I genuinely wonder about the kind of games being run when the party isn't able to short rest at least once in a day as a regular thing. I don't mean this in a snide or critical way; I come from the old school "killer DM" tradition and even then, it's very difficult for me to imagine running a game when the party can consistently count on nevergetting a short rest in during the adventuring day.
Short rests don't exist because almost no one benefits from them outside of HP recovery which is rarely needed. Fighters, warlocks, monks, and sort of clerics/druids all gain something from short rests - for everyone else it's an hour of wasted time where whatever you're adventuring to do is getting harder to complete because you're giving the bad guys a whole-ass free hour of interrupted Bad Guy time to do bad Guy things and make it noticeably more likely that you fail in whatever you were setting out to do in the first place. Short rests are gifts the party gives to the enemy, and classes that do not require them to function do not want to give their enemy gifts. It's not that a party cannot take short rests if required, it's that every single short rest is an actively bad idea and should be avoided if at all possible.
Which means warlocks get exactly two leveled spells per day using Pact Magic and otherwise get to forget they're a spellcaster.
There are some things I like about the new Warlock, but they are overshadowed by what I hate about it.
I like the Pact Boons themselves, overall. I like the buffs they got(essentially incorporating older Invocations that felt mandatory). I do miss the Tomelock being able to acquire more rituals, though. Flavoring them as cantrips is weird, but doesn't really change much about how they actually function(I would like to see Bladelocks able to summon their weapon as a Bonus Action so they can attack with it on the same turn, but that's a smaller problem). And I do like that they've changed Eldritch Blast so that it only scales with Warlock level. But I am very much NOT a fan of this concept of getting your Pact Boon at Level 1, and not choosing your Patron(subclass) until Level 3. That makes absolutely zero sense to me from a story perspective. The current progression of picking your Patron at Level 1, so that the being you make the bargain with is a part of how you actually become a Warlock just feels more right. Now I've heard that they feel like forcing players into picking what is essentially their subclass at Level 1 felt to restrictive. How is making them pick their Pact Boon at Level 1 any less restrictive. If anything, the Pact Boon has MORE of an impact on how you're going to play your character! And it now makes a 1-level Bladelock dip even more attractive, since it can use Wisdom OR Charisma(it still can't be exploited by EKs or Bladesingers, thankfully).
And ditching Pact Magic in favor of making them half-casters like Rangers and Paladins? NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO! They claim it will lead to more spell slots being available. Barely, and only at high levels. Tell this to the Level 3 Warlock who now only gets 3 FIRST LEVEL spell slots over the whole day, instead of two SECOND level spell slots every Short Rest! And now Warlocks don't get 5th-level spell slots until Level SEVENTEEN. That's quite a downgrade from existing Warlocks. And having to use your precious Invocations on Mystic Arcana? UGH
I genuinely wonder about the kind of games being run when the party isn't able to short rest at least once in a day as a regular thing. I don't mean this in a snide or critical way; I come from the old school "killer DM" tradition and even then, it's very difficult for me to imagine running a game when the party can consistently count on nevergetting a short rest in during the adventuring day.
Short rests don't exist because almost no one benefits from them outside of HP recovery which is rarely needed.
For the record, this is completely alien to every campaign I've ever been in. Even if just one person in the party benefits from a short rest, there's rarely any objection to taking one when the opportunity presents itself -- and between fighters, warlocks, monks and other assorted features and abilities, there's rarely only one person who benefits, even if no one's hurt
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)
I genuinely wonder about the kind of games being run when the party isn't able to short rest at least once in a day as a regular thing. I don't mean this in a snide or critical way; I come from the old school "killer DM" tradition and even then, it's very difficult for me to imagine running a game when the party can consistently count on nevergetting a short rest in during the adventuring day.
Short rests don't exist because almost no one benefits from them outside of HP recovery which is rarely needed.
For the record, this is completely alien to every campaign I've ever been in. Even if just one person in the party benefits from a short rest, there's rarely any objection to taking one when the opportunity presents itself -- and between fighters, warlocks, monks and other assorted features and abilities, there's rarely only one person who benefits, even if no one's hurt
Same here. My group uses short rests A LOT - even when I'm DMing, and I'm the only person in the group who runs a warlock!
