I give warlocks spell slots equal to their pro bonus, so the start with 2, get 3 at 5th etc. I also usually let them have the feat eldritch adept, so they get more invocations. Unlike wotc I haven't eliminated short rests, so the get slots back pretty quickly.
Six fifth level spell slots that renew on a short rest at level 12 seems like a lot. A twelfth level wizard only has 16, of all levels combined. If you run even just one short rest per long rest the warlock has almost as many L5 slots as the wizard has of all levels. If you run 2 short rests per long rest the warlock can cast more spells, of higher level. If you're running no short rests ever, maybe, but otherwise, I'd be hard pressed to play anything but a warlock.
The slots does seem to get really powerful. I think the thing to remember is that warlock aren't full casters. I do like the patron spells being just known spells like the cleric. I'd be ok with more invocations if there were also more warlock level prerequisites on them. Things like devil sight and eldritch mind at level 5 warlock, for example. Boosting the martial abilities of warlocks is a great idea. Perhaps making 1/2 Charisma bonus for martial weapons and keep full bonus for hexblade. Either way you have to be careful with multiclassing. I like that one dnd is putting subclasses at level 3 and 5e multiclassing can benefit from a house rule along those lines.
Problem lf warlock comes down to "does the party get short rests". Iirc, dnd is designed for 3-4 difficult encounters with 1 short rest in-between them... of course, this design is kinda bullshit imo. Most parties don't get that many encounters and i don't see an incentive why they would get a short rest or not get 10 short rests
I'm not sure I like the increased spell slots, it does seem like it could get sort of broken in the late game, but I do like the ideas of breaking the hexblade down into invocations, as well as the DM awarding additional invocations as something their patron would provide as a reward.
Imo? Make the invocations more flexible. Give more spell options for players that want to cast Eldritch Invocations at will, ideally with a list of length and organization similar to the magic item list for artificer infusions. If you want to buff the Spell Slots themselves I would just give them a way to let people short rest within a minute or 10 like with the Genie feature, but for all Warlocks at level 5-6. Something that lets them communicate with their patron sending stone where the connection becomes so strong you get your spell slots right after the convo.
i dare to disagree with you on the topic of all Warlocks being short on spell slots being a problem. My group finished our last DnD campaign at lvl 13 and i had a Warlock with Pact of the Tome, Book of Ancient Secrets and Celestial patron. We used almost no House Rules and stayed by the book for the most part. Outside of battle i was the swiss army knife of the group with all the rituals i could provide, in combat the most cast spell of mine was "Bless" I was the backup healer with the Celestial features, had my Eldritch Blast with Grasp of Hadar and Repelling Blast for battlefield control. I had a swooping 28 ritual spells, right beside my 9 cantrips and normal spells at the end of campaign. I never struggled with spell slots, because we play D&D as a "Roleplay Game" and not as a "Combat Simulator" far to many groups seem to think of D&D, so no 4-6 fights per 4h session, but one, maybe two with more often than not ample opportunity to make a short rest. Warlock is imho one of the best roleplaying classes in D&D ( and giving the DM so much to work with storywise ) and i never had any regrets for my choice, even if i was far behind the damage dealers with raw damage output. As a German ttrp gamer with quiet some time on his back ( i started in 1983 with the D&D first edition, then expanded to various German systems ) i have played more than 50 different ttrpgs ( i think it is more near 100, if i include one-shot sessions at conventions with new systems and playtesting 2 German systems as well ) over the years, but D&D is imho one of the most combat focused systems out there ( i would rate it 70% combat related / 30% roleplay ). all the best from Germany
Dude, that's great. Some tables, the warlock just works out. Its fantastic when it does. My players just aren't like that, They want a little more power and RP. So I made some small tweeks. D&D is Indeed combat Focused, it did start off as a Mini War Game and evolved. I try to do it as a Roleplaying game and not a ROLLplaying game. But its rough some times.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 i guess it has its perks to have a steady rpg group with the same guys for more tham years now :) and yes, i am aware how extremly lucky i am with this. And yes, i know Gary Gygax's origin story on where D&D came to be.
