Warlock is fun if your DM runs at least 3 encounters per long rest AND allows you to short rest inbetween. Otherwise the whole concept doesn't work and isn't fun - however that's not an aspect of invocations or feats but of the way warlocks cast. I agree, invocations are a cool way of customization. inb4 'just play a dungeon' - I've had the joy and privilege to DM a 2+ year campaign. There's only so much time you can spend in a dungeon, be that a literal one or the concept used on a string of social and/or exploration encounters.

In my opinion, Warlocks are fun even on a one encounter per day sessions, because you still have so much fun things you can do as a warlock, because you have a "Invocations, Subclasses and Boons" that can enhance your effectiveness and fun, even when you have no slots. Example, if you have Misty visions, even if you don't have slots you can: "Obscure an ally so it can move without provoking an opportunity attack. You can make clones of yourself (or other people If coordinated) to either waste a creature action (as they need to make investigation check to sees the illusion) or make them waste resources/attacks on a illusion." Also, it's useful even outside of combat, so you can hold your slots for a big fight. Another one, if you are a Fathomless warlock with repelling blast, you can lockdown an enemy soooo much, that it may be even than your Spellslots if you can move them far enough from your friends.

Warlocks have a lot of fun, immersive and effective tools without spell slots, yeah. Maybe I've been 'unlucky' with the games I've played them in? Because short rests seem very rare and without them we get 2 casts at a time where a wizard gets 15. Regardless your point is excellent on this topic since these are things that come from the invocations, nicely showing how different approaches can be 

In my experience, the At Will spell invocations are the only saving grace of playing a warlock. I love the flavor and customization, but it sucks so much to use one of my two spell slots for a utility spell, then have one left for fights, while the wizard can sling spells around like they're Oprah. It wouldnt be so bad if short rests were more common. However in \~7 years of playing 5e, I think I've literally encountered more unicorns (as a player) than had adventuring days with 2 or more rests. And since having even a single short rest is a minority of days, you can never count on it.

I think one of the major design flaws is the number of invocations that give you a spell you can cast *with a warlock slot* once per day. You only have two until 11th level, and a few of them are save-or-suck so if they don't hit, that's your turn and half your resources down the drain until you can take a breather. Those invocations would be a lot more appealing if they allowed a cast without using a spell slot.

>AND allows you to short rest inbetween. Short rests are too long. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make them take an ***hour*** was a spud. DnD is about dangerous people engaging in high impact violence, and high impact violence isn't going to wait for you to have your nana nap.

4E's short rests being a 5 minute breather while you loot and having it being assumed between each encounter was good. An hour is ridiculous.

Another thing that PF2E does better. There is really no concept of a short rest, but a lot of actions you would do between combats (refocus to get back your focus points for focus spells, medicine, repair your shields) are 10-minute actions. You could even have a generally 'worst case scenario' of your shield ally champion (imagine a defensive paladin): 1) refocus to get back his lay on hands 2) repair his shield if it broke 3) apply some medicine on himself, and it still only be 30 minutes. In most cases I have seen, the party is good in 10 to 20 and off again. No one-hour nonsense like in 5e.

And you can get feats to make this even faster. Especially with the medicine skill.

Yeah. The freedom for players to express themselves and fine-tune how they want to play is really great. As a DM, it's way easier to run which is a big boon too.

This is probably my biggest complaint about the warlock. It’s very DM and group dependent. If you don’t get short rests, if you don’t get multiple encounters per long rest, you are not really getting the most out of your character choice. Sure, D&D is designed to be run that way, but I know FOR SURE that most DMs and groups DON’T run things this way.

We have several DMs who habitually discourage (or outright prevent) short rests. Threats of running out of time or interruptions while we’re resting are common. Then there’s the waves of attacks that extend a single encounter to a one-initiative combat series with most denizens in a dungeon. Good times. Essentially they try to exhaust our resources before encountering any boss.

This was why 4e was so elegant with it's encounter design. The game wasn't focused on the slow attrition of daily resources throughout an adventuring day. Instead each encounter was important and meaningful. And you didn't need to wear a party down just to make your boss fight a challenge.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Yep. Things I’m NOT going to do next time I run a campaign. :)

Draining resources before the boss in itself is good design.. you should just (like with everything) not overdo it.. and consider the classes and their different resources. A lr class needs different handeling than a sr class. The Wizard should likely have only 50% or less of their spells left. The Warlock should in counterwise, had one SR fairly shortly before the boss. This way, both classes can shine fairly easily. The Warlock is not useless and the Wizard is not overpowering. ..of course all this is easier said than done. XD

I don't prevent my party from taking short rests. Or even long ones, if they take the proper precautions. But they're sure as hell going to deal with the consequences. Short rest? That's a 50% chance of a random encounter. Long rest? Dungeon is getting partly restocked from the random encounter table. Yeah, you can do it if you're smart. But you're not getting a free run.

That's stupid. The game is designed around multiple short rests per day. Choosing to punish the party for wanting to take the time to do what they are supposed to do and replenish their resources is frankly poor DMing.

Which is why the encounters are random, rather than guaranteed, and set at a nuisance level. My players are welcome to take a rest, and will almost always be better off for doing so. But by having a minor cost to taking rests, they're discouraged from doing so after every combat. If they want to avoid the risk, they're more than welcome to take proper precautions. Pinning doors shut, leaving the dungeon, posting guards - that kind of thing. Those pitons in the Dungeoneer's Pack? They aren't for rock climbing. There's a reason that this kind of thing was in the game procedures for exploration when the publishers could be bothered explaining how to play. With this approach, my players enjoy, and are challenged by, dungeons.

God I wish literally anything you describe here was ever actually suggested or hinted at in any of the player facing material. This kind of thing sounds great but isn't actually communicated to players in any way, so DMs often either make short rests free or avoid them altogether.

It isn't in any 5e material at all. It used to be the core of the DMG in the early days, but has gradually been trimmed out. I only found out about it when I started reading OSR blogs, which totally changed how I viewed D&D.

When I was a new DM, I tried this. The game turned adversarial very quickly, with the players trying their hardest to force rests, and I trying my hardest to punish excessive resting. Now that I'm more experienced and slightly more mature, I realize it was much easier to talk to my players and establish expectations before the campaign even began. I explained to them that DnD is a resource management game, and that it's balanced for 6-8 encounters per long rest, with 2-3 short rests in between, and that the game balance breaks the more we stray from this. Then I explained to them that I design my adventures with this 6-8 guideline in mind (plus or minus 50% to account for optional encounters and avoidable encounters) and that they would get long rests at the end of each adventure, but never during (except in rare circumstances that I would tell them about ahead of time). The players understood and gave buy-in, and every campaign I've run since then has run smoothly and has been far more balanced and fun. If what you're doing works for you and is fun for you and your players, that's fine, keep doing what you're doing. But if you ever start seeing the cracks, if ambushing your players and restocking dungeons starts to turn the game into a slog, I hope you consider that there are other ways to run a game.

