Sucks that WotC isn’t going through with the Warlock selecting their spell-casting stat. At the very least they should make it intelligence. And with Pact Magic they should do something similar to Channel Divinity. You get one Pact Magic Slot back when you finish a short rest. All when you finish a long-rest. Warlock’s start with 2 Pact Slots at 1st, 3 at 5th, 4 at 9th, 5 at 13th, 6 at 17th.
A free casting of a Patron Spell once per short-rest. Turn the Pact Boons into actual features instead of spells. Pact of Blade allow any melee weapon. Pact of Chain return it to the 2014 version and add a few more options. Pact of Tome keep as it is in the Playtest 5 UA. And if they are going to keep Hex only applying once per turn get rid of concentration.
Did they say for sure it was going to remain charisma? I dont recall, but I seem to remember that they didn't specify, so maybe that will be changed.
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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.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I thought the idea of being able to pick your spellcasting stat was interesting, but the way they did it meant picking your Pact Boon at Level 1, which was just a terrible idea. Not only did it make no sense lore-wise, it was every bit as restrictive a Level 1 choice as choosing your Patron, if not more so. I still believe Patron choice should move back to Level 1, and Pact Boon to Level 3.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
Yes, I think that's how Pact Magic will work, but I expect that to be balanced the same as current Pact Magic, not have significantly more slots. Instead I think the way the warlock will be able to increase the number of spells they can cast beyond what we see in 5e now (under 1 SR per day assumption) is with 1 free cast per day Invocations and subclass spells.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
Yes, I think that's how Pact Magic will work, but I expect that to be balanced the same as current Pact Magic, not have significantly more slots. Instead I think the way the warlock will be able to increase the number of spells they can cast beyond what we see in 5e now (under 1 SR per day assumption) is with 1 free cast per day Invocations and subclass spells.
I like the idea of Patron spells being always prepared like Domain/Circle/Oath spells, and I think offering a free casting from that sublist is a good way to encourage "on brand" spellcasting. Though I think just one free cast per day from the Patron list isn't enough. The 1/day spell Invocations are nice, but I don't think offering them just as part of your regular Invocation allotment is the right way to do it. Especially since those spells typically haven't been from the regular Warlock list. I'd rather see a buff to actual Pact Magic.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
Yes, I think that's how Pact Magic will work, but I expect that to be balanced the same as current Pact Magic, not have significantly more slots. Instead I think the way the warlock will be able to increase the number of spells they can cast beyond what we see in 5e now (under 1 SR per day assumption) is with 1 free cast per day Invocations and subclass spells.
They have said they want you to have more spell slots to use. Having more and having them be the same are not compatible.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
Yes, I think that's how Pact Magic will work, but I expect that to be balanced the same as current Pact Magic, not have significantly more slots. Instead I think the way the warlock will be able to increase the number of spells they can cast beyond what we see in 5e now (under 1 SR per day assumption) is with 1 free cast per day Invocations and subclass spells.
They have said they want you to have more spell slots to use. Having more and having them be the same are not compatible.
For balance reasons, the warlock is not going to get more high level spell slots than full casters. Warlocks have the option of getting Extra Attack or EB+AB which gives them parity in resourceless combat half casters. I mean a Warlock with Hex + EB + AB is outperforming a Ranger + Longbow + Hunter's Mark in persistent DPR. So they are not going to also get equal spellcasting power as a full caster because that would be utterly imbalanced. This means no, you aren't going to be able to cast a spell with a pact slot every turn in combat, it's just not going to happen. They tried giving more spellslots in a way appropriate to warlock power balancing and it got rejected, so we will be back to Pact Magic either as it is in 5e, or more likely tuned like WS / CD with one or two extra uses but only recovering 1 use on a short rest (i.e. assuming you typically had 1 SR per day, the same number of spell slots per LR).
