Eldritch Glaive.

[NegInfinity]

Based that on the above. If you get the EB of your weapon added to glaive damage, why wouldn't you want to dualwield to get double the EB bonus to glaive?

You don't get EB of your weapon. It is not applied to a weapon, it is not hideous blow. It uses your BAB without EB, and you won't be able to dual-wield it with anything.

Frankly, you'll most likely will not be able to use it with weapon in your hand.

[freekender]

A mad idea I've just had... Why not make Eldritch Glaive to actually create a weapon? Let me explain it. It must be cast with nothing equiped on your hands and a weapon appears equipped. It could last a determined time, gets stronger (AB, damage) as the warlock levels up, etc.

[NegInfinity]

A mad idea I've just had... Why not make Eldritch Glaive to actually create a weapon? Let me explain it. It must be cast with nothing equiped on your hands and a weapon appears equipped. It could last a determined time, gets stronger (AB, damage) as the warlock levels up, etc.

You're thinking about kensai. (Complete Warrior p49)

[freekender]

A mad idea I've just had... Why not make Eldritch Glaive to actually create a weapon? Let me explain it. It must be cast with nothing equiped on your hands and a weapon appears equipped. It could last a determined time, gets stronger (AB, damage) as the warlock levels up, etc.

You're thinking about kensai. (Complete Warrior p49)

I do not completely know about the kensais, but it sounds like they would use a "material" weapon. I was thinking more about an pure energy blade the warlock would create with his/her powers (something similar to the Moonblade spell).

[Rasael]

The reason is that unequiping and equiping risks item loss for people with full inventories.
That said it could apply a new form of a blast for a regular weapon hit. That could be novel and might open up new paths. But it sounds similar to hideous blow.

[NegInfinity]

The reason is that unequiping and equiping risks item loss for people with full inventories.

Simple solution: spell refuses to work if anything is in your hands. You deal with unequipping.

If you are talking about possibly spawning weapon that will end up in user's inventory... I think that (last publicly available) kaedrin's version somehow implemented it as vfx. Meaning there was no weapon being spawned, just animation.

[NegInfinity]

A mad idea I've just had... Why not make Eldritch Glaive to actually create a weapon? Let me explain it. It must be cast with nothing equiped on your hands and a weapon appears equipped. It could last a determined time, gets stronger (AB, damage) as the warlock levels up, etc.

You're thinking about kensai. (Complete Warrior p49)

I do not completely know about the kensais, but it sounds like they would use a "material" weapon. I was thinking more about an pure energy blade the warlock would create with his/her powers (something similar to the Moonblade spell).

It is a melee class that dedicates life to one weapon, and gets bonuses with that weapon only (you dump xp into the weapon to get it enchanted). "weapon" means "ONE specific weapon", not a group of them, so it'll be "grandfather's longsword", not "any longsword", for example. So you start with mundane blade, then it improves up to +5 and beyond aas you progress (beyond +5 it is improved by adding non-EB bonuses). I don't rememebr details, though.

[Endelyon]

The point of NegInfinity's suggestion seems to have been lost. Eldritch Glaive isn't an actual weapon nor does it use a regular weapon attack. The most important aspect of it is simply that it switches your blast from a Ranged Touch Attack to a Melee Touch Attack.

A regular melee attack is AB vs AC. A melee touch attack is AB vs (10 + Dex + Dodge+Deflection+Size mod), so a Melee Touch Attack has quite a bit of advantage over swinging a normal weapon when it comes to a heavily armored target.

Also it would allow Warlocks to build for strength instead of dexterity, which admittedly offers a degree of variability, but I'm having a hard time seeing how that variability isn't already there. Strength Warlocks already seem viable using Hideous Blow.

For what I think simply making it two melee touch attacks per round that apply blast damage would be the way to go. Eldritch Chain does 2x+ normal blast damage on 3 targets or more (against six targets it does 3.5x the damage of a single blast, assuming it hits all six). With a change like this there would be a more decent variance of mechanics between this and other blast types, as the Warlock will have the flexibility to choose between AOE blast damage and higher single-target blast damage.

Also keep in mind that this doesn't mean "Warlocks automatically double up their blast damage." Two melee touch attacks per round means sometimes (in fact quite often given the way the game's RNG table for dice rolls is designed) you're GOING to miss one of those attacks in a round. Even if your touch AB is 99, those 1's come up a lot more often than 1/20 times.

Just my thoughts. If it's not at least as good as Hideous Blow, no one will build towards use of the feat. Warlocks are already quite viable on BGTSCC, though, so something like this seems pretty low priority when we still have outstanding bugs from the big update package left to fix.

