Warlock Spell Slot Conversion

[Syll]

I was just wondering if anyone has homebrewed Warlock spell slots from a short rest recharge, to a long rest recharge;

if so, What did your # of spells per day progression look like?

I'm looking for ideas, because I'm continually drawn to Warlock as a class, but my group is never anywhere -near- the '6-8' encounters per day metric. 2-3 is far more common for my group, usually just a single short rest. With that setup, 4 spell slots per day really doesn't strike me as enough.

What would be a fair progression?

[MrStabby]

Away from the book at the moment but there is a spell point version in the DMG, similar to the sorcerer spellpoint rules. This would be a good starting point but it would be a pretty big increase in power for the character.

[DracoKnight]

Away from the book at the moment but there is a spell point version in the DMG, similar to the sorcerer spellpoint rules. This would be a good starting point but it would be a pretty big increase in power for the character.

The Spell Point Variant isn't applicable to the Warlock. It replaces the spell slots given to a player in the Spellcasting class feature, not the spell slots in the Pact Magic feature.

[RickAllison]

I was just wondering if anyone has homebrewed Warlock spell slots from a short rest recharge, to a long rest recharge;

if so, What did your # of spells per day progression look like?

I'm looking for ideas, because I'm continually drawn to Warlock as a class, but my group is never anywhere -near- the '6-8' encounters per day metric. 2-3 is far more common for my group, usually just a single short rest. With that setup, 4 spell slots per day really doesn't strike me as enough.

What would be a fair progression?

Not to be a nay-sayer, but 'Locks are defined by their at-will spells through cantrips and invocations. The restriction to fewer spell-slots is the trade-off they experience. If you feel you are being short-changed on your unique mechanic, talk to your DM about it. Is it because of him/her designing fewer encounters, or because the party chooses to take long rests more? If it's the latter, ask your DM to punish that tactic by having enemies regroup and attack while the party is sleeping. If it's the former, (s)he might be willing to listen and change the encounter formula, especially if you remind him/her that the current method lets the other casters nova through tough encounters!

[Kane0]

Well it'd most likely be a full caster progression with arcanums incorporated into that, but a half caster progression with the arcanums still in place might work.

Alternatively, have you tried having 1 arcanum of each level (granted at 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17) plus altered short rest slots (1 at level 2, a second at level 7 or so, a third at level 15 or so)?

[Syll]

Away from the book at the moment but there is a spell point version in the DMG, similar to the sorcerer spellpoint rules. This would be a good starting point but it would be a pretty big increase in power for the character.

For simplicity's sake, I was considering proposing... instead of 2/short rest, say... 6/day?

Or, maybe standard full caster progression up to 5th level spells.. w/o the only casting at max level known mechanic (and mystic arcanum intact)

[Flashy]

Personally I'd take the average of two and three short rests rounded down. No warlock is ever guaranteed three short rests per day.

[Syll]

Not to be a nay-sayer, but 'Locks are defined by their at-will spells through cantrips and invocations. The restriction to fewer spell-slots is the trade-off they experience. If you feel you are being short-changed on your unique mechanic, talk to your DM about it. Is it because of him/her designing fewer encounters, or because the party chooses to take long rests more? If it's the latter, ask your DM to punish that tactic by having enemies regroup and attack while the party is sleeping. If it's the former, (s)he might be willing to listen and change the encounter formula, especially if you remind him/her that the current method lets the other casters nova through tough encounters!

It's because the 2-3 encounters are enough to drain all the party's resources; and I don't see that changing regardless of encounter difficulty, due to certain party members' proclivities. It would be simpler (read: more likely to succeed) to highlight the lack of short rests and propose spells/day formula, but I want to make sure whatever I propose is reasonable so he doesn't immediately shoot it down

[SharkForce]

2-3 encounters with one short rest per day is giving you better than expected resources for the day.

at a guess, i'm going to say that your group is doing something really weird. either the DM has massively increased the difficulty of encounters, or you're all making exceptionally awful tactical decisions, or maybe your warriors think the cleric is supposed to heal all their wounds and need to be smacked upside the head and be told to use their built-in short rest healing instead of making sure that one party member functionally has no interesting class abilities. or perhaps your spellcasters are feeling enabled to just spam out magic missile as their default damage instead of using cantrips.

but seriously, if you're having 2-3 encounters and getting 1 short rest and one long rest per day, and the entire party is running out of resources, there's a missing piece of the puzzle that we're not hearing.

so, i have to ask:

what does a typical encounter look like?

how many monsters and what type?
what sort of tricks do your group use to win fights?
what other characters are in the group?
what levels are all the characters?
what sort of environment are you having fights in?

ideally, a description of an encounter you've had, round-by-round, would give us a lot more to work with in identifying the problem. because something isn't adding up from my perspective.

[weaseldust]

The trouble with 6/day is that you can blow them all in one encounter, which lets you have a bigger impact than any other character of comparable level. It's probably not a good idea most of the time, but I think it's worth trying to avoid making it possible.

