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.
I do get that, but I'd much rather see just a small number of uses per day that refresh all of your Pact Magic slots. Then it becomes an actual resource management issue that WOTC can balance the class features around instead of something that the entire table and the DM needs to agree to. Imagine if Magical Cunning had a progression similar to a Cleric's Channel Divinity, starting with 1 refresh and then gaining a 2nd, then finally a 3rd refresh as a capstone or similar?
Because when it comes to a spellcaster and their magic, the DM shouldn't be creating a scenario where the player can't use their core features because the rest of the party is looking at a different refresh mechanic.
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.
I like leaning into invocations. With the options you have, you can do so much "at will" that slots themselves shouldn't matter much.
I know a lot of people will whine about slots, but the warlock is not supposed to be "yet another full caster sorcerer/wizard clone".
Don't like casting the same spells over and over?
Pick another class.
What do you think martials do all day every day?
Furthermore, rather than giving more slots or more rests, my spicy take would be to make your patron's granted spells "at will" as well, further adding flavor and options to your caster.
Regular casting is more of customization/flavor option.
Edit: by regular casting I mean "pact magic" - the actual spell slots you use rather than your at will invocations.. It's tiresome trying to keep all the damned language specificities in order.
Ideally you would have:
1. your pact, which defines the type of warlock you are and what your speciality is,
2.the patron which defines the flavor your magic takes on, and
3.your invocations which are power ups for your pact as well as giving your some extra perks or at will abilities like feats do for all characters.
4.Your pact magic spell slots are just a few "extra" options to represent that you're not totally inept at the arcane without your patron's help.
It should also be noted the warlock gets far more options than other spell casters when it comes to flexibility, including more than the bard, the supposed jack of all trades, and the sorcerer, the one with innate spellcasting.
Only the warlock can just natively imbue their weapons with magic
Only the warlock can have spells at will that would either burn slots or take time to cast (time, remember, that everyone complains that a short rest of an hour is too damned long. Warlocks can at will spells that are supposed to take an 15 min to an hour normally)
Only warlocks auto-upcast.
So what if they don't reach the topmost peaks of magic? Oh wait! The STILL DO through the mystic arcanum giving them at least ONE spell slot for each level above 5.
A class that's functional without relying on an optional mechanic many tables disregard.
People keep assuming there's only two choices - completely and utterly unmodified Pact Magic and a warlock class that is 100% word-for-word identical to the 2014 release with absolutely no updates or solutions for the class's shit "spellcasting" ie. UA7...or a one-for-one clone of the wizard.
This is dramatically untrue, and the fact that Wizards has framed the "debate" this way is a severe failing on them, not anything else.
Pact Magic being utterly awful does not mean conventional spellcasting is the only other answer. It means Pact Magic is utterly awful and we could've really used the third-option alternative Wizards was too cowardly to give us.
A class that's functional without relying on an optional mechanic many tables disregard.
People keep assuming there's only two choices - completely and utterly unmodified Pact Magic and a warlock class that is 100% word-for-word identical to the 2014 release with absolutely no updates or solutions for the class's shit "spellcasting" ie. UA7...or a one-for-one clone of the wizard.
This is dramatically untrue, and the fact that Wizards has framed the "debate" this way is a severe failing on them, not anything else.
Pact Magic being utterly awful does not mean conventional spellcasting is the only other answer. It means Pact Magic is utterly awful and we could've really used the third-option alternative Wizards was too cowardly to give us.
I agree. But I think that pact magic sucks on purpose. I honestly think that the class SHOULDN'T BE TRYING TO CAST SPELLS. (Caps for emphasis as on phone and cannot italicize).
They're a blaster class. Or a ritual caster class. Or just in general a non-caster caster class? They treat spells as martials treat weapons.
I think too many people are wanting it to act like a purely spellcasting class, if that makes any sense.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
A class that's functional without relying on an optional mechanic many tables disregard.
People keep assuming there's only two choices - completely and utterly unmodified Pact Magic and a warlock class that is 100% word-for-word identical to the 2014 release with absolutely no updates or solutions for the class's shit "spellcasting" ie. UA7...or a one-for-one clone of the wizard.
This is dramatically untrue, and the fact that Wizards has framed the "debate" this way is a severe failing on them, not anything else.
Pact Magic being utterly awful does not mean conventional spellcasting is the only other answer. It means Pact Magic is utterly awful and we could've really used the third-option alternative Wizards was too cowardly to give us.
I agree. But I think that pact magic sucks on purpose. I honestly think that the class SHOULDN'T BE TRYING TO CAST SPELLS. (Caps for emphasis as on phone and cannot italicize).
They're a blaster class. Or a ritual caster class. Or just in general a non-caster caster class? They treat spells as martials treat weapons.
I think too many people are wanting it to act like a purely spellcasting class, if that makes any sense.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
We want it to have something in common with a regular spellcasting class, because when you don't do that you get the incredible table-tilting powerhouse that is the Way of Four Elements Monk. It also really sucks to have every table with only a Warlock ask "why don't we have a real spellcaster?"because they can only cast 2-3 spells per day if the DM isn't carefully following an encounter clock.
Seriously, at level 7 an Arcane Trickster Rogue or an Eldritch Knight Fighter can cast more leveled spells than a Warlock per day than an equivalent level Warlock can until level 11 unless that Warlock gets 2 short rests. By level 20 the Warlock needs at least 2 short rests to cast more spells than a Fighter or a Rogue. That's really wierd that a subclass for a non-magical class can cast more spells than a dedicated spellcaster.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
Yeah, I feel like a significant fraction are playing (or want to play) warlock for the flavour and then get disappointed with the mechanics, they want to play a full caster who gets their magic by selling their soul. They should change to flavour text of the warlock to emphasize that it is a WARlock, a warrior-type character that uses spells rather than weapons.
A class that's functional without relying on an optional mechanic many tables disregard.
People keep assuming there's only two choices - completely and utterly unmodified Pact Magic and a warlock class that is 100% word-for-word identical to the 2014 release with absolutely no updates or solutions for the class's shit "spellcasting" ie. UA7...or a one-for-one clone of the wizard.
