Negative about tier 3/4 martials, positive about the changes in the casters with some nit picking. Thank god they back tracked on that god awful 1/2 caster warlock. Big changes can be bad as well as good so celebrating change when its that terrible for changes sake I will not do.
But that's a straw man. Nobody celebrates changes just because. But there are things that are problematic, and one of those things is Pact Magic. Maybe not on your table, but on many. And it really is a poorly designed mechanic since it depends on how the short rests are managed. If you make many, or at will, the warlock is very powerful. If you make few, or none at all, warlock magic is an anecdote. In any case, since it is a problem on many gaming tables, it is best to change it. Was the Warlock Half caster tried and people didn't like it? Alright, let's try something different. These are the changes that are requested. It is asked to solve things that cause problems. Change is not asked for the sake of change.
It was not a problem of much significance on most gaming tables hence why they were in the top 3 favorite classes. You like WOTC did are mistaking people having a small issue where they think some tweaks can be done to improve things with a massive dislike of something that needs radical changes. And no it was not a straw man people have been making the argument that change is good just because its a big change which is brave and bold.
Well, actually Jeremy Crawford has said on several occasions that the main complaint about warlock is pact magic. That's why they tried to change it in the first place. So, yes, it is a problem on many tables. And a solution should be found.
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
I have at 0 point suggested changing the pace or narrative of the adventure. The 6 to 8 medium to hard is actually a suggested maximum. Not the average.
The suggestion is that there's a daily budget that you should use up. This generally takes 6-8 medium encounters, or a smaller number of harder encounters.
Actual adventure design tends towards 1-3 encounters that are all deadly.
And usually it is like 1 deadly with 2 mediums and, if random tables a chance of 1 or 2 more easy to medium. Point is it isn't 1 fight and the game does assume rests between.
Even in straud their is only around a 5% chance of an encounter every 10 minutes and half of those encounters can be avoided without rest interuption. So 80% of the time you can rest without interuption. To me that 20% adds to the suspense, which I think is the point given the tone of the adventure. It isn't supposed to prevent the party from resting it is supposed to add to the suspense.
This is actually a little different at low levels. First second and third levels have less encounters and less rest opportunities, but you also spend a fraction of the adventure at those levels by comparison.
Negative about tier 3/4 martials, positive about the changes in the casters with some nit picking. Thank god they back tracked on that god awful 1/2 caster warlock. Big changes can be bad as well as good so celebrating change when its that terrible for changes sake I will not do.
But that's a straw man. Nobody celebrates changes just because. But there are things that are problematic, and one of those things is Pact Magic. Maybe not on your table, but on many. And it really is a poorly designed mechanic since it depends on how the short rests are managed. If you make many, or at will, the warlock is very powerful. If you make few, or none at all, warlock magic is an anecdote. In any case, since it is a problem on many gaming tables, it is best to change it. Was the Warlock Half caster tried and people didn't like it? Alright, let's try something different. These are the changes that are requested. It is asked to solve things that cause problems. Change is not asked for the sake of change.
It was not a problem of much significance on most gaming tables hence why they were in the top 3 favorite classes. You like WOTC did are mistaking people having a small issue where they think some tweaks can be done to improve things with a massive dislike of something that needs radical changes. And no it was not a straw man people have been making the argument that change is good just because its a big change which is brave and bold.
Well, actually Jeremy Crawford has said on several occasions that the main complaint about warlock is pact magic. That's why they tried to change it in the first place. So, yes, it is a problem on many tables. And a solution should be found.
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
You make some rather curious assertions. What answer in the survey? In the one I filled out in playtest 5, it didn't ask you if pact magic was or wasn't a problem.
What we voted was for that warlock proposal, and that vote must not have gone too well since they are not going to continue down that path. However, as far as I know, the result has not been said (as has been done in other cases). So we don't know if that warlock was rejected by 90% of the people, or by 50%.
Jeremy Crawford comments in a video that anything below 60% approval is rejected. Then I don't know if the warlock half caster had an approval of 1% or 59%. What we can conclude is that the approval was not good enough for the design team. But from there to inferring that people who reject pact magic are a minority, there is a long way.
To avoid new strange assumptions, I want to clarify that I am not saying that most people reject pact magic either. I do not know. What I do know is that it is a problem for many people. And that is reason enough to look for another solution.
Negative about tier 3/4 martials, positive about the changes in the casters with some nit picking. Thank god they back tracked on that god awful 1/2 caster warlock. Big changes can be bad as well as good so celebrating change when its that terrible for changes sake I will not do.
But that's a straw man. Nobody celebrates changes just because. But there are things that are problematic, and one of those things is Pact Magic. Maybe not on your table, but on many. And it really is a poorly designed mechanic since it depends on how the short rests are managed. If you make many, or at will, the warlock is very powerful. If you make few, or none at all, warlock magic is an anecdote. In any case, since it is a problem on many gaming tables, it is best to change it. Was the Warlock Half caster tried and people didn't like it? Alright, let's try something different. These are the changes that are requested. It is asked to solve things that cause problems. Change is not asked for the sake of change.
