D&D 5E "Fixing" 5e's Least Well Performing Classes

[doctorbadwolf]

I think Tome is good, especially with it's ability to gain Ritual Casting. Now Chain Pact I can agree upon. The UA feats for it are a nice improvement for it and help it a bit more. But I do feel that Tome-Blade(Hex)-Chain-Talisman is the best order of Strong to Weak.

I think WoTC is scared of letting Warlocks get more spells because they don't want it to be a Sorcerer without Metamagic, and certainly not a Wizard because Warlocks "took the short way out" by plugging in Patron DLC to gain their powers. So they can't be a Spontaneous caster because it's not in their blood. They can't be a Wizard because they cheated at gaining their power. And they can't go further beyond what they know because their Patron probably doesn't want the Student becoming the Master.

One thing I’d love to see baked into the warlock is the ability for the student to become the master.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah that I can agree with. Cuz if I'm reading the spell slots thing right, that means I can pretty much cast two spells and that's it: I'm stuck with Invocations and EB until I can short rest. Which means I have all these spells but I gotta choose when to cast it those two bullets before having to short rest(reload) again.

Yep that’s how it works.

I’d also be down to let them regain a single spell slot as a ritual lasting 10 minutes, once per short rest.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

IME, Eldritch Blast isn’t what is frustrating about the Warlock. It’s having two spell slots per short rest until level 11, a small number of spells known, and only 1 pact boon getting ritual casting.

Swap out all the warlock abilities, spells per day and spell lists an replace them with wizard's. Problem solved.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Swap out all the warlock abilities, spells per day and spell lists an replace them with wizard's. Problem solved.

No.

 

[Chaosmancer]

One thing with the Chain is that they should really focus on letting the familiar be slightly more awesome.

I mean, I've seen how powerful it is to have an invisibly scout that gives me advantage on all things is, trust me, but there have been a lot of times where I've realized this is only powerful in the context of our campaign, or that a normal familiar would likely accomplish a lot of the same things.

But, making the Chain pact the summoner pact of the warlock would do a lot to make it more competive vs "spells and rituals" and "I haz sword" (I love bladepacts, just teasing)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One thing with the Chain is that they should really focus on letting the familiar be slightly more awesome.

I would be inclined to give the chain familiar the "primal beast" treatment, providing a slightly stronger, more combat focused alterative without having to make any changes to the base class.

 

[TwoSix]

Swap out all the warlock abilities, spells per day and spell lists an replace them with wizard's. Problem solved.

Out of curiosity, there's a general agreement that swapping Pact Magic casting for normal full casting on a Warlock would be overpowered, right?

 

[Laurefindel]

RE: Sorcerer
My "problem" with the sorcerer isn't about performance; it's about them quickly becoming one-trick ponies. A few more spells and more metamagic options easily fix that.

RE: Ranger
Favoured Enemy and Natural Explorer are the biggest offenders IMO, not so much by what they do but when they allow you to do it. Giving these benefits against all creatures and all terrains is an easy fix, or allow them to replace them in the game easily. Primeval Awareness is also frustrating for DMs and PCs; either the DM says "yes there are X within 1 mile" all the time and it becomes meaningless, or the DM needs to be careful to avoid the "hey! you told us there were no X in the area!".

A list of bonus spells for the beastmaster and hunter like Xanathar subclasses would be nice.

 

[Xeviat]

Out of curiosity, there's a general agreement that swapping Pact Magic casting for normal full casting on a Warlock would be overpowered, right?

I don't know about general agreement. A 9th level warlock that gets 2 short rests has up to 6 5th level spells a day when a wizard has 2.

They're different, but warlock Spell Point conversions is close to Wizards.

 

[Stalker0]

A lot of people focus on the spells when it comes to the Warlock, but I think the real look is at the Invocations.

At its core, the warlock is about at-will magic... magic on tap. That is a very cool concept, and some of the invocations capture that spirit. But so many just fall on their faces.

If you look at Devil's Sight, the reason its loved by Warlock players is partly for its power, but a lot of it is the simple fact you can do something no one else can do. Immediately flavor and uniqueness, perfect.

So many invocations fail at this. All of the "gain this spell" invocations, all they do is give you something any other spellcaster can just cast ... boring.

I think the answer is less on the spell side and more on the "giving warlocks more interesting invocations, and more slots for them".