Then clearly y'all have never played at a table where time pressure is a thing. Which is great. if Orcus is content to sit on his throne, never actually threatening the party or doing anything but calmly sitting and waiting for the team to lollygag their way leisurely through whatever is in their way without ever once taking one single step to utilize the time available to him to advance his goals? Go for it, Short Rest seventeen times a day like everyone says is perfectly fine.
But at every single table I've ever sat at, Short Rests are a trap that gives the enemy time to make your life miserable and make it actively and significantly more difficult to accomplish your objective. Playewrs are trained very quickly that short rests are an absolute last-ditch emergency measure for those times when you simply cannot continue unhealed, and even then they're a risky trade-off at the absolute best. Every DM I've ever played for treats short rests as a reason to punish the players for mismanaging their time and resources, because the BBEG and his assorted minions is not going to sit on his ass and do dick-all while the players faff about doing yoga exercises to refill their red bars.
Which means warlocks get two spells a day, period, until they get to the level range in which most DMs say "whelp, campaign over, time to start over from level 1 everybody!" Because Pact Magic sucks.
Then clearly y'all have never played at a table where time pressure is a thing.
In specific scenarios? Sure, and then managing your short rest resources becomes one of the pressure points
But those are rare exceptions, and not remotely close to the rule
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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)
Then clearly y'all have never played at a table where time pressure is a thing.
In specific scenarios? Sure, and then managing your short rest resources becomes one of the pressure points
But those are rare exceptions, and not remotely close to the rule
Gotta agree with this. Time pressures occasionally can be fun. But if a dm deliberately makes it so short rests are exclusively a bad thing… that’s an unfair decision that deliberately punishes certain classes. Having there be situations people need to push on even when low can be fun spice every now and then but I really would question a dm that does this too much.
Question then, since everyone seems to think that gaining thirty short rests a day while the enemy does diddly jackoff ****-all to stop, interrupt, or take advantage of those thirty extra hours a day the party spends doing yoga instead of Adventuring is perfectly normal, ordinary, expected, and just polite.
How would y'all feel if the warlock as a class did not have any spellcasting at all beyond cantrips?
Because that's how warlock with Pact Magic feels - like a class that effectively does not have "Spellcasting." Your Pact Magic resources are so slim and precious that it's never a good idea to use them outside the lowest of low-level play; EVERY TIME you pull the trigger on a Pact Magic cast you're kicking yourself for doing so because you know it was a waste. Even when you take nothing but strong-scaling blastybomb spells i.e. the only spells a warlock is allowed to take.
How would you all take a warlock that didn't get to cast at all outside its cantrips? Because that's what you're trying to convince me is Oh So Superior Forever to getting proper halfcasting on the class so a warlock higher than level four might actually cast a ******* spell once in a blue-moon while, and I'm really just not down for that.
I genuinely wonder about the kind of games being run when the party isn't able to short rest at least once in a day as a regular thing. I don't mean this in a snide or critical way; I come from the old school "killer DM" tradition and even then, it's very difficult for me to imagine running a game when the party can consistently count on nevergetting a short rest in during the adventuring day.
Short rests don't exist because almost no one benefits from them outside of HP recovery which is rarely needed.
For the record, this is completely alien to every campaign I've ever been in. Even if just one person in the party benefits from a short rest, there's rarely any objection to taking one when the opportunity presents itself -- and between fighters, warlocks, monks and other assorted features and abilities, there's rarely only one person who benefits, even if no one's hurt
Usually people can get one short rest but enough rests to compete is the complaint more often. And even one, I've seen lots of times when you want a short rest the long rest people push for that. So I've seen it, and it is a common issue people complain about. Not getting just one but more importantly the number of short rests to long rests gets very skewed in most games. The warlock with 2 spells probably needs a mechanic where they recharge the slots quickly after every encounter. Because every other caster will be casting more than that per encounter pretty quickly. When its a hour the player has to really ask for a short rest, if the mechanic were 5 minutes they'd just say hey im taking 5 minutes to do X. And sure really tight time crunch like a encounter turns into a chase scene they will still be short on spells, but everywhere else they will be fine.
