I had rod of the pact keeper and I never felt that made pact magic "fine". it was nice to have sure, but I never felt like I had it made once I had acquired one.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
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.
Making it another intelligence caster is something i hadn't considered. I don't like it role play wise, but it means 2 int casters rather than 3 cha casters, and it evens the spell casting stats out.
I think regardless of stat, starting off level one with just your patron and your eldritch blast and not getting your actual pact boon (pact of the_____) or any invocations till level 3 is a good way to discourage most multiclass dips.
It's the at will invocations and pacts that are most appealing. Just getting eldritch blast and a couple spells isn't going to tickle anyone's fancy. Plus it'll reaffirm the class as a blaster and the spam casting, hopefully letting players know, "hey, yeah, this is what you are signing up.for".
I mean rogues need at least 3 levels till they can do their thing.
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.
not for nothing, i'm plenty annoyed at warlocks being given the tiefling treatment where they might be misunderstood and persecuted or they might be just a quirky color pallet choice in a sea of quirky snowflakes [sorry, i know that's a loaded word], quickly normalized. before fiddling with the mechanisms, i feel it would benefit the class more immediately to break with the 'taboo' and 'dark scholar' main identities in UA8, touch grass, and end too-easy multiclass dips. from there, see what consensus is of those that remain.
that doesn't mean ditch the fiend and great old ones patrons! every good class has it's shadowy sub-stuff. instead, i have this theory that allowing warlock to be defacto 'troubled background' in dipped-class form is consequently spreading around lots of un-mundane features (magic swords, short rest pact spells, at will disguise self, etc). while these dips observably dilute CHA classes and martials, it's also normalizing being magical and side-lining being heroically mundane. which leads to more EK and trickster sublcasses too. because magical is the meme. or maybe i'm reading too much into this?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
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.
It already sucks.
It's a separate thing from what I was talking about(I was trying to be agnostic to the digitalization aspect and descibe the issue of they were just to do "business as usual" releasing books and maintaining the existing site) but yeah, that just plain sucks.
They use the new rules as default and old rules "disappear".
Lizard folk's crafting for example. I got Tasha's and Xanathar's and even Fizban's, but none of them have a section saying "oh, by the way, lizard folk no longer craft".
At a certain point, all default character creation now uses Tasha's species rule.... which is fine. I'm not bringing up the politics of it.
I just like the old system's restrictions, because it feels less like "cheating" to maximize a build. I like odd species/class combos and the restrictions give me something to build around.
That said, the defaults shifting threw me for a loop.
Or sometimes I generate a random character through the randomizer. Recently I wanted to check a build with a species swap to see what trait options would come up (Tasha's custom lineage actually), but could not rebuild my character's original randomized species options. Some of the options were just gone.
It's showing strain and cracks already as it hasn't even started...
Finally, the pandemic ended, and there's slowly more interest growing (mostly Gen Z, oddly enough) who want to do more in person playing and also in general decouple their lives from the internet.
I think doubling down on subscriptions and digitization in the face of economic and social trends is...... unwise. But then I'm also feel this is very typical of corporations, which are slow to move and adapt, which is why so many implement things that were new/trending 3-5 years ago.
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.
I've gotta say, I don't quite get the sarcastic aggression in the second paragraph there. I fully agree that Pact Magic is inherently flawed and needs a fix of some kind. I don't think I ever said that "Warlock casting is fine". I just personally like enough parts of pact magic that I don't think just turning the class into a half-caster is the solution.
The sarcastic aggression, such as it is, wasn't targeted at you so much as all the people who feel like the base warlock is "fine" because they patch it with half a dozen magic items or bits of homebrew. That's certainly *A* solution, but it's dumb to consider it *THE* solution when we're talking about base rules revisions. The Pact rod is straight up cheese, there is no good time or good way to give it to a warlock without it feeling like OOC pandering - and yes, this is a negative thing - and homebrew should never be *required* to make a class functional.
