Building the game around SR recovery also would reduce the power imbalance when some tables choose to only have 1 fight per day, since LR-recharge features are generally given 3x more uses than SR-recharge features which means they are disproportionately powerful when they don't have to be spread across multiple combats.
But building the game around SR-recharge would require massive decrease in spellslots which would mean the full-caster lovers would riot.
Since we're rehashing the whole "everyone who doesn't use short rests is an ape" thing (god, aren't we sick of that already?), I'll just say this.
No amount of rules fiddling is going to make short rests feel good to some players. Players who avoid short rests have many possible reasons for doing so, and only a few of them can be partially ameliorated by rules fiddling. Some players don't like the narrative weirdness inherent to never having any trouble finding a spare hour to sit around and count dice no matter what, even in the deepest depths of an enemy stronghold. Some players don't like the above-table bookkeeping involved in short rests. And some players simply don't like feeling like their character can't handle even the most minor of Adventuring Exertions without wheezing into their bandana for a short rest.
Turning every single caster into the warlock wouldn't make people upset because of the loss in power, however the recharge math works out. It would make people upset because short rests are no god damned fun, and constantly having to interrupt your Adventuring Day to spend ten minutes counting dice sucks. Especially with session times trending ever downwards - it's been over a year since I've played a four-hour session of D&D, two hours is almost always what I get if even that, and I've seen plenty of evidence I'm not alone in that.
It's just not something everybody wants to do, and continually trying to coerce people into doing it isn't going to work. It really doesn't matter how "attractive" you make short rests. For some players, the fundamental idea in and of itself is flawed, will always be flawed, can never be repaired, and will always be nothing but a frustration and a pain point in the game's design.
You really make a solid point here. It's hard to argue with my party when we finish up an encounter and I want an SR for some spell slots, and they say "sitting down for lunch doesn't make sense right now". They're right, and it feels crunchy to even ask...but my class is built around asking. It's to the point where I generally feel it mandatory to MC just so I can have some spell slots to use. I generally LIKE having a go-to in eldritch blast that's always there like a security blanket, but I want to have some spell options too. Having something to think about using as an alternative.
Otherwise, it's eldritch blast if I think I can land it, or mind sliver if I need a save spell for some reason.
I will say, my celestial lock was given a lot more leeway on SR when I phrased it "I can have 2 3rd level cure wounds if we SR"
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Narratively it doesn’t make any more sense for Warlocks to not “officially” make their Pact until 3rd level than it does for Clerics to not “officially” have their Domain until then; both classes are strongly if not wholly defined by sourcing their magic from a particular being, and the “you’re working up to it” argument doesn’t really hold up for the same reason that Fighters aren’t treated as squires for their first two levels, Bards aren’t still considered apprentices, etc. Level 1 in a class is supposed to be a fully fledged character in all of the truly basic/core components of the class, which is why you pick all of your skills and get all of your other profs out of the gate. Now, mechanically I understand it can frontload the features too much, although the current Pact of the Blade format still leaves one of the biggest reasons to dip Warlock nearly unchanged.
Thank you for putting this in a better way than I have been.
I'd argue that warlock is even more abusable now. 1 level dip for SAD shennanigans. 1 level dip to pick up chain for an improved familiar. 1 level dip for tome to get access to some other rituals and cantrips that you usually wouldn't have. That's a hell of a lot more up-front power imo, than getting some temp hps when I shank something, or 2 healing light dice.
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I think the thing with warlocks and monks and short rest features is here for because people like having different decision points and unique mechanics. The Warlock's spell casting is a unique resource management system. Rather than considering the limits per day it is the limits per short rest. The warlock works more similarly to martials which is why it is not a surprise that their main spell, eldritch blast, has more in common with martial attacks. It is also why blade pact makes sense for them as well. I agree that getting this benefit on other casters is too easy and EB should be linked to warlock levels. I am fine with blade pact because it doesn't synergize well with feats and to get extra attacks you need more invocations later so another caster can't just get that martial ability with a 1 level dip.
Making a spell caster that must manage their resources like a martial seems like a fun and interesting idea to me and I feel both the 5 and 7 versions did this with warlock in interesting ways. I hope the final product will fix a lot of the pain points still left including some new invocations, the ability to change invocations on level up and ways to prevent non-warlocks from benefiting so well from EB and toning down how strong high level pact of the blade was at higher levels.
