Banishing the Gheist of 4e: Modifying 5th edition DnD's Warlock
As some of you may already know from my previous posts, I did not dislike 4th edition. I believe it had problems such as the combat taking forever and there being minimal options for those who wanted a less complicated character but I actively enjoyed it. If you liked tactical combat I am not sure I could recommend a system more than 4th edition D&D. When I look back though, there is one thing that haunts me; yes even more than the time that me and my group fought a single elite undead for 2 hours... that sucked and was boring but that wasn't what haunts me. I remember these conversations with my group. About the idea of obtaining "social" utility abilities and how we all wanted them but it was never the "smart" thing to do. The problem with 4e is that while it was super tight in terms of combat it expected you to focus on said combat. You had to ignore the fact that 4e was full of fun utility abilities that let you do stuff like fire arrows at a wall and then climb up them or attempt to alter someone's short term memory. As cool as those were, to pick them would be to actively choose to be less capable in a fight and 4e seemed to be designed around the idea that everyone is combat ready. We went in circles about ideas but never implemented anything sadly enough.
The interesting thing about 5e is that there is far less push to be combat focused over having utility. Spellcasters have access to a wider array of spells and abilities at an earlier level and are constantly learning new ones. Furthermore, each class has features they gain as they level that oftentimes are designed specifically for use in exploring and in social situations! It was amazing and miraculous for to find that this problem was gone! I GMed for three years in a long term campaign and while there was much my players would ask me for (mostly trying to craft their own magical arsenal), there was never this problem where they felt like they had to choose between combat and everything else. Things were great! Or so I thought...
Then I tried the Warlock. The Warlock is unique in that it has access to eldritch blast; a cantrip which does a d10 force damage, has exceptional range, and can be modified extensively but we will get back to that later. First, we must talk about Eldritch Invocations. Eldritch Invocations are a huge aspect of building any Warlock. They represent your Warlock's delving into forbidden knowledge that you have found after making your pact. One of my favorites is Mask of Many Faces which lets you cast disguise self at will allowing for all sorts of shenanigans. Another fun one is Eldritch Sight which lets you use detect magic at will! This turns your Warlock into a walking talking magic detector. Please note this may frustrate the crap out of your GM until they realize you only have a range of 30 ft... this girl knows this from experience. And then we get the most popular Invocation of them all: Agonizing Blast. This Eldritch Invocation lets you add your charisma modifier to the damage of each eldritch blast beam (which can have up to 4) and... wait. This isn't nuanced or usable outside of killing someone at all!
Ok, so doing damage is fun. A Warlock with Agonizing Blast does great damage each turn and it is what makes the Warlock powerful after it used all of its few spells slots but having to choose between it and actually fun effects is not great. I was bemoaning this and pondering about this on Twitter when one insightful game designer, who shall remain anonymous unless he does not want to remain so, stated that he thought this was a problem and that choices like this should not exist in the game. Instead, mechanical combat benefits should just be tied directly into the class and leveling whereas the choices should be focused on choosing which of the fun stuff you want. I want to run with this. So, how would we do it?
Method #1: Divorcing Eldritch Blast from Invocations
Method #2: Warlock as Cantrip Specialist
Ever since 5th edition came out there one thing thing I tended to feel was lacking and that was the ability to affect the battlefield with the abilities you could use at will. I remember my 4th edition Witch having Winged Hoard and Ice Burst. Winged Hoard targeted a 15 by 15 foot cube with a 50 foot range and anyone who got hit by it found themselves unable to use their opportunity attacks for a round. Ice Burst had the same range and area of effect but did your intelligence mod in damage in addition to letting you move each creature you hit 5 feet in the direction of your choosing. As these were both burst spells you could do them in melee range with no concern for your well being unlike ranged attacks. Cantrips are 5th Edition's versions of at wills and I feel they are vastly improved over their 3rd, 3.5, and Pathfinder's version of the same. However, the combat cantrips in 5e also feel like a waste of a turn with only a few levels under your belt unless you are using Eldritch Blast. The reason for this is leveled spells inevitably and should do far more than any cantrip you use. Cantrips eventually become a place for utility spells like minor illusion, friends, and mending. However, what if we could make this not the case for Warlocks?
