Yes! Every class should be getting "pick a class feature"! You're absolutely right! Wouldn't it be incredible if D&D allowed players to make meaningful choices for their character's mechanical progression after third level?
But since warlocks are the only bloody class that do, their Invocation system gets to be their defining feature. Are a lot of them undertuned or poorly designed? Yes. The whole "you get to cast [X] spell once per rest with a Pact slot" bit is stupid and needs to be rethought. But in the other thread we had a whole thing about how Mask of Many Faces is "totally useless", which should really go to prove how skewed some people's opinions are. This isn't a combat monster class to begin with; if you want a character whose only job is to throw explosions at the enemy play a sorcerer. Or play a warlock, just ignore all your Invocations, and demand your table give you an unreasonable and unrealistic number of short rests because munchkinning Pact Magic is the only thing people use it for.
If your idea of 'Warlock Class Identity' is "throw as many Fireballs in one day as I can force my DM to tolerate", sure. Your table, your rules. But the entire class should not be designed to do nothing but that.
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.
warlock is an arcane archer and pact slots support that. pact slots are great, but i agree that they're not the main event. even more so for a blade lock calling up temporary health before a fight.
if invocations were better, warlock would be better. can't say the same about pact slots.
If cantrip caster was another thing then no caster but warlock should get cantrips, cantrips are apart of every full spellcasters, spellcasting.
I mean that's just utterly false, a paladin being a half-divine caster + half-STR-melee-fighter doesn't mean no other classes can be melee-fighters or have the ability to use melee weapons. A ranger being a half-primal caster + half-DEX-archer/two-weapon-users doesn't mean no other classes can be archers or have the ability to use bows. And warlock being a half-arcane caster + half cantrip-spammer / melee-fighter doesn't mean no other classes can be cantrip-spammers or have the ability to use cantrips.
Warlock is half-arcane caster + half-choose-your-own-build. The other half can be pet-summoner, melee-fighter, or cantrip-spammer/ritual caster. The main problem is that the Invocations are a random grab-bag of stuff that rather than acting like lego blocks to build your own class, act like a box of discarded costume pieces at a tv studio that you have to mix-and-match together into a halfway reasonable outfit. It is by far a better version of the Arcane Archer or Eldritch Knight than the equivalent Fighter subclasses.
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.
This... actually sounds amazing to me. That would be such a fun class, where you could directly choose how far into spellcasting you want to go, while making a meaningful choice of how many of your other invocation options you are willing to set aside for that. Or go completely without spells and instead wield a wide array of supernatural abilities instead! I'd absolutely love to see a class like this! (Full disclosure: I kind of loved the Magic of Incarnum book back in the day...)
Taking the warlock in this direction would definitely show the whole "person taking gifts from dread entities beyond their ken". (While at the same time giving the class its own twist beyond any that we've seen so far in 5E). Which is awesome!
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.
To the bolded I disagree. I think pact slots and invocations go hand in hand. The slots (which I would be fine them being long rest recharge with modifications) are for those spells that benefit most from upcasting. And they don’t have to be damage spells (which many don’t upcast well anyway) but things like Hold Person, which is ok when used on one humanoid, works even better when two, or three, or four targets can be affected. Invocations should be for utility, control, buffs/debuff and spells that don’t upcast. Invocations just need to be better so there are more options than 3 must haves and then throw a dart at a list and see what you get disposables.
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.
This... actually sounds amazing to me. That would be such a fun class, where you could directly choose how far into spellcasting you want to go, while making a meaningful choice of how many of your other invocation options you are willing to set aside for that. Or go completely without spells and instead wield a wide array of supernatural abilities instead! I'd absolutely love to see a class like this! (Full disclosure: I kind of loved the Magic of Incarnum book back in the day...)
Taking the warlock in this direction would definitely show the whole "person taking gifts from dread entities beyond their ken". (While at the same time giving the class its own twist beyond any that we've seen so far in 5E). Which is awesome!
Yeah that would be fine I'd still get my pact magic, mystic arcanum and invocations. Works for me.
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.
Just because you don't like pact magic doesn't mean others can't like it, almost none of which is coffee lock based. Do you really think it got to being in the top 3 most popular classes due to coffee lock power gamers when wizard is just better anyways. Those damn munchkins and their taking the worse option. That's the only reason people could like something you don't like, munchkins.
