All the people I know loved the new Warlock as half-caster, damn we are plenty of full-casters, specially on Arcane domain. It only required some attunement for balance.
Instead wipe everything, if majority don’t want changes OK, but register those changes in some kind of DMG or alternative PHB for those who like them.
Probably at this point it would fit more for me as seems I’d be applying more homebrew than rules at this rate (as already mentioned at some post), and all those alternatives are perfect for that. So don’t touch much the rules, as seems is going to happen, but open our minds with plenty of possibilities and then each one apply the desired ones adapting to their games.
All the people i know hated the new warlock. Anecdotes work like that. apparently enough people were in the hate it camp that they swapped it back.
Let me guess, because they felt it was less powerful in combat, all of them wanted back the pact magic at Short Rest to spam high level spells daily.
In any case, as mentioned, give options for those who liked it.
And seems not so much people is required, if they expect a 70-80% of agreement to make changes. In fact a minority can impose here because the excessive conservatism of WotC.
Warlocks were never a half caster in 5th either. Half casters don't get access to 9th level spells, even in limited form.
Another option I hadn't considered until now is the possibility of going back to the original Warlock in 3rd. No spells at all, but a heaping pile of invocations, and more options for Eldritch Blast, like chain attack and area of effect invocations.
Just a quick thing you did know that the Playtest 5 warlock got access to better 9th level spells at the same level with the same kind of restrictions as the original 5e lock did right?
Yes, but the highest level features figure little into how I judge classes, as I rarely get to play at those levels and when I do, it is never for very long. What matters most to me are the levels I spend my time at.
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
Not if they also increase the number of Invocations commensurately. Moving MA to Invocations lets people who don't want to try to pretend to be a full caster many more options for their build, while those who do want to try to pretend to be a full caster can still choose to do so.
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
I assume then that in your games can Long Rest anywhere anytime with no problem.
I was talking in terms of natively having access to spell levels at the same rate as a full caster. Which is important for Warlocks because they are seriously lacking in the power department otherwise. EB is maybe slightly better than a longbow by basic numbers, but between fighting styles, magic weapons, and the fact that there's a lot more features that enhance damage on weapon attacks, end of the day a longbow Fighter would outperform them on basic attacks and a Paladin will outperform them on spell slot to damage efficacy. 6th to 9th level spells are what helps keep them relevant at higher levels, and however hard you spin it, taking access to something that used to be a base part of the class and making the player now have to allocate limited multipurpose resources to it is a nerf of that feature, and as everyone seems to agree, Warlocks definitely didn't need a nerf.
All the people i know hated the new warlock. Anecdotes work like that. apparently enough people were in the hate it camp that they swapped it back.
So to satisfy my own curiosity I have 3 questions.
1. Have these players ACTUALLY played warlock?
2. If they had played a warlock, how regularly and often were you getting short rests?
3. Did they hate the change because they felt it was mechanically bad, or because of the loss in uniqueness?
I'm mainly asking this because I kind of feel like people disliked the IDEA of the change more than the actual change. Pact Magic is a fun idea that is poorly executed. I think people are far more looking at the fun concept than the gameplay.
Its actually a really good fix. At tables with 0 short rests the numbers of encounters they have will be small enough one refresh will cover it. At tables with more encounters there will be at least one normal short rest, so the extra would again still cover it. Add a few free cast invocations for people who need shield(which should probably be nerfed) or something and you are pretty much set.
While I have never seen it be a issue in play it does limit some spells that thematically fit like animate dead so they may also want to cap the total number of times you can regain spells per day. That being said I think a lot of those spells probably need to be changed. While the warlock can take it further if they had access to it the number of undead a wizard/necromancer can have going gets unwieldy at a table fast.
So to clarify, I don't have an issue with regaining all your pact slots once per day. My issue is keeping short rest casting. I generally think that short rest features are bad, however spellslots are even worse than most. It's too flexible a resource with too many problematic interactions. It's also kind of impossible to properly balance and prepare around. Making them based on long rest casting is the only way to fix this class outside of duck-taping it.
