doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Imagine the Warlock with something like Hex as a class feature.
Now bring back the old playtest idea of transforming into the type of creature associated with your pact, like an archfey gaining cat eyes or hag warts, a fiend gaining horns, etc, but instead you have an altered state that is balanced on being pretty much constantly available, but you have to do specific things for it. (Like how Sneak Attack is balanced on getting it every turn but you have to use tactics to get it)
So when you Curse a creature, you also take on some aspect of your Patron. Archfey gains at-will Misty Step, Fiend gains extra fire or necrotic damage on all spells, GOO gains a charm aura, etc. You can regain a use of the Curse and the Transformation by your cursed target dying, or by a means determined by your subclass.
Or maybe the curse is at-will and the transformation is separate and 1/LR with the extra recharge thing.
The Curse would have extra things in Invocations and in subclasses, beyond the recharging the Transformation upon dropping a cursed target. Stuff like being able to deal damage to the target if it fails an ability check, or being able to reduce any roll it makes by a number equal to your curse die as a reaction, etc.
And then just ditch spell slots completely? Keep spells known, and ritual casting, and Invocations that let you cast a spell, but you just don’t have spell slots. Most of your core stuff is either at-will or short rest based, with few exceptions. A semi-at-will Warlock.
Now bring back the old playtest idea of transforming into the type of creature associated with your pact, like an archfey gaining cat eyes or hag warts, a fiend gaining horns, etc, but instead you have an altered state that is balanced on being pretty much constantly available, but you have to do specific things for it. (Like how Sneak Attack is balanced on getting it every turn but you have to use tactics to get it)
So when you Curse a creature, you also take on some aspect of your Patron. Archfey gains at-will Misty Step, Fiend gains extra fire or necrotic damage on all spells, GOO gains a charm aura, etc. You can regain a use of the Curse and the Transformation by your cursed target dying, or by a means determined by your subclass.
Or maybe the curse is at-will and the transformation is separate and 1/LR with the extra recharge thing.
The Curse would have extra things in Invocations and in subclasses, beyond the recharging the Transformation upon dropping a cursed target. Stuff like being able to deal damage to the target if it fails an ability check, or being able to reduce any roll it makes by a number equal to your curse die as a reaction, etc.
And then just ditch spell slots completely? Keep spells known, and ritual casting, and Invocations that let you cast a spell, but you just don’t have spell slots. Most of your core stuff is either at-will or short rest based, with few exceptions. A semi-at-will Warlock.
