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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6891033" data-attributes="member: 12731">For what it's worth, Pemerton; I agree with the OP in that the Warlock is fiendishly difficult to grasp fully. It does several quite disparate things. You need considerable system mastery (of the entire D&amp;D system) to know which of the many knobs to turn and which not to turn to get the most mileage out of your chosen &quot;thing&quot;. Including to know when to walk away when your chosen &quot;thing&quot; really isn't best served by a warlock build at all.Not to mention that you really need to choose one &quot;thing&quot; and then resist the temptation to choose stuff that just sound cool without analysing whether said cool stuff really synergizes with that &quot;thing&quot; you chose.You don't really get the same amount of hand-holding from the system the way most other classes work. Most other classes only allow you to choose stuff that works well for the &quot;thing&quot; that class offers. You don't even have to choose your &quot;thing&quot; because it's chosen for you. With more time and playtesting, I'm sure the Warlock could have been improved (let's say &quot;could have been even better&quot; for the 5E-criticism-allergic ones in the audience). My quick idea: Start by making the melee blade cursing thing a different class than the blaster. Some people try making the optionality of Eldritch Blast a good thing. As I see it, it's needless complexity. I firmly believe the class with EB should get that as a class feature you can't accidentally deselect; and build its options from the assumption &quot;I'm a ranged blaster&quot;. And then, there could be a cousin to that class where the assumtion is &quot;EB is just a distraction from my true strengths&quot; and you know what: then don't offer it to that class.I'm not saying Warlock is broken. I'm not saying the designers haven't managed to let Warlock do all these things. I am saying, however, it is unusually complex and do-many-things, and that D&amp;D probably would have been better served with more playtesting, more focussing of that class. Or class-ES. (One solution would be to streamline the Warlock, pruning away things not consistent with a particular vision. Do note I'm not saying that would have necessarily been a good solution). So I'm not saying Warlock is bad. But I am saying the people that downplay its complexity are misguided, and I am saying Zardnaar the OP is definitely onto something with his initial question.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 6891033, member: 12731"] For what it's worth, Pemerton; I agree with the OP in that the Warlock is fiendishly difficult to grasp fully. It does several quite disparate things. You need considerable system mastery (of the entire D&D system) to know which of the many knobs to turn and which not to turn to get the most mileage out of your chosen "thing". Including to know when to walk away when your chosen "thing" really isn't best served by a warlock build at all. Not to mention that you really need to choose one "thing" and then resist the temptation to choose stuff that just sound cool without analysing whether said cool stuff really synergizes with that "thing" you chose. You don't really get the same amount of hand-holding from the system the way most other classes work. Most other classes only allow you to choose stuff that works well for the "thing" that class offers. You don't even have to choose your "thing" because it's chosen for you. With more time and playtesting, I'm sure the Warlock could have been improved (let's say "could have been even better" for the 5E-criticism-allergic ones in the audience). My quick idea: Start by making the melee blade cursing thing a different class than the blaster. Some people try making the optionality of Eldritch Blast a good thing. As I see it, it's needless complexity. I firmly believe the class with EB should get that as a class feature you can't accidentally deselect; and build its options from the assumption "I'm a ranged blaster". And then, there could be a cousin to that class where the assumtion is "EB is just a distraction from my true strengths" and you know what: [I]then don't offer it to that class[/I]. I'm not saying Warlock is broken. I'm not saying the designers haven't managed to let Warlock do all these things. I am saying, however, it is unusually complex and do-many-things, and that D&D probably would have been better served with more playtesting, more focussing of that class. Or class-ES. (One solution would be to streamline the Warlock, pruning away things not consistent with a particular vision. Do note I'm not saying that would have necessarily been a good solution). So I'm not saying Warlock is bad. But I am saying the people that downplay its complexity are misguided, and I am saying Zardnaar the OP is definitely onto something with his initial question. [/QUOTE]

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