Ah, sorry, I took your whole message as directed specifically at me. I do agree with you, though... the fact that so many tables feel that the Warlock needs a fix is a clear sign. I've played in two games where the Warlock was given a Rod of the Pact Keeper, and in both situations it was flavored as a gift that the Patron themselves gave directly to the Warlock, because there's really no logical reason that they would find the one tool that fixes a major problem of their class just randomly in a chest somewhere.
not for nothing, i'm plenty annoyed at warlocks being given the tiefling treatment where they might be misunderstood and persecuted or they might be just a quirky color pallet choice in a sea of quirky snowflakes [sorry, i know that's a loaded word], quickly normalized. before fiddling with the mechanisms, i feel it would benefit the class more immediately to break with the 'taboo' and 'dark scholar' main identities in UA8, touch grass, and end too-easy multiclass dips. from there, see what consensus is of those that remain.
that doesn't mean ditch the fiend and great old ones patrons! every good class has it's shadowy sub-stuff. instead, i have this theory that allowing warlock to be defacto 'troubled background' in dipped-class form is consequently spreading around lots of un-mundane features (magic swords, short rest pact spells, at will disguise self, etc). while these dips observably dilute CHA classes and martials, it's also normalizing being magical and side-lining being heroically mundane. which leads to more EK and trickster sublcasses too. because magical is the meme. or maybe i'm reading too much into this?
I think you're overshooting on this one.
Unfortunately as much as broody edgelords are back in vogue (and I was in HS for the grunge/goth days of the 90's where too many kids were obsessed with The Crow and hot topic, and trust me, it's SUPER awkward to see kids doing that these days), I think video games really ruined it and what I see is that people have less characters and more "builds".
I think the Tasha shake down has yet to really hit and once they do, custom lineage might be a bit more be impactful. Free skills and a feat before you pick a level is pretty damned big (especially since you CAN do a weapon proficiency outside of your class, which skips some multiclassing for access to say, a greatsword or a heavy crossbow or...), and you might see a shift. It's hard though because other species have a LOT of desirable add one and the stat restrictions now remove the dilemma of stats or species traits like dark vision or swim speed or unarmored AC...
Browse the rogue forum and look at the favorite race question. It's all answers about tabaxi for movement or this race for that. It's not really...role play.
I think also what you are seeing is just the fact that people lack creativity.
As I mentioned above, I like creative mixes. I got a Goliath archfey chain warlock* in the wings I'm itching to play, and he's getting traditional warlock stat boosts, which AREN'T cha.
I think something like that is criticized unfairly by a lot of players as suboptimal and other players are afraid of playing something like that because them they'll be "playing it wrong" and made fun of not optimizing their build correctly.
Multiclassing is a munchkin move most of the time. Occasionally you'll get someone who might want to change class, but with feats that can grant you just about any SINGLE thing you might want to multiclass for, multiclassing is the better optimization option, even if a just grabbing a feat is mostly supposed to be a lifestyle improvement choice.
Anyhow, builds are more the thing than character trends.
*I have an idea for him to be "tricked" into the pact, by "stealing" his arcane focus, which was something just handed to him by one of the fey, and occasionally has to do something for his patron, like stealing silverware, not for any real benefit, except that it pleases his patron to force him to do something that is against his code (the warlock being lawful to neutral good). His pseudodragon familiar is really just another victim of the archery's whims.
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.
It is too strong if you keep all my favorite invocations. The moment you really lean into the 1/3 caster + Warlock you need to remove most of the best low level at will spell invocations. I guess they technically already remove Eldritch Sight and Beast Speech. You also need to remove mask of Many Faces and a majority of the at wills. I think you could still have 8 invocations on the class, but the level 1-4 spell at wills probably shouldn’t be a thing. They should be added to spell list. As for the spells that were once a day I suppose we could keep those invocations.
Deliberately making your character worse at its primary job for no discernible reason save that it pleases your sensibilities to do so does not make "munchkins" bad, or *you* any better for that matter. Playing a godawful gobshyte stat array for your class because The Failing Dice Tell a Story should be a personal decision, mot a decision forced by the game's character generation rules. A goliath warlock with 5 Charisma is not automatically a better story than a half-elf with 16 Charisma. The 5-Cha goliath is *definitely* a worse warlock in pure mechanical terms, however, and the other players at the table don't necessarily deserve being forced to carry this boat anchor that cannot function in its chosen primary role through the game without any say in it. Self-sabotage is not just SELF sabotage in D&D.
Deliberately making your character worse at its primary job for no discernible reason save that it pleases your sensibilities to do so does not make "munchkins" bad, or *you* any better for that matter. Playing a godawful gobshyte stat array for your class because The Failing Dice Tell a Story should be a personal decision, mot a decision forced by the game's character generation rules. A goliath warlock with 5 Charisma is not automatically a better story than a half-elf with 16 Charisma. The 5-Cha goliath is *definitely* a worse warlock in pure mechanical terms, however, and the other players at the table don't necessarily deserve being forced to carry this boat anchor that cannot function in its chosen primary role through the game without any say in it. Self-sabotage is not just SELF sabotage in D&D.
