I think that is one problem with the whole warlock class. "Being offered great power by a questionable entity" has great story potential, but because that's the premise of the whole class, in practice that has already happened when you start the play. And it is unlikely that a character of some other class could be tempted with such eldritch power, unless they wanted to multiclass into a warlock. I feel it would be narratively more useful if "made a deal with the devil for great power" was a template you could put on several classes instead of a class itself.
I don't so much see it as a "problem with the whole warlock class" as I do "this shows why multiple paths is good." Because it's not like such "narrative-event-heavy" classes are unpopular, Sorcerer is also a now-standard tradition (that even got back-ported into
Baldur's Gate with its 2e-inspired rules), even though "revealing your magical heritage/innate power" is also usually a story event in literature. The needs of static, written literature and dynamic, acted play are different, so it really shouldn't be surprising that the two differ in how to best execute the idea.
The Warlock, like the Sorcerer and Paladin, offers a character that has already "gotten started," as it were. Like the difference between the "will they/won't they" of a romantic subplot
getting started, vs. the "how will they handle this" of
maintaining a romantic relationship (which so many authors seem friggin' allergic to writing!) There's good fun and good stories to be had in telling the story of how you got a contract with a great and terrible power, but there's also good fun to be had in all the dynamics produced once you have it, and sometimes it is that latter drama which people wish to focus more upon. Some folks want to play Luke-the-farmer's slow journey to Luke-the-apprentice and finally end with Luke-the-knight passing that final test of character and saving the galaxy. Others prefer to begin with Luke-the-knight and explore what follows after that. Support for both is useful.
Subclasses that could be applied to multiple classes were a really cool concept in the Strixhaven UA, but apparently it was deemed too unwieldy and abandoned. I really think that in the next bigger clean up they should make subclasses of all classes follow the same progression pattern, so that this sort of shenanigans would be easier to apply.
Yeah, I was kind of sad to see those go. If classes don't have roles and are just super-bundles over subclasses, then it makes a lot of sense to me that mutually-applicable subclasses should verge across whatever classes fit the bill. That's one of the reasons I felt I had to design a Silver Pyromancer as a short PrC, rather than a subclass or a feat; subclasses are restricted to single classes, while feats are both far too rare and far too small to encapsulate everything I felt a Silver Pyromancer should have. (I began building it long before Strixhaven was even announced, so I wouldn't have abandoned it even if cross-class subclasses had become a thing purely because I already put all that work into it. The fact that they
didn't become a thing certainly makes me more confident I made the right choice though.)
Classes, subclasses, templates, boons, and other things are all tools in the toolbox for representing various themes and experiences. It's useful to have options on that front. For stuff like warlock-style pacts and magical bloodlines, I'll certainly grant that there's a dearth of formal support for those stories where the power/pact/whatever is the
consequence of events rather than the inciting incident thereof, unless you just straight multiclass. It would be cool to have more options for that side of things. I just don't want those new options to come along by
replacing the options we already have, because...that's just swapping which one is getting special favor.
Yea. I'd say the general problem (for me) is that warlock works well with the current predominant paradigm of "Build a character to a specific pre-created vision"; I just don't think that's the best paradigm for D&D style play.
Fundamentally, I don't think sitting down at the table at level 1 knowing exactly what abilities your character will have at level 12 is a good thing; I think there should be a lot more randomness based on narrative events.
And if that's what you want to have, I genuinely agree that current D&D doesn't support that as well as it could, and that it is awesome for you to seek it...so long as that doesn't come with "and now
everyone has to play a game where randomness is dominant." Wanting to see support for something that's both perfectly valid and poorly supported is a-okay. Wanting that to be the paradigm everyone has to use is less so.
It's simply where I direct my homebrew efforts, and something I advocate for in topics about design.
