D&D (2024) How Will They Fix Warlock Spellcasting Issues?

[Horwath]

main problem with warlock and all other "short rest" classes is unreliability of short rest,and how much or how little you get them between long rests.

So the problem is fixing short rest somehow and not the classes.

Either you remove short rest completely and make everyone recharge on long rest or you put short rest completely in players agency.

I.E:
Recharge action:

At the start of your turn you can take Recharge action.
You gain all benefits of short rest.
You are considered Paralyzed while you focus on Recharge until the end of your next turn.
You can take this action once per long rest.
at level 5 you can take it 2 times.
at level 11 you can take it 3 times.
at level 17 you can take it 4 times.

 

[mellored]

I would have thought this was a sure bet, but JC did say in the video that Mystic Arcanum was back to being a core feature.

Getting a 9th level spell is basically a "must have" invocations. So might as well be a feature.

That doesn't completely rule out spending invocations to get extra spells. Just not at the highest casting level.

So the problem is fixing short rest somehow and not the classes.

Either you remove short rest completely and make everyone recharge on long rest or you put short rest completely in players agency.

Or you make all classes "short rest" classes (at least to some degree).

If everyone in the party wants a short rest, it will happen more consistently, but still leave room for class variations.

 

[Charlaquin]

Getting a 9th level spell is basically a "must have" invocations. So might as well be a feature.

That doesn't completely rule out spending invocations to get extra spells. Just not at the highest casting level.

Yeah, I definitely think that invocations are going to be one of the ways they get the warlock more spells they can cast without relying on pact magic. I suppose they could also get more Mystic Arcana at lower levels, without having them be invocations. That’d be kinda neat. And of course the free patron spell once per day seems like an obvious addition.

 

[CleverNickName]

So they just said that Pact Magic is coming back, but also that they will be addressing the issue of people feeling like they have too little Spellcasting.
...
So what do y’all think?

Well, here's what I've been test-driving in my homebrew game.

• Warlocks get a number of spell slots equal to their Proficiency Bonus.
• They recover 1 spell slot after a Short Rest, and all of them after a Long Rest
• Done.

So far, no complaints. (Okay, that's not entirely true...the other players still make fun of the warlock for spamming Eldritch Blast every single round of every single battle, constantly, like a deranged parrot. But no complaints about spell slots.)

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, here's what I've been test-driving in my homebrew game.

• Warlocks get a number of spell slots equal to their Proficiency Bonus.
• They recover 1 spell slot after a Short Rest, and all of them after a Long Rest
• Done.

So far, no complaints. (Okay, that's not entirely true...the other players still make fun of the warlock for spamming Eldritch Blast every single round of every single battle, constantly, like a deranged parrot. But no complaints about spell slots.)

This seems perfectly reasonable to me, though it does have the same potential problem that channel divinity had when it was prof uses per day of being very abusable with multiclass dipping. But, if your group doesn’t mind that or doesn’t use multiclassing then it’s no problem. I think the For Publication version of this would be more likely to use a fixed number of slots that increases with warlock level, or maybe just Cha mod uses. Still, this is a solution I’d be totally up for, though I don’t anticipate it being the direction WotC goes.

 

[Horwath]

Or you make all classes "short rest" classes (at least to some degree).

If everyone in the party wants a short rest, it will happen more consistently, but still leave room for class variations.

This needs to be the case in any version of the short rest.
I.E. if short rest is an action limited times per day, then wizard can get arcane recovery every time.

And then we can get rid of insane mechanics of "when you roll initiative".

What exactly is that?
We having a bag of rats again?
Or attempting to slap a party member for 1 damage?

STR 8 wizard trying to slap a fighter with Heavy armor mastery?
Roll initiative. Get recharge. Profit.

 

[Aldarc]

This seems perfectly reasonable to me, though it does have the same potential problem that channel divinity had when it was prof uses per day of being very abusable with multiclass dipping. But, if your group doesn’t mind that or doesn’t use multiclassing then it’s no problem. I think the For Publication version of this would be more likely to use a fixed number of slots that increases with warlock level, or maybe just Cha mod uses. Still, this is a solution I’d be totally up for, though I don’t anticipate it being the direction WotC goes.

One solution then could be to make it de facto based on proficiency bonus in the class without saying it de jure. So the progression could still be tied to the class, but it's effectively the same as the proficiency bonus.

 

[Mistwell]

I think they will have a unique recharge method which isn't a short rest.

 

[CleverNickName]

This needs to be the case in any version of the short rest.
I.E. if short rest is an action limited times per day, then wizard can get arcane recovery every time.

And then we can get rid of insane mechanics of "when you roll initiative".

What exactly is that?
We having a bag of rats again?
Or attempting to slap a party member for 1 damage?

STR 8 wizard trying to slap a fighter with Heavy armor mastery?
Roll initiative. Get recharge. Profit.

"When you roll initiative" is just a fancy way of saying "Whenever the DM says so," since only the DM calls for initiative.

I think most players hate abilities that are coupled to initiative for that very reason: since it's one of the very few rolls they don't have control over, it means they don't have control over its recharge rate. But honestly, this is only an issue if you have the sort of relationship where, instead of playing together, the players and the DM are constantly trampling over playing against each other.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Yeah I heavily dislike abilities being tied to initiative, as it basically invalidates campaigns which are combat based. If you're using all your spell slots for non combat purposes, but only getting them back at the start of combat, you're going to be left sitting there like a lemon for most of the game.

It also opens up inexperienced DM's to the 'bag of rats' problem, where players take advantage of their mechanics to regain their abilities.

It also removes the entire point of resource management. Rationing your abilities to use at the right time is a major part of the game. Just getting them back whenever a fight starts just kills that.