Hi Everyone! So I'm loving the early charm abilities and general flavor of the Archfey patron. However in reviewing their level 14 capstone ability, it seems very weak in comparison to say The Fiend and The Celestial's respective abilities.
The Fiend ability does a solid spike of no save damage approx. equivalent to a level 6 spell and takes them out of combat for a full turn.
The Celestial gives you automatic death protection, healing up 50% of your hit points which can easily exceed a level 6 Heal spell worth of hit points, a small AOE of no save radiant damage and no save blindness for a full turn.
Contrast both of those against a basic charm or frighten effect that allows for a wisdom save and requires concentration and is broken automatically if they take damage. So no damage, requires concentration and allows for a save. The best part it would seem is that it lasts for a minute. This is essentially a weaker version of the 4th level Banishment spell since Wisdom is a less commonly dumped attribute than charisma and one of their allies could literally do an unarmed strike for 1 damage against them and they would snap out of it instantly.
Am I missing something or do I have it fairly well summed up?
Dark Delerium recharges after a short rest or a long rest. The more powerful abilities that you're talking about only recharge after a long rest. Yes, they are more powerful, but you can't use them as often.
Yeah I get that it recharges on a short rest. To me that doesn't quite feel like enough compensation for it doing no damage, having a save and requiring concentration. I would be fine from an RP perspective if it did no damage if it had no save and didn't require concentration. This would make it feel like a powerful capstone ability. I'll probably just homebrew it with my GM.
Using an ability between 3 and 5 times a day is a lot more powerful than only using it 1 time a day. That's a huge bump in how useful/powerful the ability is!
A lot of the Warlock's abilities are like that. The more powerful ones are limited to once per day or by using spell slots while the less powerful ones like casting Detect Magic are at will abilities.
No level 1 enchantment/charm spell not only completely immobilizes an opponent for a full minute but also prevents that opponent from knowing anything about what's going on for the duration. Yes, there is one save to avoid it's affect, but all lower level charms have one save per round and the target is also aware of it's surroundings for the duration of the spell. On top of that unlike most other enchantment/charm affects the target isn't aware that you charmed it at the end of the effect and you can target any creature with it, not just humanoids.
That ability is useful both in and out of combat, unlike the Fiend's and Celestial's abilities which are only useful in combat. It's very powerful and effective as it is.
You raise some good points I did not pick up on originally which does make it a bit better. However point of order, 1st level Charm Person charms for 1 hour with only the 1st save. There are no additional saves. Cheers for the comments.
Dark Delerium seems more like a non-combat ability to me. If the effect ends when the target takes damage, it seems unlikely to work during combat.
Out of combat, it's the ultimate distraction; while the Warlock is keeping the target busy, they won't notice anything the Warlock's allies are getting up to.
I see points to both sides, but to me it just seems the feature lacks something. I'm thinking if I used this on somebody to screw with his mind for a minute, surely it would result in something more than "oh, we're done now".
And that leads me to page 258 of the DMG, "Madness"...
I see points to both sides, but to me it just seems the feature lacks something. I'm thinking if I used this on somebody to screw with his mind for a minute, surely it would result in something more than "oh, we're done now".
And that leads me to page 258 of the DMG, "Madness"...
Being charmed for 10 rounds allows 10 charisma checks with advantage. That would permit quite a lot of persuasion and/or deception so the effects on the target could be considerable.
Again, I don't disagree. I'm just opining that a short term (or maybe long term) madness a result of a feature called "Dark Delerium" would have more interesting.
(I tried to quote/mention without duplicating the entire post chain - not sure how to do that)
Hi Everyone! So I'm loving the early charm abilities and general flavor of the Archfey patron. However in reviewing their level 14 capstone ability, it seems very weak in comparison to say The Fiend and The Celestial's respective abilities.
The Fiend ability does a solid spike of no save damage approx. equivalent to a level 6 spell and takes them out of combat for a full turn.
The Celestial gives you automatic death protection, healing up 50% of your hit points which can easily exceed a level 6 Heal spell worth of hit points, a small AOE of no save radiant damage and no save blindness for a full turn.
Contrast both of those against a basic charm or frighten effect that allows for a wisdom save and requires concentration and is broken automatically if they take damage. So no damage, requires concentration and allows for a save. The best part it would seem is that it lasts for a minute. This is essentially a weaker version of the 4th level Banishment spell since Wisdom is a less commonly dumped attribute than charisma and one of their allies could literally do an unarmed strike for 1 damage against them and they would snap out of it instantly.
Am I missing something or do I have it fairly well summed up?
Dark Delerium recharges after a short rest or a long rest. The more powerful abilities that you're talking about only recharge after a long rest. Yes, they are more powerful, but you can't use them as often.
Professional computer geek
Yeah I get that it recharges on a short rest. To me that doesn't quite feel like enough compensation for it doing no damage, having a save and requiring concentration. I would be fine from an RP perspective if it did no damage if it had no save and didn't require concentration. This would make it feel like a powerful capstone ability. I'll probably just homebrew it with my GM.
Using an ability between 3 and 5 times a day is a lot more powerful than only using it 1 time a day. That's a huge bump in how useful/powerful the ability is!
A lot of the Warlock's abilities are like that. The more powerful ones are limited to once per day or by using spell slots while the less powerful ones like casting Detect Magic are at will abilities.
Professional computer geek
Yeah I get that. Just feels like a level 1 Charm spell so that's pretty underwhelming for a level 14 ability.
No level 1 enchantment/charm spell not only completely immobilizes an opponent for a full minute but also prevents that opponent from knowing anything about what's going on for the duration. Yes, there is one save to avoid it's affect, but all lower level charms have one save per round and the target is also aware of it's surroundings for the duration of the spell. On top of that unlike most other enchantment/charm affects the target isn't aware that you charmed it at the end of the effect and you can target any creature with it, not just humanoids.
That ability is useful both in and out of combat, unlike the Fiend's and Celestial's abilities which are only useful in combat. It's very powerful and effective as it is.
Professional computer geek
You raise some good points I did not pick up on originally which does make it a bit better. However point of order, 1st level Charm Person charms for 1 hour with only the 1st save. There are no additional saves. Cheers for the comments.
Dark Delerium seems more like a non-combat ability to me. If the effect ends when the target takes damage, it seems unlikely to work during combat.
Out of combat, it's the ultimate distraction; while the Warlock is keeping the target busy, they won't notice anything the Warlock's allies are getting up to.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
I see points to both sides, but to me it just seems the feature lacks something. I'm thinking if I used this on somebody to screw with his mind for a minute, surely it would result in something more than "oh, we're done now".
And that leads me to page 258 of the DMG, "Madness"...
Being charmed for 10 rounds allows 10 charisma checks with advantage. That would permit quite a lot of persuasion and/or deception so the effects on the target could be considerable.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
JackOfAllTirades
Again, I don't disagree. I'm just opining that a short term (or maybe long term) madness a result of a feature called "Dark Delerium" would have more interesting.
(I tried to quote/mention without duplicating the entire post chain - not sure how to do that)