I'm looking for any PF2 conversion of the D&D 5E warlock

[Moppy]

I looked at the 5E warlock and I'm not sure how to balance it for PF2, or if it's even possible.

[Saedar]

Moppy wrote:

I looked at the 5E warlock and I'm not sure how to balance it for PF2, or if it's even possible.

A quick-and-dirty jumping off point for balance is looking at what existing classes you are trying to balance against.

So, of the existing classes, which most compare to the niche you are wanting the warlock to fill?

[Moppy]

Saedar wrote:

Moppy wrote:

I looked at the 5E warlock and I'm not sure how to balance it for PF2, or if it's even possible.

A quick-and-dirty jumping off point for balance is looking at what existing classes you are trying to balance against.

So, of the existing classes, which most compare to the niche you are wanting the warlock to fill?

In 5E the standard build is a single target ranged magical striker with some limited utility spells; it achieves this by having a broken spammable cantrip.

Conceptually it's a PF2 sorceror, gaining spells and powers from some weird patron.

Game-wise in PF2, it would do the same job as a ranged martial with a spellcaster archetype dedication to provide for limited utility. In my experience it seems to have sigificantly more single target firepower than a sorcerer at the cost of even lower versatility.

I did some quick work to port it over and the problem I have is that the eldritch blast is basically busted which is fine so long as only warlocks can have it, but I'd like to not have to make it work that way if it's possible to avoid it.

[Samurai]

I created one a while back, not sure if the threads are still on the forum, so here's the link: Samurai's Warlock for Pathfinder2e v3.3

[Moppy]

Cool!

[Staffan Johansson]

Moppy wrote:

I did some quick work to port it over and the problem I have is that the eldritch blast is basically busted which is fine so long as only warlocks can have it, but I'd like to not have to make it work that way if it's possible to avoid it.

Eldritch Blast isn't particularly busted. It is on par with e.g. Firebolt: 1d10 damage per tier, except spread out over multiple attacks instead of one big attack. Other cantrips do less damage, but have things that make up for it.

There are two things that make Eldritch Blast strong, one that's Warlock-exclusive and one that other classes can get by jumping through some hoops. The exclusive one is the Agonizing Blast invocation, which lets you add Charisma bonus to each attack with the blast. The hoop-able one is the Hex spell, which places a curse on a target that makes each of your attacks deal +1d6 damage - this, however, requires concentration which means you have a pretty big chance of losing it if you take damage, and you can't keep most other buffs or debuffs going at the same time.

Even so, I don't really see Warlocks as being broken in comparison to other classes. An archer fighter, for example, would do similar damage - a little less per hit, but with +2 to their attacks, and with the ability to add a bonus from magical weapons on top as well as the Sharpshooter feat allowing a -5 to hit for +5 damage.

Anyway, I think the key to making it work in PF2 would be to take a similar tack: make Eldritch Blast or its equivalent on par with other cantrips on its own, and have Warlock class feats that beef it up.

[Samurai]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Eldritch Blast isn't particularly busted. It is on par with e.g. Firebolt: 1d10 damage per tier, except spread out over multiple attacks instead of one big attack. Other cantrips do less damage, but have things that make up for it.

That is why I delayed the ability to purchase Agonizing Blast in my PF2 version. It is a 14th level feat, (whereas in 5e it can be purchased as early as 2njd level) and compared to Lifedrinker, which allows the him to add his Chr. mod to his Pact Blade damage as a Blade Pact Warlock, which is only a level 4 feat. He'll hit less often with his pact blade than he can with Eldritch Blast, and needs to be in melee range to do it....

Also, Hexblade's Curse is a 12th level feat in my PF2e adaptation, and it has a 1 minute duration, gives a +3 damage bonus per hit, allows critical hits on a 19 or 20, and heals the Warlock if the target of the curse dies. It may only be used once per day though, requiring a Long Rest to regain it.

[Vali Nepjarson]

The Warlock is such a unique and "different" sort of spellcaster in 5e, that trying to figure out exactly how it would translate into PF2 is going to be awkward and difficult.

I've been working on something of my own, and personally the way that I see it working is that the Warlock is a full spellcaster that doesn't have spell slots at all, and instead can cast all of the spells that it knows via Focus Points. This replicates the Warlock's ideals of having very few spell slots, but being able to get them back quickly. All of the rest of it's Focus spells would be Focus Cantrips like the Bard's. Eldritch Blast would be a Focus Cantrip, for example, thus insuring that the only way to get ahold of it is via the Warlock and a potential Warlock Multiclass Archetype.

The main problem is I'm not sure how to balance this inherently. Theoretically this would allow a Warlock to cast a crap-ton of it's highest level spells in a day. Quite a bit more than any full spellcaster, but would highly limit their ability to cast repeatedly in combat...but even at their maximum of 3 spells per combat, that's still covering most of the turns in your average encounter. You could stop the Focus spells from extending past level 5 spells and give the Arcanum as once per day higher level spells, but this would complicate the caster and you'd have to write up a bit of extra text explaining that spells cast via Focus points can't heighten past 5th level. Not difficult, just not very streamlined of a design.

Then a lot of the class feats would be built around giving the Warlock permanent magical effects. We have some already in existence like the perma-detect magic. Samurai's feats like the one that gives either Darkvision or Greater Darkvision. I'm imagining a level 20 feat that allows you to pick a level 5 or lower spell that has a duration and can effect yourself and allow it to become a permanent effect on you (turn on and off with a single action that has the concentration trait).

[Staffan Johansson]

Vali Nepjarson wrote:

The main problem is I'm not sure how to balance this inherently. Theoretically this would allow a Warlock to cast a crap-ton of it's highest level spells in a day. Quite a bit more than any full spellcaster, but would highly limit their ability to cast repeatedly in combat...but even at their maximum of 3 spells per combat, that's still covering most of the turns in your average encounter. You could stop the Focus spells from extending past level 5 spells and give the Arcanum as once per day higher level spells, but this would complicate the caster and you'd have to write up a bit of extra text explaining that spells cast via Focus points can't heighten past 5th level. Not difficult, just not very streamlined of a design.

As long as the focus spells only heighten numerically, and potentially have a somewhat lower baseline than proper spells, I don't see the problem.

That is, I don't have a problem at all with the warlock getting the equivalent of the elemental sorcerer's Elemental Blast (8d6 AOE as a 5th level spell, heighten +1 for +2d6) and using it once or twice per encounter. The issue would be numerous castings of things like Teleport, Duplicate Foe, or Maze.