I didn't say it made me better, nor did I say ANYTHING about the rolls or the stats. You're being way overly defensive...lol
It's a role playing game. That's what RPG stands for. The RP is role playing.
I build characters based on what I want to ROLE PLAY, and not so i can run from combat to combat and blast everything on easy mode.
Also, that's exactly what I'm talking about when i said new players would be afraid.
The game itself is already massively unbalanced monster to player in favor of players. You should focus less on "winning" combat and more on having fun with your friends at the table.
not for nothing, i'm plenty annoyed at warlocks being given the tiefling treatment where they might be misunderstood and persecuted or they might be just a quirky color pallet choice in a sea of quirky snowflakes [sorry, i know that's a loaded word], quickly normalized. before fiddling with the mechanisms, i feel it would benefit the class more immediately to break with the 'taboo' and 'dark scholar' main identities in UA8, touch grass, and end too-easy multiclass dips. from there, see what consensus is of those that remain.
that doesn't mean ditch the fiend and great old ones patrons! every good class has it's shadowy sub-stuff. instead, i have this theory that allowing warlock to be defacto 'troubled background' in dipped-class form is consequently spreading around lots of un-mundane features (magic swords, short rest pact spells, at will disguise self, etc). while these dips observably dilute CHA classes and martials, it's also normalizing being magical and side-lining being heroically mundane. which leads to more EK and trickster sublcasses too. because magical is the meme. or maybe i'm reading too much into this?
I think you're overshooting on this one.
Unfortunately as much as broody edgelords are back in vogue (and I was in HS for the grunge/goth days of the 90's where too many kids were obsessed with The Crow and hot topic, and trust me, it's SUPER awkward to see kids doing that these days), I think video games really ruined it and what I see is that people have less characters and more "builds".
I think the Tasha shake down has yet to really hit and once they do, custom lineage might be a bit more be impactful. Free skills and a feat before you pick a level is pretty damned big (especially since you CAN do a weapon proficiency outside of your class, which skips some multiclassing for access to say, a greatsword or a heavy crossbow or...), and you might see a shift. It's hard though because other species have a LOT of desirable add one and the stat restrictions now remove the dilemma of stats or species traits like dark vision or swim speed or unarmored AC...
Browse the rogue forum and look at the favorite race question. It's all answers about tabaxi for movement or this race for that. It's not really...role play.
I think also what you are seeing is just the fact that people lack creativity.
As I mentioned above, I like creative mixes. I got a Goliath archfey chain warlock* in the wings I'm itching to play, and he's getting traditional warlock stat boosts, which AREN'T cha.
I think something like that is criticized unfairly by a lot of players as suboptimal and other players are afraid of playing something like that because them they'll be "playing it wrong" and made fun of not optimizing their build correctly.
Multiclassing is a munchkin move most of the time. Occasionally you'll get someone who might want to change class, but with feats that can grant you just about any SINGLE thing you might want to multiclass for, multiclassing is the better optimization option, even if a just grabbing a feat is mostly supposed to be a lifestyle improvement choice.
Anyhow, builds are more the thing than character trends.
*I have an idea for him to be "tricked" into the pact, by "stealing" his arcane focus, which was something just handed to him by one of the fey, and occasionally has to do something for his patron, like stealing silverware, not for any real benefit, except that it pleases his patron to force him to do something that is against his code (the warlock being lawful to neutral good). His pseudodragon familiar is really just another victim of the archery's whims.
The reason you see builds and not character is because at its core D&D is a game about manipulating dice rolls. People want to figure out how to succeed on more dice rolls. Combat has more dice rolls than any other part of the game so a lot of people only focus on combat. Also most importantly it’s easier to have discussions and debates about best builds than it is best character storylines. Most people aren’t going on forums to look for their characters backstory (some actually do.)
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.
It is too strong if you keep all my favorite invocations. The moment you really lean into the 1/3 caster + Warlock you need to remove most of the best low level at will spell invocations. I guess they technically already remove Eldritch Sight and Beast Speech. You also need to remove mask of Many Faces and a majority of the at wills. I think you could still have 8 invocations on the class, but the level 1-4 spell at wills probably shouldn’t be a thing. They should be added to spell list. As for the spells that were once a day I suppose we could keep those invocations.
