D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook reveal: "New Warlock"

"The character builder's paradise".

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We last saw the Warlock in Playtest 7, with a lot of features from 2014 restored from the previous version. Still, a lot of questions (for me) remain: here's my list from before the video ran:

Spoiler

• Will the three pacts still be invocations, and will it be possible to get all of them by level 2? (I hope not). Yes.
• If they are invocations, will people still believe they are getting more invocations than thry had in 2014? Yes.
• What will the Pact of the Chain special creature options be? (We've seen the Sphinx of Wonder previewed already.) Is there still going to be a (M-sized) skeleton option? YES!
• Will Pact of the Tome still have the lame rewritten Ritual Caster rules, of only two 1st level rituals, and never any more? (I hope not). No answer, but I doubt it's been changed.
• Is it conceivable that anyone would not take Pact of the Blade as one of their Invocations? (Doubt it.) No answer. They did not talk about whether later invocations will give Extra attack, or other concerns here.
• Will anyone be able to take Eldritch Blast? "Warlock Specific"

(Happily, many of these questions were indeed answered in the video!).
I think warlock really benefits from having the subclasses come at level 3: you can "dabble" in the occult without selling your soul until level 3 (though admittedly, the wording of the fluff text does not require you to sell your soul).

OVERVIEW

• Invocations at 1, Magical Cunning at 2 (as in PT7)
• Crawford claims we will get more eldritch invocations. Assuming the table's as in PT7, this is a bit of a fudge: there's one for a pact at level 5 (no gain) and one extra, at level 5, and for most it will go, I feel, to another pact). Yes there's more flexibility.
• Main choices are Pact Boons. "This is a big deal" -- "it is a juicy choice" they say, and Crawford makes it clear you can get them all "over time". "Over time", though, is by level 2. To me this is too much too early.
• NEW: all pact boons at level 1 now.
• NEW: "More Spooky critter options" for Pact of the Chain, speaking to Patron types. Complete list: Slaad tadpole. Skeleton, Imp, Pseudodragon, Quasit, Sprite (Fey), Sphinx of Wonder (Celestial), Venomous Snake. All will be in the PHB.
• Spellcasting has been enhanced: more invocations work with warlock spells. Now they don't just affect Eldritch Blast (which is warlock-specific -- not clear how that's mechanized, though). You can have Ray of Frost with Repelling Blast.
• NEW: Lessons of the First Ones only lets you take an Origin Feat.
• Contact Patron at 9, Mystic Arcanum at 11+, expanded spell list (though not as big as sorcerer).
• All subclasses get an expanded spell list.

SUBCLASSES

ARCHFEY - "a teleportation fantasia"

• Gameplay was not living up to the flavour. Going "all-in" on Teleportation.
• Additional effects occur whenever you cast the spell, not just the free casting from Steps of the Fey. (Refreshing step and Taunting Step confirmed, as in PT7 apparently).
• Beguiling Defenses, causing psychic damage
• Bewitching magic at 14 as in PT7 -- "ridiculous in all the best ways".

CELESTIAL

• NEW: from expanded class spell list. Summon Celestial on spell list.
• NEW: Guiding Bolt, Cure wounds and Aid (Aid was not on PT7 list) on subclass list
• You can be "a hired hitman from the gods"
• NEW: Searing Radiance at 14 now can apply to an ally.

FIEND

• Magical weapons no longer pass your damage resitance (in reference to Fiendish Resilience at 10?)
• "tankiness" seen in BG3 is also here: Dark One's Blessing seems completely rewritten, as it was described in the Design Note of the PT7.

GREAT OLD ONE

• NEW: Summon Aberration might be a version of the Mind Flayer (an option in the Summon Abberation spell)
• when you do damage, you can do psychic.
• Psychic Spells for enchantment/illusion without Verbal/Somatic (but you still need Material); damage may be Psychic. Clairvoyant Combatant can be a battle of wills (focusing damage to one target -- a nod to AD&D psionic battles). Eldritch Hex also as in PT7.

 

[Yaarel]

Well, at least the way I prefer things...what you just described is the technical definition of "a deity." Some existentially-fundamental cosmic force, a principle that the universe and survival depends upon, which is sapient and capable of response. Living concepts, ideas with power and agency of their own.

A "deity" is a person. Specifically, a master in a master-slave hierarchy. Historically, to "worship" is, literally, to bow down to a master.

Divinity can be abstract, but then you get into the iconoclastic aspects of transcendent mysticism.

By contrast, a "cosmic force" can be mathematics, yang-yin-dao, the power of love, quantum energy of light, competition, etcetera, strictly impersonal.

Shamanism in the animistic sense, has a community be the cosmic force, and the goal of the shaman is to negotiate and facilitate peace and wellbeing among the members of the community, including nonhuman members.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Specifically, a master in a master-slave hierarchy.

If this is how you view the divine, we have nothing further to say to one another.

 

[Yaarel]

If this is how you view the divine, we have nothing further to say to one another.

I dont think that is how it should be. It is how many theistic cultures view the divine.

It is strictly hierarchical in most theistic traditions.

For example, the words that translate into English as "worship" (Hebrew histakhav, Greek proskuneo), literally mean to "bow down", on ones knees with forehead touching the ground. Islam often continues this tradition of bowing down. The posture comes from slaves bow down to masters, and victims of war submitting to conquerors.

Theism is utterly hierarchical.

D&D tends to push this hierarchical relationship for the "Divine" power source, especially pushing the term "worship", despite there are other ways of being religious − and even other ways of being theistic.

