They are upgrades compared to basic familiars, and there's only so much variance they can give fractional CR creatures. And, again, balance is not a priority; this isn't a dedicated combat pet, it's there for flavor and utility. Even with Investment, there's no way a Familiar is likely to last a round of tier 2 or higher combat if it draws much aggro. Heck, most AoE attacks can take one out as an incidental bonus to attacking the party.
I get it. I’m just annoyed that chainlocks don’t get as much love. Two fiends, one fey, no celestial, one dragon, a skeleton if they keep it, and a slaad tadpole? Guess I just wish there was two per type and some balance on them. Hell, I’d be content if basic familiars got an upgrade for chainlocks.
I think part of the problem for the familiars is that they seem to want to define all the possibilities in the Pact of the Chain feature itself, but that's far too limiting. The feature should just define the basics of having a familiar, with access to the same types as everyone else that can get the spell, but each patron should then add one or two extra options specific to that patron.
So Fiend would provide access to imp etc., or if they do go with templates, patrons could add special attacks or features, so the Fiend familiar might get a flaming attack, fire immunity and devil's sight, while a draconic patron would have a choice of elemental damage and corresponding resistance.
I'd really like to see them do the same thing with blade and tome as well; blade could add a recommended weapon, tome could provide access to other cantrips and so-on. These wouldn't necessarily need extra features on top since they're solid pact boons already, but in this way the patrons could provide added boosts to chain to make it more competitive in more unique ways.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Yes, it is. When players at the table feel overshadowed, that can cause them to have less fun. Nobody wants to feel like their primary job is to carry the wizard's loot.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I get it. I’m just annoyed that chainlocks don’t get as much love. Two fiends, one fey, no celestial, one dragon, a skeleton if they keep it, and a slaad tadpole? Guess I just wish there was two per type and some balance on them. Hell, I’d be content if basic familiars got an upgrade for chainlocks.
I think part of the problem for the familiars is that they seem to want to define all the possibilities in the Pact of the Chain feature itself, but that's far too limiting. The feature should just define the basics of having a familiar, with access to the same types as everyone else that can get the spell, but each patron should then add one or two extra options specific to that patron.
So Fiend would provide access to imp etc., or if they do go with templates, patrons could add special attacks or features, so the Fiend familiar might get a flaming attack, fire immunity and devil's sight, while a draconic patron would have a choice of elemental damage and corresponding resistance.
I'd really like to see them do the same thing with blade and tome as well; blade could add a recommended weapon, tome could provide access to other cantrips and so-on. These wouldn't necessarily need extra features on top since they're solid pact boons already, but in this way the patrons could provide added boosts to chain to make it more competitive in more unique ways.
Honestly... with all the stuff people want for warlock, they should split it into two different classes. One gets Tome + Chain (Witch), the other gets Blade (Sworn Knight).
Currently, it's not practical to have Invocations interact with Pacts, and it just sort of speaks to the poor design that both Pact Boons & Invocations get treated as a subclass and the Pacts get treated as a subclass. Leaving Warlock the class-less class with instead 2 sets of subclasses.
Alternatively they could redesign it so that pact boons are actually Pact boons and are tied to specific Pacts.
Fiend can get Blade at 1st level with +1d4 fire damage, then Chain (imp) at 6th level
Celestial would get Chain (Sunfly or a new low CR celestial) at 1st level, then Blade with +1d6 radiant damage at 6th
GOO would get Tome at 1st, then Talisman at 6th
Fathomless would get Chain (Tentacle) at 1st level, then Talisman at 6th
Genie would get Talisman at 1st, then Tome at 6th
Undying would get Tome at 1st then Chain (Skeleton) at 6th
Honestly, I think control spells are a much bigger deal than damage spells.
Yeah no kidding. How in the world does anyone in 2024 think that Fireball does good damage? Have you EVER seen Fireball used in any Nova Damage build or Sustained DPR build? Absolutely never, and every martial class in the game does far more damage than a caster with Fireball, unless the DM is purposely stacking up a giant group of enemies like bowling pins to fireball down.
Multiclassed Martial characters easily do far more damage than Casters, but Casters do have a huge advantage on battlefield control. Also Casters have insane durability compared to Martial classes who are much more squishy, which is entirely backwards of what it should be
Honestly, I think control spells are a much bigger deal than damage spells.
Yeah no kidding. How in the world does anyone in 2024 think that Fireball does good damage? Have you EVER seen Fireball used in any Nova Damage build or Sustained DPR build? Absolutely never, and every martial class in the game does far more damage than a caster with Fireball, unless the DM is purposely stacking up a giant group of enemies like bowling pins to fireball down.