It was not a problem of much significance on most gaming tables hence why they were in the top 3 favorite classes. You like WOTC did are mistaking people having a small issue where they think some tweaks can be done to improve things with a massive dislike of something that needs radical changes. And no it was not a straw man people have been making the argument that change is good just because its a big change which is brave and bold.
Well, actually Jeremy Crawford has said on several occasions that the main complaint about warlock is pact magic. That's why they tried to change it in the first place. So, yes, it is a problem on many tables. And a solution should be found.
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
You make some rather curious assertions. What answer in the survey? In the one I filled out in playtest 5, it didn't ask you if pact magic was or wasn't a problem.
What we voted was for that warlock proposal, and that vote must not have gone too well since they are not going to continue down that path. However, as far as I know, the result has not been said (as has been done in other cases). So we don't know if that warlock was rejected by 90% of the people, or by 50%.
Jeremy Crawford comments in a video that anything below 60% approval is rejected. Then I don't know if the warlock half caster had an approval of 1% or 59%. What we can conclude is that the approval was not good enough for the design team. But from there to inferring that people who reject pact magic are a minority, there is a long way.
To avoid new strange assumptions, I want to clarify that I am not saying that most people reject pact magic either. I do not know. What I do know is that it is a problem for many people. And that is reason enough to look for another solution.
They are talking about the 2014 PHB surveys that came out like 2 years ago I think it was. It was when they were first gauging what people were and were not satisfied with in the 2014 Players Hand Book so that they could start with what we are seeing now. JC has stated multiple times that from that survey the number 1 piece of feedback they have gotten is that Warlocks want to cast spells more often.
With that they have given all warlocks ritual casting, reduced the level of many of the invocations that provide at will spells, provided more invocations, and provided magical cunning for an emergency spell back when you can't get a short rest.
You're missing my point. Resting is a pacing mechanic, and a narrative mechanic, and a balance mechanic. But that pacing and balance mechanic only works for classes that recharge on long rests; only the Warlock and Monk require short rests to recharge their primary resources, which gives them different rest priorities. It's these priorities that are a problem in play.
I understand you haven't had this issue and believe everyone should play with 1 short rest between long rests, but there is a reason there's a high variance among tables in short rests but not in long rests. If everyone else on the team balances themselves one way it's going to end up either too stingy or too generous to the folks on the off time. The power of the Warlock and Monk shouldn't be dependent on a mechanic that's uniquely relevant to just the Warlock and Monk.
Without even engaging how many spells the Warlock should get, you can at least agree that if we assume 1 short rest per day it's pretty simple to adjust that refresh to a long rest mechanic that would grant an identical # of spells.
As for the monk, lol, I am not even wading into the finer points on that. I was just pointing out that the monk also has a short rest dependency.
short rest isnt really a pacing mechanic, its a post encounter recovery mechanic. Thats why there are hit dice, and its the main health recovery for some groups. It doesnt always need to be RPed. You can use it for decompression or pacing sometimes if you want to, but thats not its main purpose.
If you are designing multiple encounters without a SR, you are supposed to have considered that. There is guidance, and it basically has increased difficulty. And note, that is supposed to be the exception, not the rule. If you as a GM prefer for your players to have no/low resources, ok, but thats not the normal encounter design. Most of the time the players should be in control of short rests, the most a DM should do is possibly throw an encounter to interrupt it. If the narrative says a guy escapes, he escapes, but your narrative should not assume players will always do a certain thing. Some players are gung ho, others are careful and considered, one can't assume. I would have said this is a player issue, that many of them don't choose to short rest because it doesnt match their rhythym. Im surprised to hear many gms try to heavily meter SR.
Warlocks are not OP with full spell slots, They have said encounter difficulty assumes you have full resources, but is doable with less resources.
You're responding as if the crux of my argument was on how DM's run their games, it isn't. Pacing is as much a player-led factor as it is a DM's.
And even if short rests were fully in the control of the players, the problem still persists. Players may dictate that there's no time for short rests, cutting the Warlock out of spell slots. Players may alternatively short rest after each encounter, resulting in the Warlock having multiple 3/4/5th level spells available long after standard full casters have run out of those spells in mid-tier play.
I'm not assuming anything about anyone's narrative or how they play short rests. I'm demonstrating that Warlocks may be either saturated with available casts of their spells with many short rests or starved of spell slots in games with few or infrequent short rests. Congratulations to those of you not experiencing this problem, but the game doesn't begin and end at your anecdotal experience.
I'm not saying the Warlock is "OP" with too many short rests or underpowered at too few, I'm saying that it throws off available resources compared to anyone who doesn't get back their most important powers on a short rest.
