RobbyPants wrote:A while back, I saw Frank suggest a resource mechanic for warlocks that involve them making pacts and their powers coming with a price. What kinds of prices do you think would be thematic, meaningful, and manageable at the table?
About all I've got so far is:
- Ability damage/drain: The corrupt spells from the BoVD did this. It works okay in terms of picturing the magic weakening the caster. If done in combat, it takes actions to mitigate that damage, although you likely won't cast enough of these to cause serious problems to yourself in one fight. Out of combat, these seem to be easily bypassed. The biggest drawback is constantly recalculating all of your stats.
- Damage/status conditions: You get hurt/debuffed by your own powers. This is really a variation on the ability damage option above. I'm not sure how thematic it is in that it's more of a representation of your magic being dangerous, and not a "price".
- Negative levels: As above, but it could be flavored as you losing part of your soul. This is super prohibitive without Restoration, and pointless with it.
These are all variations on go fuck yourself (in degrees of shittiness), rendered into a trivial resource game by various spells. The pathfinder kineticist is a really super example of how fucking terrible a class can be based this line of thinking.
[*]Geas/Quest: You are forced to do a favor for the entity that grants you powers. Although, going on quests is what PCs already do, so this is really only a cost if the new quest causes problems with your current one.
[*]Material gifts: This is basically just expensive material components for spells.
So, do what other adventurers do, but be punished for it? Or sometimes rewarded if you use quest XP, or just business as usual. In either case, neither are compelling.
[*]Souls: You harness souls from creatures and use them to fuel abilities. The system needs more rules to accommodate this, but it's thematic.
This is nightmare fuel or trivial, depending on how you want to take it. Considering most adventurers are in the business of murdering people, it is potentially really trivial, but it is fetish fuel for Stupid Paladin Arguments.
I don't consider that a plus.
[*]Sell your soul: When you die, you can't be rezzed. It's thematic, but it won't come up in a number of games.
Meh. And then twin brother Tim appears. Or you're bored of the whole thing and death is a blessed release for everyone involved.
Either way, it's a party benefit, since they don't have to spend money, and they'll get a functional (possibly better) PC back next session regardless of what form the new character takes.
[*]Gradual transformation: You start to transform into something profane, which can affect your stats and RP opportunities.
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depending on how weird your game already gets, this can be a complete non-issue.
So, what else am I missing? I'm leaning toward a class that has a good chunk of at-will abilities, and the good ones have one or more drawbacks.
I think you're missing that with other classes around, this is a pretty terrible idea. Being a warlock either has to be way fucking better than every other class (because they pay a price that $class doesn't), or it's a terrible option no one should ever take (because they're paying an extra entry fee for 'be an adventurer' for no reason).
It's a concept that works in novels/movies/allegories, but is really awful at a table where everyone is supposed to be a functional contributor. It reminds me a lot of the 'Hunted' or 'Enemy' flaws in WW games. It's either a fucking awful trip that involves the group being dickslapped every couple sessions by DM penis extension (because you were an asshole in character creation), or just another random encounter that gets really tired after the first couple times.