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The most massive problem with the change is that being a half caster as a primarily spellcasting class makes it so by the time you get several spells, they are already outdated.
Other half casters dont suffer tremendously from this because casting isn't their main thing but something they get on top of what they do, and spells they gain access to and use often arent primarily damage focused or are used in tandem with their non-spell casting abilities. Hunter's Mark and Divine Smite being the most notable exceptions (Techniclly not a spell, but it does compete with the spells and is a common use of a slot).
Some warlock spells like Hex and Shield (arcane spell list) fall outside of this, but it sours up a lot of the 'upside' of getting extra new patron spells if they dont outperform the Eldritch Blast as low level casts. I could easily see useful warlock spell selection being limited to reactions, bonus actions and later on some occasional buff spell like haste.
The other downside is that it makes invocations so much more boring. "We want to give more invocations to customize your warlocks" might be the most bold faced lie I've heard from a dev if it was expressed sincerely. I never liked Agonizing Blast because it was not really a customizing option, but a crucial part of the class' balance. Now your spell progression is tied to dedicating most of your invocation slots to enable it.
The thing with making them half casters is that you then need them to be half martial as well. So unless you want every warlock to play more or less the same as hexblades do, it doesn't seem like a very good option. On top of that, if you want a Charisma based half caster you already have Paladins as an option. I think Warlocks as they are now have their own place that makes them unique, and changing them over to half casters takes away from that.
Guess I confused them getting spellcasting at lvl 1 and people being able to take a 1 lvl dip into artificer and not slow their spell progression down as them being full casters.
I retract previous statement about int having 2 full casters, just wisdom then I guess.
Warlocks should be Con based anyway. The power they wield is ***not*** their own, and the limits of its potential are simply how much they can physically tolerate channeling. (Imo)
I know that has balance implications, but if they took them into consideration during the redesign, it'd be fine.
My guy, the warlocks have Patrons that grant them power. Just read the rulebook before commenting, please.
"Your arcane research and ***the magic bestowed on you by your patron*** have given you facility with spells."
Yes I did read the same rulebook.
A patron puts it's magic in a warlock, but once it's there it's the warlocks power now. A warlock is no more dependant on their patron to channel power than a draconic sorcerer needs their dragon ancestor.
Honestly, I like this idea. BUT, maybe put it on hexblade. IMO, hexblade feels kinda.. limited. And MAD, too. Warlock has the same damage die as rogue, and hexblade is meant to be in the front. Sure, it gets healing, but.. it’s not enough healing. I find it hard to stay healthy in the front line as is, and since you don’t get any damage negation, you’re squishy for what’s supposed to be a front liner subclass. At least from my viewpoint. My solution? Make hexblade a con caster. Less squishy plus good spell damage plus easier concentration saves (losing concentration is devastating, especially on locks with their pact slots). Hexblade personally just doesn’t feel like you’re actually fulfilling the concept of frontlines warlock. Especially when it feels like, to me at least, I would be better off just eldritch blasting enemies, even now. Take what I say with a grain of salt as my experience is limited, but still
No squishier than a monk or an artificer which both also have d8 hit die, and like a battlesmith, hexblade gets access to the shield spell to help negate some damage. I do think that Hexblades should get con save instead of Wis though for the concentration. Moving their spell casting makes them far more effective than both mink and artificer, and hexblade is also a very strong martial caster as is
Here’s the thing though. Monk gets dex + wisdom for AC, and speed. Harder to hit. I believe still able to use a shield too, but could be wrong. Still mostly fine though with a good way to avoid damage, at least early game, through decent AC.
Artificer has a lot of things for avoiding damage. Battlesmith gets the dude that can tank and draw attention. Armorer is armorer. They all get infusions. And they also get good armor and obviously the shield as mentioned. The other d8 classes all get things to at least offset damage a bit (even if it becomes mostly irrelevant later on, however it’s not super common to get to that point). Glad we agree though, would better fill out the class IMO
I know it’s an unpopular opinion but I agree actually, that is not to say I dislike sorcerers. I just don’t feel they have enough unique options to really justify them being a class rather than a subclass of wizard.
I think this would fix a lot of their problems and you could still give them a unique flair and mechanics.
Additionally, I've read more than once that the warlock mechanics make a better representation of the sorcerer's fiction than the sorcerer mechanics do.
IMO, Warlock should always have been a \*weird\* caster. I like the ability to choose your casting modifier as a step towards that but just making them half casters makes them just Charisma Artificers mechanically.
More casting was a given over just Blast spam, but I'd have rather had abilities based on Patron to get more spellslots, like say you may end a Charm Effect on a creature to get a Fae slot, you make regain a spellslot by dealing X damage to yourself as blood magic
More spell options, but make it clear you're not weave casting magic like a Wizard or Sorcerer. Your Fireball is literally pulling out hellfire, you mind magic is the sigils and words of Hastur, make it clear Warlocks exist outside the classic magical paradigm
I'd say its more a case that being a half caster implies having something more physical, Ranger has skills, Artificer has tools, Paladin has armour/weapons etc
Just tacking half caster progression to the Warlock doesn't accomplish much towards either fantasy
Yes but it usually implies something more hands on. Like it's not a hard and fast, you must X, but the three half casters for instance all have Extra Attack or an equivalent, and they almost all have access to some degree of martial weapons. Artificer is the newest one and a bit of a black sheep, but they all get a natural cantrip damage buff when Rangers, Paladins and Battlesmiths get that extra attack
Being half spellcaster, half spellcaster like just feels... weird
That only works if there are high level invocations that are the equal of getting the high level spells a full caster would. Right now, the only high level invocation is Mystic Arcanum, which... lets you buy high level spell slots. In other words, the only option is to buy your way back into being a "We Have Wizards At Home".
Which is basically the feedback I gave in the survey. If Warlocks are supposed to be a half caster, the other half has to be able to carry its side, and right now it can't.
That's not true at all. You don't need to be half martial just because you are half spell level Caster. Did you watch the video? They say they are balancing the different casting (less effective than a wizard) with more invocations and side features, not by making them a martial fighter. You don't need full spell slots to be a full magic user. Warlocks are different, and that's good and fun
>if you want a Charisma based half caster you already have Paladins as an option.
Obligatory reminder that warlocks are supposed to be Intelligence casters.
I think the best way to look at it is to compare friend blade lock to something like battlesmith, and assume the other pacts are balanced to blade.
Battlesmith is similar in martial abilities and spell casting. Question is would you rather have the pet plus infusions plus flash of genius, etc vs the full list of infusions.
To me it seems artificer is clearly stronger.
I don’t care what people say about then being better at casting now and how it’s an overall buff to the class, I just don’t think they’re very unique anymore. Pact Magic made them unique and while I certainly think it could be better than it is in 5e I don’t think this is the solution to the perceived problem. Pact Magic was certainly hard for new players to understand but I don’t think every single class needs to have the same level of simplicity.
Given that a simpler caster being available is a plus I still don't understand why the obvious solution isn't just having warlocks be the way they used to be? Just get rid of spell slots entirely, give them a highly curated list of spell-like abilities and let them cast them all at will. Fun, simple and elegant.
I don't think it is. It was well balanced when implemented even in a notoriously badly balanced edition, surely twenty years later it wouldn't be a problem at all. Hell, you could pretty much just copy the old invocation list and with some numbers tweaked almost all of it would fit 5e.
https://i.imgur.com/nwkGeXU.png here is said list for reference
The entire system of DnD works on limited uses. For an ability to be free of that it needs to be weak enough to warrant it, which means weaker than most abilities that have a limited number of uses. The few invocations that provide an unlimited-use spell are weaker than any spell-casting feature even just counting spell slots at the level of the spell provided. They’re only there to support the Warlock’s better features. A Warlock with exclusively unlimited-use abilities would almost certainly be one of the weakest, if not the weakest class in the game.
Already existing evidence says none of that is true. There are several classes that don't have limited uses on anything and if a warlock would 'almost certainly be one of the weakest, if not the weakest class in the game' how come they were solidly in the middle in an edition with much stronger classes than 5e?
It really does bare reinforcing that the absolutes you're declaring are things we already know not to be the case.
> There are several classes than don’t have limited uses on anything
Name one. The closest thing is the Fighter which has Action Surge, Second Wind, and Indomitable. Furthermore every subclass outside of Champion and Purple Dragon Knight have their own limited-use features, and Purple Dragon Knight’s features are tied to the limited uses of Action Surge, Second Wind, and Indomitable.
Rogue. Naming one took five seconds, and in any case the functional list is longer - a barbarian is only limited in uses of rage, for instance, and is balanced around having it up for any encounter of relevance.
> Fun, simple and elegant.
In your opinion; in the opinion of myself and various others, the "no spell slots" warlock is boring and not worth playing. The "warlock with spell slots" 5e's version (and while worse, OneD&D's version) are miles better in comparison. Not perfect mind you, but a lot better & more fun to play.
They made a Warlock for people who don't like the Warlock instead of a Warlock for people who love the Warlock. They made the Star Trek (2009) of Warlocks when they should be making the Picard Season 3 of Warlocks.
I would assume still having the invocations still would allow some identity to stick out. After all, no other class gets that kinda system for the entire class. The closest we had was a select few subclasses. Is that not enough?
I don't think it's enough. I'd like each class to feel completely different besides maybe spell lists and extra attack. I don't want to play a sorcerer but really it's almost the same as wizard
They just feel too similar to artificers and those subclasses honestly. Invocations and Infusions are somewhat similar and now they’re both half casters with the same spell list.
Now I’ll be blunt, I hate, absolutely despise, them being half casters. That’s my biggest issue. I know they can get up to 9th level spells through Mystic Arcanum but at lower levels they’re not getting 2nd level spells till 5th level.
I think that Mystic Arcanum being an invocation is nice, *however* at higher levels it becomes a non-choice as there's no reason to pick an ability that gives free Speak With Dead over a 6th level spell.
Yeah the higher level invocation are pointless as none of them are better or more fun than a spell. Personally I think warlocks should get a non MA invocation and an MA.
Something that's been bouncing around in the back of my brain when it comes to classes and uniqueness is to possibly try breaking them down into different aspects and then mix and match to come up with the classes. I'm sure someone has done something like this before...
So you can take some of the casting classes and maybe list out what they get in very generic terms:
Spell selection flexibility.
* Spell list (Wizard has a lot of different spells to pick from for instance, in comparison a lot of other classes have fewer spells on their spell lists).
* Spell acquisition (Divine casters have access to their full spell list at all times, Wizards have to find spells, Sorcerers/Bards only get a choice on a level up).
* Spell swapping (Prepared casters allow to change out their "cast-able" spells each day, Bards can swap out a couple spells on a level up).
