I wrote about my skepticism toward the new Warlock design in the recent playtest. My current hope is that there is some major rework of the latest design to address the issues I have with it, but let me talk about what those issues are, and then examine what it would look like to play the Warlock as presented in this UA.
The absolute biggest issue I have with the current system is that it makes it harder to feel like a true pure spellcaster, specifically in regards to the rate at which you get access to each level of spell.
Currently, Warlocks get a new spell level every other class level, which is the same as for the other pure spellcasters (Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards). The way this is achieved is different - you have a small number of spell slots that simply scale up as you level until they are 5th-level, and then you get a Mystic Arcanum every other level starting at 11, which lets you cast your one spell of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th each once a day - almost like a single spell slot of each of these but which can only be used for that one spell.
But let's set aside Mystic Arcanum for now and just focus on the Pact Magic spell level progression.
At level 3, your two 1st level Pact Magic slots become 2nd level slots. Any 1st level spells are now going to be cast at 2nd level if you use these slots, and you can get 2nd level spells. This continues until you hit level 9, at which point the slots become 5th level slots, and you just get a third and fourth slot, but don't upgrade their levels, when you hit later tiers of play.
Now, obviously, the biggest operative effect here is that you can pick up higher level spells as quickly as any class. Hunger of Hadar is a 3rd level spell, and you can grab it at level 5 while the Sorcerer is taking Fireball and the Wizard is taking Fly. All 3rd level spells, and each theoretically on the same power level.
The second operative effect here is that a Warlock really loves spells that scale up with higher level spell slots. While you might not always be able to pick Thunderwave up as a Warlock, if you do, this spell actually winds up always doing the same damage as Shatter - Thunderwave does 2d8, but when up-cast to 2nd level, it does 3d8. Shatter is natively a 2nd level spell, and does 3d8 thunder damage at its base power. Thus, once you're using 2nd level spells, these 1st and 2nd level spells are actually doing identical damage - the only differences are the shape, range, and secondary effects of those spells (a pushback for Thunderwave and disadvantage on saves from inorganic things for Shatter).
Generally, spell-scaling in D&D tends to fall slightly behind casting natively higher-level spells. There is no reason to cast Fireball at 9th level when you have access to Meteor Swarm, for example, as a 9th-level Fireball only does 14d6 damage, while a Meteor Swarm deals 40d6 total damage over a larger area. Warlocks, given that they don't even have the lower-level spell slots anymore, love to find spells that scale well with spell level - including, for example, the many "Summon" spells from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which get a big boost to damage when they hit even-numbered spell levels (admittedly this makes the fact that Pact Magic stops scaling at 5th level somewhat non-ideal for such spells, but it does mean that 3rd-level summon spells like Summon Fey, Summon Shadowspawn, and Summon Undead really benefit from this).
The new design practically reverses all of this. When it comes to spell slots, Warlocks will not actually get 5th level spell slots until level 17. They get to cast natively 5th-level spells as early as 9th level, but only through Mystic Arcanum. Upcasting becomes far more difficult - an Undead Warlock who has Summon Undead will have to wait until 13th level to upcast it as a 4th-level spell, whereas currently that happens for them when they hit level 7 - just over half that level.
Now, thankfully, you are still going to be able to cast natively high-level spells using Mystic Arcanum starting at level 5, but to do so, you need to engage in a complex system.
Let's say I want to cast Remove Curse. When I hit level 5, I only have 2nd level spells, but I also have Mystic Arcanum, which lets me now choose that as my only 3rd level spell I can cast. Cool. I have it, albeit only once a day, but I have it.
Now, I level up farther and eventually hit level 9. At this point, I want to grab Danse Macabre, which is a 5th level spell. I can now un-learn Remove Curse as a Mystic Arcanum to free up the invocation to get Danse Macabre, and then I can swap in Remove Curse as a known spell now that I have 3rd-level slots.
But I'm going to be doing this constantly over the course of my leveling experience - if I want to use my maximum-level spells, I'll need to trade out spells known and Mystic Arcanum invocations basically every other time I level up.
Now, yes, I also get a new Invocation nearly every two levels (2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17). But the lower-level Mystic Arcanum is probably going to feel "wasted" if I'm using it to get a spell I already have spell slots for in the first place.
On top of that, even if there are 9 Eldritch Invocations to get now, in order to wind up at level 17 with 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells the way you do now, you'll need to spend four of your nine to do so.
Now, to be fair, the Pact Boons in and of themselves have now incorporated some of the popular invocations of the past. Pact of the Blade now comes with Thirsting Blade for free (not to mention most of the important parts of Hex Warrior from the Hexblade patron). Pact of the Tome likewise gives you the equivalent of Agonizing Blast (with a rider that makes sure you can't/don't have to double down by actually taking Agonizing Blast). And between having access to the full Arcane spell list and the new uses for Mystic Arcanum, a lot of the "you can cast this one spell with a Warlock spell slot" invocations aren't necessary anymore. Thus, you could argue that you don't need so many invocations anymore.
But we can also take a wholly new perspective on this.
What if we just think of this Warlock as a wholly new class and take it on its own merits.
First things first, we now identify this as a half-caster class. Ok, cool. It now sits with Artificers, Rangers, and Paladins.
These classes generally focus more on repeatable, resource-neutral (not counting ammunition) standard activities - Paladins and Rangers focus on weapon attacks, while Artificers go 50/50 between weapons and cantrips as their default moves.
Warlocks were already kind of built that way. Between Eldritch Blast and the weapon-fighting of Pact of the Blade, Warlocks are doing their main thing each turn without expending any resources.
So, then, if we think of Warlocks as a half-caster class, how does that caster half supplement the other half? Paladins, for instance, get their auras, their smites, and a few other features that allow them to be great in combat while not having as martial a focus as Fighters or Barbarians (especially with the introduction of weapon mastery). Rangers, admittedly, have struggled with this, but they now play with some enhanced mobility and a lot of enhancements to their skills to be the kings of environmental exploration and traversal. Artificers are the masters of tool proficiency, and bring their item-enhancement capabilities to have mastery over gear and equipment.
In that context, if we start the Warlock from the perspective of a half-caster, we see that their special kit is getting limited access to higher-level magic, along with invocations that give them highly customizable utility.
And I think that that might actually wind up being a very cool class that could feel great to play...
If we didn't have the Warlock as it exists now.
See, the thing is, in my mind, the flavor of the warlock suggests that they have just as much magical proficiency as a Wizard or Sorcerer. The whole reason they were willing to make a pact in the first place - one that might even severely compromise them - is that they wanted to have access to the very heights of magic.
If a Warlock is standing around and feeling like the Wizard and Sorcerer are running circles around them when it comes to advanced magic, they're going to feel extreme buyer's remorse.
There are a couple of proposals I might suggest to resolve this:
Let's start conservatively:
Pact Magic's only real flaw was that at any given time, you have very few spell slots to cast with. Now, my interpretation of this, and how I think most people who like the current Warlock think of it, is to simply pick really solid concentration-based spells so that you can have one spell cast per combat that then carries you through it. A Barbarian typically only Rages once per combat, and a Warlock should be able to pick a spell that covers them for the rest of combat and possibly into multiple combats, then filling in their turns with Eldritch Blast or weapon attacks.
if we want to move Warlocks away from recovering things on short rests, we can solve both of these issues the same way: instead of getting 1 - 4 Pact Magic slots back on a short rest, we should let them get 2 - 10 spell slots back on a long rest. (The max number is open to debate - I could see it going as low as 6 or as high as 12.) These would still only scale to 5th level, and you'd need Mystic Arcanum to get your once-a-day 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells, but this lets Warlocks work similarly to how they did and also breaks the exploitations of coffee locks and gives the Warlock a chance to cast lots of spells in a climactic encounter.
The more radical design?
Just make Warlocks pure spellcasters, with a Spellcasting trait that works just like Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards.
Honestly, this is what the people who don't like Warlocks wanted in the first place. They want to feel like they've become just as adept at arcane magic as a Wizard, but via different means.
Now, this would require serious rebalancing. Many sacred elements of the class would need to be nerfed. I don't even know if you could let Eldritch Blast be as good as it is - the reason the class relies on this cantrip so much is its limited spellcasting.
But I think that if we can let the Colleges of Valor and Swords for Bards and the Bladesinger Wizard be fully-capable weapon-based combatants while still having the full access to their pure spellcasting ability, I see no reason why Warlocks can't be built from the ground up to effectively be this class-wide (with Eldritch Blast playing a similar role to weapon attacks).
And honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think this actually solves everyone's problems. It risks a bit of homogenization between the classes, to be sure, but as long as you keep the customization options of Pact Boons and Eldritch Invocations to give Warlocks their flavor, you now wind up addressing the biggest issues - both taking Warlocks off the short-rest reliance and letting them have the spell slots they need to cast lots of different and powerful spells.
And now, you just get rid of Mystic Arcanum entirely - there's no need if you're now getting those higher level spell slots.
If a nerf is needed to keep them from being too powerful (though, I'll be honest, I don't think they will be,) perhaps you get fewer Eldritch Invocations now - maybe as few as four. If you really want to soup up your Eldritch Blast, you're going to have to fully commit to it, and won't be able to get all the things you want until higher levels. The invocations might also be weakened as well - maybe Repelling Blast only works once per turn, or something like that.
I'm only throwing out these nerfs in the case that they feel an otherwise-unaltered Warlock with full spellcasting would be too powerful, but again, if we compare this to the melee subclasses for other pure spellcasters, I really don't think this change would make them any more powerful than they should be.
I suspect I'll write as much when the survey opens for this playtest packet.
The Warlock has always had a strong mechanical identity and a strong flavor identity, but those two identities haven't always really matched up. I think the changes in playtest 5 are nobly intended to address mechanical issues, but they do so by moving even farther away from the flavor identity of the class.
I want the new Pact Boons as they are (though I'm still skeptical of Intelligence or Wisdom warlocks) but I'd honestly rather just go back to Pact Magic and the old Mystic Arcanum as they stand than to use the new version of Warlock spellcasting.
Thankfully, I've felt that the designers have been very responsive to player feedback so far, and I think that if I am not in the minority with these opinions, we'll see some new takes on the class the next time they're ready to try testing it.
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