Lots of people, myself included, have suggest to replaced awakened mind with detect thoughts.
Seems like the easiest and while right now detect thoughts isn't fully supported (annoying to use in dialogue, not many characters it can be used on) that's coming at some point.
What qbout changing awakened mind too something different but still thematic?
Awakend Mind: Your brain has been twisted by unknowable forces, you cannot be frightened or forced asleep
I think this would be a better implementation. Detect Thoughts as also suggested is a much too potent tool in roleplaying/social situations and with potential other uses to have as an at-will ability.
Awakend Mind: Your brain has bee twisted by unknowable forces, you cannot be frightened or forced asleep
It's not enough. Whatever it is they implement has to compete with the Fiends Dark Ones Blessing.
Dark One's Blessing is decent (when Larian comes around to fixing it), but not that great. It is contingent upon the Warlock making the killing blow which at higher levels will be less likely. Nor does it scale well, so the usefulness will diminish as you level. Awakened Mind could ie. be made to provide immunity to sleep, advantage vs mind-affecting influences like fear and charm. This would be a first level power that would compare favourably to ie. the Paladin's level 10 power Aura of Courage that gives a 10 foot immunity to fear. Unlike Dark One's Blessing, this would be MORE rather than LESS useful as you level up.
EDIT: HEXBLADE subclass Larian. Pretty please with sugar on top! Warlocks has only 2 subclasses in PHB and the Hexblade opens up a new play style.
I think alot of this is depends on what actually ends up getting implemented in the game, as to whether its effective or not. Sure, in the tabletop game, being able to run around reading everyone's thoughts at will would be pretty silly. In BG3? Who knows? Right now I think it would be pretty worthless, outside of whatever few niche situations are supported by it, that isnt already handled by the illithid tadpole.
Being immune to things like fear/charm/sleep also sounds pretty good, but now we're kind of outside the scope of "Awakened Mind" I feel. However, we are working with a game system that doesnt exactly seem built for such a feature, and in fact already has something in the game that is kind of a better Awakened Mind(The afformentioned,tadpole), so lets roll with it.
The only thing I would say in that regard, is that alot of the more common races you would use for Warlock(Half Elves, Drow etc etc) are already sleep/charm immune. And I havent seen to many enemies that inflict fear. I have seen it, but its rare, at least right now.
Dark Ones Blessing on the other hand, I just feel is useful all the time, no matter what. Its true, its not the best scaling thing at higher levels, but then higher levels arent where it really pays off is it? And even at say Level 10, you are probably still talking about an extra 14 or 15 hitpoints. I mean, hey, Il take it. Its very easy to just save a monster thats been reduced to a couple of hit points for the Warlock to kill to get it, especially with the amount of enemies weve seen so far in many encounters, which is pretty numerous.
Free hit points is pretty enticing, especially at early levels when you need it the most. I just hope they put in something as enticing for the Great Old One, something that makes me say, yea, I would give up free hit points for this. Sleep/Charm immunity aint it(at least for me) because I can just pick a race that gives me that.
Im not sure what that something will be. An at will Detect Thoughts could be good, maybe even as good as Dark Ones Blessing, but it all depends on how much use I would get out of it in the game. Right now, it doesnt seem like much, but that could change as the game matures. At any rate I do hope something good gets implemented for awakened mind, because thematically, I just like the idea of the Great Old One better than the Fiend.