The Warlock is in a unique place because it is the only class who has notably limited amounts of spells. Between levels 2 and 10 the Warlock will never have more than two spell slots available at any one time. As such, they spend the majority of their time pew pewing with Eldritch Blast. This is fine but it turns what is supposed to be the most complicated caster class in the game into a ranged Fighter or Ranger with a few spell slots and eldritch invocations to mix it up. There are so many other interesting combat cantrips in the game but none of them are worthwhile in comparison because of Agonizing Blast. It is doubly sad because of the Pact of the Tome which just seems perfect for the discerning Warlock who wants a variety of utility and attack options. Sadly there are only utility options to be found here and only one attack option. So let's change that.
This was mostly inspired by this video by DawnforgedCast who critiqued eldritch blast for being the only competitive cantrip option there was. No other attack cantrip is worth casting in comparison. They proposed the introduction of several new Eldritch Invocations that modify the other possible cantrips available to Warlocks. The concept is great though the implementation is.... umm, Well, they are fun but I would never use any of them in one of my games. They have one that lets Chill Touch return a hit dice which is interesting but sets off all sorts of balance red flags. They have another that makes it so sacred flame blinds. These are interesting but distinctly overpowered. That said, they are steps in the right direction. Here is what I propose.
First of all, please note that I am going to be utilizing the Secrets of Wrath system proposed in the previous iteration but modified to have options to all attack cantrips. For example's sake, we will be looking at two interesting cantrips: Chill touch and Frostbite. I want to stay away from Sacred Flame because it is patron specific and, as such, only applicable to one particular type of warlock. We want to stay consistent with the current design which does not have patron specific Eldritch Invocation. Anyway, there are two ways we can go about this. We can either enhance the strengths the cantrip already has (see Agonizing Blast) or we can add utility that was not there before (see Repelling Blast). We are going to do one of each.
First, we shall examine frostbite. For this we need a new Secret of Wrath that I will call Frostwielder's Ward.
Frostwielder's Ward:
When a creature fails its save against Frostbite, the target suffers its usual effects but also finds the ice clinging to itself attempting to actively thwart them. All creatures gain half cover against the afflicted creature until the end of the warlock's next turn.
And suddenly this cantrip gives disadvantage and cover. I like it because I can imagine the frost moving as if it was a living thing to form a barrier as the Ancient Dragon moves to attack only to be thwarted by this seemingly insignificant spell. This is an example of taking a cantrips strengths and enhancing them. It might be a little strong for some tastes but considering it is a constitution save and there is not a single creature, that I know of, that has a negative constitution modifier, I think it will prove to be just fine if not in need for a little improvement. For example, mayhaps we could add a minor effect that works even on a successful save but that might be too strong. Moving on!
Second, we are moving onto Chill Touch. Now I like where DawnforgedCast was going with their idea of siphoning life via the spell that stop health regeneration. However, this time we are going to go about this by looking to enhance the cantrip not by making it do what it does better but by rounding it out to be useful in more situations. In this case, I thought ti would be interesting if we added a control element to the cantrip. Insofar there are modifiers that push, pull, increase range, increase damage, and make it so allies are harder to hit. All that said,
Invoked Entropy:
Any creature that is hit by Chill Touch finds the warlock can choose to invoke entropic energies of the spell and force their target to the ground, knocking them prone. In the case of flying creatures, they immediately plummet for half their flying speed and then stop.
The idea behind this one is simple, Chill Touch is already meant to disable one aspect of a creature, the ability to regenerate health, and now it also disables another aspect; the ability to move at full speed. Normally I would be concerned with this as it kinda steps on the toes of ray of frost but, unlike ray of frost which merely slows a target's movement by ten feet, this Secret of Wrath renders them harder to hit by virtue of being prone (obvious exception being flying creatures. I find the idea of a flying creature bobbing up and down as it fights the spell entertaining). When this is used on grounded creatures, this Secret of Wrath is powerful when used in conjunction with the party's melee fighters but actively harmful when used in tangent with the party's ranged attackers.
