Eldritch Focus

[AsteraceaeOculus]

So I made a warlock. Finally I am joining the ranks of the eternally staff clutching, I thought. Time to get a fancy staff after I track down all the materials, which I did. Even found a carpenter buddy to make it, only to find out that unlike some other fancy class specific items, only another Warlock can make it. Which we found out the hard way, as the wiki doesn't say anything on it.

Shadowdancers, assassins, swashbucklers, cavaliers, clerics, all can have a buddy make their special class items, but Warlocks have to either go deep into carpentry themselves, deprived of a focus to make their early levels a bit easier, or have to hunt down a warlock that's gone deep into carpentry themself. Should be easy, what with the special staff that's deep in the carpentry, right?

Nope, there's a special deep tailoring warlock robe that's classlocked too, so you either go deep into tailoring or carpentry. At least this one has the Wiki to tell you that only a fellow Warlock can make it for you-not a Hexblade though, that's bugged, shrinking the pool even further. Few other classes have these restrictions, why do Warlocks?

[DeepWebAssassin]

Yeah I'm generally never thrilled with class-locked crafts in general but warlock gets hit twice. There's also plenty more classes to add to that list above --hemomancer, elementalist, sorc, and wizard all have a staff (dagger for hemo, but same thing) that anyone can make.

Also any RP this has ever generated (in my own personal experience) is very dry, simple, and leans heavily on asking ooc mechanical questions IC. It feels like it has nothing to do with like, "Do you know the ELDRITCH SECRETS required to make this SPOOKY SECRET staff?" and is more just about finding out how to say "Hey, I know you're this occultist carpenter dude and you'd probably know how to make this staff but uh... you do have the WARLOCK class in your build right?" in an in-character way. Which makes me sigh out loud every time. I've had people just straight up resort to asking me in tells a lot of times because they don't know how to say it IC without sounding dumb.

Here's a situation I witnessed recently. Someone needed an Eldritch Focus made and so a character who is known as this weirdo occultist (and also a carpenter) was sought out to make it for them. The character even speaks a typically warlock-only language so it seemed like a sure thing, right? Well, no -- turns out they're just a spellcaster who burned an award to take that language and is RPing exactly the kind of guy who probably would know how to make this but arbitrarily can't because he hasn't pacted himself to some higher being. It was awkward and everyone just kind of went "uh well, uh, never mind" around the carpenter workbench.

[MissEvelyn]

Race locks are fine. But class locks do seem really iffy, for the reasons already provided.

Instead of class-locking certain crafting recipes, can we instead make them cost XP to craft, as a way to represent a chunk of your soul taking a hit for crafting such a dark and dangerous item?

[Kuma]

Race locks are fine. But class locks do seem really iffy, for the reasons already provided.

Instead of class-locking certain crafting recipes, can we instead make them cost XP to craft, as a way to represent a chunk of your soul taking a hit for crafting such a dark and dangerous item?

Items like the warlock staff and robes are pretty necessary to the core operation of the class, unlike say the Carrion-Eater's Cowl or even the Inception of Nightmares, which arguably are more 'dark and dangerous' (the Cowl is weird in that it can be made by a fair few classes but not by Sorc, which are allowed to use it).

I think there can be a more interesting way to represent the effort involved in making items infused with the occult, the divine, or the virtuous than either hard class locks or an XP cost. I don't have one off the top of my head but I'm certain one can think of something. Pilgrimages come to mind.

[Eyeliner]

I think a lot of restrictions and nested recipes assume players on the server are a lot more interesting in networking and helping strangers than they are. A surface warlock is going to have a difficult time putting out feelers to get these items made even if they weren't class restricted, and I think there's better RP to be had from asking a non-warlock to help you (potentially outing yourself) than looking for the needle in a haystack that is another warlock with the right crafting skills.

[Amateur Hour]

The difficulty finding a carpenter capable of making an Eldritch Focus is a large part of the reason I recently rolled my warlock. I don't mind it taking time to get something made, but when it feels like your most reasonable option is to bribe or blackmail a real-life friend to roll up a character who is capable of making the item, we've got a problem.

I do generally believe that, in order to foster a healthy RP environment and give antagonists a fighting chance, craftspeople should be willing to ignore some evil-class-locks if the person asking for the evil-class-locked item is willing to be a bit sneaky about it. Like, if you were to ask any of my NG tailors "can you make me a murderer's raiment?" their answer would be a "no" followed by running out the door, but if someone said "hey, I've thought of this really cool thing I'd like you to make, an outfit made out of silk with a badass skull emblem on an adamantine belt buckle, maybe with star sapphire chips to make the eyes glitter?" my characters shouldn't know that that's something only an assassin should want.

[Rei_Jin]

Thankfully, the LM Artisan secret helps get around this restriction, but yeah, it's irritating otherwise.

Recently took LM levels, and it's a wonderful QoL upgrade for a merchant tailor to have.

[AstralUniverse]

I played what... 4? 5? warlocks to 30 since the grand rework. love this class.

number of times I bought or made a warlock-specific item: 0

[Wethrinea]

Those warlock/hexblade crating only recipies are a bit of a pain. I think I spent about one RL month finding a tailor on my rolled warlock, and only because he went down to the UD. Never found a carpenter.

I get the reasoning, that only warlocks/hexblade would know how/be willing to make those items, but I feel the sheer hassle of finding that rare person outweighs the thrill of looking for illicit merchandise.

[Kuma]

Thankfully, the LM Artisan secret helps get around this restriction, but yeah, it's irritating otherwise.

Recently took LM levels, and it's a wonderful QoL upgrade for a merchant tailor to have.

I can see why you'd say this but that's not likely to statistically improve peoples' chances very much.

I played what... 4? 5? warlocks to 30 since the grand rework. love this class.

number of times I bought or made a warlock-specific item: 0

This likely says it all.

[MRFTW]

I played what... 4? 5? warlocks to 30 since the grand rework. love this class.

number of times I bought or made a warlock-specific item: 0

Same here, although I'm only on warlock number 4.

I don't use the staff because losing a 7+8 spellslot every time I found a chest wasn't worth it, and unless the wiki is wrong, the cloth armour doesn't have any +AC.

[AsteraceaeOculus]

Thankfully, the LM Artisan secret helps get around this restriction, but yeah, it's irritating otherwise.

Recently took LM levels, and it's a wonderful QoL upgrade for a merchant tailor to have.

I'm glad this worked for you, but I don't want to ruin my build by taking LM levels just for a staff and robe.

[DeepWebAssassin]

Pilgrimages come to mind.

This seems like a really cool idea. It would be neat if maybe there was a thematic and high-effort IG way to bypass the class restrictions on certain items.

Like going to some distant and hard to reach location that vibes with the object being made (for the example of the eldritch staff -- that insanely cool DEAD ___ PIT? in the Lost Bastille comes to mind. It's both thoroughly endgame and requires a team to reach so it won't be trivialized), placing your materials on some special fixture like the [ALTAR OF ELDTRITCH ALIGNMENT] and then having someone start your staff there without warlock levels. It would hit the themes of occult secrecy way more than just cruising Andunor until you found some goblin willing to near-wordlessly do it for you in return for 5 bucks and a used pair of socks.

Plus, like was said above. This staff is very much a core class item that's so stat-heavy almost every warlock will want one. It's really rough to lock something that coveted behind such a specific gate and while this wouldn't make it easy you'd at least have another option to get it. I think feeling like you at least have a way forward, even a distant one, is important. And the idea of there being this [significant site of eldritch importance] ingame is just cool and feels like it could spawn some fun or tense encounters when it is brought up.

I've played plenty of surface evil characters who just don't like/care to interact with Andunor and when I find myself unable to procure an item like this on the surface I just end up going without it entirely. Meanwhile the balor-on-the-docks having, evil-skull-mask-in-town-wearing guys get to have their whole class kit just by virtue of literally holding nothing sacred and not caring about how hilarious they look going "I need a WARLOCK STAFF for my DARK BIDDING please send a speedy to negotiate pay. Signed, a perma-disguise name. (-Anonymous)"

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Pilgrimages come to mind.

This seems like a really cool idea. It would be neat if maybe there was a thematic and high-effort IG way to bypass the class restrictions on certain items.

Like going to some distant and hard to reach location that vibes with the object being made (for the example of the eldritch staff -- that insanely cool DEAD ___ PIT? in the Lost Bastille comes to mind. It's both thoroughly endgame and requires a team to reach so it won't be trivialized), placing your materials on some special fixture like the [ALTAR OF ELDTRITCH ALIGNMENT] and then having someone start your staff there without warlock levels. It would hit the themes of occult secrecy way more than just cruising Andunor until you found some goblin willing to near-wordlessly do it for you in return for 5 bucks and a used pair of socks.

Plus, like was said above. This staff is very much a core class item that's so stat-heavy almost every warlock will want one. It's really rough to lock something that coveted behind such a specific gate and while this wouldn't make it easy you'd at least have another option to get it. I think feeling like you at least have a way forward, even a distant one, is important. And the idea of there being this [significant site of eldritch importance] ingame is just cool and feels like it could spawn some fun or tense encounters when it is brought up.

I like this idea a lot, it sounds like it could generate a lot more RP than class locking currently does. There could be mysterious crafting stations at various places that fit the theme of a particular equipment piece.

[Drowble Oh Seven]

I welcome the notion of an infernal queue-for-your-eldritch-power. Warlock DMV is its very own circle of hell.