I would like other people's opinion/thoughts
My question comes at an epic level-The epic 'invocation' feats for the warlock are pretty stunning. My question is:
Would a Warlock be able to swap out his invocations and still benefit from the epic feat?
Shadowmaster [Epic]
You have walked the path of shadows, and now you have mastered its secrets.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 24 ranks, beshadowed blast, dark discorporation, darkness, enervating shadow.
Benefit: You can create streaking masses of shadow around your form, providing you with a 50% miss chance against all attacks (as displacement). Activating this ability requires a standard action.
You can use material from the Plane of Shadows to create quasireal illusions, mimicking sorcerer and wizard conjuration spells of 8th level or lower (as shades). The illusions deal 80% damage to nonbelievers, and nondamaging effects are 80% likely to work against nonbelievers. Activating this ability requires a standard action.
You are immune to all spells with the shadow subtype and to effects that involve the use of shadows (such as the breath weapon of a shadow dragon). This is an extraordinary ability.
Pros:
The invocations are a key to a door of greater knowledge. Once the door is unlocked and open, the key is useless.
This is precidented in the warlocks powers, most notablly with Imbue Item. If you go beneath what the power is at effect level, it essentially means a warlock has a greater and deeper understanding of the arcane then a cleric or wizard of equal level, as well as a magical capacity far beyond the invocation they are able to cast.
Cons:
Not meeting the prereq's of a feat generally means you cannot use the feat.
Rebuttle
These are not normal feats, they are knowledge of an innate power.
The epic feats have a 4 Invocation prereq, which means 4 epic levels to change out the invocations to something else. This isn't exactly hot-swapping, so it's not without consequence.
Lacking the basic foundation means you're not able to build up to the greater power.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
So with all that said, thought? :D
FYI- I am Pro, for the reason I listed :D
Cons:
Not meeting the prereq's of a feat generally means you cannot use the feat.
RAW says no, for the reasons you cite here. If your Strength drops below 13, you cannot use Power Attack, Cleave, etc. If you lose Dodge somehow, you can't use Mobility.
Pros:
The invocations are a key to a door of greater knowledge. Once the door is unlocked and open, the key is useless.
This is precidented in the warlocks powers, most notablly with Imbue Item. If you go beneath what the power is at effect level, it essentially means a warlock has a greater and deeper understanding of the arcane then a cleric or wizard of equal level, as well as a magical capacity far beyond the invocation they are able to cast.
I don't follow you here. Imbue Item lets the warlock make magic bling (provided he has the Mad Featz) as if he had access to whatever spells. It's a specific and unique warlock class ability; the only prereq is "be a 12th-level warlock." What bearing does this have on the feat at hand?
Lemme show you where I am comming from- be warned tho, this is quite the logic-train :D
I citing the class feature as precident that a warlock's power lies beyond what he is actaully able to cast. You need to cast a metaphysical eye on how it is a Waizards works and how a Warlock works- the root of it.
First, you need to assume that the form of the rules for Wizards and Warlocks follows the function of their root.
Right off the bat, it's said Warlocks, due to XYZ extraplanar reasons, their power is at the core of who they are.
This is easily summized then, that at the core of who they are (even if they aren't fully aware of it) they are connected directly to some pretty raw and deep universal power.
Warlocks plumb the depth of this universal power and manipulate it
Wizards, on the other hand, are dottering scientists. Emperically studying results of expereiments, building arcane models, then transforming them into viable products- spells to memorize.
Lets shift this over to a contemporary view-
People have been flying for a long time, and we have a pretty advanced knowledge of aerodyamics, fluids, physcis and the such. But does any of that knowledge actually give us any sort of mastery over it?
Of course not- we're stuck to exploiting it natural properties, even of we're doing so on an 'advanced' level.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our table's 3.5 theory is that, in short- Wizards are outside looking in, while Warlocks are in the middle of it.
With that said, doesn't it make sense that a straight Warlock, with Imbue Item and the right craft item feats are can make "divine' items?
Perhaps take the Scribe Scroll feat, then 'develop' a spell?
A Warlock's bretht of knowledge is as good as a Wizards, but it's simply from the other side of the cage :D
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Does that shed light on my Pro point?
A warlock took that basic knowledge, used it to explore the deeper depths of it, and came back stronger. The knowledge of how the core invocation works didn't go away, just his ability it "invoke" it.
Playing my own devil's advocate, you can use that for a Con POV- The warlock knows how to use Shades at-will, but looses the ability to "invoke" it without the prereq invocations.
Which is why I am asking for input :D
The problem is, you're using flavor text to define mechanics. The warlock's "fiendish connections" are as much flavor text as the wizard's "years of study." I read once where someone made a warforged warlock, describing all their "fiendish" abilities as high-tech improvements. Eldritch blast = laser blasters; fell flight = retractable wings and booster boots; devil's sight = nightvision opticals.
Your warlock - vs - wizard scenario is interesting and cool, but it doesn't help one bit mechanically. Flavor-wise, there's no reason for deities to protect attractive paladins more than plain ones, yet divine grace means that's what happens. It's just a mechanical class ability, and while you can flavor it however you want, be aware of the separate nature of the beasts.
