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Continuing the game from my Avenger playtest my group decided to play through another module, this time as seventh level characters. Since this was the first game I got to play with the round 2 stuff, I decided to test a different kind of character, and I was interested in the Warlock.
Very first thing I noticed when making the character, there are not a lot of good options that you can take early. In fact, your first and third level talent choices are going to be Social Grace and Renown, you only get to decide in what order you take them, which is super disappointing. I was lucky enough to start at 7th level so Quick change was possible, but I felt like it was so necessary for the build that I could not possibly imagine the class functioning before that. There really needs to be more options available at lower levels so characters that aren't intimidate based have something to do.
We decided to play through Realm of the Fellnight Queen, which has a lot of naturey stuff in it. I purposely didn't read through it before hand as to not metagame, and I was punished for it.
As for my talents, very early in I realized that this class severely lacks in class features where others do not. I was playing along side a bard who could do a lot more useful things than I could. He had not only more spells, but had more in combat options, could wear armor, and still had bardic performance to buff himself and the party. I felt gipped when I made my character because even spending the one talent I had to on Arcane Training II, I still was a seventh level character who couldn't cast 3rd level spells, and I wasn't martial based like a paladin or ranger. It felt awful. On top of that, my other two talents were Mystic Bolt (which I decided to build around) and Arcane Striker (which is needed to improve Mystic Bolt so that it is playable.) This is where I got upset because I felt like I had to waste not one, but two talents to get my class features to work properly, which they still could not at this level. I really wanted to take Caster's Defense, but I had no more talents to take. So I was stuck either dealing with ASF or forced to prepare Mage Armor as one of my very few spells for the day. I was not happy about this. Alternatively I could have forsaken one of my other talents for it, but giving up Arcane Striker meant the damage from Mystic Bolt would be terrible, and giving up Arcane Training II would mean Caster's Defense would be worthless because I wouldn't have any spellcasting to enhance with it. Very frustrating, and half way through building the character I almost gave up in order to play something else.
So my spellcasting was about equal to a paladin/ranger but my combat prowess was worse than that. I felt like the worst of both worlds.
I invested all of my feats into Mystic Bolts. TWF, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus, Point Blank, and Precise Shot were all there to make sure I could hit.
When it came to actual game play the dual identities both worked and didn't work. While in the social settings, it worked very well, my character was able to mingle, and gain information. When monsters attack and the crowd runs away it's super easy to role ply myself running away scared and hiding behind a building to change personas. Once we're not in that setting anymore, it broke immersion quite a bit and caused some minor metagaming on the players parts. Expected, but not unbearable though. A big thing was that I really want some sort of class bonus to stealth to aid in sneaking away to change personas. Stealth is a skill tax that you basically need to have maxed as is Disguise which essentially turns this into a 4 skills/level class. Part of dual identity oughta include bonuses to both of these checks, not just in one form or the other because you need to be able to sneak away to change both.
As far as the class goes. It sucked, plain and simple. I constantly wished I was playing something else. I did like no damage, with a d6+2, and I had to waste spells on things like Mage Armor meaning I had even less options. I only had one second level spell slot (two counting my bonus spell) which also felt cheap. It was difficult for me to hit things, but that is anecdotal because what we were fighting had high touch AC and I was rolling like crap, so there shouldn't be too many worries about improving accuracy. Damage however was awful. Since this class doesn't get enough spells to be a primary caster, I was relying on those Mystic bolts to get my damage on. And they did not help much at all. My damage was so miniscule compared to other characters of my level that I was really confused as to what role my character was supposed to have in combat. With not enough spells to offer party support or offense, and such weak damage output, the class felt like a waste of space compared to the rest of the players. I really wish the Mystic Bolt hadn't had its damage nerfed and could keep up with the rest of the classes. Even if instead of adding level to damage it added like INT or something, so that it could grow over time with character investment. Mystic Bolts are really cool, but they feel like a trap option as is, but building with weapon combat would make me want to just play a bard or magus instead. Especially since the class has no means of improving its accuracy. I also really think a lot of options need to not only be available sooner, but they need to scale sooner because Arcane Striker doesn't allow special weapon abilities until 12th level which is way too late.
RP wise the character was awesome. I loved playing it as a super intelligent philosopher who becomes a red mage fire bolt blaster.
Sidebar: Since this was after my avenger playtest, I decided to have another player throw in a Brawler just to see how it compared to the avenger I played last week. No contest by and far superior in almost every way except skills. Higher damage, higher to hit, higher HP, and the ability to bypass DR. It really made the avenger look like a joke class.