How about if you had the ability to regain expended spell slots over the course of 1 minute's rest (instead of 1 hour), but you could only do it twice a day?

[Syll]

2-3 encounters with one short rest per day is giving you better than expected resources for the day.

at a guess, i'm going to say that your group is doing something really weird. either the DM has massively increased the difficulty of encounters, or you're all making exceptionally awful tactical decisions, or maybe your warriors think the cleric is supposed to heal all their wounds and need to be smacked upside the head and be told to use their built-in short rest healing instead of making sure that one party member functionally has no interesting class abilities. or perhaps your spellcasters are feeling enabled to just spam out magic missile as their default damage instead of using cantrips.

but seriously, if you're having 2-3 encounters and getting 1 short rest and one long rest per day, and the entire party is running out of resources, there's a missing piece of the puzzle that we're not hearing.

so, i have to ask:

what does a typical encounter look like?

how many monsters and what type?
what sort of tricks do your group use to win fights?
what other characters are in the group?
what levels are all the characters?
what sort of environment are you having fights in?

ideally, a description of an encounter you've had, round-by-round, would give us a lot more to work with in identifying the problem. because something isn't adding up from my perspective.

The encounters themselves aren't really my complaint. Tactics as a group don't really extend beyond 'charge the thing, flank the thing, beat until dead' on the melee side, whereas the casters (land druid/ wiz) take pot shots from cover. 1/2 the group is very free with their resources, and the DM scales the difficulty so that that resource expenditure doesn't trivialize the fights.

But really, I don't have a complaint with the dynamic, I would just like to bring warlock up to the level it is was intended to be at, which is based around greater than 1 short rest per day... but in a way that the DM would find reasonable.

(also yes, melees take lots of damage, druid is using most of her slots to heal, and things hit hard enough, often enough that waiting till after the fight is over to heal with hit die isn't advisable much of the time)


The trouble with 6/day is that you can blow them all in one encounter, which lets you have a bigger impact than any other character of comparable level. It's probably not a good idea most of the time, but I think it's worth trying to avoid making it possible.



That's a good point, I hadn't considered that

[Flashy]

The trouble with 6/day is that you can blow them all in one encounter, which lets you have a bigger impact than any other character of comparable level. It's probably not a good idea most of the time, but I think it's worth trying to avoid making it possible.

How about if you had the ability to regain expended spell slots over the course of 1 minute's rest (instead of 1 hour), but you could only do it twice a day?

This is the best plan I've seen so far. It's in keeping with the spirit of the Warlock while still addressing the problems of playing a Warlock in a group that doesn't like to short rest.

[SharkForce]

4 spells per 2-3 fights is better than default expected, because 2 short rests for ~6 fights is expected. you're getting ~50% more than expected already.

[Kane0]

There is also the variant rules for resting in the DMG, where a short rest can take less than an hour.

[Syll]

There is also the variant rules for resting in the DMG, where a short rest can take less than an hour.

That could be promising, thanks. I didn't even know that variant existed.

[MaxWilson]

The Spell Point Variant isn't applicable to the Warlock. It replaces the spell slots given to a player in the Spellcasting class feature, not the spell slots in the Pact Magic feature.

It's straightforward to apply spell points to warlocks. Just do the math, same as for wizard spell points. 2 SP per short rest at level 1, 4 SP at level 2, 6 at level 3, 10 at level 5, 12 at level 7, 14 at level 9, 21 at level 11, 28 at level 16.

[DracoKnight]

It's straightforward to apply spell points to warlocks. Just do the math, same as for wizard spell points. 2 SP per short rest at level 1, 4 SP at level 2, 6 at level 3, 10 at level 5, 12 at level 7, 14 at level 9, 21 at level 11, 28 at level 16.

I get what you're saying, but WotC specifically didn't include Pact Magic in the Variant, because the Warlock is already so powerful.

[Theodoxus]

I get what you're saying, but WotC specifically didn't include Pact Magic in the Variant, because the Warlock is already so powerful.

Because an 11th level Wizard able to spam 36 magic missiles a day, isn't?

[SharkForce]

Because an 11th level Wizard able to spam 36 magic missiles a day, isn't?

perhaps a better way to phrase it:

a warlock in standard rules primarily relies on cantrips and invocations for most things, with a few extra spells of choice mixed in for good measure here and there. switching to spell points gives them a very different feel, because now instead of hex taking up half of their short-rest resources (at levels below 11), it is taking up a very small amount of resources to cast it at level 1.

i don't know if i would say it is broken, per se, but i would definitely say that it changes the way the class works substantially.

and actually, an 11th level wizard throwing 36 magic missiles a day is perfectly fine. i'd be more worried about what they could do by spamming spells like shield and mirror image much earlier than expected, personally.

[MrStabby]

If you are worried about lack of short rests then you could link it to initiative - every time you roll initiative you regain a spell slot. Start off with two and get one per battle?