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Mithreas
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Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:40 am

So, I'm brainstorming warlocks.
Edit - updated following thread discussion.


Things I don't like about warlocks:
- The staff is clunky as hell

Things other people don't like about warlocks (ref: this thread)
- Hard to survive over level 15 or so
- Mass blasts cause massive aggro, and don't do enough damage
- The minor debuffs on the blast really don't do very much.

So I've been going back to the start on warlocks, and thinking about how else I could do them. Here's what I've landed on.

Still a Bard path.
- Change hit dice to d8 (8 HP per Bard level)
- Add Uncanny Dodge damage resistance at level 10, 5/- damage resistance at level 20, and 10/- at level 30 to all physical types (piercing/slashing/bludgeoning)
- Add 5/10/15 DR at the same levels to two elements, based on path.
- Add reduced ASF 20% to armor and shields, allowing casting in light armor and large shields.
- Remove the staff and eldritch blast entirely.
- Give the bard/warlock infinite castings of the below spells based on path. Each level will bring 1-2 new spells, which will overwrite whatever the PC selects at level up. (Yes - this will limit variety between different 'locks - the bit of this I'm least happy with).
- Add a Ranged Touch spell check for every hostile spell that targets a creature.
- Whenever the Warlock casts a spell that targets a hostile opponent - unless it's a Charm/Dominate spell - they do eldritch blast damage of 1d4/level magic damage. This will only apply to the actual target of the spell (so an AoE spell will only do additional damage to the creature targeted, not others caught by the blast). This triggers eyeglow as today.
- Add a -warlock command to select the element to use, with the same restrictions as present. Different elements won't have status effects - it will just change the damage type (and eye colour).

The spell selections for the different paths push them in quite different directions.

Feylock - lots of abilities that make the 'lock hard to hit and effective in melee. Haste to let them use two spells per round (and get the extra attack etc). Lots of debuff type abilities to weaken opponents. Basically this makes feylocks trickster fighters.

Elements: cold and electrical.

Abyssal/Infernal Warlock - a focus on planar abilities here. They get the suite of summon spells (which would be buffed and more in line with Blackguard class summons). Defense mainly from Darkness/Ultravision, but some buff spells too (which work on the summon too). Grease and Fear give you two powerful area of effect control spells, Ice Storm gives you a damage dealer at higher levels (especially stacked with the blast bonus), while Dismissal is very useful against enemy summons. While the Feylock is mainly a melee character, the Abyssal Warlock relies more on their summon to help improve their damage output, though they can still be perfectly decent in melee and actually get a better raw damage output per attack than the feylock (just no haste).

Elements: Acid and fire.

Code: Select all

      Fey                            Abyssal/Infernal
  1   Daze (0), Light (0)            Flare (0), Light (0)          
  2   Sleep (1), Exp Ret (1)         Summon Creature (1), Lesser Dispel (1)
  3   Mage Armor (1)                 Balagarn's Iron Horn (1)
  4   Tasha's Laughter (2)           Bull's Strength (2)
  5   Cure Minor (0)                 Resistance (0), Grease (1)
  6   Charm Person (1)               Protection from Alignment (1)
  7   Displacement (3)               Bestow Curse (3)
  8   Hold Person (2)                Summon Creature (2)
  9   Ghostly Visage (2)             Darkness (2)
  10  Hold Monster (4)               Dismissal (4)
  11  Invisibility (2)               Ultravision (2)
      Cloud of Bewilder (2)          Gust of Wind (3) 
  12  Slow (3)                       Summon Creature (3)
  13  Mind Fog (5), Charm Monster(3) See Invis (2)
  14          Dispel Magic (3), Eagle's Splendour (2) 
  15  Haste (3)                      Fear (3)
  16                   Energy Buffer (6)      
  17  Dominate Person (4)            Summon Creature (4)                  
  18  Improved Invis (4)             Cat's Grace (2)
  19  Confusion (3)                  War Cry (4)  
  20  Mass Haste (6)                 Summon Creature (5)
  21
  22                 Greater Dispelling (5)
  23           
  24                           
  25  Dirge (6)                      Summon Creature (6) 
  26                        
  27
  28  Ethereal Visage (5)            Ice Storm (6)
  29
  30
Summon list:
Summon Creature 1 (level 2): Worg.
Summon Creature 2 (level 8): BG new Imp
Summon Creature 3 (level 12): BG new Succubus
Summon Creature 4 (level 17): BG new Vrock
Summon Creature 5 (level 21): Greater Vrock (new)
Summon Creature 6 (level 25): BG new Balor

Summon 6 + greater conj: Balor Lord (new).
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mayonnaise » Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:54 am

Personally, I like it a lot better this way. This really gives warlocks some love, and I always disliked having to carry about that staff.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:56 am

So just to ensure I get exactly what the mechanics are, any hostile spell (even dispels etc) will cause an eldritch blast "attack" to the initial spell target in ADDITION to their normal affect? If so that's awesome.

