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What ability scores do they use?
• Strength for melee touch attacks?
• Dexterity for ranged touch attacks?
• Charisma for damage or DCs?

Says their base class emulation is bard, does that mean they get the same proficiencies, BAB scaling, and saves as bard? Can I assume they get an epic bonus feat at 23, 26, and 29?

The widgets are sort of shown, but are not very clear at all as to what they do. Does the damage on eldritch blast scale based on levels like the pen and paper class? Is it an Amian specific scaling?

For being a class that requires a "request to obtain, a very good one" these things need to be more clear.

Dex for ranged touch unless it's an AoE Blast, then it's a CHA based reflex save of 10 + 1/2 Warlock level + CHA mod.

Blast damage is built into the character and is roughly 1d6 every 2/3 levels, and doesn't add Charisma except for effect DCs.

Quote:

Says their base class emulation is bard, does that mean they get the same proficiencies, BAB scaling, and saves as bard? Can I assume they get an epic bonus feat at 23, 26, and 29?

That's correct.

Quote:

The widgets are sort of shown, but are not very clear at all as to what they do. Does the damage on eldritch blast scale based on levels like the pen and paper class? Is it an Amian specific scaling?

It scales equivalent to the PnP version and in epic you can take Eldritch Master to boost it more.

ed: fixed melee touch to ranged touch

To explain the emulation a bit better, you are still a bard for NWN mechanics. The bard song feat is just manually removed, and you ger the widgets instead.

How is the DC on the invocations like beshadowed blast & utterdark blast calculated?
Currently been trying to reverse engineer the DC 20 I'm seeing based on what I'd figure might be it, but i can't really get it to work.
I figured it might be 10+innatelevel+chamod as in pnp. BUT in that case, I'd have DC 18 not 20 with my char atm. (10+4+4Chamod)
I tried 10+Warlocklevel/2+Chamod but in that case it'd be 22, not 20. (10+8+4)

I can't really make heads or tails of it. Does anyone know how the various ones are calculated?

They're broken atm and need fixed, to my knowledge.

Aah! Explains why I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Thanks

Last edited by Frozen-ass on Thu, Mar 16 2017, 21:56 PM, edited 1 time in total.

new question (and some info for those who seek it): functionality of the widgets

no shape widget:
Noting wrong, 1 attack per round, does not deactivate expertise works wonderful.

Chain widget:
Noting wrong, 1 attack per round, does not deactivate expertise works wonderful.
Small question what is the chain distance?

smale extra thing, "attack bonus on weapons" seemed to have no affect for me so far, when I get the GMW BoT page I will test it more

Cone widget
Here it gets odd:
When activating it the activation itself does not do the attack.. it creates a new item in the queue, namely the cone attack. This means that this attack is slower then the no shape and chain, as there is a extra activation.

If you queue many, it will first simply activate the widget every time (1 round per activation) and queue the cone attack after all items already in the queue. Is this how its suppose to be?

Even more odd..: the cone visual and the damage seem to be not related, as in the damage random appears before, during or after the cone attack, as if there is a invisible cone at another time then the visual. (once i even got a random attack that damaged the enemy's during the queueing phase and not the cone phase mentioned above, no visual)

Can there be shed some light if this is a bug, meant to be, or simply the limitation of the engine?

Doom widget
ITs just.. awsome

Both attack bonus and enchantment bonus on weapons adds to touch attack for me, so not sure why it's not for you.

Also I got told that the Eldritch widgets shouldn't work with exp or imp exp, so that's probably a bug.

Cone is like it is because of how the animations work. To get the cone animation to shoot, it has to be as it is. I got told the Devs are working on it to try and come up with another solution for it, but for now, I'd suggest to not use it at all. ATM It takes 2 rounds to fully use, meaning it effectively halves the damage potential of your eldritch abilities when compared to doom or chain in most situations.

Okey thank you for the information! i'm gonne try some around with the ab bonuses to get a full picture

As for the Expertise, I thought in a previous topic I understood it was meant to be working with expertise :/ and it sure helped those nasty early levels.