For many or even most games, those are pretty low value invocations. Most of the at wills are of fairly low value; good outside combat, but utterly useless inside it. For an RP heavy campaign, I can acknowledge their value, but I don't think I'd care if I had a player who could do that at will AND have pact magic plus 1/3 casters. For invocations with some actual combat value, my would advocate to limiting to prof bonus times/short rest. It's enough uses to feel good, but not so much as to be "at will".
The invocations that I look at as too powerful are many of the EB enhancements, the pulls and pushes. The range boost is a trap, and agonizing blast imo should be baseline for all casters. Then of course there are things like devil's sight, but...that's not a rabbit hole to go down. In general, I think invocations need some revision, and there needs to be a lot more selection there to choose from.
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.
not for nothing, i'm plenty annoyed at warlocks being given the tiefling treatment where they might be misunderstood and persecuted or they might be just a quirky color pallet choice in a sea of quirky snowflakes [sorry, i know that's a loaded word], quickly normalized. before fiddling with the mechanisms, i feel it would benefit the class more immediately to break with the 'taboo' and 'dark scholar' main identities in UA8, touch grass, and end too-easy multiclass dips. from there, see what consensus is of those that remain.
that doesn't mean ditch the fiend and great old ones patrons! every good class has it's shadowy sub-stuff. instead, i have this theory that allowing warlock to be defacto 'troubled background' in dipped-class form is consequently spreading around lots of un-mundane features (magic swords, short rest pact spells, at will disguise self, etc). while these dips observably dilute CHA classes and martials, it's also normalizing being magical and side-lining being heroically mundane. which leads to more EK and trickster sublcasses too. because magical is the meme. or maybe i'm reading too much into this?
I think you're overshooting on this one.
Unfortunately as much as broody edgelords are back in vogue (and I was in HS for the grunge/goth days of the 90's where too many kids were obsessed with The Crow and hot topic, and trust me, it's SUPER awkward to see kids doing that these days), I think video games really ruined it and what I see is that people have less characters and more "builds".
I think the Tasha shake down has yet to really hit and once they do, custom lineage might be a bit more be impactful. Free skills and a feat before you pick a level is pretty damned big (especially since you CAN do a weapon proficiency outside of your class, which skips some multiclassing for access to say, a greatsword or a heavy crossbow or...), and you might see a shift. It's hard though because other species have a LOT of desirable add one and the stat restrictions now remove the dilemma of stats or species traits like dark vision or swim speed or unarmored AC...
Browse the rogue forum and look at the favorite race question. It's all answers about tabaxi for movement or this race for that. It's not really...role play.
I think also what you are seeing is just the fact that people lack creativity.
As I mentioned above, I like creative mixes. I got a Goliath archfey chain warlock* in the wings I'm itching to play, and he's getting traditional warlock stat boosts, which AREN'T cha.
I think something like that is criticized unfairly by a lot of players as suboptimal and other players are afraid of playing something like that because them they'll be "playing it wrong" and made fun of not optimizing their build correctly.
Multiclassing is a munchkin move most of the time. Occasionally you'll get someone who might want to change class, but with feats that can grant you just about any SINGLE thing you might want to multiclass for, multiclassing is the better optimization option, even if a just grabbing a feat is mostly supposed to be a lifestyle improvement choice.
Anyhow, builds are more the thing than character trends.
*I have an idea for him to be "tricked" into the pact, by "stealing" his arcane focus, which was something just handed to him by one of the fey, and occasionally has to do something for his patron, like stealing silverware, not for any real benefit, except that it pleases his patron to force him to do something that is against his code (the warlock being lawful to neutral good). His pseudodragon familiar is really just another victim of the archery's whims.
The reason you see builds and not character is because at its core D&D is a game about manipulating dice rolls. People want to figure out how to succeed on more dice rolls. Combat has more dice rolls than any other part of the game so a lot of people only focus on combat. Also most importantly it’s easier to have discussions and debates about best builds than it is best character storylines. Most people aren’t going on forums to look for their characters backstory (some actually do.)
It's not about manipulating dice. Well, ok, not all of it, which is why monsters are kind of a pushover in this version compared to others and why the mechanics were simplified...
To push forward role playing.
What is it that supposedly separated 5e from its predecessors?
The thing is the community itself exists at a time where rpg's and mmo's are mostly level grinding and best builds and anime is all about having "cheat codes" in RPG like worlds.
Where superheroes have dominated the theaters for the past (oh God...) decade or longer.
People utterly SUCK at playing a role. They live in a world where having flaws or being less than rich and powerful is damned near a death sentence...
I mean builds over characters is kind of a "duh" thing.
