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The WoF immunity on warlock pets needs to go for consistency's sake IMO.
The way it is now feels incredibly arbitrary.
...and a balance argument could be made as well.
The First Vicar wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 6:57 pmYeah naw. Use knockdown. It's a mage. Def not overpowered.
Warlocks get discipline as class skill = can get 70+ discipline with minimal effort.
They also get d6 HD, so they aren't as squishy as sorc/wiz either.
I'd say if WOF resistance was removed, then perhaps the planar gate feat should be able to work when they're on the epic pet cooldown. I don't see why planar gate has to be disabled when on the summon cooldown to begin with.
Yes they do. Spellsword is unreasonably broken.
Warlock doesn't get more discipline than anyone else as long as you're class dipping.
The summon seems strong, but I've never focused on a warlock summon. Once the warlock is dead, the summon is gone, and that's how it's always gone for me. A high dc cleric (which is kind of nonexistant in this day and age) could easily word of faith it away, but tell me where you can find one of those.
In PvP, wizard and sorcerer is absolutely stronger. But the fact is: They're also boring. In a perfect world, your job as a sorcerer or a wizard is to completely conserve your spells until the moment is right for you to strike and drop so much aoe garbage on an enemy group that they quite literally don't know what hit them. Wizards make for the masters of group battles, whereas sorcerers should always win a 1v1.
Half that problem is that people go entire character concepts without ever actually being challenged to PvP.
The other half is that the second you're comfortable with the idea you're not going to encounter PvP, you're going to realize you don't have every single spell slot you need available when a fight does come up.
Wizard and sorcere are, without question, kind of boring when compared to a warlock. You can quite literally solo grind without a summon as an evo sorcerer (not trueflame, lack of buffs is ew.) Don't get me wrong, I've done it. But rapidly chugging spirits and resting every few spawns isn't a very enticing experience.
When you play a wizard or a sorcerer, you realistically do it to play a support character that truly shines in group combat.
You play spellsword to be a weapon master with 30 cl extended haste, breach resistance, shadow shield, 30 cl premonition, 30 cl spell mantle, incendiary cloud and acid fog, 30 cl acid sheathe, epic spell focus abjuration for free for some reason, and the ability to cast mordekainen's disjunction and timestop in one single round.
You play warlock to be the local chad grinder who can be your tour guide to anywhere.
Warlock isn't weak. But it's not the king of the hill so many people seem to claim it to be.
Even class dipping is a trade-off - there are no CL30 wizard builds with 70 discipline. At the same time CL 30 warlocks with 70 discipline not only do exist, but don't ask much to get there.
This is relevant, because CL affects the strength of spells, their duration, resillience vs dispels and strength of summons = it directly determines the power of a spellcaster's primary gimmick.
But we can easily switch the argument around and say "let's remove discipline from warlock" - the class has been originally custom built from the Bard template and discipline being its class skill seems to have been simply grandfathered after the rework for some reason.
The Warlock summon is about as strong as any other summoner pet gets when built for it. That means it's designed to handle endgame PvE content and by extension has the ability to defeat maxed out character builds on its own when fully buffed.
And that's the issue - the baseline summon stats would have been fine, what makes the difference here is that the summon gets to keep all the buffs that were previously cast on it regardless of any WoFs or dispels (as it's been warded by a CL30 spellcaster) thrown at it.
This is not something that can be seen with other summoner builds - even if they can actually post-WoF recast their pets (not an option for conduit users) those will be forced to operate at their baseline stats during the PvP encounter unless the summoner can afford the tempo to reapply all the buffs, which is very rarely the case.
Combine this with insane turn resistance and we'll get a summon that doesn't really offer much counterplay - it's as if every single summon rebalance decision made over the past 2 years simply did not apply to warlocks.
Balance concerns put aside, this is a glaring inconsistency with regards to summons in general.
I am just confused how people can claim Warlock is somehow worse in PvP than a wizard/sorcerer
DC spells are dead by and large, and if you want something resembling viable you'll have to sacrifice a large amount of other attributes and possibly entire schools (shadow weave path) to get your DC to a measly 46. If you try to IGMS spam or Evo combo, pray will save any opponent without much trouble or Shield will just reduce all damage you do to record lows
Meanwhile Warlock can:
Have an amazing per out that you can't take away while dealing about 50 damage per blast
Have decent AC while hitting you with eldritch blasts the size of trucks for possibly 200 damage a round from a distance so far it's make an AA blush
Sneak, be immune to knockdown and use UMD cookies. What doesn't warlock get? Some level 9 spells? How much does a timestop into Evo combo really do when pray exists?
