D&D 5E (2024) Monsters of the Multiverse: the death of eldritch blast?

[Crimson Longinus]

How balanced would it be if agonising blast applied to all damage cantrips? Would it make anything other than eb spam an option?

It still wouldn't be balanced, as Eldritch Blast would remain the obviously best option. But it would be more balanced. It's one of my house rules.

 

[Yaarel]

@Vaalingrade and @Crimson Longinus

One option to deal with the adventuring day is to have two long rests per level. All rests count as short rests, and each player can choose which short rest to count as a long rest.

 

[Zaukrie]

Completely removing short rests from the game would sound like a historic defeat of both game design and the playtesting process to me.

There are a million things that don't survive from version to version, let alone within a version over time. That doesn't sound historic at all.....it is just evolution of what they want the game to be.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One of the things designers have complained about is, the Warlock has too many moving parts.

There might be a fusion making the choice of Patron and Boon the same choice.

Here, perhaps the Eldritch Blast relocates to a specific patron?

I deconstructed the boons and folded them into invocations. So if you want to have a pact weapon and a pet imp, you can.

 

[Yaarel]

I deconstructed the boons and folded them into invocations. So if you want to have a pact weapon and a pet imp, you can.

That sounds elegant.

 

[Charlaquin]

The flexibility is kinda a trap though. There are couple of ways to build the character that are just flat out better than the alternatives, and not even by a little bit, but by a lot. I would prefer there was better internal balance, and other builds would actually be more competitive.

I disagree. I think EB spam is overrated. Like, it’s good, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not so significantly better than other builds as to make them obsolete.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Vaalingrade and @Crimson Longinus

One option to deal with the adventuring day is to have two long rests per level. All rests count as short rests, and each player can choose which short rest to count as a long rest.

You could do that, but seems way too game for my tastes. I've been just using gritty rests, seems to work fine.

 

[Jer]

Some sort of attrition is needed, otherwise battles that do not have significant risk of character death are pointless.

But there's also the point of view that battles that aren't a part of the story are pointless, and battles that are part of the story are always important even if there's no risk of death in them (death is not the only possible consequence after all). If the story you're telling is survival horror dungeon crawling then attrition is needed to keep the players in that mindset, but if the story you're telling is about an ongoing gang war between factions in a city for its control, and the battles take place over the course of a week rather than hour by hour, attrition is a lot less important.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I disagree. I think EB spam is overrated. Like, it’s good, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not so significantly better than other builds as to make them obsolete.

I don't think maths are on your side on this. Or if you disagree, I'd really like to see what you actually mean.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But there's also the point of view that battles that aren't a part of the story are pointless, and battles that are part of the story are always important even if there's no risk of death in them (death is not the only possible consequence after all). If the story you're telling is survival horror dungeon crawling then attrition is needed to keep the players in that mindset, but if the story you're telling is about an ongoing gang war between factions in a city for its control, and the battles take place over the course of a week rather than hour by hour, attrition is a lot less important.

Battles that have narrative stakes are obviously the best. But this sort of mass market casual game simply cannot be built with an assumption that this is the default approach. Because it won't be, not even remotely. Creating good narrative stakes is hard, throwing in some angry hobgoblins is easy.