@@belegur8108 I had 2 stable players for 3 years, but this last campaign made things a little rough. RL Kicked in for a couple so I had to pull together a new group. Its awesome to hear that you have a group dude ^_^
@@unlimitedadventures4390 and what i appreciate very much, too is the fact that we are a group of 7 guys, that not only are very close friends ( with all the families included ) but that we are 4 DM's rotating after every campaign. each of us has his own fond of systems he is offering. In my case it is Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40k ( all of them), Splittermond ( a German high fantasy medieval setting ) and upcomming Pathfinder 2e. And on special occasions i offer TOON (Steve Jackson Games )for one shots. With special events i mean our annual Easterbunny Slaughter and Halloween Splatter One-Shots 🤣🤣
Dnd is designed around 5-8 normal encounters and 1-2 short rests per long rest... which makes it seem like it's best to use long rests as long "you finished an adventure or adventure arc" moment
I like the idea of increasing the spells how you do but Maybe I'd do it at level 5 and 10 instead, since I tend to make the warlock's base attack options in my games stronger and more varied. I like the idea that a warlock's pact boon dictates how they approach the game and combat, Pact of the blade gives the charisma weapon attacks and extra attack on its own (meaning you have to dip 3 levels instead of 1if you want it), pact of the Chain gets easier ways to summon its familiar and swap it around, it has better hitpoints, gets extra attack and its attacks are strong enough that its worth it to forgo eldritch blast and let the familiar attack instead, and Tome warlocks are already good but to give them a niche, they are the only ones who get agonizing blast, and it applies to all their cantrips. I even have a small homebrew for pact of the talisman where it becomes a full support and skill monkey boon, it gives you extra proficiencies, expertise, the ability to craft faster and cheaper, and the ability to share the warlocks very selfish spells, like Armor of Agathys, with your friends
I tend to cap off my games between 10 and 14. after that things get really out of control. BUt the 5 and 10 levels are solid, I will have to test that out! Thanks for the feedback.
The thing about the Warlock in 5e the majority of people get wrong and why they tend to be frustrated with it is that they see the Warlock as a full spellcasting class, like the Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, and Cleric - and I get that they do, because on the surface level it looks like one - but it isn't. It actually plays more like 1/2 caster like a Ranger or Paladin, but instead of being based around martial core aspects it's built more around a versatility core like that of a Wizard, Bard, or Rogue. And if you approach the Warlock in a similar way with the high arcana that the class gets at high levels being more about duplicating spell effects than about actually being a caster that can sling those spells, then the class suddenly becomes quite well designed to play with. However, that being said, I do get why people want to play it as a full caster. It would be a lot of fun to do so. So personally if a player wanted to play a spellcasting based Warlock in a campaign of mine I would just create a different sub-class for it that is focused around spellcasting and provides more options in that venue, so that I can adjust what the player will receive as their powers. One thing I did houserule though because it makes little to no sense is to change the invocations that give the Warlock an additional spell as 1 cast per day that uses up a pact magic slot so that it instead lets them have this spell permanently in their spell list without having limitations on the times per day they can use a slot to cast it. 80% of the time it makes no difference and the only times it does it enhances the game rather than limiting the story. As a side note: I did play a non-hexblade melee oriented Warlock in a game of a friend and aside from my HP my character ended up being the most powerful one at the table. So I take a bit of offense from the statement that players "have to" use this subclass. They don't. It just makes the build into a no-brainer.
Warlock is an above average class and frankly are a very solid template for what the power of a 5E character should be. Yes, there are things more powerful, but honestly those are examples of classes and multiclasses that should be toned down for the health of the game. WotC has power crept spell casters rediculously by adding broken subclasses and spells to the game. And yes, warlock has not benefitted from that creeping as much as say the sorcerer. But the warlock is still in a much better position than any of the straight classed non-casters, and some of the other classes as well. Plus, the fathomless warlock can already compete with any other class or subclass in terms of power. The fathomless warlock is seriously slept on and is easily one of the most powerful straight classes in the game at all tiers of play. If you give a fathomless warlock a bunch of free spells and invocations, you're just creating another monster.
I would just give warlocks spell slots equal to their proficiency bonus. Also what's wrong with using Eldritch blast a lot? No one complains about the barbarian using the same weapon over and over.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 also making use of the scroll making process in xanathars helps them use lower level spells without slots. With just the proficiency in arcana, they can have as many good lower level spells as they have downtime for. Shield for days!