This is dramatically untrue, and the fact that Wizards has framed the "debate" this way is a severe failing on them, not anything else.
Pact Magic being utterly awful does not mean conventional spellcasting is the only other answer. It means Pact Magic is utterly awful and we could've really used the third-option alternative Wizards was too cowardly to give us.
I agree. But I think that pact magic sucks on purpose. I honestly think that the class SHOULDN'T BE TRYING TO CAST SPELLS. (Caps for emphasis as on phone and cannot italicize).
They're a blaster class. Or a ritual caster class. Or just in general a non-caster caster class? They treat spells as martials treat weapons.
I think too many people are wanting it to act like a purely spellcasting class, if that makes any sense.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
On phone, can't trim my quotes, apologies/deal w/it.
Anyways.
The warlock is not a "blaster" class. Blasters need to be able to BLAST, i.e. deal AoE damage to multiple targets. Eldritch Bonk is not "blasting".
"Ritual Casting" isn't a class, and if it was then the wizard would beat the warlock stupid at it since the wizard gets ritual spells basically for free while the warlock has to pay with precious spells-known selections.
"Non-caster caster" is exactly the problem. The game treats them like spellcasters but doesn't give them the tools to succeed as spellcasters unless you spam thirteen billion short rests. Blade warlocks are a shitty meme that die for free if they ever actually try and exist as a melee class, Tome warlocks are "I wanted my warlock to actually cast spells but this is the best I could do I guess", and Chain just feels like the way the damn Familiar spell should work in general - and I say that as someone with a Chain warlock as one of their favorite Eternal Standby characters. I'm still waiting for my chance to play Memory, even if my other two warlocks have shown me she'll be actively ******* terrible.
And besides! If people truly wanted the warlock to be a "non-caster sprllcaster", what was wrong with the excellent foundation that was the half-caster variation?
People are so irrationally attached to the whole UnIqUe AnD qUiRkY thing with warlocks that they completely overlook the fact that the class still has to be effective. It is not. It never will be until Pact Magic is dispensed with. One way or another.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
Yeah, I feel like a significant fraction are playing (or want to play) warlock for the flavour and then get disappointed with the mechanics, they want to play a full caster who gets their magic by selling their soul. They should change to flavour text of the warlock to emphasize that it is a WARlock, a warrior-type character that uses spells rather than weapons.
It's funny because mere seconds ago, I was just reading on another site a read up that made exactly the same points I had above, (warlock being a blaster, it's spells being basically the same as martial's weapons, etc...), but also compared them to the paladin. Which is kind of true. It's a martial class that has basically one consistent caster feature: smite. "I hit it and then I use smite". It's the only type of thing it really casts, and the rest are "perks".
Outside of that, it's all subclasses and the subclasses feel like they're trying to give multiclassing (same goes for the martial caster subclasses, to more of less success (bladesinger, wildshape druid, etc...,) ) without it being multiclassing.
Which in itself could be a radically different answer to multiclassing: make multiclassing more prohibitive, and give more subclass options that blend a flavor appropriate general caster with a martial, or a flavor appropriate generalized martial with a caster. (This is just an off the cuff idea, I haven't given it terribly much thought)
On phone, can't trim my quotes, apologies/deal w/it.
Anyways.
The warlock is not a "blaster" class. Blasters need to be able to BLAST, i.e. deal AoE damage to multiple targets. Eldritch Bonk is not "blasting".
"Ritual Casting" isn't a class, and if it was then the wizard would beat the warlock stupid at it since the wizard gets ritual spells basically for free while the warlock has to pay with precious spells-known selections.
"Non-caster caster" is exactly the problem. The game treats them like spellcasters but doesn't give them the tools to succeed as spellcasters unless you spam thirteen billion short rests. Blade warlocks are a shitty meme that die for free if they ever actually try and exist as a melee class, Tome warlocks are "I wanted my warlock to actually cast spells but this is the best I could do I guess", and Chain just feels like the way the damn Familiar spell should work in general - and I say that as someone with a Chain warlock as one of their favorite Eternal Standby characters. I'm still waiting for my chance to play Memory, even if my other two warlocks have shown me she'll be actively ******* terrible.
And besides! If people truly wanted the warlock to be a "non-caster sprllcaster", what was wrong with the excellent foundation that was the half-caster variation?
People are so irrationally attached to the whole UnIqUe AnD qUiRkY thing with warlocks that they completely overlook the fact that the class still has to be effective. It is not. It never will be until Pact Magic is dispensed with. One way or another.
I agree with the blast being a bit weak. And I agree about rituals.
That's why I advocate pacts being subclasses, not patrons. Your pact or the blade should scale to give you more damage. Your tome should give you more spellcasting (or at least more powerful cantrips). Your chain should give you more powerful familiars.
The invocations should be increased. They should give you your ritual castings and such for free so you can spam the hell out of them.
I'm not disagreeing. I'm giving another option. I'm just not increasing spellcasting itself.
Outside of that, it's all subclasses and the subclasses feel like they're trying to give multiclassing (same goes for the martial caster subclasses, to more of less success (bladesinger, wildshape druid, etc...,) ) without it being multiclassing.
Which in itself could be a radically different answer to multiclassing: make multiclassing more prohibitive, and give more subclass options that blend a flavor appropriate general caster with a martial, or a flavor appropriate generalized martial with a caster. (This is just an off the cuff idea, I haven't given it terribly much thought)
WotC really need to figure out what they are doing with subclasses, and how they want to address the demand for gishes. Because right now, gishes are killing non-magic martials. I'm a moderator on a West Marches Server with 60+ players and an absolutely huge number of Hex-blade MC Charisma-gishes, plus Fighters are mostly EKs, Rogues are mostly AT. In my table games, its pretty common for the entire party to be at least 1/2 casters.
Right now they are failing at it. And a lot of the reason they are failing at it are Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade. It feels to me like they created those cantrips without really thinking through the implications, players discovered how God-Darn powerful you can make them and fell it love with that, and now WotC can't get rid of them because of the popularity of them, and popular demand just keeps forcing WotC to make them more and more accessible.
