D&D 5E New Short Rest Caster Chassis (Spell Points)

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone! Last week, I posted a thread on whether or not people would prefer if the classes were shifted to all long rest recovery or "all" short rest recovery. I made a big mistake in my polling, and really should have said "more" short rest recovery, but oh well. It's been coming in at around 1/3rd preferring more short rest recovery, but the discussion has been interesting.

For several reasons, I want to explore the short rest recovery system a bit more. Basically, what would the game be like if the Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Wizard, as well as the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster, used the Warlock chassis rather than the long rest chassis that they do now? One of the parts that I'm looking forward to such a change, aside from putting all the classes on even rest progression, is reducing the nova capability of the classes.

But, one observation I've had from seeing warlocks run through a lot of level 1-10 games is that 2 spell slots is really not that much. The long rest casters get up to 3 slots per spell level rather quickly, and thus can afford to use 1 spell of each level per short rest, assuming 2 short rests, if they're trying to spread things out.

At the same time, I've always wanted to switch over to a Spell Point system. So, here's my idea for a new caster chassis:

	Spell	Spell										Total	Diff	Diff	% Diff
Level	Points	Level	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	SP	War	SP	SP
1	0	1	2									4	-2	0	0
2	2	1	2									10	-2	+4	+67
3	3	1	2	1								16	-2	+2	+14
4	4	1	2	1								19	+1	+2	+12
5	5	2	2	1	1							27	-3	0	0
6	6	2	2	1	1							30	0	-2	-10
7	7	2	2	1	1	1						39	+3	+1	+3
8	8	2	2	1	1	1						42	+6	-2	-5
9	9	3	2	1	1	1	1					52	+10	-5	-9
10	10	3	2	1	1	1	1					55	+13	-9	-14
11	11	3	2	1	1	1	1	1				67	-5	-6	-8
12	12	3	2	1	1	1	1	1				70	-2	-3	-14
13	13	4	2	1	1	1	1	1	1			83	+1	0	0
14	14	4	2	1	1	1	1	1	1			86	+4	+3	+4
15	15	4	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		100	+7	+6	+6
16	16	4	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		103	+10	+9	+10
17	17	5	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	119	-8	+12	+11
18	18	5	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	122	-5	+8	+7
19	19	5	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	125	-2	+2	+2
20	20	5	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	128	1	-5	-4

Spell Points would be recovered on a short rest. Spell points would be used to cast spells using the spell point formula in the DMG:

1st: 2 sp
2nd: 3 sp
3rd: 5 sp
4th: 6 sp
5th: 7 sp

The spell slots would be recovered on a long rest. Only the full caster classes would gain these slots, so not Paladin or Ranger. Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster would grow at a slightly slower progression (ending at caster level 14 at level 20), since they grow at 1/3rd and this is a 1/2 progression, so they get 2/3rds (rounded up to 14).

Aside from level 2, where the Warlock normally has a huge lead in spell slots over the base casters anyway, it's staying within 15% of the total SP, and it averages to 101% if you exclude level 1 and 2 (if you include them, it's 104.25%).

Compared to the base warlock, its max spell level for short rest spells is reduced, but they get some long rest slots to compensate. This might have the added benefit of spicing up their spell routines, as they'll have the rare high level spells to use, and might not be relying on the same 2 spells each difficult encounter.

What do you think? Would you give this a try?

Have you run a game with a Celestial Warlock? What does more short rest healing end up doing to the game? I've played a Life Cleric with the Healer feat level 1 through 9 and had access to a ton of short rest healing, and still felt like I needed more healing.

 

[Azaar]

Have you run a game with a Celestial Warlock? What does more short rest healing end up doing to the game? I've played a Life Cleric with the Healer feat level 1 through 9 and had access to a ton of short rest healing, and still felt like I needed more healing.

Not run a game, but I did play a Celestial Warlock (mostly because it was my compromise to give the party some healing capability above and beyond potions and the current mechanics) in the one campaign I've been able to play -- other party members were a gnome rogue (assassin), elf wizard (divination), human wizard (conjurer), dwarf fighter (battlemaster), and by the end also a human barbarian (don't remember his subclass path choice). Healing was a pain at first, but that was because I kept forgetting that my warlock spell slots recovered on a short rest. Even so, I was able to push out plenty of healing, particularly once I started remembering short rests -- and it made things all the better that I was playing a drow elf and so my long rests were only 4 hours.

I actually felt bad for the dwarf fighter player, though, who multi-classed into cleric for at least 3 levels (maybe 5, can't remember) levels to give us more healing, though -- he wound up wasting the level-ups when he could have gotten better still as a fighter, and I was out-healing him between three 5th-level cure wounds on a short rest, plus my Healing Light pool on top of that. I've have been far better if spirit shroud had been a thing a year and a half or so ago (and actually used Radiant Soul instead of effectively ignoring it like I did because it never came up), and if I'd done chain- or tome-lock instead of blade pact, but it is what it is. It was still a pretty fun experience, all the same.