D&D General Frustating Misunderstandings About Warlocks

[doctorbadwolf]

Which it always is

No.

So in other words, if you want to have Patron by a recussing character that Warlock can interact with, you effectively delete their 10th level feature and turn it into a dead level.

Not at all. This is objectively not the case. The patron showing up and bugging their warlock as they make camp in the 2nd session of the campaign, at level 2, is completely allowed within the rules, and does not have any effect on the fact that at level 10 the Warlock gains the new ability to call upon their Patron with a known and reliable method that is in their hands.

I don't understand what is causing you to not see the difference between the two things.

Also, you literally are not allowed

false.

to roleplay the patron before warlock reaches level 3 because you do not know which sublass the player will take and therefore any hint of the patron leaning one way or another inherently imposes on player's agency.

Nonsense. If you didn't have a conversation with the player about their patron, then don't bring them in until the patron has been decided upon, sure, but it's general best practice to have that discussion before session 1 anyway.

Then I am sorry they were hurt by abusive DMs who made them adopt adversarial mindset where DM is up to screw them. I am sorry you play at table with such glaring problems.

Cut the patronizing bull. It has nothing to do with bad experiences. It's a preference, and a perfectly valid one.

Except of course of the fact I am not allowed to use the patron at all before level 3

false

and not allowed to have them be an actual character you can talk to but have to use easily-ignorable messengers,

false

othertwise level 10 Warlock is a dead level.

false

Seems like they very succesfully rendered the patron into a non-entity and turned Warlock into purely mechanical "big number go up" for optimizers.

Complete, unmitigated, unambiguous, falsehood.

And speaking as an optimizer, I HATE IT

Then don't hobble yourself with a made up problem.

All of those relationships are what you describe as "imposing on player agency" just in different ways.

No, they aren't. They could be, if the player and DM agree to run them that way, but they weren't in any of the actual games they are pulled from.

The exception is "becoming your own patron" which sounds to me like a) you were just playing sorcerer with Warlock mechanics, reducing class to "big number go up" b)you removed the patron from the class.

Nope. Your misguided sense of superiority over people who don't play like you seems to be coloring your perspective here.

To remove any possibility of patron affecting player agency is to remove the patron entierly.

Bull.

Not only in that the statement is false taking at face value, but also in that the statement assumes something not in evidence. That is, that I am removing any possibility of the patron affecting player agency.

Other PCs affect player agency. The King affects player agency. The only way to have pure player agency is to play solo. What is being discussed is whether or not the warlock class requires a toxic relationship between the PC and the Patron.

You should stop trying to make the discussion be about something else.

You end with what Cleric and Paladin now are, where they got stripped from roleplay opportunnities for the sake of power gaming and are much worse because of it.

I better tell my wife that her Paladin can't roleplay anymore, I guess. or not, because this is nonsense.

Paladin at least still has an oath and I like the idea BG3 implied where all Paladins, even Oathbreakers, fall under Torm and he disguises himself as an Oathbreaker to take your powers away and talk with you whenever you should seek redemption or embrace new path.

That sounds ridiculous. Like some hairbrained scheme of a DM that doesn't know how to encourage roleplay without using a hammer.

the adversarial "DM is out to get me" mindset

isn't even relevant to this discussion

that is shown in pushback to an idea your character's god or patron may want to have excectations or wants of the character. You yourself show it too with the assumption that is patron wants something it is inherently a "trying to screw them over with no way to stop them".

Except that you are inventing things for me to have said, because I have never said anything remotely like that.

Rick Sanchez voice: that just sounds like a god with extra steps.

Not a fan of nuance, eh?

I know you've been in fight the world mode for the last few weeks, but I literally quoted you.

No, I haven't, but okay.

And you should reread what you quoted. Because no, I didn't say anything like that.

I'll break the sentence down if needed. It does not say that the patron can't be or never is a god. It does not imply that. It doesn't point a weary traveller toward the fork in the road that leads to that.

It says that the patron is quite likely not a god. Surely you get that this doesn't not mean that the patron is always not a god. Right?

Like...right? Those are two wholly distinct statements. They mean different things. This isn't even a case of like..."I didn't mean it like that", it is literally a case wherein I did not say that.

The ENWorld trope of "the DM has strong opinions about how warlocks work in their setting; someone please call 911."

A wild exaggeration, at best. Some people express distaste for a given mindset. That isn't a declaration of war or a cry for emergency aide. It's a preference. It's a strong opinion. It is, at most, complaining about their DM being a jerk about their preference taking precedence over that of the player of the character involved.

I do, and I also learned that no matter what I do, unless I explicit say a nuke will go out if a specific enemy dies, the players WILL find a way to solve it by murdering all enemies as fast as possible.

I also had players chase retreating enemies to "get rid of all loose ends"...and running into an unrelated threat on the way. And I had once a combat where pcs and villain raced to escape ship attacked by Kraken, and villain failed and was dragged down with the ship by tentacles...and my players tried to dive down behind them just to personally murder the villain solely so I cannot bring them back and say she survived. I have no idea where did that attitude came from since I never even pulled that trick beforehand.

AFTER that, I brought that villain back as undead tho....

That isn't a game system thing, that is a player thing. It isn't inherent to the game.

 

[Rune]

I also had players chase retreating enemies to "get rid of all loose ends"...and running into an unrelated threat on the way. And I had once a combat where pcs and villain raced to escape ship attacked by Kraken, and villain failed and was dragged down with the ship by tentacles...and my players tried to dive down behind them just to personally murder the villain solely so I cannot bring them back and say she survived. I have no idea where did that attitude came from since I never even pulled that trick beforehand.

AFTER that, I brought that villain back as undead tho....

I get it. As a player, I’ve definitely gone out of my way to make sure a dead NPC wouldn’t have a body left for raising (out of sheer pettiness, even). But, in a world with true resurrection, that still doesn’t mean they’re definitely gone for good.

Although (on the DM side of things) turning them undead works too. Especially since it need not be corporeal.