D&D (2024) They butchered the warlock in the new packet

[Vaalingrade]

I think the D&D developers are so used to keeping bad designs because of all the sacred cows that they don't know when to abandon bad designs that aren't sacred cows to make the game better.

We have operantly conditioned them to be so.

I don't give a damn about a Advantage's progeny. I first remember encountering it in Deadlands.

I wouldn't either, but people keep giving 5e credit for it when all it did was run it into the ground using it so much.

Another great thing about advantage? It doesn't stack!

Ugh. It's one of the things I hate most. No reason to act to get the greatest advantage when there's no actual greatest advantage.

That and the fact it's a false bonus in that working to get advantage still doesn't make it possible to do better than you could in the first place. If your terrible save for an ability no one of your class pumps won't save, advantage won't help you.

 

[doctorhook]

The problem is a lot of people like the warlock mechanically precisely because it's not an othodox caster. That it gets the most fun parts of being a caster without all the tedious and irritating nonsense. This version does the opposite. It gives all the tedious and irritating nonsense while taking away the fun parts.

I like most of the changes by volume. But turning pact magic into generic off the peg half-casting when well over half of the mechanical appeal of a warlock was that they were casters who weren't that makes the changing the druid's wildshape into everything being generic look like a model of careful and well planned.

Evaluating the rest of the warlock changes is like evaluating the rest of the soup when there's a giant turd in it.

Straight up, I didn’t honestly even notice that it was a half-caster until I read this thread. Huge oversight on my part.

What had me excited was the changes to pact boons, Mystic Arcana, and invocations. I love the warlock concept but kinda hated how invocations and mystic arcana were so disintegrated from the rest of the class. I like MA as an invocation, and I wish they’d gone further with it: MA at every level. I wish more invocations related to pact boobs were just freebies, rather than making you choose them.

It’s interesting reading others’ feedback, because clearly I was focused on different elements of the class than what others are.

 

[Vaalingrade]

go back to 4e, you seem to prefer it anyway. We already had that, no need to replicate it in 5e.

The entire freaking forum is about debating the direction the new thing should take. Sitting down and shutting up just ensure we never improve.

and yet it happens in no official adventure. Something being a theoretical idea to show the design goal is not the same as the intent

Adventures never care about what the rules say. Just look at how they've handled treasure forever. The issue is the idea they're espousing to DMs.

 

[Charlaquin]

So, it’s a DM problem if we can’t take a break in the middle of a multi-encounter chase scene? A prison break? A dungeon with monsters around every corner? Taking breaks depends very much on the adventure you’re playing. My DM likes to keep the pressure on, which means less opportunities for short rests.

I am also a DM who likes to keep the pressure on; resting of any length is always risky. Part of the challenge of the game is taking calculated risks. But a short rest is still unlikely to be more hurtful than helpful. At worst you might have to deal with a random encounter, which… I mean the alternative would be… having to deal with more encounters without resting…

And who decides it’s needed? My warlock is the only character who benefits at all from a short rest. Assuming hit point levels are okay, it’s usually easier to press on.

I mean, the party decides as a group. And yeah, if everyone’s HP is fine and only one PC has resources they need a short rest to recover, maybe pressing on is the overall less risky option. Sometimes that will be the case. Other times, other PCs will appreciate the opportunity to spend hit dice. Part of playing a Warlock is managing your limited spell slots, so if a fight is going well enough that nobody is losing much HP, you can probably afford to get by on cantrips for that fight.

 

[Charlaquin]

Straight up, I didn’t honestly even notice that it was a half-caster until I read this thread. Huge oversight on my part.

What had me excited was the changes to pact boons, Mystic Arcana, and invocations. I love the warlock concept but kinda hated how invocations and mystic arcana were so disintegrated from the rest of the class. I like MA as an invocation, and I wish they’d gone further with it: MA at every level. I wish more invocations related to pact boobs were just freebies, rather than making you choose them.

It’s interesting reading others’ feedback, because clearly I was focused on different elements of the class than what others are.

I knew they were half-casters before reading the packet because they said so in the companion video (well, they said the warlock’s spell slot progression matched the Ranger’s and Paladin’s). I definitely agree that the Invocation changes are pretty positive. I also really like the improved pact boons, even though making them spells is a bit weird. Absolutely love that pact boons also give you a choice of two spellcasting abilities! But half-casting just ruins the whole class for me.

 

[Reef]

@Charlaquin, I guess we’ll just have to disagree on that one . As a player, I just can’t narratively imagine our characters stopping in the middle of any of those situations. It might make a gamist sense, but not story-wise.

