I gave my best guess in the last sentence.
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D&D 5E Is Warlock broken?
- Thread starter SailorNash
- Start date
I gave my best guess in the last sentence.
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
I see more the Sorcerer as a sort of tartare....
Seriously thought, that is a good point, *but* for two facts. First, that high level slot, the sorcerer has far more flexibility on how he uses it. He may know a few high level spells. He can use it to cast a super powerful fireball etc etc. Furthermore, his potential list of choice (in the spell list) is somewhat longer (although not as big as I thought). Lastly, every time he goes up a level he can adjust his list of spell known. The warlock? Not for the Arcanums! If she took plane shift because she thought it would be important, and well it's only one adventure they did planar travel and it never came up again well... she has planeshift, forever. She can't change it to something else.
You make good points too. I'm not going to say, "a good point, BUT for N facts," as if those N facts make your point invalid after all. Those are good points and I'm cognizant of them. That's why I originally wrote "as likely to be the sorcerer as the Warlock" instead of "more likely to be the sorcerer than the Warlock"--the warlock's limitations are as real as his extra benefits.
Warlocks were the simple caster. The spend most of their time with combat cantrips and and the occasional spell cast, and it's not possible for a warlock to blow his daily slots because of the short rest. There's also no decision point on which level a spell is to be cast -- it's always the highest level of pact magic available. Arcanum are straight forward and simply another 1/day SLA of which four are acquired. One of the simple spell caster design concepts seems to have centered around a much lower number of in-combat decision points than other spell casters.
I'm not convinced that the late design in the play test had anything to do with it, however. There was an earlier warlock design in the public play test followed by a later design in the public play test after feedback followed by a non-public play test after feedback to include the fine tuning we saw released. All the classes released in the PHB had quite a bit of time for testing and feedback to get to where they were released. The bard, as a counterpoint, did not have as early a public beta test (it was very late) and after the private play test was altered quite a bit from the public play test version. It was quite clear that WotC developers were using the feedback given by play testers with the bard and that reinforces the fact they were doing the same with other classes, including the warlock.
The warlock was also steered more towards the AEU concept. Short rest abilities are the 5e version of encounter abilities but no longer per encounter given the 5e short rest mechanics. Warlocks focus on their at will, spend 1 pact magic slot per encounter, and have dailies in the format of arcanum at higher levels. Adding the short rest into the narrative after about 2 encounters (but continue to mix it up as per earlier discussion) and warlocks are generally at 1-2 encounter abilities per encounter throughout most of their career.
The issue people have with the warlock restrictions is that the warlock isn't capable blowing their load on a low number of encounters, generally followed by the unreasonable assumption that everything (good guys, bad guys, general innocent bystanders, the environment, any time sensitive factors, etc) takes the rest of the day off so that everyone can get a good night's sleep for the next day's rinse and repeat. Some times it's true, but generally it's not; get rid of that 5MWD fallacy and the group has gotten rid the biggest complaint those players have regarding warlocks. What I also find humorous is that players complain about warlocks because of the 5MWD approach and massive spell dumping ability during encounters, but then complain about healing when that same 5MWD heals everyone up to full per the core rules, destroying the need for healers because the group can just take a long rest. To me, that seems like people are just selectively rationalizing mechanics to hold on to class biases and so they have something to complain about, tbh.
A DM who narrates the story including the, "and you have a break in (x action) allowing a short rest" and "it seems like it's getting late and things are getting quiet for the night" (that one is often the opposite of what happens and also creates issues with simply taking a long rest; night is when the scary monsters come out) instead of players thinking they can break whenever and however they want, and the system works. This is a role-playing gaming, not gaming our role-play.
That probably went beyond the answer to your question. I did participate in play testing. Warlocks were the simple spell casters, even if they did end up with a bit of system mastery in the planning process. The combat play is pretty simple and straight forward as planned. If a person doesn't want that simple system, it's not a problem with the class. It's just not the right class for that player.
Not sure where Ashrym is getting a bunch of that. The Warlock, and Sorcerer had the LEAST amount of playtest. They were the two classes introduced first after the core four. But they were in two playtest packets, with no changes between the two, then REMOVED because people freaked out that the melee focused archetype of the Sorcerer was well melee focused and so tough, as if the whole class would have been that way.
At the time classes only went to level 5. After those two classes were removed the very makeup of classes changed massively. MASSIVELY. So much so that the actual versions of those classes we got back then would not fit into the game now without some hefty changes, besides they only went to 5th level. All four core classes changed a lot, new classes like Druid, Bard, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger were all added and went through some big changes. And Warlock and Sorcerer were never brought back.