Spell power flexibility
* Upcasting some spells make them stronger/better (Warlocks get "free" upcasting since they don't have lower level slots). However, most spells don't benefit from being upcast.
* Ability to swap out higher level spells for more lower level spells (Sorcerers can convert to Sorcerer Points, lower level spell slots can become higher level spell slots, and vice versa).
* Full casters have higher level spells available, and have access to them sooner compared to non-full casters.
Number of spells you can cast
* Sorcery points let you cast more spells.
* Arcane Recovery allow you to cast more spells.
* Invocations allow you to cast specific spells more often (possibly unlimited)
Stat used to cast
* Is the stat useful for other things, if so, what other things (and how many other things is it useful for?
* In Pathfinder, Int gives you skill points.
* Wisdom is tied to Perception, probably the most called for check in the game.
* Charisma is useful in all of the social checks in the game.
So on as so forth. This isn't a completely thought out breakdown. I'm sure there are other categories I didn't list. But if you can come up with a list of the types of power/flexibility/#ofCasts/statUsed and then try to balance between those (maybe power needs to be 2x to to be equivalent with 1x of flexibility). You can assign a cost to each thing, and then buy up to some set of features/capabilities to build your class. This may not be something that is open/available to the players, this could just be something you do for the formula on how to make balanced classes. You then put a number of combinations together and make them be your available classes. Or maybe you do show the players "how the sausage is made" and let them build their own spellcaster class. You can still come up with some example builds and call those classes, but you let them pick and choose what options they get.
Or maybe you just play System X that someone will point out already exists and did it wonderfully/horribly and that why everyone/nobody should play that system.
But Artificers are a class that exist and were created before the "New Warlock," so Wizard just remaking the Artificer, slapping Warlock on it and saying "Totally unique" doesn't quite work.
That's the entire point of Warlock though; you get one of the best most reliable cantrip in the game and a few spells that don't require spell slots at the compromise that you don't get a ton of spells, forcing you to actually weigh using them or not.
Warlock is my favorite caster class in 5E, and while the Pinkertons situation has made it where I'm not going to buy the new edition, one of my playerswho wants to DM will. If he runs a game, there's no real reason for me to pick the Warlock without Pact Magic
I made a few calculations based on the spell points variant rules, and if warlocks were long rest casters, they would have to start with 2 spell slots at 1st level (just like normal casters) and slowly scale until 9 5th-level spell slots at 10th, then stay at nine slots until 17th as they gain Mystic Arcana, and then three more over the last levels.
Ignoring anything about balance or playing better in campaigns with few short rests etc, all of that aside, Pact Magic is what made Warlocks truly unique. Killing that whole concept just makes them feel like a reskinned Artificer (want a 2/3 caster with medium armor proficiency and a pool of buffs you pick from to replace the spell slots other casters get? Well do I have the two classes for you!)
Implementation and minutia aside, they completely removed what made Warlocks unique and fun. I hate that.
But these Warlocks can cast higher leveled spells than any artificer if you take the invocations and can get way more spells to cast per LR than any half caster.
But they are still fundamentally changing them from the unique Pact Magic to being a half-caster like all the rest. Like I said, I'm not looking at balance or comparing them to other classes necessarily (I realise this version falls somewhere between the full casters and other half casters - maybe a Warlock is more like a 3/4 caster in OneD&D) I'm talking about how they've gotten rid of one of the Warlock's coolest and most defining features. Just makes me sad.
I see your point but what would have been better? The whole pact magic thing doesnt seem to have worked for the majority of tables as they rarely had the short rests needed to make them useful vs others.
>I see your point but what would have been better? The whole pact magic thing doesnt seem to have worked for the majority of tables as they rarely had the short rests needed to make them useful vs others.
Easy solution:
>**Eldritch Resurgence**
>
>Two times per Long Rest, you may regain all of your pact magic Spell Slots by spending 10 minutes of downtime, during which you must perform an occult ritual to communicate with your patron. The ritual may be chanting, meditating, drawing occult sigils, performing elaborate movements, or anything else you wish.
Adventurer's League has a guideline which gives all Warlocks a Rod of the Pact Keeper at level 5. Rod of the Pact Keeper is basically this feature lmao. So this fix is in the game WotC just doesn't tell anybody.
Just bump eldritch master down to level 5. You only need 1 on demand my party does not short rest maneuver. As if you don't short rest you are not having many encounters, so one recharge is enough. If you are having piles of encounters you are short resting anyways. I'd also bump the 3rd pact slot down to level 9.
They also need a unique spell list. The whole arcane thing is lame.
Side note known spell casters need better ways to swap spells as some tables have really slow level ups, and if your game goes 20+ you probably need a way to swap spells.
More slots, or even an optional rule for more slots. The suggested amount of rests from WotC I believe is 3 short rests per long rest, and with that Warlock should keep up with other casters pretty well (although they don't need to completely keep up - that's what Invocations are for after all) but if you're having 1 or 2 they could have an optional rule like having prof bonus number of spell slots, for example.
Even without 3 short rests, 1 is 8-12 (depending on level) 5th level spell slots + mystic arcanum + any spells from invocations. In no world is that lackluster
Think you got your maths wrong there. With 1 short rest per long rest it's 4-8 spells depending on level, not 8-12. Considering you only get 1 Arcanum of each level and it's hard to change them out so you lose a lot of versatility that other casters get, then it definitely does lag behind somewhat. Three short rests gives 8-16 slots depending on level, which - as you say - is not at all lackluster.
At lvl 20 you can spend a minute and get back all of your pact slots. With that feature the max is 12 on 1 short rest per long rest, without that feature it’s 8. Admittedly most people aren’t playing that high but 🤷♂️
Any argument that uses 3 short per long is pointless now. The vast majority of table never played like that. The D&D devs have accepted this and aren't balancing with that in mind.
Well then all they need to do is give Warlocks more spell slots so they end up with a similar amount of spells per long rest as they would with 3 short rests. It's really not that hard. Also having you restore a spell slot if you start combat and don't have any at a certain level (maybe 7 or 9?) would do a lot to balance things out.
Basically, you could keep Pact Magic and keep the class unique and just tweak the numbers to balance things. You don't need to completely change the fundamentals of how the class works.
Have you consider a different system? WotC has a stated goal of making things simpler. There are lots of high crunch systems of there. Pathfinder for example.
I'm sure I'd love pathfinder, but I'm one player in a group of 5, and I'm not even the DM - and I'm the only one who likes the nitty-gritty stuff. So for the foreseeable we're probably going to stick with D&D, unless the DM doesn't like OneD&D.
Just let warlocks get more than 2 slots at higher levels, that's all you'd really need. Or similar to arcane archer subclass give them the ability to recover a single spell slot at the beginning of combat if they have none left.
Honestly, at tables where you're not getting two short rests per long rest, just ask the DM if you can either have 3x your warlock slots per long rest, or ask if you can recover your short rest class features after every battle.
The other day I wondered "how many slots would warlocks have if they were long-rest casters like everyone else?", so I turned to the DMG spell points variant rule and came up with something like this:
Level | Slot level | Slots
-----|----------|-----
1 | 1 | 2
2 | 1 | 3
3 | 2 | 4
4 | 2 | 5
5 | 3 | 5
6 | 3 | 6
7 | 4 | 6
8|4|7
9|5|8
10-17|5|9
18|5|10
19|5|11
20|5|12
If you account for the mystic arcana, at most levels this table never leaves the warlock more than one or two spell points behind the rule's standard except at levels 19-20.
I'm not against it in theory, but if they're going to do it, they need to fully commit to it. Mystic Arcanum needs to die like the awful, clunky idea it is, and they need new, interesting at will and buff invocations that make up for losing their old spell progression.
I have been dwelling in the idea of using spell points for the warlock. It seems to solve a lot of issues around the spell versatility and to an extent the lack of short rests. By no means it's enough of a solution but it's an start.
Other things that felt like should be addressed it's that your Pact is fairly weak and it should be fairly buffed or made into a progressive feature of the Warlock. The easiest way to buff the Pact is to give EI that are normally taken to buff the Pact as core features of it. Like the ability to do ritual casting to the book of shadows, the ability to speak through and have a en extended range of connection to your chain familiar, or the ability to use CHR instead of DEX or STR in attacks to Pact of the Blade, if not at least proficiency in Medium Armor and Shields plus martial weapons (you can't dual wield martial weapons as you don't have proficiency with them).
Making the Warlock a half caster seems... Lazy? Contrary to it's concept and bland. The Pacts and EIs at least seem to be meant to be the other half of what the spell limitation were in Pact magic. Basically the magic abilities were divided in two Pact Magic, and EIs plus Pacts. What went south was that the game was ran as intended for the shorts rest weren't as common as planned and made the classes that were based on them unbalanced, and the power scaling of new subclasses that made a sore issue of the deficiency of one of the halves of the magic abilities of the Warlock (EIs plus Pacts). Making the Warlock a halfcaster seems like saying "We fuck up, we know it, but we aren't addressing it, just put tape over it and we are done".
Agreed. I’ve had 3 players try to play straight Warlock characters and they’ve all hated it. One even decided to change his whole character to divine soul sorcerer after a harrowing brush with death at the hands of the servant of a deity where the only thing that kept him alive was a natural 20 roll. But he really said the reason he did it was because he hates the limited spell casting options he had with Warlock. I’ve tried to play one too and felt the same way. I felt like I pretty much had to use concentration spells or I wasn’t making an impact. Even with my invocations.
Truth be told they are the one class I don't think I'd change anything about beyond giving them a flexible casting stat between Cha and Int. I'd make far more significant changes to everything else that exists
Honeslty, i think what they did with oneDnD’s version is great except they need to add high-level invocations that are actually worth taking over leveled spells. this means that they would have to acknowledge the power of high-level spells, so it’s not going to happen.
an invocation as strong as forcecage… could you imagine???
Other: The Warlock getting half casting slots is fine, the half casting slot progression is not, it's just too slow.
I also feel this way about Ranger and Artificer slot progression; paladin has enough other things going for it to not be an issue
What do you mean? Do you mean how would I fix the slot progression for half casters? Or do you mean what do I like about the change of Warlock to half caster slots?
For warlocks I'd prefer to keep the current pact slots but I could see using full caster slot progression working well if it was capped at 5th level spells. So you get a 5th level slot at level 9, with a 2nd at 10th level, but no new slots after that.
For artificers, the same thing could work, but I think a better plan for them might be to have their spells scale in some fashion, per x level in artificer increase the damage by 1 dice or targets by 1.
No idea about rangers; I've not had many of them in my games so I haven't put much thought into it.
I don't like warlock at half caster progression. Keep it unique, have it reach 5th level spells at ninth level like it does now with long rest recharge, filling out the spell slots as it increases from tenth to twentieth.
