Warlocks

[one day remains]

Wait wait. Why only a 29 DC?

Say you start with 18 CHA, 7 points from levelling, up to +7 from epic bard and epic feats (which don't get much use beyond armor skin and epic skill focus) So when eliminating 2 epic feats for miscellaneous choice, You'll have a modifier of 30, so with gear and enchants 42 charisma or +16 Modifier.

That on top of your fourth level hold monster makes the DC 30 alone, Throw spell focuses in and you get 34. Which is pretty good against a fighter type, if I do say so myself. That's not even involving mind fog, which you'd literally just have to throw on yourself and wait for the fighter come to you. That's a potential 44 DC on your hold spell.

Think the point most people are missing is, warlocks aren't half as squishy naturally as their other caster counterparts, you can likely survive in melee a good while compared to the rest. This allows you to SPAM this spell at them rather than spending most of your time trying to kite.

Anyone who's played in the engine for a long time will know getting a 1 isn't half as uncommon as it should be.

[Hamatreya]

My point about "asking for more" is mostly made here; you're saying you can infinity-kite most builds due to speed and dispel, while still putting out solid (unavoidable) damage, and on top of it you want a round/level hold with likely success? Seems excessive.

It does, now that I think about it. It could be said that a good portion of the warlock class's "power" comes from the player's knowledge of the engine, and situational awareness.

Though it does seem to me, having played a weave master with enchantment focus, that some of the upper-level humanoids that /can/ be dominated have rather high will scores, and that was really where I found my concern.

[Hamatreya]

Wait wait. Why only a 29 DC?

Say you start with 18 CHA, 7 points from levelling, up to +7 from epic bard and epic feats (which don't get much use beyond armor skin and epic skill focus) So when eliminating 2 epic feats for miscellaneous choice, You'll have a modifier of 30, so with gear and enchants 42 charisma or +16 Modifier.

That on top of your fourth level hold monster makes the DC 30 alone, Throw spell focuses in and you get 34. Which is pretty good against a fighter type, if I do say so myself. That's not even involving mind fog, which you'd literally just have to throw on yourself and wait for the fighter come to you. That's a potential 44 DC on your hold spell.

Think the point most people are missing is, warlocks aren't half as squishy naturally as their other caster counterparts, you can likely survive in melee a good while compared to the rest. This allows you to SPAM this spell at them rather than spending most of your time trying to kite.

Anyone who's played in the engine for a long time will know getting a 1 isn't half as uncommon as it should be.

Not every warlock is going to invest in charisma. There are warlocks who invest in constitution for survivability, dexterity for stealth, intelligence for skills, and strength for combat prowess. Still, these brands of warlock won't /really/ be relying on their spells, anyway, so I don't see what the problem is. My want for a DC modification is less a "should" now than it is a "would be nice."

[The Rambling Midget]

Anyone who's played in the engine for a long time will know getting a 1 isn't half as uncommon as it should be.

This is a good point. High level mages put everything they've got into DCs, because they know that they're only going to get one shot before they're KDed or straight up smashed to bits. Warlocks can hang in a fight and stay on their feet, meaning that even as low as a one in four chance to disable is pretty handy.

[Ecstatic]

Lets please keep this to constructive posts as it mostly has been. Please don't post complaints about people posting their opinions. Mith has asked us to test things out and post our thoughts and so far they have in a wonderfully nice and calm manner

DC's are actually something that is being looked at so Very good point Hamatreya

Thanks everyone.

I'm not seeing anyone being criticized for offering their opinion here. All I am seeing are other opinions being offered, and those opinions include "Increasing the DC any further would make Feylock blasting a touch too powerful".

I have been chatting with a friend of mine who is playtesting his feylock to check out the new changes, and his observations have been that he is finding his hold monster EB and his dominate person to be extremely potent. Now, he is testing this at level 30 with a character using a +2 charisma subrace and a +2 charisma gift, has taken 3 great charisma feats, and his DC on both is 35, which is more than enough to:

A) Dominate plenty of mobs, though he has observed that his DC could be much lower and he'd still be fine, because Dominate can be cast from invis, so he has as many tries as he wants to get his dominate target of choice.

B) Cripple the hell out of every spawn he's tried to go up against.

He has also mentioned that he is finding it useful to drop extended mind fog (might as well, he's got infinite casts of it), re-invis, and then wait for his targets to fail their once per round will save. The moment the visual effect for "failed your mind fog save" goes off, it's dominate/hold time.

