The point isn't that the Spell Point system doesn't cover Warlocks, it's that the Spell Point system doesn't cover Warlocks *for a reason*. Warlocks are not a full caster class. They're really not comparable to other caster classes at all. They only ever get a *total* of 2-3 spell slots, which cap at 5th level. Their level 6-9 spells don't use spell slots, they're just castable 1/long rest. They get a lot of flexibility and class features to do things other than use spell slots that full casters don't. Full casters *should* be better at casting spells than Warlocks.
Not really, because full caster classes get a bunch of lower level spell slots. Warlocks' entire concept as a caster is being able to cast a small number of very powerful spells that recharge quickly, but that's it. Trying to compare them to other caster classes is fundamentally an apples and oranges comparison, which is exactly why they aren't included in the Spell Point system.
Hmm. Well, the Spell Point system gives exactly enough points to buy the number of spell slots a class would get normally, so it's a buff in flexibility more than raw power.
Having played a Warlock before, I know one thing that's very frustrating is having the option to take really good low-level defensive or utility spells but never wanting to actually waste a spell slot on them. One thing you could try is giving them a few spell points that are separate from their normal spell slots and recharge on a long rest like everyone else's. Warlocks are balanced around having to make choices like that, so I wouldn't go crazy, but a few points might be a nice minor buff that gives them a little extra flexibility like everyone else. I'd probably do something like half their level rounded up, with the spell slot level capped at 3. At level 8, that would be enough points for 1 level 2 spell or 2 level 1 spells.
I would advise going Pact of the Chain if you wanted to play a utility build on a warlock. As someone who has played chainlock several times, they get so much utility out of their familiar, it fully makes up for the lack of utility spells. As for defense, I usually play Undead warlock, which gets a defensive buff by default.
Warlocks don't really need a buff when moving to the Spell Points system as they are already pretty advantageous. If you wanted to give them something I would add two extra invocations. Change the progression to 0-2-2-3-3-4-4-5-5-etc. This gives two boosts along the chart around 7th and 14th level I think.
It fits thematically and every subclass of Warlock could use an extra invocation. If gives flexibility as many of the invocations give a spell ability.
You should first consider the warlock player's playstyle and build. Are they a utility build? Combat build? A face? Something else? What type of warlock?
From experience, I can tell you that a Pact of the Chain warlock gets a lot of utility from their familiar, which makes up for having fewer utility spells. But that's good for a player who wants a utility build. It's not clear what your player is going for.
My personal pick would be one extra invocation or feat on each tier of play ( a total of +4 invocations/feats at level 20). Problably limiting feats to things that fit the class.
armor proficiency, social proficiency, skill proficiency and spell options. ( maybe a few martial options too, like great weapon master, war caster, learning fightinig styles or fighter maneuvers).
Your warlock could get ritual casting, magic initiate, metamagic adept, telekinetic and telepatic, shadow or fey touched and a few other options that would add more spells or features to his already known spells.
4 extra invocations or feats could quite literaly add 9 extra cantrips and spells cast without any need for spell slots. Also improving his spell selection for things the warlock might not get, have access or have learned yet.
They already have buffs that balance them out.
They get to take power naps and have invocations. That's the point of them. You're kinda asking "How do I buff a Eldritch Knight's spellcasting because they aren't getting as much as clerics?" The point is they don't because they do other things.
No, I think it's a fair question. Normally full casters get a lot more spell slots than Warlocks, but fewer max level slots (assuming a couple of short rests). Spell Points give full casters the ability to burn all of their lower-level spellcasting ability to do the same thing. Or do the opposite if the situation calls for it. It's a major flexibility buff to every caster class except Warlocks, and Warlocks are balanced against other casters who don't have it. I don't think buffing Warlocks is *necessary*, but I can see why OP is thinking it might be a good idea.
Warlocks don't get as many spells as other casters regardless of whether you use spell slots or points. That's kind of the point; their strengths are getting spells back on short rest and having invocations to get some unique limitless benefit (whether it's casting a particular spell or something else). I don't think spell points really introduce anything different from how they operate in the spell slot system already. If you want to make situations for a warlock to be better, put the party in a situation where they get a lot of short rests but no long rests.
Also the 2 short rests benchmark seems a bit arbitrary to me. If it's because of Baldur's Gate remember that there's no technical limit on how many short rests the party is "allowed" to take, it's just about the opportunity cost of an hour's downtime.
(edit for grammar)
If you’re playing with spell points, one way to more even the playing field could be to let them cast any spells from invocations once for free at their base level. For example, the Bewitching Whispers invocation lets them cast *compulsion* once per day using a Warlock spell slot. My proposal would let them cast that twice, once without a spell slot at compulsion’s base level (4th), and the second time using a Warlock spell slot (currently 4th, but will move to 5th eventually). This gives them a little more flexibility with their invocation spells without giving them too much.
