Is playing a Warlock a problem with the game mechanics or how the game mechanics are implemented at a table? Identifying the largest factor responsible for the problem helps to solve the problem.
I want to say both, but to different degrees.
There is issues with the spell and invocation list, which is mechanical. Then there is issues with how tables treat short rests and their unwillingness to acknowledge their games as being different from the games base assumptions and unwillingness to use the tools provided to tweak their games to have better balance.
Again. Alter self pull sdouble. It doesn't do both at the same, but it covers both utility albiet slightly worse. If you want to disguise yourself pick mask. If you want to breathe under water pick gift. If you want to be able to both as needed and dont want to use 2 invocations for it that is what alter self is for.
And this is where I continue to disagree, first alter self requires disguise self anyways, so that is two invocations, without disguise self you can not replicate clothing or other adornments.
Secondly, if you are going into anything deeper than a shallow lake, alter self is woefully insufficient. If you want to go into the sea or ocean, water breathing is a requirement and alter self's water breathing is too easily lost, you lose you swim speed too. I consider alter self's water ability to be very limited to swallow waters with low/no threats only.
Again. Alter self pull sdouble. It doesn't do both at the same, but it covers both utility albiet slightly worse. If you want to disguise yourself pick mask. If you want to breathe under water pick gift. If you want to be able to both as needed and dont want to use 2 invocations for it that is what alter self is for.
And this is where I continue to disagree, first alter self requires disguise self anyways, so that is two invocations, without disguise self you can not replicate clothing or other adornments.
Secondly, if you are going into anything deeper than a shallow lake, alter self is woefully insufficient. If you want to go into the sea or ocean, water breathing is a requirement and alter self's water breathing is too easily lost, you lose you swim speed too. I consider alter self's water ability to be very limited to swallow waters with low/no threats only.
Then don’t take it, but that is what it is for. It covers both utility but worse. If you don't feel it covers it well enough dont take it. I presume you don't even take the spell on a caster and waste slots on it.
Again. Alter self pull sdouble. It doesn't do both at the same, but it covers both utility albiet slightly worse. If you want to disguise yourself pick mask. If you want to breathe under water pick gift. If you want to be able to both as needed and dont want to use 2 invocations for it that is what alter self is for.
And this is where I continue to disagree, first alter self requires disguise self anyways, so that is two invocations, without disguise self you can not replicate clothing or other adornments.
Secondly, if you are going into anything deeper than a shallow lake, alter self is woefully insufficient. If you want to go into the sea or ocean, water breathing is a requirement and alter self's water breathing is too easily lost, you lose you swim speed too. I consider alter self's water ability to be very limited to swallow waters with low/no threats only.
Then don’t take it, but that is what it is for. It covers both utility but worse. If you don't feel it covers it well enough dont take it. I presume you don't even take the spell on a caster and waste slots on it.
Exactly, Alter Self is one of the few ways to get a swim speed which is situationally very useful. Players don't always know if they need a swim speed or not, it's not like they can see the future and know if they will have to traverse a sunken tomb months ahead of time. It would suck to take Gift of the Depths and then never go underwater in the campaign. Whereas Master of Myriad Forms still has other uses even if you never end up in the water. Alter Self works really well as an infiltration tool : just KO a guard, strip them and become them and throw some manacles on your friends and waltz into the guardhouse / prison / fortress, you can even hold onto your prisoners / kick them without blowing your disguise (unlike disguise self).
Then don’t take it, but that is what it is for. It covers both utility but worse. If you don't feel it covers it well enough dont take it. I presume you don't even take the spell on a caster and waste slots on it.
Yes, but then people say Warlock is somehow broken OP because they have at-will spells, this is one of the most used at-will spells and it's clearly not a must have. So it boils down to that literal point, as an invocation, that at-will spell isn't actually needed at all, it makes the character better at some RP elements and fixing RP is a whole other issue. It doesn't some how mean that Warlock is broken because RP is imbalanced and cutting combat balance to get RP balance is not a good way to design classes. Warlock should be just as viable as Wizard, as Ranger should be just as viable and Paladin or Barbarian just as viable as Bard, all classes should be roughly equally viable and add around the same overall value to a party. Warlock is in a position that in combat they do add less than Wizard or Sorcerer.
Exactly, Alter Self is one of the few ways to get a swim speed which is situationally very useful. Players don't always know if they need a swim speed or not, it's not like they can see the future and know if they will have to traverse a sunken tomb months ahead of time. It would suck to take Gift of the Depths and then never go underwater in the campaign. Whereas Master of Myriad Forms still has other uses even if you never end up in the water. Alter Self works really well as an infiltration tool : just KO a guard, strip them and become them and throw some manacles on your friends and waltz into the guardhouse / prison / fortress, you can even hold onto your prisoners / kick them without blowing your disguise (unlike disguise self).
The times my characters have ended out in the water, usually ended out in fights with sharks and crabs. I generally avoid rivers since rivers usually have a flow speed, which means you either get swept down river or have to do some athletics to cross it. Rarely does actually having water breathing or swimming speed become required however, by the point you require water breathing, you're usually already talking deeper waters, which can mean sharks, crabs, krakens, octopus or whatever else the DM has planned comes into play, in one case it was delving into ship wrecks, another it was due to strong tides and being too dangerous for the boat to get to shore, so had to jump out into basically life boats and drag them to shore. Rarely the case where you jump into sea/ocean and a DM doesn't pull something out, I feel.
This all said, if you actually need this invocation or not, is something to just talk about the DM about in advance, if they want water/ocean exploration in their campaign, then they usually want a character with water breathing as a spell. If you pick it hoping the DM does something, that is already a fundamental breakdown of player-dm communication, which was caused by the player. I always talk to the DMs of the campaigns I play when I plan to choose something which may be situational or limited in use.
Then don’t take it, but that is what it is for. It covers both utility but worse. If you don't feel it covers it well enough dont take it. I presume you don't even take the spell on a caster and waste slots on it.
Yes, but then people say Warlock is somehow broken OP because they have at-will spells, this is one of the most used at-will spells and it's clearly not a must have. So it boils down to that literal point, as an invocation, that at-will spell isn't actually needed at all, it makes the character better at some RP elements and fixing RP is a whole other issue. It doesn't some how mean that Warlock is broken because RP is imbalanced and cutting combat balance to get RP balance is not a good way to design classes. Warlock should be just as viable as Wizard, as Ranger should be just as viable and Paladin or Barbarian just as viable as Bard, all classes should be roughly equally viable and add around the same overall value to a party. Warlock is in a position that in combat they do add less than Wizard or Sorcerer.