As I stated, there is ample precedent for the "con" option. Losing prereq's means you lose access to whatever the prereq's were prereq's for, be it a feat, a PrC, or something else.
I'm a rule layer to a big extent, but I've never let the rules as they are written get in the way of what the table considers reasonable (thankfully, everyone at the table agrees). "Flavor" as it were, is a factor to how mechanics are created in the first place.
concept > reasonability > definition > refine > concept
For instance, at out table, we have stacking keen effects.
This was our concept.
You have equal fighter with keen longswords. One fighter has Improved Critical, and the other doesn't. How can a fighter with a keen longsword AND improved critical have no advantage over the a fighter with jsut a keen weapon?
The table said he should have one, and set off to see how.
Apply some reason.
Then improved critical feat does nothing to a weapon, therefor any "extra bite" a weapon has comes from the wielder's skill.
A magical keen effect is magically honing the blade's edge to a point impossible normally.
These are not 2 inclusive points, so seperate them from wach other.
Now to define it.
You have a skill-base improvement, and you have a magical-based improvement. Would the crit range improve again or would something else happen?
How we refined it
any single crit effect (skill or magical) is normal- 20 becomes 19-20, 19-20 becomes 17-20, etc.
any second secondary increases the multiplier by 1.
You still cannot stack like effect- you can only have 1 skill and 1 magical.
So a fighter with improved critical and a keen longsword is 17-20/x3
We have been using this rule for over a year now, and it's worked very well.
Form follows function, but realize that function also follows form.
Your warlock - vs - wizard scenario is interesting and cool, but it doesn't help one bit mechanically. Flavor-wise, there's no reason for deities to protect attractive paladins more than plain ones, yet divine grace means that's what happens. It's just a mechanical class ability, and while you can flavor it however you want, be aware of the separate nature of the beasts.
I have to wholely disagree-
Charisma is not just physical beauty, it is strength of personality, grace, presense. All the factors that effect now you see yourself and how others see you.
How does this apply to a Paladin?
Paladins are crusaders for their diety and the deities beliefs. They are shining beacons of the dieties ideals.
So who would a diety favor over another? Someone who embodies the ideals more- How well taht person takes the lesson to heart and display it for all to see.
Charisma
The "flavor" of Divine Grace completely follows the mechanics of it.
By RAW, the answer is still no. However, given the specific dynamics of your group, (and the fact that, cool as they are, warlocks could use a power boost), I can see your point. Personally, I'd probably allow it, but be aware that this option is not technically supported by the rules.
And FWIW, I agree with the logic behind your keen + Improved Crit deliberation. However, having played under 3.0 rules where they did stack, and seeing the guy with the greatsword trick himself out to crit on a 12+...I can understand the reason for the 3.5 mechanics.
And if I had to explain it storywise, I would say that keen weapons are enchanted to seek the vitals...but a warrior with Improved Crit has learned to do this by instinct, to identical effect. Since the effects are the same they don't double, they overlap. Skill has equaled magic, to the point where the magic can't improve on the skill.
I would say that keen weapons are enchanted to seek the vitals...
that is a pretty good point :D
Problem is that the spell is called keen edge, not heart seeker or some other descriptive text to denote what it's doing for you.
hehe as long as you define 'cute' and being 100% equal to Charisma.
No. You yourself said: "Charisma is not just physical beauty," (my emphasis). Charisma does, however, include physical beauty. ergo, higher Charisma = prettier.
The paladin class rewards a high Charisma. Since high Charisma includes high physical beauty, it is accurate (though wildly simplified and misleading) to state that the LG gods like their pretty holy warriors more than their plain-looking ones.
Undead hate beauty, though. This can be proven by the fact that prettier clerics are better at blasting undead into nothingness.
Problem is that the spell is called keen edge, not heart seeker or some other descriptive text to denote what it's doing for you.
Flavor text, my friend. The spell name is meaningless from a mechanics standpoint. All it does is double your chance to land a crit. If I reflavor it so the weapon projects a tiny bullseye onto the target's heart when you attack, thus showing you where to strike, does that change it mechanically? No.
"Keen" means "sharp," IIRC. A super-sharp weapon may or may not be a good thing; it depends what you're fighting - but keen edge don't care. In the Real World, super-sharp is actually bad against armored knights and such - European knights' blades weren't as sharp as they could be, because a razor edge would have chipped and broken against plate armor. Katanas were and are, because samurai armor had nothing on European plate.
And anyway, what about the weapon of impact spell that's basically keen edge for blunt weapons?
Flavor text, my friend. The spell name is meaningless from a mechanics standpoint. All it does is double your chance to land a crit. If I reflavor it so the weapon projects a tiny bullseye onto the target's heart when you attack, thus showing you where to strike, does that change it mechanically?
Of court not, tho FWIW I'd call that a failure in spell creation on the creator's part. That is saying Fireball is a line of sonic damage (barring the use of metamagics of course :D), that uses a Will save for half damage.
The only point I am making is that flavor and mechanics are interrelated. Besides, I didn't post to argue the point :D