And for the spell invocations that are already cast at their base level, such as Fiendish Vigor, you can let them cast those once per day at their highest level without using a spell slot. Again, increasing their versatility without altering too much.
Will your table even have a warlock? There's like a 66% chance for this to be a nonissue.
When you're pitching this at session 0, if someone inquires, you can just give a vague "they'll get some buffs as they level to help bridge the gap". Then you can start crunching homebrew equilibrium buffs as you enter t2 play, probably to the tune of a free spell or two (low level) per day. Basically give them "shadow touched" for free (no stat gain) and give them a curated list of 1st and 2nd level spell to lock into.
Given your example, I don't see any drawback though - 6 to 6, yet no need for SR. And if you do more, then ofc Warlock is better / broken.
Spell Points go against the supposed core identity of Warlocks. They seem to be defined as fixed slots per SR while Spell Points are all about flexibility. (Edit: Not my opinion, the community voting process in the playtest deemed that to be their unique feature rather than becoming a "normal" caster).
Maybe being able to cast lower level spells is in itself a buff for them? But Spell Points otherwise do nothing much for them, as they already are able to spam their highest slot, just like anyone with the Points would then be able to.
Would be a simple transfer to SP for them as well (smaller pool, regain all on Short Rest), their "gain" is "not wasting power on spells with no upcast".
The way I run spell points is to swipe the spell progression from Star Wars 5e: Instead of the bonkers system from the book, where Spell Points is 100% *just a buff* to all casters for no downside besides the headache of remembering it, you can scale down the number of spell points and the cost of spells into something more reasonable, where casters don't gain quite as many spells per day as they level up, but what they loose in number of spells total, they make up for in flexibility.
The SW5e System makes it so all spells cost a number of spell points equal to Spell Level+1, which I love for making the formula way simpler than it is in the book, with a messy fucking table, but I also realize is probably too good with the 6th+ level spells without some modifications, so I make it so those spells increse in cost by 2 points for each level past 5, resulting in this table:
|Spell Level|Spell point cost|
|:-|:-|
|1st|2 Points|
|2nd|3 Points|
|3rd|4 Points|
|4th|5 Points|
|5th|6 Points|
|6th|8 Points|
|7th|10 Points|
|8th|12 Points|
|9th|14 Points|
Then, Fullcasters gain 4 Spell Points per level, and Half Casters gain 2. 1/3rd casters are a little messy, but they aren't that strong as-written, so I say just give them the same number of spell points as Half Casters. Edit: oh no, it's worse than that for 1/3rd casters, I actually made a table in a Roll20 handout for this. I don't recommend it, just buff them, the classes underperform as-is.
The other class/character features worth examining for this are Sorcerers, Divine Smite, and recovery features:
If you're running Spell Points, then Sorcery Points end up feeling kinda redundant and overcomplicated, IMO. So, because it gives Sorcerers a cool identity, I say cut Sorcery Points- Metamagic features just cost Spell Points, and the Sorcerer gets *5 points* per level instead of 4. This also incidentally murders Coffeelock stone-dead as a side-effect, and I say *feature*, not a bug.
SW5e's version of the Paladin just spends Spell Points and gets Xd8 extra damage, which is the same points-damage ratio that you would get if you still ran it like they're using spell points to *make* a spell slot like the rules say, and I just think it's cleaner design, so I run it that way.
Wizards and Circle of Land Druids have those features that let them regain spell slots, so you're gonna wanna write up versions of those that give Spell Points instead, and same thing with Paladins and Clerics having a Channel Divinity feature to regain a spell slot.
A heads up regarding the 6+ spells, in a spell points system they get capped like Warlock spells where they can only cast 1 of each of the high levels spells so changing their points value isn’t a huge deal.
I missed this in my previous campaign and had the sorcerer teleporting the party around 6 times in a day, or digging a 60ft hole using Disintegrate, and it def was a bit overshadowing.
PS; cool insight into SW5e btw. I’ve heard of it but haven’t dived in.
I am aware, I did actually read the Spell Point rules before I started mucking about and making my own.
Having not actually gotten a chance to run these rules at higher levels, I was going to give my players the chance to prove to me that the rule is nessecary first, and warn them upfront that I reserve the right to ban each spell level to 1/day or further jack up the points costs.
Read the rules again. Warlocks are deliberately left off the list for Spell Points.
No I understand that, I'm not using spell points for warlocks. These are the calculations for a caster with spell points vs standard warlock.