Now, I understand that this represents a charisma investment that most warlocks will not make, but 32-34 DC should still be relatively achievable for those that choose to do so. This is only a few points lower than most sorcs/wizards will have on these spells (If an epic sorc takes x2 ESF and 1 great charisma, their focused schools only come out 1 point higher on DCs than a warlock who just dumps straight into 3 counts of great charisma), and there is no higher DC will-based hold spell in the game than hold monster.

I am personally of the opinion that between the intense spammability, the damage, and the ability to engage and disengage at will that a DC equivalent to that obtained by classes with limited spell slots and an inability to multitask damage and crowd control would be too much. I feel things are close enough to correctly balanced to leave the DCs alone for now and see how things go. As feedback is concerned, I think this passes muster.

[Hamatreya]

Lets please keep this to constructive posts as it mostly has been. Please don't post complaints about people posting their opinions. Mith has asked us to test things out and post our thoughts and so far they have in a wonderfully nice and calm manner

DC's are actually something that is being looked at so Very good point Hamatreya

Thanks everyone.

I'm not seeing anyone being criticized for offering their opinion here. All I am seeing are other opinions being offered, and those opinions include "Increasing the DC any further would make Feylock blasting a touch too powerful".

I have been chatting with a friend of mine who is playtesting his feylock to check out the new changes, and his observations have been that he is finding his hold monster EB and his dominate person to be extremely potent. Now, he is testing this at level 30 with a character using a +2 charisma subrace and a +2 charisma gift, has taken 3 great charisma feats, and his DC on both is 35, which is more than enough to:

A) Dominate plenty of mobs, though he has observed that his DC could be much lower and he'd still be fine, because Dominate can be cast from invis, so he has as many tries as he wants to get his dominate target of choice.

B) Cripple the hell out of every spawn he's tried to go up against.

He has also mentioned that he is finding it useful to drop extended mind fog (might as well, he's got infinite casts of it), re-invis, and then wait for his targets to fail their once per round will save. The moment the visual effect for "failed your mind fog save" goes off, it's dominate/hold time.

Now, I understand that this represents a charisma investment that most warlocks will not make, but 32-34 DC should still be relatively achievable for those that choose to do so. This is only a few points lower than most sorcs/wizards will have on these spells (If an epic sorc takes x2 ESF and 1 great charisma, their focused schools only come out 1 point higher on DCs than a warlock who just dumps straight into 3 counts of great charisma), and there is no higher DC will-based hold spell in the game than hold monster.

I am personally of the opinion that between the intense spammability, the damage, and the ability to engage and disengage at will that a DC equivalent to that obtained by classes with limited spell slots and an inability to multitask damage and crowd control would be too much. I feel things are close enough to correctly balanced to leave the DCs alone for now and see how things go. As feedback is concerned, I think this passes muster.

Agreed.

[Preacher]

I have to lean toward Dragoneye here. while the DC should improve from its current standing, as a feylock you have so many tricks up your sleeve. looking at the abyssal warlock... if their summons died, he can only hope there darkness doesn't bug and npc ignore it, they don't have true seeing and ignore it, they don't have ultravision and they ignore it....

That being said..... I am seriously loving the new warlock! few more tweeks are coming per Mith's posts but meanwhile we get to PLAY!

[one day remains]

Not every warlock is going to invest in charisma. There are warlocks who invest in constitution for survivability, dexterity for stealth, intelligence for skills, and strength for combat prowess. Still, these brands of warlock won't /really/ be relying on their spells, anyway, so I don't see what the problem is. My want for a DC modification is less a "should" now than it is a "would be nice."

That's one way of looking at it, that approach however applies to EVERY spellcaster. If you go for the minimum casting stat to get your spells and the rest into defence/utility, you're going to have low DC's - That's the bottom line as that's how the system is balanced.

Want someone with high DC's? Invest in Charisma. Want a defensive/utilised character? Expect your DC's to drop. Simple as that.

As the system works you can invest between 13-18 points in dex to get reasonable armor through chainmail. The class's base HP increase means CON isn't a HUGE factor beyond normal boosting unless you want EDR, which you can already get more than via class progression. The skills are and always have been reasonably split due to bard being a high SP class.

Realistically unless you want to go for a Melee/EDR lock you shouldn't need to invest more than 14-16 in CON/Dex/INT, with that you can get over 40 AC base, hit everything with your spells. Have around 330 HP without gear and so on. So the stat split isn't as huge as people are making it out to be unless you're making a drawn out concept (such as a monk/wm) build, in which case there should be expected negatives to that.

[Mindcraft]

I've been testing the new stuff with my epic feylock. Personally, I tend to think he was way way better before the update, but that may as well be so because I still need to get used to it.

At any rate, I've always liked warlocks because you really need to know your stuff about NWN mechanics, tactics and buidling. That is a bit problematic I think, simply because many players have no motivation to stuff their brains with all of this (and who can blame them, it's a game after all...).

I like the update, in general! I mean yeah, old chars may probably be messed up big time but that's fine, change always comes at a cost. I can see this becoming a really beginner-friendly path with healthy balance. Some tweaks left, some tweaks right and all's good.

[Bragnir]

Testing on a recently created fiendlock.... It really hits the stuff. Of course, I'm a bit worried for the lvls just before a change in summons, since that's when I expect the previous summon to find itself struggling to tank content for me, but... Overall? It's not jusr survivability- I'm having a blast with this character, both in mechanics and RP-wise.

As for the spells and their DCs... I'm finding a warlock does quite respectable damage, whether the spell's saved for or not. Sure, my flares only really land once in a blue moon, but... That's no longer the real strength of the spell, is it? More like the up to 16 magical damage that goes with it. If the mob fails a save? Tough luck to it: it just means the Worg will have an easier time tearing it appart.

I'm unsure how lower level feylocks are going to play out- the spell selection's different enough the two classes play nothing alike- what I've seen, though, has put a smile on this player's face.

[Mindcraft]

One thing I'd love to see is the Damage Resistance increasing every two levels. That would make for a steady increase of tank power instead of giants bumps every 10 levels.

If of course the entire point of it is to make it major jumps, Increasing it every five levels could be cool

[Mithreas]

As I mentioned somewhere buried deep in the thread, the engine prevents me from doing 1/-, 2/- etc DR without using barbarian feats and epic feats, which causes trouble when multiclassing. So while I'd like to do a more gradual DR progression, it's not really possible.

There are a few concerns above that warlocks, and feylocks in particular, can't do all the things at once. This is deliberate - you can invest in CHA for DCs and have a perfectly decent caster, who relies on speed and mobility to stay out of trouble, or you can build a combat machine with great buffs who has blast damage for tough foes (especially bosses) but who rarely gets to use the additional effects of their spells.

Fiendlocks are a bit more direct, playing more like other casters - summon creature to tank for you, then sit back and do damage while trying to keep aggro on your summon. Or do melee, relying less on buffs and more that aggro is split between you and your beastie.

While fiendlocks have a very obvious power, feylocks' power is a lot more subtle and hard to use. I think you'll find if you explore them and experiment with different styles, they're still perfectly capable of being really strong - but as with their patrons, their power isn't as in-your-face obvious.

[b a t t l e]

The DC doesn't matter on a caster with infinite save or lose. It just doesn't. And here's the thing: Warlocks aren't, now, magically better casters than everyone else, DC-wise. They're better casters because they have an admittedly limited toolset, but each of those elements plays off of the other. A DC focused fey warlock will have a DC only 2 below a sorcerer, but if they fail, they can do it forever. As well as infinite invisibility, haste, higher HP, a bard's skill set, chain mail, and a large shield. Yes, dominate monster had a high DC (3 higher than an equivalent-charisma sorcerer with epic focus, in fact!) but it was an artificial inflation that I definitely think is balanced by not having to use that stupid staff.

While the fiend version seems more 'obviously' strong, due to stat buffs, war cry, and a summon buddy, it's just that- it's direct damage vs debuff. I'd put my money on a fey warlock with an ally (dominated or otherwise) against a fiend warlock and their summon, if I'm being honest. Dominates, hold, confusions, dazes? Those aren't disables, they're save or lose against an opponent with infinite haste, magic-damage-dealing dispels (If you Hold Person/Dominate a dexer, they lose all their precious touch ac- and regular ac) against a caster with haste and even a bog standard meleer.

Now, a smart fiend warlock could counter all that, but they are still very brute force, something the fey warlock seems designed to avoid entirely.

[Bragnir]

While I'm not sure how much the DC raises with level for each spell, I'd say fiendlocks do have a couple "save or lose" cookies in their arsenal. Maybe they aren't quite as geared towards it, but the more one stops thinking about a warlock as any other arcane caster, including a bard, the more synergy can be seen in their spell selection... And all hell breaks loose if we count in the UMD for either type of warlock. Yes, it costs money. Yes, it's not unlimited and doesn't come with the magical damage, unlike their actual spells... Yes, it's friggin' UMD.

Also, I'd like to see a party of the two kinds of pact working in tandem- both doing their thing.

[Hunter548]

I would actually love to see inter-warlock groups, after this change. Cabals of warlocks, with the fiend warlocks both eyeing each other warily and working to advance their goals (and their half of the Blood War) while the fey warlocks use their CHA and charm spells to keep everyone friendly.

[Bragnir]

Since fiendlocks aren't the actual fiends, however, they can even afford to be buddies, right? So long as their pact doesn't involve the Blood War....

Oh, damn- demons don't play by the rules.... XD

[Preacher]

Warlocks aren't demons though. so I'd actually be interested in seeing a group of warlocks join together. I mean the rest of the server typically is quite anti warlock anyhow but unless we are summoning demons, most have a harder time figuring out we are actually warlocks since we don 't have the tell tale staff giving it away anymore.

[Hamatreya]

Mith, the only thing I would ask for is that See Invisibility be added to Feylocks. It seems both thematically appropriate and i expect it would be a boon to parties where improved invisibility is in demand. I am comfortable using wands for now, but this is one of those "it would be nice" things.

Warlocks aren't demons though. so I'd actually be interested in seeing a group of warlocks join together. I mean the rest of the server typically is quite anti warlock anyhow but unless we are summoning demons, most have a harder time figuring out we are actually warlocks since we don 't have the tell tale staff giving it away anymore.

If anyone's interested in this, send me a PM. I'd love to get the ball rolling, as my sad level 5 warlock is rather lonely at the moment.

[God In Action]

pleasedeargodDevsreaswarlockguildhouse

[Preacher]

pleasedeargodDevsreaswarlockguildhouse

in theory we have a house that would work amazingly but its a bit hard to get to and we would have to take it from whoever has it. its in the abyss. lol

[Preacher]

Mith, the only thing I would ask for is that See Invisibility be added to Feylocks. It seems both thematically appropriate and i expect it would be a boon to parties where improved invisibility is in demand. I am comfortable using wands for now, but this is one of those "it would be nice" things.

I'd rather have abyssal warlocks have see invis, it creates a bit of summitry in my head.

[Hamatreya]

Mith, the only thing I would ask for is that See Invisibility be added to Feylocks. It seems both thematically appropriate and i expect it would be a boon to parties where improved invisibility is in demand. I am comfortable using wands for now, but this is one of those "it would be nice" things.

I'd rather have abyssal warlocks have see invis, it creates a bit of summitry in my head.

Fiend warlocks have ultravision and darkness. Feylocks have invisibility but no see invisibility. Just seems odd, but that's just me.

[Bragnir]

I was referring more to the corruption creeping in on an abyssal warlock: a demon can (and is likely to) influence them to do their dirty work, whereas a devil cannot... Unless the pact explicitly allows them to. Funny stuff's that a devil's pact tends to be in infernal: a language that, in and by itself's filled with multiple meanings to each word and sentence.

I can see that corruption-based conflict only adding more depth to the interactions between different kinds of 'locks.

[Hamatreya]

pleasedeargodDevsreaswarlockguildhouse

in theory we have a house that would work amazingly but its a bit hard to get to and we would have to take it from whoever has it. its in the abyss. lol

That's rather specific to Abyssal warlocks, though. I don't imagine my own feypact warlock, who rather appreciates subtlety, will want to live in a burning fortress.

Also, let's stop asking devs for things when they've already given us this amazing reconstruction, for free. Beggars, choosers, etc.

[Bragnir]

pleasedeargodDevsreaswarlockguildhouse

in theory we have a house that would work amazingly but its a bit hard to get to and we would have to take it from whoever has it. its in the abyss. lol

That's rather specific to Abyssal warlocks, though. I don't imagine my own feypact warlock, who rather appreciates subtlety, will want to live in a burning fortress.

If anything, and considering all types of locks are flesh and bone mortals, they might like better to live somewhere a little bit out of the way, with minimal danger both from wild animals and local authorities.

If they weren't already packed full of stuff, Cordor's sewer system might be a good example since, even though adventurers do tend to go in there a lot (so a group of people going down might not arise suspiccion) the guards themselves do not.