D&D 5E Is Warlock broken?

[Giant2005]

Really? I never read it like that. I always thought if your target was blind you get advantage because he is blind and you are not. Like, if you're hitting an actual blind person at noon.
But if you are in darkness and suffering disadvantage, I don't see how the other guy also being blind has any bearing on your ability to see (and therefore hit) him. His being also blinded does not mean that your blindness is less, well, blinding. You are both at disadvantage.
The only one who isn't is the guy with Devil's Sight.
YMMV, but that's how I see (no pun intended) it.

You have advantage when attacking a blind person because their blindness has reduced their defenses - they aren't very good at evading attacks that they cannot see.
It doesn't matter if you are blind or not, their defenses are still penalized.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Yep, I'm saying that both parties are at disadvantage against one another. The comment I quoted seemed to say that if both sides are blind it cancels out and attacks on both sides are made normally without either adv or disadv. I disagree and say both sides suffer disadv. I'm not sure what clarification you are making? Sorry if I'm slow on the uptake.

 

[famousringo]

My problem with Warlock is that the class's mechanical focus doesn't follow the class's theme or flavor. There's a ton of flavor around the Warlock class, and there has been since it's introduction in 3.5. Otherworldly patrons, lost secrets, forbidden knowledge, demonic pacts, terrors of the unknown, and worse. Yet, mechanically, the class is usually an Eldritch Blast turret. That's lame.

Worse, it feels like you have to chose between being useful in combat and being on-theme. It feels like the class is spread too thinly between the small number of spell slots, the small number of invocations, and very little beyond that. I feel like the invocations that effectively are "Add $Spell to your list of spells known, but you cast it once a day because reasons." are really uninteresting if they're not 6th level or higher spells. I feel like there's an excessive number of "Cast a $SituationalLowLevelSpell at will, without spending a slot." invocations, too.

I feel like Warlock has a huge amount of flavor, a huge breadth of potential abilities, and very shallow access to any of it.

I don't agree with this.

Earlier in the thread, a poster mentioned that a 5th level warlock in his game wanted to be mysterious and beguiling, but was drawn to the Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast combo. And why not? It's a great Invocation and all a warlock needs to do solid DPR. And it leaves him with 2 cantrips, 2 invocations, and 6 spells known with which to be mysterious and beguiling.

By being able to take care of being effective in combat so early and so easily, the warlock is free to spend build resources on doing what he wants to do, whether it's broadening choices in combat, playing the party face, or carving out a role in exploration.

Everybody agrees that the single-cast Invocations are garbage though. I wonder if they couldn't simply be fixed by making them a single cast per long rest without using a normal warlock slot. Sure, it effectively gives the warlock more slots, but they're on a long rest mechanic, they're constrained to a single spell, and they cost a precious Invocation. I know I'd think carefully between being able to cast Detect Magic at will or being able to cast Slow once per day, for example.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Hah. Seems wrong to me, and I will house rule my way for my table.

It seems to me that two blinded (not blind, no Daredevil shenanigans) people flailing at each other are more likely to miss each swing than if they were both able to see (which is what this ruling suggests - that two blinded people are in fact equally as effective at hitting one another as they would be if they weren't blinded). Each to their own. I'll continue to rule that both sides suffer disadv and watch the comedy slapstick unfold.

 

[TwoSix]

Everybody agrees that the single-cast Invocations are garbage though. I wonder if they couldn't simply be fixed by making them a single cast per long rest without using a normal warlock slot. Sure, it effectively gives the warlock more slots, but they're on a long rest mechanic, they're constrained to a single spell, and they cost a precious Invocation. I know I'd think carefully between being able to cast Detect Magic at will or being able to cast Slow once per day, for example.

I don't think it would really break anything. A 9th level warlock, for example, could have conjure elemental, polymorph, confusion, compulsion?(not sure, it's in the SRD but no link to a spell), and slow available, all once per long rest. 1 5th level, 3 4th, and a 3rd gives them endurance closer to a full caster, but still nowhere the breadth of spells to pick from, or cast more than once if desired.

I get the feeling that they were really concerned about the possible overpoweredness of short rest spells just before release, since there were some chances to the warlock between the end of playtest and the actual PHB, but I don't think the resulting play over the last 1.5 years has really borne that out.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It seems to me that two blinded (not blind, no Daredevil shenanigans) people flailing at each other are more likely to miss each swing than if they were both able to see (which is what this ruling suggests

The rules are not a reality simulator, and as such do not care about the relative efficacy of the same two combatants able to see each other and both blinded.

The rules only care about quickly abstracting the relative advantage of one combatant against the other - of which there isn't one not already accounted for in the factors which determine attack bonus and AC if both are able to see each other, or both are blinded.

Of course, the real goal of the rule is to make the situation fun to play through, so if your group finds two blind combatants having extremely reduced efficacy battling against each other to be more fun than the alternative, go with it.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I will, thanks.

 

[SailorNash]

Well, "SailorNash not satisfied" <> "class broken".

I never claimed to be the defining voice for the class. Just a fan. And I qualified my statements to say that they were my observations and opinions, rather than a theoretical discussion. ("Broken" being a little so subjective a word to use here.)

A Warlock is a "magical fighter" with the occasional ace up his sleeve. If you expect a "full caster" in the vein of a Wizard or Cleric, prepare for disappointment.

It's considered to be on-par with a full caster, but I actually was expecting a magical fighter. But the actual Magical Fighter (the Eldritch Knight) likely had more spells should a DM not strictly enforce 6-8 encounters and 2-3 rests.

And thanks for that, or the Warlock would truly have been broken in the overpowered sense.

Please read the whole sentence. I said that Warlocks should know their patron spells automatically, like a Cleric's domain spells, because their few spell slots would still balance this.

But you know what? We have three fighters, a warlock and a cleric. And it's always the cleric clamoring for more long rests.

Of course. Full caster class. If it were someone begging for short rests, I'd have assumed Warlock in that case. Fighters never run out of sword, so they can kind of go indefinitely.

Since you don't seem to appreciate the Warlock for what it is, or possibly want it to be what it isn't, yes, you should play something else.

You seem to know my preferences well. I'd actually like to play a highly-charismatic spellcaster, but without having to worry so much over spell slots. Something easy, with lots of at-will or quickly-spamable abilities that don't require a lot of management and maintenance. Doubly preferred if it's a class that has a really RP-rich backstory. Have any suggestions?

If I remember, I'll revisit this thread at the end of Out of the Abyss. His Warlock won't be level 20, but hopefully level 14-16 or so.

In all honesty, I really would love to hear your opinion. I only made it to leve six or so. I love this class, love the idea for quickly refreshable spell slots, lots of reliable cantrip damage, and something nontraditional. And some of it likey is that I wasn't "playing right". But I've heard similar complaints, and people can't control whether they're the only short Rester or not in a group. Warlock is a wonderful class in concept, but I still wonder if it's not working quite as intended and if something might need to be tweaked to make it on-par with an actual caster or Gish.

 

[CapnZapp]

Three whole people? That's amazing. Clearly if three people agree on something it must be a fact...

Stop misinterpreting me.

I'm saying one person thinks class A suck, another person thinks class B suck.

You have no basis assuming one and the same person thinks all (three) classes suck.

You're just using that to make sweeping relativizing statements so you can call every complainer a whiner and conclude there's nothing wrong.

That one person has complained about the Warlock does in no way invalidate the concerns over Beastmaster Rangers. Or Frenzy Barbarians. Or Four Elements Monks.

The game does have weak spots. Some are so weak that a patch-up would be very welcome.