And I am saying tables need to be more responsible for solving their issues for themselves. The DMG provides plenty of resources on this subject, it is up to the table to use them. The new magical cunning ability is specifically for those times when the group says "we can't rest yet" and the warlock needs to get a spell back to keep going. But at some point a short rest, ONE. SINGLE. short rest should be taken a day so that ALL players can spend hit dice to recover health at the vey least. This warlock WORKS with just that 1 rest. The game is not designed to have 0 short rests in a day. If you are having 0 then you should be examining other rest rules to see what would fit better for your table so that the game can function as intended for your table. Rather than trying to change the game and remove a unique mechanic from the game for everyone else. That didn't work in playtest 5 despite it being solidly balanced in my opinion with a need for a few tweaks.
And I am saying tables need to be more responsible for solving their issues for themselves.
The point of rules is to make things easier to run. If there's a way games are expected to be run... the rules should encourage actually playing that way.
They are talking about the 2014 PHB surveys that came out like 2 years ago I think it was. It was when they were first gauging what people were and were not satisfied with in the 2014 Players Hand Book so that they could start with what we are seeing now. JC has stated multiple times that from that survey the number 1 piece of feedback they have gotten is that Warlocks want to cast spells more often.
With that they have given all warlocks ritual casting, reduced the level of many of the invocations that provide at will spells, provided more invocations, and provided magical cunning for an emergency spell back when you can't get a short rest.
True, and now we have to wait to see what the community thinks of those small changes they have proposed. From what I saw in my playtest, the warlock still has basically the same problems as the one from 2014. It is true that the rituals give you a bit of utility magic, but you still depend on making enough short rests in your game. And that they are done when you need them. On the other hand, if you short rest at will, the warlock is still broken. Regarding the feature that allows you to recover half of your spell slot once a day by investing 1 minute, it really doesn't solve anything. At tables where short rests are at will, that is of no use. On tables that do not do short rest, this solution is very weak. In my playtest game the player used that feature a couple of times, yes. But two things happened: -He had to wait until he had no spell slot, and had 1 free minute to do the ritual (that is, he had to use it after a combat). - He regained 1 spell slot. Wow, what a lot of magic. Actually that solution is similar to giving the warlock a pearl of power. Poor poor solution, in my opinion.
And I am saying tables need to be more responsible for solving their issues for themselves.
The point of rules is to make things easier to run. If there's a way games are expected to be run... the rules should encourage actually playing that way.
So, rules working as intended? Because they work within the way they are intended to be run, and there are optional rules for those that don't run it that way so the rules can still work.
They are talking about the 2014 PHB surveys that came out like 2 years ago I think it was. It was when they were first gauging what people were and were not satisfied with in the 2014 Players Hand Book so that they could start with what we are seeing now. JC has stated multiple times that from that survey the number 1 piece of feedback they have gotten is that Warlocks want to cast spells more often.
With that they have given all warlocks ritual casting, reduced the level of many of the invocations that provide at will spells, provided more invocations, and provided magical cunning for an emergency spell back when you can't get a short rest.
True, and now we have to wait to see what the community thinks of those small changes they have proposed. From what I saw in my playtest, the warlock still has basically the same problems as the one from 2014. It is true that the rituals give you a bit of utility magic, but you still depend on making enough short rests in your game. And that they are done when you need them. On the other hand, if you short rest at will, the warlock is still broken. Regarding the feature that allows you to recover half of your spell slot once a day by investing 1 minute, it really doesn't solve anything. At tables where short rests are at will, that is of no use. On tables that do not do short rest, this solution is very weak. In my playtest game the player used that feature a couple of times, yes. But two things happened: -He had to wait until he had no spell slot, and had 1 free minute to do the ritual (that is, he had to use it after a combat). - He regained 1 spell slot. Wow, what a lot of magic. Actually that solution is similar to giving the warlock a pearl of power. Poor poor solution, in my opinion.
Pearl of power only recovers up to 3rd level slot for 1.
For 2. Having to wait to be out of slots for this particular case is actually a GOOD thing. If it didn't you could have 1 slot left, spend a minute recover the slot and then go into the next fight and spend only one slot and then your party takes a short rest meaning you "wasted" your magical cunning. By forcing you to be out, the game makes it to where it is much rarer to "waste" it.
For 3. "enough" short rests is 1. And no table should have 0 short rests. Short rests is where you spend hit dice. If the table has 0 short rests that is when they should be adjusting their rest rules. That is what they are for.
Seriously guys, this is the circle
This warlock = mathematically full caster equivalent at all levels except 9 and 10 with just 1 short rest and tables should NEVER not have 1 short rest past level 3, if they do than the table needs to adjust their rest rules, not JUST for the warlock, but because the table SHOULD BE spending hit dice and 8/12 classes (75%) recover abilities on a short rest. That is it, no ifs ands or buts. It isn't complicated.
