TwoSix
"Diegetics", by L. Ron Gygax
"Then you have a wildly different interpretation of <game mechanic> than I do." -Official ENWorld Forum motto, right here.
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D&D 5E Is Warlock broken?
- Thread starter SailorNash
- Start date
After catching up, I have a few comments.
1) A short rest is a period of time of at least one hour in which activities cannot be more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending wounds. There is zero indication that maintaining a concentration spell is more strenuous than these activities. To the contrary, the description for concentration specifically states that normal activity does not interfere with concentration, and further lists the specific things that do cause concentration to drop. What causes concentration to drop is: changing concentration to another spell that requires concentration, becoming incapacitated or killed, or failing a saving throw when taking damage. A DM discretionary option for environmental phenomenon is given with the example of requiring a DC 10 CON save while trying to maintain concentration on a storm tossed ship. A short rest is nothing remotely like a storm tossed ship. Short rests do not incapacitate. Short rests are specifically limited to less strenuous activity than the normal activity of fighting used in the example of normal activity that does not interfere with concentration. Shorts rests are nothing but restricted normal activity. Anyone who complains about short rests breaking concentration and impacting warlocks is perpetuating their own problem by imposing their own house rule. The rules are very specific on what breaks concentration. I don't find it unreasonable to break concentration on a short rest if that makes sense to the DM in his or her game, but it is not the norm and a house rule.
2) I also impose disadvantage when two opponents cannot see each other. I can understand the argument for simplifying it and the rules do state that attacking someone who cannot see the attacker is done with advantage but that one seems too silly to me. That's a situation where we've gone from one person flailing back at someone else attacking him or her to neither knowing where to attack and so there is a loss on knowing where to flail back because it's harder to fight back blindly at someone who doesn't know where to attack. That turns into a situation where both need to guess where to attack in the first place (possible by active perception or lucky guess), but then the attack is still made with disadvantage. I ruled that the reason for the advantage on the attack is invalid when no one can see.
3) I agree that invocations for learning a spell that uses a warlock spell slot and also can only be used once per day seems a bit excessive. It's hard to look at those as priority invocations when the at-will SLA's have some pretty good options. The point of them is to add spells known (even if it's restricted usage) for more of a caster oriented warlock. I definitely have some higher priorities first, but a couple of them are not that bad even with the added once per day limitation. Expanding versatility with something like polymorph or confusion once per day isn't the worst thing a person could do. A person needs to keep in mind that those expanded options are best used in the main combat for the day facing the big bad guy. Not strong choices but they do open up options, so they have a use after a person picks up other solid options.
That gets back to selecting at-will SLA's as a start, but beyond that the eldritch knight has slow spell progression, limited school selection, and never gets higher than 4th level spells. Warlocks destroy that in spells known and minimum spell levels, and also add in arcanum. You'll never see an eldritch knight with mass suggestion, true polymorph, force cage, or dominate monster coming from the eldritch knight options. That eldritch knight is also likely to want short rests for second wind and action surge.
If you wanted a better fighter gish style than what the warlock offers you are likely better off going with the fighter chassis and eldritch knight over a blade pact warlock. The warlock gets the invocations and more powerful magic options, however, and is still decent built for combat. That just depends on what you value more in your character.
Spell casters do not run out of cantrips and can go indefinitely. That's no different than the fighter. Different spell casters also never run out of rituals or at-will invocations that would also go indefinitely. Fighters do run out of action surges and second winds (and hit points just like everyone else; no one can "go indefinitely"). Some fighters also run out of spells or superiority dice. The only fighter that can almost go forever is the epic champion because of the survivor ability.
Most fighters want short rests because of the action surges and second winds. Battlemasters thrive on short rests.
Warlock. It's CHA based and has a lot of at-will abilities. The other options are sorcerer, bard, and paladin. Unless your plan is to spam cantrips or weapon attacks, or believe in the 5mwd, warlocks are the class that are CHA based, easy with a lot of spammable at-will abilities, and don't require a lot of management or maintenance. You might want to simply try each and see what you like the most. Bards have variety in the spells, use ability checks a lot, and use bardic inspiration; lore bard with cutting words or valor for combat benefits. Sorcerer would more likely be draconic for those added abilities and better damage option later, and is really there for font of magic and metamagic; you may not like the limited spells known and reliance on the extra cantrip slots or skills without added proficiency / expertise like a bard. Paladins don't sound up your ally at all, but you might like oath of ancients flavor.