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
Not if they also increase the number of Invocations commensurately. Moving MA to Invocations lets people who don't want to try to pretend to be a full caster many more options for their build, while those who do want to try to pretend to be a full caster can still choose to do so.
They could always meet in the middle in regards to this. Make Mystic Arcanum it's own thing that acts like super powerful invocations.
I think you're spot on. Warlock's probably my favorite class. I like the concept of pact magic. I don't like the execution. It's fun, and nice to know I can tell my party I can recover X if we short rest. When I played Celestial lock and did most of our healing? We short rested pretty much whenever I wanted to. now as a fiend lock...eh.
I feel like a lot of people are too caught up in how unique pact magic is, and less experienced in it's actual implementation. Unique and different does not necessarily mean better or even good. And I wonder how much the people who were lamenting pact magic played it with any regularity.
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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.
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
I assume then that in your games can Long Rest anywhere anytime with no problem.
No, but every game I've played - including prewritten material, homebrew games, and third party content - have had the option of taking a LR after every 1-3 combat, and most game sessions ending with a long rest.
a Paladin will outperform them on spell slot to damage efficacy.
Um.. sorry what?!! Paladins have absolutely abysmal spell slot to damage efficacy....
One 3rd level spell as a Smite = 4d8 damage = 18 damage. One 3rd level Fireball = 8d6 damage *0.75 (1/2 on success) = 21 damage PER TARGET and an potentially hit 3, 4, 5 or even more targets. One 3rd level Call Lightning = 3d10*0.75 (1/2 on success) = 12.3 damage PER TARGET PER ROUND, and can potentially hit 2 targets and lasts for an entire combat. One 3rd level Spirit Guardians = 3d8*0.75 (1/2 on success) = 10 damage PER TARGET PER ROUND, and doesn't even use your action economy after round 1.
All the people I know loved the new Warlock as half-caster, damn we are plenty of full-casters, specially on Arcane domain. It only required some attunement for balance.
Instead wipe everything, if majority don’t want changes OK, but register those changes in some kind of DMG or alternative PHB for those who like them.
Probably at this point it would fit more for me as seems I’d be applying more homebrew than rules at this rate (as already mentioned at some post), and all those alternatives are perfect for that. So don’t touch much the rules, as seems is going to happen, but open our minds with plenty of possibilities and then each one apply the desired ones adapting to their games.
All the people i know hated the new warlock. Anecdotes work like that. apparently enough people were in the hate it camp that they swapped it back.
Let me guess, because they felt it was less powerful in combat, all of them wanted back the pact magic at Short Rest to spam high level spells daily.
In any case, as mentioned, give options for those who liked it.
And seems not so much people is required, if they expect a 70-80% of agreement to make changes. In fact a minority can impose here because the excessive conservatism of WotC.
Let me guess you liked the change because it made you more powerful in your mind. Geeze, stop with the snide insinuations about other players already.
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
I assume then that in your games can Long Rest anywhere anytime with no problem.
No, but every game I've played - including prewritten material, homebrew games, and third party content - have had the option of taking a LR after every 1-3 combat, and most game sessions ending with a long rest.
Sorry but cannot understand, and probably will never do, those mechanics. How can quantify thing that are random, or because we stand up from the table, the characters take a LR.
All the people i know hated the new warlock. Anecdotes work like that. apparently enough people were in the hate it camp that they swapped it back.
So to satisfy my own curiosity I have 3 questions.
1. Have these players ACTUALLY played warlock?
2. If they had played a warlock, how regularly and often were you getting short rests?
3. Did they hate the change because they felt it was mechanically bad, or because of the loss in uniqueness?
I'm mainly asking this because I kind of feel like people disliked the IDEA of the change more than the actual change. Pact Magic is a fun idea that is poorly executed. I think people are far more looking at the fun concept than the gameplay.
Its actually a really good fix. At tables with 0 short rests the numbers of encounters they have will be small enough one refresh will cover it. At tables with more encounters there will be at least one normal short rest, so the extra would again still cover it. Add a few free cast invocations for people who need shield(which should probably be nerfed) or something and you are pretty much set.
