I think a core issue is how a warlock is supposed to play that is somehow different.
If I want a character whose back story is making a deal with a mysterious power, I can do that with any class, because it's just backstory. The reason to play a class is because of how it actually plays. So... how do people imagine warlock actually playing, and how is this play style somehow different from a wizard or sorcerer?
The original 5e warlocks do have a distinctive play style, but it's a problem play style because it's based on short resting.
The current half-casters do have a distinctive play style -- generally eldritch blast monkey or gish -- though it may well be undertuned for that role.
A full caster would likely devolve into "plays just like a wizard", which amounts to "why should this class exist?"
Plays like a anti paladin or goth ranger isn't exactly a different play style either. There is nothing more distinctive in a half caster design than a full caster design, there may be a couple less of them currently but they are not any more distinct than the differences between other full caster classes. While a full caster design would be more on point than a half caster design, I still prefer a truly unique style like the 5e warlock gave.
The so called problem play style with short rests really boiled down to they were actually fairly well balanced with martials, but were not as powerful as full casters and people wanted them to be full caster broken or close to it.
Thematically the 5e warlock gave them a full caster feel but actually pretty well balanced through most levels of play, even at a table with a crap number of short rests. If the only options on the table were full caster vs half caster for their design, I'd go full caster every time(and no 1/2 caster with mystic arcanums does not cut it) as at least then they would feel a bit more like a warlock, even if its not as distinct from sor/wizards as they were before.
Sorcerer & Wizard in the UA are almost the same, the main difference is Wizard can change spells every night and is INT caster, whereas Sorcerer changes spells on level up and is a CHA caster.
Sorcerer is the class that has always had the problem of "why do I exist", but I said most, not all. A full caster warlock would presumably have a d6 for hit points, maybe light armor proficiency but certainly not medium, and a significantly smaller number of invocations.
Sorcerer is the class that has always had the problem of "why do I exist", but I said most, not all. A full caster warlock would presumably have a d6 for hit points, maybe light armor proficiency but certainly not medium, and a significantly smaller number of invocations.
If they went d6 with light armor I kind of doubt they'd need to reduce the invocations much, a few might have to be off the table but that is it. The wizard and sorcerer would still look better.
If the only options on the table were full caster vs half caster for their design, I'd go full caster every time.
Your choices are "full caster and lose most of the features that make warlock distinctive" and "half caster".
We have already lost what made the warlock distinctive with the half caster. And invocations stack pretty evenly up against metamagics so I don;t see why warlocks would need to lose those as a full caster.
Mechanically the sorcerer doesn't need to exist and never has. Damn near the only thing it offers as a mechanical differentiator from a wizard is it uses CHA instead of INT for its casting modifier and thus people can continue to treat Intelligence like the abused housewife of stats. Metamagic could easily be a wizard subclass feature or even, in weaker form, a wizard core class feature, and all of the sorcerer subclasses could be either shifted to wizard or dropped outright with no significant loss of mechanical depth. Apparently this was not the case in the original Next playtest, but people hated the sorcerer Wizards wanted to run so we got derpy Charisma wizard instead.
Now, narratively the sorcerer occupies a distinct and valid niche. Innate magic suffusing a character is a cool story trope, and sorcerer does it better than wizard does. But that does not stop the sorcerer from being almost entirely redundant to the wizard in every way that mechanically counts.
None of which is to say that Pact Magic is worth retaining. Yes, sorcerers are just derpy wizards but they're at least functional. They work. Warlocks, currently, do not. Not if your DM is taking your game seriously.
The biggest problem with creating unique new spellcasters in D&D has always been the existence of the wizard, because the way you make a unique new spellcaster is by giving them something they can do that no-one else can do... and wizards can do anything other than a few things that are specifically protected as cleric-only.
A full caster would likely devolve into "plays just like a wizard", which amounts to "why should this class exist?"
Agreed. I think being a half-caster that can punch up to full caster progression in limited ways is definitely unique, and also captures the flavor that you've taken the quick yet shallow path to such power. If your blood was infused with magic, or you had a wizard's diligent study habits, you would have a much more thorough path to such power, but by being a Warlock you don't. The upside is that you're able to layer in more martial pursuits, and unique magical techniques that don't depend on spell slots.
