New Class: The Warlock


Homebrew and House Rules

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Silver Crusade

Excaliburproxy wrote:

The drop of the swift action is smart. That could make the class far too dip-able now that you mention it.

I like the new destruction ability. I don't think it is too powerful. There is an alchemist spell that gives a comparable effect and that lasts multiple rounds.

Now that destruction does not step up the dies size, do you think it is maybe a good idea to step up the die size of the AOEs to 2d6s?

Yeah, wasn't just thinking about dipping, but dipping is a rather large issue, and a free Swift action for 2 rounds and some other benefits are quite the dip.

Yeah, it's basically like that one first level extract from the Alch list, although it does make the damage from Eldritch Bomb something sexy. Still, I don't think that'll be employed a lot though, so it's not a big issue.

Just closed a loophole for infinite healing with (Major) Healing Hex and the Cursed Warlock Path, since it'd allow the user to just continue spamming free healing hexes ever 5 rounds to be healed to full during down time. I wouldn't mind it, but I figure most people don't like free(ish) healing (the cost of your path and of a Hex).

U. Explosion and A. Cannon are now at +2 steps on damage die, so that means burning Focus will put them up to 2d8 per die, which to me is livable, and the Destruction Path power doesn't increase things to unreasonable levels.

A little clean up work, a few new non AB/H Hexes since I was a little low on them. I think the amount is solid now, and I'm actually really happy how this class turned out.

Already thinking of starting my next project, something a friend of mine wants to help co-design. Not as keen on it, but it should be fun.


Hey man. I keep telling you that 2d6--and not 2d8--is two die steps up from 1d6 (short sword>long sword>great sword). I gave sources.

If you want it to be 2d8 then that is fine and dandy and not broken but you will need different wording if that is the case.


Excaliburproxy wrote:
Hey man. I keep telling you that 2d6--and not 2d8--is two die steps up from 1d6 (short sword>long sword>great sword). I gave sources.

The improved natural attack feat supports Excaliburporxy's statement, as well.

Silver Crusade

Excaliburproxy wrote:

Hey man. I keep telling you that 2d6--and not 2d8--is two die steps up from 1d6 (short sword>long sword>great sword). I gave sources.

If you want it to be 2d8 then that is fine and dandy and not broken but you will need different wording if that is the case.

I didn't disagree, but I don't think you're reading what I'm saying properly.

N. Jolly wrote:
U. Explosion and A. Cannon are now at +2 steps on damage die, so that means burning Focus will put them up to 2d8 per die, which to me is livable, and the Destruction Path power doesn't increase things to unreasonable levels.

It's a 2d6 at base, as you've stated, but burning Focus is what puts it up to the 2d8 that I keep mentioning. I'm trying to look at it from the highest damage potential the class can reach, or else the issue of the 3d6 comes up again, and I want to avoid that.

Also a few changes:

-New Warlock path, Void. Realized I had a path for specializing in all three styles of play, but not for a 'vanilla' Warlock, so that needed to be changed. The cooldown is basically equal to the cooldown of another path Warlock constantly using their path ability to cool down, which makes me wonder if I should switch Destruction's powers out with the Grim Focus Power instead.

-Grim Focus no longer increases save DCs to Hexes, since that was a bit crazy, especially with Hex Fusion doing the same thing, which I have less of an issue with due to it being a limited resource. Curse Path now empowers Hex Black Arts a bit, making it good, but not forced. Still the best thing for a Hex based character.

-New Black Black, Arcane Detonation. Basically a way to give earlier access to an AOE, even if the blast isn't too impressive.

-New Black Art, Arcane Shield. A defensive use of the attack, this is mostly for Fiend and Curse path characters, although the move action activation allows it to be used along with a Black Art or Hex.

-New Black Art, Psyche Scar. I realized I didn't have a lot of non ABS Master BAs, so this is another one to help out. I think it's balanced enough, but up for discussion on that.

-New Traits...just new freaking traits. There's traits for you guys to select, which are pretty damn nice.

Aside from that, there's some formatting changes to try and make it easier to navigate. Thinking of requiring the user to need to burn Focus to use a Hex Fusion (without benefit), but I'm wondering if that'll make people just not use it, or if it's viable. Possibly causing a reduced cool down time for such a use. This would stop someone from Novaing with all their Hex Fusions at once. Or perhaps state Hex Fusion can't be used unless the Warlock has their Mystic Focus for the same effect.

Also had ideas for another Blast Shape, possibly a manifestation of your blast that follows you around and attacks, much like a Dancing weapon of Arcane Blast. Working on the wording for that now.

New Feats are in the works, as are some alternative FCBs and a samle character or two.

EDIT: Also Grim Focus is no longer a free action, it's been moved to an immediate action, and Quicksilver Strike has been moved to a free action. Originally GF was a free action to avoid overcrowding on free actions, but the class didn't use as many swift actions as I was expecting, making the free action for GF kind of redundant. Also Eldritch Nightmare is now a move action until 6th level, making it a little harder to use in the early goings. But for the power it gives (I consider it the cornerstone of a Hexer build, it's completely validated. It only truly 'sucks' during 5th level, when you can't E. Nightmare before a Hex Fusion.


Ahhh. Yeah. That was my mistake. I thought that you meant that it was +2 dies size all together still or something. Poor reading comprehension on my part.


Just after a quick scan over it there are already a few things I find wrong with it. I'll give a full report sometime over the weekend cause I'll have to read in depth into the class and how it all works before giving a full opinion but here's what I am thinking so far.

The Black Art Arcane Shield you said in your post that it allows for it to be used alongside a Black Art or Hex ability. After reading the ability in the file I would have to ask how? By the sounds of the Black Arts they all use the Arcane Blast in some way or another. The only ones that don't are exclusively Hex abilities.

I like the concept you have going but here's a few issues I've found with it while reading it so far on Lunch break.

First is Hex’s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good idea but having to trade your Black Arts to get a Hex is a bit extreme to me. So in the ability Black Art why don’t you just leave it to where they can only select Initiate or Master Black Art enhancements? There are already enhancements for Hex’s in that list so making someone choose between getting a new Hex or a Hex enhancement seems a bit extreme.

You could make it to where they gain not only a Hex at first level but 1 additional Hex every 3 levels. At 10th level they could choose a Major Hex instead of the normal Hex like you have listed in Advanced Black Art. That should limit how many Hexes’ they can get and balance out the added ability.

Also, I think in order to use a Hex they should spend a Grim Power point since Hexing wasn’t originally a Warlock ability until 4th edition when all they could do was Curse an opponent one at a time.

The next ability I got an issue with is Final Black Art. You limit it exclusively to a Hex ability. I could come up with a few suggestion/ideas for that if you'd like to expand it beyond only a Hex ability. Give people the choice between a Grand Hex and a Final Black Art.

I also got some ideas for path's but I'll have to finish reading & put my thoughts in order before giving the ideas fully. I've played a Warlock in 3.5 edition and would like to know if there could be a dual path for the Warlock. In 3.5 I was the Magic Item crafter of my group while being the mid-range power house at a single target. So I was wondering if you'd be willing to work with me in designing a system where a player could choose Hexing opponents or Crafting.

Silver Crusade

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:

Just after a quick scan over it there are already a few things I find wrong with it. I'll give a full report sometime over the weekend cause I'll have to read in depth into the class and how it all works before giving a full opinion but here's what I am thinking so far.

The Black Art Arcane Shield you said in your post that it allows for it to be used alongside a Black Art or Hex ability. After reading the ability in the file I would have to ask how? By the sounds of the Black Arts they all use the Arcane Blast in some way or another. The only ones that don't are exclusively Hex abilities.

I like the concept you have going but here's a few issues I've found with it while reading it so far on Lunch break.

First is Hex’s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good idea but having to trade your Black Arts to get a Hex is a bit extreme to me. So in the ability Black Art why don’t you just leave it to where they can only select Initiate or Master Black Art enhancements? There are already enhancements for Hex’s in that list so making someone choose between getting a new Hex or a Hex enhancement seems a bit extreme.

You could make it to where they gain not only a Hex at first level but 1 additional Hex every 3 levels. At 10th level they could choose a Major Hex instead of the normal Hex like you have listed in Advanced Black Art. That should limit how many Hexes’ they can get and balance out the added ability.

Also, I think in order to use a Hex they should spend a Grim Power point since Hexing wasn’t originally a Warlock ability until 4th edition when all they could do was Curse an opponent one at a time.

The next ability I got an issue with is Final Black Art. You limit it exclusively to a Hex ability. I could come up with a few suggestion/ideas for that if you'd like to expand it beyond only a Hex ability. Give people the choice between a Grand Hex and a Final Black Art.

I also got some ideas for path's but I'll have to finish reading & put my thoughts in order before giving the ideas fully. I've played a Warlock in 3.5 edition and would like to know if there could be a dual path for the Warlock. In 3.5 I was the Magic Item crafter of my group while being the mid-range power house at a single target. So I was wondering if you'd be willing to work with me in designing a system where a player could choose Hexing opponents or Crafting.

Well I welcome your opinions to make this class better.

-Arcane Shield: It's just meant to work with Arcane Blast modifiers, like Gruesome Strike, although I might make it so it's not allowed to since it's a bit powerful against things with multiple attacks.

-Hexes: I actually like your ideas on this, I thought the Hexes were a bit limited. And burning Focus wouldn't be terrible to balance that out. I think I might change this later. As for Hexes, cursing seems like something a Warlock should do, like it feels thematically appropriate.

-Final Black Art: I will admit I did originally have reasons for it, but designing a final Black Art aside from a Grand Hex just seems superfluous. Like additional abilities just don't seem really that important.

-Item Creation: The only thing that made the Warlock special to item creation has basically been given to everyone, so as a crafter I just don't see a reason to emphasize that. It never felt like it was thematic for them anyways. All you'd need to do to make this work is take crafting feats. I can't remember, but did the Warlock get crafting feats? I guess I just don't see the Warlock as a crafter myself.

Yeah, just took the suggestion for Hexes already.

Silver Crusade

Had someone run a Hexlock tonight, and yeah, burning Focus for it doesn't work. It makes it completely nonviable, even with feats and such to augment it. But the additional Hexes made sure that they didn't have to burn Feats to actually have an appreciable amount of Hexes to use.

The Curse benefit wasn't of great value, but I'm not sure what to replace it with.

Most of the Hex Black Arts worked well, keeping them safe.

It was a little hard deciding if the Destruction ability is too much, might move it down to half charisma bonus.

Got a few new abilities, want to get Spectral Shield tested soon.

Going to add an ability for a more melee oriented Warlock, give the chance of a melee lock, maybe a way to enhance a ranged weapon too.


N. Jolly wrote:

Well I welcome your opinions to make this class better.

-Arcane Shield: It's just meant to work with Arcane Blast modifiers, like Gruesome Strike, although I might make it so it's not allowed to since it's a bit powerful against things with multiple attacks.

-Hexes: I actually like your ideas on this, I thought the Hexes were a bit limited. And burning Focus wouldn't be terrible to balance that out. I think I might change this later. As for Hexes, cursing seems like something a Warlock should do, like it feels thematically appropriate.

-Final Black Art: I will admit I did originally have reasons for it, but designing a final Black Art aside from a Grand Hex just seems superfluous. Like additional abilities just don't seem really that important.

-Item Creation: The only thing that made the Warlock special to item creation has basically been given to everyone, so as a crafter I just don't see a reason to emphasize that. It never felt like it was thematic for them anyways. All you'd need to do to make this work is take crafting feats. I can't remember, but did the Warlock get crafting feats? I guess I just don't see the Warlock as a crafter myself.

Yeah, just took the suggestion for Hexes already.

Had someone run a Hexlock tonight, and yeah, burning Focus for it doesn't work. It makes it completely nonviable, even with feats and such to augment it. But the additional Hexes made sure that they didn't have to burn Feats to actually have an appreciable amount of Hexes to use.

The Curse benefit wasn't of great value, but I'm not sure what to replace it with.

Most of the Hex Black Arts worked well, keeping them safe.

It was a little hard deciding if the Destruction ability is too much, might move it down to half charisma bonus.

Got a few new abilities, want to get Spectral Shield tested soon.

Going to add an ability for a more melee oriented Warlock, give the chance of a melee lock, maybe a way to enhance a ranged weapon too.

I don't think the destruction ability is to strong. But I'll explain more later on why. Going to be going in order by what I read & the list is long.

As for Final Black Art, it's not meant to be a selection of abilities but a final selection on a single powerhouse ability much like all the other core classes have at 20th level. Just reading what you already had gave me quite a few ideas for a Final Black Art. I could come up with a list and send it to you if you'd like because after just reading I already thought up at least 9 of them & personally I only liked 1 Grand Hex ability if only a little. There's some Black Arts that I think should be downgraded from a powerhouse ability and move the best/strongest part of the ability to a Final Black Art but I'll go into detail on some of the abilities later.

On crafting, no the warlock didn't get item crafting feats but it did gain 2 abilities concerning items. The first was to infuse items with basically any and all spells (besides psionics). They just had to make a spellcraft check of 15+ spell level for an arcane spell or 25+ spell level for divine spells to meet any spell requirements for magic crafting. I haven't noticed that ability in any other class so far in Pathfinder. The second ability was to deceive items and use them even if they had race or class requirements. With how it is in Pathfinder you can do the same thing though so I don't see why to add this second ability. Just the ability to craft any item no matter the spell is the one I liked. But I could come up with some other ideas to make it appealing to become a crafter (like reduced crafting costs or crafting time & bonus crafting feats).

