Would you say this is accurate?

conventional witches should not be PCs, because their gist is on making deals and fucking people over in the long run or in a grand scheme kind of way

they're NPCs by excellence

This is basically my problem with the Witch class in PF (all other PF issues aside); it's in a book of player classes, but it includes abilities like "Child Scent", "Cook People" and "Witch's Hut" which are all pretty useless to your average PC, while being perfect for an NPC villain.

>sorcerer
Gets an A on the test due to natural talent
>wizard
Studied for the test
>warlock
Sucked the teacher's cock.

I've always liked this analogy. I think I first saw it used to explain wizards not liking warlocks. They wizard worked hard, but the warlock just whored themselves out!

>Wizard
STEM major
>Sorcerer
CEO's nephew
>Warlock
Plausibly deniable industrial saboteur

You could run them as a mix between warlock and an alchemist. They get some of their magical ability by making a pact with a powerful entity or by making friends with forest spirits, etc. The rest of their power comes from mixing together magical and mundane ingredients to brew potions and other similar magical items. This also makes for a better PC class since you can play them as a healer archetype version of a witch rather than the demonized version.

I prefer the version where the sorcerer has an influential family that makes the school give an A for free.

They should be different names for the sane thing.

Also- in almost all mythology 'Sorcerers' are people who learn magic and almost all Wizards are half fairy or demon and have magic innately. Besides being retarded, D&D fluff is also wrong.

I love the shit out of conventional, cackling, cartoon/storybook witches. I'd love to roll one, though I can see why they work better as NPCs. But I'm one of those people who like to let players be whatever cool thing they want to be, as long as it's balanced/workable and not sparkledog horseshit.

What's the difference between a cleric and a warlock ?

Different themes.

Cleric are generally reward with powers for their faith. Warlocks either get their end of the bargain after doing their half of the deal or somehow convinced a powerful entity to teach them a few tricks. You could also play them as a pawn if you really wanted to I suppose.

clerics have their powers be on a contract

warlock buy theirs wholesale

Played a Warlock in a game just recently that got his powers the opposite way of how all other Warlocks get theirs. He was a sorcerer's apprentice, learning the delicate and luminous spellforms that all sorcerers pour their magic through. Unfortunately, after his master mysteriously died, a seemingly helpful figure approached and offered him one of those Deals with the Devil you hear so much about, possibly by offering him "All the magic you can handle" (a lot of this is vague because the game never got very far). The mystery villain stole all his spells (and, basically, his sorcerer levels) and left him with just raw magic pouring out constantly, which he can only really aim and, with enough concentration, gradually shape. The way I described it is how you can release a lot of water if you destroy a fire hydrant, but you can't put out a burning building with it anymore.

>"People think that sorcery is all just dragon magic. But just having an inborn talent isn't enough to Strive, it's not enough for the Undertaking. Without the Ancestor Wyrm sorcery could not exist, of course, but without the the understanding of the Elder Moth, the knowledge of the White Owl and Black Raven, or the teachings of the Tiger Lords, it would be simply a raw font of Prana, unfocused and unharnessed. Which is all I have now."

>scent children

Useful for keeping track of that dickbag that rolled a loli character

They're abilities that CAN be useful, but only in very specific campaigns. I could imagine a party themed around fairtyale/storybook villains, which have their own lairs and such, being a lot of fun. Also

I'd be down for that, evil campaigns always end up being more fun.

Are talking about them in terms of D&D? If so:

>Warlock
Unnecessary. Just an excuse to have more Charisma-based class options.

>Sorcerer
Unnecessary. Just an excuse to have more Charisma-based class options.

>Wizard
Literally the only class where Intelligence isn't a dump stat.

Between Bards, Sorcs, and Warlocks there are 3 full-casters based on Charisma. Wtf is going on here? I can only assume this shit is pandering to the "nat fucking 20 Charisma roll XD" crowd who wants to persuade, seduce, or bluff their way out of everything, I've noticed more and more players like this over the past few years.

Meanwhile wizards are the only base class where Int is useful. No bonus skill points from high int either.

Why is this?

Please provide examples.

