D&D 5E Adapting the Warlock Chassis for other Classes

[mamba]

Treantmonk simply declared "well, you aren't losing any of the ones you NEED, so it's not a problem." It was a problem. And that's why P7 changed it

as I said, it was not about balance in the first place, but about the half-caster, long rest chassis.

If they also end up slightly weaker than current casters I do not have a problem with that, but it was not the reason why I liked it better

 

[Aldarc]

I would not mind using the Warlock chassis for the Psion. Short-rest casting seems on par with exerting yourself while using mental powers, mostly relying on at-will powers. Plus rename Invocations to "Talents" and you have yourself some fun at-will psionic abilities of your choice.

 

[Undrave]

Translating this chassis into a different sort of class suggests the following to me:
Patron becomes high level archetype or subclass information, telling you which suites of abilities you have access to throughout character generation and development.
Pact represents a style focus, ensuring the character looks and feels a certain way.
Spells are the working tools of the chassis, and can represent anything from fighting maneuvers to manifestations of rage or arcane lore. Design in this manner would probably look a lot like 4E power design.
Invocations are really just talent tree abilities that work kind of like feats and kind of like class abilities.

So, from your OP, I am reading it along these lines (please correct me if I am misunderstanding):

Fighter in the Warlock chassis

• Archetype ("Patron") would currently follow the subclasses, such as Champion, EK, or Samurai, etc.
• Aspect ("Pact") might be your focus and work with Fighting Styles? Sword/board, Tank, TWF, etc.
• Knacks ("Cantrips") are simple at-will abilities you can utilize based on your Archetype.
• Maneuvers (?) ("Spells Known") are expendable, rechargable abilities also based on Archtype.
• Talents ("Invocations") would be commonly available abilities indpendent of Archetype with possible prerequisites of levels or certain knacks (which would probably overlap a bit between Aechetype).

For the Fighter the way I'd see it is the Patron would be a Martial School, a philosophical tradition, preferably with a flavourful name like "Blazing Phoenix of the West" or "Platinum Guardian of the Unbreakable Rampart".

The Pact would probably be the fighting style in a broad sense.

One of the Cantrips would be what we currently have as Fighting Styles, passive bonus to your weapon attacks. The other could be a skill-based utility ability, like a form of expertise or something else ("When you roll for Intimidate, and your dice roll is lower than your STR modifier, you can roll again and take either result").

Spells being replaced by maneuver could work, though I was also considering having a Stamina resource and putting Second Wind and Action Surge on that same stamina reserve so people could just build a basic 5e Fighter from the same framework but I think those two would work better as the equivalent of Invocations.

For the Arcanum I'd go with 'Forbidden Techniques' where using them has a huge cost in hit die and missing with them causes you to lose huge chunk of HP on top of that.

 

[deadman1204]

Happy to contribute, but first I have to ask:

Why do you feel the warlock chassis is the best overall class structure?

I feel that the warlock is the best chasis because its the only class that has ANY choices. 5th ed is designed to railroad you into everything from level 1. Choice is scary and think of all the illiterate new people who cannot be bothered to read any of the material?! Best not to design a game for those who actually play it.
After you choose your class, the only decisions left to make are each ASL - which is usually not a real decision, as there is often one choice which is significantly stronger than others.

Warlocks are so liked because they are a mediocum of character choice in 5th ed.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The folks who support everyone getting their power fantasy should really speak up, then. Because I don't hear their voices. Like...ever. I hear the people crapping on non-caster power fantasies, while demanding caster power fantasies, on the regular.

We are usually in the same threads, dude.

 

[DarkCrisis]

So yeah as others have mentioned, that's just 4E.

 

[Reynard]

So yeah as others have mentioned, that's just 4E.

Don't you mean late 3.5? Pretty much all the innovations of 4E came from the weird era of experimental 3.5.

Of course, the same can be said for 3E and the Skills and Powers era of 2E.

It is almost as if design is a continuous process that has a sort of selective evolution all its own.

 

[TwoSix]

So yeah as others have mentioned, that's just 4E.

Maybe Essentials, but not original flavor 4e. Invocations are too flexible. You could use them to buff your at-wills (cantrips), add new at-wills, or gain new encounter (pact magic) powers, or give yourself some dailies.

No hard AEDU structure means not like original 4e. Sure, it's closer to some of the 4e Essential designs, but 4e and 5e are pretty much first cousins in their design DNA anyway.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So yeah as others have mentioned, that's just 4E.

4e of what?

Because it's certainly not 4e D&D.

The classes don't get adders to their at-wills. Encounter powers don't autoscale to full. The warlock doesn't get dailies or utilities.

What about this is in any way like 4e D&D aside from 'your base at-will is good' and 'you have an encounter power'?

 

[DarkCrisis]

What about this is in any way like 4e D&D aside from 'your base at-will is good' and 'you have an encounter power'?

Isn't that enough?