D&D 5E Warlocks or: What even is class fluff?

[Tonguez]

Yup, I’ve been asking for a while now whats the difference between a god and a patron when it comes to a Celestial Warlock/Cleric. USing Kraken for a Sea Druid works fine too,

hmmm might be timely to do an all Warlock party and see how they stack up

As an aside Tulok the Barbarian does a youtube channel building literary characters using DnD 5e. I recall in his XMen builds he made Cyclopes a Celestial Warlock with a benevolent Professor X as his Patron, it was great to think that absolutely anything or anyone could be a Patron thus allowing anything to be a Warlock

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, Warlock is thematically confused. Sorcerer is too, though perhaps not quite as much. Sorcerer is mechanically meh though. My solution was to eliminate the sorcerer and give some of the sorcerer's fluff to the warlock. So now I have one class that represents magically imbued/altered beings that have rapidly recharging magic and always-on magical effects. This seems appropriate to me and is not too close to any other class.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Sorcerer and warlock definitely seem like there is a huge amount of overlap. Anything which can be a bloodline can also be a patron.

 

[Stormonu]

D&D is one of those games where abilities are still siloed to role, instead of being ala carte. And for this game, I like that. However, for some time now, the classes have been bleeding into each other in a failing attempt to minimize multiclassing.

And I don’t know about others, but my thoughts on patrons is a power differential among super beings, on the order of Greater God, Intermediate God, Lesser God, Patron, Dead God, Demigod, Proxy, Mortal Hero. What’s the difference? Well, it’s sort of like government - President, Congressmen, Representative, Governor, Mayor. A patron would be somewhere about a Governor level of divine/arcane power, to me - their power isn’t universal, their not associated with the National level and their restricted by their influence and can be overruled (with some effort) at the National level.

The power level won’t likely matter to a PC, but it may affect storylines and plots for the DM, such as plots where a patron might be using his “followers” to make a play to replace or become a god.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sorcerer and warlock definitely seem like there is a huge amount of overlap. Anything which can be a bloodline can also be a patron.

The issue of them both being Charisma casters makes this overlap even worse. That's why I have Sorcerers be CON-casters in my games, and try to make the divide between the two classes more apparent.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

The issue of them both being Charisma casters makes this overlap even worse. That's why I have Sorcerers be CON-casters in my games, and try to make the divide between the two classes more apparent.

Honestly not a fan of sorcerers being con casters. I think that it makes sense lore wise, but it just leads to the class being completely SAD which I think is bad design.

Then again I'm not a fan of anything to do with sorcerers this edition. Thematically I love them, but mechanically they're just bad wizards with the metamagic feat glued to the side. In their current state I don't even think they should be a class.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sorcerer and warlock definitely seem like there is a huge amount of overlap. Anything which can be a bloodline can also be a patron.

Yep. I really don't think it makes much sense to mechanically differentiate between 'was imbued with demonic power because of a pact' and 'was imbued with demonic power because of ancestry.'

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Honestly not a fan of sorcerers being con casters. I think that it makes sense lore wise, but it just leads to the class being completely SAD which I think is bad design.

Not really. They'd still need DEX for AC, and my table uses a bunch of house rules to make CON less of a power-stat than it currently is in order to balance it out in comparison to the other ability scores.

Then again I'm not a fan of anything to do with sorcerers this edition. Thematically I love them, but mechanically they're just bad wizards with the metamagic feat glued to the side. In their current state I don't even think they should be a class.

I have the same feeling. They're probably the class I'm disappointed in the most this edition. Everyone knows the flaws of the PHB Ranger class, but they do good DPR and are easy to fix through subclass-based spell-lists and the fixes in Tasha's. Sorcerers got nothing. The spell lists that the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork sorcerers got in Tasha's were a step in the right direction, but WotC stupidly decided to not give them to the other subclasses.

In their current state, they're a sorry excuse for a class, being outclassed in practically every way by a Wizard with the Metagamic feat, but they could be better. I hope WotC fixes them in a future book like they did with the Ranger in TCoE, but the odds of that happening aren't great.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Not really. They'd still need DEX for AC, and my table uses a bunch of house rules to make CON less of a power-stat than it currently is in order to balance it out in comparison to the other ability scores.

I have the same feeling. They're probably the class I'm disappointed in the most this edition. Everyone knows the flaws of the PHB Ranger class, but they do good DPR and are easy to fix through subclass-based spell-lists and the fixes in Tasha's. Sorcerers got nothing. The spell lists that the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork sorcerers got in Tasha's were a step in the right direction, but WotC stupidly decided to not give them to the other subclasses.

In their current state, they're a sorry excuse for a class, being outclassed in practically every way by a Wizard with the Metagamic feat, but they could be better. I hope WotC fixes them in a future book like they did with the Ranger in TCoE, but the odds of that happening aren't great.

I think even with the ancestry spells, they still lack a proper mechanical identity. Most casters have subclass spells.

It does improve the quality of life though. You're no longer forced into either picking the vital spells and being useful, or picking the thematic spells and playing the party escort mission. It's downright depressing that the older subclasses don't get them.

I think the spell points of the playtest were a good idea. Pity they axed every single little thing related to that version though.

And the fact that three of the four elemental sorcerers never got added is completely depressing. Elemental themes are my favourites. And in 5e elemental themes are basically ignored.

 

[loverdrive]

I think that Warlock's identity is their relationship with their patron.

As opposed to Cleric, whose god doesn't communicate directly, Warlock can and should encounter their patron and suffer repercussions for acting against its wishes.