D&D 5E Convince me we're doing the Warlock wrong

[pemerton]

you can change the rest speed (I do for these reasons). But again, it's DM dependent, and lots of DM's are afraid to deviate from the expected standard.

Pacing is one of the most important aspects of DMing. I wish there was more focus on it. A few pages on pacing models would help a lot.

I thought the 5e DMG talks about this, and provides options.

 

[Mephista]

Have you played a warlock multiclass?

Also, sell me on being a single class warlock! After you've dropped your 2 spells, what do you do to contribute?

Deflection and avoidance of the question by forcing another question on me? I think that answers my question. And, yes, I've not only played a multi-classed warlock, I've played a pure warlock and a pure bard. In fact, my last warlock made it to level 12 before dying.

What do I contribute? Plenty. I focused on a highly social tiefling-fiend warlock, using a combination of my Thaumaturgy and Hex, plus a few other spells to be highly adaptive. I was free with spells during social pillars, because high chance would yield a short rest before we got into a combat situation. Short rests may be rare during a dungeon crawl, but towns generally are friendly enough where I could rest before worrying about engaging an enemy. Combat wise, I didn't bother maximizing my damage with Hex usually, and instead went with things like Command or Darkness, or just Levitated out of reach once the ranged opponents were dealt with. Setting up the field round 1, then eldritch blasting on par with an archer, was good. I wasn't min-maxed for damage, but I didn't feel the need to be - I had the areas I shined in, and let others shine in their areas.

Exploration wise, I had Levitate and Detect Magic at will, with a side of Investigation and Arcana with a decent sized INT score to help me out. You'd be honestly amazed at how much at will abilities like that work awesomely in tandem; a wizard would have to drop his Concentration spell, while I just didn't care with how often I could cast. Pits? Laughable. Traps? Found them with as much frequency as a rogue, maybe a bit more with Mage Sight up. And that's before we start talking about having a good chunk of my ritual spells aimed at divinations. Yes, a wizard or cleric could gain a feat to match my warlock's, but a sorcerer, bard, or druid? Not a chance. We had an issue with a decision, I could make contact and get answers.


I also had a ring of spell storing, giving me more spells a rest, and a Rod of the Pact Bearer. While still a concern, spell slots were far less a worry for me. Its amazing what the right accessories will do for a gal.

 

[Mephista]

The Sorlock uses Metamagic and eldritch blast. Why does Pact magic matter?

Renewable spell slots you can convert into sorcery points. Really, its something that should have come standard on the Sorcerer. They felt it was balanced without it, but with it? Its absolutely stronger than not having those slots. The synergy between the two is staggering. And that's before we start getting Rod of the Pact Bearer to boost the power and accuracy of Sorcerer spell saves. +X to your save DCs is generally better than the war wizard wand, and you can only get it if you MC into Warlock.

They made more than a few mistakes like Sharpshooter and GWM as well as the weak Sorcerer and Ranger. It's hard to balance so many balls in the air at once. I'm quite capable of determining the mathematical effectiveness of a build. If I find the warlock/fighter with lifedrinker to be a greater problem than say the fighter/battlemaster GWM or sharpshooter archer, I'll change it.

Well, except for the minor issue that you'll exasperate the GWM problem. Its already an issue with +10 damage a turn. Bump that up to, say, +14 with a potential addition of Hex damage a turn? It gets pretty scary fast.

Its not a "Compare GWM to Lifedrinker" situation, its a "Compare GWM+Lifedrinker to anyone not doing that" situation.

 

[Celtavian]

Renewable spell slots you can convert into sorcery points. Really, its something that should have come standard on the Sorcerer. They felt it was balanced without it, but with it? Its absolutely stronger than not having those slots. The synergy between the two is staggering. And that's before we start getting Rod of the Pact Bearer to boost the power and accuracy of Sorcerer spell saves. +X to your save DCs is generally better than the war wizard wand, and you can only get it if you MC into Warlock.

Hmm. That is powerful. Rod of the Pact Keeper would aid the spells you cast in the warlock spell slots. It might aid warlock spells you cast in the sorcerer spell slots. I would require the spell lists be tracked separately. That is an interesting combination considering many low level spells can be highly useful.

Well, except for the minor issue that you'll exasperate the GWM problem. Its already an issue with +10 damage a turn. Bump that up to, say, +14 with a potential addition of Hex damage a turn? It gets pretty scary fast.

Its not a "Compare GWM to Lifedrinker" situation, its a "Compare GWM+Lifedrinker to anyone not doing that" situation.

I was calculating hex damage versus haste, they come out roughly the same. I guess you could truly maximize the combination by having another caster cast haste while letting the warlock cast hex. Not sure how often that would happen given the reality of combat. At higher level the fly spell is extremely necessary.

I'll monitor the combination. I would like a reason for someone to take Lifedrinker. At the moment I can't see a reason a warlock would ever take it. It is vastly inferior damage to eldritch blast. If they put it on par with eldritch blast, then maybe it would cool. At the moment it is an option no one would take.

The fighter/warlock is very MAD. That should contain it some.

 

[Mephista]

Hmm. That is powerful. Rod of the Pact Keeper would aid the spells you cast in the warlock spell slots. It might aid warlock spells you cast in the sorcerer spell slots. I would require the spell lists be tracked separately. That is an interesting combination considering many low level spells can be highly useful.

I don't have the book with me, but I was under the impression it worked with Sorcerer spells cast with Sorcerer spell slots too. So long as you can attune it, it works with all spells. I could be mistaken. There's just a lot of things that synergize well between the two classes that make the sorcerer better. Best cantrip option in the game, effective short rest sorcery point recovery, a magic item that effectively scales your casting stat, making the slower attribute acquisition less a concern.


But, like I said (or at least meant), each table to their own. The designers didn't intend for invocations to work that way, but if it works out at your table, more power to ya.

 

[famousringo]

I hadn't really thought about it that way... but adding the 3rd spell slot at, say, 5th level would go a long way towards fixing things IMO. Of course, my experience is that short rests are more often 1/day than 2-3/day and that the "important" combats tend to come clustered together instead of with a short rest in between.

Really, even giving the warlock one extra daily spell slot would get most of the way there -- an extra something you can pull out when you need it, rather than being in your second encounter and having to ask whether you can cast Hex again and leave yourself without any flexibility in case there's another important combat coming.

I think the easiest way to accomplish this is to take the spell slot cost out of a lot of the invocations. As they are, they aren't even as good as an extra spell known, because of the per day limit. Nor are they even particularly powerful spells (Slow, Compulsion? Nice, not great). They're a lousy deal that nobody seems to want to make.

But make it so they don't use a warlock slot and they become desirable. They become effectively another high level spell slot, but they're still limited by number of invocations, being long rest instead of short rest, and the slot being locked to a single spell rather than flexible. Powerful per day spells would be a tempting alternative to at-will spammable powers.

 

[Flamestrike]

Except 6-8 encounters just doesn't occur naturally IMX. Maybe in dungeon crawling, but wilderness exploration? Traveling? City intrigue? Classes who get all their abilities up front are just in a superior position. It's better to have the option to whup ass in a single hard fight than be solid in a bunch of chump encounters. Plus I don't like running lower stakes weak encounters just to pad out the day. Even then, a warlock multiclass can contribute about as well as a warlock because so much power is tied to eldritch blast and not enough oopmh baked into the warlock's class abilities.

Sure, you can change the rest speed (I do for these reasons). But again, it's DM dependent, and lots of DM's are afraid to deviate from the expected standard.

Any reason you cant simply pull encounter refreshing and HD healing out of resting, and simply allow an auto short rest 'recharge' every 2 encounters, with an auto long-rest 'recharge' after 8 encounters?

Im sure you can come up with some kind of 'makes in game sense' reason why it works that way.

Or make Long rests take a week as per the DMG. That'll stop full caster nova's.

As a final option for the 'one enconter per day' days only allow the nights rest to count as a short rest and not a long rest (you guys just arent that tired), and then make every 7th short rest count as a long rest.