As the public playtest ended a private playtest, which probably had little to do with the public playtest that seemed to do no good, tested the warlock and sorcerer. Between that final private playtest and the official release the Warlock, and Sorcerer I believe, as well as Monk, Fighter, and possibly a few other martial classes, were all nerfed. Particularly their final level 20 ability. Which is why those classes pretty much have a terrible capstone that is basically worthless.
Now for those interested in what the Warlock and Sorcerer were like in the playtest? Lets go over the classes at the time.
The playtest packet was from 08/17/12, there was another one put out afterwards but it shared the 081212 Classes packet. Classes only went up to 5th level at the time, it was a playtest afterall. There was no Proficiency modifier. Classes had one or both of Weapon Attack and Magic Attack.
The Cleric for example started at +2 in both Weapon Attack and Magic Attack, and went up to uh +2 in both by 5th level. Their spell DC was 10+Wis Mod, so basically didn't scale as well. They started with 1 Channel Divinity per day, 2 a day at 4th level, they could use it to either heal a living being 1d8, 2d8 at 5th level, plus Wis mod hp or harm an undead for the same amount in holy damage. Evil clerics switched it around, harming living or healing undead. Casting was kind of similar to how it is now, except for preparing spells. The cleric prepared a number of spells equal to their spell slots, while also having their domain spells auto-prepared like now. They start with one Orison, basically cantrips now but they didn't scale, and gained another at 5th level, and 9th level despite the chart not going that high. An example Orison available to the Cleric is Radiant Lance it is 50' range make a magical attack and on a hit it does 1d8+4 radiant damage. Hmm radiant and holy as two separate damage types it looks like. The Cleric's Religion feature gives them training in one of a number of Lores, different skills. Being proficient in a skill gives you +3 to the roll and at every even level you can increase the bonus to one of your skills by +1 to a max of +7. The Cleric chooses a Domain at 1st level. Uh wow. So the two domains in the playtest for the Cleric are Sun and War. Sun gives you the Radiant Lance orison in addition to whatever other orisons you have, proficiency with light and medium armor, and resistance to radiant and fire damage. It adds a spell to each spell level as auto prepared, and at 2nd level you can use up a use of Channel Divinity to deal 1d8+Wis mod radiant damage in a 20ft radius sphere, Con save for half. War gains martial weapon proficiency and proficiency with all armor and shields, and when they use Channel Divinity they can make an attack as part of the same action. By the way the Cleric normally starts with no armor proficiencies, what they get they gain from their Domain. The classes at the time also gained a +1 to a stat, cleric gained +1 to Wisdom, Strength, or Constitution score.
Fighter was the next class, they got +1 to Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution score, and proficiency in all armor and all shields. They start with +3 Weapon Attack and go up to +4 at 4th level. They start with a 1d6 Expertise Dice which goes up to 1d8 at 3rd and 2d8 at 5th level. They could spend an expertise die to use a combat maneuver and at the start of each of their turns, this improved in later playtests then got spread around/nerfed, they regained all of their spent expertise dice. They start with Deadly Strike, aka roll your dice for extra damage, and Parry aka roll your dice to reduce damage, maneuvers and gained more depending on Fighting Style. At 1st level they pick a Fighting Style which gives them more maneuvers at certain levels. The Fighting Styles, like the Domains of the Cleric also have suggested gear for the character. In the playtest the Fighting Styles gave maneuvers at 1st, 3rd, and 5th level. Duelist gave Tumble, Jab and finally Shift. Protector gave Protect, Push and Knock Down. Sharpshooter gave Precise Shot, Snap Shot and Shift. Finally Slayer gave Glancing Blow, Cleave and Jab. If someone wants to know more about these manuevers let me know and I will go over them.
