Seeking input on fun little idea for GOO Warlock

[Trustypeaches]

I was talking shop with one of my players about the Warlock Patrons, and how we felt Great Old One's 1st level feature is a bit lacking compared to the others. While 30 ft telepathy certainly isn't bad, I was thinking of ways to raise it from being just a ribbon feature.

The idea I had is for "Awakened Mind" to allow Warlocks to perform the Verbal components of spells silently, using their telepathy. This buffs a ribbon feature while reinforcing the theming, allowing them to sow discord and madness safely, either from the shadows or in plain sight.
Drive a trusted guard to madness with a silent Dissonant Whispers, undermining the captain's trust in their testimony. Or whisper a Suggestion into someone's mind, with no one else being the wiser.

My player really likes the idea, but do you guys think this may be out of line with the other level 1 Patron features, offering half the benefit of Subtle Spell at-will?

[Galithar]

I would say that is extremely overpowered. I'm actually building a GOO Warlock myself right now and wanted to accomplish the same things. My solution was to just pick up but Sorcerer levels and Subtle spell legitimately.

Edit: I say it's overpowered because it allows you to do a lot of spells invisibly for free as well as allowing you to cast in silence, which is now a great way to defend your caster from thunder damage :P

Now cool things that feature can do, spells that require a creature to understand you can be fulfilled by giving the verbal command (not the verbal component, just the command) telepathically. That way anything that speaks ANY language can be given suggestions and/or commands.

If you let stealth get played up a bit in the campaign silent warnings to an ally can make that 'ribbon' feel valuable. Even communication cantrips like message are still going to make some sound, it's just that only the target can actually hear and understand the message itself.

[Trustypeaches]

It isn't invisibly, since you still need to perform somatic components.

I was considering limiting it to CHA-modifier per day, but honestly is this really out of line with Hex Warrior / Hexblade's Curse?

[jiriku]

It's VERY reasonable. Many DMs would probably grant you the ability to make an ability check to conceal your casting -- this just eliminates the check.

The ability is already use-limited, because there are no cantrips that have solely verbal components. Thus, the warlock is limited by available spell slots. Further, there are only a handful of spells on the GOO warlock list that are solely verbal, and most of them are teleports, flashy combat spells, or downtime divination spells -- casting those telepathically isn't useful. The only spells that could be made completely stealthy with this feature are cause fear and dissonant whispers. Two spells. That's it.

Not only is it not very powerful, in many game sessions I'll bet it never even comes up at all.

[Galithar]

That assumes the spell has a somatic component, which plenty of spells don't.

And yes I think it is. There's a reason that subtle is one of the more popular Metamagics. Both command and suggestion, my two favorite social manipulation spells which is when removing a casting component is most important, have only verbal components. This change WOULD make them invisible casts.
Also negating silence is pretty powerful itself. It allows a caster to use silence defensively, or cast it indiscriminately to hinder enemy casters without fear if it affecting them.

Putting a limit on it would be much better, but honestly feels like putting a band-aid on a gunshot would. Sure, it looks better, but since the Warlock only has 2 spell slots per rest until high levels your 4-5 uses per day will probably cover every cast anyways and not change much of anything. A one per long rest limit might be more inline but I don't like it even then.

Just because I don't like it doesn't mean you guys can't have a blast with it. I just feel it's far more powerful then a first level boost should be.

[Nifft]

Seems cool, but I'd limit this to specific Psionic-ish spells that could thematically be bundled into telepathy, stuff like suggestion and charm person.

[Trustypeaches]

That assumes the spell has a somatic component, which plenty of spells don't.

And yes I think it is. There's a reason that subtle is one of the more popular Metamagics. Both command and suggestion, my two favorite social manipulation spells which is when removing a casting component is most important, have only verbal components. This change WOULD make them invisible casts.
Also negating silence is pretty powerful itself. It allows a caster to use silence defensively, or cast it indiscriminately to hinder enemy casters without fear if it affecting them.

Putting a limit on it would be much better, but honestly feels like putting a band-aid on a gunshot would. Sure, it looks better, but since the Warlock only has 2 spell slots per rest until high levels your 4-5 uses per day will probably cover every cast anyways and not change much of anything. A one per long rest limit might be more inline but I don't like it even then.

Just because I don't like it doesn't mean you guys can't have a blast with it. I just feel it's far more powerful then a first level boost should be.I feel like you're only viewing this change in the context of a single level dip or something.

Warlocks don't get Silence, GOO Warlocks don't get Command, and most of the Spells on the Warlock Spell List (including GOO Expanded list) have Somatic or Material components that must still be fulfilled. Also the utility of negating Silence seems extremely situational, it might just be something that comes up more often in your campaigns.


Seems cool, but I'd limit this to specific Psionic-ish spells that could thematically be bundled into telepathy, stuff like suggestion and charm person.
I really like this idea. I think limiting it to Enchantment Spells would be perfect, which encompasses basically all of the psionic / mind-control abilities.