While I have never seen it be a issue in play it does limit some spells that thematically fit like animate dead so they may also want to cap the total number of times you can regain spells per day. That being said I think a lot of those spells probably need to be changed. While the warlock can take it further if they had access to it the number of undead a wizard/necromancer can have going gets unwieldy at a table fast.
So to clarify, I don't have an issue with regaining all your pact slots once per day. My issue is keeping short rest casting. I generally think that short rest features are bad, however spellslots are even worse than most. It's too flexible a resource with too many problematic interactions. It's also kind of impossible to properly balance and prepare around. Making them based on long rest casting is the only way to fix this class outside of duck-taping it.
1. Yes both the 2014 and the playtest versions were played at out tables though not at the same time.
2. Varied per day, we had plenty of days where its just travel or something so like we might have one encounter which might not even be a fight. Other days they might get one. Some two. Overall probably one a day.
3.both. It mechanically worked alright for the pact of the blade character as spam casting shield was more in line with what they were doing, but they didn;t really feel very warlocky more a generic spell blade. Personally I think shield needs a massive nerf and casters need a big AC nerf. But so be it. For the tome player it felt to them mechanically like playing a bad wizard. They felt they would be better off just playing a wizard and saying i was trained by a devil. Which meant it lost alot of the warlock feel to it.
As for the last part, agree to disagree. I think long rest features are bad. They are what damage the game. Giving piles of abilities you are supposed to ration over a day only works if everyone plays the same number of encounters per day. Classes like fighters without these abilities just look like ass compared to a wizard where you only do 1-2 encounters per day after level 6 or so. The 2014 warlock was the only fullish caster that looked in line with martials for the most part. So to me it seems its the class that was working and it was due to its short rest feature.
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
I assume then that in your games can Long Rest anywhere anytime with no problem.
No, but every game I've played - including prewritten material, homebrew games, and third party content - have had the option of taking a LR after every 1-3 combat, and most game sessions ending with a long rest.
Sorry but cannot understand, and probably will never do, those mechanics. How can quantify thing that are random, or because we stand up from the table, the characters take a LR.
Sorry what do you mean random? Our games have almost no random encounters because our group considers them a waste of our precious game time - meaningless fight scenes that don't progress the narrative which the players just want to get through as quickly as possible. Every combat either progresses the main plot or are involved in a side plot. The DM plans each game session with a natural break point at the end (since because of scheduling issues we may not play again for 2-3 weeks) which is usually a LR opportunity, we don't always make it to that break point, but often we do because we've been playing together long enough that the DM knows how much material we will get through.
I dont understand why a lot of the conversations surrounding changes are presented as if you cant both want big changes and still be against some of the specific changes suggested in the playtest.
Because I don't think I've ever seen any sort of praise, encouragement, or excitement concerning ANY of the proposed changes Wizards has released in ANY of the 1DD documents that I didn't write. Every single document release is an instant raging tire fire of hatred, vitriol, fury, and utter, utter, UTTER rejection. UA5 was particularly bad; the very microinstant that document dropped this forum turned into a thermonuclear Hell-ocaust of dozend and dozens and dozens of people just absolutely screaming their livers out that they would boycot every single Wizards product ever made and convince everyone they knew to do the same thing if Wizards dared to change the warlock IN ANY WAY.
They all utterly ignored the fact that Wizards has said, on multiple occasions, that the 2014 design for Pact Magic severely hinders the warlock class, that a very significant percentage of players end up never using their spells because Pact Magic feels too much like a Scant Resource they have to conserve for absolutely critical moments instead of a resource they can use whenever they want some fun, and that the game designers feel like they missed the mark with it. Naw. PaCt MaGiC iS uNiQuE, so Wizards is not allowed to alter it or the rest of the class associated with it in any way whatsoever or the grognards will rise up and sumo slam their whole-ass headquarters building. The overwhelming response to Wizards stating that players often feel hampered by the warlock's current design was "well if those people just stopped playing D&D wrong and took a whole shit-ton of short rests, like 10+ short rests the way we do, every single day they'd realize the warlock is awesome, so it's their fault they don 't like the class and they should STOP BEING BAD PEOPLE instead of asking that the class be "fixed"!"
