"Flee the Scene" Warlock Invocation [Archive] - Wizards Community

"Flee the Scene" Warlock Invocation [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Ainaelin
05-06-07, 06:32 AM Hello! ;)

I have searched the site but without success, and the answer lies not in the famous FAQ, to my disappointment, so I have to ask the community here.

When my Warlock invokes Flee the Scene, the description says that a Major Image of myself remains for one round and reacts to attacks as if I concentrated on it.

My simple question is : may I do without the Image? May I just teleport away without leaving behind that beautiful illusion of my lovely self? :D

I mean this is very useful at times, but some other times, I'd just want to get away and leave no trace...

Thank you for your insights, you lads and lasses. :P
CaoSlayer
05-06-07, 06:43 AM seems that you cant.
forsaken1111
05-06-07, 07:53 AM I mean this is very useful at times, but some other times, I'd just want to get away and leave no trace...

Thank you for your insights, you lads and lasses. :P

To the enemy fighting you, it would seem like you simply vanish the round after you use it since the image melts away. What would the difference be if he saw you vanish 1 round earlier?
Thiez
05-06-07, 09:35 AM If you don't want to be seen at all. Suppose an enemy hears you, but you are still out of sight. If you win initiative, you could teleport away. When your enemy comes around the corner and looks at where you were, he won't see anything. But if you leave a major imagine of yourself, he knows something is very, very wrong.
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-06-07, 10:25 AM You've got a point... Sometime the illusion is a bother. Sometimes it's better for the Warlock to stay invisible and just fly instead...
Thiez
05-06-07, 10:29 AM You've got a point... Sometime the illusion is a bother. Sometimes it's better for the Warlock to stay invisible and just fly instead...

If only he had enough invocations known to get all those things and do something useful in addition.
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-06-07, 05:09 PM How is that not useful?!
Thiez
05-06-07, 05:15 PM Sometimes you want more than self-only utility.
CantripN
05-06-07, 05:16 PM Sometimes you want more than self-only utility.

Well, Psions are like that, too, and they work. Rather well, I might add.
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-06-07, 05:42 PM Sometimes you want more than self-only utility.

Warlocks have other stuff than self utility.
It's called Eldritch blast baby!:cool: And Summon swarm and Tenacious plauge and T.e.n.t.a.c.k.l.e lovin and...
Ainaelin
05-06-07, 05:57 PM Thank you for your answers, especially Caoslayer who's the only one who has really answered it, even if that is not the answer I would have liked to hear. :D

I'm not a psion, and I don't have the flight invocation. I am gaining a new level and wanted to take Flee the Scene, yet I wondered if you could not have the Major Image, which could be a bother in a few cases where the delay would be a problem, especially in RP situations (I'm not a fighter, so all my questions are not always related to combat, sorry), where you say something, disappear and would welcome a quick disparition. Just a matter of dramatisation in that case, but some other situations might require and disappearance with no delay as well.

I was wondering, that's all. If it's not possible, that's too bad, but I'm taking it anyway. Short-range Dimension Door is too good to pass away. :love:
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-07-07, 06:17 AM If you were invisible to begin with and use flee the scene does the major image effect show you as if you were invisible?
mad_warlock
05-07-07, 09:41 AM If you were invisible to begin with and use flee the scene does the major image effect show you as if you were invisible?

Your major image is invisible. Because of the fact that the major image it leaves isn't you naked...which means that it changes based upon what your wearing, what wounds you have, and what-have you. If you happen to be under the effects of a disguise self or polymorph effect, you leave behind an image of what you look like when you cast Flee the Scene, not your true form. If you happen to be invisible, then you have an invisible major image.
CantripN
05-07-07, 09:45 AM Which raises the question of whether you can have an Invisible Image. I doubt it, since it's not mind-affecting, so it must be doing it by playing with light waves.
mad_warlock
05-07-07, 09:51 AM Nothing in the RAW states that you can't have an invisible illusion. After all, you can create an illusion of any creature that you can imagine....so what keeps you from creating an illusion of an invisible stalker? The only difference is that your implementing the other senses that take place within the major image. Major images have smells and sounds, and require a will save to disbelieve if you interact with them. So, theoretically, an NPC could bump into your invisible major image, but then get a saving throw to realize that whatever it was they bumped into wasn't really there.

That's RAW for ya. :P
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-07-07, 10:01 AM Soooo have we just solved Ainaelin's problem or what?
forsaken1111
05-07-07, 02:13 PM Soooo have we just solved Ainaelin's problem or what?

