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Author Topic: When I hear the word Warlock...  (Read 3379 times)

Darrin Kelley

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #15 on: September 16, 2020, 01:54:18 AM »
Warlock will always come to mind as the series of movies Julian Sands starred in. He made a great villain.
 

Ghostmaker

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #16 on: September 16, 2020, 09:59:26 AM »
I've never actually played in a game that used warlocks, but I always thought the core inspiration (which I referenced above) is the warlock from the Lawrence Watt-Evan's Ethshar series, specifically The Unwilling Warlord novel. The idea is that warlocks tapped into some unknown "source", and they could channel that power to fly, perform what amounts to telekinesis, self-heal, and so on. The more they used the power, the more powerful they became, and the easier it became to use the power, even inadvertently.

The downside is the more attuned they became to the source, the more attuned it became to them, and while nobody knew what the source really was, all warlocks knew it wasn't nice. After a certain point, they would all start having nightmares they couldn't describe on waking, which eventually became whispers they couldn't quite make out even when they were awake. Whatever the source was, it was calling them, and the call became stronger as they became more powerful. Eventually all warlocks vanished in the night, presumably flying away to the source, never to return.

From a story standpoint, it provides hubris, temptation, mystery, and eventual doom. The D&D version sounds like they added additional powers, removed most of the limitations, and shifted the source a bit to more traditional pacts of some kind. But otherwise, remarkably similar.
Oh wow. I read With A Single Spell (I still have the paperback, in fact) and was fascinated with Watt-Evans's worldbuilding. I need to track down some more of his stuff.

Omega

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #17 on: September 16, 2020, 02:45:16 PM »
Quote
Agreed; I'm not trying to give them shit - but Warlocks?
Sold your soul to a unicorn?
In 5e a warlocks patron can be all sorts of weird things so would make sense.
 

ShieldWife

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #18 on: September 16, 2020, 03:03:24 PM »
Warlock will always come to mind as the series of movies Julian Sands starred in. He made a great villain.


Yes, me too! That’s an under appreciated movie and a great portrayal of a warlock. In fact, I think it’s he’s a well done movie magic user - with a set of impressive and thematic powers that don’t come off as deus ex machina.


More generally, for me a warlock does need to be evil. His magic must be evil in nature, likely drawn from some evil source such as demons.

Pat
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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #19 on: September 16, 2020, 03:14:50 PM »
Oh wow. I read With A Single Spell (I still have the paperback, in fact) and was fascinated with Watt-Evans's worldbuilding. I need to track down some more of his stuff.
Yes, his world building is definitely interesting. His books tend to take one aspect of the world, and explore the consequences. His characters are a bit flat, but they work fairly well as generic protagonists.

I should dig up the rest of the series, myself. I only read the first 5, so it looks like I'm way behind (14 novels + a short story collection).

He's also a gamer. He calls OD&D "buggy as hell", here:  ;D
http://multiverse.world/blog/2017/11/03/qa-with-lawrence-watt-evans-fiction/

Darrin Kelley

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #20 on: September 16, 2020, 07:53:33 PM »


Yes, me too! That’s an under appreciated movie and a great portrayal of a warlock. In fact, I think it’s he’s a well done movie magic user - with a set of impressive and thematic powers that don’t come off as deus ex machina.


This conversation inspired me to get out my Warlock DVD and watch it.


But the Warlock in 5th Edition D&D I think is a class that definitely has its uses. I like the variety of different patrons one can have. So you can really make the character distinctive. And I think it has room for endless expansion.
 

Chris24601

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #21 on: September 16, 2020, 09:31:31 PM »
But the Warlock in 5th Edition D&D I think is a class that definitely has its uses. I like the variety of different patrons one can have. So you can really make the character distinctive. And I think it has room for endless expansion.
Another relevant and important part of the 5e warlock’s design is that it’s the closest in design in 5e to the default 4E class structure (cantrips are the at-wills, short rest spells are the encounter powers, the high end long rest spells are the daily powers).


Even if the developers made a point of throwing 4E fans under a bus (the promised “tactical module” to let it play more like 4E, unsurprisingly, turned out to be vaporware), the fact that 5e promised to be an edition for everyone meant it had to at least give 4E a bone (the celestial pact helped quite a bit since the irrevocable pact structure is much closer to 4E’s approach to divine classes).


I find them useful in conjunction with the bard (once they can regain their inspiration dice with a short rest) in recreating several of the more unique 4E classes inside the 5e framework.

ShieldWife

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #22 on: September 16, 2020, 11:31:08 PM »


Yes, me too! That’s an under appreciated movie and a great portrayal of a warlock. In fact, I think it’s he’s a well done movie magic user - with a set of impressive and thematic powers that don’t come off as deus ex machina.


This conversation inspired me to get out my Warlock DVD and watch it.


But the Warlock in 5th Edition D&D I think is a class that definitely has its uses. I like the variety of different patrons one can have. So you can really make the character distinctive. And I think it has room for endless expansion.


Awesome. I haven’t seen the movie in many years. I need to see it again.


Oh yeah, the 5th edition warlock is a great class that allows for all sorts of options that depart from a Satanist warlock. I think that the Celestial Patron warlock is pretty neat. Though I have a hard time calling those sorts of characters warlocks.


I can’t help but imagine the eldritch blast as that weird orange energy from the Warlock movie.