My main worry right now, as I said earlier, is how they are doing encounter building because it sounds like they are doing the same thing they already did but removing the math and instead just giving you the numbers which I worry will make encounter building less accurate.
You can already swap out one Invocation per level up in the 2014 PHB, same as known spells; I would be quite shocked if that doesn't carry over into the new one, and I'm sure most people will continue to allow it anyways regardless.
You can already swap out one Invocation per level up in the 2014 PHB, same as known spells; I would be quite shocked if that doesn't carry over into the new one, and I'm sure most people will continue to allow it anyways regardless.
Correct, but technically the way the playtest 7 was written you couldn't with it.
Just putting my two cents in to respectfully disagree with Ace re: clerics and warlocks and what they choose at 3rd level.
First, the cleric will have picked a deity at first level. A very rough real world equivalent is someone deciding to become a Roman Catholic priest, an Eastern Orthodox priest, or a Methodist minister. Once they've been in that order or system, they can choose one or more areas of study or specialty. At third level, clerics are not picking what deity they follow; they're picking what specific area/domain of knowledge they're specializing under that deity.
Warlocks have no power without their pact; they must choose a patron and make a pact to even be a warlock. The current third level choice is a specific boon or means for the pact to be manifested.
Warlocks have magical powers before choosing a patron makes no real sense; clerics wielding magic before choosing a domain makes sense because they've already chosen a deity, just not a specialty.
Thank you for putting this in a better way than I have been.
I'd argue that warlock is even more abusable now. 1 level dip for SAD shennanigans. 1 level dip to pick up chain for an improved familiar. 1 level dip for tome to get access to some other rituals and cantrips that you usually wouldn't have. That's a hell of a lot more up-front power imo, than getting some temp hps when I shank something, or 2 healing light dice.
I'm in favor of nerfing Blade (say, no heavy weapons, ranged weapons or masteries without Hexblade) and EB/Chain Familiar needing to scale with Warlock levels. But dipping for Cha-SAD attacks with simple and non-heavy martial weapons is fine imo.
Warlocks have magical powers before choosing a patron makes no real sense; clerics wielding magic before choosing a domain makes sense because they've already chosen a deity, just not a specialty.
It does though? Warlocks make a number of deals, not just the one with the Patron. And the Patron arrangement doesn't even need to be a conscious agreement.
Thank you for putting this in a better way than I have been.
I'd argue that warlock is even more abusable now. 1 level dip for SAD shennanigans. 1 level dip to pick up chain for an improved familiar. 1 level dip for tome to get access to some other rituals and cantrips that you usually wouldn't have. That's a hell of a lot more up-front power imo, than getting some temp hps when I shank something, or 2 healing light dice.
I'm in favor of nerfing Blade (say, no heavy weapons, ranged weapons or masteries without Hexblade) and EB/Chain Familiar needing to scale with Warlock levels. But dipping for Cha-SAD attacks with simple and non-heavy martial weapons is fine imo.
Warlocks have magical powers before choosing a patron makes no real sense; clerics wielding magic before choosing a domain makes sense because they've already chosen a deity, just not a specialty.
It does though? Warlocks make a number of deals, not just the one with the Patron. And the Patron arrangement doesn't even need to be a conscious agreement.
Just a reminder that heavy weapons now require a 13 in either strength or dex (if it is a bow) to not have disadvantage for using the weapon. This is regardless of the Blade locks ability to use charisma so pact of the blade doesn't entirely solve the "MAD" issue if using heavy weapons. Further, all the feats that really make heavy weapons good increase either strength or dex so it isn't as advantageous to get charisma to this to begin with. Also as a reminder to everyone. Pact of the Chain is NOT available at level 1 it is only a level 2 invocation or higher. Finally getting some more cantrips and first level spells are pretty easily available with any caster not just warlock.
This all said I still agree about EB. Honestly, to me all they have to do is make AB a level 5 ability and it largely solves the dip issue.
SR and encounters are basically designed such that when the party needs a short rest, they can probably take it.
if you are purposefully removing their ability to SR, thats supposed to be accounted for in your design. This is from the encounter design guidelines:
*aside about how short rests interact with multipart encounters*
the point being, they literally assume in general after an encounter, players can SR if needed.
