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.
The 6-8 combat encounters comes from dividing the Adventuring Day XP by the budget for a medium encounter. That is in a section of the DMG that only talks about combat encounters. The only hint that noncombat encounters might count comes from Chapter 8, which suggests a noncombat encounter can have a difficulty just like a combat encounter, in which case it seems reasonable to count it -- but those aren't just any old noncombat encounter, those are ones that are sufficiently challenging that the DM would be expected to award experience points for completing them.
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.
The 6-8 combat encounters comes from dividing the Adventuring Day XP by the budget for a medium encounter. That is in a section of the DMG that only talks about combat encounters. The only hint that noncombat encounters might count comes from Chapter 8, which suggests a noncombat encounter can have a difficulty just like a combat encounter, in which case it seems reasonable to count it -- but those aren't just any old noncombat encounter, those are ones that are sufficiently challenging that the DM would be expected to award experience points for completing them.
That’s the problem. That Chapter is called Creating Adventures. How are exploration, social interactions, and chases not part of crafting an adventure? Also traps are in another chapter. I can understand not having them all in same chapter, but there should be some acknowledgment that they all use resources so that 6-8 should change if your party has to expend resources throughout the day doing things besides combat.
That’s the problem. That Chapter is called Creating Adventures. How are exploration, social interactions, and chases not part of crafting an adventure? Also traps are in another chapter. I can understand not having them all in same chapter, but there should be some acknowledgment that they all use resources so that 6-8 should change if your party has to expend resources throughout the day doing things besides combat.
While I agree that they are part of an adventure, to be blunt, while they can take up large amounts of time (both in in-game time and session time) they rarely consume a lot of resources, so you generally don't go too badly wrong by ignoring them.
That’s the problem. That Chapter is called Creating Adventures. How are exploration, social interactions, and chases not part of crafting an adventure? Also traps are in another chapter. I can understand not having them all in same chapter, but there should be some acknowledgment that they all use resources so that 6-8 should change if your party has to expend resources throughout the day doing things besides combat.
While I agree that they are part of an adventure, to be blunt, while they can take up large amounts of time (both in in-game time and session time) they rarely consume a lot of resources, so you generally don't go too badly wrong by ignoring them.
I ran a chase after a battle once. Overwhelming reinforcements were coming. I almost TPKed them because of bad rolls and lack of resources. Now if it would have been in reverse the chase was before that battle I doubt they would have had the resources to win the combat.
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.
Eh pact of the tome gets you one slot, and a feat will get you one 1st level casting with magic initiate, and if you really need more you can take fey touched etc for a 3rd 1st level spell. The the 2nd/3rd are fixed slots but it still ends up being a lot of low level casting. That being said I did suggest on the survey they should have a invocation or two that built on pact of the tomes slots, and they could add in some other casting invocations as well.
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.
Oh Whoops, my bad, here I thought the idea was to fix problems.
The problem isn't the variability of short rests from table to table, it's the comparative non-variability long rests. The vast majority of the party will agree on when a long rest is necessary, only the Warlock and Monk have to ask the team for a unique time out to restore their highest-value resources. I and others on the board think this is a problem for many tables, you and other people on the board think this isn't a problem. Short of a large survey there's no way to tell which of us is correct; if the short rest recharge is a unique mechanic that should be protected or a headache that causes needless complication and headache.
Similarly on the "just an opinion man" front, I don't believe the outrage over the UA 5 Warlock had anything to do with Pact Slots being gone, it had everything to do with the loss of 3rd/4th/5th level spells for character levels 5/7/9. The natural endpoint for most long campaigns is between 10th and 15th, gatekeeping the mid-tier spells until the end of the campaign was a non-starter for Warlock players, and the the "choose 1 spell to cast 1/long rest" band-aid was insufficient to fix it. People care a lot about their caster feeling like a caster, the UA 5 Warlock lacked that feeling for a lot of people.
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.
Exactly right! The problem isn't too many or too few short rests, it's that only two classes are fully dependent on short rests to restore the abilities that most define the class.
Seconded as well on the UA 5 Warlock. The problem wasn't losing short rest recharge, the problem was a fundamental change to how the Warlock class was understood as a caster.