Only thing I would say is that this rather drastically removes a abyssal warlock's ability to self buff. Which while making them significantly different will no doubt make earlier levels more difficult. Granted, the -20% arcane spell failure and double single target damage... Kinda counters that pretty well.

Have the keystone abilities gone out the window with the addition of the damage reduction and summon increases?

As an off-topic would it be possible or, rather, is it likely that some affects such as blindness and the like would be retained with different elemental damages? (should they also remain) I, personally, really enjoyed that aspect of warlocks. Not just for the glowy-eyes but also for the additional strategy it brings to the table.

Oh and in addition will conjuration bonuses affect the summons available?

As far as the damage resistance being too much is concerned, from what I can gather warlocks wont self heal any more and to be blunt most average melee damage sits between 30-50 a hit at higher levels. 15/-- DR while useful wont be broken even when stacked with the 9/-- available via feats.

Oh and it may be a good idea to let both sub-classes have Eagle's Splendor as it's their main casting stat.

All that being said? I love the new look of the warlock at a glance, awesome idea. ^_^
Last edited by one day remains on Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:57 am

Responding to feedback from http://arelith.com/node/142983

- Fey pact characters can still haste and blast twice a turn - so they aren't forced to melee. A dancing blaster concept works too.
- DR levels - I'm on the fence here. Unfortunately I can't use numbers that aren't multiples of 5. I could drop the level 20 bonus and give 10/- at level 30. A level 30 pure warlock would then still exceed DD if CON focused, but would have lower AC and wouldn't be able to multiclass. Note that for a feylock, the DR will stack with the bonus from Ghostly or Ethereal Visage.
- Conjuration focuses would affect summons as usual.
- Eagle's Splendour - sure, can add that.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:58 am

one day remains wrote:So just to ensure I get exactly the mechanics are, any hostile spell (even dispels etc) will cause an eldritch blast "attack" to the initial spell target in ADDITION to their normal affect? If so that's awesome.
Yes, exactly. So you pick your debuff spell (e.g. Dispel Magic) and you get additional damage on top of it.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Ecstatic » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:06 am

Mith, 10/- would probably be a little more in range, as would tweaking it to a 15/+Something bonus.

10/- would leave max Con Warlock DR at 19/- on the maximum end, which is still pretty good, but lower than the 21/- that dwarven defenders can get. They'll both have access to tumble and UMD, the DD will have better AC and HP, but the Con Warlock won't have to root himself to get the AC boost, and will have party support and direct damage spells. That feels reasonable.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by The Rambling Midget » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:08 am

I now regret perma'ing my Warlock. :(
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Realoms » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:13 am

Just copy and pasting my original post here for ease.


I disagree with making fey pacted a melee character personally. Based on trickery/illusions/enchantments I love that part, but I think they should be viable blasters/magic users, not necessarily forced to melee....and if they're made to meleers, it'd be nice to see them preserve some of the elemental/magic damage.

Otherwise they just seem like regular melee bards but with infinite spells and no bardsong. It seems as though magic should be a fairly viable way to do it, and a lot of us have been playing/liking that warlocks are more casting based but with the bardic spell list.

I'd suggest the DR becomes x/+2 or +3. This'll work well for most areas and serve the purpose but not be taking away the point of Epic DR and barb/DD DR. It also helps in PvP a bit to stop them ignoring a decent bit of damage.

Quote:

Whenever the Warlock casts a spell that targets a hostile opponent - unless it's a Charm/Dominate spell - they do eldritch blast damage of 1d6/level magic damage. This will only apply to the actual target of the spell (so an AoE spell will only do additional damage to the creature targeted, not others caught by the blast).

Not quite sure about this either. The way I read it, is that it'll make every possible use of an 'eldritch blast' style thing, only hit one target. That's one of the worst things about warlocks at the moment- they can't damage anything fast enough and in this change it seems to destroy any chance of a warlock not being a melee because they have no way of making the fast AoE damage happen (2x high level warlock spells to one target is pretty good though). I think some sort of AoE 'blast' style damage should be there somewhere, personally.

But how does this interact with sleep spells, hideous laughter, dispels, blindness/deafness and holds etc? Do they benefit from the damage as well?

