D&D (2024) Fixing short rest novaloops is important... using the moon druid

[Charlaquin]

It's extremely relevant when you skip over the point in their advancement that contradicts both your earlier statement about how many spells they get as well as meeting the crawford quote about hitting the 5th level version of a spell over & over & over again to a T then try to block any discussion of that point as a merely implied thing unworthy of discussion.

It doesn’t contradict my statement at all. I mentioned the floor and the ceiling not because I was trying to avoid discussion of the midpoint, but because I thought the midpoint was the least relevant to the point, and leaving it to implication was sufficient. But, ok, you think levels 11-16 are where the warlock is at its most powerful? Let’s talk about that. I stand by my opinion that the warlock is perfectly reasonable at those levels, hence why the most recent playtests haven’t made significant changes to the number of spell slots warlocks get at those levels. And again, the Crawford quite you keep referring to was about why Warlocks can’t have both Pact Magic and more spell slots then they have in 2014. First WotC tested taking away Pact Magic and giving them more spell slots, and that didn’t do well in the surveys. So, they opted to keep Pact Magic and not increase the number of spell slots. Nothing about the statement is contradicted.

The 2014 warlock (and monk)is also broken as heck late tier2 early tier3 on if they are able to force too many short rests, you might look back at the points you kept trying to avoid & dismiss for details on that.

I disagree. Let’s break this down, shall we?

11th level: 3 5th level pact magic slots. That’s a theoretical ceiling of three 5th level spells per encounter if they force a short rest after every single encounter, with a more typical average of one 5th level spell in half their encounters and two in the other half. Assuming 6 encounters in the day (which most people agree is actually far more than typical for their table), the warlock is casting nine 5th level spells, compared to the wizard’s one 6th level, two 5th level, three 4th level, three 3rd level, three 2nd level, and four 1st level, plus 6 total levels worth of spells due to arcane recovery. The wizard gets significantly more total spell power, and while it is a tradeoff of quality for quantity, you can convert these spells to spell points and see that the total number is comparable. The comparison gets more favorable for the Wizard if there are fewer encounters between long rests (which most people report is more typical in their games) and more favorable for the warlock if there are fewer encounters between short rests (which most people report is atypical in their games). Overall, I’d consider that pretty well-balanced, probably slightly in favor of the Wizard due to the 6-encounter, 2-SR adventuring day being uncommon.

Are we good, or do you want me to keep doing this comparison with other levels?

Referencing what they could do in the 2014 ruleset doesn't change that

I think you’re the only person I’ve ever heard call the 2014 warlock overpowered.

No not really. Take a level 11 warlock It has three 5th level slots & gets up to three more every short rest. Conveniently they can usually burn off at least one or two. On top of that they also have a bunch of at will & always on stuff from invocations like at will agonizing repelling blast for another 4th or 5th level spell equivalent using the DMG284 guidelines.

Yep, all by design, and pretty reasonably balanced compared to other full casters, maybe a bit on the weak side in a typical campaign with potential to be a little on the strong side if short rests are especially plentiful or long rests extremely rare.

That holds true if monk could not get enough rests. It's very much not true if they have too many rests after they had/have a larger enough pool to at will their ki/discipline pool while getting too many rests

Again, going to disagree. The 2014 monk is weak with the assumed number of short rests, and outright terrible with a more typical number. The playtest monk looks pretty well balanced to me. I haven’t done a detailed analysis cause I’m not a huge fan of monks anyway, but most folks I’ve heard from seem to agree. Again, you are the first person I think I’ve ever seen argue that the monk is actually too strong.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Yea I don't think there are any monsters that have it or similar, but bringing it back on sneak attack itself from old editions would do a lot to differentiate relevant monsters while also giving rogue some room for SR recovery things

No that’s just nerfing the Rogue for no good reason

 

[Mistwell]

Suggestions for the rogue?

Do we even know what the rogue subclasses will be to speculate on what could be recovered from a short rest in those subclasses?

 

[tetrasodium]

No that’s just nerfing the Rogue for no good reason

I wouldn't say it's without "good" reason There are some serious benefits for adventure/encounter design & that it potentially solves a lot of problems with how new abilities like cunning strike miss the mark while giving rogues something that they could recover on a short rest. There are too many unknowns about the 2024 books & monster design to say if its the right solution though.