Jeremy Crawford openly stated that the warlock is viewed as a hybrid caster, internally at Wizards. The reason the warlock gets a large number of relatively potent Invocations, the most powerful combat cantrip in the game, and the choice of a generally impactful Pact Boon is because they do not get the strength of full spellcasting progression.
Despite this, people shrieked that a warlock without the strength of full spellcasting progression was no warlock at all, and that the warlock was required to be the equal of the wizard when it came to raw spellpower. They shrieked this despite Crawford telling everyone to Todd Kenrick's face that a full-progression warlock would lose almost all its Invocations as well as not being allowed to retain the current powerful Eldritch Blast.
I would say it will be fascinating to see where the warlock lands after the horrid disaster that was the community response to the warlock being obviously a hybrid caster rather than a poorly veiled one. But it won't. It will be painful. We had a chance to retain the interesting hybrid caster variant. Next model's just going to be Sorcerer 2.0, i.e. Worse Wizard the Second.
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
Yes, I think that's how Pact Magic will work, but I expect that to be balanced the same as current Pact Magic, not have significantly more slots. Instead I think the way the warlock will be able to increase the number of spells they can cast beyond what we see in 5e now (under 1 SR per day assumption) is with 1 free cast per day Invocations and subclass spells.
They have said they want you to have more spell slots to use. Having more and having them be the same are not compatible.
For balance reasons, the warlock is not going to get more high level spell slots than full casters. Warlocks have the option of getting Extra Attack or EB+AB which gives them parity in resourceless combat half casters. I mean a Warlock with Hex + EB + AB is outperforming a Ranger + Longbow + Hunter's Mark in persistent DPR. So they are not going to also get equal spellcasting power as a full caster because that would be utterly imbalanced. This means no, you aren't going to be able to cast a spell with a pact slot every turn in combat, it's just not going to happen. They tried giving more spellslots in a way appropriate to warlock power balancing and it got rejected, so we will be back to Pact Magic either as it is in 5e, or more likely tuned like WS / CD with one or two extra uses but only recovering 1 use on a short rest (i.e. assuming you typically had 1 SR per day, the same number of spell slots per LR).
This is why people need to view the Warlock as a martial rather than a full caster. It's not and never has been. What it is, is the finest archer in the game.
It got rejected because people who don't play warlocks think it's something that it is not. The new warlock would have been superior in nearly every way. Unique does not mean the same thing as better, or even good.
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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.
Jeremy Crawford openly stated that the warlock is viewed as a hybrid caster, internally at Wizards. The reason the warlock gets a large number of relatively potent Invocations, the most powerful combat cantrip in the game, and the choice of a generally impactful Pact Boon is because they do not get the strength of full spellcasting progression.
Despite this, people shrieked that a warlock without the strength of full spellcasting progression was no warlock at all, and that the warlock was required to be the equal of the wizard when it came to raw spellpower. They shrieked this despite Crawford telling everyone to Todd Kenrick's face that a full-progression warlock would lose almost all its Invocations as well as not being allowed to retain the current powerful Eldritch Blast.
I would say it will be fascinating to see where the warlock lands after the horrid disaster that was the community response to the warlock being obviously a hybrid caster rather than a poorly veiled one. But it won't. It will be painful. We had a chance to retain the interesting hybrid caster variant. Next model's just going to be Sorcerer 2.0, i.e. Worse Wizard the Second.
Because screw being multiclass-compatible, screw having more than two spell slots, and screw not being the most front-loaded class in game. Just sell us the same shit again!
Jeremy Crawford openly stated that the warlock is viewed as a hybrid caster, internally at Wizards. The reason the warlock gets a large number of relatively potent Invocations, the most powerful combat cantrip in the game, and the choice of a generally impactful Pact Boon is because they do not get the strength of full spellcasting progression.