And will DCs be worked out the same way as they used to be? 10+1/2 warlock level + cha mod + foci?
Just because most spells for the fey pact won't be overly useful if they're stuck at normal DCs.




Quote:

- Optional - preserve the current ability to choose different elements (and hence, eyeglows).

Personally, I'd love to see the elements kept, it's nice to be able to change things occasionally and fight things with different resistances.
Also some of the effects were good and could possibly be kept. Healing, stunning and I even found blinding to be fairly useful (obviously, two different warlocks). I think the negative would've been better if it gave permanent HP not temporary HP though, while acid may have been good with wounding or the acid arrow effect.



Well! From what's been answered on any spell getting the damage bonus- that's awesome! And I definitely think this can work...I'm biased towards being able to use spells on a fey pact given I loved my fey pacter as a caster.
But DCs still concern me (I assume you have a plan for this).
I was just thinking, is it possible to have this retroactive? And in regards to elements and the high level abilities they used to give- that'd be awesome to keep, but could it be made that you can select the type of element from a list at level up? (fire or ice at 4th, lightning or acid, positive or negative). The only thing is, some abilities may need to be adjusted due to the overwhelming thing of some elements being weak and others strong.

And I hate to be the one to do it...but having improved expertise again would be really nifty :P ...Possibly unnecessary when/if this goes in.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:16 am

This would be retroactive - all warlocks would port to using this system when implemented.

Re DCs - I'll have a think about that. I can definitely see a case for boosting DCs with Warlock level - e.g. using half warlock level instead of spell level in the DC calculation.

Re elements - it would be a -command to select element, if I keep that option. I won't keep the existing debuffs though - that's now rolled into the spell you're using.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Ofthewind » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:17 am

One problem I see in this is the inability to, say, simply cast Hold Monster on someone to immobilize them without harming them, as you'd end up Eldritch Blasting them in the face in the process. Perhaps add a widget to disable the blast effect, if such a thing is possible?

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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:18 am

See, honestly, I don't understand the big deal with the comparison between DD and warlock. For DD you invest 10 levels (18 if you really want) and get 6/-- (12/--) damage reduction from it. So on average that's 6 damage resistance per 10 levels, which sure while capped at 20 levels, also allows you a tonne of excess feats in which to assist you getting more damage reduction and also a tonne of defensive stats/tanking tools. Warlocks get 5/-- per level and no other defensive bonus from their class innately. So DD is still superior and the DR isn't dependant on being stationary.

At the end of the day I don't think it should be an argument of "Well our class doesn't have that much (which it does) so we don't want anyone else to have it either."

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:18 am

If something isn't hostile, you won't blast it. So on a PC, for example, you would only get the normal spell effect unless you hostile.

Is that still a problem? I quite like the thought... :-)
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Ofthewind » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:22 am

It is and it isn't, I guess? It's effective that it works that, but it'd still be a problem if you want to Hold someone without harming them after you've turned hostile as per the rules of engagement.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:24 am

Well, could be a RP tool to display the raw power of a warlock. >_>

Failing the widget in such a situation, though, perhaps have extended spells no longer deal warlock damage? It'd only affect holds and self wards after all.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Ecstatic » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:31 am

one day remains wrote: Warlocks get 5/-- per level and no other defensive bonus from their class innately.

At the end of the day I don't think it should be an argument of "Well our class doesn't have that much (which it does) so we don't want anyone else to have it either."
No, this is a matter of "When a class specializes in something, it ought to be the best at what it does". DD isn't great at a lot besides soaking For a DD to get that sort of DR, they pretty much do have to cut their multiclassing options down: Most of what a DD multiclasses into is the bare minimum they need to survive and get all their needed skills. Warlock, on the other hand, doesn't need multiclassing to get tumble, detection, spellcraft, stealth, disguises, etc. etc. Plus, they have spells. This is not a class that screams "specialized DR tank" to me, on account of it has party buffs, magical damage, summons, dispells, debuffs, etc. etc. As a result, it seems a little much to me that on top of all of this, they do DR better than the DR specialist class.

Most importantly, though, I wanted to draw attention to the bolded part: Warlocks, particularly the fey ones, get some pretty incredible defensive bonuses from their class. Infinite haste, ethereal visage, and improved invis? Yes please. Add on tumble, spellcraft, and a huge amount of crowd control, and you've got loads of direct and indirect defense from the class.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:41 am

Well you've got to keep in mind, realistically most warlocks aren't going to bother going to 26 these days with the removal of the "keystone" abilities. In addition to that, abyssal warlocks at the least, lose their visages so will have to invest 3 of their 4 base epic feats and a portion of their stat points to get to 21 CON. Sounds like specialising to me, when you consider the stat split they're going have to make to affectively use their other abilities etc.

