Oh, Pathfinder did their own mechanical take on the Warlock in the Kineticist. It's not an eldritch blast, though, it's a kinetic blast. Flavor-wise, with the pacts with otherwordly patrons and whatnot, the Warlock equivalent is the Witch.
The Oracle is more just obvious hole-filling: you've got spontaneous casters and prepared casters using arcane and divine spells, but the "only" spontaneous one is the arcane Sorcerer, so let's fill out that chart with some divine equivalents.
D&D 3E also had a spontaneous divine caster in the Favored Soul, which was... bad. It did exist, though, with a similar-ish theming:
The favored soul follows the path of the cleric but is able to channel divine power with surprising ease. She is able to perform the same tasks as her fellow divine spellcasters but with virtually no study; to her, it comes naturally. Scholars wonder if favored souls have traces of outsider blood from unions, holy or unholy, centuries ago and generations removed. Others suggest that divine training of the proper type awakens the ability, or that favored souls are simply imbued with their gifts by their gods when they begin the cleric's path. In any case, favored souls cast their spells naturally, as much through force of personality as through study. Though this gives them extraordinary divine abilities no normal person could ever match, they see their gift as a call to action, and so in some ways may lag behind their more studious colleagues.
I always guessed the witch was their take on warlock, what with the patrons and such. It's just got a pretty mechanically different feel with its full caster slots and focus on familiars and curses.
yeah they stuck with the typical caster setup for most of pathfinder's run
even when they did their own take on psionics in the Occult classes, that was... still just caster slots
Dreamscarred Press kind of slipped right in with their third-party versions of Tome of Battle/Psionics/Incarnum - they even had a version of the Truenamer lined up that never went beyond playtesting, IIRC
and then you had a second third-party publisher jump in and do a take on the Binder
plus ofc you had the Spheres of Power system coming out of Drop Dead Studios
but Paizo themselves? nope, it's all just spell slots
Is d&d warlock not also spell slots? Just in a funny 3/4 caster way where they only get spell slots of their highest rank
I think pathfinder magus (the sword wizard gish class) works sort of like that way also. E: yeah magus only gets slots of their highest two spell ranks.
Is d&d warlock not also spell slots? Just in a funny 3/4 caster way where they only get spell slots of their highest rank
I think pathfinder magus (the sword wizard gish class) works sort of like that way also. E: yeah magus only gets slots of their highest two spell ranks.
Magus does get some lower level spells as well - the list is pretty restricted but it's all buffs and such that are useful even from lower slots.
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited August 18
Warlock has spell slots, but it's in addition to Eldritch Blast and invocations and their pact boons and etc in a way where it doesn't feel like their primary class feature.
Maddoc on
0
Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Warlock has spell slots, but it's in addition to Eldritch Blast and invocations and their pact boons and etc in a way where it doesn't feel like their primary class feature.
Witches are pretty similar then, at least for pf1e you spend most combats hexing stuff and occasionally cast a spell in my experience.
Is d&d warlock not also spell slots? Just in a funny 3/4 caster way where they only get spell slots of their highest rank
I think pathfinder magus (the sword wizard gish class) works sort of like that way also. E: yeah magus only gets slots of their highest two spell ranks.
D&D 5E warlock is (short rest) spell slots
D&D 3E warlock, which is what Pathfinder was nicking stuff from, was 100% at-will abilities
think the 5E invocations but they're, like, the entire class
it was a cool idea but had some issues (e.g. you only got a handful of invocations and probably wanted to spend a good chunk improving Eldritch Blast) and overall it was kind of low-powered in comparison to the actual casters
Level 1: Least invocations, e.g. at-will Summon Swarm or Fog Cloud etc.
Level 6: Lesser invocations, e.g. at-will Charm Person or Bestow Curse or Animate Dead or Dimension Door (leaving behind a Mirror Image)
Level 11: Greater invocations, e.g. at-will Evard's Black Tentacles or Greater Dispel Magic or Wall of Fire
Level 16: Dark invocations, e.g. at-will Baleful Polymorph
however, even at level 20 you only have 3 invocations of each tier so you kind of have to make them count
there was also a dragon-flavored take on the warlock, the Dragonfire Adept, that used the same system but with, like, a breath weapon and more dragon-focused spells
...also the Magus was more a take on what 3.5's Player's Handbook II tried with the Duskblade imho
(which itself was an improved take on 3.5's Complete Warrior's Hexblade, and so on going all the way back to OD&D's elven multiclassed fighting-men/magic-users)
D&D 3E was kind of cool and experimental when it wasn't a horribly unbalanced mess imho
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I really liked the favored soul conceptually, they make way more sense as a member of an adventuring party and all that than the cleric does. If I were making a high fantasy game I'd be focusing way more on favored soul/sorcerer type characters for magic classes than clerics/wizards, who often seem like they should be much more bound to their environments.
