D&D 5E Spell Points variant rule & Warlock

[ZickZak]

Hello,
Spell Point variant rule from DMG guide seems to be giving Sorcerer's ability to everyone else except warlocks. Normally, one is able to cast any level of a spell maximum of 4 times a day (I think). With the slots, one has to think even about casting level 1 spell. With the spell points, casting level 1 spell costs basically nothing and one can hapilly spam (for example) Shield all day long.
Why isn't this available to Warlocks? It breaks the same mechanism. This would allow Warlocks to take spells like Charm person, Shield for hexblade etc. without punnishing them for not having scalable spells and for casting it with a high level slot.

(I've seen a lot of people playing the Spell Points only with Sorcerrers, combining spell points and sorcerer metamagic points into one pool, allowing them to use these for either metamagic or spells, making sorcerer's more unique.)

Thanks

 

[Maestrino]

I like spell points. BUT:

First, combining sorcerer metamagic points and spell points is a no-no. They're for different things. Metamagic should be way more limited than your "mana pool", so to speak. Combining them wrecks the balance.

Second: Wizards and Warlocks are the two classes that should not use spell points. Wizards because they are an "academic" caster - they learn their spells through study and practice, so it makes sense (to me) that they would work in the traditional "spell slot" format.

Warlocks are the other exception because they don't get a spellcasting ability (per the PHB). They get "pact magic" which works differently. Their patron grants them the ability to cast two spells (and that's all) per short rest. They don't have the ability to cast spells at lower level, it's all or nothing. Letting a warlock say "well, I have two fifth-level spells, so that's 14 spell points, but first-level spells only cost two points, so I'm going to blast seven first-level spells per short rest instead" completely changes their game mechanic. The whole calculation of "I only get two spells, what am I going to use them for?" is pretty much the key part of playing a warlock.

 

[ZickZak]

Letting a warlock say "well, I have two fifth-level spells, so that's 14 spell points, but first-level spells only cost two points, so I'm going to blast seven first-level spells per short rest instead" completely changes their game mechanic.

Isn't that the same for all the other classes, to a lesser extent?

 

[Maestrino]

To a lesser extent, yes. But for them it's more of the reverse. It's the limited number of higher-level spells that affects those casters. (Like you said, after a certain point they can pretty much cast 1st-level spells all day anyway.) The spell-point variant in the DMG still says you only get to cast ONE spell at each of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level per long rest, which is actually MORE restrictive than the way spell slots are set up. But beyond that, flavor-wise it makes sense to me that an innate caster like a sorcerer might just choose to fling 5th-level fireballs all day until they run out of juice.

 

[cbwjm]

I feel like the spell point variant doesn't really work with the way warlock pact magic works. Their whole spellcasting thing is that they cast a few spells at the highest spell level up to 5th level. I guess you could change that to let them cast spells at any of levels 1-5 using their spell points. You'd still have to keep them separate from other spell points if multiclassed just to keep track of which spell points come back on a short rest.

 

[ZickZak]

We play level 6 and dont level, ever. So the warlock has access to spells of 3rd level only. Keeping it separate isn't an issue I think. You'd always be using lock spell points first and regenerating 10 on next short rest.

The problem with warlocks at that level or even higher that casting stuff like Charm Person is an absolute waste and makes you wonder if you can do that and potentially fight with one spell slot only.

 

[cbwjm]

Mainly I think it should be kept separate because if you have 10 spell points from one class and 10 from warlock and you expend 12 spell points before a short rest, you get back 10 for 18. If you then spend only 8 spell points before your next short rest, you need to make sure that you only recover 8 spell points, not 10 when you next rest.

I don't think it would be a difficult thing to convert for your group if you want to use spell points instead of spell slots, I think pact magic just simply wasn't taken into account when putting together the spell point variant.