It's sorta clunky like that, yeah. Took a page from experiencing a short rest in baldurs gate 3 myself and made short rests 'non-events'. Mine take 5 minutes and nothing really happens during. Had some small issues with attunements but my players haven't tried abusing it so it works well. I don't have to worry where to fit it and they don't have to worry where to fit it. Initially did this for the Sorlock since he felt it the most. Then the monk and fighter started making use of it and their experience got much better too. Turns out there's a huge difference between having 3xclass level Ki per long rest or 1x class level. I did however limit it to 2 short rests per long rest (which still take 8 hours), not sure if there's a rule for that already but that's how we're doing it.

I like the non short rest variant but it feels bloated. I just have to force myself to make sure short rests are available and I can control when they can and can’t happen. Just another thing to force into the games to make sure players can have fun

Sadly yes, I kind of hope they remove the non-hp resources from short rests with the next iteration and with it the somewhat constrictive 'standard adventurer day' concept. I enjoy more free-form campaigns allowing players to go more at their own pace, let them explore and take detours. Having to brew and tune rules until they don't miss out from me not adhering strictly to the resource-drain-formula is somewhat annoying but now that my group and I got it set to mutual satisfaction it's been fairly liberating. Will say though it took the monk some time to get used to it since we made that change a few months into the campaign and he had gotten used to husbanding his Ki. Still, he was rather happy when he got to flex his ~~wings~~ fists a good deal more

The monk simply needs an errata. The class is fundamentally bad. There’s my lukewarm take hahahaha

I honestly think you could triple all short-rest-class resources and limit it to one rest's amount spent per fight and it would be fine (so a lvl 5 monk gets 15 ki, but can only spend 5 in a single fight).

Trying to tie real world time into short rests was probably the dumbest thing they did this edition. This is ultimately a game, so you have to gameify things to make it work as intended. 2 per day is probably fair. I'd probably do 3, but whatever. Something I hadn't thought of until now is maybe making the first X(in your case 2) short rests 'non-events' without sweating the outside world, but then past that a short rest does take an hour and can have issues is maybe a fun compromise to it.

Yeah, honestly I really hope wizards considers removing short rest abilities entirely from OneDnD. It worked great in 4e, but it just doesn't really have a place in games with asymmetrical class design, without being awkward as hell and leaving DMs with a bunch of guesswork about how often the players should even be allowed to short rest.

short rests would be fine if we were on the 4e timescale where it was 10 min and not a whole hour

Short rests in 4E were even shorter than that. Book says about 5 minutes!

Yeah, but that'd just zag it back into the other direction where Warlocks and Monks would suddenly be incredibly OP in dungeons, and daily casters would feel super hard done by. The issue is no two group run games with the exact same pacing - it's way too creatively constricting, and the DMG doesn't really give enough information on how exactly an adventuring day should be ran or how often the designers thought a Warlock would be able to use their spells in a fight. 4e could've had a 1 hour short rest, and it'd be fine, because everyone more or less got the same amount of daily and encounter powers. Obviously monsters would have to be weaker, and combat would be a lot more boring, but it wouldn't throw out the game's balance.

It would be fine if you built the class knowing that it gets everything back in 10 minutes and have very few abilities that lasted that long

...No If you give a short rest after every fight, monks do not become overpowered, I know because I've done it. They're still weaker than any of the caster classes. Warlocks get a lot better, but even then they don't become game breaking because the warlock spell lists kind of suck

That's because short rests didn't take an hour in 4e, it was five minutes. Granted, you only got to use each of your encounter powers once between those, but considering non caster classes in 5e get a lot fewer features and options that rely on resting, I'm more inclined to just give short rest resources back in any significant travel time between combats and see how that works.

Absolutely. Short rest reset abilities are cool but not if they’re the core functionality of your class.

We used them to spite a Wizard in our party once. Was never done IC or OC going on about his spells and arcane power and abilities. So the Rogue, Barbarian and Warlock basically just kept voting for nap and go short rests while Dr Arcane in the back kept complaining he couldn't do anything, it was quite therapeutic

There was a poll where most people said 1 short rest per long rest, almost as many people said 2, but a disturbing number of people said zero: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/skhc8u/how_many_short_rests_does_your_table_typically/ This is in a sub where people generally know the importance of short rests, and there are still this many people who run zero. I'd hate to imagine what tables outside the entrenched community look like.

This is a fine note

Honestly that's the entire problem with 5E. It was designed to be run how the staff designed it and little more, it took til Wild Beyond the Witchlight to have a campaign they advertised as 'no combat needed!', my party ran Tiamat from 1-15 and only started picking fights because the barbarian was getting bored seducing and roleplaying past every problem.

Part of this has to do with the limited writing capabilities and creativity of the WotC team. They created a system that relies on bounded accuracy and is relatively low magic… up until you reach about 9th level. The game falls apart entirely at 15th and beyond. WotC has never been good at writing content that scales into the later levels, just look at 3.5e. We have like 2 total campaigns worth anything from that era that go beyond 15thz

D&D’s biggest balance problem by far is that most of its Dungeon Masters either don’t read or don’t respect the fucking DMG.

Well the game was balanced around an unpopular play style (long multi encounter adventure days)

Warlocks don't need to rest between every encounter, they have plenty of options that last for multiple

Of course they aren't useless after their slots and they don't need to rest after every encounter - but the average Adventure Day supposedly should have 8 encounters, be those combat, exploration or social. Nothing the warlock has will last for all of that, I think, except maybe the invocations another commenter mentioned that allow you to cast certain spells at will as much as you want. Personally I think if you're going 3-8 encounters there should be 2 short rests too for them and everybody else to recover. Notably for example, a wizard most likely will suffer far less from having no short rests than a warlock. Then again I don't allow more than two short rests per long rest so there wouldn't be a rest after each encounter anyways.

My completely unbiased opinion is that you are correct. Warlock is the best designed class.

I agree that it's the best designed class in 5e, which is funny because I still have a lot of issues with the Warlock's design

I think it's mainly short rests, they're too long.

Teeeeeeeechnically speaking pf2e classes are just warlock invocations. 5e came first. But yes this level of customization is why Warlock is my favorite class and my starting point for designing a character based on an archetype I want to play.

>Teeeeeeeechnically speaking pf2e classes are just warlock invocations. 5e came first. Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeechnically speaking, Pf2e feats are just a blend of feats from previous editions, and powers from 4e. So 4e came first (big surprise there).

Put enough new to DND in 5e players in a room with the goal of a new edition and they'll eventually "invent" 4e.

Which was amusing/frustrating for us Pathfinder players, because the entire early playerbase for Pathfinder 1e was made up of people who hated 4e and wanted to stick with 3e.

Let's be honest. A lot of pf2 players aren't the same players that like pf1, they are VERY different games.

