Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9468636" data-attributes="member: 6796468">So I've put a few things out there, and I recently did an interview with the Roll Report where I was directly asked a few questions about D&D 2024. That part of the conversation kept returning and we barely touched on what the episode was supposed to be about, Paranormal Power, Martial Artistry, and how I got into 3rd Party Publishing.'Cause D&D 2024 is just on EVERYONE'S minds, lately, for obvious reasons.I specifically call out the Warlock as a bad choice in design but we never took the time to get into why. And while that interview won't air until sometime next month, I'd like to touch on my reason for saying WotC pooped the bed, here:Genericising the level you gain your Archetype at really messes up the Warlock, badly. And their two reasons for doing it both suck.They moved all character archetypes to level 3 so that:1) Every character has the same amount of "Power Gain" to look forward to at level 32) Cross-Class Archetypes.Those are terrible reasons to move the Warlock Patron. Firstly, because the Warlock's Patron is 90% of the character's theme! The difference between a Diabolist using blood to draw pentagrams and sacrifice goats and an Alienist reading a book they REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE resulting in a growing madness and connection to an Old One... that's huge.Meanwhile 5e's like "You hear a dark whisper which is your patron, but you don't know what it is!"Come the hell on. I'm playing a mousey New England dwelling student at Innsmouth Academy when the ghosts of the faculty come out of the walls wailing about the ancient occult magics that trapped them there and I'm supposed to wonder whether I'm hearing the whispers of an angel, a devil, an elder thing, a fey entity, a genie, or something else?[ATTACH=full]380970[/ATTACH](Extra Credit if you get the reference)"Maybe it's the King of the Faeries!" no. The Flavor of a given warlock is based on their patron and the deal they made. While you can certainly tell the "I don't know who my patron is!" story, it shouldn't be the presumed default for everyone. Nor should it be the way new players are introduced to this core class!And the Cross-Class Archetypes are going to -utterly- destroy the Warlock's flavor, or co-opt it, there is no middle ground.Way back in 2016 there was a little bit of a buzz around the idea of making archetypes that would work with multiple classes. It got picked up and discarded, repeatedly, through the years, and discussed on Twitter, Reddit, D&D Beyond's forums and other places. Sometimes WotC employees would also flirt with the idea. In 2021, they bit the bullet and went off with it.Mages of Strixhaven introduced archetypes for the Bard/Warlock/Wizard, the Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard, and Druid/Warlock. In theory, fine, in practice? It took away some of the innate uniqueness of what a Warlock is in favor of stuffing them into the square hole.[MEDIA=youtube]6pDH66X3ClA[/MEDIA]No longer do you have Pact Magic with a powerful being as a Warlock... you're just a really weird Wizard at this Wizard School for Wizards. Instead of casting a bunch of spells over the course of the day, you cast a couple and beg for a break while everyone else is just like "Why? Lunch isn't for two hours and we already went to recess!"And the new Cross-Class Archetypes they'll be doing for 2024 are going to do the exact same thing.The thing that gives Warlocks a reason to exist in the world is their patron and the magic of their pacts. And it's going to be completely ignored.Though, who knows? Maybe they'll allow Wizards to take Warlock Patrons as cross-class archetypes. 'Cause nothing says "Your narrative uniqueness doesn't matter" like stripping it away through cross-class archetypes and -giving- it away to other classes in the same manner.</blockquote>

Verification