No. Working as intended would be "PCs actually routinely deal with 6-8 encounters per day".
The DMG says that is the MAXIMUM that a party should be able to deal with. And that there should be 1 to 2 short rests per "Adventuring day". 6 to 8 encounters is NOT something that is expected to happen every adventure and that is specifically medium to hard encounters. However, 1 to 2 short rests ARE expected to happen every "adventuring day". Check page 84 and 85 of the DMG "assuming typical adventuring conditions a party CAN handle up to 6 to 8 medium to hard encounters a day". Then under Short rests the assumption that most days there will be 2 rests. Followed by modifying the encounter difficulty.
Other than that I am not sure what you are saying. If the system works under THESE assumptions than the system works? Well than the system works.
New warlock works with 1 short rest and 3 encounters in an "adventuring day".
The old 2014 warlock HIGHLY encouraged players to play with the 6 to 8 encounters and 2 short rests. People not playing the way the system encourages them to does not mean the system didn't encourage them to play that way.
As you noted earlier 3 encounters a day is MUCH more common... and this new warlock works with 3 encounters and 1 short rest. So.... working as intended.
I don't agree that this warlock has an amount of magic equivalent to a full caster. But let's accept it. Still, that doesn't solve warlock's problem when he makes short rests at will. I'm not asking to go back to the half caster. I liked it when I tried it, but it was already rejected and we don't have to go back to that. But I do ask that they solve the problems that the warlock continues to have. And pact magic as it stands now seems to me to be the heart of the problem. For example, you could make tome pact give you more slots per day (by scaling or with other eldritch invocations). But then if you do a lot of rest shorts, especially if they are at will, you are compounding the warlock problem with almost infinite magic (this is hyperbole, I know. It's not infinite. But to get the point across). I don't know what the solution is. It's WoTC's job to find it. But I do know that this warlock still has basically the same problems that were tried to be solved with the halfcaster. That was my conclusion from my playtest game, and I made it known when I filled out the survey.
Can we all admit the 5e DMG is bad. It has a whole section on adventure that has the one paragraph about the adventuring day that everyone is quoting that we should be having 6-8 combat encounters, but has a separate section on running the game that includes, exploration, social interactions, and chases which I consider part of the adventuring day and eat up resources that would make that 6-8 medium combats start looking really deadly.
I don't agree that this warlock has an amount of magic equivalent to a full caster. But let's accept it. Still, that doesn't solve warlock's problem when he makes short rests at will. I'm not asking to go back to the half caster. I liked it when I tried it, but it was already rejected and we don't have to go back to that. But I do ask that they solve the problems that the warlock continues to have. And pact magic as it stands now seems to me to be the heart of the problem. For example, you could make tome pact give you more slots per day (by scaling or with other eldritch invocations). But then if you do a lot of rest shorts, especially if they are at will, you are compounding the warlock problem with almost infinite magic (this is hyperbole, I know. It's not infinite. But to get the point across). I don't know what the solution is. It's WoTC's job to find it. But I do know that this warlock still has basically the same problems that were tried to be solved with the halfcaster. That was my conclusion from my playtest game, and I made it known when I filled out the survey.
So.
At level 1, compared to a druid. Druid has 2 first level spells. Warlock has 1 first level spell +1 from pact of the tome. 2 spells per long rest for both, no short rests taken. Level 2, same. The warlock is up to 2 first level spells +1 from tome.... 3 first level spells no short rest taken, and no magical cunning used. Level 3. This is when 1 short rest should start being more common. 2 second level spells, 1 recovered with magical cunning, 2 recovered from the single short rest the party took to spend hit dice. +1 first level spell from tome. Total spells 6, 5 second, 1 first. Vs the druid. This druid has 4 first level spells and 2 second level spells for a total of 6 spells. Level 4, The druid has improved by 1 spell. Level 5. By this point first level spells are largely used for utility and not combat. Number of combat spells the druid has, 2 3rd level and 3 second level. Total combat spells 5. Warlock, 5 3rd level spells.... still has that 1 first level spell, but at this point also has 4 more invocations to match those 4 first level slots and wild shapes the druid has. Level 6 druid improves by 1 3rd level slot. making it 6 to 5, but the warlocks spells are still more potent with 5 3rd vs 3 3rd and 3 second. Level 7, by this point second level spells are becoming less used for combat and more for utility as well... still used occasionally though. Warlock....5 4th level, Druid 1 4th, 3 3rd... so that is 4 for druid and 5 for warlock. The druid is needing to make it up by using second level slots. The warlocks combat casting is definitely stronger at this point. For other stuff the warlock now has 5 additional invocations in addition to tome (4 in addition to tome and AB). Level 8, Druid is back to 2 4th and 3 3rd for 5 total big spells, vs the warlocks... you guessed it total of 5 big spells throughout the adventuring day with 1 rest. Level 9, (This is where I think the 3rd pact slot should come in). Druid is now up to 1 5th, 3 4th and 3 3rd level spells for "big spells" (3rd level has some of the best spells they never stop being strong combat spells in my opinion). Total spells 7.... vs warlocks 5 (my suggestion would be warlock having 8). The Warlock has improved for invocations to 5 in addition to tome and AB. Level 10 the Druid improves to 2 5th level slots. for a total of 8 big spells..... really really think warlock should be at 3 slots here..... level 11 and the druid gets a 6th level, the warlock gets a 6th level, and we are up to that 8 vs 8 3 through 5th for druid and just straight 5th for warlock......