It's not my play style, but I was arguing that the warlock isn't being picked because it's an edgelords class nearly as much as people pick it for optimization.
.you want a player that's shooting themselves in the foot? Rangers.
You want an edgelords class, nearly 90% of the time? Rogues.
You want a class people pick because they THINK it's going to be straightforward and easy? Fighter. (They should have picked rogue).
I mean this isn't "I got 3hp, a dagger, and I have to wear robes andy best spell is dancing lights" like it was in AD&D here.. lol.
This isn't the equivalent of dark souls. It's more like your average FF game with the difficulty turned down a little bit.
Edit: ok. Before I get flamed too much here, it's not to say that it's bad to test out or try class features to see if they're exploitable or broken, but the goal shouldn't be to try and exploit them but to fix them. If it's too exploitable there's no challenge and no fun.
But I guess what I mean is that fun is the main goal, and sometimes it's good to keep it in perspective.
I mean this isn't "I got 3hp, a dagger, and I have to wear robes andy best spell is dancing lights" like it was in AD&D here.. lol.
This isn't the equivalent of dark souls. It's more like your average FF game with the difficulty turned down a little bit.
Casters were a lot less frequent back in those days lol.
That said, I really want to see opposition schools come back. I'd strongly consider that as a home brew to reign in casters wizards a bit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
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.
It is too strong if you keep all my favorite invocations. The moment you really lean into the 1/3 caster + Warlock you need to remove most of the best low level at will spell invocations. I guess they technically already remove Eldritch Sight and Beast Speech. You also need to remove mask of Many Faces and a majority of the at wills. I think you could still have 8 invocations on the class, but the level 1-4 spell at wills probably shouldn’t be a thing. They should be added to spell list. As for the spells that were once a day I suppose we could keep those invocations.
For many or even most games, those are pretty low value invocations. Most of the at wills are of fairly low value; good outside combat, but utterly useless inside it. For an RP heavy campaign, I can acknowledge their value, but I don't think I'd care if I had a player who could do that at will AND have pact magic plus 1/3 casters. For invocations with some actual combat value, my would advocate to limiting to prof bonus times/short rest. It's enough uses to feel good, but not so much as to be "at will".
The invocations that I look at as too powerful are many of the EB enhancements, the pulls and pushes. The range boost is a trap, and agonizing blast imo should be baseline for all casters. Then of course there are things like devil's sight, but...that's not a rabbit hole to go down. In general, I think invocations need some revision, and there needs to be a lot more selection there to choose from.
I think invocations are definitely the way to go as well.
The EB enhancements aren't so bad in and of themselves, it's more that if you have EB, you can collect them all in any order at any time.
I don't find moving things around on the battlefield to be terribly useful unless you're moving things out of AOE range so your companions can move out of range, OR if your DM is silly and just leaves all the monsters close enough for a spell with a geometry to hit (in which case you want to move the ones on the edge further in).
Spear is a bit more suspicious, though as a DM I honestly don't know when i would ever draw a 120 x120 square map.
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 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.
It is too strong if you keep all my favorite invocations. The moment you really lean into the 1/3 caster + Warlock you need to remove most of the best low level at will spell invocations. I guess they technically already remove Eldritch Sight and Beast Speech. You also need to remove mask of Many Faces and a majority of the at wills. I think you could still have 8 invocations on the class, but the level 1-4 spell at wills probably shouldn’t be a thing. They should be added to spell list. As for the spells that were once a day I suppose we could keep those invocations.
For many or even most games, those are pretty low value invocations. Most of the at wills are of fairly low value; good outside combat, but utterly useless inside it. For an RP heavy campaign, I can acknowledge their value, but I don't think I'd care if I had a player who could do that at will AND have pact magic plus 1/3 casters. For invocations with some actual combat value, my would advocate to limiting to prof bonus times/short rest. It's enough uses to feel good, but not so much as to be "at will".
The invocations that I look at as too powerful are many of the EB enhancements, the pulls and pushes. The range boost is a trap, and agonizing blast imo should be baseline for all casters. Then of course there are things like devil's sight, but...that's not a rabbit hole to go down. In general, I think invocations need some revision, and there needs to be a lot more selection there to choose from.
I think invocations are definitely the way to go as well.
The EB enhancements aren't so bad in and of themselves, it's more that if you have EB, you can collect them all in any order at any time.
I don't find moving things around on the battlefield to be terribly useful unless you're moving things out of AOE range so your companions can move out of range, OR if your DM is silly and just leaves all the monsters close enough for a spell with a geometry to hit (in which case you want to move the ones on the edge further in).
