Warlocks

[one day remains]

Could always just make it 1d10 per 2 levels (levels rounding up like it's currently). Mild reduction in damage. a 1/6 reduction so it'll end up being more 150 damage a round max. Which is right on par with IGMS. With the touch attack it'd make it even more balanced, in my opinion.

Oh and in the light of being incredibly curious. Darkness technically acts as a hostile spell when cast on folk, right? Does that mean you could technically use it as an attack? Sharrans would love it.

[Realoms]

I imagine the damage will be stopped by immunity/resistances and by SR as it used to be.


And yes, I'm pointing out the facts of PvP, because in PvE, we've had true flamer and weave masters and both can/do/have done some incredibly dangerous things and been really potent- there's very little issue with either of them, however, and every said the exact same thing about the infinite IGMS. The damage currently suggested isn't a breaking point by any means.

Though d4 does cut back a significant. But while it will add up and be useful, it's even worse than it currently is for a while. (at level 5- 3d6-max 18, level 5- 5d4- max 20, not how tiny the increase is). If the issue is simply combining it with icestorm, then perhaps icestorm needs to be changed, or the damage needs to be set as different (just for icestorm, if possible) in order to accommodate.

[Ecstatic]

To the contrary, at level 5, the damage difference (we'll use averages, not max; max blast damage is irrelevant as you cannot maximise it)

3d6 = 10.5 average
5d4 = 12.5 average

That's a 20% increase in damage almost right out of the gate. If you go ahead and compare on even levels (say, 6 warlock), the numbers go to:

3d6 = 10.5
6d4 = 15

Now you're at a 50% increase in damage. Pretty significant. There's the added benefit of making each and every warlock level count this way, too.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

With what Ecstatic said.

The other thing that will be notably different is that warlocks can also do all of this, with dual-wielding rapiers, or lugging around a greataxe. While not a sizeable mechanical difference, from a strategic standpoint I think it's noteworthy. Especially regarding the recent fighter changes (notably movement speed). Making a 26 warlock/4 fighter be deadly on both a melee front, and an eldritch one too. In fact, I'd be sorely tempted to make one.

[one day remains]

Thing is it requires full 30 levels in order to get the 45d6 single target damage it'll offer, the AoE is just standard ice storm.

In a sense it's not even that bad. On average, due to not being able to maximise/quicken/empower due to spell slots it'll affectively do what a 22.5d6 spell can do in the hands of a spellcaster with maximised. So 7.5 damage above the first hit of a maximised chain lightning. In reality the reason why the damage looks so high, as Realoms detailed, is the fact that at level 30 ice storm does quite a bit of damage. In reality being able to do that much damage is comparable to a chain lightning from a TF. The point here is it requires 30 levels to do that much damage in the first place, which isn't that much higher than the amount being produced by other arcanists at level 18 .

Even cross classing the once makes your damage drop by 4d6 which certainly brings it onto par with other spells as you affectively have to half it to get a decent scope of how it compares to other spellcaster damage..

It looks worse because of it essentially being two spells in one, that's all.

[Ecstatic]

I'm actually not that worried about the ice storm, so long as the fiendlock isn't hasted (if he can't use haste from items, it's a non-issue; if he can self haste, then this damage output might be problematic), one because there's only one of them cast per round, and two because friendly fire potential is going to discourage its use. Feylocks are a different beast entirely, though.

I'm still not sure 210 average damage per round with no save, no counter, no roll to hit, paired with a DC 34 save vs paralysis (rolled twice per round every single round) can have spawns effectively designed for it without making every other caster that relies on willsaves entirely useless. Paring the damage down to an average of 150 per round, as would be the case with 1d4 per level blasts would put it on par with a true flamer spamming maximized stuff, with the added benefit of a warlock being tons more survivable than a true flamer will ever be.

[one day remains]

On the note of the damage reduction, as it'll be ridiculous early levels why not at level 10 give them uncanny dodge, which is useful to them but will only allow them to keep as much AC as they build, and at level 20/30 they get DR up to 10/--?

[Ecstatic]

I think that would be quite nice, actually. It would allow that melee-pacting fey sorc to be pretty good without needing a rogue or barbarian multiclass, and would be a good way to tank up a warlock without giving them too much DR.

[one day remains]

It'd be better, truthfully, if there were just some way to avoid ice storm itself being hasted and the rest being fine. That'd not only let them be a relatively decent casting class but also avoid Ice storm being TOO good AoE.

[Roketter]

What happens if my evil lvl 30 warlock finds a scroll of Isaac's greater missile storm and reads it at a hostile target ?

