Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[vermilion]

But this "Undying Light" patron doesn't seem to want anything, so it's basically a free ride and I'm calling shenanigans on that.

From reading the PHB, the Great Old One may not want anything from you either; it "might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you." I don't see how you could actually make a pact with another party that doesn't even know you exist, but those warlocks get powers all the same

 

[DEFCON 1]

They are inside your reach, but thanks to Sentinel, you end up (usually) being safely outside of theirs, as they're forced to stop 10 feet away from you. All that's left is to make your normal attacks against the enemies now harmlessly within your reach, and then simply step back and repeat the process on your next turn.



Sentinal+Polearm Mastery means that any enemy with less than 10 feet of range means that they don't actually get to attack the tunnel fighter at the front, just stare menacingly at him while he slowly pokes them to oblivion.

Of course, you could tailor every single encounter to revolve around your group's tunnel fighter, but that might also run the risk of making other players feel alienated.

And doesn't the Tunnel Fighter have to keep backing up in order to do the Sentinel+Polearm Mastery "poke, step back, poke, step back" combo? Which means eventually he's going to back up into the squishies behind him. But we're talking a very narrow set of circumstances here... a warrior who wields a polearm who has taken the Tunnel Fighter style, and two separate feats... all so they can jam up a 10' hallway.

To me... if the player is spending that much of their resources to do this thing... then they should be allowed to do this thing. So occasionally as the DM I create encounters where a bunch of mindless creatures throw themselves against this one man pike wall... and other times I have monsters who also happen to have a ranged weapon on their belt and they all just stay back and shoot at the party rather than running up at all.

As a DM, I tailor ALL my encounters for the party that I have. Some will be easily dispatched, some have counters for almost everything they can do. But to worry that a player who has used a lot of resources in order to do a thing... might actually successfully do that thing, seems a bit odd to me.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

From reading the PHB, the Great Old One may not want anything from you either; it "might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you." I don't see how you could actually make a pact with another party that doesn't even know you exist, but those warlocks get powers all the same

Good point; there's no way to make a pact with a being who's unaware of your existence. The technical term for this is "crappy writing" and it shouldn't have gotten past the PHB editors. The whole warlock section reads rather badly, IMHO.

 

[Minigiant]

I just imagine a polearm matered, tunnel fighting, sentinel as a whirling hurricane of steel.

Since my D&D imagination is pretty crazy as is... I'm okay with it.

Finally I can say "Polearm Defense Mode Engaged" on my warforged NPC.

 

[TwoSix]

Actually, in my last post I explicitly stated in might NOT be a massive sacrifice; the list of examples I wrote made that absolutely clear. Or do think a "high five" is some sort of "massive sacrifice"? Never mind, don't answer that. You'll just muck it up again.

And yes, yours was the least applicable definition that came up when I did a web search. Also, I posted a link so you could easily very my source; I suggest you do so.

Are you even reading my posts? I'm all done reading yours, Ilya, because you're wasting my time. Now I'm off to update my Ignore List....

It's always nice when people don't disappoint you with their screen names.

 

[Orlax]

Eldritch Knight, Tunnel Fighting, Sentinel, War Caster, Green Flame Blade, Booming Blade, and Lightning Lure. That's a defender/controler right there.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm just happy I can play my breachgnome again

 

[Radaceus]

I personally like the idea of the Tunnel Fighter feature, it just needs to be brushed up, classify how many AoO can be made in one turn, and if the AoO using your 'one free action', or if it is allowing an additional use of a Free Action, perhaps it is a new classification altogether. Also, make it only usable in confined spaces or narrow corridors, the verbage almost says this but stops short. All this because open ended rules are bad and high maintenance. I wouldn't allow the feature as it is written

 

[MarkB]

Good point; there's no way to make a pact with a being who's unaware of your existence. The technical term for this is "crappy writing" and it shouldn't have gotten past the PHB editors. The whole warlock section reads rather badly, IMHO.

Maybe the Great Old One pact is basically "let's just agree to ignore one another." You can't say It isn't living up to its side of the bargain.

 

[Serpine]

Good point; there's no way to make a pact with a being who's unaware of your existence.

In the case of Great Old One (and the base description of this new option) the word Pact is serving more to indicate at minimum only a ritual binding, not necessarily a direct contract. The designers were trying to cover multiple concepts with the class, not just trying to make arcane pseudo-clerics (just as monk covers more then monastic martial artist and barbarian more then Conan). Fantasy is filled with examples of cultists and madmen siphoning the power of dangerous entities, and in many cases it turns out the entity isn't even aware of it (beyond a "hey, is that the dinner bell?" level) even if the warlock involved has created elaborate delusions to the contrary. When elsewhere in the game the words Chain, Stillness, Tides, Slippery, Supreme, Breaker, etc are used to label features they aren't intended to be literal, they are meant to be evocative, so overfocusing on the strict definition of the word "Pact" I feel limits the concepts supported by the class. That some Warlocks can "bolster their own power" by "drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings" rather then be beholden to them is a benefit, not a flaw, of the text.