[Foxhound438]

It seems fair to me on first glance, but it still seems like it can be a little niche or underpowered. Honestly if I were given the power, I might just transplant the fey patron's L1 feature, since it's still largely on theme.

I really, really disagree with the sentiment that it's overpowered to "invisibly cast" when it's only verbal, since it's already a narrow list of even narrower spells. Casting through silence is also almost always a non-issue, since silence effects a set area that you can just walk out of with below-average move speed. I'm sure someone will try to come up with a bunch of contrived scenarios where that's not the case, but I don't think these situations come up very often.

[Galithar]

No, I'm just aware of the implications of this. When you're introducing house rules look at 'what will this do to my table'. What it's going to do is give a Warlock free "half" Metamagic but since the spells it works best with don't have somatics.... This means that a Sorcerer who took Subtle is no longer special for spending one of their biggest class investments because the Warlock does it for free. Now this may not matter to you, but it's something to consider.

On silence, it happens a lot more often if you use intelligent enemies and build and play them as such, or if you give your players an immunity to something that can debilitate an enemy caster. Will it cause problems at your table? I don't know, but you should be aware of it.

Basically you've already made up your mind that this is good and not a problem so just do it. Worst case scenario you have to ask your player to give it up or start working around the fact that you gave it to them. If the balance issues it presents don't bother you, then it will probably be great at your table because they won't unbalance YOUR table, which is ultimately the only one that matters.

Edit: Also your question was if it was out of line with other level 1 abilities of Warlocks sand I say yes, and no. It is far more powerful then any of them within the social pillar, but it has very situational combat use so it's near irrelevant (because silence is obviously not a caster counter at your table). During scouting it could be slightly useful. Many spells could be stealth cast if you can do then silently, though the spell itself may still reveal you with sound or light.

[Foxhound438]

I mean, I just don't see many places in games I play in where the entire combat is truly and necessarily confined in a space that can fit within a 20' circle. Even in a dungeon crawl it's not like the hallways lock themselves shut, and most of the time rooms are big enough that a silence doesn't even cover everything. I've been running Tales from the Yawning Portal, which is basically top to bottom dungeons, and looking back through what I've ran I counted like 2 rooms where it's small enough that a silence fills the room and there's a caster in it. Forgive me if I missed one, but the point is that more often than not you can just walk out of the area and cast anyways.

[jiriku]

Both command and suggestion, my two favorite social manipulation spells which is when removing a casting component is most important, have only verbal components.

GOO warlock can't cast either of these spells.

[Trustypeaches]

GOO warlock can't cast either of these spells.Warlocks get Suggestion as a 2nd Level Spell.

[Galithar]

I mean, I just don't see many places in games I play in where the entire combat is truly and necessarily confined in a space that can fit within a 20' circle. Even in a dungeon crawl it's not like the hallways lock themselves shut, and most of the time rooms are big enough that a silence doesn't even cover everything. I've been running Tales from the Yawning Portal, which is basically top to bottom dungeons, and looking back through what I've ran I counted like 2 rooms where it's small enough that a silence fills the room and there's a caster in it. Forgive me if I missed one, but the point is that more often than not you can just walk out of the area and cast anyways.

Until someone grapples you, or knocks you prone so you can't move as far, or you're pinned in by enemies, or or or.

Also I just ran the first quest in Tales and MOST rooms are smaller or only slightly larger then a 20' radius. That's 8 squares across on a grid.

And again, you can never see it used, but it's actually pretty powerful and negates most of a casters power if used properly.

[Trustypeaches]

Until someone grapples you, or knocks you prone so you can't move as far, or you're pinned in by enemies, or or or.

Also I just ran the first quest in Tales and MOST rooms are smaller or only slightly larger then a 20' radius. That's 8 squares across on a grid.

And again, you can never see it used, but it's actually pretty powerful and negates most of a casters power if used properly.
It takes a great deal of player coordination and the initiative rolls working in your favor for something like that to work consistently. I guess you could cast silence as a held action once your fighter / barbarian / grapple roguebard gets ahold of the enemy spellcaster, but that carries its own risks.

I think the more relevant consequence of sidestepping Verbal components is avoiding Counterspell, not Silence. Sure Enemy spellcasters can still identify somatic motions, but that seems pretty unreasonable without the DM metagaming a bit.

[Vogie]

I would venture a compromise - Since a GOOlock has unidirectional telepathy within 30 feet, using the Awakened Mind feature as a verbal component makes everyone within that range hear you in their mind, like a PAOE psychic broadcast. So, things like Suggestion or Charm Person, which only has a range of 30 feet, the target would hear the telepathically verbal component as it is used. However, for things like Eldritch Blast, which has a Verbal component but has a range of 120 feet, as long as a target is outside of that 30' sphere, it is effectively silent.

So, in a field at range, it is effectively Silent spell. However, it isn't universally so - In close or medium quarters, it could be an actual problem, as long as your target understands ANY language, they'll understand that you're casting a spell, and wouldn't be covered by other noise like a verbal component could be, as it is speaking directly into their mind.