| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| #1SnuffulupicusJun 27, 2012 20:22:37 | So far I'm at level 6 with my human sorcerer but I don't expect to last long (already gotten down to -6 hp but miraculously didn't die) so I am wondering the best way to mix Warlock with Hellfire warlock at that level and a map of what my essences/skills should be by level for when this character does kick the prverbial bucket please. |
| #2Tempest_StormwindJun 27, 2012 21:21:10 | So far I'm at level 6 with my human sorcerer but I don't expect to last long (already gotten down to -6 hp but miraculously didn't die) Moral of the story? I wasn't joking when I said your DM was shortchanging you on gear. There's a reason I invested that heavily in defensive gear when I suggested equipment for you. Also, I hope you were keeping your distance. d4 HD classes tend to be very fragile and should NOT be anywhere near melee if they can help it. Your masterwork dagger should stay in its sheath, and you should be as far away as your spells allow. (This is also why I suggested battlefield control and save-or-die effects rather than damage spells. These control spells tend to prevent enemies from having the chance to attack you; damage spells only do that if they kill the target outright, which only gets harder as levels go up.) so I am wondering the best way to mix Warlock with Hellfire warlock at that level and a map of what my essences/skills should be by level for when this character does kick the prverbial bucket please. There's a lot written on this board already on Hellfire Warlocks, to say nothing on other boards. Here's the warlock handbook. If you insist on going into melee with a warlock, read this and this first. This thread had a new player coming to the game and asking about warlocks with a particular theme. Although the build was edited into post 1, the entire thread is full of rich discussion on the warlock and the hellfire warlock. I strongly recommend reading this thread, as we walked him through every aspect of building and playing a warlock and hellfire warlock. If you can't be bothered to read them, then the four notes on the hellfire warlock are: 1) Earlier, the better - the warlock peaks in power on its own at level five or so (at this point its power is highest relative to the rest of the party in the context of the monsters available), and Hellfire's boost is needed if you want to focus on blast damage. 2) Choose between Dexterity and Charisma. The former works on the basic blast and Eldritch Chain, and has other benefits (initiative, AC) but comes at the cost of lower scores elsewhere. The latter fuels the DC for your essences and works better with the area effects like Cone, but these need higher levels to come online. 3) Be wary: Hellfire Warlock comes at a serious price to your Constitution. There are two ways people like to use to mitigate this: one level of Binder (a pact with Naberius is guaranteed to solve your problems, and it's a good thematic match - see the build I linked above for an example) or the Shape Soulmeld: Strongheart Vest feat (which causes no end of bitter, bitter arguments since it's implied, but not made completely clear, that Hellfire Blast needs the Constitution damage to work). 4) If you're cheesy, follow up levels in Hellfire Warlock with levels in Uncanny Trickster and/or Legacy Champion instead of more warlock levels. These classes can increase Hellfire Warlock's effective class level for formulas, including the "+2d6 per class level" in Hellfire Blast, so you can get pretty obscene damage this way (at the cost of no higher-level warlock class features besides your invocations and blast damage). This is widely held to be cheesy, but since damage becomes a poorer and poorer choice for warlocks as you go up in level and Hellfire Blast has serious drawbacks (see #3 and watch out for other sources of Constitution damage), it won't break the game. |
| #3SnuffulupicusJun 28, 2012 1:45:44 | So far I'm at level 6 with my human sorcerer but I don't expect to last long (already gotten down to -6 hp but miraculously didn't die) I was at the back of the party and got hit with 3 harpoon like glaives (the thrower had feats for it) and i was targeted because i blasted him with sudden max rainbow blast while using a civilian as an impromptue meatshield (teehee). Also can you link me to a list of save or die spells from all of the books (particularly the Book of Vile Darkness and Heroes of Horror)? |
