Short Rest Spellcasting: Invocations?

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone. I'm working on switching my home games both to Spell Points and to short rest recovery. I found that SP/3 for the full casters is very close to Levelx2, close enough that that is the scale I'm going to base my games around. It places the Monk firmly as a half-caster too, and I'll be reevaluating the class and it's subclasses accordingly.

In looking at the wizard vs the warlock, though, I'm concerned with how much of the warlock's power is in their invocations, vs how much of their invocations are needed to make them a full-caster. Some of their invocations look like they're worth a full class level ability (Extra Attack is one of them; the fighter doesn't get much at 5th level beyond +1 second wind hp and Extra Attack, and similar could be said for everyone else). 2nd level at least suggests that one invocation is worth half a feat, but 18th level only grants one invocation.

So, if I switch all casters to a short rest recovery, like a warlock, will I need to give them all something like invocations? Or would a cleric with the warlock's casting mechanic be just as good with their own class abilities?


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[Eubani]

Have you gave any thoughts as to what this will mean to martial classes?

 

[Xeviat]

Have you gave any thoughts as to what this will mean to martial classes?

Martial classes, like Fighters, are already on a short rest track. This means the party will use resources on a similar track. No longer will the party have to take a long rest while the Fighter is still raring to go, just because the new Wizard player got a little overzealous with their fireballs. The Barbarian will need to have it's rage adjusted to be on short rest recovery, but the Druid's wildshape is already, so that will be fine. The Monk, Paladin, and Ranger are already half-casters, and will have their spells adjusted accordingly. Rogues lack much in the way of rest-based recovery, so they won't change.

Was there something else you were thinking of?

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Warlocks have invocations because they have a very small number of spell slots. Spellcasters with spell points will still have more flexibility than warlocks and can choose between a lot of low level spells or a few high level, so I don't think they need anything else to be competitive.

If you find the full casters to be underperforming with your new system, I'd just give them slightly more spell points per short rest, no need to add any extra class features.

 

[Xeviat]

Warlocks have invocations because they have a very small number of spell slots. Spellcasters with spell points will still have more flexibility than warlocks and can choose between a lot of low level spells or a few high level, so I don't think they need anything else to be competitive.

If you find the full casters to be underperforming with your new system, I'd just give them slightly more spell points per short rest, no need to add any extra class features.

Warlocks will be using Spell Points as well. So my concern is that warlocks will have a bit more than others.


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[DEFCON 1]

I suspect that you'll want to add Invocations in addition to the short-rest spellcasting. I think the Warlock is built and balanced to have Invocations and small spell slot on a short rest format. If you make all casters work that way, you'll probably want to make class-based Invocations to match.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Warlocks will be using Spell Points as well. So my concern is that warlocks will have a bit more than others.


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Aha. In that case you probably want to tone down the warlocks instead of buffing all the other classes. You can reduce how many invocations a warlock gets, and possibly remove some of the most potent ones.

 

[Xeviat]

Aha. In that case you probably want to tone down the warlocks instead of buffing all the other classes. You can reduce how many invocations a warlock gets, and possibly remove some of the most potent ones.

Or maybe make them cost SP?


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[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Or maybe make them cost SP?

SP to use or to aquire? For a lot of the invoactions the fact you can use them as much as you want is the main appeal, so adding a cost per use will make a lot of them unattractive.

Letting the warlock permaently reduce his max SP to buy invocations could be a cool and very customizable system, but it would be a lot of work to balance the numbers right.

 

[Xeviat]

SP to use or to aquire? For a lot of the invoactions the fact you can use them as much as you want is the main appeal, so adding a cost per use will make a lot of them unattractive.

Letting the warlock permaently reduce his max SP to buy invocations could be a cool and very customizable system, but it would be a lot of work to balance the numbers right.

I'll have to do a side by side comparison against the other arcane classes.