Too many warlock versus other casters

[D4wN]

Sounds like there now is a cost for paladins and sutch working for a corupt king/queen in a vile city.

LOL, you say that as if there's a choice. Oh sure, we human characters could go live in Bendir where there is 0 influence from DMs on how to govern their settlement. Or Brog. Or Myon. But the truth is these Settlements aren't for humans and that is 100% abundantly clear and the RP style of each settlement is -very- different too. So then you're left with Cordor or Guldorand. Both of which are heavily influenced by DM/Dev/Admin direction. The Founder's Council and Charter is a constant reminder that it doesn't matter if you're an outcast, pirate, animator etc. Because you're protected by the laws. Equally the Cordor Palace consistently makes the decisions to force players into normalising and accepting these characters. What's left? Leave a settlement. Sure, it's an option too. And then you get 0 RP because the majority of RP happens in Settlements.

My point is the same as Choof's and a few others here. When you, as DM/Devs/Admins normalise these things then you will naturally see changes to the way people treat these sorts of characters and what they do or don't feel empowered to do against them.

And absolutely I will once more call out that I don't get where this stigma on Cordor killing everyone comes from. It simply doesn't happen.

There is also Westcliff and the RH HQ where you could fall back to and think about the next moves to make.
Or just stay and try to fight the powers that be any way. (Sounds like a epic hero tale in the make to me)
You are a realy good rper and im sure you could think of something cool.

I appreciate the compliment in there! But unfortunately Westcliff is entirely dead as more and more is taken from it and the time zone of players there doesn’t match mine. Similarly with the RH there’s barely anyone there when I play. I definitely won’t lie, I have had RP sessions with a familiar and even with a statue as Theodor. But that gets old real quick if those are the only options in your time zone

As people know I don’t shy away from conflict at all and may be known to look it up even or create it. But to have it constantly in your own backyard when everyone keeps defending your local Warlock and keeps calling you the bully for making them feel unwelcome also gets very tiring. When you have to explain to good aligned clerics or other goodly people that Warlocks are bad and they tell you their big Devil or Demon Lord is actually a super nice guy, it’s deflating and frustrating to say the least. I understand Warlocks can be neutral aligned, but the very fact they made a deal with a devil, demon, unseelie etc for power and then continue to use said powers is evil. It would be like debating a neutral Palemaster. They as a person may be neutral aligned, but the acts they perform of mutilating their body and raising the dead would all still very much be considered an act of evil by most goodly people. Or should.

I’m not debating here whether it’s possible to have conflict with warlocks or whether or not to accept consequences. Even if it’s not fun to have your head bit off because you’re mean to a Warlock and have people take to the forums to complain about Cordorians being bullies. I originally responded to Irongron who made a statement that Warlocks are basically treated like any other caster and people don’t treat them with caution or distrust. And this has largely been my experience too. This wasn’t the case at all when Warlocks were unwelcome in Cordor. And it actually had consequences to be a Warlock. So there’s your proof I guess that allowing Warlocks protection in a city and then having us remove anti-warlock laws very much desensitises people to the danger of warlocks.

I agree with Perseid as well. Having one large human settlement allow these things and the other not would also give people options on where they like their specific character at the time to play. I for one would still love to actually see a proper “evil” surface city where Warlock, animators, thieves etc can thrive.

[Nobs]

Im playing a pirate warlock with 8 sail... i know it can get lonely evey now and then in certain places

[Joe46]

As someone that's been playing in Guldorand a lot as a GOOD character, I do admit it's a hard (but not impossible) balancing act to tolerate warlocks and any other "evil" class but I'll be giving some insights

As of right now due to player decisions, overly evil classes are straight up not allowed in the constabulary. If we find out you are one, you won't be kicked out from the city but say bye bye to joining the government on any capacity.

Thayvians and other such "evil" groups are tolerated but I at least make a point IC of keeping a close eye on them. I don't trust them IC and neither do most "Good" guards arround. This is GREAT for RP, doubly so as we have a few of them in the government (with one of them being the Constabulary boss). It makes for an existing balancing out where I (a paladin) andy boss (a literal red knight) have to both work together to better the city while it's clear we keep a close eye on one another. The interactions you get when a LG pal and a LE/LN Knight get when enforcing the law together ("That was uncalled for, he's already down don't be an Snuggybear") are way better than "uhhh foolish paladin/foul Thayvian, out of my town"

I feel this should be the standard for any LG goodie two shoes idea to interact with the "evils" in your town. Don't kick them out for existing alone, they have a facade to the common populus. But don't be friendly with them either, watch them closely. Tell them off when they get too big for their own heads.

