its like no one reads the warlock class description.
You mean like the parts that say "A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being", "The magic bestowed on a warlock ranges from minor but lasting alterations to the warlock’s being (such as the ability to see in darkness or to read any language) to access to powerful spells", "Your arcane research and the magic bestowed on you by your patron have given you facility with spells", "your otherworldly patron bestows a gift upon you", "Through occult ceremony, you have formed a pact with a mysterious entity to gain magical powers", "Your patron grants you a magical secret called an arcanum", etc.? Some people like to interpret their warlock as some up by their bootstraps type who did all the learning themselves, but the objective fact is the printed flavor of the class is heavily coded towards you being directly handed power rather than going through the process of learning how to make it happen from scratch.
I agree with you on Religion, Clerics should get something for it although Knowledge Religion is how it was described in the past and Knowledge should remain INT.
Sorcerers, Bards and Warlocks are canonically NOT scholars of magic and it is fitting that they don't have any special access to Arcana.
Actually, as Wisdom is one of the most important saves and Charisma boosts social skills perhaps letting INT casters have Arcana aligned with their casting stat is fine.
Sure not sorcerers, but both bards and warlocks are scholars of magic.
Debatable, depending on how you choose to define "scholar"- Warlocks are largely coded as acquiring knowledge/powers/etc. from either a single very powerful being or a network of arrangements. Yes they are "learning", but it's much closer to skimming wikis and forums to answer a question or follow a series of instructions rather than gaining a fundamental understanding of the basic mechanics of magic the way Wizards do. And Bards are ostensibly working off a softer magic since they're usually coded as "discovering/connecting with the fundamental magic within music/language"- they work out how to cause an effect, but they aren't described as delving into why the cause produces the effect from the same technical perspective a Wizard is.
At the end of the day, the fundamental difference between the way all the other Arcane casters and Wizards learn magic is this- Wizards can theoretically learn their entire class spell list, with enough time and resources. They won't have it all immediately at hand- if only for game balance, but they have the potential capability to prepare any of it. All of the other classes will only ever have access to a relatively small proportion of the potential spells in their field. Wizards have dedicated themselves to the fundamentals enough that they can achieve mastery of a far broader suite of capabilities than anyone else on the Arcane side of the street- and in fact already do so purely based on their core class features. The others range from 15 to 22 learned spells at max level based purely on the class features table. Wizards will have 44 from leveling (6 staring+ 2 spells per level * 19 additional levels). You can spin the flavor of how your character does magic whatever way you like, but the objective fact is that Wizards will know how to do far more magic than anyone else on their side of the street.
like i said its like no one actually reads the class. Yes they have pacts with beings which gives them power. But its clear throughout the class that those pacts are formed through occult/arcane research. Their power comes from knowledge, not from forcing their will upon the weave. They are as int and arcana coded as the wizard.
Again, debatable- particularly as I note you fail to address the numerous excerpts I found in the Warlock description that contradict your position. The INT Warlock crowd likes to play up the "research" angle, but looking up a rite to summon a being who then infuses you with magic or gives you step by step instructions isn't the same as dedicating yourself to understanding how arcane magic works at a fundamental level. We know their knowledge of magic is far outstripped by a Wizard's because a Warlock gets 15 personally learned spells by level 20- 19 if we throw them a bone and count the Arcanum even though those are heavily coded as being directly handed to you by a patron rather than learned. A Wizard is guaranteed to beat out the 15 by 6th level (6 from level 1 + 2* 5 additional levels = 16)- 8th level if we count Arcanum- meaning that by mid tier 2 a Wizard is objectively more magically capable than a Warlock will ever be in terms of the variety of effects they can achieve via spellwork they clearly earned independently.
At best, Warlocks got a 4 year degree doing a few research papers where they just read from existing literature and cite the relevant portions for their thesis. Wizards did an 8 year university course and carried out an independent research study. Everything about them emphasizes that they're using applied knowledge far more than Warlocks are coded to. They know more spells at most if not every character level, they can utilize certain spells even when they haven't gone through the process of preparing, they can more readily trade out prepared spells both on a day to day basis and in a more immediate one, and they can take expertise in any one INT skill as a 2nd level feature. There's no reason you can't play a Warlock who's also an intellectual, but they objectively are not lore/description coded to lean on personal applied knowledge and research to nearly the same degree a Wizard does.
its like no one reads the warlock class description.
You mean like the parts that say "A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being", "The magic bestowed on a warlock ranges from minor but lasting alterations to the warlock’s being (such as the ability to see in darkness or to read any language) to access to powerful spells", "Your arcane research and the magic bestowed on you by your patron have given you facility with spells", "your otherworldly patron bestows a gift upon you", "Through occult ceremony, you have formed a pact with a mysterious entity to gain magical powers", "Your patron grants you a magical secret called an arcanum", etc.? Some people like to interpret their warlock as some up by their bootstraps type who did all the learning themselves, but the objective fact is the printed flavor of the class is heavily coded towards you being directly handed power rather than going through the process of learning how to make it happen from scratch.
I agree with you on Religion, Clerics should get something for it although Knowledge Religion is how it was described in the past and Knowledge should remain INT.
Sorcerers, Bards and Warlocks are canonically NOT scholars of magic and it is fitting that they don't have any special access to Arcana.
Actually, as Wisdom is one of the most important saves and Charisma boosts social skills perhaps letting INT casters have Arcana aligned with their casting stat is fine.
Sure not sorcerers, but both bards and warlocks are scholars of magic.
Debatable, depending on how you choose to define "scholar"- Warlocks are largely coded as acquiring knowledge/powers/etc. from either a single very powerful being or a network of arrangements. Yes they are "learning", but it's much closer to skimming wikis and forums to answer a question or follow a series of instructions rather than gaining a fundamental understanding of the basic mechanics of magic the way Wizards do. And Bards are ostensibly working off a softer magic since they're usually coded as "discovering/connecting with the fundamental magic within music/language"- they work out how to cause an effect, but they aren't described as delving into why the cause produces the effect from the same technical perspective a Wizard is.
At the end of the day, the fundamental difference between the way all the other Arcane casters and Wizards learn magic is this- Wizards can theoretically learn their entire class spell list, with enough time and resources. They won't have it all immediately at hand- if only for game balance, but they have the potential capability to prepare any of it. All of the other classes will only ever have access to a relatively small proportion of the potential spells in their field. Wizards have dedicated themselves to the fundamentals enough that they can achieve mastery of a far broader suite of capabilities than anyone else on the Arcane side of the street- and in fact already do so purely based on their core class features. The others range from 15 to 22 learned spells at max level based purely on the class features table. Wizards will have 44 from leveling (6 staring+ 2 spells per level * 19 additional levels). You can spin the flavor of how your character does magic whatever way you like, but the objective fact is that Wizards will know how to do far more magic than anyone else on their side of the street.
like i said its like no one actually reads the class. Yes they have pacts with beings which gives them power. But its clear throughout the class that those pacts are formed through occult/arcane research. Their power comes from knowledge, not from forcing their will upon the weave. They are as int and arcana coded as the wizard.
Sorry I 100% disagree with you.
One path is through research. But is that research actually arcana study and lore or is it more of researching who and how to contact that Patron to give you the power ones ambition's crave.
Having a Warlock do that "through occult/arcane research." does not mean the are actually studying. They are like a treasure hunter, just reading what is necessary to find the location of the shipwreck/Patron.
The last line is where I cause that they are not actually studying, but doing research on how to contact a single Patron. "...rather than going through the process of learning how to make it happen from scratch."
Making a pact with an Archdevil doesn't mean you sought it out. You may just have been walking along a lonely road and reached a crossroad where a man in a suit offered you a doughnut. But first you had to agree to "do them a favour", and now you have these powers so you can do that favour and that favour is destroying an Archdemon.
Warlocks quest for knowledge that lies hidden in the fabric of the multiverse. They often begin their search for magical power by delving into tomes of forbidden lore, dabbling in invocations meant to attract the power of extraplanar beings, or seeking places of power where the influence of these beings can be felt.
Yep, sounds totally like accidental donut pacts are the norm./s
If you want your Warlock to be Homer Simpson, go for it, but that isn't want the books says.
Again, debatable- particularly as I note you fail to address the numerous excerpts I found in the Warlock description that contradict your position. The INT Warlock crowd likes to play up the "research" angle, but looking up a rite to summon a being who then infuses you with magic or gives you step by step instructions isn't the same as dedicating yourself to understanding how arcane magic works at a fundamental level. We know their knowledge of magic is far outstripped by a Wizard's because a Warlock gets 15 personally learned spells by level 20- 19 if we throw them a bone and count the Arcanum even though those are heavily coded as being directly handed to you by a patron rather than learned. A Wizard is guaranteed to beat out the 15 by 6th level (6 from level 1 + 2* 5 additional levels = 16)- 8th level if we count Arcanum- meaning that by mid tier 2 a Wizard is objectively more magically capable than a Warlock will ever be in terms of the variety of effects they can achieve via spellwork they clearly earned independently.
At best, Warlocks got a 4 year degree doing a few research papers where they just read from existing literature and cite the relevant portions for their thesis. Wizards did an 8 year university course and carried out an independent research study. Everything about them emphasizes that they're using applied knowledge far more than Warlocks are coded to. They know more spells at most if not every character level, they can utilize certain spells even when they haven't gone through the process of preparing, they can more readily trade out prepared spells both on a day to day basis and in a more immediate one, and they can take expertise in any one INT skill as a 2nd level feature. There's no reason you can't play a Warlock who's also an intellectual, but they objectively are not lore/description coded to lean on personal applied knowledge and research to nearly the same degree a Wizard does.
Sorry I 100% disagree with you.
One path is through research. But is that research actually arcana study and lore or is it more of researching who and how to contact that Patron to give you the power ones ambition's crave.
Having a Warlock do that "through occult/arcane research." does not mean the are actually studying. They are like a treasure hunter, just reading what is necessary to find the location of the shipwreck/Patron.
The last line is where I cause that they are not actually studying, but doing research on how to contact a single Patron. "...rather than going through the process of learning how to make it happen from scratch."
Making a pact with an Archdevil doesn't mean you sought it out. You may just have been walking along a lonely road and reached a crossroad where a man in a suit offered you a doughnut. But first you had to agree to "do them a favour", and now you have these powers so you can do that favour and that favour is destroying an Archdemon.
Zero studying required.
Yep, sounds totally like accidental donut pacts are the norm./s
If you want your Warlock to be Homer Simpson, go for it, but that isn't want the books says.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master