Spear is a bit more suspicious, though as a DM I honestly don't know when i would ever draw a 120 x120 square map.
My DMs never did (create big maps), and with my out of the box range, I remember not having enough range a time or two, but it was rare enough that I don't remember details.
As for moving things around, I found it tended to annoy the DM more than anything else, and stacking it up, bolting the same guy and moving him back felt cheesy so I quit doing it. I don't take those invocations anymore because the DM's life is hard enough. Why annoy him and slow things down by re-ordering the battlefield every round because I can. Let the martials do that with their new mastery attacks imo, at least they have to wade into melee and take some additional risks to do it.
Where I found it (at-will movement) particularly useful is "fixing" things for people. Monster rolls up on the sorc. Well let me push that away so you can reposition yourself without eating OA and such. Or pushing baddies into melee...powerful is probably the wrong word, it's not broken, but it felt cheesy and the DM didn't care for it, so I stopped using that invocation, and didn't take it on my next two warlocks. It's a social game and after DMing for some crap that I really didn't like in 4e, I try to limit things that antagonize.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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I had rod of the pact keeper and I never felt that made pact magic "fine". it was nice to have sure, but I never felt like I had it made once I had acquired one.
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
Making it another intelligence caster is something i hadn't considered. I don't like it role play wise, but it means 2 int casters rather than 3 cha casters, and it evens the spell casting stats out.
I think regardless of stat, starting off level one with just your patron and your eldritch blast and not getting your actual pact boon (pact of the_____) or any invocations till level 3 is a good way to discourage most multiclass dips.
It's the at will invocations and pacts that are most appealing. Just getting eldritch blast and a couple spells isn't going to tickle anyone's fancy. Plus it'll reaffirm the class as a blaster and the spam casting, hopefully letting players know, "hey, yeah, this is what you are signing up.for".
I mean rogues need at least 3 levels till they can do their thing.
not for nothing, i'm plenty annoyed at warlocks being given the tiefling treatment where they might be misunderstood and persecuted or they might be just a quirky color pallet choice in a sea of quirky snowflakes [sorry, i know that's a loaded word], quickly normalized. before fiddling with the mechanisms, i feel it would benefit the class more immediately to break with the 'taboo' and 'dark scholar' main identities in UA8, touch grass, and end too-easy multiclass dips. from there, see what consensus is of those that remain.
that doesn't mean ditch the fiend and great old ones patrons! every good class has it's shadowy sub-stuff. instead, i have this theory that allowing warlock to be defacto 'troubled background' in dipped-class form is consequently spreading around lots of un-mundane features (magic swords, short rest pact spells, at will disguise self, etc). while these dips observably dilute CHA classes and martials, it's also normalizing being magical and side-lining being heroically mundane. which leads to more EK and trickster sublcasses too. because magical is the meme. or maybe i'm reading too much into this?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
It already sucks.
It's a separate thing from what I was talking about(I was trying to be agnostic to the digitalization aspect and descibe the issue of they were just to do "business as usual" releasing books and maintaining the existing site) but yeah, that just plain sucks.
They use the new rules as default and old rules "disappear".
Lizard folk's crafting for example. I got Tasha's and Xanathar's and even Fizban's, but none of them have a section saying "oh, by the way, lizard folk no longer craft".
At a certain point, all default character creation now uses Tasha's species rule.... which is fine. I'm not bringing up the politics of it.
I just like the old system's restrictions, because it feels less like "cheating" to maximize a build. I like odd species/class combos and the restrictions give me something to build around.
That said, the defaults shifting threw me for a loop.
Or sometimes I generate a random character through the randomizer. Recently I wanted to check a build with a species swap to see what trait options would come up (Tasha's custom lineage actually), but could not rebuild my character's original randomized species options. Some of the options were just gone.
It's showing strain and cracks already as it hasn't even started...
Finally, the pandemic ended, and there's slowly more interest growing (mostly Gen Z, oddly enough) who want to do more in person playing and also in general decouple their lives from the internet.
I think doubling down on subscriptions and digitization in the face of economic and social trends is...... unwise. But then I'm also feel this is very typical of corporations, which are slow to move and adapt, which is why so many implement things that were new/trending 3-5 years ago.
I've gotta say, I don't quite get the sarcastic aggression in the second paragraph there. I fully agree that Pact Magic is inherently flawed and needs a fix of some kind. I don't think I ever said that "Warlock casting is fine". I just personally like enough parts of pact magic that I don't think just turning the class into a half-caster is the solution.