I was pointing out that "Players can generally SR after an encounter" is not assumed. Rather, 2+ encounters falling between SRs on a typical adventuring day is the expectation, because mathematically, that's the only way to get to the expectation of 6-8 medium encounters with only 2 SRs (see DMG 84.)
And how we got onto this tangent in the first place, was trying to determine the right amount of SR dependence for the game. In my opinion, Short Rests should be beneficial and nice to have, but not required; a party who gets 2 short rests per day should have slightly to moderately more resources than one that gets zero, but not substantially more. A fighter who does so will get two considerably burstier rounds than one that doesn't, but their overall output won't be much different. Similarly, wizards, druids and sorcerers will have a few extra spell slots but nothing crazy.
Monks and Warlocks throw that completely out of whack - they get triple their primary resource if they short rest twice. However, the LR emergency recovery features help to normalize that - a monk in a party that gets 2 SRs might not need to use Uncanny Metabolism at all, while the one in the party that gets zero can count on at least one refill. If they're going to keep those classes SR-based, which again I think is a mistake, a 1/LR full refresh does seem like it will help.
you are cutting out a key part of the sentence, which is "if needed"
I didnt say they rest after every fight, I said they are designed to have the option if it is needed.
and I said you can eliminate that expectation, you just need to account for it in you encounter design, as it may make the fights more difficult than the baseline system reccomends.
the 6-8 IS NOT the expectation or balance design. it represents the average, with average fights and average luck of when they have no resources left. But parties don't usually fall in the average on any given day, luck is wildly different from encounter to encounter, and fight difficulty is usually decided based on what the table prefers in terms of challenge, or narrative.
you are interpolating based on an average how things are supposed to be, but Crawford is saying, that was just an idea of the average of what people usually do, it may or may not represent what is actually needed or recommended in the game, because encounters (and thus resources) are expended differently based, on luck, party composition/playstyle, and fight difficulty.
fighting deadly fights. you may need SR after every fight
Horrible rolls and every one is low hp, you may need SR.
Great luck? yall may need no rests.
Ambushed 3 groups? you may not need rests.
the point was, they didnt create an encounter/CR system that expects/encourages a specific amount of encounters, Rests, or whatever per day. Its designed to adapt to the situation on the ground as its happening.
Monks are designed assuming they have a a fair amount of Ki every fight. (after lvl 5) Their performance drastically reduces if they have low/no ki. So you are right that they aren't roughly the same like fighter/rogue.
However, the assumption was, if the monk tells the group he needs a break, they probably take a break. (unless they can't which the DM should have accounted for in encounter design difficulty)
they added heightened metabolism to mitigate the situation where the group doesn't SR often. However if they have full ki, they won't be OP. Most monks aren't designed to be able to dump resource for greater power, and the subclasses that can, price it such that they will probably run out of steam mid fight if they push much past normal effeciency.
I don't want AB to require level 5, that's overly punishing.
They just need to stop EB from scaling with character level like other cantrips.
I'm mixed on that atm; it's a good way to discourage dips for EB, but the early utility Invocation repertoire has taken a hit (likely due to ritual casting being a class feature now), so you don't necessarily have them to make up the difference in spell slots in tier 1 (which admittedly is also when it's least egregious). Maybe compromise at 3rd level? Still high enough to not be an easy dip, and also becomes available at the point where full casters can pull ahead on slots.
I don't want AB to require level 5, that's overly punishing.
They just need to stop EB from scaling with character level like other cantrips.
The issue is then it would be very unique text by comparison. I actually do not think it is super punishing to not have 3 damage per hit reduction in levels 1-3 and maybe 4 damage on a single chance hit at level 4. Tome gets an extra spell slot + the other invocations add a lot already. Tier 1 is not a place that warlock struggles compared to other casters in terms of number of spells per encounter or per day. level 5, start of tier 2 is when that hybrid martial/caster really starts to kick in and the limit in spell numbers really start taking its toll. By pushing agonizing blast out there is still a reason to dip warlock, but there is also a reason to continue with warlock. I am of the opinion that big levels for every class needs to be 5, 9ish, and 11ish. There needs to be a temptation.
Level 3 might be ok, because by then you are thinking "well 4 gets me a feat, and 5 is a huge spike with 3rd level spells" and then the spell progression is naturally pulling you along and tempting you to stay warlock. But 1 level doesn't delay spells enough in bards or sorcerers to prevent them from just dipping and grabbing once they hit 5.