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
In my Eberron E6 project, I actually have the Sorcerer able to choose between arcane, divine, primal, or occult magic for their spontaneous casting (I did the same thing with my version of the Bard as well). It never made too much sense to me that they were locked into just arcane magic.
But for my Sorcerers I also have them picking up invocations from the Warlock/Dragonfire Adept classes.
Really trying to make the Sorcerer a fun class that offers unique strengths, when compared to Wizards.
I really liked the favored soul conceptually, they make way more sense as a member of an adventuring party and all that than the cleric does. If I were making a high fantasy game I'd be focusing way more on favored soul/sorcerer type characters for magic classes than clerics/wizards, who often seem like they should be much more bound to their environments.
yeah the wizard has always had this weird friction of, well
why are you even out here in a dusty dungeon, shouldn't you be studying in magic college or a wizard's tower or something
same goes for clerics - why are you here and not in a temple, church, cloister etc.?
obviously there's plenty of answers you can make up for those questions, and they're decent backstory seeds... but someone like a sorcerer, oracle, or other "they just have this magic with no formal training" class just has a freebie where you don't even need to ask the question
I do enjoy coming up with a good backstory hook for why the cloistered types are out in the muck
+8
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I think there are plenty of good options and like, ways that you can write around it
But I also think a more focused version of the game that was interested in having those be fundamentally a part of your character as opposed to fluff that you're adding on as a player would be more interesting and more engaging
I really liked the favored soul conceptually, they make way more sense as a member of an adventuring party and all that than the cleric does. If I were making a high fantasy game I'd be focusing way more on favored soul/sorcerer type characters for magic classes than clerics/wizards, who often seem like they should be much more bound to their environments.
yeah the wizard has always had this weird friction of, well
why are you even out here in a dusty dungeon, shouldn't you be studying in magic college or a wizard's tower or something
same goes for clerics - why are you here and not in a temple, church, cloister etc.?
obviously there's plenty of answers you can make up for those questions, and they're decent backstory seeds... but someone like a sorcerer, oracle, or other "they just have this magic with no formal training" class just has a freebie where you don't even need to ask the question
Except the mechanics of the various games tell you why. You have to get stronger to be able to use more powerful magic, and in most games that means leveling up, which you cannot do by forever reading books or praying or whatever. So no those aren't just backstory excuses to be out in the world, you have to do something to expand what your body/mind can handle magically.
I really liked the favored soul conceptually, they make way more sense as a member of an adventuring party and all that than the cleric does. If I were making a high fantasy game I'd be focusing way more on favored soul/sorcerer type characters for magic classes than clerics/wizards, who often seem like they should be much more bound to their environments.
yeah the wizard has always had this weird friction of, well
why are you even out here in a dusty dungeon, shouldn't you be studying in magic college or a wizard's tower or something
same goes for clerics - why are you here and not in a temple, church, cloister etc.?
obviously there's plenty of answers you can make up for those questions, and they're decent backstory seeds... but someone like a sorcerer, oracle, or other "they just have this magic with no formal training" class just has a freebie where you don't even need to ask the question
Except the mechanics of the various games tell you why. You have to get stronger to be able to use more powerful magic, and in most games that means leveling up, which you cannot do by forever reading books or praying or whatever. So no those aren't just backstory excuses to be out in the world, you have to do something to expand what your body/mind can handle magically.
on the flip side, wizards and clerics also come with some free connections to work into your game - presumably you learned your stuff somewhere and from someone, after all
the sorcerer comes with a family connection, but that's less world-defining than the implied organizations the learnéd classes are connected to
(I guess at least favored souls have the implied mystery of, well, who was it that granted them power)
this also goes for other classes as well, of course
is there a thieves' guild you're a (former) member of, or at least some underworld in which you've got connections? in some editions you know the Cant, after all
is your Fighter a Veteran, as per the OD&D level 1 title? Of what wars, what army?
5E (and PF2E!) worked this into the Background system more, but you've still got a big heaping of ~implied character history~ that comes with classes.
+1
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I really liked the favored soul conceptually, they make way more sense as a member of an adventuring party and all that than the cleric does. If I were making a high fantasy game I'd be focusing way more on favored soul/sorcerer type characters for magic classes than clerics/wizards, who often seem like they should be much more bound to their environments.
yeah the wizard has always had this weird friction of, well
why are you even out here in a dusty dungeon, shouldn't you be studying in magic college or a wizard's tower or something
same goes for clerics - why are you here and not in a temple, church, cloister etc.?
obviously there's plenty of answers you can make up for those questions, and they're decent backstory seeds... but someone like a sorcerer, oracle, or other "they just have this magic with no formal training" class just has a freebie where you don't even need to ask the question
Except the mechanics of the various games tell you why. You have to get stronger to be able to use more powerful magic, and in most games that means leveling up, which you cannot do by forever reading books or praying or whatever. So no those aren't just backstory excuses to be out in the world, you have to do something to expand what your body/mind can handle magically.
and that thing is collect a pile of gold
Honestly it lines up with our real history of medieval clerics that some are humble wanderers attempting to scrape up just enough gold to survive, while others are high level because their family gave a lot of gold to the nunnery when they pledged them to service.