Despite this, people shrieked that a warlock without the strength of full spellcasting progression was no warlock at all, and that the warlock was required to be the equal of the wizard when it came to raw spellpower. They shrieked this despite Crawford telling everyone to Todd Kenrick's face that a full-progression warlock would lose almost all its Invocations as well as not being allowed to retain the current powerful Eldritch Blast.
I would say it will be fascinating to see where the warlock lands after the horrid disaster that was the community response to the warlock being obviously a hybrid caster rather than a poorly veiled one. But it won't. It will be painful. We had a chance to retain the interesting hybrid caster variant. Next model's just going to be Sorcerer 2.0, i.e. Worse Wizard the Second.
But what is Warlock a Hybrid of? A caster and a caster, and that is where the issue lies. A hybrid of a caster and a caster, is a pure caster. Yes, there is an option for a martial/caster hybrid in one of the three pacts, but for the remaining two pacts? Warlock having their unique mechanics is their main pull in 5E, so the community backlash should have been expected. Overall the design in the UA was weaker than 5E warlock, and 5E warlock is already the weakest of the 3 mage classes. The design was lazy in my opinion, didn't address the core issues with Warlock and didn't add the necessary balance to the class that was removed by switching essentially full caster progression to half.
But what is Warlock a Hybrid of? A caster and a caster, and that is where the issue lies. A hybrid of a caster and a caster, is a pure caster. Yes, there is an option for a martial/caster hybrid in one of the three pacts, but for the remaining two pacts? Warlock having their unique mechanics is their main pull in 5E, so the community backlash should have been expected. Overall the design in the UA was weaker than 5E warlock, and 5E warlock is already the weakest of the 3 mage classes. The design was lazy in my opinion, didn't address the core issues with Warlock and didn't add the necessary balance to the class that was removed by switching essentially full caster progression to half.
Small thinking. You don't need to be a hybrid formed of nothing but two Named Pillars of the game. The warlock is a "hybrid caster" because part of its power budget is spent on spellcasting - and yes, Pact Magic is still ******* spellcasting no matter how much people whine about PaCt MaGiC bEiNg UnIqUe - and part of its power budget is spent on non-Spellcasting. People demanding that the warlock be given the exact same spellcasting power as a full-casting Arcane class while also retaining all the non-casting things it previously spent some of its power budget on - things like Invocations, or Pact Boons, or armor and weapon proficiencies and a d8 hit die - are fundamentally misunderstanding the assignment. We already have two nearly-identical Arcane full casters, WE DO NOT NEED A THIRD.
Nor is "I don't care if it's good as long as it's uNiQuE!" an argument worth entertaining. I've played multiple warlocks, I crave the modularity and customization the class offers in a game as absolutely starved for player customization as D&D 5e. I'm not speaking from a vacuum. The class's supermegaultrahyperfocus on short-rest recovery and insistence on trying to be a full caster with barely half the spell budget of a full caster leaves it lagging behind. Outside of niche shit with specific invocations, there is very little I can do with a warlock that I cannot do with a ranger - and the ranger has better armor, better HP, stronger skill mastery, vastly better access to magic gear, and significantly improved basic combat when compared to anything but the most dedicated Eldritch Bonk intensifier. And most people consider the ranger a dead weight class in 5e.
Why people think they're gonna be allowed to double-dip and keep all the things the warlock's status as a hybrid/partial spellcaster bought it and also get the exact same spell slot progression as a wizard while also regaining all of those wizard-level spell slots on a short rest is beyond my ability to comprehend. The utter absurdity of it is just too much. Yet that's the position "The Community" put Wizards in - make the warlock an arcane full caster with more magic than the wizard while also still keeping everything it already has. An impossible goal for anyone with any sense.
But what is Warlock a Hybrid of? A caster and a caster, and that is where the issue lies. A hybrid of a caster and a caster, is a pure caster. Yes, there is an option for a martial/caster hybrid in one of the three pacts, but for the remaining two pacts? Warlock having their unique mechanics is their main pull in 5E, so the community backlash should have been expected. Overall the design in the UA was weaker than 5E warlock, and 5E warlock is already the weakest of the 3 mage classes. The design was lazy in my opinion, didn't address the core issues with Warlock and didn't add the necessary balance to the class that was removed by switching essentially full caster progression to half.