People don't complain about a Barbarian using the same weapon over and over again is because there's no use complaining. Martials don't and will never have the same versatility as casters. People have been complaining though, because, as a barbarian, literally the only thing you can do is - I attack. Nothing else, that's it. There's almost nothing that comes on top of that as well. It gets extremely tiring. I love barbarian to death, but I always play them multiclass with a rogue or a fighter or something else, just to have something more interesting to do than - I attack, I get attacked. Also, PB Spell SLots is not a good idea, because it makes the multiclassing problem even worse - dip 1 level in Warlock and get basically infinite 1st level slots.
@@Notsogoodguitarguy oh yeah having 6 extra first level slots as a multi class at level 17 breaks the game open lol. It's not the fault that every other cantrip isn't as good as Eldritch blast, it's customizable with great damage and utility all at once
@@AyamesChronicles you do realize that some of the most broken spells in the game are 1st level spells, right? Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, Bless - those are all 1st level spells. Having 6 extra spell slots that come back on a short rest ON TOP of your other 1st and whatever level spells IS outright ridiculous. And, yes Eldritch Blast is stupid. That's why I've houseruled it away in my games and have generalised the versatility to all cantrips the warlock can cast instead of just EB. You don't fix stupid design with more stupid design. You fix it by solving the flaws.
Well right off the bat you fundamentally misunderstand the warlock. Its spell slots are meant to be encounter defining actions, the flaw here is that their spells don't upcast well if at all. Spells known is... fine actually... kind of surprising with how broken you made their spell slots. 4... invocations... at level 2.... no no no the invocations are meant to make warlocks feel different from eachother not grab all of them, the problem with invocations is that there's some that are so much better than the others that they become must haves. All in all these are bad 'fixes'
I don't think that they are "bad fixes" but that they try to address stuff that isn't really broken. The issue isn't in the design of the Warlock, it's in the fact that the designers didn't include an actual spell slinging option for it, as if they failed to anticipate that it would be the first attempt many players would make with the class. They should have offered either a spell slinger patron or a spell slinger pact boon, neither of which they did, instead they made a Hexblade patron to make the melee Warlock a no-brainer build, even though it was perfectly fine without it.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 personally, I'd fix it by tweaking the rest mechanic. Either the gritty realism option, which makes it much easier to narratively have multiple short rests per long rest, or make short rests 1 or 10 minutes long, but still limited to 1/hr.
I've found that the perfect solution to low warlock spell slots is something like a Pearl of Power or Rod of the Pact Keeper; something to give them an extra spell slot or two when they really need it, for boss fights and such, without turning them into massive spell batteries for every single fight. There's a reason that coffeelock is considered so broken; it's because it's the latter. DMs throw legendary resistances at a warlock and wonder why they feel bad. For basically the entirety of a campaign (most end around the beginning of tier 3), that's half their spells gone for what feels like nothing. Is this more a problem with legendary resistance? Probably, but it's the mechanic for not having your boss shut down instantly by all the CC in the game, so without revamping that whole thing, giving warlock some emergency slots is probably the best solution for them in particular.
The Rod and the Pearl are great, I really like that. But that's also up to the DM to give them to the warlock. Magical Items in 5e are kinda a fuzzy area. They are actual enhancements to a character, but they are very fuzzy on when to give them to them. These are the best solutions I could come up with. I may have gone a little overboard, spoiling my players. But I also am a rather unforgiving DM. Dice fall as they do and I make some really tough custom monsters.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 Yeah, the lack of solid availability of magic items is a problem for many classes, because they're just so darn useful for balancing. In my games, I let players buy magic items in big cities. What the hell is all that gold for, if not that? So everyone can reliably get ahold of the items they want for a build, but within reason. Some stuff is military issue only (like instant fortresses) but stuff that suffering classes need end up in their hands. Martials get their magic weapons, warlocks get some spell slot support, etc. Still, I have heard many others complain about warlock spellslot availability. I'm playing a hexblade right now so usually it's just darkness and smash. Not that powerful but it's fun. For a casting focused build, it's a concern for sure. Maybe a good balance is to let them spend 1 or 2 hit dice to go over their spell slot cap by 1 or 2 once per day. It would help with Tier 1 and 2 play, which is like 99% of all D&D anyway, and there's a cost and limit to make it feel balanced. We can't deny the strength of Warlock's slot regain on short rest. That has major gamebreaking potential if not taken seriously.