Outside of that, it's all subclasses and the subclasses feel like they're trying to give multiclassing (same goes for the martial caster subclasses, to more of less success (bladesinger, wildshape druid, etc...,) ) without it being multiclassing.
Which in itself could be a radically different answer to multiclassing: make multiclassing more prohibitive, and give more subclass options that blend a flavor appropriate general caster with a martial, or a flavor appropriate generalized martial with a caster. (This is just an off the cuff idea, I haven't given it terribly much thought)
WotC really need to figure out what they are doing with subclasses, and how they want to address the demand for gishes. Because right now, gishes are killing non-magic martials. I'm a moderator on a West Marches Server with 60+ players and an absolutely huge number of Hex-blade MC Charisma-gishes, plus Fighters are mostly EKs, Rogues are mostly AT. In my table games, its pretty common for the entire party to be at least 1/2 casters.
Right now they are failing at it. And a lot of the reason they are failing at it are Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade. It feels to me like they created those cantrips without really thinking through the implications, players discovered how God-Darn powerful you can make them and fell it love with that, and now WotC can't get rid of them because of the popularity of them, and popular demand just keeps forcing WotC to make them more and more accessible.
I think there's a lot of hard choices that have to be made.
I also think the company will be forced to deal with contraction of it's sales and player base in the near future, and that it is inevitable.
They can do nothing and players will start experimenting with new games.
They can change the game and either lean I to the power creep and mechanics that people say they want or they can make Bob the Fish's Official Recommendations (tm) and either way retain some people for a while while alienating others.
They can try to do something new, but then that will alienate the existing players that love what they have and don't want new.
No option is really good, but with how often I hear "have you tried pathfinder?" from people, I am most surprised they're trying to make their game feel a bit more like the competition and hopefully lure people back or at least stop some of the people switching, while basically doing #2 and avoiding #1 and #3.
Edit: also it should be mentioned the contraction IS inevitable. You can only hit so big an audience and only monetize so far before there is an inevitable contraction. It's just something no company ever wants to admit to.
A class that's functional without relying on an optional mechanic many tables disregard.
People keep assuming there's only two choices - completely and utterly unmodified Pact Magic and a warlock class that is 100% word-for-word identical to the 2014 release with absolutely no updates or solutions for the class's shit "spellcasting" ie. UA7...or a one-for-one clone of the wizard.
This is dramatically untrue, and the fact that Wizards has framed the "debate" this way is a severe failing on them, not anything else.
Pact Magic being utterly awful does not mean conventional spellcasting is the only other answer. It means Pact Magic is utterly awful and we could've really used the third-option alternative Wizards was too cowardly to give us.
I agree. But I think that pact magic sucks on purpose. I honestly think that the class SHOULDN'T BE TRYING TO CAST SPELLS. (Caps for emphasis as on phone and cannot italicize).
They're a blaster class. Or a ritual caster class. Or just in general a non-caster caster class? They treat spells as martials treat weapons.
I think too many people are wanting it to act like a purely spellcasting class, if that makes any sense.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
On phone, can't trim my quotes, apologies/deal w/it.
Anyways.
The warlock is not a "blaster" class. Blasters need to be able to BLAST, i.e. deal AoE damage to multiple targets. Eldritch Bonk is not "blasting".
"Ritual Casting" isn't a class, and if it was then the wizard would beat the warlock stupid at it since the wizard gets ritual spells basically for free while the warlock has to pay with precious spells-known selections.
"Non-caster caster" is exactly the problem. The game treats them like spellcasters but doesn't give them the tools to succeed as spellcasters unless you spam thirteen billion short rests. Blade warlocks are a shitty meme that die for free if they ever actually try and exist as a melee class, Tome warlocks are "I wanted my warlock to actually cast spells but this is the best I could do I guess", and Chain just feels like the way the damn Familiar spell should work in general - and I say that as someone with a Chain warlock as one of their favorite Eternal Standby characters. I'm still waiting for my chance to play Memory, even if my other two warlocks have shown me she'll be actively ******* terrible.
And besides! If people truly wanted the warlock to be a "non-caster sprllcaster", what was wrong with the excellent foundation that was the half-caster variation?
People are so irrationally attached to the whole UnIqUe AnD qUiRkY thing with warlocks that they completely overlook the fact that the class still has to be effective. It is not. It never will be until Pact Magic is dispensed with. One way or another.
This debate will never end because every player and DM has different views. Some are shaped by play style and others by how long we have been playing. I disagree with most of your commentary on the Warlock.
2014
Warloks original 5e design was a ranged cantrip damage dealer that could cast spells as powerful as any other Mage, but in limited supply. It’s a decent design, but understandably boring. It was the fighter of casters. “I attack” mirrored by “I cast Eldritch Blast” 90% of combat. When built a certain way a Warlock easily cast more spells per day than any caster thanks to having great low level at will spells, but they are all out of combat role play, exploration and infiltration spells, so if you aren’t playing that kind of game or you aren’t that kind of player you won’t take those invocations.
Warlock invocations and pacts gave them the best versions of things. Agonizing blast gave them the best attack cantrip, along with repelling blast and other invocations to augment it even more. Pact of the tome let you pick up utility cantrips like guidance, spare the dying, or diversify your damage cantrips. Book of Ancient Secrets made the Warlock the best ritual caster in the game with DM fiat (doesn’t matter if you can do a thing if you never find a scroll to copy). Pact of the chain gave them the best familiar and voice of the chain made scouting ridiculously easy. I don’t believe that familiars should all work like pact of chain. As a DM it would make me have to be way more cautious about map design. Pact of the Blade was trash that made you Mad, but on Hexblade it works and makes you a versatile combatant on par with Swords Bard and Swashbuckler. The flaw is it was too good with multiclass and most people went that route.
2024 UA
That Half Caster Warlock was trash as a Warlock from my perspective. Casting scorching ray while the Wizard is dropping fireballs I wasn’t going to feel good. For me and probably many others spell progression is more important on a Warlock than spell slots.