Small thinking. You don't need to be a hybrid formed of nothing but two Named Pillars of the game. The warlock is a "hybrid caster" because part of its power budget is spent on spellcasting - and yes, Pact Magic is still ******* spellcasting no matter how much people whine about PaCt MaGiC bEiNg UnIqUe - and part of its power budget is spent on non-Spellcasting. People demanding that the warlock be given the exact same spellcasting power as a full-casting Arcane class while also retaining all the non-casting things it previously spent some of its power budget on - things like Invocations, or Pact Boons, or armor and weapon proficiencies and a d8 hit die - are fundamentally misunderstanding the assignment. We already have two nearly-identical Arcane full casters, WE DO NOT NEED A THIRD.
Nor is "I don't care if it's good as long as it's uNiQuE!" an argument worth entertaining. I've played multiple warlocks, I crave the modularity and customization the class offers in a game as absolutely starved for player customization as D&D 5e. I'm not speaking from a vacuum. The class's supermegaultrahyperfocus on short-rest recovery and insistence on trying to be a full caster with barely half the spell budget of a full caster leaves it lagging behind. Outside of niche shit with specific invocations, there is very little I can do with a warlock that I cannot do with a ranger - and the ranger has better armor, better HP, stronger skill mastery, vastly better access to magic gear, and significantly improved basic combat when compared to anything but the most dedicated Eldritch Bonk intensifier. And most people consider the ranger a dead weight class in 5e.
Why people think they're gonna be allowed to double-dip and keep all the things the warlock's status as a hybrid/partial spellcaster bought it and also get the exact same spell slot progression as a wizard while also regaining all of those wizard-level spell slots on a short rest is beyond my ability to comprehend. The utter absurdity of it is just too much. Yet that's the position "The Community" put Wizards in - make the warlock an arcane full caster with more magic than the wizard while also still keeping everything it already has. An impossible goal for anyone with any sense.
Then you missed the point, I didn't say Warlock needs full-caster power, I said the balance of full progression to half progression needed to be redressed and that Warlock isn't a hybrid, which it isn't, it isn't half of one thing and half of another, it is all casting.If cantrip caster was another thing then no caster but warlock should get cantrips, cantrips are apart of every full spellcasters, spellcasting. Further to that, Warlocks aren't on the front line and by the time they come under attack the difference between a d6 and d8 matter very little for a hit die. In most encounters the caster being a bit tankier really makes little difference and in the ones that it does, the extra survivability is rarely a major difference.
Warlock being unique is literally what you're asking for while also saying the argument isn't worth entertaining, you don't want Warlock to be another caster and yet shoot down when people say, Warlock isn't the same as the other casters. So where do you actually stand on that? Also I have already said Warlock is lagging behind, but what the UA delivered decided to slam the car into reverse gear, that isn't the solution to catch up in the race.
The issue again is that Warlock didn't get anything to compensate for being a supposed "hybrid" caster, a slightly stronger cantrip is lacking compared to full caster progression. The issue isn't about "double-dipping", the issue is more fundamental to what was proposed. While Warlock's main gimmick can be that it is a cantrip caster, but like all classes, there needs to be some balance to the classes, if you're using a module or even making your own, you want certain classes to handle relatively similarly to each other and yet Warlock tends to underperform unless you're talking about the hexblade pact of the chain warlock as a martial alternative. And let's remember just how much Hexblade needed to add to warlock to make that viable... Warlock needs more, not necessarily to have the same spellcasting power but it needs more, where the UA gave them less, that is the point.
What that more is, could have been multiple things, pact of the chain familiar that actually is combat viable, pact of the tome empowering cantrips more, etc. I never said it needed to be full caster progression, but taking full caster progression away needs significantly more consideration then "make em a half-caster".