I don't want AB to require level 5, that's overly punishing.
They just need to stop EB from scaling with character level like other cantrips.
The issue is then it would be very unique text by comparison.
Unique text wouldn't be an issue if they just made it a class feature, and that seems to be what they've been pushing towards it being lately anyway.
Not that I'm a fan of eldritch blast being a core feature, as I've wanted Warlocks to become less single cantrip focused, i.e- make Agonizing Blast once per turn damage rather than per attack so it works for any cantrip, making repulsing blast etc. cantrip agnostic and so-on.
I was much more interested by the idea of hex as a core Warlock feature, i.e- grant it as standard, make it once per turn scaled damage, add in some invocations specific to it (improved maddening and relentless hex, maybe a higher level one to lift the concentration, another to add extra debuffs etc.) so it becomes a real part of the toolkit, as it's a spell that any Warlock could use.
With 3-4 good invocations it would mean a good number of new options alongside EB invocations becoming cantrip agnostic. While a lot of Warlocks might still be mostly cantrip blasters, at least it could be a different cantrip, and they could bolster them in more interesting ways.
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I don't want AB to require level 5, that's overly punishing.
They just need to stop EB from scaling with character level like other cantrips.
The issue is then it would be very unique text by comparison.
Unique text wouldn't be an issue if they just made a class feature, and that seems to be what they've been pushing towards it being lately anyway.
Not that I'm a fan of eldritch blast being a core feature, as I've wanted Warlocks to become less single cantrip focused, i.e- make Agonizing Blast once per turn damage rather than per attack so it works for any cantrip, making repulsing blast etc. cantrip agnostic and so-on.
I was much more interested by the idea of hex as a core Warlock feature, i.e- grant it as standard, make it once per turn scaled damage, add in some invocations specific to it (improved maddening and relentless hex, maybe a higher level one to lift the concentration, another to add extra debuffs etc.) so it becomes a real part of the toolkit, as it's a spell that any Warlock could use.
With 3-4 good invocations it would mean a good number of new options alongside EB invocations becoming cantrip agnostic. While a lot of Warlocks might still be mostly cantrip blasters, at least it could be a different cantrip, and they could bolster them in more different ways.
EB works the way it does because it HAS to in order to keep up with martial scaling. I would much rather had my static modifier than...hex. yeah, I don't like your idea even a little, and I hope that WOTC never sees it or takes it under consideration.
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I don't want AB to require level 5, that's overly punishing.
They just need to stop EB from scaling with character level like other cantrips.
^^ this. I shouldn't have to wait til level 5 in order to be as good of an archer as a bow armed archer. The problem is 100% EB scaling on character level like a standard cantrip, and not on warlock. EB is not a standard cantrip and should not be treated like one. it should be a class feature.
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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.
Thank you for putting this in a better way than I have been.
I'd argue that warlock is even more abusable now. 1 level dip for SAD shennanigans. 1 level dip to pick up chain for an improved familiar. 1 level dip for tome to get access to some other rituals and cantrips that you usually wouldn't have. That's a hell of a lot more up-front power imo, than getting some temp hps when I shank something, or 2 healing light dice.
I'm in favor of nerfing Blade (say, no heavy weapons, ranged weapons or masteries without Hexblade) and EB/Chain Familiar needing to scale with Warlock levels. But dipping for Cha-SAD attacks with simple and non-heavy martial weapons is fine imo.
I think dipping for cha being sad is fine. I think only having to dip 1 level for it is not fine. That should require 3 levels like most other good things to poach. Having paladin auras be as good as they are AND enable their melee attacks is...not ok. Of course, if Warlocks were INT like they were originally designed to be, rather than CHA, this would not be as major of an issue.
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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.
Unique text wouldn't be an issue if they just made a class feature, and that seems to be what they've been pushing towards it being lately anyway.
Not that I'm a fan of eldritch blast being a core feature, as I've wanted Warlocks to become less single cantrip focused, i.e- make Agonizing Blast once per turn damage rather than per attack so it works for any cantrip, making repulsing blast etc. cantrip agnostic and so-on.
EB works the way it does because it HAS to in order to keep up with martial scaling. I would much rather had my static modifier than...hex. yeah, I don't like your idea even a little, and I hope that WOTC never sees it or takes it under consideration.
I don't think you've read what I said properly at all, but thanks for taking the time to write out an entire separate reply just to over-react about something I didn't say and be insulting about it. 😝
Firstly, changing eldritch blast to scale with class rather than character level would have no impact on a pure Warlock, the idea exists to avoid the problem of people taking dips just to get it (since it's generally the best damage cantrip in the game). It's always been basically a Warlock only feature, yet never actually limited properly so there have existed a bunch of different ways to get it anyway. One of these is dipping into Warlock, but the problem there is you can get the full-strength cantrip (using Agonizing Blast) with very little investment (only a single level in UA). This is what others have been discussing, alongside other options like making AB something you can't get until later (bigger dip required).
Secondly, I very specifically said scaling damage for changing Agonizing Blast to once per turn, rather than once per attack, i.e- it would still do more damage the more levels you have in Warlock, so the damage would again work out about the same for a pure Warlock as it does now. The difference is that you could also see the same damage boost to any other cantrip you'd like to focus upon, even if it only has one attack, rather than eldritch blast being the only one you can use. In this case it's arguably less important for eldritch blast to become a Warlock only class feature, since the scaling of the damage boost would be class specific instead.
For example, you might phrase it something like:
Agonizing Blast
Once per turn when you deal damage with a Warlock cantrip, you may deal additional damage of the same type to one of your targets equal to your Charisma modifier. This damage increases as you gain levels in this class, increasing to twice your Charisma modifier at 5th-level, three times your Charisma modifier at 11th-level and four times your Charisma modifier at 17th-level.
(or something along these lines)
In combination with hex functioning in a similar way (but with d6's maybe?) you would still have multiple ways to boost baseline cantrip damage using any Warlock cantrip you like (including any gained via Pact of the Tome, or a pact or whatever). Meanwhile eldritch blast still has a slight advantage in that against a hard to hit target you have multiple attempts to land the full damage bonus since you only need to hit once, but by a similar token cantrips that target a saving throw instead can also do the same (by not rolling to hit at all).
But crucially, anyone dipping into Warlock would only get the lower end of these bonuses, making the "dip for EB + AB" combo a lot weaker, while giving Warlocks an extra reason to stick with Warlock over multi-classing the other way.
Either way, nothing I said was about nerfing Warlocks, it's about making it harder to take a tiny dip into Warlock and receive most/all of a Warlock's blasting ability all in one go; it should require investment to get that kind of strength, and you should really need to be mainly Warlock to get the most out of it.
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I think dipping for cha being sad is fine. I think only having to dip 1 level for it is not fine. That should require 3 levels like most other good things to poach. Having paladin auras be as good as they are AND enable their melee attacks is...not ok. Of course, if Warlocks were INT like they were originally designed to be, rather than CHA, this would not be as major of an issue.
I mean, you can get casting stat to attack even without a dip now thanks to the new Shillelagh (and possibly True Strike depending on where they land with it.) So I still don't think a level 1 dip for it is a big deal; I just want a weapon restriction and to leave masteries with the martials where they belong.
I'm mixed on that atm; it's a good way to discourage dips for EB, but the early utility Invocation repertoire has taken a hit (likely due to ritual casting being a class feature now), so you don't necessarily have them to make up the difference in spell slots in tier 1 (which admittedly is also when it's least egregious). Maybe compromise at 3rd level? Still high enough to not be an easy dip, and also becomes available at the point where full casters can pull ahead on slots.
But... that's a good thing. If you're the party's only caster, you don't need the invocation tax to pick up {insert ritual}, anymore, you can just learn it, including via adding a bunch to your Tome or LotFO->Magic Initiate or even Ritual Caster being a half-feat now so it doesn't slow you down. And not only that, but their subclass spells are automatically learned now instead of taking up spells known. So again, 2024 Warlock might not have gone far enough to fix the major problems but it's absolutely better off in every way than 2014.
I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing, just describing the factors in working out when Pact Casting starts impacting a player’s in the moment repertoire of spells. At level 3, a full caster has 6 slots while a Warlock has a baseline of 3, and at 5th the full caster is up to 9. Somewhere in that range seems like the point where you want to give Warlock cantrips a little more kick.