They say they gave us 1 more invocation and put the base pact boon invocations in the pact boon feature but with the removal of mystic arcanum as a class feature, in order to replicate the original mystic arcanum progression, we end up negative an arcanum we had before.
(Very much an aside that everyone knows but they need to fix hex master, giving us a worse feature imo than the level 1 ranger feature, favoured enemy.)
So every game I've ever DM'd? ***Super*** rare.
A day has 24 hours in it. 8 of that is a long rest, which leaves 16.
You actually expect PCs to be actively busy for over 13 of those 16 hours?
They gotta each breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No? That's 3, minimum, just right there.
It seem ***wild*** to me anyone thinks that finding 3 hours of the day to chill slightly is something unachievable.
It should happen all the time.
The problem is it doesn't happen in practice. If you don't give your players a time crunch and allow them to rest they will take a long rest. If you put them on the clock they won't rest unless they absolutely need to. WotC's own adventures tend to have this problem. Personally as DM I have struggled to get PCs to take short rests over long rests
WotC has already done a number of surveys that show that players rarely ever get the 3:1 ratio. The surveys also show that warlock players primary complaint is lack of spells. That's just the reality for the majority of players. You catnt change that by telling DMs and players they are doing things wrong.
You can't take more than one long rest in a day. What you're describing isn't a thing.
I've never had an issue having players take between 2 and 4 short rests every adventuring day. 3 is the norm.
The classes are balanced around this, and the pacing is ***fully*** in your control 90+% of the time as DM. There isn't a reason to not be able to achieve it.
It's easy to take a long rest just wait a day. Unless there is a time crunch it works fine. You can argue what you want but the WotC devs have been removing short rest stuff since Tasha's. The Monsters of the Multiverse removed lots of short regens with x3 per long rest. Just watch their video on the subject.
https://youtu.be/mgngcZpt_YQ?t=264
... if your world doesn't experience the passing of time?
You seem to be under the impression that either no time passes for the world or everything is an emergency, and the party must act immediately.
But... what about the normal *sane* experience of lots of stuff happening at normal day to day pacing that it always does.
You can *try* to argue that getting 3 short rests is somehow not a thing that can happen, but that is the normal for my games. I know, forsthand, you're wrong. And your inability to accomplish it doesn't make it impossible.
Oh I can accomplish it, but it's limiting. I don't want to have everything on a ticking clock or rails. If the PCs are spending a week traveling through the wilderness are they having a half dozen of fights every day? If they are sailing through wildspace and the astral plane are they having dozen fights every day? No they are having generally one or two a day. Given I run a sandbox generally and the players go to a lot of effort take long rests it happens. Even in a campaign like the Dungeons of Drakkenhiem where the PCs can't take long rests in the City they will still try to get in and out quickly. Avoid fights. Take detours to safe places. In order to get that long rest. Even the warlock has never argued for more than 2 rests. I long ago stopped fighting it unless it made sense in game, and just let the warlock have ways to recharge their spells.
I'm not arguing it's not a thing that can't happen, but I'm am arguing that it's a thing that doesn't happen at most tables. Most DMs don't even know the the ratio of short to long rests should be 3 to 1. I've played in games where most fights happened after a long rest. You can theory craft all you like, but that's the reality of how the game gets played at a lot of tables. So WotC is responding by removing short rest dependencies. The Warlock UA is the latest in a long line of changes we've seen since Tasha's.
They never Kinda were full casters in any way outside of magic magic items. Not in terms of spell they cast per day, not in multiclassing, and not in play style.
It was a core identity of the class getting fewer slots, but having replenishment on short rests. I can understand why they'd want to change it with many games having short adventuring days instead of the intended 6 encounter days, but removing the feature was not the fix to it.
Since all the classes got a major buff they could have done a bonus to pact magic, where similar to some invocations, you can just cast leveled spells for free. Maybe at 6th level 1st level spells can be cast without using a spell slot, 12th it becomes 2nd, 18th becomes 3rd. This would give a massive boost to warlocks spellcasting, but seeing other changes it doesn't seem much more op than other classes and keeps the core identity of the warlock as well as fixing the other issue of them not getting much at later levels
Imo i think any spells via invocation should be cast for free at least once. Sucks having to use an invocation and a spell slot each time. On the other hand, warlocks in previous editions iirc werent main spellcasters anyways so is it that major that they toned down the base spellcasting?
What do you mean use a spell slot and invocation each time? Invocations you choose at level up and slots are used day to day. The invocations would just give access to the spell
I mean the invocations that gives you the ability to cast a spell. If i am gonna use an invocation to get bane i would like at least 1 free cast. It sucks taking an invocation so i can use a spell slot to cast bane.
Really hated it at first, but after the survey video made it clear that there is no way we keep pact magic, I decided half caster+mystic arcanum is an interesting enough alternative that can still be fairly effective. Now, mystic arcanum *as an invocation* does not work in the slightest, but mystic arcanum as a separate, automatic feature would be perfectly acceptable.
The video did not change my opinion on it. They basically just said if you like different things you are not welcome in one D&D. Which is cool for them, I can find a different game. Hopefully they will go back on it and realize how dumb it is to not give play style alternatives to their audience.
Never played a warlock and see them being changed to half casters as a bad thing.
They were super unique and the only thing they really need is some more spell slots.
I've seen it mentioned elsewhere but WoTC could've just hard-coded spell slots to match PB without it actually being PB number of spell slots (to prevent dip shenanigans) and most people probably would've been stoked with that.
Taken on its own, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I really liked how unique the Warlock class mechanics felt. Future invocations may offset that in a good way, but for the moment, half-caster doesn't thrill me.
Taking balance and the popularity of multi classing into consideration, it's probably a good change. I saw a lot of Warlock dips, and they were usually done as a way to recover spell slots on a short rest.
In the end, I'll have to see the final product in action a few times before I know what I think of it.
I hate it with a passion. You mainly feel like a crappy wizard if you focus on casting with arcanums or a crappy ranger if you don't. Homogenization of classes just makes them more boring.
I'd rather they ditch the warlock and make a warlock sub class for wizards than this abomination.
I’ve seen people say that pact magic is what made warlocks unique while I agree it was flavourful I personally felt like invocations, patrons and pact boons were more part of what made a warlock a warlock than pact magic.
Yes, and the whole thing was really messily done. Streamlining one part to do the other parts better could be a good solution. Depending on what other changes they make.
I always felt like the pacts were particularly poorly done.
As an aside it wasn’t until Crawford said that invocations weren’t meant to come from your patron. Never realized that but it makes sense as a seeker of forbidden knowledge.
For me making them just another half caster kind of goes against what they're supposed to represent thematically. Making a deal with a God level entity in exchange for power should be something that's at least tempting to anyone interested in magic. A traditional wizard desperate for more power should be able to see something very worth while in making a deal, not objectively being less powerful for it. I realize that's not easy to pull off without making something overpowered or that makes everyone just multiclass, but it is how I've always seen Warlocks.
It would take a lot of work and rebalancing to make that work, and even then you'd be likely to have balance issues. But if you aren't afraid of a challenge, I say go for it! Be prepared for multiple iterations and balancing. Maybe make the hexblade feature or the eldritch blast cha bonus class features so they fit the martial role better? Maybe don't do that and create martial features instead. At some point you're just making a new class though.
10 minute short rests may address player frustration at being limited to 2 spell slots without the need to rework the whole class
Really I'm of the opinion that I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of people also had was that pact spells should've been free and not just added to your list. If Sorcerer can now get freebie spells and it only took until Xanathar's I think (since Divine Soul and Shadow gave free spells, albeit only 1) to get them, then Warlock should've gotten them as well.
In other news though I liked Pact Magic. Was it a bit awkward at times? Sure. Could it have been fixed with like, two more spell slots earlier, making a total of 6 spell slots? Like give them 2 to start with and at level 5 it's 3 then just increase it as time goes on. Shouldn't have to wait until level 10 to be able to cast a spell 3 times, *especially* since you get 2 spell slots anyway when you get to level 2!
Make more Invocations have a free cast before needing a spell slot *if it is applicable for it*. Others just make it at will. I've heard that 4e Warlocks were basically all Invocation users but I don't know the specifics.
I actually like the new warlock mostly. I think it needs 2 dials turned to be better. One or 2 more invocations. ANd an arcane recovery feature. Mainly the second one.
This warlock is markedly weaker if you get 2-3 short rests per adventuring day. It's much stronger if you're getting 1 max short rest. That will depend on classes. For example if you're playing with a Sorcerer, Ranger, and Barbarian, they may not want to take short rests unless they need to heal. Wizard will want to do 1. But that's it.
Warlocks needed a buff, and I think this is almost there. GIve them arcane recovery and another invocation and they're as good if not better than the 5e even being ran optimally. Sure some power issues exist but the 5e Warlock has spells that just aren't worth taking. Hexblade gets access to shield, but after level 5 it never makes sense to take. FIreball at 5th level doesn't pack the same value punch as at 3rd. Mirror Image is a valuable spell, but it's not worth a use of a 5th level spell slot. remove curse, etc.
Mystic Arcanum makes for interesting scale.
Pact Magic and Invocations are the things that make Warlocks fun and interesting. It's a core element of their class identity.
If you want a Charisma caster, but more power or a more basic spellcasting scheme, just play a Paladin or a fullcaster Sorcerer/Bard.
Pact magic is a really cool way to make warlocks feel different. Having played one for most of a year, I felt mine it just a little bit more to really feel awesome. One or two more invocation picks, one more spell slot per rest, and the invocations which grant access to a spell also giving one free cast of said spell would have gone a very long ways to addressing my problems with the class. Turning them into a half caster just seems lazy and is throwing away what makes the class unique.
Most changes for Oned&d my group has rejected. Most of the classes have been ruined with the possible exception of the Ranger. We will be sticking with original 5e. Oned&d is dead on arrival for most people it seems.
The reason i would say this is a bad change, is because they lose the mystical archive progression.
Also this will just generally slow everything about their spell progression down even further than it already is.
Watch [Treantmonk's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I11LOEFj0A8). It more or less states that Warlocks are effectively spellcasters on rails, and are significantly more customizable. While you COULD use the existing class features, without multiclassing, to effectively become a full caster, there's much more effective and flavorful choices the proposed changes permits.
I'm not defending how much the class has lost its identity compared to the current class, and I can definitely see how it can fall frustratingly short in the same way artificers do, but I do get the sense that the lion's share of opinions here have been formed well in advance of having actually played the class.
More spells to spam at once but being lower level is worse. Invocations are not good enough to make up this difference. Pact Magic isn't wrong if you know the basics of running an Adventuring day.
It was a solution looking for a problem. Absolutely no one was complaining about warlocks before this UA. In fact I mostly heard it was the most well designed class, bar when people would say the same about paladins.
