D&D General The Player's Quantum Ogre: Warlock Pacts

[Remathilis]

NO mechanical liability? Or just no class features removed? I can picture a paladin being ashamed of their actions and thus having a good amount of social disadvantage particularly with exemplar paladins, maybe bleeding over to a combat disadvantage of some type with limitations... but then experience boost or something if the PC manages to overcome this. I think a good amount of GM's would rephrase these punitive measures as challenges, and typically reward character evolution if the PC overcome. RAW I think anyway, the book comes with plenty 'o curses as well as charms to supply to characters

Whatib mean by no mechanical consequences is simple:
1. The PC does not lose the class features/levels they already have.
2. The PC cannot be stopped from gaining new ones.

The classic example is the AD&D paladin who, if the DM seems has not acted in a Good or Lawful manner, became a fighter but with a worse XP track AND could not benefit from weapon specialization. Essentially, the DM could with a snap of his fingers make you a worse fighter than if you had started out a fighter. That creates an scenario not only where the paladin must play Lawful Good according to his own interpretation of his oath, but by how his DM interprets Lawful Goodness and his oath. In essence, the DM is playing the character by proxy in a game of "read my mind".

Now if you want to impose role playing or inconveniences to a player for breaking an oath, I'm all for that. I'm not against consequences. I'm against having my character destroyed because I have a different view of LG than my DM. Redemption is a great story arch, but I would like to do it as a paladin, not a crippled fighter.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Depends on what the trade off is.

A paladin has to be true to his oath, but that oath does not need supernatural micromanaging. Especially when certain oaths (like crown or glory) aren't religious in nature. Though admittedly, I would treat not playing to your oath as the most grievous of the choices here, akin to not playing to your alignment.

I spelled out a bunch of ways you can get divine power and not have a God watching over you. I even forgot pantheism (worshipping the pantheon as a whole rather than one specific God). Even with all that, heretics, pariahs and clerics who never were part of temple training (prophets) all exist.

I consider nature to be a force of magic rather than a divinity, so even more than clerics a druid expelled from the druidic order can remain a druid as long as they keep the proper respect for nature. Ditto rangers.

Monks learn their training from monasteries but many monks are wander far away from their home base as a matter of course. As monks have moved from innate mystical to a more martial prowess, I find the monastic elements are even less important.

Wizards and schools/orders/traditions, bards and colleges or barbarians and paths don't affect thing in the slightest unless the PC wants to make that a factor. The fighter, rogue, sorcerer and artificer likewise have no class defined bonds except those the PC willing accepts. Too early to call on psion but I've usually treated it like a wizard tradition rather than an oath or such.

The important thing to me is that the PC suffers no mechanical liability. I can argue maybe a paladin who breaks his oath or a cleric who serves a new god might change subclasses, but that is a recommendation, not a rule.

This is where we disagree. IMO if your priority is making sure the player's cool superpowers for their PC are maintained just as the player wishes regardless of the fiction, then you are minimizing what I consider the most important part of the game: exploring a consistent imaginary world through the PC.

I really don't understand why making sure the patron matters to a class that explicitly has a patron is such a line crossed to some folks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

paladin's oath maybe somewhat to a lesser degree given their powers are supposedly directly derived from their conviction, it;s still something i think is possible to handwave as a negligible lapse in the grander scale, but the others i don't think so not really.

you're again assuming that the warlock knows these things are coming from another being, they could be entirely convinced they're just figuring out and developing these powers themselves or that their familiar came to them of it's own accord, the blade was sold by a shopkeep who didn't know what they had on their hands, the tome was found in a pile of loot or at the dusty back shelves of a library,

it's so easy for a patron to put these things in their warlock's path for them to 'find' without them knowing a thing, and the reason is the same as before, it's an investment, they give a little, a crumb of their power, and when they get it back that spark might've turning into a powerful flame.

i don't deny sometimes it might be more interesting, but other times it can also just as much be seen as an obstruction coming in to get in the way of the campaign's plot, 'oh look, we've got to deal with the song and dance of jack's warlock's patron's giving us hoops to jump through again before we can get back to playing the game we came to play, this dragonheist module doesn't mention anything about needing to appease an archfey's whims before we can go onto raid the vault.

I don't run modules or enforce plots. Maybe that's the difference.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whatib mean by no mechanical consequences is simple:
1. The PC does not lose the class features/levels they already have.
2. The PC cannot be stopped from gaining new ones.

The classic example is the AD&D paladin who, if the DM seems has not acted in a Good or Lawful manner, became a fighter but with a worse XP track AND could not benefit from weapon specialization. Essentially, the DM could with a snap of his fingers make you a worse fighter than if you had started out a fighter. That creates an scenario not only where the paladin must play Lawful Good according to his own interpretation of his oath, but by how his DM interprets Lawful Goodness and his oath. In essence, the DM is playing the character by proxy in a game of "read my mind".

Now if you want to impose role playing or inconveniences to a player for breaking an oath, I'm all for that. I'm not against consequences. I'm against having my character destroyed because I have a different view of LG than my DM. Redemption is a great story arch, but I would like to do it as a paladin, not a crippled fighter.

Losing a class feature, even temporarily, is "destroying your character"? What do your wizards do when they leave their spellbook at the inn (intentionally silly example)? Give up?

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

I think "growing pains" are a great narrative device for character evolution. Narration-wise, it feels like a missed opportunity, if this extremely-powerful NPC patron is able to gift mortals with supreme power, but they do not influence the world in any other way, not even consequential-seeming effects, like a symbol or unlucky disadvantage or something... utilized infrequently. Curses, likewise, are great for the game.. let the DM shake things up a bit.... just as long as it ain't some stick without any possible carrot or escape clauses.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Losing a class feature, even temporarily, is "destroying your character"? What do your wizards do when they leave their spellbook at the inn (intentionally silly example)? Give up?

You're doing this thing.

 

[Scribe]

Personally, me/I/personal, if a Paladin breaks their Oath, thats just end of the line as a Paladin. Everything about a Paladin is their Oath, a dedication so strong as to be Divine itself.

You break that? You are not even a Paladin anymore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're doing this thing.

Hence the intentionally silly example. It could just as easily be, "spellbound burned, have to make/get a new one" or "animal companion died and it'll be a little while until I can replace them".

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Whatib mean by no mechanical consequences is simple:
1. The PC does not lose the class features/levels they already have.
2. The PC cannot be stopped from gaining new ones.

The classic example is the AD&D paladin who, if the DM seems has not acted in a Good or Lawful manner, became a fighter but with a worse XP track AND could not benefit from weapon specialization. Essentially, the DM could with a snap of his fingers make you a worse fighter than if you had started out a fighter. That creates an scenario not only where the paladin must play Lawful Good according to his own interpretation of his oath, but by how his DM interprets Lawful Goodness and his oath. In essence, the DM is playing the character by proxy in a game of "read my mind".

Now if you want to impose role playing or inconveniences to a player for breaking an oath, I'm all for that. I'm not against consequences. I'm against having my character destroyed because I have a different view of LG than my DM. Redemption is a great story arch, but I would like to do it as a paladin, not a crippled fighter.

This seems .. I would probably make a similar inconvenience for pali too though. Switch all their radiant to necrotic, or give them a necrotic or fire susceptibility for a stint... but almost always this is thematically played up and good RP after the annoyance will always be rewarded. My players universally embrace challenges r/t character or class driven burdens, I may just be lucky that they receive them this way

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Hence the intentionally silly example. It could just as easily be, "spellbound burned, have to make/get a new one" or "animal companion died and it'll be a little while until I can replace them".

Not at all, hence me linking to 'Reductio ad absurdum'. The situation you're responding to is/was much more likely to happen than the scenarios you're offering up in comparison.