Make Tome Warlocks more versital casters?

[5ekyu]

To me the limited slots per encounter vs short rest recovery of them is a key element of warlocks so i would be hesitant to change that.

The biggest thing for warlocks is the question of what do you want to be - esp for tome - since their limited known and limited casts drive focus over swiss army knife.

One thing i would say is that while save dying and guidance seem obvious choices, they are also obvious for clerics so if you have a pc cleric, using your bonus cabtrips for other things seems wiser choice.

But i would push to not be the backup mage or an alternate mage but a strong force within a given field... One you can support with invocations.

Focus on illusions, deception and control can play out well and let the mage focus his prepares on others.

As a gm tho the regenerate slots rule you propose would not be one i would be looking for.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How not to be treated as a backup wizard: kill the wizard and steal their stuff.

 

[ClaytonCross]

I'm a chain warlock for role-play reasons, but I think being able to cast lots of rituals would be very effective outside of combat. In combat, the reality of the warlock is that it is really designed as an archer who has a few tricks. This is especially true of a chain/tome warlock. My default action in most combat rounds is to eldritch blast and it's quite effective. I enjoy the class quite a bit, but it helped when I thought of the class as ranged attack first. The tricks have become quite powerful as time has gone on, but the bread and butter is still eldritch blast.

I can completely see this making the class more bearable however.... There is nothing about first few levels or the sub classes that indicate that is the intent. The warlock by name and by its focus on spell slots, spell casting abilities like Mysitic Arcaneum, as well as the large number of Eldritch Invocations on based on spells tell the player that this is a caster class. The sub classes are very clearly designed as arcane melee, scout by proxy, and improved caster versatility. The class also lacks the skill proficiency to be an effective "ranger" focusing on social manipulation and arcana instead. So while I don't disagree with your statement, I feel like players taking warlock for the first time are mislead on what to expect and how to play the class. I would say that the Pact of the Chain is arguably the most suited to your line of though as the scouting abilities come from your familiar which of many I am sure is the "fey spirit imp" with decent perception, invisibility, and devils sight which leaves a lot of room for the warlock to build an "archer with a pet, ranger type" with some social abilities and fun invocations. Pact of the blade has enough evocations since Zanthar's to make if functional as burst sudo paladin in my opinion which makes the need for eldritch blast almost void which is in direct opposition of your warlocks as archers unless your taking improved pact weapon to make you pact weapon a bow, then it comes back around. Tome however, looks like a flexible caster subclass then ends up being the "archer" you speak of by giving you false choices, because 3 cantrips from any class makes you go wow I can do all sorts of .... wait I can only find 3 or 4 cantrips even worth choosing from that I don't already get... well at least I a have tome of ancient secrets and I can get all those rituals...but almost all of the good ones are wizard and it requires that your GM provides scrolls and you don't have a wizard in your group taking them all. If your GM uses random roll tables for all magic drops the book of ancient secrets becomes random as to whether it will be useful in the campaign at all. So yes as a tome you end up being and "eldritch archer" while everything about the class tells you you could be a Warlock calling on the powers of magic granted from your patron to be a spell caster like a cleric with a different system as you might consider a sorcerer a different system for wizard.

I just feel like the Tome warlocks don't get any dependable self reliant abilities that let them live up to what the sell them selves as. Even a few good Tome only eldritch invocations thought could fix that. Though I don't know exactly what those might be. An extra pact slot would be good and I really like the invocation I wrote for mystic Araucanian but I feel like smarter poeple could makes something better. Maybe even "at will" invocations for higher level spells that are tome only.

 

[Vymair]

To clarify, I said in combat, the class plays as an archer or to be more general, a ranged damage dealer. It's not a ranger, their non-combat role is very different due to the high charisma and skill selection. They make great party spokesman and tome warlocks have the rituals which can be very effective outside combat. I will agree that blade pact warlocks are different. We had my character and a blade pact warlock in the group at one point and they had a completely different feel. It almost felt like a completely different class. The invocations and spells they select will often be quite different than the chain/tome warlocks.

 

[Satyrn]

Maybe even "at will" invocations for higher level spells that are tome only.

That would probably work well if you chose spells that required concentration. Maybe even if the invocation granted two such spell. So, like, you could use the spells as a sort of always-on buff, or swap between them constantly as needed, but you can still only have one active at a time even.

 

[ClaytonCross]

That would probably work well if you chose spells that required concentration. Maybe even if the invocation granted two such spell. So, like, you could use the spells as a sort of always-on buff, or swap between them constantly as needed, but you can still only have one active at a time even.

That is a massive improvement on my of hand comment. ... Thinking about it, if you were to introduce something like this and restrict it to 1st level spells to limit worries about being over powered. ... An invocation that made Hex and protection form good and evil "at will" would be an interesting choice because it frees up hex which might be the number 1 spell that prevents warlocks from casting other spells and protection from good and evil is a good safety spell means warlocks aren't holding on to it "just in case". That said, Just making hex an "at will" spell while keeping the concentration restriction opens up the class a lot.

I will edit my original post suggestion as a result.

 

[hastur_nz]

I'm playing a Warlock, and have had at least two in groups I DM; from my experience, they are full on flavour, but to play well they depend greatly on your ability to build something that compliments the rest of the group - too much overlap with other PC's, and you struggle to find a niche that's your own, you become the 5th wheel. For example, I've seen a Warlock in a group that has no Wizard, and that was good - similar in a way, but actually very different. I'm also playing a Hexblade with a Wizard, and the overlap at times in spells is a problem, so I've deliberately tried to steer away from any overlap so the Wizard gets his moments and I get mine; also I'm actually one of the main Fighter types in the group (with a Monk), so Eldritch Blast almost never comes out.

Personally, I think you should consider swapping your PC out for something else, or at least see if your DM is amenable to changing one or more aspects of your PC (I always allow my players to change their PC and/or tweak their PC design early on, as what looks good on paper doesn't always play out as well as one might hope, and no-one should be made to suffer a PC with loads of chosen abilities that never get used). See if you can find a mix that works better with the campaign and your fellow PC's.

From personal experience, I know it's hard to admit your PC concept isn't a great fit, and I've stubbornly played a PC from beginning to end that I hoped would work out well but more often than not was designed for a different type of campaign... in retrospect, I should have retired that PC and created another, that would have been more fun for me and the other players.

 

[ClaytonCross]

I'm playing a Warlock, and have had at least two in groups I DM; from my experience, they are full on flavour, but to play well they depend greatly on your ability to build something that compliments the rest of the group - too much overlap with other PC's, and you struggle to find a niche that's your own, you become the 5th wheel. For example, I've seen a Warlock in a group that has no Wizard, and that was good - similar in a way, but actually very different. I'm also playing a Hexblade with a Wizard, and the overlap at times in spells is a problem, so I've deliberately tried to steer away from any overlap so the Wizard gets his moments and I get mine; also I'm actually one of the main Fighter types in the group (with a Monk), so Eldritch Blast almost never comes out.

Personally, I think you should consider swapping your PC out for something else, or at least see if your DM is amenable to changing one or more aspects of your PC (I always allow my players to change their PC and/or tweak their PC design early on, as what looks good on paper doesn't always play out as well as one might hope, and no-one should be made to suffer a PC with loads of chosen abilities that never get used). See if you can find a mix that works better with the campaign and your fellow PC's.

From personal experience, I know it's hard to admit your PC concept isn't a great fit, and I've stubbornly played a PC from beginning to end that I hoped would work out well but more often than not was designed for a different type of campaign... in retrospect, I should have retired that PC and created another, that would have been more fun for me and the other players.

I hear you and I have been talking to my GM about the future of my character. My character is working perfectly fine from the scout role play perspective so I don't want to "throw the baby out with the bath water". As a result, my initial plan was to multi-class into a full caster class from and role play the change but maintain the character and hold on to the warlock aspect of the class that does work. After realizing my issues are limited to the Pact of the Tome I also mentioned that a if story would allow me to "rebuild" as a pact of the blade melee character with tricks or pact of the tomb using my familiar as a tool and diversifying my spells and abilities away from being a functional caster to being niche "ability" more infiltration expert style I could make that work too. Nether of those option really have a need for functional spell casting and actually function fine as half casters like paladins and Beast Master Rangers.... but with a different flare.

I do believe the pact of the tome is both misleading as is and it has less than half the Eldritch invocation pact of the blade does for example. I have updated the invocations with advice from [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] that made a lot more since. I do believe it re-aligns the pact of the tome to its concept and fills some of its holes however, I don't doubt that their is still room for improvement. It also makes since that a Warlock (or witch) class would have a functional "full spell caster" path option but considering the other options it should not be a whole class or re-write because it just unbalances them. They did improve the Pact of the Blade with the Zanthar's invocations likely room for improvement there but they could do the same thing with tome. Due to the modular design of the warlocks patron pact invocations setup its pretty easy to make an invocation patron, pact, and/or level prerequisites and tweak anything after the fact. (Unlike say the Beast Master Ranger who which is doomed to be disappointing to many).

 

[Satyrn]

I like the changes.

Although I wonder if Empowered Arcanum shouldn't just be a feature of the Tome Pact. Would that be too much to give them?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If a warlock was to change their patron, I expect they could change their pact boon as well, or just get a different tome with different cantrips. Obviously scribed rituals would be lost.