Break me a Warlock.

[Essence]

I'm very interested in the Warlock class, but it seems weak to me. I'd like to know what kinds of abuses things like the Create Item ability or the at-will-ness of the Warlocks invocations creates. Can someone please display the ways in which the poor wording of this class can be bent over someone's knee and spanked?


Thank you!

[Username17]

The Warlock gains unnamed bonuses from the beguiling whatchit, which are therefore stackable. Every round. The second invocation on the list can give you a bonus of 82,800 to your diplomacy, intimidate, and bluff checks for an hour.

On the downside, there's crap like Beshadowed Blast, which neglects to say that you actually still get to inflict damage, so it's arguably a weaker version of Daze. Woo.

Chilling Tentacles is one of the most powerful things ever. Base Attack Bous equal to your caster level and 2d6 of cold per round. That's good times.

Entropic Warding does not say how long it lasts. It acts as two spells, one of which lasts for 1 min/level, and the other of which lasts for 1 hour/level. I'm sure that some people would think you were abusing the rules somehow by making the whole thing last for hours. Whatever.

Miasmic Cloud is very poorly written. Not least of all because it uses the 3.5 shitty reductionist concealment rules, but also because it makes people become fatigued and lasts for a couple of rounds. But the fatigued condition does not go away until you've had 8 hours of rest. So an overly literalist interpretation renders them fatigued for some 4800 rounds after they leave the cloud, as opposed to one. Even more entertainingly, fatigue stacks into exhaustion, which means that if people move into the cloud more than once, they become exhausted. Even more hillariously, you can stack the areas...

Noxious Blast takes people out of the combat for 10 rounds - and is usable at will. It is a very nice attack. Since Noxious Blast does damage to inanimate objects, it works on Constructs. Constructs are immune to a lot of things, but are not actually immune to the Nauseated Condition, making this one of the more versatile attacks in the game.

On the downside, Retributive Invisibility does no damage to Constructs or the Undead, for much the same reason.

Tenacious Plague allows pretty much any Warlock to destroy pretty much any civilization.

Wall of Perilous Flame is also pretty good.

The long and the short of it is that they have some terrain altering effects that last a long time and are therefore pretty crazy when castable at will. In genereal, however, your assessment of "crap" is correct.

-Username17

[Username17]

But being a warlock isn't all about the invocations. Well... it tries to pretend that it isn't all about the invocations.

You have some at-will abilities besides! You have... um... Detect Magic at will, for example. This is not much different from the ability to detect magic several times like every other spellcaster ever, but it does mean that you can be bothered to detect every corridor for magic instead of just going over the orc's lair with a fie toothed comb after winning - so it will probably save y'all from a magic sygil trap at some point. Go you.

You also have... Eldritch Blast. Superficially, this is the single lamest ability ever. Doing damage per round that I wouldn't wipe myself with, and not allowing iterative attacks doesn't lend itself to anything right off the bat. owever it has some subtleties that should be noted: most importantly, ability focus is still +2 to DCs. When you take Ability Focus: Eldritch Blasting People in the Face, you get +2 save DCs with any other various options you added to your blast - some of which are essentially save-or-dies. So in the world of 3.5's shitty feats, a warlock for some reason can effectively take grandfathered in 3rd edition feats that are actually good. Bizzae, but true. Secondly, while the power of your Eldritch Blast is based on your caster level, the effective spell level is based on actual class level of warlock. So if you jump into a PrC of any kind, you'll be able to apply pretty much any "Xen Spell-like Ability" feats, as they check the difference between your caster level and the spell level, which is going to be huge.

Unfortunately, there is a misprint in the warlock PrC rules, or maybe they just hate you, but your caster level for Eldritch blasts is calculated as a half-caster, so you'll never ever be able to penetrate SR unless you take Supernatural Transformation (Savage Species).

stack with the warlock's level to determine his eldritch blast damage (treat his combined caster level as his warlock class level when looking at Table 1-1: The Warlock to determine eldritch blast damage) and his eldritch blast caster level (half his total caster level...

And of course... you get to take 10 on Use Magic Device at level 4, making this the fastest class to break the game with scrolls of Planar Binding ever.

