The problem is, a lot of times it doesn't make narrative sense to sit down and rest for an hour. Say you're clearing out a dungeon clearing room to room, it doesn't make any sense to just stop and wait an hour before you go on to the next room. Mechanically, it makes perfect sense, but it can feel very meta-gamey. My group doesn't like to do that, and it absolutely kills my ability to get spell slots back.
There are plenty of house rules to address that by making short rests faster, but, honestly it's a shortcoming of the 5e game design/short rest classes.
This is where I kind of get weird and confused. Your group doesn't think it makes narrative sense to stop for lunch? or doesn't make narrative sense when the characters are tired and low on resources to want to catch their breath and regroup coming up with a plan to move forward? those things don't make narrative sense?
The problem is, a lot of times it doesn't make narrative sense to sit down and rest for an hour. Say you're clearing out a dungeon clearing room to room, it doesn't make any sense to just stop and wait an hour before you go on to the next room. Mechanically, it makes perfect sense, but it can feel very meta-gamey. My group doesn't like to do that, and it absolutely kills my ability to get spell slots back.
There are plenty of house rules to address that by making short rests faster, but, honestly it's a shortcoming of the 5e game design/short rest classes.
Sure but it would make even less sense to stop 8 hours if its hard to squeeze in 1 hour. If time is crunching that hard where you are in a episode of 24 and every second counts(though he did take breaks) you can't find the time for lunch, how the hell do you find the time for glamping in the woods.
Doesn't make sense to stop for lunch when we're busy. It depends on the situation. If we're in a dungeon, clearing room to room, no we will not stop unless it's simply unsafe to procede. We'll press on until we get to that safe place, resources be damned. Usually, it's just my warlock that's low on resources anyways, everyone else playing long rest classes do not feel the need to stop.
If we just wasted a group of cultists in room A, it makes no sense to stop for an hour and eat lunch while room B C and D are likely full of cultists and will come over and give us a kicking while we're trying to snack. Stopping to rest assumes that rooms B C and D did not hear us blowing their buddies to kingdom come, and the DM will just be kind, and allow us to rest in safety. That makes no narrative sense at all, yet it seems that the assumption is, that's precisely what is and should be happening.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Doesn't make sense to stop for lunch when we're busy. It depends on the situation. If we're in a dungeon, clearing room to room, no we will not stop unless it's simply unsafe to procede. We'll press on until we get to that safe place, resources be damned. Usually, it's just my warlock that's low on resources anyways, everyone else playing long rest classes do not feel the need to stop.
If we just wasted a group of cultists in room A, it makes no sense to stop for an hour and eat lunch while room B C and D are likely full of cultists and will come over and give us a kicking while we're trying to snack. Stopping to rest assumes that rooms B C and D did not hear us blowing their buddies to kingdom come, and the DM will just be kind, and allow us to rest in safety. That makes no narrative sense at all, yet it seems that the assumption is, that's precisely what is and should be happening.
Do those cultists disappear into a puff of smoke when you need the long rest? Long rests are much harder to take, so whenever you can justify one of those you easily could have justified a short rest and probably much sooner. The narrative is an excuse most the time as others just did not need to take one yet so they said screw that guy. Because as soon as they need the long rest they will take one narrative be damned.
I can accept their are exceptions where you literally can't take a short rest now and there is not much left to do so you can power through to a place where you can take a rest of any kind now. You are in a small building after one room you know there will be one or two more rooms so you clear them all etc. But that is not the norm, people will drop back and take the long rest whenever they need it no matter what the narrative says, And if you can justify 8 hours you can far more easily justify one.
Doesn't make sense to stop for lunch when we're busy. It depends on the situation. If we're in a dungeon, clearing room to room, no we will not stop unless it's simply unsafe to procede. We'll press on until we get to that safe place, resources be damned. Usually, it's just my warlock that's low on resources anyways, everyone else playing long rest classes do not feel the need to stop.
If we just wasted a group of cultists in room A, it makes no sense to stop for an hour and eat lunch while room B C and D are likely full of cultists and will come over and give us a kicking while we're trying to snack. Stopping to rest assumes that rooms B C and D did not hear us blowing their buddies to kingdom come, and the DM will just be kind, and allow us to rest in safety. That makes no narrative sense at all, yet it seems that the assumption is, that's precisely what is and should be happening.