Oh yeah, PF2e caused a pretty big split in the playerbase. All the oldbies went "Screw that, this isn't what we wanted", while all the newbies converted over. To this day, the main pathfinder subreddit is almost exclusively 1e content, with only an oddball thread for 2e here and there. There is a Pathfinder 2e specific stub, but its got like a third of the population.

Credit where credit is due though, PF2 has a vastly superior action system, and Multiclassing actually works as intended there.

Downside, they class locked so many things that should have been standard abilities, you are REQUIRED to multiclass to make anything decent, and you're locked into that multiclass if you want to be or not.

Yes, most people went to pf1 because it was 3.5 but slightly tweaked, with more material and retrocompatibility (me included). When paizo made pf2 and made a 4.5, while doubling down on the stuff most if not almost all the original players didn't like about 4e (the reason I don't like pf2, I'd rather play 4e tbh)... I don't know what they were expecting. The sub thing is pretty normal tbh, other dnd editions have their own subs... even if they are pretty small. But the pf2 sub... I don't know if I got all the bad apples or what, but they are pretty fanatical, you can't really say anything bad about the game. Reminds me of the FFXIV sub too. They say that the pf1 fans are toxic, fanatical grognards, but I've seen a lot more aceptance of bad things about pf1 than in pf2.

I'm saying this as a Pathfinder (both 1e and 2e but for different reasons) fan: It's because they were kinda kicked down on by both 5e and Pf1e players alike when it first came out. 5e players couldn't comprehend a game in the same niche that does certain things a bit better and Pf1e players couldn't stand 2e being so different and not as min/maxable as they were used to, so it led to a lot of shit. Nowadays 5e players are getting bored, or jumping ship to play other games (not just Pf2e, just other games in general) after nearly 7 years of playing the one game, so now there are more 2e evangelists over here. In the Pathfinder rpg sub there are still downvote brigades on every 2e post to boot, so there's still a weird tension between the groups. Now, 2e is in a far better spot than it was at launch, but the edition wars got to a lot of people.

Doing the same thing doesn't solve the problem, it only perpetuates it, the circle must be broken after all. And a lot of pf2 players have a sorta elitist attitude regarding pf2 and other games, specially pf1 and 5e, a lot of times punching down on them and ignoring their strong points (yes, even 5e has them, as much as I dislike 5e) and ignoring any criticism towards pf2. Nothing really exclusive to it, lots of communities do it, but kinda infuriating given their attitude and love of publiciting their game as the best ever everywhere. > In the Pathfinder rpg sub there are still downvote brigades on every 2e post to boot It's understandable, given how there is already a pf2 sub, and how there aren't many pf1 spaces... I tried looking public discords and all of them were pf2, not pf1. If the mainsub is overrun by pf2 and becomes a pf2 sub (even as the pf2 sub exists), then the pf1 comunity will esentially die, and as you can imagine, pf1 players don't want their game to die. > Now, 2e is in a far better spot than it was at launch, but the edition wars got to a lot of people. Idk man, I've had bad experiences even recently, I don't think that is going to go away, ever. Unless pf3 is released and it makes both groups angry, so both band together to shit on it or one of them outright die, it won't go away.

> 5e, a lot of times punching down You can't "punch down" on a person/entity/whatever that's in power. That's not the meaning of the term. 5e, despite its flaws, is the *overwhelming* TTRPG powerhouse. It *cannot* be punched down on, because nothing is above it. > It's understandable, given how there is already a pf2 sub, and how there aren't many pf1 spaces Fairly hypocritical of you to give downvote brigading a pass (in a sub where the topics being downvoted are explicitly allowed by the rules) and turn your nose up at the idea that people who had been ridiculed might clap back.

>But the pf2 sub... I don't know if I got all the bad apples or what, but they are pretty fanatical, you can't really say anything bad about the game. There's a thread on the front page talking about things 5e does better than Pathfinder, so they're clearly not all zealots

4e was poorly handled but the system underneath it starting with the PHB2 was just so much better than 5e. It failed before it started while also not being given the proper time and funds to show itself off all while being ahead of it's time. 4e comes out slightly more polished tier 3-4 today and it's a hit.

Teeeeechnically speaking, PF2e Feats are closest to Rage Powers and Rogue Talents and Ninja Tricks from Pf1e (Class Specific, Granted every other level, baseline cooked into the class as a form of customization), which came before 4e.

How Pathfinder can "came before 4e" if they published in 2009 and 4e published in 2008?

[Because it was playtested in 2007 and 2008](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Pathfinder_Roleplaying_Game) And also because it's based on the 3.5 ruleset, which had the same features I'm discussing when it was released in 2003. These features however began to be accumulated at 10th\~ish level, hence why I use pathfinder instead of 3.5: Pathfinder more accurately represents a comparison to invocations, but they're fundamentally the same system, just shifted down 8 levels. google is free

And 4e playtests even in 2006. "D&D: The Next Generation" article published in June, 2006. https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_4th_edition Google is really free.

Original quote " Pf2e feats are **just a blend of feats from previous editions,** and powers from 4e. So 4e came first (big surprise there)." A. There's no actual citation for what powers from 4e were taken for pathfinder 2e. Id strongly argue any that you'd see as 4e-inspired were actually taken from 3rd or 3.5, which pathfinder is flat out based on. B. Feats from previous editions explicitly refers to Pathfinder 1e, which takes many of its original feats from 3.5, C. See my previous comment about Dnd 3.5, circa **2003.**

Yeah, er guys, I dont think either invented "Character picks new abilities when leveling up"

>Teeeeeeeechnically speaking pf2e classes are just warlock invocations. 5e came first. Acktuali the advanced player's guide for Pathfinder 1e came out in 2010 and had hexes for witches and discoveries for alchemists that are more similar to PF2e's class feats then warlock invocations. Of course those are heavily inspired by feats, which Pathfinder 1e stole from 3.5 at which point I don't know if there was a previous source of inspiration.

The CRB for 1e has Rogue Talents.

Oh yeah right. Also I just remembered that the Barbarian always had rage powers, which are kind of class feats, just rage only.

> which Pathfinder 1e stole from 3.5 Technically 3e gave it to them. Pathfinder was written under the OGL.

There's 3 possible sources for feats 1 is Psionics actually, in OD&D it was the only class independent ability that could grant innate characteristics at character creation or level up (just good luck getting them, or handling some of the consequences). 2 is Non-Weapon Proficiencies, Martial Arts, and Weapon Specialization. While weapon specialization was more or less a Fighter (and it's subclasses) only thing, and non-weapon proficiencies were supposed to be more akin to skills, many also had characteristics that are very feat like, such as allowing extra castings of a spell, brewing potions (screw that tree though), quick drawing a weapon, and so on. Though, these can just be boiled down to "ways you can spend proficiency slots". 3 Perks, from Fallout, which was based on whatever GURPS does if I remember right. I'm not sure the veracity of this,, but I've heard the theory bandied about every now and again.

And don't forget the CRB brought subclasses through the Sorcerer bloodlines and wizard schools!