The idea for this revision of the warlock is all attack cantrips would have one or more Secrets of Wrath that allows for them to be modified in some way. The hoped for result is warlocks would no longer be known for using their one unique cantrip constantly but rather be known for taking mediocre cantrips and making them truly great.
Balance: Making Cantrip Warlocks Interesting but not too overpowered.
And now the hard part. When should a warlock obtain Secrets of wrath in this cantrip based warlock revision? My first proposition is to give them one every other time a warlock would usually obtain an Eldritch Invocation. What this means is they get one Secret of Wrath at 2nd, 7th, 12th, and 18th level. This should allow a warlock to either heavily invest in modifying one cantrip so that it rules them all, or make notable changes to two of their cantrips. Or in some cases you will have that crazy pact of the tome warlock who just modifies every attack cantrip they have because why wouldn't you need four attack cantrips on one character? (in all seriousness, that could be really interesting but I would miss my utility cantrips too much I think).
My next suggestion is that I might also add a cantrip or two to the warlock as it levels. These changes would make the Pact of the Tome a little too attractive since it gives cantrips to the cantrip based class. After all, the point of these changes was to make it so the player didn't have to choose between mechanical power and fun stuff and it would just be silly to end up with the same situation in a different form. And that is it.
That is all I have for this entry. I hope you all enjoyed my suggestions for ways to modify the warlock class. I want to thank the DawnforgedCast for their video that got me first thinking about this and my Twitter followers for discussing the topic with me. I also want to thank the person who is not my follower who somehow found my twitter and commentated on it. Your comment was what made me realize this was something that should be addressed and not just my own semi-crazy thoughts.
P.S. And yes, I totally know this makes the Warlock MORE 4e esque but I think it does not have that accursed choice between strength and doing something interesting which is a marked improvement. I was in love with my 4e at wills doing fun and interesting things so I tried to replicate that here without making it too crazy and complicated.
Your Cross DM, Maia
The interesting thing about 5e is that there is far less push to be combat focused over having utility. Spellcasters have access to a wider array of spells and abilities at an earlier level and are constantly learning new ones. Furthermore, each class has features they gain as they level that oftentimes are designed specifically for use in exploring and in social situations! It was amazing and miraculous for to find that this problem was gone! I GMed for three years in a long term campaign and while there was much my players would ask me for (mostly trying to craft their own magical arsenal), there was never this problem where they felt like they had to choose between combat and everything else. Things were great! Or so I thought...
Art from the player's handbook. Warlock section
Then I tried the Warlock. The Warlock is unique in that it has access to eldritch blast; a cantrip which does a d10 force damage, has exceptional range, and can be modified extensively but we will get back to that later. First, we must talk about Eldritch Invocations. Eldritch Invocations are a huge aspect of building any Warlock. They represent your Warlock's delving into forbidden knowledge that you have found after making your pact. One of my favorites is Mask of Many Faces which lets you cast disguise self at will allowing for all sorts of shenanigans. Another fun one is Eldritch Sight which lets you use detect magic at will! This turns your Warlock into a walking talking magic detector. Please note this may frustrate the crap out of your GM until they realize you only have a range of 30 ft... this girl knows this from experience. And then we get the most popular Invocation of them all: Agonizing Blast. This Eldritch Invocation lets you add your charisma modifier to the damage of each eldritch blast beam (which can have up to 4) and... wait. This isn't nuanced or usable outside of killing someone at all!
Art by Orange Nuke. Found here
Ok, so doing damage is fun. A Warlock with Agonizing Blast does great damage each turn and it is what makes the Warlock powerful after it used all of its few spells slots but having to choose between it and actually fun effects is not great. I was bemoaning this and pondering about this on Twitter when one insightful game designer, who shall remain anonymous unless he does not want to remain so, stated that he thought this was a problem and that choices like this should not exist in the game. Instead, mechanical combat benefits should just be tied directly into the class and leveling whereas the choices should be focused on choosing which of the fun stuff you want. I want to run with this. So, how would we do it?
The Warlock Refined
I have two propositions for this class.
