Warlock

[Masque]

Also few thoughts now I have had a proper look over it -

1. I am not sure the animate dead spell should be included as one for all because a lot of your good aligned Warlocks will simply have a dead spell that they can't use. It makes more sense in classes like Blackguard or Palemaster due to the nature of the class being quite specific.

Warlock is a lot more open to interpretation.

I would replace it with a boost spell maybe a mass-clarity spell or emotion courage?


2. Is Eldrtich Blast a full round action? If that is the case then I am not sure it will be able to stand up as a damage dealer in the late game considering iterative attacks on melee warriors cause a lot of damage in comparison. Even with the damage boosters in place an Archer is going to be doing a lot more damage than a Warlock.  

[Vincent07]

Sneak attack is a melee thing, and does not apply to SLAs.

Hideous Blow will be a short duration weapon buff that does not stack with any other weapon buff.  The exact numbers and duration will be worked out when I get to testing.

[Edge]

Mar 3, 2015 16:01:41 GMT -5 Masque said:

2. Is Eldrtich Blast a full round action? If that is the case then I am not sure it will be able to stand up as a damage dealer in the late game considering iterative attacks on melee warriors cause a lot of damage in comparison. Even with the damage boosters in place an Archer is going to be doing a lot more damage than a Warlock.  

Considering that's how it works in PnP, I see no reason it would hugely need to be changed. A minor damage buff over the default might not be bad, given how everything is ramped up in NWN. But Warlock isn't really supposed to be keeping up completely with the likes of full-attacking meleers or archers. Its main draw is being able to do magical damage an unlimited amount of times per day while aiming at Touch AC, and sacrifices the amount of damage it can do (compared to a blaster normal caster who is limited on spell slots per day, or a meleer swiping away with a weapon who can do only mostly physical damage and a little bit of elemental on the side and also has to aim for normal AC) for it.

[Nokteronoth]

I thought sneak attacks were also ranged at 30 feet in game? Though with other servers I've seen using warlock, since it's a custom use power, it doesn't apply.

Not 100%. But I do know that in normal NWN, sneaks do work on ranged attacks.

~BR

[Edge]

I think Vincent meant it's a physical thing, and won't work with magical attacks like SLAs.

[Nymera]

Mar 3, 2015 16:22:11 GMT -5 Edge said:

Mar 3, 2015 16:01:41 GMT -5 Masque said:

2. Is Eldrtich Blast a full round action? If that is the case then I am not sure it will be able to stand up as a damage dealer in the late game considering iterative attacks on melee warriors cause a lot of damage in comparison. Even with the damage boosters in place an Archer is going to be doing a lot more damage than a Warlock.  

Considering that's how it works in PnP, I see no reason it would hugely need to be changed. A minor damage buff over the default might not be bad, given how everything is ramped up in NWN. But Warlock isn't really supposed to be keeping up completely with the likes of full-attacking meleers or archers. Its main draw is being able to do magical damage an unlimited amount of times per day while aiming at Touch AC, and sacrifices the amount of damage it can do (compared to a blaster normal caster who is limited on spell slots per day, or a meleer swiping away with a weapon who can do only mostly physical damage and a little bit of elemental on the side and also has to aim for normal AC) for it.

From playing NWN2 for a long time, I want to stress this.  A lot of the warlock looks weaker if you compare raw numbers to other classes.  But you have to keep in mind that warlocks can do everything an unlimited amount of times per day.  In practice that makes them extremely good, especially in dungeons.  They never have to stop casting spells.

[Edge]

Pretty much, yes.

Note that a Warlock is going to be pumping out pretty consistent damage, too. They're DEX-based for their attacks, they have a very low chance of missing because they aim for Touch, and as they're likely going to be dealing Magical-type damage (unless specifically switching to an elemental Blast Essence for a certain purpose, like fighting trolls) they'll be bypassing DR and most creature's resistances or immunities. SR will slow them down, doubly so since I'm pretty sure Spell Penetration won't work for them, but no more or less than AC slows down a Fighter... except of course against Golems or other things that have unbeatable SR, and even then, Warlocks have at least one essence (Vitriolic Blast) that's basically a Conjuration spell and ignores SR. (Granted they're screwed if they fight a Golem that's immune to Acid... but then, well, that's what the rest of the party is for.)

So yes, while their flat on-paper damage is less, it's more consistent than a Fighter (Touch versus Normal AC and ignoring DR go a LONG way for that) and has just plain more endurance and staying power than a Mage who is restricted by a limited amount of slots.

[Valimar Dragonbane]

Don't forget that they get extra hit points that a wizard or sorcerer typical doesn't as well as the ability to wear armor straight out of the gate (even if there's arcane spell failure).

[Edge]

Actually there is no failure for using Light Armor for a warlock, much like a Bard =)

[Valimar Dragonbane]

Mar 4, 2015 12:31:49 GMT -5 Edge said:

Actually there is no failure for using Light Armor for a warlock, much like a Bard =)

Aaaah, I must have misread what Vincent had posted earlier in this thread.  I thought it said "all armor would have ASF."  My initial thought was "in pnp, they can wear light armor without penalties..."  Glad to see that I had misread!

[Masque]

My main concern and keep in mind this is theory rather than actually observing it in play is the advantages of Warlock are unlimited range attacks of magic and abilities. The disadvantages are that the damage isn't what a melee build can put out and the spells are not as potent as what a Wizard can put out.