I answered it at the start.

According to the invocation as written, you always leave behind a major image of yourself as you are. There's no option not to.

As other have pointed out, you could leave behind an invisible image if you happened to be invisible.
tyrecian
05-07-07, 04:05 PM well not really, unless it was greater invised, and then you would leave behind an image that would suggest your invis had dropped.

A Warlock in my campaign uses flee the scene, it is massively helpful for party mobility cause he can take more people, i.e. get the party out of the crypt easily and back in just as easily even though the entrance has been blocked by falling rocks, etc.

I havent really had to deal with the image much yet, as this warlock has an Int of 4 (dump stat for him, and he had incredible rolls on the other 5, so he stuck it in int) and has only taken UMD for his 1 rank a level in skills... Therefore he cannot cast in combat and so does not really even think about the image being around. When he could use the image, he is using his EB instead, and at 11th level with Vitrilolic he does 8d6, lol that is insane damage so he concentrates mostly on that.

I dunno, man, the image can be bothersome i suppose, but if you could use it just as you were concentrating, have it hide, duck around a corner, soemthing like that.... perhaps it could be useful in that vain... but even so, they seemed to make it so that you can't get rid of the image, as it function just like major image (con+3) and you only get 1 round (standard action to negate voluntarily the effects of spells, but you would be doing it next round anyways.... )
forsaken1111
05-07-07, 04:08 PM well not really, unless it was greater invised, and then you would leave behind an image that would suggest your invis had dropped.

Why? Casting Flee the Scene isn't a hostile action, why would the invisibility drop?
CantripN
05-07-07, 04:09 PM 8d6 a round at level 11 is a lot? Are you kidding?
mad_warlock
05-07-07, 06:21 PM Agreed. 8d6 at 11th level is crap.

But, then again, playing a warlock to do damage is like buying a 747 to get free peanuts and your own recliner.

The damage they can dish is icing on the cake. It's a small amount of icing, and a bit gooey, but it's still icing.

Warlock's primary power comes from their ability to use just about anything, and (with the right feats) MAKE just about anything.

However, there is a Xeph build for a Warlock that can pump out some insane damage. Somewhere around 14d6 a round around 8th level, but that's with using magic items. If I find it, I'll post it, but I'm too lazy to look right now.
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-07-07, 07:24 PM Agreed. 8d6 at 11th level is crap.

But, then again, playing a warlock to do damage is like buying a 747 to get free peanuts and your own recliner.

The damage they can dish is icing on the cake. It's a small amount of icing, and a bit gooey, but it's still icing.

Warlock's primary power comes from their ability to use just about anything, and (with the right feats) MAKE just about anything.

However, there is a Xeph build for a Warlock that can pump out some insane damage. Somewhere around 14d6 a round around 8th level, but that's with using magic items. If I find it, I'll post it, but I'm too lazy to look right now.

I wouldn't call it crap, just 3d6 behind the Wizard and other spell casters (And yes I know that the Warlock won't be able to dish out the same amount do the the wizards advantage of range and area, but the Warlock can do it anytime he wants and never losses a spell slot when he does.)

And I don't like builds that really on Psionic shot for efficiency. Having to charge the blast every time after you fire. Besides, with a hellfire warlock and Incarnum blast and a Greater Chasuble of Fell power I am doing an extra 10d6 at level 11. With some feats and magic items I can pump it up to an additional 2-3d6. A Warlock at level 11 doing 15d6 per blast is nothing to sneeze at. Ehh... A Warlock does do 5d6 at level 11, or is it 6d6?
Ainaelin
05-09-07, 11:06 AM 6D6 at level 11.

So, you have answered my plea. Cheers, guys! I will have to live with that image. It's not a big deal, only a minor annoyance at some rare times. :P

As for the damage of a Warlock. No, it's not much. 6d6 or even 8d6 damage per round is not a lot, but the Warlock's niche is not (in my opinion) damage-dealing, so I do no care much. I use the Blast as my only weapon, but this campaign is not really combat-heavy, and my Rogue/Warlock has always been the damage-dealer of the group, so you see that we are NOT focused on fighting.
Small group, we're only two and the other player is a Human/Werepanther Rogue/Cleric/Servant of Sharess, where Servant of Sharess is a PrC designed by our DM. We use a house-rule specific to that group that makes multi-classing more powerful, so we play somewhere in-between normal multi-classing and "Gestalt" multi-classing, which makes my character a Rogue7/Warlock5 but with all the abilities of a Warlock 11.

