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

[Vaalingrade]

More and more, I wish they would try the warlock without any spell slots, drawing on at-will invocations instead.

They would need to greatly expand the scope of the at-will casting invocations, but this in itself would be no bad thing, even if some sort of spell slot system remains.

It's pretty clear that their entire motivation is to enforce the Five Minute Workday for everyone.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Has anyone actually tried playing their games with the 10-minute Short Rest? As far as my tables have been concerned, it's worked fantastically-- any time a Wizard or Cleric wished to cast a ritual, or the Rogue et. al. decide to search a large area for doors/traps, or a character wants to identify or attune to the magic item (all of which I have on 10-minute counters)... the short rest classes can choose to take short rests rather than just twiddling their thumbs.

If you haven't done it yourself, and your table is also one who says they don't take nearly enough short rests (which makes your warlocks much less enticing)... I'd recommend trying it. It opens things up for the Fighters, Warlocks, and Monks and the idea of classes being unbalanced because they are on different schedules really goes away.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Yeah, that utterly boggled me. Like, Fly is a 5th level feature. Why should a 14th level feature be even comparable to that?!

This fear of flight really confuses me.

The 3rd level Fly spell that a caster may cast at 5th level isn't so much an established "feature" as it is an opportunity cost where you spend a limited resource that you opt into for a purpose. That spell slot might otherwise be used for a fireball that saves the encounter, or something else. The Fly spell also takes concentration, limiting your other options.

Having a Fly Speed all the time is indeed campaign altering. Forever. You can stay out of reach of enemies, drop an AoE concentration spell, and pick off anyone who looks like they're getting out. You can bypass so many obstacles and encounters unless the DM designs adventures where you can't benefit from your fly speed as much, and at that point, what is the point?

I've played under a DM who said having a Fly speed is no problem, and then designed adventures so to punish flyers or make flying useless. The DM wasn't being honest with themselves.

That said, I think 14th level is fine for a permanent fly speed. It's better than a permanent fly speed at 1st level.

 

[Parmandur]

Regardless, I doubt they are going to end up using half-caster spell level progression with whatever model they land on.

Based on what Crawford laid down here, the power progression of a half-caster seems inevitable, whether they go with the Slot progression in the end or not. A full caster would of necessity lose their flexibility as invocations would basically go away, and a Pact Magic feature seems off the menu.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The survey is now actually open. And I hadn't realised there was a 200 word limit in some of those boxes. No surprise what I was writing about when I found it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Based on what Crawford laid down here, the power progression of a half-caster seems inevitable, whether they go with the Slot progression in the end or not. A full caster would of necessity lose their flexibility as invocations would basically go away, and a Pact Magic feature seems off the menu.

I don’t know what you mean by half caster power progression then, because he specifically mentions at least one model that wouldn’t fit anything I would describe using that phrase.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@Charlaquin 7 minutes in he says they’re open to many different Spellcasting models as long as they address the “actual power” issue, and “don’t blow up the rest of the class”.

That’s where I was referring to him saying that the other distinctive features of the class aren’t on the table as things to yeet.

@Parmandur are you referring to the idea given at 5:35 ish to have the spell level progression of the 2014 warlock, with spell slots more similar to the half-casters, just with spell slot levels upgrading much faster?

Because that isn’t half-caster power progression IMO. That’s just using half casters as a shortcut to help visualize what the class table would look like.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Flight is not an issue. Poor guidance in encounter design that favors ground pounders on a wide open plain and the idea that the flyer does not care about their party is the issue.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think it's concerning how much of this video goes on about sorcerer warlock &martial feel/class identity while barely even admitting that the wizard even has such a thing. Ritual casting is no longer a wizard thing, full arcane list access is no longer a wizard thing, number of prepared spells is no longer a wizard thing.... even the wizard additions are just a subset of low level sorcerer abilities granted at much higher levels with costs appropriate to a high level ability rather than a level 2 one.

Crawford even mentioned that there was originally a different version of create/modify spell before the current one. I'm curious what WoTC thinks that the wizard class identity is & if that identity is just "sorcerer but playing catch-up"

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think it's concerning how much of this video goes on about sorcerer warlock &martial feel/class identity while barely even admitting that the wizard even has such a thing. Ritual casting is no longer a wizard thing, full arcane list access is no longer a wizard thing, number of prepared spells is no longer a wizard thing.... even the wizard additions are just a subset of low level sorcerer abilities granted at much higher levels with costs appropriate to a high level ability rather than a level 2 one.

Crawford even mentioned that there was originally a different version of create/modify spell before the current one. I'm curious what WoTC thinks that the wizard class identity is & if that identity is just "sorcerer but playing catch-up"

I don't think I've ever seen anyone say "Won't someone think of the poor Wizard!?" before.