-Username17

[Jonathan_Drain]

I have to admit that I do like the ability to take 10 on Use Magic Device - by level 4 he can be walking around casting the spells of every class, limited only by the depth of his pockets. With some elementary powerplay, a level 4 human warlock can have an automatic 27 on all UMD checks, automatically deciphering any spell that a wizard of his level can make a scroll of, and automatically succeeding at casting a scroll of a spell with a caster level three above his warlock level. Not to be sniffed at.

[Jonathan_Drain]

Oh, and I completely forgot about the obvious cheese, which Frank touched on: Savage Species' Supernatural Transformation feat applied to your Eldritch Blast. Henceforth,

Its use cannot be disrupted, does not require concentration, and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

and

Supernatural abilities are not subject to spell resistance ... A supernatural ability’s effect cannot be dispelled and is not subject to counterspells.

On a different note, regarding the multiple casting of buffs that grant untyped bonuses, I could have sworn that I once saw it written that bonuses from the same source do not stack.

[User3]

On an added note, recall that Su abilites do not have a Conc. check, do not have an armor check, and do not use somatic components. Basically, as a Warlock you are almost required to take this feat for every Spell-like you use in combat.

Now, usually the ay to break the Warlock involves jiggery pokery involving Planar Touchstone or Precocious apprentice to get into a good PrC, but we don't need to talk about that as few have good abilities worthy of a cheese build.

Since you can create and use crazy magic items at twelvth level, you are required at that point to start running around with a Holy Avenger and do Nauseating Warlockery melee damage aided by your Divinely Quickened scrolls of Tensers Transformation(a time when not being able to cast spells doesn't mean a damn thing). You might as well be called the Item-mancer at that point. `

Aside from magic items and layering your Invocations (by doing crap like becoming Invis and then using Summoning crap every turn) on the battle field, there really isn't a lot of cheese here since the class barely interacts with the rest of the system and has a spell list of like 25 effects.

[User3]

Supernatural Transformation can only be applied to innate spell-like abilities, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean in game terms. I would assume Warlock abilities don't qualify.

[Username17]

Supernatural Transformation can only be applied to innate spell-like abilities, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean in game terms. I would assume Warlock abilities don't qualify.

Class abilities count as innate for every other purpose. The only thing that I can think of is that your bonuses from items don't count as innate. So if something requires an innate intelligence of 15, you wouldn't be able to qualify for it with a headband of intellect, but you'd be able to qualify for it by taking a level of Djinn that gave you +2 intelligence.

...but nice try.

On a different note, regarding the multiple casting of buffs that grant untyped bonuses, I could have sworn that I once saw it written that bonuses from the same source do not stack.

You sure did. It's under "stacking magical effects" in the PHB. There is, however, an exception to that rule listed in that rule:

A bonus that isn't named stacks with any bonus.

-Username17

[User3]

Class abilities count as innate for every other purpose.

Can you explain how you arrived at this conclusion? It's not that I don't believe you, I'm curious and I want ammo to use in rules discussions. Innate implies, to me anyway, that you're born with the ability.

[Username17]

Well, the only time the words "innate spell-like abilities" are used in the PHB, it's in the list of spell immunity. It's in the list:

Spell immunity protects against spells, spell-like effects of magic items, and innate spell-like abilities of creatures.

That's the whole list. A spell-like effect is either a product of a magic item or it's innate to the creature, there isn't another option for it to have. There is no "class based learned ability" designation anywhere.

Which isn't to say that such a tag shouldn't exist. I for one would be much happier with Polymorph-style effects if abilities were somehow lumped into explicit "natural" and "learned" groups. It's just that such a tag doesn't exist.

---

There's some non-core stuff that talks about this too, but I think that's pretty clear.

-Username17

[Jonathan_Drain]

The warlock introduces something to D&D that's almost never seen in the game, which is learned spell-like abilities. My own gut instinct would make me think that an innate spell-like ability would refer to a racial ability, for example:

In addition, a gnome can speak with a burrowing mammal (a badger, fox, rabbit, or the like, see below). This ability is innate to gnomes. See the speak with animals spell description.

In addition, the description of Evasion in the SRD would suggest a difference between a learned ability and a racial ability:

Rogues and monks cannot use evasion in medium or heavy armor. Some creatures with the evasion ability as an innate quality do not have this limitation.