Well why did you blow all of your spells in one go? Usually warlock gets by with 1 concentration spell and then eldritch blast than you guys hit room 2 and then you fall back to regroup, and come up with a plan for the future rooms. Lunch was not the only scenario I listed there, low on resources includes stamina and the like. Low on resources is GROUP resources, every member of the party is part of the group. If one person is out of resources that is a cost to the group.
I have ran into this mentality before in my games too and didn't understand it then either. They were like "we don't need to rest we are going to keep going" and because we didn't they ended up wasting 2 extra spell slots on counter spell that I could have cast and after we did take a short rest and continue our adventure they ran completely out of spells by the end of the day because they didn't let me rest and help them preserve their spells for later. The warlock's resources are part of the groups resources and the spells it casts is often times one less hit or one less spell another party member has to take. Part of managing a groups resources is recognizing the opportunity to recover or save resources for later by relying on your team. I don't see groups continuing on when the barbarian has 10 out of 100 health left even though the rest of the party is healthy, why is it different for the warlock's spell slots.
Imagine if Long Rests were as difficult to get at some tables as Short Rests are. If your Wizard does not get his Long Rests, he will look pretty anemic, too.
One thing I wanted talk about is this. It is something odd about short rests. They take 1 hour and somehow no one can find the space to do them, look out if we try to rest we will be ambushed, the monsters will kill the hostage, the thieves will get far away. But a long rest which takes 8 no one has a narrative or practical problem taking whenever they need it. There are instances in the story where sure that makes sense, at that exact moment you can't rest but by the time you get to the long rest all those issues are gone. But the reality I suspect 99% of the time is, the wizard, barbarian etc doesn't want to yet, i haven't used enough slots to get the most out of arcane recovery, i haven't lost enough hit points. Dude just take the rest because your friend wants to, its not a big deal.
The problem here is that a lot of adventures are built round five-room-dungeons and the like. There's no time for a rest, long or short, during the adventure. Too much is happening. But it starts before a long rest and after the adventure is done you can have another one.
Imagine if Long Rests were as difficult to get at some tables as Short Rests are. If your Wizard does not get his Long Rests, he will look pretty anemic, too.
One thing I wanted talk about is this. It is something odd about short rests. They take 1 hour and somehow no one can find the space to do them, look out if we try to rest we will be ambushed, the monsters will kill the hostage, the thieves will get far away. But a long rest which takes 8 no one has a narrative or practical problem taking whenever they need it. There are instances in the story where sure that makes sense, at that exact moment you can't rest but by the time you get to the long rest all those issues are gone. But the reality I suspect 99% of the time is, the wizard, barbarian etc doesn't want to yet, i haven't used enough slots to get the most out of arcane recovery, i haven't lost enough hit points. Dude just take the rest because your friend wants to, its not a big deal.
The problem here is that a lot of adventures are built round five-room-dungeons and the like. There's no time for a rest, long or short, during the adventure. Too much is happening. But it starts before a long rest and after the adventure is done you can have another one.
I feel like if you are properly building that "five-room-dungeon" with proper difficulty than a short rest should happen after 2 rooms or the party should die from lack of resources beyond that everything I said before sticks. Even if you read the articles of five-room-dungeons you will note that it isn't literally just 5 rooms. Essentially it is a 5 encounter day, which matches very well with how the DMG tells you to plan your adventures too and it recommends 2 short rests fit into that 5 room dungeon. The thing also mentions pathfinder 2nd edition which famously builds its difficulty off of single encounters and expects the party to be near full health if no completely full health after each fight as they take time after each room to heal. There is nothing in a "five-room-dungeon" adventure that says you can't take a short rest to heal up wounds between "rooms"
Imagine if Long Rests were as difficult to get at some tables as Short Rests are. If your Wizard does not get his Long Rests, he will look pretty anemic, too.