 

[Scribe]

Not all religions are about "faith in Jesus". This focus on "faith" and on a "person", is an especially ethnocentric approach to religion. The Cleric class needs to be about something more inclusive.

Nah. These problems only exist because people wanted to dump the part fantasy should lean into.

Gods being real.

 

[Distracted DM]

I can assure you, it is not. Not relative to other WotC D&D. It is practically devoid of customizability...unless you're specifically a spellcaster, and generally a full spellcaster at that (Bard, Wizard, Cleric, Druid.)

Yeah that's my bad, I've been running A5E for a couple years now so I forgot that 5e without any of the optional rules (feats, multiclassing) can be as lacking in customization as 2e. With feats and multiclassing it's far from bereft of customization, though. And frankly ... "customization" is what you make of it.
I did say that everything post-2e was pretty customizable- that includes 3.Xe

 

[Distracted DM]

I understand this is frustrating for some people, but for me the answer simply cannot be, "your PC can't die unless the Player is cool with it".

I hope I didn't suggest that characters should be unkillable unless permission is granted to do so?
But I understand that other people do play that way, saying "there are worse things that can happen to your character than death." Sure, there are other things that could happen, but I personally wouldn't take death off the table.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah that's my bad, I've been running A5E for a couple years now so I forgot that 5e without any of the optional rules (feats, multiclassing) can be as lacking in customization as 2e. With feats and multiclassing it's far from bereft of customization, though. And frankly ... "customization" is what you make of it.
I did say that everything post-2e was pretty customizable- that includes 3.Xe

The two main problems with your comparison to 3.x are:

1. 3.X had dozens of classes, hundreds of PrCs and ACFs and substitution levels, thousands of feats and spells, etc. 5e has thirteen classes and something like 105 feats--being generous. That degree of disparity is...well, literally orders of magnitude. Even when you factor in 5e's subclasses (which are pretty shallow things, unfortunately), it just isn't anywhere near enough.
2. The culture of play for 3.X was much, much more open to homebrew and 3PP than the culture of play for 5e has ever been. Use of 3PP was pretty common, albeit not quite universal. These days, 3PP is greeted with a huge amount of hostility from many, many DMs. I've no idea if it's universal or not, but it's so widespread in my experience, there's little reason to even ask for 3PP content--I've been lucky to get a polite but firm "no."

Compared to (non-S&P) 2e, sure, 5e is more customization-rich. But that's like saying the Dead Sea is wetter than Death Valley. It is true! But it's "water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I hope I didn't suggest that characters should be unkillable unless permission is granted to do so?
But I understand that other people do play that way, saying "there are worse things that can happen to your character than death." Sure, there are other things that could happen, but I personally wouldn't take death off the table.

As I have said many times elsewhere, I have taken--and these three words are all extremely important--random, permanent, irrevocable death off the table. If it's any one of non-random, non-permanent, or non-irrevocable, then it's presumptively fine. It's only when the death is all three that I have a problem.

"Random," here, means stuff like an enemy getting a lucky crit, a perfectly smart plan going haywire because the dice just HATE the players today, etc. If the player is playing sincerely (not trying to game the system...nor trying to game me), genuinely putting in their all, and the death happens because of a stupid fluke or a dumb rules interaction or the like, then we'll do something about it (usually by breaking one of the other two elements.) A player who intentionally does pointlessly foolish, self-destructive things--who ignores my usually pretty generous warnings about their foolhardy choices--has ensured that their death is not random; they've earned that death, fair and square.

"Permanent" means that the character is dead and staying that way. Easier to define in the negative: a non-permanent death is going to go away on its own, though it might take time to do so. This could be a "fight your way out of Hell" situation, it could be "an ally is helping you, but the help isn't immediate," it could be a mysterious force keeps your soul stuck to your dead body and now the party needs to figure out why the hell their friend, who SHOULD by all rights be dead...somehow isn't. Etc. This is where most stories where I as DM provide the "get out of death" hook, rather than working from stuff the players are bringing.

"Irrevocable" means that the character cannot be restored. Spells like revivify and raise dead revoke death, but aren't guaranteed to be on the table. Hence, whether a death is revocable is distinct from whether it is permanent. In simple terms, permanence is something that the PCs have no influence over; whether it is revocable, the players do have some influence over (but, often, not total control.) To use a literary reference, Roy's death in Order of the Stick was (from a player's perspective) debatably random, permanent, but quite revocable--it just took the party a long time to get the resurrection done. This is a much more player-driven end of things, e.g. seeking out a priest who can raise or finding the ingredients to do it themselves.

I find truly random AND permanent AND irrevocable death quite boring. I don't think it adds much of anything to the play experience, but I do find that it takes away a LOT of things from that experience. I know this isn't a feeling universally held, but it is mine. The fact that I don't include random AND permanent AND irrevocable death as a consequence in my games does not mean they have no stakes. It means the stakes they have are along other, usually much more personal and emotional/investment-based, axes than character death typically is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Depending on the specific shamanic tradition, the Bard class is often the best representation of it.


5e needs to think more carefully about godless Clerics − because what is a Cleric per se?

The Cleric should thematically relate to the Astral plane, a realm of thought and paradigms. And should relate to a specific community. The Cleric transmits the ideology of the community to future generations. Xanathars is on the right track with a "cosmic force", some existentially fundamental principle the universe and survival depend on.

Does it though? Need to to think about these things? What happens if they don't?

 

[Yaarel]

Does it though? Need to to think about these things? What happens if they don't?

Spells and so on would relate to the Astral Plane and Astral themes. Celestial would relate Astral as well as Positivity.

Some kind of mechanical benefits from doing community functions.