D&D Other Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]

[RobbyPants]

From my understanding, the psion class itself is good, and any abuses can be fixed by fixing problematic psionic powers.

The psychic warrior is also a pretty good class, and fairly balanced.

The wilder is on the weak side, and several abilities are useless.  Also, their key ability gets more dangerous to use as they gain power.

The soulknife is underpowered to the point that all he gets is a special, flashy weapon.  Anything he can do other than summoning a weapon can be done better by any other class.  I thought the quickest fix was to remove the class and make it into a level 1 psychic warrior power.  I don't have the link handy, but I thought WotC put something up on the web a while ago as an ACF for the PW.  It involved taking a level 1 power and giving up the 2nd level bonus feat.

[RobbyPants]

What do you think would help warlocks?  Perhaps a few extra invocations sprinkled in?  I don't think they need a lot.

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Also, on a related topic, I'll bring this up here instead of in feats.  Currently the Extra Invocation feat gives you an extra invocation, but only of a grade one less than what you can use.  So from levels 1-5 you can't even use the feat.  What if we were to try one of these ideas:

A) You can gain a new invocation that could be of any grade you could normally use, or

B) You gain a new invocation.  Choose an invocation at least one grade one lower than the highest grade you can use.  If you can only use least invocations, you can choose a least invocation.


So, effectively the three options side by side would look like:

Levels   Normal      A            B
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1-5      NA          Least        Least 
6-10     Least       Lesser       Least 
11-15    Lesser      Greater      Lesser
16-20    Greater     Dark         Greater

[Midnight_v]

The soulknife is underpowered to the point that all he gets is a special, flashy weapon.  Anything he can do other than summoning a weapon can be done better by any other class.  I thought the quickest fix was to remove the class and make it into a level 1 psychic warrior power.  I don't have the link handy, but I thought WotC put something up on the web a while ago as an ACF for the PW.  It involved taking a level 1 power and giving up the 2nd level bonus feat.

I approve of removing soulknife or making it an acf. I'll post the link when wizards comes back online

[SiggyDevil]

RabidPirateMan shall heartily suggest that the Archivist keep his ability to learn any divine spell, but to give him Bard casting, limiting him to 6th level spells at most.

This surely is a fantastic idea, since the RabidPirateMan is referring to himself in the third person.

I just noticed this post and went ?_?
Siggy likes this.

As the Protoss say, "You think as I do".

I came to that same conclusion for a setting-wide change, though. Not just Archivist.

[RabidPirateMan]

You know, outside of minmaxing, I've never played or had a warlock in group.  Are they in need of boosting?  I always thought they were in the realm of 'acceptable power.'

Well, lets start like this- where does the warlock shine, and where does the warlock lack?

[SiggyDevil]

Warlock shine: unlimited Invocations. In worlds of vancian crap this is cool. That, and they can make any spellcasting class's magic item.

Warlock lack: .. that's about where the shine ends. Much of the rest is shit, from Invocation damage to diversity of abilities on hand in any encounter to range to limitations of Invocations to HD quality (poor BAB, HP, class abilities) to limited use Spell-Like Ability feats to compatible items for Invocations in settings full of ACTUAL SPELLS.

Stick to Wizard or Sorcerer. Put a Reserve feat on that deals ranged damage. You'll have a class that does everything a Warlock does, but better.

[RobbyPants]

Warlock shine: unlimited Invocations. In worlds of vancian crap this is cool. That, and they can make any spellcasting class's magic item.

Warlock lack: .. that's about where the shine ends. Much of the rest is shit, from Invocation damage to diversity of abilities on hand in any encounter to range to limitations of Invocations to HD quality (poor BAB, HP, class abilities) to limited use Spell-Like Ability feats to compatible items for Invocations in settings full of ACTUAL SPELLS.

Stick to Wizard or Sorcerer. Put a Reserve feat on that deals ranged damage. You'll have a class that does everything a Warlock does, but better.

I know.  Thats why I was looking for a minor boost.  I don't think they need a lot though.  Perhaps a few crappy invocations could be beefed up to be worth considering.  Other than that, I can see a few ideas (these are just brainstorming.  I'm not planning on adding all of them!):

• adding a few extra invocations known
• adding extra dice to Eldritch Blast damage.  This seems unnecessary to me, as it won't really help in the long run.
• adding a static boost to EB damage.  Perhaps Cha modifier?
• creating an Edritch Essence invocation that lets you make a full attack with your EB for that round.  Maybe it's a Blast Shape invocation instead (I like this idea).
• Adding a bit to the Fiendish Resistances to make them more useful.  Add a bit more to the energy resistance and cold iron DR.
• The fast healing ability always seemed wierd to me.  It's like a less-useful version of the monk's crappy self-heal.  Should he even have this?  I feel like it should either be boosted to the point of being useful, or simply dropped in favor of better abilities.