It's clear that when they created Savage Species they were intending on the feat being taken by monsters and monster characters, and didn't predict a class based entirely on spell-like abilities, and likewise, whoever wrote the Warlock class must have entirely forgotten about that one Savage Species' feat. Hence, even if a class ability could be considered an innate ability, it can't be said that the warlock was clearly intended by the respective books' authors to have access to this feat; it's merely an unexpectedly good cheese that arises from the combination of two different sourcebooks, and I'm sure it's not the only one. (I would mention one of the monster compendiums that contains monsters that are incredibly overpowered when a spellcaster takes the form of one, but I dare not speak the P-word on these forums.)

[Username17]

The warlock introduces something to D&D that's almost never seen in the game, which is learned spell-like abilities.

You mean like the Archmage, or some other way? Seriously, class-feature based spell-like abilities are core in 3.5, so if the core rules didn't bother to distinguish between class-feature based and racial-feature based, then the distinction doesn't exist. Period.

Some things are "innate to your race", some things are "innate to your class", or whatever, but the only important part here is that they aren't granted by magic items or spells.

I would mention one of the monster compendiums that contains monsters that are incredibly overpowered when a spellcaster takes the form of one, but I dare not speak the P-word on these forums.

The fact that two things printed in different books (or quite often the same book) are very powerful when combined together does not mean that it isn't supposed to work that way. D&D is supposed to follow the wording of its own rules without recourse to mind reading. Yes, when you shapechange into a Balor you get virtually unlimited money. Yes, when you shapechange into a Phoenix you get virtually unlimited phoenixes. Yes, when you shapechange into a Zodar you get virtually unlimited wishes. There is broken stuff to shapechange into in every single monster book, even the core one that was supposedly written right along side the shapechange revision.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't intended to work that way. Ed Stark apparently wants druids to be completely overpowered, because he plays one. Warlocks shooting supernatural laser beams at people is kind of crappy, actually. I'm just not seeing the super combo where it goes from "barely acceptable" to "super awesome". At 16th level you are handing out 8 dice of damage, with no energy resistance, no damage reduction, no saves, and no spell resistance. All you need is a touch attack roll, which is (usually) pretty easy.

But who gives a damn? That's just like the crappy 3.5 Horrid Wilting except that instead of having to roll against SR, your opponents always make their save, and of course, you only hit one target and you still have a small chance of missing altogether.

Shooting bolts of one minute nausea in a form that affects objects and therefore forces a Fort save on creatures that have no Con score is something that the designers obviously put no thought into whatsoever. You could even make the claim that giving extreme stomach upset to clockwork horrors is "retarded". But making your eldritch blast supernatural isn't even up for debate. And it's not really all that great, either.

-Username17

[User3]

While it is a decent argument that "the designers never intended this," it doesn't hold water.

Before SS, there were plenty of PrCs and classes with spell-likes. Are we to assume that a Bard's Fascinate, Suggestion, and Song of Freedom abilties where not considered, or a Paladin's Detect Evil and Remove Disease, or any of the Splatbook PrCs were mysteriously not thought about?

Perhaps. WotC has a history of not uderstanding how one rule connects to several others (though I could easily create a searchable database for just that effect within a day or two, plus time to enter all the data in all the books).

Frankly, "inate" has no definition. In 2e, it meant something as part if "inate spell-like ability," but now it means exactly nothing.

[Jonathan_Drain]

Agreed, the word 'innate' is ill-defined by D&D standards. And yes, the Archmage was what I had in mind when I said that powerful learned spell-likes are "almost" unheard of. I would, however, have assumed there to be no such thing as "innate to a class", given the meaning of the word 'innate':

• 
  
• Possessed at birth; inborn.
  
• Possessed as an essential characteristic; inherent.
  
• Of or produced by the mind rather than learned through experience: an innate knowledge of right and wrong.
  

I might also question why the Warlock's designer, had he intended such a seemingly quintessential Warlock ability to be available, would then leave it out of the book which has a high degree of reprinted material anyway.

On the other side of the coin, I might wonder why, if no other spellcaster would be afforded a feat that has him automatically defeat spell resistance, automatically cast defensively, automatically cast without concentrating and without possibility of his spell being disrupted if he takes damage, and cast spells that can never be dispelled or counterspelled; why the warlock should be afforded such luxury with a feat he can take at level 1.