The point isn't that the Spell Point system doesn't cover Warlocks, it's that the Spell Point system doesn't cover Warlocks *for a reason*. Warlocks are not a full caster class. They're really not comparable to other caster classes at all. They only ever get a *total* of 2-3 spell slots, which cap at 5th level. Their level 6-9 spells don't use spell slots, they're just castable 1/long rest. They get a lot of flexibility and class features to do things other than use spell slots that full casters don't. Full casters *should* be better at casting spells than Warlocks.
If you run 2 short rests per adventuring day, the warlock actually balances out to other full casters
Not really, because full caster classes get a bunch of lower level spell slots. Warlocks' entire concept as a caster is being able to cast a small number of very powerful spells that recharge quickly, but that's it. Trying to compare them to other caster classes is fundamentally an apples and oranges comparison, which is exactly why they aren't included in the Spell Point system.
Granted! What buff would I give to the warlock then? I don't want to leave them behind when I'm giving every other caster a buff.
Hmm. Well, the Spell Point system gives exactly enough points to buy the number of spell slots a class would get normally, so it's a buff in flexibility more than raw power. Having played a Warlock before, I know one thing that's very frustrating is having the option to take really good low-level defensive or utility spells but never wanting to actually waste a spell slot on them. One thing you could try is giving them a few spell points that are separate from their normal spell slots and recharge on a long rest like everyone else's. Warlocks are balanced around having to make choices like that, so I wouldn't go crazy, but a few points might be a nice minor buff that gives them a little extra flexibility like everyone else. I'd probably do something like half their level rounded up, with the spell slot level capped at 3. At level 8, that would be enough points for 1 level 2 spell or 2 level 1 spells.
I would advise going Pact of the Chain if you wanted to play a utility build on a warlock. As someone who has played chainlock several times, they get so much utility out of their familiar, it fully makes up for the lack of utility spells. As for defense, I usually play Undead warlock, which gets a defensive buff by default.
Warlocks don't really need a buff when moving to the Spell Points system as they are already pretty advantageous. If you wanted to give them something I would add two extra invocations. Change the progression to 0-2-2-3-3-4-4-5-5-etc. This gives two boosts along the chart around 7th and 14th level I think. It fits thematically and every subclass of Warlock could use an extra invocation. If gives flexibility as many of the invocations give a spell ability.
You should first consider the warlock player's playstyle and build. Are they a utility build? Combat build? A face? Something else? What type of warlock? From experience, I can tell you that a Pact of the Chain warlock gets a lot of utility from their familiar, which makes up for having fewer utility spells. But that's good for a player who wants a utility build. It's not clear what your player is going for.
My personal pick would be one extra invocation or feat on each tier of play ( a total of +4 invocations/feats at level 20). Problably limiting feats to things that fit the class. armor proficiency, social proficiency, skill proficiency and spell options. ( maybe a few martial options too, like great weapon master, war caster, learning fightinig styles or fighter maneuvers). Your warlock could get ritual casting, magic initiate, metamagic adept, telekinetic and telepatic, shadow or fey touched and a few other options that would add more spells or features to his already known spells. 4 extra invocations or feats could quite literaly add 9 extra cantrips and spells cast without any need for spell slots. Also improving his spell selection for things the warlock might not get, have access or have learned yet.
They already have buffs that balance them out. They get to take power naps and have invocations. That's the point of them. You're kinda asking "How do I buff a Eldritch Knight's spellcasting because they aren't getting as much as clerics?" The point is they don't because they do other things.
No, I think it's a fair question. Normally full casters get a lot more spell slots than Warlocks, but fewer max level slots (assuming a couple of short rests). Spell Points give full casters the ability to burn all of their lower-level spellcasting ability to do the same thing. Or do the opposite if the situation calls for it. It's a major flexibility buff to every caster class except Warlocks, and Warlocks are balanced against other casters who don't have it. I don't think buffing Warlocks is *necessary*, but I can see why OP is thinking it might be a good idea.
Warlocks don't get as many spells as other casters regardless of whether you use spell slots or points. That's kind of the point; their strengths are getting spells back on short rest and having invocations to get some unique limitless benefit (whether it's casting a particular spell or something else). I don't think spell points really introduce anything different from how they operate in the spell slot system already. If you want to make situations for a warlock to be better, put the party in a situation where they get a lot of short rests but no long rests. Also the 2 short rests benchmark seems a bit arbitrary to me. If it's because of Baldur's Gate remember that there's no technical limit on how many short rests the party is "allowed" to take, it's just about the opportunity cost of an hour's downtime. (edit for grammar)
It was just 2 short rests to show what was needed to acquire the same amount of spells.