Method #1: Divorcing Eldritch Blast from Invocations
My first idea is for a minor change focused on taking all Eldritch Invocations that focus on modifying Eldritch Blast and taking them out of that category entirely. We can either tie such features as agonizing blast to specific levels but I don't think that is particular interesting. Furthermore the goal is make the Warlock more interesting and not less. Removing choice is something I would like to stay away from. Instead, we will take them out of Eldritch Invocations and put them into a new category akin to Eldritch Invocations called Secrets of Wrath. There are two ways we can balance this. There are currently five Eldritch Invocations that modify Eldritch Blast. We can either round down, as is dnd 5e tradition (winks), and give the player two Secrets of Wrath with one occurring at 3rd level and another at 12th level or we can round up and give give them at levels 3, 8, and 13 which would give them a little more than half of the available modifications. This change is relatively simple to implement. It merely removes combat focused choices from the pool and puts them in a different pool. That is not to say some of the others do not have an influence on game mechanics or even fights. They do. Some invocations impact it quite heavily (I'm looking at you Tomb of Levistus). However, they feel different than the ones that modify Eldritch Blast as it does not equate to your ability to inflict damage or control the battlefield. I believe this alleviates a lot of this pressure to choose the "powerful" invocations over the interesting and fun invocations. It is a simple and easy solution to a complex problem and since it is me, it time for the complicated and extensive solution to be introduced.
Art found on Geeks and Sundry "The Complete Guide to starting a warlock in D&D"
Method #2: Warlock as Cantrip Specialist
Ever since 5th edition came out there one thing thing I tended to feel was lacking and that was the ability to affect the battlefield with the abilities you could use at will. I remember my 4th edition Witch having Winged Hoard and Ice Burst. Winged Hoard targeted a 15 by 15 foot cube with a 50 foot range and anyone who got hit by it found themselves unable to use their opportunity attacks for a round. Ice Burst had the same range and area of effect but did your intelligence mod in damage in addition to letting you move each creature you hit 5 feet in the direction of your choosing. As these were both burst spells you could do them in melee range with no concern for your well being unlike ranged attacks. Cantrips are 5th Edition's versions of at wills and I feel they are vastly improved over their 3rd, 3.5, and Pathfinder's version of the same. However, the combat cantrips in 5e also feel like a waste of a turn with only a few levels under your belt unless you are using Eldritch Blast. The reason for this is leveled spells inevitably and should do far more than any cantrip you use. Cantrips eventually become a place for utility spells like minor illusion, friends, and mending. However, what if we could make this not the case for Warlocks?
The Warlock is in a unique place because it is the only class who has notably limited amounts of spells. Between levels 2 and 10 the Warlock will never have more than two spell slots available at any one time. As such, they spend the majority of their time pew pewing with Eldritch Blast. This is fine but it turns what is supposed to be the most complicated caster class in the game into a ranged Fighter or Ranger with a few spell slots and eldritch invocations to mix it up. There are so many other interesting combat cantrips in the game but none of them are worthwhile in comparison because of Agonizing Blast. It is doubly sad because of the Pact of the Tome which just seems perfect for the discerning Warlock who wants a variety of utility and attack options. Sadly there are only utility options to be found here and only one attack option. So let's change that.
This was mostly inspired by this video by DawnforgedCast who critiqued eldritch blast for being the only competitive cantrip option there was. No other attack cantrip is worth casting in comparison. They proposed the introduction of several new Eldritch Invocations that modify the other possible cantrips available to Warlocks. The concept is great though the implementation is.... umm, Well, they are fun but I would never use any of them in one of my games. They have one that lets Chill Touch return a hit dice which is interesting but sets off all sorts of balance red flags. They have another that makes it so sacred flame blinds. These are interesting but distinctly overpowered. That said, they are steps in the right direction. Here is what I propose.
First of all, please note that I am going to be utilizing the Secrets of Wrath system proposed in the previous iteration but modified to have options to all attack cantrips. For example's sake, we will be looking at two interesting cantrips: Chill touch and Frostbite. I want to stay away from Sacred Flame because it is patron specific and, as such, only applicable to one particular type of warlock. We want to stay consistent with the current design which does not have patron specific Eldritch Invocation. Anyway, there are two ways we can go about this. We can either enhance the strengths the cantrip already has (see Agonizing Blast) or we can add utility that was not there before (see Repelling Blast). We are going to do one of each.
