D&D 5E Warlock One of the More Complicated 5E classes?

[Quartz]

I rather like the idea of a social-oriented Warlock. Consider one with the Noble background and Mask of Many Faces. Or a non-Noble with Mask of Many Faces and Beguiling Influence. Why put yourself in harm's way when you can get others to do it for you?

Add in One With Shadows, Bewitching Whispers, Dreadful Word, and Master of Myriad Forms as you level.

Could be good for a master villain.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

So, basically, it's not a "problem" per se, just something to mindful of. So a player might get hung up on something wonky by having not even the least idea what they are doing or want to do?

As for things like, spell and invocation choices: If those are the things the player is interested in, how can they be bad choices? Does the player want that once-per-day-spell invocation because he wants to be able to cast that spell every day? If so, good choice. Seems obvious.

The bulk of the theoretical issues seem to come down to, "IMO, they made a bad choice." But did they? I've yet to see a "bad" character in 5e. All these fears seem like boogieman-under-the-bed problems. Or maybe, the ol' classic, "Won't someone please think of the children?"

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Umbran]

Just drop it Pemerton - he's one of those (thankfully few posters) who are functionally unable to process criticism against 5th edition: it's perfect, and any player who finds issues is the problem.

Please, don't make it personal. Don't try to dismiss people based on your take on their motivations. Look at what they write - it holds together, or it doesn't, no matter what their overall approach may be.

 

[feartheminotaur]

Your entire thesis on "I've yet to see a bad character" (on this or any thread - you say it a lot) is really a truncated "I've yet to see a bad character that's bad from my perspective" (or perhaps "that's bad in an objective sense") without considering the perspective of the player with the 'bad' character (or their subjective experience).
[MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] identifies key point: "Happy is good, right?" If so, then "unhappy is bad, right?". If not understanding that you can't have two concentration spells active because you thought an invocation was different from a spell, for example, means a character makes a player unhappy - it's a bad character.

If a player wants to play Legolas, but ends up with Larry the Cable Guy because they didn't fully grasp the complex intricacies of how a class works in actual play, and it makes them unhappy? Then that character is "bad". Maybe not to you, but in this case what you think has nothing to do with it.

 

[Istbor]

I don't know. I feel it is hard to make a claim that something is systematically complex or simple, without better defining what is D&D's definition (or ours) of complex or simple.

Personally, I don't see the complexity outside of several choices at the start. I feel as though we are treading a thin line between a "bad" character, and one that is not optimized. If it truly is a bad character, it won't survive long in the D&D world. (I would also note that when I consider a character to be bad, I am factoring in the choices that character makes and how reckless or paralyzed by inaction they are as well, in game)

It is very subjective. We are only going to become more defensive or aggressive by continuing to talk past one another.

My complex may not be your complex.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think it is possible, in D&D, to make a "bad" character without choosing things you have no interest in.

One of the downsides of class-based systems is that you can end up choosing things you have no interest in (or even actively don't want), because they happen to be bundled with other things that are vital to the concept.

All I'm saying is that D&D's PC creation rules are among the most complex of any RPG I've ever played

Y'know, 'among' makes that a less meaningful statement. Rolemaster, which, IIRC, is a game you played, has notoriously complex chargen, I'd say much moreso than most versions of D&D, but it and D&D could still be 'among the most complex' systems...

and trying to judge what will or won't be effective in play relative to a given set of desires tends to be far less transparent than in some other systems.

OTOH, you can have complexity, but still have relative transparency. Or you can have complexity in chargen, but short-cut it with pre-built defaults or DM-created pregens.

The solution to the horrible, terrible complexity of the Warlock (which I don't see) is to, um, provide options to allow people to switch builds on the fly.

Heh. I think the assumption that the Warlock is 'meant' to be a simpler alternative might spring from it's short-rest-recharge mechanics, which it has in common with the poster-boy for simple, the Fighter. It's not /that/ simple. And, of course, it does come up short when measured against the much more complex/versatile wizard, so making it more complex seems like a solution, though to a different problem. :shrug:

And, to the point that there are reflexive 5e defenders; the same point could be made that there are some people who concentrate on the things 5e doesn't have, yet don't seem to want to make their own stuff for it. Don't get me wrong- some people prefer official stuff, and like rules.

Doesn't seem like the same point, at all. You have some fans who happen to want more for their favorite game, and some other fans who don't want to see their favorite game criticized, even in what is a fairly constructive way.

But the amount of negativity I see on the internet >>>>>> than the amount I see in real life, so I am always curious as to why people make it a point to complain when others seem ... happy.

I get that there's a fair bit of general negativity on-line (if you're happy, you have less need to vent, perhaps), but there's a lot less blatant/persistent negativity towards 5e than towards the prior two editions (really, even compared to the prior 3, for those of us who remember the whole Role v Roll thing on UseNet). By the same token, there should be less impetus for uncritical apologists to jump to its defense when faced with legitimate criticism....

Happy is good, right?

Right, and, often, quiet.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Empirically, we know that the Warlock is the most popular class outside of the Paladin and the Core Four (at least, based on reported survey results). So ... it's doing some things right, for some people.

They also commented that it wasn't by much, the Core 4 were well out ahead, and the Warlock not particularly ahead of the 6th place runner up. That quibble aside, popular doesn't even begin to imply flawless. The Warlock could - like the Fighter - be popular for it's concept, rather than for it's mechanical implementation, for instance.

I think that is what the debate is over (IMO); people who defend the Warlock genuinely like it for their purposes, and people that don't, don't like it. I think that the disconnect occurs when people discuss why they think that it's broken.

Is it even an attack to say that the Warlock is maybe on the complex side? The wizard is clearly even more complex, for instance. 5e went out of it's way to increase the mechanical differentiation among classes.

And, as I've said before (and, again IMO), the people that I see that dislike it (or call it complex) tend to believe that there are optimum ways to build a character, and that the EB Warlock is an optimum way, and that many of the other choices are sub-optimum or illusory.

Are you maybe doing a bit of what you're talking about, yourself? I mean, you're attempting to undermine an observation, by making a generalization about the people making that observation.