D&D 5E (2014) Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XIII: Warlock)

[TwoSix]

What's not to love? Fun flavor, good, customizable (!!) At-Will, refreshes power on a short rest like a good class should, consistently supported. If the rogue and bard didn't exist, it'd be the best class in 5e.

Yea, I'm with you. To my mind, the rogue is the best model that the noncasters should follow, and the warlock pact magic model is superior to the daily slots model for casters.

 

[humble minion]

I think with a few small tweaks, the warlock could be one of the big beneficiaries of 5.5e really. Just little things that I find annoying about it that could easily be fixed. Steal some of the hexblade subclass abilities and put them in the blade pact boon to make melee warlocks more viable with different patrons. Make the eldritch blast focused invocations applicable to any attack cantrip to allow for more variety. And extend the spell list a bit - warlock spells were seemingly picked for being daaaaark and creeeepy, which worked fine for the initial phb patrons but is less thematically appropriate for the newer celestial or genie pacts, for instance.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The voting has been kinda slow in this one. Feels like ALL the subclasses are quite popular! It's really interesting to see that only the UA ones have really suffered... I feel like the votes are so spread out that we'll be going for a while.

Technically speaking, there's a relatively tight range of possible votes.

The absolute minimum would be if everyone upvoted one single option universally, which would take exactly 130 votes (because there would be 13 things to vote down, each requiring posts to kill.) Alternatively, if it goes down to the very wire (so the penultimate post leaves either 1/1, 2/1, or 2/2), then you must have had enough votes to reduce the 14x20 = 280 points down to only 2, 3, or 4.* Every vote reduces the total value by 1, unless it's one of the (n-2) "wasted" votes prior to the aforementioned state, which does not reduce the total points on the board. Every category other than the final one has been whittled to nothing, which means 20(N-2) = 20N-40 (for N>2.) Further, the remaining two when the penultimate vote is cast have been reduced to a total of either 2, 3, or 4, so at maximum that's another 40-2 = 38 votes added on, giving 20N-2, which then rises to 20N-1 when the very last vote is cast.

So the minimum number of votes is always 10(N-1), and the maximum is 20N minus 1, 2, or 3 depending on the specific situation. In this case, the absolute maximum is 279 (though the specifics of 14 starting numbers might mean it's actually 278 or 277.) Thus, very roughly, there's always a 10N spread of possible vote counts.

*I thiiiiink which value comes out--in the worst case--depends on the voting total mod 3. But it might not be a straightforward "take the modulus" thing.

Depends on the character! Some characters prefer the subtle approach!

I think there's rather a big difference between "I take the subtle approach" and "I ruin lives over the course of the next season, year, or perhaps decade." The former is much more compatible with adventuring than the latter--and the former is compatible with the Warlock 5e actually offers, while the latter really isn't compatible with any class in 5e. Almost nothing works on the time scale of seasons or years.

 

[Undrave]

I'm surprised by how high the Genie currently is, at the start it felt like an easy target for a lot of people an now it's one of the leaders!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm surprised by how high the Genie currently is, at the start it felt like an easy target for a lot of people an now it's one of the leaders!

I think it initially took flak for being weird, but once the UA/minimally-liked options were cleared out and the front runners identified, the attention shifted. Time will tell whether this was the surge that lifted it to the late game or the poison pill that made people identify it as a threat.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I think there's rather a big difference between "I take the subtle approach" and "I ruin lives over the course of the next season, year, or perhaps decade." The former is much more compatible with adventuring than the latter--and the former is compatible with the Warlock 5e actually offers, while the latter really isn't compatible with any class in 5e. Almost nothing works on the time scale of seasons or years.

I'm not sure where you got seasons or years from my post. Subtle doesn't have to mean "waaay in the future." You can absolutely play a warlock as a subtle character, but I'm saying the mechanics don't support that as the most optimal choice.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not sure where you got seasons or years from my post. Subtle doesn't have to mean "waaay in the future." You can absolutely play a warlock as a subtle character, but I'm saying the mechanics don't support that as the most optimal choice.

You spoke of turning someone's fields to rust, inducing their cows to fail to produce milk, or inflicting a plague of nightmares that slowly drives someone mad. That's stuff that takes the better part of a season at least in order to end someone, not something that makes an immediate impact. It's why the other poster said "that doesn't seem like a player character power."

 

[RealAlHazred]

You spoke of turning someone's fields to rust, inducing their cows to fail to produce milk, or inflicting a plague of nightmares that slowly drives someone mad. That's stuff that takes the better part of a season at least in order to end someone, not something that makes an immediate impact. It's why the other poster said "that doesn't seem like a player character power."

"Rust" is a mold that infects wheat, so I'd say more on the order of weeks than seasons, but okay. I'm not saying the character shouldn't have immediate offensive capability. However, the warlock is designed to focus on that. If your warlock character wants to take the subtle approach, they can, sure. However, a bunch of invocations are designed to focus on eldritch blast; if you choose to focus your warlock on other abilities, there is less mechanical aid.

In any case, you can certainly play your character any way you wish, but telling someone, "Your character doesn't really seem like a player character," is a little bit of a judgement.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

sales pitch: make a pact with an otherworldly power! very edgy and cool!
actual gameplay: mobile turret

 

[RealAlHazred]

Just found this homebrew warlock revision which does some interesting things: The Warlock - Revised - 1.8, by /u/WarfrontJack. Looks interesting, and I'm intrigued he basically removed eldritch blast as a cantrip and made it its own pact, like Pact of the Chain or Blade.