The Complete Arcane warlock’s signature invocation1 is eldritch blast, a ray of arcane power that grows in damage with warlock levels. The warlock can further modify the eldritch blast using specialized invocations known as blast shapes and eldritch essences.
Numerous feats and prestige classes also require eldritch blast, or require that your eldritch blast deal a certain amount of damage (which roughly corresponds to warlock level plus any prestige classes that progress warlock invocations).
Is there any way to get eldritch blast, or at least qualify for things that require eldritch blast, without actually having any levels in the warlock class? I am guessing “no,” but it would be nice to be surprised. I don’t care about any other warlock class features, including blast shape or eldritch essence invocations, in this context, just eldritch blast. Importantly, a solution must be able to qualify for things that require eldritch blast by name—achieving any kind of similar ability, no matter how similar, won’t work unless it has the actual name “eldritch blast.”
Note, since it has come up in answers and comments, that eldritch blast is not technically on the warlock invocation list (they learn it automatically at 1st level and so it is not included in the list), so getting to select an invocation off of that list does not help.
Any material Wizards of the Coast published for the 3.5e revised edition of D&D, as well as any 3.5e content from Dragon or Dungeon magazines, are acceptable. Content from other systems, such as Pathfinder or other editions of D&D, is not acceptable. Seriously, this is not a 5e question, I know in 5e I could take Magic Initiate but this is a different system where that feat does not exist.
- HeyICanChan correctly points out that Complete Arcane does not, on the page 7 description of eldritch blast, specify that it is an invocation, and then on page 8 does state that “Eldritch blast is not an invocation.” However, WannabeWarlock points out, also correctly, that this was changed in the errata for Complete Arcane, which says “Change [the page 8 section that says eldritch blast is not an invocation] as follows: […] Eldritch blast is an invocation,” and furthermore specifies that “Any other references claiming that eldritch blast is not an invocation should be disregarded.”
Best Answer
I don't know of any good ways to do this. Here are the dumb ways I found:
Highly dubious: Wild Shape into an Aspect of Graz'zt as a Planar Shepherd
The Aspect of Graz'zt (Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, p. 184) has Eldritch Blast (by that exact name, and explicitly calling out the Warlock ability in its description) as a spell-like ability. If you can acquire the SLAs of an Aspect of Graz'zt, you can gain this ability.
Unfortunately, most forms of shapeshifting magic in 3.5 don't grant SLAs. The only exception I'm aware of is Planar Shepherd's version of Wild Shape (Faiths of Eberron, p. 105), which conveniently also allows Wild Shaping into Outsiders.
Now you just have to convince your DM that:
Realms-specificnon-Eberron-specific multiversal) can be used alongside Planar Shepherd (Eberron-specific) in a character build.Good luck!
Dubious and impractical: Steal Spell-Like Ability
The Spellthief class (Complete Adventurer, p. 13) gains the ability to steal spell-like abilities from other creatures at level 5. If you have a friendly or captured Warlock nearby (or an Aspect of Graz'zt, I suppose), you can use this ability to steal Eldritch Blast.
According to the description of the Spellthief ability (emphasis mine):
...so there's a RAW argument to be made that having the ability stolen as a Spellthief would let you count it for prerequisites.
Unfortunately, even if your DM lets that one fly, there's another snag:
So in order to use this to qualify for something, you need to either anticipate to the minute when you're going to level up, or else keep a captive Warlock within reach 100% of the time to re-steal Eldritch Blast every 60 seconds. Have fun with that.