In theory, no; whether or not Wizards will actually devote the extra pages and ink to it is another matter.
I realize it is probably not a realistic desire, but thought it might be an interesting thought experiment that might turn the conversation away from two sides simply repeating that the other side is wrong. It seems obvious that at some tables Pact Magic is irretrievably broken and can never work, while at others it is a reasonable and functional system that adds variety to the game.
Eh, not every debate needs a clean resolution. Everybody eventually getting bored and moving on until the next UA packet is as valid a conclusion as any.
WotC is aware of the problem and either lack the time or will to fix it. Part of that is on them (we lost a huge chunk of design iteration during the OGL fiasco) and part of it just means it's a problem for the next generation of D&D to solve, whenever that may be.
So, since this debate between Pact Magic and the UA5 half-caster Warlock seems impossible to resolve, do any of you think that there is any way to balance providing a person building a Warlock character the choice between Pact Magic and half casting?
Sure. Just create two classes with different names.
A half-caster arcane gish with invocations would be plenty of fun imo!
Yes, we need a better dedicated spellblade; EK is too heavy on the blade, Blade Singer is too heavy on the spell, and Artificer doesn’t have the right spells or features to really get that vibe.
So, since this debate between Pact Magic and the UA5 half-caster Warlock seems impossible to resolve, do any of you think that there is any way to balance providing a person building a Warlock character the choice between Pact Magic and half casting? What I'm saying, is that upon character creation, the player can choose either to have their Warlock have half-caster progression or the Pact Magic progression similar to what is currently available. Would there be an unreasonable amount of additional benefits that would need to be provided for one type or another?
In theory, anything's possible. In practice I find the idea vanishingly unlikely. This is effectively smashing two separate classes together into a single Frankenstein whole; it would be far more complicated and likely take up way more page space to explain than simply writing up two entirely separate classes would be. It's also the case that the rest of the class's features are built/set up around the presence of different spell levels - spellcasters generally don't get class/subclass features at the same time they get a new level of spell, and those "new spell level" numbers are sharply different for pact Magic and half-casting. The halfcaster warlock would technically be entitled to more features than the Pact Magic warlock, which would ignite even more nerdrage.
It's a fascinating idea to consider intellectually, but it'd be way more of a hassle than it was worth to actually do.
some sort of multi-class mash up between warlock and, say, wizard maybe? one where you could sorta balance out one side having more levels and the other having less?
...i feel like more people would say "flavor is free, go play a wizard with a planar contact/contract" if this was a less polite forum. if it seems like things get a little heated, at least take heart that this 'easy button' is so often kept in check. mostly because that answer doesn't really satisfy, i get it, but you just know it's on the devs minds when they're pushing warlock class playtests out to the backburner repeatedly.
That's been the thing most of the Pact Magic Enjoyers have hurled into the teeth of both fans of the UA5 build and people who simply don't like Pact Magic. "Just fukkin' multiclass, dumbass." "Just fukkin' play a wizard and pretend you have a contract, idiot. F l A v O r i S f R e E, after all." Never mind that "Flavor is free" is one of the stupidest lines in all of tabletop gaming, right up there with "Failure is more interesting than success". If flavor was "free", we'd never have needed/developed more than one tabletop gaming rules system, nor figured out rules beyond "flip a coin to see if you succeed or fail at whatever you try and do."
Besides. Warlock/wizard multiclasses are a total nonstarter in the first place because as we went over earlier in the thread, warlocks aren't allowed to have Intelligence or Wisdom scores higher than 8.
oh, no. i do happen to subscribe to the 'failure is more interesting than success' club. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. - Seneca" ...you must have guessed. :D
anyway, you can hate the 'flavor' phrase if you like, but i brought it in without malice. i'm just pointing out that 'multiclass and reflavor' is an elephant in the room that the devs didn't ignore. that's surely why they pulled half-caster so quickly: they had an expectation, they tested it, and found what they expected to see. not exactly the scientific method at its finest.
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There’s also Fey Touched and Shadow Touched. Very useful for splashing utility spells. And, for everyone who missed, ignored, or disregarded my point the first time, these are not going to be the equivalent of a conventional full caster’s array. Warlocks are not supposed to be as good at regular spellcasting, they’re supposed to have powers that other casters don’t between their features and Invocations (which, contrary to certain misinformed assertions, I consider to be a cornerstone of the class). Which is why so many people had a problem with the half caster; rather than developing what makes Warlocks unique, it tried to force them into a half caster slot, with the option to spend further Invocations to be a 5/8’s caster. If you want to have a spell for every problem, that’s what the Wizard class is for foremost and the 4 other full caster classes also cover. Personally, I’d prefer Warlock have some more individuality and character rather than just being nearly identical to Sorcerers and Wizards, or worse a junior version of them.
"Unique" doesn't automatically mean good. There's a lot of disorders and genetic defects that can make a person "unique". And in which world would an arcane half-caster be identical to arcane fullcasters even on a most basic level?
Yes, we need a better dedicated spellblade; EK is too heavy on the blade, Blade Singer is too heavy on the spell, and Artificer doesn’t have the right spells or features to really get that vibe.
