My problem with Hexblade is that it makes it the only option for a Warlock who wants to be melee based and use Pact of the blade. I'm also still somewhat salty that the loophole for a Warlock to use charisma for their weapon attacks, (by picking Pact of Tome and getting Shillelagh,) is now pointless.
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I think Misty Visions is great for combat if you're creative since it causes creatures to burn actions or deal with attacking through cover
I've found the Archfey level Fey Presence ability to be lackluster due to the limited uses and short-term impact although it can be a "get out of jail free" card in combat. Loses some mechanical usefulness if Tome of the Pact with Shocking Grasp.
I think Sculptor of Flesh should be higher rated since its a CR @ level creature if used as a buff. That's both more powerful than the character at the same level and at its worse, 150 free hit points with baked-in abilities (i.e. climb, etc.) depending on the form you take. I agree it loses value at higher levels but most don't play to 20 and if just used as a hit point sponge, that's still pretty powerful. This just assumes it's a buff, ignoring that it can be used as save or die - it's very flexible.
THANK YOU for calling out Devil's Sight doesn't see through Hunger of Hadar!
Pact of the Blade: Nice for combat and roleplaying, though has more invocations than either of the other Boons. 7.5/10 in both power and roleplaying.
Pact of the Chain: Really cool for roleplaying, though not so good in combat unless you find a way to buff it really well, and XGtE has an overpowered invocation for it. 8.5/10 in role-play aspect, 7/10 in power. Total of 7.75/10.
Pact of the Tome: Extremely versatile, and has one of the best invocations that can give you wizard abilities. Also nice for roleplaying. 8.0 in power, 7.5 in roleplaying. Total of 7.75/10.
Undying
Spell list is nice, with lots of Necromancy spells, though it has aura of life for some reason. Versatility is this spell list.
Among the Dead(1st level): You can easily stabilize your friends, and zombies can't directly attack you. Pretty nice for the early levels, when zombies are actually common, and players go down easily.
Defy Death(6th level): Not so nice, but can be a life saver. When you stabilize someone with spare the dying or succeed on a death saving throw, you regain hit points. Only downside is that it's once per long rest. I would honestly change it to short rest.
Undead Nature(10th level): You're a lot like a zombie now, and don't need to do stuff like eat, sleep, or breathe, to survive. Plus you can live a lot longer.
Indestructible Life(14th level): I honestly think this isn't that bad. Once per short or long rest, you can use a bonus action to regain hit points, though a lot more than Defy Death gives you. Plus if your body parts are cut off, then they reattach when you use this feature.
All in all, not bad. 7.0 in power, 8.0 in roleplaying. 7.5 final evaluation.
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So I am very much into Patron specific invocations so I thought I would share a few that my DM and I worked out. I am running an Eladrin Feylock and really wanted to lean into the Fey aspect of the character. So we have focused on nature and mind effects with a few of our home-brew and keeping in mind when we sub out any spell, we followed the Mike Mearls sage advice that spells are balanced around spell slot level so trading one spell for another of same level is a balanced trade for any homebrew. We also subscribe to the homebrew philosophy that warlock invocations that grant a spell should not require a spell slot to use.
Wrath of the Feywild- Required Level 9. You can cast Insect Plague at 5th level once per long rest. (This was to replace Minions of Chaos which is a solid invocation but I wanted to go even more "natury" with my 5th level spell.)
Agonizing Charm- Required Level 5. The mental fatigue required to successfully resist your control effects takes a toll on the target. When a target successfully saves against your spell or magical effect requiring a wisdom or charisma saving throw, they take psychic damage equal to the spell/effect level + warlock level. (This was to help keep the Feylock viable at higher levels when more and more things have magic resistance/immunity/advantage on saves. So even if you do not successfully charm them, you do at least cause a bit of damage. This was also a reaction to the fact that SO many invocations buff Eldritch Blast that we wanted some compelling options.)
Blood of the Fey- Required Level 11, Archfey Patron- Your link to the Fey Wild grows stronger and like the Fey, magic is a very part of you. You now have magic resistance which grants you advantage saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Dance of the ArchFey- Required Level 15, Archfey Patron- You have mastered the hidden paths of the Fey to traverse the world. You can cast Misty Step at will.