I don’t want to make it sound like every session is one long string of action movie scenes. We do have single encounter days in town and such (or while travelling). But on those days we just end up long resting most of the time. But anytime we do end up in the ‘exciting’ portion of the quest, hour long picnics tend to not make a lot of sense.

 

[shadowoflameth]

That's a consequence of the new unified arcane spell list, not the changed Mystic Arcanum. The Wizard is able to cast any spell a warlock can learn with Mystic Arcanum, and can do it more often.

Yes, but you also, in this play test, get access to mystic Arcanum sooner. Wizard is still the king for spell selection and Wizard is a full caster. You can also have an Intelligence based Warlock and potentially Multi-class with Wizard.

 

[Bacon Bits]

That does sound bizarre to me. When we've got fighters, monks, and warlocks in the party, we usually don't have much of a problem with players agreeing to take a short rest when asked. I don't know if my players are just more effective at advocating for themselves or just recognize that those classes are better off if they've taken a short rest, but getting multiple short rests per long rest isn't usually a problem for us.
There are so many other examples over the years of players in the TTRPG community really not grokking the dynamics of cooperative, non-competitive games that I sometimes get really depressed about the community.

It's not really about being non-cooperative. It's about evaluating and balancing the risk of taking a rest -- which technically isn't always there, but essentially it always is a consideration in the players' minds -- against the risk of that one PC not having abilities in future encounters.

The player playing a short-rest-limited class chose that class, knowing how it operates. They also chose to spend their abilities the way they did. It's not right that the rest of the table should bear the cost of the short-rest PC's shortsightedness. Nor should they encourage that shortsighted behavior by always bearing that burden after every encounter, which is precisely what you'd be encouraging. We're back at the problem that the game mechanically rewards players for constantly resting, and the primary reason not to do so is narrative (NPCs responding to the PCs, or time pressure).

I mean, the same thing happens if the sorcerer spends all his spell slots and sorcery points in one encounter while nobody else did. You're going to be stuck flinging cantrips for a bit. Or if the paladin busts out two weapons and goes supernova. You get to play fighter for the afternoon. Part of the game is proper resource management.

On the flip side, when the long-rest-limited classes run out of abilities, it tends to happen about the same time across the board, at the same rate as other long-rest PCs, or at about when HP get low. That's kind of how you know you've managed resources well. The fact that short-rest limited classes could keep going doesn't help because you're unlikely to split the party like that.

It's exacerbated because short rest hp recovery has attrition that spans long rests. It's nearly the only mechanic in the game that has multiple-day recovery. Spending HD to recover hp today means fewer HD tomorrow. Counterintuitively, short rests are more expensive than long rests for hp recovery! It's so bizarre to me that they made that choice to add attrition back into the game only there.

 

[Charlaquin]

@Charlaquin, I guess we’ll just have to disagree on that one .

That’s fair.

As a player, I just can’t narratively imagine our characters stopping in the middle of any of those situations. It might make a gamist sense, but not story-wise.

I don’t want to make it sound like every session is one long string of action movie scenes. We do have single encounter days in town and such (or while travelling). But on those days we just end up long resting most of the time. But anytime we do end up in the ‘exciting’ portion of the quest, hour long picnics tend to not make a lot of sense.

See, I don’t think of a short rest as an hour long picnic. I think of it as a tense period of recovery, with the adventurers circling the wagons, keeping on guard to hopefully protect their injured long enough to bandage their wounds, and guard their mystical companions while they enter a vulnerable state of prayer, meditation, or ritual so they can recover their power, knowing all the while that they could be ambushed at any point. They should be holing up in a room with a choke point, barricading the door, standing watch, setting magical wards, or all of the above. Because, yeah, stopping for an hour in the midst of enemy territory is dangerous. But an adventurer’s got to do what an adventurer’s got to do.

 

[Reef]

That’s fair.

See, I don’t think of a short rest as an hour long picnic. I think of it as a tense period of recovery, with the adventurers circling the wagons, keeping on guard to hopefully protect their injured long enough to bandage their wounds, and guard their mystical companions while they enter a vulnerable state of prayer, meditation, or ritual so they can recover their power, knowing all the while that they could be ambushed at any point. They should be holing up in a room with a choke point, barricading the door, standing watch, setting magical wards, or all of the above. Because, yeah, stopping for an hour in the midst of enemy territory is dangerous. But an adventurer’s got to do what an adventurer’s got to do.

Totally fair. It just seems like our adventuring days move too quickly to provide those opportunities.

Heh…I’m reminded of The Three Musketeers:

Porthos:
Champagne?

Athos:
We're in the middle of a chase, Porthos!

Porthos:
You're right - something red.