Pact magic just gives a different vibe. For me, normal spellcasting feels like some weird magical law where you have a daily budget. Short rest casting makes it feel like it comes from some personal energy, its not about a law of how many spells you can prepare/cast for the day. Its arcane mysteries you've mastered and manifest with endurance or pure magical power. Power that you can recover like any other endurance based feat by taking a break and regaining your energy, sort of like a martial ability like a battlemasters skills, but with magic instead of martial prowess. If you can't see how a different style like that might attract people due to its narrative and not its power, then I pity you.
That being said I don't have a problem with your solution even with the insanely off base attacks thrown in.
makes you wonder just what could be on the table for warlock if this is a feat essentially anyone can grab. or is it more likely that devs will just assume access to the feat is good enough, dust-hands emoji?
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
makes you wonder just what could be on the table for warlock if this is a feat essentially anyone can grab. or is it more likely that devs will just assume access to the feat is good enough, dust-hands emoji?
Sorry, but the Shadow Touched and Fey Touched feat are better than Rune Carver, Rune Carver gives you 1x 1st level spell until 9th level when you get a second, then it's not until 16th level to get the 3rd. Fey Touched gives you a free 1st and 2nd level spell right from the start.
Meh, most likely 2-4 additional 1st level spells that give you 1 free cast a day are honestly closer to ribbons than hard features, particularly in terms of a whole class. They’re not particularly different from most of the other “you learn X spell invocations” or their initial thought on how to redo Arcanums, and arguably worse than the at-will ones. Don’t get me wrong, as a feat it’s a decent way to round out a utility kit or pick up a little punch, but in terms of a serious class feature this isn’t bare bones, it’s a handful of vertebrae.
Edit: My bad, missed the half part for PB. Yeah, definitely just a ribbon.
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.
I actually kinda love the idea of a warlock whose magical casting is entirely made up of invocations. As you note, this would of course necessitate the warlock getting more invocations than is currently allowed by the 2014 version.
NGL: your rough sketch here sound so much better than what the UA PHB 5 proposed - the class retains its unique flavor but ditches the feature that causes the most controversy/heartburn (short rest recuperation).
Heh. Irony. I distinctly remember proposing Pact Magic as an Invocation last time and getting shot down. Mm. But yes, I strongly maintain that increasing the focus on Invocations and allowing players to configure their warlock as they like would not only be excellent for the class, but also serve as a structural blueprint for broadly similar rebuilds for other, far more rigid and less player-friendly classes.
makes you wonder just what could be on the table for warlock if this is a feat essentially anyone can grab. or is it more likely that devs will just assume access to the feat is good enough, dust-hands emoji?
Sorry, but the Shadow Touched and Fey Touched feat are better than Rune Carver, Rune Carver gives you 1x 1st level spell until 9th level when you get a second, then it's not until 16th level to get the 3rd. Fey Touched gives you a free 1st and 2nd level spell right from the start.
sure, but you can swap them out on long rest. also, 5e current spell list for warlock doesn't include chromatic orb or inflict wounds which can both be up-cast. also, half my pondering here is whether simply having access to the feat will preclude the dev team from adding similar invocations. not that everyone is clamoring for spooky goodberries, but it might be fun to play a tier1 warlock with eldritch entangle. fun to describe, anyway.
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.
Except you are describing spellcasting. Spellcasting is just a group of class features that can be picked and used a certain number of times a day. You are literally saying lets minimize spellcasting on warlock so that we can maximize spellcasting on warlock. Doing things like making a Pact Magic Invocation or the UA Mystic Arcanum Invocation is literally just spellcasting with extra steps.
Warlock was already in a good place from a DESIGN perspective- they were just slightly weak overall. All they ever needed was a slightly faster progression of gaining additional Pact slots and then a way to trigger a short rest in like 5 minutes twice a day and literally you fix nearly ALL of warlock's issues.
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.
Just because you don't like pact magic doesn't mean others can't like it, almost none of which is coffee lock based. Do you really think it got to being in the top 3 most popular classes due to coffee lock power gamers when wizard is just better anyways. Those damn munchkins and their taking the worse option. That's the only reason people could like something you don't like, munchkins.
