D&D (2024) They butchered the warlock in the new packet

[Neonchameleon]

To be fair, my favorite things to do with warlock spell slots were mainly buffs. Armor of Agathys was one of my favorites to have up. Most of the warlock unique spells were level 1 and 2 spells, with Hunger of Hadar and Shadow of Moil (a crappy Fire Shield clone) as the exceptions. If they retune those spells for half-caster (probably via Invocations), then the class would work at the same power I'm used to... but with more spell slots.

There are only seven unique warlock spells as far as I'm aware. Cantrip: Eldritch Blast. L1: Hex, Armour of Agathys, Arms of Hadar, Hellish Rebuke. L3: Hunger of Hadar. L4: Shadow of Moil. The warlock was never carried by unique spells.

And I'd love to see those spells turned into invocations (especially ones that scale with warlock level). But that doesn't get rid of the lack of the high end performance the new warlock has.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

But if they were good at the levels hybrids get them, they would be  too good for full casters. Hybrids need their own spell lists, and their own spells, to do what you want.

WOTC could afford the whole two extra pages it would require in the PHB to outline Artificer, Paladin, Ranger, and Warlock spells. Put fireball at 2nd level on the Artificer/Warlock spell list for example, and 3rd level on the Arcane.

 

[Micah Sweet]

WOTC could afford the whole two extra pages it would require in the PHB to outline Artificer, Paladin, Ranger, and Warlock spells. Put fireball at 2nd level on the Artificer/Warlock spell list for example, and 3rd level on the Arcane.

Yes they could. Doesnt seem likely at this point though.

 

[Ashrym]

So, do some of y'all not recognize the irony of claiming "bards should be half casters because I think so" and "how dare they make warlocks half casters!!!" "I want an arcane half caster because there isn't one and there are divine and primal half casters" and "I didn't mean MY CLASS!!!" (I actually do see this potentially working for bards, though.)

OT....

I want to point something out that I didn't notice in this thread and haven't seen in other threads yet. Many abilities refer to spells from the arcane, divine, or primal spell list. That means, for example, the tome lock in the UA cannot use the Book of Shadows cantrip to pick up the Pact Familiar or Pact Weapon cantrips. I noticed this in comments and it doesn't work because they are listed are not on those lists.

Hopefully that clarified it for anyone who might not have been clear.

Half caster is appropriate because of the amount of capability given within the invocations. The magic has been split between the spells and between invocations like before. Those limitations exist because of the additional capability in invocations.

The half caster is also there because players wanted more spell slots without needing short rests, and also because the devs restricted spell access for spells for which they were concerned a short rest recovery was potentially abusive. Opening the full spell list and still having short rest recovery doesn't remove that concern so feed back should include a critique of that concern. But this doesn't look random or arbitrary; it looks like a design inclusive of both of those concerns.

I gave it a chance and I'm ambivalent on the pact magic vs caster progression myself. I prefer the pact magic for a different recovery style but all in all it's the invocations that draw my attention to the class and the spell casting is secondary. There seems to be advantages in both and I don't mind the spell progression. That caster progression with a solid magical secondary mechanic like invocations works.

Moving some of the invocations into the class does ease how starved the class could be but requiring invocations to cover mystic arcanum reverses that. The only reason the the half caster works for me is because the mystic arcanum still provides access to high level spells like before, and that cost that was recovered by moving some invocations into the class was lost again.

It still seems to need about 11 invocations.

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Level​	Invocations​
1​	-​
2​	2​
3​	3​
4​	3​
5​	4​
6​	4​
7​	5​
8​	5​
9​	6​
10​	6​
11​	7​
12​	7​
13​	8​
14​	8​
15​	9​
16​	9​
17​	10​
18​	10​
19​	11​
20​	11​

Something like that. Another invocation early so there's one more most of the time and an additional one at very high levels. Allow for mystic arcanum at 3rd level instead of 5th level with that additional invocation.