At this point in the process, the only conclusion left to me is that nobody actually wants Wizards to change 5e at all. They just want the whole thing called off. Which, yes, I find both extremely short-sighted and utterly repellant. Trust me, I have taken my share of lumps and then some for being the only freaking player on the entire board actually willing to engage with the process and examine the documents with a hopeful eye.
I personally think doing away with class spell lists was a bad idea, its a change, yes, but its a bad one in my opinion..
It's the sort of change that should have been part of the game from the start. Even if we have to go back to the boring class-specific spell lists that exist solely so that the wizard can continue shitting in the sorcerer's corn flakes with the worst smug smirk in D&D, the existence of "Arcane", "Primal", and "Divine" as spell tags - and as spellcaster tags - would be incredibly useful. That's the sort of framework you can make a bunch of interesting decisions and mechanics around if you lean into it, start working to actually differentiate how the three primary* power sources feel in play rather than everybody being the same-ass spellcaster.
But naw. Grognards threatened to sumo slam, so now they're dumping the entire thing. No useful keyword framework for us, ohhhh no. Gotta be 2014 Compliant(TM) or no dice. **** my god damned life.
That doesnt mean that Id prefer things to stay the same for this version update... new edition.. whatever it is. There are plenty of big changes Id like to see, but just because someone is in favor of big changes, you cant expect them to agree with changes just for the sake of it.
It kinda does, actually? If all anyone ever does is scream and rant and piss and moan and kvetch and holler and caterwaul over HOW DARE THEY CHANGE THINGS, the only feedback Wizards is going to get is that people hate them changing things, no matter what the changes are or what things are being changed. They get enough of that feedback and they'll just cancel the whole thing, call it off and sell variant covers of the 2014 books for their fancy 50th Anniversary shindig. There needs to actually be some enthusiasm for the process, some excitement behind it, and some desire for there to be corrections made to broken/nonfunctional, underperforming, or indeed overtuned shit.
And yet, this forum has been 100% on the side of the grognards ever since that first document dropped just 'bout a year ago now and people realized Wizards was actually serious about changing things. For an entire year, anyone who's actually in favor of any of the changes has been on the receiving end of such a firehose of discontent that they all ended up leaving, and this boasrd turned into an echo chamber of total hatred and rejection.
What would you do, if you were a Business Person and you saw that your primary community/feedback channels were all nothing but an echo chamber of total hatred and rejection of the core fundamental idea behind your new project? I'm betting the answer isn't "carry on and do it anyways".
Take 2:
Bullcrap
People have liked things. The things that the community mostly likes (Weapon Mastery, Barbarian buffs, Cunning Strike) don't get talked about as much, because even the few people who aren't in consensus don't have much to say.
The only people that the "firehose of discontent" targets are those few who engage in bad faith arguments. Most others can have a reasonably civil argument. Of course, they still have a choice to leave, but they aren't forced into it by a mob or anything.
The D&D Beyond Unearthed Arcana forum does not hold as much sway as you seem to think it does. The number of people who have answered surveys is in the thousands, and the number of those who have read any thread on here can't be more than two digits. WotC is not going to rule that those few people overrule all others just because they feel like it.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Please no on Arcanum Invocations; it's just a tax on people who want the full caster spell experience, which is the expectation most people have for Warlocks.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
I assume then that in your games can Long Rest anywhere anytime with no problem.
No, but every game I've played - including prewritten material, homebrew games, and third party content - have had the option of taking a LR after every 1-3 combat, and most game sessions ending with a long rest.
Sorry but cannot understand, and probably will never do, those mechanics. How can quantify thing that are random, or because we stand up from the table, the characters take a LR.
Sorry what do you mean random? Our games have almost no random encounters because our group considers them a waste of our precious game time - meaningless fight scenes that don't progress the narrative which the players just want to get through as quickly as possible. Every combat either progresses the main plot or are involved in a side plot. The DM plans each game session with a natural break point at the end (since because of scheduling issues we may not play again for 2-3 weeks) which is usually a LR opportunity, we don't always make it to that break point, but often we do because we've been playing together long enough that the DM knows how much material we will get through.
Encounters at rest, to interrupt it. The foes patrols are not static in the place. Also that dynamic of advance, combat, rest, and repeat, as way of “narrative”, this is, advance in the story, feels too linear, doesn’t fit well in our method, more RPG style where anything can happen and characters can try whatever they want, affecting the NPC and environment. Captures and/or enemy flees are common, and funny :D
For sessions can use a “save state”, this is taking a picture and some annotations.
1. Yes both the 2014 and the playtest versions were played at out tables though not at the same time.
2. Varied per day, we had plenty of days where its just travel or something so like we might have one encounter which might not even be a fight. Other days they might get one. Some two. Overall probably one a day.
3.both. It mechanically worked alright for the pact of the blade character as spam casting shield was more in line with what they were doing, but they didn;t really feel very warlocky more a generic spell blade. Personally I think shield needs a massive nerf and casters need a big AC nerf. But so be it. For the tome player it felt to them mechanically like playing a bad wizard. They felt they would be better off just playing a wizard and saying i was trained by a devil. Which meant it lost alot of the warlock feel to it.
As for the last part, agree to disagree. I think long rest features are bad. They are what damage the game. Giving piles of abilities you are supposed to ration over a day only works if everyone plays the same number of encounters per day. Classes like fighters without these abilities just look like ass compared to a wizard where you only do 1-2 encounters per day after level 6 or so. The 2014 warlock was the only fullish caster that looked in line with martials for the most part. So to me it seems its the class that was working and it was due to its short rest feature.
Hm, Interesting.
To be frank, I think your basically asking people to go back to 4th edition. I do think that mechanically it would work better in many aspects to have everyone just be short rest based. However the issue comes in that you would have to convince the VAST majority of fanbase of that. Over half the classes would also need to be redesigned from the ground up.
And that's kind of the reason I think that eliminating short rest features is for the best. For the game to be properly balanced we need everyone to have the same power schedule. Having a mix of short and long rest characters makes that impossible. Likewise I think convincing the community to adopt a short rest schedule would be impossible.
1. Yes both the 2014 and the playtest versions were played at out tables though not at the same time.
2. Varied per day, we had plenty of days where its just travel or something so like we might have one encounter which might not even be a fight. Other days they might get one. Some two. Overall probably one a day.
3.both. It mechanically worked alright for the pact of the blade character as spam casting shield was more in line with what they were doing, but they didn;t really feel very warlocky more a generic spell blade. Personally I think shield needs a massive nerf and casters need a big AC nerf. But so be it. For the tome player it felt to them mechanically like playing a bad wizard. They felt they would be better off just playing a wizard and saying i was trained by a devil. Which meant it lost alot of the warlock feel to it.
As for the last part, agree to disagree. I think long rest features are bad. They are what damage the game. Giving piles of abilities you are supposed to ration over a day only works if everyone plays the same number of encounters per day. Classes like fighters without these abilities just look like ass compared to a wizard where you only do 1-2 encounters per day after level 6 or so. The 2014 warlock was the only fullish caster that looked in line with martials for the most part. So to me it seems its the class that was working and it was due to its short rest feature.
Hm, Interesting.
To be frank, I think your basically asking people to go back to 4th edition. I do think that mechanically it would work better in many aspects to have everyone just be short rest based. However the issue comes in that you would have to convince the VAST majority of fanbase of that. Over half the classes would also need to be redesigned from the ground up.
And that's kind of the reason I think that eliminating short rest features is for the best. For the game to be properly balanced we need everyone to have the same power schedule. Having a mix of short and long rest characters makes that impossible. Likewise I think convincing the community to adopt a short rest schedule would be impossible.
Removing short rest features would have to be done across the entire PHB. My best time me playing a warlock was surprisingly in a party full of other casters (a modified Strixhaven game) but the arcane spells were split between myself and a bard. Adding in the cleric and druid of our quartet, every player recovered something on a short rest, making the group less averse to taking them. Still, I don't remember taking more than 2 short rests without a long rest more than one time in a marathon encounter in a besieged city, and even then I think it was only 3. We had one or zero more often than that.
