with that. And even then, Dispel will only deal with one of the two active curses, which means the monster could very well die anyway if it's not at the top of the HP range. Only 2 types of monsters can resist this tactic: Those with fast healing (and it better be a high number) or constructs. Everybody else - dragons, demons, elementals, humanoids, you name it - is done for.

This isn't some tricksy loophole. It's a straightforward tactic that ends any fight against a single monster of CR equal to the party.

[BananaPhone]

I'll admit that I have the comfortable seat of the critic, and haven't made any positive suggestions.

You don't say...

So, yeah, if you don't bypass SR, you have entirely wasted a round. Guess what, this is the case for every caster in the game. Nobody is singling you out...

I still think you're not 100% grasping the consequences of a Damage over Time ability.

You have done so for the application of tactics and ways it can be exploited, but not in its vulnerabilities.

For a Sorcerer, if they fail to pierce SR, it sucks, yes, but next round they can pass it again at which point they do a lot of damage, or put out a debilitating effect, i.e they're still contributing in the way that's expected of them.

However, the locks dots are particularly hurt by not sticking from round 1. Spending 2 rounds as a main caster doing 9 damage to a single target makes you dead weight.

Going with the level 12 example again, going by the way you want it, if a lock spent 3 rounds putting all of their DoTs onto a single target and managed to get passed To hit, SR and any saves, then they, over 3 rounds, would have done 69 damage. 3 corruption ticks, 2 siphon life ticks and 1 curse of agony tick. So at level 12, the Lock, would have done 23 damage.

To a single enemy.

That.Is.Terrible.

No one would want to play that when they can play a sorcerer and do almost 3 times that to every enemy within a 20 foot radius.

The only way to make the DoT's work in accordance with what you want would be for them to do more upfront damage, but over a lower time period. Like at lvl 12 instead of doing 3d6 damage every round for 12 rounds, they do 6d6 damage every round for 1/2 the caster level (so 6 rounds) or every 2 rounds. That at least makes it somewhat worth it if the lock misses but gets it off again in the proceeding rounds.


If you like the idea of it, that's the closest to a compromise that keeps the class viable and competitive for their tier.

Every DoT requires a Ranged Touch Attack and a Standard Action to cast and is effected by SR. Corruption deals 1d6 per 2 caster levels for 1 round per caster level. Siphon Life does 1d6 per 3 caster levels for 1 round per 2 caster levels, and damage done is returned to the Warlock as Hit Points. Curse of Agony does 1d6 per 3 caster levels for 1 round per caster level.

This way, at level 12:

Corruption does 6d6 damage every round for 6 rounds.

Siphon Life does 4d6 damage every round for 6 rounds, and damage done is returned to the Lock has Hit Points.

Curse of Agony would do 4d6 damage every round for 12 rounds.


Getting each DoT off requires a standard action, is affected by SR and requires a ranged touch attack.

What are your thoughts?

Now is your chance to add something positive .

Edit: In fact, I like that idea so much I'm going to change it right now.

Going back to your example of a combat against some big orc fighters: First, you will only rarely encounter such basic opponents at level 12. If you do, then methods for dispatching them will be so many, it doesn't really matter who has the best.

It was just an example to demonstrate DPS. I didn't think I'd need to reconstruct a lvl 12 encounter, down to using each ability of a monster in a tactical game of chess against myself .

Let's say that you encounter a CR12 monster, since your party is level 12. The sorcerer or wizard will try to blast, enchant, polymorph etc. This may or may not work well depending on the monster's defenses, the party's tactical position around the monster, terrain, etc. In the case of the warlock, the play is simple:
- Round 1, Corruption + Curse of Agony on the monster.
- Round 2, Dimension Door away (taking with him the rest of the party, if they have any sense of what's good for them).
- Round 13, walk back and search the lifeless husk for loot.

During rounds 1-12, you have done a total of 54d6 damage, if my reading of your abilities is correct. That's 189 average damage, while the vast majority of CR12 monsters have 130 to 170 HP. There is no chance of failure. There is no defense either, other than dispelling. If the monster is a caster with Greater Dispel at its disposal (a small minority of enemies will have that) then they need a caster level check against 11+warlock's CL, and a Concentration check, DC10+6+damage received in that round, in order to survive (the very rare enemy with Anti-Magic Field needs only the Concentration check). Good luck with that. And even then, Dispel will only deal with one of the two active curses, which means the monster could very well die anyway if it's not at the top of the HP range. Only 2 types of monsters can resist this tactic: Those with fast healing (and it better be a high number) or constructs. Everybody else - dragons, demons, elementals, humanoids, you name it - is done for.

Do you honestly believe the GM is going to sit there, clean shaven and with a grin on his face, as you pull this tactic for every single monster, in every single encounter?
Do you really think that the rest of your party is going to be A-Okay with watching you teleport them back and forth, ensuring that they do nothing but observe, and then thank you OOC for the wonderful way in which they've just spent the past 6 hours of their lives watching you play a single-player game of Dungeons and Teleport Ganks?

Unless you game with emotionless machines that enjoy having all the fun sucked out of their game and having it replaced with a cold and hollow victory, then the answer to that question is "no".

This is a case of "In Theory" encountering "In Practice".

"In Theory" I could bring along a Blockbuster Wizard and clear every room of enemies in the first 2 rounds, for every encounter, rendering every other party member superfluous. "In Theory" I could use the Craft (Alchemy) skill + a bunch of skilled hirelings to make dozens of thousands of gold a week and break the game economy. "In Theory" I could bring along a two-handed charging fighter/paladin build and 2 shot the BBEG. "In Theory" I could bring along a half-elf sorcerer that Paragon Rushes themselves into casting any spell they want ever.

"In Theory" you could DoT a single enemy creature up, Dimension Door away, and then come back and repeat the same process to every monster in the group (who're, for some reason, dumb enough to just stand around as if nothing happened).

But in practice you'll probably get away with that 1ce before coming down with a serious case of Books-thrown-at-your-face-by-the-GM-itus and Every-other-player-is-bored-and-hates-you-orea.

This is because in a role play game like Pathfidner and D&D, the power of a class is only half limited by its mechanical abilities, as it is also limited by the creativity of the player using it. The current game is riddled with cheap I'm-going-to-win tactics and combos and builds, but they aren't nerfed, because game designers know that a pencil and paper RPG is organic and that they can't nerf an ability based solely on a creative way a handful of players have devised to exploit it. Heck, the existence of the Tier system of classes not only exists, but it is acknowledged as the norm, indicating that there already exists a wild imbalance that the majority of people are comfortable with for a variety of reasosn. It's why Pun-Pun still exists, or the Ominificer, because they know that nerfing something based upon a scenario that realistically is never going to happen is a blunt way of dealing with something.

[Gwynfrid]

The only way to make the DoT's work in accordance with what you want would be for them to do more upfront damage, but over a lower time period. Like at lvl 12 instead of doing 3d6 damage every round for 12 rounds, they do 6d6 damage every round for 1/2 the caster level (so 6 rounds) or every 2 rounds. That at least makes it somewhat worth it if the lock misses but gets it off again in the proceeding rounds.


If you like the idea of it, that's the closest to a compromise that keeps the class viable and competitive for their tier.

Every DoT requires a Ranged Touch Attack and a Standard Action to cast and is effected by SR. Corruption deals 1d6 per 2 caster levels for 1 round per caster level. Siphon Life does 1d6 per 3 caster levels for 1 round per 2 caster levels, and damage done is returned to the Warlock as Hit Points. Curse of Agony does 1d6 per 3 caster levels for 1 round per caster level.

This way, at level 12:

Corruption does 6d6 damage every round for 6 rounds.

Siphon Life does 4d6 damage every round for 6 rounds, and damage done is returned to the Lock has Hit Points.

Curse of Agony would do 4d6 damage every round for 12 rounds.


Getting each DoT off requires a standard action, is affected by SR and requires a ranged touch attack.

What are your thoughts?

Now is your chance to add something positive .

Edit: In fact, I like that idea so much I'm going to change it right now.

And my thoughts are... That this is an excellent step! Because you're getting back to something that can be integrated with the existing world of rules, and therefore, it is possible to adjust the parameters in such a way that it achieves balance with other classes.

It is, naturally, just a first step, as you still need to compare it to abilities / spells that other classes use, at the same levels, and assess if you're being reasonable in relation to them. But, since you have removed a lot of what made them incomparable, this task is now feasible.

Do you honestly believe the GM is going to sit there, clean shaven and with a grin on his face, as you pull this tactic for every single monster, in every single encounter?
Do you really think that the rest of your party is going to be A-Okay with watching you teleport them back and forth, ensuring that they do nothing but observe, and then thank you OOC for the wonderful way in which they've just spent the past 6 hours of their lives watching you play a single-player game of Dungeons and Teleport Ganks?

I don't believe for a nanosecond that the DM and players are going to let you get away with it, and this is exactly why I'm making those comments.

But in practice you'll probably get away with that 1ce before coming down with a serious case of Books-thrown-at-your-face-by-the-GM-itus and Every-other-player-is-bored-and-hates-you-orea.

Precisely. What I'm doing here is playing pretend-DM, and virtually throwing the book at you, before your actual DM does it for real. And by the way, it looks like it's working, since you've just made this big change to your concept, after having made a number of smaller changes in response to my feedback... Thus proving there probably is a little bit of a tiny amount of a minuscule chance that maybe, in some small way, I wasn't entirely, vastly, egregiously in the wrong. Just, possibly.

Now is your chance to add something positive .

Well, after so much direct criticism, I can certainly make suggestions (sorry for the implied criticism in some of them, it's hard to avoid).