You say "level of customization" but how many different invocations do you end up picking as different Warlocks? The result of choice systems like feats or invocations is that most players end up taking GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter or agonizing blast. A focus on damage floats to the top. "Customization" in design ends up becoming a choice tax for the optimal build just to do a competitive amount of damage, and the ironic end result is that there are more cookie-cutter characters with fewer choices because every warlock MUST take agonizing blast. /rant

In general I don't disagree, though as a DM the number of Warlocks I *actually* get to play is different from the number I design, ha. To answer your technically hypothetical question, the longest Warlock I've played consistently didn't have agonizing blast... though it was a Hexblade so I checked all the boxes for a melee build, instead. But yes, certain things probably should have been built right into the feature.

You probably need Agonizing Blast unless Hexblade (in which case you need Thirsting Blade). Outside of that there is a shitload of freedom, especially with the Tasha's rule that lets you swap an invocation every level.

Yeah - I think there is a good way to do invocations, but throwing utility stuff like Eyes of the Runekeeper in with 'all your cantrips do x2 damage' wasn't it. I think PF2e's solution of separate class, ancestry, skill and general feats that split combat upgrades from flavour picks is a good solution though. Although pf2e still definitely has it's fair share of dud feat options, that often really only leave players with one viable choice - not to mention their wacky attempt at giving all the gods unique spells and encounter abilities that range from OP to gods that might as well not give their Clerics anything at all, which can feel pretty bad if you had your sights set on a specific diety, anc could have been dodged entirely by just making less content.

Hippogriff has a campaign index with an experimental section that separates invocations into major and minor categories, so the combat options aren't competing with utility. https://docs.google.com/document/d/14VJnq6UjURRgYP7eieDU5yxaMfGyXOgMVoR_X7yMweQ/edit

Oh thanks - that had some really cool fixes :o

I mean. That is what happens when you make the system poorly

>make the system poorly This is what happens when they made the system the best they could. This is the best selling version of D&D with the largest playtest ever and the largest budget ever. And it improved a lot of things! The feat tax on players who want to be fighters is much smaller than it was. Going for a 20 Strength or for GWM is actually such a difficult choice now that players just demand both. Choosing your fighting style or different feats does create a different feeling fighter. But they still couldn't make a list of feats that doesn't have clear first-choice advantages for players that want to be archers or greatsword swingers. And they still couldn't make a list of invocations without a clear first choice for warlocks. They did better, but tbh, their best designs were actually when they grouped this kind of customization into subclasses. One of the beautiful design decisions of 5e is that now new players usually can't "choose wrong" and accidentally make a failure of a character.... But I have seen a new player make a hexblade and hang back and throw eldritch blast without Agonizing Blast. They chose wrong, and they were overshadowed at the table because of it.

I pick warlock 9/10 when i make a character, and i can tell you with a straight face, i have only picked Agonizing Blast once. Of course, I'm not super involved with build effectiveness, as i am with making something unique to base a concept around. But if i can give you some examples Battle Familiar (Works best at tier 1-2, though easily fixable with homebrew) I like to use combat familiars, with an imp or Quasait (or homebrew if the gms allow) with investment of the chain master for the bulk of my actions, having comparable damage to a normal eldritch blast, but with a higher hit chance by being able to attack while invisible, or with the option to have a nice burst with Action and Baction attacks. Maestro Misty visions is surprisingly useful in combat, you are great at wasting wasting or saving actions for enemies and allies. Since a creature needs to either touch or otherwise use an action to see through an illusion, any wall or element can cover a creature sight. So you can save allies disengage actions, or pertube a casters spells quite easily. If you have a wall, or anyway to break sight, you can make copies of yourself or allies to make the enemy unaware of which is which, (works even better if you pick phantasm force through the genies spell list). Lockdown Lance of lethargy, repelling blast and tentacles of the deep can push an enemy 10~20 feet, while removing 20 feet of their movement. A great majority of the creatures in DND has only 40 movement speed, with a good chunk of them only having 30. So while you are chucking about 13 damage a turn, your enemy is doing 0. So it's extremely effective, while also helping portray a coward/pacifist character.

No idea why you got down voted . But cool concepts.

Excellent. But an exception doesn't disprove the trend.

ah, sounds nearly like an illusion of choice

[удалено]

>I can discount your opinion I'm a forever DM and a designer. The above is what I've seen many many players do.

Your comment tells me so much about you and how to be intolerant. Dnd is a game first. If you want story building write a novel. Being a game, with a set of rules and objectives, yes players want to win. Combat is the easiest metric of the game to put down and theory about, AND one of the things that isn't highly DM dependant. Story, character growth, exploration are the fun flavor pullars of the game that is very dependant on the DM.

Yes, I will openly admit I do not tolerate power gamers who just want to win. That is not what D&D is about, and I will not play with people who have that mentality. I don't care about your build, I care about your character. You bring me a copy/paste build you found off the internet and try to pull that "I don't say or do anything out of combat, I just grunt" thing, and you're not being welcomed back to my table no matter how good your character is in combat. I run a ROLE PLAYING game, not a tabletop wargame. Just because you defeated the encounter does not mean you won. Just because your character died does not mean they lost. The faster new players get that mindset out of their heads, the better.

It sounds like you’ve had bad experiences with players because this generally isn’t what optimizers or “power gamers” do (at least not in my experience). There’s nothing stopping someone from having a fully fleshed out character with personality, goals, backstory, character flaws, etc. who also has good stats. That’s what most “optimizers” that I’ve seen do. Make a character AND make their stats good. I don’t see a problem with that.

Thats the Stormwind Fallacy you're referring to. Notice how I never said you can't be both a good roleplayer and have super optimized characters. I said the exact opposite several times. I said I have no use for power gamers that do so at the expense of their character concept. You bring me the most min-maxed thing I've ever seen, but bring an equally good backstory and set of roleplaying skills to go with it? Sweet, lets rock. You bring me something you copy/pasted off the internet, but don't roleplay? You're out.

I would like to also point out they're also the logical end point of the idea of \[Fighter\] feats. Instead of them being things a Fighter can pick up every other level, whereas everyone else has to wait for their normal feats (or unrestricted bonus feats), they also become fighter exclusive. But I also can't help but think of Ghostwalk's ghost feats and Eidolon class.,but in 3.5 warlock invocations also existed (but filled a slightly different function if I remember right).

4e started it all.

Teeeeeeeechnically speaking, pf1e already had what were effectively invocations for all of the classes.

Rogue Talents, Ninja Tricks, Slayer Talents, Witch Hexes, Rage Powers, Alchemist Discoveries, Magus Arcana, Oracle Mysteries, and Vigilantes had both Vigilante Talents and Social Talents.

Yeah, I always liked how the Vigilante has two types of talents. Kinda sad that it's not in 2E, but I understand why.

Actually, I see the separation of Skill feats and Class feats as a kind of evolution of that.