... If you wanted to play a Sorcerer... then why did you choose a Warlock?? Warlock's are a niche class that focus on a select theme or niche role. Wizards are the arcane swiss army knife, Sorcerers could be described as a halfway between the two but I see them more as a less-prep-more-improv flexible caster. But Warlocks are designed how they are for a reason. If you wanted more invocations, go Sorcerer for metamagic. If you wanted more spell slots, play a Wizard. Honestly, (keeping magic items in mind such as Pearl of Power) I don't believe they need more base spell slots. I advise new players to NOT play Warlocks because they require (in my opinion) a lot more knowledge of the game and more effort in forethought and understanding scaling and various other small viewpoints that tend to come from experience. But as a class they can be incredibly powerful. If you are playing a Warlock and all you want to to is fire off Eldritch Blasts, then do it. There's invocations specifically based around that. I've played with a Warlock before who did just that, and their spell slots were based around social interactions - they were the face. But there are other options too. No other class gets a subclass plus TWO FULL ADDITIONAL LISTS OF COOL CUSTOMISATIONS. Between Pacts, 2 of which open up more customisation options on top of, and invocations, which can literally entirely change the flavour of one Warlock from another, if someone's complaint is that they only have 2 spell slots and then they're done then they aren't actually playing the class and they either need to reassess how they play or just reroll another casting class. Point is I've seen plenty of non-Hexblade Warlocks who pull massive damage and CC and they were not at all hindered by only having 2 or 3 spell slots. Furthermore, I would never tell another DM how they must run their tables, only how I would address these issues at mine. But I would NEVER remove one subclass option - potentially robbing players of a character preference - just to prevent a possible min-max multiclass in the future. Definition of punishing the many for the one. Also, the idea of removing one broken multiclassing option is a bad one. Hexblade isn't even the best multiclass for Paladin. Sure it's powerful, and, yeah, maybe broken. But it's not the most egregious. If your concern is broken multiclassing, then get rid of multiclassing altogether, because the list of broken multiclasses is rather long. Smiterogue and Coffeelock come to mind. If your response to not liking one car in the race for going too fast is to remove them, and any other cars that can do the same speed, then you may as well just close the track because you'll hit the same issue. And that issue is, likely, different games at the same table. If you are banning multiclasses because they are broken, you're likely either a new DM, a nervous DM, or a roleplaying-focused DM. If a player is multiclassing into something powerful, it's likely that either they are a min-maxer, or it's a coincidence and they don't know they've created. But if you're going for a roleplay-focused game and they're gunning for min-maxing the numbers, then you're playing two different games and you should really address it with one or all of the players to set similar expectations.
You are free to run the table how you want to. I have been DMing a long time. I tell no DM how to run their games. I just present new ideas and options for them to work over. Me, I had a player who wanted to play a slightly more powerful lock, and I can do this because I am the DM. its my game, I can do what I want with it. But thanks for the feet back. :)
You do know that Raw, warlock should have like 6 level 2 spellslots at level 3 and at level 20 a warlock is supposed to have like 16 level 5 slots per long rest, cause dnd is designed around 2 short rests per long rests (or at least 1) and like 3-4 difficult COMBAT (or similar in resource drain) encounters (or if you go fully by raw, then 5-8 normal ones). So, warlock is the only casters who can actually cast high level offensive spells regularly raw. Problem is that most don't run dnd like this and, thus, short rest classes are nerfed to various extent... with warlock losing around 66% of their spell slots... or at least 50%. Hence why base warlock is seen as weak an a band-aid hexblade subclass was released. Like, short rest classes are marathon runners and sorcerers and wizards are sprinters with boxes of random tools. 5e is designed as a marathon adventuring game, but most 5e groups run it as a sprint, making short rest classes weak. If i were to fix a warlock, i would've probably given them double spell slot amount. They should have more, but it should be inaccessible all at once, so this would be a compromise.
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I give warlocks spell slots equal to their pro bonus, so the start with 2, get 3 at 5th etc. I also usually let them have the feat eldritch adept, so they get more invocations. Unlike wotc I haven't eliminated short rests, so the get slots back pretty quickly.
I add one spell slot at lvl 6, that's it
Six fifth level spell slots that renew on a short rest at level 12 seems like a lot. A twelfth level wizard only has 16, of all levels combined. If you run even just one short rest per long rest the warlock has almost as many L5 slots as the wizard has of all levels. If you run 2 short rests per long rest the warlock can cast more spells, of higher level. If you're running no short rests ever, maybe, but otherwise, I'd be hard pressed to play anything but a warlock.
