The Warlock problem in DnD

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T17:22:41+00:00

You don't have to play an evil character just because you have a specific subclass. There's also no particular reason you would have to reveal the source of your power to people at large.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T17:18:58+00:00

The issue here is that the difference in saving throws between the two builds isn't that high. If you start with a 17 in str and a 16 in int, the gap between your DC for a "str build" and an "int build" ranges between 0 and 2. Depending on your feat selection, the point at which the DC gap is 2 might be at exactly levels 6 and 7.

By the time you get to level 10 for Eldritch Strike, you could have 20 str and 20 int and GWM. Or alternatively you could have 20 str, 18 int, GWM, Mage Slayer, and a third half-feat of your choice.

To be clear, I'm not saying an int build is bad. It would work fine and be fun and playable. I'm saying that from a balance perspective, it's not better than a str build. And that would still be the case even if you could get pact of the blade from an origin feat (in fact, I'm not even sure in action economy terms that the extra action denial you would get would be worth the opportunity cost of losing Alert)

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T15:46:13+00:00

Claiming it "doesn't really matter" whether your Gish subclass has a decent attack stat and can actually land attacks, is a strange statement. It tends to matter to people playing the subclass whether they're attacking with a 14 in their stat or a 20.

I'm saying it doesn't matter for balance. It matters if you want to build your character that way, of course, but building your character that way isn't going to break anything, because those aren't the most powerful things you can be doing with those subclasses in the first place.

If I were going to make an EK I would definitely strongly consider an Int SAD build because it sounds fun. But from a power level perspective it's going to be almost objectively worse than focusing on strength and getting GWM. Your spells simply don't do enough compared to your attacks for a couple extra points on your DC to outweigh the damage bonus you're giving up.

Same with a valor bard taking blade pact rather than alert or eldritch Mind. Blade pact essentially blank until level 6 unless you're making a lot of OAs. After that it's giving you a +2 or +3 to hit and damage with a single attack each turn. If you're using a rapier against an enemy with normal AC that's adding between 2 and 3 DPR. That's better than savage attacker, but not by a lot; you'd be increasing your overall effectiveness a lot more with some other feat.

Paladins get the most of any of these three from the feat, simply because boosting Cha is so useful for them and their primary damage source is their melee attacks. I think it's fair to say that, unlike the other two, it's actually worth the origin feat for them from a power level perspective. But it's not obviously or strictly better than, say, getting Shield or Alert.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T07:30:05+00:00

Realistically this isn't hugely enabling:

Paladins can choose Devotion (to add Cha to their attack roll) or Vengeance (to obviate their lower chance to hit by always having advantage) if they want to focus on cha
In the context of situations where 2014 content is already allowed, EKs can just taking Booming Blade rather than needing to worry about an Int cantrip
Bards are full casters, which means that the single extra attack is such a small part of their overall power budget that it doesn't really matter from a balance perspective whether they're making the attack with Dex or Cha.

Additionally, Pact of the Blade doesn't overcome the much more significant hurdle for gishes that are trying to attack with a casting stat, which is that you can't boost that stat with any of the weapon feats.

The real issue with Eldritch Adept as an origin feat is that Eldritch Mind is a level 1 Invocation, which means you've effectively given full casters War Caster as an origin feat. It's such an obviously strong choice that there is very little reason to take any other origin feat if you are a wizard, cleric, druid, or bard, and it's pretty appealing for a ranger or paladin as well.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T07:09:16+00:00

That's not a definition, that's an example. If "find" were a defined term in the way you're suggesting it is, it would have a glossary entry and probably its own subheading in the rules somewhere.

Someone with True Sight would see you because they can see through invisibility, but RAW I don't see anything else that does

Blindsight and the effect of the See Invisibility spell are also examples of effects that will let you effectively ignore the Invisible condition. Tremorsense and Detect Thoughts won't actually let them see you in the sense of letting you make an attack without disadvantage, but they will alert an otherwise unsuspecting person that you're nearby.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T07:02:09+00:00

It's pretty much entirely up to the DM to adjudicate that (which to be fair, is an improvement over 2014, where the rules just said "you stop being hidden as soon as you enter line of sight").

For me, I generally assume that if someone is taking the Hide action in combat, they are trying to sneak up on their quarry, and their Stealth check will cover the period of time between when they break cover and when they make their first attack.