That's all I have so far.  Any other thoughts on this?

[Psychic Robot]

What do you think would help warlocks?  Perhaps a few extra invocations sprinkled in?  I don't think they need a lot.

Give them blasting progression equal to rogue sneak attack progression.  Maybe add Charisma as bonus damage.  Then a few extra invocations.

Maybe up the DR/cold iron a little bit.

[RobbyPants]

How do you feel about the idea of giving them an Eldritch Essense or Blast Shape invocation to allow the EB to be used as an attack action for that round?

[SiggyDevil]

Frequency of attack for Warlock isn't the problem although one could tackle it from that direction.
It's about damage output per round, or as WoW tards say "DPS".

They need to deal at least another 50% damage or more consistently. Adding more stat bonus to damage won't help; it needs to be a flat value or else Warlocks will end up slinging 15d6 dice every attack.
That gets old real fast.
I'm thinking something more like 1d8 or 1d10 + scaled value, maybe even 2d6. They could boost that scaled value even more if they add an element (which shouldn't cost an Invocation to do so)
Damage should compare to an Empowered Evocation from a full caster, which really still isn't an optimum choice as far a spells go

Giving about twice as more Invocations readied at any given moment helps too, but there should also be a cap on how many a character may have active at the same time.

[RobbyPants]

Frequency of attack for Warlock isn't the problem although one could tackle it from that direction.
It's about damage output per round, or as WoW tards say "DPS".

They need to deal at least another 50% damage or more consistently. Adding more stat bonus to damage won't help; it needs to be a flat value or else Warlocks will end up slinging 15d6 dice every attack.
That gets old real fast.
I'm thinking something more like 1d8 or 1d10 + scaled value, maybe even 2d6. They could boost that scaled value even more if they add an element (which shouldn't cost an Invocation to do so)
Damage should compare to an Empowered Evocation from a full caster, which really still isn't an optimum choice as far a spells go

Well to give you an idea for comparision, I've proposed increasing direct damage spells for casters.  There are other effect too, based on the energy type, but below in the spoiler are the changes I want to make to damage.

General Direct Damage Change
Here's the basic idea:  A DD spell directly opposes a monster's HP.  Now, a monster primarily gets HP from two sources: their hit dice and their Con mod (* their HD).  Because their Con mod is multiplied by their HD, they get a very solid boost at higher levels.  I was thinking of a way to boost damage on a per-damage die basis for DD spells.

The simple solution is to add the primary casing stat (Int for wizards, Cha for spontaneous casters, etc...) mod per damage die of the spell, capped at the spells level plus one, divided by two.  So, 1st level spells would add 1 point per damage die, 1 point for 2nd level spells, 2 points for 3rd level spells, etc, but capped at the casting stat mod.

So a few examples:

A 12th level wizard with an Int of 22 (mod +6) casts Fireball for 10d6+20 (+6 mod capped at +2 per die for a 3rd level spell).  The same wizard casts Cone of Cold for 12d6+36 (+6 mod capped at +3) and Magic Missle for 5d4+10 (an additional +5 on top of what Magic Missile normally does).
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Now, I think round by round, the warlock should be behind, as he can use his EB all day long.  I just thought I'd post that for comparision.  Perhaps the bonus damage could be adapted for the EB as well.  Maybe we could do it in five-level incementes (to match his four grades of invocations).  Something like:
level 1-5: +1 damage per die
level 6-10: +2 damage per die
level 11-15: +3 damage per die
level 16-20: +4 damage per die

Giving about twice as more Invocations readied at any given moment helps too, but there should also be a cap on how many a character may have active at the same time.

When you say "active", are you talking about invocations with a 24 hour duration?  Also, by "readied", do you mean known?

[SiggyDevil]

It's a noble proposal so far but the casting-stat-to-spell concept needs a rethink: consider thusly that the average character does not usually put CON as their best stat.
They tend to put the best in something offensive, and CON as second or third best (especially warrior types, the ones difficult for blasters to take down with Evocations)

If you add casting stat bonus to spell damage for each dice that's comparing Single Ability Dependency to Multi Ability Dependency, of which the latter will be at disadvantage.

I suggest adding half the caster's stat to damage for each character level.


