Warlock or Wizard?

[cbrekkas]

Hi

I'm trying to decide between playing a magic user but not really sure which OCC to pick as each would be fun. I'm looking for any suggestions since this is my first time playing a magic user in Palladium Fantasy.

Thanks

[Orin J.]

both are good, consider how you're going to play them personality wise and go from there.

[cbrekkas]

both are good, consider how you're going to play them personality wise and go from there.

Thanks. I see that Wizards have a wider spread of spells but Warlock have a elemental familiar but limited spell selection.

[kiralon]

Wizards tend to be buffers, and the higher level spells they cant really use as an adventurer easily because of ppe costs, but tend more towards scholarly interests.
Warlocks tend to be more direct damage and can summon elementals which is scary.

[Veknironth]

Well, Kiralon has the meat of it. Another thing to consider is that Wizards start out with more spells at first level, and they have options from up to level 4 spells. Warlocks are stuck at level 1, and those level one spells aren't that great (I know, I know, Cloud of Slumber). Wizards are also more malleable and create a greater array of effects. They can also learn spells at any level. So, it seems like the Wizard is the obvious choice. What you don't see is how devastating Warlocks can be. Their spells can do so much to affect the environment and elementals are juggernauts. By level seven, they can break the game.

-Vek
"River of Lava."

[cbrekkas]

Thanks. Yea I was leaning towards the Warlock? Any suggestions which element?

[Kraynic]

That is really something that can only be answered based on what sort of character (personality) you will be making and the setting of the game.

Obviously, fire is the raw destruction element, though it does have some interesting utility abilities. If nothing else, depending on how many pyromaniacs there are in your party, the ability to instantly smother fires may come in very handy at times. And I've always liked the visual image of a fire warlock running out of food and sitting down to eat some of their campfire... If you will be fighting a bunch of demons/devils and such things, then most of those are immune or resistant to fire. You do have access to some cold based things if you take them, and fire resistance/immunity is something you need to keep in mind.

If you are going to be doing much around ships, then it is hard to beat air. If you choose to go that route, you can dish out some pain through electricity, either direct strikes or area effects. Air has a lot of nice utility spells (like invisibility) and the benefit of an elemental summon that is naturally invisible.

Water is possibly the second best for being out at sea, though it probably goes to the best if your games include lots of huge waves. Being able to cut them in half or more might very well save your vessel and those on it. Water isn't as directly offensive (though there are definitely a few spells of that order), but the various fogs and mists should be pretty effective. It also has some pretty cool utility abilities. I mean, you summon little wave shaped personal surf boards. If water is going to be scarce in the game, this would be king. Eventually, you can create water or turn just about any liquid into water.

Earth is (or at least can be) the transmuter. You can focus (if you wish) on being able to turn substances into other substances. For the most part earth is more utility, and is somewhat slow to get really offensive. But when you do get an offensive spell, it is usually something really nasty with a sizable AoE. Their utility spells can be pretty nice for a group. Chameleon and Encase Object in Stone are a couple of my favorites from earth.

Obviously I'm not going in depth on the various elements. The type of game, environmental setting of the game, and the way you envision your character will be what should decide what element you end up choosing. Well, that is the way I would go about it anyway.

[Library Ogre]

Also to consider about elementals: They have a lot of spell-summons that can serve as PPE batteries. You summon a Little Mud Mound elemental for 35 PPE, and it has 100 PPE that it will happily give you. Summons also provide some great action economy bonus... Spend an action to summon a Little Mud Mound, and you get 3 extra actions from a butt-kicking pile of ooze. Spend your next action to summon a LMM, and you get 3 more actions. Even if you aren't borrowing their PPE to summon more (each of them has enough to summon 2 more, so you can do this all day), you can throw tons of power around with relatively little effort.

Consider, for example, a 5th level Earth Elementalist with 155 PPE... about average. That means they can cast LMM 4 times without recharging, and those 4 LMMs will last 2.5 hours each. During that time, they could each convert 480 pounds of stone to mud (without recovering the PPE at all), so you could clear, literally, nearly a ton of stone without needing to recharge. Just turn it all into mud and let it dry. Rot Wood is cheaper, so you can do 750 pounds of wood per elemental per summoning (without PPE recovery)... a ton and a half of trees turned into mulch.

If they recover from each of those summoned LMMs enough to pay for the summoning, they can do a truly unreasonable amount of landscaping in a short amount of time... summon them, take the PPE to recharge yourself, tell them to use the rest of their PPE to turn rock into mud (300 pounds each), then go home. At 1 summon a round (including time to cast the summoning, get the PPE, and give the orders), 4 summons a minute, 8 hours a day, you're looking at half a million pounds of rock turned into mud each day... and the warlock never goes below 120 PPE.

Air Warlocks are even more frightening.

[cbrekkas]

Thanks. I'm going with Air Warlock.

[Hotrod]

I'll compare the two in several ways:

Spell Selection and Flexibility: I'd call this a toss-up. Wizards can be more flexible than warlocks, but, but wizards have to learn spells to keep up with the automatic spells warlocks get as they level up. My experience has been that most GMs don't afford you a lot of opportunities to pick up new spells as a wizard (or circles as a summoner).