LiferGamer

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #23 on: September 16, 2020, 11:41:32 PM »

Yes, me too! That’s an under appreciated movie and a great portrayal of a warlock. In fact, I think it’s he’s a well done movie magic user - with a set of impressive and thematic powers that don’t come off as deus ex machina.

This conversation inspired me to get out my Warlock DVD and watch it.

But the Warlock in 5th Edition D&D I think is a class that definitely has its uses. I like the variety of different patrons one can have. So you can really make the character distinctive. And I think it has room for endless expansion.

Awesome. I haven’t seen the movie in many years. I need to see it again.

Oh yeah, the 5th edition warlock is a great class that allows for all sorts of options that depart from a Satanist warlock. I think that the Celestial Patron warlock is pretty neat. Though I have a hard time calling those sorts of characters warlocks.

I can’t help but imagine the eldritch blast as that weird orange energy from the Warlock movie.


I like the Warlock class a lot, especially as the DM; we had a Celestial Warlock in the party - she was a Tohunga of the Aopouri people (basically transplanted Maori to my campaign world) with a familial spirit as a patron.   Never 'pinged' on the inquisition's sin-dar, and gave us a neat Shamanistic option with minimal fuss.
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jeff37923

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2020, 12:24:52 AM »
........I think it's a magic-user by any other name.
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HappyDaze

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #25 on: September 17, 2020, 05:19:02 AM »
........I think it's a magic-user by any other name.
Yes, but...
Warlock gets singled out because, in 5e, their magic works differently from just about every other magic-user. I don't think this is a problem with the Warlock, I think it's the result of every other magic-user using more-or-less the same system for their magic. If there were more clear differences between the spellcasting of Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards then the Warlock wouldn't feel like such an oddball.

Pat
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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #26 on: September 17, 2020, 07:26:03 AM »
Warlock gets singled out because, in 5e, their magic works differently from just about every other magic-user. I don't think this is a problem with the Warlock, I think it's the result of every other magic-user using more-or-less the same system for their magic.
I have zero familiarity with 5e, but based on previous editions I definitely agree. The problem isn't that the warlock is weird, it's that everything else is so samey. Almost all spellcasters work the same, with a few exceptions that rarely get any traction. Psionics is probably the biggest secondary method, and it's always struggled for attention and balance. In general I'm in favor of more oddities, not less.

VisionStorm

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #27 on: September 17, 2020, 03:58:41 PM »
Warlock gets singled out because, in 5e, their magic works differently from just about every other magic-user. I don't think this is a problem with the Warlock, I think it's the result of every other magic-user using more-or-less the same system for their magic.
I have zero familiarity with 5e, but based on previous editions I definitely agree. The problem isn't that the warlock is weird, it's that everything else is so samey. Almost all spellcasters work the same, with a few exceptions that rarely get any traction. Psionics is probably the biggest secondary method, and it's always struggled for attention and balance. In general I'm in favor of more oddities, not less.

I’m at the opposite end. While I’m not a fan of Old D&D or D&D’s spell casting system (mostly BC of the Vancian system and arbitrary spell levels with inconsistent power), one of the things that OD&D handles better than WotC era D&D is character classes. 3e+ D&D is a bloated mess of artificially distinct character classes that are essentially variations of warriors, casters and specialists/rogues (the only three classes that should exist) with an overinflated mess of fiddly features that are hard to recall and add to bookkeeping. I prefer streamlined classes that follow an easy to remember minimalistic and standardized pattern of core features that I can use on the fly to improvise NPCs or automatically know what abilities PCs have without having to consult the manual to determine which of hundreds of fiddly barely useful features that class gets each level. And to leave the entirety of the complexity and distinctiveness to Skills, Feats and perhaps backgrounds and/or 2e style “kits”, where they belong.

All that having one hundred and fifty thousand “different” classes that are really just casters, warriors or rogues does is complicate the game and add a bunch of inconsistent, hard to track and often arbitrarily level-gated features that add to bookkeeping and lead to an out of control spiral of ever expanding artificially distinct classes every time someone has a different take on what the thing they call “warlock”, “paladin” or “wizard” should be like. And on the topic of casters in particular, you don’t have an entirely different combat system for every single warrior class. Combat is just combat. An individual warrior may have one or two different tricks up their sleeve (preferably acquired through feats), but they all use basically the same consistent combat rules.

Casters should be the same. The game is already complicated enough with an over-bloated list of hundreds of arbitrarily level-gated spells that are really just variations of “causes fire damage”, “reads minds” or “heals damage”, etc., without adding to it by also giving every caster class an artificially distinct system to ultimately just cause fire damage, read minds or heal damage. Differences should be RPed or based on skills, feats or background-type stuff that simply adds to a baseline core class rather than reinventing the wheel every time someone has a new take that’s really just a warrior...but sneaky, a wizard...but has pets, or a rogue...but has a few spells.

Philotomy Jurament

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #28 on: September 17, 2020, 05:29:51 PM »
When I hear "warlock" the first thing I think of is "male witch," in general.


In gaming terms, the next thing I think of is the level title for an 8th level magic-user in AD&D.


After that, I think of the Warlock order (kinda like a class) from Gygax's Lejendary Adventure RPG. It's a magic-user type character that practices "necrourgy," which deals with contacting, calling, commanding, and creating living dead creatures and spirits, as well as related magic.
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Slipshot762

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Re: When I hear the word Warlock...
« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2020, 12:54:00 AM »
Whenever I hear the word Warlock the first thing I think of is how the rendered fat of an unbaptized male child is the primary ingredient in a potion of flying.


i thought i was the only one.