The Rogue gets +1 to their Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence score. Light armor, basic weapons, finesse weapons and simple and martial ranged weapons. They start with +2 Weapon Attack going up to +3 at 5th level. They start with 2d6 Sneak Attack at 1st level going up by 1d6 each level to 6d6 at 5th. They start at Skill Mastery 10 going up to Skill Mastery 11 at 5th. Skill Mastery has the Rogue use the higher of their Ability Modifier for the skill or +3, and uh wow . . . they start out with the 11th level Rogue feature from the final book, so they use the +3 or correct ability modifier whichever is higher and when they roll a skill they use either the roll of the die or 10, 11 at 5th level, whichever is higher. Sneak Attack starts higher than the final, and scales a lot faster, but requires Advantage instead of working when an ally is adjacent to the target. Rogues get a Scheme, like Clerics get Domain and Fighter gets Fighting Style. The Rogue's Scheme gives them a background, in addition to the background every character already gets. The two, in the playtest, Schemes also have class features at 1st, 2nd and 5th levels. Thief gets Thief Sneaking at 1st which lets them attempt to hide when lightly obscured and can also hide behind an object that can cover at least a quarter of their body. At 2nd Thief gets Night Vision which lets them treat darkness as shadows and shadows as normal light up to a radius of 30 feet after spending at least 1 minute in darkness or shadows. And 5th level Thief gets Hit and Run which lets them move up to half their speed as part of the same action as an attack in which they deal Sneak Attack, this movement doesn't provoke. The other scheme in the playtest was Thug. Thugs at 1st level have Thug Tactics which lets them deal Sneak Attack when a target is within reach of two or more creatures that are friendly to the Thug. Level 2 gives them City Savvy which means they cannot be surprised while they are able to take actions and level 5 is Cheap Shot which means that when they deal Sneak Attack damage to a creature that creature's speed drops to 0 until the end of the rogue's next turn. At level 2 all Rogue's gain Knack which lets them give themselves advantage on a check twice per day, increasing to 3x a day at 5th and 4x a day at 9th.
And finally the Wizard, the final core class and the last class before the two just added in classes Sorcerer and Warlock! +1 to their Intelligence or Constitution score. No armor, and a grand total of 4 specific weapons. Almost the inverse of Fighter. A Magic Attack bonus that starts at +3 and goes up to +4 at 4th level, except they are still given a +2 Weapon Attack bonus, which seems a bit unfair. The Wizard's DCs start at 11+Int mod and go up to 12+Int mod at 4th. All their class features come in at 1st level. They get more spells per day than the Cleric, getting 2 3rd level spells at 5th instead of the Cleric's 1. They start with a spellbook with 5 1st level spells, each level after they gain Int mod more spells. Still could find spells out in the wild. Both Cleric and Wizard do have Ritual access. Start with 3 minor spells, like the cleric orisons because back then they weren't all called cantrips. Magic Missile is a minor spell. Magic Missile choose a creature within 100ft and that creature takes 1d4+1 force damage. Arcane Knowledge is like the Cleric's Religion Knowledge and gives them a skill, again needs to be one of the skills listed as a Lore. They don't seem to have Schools yet, that will be added in a later playtest packet and the early School options do include a generalist build.
The Sorcerer gets +1 to Charisma or Constitution score. Like the cleric they get +2 to Weapon and Magic Attacks all through the first 5 levels. Spell DC is 10+Cha mod. Slower Max Spell level progression only getting 2nd level spells at 4th level. They have Willpower, starting at 3 at 1st level, 4 at 2nd, 8 at 3rd, 10 at 4th and 16 at 5th level. Basically the spell point variant in the DMG now, but things happen as they spend them. They start with knowing 2 spells and gain another each level. They know 2 minor spells from the Sorcerer list. Costs 1 Willpower to cast a 1st level spell and 2 to cast a 2nd level spell. Cannot cast spells while wearing armor, believe Wizard has this too, but the one and only Sorcerer origin changes this. At 1st level they choose a Sorcerous Origin each grants certain abilities at certain levels when you use Willpower to cast spells. The one in the playtest is Draconic Heritage. This gives them proficiency in all armor and shields as well as able to cast in armor, proficiency with martial melee weapons and increase the Weapon Attack rolls by 1. Can spend 1 WP to use Dragon Strength which gives them the next time they hit a hostile creature with a melee attack in the next minute they deal an extra 2d6 damage. Once they have spent 3 WP in a day they gain a +2 bonus to the damage rolls of melee attacks for the rest of the day. At 4th they can spend 2 WP to use Dragon Scales which is a reaction to taking damage and reduces the damage by 10, and grants you resistance to the damage type of your heritage until the end of your next turn. As well at 4th level after they have spent 10 WP in a day they manifest dragon scales that gives them resistance to the damage type associated with their dragon until the end of the day.
