Share Your Thoughts On My Warlock Houserules

[Immoralkickass]

True, but scorching Ray is not available to every warlock, and you have to hit with every ray for the damage to average out to more than the initial attack. Also, once Witch bolt is a DOT where scorching Ray is not. It can potentially do more damage. So in truth, it's not a weaker spell. Maybe not a spell for your play style, but if you're going to compare it, you should at least compare the spell as a whole and not just part of it.

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Its not really a DOT. It takes up your own action, and concentration, and you have to be within 30 ft. You know what being in 30 ft means? Anyone can walk up to you AND attack you in 1 turn. Meanwhile, I can stay at a comfortable 120 ft and fire EBs. If any enemy starts moving in my general direction, they need about 3 turns to reach me.

You're forced constantly use your action to activate the 1d12. The moment you do something else, it ends. You break concentration, it ends. Target walks out of range, it ends. Its terrible because it ends too easily, and even if it does not, its nothing great. It doesn't scale, and it still sucks compared to doing EB+Hex every round. The moment you can fire 2 EB bolts, it outclasses Witchbolt in terms of DPR by a huge margin.

Sure, its free 1d12 DPR once it hits. But if your group is at least competent, they would focus fire the target and it would go down in 2 turns max. And your free DPR ends there. But my Hex does not.

 

[Gadget]

Witchbolt is a poor spell choice in all but the most contrived situations, no matter the level or the class using it. The distributed damage over time sounds kind of nice at first blush, but D&D combat favors more damage quicker (thus the ever effective focus fire tactic). It is not helped by the all or nothing initial attack roll (which can't even benefit from True Strike, as they are both concentration spells), and the short range. Add to that the action cost on future rounds to keep it up, concentration and the fact that the target could be dead (or out of range) before you 'get your money's worth' out the spell and it really starts to stink. I mean, if it allowed you to make a new ranged spell attack against a target in range each round for the duration, that would be something;
at least you could switch targets and such if circumstances warranted it and a miss would not be devastating.

 

[dco]

Out of curiosity, what problems do Warlocks normally have? I had someone play one and he was incredibly effective (he was a bladelock, no multiclassing) and reliable for both damage and tanking. The player is hardly a min/maxer as well, so I don't think he broke any rules. He did eventually stop playing him because "the character is kind of one-dimensional," but he's stopped playing a lot of characters for that same reason (fighters, rogues, barbs).

Exactly, zero problems, the only thing I can think is that someone could prefer a warlock using STR and that is a worse option, but the same happens with a DEX barbarian, a STR thief, etc.
If we talk about flexibility in combat and out of combat, classes without spells have less, most classes have a more limited spell selection, etc.
The class can have 1 Extra attack, there is only one class that have more. The warlock can add more damage to attacks as other classes, like the paladin, ranger, cleric. Spells up to 4 of level 5 per encounter if he takes short rests, more than enough in most cases, he also has access to the best attack cantrip in the game, only the bard has access to it without optional rules like feats and multiclassing.

Compare those homebrew options to an eldritch knight:
- W: CHA does attack and damage and spells saves // EK needs INTand DEX or STR
- W 6 lvl 5 spells 4 of them per encounter, 25+ spells known // EK 13 4331
- W 3 attacks with 2xCHA bonus(+10 per attack) since lvl 12, EK 4 attacks with DEX or STR bonus (+5 per attack) at lvl 20
Obviously it is unbalanced.

 

[Regulas]

Exactly, zero problems, the only thing I can think is that someone could prefer a warlock using STR and that is a worse option, but the same happens with a DEX barbarian, a STR thief, etc.
If we talk about flexibility in combat and out of combat, classes without spells have less, most classes have a more limited spell selection, etc.
The class can have 1 Extra attack, there is only one class that have more. The warlock can add more damage to attacks as other classes, like the paladin, ranger, cleric. Spells up to 4 of level 5 per encounter if he takes short rests, more than enough in most cases, he also has access to the best attack cantrip in the game, only the bard has access to it without optional rules like feats and multiclassing.

Compare those homebrew options to an eldritch knight:
- W: CHA does attack and damage and spells saves // EK needs INTand DEX or STR
- W 6 lvl 5 spells 4 of them per encounter, 25+ spells known // EK 13 4331
- W 3 attacks with 2xCHA bonus(+10 per attack) since lvl 12, EK 4 attacks with DEX or STR bonus (+5 per attack) at lvl 20
Obviously it is unbalanced.

No problems?

Well strictly speaking they are "balanced" (mostly cause EB). But it's still very very awkwardly designed:
- Short rests depend on the story and pace not the mechanics so your spells per day may or may not live up to design. In your case I guess they do but in many cases it doesn't. There's a few other issues here but the main point is that it makes spellcasting erratic in viability. Infact most warlocks I've seen in recent campaigns don't even see themselves as proper spellcasters.
- Small secondary issue, 5e mechanics also make a lot of low levels spells retain much of there power regardless of the level you cast them as. So having all top level slots isn't anywhere near as great as it would have been in previous editions when now the wizards low level spells are potentially just as impactful.
- Many abilities are either obvious superior choices and/or obvious inferior choices, giving the illusion of options that aren't actually real or otherwise taxing or predetermining a lot.
-Too many different features all competing with each other; Spells, invocations, Pacts, boons, it offers you all these cool ideas, but in actual practice you tend to have to sacrifice most of them so as to focus on a single build because the power is too divided that way.

While you can end up with builds that are effective it's just such a cluttered quandary to get there.

Honestly I think Warlock needs either Spellcasting OR invocations entirely cut and the power redistributed so the class isn't so cluttered.

 

[neogod22]

Exactly, zero problems, the only thing I can think is that someone could prefer a warlock using STR and that is a worse option, but the same happens with a DEX barbarian, a STR thief, etc.
If we talk about flexibility in combat and out of combat, classes without spells have less, most classes have a more limited spell selection, etc.
The class can have 1 Extra attack, there is only one class that have more. The warlock can add more damage to attacks as other classes, like the paladin, ranger, cleric. Spells up to 4 of level 5 per encounter if he takes short rests, more than enough in most cases, he also has access to the best attack cantrip in the game, only the bard has access to it without optional rules like feats and multiclassing.

Compare those homebrew options to an eldritch knight:
- W: CHA does attack and damage and spells saves // EK needs INTand DEX or STR
- W 6 lvl 5 spells 4 of them per encounter, 25+ spells known // EK 13 4331
- W 3 attacks with 2xCHA bonus(+10 per attack) since lvl 12, EK 4 attacks with DEX or STR bonus (+5 per attack) at lvl 20
Obviously it is unbalanced.

Why exactly is using STR a worse option if you're going pact of the blade? Granted, only humans and dwarves can really benefit from it at a low level since they both can start with medium armor proficiency and get heavy armor proficiency at level 4, but that allows them to use any melee weapon as their pact blade and not just a rapier.

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[Regulas]

Why exactly is using STR a worse option if you're going pact of the blade? Granted, only humans and dwarves can really benefit from it at a low level since they both can start with medium armor proficiency and get heavy armor proficiency at level 4, but that allows them to use any melee weapon as their pact blade and not just a rapier.

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Because you're a light armour gish (e/g need Dex as one of the 3 stats to prioritise). So going STR is adding a fourth stat which isn't the best idea unless you have a way around other issues, ona low HP/AC gish who's already got enough stat problems with only 3 stats to worry about.

 

[neogod22]

Because you're a light armour gish (e/g need Dex as one of the 3 stats to prioritise). So going STR is adding a fourth stat which isn't the best idea unless you have a way around other issues, ona low HP/AC gish who's already got enough stat problems with only 3 stats to worry about.

If you're human you can take medium armored feat at level 1, if you're a dwarf, you get that automatically. You don't put points in DEX and only need to make it to level 4 (which is like 3 adventures), where you can get the heavily armored feat. At which point, if your primary stat is STR, then it should be an 18. Idk why you haven't figured that out.

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[Xeviat]

If you're human you can take medium armored feat at level 1, if you're a dwarf, you get that automatically. You don't put points in DEX and only need to make it to level 4 (which is like 3 adventures), where you can get the heavily armored feat. At which point, if your primary stat is STR, then it should be an 18. Idk why you haven't figured that out.

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So start with 16 Str, bumped to 17 with Medium armored, then heavy armored at 4th bumps you to 18 Str. Of you could start with 16 Dex and bump it to 18 at 4th level.

Wow. I never thought I'd agree with that sentiment.


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[neogod22]

That seems to be the problem with most people's thinking. Someone says "this is the only way to do it," and everyone else thinks that way. Not many people sit back and say "what if I do this?"

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