Please stopping thinking your thoughts are game facts. Just because you think warlocks make sense having flexible casting doesn’t make it true. Because I think it makes sense for any caster to have flexible casting.
I'm aware that my statements are not absolute facts. I'm aware that you have opinions that differ from my own. Not once have I contested either of these concepts.
I'm using logic and resources at hand to explain to you why I believe what I believe, and why I don't believe some of the things that you do believe. That's the basis of logic, rhetoric, and argument.
Refute means to prove false. You can’t prove something false that has physical evidence that others can see at will. The things you claim to refute aren’t my train of logic, it’s the literal words from the books. They are not refutable because they can’t be proven false since they exist.
Notice the portions of your post that I underlined. I take quite a bit of issue with them.
The first sentence that I underlined is outright false. It's true that you can't really refute such hard evidence as stuff written in widely-published books, stuff that tons of people can check very easily. It isn't true that you can't disprove claims made based on that evidence, which is what you claim (or at least that's how your claim is worded).
The second sentence is also false, for similar reasons. I never tried to refute the words from the books. I refuted the conclusions that you drew from the words from the books. The conclusions that you had to use some degree of logic to reach. I didn't say "those things in the book are wrong," I said "those things in the book don't necessarily mean all that you claim them to." The former would be ridiculous, the latter is totally legitimate.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
But you just admitted these numbers aren’t the ones that matter. There was a 5e playtest and they were going to make Warlock Int based as there was a 4e version of Warlock that was Int based. What happened was a bunch of people wanted Warlock to be Charisma based. This is likely because they remember the 3.5 Warlock being charisma based and some of them probably played the Cha based 4e Warlock. My point being there was already a much bigger poll and survey done.
The problem with citing "the bigger poll" is that unless they publish the numbers we don't know what it actually said, only what was decided, which may or may not be related. While it's reasonable to assume that if a change was reversed that feedback must have been overwhelming negative, it might actually have been pretty balanced, but they decided to change it back anyway because it just wasn't positive enough.
That's exactly what seems to have happened with standardised sub-class levels, despite them never actually giving us a way to properly give feedback on that change alone; in a video Crawford actually blamed everyone who responded to the surveys for not universally praising the change, without citing any figures (which he couldn't have because we were never actually asked).
This demonstrates clearly that it doesn't matter what the feedback is; a feature could be unanimously loved, and they might still ditch it. Basically he made it clear that we can't assume anything about feedback results based on the changes they make, as they may not be related at all.
To be fair this was demonstrated early on; several of the early playtests had multiple different forms of a bunch of rules such as a critical hit/miss and inspiration, but these weren't adjustments made from feedback, they were just throwing out different ideas to see which one people liked best. Unless someone says in a video that a change was made due to feedback, we can't assume it was (or wasn't).
Unless I missed it, this could be the case with different ability score options; feedback could have been very positive on that specific feature (though again, they never actually asked us about it specifically) and they may have then pulled it to see if the opposite is true (if people complain about it being removed). If that's the case though it would have been nice if they just gave us a direct "do you want a choice of scores, if so what" question similar to this very poll, because you can't get reliable answers to a question you don't ask.
Because even for people that prefer Charisma for Warlock, I can't imagine many would strongly object to others having a choice as that doesn't mean Charisma Warlocks going away (the results for Intelligence or Wisdom only in this poll are very much in the minority), so they'd be unaffected.
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I would like to add to Haravikk's statement above that the 5e playtest was 10 years ago, and thus it is reasonable to speculate that opinions (those of the long-time players, or those of the many, many people who have picked up the game in the meantime) may have changed over that time frame.
But you just admitted these numbers aren’t the ones that matter. There was a 5e playtest and they were going to make Warlock Int based as there was a 4e version of Warlock that was Int based. What happened was a bunch of people wanted Warlock to be Charisma based. This is likely because they remember the 3.5 Warlock being charisma based and some of them probably played the Cha based 4e Warlock. My point being there was already a much bigger poll and survey done.
The problem with citing "the bigger poll" is that unless they publish the numbers we don't know what it actually said, only what was decided, which may or may not be related. While it's reasonable to assume that if a change was reversed that feedback must have been overwhelming negative, it might actually have been pretty balanced, but they decided to change it back anyway because it just wasn't positive enough.
That's exactly what seems to have happened with standardised sub-class levels, despite them never actually giving us a way to properly give feedback on that change alone; in a video Crawford actually blamed everyone who responded to the surveys for not universally praising the change, without citing any figures (which he couldn't have because we were never actually asked).
This demonstrates clearly that it doesn't matter what the feedback is; a feature could be unanimously loved, and they might still ditch it. Basically he made it clear that we can't assume anything about feedback results based on the changes they make, as they may not be related at all.
To be fair this was demonstrated early on; several of the early playtests had multiple different forms of a bunch of rules such as a critical hit/miss and inspiration, but these weren't adjustments made from feedback, they were just throwing out different ideas to see which one people liked best. Unless someone says in a video that a change was made due to feedback, we can't assume it was (or wasn't).