Sorcerer is the class that has always had the problem of "why do I exist", but I said most, not all. A full caster warlock would presumably have a d6 for hit points, maybe light armor proficiency but certainly not medium, and a significantly smaller number of invocations.
i'm wholly onboard with the "half-caster that can punch up to full caster progression in limited ways," but i'm way less enthused by "layer in more martial pursuits" at start-up. am i to understand that all locks just begin adventuring life with body-type: athletic mage. is it the heavy black boots and trenchcoats in adolescence that lead to the medium armor aptitude? is there a lot more jogging in the level-0 preparation for locks than there is for sorc and wiz? can we please canonize an early pact with a gym demon or being bit by a radioactive rust monster? just a little crumb of continuity or plausibility! this has been bugging me...
Mechanically the sorcerer doesn't need to exist and never has. Damn near the only thing it offers as a mechanical differentiator from a wizard is it uses CHA instead of INT for its casting modifier and thus people can continue to treat Intelligence like the abused housewife of stats. Metamagic could easily be a wizard subclass feature or even, in weaker form, a wizard core class feature, and all of the sorcerer subclasses could be either shifted to wizard or dropped outright with no significant loss of mechanical depth. Apparently this was not the case in the original Next playtest, but people hated the sorcerer Wizards wanted to run so we got derpy Charisma wizard instead.
Now, narratively the sorcerer occupies a distinct and valid niche. Innate magic suffusing a character is a cool story trope, and sorcerer does it better than wizard does. But that does not stop the sorcerer from being almost entirely redundant to the wizard in every way that mechanically counts.
None of which is to say that Pact Magic is worth retaining. Yes, sorcerers are just derpy wizards but they're at least functional. They work. Warlocks, currently, do not. Not if your DM is taking your game seriously.
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
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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.
So does no one want all invocations and no spells anymore?
I'd take that over half-caster, assuming the Invocations list was spruced up, but it ain't happening
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
Then why are they in the Mage group? Why are they being touted as an equivalent spellcaster to wizards and sorcerers, if in different ways? If they're not supposed to cast spells, why are they being bundled in with the castiest of casty boys?
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
Then why are they in the Mage group? Why are they being touted as an equivalent spellcaster to wizards and sorcerers, if in different ways? If they're not supposed to cast spells, why are they being bundled in with the castiest of casty boys?
What else would you call them?
Imo, if their main role is DPS, their DPS needs to be significantly better than other casters (I'm not convinced it is), and it needs niche protection against multiclass BS (which it mostly has in the playtest, to be fair). You absolutely shouldn't be able to functionally replace a DPS class with a built-for-damage Wizard or something. Whether the DPS be Warlock or Fighter or whatever. I'm not a numbers person but I'm pretty sure you kinda can, as it stands now.
But 5e (and One) doesn't differentiate between DPS and Zoner and so on like 4e did. (Striker and... I forget what.) Instead we have Warrior and Mage and such. Descriptions of fantasy, not of tactical role. And as a description of the fantasy, yes, Mage fits.
Same reason paladins are in the priest group: they need a place to put them, and they wanted to have 3 classes per group even if it's a kinda poor match. If they wanted to actually give advice for a balanced party, I'd divide the classes into
Scouts (Monk, Ranger, Rogue)
Tanks (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin)
Artillery (Sorcerer, Wizard). Artillery here refers to ranged area fire.
Support (Bard, Cleric, Druid). Most support can handle a side job in another area.
which probably does want warlock to be a blow stuff up character.
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
Then why are they in the Mage group? Why are they being touted as an equivalent spellcaster to wizards and sorcerers, if in different ways? If they're not supposed to cast spells, why are they being bundled in with the castiest of casty boys?
What else would you call them?
Imo, if their main role is DPS, their DPS needs to be significantly better than other casters (I'm not convinced it is), and it needs niche protection against multiclass BS (which it mostly has in the playtest, to be fair). You absolutely shouldn't be able to functionally replace a DPS class with a built-for-damage Wizard or something. Whether the DPS be Warlock or Fighter or whatever. I'm not a numbers person but I'm pretty sure you kinda can, as it stands now.
But 5e (and One) doesn't differentiate between DPS and Zoner and so on like 4e did. (Striker and... I forget what.) Instead we have Warrior and Mage and such. Descriptions of fantasy, not of tactical role. And as a description of the fantasy, yes, Mage fits.
If the 1.5 encounter per day stats are accurate, I'd say no ones DPS really outpaces full casters, especially arcane casters. When every fight you can start at the top of your list of spells and work down with no concern over running out, you will win in DPR, control, whatever you decide to focus on.
