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

[Chocolategravy]

That said, I don't really get why they're calling 1-4 "apprentice" when the obvious "you are not yet an adventurer" thing stops (for non-casters, anyway...) at level 3, when you select your archetype.

5 is when extra attack and 2nd die of damage for cantrips kicks in for non-multiclass characters and there is a huge discontinuity in the character power curve.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

5 is when extra attack and 2nd die of damage for cantrips kicks in for non-multiclass characters and there is a huge discontinuity in the character power curve.

Color me unimpressed. The acquisition of archetypes (for non-casters, anyway) is much more meaningful--on both fluff AND power levels, IMO--than getting a second attack.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My one gripe with the Warlock is the Blade-lock. They take a fair bit of system mastery to get them running as smoothly as effectively as your straight blast-lock (and that includes taking manatory feat taxes) and thats poor design.

You either need to start with a level of Fighter for the AC (the simple method), or realise that the the DPR disparity from the class is down to the class being designed to inflict its damage by actually allowing yourself to get hit (soaking it via temp HP with dark ones blessing + armor of agathys and then resistance via fiendish resilience, coupled with Hellish rebuke and Armor of Agathys damage in return when you do get hit).

Tangent: Does armor of agathys actually work very well? The amount of hit points it gives you are going to disappear fast if you are using it (ie, getting hit), and you can't benefit from any other temporary hit point sources while using it--so forget about dark one's blessing. Plus, it takes an action to cast it (not a bonus action) so you can't just re-cast it in combat easily. With the amount of hp it gives you, it will probably only last for 1-3 hits (and 3 is pushing it). It looks weak to me, but I might be missing something.

I completely agree that the blade-lock was screwed up. You literally are just better off using Agonizing Blast and hex unless you are highly optimized--generally requiring multiclassing and/or feats and taking multiple dump stats, *or* you are moderately optimized and your DM hands you a really, really, ridiculously powered weapon (like a +3 vorpal flametongue greatsword). You just can't make it work normally unless you don't mind feeling like you brought a kitchen knife to a lasergun fight.

 

[Herobizkit]

I'll just leave it at this: You shouldn't have to make sacrifices for fluff. Everything should be fluffy, and everything should be empowered. There is no such thing as "when everyone is special, no one is special," because such a statement is inherently self-contradictory. (It only works by exploiting different senses of "special.") Fluff should be mandatory for every class, even if people choose not to do anything with it. Ability to affect the game world should be mandatory for every class, even if people choose not to do anything with it. If the designers expect all characters to be involved in combat, that too should be a mandatory skillset even if people do not decide to use it.

You're not wrong. And I do retract and apologize for using the specific "you" instead of generic "player" when describing who is/n't a RP-er; I didn't intend to single you out specifically.

After I re-read our initial posts, it occurred to me that the 4e Seeker was a flavorful but inherently flawed "build" when compared to other Controllers (Essentials AND otherwise). It seemed that one might have had to Hybrid with Ranger just to make it semi-"viable"... but 4e was also a different beast than 5e.

I feel that 5e is trying to turn away from "leet powerz" and focus more on the story-telling aspects of D&D. I guess if a person is always trying to compare their class with other classes, one will be 'better' than another. To me, 'different' is not the same as 'better'. I do agree that Warlocks appear to be lumped in with other caster classes, but practically every class has at least some spell-casting or spell-equivalent abilities.

The Warlock is a hard class to describe to new players. Truly, it's a tough balance. But if one were to line up the Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock spells-per-level charts side by side, one would see that the Warlock is the only one without full casting progression. One might assume, then, that spell-casting is not the Warlock's focus; they're dabblers, and the fluff supports this as "borrowing" power from their Patrons. Some of that power is "locked in" via Invocations, some is standard spell-casting, and some comes with their Pact... so, in a sense, a Warlock is a pre-fab 'caster' with an assortment of tricks, tricks that require some system know-how to properly judge their efficiency.

Also, assuming your game does not allow Feats, every character's base combat ability improves at the same rate, Proficiency + Str/Dex. I don't understand why people are upset that Hexblades don't do "as much damage" as... what, warriors?... with their weapon. You get to materialize any weapon you choose and it counts as magic. That's pretty awesome. Why is that not enough?

 

[famousringo]

Tangent: Does armor of agathys actually work very well? The amount of hit points it gives you are going to disappear fast if you are using it (ie, getting hit), and you can't benefit from any other temporary hit point sources while using it--so forget about dark one's blessing. Plus, it takes an action to cast it (not a bonus action) so you can't just re-cast it in combat easily. With the amount of hp it gives you, it will probably only last for 1-3 hits (and 3 is pushing it). It looks weak to me, but I might be missing something.

It lasts for an hour and takes no concentration, so it's one of the few defense spells suitable to be pre-loaded.

And it's very reliable. Something like Mage armor can be bypassed by a high attack roll, Stoneskin can be bypassed by elemental damage, temp hit points will soak anything that isn't save or suck, and even help stave off a Power Word spell.

The damage is reliable, too. 1-3 hits at 5th level means 25-75 cold damage, no damage roll, no saving throw, though it can be bypassed with ranged attacks. 3 hits of damage would be on par with a Disintegrate spell.