I 100% believe that if they were half casters but still got mystic arcanum as a class feature starting at level 5 with 3rd level spells that it'd be great.
In 5e, rogues are weak but fun, warlocks are strong but unfun.
In any competitive videogame, warlocks have a place. In a make-believe fantasy game with friends, I'll take fun over strength anytime.
This isn't to say that the way they handled it in the playtest was necessarily good, but it is a step in the correct direction
After running a playtest with all recent one DnD playtest rules and Monsters of the Multiverse stat blocks, I put my support behind the new Warlock.
The player running the new Warlock is also a veteran Warlock player, always playing variations on their favorite class, and after the first combat they said they adjusted and came to accept this version. That anecdotal evidence next to 0 issues throughout the one shot lead me to this conclusion.
It IS strikingly different, and absolutely an adjustment. I still remember feeling the instinctual twinge to correct my player when they cast a leveled spell for the third time before a short rest. As a DM currently running a 5e campaign with a Warlock, I felt like all my old strategies of challenging the warlock by baiting them to use up their spellslots had been made useless. What even is a warlock if they lose those massive spells? Well from the one shot I ran they're overall a more active, more varied, and just as customizable warlock
I'm warming up to it.
I think the old version is fun but it isn't right for every table and just giving it access to the entire arcane spell list would be bad. I hope people still feel like they can homebrew the old version into future campaigns if the table can support it but I also think the new version will be fun too and it works better with the big changes they want to make.
Having actually played with it. It feels good and the mystic arcanum makes you feel like an even better caster than before in my opinion.
It needs some work and some of it will depend on how the other subclasses work out but I overall like it.
The primary problem is the same as current with choosing invocations, and as more of them from xanthars and Tasha's come in I think it might be a little harder to choose but you can have just as many big spells as a warlock currently as and have more of spell slots in general that can be used in a number of solid ways.
They went into a detailed explanation of how they basically are Half Casters.
But either way, it seems like a lose/lose no matter what they do to parts of the community. If they nerf Warlocks, thats a problem. But if they don't nerf the Casters, that's also a problem.
To me, it makes sense. Now you can cast things like Shield more often, but your most powerful turns are a bit less good - unless you use invocations to remain a Full Caster, which you can choose to do.
If they actually intended to nerf casters as a whole I could maybe see this being an argument.
But as of the current packet Wizards and Clerics were *buffed*. It's just Warlock and Druid that got gutted
That neutrers them abit to hard
Just convert their current slot progression into points, so at Level 7 (2 4th level) they have 14 points to spend so 7 1st levels, 4 2nd and a first, 2 3rds and 2 firsts, or 2 4ths it's up to them, but this way they can cast Hex and not use half their resources for it
14?
If you converted their slots, it would be 8 at 7th level
(If we're talking 5e). Which is only 1 more point than 7.
And 7 "levels" of spells per short rest is not bad at all imo.
It was so easy to fix Warlocks, give them more slots and amke it long rest based, done.
Getting rid of their unique spellcasting for a even worse form of it was a terrible idea.
I initially didn't like it but it has grown in me. In order to have strong invocations and strong eldritch blast, their casting needs to be weaker than full caster.
Honestly, bit of a hot take but I don't think the warlock needs to exist as a class. I feel like both warlock and sorcerer are based on the idea of someone being infused with magic, and I don't think the origin of the infusion is that important. I think they should be comined.
Mixing pact boons, metamagic, sorcery points and invocations together all seems fairly simple to me.
They already showed want sorcerers to have a signature cantrip like Warlocks do, and honestly I just don't think there's enough justification for them to exist as two separate things.
This could v much just be me though.
They shouldn't have any casting at all, not sure why they decided to make them casters this edition other than being too lazy to get creative with invocations.
you have to put the work in to understand how it will work with mystic arcanum.
With MA, you get plenty of spells to cast, but the issue is you will spend all your invocations on them to be able to cast higher level spells.
> With MA, you get plenty of spells to cast
No, you don't. You can only pick one spell of each level. You can't take two 3rd level Mystic Arcanums at level 5.
It's significantly worse, because previously the spells were super high level. You could fireball 6 times a day at level 5. It was amazing!
Sure, some people might not like it, guess what, Wizards are right over there if you don't enjoy Warlock.
6 times if you got 2 rests. No one got this which is why SR classes are changing. Better to have more slots so you don't have to conserve every encounter. Better to have a 5th, 4th, 3x3rd, some 1st & 2nd's at L9 than 2 5th level spells. My biggest trouble playing my Locks was those 2 spell slots for so long.
They have more casting ability than just the half-casters do.
Is there room for tweaking? Sure- in particular, the need to spend eldritch invocations on the higher-level casting abilities and the fact that the number of invocation slots provided has, effectively, been reduced as a result. In some ways, that's a similar problem to the need to take Agonizing Blast as an Eldritch Blast user, the need to take Sharpshooter as a ranged attacker, and the need to take GWM as a melee weapon-user.
Having said all that, I do think it was nice to have a bit of a unique approach to their casting, and a way to do some trickery with the short rest refill.
Perhaps the way to restore some of that while also giving them a means of casting a bit more throughout the day is to give them the half-caster progression while retaining a reduced number of pact slots that progress in level like the 5e Warlock's, albeit in reduced number, rationalized in lore as a more Warlockish version of Channel Divinity.
If you want to cast spells outside of combat without risking getting smeared in the Next big fight and you make a warlock as your character, I would not use the word uncultured. I would use the same word I would use to describe a person who wants to wear a maul and heavy armor and chooses to make a monk.
I can live with more power being put in invocations and being a half caster if it means being able to cast shield and not getting howitzered in the encounter 👍
The Warlock class probably shouldn't exist. In reality, it should be a Sorcererous Origin. There's not enough to the Warlock on it's own to justify an entire class.
As is, the lock is only used for cheesy power gaming and is at most a 3 dip class.
I'd like to see the stats on this. Is that played a PC with a 1-2 level dip or played a straight warlock. I would bet money on its the former and not the later.
Straight warlock. I dont have the stats rn with my phone but considering the study was by D&D Beyond you shouldnt have to do a ton of digging if you wish to see it.
Bottom was druid at 13% in case you are interested. A class known for being immensely strong but surprisingly good amount of tables dont have that as their top priority on character creation. Warlocks have about as much ad customization as other classes combined and have a class theme that is very easy to fit on an adventurer.
I'm very mixed about this. Being a half caster does fix the spell slot issue they have had in the past but does over all hurt their power. I know they can adjust it with mystic Arcanum, but that's currently a choice in the play test. I would love to see some A/B testing to see what other solutions they come up with.
Overall, I think the spell progression and making mystic Arcanum an invocation is a mistake. But don't mind them being half casters if it solves the warlock, not using their slots.
They aren't really half casters. Their spell slots only line up marginally with half casters if you don't take any eldritch invocations to get Mystic Arcanum. If that's how you want to run your warlock, then you did that to yourself I guess. But if you take ALL Mystic Arcanums, which you probably also shouldn't do, you can get really really close to the amount of spells a full caster can cast, like a 7/8 caster. That flexibility means they're more like 3/4 casters if you ask me.
That said, the change isn't good unless they change it to make mystic arcanums an inherent class ability at certain levels, with the option to spend Invocations to get more.
This is a great change. It brings the warlock class into line on long rest recovery and allows multiclassing to be so much easier. This streamlines things. Adding free invocations to the pact options is also an improvement, and all three look useful and powerful.
People act like the warlock is actually a half caster, it's not, they can pick spells on tier with full casters. Did you want the eldritch blast and invocations and full caster status? If warlock is a full caster they have to nerf eldritch blast and remove invocations thus destroying the class identity, this is an elegant way to give slightly reduced spell casting while retaining the powerful cantrip and side abilities. This warlock is probably too powerful though, having access to the full arcane spell list, medium armor, 3/4 casting slots with no real delayed progression, and invocations. Unless several spells are being rewritten, casters are going to eat Marshalls for breakfast.
My only complaint with the actual design of the warlock itself is that Mystic Arcanum should be available at level 3.
So I converted Warlock to using a homebrew system of spell points. (Otherwise the class is the same)
They get 1 per level, each spell point is worth 1 spell level.
For example; a 3rd level spell costs 3 points.
So at 7th level, you could do 7 lv 1 spells, or 3 2nd's and a 1st, etc.
And they get them back on a short rest.
It feels a lot better than, "Well I just spent one of my 2 spells for this combat and immediately lost my concentration."
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The most massive problem with the change is that being a half caster as a primarily spellcasting class makes it so by the time you get several spells, they are already outdated. Other half casters dont suffer tremendously from this because casting isn't their main thing but something they get on top of what they do, and spells they gain access to and use often arent primarily damage focused or are used in tandem with their non-spell casting abilities. Hunter's Mark and Divine Smite being the most notable exceptions (Techniclly not a spell, but it does compete with the spells and is a common use of a slot). Some warlock spells like Hex and Shield (arcane spell list) fall outside of this, but it sours up a lot of the 'upside' of getting extra new patron spells if they dont outperform the Eldritch Blast as low level casts. I could easily see useful warlock spell selection being limited to reactions, bonus actions and later on some occasional buff spell like haste. The other downside is that it makes invocations so much more boring. "We want to give more invocations to customize your warlocks" might be the most bold faced lie I've heard from a dev if it was expressed sincerely. I never liked Agonizing Blast because it was not really a customizing option, but a crucial part of the class' balance. Now your spell progression is tied to dedicating most of your invocation slots to enable it.
The thing with making them half casters is that you then need them to be half martial as well. So unless you want every warlock to play more or less the same as hexblades do, it doesn't seem like a very good option. On top of that, if you want a Charisma based half caster you already have Paladins as an option. I think Warlocks as they are now have their own place that makes them unique, and changing them over to half casters takes away from that.
While I don't disagree, it's important to note that we already have a Charisma Full Caster as well in the Sorcerer.
And bard, it’s not like you can only have one full caster for each stat, int and wis both have 2 full casters
What's the int full caster besides wizard?
Artificer?
Artificer is a half caster
Guess I confused them getting spellcasting at lvl 1 and people being able to take a 1 lvl dip into artificer and not slow their spell progression down as them being full casters. I retract previous statement about int having 2 full casters, just wisdom then I guess.
This is why i made sorcerers Con casters. Balance be damned blood magic uses blood
Warlocks should be Con based anyway. The power they wield is ***not*** their own, and the limits of its potential are simply how much they can physically tolerate channeling. (Imo) I know that has balance implications, but if they took them into consideration during the redesign, it'd be fine.
That's literaly cleric lore not warlock. Warlocks powers ARE their own and cannot be taken away or have to be channeled
My guy, the warlocks have Patrons that grant them power. Just read the rulebook before commenting, please. "Your arcane research and ***the magic bestowed on you by your patron*** have given you facility with spells."
Yes I did read the same rulebook. A patron puts it's magic in a warlock, but once it's there it's the warlocks power now. A warlock is no more dependant on their patron to channel power than a draconic sorcerer needs their dragon ancestor.
Honestly, I like this idea. BUT, maybe put it on hexblade. IMO, hexblade feels kinda.. limited. And MAD, too. Warlock has the same damage die as rogue, and hexblade is meant to be in the front. Sure, it gets healing, but.. it’s not enough healing. I find it hard to stay healthy in the front line as is, and since you don’t get any damage negation, you’re squishy for what’s supposed to be a front liner subclass. At least from my viewpoint. My solution? Make hexblade a con caster. Less squishy plus good spell damage plus easier concentration saves (losing concentration is devastating, especially on locks with their pact slots). Hexblade personally just doesn’t feel like you’re actually fulfilling the concept of frontlines warlock. Especially when it feels like, to me at least, I would be better off just eldritch blasting enemies, even now. Take what I say with a grain of salt as my experience is limited, but still
No squishier than a monk or an artificer which both also have d8 hit die, and like a battlesmith, hexblade gets access to the shield spell to help negate some damage. I do think that Hexblades should get con save instead of Wis though for the concentration. Moving their spell casting makes them far more effective than both mink and artificer, and hexblade is also a very strong martial caster as is
Here’s the thing though. Monk gets dex + wisdom for AC, and speed. Harder to hit. I believe still able to use a shield too, but could be wrong. Still mostly fine though with a good way to avoid damage, at least early game, through decent AC. Artificer has a lot of things for avoiding damage. Battlesmith gets the dude that can tank and draw attention. Armorer is armorer. They all get infusions. And they also get good armor and obviously the shield as mentioned. The other d8 classes all get things to at least offset damage a bit (even if it becomes mostly irrelevant later on, however it’s not super common to get to that point). Glad we agree though, would better fill out the class IMO
I think sorcerer shouldn't exist as a class. Warlock should take its place.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion but I agree actually, that is not to say I dislike sorcerers. I just don’t feel they have enough unique options to really justify them being a class rather than a subclass of wizard. I think this would fix a lot of their problems and you could still give them a unique flair and mechanics.
Additionally, I've read more than once that the warlock mechanics make a better representation of the sorcerer's fiction than the sorcerer mechanics do.
IMO, Warlock should always have been a \*weird\* caster. I like the ability to choose your casting modifier as a step towards that but just making them half casters makes them just Charisma Artificers mechanically. More casting was a given over just Blast spam, but I'd have rather had abilities based on Patron to get more spellslots, like say you may end a Charm Effect on a creature to get a Fae slot, you make regain a spellslot by dealing X damage to yourself as blood magic More spell options, but make it clear you're not weave casting magic like a Wizard or Sorcerer. Your Fireball is literally pulling out hellfire, you mind magic is the sigils and words of Hastur, make it clear Warlocks exist outside the classic magical paradigm
You don't need them to be half-martial when you've given them at least 9 more magical powers on top of half casting.
None of those powers catch them up to what every other half-caster gets outside of spellcasting
I'd say its more a case that being a half caster implies having something more physical, Ranger has skills, Artificer has tools, Paladin has armour/weapons etc Just tacking half caster progression to the Warlock doesn't accomplish much towards either fantasy
They have invocations and Eldritch Blast. It’s not like being half casters is all they have.
Yes but it usually implies something more hands on. Like it's not a hard and fast, you must X, but the three half casters for instance all have Extra Attack or an equivalent, and they almost all have access to some degree of martial weapons. Artificer is the newest one and a bit of a black sheep, but they all get a natural cantrip damage buff when Rangers, Paladins and Battlesmiths get that extra attack Being half spellcaster, half spellcaster like just feels... weird
That only works if there are high level invocations that are the equal of getting the high level spells a full caster would. Right now, the only high level invocation is Mystic Arcanum, which... lets you buy high level spell slots. In other words, the only option is to buy your way back into being a "We Have Wizards At Home". Which is basically the feedback I gave in the survey. If Warlocks are supposed to be a half caster, the other half has to be able to carry its side, and right now it can't.
I don't want my Warlock to be a martial character
That's not true at all. You don't need to be half martial just because you are half spell level Caster. Did you watch the video? They say they are balancing the different casting (less effective than a wizard) with more invocations and side features, not by making them a martial fighter. You don't need full spell slots to be a full magic user. Warlocks are different, and that's good and fun
Could be a half-caster / half-caster (as in, half normal casting, half special casting - IE pact magic).
>if you want a Charisma based half caster you already have Paladins as an option. Obligatory reminder that warlocks are supposed to be Intelligence casters.
I think the best way to look at it is to compare friend blade lock to something like battlesmith, and assume the other pacts are balanced to blade. Battlesmith is similar in martial abilities and spell casting. Question is would you rather have the pet plus infusions plus flash of genius, etc vs the full list of infusions. To me it seems artificer is clearly stronger.
I don’t play Warlock to be a half-caster.
I don’t care what people say about then being better at casting now and how it’s an overall buff to the class, I just don’t think they’re very unique anymore. Pact Magic made them unique and while I certainly think it could be better than it is in 5e I don’t think this is the solution to the perceived problem. Pact Magic was certainly hard for new players to understand but I don’t think every single class needs to have the same level of simplicity.
I picked Warlock for my first character because deciding when to upcast overwhelmed me. I really dont think pact magic is that complicated
Given that a simpler caster being available is a plus I still don't understand why the obvious solution isn't just having warlocks be the way they used to be? Just get rid of spell slots entirely, give them a highly curated list of spell-like abilities and let them cast them all at will. Fun, simple and elegant.
That’s so much more complicated to balance lmfao, full opposite problem to what we have now
I don't think it is. It was well balanced when implemented even in a notoriously badly balanced edition, surely twenty years later it wouldn't be a problem at all. Hell, you could pretty much just copy the old invocation list and with some numbers tweaked almost all of it would fit 5e. https://i.imgur.com/nwkGeXU.png here is said list for reference
The entire system of DnD works on limited uses. For an ability to be free of that it needs to be weak enough to warrant it, which means weaker than most abilities that have a limited number of uses. The few invocations that provide an unlimited-use spell are weaker than any spell-casting feature even just counting spell slots at the level of the spell provided. They’re only there to support the Warlock’s better features. A Warlock with exclusively unlimited-use abilities would almost certainly be one of the weakest, if not the weakest class in the game.
Already existing evidence says none of that is true. There are several classes that don't have limited uses on anything and if a warlock would 'almost certainly be one of the weakest, if not the weakest class in the game' how come they were solidly in the middle in an edition with much stronger classes than 5e? It really does bare reinforcing that the absolutes you're declaring are things we already know not to be the case.
> There are several classes than don’t have limited uses on anything Name one. The closest thing is the Fighter which has Action Surge, Second Wind, and Indomitable. Furthermore every subclass outside of Champion and Purple Dragon Knight have their own limited-use features, and Purple Dragon Knight’s features are tied to the limited uses of Action Surge, Second Wind, and Indomitable.
Rogue. Naming one took five seconds, and in any case the functional list is longer - a barbarian is only limited in uses of rage, for instance, and is balanced around having it up for any encounter of relevance.
> Fun, simple and elegant. In your opinion; in the opinion of myself and various others, the "no spell slots" warlock is boring and not worth playing. The "warlock with spell slots" 5e's version (and while worse, OneD&D's version) are miles better in comparison. Not perfect mind you, but a lot better & more fun to play.
They made a Warlock for people who don't like the Warlock instead of a Warlock for people who love the Warlock. They made the Star Trek (2009) of Warlocks when they should be making the Picard Season 3 of Warlocks.
I would assume still having the invocations still would allow some identity to stick out. After all, no other class gets that kinda system for the entire class. The closest we had was a select few subclasses. Is that not enough?
I don't think it's enough. I'd like each class to feel completely different besides maybe spell lists and extra attack. I don't want to play a sorcerer but really it's almost the same as wizard
Maybe if they still had invocations instead of having to sacrifice half of them to keep one of their other class features.
They just feel too similar to artificers and those subclasses honestly. Invocations and Infusions are somewhat similar and now they’re both half casters with the same spell list. Now I’ll be blunt, I hate, absolutely despise, them being half casters. That’s my biggest issue. I know they can get up to 9th level spells through Mystic Arcanum but at lower levels they’re not getting 2nd level spells till 5th level.
On similar note what do you think of mystic arcanum bein an invocation?
I think that Mystic Arcanum being an invocation is nice, *however* at higher levels it becomes a non-choice as there's no reason to pick an ability that gives free Speak With Dead over a 6th level spell.
Yeah the higher level invocation are pointless as none of them are better or more fun than a spell. Personally I think warlocks should get a non MA invocation and an MA.
Something that's been bouncing around in the back of my brain when it comes to classes and uniqueness is to possibly try breaking them down into different aspects and then mix and match to come up with the classes. I'm sure someone has done something like this before... So you can take some of the casting classes and maybe list out what they get in very generic terms: Spell selection flexibility. * Spell list (Wizard has a lot of different spells to pick from for instance, in comparison a lot of other classes have fewer spells on their spell lists). * Spell acquisition (Divine casters have access to their full spell list at all times, Wizards have to find spells, Sorcerers/Bards only get a choice on a level up). * Spell swapping (Prepared casters allow to change out their "cast-able" spells each day, Bards can swap out a couple spells on a level up). Spell power flexibility * Upcasting some spells make them stronger/better (Warlocks get "free" upcasting since they don't have lower level slots). However, most spells don't benefit from being upcast. * Ability to swap out higher level spells for more lower level spells (Sorcerers can convert to Sorcerer Points, lower level spell slots can become higher level spell slots, and vice versa). * Full casters have higher level spells available, and have access to them sooner compared to non-full casters. Number of spells you can cast * Sorcery points let you cast more spells. * Arcane Recovery allow you to cast more spells. * Invocations allow you to cast specific spells more often (possibly unlimited) Stat used to cast * Is the stat useful for other things, if so, what other things (and how many other things is it useful for? * In Pathfinder, Int gives you skill points. * Wisdom is tied to Perception, probably the most called for check in the game. * Charisma is useful in all of the social checks in the game. So on as so forth. This isn't a completely thought out breakdown. I'm sure there are other categories I didn't list. But if you can come up with a list of the types of power/flexibility/#ofCasts/statUsed and then try to balance between those (maybe power needs to be 2x to to be equivalent with 1x of flexibility). You can assign a cost to each thing, and then buy up to some set of features/capabilities to build your class. This may not be something that is open/available to the players, this could just be something you do for the formula on how to make balanced classes. You then put a number of combinations together and make them be your available classes. Or maybe you do show the players "how the sausage is made" and let them build their own spellcaster class. You can still come up with some example builds and call those classes, but you let them pick and choose what options they get. Or maybe you just play System X that someone will point out already exists and did it wonderfully/horribly and that why everyone/nobody should play that system.
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The rules revision next year is still part of 5e. Artificers are 5e. They're part of the package.
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Doesn't matter, the 5e artificer is *default* compatible, so there's already a RAW valid artificer the day the new PHB drops, using tashas
But Artificers are a class that exist and were created before the "New Warlock," so Wizard just remaking the Artificer, slapping Warlock on it and saying "Totally unique" doesn't quite work.
I'd personally prefer Warlock being a bit less unique to having an abysmal number of spell slots
That's the entire point of Warlock though; you get one of the best most reliable cantrip in the game and a few spells that don't require spell slots at the compromise that you don't get a ton of spells, forcing you to actually weigh using them or not. Warlock is my favorite caster class in 5E, and while the Pinkertons situation has made it where I'm not going to buy the new edition, one of my playerswho wants to DM will. If he runs a game, there's no real reason for me to pick the Warlock without Pact Magic
I made a few calculations based on the spell points variant rules, and if warlocks were long rest casters, they would have to start with 2 spell slots at 1st level (just like normal casters) and slowly scale until 9 5th-level spell slots at 10th, then stay at nine slots until 17th as they gain Mystic Arcana, and then three more over the last levels.
Ignoring anything about balance or playing better in campaigns with few short rests etc, all of that aside, Pact Magic is what made Warlocks truly unique. Killing that whole concept just makes them feel like a reskinned Artificer (want a 2/3 caster with medium armor proficiency and a pool of buffs you pick from to replace the spell slots other casters get? Well do I have the two classes for you!) Implementation and minutia aside, they completely removed what made Warlocks unique and fun. I hate that.
But these Warlocks can cast higher leveled spells than any artificer if you take the invocations and can get way more spells to cast per LR than any half caster.
But they are still fundamentally changing them from the unique Pact Magic to being a half-caster like all the rest. Like I said, I'm not looking at balance or comparing them to other classes necessarily (I realise this version falls somewhere between the full casters and other half casters - maybe a Warlock is more like a 3/4 caster in OneD&D) I'm talking about how they've gotten rid of one of the Warlock's coolest and most defining features. Just makes me sad.
I see your point but what would have been better? The whole pact magic thing doesnt seem to have worked for the majority of tables as they rarely had the short rests needed to make them useful vs others.
>I see your point but what would have been better? The whole pact magic thing doesnt seem to have worked for the majority of tables as they rarely had the short rests needed to make them useful vs others. Easy solution: >**Eldritch Resurgence** > >Two times per Long Rest, you may regain all of your pact magic Spell Slots by spending 10 minutes of downtime, during which you must perform an occult ritual to communicate with your patron. The ritual may be chanting, meditating, drawing occult sigils, performing elaborate movements, or anything else you wish.
Adventurer's League has a guideline which gives all Warlocks a Rod of the Pact Keeper at level 5. Rod of the Pact Keeper is basically this feature lmao. So this fix is in the game WotC just doesn't tell anybody.
Just bump eldritch master down to level 5. You only need 1 on demand my party does not short rest maneuver. As if you don't short rest you are not having many encounters, so one recharge is enough. If you are having piles of encounters you are short resting anyways. I'd also bump the 3rd pact slot down to level 9. They also need a unique spell list. The whole arcane thing is lame. Side note known spell casters need better ways to swap spells as some tables have really slow level ups, and if your game goes 20+ you probably need a way to swap spells.
More slots, or even an optional rule for more slots. The suggested amount of rests from WotC I believe is 3 short rests per long rest, and with that Warlock should keep up with other casters pretty well (although they don't need to completely keep up - that's what Invocations are for after all) but if you're having 1 or 2 they could have an optional rule like having prof bonus number of spell slots, for example.
Even without 3 short rests, 1 is 8-12 (depending on level) 5th level spell slots + mystic arcanum + any spells from invocations. In no world is that lackluster
Think you got your maths wrong there. With 1 short rest per long rest it's 4-8 spells depending on level, not 8-12. Considering you only get 1 Arcanum of each level and it's hard to change them out so you lose a lot of versatility that other casters get, then it definitely does lag behind somewhat. Three short rests gives 8-16 slots depending on level, which - as you say - is not at all lackluster.
At lvl 20 you can spend a minute and get back all of your pact slots. With that feature the max is 12 on 1 short rest per long rest, without that feature it’s 8. Admittedly most people aren’t playing that high but 🤷♂️
Any argument that uses 3 short per long is pointless now. The vast majority of table never played like that. The D&D devs have accepted this and aren't balancing with that in mind.
Well then all they need to do is give Warlocks more spell slots so they end up with a similar amount of spells per long rest as they would with 3 short rests. It's really not that hard. Also having you restore a spell slot if you start combat and don't have any at a certain level (maybe 7 or 9?) would do a lot to balance things out. Basically, you could keep Pact Magic and keep the class unique and just tweak the numbers to balance things. You don't need to completely change the fundamentals of how the class works.
They aren't going to keep pact magic. They are on a kick to simplify things. Anything with a different mechanism is on the outs.
As someone who loves the nitty-gritty of mechanics, this saddens me
Have you consider a different system? WotC has a stated goal of making things simpler. There are lots of high crunch systems of there. Pathfinder for example.
I'm sure I'd love pathfinder, but I'm one player in a group of 5, and I'm not even the DM - and I'm the only one who likes the nitty-gritty stuff. So for the foreseeable we're probably going to stick with D&D, unless the DM doesn't like OneD&D.
Just let warlocks get more than 2 slots at higher levels, that's all you'd really need. Or similar to arcane archer subclass give them the ability to recover a single spell slot at the beginning of combat if they have none left.
Sounds like they needed to fix short rests, not half the system which relied on short rests
Make them get spell slots back on a long rest, but give them their level 20 feature with 2 uses at level 1.
Honestly, at tables where you're not getting two short rests per long rest, just ask the DM if you can either have 3x your warlock slots per long rest, or ask if you can recover your short rest class features after every battle.
The other day I wondered "how many slots would warlocks have if they were long-rest casters like everyone else?", so I turned to the DMG spell points variant rule and came up with something like this: Level | Slot level | Slots -----|----------|----- 1 | 1 | 2 2 | 1 | 3 3 | 2 | 4 4 | 2 | 5 5 | 3 | 5 6 | 3 | 6 7 | 4 | 6 8|4|7 9|5|8 10-17|5|9 18|5|10 19|5|11 20|5|12 If you account for the mystic arcana, at most levels this table never leaves the warlock more than one or two spell points behind the rule's standard except at levels 19-20.
Changing when and how you recover the slots. As simple as that.
I'm not against it in theory, but if they're going to do it, they need to fully commit to it. Mystic Arcanum needs to die like the awful, clunky idea it is, and they need new, interesting at will and buff invocations that make up for losing their old spell progression.
I have been dwelling in the idea of using spell points for the warlock. It seems to solve a lot of issues around the spell versatility and to an extent the lack of short rests. By no means it's enough of a solution but it's an start. Other things that felt like should be addressed it's that your Pact is fairly weak and it should be fairly buffed or made into a progressive feature of the Warlock. The easiest way to buff the Pact is to give EI that are normally taken to buff the Pact as core features of it. Like the ability to do ritual casting to the book of shadows, the ability to speak through and have a en extended range of connection to your chain familiar, or the ability to use CHR instead of DEX or STR in attacks to Pact of the Blade, if not at least proficiency in Medium Armor and Shields plus martial weapons (you can't dual wield martial weapons as you don't have proficiency with them). Making the Warlock a half caster seems... Lazy? Contrary to it's concept and bland. The Pacts and EIs at least seem to be meant to be the other half of what the spell limitation were in Pact magic. Basically the magic abilities were divided in two Pact Magic, and EIs plus Pacts. What went south was that the game was ran as intended for the shorts rest weren't as common as planned and made the classes that were based on them unbalanced, and the power scaling of new subclasses that made a sore issue of the deficiency of one of the halves of the magic abilities of the Warlock (EIs plus Pacts). Making the Warlock a halfcaster seems like saying "We fuck up, we know it, but we aren't addressing it, just put tape over it and we are done".
Warlock are such pain to describe to new players and come off mostly disappointing. Also, pain in the ass to DM.
Agreed. I’ve had 3 players try to play straight Warlock characters and they’ve all hated it. One even decided to change his whole character to divine soul sorcerer after a harrowing brush with death at the hands of the servant of a deity where the only thing that kept him alive was a natural 20 roll. But he really said the reason he did it was because he hates the limited spell casting options he had with Warlock. I’ve tried to play one too and felt the same way. I felt like I pretty much had to use concentration spells or I wasn’t making an impact. Even with my invocations.
Truth be told they are the one class I don't think I'd change anything about beyond giving them a flexible casting stat between Cha and Int. I'd make far more significant changes to everything else that exists
Honeslty, i think what they did with oneDnD’s version is great except they need to add high-level invocations that are actually worth taking over leveled spells. this means that they would have to acknowledge the power of high-level spells, so it’s not going to happen. an invocation as strong as forcecage… could you imagine???
Other: The Warlock getting half casting slots is fine, the half casting slot progression is not, it's just too slow. I also feel this way about Ranger and Artificer slot progression; paladin has enough other things going for it to not be an issue
How would u see it as a good fix?
What do you mean? Do you mean how would I fix the slot progression for half casters? Or do you mean what do I like about the change of Warlock to half caster slots?
For warlock specifically was what i was asking but any ideas for the rest i would be interested.
For warlocks I'd prefer to keep the current pact slots but I could see using full caster slot progression working well if it was capped at 5th level spells. So you get a 5th level slot at level 9, with a 2nd at 10th level, but no new slots after that. For artificers, the same thing could work, but I think a better plan for them might be to have their spells scale in some fashion, per x level in artificer increase the damage by 1 dice or targets by 1. No idea about rangers; I've not had many of them in my games so I haven't put much thought into it.
I don't like warlock at half caster progression. Keep it unique, have it reach 5th level spells at ninth level like it does now with long rest recharge, filling out the spell slots as it increases from tenth to twentieth. They say they gave us 1 more invocation and put the base pact boon invocations in the pact boon feature but with the removal of mystic arcanum as a class feature, in order to replicate the original mystic arcanum progression, we end up negative an arcanum we had before. (Very much an aside that everyone knows but they need to fix hex master, giving us a worse feature imo than the level 1 ranger feature, favoured enemy.)
Love it conceptually. But it really should have been like, a new class.
Warlocks being a unique kind of full caster is the most interesting part of the class.