As for the cone, indeed.. good to know they are working on it, now that I got doom, its not as much a bummer as it was before.

So both GMW enchantment bonus and attack bonus add the +5 to ranged touch attack.. no need for transmutation it. but normal weapon enchant or attack still does not work so I have to use GMW

On a side note...
The epic warlock feat is awsome

There's a question I'd be interested in.
Do the warlock widgets eldritch blasts/etc cause spell resistance checks?

Frozen-ass wrote:

As for the Expertise, I thought in a previous topic I understood it was meant to be working with expertise :/ and it sure helped those nasty early levels.

Wait, does expertise work with eldritch blasts and shapes, or not? Now I am really confused.

SuicidalStyle wrote:

There's a question I'd be interested in.
Do the warlock widgets eldritch blasts/etc cause spell resistance checks?

Yes, but Vitriolic blast bypasses spell resistance as per pnp. (It's acid damage with an extra 2d6 on a failed reflex. Spell resistance is ignored)

Mask and Riddle wrote:

Frozen-ass wrote:

As for the Expertise, I thought in a previous topic I understood it was meant to be working with expertise :/ and it sure helped those nasty early levels.

Wait, does expertise work with eldritch blasts and shapes, or not? Now I am really confused.

According to what Frozen-ass said, it apparently does work with it atm and doesnt' deactivate imp exp.
However based on what I've been told, it shouldn't work and unless I've been misinformed it's likely a bug that's going to get fixed fairly soon. If not, then there's simply no point in not getting imp exp on a warlock because it's literally 10 free AC with no drawback as a ranged touch attack shouldn't be affected at all by the -10 AB from it.

Last edited by Frozen-ass on Mon, Mar 20 2017, 6:09 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Gravemaskin wrote:

SuicidalStyle wrote:

There's a question I'd be interested in.
Do the warlock widgets eldritch blasts/etc cause spell resistance checks?

Yes, but Vitriolic blast bypasses spell resistance as per pnp. (It's acid damage with an extra 2d6 on a failed reflex. Spell resistance is ignored).

Indeed and to be honest I got spell penetration feats, and in PvM I never encountered (including beholders and mindflayers) a hostile who resisted a blast. Although maybe I missed it.

Mask and Riddle wrote:

Frozen-ass wrote:

As for the Expertise, I thought in a previous topic I understood it was meant to be working with expertise :/ and it sure helped those nasty early levels.

Quote:

Wait, does expertise work with eldritch blasts and shapes, or not? Now I am really confused.

According to what Frozen-ass said, it apparently does work with it atm and doesnt' deactivate imp exp.
However based on what I've been told, it shouldn't work and unless I've been misinformed it's likely a bug that's going to get fixed fairly soon. If not, then there's simply no point in not getting imp exp on a warlock because it's literally 10 free AC with no drawback as a ranged touch attack shouldn't be affected at all by the -10 AB from it.

Correct, it works, with no drawback and I don't know if its a bug or supposed to be. The reason I took the feats was because I thought they worked and where supposed to be working due to what was said in http://amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88581. It reads as if its supposed to be working by various people and developer.

But to be honest, to be able to solo stuff, it sometimes really is needed

You still have the full suite of bard buffs. You can solo just fine with that, even without Bard Song and Curse Song.

TormakSaber wrote:

You still have the full suite of bard buffs. You can solo just fine with that, even without Bard Song and Curse Song.

Maybe so yes, but it sure helps!

But any way from your comment i understand its indeed a bug? as im getting a bit confused my self if its a bug with the expertise or if its supposed to be?

And if its a bug, probably not so much a "bug" as more mechanical issue as using (most?) items (and the widgets are) does not drop the expertise.

It's a "bug" IMO in that it's a sort of spellcasting and should probably disable the functionality, but isn't a bug in that it's unintended handling of the game engine. Whether or not the DMs consider it an issue would be up to the,. If IE affected AB of Eldritch Blast then it probably wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Tough decision when planning that I'd love help with:

Is it better to take spell focuses in illusion to benefit from an enhanced ethereal visage, or in enchantment to have a stronger hold monster?

