Warlocks as long rest casters

[gkathellar]

Thinking about warlocks, what would be the implications of removing their short-rest slots entirely and replacing them with long-rest slots equal to any other 9-level caster?

Would the result be overpowered? Underpowered? Merely different? Broken in some respect?

What do you, personally, think of the idea? If a player asked to use a so-modified warlock, would you let them?

[DMJosh]

I'd give it a shot. Not sure of the long-term implications, but if I had an interested player, I'd entertain the idea.

[Aett_Thorn]

Depends on how many battles you have between long rests, really. If the games you play in are mainly one big fight and then a long rest, having a Warlock with 6 5th-level slots for that battle may be a bit overpowering.

[DMJosh]

Depends on how many battles you have between long rests, really. If the games you play in are mainly one big fight and then a long rest, having a Warlock with 6 5th-level slots for that battle may be a bit overpowering.

I don't think that was the OP's intent. I took it to mean ditching the whole "recharges on a short rest" mechanic for pact magic and replacing it with a normal spell slot progression... so a 9th level caster would have four 1st, three 2nd, three 3rd, three 4th, and one 5th level slot, but would regain those slots only on a long rest.

[gkathellar]

I don't think that was the OP's intent. I took it to mean ditching the whole "recharges on a short rest" mechanic for pact magic and replacing it with a normal spell slot progression... so a 9th level caster would have four 1st, three 2nd, three 3rd, three 4th, and one 5th level slot, but would regain those slots only on a long rest.

That was my intent, yeah.

[Theaitetos]

Here's another recent thread about long-rest warlocks: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?603777-How-to-balance-Warlock-for-a-long-rest-focused-campaign

I still say: Give such a warlock the capstone ability Eldritch Master and make it usable a few times per long rest, e.g. twice or "times equal to CHA modifier".

[djreynolds]

Eldritch Blast and agonizing blast are so strong.
As is hexblade using charisma and if wanted GWM or even SS.
If you make it a full caster. I would allow no multiclassing of warlock. The cost of selling one's soul.

[HappyDaze]

Thinking about warlocks, what would be the implications of removing their short-rest slots entirely and replacing them with long-rest slots equal to any other 9-level caster?

Would the result be overpowered? Underpowered? Merely different? Broken in some respect?

What do you, personally, think of the idea? If a player asked to use a so-modified warlock, would you let them?

It would likely be about the same as a Sorcerer that replaced Font of Magic/Sorcery Points/Metamagic with Invocations. I think the Invocations are the balance to the limited spellcasting of Pact Magic, and I don't think Pact Magic should be replaced with full Spellcasting without sharply limiting Invocations. By the time you do this, what's the point of having a Warlock distinct from a Sorcerer?

[MaxWilson]

Thinking about warlocks, what would be the implications of removing their short-rest slots entirely and replacing them with long-rest slots equal to any other 9-level caster?

Would the result be overpowered? Underpowered? Merely different? Broken in some respect?

What do you, personally, think of the idea? If a player asked to use a so-modified warlock, would you let them?

Somewhat overpowered at low levels, because they still have invocations. At higher levels, could be underpowered if you stuck to the Mystic Arcana rules, but if you converted those to regular spell slots as well it would be somewhat overpowered still again because of invocations.

[Teaguethebean]

I wouldn't reccomend throwing out the entirety of Pact magic as there spell list is made to scale with the levels. If you want to be fair just multiply there amount of slots by 3 and keep mystic arcanum. They get invocations and better armor than other arcane casters so changing there casting to what everyone else has seems like a poor decision.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I wouldn't reccomend throwing out the entirety of Pact magic as there spell list is made to scale with the levels.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here by "scale with level." Are you talking about upcasting?

[Teaguethebean]

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here by "scale with level." Are you talking about upcasting?

Yeah I suppose it was poor wording on my part.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I wouldn't reccomend throwing out the entirety of Pact magic as there spell list is made to scale with the levels. If you want to be fair just multiply there amount of slots by 3 and keep mystic arcanum. They get invocations and better armor than other arcane casters so changing there casting to what everyone else has seems like a poor decision.


I'm not 100% sure what you mean here by "scale with level." Are you talking about upcasting?


Yeah I suppose it was poor wording on my part.

I wanted to make sure before I posted a semi-lengthy reply. I'm inclined to disagree about the Warlock's Pact Magic list. Let's just break it down: (PHB & XGtE spells)

1st level: 4 out of 13 can be upcast, including Hex, which scales oddly.