So you attach no value to Invocations, then? Because that's the other half of warlock - a player-selected grab bag of special features tuning their specific warlock to whichever objective that player has for that warlock.
Warlock spellcasting doesn't need to be stronger - Invocations do. The dumb stupid pointless short-rest-centric Pact Magic nonsense is not the core class identity for the warlock - Invocations are. Nobody except Coffeelock munchkins plays warlocks because of Pact Magic - they do it because of Invocations.
A warlock that dispensed with conventional spellcasting entirely in favor of being made up entirely of a suite of Invocations selected at every character level would be a splendid and delightful warlock. Give me a warlock with 20+ Invocations by level 20, and a list of over a hundred meaningful, punchy, and fun-to-play Invocations to choose from, and you can keep your bloody Pact Magic. Or hell, as I've said before - make Pact Magic an Invocation. "Pact Magic the Invocation" provides one single spell slot that follows the rules of Pact Magic and allows two choices of spell from the Arcane spell list to accompany that spell slot. Want more spells known/Pact slots? Take the Pact Magic invocation more than once, up to proficiency bonus number of times. Then people obssessed with their short rest Coffeelock ****ery can devote all their Invocations to it while the rest of us enjoy a warlock that isn't spending half its class power budget on a feature nobody ******* likes except munchkins.
So you attach no value to Invocations, then? Because that's the other half of warlock - a player-selected grab bag of special features tuning their specific warlock to whichever objective that player has for that warlock.
Warlock spellcasting doesn't need to be stronger - Invocations do. The dumb stupid pointless short-rest-centric Pact Magic nonsense is not the core class identity for the warlock - Invocations are. Nobody except Coffeelock munchkins plays warlocks because of Pact Magic - they do it because of Invocations.
A warlock that dispensed with conventional spellcasting entirely in favor of being made up entirely of a suite of Invocations selected at every character level would be a splendid and delightful warlock. Give me a warlock with 20+ Invocations by level 20, and a list of over a hundred meaningful, punchy, and fun-to-play Invocations to choose from, and you can keep your bloody Pact Magic. Or hell, as I've said before - make Pact Magic an Invocation. "Pact Magic the Invocation" provides one single spell slot that follows the rules of Pact Magic and allows two choices of spell from the Arcane spell list to accompany that spell slot. Want more spells known/Pact slots? Take the Pact Magic invocation more than once, up to proficiency bonus number of times. Then people obssessed with their short rest Coffeelock ****ery can devote all their Invocations to it while the rest of us enjoy a warlock that isn't spending half its class power budget on a feature nobody ******* likes except munchkins.
Invocations are nice but what do they add in terms of balance, they are a mixed bag where half are useless and a couple are required as tax. You could pick up several invocations but if you didn't get Agnozing blast, well you're just a non-functional warlock now. However, Invocations being stronger, would have been a fix to the issues we did see in the last UA, what we got in the last UA however was significantly more invocation tax, while they claimed there was less, most of it from the full caster progression of Mystic Arcanum. I am not against the idea of an entirely invocation style of Warlock, but I am against what we saw in the previous UA with the half-arsed lazy half-caster suggestion which fixed nothing and in fact just created more options.
Warlock spellcasting doesn't need to be stronger - Invocations do. The dumb stupid pointless short-rest-centric Pact Magic nonsense is not the core class identity for the warlock - Invocations are. Nobody except Coffeelock munchkins plays warlocks because of Pact Magic - they do it because of Invocations.
This is laughably false. Invocations are nothing more than "pick a class feature," which is something that every class should be getting already. You hate short rests. You hate Pact Magic. You only play warlocks for invocations. It should be abundantly clear by now that you are not the typical warlock player, and I encourage you to advocate for the warlock you want to see, but don't lie about how common your playstyle is.