Specifically regarding the Corruption line of abilities, there are a few more things I would do:
- First, obviously, look at the damage type. Negative-energy-except-it-hurts-undead is such a special snowflake, it's begging for nerfing by the DM, and especially, the notion of siphoning life from undead is just too much of a contradiction. I'm not saying making it just negative energy is the best way to go. Alternatives are (I'm sure I can think of more): Fire at level 1, that can evolve to something better at higher levels (I think this was how the original 3.5E Warlock's blast worked); or, half-negative and half-cold, which you had suggested a while back; or, half-something basic and half-divine (this would require the class to have some sort of patron, which maybe isn't the flavor you were going for).
- Look at max damage per level per round, compared to other damage over time options from existing spells, feats, etc.
- See if it makes more sense to have a saving throw, or an attack roll, or both. I'm not sure... Maybe no initial save, but later a save per round to end the ongoing effect could be warranted.
- Check what it does to casters. If it means an impossible Concentration check to cast anything, then it's too much.
- Is it an at-will power? In that case it should be much less powerful than a spell available only a limited number of times per day at the same level. If however it is a big damage machine, then you likely need to restrict uses per day.
- Check for the use of metamagic. It shouldn't allow you to increase damage much over what a blaster with the best feats and racial optimization could.
- Do you need a whole line of themed abilities, or just one ability that scales and evolves over levels? If it's a line of powers, then I would suggest more differentiation between them than you have now.

More generally, for the class as a whole, I would look at it from the big vision perspective first, before going to the detail:
- What are the iconic things you want the class to be known for? I think it's 1) damage over time and 2) sacrifice HP for arcane power. All the rest, I believe, is secondary. Am I correct? I think you don't want too long a shopping list, or the idea becomes diluted.
- Do you want your iconic attack mode to be your main damage dealing method, or is it just something on the side? If it's a main attack, then I think you need to make choices : Either 1) you can't be a full caster at the same time, or 2) this ability is no more than a spell (maybe it should be just a spell?). Not being a full caster isn't the end of the world. You can be a half-caster, which lets you have some critical utility and defensive spells. If however you go full caster, than I recommend you reinstate your spells/level to be equivalent to either the sorcerer (if you don't prepare) or the wizard (if you prepare). A full caster with half a spell complement is a problem for the party, because he will unavoidably slow them down, and that's really impractical.
- I would suggest building the class on the model of the existing Base Classes in Pathfinder (Witch, Alchemist, Oracle, Summoner etc). I mean, they have some sort of iconic thing (Hex, Bomb, Mystery, Eilodon, etc) and then they add new and more to those things as they acquire levels (new Hexes, Discoveries, Revelations, Eilodon evolutions). This is a logical way to build a progression and allow for frequent player choices (every other level is typical). I'd suggest you could integrate the Macabre Thesis concept into such a method. It makes it easier to compare, as well as easier to understand what the class offers. It also will give you a lot more flexibility in choices; naturally, the strongest Theses will need to be restricted to higher-levels only, in the same way the higher Discoveries and Revelations are.

[BananaPhone]

That's it? That's your idea of "positive contribution"? Nothing you like about it - just busting my balls more ?

Tsk tsk tsk! lol. I'll respond tomorrow.

[umbrapolaris]

in fact in WoW , Warlocks are prime DoT dealers , they just do that all the time (ok, they have a pet but it is just a canon-fodder) ; so i think focusing on DoT as main offense while being half-caster or full caster with few schools (say necromancy and invocations for more DoT spells ) will be a better and simpler choice.

[BananaPhone]

And my thoughts are... That this is an excellent step! Because you're getting back to something that can be integrated with the existing world of rules, and therefore, it is possible to adjust the parameters in such a way that it achieves balance with other classes.

It is, naturally, just a first step, as you still need to compare it to abilities / spells that other classes use, at the same levels, and assess if you're being reasonable in relation to them. But, since you have removed a lot of what made them incomparable, this task is now feasible.

I'm thinking of putting Corruptions damage at 1ce every 2 rounds.


This way:

- Corruption does more damage upfront damage. In the long run it does more than Siphon Life, but less than Agony.

- Curse of Agony does lower upfront damage, but it does it every round and does more in the long run.

- Siphon life does the least damage over-all, but every point it does it returns to the warlock as HP.

I don't believe for a nanosecond that the DM and players are going to let you get away with it, and this is exactly why I'm making those comments.

Precisely. What I'm doing here is playing pretend-DM, and virtually throwing the book at you, before your actual DM does it for real. And by the way, it looks like it's working, since you've just made this big change to your concept, after having made a number of smaller changes in response to my feedback... Thus proving there probably is a little bit of a tiny amount of a minuscule chance that maybe, in some small way, I wasn't entirely, vastly, egregiously in the wrong. Just, possibly.

Claiming "you're right" because of changes made as a result of a collaborative process such as a homebrew class is pretty low hanging fruit .

Plus in the Warlocks previous iteration you claimed them to be clearly OP, yet when I play tested them at mid-levels they turned out to be paper tigers that were utterly useless. So I wouldn't be keeping score if I were you lol.

- First, obviously, look at the damage type. Negative-energy-except-it-hurts-undead is such a special snowflake, it's begging for nerfing by the DM, and especially, the notion of siphoning life from undead is just too much of a contradiction. I'm not saying making it just negative energy is the best way to go. Alternatives are (I'm sure I can think of more): Fire at level 1, that can evolve to something better at higher levels (I think this was how the original 3.5E Warlock's blast worked); or, half-negative and half-cold, which you had suggested a while back; or, half-something basic and half-divine (this would require the class to have some sort of patron, which maybe isn't the flavor you were going for).

It does have the special snowflake thing to it, but I tried originally to put it as straight "Shadow" damage and have it be known that Shadow damage was just another energy type, like sonic, and that it could be resisted via Resist etc like normal.

Buuut people whined at me that a new energy type was "too powerful" because there weren't any creatures in the book that had immunity/resistance to it already.

So, we went with Half-cold and Half-negative damage. Only that didn't work either, because it makes the class screwed against Undead (a very common enemy type of heroic characters) and as Cold is a relatively common resist/immune type (particularly as levels progressed into mid and high) then they became doubly screwed. Then, as most of the warlocks back up spells were Fire-based (an even more commonly resisted type), they were triple ****ed as the levels progressed. I witnessed this repeatedly during my playtesting.

So, when I came back recently to the class I had a look at the problem again. The problem was amplified when I decided to cut the spells-per-day in half, because the emphasis on those core abilities to do damage and give HP back became even more pronounced. These three abilities, as far as damage and keeping the cylce of HP/Spells per Day going goes, are the cogs of the class - if they **** up, the class takes it up the arse without lube pretty badly.


At the moment I'm thinking of something like Acid/Negative variation. So the spells deal Acid damage or Negative, and if the Warlock wants to change between the two when they cast it they can sacrifice HP to do so.

Perhaps even building on that if with an ability that costs HP but allows the warlock to put a DoT onto all enemies within 20 ft radius or something, doable a number of times per day equal to Con modifier or something.

- Look at max damage per level per round, compared to other damage over time options from existing spells, feats, etc.

As far as I know there are very few DoT spells in the game, and there certainly aren't classes built around using them.

- See if it makes more sense to have a saving throw, or an attack roll, or both. I'm not sure... Maybe no initial save, but later a save per round to end the ongoing effect could be warranted.

Oh, more barriers .

As I've said before, a damage comparison between a warlock and a sorcerer or a wizard isn't as clear cut as a comparison of numbers, as time is also a massive difference.

Once again, a sorc can go "boom!" with a fireball, do huge damage even if their opponents fail their save, and do it to lots of enemies at once, and can do it more times per day than they need.

The lock can go "die!" with their Dots, do huge damage to a single target, but requires time for that damaged to be realised - time that their enemies still get to use to hurt the party.

I know on paper that doesn't sound much, but when you can get rid of a roomful of enemies with 2 fireballs over 2 rounds, or you can get rid of all of them in 10-20 rounds, guess which one is better.

- Check what it does to casters. If it means an impossible Concentration check to cast anything, then it's too much.

I don't see how that matters. Casters trying to make a concentration check against some crazy dps barbarian or from an empowered fireball or from a sneak attack rogue aren't in any better position to complain.

- Is it an at-will power? In that case it should be much less powerful than a spell available only a limited number of times per day at the same level. If however it is a big damage machine, then you likely need to restrict uses per day.

Why?

The fighter can swing his swords however many times per day as he wants, why can't someone like the lock use one of their core, class abilities as many times a day as they want?

The wiz/cleric/sorcerer/oracle etc class abilities like Arcane Dart or something are just extra abilities that supplement their normal spells. It doesn't matter if they use them or not all day (circumstances pending, of course). That's not so for the Lock, who has to use these abilities otherwise their class doesn't function.

- Check for the use of metamagic. It shouldn't allow you to increase damage much over what a blaster with the best feats and racial optimization could.

I...don't really like that idea . Comparing something to the most optimised example isn't the most stable of comparisons.

And in any case, as I've said earlier I've got a wizard in my stable who can throw out 162+ damage every three rounds at lvl 10, and can do so for each fight they're in. So I'd say that the damage the Warlock can do at the moment is okay when compared to the optimised side of the spectrum.

- Do you need a whole line of themed abilities, or just one ability that scales and evolves over levels? If it's a line of powers, then I would suggest more differentiation between them than you have now.

I kind of like the difference between them now.

To copy and paste what I said above:


- Corruption does more damage upfront damage. In the long run it does more than Siphon Life, but less than Agony.

- Curse of Agony does lower upfront damage, but it does it every round and does more in the long run. Curse of Agony also shares the "curse" spot with Curse of Tongues.

- Siphon life does the least damage over-all, but every point it does it returns to the warlock as HP.


I think this gives a good amount of tactical and mechanical variety as is.

More generally, for the class as a whole, I would look at it from the big vision perspective first, before going to the detail:
- What are the iconic things you want the class to be known for? I think it's 1) damage over time and 2) sacrifice HP for arcane power. All the rest, I believe, is secondary. Am I correct? I think you don't want too long a shopping list, or the idea becomes diluted.

Well they were originally meant to have a demonic pet, but look how that turned out lol.


But in seriousness, they're a like an infernal sorcerer in fluff, in that they themselves or one of their ancestors consorted with devils/demons and now that fornication has manifested in their hellish abilities.

They're known for having to sacrifice their own lifeforce to power their spells in a tricky balancing act that, if they pull it off, see's them being like a malignant parasite that feeds off of their enemies and rots them away.

Mechanically, they're known for their core damage over time abilities, sacrificing HP for power, and for their enhanced abilities from their macabre thesis (which can make a huge difference to playstyle).