Mathematically.... Warlocks match full casters in per day casting with just 1 short rest.
But yes, with more rests the warlock shines or becomes broken. More than 2 short rests I believe should be rare to none. I ALSO believe that 'at will' Short rest is the same problem as "no" short rest. It shouldn't be happening and the table needs to adjust their rest rules to make it less of an issue.
Can we all admit the 5e DMG is bad. It has a whole section on adventure that has the one paragraph about the adventuring day that everyone is quoting that we should be having 6-8 combat encounters, but has a separate section on running the game that includes, exploration, social interactions, and chases which I consider part of the adventuring day and eat up resources that would make that 6-8 medium combats start looking really deadly.
Right and we have stuff all over the place in that book. And the ways to modify the 6 to 8 encounters and how to modify that number or what have you is just rough and not concrete at all. And that is ALSO why it says CAN under NORMAL circumstances. It doesn't say you need that many combats or that you SHOULD have that many combats, and that every day is going to have Normal circumstances. It has a section right after that about how circumstances can change the difficulty of encounters and how numbers should be adjusted down for what a party CAN handle all of these things ARE taken into account, but they NEVER give concrete answers on HOW to take them into account. As usual it really is down to the GM just "figuring it out". Which is also how "CR" works.
That is why not only is it misleading to say "expect 6 to 8 encounters" but why the "at least 1 short rest" is a much better measurement of "does this work".
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
The problem really isn't the resting mechanic (though it could certainly do with better guidance on how to run it), the problem is that some classes are much more dependent upon short rests than others. If all classes had at least some real dependency (not just "nice to haves") then this wouldn't be a problem as everyone would be in pretty much the same situation.
Wizards of the Coast trying to solve this by making Warlock a half caster while barely changing Monk at all (except to nerf their most competitive ability without anything to replace it) was just incredibly confusing. Adapting Warlocks to have more long rest resources isn't necessarily a bad idea, but the way they did it so fundamentally changed Warlock and ruined invocations that it made everyone wonder if a single person had proof read or playtested it.
The intent wasn't necessarily wrong, but they could so much more easily solve the same problem by giving Warlocks more pact slots, make them fully replenish on long rest, and give them some back on short rest. So they still want to short rest, but they can still get by when assuming they won't have a chance to short rest at all (or for some time).
More generally I think a lot of short rest recovered resources should be moved to more long rest recovered uses, with partial short rest recovery. The tricky ones are abilities like a Fighter's action surge and second wind; if you make these long rest refresh then they could be hoarded for a boss fight and used every round to absolutely ruin it. You could still restrict these a bit though if they instead had a "no more than once per combat" restriction, so being able to action surge/second wind multiple times in a row could still be a higher level ability.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
Lovely how you can dismiss one of the most frequent, longest-running pieces of class feedback in 2014 5e's history by telling people that nobody reeaaally wants any change, they aren't actually complaining, they don't reeaaally dislike Pact Magic...they just want the tiniest, most utterly meeaningless and inconsequential "change" that doesn't actually fix or improve anything, just so they can say Wizards listened to them.
A tinmy, meaningless, inconsequential change like, say....Magical Cunning.
Aquilontune, there are many lvl 1 spells that are useful in combat at any level. Shield, Silvery Barbs, Absorb Elements, Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire (debatable), Hex, Shield of Faith, Zephyr Strike or Hunter's Mark are some examples.
There is a big difference between having at lvl5 4 lvl1 spells, 3 lvl2 spells, and 2 lvl3 spells per day.
To have 1 lvl1 spell and 5 lvl3 spells per day (especially when those 5 lvl3 spell slots are actually 2 + 2 + 1, and not really 5).
The playtest 7 warlock does not have the same amount of magic as a fullcaster. And he doesn't have to have it either, really. I don't think that's the problem.
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
Lovely how you can dismiss one of the most frequent, longest-running pieces of class feedback in 2014 5e's history by telling people that nobody reeaaally wants any change, they aren't actually complaining, they don't reeaaally dislike Pact Magic...they just want the tiniest, most utterly meeaningless and inconsequential "change" that doesn't actually fix or improve anything, just so they can say Wizards listened to them.