Heck, the radiant heart have a big HQ in Amn. The rulers of that nation are as bad or worse than the red wizards of Thay. Being Good does not equal "I must pulverise everything evil in a 30 km radius" and the lore gives us examples of paladins and evil groups being on the same city just fine

[Xerah]

I think what Joe explained is exactly what the goal of "acceptance" is. Thayan acceptance is the perfect parallel here (and part of the reason why I assume an enclave was added to Guldorand). I trust that's the DM goal of this but the other players have to bridge that gap too.

The "but he's a good guy" RP is a huge disservice to the setting and the character who says this. If it's a dumb character that's been manipulated by the "bad guy", then great (think both low INT and WIS), but most of the time it's not this at all. I wish that those people who try to push this kind of thing (and those who add to the pile) take a hard look at how stupid their character has to be to think the warlock/infernalist/etc. is just "misunderstood".

It's a very annoying and frustrating RP for the people on the other side to deal with. You can't react without getting slammed for it, which starts driving the RP narrative, so the better option is just to wholesale ignore the thing that will backlash on your character if you want to keep with positive story telling within the setting (which should be the goal, not defending yourself from very setting logical actions). Sadly, there has never been a great solution to this and I wish we could come up with one without being so heavy handed about it.

[Someone Lost]

Warlocks as a class is just mechanically too powerful which is reason its so popular.

1. It has bard skill progression meaning it can take major pvp skills and more for flavor.
   Tumble for 6 more ac, Max discipline for knockdown resist, max use magic device ranks for timestop and other high level spells they lack via tomes, hide and move silently for those moments you need to disengage.

2. Pixie familiar to open runic locks and traps for them because why not.

3. Do we need to mention 95% wof immune, perma hasted weapon master summon with ridiculous stats for farming basically anywhere. I might drop image of fully buffed summon lock pet, but everyone already knows since the class is top pick.

4. Eldritch Blast, 2 times a round and very hard to miss due being ranged touch attack, breaks other caster concentration checks and is valid damage even when being a summon lock.

5. Busted spell list and tomes, they have everything to counter anything, Namely infernal lock empowered hell inferno (lol), natures balance (wtf) curse storm, true seeing, biteback shields, perma haste, you name it.

6. They can trivialize pve content by infi casting darkness and sit there letting op summon kill all or join speeding it up, but why bother when you could watch netflix, not that perma hasted wm couldn't handle it in no time (and most of the time better than other player).

7. Solid 52,55,60+ ac depending build. Combined with darkness and improved invisibility.

8. Brushing near 500hp is alot better than many other casters can dream of. Optional false life on top of it.

9. at lvl 28 they get charisma to saves, making them fail only at roll 1 which is a case in arelith already but now they effectively dodge the bullet of having at least one shitty save to worry about like rogues.

10. This class is so broken in PVE that they can run even the most ridiculous dungeons alone and so broken in PVP that even Inquisitor Paladins tell you to run. The only counter to a Warlock is another Warlock.

[AstralUniverse]

Warlocks as a class is just mechanically too powerful which is reason its so popular.

1. It has bard skill progression meaning it can take major pvp skills and more for flavor.
   Tumble for 6 more ac, Max discipline for knockdown resist, max use magic device ranks for timestop and other high level spells they lack via tomes, hide and move silently for those moments you need to disengage.

2. Pixie familiar to open runic locks and traps for them because why not.

3. Do we need to mention 95% wof immune, perma hasted weapon master summon with ridiculous stats for farming basically anywhere. I might drop image of fully buffed summon lock pet, but everyone already knows since the class is top pick.

4. Eldritch Blast, 2 times a round and very hard to miss due being ranged touch attack, breaks other caster concentration checks and is valid damage even when being a summon lock.

5. Busted spell list and tomes, they have everything to counter anything, Namely infernal lock empowered hell inferno (lol), natures balance (wtf) curse storm, true seeing, biteback shields, perma haste, you name it.