One thing I wanted talk about is this. It is something odd about short rests. They take 1 hour and somehow no one can find the space to do them, look out if we try to rest we will be ambushed, the monsters will kill the hostage, the thieves will get far away. But a long rest which takes 8 no one has a narrative or practical problem taking whenever they need it. There are instances in the story where sure that makes sense, at that exact moment you can't rest but by the time you get to the long rest all those issues are gone. But the reality I suspect 99% of the time is, the wizard, barbarian etc doesn't want to yet, i haven't used enough slots to get the most out of arcane recovery, i haven't lost enough hit points. Dude just take the rest because your friend wants to, its not a big deal.
The problem here is that a lot of adventures are built round five-room-dungeons and the like. There's no time for a rest, long or short, during the adventure. Too much is happening. But it starts before a long rest and after the adventure is done you can have another one.
That prime example in that 5 room dungeon was only one fight. 4 encounters where players role play and use skills tough some spells could help and a fight room. If that is what you do for the whole campaign then the warlock is fine, they can unload in encounter 4(the big fight). And in each of the examples given in that 5 room dungeon there is no reason not to stop. encounter 1 a hidden entrance, okay you find it, take a break. Encounter 2 a puzzle, okay you solved it, take a break. Encounter 3, a trick or set back, here there could be a fight depending on the trick. But again why do you need to run into the next room and fight, but even if you do odds are in a trick fight the amount of resources a warlock spends is not massive. Encounter 4, the big fight, okay use all your resources and then rest, encounter 5. the reward, revelation or a plot twist again what resources are you spending here. And that is all assuming its an actual dungeon instead of a series of wilderness encounters, a intrigue based campaign spread out over a city etc.
Like lets say its a intrigue based The defense minster is murdered. "Hidden entrance encounter" you use social skills to get hired onto the case, move through the town to the keep, talk to the guards and the king. Puzzle You are brought to the room where the murder happened. You investigate the room, cast some spells, and then say hey we are taking a short rest while we discuss what we found. Step 3 a trick its a red herring folks, that led you to a trap. After the trap you rest and reassess what you know. 4, confront the bad guy. 5, get paid.
To add to dudeicus, this is also why I typically recommend only having 2 or 3 combat spell options on a warlock and the rest being utility spells for solving a variety of problems. You can't cast more than 2 spells per combat anyway so it doesn't make sense to have more than a couple of the best combat spells and the short rest ability makes the Warlock very good at out of combat casting because they are the only class that can cast those higher level utility spells without losing the combat effectiveness of their higher level combat spells because they can just rest after using that utility. A properly run "five-dungeon-room" adventure definitely allows for a short rest at least once.
To add to dudeicus, this is also why I typically recommend only having 2 or 3 combat spell options on a warlock and the rest being utility spells for solving a variety of problems. You can't cast more than 2 spells per combat anyway so it doesn't make sense to have more than a couple of the best combat spells and the short rest ability makes the Warlock very good at out of combat casting because they are the only class that can cast those higher level utility spells without losing the combat effectiveness of their higher level combat spells because they can just rest after using that utility. A properly run "five-dungeon-room" adventure definitely allows for a short rest at least once.
I also recommend only a tiny number of combat spell options on a warlock because you only have one level of spells. You therefore only really need e.g. one large damaging AoE (whether Hunger of Hadar or Fireball) and one save-or-suck per stat (e.g. Hold Person, Banishment).
To add to dudeicus, this is also why I typically recommend only having 2 or 3 combat spell options on a warlock and the rest being utility spells for solving a variety of problems. You can't cast more than 2 spells per combat anyway so it doesn't make sense to have more than a couple of the best combat spells and the short rest ability makes the Warlock very good at out of combat casting because they are the only class that can cast those higher level utility spells without losing the combat effectiveness of their higher level combat spells because they can just rest after using that utility. A properly run "five-dungeon-room" adventure definitely allows for a short rest at least once.
I also recommend only a tiny number of combat spell options on a warlock because you only have one level of spells. You therefore only really need e.g. one large damaging AoE (whether Hunger of Hadar or Fireball) and one save-or-suck per stat (e.g. Hold Person, Banishment).
Hold person is a good example for a spell that is usually not prepared at a certain level for most casters, but really becomes a great option for warlocks as a niche combat option. They always upcast it so like at level 9+ it targets 4 humanoids. Its is a game changer you are pulling out in the fights where it comes up, while the cleric or wizard likely graduated to hold monster and never bothered learning or preparing hold person at mid to high levels. Hopefully they fixed hunger of hadar so it scales up when upcast, so disappointing when warlock spells don't have upcasting baked in.