Exactly, Alter Self is one of the few ways to get a swim speed which is situationally very useful. Players don't always know if they need a swim speed or not, it's not like they can see the future and know if they will have to traverse a sunken tomb months ahead of time. It would suck to take Gift of the Depths and then never go underwater in the campaign. Whereas Master of Myriad Forms still has other uses even if you never end up in the water. Alter Self works really well as an infiltration tool : just KO a guard, strip them and become them and throw some manacles on your friends and waltz into the guardhouse / prison / fortress, you can even hold onto your prisoners / kick them without blowing your disguise (unlike disguise self).
The times my characters have ended out in the water, usually ended out in fights with sharks and crabs. I generally avoid rivers since rivers usually have a flow speed, which means you either get swept down river or have to do some athletics to cross it. Rarely does actually having water breathing or swimming speed become required however, by the point you require water breathing, you're usually already talking deeper waters, which can mean sharks, crabs, krakens, octopus or whatever else the DM has planned comes into play, in one case it was delving into ship wrecks, another it was due to strong tides and being too dangerous for the boat to get to shore, so had to jump out into basically life boats and drag them to shore. Rarely the case where you jump into sea/ocean and a DM doesn't pull something out, I feel.
This all said, if you actually need this invocation or not, is something to just talk about the DM about in advance, if they want water/ocean exploration in their campaign, then they usually want a character with water breathing as a spell. If you pick it hoping the DM does something, that is already a fundamental breakdown of player-dm communication, which was caused by the player. I always talk to the DMs of the campaigns I play when I plan to choose something which may be situational or limited in use.
Got it. The entire argument has nothing to do with what you were arguing. You made the base assumption that warlock was weaker in combat and assumed everyone agreed with that.
Warlock has the best attack cantrip allowing it to rival ranged martials and with 1 short rest and magical cunning the warlock gets 5 max level spells a day. At 5 the wizard gets 3 3rd and 3 2nd to the warlocks 5 3rd. Warlock is doing great by comparison. At 7 warlock has 5 4th to the wizards 2 4th and 3 3rd. That is straight 5 to 5 there. And this assuming just 1 rest. They are casting as many big spells + having better at will turns more health and better armor*. I dont see how this equates to worse in combat.
Warlock is in a position that in combat they do add less than Wizard or Sorcerer.
In terms of spellcasting they do slightly less than a Wizard or Sorcerer but they also get to do as good resource-less damage and better resource-using damage than a Paladin or Ranger. This is why they are broken. They are 100% of a Ranger (150% of a Ranger at levels 11+) + 80% of a Wizard at the same time!
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You cannot be simultaneously an equally good Wizard as a Wizard and an equally good Ranger as a Ranger.
PS Wizard's whole entire class is just their spellcasting, Warlock is much more similar to Bard than to Wizard.
Warlock is in a position that in combat they do add less than Wizard or Sorcerer.
In terms of spellcasting they do slightly less than a Wizard or Sorcerer but they also get to do as good resource-less damage and better resource-using damage than a Paladin or Ranger. This is why they are broken. They are 100% of a Ranger (150% of a Ranger at levels 11+) + 80% of a Wizard at the same time!
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You cannot be simultaneously an equally good Wizard as a Wizard and an equally good Ranger as a Ranger.
PS Wizard's whole entire class is just their spellcasting, Warlock is much more similar to Bard than to Wizard.
Agreed. Warlock is closer to bard or druid than wiz or sorc. Yes they are all spell casters but "having and casting the best spells" is the whole identity for wizard.
Got it. The entire argument has nothing to do with what you were arguing. You made the base assumption that warlock was weaker in combat and assumed everyone agreed with that.
Warlock has the best attack cantrip allowing it to rival ranged martials and with 1 short rest and magical cunning the warlock gets 5 max level spells a day. At 5 the wizard gets 3 3rd and 3 2nd to the warlocks 5 3rd. Warlock is doing great by comparison. At 7 warlock has 5 4th to the wizards 2 4th and 3 3rd. That is straight 5 to 5 there. And this assuming just 1 rest. They are casting as many big spells + having better at will turns more health and better armor*. I dont see how this equates to worse in combat.
*without shield spam
Warlock has a cantrip which it turns into the best attack cantrip, the 1d10 is matched by other cantrips and some cantrips have other utilities. A 1d8 longbow with dex and archery fighting style generally does more damage than eldritch blast with a 1d10 and agonizing blast. A ranger with hunter's mark is generally beating a warlock in damage until around level 11 and this is only if you ignore the madness of feats like sharpshooter and crossbow expert.
Also in regards to spell slots, you have to remember not all spells of the same level are equal. Warlock does not get Fireball, unless you select the fiend subclass. Fireball is a huge damage buff, an Evoker Wizard from level 10 can add their INT mod to fireball, so even if you go into Fiend, there is a Wizard subclass that can do it better. Right now we are using the 2014 spell casting lists after all, so this is a major issue. You can compare number of spell slots but as I said before, 3rd level spell != 3rd level spell. Easily shown from cantrip != cantrip, true strike is not as good as guidance for example.
The issue however is not purely damage, the ability to throw down a darkness spell, it's a low resource for sorcerer or wizard at level 7, it's just a 2nd level spell slot. Sorcerer & Wizard also gets spells like greater invisibility, cone of cold, wall of fire. Not to say all warlock spells are useless or anything, hunger of hadar obviously has it's uses and sickening radiance is also a good spell, there are good warlock spells sure.
However the other part of the problem is that as you get higher and higher level, warlock's ability to throw out lower level spells pretty much disappears where Wizard and Sorcerer still has 4 1st level slots, 3 2nd level slots, 3 3rd level slots, etc. Not saying Warlock needs to Match that, but even getting 1 spell slot of each other level below their current level would go a long way to bridge that gap. Web is still useful at level 15, just like level 3, difficult terrain and lightly obscure an area, is still. So the issue isn't focused on even casting of top level spells.
Warlock is in a position that in combat they do add less than Wizard or Sorcerer.
