Level Up (A5E) Warlock Archetype Curse scaling & Herald multiclassing

[lichmaster]

Another approach that I would be tempted to adopt is moving all spell casters to a short rest refresh mechanic

I really like this idea. In 3.5 this was implemented in the Trailblazer spinoff. Spells were classified as "rote", "restricted" or "ritual".
IIRC rote spells were self or single target spells and all slots used for casting such spells were recovered via short rest, restricted spells were mostly AOE and only one could be recovered via short rest by expending a "heroic action" (similar to inspiration), while ritual spells (campaign wrecking spells like teleport, strong divinations etc) could only be recovered via long rest.

Any sweeping change/unification to the rest/recovery system will have impact on all classes though, I'm not sure this can be done without having to redesign every class from scratch.

That said I'm of a strong and growing opinion that in the long run (not so long probably), having consistent and unified underlying mechanics greatly helps and enhances 3pp support. Rest economy in particular can create annoying and pointless tension at the table. Specific, class based rules make the system easy to develop on only at the beginning, but then it becomes byzantine and full of unintended side effects

 

[Anonymous3]

No system is perfect. There is something "cool" about figuring out a class and how it can be played.
Homogenizing this has it's benefits but I believe you'll lose appeal elsewhere. The DM suffers in adjudicating a change but the players feel like there cool stuff is being taken away.

I'm struggling to keep up with just balancing a class. A revision of the system is beyond me.

 

[lichmaster]

No system is perfect. There is something "cool" about figuring out a class and how it can be played.

True, there's a fine line between having unified systems and class identity (I definitely prefer classless and levelless systems because of their freedom and modularity).

I think the "trick", if at all possible, would be to have those underlying unified systems as a skeleton and then create the classes on top of them, so that you don't necessarily see the skeleton and each class feels different, but it's still there.

Take for example how spellcasting progression works. I still remember when I was beta testing for D&D Next, back in 2012-2013 or so, there was a massive flaw in how multiclassing worked: in one specific iteration, you could go as fighter for the first 19 levels, take 1 level dip as wizard, and you instantly gained spell slots for spells from level 1 to 4 IIRC, which was just nuts. The fix was of course what we have now: a unified spell progression for casters, half casters, and multiclass characters.

 

[Anonymous3]

Oh, no, the herald gets the PB pool. If they do multiclass into fighter, they get the standard pb*2 pool.

It's strictly a buff to herald, to give them a few points of exertion to play with. If you multiclass into fighter it does nothing.

This was the point I was trying to make. A buff to the Herald to eliminate a boon from the fighter dip.

I have been noodling with the exertion pool and spell point values a little and it has made me realise that perhaps the biggest issue is the amount of exertion a Herald can get from spell slots. It just dwarfs the amount any other classes can get (even compared to spell points). Herald20 can have 82 exertion if the convert all spell slots into exertion. A Fighter20 can have 16 and three times that if you keep three short rests in a day - 48 exertion. This makes Herald more flexible for days where are no short rests. Fighter20 gets to reduce exertion costs which I think translates into about 50% more effective exertion, so around 72 exertion - this is best case and still lower than Herald.

Right now there are two options that have been presented (which don't require a "rework"):
1. Use the Warlock spell point values; short rest mechanic; convert exertion into spells slots.
2. Give the Herald an exertion pool and adjust spell slot exertion conversion.

Option1 suffers from MC inconsistency and also opens up potential Smite abuse because you can now create more lower level Herald slots and use them to Smite. Option 2 suffers from a buff to Herald but creates MC consistency.

I am leaning to Option2 and making suggestions on the conversion. If you make a spell slot = 1 exertion a Herald20 gets 15 additional exertion. So if you had PB*2 +15 you'd have 27 exertion per long rest or 36+15 for three short rests. That's still pretty good. Additionally, the spell slots sacrifice really matters and your Herald will think hard about using it.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Oh, no, the herald gets the PB pool. If they do multiclass into fighter, they get the standard pb*2 pool.

It's strictly a buff to herald, to give them a few points of exertion to play with. If you multiclass into fighter it does nothing.

i think we both have very different goals in what we're trying to do here.

 

[Tessarael]

[..] Option 2 suffers from a buff to Herald but creates MC consistency.

The proposal that I made along these lines avoids buffing Herald. But it is more fiddly, as the exertion cost for spell slots does change as Herald levels up.

 

[Distracted DM]

Yeah, I'm quite aware that Heralds end up having a ton of exertion if they burn all their spell slots for it, but that's late in the game, at high levels. The big pains I've seen from heralds that caused the player to multiclass was because early on, they get pretty burned on exertion for maneuvers. My tables typically get 2-3 short rests per long rest, not to mention that other martials can burn hit dice for exertion if they really need to- the herald can't do that either.
I hope that explains my "fix" of giving them a mini-pool of exertion. They need that early boost IME, and it doesn't have such a big impact later on.. and early-mid game is where the "meat" is for most of my campaigns, where late levels tend to speed by.