While I'm not sure how exactly the Warlock should be fixed, I generally agree that short and long rest resources should be better spread through all the classes. This is unfortunately more than just a balance concern. The ability to choose what wildly different thing you're doing round by round is part of the fun of playing a caster; it's an agency thing. Resource regeneration that's wildly divergent from the other classes only serves to knee-cap your choice by starving the character of spells or maximize that character's agency by giving them high-potency spells available at every encounter.
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.
And I have covered this. Other than the "broken" reaction spells that need a nerf, NO CASTER is using an ACTION on a first level spell when they can use it on a higher level spell UNLESS one of a few things is happening. 1. The fight is super easy and they don't want to "waste" their bigger slots... in this case the warlock is casting EB which is stronger by a wide margin than any cantrip those casters have. In fact it actually comes close to, if not exceeding, the same strength as some of those one action first level spells. 2. The day has gone super long and they are running on near empty, which these are the days that it is more likely that a second short rest is likely to happen in which the warlock is now casting MORE high level spells.
Finally, with 1 first level slot from tome and the ability to get Magic Initiate, ANY first level spell in the game is at the warlocks finger tips and able to be cast twice a day if they so choose.
Top this off it isn't like you can't use any of the invocations for more combat or more utility as we desire.
There has been many ways that it has been broken down. Whether you want to break it down using the Font of Magic system, or looking at number of big casts. The warlock is doing well against full casters.
Needing 1 short rest, should not be considered "short rest reliant" because everyone should rely on one short rest to not DIE.
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.
They did address it though. Tome gives a first level slot. Ritual casting was granted for all. Magical cunning adds another BIG spell once per day when you run out allowing you to push that LITTLE BIT more till you get a short rest. And finally, by level 5 and all levels after you have 1 more invocation and more at will options (yes the missing invocations 100% need to come back). That is, at minimum, 3 or 4 more spell casts a day.
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.
Oh Whoops, my bad, here I thought the idea was to fix problems.
The problem isn't the variability of short rests from table to table, it's the comparative non-variability long rests. The vast majority of the party will agree on when a long rest is necessary, only the Warlock and Monk have to ask the team for a unique time out to restore their highest-value resources. I and others on the board think this is a problem for many tables, you and other people on the board think this isn't a problem. Short of a large survey there's no way to tell which of us is correct; if the short rest recharge is a unique mechanic that should be protected or a headache that causes needless complication and headache.
Similarly on the "just an opinion man" front, I don't believe the outrage over the UA 5 Warlock had anything to do with Pact Slots being gone, it had everything to do with the loss of 3rd/4th/5th level spells for character levels 5/7/9. The natural endpoint for most long campaigns is between 10th and 15th, gatekeeping the mid-tier spells until the end of the campaign was a non-starter for Warlock players, and the the "choose 1 spell to cast 1/long rest" band-aid was insufficient to fix it. People care a lot about their caster feeling like a caster, the UA 5 Warlock lacked that feeling for a lot of people.
Problem is people don't often understand what they are asking. Essentially what people want that want a bunch of first level slots and a the big slots is just to make the warlock a full caster, if you want first and second level slots AND went 3rd level slots at 5th level with no strings attached that is called a full caster. Which means EB gets super toned down and invocations drop to like 2 or 3.
It is not just the monk and the warlock that should be using a short rest.
again 1 rest. EVERYONE should take 1 short rest. You can not take more than 1 long rest per 24 hour period. The Bard gets its inspiration back, cleric gets CD, Druid gets WS, Fighter gets THEIR big Action Surge back, Paladin gets CD back now, Sorcerers get a SP back if they are out, which at 5 is pretty likely to happen. Finally, wizards get either their best spell slot back, or multiple lower level spell slots which i guess 3 first level spells is better than 1 3rd so do that. AND EVERYONE spends hit dice to recover health. Something they should not be able to do with a long rest for another 8 hours from the time they would have needed the rest and 16 hours of resting should be costly.
This is back to that if, the long rest is a problem, than the answer is with the table. The tables need better tools for altering the game as they need to so that it can fit their narrative. You can't build every class to work at every table with every type of adventure and pace of the day and not have them all be carbon copies of each other.
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.
They did address it though. Tome gives a first level slot. Ritual casting was granted for all. Magical cunning adds another BIG spell once per day when you run out allowing you to push that LITTLE BIT more till you get a short rest. And finally, by level 5 and all levels after you have 1 more invocation and more at will options (yes the missing invocations 100% need to come back). That is, at minimum, 3 or 4 more spell casts a day.
The problem is you and I like the OoC at will spells that invocations provide. There aren’t very many good in combat spells provided through invocations. It’s easier to just let some invocations give spell slots than it is to have invocations for very specific spells. Also Pact of the Tome as Overtuned and that wonky spell slot shouldn’t be there like that. The 2 level warlock dip for a sorcerer just got even better. Seven 1st level spells. It’s not overpowered, it’s just weird.
Oh Whoops, my bad, here I thought the idea was to fix problems.
The problem isn't the variability of short rests from table to table, it's the comparative non-variability long rests. The vast majority of the party will agree on when a long rest is necessary, only the Warlock and Monk have to ask the team for a unique time out to restore their highest-value resources. I and others on the board think this is a problem for many tables, you and other people on the board think this isn't a problem. Short of a large survey there's no way to tell which of us is correct; if the short rest recharge is a unique mechanic that should be protected or a headache that causes needless complication and headache.
Similarly on the "just an opinion man" front, I don't believe the outrage over the UA 5 Warlock had anything to do with Pact Slots being gone, it had everything to do with the loss of 3rd/4th/5th level spells for character levels 5/7/9. The natural endpoint for most long campaigns is between 10th and 15th, gatekeeping the mid-tier spells until the end of the campaign was a non-starter for Warlock players, and the the "choose 1 spell to cast 1/long rest" band-aid was insufficient to fix it. People care a lot about their caster feeling like a caster, the UA 5 Warlock lacked that feeling for a lot of people.
Problem is people don't often understand what they are asking. Essentially what people want that want a bunch of first level slots and a the big slots is just to make the warlock a full caster, if you want first and second level slots AND went 3rd level slots at 5th level with no strings attached that is called a full caster. Which means EB gets super toned down and invocations drop to like 2 or 3.
It is not just the monk and the warlock that should be using a short rest.
again 1 rest. EVERYONE should take 1 short rest. You can not take more than 1 long rest per 24 hour period. The Bard gets its inspiration back, cleric gets CD, Druid gets WS, Fighter gets THEIR big Action Surge back, Paladin gets CD back now, Sorcerers get a SP back if they are out, which at 5 is pretty likely to happen. Finally, wizards get either their best spell slot back, or multiple lower level spell slots which i guess 3 first level spells is better than 1 3rd so do that. AND EVERYONE spends hit dice to recover health. Something they should not be able to do with a long rest for another 8 hours from the time they would have needed the rest and 16 hours of resting should be costly.
This is back to that if, the long rest is a problem, than the answer is with the table. The tables need better tools for altering the game as they need to so that it can fit their narrative. You can't build every class to work at every table with every type of adventure and pace of the day and not have them all be carbon copies of each other.
I absolutely agree that if Pactslots become rechargeable on a Long Rest it opens the door to different problems. It's unfortunate that a lot of people don't correlate that switching to long rest is much more complicated than "Just give 'em more spells" (which as you point out, unbalances them) but I think my point about the lack of symmetry on short rests is a primary problem. I don't agree with your exact reading there, but for sure the class needs a full re-evaluation if the pact slots move to long rest; it's not enough to just grant more spells.
I admit I haven't looked at enough of the Playtest changes to know if enough mechanics restore on short rest to balance the issue. My assumption is that so long as full casters can't regain high or multiple mid-tier spells on a short rest the problem remains, but that's an unexamined gut reaction.
As for the short vs long rest issue being a table problem I'd completely disagree. Again, the problem with the short rest recharge in general, it's that different classes restore different abilities on a short rest. Making your primary spell casting or primary resource mechanic dependent on a mechanic that no one else is worried about is the main problem.
Oh Whoops, my bad, here I thought the idea was to fix problems.
The problem isn't the variability of short rests from table to table, it's the comparative non-variability long rests. The vast majority of the party will agree on when a long rest is necessary, only the Warlock and Monk have to ask the team for a unique time out to restore their highest-value resources. I and others on the board think this is a problem for many tables, you and other people on the board think this isn't a problem. Short of a large survey there's no way to tell which of us is correct; if the short rest recharge is a unique mechanic that should be protected or a headache that causes needless complication and headache.
Similarly on the "just an opinion man" front, I don't believe the outrage over the UA 5 Warlock had anything to do with Pact Slots being gone, it had everything to do with the loss of 3rd/4th/5th level spells for character levels 5/7/9. The natural endpoint for most long campaigns is between 10th and 15th, gatekeeping the mid-tier spells until the end of the campaign was a non-starter for Warlock players, and the the "choose 1 spell to cast 1/long rest" band-aid was insufficient to fix it. People care a lot about their caster feeling like a caster, the UA 5 Warlock lacked that feeling for a lot of people.
Problem is people don't often understand what they are asking. Essentially what people want that want a bunch of first level slots and a the big slots is just to make the warlock a full caster, if you want first and second level slots AND went 3rd level slots at 5th level with no strings attached that is called a full caster. Which means EB gets super toned down and invocations drop to like 2 or 3.
It is not just the monk and the warlock that should be using a short rest.
again 1 rest. EVERYONE should take 1 short rest. You can not take more than 1 long rest per 24 hour period. The Bard gets its inspiration back, cleric gets CD, Druid gets WS, Fighter gets THEIR big Action Surge back, Paladin gets CD back now, Sorcerers get a SP back if they are out, which at 5 is pretty likely to happen. Finally, wizards get either their best spell slot back, or multiple lower level spell slots which i guess 3 first level spells is better than 1 3rd so do that. AND EVERYONE spends hit dice to recover health. Something they should not be able to do with a long rest for another 8 hours from the time they would have needed the rest and 16 hours of resting should be costly.
This is back to that if, the long rest is a problem, than the answer is with the table. The tables need better tools for altering the game as they need to so that it can fit their narrative. You can't build every class to work at every table with every type of adventure and pace of the day and not have them all be carbon copies of each other.
I absolutely agree that if Pactslots become rechargeable on a Long Rest it opens the door to different problems. It's unfortunate that a lot of people don't correlate that switching to long rest is much more complicated than "Just give 'em more spells" (which as you point out, unbalances them) but I think my point about the lack of symmetry on short rests is a primary problem. I don't agree with your exact reading there, but for sure the class needs a full re-evaluation if the pact slots move to long rest; it's not enough to just grant more spells.
I admit I haven't looked at enough of the Playtest changes to know if enough mechanics restore on short rest to balance the issue. My assumption is that so long as full casters can't regain high or multiple mid-tier spells on a short rest the problem remains, but that's an unexamined gut reaction.
As for the short vs long rest issue being a table problem I'd completely disagree. Again, the problem with the short rest recharge in general, it's that different classes restore different abilities on a short rest. Making your primary spell casting or primary resource mechanic dependent on a mechanic that no one else is worried about is the main problem.
Well if we are adding in subclasses, The Moon Druid is HIGHLY reliant on WS, The Land druid loves WS uses now as well AND they get the wizards Arcane recovery. The Cleric can use CD to recover a slot. The only ones that really don't are the bard and the half casters and the Sorcerer's recovery is kind of a joke. If they removed the "have to be out" clause on the sorcerer it would be along way. For fighter, you have BM dice of course in addition to the usual. And of course, for me it is hit dice and for the barbarian THAT is the big one that is needed, he may not recover abilities, but he is going to be the guy that has the biggest hit die and takes the most hits he wants a short rest.
I almost never consider the rogue in this long rest vs short rest convo at all, because it doesn't have resources that recover during either. It is 100% at will. Which is why I refer to them as the 'real outlier'.
So the outliers are the half casters, and the sorc really. for people that don't get a lot back on a short.
Playtest 7 did alleviate warlock casting a lot already:
Invocation giving at will spells (earlier, no more casting with a warlock slot bs etc)
Ritual Casting
Tome giving a lvl 1 slot (another upgrade to Tome at level 5+ could maybe give access to some higher-level ritual spells and give a single level 2 slot)
Magical Cunning (horrendous name btw)
The biggest issue is the "1 epic encounter" adventuring day every table eventually runs into and some tables almost exclusively play.
Magical Cunning should be a BONUS ACTION. That way you can use it in long combat to not fall so super far behind other casters. Hell, you could even just let them restore their full slots this way once per long rest if you keep being this stingy with slots. Otherwise, I'd love to see the 3rd pact slot being moved to level 7, 8 or 9.
Playtest 7 did alleviate warlock casting a lot already:
Invocation giving at will spells (earlier, no more casting with a warlock slot bs etc)
Ritual Casting
Tome giving a lvl 1 slot (another upgrade to Tome at level 5+ could maybe give access to some higher-level ritual spells and give a single level 2 slot)
Magical Cunning (horrendous name btw)
The biggest issue is the "1 epic encounter" adventuring day every table eventually runs into and some tables almost exclusively play.
Magical Cunning should be a BONUS ACTION. That way you can use it in long combat to not fall so super far behind other casters. Hell, you could even just let them restore their full slots this way once per long rest if you keep being this stingy with slots. Otherwise, I'd love to see the 3rd pact slot being moved to level 7, 8 or 9.
I wish they had kept some of the "Cast 1x per long rest without using a pact slot" invocations, only with the small boost of allowing them to be cast again WITH pact slots, and possibly, the one freebie per day to automatically be boosted to pact slot level.
2 slots per short rest doesn't feel like enough, bit 2 per short rest plus another 2 or 3 per long rest is another matter, especially if backed up by either the new pact of the tome and/or a XXX-touched feat that gives 2 (albeit at lvls 1 and 2) spells per long rest. And funny enough, I don't think I have played a warlock that got bonus spells as a racial feature either. But then, if every choice at character creation is made to alleviate the issue with lack of pact slots, it kind of proves that it IS an issue, doesn't it?
But then, if every choice at character creation is made to alleviate the issue with lack of pact slots, it kind of proves that it IS an issue, doesn't it?
Indeed. On the other hand, we talk about rituals, but how many ritual spells does the base warlock have? Six? And beyond Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages, they aren't the most useful either. So, in practice, for all warlocks who don't have Pact Tome, that "extra" ritual-based casting will be Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages. And Pact Tome doesn't improve that much either, since of the entire list of level 1 rituals (12 in total), Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages are already the most useful. It's nice to be able to add Alarm and Tenser's Floating Disk to your repertoire, but it's not super exciting either. At the end of the day it's a bit more magic and utility outside of combat, which is welcome, but doesn't fix anything.
But then, if every choice at character creation is made to alleviate the issue with lack of pact slots, it kind of proves that it IS an issue, doesn't it?
Indeed. On the other hand, we talk about rituals, but how many ritual spells does the base warlock have? Six? And beyond Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages, they aren't the most useful either. So, in practice, for all warlocks who don't have Pact Tome, that "extra" ritual-based casting will be Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages. And Pact Tome doesn't improve that much either, since of the entire list of level 1 rituals (12 in total), Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages are already the most useful. It's nice to be able to add Alarm and Tenser's Floating Disk to your repertoire, but it's not super exciting either. At the end of the day it's a bit more magic and utility outside of combat, which is welcome, but doesn't fix anything.
I 100% believe that more ritual spells need to be added to the warlock list, however the others that exist that are useful are the newly added speak with animals and the old faithful unseen servant.... I really really like unseen servant. In combat casting doesn't really "need" fixing as they have the best cantrip in the game and get the same number of "big casts" in a single fight as any other full caster.
The wonderful thing about character creation stuff is it is always opt in. You want more utility it is there, more battlefield control, it is there, more damage there, more survivability there. Some combination of all of it you can do that too. That is what I NEED on my warlock personally. If I want to go the route of getting vicious mockery with pact of the tome and giving it agonizing blast and then play a social butterfly warlock with mask of many faces and lessons of the first one to take the musician feat I can.
I prefer the ability to learn rituals from the 2014 Warlock. Learn 2 upon getting the invocation, pick up the ability to learn more in a manner similar to the wizard, but unhampered by class lists. Druid rituals? Yes. Cleric rituals? Also yes. It's not like there's a ton of them even combined.
If the current warlock ends up being definitive, I wonder how many variants we are going to see in the game. Because my suspicion is that we're only going to see the bladelock. And mostly in dip to hit with char. Like now actually. Hexblade only, or dip to hexblade. Curious that being the class with the most customization, it is the one with the fewest variants seen in the real game.
If the current warlock ends up being definitive, I wonder how many variants we are going to see in the game. Because my suspicion is that we're only going to see the bladelock. And mostly in dip to hit with char. Like now actually. Hexblade only, or dip to hexblade. Curious that being the class with the most customization, it is the one with the fewest variants seen in the real game.
Hexblade is the definition of front-loaded. You have charisma for attack and damage rolls, Medium Armor and Shield proficiencies, and Hexblade’s Curse. That’s on top of Eldritch Blast and a Pact Slot.
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The 6-8 combat encounters comes from dividing the Adventuring Day XP by the budget for a medium encounter. That is in a section of the DMG that only talks about combat encounters. The only hint that noncombat encounters might count comes from Chapter 8, which suggests a noncombat encounter can have a difficulty just like a combat encounter, in which case it seems reasonable to count it -- but those aren't just any old noncombat encounter, those are ones that are sufficiently challenging that the DM would be expected to award experience points for completing them.
That’s the problem. That Chapter is called Creating Adventures. How are exploration, social interactions, and chases not part of crafting an adventure? Also traps are in another chapter. I can understand not having them all in same chapter, but there should be some acknowledgment that they all use resources so that 6-8 should change if your party has to expend resources throughout the day doing things besides combat.
While I agree that they are part of an adventure, to be blunt, while they can take up large amounts of time (both in in-game time and session time) they rarely consume a lot of resources, so you generally don't go too badly wrong by ignoring them.
I ran a chase after a battle once. Overwhelming reinforcements were coming. I almost TPKed them because of bad rolls and lack of resources. Now if it would have been in reverse the chase was before that battle I doubt they would have had the resources to win the combat.
Eh pact of the tome gets you one slot, and a feat will get you one 1st level casting with magic initiate, and if you really need more you can take fey touched etc for a 3rd 1st level spell. The the 2nd/3rd are fixed slots but it still ends up being a lot of low level casting. That being said I did suggest on the survey they should have a invocation or two that built on pact of the tomes slots, and they could add in some other casting invocations as well.
Oh Whoops, my bad, here I thought the idea was to fix problems.
The problem isn't the variability of short rests from table to table, it's the comparative non-variability long rests. The vast majority of the party will agree on when a long rest is necessary, only the Warlock and Monk have to ask the team for a unique time out to restore their highest-value resources. I and others on the board think this is a problem for many tables, you and other people on the board think this isn't a problem. Short of a large survey there's no way to tell which of us is correct; if the short rest recharge is a unique mechanic that should be protected or a headache that causes needless complication and headache.
Similarly on the "just an opinion man" front, I don't believe the outrage over the UA 5 Warlock had anything to do with Pact Slots being gone, it had everything to do with the loss of 3rd/4th/5th level spells for character levels 5/7/9. The natural endpoint for most long campaigns is between 10th and 15th, gatekeeping the mid-tier spells until the end of the campaign was a non-starter for Warlock players, and the the "choose 1 spell to cast 1/long rest" band-aid was insufficient to fix it. People care a lot about their caster feeling like a caster, the UA 5 Warlock lacked that feeling for a lot of people.
Exactly right! The problem isn't too many or too few short rests, it's that only two classes are fully dependent on short rests to restore the abilities that most define the class.
Seconded as well on the UA 5 Warlock. The problem wasn't losing short rest recharge, the problem was a fundamental change to how the Warlock class was understood as a caster.
While I'm not sure how exactly the Warlock should be fixed, I generally agree that short and long rest resources should be better spread through all the classes. This is unfortunately more than just a balance concern. The ability to choose what wildly different thing you're doing round by round is part of the fun of playing a caster; it's an agency thing. Resource regeneration that's wildly divergent from the other classes only serves to knee-cap your choice by starving the character of spells or maximize that character's agency by giving them high-potency spells available at every encounter.
And I have covered this. Other than the "broken" reaction spells that need a nerf, NO CASTER is using an ACTION on a first level spell when they can use it on a higher level spell UNLESS one of a few things is happening.
1. The fight is super easy and they don't want to "waste" their bigger slots... in this case the warlock is casting EB which is stronger by a wide margin than any cantrip those casters have. In fact it actually comes close to, if not exceeding, the same strength as some of those one action first level spells.
2. The day has gone super long and they are running on near empty, which these are the days that it is more likely that a second short rest is likely to happen in which the warlock is now casting MORE high level spells.
Finally, with 1 first level slot from tome and the ability to get Magic Initiate, ANY first level spell in the game is at the warlocks finger tips and able to be cast twice a day if they so choose.
Top this off it isn't like you can't use any of the invocations for more combat or more utility as we desire.
There has been many ways that it has been broken down. Whether you want to break it down using the Font of Magic system, or looking at number of big casts. The warlock is doing well against full casters.
Needing 1 short rest, should not be considered "short rest reliant" because everyone should rely on one short rest to not DIE.
They did address it though. Tome gives a first level slot. Ritual casting was granted for all. Magical cunning adds another BIG spell once per day when you run out allowing you to push that LITTLE BIT more till you get a short rest. And finally, by level 5 and all levels after you have 1 more invocation and more at will options (yes the missing invocations 100% need to come back). That is, at minimum, 3 or 4 more spell casts a day.
Problem is people don't often understand what they are asking. Essentially what people want that want a bunch of first level slots and a the big slots is just to make the warlock a full caster, if you want first and second level slots AND went 3rd level slots at 5th level with no strings attached that is called a full caster. Which means EB gets super toned down and invocations drop to like 2 or 3.
It is not just the monk and the warlock that should be using a short rest.
again 1 rest. EVERYONE should take 1 short rest. You can not take more than 1 long rest per 24 hour period. The Bard gets its inspiration back, cleric gets CD, Druid gets WS, Fighter gets THEIR big Action Surge back, Paladin gets CD back now, Sorcerers get a SP back if they are out, which at 5 is pretty likely to happen. Finally, wizards get either their best spell slot back, or multiple lower level spell slots which i guess 3 first level spells is better than 1 3rd so do that. AND EVERYONE spends hit dice to recover health. Something they should not be able to do with a long rest for another 8 hours from the time they would have needed the rest and 16 hours of resting should be costly.
This is back to that if, the long rest is a problem, than the answer is with the table. The tables need better tools for altering the game as they need to so that it can fit their narrative. You can't build every class to work at every table with every type of adventure and pace of the day and not have them all be carbon copies of each other.
The problem is you and I like the OoC at will spells that invocations provide. There aren’t very many good in combat spells provided through invocations. It’s easier to just let some invocations give spell slots than it is to have invocations for very specific spells. Also Pact of the Tome as Overtuned and that wonky spell slot shouldn’t be there like that. The 2 level warlock dip for a sorcerer just got even better. Seven 1st level spells. It’s not overpowered, it’s just weird.
I absolutely agree that if Pactslots become rechargeable on a Long Rest it opens the door to different problems. It's unfortunate that a lot of people don't correlate that switching to long rest is much more complicated than "Just give 'em more spells" (which as you point out, unbalances them) but I think my point about the lack of symmetry on short rests is a primary problem. I don't agree with your exact reading there, but for sure the class needs a full re-evaluation if the pact slots move to long rest; it's not enough to just grant more spells.
I admit I haven't looked at enough of the Playtest changes to know if enough mechanics restore on short rest to balance the issue. My assumption is that so long as full casters can't regain high or multiple mid-tier spells on a short rest the problem remains, but that's an unexamined gut reaction.
As for the short vs long rest issue being a table problem I'd completely disagree. Again, the problem with the short rest recharge in general, it's that different classes restore different abilities on a short rest. Making your primary spell casting or primary resource mechanic dependent on a mechanic that no one else is worried about is the main problem.
Well if we are adding in subclasses, The Moon Druid is HIGHLY reliant on WS, The Land druid loves WS uses now as well AND they get the wizards Arcane recovery. The Cleric can use CD to recover a slot. The only ones that really don't are the bard and the half casters and the Sorcerer's recovery is kind of a joke. If they removed the "have to be out" clause on the sorcerer it would be along way. For fighter, you have BM dice of course in addition to the usual. And of course, for me it is hit dice and for the barbarian THAT is the big one that is needed, he may not recover abilities, but he is going to be the guy that has the biggest hit die and takes the most hits he wants a short rest.
I almost never consider the rogue in this long rest vs short rest convo at all, because it doesn't have resources that recover during either. It is 100% at will. Which is why I refer to them as the 'real outlier'.
So the outliers are the half casters, and the sorc really. for people that don't get a lot back on a short.
Playtest 7 did alleviate warlock casting a lot already:
The biggest issue is the "1 epic encounter" adventuring day every table eventually runs into and some tables almost exclusively play.
Magical Cunning should be a BONUS ACTION. That way you can use it in long combat to not fall so super far behind other casters. Hell, you could even just let them restore their full slots this way once per long rest if you keep being this stingy with slots. Otherwise, I'd love to see the 3rd pact slot being moved to level 7, 8 or 9.
I wish they had kept some of the "Cast 1x per long rest without using a pact slot" invocations, only with the small boost of allowing them to be cast again WITH pact slots, and possibly, the one freebie per day to automatically be boosted to pact slot level.
2 slots per short rest doesn't feel like enough, bit 2 per short rest plus another 2 or 3 per long rest is another matter, especially if backed up by either the new pact of the tome and/or a XXX-touched feat that gives 2 (albeit at lvls 1 and 2) spells per long rest. And funny enough, I don't think I have played a warlock that got bonus spells as a racial feature either. But then, if every choice at character creation is made to alleviate the issue with lack of pact slots, it kind of proves that it IS an issue, doesn't it?
Indeed. On the other hand, we talk about rituals, but how many ritual spells does the base warlock have? Six? And beyond Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages, they aren't the most useful either.
So, in practice, for all warlocks who don't have Pact Tome, that "extra" ritual-based casting will be Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages. And Pact Tome doesn't improve that much either, since of the entire list of level 1 rituals (12 in total), Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages are already the most useful. It's nice to be able to add Alarm and Tenser's Floating Disk to your repertoire, but it's not super exciting either. At the end of the day it's a bit more magic and utility outside of combat, which is welcome, but doesn't fix anything.
I 100% believe that more ritual spells need to be added to the warlock list, however the others that exist that are useful are the newly added speak with animals and the old faithful unseen servant.... I really really like unseen servant. In combat casting doesn't really "need" fixing as they have the best cantrip in the game and get the same number of "big casts" in a single fight as any other full caster.
The wonderful thing about character creation stuff is it is always opt in. You want more utility it is there, more battlefield control, it is there, more damage there, more survivability there. Some combination of all of it you can do that too. That is what I NEED on my warlock personally. If I want to go the route of getting vicious mockery with pact of the tome and giving it agonizing blast and then play a social butterfly warlock with mask of many faces and lessons of the first one to take the musician feat I can.
I prefer the ability to learn rituals from the 2014 Warlock. Learn 2 upon getting the invocation, pick up the ability to learn more in a manner similar to the wizard, but unhampered by class lists. Druid rituals? Yes. Cleric rituals? Also yes. It's not like there's a ton of them even combined.
If the current warlock ends up being definitive, I wonder how many variants we are going to see in the game.
Because my suspicion is that we're only going to see the bladelock. And mostly in dip to hit with char.
Like now actually. Hexblade only, or dip to hexblade.
Curious that being the class with the most customization, it is the one with the fewest variants seen in the real game.
Hexblade is the definition of front-loaded. You have charisma for attack and damage rolls, Medium Armor and Shield proficiencies, and Hexblade’s Curse. That’s on top of Eldritch Blast and a Pact Slot.