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The sarcastic aggression, such as it is, wasn't targeted at you so much as all the people who feel like the base warlock is "fine" because they patch it with half a dozen magic items or bits of homebrew. That's certainly *A* solution, but it's dumb to consider it *THE* solution when we're talking about base rules revisions. The Pact rod is straight up cheese, there is no good time or good way to give it to a warlock without it feeling like OOC pandering - and yes, this is a negative thing - and homebrew should never be *required* to make a class functional.
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Ah, sorry, I took your whole message as directed specifically at me. I do agree with you, though... the fact that so many tables feel that the Warlock needs a fix is a clear sign. I've played in two games where the Warlock was given a Rod of the Pact Keeper, and in both situations it was flavored as a gift that the Patron themselves gave directly to the Warlock, because there's really no logical reason that they would find the one tool that fixes a major problem of their class just randomly in a chest somewhere.
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And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I think you're overshooting on this one.
Unfortunately as much as broody edgelords are back in vogue (and I was in HS for the grunge/goth days of the 90's where too many kids were obsessed with The Crow and hot topic, and trust me, it's SUPER awkward to see kids doing that these days), I think video games really ruined it and what I see is that people have less characters and more "builds".
I think the Tasha shake down has yet to really hit and once they do, custom lineage might be a bit more be impactful. Free skills and a feat before you pick a level is pretty damned big (especially since you CAN do a weapon proficiency outside of your class, which skips some multiclassing for access to say, a greatsword or a heavy crossbow or...), and you might see a shift. It's hard though because other species have a LOT of desirable add one and the stat restrictions now remove the dilemma of stats or species traits like dark vision or swim speed or unarmored AC...
Browse the rogue forum and look at the favorite race question. It's all answers about tabaxi for movement or this race for that. It's not really...role play.
I think also what you are seeing is just the fact that people lack creativity.
As I mentioned above, I like creative mixes. I got a Goliath archfey chain warlock* in the wings I'm itching to play, and he's getting traditional warlock stat boosts, which AREN'T cha.
I think something like that is criticized unfairly by a lot of players as suboptimal and other players are afraid of playing something like that because them they'll be "playing it wrong" and made fun of not optimizing their build correctly.
Multiclassing is a munchkin move most of the time. Occasionally you'll get someone who might want to change class, but with feats that can grant you just about any SINGLE thing you might want to multiclass for, multiclassing is the better optimization option, even if a just grabbing a feat is mostly supposed to be a lifestyle improvement choice.
Anyhow, builds are more the thing than character trends.
*I have an idea for him to be "tricked" into the pact, by "stealing" his arcane focus, which was something just handed to him by one of the fey, and occasionally has to do something for his patron, like stealing silverware, not for any real benefit, except that it pleases his patron to force him to do something that is against his code (the warlock being lawful to neutral good). His pseudodragon familiar is really just another victim of the archery's whims.
It is too strong if you keep all my favorite invocations. The moment you really lean into the 1/3 caster + Warlock you need to remove most of the best low level at will spell invocations. I guess they technically already remove Eldritch Sight and Beast Speech. You also need to remove mask of Many Faces and a majority of the at wills. I think you could still have 8 invocations on the class, but the level 1-4 spell at wills probably shouldn’t be a thing. They should be added to spell list. As for the spells that were once a day I suppose we could keep those invocations.
Deliberately making your character worse at its primary job for no discernible reason save that it pleases your sensibilities to do so does not make "munchkins" bad, or *you* any better for that matter. Playing a godawful gobshyte stat array for your class because The Failing Dice Tell a Story should be a personal decision, mot a decision forced by the game's character generation rules. A goliath warlock with 5 Charisma is not automatically a better story than a half-elf with 16 Charisma. The 5-Cha goliath is *definitely* a worse warlock in pure mechanical terms, however, and the other players at the table don't necessarily deserve being forced to carry this boat anchor that cannot function in its chosen primary role through the game without any say in it. Self-sabotage is not just SELF sabotage in D&D.
Please do not contact or message me.
I didn't say it made me better, nor did I say ANYTHING about the rolls or the stats. You're being way overly defensive...lol
It's a role playing game. That's what RPG stands for. The RP is role playing.
I build characters based on what I want to ROLE PLAY, and not so i can run from combat to combat and blast everything on easy mode.
Also, that's exactly what I'm talking about when i said new players would be afraid.
The game itself is already massively unbalanced monster to player in favor of players. You should focus less on "winning" combat and more on having fun with your friends at the table.