To me saying warlock is worse than wizard or sorcerer in PvP is just... Bonkers
-XXX- wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 8:16 pmThe WoF immunity on warlock pets needs to go for consistency's sake IMO.
The way it is now feels incredibly arbitrary.
...and a balance argument could be made as well.The First Vicar wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 6:57 pmYeah naw. Use knockdown. It's a mage. Def not overpowered.
Warlocks get discipline as class skill = can get 70+ discipline with minimal effort.
They also get d6 HD, so they aren't as squishy as sorc/wiz either.
eh, thats if they build up to 70. 65 should be fine, but yeah, thats with esf aswell
Joe46 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2023 9:55 amI am just confused how people can claim Warlock is somehow worse in PvP than a wizard/sorcerer
DC spells are dead by and large, and if you want something resembling viable you'll have to sacrifice a large amount of other attributes and possibly entire schools (shadow weave path) to get your DC to a measly 46. If you try to IGMS spam or Evo combo, pray will save any opponent without much trouble or Shield will just reduce all damage you do to record lows
Meanwhile Warlock can:
Have an amazing per out that you can't take away while dealing about 50 damage per blastHave decent AC while hitting you with eldritch blasts the size of trucks for possibly 200 damage a round from a distance so far it's make an AA blush
Sneak, be immune to knockdown and use UMD cookies. What doesn't warlock get? Some level 9 spells? How much does a timestop into Evo combo really do when pray exists?
To me saying warlock is worse than wizard or sorcerer in PvP is just... Bonkers
"Have decent AC while hitting you with eldritch blasts the size of trucks for possibly 200 damage a round from a distance so far it's make an AA blush"
Warlocks have MEH ac (52-53 buffed fully is what I am getting atleast). a div sorc gets WAY more. (60-61)
And let me tell you how a timestop into evo combo works. aka the WomboCombo
I timestop you, then (-fate100 if WildMage) igmsx2 you. If you pray out of it, then I just hellball you combined with GR (One before the other after IGMS,x2, doesn't really matter.) That sheds all of your health and you are dead. That is the wombo combo. Easier to do on a wildmage with -fate100, but a sorc can still kill you just as well. It's exactly like Astra detailed above. As a wizard or sorc you save your burst damage spells for the right moment and pet farm, but as a warlock you can pet farm and do 40-100 damage a round to someone, NOT being a blaster. A blaster will do significantly more per round, if I am correct.
Joe46 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2023 9:55 amI am just confused how people can claim Warlock is somehow worse in PvP than a wizard/sorcerer
DC spells are dead by and large, and if you want something resembling viable you'll have to sacrifice a large amount of other attributes and possibly entire schools (shadow weave path) to get your DC to a measly 46. If you try to IGMS spam or Evo combo, pray will save any opponent without much trouble or Shield will just reduce all damage you do to record lows
Meanwhile Warlock can:
Have an amazing per out that you can't take away while dealing about 50 damage per blastHave decent AC while hitting you with eldritch blasts the size of trucks for possibly 200 damage a round from a distance so far it's make an AA blush
Sneak, be immune to knockdown and use UMD cookies. What doesn't warlock get? Some level 9 spells? How much does a timestop into Evo combo really do when pray exists?
To me saying warlock is worse than wizard or sorcerer in PvP is just... Bonkers
Any one warlock won't do all of those things though. The class is designed so you can pick a few things to excel at but you never get it all. You only get so many epic warlock feats and many need to be taken at 28 or 30 so that's a limit on your top-end abilities. Maybe you have an epic pet and eldritch chain, but you won't have all of the +damage to blast feats, you probably couldn't fit dark blessing and you probably don't have more than 12 or 14 constitution since you needed 24 dex and charisma. You'll be a glass cannon easy for some to take down.
Plus once that pet is gone it's not coming back for six minutes-- and even if WOF doesn't work it's just another monster that some people would have no problem killing in two rounds if it was an NPC mob. It's strong but hardly invincible.