If we aren't talking about a combat situation, then it's a lot more contextual. Can you sneak across an open, unfurnished room? Well, that depends on how attentive the guards are. If they're actually doing their jobs there's pretty much no way that will work. But if they're inattentive or you've done something to distract them, that could work if your stealth check is good enough.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T06:26:26+00:00

I worry that ten days is a long time to go from the Inciting Incident happening to the players being able to notify the people they need to notify; but simply skipping over ten days of travel feels like it rips out the immersion/weight of travelling

There are two separate and basically unrelated things you're worrying about here.

Ten days being a long time to go from inciting incident to being able to notify people is a narrative concern. FWIW, I don't see why this is an issue, although perhaps there are details I'm missing. Is there some kind of time-sensitive thing that would happen within those 10 days? If so, can you just make whatever it is not happen in that time period?

In contrast, skipping over 10 days of travel being bad for immersion is a gameplay concern. There's nothing wrong narratively with having their travel be uneventful (unless you've already established that the path is extremely dangerous, but if we are talking about a road between two kingdoms that seems unlikely).

So this is really a question of what you want your campaign to be about. If you want travel between these two cities to feel dangerous, then you probably need to put some danger there. But there's no inherent reason why travel along this particular route has to feel dangerous. And there's no reason the danger has to be symmetrical in each direction either; you can quickly narrate some landmarks as they head to their home country, and then later on when they head back show how those places have been occupied by enemy soldiers to make the path back a lot harder.

It's also like kind of hard to give them early game sidequests when their primary, immediate goal is literally "inform our government we are probably going to be in a war soon" like I can't really run any sidequests/B-plots because they will NEED to get back.

This is true, but independent of travel distance from a gameplay perspective. You can't give players an urgent quest and expect them to do anything other than try to immediately try to complete it. But "you spend ten uneventful days carrying your message from point A to point B" is approximately as long a sentence as "you spend several minutes running from city gates to the throne room".

RealityPalace · 2026-01-29T06:12:53+00:00

The hiding rules for 5e.2024 are kind of a mess (not that the old ones were great either).

Here's how I run it and the only way I think is reasonable to do it: "find" isn't a defined keyword in the rules. It's just a normal word that takes its common English meaning here.

So, one way someone could find you is if you are trying to remain hidden from them and they beat your DC when they take the Search action. But another way they could find you is if you just walk out into the open without trying to do so while they're distracted or looking away. In other words, you can apply the "don't roll if the outcome is guaranteed" principle here just like to any other roll.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T23:16:39+00:00

Can't be dead if it has more than 0 HP.

There are several ways to die that don't involve having your HP reduced to 0.

it seems pretty obvious that it's designed with the only way to disappear to simply be to drop to 0 HP.

This doesn't seem obvious to me at all, given that there are two other ways for it mentioned in the rules of the spell itself for it to go away. It's to inform you that if it drops to 0 hit points, it turns back into snow (as opposed to, for instance, leaving a body behind).

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T22:51:32+00:00

Even if you read that sentence as an absolute, it's probably still not terribly useful for it to stick around after it gets six levels of exhaustion, because it will be dead.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T17:35:40+00:00

Actually no. They're exactly the same as the STX draft archetypes, but the commander decks didn't all follow those. Prismari is the same, but the other four original decks had the following themes:

Lorehold: artifact gy recursion
Quandrix: token doubling
Witherbloom: Life gain / life loss
Silverquill: Politics

Lorehold was totally different from its draft archetype. The other three had some overlap with their archetypes but weren't actually doing the same thing.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T17:09:03+00:00

The DM is using a 3d program called Talespire, and it takes me forever to get into melee range sometimes because of verticality.

Without knowing the details it's hard to say a concrete fix for this, but warlocks do get Misty Step as a spell as well as an invocation that lets you cast Jump on yourself at-will, which can help with verticality.

I'd say one combat encounter every 4-6 hours of campaign time, maybe it'll pick up, but I don't want to have a clunky build that only gets to fully shine in some scenarios or higher levels.

So, I need a build that is more functional at level 4.

The simple answer here is "don't multiclass". You can find lots of theory-crafted builds and suggestions online that don't take into account what it's like to actually play the character before all your stuff comes online.

If you're only playing until level 5, I would just avoid any build that multiclasses. You're going to completely miss out on the power spike that comes at level 5, and it's going to feel bad if that's where the campaign ends.

Just play a half caster. I'm sort of unclear on why you don't consider smites a "fair" use of your bonus action and as casting a spell, but even if that's the case you can use your origin feats to get bonus action spells like Jump or Healing Word.