Onward!
The Warlock, having an advantage of unlimited EB, is at disadvantage because the rest of their abilities suck compared to spells.
I don't care if they can do it 1 time every round, 10 times a minute, 60 times an hour, 24 hours a day (or less?), since all that really matters is a round-by-round encounter with monsters, other classed characters, and other Warlocks.
It all comes down to whether or not the Warlock can remove an opponent with roughly average HP and defense of appropriate CR or level with moderate difficulty in a few rounds.

For that, IMO, they either need to deal just as much damage as spellcasters (which also needs to be improved, as we agree) or to have more backup plans (more Invocations available for use) in case EB won't take a foe down fast enough.

I suggest the Warlock gets to add 2 Invocations (or blast shapes) to their personal list known each level.

By limitation for "active Invocations" I mean that the Warlock is restricted to having X number in effect on their personage at any given moment. I don't know how many would be reasonable but it should be no more than 2 + 1 per odd level.
Too many at once quickly becomes difficult to keep track of in combat.

By "readied" I meant "An Invocation is currently applied to the Warlock and in use." For instance, Fell Flight would be "readied" while a Warlock is flying around; no other Invocations with duration should be allowed to also take effect at that same time, even though they don't actually end duration. That's all. Checks and balances.

Warlock damage could be 1d6 with additional 6 + 1/2 CHA bonus damage per character level.
They're blasters. It's their main schtick. Even if I got the math wrong, what I mean is that the ideal should be like Lesser Fire Orb (or similar) at will with Empower and Maximize.
Oh and they need better area effect options. By high levels they need to emulate Meteor Swarm or similar, and that's not even a good spell.

[JaronK]

A quick thought on Warlocks:  as I understand it, for 4e they wanted a Binder/Warlock hybrid.  I think this is an excellent idea!  The two classes are thematically similar and can be virtually gestalted together without any problems, creating a pretty darn cool class overall.  You get the steady blasting ability of the Warlock with the adaptability of a Binder, and I don't even think it would be overpowered... just cool.

Just a thought.

JaronK

[SiggyDevil]

A quick thought on Warlocks:  as I understand it, for 4e they wanted a Binder/Warlock hybrid.  I think this is an excellent idea!  The two classes are thematically similar and can be virtually gestalted together without any problems, creating a pretty darn cool class overall.  You get the steady blasting ability of the Warlock with the adaptability of a Binder, and I don't even think it would be overpowered... just cool.

Just a thought.

JaronK

That's damned cool but IMO would only work if the Warlock could only use 1 vestige at a time.
You might have some wonky effects going on between vestige SLAs and Invocations, but that's something I would personally prefer to play far more than a solitary version of either.

[JaronK]

I dunno.  Binders wouldn't gain that much by gaining the blasts, as most binder abilities are also standard actions.  The only break I can see in just slamming them into one class is the use of that full round attack with your blast invocation (I forget the name) which might be combined with some melee vestiges for a lot of damage, but even there I'm not sure it's actually too much.  The Sneak Attack vestige with blasts might be strong too, but that's still not too bad overall and might solve the Warlock's damage issues.

JaronK

[veekie]

Hmm, doing the Warlock like the Binder is a very likeable idea, and the concepts are close too, with the Binder being more like a warlock(powers from pacts), than the warlock is.

Write new pacts(with sets of invocations for each pact) or just fuse vestigies into warlocks though?

[JaronK]

Honestly, I'd probably just gestalt the two together, but say that PrCs that advance them get one or the other (so Tenebrous Apostate only advances Binding, not invocations... basically, just as it is now).  Gives a great reason to take it to 20, but you still might want to PrC out.  That, and maybe some of the core chasis could downgrade a bit (lower HD, perhaps?).

One nasty thing to consider:  There's an online vestige that gives you any item creation feat you want.  Combine that with the Warlock 11 ability and we could have a serious issue with sudden amazing item creation.  I say drop the level 11 Warlock ability, as the vestige does something similar enough in concept.  You'll just need to get spells donated for crafting by friendly casts, as Binders currently do.

Another option would be to drop invocations entirely except for blast invocations, but then create some new vestiges that essencially give you the old invocation powers, so you can chose to use those or something else, as you see fit.  That might be better for balance reasons.

JaronK

[veekie]

I like the last option, replacing the existing invocations with vestiges(we could call them pacts instead, so the warlock flavor remains whole), and import whichever binder vestiges that fit well.

[JaronK]

Well, Binders do in fact make pacts with their vestiges.  That's in their rules.  So yeah, the flavor already fits just fine.

I'd definitely want the blasting to remain without vestiges though, it's just so signature.

JaronK

[veekie]

Yeah, keep the blasting, though blast shapes can be folded into vestiges as well. I meant the warlock's current flavor, with pacts to devils, demons and fey, which can provide non-vestige entities to provide the pacts with.