Of course, we can't be expected to read the designers' mind.

Shooting bolts of one minute nausea in a form that affects objects and therefore forces a Fort save on creatures that have no Con score is something that the designers obviously put no thought into whatsoever.

Hah, just goes to show you that even Wizards' best writers make mistakes. Which spell is this, out of interest?

[Username17]

And yes, the Archmage was what I had in mind when I said that powerful learned spell-likes are "almost" unheard of

But of the core classes, I think I've heard of:

The Bard
The Cleric
The Paladin
The Sorcerer
The Wizard
The Arcane Archer
The Archmage
The Blackguard
The Heirophant
The Horizon Walker
and The Shadowdancer

In fact, of the base classes in the core rules, almost half of them have spell-like abilities available to them (5/11). When the feat was originally published it was even higher than that (7/11) - since the Monk and Druid had a bunch of spell-likes as well.

Interesting aside: the reason Monks have Concentration is because they have spell-like abilties. In 3.5, they still have concentration, but all of their spell-likes are supernaturals now, so there's no reason for them to have the skill. When the feat was first published, Druids were actually encouraged to take it to transform their Wildshape into a Supernatural ability - which has been rendered moot as 3.5 gives it to them as a Supernatural for free.

So no, there's no argument available that the feat doesn't work on class features. In the rants that accompanied the original books it was used on.

----

But that's all well and good. There is actual absolute proof available in the supplement itself that Supernatural Transformation does not require a racial ability to be used.

Many of the feats described in this chapter belong to a new category, monstrous feats (see the second half of Table 4-1, on page 32). Only creatures with a monstrous form or one or more monstrous abilities may select these feats.

Supernatural Transformation [General]

Got that? Savage Species has an absolute piece of nomenclature that it uses when it requires racial abilities. Supernatural Transformation does not use that nomenclature. It uses the other nomenclature where a feat is available to people whether they have racial abilties or not.

This part of the discussion is over.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1102093190[/unixtime]]
Shooting bolts of one minute nausea in a form that affects objects and therefore forces a Fort save on creatures that have no Con score is something that the designers obviously put no thought into whatsoever. You could even make the claim that giving extreme stomach upset to clockwork horrors is "retarded". But making your eldritch blast supernatural isn't even up for debate. And it's not really all that great, either.

I think at this point you've got to decide if you'd rather be playing an RPG or Magic: the Gathering.

[Jonathan_Drain]

It's general because spell-like innates are not limited to monsters. Gnomes, tieflings and aasimars have innate spell-like abilities. Monstrous simply designates a feat which shouldn't be available to regular humans-and-elves characters, and rather, is exclusive to monster characters.

The designation of "Monstrous" is poorly applied anyhow - I point out that Gape of the Serpent (prerequisite: Swallow Whole) is also General. When was the last time your human sorcerer had Swallow Whole, and what sense would it make for him to swallow a gnome?

Perhaps the 'innate' is superflous - in which case the author mistakenly wrote "innate spell-like abilities" instead of merely "spell-like abilities", meaning that he intended for the ability to work with the spell-likes of the classes you list, but aside from second-guessing the designers, the designation of only 'innate' clearly suggests inborn abilities only, not learned. (Out of interest, I couldn't find any Sp abilities on the cleric, sorcerer or wizard that you listed, while the Archmage and Heirophant weren't core when SS was written and the Horizon Walker didn't even exist.)

----

However, when it comes down to an actual game, no competent DM will allow the rules abuses that are possible solely by a raw reading of the rules - rules which Mr Trollman and a great many other players I know are fond of criticising for poor writing which allows such abuses.

No warlock in a real game, for example, would be permitted to cast an incantation a hundred times to give himself +600 to Bluff; such a thing is clearly the result of what a programmer would refer to as a "bug", and nobody but an internet troll would press that you're "supposed" to be able to do it that way.

[Username17]

It's general because spell-like innates are not limited to monsters. Gnomes, tieflings and aasimars have innate spell-like abilities.

OK, this argument just screams "shenanigans". Gnomes, tieflings, and aasimar are monsters. That's why they are in the Monster Manual. Heck, Thick Skinned is a "[Monstrous]" feat, and all it requires is Damage Reduction. You get that out of being a lycanthrope - something you can be while still being a humanoid. A human even.

