I would like to see a way for other classes to make pacts that would expand on the powers they already have. For example, a fighter wants to protect someone and doesn't feel he's powerful enough and so makes a pact to make him stronger somehow.
That being said, I understand that the balance of power between characters becomes an issue, and maybe this should remain a homebrew thing made by the player's and Dm's for their specific games. But, I was wondering if anyone else would think it would be nice to see a set of feats(or a set of rules) for pacts for other characters who are looking for a quick, but risky path to power.
Maybe they could improve one aspect of the character while diminishing another. So say a rogue would like to be able to deal more damage, but in order to do so, they would need to reduce their max hp or defenses or vice versa in the case of a fighter. Just an idea. Your thoughts?
In fairness, "fluff" is largely how the Warlock class handles the matter anyway, as there is very little in mechanical terms that enforces the patron angle.
That druid? Pact allows you to shapeshift. That invoker? Pact lets you summon otherworldly being. That swordmage? Pact with a mysterious sword that whispers to you when you sleep. That fighter? Steroid pact.
Pacts are fluffy entities. :D
You people have a fetish for fluff, lol. Changing fluff is one of the most boring and useless ideas. That only changes theme. It doesn't give it the feel of losing something IMPORTANT to the character in return for power. When I say important, I don't mean background things or items. I mean stats, take on poverty to gain power, or the character will die in so many days. That last one was a bit extreme, but it would be a cool option, especially if someonehas to quit playing soon for whatever reason. And options are what makes this game so damn cool. Changing fluff is like playing a one game, copying EVERYTHING about it and changing it's appearance....I don't like that.
I still want a 4e divine/celestial/ angel pact
I agree.
I was not talking about multiclassing, leveling, boons, or anything like that. I'm talking about a new mechanic.
You people have a fetish for fluff, lol. Changing fluff is one of the most boring and useless ideas. That only changes theme. It doesn't give it the feel of losing something IMPORTANT to the character in return for power. When I say important, I don't mean background things or items. I mean stats, take on poverty to gain power, or the character will die in so many days. That last one was a bit extreme, but it would be a cool option, especially if someonehas to quit playing soon for whatever reason. And options are what makes this game so damn cool. Changing fluff is like playing a one game, copying EVERYTHING about it and changing it's appearance....pretty gay.
Please don't use "gay" in such a malignant manner. It's offensive.
Doing what you say would imbalance the game. Much better to refluff or give boons a la DMG2 instead of items and flavour them as pacts if you want that for the full party. Everybody using a pact mechanic is just unbalanced. Instead, you might all take Warlock MC, or the DM might say, everbody get's Pact Initiate as a bonus feat, not counting towards their single-MC feat limit.
I was not talking about multiclassing, leveling, boons, or anything like that. I'm talking about a new mechanic.
You people have a fetish for fluff, lol. Changing fluff is one of the most boring and useless ideas. That only changes theme. It doesn't give it the feel of losing something IMPORTANT to the character in return for power. When I say important, I don't mean background things or items. I mean stats, take on poverty to gain power, or the character will die in so many days. That last one was a bit extreme, but it would be a cool option, especially if someonehas to quit playing soon for whatever reason. And options are what makes this game so damn cool. Changing fluff is like playing a one game, copying EVERYTHING about it and changing it's appearance....pretty gay.
I repeat the sentiment, that the use of "gay" was offensive. But that's beside the point. The game is built on fluff. Fluff can be the difference between a Thief and a Swashbuckler(both being rogues). Between an Engineer and a Puppeteer (Artificers). And the varying shades of gray in between, dear god what have we done? To a DM, fluff can also provide inherent bonuses. You have a background as a merchant perhaps, say hello to connections. You treat with infernal, fey, or aberrant entities? Don'thave to be a warlock to get benefit out of it. I mean, I've heard of classless D&D...but fluffless? Talk to your DM about it. There's nothing a situational +2 bonus can't solve...one of my players got that to diplomacy because he wore a monocle so people assumed he was intelligent and cultured...