| #4Tempest_StormwindJun 28, 2012 2:29:34 | I was at the back of the party and got hit with 3 harpoon like glaives (the thrower had feats for it) and i was targeted because i blasted him with sudden max rainbow blast while using a civilian as an impromptue meatshield (teehee). To my knowledge this isn't possible to do this since throwing anything two-handed - which harpoons and glaives both are - is a full-round action. What were the feats in question? Incidentally, had that maximized rainbow blast been a stinking cloud (for instance), he couldn't have aimed the glaives at you (total concealment means they can't use sight to target you and if they do happen to get a bead on you (through blindsight or tremorsense or similar) they still miss 50% of the time). There's no save against that - if he doesn't have special senses, he can't target you, full stop. And on top of that, stinking cloud has a decent chance of leaving the foe nauseated, which prevents them from taking standard actions (and thus they can't attack at all) while you're free to unload. Tactically, your first move in most situations is to gain the advantage. In battle, that usually means the action advantage, so you have to deny your enemy the chance to act and fight back. Damage spells can do this, but only if they finish the target off - a target at half hit points fights back just as well as a target with full hit points. The time to use damage spells is late in combat - after your crippling spells like that have given your allies enough time to beat down enemy HP to the point where a mere 30-damage blast can finish them off. (And yes, "mere" 30 damage. A typical CR 6 foe has nearly 70 HP. A maximized blast spell at that level won't even make them flinch unless they've already taken 40 damage from other sources. And at level 6, it isn't hard to have a rogue or fighter deal nearly that much over their turns, particularly if they're both involved (or on their own, if the enemy can't fight back, your ally can focus on offense). So, you give your team advantage but shutting down the enemy's chance to fight back, let your teammates spend their turns attacking, and then, when the enemy is weak, you finish them off.) Also can you link me to a list of save or die spells from all of the books (particularly the Book of Vile Darkness and Heroes of Horror)? Here's a pretty good list - containing some of the best spells in the game that remove targets from battle, drawn from the Player's Handbook, Spell Compendium, Player's Handbook 2, Book of Vile Darkness (warning: 3e material, not 3.5), Heroes of Horror, Complete Mage, Races of the Dragon, and Frostburn (which he whimsically - but consistently - names "It's Cold Outside"). These aren't the only such spells (sometimes they aren't the only such spells in the books I listed!), but they're good examples of showing you what to look for. These spells all prevent enemies from taking their actions, or force their actions to be wasted doing things they wouldn't normally do (i.e. they spend their time not killing you). There's more to magic than this. For instance, I think you'd do well to learn Mirror Image, which isn't on the list but is an amazing sorcerer spell that foils all sorts of incoming attacks*. It'll save your life, but since it doesn't end battles, it isn't on that list. * And just to prove a point, at high levels, let's compare a sorcerer with AC 10 who knows Mirror Image to a heavily armored fighter with AC 20. Let's give the enemy a +10 attack bonus; he has a 95% chance of hitting you and a 55% chance of hitting the fighter. Fighter wins, right? Not so fast. Mirror Image creates eight illusory copies of the sorcerer (so the enemy sees nine sorcerers). Unless the enemy has True Seeing, he'll target one of them at random. So instead of hitting the real sorcerer 95% of the time, he'll aim at the real sorcerer just one-ninth of the time, for a final chance of being hit of just 11%. The fighter is five times as likely to be hit as the sorcerer despite the sorcerer having half the armor class. Let's take that to extremes now: Against a foe that has, oh, a +100 attack bonus. Now your fighter has picked up an artifact that gives him an infinitely high armor class. He's still hit 5% of the time (on a natural 20, but the confirmation roll will fail so it won't be a critical hit). Meanwhile, the sorcerer with 10 AC has Mirror Image + Displacement + any regular concealment effect (i.e. any fog-type spell; you don't even need total concealment. Each of these miss chances emerges from a different sort of misdirection, and they don't add up - they're checked independently). Unless the foe has True Seeing, this works out to a 4.2% chance of being hit - better than the infinite armor class on the fighter. Do not neglect your defensive spells, or your illusions. Even if the number doesn't seem high, the effects can easily be outstanding. |
| #5SnuffulupicusJun 28, 2012 10:45:49 | Im not sure what he had but i think he did say something about rapid shot plus weapon efficiency plus a few other things,(he could throw 2 in each hand then one in his right then one in his left in one round). Thanks for the list i guess i'm hesitant on using those cause I'm just starting out and I'm not that resourceful thinking when it comes to utility spells like mirror image(i just thought that was a spell for sneaking and distracting a guard or something). Also I'm kind of optimizing as much as i can towards infliction spells (like the witherlimb i used on this one guys legs to knock him off of a building) I'm playing a neutral evil character so I've been using Wither Limb and Dance of Ruin, not to mention Bone Fiddle being my favorite spell right now (hence why i asked for spells out of the Book of Vile Darkness). |
| #6Tempest_StormwindJun 28, 2012 13:04:32 |