The fact that they brought many at will invocations down to a more appropriate level means the Warlock has more options to cast more than ever before. The flaw being the same as 2014 that most of those spells are for out of combat RP, exploration, and infiltration, so it won’t excite some players. Also they made the mistake of removing invocations just because the spell was added to the spell list and can now be ritual cast. That shows a fundamental lack of understanding players and the power of options by WotC design team. Having the option to not use a spell prepared for detect magic and being able to cast it at will is worth an invocation. They need to bring back and update all the invocations from supplement books.
I have tried to figure out ways to give Warlock more casting without disrupting its uniqueness and invocations, but I’m starting to think that’s not possible. I really like the 1/3 spellcaster with pact magic combo, but the more I look at it I see how it’s still too strong. It’s literally having your cake and eating it too.
Final note, the class is effective, just not at what you want it to be effective at. It is effective at non combat casting. It is effective at consistent albeit boring damage with eldritch blast. It is effective at versatility depending on subclass, pact and invocation choices. I’ll will admit that Warlock is one of few classes you can literally build wrong in 5e, but that is because a lot of how effective your warlock will be depends on choices you make.
I don't think 1/3 caster is too strong at all. Those low level spell slots offer some options, but not the same kind of raw power that full casters have, not to mention that pact magic caps out at level 5, and mystic arcanum is once per day.
EDIT: Warlock players want to cast more spells per day. WOTC admits this and they want to accommodate that, so they say. Adding additional PACT magic slots /would/ be too strong. So, that leaves adding lower level spell slots. 1/3 is the slowest existing progression, and adds more flavor than it adds POWER. Many EK players have tried to build blasters out of 1/3 progression and failed...because 1/3 casters enhance rather than define.
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.
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.
Agreed.
In my experience (and clearly Crawford's too because he explicitly talks about the pact slot hoarding problem in the UA 5 video), many/most Warlocks are reluctant to drop both their pact slots in a single combat - because the chances that there's another one coming up, or even a social/exploration challenge that can't be resolved with a cantrip, before they can grab a short rest are higher than the chances that they can reliably SR after every fight. And it's Pascal's Wager too - if they're wrong to be cautious because the DM turned out to be generous with campaign pacing and letting them get a bunch of rests after every fight / whenever they want, they weren't in much danger anyway so it literally doesn't matter.
End result - they hoard, and become cantrip turrets just in case. To use Crawford's own words, that's not satisfying.
Personally, I'm in the camp that likes Pact Magic... I would love to see it improved. I don't think I've ever played at a table with a Warlock in the party where the Warlock wasn't eventually given some magic item or homebrewed class feature to get an extra pact magic spell slot. But the uniqueness is part of the appeal, and I also like the simplicity of it all... you get two spell slots, they're always at high level, and they come back on a short rest. I like that. I think it could use some rebalancing... especially as players are increasingly more "narrative" in their play, and that makes it harder to justify short rests. When you're playing something like a videogame, and a "short rest" is just the screen going black, maybe a jingle plays and everyone pops out recovered. But increasingly with characters focused more on narrative and RP, short rests slow down the game. Once everyone sits down to relax it becomes this RP moment where everyone sits around and jokes, and I've seen short rests that last an actual, real-life hour because the players start joking around and doing other stuff. I think the only time I see players just kind of hand-wave short rests is if they just had a lengthy RP sequence with no combat, and someone says, "Hey, did that count as a short rest?"
So I think that needs to be addressed... I've seen several people suggest that Short Rests should just work like they do in Baldur's Gate 3... where they're basically instantaneous but you have a limited number you can take in a day. Honestly, I'd be very surprised if that doesn't get included, at the very least, as an optional rule when OneDnD releases. We're already seeing a similar feature attempted as the fix for Warlocks... where a Warlock has a limited ability to just kind of take a short rest on their own without slowing everyone else down.
That all said... what I would like to see is just Invocations for this kind of thing. Like how the new Pact of the Tome includes a single 1st level Spell slot that functions like a normal spell slot. I'd love to see that expanded on... I don't know if it would be best to have something where a single Invocation gives you 1/2 or 1/3 caster spell slots in addition to your pact slots, or if it would work best to have multiple invocations that gradually unlock more traditional spell slots, so if you choose to have the spellcasting abilities of a more traditional spellcaster it will cost you invocations.
I think an alternative that has me intrigued is to open up the ability to cast more low-level spells without spell slots. We've already got stuff like Mask of Many Faces or Whispers of the Dead which lets you just cast some specific utility spells all you want. I feel like an option is to swap those kinds of invocations out and replace them with something that just allows you to choose whichever spell you want on your spell list and unlock the ability to cast it endlessly. It might need some restrictions... maybe restrict it to 1st level spells that have a casting time of 1 action and do not deal damage or something like that. But I think that is an interesting niche for Warlocks to occupy... very, very good at outputting low-level spells all day long, but with more limited high level casting.
Outside of that, it's all subclasses and the subclasses feel like they're trying to give multiclassing (same goes for the martial caster subclasses, to more of less success (bladesinger, wildshape druid, etc...,) ) without it being multiclassing.
Which in itself could be a radically different answer to multiclassing: make multiclassing more prohibitive, and give more subclass options that blend a flavor appropriate general caster with a martial, or a flavor appropriate generalized martial with a caster. (This is just an off the cuff idea, I haven't given it terribly much thought)
WotC really need to figure out what they are doing with subclasses, and how they want to address the demand for gishes. Because right now, gishes are killing non-magic martials. I'm a moderator on a West Marches Server with 60+ players and an absolutely huge number of Hex-blade MC Charisma-gishes, plus Fighters are mostly EKs, Rogues are mostly AT. In my table games, its pretty common for the entire party to be at least 1/2 casters.
Right now they are failing at it. And a lot of the reason they are failing at it are Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade. It feels to me like they created those cantrips without really thinking through the implications, players discovered how God-Darn powerful you can make them and fell it love with that, and now WotC can't get rid of them because of the popularity of them, and popular demand just keeps forcing WotC to make them more and more accessible.