Having fought a lot of warlocks and like tested them in the PGCC I don't think that pet is as killable as is suggested. As soon as you turn to fight the summon a warlock is breaching you endlessly. Then smacking you with his death beams.
With like a combo spellsword + WM and a skilled WM at that we couldn't devote time to the pet. The only viable strategy seemed to be to force the warlock to kite. Breach or disjunction when possible and try to either catch them in an acid fog without freedom or use like Iron Horn to knock them over.
Letting the warlock free cast never worked out it was just too much damage.
I think the warlock class is popular right now because it's very strong and relatively simple to use. Just like quatstaff spellsword or any other number of meta builds before I'm sure it'll get knocked down eventually and something else will take its place.
Apparently wizard and sorcerer were still powerful enough that we buffed headband of protection and protection domain anyway. Just saying.
Back in the days of yore my issue with Warlock wasn't the mechanical power (though the very first blast was off the charts), but the awful cost becoming one would not be reflected, either in the RP of the individual players (frankly a great many characters are so full of themselves and their own general awesomeness it was hard to imagine them RPing fear of their patron, and less still the lack of free will that comes with the pact), or by the mechanics themselves.
In the latter of these two cases we really don't do anything at all, so in reality the 'price' of such power is nonexistent. For a time I was in favour of a quest-like system whereby warlocks would actually be required to commit atrocities and other heinous acts in game, on behalf their patron, but in reality this could quickly become stale when coded, and I would much, much prefer it was reflected in the roleplay.
My worry? That it hasn't been, and that being a warlock is now so uncontroversial as to barely cause any scandal whatsoever.
An that's essentially my stance on their mechanical power - it's exactly what the pact was intended to bestow, so for me it is no problem.
If, of course, the price carried real in-game consequences.
Would it be reasonable if outcast tag was given to well known warlocks? I'm not too familiar with it but as far as I know outcast tag is only given if someone requests it with reasonable RP. Perhaps it could be also used as a "stick" so warlocks are way more careful about hiding their dark ways.
Irongron wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 1:18 pmMy worry? That it hasn't been, and that being a warlock is now so uncontroversial as to barely cause any scandal whatsoever.
An that's essentially my stance on their mechanical power - it's exactly what the pact was intended to bestow, so for me it is no problem.
If, of course, the price carried real in-game consequences.
I would have to disagree. The class is so aggressively metagamed with prejudice that it's beyond not even funny. And this doesn't actually match up with lore. Being a known warlock is not some death sentence in Faerun like it blatantly is on Arelith, especially when dealing with elves or sometimes paladins.
They're literally utilized in courts all across the lands as advisors and consultants on the unknown. The real problem is that every single character on Arelith is a wiki warrior that completely invalidates any sense of mystery or intrigue a warlock can even have.
Edit: Worth noting that reliance on a summon is not commonly a thing, nor even a class feature of warlocks in dnd. It's somewhat a NWNs requirement for survival.
In truth, as a former Warlock and only weighing on the matter of RP, I will say that I feel Warlock was more enjoyable and exciting to RP when it was hated and feared. Arelithism or special lore notwithstanding (Arelith is its own beast), I remember some of my most enjoyed RPs to be around cloak-and-dagger to avoid being found, or escaping and fighting (verbally) for my right to live when ousted.
Though it is true that the wave of renewed acceptance for Warlocks is understandable (it makes life easier for new players), I feel as if Warlock lost something in the transition.
On the mechanical standpoint.
I have not enough mechanical knowledge to make reasonable comments, but I will say this: I enjoyed playing Warlock over Wizard or Sorcerer, mechanically, because I had the little personalized buttons of special feats. Because I could select "Beguiling Whispers" or "Otherwordly Influence", and know it was something special I could have specifically because I was a Warlock. They made me feel that the class was mechanically unique.
I personally feel Wizard and Sorcerer, being relatively unupdated, lack any of these interesting and unique features.
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Algol wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 5:11 pmWould it be reasonable if outcast tag was given to well known warlocks? I'm not too familiar with it but as far as I know outcast tag is only given if someone requests it with reasonable RP. Perhaps it could be also used as a "stick" so warlocks are way more careful about hiding their dark ways.
Maybe some sort of tell you could spot like pirate tattoos, but I'd say only on epic warlocks (or maybe even level 30), could be a thing for lore or diviners instead of spotters. It kind of makes sense, I mean the eyeglow used to be the giveaway and hiding that was life or death for warlocks on the surface. That was problematic in some ways too however.
I don't think they have it all that easy on the surface, though. I mean there's some acceptance but you'll draw opposition and likely be unwelcome if you're found out (and word travels fast). Is the idea that every surface PC supposed to hate warlocks? Because a whole lot of them are up to their own shenanigans as well, and I don't see a lot of tolerance from the goodly types.
Eyeliner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 11:09 pmI don't think they have it all that easy on the surface, though. I mean there's some acceptance but you'll draw opposition and likely be unwelcome if you're found out (and word travels fast). Is the idea that every surface PC supposed to hate warlocks? Because a whole lot of them are up to their own shenanigans as well, and I don't see a lot of tolerance from the goodly types.
Just from what I've seen - granted, my experience dealing with warlocks has only been goodly-surfacer-style - once we find out someone's a warlock, it's like...okay. Welp. That's it. If they say they're keeping their pact, there's nothing we can really do about it because their right to exist without harassment is protected by DM-fiat-level law in the two largest settlements (keep in mind that Guldorandi law protects warlocks in almost the entire northeastern quarter of the island with the sole exception of the Elven Quarter, and Cordorian law tends to be implemented over everything south of Bendir). If you question why an obvious paladin is helping out blatant warlocks with their writs, you're going to get a "being suspicious of someone just because they've made a pact makes YOU the bad guy" response (yes, this has happened).
So there's a lot of tolerance. Warm acceptance, probably not.
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Irongron wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 1:18 pmBack in the days of yore my issue with Warlock wasn't the mechanical power (though the very first blast was off the charts), but the awful cost becoming one would not be reflected, either in the RP of the individual players (frankly a great many characters are so full of themselves and their own general awesomeness it was hard to imagine them RPing fear of their patron, and less still the lack of free will that comes with the pact), or by the mechanics themselves.
In the latter of these two cases we really don't do anything at all, so in reality the 'price' of such power is nonexistent. For a time I was in favour of a quest-like system whereby warlocks would actually be required to commit atrocities and other heinous acts in game, on behalf their patron, but in reality this could quickly become stale when coded, and I would much, much prefer it was reflected in the roleplay.
My worry? That it hasn't been, and that being a warlock is now so uncontroversial as to barely cause any scandal whatsoever.
An that's essentially my stance on their mechanical power - it's exactly what the pact was intended to bestow, so for me it is no problem.
If, of course, the price carried real in-game consequences.
We can always have the settlement NPC rulers revoke the current protections for warlocks and thus open up the old way of IG persecution by players against the pacted as a sort of RP balance. Ever since the star Pact event when the new warlock changes were made, alot of progress has been forced to accommodate and remove the stigma against Pacted individuals within most settlements. Either by the players or more often the ruling NPCs.
Honestly...i feel that having a mechanical enforcement for warlock to commit evil is actually perfectly right...just like how a vampire has to feed on blood mechanically.
As irongron has written, the price for such power is literally non-existent.
I do not doubt that players are able to roleplay a warlock obtaining their power properly but equally, i believe that there're substantial amount of players that do not actually roleplay how they obtain or price they gave to receive it, at all.
Though, this will all require coding and time investment, perhaps even trial and error, to make it right which is a huge amount of work for anyone taking on the project. This is particularly because there're five different pacts and the pacts themselves, should not be universal in paying the price.
In all honesty, being an epic warlock means that you're the champion of your patron. To gain the greatest power possible to be bestowed by your patron, you ought to have a reputation terrible enough to garner sufficient fear as epic warlock is almost the closest being to a godlike being.
I do find it baffling and actually dislike RPing with an epic warlock, trying to be a goodie two-shoes or claim to be redeeming themselves etc etc. If you're not an epic warlock? Yes. But having took the epic pact, it's just impossible.
