Big Ol' Warlock Question Thread

[Flower Power]

Neato, an overhaul. Time for the token questions megathread.

1) Positive Energy Eldritch Blasts heal friendly targets, swapping out D6's for D4's. Eldritch Mastery feats increase Blast damage by 2D6 per feat: will Eldritch Mastery feats also increase the healing of Posi. Energy blasts by 2D4?

2) The text for the Epic Unseelie Pact has the 3 Minute CD removed for its infinicast Haste. Is this a typo, or are we witnessing the rebirth of the cooldownless, non-self-only infinicast Haste memes?

3) Quicken Spell doesn't quicken the first Blast in a chain; does Haste affect Blasts the same way?

[fading]

I also have a question regarding this:
Eldritch Summon
Prerequisite: Warlock, Pact (Any)
Specifics: Every 6 minutes the warlock may summon a planar servant as a spell-like ability. The warlock's class level and selected planar summon stream determine the available summon tiers. (Level 1: Tier 1, Level 8: Tier 2, Level 12: Tier 3, Level 17: Tier 4)

If you have no streams does it default to your alignment stream? Does Infernal, Abyssal and Unseelie pacts give the appropriate streams?

[Echohawk]

Given the fact that you select a pact and that the whole class is decoupled from the previous iteration of bard (alternative), your summons are bound to be based just as before. Probably no change, depending on how rollout goes, we may or may not get to change your pact given that there's new ones out and we'd be migrated to the new 'class'.

Given how first look this is (for the players), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there's a lot of transition growing pains, bumps, and additional0 changes en route.

[toftdal]

I take it Warlock will not be one of the pre-req classes for RDD - which renders my main's build invalid. Would it be possible to lose the pact, becoming a plain old bard as the least worse compromise?

[Kalopsia]

Neato, an overhaul. Time for the token questions megathread.

1) Positive Energy Eldritch Blasts heal friendly targets, swapping out D6's for D4's. Eldritch Mastery feats increase Blast damage by 2D6 per feat: will Eldritch Mastery feats also increase the healing of Posi. Energy blasts by 2D4?

2) The text for the Epic Unseelie Pact has the 3 Minute CD removed for its infinicast Haste. Is this a typo, or are we witnessing the rebirth of the cooldownless, non-self-only infinicast Haste memes?

3) Quicken Spell doesn't quicken the first Blast in a chain; does Haste affect Blasts the same way?

1) Eldritch Mastery currently doesn't affect healing. That'd make the healing too powerful.

2) Epic Fey Pact does have Haste without cooldown, yes. I am open to adjusting it to work more in line with old Feylock's Haste spells however, if that proves to be necessary.

3) No, it doesn't. This is just NWN being weird and not letting you cast two spells in the round you're getting hasted - and a Haste effect (with penalties to remove the AC/speed bonuses) is how I'm emulating Quicken Spell. This will only trigger if a character isn't hasted when casting a blast though, so no need to worry about any penalties in that case. :)

I also have a question regarding this:
Eldritch Summon
Prerequisite: Warlock, Pact (Any)
Specifics: Every 6 minutes the warlock may summon a planar servant as a spell-like ability. The warlock's class level and selected planar summon stream determine the available summon tiers. (Level 1: Tier 1, Level 8: Tier 2, Level 12: Tier 3, Level 17: Tier 4)

If you have no streams does it default to your alignment stream? Does Infernal, Abyssal and Unseelie pacts give the appropriate streams?

The script will first check your pacts for an appropriate summon. If it doesn't find any, alignment is used instead (limited to evil summons).

Given the fact that you select a pact and that the whole class is decoupled from the previous iteration of bard (alternative), your summons are bound to be based just as before. Probably no change, depending on how rollout goes, we may or may not get to change your pact given that there's new ones out and we'd be migrated to the new 'class'.

Given how first look this is (for the players), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there's a lot of transition growing pains, bumps, and additional0 changes en route.

Pacts of existing warlocks won't be changed when the migration code goes live. They'll get turned into base class warlocks and gain the Pact feat of their current pact.

I take it Warlock will not be one of the pre-req classes for RDD - which renders my main's build invalid. Would it be possible to lose the pact, becoming a plain old bard as the least worse compromise?

I'll find a solution. Adding this to my list! :)

[Flower Power]

Is the Feylock Planar Gate summon supposed to be so - feeble?

It's a downgrade in every respect from the T6 summon when you take into consideration the fact that Feylocks have infinite casts of Haste - it doesn't last very long, it has less AB, less AC (after you manually haste your summon) and significantly less SR - and it costs you a second epic feat to use.

Compare this to the Fiendlock gate summons, both of which are slightly stronger than their T6 counterparts.

[kinginyellow]

Does Baleful Blow allow for two uses of it per round with haste?

