Warlock is OP

I've been looking the the 3.5e Dungeons & Dragons supplement Complete Arcane and it seems like with the right build, the Warlock could wipe the floor with even the mightiest Sorcerer or Wizard.

They have unlimited spells, including status effect and damage spells.

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They can also fly at will all day and cast from a range of 250'.

You're fucking retarded. They're damage is crap and any class can fly all day including sorcerers and wizards when played correctly.

Seriously, Warlock is recognized as being one of the worst fucking classes in 3.5.

>a system with a bajillion rules and supplements has imbalances
Quelle surprise

>Warlock is recognized as being one of the worst fucking classes in 3.5.
user, that is one of the dumbest things I've seen today, when shit like the fighter/samurai/monk/truenamer exist.
Warlocks are decent. Solid all rounders, have a lot of versatility with not a lot of power behind it.

user, gaze upon this before embarassing yourself further.
1d4chan.org/wiki/Tier_System

Also wrong. Warlock may not be the strongest class, but he's far from the weakest. It's pretty solid without being utterly OP like Cleric, Druid and Wizard are.

Trunamer is the worst class hands down, simply due to the fact that it is designed in such a way where it ceases to be able to do the one thing it is supposed to excel at past a certain point

The issue is that Warlock is actually quite under powered.
I try not to count true namer because it's legitimately broken in the sense that it is non-functional by RAW.

I wouldn't say they're decent. They're mediocre "casters" whos primary class feature and draw for many people is a huge trap option and that annoys me more than a class just being all around crap like Fighter or Monk. I was probably exaggerating, but OP's idiocy blinded me with rage.

They are reasonably powerful early on or in a low power campaign. They plateau fast and are easily outmatched by nearly every other class and are usually relegated to support. Sudden swarm is hilarious though.

being able to spam shit is only good when the shit you spam is good. Warlock spells , in some cases are good, but don't measure up to the full array of wiz/ sorc spells. in an endurance fight, the 'lock has the edge, but for burst or a 5 minute day, or even the standard 4ish fights before clocking off, wiz/ sorc will put them to shame. warlock is stylish but widely considered mediocre in power. Still better than fighter mind you.

also infinite tentacle rape is always useful, and so is their ability to raise a billion corpses, even if they can't control them

The problem is so few DMs have more than one or two big encounters, so Wizards and other full casters never risk expending their powers. They also don't enforce spell component and XP requirements, making things worse.

Gonna cut this off at the knees:
Nothing you said actually works or is relevant for the same reasons as have been posted and debated many times here and elsewhere, and if you don't know why, google it and see in detail.
Don't you idiots take this fucking bait, it's almost 15 years old.

Its really not.

This. You can't get upset at the system when your DM ignores caster rules and encounter balance in favor of making the casters more powerful.

It's funny, comics like Order of the Stick have their casters run out of spells and become useless all the time, but I've never been in a game where this happens.

I can't believe I have to say this, but 3rd Edition, no Dungeons & Dragons as a whole is the worst thing to ever happen to Veeky Forums.

Caster rules don't do anything to actually hamper casters. Components don't matter for the best spells, and spell slots are less of a bottleneck than hitpoints in terms of the adventuring day. Even if material components did matter, the best way to solve a problem then becomes to secure components and then take on the quest, and that is STILL a wizard-centered adventure.

Order of the stick isn't an RPG. It's a story where the author can ignore caster rules in favor of just being able to say "he ran out of spells lol" That's why roy is specifically optimized to fight undead arcane casters but still gets his shit pushed in and why varsuvius is an evocation wizard. The author specifically avoids optimal magic use because it leads to boring panels, something he satirized in a SoD cleric duel and when xykon complains that varsuvius attempted "scry and die" tactics on him.

The myth that there is some secret caster balancing rule in 3e that every DM is ignoring is probably the best way to detect when somebody doesn't understand the system.

Butt hurt, much? Should I play GURPS or whatever?

3.5 Warlocks are strictly middle-class. Their best uses are as dip levels for martials and rogues to pick up some utility.

The best commentary OoTS ever made was way back in its first story arc. Two clerics separated from their respective groups travelling together. Trogolodite jumps them.
>T:Claw attack on Cleric 1
>C2: Cure light wounds.
>T: Claw attack on Cleric 2
>C1: Cure light wounds
>T: Claw attack on Cleric 1 again
>C2: Cure light wounds
>T: Frustrated full multi-attack on Cleric 2
>C1: Cure moderate wounds.
>T: "Screw this, I'm ordering takeout", and sulks away.
>C1&C2: "GO TEAM CLERIC!"

Warlocks are nifty, but their invocation-known progress is almost nonexistant and they have to split it between utility invocations (shatter all day?) or Eldirtch Blast buffs (Eldritch Spear) though even here, traps abound untyped damage > fire damage 90% of the time

Can't help but notice the shadowcaster is missing from those lists on that page.

