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    Default The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    THE NEW WARLOCK HANDBOOK
    Welcome to the New Warlock Handbook. This guide came up from an idea to compile various thoughts about Warlocks, since it has been spread out between various guides around the various optimization communities. Sadly, those guides haven't been updated in quite a while, so I'm trying to fill the gaps.

    Color Coded for Your Convenience
    I initially resisted using a color code system for this guide, but under influence of our friend LonelyTylenol, I gave in. You will find the following color ratings in this guide:
    Purple - Excellent
    Blue - Good
    Black - Average
    Red - Bad

    Introduction
    Warlocks are a base class presented in Complete Arcane. It has a strong demonic flavor, though options for fey flavored and celestial flavored warlocks showed up later.
    The warlock shtick is at-will magic. The class is built around invocations - spell-like abilities the warlock gets to use how often he wants. The class gets an offensive option in eldritch blast, allowing for an at will ranged touch attack for magical damage. Eldritch blast can be further tweaked with essences and shapes.
    If the demonic flavor, the at-will magic or something else entirely about the Warlock interests you, hang on because we get a long road ahead of us. In this handbook, we plan to explore all the options available to Warlocks.

    Standing in the Shoulders of Giants
    The following are the previous Warlock handbooks in case you want to check out the (awesome) guides that came before us.
    Warlock Information Compilation by Thinblade
    Glaivelock Miniguide by JanusJones... sadly contains many errors regarding rules interpretations
    Melee warlock handbook
    Warlock FAQ by Rich Baker Rich Baker created the Warlock and this compilation has several of his answers regarding the class, feat interactions, what it should and should not do. Very good for those that want to homebrew invocations, since he states the design goals behind them.

    A Note About The Tier System
    I'm guessing most of you reading this handbook are familiar with JaronK's tier system for classes. JaronK has Warlocks at tier 4, which is something I disagree with. You see, the tier system claims to consider potential and not specific builds. However, the Warlock has potential for very high damage output if he chooses his melee options. Between high damage output and his invocations, a Warlock is more versatile than any initiator and even the Duskblade. To me, the Warlock fits perfectly the definition of tier 3.
    There have been plenty of accusations of bias towards the tier system, but I really don't think this is a case of such. I think it's just a matter of no one bothering enough to defend the Warlock at the time of it's writing and JaronK not knowing much about Warlocks, really (eldritch glaive is very counterintuitive). The tier system is unlikely to get updated ever again and should only be considered as rough guidelines anyway, but do notice that I strongly think Warlock stands quite firmly at tier 3, above the Duskblade and the martial adepts but below Beguiler.

    Warlock Basics
    Let's get down to the basics about Warlocks. First, overall pros and cons.
    Pros:
    • Can function with pretty much any ability score assignment
    • At-will abilities, requiring no resource management (other than actions, gold and hp, but everyone needs those)
    • Good damage output if using melee options
    • Good skill list
    • Able to use invocations in light armor
    • Medium base attack bonus


    Cons:

    • Alignment restrictions (must be chaotic or evil)
    • Only gets 12 invocations across 20 levels
    • Hard to qualify for prestige classes
    • Few skill points
    • d6 Hit Dice
    • Starved for feats


    To Melee or Not Melee
    The first question you must ask yourself regarding Warlocks is this - do you want the extra damage output from melee or not? Using eldritch glaive and or eldritch claws will gain you a lot of damage over staying ranged, but it requires investment and puts you in the frontlines.
    You'll notice this is not titled "ranged or melee", because going melee does not hurt your ranged capabilities in the slightest. We'll discuss a few options for ranged-only warlocks to increase their damage output (Psionic Shot, Hellfire Warlock plus Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse), but be advised it's not spectacular damage in any way.
    Please notice how we never mentioned Hideous Blow as an option for melee warlocks. That's because, as others have said before me, Hideous Blow blows hideously.
    We are in no way claiming that ranged Warlocks are bad. If anything, not having to spend feats and levels for damage boosts gives them versatility. It's just that they don't make good main damage dealers. You can play a blastlock just fine, you just won't be winning any damage contests.

    Charisma: Take it or Leave it
    As mentioned before, Warlocks can function with pretty much any ability score assignment (yes, even 3s across the board, even if that is an unplayable character by RAW). This might confuse some readers, since the save DC for invocations depends on Charisma. It's important to notice that Warlocks have several invocations that don't allow saves, so you could simply take those. Basically, even the Warlock's main stat (according to Complete Arcane) is skippable.
    It's important to keep good Charisma if you want to use invocations that allow saves, such as most eldritch essences and a few others (Tenacious Plague, Word of Changing, Nightmares Made Real), if you want to get mileage from Dark One's Own Luck if you want to use Bluff, UMD and Intimidate reliably.
    If you don't want to use those, you can safely dump Charisma and stock up on 24 hour buffs (Fell Flight, Beguiling Influence, Leaps and Bounds, Dark Foresight, Walk Unseen, Entropic Warding) and invocations that don't require saves (Chilling Tentacles, Path of Shadows, Flee the Scene, Hellspawned Grace, The Dead Walk).
    Some of you may already have noticed that some of the best invocations don't require saves. Also, the best essence user is the glaivelock - and that's because he forces several saves in the same round and thus does not require stellar Charisma (though it helps).
    My suggestion after all this is that having a good Charisma on your Warlock is preferrable... if it does not hurt other parts of your build. Check the requirements on your feats, your expected Armor Class and decide if you want to be a melee 'lock or not before you assign points to Charisma. In most situations, 14~16 is good enough.
    I don't advise dumping Charisma altogether unless you start at very high levels, since UMD is so good. At high levels, though, you don't need Cha since between ranks and taking 10 you'll meet all DCs anyway.

    Warlock Class Abilities
    Here we'll discuss about the various class abilities Warlocks get and how you can make use of them.
    Eldritch Blast: The Warlock's signature ability, gained at level 1. Eldritch blast by itself is nothing to write home about. It's a ranged touch attack with 30ft range that hits for an average of 3.5 damage/2 levels. It can gain rider effects through essences and can target differently with shapes. Some of those rider effects are really good (such as Noxious Blast) and your damage output can be greatly increased if you use options to attack more than once a round (eldritch glaive, eldritch claw, grappling blast). Out of the box, eldritch blast is nothing special, but if you use the right options, it becomes a respectable source of damage.
    Detect Magic: This is a nice ability to have, since it's at will. It's easy to forget you have it, though.
    Damage Reduction: Small DR, but you'll have it against most attacks, since cold iron weapons are usually rare in NPC statblocks and monsters are very rarely able to overcome this. It's a small bonus, but it sure adds up.
    Energy Resistance: This is nothing special, but it least it saves you some GP from buying equipment to do this. Passive ability and easily forgettable, but it can be a lifesaver every now and then.
    Fiendish Resilience: A very minor passive ability. It's basically a built-in ability for out of combat healing - which you should be doing from wands anyway. Really forgettable. There are options to trade it away in Drow of the Underdark (Poisonous Blood) and Player's Handbook 2 (Fiendish Flamewrath). I like Fiendish Flamewrath better, but both poison and fire are commonly resisted.
    Deceive Item: This is one of the strongest features of the Warlock class. Use Magic Device is the best skill in the game and Warlock is one of only two classes that can take 10 on it.
    Imbue Item: This ability allows you craft magical items with no need for spells. You still need the magic item creation feats, but you could dip the Chameleon prestige class from Races of Destiny for a way around that (they get a floating feat that can be swapped evey day). More info on magic item creation will follow below.

    Races for your Warlock
    Part of choosing any character is selecting race. Warlocks can work as any race, but a few races are specially good as Warlocks. If you already have a race set in mind due to background or anything like that, go with that.
    I'm not covering races with LA yet.
    Human: As usual, humans are a good race to choose. Extra feats are helpful in a usually feat starved race, warlocks are not that dependant on ability scores so the lack of bonuses is not a problem, warlocks don't get much skill points so every little bit helps.... and it qualifies you for Chameleon. As an aside, it's a good option for fey themed warlocks because then you can take Nymph's Kiss and Fey Heritage at 1st level. Silverbrow Humans from Dragon Magic also give you Disguise as class skill, qualifying you for Chameleon as a single classed Warlock.
    Halfling: Small size is very good for warlocks. Eldritch blast's damage does not depend on size and it has an interesting relation to eldritch claw - since your damage is more or less than same and you start at a lower point, a Small Warlock actually has the potential to make their eldritch claws more powerful than a Medium-sized Warlock! That only applies if you don't consider Beast Strike, though. If you can use the Strongheart Halflings from Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, they get a bonus feat, same as humans.
    Xeph (Expanded Psionics Handbook): -2 Str and +2 Dex good stat modifiers, Burst is a good ability overall (remember that you get a bonus to Jump from high land speed, which helps Glaivelocks), Xeph Celerity is a racial feat that allows you to get extra attacks and xeph also opens up psionic feats. A good race for Warlocks, specially at low levels when Burst can (and will) save your life.
    Hengeyokai (Oriental Adventures and Dragon Magazine 318): With the update from Dragon 318, this race has no LA (because there is no Shapechanger creature type in 3.5 - it's only a subtype). You get plenty of good options from this very fun race. Sparrow and crane hengeyokai get flight (so you don't need to take Fell Flight as an invocation), badger gives you a burrow speed (deadly when combined with Spring Attack or Mobile Spellcasting), dog gives you scent, raccon dog has a bonus to Str and hare gets a bonus to Dex and 40ft base speed. Wisdom is the stat Warlocks care less about, so a penalty here is not a problem at all (it does lock you out of Eldritch Disciple builds, though). I've seen many people saying you could spend all day blasting in sparrow form - but notice that invocations do have somatic components, so you need hands to use them, unless you take the Surrogate Spellcasting feat (from Savage Species). Shapechanger subtype qualifies you for Warshaper.
    Warforged (Eberron CS or Monster Manual 3): As others did before me, I'll quote JeminiZero: "Also bears mentioning under races: Warforged. Con bonus, considerable immunities (which help make up for your crappy Fort save), plus never needing to rest. Also qualifies for certain awesome buffs (Construct Essence, Golem Immunity).
    Plus, ya'know a mecha that flies around shooting lasers, and fighting with a beam sabre glaive.
    Its not all roses though, theres a feat tax (for better armor plating), you're harder to heal, and theres the Cha penalty (but you can live without that)."
    Tibbit (Dragon Compendium): Most of what was said regarding hengeyokai and halfling applies to tibbit. You get the size advantage and the ability to disguise yourself as a cat is handy.
    Changeling (Eberron Campaign Setting): Shapechanger subtype and minor disguise are good assets. While it does qualify you for Warshaper, some people might argue that minor disguise replicates an illusion spell so the Warshaper features wouldn't work. That's really splitting hairs, since the description of minor disguise specifically mentions it as a transformation. RAI seems crystal clear here, but ask your DM.
    Shifter (Eberron Campaign Setting): Another option to qualify for warshaper, but a rather sucky one at that. With the limited shifting, you won't get the benefits from warshaper most of the time. It doesn't have much else to offer for a warlock. Mostly a trap option.
    Elan (Expanded Psionics Handbook): Solid defensive racial features, psionic and aberration type opens up Rapidstrike. A penalty to Charisma is not exactly welcomed, but you can work around that anyway. A solid race for Warlocks, specially those that use Eldritch Claw.
    Daelkyr Halfblood (Races of Eberron): Aberration type with no penalty to Charisma. Symbionts are borderline broken - they get their own set of actions, after all. One of the best options around.
    Kobold (Races of the Dragon): You can get dragon type through a feat, so you qualify for Rapidstrike. Small size is good as mentioned before. You don't get as much mileage of the abuse on high mental stats from the Dragonwrought feat, so it's probably not worth it. Only mentioned for completeness sake.
    Shimonen Greensnake Naga (Oriental Adventures): The race is found at page 173 and the level adjustment on page 203. It's +1 LA, but it's one of the few LA really seems to be worth it, specially with buyoff. You get Str+2, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +2 and Wis +2 (Dragon Magazine 318 updates it to only Str +2 and Dex+4, a lot more reasonable - that's why it didn't get a purple rating), poison, telepathy (restricted to nagas), taint immunity and alternate form. This is a race that allows you to (ab)use Venomfire, Warshaper and Mindsight. Very, very good.
    Last edited by ThiagoMartell; 2012-10-19 at 04:28 AM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5]

    The Various Kinds of Warlock:
    There are many possible builds for Warlocks. In this section, we'll discuss the most common builds.
    Blastlock: The blastlock stays ranged. This is the default for warlocks and the worst option when it comes to damage and debuffing. You practically need Hellfire Warlock for this to remain relevant and even with Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster abuse it's not a main damage dealer. You can increase your damage output with common Warlock items (Chasuble of Fell Power, Warlock's Scepter) and (Greater) Psionic Shot if your race allows for that. A blastlock probably fits better on very low OP groups, where you coud use your resources for stuff other than damage.

