The Warlock is the most radically redesigned class in the One D&D playtest so far, and I'll be honest, while I love the way they've redesigned Pact Boons (mainly the folding-in of several invocations and particularly the Hex Warrior feature of the Hexblade into the Pact of the Blade, more or less) the conversion of them to half-casters-but-you-can-still-cast-high-level-spells-in-this-complicated-way feels not just overly complex but also potentially undercuts the fantasy of the class.
I actually settled on the idea that if they want to make Warlocks conventional spellcasters, they should just give them full spellcasting like a Wizard or Sorcerer, but let's walk back and take the new version on its own merits.
And the best way to do that, I think, is to use a character I've actually played. While my original character was a Great Old One Warlock, the character I played through Descent into Avernus and hit my highest watermark (outside of one-shots) for character level is Old Knox (a version of which has actually become a character in the novel I'm writing).
Old Knox is a Half-Elf Hexblade Warlock with the Sage background. Despite being a Hexblade, he's actually got Pact of the Chain.
Rather than going through everything here, as I did on the conversion of my Eldritch Knight Fighter, what I'm looking to do is instead to figure out what his spellcasting capabilities would be, and what invocations he could have.
So, let's look at him as he currently stands:
Old Knox is wearing a shield and half plate. The shield he still only gets from being a Hexblade, but the half plate will now grace any warlock who want it and can afford it.
Setting aside those he gets from his Staff of Frost, Old Knox knows the following spells:
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation
1st level: Armor of Agathys, Find Familiar (through Pact of the Chain), Hex
2nd level: Shatter, Suggestion
3rd level: Blink, Fly, Remove Curse, Summon Shadowspawn, Thunder Step
4th level: Charm Monster
5th level: Danse Macabre, Synaptic Static
6th level: Mental Prison
7th level: Finger of Death
Ok, so that's a total of 2 mystic arcana, 12 spells known (not counting Find Familiar, as we don't "know it" except through our Pact Boon) and 4 cantrips. You'll noticed I loaded up on a lot of 3rd level spells, and I believe swapped out several when I leveled up, which is why I have so many at that level and relatively few at 2nd level.
In the new version, at level 14, I can have 11 spells known. Ok, so I'm losing one, but before we pick which one, we also need to address some other aspects here.
At level 14, I have 4 1st level, 3 2nd level, 3 3rd level, and 1 4th level spell slot.
That means that I can't have Danse Macabre or Synaptic Static "known," but will need to get these as Mystic Arcanum options if I want them.
Ok, so we strike those from the spells known and we now actually have one free option.
Actually, we also get another free option, because we automatically know Hex. So we've got two free spells.
So, in order to have all of our higher-level spells, we need to spend 4 eldritch invocations to get mystic arcana for those spells.
However, we cannot have both Danse Macabre and Synaptic Static, as these are the same level.
Ok, so let's replace Synaptic Static with Fireball (same damage, lower spell slot) and now we have used up one of those two freed-up spells known. Danse Macabre, Mental Prison, and Finger of Death each cost an invocation. But now we kinda-sorta have our spells back.
At level 14, we have 6 eldritch invocations. 3 of these are spent on mystic arcanum to give us those three spells. That leaves us with three left.
Old Knox currently has 6 invocations, but mystic arcanum does not require investment in these, so all six are in use for other things.
Those things are Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Tomb of Levistus, Trickster's Escape, and Maddening Hex.
Now... um, yeah, there's no way to have all of these. I guess I'd keep Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast, and drop all but... I guess Trickster's Escape? No, wait, I can just learn Freedom of Movement with my last open spell known and drop that. So, instead, I'll keep Tomb of Levistus, I guess.
Ok, now let's go back and think about spell slots.
Currently, Old Knox has 3 5th-level slots, but can cast Freedom of Movement for free once a day, as well as Mental Prison and Finger of Death. With a single short rest, he can get off 6 5th level spells a day.
The new version gives him a total of 11 slots per day, but 4 of these are 1st level and thus can only be used on Hex or Armor of Agathys - both spells that I like to upcast to 5th level, honestly.
We can use our second level slots on Shatter and Suggestion, which we can do a total of 3 times, or we can upcast Armor of Agathys (Hex doesn't really benefit from 2nd level slots).
If I want to cast any 3rd level spells, I can technically cast it one additional time using my 4th level slot, but only if I don't get any short rests - in the latter case, I get more chances to cast these spells at a higher level.
I am high enough level to upcast Summon Shadowspawn at 4th level, but only because I just got the ability to do so at level 13 - while I would have been able to cast it in such a way to give my monstrosity two attacks per turn at level 7 using the old system, now I can't until mid tier 3.
So...
Guys, this does not work. Yes, this is a character built on the old system, and I might have designed him differently and chosen different spells if I were building him on the latest playtest version. I probably would not have picked up those high level spells and instead have focused on... well, some of the defensive things I got in the old version.
But if we compare this to the kind of unmitigated excitement and joy I felt converting my Fighter to the new version, this demonstrates that I really, really don't agree with the direction they've taken the Warlock in the current playtest.
I don't know how long it will take to see the designers' reactions to feedback. We're not even getting the survey for this packet for likely a couple weeks, and that survey will be open for a while.
I don't want to make the mistake that people on the internet always do and say that my opinion is the obviously correct one, but as much as I love some of the ideas around the pact boons that they've come up with for Warlocks, I really, really hope they don't commit to this mess of a spellcasting system.
I think you could solve Pact Magic the following way:
Just make it recharge on a long rest and give you somewhere between twice and three times as many spell slots. Keep it limited to 5th level slots, with Mystic Arcanum (not as an invocation, but as a free feature) covering your 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level slots.
Getting rid of the scaling spell slots ruins spells like Hex and Armor of Agathys, and Summon Shadowspawn.
Making Warlocks traditional full casters could solve a lot of these problems, and I think is honestly the best compromise solution. Indeed, this would even open up the possibility of having, for example, Summon Shadowspawn scale up all the way to 8th level (don't waste your 9th level slot to get 1 more damage per hit).
Full caster Warlocks might need nerfs, but I think testing them out at least in this structure would be warranted. I don't know if you'd need to go after Eldritch Blast or something else.
But I just do not in the least like this half-caster structure for the Warlock, and I hope they change it.
No comments:
Post a Comment