In terms of spellcasting they do slightly less than a Wizard or Sorcerer but they also get to do as good resource-less damage and better resource-using damage than a Paladin or Ranger. This is why they are broken. They are 100% of a Ranger (150% of a Ranger at levels 11+) + 80% of a Wizard at the same time!
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You cannot be simultaneously an equally good Wizard as a Wizard and an equally good Ranger as a Ranger.
PS Wizard's whole entire class is just their spellcasting, Warlock is much more similar to Bard than to Wizard.
Do they really get better resource-less damage than a Paladin or Ranger? A paladin with Polearm Master & GWF is always beating a Warlock on eldritch blast damage, I literally can't see a single level where Warlock is winning that one, The Paladin has 2 attacks a turn 1-4, 3 attacks a turn 6+ and gets improved divine smite/radiant strikes 11+, 2d10+1d4+3d8+15 () equals 4d10+20, in other words passive damage wise Paladin can get the same passive damage as warlock from level 11, sure they lose a bit from a lower ASI but gain from also getting an additional reaction and from GWF...
Now, Pact of the Blade does beat that in the latest UA due to 3 attacks on thirsting blade at level 11 and life drinker at level 9, but thirsting blade making a 3rd attack seems very unlikely to make the final cut, and that has nothing to do with Eldritch Blast. So from level 9 onwards, possible for a Warlock to out-damage a paladin but the investment in this is Pact of the Blade, Thristing Blade and Lifedrinker, so that is 3 of the 7 invocations gone at level 11, on top of that you probably want fiendish vigor, you probably want agonizing blast and repelling blast... but there is also pact of the tome, devil's sight... which is why I was saying for over a page, why are we worried about the invocations for at-will spells? There are clearly better invocations to any of those with the exception of maybe fiendish vigor, but fiendish vigor gets too much temp HP at tier 1 (not a major issue) and too little at tier 3/4.
As for Ranger, with dual hand crossbows and archery fighting style, I just don't see Warlock challenging that til level 11. Ranger definitely needs help with damage 11+, but that goes for a few classes. Paladin and Ranger are more martial focused than Warlock, but they are also both still spell casters, I don't think anybody thinks Warlock is more OP'ed than Paladin, Ranger has been in a bad spot since 2014, not as bad these days but that is a class that needs buffing, that is not a sign of warlock needing nerfing, it is the wrong way around in thinking.
As for resources, yes a Warlock's resource, their spell slot should do more than a Paladin's, it is higher level, what they are not doing is matching a Wizard or a Sorcerer, sure they might have the same level of spells being cast but they do not have the same spell selection. And in terms of damage, a wizard does far less than a sorcerer, because a wizard's strength is beyond pure damage. A warlock does not need to be a pure caster, but the option to spec more into casting should exist and it should exist in invocations. Personally it's part of the reason I do not think the pacts should have been made invocations, pact of the blade should be more gish, pact of the tome more spellcasting and pact of the chain a viable summoner type build. Right now, as Warlock, you're losing out by not having both pact of the tome and pact of the blade... which is bad.
EDIT: let me pose a question, if pacts were restricted to only one pact (even if kept as invocations), would pact of the tome be broken if they added to it, a 2nd level spell slot at warlock level 5, a 3rd level spell slot at warlock level 9 and a 4th level spell slot at warlock level 13 to that pact? Because I do not think it would do such a thing, nor would it allow shield spam. I am not saying Warlock needs huge changes, the change is small, it is just a small amount of casting power.
And in terms of damage, a wizard does far less than a sorcerer, because a wizard's strength is beyond pure damage.
Sorry but WHAT? Only 1 subclass of sorcerer gets a damage boost to spells, and two wizard subclasses get damage boosts to spells. Sorcerer and Wizard deal the same damage.
let me pose a question, if pacts were restricted to only one pact (even if kept as invocations), would pact of the tome be broken if they added to it, a 2nd level spell slot at warlock level 5, a 3rd level spell slot at warlock level 9 and a 4th level spell slot at warlock level 13 to that pact?
Yes, that would make them a better caster than a Wizard. Pact of the Tome gives them better ritual-casting utility (this is debatable w.r.t. higher level rituals), they would have more spell-slot power, better resource-less damage, and better recharge for long adventuring days.
The only advantage Wizard would have is a bigger spell list.
Do the "warlocks have sooooo much more spellcasting than wizards even with just fourteen rests!" math on the assumption that the warlock player is not an idiot, does not blow all their spell slots the very first chance they get, and typically takes their rest with a spell slot left in the tank as insurance against the DM dropping a sudden Deadly++ ambush on the party out of literal nowhere.
Does the warlock still have sooo much more spellcasting than actual for-real spellcasters?
And in terms of damage, a wizard does far less than a sorcerer, because a wizard's strength is beyond pure damage.
Sorry but WHAT? Only 1 subclass of sorcerer gets a damage boost to spells, and two wizard subclasses get damage boosts to spells. Sorcerer and Wizard deal the same damage.
let me pose a question, if pacts were restricted to only one pact (even if kept as invocations), would pact of the tome be broken if they added to it, a 2nd level spell slot at warlock level 5, a 3rd level spell slot at warlock level 9 and a 4th level spell slot at warlock level 13 to that pact?
Yes, that would make them a better caster than a Wizard. Pact of the Tome gives them better ritual-casting utility (this is debatable w.r.t. higher level rituals), they would have more spell-slot power, better resource-less damage, and better recharge for long adventuring days.
The only advantage Wizard would have is a bigger spell list.
Main class features, Sorcerer literally gets Meta Magic, quicken spell, maximize spell, extend spell, heightened spell and others. Sorcerer also has that innate magic now, which just makes em stronger for 1 minute too.
and no, the change to pact of the tome I suggested would not give warlock more casting power. Right now at level 5, Warlock as 2 3rd level slots, and a 1st level slot with pact of the tome, a Wizard has 2 3rd, 3 2nd and 4 1st level slots. With 1 short rest, warlock has 4 3rd level and 1st level vs, 3 3rd, 2nd and 4 1st, giving warlock an extra 2nd slot here is not giving Warlock more casting power.
at level 9, Warlock with pact of the tome has 2 4th level slots and 1st level slot. Wizard has 1 1st level slot, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 4 1st level, with 1 short rest that is 4 4th level and 1 st level vs, 2 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 4 1st level. a 2nd and 3rd levelled slot on pact of tome is not breaking anything here.