Doesn't make sense to stop for lunch when we're busy. It depends on the situation. If we're in a dungeon, clearing room to room, no we will not stop unless it's simply unsafe to procede. We'll press on until we get to that safe place, resources be damned. Usually, it's just my warlock that's low on resources anyways, everyone else playing long rest classes do not feel the need to stop.
If we just wasted a group of cultists in room A, it makes no sense to stop for an hour and eat lunch while room B C and D are likely full of cultists and will come over and give us a kicking while we're trying to snack. Stopping to rest assumes that rooms B C and D did not hear us blowing their buddies to kingdom come, and the DM will just be kind, and allow us to rest in safety. That makes no narrative sense at all, yet it seems that the assumption is, that's precisely what is and should be happening.
Well why did you blow all of your spells in one go? Usually warlock gets by with 1 concentration spell and then eldritch blast than you guys hit room 2 and then you fall back to regroup, and come up with a plan for the future rooms. Lunch was not the only scenario I listed there, low on resources includes stamina and the like. Low on resources is GROUP resources, every member of the party is part of the group. If one person is out of resources that is a cost to the group.
I have ran into this mentality before in my games too and didn't understand it then either. They were like "we don't need to rest we are going to keep going" and because we didn't they ended up wasting 2 extra spell slots on counter spell that I could have cast and after we did take a short rest and continue our adventure they ran completely out of spells by the end of the day because they didn't let me rest and help them preserve their spells for later. The warlock's resources are part of the groups resources and the spells it casts is often times one less hit or one less spell another party member has to take. Part of managing a groups resources is recognizing the opportunity to recover or save resources for later by relying on your team. I don't see groups continuing on when the barbarian has 10 out of 100 health left even though the rest of the party is healthy, why is it different for the warlock's spell slots.
because I can always still spam eldritch blast, just like a fighter can swing sword/shoot bow. A warlock without spell slots is still very effective and far from out of the fight.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Doesn't make sense to stop for lunch when we're busy. It depends on the situation. If we're in a dungeon, clearing room to room, no we will not stop unless it's simply unsafe to procede. We'll press on until we get to that safe place, resources be damned. Usually, it's just my warlock that's low on resources anyways, everyone else playing long rest classes do not feel the need to stop.
If we just wasted a group of cultists in room A, it makes no sense to stop for an hour and eat lunch while room B C and D are likely full of cultists and will come over and give us a kicking while we're trying to snack. Stopping to rest assumes that rooms B C and D did not hear us blowing their buddies to kingdom come, and the DM will just be kind, and allow us to rest in safety. That makes no narrative sense at all, yet it seems that the assumption is, that's precisely what is and should be happening.
Well why did you blow all of your spells in one go? Usually warlock gets by with 1 concentration spell and then eldritch blast than you guys hit room 2 and then you fall back to regroup, and come up with a plan for the future rooms. Lunch was not the only scenario I listed there, low on resources includes stamina and the like. Low on resources is GROUP resources, every member of the party is part of the group. If one person is out of resources that is a cost to the group.
I have ran into this mentality before in my games too and didn't understand it then either. They were like "we don't need to rest we are going to keep going" and because we didn't they ended up wasting 2 extra spell slots on counter spell that I could have cast and after we did take a short rest and continue our adventure they ran completely out of spells by the end of the day because they didn't let me rest and help them preserve their spells for later. The warlock's resources are part of the groups resources and the spells it casts is often times one less hit or one less spell another party member has to take. Part of managing a groups resources is recognizing the opportunity to recover or save resources for later by relying on your team. I don't see groups continuing on when the barbarian has 10 out of 100 health left even though the rest of the party is healthy, why is it different for the warlock's spell slots.
because I can always still spam eldritch blast, just like a fighter can swing sword/shoot bow. A warlock without spell slots is still very effective and far from out of the fight.
So essentially your issue with warlock's short rest casting is you don't have an issue because you can always eldritch blast? Fighter wants to use their hit dice to recover health and action surge, I just don't see why the warlock wanting to recover spells in the same manner is all of a sudden something groups balk at.