- Do you want your iconic attack mode to be your main damage dealing method, or is it just something on the side? If it's a main attack, then I think you need to make choices : Either 1) you can't be a full caster at the same time, or 2) this ability is no more than a spell (maybe it should be just a spell?). Not being a full caster isn't the end of the world. You can be a half-caster, which lets you have some critical utility and defensive spells. If however you go full caster, than I recommend you reinstate your spells/level to be equivalent to either the sorcerer (if you don't prepare) or the wizard (if you prepare). A full caster with half a spell complement is a problem for the party, because he will unavoidably slow them down, and that's really impractical.

It's only really a problem, imo, if they don't have other things to make up for it. They still get access to the levels of spells a sorc gets access to, and at the same time. They can still cast level 9 spells on time. They just can't cast as many across the board, but if they can find the HP to sacrifice they can potentially cast a few more of the spells that they need through Life Tap (but at a cost of HP).

Where they make up for it is their ability to keep going. They're tougher and the good damage dealt from their core abilities, that they're able to keep casting throughout the day, allows them to keep going where a sorcerer would run out of spells.

So once again it comes back to the question: do you want bigger up-front boom, or do you want someone that'll go all night?

- I would suggest building the class on the model of the existing Base Classes in Pathfinder (Witch, Alchemist, Oracle, Summoner etc). I mean, they have some sort of iconic thing (Hex, Bomb, Mystery, Eilodon, etc) and then they add new and more to those things as they acquire levels (new Hexes, Discoveries, Revelations, Eilodon evolutions). This is a logical way to build a progression and allow for frequent player choices (every other level is typical). I'd suggest you could integrate the Macabre Thesis concept into such a method. It makes it easier to compare, as well as easier to understand what the class offers. It also will give you a lot more flexibility in choices; naturally, the strongest Theses will need to be restricted to higher-levels only, in the same way the higher Discoveries and Revelations are.

Well I've gotten this far and close to completion...to overhaul everything right now to just make it all again...

But at its core the class has been built along similar lines. They had more "given" in the form of rituals, but they're been reworked completely. The Macabre Thesis gets given every 6 levels because they're solid abilities that also dramatically change the way the class is played.

On top of that I didn't give the class any more abilities because I felt it had enough as it was.

in fact in WoW , Warlocks are prime DoT dealers , they just do that all the time (ok, they have a pet but it is just a canon-fodder) ; so i think focusing on DoT as main offense while being half-caster or full caster with few schools (say necromancy and invocations for more DoT spells ) will be a better and simpler choice.

I am trying to tighten up the spell list at the moment to go along with something you're suggesting .

The three dot abilities being their main way of dealing damage, and then using some other spells to either supplement that damage if need be (a well-timed empowered fireball can often save the day...) or bring utility.

It's just a matter of keeping the themes together. Haven't gotten around to it yet though!

[Gwynfrid]

Claiming "you're right" because of changes made as a result of a collaborative process such as a homebrew class is pretty low hanging fruit .

Yep, that was a cheap shot. Doesn't make it any less valid

Plus in the Warlocks previous iteration you claimed them to be clearly OP, yet when I play tested them at mid-levels they turned out to be paper tigers that were utterly useless. So I wouldn't be keeping score if I were you lol.

Without a complete view of the PCs and enemies used for this playtest, I don't think I can answer that point. For all I know, the other PCs might have had crazy-powered classes as well; or, the DM might well have calculated the encounters to make sure you wouldn't run roughshod over every one of them. It's also possible we aren't talking about the same rules. For example, I remember when, at one point in our dialog, you said that DR applies to energy damage: If that sort of houserule is being played, then all bets are off.

It does have the special snowflake thing to it, but I tried originally to put it as straight "Shadow" damage and have it be known that Shadow damage was just another energy type, like sonic, and that it could be resisted via Resist etc like normal.

Buuut people whined at me that a new energy type was "too powerful" because there weren't any creatures in the book that had immunity/resistance to it already.

Yes, that was my point as well. And that's not whining, that's like game balance 101: Don't give anybody something no one else can resist.

So, we went with Half-cold and Half-negative damage. Only that didn't work either, because it makes the class screwed against Undead (a very common enemy type of heroic characters) and as Cold is a relatively common resist/immune type (particularly as levels progressed into mid and high) then they became doubly screwed. Then, as most of the warlocks back up spells were Fire-based (an even more commonly resisted type), they were triple ****ed as the levels progressed. I witnessed this repeatedly during my playtesting.

Yes, but that problem happens to every pure blaster in the game - that's kind of how the game keeps them in check. The way to solve this isn't to just say, hello, mine is a special technology that circumvents the game designers' intent.

At the moment I'm thinking of something like Acid/Negative variation. So the spells deal Acid damage or Negative, and if the Warlock wants to change between the two when they cast it they can sacrifice HP to do so.

A good idea, I think. I was suggesting using an expansion of the Thesis as a mechanism to let you evolve the energy type as you gain levels. It's a similar concept.

Perhaps even building on that if with an ability that costs HP but allows the warlock to put a DoT onto all enemies within 20 ft radius or something, doable a number of times per day equal to Con modifier or something.

Also a good idea. Again, the expanded Thesis appeals to me as a flexible mechanism to open such options up along with level progression.

As far as I know there are very few DoT spells in the game, and there certainly aren't classes built around using them.

Sure, but that's why your class is unique, and that's a good thing. Being unique doesn't eliminate the onus to compare with the existing material, though.

I don't see how that matters. Casters trying to make a concentration check against some crazy dps barbarian or from an empowered fireball or from a sneak attack rogue aren't in any better position to complain.

You might want to take a look at this rule, in particular, this:
If you are taking continuous damage, such as from an acid arrow or by standing in a lake of lava, half the damage is considered to take place while you are casting a spell. You must make a concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 the damage that the continuous source last dealt + the level of the spell you're casting. If the last damage dealt was the last damage that the effect could deal, then the damage is over and does not distract you.
This thing about Concentration applies to damage over time, every round. It doesn't apply to the barbarian attack or the fireball.

The fighter can swing his swords however many times per day as he wants, why can't someone like the lock use one of their core, class abilities as many times a day as they want?

Er... If don't know if you're serious or tongue in cheek here, frankly. Maybe you could refer to every other caster class? Because magic is so much more powerful than weapon swinging, that the vast majority of magic capabilities in the game are restricted in uses per day?

The wiz/cleric/sorcerer/oracle etc class abilities like Arcane Dart or something are just extra abilities that supplement their normal spells. It doesn't matter if they use them or not all day (circumstances pending, of course). That's not so for the Lock, who has to use these abilities otherwise their class doesn't function.

Thanks for proving my point. No one cares if Arcane Dart or cantrips are at-will: They're sideshows. But you can bet that the core abilities of the wizard/cleric/etc aren't at-will, not anywhere close. So there's no reason whatsoever the warlock's core abilities should be at-will.

What would you think if I built a Grillin n' Chillin Sorcerer (TM) with a more narrow spell list and maybe less spells/day, but Fireball and Cone of Cold at-will?

I...don't really like that idea . Comparing something to the most optimised example isn't the most stable of comparisons.

I'm not sure why it's not stable? All I'm saying is: Your baseline, unoptimized class feature shouldn't be superior to a wholly optimized existing ability from another class. That's an incredibly low bar. If you aren't even willing to concede that as a relevant guideline, then you might as well admit that your goal is to blow everyone else out of the water.

And in any case, as I've said earlier I've got a wizard in my stable who can throw out 162+ damage every three rounds at lvl 10, and can do so for each fight they're in. So I'd say that the damage the Warlock can do at the moment is okay when compared to the optimised side of the spectrum.

That's all right, then. But your wizard has to rest after a few fights...

- Corruption does more damage upfront damage. In the long run it does more than Siphon Life, but less than Agony.

- Curse of Agony does lower upfront damage, but it does it every round and does more in the long run. Curse of Agony also shares the "curse" spot with Curse of Tongues.

- Siphon life does the least damage over-all, but every point it does it returns to the warlock as HP.


I think this gives a good amount of tactical and mechanical variety as is.

That's a matter of taste, then. If I were to play the class, I think I would get mixed up between those 3, and constantly have to refer to the written description. To each their own, I suppose.

But in seriousness, they're a like an infernal sorcerer in fluff, in that they themselves or one of their ancestors consorted with devils/demons and now that fornication has manifested in their hellish abilities.

They're known for having to sacrifice their own lifeforce to power their spells in a tricky balancing act that, if they pull it off, see's them being like a malignant parasite that feeds off of their enemies and rots them away.

Mechanically, they're known for their core damage over time abilities, sacrificing HP for power, and for their enhanced abilities from their macabre thesis (which can make a huge difference to playstyle).

Right, I think I had read you correctly on intent.

It's only really a problem, imo, if they don't have other things to make up for it. They still get access to the levels of spells a sorc gets access to, and at the same time. They can still cast level 9 spells on time. They just can't cast as many across the board, but if they can find the HP to sacrifice they can potentially cast a few more of the spells that they need through Life Tap (but at a cost of HP).

Maybe... I'm not sure. Let's put it this way: If you're out of spells, are you going to stop? If the answer is yes, then cutting the spell slots in half is a problem. That said, anyway, since you're looking at the Corruption family to be your main weapon, then I don't think the warlock should be a full caster, period.

Where they make up for it is their ability to keep going. They're tougher and the good damage dealt from their core abilities, that they're able to keep casting throughout the day, allows them to keep going where a sorcerer would run out of spells.

So once again it comes back to the question: do you want bigger up-front boom, or do you want someone that'll go all night?

I agree, that's the correct question. It's your call. If what you want is to go all night, then I think your baseline damage per round should be roughly half that of someone who can't go all night. Otherwise it makes no sense being anything other than a warlock.

On top of that I didn't give the class any more abilities because I felt it had enough as it was.

My suggestion wasn't to add, but to have more options to chose from, at more levels - I thought the total number of abilities at level 20 would be about the same. But then, that was only a suggestion for you to deal with as you please.

[Southern Cross]

If I remember from my 2nd ed Manual Of The Planes. the Plane of Shadow is formed from both positive and negative energy. Therefore if that is still true in this campaign, shadow damage should be half negative energy damage and half positive energy damage. In such a case any spell that protects against negative energy would only be 50% effective, and only a spell that protects against both positive and negative energy would have full effect.

