D&D (2024) I like the new Warlock

[Neonchameleon]

And, you know what? What's wrong with broadening the appeal so that more people can become fans?

Because it doesn't broaden the appeal. It changes it, taking the warlock away from people that basically like the mechanics as is and leaving them with nothing while appealing more to people who already have multiple classes that appeal to them

Even if this wasn't the way to do it, what exactly is wrong with trying to attract more people to the class? You speak as if this is a bad thing to do.

Why do you consider there is no cost to taking away the class from the people that like it the way it is?

I wouldn't consider this such an egregiously horrible move if it had happened to one of the standard full casters. Change the druid's casting and people who like those mechanics still have cleric and possibly wizard and sorcerer. Change the warlock's unique casting, that has quite a lot of fans and the people that like it get absolutely nothing.

Why shouldn;t different classes work differently? Why do you consider them all working in a homogenised group that please the same small group of people to be an improvement? What you are advocating for is driving people away from D&D. Because some of the parts that appealed no longer exist.

 

[Charlaquin]

so...
More invocations, and keep the playtest Mystic Arcanum.

That could potentially work. I’d like to see it, and probably play with it a bit. But it’s not a no-sell on its face like half-casting is.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, this matches my experience.

People keep finding issues with the XP budget per adventuring day. If there's no time pressure, well then sure there's no reason not to short rest. But there's no reason not to long rest, either! Might as well nova every encounter and then long rest. It even means you'll have more resources available to survive any interim ambushes! And then you're back to the Five Minute Adventuring Day.

So then you implement narrative time pressure to push the PCs forward and stop them from constantly long resting. But now you have the opposite problem. If there's not enough time to long rest, maybe there's not enough time to short rest, too!

And this is either bad planning or bad faith. "Because you don't have entire days to waste it's impossible to take a lunch break".

A long rest = a night's sleep (which is why you can't take more than one per 24 hours). So rituals never happen at midnight? Or dawn? Or even on a set day?

A short rest = a cooked meal or the like. Sometimes you don't have time to stop for lunch. But frequently you can stop for lunch without wasting an entire day.

We can't stop just because the Battlemaster burned Action Surge, Second Wind, and all Superiority dice. Everybody else can keep going and hp isn't a problem. We gotta keep going before the world literally ends! If we're on an actual schedule and not a narrative device -- which is what the players should be assuming -- we might be out of time if we delay even a moment. Say goodbye to short rests, downtime activities, side quests, and anything of that sort! You've designed those out of your game. Now boarding track 29: non-stop rail service to BBEGsville.

And that's again either a strawman or bad planning. Sidequests can frequently take hours.

The other popular option is gritty survival recovery, where short rests take 8 hours, and long rests take 7 days. Except now, you can't use time pressure, because one encounter where the DM rolls well and the PCs roll poorly means the PCs are out of action for a week.

And? If you hadn't escalated all the way to the end of the world you'd be able to have consequences rather than ending the campaign.

And spells or abilities that are meant to last a whole adventuring day, like mage armor, now... don't. It also makes the game, well, gritty survival instead of the more pulpy action. It changes the style of play. Lots of tables don't want that. And you shouldn't have to abandon your preferred style of play just to have a game that functions.

No it doesn't. It just means you aren't scything through ludicrous numbers of enemies ludicrously fast. Until there are permanent injury rules in D&D it will not come close to actually being gritty survival. It's just not as extreme OTT pulp.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Seriously, though, I appreciate what you wrote, but the changes are primarily for those who aren't Warlock fans. The people who like the class now (such as me) seem to be mostly against these changes.

Half my characters are warlocks and I am very excited to try this version out. I run a game where all five characters are warlocks, and the players have all expressed excitement. Warlock fans on this board seem to be mostly negative. That doesn't equate to all warlock fans.

 

[codo]

D

Well, no, if the adventuring day is properly paced, everyone should need two short rests per day, if only to recover hit points.

I am sorry but d&d is a big tent game. If should be designed to be playable by for widest number of groups possible. The last thing d&d should require is that it is "properly paced". It should be equally playable if you have 1 encounter with no short rests, 8 encounters with no short rests, or 4 encounters with 4 short rests.

 

[DnD Warlord]

Warlock fans on this board seem to be mostly negative. That doesn't equate to all warlock fans.

there is no such thing as ALL any type of people

 

[Mistwell]

Well, no, if the adventuring day is properly paced, everyone should need two short rests per day, if only to recover hit points.

They won't though, most days. Aura of Healing will heal 70 hit points out of combat in a minute if many are hurt. Lesser spells and abilities will cover a single individual (and a life Cleric with goodberries will similarly heal 40hp with a first level spell). It's rare the entire party needs a short rest, other than the Monk and Warlock, though sometimes some few can gain a benefit from one as well. If it's dangerous, sometimes a group has some resentment that increased danger is being risked so the Warlock can recharge their spells.

And again, WOTC HAS SAID THIS IS THE FEEDBACK THEY'RE GETTING. I don't even understand why we have to cover this point again (I think the third time now). Unless you think there is some mass conspiracy against you driving so many people to tell you they don't like the recharge on a short rest mechanic because of this, including WOTC repeatedly saying they have gotten that same feedback for years, why do you keep going back over it?

 

[Mistwell]

I have only played in 3 publishe adventure paths... curse of strahd, frost maiden, and strixahvem and all allow for short rests.
I also own Witch light and Abyss and witchlight you can pretty much rest when ever

I can say when we went through Curse of Strahd there were definitely times where a short rest would have gotten us killed. Stuff was lurking everywhere, wandering monsters are in that adventure quite a bit, and it was difficult to pull off a short rest at times. You needed a secure spot. Even a resting spell would sometimes result in a massive ambush against us the moment the spell ended. The adventure literally tells the DMs things like, "the werewolves attack with surprise when the characters decide to take a short or long rest." Most sections of that adventure tell the DM to "Check for a random encounter after every X minutes" with X varying from a "every 10 minutes the characters spend resting" to every 30 minutes, and the chance of an encounter ON EACH CHECK being 15% to 25% chance. That means every short rest is 2 to 6 checks each. Odds are very high of a random encounter interrupting that rest.

If you found it was easy to rest any time you wanted in Strahd, might I suggest your DM was going easy on you, and ignoring a decent bit of the adventure text.

I have no experience with Frost Maiden.

Strixhaven and Witch Light the topic is mind of meaningless anyway. Both can be accomplished largely without combat, and this is a combat-specific topic. Even the Warlock and Monk isn't demanding Short Rests all that often in those adventures unless you went off the rails somewhere.

Most of Yawning Portal, you're in a tight spot for a short rest, often.

Most of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, you're in a tight spot for a short rest, often.

Most of Tomb of Annihilation, you're in a tight spot for a short rest, often.

 

[Vael]

I'm currently running Light of Xaryxis, and there's been maybe two or three Short Rests total, despite several Long Rests and three level ups.

 

[OB1]

A bit late to the party as I wasn't able to look at the new UA until today. As a Warlock lover, just want to say that overall I like the direction of the design, but I think the big issue is in the design of half-caster progression in general. I think there could be an overall fix to half-casters combined with a fix to Warlocks that could work.

Instead of a delayed spell slot progression, keep it as a full caster, but cap the slots per spell level at 2 and make 5 the maximum slot gained (so no more slots after 10th level for any half-caster). Then for the Warlock, give a Pack Recharge that fully replenishes your two top slots once or twice per day on a short rest. With this, the need to horde your slots is reduced, while recharging your nova ability on days you really need it (due to multiple encounters).