Pact magic just gives a different vibe. For me, normal spellcasting feels like some weird magical law where you have a daily budget. Short rest casting makes it feel like it comes from some personal energy, its not about a law of how many spells you can prepare/cast for the day. Its arcane mysteries you've mastered and manifest with endurance or pure magical power. Power that you can recover like any other endurance based feat by taking a break and regaining your energy, sort of like a martial ability like a battlemasters skills, but with magic instead of martial prowess. If you can't see how a different style like that might attract people due to its narrative and not its power, then I pity you.
That being said I don't have a problem with your solution even with the insanely off base attacks thrown in.
Full agree on your assessment on the feel of pact magic. Feels much closer to "I have a reserve of magic and need to catch my breath after letting loose a few big arcane effects" rather than
"Ok law of magic says you can cast these spells this many times a day. But don't worry you can do it all again tomorrow."-Wizard Teacher-
"Like but what if I just take a quick nap and eat some cheese....like I'll feel pretty good again at that point. Can I cast more?" -Wizard Student-
"Nope. You can use all this magical power in like 5 minutes if you want but then you gotta do nothing else except like Kindergarten cantrip magic for 24 hrs." -Wizard Teacher-
"Even if I take like a 3 hour nap and drink some coffee? Like I feel GREAT after a long nap and a coffee." - Wizard Student-
"Nope. Gotta rest for 8 hrs but then you can't do that again for 24 hrs." -Wizard Teacher-
"Seems remarkably arbitrary and not intuitive in the slightest." -Wizard Student-
"You're not wrong kid.....you're not wrong." - Wizard Teacher-
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.
Just because you don't like pact magic doesn't mean others can't like it, almost none of which is coffee lock based. Do you really think it got to being in the top 3 most popular classes due to coffee lock power gamers when wizard is just better anyways. Those damn munchkins and their taking the worse option. That's the only reason people could like something you don't like, munchkins.
Pact magic just gives a different vibe. For me, normal spellcasting feels like some weird magical law where you have a daily budget. Short rest casting makes it feel like it comes from some personal energy, its not about a law of how many spells you can prepare/cast for the day. Its arcane mysteries you've mastered and manifest with endurance or pure magical power. Power that you can recover like any other endurance based feat by taking a break and regaining your energy, sort of like a martial ability like a battlemasters skills, but with magic instead of martial prowess. If you can't see how a different style like that might attract people due to its narrative and not its power, then I pity you.
That being said I don't have a problem with your solution even with the insanely off base attacks thrown in.
Ugh, coffee locks :(
I remember when I was first getting back into D&D in the early days of 5E, I found Warlocks very appealing because having to budget my spell slots over the course of a whole day was daunting. Pact Magic felt like a simpler way to budget my magic while I learned the ins and outs of the current ruleset. I still love the way the 2014 is constructed, and I feel like it just needs some minor tweaks rather than a complete overhaul. For instance, giving the Warlock some free uses of Hex the way they've given the Ranger some free uses of Hunter's Mark. Overall I like how they changed the Pact Boons, even if I think putting them at Level 1 was dumb. I like that they have some "at Level X you also get Y" built into them, essentially giving each Pact Boon a free Invocation's worth of benefit. I still miss Tomelocks and the Ritual Master feat being able to pick up more rituals of potentially higher levels along the way. And I think the new Chain familiars are both too complex and too restrictive. Seriously, a Fey familiar that can't be a cat? What fool made THAT decision? Personally, I'd really like to see your Patron choice add flavor to things like Eldritch Blast and your Pact Boon. Heck, I was even a fan of Patron-specific Invocations back when they tried them in UA years ago. I'd love to see each Patron have 2-3 unique Invocations, and while you could use your regular Invocation slots for them you'd also get to pick one one of the Patron-specific Invocations as a bonus at a given level.
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.
Except you are describing spellcasting. Spellcasting is just a group of class features that can be picked and used a certain number of times a day. You are literally saying lets minimize spellcasting on warlock so that we can maximize spellcasting on warlock. Doing things like making a Pact Magic Invocation or the UA Mystic Arcanum Invocation is literally just spellcasting with extra steps.