    Glaivelock: The glaivelock is focused on Eldritch Glaive, a least invocation (blast shape) from Dragon Magic. With Eldritch Glaive, the glaivelock gets the option to do iterative attacks, increasing their damage output considerably. Since the glaivelock can still apply essences, they work as good debuffers. Eldritch Glaive still targets touch AC, so the Glaivelock have good accuracy.
    A glaivelock has better damage output than a ranged warlock, but worse damage output when compared to a clawlock. It's probably the best warlock option for debuffing - it forces multiple saves on the same round.

    Clawlock: The clawlock uses the Eldritch Claw feat from Dragon Magazine. More than any other warlock build, the clawlock is a damage dealer. Their damage potential is very good, since they can stack anything that helps natural weapons, unarmed strikes, manufactured weapons and eldritch blast. Clawlocks depend on Dragon Magazine material, which is frowned upon on some tables, so ask your DM before building one.

    Feats for the Warlock
    Able Learner (Races of Destiny): Human only. Your class skills remain with you forever. Good if you're dipping or if you want to qualify for Chameleon.
    Eldritch Claws (Dragon 358): As a free action, create a pair of claws. Damage is based on unarmed strike + eldritch blast. This is crazy good - you get to stack bonuses from plenty of sources, it has synergy with lots of things, the damage is really good.
    Beast Strike: Adds your claw damage to your unarmed strike damage. Very good feat for clawlocks.
    Improved Unarmed Strike (PHB): By itself, not that good of a feat. It's useful as a requirement, though.
    Grappling Blast (Dragon 358): Allows you to grapple and deal eldritch blast damage, giving a bonus in the next grapple checks. I can see this being useful in a grappler build that dips Warlock, but increasing actual size is not that good for warlocks. I'd skip it.
    Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle): Clawlocks should either take this or enter Shou Disciple. Solid damage buff.
    Improved Natural Attack (Monster Manual): Clawlocks can take this feat, but they can also get it from Thayan Gladiator or the Fanged Ring. You could take this for unarmed strike as well, but you can (and should) use (Greater) Mighty Wallop instead.
    Planar Affinity (online): Change two invocations instead of one. Quite lackluster. Useful in a few tricky situations (see Enlightened Spirit).
    Infernal Adept (online): Opens up the Dragonfire Adept invocation list for you. Could be quite strong - we'll mention your options later.
    Weapon Finesse (PHB): Glaivelocks should probably take this. You can use Str to attack with eldritch glaive, but that's all you'll ever get from it. Dexterity, on the other hand, applies to plenty of other stuff - initiative, Dex, Balance, Tumble, ranged attack rolls, Reflex saves... You can even be a finesse clawlock, though of course your damage output will suffer. However, if you're a ranged warlock that just uses glaive/claw onde in a while, I'd skip it.
    Touch/Ray Spell Specialization (Complete Arcane): Low, low damage bonus. Not a requirement for anything. I'd skip it.
    Obtain Familiar (Complete Arcane): Familiar are pretty useful, since they represent a second set of actions.
    Improved Familiar (PHB): Now we're talking. Some improved familiar can speak and use magical items, so you could give them wands of important spells that can be cast during combat to save you actions (Nerveskitter and Snake's Swiftness spring to mind). If you're a Hellfire Warlock, give your familiar a Rod of Bodily Restoration and don't worry much about complaints of cheese.
    Point Blank Shot (PHB): Low bonuses, only good as a requirement for Psionic Shot.
    Precise Shot (PHB): Don't take this. Touch attacks are reliable enough and you need your feat slots for better stuff.
    Mortalbane (Book of Vile Darkness, page 49): No alignment requirements, despite coming from BoVD. 5/day, get +2d6 damage on a damaging spell-like ability. This is a very good damage boost for eldritch blast and the lack of requirements make this a very good choice for your 1st level feat. Fades in usefulness as you level up, but it's still handy.
    Empower/Maximize/Quicken Spell-like Ability: These feats are all very good for a warlock, since spell-like abilities are our bread and butter. Since eldritch blast counts as a 1st level spell (see the errata for Complete Arcane), it's a prime candidate for these. Empower SLA is not exactly worth it - the bonus is pretty low. Quicken & Maximize are very good options. Notice you can take those feats for other invocations, but unless you're spamming them I would advise against it.
    Practiced Spellcaster (Complete Arcane): At first glance, this is a piece of crap. It helps you defeat SR and dispel... and that's that. However, Richard Baker himself said he would allow it to advance the Warlock's eldritch blast. If your DM accepts this ruling, this is very good news for any Warlock that dips around.
    Supernatural Transformation (Savage Species): This feat does not work with invocations, sadly.
    Surrogate Spellcasting (Savage Species): Requires Wis 13, but warlocks don't depend on ability scores as much as other classes. Allows your hengeyokai/tibbit warlock to use invocations in any form. Now you really can be a sparrow of death!
    Mindsight (Lords of Madness page 126): This feat is so good that if you qualify for it you should take it. Blindsense plus detecting Intelligence and creature type?! If you dipped Mindbender of if you are a Shimonen Naga, you shouldn't ask yourself "Should I take this feat?", you should ask yourself "When should I take this feat?" with the anser being as soon as possible.
    Extra Invocation (Complete Arcane): You need more invocations, but this feat by itself is not the most optimal way to get them. If you have access to Psychic Reformation and/or Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos it becomes better... but if you want versatility that much you really should be dipping Chameleon. All things considered, a necessary evil for many builds and a good filler feat if you don't know what else to take.

    Magical Items for the Warlock
    (Greater) Chasuble of Fell Power (Magic Item Compendium): +1d6 eldritch blast damage, +2d6 on the greater version. Take it.
    Warlock's Scepter (Magic Item Compendium): Bonus to ranged touch attacks, expend charges for bonus damage on eldritch blasts. Take it.
    Beast Claws (Savage Species): Your claws now deal +1d6 damage. They are also +2 weapons. Is it Christmas already? Every Clawlock should take this if allowed.
    Boots of Agile Jumping (Magic Item Compendium): This item allows you to use Dexterity for Jump. Useful for Glaivelock builds that use Sudden Leap to close with the target.
    Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (Magic Item Compendium): Move half your speed as a free action. The cost is very low. The problem is taking the neck slot. See if you can mix this with your chasuble. Good for melee warlocks in general.
    Anklet of Translocation (Magic Item Compendium): A swift action teleport, good for everyone. Very cheap item as well.
    Quicksilver Boots (Magic Item Compendium): With 3 uses a day and moving as a swift action, this item is pretty good. It's not expensive and I'd get it as soon as possible.
    Cyran Gliding Boots (Magic Item Compendium): Magical roller skates. Fits thematically if you're a Cyran Avenger. Moving 10ft as a 5ft step is very good, even if it is limited in uses per day. Between this and Quicksilver Boots, I'd probably get Quicksilver Boots.
    Codex Advocare (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft): 20.000 GP for a least invocation. Looks like a good deal, specially since it's the only way to get extra invocations
    Gauntlet of Heartfelt Blows (Dragon Magazine): Adds Charisma as a bonus to damage. It specifically works with touch attacks! Good buy for glaivelocks.
    Rod of Eldritch Power (Complete Mage): Each of this rod contains an eldritch essence or shape. Good for adding versatility to any build - sometimes you simply need that extra reach from eldritch spear or find a bunch of enemies lined up perfectly for eldritch chain. Also, you can basically get a lightsaber for 4000GP, which is pretty awesome by itself.
    Bracers of the Blast Barrier (Magic Item Compendium, page 80)- 3/day turn spell-like ability into 10'x10' wall of magical energy. Pretty cool for all your line of sight interruption needs. (3200gp)
    Bracers of the Entangling Blast (Magic Item Compendium, page 80)- 3/day damaging spell like ability deals 1/2 damage and entangles foe for 1d3 rounds. Entangle is a very sweet debuff. (2000gp)
    Gloves of Eldritch Admixture (Magic Item Compendium 105)- Add extra energy damage (your choice of type) to eldritch blast. 3 charges/day. Nothing special, but it's cheap and you can drop it for something better later. (2500gp)

    Wands
    Wands are spells in item form. Many players are wary of wands, because they have limited charges. 50 is a lot though, specially for utility. Even for spells you cast once an encounter, it lasts for 12 days on of nonstop adventuring (with some change). They are not even very expensive and remember - beyond level 12, you can craft them yourself.
    But how do you know if a spell is good for wands? The less it depends on caster level the better, because then the wand is cheaper. Fixed duration spells (specially those that last 24 hours) are specially good, but those that have durations measured on hours are still very good, but you should still consider those that have durations measured in minutes. If the duration is measured in rounds, though, it better be a swift action to activate.
    Below are some spells that are good on wands:
    Primal Instinct (Dragon Magic): A level 2 spell for Rangers with 24 hour duration. +5 to initiative and Survival. If you are dragonblooded (hello again, Silverbrow Human) you also get +5 to a Knowledge check. 24 hour buffs are always good, specially when they fit so well in wand form.
    (Greater) Mighty Wallop (Races of the Dragon): +1 effective size for damage in a bludgeoning weapon, such as unarmed strike. Good for clawlocks. As a 1st level spell with duration measured in hours, it's dirty cheap. If you have enough gold to sink into the greater version, try it... however, it's going to get really expensive really fast and I don't think it's worth it.
    Venomfire (Serpent Kingdoms): A creature's poison now dealing acid damage... 1d6 per caster level. Lasts hours/level. It's a 3rd level spell. If you have a viper familiar or if you have poison yourself (SG Naga, for example), you can even milk the poison, keep it in a flask and apply to weapons (such as claws). An extra 5d6 damage? Yes, please. The book that made Pun-Pun does not disappoint when it comes to overpowered stuff, does it?
    Nerveskitter:
    Last edited by ThiagoMartell; 2012-10-19 at 04:31 AM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5]

    The following is the work of LonelyTylenol
    Invocations
    To my knowledge, the Warlock has had invocations printed in six books: Complete Arcane (CArc), Complete Mage (CM), Dragon Magic (DrM), Cityscape (Ci), Magic of Incarnum (MoI), and Drow of the Underdark (DotU), making it, ironically, one of the better-supported classes in the game outside of core; however, you have a relatively limited number of invocations available for use, gaining only three invocations at each tier, which means you have to choose from these invocations very carefully. Not all Warlocks are going to be built the same, but there are still some general rules governing which invocations you should consider taking as a Warlock:

    Passive vs. Active
    As a Warlock, you'll find that some invocations you can cast are passive invocations, generally 24-hour or long-duration at-will buffs that you just cast at the beginning of the day and consider "always-on" abilities. Mere mention that these are being cast at the beginning of each day is usually enough, as barring a Dispel check, these basically are "always-on". Good examples of this include the least invocations Entropic Warding and Dark One's Own Luck, or the lesser invocation Ignore the Pyre.
    Active invocations, on the other hand, have to be activated in order to work, which means that you need to be spending actions to use them, and the benefits of the invocation are generally relatively short in duration. The greater invocation Chilling Tentacles is a good example of an active invocation.
    While it is generally useful to have more than one combat trick up your sleeve (or just more than one action that you can actually take in general), keep in mind that you should always be careful of how many active invocations you take; after all, it's great to have Eldritch Blast three different ways, Chilling Tentacles, Baleful Utterance, Dread Seizure and Impenetrable Barrier at your disposal, keep in mind that you have only one standard action per turn. At the same time, it's possible to pick so many passive invocations that you have nothing to do in combat but Eldritch Blast and maybe one other trick (possibly a variation of Eldritch Blast), and then be left with little to do when your Eldritch Blast doesn't cut it. Pick the active invocations that you can't live without, or pick a few that shore up blind spots in your usual offense, and then pick passive invocations to compliment them, so you aren't left with six of your best invocations being rendered totally unusable in a combat in a given time, or at a complete loss for actions entirely.