2nd level: 5 out of 15, including the useless Cloud of Daggers spell. LOL

3rd level: 5 out of 15, not including Major Image & Summon Lesser Demon, which require a 6th level slot or better to upcast effectively.

4th level: 5 out of 9, not bad.

5th level: ZERO because Pact Magic can't go above 5th level. Should be 5 out of 11.

This hardly looks like a list "made to scale with levels", especially considering many of the key spells on the list are in the "do not upscale" category. Warlocks lose out on upscaling their spells in a bad way. They have relatively few spells that upscale at all, and can't upscale anything beyond 5th level. (Wasting 5th level slots on lower-level spells is another issue.) It gets even worse with Mystic Arcana. Some of those would actually upcast quite well (Mass Suggestion, Crown of Stars, Dominate Monster) but Warlocks can't upscale those at all.


Butthurt profanity-laden rant:
To add insult to injury, if some other full caster a**-h*** class "borrows" a spell off the Warlock list, they can upcast it as high as they want, which means they can cast "Warlock only" spells better than the g** d*** Warlock! M***** f****** Bards get to cast Armor of Agathys at 9th level!* Does that b***s*** seem right to you?

*Okay, I've never seen a Bard actually do this, but Warlocks should be able to do it, and it really p***** me off!

I would absolutely love to try out a long-rest Warlock variant, with a standard spell progression replacing Pact Magic & Mystic Arcana. As class features go, they're a joke.

[MaxWilson]

I would absolutely love to try out a long-rest Warlock variant, with a standard spell progression replacing Pact Magic & Mystic Arcana. As class features go, they're a joke.

Another way that works pretty well is to give warlocks DMG spellpoints on a short-rest schedule. E.g. a 5th level warlock has 10 SP per short rest and can cast spells up to 3rd level with them. You could do two Fireballs, or one Hex and four Shields, or anything in between.

I like this because it makes the warlock's spell list feel less narrow: there are more actually good spells when you're not forced to waste power upcasting everything.

[DMJosh]

I've been toying with giving warlocks normal casting up to 10th level, and keeping Mystic Arcana as-is. However...


Another way that works pretty well is to give warlocks DMG spellpoints on a short-rest schedule. E.g. a 5th level warlock has 10 SP per short rest and can cast spells up to 3rd level with them. You could do two Fireballs, or one Hex and four Shields, or anything in between.

I like this because it makes the warlock's spell list feel less narrow: there are more actually good spells when you're not forced to waste power upcasting everything.

I think this is actually the most elegant solution I've seen, and it uses a variant rule in the DMG, so it doesn't feel like reworking the whole system. I think I'd just go with this and call it a day.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Another way that works pretty well is to give warlocks DMG spellpoints on a short-rest schedule. E.g. a 5th level warlock has 10 SP per short rest and can cast spells up to 3rd level with them. You could do two Fireballs, or one Hex and four Shields, or anything in between.

I like this because it makes the warlock's spell list feel less narrow: there are more actually good spells when you're not forced to waste power upcasting everything.

This fixes some of the problems with Pact Magic, but not all of them. (Can't upcast above 5th level, for example.)

And it would be difficult/impossible to fix any of the problems with Mystic Arcana using spell points; due to the short rest/long rest conflict.

Still definitely an improvement. I actually asked my DM about this at the beginning of our current campaign, but he doesn't like using spell points, so I'm playing the Warlock as written.

[MaxWilson]

This fixes some of the problems with Pact Magic, but not all of them. (Can't upcast above 5th level, for example.)

And it would be difficult/impossible to fix any of the problems with Mystic Arcana using spell points; due to the short rest/long rest conflict.

Impossible? What breaks if you give Warlocks separate SP pools with different recharge rates? Seems fine to me.

I would couple this to my fix for Mystic Arcana, which is to make Mystica Arcana just plain old invocations ("you learn the XYZ spell and can cast it using your long-rest SP"), and give the warlock an extra invocation at the Mystic Arcana levels 11, 13, 15, and 17. It's up to the warlock if they want to spend it on a Mystic Arcana or something else. Upcasting e.g. Mass Suggestion IX would work the same as for any other SP caster.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Impossible? What breaks if you give Warlocks separate SP pools with different recharge rates? Seems fine to me.