And finally the Warlock. In this playtest they used Int. +1 to their Intelligence, Dexterity, or Constitution score. Light armor, basic weapons, finesse weapons and simple ranged weapons. Weapon and Magic attack as well as Spell DC are all the same as Wizard. Know 3 Invocations at 1st level, 4 at 2nd and 5 at 4th. Eldritch Lore like the Wizard and Cleric abilities. Like Sorcerer they only get 2nd level spells at 4th. They cannot actually cast spells though, only rituals. There is one pact in the playtest, basically a named Fey. Verenestra Fey Pact, at 1st level a small wart appears on their face, and when speaking to a creature that can understand them they can spend one of their Patron's Favors, short rest recharge resources which they get two of and that power some of their Patron abilities and some of their Invocations, to get advantage on all Cha checks made to influence it for the next hour if its hit point maximum is lower than the Warlocks. At 3rd their irises turn a bright gold, and as a reaction can impose disadvantage on a melee attack made against them by a living creature. At 5th level spiderwebs of thin white scars appear on their neck and arms, and as an action can spend one of their Favors to teleport up to 30' to a location that they can see. In the playtest there were only two types of Invocations, Lesser which used Favors to power them and Minor which were at will. Baleful Utterance is a lesser that makes a 15' cone of sound that all creatures in it must make a Con save taking 2d6 thunder damage and deafened on a failed save, half damage and no deafness on a success. Increases to 2d8 at 3rd level. Eldritch Blast is one of two minor invocations. Make a magical attack against a creature within 50 feet of the warlock, on a hit the creature takes 3d6 force damage, and increases to 4d6 at 3rd level. This is basically the only at will magical attack in the playtest that actually scales.
I would go over more but I am running late for work.
At the time classes only went to level 5. After those two classes were removed the very makeup of classes changed massively. MASSIVELY. So much so that the actual versions of those classes we got back then would not fit into the game now without some hefty changes, besides they only went to 5th level. All four core classes changed a lot, new classes like Druid, Bard, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger were all added and went through some big changes. And Warlock and Sorcerer were never brought back.
As the public playtest ended a private playtest, which probably had little to do with the public playtest that seemed to do no good, tested the warlock and sorcerer. Between that final private playtest and the official release the Warlock, and Sorcerer I believe, as well as Monk, Fighter, and possibly a few other martial classes, were all nerfed. Particularly their final level 20 ability. Which is why those classes pretty much have a terrible capstone that is basically worthless.
Now for those interested in what the Warlock and Sorcerer were like in the playtest? Lets go over the classes at the time.
The playtest packet was from 08/17/12, there was another one put out afterwards but it shared the 081212 Classes packet. Classes only went up to 5th level at the time, it was a playtest afterall. There was no Proficiency modifier. Classes had one or both of Weapon Attack and Magic Attack.
The Cleric for example started at +2 in both Weapon Attack and Magic Attack, and went up to uh +2 in both by 5th level. Their spell DC was 10+Wis Mod, so basically didn't scale as well. They started with 1 Channel Divinity per day, 2 a day at 4th level, they could use it to either heal a living being 1d8, 2d8 at 5th level, plus Wis mod hp or harm an undead for the same amount in holy damage. Evil clerics switched it around, harming living or healing undead. Casting was kind of similar to how it is now, except for preparing spells. The cleric prepared a number of spells equal to their spell slots, while also having their domain spells auto-prepared like now. They start with one Orison, basically cantrips now but they didn't scale, and gained another at 5th level, and 9th level despite the chart not going that high. An example Orison available to the Cleric is Radiant Lance it is 50' range make a magical attack and on a hit it does 1d8+4 radiant damage. Hmm radiant and holy as two separate damage types it looks like. The Cleric's Religion feature gives them training in one of a number of Lores, different skills. Being proficient in a skill gives you +3 to the roll and at every even level you can increase the bonus to one of your skills by +1 to a max of +7. The Cleric chooses a Domain at 1st level. Uh wow. So the two domains in the playtest for the Cleric are Sun and War. Sun gives you the Radiant Lance orison in addition to whatever other orisons you have, proficiency with light and medium armor, and resistance to radiant and fire damage. It adds a spell to each spell level as auto prepared, and at 2nd level you can use up a use of Channel Divinity to deal 1d8+Wis mod radiant damage in a 20ft radius sphere, Con save for half. War gains martial weapon proficiency and proficiency with all armor and shields, and when they use Channel Divinity they can make an attack as part of the same action. By the way the Cleric normally starts with no armor proficiencies, what they get they gain from their Domain. The classes at the time also gained a +1 to a stat, cleric gained +1 to Wisdom, Strength, or Constitution score.
Fighter was the next class, they got +1 to Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution score, and proficiency in all armor and all shields. They start with +3 Weapon Attack and go up to +4 at 4th level. They start with a 1d6 Expertise Dice which goes up to 1d8 at 3rd and 2d8 at 5th level. They could spend an expertise die to use a combat maneuver and at the start of each of their turns, this improved in later playtests then got spread around/nerfed, they regained all of their spent expertise dice. They start with Deadly Strike, aka roll your dice for extra damage, and Parry aka roll your dice to reduce damage, maneuvers and gained more depending on Fighting Style. At 1st level they pick a Fighting Style which gives them more maneuvers at certain levels. The Fighting Styles, like the Domains of the Cleric also have suggested gear for the character. In the playtest the Fighting Styles gave maneuvers at 1st, 3rd, and 5th level. Duelist gave Tumble, Jab and finally Shift. Protector gave Protect, Push and Knock Down. Sharpshooter gave Precise Shot, Snap Shot and Shift. Finally Slayer gave Glancing Blow, Cleave and Jab. If someone wants to know more about these manuevers let me know and I will go over them.
The Rogue gets +1 to their Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence score. Light armor, basic weapons, finesse weapons and simple and martial ranged weapons. They start with +2 Weapon Attack going up to +3 at 5th level. They start with 2d6 Sneak Attack at 1st level going up by 1d6 each level to 6d6 at 5th. They start at Skill Mastery 10 going up to Skill Mastery 11 at 5th. Skill Mastery has the Rogue use the higher of their Ability Modifier for the skill or +3, and uh wow . . . they start out with the 11th level Rogue feature from the final book, so they use the +3 or correct ability modifier whichever is higher and when they roll a skill they use either the roll of the die or 10, 11 at 5th level, whichever is higher. Sneak Attack starts higher than the final, and scales a lot faster, but requires Advantage instead of working when an ally is adjacent to the target. Rogues get a Scheme, like Clerics get Domain and Fighter gets Fighting Style. The Rogue's Scheme gives them a background, in addition to the background every character already gets. The two, in the playtest, Schemes also have class features at 1st, 2nd and 5th levels. Thief gets Thief Sneaking at 1st which lets them attempt to hide when lightly obscured and can also hide behind an object that can cover at least a quarter of their body. At 2nd Thief gets Night Vision which lets them treat darkness as shadows and shadows as normal light up to a radius of 30 feet after spending at least 1 minute in darkness or shadows. And 5th level Thief gets Hit and Run which lets them move up to half their speed as part of the same action as an attack in which they deal Sneak Attack, this movement doesn't provoke. The other scheme in the playtest was Thug. Thugs at 1st level have Thug Tactics which lets them deal Sneak Attack when a target is within reach of two or more creatures that are friendly to the Thug. Level 2 gives them City Savvy which means they cannot be surprised while they are able to take actions and level 5 is Cheap Shot which means that when they deal Sneak Attack damage to a creature that creature's speed drops to 0 until the end of the rogue's next turn. At level 2 all Rogue's gain Knack which lets them give themselves advantage on a check twice per day, increasing to 3x a day at 5th and 4x a day at 9th.
And finally the Wizard, the final core class and the last class before the two just added in classes Sorcerer and Warlock! +1 to their Intelligence or Constitution score. No armor, and a grand total of 4 specific weapons. Almost the inverse of Fighter. A Magic Attack bonus that starts at +3 and goes up to +4 at 4th level, except they are still given a +2 Weapon Attack bonus, which seems a bit unfair. The Wizard's DCs start at 11+Int mod and go up to 12+Int mod at 4th. All their class features come in at 1st level. They get more spells per day than the Cleric, getting 2 3rd level spells at 5th instead of the Cleric's 1. They start with a spellbook with 5 1st level spells, each level after they gain Int mod more spells. Still could find spells out in the wild. Both Cleric and Wizard do have Ritual access. Start with 3 minor spells, like the cleric orisons because back then they weren't all called cantrips. Magic Missile is a minor spell. Magic Missile choose a creature within 100ft and that creature takes 1d4+1 force damage. Arcane Knowledge is like the Cleric's Religion Knowledge and gives them a skill, again needs to be one of the skills listed as a Lore. They don't seem to have Schools yet, that will be added in a later playtest packet and the early School options do include a generalist build.
The Sorcerer gets +1 to Charisma or Constitution score. Like the cleric they get +2 to Weapon and Magic Attacks all through the first 5 levels. Spell DC is 10+Cha mod. Slower Max Spell level progression only getting 2nd level spells at 4th level. They have Willpower, starting at 3 at 1st level, 4 at 2nd, 8 at 3rd, 10 at 4th and 16 at 5th level. Basically the spell point variant in the DMG now, but things happen as they spend them. They start with knowing 2 spells and gain another each level. They know 2 minor spells from the Sorcerer list. Costs 1 Willpower to cast a 1st level spell and 2 to cast a 2nd level spell. Cannot cast spells while wearing armor, believe Wizard has this too, but the one and only Sorcerer origin changes this. At 1st level they choose a Sorcerous Origin each grants certain abilities at certain levels when you use Willpower to cast spells. The one in the playtest is Draconic Heritage. This gives them proficiency in all armor and shields as well as able to cast in armor, proficiency with martial melee weapons and increase the Weapon Attack rolls by 1. Can spend 1 WP to use Dragon Strength which gives them the next time they hit a hostile creature with a melee attack in the next minute they deal an extra 2d6 damage. Once they have spent 3 WP in a day they gain a +2 bonus to the damage rolls of melee attacks for the rest of the day. At 4th they can spend 2 WP to use Dragon Scales which is a reaction to taking damage and reduces the damage by 10, and grants you resistance to the damage type of your heritage until the end of your next turn. As well at 4th level after they have spent 10 WP in a day they manifest dragon scales that gives them resistance to the damage type associated with their dragon until the end of the day.
And finally the Warlock. In this playtest they used Int. +1 to their Intelligence, Dexterity, or Constitution score. Light armor, basic weapons, finesse weapons and simple ranged weapons. Weapon and Magic attack as well as Spell DC are all the same as Wizard. Know 3 Invocations at 1st level, 4 at 2nd and 5 at 4th. Eldritch Lore like the Wizard and Cleric abilities. Like Sorcerer they only get 2nd level spells at 4th. They cannot actually cast spells though, only rituals. There is one pact in the playtest, basically a named Fey. Verenestra Fey Pact, at 1st level a small wart appears on their face, and when speaking to a creature that can understand them they can spend one of their Patron's Favors, short rest recharge resources which they get two of and that power some of their Patron abilities and some of their Invocations, to get advantage on all Cha checks made to influence it for the next hour if its hit point maximum is lower than the Warlocks. At 3rd their irises turn a bright gold, and as a reaction can impose disadvantage on a melee attack made against them by a living creature. At 5th level spiderwebs of thin white scars appear on their neck and arms, and as an action can spend one of their Favors to teleport up to 30' to a location that they can see. In the playtest there were only two types of Invocations, Lesser which used Favors to power them and Minor which were at will. Baleful Utterance is a lesser that makes a 15' cone of sound that all creatures in it must make a Con save taking 2d6 thunder damage and deafened on a failed save, half damage and no deafness on a success. Increases to 2d8 at 3rd level. Eldritch Blast is one of two minor invocations. Make a magical attack against a creature within 50 feet of the warlock, on a hit the creature takes 3d6 force damage, and increases to 4d6 at 3rd level. This is basically the only at will magical attack in the playtest that actually scales.
I would go over more but I am running late for work.
A point of the public play test was to present concepts and work using feedback regarding those concepts. The warlock and sorcerer had an early release regardless of the level limit and plenty of time to acquire and make use of the feedback moving forward to the versions reintroduced in the closed play testing. The bard did not even see public play testing until the end, and it was also thrown back on the drawing board for a new model in the private testing. The difference was the concept really was a late introduction with less time to gather and use the feed back from the public testing.
I didn't read you're entire post because it just seems to show that there were differences from they play test to the release. Bards also had abilities nerfed and moved around from the public to the private testing, and more changes from the private testing to the released version. All bards had extra attacks and a better version of battle magic, for example, and seeds of chaos was a pretty good example of what not to give players. I noticed you mentioned the fighter capstone as nerfed but it's the same capstone from the public play test -- an extra attack at 20th level. Where fighters really got nerfed was in the indomitable and the removal of defy death from the class abilities.
None of those changes disagree with the design goals being communicated that had stated they wanted simple versions of classes. The warlock is just the simplified arcane caster we received when all was said and done.
Sorry for the Fighter capstone I actually meant the Battlemaster capstone, like the Monk it used to regain its resource per round. But now they both regain 1 if they have 0 when they roll initiative.
That said yeah Fighters got nerfed of Defy Death and Indomitable, not happy about those changes either. And the Battlemaster isn't the only archetype that got nerfed, the Champion used to have more/better features. Though at one time it was called the Warrior instead of Champion, got 18-20 crit range by 7th level, +1 ac at 10th, and by 15th it got special bonuses on crits. Though at the time Fighter only got 3 attacks and at 20th it auto killed anyone it hit that had 20 or fewer hit points.
Hmm the Bard arrived later than I thought, and I actually liked it quite a bit at the time, I was quite unhappy about the changes made between that packet and the final release. Though it looks like it used to only go up to 5th level spells so technically the changes are a "nerf" though I prefered that playtest packet version. Hmm Expertise was +5 instead of double proficiency, major bump early on but a slight decrease at highest level, but the Bard also got 4 picks for Expertise at 3rd level.
But the changes the Bard underwent between playtest and final release, or even the Fighter and Monk, is minimal compared to the massive changes between the old versions of the Warlock and Sorcerer and the current versions. Those two classes had basically no playtest, it was not long after they were removed that massive changes were made to the way things worked in the playtest, so shortly after they were removed they became incompatible with everything else. And for months, a year or more I believe, there was no sign of the Warlock or Sorcerer, except slight dribblings here and there that made it sound like they would work one way, and then the final release was a let down. The current version of the Warlock and Sorcerer did not receive a public playtest.
Then again many believe the public playtest was not actually used for feedback and mechanical testing and rather just for PR.
Also the Warlock is the simple version of a caster? That is like the exact opposite of what it is. It has way too many different casting mechanics for that to be true. Short Rest recharging slots, daily spells in the Arcanum, at will spells in cantrips, at will spells in some invocations, Daily Spells using a Short Rest recharging slot in some invocations, and Rituals. Possibly more I forgot.
That said yeah Fighters got nerfed of Defy Death and Indomitable, not happy about those changes either. And the Battlemaster isn't the only archetype that got nerfed, the Champion used to have more/better features. Though at one time it was called the Warrior instead of Champion, got 18-20 crit range by 7th level, +1 ac at 10th, and by 15th it got special bonuses on crits. Though at the time Fighter only got 3 attacks and at 20th it auto killed anyone it hit that had 20 or fewer hit points.
Hmm the Bard arrived later than I thought, and I actually liked it quite a bit at the time, I was quite unhappy about the changes made between that packet and the final release. Though it looks like it used to only go up to 5th level spells so technically the changes are a "nerf" though I prefered that playtest packet version. Hmm Expertise was +5 instead of double proficiency, major bump early on but a slight decrease at highest level, but the Bard also got 4 picks for Expertise at 3rd level.
But the changes the Bard underwent between playtest and final release, or even the Fighter and Monk, is minimal compared to the massive changes between the old versions of the Warlock and Sorcerer and the current versions. Those two classes had basically no playtest, it was not long after they were removed that massive changes were made to the way things worked in the playtest, so shortly after they were removed they became incompatible with everything else. And for months, a year or more I believe, there was no sign of the Warlock or Sorcerer, except slight dribblings here and there that made it sound like they would work one way, and then the final release was a let down. The current version of the Warlock and Sorcerer did not receive a public playtest.
Then again many believe the public playtest was not actually used for feedback and mechanical testing and rather just for PR.
Also the Warlock is the simple version of a caster? That is like the exact opposite of what it is. It has way too many different casting mechanics for that to be true. Short Rest recharging slots, daily spells in the Arcanum, at will spells in cantrips, at will spells in some invocations, Daily Spells using a Short Rest recharging slot in some invocations, and Rituals. Possibly more I forgot.
Flamestrike
Legend
Ive been playing a Fiend bladelock/ Fighter at the moment and its fine. Played as a fighter (GWM) with frequent use of Hex and Hellish Rebuke at low levels, mirror image starting from 'lock 3 and fireball from lock '5.
Ive rarely had to go more than 2-3 encounters before short resting, and have found that to be ample. It plays like a fighter (with a decent ranged option if needed via EB).
Went Vuman at 1st for GWM. Took a level of Fighter at 1st (defence style). Rocking around in heavy armor. Next 5 levels were all warlock. Took warcaster at 4th Warlock level (greenflame blade AoO and advantage on con saves with Warcaster, which I am proficient in thanks to fighter). At warlock 5 I took thirsting blade.
Tanks like a boss thanks to (temp HP on a kill).
After Fighter 1/ Warlock 5 I went back to fighter for 2 more levels for action surge (double fireballs for the win) and superiority dice (precise strike, tripping strike and riposte).
Its going to be warlock all the way from here on in. Looking forward to resistance vs (slashing/ bludgeouning or piercing) to tank even harder.
Its a damn effective gish.
Ive rarely had to go more than 2-3 encounters before short resting, and have found that to be ample. It plays like a fighter (with a decent ranged option if needed via EB).
Went Vuman at 1st for GWM. Took a level of Fighter at 1st (defence style). Rocking around in heavy armor. Next 5 levels were all warlock. Took warcaster at 4th Warlock level (greenflame blade AoO and advantage on con saves with Warcaster, which I am proficient in thanks to fighter). At warlock 5 I took thirsting blade.
Tanks like a boss thanks to (temp HP on a kill).
After Fighter 1/ Warlock 5 I went back to fighter for 2 more levels for action surge (double fireballs for the win) and superiority dice (precise strike, tripping strike and riposte).
Its going to be warlock all the way from here on in. Looking forward to resistance vs (slashing/ bludgeouning or piercing) to tank even harder.
Its a damn effective gish.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
This was why I pushed for 30 minute or so short rests during the play test. However...now that I've seen it in play, it seems to work out all right. I haven't felt the need to house rule it to 30 minutes. 30 minutes or less may have made short rests too common.
I don't want to play with that group. Sorry. The rules give you one long rest in a 24 hour period, which is obviously intended to represent your night's rest. I don't think I've ever seen 5e characters retreat for the day unless they were pretty spent with no way of recovering meaningly during a short rest.
Now, if you want to claim that the 6-8 encounters per day takes some work to pull off, you'll find no disagreement.
Are broken, yep. To play the way they are "advertised" you need heavy system mastery, multiclassing, possibly feats, and multiple dump stats. Or you can house rule them like I did (I basically let Thirsting Blade give them the equivalent of the Eldritch Knight's War Magic feature, but only with cantrips that require a melee weapon attack (ie, greenflame blade and booming blade). It borders on overpowering them, but it fixes the problem.)
Chainlock does have a problem with its familiar due to the action economy, same as the beastmaster, yes.
Personally I see level-dipping as almost always the wrong way to play the game, but that's stylistic preference. Yes, warlocks are broken for level-dipping persons.
However, as an overall class I think warlock is fine.
They are supposed to be using eldritch blast with Agonizing Blast, and really, they are supposed to be the only one who can do that. Multiclassing is what is broken in that case. The eldritch blast +AB combination is extremely potent. It gives them at-will damage about on par with rogues, and above everyone else except fighters and barbarians. (I'm not accounting for feats). And once they activate hex (which they can have going for just about every fight after a few levels) they are up there with fighters for damage.
So their at-will damage is better than 8 out of 12 of the classes in the game, and they can pump it up to the same ballpark as the best 2 classes for pretty much all the day.
That cannot be underestimated. Everything else a warlock gains has to take into account how crazy good their at-will (and almost at-will) damage output is compared to every other caster in the game.
Basically, their class really should only be giving them additional features commensurate with what they are losing in hit points, AC, and other features compared to a fighter and barbarian.
Apparently that includes access to 9th level spells, the possibility of a large number of at-will spells (cantrips plus non-cantrips), and some nifty abilities (like the Fiend pacts crazy good entry level temp hit point ability).
So it isn't that the warlock (as an overall class) is broken, it is that one specific type (Pact of the Blade) is broken, a general game design flaw involving pets negatively impacted the design of another type, and the multiclassing rules allow other classes to steal the warlock's best feature.
Most of the issues people have with warlock come down to expecting it to be something it wasn't intended to be, though some of that may be blamed on class presentation not being clear enough about how it is intended to actually be played from a mechanical standpoint.
CapnZapp
Legend
What makes you say that? Are you trying to use the familiar in combat?
How? Both as in "what does it do?" and "how does it survive?"
Our warlock has an Imp that's used to scout ahead, deliver messages and be, well, impish.
As a flying invisible superior darkvision scout it's almost without peer. And oh, it's unkillable too (in that it can be resummoned if it dies)
But in combat it generally is tucked safely inside it's master's vest.
While lots of people expect an animal companion to be present in combat that's not the case for familiars. And thus I don't see a direct comparison between the two as regards action economy - most often when the familiar acts, the master doesn't act, because she's not even there...
I can't speak for Sword of Spirit, but my chainlock frequently has her imp use the "Help" action to grant advantage for one attack (doesn't break invisibility) or to invisibly feed a potion to a downed comrade.