Warlock was already in a good place from a DESIGN perspective- they were just slightly weak overall. All they ever needed was a slightly faster progression of gaining additional Pact slots and then a way to trigger a short rest in like 5 minutes twice a day and literally you fix nearly ALL of warlock's issues.
many invocations are exactly like taking a single spell at a time as a class feature. the trade off is being able to cast repeatedly. as controversial as Mask of Many Faces (or Armor of Shadows or Whispers of the Grave or Beast Speech, etc etc) can be, it's damn good fun for those who like it. devs should lean into this by revisiting old spells and giving them new invocation functionality (scaled by warlock level, as needed). for example, mid-level disguise self invocation could allow for a warlock to shed the disguise like an instant cardboard cut-out husk and take a new one, leading unblinking observers to think the remaining illusion is still you. or mid-level speak with animals invocation might include speaking to monsters and also tack on some aspects of the friends cantrip. something like that. maybe higher-level Ascendant Step invocation adds a limited fog cloud you can shape into stairs or a false floor which you can stand on due to the levitate spell.
whatever, i don't know. nitpick the point not the hurried examples. differently-expressed spell-like power is the point. not meant to step on the toes of wizards and their spell research. just an opportunity to breathe life into some really stuffy early elements of the game. these aren't so much spells to the warlock but some borrowed fey/fiend/etc interpretation of a power similar to a spell. when people say a class based around invocations could be good they're talking about something that doesn't exist yet but seems like it should be within reach. maybe this.
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.
Just because you don't like pact magic doesn't mean others can't like it, almost none of which is coffee lock based. Do you really think it got to being in the top 3 most popular classes due to coffee lock power gamers when wizard is just better anyways. Those damn munchkins and their taking the worse option. That's the only reason people could like something you don't like, munchkins.
Pact magic just gives a different vibe. For me, normal spellcasting feels like some weird magical law where you have a daily budget. Short rest casting makes it feel like it comes from some personal energy, its not about a law of how many spells you can prepare/cast for the day. Its arcane mysteries you've mastered and manifest with endurance or pure magical power. Power that you can recover like any other endurance based feat by taking a break and regaining your energy, sort of like a martial ability like a battlemasters skills, but with magic instead of martial prowess. If you can't see how a different style like that might attract people due to its narrative and not its power, then I pity you.
That being said I don't have a problem with your solution even with the insanely off base attacks thrown in.
Ugh, coffee locks :(
I remember when I was first getting back into D&D in the early days of 5E, I found Warlocks very appealing because having to budget my spell slots over the course of a whole day was daunting. Pact Magic felt like a simpler way to budget my magic while I learned the ins and outs of the current ruleset. I still love the way the 2014 is constructed, and I feel like it just needs some minor tweaks rather than a complete overhaul. For instance, giving the Warlock some free uses of Hex the way they've given the Ranger some free uses of Hunter's Mark. Overall I like how they changed the Pact Boons, even if I think putting them at Level 1 was dumb. I like that they have some "at Level X you also get Y" built into them, essentially giving each Pact Boon a free Invocation's worth of benefit. I still miss Tomelocks and the Ritual Master feat being able to pick up more rituals of potentially higher levels along the way. And I think the new Chain familiars are both too complex and too restrictive. Seriously, a Fey familiar that can't be a cat? What fool made THAT decision? Personally, I'd really like to see your Patron choice add flavor to things like Eldritch Blast and your Pact Boon. Heck, I was even a fan of Patron-specific Invocations back when they tried them in UA years ago. I'd love to see each Patron have 2-3 unique Invocations, and while you could use your regular Invocation slots for them you'd also get to pick one one of the Patron-specific Invocations as a bonus at a given level.
So many people complaining about Coffee Locks lol. Like in my 20 years of gaming and 8 years in 5e, I have never seen so much online hate against something that I have literally NEVER seen a DM tolerate at their table. RAW and even confirmed by Crawford- Pact Slots are not the same as spell slots and technically cannot be converted to Sorcery points.
Why is it SO HARD for people to believe that there is a large contingent of players who legitimately like Pact Magic for non-game breaking reasons???
Pact magic was far from game breaking. I think the complaints about coffeelocks was overblown as well.