This is why an additional pact mechanic for non-warlocks is unnecessary, as you can make a pact by multiclassing into warlock.
And multiclassing is by definition a power trade, in that you're sacrificing feats to gain access to abilities a normal member of your class can't.
The game is built on fluff. Fluff can be the difference between a Thief and a Swashbuckler(both being rogues). Between an Engineer and a Puppeteer (Artificers). And the varying shades of gray in between,
Indeed, even for the warlock itself the pact is mostly a matter of fluff. Sure they have unique mechanics, but so does pretty much every class. Their reactive curse trigger might be called a "pact boon", but that's mostly a fancy way of saying class feature. The warlock can with little effort be refluffed to get its power from training or innate talent, just as any other class can be reflavored to get its power from a pact.
Notably the concept of sorcerer "souls" are easily transposable with warlock "pacts". Thus even with little imagination I can play a sorcerer who gets his powers from a pact made with an ancient dragon or a warlock who gets his powers from his fey ancestry.
Ultimately, where exactly a class's power originates from is a matter of fluff and it's a mistake to think that unique mechanics are required for everything.
You people have a fetish for fluff, lol.
You know it! :D
Seriously, though, what you propose is basically a fluff-for-crunch version of disadvantages. That's a bad idea. Disadvantages alone promote some rather bad minmaxing or outright munchkin behavior, and having fluff provide a mechanical bonus is even worse.
If I can have a pact that says I have to Obey WhatsHisFace, and I get a +2 bonus to X for it, that means I'm better at my job than someone who doesn't Obey WhatsHisFace.
Ergo, there is a major incentive to create characters of this role who Obey WhatsHisFace. And I can pick and choose exactly what pact will help me perform my role without seriously disrupting my character, thus minimizing the penalties and maximizing the bonuses to produce a superior character. Therefore, the incentive is to choose pacts, regardless of concept, because they make the character better, and there is no reason NOT to go with a pact or three.
If I'm playing a one shot, Die-In-A-Year-Get-A-Bonus is broken. If I'm playing an exploration campaign far from civilization, Obey-WhatsHisFaceBackHomeWhoCan'tTalkToMe is broken. If I'm playing a social game, Can't-Fight-Immortals is broken. Disadvantages fail because people will choose the ones that don't hinder them as they should, and enjoy a bunch of freebie bonuses that put them ahead of the curve as compared to their companions who don't try to minmax disadvantages.
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I was not talking about multiclassing, leveling, boons, or anything like that. I'm talking about a new mechanic.
You people have a fetish for fluff, lol. Changing fluff is one of the most boring and useless ideas. That only changes theme. It doesn't give it the feel of losing something IMPORTANT to the character in return for power. When I say important, I don't mean background things or items. I mean stats, take on poverty to gain power, or the character will die in so many days. That last one was a bit extreme, but it would be a cool option, especially if someonehas to quit playing soon for whatever reason. And options are what makes this game so damn cool. Changing fluff is like playing a one game, copying EVERYTHING about it and changing it's appearance....I don't like that.
What about the Warlock class is it that you feel is a "mechanical" support of taking a pact, as myself, I only really consider that side of the class to be fluff as it stands anyway.
As others have said, mechanically offering flaws or penalties for a bonus somewhere else is so often abused for min-maxing due to the difficulty in codifying something a "downside" that isn't simply going to be chosen because it has no real effect anyway (the penalty to ranged attacks for characters with a DEX dump stat, for example, was one I am guilty of myself). Having the "payment" for the pact dependent on your DM is a far less abusable option and gives them possibilities for plot hooks. The actual benefit can easily be managed with actual crunch from the DMG2, or simply a powerful magic weapon or artifact to avoid complete reliance on "fluff".
My point is, to make a pact like system that IS balanced. Not one that immediately makes one character better than the other.
I was asking for your thoughts on how to do this. Not on how to make up new ideas for what's already there. Apparently I got my answer, that being "we have no idea"
That's one of the things I don't like about warlocks is that it simply doesn't feel like it's made a pact with ANYTHING. At all. Which is one of the reasons I brought this up.
I apologize for my irresponible use of the word gay. Everyone says it here and it's been driven into my brain
My point is, to make a pact like system that IS balanced. Not one that immediately makes one character better than the other.
I was asking for your thoughts on how to do this. Not on how to make up new ideas for what's already there. Apparently I got my answer, that being "we have no idea"
That's one of the things I don't like about warlocks is that it simply doesn't feel like it's made a pact with ANYTHING. At all. Which is one of the reasons I brought this up.
The pact is how it got the powers. Unlike other classes, that had to study hard, have natural talent, train their bodies to the utmost, or draw strength from their faith or their connections with the spirits (amongst MANY origins within Power Sources), the Warlock distinctly got its power from making a pact, from trading something for their power. Unfortunately, it's not something you can see on paper – that's something you need to do as you play the game, and both the Player and the DM are involved in the creation of this Pact, and fulfilling the fluff that was established by it through the adventures.
There are now two great articles devoted to the concept… Performing the Pact in Dragon Magazine 381 for the Player side of things, and Sealing the Pact in Dungeon Magazine 174 for the DM side. I suggest reading them.
The problem with a feat that grants a boon in return for a drawback is that the boon has to be better than what the feat would grant without a drawback. This means that the feat is overpowered. Any drawback, no matter how universal it seems, will be minimized by min/maxers. For example, if the feat gives a penalty to ranged attacks, then melee characters can take it with no problem. If the feat gives penalties to all attacks, characters that rely heavily on powers with miss and effect lines will be less affected, as will characters with higher accuracy like avengers. Even the pacts I described above had a flat GP and XP cost. That cost might be prohibitive at low levels, yet a high level character might be able to pick up a whole bunch of those feats and not feel the loss (because who cares if it takes you 1 extra encounter to level than the rest of the party when you are flat out more powerful during all the other encounters you faced at that level).
Unless you can show me a drawback that is truly balanced and universal and cannot be minimized by half-way intelligent players, then I have to strongly recommend against this.
IMO, the best way to implement what you want is to make the pact a RP aspect only, and make the pacts balanced with other feats. The way you make them feel interesting is to make the pacts unique, not more powerful. Even though you feel strongly against refluffing, this could be a great tool to use. For example, if you don't use dragonmarks in your game, consider reskinning them as pacts. No one would be able to take it except through a pact so it wouldn't be the same as other characters just taking the dragonmark feats without a pact. Then RP the pact. Send the character on quests for his patron to prove his fidelity. Maybe the character is marked in a visible way that causes the townspeople to shun him, although some might fear him, and others welcome him. But whatever it is, let it come out through the game rather than through mechanical penalties inflicted on the character.
Invokers get their power from a Divine covenant, which is a synonym for pact, thus there is no need for a divine Warlock.
Seekers get their power from a Primal bond, which is also used as a synonym for pact.
Some Wardens are "charged" with the protection of nature, sometimes the duty is "thrusted upon you" and sometimes it's just your calling, but I imagine sometimes the obligations of a Warden are contract based or at least can be.
There already are other classes that make pacts in the default fluff, in ways just like most Warlocks do
Invokers get their power from a Divine covenant, which is a synonym for pact, thus there is no need for a divine Warlock.
Seekers get their power from a Primal bond, which is also used as a synonym for pact.
Some Wardens are "charged" with the protection of nature, sometimes the duty is "thrusted upon you" and sometimes it's just your calling, but I imagine sometimes the obligations of a Warden are contract based or at least can be.
Don't forget that Shamans deals with various Primal Spirits, in a way that feels like a pact sort of person as well – a summoner in the JRPG sense.