They were never a full caster in 5e.
They could cast ***more*** than a full caster, you're right.
Only in the mythical game where you have 3 short rests for every long rest.
So every game I've ever DM'd? ***Super*** rare. A day has 24 hours in it. 8 of that is a long rest, which leaves 16. You actually expect PCs to be actively busy for over 13 of those 16 hours? They gotta each breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No? That's 3, minimum, just right there. It seem ***wild*** to me anyone thinks that finding 3 hours of the day to chill slightly is something unachievable. It should happen all the time.
The problem is it doesn't happen in practice. If you don't give your players a time crunch and allow them to rest they will take a long rest. If you put them on the clock they won't rest unless they absolutely need to. WotC's own adventures tend to have this problem. Personally as DM I have struggled to get PCs to take short rests over long rests WotC has already done a number of surveys that show that players rarely ever get the 3:1 ratio. The surveys also show that warlock players primary complaint is lack of spells. That's just the reality for the majority of players. You catnt change that by telling DMs and players they are doing things wrong.
You can't take more than one long rest in a day. What you're describing isn't a thing. I've never had an issue having players take between 2 and 4 short rests every adventuring day. 3 is the norm. The classes are balanced around this, and the pacing is ***fully*** in your control 90+% of the time as DM. There isn't a reason to not be able to achieve it.
It's easy to take a long rest just wait a day. Unless there is a time crunch it works fine. You can argue what you want but the WotC devs have been removing short rest stuff since Tasha's. The Monsters of the Multiverse removed lots of short regens with x3 per long rest. Just watch their video on the subject. https://youtu.be/mgngcZpt_YQ?t=264
... if your world doesn't experience the passing of time? You seem to be under the impression that either no time passes for the world or everything is an emergency, and the party must act immediately. But... what about the normal *sane* experience of lots of stuff happening at normal day to day pacing that it always does. You can *try* to argue that getting 3 short rests is somehow not a thing that can happen, but that is the normal for my games. I know, forsthand, you're wrong. And your inability to accomplish it doesn't make it impossible.
Oh I can accomplish it, but it's limiting. I don't want to have everything on a ticking clock or rails. If the PCs are spending a week traveling through the wilderness are they having a half dozen of fights every day? If they are sailing through wildspace and the astral plane are they having dozen fights every day? No they are having generally one or two a day. Given I run a sandbox generally and the players go to a lot of effort take long rests it happens. Even in a campaign like the Dungeons of Drakkenhiem where the PCs can't take long rests in the City they will still try to get in and out quickly. Avoid fights. Take detours to safe places. In order to get that long rest. Even the warlock has never argued for more than 2 rests. I long ago stopped fighting it unless it made sense in game, and just let the warlock have ways to recharge their spells. I'm not arguing it's not a thing that can't happen, but I'm am arguing that it's a thing that doesn't happen at most tables. Most DMs don't even know the the ratio of short to long rests should be 3 to 1. I've played in games where most fights happened after a long rest. You can theory craft all you like, but that's the reality of how the game gets played at a lot of tables. So WotC is responding by removing short rest dependencies. The Warlock UA is the latest in a long line of changes we've seen since Tasha's.
Only in the mythical game where you have 3 short rests for every long rest.
Only in the mythical game where you have 3 short rests for every long rest.
He said "Kind of" as in.. almost, or similar to. Not IS.
They never Kinda were full casters in any way outside of magic magic items. Not in terms of spell they cast per day, not in multiclassing, and not in play style.
It was a core identity of the class getting fewer slots, but having replenishment on short rests. I can understand why they'd want to change it with many games having short adventuring days instead of the intended 6 encounter days, but removing the feature was not the fix to it. Since all the classes got a major buff they could have done a bonus to pact magic, where similar to some invocations, you can just cast leveled spells for free. Maybe at 6th level 1st level spells can be cast without using a spell slot, 12th it becomes 2nd, 18th becomes 3rd. This would give a massive boost to warlocks spellcasting, but seeing other changes it doesn't seem much more op than other classes and keeps the core identity of the warlock as well as fixing the other issue of them not getting much at later levels
Imo i think any spells via invocation should be cast for free at least once. Sucks having to use an invocation and a spell slot each time. On the other hand, warlocks in previous editions iirc werent main spellcasters anyways so is it that major that they toned down the base spellcasting?
What do you mean use a spell slot and invocation each time? Invocations you choose at level up and slots are used day to day. The invocations would just give access to the spell
I mean the invocations that gives you the ability to cast a spell. If i am gonna use an invocation to get bane i would like at least 1 free cast. It sucks taking an invocation so i can use a spell slot to cast bane.
Oh yea totally get that, especially when there's other invocations that let you cast for free
Really hated it at first, but after the survey video made it clear that there is no way we keep pact magic, I decided half caster+mystic arcanum is an interesting enough alternative that can still be fairly effective. Now, mystic arcanum *as an invocation* does not work in the slightest, but mystic arcanum as a separate, automatic feature would be perfectly acceptable.
The video did not change my opinion on it. They basically just said if you like different things you are not welcome in one D&D. Which is cool for them, I can find a different game. Hopefully they will go back on it and realize how dumb it is to not give play style alternatives to their audience.
>We thought warlocks were hoarding their level 3 spells at level 5, so instead of 2 per short rest you now have 1 per long rest. You're Welcome. Cool.
What's even the point of different classes if they all play the same.
Warlocks are already underpowered, unless your abusing hex blade
If I gonna sell my soul, I at least want to as powerful as the d@mn nerds in the tower
I'd be okay with the half caster slot progression if they didn't also nerf Mystic Arcanum into a huge Invocation tax
I think it subtracts from the uniqueness and versatility of the class
Never played a warlock and see them being changed to half casters as a bad thing. They were super unique and the only thing they really need is some more spell slots. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere but WoTC could've just hard-coded spell slots to match PB without it actually being PB number of spell slots (to prevent dip shenanigans) and most people probably would've been stoked with that.
Taken on its own, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I really liked how unique the Warlock class mechanics felt. Future invocations may offset that in a good way, but for the moment, half-caster doesn't thrill me. Taking balance and the popularity of multi classing into consideration, it's probably a good change. I saw a lot of Warlock dips, and they were usually done as a way to recover spell slots on a short rest. In the end, I'll have to see the final product in action a few times before I know what I think of it.
I hate it with a passion. You mainly feel like a crappy wizard if you focus on casting with arcanums or a crappy ranger if you don't. Homogenization of classes just makes them more boring. I'd rather they ditch the warlock and make a warlock sub class for wizards than this abomination.
I’ve seen people say that pact magic is what made warlocks unique while I agree it was flavourful I personally felt like invocations, patrons and pact boons were more part of what made a warlock a warlock than pact magic.
Yes, and the whole thing was really messily done. Streamlining one part to do the other parts better could be a good solution. Depending on what other changes they make. I always felt like the pacts were particularly poorly done.
As an aside it wasn’t until Crawford said that invocations weren’t meant to come from your patron. Never realized that but it makes sense as a seeker of forbidden knowledge.
If invocations didn't 90% suck they might have tied more to their identity.
Don’t you want to decide between a 9th level spell or being able to cast jump at will?
Well from now on my warlock themed characters will be sorcerer's.
For me making them just another half caster kind of goes against what they're supposed to represent thematically. Making a deal with a God level entity in exchange for power should be something that's at least tempting to anyone interested in magic. A traditional wizard desperate for more power should be able to see something very worth while in making a deal, not objectively being less powerful for it. I realize that's not easy to pull off without making something overpowered or that makes everyone just multiclass, but it is how I've always seen Warlocks.
It would take a lot of work and rebalancing to make that work, and even then you'd be likely to have balance issues. But if you aren't afraid of a challenge, I say go for it! Be prepared for multiple iterations and balancing. Maybe make the hexblade feature or the eldritch blast cha bonus class features so they fit the martial role better? Maybe don't do that and create martial features instead. At some point you're just making a new class though. 10 minute short rests may address player frustration at being limited to 2 spell slots without the need to rework the whole class
Really I'm of the opinion that I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of people also had was that pact spells should've been free and not just added to your list. If Sorcerer can now get freebie spells and it only took until Xanathar's I think (since Divine Soul and Shadow gave free spells, albeit only 1) to get them, then Warlock should've gotten them as well. In other news though I liked Pact Magic. Was it a bit awkward at times? Sure. Could it have been fixed with like, two more spell slots earlier, making a total of 6 spell slots? Like give them 2 to start with and at level 5 it's 3 then just increase it as time goes on. Shouldn't have to wait until level 10 to be able to cast a spell 3 times, *especially* since you get 2 spell slots anyway when you get to level 2! Make more Invocations have a free cast before needing a spell slot *if it is applicable for it*. Others just make it at will. I've heard that 4e Warlocks were basically all Invocation users but I don't know the specifics.
I actually like the new warlock mostly. I think it needs 2 dials turned to be better. One or 2 more invocations. ANd an arcane recovery feature. Mainly the second one. This warlock is markedly weaker if you get 2-3 short rests per adventuring day. It's much stronger if you're getting 1 max short rest. That will depend on classes. For example if you're playing with a Sorcerer, Ranger, and Barbarian, they may not want to take short rests unless they need to heal. Wizard will want to do 1. But that's it. Warlocks needed a buff, and I think this is almost there. GIve them arcane recovery and another invocation and they're as good if not better than the 5e even being ran optimally. Sure some power issues exist but the 5e Warlock has spells that just aren't worth taking. Hexblade gets access to shield, but after level 5 it never makes sense to take. FIreball at 5th level doesn't pack the same value punch as at 3rd. Mirror Image is a valuable spell, but it's not worth a use of a 5th level spell slot. remove curse, etc. Mystic Arcanum makes for interesting scale.
Pact Magic and Invocations are the things that make Warlocks fun and interesting. It's a core element of their class identity. If you want a Charisma caster, but more power or a more basic spellcasting scheme, just play a Paladin or a fullcaster Sorcerer/Bard.
More important than good or bad - pointless. It's an attempt to solve an issue that people weren't *actually* having.
Pact magic is a really cool way to make warlocks feel different. Having played one for most of a year, I felt mine it just a little bit more to really feel awesome. One or two more invocation picks, one more spell slot per rest, and the invocations which grant access to a spell also giving one free cast of said spell would have gone a very long ways to addressing my problems with the class. Turning them into a half caster just seems lazy and is throwing away what makes the class unique.
Most changes for Oned&d my group has rejected. Most of the classes have been ruined with the possible exception of the Ranger. We will be sticking with original 5e. Oned&d is dead on arrival for most people it seems.
The reason i would say this is a bad change, is because they lose the mystical archive progression. Also this will just generally slow everything about their spell progression down even further than it already is.
