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[Gorck]

So the warlock has 6 fireballs at 5th level but can't cast shield without massively overpaying for it? I don't think that's really all that balanced.

As a warlock fan tripling is way OP and will make the primary casters feel like they wish they were warlocks. Doubling because you can use all at once is more than enough.

I've suggested recharging individual slots proficiency times per day as something that smooths the curve into its proper place.

I think recharging them easily is the better way to go. Being able to blow 6 level 5 spell slots in one fight is very powerful.
What aboot:
Give each patron, or maybe each pact boon, a rule that is something like “when you do X, you regain 1 spell slot.”?

Okay, this are the type of feedback I was looking for before attempting it in my home game. That's what happens when I do this off-the-cuff theorizing at work. Maybe I'll try just doubling the spell slots to see how that goes.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Huh? 4e released in 2008

And most IT IS AN MMO and EVERYONE IS A CASTER people never played it. Which didn't stop them from wanting to let everyone know what the game in their head was like.

Edit: oops, realized my original message said 'clairvoyant', now I see the issue. Yeah, not future-related, just knowing something without being there. Though, if they'd seen just how much of an impact they'd still have, a dozen years later, oh man.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't think either would work as well as you think.

The game needs a primal spellcaster, and that for better or worse is the druid. Maybe if we had a shaman class to take over the role of primal spellcaster, druid could become a half-caster* with heightened wild shape acting like invocations, but I don't see a whole new class getting added into the game to make up for the loss of druid casting.

Why? Other than that you value symmetry and all classes working in the same cookie cutter manner for spellcasting (and thereby making magic less magical) why does the game "need a primal spellcaster"? And it already has a primal half-caster.

If we are going for symmetry then "full", "half", and pact would at least be an improvement.

As for bard, part of the complaint about new warlock and artificer is they lack effective offensive power. A bard would basically be the artificer with an even worse spell list. The invocations of said bard (bard songs?) Would have to be hella good to make up for it. It's doable, but again I don't see time on their side.

The thing about the bard is that lacking direct offensive power is and always has been part of the job description. It's not a coincidence that the only PHB direct damage cantrip they get is Vicious Mockery, which is the lowest damage cantrip in the game, and the only other one they get is Thunderclap which is not only the joint second lowest damage cantrip in the game but is melee only.

But some of the existing invocations (starting with the Disguise Self At Will) are right up the bard's street. And then you can put more power into their buffs rather than have a bard as just another flavour of arcane caster (which is one of D&Done's bad ideas).

Plus, you keep all the problems of pact magic (multi-class problems, slot hoarding) and spread them to others. I would rather a fix that moves the warlock in line with other casters rather than breaking other classes to match the warlock.

Translation: you keep all the advantages of pact magic and, rather than eliminate an entire play style from the game ensure that everyone has to play a cookie cutter class that you personally like. Most of the ways the warlock is broken with multiclassing are sloppy writing (such as Eldritch Blast scaling which has been fixed) and the rest are because 5e short rests for class based resources are a failed idea. Oh, and that 5e multiclassing is conceptually bad and undermines the strength of the class system, making sure it has the downsides of both class based and point buy.

And if slot hoarding is a problem let's just abolish slots entirely. Oh look. There went the wizard. And the cleric. It's a problem with them all.

 

[tetrasodium]

It is indeed a take to assert with a straight face that official adventure design is both desirable, good, and the baseline that the game should revolve around.

Seems to me that you have an irrational hatred for flying PCs and have no qualms engaging in cognitive dissonance to assert that hatred.

You may clutch thine pearls at being accused of all that but I simply cannot believe you can be as interested in DND as you are and simultaneously believe that official adventure design is even remotely good when its universally panned, and deservedly so. Either you're carrying an extreme minority opinion (doubtful) or, as said, you're jumping through hoops to attack something you don't like for whatever reason.



And as it happens, you instead missed (re: ignored) the point, which was that worrying about having perfect counters to all PC abilities in every single encounter is a waste of time, particularly given that doesn't really make for satisfying adventures anyway.

You want a healthy mix of encounters that challenge and don't challenge, and any mix inbetween. Variety matters, as does the need for players to actually feel that they aren't on a pointless treadmill. Those set piece battles are where you want to put that effort in, because those are going to be the ones that you aren't going to be resolving in half a round.

But even then, theres nothing saying that goblin duo can't be played in a way that can still challenge a flier; thats why the battle map itself is important. A flier with a longbow doesn't have that big of an advantage in a tiny cave that happens to have a cieling within the goblins shortbow range, but even then, different environmental objects can be used to even the odds, and the choices both sides have to make to try and tip the odds in their favor are what you actually want anyway.

A longbow flier that has to make considerations of where they place themselves in a tiny, crevice filled cave is better than them automatically winning because you put the battle in a blank white room.

Something I like to point out is that even lowly bandits can put up a threat against level 20 characters with the right battlemap, and if played with intelligence you can even make such an encounter just as consequential as 6 ancient whites in a blank room.

When you approach encounter design this way, you don't have to throw out PC abilities like flying, because it fundamentally isn't a given that those abilities negate all of the encounters difficulties.

No, flight as written is the problem. That was not always the case, but 5e stripped out some of the rules keeping flight sane. Now in 5e plus the current oned&d rules any type of flight also grants hover & perfect maneuverability

Spoiler: stripped rules

It was in 2e with different wording too (dmg107-108)

the GM shouldn't need to houserule that humming birds are not the default example of flight capabilities for everything from sorcerer to aarakokra. Heck, the GM even needs to houserule that a player lacking hover can't use flight to ignore rough terrain & dangerous terrain (ie grease/caltrops/etc) unless the player actually uses some of their flight speed to not be standing on the ground

 

[Gorck]

The game needs a primal spellcaster, and that for better or worse is the druid. Maybe if we had a shaman class to take over the role of primal spellcaster, druid could become a half-caster* with heightened wild shape acting like invocations, but I don't see a whole new class getting added into the game to make up for the loss of druid casting.

Or the other way around. Keep the Druid as a primal spellcaster and create the Shaman as a Warlock-type caster whose Invocation equivalents are "Spirit Summonings." They could invoke spirits for aid in different ways.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I would like to say that if you want classes to have better firepower without, say, overtaking the Wizard or Sorcerer as blasters, the Warlock framework would be excellent for that. With limited (but high-level) spell slots, you can give certain classes (like the Bard) a few big tricks (let's call them "Power Chords") to pull out and cause damage and havoc, while their bread and butter would be through invocation-like abilities: you can suddenly make "Songs" that the Bard can start and stop to give different bonuses and effects. You can create auras and bonuses that just work and are balanced around being that kind of power rather than using a spell slot. So you can put a bunch of support abilities in the invocation-like powers and then allow a broader spell list because they'll only be able to cast a few of these spells, so you don't have to worry about them filling out an entire spellslot pyramid full of fireball or something.

 

[mamba]

It is indeed a take to assert with a straight face that official adventure design is both desirable, good, and the baseline that the game should revolve around.

I see it more as the standard and what a large portion of players use, and certainly as an example for others, no matter how flawed you think it is

Seems to me that you have an irrational hatred for flying PCs and have no qualms engaging in cognitive dissonance to assert that hatred.

I don’t like them, no hatred, and as far as I am concerned I have good reasons for that, so it is not irrational either.

I could turn this around and say you have an irrational love for them that makes you ignore the problems they pose, to the point of you rather redoing most published encounters, and the encounter building rules in general, than admitting that there is a problem

You may clutch thine pearls at being accused of all that but I simply cannot believe you can be as interested in DND as you are and simultaneously believe that official adventure design is even remotely good when its universally panned, and deservedly so.

No worries, you won’t see me clutching pearls. No matter what you think of the official adventures, it is how about half the players experience D&D, whether you like it or not.

You seem to have no qualms badmouthing just about every part of D&D (in various threads), but flyers somehow are apparently essential, that is a weird take and tells me more about you than D&D

Either you're carrying an extreme minority opinion (doubtful) or, as said, you're jumping through hoops to attack something you don't like for whatever reason.

I don’t like it and it doesn’t take hoops to arrive there

And again this cuts both ways, you defend something because for whatever reason you like it. All this is, is personal preference

And as it happens, you instead missed (re: ignored) the point, which was that worrying about having perfect counters to all PC abilities in every single encounter is a waste of time, particularly given that doesn't really make for satisfying adventures anyway.

if that was your point you could have made it clearer, this I agree with

You want a healthy mix of encounters that challenge and don't challenge, and any mix inbetween. Variety matters, as does the need for players to actually feel that they aren't on a pointless treadmill.

I agree with this too

Those set piece battles are where you want to put that effort in, because those are going to be the ones that you aren't going to be resolving in half a round.

this too

The problem is that it still means the others cannot just pretend that there are no fliers and keep on working, and published adventures need bigger adjustments when you have fliers. So my complaints about them are not really addressed or countered by any of this.

When you approach encounter design this way, you don't have to throw out PC abilities like flying, because it fundamentally isn't a given that those abilities negate all of the encounters difficulties.

this never was my claim

 

[Umbran]

Seems to me that you have an irrational hatred...

...and have no qualms engaging in cognitive dissonance...

You may clutch thine pearls... .

.., you're jumping through hoops to attack something you don't like for whatever reason.

Mod Note:
We need you to stop making this personal. Now.

Attacking the person speaking is not an acceptable response to not agreeing with your position.

 

[mamba]

That's the problem. Common adventure design is the problem. That's D&D's secret: it's always been bad at teaching DMs how to design an adventure, Cap. That's why it's one of the only games that teaches DMs to hate and fear flight.

or maybe I design the adventures the way I want in the setting I want and flying is no part of that, and certainly not common at a minimum, because flying gets in the way of that.
LotR would be a very different story if Frodo could fly and not for the better.

Given the official guidelines, which essentially ignore it, that is not just me either.

Just because you like flying for some unexplained reason does not mean that it needs to be an essential feature in every campaign.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, this are the type of feedback I was looking for before attempting it in my home game. That's what happens when I do this off-the-cuff theorizing at work. Maybe I'll try just doubling the spell slots to see how that goes.

Yeah try doubling and giving oddball ways to get a single slot back, I think that will be really fun.

Or the other way around. Keep the Druid as a primal spellcaster and create the Shaman as a Warlock-type caster whose Invocation equivalents are "Spirit Summonings." They could invoke spirits for aid in different ways.

Oooo yeah!

The Shaman could have spirits they can call via invocation, could even call them Names! You learn names and use them to call a specific spirit to do a thing.