Secondly, you are just wrong. Any idiot (read low Int) with enough cahones (read high Cha) can make a deal with the devil. However, not just any scholar can learn to wield the elements and bend reality.
Respectfully disagree. This is a common mistake I am seeing with Warlock RP that people make and the OP is correct to a degree that Intelligence likely makes more sense for Warlock or at least deserves to be an official alternate spellcasting stat for Warlock. With the exception of the level 20 ability where the Patron is directly recharging your magical reserves, Patron's do not provide Warlocks their power. They TEACH Warlocks arcane secrets but the power is the Warlock's alone and once that Eldritch Secret is shared, it cannot be taken back. This is not a Cleric/Deity relationship where the Warlock must continually stay in the good graces of their patron or all of a sudden loose all of their powers. This is a common mistake but a mistake nonet\heless. From the opening descriptions of the Warlock class with emphasis added:
"Warlocks are seekers of the knowledge that lies hidden in the fabric of the multiverse"
"Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings"
"warlocks piece together arcane secrets to bolster their own power"
Seeking knowledge, drawing on ancient knowledge and piecing together arcane secrets like a puzzle doesn't exactly strike me as the behavior of an idiot with cahones who convinced a powerful being to grant them magic pew pew powers. This is not unlike the difference between someone who learns a trade strictly in a classroom (Wizard) vs someone who learns by being more of an apprentice (Warlock). The Warlock is still going to spend time studying books but they learn best through observation of an expert rather than simply reading theory like a Wizard. Again the character description reinforces this:
"the arrangement is similar to that between a master and an apprentice"
Just my 2 cents. Long story short. Patrons do not gift warlocks their powers. They teach them arcane secrets which the warlock can then use at their whim. Based on this, an intelligence based Warlock would be entirely rational.
Fair warning, I do go on, it's been said. Also worth noting, I'm not trying to dredge up an old argument, this was just the source material that led to the flow of thoughts I considered worth being it's own discussion. In the opening quote I was illustrating that a Warlock is an idiot in the sense that they struck a bargain with an ancient and powerful entity and those don't historically go well, a Warlock isn't necessarily a doofus and I'm sure they can read perfectly well, this isn't about bagging on Warlocks. The OP of the original thread was very adamant that Warlock should be an int class and this sparked a bit of a debate. Anyway...
Just read the recently posted Warlock 101 and was reminded of a thread I posted on a month or two ago. Little late to really make this point in the original thread and it goes a little further a field in any case, but I felt this actually did a better job of explaining the Warlock than the "official flavor text" in the PHB. The article states. "Warlocks are a spellcasting class, like a wizard or cleric, but they follow completely different rules. While other casters have the Spellcasting feature, warlocks instead possess the gift of Pact Magic. This means that you have precious few spell slots, but your spells are always cast at the highest possible level, and you regain your spell slots on a short rest instead of a long rest. As long as you have time between encounters to reach out and borrow more of your patron’s power, you can continue slinging spells all day." Emphasis is my own.
That was more or less my point, yes the PHB does describe it as a master/apprentice relationship. They describe a lot of things in a way that makes a player that is reading that bit, likely because they are interested in making a character that uses X, see all the positives and none of the negatives. No where in the Wizard description does it actually say do not be the first person into the cave unless you want a dead 1st level Wizard, but mechanically that is how it works. Mechanically, a Warlock just does not play like a Wizard. A Wizard has the highest number of spells slots total and a Warlock has the least because the flavor text is written around the mechanics instead of defining the mechanics. Also, the very idea of official flavor text is an oxymoron.
Descriptions and flavor text really just serve the purpose of explaining the actual mechanics to the players that are going to be using them in a positive way that makes the player feel good about choosing that class/feat/whatever. They are a commercial to get you to pick this option over the other options and like any good piece of marketing they don't like to get into the downsides... like the fact that a Warlock is meant to have low int in order to balance things out because every class has a dump stat and that is what works best for this setup while making sense, but unfortunately means if you want to use int skills you had best get creative.
In this case, if it truly was a master/apprentice relationship then it wouldn't make sense mechanically for the Warlock to not be able to cast the same spell using different level spell slots or to have such a limited number of slots. If a character learned to throw fireballs on their own and then was given the power to cast it at a higher level at will, then a high int Warlock makes sense assuming they have the same number of spell slots as a Wizard since they both put in the same mental effort to learn the spell regardless of whether they studied in an arcane academy or under a Patron.
If that were the case though, who would play a Wizard, what would the point of a Wizard even be? Everyone would just make the obviously more powerful Warlock.
Warlocks get a limited number of spell slots while being able to cast them at the highest level spell slot possible because it isn't their spell, they are a conduit of something else's power. This makes the most sense and if anything I feel that the descriptions and flavor text should do a better job of highlighting this. Flavor can easily explain that a Warlock's own spell casting savvy extends to their cantrips. They have a gift for magic, but it isn't very strong. They make the pact to be more than just a minor talent because they have progressed as far as their natural talents take them and without making a deal with a devil they are limited to being able to do a couple things the average 1/2 CR creature can't, but who would play one?
You play one because that pact pulls you up, out of the banana leagues and gives you a chance to play in the majors with Player level powers. Let those NPCs that didn't want it bad enough to dance with the devil stay NPCs, I'm moving on up! Mechanically, that works and lets the devs build another class that is unique from other spell casters and because it is unique it should come with a different flavor.
There isn't any reason you have to RP a character with low int as being a complete moron, but changing the casting stat of a class to get higher skill modifiers in the skills you want that don't run concurrent with what your character has a built in proficiency for is homebrewing to the extent of getting close to god-moding.
I'm not good at math, I don't do it quickly and I don't do it happily. I usually get the right answer, but I have to put in more effort than those with a natural gift for it and it almost always takes me more time. So, you know what I do come test day? I cheat! I spend some time prepping and program a lot of the formulas into my calculator ahead of time so I can let it do most of the work.
Classes should be played mechanically as written, the flavor is all up to you and you are, of course, free to homebrew. However, the farther you get from the core mechanics the less you are playing DnD as intended. Make your own commercial and sell your twist on the Warlock with your character's backstory and personality. Cheat around the mechanics of the class with the flavor, but don't change the mechanics in a way that unbalances the game to suit the flavor your want.
If it comes down to you want to play a Warlock that is an investigator by trade, then make one. If your table is okay with you bending the rules a little by changing a couple skill modifiers to fit your character concept then do it and just make sure it is balanced. Make investigation a cha skill for your character and take away an existing option by making it an int skill, that is a much easier way to accomplish things than changing the core concept of a class.
If you haven't read them then check out the Dresden Files series of books. The author is a DnD player of old and a handful of the characters have a game night mentioned several times in the series, there is even a hilarious short story written by the author where Dresden argues magical theory at the game table because a Fireball just just doesn't actually work that way! If you are looking for it even the non-obvious parts of the book are HEAVILY influenced by DnD and I wouldn't be surprised if most/all of the main characters were originally inspired by specific characters at the author's table. Even if this is not the case, it is a good illustration of what I'm talking about and a great read regardless.
Harry Dresden - Wizard of the White Council and licensed PI, high int from Wizard. Harry uses high int skills in his day to day life as an investigator, his tracking spells that he learned through his apprenticeship as a Wizard help enormously while working his cases and uses the author's own spin on explaining the mechanics of why this character with high int makes a good investigator. At the other end of the spectrum, cha is a dump stat and he can't help mouthing off to anyone from street toughs to Archangels.
Michael Carpenter - Paladin construction worker. Michael is often referred to as the literal "Fist of God." Tell me an extra large lad with layers of muscle after working a life of construction that just happens to carry around a divinely blessed sword isn't a Paladin. He is a devote Catholic and as one of the Knights of the Cross he has a kind of divine intervention lead him to where he needs to be to do the Lords work when it needs doing. Sunday school teachers and missionaries are important for that kind of thing too, but sometimes a demon needs killed. His unnaturally high perception and holy spells allow him to locate and combat unholy threats with much greater efficiency than another large, strong man that is handy with a sword (read Fighter).
Injun Joe - Druid medicine man of White Council. While described as being a Wizard of the White Council, Joe is a healer that can shape shift into animal forms. His story fits the universe as all mortals of considerable enough power are considered Wizards, but his particular specialties lie in a different area than Harry. Instead of a traditional apprenticeship through a fully fledged member of the White Council, he learned his nature based magic studying to take over as the medicine man of his tribe so he simply focused on different things.
Winter/Summer Knights - Warlocks in service to the Sidhe Queens. These characters are mortal men and women gifted special abilities by an ancient and powerful being. The gift is given at the pleasure of the Sidhe Queens and comes at a price. They become much more powerful than a mere mortal both physically and magically as well as possessing powers that are every bit as powerful as a Wizard while remaining different in both nature and implementation.
Once Harry multi-classes and becomes the Winter Knight he gets the perks of becoming a Warlock by making a Pact of Magic while maintaining his abilities that make him a good investigator.
The author found a way to pump some more power into his character while working within the mechanics of the game and explained them in a way that fit the world his game table played within. That world being current day Chicago, it required a lot of homebrew. However, you can homebrew names easier than mechanics. You can switch modifiers with a little more difficulty in maintaining balance than by switching names, descriptions, and flavor text, but less than homebrewing changes to an entire class. Homebrew is not always the answer, a lot of the time using some creativity in describing why something works is easier than literally changing how it works. At the end of the day, this is a game based on rules governed by mathematically probability, the results of which are described using creative imagery after all.
TLDR: Proper homebrew is for when you want to add something new that isn't already in the game, not change what is there to suit your needs. Before that gets jumped all over, let me explain that this is coming from the standpoint that homebrew is meant to add options, not change existing ones because once you change enough of them then you aren't playing DnD. It isn't a stretch to assume that DFRPG came about when the example I used homebrewed enough of the world that it just works better when you don't play it as DnD and instead play it as a wholly different game system, which is actually a lot of fun and I highly recommend checking it out as well.
Where do you think the line should be drawn between homebrew it vs just play something else?
Thoughts? Insight? Emotional outbursts?
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Fair warning, I do go on, it's been said. Also worth noting, I'm not trying to dredge up an old argument, this was just the source material that led to the flow of thoughts I considered worth being it's own discussion. In the opening quote I was illustrating that a Warlock is an idiot in the sense that they struck a bargain with an ancient and powerful entity and those don't historically go well, a Warlock isn't necessarily a doofus and I'm sure they can read perfectly well, this isn't about bagging on Warlocks. The OP of the original thread was very adamant that Warlock should be an int class and this sparked a bit of a debate. Anyway...
Just read the recently posted Warlock 101 and was reminded of a thread I posted on a month or two ago. Little late to really make this point in the original thread and it goes a little further a field in any case, but I felt this actually did a better job of explaining the Warlock than the "official flavor text" in the PHB. The article states. "Warlocks are a spellcasting class, like a wizard or cleric, but they follow completely different rules. While other casters have the Spellcasting feature, warlocks instead possess the gift of Pact Magic. This means that you have precious few spell slots, but your spells are always cast at the highest possible level, and you regain your spell slots on a short rest instead of a long rest. As long as you have time between encounters to reach out and borrow more of your patron’s power, you can continue slinging spells all day." Emphasis is my own.
That was more or less my point, yes the PHB does describe it as a master/apprentice relationship. They describe a lot of things in a way that makes a player that is reading that bit, likely because they are interested in making a character that uses X, see all the positives and none of the negatives. No where in the Wizard description does it actually say do not be the first person into the cave unless you want a dead 1st level Wizard, but mechanically that is how it works. Mechanically, a Warlock just does not play like a Wizard. A Wizard has the highest number of spells slots total and a Warlock has the least because the flavor text is written around the mechanics instead of defining the mechanics. Also, the very idea of official flavor text is an oxymoron.
Descriptions and flavor text really just serve the purpose of explaining the actual mechanics to the players that are going to be using them in a positive way that makes the player feel good about choosing that class/feat/whatever. They are a commercial to get you to pick this option over the other options and like any good piece of marketing they don't like to get into the downsides... like the fact that a Warlock is meant to have low int in order to balance things out because every class has a dump stat and that is what works best for this setup while making sense, but unfortunately means if you want to use int skills you had best get creative.
In this case, if it truly was a master/apprentice relationship then it wouldn't make sense mechanically for the Warlock to not be able to cast the same spell using different level spell slots or to have such a limited number of slots. If a character learned to throw fireballs on their own and then was given the power to cast it at a higher level at will, then a high int Warlock makes sense assuming they have the same number of spell slots as a Wizard since they both put in the same mental effort to learn the spell regardless of whether they studied in an arcane academy or under a Patron.
If that were the case though, who would play a Wizard, what would the point of a Wizard even be? Everyone would just make the obviously more powerful Warlock.
Warlocks get a limited number of spell slots while being able to cast them at the highest level spell slot possible because it isn't their spell, they are a conduit of something else's power. This makes the most sense and if anything I feel that the descriptions and flavor text should do a better job of highlighting this. Flavor can easily explain that a Warlock's own spell casting savvy extends to their cantrips. They have a gift for magic, but it isn't very strong. They make the pact to be more than just a minor talent because they have progressed as far as their natural talents take them and without making a deal with a devil they are limited to being able to do a couple things the average 1/2 CR creature can't, but who would play one?
You play one because that pact pulls you up, out of the banana leagues and gives you a chance to play in the majors with Player level powers. Let those NPCs that didn't want it bad enough to dance with the devil stay NPCs, I'm moving on up! Mechanically, that works and lets the devs build another class that is unique from other spell casters and because it is unique it should come with a different flavor.
There isn't any reason you have to RP a character with low int as being a complete moron, but changing the casting stat of a class to get higher skill modifiers in the skills you want that don't run concurrent with what your character has a built in proficiency for is homebrewing to the extent of getting close to god-moding.
I'm not good at math, I don't do it quickly and I don't do it happily. I usually get the right answer, but I have to put in more effort than those with a natural gift for it and it almost always takes me more time. So, you know what I do come test day? I cheat! I spend some time prepping and program a lot of the formulas into my calculator ahead of time so I can let it do most of the work.
Classes should be played mechanically as written, the flavor is all up to you and you are, of course, free to homebrew. However, the farther you get from the core mechanics the less you are playing DnD as intended. Make your own commercial and sell your twist on the Warlock with your character's backstory and personality. Cheat around the mechanics of the class with the flavor, but don't change the mechanics in a way that unbalances the game to suit the flavor your want.
If it comes down to you want to play a Warlock that is an investigator by trade, then make one. If your table is okay with you bending the rules a little by changing a couple skill modifiers to fit your character concept then do it and just make sure it is balanced. Make investigation a cha skill for your character and take away an existing option by making it an int skill, that is a much easier way to accomplish things than changing the core concept of a class.
If you haven't read them then check out the Dresden Files series of books. The author is a DnD player of old and a handful of the characters have a game night mentioned several times in the series, there is even a hilarious short story written by the author where Dresden argues magical theory at the game table because a Fireball just just doesn't actually work that way! If you are looking for it even the non-obvious parts of the book are HEAVILY influenced by DnD and I wouldn't be surprised if most/all of the main characters were originally inspired by specific characters at the author's table. Even if this is not the case, it is a good illustration of what I'm talking about and a great read regardless.
Harry Dresden - Wizard of the White Council and licensed PI, high int from Wizard. Harry uses high int skills in his day to day life as an investigator, his tracking spells that he learned through his apprenticeship as a Wizard help enormously while working his cases and uses the author's own spin on explaining the mechanics of why this character with high int makes a good investigator. At the other end of the spectrum, cha is a dump stat and he can't help mouthing off to anyone from street toughs to Archangels.
Michael Carpenter - Paladin construction worker. Michael is often referred to as the literal "Fist of God." Tell me an extra large lad with layers of muscle after working a life of construction that just happens to carry around a divinely blessed sword isn't a Paladin. He is a devote Catholic and as one of the Knights of the Cross he has a kind of divine intervention lead him to where he needs to be to do the Lords work when it needs doing. Sunday school teachers and missionaries are important for that kind of thing too, but sometimes a demon needs killed. His unnaturally high perception and holy spells allow him to locate and combat unholy threats with much greater efficiency than another large, strong man that is handy with a sword (read Fighter).
Injun Joe - Druid medicine man of White Council. While described as being a Wizard of the White Council, Joe is a healer that can shape shift into animal forms. His story fits the universe as all mortals of considerable enough power are considered Wizards, but his particular specialties lie in a different area than Harry. Instead of a traditional apprenticeship through a fully fledged member of the White Council, he learned his nature based magic studying to take over as the medicine man of his tribe so he simply focused on different things.
Winter/Summer Knights - Warlocks in service to the Sidhe Queens. These characters are mortal men and women gifted special abilities by an ancient and powerful being. The gift is given at the pleasure of the Sidhe Queens and comes at a price. They become much more powerful than a mere mortal both physically and magically as well as possessing powers that are every bit as powerful as a Wizard while remaining different in both nature and implementation.
Once Harry multi-classes and becomes the Winter Knight he gets the perks of becoming a Warlock by making a Pact of Magic while maintaining his abilities that make him a good investigator.
The author found a way to pump some more power into his character while working within the mechanics of the game and explained them in a way that fit the world his game table played within. That world being current day Chicago, it required a lot of homebrew. However, you can homebrew names easier than mechanics. You can switch modifiers with a little more difficulty in maintaining balance than by switching names, descriptions, and flavor text, but less than homebrewing changes to an entire class. Homebrew is not always the answer, a lot of the time using some creativity in describing why something works is easier than literally changing how it works. At the end of the day, this is a game based on rules governed by mathematically probability, the results of which are described using creative imagery after all.
TLDR: Proper homebrew is for when you want to add something new that isn't already in the game, not change what is there to suit your needs. Before that gets jumped all over, let me explain that this is coming from the standpoint that homebrew is meant to add options, not change existing ones because once you change enough of them then you aren't playing DnD. It isn't a stretch to assume that DFRPG came about when the example I used homebrewed enough of the world that it just works better when you don't play it as DnD and instead play it as a wholly different game system, which is actually a lot of fun and I highly recommend checking it out as well.
Where do you think the line should be drawn between homebrew it vs just play something else?
Thoughts? Insight? Emotional outbursts?