6. They can trivialize pve content by infi casting darkness and sit there letting op summon kill all or join speeding it up, but why bother when you could watch netflix, not that perma hasted wm couldn't handle it in no time (and most of the time better than other player).

7. Solid 52,55,60+ ac depending build. Combined with darkness and improved invisibility.

8. Brushing near 500hp is alot better than many other casters can dream of. Optional false life on top of it.

9. at lvl 28 they get charisma to saves, making them fail only at roll 1 which is a case in arelith already but now they effectively dodge the bullet of having at least one shitty save to worry about like rogues.

10. This class is so broken in PVE that they can run even the most ridiculous dungeons alone and so broken in PVP that even Inquisitor Paladins tell you to run. The only counter to a Warlock is another Warlock.

Can one warlock build do all of these things? I want to see a spreadsheet or it didnt happen.

[Someone Lost]

[/quote]

Can one warlock build do all of these things? I want to see a spreadsheet or it didnt happen.
[/quote]

Astral you know that infernal summonlock gets all that by just dropping epic discipline for favoring better save with dark blessing, and the ac I already told it depends of the build in which this case would be 52 with human on top of that I forgot to mention the immunities you also get from Epic Pact.

Fire DI 15%,,
Fire DR 15/-
Acid DI 10%
Acid DR 10/-

Feel free to convince me or any other warlock is not busted class from mechanical point of view. There is absolutely no reason to play wizard for example its so sad it hurts my god damn old heart.

[Joe46]

I think what Joe explained is exactly what the goal of "acceptance" is. Thayan acceptance is the perfect parallel here (and part of the reason why I assume an enclave was added to Guldorand). I trust that's the DM goal of this but the other players have to bridge that gap too.

The "but he's a good guy" RP is a huge disservice to the setting and the character who says this. If it's a dumb character that's been manipulated by the "bad guy", then great (think both low INT and WIS), but most of the time it's not this at all. I wish that those people who try to push this kind of thing (and those who add to the pile) take a hard look at how stupid their character has to be to think the warlock/infernalist/etc. is just "misunderstood".

It's a very annoying and frustrating RP for the people on the other side to deal with. You can't react without getting slammed for it, which starts driving the RP narrative, so the better option is just to wholesale ignore the thing that will backlash on your character if you want to keep with positive story telling within the setting (which should be the goal, not defending yourself from very setting logical actions). Sadly, there has never been a great solution to this and I wish we could come up with one without being so heavy handed about it.

This is exactly it. At best a warlock was misguided, at worst he knew FULL well what he was doing and he just didn't care as he considered power more important than anything else.

Does this mean they should be KoS? No. Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you have to kill them or even be hostile. "Keep your friends close and enemies closer" afterall

As for consequences for being a warlock, as someone that plays now a Reedemed Blackguard (who was pacted so same case), please I implore you to write a contract. Write something about your pact, play with it. I cannot recomend this enough. As an example my character had to aid Baator in the blood war, thus he had to kill all demons he found and could not harm a single devil. He had quotas to meet and he'd have to team up with all sorts of people to achive them!

[AstralUniverse]

Astral you know that infernal summonlock gets all that by just dropping epic discipline for favoring better save with dark blessing...

... Feel free to convince me or any other warlock is not busted class from mechanical point of view. There is absolutely no reason to play wizard for example its so sad it hurts my god damn old heart.

I'm very familiar with the build and I dont think it's overpowered tbh (and for the record you cannot trade esf disc for dark blessing wth). I also think other mages arent that hot and it's not warlock's fault. When paladins, weaponmasters and spellswords basically live above the food chain you dont need to nerf things which are already somewhere in the middle of the food chain. You do something about the stragglers at the bottom. So nerfing warlock doesnt make any sense. Warlock is one of, if not the, best designed and most fun class we got and it should serve as a new standard for class design, not get nerfed.

[Someone Lost]

You do realize in game development nerfs are necessary at times to lessen the power creep? I do because I am a game developer and I have given arguments why I think the class is over tuned, now give yours. I have played it and I have seen it outperform, you clearly are looking the class from the player perspective and defending it because you happen to play one.