So true. This is why hexblade is so popular. Pathfinder just went ahead and made a magus class, and it works well. Paizo even managed to put both wizard casting subclass (with scribing spells from scrolls) and a sorcerer casting (having only known spells, but more flexible slots) subclasses in it. And arcane archer archetype fit that class like it was always meant to be there (because it was).
oh, no. i do happen to subscribe to the 'failure is more interesting than success' club. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. - Seneca" ...you must have guessed. :D
Heh. "Failure is more interesting than success" is incomplete in that form. The complete version seems exactly the same to many people, but is entire universes different: "Overcoming failure is more interesting than effortless success." In that form I would agree, overcoming adversity is an essential element of a proper (typical) D&D campaign. It's the shortened form that gets people in trouble by convincing them the failure itself is interesting, rather than the attempt to salvage the situation and overcome the failure. That way lies the Bohemian Failure Monkey, and nobody likes Bohemian Failure Monkeys.
anyway, you can hate the 'flavor' phrase if you like, but i brought it in without malice. i'm just pointing out that 'multiclass and reflavor' is an elephant in the room that the devs didn't ignore. that's surely why they pulled half-caster so quickly: they had an expectation, they tested it, and found what they expected to see. not exactly the scientific method at its finest.
Mostly I mean that "flavor" with absolutely no backup from or connection to the game's rules/mechanics is (ironically) utterly flavorless. It carries no weight, no meaning, and no value. It doesn't do anything, it doesn't mean anything. It's just wind pushed around the room. Sure, there's absolutely something to be said for aesthetics and painting a mental picture (i.e. what I think of when I hear the word 'flavor), but the idea of making real narrative decisions for your character that have no mechanical or narrative impact and are just sorta background fluff ideas that don't change or influence anything else? Worthless. Just...worthless.
Because if people just wanted to play yet another full caster, they’d do that instead?
Way too complex.
There is a simple desire here.
Ppl want to do cool stuff on their turn. That's it. Cool, interesting and engaging stuff.
Spell are just a means to that end.
If ppl say I want to cast more spells with my warlock, what they actually say I want to do MORE cool , interesting and engaging stuff. With my warlock. On my turn.
That's why the asked solution is moving up the 3rd spell slot.
Yet the question is does that solution offer what ppl really want? Do more cool stuff on their turns?
Well it boils down back to the short question. If you manage to slip in at least 1 short rest then it does indeed do a big step towards really opening up the warlock to do cool stuff on the majority of turns in a given adventuring day.
If you dont do any short rest then it's just marginally better. You are then a caster class that spams 1 cantrip. Where the spamming of the cantrip might be cool but is neither interesting nor engaing.
Now one could bring the question of complexity in. "I want my warlock like I want my fighter simple and on rails." Sure, that's definitely a niche that exist. Yet for me the overwhelming support on Rogues Cunning strike indicates that the vast majority of players prefers interesting and engaging over simple and on rails.
Do I care about Pact Magic? Well before the playtest I felt rather luke warm for it. It was for me personally more an obstacle to overcome than a system to play with. Eldritch Invocations and the overall theme as an eldritch caster was far more appealing to me.
Now? I developed an white hot hatred for the feature seeing how we could've gotten something more sensible. I will most likely never again play a warlock. At least not in 5th edition.
Couldn't I just ignore it as before? Sure as long as I get good turn for turn gameplay I don't care where it comes from. As such it is my believe that WOTC should be looking more into eldritch blast and how lesson from Cunning Strike could be applied to it vs. trying to fix a class feature a vast majority of players prefer to be unique rather then usable.
There are definitely degrees to "flavor is free" that I can stomach and others that I can't. Want to play a "witch" or "shaman" but your DM doesn't allow homebrew or third-party? A Land Druid or Archfey Warlock fits both of those concepts fine; you don't need your mechanical class to actually go by those names for people in the world to call you that.
But if instead you're saying something like "I want to reflavor my hand crossbows as a longbow so I can benefit from Crossbow Expert while still being a longbow user" then I wouldn't be okay with that, because longbows and hand crossbows are different mechanically.
oh, no. i do happen to subscribe to the 'failure is more interesting than success' club. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. - Seneca" ...you must have guessed. :D
Heh. "Failure is more interesting than success" is incomplete in that form. The complete version seems exactly the same to many people, but is entire universes different: "Overcoming failure is more interesting than effortless success." In that form I would agree, overcoming adversity is an essential element of a proper (typical) D&D campaign. It's the shortened form that gets people in trouble by convincing them the failure itself is interesting, rather than the attempt to salvage the situation and overcome the failure. That way lies the Bohemian Failure Monkey, and nobody likes Bohemian Failure Monkeys.
fair. I think my philosophy is more along the lines of "don't be afraid to fail (because that's story too)." my characters, when I get to play, tend to not have every angle covered. somehow it's entertaining to me to stumble into 'paladin without a ranged weapon' sorts of situations. all things in moderation.
anyway, you can hate the 'flavor' phrase if you like, but i brought it in without malice. i'm just pointing out that 'multiclass and reflavor' is an elephant in the room that the devs didn't ignore. that's surely why they pulled half-caster so quickly: they had an expectation, they tested it, and found what they expected to see. not exactly the scientific method at its finest.