What I would really recommend is GOO / chain pact warlock, take the spells known as armor of agathys (this is important for the temp hp at low levels but has a similar effect to holding on to hex in that it takes one slot often) and tasha's hideous laughter initially. For the first invocations take agonizing blast and misty visions. Friends would make for an interesting second cantrip. Good spells to pick up are dissonant whispers, hex, and possibly arms of hadar (loses it's luster at higher levels but decent at low levels). Suggestion works well as a good 2nd level spell to add quickly. You can still pick up ritual caster as a feat if you want it.
People splash warlock for eldritch blast and agonizing blast for a reason. Another possibility is grabbing shillelagh using the tome pact along with greenflame blade. All it takes is a feat to upgrade to medium armor and shield and pole arm master with a staff for a shillelagh for a more combat oriented lore bard or tome warlock. With that set up for a warlock there's a decent melee option with shillelagh / greenflame blade or ranged with eldritch / agonizing blast. Greenflame blading might be more enjoyable than eldritch spamming. Armor of Agathys, hex, shillelagh, greenflame blade, eldritch blast, agonizing blast, medium armor, pole arm master is doable by 4th level with solid returns at 5th level and you would not need to split focus from CHA because of shillelagh via tome bonus cantrips. Lore bard would need to spend extra secrets on both at 6th level going that route. Tome warlock wouldn't be worried about the spell slots because using one for armor of agathys and one for hex makes them irrelevant; all the spell casting would be done via cantrips and invocations.
Disclaimer: I haven't tried that out yet or taken a close look and it was a random thought in response to your question. The thought is definitely open to feedback.
Edit: it didn't take long to realize PAM probably isn't worth it in the combo at 11th level and almost definitely not worth it at 17th level.
That normally only matters if there is a cleric and a wizard in the party already, and if the cleric is preparing those spells in order to use them as rituals. Clerics cannot cast them as rituals without preparing them (same as druids) and bards cannot cast a spell as a ritual unless it was taken as a known spell. Wizards are the real competition there, which makes sense given the similarities in the classes as opposed to the differences. Clerics and druids do have a lot of spells prepared so might have some duplication, but having those in a tome warlock's book means they don't need to prepare those spells so there should be synergy there as opposed to overlap because the clerics and druids would simply use the available warlock ritual book to memorize something else. That opens up variety in that case.
The other competition is in the ritual caster feat.
Something else to keep in mind when it comes to synergy, any time a spell is cast with a casting time of greater than one action that spell requires the use of concentration, including rituals. That's one of the reasons hex tends to be less appealing for tome warlocks or dropped. There is direct competition in casting a ritual and maintaining a concentration spell. The reason this should be kept in mind is because that's also true of every other ritual caster out there. There might be overlap between the wizard's spell book ritual casting and the tome warlock's ritual casting invocation but having both means one can maintain concentration on a spell while the other can use the ritual. From that perspective, the overlap is actually desirable so that a specific ritual being required doesn't automatically force the spell caster in question to give up concentration on a spell. It's a minor perk around which the spell casters can coordinate.
Hopefully that helps.
1) A short rest is a period of time of at least one hour in which activities cannot be more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending wounds. There is zero indication that maintaining a concentration spell is more strenuous than these activities. To the contrary, the description for concentration specifically states that normal activity does not interfere with concentration, and further lists the specific things that do cause concentration to drop. What causes concentration to drop is: changing concentration to another spell that requires concentration, becoming incapacitated or killed, or failing a saving throw when taking damage. A DM discretionary option for environmental phenomenon is given with the example of requiring a DC 10 CON save while trying to maintain concentration on a storm tossed ship. A short rest is nothing remotely like a storm tossed ship. Short rests do not incapacitate. Short rests are specifically limited to less strenuous activity than the normal activity of fighting used in the example of normal activity that does not interfere with concentration. Shorts rests are nothing but restricted normal activity. Anyone who complains about short rests breaking concentration and impacting warlocks is perpetuating their own problem by imposing their own house rule. The rules are very specific on what breaks concentration. I don't find it unreasonable to break concentration on a short rest if that makes sense to the DM in his or her game, but it is not the norm and a house rule.
2) I also impose disadvantage when two opponents cannot see each other. I can understand the argument for simplifying it and the rules do state that attacking someone who cannot see the attacker is done with advantage but that one seems too silly to me. That's a situation where we've gone from one person flailing back at someone else attacking him or her to neither knowing where to attack and so there is a loss on knowing where to flail back because it's harder to fight back blindly at someone who doesn't know where to attack. That turns into a situation where both need to guess where to attack in the first place (possible by active perception or lucky guess), but then the attack is still made with disadvantage. I ruled that the reason for the advantage on the attack is invalid when no one can see.
3) I agree that invocations for learning a spell that uses a warlock spell slot and also can only be used once per day seems a bit excessive. It's hard to look at those as priority invocations when the at-will SLA's have some pretty good options. The point of them is to add spells known (even if it's restricted usage) for more of a caster oriented warlock. I definitely have some higher priorities first, but a couple of them are not that bad even with the added once per day limitation. Expanding versatility with something like polymorph or confusion once per day isn't the worst thing a person could do. A person needs to keep in mind that those expanded options are best used in the main combat for the day facing the big bad guy. Not strong choices but they do open up options, so they have a use after a person picks up other solid options.
That gets back to selecting at-will SLA's as a start, but beyond that the eldritch knight has slow spell progression, limited school selection, and never gets higher than 4th level spells. Warlocks destroy that in spells known and minimum spell levels, and also add in arcanum. You'll never see an eldritch knight with mass suggestion, true polymorph, force cage, or dominate monster coming from the eldritch knight options. That eldritch knight is also likely to want short rests for second wind and action surge.
If you wanted a better fighter gish style than what the warlock offers you are likely better off going with the fighter chassis and eldritch knight over a blade pact warlock. The warlock gets the invocations and more powerful magic options, however, and is still decent built for combat. That just depends on what you value more in your character.
Spell casters do not run out of cantrips and can go indefinitely. That's no different than the fighter. Different spell casters also never run out of rituals or at-will invocations that would also go indefinitely. Fighters do run out of action surges and second winds (and hit points just like everyone else; no one can "go indefinitely"). Some fighters also run out of spells or superiority dice. The only fighter that can almost go forever is the epic champion because of the survivor ability.
Most fighters want short rests because of the action surges and second winds. Battlemasters thrive on short rests.
Warlock. It's CHA based and has a lot of at-will abilities. The other options are sorcerer, bard, and paladin. Unless your plan is to spam cantrips or weapon attacks, or believe in the 5mwd, warlocks are the class that are CHA based, easy with a lot of spammable at-will abilities, and don't require a lot of management or maintenance. You might want to simply try each and see what you like the most. Bards have variety in the spells, use ability checks a lot, and use bardic inspiration; lore bard with cutting words or valor for combat benefits. Sorcerer would more likely be draconic for those added abilities and better damage option later, and is really there for font of magic and metamagic; you may not like the limited spells known and reliance on the extra cantrip slots or skills without added proficiency / expertise like a bard. Paladins don't sound up your ally at all, but you might like oath of ancients flavor.
What I would really recommend is GOO / chain pact warlock, take the spells known as armor of agathys (this is important for the temp hp at low levels but has a similar effect to holding on to hex in that it takes one slot often) and tasha's hideous laughter initially. For the first invocations take agonizing blast and misty visions. Friends would make for an interesting second cantrip. Good spells to pick up are dissonant whispers, hex, and possibly arms of hadar (loses it's luster at higher levels but decent at low levels). Suggestion works well as a good 2nd level spell to add quickly. You can still pick up ritual caster as a feat if you want it.
