Tome of Secrets warlock

[Brooks]

In an upcoming campaign I have a player who is interested in the warlock base class from Adamant's Tome of Secrets. I've glanced over it, but was hoping to get opinions from anyone who has actually run one of these warlocks or seen one run. Would you consider it over/under-powered, easy/difficult to play, fun to have around, or whatever?

Thanks in advance.

[gigglestick]

Brooks wrote:

In an upcoming campaign I have a player who is interested in the warlock base class from Adamant's Tome of Secrets. I've glanced over it, but was hoping to get opinions from anyone who has actually run one of these warlocks or seen one run. Would you consider it over/under-powered, easy/difficult to play, fun to have around, or whatever?

Thanks in advance.

As written, the Warlock is broken because he has access to take what would normally be limited use abilites and unlimited use abilities.

If you plan to use the Warlock, you need to go through each school of wizardry and errata some of the abilities so that they don't break the game.

Do a search for the Tome of Secrets )or TOS) warlock and read some of the threads there. And adding Ultimate MAgic might really unbalance things, I haven't tried that one yet.

But as written, warlock is broken.

[nighttree]

Not sure I agree with that.
Granted the class as written is a bit rough and need's some polish....however, having at will use to school abilities is easily offset by the lack of spell casting.

Now that there are many more options for school abilities (compared to those available when Tomb of Secrets came out) some may need to be assesed individually....but it's not "broken" as a whole.

[gigglestick]

I think that as a concept, the class is OK, but yuou just need to look at a few of the abilities and house rule them, especially in combination.

[Cheapy]

I think in general they are too weak to really worry about over poweredness.

From what I remember, they will be doing 1d6+mInt at level 20 with a lot of their powers.

Interesting idea, I think it's too weak.

[Brian Gonzalez]

I don't recall seeing anything saying that taking a school power with a limited number of uses per day or with a duration was changed for warlocks. For example, if a warlock takes Protective Ward from the Abjuration school, he is still limited to 3 + Cha times per day. Now if I'm wrong, please correct me. Would be swell. :)

[nighttree]

Brian Gonzalez wrote:

I don't recall seeing anything saying that taking a school power with a limited number of uses per day or with a duration was changed for warlocks. For example, if a warlock takes Protective Ward from the Abjuration school, he is still limited to 3 + Cha times per day. Now if I'm wrong, please correct me. Would be swell. :)

School Ability: The warlock does not cast spells.

Instead, he is infused with supernatural energy that
allows him to perform magical powers at will. At 1st
level, the warlock may select two school abilities;
he also gains new school abilities at higher levels
(see the warlock table).

[Brian Gonzalez]

Yes, it does say that. But even the Warlock has listed abilities which are limited. The Abjuration school power "Break Enchantment", for instance, can still only be used "on a single person or object once per day."

[Cheapy]

Well, there's no limit on the number of times per day for the break enchantment ability. Just use it on different objects or people.

And holy thread necromancy batman.

[Blackerose]

nighttree wrote:

Brian Gonzalez wrote:

I don't recall seeing anything saying that taking a school power with a limited number of uses per day or with a duration was changed for warlocks. For example, if a warlock takes Protective Ward from the Abjuration school, he is still limited to 3 + Cha times per day. Now if I'm wrong, please correct me. Would be swell. :)

School Ability: The warlock does not cast spells.

Instead, he is infused with supernatural energy that
allows him to perform magical powers at will. At 1st
level, the warlock may select two school abilities;
he also gains new school abilities at higher levels
(see the warlock table).

That can be read literately, as use the powers at will, whenever, or more broadly, as in without study or prep. I tend to agree that they are a little on the weak side...few of those abilities are huge effects because they are supposed icing on the spell-cake, not the cake itself

[Brian Gonzalez]

If school abilities taken from the Wizard's Arcane schools are still limited to normal times per day or rounds per day, then I can see how they might be on the weak side. However, if ALL school abilities become At will and unlimited (for the most part,) then honestly the class becomes an honest contender. Dominate Monster with Equal or lower hit dice at will? Yes please!

[Benly]

This class has a few levels at which it's very strong and many, many levels at which it's incredibly weak. The Summon Monster ability is probably the most obvious candidate - at level 4-5 you're very strong, with a massive army of hellhounds which become chaff a few levels later. Then at level 20 you suddenly become ridiculous again with a hundred astral devas.

If wizard abilities are also at-will, it doesn't fix the balance problem but adds more "strong" levels and buffers the weak levels with more useful abilities. At-will energy walls and at-will reliable teleportation are enough on their own to keep you relevant through the mid levels.

[Cheapy]

Bipolarly balanced classes from the tome of secrets? Never ;)

[Benly]

Actually, now that I think of it I feel like the Summon Monster ability should have inherent scaling that gives you the Summon Monster list of one spell level lower than what an actual spellcaster could have, and then a limit on how many can be active at once. That way you're never stuck with something completely irrelevant (like Summon Monster II at level 12) but you can't flood the field and the summons aren't enough to carry the class on their own.