Generally speaking, I think pact magic was rather weak, but then again, it was supposed to be. Warlock, with EB spam was a fully functional martial character. If you can accept that as fact, then it's easy to see how it would be easy to let spellcasting features turn warlock into something massively overpowered. Pact magic was an interesting concept, that I think left a bit to be desired as a spellcaster. The new warlock as a half caster fixed that problems, but now we're being nerfed back into pact casters. If you remove the 'but muh unique system' complaints, the half caster variant that was presented was flat out mechanically superior in nearly every way to what we had with pact magic.
Pact magic can't be game breaking, if it's inferior.
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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.
Because some people really hate the concept of Pact Magic for various reasons and so are bringing out every argument against returning to such a system. Frankly I think the concept is sound, though it would be nice to have a few more spell slots at a time, which I believe they’ve said is what they’re working on.
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Yes! Every class should be getting "pick a class feature"! You're absolutely right! Wouldn't it be incredible if D&D allowed players to make meaningful choices for their character's mechanical progression after third level?
But since warlocks are the only bloody class that do, their Invocation system gets to be their defining feature. Are a lot of them undertuned or poorly designed? Yes. The whole "you get to cast [X] spell once per rest with a Pact slot" bit is stupid and needs to be rethought. But in the other thread we had a whole thing about how Mask of Many Faces is "totally useless", which should really go to prove how skewed some people's opinions are. This isn't a combat monster class to begin with; if you want a character whose only job is to throw explosions at the enemy play a sorcerer. Or play a warlock, just ignore all your Invocations, and demand your table give you an unreasonable and unrealistic number of short rests because munchkinning Pact Magic is the only thing people use it for.
If your idea of 'Warlock Class Identity' is "throw as many Fireballs in one day as I can force my DM to tolerate", sure. Your table, your rules. But the entire class should not be designed to do nothing but that.
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warlock is an arcane archer and pact slots support that. pact slots are great, but i agree that they're not the main event. even more so for a blade lock calling up temporary health before a fight.
if invocations were better, warlock would be better. can't say the same about pact slots.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
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I mean that's just utterly false, a paladin being a half-divine caster + half-STR-melee-fighter doesn't mean no other classes can be melee-fighters or have the ability to use melee weapons. A ranger being a half-primal caster + half-DEX-archer/two-weapon-users doesn't mean no other classes can be archers or have the ability to use bows. And warlock being a half-arcane caster + half cantrip-spammer / melee-fighter doesn't mean no other classes can be cantrip-spammers or have the ability to use cantrips.
Warlock is half-arcane caster + half-choose-your-own-build. The other half can be pet-summoner, melee-fighter, or cantrip-spammer/ritual caster. The main problem is that the Invocations are a random grab-bag of stuff that rather than acting like lego blocks to build your own class, act like a box of discarded costume pieces at a tv studio that you have to mix-and-match together into a halfway reasonable outfit. It is by far a better version of the Arcane Archer or Eldritch Knight than the equivalent Fighter subclasses.
This... actually sounds amazing to me. That would be such a fun class, where you could directly choose how far into spellcasting you want to go, while making a meaningful choice of how many of your other invocation options you are willing to set aside for that. Or go completely without spells and instead wield a wide array of supernatural abilities instead! I'd absolutely love to see a class like this! (Full disclosure: I kind of loved the Magic of Incarnum book back in the day...)
Taking the warlock in this direction would definitely show the whole "person taking gifts from dread entities beyond their ken". (While at the same time giving the class its own twist beyond any that we've seen so far in 5E). Which is awesome!
To the bolded I disagree. I think pact slots and invocations go hand in hand. The slots (which I would be fine them being long rest recharge with modifications) are for those spells that benefit most from upcasting. And they don’t have to be damage spells (which many don’t upcast well anyway) but things like Hold Person, which is ok when used on one humanoid, works even better when two, or three, or four targets can be affected. Invocations should be for utility, control, buffs/debuff and spells that don’t upcast. Invocations just need to be better so there are more options than 3 must haves and then throw a dart at a list and see what you get disposables.
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Yeah that would be fine I'd still get my pact magic, mystic arcanum and invocations. Works for me.
Just because you don't like pact magic doesn't mean others can't like it, almost none of which is coffee lock based. Do you really think it got to being in the top 3 most popular classes due to coffee lock power gamers when wizard is just better anyways. Those damn munchkins and their taking the worse option. That's the only reason people could like something you don't like, munchkins.
