Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

There are just soooo many invocations to pick from. Can I get some advice on which ones are must haves and which ones to avoid? Any help will be appreciated. I've never played one before. Both the mechanics and RP are foreign to me.

Thanks!

The biggest difference is whether going melee Warlock or controller Warlock (high STR vs. CHA).

Steve wrote:The biggest difference is whether going melee Warlock or controller Warlock (high STR vs. CHA).

I'm going CHR build. A Tiefling. So far I have Leaps and Bounds, Eldritch Spear and Dark ones own luck for first level. I have Brimstone Blast and Eldritch Chain for the second level ones.

The best most effective lock is actually what I call a Hybrid Con Lock.

Example here: http://nwn2db.com/build/?280375

Advantages over other locks:
-He's tough; high HP (400+), excellent AC (up to 50), max blast (21d6), great saves with dragonslayer.

I don't like charisma locks primarily because the saves of epic critters and toons is too high. You connect very little with those invocations. However, vitrolic is your go to blast as it bypasses spell resistance. Take the cold blast too, as it does double damage on fire giants.

Least:

• Quill Barrage (1d4+1, up to 5 projectiles at 9th level, lands automatically.) (I would switch this away after ninth level, since your BAB is usually high enough to land hits without a miss.)
• All-Seeing Eyes (This gives you a Free Blindight feat, which is lovely against 50% concealment.
• Leaps and Bopunds (Gives you +4 dexterity, which based on your build can be a must have or not. There are items that do the same.)
• Dark One's Own Luck (If you are a charisma based warlock, this is a must one for you, especially if you combine it with 3 levels of Blackguard for Divine Shield.)
• Darkness (Some like to spam the Darkness Spell)
• Entropic Warding (Great for a stealth based Warlock/Shadowdancer as it boosts your stealth skills and gives bit of ranged concealment.
• Hideous Blow (Works for the Melee Warlock)

Lesser:

• Eldritch Chain (The basically must have one for damage output. With enough BAB the touch attacks rarely if ever miss. It bounces around and deals a lot of damage)
• Beshadowed Blast (Blinds, so could be useful for a charisma based lock.)
• Brimstone Blast (Deals more damage to ice type opponents)
• Hellrime Blast (Deals more damage to fire type opponents)
• Flee the Scene (Haste, must for the melee based warlock.)
• The Dead Walk (Meat Shields)
• Walk Unseen (Which does help to do weekly quests)

Greater:

• Vitriolic Blast (Acid Damage that ignores the spell resistance)
• Chilling Tentacles (Works as a boss tanking spell)
• Wall of Perilous Flame (Works as a boss tanking spell for the charisma based warlock)
• Primal Speed (Slight movement speen increase.)

Dark:

• Dark Foresight (Sneak attack immunity and extra AC)
• Dark Premonition (15 points of achemical silver DR, up to 150 absorbed)
• Instill Vulnerability (For the charisma based warlock, to deal more damage... against a single opponent)
• Lure Shadow Demons (Summons more meat shields)
• Otherworldly Leap (Blink around the map, like Darkness, mostly for fun.)
• Retributive Invisibility (Improved Invisibility)
• Witch Sight (Basically True Seeing)

Those are what I would consider taking. But the fact is, Warlocks tend to do well as long as they have at least 8 in all their stats and Eldritch Chain to spam. Therefore, you have some freedom to go for flavour.

I had a lot of fun with a CHR LOCK
Only weak point was pvp. If your enemies have spell resistance and acid immunity you are in trouble (as a blaster). Also your blasts go off at the end of the round which causes you to give up a lot of advantage in pvp. The UMD skill with lots of gold can fix that a bit though.

Your DC's wont be super high as you do not have as many feats to increase as say wizards. If you are focusing on crowd control then you will want to pump all you have into CHR.

Once you decide on a CHR LOCK- you need to decide if your going to focus on evocations or blasts.

Evocation Examples:Charm, Voracious Dispelling or Wall of Perilous Flame
Blast Examples: Brimstone Blast, Repelling Blast, Hindering Blast

If you focus on Evocations then you can use your epic feats to increase your CHR more.
If you focus on a CHR Blaster you can dump epic feats into blast damage or CHR.

I made a CHR blaster and used my epic feats for Blast damage, sacrificing maybe 3 DC for lots of juicy damage.
But I sort of felt that my builds DC which was on average 29ish was a bit low. I killed things so fast though that it did not matter much.

I think most folk go the blaster route.
I used a combination of:
Noxious Blast- fort save for a 10 round daze
Repelling Blast- reflex save for an AoE Knockdown.
And I used Vitrolic Blast to beat spell resistance.
At around level 28 I switched Noxious Blast with Hindering Blast which has a 2 round slow affect but uses a Will save instead of a Fort. I was not sure that it was a totally good idea to switch because the Hindering Blast being a lower level Evocation also had a lower Saving Throw. meh.

I am not sure what advice I can give you if you go the evocation route as I am not that familiar with the non blast offensive Evocations. I would say the majority of us go the Blaster route.

But it would be interesting to see a non blaster warlock - rocking the summons, changing into a devil, using walls of fire or tendrils, or Tenacious Plagues. Charming or Fearing you enemies...
...but it still might end up being a bit weak.

This is my list of must haves Blaster-Lock Evocations. I imagine other people have different lists:
Dark One's Own Luck, See the Unseen, Leaps and Bounds, Eldritch Spear
Flee the Scene, Walk Unseen, Eldritch Chain, Ignore the Pyre
Vitriolic Blast, Noxious Blast, Repelling Blast
Dark Foresight, Retribusive Invisibility, Dark Premonition, Eldritch Doom

Thats just a list though, not even mine really- I aquired if it from other peoples suggestions
One important take away here is that I have seen so many different and viable Warlocks on this game. There are so many creative ides. Dex locks- Con Lock- Melee locks. I saw a warlock archer- that slaughtered everything.

If you go CHR lock - think about dipping into Blackguard...unless you want to be one of those mamby pamby fey-locks, pffft! (just kidding- wuv woo, feylocks)