First, we shall examine frostbite. For this we need a new Secret of Wrath that I will call Frostwielder's Ward.
Frostwielder's Ward:
When a creature fails its save against Frostbite, the target suffers its usual effects but also finds the ice clinging to itself attempting to actively thwart them. All creatures gain half cover against the afflicted creature until the end of the warlock's next turn.
And suddenly this cantrip gives disadvantage and cover. I like it because I can imagine the frost moving as if it was a living thing to form a barrier as the Ancient Dragon moves to attack only to be thwarted by this seemingly insignificant spell. This is an example of taking a cantrips strengths and enhancing them. It might be a little strong for some tastes but considering it is a constitution save and there is not a single creature, that I know of, that has a negative constitution modifier, I think it will prove to be just fine if not in need for a little improvement. For example, mayhaps we could add a minor effect that works even on a successful save but that might be too strong. Moving on!
 |
| Art retrieved from DnD 4e's Living Spell entry |
Second, we are moving onto Chill Touch. Now I like where DawnforgedCast was going with their idea of siphoning life via the spell that stop health regeneration. However, this time we are going to go about this by looking to enhance the cantrip not by making it do what it does better but by rounding it out to be useful in more situations. In this case, I thought ti would be interesting if we added a control element to the cantrip. Insofar there are modifiers that push, pull, increase range, increase damage, and make it so allies are harder to hit. All that said,
Invoked Entropy:
Any creature that is hit by Chill Touch finds the warlock can choose to invoke entropic energies of the spell and force their target to the ground, knocking them prone. In the case of flying creatures, they immediately plummet for half their flying speed and then stop.
The idea behind this one is simple, Chill Touch is already meant to disable one aspect of a creature, the ability to regenerate health, and now it also disables another aspect; the ability to move at full speed. Normally I would be concerned with this as it kinda steps on the toes of ray of frost but, unlike ray of frost which merely slows a target's movement by ten feet, this Secret of Wrath renders them harder to hit by virtue of being prone (obvious exception being flying creatures. I find the idea of a flying creature bobbing up and down as it fights the spell entertaining). When this is used on grounded creatures, this Secret of Wrath is powerful when used in conjunction with the party's melee fighters but actively harmful when used in tangent with the party's ranged attackers.
The idea for this revision of the warlock is all attack cantrips would have one or more Secrets of Wrath that allows for them to be modified in some way. The hoped for result is warlocks would no longer be known for using their one unique cantrip constantly but rather be known for taking mediocre cantrips and making them truly great.
Balance: Making Cantrip Warlocks Interesting but not too overpowered.
And now the hard part. When should a warlock obtain Secrets of wrath in this cantrip based warlock revision? My first proposition is to give them one every other time a warlock would usually obtain an Eldritch Invocation. What this means is they get one Secret of Wrath at 2nd, 7th, 12th, and 18th level. This should allow a warlock to either heavily invest in modifying one cantrip so that it rules them all, or make notable changes to two of their cantrips. Or in some cases you will have that crazy pact of the tome warlock who just modifies every attack cantrip they have because why wouldn't you need four attack cantrips on one character? (in all seriousness, that could be really interesting but I would miss my utility cantrips too much I think).
My next suggestion is that I might also add a cantrip or two to the warlock as it levels. These changes would make the Pact of the Tome a little too attractive since it gives cantrips to the cantrip based class. After all, the point of these changes was to make it so the player didn't have to choose between mechanical power and fun stuff and it would just be silly to end up with the same situation in a different form. And that is it.
That is all I have for this entry. I hope you all enjoyed my suggestions for ways to modify the warlock class. I want to thank the DawnforgedCast for their video that got me first thinking about this and my Twitter followers for discussing the topic with me. I also want to thank the person who is not my follower who somehow found my twitter and commentated on it. Your comment was what made me realize this was something that should be addressed and not just my own semi-crazy thoughts.
P.S. And yes, I totally know this makes the Warlock MORE 4e esque but I think it does not have that accursed choice between strength and doing something interesting which is a marked improvement. I was in love with my 4e at wills doing fun and interesting things so I tried to replicate that here without making it too crazy and complicated.
Your Cross DM, Maia
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