No, my issue is, I do NOT want to always just spam EB. Our fighters don't just pause in the middle of things to have a cup of tea, either. We short rest when it makes narrative sense, ie, it's reasonably safe. NOT wherever we happen to be when we get low on resources.
You don't stop clearing a house, just because you are out of flashbangs. you move on to the next room, and you do it the old fashioned way with your M4. That's how we play it. We resupply when we can.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
No, my issue is, I do NOT want to always just spam EB. Our fighters don't just pause in the middle of things to have a cup of tea, either. We short rest when it makes narrative sense, ie, it's reasonably safe. NOT wherever we happen to be when we get low on resources.
You don't stop clearing a house, just because you are out of flashbangs. you move on to the next room, and you do it the old fashioned way with your M4. That's how we play it. We resupply when we can.
Does it make narrative sense to "stop for a cup of tea" when the barbarian has only a couple hit points left or do you guys just keep going and let him die? If you know you are going to clear the whole house why would you toss all of your flash bangs in the first room?
Furthermore, this "house" you are describing isn't an adventure if you clear it all in one go no stops. This is what we would call a multi-part encounter there are guidelines to building multi-part encounters. There should be 2 more of these or a few more standard encounters in the day.
So for me, I personally love warlocks. You just have to know how to build them correctly. Instead of being so focused on damage look for other spells that either crowd control, or stick around for longer. For me, I’m a fathomless warlock, and I absolutely love Bigbys hand. Grasping tentacles is all so an incredible ability; it allows you to cast Evard’s black tentacles once per long rest Without using a spell slot.
i’m also considering using summon shadow spawn, which is a spell that sticks around for an hour and has the potential to fear enemies within 30 feet of it for a minute. The biggest thing with warlock is choosing spells that not only scale but also that stick around for a long time.
if you wanna be more mellow focused, go with pact Of the blade, if you’re more spellcasting focused, go with pact of the tomb. Packed the tone is great because it gives you three Crips and two level one ritual casting spells.
However, that also means you should build into concentration through picking up either a sorcerer or multi class or a fighter multi class. My fathomless warlock is a fighter multi class and essentially the tank of the group as funny as it sounds.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, in fact I've said recently that warlocks now underperform in damage so much they need to find other outlets to contribute to the party. The thing is though you know who else can cast fear, evards etc a wizard, and they will cast more of them a lot more of them, while having more spell utility as well. Warlocks class design is they are supposed to make up for that with consistent damage via Eldritch blast spam, its just that eldritch blast spam really isn't up to par anymore.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, in fact I've said recently that warlocks now underperform in damage so much they need to find other outlets to contribute to the party. The thing is though you know who else can cast fear, evards etc a wizard, and they will cast more of them a lot more of them, while having more spell utility as well. Warlocks class design is they are supposed to make up for that with consistent damage via Eldritch blast spam, its just that eldritch blast spam really isn't up to par anymore.
I almost feel agonizing blast and repelling blast should have been built in to EB to keep it on par with martials bow, and then more options given for invocations. Failing that I really think warlocks SUFFER at higher levels with invocations. They get 1 at 1, 2 more at 2, 2 more at 5, and then just 1 every other level like a spell level, but the options they have past level 5 drop off DRASTICALLY so by the time you are hitting 7, 9, so on and so forth, unless you are blade pact using it to scale your damage, it is your 6 or 7 preferred option rather than being a powerful NEW option. Invocations should be the thing that brings a warlock up but the lack of high level, high powered invocations makes the warlock suffer more than it needs to. The spell list is also way to restrictive. No augery, no polymorph, no bestow curse, loss of mass suggestion. They have a grand total of 4 7th level options for their mystic Arcanum and 2 of them are narrative dependent spells and 1 of them costs a bunch of gold to use. Tome ritual spells and invocations feel like they are supposed to be letting at will spells or near at will spells be the defining factor for warlock, but you just don't get enough or good enough options for it to be reliable.