I would couple this to my fix for Mystic Arcana, which is to make Mystica Arcana just plain old invocations ("you learn the XYZ spell and can cast it using your long-rest SP"), and give the warlock an extra invocation at the Mystic Arcana levels 11, 13, 15, and 17. It's up to the warlock if they want to spend it on a Mystic Arcana or something else. Upcasting e.g. Mass Suggestion IX would work the same as for any other SP caster.

Yes, that would work.

I'm still not convinced the Pact Magic/Mystic Arcana divide is good, or even necessary. The other full casters work just fine without it, and IMHO the Warlock would be better off with a spell progression similar to that used by Wizards. (And Sorcerers, Bards, Clerics, and Druids.)

[Tanarii]

It’s necessary because 3x6-8th level spells per Short rest is too much, and 4x9th / SR is ludicrous.

Not allowing them to be used as slots to upcast spells into isn’t necessarily ... uh, necessary. But given how much confusion Pact Magic seems to cause already, giving them actual slots that regenerate would probably have been even more confusing. Sounds like a reasonable house rule though.

Wizards, Sorcs, Clerics, Druids and Bards effectively have a divide between 5th and 6th level slots. That’s when they switch to 1 slot per level, until very high levels.

[MaxWilson]

Yes, that would work.

I'm still not convinced the Pact Magic/Mystic Arcana divide is good, or even necessary. The other full casters work just fine without it, and IMHO the Warlock would be better off with a spell progression similar to that used by Wizards. (And Sorcerers, Bards, Clerics, and Druids.)

All I can say here is that I don't think it would be fair to give warlocks the same spell slots as everyone else and also invocations and pacts. The *warlock* would be better off that way, yes, but wizards and sorcerers and others would be justifiably put out.

[JakOfAllTirades]

It’s necessary because 3x6-8th level spells per Short rest is too much, and 4x9th / SR is ludicrous.



That's why nobody suggested doing this.

[diplomancer]

2 problems I see with that are:
1- Multiclassing- if it's just regular spellcasting that works together with the other spellcasting classes, that will make the warlock dip even more attractive. Playing a Lore Bard, the main reason I went with cleric and not Hexblade was the incompatibility of spellcasting and pact magic
2- The Hexblade- he has access to shield. As a dip, it's wonderful, for the hexblade as a single class not so much. But if they have regular spellcasting the hexblade becomes even better than the other Patrons than it already is.

This mechanically. Thematically, I think it will get harder to differentiate warlocks from other casters.

[Platypusbill]

Personally I feel the Warlock casting system is a bit restrictive in that you're always forced to use the highest level of slot even if the spells you want to use scale poorly or not at all (and spells that gain more targets might target more enemies than necessary, in which case upcasting has no benefit even if they do scale). You also don't get actual spell slots for your 6th to 9th-level spells, you can specifically only cast your Mystic Arcana once each. The whole mechanic does at least differentiate the warlock from the other full casters, which are like half the class roster, although I don't know the lore reason for warlocks having a different casting system.

The only immediate balance concern is IMO that mid-high level Bladelocks specifically could spam Eldritch Smite all the time, automatically knocking prone all but the largest enemies without a saving throw, at a negligible cost.

[Tanarii]

That's why nobody suggested doing this.
Without the Pact Magic (SR) / Arcanum (LR) divide, that’s what results. If that doesn’t convince you it is necessary ...

[MaxWilson]

Without the Pact Magic (SR) / Arcanum (LR) divide, that’s what results. If that doesn’t convince you it is necessary ...

You misunderstand: instead of converting everything up short rest/Pact Magic, his idea is to connect everything to long rest/regular spellcasting, just like everyone else.

[Spiritchaser]

Another way that works pretty well is to give warlocks DMG spellpoints on a short-rest schedule. E.g. a 5th level warlock has 10 SP per short rest and can cast spells up to 3rd level with them. You could do two Fireballs, or one Hex and four Shields, or anything in between.

I like this because it makes the warlock's spell list feel less narrow: there are more actually good spells when you're not forced to waste power upcasting everything.

I’ve done this, and it very strongly improves the versatility and feel of warlock casting, but it also does result in power growth.

The time I tried this was with a hexblade warlock in the group. The party contained a control/blast wizard, a control/summons druid, and a high survivability Dex pally who ended up with an amulet of health. All were strong and effective builds, and in that company, the short rest point cast worked just fine for the warlock (and with hexblade, AC wasn’t the usual problem for the warlock)

In a different situation, if the party was on the weak side, I’d potentially be concerned.

I may also have been a bit obnoxious when the party tried to minimize encounters between long rests...