[BananaPhone]

Yes, but that problem happens to every pure blaster in the game - that's kind of how the game keeps them in check. The way to solve this isn't to just say, hello, mine is a special technology that circumvents the game designers' intent.

No it's not...this keeps coming up time and again, the locks reliance on DoT's makes them a different type of blaster. A sorc can get resisted one turn no worries because they can still throw out huge damage the next round. The Lock? Nope.

Besides, with bigger up-front damage, and acid/negative variation this problem will be solved.

A good idea, I think. I was suggesting using an expansion of the Thesis as a mechanism to let you evolve the energy type as you gain levels. It's a similar concept.

Of course it's a good idea, I thought of it .

Har har, kidding. But seriously, it'd be nice to expand the Thesis with some small, but useful and universal effects. At the moment there are 3 steps in the Thesis and each dramatically changes the playstyle of the Lock, every 6 levels.

Maybe something a bit smaller every 3 or 4 levels or something could be good. Energy variation, maybe at lvl 9 the ability to spread a COrruption cast onto X number of enemies in X amount of yards etc

Sure, but that's why your class is unique, and that's a good thing. Being unique doesn't eliminate the onus to compare with the existing material, though.

No, but it does make it a lot harder to compare. This is evident by us still talking about it after 3 pages of discussion .

You might want to take a look at this rule, in particular, this:
If you are taking continuous damage, such as from an acid arrow or by standing in a lake of lava, half the damage is considered to take place while you are casting a spell. You must make a concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 the damage that the continuous source last dealt + the level of the spell you're casting. If the last damage dealt was the last damage that the effect could deal, then the damage is over and does not distract you.
This thing about Concentration applies to damage over time, every round. It doesn't apply to the barbarian attack or the fireball.

I don't see how taking a greatsword to the face is less distracting than a spell that'll that's eating away at you. So the nature of the spell has an advantage? It's got disadvantages as I've mentioned earlier.

Er... If don't know if you're serious or tongue in cheek here, frankly. Maybe you could refer to every other caster class? Because magic is so much more powerful than weapon swinging, that the vast majority of magic capabilities in the game are restricted in uses per day?

Bit half and half .

I've always hated Vancian-style casting, with the restrictions per day. However that's just my visceral reaction.

My more reasonable reaction is a concern that a class whose whole selling point is a caster that can "go all day" is undermined by having their ability to do so taken away.

So possibly it could be done by having a large pool to begin with...something to do with Constitution modifier. After that they can be cast using a number of hit points per cast.

What would you think if I built a Grillin n' Chillin Sorcerer (TM) with a more narrow spell list and maybe less spells/day, but Fireball and Cone of Cold at-will?

...awesome?

I'm not sure why it's not stable? All I'm saying is: Your baseline, unoptimized class feature shouldn't be superior to a wholly optimized existing ability from another class. That's an incredibly low bar. If you aren't even willing to concede that as a relevant guideline, then you might as well admit that your goal is to blow everyone else out of the water.

I'm not too worried about it because I'm from the "In Practice" school of balancing and I think of how much damage the warlock does in conjunction with how long it takes to do it. A fighter can do more damage than a super-crowbared-optimised-death-boner-sorcerer...if you give them enough rounds to take a swing and do damage. It'll all add up eventually.

The Warlock could have a touch attack that did a million damage in precisely one years time, but it wouldn't matter because no one would care.

That's all right, then. But your wizard has to rest after a few fights...

What's that, "practice" coming from Mr In-Theory . There are only 4 encounters per day, 3 empowered fireballs each one, that's 162 damage each that's 648 damage at level 10 and, most likely, ended each fight. Who cares if they had to rest afterwards? They did their job of serving up the boom and ending all fights in 3 rounds, ensuing the rest of the party took nary a scratch.

Maybe... I'm not sure. Let's put it this way: If you're out of spells, are you going to stop? If the answer is yes, then cutting the spell slots in half is a problem. That said, anyway, since you're looking at the Corruption family to be your main weapon, then I don't think the warlock should be a full caster, period.

Probably just put it up to personal opinion then.

I agree, that's the correct question. It's your call. If what you want is to go all night, then I think your baseline damage per round should be roughly half that of someone who can't go all night. Otherwise it makes no sense being anything other than a warlock.

So not only will it take, say, 12 rounds for a lvl 12 warlocks dots to do full damage, giving their enemies 12 rounds of tearing-off-their-face-and-that-of-their-parties, but now they only do half their damage?

Sorry, but no. I keep coming back to this point because I don't think you're fully grasping this concept and its full ramifications. Please don't take that the wrong way, I'm really glad we've having this conversation - positive, good change is happening and the end is in sight. But I keep having to repeat myself on this idea: The warlock can do a lot of damage.

But it takes time.

This is once again "in practice" vs "in theory".

In Practice, the Warlocks dots don't exist inside a vacuum where time freezes in the outside world and things just get fast forwarded how-ever many rounds is needed.

The rest of the party still has CR X monsters to deal with - monsters that aren't dying as fast as they would if Blow-You-Up-This-Instant Sorcerer was around. Monsters that have their own damage-dealing abilities that they now get to visit upon the rest of the group for X amount of rounds longer than they normally would. Now the pay off for that is that, in the long run, the Lock is probably going to do more damage and can fight more often than a wizard or sorcerer could per day.

But "the long run" is a pretty perilous road to go down when you're a party stuck in a room with monsters that are supposed to be a challenge for you. Given that the most practical and accepted way of "healing" damage is not taking it in the first place, this is a big deal.

Now if what you're saying happens, the "pay off" has now just been halved. So the rest of the party and the warlock has to take more punishment from the monsters for half the pay off because that's what they get for not taking a sorcerer or wizard. The Warlock is not not only a useless class, it's an active liability.

I don't want to sound unappreciative or snappy or anything like that, I'm grateful for our talk. It's just I don't think you're considering the full ramification of relying on damage over time spells in regards to party composition, health and the pro's/con's of giving monsters more time to hurt everyone.

My suggestion wasn't to add, but to have more options to chose from, at more levels - I thought the total number of abilities at level 20 would be about the same. But then, that was only a suggestion for you to deal with as you please.

Some more things would be nice, butI don't want to give them too much - at least not with putting in some risk/reward elements to balance them out.

Like we were saying earlier the Acid/Negative variation, and the Cast-Corruption-on-a-group - but doing so takes a decent amount of HP so they can't just do it willy nilly.

Something like their abilities do Negative damage baseline, but for Caster Level * 2 HP, they can cast it as Acid damage.

Or Corruption can usually only be cast on a single enemy, but if the caster pays (Number of Targeted Enemies * Half Caster Level) in HP, they can cast it on a number of additional enemies with a max of twice their constitution modifier?

What else would you have in mind if you were coming up with ideas?

If I remember from my 2nd ed Manual Of The Planes. the Plane of Shadow is formed from both positive and negative energy. Therefore if that is still true in this campaign, shadow damage should be half negative energy damage and half positive energy damage. In such a case any spell that protects against negative energy would only be 50% effective, and only a spell that protects against both positive and negative energy would have full effect.

Hmm...positive energy doesn't really suit the theme of the class, though, that's the problem.

Maybe that's just me being a stickler...the Locks are supposed to be able to shape/warp reality. Maybe I just need to get used to it - could you elaborate on it a bit more, please?

[Urist Mcmage]

Why not divide the warlocks core abilities into three different archetypes: destruction, demonology and affliction. taking the affliction archetype would give access to a DotS, but you would lose your ability to to summon demons. demonology would buff your your demon, but you would not have acess to curses, and destruction would have access to improved evocation spells, but no demon or curses.

[Gwynfrid]

Hi,

I've been too busy to reply faster. but since you seem to enjoy the discussion, I'm back.

No it's not...this keeps coming up time and again, the locks reliance on DoT's makes them a different type of blaster. A sorc can get resisted one turn no worries because they can still throw out huge damage the next round. The Lock? Nope.

Sure he can. He just needs to throw Corruption again. No problem, since it's at will, while others will eventually run out. Seriously, let's compare. As presently written, Corruption does 1d6/level, per round, for 1 round per 2 levels. A Fireball does 1d6 per level, on an area, but with a save for half. And the Fireball is capped at 10d6. How isn't Corruption vastly superior? In fact, a better comparison is Polar Ray: Single target, ranged touch attack, no save, 1d6/level capped at 25d6 (ie not capped, for practical purposes). OK, Polar Ray has a longer range and a side effect of Dex damage which doesn't really matter here. So, what you got is more or less a Polar Ray that repeats its damage every round.

It might be that you really intended to write 1d6 / 2 levels, as you did above in the thread. That wouldn't make it anywhere close to reasonable. The scaling per level needs to be way slower and/or have a save per round to end the effect.

Now, on top of that, there's metamagic. You write that Corruption can be modified with metamagic. I'm afraid the example given isn't very clear, I suggest you look to streamline description. But it appears that the normal metamagic cap (ie you can't raise a spell level beyond the maximum you can cast) doesn't exist for Corruption. This means you can do a lot more damage even in the first round than any competing spellcaster using maximized Fireball and whatnot. You have to use Lifetap for that, I guess (?) but that's not a true limitation. If you win the fight over the first 2-3 rounds (and you will) then it doesn't matter how much damage you inflicted to yourself. Moreoever, working from a d12 HP baseline, it more or less means you bring yourself back to the HP total a sorcerer would have in the first place.

Besides, with bigger up-front damage, and acid/negative variation this problem will be solved.

Correct. You haven't edited the Shadow thing in the OP, though, so I thought that decision was still open in your mind.

No, but it does make it a lot harder to compare. This is evident by us still talking about it after 3 pages of discussion .

It's not that difficult. For starters, don't have the warlock do auto-repeating damage equal to the damage a sorcerer does by casting a spell every round.

I don't see how taking a greatsword to the face is less distracting than a spell that'll that's eating away at you. So the nature of the spell has an advantage? It's got disadvantages as I've mentioned earlier.

And you're calling me "Mr In-Theory"... You've got to be kidding me...

I don't think I need to elaborate: The fighter vs wizard fight is more than well documented enough, and has been tested in practice abundantly enough.

