Playing a warlock ... as I see it

[Lady Crankenstein]

to quickly address the issue of Dm attention...

I dont get any more than any of you do, ( less than many ) and I don't expect it, ... and yes, how excellent it can be when a Dm is willing to play the other side of this situation ( inner voice ) . . . so, in fact , most of my IG time is NOT spent acting like a demon minded character... but just , as I have said, a girl ( with out evil magics and such ) struggling to find her place in the world . . . when ever a Dm is willing ( and not all are ) to toss something at me in the middle of some other activity going on, the fun really begins... but.. how is that any different than any other Dm attention?
All I can see, is that it is secretively played... which can still happen in other Dm situations unrelated to this subject.
That , and perhaps I get a chance to roll against the will of the inner voice, and if I loose , it is still my choice as to how to RP that out...

This is much more rare than it seems folks are thinking. OK, maybe it has some new twist from the usual ways that things happen... so ? New for the char, new for the Dm.

I hope things can be fun for the Dm . . . it seems the few times this has played out, it was.
and yes, I know that one day, I will be ganked by someone(s) under the umbrella of being a righteous alignment... RL folks in were burned as witches ( who were not ) . . . and in France, as werewolves. ( who were only under the influence unknowingly of ergot alkaloids growing on their rye.)
It happens.
I just hope we have a nice big trial... public execution and all that !

LC

[t-ice]

They should be vetted by staff to make certain they understand the implications of taking up the difficult task of playing a warlock and be prepared to handle the adversity before them with grace and magnanimity.

Ayup. But it's harder to make other players RP "appropriate" abhoration (is that a word?) towards the warlocks.

[Blindhamsterman]

urgh, not all warlocks follow demons or devils, so not all warlocks should be automatically abhored. They should be misstrusted, and depending on actions of the warlock or learning that this particular warlock is a demon worshiper it might grow into abhoration or outright hostility.

if my elf met a fey-pact warlock, he'd probably not bat an eyelid. if he met an openly devil or demon pact warlock, he'd be less than happy for example

[kid]

They should be vetted by staff to make certain they understand the implications of taking up the difficult task of playing a warlock and be prepared to handle the adversity before them with grace and magnanimity.

Ayup. But it's harder to make other players RP "appropriate" abhoration (is that a word?) towards the warlocks.

yes. we can't.
but if the warlock is careful about who he shows or tells what he is...
and plays his toon properly other people reactions are more likely to be appropriate.

[johnlewismcleod]

urgh, not all warlocks follow demons or devils, so not all warlocks should be automatically abhored. They should be misstrusted, and depending on actions of the warlock or learning that this particular warlock is a demon worshiper it might grow into abhoration or outright hostility.

if my elf met a fey-pact warlock, he'd probably not bat an eyelid. if he met an openly devil or demon pact warlock, he'd be less than happy for example

With all due respect, BHM...your statement illuminates the problem quite well: We have too many warlocks mincing about the maps.

Your PC should have little or no knowledge of the existence of warlocks, much less that their powers can come from fey, devil, or demon.

What knowledge there is of them should point to abhorrence/threat/hostility by default and the transition to "this power comes from a (baby-eater) fey and I'm OK with that" should be appropriately difficult to get to through RP and research.

That's not to say some PC's out there might well accept without much difficulty, but they'd be heavily chaotic I should think.

[t-ice]

Your PC should have little or no knowledge of the existence of warlocks, much less that their powers can come from fey, devil, or demon.

Agreed there (unless you have, say, ~10 ranks of know:planes and know:arcana). But these things we can't force people to RP. Doubly so if the PC meets dime a dozen warlocks as other PCs.

But certainly a succesful spellcraft check on a e-blast shouldn't mean immediate ringing of the "demon!!!" alarm bells. A warlock should have a pretty good chance to pose off as just a different kind of sorcerer. (beside, power derived from dragon blood wouldn't be that much less suspicious). The RP continuum of arcane magic users doesn't have to be as simplistic as 4 classes and there you have it. Also see beguiling influence for convincing

[boombrakh]

Noted, I havn't read all the posts and I have no idea how relevant this is but I got the impression that people seem to think there are hoards of warlocks out there. I count four, maybe five. If I were to stretch it and add another 20%, i'd say six.

To me, that seems pretty rare.

[johnlewismcleod]

Noted, I havn't read all the posts and I have no idea how relevant this is but I got the impression that people seem to think there are hoards of warlocks out there. I count four, maybe five. If I were to stretch it and add another 20%, i'd say six.

To me, that seems pretty rare.

5 or 6 of an active player base of 30 to 40 is not rare at all IMO.

I don't mean to imply that our current warlocks are played anything short of brilliantly, but the problem is (besides the magic mechanic issues) that the general player base seems to be getting over-exposed and now consider this class standard fare.

This pushes reaction to them out of cannon and detracts from the class. If we stay on this track much longer the warlock class will no longer resemble IG what it is meant to be in lore.

[Blindhamsterman]

Your PC should have little or no knowledge of the existence of warlocks, much less that their powers can come from fey, devil, or demon.

arcane magic users with even a minor number of ranks will have heard of them, it also depends on where the PC in question came from. Once again I'll go with elves and fey-pacts as apparently fey pact warlocks are not uncommon on Evermeet.

but yeah the average pig farmer wouldnt have the first clue what the difference between a wizard/sorc/warlock is. And apparently the average common persons attitude toward ALL of those is meant to be pretty negative, And again that'll vary depending on region, in the marches I suspect even common folk have at least some knowledge of what wizards do thanks to the spellguard etc.

But certainly a succesful spellcraft check on a e-blast shouldn't mean immediate ringing of the "demon!!!" alarm bells.

No, but it will mean that the person that successfully IDd it knows they're a warlock.

[Zelknolf]

Player base is closer to 40-50 on any given day, and 80ish who've logged on within the last couple weeks.

And... we do have an SQL database that stockpiles all of this data, y'know. If it's super important, we could actually run a report that tells us how many players are certain classes. My money says that clerics win.

// edit
And I'd have lost money on that bet. Fighters win.

[Castano]

Look all this warlock stuff is fairly simple - someone go get the PnP books (e.g. FRCS, and whatever other books detail the spell like abilities warlock has )...then compare to what NWN2 did, then change per the PnP books.

If you can do this for the main areas where there is over powering AND underpowering then the warlock class is good in my opinion. Same with FS, Spirit Shaman, Cleric Domains etc.

We don't need 1000000+ posts on warlocks or any other class....I have yet to see a concise non-opinionated listing of PnP abilites versus screwy NWN2 implementation for this class.

[t-ice]

But certainly a succesful spellcraft check on a e-blast shouldn't mean immediate ringing of the "demon!!!" alarm bells.

No, but it will mean that the person that successfully IDd it knows they're a warlock.

That's where my view on it differs significantly. The successful spellcraft check means they IDd that a "ray-like blast of pure magical energy" was shot at the target. It's meta gaming, and quite obviously so in my view, to deduce from that "warlock is the only class in the book with this ability, thus this person is a warlock!". Your PC doesn't know all characters must choose from N base classes that have such and such abilities. This is obvious meta gaming.

Same with every spell: ICly the character knows "that spell provides armor-like defense"(any AC buff), or "the spell the mage is going to cast flings an exploding ball of fire!"(fireball). Successful spellcraft check doesn't allow your PC to read from the rulebooks, deduce that this spell is only in the spell list of this and that class, and in that domain, and since he's a cleric of that deity he can't have that domain, etc.

It requires significant knowledge in addition to the spellcraft check to deduce that e-blast means it must be derived from evil/chaotic planar beings doing pacts with mortals. And that it comes with very questionable strings attached. As opposed to, say, dragon blood like a sorc. Thus, know:arcana and know:planes. It's also lot simpler to know that such planar pacts can give such powers, than it is to know that they're the only way such powers can be obtained.

I think people are forgetting some that if you have 0 ranks of knowledge, you don't really know much more than Joe Commoner. Unless you've specifically encountered the same thing before. And even then, you only know this person has an ability like the other guy. If you know that other guy derived the power from an infernal pact, a reasonable person would have that suspicion as starting point, of course. But would not be beyond believing someone telling him it's different in this case. Subject to diplo, bluff, sense motive, etc. of course.

[johnlewismcleod]

Player base is closer to 40-50 on any given day, and 80ish who've logged on within the last couple weeks.

K...I concede to your count as I'm sure it's closer to correct than my guess, but 5-6 out of 40-50 is greater than 10% warlocks. Even if we use 80 we can hardly call warlocks rare.

Anyway...I've said my bit on the matter, and as Castano has said it seems well hashed at this point anyway.

But just one more point as to numbers relativity.

We should be mindful that when warlocks are offered as an open class in PnP, while being described as rare, there is no contradiction there.

PnP is for a small group of players around a table. One can choose any class available without impacting the gameworld, but in a NWN PW we must balance the world ourselves.

[Blindhamsterman]

have yet to see a concise non-opinionated listing of PnP abilites versus screwy NWN2 implementation for this class.

http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 11&t=46442

it's not complete but actually, Heero's list is a pretty good start.

[NESchampion]

With regards to identifying an Eldritch Blast, it's another murky area; on the one hand, spell-like abilities aren't covered in a Spellcraft check, on spells:

15 + spell level Identify a spell being cast. (You must see or hear the spell’s verbal or somatic components.) No action required. No retry.

Now, that said, the reason why spell-like abilities are normally exempt is that they have no verbal, somatic, or material component; warlock invocations do have a somatic component, albeit "relatively simple" movements.

I would argue that the following should apply though for Spellcraft, at the very least:

20 + spell level Identify a spell that’s already in place and in effect. You must be able to see or detect the effects of the spell. No action required. No retry.

If you see the ray of magical energy, it's a Spellcraft check to determine what it is. If you identify what it is, then you can make some general calls as to what the person casting might be, especially if you've seen similar abilities and identified them before.

I don't believe NWN2 makes the distinction though, it likely treats all invocations and the EB as spells for spellcraft to ID.