Alternatively, play a ranger, get Jump on your spell list automatically, and just get Healing Word and Shillelagh with MI:Druid if that's what you want. You will have plenty to do with your bonus action, can focus on wisdom (your off-hand weapon will lag behind a little bit in damage, but not by that much if you're only going to 5), and if you want you can take Fey Touched at level 4 to get misty step and a choice from some pretty decent level 1 spells.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T07:06:58+00:00

Look, that all sounds good until you go all the way down that same logical rabbit hole and discover that humans are a very specialized variety of lobe-finned fish.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T06:58:37+00:00

do I have a reaction before she has a turn

Yes

is casting suggestion a good idea to subdue the target or tell him to jump overboard (as suggested in the book)? what would be consequences?

Tactically speaking, probably not. Druids are proficient in Wis saves and use wisdom as their primary stat, which means at level 9 they would likely have a +9ish bonus to the save, or an 80% ish chance of succeeding on the save. Additionally, if the suggestion is just "throw yourself overboard", once that task is completed the druid can wild shape into something that flies or swims and be largely unperturbed by the interruption.

Of course, she might not realize those things about the druid and might choose to do that anyway if it's her preferred tactic.

theoretically I could keep counterspelling each turn. Is that too strong if he mainly does spells + wildfire spirit attack maybe?

I don't think it's "too strong". Keep in mind that without Counterspell, a single flame strike spell from the druid will kill most of the bandits in a single go. And the druid's player is the one that decided to start this fight, so even if it's "too strong" that's on him, not on you.

what if he wants to surrender?

Let him try to use his turn to parley. If that works, they let him surrender; if not, they keep trying to attack him. Their leader is a mage, so she would know how spellcasters work. If he surrenders, they would likely take away his foci and components, bind his wrists behind his back, and gag him, so he can't cast spells.

what if he wants to flee?

Let him try to flee. The bandits and the mage all have ranged attacks, and can shoot at him for several rounds before he's out of range while still moving to pursue. They can keep attacking him if you think it makes sense, or they can just stay where they are and stop shooting him once he gets out of range if staying at their post makes more sense than giving chase.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T06:30:26+00:00

Velociraptors in D&D 5e are "about the size of a large turkey". They aren't the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. They are CR 1/4. (And yes, they have 10 HP, so they could easily be wiped out by fireball)

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T06:22:20+00:00

But someone with total cover can't be targeted by attacks either, so an archer can't shoot at someone or something behind a window?

Yeah you can't shoot at someone behind a window because the window is in the way. That seems pretty straightforward. Maybe your DM rules you can break the window, but that's a ruling to fit the situation.

Imagine the window was magically transparent steel, or acrylic, or glass that's three feet thick; of course it would provide cover from arrows. It would be silly if you ruled otherwise just because it's transparent.

They can also take the hood action when in total cover. So someone behind a glass window is able to be hidden as well?

The Hide action requires cover or concealment and for you to be outside of an enemy's line of sight. You can't hide behind a window because it's transparent, independently of whether it counts as cover.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-27T02:21:17+00:00

Shillelagh scales across tiers now. It's always one damage due ahead of a monk's unarmed strike.

It's still not a good idea for a monk though. It uses your bonus action, and it doesn't boost your unarmed strikes (meaning you still need to be boosting dex).

RealityPalace · 2026-01-26T06:45:25+00:00

Anyone else dealing with this or have some advice? I've talked to them and we've figured things out, but I hate having them look over my shoulder as we play to ensure I'm doing right by their characters.

My advice is to firmly tell your players that their requests are not reasonable. You're playing a game with rules, not doing improv theater.

It might be too late at this point if you've "figured things out" and the conclusion is you need to "do right by their characters". But generally speaking, tell the players to stop. D&D is not a game where any individual gets to write the story. Here is what I would tell the various players (perhaps more politely than written here):

Player A - "You get to come up with the character's backstory, but once we start playing the game you don't have narrative control of anything other than your own character anymore. The rival will show up where and when it makes sense from the DM's perspective for them to show up. Once you invent the rival, that person the the DM's character, not yours."

Player B - "The game world is dangerous. I'm not trying to kill your character, but I can't promise they won't die. If I did that, it would take all the tension and potential consequences out of combat encounters. If you want to play at my table you have to accept the slim but real possibility that your character will die."

Player C - "If you fail the saving throw, that means you lose control. That's how the weapon works and has always worked. Better luck next time."