A tinmy, meaningless, inconsequential change like, say....Magical Cunning.
Because that is the reality of the situation minus your normal hyperbole.
There are people who love the 2014 Warlock, there are people who loved the UA5 Warlock, there are people who love the UA7 Warlock, and then there is me. I hated UA5 Warlock, and I’m looking at UA7 like this isn’t what people are asking for. I’m happy they lowered the levels on a bunch of invocations (literally something I requested in UA5 survey), but sad they took Eldritch sight away. At will casting and ritual casting are very different, why not offer both options. Most importantly they didn’t really address the more spell casting for Warlock. I don’t need it, but I know it’s a concern for many people. So why not have invocations that give spell slots.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Something being a frequent complaint does not say anything about the severity of the complaint. The response to the surveys seem to indicate that while the complaint may be common it is a small complaint, more than a nitpick maybe but not a massive problem. The kind of problem where people wanted some nudging along the edges to fix it and not a complete change which would only bring a whole new batch of problems.
And usually it is like 1 deadly with 2 mediums and, if random tables a chance of 1 or 2 more easy to medium. Point is it isn't 1 fight and the game does assume rests between.
Even in straud their is only around a 5% chance of an encounter every 10 minutes and half of those encounters can be avoided without rest interuption. So 80% of the time you can rest without interuption. To me that 20% adds to the suspense, which I think is the point given the tone of the adventure. It isn't supposed to prevent the party from resting it is supposed to add to the suspense.
This is actually a little different at low levels. First second and third levels have less encounters and less rest opportunities, but you also spend a fraction of the adventure at those levels by comparison.
You make some rather curious assertions. What answer in the survey? In the one I filled out in playtest 5, it didn't ask you if pact magic was or wasn't a problem.
What we voted was for that warlock proposal, and that vote must not have gone too well since they are not going to continue down that path. However, as far as I know, the result has not been said (as has been done in other cases). So we don't know if that warlock was rejected by 90% of the people, or by 50%.
Jeremy Crawford comments in a video that anything below 60% approval is rejected. Then I don't know if the warlock half caster had an approval of 1% or 59%. What we can conclude is that the approval was not good enough for the design team. But from there to inferring that people who reject pact magic are a minority, there is a long way.
To avoid new strange assumptions, I want to clarify that I am not saying that most people reject pact magic either. I do not know. What I do know is that it is a problem for many people. And that is reason enough to look for another solution.
They are talking about the 2014 PHB surveys that came out like 2 years ago I think it was. It was when they were first gauging what people were and were not satisfied with in the 2014 Players Hand Book so that they could start with what we are seeing now. JC has stated multiple times that from that survey the number 1 piece of feedback they have gotten is that Warlocks want to cast spells more often.
With that they have given all warlocks ritual casting, reduced the level of many of the invocations that provide at will spells, provided more invocations, and provided magical cunning for an emergency spell back when you can't get a short rest.
And I am saying tables need to be more responsible for solving their issues for themselves. The DMG provides plenty of resources on this subject, it is up to the table to use them. The new magical cunning ability is specifically for those times when the group says "we can't rest yet" and the warlock needs to get a spell back to keep going. But at some point a short rest, ONE. SINGLE. short rest should be taken a day so that ALL players can spend hit dice to recover health at the vey least. This warlock WORKS with just that 1 rest. The game is not designed to have 0 short rests in a day. If you are having 0 then you should be examining other rest rules to see what would fit better for your table so that the game can function as intended for your table. Rather than trying to change the game and remove a unique mechanic from the game for everyone else. That didn't work in playtest 5 despite it being solidly balanced in my opinion with a need for a few tweaks.
The point of rules is to make things easier to run. If there's a way games are expected to be run... the rules should encourage actually playing that way.
True, and now we have to wait to see what the community thinks of those small changes they have proposed. From what I saw in my playtest, the warlock still has basically the same problems as the one from 2014. It is true that the rituals give you a bit of utility magic, but you still depend on making enough short rests in your game. And that they are done when you need them.
On the other hand, if you short rest at will, the warlock is still broken.
Regarding the feature that allows you to recover half of your spell slot once a day by investing 1 minute, it really doesn't solve anything. At tables where short rests are at will, that is of no use. On tables that do not do short rest, this solution is very weak. In my playtest game the player used that feature a couple of times, yes. But two things happened:
-He had to wait until he had no spell slot, and had 1 free minute to do the ritual (that is, he had to use it after a combat).
- He regained 1 spell slot. Wow, what a lot of magic.
Actually that solution is similar to giving the warlock a pearl of power. Poor poor solution, in my opinion.
So, rules working as intended? Because they work within the way they are intended to be run, and there are optional rules for those that don't run it that way so the rules can still work.
No. Working as intended would be "PCs actually routinely deal with 6-8 encounters per day".