 

[tetrasodium]

It doesn’t contradict my statement at all. I mentioned the floor and the ceiling not because I was trying to avoid discussion of the midpoint, but because I thought the midpoint was the least relevant to the point, and leaving it to implication was sufficient. But, ok, you think levels 11-16 are where the warlock is at its most powerful? Let’s talk about that. I stand by my opinion that the warlock is perfectly reasonable at those levels, hence why the most recent playtests haven’t made significant changes to the number of spell slots warlocks get at those levels. And again, the Crawford quite you keep referring to was about why Warlocks can’t have both Pact Magic and more spell slots then they have in 2014. First WotC tested taking away Pact Magic and giving them more spell slots, and that didn’t do well in the surveys. So, they opted to keep Pact Magic and not increase the number of spell slots. Nothing about the statement is contradicted.

I disagree. Let’s break this down, shall we?

11th level: 3 5th level pact magic slots. That’s a theoretical ceiling of three 5th level spells per encounter if they force a short rest after every single encounter, with a more typical average of one 5th level spell in half their encounters and two in the other half. Assuming 6 encounters in the day (which most people agree is actually far more than typical for their table), the warlock is casting nine 5th level spells, compared to the wizard’s one 6th level, two 5th level, three 4th level, three 3rd level, three 2nd level, and four 1st level, plus 6 total levels worth of spells due to arcane recovery. The wizard gets significantly more total spell power, and while it is a tradeoff of quality for quantity, you can convert these spells to spell points and see that the total number is comparable. The comparison gets more favorable for the Wizard if there are fewer encounters between long rests (which most people report is more typical in their games) and more favorable for the warlock if there are fewer encounters between short tests (which most people report is atypical in their games). Overall, I’d consider that pretty well-balanced, probably slightly in favor of the Wizard due to the 6-encounter, 2-SR adventuring day being uncommon.

Are we good, or do you want me to keep doing this comparison with other levels?


I think you’re the only person I’ve ever heard call the 2014 warlock overpowered.


Yep, all by design, and pretty reasonably balanced compared to other full casters, maybe a bit on the weak side in a typical campaign with potential to be a little on the strong side if short rests are especially plentiful or long rests extremely rare.


Again, going to disagree. The 2014 monk is weak with the assumed number of short rests, and outright terrible with a more typical number. The playtest monk looks pretty well balanced to me. I haven’t done a detailed analysis cause I’m not a huge fan of monks anyway, but most folks I’ve heard from seem to agree. Again, you are the first person I think I’ve ever seen argue that the monk is actually too strong.

There's no reason to break up a post into individual isolated statements in order to respond to each little thing in stripped of context. I started fisking in kind because it was impossible to respond to your posts twisting around the broader points by fisking through mine in any other way, please stop... that's how you go from missing that you brought up warlocks having two slots per short rest in this post where you said warlock can't spam 5th level spells & miss that it was the reply to that very same post that pointed out you were skipping a bunch of levels as well as the range where they could also spam 5th level spells like the crawford quote talked about. It was later that you started with the implied dismissal of that range. Almost every post since has ben an effort to avoid that topic. I don't see continued fisking as a good start fo actual discussion.



as I said & explained earlier earlier in post17, all forms of the 5mwd are awful. The relevant detail here is that short rest classes combined with 5e's nearly guaranteed explosive resting & recovery rules adds up to classes that are designed in a way that strongly incentivizes players to guarantee an unbreakable 5mwd loop that holds the campaign itself hostage... here's how.


Yes a single level 11 warlock could only cast a maximum of 3 5th level spells, but that warlock also has a 6th level arcanum slot tied to long rests and agonizing repelling blast dealing 3x 1d10+5 depending on how much the knockback & force damage should be weighed that puts it squarely in the sights of what dmg 283/284 lists as a 4th or 5th level spell (if not higher) and devils sight and likely an imp and etc etc etc. If you look at the exchange in post 20 & 24(24one quotes 20) you can see two different ends of the rest problem where one group doesn't have enough & a second group has too many. You are considering only the first group & its party makeup but not the second or the mindset of a meaningful chunk of that group.

The details of that second group are very important though because it has a plurality or outright majority of short rest classes+fighters(action surge) who can set the pace to all nova all the time and once combined do so in a way that will turn any encounter into a fine red mist only to state that they can't go further without a rest because they are tapped out. At that point the GM has no good options...