[Good Character]

I likely know the answer, but is Hideous Blast meant to cancel all your attacks and make you stand there until you manually click the target again?

[kinginyellow]

I likely know the answer, but is Hideous Blast meant to cancel all your attacks and make you stand there until you manually click the target again?

Yes. My warlock has that happen to them. Gotta spam queue blows, which is incredibly gimmicky since its a melee ability and causes you to be flatfooted if you kill something.

[Rico_scorpion]

Hi,

Greater Hideous Blow claims to be instant, but it (seems) to take a full round as i'm not doing my flurries of attacks when i use it (be it at the start of the round or at the end or in the middle).

I read wrong? It's bugged? Or user-stupidity and it works just fine?

Cheers

[Talvenlapsi]

Do the existing warlocks /have/ to migrate? Or would it be possible to let the current warlocks just be grandfathered, and give them choice to either migrate or stay as is?

[Good Character]

Hi,

Greater Hideous Blow claims to be instant, but it (seems) to take a full round as i'm not doing my flurries of attacks when i use it (be it at the start of the round or at the end or in the middle).

I read wrong? It's bugged? Or user-stupidity and it works just fine?

Cheers

That was what I was trying to get at above. It's working as everyone else is experiencing it, but it's arguably a bad feat as a decent PvPer will know to just move out of range before it hits to AoO you as your character chases or it will flatfoot you every time it lands.

[Kalopsia]

Regarding the Hideous Blow questions above: Yes, it's meant to work that way. Think of it more like a spell than a melee attack, because that is precisely what it is under the hood: A spell without cast time that is using melee animations. Therefore it's limited to two casts per round, cancels melee attacks and will flat-foot you if you don't keep your action queue filled.

Due to having no cast time, it can be used while running, allowing for a very versatile hit and run approach in PvP combat.

Is the Feylock Planar Gate summon supposed to be so - feeble?

It's a downgrade in every respect from the T6 summon when you take into consideration the fact that Feylocks have infinite casts of Haste - it doesn't last very long, it has less AB, less AC (after you manually haste your summon) and significantly less SR - and it costs you a second epic feat to use.

Compare this to the Fiendlock gate summons, both of which are slightly stronger than their T6 counterparts.

I've used the stats of existing Gate summons as a template for this one. AB and effective AC are identical once size penalties are taken into account, so Verdant Princes should perform very similarly to a Balor or Pit Fiend.

[Talvenlapsi]

Adding another question too;

Does GSF:Conjuration give boosts for the Eldricht Summons?

[Kalopsia]

Adding another question too;

Does GSF:Conjuration give boosts for the Eldricht Summons?

It does, but that's currently only working for summon tiers 4 and above. I'll include a fix in my next update :)

[Talvenlapsi]

Do metamagic-ed Pact Spells still end up inficasts if they would be such normally?
I.e. if I extended cast Bull's Strenght on Fathomless, is it still inficast?

[Tyrantos]

Does EDR stack with undying's DR or not? Im getting mixed answers, and I am unsure of how it actually is. Shame if it doesnt though, means you get that 20 con just for the epic pact, and cant get much more out of it.

[Hunter548]

Does EDR stack with undying's DR or not? Im getting mixed answers, and I am unsure of how it actually is. Shame if it doesnt though, means you get that 20 con just for the epic pact, and cant get much more out of it.

I can't speak with any authority for Undying Warlock's specific implementation, but:

EDR shouldn't stack with any DR that isn't also /-. Undying Warlock's DR is /+5, so they shouldn't stack together, the same way EDR doesn't stack with (say) premonition.

[Dembethecat]

I take it Warlock will not be one of the pre-req classes for RDD - which renders my main's build invalid. Would it be possible to lose the pact, becoming a plain old bard as the least worse compromise?

I'm in the exact same boat, I'm really hoping for a fix for this.

[Duchess Says]

Do the existing warlocks /have/ to migrate? Or would it be possible to let the current warlocks just be grandfathered, and give them choice to either migrate or stay as is?

I wish this were possible too. I have an award race warlock and am perfectly happy with the character as is. I'm happy there's options for future warlocks but I don't want to have to figure out how to retrofit or (what I really fear) delete and lose the character entirely because I didn't build it right at start.

Changes are also just really really daunting TBH, though maybe Monday morning before a harsh work week isn't the time to try and figure them out.

[Kalopsia]

Does EDR stack with undying's DR or not? Im getting mixed answers, and I am unsure of how it actually is. Shame if it doesnt though, means you get that 20 con just for the epic pact, and cant get much more out of it.

I can't speak with any authority for Undying Warlock's specific implementation, but:

EDR shouldn't stack with any DR that isn't also /-. Undying Warlock's DR is /+5, so they shouldn't stack together, the same way EDR doesn't stack with (say) premonition.