Fair point about the conflict for Fiendlocks. Still leaves two subclasses who can put it to good use.

 

[Coredump]

When I got Darkness and the Devil's Sight invocation for my Tiefling Blade Pact Warlock, I started using the Blink spell.!

I like the addition of Blink.... but how did you get access to that spell? Its not on the Warlock list

 

[pemerton]

How well does the description of the class communicate that you shouldn't be casting spells most of the time? Does it say or imply that Warlocks should be using magic in the same way Wizards and Sorcerers do? Because if it doesn't communicate that Warlock spells are extremely precious and only appropriate for special circumstances, then the writeup is to blame.

<snip>

I think it is a serious failure on the part of the authors to create a class, that diverges heavily from the way others of its kind work, and do diddly-squat to communicate the change in expectations. I hated this BS obscurantism in 3e, and I still hate it now.

There is a tradition in RPG design - and D&D is just one exemplar - of simply presenting the rules, plus some ingame-oriented flavour text, and leaving all the metagame stuff (eg "How am I meant to play this character", "What is the default experience at the table going to be?", etc) as an exercise for the reader/player.

4e was relatively upfront about this by comparison (class role labels are one part of this, but not all of it), but got hammered for it.

Indie games like Burning Wheel are more upfront, but I've seen a lot of people object to the didactic tone of those rulebooks: they don't like being told how to play [-]guitar[/-] their RPG.

 

[Mephista]

My point was that I think it was and is completely okay that there are multiple ways to get to what everyone wants. If someone feels like their particular "ultimate" warlock requires some bard or sorcerer levels to get the flavor, abilities, *and* power that they think it needs... then that's great! Nothing wrong with that!

But at the same time... while this particular person felt taking bard or sorcerer levels were necessary... another person might feel that the stuff you get when going straight Warlock 20 is also all that is needed to get their own "ultimate" warlock. Multiclassing is not necessary for this person.

I'd agree with you... if it wasn't for the fact that the mechanics for a pure Blade/Chain warlock are sub-standard and, frankly, confusing and unclear. Unarmed defense for the monk and barbarian grow as those two invest in their main stats. Sorcerer and Wizard have Shield to augment their defenses. Warlocks have mage armor, but nothing to augment their defense except some THP stuff. Except that THP isn't as helpful as a Shield when you have to worry about Concentration, which is a major part of the class due to Hex, expecially if you're playing a hexblade....

And then we talk about a Chain warlock who supposedly is the "summoning / binding" path for the warlock, which doesn't do either better than a book warlock, who's superior familiar actually is worthless in battle when that's supposed to be a feature, much like the Beastmaster Ranger...

When the pure (sub-)class fails in its intent, then yes, we can say that its not okay.

 

[houser2112]

5 is when extra attack and 2nd die of damage for cantrips kicks in for non-multiclass characters and there is a huge discontinuity in the character power curve.

Extra Attack, yes. 2nd damage die for cantrips... I thought it was established that was based on character level, not class level, since the spell descriptions don't explicitly say class level.

temp hit points will soak anything that isn't save or suck, and even help stave off a Power Word spell.

Is that actually true? I think that if temp hit points were considered real hit points for the purposes of a PW spell taking effect, the spell descriptions would say so.

 

[Mephista]

Tangent: Does armor of agathys actually work very well? The amount of hit points it gives you are going to disappear fast if you are using it (ie, getting hit), and you can't benefit from any other temporary hit point sources while using it--so forget about dark one's blessing. Plus, it takes an action to cast it (not a bonus action) so you can't just re-cast it in combat easily. With the amount of hp it gives you, it will probably only last for 1-3 hits (and 3 is pushing it). It looks weak to me, but I might be missing something.

Part of it is psychological; the effects of attacking and taking damage is something I see most GMs take into account. Its not meta-gaming, because I'm under the impression that the armor of ice and aura of cold is tangible. Another part of it is the combination of the extra THP at the start of a battle. Its definitely a good spell for some tactics.

Its definitely not enough to be a game changer on its own, but it is definitely worth taking and using.

I completely agree that the blade-lock was screwed up. You literally are just better off using Agonizing Blast and hex unless you are highly optimized--generally requiring multiclassing and/or feats and taking multiple dump stats, *or* you are moderately optimized and your DM hands you a really, really, ridiculously powered weapon (like a +3 vorpal flametongue greatsword). You just can't make it work normally unless you don't mind feeling like you brought a kitchen knife to a lasergun fight.

Another part of the hexblade issue is that it seems to be a DEX-based fighting class, as implied by the only-light-and-mage-armor. I'm assuming that this is to avoid overlap with the Oathbreaker and Vengence Paladins, who actually seem to fight in a similar method, but with heavy armor and weapons, but that's immaterial. Another issue is that we don't have support for going shield or TWFing (too many spells require material and somatic components as well), so we're basically looking at a DEX-sword-and-rod duelist build by default.

And the feat support for duelist is terrible. The best DEX options either have class support for them, or are archers. None of which helps the blade pact warlock.