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

[Horwath]

A lot of people seem to like the Warlock class mechanics a heck of a lot more than the class fantasy of actually playing a Warlock .

maybe because it was best designed class, especially when we only had 2014 PHB.
In the era of feats are optional and complicated and what not, warlock was only class that came with 8 build-in feat slots.
maybe not as good as general feats, but they were yours to pick from.

 

[Wolfram stout]

Yeah, no. I've never seen this behavior, despite the repeated trauma dumps we see from a few folks online.

Right. The rest of my post agree that this behavior is probably not common in play.

 

[Horwath]

This is true for most players, and not just about Warlock Pacts.

Players hate the idea that the DM can force their character to do anything or loose powers, abilities or skills.

This includes Gods, Rulers, Governments, and Affiliation bosses.

Players demand the freedom to pick whatever they want and do whatever they want. They pick "I'm a member of the Harpers", then just endlessly murderhobo innocent npcs and demand full Harper benefits.

I think that all those are great tools to help built a background and facilitate great roleplay opportunity, be it from DM side or player side.

But, if someone likes a paladin mechanically and want to play it as some "fighter" mercenary sell-sword, why not?
And I had my fill of Lawful stupid paladins in 3.5e.

As for the "Harper", true Harpers might not take to liking that a false harper is ruining their good name so they just might send their "Harper Team Six" do deal with the fallen Harper and all those that share in his crimes.

Same for warlocks, Patron might call upon his "true" followers to deal with the one that just leeches patrons power and gives nothing back in favors.


Just like any murderhoboing, you should know that there is always a higher level party of murderhobos that will take coin to remove their competition in murdedhoboing. So they can be exclusive murderhobos in the area, until another group gets coin to deal with them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, no. I've never seen this behavior, despite the repeated trauma dumps we see from a few folks online.

Right. The rest of my post agree that this behavior is probably not common in play.

Whether or not it is common is, frankly, irrelevant.

It's that the request being made is to be given carte blanche to potentially do this. It's asking for absolute power with zero accountability, and then being surprised when reasonable folks say, "Um, how about...no?"

Unless and until you have enough of a conversation with someone to truly demonstrate that you aren't asking for absolute power--that you genuinely only want to add more richness to the experience, that any possible risk of power loss is exclusively meant to make the experience better, not worse--a lot of people are going to see, "So, I can mess with your character at any time, for any reason, and you just have to live with it, right?"

Trust is not automatic. It is earned. Asking up-front for "I get to treat everything you love about playing your character as my personal chew toy", even if you would never actually do that, is a really, really, really big ask.

 

[Wolfram stout]

Whether or not it is common is, frankly, irrelevant.

It's that the request being made is to be given carte blanche to potentially do this. It's asking for absolute power with zero accountability, and then being surprised when reasonable folks say, "Um, how about...no?"

Unless and until you have enough of a conversation with someone to truly demonstrate that you aren't asking for absolute power--that you genuinely only want to add more richness to the experience, that any possible risk of power loss is exclusively meant to make the experience better, not worse--a lot of people are going to see, "So, I can mess with your character at any time, for any reason, and you just have to live with it, right?"

Trust is not automatic. It is earned. Asking up-front for "I get to treat everything you love about playing your character as my personal chew toy", even if you would never actually do that, is a really, really, really big ask.

Whenever I DM a warlock I absolutely have that conversation up front, and I don't intend to ever give ultimatums from the patron anyway. For D&D I tend to have convs with all players because of character creation has enough parts that I don't know what is important to which player. For example I had one warlock player who built in lots of drama with his noble background and didn't put a lot of weight on his patron choice.

 

[Amphytrion]

At my table, Warlocks should expect their patron to be relevant. When the campaign starts, the patron may be unaware or mostly uninterested, but that will change as the warlock’s power grows.

I don’t really see the point of the warlock if the patron is not mentioned. It’s a roleplaying game, and that’s the warlock’s core roleplaying hook.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Whenever I DM a warlock I absolutely have that conversation up front, and I don't intend to ever give ultimatums from the patron anyway. For D&D I tend to have convs with all players because of character creation has enough parts that I don't know what is important to which player. For example I had one warlock player who built in lots of drama with his noble background and didn't put a lot of weight on his patron choice.

Sounds great! A good thing to do with every group.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

At my table, Warlocks should expect their patron to be relevant. When the campaign starts, the patron may be unaware or mostly uninterested, but that will change as the warlock’s power grows.

I don’t really see the point of the warlock if the patron is not mentioned. It’s a roleplaying game, and that’s the warlock’s core roleplaying hook.

Well, let me give perhaps a slightly different spin here.

Does the Fighter have to worry about whoever paid for them to go to Fighter school coming along and demanding back all the money they paid?

Does the Druid get an avatar of Nature herself showing up one morning demanding service, or else she'll take away all the Druid's magic?

Does the Wizard have to sweat about the possibility that everything they've studied and worked for could just disappear, not just their notes, but literally magic itself just abandoning them, without explanation?

I understand why you want roleplay hooks. I think it's good to have them, and I think players should be open to this. That said, I also think that it's reasonable for the Warlock to ask, "Why should I be subject to worries that I'll get to keep playing my character, that nobody else has to deal with?" It's not like the Warlock is stronger than anyone else. (Arguably, it's weaker in many ways; that's why 5.5e buffed it.) Yes, it's cool to leverage the story of transactional power to create richer, more interesting experiences. That needs to happen in a way that doesn't make Warlock players feel singled out for special harsh treatment.

Your intent--like the others in this thread--is almost surely not harmful. Or, at the very least, you want any such "harmful" things to be only harm perceived by the character, not harm felt by the player. But if we're going to be asking, "Why would players be so strongly against this?" we need to consider the player's perspective, and that perspective is likely to be one of wondering why they're getting singled out for special attention when the Warlock as a class doesn't offer much that is terribly impressive or extreme compared to any other class.

 

[Reynard]

As an aside: I think the warlock class structure is the best of the bunch and would use it as the template for a lot of different types of classes, starting with the monk.

 

[Horwath]

As an aside: I think the warlock class structure is the best of the bunch and would use it as the template for a lot of different types of classes, starting with the monk.

1. remove subclass features from warlock
2. remove mystic arcanum from warlock like in playtest.
3. make those invocations.
4. add 10 more invocations slots.
5. Profit!