[metaquad4]

Well, Hideous Blow builds were harmed by the dispel fix, so, it does supply a "place" for glaive. Typically, they needed high BAB (or sneak attack/hips in the case of a dex-based one) classes to help let hideous blow hit, which would now make it very easily dispellable (not as much an issue for warlock, but still an issue since a lot of their durability comes from wards and they'd have to spend time recasting in the heat of combat).

Glaive would allow a warlock to maintain a higher caster level and still use it. Although, to a questionable end if it only had one attack, since the Radial AoE blasts and chain allow you to do the same job with a better stat (dex).

Another thing that could be done is to give it multiple attacks (2), but give it a fortitude save for half damage. Imo, that would balance out having the second attack.

[Endelyon]

Another thing that could be done is to give it multiple attacks (2), but give it a fortitude save for half damage. Imo, that would balance out having the second attack.

Not a bad suggestion, actually, though, reflex might be more appropriate. I believe that's what Eldritch Doom uses, anyway, and I don't think any other blast shapes are DC-based for the damage component. Then again, making it fort-based will mean that it actually auto-fails on a 1 (without Steadfast or Epic Resilience), so there is some merit to that, as well.

Save for half is a great idea, either way, though!

[NegInfinity]

Another thing that could be done is to give it multiple attacks (2), but give it a fortitude save for half damage. Imo, that would balance out having the second attack.

That won't work well, because some of the essences already have a save on them.

Keep in mind that all attacks after second one will be at reduced AB anyway.

(I'll make some tables during the weekend).

As I said, I personally think that halved damage for every hit after 1st will be probably good enough, even if it had full attacks. Because of reduced AB on attacks.

Not a bad suggestion, actually, though, reflex might be more appropriate.

I don't think that either is aprporiate, frankly. Reflex is usually required for actions like exploding fireball which do not test for ac. Eldritch doom falls into this category. Adding second check on top of ac check (even if it is melee touch ac) won't be a good idea.

As I said, I'll generate some damge tables during the weekend. Probably.

[Karond]

For what I think simply making it two melee touch attacks per round that apply blast damage would be the way to go.

Also keep in mind that this doesn't mean "Warlocks automatically double up their blast damage."

It actually does mean doubling up the damage. I would be far more comfortable if it hits two separate targets once per round, than a single target twice per round. Then it's more comparable to chain. 200+ damage per round on a single target seems like too much, since both will hit almost always considering the touch AC the monsters on this server have.

That's my initial thought though. Would have to play with the numbers to see if its as exploitable as it seems for raw power. A save would dispel any concerns though.

[NegInfinity]

For what I think simply making it two melee touch attacks per round that apply blast damage would be the way to go.

Also keep in mind that this doesn't mean "Warlocks automatically double up their blast damage."

It actually does mean doubling up the damage. I would be far more comfortable if it hits two separate targets once per round, than a single target twice per round. Then it's more comparable to chain. 200+ damage per round on a single target seems like too much, since both will hit almost always considering the touch AC the monsters on this server have.

That's my initial thought though. Would have to play with the numbers to see if its as exploitable as it seems for raw power. A save would dispel any concerns though.

I'd rather not have a second save (in addition to invocation defense), and it'll be better idea to play with reduced damage on subsequent attacks instead. Lots of monsters had inflated saves and strange class combinations, so having a save on this means it will almost always fail. It isn't a right invocation for this.

Also, save doesn't make sense here. There's no fortitude/reflex save vs being stabbed by sword. Glaive does stabbing part.

Save should apply to essence effect only.

[Karond]

and it'll be better idea to play with reduced damage on subsequent attacks instead.

Which seems fairly similar in output to the double blast glaive. Given that you will likely have 5 attacks per round, 6 with haste, subsequent reduction is still more damage to a single target. The basic Eldritch blast focusing warlock does around 105 damage per blast, and that's quite a lot considering its type and ease of infliction. It's infinite amounts of polar rays, one of the best damage spells for arcanes. It is a different class, sure, and they do vary wildly in what they excel in. However, give warlocks even more damage and we're soon looking at something like infinite epic greater ruins in power rating.

These are spells, and should be compared as such, not to damage output from weaponmasters etc.

[NegInfinity]

and it'll be better idea to play with reduced damage on subsequent attacks instead.

Which seems fairly similar in output to the double blast glaive. Given that you will likely have 5 ...

As I said, unless I"ll get distracted, I'll roll few tables for all 3 proposed variants on the weekend. Unless I'll get distracted.

One thing that is very easy to overlook is reduced ab on subsequent attacks.