D&D 5E Balancing Warlocks on a 1-2 combat per day workload.

[ph0rk]

Early on, you still have to shepherd your resources (only getting 6 spells per day.) At high levels, you have a solid baseline, possibly even a slight buff to damage, which is honestly fine, Warlock could use the boost. Since you can't use this feature and cast a regular spell in the same round, at high level you would need to be burning through several spells every round to be able to use up all 6 uses of this feature in just 2 combats.

I'd limit that by "take the attack action" too, to avoid a blade warlock smiting every round.

 

[TwoSix]

Just have them recharge one spell slot every 10 minutes, no rest required. That way they aren't using more than 2-3 spells per any particular encounter, but there's always ready to go for any particular encounter without the complication of planning a short rest.

 

[TwoSix]

Maybe. So long as they're not doing the 10+ round combats one poster was suggesting!

I'm always amazed at the wonderful variability of how different tables play. Like, how must your encounters be set up that they often hit 10 rounds? I've only hit that in strange "hide-and-seek" type encounters where invisible and stealthy enemies played a major role.

 

[Mistwell]

I would think a Warlock would do great in a 1 to 2 combat encounters per day workload as written?

 

[NotAYakk]

I would just shift to gritty rests (1 week long rest, overnight short) and adjust encounter difficulty to match.

A day's adventure then becomes 2-4 CR 2-4 monsters. And a plot chain is 6-12 CR 2-6 encounters, after which the PCs get downtime.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'd limit that by "take the attack action" too, to avoid a blade warlock smiting every round.

Ah, good point, I forgot about Eldritch Smite. Probably just modify it to, "If you have not expended a spell slot this round (whether by casting a spell other than a cantrip or using another feature, such as Eldritch Smite, which expends spell slots) nor used any of your Mystic Arcana, you may instead use Arcane Suffusion as a bonus action. You may not expend a spell slot nor use any Mystic Arcana for the remainder of the round in which you use Arcane Suffusion as a bonus action." (Calling it "Arcane Suffusion" to give it a name so I'm not circumlocuting every time.)

That way it also covers Paladin/Warlock and Sorcerer/Warlock combos, and forbids the big fat spells as well as the baseline ones.

Also, to be clear (though I think this was understood), this action would entirely replace the short-rest dependency. No getting these spells and getting short rest spells!

 

[DND_Reborn]

I would think a Warlock would do great in a 1 to 2 combat encounters per day workload as written?

And that was my first suggestion to the OP. Just play them as written and then if you find them struggling, do something to balance them out.

After all, if the 6-8 encounter layout is:

2 encounters
short rest
2 encounters
short rest
2 encounter
long rest

with maybe 1 encounter thrown in here or there between rest, then the warlock functions perfectly:

2 encounters and then rest is what they are design (as is) for.

Maybe. So long as they're not doing the 10+ round combats one poster was suggesting!

True! The vast majority of encounters do tend in the 3-5 range IME, sometimes just 1 or 2, other times a bit longer. But, I've certainly had more than my share of running slugfests lasting 10-20 rounds or much longer.

IIRC I think my current record for 5E was something like 83 or 87 rounds... but that was more of a wave after wave string of battles as the PCs assaulted the Fire Giant King's lair and the battle never ended from one wave to the next as often there were more enemies entering the fray before the current ones were defeated. Not surprisingly, it took us over 8 hours to play the whole thing out--it was pretty much the entire session. Needless to say, it was exhausting to run.

 

[HammerMan]

As a DM, if you knew you were going to play a homebrew campaign with a maximum one or maybe occasionally two combat encounters in each whole day, how could you help balance the warlock?

• Proficiency bonus spell slots per initiative?
• One more slot per short rest then presently allocated
• Charisma bonus slots per short rest
• When an enemy fails its first spell save DC against your spell, the slot is not used…
• Other?

Obviously you couldn’t match the slots of other full casters as you already cast at highest level and you also have those wonderful invocations. But the flavourful background of the warlock is a roleplaying dream. How may one incentivise? What to do? What to do.

I would ask the party to form around one power level and rest schedule. So wizards that nova 2 3rd level and a 4th level slot compairtd to the warlock only have 2 4th level slots the whole “day” would be an issue

 

[Clint_L]

I more or less do run my campaigns with 1-2 combat encounters in an adventuring day, and warlocks seem to do just fine, so this might be a solution in search of a problem.

However, it is true that classes like monk and warlock really excel the more the party relies on short rests, since their recharge mechanism is optimal for frequent, short encounters. When I have run encounter heavy games, like a dungeon crawl, those classes have really been clutch as the adventure progressed. Which is fair enough - it's their time to shine.

So I don't feel that rebalancing is needed for my tabletop. YVMV.

 

[Blue]

As a DM, if you knew you were going to play a homebrew campaign with a maximum one or maybe occasionally two combat encounters in each whole day, how could you help balance the warlock?

...

Obviously you couldn’t match the slots of other full casters as you already cast at highest level and you also have those wonderful invocations. But the flavourful background of the warlock is a roleplaying dream. How may one incentivise? What to do? What to do.

Easy - I'd cut down the full caster's slots to 1/4 of what they have.

Only 1-2 combats a day greatly affects the other classes as well. It's just not as obvious. A casters highest few levels of spells are better than an at-will Action. Just like your average at-will character does more than cantrips. If you aren't running full casters down so much that they are using cantrips and low level slots, they are doing a lot more than the at-will characters as well.

So the fix isn't to buff the Warlock, since a bunch of classes are affected. It's to nerf the long-rest-recovery model classes (including the hybrid ones, like paladins and barbarian rages).