Also Pact of the Tome is limited to 1st level rituals only, it gives slightly more access to 1st level rituals but warlock doesn't have access too that many ritual spells to begin with, if anything they have less than before when it comes to pact of the tome, contact other planes is about the only ritual they get which isn't 1st level. This does open a few new spells to warlock since the two 1st level spells that are taken in Pact of the Tome are no longer restricted to ritual casting (still require ritual tag), but near all of them are pointless to cast as anything but a ritual. The entire spell list warlock will have of ritual spells from pact of the tome is:
Alarm, Ceremony, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease*, Find Familiar, Identify, Illusionary Script, Purify Food and Drink, Speak with Animals, Tensor's Floating Disk & Unseen Servant.
*disease is likely to be removed - presumably would be renamed Detect Poison in that case.
5th level - contact other plane & rary's telepathic bond
6th level - Drawmij's Instance Summons
that is 13 for warlock versus Wizard's 18
Warlock's list of rituals is greatly reduced from what Book of Ancient secrets had, which had literally no limitations at all, just cost time, money & a spell scroll to transcribe. So Warlock got majorly nerfed if considering the loss of that invocation, on the ritual front.
And in terms of damage, a wizard does far less than a sorcerer, because a wizard's strength is beyond pure damage.
Sorry but WHAT? Only 1 subclass of sorcerer gets a damage boost to spells, and two wizard subclasses get damage boosts to spells. Sorcerer and Wizard deal the same damage.
let me pose a question, if pacts were restricted to only one pact (even if kept as invocations), would pact of the tome be broken if they added to it, a 2nd level spell slot at warlock level 5, a 3rd level spell slot at warlock level 9 and a 4th level spell slot at warlock level 13 to that pact?
Yes, that would make them a better caster than a Wizard. Pact of the Tome gives them better ritual-casting utility (this is debatable w.r.t. higher level rituals), they would have more spell-slot power, better resource-less damage, and better recharge for long adventuring days.
The only advantage Wizard would have is a bigger spell list.
Main class features, Sorcerer literally gets Meta Magic, quicken spell, maximize spell, extend spell, heightened spell and others. Sorcerer also has that innate magic now, which just makes em stronger for 1 minute too.
and no, the change to pact of the tome I suggested would not give warlock more casting power. Right now at level 5, Warlock as 2 3rd level slots, and a 1st level slot with pact of the tome, a Wizard has 2 3rd, 3 2nd and 4 1st level slots. With 1 short rest, warlock has 4 3rd level and 1st level vs, 3 3rd, 2nd and 4 1st, giving warlock an extra 2nd slot here is not giving Warlock more casting power.
at level 9, Warlock with pact of the tome has 2 4th level slots and 1st level slot. Wizard has 1 1st level slot, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 4 1st level, with 1 short rest that is 4 4th level and 1 st level vs, 2 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 4 1st level. a 2nd and 3rd levelled slot on pact of tome is not breaking anything here.
Also Pact of the Tome is limited to 1st level rituals only, it gives slightly more access to 1st level rituals but warlock doesn't have access too that many ritual spells to begin with, if anything they have less than before when it comes to pact of the tome, contact other planes is about the only ritual they get which isn't 1st level. This does open a few new spells to warlock since the two 1st level spells that are taken in Pact of the Tome are no longer restricted to ritual casting (still require ritual tag), but near all of them are pointless to cast as anything but a ritual. The entire spell list warlock will have of ritual spells from pact of the tome is:
Alarm, Ceremony, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease*, Find Familiar, Identify, Illusionary Script, Purify Food and Drink, Speak with Animals, Tensor's Floating Disk & Unseen Servant.
*disease is likely to be removed - presumably would be renamed Detect Poison in that case.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
I personally don't know what they were thinking with that feature, I think it's the wrong fix, that feature only makes sense if there are no short rests at all, in my opinion. If there is no short rests at all, then obviously there is a bigger issue with short rests.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
Also need to say need to bump up Warlock to 14 rituals including contact other plane as even without tome it is a 9th level feature that grants that spell automatically which as long as it is prepared it can be cast as a ritual in addition to their one use auto succeed save (really fun flavor and cool for me).
I will say I am perfectly happy with the wizard being able to cast better spells than the lock while the lock has better at will damage than the wizard, meanwhile I am perfectly ok with the ranger and pally having better at will damage than the lock while the lock casts better spells. It is a reasonable trade off to me. This said I would LIKE to see more spell invocations, heck an invocation that expands pact of the tome to include a second level ritual and a second level spell slot at say 5th or even 7th level seems reasonable to me. Call it "book of ancient secrets" if you want. Pact of the chain I would love to have voice of chain back, partially just want to combine voice and investment into one. For more summoning I am not sure. The conjure spells have always been kinda busted, the Tasha summons are solid for the spell level, not must cast super good, but not so bad they should never be taken.
I have stated in the past and will continue to state that I believe there are several spells missing on the warlock spell or invocation list that need to be here.
As I have stated if I am comparing Warlock to say a druid or a bard, a full caster that isn't wizard I am pretty happy with their casting.
at 5, the druid will have 2 3rd and 3 2nd and 4 first, with the first being used in easy fights or on utility and the 3rd and 2nd being the "big spells" Warlock after 1 rest will have the same number of "big spells" but will be just as strong if not stronger and their "utility" will be in their invocations, for easy battles it will use EB instead of first level spell and then crummy cantrips.
at 6 the druid has 1 more spell, but that just help it catch up.
at 7, it will be 1 4th and 3 3rd vs 5 4th level spells with 2nd level spells there as backup now for the druid, but largely being more regulated to easy fights and utility. Even if the druid's 1 4th level spell is better than any of the warlocks the other 4 4th level spells of the warlock will be better than the druids 3 3rd and one or 2 seconds that it will be casting.
8,9,10 is where i admit that i believe warlock needs the most help casting wise. Especially 9 and 10. Where a druid would have 1 5th, 3 4th and 3 3rd or total of 7 bombs to the warlocks 5 5th. The 3rd, 4th and 5th level spells are closer than the 1st and 2nd are to them. I would love to see warlock get its 3rd slot at 9 when it unlocks 5th level and then mystic arcanum at 11. I think if it did a lot of people would feel a lot better about warlock spell casting.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
I personally don't know what they were thinking with that feature, I think it's the wrong fix, that feature only makes sense if there are no short rests at all, in my opinion. If there is no short rests at all, then obviously there is a bigger issue with short rests.
if they could just ditch short rest and let Magical Cunning be the only pact slot refill, then it should be trivial to find a number of MC uses that make the power balance okay.