Sadly, people seem to think its spiritual successor in Pathfinder (the kineticist) is also a completely underpowered and therefore useless class.

Please. It's attack function is legitimately weaker than a Fighter with a greatsword and the Power Attack feat. Its other abilities come too rarely and too late to be particularly strong, though they ARE rather fun.
Let me guess, you also think Monks are over-powered?

They have shit damage without Eldritch Glaive, are MAD, are feat-starved, have terrible action economy, have 2+INT skills without INT as a primary or secondary stat and no true skill replacement abilities outside of UMD, have a bunch of dead weight class features, have an extremely limited number of invocations known, and aren't particularly durable until lategame invocations that are taken at the expense of offense.

Warlocks aren't versatile unless they're using UMD, and in fact they're the opposite because they know so few invocations that they can't afford to branch out.

>They also don't enforce spell component and XP requirements
You mean the things that are covered by a spell component pouch or a holy symbol and correct for their usage because you gain more XP while behind? That's totally going to balance casters.

No, he means actually requiring spell components to be tracked in the pouch if they don't take Eschew Materials, and actually requiring the items with a listed price to be bought ahead of time rather than just assuming they have it on them.

As far as XP goes... I'm going to assume for magic item creation, or how some spells require an experience cost. Though... to be honest I can't think of what spells do for 3.5 off hand and sort of feel like that was an AD&D thing...

>No, he means actually requiring spell components to be tracked in the pouch if they don't take Eschew Materials
Those are not the rules, I do not care about his homebrew. Spell component pouches are very explicit as to how they work and they deliberately kill inexpensive component tracking. You cannot talk about how the rules balance spellcasters when they're used then not actually use the rules.

Underpowered and incomplete- they completely missed the point on detailing the entire pact system outright, which 4e did properly, at the cost of fucking up the far realm and Vestiges. Also, some of the feats for 3.5 Warlocks simply did not work, as in they were fundamentally broken in design. Also, no-one is dumb enough to take up hellfire.

Also, motherfucking Acolyte of the skin not applying for other outsider types.

Nobody even remembers that shadowcaster exists.

Which is tragic really, they were interesting if underpowered. ALSO THE BASIS OF EVERYTHING IN 4E.

I mean, yeah, there's a Dungeon Magazine article where Yugoloths literally offer the same thing, but it's a template, opposed to the literal slowest progression of any prestige class offered ever (The default levels of 1-10 of the PrC literally aren't even the last, they actually made an extension for it to like level 20, but this only attests to how paced out and shitty it actually is)
>57136460
I'm so glad they killed off that awful idea- They never should've strayed from Shadow Magic Being a subschool of illusion- the irony is, you can still build a Pure shadow magic Wizard that is objectively better than a Shadowcaster, Mysteries- whilst good in notion of how involved lore-wise a player has to be to adhere to them- had nowhere to go because of the feats and Shar shit required for it's use.

...

God yes, the unformed pacts were the worst. I almost always RPed my Warlocks as fey pact or fey-touched, so the infernal stuff didn't work for me fluff-wise unless I refluffed it. I hear PF doesn't have Warlocks, but it seems to me you could take the basic concept of the invocation and eldritch blast setup and apply some flavor to it, segregate invocations and eldritch essences by Pact, and boom, Warlock+.

Speaking of refluffing the Warlock: just recently played an elf "sorcerer" who got his spells stolen by a trickster, and the sudden lack of form and shape for his arcane power made it come bursting out in raw, barely controllable forms. He can't teleport or sling fireballs anymore, but he can fire blasts of arcane energy out of his hands allowing him to both fuck up someone's day and fly around. That was a fun as fuck character.

warlock like the fighter is better than the wizard/sorcerer until about level 6, then the sorcerer/wizard becomes an unstoppable death machine that stops time and disintegrates your ass.
that is how 3.5 works

>Warlock+

I feel like elaborating on this idea.

Same HD, BAB, saves, skills, profs (maybe give 'em scythes? Just for funsies).

Eldritch Blast goes up by 1d6 every two levels, can be used one handed. Equivalent spell level is the number of damage dice. Instead of being a standard action, an Eldritch Blast is an attack action, so you can mix it in with your other attacks in a round if you've got another weapon, or do it multiple times as your BAB goes up.

Invocations: Equivalent spell levels depend on the individual Invocation. Follow the Least/Lesser/Greater/Dark format. Start off with one, gain one every even level afterward. All Warlocks+ can draw from a pool of common Invocations (most of the “utility” invocations stay here). Eldritch Shape invocations are included in this pool of Common Invocations.

Pact: When you Warlock, you need a Patron. Pick one of the following: Dragon, Fey, Old Ones, Infernal (maybe split into Diabolical and Demonic?), maybe Necromantic (Vampiric?), and come up with more later. Each Pact gives certain special features to the class: A certain kind of energy resistance or damage reduction, some kind of roleplaying tether, maybe something involving Types or Subtypes.

Your Pact gives you access to a special pool of Pact Invocations, which you get one of at level 1 and another every odd level. Pact Invocations draw on the history, flavor, and fluff of the patrons, so a Least draconic Pact Invocation might be something like Metal Detection, a Lesser Infernal Invocation would be more like summoning an imp buddy or seducing someone with a blown kiss, a Greater Fey invocation would be like a mist that causes confusion, and probably every Old One invocation is just tentacles comin' out of and goin' into everywhere. All Eldritch Essence Invocations are Pact invocations, and sometimes add damage dice (thus boosting the equivalent spell level).

There, just steal the best part of Clerics and it makes the Warlock better.

Obviously, keep Deceive and Imbue in the mix, maybe even squish them down to lower levels. Generally keep the concept that Invocations only buff the Warlock, they very rarely grant direct numerical benefits to other party members, and if they do there should be a trade-off between the Warlock and the person they're helping. Say, it increases someone's DR but reduces their AC because it partly turns them to stone, or a group Fell Flight but all non-Warlocks take some kind of penalty or condition while they're flying.

I'd also like there to be more Warlock-friendly items. Every Warlock I've ever played has the same item load-out of mithral breastplate, gauntlets of energy admixture, that rod that gives you bonus eldritch dice once a day, etc. Give us more rods, wands, and staves. Lots of Warlock-y art shows that sorta thing, but actual Warlocks don't benefit much from it.

I'm tempted by the idea that Warlocks could have familiars that act as their conduit to their patron, like familiars did in old folklore. I think of how much fun it is to run around as a necromancer in Diablo 2 with skellybuddies, about how often I see ravens in spooky mage art. I'm not totally on board with the idea just yet, but maybe your Pact also gives you access to some options for familiars, and make protecting them part of the roleplaying tether I mentioned before.

>3.5e

To be fair, Warlock old one pacts should've never really been a thing- that was the Alienist's sthichk- I'd give it a pass for the like of a pact with Dagon- a pact/covenant with the 'Eldest' (oldest still living Aboleth depicted in Lords of Madness and technically the Grand Aboleth from 1e) a pact with the Pale Night (For pseudonatural creatures) a pact with Tharizdun and alt-universe Tharizdun, pacts with the Elder Evils from Elder Evils, and a pact with the Moon Calf Deity pantheon, and possibly the star pact- but the like of Otiax, Lovecraft's pantheon and other such content are better off barred outright- especially because this brings PC's closer to Cerebral blots, and the kind of epic-level campaign destroying shit that are Kaorti incursions and the like. I mean they went full-crazy with it and even introduced the idea that Illithid used to trade with honest to god Ayylmao Greys.

Also, a pact with the Shadow Fey Darkness- thing that made them Shadow fey (It's an Elder Evil or something in S&S's 3.5-) would've been neat but they messed up Ravenloft through Shadowfell and accidentally turned Kaz the Betrayer/Deceiver/the Bloody into the Black duke by recycling art from 3.5

Dude, there's like a trillion ways to build a "necromancer", I think the universe is big enough for two kinds of tentacle mage.

That said, I'm trying to pitch this as setting agnostic, hence my uncertainty over whether to have separate demonic and diabolical pacts. So the Old One pact just really has to apply to anything wriggly, madness-inducing, cyclopean, or rugose. Abolteths and Mind Flayers both fit the archetype perfectly, as does anything with Far, Elder, or Outer in its title.

post warlocks

How are 5e warlocks anyway?

Warlocks are never better than a Wizard or a Sorcerer. They're unable to effectively SoL until at least level 6 and it comes at the expense of all-day invisibility and flight, their damage sucks until they get iteratives, and they can't buff the party without Spellthief shenanigans.

Now Dragonfire Adept, that's the invoker class that can actually lay claim to being (almost) as good as a Wizard or Sorcerer at early levels. They can stop encounters dead in their tracks with Entangling Exhalation all game long.

>Seriously, Warlock is recognized as being one of the worst fucking classes in 3.5.
They're Tier 3.

well there's one use for the fire invocation: getting access to hellfire warlock
then ditch it asap

They're T3 in the mid and lategame if you pick nothing but the best invocations, pick exactly the right feats, abuse UMD as much as you can, and use Eldritch Glaive for damage. Otherwise they're very much T4 or even T5.

Flying at will is overrated, it's convenient but far from godmode.
Play a superhero RPG for once, and you'll see that everyone has a gun, there's nothing interesting on the roof, and vehicles can fly much faster than you.

3.5 needs to just die already

>warlock
>in dungeons and dragons
not on my watch

I maintain that you can run a decent DnD game in Shadowrun