[one day remains]

I'd imagine it's scripted into your own spells rather than scrolls, not sure though.

In addition you'd only get an extra 5d6 and spend the entire round using it, if that's the case.

[Hunter548]

I personally feel like this makes fey warlocks even more attractive than they currently are over fiend warlocks (And fey warlocks are pretty much superior in every way compared to fiend warlocks currently). If a fiend warlock doesn't have access to haste, a fey warlock even out damages them in addition to having a far superior spell selection. Hell, fey warlocks even have two of the best spells for buffing summons/other party members (Haste/Imp. Invis).

Making the fiend warlocks focused on summons is a very risky decision, I think. Even if the summons are boosted to be worthwhile, it still has to deal with lackluster at best NWN summon AI. Add to it that one fiend warlock spell per level is obsoleted immediately upon them getting a new spell level and a good half or so of their spells being of situational or similar niche use (Balagarn's, Bestow Curse, Magic Circle, Scare, Fear, the Dispel line) and I'm not seeing why I'd want to play a fiend warlock over a fey warlock.

I do like the damage boost, however. True flamers remain better for group blasting, and any variety of wizard/sorc remains better for PvP blasting, not to mention their much better ability to be versatile.

[Realoms]

It seems like fiend warlocks could use displacement, and mass haste possibly? Along with a fairly considerable beefing up of their summons for the reasons Hunter suggested.

[Mindcraft]

Too much text...!

Would it be possible to keep the old mechanics too? I rather enjoyed them, really.

[Mayonnaise]

How will the spell overriding work? Is there any way that we can choose the spells that we pick, but not necessarily in the order listed? (As an example, I'd like to take Mage Armor as soon as possible!)

[Mithreas]

Warlocks would be able to use other spells from items, so you could haste a Fiendlock with potions or purchased wands.

I haven't figured out how spell overrides will work yet, but giving a choice is going to be tough to code reliably.

This would replace the existing mechanics.

Blast damage would not trigger off scrolls.

[Ecstatic]

Hm, that makes me considerably more concerned about fiendlock damage: if they pop haste and spam ice storm, you're looking at an average 300 saveless damage per round on the primary target. That's like getting hit by evoruin once per round, only without the chance to save for half. I feel like this could be capable of dusting Zamishar and a couple of other epic bosses in the space of 3 rounds. Even allowing for a token 3 blackguard levels, you still get 270 damage of so damage per round.

Allowing blasts to be hasted for use twice a round is, by itself, a huge damage increase. If we went with the 1d4 per level scaling and kept the touch attack for damage in place, warlocks would already have triple their old damage output, with far superior effects on their blasts. Feylocks could do 150 saveless damage per round this way, coupled with saving throw effects, assuming they landed their touch attacks, should those be included. Fiendlocks would be looking at 235 saveless damage per round, still, which might need some looking at. Ice storm could be problematic in general. Against a single target, this makes them both better than most TFs, and the fiendlock only falls a small bit short of a TF that has autoquicken or a bummed haste. Feylock is harder to quantify when compared against low will targets, they'd combine 150 damage per round with spammy crowd control, but wouldn't fare nearly so well against high will targets, but this seems thematically fine. Against 50% concealed targets, touch attacks on the damage component would reduce DPS by 25 or 50 percent, depending on blindfight (and I presume it would cause most warlocks to take blindfight, but they have feats to spare). The single target damage also lines up nicely between fiendlock and TF in terms of when they hit the unassisted 200+ saveless damage per round mark: TF can't pull that off until level 28 at the soonest (yeah, someone putting haste on the TF gets them there sooner, but that's teamwork and should be rewarded).

Against multiple targets, their damage measured up against TFs falls off, but that seems reasonable. They have more HP, some form of DR which will likely feel like perma stoneskin if not better, and an ability to provide party buffs, all of which a TF cannot do. Additionally, Feylocks get a pretty awesome set of defensive buffs, while Fiendlocks get summon spam (how much of a boon this ends up being is dependent on the summons and when they're given out)

This makes all of the infinite cast classes distinct:

If you want maximum offensive potential, you go for TF.
If you want a full on support role, you go WM
If you want a spellsword, FvS is probably your best bet
If you want to balance offensive potential with survivability and still damned good support capacity, you do Warlock.

I feel that even on d4/level damage scaling and touch attack requirements, Lock would be the most appealing of the bunch, at least for me: good offensive spam, good party utility, no crippling item use limitations, no cooldowns, and lots of survivability for a caster.