I admit its one of the most fun classes to play that we can agree, but it needs nerf there is no denying that, same happened with invoker and its now way better position in game mechanical strength compared the silliness of what it was.

Edit: I don't usually post here in forums you can see that but when I do, I do it because something is very concerning for the economy and player interaction point of view in server, this topic is.

[Ork]

I have played it and I have seen it outperform, you clearly are looking the class from the player perspective and defending it because you happen to play one.

You must be new here. Astral wouldn't do that. Don't mud-sling cause you happen to disagree.

[PowerWord Rage]

The diversity of Warlock is incredibly large and it's a fact that all of us agree.

And it is not false that Warlock can be godlike in PVE and incredibly powerful in PVP as well because I've built my Warlock around this aspect and had taken part in sufficient PVP battles to confirm that.
[ Edit : I used to play a Feylock Storm-giant and perhaps some of the players might have fought him before. I include this into this post because it would otherwise seems silly to make a statement without supporting evidence. ]

I've seen my fair share of Warlock when i played in UD and Pirates and safe to say that majority of them are not equipped for PVP nor good at PVE.
There's a reason why Sencliff always have plenty of Warlocks yet they fail miserably in PVPs solo or group.
Hence, it is not a cause for concern, on the mechanics part because it needs heavy mechanical knowledge and Warlock is really not built for group battles or rather, it's too complex for proper coordination in group PVPs.

I am more inclined to believe that most of the players play Warlock Class not because of PVE or PVP but because of utility such as, boost to Sail / Spot / Leadership and coupled with other cross-class as well as the RP aspects.

[kinginyellow]

You do realize in game development nerfs are necessary at times to lessen the power creep? I do because I am a game developer and I have given arguments why I think the class is over tuned, now give yours. I have played it and I have seen it outperform, you clearly are looking the class from the player perspective and defending it because you happen to play one.

I admit its one of the most fun classes to play that we can agree, but it needs nerf there is no denying that, same happened with invoker and its now way better position in game mechanical strength compared the silliness of what it was.

Edit: I don't usually post here in forums you can see that but when I do, I do it because something is very concerning for the economy and player interaction point of view in server, this topic is.

I'm sorry but I disagree.

Warlock can be strong, and there are some pretty busted builds for it, but "warlock can only be countered by another warlock" is a falacy.

Do you know what will destroy a warlock? Defiler Cleric. But any cleric can do it really, if its an actual caster cleric. Because that WoF immunity is only immunity to WoF scrolls. The summon -can- fail the save on a WoF used by an actual WIS focused caster, which was the point of that change. Even if it doesn't, when you blind the summon, which you do, it breaks its AI and you can kill the warlock in 2 actions if you can get in melee Range even if you're not a defiler with Harm.

Warlock also needs to bring out the summon unless you're pvping one with the summon already out. Warlock also needs to haste himself unless you're fighting one that already has an advantage in the action economy. I've fought one of the more (IMO) busted Infernal pact warlock builds that relies on damage racing people down and I had that player, who's good at PVP, running away from me for most of the encounter hoping Hell's inferno would kill my cleric. Unfortunately, cleric can just heal themselves.

Warlock is good. Warlock is not better than Cleric, and Cleric is a vancian caster.

While I understand the powercreep argument, I argue for things to be more fun. By all means nerf warlock, but buff Sorcerer and Wizard anyway. I think most caster classes would be better with their spell slots on a cooldown, or a way to refund spells. Warlock is strong because most of its pacts get to in some way live out the mage fantasy with none of the vancian baggage, and have one of the best spell-like abilities in 3.5. It was a S tier class in tabletop, so it doesn't need a whole lot to be strong here either.

Edit: By the way, I hope WoF gets changed further because I think its a spell that even in scroll format does too much. 9 Second blind even on a successful saving throw, and dismisses all summons with the only requirement being hitting the lore requirement for using the scroll, which is easily eachievable in most builds with no real feat or stat investment required.