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I come to the realization that what was a bad idea in one situation can be a good idea in another situation.We take the UA 7 Warlock and add more invocations to help those seeking more in combat Spellcasting (warlocks already cast spells out of combat extremely well because of at wills invocations). First we bring back all the cut invocations. It doesn’t matter if they can be on the spell list and cast as a ritual, some people will want them as an invocation that can be cast at will and or once per long rest. All of the ones that were once per long rest with a warlock spell slot become just once per long rest no longer requiring the slot. More Pact of the Tome invocations. Bring back some old favorites like Book of ancient secrets that lets the Warlock have rituals from everybody's lists. Let’s have a 5th level tome pact invocation like agonizing cantrips that makes all your warlock cantrips deal the additional damage so you can just swap it in replacing agonizing blast if you had that. And new invocation Arcane Empowerment 1, 2, 3 and 4 that just give you a regular once per long rest spell slot of that level. AE1 is choosable at 3rd, AE2 at 5th, AE3 at 7th and AE 4 at 9th. Along with spell specific options that should give Warlocks the Spellcasting choice they need.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
Also need to say need to bump up Warlock to 14 rituals including contact other plane as even without tome it is a 9th level feature that grants that spell automatically which as long as it is prepared it can be cast as a ritual in addition to their one use auto succeed save (really fun flavor and cool for me).
It'd still be 13 rituals, since I had included Contact other Plane in that count already, 12 1st level rituals and contact other plane for the 13th.
I will say I am perfectly happy with the wizard being able to cast better spells than the lock while the lock has better at will damage than the wizard, meanwhile I am perfectly ok with the ranger and pally having better at will damage than the lock while the lock casts better spells. It is a reasonable trade off to me.
This said I would LIKE to see more spell invocations, heck an invocation that expands pact of the tome to include a second level ritual and a second level spell slot at say 5th or even 7th level seems reasonable to me. Call it "book of ancient secrets" if you want. Pact of the chain I would love to have voice of chain back, partially just want to combine voice and investment into one. For more summoning I am not sure. The conjure spells have always been kinda busted, the Tasha summons are solid for the spell level, not must cast super good, but not so bad they should never be taken.
Warlock is definitely missing spells, but as spell list is what stops warlock being as powerful as wizard or sorcerer, it's a grey area. Overall I think a lot more spells should be rituals as well, since spell slots are shared between combat and RP, it's about the only resource in the game that is, unless you use say the lucky feat for re-rolling. That said, this is also since most martial characters are missing good RP features or resources to begin with.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
I personally don't know what they were thinking with that feature, I think it's the wrong fix, that feature only makes sense if there are no short rests at all, in my opinion. If there is no short rests at all, then obviously there is a bigger issue with short rests.
if they could just ditch short rest and let Magical Cunning be the only pact slot refill, then it should be trivial to find a number of MC uses that make the power balance okay.
They could also just make Magical Cunning recover at the end of a short or long rest with the removal of short rest recovery of warlock spell slots. You'd be at 4 slots after a short rest since you can use Magical Cunning twice (once before, once after), if there is a 2nd short rest then you can get that 5th cast. It'd enable adding in a few lower levelled slots on Pact of the tome a bit more viable.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
Also need to say need to bump up Warlock to 14 rituals including contact other plane as even without tome it is a 9th level feature that grants that spell automatically which as long as it is prepared it can be cast as a ritual in addition to their one use auto succeed save (really fun flavor and cool for me).
It'd still be 13 rituals, since I had included Contact other Plane in that count already, 12 1st level rituals and contact other plane for the 13th.
I will say I am perfectly happy with the wizard being able to cast better spells than the lock while the lock has better at will damage than the wizard, meanwhile I am perfectly ok with the ranger and pally having better at will damage than the lock while the lock casts better spells. It is a reasonable trade off to me.
This said I would LIKE to see more spell invocations, heck an invocation that expands pact of the tome to include a second level ritual and a second level spell slot at say 5th or even 7th level seems reasonable to me. Call it "book of ancient secrets" if you want. Pact of the chain I would love to have voice of chain back, partially just want to combine voice and investment into one. For more summoning I am not sure. The conjure spells have always been kinda busted, the Tasha summons are solid for the spell level, not must cast super good, but not so bad they should never be taken.
Warlock is definitely missing spells, but as spell list is what stops warlock being as powerful as wizard or sorcerer, it's a grey area. Overall I think a lot more spells should be rituals as well, since spell slots are shared between combat and RP, it's about the only resource in the game that is, unless you use say the lucky feat for re-rolling. That said, this is also since most martial characters are missing good RP features or resources to begin with.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
I personally don't know what they were thinking with that feature, I think it's the wrong fix, that feature only makes sense if there are no short rests at all, in my opinion. If there is no short rests at all, then obviously there is a bigger issue with short rests.
if they could just ditch short rest and let Magical Cunning be the only pact slot refill, then it should be trivial to find a number of MC uses that make the power balance okay.
They could also just make Magical Cunning recover at the end of a short or long rest with the removal of short rest recovery of warlock spell slots. You'd be at 4 slots after a short rest since you can use Magical Cunning twice (once before, once after), if there is a 2nd short rest then you can get that 5th cast. It'd enable adding in a few lower levelled slots on Pact of the tome a bit more viable.
God please no. The entire problem with Warlocks and Monks is that if your DM doesn't shower them in Short Rests then they are just like the other similar classes around them except much worse because almost all of the other classes' resources are balanced around the idea of resetting on a Long Rest.
The whole point of Magical Cunning was to make tables with limited or rare Short Rests a non-issue for Warlocks. Forcing that feature into a Short Rest cycle is just reinforcing the SR dependency of the class.
They could also just make Magical Cunning recover at the end of a short or long rest with the removal of short rest recovery of warlock spell slots. You'd be at 4 slots after a short rest since you can use Magical Cunning twice (once before, once after), if there is a 2nd short rest then you can get that 5th cast. It'd enable adding in a few lower levelled slots on Pact of the tome a bit more viable.