So yeah a issue with pact slots exists, but this toss the baby out with the bath water approach is terrible especially using 1/2 caster progression so they don't get 5th level spells until 17th level get probably less spells per day until 5th and about the same up until 9th, and they are all low level spells.
And I didn't even notice hex was now once per turn, what a crap spell they made their signature spell.
And as an aside I really wish they'd either change its damage type or let eldritch blast hit objects. Force doing nothing to an object bothers me. It is like saying clubs can only effect creatures.
Question then, since everyone seems to think that gaining thirty short rests a day while the enemy does diddly jackoff ****-all to stop, interrupt, or take advantage of those thirty extra hours a day the party spends doing yoga instead of Adventuring is perfectly normal, ordinary, expected, and just polite.
How would y'all feel if the warlock as a class did not have any spellcasting at all beyond cantrips?
Because that's how warlock with Pact Magic feels - like a class that effectively does not have "Spellcasting." Your Pact Magic resources are so slim and precious that it's never a good idea to use them outside the lowest of low-level play; EVERY TIME you pull the trigger on a Pact Magic cast you're kicking yourself for doing so because you know it was a waste. Even when you take nothing but strong-scaling blastybomb spells i.e. the only spells a warlock is allowed to take.
How would you all take a warlock that didn't get to cast at all outside its cantrips? Because that's what you're trying to convince me is Oh So Superior Forever to getting proper halfcasting on the class so a warlock higher than level four might actually cast a ******* spell once in a blue-moon while, and I'm really just not down for that.
I never felt bad using my spells as a warlock. I cast enough given my features that it was a great class, far better than halfcasting actually. I'd rather have 2 spells a short rest where they can be at the max spell level of a full caster than stunted casting where I don't see 3rd level spells until near the end of the campaign. Oh yeah I forgot I can spend all my invocations to try and get back what I lost. Oh look I have weak ass spell casting now instead of two slots I recharged on a short rest, so so much better now that my spells are so weak i am no longer casting them as a main part of my class.
But I am very much NOT a fan of this concept of getting your Pact Boon at Level 1, and not choosing your Patron(subclass) until Level 3. That makes absolutely zero sense to me from a story perspective. The current progression of picking your Patron at Level 1, so that the being you make the bargain with is a part of how you actually become a Warlock just feels more right. Now I've heard that they feel like forcing players into picking what is essentially their subclass at Level 1 felt to restrictive. How is making them pick their Pact Boon at Level 1 any less restrictive.
…
selective quoting because this is EXACTLY how I felt about the change made to Cleric which I absolutely and utterly despise.
The warlock with 2 spells probably needs a mechanic where they recharge the slots quickly after every encounter.
Every encounter is too much, if they're also getting invocations and arcanum
If not getting enough short rests is an issue at some tables, give warlocks a feature that allows them to regain slots outside of the rest mechanic, rather than instead of it
Wizards gets arcane recovery; sorcs can cash in sorcery points for slots. Give warlocks something like that in addition to regaining them on a short rest
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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)
Can Dispel Magic get rid of a Warlock's Pact benefit since they are now gain through casting a cantrip. What happens when they walk into an anti-magic field, does the pact vanish there too?
Question then, since everyone seems to think that gaining thirty short rests a day while the enemy does diddly jackoff ****-all to stop, interrupt, or take advantage of those thirty extra hours a day the party spends doing yoga instead of Adventuring is perfectly normal, ordinary, expected, and just polite.
How would y'all feel if the warlock as a class did not have any spellcasting at all beyond cantrips?
Because that's how warlock with Pact Magic feels - like a class that effectively does not have "Spellcasting." Your Pact Magic resources are so slim and precious that it's never a good idea to use them outside the lowest of low-level play; EVERY TIME you pull the trigger on a Pact Magic cast you're kicking yourself for doing so because you know it was a waste. Even when you take nothing but strong-scaling blastybomb spells i.e. the only spells a warlock is allowed to take.
How would you all take a warlock that didn't get to cast at all outside its cantrips? Because that's what you're trying to convince me is Oh So Superior Forever to getting proper halfcasting on the class so a warlock higher than level four might actually cast a ******* spell once in a blue-moon while, and I'm really just not down for that.