It is obvious that repeating, automatic 1d6/level damage is well beyond anything else in the game and, from mid-low levels onwards, will incapacitate any caster, once you've made the initial ranged touch attack successfully. The closest comparison is Acid Arrow, which doesn't scale with level, for good reason. Corruption as written is a "I win the caster duel" button.

I've always hated Vancian-style casting, with the restrictions per day. However that's just my visceral reaction.

Look at the original 3.5 warlock, then. It does away with Vancian casting. But it also loses a lot of flexibility. You're trying to keep both... Can't have your cake and eat it, not if you want to play by the same rules as the rest of the players.

My more reasonable reaction is a concern that a class whose whole selling point is a caster that can "go all day" is undermined by having their ability to do so taken away.

Here again, you must choose. Go all day = do much less damage in a short time. That means the class needs to look for ways to make the fight longer, by have a lot more defensive abilities. Or, do big damage = you have to stop to rest sometime.

Sorry, but no. I keep coming back to this point because I don't think you're fully grasping this concept and its full ramifications. Please don't take that the wrong way, I'm really glad we've having this conversation - positive, good change is happening and the end is in sight. But I keep having to repeat myself on this idea: The warlock can do a lot of damage.

But it takes time.

No, it doesn't. Not with Corruption as written. Your point would be valid, if it did take time for Corruption to do as much damage as a Fireball - then the debate would be a matter of degree, counting total output damage per round, how many rounds does it take to make things equal. But that's not where we are, yet.

And yes I do understand the ramifications. That why I bring up the matter of the ongoing damage requiring Concentration checks from casters.

Some more things would be nice, butI don't want to give them too much - at least not with putting in some risk/reward elements to balance them out.

Like we were saying earlier the Acid/Negative variation, and the Cast-Corruption-on-a-group - but doing so takes a decent amount of HP so they can't just do it willy nilly.

Something like their abilities do Negative damage baseline, but for Caster Level * 2 HP, they can cast it as Acid damage.

Or Corruption can usually only be cast on a single enemy, but if the caster pays (Number of Targeted Enemies * Half Caster Level) in HP, they can cast it on a number of additional enemies with a max of twice their constitution modifier?

What else would you have in mind if you were coming up with ideas?

- Change damage type
- Increase range
- Make the ray a cone (then all in range have a save)
- Increase duration
- Add side effects, such as blindness, sickened, shaken...
- Make it a shock wave with side effect of Bull Rush
- Encompass all of your existing Thesis effects, at the appropriate levels. This way, you have the flexibility to take more than one of them as you acquire levels, rather than making an irreversible choice between 3 options.

Of course, with this I'm assuming like 1 Thesis effect per two levels, which probably means the ones you have written should be either scaled down a bit or left to really high levels. Actually, I would suggest both: Keep them very powerful for high levels and also have one or two scaled down versions of each, available at lower levels.

[ylvathrall]

So a while ago this class was requested for a game I was GMing, and I said that I would come here and give some feedback on why I turned it down. Well, it took a while, but I'm here to give that feedback. It might not be entirely welcome, but that's the nature of homebrew material.

A couple of notes before I start. One, I can't keep track of everything that's been changed and changed again throughout the course of this thread, so I'm basing my comments off the version of the class currently outlined in the OP. Second, I am a harsh reviewer, in general. I might come across as excessively harsh or critical as a result. If so, this is not my intention, and certainly none of this is intended as a personal attack; this is purely my review of the class as a GM.

Okay, now on to my actual comments:

1. The first thing I look for when I look at a new class, regardless of where it came from, is not mechanical. It's fluff. I look for what its role is in-universe, how other characters would think of it, and how it fits into the world. I also look for how it interacts with other classes, and particularly whether it occupies the same niche as another class. If so, that's an issue for me.
   
   And in this case, I think it does. The warlock reads, in terms of fluff, like a witch. The whole "deal with the devil" concept, the rituals, the at-will abilities, it all reads like a witch. I suppose that if you're playing up the idea that the demonic power was inherited instead of bargained for, it could also have overlap with a sorcerer with either the Abyssal or Infernal bloodline; in that case, I don't understand the alignment restriction. Either way, I'm not seeing how this is treading new ground on a fluff level.
   
2. Looking at the table, there are way too many empty levels. This is one of the things that Pathfinder changed from 3.5, and in my opinion it is a good change. If you gain a level in a class, you should get something new out of it. Looking at this, it seems like a lot of the levels don't really have much in the way of new abilities. You also get most of the big ones on the same levels as you get new spell levels. In the ACG section on designing classes, one of the things they point out is that casters should alternate new class features with new spell levels, that way every level provides some kind of new ability or improvement. That is, in my opinion, a good guideline to follow.
   
3. Shadow damage needs to change. Yes, making it a normal energy type means that it sometimes doesn't contribute to a fight. That's the point. The game is balanced with the idea that any given ability has ways to counter it, and ways to make it just not work. No character should be able to function at their best in every encounter. That's why it's a team game. Negative energy damage that also harms undead is very nearly untyped damage. You will note that there are very few ways to do untyped damage. There's a reason for that.
   
   You can make it regular negative energy. You can make it another energy type. You could make it "choose the energy type at 1st level; once made, this choice cannot be changed." Any of these could work. But "special damage type that only I get and that hurts everything ever period" does not work.
   
4. Losing the grimoire is too crippling. Players complain about jerk GMs taking away their spellbooks (or familiars, for witches), but that option exists for a reason. It's a way to meaningfully hurt the character without doing them irreparable harm, mechanically. There are also ways to prepare for it if need be; you can have backup spellbooks. By making the grimoire so hard to replace, you're effectively making losing it worse than death. Based on how most campaigns' timelines work out, you will never be able to replace it. At 2000 gp per level, it's also impossible to pay for it until level 5 under WBL rules. Realistically speaking, if a warlock loses their grimoire, the player will probably drop the character entirely rather than try and deal with it, and they might well drop the game entirely. That isn't a good thing.
   
5. This has been mentioned already, but the damage over time is too high. You can say that it takes too long to matter, but that isn't true. You're doing damage comparable to most spells (more than most spells at lower levels), you're doing it at will, and you're doing it for multiple rounds. Plain and simple. The damage is too high to be balanced. It's also ridiculously easy to deal with the fact that it takes multiple rounds to bring down an enemy. The Corruption + Dimension Door example has already been brought up here, but there are others that come to mind. Things like forcecage. Or create pit. Or having the melee person just keep tripping them. Or, hell, why not just hit them and run away? With an unarmored mount, you can move faster than many enemies, and you were at range to begin with.
   
   You say that this makes the game less fun, and thus people wouldn't do it. Again, that's the point. Your character should be making the game more fun, not less. If I can't use my core class abilities effectively without ruining the game for everyone else, then there is a problem with those class abilities.
   
6. This one is a bit more of a conceptual issue, but you keep saying that there aren't many damage over time abilities in Pathfinder. That's true. There's a reason for it. Damage over time abilities are a pain in the ass for GMs. It's one more thing that I have to keep track of every round, and remember what the duration is for all of the enemies you've tagged with it. It isn't as bad in a play-by-post game, but in real time? It makes every round of combat harder to manage, and it makes every round of combat take longer to run.

Also, I feel I should point out that it comes across very much like you're considering the class in a vacuum. You say that you've done playtesting on it; I don't really know what that entailed, but from what you've said about it so far, I feel like you're not really looking at it in the context of the game as a whole. I haven't seen any consideration of how it might interact with other classes. Things like other spell lists, or multiclassing. Speaking of, is it just me or is this class a spectacular one-level dip, especially for a caster who already has Quicken Spell? Sure, I don't have the spell slots to be casting many quickened spells, but that's okay because I can use corruption as a swift action every turn anyway. Getting 1d6 extra damage every round, two good saves, a d12 hit die, cantrips, and Eschew Materials for one level? That's a pretty good deal, I think.

On that note, and again related to considering the class in a vacuum, I haven't seen any discussion of what this would be like as an NPC. My rule as a GM is that if you get to use something, so do I, so I would have to be considering that aspect as well. And, again, it doesn't hold up well. Those awesome abilities that are basically impossible to deal with are going to be much less popular when they're used against the PCs. Honestly, if I put the average party up against a warlock of equal level, and I played that warlock like it had a brain, I don't know that the PCs would be able to win. It can get close using Stealth (or invisibility; sure, it isn't on their spell list, but a warlock gets UMD as a class skill, and wands are cheap), quickened Corruption, dimension door or run action. Rinse and repeat until they're weak enough to take down directly. That's rather hard to deal with. And, again, this is a jerk move and not something I would do, and again, that's the point. If a class is so powerful that I am not willing to include it as an NPC, it is too powerful.

So now that I've gotten that out of the way, here is what I would suggest to make this class actually workable:

1. Change the way Shadow damage works. There are a lot of ways to go about this that would fix it, but it needs fixed.
   
2. Make the Macabre Theses weaker, make there be more to choose from, and give them out more frequently. You might also make the current core abilities Macabre Theses that have to be chosen like any other, rather than having them be part of the automatic progression. Maybe you have to take them multiple times to increase the damage and/or duration of the damage over time. That, in itself, would solve a lot of the problems with those abilities.
   
3. Weaken the damage over time abilities. My suggestion would be to make it 1d6/2 levels damage on impact, and damage equal to either the warlock's level or the warlock's Charisma bonus every turn thereafter, minimum 1. If you leave it at high damage over time, there has to be some kind of save to end it early, probably either a Fortitude or Will save every round.

[BananaPhone]

You know after typing what is close to 5 or so pages worth of a class, having worked on it for almost a year, undergone a few revisions and changes...it'd be nice if someone came in and said "hey, X is really cool about this, i like it!"

Instead I manage to attract another harsh reviewer. Because getting my balls broken by one just wasn't enough! I'm not getting paid to have high blood pressure .

I'll need a bit longer to respond to Gwyn, but I'll give a quick answer:

Change the way Shadow damage works. There are a lot of ways to go about this that would fix it, but it needs fixed.

I'm changing it to Acid or Negative, with the ability to sacrifice HP to change it between one or the other.

Make the Macabre Theses weaker, make there be more to choose from, and give them out more frequently. You might also make the current core abilities Macabre Theses that have to be chosen like any other, rather than having them be part of the automatic progression. Maybe you have to take them multiple times to increase the damage and/or duration of the damage over time. That, in itself, would solve a lot of the problems with those abilities.