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Sucks that WotC isn’t going through with the Warlock selecting their spell-casting stat. At the very least they should make it intelligence. And with Pact Magic they should do something similar to Channel Divinity. You get one Pact Magic Slot back when you finish a short rest. All when you finish a long-rest. Warlock’s start with 2 Pact Slots at 1st, 3 at 5th, 4 at 9th, 5 at 13th, 6 at 17th.
A free casting of a Patron Spell once per short-rest. Turn the Pact Boons into actual features instead of spells. Pact of Blade allow any melee weapon. Pact of Chain return it to the 2014 version and add a few more options. Pact of Tome keep as it is in the Playtest 5 UA. And if they are going to keep Hex only applying once per turn get rid of concentration.
Did they say for sure it was going to remain charisma? I dont recall, but I seem to remember that they didn't specify, so maybe that will be changed.
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
They didn’t specify. Just that you wouldn’t get a choice. I assume CHA since, you know, “backwards compatibility”
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
It's 100% going to be charisma. They tried to make it Intelligence in 2014 and apparently changed it to Charisma because players demanded it to be because of it's legacy. I'm really hoping that MAYBE we could have it back if enough people ask for it, but I won't hold my breath. Losing it the first time was already quite painful...
As for spell slots, I'm not 100% sure they'd go for that particular method. It doesn't really fix the goal of 'casting more spells' as per the 2014 survey. Granted who knows what they'd do at this point seeing as how they're claiming they don't want to experiment anymore.
I thought the idea of being able to pick your spellcasting stat was interesting, but the way they did it meant picking your Pact Boon at Level 1, which was just a terrible idea. Not only did it make no sense lore-wise, it was every bit as restrictive a Level 1 choice as choosing your Patron, if not more so. I still believe Patron choice should move back to Level 1, and Pact Boon to Level 3.
I think the "casting more spells" is going to come from changes to invocations. There will be more invocations learned and I suspect some kind of option similar to the revised Mystic Arcanum where you get 1 free casting of spell X per day as an invocation.
My guess is it'll be something close to the way they've been doing Channel Divinity. You get X number of Pact Magic slots per day, you regain a subset of them on a Short Rest, and all of them on a Long Rest.
Yes, I think that's how Pact Magic will work, but I expect that to be balanced the same as current Pact Magic, not have significantly more slots. Instead I think the way the warlock will be able to increase the number of spells they can cast beyond what we see in 5e now (under 1 SR per day assumption) is with 1 free cast per day Invocations and subclass spells.
I like the idea of Patron spells being always prepared like Domain/Circle/Oath spells, and I think offering a free casting from that sublist is a good way to encourage "on brand" spellcasting. Though I think just one free cast per day from the Patron list isn't enough. The 1/day spell Invocations are nice, but I don't think offering them just as part of your regular Invocation allotment is the right way to do it. Especially since those spells typically haven't been from the regular Warlock list. I'd rather see a buff to actual Pact Magic.
They have said they want you to have more spell slots to use. Having more and having them be the same are not compatible.
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For balance reasons, the warlock is not going to get more high level spell slots than full casters. Warlocks have the option of getting Extra Attack or EB+AB which gives them parity in resourceless combat half casters. I mean a Warlock with Hex + EB + AB is outperforming a Ranger + Longbow + Hunter's Mark in persistent DPR. So they are not going to also get equal spellcasting power as a full caster because that would be utterly imbalanced. This means no, you aren't going to be able to cast a spell with a pact slot every turn in combat, it's just not going to happen. They tried giving more spellslots in a way appropriate to warlock power balancing and it got rejected, so we will be back to Pact Magic either as it is in 5e, or more likely tuned like WS / CD with one or two extra uses but only recovering 1 use on a short rest (i.e. assuming you typically had 1 SR per day, the same number of spell slots per LR).