I was pretty fond of my wizard in one of endless serpents' games, he was disarming curses in ancient crypts because he was a postgrad from the lizardfolk empire's magic university archaeology department, stuck doing field work for the tyrannical professors in the thin hopes of getting tenure one day
I was pretty fond of my wizard in one of endless serpents' games, he was disarming curses in ancient crypts because he was a postgrad from the lizardfolk empire's magic university archaeology department, stuck doing field work for the tyrannical professors in the thin hopes of getting tenure one day
Too real
You go in the cage, cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water, our shark.
+1
joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
adventurer first, class second
0
tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
Sorcerer seems to be one of the winners from John Madden Dungeons & Dragons 2024. They get an innate that lasts for a minute, increases DCs by one, and grants advantage on all sorcerer spells. Two uses per long rest. And obvious metamagic buffs.
Now, D&D is understandably trying to distance itself from the eugenics-y shit via its 60s and 70s origins, and that puts Sorcerer in a weird place being it’s whole thing was learning magic via an innate part of your birth. Like your distance ancestors got intimate with a dragon or your grandmother fucked a magic grandfather clock. But now, instead of Draconic Bloodline, it’s Draconic Sorcery, and Clockwork Soul is…Clockwork Sorcery. I don’t know what the explanation will be now for their magic, be it just open to player’s decision or maybe it’s now an extant thing that grants you magic that isn’t a god/powerful patron being/being a nerd. You saved a dragon’s life and got dragon powers in return. You fucked a clock and it turns out clock STDs are pretty awesome.
I could see that working while getting rid of the stuff with potentially bad implications.
Sorcerer seems to be one of the winners from John Madden Dungeons & Dragons 2024. They get an innate that lasts for a minute, increases DCs by one, and grants advantage on all sorcerer spells. Two uses per long rest. And obvious metamagic buffs.
Now, D&D is understandably trying to distance itself from the eugenics-y shit via its 60s and 70s origins, and that puts Sorcerer in a weird place being it’s whole thing was learning magic via an innate part of your birth. Like your distance ancestors got intimate with a dragon or your grandmother fucked a magic grandfather clock. But now, instead of Draconic Bloodline, it’s Draconic Sorcery, and Clockwork Soul is…Clockwork Sorcery. I don’t know what the explanation will be now for their magic, be it just open to player’s decision or maybe it’s now an extant thing that grants you magic that isn’t a god/powerful patron being/being a nerd. You saved a dragon’s life and got dragon powers in return. You fucked a clock and it turns out clock STDs are pretty awesome.
I could see that working while getting rid of the stuff with potentially bad implications.
Given sufficient timespans, everyone's got an ancestor who fucked a dragon at some point (See: How much of Europe is descended from Charlemagne), so it's more a question of who has some incident in childhood or whatever that wakes it up, I figure. Or at least, that seems like one way to handle it.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I feel like the dragon descended quality of sorcerer wasn't really there early on, it was presented as a theory but not like, core to how sorcerers existed. Sorcerers were just people with a knack for magic - I never played into the dragon thing myself.
in contrast being dragon-blooded is The Main Thematic Thing That I Like about sorcerer, haha. Love that trope, and humanoids and dragons falling in love and etc.
0
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I also do not really like D&D dragons, which is part of it. I like a monstrous dragon, not just a dragon shaped person.
I'm kind of sad paizo had to elide the D&D-style chromatic dragons from their official materials going forward, honestly. And the metallic ones too I guess but I never cared for them as much. Ironically given my username.
0
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
as long as the dragons are fuckable I don't care what shape they are
Posts
The Oracle is more just obvious hole-filling: you've got spontaneous casters and prepared casters using arcane and divine spells, but the "only" spontaneous one is the arcane Sorcerer, so let's fill out that chart with some divine equivalents.
D&D 3E also had a spontaneous divine caster in the Favored Soul, which was... bad. It did exist, though, with a similar-ish theming:
even when they did their own take on psionics in the Occult classes, that was... still just caster slots
Dreamscarred Press kind of slipped right in with their third-party versions of Tome of Battle/Psionics/Incarnum - they even had a version of the Truenamer lined up that never went beyond playtesting, IIRC
and then you had a second third-party publisher jump in and do a take on the Binder
plus ofc you had the Spheres of Power system coming out of Drop Dead Studios
but Paizo themselves? nope, it's all just spell slots
I think pathfinder magus (the sword wizard gish class) works sort of like that way also. E: yeah magus only gets slots of their highest two spell ranks.