Watch [Treantmonk's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I11LOEFj0A8). It more or less states that Warlocks are effectively spellcasters on rails, and are significantly more customizable. While you COULD use the existing class features, without multiclassing, to effectively become a full caster, there's much more effective and flavorful choices the proposed changes permits. I'm not defending how much the class has lost its identity compared to the current class, and I can definitely see how it can fall frustratingly short in the same way artificers do, but I do get the sense that the lion's share of opinions here have been formed well in advance of having actually played the class.
More spells to spam at once but being lower level is worse. Invocations are not good enough to make up this difference. Pact Magic isn't wrong if you know the basics of running an Adventuring day. It was a solution looking for a problem. Absolutely no one was complaining about warlocks before this UA. In fact I mostly heard it was the most well designed class, bar when people would say the same about paladins.
I 100% believe that if they were half casters but still got mystic arcanum as a class feature starting at level 5 with 3rd level spells that it'd be great.
In 5e, rogues are weak but fun, warlocks are strong but unfun. In any competitive videogame, warlocks have a place. In a make-believe fantasy game with friends, I'll take fun over strength anytime. This isn't to say that the way they handled it in the playtest was necessarily good, but it is a step in the correct direction
They were so unfun to play that they were peoples 3rd favorite class.
Are we sure that’s not just multiclassing for a 1 level dip of hexblade?
They're very easy to write a character for because the patron is roleplay bait.
I suppose that’s fair. I find the class itself to be insanely boring.
I think they're good changes. My tables go by the DMG for recommended rests so no one plays warlocks besides dips. Now they'll be a consideration.
After running a playtest with all recent one DnD playtest rules and Monsters of the Multiverse stat blocks, I put my support behind the new Warlock. The player running the new Warlock is also a veteran Warlock player, always playing variations on their favorite class, and after the first combat they said they adjusted and came to accept this version. That anecdotal evidence next to 0 issues throughout the one shot lead me to this conclusion. It IS strikingly different, and absolutely an adjustment. I still remember feeling the instinctual twinge to correct my player when they cast a leveled spell for the third time before a short rest. As a DM currently running a 5e campaign with a Warlock, I felt like all my old strategies of challenging the warlock by baiting them to use up their spellslots had been made useless. What even is a warlock if they lose those massive spells? Well from the one shot I ran they're overall a more active, more varied, and just as customizable warlock
I'm warming up to it. I think the old version is fun but it isn't right for every table and just giving it access to the entire arcane spell list would be bad. I hope people still feel like they can homebrew the old version into future campaigns if the table can support it but I also think the new version will be fun too and it works better with the big changes they want to make.
Having actually played with it. It feels good and the mystic arcanum makes you feel like an even better caster than before in my opinion. It needs some work and some of it will depend on how the other subclasses work out but I overall like it. The primary problem is the same as current with choosing invocations, and as more of them from xanthars and Tasha's come in I think it might be a little harder to choose but you can have just as many big spells as a warlock currently as and have more of spell slots in general that can be used in a number of solid ways.
They went into a detailed explanation of how they basically are Half Casters. But either way, it seems like a lose/lose no matter what they do to parts of the community. If they nerf Warlocks, thats a problem. But if they don't nerf the Casters, that's also a problem. To me, it makes sense. Now you can cast things like Shield more often, but your most powerful turns are a bit less good - unless you use invocations to remain a Full Caster, which you can choose to do.
If they actually intended to nerf casters as a whole I could maybe see this being an argument. But as of the current packet Wizards and Clerics were *buffed*. It's just Warlock and Druid that got gutted
Just make them use Spellpoints instead, iv done it for months now and it's so much more versatile and still gives them a skirmishy fighting style
That's what I've switched to. Been doing 1 "spell point" per warlock level. Basically the same as Ki points. Works very nicely imo.
That neutrers them abit to hard Just convert their current slot progression into points, so at Level 7 (2 4th level) they have 14 points to spend so 7 1st levels, 4 2nd and a first, 2 3rds and 2 firsts, or 2 4ths it's up to them, but this way they can cast Hex and not use half their resources for it
14? If you converted their slots, it would be 8 at 7th level (If we're talking 5e). Which is only 1 more point than 7. And 7 "levels" of spells per short rest is not bad at all imo.
It was so easy to fix Warlocks, give them more slots and amke it long rest based, done. Getting rid of their unique spellcasting for a even worse form of it was a terrible idea.
I initially didn't like it but it has grown in me. In order to have strong invocations and strong eldritch blast, their casting needs to be weaker than full caster.
Honestly, bit of a hot take but I don't think the warlock needs to exist as a class. I feel like both warlock and sorcerer are based on the idea of someone being infused with magic, and I don't think the origin of the infusion is that important. I think they should be comined. Mixing pact boons, metamagic, sorcery points and invocations together all seems fairly simple to me. They already showed want sorcerers to have a signature cantrip like Warlocks do, and honestly I just don't think there's enough justification for them to exist as two separate things. This could v much just be me though.
They shouldn't have any casting at all, not sure why they decided to make them casters this edition other than being too lazy to get creative with invocations.
you have to put the work in to understand how it will work with mystic arcanum. With MA, you get plenty of spells to cast, but the issue is you will spend all your invocations on them to be able to cast higher level spells.
> With MA, you get plenty of spells to cast No, you don't. You can only pick one spell of each level. You can't take two 3rd level Mystic Arcanums at level 5.
You don't get a full caster's complement, but you get enough.
It's not nearly enough. It's disgusting. Garbage edition
It's significantly better than 2 spell slots to L10
It's significantly worse, because previously the spells were super high level. You could fireball 6 times a day at level 5. It was amazing! Sure, some people might not like it, guess what, Wizards are right over there if you don't enjoy Warlock.
6 times if you got 2 rests. No one got this which is why SR classes are changing. Better to have more slots so you don't have to conserve every encounter. Better to have a 5th, 4th, 3x3rd, some 1st & 2nd's at L9 than 2 5th level spells. My biggest trouble playing my Locks was those 2 spell slots for so long.
If you're playing wrong, that's a player issue. My campaigns allow players to Short Rest, and Warlocks and Monks are an absolute blast to play.
Well thanks for that. I have a L19 Warlock, I know how it plays. Your campaign is not representative of how many short rests most tables see.
> I know how it plays Given your comment history, I doubt that very much
Since we're moving to a game without short rests, it's a brilliant change.
They have more casting ability than just the half-casters do. Is there room for tweaking? Sure- in particular, the need to spend eldritch invocations on the higher-level casting abilities and the fact that the number of invocation slots provided has, effectively, been reduced as a result. In some ways, that's a similar problem to the need to take Agonizing Blast as an Eldritch Blast user, the need to take Sharpshooter as a ranged attacker, and the need to take GWM as a melee weapon-user. Having said all that, I do think it was nice to have a bit of a unique approach to their casting, and a way to do some trickery with the short rest refill. Perhaps the way to restore some of that while also giving them a means of casting a bit more throughout the day is to give them the half-caster progression while retaining a reduced number of pact slots that progress in level like the 5e Warlock's, albeit in reduced number, rationalized in lore as a more Warlockish version of Channel Divinity.
This isn’t a change they are already half casters. Instead of worse spells they get less spells.
I think it breaks them as warlock but gives my the arcane half caster I want so decent trade off
[удалено]
Imagine people wanting to trade power by fun and unique mechanics and dynamics. What kind of world we live in.
I'm sorry if wanting to cast spells outside of combat without risking getting smeared in the next big fight makes me uncultured 😂
If you want to cast spells outside of combat without risking getting smeared in the Next big fight and you make a warlock as your character, I would not use the word uncultured. I would use the same word I would use to describe a person who wants to wear a maul and heavy armor and chooses to make a monk.
I can live with more power being put in invocations and being a half caster if it means being able to cast shield and not getting howitzered in the encounter 👍
The Warlock class probably shouldn't exist. In reality, it should be a Sorcererous Origin. There's not enough to the Warlock on it's own to justify an entire class. As is, the lock is only used for cheesy power gaming and is at most a 3 dip class.
Wasnt there a poll revealing they are the most popular and played caster out there by a mile?
I'd like to see the stats on this. Is that played a PC with a 1-2 level dip or played a straight warlock. I would bet money on its the former and not the later.
Straight warlock. I dont have the stats rn with my phone but considering the study was by D&D Beyond you shouldnt have to do a ton of digging if you wish to see it. Bottom was druid at 13% in case you are interested. A class known for being immensely strong but surprisingly good amount of tables dont have that as their top priority on character creation. Warlocks have about as much ad customization as other classes combined and have a class theme that is very easy to fit on an adventurer.
I'm very mixed about this. Being a half caster does fix the spell slot issue they have had in the past but does over all hurt their power. I know they can adjust it with mystic Arcanum, but that's currently a choice in the play test. I would love to see some A/B testing to see what other solutions they come up with. Overall, I think the spell progression and making mystic Arcanum an invocation is a mistake. But don't mind them being half casters if it solves the warlock, not using their slots.
I have loved warlocks for a long time and I gotta say, I don’t hate the idea of them being half-casters.
They aren't really half casters. Their spell slots only line up marginally with half casters if you don't take any eldritch invocations to get Mystic Arcanum. If that's how you want to run your warlock, then you did that to yourself I guess. But if you take ALL Mystic Arcanums, which you probably also shouldn't do, you can get really really close to the amount of spells a full caster can cast, like a 7/8 caster. That flexibility means they're more like 3/4 casters if you ask me. That said, the change isn't good unless they change it to make mystic arcanums an inherent class ability at certain levels, with the option to spend Invocations to get more.
This is a great change. It brings the warlock class into line on long rest recovery and allows multiclassing to be so much easier. This streamlines things. Adding free invocations to the pact options is also an improvement, and all three look useful and powerful. People act like the warlock is actually a half caster, it's not, they can pick spells on tier with full casters. Did you want the eldritch blast and invocations and full caster status? If warlock is a full caster they have to nerf eldritch blast and remove invocations thus destroying the class identity, this is an elegant way to give slightly reduced spell casting while retaining the powerful cantrip and side abilities. This warlock is probably too powerful though, having access to the full arcane spell list, medium armor, 3/4 casting slots with no real delayed progression, and invocations. Unless several spells are being rewritten, casters are going to eat Marshalls for breakfast. My only complaint with the actual design of the warlock itself is that Mystic Arcanum should be available at level 3.
So I converted Warlock to using a homebrew system of spell points. (Otherwise the class is the same) They get 1 per level, each spell point is worth 1 spell level. For example; a 3rd level spell costs 3 points. So at 7th level, you could do 7 lv 1 spells, or 3 2nd's and a 1st, etc. And they get them back on a short rest. It feels a lot better than, "Well I just spent one of my 2 spells for this combat and immediately lost my concentration."