Pact magic just gives a different vibe. For me, normal spellcasting feels like some weird magical law where you have a daily budget. Short rest casting makes it feel like it comes from some personal energy, its not about a law of how many spells you can prepare/cast for the day. Its arcane mysteries you've mastered and manifest with endurance or pure magical power. Power that you can recover like any other endurance based feat by taking a break and regaining your energy, sort of like a martial ability like a battlemasters skills, but with magic instead of martial prowess. If you can't see how a different style like that might attract people due to its narrative and not its power, then I pity you.
That being said I don't have a problem with your solution even with the insanely off base attacks thrown in.
anyone else notice the new giant's book Rune Shaper feat gives a really, really similar vibe to invocations? similar but way better selection??
disguise self, speak with animals, fog cloud, goodberry, longstrider... huh, okay.
sanctuary, entangle, command, armor of agathys... now we're talkin'!
burning hands, thunderwave, inflict wounds, chromatic orb... there was more? whoa, seriously??
makes you wonder just what could be on the table for warlock if this is a feat essentially anyone can grab. or is it more likely that devs will just assume access to the feat is good enough, dust-hands emoji?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Sorry, but the Shadow Touched and Fey Touched feat are better than Rune Carver, Rune Carver gives you 1x 1st level spell until 9th level when you get a second, then it's not until 16th level to get the 3rd. Fey Touched gives you a free 1st and 2nd level spell right from the start.
Meh, most likely 2-4 additional 1st level spells that give you 1 free cast a day are honestly closer to ribbons than hard features, particularly in terms of a whole class. They’re not particularly different from most of the other “you learn X spell invocations” or their initial thought on how to redo Arcanums, and arguably worse than the at-will ones. Don’t get me wrong, as a feat it’s a decent way to round out a utility kit or pick up a little punch, but in terms of a serious class feature this isn’t bare bones, it’s a handful of vertebrae.
Edit: My bad, missed the half part for PB. Yeah, definitely just a ribbon.
I actually kinda love the idea of a warlock whose magical casting is entirely made up of invocations. As you note, this would of course necessitate the warlock getting more invocations than is currently allowed by the 2014 version.
NGL: your rough sketch here sound so much better than what the UA PHB 5 proposed - the class retains its unique flavor but ditches the feature that causes the most controversy/heartburn (short rest recuperation).
Heh. Irony. I distinctly remember proposing Pact Magic as an Invocation last time and getting shot down. Mm. But yes, I strongly maintain that increasing the focus on Invocations and allowing players to configure their warlock as they like would not only be excellent for the class, but also serve as a structural blueprint for broadly similar rebuilds for other, far more rigid and less player-friendly classes.
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sure, but you can swap them out on long rest. also, 5e current spell list for warlock doesn't include chromatic orb or inflict wounds which can both be up-cast. also, half my pondering here is whether simply having access to the feat will preclude the dev team from adding similar invocations. not that everyone is clamoring for spooky goodberries, but it might be fun to play a tier1 warlock with eldritch entangle. fun to describe, anyway.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Except you are describing spellcasting. Spellcasting is just a group of class features that can be picked and used a certain number of times a day. You are literally saying lets minimize spellcasting on warlock so that we can maximize spellcasting on warlock. Doing things like making a Pact Magic Invocation or the UA Mystic Arcanum Invocation is literally just spellcasting with extra steps.
Warlock was already in a good place from a DESIGN perspective- they were just slightly weak overall. All they ever needed was a slightly faster progression of gaining additional Pact slots and then a way to trigger a short rest in like 5 minutes twice a day and literally you fix nearly ALL of warlock's issues.