Anyway, you sure don't care about this, so I'll thank you for your time a last time and leave right now. :tiphat:
Sephiroth Do'Urden
05-11-07, 02:05 PM ...which makes my character a Rogue7/Warlock5 but with all the abilities of a Warlock 11.

Yowza! Must be fun to play. What Invocation, if I might ask? Blinding blast must be quite useful if you are a rouge as well! Iff you quicken it that is...
Ainaelin
05-11-07, 03:12 PM I only just took my first blast essence, which is Repelling Blast, actually. As I told you, I'm not into fighting, really. My character, Lanerel Starbow, was from Amn (Forgotten Realms setting) and fled to become an adventurer because she was a Sorcerer and arcane magic is frowned upon in Amn. So I began as a Rogue/Sorcerer. Afer a while, my friend (the Rogue/Cleric of Sharess) became linked with Harpers and took a job of stealing an unknown but probably powerful magic item that was to be sold to the clergy of Shar. We stole it, but our contacts had been murdered in between and we had to flee the city for our lives. We opened the box of the item and it was an powerful crystal (we later learned that it had been a part of a Netherese mythal). The sheer power of it when taken out of its box made a lot of powerful arcane practicers aware of it and we had dragons, sorcerers, wizards and a few other nasty things teleported to our sides in minutes. We used the power of the artifact to teleport away and found ourselves in a demi-plane (look for Myst Larast in the Magic of Faerun), where another such crystal was used by rakshasa to destroy the city dedicated to Selune. We used stealth to infiltrate the Rakshasa camp and I touched the crystal. I was killed but thus managed to ruin the contraption that used the power of the crystal. My friend again used our crystal to raise me, but I had lost all my Sorcerer levels and had become a Warlock (that's how we explained the change from Sorceror to Warlock when the Complete Arcane was out and I discovered the Warlock was exactly what I had wanted for this characte :p ).
Our two characters are both young women, sexy and roguish who use their charms to get what they want. Combat is only a defensive option and we flee as often as we fight (that's why we are ony level 12 even though we have been playing for 4 or 5 years).

My invocations are :

Beguiling Influence
Entropic Warding
Spiderwalk
Walk Unseen
Voidsense
Voracious Dispelling
Flee the Scene (Extra invocation last level)
Repelling Blast