People splash warlock for eldritch blast and agonizing blast for a reason. Another possibility is grabbing shillelagh using the tome pact along with greenflame blade. All it takes is a feat to upgrade to medium armor and shield and pole arm master with a staff for a shillelagh for a more combat oriented lore bard or tome warlock. With that set up for a warlock there's a decent melee option with shillelagh / greenflame blade or ranged with eldritch / agonizing blast. Greenflame blading might be more enjoyable than eldritch spamming. Armor of Agathys, hex, shillelagh, greenflame blade, eldritch blast, agonizing blast, medium armor, pole arm master is doable by 4th level with solid returns at 5th level and you would not need to split focus from CHA because of shillelagh via tome bonus cantrips. Lore bard would need to spend extra secrets on both at 6th level going that route. Tome warlock wouldn't be worried about the spell slots because using one for armor of agathys and one for hex makes them irrelevant; all the spell casting would be done via cantrips and invocations.
Disclaimer: I haven't tried that out yet or taken a close look and it was a random thought in response to your question. The thought is definitely open to feedback.
Edit: it didn't take long to realize PAM probably isn't worth it in the combo at 11th level and almost definitely not worth it at 17th level.
That normally only matters if there is a cleric and a wizard in the party already, and if the cleric is preparing those spells in order to use them as rituals. Clerics cannot cast them as rituals without preparing them (same as druids) and bards cannot cast a spell as a ritual unless it was taken as a known spell. Wizards are the real competition there, which makes sense given the similarities in the classes as opposed to the differences. Clerics and druids do have a lot of spells prepared so might have some duplication, but having those in a tome warlock's book means they don't need to prepare those spells so there should be synergy there as opposed to overlap because the clerics and druids would simply use the available warlock ritual book to memorize something else. That opens up variety in that case.
The other competition is in the ritual caster feat.
Something else to keep in mind when it comes to synergy, any time a spell is cast with a casting time of greater than one action that spell requires the use of concentration, including rituals. That's one of the reasons hex tends to be less appealing for tome warlocks or dropped. There is direct competition in casting a ritual and maintaining a concentration spell. The reason this should be kept in mind is because that's also true of every other ritual caster out there. There might be overlap between the wizard's spell book ritual casting and the tome warlock's ritual casting invocation but having both means one can maintain concentration on a spell while the other can use the ritual. From that perspective, the overlap is actually desirable so that a specific ritual being required doesn't automatically force the spell caster in question to give up concentration on a spell. It's a minor perk around which the spell casters can coordinate.
Hopefully that helps.
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SailorNash
Explorer
The rest issue could be addressed, though 6-8 encounters and 2-3 rests still seem much unless you're really making a point and trying for it. But that's more a discussion of the rest mechanic itself.
If it's fun, it would come along naturally. If it's not, should a DM go out of his way to try to force the story into that pattern because of a class mechanic? Should the other players change their pace for one teammate, for a class known to just be "EB, rinse and repeat" anyway? We're only talking two spells, and most of the contribution comes from straight blasting.
There was some overlap, but this started out as an AL game so no real way to coordinate. Even if there was, the Tomelock mechanic by design steps on other classes' toes. At best, you can find a few small niches others can't reach. But you pick up those few oddball abilities, rather than getting to know and do everything as it first appears.
(But yeah, TPK. Got the dragon mask, then got blown to bits. Good tactical decision but bad luck and worse dice rolls. Fun times, though!)
happyhermit
Adventurer
Short rest is defined in the PHB as;
"...at least one hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending wounds."
So, why would the PCs be restricted to only answering resting. To argue that only those four things are allowed doesn't make any sense because if that was the case they would have said so rather than saying "nothing more strenuous" which obviously is intended to mean that things of lessor or equal "strenuous-ness" do not disrupt the rest.
So, they have included several potentially "game-progressing" examples in a manner that does not in any way appear to be all encompassing.
The PHB specifically points out that normal activity such as moving and attacking don't interfere with concentration, only; casting another conc. spell, taking damage, and being incapacitated or killed. It also states that the DM might also decide other things such as " a wave crashing over you.." could break it.
So, obviously concentration wouldn't be broken by a short rest, and I don't see any reason why a short rest would be "broken" by a concentration.
ETA; sorry to be repetitive, Ashrym beat me to it.
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
Re the short rest, I have two important (I think) but very different observation:
1: A lot of you people are saying "resting wouldn't interrupt concentration!" and I completely agree. But you are asking the *wrong* question. It's not "can I maintain concentration while I eat lunch" that is the issue. Rather the question is "can I REST while concentrating on a spell". In other words, does concentration require too much mental effort to effectively rest and refresh.