I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing, just describing the factors in working out when Pact Casting starts impacting a player’s in the moment repertoire of spells. At level 3, a full caster has 6 slots while a Warlock has a baseline of 3, and at 5th the full caster is up to 9. Somewhere in that range seems like the point where you want to give Warlock cantrips a little more kick.
Fair enough. Well, for the reasons I stated I think Blade Pact being available via a level 1 dip is fine (once they tone it down - no masteries, no more than two attacks for pure Bladelocks, and hopefully some weapon restrictions.)
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You really make a solid point here. It's hard to argue with my party when we finish up an encounter and I want an SR for some spell slots, and they say "sitting down for lunch doesn't make sense right now". They're right, and it feels crunchy to even ask...but my class is built around asking. It's to the point where I generally feel it mandatory to MC just so I can have some spell slots to use. I generally LIKE having a go-to in eldritch blast that's always there like a security blanket, but I want to have some spell options too. Having something to think about using as an alternative.
Otherwise, it's eldritch blast if I think I can land it, or mind sliver if I need a save spell for some reason.
I will say, my celestial lock was given a lot more leeway on SR when I phrased it "I can have 2 3rd level cure wounds if we SR"
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
Thank you for putting this in a better way than I have been.
I'd argue that warlock is even more abusable now. 1 level dip for SAD shennanigans. 1 level dip to pick up chain for an improved familiar. 1 level dip for tome to get access to some other rituals and cantrips that you usually wouldn't have. That's a hell of a lot more up-front power imo, than getting some temp hps when I shank something, or 2 healing light dice.
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 think the thing with warlocks and monks and short rest features is here for because people like having different decision points and unique mechanics. The Warlock's spell casting is a unique resource management system. Rather than considering the limits per day it is the limits per short rest. The warlock works more similarly to martials which is why it is not a surprise that their main spell, eldritch blast, has more in common with martial attacks. It is also why blade pact makes sense for them as well. I agree that getting this benefit on other casters is too easy and EB should be linked to warlock levels. I am fine with blade pact because it doesn't synergize well with feats and to get extra attacks you need more invocations later so another caster can't just get that martial ability with a 1 level dip.
Making a spell caster that must manage their resources like a martial seems like a fun and interesting idea to me and I feel both the 5 and 7 versions did this with warlock in interesting ways. I hope the final product will fix a lot of the pain points still left including some new invocations, the ability to change invocations on level up and ways to prevent non-warlocks from benefiting so well from EB and toning down how strong high level pact of the blade was at higher levels.
My main worry right now, as I said earlier, is how they are doing encounter building because it sounds like they are doing the same thing they already did but removing the math and instead just giving you the numbers which I worry will make encounter building less accurate.
You can already swap out one Invocation per level up in the 2014 PHB, same as known spells; I would be quite shocked if that doesn't carry over into the new one, and I'm sure most people will continue to allow it anyways regardless.
Correct, but technically the way the playtest 7 was written you couldn't with it.
Just putting my two cents in to respectfully disagree with Ace re: clerics and warlocks and what they choose at 3rd level.
First, the cleric will have picked a deity at first level. A very rough real world equivalent is someone deciding to become a Roman Catholic priest, an Eastern Orthodox priest, or a Methodist minister. Once they've been in that order or system, they can choose one or more areas of study or specialty. At third level, clerics are not picking what deity they follow; they're picking what specific area/domain of knowledge they're specializing under that deity.
Warlocks have no power without their pact; they must choose a patron and make a pact to even be a warlock. The current third level choice is a specific boon or means for the pact to be manifested.
Warlocks have magical powers before choosing a patron makes no real sense; clerics wielding magic before choosing a domain makes sense because they've already chosen a deity, just not a specialty.
I'm in favor of nerfing Blade (say, no heavy weapons, ranged weapons or masteries without Hexblade) and EB/Chain Familiar needing to scale with Warlock levels. But dipping for Cha-SAD attacks with simple and non-heavy martial weapons is fine imo.
It does though? Warlocks make a number of deals, not just the one with the Patron. And the Patron arrangement doesn't even need to be a conscious agreement.
Just a reminder that heavy weapons now require a 13 in either strength or dex (if it is a bow) to not have disadvantage for using the weapon. This is regardless of the Blade locks ability to use charisma so pact of the blade doesn't entirely solve the "MAD" issue if using heavy weapons. Further, all the feats that really make heavy weapons good increase either strength or dex so it isn't as advantageous to get charisma to this to begin with. Also as a reminder to everyone. Pact of the Chain is NOT available at level 1 it is only a level 2 invocation or higher. Finally getting some more cantrips and first level spells are pretty easily available with any caster not just warlock.
This all said I still agree about EB. Honestly, to me all they have to do is make AB a level 5 ability and it largely solves the dip issue.
you are cutting out a key part of the sentence, which is "if needed"
I didnt say they rest after every fight, I said they are designed to have the option if it is needed.
and I said you can eliminate that expectation, you just need to account for it in you encounter design, as it may make the fights more difficult than the baseline system reccomends.
the 6-8 IS NOT the expectation or balance design. it represents the average, with average fights and average luck of when they have no resources left. But parties don't usually fall in the average on any given day, luck is wildly different from encounter to encounter, and fight difficulty is usually decided based on what the table prefers in terms of challenge, or narrative.
you are interpolating based on an average how things are supposed to be, but Crawford is saying, that was just an idea of the average of what people usually do, it may or may not represent what is actually needed or recommended in the game, because encounters (and thus resources) are expended differently based, on luck, party composition/playstyle, and fight difficulty.
fighting deadly fights. you may need SR after every fight
Horrible rolls and every one is low hp, you may need SR.
Great luck? yall may need no rests.
Ambushed 3 groups? you may not need rests.
the point was, they didnt create an encounter/CR system that expects/encourages a specific amount of encounters, Rests, or whatever per day. Its designed to adapt to the situation on the ground as its happening.
Monks are designed assuming they have a a fair amount of Ki every fight. (after lvl 5) Their performance drastically reduces if they have low/no ki. So you are right that they aren't roughly the same like fighter/rogue.
However, the assumption was, if the monk tells the group he needs a break, they probably take a break. (unless they can't which the DM should have accounted for in encounter design difficulty)
they added heightened metabolism to mitigate the situation where the group doesn't SR often. However if they have full ki, they won't be OP. Most monks aren't designed to be able to dump resource for greater power, and the subclasses that can, price it such that they will probably run out of steam mid fight if they push much past normal effeciency.
I don't want AB to require level 5, that's overly punishing.
They just need to stop EB from scaling with character level like other cantrips.
I'm mixed on that atm; it's a good way to discourage dips for EB, but the early utility Invocation repertoire has taken a hit (likely due to ritual casting being a class feature now), so you don't necessarily have them to make up the difference in spell slots in tier 1 (which admittedly is also when it's least egregious). Maybe compromise at 3rd level? Still high enough to not be an easy dip, and also becomes available at the point where full casters can pull ahead on slots.
The issue is then it would be very unique text by comparison. I actually do not think it is super punishing to not have 3 damage per hit reduction in levels 1-3 and maybe 4 damage on a single chance hit at level 4. Tome gets an extra spell slot + the other invocations add a lot already. Tier 1 is not a place that warlock struggles compared to other casters in terms of number of spells per encounter or per day. level 5, start of tier 2 is when that hybrid martial/caster really starts to kick in and the limit in spell numbers really start taking its toll. By pushing agonizing blast out there is still a reason to dip warlock, but there is also a reason to continue with warlock. I am of the opinion that big levels for every class needs to be 5, 9ish, and 11ish. There needs to be a temptation.
Level 3 might be ok, because by then you are thinking "well 4 gets me a feat, and 5 is a huge spike with 3rd level spells" and then the spell progression is naturally pulling you along and tempting you to stay warlock. But 1 level doesn't delay spells enough in bards or sorcerers to prevent them from just dipping and grabbing once they hit 5.
Unique text wouldn't be an issue if they just made it a class feature, and that seems to be what they've been pushing towards it being lately anyway.
Not that I'm a fan of eldritch blast being a core feature, as I've wanted Warlocks to become less single cantrip focused, i.e- make Agonizing Blast once per turn damage rather than per attack so it works for any cantrip, making repulsing blast etc. cantrip agnostic and so-on.
I was much more interested by the idea of hex as a core Warlock feature, i.e- grant it as standard, make it once per turn scaled damage, add in some invocations specific to it (improved maddening and relentless hex, maybe a higher level one to lift the concentration, another to add extra debuffs etc.) so it becomes a real part of the toolkit, as it's a spell that any Warlock could use.