Gwyns put up for some suggestions for an expanded Thesis, and I've mentioned a few a bit earlier.

Something I'm thinking of is having Level 6 or 5 be the beginning of the Macabre Thesis, and then every few levels you get a nice addition that shapes the way you play the class. Maybe even starting at level 1 in that case.

Perhaps something small-ish on their own, but when taken all together offer three styles of play.

Weaken the damage over time abilities. My suggestion would be to make it 1d6/2 levels damage on impact, and damage equal to either the warlock's level or the warlock's Charisma bonus every turn thereafter, minimum 1. If you leave it at high damage over time, there has to be some kind of save to end it early, probably either a Fortitude or Will save every round.

This has been the biggest issue.

Perhaps something like 1d6/2 levels damage on impact, then every round thereafter is 1d6 or 1D3*Warlocks Charisma modifier, Fort save for half.

[ylvathrall]

You know after typing what is close to 5 or so pages worth of a class, having worked on it for almost a year, undergone a few revisions and changes...it'd be nice if someone came in and said "hey, X is really cool about this, i like it!"

Instead I manage to attract another harsh reviewer. Because getting my balls broken by one just wasn't enough! I'm not getting paid to have high blood pressure .

Yeah, sorry. It's nothing personal; I review everything this harshly. I'm the kind of person that can and does spend half an hour griping about a book, with maybe one or two nice comments thrown in, and then give it a four-star review. It's just how I look at things, I guess.

I'm not very good at being nice, so I'll just put it like this: If I didn't think there was something here worth doing, I would not have taken the time to write up that commentary. You've got the concept. You just need to refine it and balance it if you want it to work in an actual game.

I'm changing it to Acid or Negative, with the ability to sacrifice HP to change it between one or the other.

Okay, good. That makes it much less game-breaking.

Gwyns put up for some suggestions for an expanded Thesis, and I've mentioned a few a bit earlier.

Something I'm thinking of is having Level 6 or 5 be the beginning of the Macabre Thesis, and then every few levels you get a nice addition that shapes the way you play the class. Maybe even starting at level 1 in that case.

Perhaps something small-ish on their own, but when taken all together offer three styles of play.

I would recommend you start at level 3 or earlier if you want it to be a main class feature. In fact, the best way might be to look at witch hexes, since that seems to be the closest thing to what you're going for here. Make them individually pretty weak, but you get one every other level. That way you're consistently getting new abilities, and you don't risk any single ability being outlandishly powerful.

This has been the biggest issue.

Perhaps something like 1d6/2 levels damage on impact, then every round thereafter is 1d6 or 1D3*Warlocks Charisma modifier, Fort save for half.

First off, I would recommend against the multiplicative thing. It's swingy. With a lot of dice, like the 10d6 from a fireball, they tend to average out. With only one die, it doesn't work like that. 1-6 is a reasonable amount of swing, but when you multiply it by another number the variation gets pretty high.

Second, that's still high damage. If we assume a Charisma modifier of +10 at level 20 (not unreasonable in my experience, not even really that impressive), and using the 1d6*Cha value, the damage works out as 20 * 3.5 * 10 =700 damage. For comparison, a wyrm red dragon (CR 20) has 391 HP. If the save DC is 10 + Cha + 1/2 level (pretty standard DC for this sort of thing), that's a total of DC 30. The dragon needs to roll a 7 to make the save, not difficult, but also not guaranteed. If we assume that it will fail one round in 4 (which is slightly less than it actually would) it would take full damage on the first 175 points of that 700, half damage on the rest. That comes to 175+262.5=437.5 points of damage.

And yes, it has ways of limiting that damage, but then the analysis gets complicated with it wasting actions mitigating your ability and you hitting it again. Bottom line is this: At level 20, you can do more damage with one use of your ability than is required to kill a level-appropriate encounter. That is not low damage.

In spite of that, though, I disagree with you about this being the biggest issue. I think that position goes to letting the damage over time abilities be affected by metamagic. First off, that is wildly unusual. There have been official FAQs to clarify that metamagic feats and metamagic rods cannot affect spell-like abilities. There is an entirely different set of metamagic feats for spell-like abilities. They're in the Bestiary, meaning that they aren't assumed to even be available to PCs, and they're much more limited than the regular version.

Second, it's confusing, at least to me. How does the metamagic feat apply to the SLA? It doesn't have a spell slot to increase. I don't understand how it works.

Third, it's excessively powerful. Like, if it works the way I think it does, I can make every use of Corruption a quickened maximized empowered use? That's ridiculous. Suddenly the damage I estimated earlier more than doubles, and I can use all three of my DoT abilities every round. And that's without getting into the numerous other metamagic feats that I could be applying to it. Such as Dazing Spell. Or Extend Spell. Or Piercing Spell. Or Elemental Spell. And yeah, that means I basically took nothing but metamagic feats, but who cares? I can kill everything.

[BananaPhone]

Yeah, sorry. It's nothing personal; I review everything this harshly. I'm the kind of person that can and does spend half an hour griping about a book, with maybe one or two nice comments thrown in, and then give it a four-star review. It's just how I look at things, I guess.

I'm not very good at being nice, so I'll just put it like this: If I didn't think there was something here worth doing, I would not have taken the time to write up that commentary. You've got the concept. You just need to refine it and balance it if you want it to work in an actual game.

Aye, I don't take it personally. Most of the time I even have a bit of impish fun with Gwyn . But occasionally, with all the effort I've sunk into it, some reassurance would be nice.


I'm in-and-out of the boards today, so I'm just going to respond to one of your points:

I would recommend you start at level 3 or earlier if you want it to be a main class feature. In fact, the best way might be to look at witch hexes, since that seems to be the closest thing to what you're going for here. Make them individually pretty weak, but you get one every other level. That way you're consistently getting new abilities, and you don't risk any single ability being outlandishly powerful.

I'm not sure the witches hexes are the most apt comparison, but I can definitely see where you're coming from.

What I'm going to attempt to do is offer three branches of playstyle for the class which revolve around what choices are made in regards to the grimoire.

The three styles can be summed up as:
- Parasitic; This branch will get Siphon Life and the bit-of-corruption-damage-heals-you, and the harvest life etc they'll rely more on their DoT's to do damage and will have the greater ability to steal HP from the enemy but will require more HP sacrifice to fuel their abilities, thus more parasitic.

- Devil/demon: This is more of a demonologist, and will have abilities that help them with summons and turning them into something that more resembles the caster-and-pet combo. They won't have the life-stealing ability of the parasite or the firepower of the hellfire warlock, instead they'll be using more of a combo of their summons and spells.

- Hellfire: They'll get abilities that help up their damage output to be a bit more immediate. Where parastic gets siphon life and devil/demon gets a pet, they'll get Curse of Agony, and some other abilities that helps the raw damage output of them and their party.



That's what I'm going to gun for at the moment.

[Gwynfrid]

I guess it won't come as a surprise that I agree 100% with every single thing steinulfr wrote. Yeah, it's a bit harsh, but I've known worse, and the point is to help you, not to break your balls (although it may provoke similar feelings). Let me assure you we're less harsh than your fellow players would be, if your character was allowed in a playtest next to their by-the-book PCs.

If you really have three fairly different concepts in mind, then I recommend you develop only one fully, and make sure it is balanced. Then you add the other two as archetypes. This way, it will be less work, because there will be less moving parts to manage at a time. Your archetypes, based on a solid foundation, will be easier to balance.

Finally, to address the perennial issue of your Corruption damage, let me borrow from steinulfr, with a twist: I suggest you model this on the alchemist's Bomb damage. That's 1d6, plus 1d6 every other level above 1 (2d6 at level 3, 3d6 at level 5 etc), plus your Cha bonus. Then, instead of the alchemist's splash damage, you get recurring damage equal to the minimum damage of the initial hit. This lasts for 1/level rounds or until a Fort save is made, whicever is earlier. Also, do away with the restriction that only one Corruption works at a time: If you throw it again, it does its inital damage, and resets the round counter. Make that ability usable a number of times per day equal to level + Cha (like the alchemist bomb). Keep the ranged touch attack, no save for the initial hit (again similar to the alchemist's Bomb).

Then as you build your Thesis, you can modify this initially modest class feature so it becomes increasingly impressive. For example you can throw more than one per round, you can add debilitating effects, change the damage type, make it a cone area of effect, etc.

[ylvathrall]

I guess it won't come as a surprise that I agree 100% with every single thing steinulfr wrote. Yeah, it's a bit harsh, but I've known worse, and the point is to help you, not to break your balls (although it may provoke similar feelings). Let me assure you we're less harsh than your fellow players would be, if your character was allowed in a playtest next to their by-the-book PCs.

If you really have three fairly different concepts in mind, then I recommend you develop only one fully, and make sure it is balanced. Then you add the other two as archetypes. This way, it will be less work, because there will be less moving parts to manage at a time. Your archetypes, based on a solid foundation, will be easier to balance.

Finally, to address the perennial issue of your Corruption damage, let me borrow from steinulfr, with a twist: I suggest you model this on the alchemist's Bomb damage. That's 1d6, plus 1d6 every other level above 1 (2d6 at level 3, 3d6 at level 5 etc), plus your Cha bonus. Then, instead of the alchemist's splash damage, you get recurring damage equal to the minimum damage of the initial hit. This lasts for 1/level rounds or until a Fort save is made, whicever is earlier. Also, do away with the restriction that only one Corruption works at a time: If you throw it again, it does its inital damage, and resets the round counter. Make that ability usable a number of times per day equal to level + Cha (like the alchemist bomb). Keep the ranged touch attack, no save for the initial hit (again similar to the alchemist's Bomb).

Then as you build your Thesis, you can modify this initially modest class feature so it becomes increasingly impressive. For example you can throw more than one per round, you can add debilitating effects, change the damage type, make it a cone area of effect, etc.

Oddly enough, I think this is actually nerfing the Corruption ability a little bit too much. I agree with the damage amount, but I would not do the number of uses that way. Alchemist gets it like that because that class has a lot of other things going on with extracts and mutagens.

Although I guess this does bring up the issue with spells again. At this point, I feel like there are really three analogues to this in published classes. Witch has at-will abilities and a full casting progression, but most hexes are very focused on debuffs and not as strong as spells at comparable levels. There's only one hex that does actual damage, it only does 3d8 Fortitude half, and it isn't available until level 10 minimum. Hexes are also not spammable on one target, so there is a distinction there as well.

You could also compare it to alchemists with their bombs and extracts. But bombs are limited per day, and extracts aren't a full casting progression. So again, not a straight comparison.

And then there's kineticist, which I think is probably the best analogue. Kineticist does the same base damage as what you're proposing, without the damage over time addition, and they can do it completely at-will. But they have no casting, and only very limited ability to mimic spells.

So, comparing it to these three, it seems like it's head and shoulders above any of them. It seems like to bring it down to that level it would need to either make Corruption limited in uses per day or drop the casting and go somewhere like the kineticist with macabre theses providing limited spell-like abilities.

[Gwynfrid]

Oddly enough, I think this is actually nerfing the Corruption ability a little bit too much. I agree with the damage amount, but I would not do the number of uses that way. Alchemist gets it like that because that class has a lot of other things going on with extracts and mutagens.

Correct. I wrote it that way under the assumption that the warlock remains a full caster class. If he were a half-caster like the alchemist, then he would need either more abilities or a more powerful version of Corruption (at-will would probably be all right).

Although I guess this does bring up the issue with spells again. At this point, I feel like there are really three analogues to this in published classes. Witch has at-will abilities and a full casting progression, but most hexes are very focused on debuffs and not as strong as spells at comparable levels. There's only one hex that does actual damage, it only does 3d8 Fortitude half, and it isn't available until level 10 minimum. Hexes are also not spammable on one target, so there is a distinction there as well.

You could also compare it to alchemists with their bombs and extracts. But bombs are limited per day, and extracts aren't a full casting progression. So again, not a straight comparison.

And then there's kineticist, which I think is probably the best analogue. Kineticist does the same base damage as what you're proposing, without the damage over time addition, and they can do it completely at-will. But they have no casting, and only very limited ability to mimic spells.

So, comparing it to these three, it seems like it's head and shoulders above any of them. It seems like to bring it down to that level it would need to either make Corruption limited in uses per day or drop the casting and go somewhere like the kineticist with macabre theses providing limited spell-like abilities.

I like the kineticist comparison. This is a new class, I haven't tried, or even fully understood it yet. But it's the closest PF has to the old-school 3.0 warlock. Definitely an option to examine: If he has no spells at all, then the justification for at-will, serious damage dealing abilities is strong. On the other hand, when we see a strong Corruption ability next to "oh, and by the way I can also Fireball like anybody else" then we tend to want to nerf it.

[BananaPhone]

If you really have three fairly different concepts in mind, then I recommend you develop only one fully, and make sure it is balanced. Then you add the other two as archetypes.

Archetypes are for dorks!

I'm thinking of the ways I can approach this but I haven't had time to pen my thoughts just yet.

Something I am thinking about, however, is restricting the base class spell list to spells available to the wizard/sorcerer from Transmution, Abjuration and Divination school. Then, depending on which path of power the player pursues through their macabre thesis, they either add onto that Necromancy (parasitic), conjuration (demonologist) or evocation (hellfire). As they advance levels they'll gain abilities/buffs/boosts that help them get the most out of their playstyle.

It'll also help the problem of something like, the parasitic warlock that's got siphon life/corruption/harvest life giving them huge amounts of HP back but then throwing fireballs around - they won't be able to do it. But the warlock that's chosen the hellfire path that doesn't have the hp-stealing abilities of the parasite has more upfront boomage instead.

I'll try and write it out in the coming days when I don't have other things tugging on my attention.

[BananaPhone]

I haven't forgotten about this. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to devote much to it recently.

I am slowly making progress on coalescing a direction for the grimoire. I started with the idea of it enabling a player to branch into three different styles of play. But as fun as that idea is, I'm struggling to make the time just for the main class.

So what I've decided to try and focus on is have it diverge into two different styles of play and join that with what spells they have access to. All Warlocks have access to the wizard/sorc spells from the abjuration, divination and transmution spell schools, and depending which way you go with your grimoire you get 2 more.

On one hand you've got the parasitic, life-stealing, debuffing style of play which includes siphon life, harvest life etc. Best thought of as a parasitic debuffer, it also includes the necromancy/illusion spell schools. Thematically they're more in tune with the Void, with the darkness between the stars and the madness within.

On the other will be the demonologist which is more of a minion-mancer blaster. They'll have their familiar, summons/callings and link their ability to soak damage with their pets. They'll get the conjuration/evocation spell schools. Their studies have conduced them more into bringing order and control to the raw ether of magic to be found in the infernal and abyssal planes.

That's what I'm hoping to do anyway. I'm gm'ing a game and playing in a couple others, plus I've got postgrad and a personal writing project and a gf I'm contending with, and I play WoW on the side lol so I've got a lot on my plate atm.

[Gwynfrid]

Looks like you're in for a complete overhaul. At this stage, I can only give you a general opinion:
- You're thinking of this based on the class' theme rather than mechanics. That's the right approach, imo.
- Now, about mechanics: If it is a full caster, no matter how restricted the schools are, then any additional capabilities should be commensurate with that of full casters, for example the witch's hex or the sorcerer's bloodline powers.
- If less than full caster (ie half caster or not caster at all) then you have much more room for iconic abilities like Corruption, Siphon etc to be truly powerful, as opposed to just side shows.

[BananaPhone]

I'm playing around with the idea of using the Summoner spell progression.

[ylvathrall]

I'm playing around with the idea of using the Summoner spell progression.

I would support moving to a half-caster progression, but beware of actually mimicking summoner. That class is possibly the single most frequently banned one Paizo has made (the only one which is more frequently banned in my experience is gunslinger, and that's for reasons of setting rather than power). Even after they nerfed it (sort of) in Unchained, it's still a divisive class.

[TheifofZ]

Oh hey, this is nifty, and it's headed in a cool direction.
I'd agree on going half progression; the At-will SLAs are very strong already (you still need to update those in the OP if you were planning on nerfing them, I think?)
Corruption: SLA, Ranged touch, 1d6/caster level initial damage (up to 20d6? that's really high for an at will.) and persists for 1 round per 2 caster levels.
That comes out to, on an At-will effect, a max damage of 200d6 to a single target of Shadow Damage. Taking the 3.5 average... 700 damage over 20 rounds.
With a single standard action.
True, DoT effects are hard to balance for, but in general, a front-loaded ability should have about 2/3rds to 3/5ths the total damage of a DoT, balancing action economy against sustained resource consumption. Consider Changing Corruption to 1d6/2 caster levels and 1d6/3 caster levels DoT.
(D&D 3.5e Warlock's Eldritch Blast did 1d6/2 caster levels with no DoT, so this is still fairly strong.)
Of course, this means you'd have to change Curse of Agony to keep it's identity. Make it a single Will Partial/ turn based Fort half, and add on a damage amplification effect of, say, 1d6/5 caster levels (will negates) that occurs whenever the target takes damage from any other source. With the saves attached, you could remove the Ray and subsequent required attack roll completely.

Then, since there's still plenty of damage from the built-in class abilities, you could reduce the spell progression and tweak the spell list to include more debuffs and a few secondary offensive options.

[BananaPhone]

I would support moving to a half-caster progression, but beware of actually mimicking summoner. That class is possibly the single most frequently banned one Paizo has made (the only one which is more frequently banned in my experience is gunslinger, and that's for reasons of setting rather than power). Even after they nerfed it (sort of) in Unchained, it's still a divisive class.

Isn't the controversy surrounding the speed at which they get spells? Like, the Summoner gets Haste as a level 2 spell that they'll have access to at level 4, one level before a wizard?

I know there's a lot of...caution surrounding the synthesist summoner and the master summoner because one churns out huge amounts of natural attacks or something and the other breaks the action economy of the game.

Oh hey, this is nifty, and it's headed in a cool direction.

*ears perk*

What's that? Positive feedback?!

*basks*

I'd agree on going half progression; the At-will SLAs are very strong already (you still need to update those in the OP if you were planning on nerfing them, I think?)
Corruption: SLA, Ranged touch, 1d6/caster level initial damage (up to 20d6? that's really high for an at will.) and persists for 1 round per 2 caster levels.
That comes out to, on an At-will effect, a max damage of 200d6 to a single target of Shadow Damage. Taking the 3.5 average... 700 damage over 20 rounds.
With a single standard action.

Hmm, that is strange. It's supposed to be 1d6 per 2 caster levels, thus why I added on there "to a minimum of 1d6" for 1st level.

It should be 1d6/2 class levels ever other round for 1 round/2 class levels. So at level 10 your DoT will do 5d6 damage every 2 rounds for 10 rounds. If they make none of their saves over 10 rounds that'd average 87.5 damage (or 8.75 damage a round), if they make all of their saves it'd average 43.75 damage (or 4.75 damage a round).

Of course, this means you'd have to change Curse of Agony to keep it's identity. Make it a single Will Partial/ turn based Fort half, and add on a damage amplification effect of, say, 1d6/5 caster levels (will negates) that occurs whenever the target takes damage from any other source. With the saves attached, you could remove the Ray and subsequent required attack roll completely.

It's possible. I'm probably going to give Agony to the Demonologist branch and have it do less damage but it does it every round. Demonologists will have Corruption + Agony as their damage dots and the parasite will have Corruption + Siphon Life.

Then, since there's still plenty of damage from the built-in class abilities, you could reduce the spell progression and tweak the spell list to include more debuffs and a few secondary offensive options.

At the moment what attracts me to the summoner progression is that you could end up being a lvl 20 lock and have access to those really cool and thematic end-game spells, like Create Greater Demiplane, Gate, Symbol of Insanity etc It's going to take a bit of work to figure all of that out so I'm leaving it till last, but I think it's worth it.

[TheifofZ]

Copy/Pasted from the original post:
"Corruption:
The Warlock wills an affliction upon a chosen opponent and leaves them to rot away from its entropic touch. Corruption is a Spell-like Ability that takes a standard action to cast and has a range of 30 + 5 ft. per caster level that requires a Ranged Touch Attack to hit and inflicts 1d6 Shadow Damage per caster level (rounded down), to a minimum of 1d6. This spell remains on a target for 1 round per 2 caster levels (rounded down) for a minimum of 1 round. Only one corruption can be active upon a target at a time."