• Any encounter that can withstand the combined nova is probably beefy enough to trivially turn a PC into a fine red mist every round they engage in any sort of coordinated focused fire.
• If the GM tries to force the group to continue without a rest the odds are very good that the 2ish long rest PCs will face severe problems of their own in trying to handle an encounter tuned for 5 PCs with 2-3 of them completely tapped out, that drawn out PC snuffing encounter is not going to end well for the campaign when it's probably the long rest PC players eating the cost for the SR nova loop being blocked from resetting by fiat alone.
• The depth needed to massage that problem with magic items is not really available to the GM either because nobody needs magic items and in 5e it's very difficult to fit magic items to a specific PC without doing so in a way that is so obvious & over the top that it's hard not to invoke GM favoritism stereotypes like this one.
• The GM use a doom clock or something & just draw a line where the quest failed for whatever story reason, but 5e PC's don't actually need anything from the world that might be put at risk & the GM is the one who is poorly reflected if they simply declare the monsters left after packing up halfway into the session or presents a chaub of "unwinnable" quests after the cornered GM shoots the hostage one too many times.
• The GM could stagger encounters that need nova & encounters that the non SR nova classes can carry while carefully monitoring which the party must not get next, but that gets very obvious very quick and has an extremely narrow margin of error before effectively turning someone's PC into a fine red mist
• There are probably other no-win scenarios for things the GM could try to do, but at the end of the session the GM is forced to accept the SR-nova loop invoke heavy handed fiat or change the rules for wotc. Those last two tend to go over extremely poorly with players however.

One warlock or monk going nova then Halting for a short rest every fight or two breaking down late tier2 early tier3 is an extremely different scenario than a plurality or majority of the group doing it. I tried to focus heavily on 11-16 because of both your numbers as well as Crawford's fairly explicit quote along with the fact that it's much less debatable that it's much easier for a warlock to vastly exceed the curve witth enough rests after hitting that range. In that second situation the nova loop breaks things down to the list above much faster simply because there aren't many encounters appropriate for a level 5 party that are capable of eating something like 2x fireballs/round while also eating flurry+stunningstrike+stunningstrike and action surge(s). Those that can are likely to be built in a way that could trivially reenact LMOP's opening by killing a PC round one then round two or immediately walking into strahd's throne room at the start of a Ravenloft adventure. Designing the encounter around countering that deluge of spells only kicks off an arms race of adversarial GM'ing to the bottom.


Just as simply cranking the CR dial to a point well past beyond lethal that could handle the combined nova loop is rife with unworkable problems, so too is cranking the number of encounters in the already excessive 6-8 expectation. When most of the group is dead set on taking a short rest every fight or two and a plurality or majority of the party is monk/warlock or fighter (action surge) it doesn't matter to the players of those PCs how many mind numbing encounters the adventuring day holds for the party to melt in round one. The only players it does matter to are the ones with long rest classes, it matters to them because they are already relegated to third wheel status by the nova loop going on beside them & long rest class players are the only ones capable of eating meaningful attrition to further reduce the dwindling power of long rest class PCs as the number of encounters stretch out. The only counter for the long rest class PCs is to further reduce their already third wheel level contributions by relying exclusively on at will abilities like cantrips & their basic attacks

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I wouldn't say it's without "good" reason There are some serious benefits for adventure/encounter design & that it potentially solves a lot of problems with how new abilities like cunning strike miss the mark while giving rogues something that they could recover on a short rest. There are too many unknowns about the 2024 books & monster design to say if it’s the right solution though.

How does Cunning Strike miss the Mark it seems quite good, unless your problem with it is that it’s good.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

There's no reason to break up a post into individual isolated statements in order to respond to each little thing in stripped of context. I started fisking in kind because it was impossible to respond to your posts twisting around the broader points by fisking through mine in any other way, please stop... that's how you go from missing that you brought up warlocks having two slots per short rest in this post where you said warlock can't spam 5th level spells & miss that it was the reply to that very same post that pointed out you were skipping a bunch of levels as well as the range where they could also spam 5th level spells like the crawford quote talked about.

You are the one who are missing the point. I seriously can’t believe you don’t get what they were saying.

 

[mellored]

Do we even know what the rogue subclasses will be to speculate on what could be recovered from a short rest in those subclasses?

Arcane Trickster
Assassin
Swashbuckler
Thief

 

[Mistwell]

Arcane Trickster
Assassin
Swashbuckler
Thief

Arcane Trickster should get arcane recovery just like a Wizard
I'd have to see where they landed on the others but I strongly suspect there are limited use abilities that could recharge on a short rest.

 

[mellored]

Arcane Trickster should get arcane recovery just like a Wizard
I'd have to see where they landed on the others but I strongly suspect there are limited use abilities that could recharge on a short rest.

Packet 6.