Magus does get some lower level spells as well - the list is pretty restricted but it's all buffs and such that are useful even from lower slots.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Witches are pretty similar then, at least for pf1e you spend most combats hexing stuff and occasionally cast a spell in my experience.
D&D 5E warlock is (short rest) spell slots
D&D 3E warlock, which is what Pathfinder was nicking stuff from, was 100% at-will abilities
think the 5E invocations but they're, like, the entire class
it was a cool idea but had some issues (e.g. you only got a handful of invocations and probably wanted to spend a good chunk improving Eldritch Blast) and overall it was kind of low-powered in comparison to the actual casters
Level 1: Least invocations, e.g. at-will Summon Swarm or Fog Cloud etc.
Level 6: Lesser invocations, e.g. at-will Charm Person or Bestow Curse or Animate Dead or Dimension Door (leaving behind a Mirror Image)
Level 11: Greater invocations, e.g. at-will Evard's Black Tentacles or Greater Dispel Magic or Wall of Fire
Level 16: Dark invocations, e.g. at-will Baleful Polymorph
however, even at level 20 you only have 3 invocations of each tier so you kind of have to make them count
there was also a dragon-flavored take on the warlock, the Dragonfire Adept, that used the same system but with, like, a breath weapon and more dragon-focused spells
...also the Magus was more a take on what 3.5's Player's Handbook II tried with the Duskblade imho
(which itself was an improved take on 3.5's Complete Warrior's Hexblade, and so on going all the way back to OD&D's elven multiclassed fighting-men/magic-users)
D&D 3E was kind of cool and experimental when it wasn't a horribly unbalanced mess imho
But for my Sorcerers I also have them picking up invocations from the Warlock/Dragonfire Adept classes.
Really trying to make the Sorcerer a fun class that offers unique strengths, when compared to Wizards.
yeah the wizard has always had this weird friction of, well
why are you even out here in a dusty dungeon, shouldn't you be studying in magic college or a wizard's tower or something
same goes for clerics - why are you here and not in a temple, church, cloister etc.?
obviously there's plenty of answers you can make up for those questions, and they're decent backstory seeds... but someone like a sorcerer, oracle, or other "they just have this magic with no formal training" class just has a freebie where you don't even need to ask the question
But I also think a more focused version of the game that was interested in having those be fundamentally a part of your character as opposed to fluff that you're adding on as a player would be more interesting and more engaging
Except the mechanics of the various games tell you why. You have to get stronger to be able to use more powerful magic, and in most games that means leveling up, which you cannot do by forever reading books or praying or whatever. So no those aren't just backstory excuses to be out in the world, you have to do something to expand what your body/mind can handle magically.
and that thing is collect a pile of gold
the sorcerer comes with a family connection, but that's less world-defining than the implied organizations the learnéd classes are connected to
(I guess at least favored souls have the implied mystery of, well, who was it that granted them power)
this also goes for other classes as well, of course
is there a thieves' guild you're a (former) member of, or at least some underworld in which you've got connections? in some editions you know the Cant, after all
is your Fighter a Veteran, as per the OD&D level 1 title? Of what wars, what army?
5E (and PF2E!) worked this into the Background system more, but you've still got a big heaping of ~implied character history~ that comes with classes.
Honestly it lines up with our real history of medieval clerics that some are humble wanderers attempting to scrape up just enough gold to survive, while others are high level because their family gave a lot of gold to the nunnery when they pledged them to service.
@Rhesus Positive
Too real
To me, it reads like their take on the 4e Invoker, one of my favorite classes that sadly has yet to make a reappearance.
Now, D&D is understandably trying to distance itself from the eugenics-y shit via its 60s and 70s origins, and that puts Sorcerer in a weird place being it’s whole thing was learning magic via an innate part of your birth. Like your distance ancestors got intimate with a dragon or your grandmother fucked a magic grandfather clock. But now, instead of Draconic Bloodline, it’s Draconic Sorcery, and Clockwork Soul is…Clockwork Sorcery. I don’t know what the explanation will be now for their magic, be it just open to player’s decision or maybe it’s now an extant thing that grants you magic that isn’t a god/powerful patron being/being a nerd. You saved a dragon’s life and got dragon powers in return. You fucked a clock and it turns out clock STDs are pretty awesome.
I could see that working while getting rid of the stuff with potentially bad implications.
Given sufficient timespans, everyone's got an ancestor who fucked a dragon at some point (See: How much of Europe is descended from Charlemagne), so it's more a question of who has some incident in childhood or whatever that wakes it up, I figure. Or at least, that seems like one way to handle it.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
"Wizards: do they belong in the field or the tower? You decide!"
Maybe a little wordy.
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Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891