Again, you're taking this to odd extremes. As both player and DM, I've certainly been in situations where taking a short rest wasn't going to happen. But it's not the norm for every locale, every environment, or even every encounter. Are you playing a style of D&D that's akin to Mad Max: Fury Road where you literally can't stop to rest, anywhere or at any time?
When the party is traveling from one location to another - say from the city to a dungeon entrance, if we can use some tropes of the game - are you saying that the way there is so stacked with hostiles encounters that there's never any chance for a short rest, ever? If I recall, you're someone who places a high value on roleplaying (which I'm in agreement with!) - but it sounds like you're used to playing in campaigns that are extremely combat-heavy and light on....everything else.
(Tone is hard to convey here but I'm asking sincerely, not sarcastically.)
Again, your experiences with Pact Magic don't match mine at all. Sure, there have been times when I had to rely only on cantrips or my Pact Weapon, but to me, that's just part of the character - because I know I'll get spell slots back in a way that almost none of my other party members will (unless we're on the run in Avernus with the literal hordes of hell on our trail).
Can Dispel Magic get rid of a Warlock's Pact benefit since they are now gain through casting a cantrip. What happens when they walk into an anti-magic field, does the pact vanish there too?
This is a good point and one more reason these changes are bad.
Can Dispel Magic get rid of a Warlock's Pact benefit since they are now gain through casting a cantrip. What happens when they walk into an anti-magic field, does the pact vanish there too?
LOL, two of them take an hour to recast too
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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)
I'd actually be fine with a cantrip focused warlock if they made it a d10 class and added in more options to buff cantrips in a variety of ways beyond just agonizing blast. Twinned cantrips, flexible damage cantrips, stun capable cantrips, etc.
Again, you're taking this to odd extremes. As both player and DM, I've certainly been in situations where taking a short rest wasn't going to happen. But it's not the norm for every locale, every environment, or even every encounter. Are you playing a style of D&D that's akin to Mad Max: Fury Road where you literally can't stop to rest, anywhere or at any time?
Here's the thing. What nobody seems to get is that it's not about active, enemies-are-actively-chasing-you pressure. It's about the core world assumption - apparently unique to my table(s) - that every single hour you get to do something is also an hour the enemy gets to do something. Time is universally impartial - it gives its gifts to absolutely everyone and everything in equal measure. If the party decides to faff off for half a day every single day doing yoga while the opposition makes more effective use of their time? That's on the party, not on the DM for being a bad DM. Bad guys have objectives, and they will use the time they are given to pursue those objectives. If the party constantly decides to do nothing to interfere with that pursuit of Bad Guy objectives, how is it a DM problem when the bad guys pull ahead?
When the party is traveling from one location to another - say from the city to a dungeon entrance, if we can use some tropes of the game - are you saying that the way there is so stacked with hostiles encounters that there's never any chance for a short rest, ever? If I recall, you're someone who places a high value on roleplaying (which I'm in agreement with!) - but it sounds like you're used to playing in campaigns that are extremely combat-heavy and light on....everything else.
(Tone is hard to convey here but I'm asking sincerely, not sarcastically.)
As stated - roleplaying is why time is not a nonfactor in our games. The world doesn't wait for us - if we **** around doing yoga for twelve hours a day every day, the bad guys WILL get the jump on us and we'll have to play catch-up and probably lose. The assumption everybody else in this thread is making is that enemies will sit around doing dick-monkey jack squat nothing while the party faffs off for twelve hours a day short-resting after every single individual skill check, and that is so unrealistic and unfounded an assumption that it's never seriously come up in any game I've ever played. It's why short rests are a trap - every hour the PCs spend doing Nothing is an hour the enemy spends doing Something instead, and that is never a good equation for victory.
Again, your experiences with Pact Magic don't match mine at all. Sure, there have been times when I had to rely only on cantrips or my Pact Weapon, but to me, that's just part of the character - because I know I'll get spell slots back in a way that almost none of my other party members will (unless we're on the run in Avernus with the literal hordes of hell on our trail).