Good read- interesting perspective. I think the only thing I would add is a caveat that in general, the invocations that grant you a spell but require you to use a spell slot to do the spell are generally very sub-optimal. Having to use one of your spell slots and your rare and important invocation slot just to get a 1 use per day spell? There are almost no spells worth that price.
Very common homebrew for that is to grant a once a day usage at it's lowest spell slot casting for those invocations that just grant a spell. This is how I have handled it with my other players and how my DM and I have agreed to handle it. But to each their own.
Yeah, the invocations that give you a different spell but make you burn a spell slot are absolute hot garbage as opposed to a series of constant buffs or at-will abilities. Sure, Confusion is a great spell, but, by the time you could take that invocation, you have a bunch of great spell options, and it's just not worth it.
Came here to say this. Burning both an Invocation as well as one of a Warlock's precious few spell slots isn't worth it. They should have been "Once per long rest" or "using a spell slot", not both. I also think the spells granted by the various patrons should be automatically added to the Warlock's known spell list (like with every other class), and that Hex should be baked into the class, like Hexblade's Curse is, but those are rants for another day.
Good read- interesting perspective. I think the only thing I would add is a caveat that in general, the invocations that grant you a spell but require you to use a spell slot to do the spell are generally very sub-optimal. Having to use one of your spell slots and your rare and important invocation slot just to get a 1 use per day spell? There are almost no spells worth that price.
Very common homebrew for that is to grant a once a day usage at it's lowest spell slot casting for those invocations that just grant a spell. This is how I have handled it with my other players and how my DM and I have agreed to handle it. But to each their own.
Yeah, the invocations that give you a different spell but make you burn a spell slot are absolute hot garbage as opposed to a series of constant buffs or at-will abilities. Sure, Confusion is a great spell, but, by the time you could take that invocation, you have a bunch of great spell options, and it's just not worth it.
Came here to say this. Burning both an Invocation as well as one of a Warlock's precious few spell slots isn't worth it. They should have been "Once per long rest" or "using a spell slot", not both. I also think the spells granted by the various patrons should be automatically added to the Warlock's known spell list (like with every other class), and that Hex should be baked into the class, like Hexblade's Curse is, but those are rants for another day.
Fully agree the patron specific spells should automatically be a known spell for Warlock. I don't know if Hex should be automatic as well but I can see the argument for it. I love the Warlock so much but it's like the designers thought that short rest spells were SOOOO OP that they had to make sure and gimp the warlock in a bunch of other ways to not make them better than Wizard. Newsflash- most DM's don't include more than 1 short rest per day in their story so short rest spells aren't always the awesomeness they look on paper. Especially if you are in a party where they don't get much benefit from short rest such as Wizard/Sorcerer, Paladins, Clerics, Rogues etc. Only Monk and Bard get anything significant back on SR like Warlock.
Also-like ok we get it, Wizard is the swiss army knife of magic and you don't want warlock infringing on the wizardly turf but would a half dozen more spells known from our patron be the end of the world lol. Wizard can literally know a hundred+ spells by level 20 and Warlock knows like 20 even including the Mystic Arcanum's lol.
Good read- interesting perspective. I think the only thing I would add is a caveat that in general, the invocations that grant you a spell but require you to use a spell slot to do the spell are generally very sub-optimal. Having to use one of your spell slots and your rare and important invocation slot just to get a 1 use per day spell? There are almost no spells worth that price.
Very common homebrew for that is to grant a once a day usage at it's lowest spell slot casting for those invocations that just grant a spell. This is how I have handled it with my other players and how my DM and I have agreed to handle it. But to each their own.
Yeah, the invocations that give you a different spell but make you burn a spell slot are absolute hot garbage as opposed to a series of constant buffs or at-will abilities. Sure, Confusion is a great spell, but, by the time you could take that invocation, you have a bunch of great spell options, and it's just not worth it.
Came here to say this. Burning both an Invocation as well as one of a Warlock's precious few spell slots isn't worth it. They should have been "Once per long rest" or "using a spell slot", not both. I also think the spells granted by the various patrons should be automatically added to the Warlock's known spell list (like with every other class), and that Hex should be baked into the class, like Hexblade's Curse is, but those are rants for another day.
Fully agree the patron specific spells should automatically be a known spell for Warlock. I don't know if Hex should be automatic as well but I can see the argument for it. I love the Warlock so much but it's like the designers thought that short rest spells were SOOOO OP that they had to make sure and gimp the warlock in a bunch of other ways to not make them better than Wizard. Newsflash- most DM's don't include more than 1 short rest per day in their story so short rest spells aren't always the awesomeness they look on paper. Especially if you are in a party where they don't get much benefit from short rest such as Wizard/Sorcerer, Paladins, Clerics, Rogues etc. Only Monk and Bard get anything significant back on SR like Warlock.
Also-like ok we get it, Wizard is the swiss army knife of magic and you don't want warlock infringing on the wizardly turf but would a half dozen more spells known from our patron be the end of the world lol. Wizard can literally know a hundred+ spells by level 20 and Warlock knows like 20 even including the Mystic Arcanum's lol.
But Wizards can only have 25 spells prepared, although they can have dozens more ritual spells, but TomeLocks are the best ritual casters. Clerics and Land Druids can have 34 and 32 spells prepared respectively.
Good read- interesting perspective. I think the only thing I would add is a caveat that in general, the invocations that grant you a spell but require you to use a spell slot to do the spell are generally very sub-optimal. Having to use one of your spell slots and your rare and important invocation slot just to get a 1 use per day spell? There are almost no spells worth that price.
Very common homebrew for that is to grant a once a day usage at it's lowest spell slot casting for those invocations that just grant a spell. This is how I have handled it with my other players and how my DM and I have agreed to handle it. But to each their own.
My DM gave me (or, I earned...) a Ring of Smiting, that allows me to drop an Eldritch Smite 1x/day without using a spell slot. Sure, I could end up using it as many as 3x /day if I get 2 short rests, but that's unlikely.
Or, I could drop 3 Smites on a Dragon all in a single battle, if I don't bother with Hex, or Armor of Agathys, or any other spells, really...
I’ll share a dissenting opinion on the spell per day invocations - if you optimize for EB or Hexblade, consider most of your spells are concentration kept up most of a combat and play like a Ranger, the spell slots are far less important. As a result, around levels 5 or 7 these invocations aren’t as big a penalty.
If you play like a Wizard then yes they are a tax but if you see the class as martial with some spell utility and more flavor it’s less of a burden to give up the slot and Invocation.
I’ll share a dissenting opinion on the spell per day invocations - if you optimize for EB or Hexblade, consider most of your spells are concentration kept up most of a combat and play like a Ranger, the spell slots are far less important. As a result, around levels 5 or 7 these invocations aren’t as big a penalty.
If you play like a Wizard then yes they are a tax but if you see the class as martial with some spell utility and more flavor it’s less of a burden to give up the slot and Invocation.
I’ll share a dissenting opinion on the spell per day invocations - if you optimize for EB or Hexblade, consider most of your spells are concentration kept up most of a combat and play like a Ranger, the spell slots are far less important. As a result, around levels 5 or 7 these invocations aren’t as big a penalty.
If you play like a Wizard then yes they are a tax but if you see the class as martial with some spell utility and more flavor it’s less of a burden to give up the slot and Invocation.
I understand your point. However it's not really correct to view them as a martial class primarily for 2 reasons-
1- they are considered a "Full Caster" class. They get all the way up to 9th level spells which is the defining attribute of a full caster class. Compare with a ranger, paladin, or elditch knight for instance and they top out at 5th level spells.
2- they have no starting offsetting martial abilities like a half caster class does. Ranger doesn't go above 5th level spells but he has weapon and armor proficiencies and lots of other skills and abilities dictated by their primary and subclass right from the beginning. Paladins are heavily armored melee experts right from the start. Elditch Knight is similar to paladin as well with immediate martial abilities.