God please no. The entire problem with Warlocks and Monks is that if your DM doesn't shower them in Short Rests then they are just like the other similar classes around them except much worse because almost all of the other classes' resources are balanced around the idea of resetting on a Long Rest.
The whole point of Magical Cunning was to make tables with limited or rare Short Rests a non-issue for Warlocks. Forcing that feature into a Short Rest cycle is just reinforcing the SR dependency of the class.
This would have the feature usable without a short rest, so no short rest then you can recover 1 slot, 1 short rest then you can recover 2 slots. In other words with no short rest that feature would operate as it does now, with a short rest, you'd recover the same amount of resources as you would have with 1 short rest anyway and with 2 short requests you recover 1 slot less in total. Obviously with current plans and resources, I don't see wotc wanting to drop short rests, even if they redesign it around the idea of 1 short rest instead of 2. With this, easier to justify having a few more lower level slots added via pact of the tome.
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I want to say both, but to different degrees.
There is issues with the spell and invocation list, which is mechanical. Then there is issues with how tables treat short rests and their unwillingness to acknowledge their games as being different from the games base assumptions and unwillingness to use the tools provided to tweak their games to have better balance.
And this is where I continue to disagree, first alter self requires disguise self anyways, so that is two invocations, without disguise self you can not replicate clothing or other adornments.
Secondly, if you are going into anything deeper than a shallow lake, alter self is woefully insufficient. If you want to go into the sea or ocean, water breathing is a requirement and alter self's water breathing is too easily lost, you lose you swim speed too. I consider alter self's water ability to be very limited to swallow waters with low/no threats only.
Then don’t take it, but that is what it is for. It covers both utility but worse. If you don't feel it covers it well enough dont take it. I presume you don't even take the spell on a caster and waste slots on it.
Exactly, Alter Self is one of the few ways to get a swim speed which is situationally very useful. Players don't always know if they need a swim speed or not, it's not like they can see the future and know if they will have to traverse a sunken tomb months ahead of time. It would suck to take Gift of the Depths and then never go underwater in the campaign. Whereas Master of Myriad Forms still has other uses even if you never end up in the water. Alter Self works really well as an infiltration tool : just KO a guard, strip them and become them and throw some manacles on your friends and waltz into the guardhouse / prison / fortress, you can even hold onto your prisoners / kick them without blowing your disguise (unlike disguise self).
Yes, but then people say Warlock is somehow broken OP because they have at-will spells, this is one of the most used at-will spells and it's clearly not a must have. So it boils down to that literal point, as an invocation, that at-will spell isn't actually needed at all, it makes the character better at some RP elements and fixing RP is a whole other issue. It doesn't some how mean that Warlock is broken because RP is imbalanced and cutting combat balance to get RP balance is not a good way to design classes. Warlock should be just as viable as Wizard, as Ranger should be just as viable and Paladin or Barbarian just as viable as Bard, all classes should be roughly equally viable and add around the same overall value to a party. Warlock is in a position that in combat they do add less than Wizard or Sorcerer.
The times my characters have ended out in the water, usually ended out in fights with sharks and crabs. I generally avoid rivers since rivers usually have a flow speed, which means you either get swept down river or have to do some athletics to cross it. Rarely does actually having water breathing or swimming speed become required however, by the point you require water breathing, you're usually already talking deeper waters, which can mean sharks, crabs, krakens, octopus or whatever else the DM has planned comes into play, in one case it was delving into ship wrecks, another it was due to strong tides and being too dangerous for the boat to get to shore, so had to jump out into basically life boats and drag them to shore. Rarely the case where you jump into sea/ocean and a DM doesn't pull something out, I feel.
This all said, if you actually need this invocation or not, is something to just talk about the DM about in advance, if they want water/ocean exploration in their campaign, then they usually want a character with water breathing as a spell. If you pick it hoping the DM does something, that is already a fundamental breakdown of player-dm communication, which was caused by the player. I always talk to the DMs of the campaigns I play when I plan to choose something which may be situational or limited in use.
Got it. The entire argument has nothing to do with what you were arguing. You made the base assumption that warlock was weaker in combat and assumed everyone agreed with that.
Warlock has the best attack cantrip allowing it to rival ranged martials and with 1 short rest and magical cunning the warlock gets 5 max level spells a day. At 5 the wizard gets 3 3rd and 3 2nd to the warlocks 5 3rd. Warlock is doing great by comparison. At 7 warlock has 5 4th to the wizards 2 4th and 3 3rd. That is straight 5 to 5 there. And this assuming just 1 rest. They are casting as many big spells + having better at will turns more health and better armor*. I dont see how this equates to worse in combat.
*without shield spam
In terms of spellcasting they do slightly less than a Wizard or Sorcerer but they also get to do as good resource-less damage and better resource-using damage than a Paladin or Ranger. This is why they are broken. They are 100% of a Ranger (150% of a Ranger at levels 11+) + 80% of a Wizard at the same time!
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You cannot be simultaneously an equally good Wizard as a Wizard and an equally good Ranger as a Ranger.
PS Wizard's whole entire class is just their spellcasting, Warlock is much more similar to Bard than to Wizard.
Agreed. Warlock is closer to bard or druid than wiz or sorc. Yes they are all spell casters but "having and casting the best spells" is the whole identity for wizard.
Warlock has a cantrip which it turns into the best attack cantrip, the 1d10 is matched by other cantrips and some cantrips have other utilities. A 1d8 longbow with dex and archery fighting style generally does more damage than eldritch blast with a 1d10 and agonizing blast. A ranger with hunter's mark is generally beating a warlock in damage until around level 11 and this is only if you ignore the madness of feats like sharpshooter and crossbow expert.
Also in regards to spell slots, you have to remember not all spells of the same level are equal. Warlock does not get Fireball, unless you select the fiend subclass. Fireball is a huge damage buff, an Evoker Wizard from level 10 can add their INT mod to fireball, so even if you go into Fiend, there is a Wizard subclass that can do it better. Right now we are using the 2014 spell casting lists after all, so this is a major issue. You can compare number of spell slots but as I said before, 3rd level spell != 3rd level spell. Easily shown from cantrip != cantrip, true strike is not as good as guidance for example.