Unless I missed it, this could be the case with different ability score options; feedback could have been very positive on that specific feature (though again, they never actually asked us about it specifically) and they may have then pulled it to see if the opposite is true (if people complain about it being removed). If that's the case though it would have been nice if they just gave us a direct "do you want a choice of scores, if so what" question similar to this very poll, because you can't get reliable answers to a question you don't ask.
Because even for people that prefer Charisma for Warlock, I can't imagine many would strongly object to others having a choice as that doesn't mean Charisma Warlocks going away (the results for Intelligence or Wisdom only in this poll are very much in the minority).
It wasn’t a change back per se. I ditched 4e after PHB2, and I never played or DMed for a Warlock while playing, but I’m not the only 3.5 player that left 4e. From my understanding the first 4e Warlock was Int based and later they included a Cha based Warlock. Most likely with playtest for 5e the playtesters who played 3.5e combined with the 4e playtesters who played Cha Warlock out voted the Int based warlock players. So there is no problem citing the poll even if we didn’t see it. There is no other reason for WotC to make Warlock Cha based besides this unseen poll concluding that is what the playtesters wanted. Remember this wasn’t a revision playtest like this one. It was a new edition and WotC had a lot more freedom of on how they wanted to design the game. They even tried a half caster sorcerer that got shot down.
So you pointed out a major truth about polls. You can’t answer questions you aren’t asked. Also you can’t respond with answers that aren’t in the poll. I didn’t answer this poll for that reason. I’m fine with Warlocks having a choice from all three mental stats, but caveat only if all casters get the same choice. Otherwise leave them alone.
I would like to add to Haravikk's statement above that the 5e playtest was 10 years ago, and thus it is reasonable to speculate that opinions (those of the long-time players, or those of the many, many people who have picked up the game in the meantime) may have changed over that time frame.
If this were a new edition I would agree with that. But it’s not. This is a massive Errata. If you do a gameplay fix that adjust all classes like giving everyone a choice in Spellcasting stat I could accept that, but if you suddenly give a single class something as drastic as the choice of casting stat that becomes core to the class, even though it wasn’t before, the next time someone wants that for another class, suddenly it’s a problem because they are steping on someone else’s toes. Warlock is not the only class that has lore supporting other play styles.
I would like to add to Haravikk's statement above that the 5e playtest was 10 years ago, and thus it is reasonable to speculate that opinions (those of the long-time players, or those of the many, many people who have picked up the game in the meantime) may have changed over that time frame.
If this were a new edition I would agree with that. But it’s not. This is a massive Errata. If you do a gameplay fix that adjust all classes like giving everyone a choice in Spellcasting stat I could accept that, but if you suddenly give a single class something as drastic as the choice of casting stat that becomes core to the class, even though it wasn’t before, the next time someone wants that for another class, suddenly it’s a problem because they are steping on someone else’s toes. Warlock is not the only class that has lore supporting other play styles.
5e seems to have few qualms about classes stepping on other classes' toes. I mean, look at Sorcerer and Wizard. They've gotten even more similar in the playtests, with Wizards getting their own metamagic-like abilities. The idea that something as nonspecific and abstract as multiple spellcasting abilities being options would suddenly bar a similar concept from arising in any other classes just doesn't check out with history. If anything, 5e could do with some more protection of archetypes and classes' toes.
That's what 5e needs. Steel-toed boots.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I would like to add to Haravikk's statement above that the 5e playtest was 10 years ago, and thus it is reasonable to speculate that opinions (those of the long-time players, or those of the many, many people who have picked up the game in the meantime) may have changed over that time frame.
If this were a new edition I would agree with that. But it’s not. This is a massive Errata. If you do a gameplay fix that adjust all classes like giving everyone a choice in Spellcasting stat I could accept that, but if you suddenly give a single class something as drastic as the choice of casting stat that becomes core to the class, even though it wasn’t before, the next time someone wants that for another class, suddenly it’s a problem because they are steping on someone else’s toes. Warlock is not the only class that has lore supporting other play styles.
Whether they are calling it a new addition or not, and whether the players in general are doing so is irrelevant. Ten years have passed and they showed by playtesting a flexible casting stat for Warlocks earlier that it must be something that they could consider, even if they rejected the same idea 10 years ago.
... I’m fine with Warlocks having a choice from all three mental stats, but caveat only if all casters get the same choice. Otherwise leave them alone.
The Charismatic Talky Boi archetype is dramatically over-supported in Fifth Edition, with an entire class devoted almost solely to being a Charismatic Talky Boi (bards) and three more classes forced into being Charismatic Talky Bois due to their stat priority regardless of what the player wants to do (sorcerer, warlock, dingdong).
There is precisely ONE choice for The Smart Guy. ONE.No, the artificer does not count; it is being abandoned in One with no plans to reintroduce the class, since all you people destroyed Wizards' ability to introduce new spellcasting classes with the dissolution of the unified spell lists. No unified spell lists? Introducing new classes is a colossal pain in the ass and makes the printing of any future books and increasingly nightmarish issue. So the whole "leave our four hundred and seventy-three Charisma classes alone and just make some new Intelligence once down the road!" is a nonstarter. New classes are not an option.
NOW is the time to try and reverse the oversupport for Charismatic Talky Boi and the undersupport for Smart Guy. It is the ONLY time, in fact. We will not get another chance to change or adjust the rules of Fifth Edition. This. Is. It. So either we fix it now, or we just agree that players who want to be The Smart Guy have to play literally nothing but an endless procession of wizards, or we put at least one goddamned more Intelligence-driven option in the game. And since the warlock is unquestionably the most modular class in 5e with the loosest, least defined core concept, this is the place to do it.
... I’m fine with Warlocks having a choice from all three mental stats, but caveat only if all casters get the same choice. Otherwise leave them alone.
The Charismatic Talky Boi archetype is dramatically over-supported in Fifth Edition, with an entire class devoted almost solely to being a Charismatic Talky Boi (bards) and three more classes forced into being Charismatic Talky Bois due to their stat priority regardless of what the player wants to do (sorcerer, warlock, dingdong).
There is precisely ONE choice for The Smart Guy. ONE.No, the artificer does not count; it is being abandoned in One with no plans to reintroduce the class, since all you people destroyed Wizards' ability to introduce new spellcasting classes with the dissolution of the unified spell lists. No unified spell lists? Introducing new classes is a colossal pain in the ass and makes the printing of any future books and increasingly nightmarish issue. So the whole "leave our four hundred and seventy-three Charisma classes alone and just make some new Intelligence once down the road!" is a nonstarter. New classes are not an option.
NOW is the time to try and reverse the oversupport for Charismatic Talky Boi and the undersupport for Smart Guy. It is the ONLY time, in fact. We will not get another chance to change or adjust the rules of Fifth Edition. This. Is. It. So either we fix it now, or we just agree that players who want to be The Smart Guy have to play literally nothing but an endless procession of wizards, or we put at least one goddamned more Intelligence-driven option in the game. And since the warlock is unquestionably the most modular class in 5e with the loosest, least defined core concept, this is the place to do it.
Again not listening. If you want your smart bois it’s far easier to just just give everyone the option of casting stats. Then the people who want to play knowledge Clerics can actually have knowledge and embody their God’s theme. Bards could actually spend some time researching that original word of creation. Its funny I literally said “here, have your smart boi and let everyone else have whatever kind of boi they want, but if not then leave it alone.” What’s really funny is instead of saying yeah let everyone cast how they want you rather complain about the “if not leave them alone.” Also I’m calling super BS on your statement of the warlock having the least defined core concept. The Warlocks core concept is they made a pact with a powerful being. No class has a core concept is attached to their casting stat. Their concept is all the fluff you read that instantly makes you think of that class. 5e Warlock is very modular, but that doesn’t mean they are the only class that deserves flexible casting. Especially if we are using their in book descriptions to determine if they qualify. If we are using mechanics to qualify characters for flexible casting I would argue Bard and Sorcerer deserve it more than Warlock, but would have the same caveat on them. If you give bard and/or Sorcerer flexible casting give it to everyone.
Also I’m calling super BS on your statement of the warlock having the least defined core concept. The Warlocks core concept is they made a pact with a powerful being. No class has a core concept is attached to their casting stat. Their concept is all the fluff you read that instantly makes you think of that class.
Dude, people in this very thread are arguing what the hell it even means to be in a pact. In PHB examples, one seeks the pact through arcane study, another stumbles upon it randomly. One serves their patron as an apprentice, another leeches from the patron without the latter even knowing. One entered the contract willingly and loves their patron, another had the pact forced upon them and seeks to break their patron's grasp on their soul. No other class has such variety in interpretations of a core idea except for maybe sorcerers, but sorcerers are weird and it's their whole deal, being weird.
If you want your smart bois it’s far easier to just just give everyone the option of casting stats. Then the people who want to play knowledge Clerics can actually have knowledge and embody their God’s theme. Bards could actually spend some time researching that original word of creation.
Neither of these things have anything to do with how the Bard/Cleric casts their magic; the Cleric is still casting magic that comes from their deity, rather than truly learning it or having the power within themselves, while the Bard is still casting the magic as a performance using a musical instrument, spoken verse or such.
Intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing; you don't need Intelligence to know or learn things on a character, and you don't need a high Intelligence score for a more academic Bard or Cleric to function. I've pointed out multiple times in multiple threads that you don't need Intelligence 20 to be knowledgeable or smart, you can do just fine with 12 or 14 Intelligence.
Also I’m calling super BS on your statement of the warlock having the least defined core concept. The Warlocks core concept is they made a pact with a powerful being.
"They have a pact" is clearly a solid part of the class concept, but as kamchatmonk says the pacts themselves are highly varied in how they're obtained and actually operate, at least narratively (since the mechanics don't currently reflect that).
But the very concept of the pact suggests that it's something you can be tempted or tricked into at any time, having already started down a different path; pacts are not exclusive to fledgling adventurers who've never used magic before, you could be a high level archmage and still be tempted by the prospect of forbidden knowledge or a quick fix for a current problem, you could be a Cleric devoted to a particular god, but in a moment of weakness you take a deal to save someone you otherwise can't etc.
While it's not impossible that similar conversions could happen via other classes, e.g- a character finds religion and becomes a Cleric, it's not nearly as quick a process. You don't narratively just become a Cleric or Paladin overnight, just as you can't suddenly decide to be a Wizard without the years of study that that requires. These classes are much more about long term experience, and have a fairly strong case for their current spellcasting abilities, whereas pact magic is very much an immediate deal or immediate and then continuing rewards.
You could make an argument for whether Cleric and Paladin should have a choice between Charisma and Wisdom or not, but it's one I feel a lot less strongly about because at least there is the choice of two; i.e- if you want to go a charismatic priest, you can go a Paladin, as they're very much equipped to be able to go out on their own and try to convert people in a dangerous world with a long (and ongoing) history of religious conflicts. Giving them Intelligence as an option as well seems less justified, as it doesn't fit how they actually do magic quite so well.
But ultimately this is entirely off-topic; the topic is about whether Warlocks should have a different or flexible casting ability or not. "If I can't have it on Cleric then you can't have it on Warlock" feels like a strange argument to make; you might reasonably say there's no precedent for it if other classes can't have it, but if your conclusion is you want more classes to have a choice then the relevant part is what you want that choice to be for Warlocks, other classes should get their own threads (or a more general thread).
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Any works, honestly. If any spellcaster gets a flexy spellcasting stat, it should be this one.
I am guessing the saving throw would have to change, though, from Wisdom+Charisma to [SelectedCastingStat]+Str/Dex/Con? And that might make it too gamey; many would choose their casting stat based on the usefulness of the save (Wisdom) or usefulness of the skills associated, resulting in very, very, very few players going for Intelligence.
I am guessing the saving throw would have to change, though, from Wisdom+Charisma to [SelectedCastingStat]+Str/Dex/Con? And that might make it too gamey; many would choose their casting stat based on the usefulness of the save (Wisdom) or usefulness of the skills associated, resulting in very, very, very few players going for Intelligence.
That's an interesting point, though they could also just make it Wisdom + Intelligence or Charisma? This way it can always include your spellcasting ability if you want it to. Either that or make it Spellcasting Ability + one from Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma, can't choose a duplicate?
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Radical revolutionary idea: Choose your specialization at first level, and your specialization defines your casting stat and second save? And then, once your choice is "more involved" than just the casting stat alone, you can actually try and balance them out further?
Any works, honestly. If any spellcaster gets a flexy spellcasting stat, it should be this one.
I am guessing the saving throw would have to change, though, from Wisdom+Charisma to [SelectedCastingStat]+Str/Dex/Con? And that might make it too gamey; many would choose their casting stat based on the usefulness of the save (Wisdom) or usefulness of the skills associated, resulting in very, very, very few players going for Intelligence.
While it's true that an INT warlock wouldn't be as mechanically good as a WIS or CHA warlock I'd argue that doesn't matter much when the options are "you can choose INT if you want" or "you cannot ever choose INT". Plenty of DnD players make build decisions based on roleplay, and in this instance going INT wouldn't be a cripplingly bad choice so only the absolute munchiniest of munchkins would refuse to go INT if it served the character fantasy they want.
Any works, honestly. If any spellcaster gets a flexy spellcasting stat, it should be this one.
I am guessing the saving throw would have to change, though, from Wisdom+Charisma to [SelectedCastingStat]+Str/Dex/Con? And that might make it too gamey; many would choose their casting stat based on the usefulness of the save (Wisdom) or usefulness of the skills associated, resulting in very, very, very few players going for Intelligence.
Why should the saving throw proficiencies have to include your spellcasting stat? Fighters have STR + CON save prof. but can easily go DEX primary. Why should a Warlock not have WIS and CHA saves but go INT primary? I don't see a necessity to make everything even more complicated.
@topic: Since anyone can enter a pact without requiring to be specifically smart or charismatic or insightful it makes sense to allow free choice of casting stat (between CHA/INT/WIS just like every feat/racial feature that give spellcasting powers). In fact, if this wouldn't introduce a whole new set of issues I'd be all for ability agnostic spellcasting for the Warlock.
Btw: I find it a bit sad to see that roughly one in three of the players vote for "my interpretation of the class is the only correct one", i.e., "CHA/INT/WIS exclusively". I mean who gets hurt if players get more choices? The issues with dips must be dealt with regardless (i.e., EB scaling with Warlock lvl, PotB giving less power on lvl 1, etc.). Once this is done, potential Wizlock, Druidlock, ..., *lock builds should not be a problem.
Why not just separate Warlock into two different classes? One based on CHA and one based on INT. 5e is hardly overflowing with classes, so we could easy add some more.
INT-warlock could be a "Witch" class with Pact of the Tome built in as their "Grimoire", and rename Invocations as "Talismans". The 'Pact' aspect could be reduced or eliminated entirely and they would instead be more focused on delving into forbidden knowledge and discovering exotic magics through research and experimentation on creatures and materials from other planes. They'd get Pact of the Talisman, Pact of the Tome and Pact of the Chain stuff.
Whereas,
CHA-warlock would be the wheeler-dealer or confident cult-leader type who has made a pact with a powerful being, which grants them powers in exchange for the warlock working on their behalf. They'd get Pact of the Chain, and Pact of the Blade stuff.
Why not just separate Warlock into two different classes? One based on CHA and one based on INT. 5e is hardly overflowing with classes, so we could easy add some more.
INT-warlock could be a "Witch" class with Pact of the Tome built in as their "Grimoire", and rename Invocations as "Talismans". The 'Pact' aspect could be reduced or eliminated entirely and they would instead be more focused on delving into forbidden knowledge and discovering exotic magics through research and experimentation on creatures and materials from other planes. They'd get Pact of the Talisman, Pact of the Tome and Pact of the Chain stuff.
Whereas,
CHA-warlock would be the wheeler-dealer or confident cult-leader type who has made a pact with a powerful being, which grants them powers in exchange for the warlock working on their behalf. They'd get Pact of the Chain, and Pact of the Blade stuff.
I'd guess that part of the problem with that would be the same problem that we run into with the Artificer. WotC seems to be reluctant to go beyond the current 12 classes in the Player's Handbook (and the SRD), and any class that is not in the Player's Handbook/SRD cannot be iterated upon in other books by WotC or other publishers.
Also keeping it all within the framework of the Warlock would seem to provide greater freedom as well as saving quite a few pages in the book that would be dedicated mostly to copying many of the features of the Warlock in a separate Intelligence-based class.
Why not just separate Warlock into two different classes? One based on CHA and one based on INT. 5e is hardly overflowing with classes, so we could easy add some more.
INT-warlock could be a "Witch" class with Pact of the Tome built in as their "Grimoire", and rename Invocations as "Talismans". The 'Pact' aspect could be reduced or eliminated entirely and they would instead be more focused on delving into forbidden knowledge and discovering exotic magics through research and experimentation on creatures and materials from other planes. They'd get Pact of the Talisman, Pact of the Tome and Pact of the Chain stuff.
Whereas,
CHA-warlock would be the wheeler-dealer or confident cult-leader type who has made a pact with a powerful being, which grants them powers in exchange for the warlock working on their behalf. They'd get Pact of the Chain, and Pact of the Blade stuff.
I'd guess that part of the problem with that would be the same problem that we run into with the Artificer. WotC seems to be reluctant to go beyond the current 12 classes in the Player's Handbook (and the SRD), and any class that is not in the Player's Handbook/SRD cannot be iterated upon in other books by WotC or other publishers.
Also keeping it all within the framework of the Warlock would seem to provide greater freedom as well as saving quite a few pages in the book that would be dedicated mostly to copying many of the features of the Warlock in a separate Intelligence-based class.
I could equally argue that WotC seems reluctant to have classes with multiple spellcasting ability options - likely because of how complicated this would make writing "easy guides" for new players as well as implementing the classes in a VTT. So I highly doubt we'll see INT/CHA warlock anytime soon.
Lots of mechanics are and features are copied between classes (Hunter's Mark and Hex are basically the same spell, and tones of classes get Fighting Styles and Spellcasting), so I don't think it's that much of a barrier. Having two classes with Pact Magic would normalize it as a build type similar to half and 1/3 casting, and lots of invocations/Talismans would be specific to one or other of the classes rather than being copied to both of them. Invocations already aren't much different design-wise from things like Maneuvers or Metamagics.
... I’m fine with Warlocks having a choice from all three mental stats, but caveat only if all casters get the same choice. Otherwise leave them alone.
The Charismatic Talky Boi archetype is dramatically over-supported in Fifth Edition, with an entire class devoted almost solely to being a Charismatic Talky Boi (bards) and three more classes forced into being Charismatic Talky Bois due to their stat priority regardless of what the player wants to do (sorcerer, warlock, dingdong).
There is precisely ONE choice for The Smart Guy. ONE.No, the artificer does not count; it is being abandoned in One with no plans to reintroduce the class, since all you people destroyed Wizards' ability to introduce new spellcasting classes with the dissolution of the unified spell lists. No unified spell lists? Introducing new classes is a colossal pain in the ass and makes the printing of any future books and increasingly nightmarish issue. So the whole "leave our four hundred and seventy-three Charisma classes alone and just make some new Intelligence once down the road!" is a nonstarter. New classes are not an option.
NOW is the time to try and reverse the oversupport for Charismatic Talky Boi and the undersupport for Smart Guy. It is the ONLY time, in fact. We will not get another chance to change or adjust the rules of Fifth Edition. This. Is. It. So either we fix it now, or we just agree that players who want to be The Smart Guy have to play literally nothing but an endless procession of wizards, or we put at least one goddamned more Intelligence-driven option in the game. And since the warlock is unquestionably the most modular class in 5e with the loosest, least defined core concept, this is the place to do it.
Shockingly, I generally agree with Yurei here (assuming I'm not completely misunderstanding their point): We have other charisma based casters, and ya don't need to have a strong "force of personality" or whatever to consort with demons. Because the Warlock's suggested backstory goes in direct opposition with what a high wisdom score would suggest, and you do have to be booksmart/have high "Intelligence" so that you could come into contact with goofy floating planar entities with flowing capes and stuff.
But the point is that - in a game where ability scores are sort of supposed to be equally powerful and more importantly, relevant - Intelligence only has one class that'll be featured in the 2024 revised rulebook (the Wizard). Since this is a great opportunity to make things better thematically and to restore balance to the importance of certain ability scores. Picking from between charisma and intelligence would be viable, but it's not my preferred option given that charisma already has a number of classes built around it (sorcerer, bard, etc.).
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I'm aware that my statements are not absolute facts. I'm aware that you have opinions that differ from my own. Not once have I contested either of these concepts.
I'm using logic and resources at hand to explain to you why I believe what I believe, and why I don't believe some of the things that you do believe. That's the basis of logic, rhetoric, and argument.
Notice the portions of your post that I underlined. I take quite a bit of issue with them.
The first sentence that I underlined is outright false. It's true that you can't really refute such hard evidence as stuff written in widely-published books, stuff that tons of people can check very easily. It isn't true that you can't disprove claims made based on that evidence, which is what you claim (or at least that's how your claim is worded).
The second sentence is also false, for similar reasons. I never tried to refute the words from the books. I refuted the conclusions that you drew from the words from the books. The conclusions that you had to use some degree of logic to reach. I didn't say "those things in the book are wrong," I said "those things in the book don't necessarily mean all that you claim them to." The former would be ridiculous, the latter is totally legitimate.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
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The problem with citing "the bigger poll" is that unless they publish the numbers we don't know what it actually said, only what was decided, which may or may not be related. While it's reasonable to assume that if a change was reversed that feedback must have been overwhelming negative, it might actually have been pretty balanced, but they decided to change it back anyway because it just wasn't positive enough.
That's exactly what seems to have happened with standardised sub-class levels, despite them never actually giving us a way to properly give feedback on that change alone; in a video Crawford actually blamed everyone who responded to the surveys for not universally praising the change, without citing any figures (which he couldn't have because we were never actually asked).
This demonstrates clearly that it doesn't matter what the feedback is; a feature could be unanimously loved, and they might still ditch it. Basically he made it clear that we can't assume anything about feedback results based on the changes they make, as they may not be related at all.
To be fair this was demonstrated early on; several of the early playtests had multiple different forms of a bunch of rules such as a critical hit/miss and inspiration, but these weren't adjustments made from feedback, they were just throwing out different ideas to see which one people liked best. Unless someone says in a video that a change was made due to feedback, we can't assume it was (or wasn't).
Unless I missed it, this could be the case with different ability score options; feedback could have been very positive on that specific feature (though again, they never actually asked us about it specifically) and they may have then pulled it to see if the opposite is true (if people complain about it being removed). If that's the case though it would have been nice if they just gave us a direct "do you want a choice of scores, if so what" question similar to this very poll, because you can't get reliable answers to a question you don't ask.
Because even for people that prefer Charisma for Warlock, I can't imagine many would strongly object to others having a choice as that doesn't mean Charisma Warlocks going away (the results for Intelligence or Wisdom only in this poll are very much in the minority), so they'd be unaffected.
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I would like to add to Haravikk's statement above that the 5e playtest was 10 years ago, and thus it is reasonable to speculate that opinions (those of the long-time players, or those of the many, many people who have picked up the game in the meantime) may have changed over that time frame.
It wasn’t a change back per se. I ditched 4e after PHB2, and I never played or DMed for a Warlock while playing, but I’m not the only 3.5 player that left 4e. From my understanding the first 4e Warlock was Int based and later they included a Cha based Warlock. Most likely with playtest for 5e the playtesters who played 3.5e combined with the 4e playtesters who played Cha Warlock out voted the Int based warlock players. So there is no problem citing the poll even if we didn’t see it. There is no other reason for WotC to make Warlock Cha based besides this unseen poll concluding that is what the playtesters wanted. Remember this wasn’t a revision playtest like this one. It was a new edition and WotC had a lot more freedom of on how they wanted to design the game. They even tried a half caster sorcerer that got shot down.
So you pointed out a major truth about polls. You can’t answer questions you aren’t asked. Also you can’t respond with answers that aren’t in the poll. I didn’t answer this poll for that reason. I’m fine with Warlocks having a choice from all three mental stats, but caveat only if all casters get the same choice. Otherwise leave them alone.
If this were a new edition I would agree with that. But it’s not. This is a massive Errata. If you do a gameplay fix that adjust all classes like giving everyone a choice in Spellcasting stat I could accept that, but if you suddenly give a single class something as drastic as the choice of casting stat that becomes core to the class, even though it wasn’t before, the next time someone wants that for another class, suddenly it’s a problem because they are steping on someone else’s toes. Warlock is not the only class that has lore supporting other play styles.
5e seems to have few qualms about classes stepping on other classes' toes. I mean, look at Sorcerer and Wizard. They've gotten even more similar in the playtests, with Wizards getting their own metamagic-like abilities. The idea that something as nonspecific and abstract as multiple spellcasting abilities being options would suddenly bar a similar concept from arising in any other classes just doesn't check out with history. If anything, 5e could do with some more protection of archetypes and classes' toes.
That's what 5e needs. Steel-toed boots.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Whether they are calling it a new addition or not, and whether the players in general are doing so is irrelevant. Ten years have passed and they showed by playtesting a flexible casting stat for Warlocks earlier that it must be something that they could consider, even if they rejected the same idea 10 years ago.
The Charismatic Talky Boi archetype is dramatically over-supported in Fifth Edition, with an entire class devoted almost solely to being a Charismatic Talky Boi (bards) and three more classes forced into being Charismatic Talky Bois due to their stat priority regardless of what the player wants to do (sorcerer, warlock, dingdong).
There is precisely ONE choice for The Smart Guy. ONE. No, the artificer does not count; it is being abandoned in One with no plans to reintroduce the class, since all you people destroyed Wizards' ability to introduce new spellcasting classes with the dissolution of the unified spell lists. No unified spell lists? Introducing new classes is a colossal pain in the ass and makes the printing of any future books and increasingly nightmarish issue. So the whole "leave our four hundred and seventy-three Charisma classes alone and just make some new Intelligence once down the road!" is a nonstarter. New classes are not an option.
NOW is the time to try and reverse the oversupport for Charismatic Talky Boi and the undersupport for Smart Guy. It is the ONLY time, in fact. We will not get another chance to change or adjust the rules of Fifth Edition. This. Is. It. So either we fix it now, or we just agree that players who want to be The Smart Guy have to play literally nothing but an endless procession of wizards, or we put at least one goddamned more Intelligence-driven option in the game. And since the warlock is unquestionably the most modular class in 5e with the loosest, least defined core concept, this is the place to do it.
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Again not listening. If you want your smart bois it’s far easier to just just give everyone the option of casting stats. Then the people who want to play knowledge Clerics can actually have knowledge and embody their God’s theme. Bards could actually spend some time researching that original word of creation.
Its funny I literally said “here, have your smart boi and let everyone else have whatever kind of boi they want, but if not then leave it alone.” What’s really funny is instead of saying yeah let everyone cast how they want you rather complain about the “if not leave them alone.”
Also I’m calling super BS on your statement of the warlock having the least defined core concept. The Warlocks core concept is they made a pact with a powerful being. No class has a core concept is attached to their casting stat. Their concept is all the fluff you read that instantly makes you think of that class.
5e Warlock is very modular, but that doesn’t mean they are the only class that deserves flexible casting. Especially if we are using their in book descriptions to determine if they qualify. If we are using mechanics to qualify characters for flexible casting I would argue Bard and Sorcerer deserve it more than Warlock, but would have the same caveat on them. If you give bard and/or Sorcerer flexible casting give it to everyone.
Dude, people in this very thread are arguing what the hell it even means to be in a pact. In PHB examples, one seeks the pact through arcane study, another stumbles upon it randomly. One serves their patron as an apprentice, another leeches from the patron without the latter even knowing. One entered the contract willingly and loves their patron, another had the pact forced upon them and seeks to break their patron's grasp on their soul. No other class has such variety in interpretations of a core idea except for maybe sorcerers, but sorcerers are weird and it's their whole deal, being weird.
Neither of these things have anything to do with how the Bard/Cleric casts their magic; the Cleric is still casting magic that comes from their deity, rather than truly learning it or having the power within themselves, while the Bard is still casting the magic as a performance using a musical instrument, spoken verse or such.
Intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing; you don't need Intelligence to know or learn things on a character, and you don't need a high Intelligence score for a more academic Bard or Cleric to function. I've pointed out multiple times in multiple threads that you don't need Intelligence 20 to be knowledgeable or smart, you can do just fine with 12 or 14 Intelligence.
"They have a pact" is clearly a solid part of the class concept, but as kamchatmonk says the pacts themselves are highly varied in how they're obtained and actually operate, at least narratively (since the mechanics don't currently reflect that).
But the very concept of the pact suggests that it's something you can be tempted or tricked into at any time, having already started down a different path; pacts are not exclusive to fledgling adventurers who've never used magic before, you could be a high level archmage and still be tempted by the prospect of forbidden knowledge or a quick fix for a current problem, you could be a Cleric devoted to a particular god, but in a moment of weakness you take a deal to save someone you otherwise can't etc.
While it's not impossible that similar conversions could happen via other classes, e.g- a character finds religion and becomes a Cleric, it's not nearly as quick a process. You don't narratively just become a Cleric or Paladin overnight, just as you can't suddenly decide to be a Wizard without the years of study that that requires. These classes are much more about long term experience, and have a fairly strong case for their current spellcasting abilities, whereas pact magic is very much an immediate deal or immediate and then continuing rewards.
You could make an argument for whether Cleric and Paladin should have a choice between Charisma and Wisdom or not, but it's one I feel a lot less strongly about because at least there is the choice of two; i.e- if you want to go a charismatic priest, you can go a Paladin, as they're very much equipped to be able to go out on their own and try to convert people in a dangerous world with a long (and ongoing) history of religious conflicts. Giving them Intelligence as an option as well seems less justified, as it doesn't fit how they actually do magic quite so well.
But ultimately this is entirely off-topic; the topic is about whether Warlocks should have a different or flexible casting ability or not. "If I can't have it on Cleric then you can't have it on Warlock" feels like a strange argument to make; you might reasonably say there's no precedent for it if other classes can't have it, but if your conclusion is you want more classes to have a choice then the relevant part is what you want that choice to be for Warlocks, other classes should get their own threads (or a more general thread).
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Any works, honestly. If any spellcaster gets a flexy spellcasting stat, it should be this one.
I am guessing the saving throw would have to change, though, from Wisdom+Charisma to [SelectedCastingStat]+Str/Dex/Con? And that might make it too gamey; many would choose their casting stat based on the usefulness of the save (Wisdom) or usefulness of the skills associated, resulting in very, very, very few players going for Intelligence.
That's an interesting point, though they could also just make it Wisdom + Intelligence or Charisma? This way it can always include your spellcasting ability if you want it to. Either that or make it Spellcasting Ability + one from Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma, can't choose a duplicate?
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Radical revolutionary idea: Choose your specialization at first level, and your specialization defines your casting stat and second save? And then, once your choice is "more involved" than just the casting stat alone, you can actually try and balance them out further?
While it's true that an INT warlock wouldn't be as mechanically good as a WIS or CHA warlock I'd argue that doesn't matter much when the options are "you can choose INT if you want" or "you cannot ever choose INT". Plenty of DnD players make build decisions based on roleplay, and in this instance going INT wouldn't be a cripplingly bad choice so only the absolute munchiniest of munchkins would refuse to go INT if it served the character fantasy they want.
Why should the saving throw proficiencies have to include your spellcasting stat? Fighters have STR + CON save prof. but can easily go DEX primary. Why should a Warlock not have WIS and CHA saves but go INT primary? I don't see a necessity to make everything even more complicated.
@topic: Since anyone can enter a pact without requiring to be specifically smart or charismatic or insightful it makes sense to allow free choice of casting stat (between CHA/INT/WIS just like every feat/racial feature that give spellcasting powers). In fact, if this wouldn't introduce a whole new set of issues I'd be all for ability agnostic spellcasting for the Warlock.
Btw: I find it a bit sad to see that roughly one in three of the players vote for "my interpretation of the class is the only correct one", i.e., "CHA/INT/WIS exclusively". I mean who gets hurt if players get more choices? The issues with dips must be dealt with regardless (i.e., EB scaling with Warlock lvl, PotB giving less power on lvl 1, etc.). Once this is done, potential Wizlock, Druidlock, ..., *lock builds should not be a problem.
Why not just separate Warlock into two different classes? One based on CHA and one based on INT. 5e is hardly overflowing with classes, so we could easy add some more.
INT-warlock could be a "Witch" class with Pact of the Tome built in as their "Grimoire", and rename Invocations as "Talismans". The 'Pact' aspect could be reduced or eliminated entirely and they would instead be more focused on delving into forbidden knowledge and discovering exotic magics through research and experimentation on creatures and materials from other planes. They'd get Pact of the Talisman, Pact of the Tome and Pact of the Chain stuff.
Whereas,
CHA-warlock would be the wheeler-dealer or confident cult-leader type who has made a pact with a powerful being, which grants them powers in exchange for the warlock working on their behalf. They'd get Pact of the Chain, and Pact of the Blade stuff.
I'd guess that part of the problem with that would be the same problem that we run into with the Artificer. WotC seems to be reluctant to go beyond the current 12 classes in the Player's Handbook (and the SRD), and any class that is not in the Player's Handbook/SRD cannot be iterated upon in other books by WotC or other publishers.
Also keeping it all within the framework of the Warlock would seem to provide greater freedom as well as saving quite a few pages in the book that would be dedicated mostly to copying many of the features of the Warlock in a separate Intelligence-based class.
I could equally argue that WotC seems reluctant to have classes with multiple spellcasting ability options - likely because of how complicated this would make writing "easy guides" for new players as well as implementing the classes in a VTT. So I highly doubt we'll see INT/CHA warlock anytime soon.
Lots of mechanics are and features are copied between classes (Hunter's Mark and Hex are basically the same spell, and tones of classes get Fighting Styles and Spellcasting), so I don't think it's that much of a barrier. Having two classes with Pact Magic would normalize it as a build type similar to half and 1/3 casting, and lots of invocations/Talismans would be specific to one or other of the classes rather than being copied to both of them. Invocations already aren't much different design-wise from things like Maneuvers or Metamagics.
Shockingly, I generally agree with Yurei here (assuming I'm not completely misunderstanding their point): We have other charisma based casters, and ya don't need to have a strong "force of personality" or whatever to consort with demons. Because the Warlock's suggested backstory goes in direct opposition with what a high wisdom score would suggest, and you do have to be booksmart/have high "Intelligence" so that you could come into contact with goofy floating planar entities with flowing capes and stuff.
But the point is that - in a game where ability scores are sort of supposed to be equally powerful and more importantly, relevant - Intelligence only has one class that'll be featured in the 2024 revised rulebook (the Wizard). Since this is a great opportunity to make things better thematically and to restore balance to the importance of certain ability scores. Picking from between charisma and intelligence would be viable, but it's not my preferred option given that charisma already has a number of classes built around it (sorcerer, bard, etc.).
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