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
Then why are they in the Mage group? Why are they being touted as an equivalent spellcaster to wizards and sorcerers, if in different ways? If they're not supposed to cast spells, why are they being bundled in with the castiest of casty boys?
What else would you call them?
Imo, if their main role is DPS, their DPS needs to be significantly better than other casters (I'm not convinced it is), and it needs niche protection against multiclass BS (which it mostly has in the playtest, to be fair). You absolutely shouldn't be able to functionally replace a DPS class with a built-for-damage Wizard or something. Whether the DPS be Warlock or Fighter or whatever. I'm not a numbers person but I'm pretty sure you kinda can, as it stands now.
But 5e (and One) doesn't differentiate between DPS and Zoner and so on like 4e did. (Striker and... I forget what.) Instead we have Warrior and Mage and such. Descriptions of fantasy, not of tactical role. And as a description of the fantasy, yes, Mage fits.
If the 1.5 encounter per day stats are accurate, I'd say no ones DPS really outpaces full casters, especially arcane casters. When every fight you can start at the top of your list of spells and work down with no concern over running out, you will win in DPR, control, whatever you decide to focus on.
You are miss reading the poll. The 1.5 is between ANY rests. The average between long rests on that poll is 4.
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
Then why are they in the Mage group? Why are they being touted as an equivalent spellcaster to wizards and sorcerers, if in different ways? If they're not supposed to cast spells, why are they being bundled in with the castiest of casty boys?
What else would you call them?
Imo, if their main role is DPS, their DPS needs to be significantly better than other casters (I'm not convinced it is), and it needs niche protection against multiclass BS (which it mostly has in the playtest, to be fair). You absolutely shouldn't be able to functionally replace a DPS class with a built-for-damage Wizard or something. Whether the DPS be Warlock or Fighter or whatever. I'm not a numbers person but I'm pretty sure you kinda can, as it stands now.
But 5e (and One) doesn't differentiate between DPS and Zoner and so on like 4e did. (Striker and... I forget what.) Instead we have Warrior and Mage and such. Descriptions of fantasy, not of tactical role. And as a description of the fantasy, yes, Mage fits.
If the 1.5 encounter per day stats are accurate, I'd say no ones DPS really outpaces full casters, especially arcane casters. When every fight you can start at the top of your list of spells and work down with no concern over running out, you will win in DPR, control, whatever you decide to focus on.
You are miss reading the poll. The 1.5 is between ANY rests. The average between long rests on that poll is 4.
Misremembering more than miss reading, but its far from the only poll I've seen on it. A lot of people say 1-2 encounters per day is their norm.
So does no one want all invocations and no spells anymore?
A build like this might work for a class like a Psion, or something that is designed to be a simple caster. However, while this would be a viable build if the Invocations were powerful enough, I think that it would completely change a preexisting class and risk alienating the fan base that likes having both some spells and Eldritch Invocations. It would honestly be quite hard to change the class so drastically and still keep the core features that made it the third most popular class in 5e.
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Plays like a anti paladin or goth ranger isn't exactly a different play style either. There is nothing more distinctive in a half caster design than a full caster design, there may be a couple less of them currently but they are not any more distinct than the differences between other full caster classes. While a full caster design would be more on point than a half caster design, I still prefer a truly unique style like the 5e warlock gave.
The so called problem play style with short rests really boiled down to they were actually fairly well balanced with martials, but were not as powerful as full casters and people wanted them to be full caster broken or close to it.
Thematically the 5e warlock gave them a full caster feel but actually pretty well balanced through most levels of play, even at a table with a crap number of short rests. If the only options on the table were full caster vs half caster for their design, I'd go full caster every time(and no 1/2 caster with mystic arcanums does not cut it) as at least then they would feel a bit more like a warlock, even if its not as distinct from sor/wizards as they were before.
Your choices are "full caster and lose most of the features that make warlock distinctive" and "half caster".
Sorcerer is a full caster with unique features.
Sorcerer & Wizard in the UA are almost the same, the main difference is Wizard can change spells every night and is INT caster, whereas Sorcerer changes spells on level up and is a CHA caster.
Sorcerer is the class that has always had the problem of "why do I exist", but I said most, not all. A full caster warlock would presumably have a d6 for hit points, maybe light armor proficiency but certainly not medium, and a significantly smaller number of invocations.