Warlocks were INT casters in the playtest, they were probably changed to keep 3e fans happy. And skill points aren't a thing anymore.

>mixing fluff with mechanics ("stole his sorcerer levels")
>some dumb hindu shit
>sorcerer learning from a sorcerer

Holy shit that is so fucking bad my African, consider ending your life.

Right, skill proficiencies, whatever.

But seriously, what's up with 5e having like 4 classes (when including Paladin) that cast magic with Charisma based, and then just 1 that even USES Intelligence?

I'm not counting archetypes or UA classes, I'm talking about base classes that even use Int. There's only 1.

I would say that a Warlock funnels magic through something else, rather than necessarily something more powerful. It usually starts with being something else's servant, but it could eventually become you being something else's master to harvest power from.

>Meanwhile wizards are the only base class where Int is useful.
If we're including 3.5, where Warlocks and Sorcerers come from, there's also the Swashbuckler. And, in a practical sense, the Rogue, but not in a way that's immediately obvious to a new player, at least not to the same extent that Rogue = Dex is.

>people wanting to have options beside combat that still rely on game mechanics is bad
>higher charisma means it's more likely to roll a 20
>waaaah these classes need to be taken out because I say so waaaaaah
>skill points

2/10 really shitty bait, please apply yourself, dumbass-kun.
You were probably serious though. I feel sorry for your parents

You're clearly not understanding what I was saying. It's not about rolling 20s, it's about a new generation of problem players that want to be able to roll a social skill check to bypass everything.

Combine that with the "may fucking 20" memespouters who think that a skill check can "crit" and that it should allow them to bend reality.

>"when the fighter crits, he deals double damage. When I crit, entire kingdoms change hands"

Those people are some of the worst cancer I have to deal with when running games for new players. Hell, I love it when players can reasonably talk their way out of a situation by being clever. What I don't love is hearing "I roll to persuade the goblins that I'm actually their tribe leader, OH NAT 20 + 5! So they do what I say now right?" For the 5th time in a single night.

Power source. Role.

...Implements, armor, ability scores, powers...

No, magic is EVERYTHING

in lore, yes.

In gameplay, they're basically the same with different spell lists.

A Warlock wears an inverted cross to be edgy, anti-religious, satanic, and to make his parents angry. A Cleric wears an inverted cross because it's the Cross of St. Peter

or satanist!

I think Cha makes sense thematically for a warlock, but I think there should be an option to use Constitution. This way, it becomes sort of a "blood oath" type of warlock, that can self harm for boons or spells, and spells will be based on Constitution. Possibly a mechanic where each time constitution is used, it has a chance to randomly spike or plummet, or anything in between, making it a risk/reward type of caster.

Clerics get their powers from Gods. Warlocks get their powers from demons. Or fairies. Or squid.

Warlocks of Gods is a stupid concept

Strange, I always saw Constitution as an interesting casting stat for a Sorcerer with the whole "It's coming from within" thing. Plays nice with the concept of having limited spells because "I don't have the energy for anymore magic."

Cleric is rewarded with power
Warlock is a contractual deal

The issue is that with how 3.PF is set up, Con is just a better stat than Cha is. An 18 Cha Sorc vs an 18 Con Sorc, if both are using their respective stats for all casting, the Con sorc is just way tougher due to the much higher health pool and resistance to physical effects, at the cost of lost social skills which they have spells for anyway. There was a PF Archetype, the Scarred Witchdoctor, which used to grant con-casting to Witches which later got errata'd for being too good. If you want a con-based supernatural system, it needs to be toned down to balance con being a better stat than cha.

Think of it like this.

Clerics are employee's who get to use a company credit card.

Warlocks are just handed a briefcase full of unmarked bills.
>Sorcerer's
>Power from Within
No, they draw on the same ley lines as other arcane casters. They simply know the rituals the wizard studies inherently. Like a bird building a nest.

Also the "magic within the bloodshit" is figurative. It's like someone saying fishing is in their blood or fighting is in their blood. As in that they have a natural inclination towards it, nothing about their bodies are physically oriented towards casting magic. This is why Sorcerer's who become Liches or something don't lose their spell casting abilities just because they're in a different body.

