D&D General Warlocks' patrons vs. Paladin Oaths and Cleric Deities

[Blue]

Yes, but that's because the metagame constructs of class and level aren't actually laws binding the fiction. They're tools to provide a game element to character creation.

Exactly! People who are playing the game need additional things at the game level of play. Be it balance against other classes, progression speed matching other classes over levels, enough complexity to entertain a player with just a single character both in-game and with enough freedom at advancement, and other aspects to make it fun as a game.

NPCs in the game world mostly need a statblock for combat, and most of the time that combat is against the PCs. So as a game their needs are to provide appropriate challenges, etc. They serve a different mechanical purpose.

We're had 3ed and 3.5 where PCs and NPCs followed the same basic rules. But not all of the monster types were balanced against each other or against the PC classes, and the extra load for session prep "advancement" plus running complex-enough-to-be-PCs in-game put a large extra load on the DM. Designers have moved away from that, likely because the game aspects were more important for actual play then the everyone-uses-the-exact-same-rule aspects. We can treat those as tested for the eight years from 3e until 4e, and the end result was not keeping them.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don’t understand why you play a class based game.

My problem with D&D isn't that it's class based; it's how strongly level based it is. A class is basically a partially complete pregenerated character with a synergistic setup and having classes means that it's easy for players to find the archetypes and relatively easy to balance archetypes without all abilities working with all other abilities. Many games including Apocalypse World, Masks, Blades in the Dark, and Feng Shui have classes, and even Daggerheart may technically have levels but only loosely.

Levels constrain how you grow. As I've observed frequently in most cases if you take two identical twins at fourth level (e.g. two Life Clerics with War Caster) and they don't multiclass then the only way they are mechanically different by level eleven other than equipment is the single eighth level feat. It's the level based "advancement on rails" rather than the class based "multiple obvious starting points" that I find a problem.

 

[TwoSix]

Levels constrain how you grow. As I've observed frequently in most cases if you take two identical twins at fourth level (e.g. two Life Clerics with War Caster) and they don't multiclass then the only way they are mechanically different by level eleven other than equipment is the single eighth level feat. It's the level based "advancement on rails" rather than the class based "multiple obvious starting points" that I find a problem.

Yes, that's exactly my problem with the more common viewpoints around classes. It's the idea that thousands of NPCs are all going to receive the same training and the same growth in abilities in exactly the same order.

I do have games where that happens, but it's only in the context that class and level are diegetic, explicitly supernatural parameters that get attached to certain exceptional individuals.

 

[Scribe]

Anyway, I've always wanted some actual teeth to the Pact, you know that central aspect of a Warlock, to be reflected. Daggerheart at least in the beta/preview puts something in there. Maybe I'll work something out for Shadowdark.

 

[Remathilis]

Back in the TSR days, they released CDs with character audio of the "characters" talking to one another. They lacked names, so the characters would call each other by their classes ("Warrior! Look out!" "I have a rope for you, Thief!" "Give that scroll to the Wizard.") Whenever people talk about classes existing in the fiction, my brain immediately goes back to the idea of people calling each other by their class names.

 

[TwoSix]

Back in the TSR days, they released CDs with character audio of the "characters" talking to one another. They lacked names, so the characters would call each other by their classes ("Warrior! Look out!" "I have a rope for you, Thief!" "Give that scroll to the Wizard.") Whenever people talk about classes existing in the fiction, my brain immediately goes back to the idea of people calling each other by their class names.

"Red Wizard shot the food! Red Wizard is about to die!"

 

[Remathilis]

"Red Wizard shot the food! Red Wizard is about to die!"

Apparently they exist on YouTube!

 

[Distracted DM]

Anyway, I've always wanted some actual teeth to the Pact, you know that central aspect of a Warlock, to be reflected. Daggerheart at least in the beta/preview puts something in there. Maybe I'll work something out for Shadowdark.

Are you referring to the background questions and connections? I didn't know DH had a warlock so I looked it up.

But regarding actual teeth, let me know what you come up with. I did link the Patron Demands Knights in the North link somewhere earlier in this thread... sec.... here we go. It does have some cool stuff in there; KitN tables have been great and they're quite adaptable to Shadowdark.

Like I said, do let me know what you come up with (if anything)!

 

[Distracted DM]

Apparently they exist on YouTube!

Oh my gods they did one for Karameikos too. GREAT find, wow.

 

[Remathilis]

Oh my gods they did one for Karameikos too. GREAT find, wow.

I owned both of these.