The insistence by WOTC to give cha to warlocks available at level 1 is the problem here. If martials had to invest 3 levels to get to adding your charisma to your melee attacks, I think things would be much less problematic. It's the 1 and 2 level dips that cause a ton of problems. WOTC to this point seems unwilling to address that for reasons beyond me. If blade pacts have to suffer til level 3 using dex weapons to keep MC from breaking things, so be it. It's for the good of the game.
Aside from the fact that warlock is my favorite class in spite of problematic pact magic, it should not be allowed to break the game. I would by far prefer to see warlock utterly neutered than to break the system math. To allow 2 levels of an extremely niche playstyle to cause problems? That's just not right.
EDIT: Going to add to this that it would be much less problematic if WOTC had stuck to their guns in 2014 and made warlocks an INT caster instead of allowing it to synergize with with paladins, bards and sorcerers. If they are so completely hellbent on allowing blade pact to be "online" at level 1, just change that. Change from a CHA focus to an INT focus, and now the multi-class issues are greatly reduced. yes, it synergizes with Wizard. As if they want to give up their progression and capstones to water themselves down with Warlock levels. And artificers, who are niche enough to not warrant inclusion in the 2024 PHB.
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.
I think there's a lot of hard choices that have to be made.
I also think the company will be forced to deal with contraction of it's sales and player base in the near future, and that it is inevitable.
They can do nothing and players will start experimenting with new games.
They can change the game and either lean I to the power creep and mechanics that people say they want or they can make Bob the Fish's Official Recommendations (tm) and either way retain some people for a while while alienating others.
They can try to do something new, but then that will alienate the existing players that love what they have and don't want new.
No option is really good, but with how often I hear "have you tried pathfinder?" from people, I am most surprised they're trying to make their game feel a bit more like the competition and hopefully lure people back or at least stop some of the people switching, while basically doing #2 and avoiding #1 and #3.
Edit: also it should be mentioned the contraction IS inevitable. You can only hit so big an audience and only monetize so far before there is an inevitable contraction. It's just something no company ever wants to admit to.
This is an interesting point. It seems to me that WotC are going to try the video-game franchise model, where you keep the core mechanics constant and just rerelease basically the same game with a few tweaks every few years - (see COD, Assassin's Creed, DOOM, Mario, etc..). Will that work for a TTRPG? I don't know, and I don't know that anyone knows, but I guess we will find out.
Just noting, Transmorpher, that I have never been in or personally heard of a campaign where a warlock got *anything* to improve their casting, outside this forum. Most of the players I know consider the Pactkeeper Rod to be an annoying cheat that too many DMs lean on too heavily, and nobody has ever even suggested bolting on random homebrew to fix the warlock's casting woes. We just assume warlocks aren't supposed to cast spells.
Might I also point out that if "everybody" uses an awful cheaty magic item or random homebrew to patch the warlock's casting while saying "warlock casting is *fiiiiiiine*", they're being just a little disingenuous? Clearly warlock casting is NOT fine or people wouldn't assume the dumbass Rod is mandatory, or bolt random homebrew onto their warlocks to kludge more spells out of it.
Personally, I'm in the camp that likes Pact Magic... I would love to see it improved. I don't think I've ever played at a table with a Warlock in the party where the Warlock wasn't eventually given some magic item or homebrewed class feature to get an extra pact magic spell slot. But the uniqueness is part of the appeal, and I also like the simplicity of it all... you get two spell slots, they're always at high level, and they come back on a short rest. I like that. I think it could use some rebalancing... especially as players are increasingly more "narrative" in their play, and that makes it harder to justify short rests. When you're playing something like a videogame, and a "short rest" is just the screen going black, maybe a jingle plays and everyone pops out recovered. But increasingly with characters focused more on narrative and RP, short rests slow down the game. Once everyone sits down to relax it becomes this RP moment where everyone sits around and jokes, and I've seen short rests that last an actual, real-life hour because the players start joking around and doing other stuff. I think the only time I see players just kind of hand-wave short rests is if they just had a lengthy RP sequence with no combat, and someone says, "Hey, did that count as a short rest?"
So I think that needs to be addressed... I've seen several people suggest that Short Rests should just work like they do in Baldur's Gate 3... where they're basically instantaneous but you have a limited number you can take in a day. Honestly, I'd be very surprised if that doesn't get included, at the very least, as an optional rule when OneDnD releases. We're already seeing a similar feature attempted as the fix for Warlocks... where a Warlock has a limited ability to just kind of take a short rest on their own without slowing everyone else down.
That all said... what I would like to see is just Invocations for this kind of thing. Like how the new Pact of the Tome includes a single 1st level Spell slot that functions like a normal spell slot. I'd love to see that expanded on... I don't know if it would be best to have something where a single Invocation gives you 1/2 or 1/3 caster spell slots in addition to your pact slots, or if it would work best to have multiple invocations that gradually unlock more traditional spell slots, so if you choose to have the spellcasting abilities of a more traditional spellcaster it will cost you invocations.
I think an alternative that has me intrigued is to open up the ability to cast more low-level spells without spell slots. We've already got stuff like Mask of Many Faces or Whispers of the Dead which lets you just cast some specific utility spells all you want. I feel like an option is to swap those kinds of invocations out and replace them with something that just allows you to choose whichever spell you want on your spell list and unlock the ability to cast it endlessly. It might need some restrictions... maybe restrict it to 1st level spells that have a casting time of 1 action and do not deal damage or something like that. But I think that is an interesting niche for Warlocks to occupy... very, very good at outputting low-level spells all day long, but with more limited high level casting.