The Warlock is very versatile and yes you can go Hexblade and swing a sword or go all in on EB and your basically a magic ranger. But I would still argue the class balance and design is primarily about being a caster.
I understand your point. However it's not really correct to view them as a martial class primarily for 2 reasons-
1- they are considered a "Full Caster" class. They get all the way up to 9th level spells which is the defining attribute of a full caster class. Compare with a ranger, paladin, or elditch knight for instance and they top out at 5th level spells.
2- they have no starting offsetting martial abilities like a half caster class does. Ranger doesn't go above 5th level spells but he has weapon and armor proficiencies and lots of other skills and abilities dictated by their primary and subclass right from the beginning. Paladins are heavily armored melee experts right from the start. Elditch Knight is similar to paladin as well with immediate martial abilities.
The Warlock is very versatile and yes you can go Hexblade and swing a sword or go all in on EB and your basically a magic ranger. But I would still argue the class balance and design is primarily about being a caster.
Warlocks do not have 9th level spell slots. Warlocks have Mystic Arcanums, which don't overlap with their slot usage and you only get one at each level above 5. You can't cast slot spells as a 9th level spell from a Mystic Arcanum for instance. By slots they are like Rangers or Paladins, topping out at level 5.
The Warlock "starting martial ability" is Eldritch Blast unless you go The Hexblade and even then you can still get it. EB gets two attacks at 5th level and so on. You can make class option choices to have it add primary stat to damage like a weapon. You can further enhance this ability in a fashion similar to martial classes specializing in fighting styles. Not taking either Eldritch Blast or The Hexblade is like playing a Ranger without weapons. The Hexblade even gets medium armor, shield and martial weapon proficiencies.
Hex functions similarly to the Ranger's Hunter's Mark spell or the Paladin's Wrathful Smite.
Warlock combines the flavor of spell casting with the mechanics of a martial class. You get to decide how heavily focused it is one way or the other. If the class had spells like a wizard, no one would play a wizard because the Warlock would have more to offer. You give something up to get something in return - flexibility in the core class structure at the cost of heavier armor, weapons and spells.
WHile WArlocks arn't "Fullcasters" still only 4 Spell slots if you go pure Warlock is Poppycocks.
Rangers have 15 spell slots( even if they are limited to lvl4 spells), Clerics have 22 slots, even though they are as good in a fight as a Paladin(minus the Smite).
Heck an Arcane trickster Thief have 11 slots.
Even classes that are Moderatly good at spellcasting have more slots then the one guy who exchanged His Soul to a Otherworldly being for power...
IMO 8 or 9 slots for a Warlock wouldn't have been too much, but 4?...
Yes they can take a short rest( for only a part of their features and slots, some features and the Arcanums later on requires a Long rest), but like said, not all groups or DM's takes a 1hour short rest every 3 battles, SINCE ALL the other classes must take a long rest to get their spells back, the only occurence where they would bother with a Short rest is to use Hit Dies or something.
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I understand your point. However it's not really correct to view them as a martial class primarily for 2 reasons-
1- they are considered a "Full Caster" class. They get all the way up to 9th level spells which is the defining attribute of a full caster class. Compare with a ranger, paladin, or elditch knight for instance and they top out at 5th level spells.
2- they have no starting offsetting martial abilities like a half caster class does. Ranger doesn't go above 5th level spells but he has weapon and armor proficiencies and lots of other skills and abilities dictated by their primary and subclass right from the beginning. Paladins are heavily armored melee experts right from the start. Elditch Knight is similar to paladin as well with immediate martial abilities.
The Warlock is very versatile and yes you can go Hexblade and swing a sword or go all in on EB and your basically a magic ranger. But I would still argue the class balance and design is primarily about being a caster.
Warlocks do not have 9th level spell slots. Warlocks have Mystic Arcanums, which don't overlap with their slot usage and you only get one at each level above 5. You can't cast slot spells as a 9th level spell from a Mystic Arcanum for instance. By slots they are like Rangers or Paladins, topping out at level 5.