I don't think I've ever gotten a single short rest in any game I've ever played as a warlock in. Not once. I know I haven't gotten a single short rest in my current warlock's game, and she's gone from third level to the verge of sixth since the game started. Either the party has time to Rest Longly, or the party needs to exert its utmost to succeed against pressing odds and short rests are out of the question. There is no in between. Either we have time and space for a long rest or we're In The Shit. No exceptions.
Which should maybe explain something about why I'm so vehemently against retaining Pact Magic, ne?
The warlock with 2 spells probably needs a mechanic where they recharge the slots quickly after every encounter.
Every encounter is too much, if they're also getting invocations and arcanum
If not getting enough short rests is an issue at some tables, give warlocks a feature that allows them to regain slots outside of the rest mechanic, rather than instead of it
Wizards gets arcane recovery; sorcs can cash in sorcery points for slots. Give warlocks something like that in addition to regaining them on a short rest
Maybe at the odd table with 6 encounters per day, but most people are in the 2ish range so its 4 spells a day we are talking about for most the game, how many does the wizard/sorcerer etc cast. And yes I am assuming some mechanic outside rests to do that but a repeatable one and one that is fairly short as otherwise you'd just take the one hour and short rest.
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Short rests don't exist because almost no one benefits from them outside of HP recovery which is rarely needed. Fighters, warlocks, monks, and sort of clerics/druids all gain something from short rests - for everyone else it's an hour of wasted time where whatever you're adventuring to do is getting harder to complete because you're giving the bad guys a whole-ass free hour of interrupted Bad Guy time to do bad Guy things and make it noticeably more likely that you fail in whatever you were setting out to do in the first place. Short rests are gifts the party gives to the enemy, and classes that do not require them to function do not want to give their enemy gifts. It's not that a party cannot take short rests if required, it's that every single short rest is an actively bad idea and should be avoided if at all possible.
Which means warlocks get exactly two leveled spells per day using Pact Magic and otherwise get to forget they're a spellcaster.
Which sucks donkey rocks and should be changed.
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There are some things I like about the new Warlock, but they are overshadowed by what I hate about it.
I like the Pact Boons themselves, overall. I like the buffs they got(essentially incorporating older Invocations that felt mandatory). I do miss the Tomelock being able to acquire more rituals, though. Flavoring them as cantrips is weird, but doesn't really change much about how they actually function(I would like to see Bladelocks able to summon their weapon as a Bonus Action so they can attack with it on the same turn, but that's a smaller problem). And I do like that they've changed Eldritch Blast so that it only scales with Warlock level. But I am very much NOT a fan of this concept of getting your Pact Boon at Level 1, and not choosing your Patron(subclass) until Level 3. That makes absolutely zero sense to me from a story perspective. The current progression of picking your Patron at Level 1, so that the being you make the bargain with is a part of how you actually become a Warlock just feels more right. Now I've heard that they feel like forcing players into picking what is essentially their subclass at Level 1 felt to restrictive. How is making them pick their Pact Boon at Level 1 any less restrictive. If anything, the Pact Boon has MORE of an impact on how you're going to play your character! And it now makes a 1-level Bladelock dip even more attractive, since it can use Wisdom OR Charisma(it still can't be exploited by EKs or Bladesingers, thankfully).
And ditching Pact Magic in favor of making them half-casters like Rangers and Paladins? NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO! They claim it will lead to more spell slots being available. Barely, and only at high levels. Tell this to the Level 3 Warlock who now only gets 3 FIRST LEVEL spell slots over the whole day, instead of two SECOND level spell slots every Short Rest! And now Warlocks don't get 5th-level spell slots until Level SEVENTEEN. That's quite a downgrade from existing Warlocks. And having to use your precious Invocations on Mystic Arcana? UGH
For the record, this is completely alien to every campaign I've ever been in. Even if just one person in the party benefits from a short rest, there's rarely any objection to taking one when the opportunity presents itself -- and between fighters, warlocks, monks and other assorted features and abilities, there's rarely only one person who benefits, even if no one's hurt
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)
Same here. My group uses short rests A LOT - even when I'm DMing, and I'm the only person in the group who runs a warlock!