Also, as it stands with experience working with eldritch blast, I'm assuming it is better to take exp/imp exp over having 2 spell focus/greater spell focus's.

Thanks for your advice!

My warlock has no spell focus, because i used up al the feats for other things epic spell penetration and some skill buffing for rp/other reasons, and with some scrolls in epic fights, he can holds his own very well without it (the spell focus that is) and extended spell ofcourse

The main reason i did not consider spell focuses is the following:

-ethereal visage: funny but it cost 3 feats, and you don't do it for the concealment (you have imp invis) and with high AC (as you can use a shield and dex) and decent HP you don't really need the high DR per see (it does help of course, especially if the AC bug decides to hit you over the head mid combat) And with a scroll of Premonition you also ger 30/+5 dr, only with a max amount of dmg absorbed like stone skin
-As well as that with the current builds running around and saves of high end monsters to have the hold monster/dominate person etc. work properly you will need to put all your money in cha, and what i did is high cha and semi high dex (as this improves your ray and chain chance to hit,, and jump. And believe me, that chain wrecks havoc if hit properly, with the right essence) + as every damaging ability costs a full round to cast, try to minimize non damage spell use is my advice, also you have essences that can stun, daze, slow targets.
-I needed the feats for other stuff like a few skill focus and item creation feats, and extended spells, and you don't have so many (don't forget to take the epic eldritch feat)

so in short this is a slight overview what i did:
-I focused more on balancing cha and dex with some con
-The doom is very nice and i love it every time i blast it but when people/monsters have high reflex the damage sinks low not to speak of people having evasion... they just don't get hit, so some focus on dex for the chain is very good choice
-Spell penetration, all 3 of them
-Extended spells (with this I can outlast many casters/fighters in terms of need for sleep)
-know thy enemies, as changing essences takes ages
-take some feats for something totally not warlock related, just for fun and hobby/rp or totally unexpected surprise against hostile people
-focus on enhancing your warlock widgets, and less on bard spells, At the moment i use them for buffing, and rp ends, and except when facing dispelling creatures, i never really run out of spells to redo my buffs after a long time.
-Get some scrolls for when facing strong stuff like Premonition and spell bubbles

In the end, so far i'm really happy with how my warlock turned out, both social and power wise

You ofcourse need to find your own path you enjoy most! but i hoped this helped a bit.

And last but not least, if you want more tips, or just talk about warlock in general how it works, or have any questions, feel free to hit me up in PM on the forum or in game. Maybe if you got the nerves to deal with my warlock, you can also approach him IC

Thank you for the really nice primer. I appreciate it!

I wouldn't encourage people to take Improved Expertise. Its functionality is explicitly similar to a bug that was removed for every other form of spellcasting. It's akin to encouraging an exploit.

TormakSaber wrote:

I wouldn't encourage people to take Improved Expertise. Its functionality is explicitly similar to a bug that was removed for every other form of spellcasting. It's akin to encouraging an exploit.

Im sorry, was not meant as encouraging, more to show the way I made my character.

I removed it from my list, do not encourage others.

But on a off note
I do think its better if the system stays this way for warlocks as you can not be running around to tumble attacks against you, if you run you cant attack till next (probably next 2) rounds. a mage with hast can shoot, run shoot run shoot, and have EMA to cover the AC

As warlock you don't have this, and not the benefit of bard song with +7 ac ad high preforme/lvl

+it still affects any normal spell being cast, and many items to have the imp exp drop.

But that is my personal thought on the system

Using Improved Expertise on a Warlock is fine. It has been a known 'bug' but Warlocks dont have much survivability anyway and the team decided to officially allow it.

Maverick00053 wrote:

Using Improved Expertise on a Warlock is fine. It has been a known 'bug' but Warlocks dont have much survivability anyway and the team decided to officially allow it.

superb!

Yeah, I'd say (from my limited 6 levels so far) that it is necessary. There are so many things that make expertise drop that it is not reliable anyway.

Maverick00053 wrote:

Using Improved Expertise on a Warlock is fine. It has been a known 'bug' but Warlocks dont have much survivability anyway and the team decided to officially allow it.