That's a third-party or homebrew feat. Throwing a two-handed weapon is still a full-round action Thus, he could only throw one of those per round, not six. How can he hold two two-handed spears/polearms in one hand? (There are ways of doing that with light weapons - particularly daggers, darts, and shuriken - such as the Master Thrower prestige class, but it's hard to get that near level 6 and in any case it won't work on bigger weapons; the glaive is like ten feet long.) Thanks for the list i guess i'm hesitant on using those cause I'm just starting out and I'm not that resourceful thinking when it comes to utility spells like mirror image(i just thought that was a spell for sneaking and distracting a guard or something). Mirror image. Not minor image. The figments are amazing in their own right, but only if you're creative. I just used Mirror Image as an example of a spell that doesn't go boom or allow a save, but still has a huge effect on combat. Also I'm kind of optimizing as much as i can towards infliction spells (like the witherlimb i used on this one guys legs to knock him off of a building) I'm playing a neutral evil character so I've been using Wither Limb and Dance of Ruin, not to mention Bone Fiddle being my favorite spell right now (hence why i asked for spells out of the Book of Vile Darkness). When you say "infliction", the lingo around here is usually something like "save or suck". Be advised the BOVD is 3e material, not 3.5, so (among other things) some spell durations and DCs are way too high. That said, Curse of the Putrid Husk is one of my favorites in the BOVD. It fits with the list but isn't on it due to the descriptors, but it's still an awesome spell. And it fits with what you call "infliction". |
| #7draco1119Jun 28, 2012 13:51:45 | A SoD that always looked like fun to play as an evil character is Extract Water Elemental from Spell Compendium. Basically, if your target fails the save, you pull all the water out of his body to create a an elemental. You won't be able to get that for a few more levels; it's somewhere between a 4th & 6th level spell, IIRC. |
| #8BalthanonJul 11, 2012 15:33:59 |
Quick Draw eliminates the limitations on thrown weapon actions. It doesn't say anything about only applying to one handed or light weapons. (Unless there is some errata or FAQ ruling that I don't recall.) Benefit Also, for the mischances being checked independently, it depends on whether the Rules Compendium is being used. I believe that introduced some modifications or rulings that resulted in only the highest of any set of mischance granting effects being effective. (Mirror image would still stack with displacement I think since it isn't actually outright mischance, but that wouldn't stack with darkness, for instance.) |
| #9StevenOJul 11, 2012 18:47:39 | I'm not sure what he had but i think he did say something about rapid shot plus weapon efficiency plus a few other things,(he could throw 2 in each hand then one in his right then one in his left in one round). No. Quick Draw does NOT "eliminate" the limitations on thrown weapon actions. What it does do is eliminate the time it usually takes to DRAW a new weapon which would be required to throw it in many cases. When it takes a full round action to throw a two-handed weapon it will STILL take a full round action to throw it even with Quick Draw but because of QD he could then "draw" a new weapon to replace the one he just threw. Thrown weapons usually break down when making multiple attack because of a conflict in action requirements. You need to use a full-attack to make those multiple attacks but you normally need a move action to "reload" after you've voluntarily disarmed yourself. Now if you had a spear in each hand you could make two attacks (even itterative attacks) with your full attack under normal conditions but you would be unarmed afterwards; QD lets you replace spears as you throw them. |
| #10BalthanonJul 11, 2012 19:47:05 | The feat explicitly allows you to throw weapons at your full normal rate of attacks. The line that does it is bolded in the Benefits section I quoted-- it's listed separately from the section on drawing a weapon as a free action because the weapons section (below) explicitly makes throwing a weapon a standard or full round action. Meaning that even if you had a thrown weapon in your hand, you couldn't make it part of a full attack action without having the quick draw feat. (Regardless of whether you are using melee attacks for the remainder or attempting to use two-weapon fighting with two thrown weapons in hand.) Much like many other feats, it is allowing you to bypass a restriction in the rules. (Negating what I've bolded below.) I'll admit I've never actually played with that restriction and we usually allowed throwing a weapon as an attack action regardless, but it appears to be how the rules are actually structured. It's one of those nice little secondary benefits in some of the core feats that are seldom noticed. (Blind-Fight is another one that is like that-- the core benefit is attacking twice against invisible opponents, but it also prevents you from losing your Dex bonus to an invisible attacker, which is almost as good as Uncanny Dodge.)
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