With 3-4 good invocations it would mean a good number of new options alongside EB invocations becoming cantrip agnostic. While a lot of Warlocks might still be mostly cantrip blasters, at least it could be a different cantrip, and they could bolster them in more interesting ways.
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EB works the way it does because it HAS to in order to keep up with martial scaling. I would much rather had my static modifier than...hex. yeah, I don't like your idea even a little, and I hope that WOTC never sees it or takes it under consideration.
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Tasha
^^ this. I shouldn't have to wait til level 5 in order to be as good of an archer as a bow armed archer. The problem is 100% EB scaling on character level like a standard cantrip, and not on warlock. EB is not a standard cantrip and should not be treated like one. it should be a class feature.
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 think dipping for cha being sad is fine. I think only having to dip 1 level for it is not fine. That should require 3 levels like most other good things to poach. Having paladin auras be as good as they are AND enable their melee attacks is...not ok. Of course, if Warlocks were INT like they were originally designed to be, rather than CHA, this would not be as major of an issue.
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 don't think you've read what I said properly at all, but thanks for taking the time to write out an entire separate reply just to over-react about something I didn't say and be insulting about it. 😝
Firstly, changing eldritch blast to scale with class rather than character level would have no impact on a pure Warlock, the idea exists to avoid the problem of people taking dips just to get it (since it's generally the best damage cantrip in the game). It's always been basically a Warlock only feature, yet never actually limited properly so there have existed a bunch of different ways to get it anyway. One of these is dipping into Warlock, but the problem there is you can get the full-strength cantrip (using Agonizing Blast) with very little investment (only a single level in UA). This is what others have been discussing, alongside other options like making AB something you can't get until later (bigger dip required).
Secondly, I very specifically said scaling damage for changing Agonizing Blast to once per turn, rather than once per attack, i.e- it would still do more damage the more levels you have in Warlock, so the damage would again work out about the same for a pure Warlock as it does now. The difference is that you could also see the same damage boost to any other cantrip you'd like to focus upon, even if it only has one attack, rather than eldritch blast being the only one you can use. In this case it's arguably less important for eldritch blast to become a Warlock only class feature, since the scaling of the damage boost would be class specific instead.
For example, you might phrase it something like:
(or something along these lines)
In combination with hex functioning in a similar way (but with d6's maybe?) you would still have multiple ways to boost baseline cantrip damage using any Warlock cantrip you like (including any gained via Pact of the Tome, or a pact or whatever). Meanwhile eldritch blast still has a slight advantage in that against a hard to hit target you have multiple attempts to land the full damage bonus since you only need to hit once, but by a similar token cantrips that target a saving throw instead can also do the same (by not rolling to hit at all).
But crucially, anyone dipping into Warlock would only get the lower end of these bonuses, making the "dip for EB + AB" combo a lot weaker, while giving Warlocks an extra reason to stick with Warlock over multi-classing the other way.
Either way, nothing I said was about nerfing Warlocks, it's about making it harder to take a tiny dip into Warlock and receive most/all of a Warlock's blasting ability all in one go; it should require investment to get that kind of strength, and you should really need to be mainly Warlock to get the most out of it.
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I mean, you can get casting stat to attack even without a dip now thanks to the new Shillelagh (and possibly True Strike depending on where they land with it.) So I still don't think a level 1 dip for it is a big deal; I just want a weapon restriction and to leave masteries with the martials where they belong.
But... that's a good thing. If you're the party's only caster, you don't need the invocation tax to pick up {insert ritual}, anymore, you can just learn it, including via adding a bunch to your Tome or LotFO->Magic Initiate or even Ritual Caster being a half-feat now so it doesn't slow you down. And not only that, but their subclass spells are automatically learned now instead of taking up spells known. So again, 2024 Warlock might not have gone far enough to fix the major problems but it's absolutely better off in every way than 2014.
I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing, just describing the factors in working out when Pact Casting starts impacting a player’s in the moment repertoire of spells. At level 3, a full caster has 6 slots while a Warlock has a baseline of 3, and at 5th the full caster is up to 9. Somewhere in that range seems like the point where you want to give Warlock cantrips a little more kick.
Fair enough. Well, for the reasons I stated I think Blade Pact being available via a level 1 dip is fine (once they tone it down - no masteries, no more than two attacks for pure Bladelocks, and hopefully some weapon restrictions.)