Full agree on your assessment on the feel of pact magic. Feels much closer to "I have a reserve of magic and need to catch my breath after letting loose a few big arcane effects" rather than
"Ok law of magic says you can cast these spells this many times a day. But don't worry you can do it all again tomorrow."-Wizard Teacher-
"Like but what if I just take a quick nap and eat some cheese....like I'll feel pretty good again at that point. Can I cast more?" -Wizard Student-
"Nope. You can use all this magical power in like 5 minutes if you want but then you gotta do nothing else except like Kindergarten cantrip magic for 24 hrs." -Wizard Teacher-
"Even if I take like a 3 hour nap and drink some coffee? Like I feel GREAT after a long nap and a coffee." - Wizard Student-
"Nope. Gotta rest for 8 hrs but then you can't do that again for 24 hrs." -Wizard Teacher-
"Seems remarkably arbitrary and not intuitive in the slightest." -Wizard Student-
"You're not wrong kid.....you're not wrong." - Wizard Teacher-
Ugh, coffee locks :(
I remember when I was first getting back into D&D in the early days of 5E, I found Warlocks very appealing because having to budget my spell slots over the course of a whole day was daunting. Pact Magic felt like a simpler way to budget my magic while I learned the ins and outs of the current ruleset. I still love the way the 2014 is constructed, and I feel like it just needs some minor tweaks rather than a complete overhaul. For instance, giving the Warlock some free uses of Hex the way they've given the Ranger some free uses of Hunter's Mark. Overall I like how they changed the Pact Boons, even if I think putting them at Level 1 was dumb. I like that they have some "at Level X you also get Y" built into them, essentially giving each Pact Boon a free Invocation's worth of benefit. I still miss Tomelocks and the Ritual Master feat being able to pick up more rituals of potentially higher levels along the way. And I think the new Chain familiars are both too complex and too restrictive. Seriously, a Fey familiar that can't be a cat? What fool made THAT decision? Personally, I'd really like to see your Patron choice add flavor to things like Eldritch Blast and your Pact Boon. Heck, I was even a fan of Patron-specific Invocations back when they tried them in UA years ago. I'd love to see each Patron have 2-3 unique Invocations, and while you could use your regular Invocation slots for them you'd also get to pick one one of the Patron-specific Invocations as a bonus at a given level.
many invocations are exactly like taking a single spell at a time as a class feature. the trade off is being able to cast repeatedly. as controversial as Mask of Many Faces (or Armor of Shadows or Whispers of the Grave or Beast Speech, etc etc) can be, it's damn good fun for those who like it. devs should lean into this by revisiting old spells and giving them new invocation functionality (scaled by warlock level, as needed). for example, mid-level disguise self invocation could allow for a warlock to shed the disguise like an instant cardboard cut-out husk and take a new one, leading unblinking observers to think the remaining illusion is still you. or mid-level speak with animals invocation might include speaking to monsters and also tack on some aspects of the friends cantrip. something like that. maybe higher-level Ascendant Step invocation adds a limited fog cloud you can shape into stairs or a false floor which you can stand on due to the levitate spell.
whatever, i don't know. nitpick the point not the hurried examples. differently-expressed spell-like power is the point. not meant to step on the toes of wizards and their spell research. just an opportunity to breathe life into some really stuffy early elements of the game. these aren't so much spells to the warlock but some borrowed fey/fiend/etc interpretation of a power similar to a spell. when people say a class based around invocations could be good they're talking about something that doesn't exist yet but seems like it should be within reach. maybe this.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
So many people complaining about Coffee Locks lol. Like in my 20 years of gaming and 8 years in 5e, I have never seen so much online hate against something that I have literally NEVER seen a DM tolerate at their table. RAW and even confirmed by Crawford- Pact Slots are not the same as spell slots and technically cannot be converted to Sorcery points.
Why is it SO HARD for people to believe that there is a large contingent of players who legitimately like Pact Magic for non-game breaking reasons???
Pact magic was far from game breaking. I think the complaints about coffeelocks was overblown as well.
Generally speaking, I think pact magic was rather weak, but then again, it was supposed to be. Warlock, with EB spam was a fully functional martial character. If you can accept that as fact, then it's easy to see how it would be easy to let spellcasting features turn warlock into something massively overpowered. Pact magic was an interesting concept, that I think left a bit to be desired as a spellcaster. The new warlock as a half caster fixed that problems, but now we're being nerfed back into pact casters. If you remove the 'but muh unique system' complaints, the half caster variant that was presented was flat out mechanically superior in nearly every way to what we had with pact magic.
Pact magic can't be game breaking, if it's inferior.
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Because some people really hate the concept of Pact Magic for various reasons and so are bringing out every argument against returning to such a system. Frankly I think the concept is sound, though it would be nice to have a few more spell slots at a time, which I believe they’ve said is what they’re working on.