Then clearly y'all have never played at a table where time pressure is a thing. Which is great. if Orcus is content to sit on his throne, never actually threatening the party or doing anything but calmly sitting and waiting for the team to lollygag their way leisurely through whatever is in their way without ever once taking one single step to utilize the time available to him to advance his goals? Go for it, Short Rest seventeen times a day like everyone says is perfectly fine.
But at every single table I've ever sat at, Short Rests are a trap that gives the enemy time to make your life miserable and make it actively and significantly more difficult to accomplish your objective. Playewrs are trained very quickly that short rests are an absolute last-ditch emergency measure for those times when you simply cannot continue unhealed, and even then they're a risky trade-off at the absolute best. Every DM I've ever played for treats short rests as a reason to punish the players for mismanaging their time and resources, because the BBEG and his assorted minions is not going to sit on his ass and do dick-all while the players faff about doing yoga exercises to refill their red bars.
Which means warlocks get two spells a day, period, until they get to the level range in which most DMs say "whelp, campaign over, time to start over from level 1 everybody!" Because Pact Magic sucks.
Please do not contact or message me.
In specific scenarios? Sure, and then managing your short rest resources becomes one of the pressure points
But those are rare exceptions, and not remotely close to the rule
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)
Gotta agree with this. Time pressures occasionally can be fun. But if a dm deliberately makes it so short rests are exclusively a bad thing… that’s an unfair decision that deliberately punishes certain classes. Having there be situations people need to push on even when low can be fun spice every now and then but I really would question a dm that does this too much.
Thirded. I've played and DMed with time pressure as a very real thing. But all the time, every time? No.
Question then, since everyone seems to think that gaining thirty short rests a day while the enemy does diddly jackoff ****-all to stop, interrupt, or take advantage of those thirty extra hours a day the party spends doing yoga instead of Adventuring is perfectly normal, ordinary, expected, and just polite.
How would y'all feel if the warlock as a class did not have any spellcasting at all beyond cantrips?
Because that's how warlock with Pact Magic feels - like a class that effectively does not have "Spellcasting." Your Pact Magic resources are so slim and precious that it's never a good idea to use them outside the lowest of low-level play; EVERY TIME you pull the trigger on a Pact Magic cast you're kicking yourself for doing so because you know it was a waste. Even when you take nothing but strong-scaling blastybomb spells i.e. the only spells a warlock is allowed to take.
How would you all take a warlock that didn't get to cast at all outside its cantrips? Because that's what you're trying to convince me is Oh So Superior Forever to getting proper halfcasting on the class so a warlock higher than level four might actually cast a ******* spell once in a blue-moon while, and I'm really just not down for that.
Please do not contact or message me.
Usually people can get one short rest but enough rests to compete is the complaint more often. And even one, I've seen lots of times when you want a short rest the long rest people push for that. So I've seen it, and it is a common issue people complain about. Not getting just one but more importantly the number of short rests to long rests gets very skewed in most games. The warlock with 2 spells probably needs a mechanic where they recharge the slots quickly after every encounter. Because every other caster will be casting more than that per encounter pretty quickly. When its a hour the player has to really ask for a short rest, if the mechanic were 5 minutes they'd just say hey im taking 5 minutes to do X. And sure really tight time crunch like a encounter turns into a chase scene they will still be short on spells, but everywhere else they will be fine.
So yeah a issue with pact slots exists, but this toss the baby out with the bath water approach is terrible especially using 1/2 caster progression so they don't get 5th level spells until 17th level get probably less spells per day until 5th and about the same up until 9th, and they are all low level spells.
And I didn't even notice hex was now once per turn, what a crap spell they made their signature spell.
And as an aside I really wish they'd either change its damage type or let eldritch blast hit objects. Force doing nothing to an object bothers me. It is like saying clubs can only effect creatures.
I never felt bad using my spells as a warlock. I cast enough given my features that it was a great class, far better than halfcasting actually. I'd rather have 2 spells a short rest where they can be at the max spell level of a full caster than stunted casting where I don't see 3rd level spells until near the end of the campaign. Oh yeah I forgot I can spend all my invocations to try and get back what I lost. Oh look I have weak ass spell casting now instead of two slots I recharged on a short rest, so so much better now that my spells are so weak i am no longer casting them as a main part of my class.
selective quoting because this is EXACTLY how I felt about the change made to Cleric which I absolutely and utterly despise.