My method of building locks has basically become grab nearly every 1st level ritual spell they can, get a lot of cantrips and situational spells and rely on the warlock patron list for the primary combat spells. Then pray the table is generous with allowing rests so the utility spells that actually use slots don't hinder me in combat.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone point out that Warlock is capable of casting more mid-range spell power than a wizard as part of the answer to the question of “what can warlock do that wizard can’t?” With Magical Cunning and a normal 2 short rest day, a level 9 warlock is dropping seven 5th level spells per day compared to the wizard doing a grand total of TWO 5th level spells a day with arcane recovery. That’s dropping a Synaptic Static or Hold Monster in your 3-4 daily encounters and still having the juice left over to scry on the location of your story contact and then cast teleportation circle to get the party there. All while being the best scout and information gatherer with at-will Arcane Eye, Speak with Dead and Disguise Self along with Invisible Imp companion and guaranteed success on Contact Other Plane and walking around invisible whenever you want by ducking under the shadow of a tree or an alleyway. This is just the base kit- the new upgraded subclasses SLAP. Archfey warlock misty step doesn’t use a spell slot which means you can teleport and still drop a leveled spell on the same turn. Fiendlock is tankier than ever and the fiend spell list gives you solid damage and control spells for combat allowing you to reserve most of your spells known for rituals and support spells. The new GOOlock is a solid debuffing and alt control class and with the upgrades to healing magic, Celestial warlock is a respectable backup or even primary healer. No wizard can ever match that.
you assume that a warlock gets their two short rests.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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This is where I kind of get weird and confused. Your group doesn't think it makes narrative sense to stop for lunch? or doesn't make narrative sense when the characters are tired and low on resources to want to catch their breath and regroup coming up with a plan to move forward? those things don't make narrative sense?
Sure but it would make even less sense to stop 8 hours if its hard to squeeze in 1 hour. If time is crunching that hard where you are in a episode of 24 and every second counts(though he did take breaks) you can't find the time for lunch, how the hell do you find the time for glamping in the woods.
Doesn't make sense to stop for lunch when we're busy. It depends on the situation. If we're in a dungeon, clearing room to room, no we will not stop unless it's simply unsafe to procede. We'll press on until we get to that safe place, resources be damned. Usually, it's just my warlock that's low on resources anyways, everyone else playing long rest classes do not feel the need to stop.
If we just wasted a group of cultists in room A, it makes no sense to stop for an hour and eat lunch while room B C and D are likely full of cultists and will come over and give us a kicking while we're trying to snack. Stopping to rest assumes that rooms B C and D did not hear us blowing their buddies to kingdom come, and the DM will just be kind, and allow us to rest in safety. That makes no narrative sense at all, yet it seems that the assumption is, that's precisely what is and should be happening.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Do those cultists disappear into a puff of smoke when you need the long rest? Long rests are much harder to take, so whenever you can justify one of those you easily could have justified a short rest and probably much sooner. The narrative is an excuse most the time as others just did not need to take one yet so they said screw that guy. Because as soon as they need the long rest they will take one narrative be damned.
I can accept their are exceptions where you literally can't take a short rest now and there is not much left to do so you can power through to a place where you can take a rest of any kind now. You are in a small building after one room you know there will be one or two more rooms so you clear them all etc. But that is not the norm, people will drop back and take the long rest whenever they need it no matter what the narrative says, And if you can justify 8 hours you can far more easily justify one.
Well why did you blow all of your spells in one go? Usually warlock gets by with 1 concentration spell and then eldritch blast than you guys hit room 2 and then you fall back to regroup, and come up with a plan for the future rooms. Lunch was not the only scenario I listed there, low on resources includes stamina and the like. Low on resources is GROUP resources, every member of the party is part of the group. If one person is out of resources that is a cost to the group.
I have ran into this mentality before in my games too and didn't understand it then either. They were like "we don't need to rest we are going to keep going" and because we didn't they ended up wasting 2 extra spell slots on counter spell that I could have cast and after we did take a short rest and continue our adventure they ran completely out of spells by the end of the day because they didn't let me rest and help them preserve their spells for later. The warlock's resources are part of the groups resources and the spells it casts is often times one less hit or one less spell another party member has to take. Part of managing a groups resources is recognizing the opportunity to recover or save resources for later by relying on your team. I don't see groups continuing on when the barbarian has 10 out of 100 health left even though the rest of the party is healthy, why is it different for the warlock's spell slots.