What I've done with all my warlocks is I MC into another spell caster class to shore up the shortcomings with pact magic. It sucks, and I dislike having to go that route, but pact magic while interesting, just doesn't stand up on it's own. Even with rod of the pact keeper (which they are essentially giving as a class feature in UA 7). It either needs more invocation support or some way to access additional non-max level spell slots. What does that look like? Hard to say. 1/3 caster has been recommended. Extra spells via invocation's been suggested. Maybe adjusting pact magic to grant some lower level slots (though I think having those on a long reset is safer than lower level slots ALSO resetting on a short rest) is the answer. WOTC needs to figure out warlocks sooner rather than later.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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I do get that, but I'd much rather see just a small number of uses per day that refresh all of your Pact Magic slots. Then it becomes an actual resource management issue that WOTC can balance the class features around instead of something that the entire table and the DM needs to agree to. Imagine if Magical Cunning had a progression similar to a Cleric's Channel Divinity, starting with 1 refresh and then gaining a 2nd, then finally a 3rd refresh as a capstone or similar?
Because when it comes to a spellcaster and their magic, the DM shouldn't be creating a scenario where the player can't use their core features because the rest of the party is looking at a different refresh mechanic.
I like leaning into invocations. With the options you have, you can do so much "at will" that slots themselves shouldn't matter much.
I know a lot of people will whine about slots, but the warlock is not supposed to be "yet another full caster sorcerer/wizard clone".
Don't like casting the same spells over and over?
Pick another class.
What do you think martials do all day every day?
Furthermore, rather than giving more slots or more rests, my spicy take would be to make your patron's granted spells "at will" as well, further adding flavor and options to your caster.
Regular casting is more of customization/flavor option.
Edit: by regular casting I mean "pact magic" - the actual spell slots you use rather than your at will invocations.. It's tiresome trying to keep all the damned language specificities in order.
Ideally you would have:
1. your pact, which defines the type of warlock you are and what your speciality is,
2.the patron which defines the flavor your magic takes on, and
3.your invocations which are power ups for your pact as well as giving your some extra perks or at will abilities like feats do for all characters.
4.Your pact magic spell slots are just a few "extra" options to represent that you're not totally inept at the arcane without your patron's help.
It should also be noted the warlock gets far more options than other spell casters when it comes to flexibility, including more than the bard, the supposed jack of all trades, and the sorcerer, the one with innate spellcasting.
Only the warlock can just natively imbue their weapons with magic
Only the warlock can have spells at will that would either burn slots or take time to cast (time, remember, that everyone complains that a short rest of an hour is too damned long. Warlocks can at will spells that are supposed to take an 15 min to an hour normally)
Only warlocks auto-upcast.
So what if they don't reach the topmost peaks of magic? Oh wait! The STILL DO through the mystic arcanum giving them at least ONE spell slot for each level above 5.
What more can you want?
"What more can you want?"
A class that's functional without relying on an optional mechanic many tables disregard.
People keep assuming there's only two choices - completely and utterly unmodified Pact Magic and a warlock class that is 100% word-for-word identical to the 2014 release with absolutely no updates or solutions for the class's shit "spellcasting" ie. UA7...or a one-for-one clone of the wizard.
This is dramatically untrue, and the fact that Wizards has framed the "debate" this way is a severe failing on them, not anything else.
Pact Magic being utterly awful does not mean conventional spellcasting is the only other answer. It means Pact Magic is utterly awful and we could've really used the third-option alternative Wizards was too cowardly to give us.
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I agree. But I think that pact magic sucks on purpose. I honestly think that the class SHOULDN'T BE TRYING TO CAST SPELLS. (Caps for emphasis as on phone and cannot italicize).
They're a blaster class. Or a ritual caster class. Or just in general a non-caster caster class? They treat spells as martials treat weapons.
I think too many people are wanting it to act like a purely spellcasting class, if that makes any sense.
Edit: which is to say most players aren't playing to the class. So either make the warlock yet another caster, since that's what everyone seems to want and imagine, and create a new original class to fill the quirky niche of what it's supposed to be, or explicitly tell the audience wtf you are aiming for with the class
We want it to have something in common with a regular spellcasting class, because when you don't do that you get the incredible table-tilting powerhouse that is the Way of Four Elements Monk. It also really sucks to have every table with only a Warlock ask "why don't we have a real spellcaster?" because they can only cast 2-3 spells per day if the DM isn't carefully following an encounter clock.
Seriously, at level 7 an Arcane Trickster Rogue or an Eldritch Knight Fighter can cast more leveled spells than a Warlock per day than an equivalent level Warlock can until level 11 unless that Warlock gets 2 short rests. By level 20 the Warlock needs at least 2 short rests to cast more spells than a Fighter or a Rogue. That's really wierd that a subclass for a non-magical class can cast more spells than a dedicated spellcaster.
Yeah, I feel like a significant fraction are playing (or want to play) warlock for the flavour and then get disappointed with the mechanics, they want to play a full caster who gets their magic by selling their soul. They should change to flavour text of the warlock to emphasize that it is a WARlock, a warrior-type character that uses spells rather than weapons.
On phone, can't trim my quotes, apologies/deal w/it.
Anyways.
The warlock is not a "blaster" class. Blasters need to be able to BLAST, i.e. deal AoE damage to multiple targets. Eldritch Bonk is not "blasting".
"Ritual Casting" isn't a class, and if it was then the wizard would beat the warlock stupid at it since the wizard gets ritual spells basically for free while the warlock has to pay with precious spells-known selections.
"Non-caster caster" is exactly the problem. The game treats them like spellcasters but doesn't give them the tools to succeed as spellcasters unless you spam thirteen billion short rests. Blade warlocks are a shitty meme that die for free if they ever actually try and exist as a melee class, Tome warlocks are "I wanted my warlock to actually cast spells but this is the best I could do I guess", and Chain just feels like the way the damn Familiar spell should work in general - and I say that as someone with a Chain warlock as one of their favorite Eternal Standby characters. I'm still waiting for my chance to play Memory, even if my other two warlocks have shown me she'll be actively ******* terrible.
And besides! If people truly wanted the warlock to be a "non-caster sprllcaster", what was wrong with the excellent foundation that was the half-caster variation?
People are so irrationally attached to the whole UnIqUe AnD qUiRkY thing with warlocks that they completely overlook the fact that the class still has to be effective. It is not. It never will be until Pact Magic is dispensed with. One way or another.