 

[Neonchameleon]

So, do some of y'all not recognize the irony of claiming "bards should be half casters because I think so" and "how dare they make warlocks half casters!!!" "I want an arcane half caster because there isn't one and there are divine and primal half casters" and "I didn't mean MY CLASS!!!" (I actually do see this potentially working for bards, though.)

Some of us understand an apples to oranges comparison when we see it. And others of us understand that precisely this sort of butchery, ripping the casting out of the class and replacing it with generic off-the-shelf half-casting while giving back basically nothing to replace what was already there in the class (an certainly near the magnitude of that which was stripped away) is exactly the sort of thing the people who like the bards being true full casters fear.

The half caster is also there because players wanted more spell slots without needing short rests, and also because the devs restricted spell access for spells for which they were concerned a short rest recovery was potentially abusive. Opening the full spell list and still having short rest recovery doesn't remove that concern so feed back should include a critique of that concern. But this doesn't look random or arbitrary; it looks like a design inclusive of both of those concerns.

And this doesn't prevent it from being a "threw the baby out with the bathwater" situation. It doesn't look random or arbitrary. It looks half-assed and done with the goal of homogenisation and grid-filling. It looks like a design that looks only at those concerns while not having paid any attention to how the warlock fits together mechanically, or to preserving its casting uniqueness or even its identity.

"I sold my soul ... for half-assed half-casting".

I gave it a chance and I'm ambivalent on the pact magic vs caster progression myself. I prefer the pact magic for a different recovery style but all in all it's the invocations that draw my attention to the class and the spell casting is secondary. There seems to be advantages in both and I don't mind the spell progression. That caster progression with a solid magical secondary mechanic like invocations works.

And one of the problems with this change is that warlock casting used to complement pact magic well. Invocations handled the low level, baseline, and utility magic with a minimum of fuss and hassle while Pact Magic handled the high level moments of awesome. Half-casting handles low level, baseline and utility magic and does nothing to give you moments of awesome. As I've pointed out repeatedly before level 9 it's almost never worth using a standard action to cast a spell in combat.

So you're handling the low level slots twice in two different ways and never get a time to shine coming from your class mechanics. If this weren't so half-assed there might be an idea there. But it was half-assed enough that they changed the Hex spell in a way that makes some sense with Pact Magic while being a major nerf as a generic half-caster.

Personally I can't help wonder whether they deliberately put out one stunningly badly implemented idea with each of the packets (like cookie cutter druids with no variance in transformation) because they know people are going to rage at something whatever.

 

[Mephista]

One thing I've noticed from reading a lot of the actual play reports and the like. There seems to be two main camps when it comes to playing a warlock. I'm sure there are others, but...

People that played warlock as a pseudo-full-caster with lots of short rests are one style. Big booms (or other big magics) followed by tinking with EB. The other seems to be treating the warlock as a kind of dark paladin/arcane archer gish type, which is more sustainable no matter the rests.

The actual play reports I've heard of people focusing on the latter playstyle have reported positive things about the class. It feels more flexible with spells without that constant worry about when you'll recharge. Blade pact seems to be especially well recieved in play, even if there's some grumbling about what to take for feats. Chain pact seems to be seen as too fragile, especially when you're supposed to get them in fights. This style of play is taking what was loved about this playstyle from the 2014 warlock and making it easier to run for both player and DM.

The reports of people trying to recreate a pseudo-full caster are, of course, rather negative, as apparenlty that's not something that the warlock can really do anymore. Which, no surprise it can't given its new casting status, and trying to force it is leading to frustration and anxiety. This option seems to have been "ripped out."

 

[Neonchameleon]

People that played warlock as a pseudo-full-caster with lots of short rests are one style. Big booms (or other big magics) followed by tinking with EB. The other seems to be treating the warlock as a kind of dark paladin/arcane archer gish type, which is more sustainable no matter the rests.

The actual play reports I've heard of people focusing on the latter playstyle have reported positive things about the class.

The problem here is twofold. The first is that it's, moving away from what the Warlock used to do. The second is that there are already multiple half-caster classes that can do the archery thing, and generally do it better than the warlock, and none of them are short of utility.

• The Ranger. Enough Said.
• The Artificer. An Arcane half-caster with very strong utility.
• The OneD&D Paladin. A new entrant to the general arena. But with ranged weapon proficiencies, a fighting style and Ranged Smites it will hold its own.

Or in short the Warlock is moving from a unique area into something hotly contested with multiple classes that can do something very simlar to what it already does. And I expect it to end up like the Artificer; it looks cool and for the first few sessions is shiny, but eventually you realise that's all there is and it's kinda bland. Which is a part of why even among the people who have it the Artificer has so little penetration on D&D Beyond

 

[Mephista]

The problem here is twofold. The first is that it's, moving away from what the Warlock used to do.

Its moving away from what one of the two playstyles I mentioned used to do, possibly others. There's more than one side to this.

The second is that there are already multiple half-caster classes that can do the archery thing, and generally do it better than the warlock, and none of them are short of utility.

Flip that around, and... we already have three other Arcane full casters that effectively do the same thing the warlock does, and can generally do it better than the warlock does.

The big draw is that, in both cases... the warlock does it differently. Both as a pseudo-gish and a pseudo-full-caster.

I think this refusal to acknowledge that there's wildly divergent playstyles and multiple view points here is hurting the conversation.

Or in short the Warlock is moving from a unique area into something hotly contested with multiple classes that can do something very simlar to what it already does. And I expect it to end up like the Artificer; it looks cool and for the first few sessions is shiny, but eventually you realise that's all there is and it's kinda bland. Which is a part of why even among the people who have it the Artificer has so little penetration on D&D Beyond

The artificer's problem is that its a half-caster with just a bunch of random spells, and hasn't bothered to try and integrate them in a similar manner that the Ranger and Paladin have. The point of half-caster is the synergy between the martial and caster aspects. The artificer lacks that.

The warlock, meanwhile, has a number of synergies. Needs to be retuned since the 2014 release, but its there.

 

[Remathilis]

The artificer's problem is that its a half-caster with just a bunch of random spells, and hasn't bothered to try and integrate them in a similar manner that the Ranger and Paladin have. The point of half-caster is the synergy between the martial and caster aspects. The artificer lacks that.

I've been thinking.

There are four half-casters in the game (paladin, ranger, artificer, warlock). If you look at them, they appear to share some interesting connections.

• There is at least one tanky/Gish build. Paladin excels at the, but armorer and blade lock fill similar roles.
• There is at least one pet build (battlesmith, beastmaster, chain lock) that is more support with extra actions from the pet.
• There is a ranged build that is more magical (artillerist, hunter, tome lock)
• Sometimes you see a fourth build like healer as well. Celestial warlocks, paladins and alchemist are supposed to fill this role.

Of course, part of the problem is that WotC hasn't completely mastered these for builds. Gish I think they got down, and they are improving pets. I think they need to improve the blaster/sniper more, and I really think they are close with healer, but keep messing up in the details (again, alchemist).

As the playtest goes on, I think it will be clear the goal is to align the three half casters in the PHB with at least two out of the four roles. I also think by the time it's done, they will figure out how to update the artificer for its next release. But I think anyone trying to play outside those general builds will struggle.

 

[Mephista]

Don't forget the mount for the paladin pet! And, yeah, I think its fair to say that WotC hasn't quite grasped how they want gishes to work. Of course, its also fair to say that they haven't figured out quite how martials work either. But I do think they're getting closer with the martials, and they did a really good job with the paladin. Now, just have to repeat the feat across all the other classes.

There's one aspect of 5eR that really appeals to my aesthetics. We have 13 classes, three build types (martial, gish, full caster) and four power sources (divine, primal, arcane, jack). If you ignore sorcerer, you can kind of fit one of each class into each niche. Druid (primal caster), ranger (primal gish), barbarian (primal martial). And so on.

Of course, fitting everything nice and neat into boxes isn't the best for game design, but darn it. It appeals to my inner organizer freak.