Multiclassed Martial characters easily do far more damage than Casters, but Casters do have a huge advantage on battlefield control. Also Casters have insane durability compared to Martial classes who are much more squishy, which is entirely backwards of what it should be
The bigger issues were the conjure animals and animate object spells that could do way more damage in a turn simply by the number of attacks. by changing these though I believe casters and martials are closer to having their roles on and off the battle field. I am ok with control spells being reasonably strong. I am ok with utility being slightly better than skills in some cases. I like that a choice needs to be made and that casters can't do everything better.
The bigger issues were the conjure animals and animate object spells that could do way more damage in a turn simply by the number of attacks.
Yeah Conjure Animals was game-breakingly busted if the DM allows the player to choose the creature type (which was ambiguous whether it was RAW or not). Best damage spell in the game, slows the game to a crawl, and clogs up the map for tables using Grid combat. Thankfully that's all addressed in One DnD
I feel like the damage of Animate Objects is a bit overrated (quite strong though), just because the design was stupid that Tiny objects are so much better than Huge objects and it's another example of slowing the game down. Was this ever addressed in any of the Playtest materials? I don't recall seeing it
It was busted unless the enemy had any AoE moves, or resistance/immunity to nonmagical damage. Neither spell is hard to counter with some basic forethought. The biggest issue is just that running 4+ extra units in combat is clunky.
It was busted unless the enemy had any AoE moves, or resistance/immunity to nonmagical damage. Neither spell is hard to counter with some basic forethought. The biggest issue is just that running 4+ extra units in combat is clunky.
As a DM I would strongly discourage my players from building a summoner for that reason. They would be countered, and I doubt either of us would really enjoy it.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I mean, I'm not saying you do that at every opportunity, but keeping the tactic in mind if the player gets to reliant on a single spell is an option.
I'd clear the table quickly because of the fact that it is clunky, and slows everything down. I'd warn them up front and tell them exactly what I intended to do, and if they chose to proceed, then they can reap what they have sown. But, the fact that it's not something I'd want to deal with requires me to make that known to them up front. I'd make sure I told them my reasoning and then let them make the informed decision. Players build that kind of thing because they want to do it every round.
A single pet? Kind of annoying, but sure. we can work with that. You swarm me, and I am going to clear them, and they will know that it's coming in advance.
Then again, I really dislike DMing anyways, so it's mostly a moot point. I avoid being put in that situation as much as I possibly can. Conversely, I feel it's my responsibility as a player to not hit on my DM's pain points. You don't like flyers? I will not beg for a winged tiefling that can fly. My super cool race option doesn't fit into your campaigns vision? OK, I will play something else. It's a social contract. As a player, if I don't make the DM itch, he won't feel the need to scratch.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Fireball is good against hordes of weak enemies, but against a boss monster that has Magic Resistance and all manner of elemental resistances, a Fighter with a +1 magic weapon will be the one who will most consistently wear down its health.
One spell I'd like to see reworked is Enhance Ability. There are so many ways of granting advantage that that spell is downright worthless. How I'd handle it is the base spell will set the chosen ability score to 19 if it isn't already higher (maybe do something different for Constitution), and then if you upcast it by enough, you could potentially get higher values.
not to mention that fire resistance is one of the most common damage resistances in the game.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
Except the entire point of chain familiars is that yes it is a fiend, fey, celestial, etc. that your patron is providing. A single template is just a weak cop out of “we can’t be bothered to do this right” when the field is this broad.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
Except the entire point of chain familiars is that yes it is a fiend, fey, celestial, etc. that your patron is providing. A single template is just a weak cop out of “we can’t be bothered to do this right” when the field is this broad.
I see your point, however there are no limitations on the familiar type based on patron and your familiar can still be resummoned in a different form. So either it’s a different familiar each time, or the same familiar in a different form. That’s where templates could come in handy. One for each improved type: Fiend, Fey, Celestial, etc. Or just have a “familiar version” of existing creatures.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
Except the entire point of chain familiars is that yes it is a fiend, fey, celestial, etc. that your patron is providing. A single template is just a weak cop out of “we can’t be bothered to do this right” when the field is this broad.
I see your point, however there are no limitations on the familiar type based on patron and your familiar can still be resummoned in a different form. So either it’s a different familiar each time, or the same familiar in a different form. That’s where templates could come in handy. One for each improved type: Fiend, Fey, Celestial, etc. Or just have a “familiar version” of existing creatures.
Technically there are no limits, but do you really think they aren’t intending them to correspond to the Patron? Psuedodragon is the only real wildcard in either list. Plus, whether you like it or not, the survey seems to have spoken that people don’t want a template on their Warlock familiars. The real diversity of different stat blocks is the major draw of the option.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
Except the entire point of chain familiars is that yes it is a fiend, fey, celestial, etc. that your patron is providing. A single template is just a weak cop out of “we can’t be bothered to do this right” when the field is this broad.
I see your point, however there are no limitations on the familiar type based on patron and your familiar can still be resummoned in a different form. So either it’s a different familiar each time, or the same familiar in a different form. That’s where templates could come in handy. One for each improved type: Fiend, Fey, Celestial, etc. Or just have a “familiar version” of existing creatures.
Technically there are no limits, but do you really think they aren’t intending them to correspond to the Patron? Psuedodragon is the only real wildcard in either list. Plus, whether you like it or not, the survey seems to have spoken that people don’t want a template on their Warlock familiars. The real diversity of different stat blocks is the major draw of the option.
Maybe but there are plenty of sub classes who don't have a clean fit for the familiar options. Genie, fathomless, Celestial, hexblade. Either don't have a parallel or its pretty loose. And if they are going to use the find familiar spell it is linked to it not actually being an imp familiar its a spirit that took the shape of a imp and gained its abilities. As for example you do not get magic resistance despite having imp as your pact of the chain familiar because it is not actually a imp familiar.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
Except the entire point of chain familiars is that yes it is a fiend, fey, celestial, etc. that your patron is providing. A single template is just a weak cop out of “we can’t be bothered to do this right” when the field is this broad.
I see your point, however there are no limitations on the familiar type based on patron and your familiar can still be resummoned in a different form. So either it’s a different familiar each time, or the same familiar in a different form. That’s where templates could come in handy. One for each improved type: Fiend, Fey, Celestial, etc. Or just have a “familiar version” of existing creatures.
Technically there are no limits, but do you really think they aren’t intending them to correspond to the Patron? Psuedodragon is the only real wildcard in either list. Plus, whether you like it or not, the survey seems to have spoken that people don’t want a template on their Warlock familiars. The real diversity of different stat blocks is the major draw of the option.
Maybe but there are plenty of sub classes who don't have a clean fit for the familiar options. Genie, fathomless, Celestial, hexblade. Either don't have a parallel or its pretty loose. And if they are going to use the find familiar spell it is linked to it not actually being an imp familiar its a spirit that took the shape of a imp and gained its abilities. As for example you do not get magic resistance despite having imp as your pact of the chain familiar because it is not actually a imp familiar.
^^ this. My fiend's imp doesn't take the shape of an imp, just the stat block.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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They are upgrades compared to basic familiars, and there's only so much variance they can give fractional CR creatures. And, again, balance is not a priority; this isn't a dedicated combat pet, it's there for flavor and utility. Even with Investment, there's no way a Familiar is likely to last a round of tier 2 or higher combat if it draws much aggro. Heck, most AoE attacks can take one out as an incidental bonus to attacking the party.
I think part of the problem for the familiars is that they seem to want to define all the possibilities in the Pact of the Chain feature itself, but that's far too limiting. The feature should just define the basics of having a familiar, with access to the same types as everyone else that can get the spell, but each patron should then add one or two extra options specific to that patron.
So Fiend would provide access to imp etc., or if they do go with templates, patrons could add special attacks or features, so the Fiend familiar might get a flaming attack, fire immunity and devil's sight, while a draconic patron would have a choice of elemental damage and corresponding resistance.
I'd really like to see them do the same thing with blade and tome as well; blade could add a recommended weapon, tome could provide access to other cantrips and so-on. These wouldn't necessarily need extra features on top since they're solid pact boons already, but in this way the patrons could provide added boosts to chain to make it more competitive in more unique ways.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Is balance really important to the game for us to enjoy playing? Or is balance a transitory experience while the pendulum swings between extremes?
What might happen if all the martial classes conspired to form a union and invested in suppressing the power of the caster classes?
Yes, it is. When players at the table feel overshadowed, that can cause them to have less fun. Nobody wants to feel like their primary job is to carry the wizard's loot.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Honestly... with all the stuff people want for warlock, they should split it into two different classes. One gets Tome + Chain (Witch), the other gets Blade (Sworn Knight).
Currently, it's not practical to have Invocations interact with Pacts, and it just sort of speaks to the poor design that both Pact Boons & Invocations get treated as a subclass and the Pacts get treated as a subclass. Leaving Warlock the class-less class with instead 2 sets of subclasses.
Alternatively they could redesign it so that pact boons are actually Pact boons and are tied to specific Pacts.
Fiend can get Blade at 1st level with +1d4 fire damage, then Chain (imp) at 6th level
Celestial would get Chain (Sunfly or a new low CR celestial) at 1st level, then Blade with +1d6 radiant damage at 6th
GOO would get Tome at 1st, then Talisman at 6th
Fathomless would get Chain (Tentacle) at 1st level, then Talisman at 6th
Genie would get Talisman at 1st, then Tome at 6th
Undying would get Tome at 1st then Chain (Skeleton) at 6th
Yeah no kidding. How in the world does anyone in 2024 think that Fireball does good damage? Have you EVER seen Fireball used in any Nova Damage build or Sustained DPR build? Absolutely never, and every martial class in the game does far more damage than a caster with Fireball, unless the DM is purposely stacking up a giant group of enemies like bowling pins to fireball down.
Multiclassed Martial characters easily do far more damage than Casters, but Casters do have a huge advantage on battlefield control. Also Casters have insane durability compared to Martial classes who are much more squishy, which is entirely backwards of what it should be
The bigger issues were the conjure animals and animate object spells that could do way more damage in a turn simply by the number of attacks. by changing these though I believe casters and martials are closer to having their roles on and off the battle field. I am ok with control spells being reasonably strong. I am ok with utility being slightly better than skills in some cases. I like that a choice needs to be made and that casters can't do everything better.
Yeah Conjure Animals was game-breakingly busted if the DM allows the player to choose the creature type (which was ambiguous whether it was RAW or not). Best damage spell in the game, slows the game to a crawl, and clogs up the map for tables using Grid combat. Thankfully that's all addressed in One DnD
I feel like the damage of Animate Objects is a bit overrated (quite strong though), just because the design was stupid that Tiny objects are so much better than Huge objects and it's another example of slowing the game down. Was this ever addressed in any of the Playtest materials? I don't recall seeing it
It was busted unless the enemy had any AoE moves, or resistance/immunity to nonmagical damage. Neither spell is hard to counter with some basic forethought. The biggest issue is just that running 4+ extra units in combat is clunky.
As a DM I would strongly discourage my players from building a summoner for that reason. They would be countered, and I doubt either of us would really enjoy it.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I mean, I'm not saying you do that at every opportunity, but keeping the tactic in mind if the player gets to reliant on a single spell is an option.
Idea of summoning a lot creature is just wrong .
The one time my player used Conjure Animal and the combat lost its power cause we were just waiting for 20 minutes for his minis turn .
My player is a Warlock summoner and since tasha is really enjoying his charachter and doesn't bore the whole table .
I'd clear the table quickly because of the fact that it is clunky, and slows everything down. I'd warn them up front and tell them exactly what I intended to do, and if they chose to proceed, then they can reap what they have sown. But, the fact that it's not something I'd want to deal with requires me to make that known to them up front. I'd make sure I told them my reasoning and then let them make the informed decision. Players build that kind of thing because they want to do it every round.
A single pet? Kind of annoying, but sure. we can work with that. You swarm me, and I am going to clear them, and they will know that it's coming in advance.
Then again, I really dislike DMing anyways, so it's mostly a moot point. I avoid being put in that situation as much as I possibly can. Conversely, I feel it's my responsibility as a player to not hit on my DM's pain points. You don't like flyers? I will not beg for a winged tiefling that can fly. My super cool race option doesn't fit into your campaigns vision? OK, I will play something else. It's a social contract. As a player, if I don't make the DM itch, he won't feel the need to scratch.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
not to mention that fire resistance is one of the most common damage resistances in the game.
Honestly the template model works perfect for familiars. It isn't a imp, its a spirit taking a form. Give them all the same basic stats, allow people to slot in abilities when they are called up, have a combat model ability suite, a stealth model, utility model.
Except the entire point of chain familiars is that yes it is a fiend, fey, celestial, etc. that your patron is providing. A single template is just a weak cop out of “we can’t be bothered to do this right” when the field is this broad.
I see your point, however there are no limitations on the familiar type based on patron and your familiar can still be resummoned in a different form. So either it’s a different familiar each time, or the same familiar in a different form. That’s where templates could come in handy. One for each improved type: Fiend, Fey, Celestial, etc. Or just have a “familiar version” of existing creatures.
Technically there are no limits, but do you really think they aren’t intending them to correspond to the Patron? Psuedodragon is the only real wildcard in either list. Plus, whether you like it or not, the survey seems to have spoken that people don’t want a template on their Warlock familiars. The real diversity of different stat blocks is the major draw of the option.
Maybe but there are plenty of sub classes who don't have a clean fit for the familiar options. Genie, fathomless, Celestial, hexblade. Either don't have a parallel or its pretty loose. And if they are going to use the find familiar spell it is linked to it not actually being an imp familiar its a spirit that took the shape of a imp and gained its abilities. As for example you do not get magic resistance despite having imp as your pact of the chain familiar because it is not actually a imp familiar.
^^ this. My fiend's imp doesn't take the shape of an imp, just the stat block.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha