D&D (2024) The new warlock (Packet 7)

[Scribe]

Everyone has their pet explanation for the difference. Mine is that the relationship is basically reversed. A cleric devotes themself to a god with no expectation of reward, and the god grants favor in return for that piety anyway. A patron offers favor to a warlock with the expectation of service in return, which the Warlock must oblige if they wish to continue receiving that favor, though in many cases they do so unwittingly.

Thats a great one. Especially if Gods literally live or die based on worship, while Patrons are a power unto themselves and dont 'need' worship in the same way.

 

[Charlaquin]

I like that.

Should evil gods have mostly Warlocks?

Hmm… I guess it kind of depends. In a very black-and-white setting where there are evil people who do evil things because they’re evil, I think a cleric to an evil god makes plenty of sense. A card-carrying moustache-twirling villain may well find themselves ideologically aligned with an evil god and devote themselves to them. In a more nuanced setting, I don’t think the idea of “evil gods” really makes sense. But, evil counterparts to good gods like archdevils and the like? Yeah, I don’t imagine people intentionally becoming their clerics.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Setting aside the broader issues re: the invocations, I don't think the lack of ritual casting is really a problem anymore.

Check the Ritual Casting section of the Playtest 7 glossary - page 52, I think. As long as you have the spell prepared and it has the Ritual tag, you can cast it as a ritual and no longer need a special feature to do so. Still eats up a slot on your "Prepared" list, but you don't need to burn an actual Spell Slot to cast it provided you have the time.

The Wizard ritual casting trait and Pact of the Tome basically just specify that you can also ritually cast the spells in your book as though they were actively on your "Prepared" list too. They give you a broader array of ritual spell options than just what you keep on your "Prepared" list, but aren't strictly required simply to cast ritual spells at all anymore.

I'll doublecheck. I hope that's the case. If so I retract my concerns about the lack of ritual casting. Now here's hoping it actually makes it to print if so.

Oh I definitely agree. We'll see how my fellow grogs feel when the actual survey comes out - as it's a minor change, in theory (level 2 to level 1), I suspect most of them will think it's absolutely fine, unfortunately, and it'll pass.

Pretty much.

insert starship troopers theme here

I'll be doing my part!

:chocola
Or you know, getting rid of classes.

Now now. We can't have that type of heresy speak around here, even if it is objectively the correct take!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Everyone has their pet explanation for the difference. Mine is that the relationship is basically reversed. A cleric devotes themself to a god with no expectation of reward, and the god grants favor in return for that piety anyway. A patron offers favor to a warlock with the expectation of service in return, which the Warlock must oblige if they wish to continue receiving that favor, though in many cases they do so unwittingly.

To me a fundamental difference is that the power granted to every single warlock is different; pact boon, spells, and invocations may have almost no overlap between two warlocks with the same patron. The power granted to every single cleric is shared with every cleric of that domain and two clerics of the same level and domain have identical class based abilities and prepare every morning from the same list.

It is therefore a far closer and more personal relationship a warlock has with their patron while it's entirely possible that a distracted god is unaware of the existence of a seventh level cleric of theirs; clerics are invested by the church while warlocks by their patron directly. The god empowers the rites but doesn't need to actively track them as that's part of the point of the church while the god is the CEO and owner.

 

[Stalker0]

It is therefore a far closer and more personal relationship a warlock has with their patron while it's entirely possible that a distracted god is unaware of the existence of a seventh level cleric of theirs; clerics are invested by the church while warlocks by their patron directly. The god empowers the rites but doesn't need to actively track them as that's part of the point of the church while the god is the CEO and owner.

And that's fine and all, but still doesn't explain why channeling the energy of divine guy X takes wisdom, but divine guy Y takes charisma.

At the end of the day both of them are empowering a mortal with divine juice, and the mortal uses it. And if the argument is "well with higher charisma you can bargain for more divine juice". Than I would argue, "why does wisdom affect clerics at all, if the gods just send down X amount of juice, than your DCs shouldn't matter based on stat", its not like wisdom is getting you a closer connection to the god based on the idea of "god as CEO", they are all distant regardless.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And that's fine and all, but still doesn't explain why channeling the energy of divine guy X takes wisdom, but divine guy Y takes charisma.

The Charisma class is about personal connection, wisdom about a much more impersonal source/connection that you need to balance and you shouldn't drink too deeply from?

 

[Cadence]

And that's fine and all, but still doesn't explain why channeling the energy of divine guy X takes wisdom, but divine guy Y takes charisma.

I think the clear answer to that is tradition. It used to make sense...

... and then WIS and CHR changed over time to what they are in 5e, but the Cleric was locked in by the force of time.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the clear answer to that is tradition. It used to make sense...

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... and then WIS and CHR changed over time to what they are in 5e, but the Cleric was locked in by the force of time.

It actually happened first with the paladin. In 3.5 paladins used wisdom for their spells, again because that was the "stat for channeling divine power". Then in 4e paladins got to use charisma for their abilities, and now they are charisma casters as well.

 

[Cadence]

It actually happened first with the paladin. In 3.5 paladins used wisdom for their spells, again because that was the "stat for channeling divine power". Then in 4e paladins got to use charisma for their abilities, and now they are charisma casters as well.

Fair. At least paladins had the historical momentum of Charisma being important for them (needing that 17 CHR in 1e) to smooth it over.

 

[Kurotowa]

Fair. At least paladins had the historical momentum of Charisma being important for them (needing that 17 CHR in 1e) to smooth it over.

In 2e as well. And looking at 3.5e there was a mix of Wis and Cha dependencies. Spells worked on Wis, but Smite Evil and Lay on Hands and Turn Undead all keyed off Cha. So it wouldn't be groundless to say that Paladins have always been a Cha secondary class, and calling on Wis for spells in 3e was the aberration that got stamped out.

And I did check, in 2e Paladin spells specifically didn't benefit from Wis, even though they were casting off the Priest spell list.