The concern is that due to how the dungeons are built 'unlimited arcane power' isn't a massive selling point considering that the dungeons for the most part have rest points (sometimes multiple ones) and there are a lot (I mean an awful lot) of spell slot items available to Clerics, Wizards and (I think) Druids. I have literally never once run out of spells for Requiem in any Dungeon on this server (except ninth level ones - who hasn't?). Then add to this the mansion spell which while granted does not work in every dungeon but it works in quite a few and replenishes all those multiple spell slots just in case I start to go a bit trigger happy for the lulz.

The unlimited spells would be quite cool but the spell selection is  limited to the point where it would make for some very effective tactics concerning darkness spamming coupled with sneak attacks (Devil's sight, Darkness, Walk Unseen and See the Unseen) but very little else.

In fact the whole spell selection seems to make you a tougher melee combatant (for the aforementioned darkness spamming) with Dark Foresight, Word of Changing, Aura of Flame and Starless Void all giving you a damage shield or additional HP. While all of those except Dark Foresight are pact specific it means every choice gives you some form of increased melee ability. Indeed even the Greater Dispel (which is pretty cool) is touch range meaning you have to get in close.

The class has some nice battlefield control spells (which is my favourite type of spell) mostly linked to the Fey Pact and Star Pacts - Bewitching Blast, Eyebite, Will of the Feywild, Frightful Blast and Doomsayer being the pact specific ones with draining blast being the essence you can apply to your Eldritch Blast.

I have not mentioned Utterdark Blast in the above because negative levels on CD is a fairly useful ability for PvP but against normal monsters you're often just better off doing anything else because you have to usually target the monsters strongest save (fortitude) and the monsters tend not to last long enough for your spell to have done much good, as opposed to either incapacitating it or contributing damage of your own along with the fact a lot of the boss monsters are immune to negative levels.

However I think it shows really good design to have the fear, confusion and dominate as single target spells because it makes the unlimited ability useful without the mental broken of it being mass targeting it just seems a shame you need to pick either Fey or Lovecraft to do it.

The other thing this class doesn't seem to do well is play with others. It has no buffs (except Ultravision . . . woo) and I am not sure it would be out of place for it to have some party buffs like the mass-animal spells, death wards or emotion spells which gives them something to contribute as a little bit more unique. Dispels are much more common now and the party member that can help keep a party on their feet (with much needed buffs) would fit a more unique role. Some of its abilities are counter-intuitive to party play - Tentacles is an amazing spell but it rarely gets any use because it takes a lot of work and effort to make it work within a party dynamic and can often mess up your combat orientated friends. Likewise with the cone and radius versions of the blast these are going to be difficult to target in the hectic fast moving world of NWN without hitting your buddy in the face. If they're not already can they be made to only hurt enemies and not allies?

My other question is with Eldritch Blast do you have to constantly click and target it at your target (every round) or can you click and forget?

I certainly think the class is neat and the critique above is meant to just be constructive criticism I understand it is very easy to say from my sofa - code X, Y or Z and not understand the implications of it from a work/scripting perspective.

My other fear is that this class is a very, very nice dip class for rogue the first four levels are like a wet dream for them. Unlimited Darkness, Unlimited Ultravision, Auto-10 on UMD and a small defensive buff with entropic warding (which needs to be buffed as an aside). That is an amazing dip.

As a suggestion (rather than just point out things) could the spell selection scale after certain milestones of Warlock. So See the Unseen goes from basic See-Invisibility up to True Sight at high enough level. Darkness turns into 'Biting Darkness' that causes damage to anyone without Ultra-Vision/True Sight. Entropic Shield gets stronger as you level slowly adding AC, Deflection and Displacement. Flee the Scene turns from Dimension Door to the option to use it as a teleport to a mass teleport. Devour Magic adds AB/AC bonus depending on if the dispel was successful (no idea if this is actually possible to be scripted). Dark Foresight adds neg energy protection and boosts saves as your Warlock gains in levels.

[Nymera]

Your concerns are valid,  but again: this class has existed already in NWN2 for the past eight years.  We've already seen, in practice, that it measures up very well and is quite popular.  Vincent's implimentation is close to identical to the NWN2 version and scales the same in numbers.

As for buffs, you're right, the Warlock lacks party buffs.  Eldrich magic is inherently destructive, not support-y.  It's the same in NWN2.

[Edge]

Pretty much what Kirin said. The class doesn't "help others" because that's not what it's designed to do. I'm sure Vincent will tweak some of its abilities, upping some powers and generally adjusting it to fit the server, and such adjusting will likely continue even after the class is in-game, but adding a bunch of homebrewed extras that even the PnP version of the class never gets is both unnecessary and excessive.

You're trying to think of Warlocks as just another Mage class, when they're very much not. They're more like Fighters who deal their damage with pseudo-magic instead of swords. And their class design and abilities reflect that. Fighters don't buff their allies either (barring multiclassing anyway), but that doesn't stop people from playing them.

[NorthWolf: Doge Edition]

I will warn that this class is pretty easy to break mechanically if the implementation is done in a certain fashion. For those that played Neverwinter Nights 2 when it was young you might remember that Chilling Tentacles was hilariously broken and could be stacked for something to the effect of reflex save vs. 200d6 damage. Add in a dash of really stupid AI that can't even pathfind tilesets and you win everything ever.

IMHO this class tends to polarize heavily: do it one way and it tends to be amazingly bad, do it another way and it tends to be horribly good. Things like unlimited spam of stuff like invisibility, darkness, etc. allow exploitation of the bad NWN AI to no ends, and stackable unlimited AoEs will always result in horrific exploitation of pathfinding.

[Edge]

Yeah that bug with the tentacles has already been mentioned, Vince covered it about a page back.