The reason you see builds and not character is because at its core D&D is a game about manipulating dice rolls. People want to figure out how to succeed on more dice rolls. Combat has more dice rolls than any other part of the game so a lot of people only focus on combat. Also most importantly it’s easier to have discussions and debates about best builds than it is best character storylines. Most people aren’t going on forums to look for their characters backstory (some actually do.)
For many or even most games, those are pretty low value invocations. Most of the at wills are of fairly low value; good outside combat, but utterly useless inside it. For an RP heavy campaign, I can acknowledge their value, but I don't think I'd care if I had a player who could do that at will AND have pact magic plus 1/3 casters. For invocations with some actual combat value, my would advocate to limiting to prof bonus times/short rest. It's enough uses to feel good, but not so much as to be "at will".
The invocations that I look at as too powerful are many of the EB enhancements, the pulls and pushes. The range boost is a trap, and agonizing blast imo should be baseline for all casters. Then of course there are things like devil's sight, but...that's not a rabbit hole to go down. In general, I think invocations need some revision, and there needs to be a lot more selection there to choose from.
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
It's not about manipulating dice. Well, ok, not all of it, which is why monsters are kind of a pushover in this version compared to others and why the mechanics were simplified...
To push forward role playing.
What is it that supposedly separated 5e from its predecessors?
The thing is the community itself exists at a time where rpg's and mmo's are mostly level grinding and best builds and anime is all about having "cheat codes" in RPG like worlds.
Where superheroes have dominated the theaters for the past (oh God...) decade or longer.
People utterly SUCK at playing a role. They live in a world where having flaws or being less than rich and powerful is damned near a death sentence...
I mean builds over characters is kind of a "duh" thing.
It's not my play style, but I was arguing that the warlock isn't being picked because it's an edgelords class nearly as much as people pick it for optimization.
.you want a player that's shooting themselves in the foot? Rangers.
You want an edgelords class, nearly 90% of the time? Rogues.
You want a class people pick because they THINK it's going to be straightforward and easy? Fighter. (They should have picked rogue).
I mean this isn't "I got 3hp, a dagger, and I have to wear robes andy best spell is dancing lights" like it was in AD&D here.. lol.
This isn't the equivalent of dark souls. It's more like your average FF game with the difficulty turned down a little bit.
Edit: ok. Before I get flamed too much here, it's not to say that it's bad to test out or try class features to see if they're exploitable or broken, but the goal shouldn't be to try and exploit them but to fix them. If it's too exploitable there's no challenge and no fun.
But I guess what I mean is that fun is the main goal, and sometimes it's good to keep it in perspective.
Casters were a lot less frequent back in those days lol.
That said, I really want to see opposition schools come back. I'd strongly consider that as a home brew to reign in
casterswizards a bit.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
Oh HELL yeah. I played fighter and my cousin did cleric.
F*** THAT.
Lol. I didn't get to play opposition schools, but I remember hearing bits of it. It IS an interesting mechanic to revisit.
I think invocations are definitely the way to go as well.
The EB enhancements aren't so bad in and of themselves, it's more that if you have EB, you can collect them all in any order at any time.
I don't find moving things around on the battlefield to be terribly useful unless you're moving things out of AOE range so your companions can move out of range, OR if your DM is silly and just leaves all the monsters close enough for a spell with a geometry to hit (in which case you want to move the ones on the edge further in).
Spear is a bit more suspicious, though as a DM I honestly don't know when i would ever draw a 120 x120 square map.
ewwww it delayed multi-posted.
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
My DMs never did (create big maps), and with my out of the box range, I remember not having enough range a time or two, but it was rare enough that I don't remember details.
As for moving things around, I found it tended to annoy the DM more than anything else, and stacking it up, bolting the same guy and moving him back felt cheesy so I quit doing it. I don't take those invocations anymore because the DM's life is hard enough. Why annoy him and slow things down by re-ordering the battlefield every round because I can. Let the martials do that with their new mastery attacks imo, at least they have to wade into melee and take some additional risks to do it.
Where I found it (at-will movement) particularly useful is "fixing" things for people. Monster rolls up on the sorc. Well let me push that away so you can reposition yourself without eating OA and such. Or pushing baddies into melee...powerful is probably the wrong word, it's not broken, but it felt cheesy and the DM didn't care for it, so I stopped using that invocation, and didn't take it on my next two warlocks. It's a social game and after DMing for some crap that I really didn't like in 4e, I try to limit things that antagonize.
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