[Mithreas]

So I think that makes Ice Storm their final spell - probably gained at level 28ish. Getting that much spell damage output means you have to be a pure warlock, which means giving up (e.g.) Blackguard.

[one day remains]

Honestly the more I look at the raw numbers the more I'm beginning to believe 1d4 is a perfectly acceptable as a replacement for the 1d6 damage. You're improving the damage per 2 levels from 3.5 average damage to 5 damage. Which is approximately a 0.4 increase on pre-rework warlocks. In addition it's now also possible to cast 2 spells a round in order to double that damage like any other spell caster class can do which in itself is a huge upgrade.
This basically means a fey warlock's damage at level 30 will cap at 60d4 a round, 150 damage average, and a fiend warlock will end up with 60d4 and 30d6 a round, (255 average).

Before the rework warlocks were capped at 15d6 a round per target, or 52.5 average damage. That means It'd take 3 separate targets to reach the minimum damage of the fey warlock planned for the rework. In addition to this, while slowing and potentially dazing for a round, overall the original blast lacked affective utility (bugging A.I. etc) that the rework will provide in unlimited spells.
The fiend warlock in comparison would require 5 targets a round and that's excluding the AoE damage created by Ice Storm. So the damage is greatly increased, likely too much so, especially when considering they still have pretty decent crowd control in the fear spell. That being said, due to 12d6 of the spell being elemental damage it's entirely possible to have up to 50% of that damage completely nullified by damage resistance. Failing that with an item and an energy buffer spell it's possible to ignore 70 damage from the spell in total a round, if you invest in keeping it up. On top of that you can also avoid 3d6 per cast with simple damage reduction. So it's on par/weaker than IGMS in my opinion. Granted if it's still considered over powered rather than simply stopping people from cross classing perhaps there's a way of reducing the damage specifically for warlocks or preventing that one specific spell from being hasted? After all 42 damage a round is still a nice AoE buff to your blast without being crazy.

Edit: Oh or you could perhaps simply make it so the eldritch blast damage is reduced by 50% when casting ice storm? Dunno, just a thought. Takes 75 damage off the main target (when hasted) making it live up to being more of an AoE orientated spell rather than a single target nuke with extras.

Something I feel should be noted that people tend to miss vaguely here. ICE STORM IS A NON-HOSTILE TARGETING SPELL WITH A LARGE AREA OF AFFECT, this means not only can YOU be damaged by it, but in addition it also destroys all items/corpses and allies that go near it . So sure, it's slightly powerful but it definitely has it's drawbacks and ways of making it at least partially avoidable.

What I would say is, as you can see from the sheer difference between the fey and the warlock, the problem in damage source literally comes from the ice storm spell and in a sense this is potentially reducing the damage of the fey pact a smidge too much. So with that in mind I'd suggest giving the fey pact access to sound burst instead of one of their other level 2 spells. It's low enough level so the base spell can be maximised and still used with crowd control and haste. Essentially just raising their damage to 166, which while only a small amount will offset a ~1/4 of the damage lost via the drop in spell damage di.

[Mithreas]

Updated initial post to reflect d4 damage per level and a ranged touch attack on all hostile spells targeting a creature (i.e. all the spells that would trigger blast damage).

You could still cast say Ice Storm on the ground and do normal damage, but wouldn't get the blast benefit. Or you can shoot it at someone, do a ranged touch to hit, and do additional blast damage.

[MrKrang]

I am happy with the possibility of a hp raise for the warlock to be more survivable however the dr while an attempt to make them playable to max level does shore up the weakness of the class. When the class was created, lots of complaints were made about its survivability and were answered with the reply of don't solo.

While you may feel they need more to hold their own in a party setting I think dr /- would be going too far for a non melee class. I would say the same if there was a suggestion for the AA to get dr to combat their weakness or kensai getting a ranged attack.

[one day remains]

Warlocks in PnP get damage reduction innately to replicate them acquiring the powers of those they serve. (Demon skin etc)

[Mithreas]

Warlock isn't a non melee class. They have some limited spells, and some melee potential, and players can focus on one direction or the other in their builds.

They're mainly getting DR because that's what the class is meant to get, and I try to be somewhat close to PnP even when I'm reimagining something.

[MrKrang]

To be fair I only know the class through what I have seen in Arelith not pnp, from what you say then this suits it. My concern rose from what Ecstatic posted up about the max dr possible compared to the dd, but if it is a melee/caster class then that would just be the melee build of this class but perhaps lower it from the max that a pure melee class could achieve.

[DM Garynx]

To get lower levels of DR, could you use the Barbarian DR feat?