Bleh. Not a fan of this, but ok.

As pretty much the first guy to go all on in on the Warlock with bard being the emulation (Dusty was first), I built mine on a METRIC SHIT TON of misinformation on how the widgets work and DC/Dmg was calculated. Somehow, by the grace of God, it still works. As far as the ranged touch attack goes...I only miss on 1's and I have shit for dex. I do however have huge Cha and fair AB with GMW. I never even had the benefit of that staff everyone gets with the cool summon. Truth be told, this was made possible by taking 5 levels of KC. What does taking this do for a Warlock specifically? 1: Vehement Charge allows you to move a bit faster, even when haste fails you plus you have a permanent mindblank. 2: Bulwark of Vigilance slows enemies down when they get close to you..which even with Hindering chains, they will. The combination of these two give you some breathing room..especially in epic encounters where the mobs have God Saves. Is my build optimal. Nope. I built him on the early descriptions of how the widgets were supposed to work. He is still capable of soloing everything up to the Abyss and not a complete failure. Plus in a party he has CL 25 Bard buffs and KC Auras. Being able to provide consistent (Though lackluster in endgame) AoE Dmg and effects is just an added bonus.

*edit* You also can crit with Eldritch abilities often exceeding 200 Dmg. That's fun.

Assuming Jim the warlock takes his power from Mom the evil fairy

If Jim stops serving Mom the evil fairy, or if the fairy dies, will the warlock keep his abilities?

Well, if the idea of this Warlock's pact is that he's trading service or homage to the patron for power, I don't see why or how he would keep his powers. Would a Blackguard keep their abilities if the demon who they made a pact with dies? Seems just as unlikely.

That's assuming it was a pact that gave them their power. As far as I can tell, we're leaving it up to choice where a warlock really gets their power(confusing on some levels, but so is the original rulebook blurb for Warlocks). Anyway, if the nature of this pact was something like "Mom" -made- them into a Warlock, maybe they do keep their powers. By made, I mean (meta)physically altering their being into that of a Warlock. Sort of like asking some greater power to transform you into some other thing. Like maybe the Faerie entity ripped out part of the Warlock's soul and replaced it with Faerie-Juice, and that's what the warlock draws upon for his powers thereafter, not some innate connection to the Faerie.

It's one of those "what if" questions that depends largely on the scenario. Pact in the traditional sense? Probably loses them in my book. Any other mumbo jumbo a Warlock could make up about their source? Depends.

thunderbrush wrote:

*edit* You also can crit with Eldritch abilities often exceeding 200 Dmg. That's fun.

Isn't it though?

To be honest, using Bard alone as the proxy class definitely has some advantages over the old build i used of sorc/fighter/bard. For the limits you receive on Invocations, you do come out with more HP and skill points over all, and it opens the door to true multi-class opportunities that you can use to add survivability to the hit-and-run tactics that all warlocks on Amia pretty much have to use outside of a party. Multi-classing has also opened the chance to explore some of the diverse item creation abilities of the Warlock class through RP of the Master Scout (Harper Scout replacement).

I've personally found this to be a very rewarding path to take, as my own Warlock has been largely involved in regional commerce and various businesses, over the years.

So I was perusing Classes & Feats on the sidebar and came across the Warlock info. I've looked it over at least 1/2 dozen times and I still don't get it, the blasts make no sense to me.

So I'm wondering: for those who've taken this class, how's it working out? Is it fun, frustrating? What are good/bad aspects? Are the blasts/essences easy to use and understand once you get them? And what about the Abilities acquired at different levels. Do they require DC's? That's the way I read it.

Seems like a cool concept, but the proof's in the puddin' as they say.

It's fun from the RP perspective. Combat can get a little frustrating, whilst soloing, as your attacks are slow. Really slow. I didn't build mine for AC at all, rather I focused on my ability to kite, as you would with an archer build. As far as attaching abilities to equipment, I believe that is a matter of hitting up a DM and asking them. The epic eldritch focus simply requires taking a trash feat in epics and having it ripped off. Play a warlock to play a warlock. Nothing else.

Side note: ASF is a thing with Warlocks.

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