(Out of interest, I couldn't find any Sp abilities on the cleric, sorcerer or wizard that you listed, while the Archmage and Heirophant weren't core when SS was written and the Horizon Walker didn't even exist.)

This leads me to believe that you were not looking hard enough. Notice how the Cleric has two domainsat first level? One of them can be the Animal domain and get speak with animals as a spell-like. Notice how a Wizard or Sorcerer has a familiar? Well, if they get to 13th level they have the ability "Scry on Familiar", which is a spell-like.

If you just want to go by the 3rd edition core base classes, there are spell-likes on seven out of eleven of them. And if your entire argument is that the feat was written without considering any of those seven classes, then even if you are right it's still dumb. If we want to claim that source material is obviously written without consulting the core base classes and therefore means something other than what it says - we may as well not even read the source books at all and just play magical tea party.

the designation of only 'innate' clearly suggests inborn abilities only, not learned.

1. No it doesn't.
2. If that is what you believe, how does the feat interact with Savage Progressions or Draconic age categories?

A Succubus has Charm Monster on a stick, and she can take it Supernaturally Transformed, right? But if she's being a player character, she gets the Charm Monster ability as a class feature, are you saying that the feat then only applies to the Charm Monster ability of NPC Succubi?

A Green Dragon gains Suggestion as a spell-like upon reaching adulthood. Are you saying that this is somehow "not innate" just because he acquires it after a certain amount of time?

However, when it comes down to an actual game, no competent DM will allow the rules abuses that are possible solely by a raw reading of the rules - rules which Mr Trollman and a great many other players I know are fond of criticising for poor writing which allows such abuses.

1. That's not true. I've played in lots of games where people allowed people to do things "because that's what the rules say". While anybody who considers Simulacrum in an abstract sense will quickly realize that it is potentially recursive (use the 3.5 "share prerequisites" rule to allow your simulacrum of yourself to write a scroll of simulacrum, and read it - targetting yourself) - and thus very likely ban it or nerf it somehow; the fact is that if you have not talked about it with your DM ahead of time you are very likely to be able to get away with simply casting it on something that is absurdly overpowered.

2. Even if it was true, how the hell do you get from that to banning people from making Supernatural Abilities out of eldritch blast? Seriously, what does that big bad 14 points of 60 foot range damage have to do with brokenness at eighth level? The party Barbarian charges farther than that and does a lot more damage. Even if the enemy has significant DR, he's still going to be doing more than that. A spirited charge is going to do more damage than that by a huge margin. 14 points of damage isn't a "rules abuse" - it's crap. Transcending most defenses is nice and all, but it's such a crappy chasis that it ends up being a niche use at best.

No warlock in a real game, for example, would be permitted to cast an incantation a hundred times to give himself +600 to Bluff; such a thing is clearly the result of what a programmer would refer to as a "bug", and nobody but an internet troll would press that you're "supposed" to be able to do it that way.

Again, I disagree. In most games, if you find a "bug", you can exploit it - once. You win the gaming session, the DM takes it home and looks at it, and then comes in with a fix before the next game session. Most people don't change rules on the fly, and prefer to do so between games. Furthermore, when the rules on an ability finally do change, PCs who have it are usually allowed a one-time chance to swap out their ability for something else.

Sure, there's the occassional fickle DM who changes rules mid-session, but usually this involves either player-DM discussion, or an asshole DM. Yeah, the ginormous stackable bonus from the beguiling invocation is going to be changed in almost all games eventually, it's going to end up being used thousands of times in games which are in general "reasonable". Many, probably most, games still let you run around with a wand of Death Knell if that's what you really want to do, for example.

-Username17

[Jonathan_Drain]

Again, I disagree.

In most games, if you find a "bug", you can exploit it - once.

Most games don't have me at the helm.

[Username17]

Most games don't have me at the helm.

Absotively. But then you see the inherent problem of conflating the arguments "If I had my way..." and "Everyone does it like this..."

Whether you do it like you say you do or not (and I have no doubt that you do), most people aren't you. In fact, the chances of a person being you is less than one in six billion. Even the chances against a D&D player being you are millions to one.