Removing short rest features would have to be done across the entire PHB. My best time me playing a warlock was surprisingly in a party full of other casters (a modified Strixhaven game) but the arcane spells were split between myself and a bard. Adding in the cleric and druid of our quartet, every player recovered something on a short rest, making the group less averse to taking them. Still, I don't remember taking more than 2 short rests without a long rest more than one time in a marathon encounter in a besieged city, and even then I think it was only 3. We had one or zero more often than that.
Replacing short rest features with long rest features is significantly easier than replacing long rest features with short rest features. The two simplest methods being just giving them more uses per day or having them recharge on initiative.
I know there is a subset of the community that loves the short/long rest mechanic, but all it really does is make games far more swingy. Usually in the Long Rest character's favor, because '6-8 encounters' my ass!
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Let me guess, because they felt it was less powerful in combat, all of them wanted back the pact magic at Short Rest to spam high level spells daily.
In any case, as mentioned, give options for those who liked it.
And seems not so much people is required, if they expect a 70-80% of agreement to make changes. In fact a minority can impose here because the excessive conservatism of WotC.
Yes, but the highest level features figure little into how I judge classes, as I rarely get to play at those levels and when I do, it is never for very long. What matters most to me are the levels I spend my time at.
What? I've never ever seen someone have a full caster experience with a warlock. Most full casters are casting a levelled spell every round in combat (often 2 levelled spells per round a higher levels) and warlocks never get enough slots to do that. Please could you explain a typical adventuring day at level 5 where your warlock was doing the same things as a full caster?
Not if they also increase the number of Invocations commensurately. Moving MA to Invocations lets people who don't want to try to pretend to be a full caster many more options for their build, while those who do want to try to pretend to be a full caster can still choose to do so.
I assume then that in your games can Long Rest anywhere anytime with no problem.
I was talking in terms of natively having access to spell levels at the same rate as a full caster. Which is important for Warlocks because they are seriously lacking in the power department otherwise. EB is maybe slightly better than a longbow by basic numbers, but between fighting styles, magic weapons, and the fact that there's a lot more features that enhance damage on weapon attacks, end of the day a longbow Fighter would outperform them on basic attacks and a Paladin will outperform them on spell slot to damage efficacy. 6th to 9th level spells are what helps keep them relevant at higher levels, and however hard you spin it, taking access to something that used to be a base part of the class and making the player now have to allocate limited multipurpose resources to it is a nerf of that feature, and as everyone seems to agree, Warlocks definitely didn't need a nerf.
So to satisfy my own curiosity I have 3 questions.
1. Have these players ACTUALLY played warlock?
2. If they had played a warlock, how regularly and often were you getting short rests?
3. Did they hate the change because they felt it was mechanically bad, or because of the loss in uniqueness?
I'm mainly asking this because I kind of feel like people disliked the IDEA of the change more than the actual change. Pact Magic is a fun idea that is poorly executed. I think people are far more looking at the fun concept than the gameplay.
So to clarify, I don't have an issue with regaining all your pact slots once per day. My issue is keeping short rest casting. I generally think that short rest features are bad, however spellslots are even worse than most. It's too flexible a resource with too many problematic interactions. It's also kind of impossible to properly balance and prepare around. Making them based on long rest casting is the only way to fix this class outside of duck-taping it.
They could always meet in the middle in regards to this. Make Mystic Arcanum it's own thing that acts like super powerful invocations.
^^
I think you're spot on. Warlock's probably my favorite class. I like the concept of pact magic. I don't like the execution. It's fun, and nice to know I can tell my party I can recover X if we short rest. When I played Celestial lock and did most of our healing? We short rested pretty much whenever I wanted to. now as a fiend lock...eh.
I feel like a lot of people are too caught up in how unique pact magic is, and less experienced in it's actual implementation. Unique and different does not necessarily mean better or even good. And I wonder how much the people who were lamenting pact magic played it with any regularity.
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
No, but every game I've played - including prewritten material, homebrew games, and third party content - have had the option of taking a LR after every 1-3 combat, and most game sessions ending with a long rest.
Um.. sorry what?!! Paladins have absolutely abysmal spell slot to damage efficacy....
One 3rd level spell as a Smite = 4d8 damage = 18 damage.
One 3rd level Fireball = 8d6 damage *0.75 (1/2 on success) = 21 damage PER TARGET and an potentially hit 3, 4, 5 or even more targets.