Mostly I mean that "flavor" with absolutely no backup from or connection to the game's rules/mechanics is (ironically) utterly flavorless. It carries no weight, no meaning, and no value. It doesn't do anything, it doesn't mean anything. It's just wind pushed around the room. Sure, there's absolutely something to be said for aesthetics and painting a mental picture (i.e. what I think of when I hear the word 'flavor), but the idea of making real narrative decisions for your character that have no mechanical or narrative impact and are just sorta background fluff ideas that don't change or influence anything else? Worthless. Just...worthless.
if someone tells me an unknown spirit writes in their book with fiery letters every night and it's teaching them magic, does it matter which base class they are? nah, let's ride. they're not likely to be hiding a fighter under that robe. it's up to everyone to bring plausibility with them. if it turns out later that this mage can't Hex people but does have a planar contact, well I have trouble seeing what that breaks. just as this person's patron "doesn't do anything," there's plenty of warlock players who get their spells just because that's what happens upon level up, no patron required. that patron doesn't do anything either. and which of those two is taking flavor to a 'worthless' place?
There are definitely degrees to "flavor is free" that I can stomach and others that I can't. Want to play a "witch" or "shaman" but your DM doesn't allow homebrew or third-party? A Land Druid or Archfey Warlock fits both of those concepts fine; you don't need your mechanical class to actually go by those names for people in the world to call you that.
absolutely. no one's asking for favors or extra dice, just choosing their preferred labels.
But if instead you're saying something like "I want to reflavor my hand crossbows as a longbow so I can benefit from Crossbow Expert while still being a longbow user" then I wouldn't be okay with that, because longbows and hand crossbows are different mechanically.
if they're not trying to ram a longbow proficiency into a crossbow feat, then i don't see much problem (other than terrible 'longbow' range). I mean, if they instead described their xbow as having so many bows that it looked like an umbrella with the word "HAMMER" written on the side, then would it still benefit from crossbow expert feat? yes, that's just visual fluff. would it hit harder or reload faster or count as a shield or as a hammer? whoa, that's outside the score of flavor and no longer free.
Let me also add (this is an opinion only) that the changes to Hex in UA5 helped transform the half-caster warlock into a fiasco. The changes forced the use of the highest level spell slots available to keep up with the damage boost, and with class features centered on Hex, it undercut the advantages that the half caster switch was trying to achieve. To use the Thermos example, instead of increasing the size of the thermos as requested, they handed out a lunchbox, but with a smaller thermos than we originally had.
And transforming Mystic Arcanum into an invocation made the situation worse. It looked like they added invocations to the class at first glance, but those extras were all going to be spent trying to recover what was lost, especially since the Mystic Arcanum is more powerful than 95% of the rest of the invocations available anyways. It was a false choice, like a blaster Sorcerer asking what spell to take when they hit level 5. There are 2 options: Fireball and Wrong.
I also miss the invocations that allowed casting a spell for free once per long rest, they added more spellcasting potential to the class, and losing those options for 1st level rituals doesn't quite cut it. All they needed to do was add in the option of using a pact slot to cast the spell again if desired. And change all the invocations that allowed a spel to be cast once with a pact slot to being able to be used once per long rest without using it, second casting takes a pact slot.
fair. I think my philosophy is more along the lines of "don't be afraid to fail (because that's story too)." my characters, when I get to play, tend to not have every angle covered. somehow it's entertaining to me to stumble into 'paladin without a ranged weapon' sorts of situations. all things in moderation.
It's easy for DMs to say "don't be afraid to fail" - the DM's game doesn't ride on success the way the players' does. Failing to seduce the barmaid and earning a slap instead of a saucy night is one thing; failing at the last minute to stop something you've put months of real-life time and effort into trying to stop and watching your game world be irrevocably and horribly altered for the distinct worse can be emotionally devastating. Hell, look at the third season of Critical Role. The players failed to fully stop the Big Plan, and now the literal entirety of Exandria is potentially on the chopping block for being ruined/destroyed, including everything they accomplished in the first two campaigns. Failure can be story, but sometimes that story's too heavy to tell.
if someone tells me an unknown spirit writes in their book with fiery letters every night and it's teaching them magic, does it matter which base class they are? nah, let's ride. they're not likely to be hiding a fighter under that robe. it's up to everyone to bring plausibility with them. if it turns out later that this mage can't Hex people but does have a planar contact, well I have trouble seeing what that breaks. just as this person's patron "doesn't do anything," there's plenty of warlock players who get their spells just because that's what happens upon level up, no patron required. that patron doesn't do anything either. and which of those two is taking flavor to a 'worthless' place?
if they're not trying to ram a longbow proficiency into a crossbow feat, then i don't see much problem (other than terrible 'longbow' range). I mean, if they instead described their xbow as having so many bows that it looked like an umbrella with the word "HAMMER" written on the side, then would it still benefit from crossbow expert feat? yes, that's just visual fluff. would it hit harder or reload faster or count as a shield or as a hammer? whoa, that's outside the score of flavor and no longer free.