Every encounter is too much, if they're also getting invocations and arcanum
If not getting enough short rests is an issue at some tables, give warlocks a feature that allows them to regain slots outside of the rest mechanic, rather than instead of it
Wizards gets arcane recovery; sorcs can cash in sorcery points for slots. Give warlocks something like that in addition to regaining them on a short rest
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)
Can Dispel Magic get rid of a Warlock's Pact benefit since they are now gain through casting a cantrip. What happens when they walk into an anti-magic field, does the pact vanish there too?
Again, you're taking this to odd extremes. As both player and DM, I've certainly been in situations where taking a short rest wasn't going to happen. But it's not the norm for every locale, every environment, or even every encounter. Are you playing a style of D&D that's akin to Mad Max: Fury Road where you literally can't stop to rest, anywhere or at any time?
When the party is traveling from one location to another - say from the city to a dungeon entrance, if we can use some tropes of the game - are you saying that the way there is so stacked with hostiles encounters that there's never any chance for a short rest, ever? If I recall, you're someone who places a high value on roleplaying (which I'm in agreement with!) - but it sounds like you're used to playing in campaigns that are extremely combat-heavy and light on....everything else.
(Tone is hard to convey here but I'm asking sincerely, not sarcastically.)
Again, your experiences with Pact Magic don't match mine at all. Sure, there have been times when I had to rely only on cantrips or my Pact Weapon, but to me, that's just part of the character - because I know I'll get spell slots back in a way that almost none of my other party members will (unless we're on the run in Avernus with the literal hordes of hell on our trail).
This is a good point and one more reason these changes are bad.
LOL, two of them take an hour to recast too
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)
I'd actually be fine with a cantrip focused warlock if they made it a d10 class and added in more options to buff cantrips in a variety of ways beyond just agonizing blast. Twinned cantrips, flexible damage cantrips, stun capable cantrips, etc.
Here's the thing. What nobody seems to get is that it's not about active, enemies-are-actively-chasing-you pressure. It's about the core world assumption - apparently unique to my table(s) - that every single hour you get to do something is also an hour the enemy gets to do something. Time is universally impartial - it gives its gifts to absolutely everyone and everything in equal measure. If the party decides to faff off for half a day every single day doing yoga while the opposition makes more effective use of their time? That's on the party, not on the DM for being a bad DM. Bad guys have objectives, and they will use the time they are given to pursue those objectives. If the party constantly decides to do nothing to interfere with that pursuit of Bad Guy objectives, how is it a DM problem when the bad guys pull ahead?
As stated - roleplaying is why time is not a nonfactor in our games. The world doesn't wait for us - if we **** around doing yoga for twelve hours a day every day, the bad guys WILL get the jump on us and we'll have to play catch-up and probably lose. The assumption everybody else in this thread is making is that enemies will sit around doing dick-monkey jack squat nothing while the party faffs off for twelve hours a day short-resting after every single individual skill check, and that is so unrealistic and unfounded an assumption that it's never seriously come up in any game I've ever played. It's why short rests are a trap - every hour the PCs spend doing Nothing is an hour the enemy spends doing Something instead, and that is never a good equation for victory.
I don't think I've ever gotten a single short rest in any game I've ever played as a warlock in. Not once. I know I haven't gotten a single short rest in my current warlock's game, and she's gone from third level to the verge of sixth since the game started. Either the party has time to Rest Longly, or the party needs to exert its utmost to succeed against pressing odds and short rests are out of the question. There is no in between. Either we have time and space for a long rest or we're In The Shit. No exceptions.
Which should maybe explain something about why I'm so vehemently against retaining Pact Magic, ne?
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Maybe at the odd table with 6 encounters per day, but most people are in the 2ish range so its 4 spells a day we are talking about for most the game, how many does the wizard/sorcerer etc cast. And yes I am assuming some mechanic outside rests to do that but a repeatable one and one that is fairly short as otherwise you'd just take the one hour and short rest.