How does Cha work on a Warlock?

[electric mayhem]

Can someone please explain to me how Cha works with Warlock in general?

Mocked one up in JEGs tonight, and was able to cast self buffing spells fine. Didn't test any spells to cast on enemies. (Blaster build). Cha was at 8 (-1).

Because I'm struggling to understand why any points should be spent on it at all.

[Zanniej]

All spells work just fine without charisma. Charisma is only used for DC spells.

So, if you want to attack creatures with warlock invocations that have an effect other than damage, you should pump cha. If you simply want to output damage, you don't need cha as much (if at all).

[aaron22]

yes. there are a few different approaches to building a lock. a blaster (con and/or dex), meleer (fighter style: str and con, rogue style: dex and con) and controller (cha and dex).

the controller will use spells like charm and chilling tentacles as well as many others. these will have a save vs DC. and this DC is modified by cha. controller locks are both difficult (compared to blaster) and fun. it is a whole different approach to playing lock. but the DCs are hard to get really high because the game has been tainted by the exalted mage DC numbers. i would be on board to advocate for better controller invocations but as we have now, it is pretty challenging.

[Nemni]

Charisma gives you DC and saves (with dark one's luck). It's not needed.

But it's appropriate for a warlock to have some charisma since part of the RP of the class is to attract and/or negotiate with some powerful being.

[ValerieJean]

Charisma gives you DC and saves (with dark one's luck). It's not needed.

But it's appropriate for a warlock to have some charisma since part of the RP of the class is to attract and/or negotiate with some powerful being.

Not completely true. Devils/Demons will seek out easy marks to gain souls from for their own monetary needs. You having a Charisma is not because the Demon/Devil finds you hot or able to talk well. They again just see you as a mark able to be whiled to get your soul, that's all they care about is the soul (Or whatever sort of deal where they have a gain over you. Which usually still leads to them getting your Soul.)

I don't see CHA as "needed" for RP means entirely.

But anyways as they have stated, it helps with the DC invokes and such.

[Nemni]

Not completely true. Devils/Demons will seek out easy marks to gain souls from for their own monetary needs.

I suppose if you want to play a char that is an easy mark, then that's fine, though it begs the question why a demon/devil would part with their power for you. But if you want to play a char that actually got a somewhat decent deal, then I maintain that charisma makes sense.

[electric mayhem]

Thanks for the responses everyone. Makes sense now

[Sun Wukong]

And I am just going to mention how a charisma based Warlock 26/Blackguard 4 will work quite nicely. With Dark One's Own Luck and the Blackguard Aura you should get your charisma modifier twice to your saves and -2 to enemy saves, and Blackguard opens up access to turn undead and hence Divine Shield, which turns that +10 charisma modifier to +10 AC for 10 rounds per use. Not to mention that at early-mid levels that Blackguard's Create Undead is a wonderful tank.

[Tekill]

^ -The build I use for my Blacklock and have no regrets.

Remember though, no matter how high you can get your saves, you will be suprised how often you roll a 1.
But it's a tough build. I generally only need to use divine sheild against bosses or pvp- doesnt get used that often. It's still nice though.

Get creative with the wands and scrolls- the class gets to be pretty fun with those handy.

If you go CHR lock route and you want to go crowd control, Try to put everthing you can into Chr. By level 30 your goal will be to try and get your dc to 30. I Have not crunched the numbers, not sure if its possible without sacrificing blast damage too much. I took practiced invoker and use my blasts essences as my crowd conrol so I can blast and CC at the same time. Each blast has a chance to cause an affect. The blasts tend to have a caster level of about level 6 typically.

The save affects are not mind blowing or anything 1 round or 2 round stuns/knockdowns. There is a 10 round daze but its daze...and a fort save at that, so its hard to pull off.

The CC is great when grinding up your levels- and still good at epic levels. Grinding is a breeze. But the bosses and players will make the saves be immune or resist.

At the momment the feat Ability focus Eldritch blast is not available...keep that in mind when building.

Warlocks can be a lonely class, even the charismatic ones.

[electric mayhem]

So conlock blasters (DS and HFW dips) can hold their own in epics and boss fights using blasts and no cc?

[Sun Wukong]

All Warlocks can hold their own in the epics, even the strength based ones. But there are differences in how they perform.

[mrm3ntalist]

And I am just going to mention how a charisma based Warlock 26/Blackguard 4 will work quite nicely. With Dark One's Own Luck and the Blackguard Aura you should get your charisma modifier twice to your saves and -2 to enemy saves, and Blackguard opens up access to turn undead and hence Divine Shield, which turns that +10 charisma modifier to +10 AC for 10 rounds per use. Not to mention that at early-mid levels that Blackguard's Create Undead is a wonderful tank.

I feel the same about it. Even though high CON warlocks seem to be the stronger blasters ( mostly because the bosses have high saves ), CHA based are more fun to play, especially the BG4 builds.

They are stronger in pvp, especially with Vamp feast.

[Sun Wukong]

Oh and Blackguard gives medium/heavy armor proficiency along with shield proficiency, thus you can make use of Battle Caster feat and Mithral Fullplate for example. Thus with minimal investment in dexterity you remove the need to pick Leaps and Bounds invocation and could go for something else, like additional shape or essence.

Anyhow, it has been forever since I actualyl played one.

What does come with Arcane Spell Failure? I think that the default Eldritch Blast did not have it, but if you added any shape or essence, it did. Could anyone clarify?

[AlfarinIcebreaker]

My prefered build would be 27 Warlock/3 Blackguard. There is a nice trick if you go Human which has 2 starting feats - you pick Spellcasting Prodigy and Fey Heritage. Fey Heritage opens up Fey Power which grants another +1 to DC and Fey Skin, which grants +3 Cold Iron which in turn stacks with Warlock's Cold Iron, up to 10 at Warlock's 27th level.

[mrm3ntalist]

My prefered build would be 27 Warlock/3 Blackguard.

It needs to be Warlock26/BG4 otherwise the BlastDice from practised invoker will not be added. It is how this feat is coded.