Pearl of power only recovers up to 3rd level slot for 1.
For 2. Having to wait to be out of slots for this particular case is actually a GOOD thing. If it didn't you could have 1 slot left, spend a minute recover the slot and then go into the next fight and spend only one slot and then your party takes a short rest meaning you "wasted" your magical cunning. By forcing you to be out, the game makes it to where it is much rarer to "waste" it.
For 3. "enough" short rests is 1. And no table should have 0 short rests. Short rests is where you spend hit dice. If the table has 0 short rests that is when they should be adjusting their rest rules. That is what they are for.
Seriously guys, this is the circle
This warlock = mathematically full caster equivalent at all levels except 9 and 10 with just 1 short rest and tables should NEVER not have 1 short rest past level 3, if they do than the table needs to adjust their rest rules, not JUST for the warlock, but because the table SHOULD BE spending hit dice and 8/12 classes (75%) recover abilities on a short rest. That is it, no ifs ands or buts. It isn't complicated.
The DMG says that is the MAXIMUM that a party should be able to deal with. And that there should be 1 to 2 short rests per "Adventuring day". 6 to 8 encounters is NOT something that is expected to happen every adventure and that is specifically medium to hard encounters. However, 1 to 2 short rests ARE expected to happen every "adventuring day". Check page 84 and 85 of the DMG "assuming typical adventuring conditions a party CAN handle up to 6 to 8 medium to hard encounters a day". Then under Short rests the assumption that most days there will be 2 rests. Followed by modifying the encounter difficulty.
Other than that I am not sure what you are saying. If the system works under THESE assumptions than the system works? Well than the system works.
New warlock works with 1 short rest and 3 encounters in an "adventuring day".
The old 2014 warlock HIGHLY encouraged players to play with the 6 to 8 encounters and 2 short rests. People not playing the way the system encourages them to does not mean the system didn't encourage them to play that way.
As you noted earlier 3 encounters a day is MUCH more common... and this new warlock works with 3 encounters and 1 short rest. So.... working as intended.
I don't agree that this warlock has an amount of magic equivalent to a full caster. But let's accept it. Still, that doesn't solve warlock's problem when he makes short rests at will.
I'm not asking to go back to the half caster. I liked it when I tried it, but it was already rejected and we don't have to go back to that. But I do ask that they solve the problems that the warlock continues to have. And pact magic as it stands now seems to me to be the heart of the problem.
For example, you could make tome pact give you more slots per day (by scaling or with other eldritch invocations). But then if you do a lot of rest shorts, especially if they are at will, you are compounding the warlock problem with almost infinite magic (this is hyperbole, I know. It's not infinite. But to get the point across).
I don't know what the solution is. It's WoTC's job to find it. But I do know that this warlock still has basically the same problems that were tried to be solved with the halfcaster. That was my conclusion from my playtest game, and I made it known when I filled out the survey.
Can we all admit the 5e DMG is bad. It has a whole section on adventure that has the one paragraph about the adventuring day that everyone is quoting that we should be having 6-8 combat encounters, but has a separate section on running the game that includes, exploration, social interactions, and chases which I consider part of the adventuring day and eat up resources that would make that 6-8 medium combats start looking really deadly.
So.
At level 1, compared to a druid. Druid has 2 first level spells. Warlock has 1 first level spell +1 from pact of the tome. 2 spells per long rest for both, no short rests taken.
Level 2, same. The warlock is up to 2 first level spells +1 from tome.... 3 first level spells no short rest taken, and no magical cunning used.
Level 3. This is when 1 short rest should start being more common. 2 second level spells, 1 recovered with magical cunning, 2 recovered from the single short rest the party took to spend hit dice. +1 first level spell from tome. Total spells 6, 5 second, 1 first. Vs the druid. This druid has 4 first level spells and 2 second level spells for a total of 6 spells.
Level 4, The druid has improved by 1 spell.
Level 5. By this point first level spells are largely used for utility and not combat. Number of combat spells the druid has, 2 3rd level and 3 second level. Total combat spells 5. Warlock, 5 3rd level spells.... still has that 1 first level spell, but at this point also has 4 more invocations to match those 4 first level slots and wild shapes the druid has.
Level 6 druid improves by 1 3rd level slot. making it 6 to 5, but the warlocks spells are still more potent with 5 3rd vs 3 3rd and 3 second.
Level 7, by this point second level spells are becoming less used for combat and more for utility as well... still used occasionally though. Warlock....5 4th level, Druid 1 4th, 3 3rd... so that is 4 for druid and 5 for warlock. The druid is needing to make it up by using second level slots. The warlocks combat casting is definitely stronger at this point. For other stuff the warlock now has 5 additional invocations in addition to tome (4 in addition to tome and AB).
Level 8, Druid is back to 2 4th and 3 3rd for 5 total big spells, vs the warlocks... you guessed it total of 5 big spells throughout the adventuring day with 1 rest.
Level 9, (This is where I think the 3rd pact slot should come in). Druid is now up to 1 5th, 3 4th and 3 3rd level spells for "big spells" (3rd level has some of the best spells they never stop being strong combat spells in my opinion). Total spells 7.... vs warlocks 5 (my suggestion would be warlock having 8). The Warlock has improved for invocations to 5 in addition to tome and AB.
Level 10 the Druid improves to 2 5th level slots. for a total of 8 big spells..... really really think warlock should be at 3 slots here.....
level 11 and the druid gets a 6th level, the warlock gets a 6th level, and we are up to that 8 vs 8 3 through 5th for druid and just straight 5th for warlock......
Mathematically.... Warlocks match full casters in per day casting with just 1 short rest.
But yes, with more rests the warlock shines or becomes broken. More than 2 short rests I believe should be rare to none. I ALSO believe that 'at will' Short rest is the same problem as "no" short rest. It shouldn't be happening and the table needs to adjust their rest rules to make it less of an issue.
Right and we have stuff all over the place in that book. And the ways to modify the 6 to 8 encounters and how to modify that number or what have you is just rough and not concrete at all. And that is ALSO why it says CAN under NORMAL circumstances. It doesn't say you need that many combats or that you SHOULD have that many combats, and that every day is going to have Normal circumstances. It has a section right after that about how circumstances can change the difficulty of encounters and how numbers should be adjusted down for what a party CAN handle all of these things ARE taken into account, but they NEVER give concrete answers on HOW to take them into account. As usual it really is down to the GM just "figuring it out". Which is also how "CR" works.
That is why not only is it misleading to say "expect 6 to 8 encounters" but why the "at least 1 short rest" is a much better measurement of "does this work".
The problem really isn't the resting mechanic (though it could certainly do with better guidance on how to run it), the problem is that some classes are much more dependent upon short rests than others. If all classes had at least some real dependency (not just "nice to haves") then this wouldn't be a problem as everyone would be in pretty much the same situation.
Wizards of the Coast trying to solve this by making Warlock a half caster while barely changing Monk at all (except to nerf their most competitive ability without anything to replace it) was just incredibly confusing. Adapting Warlocks to have more long rest resources isn't necessarily a bad idea, but the way they did it so fundamentally changed Warlock and ruined invocations that it made everyone wonder if a single person had proof read or playtested it.
The intent wasn't necessarily wrong, but they could so much more easily solve the same problem by giving Warlocks more pact slots, make them fully replenish on long rest, and give them some back on short rest. So they still want to short rest, but they can still get by when assuming they won't have a chance to short rest at all (or for some time).
More generally I think a lot of short rest recovered resources should be moved to more long rest recovered uses, with partial short rest recovery. The tricky ones are abilities like a Fighter's action surge and second wind; if you make these long rest refresh then they could be hoarded for a boss fight and used every round to absolutely ruin it. You could still restrict these a bit though if they instead had a "no more than once per combat" restriction, so being able to action surge/second wind multiple times in a row could still be a higher level ability.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Lovely how you can dismiss one of the most frequent, longest-running pieces of class feedback in 2014 5e's history by telling people that nobody reeaaally wants any change, they aren't actually complaining, they don't reeaaally dislike Pact Magic...they just want the tiniest, most utterly meeaningless and inconsequential "change" that doesn't actually fix or improve anything, just so they can say Wizards listened to them.
A tinmy, meaningless, inconsequential change like, say....Magical Cunning.
Please do not contact or message me.
Aquilontune, there are many lvl 1 spells that are useful in combat at any level. Shield, Silvery Barbs, Absorb Elements, Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire (debatable), Hex, Shield of Faith, Zephyr Strike or Hunter's Mark are some examples.
There is a big difference between having at lvl5 4 lvl1 spells, 3 lvl2 spells, and 2 lvl3 spells per day.
To have 1 lvl1 spell and 5 lvl3 spells per day (especially when those 5 lvl3 spell slots are actually 2 + 2 + 1, and not really 5).
The playtest 7 warlock does not have the same amount of magic as a fullcaster. And he doesn't have to have it either, really. I don't think that's the problem.
Because that is the reality of the situation minus your normal hyperbole.
There are people who love the 2014 Warlock, there are people who loved the UA5 Warlock, there are people who love the UA7 Warlock, and then there is me. I hated UA5 Warlock, and I’m looking at UA7 like this isn’t what people are asking for. I’m happy they lowered the levels on a bunch of invocations (literally something I requested in UA5 survey), but sad they took Eldritch sight away. At will casting and ritual casting are very different, why not offer both options. Most importantly they didn’t really address the more spell casting for Warlock. I don’t need it, but I know it’s a concern for many people. So why not have invocations that give spell slots.