I fully agree with the thought process behind it being changed vs warlock, who needs to sacrifice 3 of its class feats, which are in high demand to be used for other things, or has to pick Infernal pact. The thought process being, with almost no investment, you can invalidate 25 levels worth of feat choices and class investment because you used a scroll. Now that you're unable to buff your summons without the use of runics to give them spell mantle, or spell resistance, to avoid having them just disappear because of 1 lore boi. I think the change was a good one. And I hope it eventually is applied to other summons as well. It is really lame to have your level progression be countered by a scroll, and I'd rather abjurers actually had their spell focus in abjuration be more meaningful than for dispells, with banishment and dismissal actually working for this purpose instead.

[AstralUniverse]

You do realize in game development nerfs are necessary at times to lessen the power creep? I do because I am a game developer and I have given arguments why I think the class is over tuned, now give yours. I have played it and I have seen it outperform, you clearly are looking the class from the player perspective and defending it because you happen to play one.

I admit its one of the most fun classes to play that we can agree, but it needs nerf there is no denying that, same happened with invoker and its now way better position in game mechanical strength compared the silliness of what it was.

Edit: I don't usually post here in forums you can see that but when I do, I do it because something is very concerning for the economy and player interaction point of view in server, this topic is.

Invoker is hot trash rn.

sometimes nerfs are needed but not when something is perfectly balanced, popular and has plenty of counters. You disagree that it has plenty of counters, I get it, but you're wrong. Cheers.

Saying I must be arguing because I must be playing a warlock (which, I am playing a warlock. I play every warlock build you can imagine and more) isnt a good way to make me take your argument more seriously. Bring math. Not personal accusations. The stats you listed and the build you referenced are simply not op. I have personally got my own characters nerfed way more times than I can count, because I thought they were op and I presented the math to the devs. I just sent Kenji a wall of math that resulted in healing domain getting nerfed while I was playing a bard evangelist fyi. So personal accusations wont help your argument, sir.

[Someone Lost]

The problem here as the topic title states the warlock numbers compared to more traditional casters are out of the roof same with SS and other classes that are very fun to play, part of the fun comes from the ability to utterly destroy mobs, speed farm server resources and their ability to be very effective in pvp at the same time. In case of Warlock they don't have to have expensive gear or much of a resources doing so. It was outright easiest and fastest leveling progress in game along with the druid and in a paper shaman, but that I haven't played yet to give opinion.

Defiler cleric is another can of worms and out of this topic title.

I agree with kinginyellow that the nerf for warlock doesn't have to be much and the other casters needs to be brought up to be as functional and fun to play. That is either refund spell slot system aka defiler or giving them inficasted spells in higher levels to choose from or any similar system that restore spells.

I'm going to let others speak now too as I have given my opinion.

[AstralUniverse]

For the record, we have more clerics than warlocks (by about 30% or so? maybe even more if we exclude 3 lvl warlock dips for skills) and I dont think cleric needs nerfs either. Popularity doesnt equal power. I definitely agree with you that warlock can speed run most resources and writs while also not being very gear dependent doing so, which is great. Spellsword and weapon master have even better speedrun but they are more gear dependent, while cleric is even less gear dependent than warlock but clears content a bit slower on average (since their summons get wofed sometimes by mobs). Strengths and weaknesses everywhere.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

if we're talking about popularity = power, look how many people are playing wizards.......

[Subtext]

"Base" classes like Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Cleric will always be significantly more popular regardless of how strong they are.
Players are familiar with them and allow for relatively broad concepts in RP.

Classes like Spellsword, Warlock, Hexblade feel more specialised and "exotic"...and are more focused or constrained in their RP variety.

I'd think if those classes become as popular as the base ones, doublechecking the power level is overdue.

[Algol]

if we're talking about popularity = power, look how many people are playing wizards.......

While I agree wizard is under powered, you can still summon something and do PvE while watching television. To run dungeons solo as a WM or paladin you need to be more engaged and buy expensive gear etc.

[-stick-]

Almost every class can be great if the player knows what he's doing.

Magical classes simply have an easier time soloing since there are barely any dispells and magic immunity.

[AstralUniverse]

"Base" classes like Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Cleric will always be significantly more popular regardless of how strong they are.
Players are familiar with them and allow for relatively broad concepts in RP.

Classes like Spellsword, Warlock, Hexblade feel more specialised and "exotic"...and are more focused or constrained in their RP variety.

I'd think if those classes become as popular as the base ones, doublechecking the power level is overdue.

