UA7 + ⅓ spellcasting instead of Magical Cunning would be perfect imo.
I did that Mock up as well and if you don’t make it cost some invocations it’s too much Spellcasting potential. Even at 8 invocations, Pact Magic and 1/3 casting it’s so much more potent than any other caster. I ran a few different versions that let you use 2-3 invocations to gain 1/3 casting but the fact that pact magic refreshes on a short rest makes even that way too strong. I came to the realization if it’s spellcasting progression then the Warlock shouldn’t get over 4th level which is 2nd level spell slots. That doesn’t feel good. So I was going to do a mock up that allows an invocation to gain two 1st level slots, another to give a 2nd, another a 3rd, and another a 4th. That way you can have stronger lower level slots without having too much Spellcasting potential.
I did that Mock up as well and if you don’t make it cost some invocations it’s too much Spellcasting potential. Even at 8 invocations, Pact Magic and 1/3 casting it’s so much more potent than any other caster.
I just don't agree. Warlock has structural weaknesses the other casters don't, like not being able to upcast anything past 5th level, and having the weakest spell list of all the full casters. And sure, they can recover 5th-level spell slots on a short rest.... but nearly every other caster can do that too now.
If they made it cost an invocation or two I'd live, but I genuinely don't think it's necessary.
I did that Mock up as well and if you don’t make it cost some invocations it’s too much Spellcasting potential. Even at 8 invocations, Pact Magic and 1/3 casting it’s so much more potent than any other caster.
I just don't agree. Warlock has structural weaknesses the other casters don't, like not being able to upcast anything past 5th level, and having the weakest spell list of all the full casters. And sure, they can recover 5th-level spell slots on a short rest.... but nearly every other caster can do that too now.
If they made it cost an invocation or two I'd live, but I genuinely don't think it's necessary.
The invocations matter when you have at will spells, options for melee combat, and the best damage cantrip in the game that stacks with well with hex which is a great use for additional low level spells. The only way to balance 1/3 casting and pact magic is to put a hard limit on the amount of time pact magic can recharge. At that point you start to question why use pact magic at all.
UA7 + ⅓ spellcasting instead of Magical Cunning would be perfect imo.
I did that Mock up as well and if you don’t make it cost some invocations it’s too much Spellcasting potential. Even at 8 invocations, Pact Magic and 1/3 casting it’s so much more potent than any other caster. I ran a few different versions that let you use 2-3 invocations to gain 1/3 casting but the fact that pact magic refreshes on a short rest makes even that way too strong. I came to the realization if it’s spellcasting progression then the Warlock shouldn’t get over 4th level which is 2nd level spell slots. That doesn’t feel good. So I was going to do a mock up that allows an invocation to gain two 1st level slots, another to give a 2nd, another a 3rd, and another a 4th. That way you can have stronger lower level slots without having too much Spellcasting potential.
That could work, but if we are using pact magic we only need 1-4 and it would need to be on even levels. I wouldn't call them Mystic Arcanum as I would want them to function as long rest spell slots. This would be a 2nd level feature replacing magical cunning and I would drop invocations back down to 8 or maybe 9 to adjust for the power increase. I would need to test it to be sure what feels right. That would give a 20th level warlock 1,1,1,1,4P,1,1,1,1. So no rest 12 slots, 1rest 16, 2 rest 20 slots. Just doing it in my head it seems okay. You could get tome pact for an additional 1st level spell slot. I think having a 9th level invocation that gives a 1st and 2nd level slots would fit this build as well. Especially for those who want to be caster focused.
How do you think this is slightly behind Wizard and Sorcerers. This far surpasses them in Spellcasting capabilities. You allowed Warlock to have all its at will spells through invocations, and with Mystic Arcanums they have about the same spell slots at 20th. Basically this version has slower progression, but actually catches up at high level. 20th level Wizard has 4,3,3,3,3,2,2,1,1 your Warlock has 5,4,4,4,3,1,1,1,1. Wizard 22 spell slots, Your Warlock 24 spell slots/Arcanum slots and 10 invocations. I worked on this mock up a month ago and realized this flaw immediately. The reason WotC put Mystic Arcanum in invocations is because it was the only way to make it even close to balanced.
Wizard gets Arcane Recovery, this version of warlock only gets spell slots back on long rests, if you recover a spell slot of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level, you'd get 5,4,4,4,3,2,2,1,1 as a wizard, which is obviously more, of course at these later levels, wizards also get their at-will spells of 1st and 2nd level at level 18 and an additional casting of two 3rd level spells at level 20. I'd also note that the mystic arcanum used are of higher levels then the spells in most cases. So you're giving up a 4th level spell slot for that 2nd level at will, altho it could go up to 5th level. Very few of the spells have any real combat utility outside of magic armor and fiendish vigor, mage armor already lasts 8 hours anyway.
UA7 + ⅓ spellcasting instead of Magical Cunning would be perfect imo.
I did that Mock up as well and if you don’t make it cost some invocations it’s too much Spellcasting potential. Even at 8 invocations, Pact Magic and 1/3 casting it’s so much more potent than any other caster. I ran a few different versions that let you use 2-3 invocations to gain 1/3 casting but the fact that pact magic refreshes on a short rest makes even that way too strong. I came to the realization if it’s spellcasting progression then the Warlock shouldn’t get over 4th level which is 2nd level spell slots. That doesn’t feel good. So I was going to do a mock up that allows an invocation to gain two 1st level slots, another to give a 2nd, another a 3rd, and another a 4th. That way you can have stronger lower level slots without having too much Spellcasting potential.
That could work, but if we are using pact magic we only need 1-4 and it would need to be on even levels. I wouldn't call them Mystic Arcanum as I would want them to function as long rest spell slots. This would be a 2nd level feature replacing magical cunning and I would drop invocations back down to 8 or maybe 9 to adjust for the power increase. I would need to test it to be sure what feels right. That would give a 20th level warlock 1,1,1,1,4P,1,1,1,1. So no rest 12 slots, 1rest 16, 2 rest 20 slots. Just doing it in my head it seems okay. You could get tome pact for an additional 1st level spell slot. I think having a 9th level invocation that gives a 1st and 2nd level slots would fit this build as well. Especially for those who want to be caster focused.
Or just move the 3rd pact slot to level 15 and remove the 4th pact slot. Would also get about the right balance. Sure lose a few spells per day at later levels, but with 3 pact slots, 1 long rest slot only 1 short rest, it'd still be 7 3rd level spells at level 15, 5 from level 10 (assuming the MA on even levels) and 4 at level 9. You could even bring magical cunning back into the mix but as a level 11 feature, I feel there are ways to achieve better fine tuning for these later levels with that.
I don't think it would, or you run into a scenario where you'd end up with a feat you are now ineligible for if you swap weapons to another type, walk too far away from the weapon, or die and need to be brought back.
They have over-complicated it by having the requirement in the first place, since you're generally not going to use weapons you aren't proficient with and all polearms applicable are already martial weapons, since it's limited the heavy and reach property weapons. But yes, it's weird, however it just says proficiency with any martial weapon, which you do have while your pact weapon is a martial weapon. Re-reading over UA7, I see nothing that allows you to switch out Eldritch Invocations any more, by the UA, so I guess the fix is to just entirely disable the ability to switch invocations, which does make sense and then you could never get in that situation. Else you'd get other issues with switching pacts, since other invocations rely on pacts, and you'd end out with useless invocations.
You still have the wandered too far from your weapon, and death scenarios since you don't have actual proficiency with the weapons that persists no matter what (because it is tied to your character), you just have magical proficiency that is temporarily granted while you have a weapon bonded to yourself. They could probably drop that requirement from the feat if they intend it to be used by Warlocks to clear that all up, or reword the blade pact to clarify things.
I don't think it would, or you run into a scenario where you'd end up with a feat you are now ineligible for if you swap weapons to another type, walk too far away from the weapon, or die and need to be brought back.
They have over-complicated it by having the requirement in the first place, since you're generally not going to use weapons you aren't proficient with and all polearms applicable are already martial weapons, since it's limited the heavy and reach property weapons. But yes, it's weird, however it just says proficiency with any martial weapon, which you do have while your pact weapon is a martial weapon. Re-reading over UA7, I see nothing that allows you to switch out Eldritch Invocations any more, by the UA, so I guess the fix is to just entirely disable the ability to switch invocations, which does make sense and then you could never get in that situation. Else you'd get other issues with switching pacts, since other invocations rely on pacts, and you'd end out with useless invocations.
You still have the wandered too far from your weapon, and death scenarios since you don't have actual proficiency with the weapons that persists no matter what (because it is tied to your character), you just have magical proficiency that is temporarily granted while you have a weapon bonded to yourself. They could probably drop that requirement from the feat if they intend it to be used by Warlocks to clear that all up, or reword the blade pact to clarify things.
I think it's an intentional limiting factor. Pact of the Blade is so devastating because of the sheer power of your Eldritch Weapon. Weapon feats are a lot more reflective of your ability as a character to wield them effectively. It's another reason why UA7 Blade is basically at the power level where it should be. No PAM, no GWM without getting mastery via multi-class or spending another Feat on it. It's honestly pretty flavorful and balanced imo.
For my table UA7 worked. It could use some tweaks which I wrote up somewhere else and now I can't remember most of it. But I'm happy with where they went there and hope they keep most of it. I do think something should be done with Hex like hunters mark. I did like flexible casting. I did like from UA5 eldritch blast being a class feature. I think they went a bit too far with pact of the blade in 7. I think they should drop the size limits from the warlocks repelling blast. A warlocks damage wont be near the top, but what made up for it was attached control features. That should be a area where they excel past others control on their base attacks, dude with a bow being as good seems off.
The invocations matter when you have at will spells, options for melee combat, and the best damage cantrip in the game that stacks with well with hex which is a great use for additional low level spells. The only way to balance 1/3 casting and pact magic is to put a hard limit on the amount of time pact magic can recharge. At that point you start to question why use pact magic at all.
A hard limit isn't necessary. The guideline in the books is 2 short rests per day, and the issue Crawford is trying to solve per his own interview is that many groups aren't even getting that.
As for the at-will spells, they're largely utility and don't scale. Most of them were also thrown out anyway once Warlocks became ritual casters.
If you really think UA7 + ⅓ spellcasting is somehow too much, just knock them back down to 8 invocations like in 2014. And if that still isn't enough, cap them at 2 pact slots (the vast majority of groups won't get more than this anyway.)
I don't think it would, or you run into a scenario where you'd end up with a feat you are now ineligible for if you swap weapons to another type, walk too far away from the weapon, or die and need to be brought back.
They have over-complicated it by having the requirement in the first place, since you're generally not going to use weapons you aren't proficient with and all polearms applicable are already martial weapons, since it's limited the heavy and reach property weapons. But yes, it's weird, however it just says proficiency with any martial weapon, which you do have while your pact weapon is a martial weapon. Re-reading over UA7, I see nothing that allows you to switch out Eldritch Invocations any more, by the UA, so I guess the fix is to just entirely disable the ability to switch invocations, which does make sense and then you could never get in that situation. Else you'd get other issues with switching pacts, since other invocations rely on pacts, and you'd end out with useless invocations.
You still have the wandered too far from your weapon, and death scenarios since you don't have actual proficiency with the weapons that persists no matter what (because it is tied to your character), you just have magical proficiency that is temporarily granted while you have a weapon bonded to yourself. They could probably drop that requirement from the feat if they intend it to be used by Warlocks to clear that all up, or reword the blade pact to clarify things.
I think it's an intentional limiting factor. Pact of the Blade is so devastating because of the sheer power of your Eldritch Weapon. Weapon feats are a lot more reflective of your ability as a character to wield them effectively. It's another reason why UA7 Blade is basically at the power level where it should be. No PAM, no GWM without getting mastery via multi-class or spending another Feat on it. It's honestly pretty flavorful and balanced imo.
I 100% agree Zukuu. If one assumes PotB comes with martial weapon proficiency as if internally learned the 3rd attack is incredibly potent, if we assume that the external proficiency doesn't qualify for martial weapon prof (and prior sage advice articles have indicated that proficiency from external sources do not) then that 3rd melee attack keeps pace with the general class damage meta.
A Warlock could pump that up by picking Martial Weapon Prof at 4 and a martial feat at 8, but by that time the character has fully committed to playing as a martial rather than playing as a caster. Their spells are more than likely fully dedicated to hitting enemies with the pointy ends of their weapons; giving up their casting stat primacy (as 1/2 feats now require) means they're giving up giving up a total +1 or +2 bonus to DC's and subclass abilities.
You could also multi-class, but then depending on when your campaign closes out you're potentially losing out on the big 4th and 5th level spells. Sure you could technically point out that those would come on a multiclass build eventually, but the vast majority of campaigns end between 10 and 14
So you can either specialize in being a warrior, or you can maintain a pretty good damage ratio without loosing too much on the caster side of your build.
Wizard gets Arcane Recovery, this version of warlock only gets spell slots back on long rests, if you recover a spell slot of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level, you'd get 5,4,4,4,3,2,2,1,1 as a wizard, which is obviously more, of course at these later levels, wizards also get their at-will spells of 1st and 2nd level at level 18 and an additional casting of two 3rd level spells at level 20. I'd also note that the mystic arcanum used are of higher levels then the spells in most cases. So you're giving up a 4th level spell slot for that 2nd level at will, altho it could go up to 5th level. Very few of the spells have any real combat utility outside of magic armor and fiendish vigor, mage armor already lasts 8 hours anyway.
That puts Wizard at 24 slots with a rest (after dividing their arcane recovery awkwardly), and 2 free castings of a 3rd level spell. Your Warlock is at 22 spell slots with better melee options, better armor armor options, Better hit die, Best attack cantrip.
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And what about current Pact progression + MA for lvl 1 - 5 in lieu of magical cunning? Suggestion for the Mystic Arcanum Warlock - Unearthed Arcana - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
I just don't agree. Warlock has structural weaknesses the other casters don't, like not being able to upcast anything past 5th level, and having the weakest spell list of all the full casters. And sure, they can recover 5th-level spell slots on a short rest.... but nearly every other caster can do that too now.
If they made it cost an invocation or two I'd live, but I genuinely don't think it's necessary.
The invocations matter when you have at will spells, options for melee combat, and the best damage cantrip in the game that stacks with well with hex which is a great use for additional low level spells. The only way to balance 1/3 casting and pact magic is to put a hard limit on the amount of time pact magic can recharge. At that point you start to question why use pact magic at all.
That could work, but if we are using pact magic we only need 1-4 and it would need to be on even levels. I wouldn't call them Mystic Arcanum as I would want them to function as long rest spell slots. This would be a 2nd level feature replacing magical cunning and I would drop invocations back down to 8 or maybe 9 to adjust for the power increase. I would need to test it to be sure what feels right. That would give a 20th level warlock 1,1,1,1,4P,1,1,1,1. So no rest 12 slots, 1rest 16, 2 rest 20 slots. Just doing it in my head it seems okay. You could get tome pact for an additional 1st level spell slot. I think having a 9th level invocation that gives a 1st and 2nd level slots would fit this build as well. Especially for those who want to be caster focused.
Wizard gets Arcane Recovery, this version of warlock only gets spell slots back on long rests, if you recover a spell slot of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level, you'd get 5,4,4,4,3,2,2,1,1 as a wizard, which is obviously more, of course at these later levels, wizards also get their at-will spells of 1st and 2nd level at level 18 and an additional casting of two 3rd level spells at level 20. I'd also note that the mystic arcanum used are of higher levels then the spells in most cases. So you're giving up a 4th level spell slot for that 2nd level at will, altho it could go up to 5th level. Very few of the spells have any real combat utility outside of magic armor and fiendish vigor, mage armor already lasts 8 hours anyway.
Or just move the 3rd pact slot to level 15 and remove the 4th pact slot. Would also get about the right balance. Sure lose a few spells per day at later levels, but with 3 pact slots, 1 long rest slot only 1 short rest, it'd still be 7 3rd level spells at level 15, 5 from level 10 (assuming the MA on even levels) and 4 at level 9. You could even bring magical cunning back into the mix but as a level 11 feature, I feel there are ways to achieve better fine tuning for these later levels with that.
You still have the wandered too far from your weapon, and death scenarios since you don't have actual proficiency with the weapons that persists no matter what (because it is tied to your character), you just have magical proficiency that is temporarily granted while you have a weapon bonded to yourself. They could probably drop that requirement from the feat if they intend it to be used by Warlocks to clear that all up, or reword the blade pact to clarify things.
I think it's an intentional limiting factor. Pact of the Blade is so devastating because of the sheer power of your Eldritch Weapon. Weapon feats are a lot more reflective of your ability as a character to wield them effectively. It's another reason why UA7 Blade is basically at the power level where it should be. No PAM, no GWM without getting mastery via multi-class or spending another Feat on it. It's honestly pretty flavorful and balanced imo.
For my table UA7 worked. It could use some tweaks which I wrote up somewhere else and now I can't remember most of it. But I'm happy with where they went there and hope they keep most of it. I do think something should be done with Hex like hunters mark. I did like flexible casting. I did like from UA5 eldritch blast being a class feature. I think they went a bit too far with pact of the blade in 7. I think they should drop the size limits from the warlocks repelling blast. A warlocks damage wont be near the top, but what made up for it was attached control features. That should be a area where they excel past others control on their base attacks, dude with a bow being as good seems off.
A hard limit isn't necessary. The guideline in the books is 2 short rests per day, and the issue Crawford is trying to solve per his own interview is that many groups aren't even getting that.
As for the at-will spells, they're largely utility and don't scale. Most of them were also thrown out anyway once Warlocks became ritual casters.
If you really think UA7 + ⅓ spellcasting is somehow too much, just knock them back down to 8 invocations like in 2014. And if that still isn't enough, cap them at 2 pact slots (the vast majority of groups won't get more than this anyway.)
I 100% agree Zukuu. If one assumes PotB comes with martial weapon proficiency as if internally learned the 3rd attack is incredibly potent, if we assume that the external proficiency doesn't qualify for martial weapon prof (and prior sage advice articles have indicated that proficiency from external sources do not) then that 3rd melee attack keeps pace with the general class damage meta.
A Warlock could pump that up by picking Martial Weapon Prof at 4 and a martial feat at 8, but by that time the character has fully committed to playing as a martial rather than playing as a caster. Their spells are more than likely fully dedicated to hitting enemies with the pointy ends of their weapons; giving up their casting stat primacy (as 1/2 feats now require) means they're giving up giving up a total +1 or +2 bonus to DC's and subclass abilities.
You could also multi-class, but then depending on when your campaign closes out you're potentially losing out on the big 4th and 5th level spells. Sure you could technically point out that those would come on a multiclass build eventually, but the vast majority of campaigns end between 10 and 14
So you can either specialize in being a warrior, or you can maintain a pretty good damage ratio without loosing too much on the caster side of your build.
Makes perfect sense to me.
(*edited a couple times for clarity)
That puts Wizard at 24 slots with a rest (after dividing their arcane recovery awkwardly), and 2 free castings of a 3rd level spell. Your Warlock is at 22 spell slots with better melee options, better armor armor options, Better hit die, Best attack cantrip.