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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8541771" data-attributes="member: 19857">From a mechanical perspective yes.  It's a game mechanic and trying to balance a mechanical benefit with a story punishment is a path that leads to terrible places.Also from a mechanical perspective the cleric/warlock/paladin are not out of line in power level with the wizard/sorcerer/fighter.  So from the perspective of mechanics they are not actually getting a "mechanical benefit" - they're getting abilities that are in line with what other characters of the same level have.  Now those abilities are expressed as superpowers with a specific story around them, and that story often (but does not have to) involve patronage. And so as a story hook that patronage should be expected to come into play during the course of their story, but it doesn't actually have to be conflict.  The patron could be quite cool, or the patron could be an annoying figure who meddles but never rises to the level of conflict.  There are all sorts of ways to play a patron but there is no requirement to use the patron as some kind of guardrail to prevent the character from being overpowered.Again though - those things are separatable to me.  The rules are there to govern the things you need rules to govern - I'm not getting out swords to run a sword fight on the lawn, so I need combat rules.  I have average charisma players playing high/low charisma characters, so I need rules to adjudicate those interactions. I don't need rules to govern the story that comes from a warlock and their patron's relationship - and in fact any rules that tried to enforce a specific vision of how that relationship has to emerge in game for "balance" reasons would tie our hands and make us less creative with our stories.</blockquote>

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