The brawler fighter has one glaring oversight: it has no way to apply magic damage while using its class features. They promise to include magic items in the DMG that will allow them to do so (probably gauntlets, rings, etc…) but as it is, the class is essentially useless beyond level 5. Unless you find a magic beer bottle or something.
Warlocks are still gimped. While having Agonizing Blast and Eldritch Spear apply to any cantrip is a great change (edit: though there is a huge oversight still which makes Eldritch Blast still the optimal and obvious choice, namely that Agonizing Blast lets you add the charisma modifier to each damage roll, and at the cantrip improvement levels EB gains new damage rolls instead of extra damage dice like, say, fire bolt), they still lost their short rest spell recovery. If they could use the Magical Cunning PB/LR instead of 1/LR, that might be fair but as it is, a level 20 warlock has effectively 6 spell slots. And they can’t even claim that it was to get rid of the short rest because the wizard’s Arcane Recovery (which at level 20 can restore effectively the same amount and level of spell slots as the warlock’s Magical Cunning, btw.) is still tied to it. (Also, while there are many Eldritch Invocations that give warlocks a free utility spell, the wizard’s level 18 feature effectively gives them two of these for free, and they get to select any spell.)
Looking at it more, I don’t actually think agonizing blast is an oversight - warlocks don’t get enough slots or spells known to always be slinging spells in combats like true full casters. Agonizing blast puts their default attack option, which they should be relying on a lot of the time if they’re not a bladelock which would also add CHA modifier, on par with martial weaponry. Is it powerful? Yes, but it still costs an invocation.
The problem isn’t the power level, it’s that they’re adding a choice about which cantrip to use, and then at 5th level effectively taking away that choice by making Eldritch Blast the obviously best option.
If Agonizing Blast added your Cha mod to all your Warlock cantrips, it’d still have some marginal flexibility in cantrip choice, like if there’s a weakness to exploit or if your target is one on the like 5 creatures that resists or is immune to Force damage, but because you lock in your choice on level-up, it’s just a “choice” where you always choose Eldritch Blast.
I figure that AB and EB should just be things Warlocks get via progression at 1 and 6-8 respectively, free up a cantrip and evocation slot and line up the +MOD to cantrip damage with Clerics getting the same or Evocation Wizards getting half damage on save cantrips and make Warlocks have to work to be Magical Ranged Fighters™. Not that I entirely think Warlocks need more invocations at this point, WotC has been pretty good about fixing them up for value so you can take sub-par ones for value, but more wiggle room by providing something for free that everyone in the universe takes anyway would lead to a bit more build diversity.
I did some math to see how good Sorcerous Burst is on average, now that it’s a d8. Because these are averages, I’m only looking at additional bonus dice added from the base dice, because the chances of rolling a second round of bonus dice is so minuscule (even at lvl17) that they don’t affect the average damage significantly.
From levels 1-4, you roll 1d8 as a base, which means you have a 12.5% chance to roll one 8 and get a bonus damage dice. Each 1d8 has an average damage of 4.5, so your average damage is 4.5 + (12.5%)(4.5) = 5.06. That’s still less than a Firebolt’s average of 5.5, but you do get to change your damage type every turn AND you’re more likely to do 10 or more damage than a Firebolt (10% chance of 10 damage, vs (12.5%)(87.5%) = 10.9% chance of rolling an 8 and then at least a 2 to deal 10+ damage). At the same time, Sorcerous Burst is much more likely to do negligible damage than a Firebolt. A 5e goblin has 7 HP, for example. If you hit one with Firebolt, you have a 4/10 = 40% chance to deal at least enough damage to kill it with one shot from full health. If you hit one with Sorcerous Burst, however, you have a 2/8 = 25% chance to deal enough damage to kill them.
From levels 5-9, you roll 2d8, which gives you a 21.88% chance of rolling exactly one 8, and a 1.56% chance of rolling two 8s, for a total average damage of 10.13 (vs Firebolt’s 11). At lvl11, the average damage goes to 15.19 (vs 16.5), and at lvl17 it goes to 20.25 (vs 22). So it’s the same pattern at every level: Firebolt does more on average, but Sorcerous Burst has better chance to deal high damage, has a much higher potential damage cap, and its damage can be changed if damage type matters…while it also has a greater chance of doing a small amount of damage. It is, in short, a swingy and unpredictable spell, which is very thematic.
I think Sorcerous Burst is the right pick for a sorcerer looking for a damage-dealing cantrip. It’s not strictly better than Firebolt, and is more likely both to overkill its targets and to not deal enough damage when you need it to, but it’s also more likely to surprise you and deal way more damage than you thought it would. It’s also more likely to be useful as a damage-dealer in more situations, since you can change its damage type.
Oh good, they finally addressed how the “X Savant” (the wizard school discount feature) actually incentivizes you to not take spells of the appropriate school on level-up, and hope you find them as scrolls to copy them later. It actually does what it should do now: give you more spells of a particular school.
Also, Memorize Spell means that the wizard is now not only the best utility caster for rituals, they’re the best utility caster, period. Every weird, niche spell that could be useful but only if you happened to prepare it on the right day is now available to you with just a minute of prep time. That’s simply fantastic, I love it.
I like the idea of Studied Attacks…but at the same time, I don’t like how it makes it impossible to roll your 3-5 attacks at once, because the order of your attacks (and whether you hit or miss with a previous attack) matters.
I’m not sure what you mean by that? You can either use the ASI to get one of those abilities to its pre-capstone max of 20, and then the capstone takes it to 24, or you use the ASI to get a feat.
If you were to use the ASI at lvl 19 on STR or Con to reach the increased cap of 22 then once you hit lvl 20 the ASI has been wasted since Primal Champion only raises the cap to 24.
Ideally Primal Champion would simply increase by +4 and set the cap to 30
Ah, I missed the fact that the lvl19 ASI specifically is allowed to break the max of 20. Yeah, that’s a weird interaction. They just need to change it so that it increases both your score and your maximum by +4.
I don’t think what you said would make it work with Giant belts though, they just set your strength to be that number, you’re not supposed to be able to boost beyond that number.
The capstones are hugely imbalanced, but I never played till 18, and when I got close to it backstory and magic items where more important than a capstone.
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