Fair point, what are your thoughts on the increased Invocations and removing the extra spell slots?
Four at level 2 seems like a lot. That's a really really tempting 2 level dip.
The rest of the added invocations seem okay. Not sure warlocks really need a buff, but if you want to, that'd be a good non game breaking boost.
The slots does seem to get really powerful. I think the thing to remember is that warlock aren't full casters. I do like the patron spells being just known spells like the cleric.
I'd be ok with more invocations if there were also more warlock level prerequisites on them. Things like devil sight and eldritch mind at level 5 warlock, for example.
Boosting the martial abilities of warlocks is a great idea. Perhaps making 1/2 Charisma bonus for martial weapons and keep full bonus for hexblade. Either way you have to be careful with multiclassing. I like that one dnd is putting subclasses at level 3 and 5e multiclassing can benefit from a house rule along those lines.
Problem lf warlock comes down to "does the party get short rests".
Iirc, dnd is designed for 3-4 difficult encounters with 1 short rest in-between them... of course, this design is kinda bullshit imo.
Most parties don't get that many encounters and i don't see an incentive why they would get a short rest or not get 10 short rests
I'm not sure I like the increased spell slots, it does seem like it could get sort of broken in the late game, but I do like the ideas of breaking the hexblade down into invocations, as well as the DM awarding additional invocations as something their patron would provide as a reward.
Warlocks in D&D are like the Dragon Weapons in Dark Souls: Really good to start off, but after mid game you have moved on to something else.
Imo? Make the invocations more flexible. Give more spell options for players that want to cast Eldritch Invocations at will, ideally with a list of length and organization similar to the magic item list for artificer infusions.
If you want to buff the Spell Slots themselves I would just give them a way to let people short rest within a minute or 10 like with the Genie feature, but for all Warlocks at level 5-6. Something that lets them communicate with their patron sending stone where the connection becomes so strong you get your spell slots right after the convo.
Pact of the Blase. Nice.
i dare to disagree with you on the topic of all Warlocks being short on spell slots being a problem.
My group finished our last DnD campaign at lvl 13 and i had a Warlock with Pact of the Tome, Book of Ancient Secrets and Celestial patron.
We used almost no House Rules and stayed by the book for the most part.
Outside of battle i was the swiss army knife of the group with all the rituals i could provide, in combat the most cast spell of mine was "Bless"
I was the backup healer with the Celestial features, had my Eldritch Blast with Grasp of Hadar and Repelling Blast for battlefield control.
I had a swooping 28 ritual spells, right beside my 9 cantrips and normal spells at the end of campaign.
I never struggled with spell slots, because we play D&D as a "Roleplay Game" and not as a "Combat Simulator" far to many groups seem to think of D&D, so no 4-6 fights per 4h session, but one, maybe two with more often than not ample opportunity to make a short rest.
Warlock is imho one of the best roleplaying classes in D&D ( and giving the DM so much to work with storywise ) and i never had any regrets for my choice, even if i was far behind the damage dealers with raw damage output.
As a German ttrp gamer with quiet some time on his back ( i started in 1983 with the D&D first edition, then expanded to various German systems ) i have played more than 50 different ttrpgs ( i think it is more near 100, if i include one-shot sessions at conventions with new systems and playtesting 2 German systems as well ) over the years, but D&D is imho one of the most combat focused systems out there ( i would rate it 70% combat related / 30% roleplay ).
all the best from Germany
Dude, that's great. Some tables, the warlock just works out. Its fantastic when it does. My players just aren't like that, They want a little more power and RP. So I made some small tweeks. D&D is Indeed combat Focused, it did start off as a Mini War Game and evolved. I try to do it as a Roleplaying game and not a ROLLplaying game. But its rough some times.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 i guess it has its perks to have a steady rpg group with the same guys for more tham years now :) and yes, i am aware how extremly lucky i am with this. And yes, i know Gary Gygax's origin story on where D&D came to be.
@@belegur8108 I had 2 stable players for 3 years, but this last campaign made things a little rough. RL Kicked in for a couple so I had to pull together a new group. Its awesome to hear that you have a group dude ^_^
@@unlimitedadventures4390 and what i appreciate very much, too is the fact that we are a group of 7 guys, that not only are very close friends ( with all the families included ) but that we are 4 DM's rotating after every campaign. each of us has his own fond of systems he is offering.