The problem here is that a lot of adventures are built round five-room-dungeons and the like. There's no time for a rest, long or short, during the adventure. Too much is happening. But it starts before a long rest and after the adventure is done you can have another one.
I feel like if you are properly building that "five-room-dungeon" with proper difficulty than a short rest should happen after 2 rooms or the party should die from lack of resources beyond that everything I said before sticks. Even if you read the articles of five-room-dungeons you will note that it isn't literally just 5 rooms. Essentially it is a 5 encounter day, which matches very well with how the DMG tells you to plan your adventures too and it recommends 2 short rests fit into that 5 room dungeon. The thing also mentions pathfinder 2nd edition which famously builds its difficulty off of single encounters and expects the party to be near full health if no completely full health after each fight as they take time after each room to heal. There is nothing in a "five-room-dungeon" adventure that says you can't take a short rest to heal up wounds between "rooms"
That prime example in that 5 room dungeon was only one fight. 4 encounters where players role play and use skills tough some spells could help and a fight room. If that is what you do for the whole campaign then the warlock is fine, they can unload in encounter 4(the big fight). And in each of the examples given in that 5 room dungeon there is no reason not to stop. encounter 1 a hidden entrance, okay you find it, take a break. Encounter 2 a puzzle, okay you solved it, take a break. Encounter 3, a trick or set back, here there could be a fight depending on the trick. But again why do you need to run into the next room and fight, but even if you do odds are in a trick fight the amount of resources a warlock spends is not massive. Encounter 4, the big fight, okay use all your resources and then rest, encounter 5. the reward, revelation or a plot twist again what resources are you spending here. And that is all assuming its an actual dungeon instead of a series of wilderness encounters, a intrigue based campaign spread out over a city etc.
Like lets say its a intrigue based The defense minster is murdered. "Hidden entrance encounter" you use social skills to get hired onto the case, move through the town to the keep, talk to the guards and the king. Puzzle You are brought to the room where the murder happened. You investigate the room, cast some spells, and then say hey we are taking a short rest while we discuss what we found. Step 3 a trick its a red herring folks, that led you to a trap. After the trap you rest and reassess what you know. 4, confront the bad guy. 5, get paid.
To add to dudeicus, this is also why I typically recommend only having 2 or 3 combat spell options on a warlock and the rest being utility spells for solving a variety of problems. You can't cast more than 2 spells per combat anyway so it doesn't make sense to have more than a couple of the best combat spells and the short rest ability makes the Warlock very good at out of combat casting because they are the only class that can cast those higher level utility spells without losing the combat effectiveness of their higher level combat spells because they can just rest after using that utility. A properly run "five-dungeon-room" adventure definitely allows for a short rest at least once.
I also recommend only a tiny number of combat spell options on a warlock because you only have one level of spells. You therefore only really need e.g. one large damaging AoE (whether Hunger of Hadar or Fireball) and one save-or-suck per stat (e.g. Hold Person, Banishment).
Hold person is a good example for a spell that is usually not prepared at a certain level for most casters, but really becomes a great option for warlocks as a niche combat option. They always upcast it so like at level 9+ it targets 4 humanoids. Its is a game changer you are pulling out in the fights where it comes up, while the cleric or wizard likely graduated to hold monster and never bothered learning or preparing hold person at mid to high levels. Hopefully they fixed hunger of hadar so it scales up when upcast, so disappointing when warlock spells don't have upcasting baked in.
because I can always still spam eldritch blast, just like a fighter can swing sword/shoot bow. A warlock without spell slots is still very effective and far from out of the fight.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
So essentially your issue with warlock's short rest casting is you don't have an issue because you can always eldritch blast? Fighter wants to use their hit dice to recover health and action surge, I just don't see why the warlock wanting to recover spells in the same manner is all of a sudden something groups balk at.
No, my issue is, I do NOT want to always just spam EB. Our fighters don't just pause in the middle of things to have a cup of tea, either. We short rest when it makes narrative sense, ie, it's reasonably safe. NOT wherever we happen to be when we get low on resources.
You don't stop clearing a house, just because you are out of flashbangs. you move on to the next room, and you do it the old fashioned way with your M4. That's how we play it. We resupply when we can.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Does it make narrative sense to "stop for a cup of tea" when the barbarian has only a couple hit points left or do you guys just keep going and let him die? If you know you are going to clear the whole house why would you toss all of your flash bangs in the first room?