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ainaelin 05-06-07, 06:32 AM	Hello! ;) I have searched the site but without success, and the answer lies not in the famous FAQ, to my disappointment, so I have to ask the community here. When my Warlock invokes Flee the Scene, the description says that a Major Image of myself remains for one round and reacts to attacks as if I concentrated on it. My simple question is : may I do without the Image? May I just teleport away without leaving behind that beautiful illusion of my lovely self? :D I mean this is very useful at times, but some other times, I'd just want to get away and leave no trace... Thank you for your insights, you lads and lasses. :P
CaoSlayer 05-06-07, 06:43 AM	seems that you cant.
forsaken1111 05-06-07, 07:53 AM	I mean this is very useful at times, but some other times, I'd just want to get away and leave no trace... Thank you for your insights, you lads and lasses. :P To the enemy fighting you, it would seem like you simply vanish the round after you use it since the image melts away. What would the difference be if he saw you vanish 1 round earlier?
Thiez 05-06-07, 09:35 AM	If you don't want to be seen at all. Suppose an enemy hears you, but you are still out of sight. If you win initiative, you could teleport away. When your enemy comes around the corner and looks at where you were, he won't see anything. But if you leave a major imagine of yourself, he knows something is very, very wrong.
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-06-07, 10:25 AM	You've got a point... Sometime the illusion is a bother. Sometimes it's better for the Warlock to stay invisible and just fly instead...
Thiez 05-06-07, 10:29 AM	You've got a point... Sometime the illusion is a bother. Sometimes it's better for the Warlock to stay invisible and just fly instead... If only he had enough invocations known to get all those things and do something useful in addition.
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-06-07, 05:09 PM	How is that not useful?!
Thiez 05-06-07, 05:15 PM	Sometimes you want more than self-only utility.
CantripN 05-06-07, 05:16 PM	Sometimes you want more than self-only utility. Well, Psions are like that, too, and they work. Rather well, I might add.
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-06-07, 05:42 PM	Sometimes you want more than self-only utility. Warlocks have other stuff than self utility. It's called Eldritch blast baby!:cool: And Summon swarm and Tenacious plauge and T.e.n.t.a.c.k.l.e lovin and...
Ainaelin 05-06-07, 05:57 PM	Thank you for your answers, especially Caoslayer who's the only one who has really answered it, even if that is not the answer I would have liked to hear. :D I'm not a psion, and I don't have the flight invocation. I am gaining a new level and wanted to take Flee the Scene, yet I wondered if you could not have the Major Image, which could be a bother in a few cases where the delay would be a problem, especially in RP situations (I'm not a fighter, so all my questions are not always related to combat, sorry), where you say something, disappear and would welcome a quick disparition. Just a matter of dramatisation in that case, but some other situations might require and disappearance with no delay as well. I was wondering, that's all. If it's not possible, that's too bad, but I'm taking it anyway. Short-range Dimension Door is too good to pass away. :love:
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-07-07, 06:17 AM	If you were invisible to begin with and use flee the scene does the major image effect show you as if you were invisible?
mad_warlock 05-07-07, 09:41 AM	If you were invisible to begin with and use flee the scene does the major image effect show you as if you were invisible? Your major image is invisible. Because of the fact that the major image it leaves isn't you naked...which means that it changes based upon what your wearing, what wounds you have, and what-have you. If you happen to be under the effects of a disguise self or polymorph effect, you leave behind an image of what you look like when you cast Flee the Scene, not your true form. If you happen to be invisible, then you have an invisible major image.
CantripN 05-07-07, 09:45 AM	Which raises the question of whether you can have an Invisible Image. I doubt it, since it's not mind-affecting, so it must be doing it by playing with light waves.
mad_warlock 05-07-07, 09:51 AM	Nothing in the RAW states that you can't have an invisible illusion. After all, you can create an illusion of any creature that you can imagine....so what keeps you from creating an illusion of an invisible stalker? The only difference is that your implementing the other senses that take place within the major image. Major images have smells and sounds, and require a will save to disbelieve if you interact with them. So, theoretically, an NPC could bump into your invisible major image, but then get a saving throw to realize that whatever it was they bumped into wasn't really there. That's RAW for ya. :P
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-07-07, 10:01 AM	Soooo have we just solved Ainaelin's problem or what?
forsaken1111 05-07-07, 02:13 PM	Soooo have we just solved Ainaelin's problem or what? I answered it at the start. According to the invocation as written, you always leave behind a major image of yourself as you are. There's no option not to. As other have pointed out, you could leave behind an invisible image if you happened to be invisible.
tyrecian 05-07-07, 04:05 PM	well not really, unless it was greater invised, and then you would leave behind an image that would suggest your invis had dropped. A Warlock in my campaign uses flee the scene, it is massively helpful for party mobility cause he can take more people, i.e. get the party out of the crypt easily and back in just as easily even though the entrance has been blocked by falling rocks, etc. I havent really had to deal with the image much yet, as this warlock has an Int of 4 (dump stat for him, and he had incredible rolls on the other 5, so he stuck it in int) and has only taken UMD for his 1 rank a level in skills... Therefore he cannot cast in combat and so does not really even think about the image being around. When he could use the image, he is using his EB instead, and at 11th level with Vitrilolic he does 8d6, lol that is insane damage so he concentrates mostly on that. I dunno, man, the image can be bothersome i suppose, but if you could use it just as you were concentrating, have it hide, duck around a corner, soemthing like that.... perhaps it could be useful in that vain... but even so, they seemed to make it so that you can't get rid of the image, as it function just like major image (con+3) and you only get 1 round (standard action to negate voluntarily the effects of spells, but you would be doing it next round anyways.... )
forsaken1111 05-07-07, 04:08 PM	well not really, unless it was greater invised, and then you would leave behind an image that would suggest your invis had dropped. Why? Casting Flee the Scene isn't a hostile action, why would the invisibility drop?
CantripN 05-07-07, 04:09 PM	8d6 a round at level 11 is a lot? Are you kidding?
mad_warlock 05-07-07, 06:21 PM	Agreed. 8d6 at 11th level is crap. But, then again, playing a warlock to do damage is like buying a 747 to get free peanuts and your own recliner. The damage they can dish is icing on the cake. It's a small amount of icing, and a bit gooey, but it's still icing. Warlock's primary power comes from their ability to use just about anything, and (with the right feats) MAKE just about anything. However, there is a Xeph build for a Warlock that can pump out some insane damage. Somewhere around 14d6 a round around 8th level, but that's with using magic items. If I find it, I'll post it, but I'm too lazy to look right now.
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-07-07, 07:24 PM	Agreed. 8d6 at 11th level is crap. But, then again, playing a warlock to do damage is like buying a 747 to get free peanuts and your own recliner. The damage they can dish is icing on the cake. It's a small amount of icing, and a bit gooey, but it's still icing. Warlock's primary power comes from their ability to use just about anything, and (with the right feats) MAKE just about anything. However, there is a Xeph build for a Warlock that can pump out some insane damage. Somewhere around 14d6 a round around 8th level, but that's with using magic items. If I find it, I'll post it, but I'm too lazy to look right now. I wouldn't call it crap, just 3d6 behind the Wizard and other spell casters (And yes I know that the Warlock won't be able to dish out the same amount do the the wizards advantage of range and area, but the Warlock can do it anytime he wants and never losses a spell slot when he does.) And I don't like builds that really on Psionic shot for efficiency. Having to charge the blast every time after you fire. Besides, with a hellfire warlock and Incarnum blast and a Greater Chasuble of Fell power I am doing an extra 10d6 at level 11. With some feats and magic items I can pump it up to an additional 2-3d6. A Warlock at level 11 doing 15d6 per blast is nothing to sneeze at. Ehh... A Warlock does do 5d6 at level 11, or is it 6d6?
Ainaelin 05-09-07, 11:06 AM	6D6 at level 11. So, you have answered my plea. Cheers, guys! I will have to live with that image. It's not a big deal, only a minor annoyance at some rare times. :P As for the damage of a Warlock. No, it's not much. 6d6 or even 8d6 damage per round is not a lot, but the Warlock's niche is not (in my opinion) damage-dealing, so I do no care much. I use the Blast as my only weapon, but this campaign is not really combat-heavy, and my Rogue/Warlock has always been the damage-dealer of the group, so you see that we are NOT focused on fighting. Small group, we're only two and the other player is a Human/Werepanther Rogue/Cleric/Servant of Sharess, where Servant of Sharess is a PrC designed by our DM. We use a house-rule specific to that group that makes multi-classing more powerful, so we play somewhere in-between normal multi-classing and "Gestalt" multi-classing, which makes my character a Rogue7/Warlock5 but with all the abilities of a Warlock 11. Anyway, you sure don't care about this, so I'll thank you for your time a last time and leave right now. :tiphat:
Sephiroth Do'Urden 05-11-07, 02:05 PM	...which makes my character a Rogue7/Warlock5 but with all the abilities of a Warlock 11. Yowza! Must be fun to play. What Invocation, if I might ask? Blinding blast must be quite useful if you are a rouge as well! Iff you quicken it that is...
Ainaelin 05-11-07, 03:12 PM	I only just took my first blast essence, which is Repelling Blast, actually. As I told you, I'm not into fighting, really. My character, Lanerel Starbow, was from Amn (Forgotten Realms setting) and fled to become an adventurer because she was a Sorcerer and arcane magic is frowned upon in Amn. So I began as a Rogue/Sorcerer. Afer a while, my friend (the Rogue/Cleric of Sharess) became linked with Harpers and took a job of stealing an unknown but probably powerful magic item that was to be sold to the clergy of Shar. We stole it, but our contacts had been murdered in between and we had to flee the city for our lives. We opened the box of the item and it was an powerful crystal (we later learned that it had been a part of a Netherese mythal). The sheer power of it when taken out of its box made a lot of powerful arcane practicers aware of it and we had dragons, sorcerers, wizards and a few other nasty things teleported to our sides in minutes. We used the power of the artifact to teleport away and found ourselves in a demi-plane (look for Myst Larast in the Magic of Faerun), where another such crystal was used by rakshasa to destroy the city dedicated to Selune. We used stealth to infiltrate the Rakshasa camp and I touched the crystal. I was killed but thus managed to ruin the contraption that used the power of the crystal. My friend again used our crystal to raise me, but I had lost all my Sorcerer levels and had become a Warlock (that's how we explained the change from Sorceror to Warlock when the Complete Arcane was out and I discovered the Warlock was exactly what I had wanted for this characte :p ). Our two characters are both young women, sexy and roguish who use their charms to get what they want. Combat is only a defensive option and we flee as often as we fight (that's why we are ony level 12 even though we have been playing for 4 or 5 years). My invocations are : Beguiling Influence Entropic Warding Spiderwalk Walk Unseen Voidsense Voracious Dispelling Flee the Scene (Extra invocation last level) Repelling Blast