2: If the answer to this question is "no" you have to realize that it has an impact on a number of long duration spell. The long-rest classes, who also only get their spells refreshed after a long rest, would want to avoid "losing their spells" with a short rest and keep going... although wait, that's not true, they could keep them going through the short rest, but not get the benefit of the short rest. Hmmm...
1: A lot of you people are saying "resting wouldn't interrupt concentration!" and I completely agree. But you are asking the *wrong* question. It's not "can I maintain concentration while I eat lunch" that is the issue. Rather the question is "can I REST while concentrating on a spell". In other words, does concentration require too much mental effort to effectively rest and refresh.
2: If the answer to this question is "no" you have to realize that it has an impact on a number of long duration spell. The long-rest classes, who also only get their spells refreshed after a long rest, would want to avoid "losing their spells" with a short rest and keep going... although wait, that's not true, they could keep them going through the short rest, but not get the benefit of the short rest. Hmmm...
ccs
41st lv DM
You could fight a 600 round melee - punching, stabbing, & being punched & stabbed - and not lose concentration. (Well assume you pass any checks).
So unless you go to sleep while you rest....
The Crimson Binome
Hero
That might not be the best example, because it's leaving the assumption space that the game was designed around. I mean, you don't have to check for exhaustion after 600 rounds, either, but that's just because nobody is ever going to be in combat that long and they didn't want to include a bunch of rules that would never be used.
As compared to resting for an hour, while concentrating on a spell that lasts eight hours, which is something that they would expect to happen pretty frequently (or else they wouldn't design spells with an 8-hour duration).
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
You still don't understand. I'm not saying "can I relax while concentrating". If you can concentrate while dodging arrows and slinging cantrips, obviously you can concentrate while lying under a tree eating a sandwich! Duh.
You have to think about it in REVERSE.
Can you rest *while concentrating*. THAT IS THE QUESTION. That little mental gymnastic in the back of your head "hex hex, hex hex hex, ok now the moon has shifted so in reverse xeh xeh xeh xeh, xeh, xeh, xeh!, oh thank you great Marguflax, hex hex heeeeeex...." (or whatever it is), does that stop you from effectively resting?
AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
By not declaring concentration (the game term) to be more strenuous than the things listed as the "no more strenuous than" examples for resting, and not outright saying that it is not possible to rest while concentrating, such as by listing rest while covering the things that result in concentration (again, the game term) being lost - and then later by clarification from the developers on the intent being that you can in fact rest while concentrating (one last time, the game term), the answer to your question seems to be a quite clear "Yes, you can."
Flamestrike
Legend
DMG Page 267. It even states in the 'shorter rest' variant that you should not allow casters to regain anything over 5th level slots when they long rest in that variant because its OP.
In the building an encounter section (the adventuring day) it expressly states that long rest resources are expected to be stretched out over 6-8 medium-hard encounters, and that a standard adventuring day should feature around 2 short rests.
Read those sections as a whole. Long rest resources are supposed to be stretched over 6-8 medium-hard encounters, while short rest resources are supposed to be rationed over around 2-3.
Long rest resources and short rest resources are not equal.
The game also says you can freely design harder encounters but that such encounters present a greater chance of a TPK simply on account of a few bad rolls. If your party needs 5 deadly encounters to level, and each such deadly encounter features even a 10 percent chance of a PC death, odds are they'll be dead before they hit third level.
What its inferring is for you (the DM) to at least turn your mind to policing the adventuring day, and make your players manage resources. Make the decision to (use a spell slot) or (action surge) or (rage) or (divine smite) a meaningful one.
Your casters have enough juice to meaningfully affect maybe 2-3 encounters per day with a big flashy effect, while contributing to the other encounters. An action surging BM fighter (for example) or a raging barbarian gets about the same number of fights to step up to the plate and be impressive (assuming 2-3 short rests per long rest) while contributing to the others as well.
Unless you prefer 3.P's game of rocket tag, caster dominance, and the utter immersion destroying 5 minute adventuring day paradigm, in which case fill your boots.