Furthermore, this "house" you are describing isn't an adventure if you clear it all in one go no stops. This is what we would call a multi-part encounter there are guidelines to building multi-part encounters. There should be 2 more of these or a few more standard encounters in the day.
So for me, I personally love warlocks. You just have to know how to build them correctly. Instead of being so focused on damage look for other spells that either crowd control, or stick around for longer. For me, I’m a fathomless warlock, and I absolutely love Bigbys hand. Grasping tentacles is all so an incredible ability; it allows you to cast Evard’s black tentacles once per long rest Without using a spell slot.
i’m also considering using summon shadow spawn, which is a spell that sticks around for an hour and has the potential to fear enemies within 30 feet of it for a minute. The biggest thing with warlock is choosing spells that not only scale but also that stick around for a long time.
if you wanna be more mellow focused, go with pact Of the blade, if you’re more spellcasting focused, go with pact of the tomb. Packed the tone is great because it gives you three Crips and two level one ritual casting spells.
However, that also means you should build into concentration through picking up either a sorcerer or multi class or a fighter multi class. My fathomless warlock is a fighter multi class and essentially the tank of the group as funny as it sounds.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, in fact I've said recently that warlocks now underperform in damage so much they need to find other outlets to contribute to the party. The thing is though you know who else can cast fear, evards etc a wizard, and they will cast more of them a lot more of them, while having more spell utility as well. Warlocks class design is they are supposed to make up for that with consistent damage via Eldritch blast spam, its just that eldritch blast spam really isn't up to par anymore.
I almost feel agonizing blast and repelling blast should have been built in to EB to keep it on par with martials bow, and then more options given for invocations. Failing that I really think warlocks SUFFER at higher levels with invocations. They get 1 at 1, 2 more at 2, 2 more at 5, and then just 1 every other level like a spell level, but the options they have past level 5 drop off DRASTICALLY so by the time you are hitting 7, 9, so on and so forth, unless you are blade pact using it to scale your damage, it is your 6 or 7 preferred option rather than being a powerful NEW option. Invocations should be the thing that brings a warlock up but the lack of high level, high powered invocations makes the warlock suffer more than it needs to. The spell list is also way to restrictive. No augery, no polymorph, no bestow curse, loss of mass suggestion. They have a grand total of 4 7th level options for their mystic Arcanum and 2 of them are narrative dependent spells and 1 of them costs a bunch of gold to use. Tome ritual spells and invocations feel like they are supposed to be letting at will spells or near at will spells be the defining factor for warlock, but you just don't get enough or good enough options for it to be reliable.
My method of building locks has basically become grab nearly every 1st level ritual spell they can, get a lot of cantrips and situational spells and rely on the warlock patron list for the primary combat spells. Then pray the table is generous with allowing rests so the utility spells that actually use slots don't hinder me in combat.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone point out that Warlock is capable of casting more mid-range spell power than a wizard as part of the answer to the question of “what can warlock do that wizard can’t?” With Magical Cunning and a normal 2 short rest day, a level 9 warlock is dropping seven 5th level spells per day compared to the wizard doing a grand total of TWO 5th level spells a day with arcane recovery. That’s dropping a Synaptic Static or Hold Monster in your 3-4 daily encounters and still having the juice left over to scry on the location of your story contact and then cast teleportation circle to get the party there. All while being the best scout and information gatherer with at-will Arcane Eye, Speak with Dead and Disguise Self along with Invisible Imp companion and guaranteed success on Contact Other Plane and walking around invisible whenever you want by ducking under the shadow of a tree or an alleyway. This is just the base kit- the new upgraded subclasses SLAP. Archfey warlock misty step doesn’t use a spell slot which means you can teleport and still drop a leveled spell on the same turn. Fiendlock is tankier than ever and the fiend spell list gives you solid damage and control spells for combat allowing you to reserve most of your spells known for rituals and support spells. The new GOOlock is a solid debuffing and alt control class and with the upgrades to healing magic, Celestial warlock is a respectable backup or even primary healer. No wizard can ever match that.
you assume that a warlock gets their two short rests.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha