I've played a lot of different warlocks over time and wanted to give my feedback about Undying for better or worse. [https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Warlock#Undying_Pact]
Good:
- Regen is fun and suits the thematic a great deal, particularly since there are a few regen items that can be used or UMD'd to add to this. It's never going to be more than a small bonus in PvE and a thematic thing, but it's still fun and cool.
- Epic Pact giving a lifestealing blast is nice for the same reason as above, also lends to the thematic of a lifestealer, prolonging their own life at the cost of another creature? Awesome for the thematics and RP. Again not a huge bonus, but still fun and cool.
- The undeath part doesn't have to be focused on to a huge degree, because the spell choices and other bonuses make this the kind of warlock that potentially exists without summons. The great thing about the spell list is that there are a bunch of necromancy options for curse-like spells, damage over time and so on. Downside of this is that many are DC based, and the ones that get bonuses from being a Greater/Epic Undying pact are the ones that are not on the spell list.
Bad:
- Requires 18 CON / 24 CHA to be able to get sub-par Undead (Tier 6 only, no access to EMD) compared to any other caster that is summoning undead. It's a huge requirement and very small payoff. It also cannot be achieved until very late in the character's lifecycle, so you're not even getting those tier 6 undead summons until late epics.
- The same ability requirements locks you out of ever considering a DEX-focused blaster, which means spear, e-chain, many of the e-mastery feats, or precision blasting. While there's an argument to be made that you need to make choices, these are extremely punishing choices.
- There's a really, REALLY bad hint at potentially taking 10 PM levels + the Epic Pact = the PM Deathless Mastery. This is such a horrible trap. Your spells don't scale well, I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended. Your blast DOES scale, however due to missing out on any of the warlock epic bonus feats, it won't be upgraded to a point where it's useful. The only thing you achieve is crit immunity, and it comes at a horrendous cost.
- The spell list was changed to lose animate dead, create undead, etc. This really limits the amount you can summon, where other warlocks are able to summon things continually (albeit with a cooldown).
- Generally the Epic Pact isn't giving much of a bonus when you're not hitting a very specific build. Compare this to other warlocks, where their prerequisites are the same ability as what is unlocked by them. (e.g. 18 CHA required for epic fey pact, 24 CHA required for double-dominate).
What I think they need:
- Some sort of summoning capacity built in to the pact. This could be similar to Abyssal/Infernal pact's free summon upgrade, maybe on hitting the greater pact you gain create undead ability or greater undead ability. It could be on the same cooldown if you want to be nice. Summoning warlocks do reasonably well for fiends, but that's not really possible as an undying warlock to the same degree.
- Potentially access to tier 7 undead somehow. Maybe instead of Epic Pact giving the Tier 6 undead, that should just come with the pact, and having the 24CHA is a prerequisite for being able to take the epic spell Epic Mummy Dust? If you want to avoid that, then you can potentially have the summoning ability mentioned above just upgrade a bit through the tiers so that the undying warlock is at least on par with other casters specifically for summoning undead - since that really is a huge part of the theme here!
- If you want to keep the Palemaster synergy, offer some method of gaining the warlock bonus feats as general feat choices (in this specific situation). It would mean people are still making choices between different things available to them, but you're not as completely useless.
- Spell choices could be looked at again in order to get something that's actually going to be used longterm. Most of the nicer spells on the list get used less and less the higher you level. Create Greater Undead is a necessity, so you're losing decent options on the list due to being forced to summon through the spell list where other warlocks are able to just summon on the side without it being a specific spell taken. Spells like Wraith Stride seem much more thematic for this kind of character than say Eyebite or Finger of Agony (where you'd likely choose one but not both).
- I think Warlock should be added to most of the necromancy specific items on Arelith, most of which are locked to wizard/sorc/etc instead.
Overall, Warlock is really fun, Undying has been another cool pact. Great RP, but a much worse experience for building and playing it generally.