    General vs. Specific (Characters)
    If you picked All-Seeing Eyes, See the Unseen, Serpent's Tongue, Crawling Eye, Voidsense, and Spider-Shape, you would have, at your disposal, darkvision, see invisibility, blindsense, tremorsense, scent, good Spot and Search bonuses, and a remote vision ability, making you a scouting machine (well, insofar as a class with 2+INT skills and no perception skills as class skill can be); nobody is getting anything past you! Of course, you've also used all of your least and lesser invocations for scouting, so until level 11, this is all you can do--well, this and the bog-standard Eldritch Blast 5d6. It is possible to pick a specialty within the Warlock's invocation list, and become very good at that thing, but it is possible to over-specialize, and become pigeonholed (or useless when that one thing isn't called for). Since D&D is a combat-focused game, this is most often seen with combat-focused Warlocks who suffer from "The Whole World's a Nail" syndrome.
    Just as it is possible to over-specialize, it is also possible to over-generalize. It's easy to become the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None"--just pick from the "good" invocations you get a list of seemingly useful invocations that don't complement each other in the least. Now you can do a little bit of combat, a little bit of social interaction, a little bit of scouting, and a little bit of sneaking, but you can't do combat well enough to play the combat role (meaning the group still needs a brute), social interaction enough to play the social role (meaning the group still needs a face), scouting enough to play the scout role (meaning the group still needs a scout), or sneaking enough to play a sneak (meaning the group still needs a rogue-like). Congratulations: you've just become the fifth wheel. The problem gets worse if you happen to be bad enough at each of these roles, as the brute has to waste hit points protecting you in combat, the face has to struggle through a social encounter to get past your blunders, the scout hardly sees the point in your even trying to look, and you and the sneak get exposed when you fail your Move Silently check. At this point, you've gone from fifth wheel to spare tire: you're literally only useful when one of the four falls flat, and they only need you to get you to the next stop so they can patch up the old one (or replace you with a new one).
    As with the first issue, it's good to find a balance here: pick two, maybe three things that you want to be good at, and then be good at those things. After all, if you're good at battlefield control and social interaction, then you have carved out a niche for yourself in-combat (with Eldritch Chain debuffing, or Chilling Tentacles, or whatever your poison is) and out-of-combat (with Beguiling Influence, Charm, and so on), and the rest of the party doesn't have to worry about covering your behind while they do their part by beating things to death (that you've made easier to kill with battlefield control) and sneaking past the guards (that you've made easier to sneak past by seducing them, or enthralling them).

    General vs. Specific (Invocations)
    You get a limited number of invocations, and you need to get as much mileage out of them as humanly possible. That much is a fact. As a result, it's important to get as much mileage out of your invocations as possible: you'll want either invocations that do a lot of things, or invocations that do one thing that applies a lot of the time. Invocations that are neither (do only one thing, which is very situational) either have incredibly powerful effects or simply aren't worth the space (sometimes both).
    Consider, for example, the least invocation Baleful Utterance and the greater invocation Dragonward. Baleful Utterance, which you can pick up at level 1, allows you to use Shatter as the spell at-will. After a couple levels, this begins to have a number of useful applications: it is your go-to offensive trick for crystalline creatures of any kind (dealing 1d6/level, with a Fort save for half), a ranged sunder with no opposed rolls, your go-to solution for exceptional locks (or just weak doors), manacles (or other bindings of any kind), trap mechanisms (either to disable or trigger them), and so on; creative players can think of limitless applications for Shatter with no verbal component (like causing something to explode near the guards, providing a distraction).
    Dragonward, on the other hand, provides three benefits that only apply against creatures of the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype: immunity to the Frightful Presence ability of Dragons (which a successful save essentially grants you anyway, and you're a Good Will class of at least 11th level at this point), DR5/-- against the natural attacks of a dragon (but you already have DR3/cold iron, which the dragon doesn't overcome, and that continues to scale), and energy resistance 20 against any breath weapon (but only if used by a dragon or dragonblood). The benefits are very situational, in that they only matter against one type of creature, but they can all be imitated quite nicely by applying other, general effects: Dark One's Own Luck can give you your CHA to your Will save (and can be changed to any other save at any time), which can help negate the Frightful Presence effect, and Ignore the Pyre can give you scaling energy resistance (which eventually meets the energy resistance of Dragonward) against all effects by any creature of that energy type, which you can change (at-will) to be the dragon's energy type (unless you have two dragons of different colors working in tandem, which is rare). As for the DR? Well, you can have at-will flight and invisibility, and a means of getting away quickly, all as lesser invocations; why is the dragon successfully closing into melee range to attack you in the first place? The bonuses are very situational and can be entirely overlapped (or rendered obsolete) by the base class features of the Warlock, or less costly invocations picked up earlier, so why bother with it?
    There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule (Vitriolic Blast, as an eldritch essence, doesn't do anything new, per se, but it does allow your existing attacks to ignore the Spell Resistance of your enemies), but in general, look for invocations that either have a broad range of direct effects or indirect applications.

    Without further ado...

    The Least Invocations
    Eldritch Essences
    Frightful Blast (CArc, active): Enemies make a Will save or are shaken for 1 minute. Does not stack with itself, or other fear effects if the creature is already shaken, but I believe it stacks with other fear effects applied after it, meaning it can work well with an Intimidate check to demoralize, or the Dreadful Wrath feat, to make everybody frightened for 1 minute. Does not affect constructs, oozes, plants, undead, vermin, and some swarms, or anything else with immunity to mind-affecting effects.
    Hammer Blast (CM, active): Your Eldritch Blast does full damage to objects as opposed to half. Why on Earth would you take this over Baleful Utterance?
    Sickening Blast (CArc, active): Enemies make a Fort save or are sickened for 1 minute. The sickened condition is virtually identical to the shakened condition of Frightful Blast, but can never escalate and targets a worse save. Does not affect constructs or undead.

    Blast Shapes
    Eldritch Glaive (DrM, active): As a full-round action, make iterative attacks with your Eldritch Glaive as if it were a reach weapon. You can make attacks of opportunity until the start of your next turn. This is everything Hideous Blow is not: you're still making touch attacks, you're not in melee range (a simple Enlarge Person puts you at 20 feet away), and you get multiple attacks for having a high Base Attack Bonus, which makes it the only option for high single-target damage in any printed book (you have to look to Dragon Magazine for the only other). If you're not a melee Warlock, this is still pretty good, but so are a lot of other things.
    Eldritch Spear (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast range becomes 250 feet. If you have decided to become a non-melee Warlock (or even a ranged Warlock), this is your invocation of choice for single-target encounters. Combined with a method of flight, you basically have a way to stay completely out of range (or out of the first two range increments for archers) while dealing your full Eldritch Blast damage. This isn't the best combat option by any stretch, but it is the safest. If you're a melee warlock, this is anywhere from only average to totally unnecessary (good for getting off a few long-range attacks while enemies close into melee, and nothing else).
    Hideous Blow (CArc, active): Your melee attacks channel your Eldritch Blast. Congratulations: you're now no longer making touch attacks, are still only making a single attack, are restricted to melee range, and all you're getting out of it is the base weapon damage you'd normally get. With Concentration checks to avoid attacks of opportunity being as easy as they are, this somehow manages to be worse than simply using an unshaped Eldritch Blast at point blank. As many have said before me, Hideous Blow blows hideously.