Abyssal/infernal seem fine on it. Fey? Yeah maybe they're a bit much considering ethereal and the innate reduction will stack to be a permanent 44/+3.

Also in addition dd's are just as much capable of mutliclassing and yes most people just take the minimal levels to get the abilities, leaving a whole chunk of levels to get additional things such as fighter levels and rogue levels to invest in tumble/"fighter armor". They still get high fort and will save progression, full attack bonus, defensive awareness (so uncanny dodge mixed with no longer being able to be flanked) and a combat mode that gives 4 AC which stacks, 2 to each save and +6 ability stats. It hardly seems like they're being beaten too hard.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Roketter » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:42 am

Read it, and loved it.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:49 am

one day remains wrote:Well you've got to keep in mind, realistically most warlocks aren't going to bother going to 26 these days with the removal of the "keystone" abilities. In addition to that, abyssal warlocks at the least, lose their visages so will have to invest 3 of their 4 base epic feats and a portion of their stat points to get to 21 CON. Sounds like specialising to me, when you consider the stat split they're going have to make to affectively use their other abilities etc.
Actually, they won't get all their spells by level 20. e.g. summon 6 (which will probably be the balor) would likely be granted at 26 as before.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:55 am

Oh good. I was hoping investment would still be required.

With that in mind for a warlock to overcome the DR of a committed DD they'd have to invest 30 levels to beat said DR by 3 whereas a DD only need invest 18.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 3:09 am

I'm sure this has already been taken into consideration... That being said:

With 1d6 a level and with Ice storm's damage stacking with that, excluding resistances for the example, an abyssal warlock could potentially deal 45d6 a round to a singular target and 15d6 to the surrounding creatures. Not sure how haste potions would affect this but assuming they don't work, that's a range of of 45-270 damage on the main target and 15-90 damage to every surrounding minion. Which is... Somewhat high.

That being said at the moment it's possible for any mage to reliably put out 240 unavoidable damage a round to 2 targets and 180 (admittedly with a reflex save) to every target in the surrounding area.

In addition to that, unless it's been fixed, don't both dirge and magic circle against alignment consistently stop working to the point of uselessness?

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Ecstatic » Mon Sep 08, 2014 3:56 am

one day remains wrote:I'm sure this has already been taken into consideration... That being said:

With 1d6 a level and with Ice storm's damage stacking with that, excluding resistances for the example, an abyssal warlock could potentially deal 45d6 a round to a singular target and 15d6 to the surrounding creatures. Not sure how haste potions would affect this but assuming they don't work, that's a range of of 45-270 damage on the main target and 15-90 damage to every surrounding minion. Which is... Somewhat high.

That being said at the moment it's possible for any mage to reliably put out 240 unavoidable damage a round to 2 targets and 180 (admittedly with a reflex save) to every target in the surrounding area.
This worries me just a little if the damage triggers through SR/Saves. Old warlock damage was definitely too low, but I'm not sure how I feel about doubling it. Especially in the case of the Fey warlock, who will be attaching this damage to a save or lose spell x2 per round, at an estimated average of 210 damage per round. One of the things that makes that 240 unsavable damage okay on a mage is the spell slot limitation: every maxed IGMS they have is a WoB or Timestop they don't. For true flamers, they lose access to defensive spells. Warlocks, at least the fey ones, have plenty of defensive spells and no limitation.

On this basis, I'd advise against scaling saves to warlock level on their spells if this is the sort of damage they're going to be doing: A hold monster spell with a DC of 10 + 1/2 warlock level + Focus bonuses + charisma could handily clock in at a DC 43 save or lose, with 105 unsavable damage attached. The one saving grace of save or lose spells is that they, by and large, are far less effective than their direct damage counterparts if you make their save, so they represent an "all in" use of casting slots and casting time, and I can't see this balancing out in PvE without crippling other enchantment based casters, who already have a hard time in a lot of epic areas, due to the prevalence of mind spell immunity.

What I would propose would be to see how the warlock fares on its old damage level, but with the much more potent side effects (due to having rounds/level crowd control spells rather than 1 round effects), and increased surviviability. If that damage is too low, then allow them to apply metamagic feats to their blast damage by utilizing them in spells. That way, they can amp their damage up to 90 per blast, if they stick to their lower-level effects. Higher level effects mean un-modified damage.