This is exactly the problem. This idea that mechanics don't matter for spit or shit, that you can attach literally any "Flavor" to literally any mechanical system or structure and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it drives me insane. No, you CAN'T call your hand crossbow a longbow so that you can use Crossbow Expert with the "flavor" of being a traditional archer. Frankly Crossbow Expert by itself is annoying because it muddies the distinction between bows and crossbows, but I don't get to make that call. I do get to make the call that treating your hand crossbow as a one-handed longbow with shit range is not okay. The things you do - the dice you roll and the rules you invokve - should have a connection to the story you're telling. If there's absolutely no connection whatsoever between what you do and what you say? No connective tissue at all between the actions you take and the resolution for those actions, no sense that there's a reason you use Rule X to resolve Action Y? Why the hell are you even playing the game? Just use an online randomizer to determine the fallout from make-believe with friends.
if they're not trying to ram a longbow proficiency into a crossbow feat, then i don't see much problem (other than terrible 'longbow' range). I mean, if they instead described their xbow as having so many bows that it looked like an umbrella with the word "HAMMER" written on the side, then would it still benefit from crossbow expert feat? yes, that's just visual fluff. would it hit harder or reload faster or count as a shield or as a hammer? whoa, that's outside the score of flavor and no longer free.
But the thing is, even "I just want it to look like a longbow! I'm actually okay with hand crossbow range and stats!" is a non-starter for me. Because looking like a longbow matters in the fiction too. If enemy NPCs are warily taking cover because they think your "longbow" can hit them accurately from 150' away when in reality your weird longbow doesn't work right outside 30', that's immersion-breaking.
fair. I think my philosophy is more along the lines of "don't be afraid to fail (because that's story too)." my characters, when I get to play, tend to not have every angle covered. somehow it's entertaining to me to stumble into 'paladin without a ranged weapon' sorts of situations. all things in moderation.
It's easy for DMs to say "don't be afraid to fail" - the DM's game doesn't ride on success the way the players' does. Failing to seduce the barmaid and earning a slap instead of a saucy night is one thing; failing at the last minute to stop something you've put months of real-life time and effort into trying to stop and watching your game world be irrevocably and horribly altered for the distinct worse can be emotionally devastating. Hell, look at the third season of Critical Role. The players failed to fully stop the Big Plan, and now the literal entirety of Exandria is potentially on the chopping block for being ruined/destroyed, including everything they accomplished in the first two campaigns. Failure can be story, but sometimes that story's too heavy to tell.
if someone tells me an unknown spirit writes in their book with fiery letters every night and it's teaching them magic, does it matter which base class they are? nah, let's ride. they're not likely to be hiding a fighter under that robe. it's up to everyone to bring plausibility with them. if it turns out later that this mage can't Hex people but does have a planar contact, well I have trouble seeing what that breaks. just as this person's patron "doesn't do anything," there's plenty of warlock players who get their spells just because that's what happens upon level up, no patron required. that patron doesn't do anything either. and which of those two is taking flavor to a 'worthless' place?
if they're not trying to ram a longbow proficiency into a crossbow feat, then i don't see much problem (other than terrible 'longbow' range). I mean, if they instead described their xbow as having so many bows that it looked like an umbrella with the word "HAMMER" written on the side, then would it still benefit from crossbow expert feat? yes, that's just visual fluff. would it hit harder or reload faster or count as a shield or as a hammer? whoa, that's outside the score of flavor and no longer free.
This is exactly the problem. This idea that mechanics don't matter for spit or shit, that you can attach literally any "Flavor" to literally any mechanical system or structure and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it drives me insane. No, you CAN'T call your hand crossbow a longbow so that you can use Crossbow Expert with the "flavor" of being a traditional archer. Frankly Crossbow Expert by itself is annoying because it muddies the distinction between bows and crossbows, but I don't get to make that call. I do get to make the call that treating your hand crossbow as a one-handed longbow with shit range is not okay. The things you do - the dice you roll and the rules you invokve - should have a connection to the story you're telling. If there's absolutely no connection whatsoever between what you do and what you say? No connective tissue at all between the actions you take and the resolution for those actions, no sense that there's a reason you use Rule X to resolve Action Y? Why the hell are you even playing the game? Just use an online randomizer to determine the fallout from make-believe with friends.
i haven't caught up to third season yet, but they say it's always darkest before the dawn light. and even still, failure has to be an option or else what was the point?
regarding rules and the bending of them, doesn't your table have an interesting take on the intersection of herb kits and 5-minute short rests heals? :D
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i haven't caught up to third season yet, but they say it's always darkest before the dawn light. and even still, failure has to be an option or else what was the point?
Failure is an option. That doesn't mean it should be encouraged, nor does it mean the DM should delight in it when it happens. Sometimes failing at something just plain ****in' sucks, and there's nothing for it but to endure the suck and move on.
regarding rules and the bending of them, doesn't your table have an interesting take on the intersection of herb kits and 5-minute short rests heals? :D
I know you're trying to call me out and tear me down. But you're actually illustrating my point. The rules for short rests blow in large part because they don't resemble what they're supposed to be. Sitting around and jacking off for an hour is not supposed to magically heal all of your injuries. Frankly our table hates the long rest Wolverine Super Regen, but Slow Natural Healing is too frustrating to utilize properly in DDB and 5e as a system breaks down and stops working without long rests so bleh. Either way, saying "cool, sit around and have a *********ion break for an hour to somehow mysteriously spend all your Hit Dice and be perfectly fine despite absolutely no medical aid whatsoever" doesn't make a lot of sense as a "healing" mechanic. But taking a few moments to use medical supplies and medical training, applying limited healing based on available medication/supplies? That scans. The Healer feat's mechanics fit the narrative for field medical aid, so we end up using the Healer feat quite a bit.
For tables that don't give a fat flying frog **** what the mechanics are/do and have a complete and utter dissociation between "Rules" and "Story", I imagine it makes no sense to (generally) dispense with short rests in favor of limited-resource combat healing. I can already hear it: "Why are you so stupid?! Just FLAVOR the short rest as using medical supplies! DUUUUHHH!!!" Except "short rests" DON'T use/consume medical supplies, and the "healing" they offer doesn't depend on availability of medical aid even if you use the dumb stupid "healer's kit dependency" variant healing rule. You just *** for an hour and suddenly you're better, with no threat whatsoever of your party-wide circlejerk being messed with because players revolt and mutiny the very microinstant the DM says "you guys are literally in the middle of an active volcano red dragon lair villain superfortress in the Valley of Dead Souls, do you honestly think now is a good time to spend an hour fapping?"
Not that any of this has anything to do with the thread, it's off topic even by the off topic. But if people are gonna call me out and tear me down, I'm gonna answer it.
Failure is an option. That doesn't mean it should be encouraged, nor does it mean the DM should delight in it when it happens.
Broadly speaking, what players actually want is to win against adversity -- they want to think that there's a chance to fail, but they don't want to actually fail.
In practice, this means they have to fail occasionally, because if you never fail, you stop believing that failure is possible, but failure doesn't have to be common, nor should the DM deliberately set up failures. I think my PCs had somewhere around a 95% win rate.
Failure is an option. That doesn't mean it should be encouraged, nor does it mean the DM should delight in it when it happens.
Broadly speaking, what players actually want is to win against adversity -- they want to think that there's a chance to fail, but they don't want to actually fail.
In practice, this means they have to fail occasionally, because if you never fail, you stop believing that failure is possible, but failure doesn't have to be common, nor should the DM deliberately set up failures. I think my PCs had somewhere around a 95% win rate.
The key is player feel that they have had to suffer to overcome the challenge, but that in the end they have achieved it. Winning easily is boring, and almost no one likes it. And coming out defeated most of the time is not the cup of tea of the majority of the community either. So the sweet spot is a difficult but surmountable challenge.
Failure is an option. That doesn't mean it should be encouraged, nor does it mean the DM should delight in it when it happens.
Broadly speaking, what players actually want is to win against adversity -- they want to think that there's a chance to fail, but they don't want to actually fail.
In practice, this means they have to fail occasionally, because if you never fail, you stop believing that failure is possible, but failure doesn't have to be common, nor should the DM deliberately set up failures. I think my PCs had somewhere around a 95% win rate.
The key is player feel that they have had to suffer to overcome the challenge, but that in the end they have achieved it. Winning easily is boring, and almost no one likes it. And coming out defeated most of the time is not the cup of tea of the majority of the community either. So the sweet spot is a difficult but surmountable challenge.
The one time I wrecked a campaign was a sci-fi game where the GM was inspired by some anime. The opening scenarios involved trying to stop the bad guys from stealing a bunch of stuff and they got away with everything they were after every single time. No matter our rolls, our plans, our tactics, we couldn't even manage a partial win such as destroying what they were after, until we had a scenario that involved a massive space station with a cryogenically frozen army in it. I was so angry and determined to win just once that I woke up the third party from their sleep and broke the campaign - I just didn't care anymore.
So, yeah, I can relate to the idea that constant failure stops being fun really fast.
Failure is an option. That doesn't mean it should be encouraged, nor does it mean the DM should delight in it when it happens.
Broadly speaking, what players actually want is to win against adversity -- they want to think that there's a chance to fail, but they don't want to actually fail.
In practice, this means they have to fail occasionally, because if you never fail, you stop believing that failure is possible, but failure doesn't have to be common, nor should the DM deliberately set up failures. I think my PCs had somewhere around a 95% win rate.
I agree with the sentiment of this. While the DM should not deliberately set up failures, if they are really good at what they do, they should be cognizant enough to know when the PCs have a decent chance of failure (however that is measured) and be prepared to provide avenues for the PCs to lessen the impact of their failure or even somehow reverse it later.
Sitting around and [taking it easy]* for an hour is not supposed to magically heal all of your injuries.
I think part of this weirdness stems from the fact that hit-points are a major over-simplification of combat. If you think of damage as always being wounds and hit-points being how injured you are then hit-points and healing so easily become ridiculous, because your broken bones are just snapping back into place, bleeding wounds sealing themselves up etc. because you had a little sit down for a bit.
Personally I think of anything above 0 hit-points as "fighting fit"; you might have minor cuts, scrapes, burns, damage to your armour etc. but nothing that can't be easily treated and won't impede you overly much. It's only once your last hit-point goes that you take potentially mortal harm; you're on the ground with a bleeding wound and you life draining away, an internal organ just became open-plan etc. So stabilising or healing someone from this point is the only time that an actual proper wound is healed.
In this sense hit-points in my mind are like another form of exhaustion, your ability to keep defending yourself, or luck etc., depending upon the character; when you're low, that's when you're in real danger. I'm also a fan of doling out proper (persistent) injuries at 0 hit-points for this reason, but on a case-by-case basis, as I prefer not to punish players for having bad luck, but if it's their own fault they're absolutely in danger of a broken bone, a lost limb etc. depending upon circumstances.
*(dunno how gently you do it, but I'm pretty sure jacking it isn't what they mean by restful 😉)
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Also it's not like the idea of fictional characters recovering ridiculously fast without the aid of overt healing powers is exactly unprecedented. How many times in a story does the MC get pretty well worked over for a few days, and yet when we get to the climax they'll just lay back and shut their eyes for a few hours- if they're lucky- and suddenly they're bringing their A game to the final fight? Plus for 5e they wanted to reduce the necessity of a healer in the party, ergo HP restoration by other means needs to be more accessible. There's already both official and homebrew rules for people who want more realism, but the baseline game is meant to lean more into the power fantasy side of things.
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Eh, not every debate needs a clean resolution. Everybody eventually getting bored and moving on until the next UA packet is as valid a conclusion as any.
WotC is aware of the problem and either lack the time or will to fix it. Part of that is on them (we lost a huge chunk of design iteration during the OGL fiasco) and part of it just means it's a problem for the next generation of D&D to solve, whenever that may be.
A half-caster arcane gish with invocations would be plenty of fun imo!
Yes, we need a better dedicated spellblade; EK is too heavy on the blade, Blade Singer is too heavy on the spell, and Artificer doesn’t have the right spells or features to really get that vibe.
oh, no. i do happen to subscribe to the 'failure is more interesting than success' club. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. - Seneca" ...you must have guessed. :D
anyway, you can hate the 'flavor' phrase if you like, but i brought it in without malice. i'm just pointing out that 'multiclass and reflavor' is an elephant in the room that the devs didn't ignore. that's surely why they pulled half-caster so quickly: they had an expectation, they tested it, and found what they expected to see. not exactly the scientific method at its finest.
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"Unique" doesn't automatically mean good. There's a lot of disorders and genetic defects that can make a person "unique". And in which world would an arcane half-caster be identical to arcane fullcasters even on a most basic level?
So true. This is why hexblade is so popular. Pathfinder just went ahead and made a magus class, and it works well. Paizo even managed to put both wizard casting subclass (with scribing spells from scrolls) and a sorcerer casting (having only known spells, but more flexible slots) subclasses in it. And arcane archer archetype fit that class like it was always meant to be there (because it was).
Heh. "Failure is more interesting than success" is incomplete in that form. The complete version seems exactly the same to many people, but is entire universes different: "Overcoming failure is more interesting than effortless success." In that form I would agree, overcoming adversity is an essential element of a proper (typical) D&D campaign. It's the shortened form that gets people in trouble by convincing them the failure itself is interesting, rather than the attempt to salvage the situation and overcome the failure. That way lies the Bohemian Failure Monkey, and nobody likes Bohemian Failure Monkeys.
Mostly I mean that "flavor" with absolutely no backup from or connection to the game's rules/mechanics is (ironically) utterly flavorless. It carries no weight, no meaning, and no value. It doesn't do anything, it doesn't mean anything. It's just wind pushed around the room. Sure, there's absolutely something to be said for aesthetics and painting a mental picture (i.e. what I think of when I hear the word 'flavor), but the idea of making real narrative decisions for your character that have no mechanical or narrative impact and are just sorta background fluff ideas that don't change or influence anything else? Worthless. Just...worthless.
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Way too complex.
There is a simple desire here.
Ppl want to do cool stuff on their turn. That's it. Cool, interesting and engaging stuff.
Spell are just a means to that end.
If ppl say I want to cast more spells with my warlock, what they actually say I want to do MORE cool , interesting and engaging stuff. With my warlock. On my turn.
That's why the asked solution is moving up the 3rd spell slot.
Yet the question is does that solution offer what ppl really want? Do more cool stuff on their turns?
Well it boils down back to the short question. If you manage to slip in at least 1 short rest then it does indeed do a big step towards really opening up the warlock to do cool stuff on the majority of turns in a given adventuring day.
If you dont do any short rest then it's just marginally better. You are then a caster class that spams 1 cantrip. Where the spamming of the cantrip might be cool but is neither interesting nor engaing.
Now one could bring the question of complexity in. "I want my warlock like I want my fighter simple and on rails." Sure, that's definitely a niche that exist. Yet for me the overwhelming support on Rogues Cunning strike indicates that the vast majority of players prefers interesting and engaging over simple and on rails.
Do I care about Pact Magic? Well before the playtest I felt rather luke warm for it. It was for me personally more an obstacle to overcome than a system to play with. Eldritch Invocations and the overall theme as an eldritch caster was far more appealing to me.
Now? I developed an white hot hatred for the feature seeing how we could've gotten something more sensible. I will most likely never again play a warlock. At least not in 5th edition.
Couldn't I just ignore it as before? Sure as long as I get good turn for turn gameplay I don't care where it comes from. As such it is my believe that WOTC should be looking more into eldritch blast and how lesson from Cunning Strike could be applied to it vs. trying to fix a class feature a vast majority of players prefer to be unique rather then usable.
There are definitely degrees to "flavor is free" that I can stomach and others that I can't. Want to play a "witch" or "shaman" but your DM doesn't allow homebrew or third-party? A Land Druid or Archfey Warlock fits both of those concepts fine; you don't need your mechanical class to actually go by those names for people in the world to call you that.
But if instead you're saying something like "I want to reflavor my hand crossbows as a longbow so I can benefit from Crossbow Expert while still being a longbow user" then I wouldn't be okay with that, because longbows and hand crossbows are different mechanically.
fair. I think my philosophy is more along the lines of "don't be afraid to fail (because that's story too)." my characters, when I get to play, tend to not have every angle covered. somehow it's entertaining to me to stumble into 'paladin without a ranged weapon' sorts of situations. all things in moderation.
if someone tells me an unknown spirit writes in their book with fiery letters every night and it's teaching them magic, does it matter which base class they are? nah, let's ride. they're not likely to be hiding a fighter under that robe. it's up to everyone to bring plausibility with them. if it turns out later that this mage can't Hex people but does have a planar contact, well I have trouble seeing what that breaks. just as this person's patron "doesn't do anything," there's plenty of warlock players who get their spells just because that's what happens upon level up, no patron required. that patron doesn't do anything either. and which of those two is taking flavor to a 'worthless' place?
absolutely. no one's asking for favors or extra dice, just choosing their preferred labels.
if they're not trying to ram a longbow proficiency into a crossbow feat, then i don't see much problem (other than terrible 'longbow' range). I mean, if they instead described their xbow as having so many bows that it looked like an umbrella with the word "HAMMER" written on the side, then would it still benefit from crossbow expert feat? yes, that's just visual fluff. would it hit harder or reload faster or count as a shield or as a hammer? whoa, that's outside the score of flavor and no longer free.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Let me also add (this is an opinion only) that the changes to Hex in UA5 helped transform the half-caster warlock into a fiasco. The changes forced the use of the highest level spell slots available to keep up with the damage boost, and with class features centered on Hex, it undercut the advantages that the half caster switch was trying to achieve. To use the Thermos example, instead of increasing the size of the thermos as requested, they handed out a lunchbox, but with a smaller thermos than we originally had.
And transforming Mystic Arcanum into an invocation made the situation worse. It looked like they added invocations to the class at first glance, but those extras were all going to be spent trying to recover what was lost, especially since the Mystic Arcanum is more powerful than 95% of the rest of the invocations available anyways. It was a false choice, like a blaster Sorcerer asking what spell to take when they hit level 5. There are 2 options: Fireball and Wrong.
I also miss the invocations that allowed casting a spell for free once per long rest, they added more spellcasting potential to the class, and losing those options for 1st level rituals doesn't quite cut it. All they needed to do was add in the option of using a pact slot to cast the spell again if desired. And change all the invocations that allowed a spel to be cast once with a pact slot to being able to be used once per long rest without using it, second casting takes a pact slot.
It's easy for DMs to say "don't be afraid to fail" - the DM's game doesn't ride on success the way the players' does. Failing to seduce the barmaid and earning a slap instead of a saucy night is one thing; failing at the last minute to stop something you've put months of real-life time and effort into trying to stop and watching your game world be irrevocably and horribly altered for the distinct worse can be emotionally devastating. Hell, look at the third season of Critical Role. The players failed to fully stop the Big Plan, and now the literal entirety of Exandria is potentially on the chopping block for being ruined/destroyed, including everything they accomplished in the first two campaigns. Failure can be story, but sometimes that story's too heavy to tell.
This is exactly the problem. This idea that mechanics don't matter for spit or shit, that you can attach literally any "Flavor" to literally any mechanical system or structure and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it drives me insane. No, you CAN'T call your hand crossbow a longbow so that you can use Crossbow Expert with the "flavor" of being a traditional archer. Frankly Crossbow Expert by itself is annoying because it muddies the distinction between bows and crossbows, but I don't get to make that call. I do get to make the call that treating your hand crossbow as a one-handed longbow with shit range is not okay. The things you do - the dice you roll and the rules you invokve - should have a connection to the story you're telling. If there's absolutely no connection whatsoever between what you do and what you say? No connective tissue at all between the actions you take and the resolution for those actions, no sense that there's a reason you use Rule X to resolve Action Y? Why the hell are you even playing the game? Just use an online randomizer to determine the fallout from make-believe with friends.
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Flavor is not free. It just costs you your SOULLLLLLL!!!!!
*please sign on the dotted line, and we'll get right back to ya.*
--- The Flavor Patron.
Now just need a spell list and some features, we can write this bad boy up
But the thing is, even "I just want it to look like a longbow! I'm actually okay with hand crossbow range and stats!" is a non-starter for me. Because looking like a longbow matters in the fiction too. If enemy NPCs are warily taking cover because they think your "longbow" can hit them accurately from 150' away when in reality your weird longbow doesn't work right outside 30', that's immersion-breaking.
i haven't caught up to third season yet, but they say it's always darkest before the dawn light. and even still, failure has to be an option or else what was the point?
regarding rules and the bending of them, doesn't your table have an interesting take on the intersection of herb kits and 5-minute short rests heals? :D
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Failure is an option. That doesn't mean it should be encouraged, nor does it mean the DM should delight in it when it happens. Sometimes failing at something just plain ****in' sucks, and there's nothing for it but to endure the suck and move on.
I know you're trying to call me out and tear me down. But you're actually illustrating my point. The rules for short rests blow in large part because they don't resemble what they're supposed to be. Sitting around and jacking off for an hour is not supposed to magically heal all of your injuries. Frankly our table hates the long rest Wolverine Super Regen, but Slow Natural Healing is too frustrating to utilize properly in DDB and 5e as a system breaks down and stops working without long rests so bleh. Either way, saying "cool, sit around and have a *********ion break for an hour to somehow mysteriously spend all your Hit Dice and be perfectly fine despite absolutely no medical aid whatsoever" doesn't make a lot of sense as a "healing" mechanic. But taking a few moments to use medical supplies and medical training, applying limited healing based on available medication/supplies? That scans. The Healer feat's mechanics fit the narrative for field medical aid, so we end up using the Healer feat quite a bit.
For tables that don't give a fat flying frog **** what the mechanics are/do and have a complete and utter dissociation between "Rules" and "Story", I imagine it makes no sense to (generally) dispense with short rests in favor of limited-resource combat healing. I can already hear it: "Why are you so stupid?! Just FLAVOR the short rest as using medical supplies! DUUUUHHH!!!" Except "short rests" DON'T use/consume medical supplies, and the "healing" they offer doesn't depend on availability of medical aid even if you use the dumb stupid "healer's kit dependency" variant healing rule. You just *** for an hour and suddenly you're better, with no threat whatsoever of your party-wide circlejerk being messed with because players revolt and mutiny the very microinstant the DM says "you guys are literally in the middle of an active volcano red dragon lair villain superfortress in the Valley of Dead Souls, do you honestly think now is a good time to spend an hour fapping?"
Not that any of this has anything to do with the thread, it's off topic even by the off topic. But if people are gonna call me out and tear me down, I'm gonna answer it.
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Broadly speaking, what players actually want is to win against adversity -- they want to think that there's a chance to fail, but they don't want to actually fail.
In practice, this means they have to fail occasionally, because if you never fail, you stop believing that failure is possible, but failure doesn't have to be common, nor should the DM deliberately set up failures. I think my PCs had somewhere around a 95% win rate.
The key is player feel that they have had to suffer to overcome the challenge, but that in the end they have achieved it. Winning easily is boring, and almost no one likes it. And coming out defeated most of the time is not the cup of tea of the majority of the community either. So the sweet spot is a difficult but surmountable challenge.
The one time I wrecked a campaign was a sci-fi game where the GM was inspired by some anime. The opening scenarios involved trying to stop the bad guys from stealing a bunch of stuff and they got away with everything they were after every single time. No matter our rolls, our plans, our tactics, we couldn't even manage a partial win such as destroying what they were after, until we had a scenario that involved a massive space station with a cryogenically frozen army in it. I was so angry and determined to win just once that I woke up the third party from their sleep and broke the campaign - I just didn't care anymore.
So, yeah, I can relate to the idea that constant failure stops being fun really fast.
I agree with the sentiment of this. While the DM should not deliberately set up failures, if they are really good at what they do, they should be cognizant enough to know when the PCs have a decent chance of failure (however that is measured) and be prepared to provide avenues for the PCs to lessen the impact of their failure or even somehow reverse it later.
I think part of this weirdness stems from the fact that hit-points are a major over-simplification of combat. If you think of damage as always being wounds and hit-points being how injured you are then hit-points and healing so easily become ridiculous, because your broken bones are just snapping back into place, bleeding wounds sealing themselves up etc. because you had a little sit down for a bit.
Personally I think of anything above 0 hit-points as "fighting fit"; you might have minor cuts, scrapes, burns, damage to your armour etc. but nothing that can't be easily treated and won't impede you overly much. It's only once your last hit-point goes that you take potentially mortal harm; you're on the ground with a bleeding wound and you life draining away, an internal organ just became open-plan etc. So stabilising or healing someone from this point is the only time that an actual proper wound is healed.
In this sense hit-points in my mind are like another form of exhaustion, your ability to keep defending yourself, or luck etc., depending upon the character; when you're low, that's when you're in real danger. I'm also a fan of doling out proper (persistent) injuries at 0 hit-points for this reason, but on a case-by-case basis, as I prefer not to punish players for having bad luck, but if it's their own fault they're absolutely in danger of a broken bone, a lost limb etc. depending upon circumstances.
*(dunno how gently you do it, but I'm pretty sure jacking it isn't what they mean by restful 😉)
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Also it's not like the idea of fictional characters recovering ridiculously fast without the aid of overt healing powers is exactly unprecedented. How many times in a story does the MC get pretty well worked over for a few days, and yet when we get to the climax they'll just lay back and shut their eyes for a few hours- if they're lucky- and suddenly they're bringing their A game to the final fight? Plus for 5e they wanted to reduce the necessity of a healer in the party, ergo HP restoration by other means needs to be more accessible. There's already both official and homebrew rules for people who want more realism, but the baseline game is meant to lean more into the power fantasy side of things.