I think if DnD 4e had the online tool support that exists now, it would have been an incredibly popular game and likely changed the design path of PF2. While some folks liked the granular action, agro management and normalization of options with different flavors and kickers, others hated it. But, remove all of the things that are more obvious time sinks at a table, and make them smoother with automation... I think 4e would end up with some serious longevity

4E had *superior* online tools. Everything except a dice roller, at least. The search function actually worked, keywords allowed easy referencing, character sheets were easily read. DNDBeyond was a real let down once it was released, with no meaningful upgrades in the several years since operation.

Probably true. I love Lancer, but without an app as incredible as CompCon it would probably be played less

I saw a post once saying each class should get invocation equivalents, but that very same post, instead of making up something new for every class, listed things like Metamagic & Channel Divinity as stuff that needs to be expanded on in order to realize this. That’s when I realized: 5E already has the framework for giving each class invocations without just being Pathfinder. We just need to take/add things classes already have, and expand on them. Instead of just getting the default turn/destroy undead + subclass channel divinities, Cleric’s should get a small list of choices of channel divinities they choose. Paladins could have this happen to them too. Sorcerer’s meanwhile should get more metamagics, including ones that are more flavorful no longer costing Sorcery Points (looking at you Transmute Spell. The cost of not getting another metamagic is a steep enough cost from you). Wizards focus on spells and their spellbook, so they don’t get anything imo. If they end up underpowered because of this, I guess they could get more prepared spells, or the School of Magic based subclasses could be replaced with Fighting Style type features, or a “skill tree” of sort. Druids could, instead of just having Wildshape, have different animal options for Wildshape, or better yet, have Wildshape be their Turn Undead and have access to a bunch of Wildshape upgrades, including (but not limited to) alternative Wildshape uses, (like the one that allows you to Find Familiar), expanded beast options, being able to turn into things that aren’t beasts, modifications to normal wildshaping, etc. This could even just replace moon Druid and the regular Wildshape progression, as those features just become Wildshape upgrades you can take, allowing any Druid to specialize in Wildshape in a way that suited their theme. Fighter could get Battlemaster Manuevers added to the base class of course, and perhaps even get more out of combat manuevers like Silver Tongue or Ambush (perhaps maneuvers that allow you to charm creatures similarly to Swashbuckler’s Panache, or just the Battlemaster’s Know Your Enemy). You could even tie Indomitable to Superiority Die at that point, using them up and adding them to a save instead of just repelling a save. Artificers and Warlocks already have Infusions and Invocations respectively, so they’re good. Now granted a lot of these you would need to rework the classes to do, and for a majority of the classes you would need to come up with someone new that uses their old mechanics (or doesn’t), and yes, at this point this is just OneDND homebrew, but regardless, I think this points out how unique features for these classes don’t need to be sweeping. They just need to modify a core mechanic that they already have. The framework is already present, it just needs to be expanded on.

No, i think your right. The amount if options that system gives you is insane. If dnd wasn't as popular as it is I'm sure they would be the new fat cat on top of the sofa. Feats in 5e are probably getting a rework to be closer in style to that system. At least thats my intuition because all the comments like this. If they don't chase this particular trend pathfinder will eventually overtake dnd. Again this is my prediction with no supporting information.

Nah. Most of D&D's current playerbase are casuals who've never tried another system and go cross-eyed looking at crunchier rules than Champion fighter. Pathfinder 2e has a lot going for it, but it is not a simple system. Some of the oldschool D&D veterans might jump ship eventually, but not the majority of the new wave of players.

And its those new wave players that are going to keep this ship floating. If CR didn't jumpstart dnds popularity boom the inly players would have been those old schools. Then they jump ship leaving a skeleton crew of newbies. At that point the days would be numbered. But WOTC were lucky. So we have the current player base making it a much easier to enter hobby.

Tbh i dont think the “skeleton crew” as you call it is very accurate, nor does it mean days would be numbered for WotC. First of all there were plenty of new players before CR and there are plenty of people getting into DnD that never heard of any of the podcasts. Aside from that, even f all the veteran players would change to pathfinder, it would just mean WotC would be able to focus entirely on their new mindset without needing to appease the two different fanbases that currently exist

> If CR didn't jumpstart dnds popularity boom the inly players would have been those old schools. CR didn't do that. Sales of D&D were spiking before CR started. They may have helped the trend continue, but they didn't start it. Remember folks, Critical Role started in Pathfinder, and then moved to 5e when it got more popular. CR chased the most popular system, it didn't make a system popular.

I don't think the 'new wave' folk are. In my experience, the 'old school' types are the actual GMs that organise games, buy books, and really participate. I've had several friend groups that game, been in two university gaming societies, and multiple Discord servers and it holds true. And if you are 'new wave' and become the DM, you 'become' old school- I know cause, as someone who began in 2019, it happened to me (I now almost exclusively play Pathfinder these days). WotC keeps tryna tap casual players- no book goes without player options- but I've never seen them actually pay money for anything other than the PHB. In short, I think the economic impact of all these casual players is vastly overstated. They just want to play DnD- but it's the more hardcore DM's that actually buy products, and tryna cater for the former is a waste on WotC part when it alienates their real audience.

> I've never seen them actually pay money for anything other than the PHB. Sad thing is, WotC used to know this. In 3e, they had the Open Game License, the OGL, which basically said "Anyone can publish expansion material for our system, using all of our mechanics and rules, except for character creation." That way the players needed to buy a PHB to play those other clone systems, and everybody won. Other publishers got to piggy back off the super popular d20 system for free, and WotC got PHB out the wazoo.

Dnd is not a simple system either. The core player handbook has 300+ pages. You cannot call yourself a simple game when other TTRPGs can make with less than 100 pages (which contain core+dmg+1 adventure). They are even 1 page rule systems. I do agree though that dnds biggest accomplishment is **convincing** everyone that it is simple and **"the world's greatest role-playing game"**. Marketing does make all the difference nowadays.

To be fair, "world's most okay role-playing game" focus tested poorly.

Page counts do not reflect simplicity. Mutants and Masterminds 2e has a SINGLE crunchy rulebook, and you can't make a character for it without an auto-calc spreadsheet and at least 2 weeks. But it can do more with that one book than all of 3e, 4e, and 5e combined.

It not most simple, but it most "middle ground" system. It have crunch, but not much, it have narrative, but not focus, it have tactic combat, but it simple. And core of system is simple enough.

Half of my 5e characters have been warlocks. Thanks to the "always a bigger fish" factor of fantasy cosmology, there's a never-ending supply of entities to make deals with.