The issue however is not purely damage, the ability to throw down a darkness spell, it's a low resource for sorcerer or wizard at level 7, it's just a 2nd level spell slot. Sorcerer & Wizard also gets spells like greater invisibility, cone of cold, wall of fire. Not to say all warlock spells are useless or anything, hunger of hadar obviously has it's uses and sickening radiance is also a good spell, there are good warlock spells sure.
However the other part of the problem is that as you get higher and higher level, warlock's ability to throw out lower level spells pretty much disappears where Wizard and Sorcerer still has 4 1st level slots, 3 2nd level slots, 3 3rd level slots, etc. Not saying Warlock needs to Match that, but even getting 1 spell slot of each other level below their current level would go a long way to bridge that gap. Web is still useful at level 15, just like level 3, difficult terrain and lightly obscure an area, is still. So the issue isn't focused on even casting of top level spells.
Do they really get better resource-less damage than a Paladin or Ranger? A paladin with Polearm Master & GWF is always beating a Warlock on eldritch blast damage, I literally can't see a single level where Warlock is winning that one, The Paladin has 2 attacks a turn 1-4, 3 attacks a turn 6+ and gets improved divine smite/radiant strikes 11+, 2d10+1d4+3d8+15 () equals 4d10+20, in other words passive damage wise Paladin can get the same passive damage as warlock from level 11, sure they lose a bit from a lower ASI but gain from also getting an additional reaction and from GWF...
Now, Pact of the Blade does beat that in the latest UA due to 3 attacks on thirsting blade at level 11 and life drinker at level 9, but thirsting blade making a 3rd attack seems very unlikely to make the final cut, and that has nothing to do with Eldritch Blast. So from level 9 onwards, possible for a Warlock to out-damage a paladin but the investment in this is Pact of the Blade, Thristing Blade and Lifedrinker, so that is 3 of the 7 invocations gone at level 11, on top of that you probably want fiendish vigor, you probably want agonizing blast and repelling blast... but there is also pact of the tome, devil's sight... which is why I was saying for over a page, why are we worried about the invocations for at-will spells? There are clearly better invocations to any of those with the exception of maybe fiendish vigor, but fiendish vigor gets too much temp HP at tier 1 (not a major issue) and too little at tier 3/4.
As for Ranger, with dual hand crossbows and archery fighting style, I just don't see Warlock challenging that til level 11. Ranger definitely needs help with damage 11+, but that goes for a few classes. Paladin and Ranger are more martial focused than Warlock, but they are also both still spell casters, I don't think anybody thinks Warlock is more OP'ed than Paladin, Ranger has been in a bad spot since 2014, not as bad these days but that is a class that needs buffing, that is not a sign of warlock needing nerfing, it is the wrong way around in thinking.
As for resources, yes a Warlock's resource, their spell slot should do more than a Paladin's, it is higher level, what they are not doing is matching a Wizard or a Sorcerer, sure they might have the same level of spells being cast but they do not have the same spell selection. And in terms of damage, a wizard does far less than a sorcerer, because a wizard's strength is beyond pure damage. A warlock does not need to be a pure caster, but the option to spec more into casting should exist and it should exist in invocations. Personally it's part of the reason I do not think the pacts should have been made invocations, pact of the blade should be more gish, pact of the tome more spellcasting and pact of the chain a viable summoner type build. Right now, as Warlock, you're losing out by not having both pact of the tome and pact of the blade... which is bad.
EDIT: let me pose a question, if pacts were restricted to only one pact (even if kept as invocations), would pact of the tome be broken if they added to it, a 2nd level spell slot at warlock level 5, a 3rd level spell slot at warlock level 9 and a 4th level spell slot at warlock level 13 to that pact? Because I do not think it would do such a thing, nor would it allow shield spam. I am not saying Warlock needs huge changes, the change is small, it is just a small amount of casting power.
Sorry but WHAT? Only 1 subclass of sorcerer gets a damage boost to spells, and two wizard subclasses get damage boosts to spells. Sorcerer and Wizard deal the same damage.
Yes, that would make them a better caster than a Wizard. Pact of the Tome gives them better ritual-casting utility (this is debatable w.r.t. higher level rituals), they would have more spell-slot power, better resource-less damage, and better recharge for long adventuring days.
The only advantage Wizard would have is a bigger spell list.
Do the "warlocks have sooooo much more spellcasting than wizards even with just fourteen rests!" math on the assumption that the warlock player is not an idiot, does not blow all their spell slots the very first chance they get, and typically takes their rest with a spell slot left in the tank as insurance against the DM dropping a sudden Deadly++ ambush on the party out of literal nowhere.
Does the warlock still have sooo much more spellcasting than actual for-real spellcasters?
I doubt it. Significantly.
Please do not contact or message me.
Main class features, Sorcerer literally gets Meta Magic, quicken spell, maximize spell, extend spell, heightened spell and others. Sorcerer also has that innate magic now, which just makes em stronger for 1 minute too.
and no, the change to pact of the tome I suggested would not give warlock more casting power. Right now at level 5, Warlock as 2 3rd level slots, and a 1st level slot with pact of the tome, a Wizard has 2 3rd, 3 2nd and 4 1st level slots. With 1 short rest, warlock has 4 3rd level and 1st level vs, 3 3rd, 2nd and 4 1st, giving warlock an extra 2nd slot here is not giving Warlock more casting power.
at level 9, Warlock with pact of the tome has 2 4th level slots and 1st level slot. Wizard has 1 1st level slot, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 4 1st level, with 1 short rest that is 4 4th level and 1 st level vs, 2 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 4 1st level. a 2nd and 3rd levelled slot on pact of tome is not breaking anything here.
Also Pact of the Tome is limited to 1st level rituals only, it gives slightly more access to 1st level rituals but warlock doesn't have access too that many ritual spells to begin with, if anything they have less than before when it comes to pact of the tome, contact other planes is about the only ritual they get which isn't 1st level. This does open a few new spells to warlock since the two 1st level spells that are taken in Pact of the Tome are no longer restricted to ritual casting (still require ritual tag), but near all of them are pointless to cast as anything but a ritual. The entire spell list warlock will have of ritual spells from pact of the tome is:
Alarm, Ceremony, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease*, Find Familiar, Identify, Illusionary Script, Purify Food and Drink, Speak with Animals, Tensor's Floating Disk & Unseen Servant.