    Other Invocations
    All-Seeing Eyes (CM, passive): +6 on Search and Spot, and Comprehend Languages on written material. Spot and Search are two of the more useful skills in the game, and there is good synergy here with other perception abilities. If you are a dedicated scout (or are dipping the class for scouting abilities), this is a pretty good grab.
    Baleful Utterance (CArc, active): At-will shatter, as a spell-like ability. Use this to escape from bindings, open locks (or kick in doors), trigger traps, sunder enemies (without the opposed roll or the attack of opportunity), distract the guard with an explosion, shatter glass to mix into the enemy's stew, as an attack mode for crystalline enemies, and anything else you can think of that can be done with random acts of destruction! This is one of the most universally applicable low-level invocations the Warlock has, and remains useful for most of his career for some reason or other. It isn't a must-have, but it comes recommended highly.
    Beguiling Influence (CArc, passive): +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. The bonuses themselves aren't fantastic, but the skills are, and hoo boy, are those skills fantastic. Unfortunately, Diplomacy isn't a class skill for you, but with the right feats, it can be. This is a must-have for any Warlock that wants to be a face, fear-based Warlocks, and most Warlocks that take Able Learner for Chameleon; the rest can hold out for Charm or some other analogue for their social needs (or trade it out later if they do grab it).
    Breath of the Night (CArc, active): At-will Obscuring Mist as a spell-like ability. A useful effect for controlling space or when you and the party need to get away; however, better options do exist, and you can simply Use Magic Device a wand of Obscuring Mist (caster level 1) for the same effect, with the same duration, which makes you wonder why you'd bother picking this up at level 2 when your second-level WBL can get you all the castings you'd need for life anyway.
    Dark One's Own Luck (CArc, active): You gain your CHA as a luck bonus (which cannot exceed your caster level) to one save, selected at the time of casting, for 24 hours. Since you can cast it at-will (just like any other invocation), you can switch this around as you need it, which gives it a certain deal of defensive utility. If you've pumped your CHA into the stratosphere, this is good for a late-game swap-in, but only passable early on. If you've dumped CHA, it's terrible, of course.
    Call of the Wild (CM, passive): Gain wild empathy as a druid of your level and always-on Speak with Animals. Situationally useful, and very campaign-dependent; if you're a Fey-themed Warlock, or you're in a nature-heavy campaign, it definitely couldn't hurt to pick this up.
    Cocoon of Refuse (Ci, active): At-will Entangle against a single creature as a spell-like ability, but 1 round/level and only in urban environments. Originally, I thought this was just like the spell--a 40-ft. radius spread--and had marked it as a good option, because at-will Entangle is good enough to be a primary battlefield control method for several levels, given how good the entangled condition is. Then I re-read it, and found out that it only applies to one creature, and now it's mediocre (but not altogether a terrible option). Obviously setting-specific, so don't take this if you're in a nature-themed campaign.
    Darkness (CArc, active): At-will Darkness as a spell-like ability. Unfortunately, Darkness just isn't very good, and so neither is this invocation. It doesn't do much of anything that Breath of the Night doesn't do, and Breath of the Night does nothing a Wand of Obscuring Mist doesn't do, so don't bother with either.
    Devil's Sight (CArc, passive): See in magical and non-magical darkness out to 30 feet. Half the darkvision range of See the Unseen (below), and magical darkness doesn't come up often enough to ignore the strong overlap See the Unseen has with this.
    Drain Incarnum (MoI, active): 30-foot range Fort save or cause 1 essentia (or 1 WIS) damage? Where do I sign? (Don't mistake that blue for this being a good option; it's not bolded. That's blue for sarcasm, as in, "this is so bad as to be laughable". Even in an Incarnum-heavy campaign, a standard action to cause 1 essentia damage is laughable; if the creature really needs that essentia invested in that item, then congratulations; you've wasted your standard action to force them to take a swift action to re-invest that essentia. If they fail the save. Way to go, champ.)
    Earthen Grasp (CArc, active): At-will Earthen Grasp as the spell. Grapples as a Medium creature with a BAB of your level, with a STR score equal to 14 + 2/3 caster levels, without Improved Grapple--in other words, it's a pretty poor grappler. It provokes attacks of opportunity just for trying, and is too fragile to endure more than maybe one. If you really want battlefield control that bad, Chilling Tentacles is worth waiting ten levels. Yes, it is.
    Entropic Warding (CArc, passive): Arrows have a 20% miss chance against you, you leave no trace, and you cannot be tracked by scent. If you're a far-range Warlock (think Eldritch Spear), this addresses your one remaining weakness... Somewhat. The other two effects aren't great for the average Warlock, but are useful for scouts. This is a good invocation to grab early instead of late. If you're a scout, keep this for as long as you feel like it; otherwise, trade it out when you get greater invocations and a Ring of Entropic Deflection (MiC, p. 123) stops being cost-prohibitive.
    Leaps and Bounds (CArc, passive): +6 to Balance, Jump and Tumble for 24 hours (at-will). Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to use the skills untrained, so you're only getting the +6 to Balance and Jump unless you spend cross-class ranks in Tumble. This is better for Rogue-likes and some combat types that dip Warlock, or Melee Warlocks with Able Learner (who are becoming Chameleons).
    Miasmic Cloud (CArc, active): The only reason this isn't red (like Breath of the Night) is because the fatigue is a neat little add-on that makes it unique from a Wand of 1st-level spell, which stacks with other fatigue effects. It also doesn't negatively affect you, so in the low levels, this can be a good way to open up a combat.
    Otherworldly Whispers (CM, passive): Gain a +6 bonus to Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion) and Knowledge (the planes) checks. These are all class skills for you, and knowledge is power in this game (and, in fact, if you have Knowledge Devotion, then knowledge literally does become power); however, it would probably be better if it let you make these checks untrained. Really, the Dragonfire Adept version of this (Draconic Knowledge) is just qualitatively better (so if your DM lets you pick up DFA invocations with Extra Invocation, grab that instead).
    See the Unseen (CArc, passive): You gain darkvision and see invisibility out to 60 feet for 24 hours, at-will. Darkvision is only alright, but the ability to see invisible things becomes crucial at higher levels, when invisible enemies can become a literal death knell for the party. Grab this at level 4 (or swap it in at a later level if you, or someone in your party, has darkvision), as you're not likely to see invisible things in a game before that point anyway. (You can always grab it before this point as a precaution, but it's not strictly necessary before level 4-6.)
    Serpent's Tongue (CM, passive): Gain the scent ability, and +5 to Fort saves vs. poison. Scent is useful if you have the Track feat (but the Track feat isn't good), and is an okay method of perception otherwise. The bonus to Fortitude saves vs. poison is okay, but not remarkable (and Dark One's Own Luck just does it better).
    Soulreaving Aura (CM, active): As the spell Reaving Aura, but you gain temporary HP if you kill something with it. Considering you can only kill something with it if it is already at -9, and the hit points last for 1 round (and are useless unless you're locked in combat with something else at the time of casting), why would you ever cast this in combat, and kill creatures that are no threat to you, wasting a standard action to eliminate things that are? Just coup de grace enemies that need to die after they are dead.
    Spiderwalk (CArc, passive): At-will Spider Climb as the spell (but with a duration of 24 hours), plus immunity to webs. It's another form of movement, and in the low levels, it will keep you safe against a large number of creatures. If you feel it necessary to have, grab it early, but swap it out when you get lesser invocations (such as Fell Flight) that give you more versatile move modes.
    Summon Swarm (CArc, active): At-will Summon Swarm as a spell-like ability, only the duration is Concentration. Is this was Summon Swarm with the listed duration of Concentration + 2 rounds, it would be better, but as-is, you need to spend every standard action to let the swarm take its turn. At first level, however, it's 1d6 unavoidable damage. If you do take it, you should trade it away as soon as possible, since it is only good at level 1.
    Swimming the Styx (CM, passive): Grants you a swim speed equal to your movement speed, and the ability to breathe underwater, for 24 hours (usable at-will). Its usefulness is dependent on the campaign: in an aquatic or nautical campaign (ex. Stormwrack), it's anywhere from good to great; in a desert campaign (ex. Sandstorm), it's terrible.

    The Lesser Invocations
    Eldritch Essences
    Baneful Blast (CM, active): Have you ever wanted roughly 1/12th of your 20th-level class resources on something only marginally useful that one time in the whole campaign you fight creatures with the Humanoid (dwarf) type/subtype, and useless everywhere else? Yeah, me neither. But not all is lost! You can spend another 1/12th of your 20th-level class resources to also do +2d6 damage to plants! ...If you are in a campaign where you fight an unusually high number of elementals or something, pick up a rod of that baneful blast... Or just skip it altogether, as damage that minor to a single creature type is probably not worth the gold investment.
    Beshadowed Blast (CArc, active): Blind is actually not that bad of a condition. Unfortunately, it's a Fort save with a duration of 1 round, so it's not that likely to go off against anything you would want to use it on (and not that game-changing when it does). Does not affect constructs or undead (Fortitude save), oozes (already blind), or true dragons (who have blindsense and/or blindsight), or anything else that is blind.
    Brimstone Blast (CArc, active): Your first Reflex-based invocation, and unfortunately it's not very good. Fire damage is the most commonly resisted, and the Reflex save isn't even for half (meaning that the damage can essentially be negated outright with a successful save). Further, damage over time just generally isn't worth your time, because by the time this has done its extra 8d6 of damage (at level 20), the creature has been dead for three rounds. Confers no additional benefit.
    Deteriorating Blast (DrM, active): Reduces the damage reduction of enemies struck by the Eldritch Blast by 5 for 1 minute... Provided they succeed the Fortitude save. The only reason this is okay is because it applies to all forms of damage reduction simultaneously, and because sometimes it's good to let the party Fighter have nice things. Unfortunately, that makes this the MVP of lesser eldritch essences--and it's still mediocre.
    Hellrime Blast (CArc, active): Deals cold damage (but no extra cold damage), meaning your Eldritch Blast is now susceptible to resistances. The target must make a Fort save or suffer a -4 penalty to Dexterity for 10 minutes, which is good (except for the Fort save) except for the fact that it doesn't stack or escalate. If you happen to have Eldritch Chain, this might be good to have on a rod for a one-and-done mass debuff, because the long duration will make any single casting last as long as you need it to, but it's a bad idea for an invocation slot, because it's not worth trying multiple times if you fail (and there's no sense using it again if you succeed).

    Blast Shapes
    Eldritch Chain (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast hits an extra target for every 5 levels you have (maximum 5 total targets at level 20). Does not have the same explosive 1 target/level cap of Chain Spell, but also doesn't have the weaker save DCs that Chain Spell does. If you have a decent DEX, you aren't going to be missing often even at the time that you get this, and it only gets better as you level. If you are a ranged Warlock (or a BFC/debuff-focused Warlock), this will probably be your go-to blast shape, as it allows you to target several targets for damage and debuffing without even a remote risk of collateral damage (which you get out of Eldritch Cone).

    Other Invocations
    Charm (CArc, active): As the spell Charm Monster, but language-dependent (meaning you can often use it on dragons and most magical beasts, but not plants or oozes). Useful for all the reasons that Charm Monster is; this is your go-to invocation for social tricks even if you aren't a face, and if you are a face, this remains useful at all levels as a proxy for Diplomacy, and is a useful replacement otherwise if you don't want to invest the skill ranks. If you are a diplomancer (and not merely a face), this loses its effectiveness when epic-level checks for Bluff and Diplomacy come into play, as it is superseded by Beguiling Influence. It is still good for combat-heavy Warlocks, provided there is something big and bad that understands you within range.
    Cold Comfort (CM, passive): As the spell Endure Elements. Unfortunately for this invocation, Endure Elements is a first level spell--with the same duration as this invocation. A wand of Endure Elements for you and the whole party is thus only 750gp--and a continuous item is 2,000 gp (although you could pick up four Crystals of Least Adaptation for the same price and have always-on, slotless Endure Elements for most of your party). Update 14/12/12: Cold Comfort was downgraded to a least invocation by the errata; it's still bad but eh.
    Crawling Eye (CM, active): The Warlock's Arcane Eye. Has no listed duration or range, which means you can use this indefinitely as long as you are fine with having one eye (and 2 less hit points), and see twice. This is a must-have for any scouting Warlock that has made it this far, as you gain remote, (almost) consequence-free scouting using all your vision-based invocations.
    Curse of Despair (CArc, active): As the spell Bestow Curse, with a -1 penalty on attack rolls on a save. The curses are strong, but the range: touch and the action cost hurts this a lot. This is better if you're Greater Invisible (such as a pixie or under the effect of Retributive Invisibility), because you can apply it without blowing your cover if you're smart about it; if you're able to scout effectively (or divine preemptively), you can sneak up, apply the curse of your choosing as a pre-fight debuff, and then begin the combat with a -4 to everyone's everything, or a 50% chance of missed actions, or both(!).
    The Dead Walk (CArc, "active"): As Animate Dead, but you can also forego the material component to create free summons out of your enemies for 1 minute/level. The second half of the ability is situationally useful for those fights where your DM throws a single Unkillable Badass surrounded by legions of tiny minions at you, and you manage to kill the Unkillable Badass first, because now he's yours, and is wreaking havoc on the legions of tiny minions. It is also useful for triggering traps, creating expendable meat shields, and the like.
    The real star of this show, however, is--surprise, surprise--the Animate Dead ability of this invocation. If you grab this invocation at level 6, that means you've foregone flight, which is okay--your first undead is probably going to be a zombie dire bat, for a fly speed of 40 ft (clumsy) and an AC of 22, or a zombie giant eagle, for a fly speed of 80 ft (clumsy) and an AC of 18, plus 55 hp each and the DR5/slashing of zombies. Put barding and reins on either, if you can. By level 12, you can have a 10-headed zombie hydra (which can make a partial charge and attack with all 10 heads as a standard action), a zombie rhinoceros (which retains its powerful charge ability and can thus make powerful partial charges), your original flying zombie mount, and 4 HD to spare (zombie fleshraker raptor?). Pick up big things with Powerful Charge (ex) or Pounce (ex), fly, swim and burrow speeds (per the campaign needs), or simply legions of expendable mooks of your choosing; assuming you spend judiciously, you really can't go wrong. The number of things this invocation can do if you aren't creative is astounding; if you are, warn your DM before taking it.
    "Active" is in quotations because this is not a combat spell; this is something you do during your downtime, either after a combat or between adventures entirely. As a result, this becomes a mediocre to bad choice for Chameleon Warlocks, but only because it becomes an AWESOME choice for an "Extra Invocation" feat using your floating feat; take the corpses of your choosing to town with you, get some rest, wake up the next day, select Extra Invocation (The Dead Walk), animate all the dead you need, and then switch the feat out the next day when you're done; the undead remain, loyal and under your command, and you have an extra invocation slot for something else that you wouldn't have normally!
    Disembodied Hand (CM, active): The Warlock's spectral hand. Allows you to deliver touch attacks remotely, and you can even deliver a consequence-free assault with this and Crawling Eye from a great distance. In spite of how flavorful and fun this may be, however, doing this with any lesser invocation would use all of your lesser invocations, and there are certainly better options.
    Dread Seizure (DrM, active): Target must make a Fort save or have its movement speed halved, and take a -5 penalty on all attacks against creatures more than 5 feet away. A fairly useful single-target debuff at first glance, until you remember that Beshadowed Blast deals your Eldritch Blast damage, grants total concealment to everything it attacks (which can be better or worse than the -5 penalty, but is usually better), denies the DEX bonus of the target and confers an additional -2 penalty to AC for the same Fortitude save and a sure-thing attack roll... And that wasn't a good option to take.
    Fell Flight (CArc, passive): At-will flight with a speed of equal to your land speed (good). Flight is absolutely invaluable, and you would be laughed out of every optimization or even "generally smart play" thread and board if you willingly passed it up, and yet this is not a must-grab. Why? Two reasons: First, The Dead Walk (above) can get you flight for the same invocation cost, at a better speed but worse maneuverability, provided you're not too picky to ride a flying zombie mount (you do lose three degrees of maneuverability, but will not likely be outmaneuvering enemies with your base land speed anyway). Second, flight is very easy to get with magic items, with the two obvious choices probably being the Feathered Wings graft (Fiend Folio, 10,000 gp) if you're evil, or the Winged Mask (Magic of Faerun, 13,000 gp) if you're not. These are a significant expenditure of WBL when you might get this invocation, but quickly become a drop in the bucket, and both grant you at-will or constant flight with a better speed (the latter at the same maneuverability). These are not perfect substitutes for Fell Flight, but they are good enough (and flight items a common enough necessity) that you might be able to get away with skipping this invocation. If you are in a low-magic campaign and your DM protests against riding a zombie eagle for some reason, this of course becomes a must-have, as at-will flight is still good; it's just not exclusive to the Warlock.
    Flee the Scene (CArc, active): At-will short-range Dimension Door that leaves a Major Image behind when you use it. Useful for all the reasons that Freedom of Movement is useful: because you're probably not the best grappler in the game; because "paralysis" is one full-round action away from "coup de grace" (and spell-like abilities can be activated when paralyzed), because one way or another, you can fly (meaning you can escape in all three dimensions); and because by level 20, this gets you 75 feet as a standard action, allowing you to easily outpace most enemies that you couldn't with your normal move/fly speed. This is for that Warlock that just doesn't want to die.
    Hungry Darkness (CArc, active): At-will Darkness as the spell, except every square of darkness you create is also a bat swarm. Lasts for Concentration + 2 rounds. This is everything the least invocations Darkness and Summon Swarm should have been... Except it isn't a least invocation. Bats are, in my opinion, the worst of the three swarms you can produce, and the five levels you've progressed since Summon Swarm first became an option haven't been kind to the already pitiful DC11 Fort save vs. the nauseated condition. If this were a least invocation, it would be one of the best, but at the level you get it, it's just too late.
    Ignore the Pyre (DrM, passive): Gain energy resistance equal to your caster level to one type for 24 hours. Remember that, as with Dark One's Own Luck, you can change it at-will--meaning that, if you think one encounter is going to call for fire resistance and the next acid resistance, you can switch it as a standard action. That means that you can theoretically have up to 20 of any of the five resistances at any time; however, versatile as that is, resistance 20 at level 20 is still only okay. You will get use out of this if you take it; it's just not strictly necessary to.
    Mask of Flesh (CM, active): Disguise Self with a number of strange implications. A friend of mine pointed out that the best use for this is probably to capture somebody (or somebodies, keep them hostage (better take 20 on that Use Rope check), and then siphon off their energy constantly, living their life while they languish in your own little dungeon. Be sure to capture people of power if you do so, and don't even pretend you're not Evil if you do.
    Relentless Dispelling (CM, active): Targeted Dispel Magic at-will. Only it repeats at the start of your next turn. This comes out about even with Voracious Dispelling, in my opinion; you only get one of the three uses of Dispel Magic, but you get possibly the best one, and you are much better at it than you'd be with Voracious Dispelling.
    Spider-Shape (DotU, active): Change into a monstrous spider of various sizes. The tiny spider is a decent scouting form (you get a +8 size bonus to Hide in addition to the +4 racial bonus, and a +4 bonus to Spot, and a +8 to Climb with a climb speed), and the largest form gives you 27 STR, which is... OK, I guess. Truth be told, this isn't a combat form: it's a scouting form, which you use in conjunction with your long-duration scouting buffs. There are better things you can do than this, but you can do this.
    Steal Incarnum (MoI, active): Does not affect people without essentia. STARTING OFF WITH A BANG HERE. You steal one essentia per five caster levels (maximum 4) from your target and gain it... Provided the target fails a... Wait for it... Fortitude save. I'm honestly not sure why the Warlock has so many invocations from Magic of Incarnum; is there some unseen Warlock/Incarnate hybrid floating out there that I haven't seen? In any case, if your character is one of those rare breeds that actually uses essentia and lesser invocations, in an Incarnum-heavy campaign (do those exist?), full of enemies with weak Fortitude saves... Still don't take this, because it's underwhelming.
    Stony Grasp (CArc, active): At-will Stony Grasp as the spell. Stony Grasp doesn't actually have a better grapple check than Earthen Grasp; it's just more durable. Since both are at-will for Warlocks, you don't actually care about the durability, meaning that this actually manages to be no better than the (already bad) least invocation, but for a much steeper cost.
    Sudden Swarm (DotU, passive): The first time you kill an enemy with an invocation (including your Eldritch Blast) after casting this (which lasts 24 hours), a spider swarm bursts from the body. This is everything that the other swarm invocations wants to be: as a pre-buff, it has no action cost in combat; it is mentally under your control, as opposed to roaming on its own; the control is mental and takes only a free action, so there is no action cost in combat after it activates; and you add your warlock to the hit points (meh) and save DC of the swarm's poison (!). The swarm lasts for only a round per level, but that's probably enough to end the combat. The Fort save DC for the nauseated condition is still pathetic, but at least you're not wasting actions to attempt it; it happens for free on the kill, and takes free actions after the fact. The only cost of this invocation is the invocation itself, so the biggest problem this invocation has is the stiff competition at this level.
    Thieves' Bane (Ci, active): A hold portal that explodes when somebody tries to bypass it. The damage is unimpressive, but bypasses spell resistance, but more scandalously, this is another lesser invocation that mimics a first-level spell. By this point, you could have 9 ranks in Use Magic Device (which is a class skill for you), and take 10 on the checks; if Hold Portal is something that is going to come up that much in your games, buy a wand for 750gp and skip on the damage. You have better things to do than this.
    Voidsense (CArc, passive): At-will blindsense (30 ft) with a 24-hour duration (so basically always-on). Not bad, but since you already have darkvision and see invisibility always-on as a least invocation, I'm not sure I see this being useful enough independent of those senses to truly stand out. I guess it's good for scouts, who wish to be complete about their senses.
    Voracious Dispelling (CArc, active): At-will Dispel Magic with no-save damage attached. You get all three uses of Dispel Magic, which lends itself to a great deal of versatility, and is the major selling point it has over Relentless Dispelling, since the damage it does isn't that great.
    Walk Unseen (CArc, passive): At-will invisibility as the spell, but with a 24-hour duration. Good for all the reasons invisibility is. The only reason this isn't an absolute must-have is because there are so many other good invocations at this level, from which you must pick three (or spend greater or dark invocations on them), and this very well might not be one of them.
    Wall of Gloom (CArc, active): Allows you to produce a straight wall 40 ft. long, or a ring with a 15 ft. radius. Creatures with 6 HD or less can be effectively walled off or penned up with the "halted" feature of the Wall of Gloom; unfortunately, at the level you'll be getting this, you are not likely to be fighting many creatures with 6 HD or less. Regardless, you can use this to throw up an improvised wall that a creature will not be able to see through, which you can use to interrupt a charge; however, the same can be done with a wand of Wall of Smoke or Obscuring Mist for the same action cost (and both are first-level spells). If you're using the Spell Compendium version, you gain a larger wall, but lose all special abilities of the wall.
    Weighty Utterance (DrM, active): You gain an at-will quasi-Wingbind, forcing your target to make a Will save or fall 5 feet per caster level, with falling damage for those that hit the ground. You know what's better than laboring over forcing them to the ground, though? Taking the fight to them.
    Witchwood Step (CM, passive): You can walk on water, and are unaffected by difficult terrain. The only problem is, both difficult terrain and water are at ground level, and if you didn't pick Fell Flight, it's only because you found another method of flying; besides, if water is of great concern to you, you took Swimming the Styx as a least invocation, so why bother with this?
    Last edited by ThiagoMartell; 2012-12-13 at 09:21 PM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5]

    The Greater Invocations
    Eldritch Essences
    Bewitching Blast (CArc, active): Anybody hit with Eldritch Blast damage must make a Will save or be confused for 1 round. Confused is actually a pretty good condition--the target is three times as likely to lose all their actions as they are to act normally, and then there's all the other weird stuff--but between the randomness of the roll, plus the one-round duration of the effect, it's just not that reliable. Does not affect constructs, oozes, plants, undead, vermin, and some swarms, or anything else with immunity to mind-affecting effects.
    Noxious Blast (CArc, active): Anyone affected by the Eldritch Blast must make a Fort save or be nauseated for 1 minute. Nauseated creatures can only make a single move action per turn--essentially, if you can get this off, that enemy is done. You don't have to worry about them anymore. Apply this on an Eldritch Chain for a multi-target debuff. Does not affect constructs or undead.
    Repelling Blast (DrM, active): Throws all targets who fail a Reflex save 1d6x5 feet (1d6 squares) away from you and knocked prone. "Prone" is a decent enough condition to apply, and the Reflex save isn't that problematic, since it's not damage, but the randomness of the throw makes it difficult to predict and prepare, which is problematic. Does not affect creatures of Large size or larger.
    Vitriolic Blast (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast ignores spell resistance (score!) and deals extra damage on subsequent rounds, no save. Multiple instances of Vitriolic Blast stack, so if you attack thrice with Eldritch Glaive, you'll do an extra 6d6 damage on the next round, and so on. As such, this is a must-have for Glaivelocks and other purely damage-focused builds (as it pretty much guarantees the damage you do, and often extra damage as well).
    Hindering Blast (CM, active): The targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Will save or be slowed for 1 round. Will's not a bad save to target, but the one-round duration means you need to apply this constantly or all you're costing them is their move action. It's not bad--just subsumed by Noxious Blast almost completely.
    Incarnum Blast (MoI, active): This is one Magic of Incarnum got right, but not for its incarnum effect: when used against anybody with at least one alignment component opposed to yours, the enemy makes a Fortitude save or is dazed for 1 round. For reference, dazed is almost as good as stunned, but harder to find immunities for, which makes this probably the best condition to apply to an enemy. Be chaotic good (evil probably being the most common among things you need to kill in most campaigns) and Eldritch Chain this. The duration and Fort save make this high-risk, high-reward.
    Penetrating Blast (DrM, active): You gain a +4 bonus on caster checks to overcome spell penetration with your Eldritch Blast, and your Eldritch Blast, in turn, lowers SR by 5 on a failed Will save. I can think of better invocations (even better shapes) to take over this, but if you have a caster-heavy group, I guess this is one way to help everyone out.