In my case it is Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40k ( all of them), Splittermond ( a German high fantasy medieval setting ) and upcomming Pathfinder 2e. And on special occasions i offer TOON (Steve Jackson Games )for one shots.
With special events i mean our annual Easterbunny Slaughter and Halloween Splatter One-Shots 🤣🤣
Dnd is designed around 5-8 normal encounters and 1-2 short rests per long rest... which makes it seem like it's best to use long rests as long "you finished an adventure or adventure arc" moment
Nice ideas to play around with.
Glad you like them!
So you idea is pretty similar to the One D&D Playtest warlock.
Never played the One D&D. No interest in 5.5. Combine with all the other factors of WotC's stuff lately. Kinda done with the company.
Understandable have a nice day.
Good advice. Well thought out!
Thanks, I did a Follow up video for it as well.
I like the idea of increasing the spells how you do but Maybe I'd do it at level 5 and 10 instead, since I tend to make the warlock's base attack options in my games stronger and more varied.
I like the idea that a warlock's pact boon dictates how they approach the game and combat, Pact of the blade gives the charisma weapon attacks and extra attack on its own (meaning you have to dip 3 levels instead of 1if you want it), pact of the Chain gets easier ways to summon its familiar and swap it around, it has better hitpoints, gets extra attack and its attacks are strong enough that its worth it to forgo eldritch blast and let the familiar attack instead, and Tome warlocks are already good but to give them a niche, they are the only ones who get agonizing blast, and it applies to all their cantrips.
I even have a small homebrew for pact of the talisman where it becomes a full support and skill monkey boon, it gives you extra proficiencies, expertise, the ability to craft faster and cheaper, and the ability to share the warlocks very selfish spells, like Armor of Agathys, with your friends
I tend to cap off my games between 10 and 14. after that things get really out of control. BUt the 5 and 10 levels are solid, I will have to test that out! Thanks for the feedback.
The thing about the Warlock in 5e the majority of people get wrong and why they tend to be frustrated with it is that they see the Warlock as a full spellcasting class, like the Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, and Cleric - and I get that they do, because on the surface level it looks like one - but it isn't.
It actually plays more like 1/2 caster like a Ranger or Paladin, but instead of being based around martial core aspects it's built more around a versatility core like that of a Wizard, Bard, or Rogue.
And if you approach the Warlock in a similar way with the high arcana that the class gets at high levels being more about duplicating spell effects than about actually being a caster that can sling those spells, then the class suddenly becomes quite well designed to play with.
However, that being said, I do get why people want to play it as a full caster. It would be a lot of fun to do so. So personally if a player wanted to play a spellcasting based Warlock in a campaign of mine I would just create a different sub-class for it that is focused around spellcasting and provides more options in that venue, so that I can adjust what the player will receive as their powers.
One thing I did houserule though because it makes little to no sense is to change the invocations that give the Warlock an additional spell as 1 cast per day that uses up a pact magic slot so that it instead lets them have this spell permanently in their spell list without having limitations on the times per day they can use a slot to cast it. 80% of the time it makes no difference and the only times it does it enhances the game rather than limiting the story.
As a side note: I did play a non-hexblade melee oriented Warlock in a game of a friend and aside from my HP my character ended up being the most powerful one at the table. So I take a bit of offense from the statement that players "have to" use this subclass.
They don't.
It just makes the build into a no-brainer.
Warlock is an above average class and frankly are a very solid template for what the power of a 5E character should be.
Yes, there are things more powerful, but honestly those are examples of classes and multiclasses that should be toned down for the health of the game. WotC has power crept spell casters rediculously by adding broken subclasses and spells to the game. And yes, warlock has not benefitted from that creeping as much as say the sorcerer. But the warlock is still in a much better position than any of the straight classed non-casters, and some of the other classes as well.
Plus, the fathomless warlock can already compete with any other class or subclass in terms of power. The fathomless warlock is seriously slept on and is easily one of the most powerful straight classes in the game at all tiers of play. If you give a fathomless warlock a bunch of free spells and invocations, you're just creating another monster.
I would just give warlocks spell slots equal to their proficiency bonus.
Also what's wrong with using Eldritch blast a lot? No one complains about the barbarian using the same weapon over and over.