I disagree the price is none existent. Especially with how easy it is to meta-game warlocks without any feasible way to enforce rules against it. I say "not feasible" because I know it is technically possible to check logs for spellcraft rolls but that would mean that 1) the news already spread and it's too late and 2) that the warlock needs to report any person who may have maybe meta-gamed and that sucks. I came to play areltih not watch Suits, so I'm not going to preemptively report a LOT of (most likely) innocent people just in case.
tl;dr it is extremely easy to out a warlock and give them hell for it. It doesnt happen enough because the easier solution is to ignore the hell out of the warlock and never confronting them or RPing with them at all if it could, god forbid, lead to pvp or bit of drama. But the consequences of being a warlock are definitely there for better or worse.
Warlock is popular because it is such a fun class to play, and that has a lot to do with Kalo's fantastic and clean design for the class.
However, Warlock as a theme is uninspiring and one-dimensional. The characters themselves can be nuanced, sure, but the class itself? Not so much. One of the indicators is that Warlocks do not have a function in the immediate societies established in Forgotten Realms. (maybe to some niche cult or small town, sure)
An exercise to recognize what classes are conceptually rich is when we speak the names of these classes. What images do they evoke in your mind?
Wizard: I can imagine all sorts of backgrounds - scholars researching in their high towers, necromancers being creepy in the graveyard, war mages in armor and casting spells in a war, magocracy, and politics.
Rogue: dungeoneer, brute, thief, assassin, tinkerer, smuggler, scout, city guide. There are so many tropes Rogues can fulfill, be it lawful, unscrupulous, or anywhere in between.
Cleric: a local village pastor, a cathedral bishop, a wandering missionary, a secluded temple caregiver - the priesthood and clergy are essential in a fantasy setting where deities are abundant and have manifestations both literal and metaphysical.
These iconic classes can inspire roleplay by just their names alone.
Warlocks? Well, they sacrifice something to gain personal power from some entity surrounded by mystery, right? Or perhaps they need to perform some ritual from time to time? Sacrifice something in the name of their patron? So what is their function in conjunction with the rest of the society? What is their interaction with the rest of the society with what they do?
Wizards, as mechanically poor and irrelevant as they are now, remain the 2nd most popular caster class, right behind clerics. Warlocks, which I consider the opposite case, where their mechanics shine (thanks to Kalo, again) but are conceptually uninspiring. The two W's make for a fun case study.
To wrap this all up and get back to the point, I don't blame people for not having a good time interacting with Warlocks because the theme and concept weren't that clear-cut or great for social interaction. It is not on the developer to fix whatever problem is perceived with Warlocks, but that responsibility lies with the players and the player base. Maybe with some nudges and pushes from the DMs and the lore writers, players can make Warlock RP interaction a more enjoyable process for everyone involved.
This is for two reasons: it's from a setting-neutral sourcebook and not core, and so Forgotten Realms has only a handful of canon Warlocks in 3rd edition. They do not have a place in immediate societies in FR because nobody wrote them.
And two, Arelith's warlocks have functionally no resemblance to canon warlocks, who could in fact occupy the same roles as the arcane casters you describe, as they're basically just funky sorcerers. Arelith's Warlocks are different.
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Irongron wrote:4. No full screen images of the NWN gnome model (might frighten the children)
Well, then, looks like it's time to get to work :whip:
Irongron wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 1:18 pmBack in the days of yore my issue with Warlock wasn't the mechanical power (though the very first blast was off the charts), but the awful cost becoming one would not be reflected, either in the RP of the individual players (frankly a great many characters are so full of themselves and their own general awesomeness it was hard to imagine them RPing fear of their patron, and less still the lack of free will that comes with the pact), or by the mechanics themselves.
In the latter of these two cases we really don't do anything at all, so in reality the 'price' of such power is nonexistent. For a time I was in favour of a quest-like system whereby warlocks would actually be required to commit atrocities and other heinous acts in game, on behalf their patron, but in reality this could quickly become stale when coded, and I would much, much prefer it was reflected in the roleplay.
My worry? That it hasn't been, and that being a warlock is now so uncontroversial as to barely cause any scandal whatsoever.
An that's essentially my stance on their mechanical power - it's exactly what the pact was intended to bestow, so for me it is no problem.
If, of course, the price carried real in-game consequences.
If I don't bring atleast 1 player ear a month to ol' Tharizdun, he gets really cranky. "Something Something sacrifice!" Yeah yeah, im workin on it big guy.