I did note that you were talking about bringing those down, hence the mild confusion when I recalled it said '1d6 shadow damage per caster level (rounded down)'.
I'll probably keep one eye tilted in this general direction to see where this goes, because I am pretty excited about it.

... Even if I did like the Mage class better, back when I did play.
Single Target Fire spec for days.

[BananaPhone]

This is what I've got written so far for the "parasite" branch of the Warlock path, which I've called Path of the Void.

It's not polished yet and it's in draft form. This is a little rushed as a) I want to keep this discussion alive and felt I had to put something here sooner rather than later, and b) I've got to go to the movies tonight and am a little hurried as of posting this >_<. I've tried to put some pictures in as a feeling for the "ambiance" this path of power has. Unfortunately because I'm in a rush I could only put in 3 >_<.

I also found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hctYB7Lpppo to be really cool to listen to when thinking of things as well.

Path of the Void

Monikor: Voidlocks





The Void is a concept not fully understood by the mortal denizens of the material plane. To the uninitiated it is less a thing as much as it is a plug used to fill the exposed gaps of ignorance in those who encounter things outside their understanding. For those who have pledged themselves to its study, however, the void is so much more. Its influence is felt in everything and its presence resides in the darkness between stars, the layers of reality and the paradigms of time and space. Indeed, it is claimed that all that can be beheld is a manifest extension of the Voids omnipresence and that without its encompassing influence no plane of existence would be held together.

Therefore the possibilities open to one who could reach into the tapestry of existence and rework its threads for their own ends are nearly limitless. Or so believe the Voidlocks. Like engineers that study the mechanical so that their understanding could lead to further innovation and control, a Voidlock sifts through the building blocks of existence in search of power and knowledge. Whether benign or selfish the Voidlock will inevitably develop powers that are frightening to the common man, powers that may even worm their way into the Voidlocks mind and twist their mental perspective into something truly alien. Whether their actions make them an engineer or a parasite is up the Voidlock in question, but one thing is certain to those that walk this perilous path of power: the Void is greater in magnitude than any mortal mind could ever hope to comprehend.

Soultear

The Voidlock directs a sliver of their attention into the matrix that holds their enemies physical form together and begins to twist, tear and rend. Excruciating pain rips across the targets body as they are pulled apart on a spiritual level, their soul screaming silently in agony and their body rotting from within. The cold menace of the Void seeps into their muscles and worms its way inside their mind, slowing their reactions and freezing their brain.

Soultear replaces Corruption and is gained at level 3.

Soultear is a Spell-like Ability that takes a standard action to cast and has a range of 30 + 5 ft. per caster level that requires a Ranged Touch Attack to hit and inflicts 1d6 Force Damage for every 2 class levels (rounded down), to a minimum of 1d6, once every 2 rounds. This spell remains on a target for 1 round per 2 caster levels (rounded down) for a minimum of 1 round. Only one Soultear can be active upon a target at a time.

Every time the target takes damage they are permitted a Fortitude or Willpower save (whichever is lower) to reduce the damage by half.

Additionally, every time a target takes damage from Soultear they must succeed on a Fortitude or Will save (whichever is lower) against a DC of 10 + ½ the Warlocks Class Levels + the Warlocks Charisma Modifier, or be Sickened for 1 round.

Soultear can be pre-maturely removed by a successful Dispel, Greater Dispel, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Mage’s Disjunction or antimagic field.


Phantasmical Reality

The Voidlock has reached a point of understanding that they are no longer entirely bound to the Material plane. For short-lived moments of ecstasy, the Voidlock can extend themselves between dimensions, reality and even space and time, putting them outside the reach of those who would seek them harm. Their image flickers with ethereal static, and to their companions they may seem to occasionally materialise in and out of existence as washed down shadows of their former selves. However, for all their growing insight the Voidlock is, ultimately, mortal, and as yet has not fully mastered his gateway into the void, and thus his extensions remain capricious at best.

Phantasmical Reality is gained at level 5.

Phantasmical Reality is a Spell-like Ability that the Warlock casts on themselves as a standard action an amount of times per day equal to 3 + the Warlocks charisma modifier. Each casting lasts for 1 round per class level. During this time the Warlock gains total concealment with an enemy miss chance equal to 1d100%.

Nightmare

From the infinite Void the Voidlock calls a servant, his lone companion. Answering his summons is a spectral horse whose cold temperment is matched only by its swift beauty.

Nightmare is gained at level 5.

The warlock can cast Phantom Steed as a Spell-like ability with a caster level equal to his class level. If the Phantom Steed ever dies it does not actually die as much as it is temporarily sent back to the Void. Thus when the Voidlock recalls his servant, the Phantom Steed summoned will be the same one as before.


Parasite

The Voidlock summons forth from the Void a parasite that burrows into the targets soul and eats away at the stiches that hold their material form together. As the parasite gorges itself it shares its feasts with the Voidlock, returning its digested meal through a spiritual bond that reinvigorates the Voidlocks body and fills them with life.

Siphon Life is gained at level 6.

Siphon Life is a Spell-like Ability that requires a standard action to cast, with a range of 30 + 5ft. per caster level that inflicts 1d6 Force damage per 3 caster levels. This spell remains on a target for 1 round per 2 caster levels. Damaged caused by this spell is then added to the Warlock in the form of hit points. This cannot increase the Warlocks hit point total above its maximum. No hit points are returned to the warlock from damage caused to summoned creatures beneath the Warlocks control.

Parasite can be pre-maturely removed by a successful Dispel, Greater Dispel, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Mage’s Disjunction or antimagic field.

Gift of the Old Ones

The Voidlock reaches into the targets brain and impresses upon it a sliver of the Voids cold menace that seizes their faculties and stupefies their wits. When the target speaks they no longer talk in their native language and instead babble in what others can only think of as incoherent gibberish. These phonetics are not the ramblings of a madman, however, as they are instead a small sample of the alphabet employed by the Old Ones that reside at the centre of the Void. To the target this may seem as a curse, but in fact it is merely a temporary instinct into their perspective which could allow them to achieve heights of insight previously out of their reach. Afterall there is a fine line between genius and madness.

Gift of the Old Ones is gained at level 7.

Gift of the Old Ones is a Spell-like Ability that requires a standard action to cast. It has a range of 30 + 5 ft. per class level and requires a successful Ranged Touch Attack and is subject to Spell Resistance. Randomly determine one of the following: attack rolls, saving throws, or skill checks. To one of these the target receives a bonus equal to ½ your warlock level (minimum +1) and a penalty to the other two types of rolls equal to ½ your Warlock level (minimum –1). This effect fades after 3 rounds. The Warlock is aware of what receives the bonus and what receives the penalty. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.


Fold Space

The Warlock begins to see the tapestry of reality all about him and how he, with practised skilled, can fold two pieces of that cloth together so that he may move between them, covering a great distance with only a single step.

Fold Space is gained at level 7.

The Warlock becomes able to cast Dimension Door as a Spell-like ability a number of times equal to 3 + their Charisma modifier. The warlocks class level substitutes for caster level.

At 9th level, the Warlock is able to cast Teleport with the same conditions applied.

At 13th level, the Warlock is able to cast Greater Teleport with the same conditions applied.

At 17th level, the Warlock is able to cast both Teleportation Circle and Interplanetary Teleport with the same conditions applied.

Touch of Madness

An ability preserved for those who truly displease the Voidlock, Stupify opens a miniature gateway inside the targets mind and allows a modicum of the Void to flood inside. The result is nothing short of a harrowing, mind-bending horror visited upon the unfortunate target that only they can see and comprehend, as a world of nightmares grasps their mind and anchors it into the pit of madness, leaving them a blissfully gurgling labotomised mess whose eyes stare into the distance at objects only they can see.

Touch of Madness is gained at level 9.

Touch of Madness is a Spell-like Ability with a range of 30 + 5 ft. per class level that requires a standard action to cast and a successful Ranged Touch Attack to hit, and is subject to Spell Resistance. Targets are allowed a Will save equal to 10 + ½ your warlock + your charisma modifier.

On a failed save, the target loses 3d10 points of Intelligence which will return at a rate of 1 every 2 days. Those reduced to 0 intelligence by this spell are not dead, but are instead lobotomised and comatose until they recover. Those who are not reduced to 0 intelligence by this are subject to the Confusion spell. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.


The Great Devourer

The Voidlock tears a hole into reality that draws in everything within its influence: material, mind and soul. Those trapped inside the ever shifting folds of space-tear are twisted and warped, their minds bending and their bodies torn as all that they are is chewed and swallowed by the shapeless maw and fed into the great beyond and the soul of the Warlock.

The Great Devourer is gained at level 11.

The Great Devourer is a Spell-like Ability with a range of 10 feet per class level. The Voidlock choses a designated target and makes spell resistance rolls as normal, and from that chosen point all targets within a 20-ft. radius spread are subjected to The Great Devourer and take 1d6 Force damage per caster level, with those affected permitted a Fortitude or Willpower save (whichever is lower) to take half damage. In addition, those who fail the save are considered Nauseated for the duration of the spell. The Great Devourer stays in existence for 1d3 rounds, after which it dissipates.

Those reduced to 0 hp by The Great Devourer are sucked into the Void, never to be seen again.

Finally, the Warlock gains half the total hp damage caused by The Great Devourer. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.



Eye of the Void

The Warlock has become a master of the Void to such a point that the material reality has little concern for them. They see the tapestry of existence and can reach forth to pluck at its strings and retailor it to functions that they find most pleasing.

Eye of the Void is a passive ability acquired at level 17.

The Warlocks class abilities are no longer subject to any form of Energy Resistance, Damage Reduction or any other spell, spell-like ability, supernatural ability, extraordinary ability, or feat or any other influence that would reduce their damage or effectiveness as written, with the exception that targets are still allowed saves as normal. In addition, Warlocks consider targets Spell Resistance as ½ of what it normally is, and can ignore Spell Resistance/Magic Immunity for 1 round per day equal to their Charisma Modifier.