Silly question - evocation vs conjuration

[voodoogroves]

Just a silly question - since you're ignoring the SR aspect of the eldritch blast (ignoring lore / core for practicality) have you considered making it not be simply another evocation? We're loaded with evocation, and it might be fun / good to see conjuration get some focus.

It would create another set of paths / options for past lives - right now this looks to be another class where wizard 1 / sorc 3 is a great past life train - the benefit from cleric PLs is fairly limited in usefulness and could be a fun twist to add into the mix.

If not for each blast, maybe for some / some shapes and/or the pacts? I'm still not sold on "will for acid damage" blatant mechanical oddity - you're trying to force too much difference into the pacts.

[Tlorrd]

Agree make it conjuration for the school ... Adds flavor and variety.

[dunklezhan]

Agree make it conjuration for the school ... Adds flavor and variety.

And makes sense in that whole 'channelling power from somewhere else' type thing. Conjuration might have been a nice option. Either that, or make the extra elemental damage an illusion - simultaneously making all of the pacts a consistent 'save for no effect' rather than one of them being subject to evasion, and giving Spell Focus Illusion a point beyond PK.

Having said that, apart from the wierdness of the different saves, the different pact damage types are pretty balanced: Sonic is rarely resisted/immune but there is next to nothing 'vulnerable' to it; Fire is the most commonly resisted/immune but its also very common to encounter vulnerable mobs, and there's tons of +fire gear out there; Acid is resisted/immuned more then sonic but much less than fire, and vulnerable mobs are much more plentiful than sonic vulnerable mobs. This is quite a long way from being really balanced though, so they did the crazy save thing to balance it some more: sonic can pretty commonly be avoided entirely and certainly will get saved against often; Fire is aligned with another strong save type so will commonly be saved for half but given the number of things that would be blown away in seconds due to fire vulnerability that's deemed to be ok; Acid is pretty useless against casters sure, but casters have low hp so your force damage will get them. Beyond that the wierd saves are intended as additional balance factors you have to factor that in too if you change anything.

Personally, I think that the number of things that are fire-immune and that fort save far, far outweighs the benefits vs vulnerable/non resistant mobs. Just as with Elemental Savants, of the three choices I would personally very likely go Acid. The list of outright immune mobs is very small/rarely encountered in my experience, and even the resistant ones don't tend to be that resistant. Acid is probably the only one where it's worth prioritising equally your pact damage type boosts with your force boosts. Either that, or ALL warlocks will prioritise force over everything else, and pact damage will be seen as just gravy when it works.