| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| ShadowJack |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 13:09:24
Sages,
The most recent article by Eytan Bernstein (Class Chronicles)is dealing with Warlocks, a class that i like, but have never had a chance to play. Needless to say i think it is a great article with some good tidbits of lore. As I do not like to play evil characters I would want to play a good-aligned warlock. Mr. Bernstein mentions warlocks allied with the Unseelie. What do you think a chaotic good warlock allied with the Seelie Court would look like? Where would be a good starting region, the High Forest? Obviously, a half-elf could be from the Yuirwood, which could make an interesting background, considering the mention of the Sildeyuir Warlocks... Let me hear your ideas... |
| 21 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 31 Mar 2007 : 19:47:18
quote:
Originally posted by ShadowJack
Sages,
The most recent article by Eytan Bernstein (Class Chronicles)is dealing with Warlocks, a class that i like, but have never had a chance to play. Needless to say i think it is a great article with some good tidbits of lore. As I do not like to play evil characters I would want to play a good-aligned warlock. Mr. Bernstein mentions warlocks allied with the Unseelie. What do you think a chaotic good warlock allied with the Seelie Court would look like? Where would be a good starting region, the High Forest? Obviously, a half-elf could be from the Yuirwood, which could make an interesting background, considering the mention of the Sildeyuir Warlocks... Let me hear your ideas...
I think a fey warlock would look like Uncle Arthur. 
NOT IN THE FACE! PLEASE! NOT IN THE FACE!
|
| Foxhelm |
Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 21:44:21
It might be easier to look at the Charisma skills and an idea of what Charisma is.
Bluff, Intimdate, Perform, Diplomacy, Use Magical Device, Handle Animals, Gather Information, and Disguise.
All involve convincing something (person, animal, object) to do or think something that you want them to do or think.
Either convincing that wand that you are a wizard, convincing that animal to attack upon command, convince that crowd to give you money for dancing, or convincing that guard that you belong in that out of bounds room. All of these takes Charisma.
Does that help? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 21:09:43
quote:
Originally posted by Foxhelm
One way to think of Charisma is as the power to influence people. To convince people to do what you want them to do.
This I understand. I just didn't explain myself well enough, I guess...
quote:
Originally posted by Foxhelm
Tieflings get a lower Cha on the whole as their creepiness makes people less likely to want to do what they say.
This is the point I was getting at... For most people, a person's looks can be quite influential. It's certainly not the entirety of Charisma, but it is a factor. Thus, someone with an obviously fiendish/demonic heritage is going to have a harder time dealing with average people. |
| Foxhelm |
Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 20:27:27
One way to think of Charisma is as the power to influence people. To convince people to do what you want them to do. Tieflings get a lower Cha on the whole as their creepiness makes people less likely to want to do what they say.
Like trusting a man that 'looks' like a child molester. Even though you have proof that he is an excellent child care provider and has never touched a child, you might feel like you can't trust him or he is just waiting for his moment to commit the crime.
Undead and Demons have high charisma for the reason that they can influence people as well. They might commonly tell lies and use threats (Bluff and Intimadate, both Charisma skills). Diplomacy skills are also useful to manipulate prey into turning to undeath or evil. Plus undead usually replaces Con checks with Cha checks for their powers like poisons.
Other ideas might be a feat that gives a bonus to Cha and Intimate checks plus a higher Diplomacy checks penalty due to monsterous appearance for Tieflings.
Just posting my thoughts. |
| EytanBernstein |
Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 20:11:29
quote:
Originally posted by ShadowJack
In light of Eytan's article I am really excited about designing a fey warlock that serves the Seelie court, maybe after a mis-spent youth serving some evil deity... Titania sponsors warlocks as a counter to the Queen of Air and Darkness sponsoring the warlock covens in the Kryptgarden Forest... The lore Mr. Bernstein gave us on the Tairemgira was very good! Can anyone give me more info on King WitchThorn? Is he a Realms-specific NPC? Anyway, great article!
No problem. Witchthorn was first described in the "Verdant Princes in Faerun" entry on page 173 of Monster Manual IV. Thanks for the feedback. |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 16:25:28
Not that I'm a designer or anything . . . but tieflings are kinda my favorite character race (have been that way since my first experiences with AD&D).