I didnt think of that. Thank you! I will give that a run next time someone plays one!
@@unlimitedadventures4390 also making use of the scroll making process in xanathars helps them use lower level spells without slots.
With just the proficiency in arcana, they can have as many good lower level spells as they have downtime for. Shield for days!
People don't complain about a Barbarian using the same weapon over and over again is because there's no use complaining. Martials don't and will never have the same versatility as casters. People have been complaining though, because, as a barbarian, literally the only thing you can do is - I attack. Nothing else, that's it. There's almost nothing that comes on top of that as well. It gets extremely tiring. I love barbarian to death, but I always play them multiclass with a rogue or a fighter or something else, just to have something more interesting to do than - I attack, I get attacked.
Also, PB Spell SLots is not a good idea, because it makes the multiclassing problem even worse - dip 1 level in Warlock and get basically infinite 1st level slots.
@@Notsogoodguitarguy oh yeah having 6 extra first level slots as a multi class at level 17 breaks the game open lol.
It's not the fault that every other cantrip isn't as good as Eldritch blast, it's customizable with great damage and utility all at once
@@AyamesChronicles you do realize that some of the most broken spells in the game are 1st level spells, right? Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, Bless - those are all 1st level spells. Having 6 extra spell slots that come back on a short rest ON TOP of your other 1st and whatever level spells IS outright ridiculous.
And, yes Eldritch Blast is stupid. That's why I've houseruled it away in my games and have generalised the versatility to all cantrips the warlock can cast instead of just EB.
You don't fix stupid design with more stupid design. You fix it by solving the flaws.
Well right off the bat you fundamentally misunderstand the warlock. Its spell slots are meant to be encounter defining actions, the flaw here is that their spells don't upcast well if at all.
Spells known is... fine actually... kind of surprising with how broken you made their spell slots.
4... invocations... at level 2.... no no no the invocations are meant to make warlocks feel different from eachother not grab all of them, the problem with invocations is that there's some that are so much better than the others that they become must haves.
All in all these are bad 'fixes'
Fair opinion. How would you adjust the warlock and make it more fun for players in your games if they asked?
I don't think that they are "bad fixes" but that they try to address stuff that isn't really broken.
The issue isn't in the design of the Warlock, it's in the fact that the designers didn't include an actual spell slinging option for it, as if they failed to anticipate that it would be the first attempt many players would make with the class.
They should have offered either a spell slinger patron or a spell slinger pact boon, neither of which they did, instead they made a Hexblade patron to make the melee Warlock a no-brainer build, even though it was perfectly fine without it.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 personally, I'd fix it by tweaking the rest mechanic. Either the gritty realism option, which makes it much easier to narratively have multiple short rests per long rest, or make short rests 1 or 10 minutes long, but still limited to 1/hr.
I've found that the perfect solution to low warlock spell slots is something like a Pearl of Power or Rod of the Pact Keeper; something to give them an extra spell slot or two when they really need it, for boss fights and such, without turning them into massive spell batteries for every single fight. There's a reason that coffeelock is considered so broken; it's because it's the latter.
DMs throw legendary resistances at a warlock and wonder why they feel bad. For basically the entirety of a campaign (most end around the beginning of tier 3), that's half their spells gone for what feels like nothing. Is this more a problem with legendary resistance? Probably, but it's the mechanic for not having your boss shut down instantly by all the CC in the game, so without revamping that whole thing, giving warlock some emergency slots is probably the best solution for them in particular.
The Rod and the Pearl are great, I really like that. But that's also up to the DM to give them to the warlock. Magical Items in 5e are kinda a fuzzy area. They are actual enhancements to a character, but they are very fuzzy on when to give them to them. These are the best solutions I could come up with. I may have gone a little overboard, spoiling my players. But I also am a rather unforgiving DM. Dice fall as they do and I make some really tough custom monsters.
@@unlimitedadventures4390 Yeah, the lack of solid availability of magic items is a problem for many classes, because they're just so darn useful for balancing. In my games, I let players buy magic items in big cities. What the hell is all that gold for, if not that? So everyone can reliably get ahold of the items they want for a build, but within reason. Some stuff is military issue only (like instant fortresses) but stuff that suffering classes need end up in their hands. Martials get their magic weapons, warlocks get some spell slot support, etc.
Still, I have heard many others complain about warlock spellslot availability. I'm playing a hexblade right now so usually it's just darkness and smash. Not that powerful but it's fun. For a casting focused build, it's a concern for sure. Maybe a good balance is to let them spend 1 or 2 hit dice to go over their spell slot cap by 1 or 2 once per day. It would help with Tier 1 and 2 play, which is like 99% of all D&D anyway, and there's a cost and limit to make it feel balanced. We can't deny the strength of Warlock's slot regain on short rest. That has major gamebreaking potential if not taken seriously.
... If you wanted to play a Sorcerer... then why did you choose a Warlock??
Warlock's are a niche class that focus on a select theme or niche role. Wizards are the arcane swiss army knife, Sorcerers could be described as a halfway between the two but I see them more as a less-prep-more-improv flexible caster. But Warlocks are designed how they are for a reason. If you wanted more invocations, go Sorcerer for metamagic. If you wanted more spell slots, play a Wizard. Honestly, (keeping magic items in mind such as Pearl of Power) I don't believe they need more base spell slots. I advise new players to NOT play Warlocks because they require (in my opinion) a lot more knowledge of the game and more effort in forethought and understanding scaling and various other small viewpoints that tend to come from experience. But as a class they can be incredibly powerful. If you are playing a Warlock and all you want to to is fire off Eldritch Blasts, then do it. There's invocations specifically based around that. I've played with a Warlock before who did just that, and their spell slots were based around social interactions - they were the face. But there are other options too. No other class gets a subclass plus TWO FULL ADDITIONAL LISTS OF COOL CUSTOMISATIONS. Between Pacts, 2 of which open up more customisation options on top of, and invocations, which can literally entirely change the flavour of one Warlock from another, if someone's complaint is that they only have 2 spell slots and then they're done then they aren't actually playing the class and they either need to reassess how they play or just reroll another casting class. Point is I've seen plenty of non-Hexblade Warlocks who pull massive damage and CC and they were not at all hindered by only having 2 or 3 spell slots.
Furthermore, I would never tell another DM how they must run their tables, only how I would address these issues at mine. But I would NEVER remove one subclass option - potentially robbing players of a character preference - just to prevent a possible min-max multiclass in the future. Definition of punishing the many for the one. Also, the idea of removing one broken multiclassing option is a bad one. Hexblade isn't even the best multiclass for Paladin. Sure it's powerful, and, yeah, maybe broken. But it's not the most egregious. If your concern is broken multiclassing, then get rid of multiclassing altogether, because the list of broken multiclasses is rather long. Smiterogue and Coffeelock come to mind. If your response to not liking one car in the race for going too fast is to remove them, and any other cars that can do the same speed, then you may as well just close the track because you'll hit the same issue. And that issue is, likely, different games at the same table.
If you are banning multiclasses because they are broken, you're likely either a new DM, a nervous DM, or a roleplaying-focused DM. If a player is multiclassing into something powerful, it's likely that either they are a min-maxer, or it's a coincidence and they don't know they've created. But if you're going for a roleplay-focused game and they're gunning for min-maxing the numbers, then you're playing two different games and you should really address it with one or all of the players to set similar expectations.
You are free to run the table how you want to. I have been DMing a long time. I tell no DM how to run their games. I just present new ideas and options for them to work over. Me, I had a player who wanted to play a slightly more powerful lock, and I can do this because I am the DM. its my game, I can do what I want with it. But thanks for the feet back. :)
You do know that Raw, warlock should have like 6 level 2 spellslots at level 3 and at level 20 a warlock is supposed to have like 16 level 5 slots per long rest, cause dnd is designed around 2 short rests per long rests (or at least 1) and like 3-4 difficult COMBAT (or similar in resource drain) encounters (or if you go fully by raw, then 5-8 normal ones).
So, warlock is the only casters who can actually cast high level offensive spells regularly raw.
Problem is that most don't run dnd like this and, thus, short rest classes are nerfed to various extent... with warlock losing around 66% of their spell slots... or at least 50%.
Hence why base warlock is seen as weak an a band-aid hexblade subclass was released.
Like, short rest classes are marathon runners and sorcerers and wizards are sprinters with boxes of random tools.
5e is designed as a marathon adventuring game, but most 5e groups run it as a sprint, making short rest classes weak.
If i were to fix a warlock, i would've probably given them double spell slot amount.
They should have more, but it should be inaccessible all at once, so this would be a compromise.