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It's funny because mere seconds ago, I was just reading on another site a read up that made exactly the same points I had above, (warlock being a blaster, it's spells being basically the same as martial's weapons, etc...), but also compared them to the paladin. Which is kind of true. It's a martial class that has basically one consistent caster feature: smite. "I hit it and then I use smite". It's the only type of thing it really casts, and the rest are "perks".
Outside of that, it's all subclasses and the subclasses feel like they're trying to give multiclassing (same goes for the martial caster subclasses, to more of less success (bladesinger, wildshape druid, etc...,) ) without it being multiclassing.
Which in itself could be a radically different answer to multiclassing: make multiclassing more prohibitive, and give more subclass options that blend a flavor appropriate general caster with a martial, or a flavor appropriate generalized martial with a caster. (This is just an off the cuff idea, I haven't given it terribly much thought)
I agree with the blast being a bit weak. And I agree about rituals.
That's why I advocate pacts being subclasses, not patrons. Your pact or the blade should scale to give you more damage. Your tome should give you more spellcasting (or at least more powerful cantrips). Your chain should give you more powerful familiars.
The invocations should be increased. They should give you your ritual castings and such for free so you can spam the hell out of them.
I'm not disagreeing. I'm giving another option. I'm just not increasing spellcasting itself.
WotC really need to figure out what they are doing with subclasses, and how they want to address the demand for gishes. Because right now, gishes are killing non-magic martials. I'm a moderator on a West Marches Server with 60+ players and an absolutely huge number of Hex-blade MC Charisma-gishes, plus Fighters are mostly EKs, Rogues are mostly AT. In my table games, its pretty common for the entire party to be at least 1/2 casters.
Right now they are failing at it. And a lot of the reason they are failing at it are Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade. It feels to me like they created those cantrips without really thinking through the implications, players discovered how God-Darn powerful you can make them and fell it love with that, and now WotC can't get rid of them because of the popularity of them, and popular demand just keeps forcing WotC to make them more and more accessible.
I think there's a lot of hard choices that have to be made.
I also think the company will be forced to deal with contraction of it's sales and player base in the near future, and that it is inevitable.
They can do nothing and players will start experimenting with new games.
They can change the game and either lean I to the power creep and mechanics that people say they want or they can make Bob the Fish's Official Recommendations (tm) and either way retain some people for a while while alienating others.
They can try to do something new, but then that will alienate the existing players that love what they have and don't want new.
No option is really good, but with how often I hear "have you tried pathfinder?" from people, I am most surprised they're trying to make their game feel a bit more like the competition and hopefully lure people back or at least stop some of the people switching, while basically doing #2 and avoiding #1 and #3.
Edit: also it should be mentioned the contraction IS inevitable. You can only hit so big an audience and only monetize so far before there is an inevitable contraction. It's just something no company ever wants to admit to.
This debate will never end because every player and DM has different views. Some are shaped by play style and others by how long we have been playing. I disagree with most of your commentary on the Warlock.
2014
Warloks original 5e design was a ranged cantrip damage dealer that could cast spells as powerful as any other Mage, but in limited supply. It’s a decent design, but understandably boring. It was the fighter of casters. “I attack” mirrored by “I cast Eldritch Blast” 90% of combat. When built a certain way a Warlock easily cast more spells per day than any caster thanks to having great low level at will spells, but they are all out of combat role play, exploration and infiltration spells, so if you aren’t playing that kind of game or you aren’t that kind of player you won’t take those invocations.
Warlock invocations and pacts gave them the best versions of things. Agonizing blast gave them the best attack cantrip, along with repelling blast and other invocations to augment it even more. Pact of the tome let you pick up utility cantrips like guidance, spare the dying, or diversify your damage cantrips. Book of Ancient Secrets made the Warlock the best ritual caster in the game with DM fiat (doesn’t matter if you can do a thing if you never find a scroll to copy). Pact of the chain gave them the best familiar and voice of the chain made scouting ridiculously easy. I don’t believe that familiars should all work like pact of chain. As a DM it would make me have to be way more cautious about map design. Pact of the Blade was trash that made you Mad, but on Hexblade it works and makes you a versatile combatant on par with Swords Bard and Swashbuckler. The flaw is it was too good with multiclass and most people went that route.
2024 UA
That Half Caster Warlock was trash as a Warlock from my perspective. Casting scorching ray while the Wizard is dropping fireballs I wasn’t going to feel good. For me and probably many others spell progression is more important on a Warlock than spell slots.
The fact that they brought many at will invocations down to a more appropriate level means the Warlock has more options to cast more than ever before. The flaw being the same as 2014 that most of those spells are for out of combat RP, exploration, and infiltration, so it won’t excite some players. Also they made the mistake of removing invocations just because the spell was added to the spell list and can now be ritual cast. That shows a fundamental lack of understanding players and the power of options by WotC design team. Having the option to not use a spell prepared for detect magic and being able to cast it at will is worth an invocation. They need to bring back and update all the invocations from supplement books.
I have tried to figure out ways to give Warlock more casting without disrupting its uniqueness and invocations, but I’m starting to think that’s not possible. I really like the 1/3 spellcaster with pact magic combo, but the more I look at it I see how it’s still too strong. It’s literally having your cake and eating it too.
Final note, the class is effective, just not at what you want it to be effective at. It is effective at non combat casting. It is effective at consistent albeit boring damage with eldritch blast. It is effective at versatility depending on subclass, pact and invocation choices. I’ll will admit that Warlock is one of few classes you can literally build wrong in 5e, but that is because a lot of how effective your warlock will be depends on choices you make.
I don't think 1/3 caster is too strong at all. Those low level spell slots offer some options, but not the same kind of raw power that full casters have, not to mention that pact magic caps out at level 5, and mystic arcanum is once per day.
EDIT: Warlock players want to cast more spells per day. WOTC admits this and they want to accommodate that, so they say. Adding additional PACT magic slots /would/ be too strong. So, that leaves adding lower level spell slots. 1/3 is the slowest existing progression, and adds more flavor than it adds POWER. Many EK players have tried to build blasters out of 1/3 progression and failed...because 1/3 casters enhance rather than define.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Agreed.