As for Arcane Shield, after you said that it is powerful against things with multiple attacks, does that mean every time he is attacked they take damage? I was under the presumption that it was only once a round. If it is also for every attack it might need to be clarified.

On the Curse ability, that's what Hexes made me think of. Hexes are the curse. So adding a Curse ability to them isn't needed I think. But since spending Grim points didn't work out then it can go. It wasn't that big of a requirement to begin with, just though it would balance it out better & since it didn't *shrug*.

I'll check out the new abilities & let you know what I think in a few days to give you time to read this and maybe make changes you agree with. I've been a DM for about half the games I've ever played (me and my DM would take turns so he could play)& during those times I got used to looking at a game from both sides so the following is based off of that experience.

It needs to be cleared up if abilities are used at will or limited to a number of times per day. This being a Warlock I’m going to presume it’s all at will besides the ones that say a number of times per day but some perfectionist DM will complain that it’s not to clear & not allow someone to play the class because of that. Some abilities did say at will but not all of them. It would be easiest to just state that all abilities are useable at will unless otherwise stated. That way it'll not be a headache going threw to add that information to all the abilities that are at will.

On Arcane Blast, it needs to be cleared up on what the threat range is of the attack. For example – “x2” means a natural roll of 20 on a d20 and damage is multiplied by 2. In this case at 15th level it would be 1d6+Cha modifier x2 +4d6 damage on a successful critical hit. I think it should be a move action to infuse a weapon with Arcane Blast since they would have to focus the energy around the weapon. Also, when you infuse a weapon with Arcane Blast, does it add the Charisma modifier to damage also or just the d6 die damage?

On Grim Focus, how does a Warlock regain a Grim Focus? You have a time limit of 5 round before they can regain a Grim Focus but how do they regain them to begin with is something that need to be clarified. Is a move action, standard action, or free action? Do they instantly regain without the Warlock having to do anything? That also needs to be listed in the description. If it takes a move or standard action then why not make them wait 3 rounds instead of 5? That’ll add to how long a Warlock can get them all back fully after using them. Also, I don’t think they should be able to use Grim Focus the same round they regain one if it takes an action on the characters part.

In Warlock Paths under the Destruction path, it says “In addition, if they use expend their Grim Focus to increase the damage of their Arcane Blast, increase the damage dealt by the Warlock’s Charisma modifier (minimum +1).” The issue there is that it’s already got the bonus from the Charisma modifier naturally. Instead of “increase the damage dealt” I think it should say double the damage dealt”. It lets players know for sure that you want to add double the Charisma modifier damage. But if the damage bonus from Charisma is too much then you could take away the ability in this to regain Grim Focus faster & instead increase how long it takes to get it back. Personally I think it should double the Charisma damage for one attack per round if they use this ability as is.

In Hex Fusion, it says “A Warlock may be no further than 30ft from the target to use a Hex Fusion” but then it goes on to say “for every 30ft further away from the target they are, the save DC of your Hex Fusion drops by 1 & your damage decreases by 1d6.” This needs to be fixed. Either they have to be within 30ft (which I find fair) or they can be farther out & for every 30ft beyond the first 30ft they lose 1 to save DC & 1 die to damage.

On Greater Arcane Blast, making it to where the Warlock can infuse a weapon along with every attack is a bit much. You could make it to where they can infuse 1 attack per round as a free action with Arcane Blast though & have Ultimate Arcane Blast allow them to infuse the weapon as a free action 2 times per round. As an added benefit to gaining Final Black Art, you could either make the fusion to a weapon 3 times per round or make another added ability like Master Arcane Blast where the user not only can fuse the blast into a weapon 3 times per round but can also cause a chain reaction to damage 1 opponent on a successful hit within 30ft of the opponent you hit once per round dealing half damage (the secondary target gets a reflex save to avoid).

In Black Arts, I think it should allow one AB & one ABS to modify an Arcane Blast like on the original Warlock. Even with that freedom to mix it would still be clear what abilities are ranged or melee & can’t be combined. Then even combining (for example) Arcane Weapon & Fell Sniper wouldn't work because they are both ABS abilities.

On (ABS) Arcane Weapon, I don’t think you need to clarify that it may not be used with a ranged Arcane Blast ability. It says that it creates a melee weapon out of arcane energy. I’ve not read a single ability in the Black Arts list that allows a ranged attack with a melee weapon so I don’t see a need to have it in there.

On (AB) Smoldering Witchfire, you need to clarify if it is fire element damage or non-elemental damage. Otherwise DM’s & players will argue over it depending on which element would benefit them the most.

On (H) Hex Blessing, I think the level benefits are too fast. Make 6th be 8th level for 2 saves & 10th be 16th level for all 3 saves would balance it out better.

Same issue on (H) Hex Burn as on Hex Blessing.

On (H) Hex Overchannel, I think it would balance out better if they couldn’t use a Hex for double the amount of added die to damage. After all, the more you push yourself to do something the longer it takes to recover.

Shadowlight Lamp should have the 10th level bonus turned into 12th level to better balance it out. Same issue with Shadow Jump & Veil of the Unseen.

On Eldritch Nightmare, I think the 10th level ability should be 14-16th level instead. That’s a huge jump for a 10th level ability to ignore immunity to fear.

(ABS) Spectral Strike doesn’t need to be clarified that it may not be used with a ranged Arcane Blast ability. It specifically states that it’s for a melee Arcane Blast ability so the added wording is not needed.

(ABS) Umbral Explosion, I think you should limit this to be like (ABS) Arcane Detonation & make Arcane Detonation a requirement to select this ability (like some rogue talents require previous talents before you can select them). It shouldn’t be allowed with a melee attack since its already a wide area attack.

(AB) Soul Cleaver should be limited to a max of 2 levels per hit at 20th level. 4 is a bit extreme unless it’s picked for a Final Black Art. Also, regular hits should only be temporary & last a number of rounds equal to ½ the Warlock level + Cha modifier. Critical hits could be permanent instead of doubling the negative levels.

On (ABS) Arcane Cannon, I think it should be changed to this “An Arcane Blast modified by this Black Art instead creates a 5ft wide line with a distance of 60ft, increasing the damage dice of the Arcane Blast by two steps. This Arcane Blast may not land a direct hit, but forces all creatures inside of the line to make a reflex save for half damage and are not subjected to any Black Arts applied to the Arcane Blast on a successful save, while those who don’t successfully save take the full damage & any Black Arts applied to the Arcane Blast. At 15th level, the distance of this line increases to 120ft & becomes 10ft wide, and at 20th level it increases to 240ft & becomes 15ft wide.” Or you could make players choose at each level bonus to either widen the line by 5 feet or double the length. Also, I think Fell Sniper should be a requirement for this Master Black Art.

(H) Hex Reaver needs the name to be changed if it’s going to be a Dispel Magic type of effect. It doesn’t sound like a Hex ability at all but a normal Black Art so renaming it would be better unless you require a Hex to successfully affect a target to activate the effect (which would really lower the power of this Master Black Art).

(H) Hex Blightburn has the same issue with elemental damage or non-elemental damage as Smoldering Witchfire does.

(H) Hex Mirage should have the duration doubled at 20th level instead of extended by 5 feet which honestly makes no sense to me. Extended by 5 feet all around them or from a specific direction around them? Also, it should only affect creatures being affected by a Hex from the Warlock unless you want to turn this into a non-Hex ability.

On Sense the Unseen, I think it would balance out better if True Seeing & Blindsight was switched. Also, limit Blindsight to 60 feet.

In Body of the Void, you need to clarify how fast the Warlock can switch his mind from his body to his clone. As for the distance, I think it should double each time. Also, the clones shouldn’t become the real Warlock if he puts his mind in their body. That should be an ability saved for a Final Black Art.

That’s all I could notice this time around. It’s a lot I know but not everyone is the creator or will be able to instantly assume because a name says (for example) Witchfire, that it’ll do fire damage.

Personally if making it non-elemental damage despite the name would allow me to damage a creature I would say it was non-elemental damage despite fire being in the name.

If you’d like some ideas on paths or to make a selection list for a Final Black Art (without it just being a Grand Hex) just let me know. I could come up with a few ideas off what you have written already.


First off: I love how the class has evolved since I last looked at it.

Second, on the topic of Hex Reaver, the wording is a little bit confusing, but, if I get the gist of it, it dispels a spell and allows you to transfer the spell effect to yourself--essentially stealing the spell. Is that correct?


So I just read through it once, and some things I noticed jumped out at me and I have to say I like it, though I do have some questions and concerns. I have not read any of the posts in this thread, just so this post has no bleed over from previous posts or clarifications.

1) How does the Greater/Ultimate extra attacks work? For example, a 14th level Warlock has a BAB of 10/5 and Greater Arcane Blast. If he uses the melee version, is his attack routine reduced to 5/0 or 10/0? As written, I could never see any reason to use Greater or Ultimate Arcane blast in melee fashion as the additional penalty to iterative attacks just guarantees they'll never hit.

To be fair, the Warlock is not a good melee character (no method of enhancing his accuracy to hit more) and will be about as good as a Rogue in melee combat. He'd make a pretty good Archer though, if you give him a conductive weapon as he'll be able to channel his Arcane Blast every round. So he could use the Arcane Detonation black art and the Conductive Weapon with drastically increased range.

2) Can a Warlock only modify his Arcane Blast by one Black Art period, or can he modify it by one (AB) Black Art and one (ABS) Black Art? This wasn't real clear though I think you may have meant one AB and one ABS can be applied.

3) Gruesome Onslaught gives me pause, as the ability to deal damage and drain abilities from range is a very powerful option. Especially if they also took the Shadow Jump Black Art as they will be able to use a Gruesome Arcane Blast and then Teleport as a move action every round. At 8th level they can force a save or damage constitution, meaning anytime the enemy fails a save, they are more likely to take further damage on succeeding rounds. This means the Warlock could easily kill through Con damage with almost no threat to himself by simply teleporting away. At 10th level, he'll be able to teleport as a swift action.

One way you could fix this is have Gruesome Onslaught provide a non-stacking penalty similar to ray of enfeeblement. This retains it's usefulness, but doesn't mean Gruesome Onslaught is an 'auto-choice' though it's still a strong one. I would suggest you also keep the "can't reduce below 1" bit of the spell.

4) Does Arcane Weapon deal any damage at all apart from the Arcane Blast damage? Or is it solely used as a method to deliver a melee Arcane Blast? If so, how much damage does it deal? What type (B,P,S)? What's the crit range/modifier?

6) Is the intention with Spectral Shield to prevent people from using the Arcane Blast and the Shield in the same round? Because as written, I would simply Blast as a standard action, then activate the shield as a move action every round. Toss on teleporting as a swift action every round via Shadow Jump at 10th level, and you've got a pretty mean little guerrilla warrior.

7) Hex Barrir is kid of... odd. Mainly because of the Fiendish Warlock path also giving a luck bonus so the two don't stack. I'd suggest changing one or the other into a dodge bonus if you want them to stack (as dodge bonuses always stack).

8) Eldritch Nightmare is... very powerful. As written, you're able to apply up to a -7 penalty (at 20th) to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. Limited Wish can apply a -7 penalty to a single saving throw, once, but it also costs a lot of money. Where as this ability will linger for multiple rounds and is almost an automatic success because boosting the intimidate modifier is really easy. So, between this and Gruesome Onslaught, the Warlock can demoralize as a move action, (giving a penalty on saves) then hit them with a penalty to strength (reducing attack and damage) which will effectively neuter any enemy he faces.

God forbid he take Evil Eye, Cackle and Misfortune as well! *shudder* The Warlock is, basically, the single greatest debuffer in the game.

9) Should some of the Master Hexes (like Umbral Explosion, Psyche Scar, Hex Blightburn) require the similar Initiate Black Arts as per-requisites? It's kind of how such abilities work for nearly all other class choices.

10) Psyche Scar has many of the same concerns as Gruesome Blow, but it also becomes an at-will Feeblemind, which is Very Powerful. Between all of the options the Warlock has with debuffing, teleporting etc. he'll be able to shutdown any caster he faces very easily. He's even scarier as a villain as he can destroy the party caster.

I would suggest a limited duration on the feeblemind effect like equal to half the Warlocks charisma modifier or something.

Funnily enough, I recall a party playing in Wrath of the Righteous who's caster has started collecting Feebleminded enemies and storing them in a private Demiplane. I could see the Warlock doing this too.

11) Soul Cleaver is way too powerful. First of all, it's at-will negative levels, combined with the Warlocks ease of guerilla warfare and other options. Second, it's no save negative levels. As long as the Warlock hits with his Arcane Blast, he imposes a negative level. So he could fire a blast, then teleport away.

12) Quicksilver Assault needs to be limited to not be used in conjunction with any other Black Arts or it could be used to apply multiple feebleminds, or multiple negative levels very rapidly.

13) The 120 ft. range of this ability way too much. The Oracle's Clouded Vision curse only grants 30 ft. blindsense and 15 ft. blindsight. This Black Art blows the Oracle's curse out of the water.