The Warlock "starting martial ability" is Eldritch Blast unless you go The Hexblade and even then you can still get it. EB gets two attacks at 5th level and so on. You can make class option choices to have it add primary stat to damage like a weapon. You can further enhance this ability in a fashion similar to martial classes specializing in fighting styles. Not taking either Eldritch Blast or The Hexblade is like playing a Ranger without weapons. The Hexblade even gets medium armor, shield and martial weapon proficiencies.
Hex functions similarly to the Ranger's Hunter's Mark spell or the Paladin's Wrathful Smite.
Warlock combines the flavor of spell casting with the mechanics of a martial class. You get to decide how heavily focused it is one way or the other. If the class had spells like a wizard, no one would play a wizard because the Warlock would have more to offer. You give something up to get something in return - flexibility in the core class structure at the cost of heavier armor, weapons and spells.
Didn't say Warlocks had 9th level slots. I said Warlocks have 9th level spells. They also have 6th, 7th & 8th level spells which Rangers, Paladins and the like also do not get.
Saying the Warlock "Starting Martial Ability" is Eldritch Blast is almost like saying the starting martial ability of a wizard is shocking grasp. They both scale at the same levels and rate. They both have different utility- Eldritch Blast can attack separate people and Shocking Grasp stops reactions. They both have nothing to do with being a starting "Martial Ability". The fact that Warlock has a number of options to boost EB is irrelevant since you still have to choose them and you do not receive them by default.
All of this shows that while Warlock has the OPTION of going martial, it is primarily a caster driven class. Look at it this way- if a Beholder was looking straight at a Warlock with it's anti-magic eye, it is shut down completely. Full stop. Eldritch Blast-gone. Pact Weapon-gone. Hex Weapon-gone. Spells- obviously gone. Their AC falls because armor of shadows is gone. They become useless in combat because they are dependent on magic. MAYBE their Hex weapon goes mundane and they can still hit with it but they go down to only hitting 1 time because thirsting blade is null as well.
Now if a Beholder does the same thing to a Ranger or a Paladin, sure they are less effective since their magic weapons won't hit as hard and they can't use Hunter's Mark or Smites, but they can still shoot an arrow or stab with a sword. They are not completely shutdown because they are only partially reliant on magic. Their AC doesn't fall by much because they are still super dexterous or wearing full plate with a shield.
Which of these sounds like the caster class and which sound like the martial class?
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what either of us thinks of them but it's fun to discuss and have differing opinions :)
Don't forget though- Warlocks get, through their invocations, a number of at will abilities for level 1 and 2 spells. Factoring these into the calculation vs other casters considerably closes the gap when other casters are burning level 1 slots on Disguise Self for instance or the Wizard is burning 1-2 slots a day on mage armor not to mention ALWAYS having to have it prepared.
I do agree with you though that the vast majority of groups and DM's take at most 1 short rest in an adventuring day so usually I homebrew with my players or DM's that the Warlock gets an extra slot or two depending on how often we typically short rest.
Very much seems like a miss from a game design perspective to make so few player resources recharge on a short rest but then have an entire class be built and balanced around taking short rests.
Don't forget though- Warlocks get, through their invocations, a number of at will abilities for level 1 and 2 spells. Factoring these into the calculation vs other casters considerably closes the gap when other casters are burning level 1 slots on Disguise Self for instance or the Wizard is burning 1-2 slots a day on mage armor not to mention ALWAYS having to have it prepared.
I do agree with you though that the vast majority of groups and DM's take at most 1 short rest in an adventuring day so usually I homebrew with my players or DM's that the Warlock gets an extra slot or two depending on how often we typically short rest.
Very much seems like a miss from a game design perspective to make so few player resources recharge on a short rest but then have an entire class be built and balanced around taking short rests.
Yeah, or if at least a Short rest was only 5-10min long and not an hour, its also one of the reasons lots of people don't want to waste time on short rests when they don't have to, they're always worried that if they dilly dally too long something is going to happen in the background screwing them over.
Not every DM is doing things like it was ona tight schedule, but for logics sake, if you enter a cave systeme kill a bunch of dudes in teh first rooms and then after an hour the others in the other rooms don't have any signs of them, it is sign that something is off.
Thats why personallyw hen i DM i rule that short rest takes 10mins at most.
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One of the problems with reducing the time of a short rest, is that it increases the chance of short rest spamming, and it also significantly reduces the value of ritual spells, something TomeLocks excel at.
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My problem with Hexblade is that it makes it the only option for a Warlock who wants to be melee based and use Pact of the blade. I'm also still somewhat salty that the loophole for a Warlock to use charisma for their weapon attacks, (by picking Pact of Tome and getting Shillelagh,) is now pointless.
I'm happy to discuss the Xanathar subclasses, but let's wait until I've actually made the post, huh? :)
Subclass Evaluations So Far:
Sorcerer
Warlock
My statblock. Fear me!
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My Blade Pact FeyLock would disagree with you on this.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
(Talking to Jack)
My Npc Blade Pact Feylock would agree with you on this.
Subclass Evaluations So Far:
Sorcerer
Warlock
My statblock. Fear me!
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My two cents:
Any chance you would ever cover the Boons and/or Undying? I see most people say it’s bad, but I’d like to know if you feel the same.
Extended Signature! Yay! https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/3153-extended-signature-thread?page=2#c21
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Okay, I'll give a little evaluation here.
Pact of the Blade: Nice for combat and roleplaying, though has more invocations than either of the other Boons. 7.5/10 in both power and roleplaying.
Pact of the Chain: Really cool for roleplaying, though not so good in combat unless you find a way to buff it really well, and XGtE has an overpowered invocation for it. 8.5/10 in role-play aspect, 7/10 in power. Total of 7.75/10.
Pact of the Tome: Extremely versatile, and has one of the best invocations that can give you wizard abilities. Also nice for roleplaying. 8.0 in power, 7.5 in roleplaying. Total of 7.75/10.
Undying
Spell list is nice, with lots of Necromancy spells, though it has aura of life for some reason. Versatility is this spell list.
Among the Dead(1st level): You can easily stabilize your friends, and zombies can't directly attack you. Pretty nice for the early levels, when zombies are actually common, and players go down easily.
Defy Death(6th level): Not so nice, but can be a life saver. When you stabilize someone with spare the dying or succeed on a death saving throw, you regain hit points. Only downside is that it's once per long rest. I would honestly change it to short rest.
Undead Nature(10th level): You're a lot like a zombie now, and don't need to do stuff like eat, sleep, or breathe, to survive. Plus you can live a lot longer.
Indestructible Life(14th level): I honestly think this isn't that bad. Once per short or long rest, you can use a bonus action to regain hit points, though a lot more than Defy Death gives you. Plus if your body parts are cut off, then they reattach when you use this feature.
All in all, not bad. 7.0 in power, 8.0 in roleplaying. 7.5 final evaluation.
Subclass Evaluations So Far:
Sorcerer
Warlock
My statblock. Fear me!
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So I am very much into Patron specific invocations so I thought I would share a few that my DM and I worked out. I am running an Eladrin Feylock and really wanted to lean into the Fey aspect of the character. So we have focused on nature and mind effects with a few of our home-brew and keeping in mind when we sub out any spell, we followed the Mike Mearls sage advice that spells are balanced around spell slot level so trading one spell for another of same level is a balanced trade for any homebrew. We also subscribe to the homebrew philosophy that warlock invocations that grant a spell should not require a spell slot to use.
Wrath of the Feywild- Required Level 9. You can cast Insect Plague at 5th level once per long rest. (This was to replace Minions of Chaos which is a solid invocation but I wanted to go even more "natury" with my 5th level spell.)
Agonizing Charm- Required Level 5. The mental fatigue required to successfully resist your control effects takes a toll on the target. When a target successfully saves against your spell or magical effect requiring a wisdom or charisma saving throw, they take psychic damage equal to the spell/effect level + warlock level. (This was to help keep the Feylock viable at higher levels when more and more things have magic resistance/immunity/advantage on saves. So even if you do not successfully charm them, you do at least cause a bit of damage. This was also a reaction to the fact that SO many invocations buff Eldritch Blast that we wanted some compelling options.)
Blood of the Fey- Required Level 11, Archfey Patron- Your link to the Fey Wild grows stronger and like the Fey, magic is a very part of you. You now have magic resistance which grants you advantage saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Dance of the ArchFey- Required Level 15, Archfey Patron- You have mastered the hidden paths of the Fey to traverse the world. You can cast Misty Step at will.
Came here to say this. Burning both an Invocation as well as one of a Warlock's precious few spell slots isn't worth it. They should have been "Once per long rest" or "using a spell slot", not both. I also think the spells granted by the various patrons should be automatically added to the Warlock's known spell list (like with every other class), and that Hex should be baked into the class, like Hexblade's Curse is, but those are rants for another day.
Fully agree the patron specific spells should automatically be a known spell for Warlock. I don't know if Hex should be automatic as well but I can see the argument for it. I love the Warlock so much but it's like the designers thought that short rest spells were SOOOO OP that they had to make sure and gimp the warlock in a bunch of other ways to not make them better than Wizard. Newsflash- most DM's don't include more than 1 short rest per day in their story so short rest spells aren't always the awesomeness they look on paper. Especially if you are in a party where they don't get much benefit from short rest such as Wizard/Sorcerer, Paladins, Clerics, Rogues etc. Only Monk and Bard get anything significant back on SR like Warlock.
Also-like ok we get it, Wizard is the swiss army knife of magic and you don't want warlock infringing on the wizardly turf but would a half dozen more spells known from our patron be the end of the world lol. Wizard can literally know a hundred+ spells by level 20 and Warlock knows like 20 even including the Mystic Arcanum's lol.
But Wizards can only have 25 spells prepared, although they can have dozens more ritual spells, but TomeLocks are the best ritual casters. Clerics and Land Druids can have 34 and 32 spells prepared respectively.
My DM gave me (or, I earned...) a Ring of Smiting, that allows me to drop an Eldritch Smite 1x/day without using a spell slot. Sure, I could end up using it as many as 3x /day if I get 2 short rests, but that's unlikely.
Or, I could drop 3 Smites on a Dragon all in a single battle, if I don't bother with Hex, or Armor of Agathys, or any other spells, really...
I’ll share a dissenting opinion on the spell per day invocations - if you optimize for EB or Hexblade, consider most of your spells are concentration kept up most of a combat and play like a Ranger, the spell slots are far less important. As a result, around levels 5 or 7 these invocations aren’t as big a penalty.
If you play like a Wizard then yes they are a tax but if you see the class as martial with some spell utility and more flavor it’s less of a burden to give up the slot and Invocation.
I understand your point. However it's not really correct to view them as a martial class primarily for 2 reasons-
1- they are considered a "Full Caster" class. They get all the way up to 9th level spells which is the defining attribute of a full caster class. Compare with a ranger, paladin, or elditch knight for instance and they top out at 5th level spells.
2- they have no starting offsetting martial abilities like a half caster class does. Ranger doesn't go above 5th level spells but he has weapon and armor proficiencies and lots of other skills and abilities dictated by their primary and subclass right from the beginning. Paladins are heavily armored melee experts right from the start. Elditch Knight is similar to paladin as well with immediate martial abilities.
The Warlock is very versatile and yes you can go Hexblade and swing a sword or go all in on EB and your basically a magic ranger. But I would still argue the class balance and design is primarily about being a caster.
Warlocks do not have 9th level spell slots. Warlocks have Mystic Arcanums, which don't overlap with their slot usage and you only get one at each level above 5. You can't cast slot spells as a 9th level spell from a Mystic Arcanum for instance. By slots they are like Rangers or Paladins, topping out at level 5.
The Warlock "starting martial ability" is Eldritch Blast unless you go The Hexblade and even then you can still get it. EB gets two attacks at 5th level and so on. You can make class option choices to have it add primary stat to damage like a weapon. You can further enhance this ability in a fashion similar to martial classes specializing in fighting styles. Not taking either Eldritch Blast or The Hexblade is like playing a Ranger without weapons. The Hexblade even gets medium armor, shield and martial weapon proficiencies.
Hex functions similarly to the Ranger's Hunter's Mark spell or the Paladin's Wrathful Smite.