Jeremy Crawford openly stated that the warlock is viewed as a hybrid caster, internally at Wizards. The reason the warlock gets a large number of relatively potent Invocations, the most powerful combat cantrip in the game, and the choice of a generally impactful Pact Boon is because they do not get the strength of full spellcasting progression.
Despite this, people shrieked that a warlock without the strength of full spellcasting progression was no warlock at all, and that the warlock was required to be the equal of the wizard when it came to raw spellpower. They shrieked this despite Crawford telling everyone to Todd Kenrick's face that a full-progression warlock would lose almost all its Invocations as well as not being allowed to retain the current powerful Eldritch Blast.
I would say it will be fascinating to see where the warlock lands after the horrid disaster that was the community response to the warlock being obviously a hybrid caster rather than a poorly veiled one. But it won't. It will be painful. We had a chance to retain the interesting hybrid caster variant. Next model's just going to be Sorcerer 2.0, i.e. Worse Wizard the Second.
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This is why people need to view the Warlock as a martial rather than a full caster. It's not and never has been. What it is, is the finest archer in the game.
It got rejected because people who don't play warlocks think it's something that it is not. The new warlock would have been superior in nearly every way. Unique does not mean the same thing as better, or even good.
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
Because screw being multiclass-compatible, screw having more than two spell slots, and screw not being the most front-loaded class in game. Just sell us the same shit again!
But what is Warlock a Hybrid of? A caster and a caster, and that is where the issue lies. A hybrid of a caster and a caster, is a pure caster. Yes, there is an option for a martial/caster hybrid in one of the three pacts, but for the remaining two pacts? Warlock having their unique mechanics is their main pull in 5E, so the community backlash should have been expected. Overall the design in the UA was weaker than 5E warlock, and 5E warlock is already the weakest of the 3 mage classes. The design was lazy in my opinion, didn't address the core issues with Warlock and didn't add the necessary balance to the class that was removed by switching essentially full caster progression to half.
Small thinking. You don't need to be a hybrid formed of nothing but two Named Pillars of the game. The warlock is a "hybrid caster" because part of its power budget is spent on spellcasting - and yes, Pact Magic is still ******* spellcasting no matter how much people whine about PaCt MaGiC bEiNg UnIqUe - and part of its power budget is spent on non-Spellcasting. People demanding that the warlock be given the exact same spellcasting power as a full-casting Arcane class while also retaining all the non-casting things it previously spent some of its power budget on - things like Invocations, or Pact Boons, or armor and weapon proficiencies and a d8 hit die - are fundamentally misunderstanding the assignment. We already have two nearly-identical Arcane full casters, WE DO NOT NEED A THIRD.
Nor is "I don't care if it's good as long as it's uNiQuE!" an argument worth entertaining. I've played multiple warlocks, I crave the modularity and customization the class offers in a game as absolutely starved for player customization as D&D 5e. I'm not speaking from a vacuum. The class's supermegaultrahyperfocus on short-rest recovery and insistence on trying to be a full caster with barely half the spell budget of a full caster leaves it lagging behind. Outside of niche shit with specific invocations, there is very little I can do with a warlock that I cannot do with a ranger - and the ranger has better armor, better HP, stronger skill mastery, vastly better access to magic gear, and significantly improved basic combat when compared to anything but the most dedicated Eldritch Bonk intensifier. And most people consider the ranger a dead weight class in 5e.
Why people think they're gonna be allowed to double-dip and keep all the things the warlock's status as a hybrid/partial spellcaster bought it and also get the exact same spell slot progression as a wizard while also regaining all of those wizard-level spell slots on a short rest is beyond my ability to comprehend. The utter absurdity of it is just too much. Yet that's the position "The Community" put Wizards in - make the warlock an arcane full caster with more magic than the wizard while also still keeping everything it already has. An impossible goal for anyone with any sense.
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Then you missed the point, I didn't say Warlock needs full-caster power, I said the balance of full progression to half progression needed to be redressed and that Warlock isn't a hybrid, which it isn't, it isn't half of one thing and half of another, it is all casting.If cantrip caster was another thing then no caster but warlock should get cantrips, cantrips are apart of every full spellcasters, spellcasting. Further to that, Warlocks aren't on the front line and by the time they come under attack the difference between a d6 and d8 matter very little for a hit die. In most encounters the caster being a bit tankier really makes little difference and in the ones that it does, the extra survivability is rarely a major difference.
Warlock being unique is literally what you're asking for while also saying the argument isn't worth entertaining, you don't want Warlock to be another caster and yet shoot down when people say, Warlock isn't the same as the other casters. So where do you actually stand on that? Also I have already said Warlock is lagging behind, but what the UA delivered decided to slam the car into reverse gear, that isn't the solution to catch up in the race.
The issue again is that Warlock didn't get anything to compensate for being a supposed "hybrid" caster, a slightly stronger cantrip is lacking compared to full caster progression. The issue isn't about "double-dipping", the issue is more fundamental to what was proposed. While Warlock's main gimmick can be that it is a cantrip caster, but like all classes, there needs to be some balance to the classes, if you're using a module or even making your own, you want certain classes to handle relatively similarly to each other and yet Warlock tends to underperform unless you're talking about the hexblade pact of the chain warlock as a martial alternative. And let's remember just how much Hexblade needed to add to warlock to make that viable... Warlock needs more, not necessarily to have the same spellcasting power but it needs more, where the UA gave them less, that is the point.
What that more is, could have been multiple things, pact of the chain familiar that actually is combat viable, pact of the tome empowering cantrips more, etc. I never said it needed to be full caster progression, but taking full caster progression away needs significantly more consideration then "make em a half-caster".
So you attach no value to Invocations, then? Because that's the other half of warlock - a player-selected grab bag of special features tuning their specific warlock to whichever objective that player has for that warlock.
Warlock spellcasting doesn't need to be stronger - Invocations do. The dumb stupid pointless short-rest-centric Pact Magic nonsense is not the core class identity for the warlock - Invocations are. Nobody except Coffeelock munchkins plays warlocks because of Pact Magic - they do it because of Invocations.
A warlock that dispensed with conventional spellcasting entirely in favor of being made up entirely of a suite of Invocations selected at every character level would be a splendid and delightful warlock. Give me a warlock with 20+ Invocations by level 20, and a list of over a hundred meaningful, punchy, and fun-to-play Invocations to choose from, and you can keep your bloody Pact Magic. Or hell, as I've said before - make Pact Magic an Invocation. "Pact Magic the Invocation" provides one single spell slot that follows the rules of Pact Magic and allows two choices of spell from the Arcane spell list to accompany that spell slot. Want more spells known/Pact slots? Take the Pact Magic invocation more than once, up to proficiency bonus number of times. Then people obssessed with their short rest Coffeelock ****ery can devote all their Invocations to it while the rest of us enjoy a warlock that isn't spending half its class power budget on a feature nobody ******* likes except munchkins.
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Invocations are nice but what do they add in terms of balance, they are a mixed bag where half are useless and a couple are required as tax. You could pick up several invocations but if you didn't get Agnozing blast, well you're just a non-functional warlock now. However, Invocations being stronger, would have been a fix to the issues we did see in the last UA, what we got in the last UA however was significantly more invocation tax, while they claimed there was less, most of it from the full caster progression of Mystic Arcanum. I am not against the idea of an entirely invocation style of Warlock, but I am against what we saw in the previous UA with the half-arsed lazy half-caster suggestion which fixed nothing and in fact just created more options.
This is laughably false. Invocations are nothing more than "pick a class feature," which is something that every class should be getting already. You hate short rests. You hate Pact Magic. You only play warlocks for invocations. It should be abundantly clear by now that you are not the typical warlock player, and I encourage you to advocate for the warlock you want to see, but don't lie about how common your playstyle is.