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
But Wooly, charisma isn't only about appearance, or ghouls wouldn't have a +1 to it in 3/3.5e and ghasts wouldn't have a +3! Appearance only plays a part of charisma.
True... But appearance is a factor. I don't know why those undead types would have bonuses, though, unless it was a charm effect...
As I understand it, Charisma is also about force of personality -- strength of character. A person who walks into a crowded room and instantly becomes the center of attention, would be a person of high charisma, as would a political leader who looks like a dog (or ape, etc.) but has an amazing speaking ability.
Creatures of great power -- ghosts, vampires, demons, etc. -- have high charisma scores, because it's just *not possible* to ignore them, and they have the backing of ages to what they say. Same (to a lesser extent) with ghouls and other mindful undead.
Also, I guess Charisma might be about memorability -- you never forget that hot gal who smiled at you on the subway, for instance -- and I suppose (one could make a case, silly as it would be) that that's why ghouls/ghasts have a positive charisma: it's kinda hard to forget one of them. 
All that, however, seems to point toward tieflings having a *high* charisma instead of a low, but I suppose it might be a matter of growing up in a society that loathes and fears you for your heritage. The ability to pass unseen and go unremembered might be highly rated, and those tieflings without high charisma are the ones who tend to attract less attention from do-gooders and easily swayed townsfolk (etc.), thus to survive, ergo low charisma is an evolutionarily selected trait.
(Then again, so many tieflings seem to get by on their wit and charm and bluffing abilities -- here I'm thinking of my "master liar" character* . . .)
Such an argument might apply to half-orcs as well, but I suppose orcs as a society favor brawn (STR) over charm (CHA), much like dwarves would favor hardiness (CON). Thereby leaders inspire by their martial abilities, rather than their affability and appeal.
Cheers
*My master liar being a tiefling rogue / thrall of baalzebul with maxed ranks in bluff and a circlet of persuasion. (He has like a +16 bluff at 3rd level.) His MO is thus:
1) never pay for a night in an inn -- there's always a barmaid or two or three to charm;
2) never, ever "break even" on a job -- always come out ahead;
3) never actually fight anything with a brain (INT over 5) that you can talk your way out of -- at least not fairly.
4) Never pay full price for anything -- bargain, bargain, bargain, and make the salesman cry himself to sleep that night.
EDIT: I really like one of those earlier suggestions; I think in my games I'm going to houserule that tieflings in my game get a -2 wisdom instead of -2 charisma, much like I have half-elves getting +2 charisma (without any other penalties). |
| ShadowJack |
Posted - 30 Mar 2007 : 15:50:00
In light of Eytan's article I am really excited about designing a fey warlock that serves the Seelie court, maybe after a mis-spent youth serving some evil deity... Titania sponsors warlocks as a counter to the Queen of Air and Darkness sponsoring the warlock covens in the Kryptgarden Forest... The lore Mr. Bernstein gave us on the Tairemgira was very good! Can anyone give me more info on King WitchThorn? Is he a Realms-specific NPC? Anyway, great article! |
| EytanBernstein |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 22:07:34
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Eytan is your warlock who makes a cameo in a sourcebook still NDA?
It was a cameo in Dragons of Faerun. That aspect is not NDA. The details of his life (beyond what's printed in the first article) are still NDA. |
| Kaladorm |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 21:01:03
Eytan is your warlock who makes a cameo in a sourcebook still NDA? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 20:55:46
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
But Wooly, charisma isn't only about appearance, or ghouls wouldn't have a +1 to it in 3/3.5e and ghasts wouldn't have a +3! Appearance only plays a part of charisma.