    Blast Shapes
    Eldritch Cone (CArc, active): Your Eldritch Blast affects a 30-foot cone. You don't make an attack roll, but enemies make a Reflex save for half damage. Yuck. Evasion now completely invalidates your blast; what's more, at this level, you are basically always hitting with your basic blasts and Eldritch Chain anyway, so the only time this is useful is when you have large quantities of DEX-drained enemies lumped close together.
    Eldritch Line (CM, active): Your Eldritch Blast affects a 60-foot line. Bad for all the reasons Eldritch Cone is bad, save for the following: you still get to make your blasts at range, but now you're less likely to hit multiple people unless you're tossing them down a hallway (and seriously, at that point, just UMD a wand of Lightning Bolt).

    Other Invocations
    Caustic Mire (CM, active): As the spell Caustic Mire. Also as the invocation Chilling Tentacles, below, except without the grapple checks. Pick Chilling Tentacles instead.
    Chilling Tentacles (CArc, active): As Evard's Spiked Black Tentacles of Forced Intrusion, but deals cold damage even on enemies it fails the grapple check against. This is the penultimate crowd control invocation, and an absolute steal for an at-will ability: if you don't grab this at invoker level 11, then you're a Glaivelock who grabbed it at level 13.
    Devil's Whispers (Ci, active): At-will Suggestion, only the victim makes another save at a -5 penalty to remember that they did it, and if they don't, then they blame themselves. Just put the gun in their hand and tell them to pull the trigger. Of course, PO/TO-level Diplomancers (some of whom may have dipped for Beguiling Influence) can do this either now or soon without the invocation with epic Diplomacy/Bluff checks, but for the rest of us (who don't want our DMs to throw entire bookshelves at us), this dominates every social encounter you will find yourself in... For a few levels, at least, at which point Mind Blank starts to come into play.
    Devour Magic (CArc, active): A touch-range Greater Dispel Magic that gives you a few temporary hit points for a short period of time. The range of touch and targeted limitation combined are a deal-breaker to me; however, it is the only Dispel invocation Warlocks get that doesn't cap at 10. Even for dedicated dispellers, however, this is only okay.
    Dragonward (DrM, passive): Grants you immunity to the frightful presence of dragons, DR5/-- against natural weapons of dragons, and energy resistance 20 against breath weapons caused by dragons... And only dragons. This is bad for all the reasons Baneful Blast was bad; situational bonuses that are applied on a very narrow scope tend to go unused for most of the campaign. If you know, for a fact, that 90% of your campaign is going to be the PCs getting caught in a war against dragons, then the invocation is still only decent; you already have DR that dragons can't overcome, and have a number of ways to gather the other benefits and grant them wider applications more easily.
    Enervating Shadow (CArc, passive): You gain total concealment in areas that aren't brightly lit, and adjacent enemies take a -4 STR penalty upon a failed Fort save. Most of the things that would defeat the lesser invocation Walk Unseen (such as True Seeing) would defeat this as well, and that also grants total concealment, but without the light limitation. The Fort or STR penalty is mediocre, and "adjacent" is defined as five feet away from you--which you don't want enemies to be, as a Glaivelock or a size-boosted Clawlock, rendering this useless even to melee builds.
    Hellspawned Grace (CM, active): For up to 10 rounds, you get to polymorph into a creature with an absurd array of good special qualities... Only you don't get its special qualities. Oh well.
    Tenacious Plague (CArc, active): As the spell Insect Plague, but you add your CHA modifier to the save DC of the plague, and it deals its 2d6 damage as a magic weapon. The save DC of a Noxious Blast would be four higher (six with Ability Focus), and deal a number of DC more, and is easier to shape without collateral damage. The Long range and 1 min/level duration are cute, but there are other, much better ways of debuffing by this point.
    Nightmares Made Real (CM, active): As the spell Nightmare Terrain with some mediocre damage slapped onto it to... Make it more "Warlock"-y, I guess. Nightmare Terrain is actually pretty decent, with a Will save to entangle others, and total concealment (and the ability to hide in plain sight) for you. It's when you can combine this with Chilling Tentacles that you have won, however; now, your enemies have to make a Will save, plus a grapple check every round, to be allowed to move at half speed toward/away from an enemy with total concealment!
    Painful Slumber of Ages (CM, active): Target must make a Will save or fall asleep... Permanently! You don't really need a permanent duration sleep effect, however, as six seconds are generally long enough to coup de grace; however, I guess if you're in the business of taking people alive (and you're playing D&D?), I guess the fact that you're guaranteed 24 hours of sleep on a single failed save is good, and once again, you can always coup the ones you don't need.
    Wall of Perilous Flame (CArc, active): As Wall of Fire, but Perilous! The damage from this spell is laughable at more or less all levels; this just happens to get special mention because you can make this wall over 200 feet long. Creating successive Walls of Perilous Flame can easily cause them to stretch out over a mile wide, or simply layer so thick that no enemy will want to go through them.
    Warlock's Call (CArc, "active"): As the spell Sending, but with caveats. (Really? This is the spell you opted to nerf?) This is not worth an invocation slot; however, it is significantly better as a Chameleon invocation, as it is useful to have during down-time. The fact that this is a spell-like ability means you cast this as a standard action as opposed to its normal 10-minute casting time; you can decide for yourself if that makes this significantly better on the field, but to me, this still seems like a downtime invocation.

    The Dark Invocations
    Eldritch Essences
    Utterdark Blast (CArc, active): Targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Fort save or take 2 negative levels. This confers a -2 penalty on attacks rolls, saves, skill checks and ability checks, -10 hit points, and a -2 to one's effective level (including all level-dependent effects). If that sounds like a lot of what the least invocations does, with some extra minor benefits... Well, that's because it is. The benefit of these levels is that they can add up, and they add up quickly--as each failed save makes the next save easier to fail. A Glaivelock often has little room for CHA in their build, but if one happened to pump it, they could shell out six negative levels in one turn with their Utterdark Glaive. Unfortunately, Utterdark Blast does have a lot of problems: it came at level 16, by which point immunity to negative levels is relatively commonplace; multiple saves need to fail for the negative levels to add up; and, being an 8th-level invocation, it is virtually impossible to apply spell-like metamagic to it, meaning the ceiling is pretty high unless you can shower tons of enemies with tons of attacks. Does not affect constructs or undead.
    Binding Blast (CM, active): Targets of your Eldritch Blast must make a Will save or be stunned for 1 round. If you did your research, you probably picked up Incarnum Blast a few levels ago, which does almost exactly the same thing, but as a greater invocation. Regardless, this ability has no caveats, Will is a decent save to target, and stun is one of the best effects to apply; it's just that, at this point, you probably wanted to be doing more with your dark invocations.

    Blast Shapes
    Eldritch Doom: Your Eldritch Blast becomes a 20-ft radius burst, centered on you. If you're using this, you are where you don't generally want to be (in melee range), unless you're a melee Warlock, in which case you have other, better uses for your blast shapes (some which you picked up in the very early levels).

    Other Invocations
    Caster's Lament (CM, active): OK, it's been pointed out that this isn't actually as bad as I thought it was, as you can use this once per day per enchantment that you are trying to break. That makes this a fairly useful defensive invocation, as you are able to effectively remove curses at-will during downtime. The counterspell application has limited use, but limiting the actions that an enemy can take is probably a better way to counter spells (making a proactive debuffer better in general than a reactive counterspeller).
    Dark Discorporation (CArc, passive): You become a swarm of batlike shadows, gaining the swarm subtype and a number of cool, but not altogether great, traits and abilities. The killer for me is the fact that you cannot cast invocations (and can, in fact, only take a single move action) while in this form, meaning you give up more than fifteen levels of class features just to be in this form and get the swarm attack mode. Again, there's no mention of the Fort DC being higher than 12, so you're not applying mass nauseated condition with this.
    Dark Foresight (CArc, passive): At-will Foresight as the spell, plus telepathic communication if you cast it on somebody else. This is mediocre except for the fact that, unlike other invocations where a second casting replaces the first there is no upper limit to the number of people you can cast this on; since this is an at-will ability, that means that you and your entire party basically always have Dark Foresight active, and not a single one of you can be surprised (but only you get the +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves, not that anyone cares), and you can always communicate telepathically with your entire party. With this active, surprise rounds never exist for the enemy; depending on your (and the enemy's) level of optimization, this can be invaluable.
    Impenetrable Barrier (DrM, active): At-will Wall of Force as the spell, except that it's black and blocks all modes of vision. New walls replace old. It is, perhaps, the best at what it does--that being hard battlefield control through walls--but you are likely already a good battlefield controller by this point (either through shapes/essences, or other invocations picked up earlier), so taking this only makes you slightly better at what you can already do. You can't be faulted for putting your best foot forward, but at this point, you're probably better off picking up something you can't already do.
    Incarnum Shroud: I've talked before about how scandalous a lesser invocation imitating a first-level spell is; well, this is worse. At level 16 and greater, you can select, as a dark invocation, an ability that imitates the second-level spell Blur. A continuous ring of Blur is 24,000gp to buy, and 12,000gp to make. If custom item creation is somehow too much for your DM, the Minor Cloak of Displacement does the same thing at the same cost. Blurring as a magic armor property is a +1 value. There is no excuse for getting this. None.
    Path of Shadow (CArc, active): At-will Shadow Walk, with fast healing attached to it. The healing is mediocre, but at-will fast travel is fast travel (you move roughly 50mph with this spell for hours/level). It's not as good as Teleport, and you're getting it a minimum of seven levels later, but you know what? Fast travel is fast travel.
    Retributive Invisibility (CArc, passive): At-will Greater Invisibility with a 24-hour duration. Greater Invisibility is awesome, so why is this only okay? Because you're getting it thirteen levels after See Invisibility first hit the scene, and five levels after True Seeing. By this point, enemies with either of the above (or blindsense, or blindsight) are commonplace, meaning your Greater Invisibility came too late to the party to be game-breaking. If you are in a high-level game where nothing seems to see invisible things, this is much better.
    Steal Summoning (CM, active): This invocation is literally broken. As in, it doesn't work. The spell Steal Summoning is an immediate action cast that needs to be cast at the time a summoned creature is being brought into the world; however, as an invocation, this is always going to be a spell-like ability for you. Complete Arcane says about a Warlock's invocations: "A warlock's invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity." This is for the Warlock that has decided an invocation that you can use 1/day (Caster's Lament) is still too overpowered for him, and would like an invocation he can never use. Even if it were cast as an immediate action, the spell it imitates is too situational to ever be useful as an at-will ability.
    Word of Changing (CArc, active): At-will Baleful Polymorph as the spell. This is one of those "love it or hate it" invocations; either you'll love the ability to completely negate a creature at-will for 24 hours, provided they fail the save, or you'll hate how late in the game this comes, and how often it just doesn't work (constructs and undead are immune for it being a Fortitude save; oozes and plants are immune to polymorph effects; and creatures with the shapechanger subtype just don't care. In addition, this targets Fort where Painful Slumber, a greater invocation, targets Will). I, for one, love it--mostly because Word of Changing is exactly the type of thing a high-level CE Warlock might do just for fun.
    Last edited by ThiagoMartell; 2012-08-25 at 08:00 PM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Dip Classes for the Warlock
    Since it's similar in many ways to spellcasting classes, warlock should not give up caster levels if at all possible. Even then, some dips are very tasty and should be considered.
    Dipping is usually more acceptable for melee warlocks, since they care more about damage potential so delaying invocations (or Imbue Item) a bit is not that big of a deal, specially if you consider the ruling Rich Baker has on Practiced Spellcaster advancing eldritch blast damage. For more generalist warlocks, dips should be considered very very carefully.
    Binder (Tome of Magic): Binder is a very versatile class and very multiclass friendly. A single level dip allows you to get Naberius, which helps your face skills and makes Hellfire Warlock much less dangerous. Plenty of other vestiges are good for warlocks, including Paimon and Andromalius. This class has plenty of similatiries with Warlock, so much that it became part of the class beyond 3rd edition. Very good.
    Cleric: Everyone knows Cleric is such a strong class and how strong a single level Cleric dip can be. If you go for Cloistered Cleric (a variant from Unearthed Arcana), it gets kind of ridiculous, even. It opens up Eldritch Disciple, one of the most potent classes available to Warlocks. When it comes to RAW power, it's hard to compete with a Cleric dip. Armor proficiency allows you to qualify for Battle Caster, turn undead opens up Divine Might, you can exchange your domains for devotion feats (including Knowledge Devotion, one of the rare bonuses to damage you can apply to eldritch blast).
    Wizard: Wizards are almost as good a dip classes as Clerics. With a single level, you can get a familiar and a bonus feat (either Scribe Scroll or a Fighter bonus feat) or you can give up your familiar for Immediate Magic from PH2 (Abrupt Jaunt is so good it's arguably broken).
    Sorcerer:
    Fighter:
    Ranger:
    Barbarian:
    Paladin: A 2 level dip for Divine Grace is good on Charisma heavy build, but Charisma heavy builds are not that good. I could see this being somewhat usable in a clawlock build using From Smite to Song to get Inspire Courage and going crazy from there, but it's very convoluted.
    Warblade: The best chassis around and you can get Sudden Leap out of it, helping immensely with the mobility problem of melee warlocks. Good maneuvers all around, good skill list and a worthwhile dip even if you lack high Int for the class features.
    Crusader: A good class on it's own, but it competes with Warblade in the ToB front and it's simply not as good as it's cousin for warlocks, even though it has a bit of Charisma focus.
    Swordsage: 3/4 BAB and a focus on Wisdom (one of the least important abilities for warlock) makes this the worst out of the 3 ToB classes for Warlock. Note that the Shadow Hand feat does not apply to claws and that you can get all of the utility from maneuvers from invocations.
    Incarnate:
    Totemist:
    Soulborn:
    Hexblade:
    Swashbuckler:

    Prestige Classes for Warlocks:
    Eldritch Disciple (Complete Mage):
    Eldritch Theurge (Complete Mage):
    Enlightened Spirit (Complete Mage): This class does not advance your warlock abilities. Instead, it gives some celestial-flavored abilities, +5d6 eldritch blast and 5 set invocations. Usually, this class sucks. However, in a gestalt or epic build, Enlightened Spirit shines. Since it is adding instead of advancing, in a gestalt build it basically doubles your eldritch blast progression throughout those 10 levels. 5 extra invocations is nothing to sneeze it - the problem is that they are set. However, they are still invocations and as such can be swapped away when you get a new tier of invocations. Having Planar Affinity helps, since you can swap two at a time - two when you get Greater, two when you get Dark - you only need to keep one, and it turns out one of the invocations Enlightened Spirit grants you is pretty good (Celestial Flight). In epic levels it works very similarly, except that you need to time your levels carefully.
    Demonbinder (Drow of the Underdark):
    Hellfire Warlock (Fiendish Codex II): Probably everyone that wants to play a Warlock already knows about the Hellfire Warlock, THE Warlock prestige class. Don't have Fiendish Codex II? No worries - it's free. It requires a sucky invocation to get in, but it's worth it. It progresses your invocations, add some damage in the form of hellfire, allows you to apply some metamagic to items (and this is a really good and often overlooked part of the class) and you even get an immediate action ability, one of the very few a Warlock gets.
    The problem is that using hellfire deals Con damage and you can't be immune to it. There are three common ways to deal with it:
    1) Use wands and rods of bodily restoration to keep going. The most simple solution, one suggested in the class description itself. Better if you have a familiar.
    2) Dip Binder (Tome of Magic) and bind Naberius. You now heal 1 point of ability damage per round. Binder and Warlock fit like a glove onto each other and this fits both the RAI and RAW of Hellfire Warlock. The only problem is setting back one step of your progression.
    3) Take Shape Soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) (from Magic of Incarnum) as a feat. This reduces any ability damage you take by 1. This is definitely not RAI and the debate on whether is not it is RAW (because what the hell does 'somehow immune' means?) has been raging over years and has never been completely settled. Check if your DM. If you can take it, hey, free power boost. Update 14/12/12: The latest 3.5 FAQ addresses Strongheart Vest.
    Would the strongheart vest soulmeld (MoI 89) protect you from the ability damage of the hellfire warlock’s hellfire blast ability (FCII 90)?

    The strongheart vest soulmeld reduces the amount of ability damage you receive from an attack; however, it does not keep you safe from the costs of hellfire blast because the ability damage you are taking is not from someone attacking you.
    OK, so Hellfire Warlock is the bee's knees. The problem is that it's only three levels long. If only we could advance the class progression beyond that... and hey, looks like we can. Some people debate if you can actually do this, but I have yet to see any RAW argument that holds against it. I don't think that's RAI, but this depends mostly on your group. Check with yoru DM before doing it, basically. There are three ways to do it:
    1) Bloodlines (from Unearthed Arcana) advance level-related class features. This would advance hellfire and hellfire only. You get your bonuses to damage, but no free invocations, no BAB, no skill points. I'm not a fan of bloodlines myself and I have yet to see a game that is enriched by adding them. Personally, I'd avoid it like the plague.
    2) Uncanny Trickster (from Complete Scoundrel) is another 3 level prestige class. Two of it's levels progress class features for another class. The fluff even kind of fits - you're squeezing just a little tad of extra power from your pact with the lower realms by trickery. Might be hard to get enough skill points for all those skill tricks while you qualify for Hellfire Warlock, but if you can do it, you probably should.
    3) Legacy Champion (from Weapons of Legacy) is a bit like Uncanny Trickster in that it progresses class features from another class. However, it does so on 8/10 progression. That's a potential +16d6 bonus for your hellfire damage. There are several problems with that, though. First of all, you can't take all levels while qualifying for Hellfire Warlock pre-epic. Also, you need to find/found a legacy item, and that's a whole book full of badly organized mechanics your DM might not want to read. Also, if you go for the most Legacy heavy build possible (Warlock 9/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 8) you're losing out on Imbue Item, the single best class feature Warlocks get. If you keep Imbue Item, you end up with Warlock 12/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 5. That's a slight advantage over Uncanny Trickster with a lot more to learn. Still, you suffer penalties just from using weapons of legacy and that sucks. On the plus side, if your DM allows you to pick and choose abilities for your item, it can get quite decent. My personal advice? Just use Uncanny Trickster instead.
    Chameleon (Races of Destiny): Chameleon is on of the most versatile classes is all of D&D 3.5 and Warlock really needs the flexibility. The requirements lock you into a few builds - it requires being a human, changeling or doppelganger and taking the Able Learner feat. 8 ranks in Disguise can be a pain to get, forcing you to either be a Silverbrow Human, take the City Slicker feat (from the same book as Chameleon) or dip some other class. However, if you do qualify, you really should take it as fast as possible. A two level dip offers you the option you using several abilities (from a small bonus to melee to 2nd level arcane or divine spells) and a floating feat - that is, a feat you can select every day. This is awesome for the Warlock for two big reasons - Extra Invocation and item creation feats. Between this and Imbue Item, you can do any magical item.
    You can go further than 2nd level, but it starts becoming more about Chameleon and less about Warlock very fast.
    Cyran Avenger (Five Nations):
    Ruathar (Races of the Wild):
    Thayan Gladiator (Champions of Ruin):
    Warshaper (Complete Warrior):
    Last edited by ThiagoMartell; 2012-12-13 at 09:27 PM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Reserved post #6, hold your horses

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Credits


    Many people helped in this Warlock Handbook. This is where we thank damn.

    Lonely Tylenol made all the invocation ratings and gave a lot of good ideas.
    Socratov has also been around frequently, helping with suggestions
    Planar noticed a few things we never noticed, like that ruling in the FAQ regarding Strongheart Vest
    Last edited by ThiagoMartell; 2012-12-13 at 09:33 PM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Reposted for continuity

    As Krazzman suggests, reserve yourself a few more posts, we can delete our posts (i did, this is the repost) to allow them to be consecutive.

    Are you planning to cover homebrew? (I'd suggest including a minimum of a link list, even if you don't plan to include appraisals of it)

    Other topics:
    Cha: Pump or Dump? (I'm sure you would of included this)
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    I know it seems cocky to tell you what you should write but as you have already written "To melee or to not melee". I suggest you focus on the archetypical roles first, similar to treantmonks ranger handbook.

    Describing what pro and con this style has and then listing good Invoc's and Feats.

    As you wrote yourself JaronK's Tiersystem is a bit flawed with his prefered classes as is ThinBlades compilation of evaluating Invocations.

    Furthermore we should probably explain the "sample" builds that ThinBlade collected a bit more.

    I'm just excited that you started already and hope I can help you here (although I'm AFB most of the time).

    (Somehow left the part about reserving more posts in Copy-Paste-Nirvana...)
    Have a nice Day,
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Why make a new handbook instead of just adding info to the Warlock Information compilation?

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    And on a strange note out of left-field, might we please have a different image? Morthos plainly had the worst social survival skills and dress sense of any warlock ever.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Love me some handbooks. Do you know of any good PF Warlock updates? I've been thinking of doing one, but I feel like I saw something good somewhere...
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    Quote Originally Posted by CTrees View Post
    Knowledge (local) being trained only, and not a class skill for many classes, means that your average human may well not be able to identify other humans! This may explain the exceptional quantity of half-human hybrids.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by 123456789blaaa View Post
    Why make a new handbook instead of just adding info to the Warlock Information compilation?
    Because the old ones obviously have some...upkeep problems.

    ThinBlades compilations for my taste is just too thin/too vague with his evaluation and most of the stuff there is not explained or awefully cited(in the form of not telling in which book you can find X).

    @Nova:
    The most common "PF-Fix" I saw was making EB advancing like sneak attack (+1d6 per uneven warlock level), getting more Invocations and changing something about their detect magic for free (I think it was something about detect magic and 1+Int-mod level 0 spells as cantrips). But dunno where I read that.
    Have a nice Day,
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Another pro for warlocks is their excellent ability to snipe and great partyface potential
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Is there a way to snipe for decent damage that doesn't involve turning eldritch blast into a melee attack, then back into a ranged attack?