Hunter is right. The 5/+5 damage reduction doesn't stack with EDR.

Do the existing warlocks /have/ to migrate? Or would it be possible to let the current warlocks just be grandfathered, and give them choice to either migrate or stay as is?

I wish this were possible too. I have an award race warlock and am perfectly happy with the character as is. I'm happy there's options for future warlocks but I don't want to have to figure out how to retrofit or (what I really fear) delete and lose the character entirely because I didn't build it right at start.

Changes are also just really really daunting TBH, though maybe Monday morning before a harsh work week isn't the time to try and figure them out.

I'm afraid there will be no grandfathering of pathed warlocks. They are/were quite overtuned and we'd would prefer to focus on existing classes rather than investing even more time in reworking and balancing the old path. Besides, the new class is flexible enough to make most, if not all typical warlock stat spreads work just fine :)

I take it Warlock will not be one of the pre-req classes for RDD - which renders my main's build invalid. Would it be possible to lose the pact, becoming a plain old bard as the least worse compromise?

I'm in the exact same boat, I'm really hoping for a fix for this.

Don't worry! I've added this to my list and will find a solid solution when the migration happens.
Most likely warlock/rdds will lose their warlock flags and become bards instead, so there won't be any broken builds and leveling issues.

Do metamagic-ed Pact Spells still end up inficasts if they would be such normally?
I.e. if I extended cast Bull's Strenght on Fathomless, is it still inficast?

You can, yes! The one exception is metamagic that increases a spell's level to 7 or higher. Those spells don't get replenished.

[Talvenlapsi]

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I'm afraid there will be no grandfathering of pathed warlocks. They are/were quite overtuned and we'd would prefer to focus on existing classes rather than investing even more time in reworking and balancing the old path. Besides, the new class is flexible enough to make most, if not all typical warlock stat spreads work just fine

That.. Is somewhat upsetting. As I heavily dislike the new Abyssal pact (I just hate Wild Surges >.<), I feel weird being forced onto it, since the character is very established abyssalist by now. That's... Pretty sad, probably ending up with rolling the character As soon as possible with that. :/
Especially as having to end up with very sub-par build, having heavily con-based Abysslock.. I have no idea how to salvage this in the end, to anything that's playable.

[Flower Power]

Besides, the new class is flexible enough to make most, if not all typical warlock stat spreads work just fine

I don't think that's strictly true. You lose so much of NuLock's potential if you fail to hit either 20 DEX/24 CHA (for most non-Undyinglocks) or 16 DEX/24 CHA (for Feylock.) Most OldLocks were really CON-heavy, I'm pretty sure, so they won't have anywhere near the right sort of stat spread to take advantage of NuLock.

[Duchess Says]

Besides, the new class is flexible enough to make most, if not all typical warlock stat spreads work just fine

I don't think that's strictly true. You lose so much of NuLock's potential if you fail to hit either 20 DEX/24 CHA (for most non-Undyinglocks) or 16 DEX/24 CHA (for Feylock.) Most OldLocks were really CON-heavy, I'm pretty sure, so they won't have anywhere near the right sort of stat spread to take advantage of NuLock.

I agree that doesn't seem true and my character doesn't seem suited, but I haven't investigated yet and won't have time to, and kind of wish I didn't have to spend that time testing and asking around and reading discord to see what's what instead of just playing.

I feel like I spend a lot more time building, testing, doing writs then oh, that build won't work now because the class was revamped... And very little time actually RPing or getting invested in the long term. I have a vault half-filled with shelved characters that I was enjoying but have to wait and see what happens since their classes are works in progress or they're "next on the chopping block".

I am sorry to vent and I think the new class looks fun and I'll probably play it some day but right now I'm really dismayed to be back at square one again, trying to figure out what to play if I do play.

I feel like... have you ever had a job where you're in a groove and you're productive and everything is working... Then a manager has some ideas to completely reinvent the workflow, and now you're not good at the job, you have to learn a whole new process, and you're of course expected to smile and say how much you appreciate it because of all the hard work your manager put in... And the thing is, things were great before. I've been experiencing that a lot on Arelith... these changes wreck my characters just as they're getting going. I can't imagine a PnP D&D game where the DM has us rebuild constantly because they have new ideas how to revamp the mechanics, how can a story be told when that becomes the priority? Or when existing characters now in the middle of the campaign are treated as disposable because the ones to be rolled up post-changes are what really matters?

I know this is an online game and not D&D and I'm sorry to vent and it does look like a cool class. A lot of this is just me wishing I had more time to play because my 8-10 hours a week now seem to be all about the PGCC and writs and not getting involved, and I don't think that's uncommon. Again sorry to vent, but if you can't vent on a forum where can you.

[MRFTW]

If we can't be grandfathered, can old warlocks at least get their awards refunded?