In my experience (and clearly Crawford's too because he explicitly talks about the pact slot hoarding problem in the UA 5 video), many/most Warlocks are reluctant to drop both their pact slots in a single combat - because the chances that there's another one coming up, or even a social/exploration challenge that can't be resolved with a cantrip, before they can grab a short rest are higher than the chances that they can reliably SR after every fight. And it's Pascal's Wager too - if they're wrong to be cautious because the DM turned out to be generous with campaign pacing and letting them get a bunch of rests after every fight / whenever they want, they weren't in much danger anyway so it literally doesn't matter.
End result - they hoard, and become cantrip turrets just in case. To use Crawford's own words, that's not satisfying.
Personally, I'm in the camp that likes Pact Magic... I would love to see it improved. I don't think I've ever played at a table with a Warlock in the party where the Warlock wasn't eventually given some magic item or homebrewed class feature to get an extra pact magic spell slot. But the uniqueness is part of the appeal, and I also like the simplicity of it all... you get two spell slots, they're always at high level, and they come back on a short rest. I like that. I think it could use some rebalancing... especially as players are increasingly more "narrative" in their play, and that makes it harder to justify short rests. When you're playing something like a videogame, and a "short rest" is just the screen going black, maybe a jingle plays and everyone pops out recovered. But increasingly with characters focused more on narrative and RP, short rests slow down the game. Once everyone sits down to relax it becomes this RP moment where everyone sits around and jokes, and I've seen short rests that last an actual, real-life hour because the players start joking around and doing other stuff. I think the only time I see players just kind of hand-wave short rests is if they just had a lengthy RP sequence with no combat, and someone says, "Hey, did that count as a short rest?"
So I think that needs to be addressed... I've seen several people suggest that Short Rests should just work like they do in Baldur's Gate 3... where they're basically instantaneous but you have a limited number you can take in a day. Honestly, I'd be very surprised if that doesn't get included, at the very least, as an optional rule when OneDnD releases. We're already seeing a similar feature attempted as the fix for Warlocks... where a Warlock has a limited ability to just kind of take a short rest on their own without slowing everyone else down.
That all said... what I would like to see is just Invocations for this kind of thing. Like how the new Pact of the Tome includes a single 1st level Spell slot that functions like a normal spell slot. I'd love to see that expanded on... I don't know if it would be best to have something where a single Invocation gives you 1/2 or 1/3 caster spell slots in addition to your pact slots, or if it would work best to have multiple invocations that gradually unlock more traditional spell slots, so if you choose to have the spellcasting abilities of a more traditional spellcaster it will cost you invocations.
I think an alternative that has me intrigued is to open up the ability to cast more low-level spells without spell slots. We've already got stuff like Mask of Many Faces or Whispers of the Dead which lets you just cast some specific utility spells all you want. I feel like an option is to swap those kinds of invocations out and replace them with something that just allows you to choose whichever spell you want on your spell list and unlock the ability to cast it endlessly. It might need some restrictions... maybe restrict it to 1st level spells that have a casting time of 1 action and do not deal damage or something like that. But I think that is an interesting niche for Warlocks to occupy... very, very good at outputting low-level spells all day long, but with more limited high level casting.
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The insistence by WOTC to give cha to warlocks available at level 1 is the problem here. If martials had to invest 3 levels to get to adding your charisma to your melee attacks, I think things would be much less problematic. It's the 1 and 2 level dips that cause a ton of problems. WOTC to this point seems unwilling to address that for reasons beyond me. If blade pacts have to suffer til level 3 using dex weapons to keep MC from breaking things, so be it. It's for the good of the game.
Aside from the fact that warlock is my favorite class in spite of problematic pact magic, it should not be allowed to break the game. I would by far prefer to see warlock utterly neutered than to break the system math. To allow 2 levels of an extremely niche playstyle to cause problems? That's just not right.
EDIT: Going to add to this that it would be much less problematic if WOTC had stuck to their guns in 2014 and made warlocks an INT caster instead of allowing it to synergize with with paladins, bards and sorcerers. If they are so completely hellbent on allowing blade pact to be "online" at level 1, just change that. Change from a CHA focus to an INT focus, and now the multi-class issues are greatly reduced. yes, it synergizes with Wizard. As if they want to give up their progression and capstones to water themselves down with Warlock levels. And artificers, who are niche enough to not warrant inclusion in the 2024 PHB.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
This is an interesting point. It seems to me that WotC are going to try the video-game franchise model, where you keep the core mechanics constant and just rerelease basically the same game with a few tweaks every few years - (see COD, Assassin's Creed, DOOM, Mario, etc..). Will that work for a TTRPG? I don't know, and I don't know that anyone knows, but I guess we will find out.
Just noting, Transmorpher, that I have never been in or personally heard of a campaign where a warlock got *anything* to improve their casting, outside this forum. Most of the players I know consider the Pactkeeper Rod to be an annoying cheat that too many DMs lean on too heavily, and nobody has ever even suggested bolting on random homebrew to fix the warlock's casting woes. We just assume warlocks aren't supposed to cast spells.
Might I also point out that if "everybody" uses an awful cheaty magic item or random homebrew to patch the warlock's casting while saying "warlock casting is *fiiiiiiine*", they're being just a little disingenuous? Clearly warlock casting is NOT fine or people wouldn't assume the dumbass Rod is mandatory, or bolt random homebrew onto their warlocks to kludge more spells out of it.
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What I've done with all my warlocks is I MC into another spell caster class to shore up the shortcomings with pact magic. It sucks, and I dislike having to go that route, but pact magic while interesting, just doesn't stand up on it's own. Even with rod of the pact keeper (which they are essentially giving as a class feature in UA 7). It either needs more invocation support or some way to access additional non-max level spell slots. What does that look like? Hard to say. 1/3 caster has been recommended. Extra spells via invocation's been suggested. Maybe adjusting pact magic to grant some lower level slots (though I think having those on a long reset is safer than lower level slots ALSO resetting on a short rest) is the answer. WOTC needs to figure out warlocks sooner rather than later.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha