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[Parmandur]

As much as I hate to see Pact Magic go, I'd be even sadder if they gutted Invocations in general.

Yeah, if Invocations were gutted ot would be pointless as a Class. Hopefully the half caster approach or the novel progression Crawford hints at win out instead of a full caster, but the Warlock may go Full Bard.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Never have I ever seen a fighter with three attacks plus action surge take longer than a caster useing a 5th level spell.

Then your experience is so different from my own that I don’t know what the heck your casters are doing on their turn.

Of course, I keep consistently talking about damage spells while the people replying to me with veiled “I don’t beleive you” posts keep talking about all spells, so I don’t really think I’m getting much genuine engagement on this subject, at this point.

I literally have never seen a spell like fireball take more time than it takes to resolve 2-3 attacks. It literally takes seconds. Like…what the hell is going on here? Do you have caster players who are co fused by how fireball works? Is the DM making a dramatic show of each and every saving throw while the fighter is sticking purely to mechanical language?

Like…are seriously saying that two players, both playing the same way with the same knowledge of their character’s abilities, fireball takes long than the time it takes to make a few attacks? Seriously? How!?

What Crawford seems to me to be laying down is a progression that has the same value as a half-caster as far as a Spell Point breakdown goes, but has escalating Slot Levels instead of a merely increasing number of Slots (hence the ability to cast 6th-9th Level Spells). Hence my tentative proposal of a topping out Level 20 build with a daily allotment of 3/4 5th Level Slots, and 1 each of 6th-9th but nothing of 4th or lower: that has the same Spell point value of a Level 20 half caster, not a full caster, but provides higher Level possibilities, along with the same Invocation and Pact ability budget that the UA proposal puts forward.

Ah okay

But tbh I think they were speaking a bit more loosely than that suggests.

For instance, idk if they mean that we will see levels 1-9 covered by that model, or just 1-5, with 6-9 back into a mystic arcanum feature.

Basically, after a Serrano level you stop getting more spell slots and get mystic arcanum instead, but you still have more slots and less perceived need to hoard them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, if Invocations were gutted ot would be pointless as a Class. Hopefully the half caster approach or the novel progression Crawford hints at win out instead of a full caster, but the Warlock may go Full Bard.

Nah, I think JC is really clear in the video that they don’t consider losing the “rest of the class” an acceptable option.

The two things listed as what the model they land on must do are fix the “actual power” problem and “not blow up the rest of the class features”.

And his wording when talking about the full caster writeup sounds much more like “we looked at this, saw it necessitated dropping invocations, and abandoned it as not an option as a result”, AFAICT.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah okay

But tbh I think they were speaking a bit more loosely than that suggests.

For instance, idk if they mean that we will see levels 1-9 covered by that model, or just 1-5, with 6-9 back into a mystic arcanum feature.

Basically, after a Serrano level you stop getting more spell slots and get mystic arcanum instead, but you still have more slots and less perceived need to hoard them.

It was a little unclear, but my impression was a progression that matches a galf-caster by point buy, but goes up to 9th Level. And a little look at the math makes me think that is doable, and potentially interesting.

Nah, I think JC is really clear in the video that they don’t consider losing the “rest of the class” an acceptable option.

The two things listed as what the model they land on must do are fix the “actual power” problem and “not blow up the rest of the class features”.

And his wording when talking about the full caster writeup sounds much more like “we looked at this, saw it necessitated dropping invocations, and abandoned it as not an option as a result”, AFAICT.

Yeah, probably that's how it will shake out: but "full caster like a Bard" seemed more on the table than, say, going back to Pact Casting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It was a little unclear, but my impression was a progression that matches a galf-caster by point buy, but goes up to 9th Level. And a little look at the math makes me think that is doable, and potentially interesting.

Fair. I’m fine with some sort of floating block of X spell levels model.

Yeah, probably that's how it will shake out: but "full caster like a Bard" seemed more on the table than, say, going back to Pact Casting.

I go the other way. I think they’d try a different take on pact casting before they’d try a model that necessitates blowing up invocations and pact boons.

But we won’t know until it’s in print, really.

 

[Xamnam]

Like…are seriously saying that two players, both playing the same way with the same knowledge of their character’s abilities, fireball takes long than the time it takes to make a few attacks? Seriously? How!?

Almost certainly. Multiple attacks use the most standard rolls, typically only affect one enemy, and can just outright fail on the to hit roll. Fireball is almost always used on groups, requires dex saves for each creature affected, and never fails to inflict at least some damage. There's just simply more bookkeeping involved with fireball, and that's without counting the caster spending time picking their spell, choosing where to position for optimal coverage / ally avoidance, and gathering up an amount of dice you don't frequently use at once.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Almost certainly. Multiple attacks use the most standard rolls, typically only affect one enemy, and can just outright fail on the to hit roll. Fireball is almost always used on groups, requires dex saves for each creature affected, and never fails to inflict at least some damage. There's just simply more bookkeeping involved with fireball, and that's without counting the caster spending time picking their spell, choosing where to position for optimal coverage / ally avoidance, and gathering up an amount of dice you don't frequently use at once.

I don’t understand how you could need more time to resolve fireball. Saves take trivial time, as does rolling damage.

 

[Incenjucar]

I don’t understand how you could need more time to resolve fireball. Saves take trivial time, as does rolling damage.

Can you explain how a fireball affecting 4 targets takes significantly less time to resolve than 4 melee attacks? Is it the 3 extra damage rolls?

 

[Xamnam]

I don’t understand how you could need more time to resolve fireball. Saves take trivial time, as does rolling damage.

Aren't to-hit rolls equally trivial, though? All I will say is that I've never seen I can't recall a martial turn taking more time to resolve than a caster turn. Could very well be a function of who I play with, but nonetheless. Last time I saw a fireball, it hit twelve enemies, with two different dex save values, and no one low enough to automatically die on contact even with a success. The party was at level five, the most attacks I could see from the fighter on the same turn is 4, so there's no way that would have taken longer, just by sheer number of dice rolls that needed to be made, even ignoring the other considerations I mentioned.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Can you explain how a fireball affecting 4 targets takes significantly less time to resolve than 4 melee attacks? Is it the 3 extra damage rolls?

The last time I remember fireball being used in my game? Half damage on a miss against a collection of 10hp targets. The only save that needed rolling was for the PC in the blast.