True... But appearance is a factor. I don't know why those undead types would have bonuses, though, unless it was a charm effect... |
| Kuje |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 20:25:49
But Wooly, charisma isn't only about appearance, or ghouls wouldn't have a +1 to it in 3/3.5e and ghasts wouldn't have a +3! Appearance only plays a part of charisma. |
| EytanBernstein |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 20:24:10
Charisma is actually much less important to warlocks than it is to sorcerers and bards. All it effects are the save DCs of warlock invocations. Most of those don't even have save DCs. It's quite easy to build a warlock without a single save DC invocation and even if you have a few, the -1 to them shouldn't make a big difference. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 18:51:07
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Why exactly do the tieflings have a penalty to charisma? From a gaming perspective it seems they should be almost 'equal' to Aasimar, their mirrored twin .
Well, the physical description says they usually have features that a lot of people would find slightly disconcerting. It's easy to talk to someone with a similar appearance, but not so easy when that person has red scales and smells like brimstone. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 18:50:24
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Why exactly do the tieflings have a penalty to charisma? From a gaming perspective it seems they should be almost 'equal' to Aasimar, their mirrored twin .
Well, the physical description says they usually have features that a lot of people would find slightly disconcerting. It's easy to talk to someone with a similar appearance, but not so easy when that person has red scales and smells like brimstone. |
| Kuje |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 17:35:28
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Why exactly do the tieflings have a penalty to charisma? From a gaming perspective it seems they should be almost 'equal' to Aasimar, their mirrored twin .
They didn't until 3e changed their stat modifiers. If you look at the 2e modifiers, in the Planewalker's Handbook from Planescape, they actually had a +1 modifier to charisma. |
| Rinonalyrna Fathomlin |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 16:16:39
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Why exactly do the tieflings have a penalty to charisma? From a gaming perspective it seems they should be almost 'equal' to Aasimar, their mirrored twin .
True--it's not like powerful demons tend to have low CHA scores...
Not that I'm a huge fan of warlocks (least of all "good warlocks"), but that's my opinion. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 15:54:27
Here is the link to the current article:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070314
My son was playing a lythari sorcerer who died, and has come back as a hellbred warlock. Even without the tie to the infernal, I can picture lythari, with their ties to the fey, having some warlocks (and after reading Frostfell and seeing how lythari "shamen" seem to be arcane/divine multi classers, I thought a lythari tribe with an eldritch theurge from Complete Mage might be interesting as well). |
| Kaladorm |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 15:30:21
Why exactly do the tieflings have a penalty to charisma? From a gaming perspective it seems they should be almost 'equal' to Aasimar, their mirrored twin .
I've got to come up with a new character concept and the idea of a Fey or Planetouched Warlock interested me too, can't wait for the articles (by the way could someone provide me with a link for the current ones please?) |
| Foxhelm |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 14:29:14
quote:
Originally posted by Dargoth
When I first read about the Warlock class I considered changing it to the Tielfings favoured class but then I released that with the racial penalty to Cha Tieflings take it makes the class a bad choice for them, ironicly enough Aasimars are more suited to Warlock class and the "Font of Dark magic" then Tieflings
You could also the DM to introduce the ability to replace a -2 penalty to Cha with a -2 penalty to Con or Wis (Int is also possible, but doesn't seem to fit).
To do this try bribes. |
| Dargoth |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 13:47:17
When I first read about the Warlock class I considered changing it to the Tielfings favoured class but then I released that with the racial penalty to Cha Tieflings take it makes the class a bad choice for them, ironicly enough Aasimars are more suited to Warlock class and the "Font of Dark magic" then Tieflings |
| EytanBernstein |
Posted - 15 Mar 2007 : 13:35:18
quote:
Originally posted by ShadowJack
Sages,
The most recent article by Eytan Bernstein (Class Chronicles)is dealing with Warlocks, a class that i like, but have never had a chance to play. Needless to say i think it is a great article with some good tidbits of lore. As I do not like to play evil characters I would want to play a good-aligned warlock. Mr. Bernstein mentions warlocks allied with the Unseelie. What do you think a chaotic good warlock allied with the Seelie Court would look like? Where would be a good starting region, the High Forest? Obviously, a half-elf could be from the Yuirwood, which could make an interesting background, considering the mention of the Sildeyuir Warlocks... Let me hear your ideas...
The second half will deal with elven, fey, fey'ri, and planetouched warlocks. I think there should be a good amount of ideas and lore there. |
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