You're kinda right. And I think we've doubled checked and, to my knowledge, the conclusion is that spellsword is somehow balanced in the eyes of the team (I personally think it's too oppressive with the mords, but I might be wrong. I dont play spellswords myself). Paladin is clearly overpowered but doesnt see a lot of play because blackguard is a bit better for pve with it's summon and doesnt have as restricting RP as paladin, so since we arent seeing paladins taking over the server we're just leaving it how it is for now. We might as well see holy-sword getting it's cl nerfed eventually who knows. Hexblade doesnt see much play and it's basically a slightly less glass cannon version of 2hander wm builds as an alternative to wm. It's a meme class that has been nerfed just enough to not give us a headache. Wizard saw a lot of nerfs to a point you basically only do wizard/lm which is... arguably a commoner with sparkles, and people love commoners... with sparkles... and portal, scry, yoink, ward, speedy, pots, scrolls, wands. Enchantment wizard is actually also good party support build. It is simply not really worth going deep fighter since the nerf to epic second wind. Cleric is the most popular class in the game right now. Rogue is also a fantastically designed class in it's current state btw. Rogue has went through some baby step buffs and fine tuning until it came out of the oven just right, and it's a great class. I dont know what we (collectively as a hive mind) think of favoured soul's state, but sorcerer and hemo/elementalist need some love for sure and there's love on the way, I heared.

[kinginyellow]

I dont know what we (collectively as a hive mind) think of favoured soul's state.

27 Words of Faith with metamagics to distribute it across 3 spell levels.

The Flashbang build.

I don't think there's anything more toxic.

Potentially 243 seconds of blind. Just keep recasting it.

[BlinkDelight]

Astral you know that infernal summonlock gets all that by just dropping epic discipline for favoring better save with dark blessing...

... Feel free to convince me or any other warlock is not busted class from mechanical point of view. There is absolutely no reason to play wizard for example its so sad it hurts my god damn old heart.

I'm very familiar with the build and I dont think it's overpowered tbh (and for the record you cannot trade esf disc for dark blessing wth). I also think other mages arent that hot and it's not warlock's fault. When paladins, weaponmasters and spellswords basically live above the food chain you dont need to nerf things which are already somewhere in the middle of the food chain. You do something about the stragglers at the bottom. So nerfing warlock doesnt make any sense. Warlock is one of, if not the, best designed and most fun class we got and it should serve as a new standard for class design, not get nerfed.

He traded ESF: Disc aka three levels of specialist for going straight 30 warlock and getting Dark Blessing (which requires 28 levels of warlock.)

To be fair, Warlock is my favorite class because it has everything you want. Great saves, full spells, fantastic damage, good AC, summoned creatures, high health, perfect skills, damage immunity with damage reduction. You get it all just by going full 30 warlock, untrue for every other class in the entire game. You want good skills on a fighter? You have to multiclass. You want high saves on a sorcerer? Again multiclassing. If your playing a weak warlock you are somehow doing it very wrong. Now I'm not saying Warlock needs to be nerfed, just that wizards and sorcerers need a little extra love and flavor. My favorite character is a pure abjurationist shadowmage wizard with max illusion DC's and 50 to all saves from spellcraft and protection from spells.

[-XXX-]

TBH I wouldn't pin the "normalization" of warlocks on the DMs or the setting here - it seems to be more of the case of class distribution in this case.
It's simply caused by how popular the warlock class has become, since mechanically it's one of those classes that gets to eat its cake and have it too.
There's just too many of them for captain shinypants to keep chasing each and every one of them around - sometimes they need to turn a blind eye if they actually want to do other stuff IG than keep engaging in constant conflict rooted in little more than class identity.

[AstralUniverse]

TBH I wouldn't pin the "normalization" of warlocks on the DMs or the setting here - it seems to be more of the case of class distribution in this case.
It's simply caused by how popular the warlock class has become, since mechanically it's one of those classes that gets to eat its cake and have it too.
There's just too many of them for captain shinypants to keep chasing each and every one of them around - sometimes they need to turn a blind eye if they actually want to do other stuff IG than keep engaging in constant conflict rooted in little more than class identity.

I read the announcement on the hexblade rework and then I read this post and it made me laugh.
how about MOAR antagonist classes for our paladins to fight then? mmkay