*disease is likely to be removed - presumably would be renamed Detect Poison in that case.
Wizard gets:
1st level - Alarm, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Find Familiar, Identify, Illusionary Script, Tensor's Floating Disk & Unseen Servant
2nd level - Gentle Repose, Magic Mouth & Skywrite
3rd level - Leomund's Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed & water breathing
5th level - contact other plane & rary's telepathic bond
6th level - Drawmij's Instance Summons
that is 13 for warlock versus Wizard's 18
Warlock's list of rituals is greatly reduced from what Book of Ancient secrets had, which had literally no limitations at all, just cost time, money & a spell scroll to transcribe. So Warlock got majorly nerfed if considering the loss of that invocation, on the ritual front.
Just going to make s correction. With one short rest the warlock has 5 3rd level spells at level 5 due to magical cunning.
Good point, forgot about that feature.
I personally don't know what they were thinking with that feature, I think it's the wrong fix, that feature only makes sense if there are no short rests at all, in my opinion. If there is no short rests at all, then obviously there is a bigger issue with short rests.
Also need to say need to bump up Warlock to 14 rituals including contact other plane as even without tome it is a 9th level feature that grants that spell automatically which as long as it is prepared it can be cast as a ritual in addition to their one use auto succeed save (really fun flavor and cool for me).
I will say I am perfectly happy with the wizard being able to cast better spells than the lock while the lock has better at will damage than the wizard, meanwhile I am perfectly ok with the ranger and pally having better at will damage than the lock while the lock casts better spells. It is a reasonable trade off to me.
This said I would LIKE to see more spell invocations, heck an invocation that expands pact of the tome to include a second level ritual and a second level spell slot at say 5th or even 7th level seems reasonable to me. Call it "book of ancient secrets" if you want. Pact of the chain I would love to have voice of chain back, partially just want to combine voice and investment into one. For more summoning I am not sure. The conjure spells have always been kinda busted, the Tasha summons are solid for the spell level, not must cast super good, but not so bad they should never be taken.
I have stated in the past and will continue to state that I believe there are several spells missing on the warlock spell or invocation list that need to be here.
As I have stated if I am comparing Warlock to say a druid or a bard, a full caster that isn't wizard I am pretty happy with their casting.
at 5, the druid will have 2 3rd and 3 2nd and 4 first, with the first being used in easy fights or on utility and the 3rd and 2nd being the "big spells" Warlock after 1 rest will have the same number of "big spells" but will be just as strong if not stronger and their "utility" will be in their invocations, for easy battles it will use EB instead of first level spell and then crummy cantrips.
at 6 the druid has 1 more spell, but that just help it catch up.
at 7, it will be 1 4th and 3 3rd vs 5 4th level spells with 2nd level spells there as backup now for the druid, but largely being more regulated to easy fights and utility. Even if the druid's 1 4th level spell is better than any of the warlocks the other 4 4th level spells of the warlock will be better than the druids 3 3rd and one or 2 seconds that it will be casting.
8,9,10 is where i admit that i believe warlock needs the most help casting wise. Especially 9 and 10. Where a druid would have 1 5th, 3 4th and 3 3rd or total of 7 bombs to the warlocks 5 5th. The 3rd, 4th and 5th level spells are closer than the 1st and 2nd are to them. I would love to see warlock get its 3rd slot at 9 when it unlocks 5th level and then mystic arcanum at 11. I think if it did a lot of people would feel a lot better about warlock spell casting.
if they could just ditch short rest and let Magical Cunning be the only pact slot refill, then it should be trivial to find a number of MC uses that make the power balance okay.
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I come to the realization that what was a bad idea in one situation can be a good idea in another situation.We take the UA 7 Warlock and add more invocations to help those seeking more in combat Spellcasting (warlocks already cast spells out of combat extremely well because of at wills invocations). First we bring back all the cut invocations. It doesn’t matter if they can be on the spell list and cast as a ritual, some people will want them as an invocation that can be cast at will and or once per long rest. All of the ones that were once per long rest with a warlock spell slot become just once per long rest no longer requiring the slot. More Pact of the Tome invocations. Bring back some old favorites like Book of ancient secrets that lets the Warlock have rituals from everybody's lists. Let’s have a 5th level tome pact invocation like agonizing cantrips that makes all your warlock cantrips deal the additional damage so you can just swap it in replacing agonizing blast if you had that. And new invocation Arcane Empowerment 1, 2, 3 and 4 that just give you a regular once per long rest spell slot of that level. AE1 is choosable at 3rd, AE2 at 5th, AE3 at 7th and AE 4 at 9th. Along with spell specific options that should give Warlocks the Spellcasting choice they need.
It'd still be 13 rituals, since I had included Contact other Plane in that count already, 12 1st level rituals and contact other plane for the 13th.
Warlock is definitely missing spells, but as spell list is what stops warlock being as powerful as wizard or sorcerer, it's a grey area. Overall I think a lot more spells should be rituals as well, since spell slots are shared between combat and RP, it's about the only resource in the game that is, unless you use say the lucky feat for re-rolling. That said, this is also since most martial characters are missing good RP features or resources to begin with.
They could also just make Magical Cunning recover at the end of a short or long rest with the removal of short rest recovery of warlock spell slots. You'd be at 4 slots after a short rest since you can use Magical Cunning twice (once before, once after), if there is a 2nd short rest then you can get that 5th cast. It'd enable adding in a few lower levelled slots on Pact of the tome a bit more viable.
God please no. The entire problem with Warlocks and Monks is that if your DM doesn't shower them in Short Rests then they are just like the other similar classes around them except much worse because almost all of the other classes' resources are balanced around the idea of resetting on a Long Rest.
The whole point of Magical Cunning was to make tables with limited or rare Short Rests a non-issue for Warlocks. Forcing that feature into a Short Rest cycle is just reinforcing the SR dependency of the class.
This would have the feature usable without a short rest, so no short rest then you can recover 1 slot, 1 short rest then you can recover 2 slots. In other words with no short rest that feature would operate as it does now, with a short rest, you'd recover the same amount of resources as you would have with 1 short rest anyway and with 2 short requests you recover 1 slot less in total. Obviously with current plans and resources, I don't see wotc wanting to drop short rests, even if they redesign it around the idea of 1 short rest instead of 2. With this, easier to justify having a few more lower level slots added via pact of the tome.