Power: I'd call this a toss-up.

In-game/cultural factors: Warlocks tend to be more socially accepted in a wider variety of cultures. Wizards have to deal with more prejudice.

Special Abilities: Advantage warlocks here. They get some nice perks. Enchanted Cauldrons are gross and lame.

Skills: I'd give wizards a slight advantage here; they get somewhat better bonuses, an extra secondary skill, and have a slightly broader selection.

In general, I'd go with the Warlock over the wizard unless I get a really good vibe with the GM and/or there's some kind of synergy within the party that favors me playing a wizard.

[ShadowHawk]

It depends on what you do with them. Example: you could have a fire earth warlock who later on focuses on metallurgy and smithing. Or an earth warlock who focuses on construction. Or a water/air warlock who focuses on sailing. Etc.

[Curbludgeon]

This isn't applicable in Palladium Fantasy, but in a Phase World game a Space Warlock (either Air or Air/X) is redonkulous. In a higher powered game I could even see an argument for a fantasy take on the notion, substituting Space magic selections for the Star Magic of the Zodiac Mage in Rifter 50.

[Axelmania]

Spend an action to summon a Little Mud Mound

My first reaction was to quip "wait doesn't PF2 use the long casting times like Nightbane and pre-RUE Rifts?" but then I remembered Heart of Magic had some options to bring it up to RUE-ish speeds.

It's kind of a power creep so I wish there was some kind of balancing option, like use the lower times as a baseline but you pay twice the PPE, and it takes double the lower times to cast at normal PPE.

Consider, for example, a 5th level Earth Elementalist with 155 PPE... about average. That means they can cast LMM 4 times without recharging, and those 4 LMMs will last 2.5 hours each. During that time, they could each convert 480 pounds of stone to mud (without recovering the PPE at all), so you could clear, literally, nearly a ton of stone without needing to recharge. Just turn it all into mud and let it dry. Rot Wood is cheaper, so you can do 750 pounds of wood per elemental per summoning (without PPE recovery)... a ton and a half of trees turned into mulch.

If they recover from each of those summoned LMMs enough to pay for the summoning, they can do a truly unreasonable amount of landscaping in a short amount of time... summon them, take the PPE to recharge yourself, tell them to use the rest of their PPE to turn rock into mud (300 pounds each), then go home. At 1 summon a round (including time to cast the summoning, get the PPE, and give the orders), 4 summons a minute, 8 hours a day, you're looking at half a million pounds of rock turned into mud each day... and the warlock never goes below 120 PPE.

Air Warlocks are even more frightening.

and a 2nd level summoner can start this chain with an elemental of their choice and replace them much easier than warlocks can (warlock rituals take a LONG time to summon lesser elementals, 2d6 hours in PF, even 2d6 minutes in rifts is forever compared to the time it takes to activate a summoning circle)

Elementals should be a huge go-to for summoners. They're the only type of minion who just vanish when you lose control of them (never seek revenge) and who you don't have to kill animals to summon (a juicy apple!)

[Library Ogre]

and a 2nd level summoner can start this chain with an elemental of their choice and replace them much easier than warlocks can (warlock rituals take a LONG time to summon lesser elementals, 2d6 hours in PF, even 2d6 minutes in rifts is forever compared to the time it takes to activate a summoning circle)

Elementals should be a huge go-to for summoners. They're the only type of minion who just vanish when you lose control of them (never seek revenge) and who you don't have to kill animals to summon (a juicy apple!)

A 2nd level summoner is limited to controlling one at a time; at 5th level, he can manage 2. At 5th level, the Warlock can have tons of LMMs (or equivalent, spell-summoned, essence fragments). We're not talking the full elementals, summoned with the warlock ability... just the spell-based fragments.

[Axelmania]

A 2nd level summoner is limited to controlling one at a time; at 5th level, he can manage 2.
At 5th level, the Warlock can have tons of LMMs (or equivalent, spell-summoned, essence fragments).
We're not talking the full elementals, summoned with the warlock ability... just the spell-based fragments.

Good point. Lesser elementals can only cast spells 1-4 and Phantom/LMM are just out of reach...

However a 4th level summoner (3rd level shifter) can summoner any major elemental (cast ALL elemental spells) to do this LMM chain for them Just swap them out every couple weeks so they never accrue any bonuses to break free...

Hm... to roll above summoner ME (or shifter MA) allows ME bonuses or bonuses vs mind control...

Looking at D+G writeups there's a bit of an attribute gap, pg 54 only refers to IQ/PS... pg 55 the Minor Earth Elemental only lists IQ/PS/PP/Spd... I guess there's no ME bonus if there's no ME?

Pg 56 mentions +5 vs magic and +4 vs psi, impervious to HF and +14 vs possession... but no bonus vs mind control.

I guess that means elementals have no bonus at all so if you have ME 21 you're guaranteed to control them?