One 3rd level Call Lightning = 3d10*0.75 (1/2 on success) = 12.3 damage PER TARGET PER ROUND, and can potentially hit 2 targets and lasts for an entire combat.
One 3rd level Spirit Guardians = 3d8*0.75 (1/2 on success) = 10 damage PER TARGET PER ROUND, and doesn't even use your action economy after round 1.
Let me guess you liked the change because it made you more powerful in your mind. Geeze, stop with the snide insinuations about other players already.
Sorry but cannot understand, and probably will never do, those mechanics. How can quantify thing that are random, or because we stand up from the table, the characters take a LR.
Here a link to the arguing about why: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/unearthed-arcana/171023-so-what-now-with-the-monk?comment=663
1. Yes both the 2014 and the playtest versions were played at out tables though not at the same time.
2. Varied per day, we had plenty of days where its just travel or something so like we might have one encounter which might not even be a fight. Other days they might get one. Some two. Overall probably one a day.
3.both. It mechanically worked alright for the pact of the blade character as spam casting shield was more in line with what they were doing, but they didn;t really feel very warlocky more a generic spell blade. Personally I think shield needs a massive nerf and casters need a big AC nerf. But so be it. For the tome player it felt to them mechanically like playing a bad wizard. They felt they would be better off just playing a wizard and saying i was trained by a devil. Which meant it lost alot of the warlock feel to it.
As for the last part, agree to disagree. I think long rest features are bad. They are what damage the game. Giving piles of abilities you are supposed to ration over a day only works if everyone plays the same number of encounters per day. Classes like fighters without these abilities just look like ass compared to a wizard where you only do 1-2 encounters per day after level 6 or so. The 2014 warlock was the only fullish caster that looked in line with martials for the most part. So to me it seems its the class that was working and it was due to its short rest feature.
Sorry what do you mean random? Our games have almost no random encounters because our group considers them a waste of our precious game time - meaningless fight scenes that don't progress the narrative which the players just want to get through as quickly as possible. Every combat either progresses the main plot or are involved in a side plot. The DM plans each game session with a natural break point at the end (since because of scheduling issues we may not play again for 2-3 weeks) which is usually a LR opportunity, we don't always make it to that break point, but often we do because we've been playing together long enough that the DM knows how much material we will get through.
Take 2:
Bullcrap
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
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Encounters at rest, to interrupt it. The foes patrols are not static in the place. Also that dynamic of advance, combat, rest, and repeat, as way of “narrative”, this is, advance in the story, feels too linear, doesn’t fit well in our method, more RPG style where anything can happen and characters can try whatever they want, affecting the NPC and environment. Captures and/or enemy flees are common, and funny :D
For sessions can use a “save state”, this is taking a picture and some annotations.
Hm, Interesting.
To be frank, I think your basically asking people to go back to 4th edition. I do think that mechanically it would work better in many aspects to have everyone just be short rest based. However the issue comes in that you would have to convince the VAST majority of fanbase of that. Over half the classes would also need to be redesigned from the ground up.
And that's kind of the reason I think that eliminating short rest features is for the best. For the game to be properly balanced we need everyone to have the same power schedule. Having a mix of short and long rest characters makes that impossible. Likewise I think convincing the community to adopt a short rest schedule would be impossible.
Derp - that would explain it!
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Removing short rest features would have to be done across the entire PHB. My best time me playing a warlock was surprisingly in a party full of other casters (a modified Strixhaven game) but the arcane spells were split between myself and a bard. Adding in the cleric and druid of our quartet, every player recovered something on a short rest, making the group less averse to taking them. Still, I don't remember taking more than 2 short rests without a long rest more than one time in a marathon encounter in a besieged city, and even then I think it was only 3. We had one or zero more often than that.
Replacing short rest features with long rest features is significantly easier than replacing long rest features with short rest features. The two simplest methods being just giving them more uses per day or having them recharge on initiative.
I know there is a subset of the community that loves the short/long rest mechanic, but all it really does is make games far more swingy. Usually in the Long Rest character's favor, because '6-8 encounters' my ass!