Warlock combines the flavor of spell casting with the mechanics of a martial class. You get to decide how heavily focused it is one way or the other. If the class had spells like a wizard, no one would play a wizard because the Warlock would have more to offer. You give something up to get something in return - flexibility in the core class structure at the cost of heavier armor, weapons and spells.
WHile WArlocks arn't "Fullcasters" still only 4 Spell slots if you go pure Warlock is Poppycocks.
Rangers have 15 spell slots( even if they are limited to lvl4 spells), Clerics have 22 slots, even though they are as good in a fight as a Paladin(minus the Smite).
Heck an Arcane trickster Thief have 11 slots.
Even classes that are Moderatly good at spellcasting have more slots then the one guy who exchanged His Soul to a Otherworldly being for power...
IMO 8 or 9 slots for a Warlock wouldn't have been too much, but 4?...
Yes they can take a short rest( for only a part of their features and slots, some features and the Arcanums later on requires a Long rest), but like said, not all groups or DM's takes a 1hour short rest every 3 battles, SINCE ALL the other classes must take a long rest to get their spells back, the only occurence where they would bother with a Short rest is to use Hit Dies or something.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Didn't say Warlocks had 9th level slots. I said Warlocks have 9th level spells. They also have 6th, 7th & 8th level spells which Rangers, Paladins and the like also do not get.
Saying the Warlock "Starting Martial Ability" is Eldritch Blast is almost like saying the starting martial ability of a wizard is shocking grasp. They both scale at the same levels and rate. They both have different utility- Eldritch Blast can attack separate people and Shocking Grasp stops reactions. They both have nothing to do with being a starting "Martial Ability". The fact that Warlock has a number of options to boost EB is irrelevant since you still have to choose them and you do not receive them by default.
All of this shows that while Warlock has the OPTION of going martial, it is primarily a caster driven class. Look at it this way- if a Beholder was looking straight at a Warlock with it's anti-magic eye, it is shut down completely. Full stop. Eldritch Blast-gone. Pact Weapon-gone. Hex Weapon-gone. Spells- obviously gone. Their AC falls because armor of shadows is gone. They become useless in combat because they are dependent on magic. MAYBE their Hex weapon goes mundane and they can still hit with it but they go down to only hitting 1 time because thirsting blade is null as well.
Now if a Beholder does the same thing to a Ranger or a Paladin, sure they are less effective since their magic weapons won't hit as hard and they can't use Hunter's Mark or Smites, but they can still shoot an arrow or stab with a sword. They are not completely shutdown because they are only partially reliant on magic. Their AC doesn't fall by much because they are still super dexterous or wearing full plate with a shield.
Which of these sounds like the caster class and which sound like the martial class?
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what either of us thinks of them but it's fun to discuss and have differing opinions :)
Peace out!
Don't forget though- Warlocks get, through their invocations, a number of at will abilities for level 1 and 2 spells. Factoring these into the calculation vs other casters considerably closes the gap when other casters are burning level 1 slots on Disguise Self for instance or the Wizard is burning 1-2 slots a day on mage armor not to mention ALWAYS having to have it prepared.
I do agree with you though that the vast majority of groups and DM's take at most 1 short rest in an adventuring day so usually I homebrew with my players or DM's that the Warlock gets an extra slot or two depending on how often we typically short rest.
Very much seems like a miss from a game design perspective to make so few player resources recharge on a short rest but then have an entire class be built and balanced around taking short rests.
Yeah, or if at least a Short rest was only 5-10min long and not an hour, its also one of the reasons lots of people don't want to waste time on short rests when they don't have to, they're always worried that if they dilly dally too long something is going to happen in the background screwing them over.
Not every DM is doing things like it was ona tight schedule, but for logics sake, if you enter a cave systeme kill a bunch of dudes in teh first rooms and then after an hour the others in the other rooms don't have any signs of them, it is sign that something is off.
Thats why personallyw hen i DM i rule that short rest takes 10mins at most.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
One of the problems with reducing the time of a short rest, is that it increases the chance of short rest spamming, and it also significantly reduces the value of ritual spells, something TomeLocks excel at.