So, overall I really like this class. Other than a the few clarifications above, it's seems pretty simple to use and feels like it would be a lot of fun. It would also make for a great re-occurring villain as he's got a very easy method of escape and re-engagement.

Silver Crusade

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
I don't think the destruction ability is to strong. But I'll explain more later on why. Going to be going in order by what I read & the list is long.

Okay, going to respond point by point to make this more cohesive, although I enjoy the feedback.

Quote:
As for Final Black Art, it's not meant to be a selection of abilities but a final selection on a single powerhouse ability much like all the other core classes have at 20th level. Just reading what you already had gave me quite a few ideas for a Final Black Art. I could come up with a list and send it to you if you'd like because after just reading I already thought up at least 9 of them & personally I only liked 1 Grand Hex ability if only a little. There's some Black Arts that I think should be downgraded from a powerhouse ability and move the best/strongest part of the ability to a Final Black Art but I'll go into detail on some of the abilities later.

For me, I figured Forbidden Hex Fusion and Final Hex filled this role well enough. It's also why all the Master Black Arts had quite literally an insane 20th level ability. I'd be willing to hear suggestions though, maybe tone down some of the crazy level 20s, do more of a "at 17th level" in the same way I did 8th level only increases for some of the Initiate abilities.

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On crafting, no the warlock didn't get item crafting feats but it did gain 2 abilities concerning items. The first was to infuse items with basically any and all spells (besides psionics). They just had to make a spellcraft check of 15+ spell level for an arcane spell or 25+ spell level for divine spells to meet any spell requirements for magic crafting. I haven't noticed that ability in any other class so far in Pathfinder. The second ability was to deceive items and use them even if they had race or class requirements. With how it is in Pathfinder you can do the same thing though so I don't see why to add this second ability. Just the ability to craft any item no matter the spell is the one I liked. But I could come up with some other ideas to make it appealing to become a crafter (like reduced crafting costs or crafting time & bonus crafting feats).

PF lets you ignore requirements for most items (I think it's only scrolls and wands that you can't) by upping the DC by five, which is pretty negligible at higher levels, which is basically both niches there. There'd have to be more incentive than there already is to make crafting a worthwhile function, and I'm not sure I see the Warlock as a crafter as much myself.

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As for Arcane Shield, after you said that it is powerful against things with multiple attacks, does that mean every time he is attacked they take damage? I was under the presumption that it was only once a round. If it is also for every attack it might need to be clarified.

Yeah, the original idea was against every attack, but that's obviously a bit much, which I didn't take into consideration before. That'll be dropped to once a round, maybe as a reactionary ability when being attacked. Mostly it was from the shonen imagery of heroes being consumed by energy, but it does need to be scaled down.

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On the Curse ability, that's what Hexes made me think of. Hexes are the curse. So adding a Curse ability to them isn't needed I think. But since spending Grim points didn't work out then it can go. It wasn't that big of a requirement to begin with, just though it would balance it out better & since it didn't *shrug*.

I could see where you're coming from there, and initially I did agree with you on burning focus for Hexes, but when you have a Hex based PC, it lacks the ability to really be a Hexer, even with reducers. It just really hurts their ability to play a dedicated debuffer, which is a roll I'd like this class to be able to fill.

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I'll check out the new abilities & let you know what I think in a few days to give you time to read this and maybe make changes you agree with. I've been a DM for about half the games I've ever played (me and my DM would take turns so he could play)& during those times I got used to looking at a game from both sides so the following is based off of that experience.

Yeah, for the past 3 years most of my games have been from behind a screen, so I know what that's like. I'm just doing my best to make a class that works for my players and my design goals.

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It needs to be cleared up if abilities are used at will or limited to a number of times per day. This being a Warlock I’m going to presume it’s all at will besides the ones that say a number of times per day but some perfectionist DM will complain that it’s not to clear & not allow someone to play the class because of that. Some abilities did say at will but not all of them. It would be easiest to just state that all abilities are useable at will unless otherwise stated. That way it'll not be a headache going threw to add that information to all the abilities that are at will.

I guess I thought it was clear, but as a GM often does, the assumption of clarity is not always the appearance of clarity to others. Just added a line to Black Arts listing that all of them are at will.

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On Arcane Blast, it needs to be cleared up on what the threat range is of the attack. For example – “x2” means a natural roll of 20 on a d20 and damage is multiplied by 2. In this case at 15th level it would be 1d6+Cha modifier x2 +4d6 damage on a successful critical hit. I think it should be a move action to infuse a weapon with Arcane Blast since they would have to focus the energy around the weapon. Also, when you infuse a weapon with Arcane Blast, does it add the Charisma modifier to damage also or just the d6 die damage?

Actually my wording is very similar to the wording of the Bomb ability of the Alchemist. Did have to make sure there's a section to disallow Vital Strike, which is important. Put a section to clarify it's only a crit on a nat 20 too. And yeah, a crit at any level would be 1d6+Cha Mod x2, just like a bomb. And as of now for the melee version it says it does your Arcane Blast Damage, which is Xd6 + Cha mod, so I see no reason why you wouldn't still get Cha mod, although I haven't had a melee DestructLock yet, so that's something that need to be watched out for.

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On Grim Focus, how does a Warlock regain a Grim Focus? You have a time limit of 5 round before they can regain a Grim Focus but how do they regain them to begin with is something that need to be clarified. Is a move action, standard action, or free action? Do they instantly regain without the Warlock having to do anything? That also needs to be listed in the description. If it takes a move or standard action then why not make them wait 3 rounds instead of 5? That’ll add to how long a Warlock can get them all back fully after using them. Also, I don’t think they should be able to use Grim Focus the same round they regain one if it takes an action on the characters part.

Just cleared this up, its an auto refocus that happens post 5 rounds as a free action. I don't want to make this an action as I've played games where 'forgetting' to do something has allowed jerky GMs to tell me that I don't have it, despite it being obvious, so it's just an auto recharge 5 rounds later that doesn't have to be stated or anything.

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In Warlock Paths under the Destruction path, it says “In addition, if they use expend their Grim Focus to increase the damage of their Arcane Blast, increase the damage dealt by the Warlock’s Charisma modifier (minimum +1).” The issue there is that it’s already got the bonus from the Charisma modifier naturally. Instead of “increase the damage dealt” I think it should say double the damage dealt”. It lets players know for sure that you want to add double the Charisma modifier damage. But if the damage bonus from Charisma is too much then you could take away the ability in this to regain Grim Focus faster & instead increase how long it takes to get it back. Personally I think it should double the Charisma damage for one attack per round if they use this ability as is.

Changed it to double, you're right, it does make more sense. As for only making it for one attack, it's not like you can really spam more than 3 a round, so by the time the second blast comes around, it'll be adding like 12 damage total, which isn't too bad. I just wonder if it's a bit too much in the beginning.

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In Hex Fusion, it says “A Warlock may be no further than 30ft from the target to use a Hex Fusion” but then it goes on to say “for every 30ft further away from the target they are, the save DC of your Hex Fusion drops by 1 & your damage decreases by 1d6.” This needs to be fixed. Either they have to be within 30ft (which I find fair) or they can be farther out & for every 30ft beyond the first 30ft they lose 1 to save DC & 1 die to damage.

Yeah, I changed the line to say "30 ft without penalty", and then going on to list the weakening of it from a distance, since I doubt anyone would attack from it out of range, but it's not a huge problem to give them a little more distance (2nd range increment is where I assume most are attacking from at furthest.)

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On Greater Arcane Blast, making it to where the Warlock can infuse a weapon along with every attack is a bit much. You could make it to where they can infuse 1 attack per round as a free action with Arcane Blast though & have Ultimate Arcane Blast allow them to infuse the weapon as a free action 2 times per round. As an added benefit to gaining Final Black Art, you could either make the fusion to a weapon 3 times per round or make another added ability like Master Arcane Blast where the user not only can fuse the blast into a weapon 3 times per round but can also cause a chain reaction to damage 1 opponent on a successful hit within 30ft of the opponent you hit once per round dealing half damage (the secondary target gets a reflex save to avoid).

This is the first point you've made that I've been generally conflicted about. I can see the danger in giving too much damage potential even with the risk of melee. I'd be willing to work on some way of altering this to be more in line with normal powers.

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In Black Arts, I think it should allow one AB & one ABS to modify an Arcane Blast like on the original Warlock. Even with that freedom to mix it would still be clear what abilities are ranged or melee & can’t be combined. Then even combining (for example) Arcane Weapon & Fell Sniper wouldn't work because they are both ABS abilities.

Yeah, I kinda dropped the ball on making that clear, the wording has been cleaned up on that one to make sure ABS can combine with AB arts.

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On (ABS) Arcane Weapon, I don’t think you need to clarify that it may not be used with a ranged Arcane Blast ability. It says that it creates a melee weapon out of arcane energy. I’ve not read a single ability in the Black Arts list that allows a ranged attack with a melee weapon so I don’t see a need to have it in there.

That's now gone, it was a little superfluous.

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On (AB) Smoldering Witchfire, you need to clarify if it is fire element damage or non-elemental damage. Otherwise DM’s & players will argue over it depending on which element would benefit them the most.

I feel like this is a little nit picky, but a finished product shouldn't have nits, so changed to clarify non elemental.

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On (H) Hex Blessing, I think the level benefits are too fast. Make 6th be 8th level for 2 saves & 10th be 16th level for all 3 saves would balance it out better.

Same issue on (H) Hex Burn as on Hex Blessing

Well I try not to have initiate Black Arts scale beyond 10th level, so maybe I'll just move the 6th up to 8th and ignore the 10th.

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On (H) Hex Overchannel, I think it would balance out better if they couldn’t use a Hex for double the amount of added die to damage. After all, the more you push yourself to do something the longer it takes to recover.

I'm okay with that, since they wouldn't be using a Hex next round anyways. I'm going 2 and 3 rounds respectively for this one.

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Shadowlight Lamp should have the 10th level bonus turned into 12th level to better balance it out. Same issue with Shadow Jump & Veil of the Unseen.

I'd do this, but again, I'm trying to keep the scaling down to 10th level, although I don't think 10th Shadowlight and Veil are that bad. Shadow Jump is, and I want to see that played around with at 10th level and 12th before making a judgement call here, since my playtesting has been at 5-6th level.

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On Eldritch Nightmare, I think the 10th level ability should be 14-16th level instead. That’s a huge jump for a 10th level ability to ignore immunity to fear.

I agree under the effect that it's powerful, but without jumping that early, from about 9-14/16 it becomes a dead tactic due to how many things become immune to fear/mind affecting effects. I'd rather not have a valley where they can't use a tactic like that.

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(ABS) Spectral Strike doesn’t need to be clarified that it may not be used with a ranged Arcane Blast ability. It specifically states that it’s for a melee Arcane Blast ability so the added wording is not needed.

And changed.

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(ABS) Umbral Explosion, I think you should limit this to be like (ABS) Arcane Detonation & make Arcane Detonation a requirement to select this ability (like some rogue talents require previous talents before you can select them). It shouldn’t be allowed with a melee attack since its already a wide area attack.

Well since you're familiar with the old Warlock, you know that's the spiritual successor to "Eldritch Doom", which, I'd rather keep from being a large burst around the user. I'll agree keeping it out of melee's hands would be nice, I mainly only put it there because melee wasn't getting a lot of Master ABS, but it's not a huge issue.

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(AB) Soul Cleaver should be limited to a max of 2 levels per hit at 20th level. 4 is a bit extreme unless it’s picked for a Final Black Art. Also, regular hits should only be temporary & last a number of rounds equal to ½ the Warlock level + Cha modifier. Critical hits could be permanent instead of doubling the negative levels.

The duration for those neg levels is pretty low, although 4 was a bit brutal. It's probably not going to matter a lot, but the duration of even spells is an hour per caster level, so they're basically permanent in regards to most opponents anyways.

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On (ABS) Arcane Cannon, I think it should be changed to this “An Arcane Blast modified by this Black Art instead creates a 5ft wide line with a distance of 60ft, increasing the damage dice of the Arcane Blast by two steps. This Arcane Blast may not land a direct hit, but forces all creatures inside of the line to make a reflex save for half damage and are not subjected to any Black Arts applied to the Arcane Blast on a successful save, while those who don’t successfully save take the full damage & any Black Arts applied to the Arcane Blast. At 15th level, the distance of this line increases to 120ft & becomes 10ft wide, and at 20th level it increases to 240ft & becomes 15ft wide.” Or you could make players choose at each level bonus to either widen the line by 5 feet or double the length. Also, I think Fell Sniper should be a requirement for this Master Black Art.

Yeah, changed that, the distance was the only really big thing to me, so the width isn't super important.

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(H) Hex Reaver needs the name to be changed if it’s going to be a Dispel Magic type of effect. It doesn’t sound like a Hex ability at all but a normal Black Art so renaming it would be better unless you require a Hex to successfully affect a target to activate the effect (which would really lower the power of this Master Black Art).

Hex Reaver is on the chopping block now, maybe up for a non Hex redesign. It was pretty powerful for a Hex Weave effect.

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(H) Hex Blightburn has the same issue with elemental damage or non-elemental damage as Smoldering Witchfire does.

I figured it was obvious due to the fact that the AB itself does non elemental, but again, GM oversight sometimes takes over.

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(H) Hex Mirage should have the duration doubled at 20th level instead of extended by 5 feet which honestly makes no sense to me. Extended by 5 feet all around them or from a specific direction around them? Also, it should only affect creatures being affected by a Hex from the Warlock unless you want to turn this into a non-Hex ability.

Wasn't sure what I was thinking with the five feet thing, just bumped up total concealment by a level against hex affected targets and nixed the 20 boost to try to normalize some hexes not having a MEGA version.

On Sense the Unseen, I think it would balance out better if True Seeing & Blindsight was switched. Also, limit Blindsight to 60 feet.

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In Body of the Void, you need to clarify how fast the Warlock can switch his mind from his body to his clone. As for the distance, I think it should double each time. Also, the clones shouldn’t become the real Warlock if he puts his mind in their body. That should be an ability saved for a Final Black Art.

Consider the real bodies made shadow still, to keep HP from increasing too much.

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That’s all I could notice this time around. It’s a lot I know but not everyone is the creator or will be able to instantly assume because a name says (for example) Witchfire, that it’ll do fire damage.

Personally if making it non-elemental damage despite the name would allow me to damage a creature I would say it was non-elemental damage despite fire being in the name.

If you’d like some ideas on paths or to make a selection list for a Final Black Art (without it just being a Grand Hex) just let me know. I could come up with a few ideas off what you have written already.

This was a lot to plow through, but I can understand where you're coming from on a lot of it. I appreciate the thorough look over, and I'd appreciate any input you had for the class.

Silver Crusade

@Tels

While I want to respond to everything you have, the last response took a lot out of me, but I will admit that as it's written, Eldritch Nightmare is too strong with the bonuses to the penalty, which was my concern at first. Although I mostly look at the game as a lens of 1-12th, or -5, which is still pretty bad. I think I might get rid of that, and maybe give it an additional -2 at 10th level instead of the mind effecting immunity. The problem is that fear becomes null once things start becoming mind affecting/fear immune, which is just a shame, as I hate tactics that are only low level viable. I did plan on the Warlock being a good debuffer though, although throwing saves on some of these might become needed as well. I'll be giving it a more thorough look soon enough.


N. Jolly wrote:

@Tels

While I want to respond to everything you have, the last response took a lot out of me, but I will admit that as it's written, Eldritch Nightmare is too strong with the bonuses to the penalty, which was my concern at first. Although I mostly look at the game as a lens of 1-12th, or -5, which is still pretty bad. I think I might get rid of that, and maybe give it an additional -2 at 10th level instead of the mind effecting immunity. The problem is that fear becomes null once things start becoming mind affecting/fear immune, which is just a shame, as I hate tactics that are only low level viable. I did plan on the Warlock being a good debuffer though, although throwing saves on some of these might become needed as well. I'll be giving it a more thorough look soon enough.

Oh, I have no problem with bypassing the immunity to mind effecting thing (it's very cool and unique), it's just that the Eldritch Nighmate is A) a penalty that's really easy to apply and B) a significant penalty on it's own.

In between Easter stuff and watching my nephews I'll try and work on a build out to 12th or so, just to see what he is capable of. One big thing is, you can build him much like a Wizard or Sorcerer, focusing on Cha then Dex and relying on his abilities to contribute to damage and effects. You don't actually need to give him any weapons as he's quite capable all on his own, but if you go Cha/Dex you can have a pretty good archer.

Silver Crusade

Tels wrote:
So I just read through it once, and some things I noticed jumped out at me and I have to say I like it, though I do have some questions and concerns. I have not read any of the posts in this thread, just so this post has no bleed over from previous posts or clarifications.

Cool cool, I'll just let you know if something got brought up already.

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1) How does the Greater/Ultimate extra attacks work? For example, a 14th level Warlock has a BAB of 10/5 and Greater Arcane Blast. If he uses the melee version, is his attack routine reduced to 5/0 or 10/0? As written, I could never see any reason to use Greater or Ultimate Arcane blast in melee fashion as the additional penalty to iterative attacks just guarantees they'll never hit.

To be fair, the Warlock is not a good melee character (no method of enhancing his accuracy to hit more) and will be about as good as a Rogue in melee combat. He'd make a pretty good Archer though, if you give him a conductive weapon as he'll be able to channel his Arcane Blast every round. So he could use the Arcane Detonation black art and the Conductive Weapon with drastically increased range.

The idea here is that it works like a full attack, it's more just spelling that out in the ability. Although if you could think of a more clear wording for it, I'd be happy to hear it to make it more obvious.

And Conductive doesn't work because this has no 'uses', so there's no two uses to use with conductive.

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2) Can a Warlock only modify his Arcane Blast by one Black Art period, or can he modify it by one (AB) Black Art and one (ABS) Black Art? This wasn't real clear though I think you may have meant one AB and one ABS can be applied.

Okay, this was discussed in the last one, and I've cleared it up that you can apply one AB and one ABS to each Arcane Blast.

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3) Gruesome Onslaught gives me pause, as the ability to deal damage and drain abilities from range is a very powerful option. Especially if they also took the Shadow Jump Black Art as they will be able to use a Gruesome Arcane Blast and then Teleport as a move action every round. At 8th level they can force a save or damage constitution, meaning anytime the enemy fails a save, they are more likely to take further damage on succeeding rounds. This means the Warlock could easily kill through Con damage with almost no threat to himself by simply teleporting away. At 10th level, he'll be able to teleport as a swift action.

One way you could fix this is have Gruesome Onslaught provide a non-stacking penalty similar to ray of enfeeblement. This retains it's usefulness, but doesn't mean Gruesome Onslaught is an 'auto-choice' though it's still a strong one. I would suggest you also keep the "can't reduce below 1" bit of the spell.

Mobility is supposed to be a hallmark of this class, especially since I hate the 'Full Attack Forever' mentality of 3.PF, so this class with Shadow Jump is meant to break that mold. And while ability damage from a range is powerful, it's not raw damage, so at best it's either making its target slower or weaker, which isn't winning the fight until Con damage comes online. Maybe Con damage is a bit much though.

A penalty is okay, but the goal of this is to slowly cripple someone, so a penalty doesn't really work, and really only makes it good for one shot instead of a steady barrage.

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4) Does Arcane Weapon deal any damage at all apart from the Arcane Blast damage? Or is it solely used as a method to deliver a melee Arcane Blast? If so, how much damage does it deal? What type (B,P,S)? What's the crit range/modifier?

All it does is AB damage, so it has no type since it's just an alternative way to wield the AB. And by that, it has no damage type, since it's non elemental.

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6) Is the intention with Spectral Shield to prevent people from using the Arcane Blast and the Shield in the same round? Because as written, I would simply Blast as a standard action, then activate the shield as a move action every round. Toss on teleporting as a swift action every round via Shadow Jump at 10th level, and you've got a pretty mean little guerrilla warrior.

This is the kind of reason I need more eyes on this, since as a player I'd have probably spotted that. Spectral can't be used with blast anymore, and the damage is a lot lower (now only Cha)

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7) Hex Barrir is kid of... odd. Mainly because of the Fiendish Warlock path also giving a luck bonus so the two don't stack. I'd suggest changing one or the other into a dodge bonus if you want them to stack (as dodge bonuses always stack).

Oh, I don't want the two stacking.

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8) Eldritch Nightmare is... very powerful. As written, you're able to apply up to a -7 penalty (at 20th) to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. Limited Wish can apply a -7 penalty to a single saving throw, once, but it also costs a lot of money. Where as this ability will linger for multiple rounds and is almost an automatic success because boosting the intimidate modifier is really easy. So, between this and Gruesome Onslaught, the Warlock can demoralize as a move action, (giving a penalty on saves) then hit them with a penalty to strength (reducing attack and damage) which will effectively neuter any enemy he faces.

God forbid he take Evil Eye, Cackle and Misfortune as well! *shudder* The Warlock is, basically, the single greatest debuffer in the game.

Addressed this a bit, no longer giving a bonus to the shaken penalty. Gruesome is staying unchanged for now until I see a great reason to change it, which is very possible. But for now, it's staying.

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9) Should some of the Master Hexes (like Umbral Explosion, Psyche Scar, Hex Blightburn) require the similar Initiate Black Arts as per-requisites? It's kind of how such abilities work for nearly all other class choices.

I have no idea why some of these don't have prereqs, I just wasn't thinking there. I might do some prereqs later, like Sniper for Cannon, and such.

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10) Psyche Scar has many of the same concerns as Gruesome Blow, but it also becomes an at-will Feeblemind, which is Very Powerful. Between all of the options the Warlock has with debuffing, teleporting etc. he'll be able to shutdown any caster he faces very easily. He's even scarier as a villain as he can destroy the party caster.

I would suggest a limited duration on the feeblemind effect like equal to half the Warlocks charisma modifier or something.

Funnily enough, I recall a party playing in Wrath of the Righteous who's caster has started collecting Feebleminded enemies and storing them in a private Demiplane. I could see the Warlock doing this too.

The thing that limits the Warlock is the same thing that did in their last iteration: choices. They have a lot, but they can only have a finite number. In that respect, they're like a far more specialized Sorcerer. If they want to debuff, they can focus on it, and do great things. Although I'm possibly thinking of doing Black Arts every 3 levels with their current power level being what it is. The only problem then is that some just become not worth taking. I'd rather everyone take Shadow Jump and Spectral Shield rather than thinking that they'd be losing out for not taking Shadow Jump. Each weapon of the Warlock should be powerful, from an Arcane Blast stripping flesh to a Hex woven with 5 Black Arts to make the Warlock nigh unhittable.

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11) Soul Cleaver is way too powerful. First of all, it's at-will negative levels, combined with the Warlocks ease of guerilla warfare and other options. Second, it's no save negative levels. As long as the Warlock hits with his Arcane Blast, he imposes a negative level. So he could fire a blast, then teleport away.

Most engagements I've been in didn't allow people to have a great chance of doing that, if only because you're playing in a team game. While a Warlock could play hit and run, if said Warlock uses round 1 to snipe, round 2 to hide, and round 3 to come back, they've given up one round that everyone else had. In a solo game (or with a villain), this would be brutal.

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12) Quicksilver Assault needs to be limited to not be used in conjunction with any other Black Arts or it could be used to apply multiple feebleminds, or multiple negative levels very rapidly.

Consider that changed, I don't want this causing mass killings too quickly, especially after an Umbral Explosion.

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13) The 120 ft. range of this ability way too much. The Oracle's Clouded Vision curse only grants 30 ft. blindsense and 15 ft. blindsight. This Black Art blows the Oracle's curse out of the water.

I'd argue the Oracle is getting shafted here, but I did cut it down to 40 and 20 feet respectively, since it was pretty devastating.

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So, overall I really like this class. Other than a the few clarifications above, it's seems pretty simple to use and feels like it would be a lot of fun. It would also make for a great re-occurring villain as he's got a very easy method of escape and re-engagement.

Looking forward to seeing what your playtest yields, since the class is still in development, but I'm very happy with how it's evolved.


Ooh, good to know, I was building the guy off the one I read so I had to do a little refreshing.


I like this very much. Once I've read up on it more, I'm going to let one of my players play one. He's a great RPer and could probly find some funny ways to use the class. Thanks for doing this!

Silver Crusade

The Beardinator wrote:
I like this very much. Once I've read up on it more, I'm going to let one of my players play one. He's a great RPer and could probly find some funny ways to use the class. Thanks for doing this!

Awesome, glad to hear it. Can you let me know how it plays, any info at all would be helpful to make this class the best it can be.


I won't be able to give any play experience (our group has shut down for the summer). The best I can give you at the current time is simply theorycraft analysis.

Silver Crusade

Tels wrote:
I won't be able to give any play experience (our group has shut down for the summer). The best I can give you at the current time is simply theorycraft analysis.

That's fine, any data is good data. It wouldn't be hard to see some mistakes just from a build.


So here's a sample build: Drairch. (I hate how Google always ruins my pictures during the upload!) ***I should note this is kind of a rough draft as I haven't filled in his special abilities, or dealt with his encumbrance. There's probably a few errors here and there, but I think it's mostly correct. I stopped here and uploaded it because I'm tired and started having difficulty adding 12 + 6 :(

Some things to note, the conductive propety does indeed allow the Arcane Blast to be channeled through it.

Conductive wrote:
A conductive weapon is able to channel the energy of a spell-like or supernatural ability that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target (such as from a cleric's domain granted power, sorcerer's bloodline power, oracle's mystery revelation, or wizard's arcane school power). When the wielder makes a successful attack of the appropriate type, he may choose to expend two uses of his magical ability to channel it through the weapon to the struck opponent, which suffers the effects of both the weapon attack and the special ability. (If the wielder has unlimited uses of a special ability, she may channel through the weapon every round.) For example, a paladin who strikes an undead opponent with her conductive greatsword can expend two uses of her lay on hands ability (a supernatural melee touch attack) to deal both greatsword damage and damage from one use of lay on hands. This weapon special ability can only be used once per round, and only works with magical abilities of the same type as the weapon (melee or ranged).

Since the Arcane Blast has infinite uses, there is nothing stopping someone from using it each round. This is important and I'll touch upon it later.

This guy mainly relies on his Gruesome Onslaught and his hexes to apply some serious debuffs if not outright kill his opponents with the con damage. With Greater Arcane Blast, he can fire two Blasts each round, landing up to a -12 modifier to both Strength and Dexterity, or -12 to Constitution. If he gets two rounds to attack someone with his blasts, it's likely he'll render someone unconscious via Strength or Dexterity damage, or outright kill them via Constitution damage.

Assuming he's fighting Undead or something immune to Ability Damage, he can use his Invisibility, Shadow Jump and Arcane Blasts to initiate a guerrilla war on his enemies.

He's surprisingly durable as a character. Anytime he uses a Hex, he gains +6 fast healing and +6 luck bonus to his AC. Of note is that he can either Cackle each round as a move action (whether it extends a Hex or not) or he can use Scar on himself or others without limit. So he, effectively, has permanent fast healing and a luck bonus to his AC. He has the Scar hex in case he needs to stealth into an area (and I don't think Cackle can be used in an area of silence).

With his Beast Form II SLA, combined with Invisibility and Silence, he's a mean scout, and with his Shadow Jump, he can easily get away if surrounded or gets in trouble.

He mainly uses his bow to hit targets with his Arcane Blast from long distance. He, effectively, has a range of 1,100 feet on his Arcane Blast when he uses a bow. So if he were at sea, or something, he could be raining down arrows on enemy ships and stay safely out of their range.

===================================

Something to note. With the Conductive ability, I could have taken a very drastically different route. Instead of the archery feats, he could have taken Weapon Finesse, Dervish Dance and Arcane Strike, which would make him a pretty effective striker. If he has a Haste spell active (or similar effect), he would be able to make 3 attacks each round at BAB 9/9/4; combine Greater Arcane Blast and the Conductive ability and each of his 3 attacks can land an Arcane Blast. That means if he were built for melee, he could land up to a -18 penalty to physical ability scores; this turns any fight into an auto-win for the Warlock as long as it isn't immune to ability damage.

A melee Warlock would want to take get Spectral Strike pretty quickly. Even though it won't function with Greater Arcane Blast until 15th, it will still function with the Conductive property, so two attacks each round could be modified by a Spectral Strik, Grueling Onslaught Arcane Blast, so he would be making 2 touch attacks that each deal 6 points of ability damage.

The Melee Warlock, as quickly outlined above, would be a much more deadly enemy in close quarters as he can also use Monstrous Physique to buff himself, however, he's more vulnerable. He will make sure to keep his Shadow Jump available (by not using up immediate actions if possible) in case he needs to flee. He also probably deals less debuffs over-all as he doesn't have the time to apply his Hexes.

The Ranged Warlock (as linked above) is the more durable, and would engage more in hit-and-run tactics, but only if someone actually targeted him. He's more party friendly as well because he can apply his Hexes with greater ease than the Melee Warlock, so party casters are more likely to land their own spells and effects.

Keep in mind, in the above build, he's still got 23,000 gp to spend on misc. things like potions or basic gear (like arrow!).

===================================

As it stands, right now, if the Warlock were to be used as a BBEG for something like an AP (meaning he's CR 20 on average), he'd probably smoke parties. With his ability to escape from nearly any encounter, plus land crippling semi-permanent debuffs, any party that encounters him is going to have a tough time. I mean, Gruesome Onslaught can be used in conjunction with Umbral Explosion to apply a penalty to every person in a 160 ft diameter sphere!

At 20th level, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Warlock with a ~28 Charisma, which means he could wipe out huge swaths of enemies in 2 - 3 rounds via constitution damage (that's 27 points of con damage in 3 rounds).

Here's the build I used for the guy:

Drairch:
20 Pt buy: Str 10, Dex 15 (17 racial), Con 14, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 15 (17 racial)
He put his level 4 point into Dex, his level 8 point into Wis, and his level 12 point into Cha.

Feats:
1 Point Blank Shot
3 Extra Black Art (Hex Rejuvination)
5 Precise Shot
7 Extra Black Art (Skin of the Vile)
9 Far Shot
11 Extra Black Art (Umbral Explosion)

Black Arts:
2 Arcane Detonation
4 Gruesome Onslaught
6 Shadow Jump
8 Veil of the Unseen
10 Hex Barrier
12 Quicksilver Assault

Hexes:
1 Scar
4 Evil Eye
8 Cackle
12 Misfortune


I think Tels' ruling on Conductive Weapon is right, but I don't think it is that huge of an issue damage-wise since you can only use it once per round. It only lets you add the damage to physical attacks for the most part (unless I make a radical gun warlock) and it displaces one point of accuracy and damage. If anything, it does a lot to catch up the weapon-using build with the standard touch attack build. The problem comes in from the debuffs.

On the topic of Grueling Onslaught: I think this ability damage is way too good now that I look at it. 6 con damage translates to -3 hp per HD. Too good. Maybe reduce the damage to just a flat 2 damage (or even 1 damage, really) and let grim focus step that up to 1+1d4 (which may or may not be expended if an opponent makes a save). Tels' theory craft build well illustrates why that becomes problematic.

On the topic of charisma to damage: This could be too good at level 2, but not later on. Later on, it will matter much much less. How about have it start at half charisma (so really just a +2 to damage in most cases) then have it step up to full charisma at level 7 and 1.5 charisma at level 12? Or was I misunderstanding something? Did you want to add charisma damage to every single die?


Excaliburproxy wrote:

I think Tels' ruling on Conductive Weapon is right, but I don't think it is that huge of an issue damage-wise since you can only use it once per round. It only lets you add the damage to physical attacks for the most part (unless I make a radical gun warlock) and it displaces one point of accuracy and damage. If anything, it does a lot to catch up the weapon-using build with the standard touch attack build. The problem comes in from the debuffs.

On the topic of Grueling Onslaught: I think this ability damage is way too good now that I look at it. 6 con damage translates to -3 hp per HD. Too good. Maybe reduce the damage to just a flat 2 damage (or even 1 damage, really) and let grim focus step that up to 1+1d4 (which may or may not be expended if an opponent makes a save). Tels' theory craft build well illustrates why that becomes problematic.

On the topic of charisma to damage: This could be too good at level 2, but not later on. Later on, it will matter much much less. How about have it start at half charisma (so really just a +2 to damage in most cases) then have it step up to full charisma at level 7 and 1.5 charisma at level 12? Or was I misunderstanding something? Did you want to add charisma damage to every single die?

Indeed, I had no intention of using Conductive to amplify damage, it was mainly to get that extra range on the Arcane Blast. For a melee character, it's to get that extra melee Grueling Blast off.

As it stands, the Grueling Onslaught ability is a *must* have for every Warlock. The fact it deals damage means you can kill or neutralize most enemies in the game pretty easily. Unless the campaign is made of mostly undead, constructs, oozes and elementals, I could easily foresee scenarios where the Warlock is sent in first to use Arcane Detonation + Grueling Onslaught to hit as many people as possible with damage to an ability score before the party even enters the fight. Hell, with some fights, they may just let the Warlock do all of the attacking so as to no expend resources because his Grueling Onslaught will effectively kill most creatures in ~3 rounds or less.

Silver Crusade

Okay, in response to Tel's build (which is telling me some of the language needs to be cleaned up to make thins more clear.

Quote:
Since the Arcane Blast has infinite uses, there is nothing stopping someone from using it each round. This is important and I'll touch upon it later.

About Conductive: Technically I don't think it could be channeled through a melee weapon due to the fact that it's a ranged ability. It does have an ability that lets it work through a melee weapon, but the base ability is ranged, so you could put it in an arrow. The melee ability is already channeling it, and is an alteration, since the base ability is a ranged one.

Quote:
If he has a Haste spell active (or similar effect), he would be able to make 3 attacks each round at BAB 9/9/4; combine Greater Arcane Blast and the Conductive ability and each of his 3 attacks can land an Arcane Blast.

See, I thought the wording of Greater Arcane Strike made it clear, you can't get additional attacks with it. It says as a full round action, and Haste gives an additional attack on a Full Round Attack. I did make sure to make this distinction to disallow Haste and other bonus attacks from things.

Quote:
He's surprisingly durable as a character. Anytime he uses a Hex, he gains +6 fast healing and +6 luck bonus to his AC. Of note is that he can either Cackle each round as a move action (whether it extends a Hex or not) or he can use Scar on himself or others without limit.

Can't use Hex Weaves (what I'm now calling Hex Black Arts) unless the Hex is a standard action, although Scar is a bit of an issue. But if someone's willing to use it once a round every 5-6 rounds (up to 3/4 HP), they deserve it. That kind of effort would be maddening to most people in the same way that guidance provides a permanent +1 to all rolls if you just cast it before you do anything. Maaaaybe I'll limit it, but even then, I'm not that worried.

Quote:
He mainly uses his bow to hit targets with his Arcane Blast from long distance. He, effectively, has a range of 1,100 feet on his Arcane Blast when he uses a bow. So if he were at sea, or something, he could be raining down arrows on enemy ships and stay safely out of their range.

Yeah, at a -10 to attack against full AC. Mages at this level can fireball from about 800 ft away at 10th level with no penalty and no reduction of power, so someone making one attack roll at a distance where perception penalties would be stacking up isn't really a huge concern.

Quote:
As it stands, right now, if the Warlock were to be used as a BBEG for something like an AP (meaning he's CR 20 on average), he'd probably smoke parties. With his ability to escape from nearly any encounter, plus land crippling semi-permanent debuffs, any party that encounters him is going to have a tough time. I mean, Gruesome Onslaught can be used in conjunction with Umbral Explosion to apply a penalty to every person in a 160 ft diameter sphere!

To be fair, a 20th level Wizard made right could do the same thing to a party. But a 'Paizo' quality 20th level Warlock wouldn't be doing anything more. The biggest problem is most people only see 20th level characters standing alone, instead of comparing them to other 20th level characters. A 20th Cleric/Wizard could DESTROY a 20th Warlock if they were played to the same levels of optimization.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I will admit is that this showed me that Gruesome Strike is far too good as it's written. There's two real ideas I have for this, and I'd like to get input on either.

A: No chance of doing Con damage, just remove that part.
B: Halve the ability damage to 1/2 or 1/3 (minimum 2) Charisma bonus
C: A and B

On Excalibur's points

Quote:
On the topic of charisma to damage: This could be too good at level 2, but not later on. Later on, it will matter much much less. How about have it start at half charisma (so really just a +2 to damage in most cases) then have it step up to full charisma at level 7 and 1.5 charisma at level 12? Or was I misunderstanding something? Did you want to add charisma damage to every single die?

It's just Charisma bonus to the first die, nothing more. It's almost the exact same wording as the Bomb ability. And to me average Charisma bonus at 1st level is 3-4, so halving it would be pretty harsh. At that level, an archer is doing 1d8 plus anywhere from 0 to 4 (if Deadly Aim and Point Blank Shot are being used with a +1 Mighty bow), so it's still a step down in damage for greater accuracy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some new things:

Prereqs for some Black Arts

New Black Arts

-ABT Draining Soulchill
-ABT Clinging Shadows
-ABT Shadow Infestation
-ABT Reality Rift
-HW Hex Invincibility

Cleaned up the wording on Arcane Weapon to make it clear it was just a different way to deliver Arcane Blast.

As of now, Gruesome and Psyche Scar are at 1/2 Cha.


Yeah. I don't think cha to damage is overpowered at all then.

Edit: I have also reread the conductive weapon entry and I am pretty sure Tels is right rules as written. The Warlock does indeed have an infinite use ranged spell-like or supernatural ability and that would mean that the warlock can channel that ability through a ranged weapon once a round.

I am certain, however, that this is not rules as intended. You could say that the blast can be only used once per round and then have the later abilities explicitly expand that in a very specific way (such the full-round action only counts for one use of this ability). And the quicksilver strike ability is counted as being part of the same use of any other blast used that round. This is cumbersome but I feel like it could close a lot of hypothetical back doors.

Further edit:
I still feel like 2 to 4 str or dex damage per hit is way to good. Ray of enfeeblement puts up those kinds of numbers and that has a bad save and can't be used at will. And it is also really hard to make that go off multiple times a round. If that hits three times in a round then that is between 6 and 12 ability point damage. Two rounds of failed fortitude saves will always have a chance of taking an enemy out of a fight. I will also note that there is a snowball effect for dex damage as the opponent will have a lower and lower touch AC to avoid the Warlock's blasts.


For gaining Hexes, is every Hex limited to those that have a target of one creature or is it just the first one ?

Would this make selecting the Flight Hex invalid ? (as well as any Hexes that only affect the caster of the Hex)

Silver Crusade

Excaliburproxy wrote:

Yeah. I don't think cha to damage is overpowered at all then.

Edit: I have also reread the conductive weapon entry and I am pretty sure Tels is right rules as written. The Warlock does indeed have an infinite use ranged spell-like or supernatural ability and that would mean that the warlock can channel that ability through a ranged weapon once a round.

I am certain, however, that this is not rules as intended. You could say that the blast can be only used once per round and then have the later abilities explicitly expand that in a very specific way (such the full-round action only counts for one use of this ability). And the quicksilver strike ability is counted as being part of the same use of any other blast used that round. This is cumbersome but I feel like it could close a lot of hypothetical back doors.

For use with ranged weapons, I don't mind it. Not like you could use QS Strike with it since you're not actually making an Arcane Blast. So as long as it doesn't work with melee, I'm fine with it working with ranged. I'd rather not make any "Eidolons can't wear armor*" rulings with this class.

*A ruling made in an attempt for balance, but feels clumsy and without merit.

Quote:

Further edit:

I still feel like 2 to 4 str or dex damage per hit is way to good. Ray of enfeeblement puts up those kinds of numbers and that has a bad save and can't be used at will. And it is also really hard to make that go off multiple times a round. If that hits three times in a round then that is between 6 and 12 ability point damage. Two rounds of failed fortitude saves will always have a chance of taking an enemy out of a fight. I will also note that there is a snowball effect for dex damage as the opponent will have a lower and lower touch AC to avoid the Warlock's blasts.

You're comparing this ability which is intended to scale to a first level spell which has been nerfed in the transition to Pathfinder to the point where it's barely worth using. By the time you're using this 3 times a round, wizards are Mazing targets, trapping target's souls, and creating their own demi plane. Cutting it down to 3 per shot would be 6 before 15th level, and both of those are only on a failed save on a save that most creatures have as a good save. without a reliable way to pump the save, it's not likely always land.


Ok it's nice to see the intention of some of these thing (like Greater Arcane Blast). The wording could be changed some what to reflect that... maybe something like:

Warlock wrote:

Greater Arcane Blast: At 8th level, a Warlock has advanced their talents with the Arcane Blast, learning to wield it more adeptly. As a full round action, they may make a second Arcane Blast but with a -5 penalty on the attack roll.

When used to make a melee attack, the Warlock can channel his Arcane Blast and make 2 attacks as a full round action, but cannot make any additional attacks (from having a high base attack bonus or granted through haste spell or similar effect).

Clarified the language a little, but added the bit about BAB and Haste so it stops any sort of Conductive/Haste shenanigans.

====================================

As for the Hex Rejuvenation ability, as long as the Warlock uses a Hex that costs a Standard action, he gains fast healing. So once combat ends, he can simply use the Scar Hex to get free and unlimited healing. In Combat, Evil Eye and Misfortune will both trigger Hex Rejuvenation.

Either one also activates the Hex Barrier Black Art.

====================================

N. Jolly wrote:
Tels wrote:
He mainly uses his bow to hit targets with his Arcane Blast from long distance. He, effectively, has a range of 1,100 feet on his Arcane Blast when he uses a bow. So if he were at sea, or something, he could be raining down arrows on enemy ships and stay safely out of their range.
Yeah, at a -10 to attack against full AC. Mages at this level can fireball from about 800 ft away at 10th level with no penalty and no reduction of power, so someone making one attack roll at a distance where perception penalties would be stacking up isn't really a huge concern.

I agree, a Wizard could do substantially more damage with his fireballs, but he can't do it all day; and with few exceptions, all he deals is damage. The Warlock, however, could make his an Arcane Detonation and a Gruesome Onslaught that he fires through is Conductive Bow. So from an extreme range, he's damaging and debuffing multiple people.

Also, the Conductive Longbow is just a gimmick and is a method of allowing him to bypass the need for Fell Sniper. I largely threw that in there because I had the picture on my drive and I liked the thought of it :P

N. Jolly wrote:
Tels wrote:
As it stands, right now, if the Warlock were to be used as a BBEG for something like an AP (meaning he's CR 20 on average), he'd probably smoke parties. With his ability to escape from nearly any encounter, plus land crippling semi-permanent debuffs, any party that encounters him is going to have a tough time. I mean, Gruesome Onslaught can be used in conjunction with Umbral Explosion to apply a penalty to every person in a 160 ft diameter sphere!
To be fair, a 20th level Wizard made right could do the same thing to a party. But a 'Paizo' quality 20th level Warlock wouldn't be doing anything more. The biggest problem is most people only see 20th level characters standing alone, instead of comparing them to other 20th level characters. A 20th Cleric/Wizard could DESTROY a 20th Warlock if they were played to the same levels of optimization.

Well, yes, a Wizard can inflict series debuffs on parties, but only one at a time and his debuff is limited. The Warlock can attach his debuffs to his AoE Black Arts to affect multiple people. This means the Warlock has an amazing advantage when it comes to action economy.

As for the Caster vs. Warlock thing, like so much else in Pathfinder, I think it largely comes down to who goes first, though I would bet money on the Cleric or Wizard winning. If the Warlock has room to maneuver and hide, his odds of winning go up significantly wish his guerrilla tactics.

====================================

This would be my proposed fix for Gruesome Onslaught, and a similar fix for Psyche Scar.

Gruesome Onslaught: An Arcane Blast modified by this Black Art is capable of temporarily damage bone and muscle. It applies a penalty equal to the minimum dice result of the Arcane Blast (without the Charisma modifier) to either the victims Strength or Dexterity score (chosen at the time of casting) with a Fortitude save to negate the penalty (DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the Warlocks level + Cha mod). At 8th level, the Warlock can apply this penalty to both Strength and Dexterity, or to the victims Constitution score.

This penalty stacks with itself but can never reduces a victims ability score below 1 and lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Warlocks charisma modifier. Gruesome Onslaught can be used no more than once per round even if the Warlock can manifest multiple Arcane Blasts. Creatures immune to critical hits or ability damage are immune to this effect.


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Hmm... just occurred to me with properly selected Black Arts, one could totally play a DBZ-esque character.

Black Arts
2) Skin of the Vile
4) Arcane Detonation
6) Fell Sniper
8) Shadow Jump
10) Arcane Cannon
12) Umbral Explosion
14) Deceptive Journey

Take Extra Black Art at 11th to get Form of the Forsaken and you'll have a guy who can yell for a round or two (casting Monstrous Physique on himself), can fly and do that really quick teleport, while punching things and firing energy beams out of his hands. Take the Fiendish path for Charisma to AC, and get yourself a monocle of Arcane Sight (and call it a scouter!) then run around screaming, "IT'S OVER 9,000!!!"

Silver Crusade

Shadow_Charlatan wrote:

For gaining Hexes, is every Hex limited to those that have a target of one creature or is it just the first one ?

Would this make selecting the Flight Hex invalid ? (as well as any Hexes that only affect the caster of the Hex)

Sorry, this got lost in the shuffle.

Yeah, only the first hex is restricted to make sure the player can use Hex Fusion, no other hex has that restriction, and now the wording is changed to reflect that.

As for Hex Rejuvenation, I think I'm going to remove it, and give a boost to Hex Burn and Blightburn to make up for it.


Tels wrote:

Hmm... just occurred to me with properly selected Black Arts, one could totally play a DBZ-esque character.

I'm glad I'm not the only person here who pictured a warlock doing a Kamehameha wave in he middle of combat.

I can definitely see a hex-based build being really powerful. Especially with the feat and trait that increase the number of hex-weaves that can be applied to them. Are Hex Weave Genius and Cursed Lineage supposed to stack? I'm curious because the wording of Hex Weave Genius says that it increases the number of hex weaves you can apply to a hex "to six".

Silver Crusade

@Tels

I suppose that could clear up the wording, but it feels very heavy handed. Still, I accept most players see Full Round Action with attacks and think Full Round Attack, so it might be necessary to clear things up further.

Quote:

As for the Hex Rejuvenation ability, as long as the Warlock uses a Hex that costs a Standard action, he gains fast healing. So once combat ends, he can simply use the Scar Hex to get free and unlimited healing. In Combat, Evil Eye and Misfortune will both trigger Hex Rejuvenation.

Either one also activates the Hex Barrier Black Art.

Seems Hex Rejuvenation is too much, so it's gone, replaced by Hex Recovery. But to keep Hexlocks on their feet, Hex (blight)burn has now been upgraded to Hex Vitality Eater/Devourer. Sure you could keep a bag of rats, but you only heal for how much damage you do, and you can't Devour and Dash, since you need to be at least somewhat close to them.

Quote:
I agree, a Wizard could do substantially more damage with his fireballs, but he can't do it all day; and with few exceptions, all he deals is damage. The Warlock, however, could make his an Arcane Detonation and a Gruesome Onslaught that he fires through is Conductive Bow. So from an extreme range, he's damaging and debuffing multiple people.

Pure core you'd be right, but once Dazing/Rime spell gets thrown into the mix, the Wizard's debuffs become area and all encompassing. An Evo focused Wizard also blows a AB focused Warlock out of the water damage wise, but that's obvious. It's less times per day, but it's also ending encounters a lot faster.

Well, yes, a Wizard can inflict series debuffs on parties, but only one at a time and his debuff is limited. The Warlock can attach his debuffs to his AoE Black Arts to affect multiple people. This means the Warlock has an amazing advantage when it comes to action economy.

Again, I'll cite metamagic here since Wizards much like Warlocks have nothing great to burn their feats on. So both can either take additional Black Arts or Metamagic, with Wizards being able to pick up Rods to just laugh. A Wizard who knows how to debuff can outdo a Warlock, but the difference is the floor and ceiling of the class.

A Wizard who dumpster dives and looks through every source book can DESTROY a Warlock in debuffing without much thought. A Wizard who's pretty low on the optimization spectrum probably won't, and will take more diverse yet less effective debuffing.

A Warlock's debuffs are all out in the open, easy to see effects, and need little or any synergy to be made valuable. Obvious effects are more often seen as broken since they don't require as many moving pieces to put together.

Compare a Metamagic Master/Magical Lineage Spell Specialization: Fireball Evocation Wizard with a dip in Crossblooded Sorc (Dragon/Orc), or as it's also known, FLAME GOD, and the Warlock even at its most tweaked starts to shiver and shake. And while we're still talking limited amounts of time on this, that same Wizard can have tons of other spells that do things that a Warlock couldn't even dream of, so why not let the Warlock debuff better than the KING OF MAGIC!

As for the Gruesome/Psyche revisions, I'm still against penalties. The penalties you're suggesting are painfully small (-2 to strength at 4th through 6th level? I really wouldn't use an action on that). I get that it's strong as it is now, but on average until about level 8, Cha will be 20 or less, making it only two damage. Unless they're focusing on Cha to the exclusion of all others, it won't hit 3 damage until about 10 or so, and two hits for 3 will only give a -3 penalty on stats. Sure it hits a lot of people when you Detonate or Explosion it, but most mobs are going to bite the dust on damage, not stick around to see if you damaged their stats.

One thing I will admit is that Con is probably too much, I'll probably remove that, since hitting Con is all kinds of brutal beyond Str/Dex as well as making future saves all the more difficult.

And as for the DBZ aspect, that's completely intended. I like a lot of shonen anime, and feel a lot of classes don't help encompass that flavor. While you could run this as a stern and taciturn caster, feel free to run this class as Son Goku or anyone else like that.

Silver Crusade

Arctic Sphinx wrote:
Tels wrote:

Hmm... just occurred to me with properly selected Black Arts, one could totally play a DBZ-esque character.

I'm glad I'm not the only person here who pictured a warlock doing a Kamehameha wave in he middle of combat.

I can definitely see a hex-based build being really powerful. Especially with the feat and trait that increase the number of hex-weaves that can be applied to them. Are Hex Weave Genius and Cursed Lineage supposed to stack? I'm curious because the wording of Hex Weave Genius says that it increases the number of hex weaves you can apply to a hex "to six".

The intention here was actually for them to stack, which is why Hex Weave Genius changes the actual number from 3 to 6, while Cursed Lineage increases the total number by one, so either 4 or 7, depending on if they have the feat.


Well, for the Gruesome Onslaught/Psyche Scar, you could have a special rider on the ability that allows a Warlock to spend his Grim Focus to double the penalty bonus (up to the Warlocks Charisma Mod). This allows for a more punishing penalty at first, but it's not an 'every time' option. So at 4th level you could land a -4 penalty and at level 18 you could land up to a -14 penalty.

By the way, Psyche Scar also has the same Con damage problem G.O. has; it can target Wisdom and therefore make it easier to land more Psyche Scars.


Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
As for Final Black Art, it's not meant to be a selection of abilities but a final selection on a single power house ability much like all the other core classes have at 20th level. Just reading what you already had gave me quite a few ideas for a Final Black Art. I could come up with a list and send it to you if you'd like because after just reading I already thought up at least 9 of them & personally I only liked 1 Grand Hex ability if only a little. There are some Black Arts that I think should be downgraded from a power house ability and move the best/strongest part of the ability to a Final Black Art but I'll go into detail on some of the abilities later.
N. Jolly wrote:
For me, I figured Forbidden Hex Fusion and Final Hex filled this role well enough. It's also why all the Master Black Arts had quite literally an insane 20th level ability. I'd be willing to hear suggestions though, maybe tone down some of the crazy level 20s, do more of a "at 17th level" in the same way I did 8th level only increases for some of the Initiate abilities.

Honestly I don’t think a Grand Hex should be able to be applied threw Hex Fusion unless they select that as a Final Black Art ability (example – Gain a Grand Hex & the ability to apply it with Hex Fusion). The reason I suggested to tone down the power house abilities at 20th level is because all other classes only gain a single power house ability at 20th level. With all the Master Black Arts that gain a power house ability at 20th level in addition to gaining a Grand Hex, the Warlock effectively gains on average 5+ power house abilities. It makes it way unbalanced as a 20th level character compared to the other classes.

At 20th Level I’d say leave the gaining of a Hex (though normal & major only), and make something for a final ability selection. Something that will let a player pick between a Final Black Art power house ability or a single Grand Hex (Call it something like Final Art). I’ve not seen any feats that allow the selection of a Grand Hex yet but I’ll look in the books later to see if there is. That way the Warlock only gains a single power house ability like the other classes. The reason I was suggesting a list for a Final Black Art ability is because players would like the 20th level power house abilities of the Master Black Arts but this would make them choose the one they want the most & limit the Warlock to a single power house ability.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
On Arcane Blast, it needs to be cleared up on what the threat range is of the attack. For example – “x2” means a natural roll of 20 on a d20 and damage is multiplied by 2. In this case at 15th level it would be 1d6+Cha modifier x2 +4d6 damage on a successful critical hit. I think it should be a move action to infuse a weapon with Arcane Blast since they would have to focus the energy around the weapon. Also, when you infuse a weapon with Arcane Blast, does it add the Charisma modifier to damage also or just the d6 die damage?
N. Jolly wrote:
Actually my wording is very similar to the wording of the Bomb ability of the Alchemist. Did have to make sure there's a section to disallow Vital Strike, which is important. Put a section to clarify it's only a crit on a nat 20 too. And yeah, a crit at any level would be 1d6+Cha Mod x2, just like a bomb. And as of now for the melee version it says it does your Arcane Blast Damage, which is Xd6 + Cha mod, so I see no reason why you wouldn't still get Cha mod, although I haven't had a melee DestructLock yet, so that's something that need to be watched out for.

I read up on the Alchemist Bomb ability since I honestly didn’t care for the class before but I wanted to see where you were coming from & it doesn’t allow a critical hit. It’s not a precision based attack but an area based attack so a critical hit is not possible. To make up for that it allows the opponents in the area to make a Reflex save for half damage as if it was an area based spell attack.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
On Greater Arcane Blast, making it to where the Warlock can infuse a weapon along with every attack is a bit much. You could make it to where they can infuse 1 attack per round as a free action with Arcane Blast though & have Ultimate Arcane Blast allow them to infuse the weapon as a free action 2 times per round. As an added benefit to gaining Final Black Art, you could either make the fusion to a weapon 3 times per round or make another added ability like Master Arcane Blast where the user not only can fuse the blast into a weapon 3 times per round but can also cause a chain reaction to damage 1 opponent on a successful hit within 30ft of the opponent you hit once per round dealing half damage (the secondary target gets a reflex save to avoid).
N. Jolly wrote:
This is the first point you've made that I've been generally conflicted about. I can see the danger in giving too much damage potential even with the risk of melee. I'd be willing to work on some way of altering this to be more in line with normal powers.

The reason for this idea is because the Arcane Blast already gives them the ability to attack multiple times per round without any Attack of Opportunity against them even if they use it as a ranged ability since it is a supernatural ability instead of a spell-like ability. So giving them the added ability to not only add their Arcane Blast damage but also melee weapon damage (with possible Str modifier) would just basically be like attacking twice per hit, just one would deal more damage than another. Even a Fighter or Monk would have to attack with both a main weapon and an off-hand weapon to either match or surpass the hits per round that a Warlock would have with 3 single main weapon attacks. Also, unless the weapon has the conductive magical property, I don’t think that infusing a weapon with Arcane Blast should be a free action. I think it should be a move action or standard action to infuse a weapon since the Warlock would have to make their Arcane Blast energy go around the chosen weapon.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
On (AB) Smoldering Witchfire, you need to clarify if it is fire element damage or non-elemental damage. Otherwise DM’s & players will argue over it depending on which element would benefit them the most.
N. Jolly wrote:
I feel like this is a little nit picky, but a finished product shouldn't have nits, so changed to clarify non elemental.

Honestly I am being nitpicky & I know it’s annoying as hell but I’ve had 2 very annoying DM’s be that way so I don’t want the same thing to cause trouble for my favorite class of all time even though I only ever played it once in D&D 3.5 edition. Also, I’m trying to proof read it to make sure there are not any unnecessary wording or that it is clear in what the abilities can do. I found a few grammar mistakes but saying all those really would be extremely nitpicky.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
On Eldritch Nightmare, I think the 10th level ability should be 14-16th level instead. That’s a huge jump for a 10th level ability to ignore immunity to fear.
N. Jolly wrote:
I agree under the effect that it's powerful, but without jumping that early, from about 9-14/16 it becomes a dead tactic due to how many things become immune to fear/mind affecting effects. I'd rather not have a valley where they can't use a tactic like that.

Yeah, the whole reason I wanted to revise it to be a 14th-16th level ability is because that’s around the time most creatures really start having immunity to fear effects all the time.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
(ABS) Umbral Explosion, I think you should limit this to be like (ABS) Arcane Detonation & make Arcane Detonation a requirement to select this ability (like some rogue talents require previous talents before you can select them). It shouldn’t be allowed with a melee attack since its already a wide area attack.
N. Jolly wrote:
Well since you're familiar with the old Warlock, you know that's the spiritual successor to "Eldritch Doom", which, I'd rather keep from being a large burst around the user. I'll agree keeping it out of melee's hands would be nice, I mainly only put it there because melee wasn't getting a lot of Master ABS, but it's not a huge issue.

Eldritch Doom was one of my all time favorite invocations from the original Warlock in 3.5 edition. My group at the time played Gestalt characters (Unearthed Arcana; pg: 72) and we got up to 24th level before finishing it. Eldritch Doom came in extremely handy when we were surrounded by enemies and the last adventure was supposed to be a TPK but with Eldritch Doom and the Path of Shadows invocation, it allowed for a massive group attack with hit and run tactics for the entire party to survive.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
(AB) Soul Cleaver should be limited to a max of 2 levels per hit at 20th level. 4 is a bit extreme unless it’s picked for a Final Black Art. Also, regular hits should only be temporary & last a number of rounds equal to ½ the Warlock level + Cha modifier. Critical hits could be permanent instead of doubling the negative levels.
N. Jolly wrote:
The duration for those neg levels is pretty low, although 4 was a bit brutal. It's probably not going to matter a lot, but the duration of even spells is an hour per caster level, so they're basically permanent in regards to most opponents anyways.

It’s not low when you take into consideration that at 15th level and on you get 3 attacks per round. That’s 3 negative levels in a single round & at ½ Warlock level +Cha mod with a 15th level Warlock that would last for 7+Cha mod rounds. Even if the Charisma modifier was 0 that would still be a total of 21 negative levels before any of them start to wear off. That’s enough to kill most creatures not immune to negative energy effects. With 2 negative levels that would be 42 negative levels at the same rate listed above. But with the way you have it now (even after the update since I last read it) at 15th level that’s 15 minutes times 10 rounds per minute times 3 attacks per round for a total of 450 negative levels before any wear off. That’s not including any critical hits & starting at 16th level that would be a total of 960 negative levels before any start to wear off. So for a long drawn out battle that is a massive amount of negative levels.

Even Sorcerer’s who specialize in Necromancy (only from the Core Rulebook) don’t have anywhere near that high of potential when causing negative levels. At 16th level the best they can hope for at maximum is a total of 24 negative levels on a single opponent after six spells (1d4 per spell). At 20th level it increases to a maximum of 72 negative levels (1d4 x6 spells & 2d4 x6 spells for a total of 12 spells) if the opponent fails all saves and they roll the maximum amount on the dice. That’s why I think it should be limited to rounds and not minutes/hours/days like other spell casters that are limited to how many times they can cast spells per day.

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
In Body of the Void, you need to clarify how fast the Warlock can switch his mind from his body to his clone. As for the distance, I think it should double each time. Also, the clones shouldn’t become the real Warlock if he puts his mind in their body. That should be an ability saved for a Final Black Art.
N. Jolly wrote:
Consider the real bodies made shadow still, to keep HP from increasing too much.

Again, need to list how fast a Warlock can switch their mind to the body of the clone. If I was the DM with the way the wording is now I’d say a standard action to limit the clone only to a short scouting role or to use it as a short distance distraction make it a move action to transfer the mind into the clone. Note that this is all based off the 60ft limitation.

N. Jolly wrote:
This was a lot to plow through, but I can understand where you're coming from on a lot of it. I appreciate the thorough look over, and I'd appreciate any input you had for the class.

I’ll get to working on a list for a character to pick from for their Final Black Art. It’ll basically just be a power house ability of a lot of the Master Black Arts. I’ll also try to devise a primordial & shadow path choice to add to the Warlock Paths unless you don’t want any more added to paths.


N. Jolly wrote:
About Conductive: Technically I don't think it could be channeled through a melee weapon due to the fact that it's a ranged ability. It does have an ability that lets it work through a melee weapon, but the base ability is ranged, so you could put it in an arrow. The melee ability is already channeling it, and is an alteration, since the base ability is a ranged one.

The loop hole here about Arcane Blast is that it already instantly grants the Conductive ability for melee weapons at even 1st level. So it's really pointless to have a melee weapon with the Conductive magical property unless Arcane Blast is changed to where it can "only infuse a melee weapon (that has the Conductive magical property) as a free/instant action. Any other melee weapon would take a move or standard action (full round if you'd want it for all melee attacks the next round)". The last bit is for when they have multiple attacks.

So in the reguard that Arcane Blast is not normally usable with melee conductive weapons, I agree that it's not possible but you're already granted that ability at first level so I don't see why it would even be an issue with melee conductive weapons that limit it to once per round.


Also, you might want to reconsider the name of Arcane Blast. There's already a feat with that name in Advanced Players Guide, pg: 150.

A good website I've found that tries to keep up to date with pathfinder information is here http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ incase you want to check out names in the search box at the top left.

Silver Crusade

Tels wrote:

Well, for the Gruesome Onslaught/Psyche Scar, you could have a special rider on the ability that allows a Warlock to spend his Grim Focus to double the penalty bonus (up to the Warlocks Charisma Mod). This allows for a more punishing penalty at first, but it's not an 'every time' option. So at 4th level you could land a -4 penalty and at level 18 you could land up to a -14 penalty.

By the way, Psyche Scar also has the same Con damage problem G.O. has; it can target Wisdom and therefore make it easier to land more Psyche Scars.

I believe I've found a compromise by using the wording and effect of Madness Bomb from the Alchemist, reducing the ability damage each time it's used. I'm setting a minimum of 2 damage while the ability in questions had a minimum of 1, but it's because I always want it to be able to do at least a -1 to the affected ability score. I think this is a fair way of limiting it so it's not too spammable.

@Cor Eli Lalis
I appreciate what you've touched on, I might reduce some more scaling of Master Black Arts, and I'll touch more on what you've mentioned when I have a bit more time.


N. Jolly wrote:
Tels wrote:

Well, for the Gruesome Onslaught/Psyche Scar, you could have a special rider on the ability that allows a Warlock to spend his Grim Focus to double the penalty bonus (up to the Warlocks Charisma Mod). This allows for a more punishing penalty at first, but it's not an 'every time' option. So at 4th level you could land a -4 penalty and at level 18 you could land up to a -14 penalty.

By the way, Psyche Scar also has the same Con damage problem G.O. has; it can target Wisdom and therefore make it easier to land more Psyche Scars.

I believe I've found a compromise by using the wording and effect of Madness Bomb from the Alchemist, reducing the ability damage each time it's used. I'm setting a minimum of 2 damage while the ability in questions had a minimum of 1, but it's because I always want it to be able to do at least a -1 to the affected ability score. I think this is a fair way of limiting it so it's not too spammable.

@Cor Eli Lalis
I appreciate what you've touched on, I might reduce some more scaling of Master Black Arts, and I'll touch more on what you've mentioned when I have a bit more time.

So when you use the new ability and deal say... 4 points of strength damage, if you hit the same target again, does the damage get reduced to 3 points, or does the additional damage dealt get reduced down to 3?

For example, you hit them on round 1 and deal 4 points of strength damage.
Round 2 you hit them again, and the damage they already have is reduced to 3 points instead of increasing.

Or in round two you hit them again, and instead of dealing an additional 4 points of damage (for a total of 8 points) you instead deal 3 points of damage (for a total of 7). On a third round, if you hit them a third time, the additional damage is reduced by 2, to a minimum of 2 (making it 9 total points of damage).

Just wanting some clarification cause the wording is a little iffy.

Silver Crusade

Quote:
Or in round two you hit them again, and instead of dealing an additional 4 points of damage (for a total of 8 points) you instead deal 3 points of damage (for a total of 7). On a third round, if you hit them a third time, the additional damage is reduced by 2, to a minimum of 2 (making it 9 total points of damage).

The second, although since the damage is pretty high, I might have it degrade fast, instead reducing it by 2 per additional shot, to a minimum of 2.

Silver Crusade

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:

Honestly I don’t think a Grand Hex should be able to be applied threw Hex Fusion unless they select that as a Final Black Art ability (example – Gain a Grand Hex & the ability to apply it with Hex Fusion). The reason I suggested to tone down the power house abilities at 20th level is because all other classes only gain a single power house ability at 20th level. With all the Master Black Arts that gain a power house ability at 20th level in addition to gaining a Grand Hex, the Warlock effectively gains on average 5+ power house abilities. It makes it way unbalanced as a 20th level character compared to the other classes.

At 20th Level I’d say leave the gaining of a Hex (though normal & major only), and make something for a final ability selection. Something that will let a player pick between a Final Black Art power house ability or a single Grand Hex (Call it something like Final Art). I’ve not seen any feats that allow the selection of a Grand Hex yet but I’ll look in the books later to see if there is. That way the Warlock only gains a single power house ability like the other classes. The reason I was suggesting a list for a Final Black Art ability is because players would like the 20th level power house abilities of the Master Black Arts but this would make them choose the one they want the most & limit the Warlock to a single power house ability.

I could see that, maybe making Grand Hex a Final Art. Not sure how many Final Arts I could think of myself. I will admit I didn't give a lot of thought to level 20 balance, although that's probably the point I have to care about balancing the least.

I suppose I'll have to put some thought into Final Arts and such.

Quote:
I read up on the Alchemist Bomb ability since I honestly didn’t care for the class before but I wanted to see where you were coming from & it doesn’t allow a critical hit. It’s not a precision based attack but an area based attack so a critical hit is not possible. To make up for that it allows the opponents in the area to make a Reflex save for half damage as if it was an area based spell attack.

It actually can crit. Just about any weapon can crit on a 20, but it's just the base damage + static modifiers.

Quote:
The reason for this idea is because the Arcane Blast already gives them the ability to attack multiple times per round without any Attack of Opportunity against them even if they use it as a ranged ability since it is a supernatural ability instead of a spell-like ability. So giving them the added ability to not only add their Arcane Blast damage but also melee weapon damage (with possible Str modifier) would just basically be like attacking twice per hit, just one would deal more damage than another. Even a Fighter or Monk would have to attack with both a main weapon and an off-hand weapon to either match or surpass the hits per round that a Warlock would have with 3 single main weapon attacks. Also, unless the weapon has the conductive magical property, I don’t think that infusing a weapon with Arcane Blast should be a free action. I think it should be a move action or standard action to infuse a weapon since the Warlock would have to make their Arcane Blast energy go around the chosen weapon.

I can see the issue here. Originally the balancing factor was a lack of accuracy (the class gave no bonuses to hit), but with Skin of the Vile and such, that's no longer the case. What I might do is have the damage be halved if channeled through a weapon, which would only make it a hit and a half. That to me would be far more manageable, and give the player more of a chance to play a melock. I want this playtested before I make any hard decisions, but I'm going to go half damage for now to see how that works.

Quote:
Honestly I am being nitpicky & I know it’s annoying as hell but I’ve had 2 very annoying DM’s be that way so I don’t want the same thing to cause trouble for my favorite class of all time even though I only ever played it once in D&D 3.5 edition. Also, I’m trying to proof read it to make sure there are not any unnecessary wording or that it is clear in what the abilities can do. I found a few grammar mistakes but saying all those really would be extremely nitpicky.

Yeah, I can understand that. And as for grammar issues, the rules themselves have those, they're a result of how things are worded, which is just goofy.

Quote:
Yeah, the whole reason I wanted to revise it to be a 14th-16th level ability is because that’s around the time most creatures really start having immunity to fear effects all the time.

I'm going to keep it lower thanks to the lack of penalty increasing, since it's a nice boon for early intimidation. Not a great reason, I'll accept, but a lot of low level characters love intimidating at my table, which colors my opinions on things like this.

Quote:
Eldritch Doom was one of my all time favorite invocations from the original Warlock in 3.5 edition. My group at the time played Gestalt characters (Unearthed Arcana; pg: 72) and we got up to 24th level before finishing it. Eldritch Doom came in extremely handy when we were surrounded by enemies and the last adventure was supposed to be a TPK but with Eldritch Doom and the Path of Shadows invocation, it allowed for a massive group attack with hit and run tactics for the entire party to survive.

That's been done now, got some prereqs on things. And no melee version now.

Quote:

It’s not low when you take into consideration that at 15th level and on you get 3 attacks per round. That’s 3 negative levels in a single round & at ½ Warlock level +Cha mod with a 15th level Warlock that would last for 7+Cha mod rounds. Even if the Charisma modifier was 0 that would still be a total of 21 negative levels before any of them start to wear off. That’s enough to kill most creatures not immune to negative energy effects. With 2 negative levels that would be 42 negative levels at the same rate listed above. But with the way you have it now (even after the update since I last read it) at 15th level that’s 15 minutes times 10 rounds per minute times 3 attacks per round for a total of 450 negative levels before any wear off. That’s not including any critical hits & starting at 16th level that would be a total of 960 negative levels before any start to wear off. So for a long drawn out battle that is a massive amount of negative levels.

Even Sorcerer’s who specialize in Necromancy (only from the Core Rulebook) don’t have anywhere near that high of potential when causing negative levels. At 16th level the best they can hope for at maximum is a total of 24 negative levels on a single opponent after six spells (1d4 per spell). At 20th level it increases to a maximum of 72 negative levels (1d4 x6 spells & 2d4 x6 spells for a total of 12 spells) if the opponent fails all saves and they roll the maximum amount on the dice. That’s why I think it should be limited to rounds and not minutes/hours/days like other spell casters that are limited to how many times they can cast spells per day.

Yeah, the thing is most fights last 2-5 rounds, and we've got a party to work with. As Tels said, a hit and run specialist could do what you'e saying, but most parties don't allow for that style of play. So they'll probably be getting like 6-10 at most, and each of them is only doing solid debuffs. Besides, one spell negates this entire power, and once you get a reputation for destroying souls, people are going to Death Ward.

Quote:
Again, need to list how fast a Warlock can switch their mind to the body of the clone. If I was the DM with the way the wording is now I’d say a standard action to limit the clone only to a short scouting role or to use it as a short distance distraction make it a move action to transfer the mind into the clone. Note that this is all based off the 60ft limitation.

Hm, forgot that. Yeah, making it a move action, seems the right kind of action to do.

Quote:
I’ll get to working on a list for a character to pick from for their Final Black Art. It’ll basically just be a power house ability of a lot of the Master Black Arts. I’ll also try to devise a primordial & shadow path choice to add to the Warlock Paths unless you don’t want any more added to paths.

For for it man, those paths were just made because they fit the 'style' of each playstyle, I'd love to see your ideas for different ones.

Quote:

Also, you might want to reconsider the name of Arcane Blast. There's already a feat with that name in Advanced Players Guide, pg: 150.

A good website I've found that tries to keep up to date with pathfinder information is here http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ incase you want to check out names in the search box at the top left.

Yeah, I know about PFSRD. And PF uses the same name for things all the time, so I don't mind having this ability be known as the same thing as a feat that sees so little play that I wouldn't know about it.


Tagging for later comment.

MA


master arminas wrote:

Tagging for later comment.

MA

Was wondering when you'd show up here :P

Silver Crusade

master arminas wrote:

Tagging for later comment.

MA

Oh, you're the person who did the previous Warlock conversion. Looking forward to seeing what you have to say. Glad to see your and my versions of this class are so different, so it leaves more variety and design space to explore for either of us.

Melee channeled Arcane Blast now does minimum damage (if it was 1d6+4, it'd do 5 damage instead), since just adding Cha to damage is crazy enough, and the real beauty of it is adding ABTs. It makes damage increasing not as viable for melocks, but that opens up other paths for them. Wondering if I should try to cap the damage more for that as possibly getting +5 damage at first level is still pretty steep.


N. Jolly wrote:
master arminas wrote:

Tagging for later comment.

MA

Oh, you're the person who did the previous Warlock conversion. Looking forward to seeing what you have to say.

Melee channeled Arcane Blast now does minimum damage (if it was 1d6+4, it'd do 5 damage instead), since just adding Cha to damage is crazy enough, and the real beauty of it is adding ABTs. It makes damage increasing not as viable for melocks, but that opens up other paths for them. Wondering if I should try to cap the damage more for that as possibly getting +5 damage at first level is still pretty steep.

Well, the Warlock can't use Power Attack at first level, and he's restricted to use of a light weapon (meaning 2-handing it gives no additional strength damage).

So, even if he somehow had a 20 strength and 20 charisma at first level (unlikely) he'd deal ~1d6+5 (str)+6 (AB) which is basically what most 2-hand 1st level characters deal anyway. More realistically, he's getting a +3 - +5 damage bonus and his Strength is giving +3 - +4 or less if he's going the Dervish Dance route.

When it comes down to it, AB is giving the Warlock the ability to *not* rely on Power Attack and 2-hand damage like everyone else does, meaning he can take more interesting feats instead.


Hmm... I don't think this is intentional, but as written, the Warlock can't take Major or Grand Hexes. Probably just an oversight, but thought you should know.

On Hexes, does the Warlock use Charisma for all things where the Witch would use Intelligence? For example, the Retribution Major Hex lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Witch's Int mod; would the Warlock use his Int mod or his Cha mod for this ability?


Tels wrote:

Hmm... I don't think this is intentional, but as written, the Warlock can't take Major or Grand Hexes. Probably just an oversight, but thought you should know.

On Hexes, does the Warlock use Charisma for all things where the Witch would use Intelligence? For example, the Retribution Major Hex lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Witch's Int mod; would the Warlock use his Int mod or his Cha mod for this ability?

Going to help N. Jolly out here and say that it does say the Warlock can select Major Hex's. The 12th level ability Advanced Hex's states that though I guess the wording isn't fully clear & it's presumed.

As for the saves, it states in the Hex ability description "The save for this ability (and any other hexes) is 10 + ½ the Warlock’s class level + the Warlock’s Charisma modifier (minimum +1).". So I would presume that it uses the Warlock Charisma modifier instead of Intelligence modifier for abilities in Hex's also.

I don't know what N. Jolly's plans are fully for the Grand Hex just yet so you'll have to wait for him on that one. So far in the file it allows 1 Grand Hex instantly at 20th level but depending on what N. Jolly decides it could turn into one of many final options to pick from for a final art.


Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
Tels wrote:

Hmm... I don't think this is intentional, but as written, the Warlock can't take Major or Grand Hexes. Probably just an oversight, but thought you should know.

On Hexes, does the Warlock use Charisma for all things where the Witch would use Intelligence? For example, the Retribution Major Hex lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Witch's Int mod; would the Warlock use his Int mod or his Cha mod for this ability?

Going to help N. Jolly out here and say that it does say the Warlock can select Major Hex's. The 12th level ability Advanced Hex's states that though I guess the wording isn't fully clear & it's presumed.

As for the saves, it states in the Hex ability description "The save for this ability (and any other hexes) is 10 + ½ the Warlock’s class level + the Warlock’s Charisma modifier (minimum +1).". So I would presume that it uses the Warlock Charisma modifier instead of Intelligence modifier for abilities in Hex's also.

I don't know what N. Jolly's plans are fully for the Grand Hex just yet so you'll have to wait for him on that one. So far in the file it allows 1 Grand Hex instantly at 20th level but depending on what N. Jolly decides it could turn into one of many final options to pick from for a final art.

Ah! Yep it does say that. I think my eyes skipped over it because it was just a 1-liner.

I know the Warlock uses Charisma for saves, but the problem is when it comes to this FAQ on Oracles and Wisdom spell.

So a Warlock would use his Int mod for any misc. ability in a Hex that calls out for it (like the Retribution hex). The Scarred Witch Doctor archetype, which uses Constitution instead of Intelligence, explicitly calls out using Con for "any effects of her hexes normally determined by her Intelligence."

Silver Crusade

Cor Eli Lalis wrote:
Tels wrote:

Hmm... I don't think this is intentional, but as written, the Warlock can't take Major or Grand Hexes. Probably just an oversight, but thought you should know.

On Hexes, does the Warlock use Charisma for all things where the Witch would use Intelligence? For example, the Retribution Major Hex lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Witch's Int mod; would the Warlock use his Int mod or his Cha mod for this ability?

Going to help N. Jolly out here and say that it does say the Warlock can select Major Hex's. The 12th level ability Advanced Hex's states that though I guess the wording isn't fully clear & it's presumed.

As for the saves, it states in the Hex ability description "The save for this ability (and any other hexes) is 10 + ½ the Warlock’s class level + the Warlock’s Charisma modifier (minimum +1).". So I would presume that it uses the Warlock Charisma modifier instead of Intelligence modifier for abilities in Hex's also.

I don't know what N. Jolly's plans are fully for the Grand Hex just yet so you'll have to wait for him on that one. So far in the file it allows 1 Grand Hex instantly at 20th level but depending on what N. Jolly decides it could turn into one of many final options to pick from for a final art.

I'd argue the wording, but now I've changed it to be crystal clear.

And yeah, the intention is to use Cha for any point where Int would be used.

Honestly I could see removing the Grand Hex, since it isn't too important for me. It just seems thematic, but again, I'd be open to making it an option instead of a default.

Moved back to full damage for melee AB, going to test that out, see how it works out.

Silver Crusade

Tels wrote:

Ah! Yep it does say that. I think my eyes skipped over it because it was just a 1-liner.

I know the Warlock uses Charisma for saves, but the problem is when it comes to this FAQ on Oracles and Wisdom spell.

So a Warlock would use his Int mod for any misc. ability in a Hex that calls out for it (like the Retribution hex). The Scarred Witch Doctor archetype, which uses Constitution instead of Intelligence, explicitly calls out using Con for "any effects of her hexes normally determined by her Intelligence."

And took the wording for Scared Witch Doctor to make things clear. I guess that was pretty important to clear up, although working with a google doc is so annoying for spacing and such, which ruins the nice formatting I have with only a few extra words.

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