If you want to have an argument like

No warlock in a real game, for example, would be permitted...

Then you are wrong. Factually, 100% wrong.

If you want to make a different argument. Perhaps somehing like

I would not allow a warlock to...

then you are probably inarguably correct.

Now, even in the second case, where your premise would be correct, it does not follow logically that "It would be unfair for a warlock to....", it doesn't even follow logically that "warlocks should work some way other than..." - it just means that were you DM, you wouldn't let warlocks do whatever it is.

That's fine and all, but it doesn't make any argument at all as to whether warlocks should be able to use supernatural transformation on their blasts.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1102108519[/unixtime]]
Again, I disagree. In most games, if you find a "bug", you can exploit it - once. You win the gaming session, the DM takes it home and looks at it, and then comes in with a fix before the next game session. Most people don't change rules on the fly, and prefer to do so between games. Furthermore, when the rules on an ability finally do change, PCs who have it are usually allowed a one-time chance to swap out their ability for something else.

Sure, there's the occassional fickle DM who changes rules mid-session, but usually this involves either player-DM discussion, or an asshole DM.

Disallowing a +600 skill bonus is hardly being an asshole DM.

If you see something that's obviously broken, you're better off stopping it then and now, when the abuse is happening rather than allowing it to ruin your hours of planning a game session simply because you've got no spine. If someone comes to you wanting to abuse wish as a spell like ability and create a +5000 sword, you shouldn't just say, "No." you should say, "Hell no!" And that should be your first instinct and reaction. If your first instinct is that you are somehow stuck with it because it's RAW, then you have no buisness being in the DM's seat.

If it is self-evident it is a rules "bug", the DM has every right to disallow it right there on the spot, and I don't think anyone will disagree that a +600 skill bonus loop is a bug.

It's up to the player to check with the DM beforehand when he wants to do something unusual with the rules like that. If he doesn't and tries to pull a fast one in the middle of a gaming session, the DM has every right to pull the rug out from under the sneaky bastard, and laugh at him when he falls on his ass.

Talking about bugs on message boards is one thing, but trying to exploit them in actual games is another. If you try to exploit them in actual games, that is a deliberate attempt to ruin a DM's game. Any player who tries shit like that is an asshole.

[Zherog]

1102106769[/unixtime]]The designation of "Monstrous" is poorly applied anyhow - I point out that Gape of the Serpent (prerequisite: Swallow Whole) is also General. When was the last time your human sorcerer had Swallow Whole, and what sense would it make for him to swallow a gnome?

I'm reminded of a song my kids like. However:

There was an old lady who swallowed a gnome
I don't know why she swallowed that gnome
Perhaps she'll die!

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

[Username17]

Did I never tell you guys about "Hungry Jack"? He was a human rogue, who took his 10th level bonus feat as "Gape of the Serpent" - which is totally legal because he can take any feat he wants and doesn't have to meet prereqs as it is a bonus feat.

So he ran around eating people, which was totally awesome. Truly a great character. Not overpowered, not even really all that good. But it made for a great intro to intimidate checks.

"I will eat you."

Good times.

-Username17

[MrWaeseL]

1102112169[/unixtime]]Did I never tell you guys about "Hungry Jack"? He was a human rogue, who took his 10th level bonus feat as "Gape of the Serpent" - which is totally legal because he can take any feat he wants and doesn't have to meet prereqs as it is a bonus feat.

So he ran around eating people, which was totally awesome. Truly a great character. Not overpowered, not even really all that good. But it made for a great intro to intimidate checks.

"I will eat you."

Good times.

-Username17

[User3]

You know, I get the people who say, "This stuff is obviously broken, and I'd never allow it in my game." I really do. I often do the same thing, although, depending on what kind of game I want, it's sometimes just more entertaining to let people break stuff.

But I don't get the people who say "This stuff is obviously broken, and I'd never allow it in my game, and because I can do that it's okay to just leave it that way." I really don't.

If it's broken, you fix it. Sticking the pieces back together and wrapping Scotch tape around them and then pretending like it's not actually broken is bad game design, and no amount of solemn debate about "the intent of the rules" can change that, if only because no two people are ever going to have exactly the same notion of what "the intent of the rules" is.

--d.