If they went d6 with light armor I kind of doubt they'd need to reduce the invocations much, a few might have to be off the table but that is it. The wizard and sorcerer would still look better.
We have already lost what made the warlock distinctive with the half caster. And invocations stack pretty evenly up against metamagics so I don;t see why warlocks would need to lose those as a full caster.
Mechanically the sorcerer doesn't need to exist and never has. Damn near the only thing it offers as a mechanical differentiator from a wizard is it uses CHA instead of INT for its casting modifier and thus people can continue to treat Intelligence like the abused housewife of stats. Metamagic could easily be a wizard subclass feature or even, in weaker form, a wizard core class feature, and all of the sorcerer subclasses could be either shifted to wizard or dropped outright with no significant loss of mechanical depth. Apparently this was not the case in the original Next playtest, but people hated the sorcerer Wizards wanted to run so we got derpy Charisma wizard instead.
Now, narratively the sorcerer occupies a distinct and valid niche. Innate magic suffusing a character is a cool story trope, and sorcerer does it better than wizard does. But that does not stop the sorcerer from being almost entirely redundant to the wizard in every way that mechanically counts.
None of which is to say that Pact Magic is worth retaining. Yes, sorcerers are just derpy wizards but they're at least functional. They work. Warlocks, currently, do not. Not if your DM is taking your game seriously.
Please do not contact or message me.
The biggest problem with creating unique new spellcasters in D&D has always been the existence of the wizard, because the way you make a unique new spellcaster is by giving them something they can do that no-one else can do... and wizards can do anything other than a few things that are specifically protected as cleric-only.
i'm wholly onboard with the "half-caster that can punch up to full caster progression in limited ways," but i'm way less enthused by "layer in more martial pursuits" at start-up. am i to understand that all locks just begin adventuring life with body-type: athletic mage. is it the heavy black boots and trenchcoats in adolescence that lead to the medium armor aptitude? is there a lot more jogging in the level-0 preparation for locks than there is for sorc and wiz? can we please canonize an early pact with a gym demon or being bit by a radioactive rust monster? just a little crumb of continuity or plausibility! this has been bugging me...
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Warlocks currently work just fine for what they are. What they are, is an arcane archer. They do that quite well. If you view them as a SPELLCASTER, then they don't really stack up.
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 does no one want all invocations and no spells anymore?
I'd take that over half-caster, assuming the Invocations list was spruced up, but it ain't happening
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Then why are they in the Mage group? Why are they being touted as an equivalent spellcaster to wizards and sorcerers, if in different ways? If they're not supposed to cast spells, why are they being bundled in with the castiest of casty boys?
Please do not contact or message me.
What else would you call them?
Imo, if their main role is DPS, their DPS needs to be significantly better than other casters (I'm not convinced it is), and it needs niche protection against multiclass BS (which it mostly has in the playtest, to be fair). You absolutely shouldn't be able to functionally replace a DPS class with a built-for-damage Wizard or something. Whether the DPS be Warlock or Fighter or whatever. I'm not a numbers person but I'm pretty sure you kinda can, as it stands now.
But 5e (and One) doesn't differentiate between DPS and Zoner and so on like 4e did. (Striker and... I forget what.) Instead we have Warrior and Mage and such. Descriptions of fantasy, not of tactical role. And as a description of the fantasy, yes, Mage fits.
Same reason paladins are in the priest group: they need a place to put them, and they wanted to have 3 classes per group even if it's a kinda poor match. If they wanted to actually give advice for a balanced party, I'd divide the classes into
which probably does want warlock to be a blow stuff up character.
If the 1.5 encounter per day stats are accurate, I'd say no ones DPS really outpaces full casters, especially arcane casters. When every fight you can start at the top of your list of spells and work down with no concern over running out, you will win in DPR, control, whatever you decide to focus on.
You are miss reading the poll. The 1.5 is between ANY rests. The average between long rests on that poll is 4.
Misremembering more than miss reading, but its far from the only poll I've seen on it. A lot of people say 1-2 encounters per day is their norm.
A build like this might work for a class like a Psion, or something that is designed to be a simple caster. However, while this would be a viable build if the Invocations were powerful enough, I think that it would completely change a preexisting class and risk alienating the fan base that likes having both some spells and Eldritch Invocations. It would honestly be quite hard to change the class so drastically and still keep the core features that made it the third most popular class in 5e.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.