D&D 5E December Survey is Up

[TheCosmicKid]

Warlock 2 dip for Devil's Sight, combined with Darkness, is incredibly common in AL. It irritates me too.

Warlock 2 dip for devil's sight or eldritch blast is a 5e pet peeve of mine.

Play up the "In exchange for that power you just made a pact with a being whose name is ominously unpronounceable" angle. Warlockery shouldn't be all fun and games.

Which, to bring this back around to the topic, is why I thought Pact of the Undying Light was completely missing the point. You can't bargain with an impersonal field of energy. The Positive Plane doesn't have malign, alien, or inscrutable motives you have to worry about. What that fluff was describing was a cleric or paladin, or maybe even a sorcerer. Not a warlock.

 

[Tanarii]

Play up the "In exchange for that power you just made a pact with a being whose name is ominously unpronounceable" angle. Warlockery shouldn't be all fun and games.

That's fine in a home game. But it typically won't fly in open AL drop-in games. IMO if the flavor-side was supposed to balance the power of the class, especially in regards to Warlocks, they should have made it explicit with something similar to Paladin Oaths. That's especially important for organized play, since the flavor there is effectively up to the player, not the DM.

Besides, what if they just made a pact with the Plane of Positive Energy?

They are 100% under DM approval. Like all the classes really, but emphasized as being optional or tied to requirements that can be lifted or tightened as needed.


And they're not in AL.
But even if Prestige Classes do end up in a book there might be some requirements, such as qualifying through ranks in a faction and/or downtime days, if not playing specific adventures to qualify. It should be possible, but not automatic.

I'm concerned about future use in Organized Play. Because there flavor is usually up to the player, as I said above. Which meant in 3e days that all flavor considerations of PrCs could be freely ignored.

Now I'll admit, having explicit RP requirements, such as a 'gatekeeper' organization or individual, may put them 100% under AL's control. And as you say, technically everything already is. For example no NE or CE characters. Certainly if they make a player expend resources such as downtime or faction ranks, it could work.

I guess my main concern is better worded as: vague flavor restrictions shouldn't be allowed to balance PrC mechanical power. Either there should be no flavor and it should be balanced on its own without creating player expectations as to DM providing things within narrative. Or it should be a hard-coded balance with some explicit cost.

See my comment just above on Warlock Flavor vs Paladin Oaths. If PrCs are going to have flavor requirements, they need to be more like Paladin Oaths, and less like Warlock flavor. The way 'gatekeepers' are now, they're effectively the same as a Pact. Vague flavor restriction implied, hard mechanical benefit provided.

 

[Mephista]

Play up the "In exchange for that power you just made a pact with a being whose name is ominously unpronounceable" angle. Warlockery shouldn't be all fun and games.

That doesn't stop the munchkinry unless I make the dick-GM move of abusing the character, or just using RP to effectively shut down and deny the PC with IC means instead of OOC means. Its an OOC problem, so it should be dealt with OOC. IC moves like that is kind of a sign of a bad GM. "Oh, you can play it, I'm just going to screw you over in game."

And if you're not pulling jerk moves... Roleplaying is not a balance to twinkery. If anything, it makes things worse - this is reinforcing the behavior by giving them more of the spotlight in the game.

 

[Jester David]

I'm concerned about future use in Organized Play. Because there flavor is usually up to the player, as I said above. Which meant in 3e days that all flavor considerations of PrCs could be freely ignored.

That is certainly a problem, but it depends on the flavour presented.
They can't force people to play using the flavour and some ability to reflavour is nice. The best thing is the encourage the flavour.

Now I'll admit, having explicit RP requirements, such as a 'gatekeeper' organization or individual, may put them 100% under AL's control. And as you say, technically everything already is. For example no NE or CE characters. Certainly if they make a player expend resources such as downtime or faction ranks, it could work.

It depends on the Prestige Classes. They work best when there's membership in an organization or some specialized training involved rather than just being focused around a particular mechanic. A new option is better as a subclass or feat, and most classic Prestige Classes work far better as subclasses.

But stuff that adds new mechanics that multiple classes could take (fate spinner, alchemist) then that works as a Prestige Class.

I guess my main concern is better worded as: vague flavor restrictions shouldn't be allowed to balance PrC mechanical power. Either there should be no flavor and it should be balanced on its own without creating player expectations as to DM providing things within narrative. Or it should be a hard-coded balance with some explicit cost.

Absolutely. They should be balanced on their own. Flavour restrictions are just there to enable the DM to ban them if they don't fit the world/setting.

See my comment just above on Warlock Flavor vs Paladin Oaths. If PrCs are going to have flavor requirements, they need to be more like Paladin Oaths, and less like Warlock flavor. The way 'gatekeepers' are now, they're effectively the same as a Pact. Vague flavor restriction implied, hard mechanical benefit provided.

Yes and no.
It's pretty easy to change the warlock flavour with some work with the DM. It just requires some work and copperation. You could change all the names making each pact a singular entity (different archdragons, different sorcerer-kings), a different organization or cult, or the like. Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide subtly changes the flavour of the Great Old One pact for the Realms, as there's less Cthulhu in that setting.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

That doesn't stop the munchkinry unless I make the dick-GM move of abusing the character, or just using RP to effectively shut down and deny the PC with IC means instead of OOC means. Its an OOC problem, so it should be dealt with OOC. IC moves like that is kind of a sign of a bad GM. "Oh, you can play it, I'm just going to screw you over in game."

How is it an OOC problem? The character is deciding to become a warlock in exchange for (literal) dark power. It's only an OOC problem if the player doesn't roleplay this, the same as if they didn't roleplay multiclassing into cleric or wizard or any other class but just said, "I have these powers now." In which case, yeah, maybe you need to have an OOC talk with the player, but IC moves can be helpful too, and they certainly aren't "a sign of a bad GM". I'm not talking about screwing the character over; I'm talking about providing opportunities and prompts for them to roleplay.

Roleplaying is not a balance to twinkery.

Not in the old-school-paladin sense that powerful abilities can be balanced by restrictive roleplaying requirements, no. However, encouraging roleplaying in general can be very helpful. Fostering players' sense of investment in their characters leads to them making more in-character decisions, like "Maybe Bosgrund Boldblood wouldn't randomly make a deal with a devil for power." And if Bosgrund does make that deal, playing out the consequences of the decision in-character makes it a lot more palatable for everybody at the table than if if were just "Hey, look at this cool trick I can do because I'm a munchkin!" Spotlighting roleplaying reinforces roleplaying. That's not a bad thing. You may worry you're rewarding them for making a twink move -- but paradoxically, you're also probably reducing the chances they'll make the same move on a different character.

 

[Li Shenron]

I guess my main concern is better worded as: vague flavor restrictions shouldn't be allowed to balance PrC mechanical power.

Wait there, I do not think that narrative requirements are there for balance. Actually I will say it better: no requirement (narrative or otherwise) should ever be used as a balancing element.

If requirements are designed as cost to balance the benefits, then it means the benefits make the prestige class better than a core class. This IMHO means failure of the whole prestige class concept. And it means the death of balance in the game (like in 3e, once enough PrCls were published), because there is always a way for the powergamer to get those requirements cheaply, which non-powergamers will end up blocked from taking prestige classes just for fun. Lose-lose situation really.

Instead, each prestige class should not be one bit better than a core class. It should just be different. Another reason why I stand on my opinion that the only prerequisites that really work are LEVEL (so that you can design the prestige class starting with features that are already tailored to levels above 1st) and NARRATIVE, because the latter is not really a cost at all! It's a way to tie-in the prestige class with the fantasy world and the ongoing story, at the same time granting the DM control in case she believes it just doesn't fit with either.

Maybe you are right and it would be even better to just not have any narrative requirement specified, and just tell the DM to make up her own. Personally I think it's better that the game tells everybody that every prestige class should have narrative prerequites, and the provide some example prerequisites. So in case the prestige class does fit with your fantasy setting, but the prerequisites don't, you (the DM) can change them to something else. This is why I welcome having narrative prerequisites anyway. But indeed if they plan to use them as a price for balancing benefits that exceed the norm of base classes, then NO.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Play up the "In exchange for that power you just made a pact with a being whose name is ominously unpronounceable" angle. Warlockery shouldn't be all fun and games.

Which, to bring this back around to the topic, is why I thought Pact of the Undying Light was completely missing the point. You can't bargain with an impersonal field of energy. The Positive Plane doesn't have malign, alien, or inscrutable motives you have to worry about. What that fluff was describing was a cleric or paladin, or maybe even a sorcerer. Not a warlock.

Now that you mention it, that IS something I'd prefer not to see. Narratively, the Undying Light is a little meaningless. Of course, this could be solved by simply making the Undying Light a thinking entity with a desire (a desire to spread and enhance life at whatever cost, perhaps).

 

[Tanarii]

Wait there, I do not think that narrative requirements are there for balance. Actually I will say it better: no requirement (narrative or otherwise) should ever be used as a balancing element.

Thats a fair extension of my complaint. But my understanding is that PrCs were always, quite intentionally, more powerful than a base class. And I don't see narrative balancing prerequisites on Player options as a fair restriction for the DM to have to deal with.

If that's changed and prerequisite aren't a balancing factor for 5e PrCs ... okay now I'm going back to re-read the article and its intro.

 

[Remathilis]

Play up the "In exchange for that power you just made a pact with a being whose name is ominously unpronounceable" angle. Warlockery shouldn't be all fun and games.

Which, to bring this back around to the topic, is why I thought Pact of the Undying Light was completely missing the point. You can't bargain with an impersonal field of energy. The Positive Plane doesn't have malign, alien, or inscrutable motives you have to worry about. What that fluff was describing was a cleric or paladin, or maybe even a sorcerer. Not a warlock.

Of course, that assumes that the whole "warlock sells his soul to a dark power" flavor is relevant, and there is a number of people who don't think the flavor is relevant, so you can't use that to balance anything.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But my understanding is that PrCs were always, quite intentionally, more powerful than a base class.

Your understanding is not accurate. Many PrCs were trash. And the ones that were more powerful than a base class were not intentionally so. (Both for the same reason: lots of content being written and released with little editing and zero playtesting.)