Side note, theory crafting out a Feylock 20/PM 10 right now. 19/- DR, Ethereal visage and improved invis, crit immunity, dexterity/bone skin for AC, haste at will, no need to roll attack to hit with 20d6 damage twice per round, CL25 to render it hard to dispel. This feels relatively capable of being close to broken to me.
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Mithreas » Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:01 am

The challenge with the blasts will be making them useful without making them broken.

Dispel magic doesn't have a save, so the dispel suite would let you do the damage without issue. Because of that, I'm leaning towards not using a save - though I could make the spells all require a ranged touch attack to hit (in addition to other stuff, like saves for existing effects).

Perhaps making the blast d4 per level?
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Re: Warlocks

Post by Realoms » Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:05 am

A healing spell could perhaps be added to either/or both? Though that'd make them all rounders due to infinite ability to heal...


And forgive my comments about damage lacking before! I misread it as 1d6/2 levels not 1d6/level. Though capping it before level 30...even if it's just at level 25 (which is the same as horrid wilting?) or up until 20.Though in regards to the above, I'm going to point out it doesn't matter if a wizard has spell slot limitations. A wizard will destroy you and your friends if they have 6 horrid wiltings or what you have memorised. Then they'll rest, and continue on.A true flamer can hurl a bigby's then watch you die while held, hellball and ruin one after the other etc. It's really not as big a deal as it sounds given what a caster can already do- and IF it goes in and is too much, it can be pulled back just like the healing blast was. In fact, I'd argue it's better to start too big then come back down (because big is very noticeable compared 'too little' which will have people playing it argue it's too little and those not playing it, saying it's fine) than the other way around.

d4 could also work that's a max of 150 or so? Or have a higher roll but less of them...up until 15d10 for example, though if it's gained every level- it'll cap out much faster.

This honestly seems absolutely amazing, more or less as is (except the well discussed DR bit). Absolutely can't wait for this to go in.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by one day remains » Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:15 am

The problem with making it 30d4 is that the drop in damage is significant (1/3). it'd bring the average (when involving non-ice storm spells) to 120 maximum damage a round. When including the ice blast: 210 to the initial target and 90 to the surrounding targets.

Considering approximately a 1/4 of the damage comes from ice storm itself in the above example and a portion of that is avoidable using elemental resistance. I'd say the damage isn't so much of a problem. It takes quite a few levels of investment to reach decent damage compared to say a sorcerer ,which only requires 18 levels to dish out 480 damage a round, it'd take on average 3 targets at level 30 to reach that much damage WHEN hasted as you wont be able to maximise the ice storm version due to the spell slot cap on bards.

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Re: Warlocks

Post by Ecstatic » Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:23 am

Regarding Realoms' comment: Wizards with 6 wiltings prepared have nothing else in their level 8 slots, so no premonition, no greater sanctuary, no mind blank or extended protection from spells for their party, etc. And while they may destroy you with that, they'll also only be able to destroy 2-3ish spawns with it before needing a rest. And that's not a sustainable pace, without even touching on the fact that you can counter horrid wilting with a shadow shield scroll. Hellball and greater ruin are one hit wonder spells, and the combo is imminently beatable, and in PvE only really good for unloading on boss spawns. And you're conflating a PvE concern with a PvP concern: PvP, you can skate through the crowd control effects with clarity, but put too much automatic, saveless, unresistable damage on a crowd control effect, and balancing PvE will require you to make mobs that can shrug off the crowd control effect when you want a challenging adversary. This in turn makes other classes that rely on that crowd control much weaker, because what they used to bring to the table in PvE is much less effective.

Infinite casting classes, in order to be balanced, pretty much have to be worse at a single encounter than a vancian spell-nova machine, or trade away a significant amount of utility/defense. What they lose in potential to utterly crush a single encounter, they gain in endurance. My reading of Mith's latest class tweaks have me thinking that he is not considering which class will win in a PvP head to head, or stomp an enemy into the ground harder during PvP: he's looking primarily at what is going to be balanced and fun during PvE.

Ranged touch attack would go a long way towards providing a counter, and discouraging people from scrapping dex and cha completely: They'll want good DCs to ensure that they have a good chance of getting the spell effect to stick, and they'll want enough dex to land the touch attacks. Additionally, they'll need to actually have the touch attack AB to hit against epic bosses.

1d4 damage per level is also a relatively happy midpoint between 1d6/level and 1d6/2 levels. It will represent roughly a 50% increase in damage over the old output.

Also curious how the damage will interact with spell immunity and SR, especially when it comes to epic boss spawns.
Last edited by Ecstatic on Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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