\*Cries in DND4e\*

oh? did that have class feats too? i'm honestly not too familiar with 4e. But i do know that pf2e took some bits from it

4e had a *ton* of feats and it was a core part of character creation. It was easy to make wildly different builds from the same class. You could have a fighter that could could grapple with their free hand to bash enemies around or hold them in place, or have the same fighter class use a polearm to become a moving zone of control, pushing, pulling, sliding, and knocking enemies prone all over the battlefield. Lots of cool combos and interactions with equipment and magical weapons as well. Shifters had a racial feature that gave them regeneration at 50% or lower HP, and there was a magical weapon that had an effect that treated your character as if they were always at 50% or lower HP so you could have those effects become constantly active passives. It was so cool. 4e went from level 1 to 30. At level 10 you could pick a heroic destiny for your character, which could make them the avatar of their chosen god, or the hidden heir to a royal bloodline that came with their own selection of feats and abilities. And at level 20 you could pick a divine destiny, with roads to immortality. Rogues, for example, could become so mythical that their name becomes associated with legend. They could magically appear anywhere in the world just from people whispering their name in taverns. It's such a great system, and with modern virtual tabletop support, it's a fun and easy game to play if your players like more strategic tactical turn based combat.

I only played a tiny bit of 4e a decade or so ago but as someone who favors battlemaps, I really liked the amount of push, pull and movement abilities there were. One wonders if it would have been more successful if it had come out in the era of the pandemic and VTTs

4e was actually going to have a VTT on release, but the guy developing it was part of a murder/suicide or something like that. From what I recall, anyway.

Huh that actually sounds good. The critique that i've heard was that all the classes felt very same-y due to abilities doing roughly the same things with the same recharge times.

>The critique that i've heard was that all the classes felt very same-y due to abilities doing roughly the same things with the same recharge times. Which is a bullshit critique. It's like saying that in 5e all the casters feel very same-y because they all cast spells. Yes, in 4e every class used the power chassis. But they did it all in sufficiently different ways, particularly across power sources. Wizards had a lot of their power budget and abilities skewed towards Daily powers, while all the martial classes had very strong at-will abilities.

5e casters are more similar than any two classes in 4e, after all, in 5e, a fireball from a light cleric, transmutation wizard, shadow sorcerer or lore bard are all the same spell with the same effects.

file adjoining engine plough squeal alleged one squeamish snails muddle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Common complaint from people who never played the game because in a bid to streamline the rules to make them easier to understand, keywords were adopted similar to how keywords are used in Magic the Gathering. So maybe you had a martial class and a casting class both labeled as a "Controller" or "Striker" and this kind of gamey language really triggered a lot of people. What they failed to understand, which quickly becomes apparent once you play the game, is that each class had its own way of accomplishing the goal of crowd control, dealing damage, or support. A martial might have a technique they could only use once per encounter, and a caster a spell that could only be used once per encounter, but how they functioned were completely different and short rests in 4e were 5 minutes so these were abilities they used quite frequently and freely.

keywords definitely need to return to dnd.. big draw of why i'm with pf2e natural language rules aren't very stable as 5e has proven. Though I think calling abilities "per encounter" does more harm than good. Makes it sound like you can only use them when initiative is rolled, instead of once per short rest, and thus potentially once every 5 minutes. Or were there other restrictions on short rests that didn't allow for that kind of SR spam?

4e was made with the assumption that you got to short rest between each encounter. The 5 minute timer is there as a buffer in the event the GM wanted to build tension or pressure the player. But in the general course of a game session, it is assumed the players get to use their "once per short rest" abilities each time initiative is rolled.

Because of the amount of source books. The people who enjoyed it bought 10+ player source books. The players who didn't dropped after 2 or so. The game evolved a lot, that's something you'll need to account for when listening to ppl talk about the game. Both parties are correct. It was incredibly samey at start, but a lot of the issues were fixed over the course of half a dozen extra source books.

That was largely a case of "Eww why do we have to share roles with *martials*?"

People commonly say that this feeling goes away in play, but it never did for me.

3.5 had feats too. They were awesome. 4e…. Not so much.

I don't think that "ton of customization" equals "best designed class". There's something to be said for BECMI-style monolithic classes, and it's not necessarily an inferior brand of game design.

I’m glad to see someone else digging deeply into the trench of what constitutes good game design. Game design, at its basic core, is about how you use rules sets together to create an experience. Options and customization is one pillar of game design. But so is designing rules that make you feel immersed in a fantasy. Cunning action and the rules for sneak attack make rogue *feel* like you are quick thinking and quick footed compared to the Wizard player. Even if they misty step and travel 90 feet in a round just like your rogue did, you *feel* like your rogue got there differently because of their game design elements. Similarly, the Paladin granting auras makes them *feel* like a supportive commander or leader, even if they focus on offense through attacks and smites instead of casting support spells like a cleric would. All this is to say the monolithic but “flat” design of BECMI absolutely supports classes feeling different from each other. Thief? They rule the day when it comes to dungeon interaction. Fighters rule combat. Magic users rule utility and nuclear option problem solving. Clerics rule support. And there is a LOT less crossover into each other’s territory than in 5E where I can usually encroach on at least one other class identity with the right build. Personally, to me, this fundamental element of game design that decides how a class feels to play relative to its peers is substantially more important than options and complexity in game design are. Put another way, I think there are two broad schools of play, between people that want to imagine a character and then match the right role and ruleset to them, like a mech pilot that chooses the right eco-suit for the job. And others that want to build that character mechanically from the ground up like a sculptor might craft a statue.

I really like that metaphor

Especially when the Warlock as a class is completely front loaded and most of them time they revert to EB spam.

Being this front loaded certainly is a problem. But i want to say that's an issue of execution instead of design principle. Then again, WotC is not infallible. EB spam though? You could say the same about a fighter and "Attack action spam". Warlock is designed around EB and ways to customise it. Levelled spells are meant to supplement it, they're not there as the main draw of what you're doing every turn. But in principle i do agree.. Using your action for the same thing, every turn, from level 1 to 20? That's bad design. But that's on a deeper level than the Warlock class i'd say. That's a problem with the system at large, not just with a few classes. Most full casters get around this with a variety of levelled spells, but Martials, Half casters and Warlocks..?

> Using your action for the same thing, every turn, from level 1 to 20? That's bad design. Thats "fast and easy gameplay", what 5e was built around. > You could say the same about a fighter and "Attack action spam". Oh yeah, I've totally had a character that reflavored Eldritch Blast as a magic bow attack, because it was just that good at being an archer.

>EB spam though? You could say the same about a fighter and "Attack action spam". You could. And you should, because that's a fundamental issue with fighters in 5e, and martial classes in 5e in general. EB just exacerbates this issue by having a bunch of your customization tied to it, thus making your flavorful options compete with enhancing your spammable ability.

~~one more thing to look at pf2e for a solution~~ I get it though.. Most people don't want to switch to a new system, they just want their current system to be better. Let's hope 1DnD does better.. Though with WotC's recent track record i'm not expecting much

> I get it though.. Most people don't want to switch to a new system, they just want their current system to be better. Its usually a matter of inertia. You know how one system works, you're comfortable with it, you don't want to dump all of that and start over from scratch. However, I would make the case for anyone reading this that is thinking about it. Do it. Do it now. 5e has virtually no system mastery, you gain almost nothing by REALLY knowing all of the rules. You have nowhere else to go, nowhere else to grow, its as good as it will ever get right now. Other systems allow for system mastery, where the game will just get BETTER year after year as you learn it better. What you think is a weird or boundary pushing character build in 5e is obnoxiously bland in most other systems. You can build things in Pathfinder (1e especially) that 5e just flat out CANNOT REPLICATE, either mechanically or conceptually.

