Fiend Warlock Experience

[thoroughlyS]

I have a player who is considering building a fiend warlock, and I noticed their Expanded Spell List adds fireball to their repertoire. This seems like a pretty serious inclusion, because the warlock spell list has noticeably few* instantaneous area-of-effect spells on it, and fireball is commonly seen as the gold standard for its level. If you've seen a fiend warlock played at that level, what is your experience? Does it noticeably affect combat? My table is using the Gritty Realism rest variant, so the party takes a lot of short rests. Do you think that would make it abusable?



*arms of Hadar, shatter, thunder step, and synaptic static

[MaxWilson]

I have a player who is considering building a fiend warlock, and I noticed their Expanded Spell List adds fireball to their repertoire. This seems like a pretty serious inclusion, because the warlock spell list has noticeably few* instantaneous area-of-effect spells on it, and fireball is commonly seen as the gold standard for its level. If you've seen a fiend warlock played at that level, what is your experience? Does it noticeably affect combat? My table is using the Gritty Realism rest variant, so the party takes a lot of short rests. Do you think that would make it abusable?

*arms of Hadar, shatter, thunder step, and synaptic static

No. The warlock has so few spell slots known per short rest that it's not like concentration is the major bottleneck here, which means that Fireball is probably less attractive than spells like Fear and Hypnotic Pattern anyway. And as you say, Synaptic Static is available anyway later on.

Good, yes. Abusable, no.

[OutOfThyme]

Nope. Even if your party takes a lot of short rests, there's a huge opportunity cost to using Fireball as opposed to other spells. I've used it a few times as a last-ditch nuke or when the party really needs it.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Also, Evocation Wizards and Sorcerers both have class features the Warlock lacks for mitigating "friendly fire" problems.

So it's better if another caster takes Fireball anyway.