Sorcerers might not have to study to get their magic, but it *is* real magic all the same. Someone who got an A for free because they were born rich will probably be completely unable to apply anything they were supposed to have learned, because they *didn't* learn it.

I like to keep my warlocks a little different from clerics.

I go with the dark dungeons approach
>Magical power is the bait Satan uses to catch you
A warlock has ether fallen for the bait and lost their soul, in which case they are probably an NPC. If they are a player then they've found some trick to get around their master's hook.
They have free reign over their stolen power but advancement is always a risk. The more they take the greater risk they have of alerting the powers that be.

A warlocks skill selection gives some insight into how exactly they got their powers. Religion or Arcana might mean they used altered prayers or formulas to get the power without the pact. Bluff or Diplomacy might mean they have been running a con, tricking less powers out of their secrets. Medicine or Nature might involve finding feral demons/fey/aliens and ripping out and transplanting parts of them into the warlock's body, making mystic drugs out of them or just eating them. Performance is fiddle contest.

If they can't come up with nay relevant skill they are so bland that even if they signed their soul away with all the right papers their patron couldn't be fucked to come collect. He'd just forget about them.

>shitlock
Get the fuck out of my hobby you retarded trash

You sure got Eldritch Blasted to death before

"Magic from a higher power" is cleric.

Warlocks should be, 'magic comes from a place it hurts to think about in exchange for me keeping the blood wall wet.'

>retarded keyword shitlock garbage
Wow you really showed me Coldsteel

You don't DM. If you did, that would happen once, and you would say it doesn't work, and they would know better. So either you're baiting hard, or you're such a little bitch that you can't tell your players no.

I always viewed the split for casting stats as this.
>Charisma, exerting your will and making things happen.
The sorcerer decides on an end result, exerts a lot of effort and lets their instincts figure out the "how", the sorcerer just chooses how much energy to put into it, and if they don't put in enough, then the effect fizzles.
Warlocks have a shard of power that isn't their own, and so they need to force it to conform to their desires. The knowledge of how to do so might be part of the "gift", but regardless it's about forcing energy they can't control to take shape according to their will.
Paladin's are such fucking good guys, that when they try really hard to deliver a blow to destroy evil, the world conforms to that. The paladin knows they need to be stalwart in order to protect allies and it's that belief/inner strength that makes them self-purify away diseases, and become immune to fear.

>Wisdom, guided forces that already exist.
A cleric is merely a conduit for their gods will and energy. While the Warlock seizes energy within them and forces it to conform. A cleric is so in tune with their gods energy that it's flowing through them constantly, and through prayer they are able to guide that energy peacefully along a path to perform miracles

>Intelligence, knowing the cheat codes.
A wizard has figured out the process and procedures required to cause effects in the world. The right words, the right items, and the world itself conforms to a preset destination based on the process used. They substitute the force of will to overpower "physics" for knowledge of how it works, and general theories of magic. They don't force it, they poke and prod it in just the right way so that when it tries to right itself to its original shape, it produces "magic" as a side effect.

Merlin, in many depictions is the son of the Devil.

Depends on the setting.

This is the greatest description I've ever seen.

Are sorcerers the most Chad class?

>Almost universally good looking
>Power through nepotism
>More martially capable than nerd wizards
>More magical stamina
>Doesn't really have to try to do magic

Warlocks can work hard too, it's just that wizards don't think of it as ''real'' work. Like, a warlock spends years researching entities to bargain with, and then learns a dead language so they can correctly treat with the entity they pick, and studies contract language and precedent so they can actually negotiate to not get fucked, and rhetoric so that they can impress, and then theyavek to a mystic site so they summon io their chosen guy... but if the time wasn't all spent with his nose in a spellbook, the wizard calls the whole process dick-sucking, like an arrogant STEM major dismissing someone doubling in Law and Psychology.

Sorcerers are Chad Mages to all other Virgin Spellcasters. That's what makes them so much fun.

Sorcerers are Chads
Wizards are Virgins
Warlocks are Sluts
Clerics are Monogamous
Druids are Zoophiles
Bards are Slutty Chad Zoophiles

Bards are pansexual.

How is Warlock any different from a Cleric, then?

No.