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[Cap'n Kobold]

Spellcasters have enough spells to be dropping AOEs with riders every round.

Casters don’t cast 2-5 spells per round.

Do you honestly believe that anyone is suggesting that they do?

Not only is a caster much more likely to take longer during their action simply deciding what they want to do by virtue of many more options than a martial, but those actual actions tend to take longer to resolve.
No I'm sure that you do have an anecdote of a warrior player who took ages to decide and then resolve their turn, but those players exist for spellcasters too, which can slow down combat far more.

There is a wizard player in our game that is extremely snappy in making decisions and rolling for them, but it still took him about twice as long to resolve the last couple of combat rounds than the fighter due to the sheer number of attacks that he was rolling.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, that’s the problem. Warlocks should recover their spell slots twice a day, which would be nine fifth level spell slots per day instead of three.

I wasn't discussing the 2014 methodology, I was exploring one of the three alternatives thar Crawford bandied in the video:

- Standard half-caster with invocations as in this UA

- Full Caster without invocations which appatthey have written up and tested

- And finally, a "scaling half-caster" who has the Spell value equivalent of a half-caster but gets high Level slots can still have Invocations. 3 or 4 Slots of Level 5 a day and 1 each of the higher Slot Levels would give the same spell point value of the UA proposal, hence leaving the same room for Invocations and Pact customizations. So, thst plus the potential of 5 Mystic Arcanums, 4 additional Invocations, Contact Outer Plane for free once a day, two Invocation like abilities for the Pact, and the free Slot for Patron Spells. An equivalent to the current proposal, but feels more caster-y than a Ranger or Paladin.

 

[Parmandur]

I literally haven’t been able to figure out what anyone could possibly like about the current UA model.

Well, for a start, having a half-caster Mage is intriguing, and combined with the flexibility of Invocations it's pretty exciting

 

[tetrasodium]

Do you honestly believe that anyone is suggesting that they do?

Not only is a caster much more likely to take longer during their action simply deciding what they want to do by virtue of many more options than a martial, but those actual actions tend to take longer to resolve.
No I'm sure that you do have an anecdote of a warrior player who took ages to decide and then resolve their turn, but those players exist for spellcasters too, which can slow down combat far more.

There is a wizard player in our game that is extremely snappy in making decisions and rolling for them, but it still took him about twice as long to resolve the last couple of combat rounds than the fighter due to the sheer number of attacks that he was rolling.

Maybe tell your GM that the GM normally rolls monster saves rather than making the wizard lookup statblocks & roll saves for their own aoe spells? Alternately suggest that a well placed aoe can remove an animated bag of caltrops?

Very few spells take anywhere near as long as the average 2/3 attack martial's turn. 5e unreasonably does a lot of things to encourage that 2-3 attack turn to take even longer like allowing movement between attack rolls without opportunity cost. Allowing reroll ones & twos rather than ones & twos equal three... allowing liberal weapon juggling at no opportunity or action economy cost.. It all adds up to martials feeling entitled to stare at the gm waiting for a status update before starting to decide how to continue the next step their turn.

edit: maybe buy the gm a handful of d20's if they are slowing things down by rolling a single d20 over & over again

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well, I think the nail in the coffin that pact magic WILL NOT be based on short rest. They might go with half-caster, full caster, or some new chart that is a mix (3/4 caster?) but it seems like they will keep them with spells per day. I can live with that.

Or they will go with Pact Magic but decouple it from short rests and instead make it very short rituals. I can live with that and it wouldn't gut the class's mechanical identity.

I don't know where these people who think the warlock should stay on short rests are?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Do you honestly believe that anyone is suggesting that they do?

What part of the statement made you think I was suggesting anyone did? Genuinely, I figured it was pretty obviously a statement that casters and their spells was not a direct comparison, and “casters go boom” wasn’t a compelling argument in response to “fighters shouldn’t get significantly more complex per attack because that will compound”.

Not only is a caster much more likely to take longer during their action simply deciding what they want to do by virtue of many more options than a martial, but those actual actions tend to take longer to resolve.
No I'm sure that you do have an anecdote of a warrior player who took ages to decide and then resolve their turn, but those players exist for spellcasters too, which can slow down combat far more.

Okay? People go into playing a caster expecting a menu of options and more complexity in each spell.

Most people don’t want the fighter turning into that.

The statement I replied to was a snide remark to the effect of “fireball could force a bunch of creatures to make a save, so your concern about fighter turns is silly”, to which I replied that X creatures making saves and taking damage accordingly takes less time than resolving X attacks.” so I’m not sure why you’re now jumping in as if I’m saying fighters are just as complex as wizards.

There is a wizard player in our game that is extremely snappy in making decisions and rolling for them, but it still took him about twice as long to resolve the last couple of combat rounds than the fighter due to the sheer number of attacks that he was rolling.

Sure, and I allow the special moves from the DMG, and there’s a feat that lets a character do them as part of an attack. The fighter at level 11 using manuvers and special attacks takes about 65% as long as the wizard does when using more complex spells. Which is much longer than before I allowed those attacks at-will. It works for my group, but it won’t for everyone.

And yea, the fighter’s attack action takes longer than resolving fireball, even before.

 

[Incenjucar]

Sounds like a table perspective rather than anything inherent - I wonder if it's because the DM is doing all the work with saves? Might be worth having the wizard roll the saves for the monsters to see if that changes things a bit.

 

[Remathilis]

Or they will go with Pact Magic but decouple it from short rests and instead make it very short rituals. I can live with that and it wouldn't gut the class's mechanical identity.

I don't know where these people who think the warlock should stay on short rests are?

The problem is that 5e currently has four recharge schedules: at will, when you roll initiative, Short rest and long rest. You're proposing a fifth that is unique to warlocks. I don't see how that fixes any of the other problems with the warlock, all it does is add another type of rest to the game.

They spelled it out pretty clearly that they want warlocks to have 1. More spells and 2. Them to recharge at the same time as other casters. There is almost no scenario where having 2 scaling slots per recharge fits that description, even if the recharge is a bonus action in length 2/day.

 

[Charlaquin]

I can see where you’re coming from, but I do think it’s fair to want the basics of Spellcasting to mostly work the same across the board.

I just think when you have a class built around having a unique spellcasting structure, you can’t change it to a more unified structure without destroying its identity.

 

[Charlaquin]

I wasn't discussing the 2014 methodology, I was exploring one of the three alternatives thar Crawford bandied in the video:

- Standard half-caster with invocations as in this UA

- Full Caster without invocations which appatthey have written up and tested

- And finally, a "scaling half-caster" who has the Spell value equivalent of a half-caster but gets high Level slots can still have Invocations. 3 or 4 Slots of Level 5 a day and 1 each of the higher Slot Levels would give the same spell point value of the UA proposal, hence leaving the same room for Invocations and Pact customizations. So, thst plus the potential of 5 Mystic Arcanums, 4 additional Invocations, Contact Outer Plane for free once a day, two Invocation like abilities for the Pact, and the free Slot for Patron Spells. An equivalent to the current proposal, but feels more caster-y than a Ranger or Paladin.

Oh, gotcha. My mistake.