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by eggs View Post
    Is there a way to snipe for decent damage that doesn't involve turning eldritch blast into a melee attack, then back into a ranged attack?
    Bloodline levels + Hellfire +Uncanny Trickster+ Legacy Champion.

    Warlock6/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/UncannyTrickster+2/LegacyChampion5/Bloodline3 deals 44d6 on a Hellfire blast. (I didn't tweak all of the levels to optimize the number of Hellfire levels you can get, but I think this is close).

    Even without Bloodlines, you can get Warlock8/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/LegacyChampion6/UT+2, who can Hellfire blast for 28d6. Between Quicken, Maximize, Empower SLA, and the Chain Invocation, you can put down respectable if not Mailman levels of blasting.
    Last edited by dextercorvia; 2012-08-15 at 12:33 PM.
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by dextercorvia View Post
    Bloodline levels + Hellfire +Uncanny Trickster+ Legacy Champion.

    Warlock6/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/UncannyTrickster+2/LegacyChampion5/Bloodline3 deals 44d6 on a Hellfire blast. (I didn't tweak all of the levels to optimize the number of Hellfire levels you can get, but I think this is close).

    Even without Bloodlines, you can get Warlock8/UncannyTrickster1/HellfireWarlock3/LegacyChampion6/UT+2, who can Hellfire blast for 28d6. Between Quicken, Maximize, Empower SLA, and the Chain Invocation, you can put down respectable if not Mailman levels of blasting.
    The problem is, you can use this on a melee build to triple the damage output, for the low, low price of 1 Invocation known, at which point this all becomes Utter Cheese.

    The problem with most traditional sniper warlocks is that they have relatively poor ability to fight at range. Either they're forced to use Eldritch Spear, which does pitiful damage (though it does have range), or use the Chain Invocation ability, which adds some damage to other targets, but requires you to be within 60ft. It's good for killing mooks that you don't care about, or applying debuffs to multiple enemies. The only really good way to add respectable damage to a warlock build is through the Eldritch Glaive Invocation, and most of the rest of the power from the class comes from basic Battlefield Control effects like Darkness and Chilling Tentacles combined with long distance/chained debuffs. Unfortunately, to be good at debuffs mandates that you pump Charisma, which means that you have much less to put into your combat ability.

    This problem went away with the Complete Mage's release, which gave us the Eldritch Theurge, which can add damage to single-shot ranged attacks, add debuffs to already pretty good spells, and generally make the combination work really, really well. The problem, though, is that it doesn't fit most people's ideas of sniping- it adds Fireballs to your Eldritch Spears at lower levels, for example, instead of Save or Die spells to quietly take out targets until level 10 in the class. You also can't progress it with Hellfire Warlock, which is a strike against it.

    As a side note, mention should be made in the guide of a Chameleon 2 dip, as the floating feat is really, really good for the crafter warlock. Ranking of the Invocations available to warlocks would also be really nice.
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by Krazzman View Post
    @Nova:
    The most common "PF-Fix" I saw was making EB advancing like sneak attack (+1d6 per uneven warlock level), getting more Invocations and changing something about their detect magic for free (I think it was something about detect magic and 1+Int-mod level 0 spells as cantrips). But dunno where I read that.
    Yeah, sounds about right. Wouldn't seem too amiss to throw in a bloodline-like ability like the Sorcerer.
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    Quote Originally Posted by CTrees View Post
    Knowledge (local) being trained only, and not a class skill for many classes, means that your average human may well not be able to identify other humans! This may explain the exceptional quantity of half-human hybrids.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by Marlowe View Post
    And on a strange note out of left-field, might we please have a different image? Morthos plainly had the worst social survival skills and dress sense of any warlock ever.
    How about Epic Morthos?

    Back on topic, Warlock Specific PrCs, PrCs warlock qualify for by RAW, and other similar/neat things should be added as well (Ur Priest and Apostle of Peace qualification).

    Can you elaborate on how the Tier system is faulty? I find that it accomplishes what it has intended quite well.
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    I dub this the Snowbluff Axiom.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by DMofDarkness View Post
    The problem is, you can use this on a melee build to triple the damage output, for the low, low price of 1 Invocation known, at which point this all becomes Utter Cheese.
    Isn't that kind of the case with every piece of optimization? You have to know what's effective and what's cheese. Shock Trooper is fine, Shock Trooper with Leap Attack probably isn't; Metamagic School Focus is fine, adding Arcane Thesis broken; DMM:Persist is just a solid strategy, until you're grabbing for the nightsticks.
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    What about...?

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Methinks that "social survival skills" and "wearing human skulls on your belt" are somewhat at odds.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnorman View Post
    Methinks that "social survival skills" and "wearing human skulls on your belt" are somewhat at odds.
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Here's a ranged warlock build I've played before:

    The Eldritch Assassin

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    Race: Human
    Alignment: neutral evil
    Template : necropolitan (fits very well with an evil build and you don't use hellfire so it complements well)
    2 Flaws

    1 Warlock Spell Hand,Wild Talent (or hidden talent if allowed), Point blank shot,Psionic Shot
    2 Warlock
    3 Warlock Martial Study
    4 Warlock deceive item
    5 Factotum
    6 Assassin Psionic Meditation
    7 Assassin uncanny dodge
    8 Assassin
    9 Eldritch Theurge Greater Psionic Shot
    10 Eldritch Theurge
    11 Arcane Trickster
    12 Arcane Trickster Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance)
    13 Arcane Trickster
    14 Arcane Trickster
    15 Arcane Tricksterobtain familiar
    16 Arcane Trickster
    17 Arcane Trickster
    18 Arcane Trickster any improved familiar feat
    19 Arcane Trickster
    20 Arcane Trickster


    U can use the assassin spell sniper's shot to turn your eldritch spear into a sneak attack at any range

    Damage:

    Eldritch blast of a level 16 Warlock (7d6)
    psionic shot damage (4d6)
    sneak attack (9d6)
    total= 20d6 damage (+ Int from dipping factotum)

    options:

    -assassin spells (which tend to complement the warlock side fairly well)
    -warlock invocations (with 1 dark)
    -lots of skillpoints with a great skill list
    -no need for Con
    -a high INT score is a must to get enough skillpoints
    -martial study makes hide a class skill at all levels which helps out with the assassin skill requirements

    notes:

    -the familiar can become a scout/tracker to find your prey
    -the necropolitan template is rather useful for many of your levels only provide d4 hitpoints(and the rest d6, though you should be far from melee)
    -Factotum dip can be traded for a rogue level instead (for another 1d6 sneak ), which lets you pick a strongheart halfling as your base race
    -if allowed, the practiced invoker feat (basically the same as practiced spellcaster but for warlocks) would bump your eldritch blast all the way up to that of a 20 level warlock
    Last edited by Soranar; 2012-08-15 at 02:56 PM.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by Soranar View Post
    Here's a ranged warlock build I've played before:

    The Eldritch Assassin
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    Race: Human
    Alignment: neutral evil
    Template : necropolitan (fits very well with an evil build and you don't use hellfire so it complements well)
    2 Flaws

    1 Warlock Spell Hand,Wild Talent (or hidden talent if allowed), Point blank shot,Psionic Shot
    2 Warlock
    3 Warlock Martial Study
    4 Warlock deceive item
    5 Factotum
    6 Assassin Psionic Meditation
    7 Assassin uncanny dodge
    8 Assassin
    9 Eldritch Theurge Greater Psionic Shot
    10 Eldritch Theurge
    11 Arcane Trickster
    12 Arcane Trickster Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance)
    13 Arcane Trickster
    14 Arcane Trickster
    15 Arcane Tricksterobtain familiar
    16 Arcane Trickster
    17 Arcane Trickster
    18 Arcane Trickster any improved familiar feat
    19 Arcane Trickster
    20 Arcane Trickster


    U can use the assassin spell sniper's shot to turn your eldritch spear into a sneak attack at any range

    Damage:

    Eldritch blast of a level 16 Warlock (7d6)
    psionic shot damage (4d6)
    sneak attack (9d6)
    total= 20d6 damage (+ Int from dipping factotum)

    options:

    -assassin spells (which tend to complement the warlock side fairly well)
    -warlock invocations (with 1 dark)
    -lots of skillpoints with a great skill list
    -no need for Con
    -a high INT score is a must to get enough skillpoints
    -martial study makes hide a class skill at all levels which helps out with the assassin skill requirements

    notes:

    -the familiar can become a scout/tracker to find your prey
    -the necropolitan template is rather useful for many of your levels only provide d4 hitpoints(and the rest d6, though you should be far from melee)
    -Factotum dip can be traded for a rogue level instead (for another 1d6 sneak ), which lets you pick a strongheart halfling as your base race
    -if allowed, the practiced invoker feat (basically the same as practiced spellcaster but for warlocks) would bump your eldritch blast all the way up to that of a 20 level warlock
    Wonderful build.

    I also would hope maybe we could have a small section on E6. Warlock stock goes up considerably in E6 and it might make for a good acknowledgement.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by DMofDarkness View Post
    The problem is, you can use this on a melee build to triple the damage output, for the low, low price of 1 Invocation known, at which point this all becomes Utter Cheese.
    First, bloodline levels are already udder cheese . Legacy Champion and Uncanny Trickster to extend Hellfire Warlock are also going to be too cheesy for a lot of tables.

    Second, going melee has the added cost of requiring you to get close with a squishy build. Ranged has the inherent advantage of not being close enough to get full attacked (usually). A lower damage is expected.

    Still, either option puts up respectable numbers for a ranged blaster option.
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by Talionis View Post
    Wonderful build.

    I also would hope maybe we could have a small section on E6. Warlock stock goes up considerably in E6 and it might make for a good acknowledgement.
    As an E6 DM and player, I can write that myself.

    I was planning on my initial contributing being a comprehensive list of the invocations, with my input on each (probably in Red/Black/Blue/Purple format, or whatever ends up being used). I don't expect my input on invocations to be the only input given (or used) on invocations, but more is always better in this regard.
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    This is relevant to my interests.

    Seriously, I can't put my finger on why, but the Warlock is one of my favorite classes in 3.5. This thread is getting bookmarked, and I'll follow it closely. Thanks for all the work you're putting into it!
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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    Quote Originally Posted by Lonely Tylenol View Post
    As an E6 DM and player, I can write that myself.

    I was planning on my initial contributing being a comprehensive list of the invocations, with my input on each (probably in Red/Black/Blue/Purple format, or whatever ends up being used). I don't expect my input on invocations to be the only input given (or used) on invocations, but more is always better in this regard.
    I'm happy to provide some support in this regard, if you feel you might need it.

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    Default Re: The New Warlock Handbook [3.5, WIP]

    The Warlock Information Compilation has fewer gaps than I remembered, but it's still not really a full warlock handbook. We could do with one.

    Don't forget:

    • The tricks involving the Darkness Invocation and the feats from Drow of the Underdark that key off having Darkness as an SLA. The main one is Blend Into Shadows, which gets you a decent approximation of Hide In Plain Sight. Instinctive Darkness and Intensify Darkness can be useful too, but that's the point where you start investing a lot of feats into a single trick.
    • The possibility of qualifying for prestige classes with straightforward spellcasting and then using them to advance Warlock. Usually suboptimal since it will probably take a dip in a spellcasting class, but it should be mentioned. Combine with early entry tricks, and you can get into classes that require actual spells of 2nd or 3rd level.
    • Discuss the two Hellfire Warlock controversies: Legacy Champion and Strongheart vest. Or just link to the billion threads that debate them.
    • Make sure you get all the invocations and their locations; one of the things a warlock handbook needs so players don't go crazy searching every book for a stray invocation or two.

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