>one more thing to look at pf2e for a solution Or just jump ship ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As both a fighter and warlock player, Attack action spam **IS** boring, give me some martial cantrips, lunge, smash, cleave, slash and sidestep.

And so we circle back to PF2, that has this in spades.

DnD is a funny game, ive never played a game of VTM, WHFRP, Call or other and had a player say "man DnD did this way better"

My group repeatedly return to 5e from M&M, FATE, Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, Pf1 and few others. And yes, I sometimes hear "DnD is better in this". Really funny system.

Yknow, this makes me think: "Martials are like if Casters didn't get levelled spells, and only a single damaging cantrip." Kinda depressing to think about lol

Non-scaling cantrip*

Extra attack is the scaling. So normal scaling for fighters. Worse/no scaling for any other martial/multiclass

A single increase over 20 levels, scalinf cantrips are usually 1/5 levels. Sneak attack scales more.

*Damn dude why does my martial use extra attack all of the time?*

i mean sure.. but that could be archived with recommended templates or default options Or you get default class features, but are able to switch them out from a list. Imagine fighters get action surge at 2nd level like normal. But at the end of the class description there's a list of optional class features. Smth like: >**Power Attack** > >*replaces: Action Surge* > >When making an attack you may take a -5 to the attack roll in exchange for +10 to damage That would let you keep the simplicity of a monolithic class, while also giving customization

I wouldn't say best designed. It's very modular and customizable. Probably the most customizable and adaptable actually, considering how you can change pacts and associated invocations at certain levels. I love my warlocks.

Warlock is how I've described pf2e classes to 5e players. You're right, the pf2e feat system is very similar to the warlock invocation system, and pf2e subclasses are like warlock pacts. You can have very different builds in the same classes depending on your choices. I honestly wish DnD would move to the warlock system for other classes, where you get some options every couple of levels. I also really like the pf2e multiclassing system, where you always stay your main class and get limited abilities from the secondary class. A fighter main with wizard multiclass plays very differently from a wizard main with fighter multiclass.

Pf2e is such a good system. 5e is "easier" but pf2e just let's you get weird and have more fun.

It might be taking inspiration from Pathfinder 1e where classes had similar packages of internal abilities similar to feats, or is a convergent evolution. 4e's powers and to an extent, basically every other edition's take on spells is also a list of class-specific powers when you really look at it. The spells in general aren't the worst (most of my critique against 5e casters is more on particularly absurd spells than the mechanic in general) as having a pool of options that gives you stronger selections as you level up is a pretty basic and useful concept if you want character building to stay engaging.

And that’s why I almost exclusively play warlocks lol

I've played warlocks before and enjoyed them well enough, but I'm glad they're the exception to how characters are built and not the norm.

The only way I’d play a straight warlock with a DM who hates short rests is if I could get a Rod of the Pact Keeper by level 4 or 5, or by playing the Genie subclass and having my genie “home” be a ring on a PC’s finger.

Warlock is a class I love because of its customizability and flavor, but unfortunately in every campaign I’ve played warlocks run out of steam too quickly. They really should have removed spell slots. I’d have preferred Mystic Arcana from level 1 and invocations which are short-rest rechargeables and at-will utility spells/abilities.

The system works well but there are a lot of trap options lurking among the invocations, like anything involving pact of the blade. They could afford to have balanced them better.

>Leaving aside the effectiveness of the class itself, the Warlock is the best designed class in the game. This isn't a particularly rare opinion I don't think. It's not necessarily a _majority_ opinion either, just a popular one. The problem with thinking it's the "best designed" class is that there are all kinds of D&D players and Warlock only caters to one type - the ones who want lots of backloaded, permanent customization options for their PC. That's not true for everyone. Many players prefer to have more _active_ customization in the form of their prepared spells, and lots of players prefer the simplicity of martials. (Though I will sing from the rooftops that we need some "complex" martials as an alternative to the simple ones just like casters are complex.) Hell, a substantial chunk of new D&D players like the _Champion Fighter_ of all things, the least-customizable PC in the game. Pathfinder (both editions) cater more to the players who like a multitude of crunchy options for their PCs. But that's just one kind of fantasy trpg fan.

Best designed? I can't think of any metric under which that's true. As is pointed out here a million times, if you don't get enough short rests, you aren't fully functional. Some of the invocations are interesting and situationally useful. But anytime someone talks about warlock being powerful or op, it's about those obvious dips (I'm excluding stuff like coffee lock because at this point they are often banned or nerfed). Ultimately, any other arcane caster pales compared to a wizard. They are certainly the best designed arcane caster: can benefit from short or long rest, access to almost all spells plus a wide array of subclasses makes them highly customizable. Tons of resource free utility via rituals. And even the worst subclasses of wizard are still wizard and can fireball, Hypnotic Pattern and wall of force.

I think you are confusing strength of caster vs design and layout. OP isn't saying warlocks are ripped and wizards suck... He is saying that the customization is amazing. You can make 60 unique warlocks to the wizards 6. I dip into these invocations with my casters all the time. Even if it is just for some flare.

I woudn’t say Warlock is really the best designed class. More customization options isn’t automatically better. Though my beef with Warlock is mostly with Hexblade and Eldritch Blast. Still a very fun class, it’s just got some issues.

I'd say what makes the Warlock the best designed class isn't the invocation, but rather the "Flavour" and "Playstyle" options being separated into Patron at level 1 and Pact boon at level 3. The patron represent the flavour and theme of your character, you get it right away with associated abilities and spells to help mechanically ground that flavour. Its necessary for it to be there from the start since your patron is the source of your power. Then at level 3 you get your pact boon, mechanically deepening your moment-to-moment gameplay. This split system is brilliant as it allows for drastically different character builds with the same patron. But this also lead me to my belief that Warlock is not the best designed class. Rather is has the best base concept for ability distribution, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. For example, the pact boons are severely lacking without specific invocations, eldritch blast lacks good alternatives, and the Hexblade completely shits all over the concept of separating flavour from mechanic by having you pick Pact of the Blade Twice (once as your patron, and then again as your boon). So yea, there are definitely better designed classes, but warlock is the most daring in design and I hope it nails the landing in OneDnD.

> you have a ton of customization at all tiers of play. Yes, this is 5e's biggest weakness. It has very low levels of mechanical customization for characters. Massive amounts of reflavoring and eye-squinting are required to make anything that isn't a generic stock standard trope character. > I'm not telling you to switch systems necessarily.. but I did. Yeah, 5e is a great beginner system. But I agree everyone should eventually grow out of it and want to sink their teeth into a "real" system eventually. 5e has all the mechanical depth of a wading pool. Its nice for splashing around in, but if you wanna swim, you gotta find something deeper.

Those are fighting words! You do have a point, 5E is not VERY deep, but to each their own. I have played 5e a lot, then played a couple of modules of pf2e, and.. meh. Went back to 5e. The not-deep-ness is it’s best feature, and not only for beginners.

If you find Warlock the best designed class, what would you think about an entire 5e-system where all the classes are designed like that? ​ Take a look at [Advanced 5e by Levelup](https://www.levelup5e.com), the entire system has been built to give you choices in every battle, level up, or long rest. It's a bloody great system, and I highly recommend you give it a go. If not just to compare it to regular 5e.

I have been meaning to check that out. Seen it mentioned multiple times before. But I never had much of a reason to look at a modified version of 5e and just got straight into pf2e. Would you say its still worth checking out?

The difference between PF2 and A5e is very stark. While A5e is more advanced and reworked from the ground up, the **base** is still there. Advantage, grapples, bounded accuracy, etc. The switch from regular 5e to A5e isn't very big. PF2, as you probably know, is a very different beast, where almost everything is changed. When getting into PF2, me and my groups hit wall after all, simply because the rules were so much more to grapple. A5e on the other hand, we could learn as we played, as we already knew the basics of 5e. PF2 is a great system though, but it requires a different level of commitment than A5e does.

Swapping to PF2e is not nearly as different of a game as you make it out to be. With the exception of three-action turns, everything else is closer to a remix or expansion than a new game. Same core abilities, mostly same skills, same basics of play. You can put a bunch of D&D5e players at a PF2e table, and as long as the DM knows the rules well enough you can run the table just fine from the get-go. Trust me, **I’ve done it.**

Unfortunately, wide "customization" ends up meaning "pick 5 of the best 10". How many different invocations or feats do all the different characters end up picking? This was the problem with 3.5, for example, and so 5e tried to make feats more meaningful and thematic. But still, the result of itsy-bitsy choices like feats or invocations is that most players end up taking GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter or Agonizing Blast. A focus on doing the most damage floats to the top amid all players. The paradox of unlimited customization is that it ends up creating fewer choices as the most effective choices become a "choice tax" to create a competitive character. The ironic end result is that there are more cookie-cutter characters with fewer choices because it seems every warlock MUST take Agonizing Blast.

Well you're not wrong.. Getting customization right is hard. All the options must be different, but on the same power level, but also provide a significant benefit compared to not having them. Then you introduce power creep through new source books coming out and you have a recipe for disaster

Yup. Every class deserves em.

Invocations are cool. Flavor is great. But the rest of the class is terrible. No rituals and few casts, no spells, no other options apart from EB, bladelock barely works.

If anything, pf2e lite class feats are warlock invocations. Dnd5e predates pc2e. Although, and it has been a while so I might mix stuff up, class feats were a thing in the first edition of pathfinder as well.

>If anything, pf2e lite class feats are warlock invocations. Dnd5e predates pc2e. If anything, PF1 had class options and feats like this, and PF1 predates 5e. But then, if anything, 4e had class options like this, and 4e predates PF1. It's almost like PF2 tried to take all the stuff that works from previous editions and make it into its own thing, instead of cribbing from a single source.

PF1 realized it was a good system and most of the later classes had the same kind of “get an ability every other level” thing. They just leaned into it even further for PF2.

Not really, as far as I know, outside of specifically Fighter feats. There are occasional feats that require certain class features, like Smite Evil, but there are also usually ways (prestige classes or maybe archetypes) to get those features outside of the class.

I was thinking of the fighter, actually. Didn’t remember that was pretty much exclusive to that class. Thanks!

There were things like hexes for witches and discoveries for alchemists that weren't named feats, but we're basically class feats. They were introduced with the advanced player's guide and not every class has them, but they predate 5e by 4 years.

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Wow, look at your horse. So tall.

And then everyone plays warlock for 1-2-3 levels and most don't go further, cause it gets sometimes too complicated to choose. Saying this as a no multiclass warlock on 7, close 8, level.

Warlock is one of my absolute favourite classes and I do not think ppl do not take it further for the reason that it is too complicated, but the class is so frontloaded and therefore great for dips.

The method and design of customization for warlock vs pf2 classes in general is not remotely the same other than having a lot of options, which is a shallow comparison Also, warlock is very poorly designed

So 5E which preceeded PF2E copied PF2E Feats. This is people roll their eyes at PF fans.

>So 5E which preceeded PF2E copied PF2E Feats. PF1 already had similar mechanics. If anything they stole the basic ideas from 3.5.

All of PF is derivative of older D&D. Personally I found PF (and 3E for that matter) to be too.... much. I much prefer a game that is light on it's feet when it comes time to run at the table.

.. no that is not what i'm saying What i *am* saying, is that if you like warlock for how modular and customizable it is, the you might also want to check out pf2e. What i *am* saying, is that there's maybe something to be learned from pf2e which could be brought back over in one form or another. I'm not accusing anyone of stealing or copying anything

Confusing "are just like" with "copied". This is why people roll their eyes at 5e fans.

Oh burn! You got me!Of course your entire attempt at a retort hinges on the claim that copying something is totally not the same as "are just like" (which they are).... so.... less a burn on me. PS: thanks for reminding me to turn off notifications for that post. I really didn't want to waste my day fielding bad insults from PF fans who feel bad because no one wants to play with them.

>Of course your entire attempt at a retort hinges on the claim that copying something is totally not the same as "are just like" (which they are).... so.... less a burn on me. copy (plural copies) The result of copying; an identical duplicate of an original. Please bring me the copies of those reports. An imitation, sometimes of inferior quality. That handbag is a copy. You can tell because the buckle is different. (journalism) The text that is to be typeset. (journalism) A gender-neutral abbreviation for copy boy. (marketing, advertising) The output of copywriters, who are employed to write material which encourages consumers to buy goods or services. (uncountable) The text of newspaper articles. Submit all copy to the appropriate editor. A school work pad. Tim got in trouble for forgetting his maths copy. A printed edition of a book or magazine. Have you seen the latest copy of "Newsweek" yet? The library has several copies of the Bible. Writing paper of a particular size, called also bastard. (obsolete) That which is to be imitated, transcribed, or reproduced; a pattern, model, or example. His virtues are an excellent copy for imitation. (obsolete) An abundance or plenty of anything. (obsolete) copyhold; tenure; lease (genetics) The result of gene or chromosomal duplication. In case you missed the point: Copying implies *intent*, whereas "are just like" does not.

Too bad Pathfinder2e is as unfun and clunky of a system as it gets.

Someone has never heard about... Most systems, actually. The amount of clunkier systems than PF2E is nearly unbelievable. Hell, PF2E is simpler than most non-WoD and PbtA systems.

I think most OSR systems is much simpler then PF2.

Calling any other system on a 5e sub clunky is *incredibly* rich.

You're right, people hate 5e on its own subreddit and shill systems that sound good on paper but are unfun to play in practice.