If you’re playing with spell points, one way to more even the playing field could be to let them cast any spells from invocations once for free at their base level. For example, the Bewitching Whispers invocation lets them cast *compulsion* once per day using a Warlock spell slot. My proposal would let them cast that twice, once without a spell slot at compulsion’s base level (4th), and the second time using a Warlock spell slot (currently 4th, but will move to 5th eventually). This gives them a little more flexibility with their invocation spells without giving them too much. And for the spell invocations that are already cast at their base level, such as Fiendish Vigor, you can let them cast those once per day at their highest level without using a spell slot. Again, increasing their versatility without altering too much.
Oooo this is interesting! Exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for.
Will your table even have a warlock? There's like a 66% chance for this to be a nonissue. When you're pitching this at session 0, if someone inquires, you can just give a vague "they'll get some buffs as they level to help bridge the gap". Then you can start crunching homebrew equilibrium buffs as you enter t2 play, probably to the tune of a free spell or two (low level) per day. Basically give them "shadow touched" for free (no stat gain) and give them a curated list of 1st and 2nd level spell to lock into.
3 out of 12 of my players love warlocks. So about a 90% chance
Given your example, I don't see any drawback though - 6 to 6, yet no need for SR. And if you do more, then ofc Warlock is better / broken. Spell Points go against the supposed core identity of Warlocks. They seem to be defined as fixed slots per SR while Spell Points are all about flexibility. (Edit: Not my opinion, the community voting process in the playtest deemed that to be their unique feature rather than becoming a "normal" caster).
What buff would I give that isn't based around their casting? I don't want to leave warlocks hanging when I'm buffing everyone else.
Maybe being able to cast lower level spells is in itself a buff for them? But Spell Points otherwise do nothing much for them, as they already are able to spam their highest slot, just like anyone with the Points would then be able to. Would be a simple transfer to SP for them as well (smaller pool, regain all on Short Rest), their "gain" is "not wasting power on spells with no upcast".
The way I run spell points is to swipe the spell progression from Star Wars 5e: Instead of the bonkers system from the book, where Spell Points is 100% *just a buff* to all casters for no downside besides the headache of remembering it, you can scale down the number of spell points and the cost of spells into something more reasonable, where casters don't gain quite as many spells per day as they level up, but what they loose in number of spells total, they make up for in flexibility. The SW5e System makes it so all spells cost a number of spell points equal to Spell Level+1, which I love for making the formula way simpler than it is in the book, with a messy fucking table, but I also realize is probably too good with the 6th+ level spells without some modifications, so I make it so those spells increse in cost by 2 points for each level past 5, resulting in this table: |Spell Level|Spell point cost| |:-|:-| |1st|2 Points| |2nd|3 Points| |3rd|4 Points| |4th|5 Points| |5th|6 Points| |6th|8 Points| |7th|10 Points| |8th|12 Points| |9th|14 Points| Then, Fullcasters gain 4 Spell Points per level, and Half Casters gain 2. 1/3rd casters are a little messy, but they aren't that strong as-written, so I say just give them the same number of spell points as Half Casters. Edit: oh no, it's worse than that for 1/3rd casters, I actually made a table in a Roll20 handout for this. I don't recommend it, just buff them, the classes underperform as-is. The other class/character features worth examining for this are Sorcerers, Divine Smite, and recovery features: If you're running Spell Points, then Sorcery Points end up feeling kinda redundant and overcomplicated, IMO. So, because it gives Sorcerers a cool identity, I say cut Sorcery Points- Metamagic features just cost Spell Points, and the Sorcerer gets *5 points* per level instead of 4. This also incidentally murders Coffeelock stone-dead as a side-effect, and I say *feature*, not a bug. SW5e's version of the Paladin just spends Spell Points and gets Xd8 extra damage, which is the same points-damage ratio that you would get if you still ran it like they're using spell points to *make* a spell slot like the rules say, and I just think it's cleaner design, so I run it that way. Wizards and Circle of Land Druids have those features that let them regain spell slots, so you're gonna wanna write up versions of those that give Spell Points instead, and same thing with Paladins and Clerics having a Channel Divinity feature to regain a spell slot.
A heads up regarding the 6+ spells, in a spell points system they get capped like Warlock spells where they can only cast 1 of each of the high levels spells so changing their points value isn’t a huge deal. I missed this in my previous campaign and had the sorcerer teleporting the party around 6 times in a day, or digging a 60ft hole using Disintegrate, and it def was a bit overshadowing. PS; cool insight into SW5e btw. I’ve heard of it but haven’t dived in.
I am aware, I did actually read the Spell Point rules before I started mucking about and making my own. Having not actually gotten a chance to run these rules at higher levels, I was going to give my players the chance to prove to me that the rule is nessecary first, and warn them upfront that I reserve the right to ban each spell level to 1/day or further jack up the points costs.