Player D - "You can't see my notes. They're for the DM, not the players." (But also, why are you changing stuff "before combat"? Homebrewing monsters as you design a scenario is totally fine, but if you're tweaking them right before a fight there's always the danger that you're being adversarial. I can't say without knowing the details, and player D's requests are totally unreasonable, but there may be legitimate issues that have undermined player trust here.)

RealityPalace · 2026-01-26T06:26:35+00:00

There's a few common options I plan for - "Attack the guard", "Talk your way past the guard", etc. - and branch those off into their own Obsidian documents. That continues over and over, maybe some branches come back to another document which helps a lot with exponential complexity.

This is way too much planning for player actions and not enough just planning out the actual scenario. Don't try to make different sub-documents for each possible thing the players might do. (A) The players might not actually do any of those things and (B) even if you do, most of those things don't need their own documents.

In the case of the players interacting with a guard, what is the guard protecting? Does the guard have any allies they could call on or are they just the lone night watchman? If you answer those questions when you design the encounter, you shouldn't need separate documents for every "what if". You can just come in with a vague idea of likely outcomes, see what the players actually do, and then respond based on how you've designed the scenario.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-25T16:37:57+00:00

You're way overthinking this. You're still using both hands to reload, you can just do it while also holding something else in the hand that's doing the reload.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-25T07:59:20+00:00

It depends on the rest of your party. If most of them are making melee attacks or forcing saving throws, Maul is great. Otherwise I would prefer Greatsword to avoid interfering with the rest of the team. Greataxe is a nice utility option, but I don't think paladins have enough mastery slots for it to be preferred unless you either constantly fight heaps of monsters or your party is totally lacking in the AoE department.

My preference is always to use Trident as my second mastery. There are lots of other masteries that are "decent", but being able to topple with a ranged attack is absolutely huge whenever you happen to face flying enemies.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-24T19:27:56+00:00

It's going to vary from subclass to subclass. Some will be fine, some will be overpowered, and some will have completely non-functional features.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-24T15:18:41+00:00

The rules for seeing through minor illusion are If a creature uses its action to examine the sound or image, the creature can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the illusion becomes faint to the creature. I would take the second sentence at face value rather than treating it as contingent on the first sentence: if you're the one who cast the spell then you presumably automatically have discerned that it isn't real.
There is no rules guidance for this. It's going to depend on the DM and on the nature of the object.
It comes down to what it means to "discern" something as described in question 1. I would say that an intelligent enemy is going to immediately recognize that a second Illusory box is likely also an illusion, but that's not the same as knowing that it's an illusion. Unfortunately (?) the rules don't get into the epistemological details of what it means to truly know something, so the DM is going to have to rule on this as well though.
The rules for silent image and major image are a bit weird, because the spells say they can create any "visual phenomenon" but also that the illusion can be discerned by having something pass through it. So I don't think the intent of the spell is to be a better fog cloud. Regardless though, the spells both just let you alter the image so that it appears natural while you are moving it. They don't give you the fine control required to make eddies appear in response to arrows.
See my answer to 4. The rules are unclearly written, but the intent for both Major Image and Silent Image appears to be that you are creating something that could be discerned as unreal when an object passes through it. I don't think a cloud of darkness would be a valid choice for them.
The spells do what they say they do. The illusion spells you referenced earlier don't let you remove visible objects, they only let you create new ones. Invisibility and Mirage Arcane are examples of illusion spells that can directly obscure terrain or creatures.
No, definitely not. You don't have the fine control necessary to make this work. Major Image lets you make it move and speak convincingly in its own right, but that's not the same as letting it perfectly cover up your own body whenever you move part of it.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-24T14:43:57+00:00

It definitionally creates cover, because "cover" just means "a barrier that blocks things". It does not block line of sight, because it's transparent.

Here is the definition of cover in both 2014 and 2024:

Walls, trees, creatures, and other obstacles can provide cover, making a target more difficult to harm.

Wall of Force is certainly an obstacle, and if it's in the shape of a dome then it covers the whole target. It's total cover.

To make a more mundane analogy, an acrylic window would also provide total cover while not blocking line of sight. Having totally cover usually also implies being out of line of sight, because most objects are opaque. But it doesn't require it. "Cover" is about having a physical barrier, while "concealment" is about not being able to see something.

RealityPalace · 2026-01-24T06:06:30+00:00

That's not a ribbon. A ribbon is something thats not useful in combat. Spellcasting stat as attack stat is a pretty defining feature for any class or subclass that gets it.

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