D&D (2024) Survey Launch | Player's Handbook Playtest 5 | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

[Charlaquin]

I was relistening to the video in the Original Post.

I am reconsidering my view on the playtest Warlock that has partcaster spell slots.

My first view is, the Warlock is very much a fullcaster. The 2014 Warlock is what a fullcaster looks like when using Short Rest refreshes.

When switching to a Long Rest refresh, to represent the Warlock as if a partcaster is jarring.

Crawford in the video makes a good point. Essentially, the fullcasters have the spell progression take up too much design space in the base class. There isnt enough design space for other kinds of base class features. (Nevermind there isnt enough space for meaningful subclasses.) If the playtest gave the Warlock a fullcaster spell progression, there would be insufficient design space for things like Warlock Invocations and diverse subclasses.

For me, the most important requirement of a fullcaster is the ability to cast slot 9 spells at the highest tier. The playtest Warlock can still cast the most powerful spells via the new Invocations. I can work with this. I agree, ample design space for various kinds of Invocations is central to Warlock concept.


This makes me wonder. Maybe the fullcasters have a design problem. At the higher class levels, the low slots have too much bloat. The bloat can be problematic by lacking ease or pleasantness of options during gameplay − issues like choice overload and so on. But the bloat can also be an annoyance such as spamming the Shield spell.

Maybe we can rethink the fullcasters, or at least doublecheck if we prefer the 2014 fullcaster progression.

Maybe the fullcasters do better to look more like the playtest Warlock?

What if. The low slots bloat slims down dramatically. Instead, there are only a few low slots. All of the extra design space is repurposed for interesting class features, and great subclass choices.

Or maybe, the fullcasters use spell points. Say, the fullcasters have a number of spell points equal to 1 + the class level. (The cost of a spell is its slot. So a Fireball costs 3 points. Wish costs 9 points. One cant cast Fireball until class level 5, or Wish until level 17.) This spell pool refreshes every Long Rest. But. All of the extra design space, is used for things resembling Warlock Invocations. This extra design space lets Bladesingers be awesome at gishy melee combat, lets Evokers do fun stuff.


The Warlock is definitely a fullcaster. Maybe we can doublecheck what a fullcaster can be.

This. This is why I go so hard on the “full casters are boring” refrain. They just have no room for any diversity in their class features because all that space is eaten by spell slots.

 

[mamba]

If you don't want to actually engage in a discussion, you can just not instead of just cherrypicking, mischaracterizing and removing context.

I was disagreeing with the rest but did not quote it because going through this wall of weak excuses would have been tedious, so I just called them that, excuses.

I gave you some explanations now since you asked, but instead of addressing those you keep complaining about not including them the first time. I guess there is a reason for that, they are excuses, as I said originally.

No need to follow up, I did not buy your ‘oh but these things totally work and counter flying’ the first time already. Even when some of them sometimes do (you can always create circumstances / an environment where pretty much any outlandish plan works, when you have the plan first), it still shows that you have to alter encounters when you have fliers, so the ‘fliers are not an issue’ is not true.

They affect encounter building drastically, which was my point. My point never was that you cannot design ones where their ability to fly cannot be countered.

Seems this is an agenda of yours, saw it popping up in other threads too

D&D needs to move on from Fear of Flying and it's not going to do that when flying keeps getting shoved in the high levels

well, imo it needs to get grittier, and flying does not help with that. Guess we want different things from D&D

 

[Neonchameleon]

This. This is why I go so hard on the “full casters are boring” refrain. They just have no room for any diversity in their class features because all that space is eaten by spell slots.

One of many reasons warlocks are the most interesting class around - and would be better with more good invocations.

 

[Emberashh]

it still shows that you have to alter encounters when you have fliers, so the ‘fliers are not an issue’ is not true.

If your encounters cannot already deal with fliers then they're either not encounters that should matter or they're just poorly designed.

Not every random goblin duo needs a perfect counter to every PC, but if you're designing the set piece fight of the session and bemoaning that you have to actually make it well rounded then you've missed the point of encounter building entirely.

 

[Justice and Rule]

One of many reasons warlocks are the most interesting class around - and would be better with more good invocations.

Honestly I went into that recent Warlock topic/debate pretty open, and after reading through I think I came down with the idea that we should have more Warlock-style casters rather than less. Bards and Druids are examples, especially after the recent movie didn't have them using spells at all (or barely; I may have missed one in there). Pact Magic comes across to me like PF2's Focus points but with their own twist, and it would be easy to come up with class-specific "invocations" for Bards and Druids... and hell, even Rangers and Paladins. I think it'd honestly be better to move away from Half (and definitely Third) casters and move towards systems that have a few spells that hit hard but a bunch of interesting powers to customize things out.

 

[mamba]

If your encounters cannot already deal with fliers then they're either not encounters that should matter or they're just poorly designed.

as I already said, most encounters in published adventures are not good at handling them

Not every random goblin duo needs a perfect counter to every PC, but if you're designing the set piece fight of the session and bemoaning that you have to actually make it well rounded then you've missed the point of encounter building entirely.

so only the set piece encounter matters, just let them walk all over everything else?

You are proving my point here, I never said it cannot be done, I said the encounters need to account for fliers in their design instead of pretending they are not an issue and do not require changes in the design

 

[Umbran]

You gotta know I ain’t reading all that.

The discussion already concluded. Everyone else has moved on.

Mod Note:
This wasn't necessary. If folks discouraged you from posting what you wanted to post, how would you feel? Maybe don't spread that feeling around, hey what?

 

[Emberashh]

as I already said, most encounters in published adventures are not good at handling them

And is it the fliers that are the problem and need to be changed or the adventures the problem that needs to be changed?

Its one thing to believe that both are problematic in their own right, independently of each other, but your posts thus far imply you don't see a problem in the adventure design and would rather they be maintained as is, which is uh, a take lol.

so only the set piece encounter matters, just let them walk all over everything else?

You and I both know you know thats not what I was saying.

I said the encounters need to account for fliers in their design instead of pretending they are not an issue and do not require changes in the design

The issue is is that you're posting this as if you disagree with us when that is in fact the same point we're making; yes, adventures need to be redesigned.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Honestly I went into that recent Warlock topic/debate pretty open, and after reading through I think I came down with the idea that we should have more Warlock-style casters rather than less. Bards and Druids are examples, especially after the recent movie didn't have them using spells at all (or barely; I may have missed one in there). Pact Magic comes across to me like PF2's Focus points but with their own twist, and it would be easy to come up with class-specific "invocations" for Bards and Druids... and hell, even Rangers and Paladins. I think it'd honestly be better to move away from Half (and definitely Third) casters and move towards systems that have a few spells that hit hard but a bunch of interesting powers to customize things out.

I think both major parts of the warlock could be better used by sharing them around.

Firstly I think that a Pact Magic-style Druid would be wonderful. It would still allow the druid to cast but allow them to put a lot more weight into the shapeshifting while keeping things like plagues and polymorphs. And shapeshifting's defensive and utility aspects could be given more weight rather than needing magic.

Second I think that an Invocation-and-half-cast style Bard could be an excellent thing. It would mean the bard didn't have the wiz-bang magic, just a lot of utility stuff that's more useful than it looks (which fits with the bard being a subtler caster) and they get stuff of their own but different bards are different. (Crawford's absolutely right that invocations and full casting would be too much).

 

[Gorck]

One of the pieces of feedback I gave during the survey was to have the Warlock revert back to the 2014 Pact Magic, triple the number of Spell Slots, and have the Spell Slots refresh on a Long Rest.

I was considering experimenting with this in my own campaign. So does anybody have any theorycraft advice as to whether "tripling" is the right way to go? Should I only double them? Should I quadruple them?